#clay compilation

[pocket-gems]

Clay Sketchdump!

Tried to do Clay types, most are finished and some just aren't. None of them have hands on the finished version (per example the Sepiolite group).

Skipped the Medicinal Clay group because I was unsure if it was worth doing. Here's the rundown for those interested:

Clay

This is where Clay would have had more members but it be like dat sometimes. Their job is to model small prototype builings.

Other (Clay Minerals)

Thissss turned out to be messed up and I had to reorganize it.

-Pyrophyllite and Talc make the Pyrophyllite-Talc group (don't look at me, I don't make the name) wich I have finished and did not save the 3 sketches of. Oops.

Pyro/Talc group are more in charge as to keep "the elements" when utilized under control. By elements I mean material, to not create clouds of dust/cremated.

-Sepiolite turned out to have a group but I have the sketches!

Sepiolites are in charge of designing the structure of a fancier building. Falcondoite for aerial, Ferrisepiolite for the ones that need a second evaluation to be re-charged and Loughlinite for pattern-centred buildings.

Ribbon Clay (Attapulgite) was made just for fun, a fancier, sea-centred clay, maybe.

Kaolin

Being more paper-like gems because that totally makes sense. Only 1 missing from the sketches. Instead of paper, they create their own version of paper for signal instructions that can be plastered into other materials/buildings.

Kaolinite makes the most thin version, closer to paper. Dickite makes tube-like shapes, Nacrite makes heavier square shaped ones and Halloysite has the hability to make them shine in the dark (Hidrohalloysite can make it submergible).

Illite

She's literally a mistake, should not be there. It's a Muscovite variety. Shame 😔

Smectite

I have re-made these ones when finishing them because they didn't look to me like they were from the same group + 2 were missing.

They're focused on being more materialistic gems, having the hability to change and purify material for other gems to work with (like Bismuth).

Smectite works with pure-clay material, Beidellite with charcoal, Hectorite with more make-up like material, Montmorillonite with humified material, Nontronite can touch electrified material to work with, Pimelite can work with water conducts, Saponite works with poisonous material (and un-poisons it), Sauconite works with wood, Stevensite is the strongest of all and is also able to work underwater, Swinefordite works with reflective material, Vermiculite works with electric material, Volkonskoite works with iron material and Yakhontovite with rusted material (and can fix it).

Chlorite

The most complex of the clay gang because I already had one designed and I didn't realize dwkfdekgj I had to simplify her design.

They are maintenance workers, analizers and managers. Their hands work like this:

They don't use technology/extra limbs. As clay, they can mold themselves for their task. I wanted to make that clear. Anyway:

-Chlorite, Baileychlore and Clinochlore (or Kämmererite) are the most basic of the group. They focus on analizing building cracks/holes. They can separate their fingers to form wings to better adjust.

-Cookeite and Borocookeite are able to spell fire to cook any small parasite destroying the building.

-Chamosite and Orthochamosite are transport rail fixers as well as testers, since they can use their fingers to mold themselves to have wheels.

-Donbassite can mold and expand their fingers to create tools to put any falling plate into place.

-Franklinfurnaceite is able to create hot clay to fill any hole made by the passing of time.

-Glagolevite is able to levitate and to manipulate liquid obstructing the way.

-Gonyerite is able to create small incinerators to destroy any dust created.

-Nimite is able to fix any scratch on screens.

-Pennantite penalizes any gem if they were the source of any building's destruction (screen broken, cracked wall...). They're also able to manipulate magma to place it (it them becomes solid and can be fixed later).

-Sudoite is able to fix glass and also manipulate liquid to replace glass.

I'm not going too into detail about each gem's personality because you know, this is still a draft and if I'm going to, at least I could share it on indivitual posts for each group. You're free to still ask or to tell me if I missed anyone, or else I think I did many types if not all of Clay Mineral (I'm not counting variations, I want my hand to live).

If you have read this far, thanks!

[finni-i]

"Someone's always changing someone else"

Caduceus Clay assortment for the soul

love doing these - I got a ton of second-hand poetry books for the holidays so if you have any requests for CR characters, themes etc...

Mighty Nein Origins - Caduceus Clay / @Cosima.333 / Critical Role - 02x34 - Encroaching Waters / Seth Dickinson - The Traitor Baru Cormorant / Ray Saner / Critical Role - 02x41 - A Pirate's Life for Me / Anis Mojgai - "For Those Who Can Ride in an Airplane For the First Time" / Critical Role - 02x130 - The Calm Before The Storm / Sunlightafterdark / Adrianne lenker - ingydar

[brodorokihousuke]

Chapters: 9/9 Fandom: 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aoi Daichi | Clay Terran & Odoroki Housuke | Apollo Justice Characters: Odoroki Housuke | Apollo Justice, Aoi Daichi | Clay Terran, Naruhodou Ryuuichi | Phoenix Wright, Kidzuki Kokone | Athena Cykes, Naruhodou Minuki | Trucy Wright, Ayasato Harumi | Pearl Fey, Morizumi Shinobu | Juniper Woods, Yuugami Kaguya | Aura Blackquill Additional Tags: Gyakuten Saiban 5 | Dual Destinies Spoilers, Gyakuten Saiban 5 | Dual Destinies, Case 5-5: Turnabout for Tomorrow, Case 5-5: Turnabout for Tomorrow Spoilers, Ace Attorney Supernova AU, Dead Clay Terran, Possession, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Alternate Universe, Apollo Justice is Not Fine, Clay Terran is back but kind of fucked up, Gyakuten Saiban 3 | Trials and Tribulations Spoilers, Cover Art, Mentioned Simon Blackquill, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mentioned Bobby Fulbright, Mentioned Miles Edgeworth -

With Apollo's friend dead, and suspicions filling his mind, the last thing he needs is an unusual presence haunting him. It soon becomes clear, however, that this spirit wants something from him - that being murderous revenge. After all, ghosts can't kill on their own, can they?

Can Apollo keep his head straight while continuing his investigation? Or will he lose the struggle of control and find himself in the role of a killer?

-

Hi I fucking finished it. finally. 🎉first big fic finished!! well, relatively big... I’m working on making more updated cover art for it and to compile all the art I’ve made related to it, but it is late and I work at 5 am tomorrow so...

[cringefaecompilation]

do you think if someone made a fake leak of a script for the mighty nein show and it was just caduceus' line from ep 101 when he said "all a god really is is a cult with a franchise" that people would flip their shit saying that cr retconned caduceus into being anti-god

[randomwriteronline]

(Catching Up)

If the XTransceiver had not buzzed on his wrist, Ingo might have sat there for the rest of the day, gently running his hand on the side of Excadrill’s neck.

He was glad he’d seen the kid again.

He was, really.

It was good to know they were doing fine despite it all, and they’d seemed equally happy to see him acclimate to his own life once again - though he was awfully sorry about forgetting the difference in time zones and keeping them awake so long into the night (no matter how much they reassured him he wasn’t ruining their sleep schedule with one single call).

It had just…

He kept thinking of their tone in that single moment.

Just turning the sound of it in his mind, round and round, over and over.

(It had struck him too late, after the call was already over and he’d been mulling for a minute or two, that he hadn’t apologized.)

(For what?)

(The sky.)

(The sky had cracked open upon them with its sickly vermillion color interlaced with green, and he had been outside the dojo, and he had watched them be banished from Jubilife Village without saying or doing anything. He had just stood there, like the dumbfounded cretin he had actually been.)

(What could he have done, anyways? It wasn’t as though they’d known each other too well - he’d been glad to aid them along their way up the Highlands, and they’d been kind enough to take on his requests and try to help him with his memories and entertain themselves with his challenges, and that had been it. Why would they have expected him to do anything? Why would he have thought of doing anything? What good would it have been either way if he had, indeed, tried to make a case for their innocence? Jubilife Village was not the Pearl Clan: what little power his status as warden might have given him was easily rendered null and void outside of the walls of the huts built to stave off the Icelands’ powerful winds; and besides, he was an outsider like them. He had barely had the right to argue for his own departure. He could have easily been detained or ostracized just like them.)

(Still.)

(He was a conductor.)

(Passenger safety was his responsibility.)

(He should have done something, anything, for them.)

(But he hadn’t.)

The distraction on his wrist dragged him back to the real world in the matter of a moment, his eyes blinking quickly and his hand halting in the middle of a caress to Excadrill’s back.

In the time it took him to angle himself so he could look at the display while still allowing the enormous Ground mole to stay comfortably seated on his lap, the buzzing repeated again: the screen showed him an unknown contact had sent him two messages. He fumbled a moment with the small device until he managed to open them up, squinting at the small letters.

Very gently, Klinklang lifted his wrist closer to his face so he could read better.

9:07. Hiiiiiiiii this is Briosa Crociera Substitute Subway Boss/Master

9:07. Its my free day and Elesa apparently is busy so Emmet gave me your number n asked if i could check in on you

A rectangular smile came to his mind. With Haxorus’ help he immediately saved the number, just in case.

9:08. Good morning Briosa! I am doing quite fine, thank you. How are you? I hope Elesa has not run into any trouble.

9:09. Im fine thank you! and dont worry abt her shes just working

9:09. Can i ask you a couple questions real quick

9:09. Of course! I shall answer to the best of my abilities.

9:10. First of all you got plans today

9:10. No, I can’t say I do.

9:10. Second of all how are you with water

That was a weird continuation.

9:10. I do drink it, yes. It’s important to remain well hydrated.

9:11. Wish that were me

9:11. My brain is convinced im a maractus and my thirst reflex is non existent

9:11. But i meant more generally like being in water or swimming

9:12. That does not seem quite healthy. Perhaps you should visit a doctor about it. I’m also afraid I’m not familiar with what a Maractus might look like, so I fear your comparison is a little lost on me.

As he was typing his response to her other text, an image appeared suddenly on the screen: it depicted a sprawling desert landscape, dunes falling upon each other in cascades of fool’s gold, with a vibrant green beastie in the middle of it all.

The footless Pokémon stood out like a sore thumb in the dull yellow of the sand. Its body seemed full much like a balloon sagging with water, but the brilliant golden eyes and the mischievous smile were filled with a restless excited energy, as though it were about to break the stillness of the picture to bounce around happily, causing both its spikes and the lovely flowers sticking from atop what might have been its large antennae to sway to the beat.

Was this Maractus, then? Briosa’s next messages confirmed as much.

9:13. This guy

9:13. Lives in the desert n does not need water for ages bc it stores it all in the lil pigtail things over there

9:14. What a delightful Pokémon! It seems very friendly. Thank you for offering clarifications - I understand now. Regarding your question, I am indeed capable of swimming and floating, but I’m still a little lost on what “being in the water” would mean.

9:14. Fair, hold on

9:14. Please, take all the time you need.

9:16. Do you suffer from a debilitating fear of any of the following: - water - the sea - the ocean - boats - being on a boats - fish - seafood - jellyfish - water pokemon - drowning - storms at sea - other things related to water/sea/fish/algae/boats/etc

Oh! A very thorough list! Then again, if the subject was severe phobias, it was good to be precise and include as many options as possible.

Ingo read it carefully.

9:17. Thank you for asking me. Here are my answers in order: - No - No - No - No - No - No - No - No - No, though I do not have any - I am reasonably afraid of drowning - I am similarly reasonably afraid of storms at sea - I cannot think of anything else relating to the subject at hand

9:18. Baller

(He snorted despite himself. Who the hell says ‘baller’?)

(It sounded old even to him.)

(And if anybody was supposed to know old, that was definitely him.)

9:18. You wanna go feed some frillish?

9:18. Water ghost

He thanked her quick wits for specifying before he had to ask.

So she was talking about Pokémon once again. Maybe it was a friendly species, or in this case a colony designated to a precise area. The name did intrigue him, bringing images of something graceful and wispy to his mind… It sounded like an interesting change of pace from his past sedentary days. And he would have gotten to see more of the region – so, why not?

9:19. I would indeed like to see more Unovan Pokémon!

9:19. Nice! wait uhhhhh ten minutes

Since she did not add anything onto that, he supposed he would have just waited.

Seven minutes later, he jolted six feet into the air while searching for a snack as someone tried blowing a hole through his door with their fists.

“HI!” came a sugar sweet voice at terrible volumes from beyond it: “IT’S BRIOSA!”

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised at seeing, once he’d opened the door, that it indeed was her: wearing a different hat, much boxier in shape, and different clothes, with no sleeves nor a coat to speak of and pants much too baggy for her little frame and heart-laced shoes with enormous soles that made her seem slightly taller, and Mawile on her arm instead of on the ground or biting down on her limbs, but with the same rotten green eyes and short stature and saccharine tone.

She smiled her square grin at him: “Hey.”

“Hello!” he greeted back, nodding in acknowledgement at both her and her Fairy, who nodded back politely. He stood there in front of them for a moment, like some kind of decorative alabaster column; then, a little awkwardly, he saw it fit to inquire: “May I ask how you found this address, seeing as I did not mention it at all?”

“I’ve cooked here,” she answered curtly.

He was about to apologize for the silly question – obviously a friend of Emmet’s would be aware of where his residence was – but her instant reply blocked him for a moment or so to better process what that meant.

Not that Briosa would allow him, because she immediately continued without giving him any chance of voicing his thoughts: “Wanna go?”

He stalled, turning back towards the corridor and then to her once more: “Should I take my own team along?” he asked. “I lack any Water Types, but if we are going into uncharted waters it would be perhaps safer to bring them either way.”

She shrugged: “That’s fair.”

He jumped again a few seconds later, as he was collecting his team – all of whom seemed very excited at the prospect of going out – when she shouted at him from the door, so loud that her voice squeaked: “REMEMBER THE FACEMASK!”

Ingo briefly wondered if that was how he sounded like to others.

He understood now why people tended to jolt or wince.

He also wondered, as they speeded through the streets, if Briosa was a relative of theirs that his brother had neglected to include in the family tree - seeing as she sporadically had both his egregious volume and Emmet’s bulldozing gait when walking, which was the main reason as to why they were currently making their way further and further west of Nimbasa with nary an opposition from other passersby, who perhaps took notice of her a little later due to her stature but were quick to throw themselves to the side and let her pass instead of getting their knees completely pulverized by such an unstoppable bullet of a person.

Now that he thought about it, her unmovable resolve could compete with Marshal’s, and Iris did have a similar brand of assertiveness and a tendency to drag people around like empty bags…

As lost in thought as he was, he very nearly found himself completely alone in the buzzing crowd, almost losing sight of his chaperone - though luckily he was able to locate and rush after her thanks to the long trail of empty space and terrified pedestrians left in the wake of her passage.

If she was indeed part of their family, she had not gotten their height.

“I didn’t know Nimbasa had an outlet onto the sea,” he noted loudly, half worrying his voice would get lost in the air currents created by her mad sprint.

Mawile, sitting on her aidee’s arm, translated him without problem: “Oh, it doesn’t,” Briosa replied without even turning, “It has one to the desert, we’re going to Driftveil.”

“To the desert?” he repeated.

“No, to Driftveil.”

“But you said something about a desert?”

“Yep.”

“There’s a desert?”

“Yep, the Desert Resort, or the Quiet Desert. I like Quiet Desert more than Resort, it makes it sound less like a tourist spot, which it isn’t really, because, you know! Desert! Just sand! Nothing else! And the castle, barely. But mostly sand!”

“And the what?”

“Castle, barely.”

“There’s a what?”

“Technically yes, practically no.”

Unsure how he was supposed to get clarification on that, he briefly changed the subject: “Why is it called quiet?”

“Because it’s quiet.”

“I imagined as much, but is there a more specific reason?”

“There used to be people and now there aren’t.”

“There used to be – sorry – people lived in the desert?”

“It probably wasn’t a desert back then but yes, I told you, there’s the castle and everything - barely, but technically there is one and I think you can get lost in there. Never been there! Just heard about it.”

Ingo looked around at the urban reality around him with completely different eyes compared to when Elesa had first dragged him through it – at the large fountains that sometimes dotted the streets, the shimmering of the amusement park’s gate preceding the clear moat around it, the plants, the small forest they were quickly approaching: all of this, right outside of a desert?

Such bountiful nature so close to a near complete lack of life?

Perhaps there was a fresh-water basin underground, and the city had been built on top of it; or perhaps it had been an oasis, and human intervention had then turned it into a properly lush continental landscape.

And to think of an inhabited desert… The thought of wandering people making a life through it didn’t sound as alien as he might have thought, but a castle within the dunes!

Who knows what kind of kingdom that could have been, now drowned in a dry sea…

Unova was such an interesting place.

“You can see it from the station, I think,” Briosa interrupted his musings.

He snapped back into focus: “What?”

“The desert, I think you can see it from the station,” she repeated: “There’s a balcony at the top, and if you stand there you can definitely see Castellia, so you should probably also– AH CAZZO L'HANNO TIRATO GIÙ ADESSO SANTI DRAGHI DI ‘STA MINCHIA,” she interrupted herself suddenly; her free hand clutched Ingo’s, and she all but dragged him through the asphalted path so quickly that he was fairly sure he was about to start majestically flailing in the wind: “Dai dai dai prima che non ci veda e lo tiri su di nuovo!”

A woman in a small booth replied to her greeting gesture with a reassuring thumbs up; in a moment, the two were standing on a marvel of metal and pulled rope, as red and white as truth itself, while above them circled flying winged shapes, dark against the morning sun.

Briosa let go of him and stomped to a stop a few steps away, leaning down onto her knees as she inhaled really noisily to regain her breath.

Ingo noticed only then, in-between heaving enormous quantities of air back into his burning lungs, that Mawile was still hanging onto her aidee’s arm, eyes enormous and claws sinking into it holding for dear life - by extension realizing there were also a discrete amount of small paler stripes of skin on the same limb, roughly as large as the cuts the hearing aid Pokémon had just opened.

The fact that this sort of phenomenon (bursting into a sprint out of nowhere) was, apparently, common enough for the Substitute to not even flinch as the Fairy simply dangled from her limb greatly befuddled him.

Then again, being in a semi-constant state of great puzzlement seemed like the standard reaction to Briosa in general.

“Porca di quella puttana troia d’una Emboar tua madre, c’è mancato un pelo,” she continued once she finally no longer exhaled like the rickety exhaust pipe of the world’s worst put together car.

It sounded like an incredibly blasphemous thing, so he held himself back from asking for a translation.

She stretched back to her entire three-Rawsts-and-an-Oran worth of height and waved at him with an easygoing attitude while her poor aide struggled to sit back up on her arm: “Questi se non ti vedono che sali rischi che ti tirano su il ponte sotto i piedi quando sei a metà. È successo a un amico di mio papà, s’è quasi polverizzato l’osso sacro scivolando giù fino a terra - che è una caduta mica da ridere, non te la raccomando. Noi siamo a posto comunque, non ti preoccupare, non c’è nave che tenga, finché non ci vedono arrivare dall’altra parte questo pezzo di merda non si muove d’un millimetro. Dai ora, che il ponte non è lungo ma se ci beccano gli Swanna non la finiamo più. Ecco, attento agli Swanna appunto. E ai Ducklett. Che son bastardi pure loro. Piccini e tutto, ma bastardi.”

Ingo did not respond to that.

His eyes covertly turned to Mawile, hoping they could convey what his lack of expressivity couldn’t, that being: was it a little late to ask for a translation?

Because while he would have very much liked to comprehend what all of that had been about, it had sounded like a whole lot of information, and he wasn’t even sure if Mawile had understood it either.

The Fairy sighed deeply, tiredly setting her paws up to relay his question.

She was interrupted by a loud graceful shriek approaching ever quicker, as if diving right for them: a large shadow was closing in on them from the sky, slowly unveiling a sharp beak and white plumage as it approached with the speed and murderous intent of a heat-seeking missile.

Oh, shit.

When bird pokémon got like that, one’s best hope was to duck in time and sprint as far into the opposite direction as possible. And Ingo was all out of sprinting for the day.

He couldn’t even manage to be mad when Mawile jumped off of her aidee out of what he rightfully assumed to be a burst of preservation instincts, only patting her shoulder to give her a speedy farewell before leaving her to her no doubt agonizing end - since the beast approaching was fairly large and by the looks of it could have easily swept her off her feet and carried her away much like a Hunchcrow nabbing a very unfortunate Buneary. That was a fair response from the little Steel type, he reasoned, since she was even smaller than her human ward.

He, on the other hand, who was significantly larger than all parties involved, should have done something about this.

Before he could move, the Flying Type had reached his prey.

Said prey proceeded to instantly grasp the Pokémon’s long white neck in an iron grip, slap the beaked face hard enough to make it squawk, and hurl it over the red edge of the bridge as it flapped its wings in frantic terror, with no additional fanfare outside from a squeaky: “E vaffanculo!”

Ah.

Well…

Yes, actually, he should have expected this.

Honestly he wasn’t sure why he’d even entertained the thought that the poor creature had any chance of survival.

Briosa turned to him again: “Vedi?” she asked, and gestured at the Flying beast clumsily fluttering as far away from her as possible in a hurry: “Gli Swanna son stronzi così. Per quello dobbiamo sbrigarci, altrimenti ne arrivano altri dieci e a quel punto siam fottuti. Dai, metti in moto quelle pertiche che hai al posto delle gambe e andiamo.”

Then she turned around, and Ingo nearly tripped on his feet to keep up with her.

The bridge was marvelously built, he could still notice in spite of how little time he got to spend on it. The open sea greeted him from one side, and the enormous river from the other: despite the brine and limestone the metal structure remained a splendid red, its powerful metal cables holding strong against the winds and constant stress of lowering and raising the heavy platform. The sudden familiarity he’d felt when looking at modern Canalave City on the Sinnohan map was thus explained - he’d seen those kinds of drawbridges before! Right here!

An inexplicable joy lifted his heart a little. Hurrying to the other side didn’t feel as winding anymore.

The massive structure groaned as though to bid them goodbye while it was pulled up to let a ship pass, carrying whatever precious cargo it had upstream, when they finally touched down in Driftveil City.

If he had to describe the place in one word, he might have said it was very… Brown.

That did not mean it was monotonous, or ugly: just that the color and its variations seemed to dominate the city’s palette. Past the small green park meant to welcome visitors from Nimbasa the brick-built houses went back and forth between all sorts of earthy hues, from burnt orange to tan to something even closer to a fiery red, and the thin clay dust sometimes swirling on the gray asphalt gave the streets an appearance similar to some exotic kind of sandstone, or perhaps some yet unknown kind of semi-precious gem. Buildings with yet lighter colored walls appeared by contrast to be struggling against the city’s weather, finding themselves a little dull, almost gaunt or sickly, covered in graying patches nowhere to be seen on older constructions.

Briosa walked confidently between the slightly less bustling avenues, letting Ingo observe from the wake of her bulldozing passage. They passed a large market, silver tiles a little dusty, and took a wider road south from which vans periodically emerged to get swallowed up by the city life.

“Do you like fish?” she asked for no apparent reason.

“I do!”

“Then I’ll call you on Thursday for a list! That’s when the fish market comes around!”

“A list of what?”

“Motorbike parts. What do you think they sell at a fish market?”

“Oh! Please, there is no need to bother yourself with my own groceries. I will be glad to return on the correct day and get some myself.”

She laughed her rubbery giggle and drastically reduced her walking speed, appearing beside him in the blink of an eye: “No way, they’re able to swindle your underwear from under your nose if you can’t keep up with their bullshit arguments,” she winked: “Let the king of the market handle it. I’ll get you some great quality Feebas at a price so low you’ll shit your pants twice.”

Ingo processed the words like a steel ingot to the head: “I hope it will not come to that, but thank you.”

They turned sharply as they approached a long cement bridge connecting some kind of small island to the rest of the peninsula, apparently inhabited only by stern gray warehouses with roofs of a beautiful blue surrounded by large ships, mysterious green parallelepipeds, and gargantuan rust-red cranes; his short guide led him instead to a port for smaller vessels of varying sizes and capacities, most white and with some kind of sail.

Briosa navigated through the grove of masts and ropes as naturally as she would have in a subway tunnel.

Her search came to an end as she jumped into a small motor powered boat - perhaps the smallest in the entire sea: it was large enough to hold maybe two people, with a layer of vaguely blueish paint that wasn’t waterproof chipping away to reveal dull metal. Between the two seats lay a plank of wood similar to a cutting board, while near the front sat a large airtight sealed bag brimming with something and a toolbox was secured to the back right under the engine.

Mawile settled in the rickety thing with fond familiarity, finding a comfortable spot right at the front. As she stretched, Ingo couldn’t help imagining her as a miniature ship’s figurehead, impassively braving high tides and stormy weather.

With a brilliant square smile, Briosa opened her arms.

“Boat!” she announced proudly.

The man before her nodded and clapped by reflex before remembering she was deaf.

She bowed deeply nonetheless with a noticeable sense of theatricality.

“Now get in - CAREFULLY, with your freakishly long legs,” she ordered at last, pointing him to the seat in front of her. “We’ve got Frillish to feed.”

Ingo complied, taking all necessary precautions - Palina had shown him how to avoid accidentally capsizing vessels even smaller than this one, and he repeated her instructions under her breath as he added his weight to the boat.

Mawile lent him a paw to help him stabilize himself: he took it gratefully despite the very obvious fact that the difference between the various values of their bodies would have been enough to send the Steel Fairy flying directly into the horizon if he so much as briefly slipped, repaying the favor by helping her down from where she stood and offering his lap as a much more cushioned seat for her with a very polite ‘allow me, madam’, in the spit image of an old-fashioned gentleman. The tiny pokémon snickered a bit at his courtesy, but made herself comfortable on his leg nonetheless with a kind little signed thanks.

The motor suddenly stuttering to live scared the wits out of him briefly: he turned just in time to see Briosa smack her hand on the engine appreciatively with some kind of strange coo (“e anche oggi, ti si butta domani”) and face him with a wide toothy grin that cast a dangerous shadow all over her face.

The little boat then lurched ahead with impressive vigor; Ingo felt his back fold quicker than lightning as the dingy little thing speeded forward out of the harbor, almost squashing Mawile under him and slamming his nose directly into his own knees. He managed to catch himself just in time for neither of those things to happen and looked up with the wide eyes of a Pichu caught stealing a berry.

Briosa only grinned wider, rotten olive eyes squinted hard, square mouth opening just a moment to let out her squeaky saccharine laugh.

He would learn later that evening that she had that terrifying expression not because she was planning to spook him (or worse, grievously injure him) in the coming days, but because that was just how she looked when her teeth showed.

In the current moment, he thoughtfully considered whether he should fear for his life.

Water sprayed his back as they took off.

Ingo took his face mask off and turned to soak in the salmaster scent, eyes closed.

The engine coughed and croaked against the waves’ smoother hisses as they zipped around the hull; the wind seemed to cut into his nose, scraping his cheeks, howling in his ears until he had to pull down his hat to cover them.

Oh, this was so much better than flying. A million times better. The unstable gait of the boat still made him feel as though he was sitting on something solid, the buildings slowly growing smaller didn’t turn miniscule as soon as he blinked, and the vast expanse of the sea beneath him was far less terrifying than however many kilometers of completely empty air could have been between him and the ground.

He leaned against the side, almost laying down completely overwhelmed by some kind of inexplicable bliss.

“Having fun?” Briosa asked from behind his eyelids.

Sunlight pressed onto them, turning their darkness pink.

He nodded solemnly and gave her a thumbs up.

He could hear Mawile laugh goodnaturedly about it in his lap.

The rumbling engine sputtered to a halt after what felt like hours, but had very likely just been minutes; Ingo opened his eyes to be greeted by a sky with very few clouds, blue waves in every direction, and a good dozen beady red eyes creeping closer from beneath the water’s surface.

Not the most relaxing detail to notice.

A vaguely onion shaped mass began breaking through, rising towards him with a haunting empty look like that of a wandering Duskull fixed upon a pale azure skin. He stared back at it while it gripped the side of the boat with a wet flap similar to some kind of fabric to heft itself out of the water better and lean towards him, closer and closer, reaching out for him…

Mawile’s enormous jaws snapped around it, and the creature yelped comically loud.

Ingo felt himself yanked back to reality: “Oh!” he exclaimed while Briosa almost deafened him with a fit of maddened laughter, “Thank you!”

The little Fairy nodded back at him with a pleasant smile as she let go of her blubbering victim and smacked her aidee’s offered hand in a high five - or high three, considering the number of fingers on her paw.

“Are these the Frillish?” he asked.

The other human nodded after receiving his translation while she slammed one of her ridiculously tall-soled shoes onto the head of another one of the strange beasts (a rather pink one, who also gave a strangled wail when the hit drove its spectral jaw onto the metal and back into the water) to drive it off: “Their food’s right behind you,” she said as she pointed behind Ingo.

The man turned quickly, noticing the airtight bag secured at the front and bringing it to the middle of the boat: “Ah, pardon me - of course they were trying to climb in, I was blocking off their source of sustenance.”

“Oh no, they were trying to climb in to eat you,” Briosa corrected him. She opened the bag wide and pulled out some kind of shovel to mix around the kibble. “They would’ve dragged you into the water, drowned you and made you their lunch. It’s happened! They found the victims’ bones and everything!”

“... I see. Why do you feed them, then?”

A rain of kibble landed into the water and was promptly devoured by the hungry Ghosts: “Fun, I guess.”

She handed him the shovel.

With no other clear option, he shrugged mentally and launched another handful of edible little cubes into the sea.

They spent an almost infinite amount of minutes just taking turns at the bag, tossing food at the swarm and watching the blues and pinks mingle just underneath the surface as they hurried to get a bite before they were all gobbled up.

It was strangely satisfying.

Relaxing, even.

Kind of like watching Gravelers roll up and down a ravine.

He could see why Briosa enjoyed this.

They were rather curious Pokémon, he mused. He could feel a certain strange charm oozing out of them, the same that wafted from Chandelure, a certain eerie quality to their movements and their calls that he could compare to the Ghosts haunting Mount Coronet; yet something was especially heavy about them, as if they were bound by a sort of gravity that dragged them downwards instead of letting them waver lightly in the breeze.

Could it be the weight of the water they made their home within? The dampness of the infinite depths which hid away shipwrecks and sunken treasures, challenging any foolish divers that dared search for pearls within the rotting and rusting relics…

Perhaps this was what had brought the Substitute Subway Boss to care for them.

“Do you do this often?” he asked.

“On my days off.”

“This swarm must know you well, then.”

“Probably.”

“Do you like this type of Pokémon?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Have you ever considered catching any of them?”

“No.”

“I see.”

Like his brother, she could be well-versed in the art of conciseness.

As someone who’d never really been able to wield it successfully, he couldn’t help but feel in equal measure frustrated and envious by this pattern of conversation.

The Frillish heads bobbed upon the waves like buoys when the feeding suddenly stopped, watching them expectantly.

“I think they want more,” Ingo noted helpfully.

“They know food time is done,” Briosa replied while laying sideways across the boat. She was short enough that she fit perfectly within it, leaving only her feet poking out as though she were on a hammock.

The man looked back at the Pokémon staring at them with their terrifying beady eyes: “I do not believe they’re as aware of that fact as you might think.”

“Give Mawile a moment.”

The Steel Fairy smirked at the confused look he shot her.

Her maw, which had now long been dipped in the water, quivered lightly. Out of nowhere it began thrashing violently, slamming into the side of the vessel as if trying to rip itself from her head; both humans hurried to grab her tiny body before she was dragged overboard while she very calmly persevered in her mysterious unseen struggle much to the slowly increasing terror of the Frillish witnessing the scene.

Finally, the black mass escaped the ocean with a pinkish bounty roughly twice its size caught between its metal teeth. It slammed onto the board with a horrendous wet noise: the Ghosts paled at the spectacle and scattered as quickly as they could, sinking back into the abyss from whence they’d come.

Briosa whooped, grabbed her hearing aide’s catch, and gnawed a chunk of fin off with her teeth so quickly she almost choked right on it.

Ingo stared.

She stared back. A sudden embarrassment overtook her after a couple of minutes: she coughed, risked strangling herself again, swallowed her bite, and offered it to him.

“No, thank you,” he courteously replied.

“They’re safe to eat raw,” she insisted. “Honestly fresh and raw is the only way you can eat Alomomola fins, because if you freeze ‘em they get all mushy and gross when thawed and if you cook ‘em they get hard as wood and you may as well just use them as paddles. Ah, no, wait, maybe not this side, I chewed all over it - hold on a sec.”

As Mawile took her own bite off of the poor thing now turned into a near-midday snack’s appendages, Briosa rummaged with the toolbox beneath the engine. She pulled out a few knives before settling on one of them: laying the dead Pokémon on the cutting board Ingo had noted the presence of between the seats earlier with no shortage of curiosity, she expertly chopped off both vaguely hand-shaped fins and cut them into fairly long uniform strips that looked like chunky, yet to be dried beef jerky, a couple of which she raised to Ingo in a second, slightly more refined offering.

He accepted only one with a slight sigh, not eating it - not that he was scandalized by the method it had been obtained with (he’d had to hunt, too) or her table manners (he’d seen plenty worse): the smell of fresh fish simply was not a favorite of his.

Briosa was now busying herself with the rest of the corpse, cutting it up with clear and well honed motions.

It reminded him of Palina, of the few times he’d seen her work on a catch.

“You’re rather skilled with a knife,” Ingo noted. “I would not have expected this kind of proficiency nowadays.”

She slipped a fin strip in her mouth, chewing it a bit like a pipe: “Yeah, this isn’t really something you need when you don’t have to survive in the wilderness,” she nodded. “What with supermarkets and everything else.”

“May I ask how you learned?”

“First job was on a fishing boat for a brand of frozen fish sticks. They stuck me below deck to clean catches and prepare everything for the cooking since I was deaf and couldn’t really be of much help upstairs if somebody fell overboard. I did almost stab a guy when he tried to spook me, but also I’m the only one who didn’t end up in jail for Pokémon abuse and illegal fishing techniques, so.”

“Pardon, what?”

“Oh, you know,” Briosa shrugged.

“I do not think I do.”

“No, wait, you can’t know. Amnesia. Ok, so!” and she shoved another strip in her mouth, chewing as she picked up the momentum of her story like a train rolling down the side of a mountain: “By Driftveil, there’s Chargestone Cave, right? Chock full of Joltiks, I know you know those because Emmet has a thousand of ‘em. So what they used to do to minimize costs and maximize catches was, they’d set a few traps up in the cave, catch as many buggers as they could, and then dump them all in the sea so the poor things would panic as they drowned and shocked the fuck out of everything, and then they’d pick up all the dead fish in nets and pull ‘em over below deck for us shitheads to debone and cook and pack and all.”

Ingo absentmindedly bit into the fin, eyes wide as he listened: "That is tremendously inhumane." he noted.

"Hm, absolutely. And super illegal. Which is why when the researchers worried about the sudden decrease in the Joltik population and the several hundreds of little yellow corpses washing ashore discovered the traps and who was setting them up, they shut the whole thing down and almost everybody went to jail."

"Except for you."

"Except for me! Because I was deaf and working below deck and nobody told me anything ever. So they couldn't find anything on me and I just went home to look for another job."

"Is this when you moved onto railroads?"

"Oh no, I was in highschool back then, I paid uni with that job. They made so much cash from the illegal lures and I worked so fast that they kept giving me bonuses. I could even afford uni books. You know how much uni books cost? I could buy out the whole fish market for the same price as like, twelve of them probably."

Ah. “It seems to have worked out for you.”

Briosa threw yet another fin strip in her mouth (he had eaten a few by now as well, and so had Mawile) and nodded sagely.

She had fully cleaned and deboned the Alomomola while talking, now busying herself with cutting it into large enough fillets and wrapping it in papers so the blood and other fluids wouldn’t stain wherever she would settle her haul in. Ingo observed her carefully.

“This isn’t for me, by the way,” she told him while stuffing the fillets into a cold bag. “There’s a Galarian guy who makes fish and chips by the docks.”

“You sell your catches to him?”

“No, I just give ‘em what Mawile gets and he gives me a free meal for her or me or whoever. Equivalent exchange and all. Unless you want this? You can have it. Alomomola are great in a pan with a bit of salt and finely chopped chives on top. Plus they’re fat as hell so you don’t need butter or oil. And their sauce is good for your veins, too.”

“No, thank you,” he replied. “We have enough fish at home.”

She shrugged: “Suit yourself.”

Ingo watched her stretch, thin arms up in the air as she leaned back and to the left. Her strange shirt seemed to cling on her frame for dear life in the way it might have on a too small clothing hanger, ribs threatening to cut through her skin if she bent a little too much; similarly, he noted now, her legs seemed to take very little space inside her pants compared to the mass the fabric would have suggested.

His first thought was: no way she’s not going to survive the winter like that.

His second thought was that heating existed, and she did not rely on hunting, gathering and sparse agricultural practices to get sustenance, so she would have probably handled the coming cold just fine.

His third thought was that she should have still made some substantial (and abundant) changes to her diet.

A powerful ringing tore him out of his own head. He looked to his wrist to find the XTransceiver all abuzz with light and sound, insistently displaying INCOMING CALL FROM: EMMET in bright glowing letters; he tapped it hurriedly.

“I am Emmet,” his twin greeted him.

“Hello! I can see that!” Ingo very loudly waved back at him. “How are you?”

“I am fine! Tired. Usual day stress, though. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I am glad to hear it. Remember to take breaks!”

“I will. Lunch is soon anyway. Got two sandwiches today.”

“Bravo!”

“How are you?”

“I am doing quite fine! Briosa kindly offered to keep me company today, so we have taken a small trip to Driftveil.”

“Nice! Fun place. Lots  of fish.”

“Indeed. I’ve even had the chance to feed some Frillish with her.”

The near instant way his brother’s smile dropped to make way for a wide-eyed pale-cheeked look of pure terror made Ingo consider the possibility that, perhaps, simply mentioning he had been surrounded by man-eating ghost jellyfish without much further elaboration could have sounded a little bit concerning.

“It was done after taking good safety precautions,” he kind of half lied.

Emmet did not effectively hear him, as he instead asked in a very urgent tone: “Are you on the boat?”

“The what?”

“The boat. Briosa’s boat. Are you on the boat?”

Briosa returned her attention to her guest roughly right at that moment, eyes falling on the device at his wrist: “Who’s calling you?” she asked, pointing at the Xtransceiver with her chin.

“I - it’s Emmet,” he replied while struggling to keep his attention divided between the two of them.

“Hm,” she hummed: “Don’t tell him we’re on my boat.”

“You’re on the boat?” Emmet wheezed in a very, very shrill voice.

“I - Emmet, hold on–”

“You’re on the BOAT??”

“I’m- please calm down-”

“ON THE BOAT??”

“Alright, you seem very distressed about the boat.”

“I told you not to tell him about the boat!” Briosa reprimanded him as she read his lips.

Ingo briefly covered the device to at least muffle his twin’s newest shriek: “He can hear you,” he explained as sanity threatened to leave him completely; “He heard you saying I should not have mentioned we were on your boat.”

“YOU’RE ON THE FUCKING BOAT??”

Briosa clicked her tongue loudly after Mawile was done translating.

“Shit,” she just noted.

“GET OFF THE BOAT,” Emmet demanded from under his brother’s hand.

“Emmet, we are currently at sea,” Ingo informed him. “If I were to leave the boat now, I would likely have to swim the way back, which I very plainly refuse to do.”

“I AM EMMET. I DO NOT CARE. GET OFF THE BOAT.”

“You are being a little unreasonable.”

“YOU WILL DROWN.”

“Is he saying we will drown,” the Substitute butted in.

“YOU WILL,” Emmet insisted.

Ingo nodded.

“We’re not gonna drown,” Briosa reassured him.

“YOU WILL.”

“We’re not gonna drown.”

“INGO. TURN ME AROUND. I NEED TO YELL AT HER.”

His twin pursed his lips at him: “I do not think she will hear you.”

“INGO.”

Ingo dutifully unlatched the XTransceiver and handed it over to Briosa for her to more easily see.

He imagined his brother signing furiously as he heard him hiss through gritted teeth: “Briosa. Take him back to land. Right now. Immediately.”

“Emmet, we’re not going to drown.”

“You cannot know that. You will drown. Take him back. Right now.”

“He’s literally fine. I asked him if this sort of place freaked him out beforehand and he said he’s ok.”

“You can’t know that!”

“I can and I do know that because he’s directly in front of me and he’s been nothing but relaxed the whole time he’s been here. We haven’t had any accidents or anything of the sort. Everything is literally just fine. We’re chilling, even.”

“You cannot be chilling on a boat. Boats are death traps. Get him back on land. Now.”

“Emmet, porca puttana,” Briosa said gently, “Adesso ti corco di botte.”

“Do not speak tongues at me.”

“It takes thirty minutes to get back to shore,” she continued in a much sterner tone: “Then it takes ten more to walk back to Nimbasa. Your brother will be safe and sound at the station in forty minutes at best and forty-five at worst. So you will calm your anemic Sudowoodo ass down this instant or when I get back to work tomorrow the first thing I do will be waterboarding you in the bathroom sink.”

Please do not do that, Ingo thought but sagely did not say out loud.

A beat of tense silence passed between them; then he heard his twin sigh loudly.

“Verrry sorry,” he mumbled. “I am Emmet. I am tired. I panicked.”

“Fair. Go eat and you’ll feel better.”

“Soon. Please get off the boat.”

“We will! Tell your brother bye and then we’ll be on our way.”

She handed the XTransceiver back to Ingo, leaning down again as soon as it was not in her hands anymore.

He looked down at his brother with no shortage of concern: “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked softly.

Emmet nodded, though he looked a little exhausted - as though all that shouting had drained a lot of his energy: “I am Emmet. I am fine. Really. I just don’t like the boat. But don’t worry!” he reassured him quickly, “Briosa knows her way with them. You are safe. I’d like it if you came back, though. I’d feel much safer.”

“We will set sail for Driftveil right this moment, don’t worry,” Ingo replied. “I will be back to the station according to schedule! Please take care until then!”

“I will! Have a good trip back. Love you.”

“Love you too!”

The video feed cut off naturally, and the screen returned a vague reflection of Ingo’s characteristic frown. He turned to Briosa.

She continued to lay down, eyes closed, enjoying the warm sun.

He coughed gently in Mawile’s direction; the Fairy, also relaxing against the hull, turned to him with an inquisitive chirp.

“Are we not supposed to depart immediately?” he asked.

She stood back up and scampered to the side of her aidee’s chest, smacking her paw against her cheek. Once she had her attention, she quickly relayed the question.

“No.” Briosa replied without moving an inch.

“But you said it takes thirty minutes to return to shore,” Ingo argued. “We must leave this station quickly, or we will accumulate quite a delay.”

“The port is fifteen minutes away,” she replied.

Ingo blinked: “But you said thirty.”

“I lied.”

“Why so?”

“Gives us ten more minutes to stay here.”

“Don’t you mean fifteen?”

“Five minute headstarts never hurt anybody.”

“You have an interesting way of handling time.”

“Thanks.”

And so, they waited.

-

The man who waited for them on the pier seemed to be at least middle aged, although his brown hair without a single streak of silver could have suggested otherwise; he had glanced at the coming boat as he walked past the port, slowed down, done a double take, tilted his large white hat upwards in a surprised motion, and sauntered over to the incoming vessel with a smile that pulled at the laugh lines around his mouth – the sight of which reminded Ingo to pull up his facemask.

Briosa instantly bristled like an irritated Luxio.

“Well, howdy there,” the stranger greeted them once within talking distance.

“FUCK OFF YOU OLD CUNT,” she replied, “THAT’S MY SPOT.”

He raised his hands in a show of innocence, clearly taken aback by the volume: “Now there, ma’am–”

“SIR.” she stated firmly. Her small olive eyes were wide and still, laser focused on the man’s face with an intensity that would have crushed his bones and the kind of wrathful expression of an extraordinarily small Glalie.

He bowed his head slightly: “My mistake.”

(Ingo found this small exchange completely incomprehensible.)

“I didn’t mean to get y’all up in a fuss,” the other continued – he spoke with a very strange accent, as though he had picked up a second one and mixed it with a first one for so long that he couldn’t separate them anymore – and smiled gently at a very surprised Ingo: “I reckoned I saw a familiar face and thought of sayin’ hello is all.”

Was this a journalist? He didn’t look like one, but it would explain why the Substitute had gotten so riled up. As far as the public was concerned, the missing Subway Master was still possibly in Sinnoh; if it turned out he’d suddenly appeared in Unova, it would certainly stir up one hell of a media storm, and the tentative peaceful existence he’d been living up until now would have no doubt been annihilated.

 Unsure what to do, the amnesiac turned his eyes to Briosa.

She was squinting hard.

“I did not get a single bit of that,” she concluded. “I can’t read shit if you speak like you’re trying to hide that you’re still chewing lunch.”

Not being a hearing impaired person, it took the man a hot moment to understand what she meant.

That gave her ample time to reiterate, even louder: “FUCK OFF.”

“NOW there,” the stranger finally continued (opening his mouth a lot more to accommodate her, which certainly had An Effect on his accent) as he grabbed a hold of his headwear and tilted it downwards, perhaps in an attempt at covering his ears, “I don’t mean to cause trouble. I am a friend of that young man’s uncle.”

“CAN YOU PROVE THAT, HAT BOY?”

A green glint caught Ingo’s attention as the man sighed. That hue… The facets, the shape - but it couldn’t have been, no, there was no way. None at all. Simply–

(The warden reached out with a sort of misplaced hope.)

“Lian?”

The man looked at him, puzzled.

Ingo blessed the facemask for muffling his words.

He pointed at the gemstone perched upon the cream fabric: “That,” he explained, trying not to sound strangled, “Looks like a hisuian jasper. The stone.”

A hundred wrinkles creased the stranger’s face as it brightened with a smile.

“You remember this dusty piece of rock but not lil’ ol’ me?” he cawed out in the beginning of a laugh, more than elated by his words. He pulled off his hat for a moment with a wistful, almost nostalgic air, while Mawile hurriedly explained the situation to her aidee before she screamed at him to speak clearly again: “Ah, but you two were quite taken with it when you first saw me in person, I reckon that!”

He looked exactly like Lian. His hair was darker and his build stouter and his eyes harder and his skin paler and his nose bigger and his clothes completely different and his hat only vaguely similar, but he looked exactly like Lian.

His hand was warm in Ingo’s own, firm and steady as he shook once with practiced confidence, and he realized he’d automatically gone to meet it when he’d offered it.

“Name’s Clay,” he said. “This here city’s gym leader.”

Like Elesa! Somewhat less worried, the former conductor shook back: “It’s a pleasure to meet you again,” he said, relieved: “I’d introduce myself, but I have a feeling that would be redundant.”

“Unless there’s something new about yourself y’think I should know, I’m inclined to agree,” Clay replied easily, with a grin and the beginning of a laugh.

(No, Ingo decided very quickly, there was nothing he wanted to share.)

(Not now. Not ever, probably.)

(The warden still clung to the memory of Lian. What were the odds? That they would find someone of the Pearl clan, of the young man’s own family here? Perhaps it was a sign of sorts, trying to communicate something.)

(Perhaps it was some cruel trick of fate.)

(His palm was slowly dampening the kindly grip so very happy to see him.)

Ingo slipped out of the handshake with as natural a movement as he could while he carefully moved to stand on the pier: “I would love to get to know you better once more, but I am afraid today I am on a tight schedule,” he apologized: “My brother requires my presence shortly, and I would hate to upset him.”

“By the Dragons, don’t let me keep you then!” the gym leader reassured him, patting the side of his arm with almost as much strength as Briosa. “And don’t go lookin’ sheepish about that, I’ve got my own day all filled up… Mighty glad to have seen you again! And give Emmet my regards, would’ya?”

He watched the older man leave with a wide wave and a similarly wide smile, still huffing one or two raucous chuckles every now and then. His stout legs moved quickly down the port, past the boats and ships docking or leaving; then he crossed the bridge, and disappeared.

Briosa watched him pointedly, like a Braviary surveilling an intruder in its territory.

“So who was that?” she asked, sounding on edge.

Ingo blinked: “He is the gym leader,” he reassured her.

“Of what?”

He blinked again: “Driftveil City?”

“Huh. Really?”

“I… Did you… Not know?”

“No? Should I?”

The man stared at her for a brief moment.

“I was under the impression that you lived here?”

“I do. And?”

Now, he may not remember much in regards to modern times.

But he was pretty sure that a Gym Leader was someone that most people in the town in which the person in question operated were likely to know the existence of whether they actually wanted to or not.

A bagful of filleted fish unceremoniously dropped into his not exactly waiting arms, taking his mind off of the curious conundrum: “Go get yourself fish and chips,” Briosa ordered simply. “It’s almost midday and you should have lunch. Emmet too, probably, but you can get at least one free with this.”

“Oh - er, thank you,” the man replied: “Wouldn’t you want to have it for yourself?”

She shrugged: “I’m not hungry.”

Considering the voracious way she had eaten the majority of the Alomomola’s fins a little more than ten minutes ago, Ingo had his doubts on that, but kept them to himself: “Where can I find the fish and chips man?”

“Red food stand with FISH ‘N’ CHIPS written on it as big as a house.”

“Concise and evocative! Much like you tend to be in your speech.”

Briosa gave him a wide, square smile and signed back a very proud little thank you.

She shooed him off with a half wave goodbye, to which he replied with a gentlemanly dip on his hat; then, as he walked off and Mawile did a few stretching exercises after having sat crumpled like a boiled Clauncher or a roasted Tatsugiri for roughly the past hour, she got to work securing her boat to the pier so that it wouldn’t float away on its lonesome while she wasn’t looking.

Engrossed in the familiar motions as she was (and being very, very deaf), she only noticed the former Subway Master had traced his steps all the way back to her only when she turned around and subsequently almost kicked him across the face with a magnificent vertical split for the spook of seeing him so close out of nowhere.

Luckily, they both survived the mutually inflicted heart attack unscathed.

Emmet would have probably killed her otherwise.

Before she could wheeze an apology, Ingo dug a hand in a plastic bag that had suddenly appeared in his hand and thrust forward a small white container, its two half taped shut by a perhaps excessively long line of papery tape.

She looked at it with wide eyes, not making a single move to take it; so, the taller man pulled his facemask down and told her as clearly as he could: “Fish and chips!”

“Oh!” Briosa squeaked. Either he’d been really fast at ordering, or she was dang slow at mooring her boat – though both possibilities being contemporaneously true wasn’t unlikely, either. She still made no motion towards what she assumed was Ingo’s lunch, which he appeared to be excitedly showing to her awaiting approval like a kid who managed to order an ice cream all on their own for the first time without bursting into tears or hiding behind a chair when the pressure became too much to handle. “Good job. It’s really tasty, hope you enjoy it.”

The other remained perfectly still for a moment, much like her, before extending his arm a little closer to her: “For you,” he specified.

“What?”

“This one is for you.”

Her head shot forward, big broken nose almost bumping into the container while she regarded it with brand new bafflement.

Her gaze returned to Ingo: “For me?” she repeated, voice very high pitched.

He nodded.

“You didn’t have to! I told you to use that Alomomola to get yourself something!”

“I have mine and Emmet’s servings here,” and he shook the bag lightly, careful not to accidentally make an oily mess in there. “I wanted to repay you for inviting me on your boat! I had a very good time.”

Briosa seemed a little stunned. She grabbed the container in a careful, almost suspicious manner, her limbs moving a little stunted until her fingers were finally clasped around the white plastic: she regarded the flavorful package for a couple seconds once it was safely in her grip, still perplexed.

“I’ll share it with the lads,” she concluded at last.

Ingo nodded again: “Food shared with friends can be more enjoyable!”

Mawile translated him, since Briosa was still looking downwards and had completely missed the chance to read his lips; from her small face, she not only seemed to agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, but also appeared a little exasperated.

Evidently he wasn’t the only one concerned with how much her aidee ate.

The Substitute twisted her mouth briefly, squinting hard and curling up her nose as though reflecting on the words very intently.

At last she faced Ingo again, flat lips curled into a square grin and voice so saccharine and honest that he could feel his teeth rotting as the phonemes left her tongue: “Thank you!”

The man tipped his hat at her again, hoping she could recognize his own smile.

-

Emmet walked into the control room stiffer than a block of cement.

His brother perked up from the chair he had been seated on while waiting for his twin and waved enthusiastically at him.

Softening immediately, Emmet waved back just as cheerfully.

They spent one entire minute waving in perfect silence.

Then Ingo, who must have grown restless from the quiet, raised his other arm and bellowed: “Emmet! I got you food!”

“I am Emmet! I appreciate the thought. I already have food, though. I told you.”

“It’s fish and chips!”

Oh FUCK yeah. “I am Emmet! I will accept the food regardless!”

“NOT inside of the control room!” Eloise shouted, pointing at him with a face that was torn between the wrath of the Dragons and a not particularly silent plea for mercy.

Vip twisted her nose, also grimacing in a terrible way: “Please, boss,” she added. “Last time Briosa brought some we had to call those high-end professional cleaners to get the odor out after three days.”

“Hm.” Emmet noted: “You are right. Better eat elsewhere.”

“LEAVE THE BREAKROOM UNBREACHED,” arose, from afar and shrill with terror, the voice of Depot Agent Hank, whose sense of smell was beyond keen and had been mauled into a delirium during the last incursion of the delicious stench typically emanated from fried tubers and ichthyic matter.

Hm. Also a fair request.

After briefly cycling through the few options remaining in terms for lunch spots, the Subway Master smiled a little wider: “Let’s go to the roof.”

“The roof?” his brother repeated.

“The roof,” he nodded back: “Open air. Smell won’t get caught anywhere.”

A loud array of relieved sighs blessed his choice.

Roof it was.

Ingo followed him diligently as they both made their way back to the elevator, seeming in truth a little curious.

“I had no idea we could go to the roof.”

“I didn’t mention it the first time. Didn’t think of it.”

“I take it it’s not a very popular spot amongst employees?”

“It is!”

“Oh!”

“We come up here sometimes. Good way to destress. Breathe in fresh air. Then back down! Just for a moment of rest.”

“I see. It would be easy to forget about mentioning it, then.”

“Yup. But now you get to see it. As a surprise. Are you excited?”

“I am!”

His brother grinned.

The clouds above them were sparse, but marvelously plump. An astigmatic who’d forgotten their glasses that day could have been led to believe that the biggest Cottonees in the history of Unova were currently leisurely making their way onto a new pasture via a stroll through the stratosphere.

Both twins watched them for a few seconds, the brims of their hats shielding them from the otherwise blinding sun.

Emmet searched in his uniform’s immense pockets, pulling out a couple sandwiches.

“Split?”

“Oh, gladly!”

They sat down near the railing as they got to work unpacking their lunch and handing each half of the food in their possession before finally chowing down, not speaking for a while – their hunger surprised them a little, but considering the morning the other brother must have had they concluded they couldn’t blame one another for being so focused on ravaging what they had.

They got done with the sandwiches first, eating them in a handful of massive bites. The fish and chips stunned them briefly when they opened the plastic containers and the fried aroma they had subjugated until now slammed directly into their noses, long enough for them to digest their appetizers: wisely, they decided that their impromptu picnic’s main course should have probably been enjoyed a little slower. And without the aid of gloves.

“How was it?” the Subway Boss asked as he carefully stripped his hands of the white cotton seconds away before he could soak it in grease. “The boat.”

Ingo blew on a fry before putting it in his mouth: “It was a pleasant experience,” he replied while he munched, palm raised to his mouth so he wouldn’t spit potato at his brother while talking: “I saw quite a few Frillish up close,, fed them kibbles, enjoyed the sun, and had some raw Alomomola fins as a snack.”

“Yum.”

“Yes, they were rather tasty! And with an interesting texture to boot.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

The tone was genuine enough, but Ingo couldn’t help but furrow his brow: “You did seem rather worried about it. Did you have an unpleasant trip on a boat yourself, or–”

His brother slurped up three fries at once, almost choking: “Oh – no no no. I am Emmet. I am just verrry afraid of the sea,” he explained a little embarrassedly. “I didn’t know. Briosa didn’t know either. She took me on her boat once. That’s how I discovered I don’t like the sea. I panicked. Started crying. Breathing hard. She took me right back. Haven’t been on a boat since.”

His twin’s eyes widened: “I had no idea!”

“It’s ok! I didn’t either. It’s a recent development.”

“Still, Briosa didn’t mention any of this to me! Though she did inquire if I would have been comfortable on a vast body of water before offering to take me on this excursion… Did she not do the same for you?”

“Nope! She’s lived in Driftveil her whole life. Lots of boats, and the sea at her door. Nobody’s afraid of the water there. Comes with the job. She didn’t even imagine it could have frightened me. I am verrry glad she asked you about it first! It makes me feel a bit more relieved.”

The breaded fish – Alomomola, likely, as Basculin was much tougher under the teeth – crunched pleasantly as they bit down on it. A nice breeze had picked up, and after meticulously licking their fingers clean they removed their hats before they could fly off of their heads and down into the streets of Nimbasa, inevitably getting crushed under a hundred busy feet or ending up held aloft by trembling hands like a relic before being auctioned for who knows how much on some online site where no one questioned where the sellers would get their wares.

“She’s an awfully strange woman,” Ingo mused.

“Man.” Emmet corrected.

“What?”

“Briosa is a man.”

(The small, extremely strange exchange between the Substitute and Clay suddenly made a lot more sense.)

“Oh! Thank goodness I never said anything to his face.”

“Her.”

“What?”

“She’s a man.”

“Oh, but the…?”

“Yup.”

“I see!” he gladly accepted a gulp from the water bottle offered to him, washing the oily flavor from his mouth before he could dig back in. “I had no idea…”

“It’s alright! A common mistake.”

“Thank you for telling me either way. I would’ve been mortified to make such a faux pas in her presence.”

His brother gestured reassuringly as he drank a little himself.

Ingo had another fry.

“She remains a strange man.”

“Yup, yup! Verrry weird. Nice, but verrry weird.”

“Did you know she had no idea there was a Driftveil City gym leader?”

Emmet sputtered pieces of fish everywhere with a bewildered expression.

“What,” he wheezed.

“When we arrived at the dock, we met Clay – he gives you his love, by the way–”

“Hm! How was he?”

“He was doing fine, it seemed! We spoke a little, it was lovely to be introduced to him again – but Briosa did not recognize him at all! She had no clue who he was! I assume she thought him a reporter, because the first thing she did upon seeing him was shouting obscenities at him to make him leave.”

“Oof. Poor Clay. Briosa goes hard on the insults.”

“Yes, I’ve had the chance to discover that.”

They snickered to themselves.

The sun was warm on their shoulders; the city mumbled and grumbled somewhere further away, all around them yet also completely severed from them.

Their appetites sated as the fried mixture of fish and tubers began settling at the bottom of the stomach with the weight of a concrete column, the twins stretched their arms and backs to fight against the grogginess that followed a satisfying lunch. Ingo pulled himself to his feet and paced leisurely around the roof, always careful to remain in Emmet’s sight. Hands cleaned and hat placed back on his head, he turned to the world beyond the petrol green tiles.

He could see the desert from here.

At least, a chunk of it. Tall rocky walls stretched forth, shielding the city from the onslaught of debris that seemed to never cease.

The route which crossed it was a stretch of dulled bronze, hazy from the sand lifted and thrown about by restless winds, interrupted in its middle by an elevated road and seemingly emerging from a long structure of crystalline glass and light turquoise metal that, on its other end, led into Nimbasa itself – connecting their antithetical worlds, so completely opposite from one another in every way and yet so geographically close. If he squinted he could begin to make out a large shadow beyond the granular storm, something squarish and dark: perhaps another city? Another haven from the heat and dunes, forcing the winds to billow and howl within the modern walls of a (mostly) man-made canyon?

He could not see the rest of it, nor the ruined castle Briosa had mentioned.

“Have we ever been to the desert?” he asked without looking away.

His brother hummed as he stood back up and walked to be at his side: “Nope. Uncle Alder comes from there, though. But we’ve never been there.”

“Alder?”

“I didn’t mention him?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Our uncle’s friend. Former Champion. Was born in the desert. Now he travels.”

“Former Champion!” Ingo mused. “We know a lot of powerful trainers, it seems.”

Emmet grinned: “Yup, yup! Happens when you’re verrry good at battling.”

The former Subway Boss smiled back, inclined to agree.

His eyes wandered back to the dark silhouette beyond the sandstorm.

“That’s Castellia City,” his brother informed him without even needing to be asked. “Verrry big. Verrry noisy.”

“Noisier than Nimbasa?”

“Worse! Too many people. Like rush hour at the Station, everywhere, all the time. Though Burgh is there too. Artist. Bug-type gym leader. Verrry nice. He livestreamed your rescue for us. But! He comes over, too. I can call him. We can have a fun time out. Us, Elesa and Burgh. Maybe battle! He’d be happy to see you.”

That would have been a welcome alternative to going to such an overwhelming place, Ingo reasoned.

Still, he couldn’t shake from his bones a certain antsy eagerness, a restless desire to explore. The wondrous nocturnal sights that had rushed past him on his so far only venture on a subway train still flashed against his eyelids sometimes, begging him to wander back into their once familiar unknown and reacquaint himself with it, make it his own again.

He wondered how much he’d once seen of the region. 

His hand gently gripped the railing.

“I would like that,” he replied truthfully. “And I would love to explore Unova as well.”

Emmet tried not to flinch and failed.

His brother’s hand moved to hold his, gently squeezing his palm to calm him down: “We can go together,” he offered. “It could be a journey of our own – you could be my chaperone! You might even use this occasion to pull the brakes and enjoy a short vacation. It’s been brought to my attention that you… You haven’t taken much time for yourself, in these past years.”

The other stiffened. He held his hand back nonetheless.

“Can’t,” he wheezed at last. “I… Too short notice. I need to plan… New shifts, and schedules, and… I don’t – I don’t, want. To. To…”

“Leave the station so suddenly?”

That wasn’t what he meant; Ingo knew that. Emmet swallowed: “Yes.”

The older twin massaged his knuckles comfortingly: “I wouldn’t want to derail your routine so drastically, then. But I do wish to explore Unova. I was planning on taking short treks through it, just to enjoy the scenery. Certainly the subway touches picturesque locations on its many winding rails?”

He was planning to visit him in the Station after each trip, to reassure him he had not vanished again as soon as he had taken his eyes off of him.

It was a sweet sentiment, dripping with earnest intentions; but there would have still been long, impossibly long stretches of time between their parting in the morning and those reunions, and he would have had to wait through those terrible moments just like he’d had to wait for someone, anyone, to call him again and tell him something – even something as terrible as ‘I’m sorry’.

“Remember safety checks,” he recited quietly, as their uncle would recite to Alder: “Bring water and snacks. And bandaids. Cover your head. Keep your XTransceiver charged. Call often. Set the number for emergencies to be dialed in case of damage.”

“I can do that?”

“Yup.”

“Do you have the time to show me how to? It would be better to get it done right now, no matter what my plans might be.”

Emmet sniffed and nodded. A weight lifted itself from his chest.

They sat down, tinkering on the device together.

[the-heron]

been picking at more screenshot redraws and i finished this one recently, thought it was good enough to post on its own. i didnt get the redraw 1:1 with the screenshot but i'm trying to be lenient and looser with my art lately. original screenshot under the cut

i widened out the frame a little too bc ghosted is filmed Very tightly

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

Console Fighting Games of 1993 - 1995 - Compilation

Compilation of Fighting games released on consoles between 1993 and 1995 this compilation features.

Console Fighting Games of 1993 - 00:00 3 Count Bout, Aa Harimanada, American Gladiators, Art of Fighting, Battle Master - Kyuukyoku no Senshi-tachi, Best of the Best Championship Karate, Blackhole Assault, Boxing Legends of the Ring, Chavez, Chavez II, Clay Fighter, Dragon The Bruce Lee Story, Dragon Ball Z - Super Butouden, Dragon Ball Z - Super Butouden 2, Eternal Champions, Fatal Fury, Fatal Fury 2, Greatest Heavyweights, Masters of Combat, Mortal Kombat, Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle, Riddick Bowe Boxing, Samurai Showdown, Street Fighter II Champion Edition, Street Fighter II Turbo, Strip Fighter, Super Fire Pro Wrestling III Final Bout, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Tournament Fighters, Tsuppari Ōzumō Heisei Ban, Tuff E Nuff, Ultra Seven, Ultraman, World Heroes and World Heroes 2, WWF King of the Ring, WWF Royal Rumble, WWF WrestleMania Steel Cage Challenge, Zen Nihon Pro Wrestling and Zen Nihon Pro Wrestling Dash Sekai Saikyō Tag.

Console Fighting Games of 1994 - 02:57:24 Advanced V.G., Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Art of Fighting 2, Ballz 3D Fighting at its Ballziest, Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon S Jogai Ranto!? Shuyaku Sodatsusen, Brutal Paws of Fury, Clay Fighter 2 Judgement Clay, Clay Fighter Tournament Edition,  Cosmic Carnage, Double Dragon V The Shadow Falls, Dragon Ball Z Buyu Retsuden, Dragon Ball Z Idainaru Son Goku Densetsu, Dragon Ball Z Super Butoden 3, Fighters History Dynamite, Hammerlock Wrestling, Hana no Keiji Kumo no Kanata ni, Kakuto Hao, Densetsu Algunos, Kart Fighter, Kasumi Ninja, Kido Butoden G Gundam, King of the Monsters 2, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Osu!! Karate Bu, Power Instinct, Rose of the Robots, Samurai Showdown II, Seifuku Densetsu Pretty Fighter, Shaq Fu, Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Punch Out!, Super Wrestle Angels, Taekwon-Do, Ranma 1/2 Chogi Ranbu-hen, The King of Fighters 94, Totsugeki Kikan (Karakuri) Megadasu!!,  Twin Goddesses, Ultraman Powered, Way of the Warrior, WCW SuperBrawl Wrestling, World Heroes 2 Jet, WWF Rage in the Cage, WWF Raw, Yu Yu Hakusho, Yu Yu Hakusho - Makyou Tōitsusen and Yu Yu Hakusho 2 Kakuto no Sho.

Console Fighting Games of 1995 - 05:46:19 Asuka 120% Maxima BURNING Fest, Ballz The Director's Cut, Battle Arena Toshinden, Battle Arena Toshinden 2, Battle Arena Toshinden Remix, Battle Monsters, Battle Tycoon, Brutal Unleashed Above the Claw, Chō Aniki Bakuretsu Rantōden, Criticom, Dark Legend, Double Dragon, Dragon Ball Z Shin Butōden, Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22, Eternal Champions Challenge from the Dark Side, Fatal Fury 3 Road to the Final Victory, Galaxy Fight Universal Warriors, Gokū Densetsu Magic Beast Warriors, Golden Axe The Duel, Justice League Task Force, Kabuki Ittōryōdan, Kabuki Klash, Killer Instinct, Makeruna! Makendō 2, Mighty Morphin Power Ranger The Fighting Edition, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon S, Primal Rage, Saban's VR Troopers, Samurai Showdown III Blades of Blood, Savage Reign, Seifuku Densetsu Pretty Fighter X, Street Fighter Alpha Warriors' Dreams, Street Fighter the Movie, Super Fire Pro Wrestling Queen's Special, Tekken, The King of Fighters '95, Ultra Vortek, Virtua Fighter Remix, Virtua Fighter, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, WeaponLord, World Heroes Perfect, Yū Yū Hakusho Final Makai Saikyō Retsuden and Zero Divide

For the Individual videos for each fighting game releases across 1993 to 1995 check out the following playlists.

Console Fighting Games of 1993 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CFcKSo9Eglrv2NFDHAqNDRi

Console Fighting Games of 1994 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CF-R5w4NujQcYo8cCcOMHYv

Console Fighting Games of 1995 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CEUiZn8FlwHoMcwoOzUqchX

For Other Compilation videos check out this playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CEjFei9KXJ8xDIChQB8WLJd

[gu6chan]

nahhh the euphoria animated adaption is SHIIIIT. bad animation, voice lines I’m 90% sure at least some of them have been lifted right from the game, NO hot latex lady, and the True Route is wrapped up SUPER quick. solid 4/10 for most, 0/10 from me due to aforementioned lack of best girl

Initially sent: 18/05 at 16:40 First things first, I wanna give you a nickname, can I call you latex-anon? :3< That sounds kinda lewd in a way that might be a bit personal for you though, so maybe I could call you euphorianon instead... Or if you have a different nickname you'd like to use, please lemme know, I'm all ears 👀 im very fond of you, looking over and chatting over my first glance into this rabbithole!!!!! lol Also, pardon the fact I haven't gotten to your previous ask from this morning, I will answer it!! I thought this would be more relevant to grab real quick because i just saw this one coming back after pausing like... 4 minutes into the second episode to comment specifically about the animation and how Rika actually looks like an improvement to her VN design where Natsuki is a slight improvement, Rinne and Nemu are more or less standard of what I'd expect from an adaptational form (Not on par with the VN by merit they have to optimize designs specifically for the sake of animation, but they're still faithful enough! I like Rinne in particular, and am sort of 50/50 on the choice to give her slight expressional changes in the adaptation! It's cute to see and I enjoy it, but at the same time I dunno if it adds or takes away from her character.... hm 🤔) miyako was also so cute for the literal 30 seconds we got to see of her!!!! the animators couldnt save her from the story but they gave her their good graces at least 😭😭

but then there's specifically.... kanae? i wanted to talk about???? She's not terrible, ofc, but compared to the others Kanae is relatively REALLY off-model in a VERY noticeable way that kinda took me off guard when i first saw her skdghjsdjkh i think its the fact the hairs not as fluffy (it also looks shorter?) and she doesn't have those same babydoll eyes? which is a shame bc that's what made her design so cute to me in the vn :,) I'll have to run a comparison when im done with this but i'm like 90% sure that's it lmao I kinda expected it to rush through the plot if not diverge away from it entirely (which im lowkey hoping for tbh, this could get me shot but anime divergences like that have always been very enjoyable for me lol) since there's no way in HELL theyre going to fully adapt a 30-35 hour visual novel whose complete story is dispersed through 3 majorly different routes without taking some shortcuts lol, though that's okay!! If I wanted the story that's what the VN is for, this is mostly just because I enjoyed the vn and want to see cute girls get tortured in a different medium now lmao I can't speak too much on the animation quality in particular mostly because a majority of hentai I've ever watched were like.... from the 90's to the very early 2000's? (I watched one from 2013 and one from 2007. that's literally it i can count them on my fingers) so it's funny the animation quality gets brought up because the bar is so far into the dirt for me that i admit i was awed by euphoria's animation quality in particular 😭 I KNOW THERE ARE SCENES WHERE I CAN HEAR THE BUDGET LITERALLY SCREAMING FOR MERCY BUT COMPARED TO EVERYTHING ELSE IM JUST LIKE "oh my god those are consistent jiggle psychics and the thrusting animations are more than 2 frames.......... holy shit" But I'm so glad you mentioned the thing about the voice lines!!!! I'm assuming they rehired the VAs for the characters??? So that might just be part of it but LITERALLY that was my first thought too i was literally like "did.... they just copy the voice lines from the vn???" because maybe it is just the voice similarities, but i SWEAR ive heard that exact intonation before.... idk how i feel about it tbh its uncanny but i AM glad the voices aren't too different (And Rika in particular was noticeably less obnoxious sounding lmao) I figured the lady in black wouldn't be there, which is a SHAME, but i kinda figured with the condensation they'd have to do it was inevitable.... 😔 there's just no winning, huh.... At the very least, Episode 6's thumbnail DID show Rinne's cultist look so we (or I?) have that at least? God I hope There's a couple budding thoughts I have about Keisuke's characterisation in the anime vs. the VN, but I'll wait till I'm done before I say anything in half-confidence. lol I also really like the soundtrack. That piano.....

All in all, thanks for the thoughts!! I'll be looking forward to keeping updates as I watch on. :)

[arojenniferwalters]

Canon AroAces 284/?: Caduceus Clay (Taliesin Jaffe) Critical Role: The Mighty Nein (2018-) video by Dani Gee

[kou-katsu]

Current DOD designs for that one MAP i mentioned before

working on Glory some other time

the song for the map is literally ablut a brain eating meteor… not sure if you wanted to know that bjt whatever

[fictionadventurer]

With all this history reading, I have to be very careful not to let it spill over into interactions with ordinary people.

I had a slow moment at work the other day, during which I started thinking about various prominent 19th-century politicians who never became president (as you do). Then I went out by a coworker and I was so close to blurting out (to someone with whom I have never had the slightest personal conversation), "What do you think would have happened if by some miracle Stephen Douglas won the 1860 election?"

Thankfully, I caught myself just in time. But this just proves what a vital role you guys play in giving me an outlet for this stuff in a way that lets me preserve my veneer of sanity.

[flamboyant-king]

My artfight attacks so far.

Quality may vary.

[labcrowndiaries]

Fanfic Compilation

As a fic author, I know fics are a bit harder to promote, so I'll make this one post compiling all the fics written about this ship 🙏 Hope you enjoy them.

Como autora de fics, sé que es un poco más difícil promocionar fanfics que, digamos, fanart, así que hice este post compilando todos los fics escritos de esta ship 🙏 Espero y los disfruten.

Fanfics en español:

Daddy Issues

Clay Fermin's Living Sex Doll of Pleasure

Condenado (Wattpad)*

Condenado (Ao3)

*NOTA: Es el capítulo 4, ya que esto es una antología, y está dedicado a mí como autora.

English Fanfics:

A Terrible Way to Start the Year

show me what a loving god's hand feels like by bangbangbkgn*

*NOTE: This is more a Fabia fic since she's the protagonist, but it still counts for me. This is a Bakugan Secret Santa gift for me. I loved it and I hope you all love it as much as I did.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - January 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Homes built with clay, grass, plastic and glass: How a Caribbean island is shying away from concrete

“[… Clay] traps moisture which then evaporates and pulls heat from the surface as it goes. […] The roof is covered in old recycled advertising banners and piece of a water tank, the other half of which is used to house some of Rahaman-Noronha's fish [… and] multi-coloured glass bottles inset into walls provide an avenue for streams of light and colour.”

2. To Combat Phoenix’s Extreme Heat, a New Program Provides Sustainable Shade

“The neighborhood workshops allow residents to get a shade plan tailored to their community’s needs and identify the locations where officials can plant trees. Meanwhile, the workforce-development side of the program creates the jobs needed to keep the trees alive for generations[….]”

3. Conservation corridors provide hope for Latin America’s felines

“[… S]cience has shown that to maintain healthy populations there needs to be connection between individuals. [… A] protected area that is close to another has more species and more potential for their survival.”

4. Social program cuts tuberculosis cases among Brazil's poorest by more than half

“The decrease [“in TB cases and deaths”] was over 50% in extremely poor people and more than 60% among the Indigenous populations. […] "We know that the program improves access to food [… and healthcare…] and strengthens people's immune defenses as a result.””

5. Geothermal has vast potential to meet the world’s power needs

“New geothermal systems could technically provide as much as 600 terawatts of carbon-free power capacity by 2050[…. C]ountries could cost-effectively deploy over 800 GW of geothermal power capacity using technology that’s in development today[….]”

6. New D.C. Catholic archbishop is pro-LGBTQ+ and anti-Trump

“In 2018, he objected to the blaming of gay priests for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, “saying that such abuse was a matter of power, not sexual orientation[….]” “We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies [… and] seek to rob our medical care, especially from the poor.””

7. Chesapeake Bay Will Gain New Wildlife Refuge

“The Chesapeake Bay area will have a new wildlife refuge for the first time in a quarter century. […] “This new refuge offers an opportunity to halt and even reverse biodiversity loss in this important place, and in a way that fully integrates and respects the leadership and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.””

8. Inside Svalbard seed vault’s critical mission to stop our favourite fruit and veg from going extinct

“[… T]he world’s largest secure seed storage […] sits proudly in a massive former coal mine[….] Right now, there are over 1,331,458 samples of 6,297 crop species. […] “During 2024, 61 seed genebanks deposited 64,331 seed samples, including 21 from institutes that deposited seeds for the first time this year[….]””

9. Medical debt will be erased from credit reports for all Americans under new federal rule

“The rule will affect more than 15 million Americans, raising their credit scores by an estimated average of 20 points. [… S]tates and localities have already utilized American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to support the elimination of over $1 billion in medical debt for more than 700,000 Americans[….]”

10. 'Forgotten' water harvesting system transforms 'barren wasteland' into thriving farmland

“"The process started with the community-based participatory planning[….]” 10% to 15% of the water will actually soak into the ground to replenish the water table, creating a more sustainable agricultural process.”

December 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[ddivilove]

Hai! May i request for beom taeha x fem! reader where reader is a librarian and receives cute notes in her books and she thinks that it must be some students messing with her but it turns out to be taeha who is actually obsessed with her (this is so cringe help😞)

୨୧ ﹒ LOVE IN LITERATURE.

➤ synopsis ﹕ literature is an art of many forms, but who knew that such art could be used for romance and courtship with a hint of wrongful stalking.

➤ warnings ﹕ semi - dark themes. involves stalking, mentions of murder, possessive & disgusting behaviour, age gap, vulgar words, mentions of implied masturbation, semi - explicit content. read at your own risk.

➤ the cast ﹕ beom taeha.

➤ author note ﹕ i don't really fully understand taeha, so if i mischaractise, which is might, i apologise ! i am trying my best, and this was fun to write, so i hope i did him some justice.

Literature. That was the world that Name lived in. Ever since she was young, she had wanted to be surrounded by the written works of creativity based on authors' imaginations.

Name worked in a small library, a library in town that was often slow in business. She rarely saw any newcomers. Only old visitors and friends. Not that she minded that, not at all. It was a hard thought about the change if new people began bursting through these halls. After all, she could barely rein the current book borrowers and library users to follow the rules.

She sighs as she opens the library again, her eyes lingering gingerly at the broken vase on the ground by the door. 'Some lunatic again.' She thinks as she enters the building. So many students come here to mess with her, it was tiring sometimes, especially when they break a thing or two while they're at it. As she cleaned up the pieces of broken clay, she heard the sound of someone approaching.

At this hour? She found it odd since most of the frequently appearing people of the city often showed up at noon until late afternoon hours. She turns around to see a young man.

Tall was not even going to cut it as it seemed as though he was towering her, almost like a giant. Even though he was tall, he looked no older than 25. He was probably a college student, she guessed quietly. His sharp silver, almost to the point of being white, eyes entranced her far more than she found comfortable. He had an atmosphere about him that made her think he's not a cheerful type.

"Hello, Miss." The young man says politely as he greets her with a smile, even though she saw right through that forced appearance. "Is the library open?"

She zoned out for a moment, but she got back to reality as she nodded in response. "Yes, yes it is." She responds quickly, embarrassed by her sudden zoning out. "You can go inside, and browse around if you'd like." At least he was polite, so she thought as she continued her work.

The male didn't really spare her a second glance after nodding, so she went back to cleaning the broken vase. When she entered the library, though, the male was nowhere to be found. She blinks, confused. She had seen him come in here, hadn't she? That was strange. She was definitely certain... unless she was going mad which could definitely be a possibility.

Perhaps it was the case of sleep deprivation, causing her to hallucinate again. I should get a check-up soon. She reminds herself as she sits on her chair by the front of the library. She looks at the clock. 9:36. She had some time to kill, it seemed.

She had been dusting the books when she returned to the desk to find a note attached to her book there that someone had given back after borrowing the day before. It had been a copy of a book filled with a compilation of sonnets by William Shakespeare.

She had read it before. It was indeed a clever way with words, but she never understood why people were so into reading them just for fun, but everyone has different tastes and takes on literary arts.

She slips out the note and unfolds it. It quoted the poem of Sonnet 18 in the books.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date."

"You are as beautiful as this poem, and even more so now that I've visited often to see you up close, Noona." It said at the end of the note in a cursive handwriting, befitting the impeccable taste of this mystery person.

She wonders who this person was. For one, she felt flattered, but she also felt incredibly perplexed by it all. It was not very often she be given notes of any sort, compliments, affirmations, or whatnot. Even more so, positive ones, she could recall a few negative notes from back then.

But this could all be a hoax, so she warns herself mentally not to be fooled. She had been played by pesky teenagers far too much in this place to fully trust and think this may be genuine. She tucks the note in her drawer before she grabs the stack of books and brings them back in their proper sections and shelves.

Day by day, the notes kept coming. Simple quotations of literature came alongside a compliment or two. Affectionate words that made Name's heart skip a beat sometimes. She still couldn't put a finger on who this mystery person was. All she knew was he was a man, but that's it. No other tell-tale of sorts.

She convinced herself that this was just another hoax made by those silly students once again. But her resolve was soon tested when letters slowly came with gifts of different prices. Sometimes food, or chocolates or even jewellery. Each was accompanied by a note filled with warmth that left her strangely curious.

As she picked up an emerald necklace from a box she had found in her drawer once again, she rethinks her original conclusion. Students wouldn't have this much money, would they? She admired the emerald's beautiful shining green colour. Unaware to her that there has been a man watching this entire time.

His lips curl into a smile, a sinister one that hele no good intentions. His gaze sweeped upward and then back down, memorising every curve her clothes showed vaguely, wondering how she looks with everything off.

His hands clench and then unclench in a way to surpress his fiery desires of claiming her and controlling them better. Soon. He thought to himself as he turned to pick up a book from any one of the shelves, choosing law to impress her. Even though he didn't know a lot about it, and his lifestyle goes against it.

Anything to talk to her. Ever since he first saw her, that was all he thought. He wants her, no, he needs her. His ache for her was overwhelming, and he needed to satisfy them desperately. It was the reason why he memorised his schedule. Her routines. Her actions were repeated every day. Committing to memory every single time like it was the first he's seen them, even though he's seen them practically a hundred times already.

His grip on the book tightens as he turns the corner and to the librarian's desk where she sat. A ghost of a smile appears on his lips when he notices that she is spacing out again like she does everyday at this same hour because of the slow shift at times like these. He stares at her for a few minutes as she mindlessly doodled on her little notebook.

He knew that was her diary, her journal where she drew her feelings out. She knew that there was trauma behind those drawings. Beyond that, impassive face was an abused fragile girl. And he knew he could use that to his advantage any day. But he won't, no, not yet. It was not time yet.

She looks up when she hears a clearing of a throat, her eyes widening by a fraction when she sees the man. Wasn't he the same one she saw a while ago? She knows he is that same man, his white-grey eyes told her enough. Those damn entrancing things.

"Excuse me, I'd like to borrow this book." He politely requests as she blinks out of her thoughts and quickly nods as she gets to work. Her fingers brushed against his as she took his library card and looked through it, cheeks flushing. That touch was electric, she thinks to herself. Incredibly so.

"Alright, you have a week before you have to return it." She responds quietly as she writes down the date of borrowing and when he would need to return it on the card and in her own record book. While she did so, she missed the man's lustful gaze towards her.

Beom Taeha. So that was his name. She heard of a few rumours on the Beom family. She wonders if they were true. Perhaps they were. He looks like the kind of man to do those things that his family's reputation is known for. She pushes the thought away half as quickly as she thinks it, though. She had no right to judge a man who she didn't know.

As she hands him back the card, their fingers brushed again, and she could've sworn she felt an electric rush against it. And so did he. He clears his throat again as he rubs the back of his neck. "Thank you, Ma'am. See you next week then." He bids her goodbye before he disappears out the door, leaving the flustered woman to figure her feelings herself.

She scolds herself quietly. That male looked no older than 25. It felt morally wrong. Plus, she never did like younger men, so why was she reacting this way? She wanted to bury a hole for herself and never get out. Meanwhile, Taeha makes a beeline for the hotel he stayed in. When he enters the room, he locks the door as he takes out a camera he had used to take some pictures of her.

His heated gaze increases in intensity when he sees the beautiful and perfect body that woman had. What was her name? Yes, Name Last/Name. His eyes linger to his fingers that had gotten fortunate enough to touch hers. He puts them to his lips and draws the tip of his tongue on them as if he could taste her.

"Hah... What am I going to do with, Name?" He asks to himself aloud as he unbuckles his belt, his "problem" springing out, ready to be dealt with. As he took care of himself, all he could think about was that he would have her. He won't take no for an answer. He will keep trying. That woman will be his. Body, soul, and mind. All will be his.

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[e-vay]

A Guide to My AU ("Evay AU")

Hello! I make art for anything and everything I love, but if you follow me you'll find that a large amount of my content is centered around my own Sonic AU. I thought I'd make a handy little guide for those of you who are new and just learning about my AU or for those of you who have been following me but might want a refresher.

★This guide is a living document that will be continuously amended as I make changes and additions to my stories. ★

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OVERALL PREMISE

My AU centers around Sonic & Friends through adulthood as they navigate relationships, careers, marriage and family. The primary genres are "slice of life" and "romantic comedy" with some action/drama interspersed throughout. My AU mostly follows the video game canon and the IDW canon with some elements from Sonic Boom and Sonic X tossed in and then I created my own characters and stories to fill in the gaps. My AU DOES NOT include the Sonic Cinematic Universe, Archie comics/characters, Fleetway comics/characters, Sonic Prime, SatAM, the OVA, Sonic Underground, the 1992 Manga, etc.

SPECIAL NOTES

In my AU, I depict "Classic" versions of the Sonic cast as their younger selves with their "Modern/Boom" versions being older.

Although my canon does not include Archie/SatAM, I do refer to Sonic characters' classification as "Mobians" and the planet they are on is referred to as Earth/Mobius interchangeably. I credit this as simply "cultural variation" between humans and Sonic characters but they all originate from the same planet.

MOST IMPORTANTLY please remember this is a fanmade AU. Nothing I say, write or draw influences the Sonic franchise or canon in any way. I'm just here to have fun and I hope you enjoy the ride!

KEY

For the timeline below, Canon Sonic characters will be highlighted in blue and my original characters will be highlighted in pink.

If there is a comic or written fic that corresponds with an element of the timeline, I will include it as a hyperlink.

ABRIDGED TIMELINE

Project Shadow is created and suspended.

Domino and Phlox meet. Sonic is conceived.

Domino raises Sonic to approx. toddler age until she loses her life in a flash flood. Sonic is left alone to fend for himself and eventually represses his memories of Domino to cope with the trauma.

Clay Rose and Lulu Petula meet. Together, they have Amy and she lives with her parents until her fortune cards lead her to meeting Sonic.

Majority of the game/IDW canon takes place.

CC (originally labeled as "Code Compiler") is a spherical/ovoid robot created (August 26) by an independent inventor (no relation to the Robotniks) to assist with production. CC's intelligence rapidly evolves and she gains sentience much to her creator's dismay. After a struggle, the inventor powers her off and the workshop falls into disrepair. The building is marked condemned and CC's chassis remains hidden within the rubble.

Sonic and Phlox run into each other on several occasions. Neither realize they are related.

Amy begins her pursuit of archaeological studies.

A mystery woman going by the name "Light" (who is secretly Aurora from the future) appears and warns Sonic & Team of an oncoming threat that is hellbent on killing Shadow before wreaking havoc on the planet. Light claims she was sent here with the task of protecting Shadow but is not forthcoming with any other information about herself or her 'previous team'. Light & the Team work together to fight off 'the threat' and along the way Shadow develops a romantic interest in Light who also has strong feelings and an allegiance to him for reasons he does not know. Upon defeating the villain, Light must return to where she came from. Shadow tries to discourage her and even asks to accompany her, but she insists that if she stays any longer, she risks causing catastrophic damage. She departs and Shadow vows to find her again.

Rouge and Omega join Shadow in his search to find Light. After combing the globe with no luck, their quest takes them off-world and they go on an interplanetary journey. The three become mercenaries to fund their space expedition.

Knuckles bulks up! His goal of spending time away from Angel Island did him some good!

Sonic and Amy begin a romantic relationship.

Sonic moves in with Amy.

Tails establishes Yellow Sky Industries, a company where he can begin sharing his gadgetry with the world as well as partner up with other innovators to put their genius to good use.

Stone establishes The Mean Bean coffee shop. Much to his delight, Eggman frequents this cafe but is unaware of Stone's affection.

Sonic and Amy get engaged. Upon hearing the news and growing homesick, Rouge and Omega return home, leaving Shadow to continue his journey on his own. While attending the wedding festivities, Knuckles and Rouge rekindle their budding romance.

During one of Eggman's many failed attempts at world domination, he falls victim to a near-fatal accident of his own making. Sonic rescues him, but Eggman loses his right hand in the process. Eggman is forced to reconsider his health and kickstarts some moral dilemmas for him. His attempts at world domination begin to dwindle.

Cream departs home to pursue humanitarian/Mobianitarian(?) efforts

Rouge uses her mercenary wealth to develop her own mining and jewelry business (she does not give up thievery). Knuckles is initially hired on as head excavator, but this job is only temporary until he secures enough money to fund a dream project of his.

With his own money and with the support of Yellow Sky Industries and his friends' investments, Knuckles develops the Young Heroes Program - a nonprofit youth organization. He works full time as a trainer at the program to help empower kids and strengthen the community. Sonic assists YH as needed, but is not a full-time volunteer.

Sonic and Amy decide to start a family. Aurora is conceived.

Rouge and Knuckles get married.

In one last ditch effort to regain Sonic's attention and to encourage Sage to follow in her father's footsteps**(See note), Eggman kidnaps Amy. This triggers her to go into labor early and Aurora is born (March 13). This is the nail in the coffin as far as Eggman's villainous efforts go and he makes an unspoken agreement with Sonic to 'retire' from villainy. He still plans to regularly annoy them by inserting himself into their lives. (**Note: This comic was made before Sage was introduced to the game canon. In retrospect, Sage would have been a part of this story and part of the reason Eggman decided to kidnap Amy, no matter how much Sage discouraged him. Sage instantly bonds with Aurora and vows to be her lifelong friend.)

Amy takes on a second job as an interior designer to support her family while Sonic becomes a stay-at-home dad and focuses most of his time and attention on raising Aurora.

Once Aurora is old enough, she begins attending the YH program. This is the closest Sonic will allow her to participating in any adventures.

Ruff Hyena is born (January 29).

As a defense mechanism against constant bullying from her peers, Aurora’s light powers begin to manifest.

In addition to attending the Young Heroes Program, Aurora begins a mentorship with her Uncle Tails for optics/physics lessons in order to better understand her powers.

Eggman and Stone begin dating.

Aurora begins to experience premonitions in the form of dreams. Amy does her best to help Aurora hone this skill, but without much success.

Tumble Hyena is born (January 30). Ruff and Tumble are abandoned and left to fend on their own before ending up in the foster care system. They remain there for many years.

Aurora develops a crush on a boy named Kyle and they go on a few “playdates”. Aurora invites Kyle over to the house to meet her parents and Sonic does not handle it well. After an argument, Aurora and Kyle agree to not hang out together anymore.

Knuckles and Rouge adopt Ruff and Tumble.

Aurora ages out of the Young Heroes Program. Sonic discourages her from venturing out on her own and convinces her to work for YH instead.

After receiving a heartfelt message from Rouge, Shadow resigns from his quest and returns to Earth. He decides his new mission will be to get to better know the world Maria had always spoken so highly about.

Feeling “stuck” in her life, Aurora broaches the topic of moving out to be on her own. Sonic talks her out of it.

While reconnecting with The Team, Shadow is introduced to Aurora. He instantly recognizes her as the woman he’s spent the last several decades looking for, but doesn’t understand how that’s possible and she is adamant they have never met before. While telling Sonic and Amy of his world travel plans, Aurora offers to be his guide around town as she knows every inch of it. Shadow takes her up on her offer and the two quickly develop a friendship.

Shadow decides it doesn’t matter if Aurora is the Light he formerly met or not. He asks her on a date. Remembering how badly things went the last time one of Aurora’s “boyfriends” and Sonic interacted, she accepts Shadow’s courtship but only if they can keep it a secret for now. Shadow is wary of this, but agrees to her terms.

Keeping secrets from her parents begins to take a toll on Aurora, to the point she is getting sick. She tells Shadow she can’t keep lying to her family, so she tells him they shouldn’t see each other anymore. In hopes to “fix” the situation, Shadow meets with Sonic and Amy to ask their permission to date Aurora. This immediately escalates into a battle between Sonic and Shadow. Aurora intercepts the fight and, heartbroken, she tells Sonic that as much as she wants his blessing, she doesn’t need it, and is going to continue to date Shadow. Sonic, Amy and Aurora have a heart-to-heart to try and reconcile things, but Sonic makes it clear that though Aurora is a grown up and can technically date whoever she wants, she has to follow certain rules while she’s still living in their house.

Tails purchases an abandoned factory to expand Yellow Sky Industries. There, he finds the deactivated CC. He powers her on but she is severely traumatized and significantly damaged. He repairs her and after understanding how advanced her intelligence is, he offers her a job as his lab assistant.

CC quickly develops romantic feelings for Tails.

Knuckles, Rouge, Ruff and Tumble legally change their last names to “Motley”

In her pursuit to become “Mobian,” CC fabricates herself a Mobian-like body.

As Shadow and Aurora’s relationship progresses, they begin to explore more of the world together.

Tails and CC host a charity banquet. Things go awry.

Aurora gets her first apartment. She also begins a singing career.

Tails and CC officially begin a romantic relationship.

Aurora begins to have recurring premonitions about Shadow being in danger. She puts her musical tour on pause to stay vigilant.

A dangerous, mysterious entity appears and attacks The Team, severely wounding several members and nearly killing Shadow. Before the threat can be defeated, it retreats by escaping via time travel where it plans to successfully kill Shadow. With most of The Team out of commission or fearful of altering the timeline, Aurora travels back in time to save Past Shadow and the rest of her family. To protect her identity, she goes by the name “Light.”

Sonic and Shadow reconcile their differences. Sonic becomes noticeably more accepting of Shadow and Aurora’s relationship.

Shadow and Aurora get engaged and move in together.

Aurora continues her musical career.

Shadow and Aurora get married.

Ruff ages out of the Young Heroes Program and in the hopes to follow in Knuckles’ footsteps, he becomes a crime fighter. When Tumble isn’t helping his brother fight crime, he’s working on his own mechs.

Eggman and Stone digitally uploadt heir consciousness to Cyberspace so they can live indefinitely.

Shadow and Aurora decide to start a family. They have their first litter of triplets: Piper, Zane and Nova (November 12).

Shadow and Aurora have a second litter of twins: Aster and Blitz (April 8). At this time, Shadow uses the wealth he’s amassed to construct a large house that can accommodate their growing family.

Shadow and Aurora have a third litter of triplets: Cinder, Diamond and Boon (February 18).

Sonic and Amy return to a life of world traveling.

In addition to attending the Young Heroes Program, Shadow trains all of his children in how to best use their powers for the greater good of the planet.

During a fight, Cinder critically wounds Diamond with his “Stellar Tantrum” power. Boon uses his powers of healing to restore Diamond to full health without any scarring, but Cinder never forgives himself. He becomes withdrawn and distances himself from his family members from this point on.

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You can learn more about my AU by looking through My Art tag, referencing "My (Major) Comics" Directory, or by looking through My AU tag.