#spent way too long on this bleh

[darkwingsnark]

DUCKVEMBER DAY 10 & 11: Wild and Mechanical Duck

I think you have to be considered a liiiittle unhinged if you amputated both of your legs for funzies, ya know?

[ya-zz]

Teacher Ramattra because I said so

[cr3at1ve-us3rnam3]

Intro ig

→ you can call me whatever you want, but my online name is silly. IF YOU KNOW ME IRL, DO NOT USE MY IRL NAME HERE

→ I use he/him pronouns, but it/its works too, although I prolly won’t correct you if you use she or they on me, I don’t care

→ I don’t really have a label for my gender or sexuality but the closest would be abrosexual, and trans masc.

→ I have a lot of interests. Too many to list, but here’s some: hazbin/helluva, glitch: tadc and murder drones, jjk, mha/bnha, warrior cats, wings of fire, danganronpa, schoolbus graveyard, the lady of gollerus, watermelon, lumine( sbg, tlog, watermelon, lumine: webtoons), mxtx, scene culture ie. Kandi, demon slayer, the owl house, digital art, biology, danganronpa, puppets/puppeteering(marionettes), skateboarding, sk8 the infinity, anime in general, bl manga, the apothecary diaries, land of the lustrous, frieren, charlotte, jellyfish, BUNGOU STRAY DOGS OMG I LOVE IT, how to train your dragon, and a lot more

→ some other info: I’m autistic, and have adhd. I love talking to people but am usually too scared to start conversations, so PLEASE TALK TO ME

→ I love music, and play prolly over 10 instruments, idk I’ve never counted

→I get bored easily

→ I AM A MINOR, you can interact if you’re an adult, but don’t be weird

→ no donations or chain asks.

Uhh that’s about it ig

Tags I will use

# me warning: for negative stuff or triggering posts

# bleh: random posts

Idk I’m not organized enough to have my own tagging system

I may update this later once I’m more active on here

[muddyorbsblr]

onyx pt2

See my full list of works here!

Summary: Thor's return to the Compound reveals that your new pet kitten wasn't quite what you thought he was

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: language (it's like 2 cuss words but i'm still not sorry, Rogers); the lightest sprinkle of angst [let me know if i missed anything!]

Things to be aware of: himbo Thor hours

You couldn't believe what you were hearing from Thor. Implying that the sweet tiny kitten on your shoulder was actually the god that wouldn't even spare you a single glance sideways. The one that barely even registered that you existed.

"Thor no. It can't be. This little bub is small and baking biscuits on my cheek. He purrs. He's cat-shaped. Onyx is a cat. He's my cat. And right now you're scaring him being all up in his face like this. I say this with so much love…Thunder? Back the fuck off." Your kitten shivered even harder as he snuggled into your neck, keeping his little face buried in your hair.

"Lady Y/N, I know my brother's eyes anywhere. Especially after he disguised himself as a snake when we were merely eight years old and--"

"Changed back and stabbed you. Bleh it's me. I know the story, Thunder," you finished for him, suddenly exceedingly aware of the weight of maybe-Onyx-maybe-Loki on your shoulder despite the tiny feline frame. "But I'm telling you there's just no way that my cat is--"

You looked into Onyx's eyes and immediately your shoulders dropped, realizing that it wasn't a coincidence that his eyes were a familiar shade of blue. Thor was right; he knew his brother's eyes anywhere. The kitten embraced your face, pressing his nose to your cheek repeatedly.

"Onyx, look at me." He stilled against your cheek, his wide pleading eyes looking into yours with something that looked akin to resignation. "You were hissing at FRIDAY and Shaun about getting chipped because you understood everything we were saying. Am I right?" He didn't move, the pupils in his eyes growing wider and the corners of his eyes starting to fill with tears. "Because you're Loki?"

He took a deep breath, this little chest puffing up with air and suddenly looking significantly less cat-like than he did a minute ago. Onyx -- actually, Loki -- pressed his face to your cheek again, the action now making your breath hitch in the back of your throat. Then finally he nodded,  and the air left your lungs.

You walked over to  your apartment, Thor's heavy footsteps following just behind you, and placed Onyx/Loki on your desk in front of a notepad and a pen. "Talk." He looked up at you again with those wide pleading eyes. "Please," you added, unsure of what to feel now that the last few hours you spent with your newfound pet was being colored with the context of who he actually was.

Too many thoughts, too many questions, floated around your head, nearly overwhelming you, as your last round of pain meds began to wear off and the discomfort you were feeling gradually became a throbbing pulsating sensation throughout your left side.

Most of them revolving around why he acted the way that he did in this tiny form with you, and how long this could have gone on if Thor hadn't revealed his identity within ten seconds of seeing him. The blond god pulled out a chair for you to read along as Loki's green magic surrounded the pen and words began to form on the paper.

I made a misstep while practicing my magic and cast a spell that turned me into this diminutive feline form. I had exited my quarters earlier today to find assistance in retrieving the spell I require to reverse its effects.

"Hold on." The pen stopped mid-stroke, the cat looking at you with your hand held up. "If you can make things move with your mind, why couldn't you just get the spell book--"

"Grimoire," Thor corrected you. "He gets a bit testy when you use the other word."

"Right then, why couldn't you just move the grimoire down and reverse the spell on your own?" The pen lifted again, you and his brother crowding around the paper to read his answer.

When I scale down my form to something so vulnerable, my magic is not as potent. In theory the grimoire is only just at the limit of my powers' reach in this form and I run the risk of crushing myself with the tome.

"Loki, are you telling me you need help reaching the top shelf?" Thor chortled at the question, sounding like he was struggling to keep his chuckles at bay. "Can it, Thunder, it's not that funny." The cat nodded at you, starting to stand on his back legs again. "Okay, so why not ask your brother? He's way taller than me."

"Oh that I can answer for him, Lady Y/N," he quipped, raising his own hand up in the air. "My brother doesn't trust me around his possessions. Something about how I have a tendency to break his things."

"You know what, that tracks," you muttered, standing and presenting the kitten your hand. "Come on then, let's get you back to normal." He hopped onto your hand and you were about to put him on your shoulder before you stopped, keeping him perched on your hands instead. He meowed at you, starting to climb up your arm before you picked him up again, keeping him in your hands.

"Think my brother wants to be on your shoulder, Lady Y/N. Seemed quite comfortable there," Thor spoke up, letting out a soft chuckle when the kitten started nodding enthusiastically, agreeing with him. "Perhaps you should--"

"I let him stay there earlier because he was my cat," you shot back. "Now he's your brother, it's not the same thing." He whimpered, his little cat body shaking in your hands, taking every ounce of strength you could spare not to give in and just place him back there. He kneaded at your palms the entire way to his apartment, Thor carrying around your stepping stool.

You all got to Loki's study, setting him down on the desk as he guided you to the grimoire he needed, shaking his head at each tome on the shelf that you'd pointed at so far.

"My word, Brother, your attention to detail in these sketches is remarkable, you even got--" Loki hissed at his brother, who was currently standing by a stack of journals, a small sketchbook in his hand. "Alright alright I desist. I shall take my leave. You shall be the one to divulge this information once you are yourself again."

The blond Asgardian's heavy footsteps sounded throughout the apartment until he left, then a few moments afterward you faintly heard his booming voice as he rejoined the rest of the team. You pointed at another grimoire that finally had him nodding his little head, stepping aside on the desk to make room for you to set it down.

"Okay then," you spoke up once you stepped back down to the ground, suddenly feeling more awkward as you stood alone with him in his apartment. "I'll uhh…I'll leave you to it."

You made it to the door of his study before you heard his tiny meow again, seeing him standing on his back legs at the edge of his desk, grabby hands outstretched towards you.

"I'll see you when you're…you again. Later, Loki." The sound of his little meows tugged at your heartstrings, nearly making you turn around and…honestly you didn't even know why he'd want you there with him but you'd stay if only to wipe the sad look from his face. You couldn't deny the adorable little cat much anyways in the hours he was yours.

Then again, you probably couldn't deny him anything in his Asgardian form, either.

An hour after you walked out of Loki's apartment you were hobbling your way back to yours, having eaten enough to take your next round of medications and toting a compound that Banner whipped up in his lab that could maybe help your injuries heal a touch faster. You had half a mind to just cut the sweatshirt off of you once you got inside to avoid the lingering discomfort, but ultimately decided against it.

That wasn't a good enough reason to let a perfectly good forest green sweatshirt go to waste.

You were about to start using the compound on your ribs first when a voice stopped you. "Darling…"

That voice. You recognized that voice anywhere. Giving you butterflies whenever you heard it in mission briefings. Haunting your vivid fantasies regardless of the time or appropriateness. The voice that had you incapable of forming words on any other day.

"Good to see you back," you said, trying to keep your composure around the god.

You reached for your sweatshirt again to cover yourself from his piercing stormy gaze, but before you could, he stood before you, his hand gently grasping your arm while the other rested on your waist. "I received a message from my brother while I was in my feline form, asking if I could check on your injuries. Aid in your healing somehow, if I feel inclined. His words, not mine." Your breath hitched when his thumbs stroked at your skin more tenderly than any of your former lovers had ever touched you. "I would have done it regardless."

Your pulse was thumping in your ears from his proximity, from the way he held your gaze. From the way he held you like he was fighting every urge to pull you to him. Like he would let you step out of it if that was what you wanted.

But all you wanted at the moment was to ask him, "Why didn't you tell me who you were the second you saw me in the pantry?"

The journal Thor was holding earlier materialized on your desk, diverting your attention to the open page. Probably the page that he was commending earlier that made the raven-haired god hiss at him in cat form. The image on the page had the air leave your lungs.

It was a sketch of you.

"My refusal to look at you before was not from disdain, little mortal," he spoke, taking a step closer to you, his hand traveling up your arm and framing your face. You could feel his breath on  your skin. "It was because every time I would look upon your features, I had to fight back every compulsion to do this."

He tucked his finger under your chin, turning you to face him before pressing a tender kiss to your lips that had you weakening in his hold, your stomach violently fluttering as his lips moved against yours. You whimpered against his lips, making him pull you into his arms, weaving his fingers into your hair.

"I've longed for you, precious mortal," he whispered once he pulled away, pressing kisses along the side of your face while you caught your breath. "To know the taste of your lips on mine. The feel of your supple body pressed against me." He kissed you again, lifting you off your feet and carrying you deeper into your apartment. Into your bedroom. He laid you down on your bed, briefly licking into your mouth before pulling away, making light wash over the room with a wave of his hand. "May I heal you, darling?"

Words failed you at the sight of him hovering over you, eyes wide and pleading as he looked on at the bruises and cuts that colored the left side of your torso. You wordlessly nodded your head to grant him the permission he needed to go forward, giving you a soft smile before he leaned down and pressed his lips to your bruises.

"Much better," he breathed out, nipping at your skin before moving his hands down to the waistband of your leggings, lips traveling down to your thigh and kissing you over the fabric. "Once I have seen to your injuries, you should know that I have every intention to make you mine." He kissed you just below your belly button, humming against your skin as you squirmed underneath him, deft hands working the tight fabric down your legs. "If you wish to be, that is."

"I do," you gasped out, ceasing to give a flying fuck how desperate and wanton you sounded at the moment. "I'm yours, I'm all yours."

He smiled against your skin, kissing away at the injuries you sustained on your left leg before making his way back up your body. "You've no idea how delighted I am to hear those words from you, my darling." You felt what remained of your clothing melting away along with his, your moan when skin met skin muffled by him slanting his mouth over yours.

You woke up the next morning to the feel of Loki's nose brushing against yours, pressing kisses along your face until you let out a soft giggle from his attentions. "Good morning, sweetheart."

Your response had him running his fingers along your sides, turning you into a squirming giggling mess as you tried to wrestle your way out of his hold. "Good morning, Onyx."

A/N: I heavily debated w/ myself if I was gonna put smut in this but ultimately decided not to because it's a fluff story and I wanted it to stay a full fluff story 🥴 Just know that he did, in fact, give her plenty a mango ride 😏😏

This is probs the last story I'll post for 2023, so I'm gonna wish you all a Happy New Year and here's to the whorish insanity we'll all get up to in 2024. I have a whole lot planned out, starting with more horny bitches cuts and…a certain celebration I've been putting off because I'm drowning in a sea of WIPs 😂

'everything' taglist: @simplyholl @loopsisloops @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @kats72 @kikster606 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @peaches1958 @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th  @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @smolvenger @gigglingtiggerv2 @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95 @superficialdomina @anukulee @kmc1989 @november-rayne @goddessofwonderland @buttercupcookies-blog @peaky-marvel @lokiified @tom-hlover

[t-r99]

Thank You

Oliver knows it can be hard to trust him. He would do anything to prove that he changed when he met you.

I spent way too long writing this stupid thing and now I think it’s crap. Bleh

It's because I posted this

Oliver Aiku x reader

wc: 1.3k

"What's going on with you? At this rate we'll be the laughingstock of Japan."

Aiku ignores Niou. For the first time in his life, he's distracted during a match. He's the captain of the team and their best defender, but he can hardly focus on anything other than you and your teary eyes and broken voice.

It's been two days.

It feels longer.

Aiku doesn't like being away from you for this long and that's what's fucking with him. He doesn't know when he got so attached.

He's Oliver Aiku, for goodness' sake. He doesn't do relationship issues, he usually is the issue itself, and he doesn't exactly do relationships either.

It's the first time he's ashamed of being a so called womanizer. Aiku's past antics have finally come back to bite him in the ass.

"You okay there?" Sendou asks.

Everyone is well aware of the fact that something is wrong. Aiku has been mostly quiet and keeping to himself for the past two days, having only practiced like crazy.

"'m fine." Oliver grunts.

"Get yourself together then." Niou says. "We need you out there."

The team needs him, but Aiku needs you. He feels so lost without you that it's nauseating.

Oliver thinks back to two days prior when several old flings suddenly showed up out of nowhere.

It's not like it was ever a secret that he used to get around, but it all changed when he met you. You're so much more than that, and now you think he's just a shameless cheater.

"Aiku," Niou speaks again. "get your shit together. We're going back out in ten minutes."

Oliver . . . doesn't care.

All he wants is to hold you right now. Aiku is sure you hate him, and why wouldn't you? Before you actually gave him a chance, you rejected him because of his past and reputation, then when you finally gave him a chance you ended up walking in on a bunch of girls all over him. How could anyone not think he was cheating?

If only you would talk to him. Oliver just wants to explain what happened.

He's looking down at his phone, screen black. While he wants to text you, he honestly has no idea what to type out anymore.

Aiku's mind drifts again and he thinks back to two days ago.

What do I say? I should . . . He sighs. Oliver really has no idea what to say. He's already called and texted numerous times but you haven’t answered or replied.

He sees your face in front of him again and he hears your voice echo in his mind, "I knew it. This is what I was scared would happen but you promised and now . . ." You didn't yell at him, but he honestly wishes you had. You just sounded defeated.

Aiku wants to bash his head into the nearest wall in an effort to erase the memory from his mind.

His phone vibrates, barely a minute before half time is over.

It's not from you. Of course it isn't. Oliver doesn't recognize the number, but the bottom of the text says that it's from one of your friends, reading, I was asked to text you that you're being pathetic. Come on, you're better than that.

Asked? Asked by whom? By you?

Aiku gulps. Does that mean you're watching the match from home? You've never actually been interested in sports, but if you're watching even when hurt and pissed at him then maybe . . .

Oliver puts his phone away.

He's still a bit distracted now that the second half has begun, but it's not as bad anymore. He now knows you watched the first half and Oliver hopes you're still watching.

You know a bit about the sport even though you're not a fan, and you've praised him for his skills plenty. It swells his ego like never before to have you tell him he did a great job on the field.

He's thinking about it now while facing the opposing team's striker. If everything between you two was okay right now, he would defend the goal and block the shot, make sure no one would score, his team would win, and he would get to go to you and get praised and smothered with kisses all over his face, he absolutely loves it.

God, he really wants to see you.

*

It was close, but they won.

The team celebrates but Oliver sits defeated, towel on his head with his hair covering his eyes.

He managed to get his shit together enough to block every shot from the opposing team but now that the match is over he's once again reminded of how you're not there to tell him he did well.

Aiku takes his gloves off and tosses them to the side.

The team notices, but no one says anything. They think he's mentally reprimanding himself for his performance in the first half.

Oliver only got himself together because he knew you were watching, not wanting to disappoint you. Now he wishes he could just hug you and annoy you with endless, "Did you see what I did? I was amazing, wasn't I?"

He grabs his phone, hoping he'll unlock it to find a message from you, but there's nothing.

Nothing, He thinks, locking it again.

Aiku gets up and showers. The team wants to go out for a celebratory dinner but he declines.

That finally makes everyone start to pester him. One is asking what his issue is, another asks if something happened, someone tells him he's acting weird, but Oliver ignores everything.

"I want to be alone." He says, picking his bag up.

What an idiot he is.

You're too good for him, he doesn't deserve you.

Aiku pushes the exit door open and looks up.

"Wha-. . ."

He's dreaming right?

The second your eyes meet you look down, brows furrowing. You look both hurt and anxious, hands balled into fists by your sides, shifting your weight on your feet, just uncomfortable.

Are you uncomfortable because you're finally in his presence again? The question crosses Aiku's mind and he swears he feels actual physical pain.

He drops his bag.

You're honestly caught off guard when he sprints up to you and engulfs you in a near suffocating hug.

Oliver clings to you desperately, pulling you into his chest with a relieved sigh. He nuzzles into your shoulder for a moment, just enjoying the feeling of holding you in his arms again, then turns his head to kiss your cheek and buries his face in the side of your neck. "I never wanted to hurt you." Aiku mumbles.

He sounds so defeated.

You don't do much, only putting a hand on the back of his head. "What happened the other day?" Your voice is small and quiet.

"I don't know." Oliver admits.

"You ever cheated on me?" You ask.

Deep down you know that the answer is no. Oliver dotes on you and never fails to show how much you mean to him. Sure, you had your doubts in the beginning, but he's never given you a reason to think he was fooling around with others.

Oliver gives a soft, "No." and hugs you tighter.

"Okay." You mumble, playing with his hair. "I believe you."

"Yeah?" Aiku sighs in relief. "Thank you."

"It's not easy, though."

"I know." Oliver is well aware of his reputation. He's never cared before, but he does now. He cares because it affects you. "I'm sorry."

"You were really pathetic in the first half." You suddenly say and he snorts, smiling. "Did my message help?"

"Why didn't you text me yourself?" He asks.

"I wanted to see you in person before talking over the phone."

Oliver pulls back enough to look down at you. You're looking away from him with a small pout on your face, a light blush on your cheeks. "Thank you." He kisses your temple.

[fallstaticexit]

As storytellers, there are so many pieces of our craft and I'm curious how you would rank each step of the process. Rank each of the following on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 lowest, 5 highest):

Setting up the scene (building sets, decorating, etc),

Posing the sims (creating / find poses, and setting up the sims),

Styling the sims (cc hunting, time spent in cas),

Writing the dialogue/story,

Editing the photos.

Send to three other story simblrs and get to know more about each others favorite and least favorite part of this crazy process!

thank you so much!! :))

Setting up the scene (building sets, decorating, etc), Rank: 4

I didn't always, but setting the scene is actually pretty fun and it's one of the many reasons my updates can take such a long time (in a good way! the other reason would be posing bleh) but I love worldbuilding and I love putting in little details in my stories in hopes someone would notice/appreciate or a call back to another moment in time.

Posing the sims (creating / find poses, and setting up the sims), Rank: 1

If I could rank this a 0 I would lmaoo I hateeeeeeee posing, finding a pose , hell, making them sometimes too - even tho I do it. This is what really kills my drive. I will have a scene ready to go, dialogue ready to go , wardrobe ready to go .... but now I have to pose them gahhhhh?? sighhh lol

Styling the sims (cc hunting, time spent in cas), Rank: 5

I love cc hunting so much, and dressing up my characters. I spend maybe too much time on this than necessary but It's by far my fav part of storytelling. It really does tell so much of the story and it's therapeutic for me too.

Writing the dialogue/story, Rank: 4

I love writing. I love dialogue. I wish I would put more of it in paper instead of it 90% of it living inside my head lol.

Editing the photos. Rank: 5

I really don't have to do very much editing, just a little clean up here and there, but for my HAGS comic, that's 100% editing and it's actually very fun and I enjoy doing it a whole lot. It really helps me creatively too, the little details that go into it.

[kaoreta]

It's Not Like That! (Or is it?)

I finally got something done after scrapping a bunch of ideas! Sorry if it's bad though, got a little case of writers block...

Pairing: Floyd x Fem!Reader

Important Notes: You're a Putt-Putt Troll!

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: Takes place after the events of Band Together, reader is an OG BroZone fan and their fav is Floyd, probably some repetitive things here and there lolz

writing is under the cut~

You were rolling around in the sand outside of the bar after BroZones reunion concert, two of Bruce’s kids were behind you, giggling loudly as they chased you around the area.

At some point, you rolled out of their line of sight and your thoughts began to wander…

Being able to see BroZone after all these years, hearing kids laugh cheerfully as you roll around in the summer sun… It all felt so surreal after being stuck in that old bergen golf course for so long.

Buuuut, you didn't have long to think on those thoughts as you accidentally ran into another troll.

Fortunately, the other troll landed on their back. You however, landed face first on the ground, and sand made its way into your mouth.

“Ugh… Oh- Hey, are you alright?”

You heard the other troll say, you quickly pushed yourself up and spat out the sand that was in your mouth before answering them.

“Yeah, I'm fine- Bleh!”

You cut yourself off as you spat out more sand, the other troll chuckled at your actions…

Wait a sec...

That laugh sounds familiar…

Lifting your head up to properly look at the troll you ran into, you saw…

“Wait- Floyd!?”

You questioned with widened eyes, did you really just accidentally run into your favorite BroZone member!? That's so embarrassing…

The embarrassment you were feeling only grew as he nodded and confirmed your words, you groaned out loud as you pulled strands of your hair over your face, mumbling an apology to him.

“It’s alright, mistakes happen… You don't have to hide like that, y’know?”

Ah, just as you’d expect from the sensitive one, his words were so gentle and kind… But now isn't the time for fangirling!!

“U-um… Yeah! You're right…!”

You let go of your hair as you cleared your throat, looking off to the side to hide your embarrassment, have I mentioned you're embarrassed yet?

“Hey… You’re a Putt-Putt Troll, right?”

He asked, you nodded your head, still looking away from him.

“Cool, I hope my older brother wasn't too serious for you.”

Floyd chuckled, you knew he was referring to the time you spent in the bergen golf course and you giggled along.

“He was fine, Viva balanced out his seriousness anyway.”

You replied, finally looking at him with a smile. Floyd only stared at your face as you looked at him, you caught onto this and waved a hand in front of his face.

“Uh… Earth to Floyd??”

You kept waving your hand until he snapped back to reality.

“A-ah… Sorry… I spaced out…”

He said as he turned his head away… Oh, so now it's his turn to do that, neat. You giggled and told him it was fine.

Just as he looked back to you, someone cut off your moment.

“There you are, Floyd!”

Looking over, it was Bruce, his children right behind him.

“And there’s ball girl!!”

One of his children excitedly exclaimed as they pointed to you, you smiled back at them as you got ready to go back into your ball form.

“Wanna play another round?”

You asked them with one eyebrow raised, they cheered a bunch of yes’s and without missing a beat you rolled off again, hearing their laughter and footsteps behind you once again.

“So, what’s that troll's name?”

“It's… uh…”

Floyd trailed off, Bruce laughed as he watched his younger brother struggle to remember.

“Did you forget to ask? That's not a great start to getting a girl, y’know?”

Floyd groaned at his older brother's words, feeling embarrassed by them.

And that embarrassment only grew as another one of his brothers overheard Bruce.

“Wait… Floyd’s got a crush!?”

JD exclaimed, eyes widened and mouth agape.

“N-no! It's not like that…”

[stephdrawsjohnlock]

SHER – :The Witcher AU: Procreate on iPad Pro

Ooooof okay so I've been working on this one for a LONG time, probably for a year or so; I kept going back to it in between other projects, so long in fact that this pic is the one I discovered a new colouring style that's super subtle but it looks so much better on the skin tones of characters, AND found a new marker brush that works like my traditional media so it looks way more like my original art.

So late 2023 I bought The Witcher 3 Complete Edition when it went on a 20$ sale on the PS Store, on a recommendation for "Best Long RPG Open World Games" video. I've always wanted to try it and OMG, I LOVED IT. I put in over 200 hours into the game and I just got so immersed in it. Never read the books, watched the show, nor ever played the original games before this one, but wow I was SO immersed in this world for nearly 6 months. It was so SO good, I loved it so much. The music is fantastic, the collection grind is PERFECT (I'm one of those weirdo gamers who LOVES the collection grind... probably why I love AC Valhalla so much when everyone else hates it), and the story is incredible. The DLCs were super fun too, I just didn't finish the Blood and Wine one because of that stupid vampire boss fight at the end, I got so frustrated LOL. I finishedthe game, I think, back in late spring of 2024, and honestly it's now one of my fave games. I might even check out the show now, and maybe read the books. The world of the Witcher is SO interesting.

ANYWAY, while I was playing the game I was like "OMG THIS NEEDS A SHERLOCK AU", just like every game I play, hahahah. So in my version, John is a Witcher (probably with a more fanciful name like Johann or something LOL), Sherlock is in the role of Yennifer the Sorceress and maybe Rosie as Ciri? I dunno I just think that the Witcher 3 is a PERFECT Sherlock AU that I needed, like, yesterday LOL. I would write it myself if I knew the lore and world-building of The Witcher much better. It would be SUCH a great adventure story for the Sherlock AU.

I spent far too long on this one, but I actually REALLY love it, which is rare for me. I have also posted the single character pics because I spent AGES on each of them, holy Christmas-Crackers, and I covered most of John and I want y'all to see him!! I LOVE doing LOTS of details on any piece I do, but it's also my weakness in my art because I focus too much on it. But I am SUPER happy with their designs I ended up doing... the pattern on Sherlock's outfit is the wallpaper, hee hee. I dunno why I think I'm so clever for that, bleh.

I hope you guys like this as much as I do, and I hope you all ALSO SEE MY VISION. I need to do way more Sherlock AU pieces. I love doing them so much. I might draw Geralt and Yen in the future the next time I'm on a Witcher kick because their characters are really neat, I like them a lot.

Cheers all :)

🖼 I’M ON INSTAGRAM at stephdrawsfanart 🎨 @stephratte is my Primary Fanart Blog! Art © to S.G.M. Ratté. Do not repost or sell.

(Tags below cut, dm to be added/removed)

@queerbeess

@ayryn-art

@antisocial-otaku

@havetardiswilltimetravel

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@loveismyrevolution

[siren-serenity]

a bouquet and scored dates

A bouquet of flowers is a surefire way to score a date with your crush. Seeing it go viral on Magicam immediately made Cater jump in on it too! Who wouldn't want to take this opportunity to blow up their account? And if Cater managed to score a date to the Unbirthday party too, then that's a lovely bonus.

characters: cater diamond, gn!reader, grim cameos!! warnings: fluff, tiny bit of angst and self-hate a/n: - i feel so bleh for not writing for slow long so here you go!! a small cater diamond x reader fic bc i love my husband 😍😍😍 - @ceruleancattail, this is also for you!! united by our love for cay-cay, who slay-slays hehe - feedback is appreciated!

A knock against the old, rickety door of Ramshackle made you blink your eyes wearily. Grim leaped off your stomach, walking around the wooden floors before yawning.

"Who disturbed the great Grim's nap?" He yowled out, obviously annoyed. "Come on, I was having such a nice sleep!"

You sat up, rubbing your eyes. "Mhmm...tell me about it."

The knock came again, this time more urgent. There was almost a playful pattern to it, a rhythmic beat building into a melody of taps and raps.

"Coming!" You yelled, sliding across the floors (and proceeding to trip over an uneven wooden board, making one of the three ghosts giggle at you) before landing in front of the door. You swung it open and a grin crawled onto your face. "Cay-Cay!"

The orange-haired student smiled sweetly before winking at you. "It's your favorite junior, Cay-Cay! Good morning, Y/N."

Leaning against the doorframe, you tilted your head. "It's always nice to see you in the morning, but whatcha here for? Classes don't start for another hour..."

You trailed off as a beautiful bouquet came into view. Cater blushed as your scrutinising glance shifted from the gorgeous array of flowers to his face. He fought the urge to hide his face behind the flowers and took a deep breath in. Hopefully, he won't butcher it up! He spent hours on making it perfect all by himself.

(Riddle and Trey let out a sneeze simultaneously before returning to their business.)

...But of course, when did things go to plan?

"So I saw this one Magicam trend online and was like 'OMG those flowers look so adorbs! So I decided to make a couple to follow the trend and wow, I blew up!! The flowers look so beautiful on pictures that people went crazy liking them and I got over a thousand likes in the first hour! So, realizing my talent, I was like 'hey, Y/N likes flowers right?" So I went in the botanic garden, BTW Leona says hi and warns you to never get anywhere near Savanaclaw or the guys will rip you up from limb to limb. IDK but anyways! I got some flowers, put a bit of tender, love, and care, and voila!"

Cater held out the flowers as an explanation. He internally frowned at the ramble he had spoken rather than the touching, sentimental paragraph he planned on reciting. But when your fingers brushed against his to grasp onto the bouquet, his mind blanked out.

Soft...your hands were so gentle against his. A soft breeze caressing a petal.

You took them and held them up to your nose to inhale its sweet scent. It wasn't overpowering, thankfully; It was the right blend of fresh wilderness and soft, subtle floral scents.

"This is...Cater, I'm lost for words," You breathed out.

He gulped and his heart stuttered at the joy in your eyes and your smile. He knew being magicless in a world like his was no easy feat. It was even harder to ignore when every lesson involved the use of magic one way or another; Being surrounded by mages day-by-day would have caused him to go insane if he were you. But, you simply stride onwards. He admired your persistence and optimistic approach to life and it was what had drawn him to you in the first place. Being able to put a smile onto your face made him yearn for an eternity to do that for you, right by your side.

Realizing he hadn't spoken in a while, he cleared his throat.

"Riddle's hosting an Unbirthday party tomorrow."

You raised your gaze from the bouquet to meet his, (E/C) eyes against emerald ones. Cater fiddled with the buttons of his dorm uniform.

It was now or never!

"Would you like to attend with me?"

You laughed and nodded. "Of course I do! I'll go and tell Grim about the party-"

"-I meant with me. As my date," Cater blurted out. His face must be as red as his vest because his cheeks felt as if they were set aflame. "Would you like to attend the Unbirthday party tomorrow as my date?"

"Oh Cater..."

He closed his eyes and tightened his fists involuntarily. He opened his mouth, ready to put a fake (fake feelings, fake friends, mask on his face as usual-) before he felt the softest of kisses against his cheeks.

His eyes shot open as Cater stared at you, faintly registering the close proximity between you and him. The bouquet paper crinkled against his uniform but it seemed that neither of you paid any attention to it.

"I would love too," You smiled softly. "Tell me how you'd like to match? I know you love coordinate couple outfits on Magicam."

Yet another reason why he loved liked you.

"Yeah," He breathed out. "Yeah, yeah I'm going to go do that."

You leaned back and he yearned for your presence again, like a plant bending to the whims of sunlight. It was simply intoxicating.

"See you in class, Cay-Cay," You winked. The bouquet remained clutched in his hands and he was forever grateful for that silly Magicam trend.

He blew you a playful kiss, elation in his veins and joy in every corner of his smile. "Can't wait!!"

Cater skipped all the way back to Heartslabyul, too busy planning your and his outfits to notice the odd glances cast his way.

[jubileeena]

BEHOLD: MALWARE AU

So. We all know Turbo. He's kind of the flavour of the month right now. He's a horrible little piece of shit and we love him for that!

As a result of a couple posts that I'll link when I'm on desktop (or you can look through my blog its some of my most recent reblogs) and That One Video Essay I got to thinking about how much of Turbo's actions came from his nature, what cropped up out of desperation and jealousy, and what came from the nightmare virus that ate him. Then I got to writing. A lot. And now I have a monster fanfic that might or might not ever get written but I might actually explode if I don't share some of it.

This snippet revolves around Vanellope, mostly, and my continuous ongoing realization that modding/slightly retexturing video games is actually a lot easier than I thought it was. Enjoy!

Prologue

Vanellope hasn't been a part of her own game for 15 years. It's long since figured out how to function around her, but now King Candy's been dealt with via hot cola insecticide and she adamantly refuses to ride in his little vanilla-white kart. Not with her own baby waiting right there for her.

Except the game really really wants her to.

The kart bakery is supposed to be a fun side minigame. The kart lasts until the player stops feeding the game quarters, then it will restore itself to the default kart for the racer.

She's been carefully ignoring the crackling parts of code that bubble up around her when she revvs the engine too hard for days now, telling herself it was just remnants of her own glitch messing with her driving. But right after she crossed the finish line at the end of the final race of that day, it glitched so badly she was left lying on the track as it rammed itself into the boundary.

She'd spent most of that evening moping around and complaining under her breath about the mess her predecessor had left her - - until she thought huh. If Turbo could program his whole throne-stealing butt into the game, why couldn't she just... Slip in and fix her kart?

Sour Bill didn't seem happy at all when she slipped behind the curtain of her throne room (bleh. Needed to redecorate that soon. Way too princess-y for her taste), but he dutifully agreed to stand guard as she followed the instructions on the handy little piece of paper that lay discarded on the floor.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, START

Yes! She jumped into the darkness without thinking, entranced by the nebula of nodes and string of information that made the glitch constantly buzzing under her skin sing.

This is what she was meant for. This was why the game kept her around. It loved her.

Her node was easy to find, set in the center as it was with streams of code coming from it. She blipped up to it, and kicked her feet excitedly as she floated in place, and tapped it to enlarge it.

Wow, it really was easy. All she had to do was find her primary kart file, and swap it with the one in the Bakery's subfolder that held the information for her baby, and that was that. No wonder King Boogerface managed to mess things around so much, if what was all it took.

Task complete, she turned around to try and reorient herself to find the exit again, but a flickering node caught her eye.

It was strobing worse than any of the others, and there was no visible text on it to give any clue as to what it could be. She blipped over to it and tapped on it-

Only to be thrown backwards as it quadrupled in size, mangled streams of code now visible through it's translucent surface.

She glitched again to lose her momentum and stop somersaulting through the void, then back towards the code box. She reached a hand inside and flicked her wrist in a movement she instinctively remembered, and pressed confirm when the prompt came up to clear the cache memory.

It spluttered for a moment, then as if expelling a sickness the darkness bled from the body of the node and dissolved into the void, leaving behind a little red code box, smaller and less defined than the rest, connected to everything with only a thin strand but with it's pixelated text quite clear for her to read, and her breath hitched.

Turbo

[cecexwrites]

Novel November Day 2

Prompt: The sound of metal scraping against stone drew your attention. You look up from the corner where you are bound and… Words: 1849/1750 TW: kidnapping @novelnovember

My arms were going numb, the ache I had felt in my shoulders was dissipating and I was sure that was a bad sign, a very bad sign. A no good very bad sign. I tried to readjust but the ties holding my arms behind my back were giving nothing. I was truly starting to worry about how my hands would fare when I got out of this. 

If I got out of this. 

I had to focus on the worry of losing my hands because if I focused for too long on the very real risk of losing my life then I would go nuts. As it stood, I couldn't take my eyes off the wall, off the shadows dancing against it, the shadows that shouldn't be there. 

"Leave me alone." I rasped. I was all at once grateful they'd taken me before I'd gotten a chance to drink my morning glass of water because it took care of the 'how do I go pee' problem but also it meant I was already dehydrated, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, my throat raw from screaming for help. Help that wasn't going to come. I had no idea where I was, or what day it was. All I knew was there was a real risk of finger amputation and the shadows on the wall were getting bigger. 

I didn't hear a door open, I may have missed it, my eyes were so focused on the wall. They were dancing, how were they dancing, the single light source in this hellscape wasn't moving, nothing in this room should have been moving but the shadows-

My thoughts were interrupted by a sound, a sound that made my teeth hurt. Metal, thin metal, it was scraping against stone. More specifically, concrete which is what the wall behind me was made of. 

'Good,' I thought 'They can fight the shadows' I looked back over my shoulder, a new shadow appearing, this one taller, broader. It's arm was long, impossibly long, ending in a knife. My heart was going to pound out of my chest and I whimpered, squeezing my eyes shut. This was it. 

--------------------------------

I was never at full capacity before I'd had my morning coffee. Yes, I know it was a terrible Millennial trait 'Can't live without coffee' 'don't talk to me before I have my morning coffee' bleh bleh bleh. Years spent at a highly competitive boarding school had left me with both a wild competitive streak and a crippling caffeine addiction. It is what it is. I stretched my arms up over my head wincing at the sound of my bones cracking. I really needed to get a mattress topper, this school-issued thing just wasn't cutting it. I kicked my blankets down off of me and stood up, smoothing my silky nightgown down over my hips. 

first clothes, then water, then coffee. I dug through my corner of clothes, I'd been so busy lately that properly hanging things up had fallen to the wayside. I was contemplating the absurdity of hiring a housekeeper to come work on my dorm as I chucked a few things over my shoulder, looking for the outfit I wanted. 

Finally, I managed to unearth the black skinny jeans from the bottom of the clean clothes pile. The top I had in mind, thankfully, was hung up so it wouldn't be wrinkled to all hell. I quickly dressed, stopping in front of the mirror to fix my hair. 

I made a mental note to book an appointment for the salon as I raked my hands through the thick black locks. I had been working hard, I deserved a good blow-out and I desperately needed a trim. 

I glanced at the time, it was still pretty early, good, I'd be out before He woke up. I wrinkled my nose, I hated that I was changing my own schedule just because of him. I hated that he had any sort of power over me. Even just enough to make me wake up an hour earlier in the hopes of avoiding seeing him when I was vulnerable. Coffee was my bitch juice. The halls were quiet as I made my way towards the cafe. Most of the people who woke up this early were going for a run outside. I didn't like running in England, I hated it more here in New York. I preferred going to the gym, where it was a little warmer than the cold wet of my birthplace and my chosen home, as well as the chances of someone sneaking up on me being way less. I walked by the front doors of the building stopping when I realized they were open, wide open. They'd never been like that. Even on move-in day, they'd been closed. Each person having to open the heavy doors for themselves. I paused, staring at them, confused. 

"Weird." I stepped towards them, sticking my head out and glancing around, there was no one out there. I stepped fully out of the building and down a few stairs so my vision was unblocked. 

that was when the hand wrapped around my mouth, a strong body dragging me off as I screamed against their gloved hand, kicking and trying to fight, but I was no match for the much bigger person behind me. 

They dragged me away and into a car. I felt the prick of a needle puncturing my skin and that was the last thing I remembered before waking up in this stupid little corner of this stupid little room where I was going to die as the shadow got bigger and closer. I pressed against the wall, trying to curl up into the corner I'd been left in. 

---------------------------------------

"Not again, not again, not again," I muttered, my forehead pressing to my knees. The shadows wouldn't overtake me, I'd worked so hard to fight them off, to keep the shadows from taking over. I would keep fighting, I had to keep fighting. When I felt the ghost of a touch on my ankle I lashed out, kicking as hard as I could from the position I was in. My foot connected with something and the shadow cursed. 

"Son of a bitch, Printsessa, don't fucking do that." 

My eyes snapped open at the voice, the familiar voice, the Russian lilt to the stupid nickname that only one person called me. 

"Luka?" I gasped. 

"It's me, It's just me." His hands were rough as he moved me, turning me around to face the wall, there was a 'snick' sound and my arms dropped free, the pain of movement hit me like a train, but I didn't focus too hard on it, I didn't get a chance, Luka picked me up in his arms, I couldn't even move my arms enough to wrap them around his neck to take on some of my weight but he seemed wholly unbothered. as he headed for the stairs. I glanced over my shoulder at the shadows, their spindly arms reaching out, brushing against his back, trying desperately to pull me back in. 

The door had been kicked in, and part of the frame was hanging at an odd angle as he carried me out of the dungeon I'd been kept in. Most would call it a basement but was there a difference when the purpose was holding someone against their will? Luka stopped abruptly as if something had occurred to him at that moment. 

"Close your eyes." He ordered. 

"Why?"

"Just do it, Sloane, don't argue with me." He sounded both harsh and tired so while my soul told me to fight he, wasn't the boss of me, I closed my eyes, pressing my face against his chest. I focused on the beat of his heart, I could feel it. One, two, three, his heart rate was elevated. 

"Why is your heart racing?" I asked, my voice muffled against his soft shirt, the same stupid henly-style shirt he wore daily. I could picture it in my head, the sleeves were long but he always pushed them up to his elbows instead of just wearing something short-sleeved like a normal person. With his stupid forearms on display, the corded muscles visible under the smooth tan skin, my brain always wondered how it would look with his hands around my throat-

Not now. 

"Okay, you can look now." I felt the change in the air, it was no longer warm and damp, it was cold and damp. I opened my eyes and we were outside. It was dark and I didn't recognize anything. 

"Where are we?" I asked. 

"Outside the city." was the answer I got. He carried me to a car and grunted, a man dressed in all black appeared next to us, opening the door for Luka then running back off into the building. Luka sat me down in the backseat and I finally got a good look at him. 

He was a mess. His normally handsomely ruffled golden hair was an actual mess, he had dark circles under his eyes, his eyes wide and wild, searching me. 

"What happened? Did they touch you? did they hurt you? why would you say not again?" My entire body jolted at that. 

"They didn't touch me, My arms hurt but I'm okay." Okay apparently my voice wasn't okay, it was hard to get the words out and it felt not unlike sandpaper. 

"Shit," he shouted something in Russian and a few moments later a bottle of water floated into view. I knew it was held by a gloved hand, it wasn't floating, but I couldn't think about the gloved hand, the way it wrapped around my mouth, how the person dragged me away with no problem. 

God fucking dammit. Jonathan had been right. I was a liability. I was an easy target that could be used against the people I loved. And Luka. Who I most certainly didn't love. The water was opened and held out to me. I stared at it a moment, as if unsure what to do with it. Luka sighed and rolled his eyes, moving closer and tipping my head back. He carefully tipped the bottle towards my open mouth, the water was cold and refreshing, it was perfect. It ran down my sore throat and I winced, he started to pull back but I shook my head enough that he could see it but not so much that it would spill the water, when I was done, I tapped his arm and he let me sit upright. 

"What the hell happened?" he asked. I opened my mouth to answer but there was a shout, a lot of shouts. 

"Bomb!" Someone managed to articulate. Luka shoved me over in the seat and jumped in the car. Someone else jumped in the front and with a squeal of rubber, we were off, just as the building behind us exploded. 

[thegoblinwitch]

tmi under the cut

spent way too long shaving this morning. but i absolutely loath body hair on myself* esp pubic hair, and it was getting out of control. so regardless of of how many spoons it requires of me, IT HAD TO GO.

i mean when it's long (relatively anyway), i always end up distracted and instead of playing with my clit will star pulling the hair out because i just CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS SHIT.

at least now it's all smooth, which yay, but i know that by tomorrow it's gonna start getting prickly again, so bleh.

but it will def be using it tonight as an excuse to masturbate, because fuck it.

*it's a sensory issue rather than an aesthetic one - the feeling of the hair moving (at the root level, so it's not the me touching hair that's the issue and on other people i don't care one way or the other) is horrible and since it rubs against clothes and stuff, it's a never ending suffering AND I HATE IT. def thinking about getting laser/electrolysis to be done with it once and for all

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 1.9.2024

Bleh. I was holding off doing this update, hoping I was going to be able to report that I had finished That Stupid Scene that I have been working on since before Christmas. I had so many thoughts in my head while I was cooking dinner and then, when I actually sat down to write, they had departed. Maybe they'll be back tomorrow.

In any case, I did make a huge amount of progress this week. It was hard! I had a lot of writing time, which was nice, except that I spent a lot of it staring out the window or clicking on my other browser tabs, which is always very irritating. However, I did manage to get most of it written, and it hit all the bullet points I needed it to. I basically just have to wrap it up and transition into what happens next. It shouldn't actually be that hard, I'm just tired and I'm not sure I can swing it right now. It's a big scene, too-- I clocked 4,375 words on it this week in addition to the 900 I already had, so it's probably going to be about half the chapter.

I've had a feeling for quite some time that I had not actually budgeted enough space in the outline for the back half of this fanfic. The thing is, though, it is nearly always the case that an extra chapter manages to sneak in somewhere along the way. I decided to just leave the outline as it was, and that way, if an extra chapter appeared, then my pacing problem would sort itself. That...may be happening. I am not entirely sure. I'm in sort of a weird place where I simultaneously feel like I am very close to done and also very, very far away from being done. Hopefully, in the next week or two (that is, when I finish Ch 7), that will sort itself out. Either that, or I'll just keep writing chapters, like Zeno's fanfic. I sincerely hope that doesn't happen. I will die.

Ugh, I want to post. I am wallowing in the pit of it's been so long since I posted, I feel like I have literally stopped existing, and I keep getting dumb urges to "just take a little break and write a short one" (note that I do not actually have any ideas towards "a short one", it's 100% urges only). Anyway, I definitely do not want to do that, because I want to finish this one very, very badly, and it's taking long enough as is. What I should probably do is polish up Chs 5 and 6 and send them to the beta, but that would require coming up with a name for the art museum that I placeholdered a bunch of times in Ch 5. I actually named it in Ch 1 and then decided I didn't like it and needed to rename and I just haven't yet.

Speaking of names, I've also fallen into It-Needs-a-Title Madness, where I start to go Actual Nuts because I can't think of a title for this stupid fanfic. I forgot that in addition to staring out the window, I spent a lot of time looking through the lyrics of songs on my Ductwork playlist and googling for, like, "phrases with injury" in them. I hate this. It's such a waste of time and yet I do this every time. Why can't you pay someone $10 to name your fanfic for you? Can I just call it "Ductwork"? Does it even matter? (it does matter. I regret every terrible title I have ever slapped on a fanfic in a fit of "Fuck It, We Post")

In other news, I drew all seven days last week (the theme was fruits and vegetables). I took yesterday off, but then I drew a can of soup today, which was hard. It's cool. The people in art club are very nice. I am really hoping to draw a Rukia for her birthday. I have never drawn a bankai Rukia, and I'd like to give it a shot. I bet it would be a lot easier if I could resist doing a full body shot, but somehow, I always do a full body shot. We'll see!!

[dumbass-404]

DL!Jason character exposition / explanation

content warning discussion of bad mental health

Jason’s mental health problems really kicked up around his freshman year mainly because he broke it off with Forest Scouts and his friends (he kept all his eggs in a basket). The transition into high school may have had a part in it, if only because people expected him to be more independent (parents and teachers) when he was isolating himself (His grades are fine, he’s the type to not need to study that much. He’s putting minimal effort into school and skirting bye with B’s and C’s, but he doesn’t have the numbers to brag about). He stayed in his room 24/7, and boredom is your enemy when you have issues and internet access. He spent a lot of time browsing gore and triggering tags on now-X (iykyk) and destroying his self-image, because Obviously if he’s doing this, he’s a degenerate and doesn’t deserve love. Repeat cycle of self hatred. 

That summer he did something that sparked a “recovery” period, but idk if you know this, recovery is fucking terrible when you don’t tell anyone you’re doing it. He got the job to help change things up, and tried to “pull himself together”, but he had his fair share of relapses. He also didn’t try to make friends, under the assumption that he didn’t deserve them until he got better, which is NOT HOW THAT WORKS. He gets frustrated with himself and thinks he'll never improve, and while it's not much, he does gets slightly better with the change in environment (not being stuck in your room does WONDERS for you). Just not as much as he "should be". So.

Come around to junior year (start of fic), he’s still going through the motions of recovery with no support system. He’s been in the same situation for so long, that he believes its never going to change until he leaves for good. Aka going to college. He may not have the grades or extracurriculars (or motivation) to go anywhere ‘good’ but it’s his only option. There’s no choice, he’ll go anyway he can, he just needs to LEAVE. Once Jason gets friends and pulls himself further out of the hole, he starts thinking about the future in less vague terms (mainly because Craig has a ranked list of colleges and talks about it constantly, and Vanessa is going to community college but that's way too close to home for comfort for Jason, and aaaah, aaaaaaaaah), but he thinks he’s too far gone to change anything, so why try now? 

Bleh. He makes me sick. 

[wriitingcautious]

Something Outré

Bed-Stuy, 1976

“What’s wrong with it?” 

Two boys stood in an empty lot between tenements, shielded from street view by evening darkness and a battered chain-link fence. A spindly, barren oak swayed mildly in the wind above them. Eddison, scrawny and little and brown, had a stick the width of his forearm hanging from one loosely clenched fist, just looking for a reason to poke at the twisted, ashen figure before them.

“It’s a she,” Almer said. Broad and short and dark, he squatted even closer to the ground than he normally was to clinically examine the situation. The dirt under the woman was dry and crumbly, almost gravel. 

“Well, she’s ugly.”

“She’s dead, you bozo,” Al chided. “You want her to look like a beauty queen?”

Edd jerked his head up so fast it could have snapped his skinny neck, mouth in a tight “o,” eyes gleaming. 

“Is she really? That’s a dead body? No shit?”

“No shit.” He gave a glorious eye roll, truly one of his best ones. He practiced them in the mirror. “Can’t you see?”

“Well it’s not like I go lookin’ at dead bodies all the time! How should I know?” 

“She’s not breathing, for one thing.”

Edd mirrored Al, leaning on the stick as he got low, like a safari guide tracking scat. More gently than Al would have expected, Edd held his pointer finger under the gray nostrils and waited for the tickle of moving air. 

“Huh.”

“Yep.” He nodded sagely. “Dead for a while, too. She’s stiff as a board, gone into rigger more-tee.” The phrase “rigor mortis” was Latin, not French like Al thought, but having only ever read the words in his less savory library loans, Al didn’t know the difference.

Edd snorted. “Who’s Morty?”

“First guy to cut open a dead body,” Al replied primly, as though he had any idea what he was talking about.

“Oh, like Ben Franklin for the nasties.”

“Yep!”

They chortled as school boys do, for a bit. Then Edd pulled back and took the humor with him, fidgety.

“Should…should we tell somebody?”

Al considered, twirled his fingers. The woman must have been pretty, once, her brows high and arched, jaw delicate, lids round in a way that suggested she’d have big eyes like Twiggy if they were open. Someone out there must want to know what happened to her.

Then again, if Al were a pretty lady, he wouldn’t want anyone he knew to see him brought low like this, skin all the wrong color, lips chapped. Her spine twisted unnaturally. The fine cap of short black hair on her head was lifted a little at the edges, and Al realized it was a wig.

He must have spent too long considering because Edd jerked a little and smiled that smile he got when taken with a stupid idea.

“Wait a minute, you seen Walking Tall?” 

“The one with the wrestler?”

“No, the one with the gambler who got framed for murder.”

“Pretty sure that one’s called Framed. Saw it with my uncle Dennis.” 

“Whatever.” Edd hunched like he was going to shove Al before he remembered there was a dead body between them. “Point is, let’s scram before the cops come and pin this on us!”

Al didn’t think that made any sense, but then he remembered that the very same Uncle Dennis who took him to the movies once got arrested for standing too near a liquor store that got robbed the night prior, so then Al thought maybe it did make sense.

He took one last long look at the beautiful, screwed-up corpse, and then he sighed.

“Okay, let’s get outta here. My ma’s making casserole with sausage.” Edd barked a laugh.

“Bleh, your mama’s casserole tastes like shit!”

“You’ll eat that shit and you’ll like it, boy!” They were on their feet and meandering towards the fence now, so Al took the chance that Edd hadn’t before, and shoved him. They roughhoused like that all the way to the gap in the chain-link from which they’d entered and only stopped to wriggle back out. 

Pain bit into Al’s hand as pulled himself through the fence.

“Aw, shit!” He hissed. He’d cut himself on the metal, blood curling in his dry palm. As Al wrapped his hand in his tee and steeled himself to get cussed out upon returning home, Edd was leveling a protracted stare back inside the lot. 

“Look.” Edd smacked Al’s shoulder but didn’t turn his gaze away. 

“What? I’m gonna get tetanus, leave me alone—”

“Look, damnit!”

Still cradling his hand, Al looked. He squinted through the weeds and the darkness for the body—maybe one of the local possums had taken an interest? Edd and Al could both agree that possum-watching was worth stopping for.

“I don’t see anything.”

“‘Cuz there’s nothing to see, genius! She’s gone!”

Al did a double take.

“What the hell…?” Edd was right, for once. The patch of brown dirt under the oak was empty now. No sign of the body.

As Al peered through the lattice, the fence wobbled minutely in front of him. The air seemed to go still, all of a sudden. Al felt his skin prickle, a shiver that ran up from the base of his spine to the top of his head and pulled him like a marionette to look skyward. 

Balanced cat-like on top of the fence, staring down at the boys, was the body. She looked weightless and superlunary and predatory, wiry muscles in her arms flexed, poised to strike. To get from where she had lain to her new perch, she’d have to be lightning fast. Her eyes were open, bright and sharp and Al and Edd were trapped in the amber of them.

Then she moved, silent, like the whole world was holding its breath around her. The whole world, except for Edd, who screamed:

“Shit, fuck! Shit, c’mon!” He took off down the block. Al barreled after him and the last dregs of hopeful daylight fled at the sound of their sneakers beating the pavement. The saying goes that if a bear chases you in the woods, you don’t need to be faster than the bear—you just need to be faster than your buddy. This wasn’t the woods and the creature behind them was nothing so natural as a bear, but none of that mattered because Al was not faster than anything. 

They made it home, anyway, to Al’s. But even as the door was latched shut behind them and his mama came hollering out of the kitchen like the devil’s most fearsome foot-woman, Al still felt like they were being chased. Pursued. Al thought that if the body had followed them at all, it was the scent of his blood that she tracked.

Crown Heights, 2024

Almer was sitting at one end of the sticky counter in the corner of the music bar, which was tiny in size but mighty in decibels. When he got there, it was still a little light out, and the place was mostly empty save for the young-ish barman and a woman playing solitaire in the other corner. He’d been pleased to have a seat right by the big, open barn window, looking out into the paved garden with its plastic chairs and tables and twinkly-lighted gazebo as the sunset. He was utterly unaware, however, of just how prime his behind’s real estate was until the steel pan man started setting up and patrons began to flood the place, as if they’d been waiting for his cue. Now Al was squished between a guy who was far too drunk for dusk and a gaggle of young women who looked like they’d been drawn to blaring music, expecting a club, and were mildly perturbed to find live amateur musicians and a place inhabited mostly by geriatric locals. 

Al, while just about geriatric, supposed he was technically not a local, even though he was born and grew up just a neighborhood away; he wasn’t in with this crowd, didn’t have one of their sundry shades of lilting accents. The Trini patrons looked like they all knew each other, familiar arms thrown over shoulders, heads tossed back in raucous laughter. Hell, they almost looked related, with a motley of mixed features that somehow coalesced into something that identified them as a group. But Al was not one of them, and they ignored him unless he was ordering a drink. That was just fine by him. He was rarely in the mood for conversation, but tonight was especially suited to aloneness. Edd’s funeral had been earlier that day.

 (Edd drove himself into the ground in his later years and death was frankly a blessing for him; this didn’t leave Al any less bereft.)

Speaking of a drink, though: Al had been nursing the same glass of rum-and-coke-flavored ice water for the past hour, trying to keep his hold on the good view and gentle breeze. But he was tiring of the noise a little, and wanted a refill, and the girls were craning their necks like fashionable ostriches to see the band. He decided to be chivalrous and finally gave up his seat.

The space he left was filled almost immediately by bodies. Al elbowed his way through the throng to the bar. There, he saw another small cluster of young people: two men, two women. One of the men turned his head and Al's eyes caught on a flash of something that shimmered. 

The young man had sparkly purple and green eyelids like glittering fish scales, and fake lashes each as long as a small knife. A gold ring dangled under his nose from the septum. He lifted his drink to glossy lips and his nails were pink and sharp on the rim of the glass. 

Al tried to look away, succeeding only for as long as it took to order another rum and coke. Leaving the house all dolled up like that just wasn’t something you should do, as a man. It was embarrassing to be seen that way. Right? Right. The kid was lucky he didn’t go out looking like that to a Jamaican spot. Al knew from experience.

He looked up when the barman handed him his drink, and when he glanced back at the boy, he found himself watched in return. The kid himself wasn’t looking at him, but the two girls between him and Al were shooting not-so-surreptitious glances at him, lips curled in disgust. The boy looked edgy now. 

Ah. Al was caught staring—green-eyed, but there was no way for the kids to know that. He took his drink and fled. 

He thought about going home, but memories and regret and simple longing for his youth threatened to trammel him if he went without distraction. So Al wandered around to the garden and asserted himself into the thick crowd and overbearing noise. He found his place across from the entrance, partly under the gazebo, next to a crate that housed a few abandoned shot glasses. People were taking turns breaking it down at the front of the crowd to the whooping cheers of their friends. Smartphones were out, recording; one was on a tripod facing the band (Al didn’t even know they made those for phones). There was one, singular, very pleasant-looking white guy in a fisherman’s hat and loud shirt, leaning half-casual to one side, bobbing his head placidly along to the music. Bless him. 

Someone shouted right next to Al’s ear and he jumped, turned to look. A man was gesturing wildly between his spilled drink on the ground and a very inebriated woman who looked as contrite as one could manage in that state. She nodded along at his ranting, frog blinking, fizzy liquid dripping down her left arm, and soaking her blouse. 

A hand appeared as if from thin air, curling around the dry, right arm. Al’s eyes followed it up a sinewy appendage, curving over narrow shoulders and pointed collar bones, to land, inexorably, on a beautiful, horrible, familiar face.

The face was moving, speaking, coaxing the drunk woman, a few placating words spared for the man. Al heard none of it over the roaring in his ears. 

It was her: the gray corpse from that empty lot forty years ago, same cheekbones, same jaw, same brow. Except she wasn’t gray now, she was vibrant and vital and brown, grin sharp and shining like the crescent moon rising above, dark eyes glittering. Dark eyes?

Dark eyes. They flitted over Al’s (surely terror-stricken) face. It was so quick, but he could swear she recognized him, her lips twitching significantly before she gusted past him.

Was it really her? How could it be? Al always thought the pure silver pallor of her skin that he remembered, like matte face paint, was an embellishment made by time and many iterating nightmares, but he was sure that the thing he and Edd had seen didn’t look so alive, even when it ambulated.

The new, maybe-human thing guided the drunk woman towards a rusted metal side door, the crowd parting around them. She had long braids all down her back, colorful beads at the ends. Those things were always so noisy, clacking like rattlesnakes (bad enough on little girls playing double-dutch, but now grown women were wearing them too, apparently).

Al realized that he couldn’t hear the beads. The drunk woman’s heels scraped the pavement, but the silence of the body’s gait was loud, even over the calypso. 

Without entirely thinking about it, Al followed.

 Inside there was a dark little hallway, one door leading to a backroom from which the sounds of a busy kitchen poured, and a stairwell going down at the end. Red light pulsed softly from the bottom of the steps. Al descended.

He came down onto the unfinished cement floor, went around a corner, and there she was: the body entwined with that of the drunk woman, holding her slumped weight, mouth on her neck. The room smelt of bitters and iron. 

Al was vaguely aware of shadowy figures in the periphery, in amongst the kegs and fridges, their glasses sloshing with dark, red stuff. But he could not look at them, wholly enraptured by the center-stage tableau, the striking mise-en-scène (he knew his French from his Latin now, but it was only through a well-worn theater habit that he could remember the phrase in this moment). 

The thing was arched, embracing her prey tenderly. It looked warm—blissful. Her skin seemed to glow in the low light. This was not the desperate feeding of a hungry animal, the inevitable end of an alley cat’s hunt after two skittering, screaming little mice. Starving was antiquated. This was a feast for the sake of feasting, the glutting of oneself on wine and red meat and plump fruit for the sheer pleasure of eating. Modern.

The mouth unlatched itself from the throat with a shuddering sigh. The drunk, now unconscious woman was gently lowered to the ground. She might have still been breathing. 

The body turned her gaze upon him. Her eyes were full and dark and heavy, sated and blithe. Between two blinks of his own eyes, she was before him. 

“Caught you.” Almer trembled.

She swiped a rivulet of blood from her jaw with a long, bony thumb. The other hand took hold of his stubbled, lined face. The thumb swept across his lips, over his cheeks, wet and glittering. The watchers hummed with delight. He closed his eyes as red was smeared onto his lids, anointing him. He was decorated. He was beautiful. He was seen.

[farfromdaylight]

man i did not enjoy this one, lol.

let's set the scene. in august 2021, the ninja from my recently disbanded savage static asked if anyone would want to join for uwu, ultima weapon ultimate. sure, i said. we spent the next three months prior to endwalker's release progging the fight, and reached annihilation, the second of three major mechanics in the final phase.

unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, i burned out and quit before we cleared. i don't regret it, but ever since then uwu has kind of been an albatross around my neck. i joined a group for it in winter 2022/2023, i think? that didn't last, because the hours were too few and we weren't making decent progress, so i quit.

anyway, after my savage static finished up this most recent tier, we decided to do uwu, which is often considered the easiest ultimate and a good starting place for those wishing to do them. this... also didn't last. the raid lead and his wife quit like three weeks in due to burnout.

okay. fine. at this point i'm pretty much done with uwu. i don't even LIKE the fight very much; it's not particularly fun to execute. the first three phases are, aside from a single mechanic, very straightforward. i just did not care that much anymore.

a week or so later i get a DM offering to let me join another uwu group, from one of the folks who had joined my savage static for our runs. i'm assured that it'll be a quick, straightforward prog and we'll clear before the next patch.

this is kind of an understatement. we cleared in... let me do the math... like under 20 raid hours, lol. 5 of the players had already cleared and most of them had cleared the most recent (and significantly more difficult) ultimate. it was the smoothest, quickest prog i've ever had. it got to the point where we wiped to titan gaols or one of ultima's mechanics, and literally nothing else.

even so: GOD, I JUST DON'T LIKE UWU. ucob and tea were simply more fun, tea especially. tea felt rewarding to execute (esp bjcc phase) in a way that UWU simply does not. people make jokes about uwu being too easy and it's definitely not what it used to be, but it's simply unenjoyable if you have experience with other ultimates because it's not at all on the same level.

anyway, we cleared tonight and got one reclear, and will try to get another tomorrow, but if we don't get the third clear i am very happy to wash my hands of this fight, lol. I JUST DON'T LIKE IT. garuda is dead boring once you get it down. ifrit is a nothingburger if you skip dashes, which we consistently did. titan actually has a tricky mechanic but that's also kind of the only thing he has going for him. the fight basically doesn't start until ultima, and ultima itself is fine and fun to do, but having to slog through the first three every time... dreadful.

maybe i'm just grumpy because i did it on summoner, which is not a taxing job to play (at any level, but especially level 70). i went smn because it does crazy damage at this level, but even so, bleh. bleh!

i'm honestly a bit bummed that i disliked uwu so much because i genuinely have really enjoyed progging ultimates the past few months. they're a marathon, but it's really satisfying to master a mechanic and move onto the next. savage is the same way, but the cadence of ultimate fights is so much quicker that it feels more rewarding to execute. having a fight that's 13 minutes long but the first half isn't fun to do really left a sour taste in my mouth. the shiny weapon you get from doing an ultimate is not the point to me: the point is that you learn how to do a complicated fight alongside seven other people. if you're not actually having fun doing that, then why are you doing it at all?

oh, well. at least i'm (nearly) done with this one for good. i'll be glad to move on.