antisatiric

[antisatiric]

17. needing help (for iseri, bc now that you have said words, here we are)

It was mostly coincidence that Twain had ducked into the small shop when he did. Well, really, it was a combination of Glintburn's prevailing desert heat and a general interest in securing himself something useful to carry around, though he hadn't really thought about what might constitute usefulness. A bag of holding, maybe, or just a couple healing potions; he still doesn't really know.

(He'd walked past a similar shop, he thought, a while ago in another country. He can't remember which one, but if he hadn't been in such a hurry... Well, he's got time to spare now, at least.)

He's expecting a nice interior, but instead it becomes immediately obvious as soon as he steps inside that something's happened in here. A fight, probably, or a violent arrest. Or something like that. Either way, there's only one person still here to deal with the mess, and they sort of look like they've got it half-covered with magic, but Twain knows from experience that magic can't fix everything.

"Hey," he says, trying to grab their attention. "You want some help with that? Nothin' I can do about the shelf, but the rest'll go faster with two people, right?"

Looks like his plans to take a quick peek around the store have been dashed. But hey, he's not in a rush, so it works out.

spotted! / accepting.

[antisatiric]

the saga continues.

[antisatiric]

spot-the-muse starter prompts

muses being able (or forced) to see/watch each other is a great way to start or set up interactions. these are a set of visible prompts that might work as premises for starters. feel free to specify which muse is watching and which muse is experiencing the prompt!

send a number for a starter where one muse watches the other....

being strangled

being hit on by someone they're uninterested in

crawling out of an alley somewhere

getting soaked as a passing car drives through a puddle

dancing/standing in the rain

defending the other muse physically or verbally

talking about the other muse with someone else (and they don't think the other muse is listening)

sleeping in the grass in a park

returning the last copy of a library book the other muse wanted to borrow

trying and failing to eat a messy meal without making a mess

tripping up a staircase

doing their job particularly well

realising they can't pay for their coffee at a cafe

missing their stop on public transport

sighing as their phone runs out of charge when they really needed it to get home

defending themselves physically or verbally

needing help

asking someone else for help and not getting it

wrapping up (or trying to hide) a wound

passing out (or about to pass out)

interacting with a scared animal

sacrificing/giving up something they wanted, so that someone else can have it

having a nightmare

drowning

attempting to escape a disastrous blind date

[antisatiric]

" is he supposed to look like that? "

"You shut the fuck up right now!"

Twain scowls, letting the poor lizard run free. Being caught by giant, freakish creatures and then being called ugly has got to be a low blow of some kind, so freedom seems like an appropriate repayment for the inconvenience and tanked self-esteem.

"Don't you ever say that about a lizard again. I'll kill you." He reaches out, pokes Sebastian in the chest, and puts on his best stern-or-maybe-angry face. "That was literally my son you just insulted. I birthed him myself. Bet you feel real stupid now, you son of a bitch!"

the mummy. / accepting.

[antisatiric]

it's occurred to me i've never really gone through design notes for twain's design; i have nothing else i can do right now so i'll do that under the cut!

post-writing me adding this bit on: it ended up becoming a sort of chronology about the evolution of twain's design. it's really very long, but i'm happy with the way things turned out.

this is where we started compared to my current design for twain! it's important to acknowledge where he started; my version of twain very much did come initially from bungou stray dogs, and especially on my older blog you can see a long, long stretch of time where i still used his face for icons. there's a marked difference between these two designs, though.

first of all, bungou stray dogs has a habit of just dressing the foreign authors in whatever suits the time period their real life author counterpart was from. this isn't always bad, but in twain's case it wasn't particularly accurate, so i aimed to fix that by removing the aspect of period accuracy from the lore's equation. this is where my first ever redesign comes in;

this was my first ever go at redesigning twain's character to fit the more serious storyline i had in mind for him! there are a lot of aspects changed here and a couple aspects i kept the same so i'll go through them.

the shape and color of his hair remained consistent, save for the addition of a ponytail at the back---at this time, i wasn't confident enough in my portrayal and its deviations to change standout parts of his design, and moreover i wanted to be able to continue using icons of the canon design without too much of an issue. i also kept his giant belt because i found it funny.

i wanted to incorporate a lot more color into this design, though; his initial design is almost entirely black and white except for the belt and his hair, and twain had always seemed to me the type to enjpy vibrant colors. because i tended to base him off the characters featured in his works---usually huck and tom---i wanted a very earth-toned palette, and eventually settled on the green, brown, and black because i liked the way they looked with his red hair.

you might also note that i kept the button up shirt for this design! that will inevitably change later, but for now it's staying, although i had him button it up partway. i considered it an iconic part of his design at the time to have it unbuttoned but i secretly resented the unbuttoned shirt coming up as often as it did in my writing, so i changed it.

as for his shoes, i gave him something a lot more practical while still being a little unnecessarily complicated because i had always had a gripe with his sandals. he was meant to be a rough-and-tumble traveler and the shoes never seemed to be practical for that, so i fixed them.

then we get to my next iteration of the design!

this one is actually quite close to my current design, but it suffers from a few elements i wasn't quite sure how to commit to.

by this time, his official change in ability from aimbot to what it is now had already taken place, and i had also conceptualized no. 44 thanks to the help of a long-dead server for the plot point of humanized abilities, although he was initially quite a different figure in twain's life---originally, before settling into the tense and unwilling mentor-mentee relationship, i had intended 44 to be a sort of de-facto love interest for twain who gave him power out of a sense of fascination, rather than inevitable necessity. the plot of twain being his inheritor came later.

this is the first real appearance of twain's white eye, discolored skin, and white hair, though you'll notice i was hesitant to fully commit to sapping ALL of the color from his skin and his hair retains a lot more orange in a lot wider of a span.

the buttoned up shirt is finally gone, too! i figured since i was already taking dramatic liberties with his character i could just go ahead and change whatever i liked, so i decided it would make more sense to just put him in a non-buttoned shirt and be done with the button debacle that seemed to haunt him all the time. then i gave him a jacket to make up for the loss of green in his shirt!

and now we're finally onto my current iteration of the design.

i've committed fully since then to the color sap on his face. i also brought back the belt (it wouldn't have been visible, but he lost it for a few pictures after the previous one) and decided on a more consistent volume or his hair. this is, for now, what i'm considering his final design, though i imagine it will continue to recieve slight tweaks in the future as i draw him more.

then i of course have my redesigns of him that suit a specific purpose in a couple of his aus...

... but these each honestly deserve their own posts, and i've gone on enough here. thank you for reading if you've gotten this far. i love talking about things like this when it comes to twain. hehe.

[antisatiric]

[ hand ]

Twain's been on plenty of dates with Alastor before, obviously, but this one feels like a different beast entirely. Only Alastor, he thinks, could get him to agree to something like this. He can't even imagine dressing up nice for anyone else, let alone going out to eat at a place where they switch out the silverware in between courses.

Alastor had picked out his outfit. Twain had thought about protesting, but Alastor actually had seemed to like the way he looked in it even if it had felt ridiculous. It still does feel a little ridiculous; the last time he'd worn something like this, he was somewhere around seven and his parents were still forcing him to go to church every Sunday.

All things considered, he's more than a little nervous waiting for Alastor. There's a part of him that's still convinced Alastor wants someone better at this whole thing than him, and that maybe this will prove to him that Twain really doesn't belong in nice clothes or nice restaurants. He really, really, hopes not. But there's always a chance.

The door swings open, and Alastor steps outside.

Despite his worrying, Twain can't help but grin; Alastor always looks good, but he's put in more than the usual effort tonight. This sort of thing suits him; Twain's always thought so, even before things got as personal as they have between the two of them. Alastor wears fine clothes as naturally as a person wears skin.

Twain even forgets to be insecure when he sees the way Alastor's eyes light up, looking over his outfit. He'd taken some extra time to put his hair up, and it's a little uncomfortable but he's starting to think it might have been pretty worth it, if it gets him that kind of look from Alastor.

In no time, there's very little distance between them at all. The night air between them is cool and pleasant, and for a second Twain wishes they could be outside for longer than the five minutes it's going to take to walk to the damn place. Just for a second, though, because he knows how much Alastor wants this.

Alastor offers a hand and he accepts, more quickly than he thinks would be appropriate if he were at all trying to come off as casual. Then he raises Twain's hand and—like he knows exactly the effect it's going to have on Twain—presses a quick kiss to the back of it.

"You look great," Twain says, trying unsuccessfully to pretend his heart didn't just flutter like it does in those overdramatic romantic scenes. "Really, I mean, you always look great, but—this is nice. Really nice."

And the thing is, he could have easily said no to Alastor about tonight's plans. It would have spared him a lot of worrying in the interim. But Alastor has a way of making Twain feel like he's worth something—like he's the kind of person who should be cherished, even if he doesn't believe it. So he'd thought, maybe it wouldn't be so bad with Alastor.

(He thinks he was probably right.)

kisses. / accepting.

[antisatiric]

🐝  *  ―  𝑫𝑰𝑭𝑭𝑬𝑹𝑬𝑵𝑻 𝑾𝑨𝒀𝑺 𝑻𝑶 𝑲𝑰𝑺𝑺 𝑺𝑶𝑴𝑬𝑶𝑵𝑬.

[ peck ] a quick, light kiss on the partner's lips or cheek [ french ] a deep, passionate kiss with the use of tongue [ forehead ] a gentle kiss on the partner's forehead, conveying care and affection [ spiderman ] an upside-down kiss, just like in the movie [ mistletoe ] a playful or romantic kiss under a mistletoe [ hand ] a chivalrous kiss on the back of the partner's hand [ lingering ] a long, slow kiss filled with emotion and desire [ neck ] a kiss or gentle sucking on the partner's neck [ nape ] a kiss placed at the nape of the partner's neck [ teasing ] a light brushing of lips against a partner's skin without fully kissing [ earlobe ] a light nibble on the partner's earlobe [ tango dip ] a kiss shared while one partner is dipped backward [ celebration ] a joyful and exuberant kiss to celebrate an achievement or milestone [ stolen ] a quick, stealthy, and impromptu kiss snatched in secret [ bite ] a playful kiss that involves some light biting [ goodbye ] a heartfelt kiss when parting, showing affection and fondness [ rain ] a romantic kiss in the rain [ scars ] a gentle kiss on the partner's scar(s) [ injury ] a careful kiss on a partner's wound to make it all better [ wedding ] a romantic kiss shared during a wedding ceremony [ comfort ] a tender kiss to provide comfort or reassurance [ sunset ] a kiss shared during sunset, often romantic and serene [ butterfly ] a light fluttering of eyelashes against the partner's skin [ seductive ] a deep, slow, and deliberately intense kiss filled with passion and desire [ shoulder ] a tender kiss on the partner's shoulder [ knuckles ] a kiss on each individual knuckle of the partner [ slow motion ] a kiss in slow motion, accentuating every moment and sensation [ reunion ] a longing kiss shared after being apart for a while [ passionate ] an intense and fiery kiss, expressing raw desire and strong emotion [ underwater ] a kiss shared while submerged in water [ wrist ] a tender kiss on the inside of the partner's wrist [ wake up ] a loving kiss to wake the partner up [ apology ] a kiss offered as a way to apologize or make amends [ hummingbird ] a series of light, rapid, and fluttery kisses on a small area [ trail ] a trail of kisses along the partner's jawline or collarbone [ blowing ] a kiss in the air and send of the gesture towards the partner [ surprise ] a sudden kiss to catch the partner off guard [ hickey ] a kiss that's supposed to leave a mark on the partner's skin [ single lip ] a sucking or nibbling of one of the partner's lips [ nose ] an affectionate gesture where partners rub their noses together

[antisatiric]

THE MUMMY (1999) PROMPTS *  assorted dialogue from the film, adjust as necessary

looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!

by the way... why did you kiss me?

it seemed like a good idea at the time.

that's called stealing, you know.

is it dangerous?

stop it! you'll kill them!

get me a glass of bourbon.

this just keeps getting better and better.

this door doesn't open.

who opened that chest?

i only want four!

the map! i forgot the map!

i think he's filthy, rude, a complete scoundrel. i don't like him one bit.

i guess we go home empty-handed... again.

look what i got.

i think you found something.

what exactly is this man in prison for?

you just got promoted.

you're with me on this one, right?

keep him busy.

we are in serious trouble.

this creature is the bringer of death.

you must not read from the book!

where are they taking him?

there's only one person i know that can possibly give us any answers.

can you look me in the eye and guarantee me that this isn't all some kind of flimflam?

i'm a very lonely man.

look at my library!

you're gonna get yours, [name]!

never did like camels.

what do you suppose killed him?

time to go.

take my hand, and i will spare your friends.

will you look at that?

do they know something we don't?

i need a new job.

have you no respect for the dead?

i've dreamt about this since i was a little girl.

you dream about dead guys?

patience is a virtue.

any last requests?

loosen the knot and let me go.

i don't think we need to know this.

ooh... that's gotta hurt.

you... i just don't get.

you probably won't live through it.

everybody else we've bumped into has died. why not you?

you're wondering... what is a place like me doing in a girl like this?

yeah, i was there.

can you swim?

of course we don't let him go!

you'll be dead when they do this.

i think i'll kill you.

think of my children.

i only gamble with my life, never my money.

i may not be an explorer or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker or a gunfighter, but i am proud of what i am.

give me frogs! flies! locusts! anything but you!

compared to you, the other plagues were a joy.

i am so very sorry. it was an accident.

you are a catastrophe.

oh my god, i hate it when these things do that.

is he supposed to look like that?

of course i can swim, if the occasion calls for it.

now, because of you, we have failed.

you think this justifies the killing of innocent people?

what did you say?

i don't want to tell you.

let me get this straight.

you don't have any children.

you lied to me.

i lie to everybody.

what makes you so special?

sorry. didn't mean to scare you.

the only thing that scares me are your manners.

have you got any bright ideas?

i'm thinking. i'm thinking!

you'd better think of something fast.

what are we going to do?

wait here! i'll go get help!

i thought you said you didn't believe in all this fairy tales and hokum stuff.

forget it! we're out the door, we're down the hall, and we're gone!

i told you not to play around with that thing.

you heard the man. no mortal weeapons can kill this guy.

listen! we've got to do something!

is that my problem?

i appreciate you saving my life and all, but when i signed on, i agreed to take you out there and bring you back. end of job, end of story, contract terminated.

that's all i am to you? a contract?

you can either tag along with me or stay here and try to save the world.

do something!

you know, nasty little fellows such as yourself always get their comeuppance.

what's the challenge then?

rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, and save the world.

death is only the beginning.

why are you going back?

i'm going downstairs to get me a drink. you want something?

[antisatiric]

[antisatiric]

@littledippered / continued.

Right, so that answers the follow-up question of whether it's always like this in here. It's not the worst place Twain's ever had to stop, really, but it's far from the best.

"Eh, well. Sucks for them, I guess." He leans against the nearest wall, rummaging into his bag. Pulling a discarded pen out of an unzipped pocket, he scrapes what he can of the beans off the bottom of his shoe; better not to track that over the floor, even if it is already dirty. "You wouldn't believe the sorta stuff I've stepped in. Floor burrito ain't even close to the top five."

That's an exaggeration, but Dipper's a lucky part of the 99% of people who don't need to know that kind of thing.

"So, this place the height of luxury in Gravity Falls?"

[antisatiric]

@tocliimb ( sebastian moran ) / oracle starter call.

"You can't trick me," Twain says, leaning on the hands he's got clasped on top of Sebastian's shoulder. It's a nice day outside, he thinks—cool enough that it isn't a complete pain to share body heat with other people. "You loooooove me!"

It's a common back and forth between them.

If it were anyone else, Twain might have doubted that fact a little bit more. He's certain, actually, that he would have. But even though they don't have the same system he and Will do for loving eachother in ways that are visible, Moran does other things. Like inviting Twain into his home, for one thing. Like decorating for Halloween when Twain knows he really doesn't give that much of a shit about it.

So it's not really about hearing the words as much as it's about needling Sebastian. That happens to be one of his favorite pastimes, after all!

"Admit it right now. You go super crazy inside every second I'm around. Full on butterflies. And you think super sappy thoughts about me all the time, like how you totally saw Halloween decorations and were literally overwhelmed with love. For me. Say it. Say you love me so much."

[antisatiric]

awaaa ... work on the dnd multi is going well ! at this rate i will finally be satisfied enough with my progress to write on other blogs.

[antisatiric]

someone has got to take this board away from me or otherwise sedate me we've surpassed 800 pins

the pin board i made for twain still continues to grow day by day.

[antisatiric]

it's occurred to me i've never really gone through design notes for twain's design; i have nothing else i can do right now so i'll do that under the cut!

post-writing me adding this bit on: it ended up becoming a sort of chronology about the evolution of twain's design. it's really very long, but i'm happy with the way things turned out.

this is where we started compared to my current design for twain! it's important to acknowledge where he started; my version of twain very much did come initially from bungou stray dogs, and especially on my older blog you can see a long, long stretch of time where i still used his face for icons. there's a marked difference between these two designs, though.

first of all, bungou stray dogs has a habit of just dressing the foreign authors in whatever suits the time period their real life author counterpart was from. this isn't always bad, but in twain's case it wasn't particularly accurate, so i aimed to fix that by removing the aspect of period accuracy from the lore's equation. this is where my first ever redesign comes in;

this was my first ever go at redesigning twain's character to fit the more serious storyline i had in mind for him! there are a lot of aspects changed here and a couple aspects i kept the same so i'll go through them.

the shape and color of his hair remained consistent, save for the addition of a ponytail at the back---at this time, i wasn't confident enough in my portrayal and its deviations to change standout parts of his design, and moreover i wanted to be able to continue using icons of the canon design without too much of an issue. i also kept his giant belt because i found it funny.

i wanted to incorporate a lot more color into this design, though; his initial design is almost entirely black and white except for the belt and his hair, and twain had always seemed to me the type to enjpy vibrant colors. because i tended to base him off the characters featured in his works---usually huck and tom---i wanted a very earth-toned palette, and eventually settled on the green, brown, and black because i liked the way they looked with his red hair.

you might also note that i kept the button up shirt for this design! that will inevitably change later, but for now it's staying, although i had him button it up partway. i considered it an iconic part of his design at the time to have it unbuttoned but i secretly resented the unbuttoned shirt coming up as often as it did in my writing, so i changed it.

as for his shoes, i gave him something a lot more practical while still being a little unnecessarily complicated because i had always had a gripe with his sandals. he was meant to be a rough-and-tumble traveler and the shoes never seemed to be practical for that, so i fixed them.

then we get to my next iteration of the design!

this one is actually quite close to my current design, but it suffers from a few elements i wasn't quite sure how to commit to.

by this time, his official change in ability from aimbot to what it is now had already taken place, and i had also conceptualized no. 44 thanks to the help of a long-dead server for the plot point of humanized abilities, although he was initially quite a different figure in twain's life---originally, before settling into the tense and unwilling mentor-mentee relationship, i had intended 44 to be a sort of de-facto love interest for twain who gave him power out of a sense of fascination, rather than inevitable necessity. the plot of twain being his inheritor came later.

this is the first real appearance of twain's white eye, discolored skin, and white hair, though you'll notice i was hesitant to fully commit to sapping ALL of the color from his skin and his hair retains a lot more orange in a lot wider of a span.

the buttoned up shirt is finally gone, too! i figured since i was already taking dramatic liberties with his character i could just go ahead and change whatever i liked, so i decided it would make more sense to just put him in a non-buttoned shirt and be done with the button debacle that seemed to haunt him all the time. then i gave him a jacket to make up for the loss of green in his shirt!

and now we're finally onto my current iteration of the design.

i've committed fully since then to the color sap on his face. i also brought back the belt (it wouldn't have been visible, but he lost it for a few pictures after the previous one) and decided on a more consistent volume or his hair. this is, for now, what i'm considering his final design, though i imagine it will continue to recieve slight tweaks in the future as i draw him more.

then i of course have my redesigns of him that suit a specific purpose in a couple of his aus...

... but these each honestly deserve their own posts, and i've gone on enough here. thank you for reading if you've gotten this far. i love talking about things like this when it comes to twain. hehe.

[antisatiric]

STARTER CALL !

like this post and i'll write you a starter based off a random card i pull from my new oracle deck!

[antisatiric]

i was working on some art so i could finally start making that multi for all my dnd pcs and npcs, so i should be all good to finally write in earnest now. namely i owe a certain someone a starter i haven't gotten to pulling an oracle card for ... ah well. things that have to happen after i get home from work, regrettably.

[antisatiric]

drew some more twains recently .