#xen project arts

[dotzines]

🌏 EARTH LOVE 2025 RELEASE!!! 🌍

Happy Earth Day everyone!!! This fanzine is a digital book about Ultimate Madoka and her love for the Earth, featuring 27 magical artists from all over the world.

The zine is available for free! The only thing we ask is to share our official social release posts and follow our contributors ♥

CONTRIBUTORS

Cover Art

🌏 Feiyu

Artists

🌍 aesun 🌍 Caramel64 🌍 EeveeMiscellaneous 🌍 Elizabeth Hovey 🌍 Ev🌍 Fazara 🌍 Hikari 🌍 Jealous Izrafel 🌍 kringle_c 🌍 leonid 🌍 Liolola 🌍 Maichi🌍 Mosu 🌍 Niansue 🌍 okenki 🌍 pauline reinacher 🌍 radio4brains 🌍 Sakura!🌍 sanchoyoscribbles 🌍 ShionAster 🌍 SpamHands 🌍 Spectralreplica🌍 wendywhite13 🌍 Xen 🌍 XilaXena 🌍 Yume Fern

Download the zine on itch.io

For better view please make sure to set your PDF viewer to double page spread with the cover page separate. (To do this in Adobe, for example, select View > Page Display > Two Page View + Show Cover Page in Two Page View)

Share this post and our twitter/instagram ones as much as you can ♥ (you know, since it has links it can’t be view on tumblr search)

Please continue to support us and we hope to see you in our future projects ♥ We hope to see even more people joining next year!

[payte]

Even though he's the Xen family angel, Lyric still knows how to make a mess. What started out as a simple art project got a little out of hand and Stella was not having it! Time for Lyric's first ever time out!

[pikawings]

Thank you all for the 100k hits everybody 😘💜💜 80% of it quite genuinly might be APAF but every single one of you who took the time to read the mess I make genuinly means the world to me, now more than ever. 💜

As an extra bit of a thank you, a writing progress update yap

APAF and BW are currently still on hiatus. Brain has not brained and due to outside influences any time i think about it, all motivation vanishes. Not even attempted chapter planning had any success so it's a real struggle at the moment. (Shoutout to that one ass on wattpad earlier this week that was leaving hate comments and tried to claim it as "innocent frustration towards the characters actions and thoughts" and not my writing. I hope the universe gives u the life u deserve) I'm too stubborn to abandon them so even if it takes 10 years. They will stay on hiatus until i have enough pre-written to start posting again. Current goal is 5 arcs (there are 15 arcs in total still remaining) for APAF and BW fully finished (3 chapters) but with 0 combined words written....it may take a while and for that im genuinly sorry to the people who are waiting on an update for those

In better news:

For the first time in 3 months I finally managed to write a whopping 800 words for a new one shot Careful What You Wish For. Shout out to that trash Lilo And Stitch remake for the glorious angst it spawned in my brain. I wont make any promises on when ill post again (as any posting is connected to APAF and BW progress) but once im actually done with it ill color it orange in my wip masterlist. Once its actually posted ill color it in with its corresponding fic length color with a link too, as will all other stories i made on the side

I also have a new wip for DPxMonsterHigh (VISP: Very Important Scaritage Project) in a way I've never seen before (aka my favorite type of wip to make). Let me just say I am beyond proud of the lore i made for this au and i genuinly cant wait to share it. Im still working on making my final pre-writing notes but im also planning a mini comic that spoils a main plot point at the same time so do please look forward to that. I'll be able to share the final panel of the mini comic before the story released but the precursors will need to wait until the posted chapters are at that point (shout out to xen for coping with the severe levels of yap this thing has caused and with the combined effort of karra as well for helping with the hell that is this mini comic)

I mentioned some months ago in a comment on here that i would have Astray done by summer. I have that fic now fully planned out to start writing as well as an accompanying mini comic but i have yet to have any spoons for the actual tippy tappying or arting for it. Its not much of a progress update but know that i am just trying to fix the severe spoon shortage before writing can start

I have tried to work on Let The Wind Carry Your Call as well as The Game Of Family (check out the art i did make in case anybody is interested) but both of those are currently stuck at the part that covers Jason's death and ya gorl does not have the emotional stability to handle that atm. Overall very little progress but still progress nonetheless

The Curse Of Afterlife has been mentally fully plotted but my notes are still incomplete. The ability to cross off a plotpoint/scene is what had been helping as of late so im trying to stick to that structure

Not only did i finish fully plotting and chaptering Phantom Guardian, it now has a yet to be named sequel that is halfway planned out. I want to wait with calling PG1 ready to start writing in case details in PG2 will require retconning the current plot but it is nearing completion and awaiting available spoons

I hope this counts for something so rest assured, when I return to posting, there will be loads of new stuff for you all to enjoy. Again a big thank you to everybody who stuck by me so far and an even bigger thank you to everybody who chooses to come along for the ride during this hiatus of mine 💜💜😘

[thexenden]

The Xen Den

The Xen Den is an SFW, minor and system inclusive Discord server focused on creative works (art, writing, music, etc.) in the HLVRAI fandom! On the server you can enjoy such things as:

Bi-Weekly Prompt

Daily Video

Daily Post

Daily Character

Events

As well as host your very own gartic, scribblio, draw battle, and collab sessions! The community so far is very nice and everyone is so talented, I love you!

You're free to join and be as active as you'd like. Wanna be actively chatting? Go for it! Only here for the daily events? Lurkers welcome! Just want some cool emojis and content? Head right in!

This tumblr blog is where I'll reblog the dailies when possible!

"#The Xen Den Prompt" will be the bi-weekly prompt!

"#The Xen Den Daily" will be our daily posts.

"#The Xen Den CoTD" will be the character of the day.

"#The Xen Den Featured" will be any content made specifically for prompts or dailies! :D

Here's a playlist for the daily videos!

Who am I?

@harmonytre (also the artist of the icon/banner atm)

She/It, 24, autistic, asexual, etc. etc. You may know me for various artwork, animatics, currently hosting a multi-animator project, and even the upcoming @sweetvoicecafe !

See you around! >w<

[xenoneclipse]

hi! you can call me Xen, or really anything idc. i'm adulce.

mostly here you'll find my art, cosplay, and gamedev stuff! feel free to send an ask, i don't bite.

more below the cut!

-=* current projects *=-

- art!

- cosplay - finishing one for a con!

- game design!

- web design - check my Neocities once it's up!

-=* fav sonic things! *=-

- games: adventure, CD, shadow 05, frontiers, adventure 2, 06, and speedsim. don't even try to tell me shadow 05 and sonic 06 are bad games, you're wrong and i will fight you.

- characters: !!SHADOOO!!, sonic, silver, sage. honorable mention but i am a gerald defender to my last breath. and an elise defender.

- songs: Almost Dead, With Me, One Way Dream, Worth A Chance, Broken, Number One, You Can Do Anything, and many more :3

- i am obsessed with the dynamic between sonic and shadow they make me want to throw up and scream

-=* other info *=-

- feel free to DM if you wanna add me on roblox! i play speedsim a lot as well as other games now and then.

- haver of 3million AUs and WIPs. if i haven't finished something, rest assured it haunts me daily

- other stuff i like includes... Homestuck/Hiveswap, Undertale/Deltarune, Mother series, Fullmetal Alchemist, Steven Universe, among other things. i may post about these too, but Sonic is my big interest!!

-=* before you interact *=-

- i don't take requests unless i have explicitly said - any asks asking for a drawing, fic, etc. will be ignored sorry.

- i don't currently take commissions. this may change but probably won't, i have low mental energy & have trouble with follow through.

- i may post cosplay but i won't show my face, just general online safety! if you wanna see that you gotta find me at a con :)

- i don't engage in pro/anti ship discourse here, and i don't care whatever side you're on as long as you don't harass/bully/flame/whatever nor condone it. i won't post darkfic type stuff here, but you won't see me condemning it either.

- you MAY repost my art *if and only if you give clear credit and link back to my page*. i just like people to see my art, the more the merrier :)

- you MAY NOT use my art or fic for training generative AI, and likewise you may not make edits to my art (with or without AI) without permission, or trace (unless you're using it to learn and not posting it). translation is cool and great though! just link back to me please, same as above.

- if you know me IRL, don't share my personal info here. if you know me elsewhere on the net, don't share my digital info here.

[kkb285-creativejournal-sem2-2024]

Artworking

Artworking would be a quarterly networking event for local artists to share their upcoming and recently completed projects. Brisbane City already has several outdoor art exhibits on display including Sunday Jemmott’s Details of Play (2024) located in Fish Lane and Michelle Xen’s Mnemonic (2024) projected in both the Museum of Brisbane City and Howard Smith Wharves. Events hosted in the communal area of the Workshops will allow the growing creative and social enterprise community from the Workshops and Wheelhouse to connect for feedback, future collaborations and opportunities. It gives up-and-coming artists a platform to market their talents and accomplishments in hopes of being one of the artists with their work on display in Brisbane. Birrunga Gallery has the Cultural Creative Development Program (CCDP) which could be consulted with and is holding an exhibit at Northshore on October 15th 2024.

Sources -

Brisbane City Council. (2024). Outdoor Gallery. Retrieved from Brisbane City Council: https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/things-to-see-and-do/experiences-and-culture/public-art-in-brisbane/outdoor-gallery#program

Birrunga Gallery. (2024). About. Retrieved from Birrunga Gallery: https://birrunga.com.au/about/

Birrunga Gallery. (2024). Indigenous Business Month Exhibition 2024. Retrieved from Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/indigenous-business-month-exhibition-2024-tickets-958642043157?aff=erelexpmlt

[skaruresonic]

Apologies for rambling, but I feel the need to get this off my chest.

I decided long ago I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for HL3, to the point where I had no idea Half-Life: Alyx had even been a thing until my boyfriend notified me of its release the day that it dropped. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, because putting all of your hopes and dreams in the hands of a corporation is seldom a good idea, even if it is Valve we're talking about. What if they make something mediocre? Then we'll have waited and wished and hoped for nothing over the past seventeen years.

Secondly, because good art takes time. If they never drop HL3, cool, because I'll still have had mods and art and fanfic to fill that hole. If they do, also great, but overall my emotional well-being shouldn't hinge on it. I would be fine if HL3 never arrived. At this point it would be a pleasant surprise, but it's not like I'm going to die without it. I actually kind of think if my attitude was more the latter, it'd only sour the experience if anything was less than perfect with the game.

Thirdly, because it's annoying to see people work themselves into a lather every time Valve so much as moves their desks around.

There's getting hyped, there's making memes, and then there's visiting a psychic while mentally LARPing as Gordon Freeman just to get a crumb of information on a game they may or may not be developing and writing a freaking VICE article about it:

In fact, I'd wager this kind of self-sustaining hype bubble may be part of the reason why the team's creative enthusiasm for HL3 has waned over the years. Not to say they don't bear any culpability in the delays and such, but it is understandable that the sheer conspiracy surrounding the title would become off-putting.

Ending stories is difficult even in the best of circumstances, and they'd be developing the game in a pressure cooker. There are so many loose ends they'd have to tie up, so many mysteries to solve, all while providing an entertaining experience and implementing innovative gameplay and bringing the entire series to a satisfying conclusion.

Given Valve's general standards of quality, it's almost like they fear anything short of an orgasm in digital form will crash and burn: a notion the internet does absolutely nothing to refute when people tweak out over the most minute of signs.

Of course they drifted toward lower-stakes projects. You can't create anything with room to grow and breathe when your fandom is constantly setting the stakes that high.

Which brings me to my next point: why are we waiting on Valve to tell us how this ends, anyway? Any version of HL3 they could make will never live up to the version of HL3 you have in your head, by simple virtue of their inability to mind-read.

Especially salient, since I genuinely believe the tone of HL3 will retroactively dictate the tone of the rest of the series. Was it always a treatise on human resilience? Cosmic horror? Who knows? It's still up in the air. They still have space to back out of any corners they've written themselves into. Once they commit to a plot, that's it. They can't walk it back.

Valve have waited too long to put a period on that sentence; the hype that has built up in its absence is astronomical. And while I generally respect their policy of "suck is forever" and agree that it'd be better to wait for high-quality games than to see them pump out slop at a faster rate, they might also be shooting themselves in the foot by thinking every new title needs to be a genre-bending pioneer. Perfect is the enemy of good and all that.

And, frankly, between Epistle 3 and the fact that HLA was essentially a means of retconning the end of Episode 2, I'm starting to doubt that Valve themselves even know how the story ends. This is like, the fifth game now where G-Man swoops in to pluck the characters off the tabletop and set them down elsewhere, without a single hint as to where any of this leads. The constant kicking of the can down the road is starting to wear a little thin.

That being said, I wouldn't want them to conclude the series unless they had a crystal-clear vision of what they wanted to do, and only if they had a deep intrinsic desire to work on the project. Which, honestly, at this point may be impossible.

I mean... They were surprised that players grew emotionally attached to Barney Calhoun, a comedic relief side character who they probably didn't put much thought into, over more major characters they spent time fleshing out (cough, Alyx). If HL3 had released back in 2017 and followed Marc Laidlaw's written treatment, Barney wouldn't have appeared, which probably would have gone over like a lead balloon. The creators' priorities inherently are not going to 100% align with fan interests.

I literally could not think of anything worse than an HL3 made just to shut us up, you know what I mean? Not that they ever would, of course, but seeing various other IPs deteriorate due to a desire to keep the tapes rolling has made me appreciate the value of a good self-contained story all the more.

All this to say, if you want HL3, don't rage against Valve for failing to deliver on promises they never purported to make in the first place. Channel that energy toward more productive ends. Write fic. Read fic. Support promising mods like Interlude. You have more control here than you think.

look at the r/halflife subreddit Right Now, so that every time youre dissappinted at your unrealistic expectations of a nintendo direct, you can remember back to it and realize it could always be worse

[ericvanderburg]

Xen Project improves the art of virtual machine maintenance with annual hypervisor release

http://securitytc.com/Sz3LlP

[ghost-in-the-void]

Hello I'm back on my shit again, anyways have HONSE

And a version with a white bg because it's hard to see it

Anywayss it's G-man! From @the-xen-project ! Honestly at this point might draw all the aliens in this style, it's pretty fun

[xensilverquill]

Amigurumi/Crochet Art Tags

Completed Crochet Projects:

#xen makes frens

Speculative Biology/Fantasy Project:

#beasts of the sunken continent

Crochet-Related Asks/Polls/Misc.

#xen goes on a yarn

Amigurumi 101 + Resources

Shop Links

Etsy Ravelry

[eclysia]

Melia and Ren for that character thing?

YES. i got a shiny wooper seven encounters in which is great but fucking.. i want title + humongo boosts. so im going for another one. my sandwich ran out for the 1/500 odds, ugh

first up is melia

First impression

its been a looong time since ive FIRST played rejuv so inaccuracies either stem from old versions or bad memory.

i was able to tell that melia was a character that would quickly be killed off, but i didnt correctly guess the reason why. i thought it was a cheap shot to gather sympathy. i dont remember whether i was able to predict her coming back, though. hmm

Impression now

well now i really will be upset if something happens to her! genesis syndrome is no joke, considering its labeled with body failure in multiple areas. i do wonder if its her shiny powers that caused this, her stronger abilities, or something else (my theory of her being half of a person comes back to mind...)

Favorite moment

i want her to chew out the space hags more. holy shit, please. also, the rehauled doomed future was so cool for her character... that brief segment in zeight where she met little baby venam was just.. ugh. sweet. and the talk with emma and the first (?) appearance of variya was very cool. a huge favorite

Idea for a story

unsure of what to do with this beyond stating what i would enjoy seeing in canon. and thats! i really want more stormchaser stuff especially with Her. im not sure if she has had the chance to properly confront anyone after learning about project: rapture.

Unpopular opinion

beating a dead horse but i am wholly convinced that anyone who says she is a mary sue did not play the game, holy shit. reading comprehension for a lot of people who play this game is zero.

i suppose on another note.. i really liked the fairy tale field melia fight. yes, it was hard, but i definitely think that was the point. i also enjoy how it may allude to the pangoro and zorua story from the beginning, with it being a fairy tale.

Favorite relationship

she and venam, of course. i hope venam manages to recover and shake off the innate need to try and be overtly mature, because its definitely hurting their relationship a little bit. that being said, that little conversation with the trio in the third layer on the matter was so sweet.

Favorite headcanon

uh im not too familiar with many headcanons, but do you want to know a fact and a theory? in very old versions of rejuv, melia managed to throw a xen grunt who tried to grab her.. very far! i want to believe this is a manifestation of her archetype powers showing up very early. more specifically, i think she was using seismic toss!

these two moves are level 0 for arceus. i might be reading too much into it, but with what i know now, i thought it was foreshadowing.

next up is ren! jesus i type a lot

First impression

i honestly dont remember. i think i thought he was dumb because he had a froakie. i really like greninja now so that proves how long ago i first played lol

Impression now

hes still dumb but i say this in an affectionate way! also i love robots! im really gonna be sad if he ditches that body in the future lol. understandable but sobs

Favorite moment

he has a lot of good lines. but my favorite will always be the cupcake conversation

NASTASIA: Sigh… It would be easier to just redirect your captures to [PN]'s storage line, rather than linking it. But what do I get out of this? REN: How about my undying appreciation and gratitude? REN: Alright fine, you can have my salted caramel cupcake with extra sprinkles. REN: It's on the top row of the fridge, behind the eggs. NASTASIA: This is acceptable. I'll get right on it. REN: Thanks 'Stasiaaaaa.

Idea for a story

begging on my hands and knees for more of him and nastasia . even if its just a littol bit. they are so nice together...

Unpopular opinion

he is a lot more dorky than he is edgy (especially during/after v11), and i feel like a lot of the fanbase forgets that. i love the edgy art, but i want to see more dorky art too.

Favorite relationship

you already know it, its him and nastasia. most fucked up bring your kid to work day dynamic ever. but he and reina are also extremely funny together. i have comic ideas for them but zzz

Favorite headcanon

i dunno many headcanons, honestly.. uh.. how about that he dons the cape just because it looks cool? as far as i know he doesnt have the need to hide his wings, afaik they just shift into his body/dematerialize/whatever..

[the-xen-project]

Im restarting Xen

Now before you say anything against this, you need to listen, I have my reasons. Xen is very dear to me. Xen Project as a whole, isn't necessarily based on any media outside of hl/hlvrai, and that why its special to me because its a story I've created.

However

The story Xen originally had become completely lost to me and the blog, the more I look at it, the more I see this isn't going how I want its story to go. It started with Memory Lane.

Memory Lane, while a fun chapter, really made me lose track of what I wanted here and how I wanted it to flow. So...a restart. A fresh start with new icons and art ans better understanding of things.

The new story of Xen is set to have 21 chapters in total, this including the Epilogue and Prologue.

THIS ALL BEING SAID

Do you want me to reblog everything here onto an archive blog? Or would you mind me deleting everything on here...because I dont want to get rid of everything before getting a good opinion on it.

[kyra-song]

alright i’m makin a pinned post

hey everyone! im kyra-song, feel free to just call me kyra!

-i make art and meme around with the mutuals✨

-this is a side blog so I promise we probably are mutuals, it’ll just show up through my main

-i do take art requests pretty often, if i don’t get to yours it’s probably cuz i forgot, if i don’t have the time or energy to do yours i’ll lyk

-im a minor so i’ll break ur spine if you’re being weird

- i swear and use capslock a lot on here so if that’s upsetting please let me know and i’ll try tagging in the future

-on the subject of tagging if i forget a trigger warning don’t hesitate to tell me, i’ll get it fixed immediately

-my main tags are

#my art

#kyra does arg (this is my work for the enderwalk arg)

#baby gang mf gc (i’m not the best at making sure to tag them all, but this is the gc some of the mutuals and i are in)

below are some tags for my less used tags and au’s if you’re interested

#kyra and bird (me and @bird-says-be-gay-do-crimes chaos)

#kyra and con (@emo-and-confused my beloved)

#kyra and stella (@star-of-nobility mother)

#kyra and bell (@bellfort3 my wife)

#kyra and wisp (@wisp-exe my son)

#kyra and xen (@helpicant-stop my beloved)

#kyra and sleepy (@ellioat my beloved)

#kyra and lite (@lil-lite-in-the-darkness gremlin)

#wife wars (the critically acclaimed soap opera)

#fantasy stories and history au (@emo-and-confused and my brain rot)

#sins and virtues au

#superhero au

#artist au (i am projecting because i’m a tired artist who’s tried like every style and form w my adhd and then immediately dropped them except digital art my beloved)

[lakesandquarries]

Baby Shoes - Chapter 3

Bubby has been a doctor at Black Mesa for 20 years, living there for 50. He’s been bouncing around from project to project, working on whatever needs most help. He doesn’t have any opinions on his work or his coworkers or anything like that, preferring to keep to himself.

Then he meets Black Mesa’s newest project.

AKA: Bubby is Benrey’s dad au.

title from “Baby Shoes” by Bad Books.

SIDE NOTE please look at this FANTASTIC art by my friend @8redphoenix8​!!!! thank u SO much i love u 

also happy seventh night of hanukkah!!!!

AO3 Link

Dr. Elkern is, apparently, dead set on having Bubby continue work on the arm prototypes. But he does allow them to spend most of their time over in Biological Research, only needing to check on the arm project occasionally.

It’s something. He spends most of his time with Dr. Zeki, who has made her dislike of him quite clear. But she does seem to appreciate a new perspective, even if she ignores it most of the time.

He also spends a fair amount of time with Dekkard - whose first name is apparently Derek - as well. He’s new, fresh out of college, the son of a friend of someone high up. He’s quite forthcoming about his complete lack of qualifications, and fully expects to be fired within the next month.

Dekkard is...refreshing, if Bubby is being honest. He lacks the fear the others in Biological Research have of Bubby, willing to speak his mind and joke around and actually listen when Bubby speaks. Currently Dekkard’s little more than a glorified secretary, keeping track of the various projects happening in the Biological Research Department, who’s working on them, and their schedules. He also makes excellent coffee.

“You should quit,” Bubby says by way of greeting as he approaches Dekkard’s desk. Dekkard spins in his chair, smiling at him.

“And lose all these benefits? Hm, not yet.” He slides a disposable cup over to Bubby, who sips it approvingly. It’s dark, bitter, and slightly burnt, just the way he likes it.

Bubby leans on the desk, nudging the ever-present slinky. “Do you know the agenda for today?”

“Dr. Zeki has four meetings, three of which are back to back.”

A slow smile spreads across Bubby’s face. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“I’m gonna cover all her stuff in tin foil while she’s busy.”

“Oh, you’ve made it even better.”

“Wanna help?”

It’s tempting. But Zeki being busy means he can see Benrey, actually see them and not just stare wistfully through one way glass.

“Another time, maybe.”

Dekkard nods. “Well. See you around, if I don’t get fired first.”

Bubby nods, tossing his empty cup into the trash. “Good luck with your project.”

He has, somehow, started figuring out his way around Biological Research. The various creatures make good landmarks. Take a left at the carnivorous bees, keep going straight when you see the ice squirrels, and the acid slimes tell you you’re going the right way. The room is blessedly empty, devoid of any scientists besides Bubby himself.

On the other side of the glass is Benrey. Bubby steps closer, placing a hand on the glass, watching them. They’ve barely moved since Bubby first saw them in this cell. The only time they have any sort of reaction is when they’re fed, which happens exactly three times a day. It’s a simple process from the scientist’s end - open door, slide in food, close door - and has given Bubby a very good view of the keypad and the code needed to open it.

He gives a quick glance into the hall before he types the code in. The door opens.

Benrey doesn’t respond to the noise, pale yellow eyes still staring blankly at the floor in front of them. Their skin, already a strangely desaturated shade when Bubby met them before, seems nearly grey now, and the dark smudge around their eyes has darkened like a bruise.

He takes a few steps forward, shoes clacking against the floor. Benrey flinches as much as the chains will allow them to, squeezing their eyes shut tight. Bubby crouches down so he’s roughly eye level with them, a good distance away.

“Benrey,” he whispers.

Their eyes open. Their head shoots up, looking around frantically before realizing where Bubby is. They strain against the chains, trying to move closer, making a faint whining noise when they realize they can’t.

Bubby shuffles closer, reaching a hand out, and Benrey leans into the touch.

“Hello again,” he says softly. “I’m sorry our previous meeting got cut short, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come see you again.”

Benrey makes a rumbling noise, almost - no, exactly like a purr. Bubby has never seen a cat, but he’s seen videos, heard them described, and he’s fairly certain the noise and vibrating are the same. Benrey opens their mouth, those coloured bubbles Bubby saw previously tumbling out, this time a bright yellow. Sweet Voice, Benrey had called it. He reaches out for one, feeling it dissolve in his hand with a wave of pure joy.

Happiness, then. Yellow...a happy fellow?

It astounds him how Benrey can express happiness like this while still chained up, barely able to move.

“I’ve been reassigned,” Bubby says quietly, moving closer and running his hand through Benrey’s hair. “I work here now. Mostly. I’ve been talking to the other scientists, I’m hoping I can...improve things here, at least a bit.”

He gets the impression Benrey isn’t really listening, focused more on the feeling of Bubby’s hand in their hair. Well, that’s fine with him. He moves closer again, close enough to gather Benrey onto his lap, letting them bury their face in his shoulder.

They’re so small.

He spends a few minutes just sitting there, petting Benrey’s hair, the room silent aside from their purring. It’s the closest thing Bubby has had to peace in a very long time.

Eventually, though, he does need to speak again. Zeki may be busy for most of the day, but time is a limited resource here in Black Mesa.

“I had a few questions for you,” Bubby says softly. He doesn’t move his hand away from Benrey’s hair. “How long have you been here?”

They tense up. “Forever.”

“Forever?”

He can feel Benrey nod against his chest. “Basically forever. I’m from somewhere else but I don’t really remember it.”

“Xen?”

Another nod. “The sky was pretty there. Lots of colours.”

Bubby’s only seen the sky in brief glimpses. He’d managed an almost-successful escape attempt once, in his teens, that had him outside in the middle of the night. The sky has been nearly black, but the moon was bright and full and the stars were one of the most incredible things he’d ever seen.

“I think you’ll like the sky here. I won’t - I can’t promise you anything. But perhaps at some point we’ll go see it together.”

It’s a silly daydream, Bubby knows, but it’s one he’s been clinging to over the last few days. As a child he’d dreamt of escaping, going somewhere far away from Black Mesa, living as a regular human being with no tubes or tests. He still dreams of the same thing, but lately, in his daydreams, his home has an additional occupant.

He doesn’t share any of this with Benrey. It’s nothing more than a pipedream, a small fragment of hope, and it’ll do nothing to help them if he makes a promise he’s doomed to break.

“I want to try and make things easier for you here,” he says. “As I said, I can’t make any promises, but I’m going to try. ”

Benrey nuzzles their face into his shoulder with a soft hiccuping sound. “You’re nice,” they mumble.

Bubby huffs. No one has ever called him nice before. He’s capable of being polite, yes, but his temper is well-known amongst Black Mesa staff. His pyrokinesis and accidental habit of setting things on fire when annoyed cemented his reputation. Dekkard is about the only employee that isn’t working on a project with him willing to be around him for more than ten minutes.

Of course, Benrey’s quite different from any of the scientists.

They pull away from his shoulder suddenly, yawning. Bubby is not an expert on teeth, but he’s fairly sure there’s not supposed to be that many.

“Are you tired? Do you need to sleep?”

“I’m, uh -” they bite their lip, face scrunched up with the effort of remembering something. “I don’t need much sleep. Don’t like it.”

“I can stay here while you rest. I’ll need to leave in a bit, but I have…” he pulls his pager out of his pocket, glancing at the time. “At least a few hours. If you’d like to nap.”

“You’ll stay?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Benrey leans forward again, resting their head on Bubby’s shoulder. “Mmm,” they mumble, more of the sweet voice slipping out, this time a pale, icy blue. When Bubby touches it he’s overwhelmed by the feeling of exhaustion.

It takes Benrey a moment to relax, but eventually they go limp, making small noises in their sleep. It’s - well. If Bubby were the type of person to describe things as cute he would say it was absolutely adorable.

He does, however, wish he’d brought a book.

[t-a-c]

Opinions on video games I played in the long, long decade of 2020

Fire Emblem Three Houses – Cindered Shadows: wow this came out in 2020 huh. The side story was a great campaign, and I should really give the game another run to try using the characters in the main game.

Warframe – Scarlet Spear: this event was honestly pretty tedious and the all-or-nothing score bonuses felt really punishing. And to think this was still the better way of getting Arcane upgrades

XCOM: Chimera Squad: oh wow this also came out in 2020. This feels like they didn’t want to commit to a full XCOM 3 yet but wanted to make something so they could try experimenting with new gameplay elements and concepts. If that’s what they intended, I really like that approach.

Megaman Zero/ZX Collection: A really solid compilation of some mostly solid GBA/DS games, with quite a few options and enhancements to make the early-series jank a bit more tolerable. The added bonuses like the art gallery and the challenge mode are very nice extras as well.

Streets of Rage 4: I was never expecting this game to happen. I was less expecting this game to come out and actually be not just good, but incredible. Now I’m gonna wonder what other old Sega series gets resurrected from the void...

Blaster Master Zero: A nice throwback/re-imagining of the NES original that does a lot to forge its own identity. Still need to try out the sequel, I’ve heard good (and weird) things about it.

Mighty Gunvolt Burst: the existence of this game single-handedly justifies and redeems the existence of Mighty No. 9.

Rise of Industry: A nice fun little resource management/logistics game. Gives me slight Transport Tycoon vibes.

Half-Life 2 – Episode 1 + 2: yes it took me almost 15 years to get around to finishing HL2 and playing the Episodes and that’s only because if I didn’t raocow was going to do it first. Overall pretty good, but I think I can go without a Strider fight sequence ever again

Half-Life Source: yeah I can see why people say this is a janky port

Black Mesa: For a fanmade project, this is absolutely incredible. The sheer number of ways that it improves and iterates on the original is astounding, and the new take on Xen is utterly mindblowing to experience

Slay the Spire: A nice fun diversion, especially on the days where I’m too worn out to focus on anything more mentally involved.

Final Fantasy XIV – 5.2 through 5.4: honestly if 5.3 had been the end of the storyline like they originally set out to do, I would have been fine with that, it was an excellent conclusion. However, with what 5.4 is setting up, I am eager to see what 6.x might hold (and hoping that it doesn’t suffer for Yoshida being involved elsewhere with directing XVI)

Phantasy Star Online 2 (NA Version): on launch? Worst experience I’ve had trying to install and run a game. Once Ep4 and the Steam release came out? Good. Once Ep5 came out? Great. Once Ep6 Pt1 came out? Excellent. I can nitpick some of the item name translations to hell and back, but the story dialogue and voice acting is very good.

Command & Conquer Remastered: I was expecting over and over for EA to find a way to screw this up. Somehow they didn’t, although I imagine that Petroglyph, Lemon Sky, and the community doing most of the work kept things on track. A very good remaster of a good RTS duology.

Tropico 6: I finally got around to grabbing this off my wishlist. It’s got a lot of improvements and additions over what was there in 5, and the series flavor is still present and accounted for, but there’s still a lot of stuff from 3/4 that I miss.

Touhou Spell Bubble: Picked this up after watching it played by HoloEN, and I’m enjoying it a lot even though I haven’t really touched rhythm games in a long time. Really good music selection, although it has the ‘early Windows era bias’ a lot of derivative works have.

[enby-freeman]

Is there reason for why Tommy and Gman don't look similar in the alien post?

Yes! Tommy was made way before I made the Xen Project AU. He was made for an entirely different uh,,,HC/AU all together actually...

And when drawing the alien for the xen project I just took his old design and revamped it, made some change here and there. He was the first drawin in the batch actually since I had ideas on what I wanted him to look like already like Forzen. Heres the old art next to the new one :]

Because I had a design for him already and none for Gman, I simply gave them similar traits but didn't want them to look exactly alike. The alien in the au can shape shift and manipulate how they look. Tommy in the au frequently makes himself human around the androids. His alien form is meant to come off as friendly and welcoming while Gman's is meant to come off as powerful and dangerous.

Tommy can have the void effect his dad has around his body like this

The fur just makes him look nicer :]

Dont be foold tho this guy can kill. Hes just as dangerous as any of the others.