#I didn't want to draw them just in typical formation this time

[torra-and-the-toons]

I hope I'm not intruding much of your time with my request but what are your thoughts or what do the Little Traitor Dudes for Children's Defense (ltdfcd) look in your style?

I know it might be a weird ask but they are so underrated!! Silly little surfer kids with a dork of a dad! I still love your art style btw, Keep up the amazing work!💙

No, no you're not intruding at all!! I'm loving these requests tbh, especially characters I wouldn't think to draw otherwise! It's not weird to ask for them! :> Thank you SO much for your kind words, y'all are too sweet fr ; - ; Sorry it took so long to get to this one.

Some call them surfers but I just call them locals, being from California lmao. This one looked really weird in the usual black and white sketch style so I colored it :> They deserve some fun in the sun.

[n3ptoonz]

'Anyone But You'

Pairing: Sub!Zero/GN!Reader (see what I did there)

Fandom: Mortal Kombat 1 (2023)

Warnings/tags: Smut, explicit. Rivals to lovers trope, very story and dialogue driven but there is smut at the end, handjob, Bi Han is a good boy, overstimulation, canon typical violence, Bi Han is a complex man in love, reader is a pyromancer, kinda proofread this took so long to write holy fuck

EDIT: I FREAKING FORGOT i was referencing THIS picture. starts wreaking havoc

Word count: 3.4k

"Just what I needed." Bi Han grumbled, his usual scowl apparent on his face at the sight of you approaching him. He always hated how much you were able to match his skills. Deep down, he might have respected that, but your attitude is what holds him from admitting it.

"Just what you wanted." you said, flashing a shit eating grin at the man in front of you. "Lord Liu Kang sure has his ways of bringing the gang back together."

"Another reason I can't stand him." he said, this time louder and shamelessly. He didn't even care if someone were to hear him nearby.

"What's the assignment for today? He hasn't given us an impossible task in a while-"

"He wants twelve of us to investigate Shang Tsung's laboratory experiments in Outworld and get samples. Problem is, it's heavily guarded by his minion freaks in and outside."

Despite him cutting you off mid-sentence, you just rolled your eyes and looked at the drawing he held up. He didn't make any eye contact with you until you took it from him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, voice filled with growing irritation. "Give it back."

"You weren't holding it right, so instead of asking you to flip it, I just took it. Quit your whining I'll hand it over once I get a good look at them."

He groaned, crossing his arms and waiting for you to finish. You really inspected their faces, impressed with how detailed they were.

"This isn't art class-"

"These are some really well drawn freaks of nature. Whoever did this captured their essence." you said, your tone genuine this time. This took Bi Han aback a bit, but not enough for you to notice. His eyebrows rested from his natural scowl upon hearing your indirect-direct compliment.

It was him who drew those atrocities with the finest ink from his late father's office, but he would never admit that. To be honest, he wasn't too fond of his own work and just passed it off as somebody else's from his clan.

He cleared his throat and took the paper back from your hands, "Yeah, yeah, just be ready to leave by sundown." he said, walking off to talk to the rest of the fighters in the group. When he took the paper, you noticed he had some black ink spots on the tips of his fingers, but you didn't bring it up. He's already constantly on edge so teasing him about something he actually put effort into was out of your forte.

It was nearing sundown and everyone was geared up including you. You grabbed your mask and choice of weapon, quickly putting on the all black uniform given since you all were heading out at night. Heading over to the table with the plans and formatting of the area, you could hear Bi Han discussing what's to come within the next 48 hours.

"This mission is going to be long, so listen closely. When we get there, we are to ambush the entrance to clear it of the guards occupying it. Then we wait to see if any alarms will set off before continuing into the corridor and clearing that too."

You listened to his plan, and to be honest, you didn't quite think going in with an aggressive approach would be effective.

"I feel like we should stakeout the front and sides to see the patrol patterns. If we just go in there setting shit off, surely we'd be fighting off an army of mutations, and who knows how long that would take."

Bi Han slowly raised his head, furrowing his brows. He always hated when you chimed in with something opposing his ideas, even if they almost always made sense.

"It would be easier to take them out when we get there. Plus, look at who we have on the team; our best twelve. I'm sure taking out some mindless freaks won't be hard." he said, glaring at you from the other side of the table. You placed your hands down and leaned forward, refusing to back down simply because he was in "in charge."

"Covering more of the area instead of running in blindly is more effective. We have 48 hours to get this done, what the hell are we storming the place for?"

"Because we have the reinforcements. Are you so incompetent that you question such a basic concept?"

"I think you forget, Bi Han, the last time we attempted to take down a semblance of organized criminals with just a few of us, not twelve--mind you--, a few of our people nearly got rag dolled to death. We had to retreat after taking a beating as soon as we arrived," you said, leaning in closer.

"It's ultimately up to you, but if you so much as get ran at by a gang of lab experiments, I won't be helping you."

Bi Han could only keep glaring at you behind his mask, the cryomancy in his veins creeping up as he gradually gets more aggravated. You were right, and that pissed him off, but he decided to leave that alone so the mission could just start already.

He watched the other members' reaction to you guys' interaction, and it looked like they agreed with you.

"Fine." he grumbled, "We keep watch to catch their patrol patterns, and attack once each group has established such. There's no need to report it since we'll be acting tonight. After that, we meet back here to report what we've found after looking around." he continued, pointing to a section of the laboratory.

"And make sure you take out everything you come across. Let out any prisoners too, but only after the fact so they don't get torn piece by piece by these abominations." you added, seeing Bi Han just nod and fully stand up, finalizing his statements and putting the plans in his pocket.

It didn't take long for you all to surround the general area, getting a closer look where the different parts of the lab would be. Albeit it didn't take forever in a night to get there, you and Bi Han had been bickering the whole time. Sometimes it was playful on your end, other times it was generally just annoying you how mean he was. If not for the rest of your members breaking it up, you'd have been arguing the whole way there.

Everyone else has split up for efficiency purposes...and to get away from you both.

You hid behind a tall bush that was easy to see through, watching for anyone and any thing that came by. Bi Han was nearby doing the same thing. You picked up on a couple of patterns that they patrolled in.

"I wonder if Shang Tsung is in there." you said to yourself, but loud enough for him to hear.

"He doesn't drop by at night. It's the whole reason we came at this time, don't you remember?" he said turning to you, his voice right back to his tone of irritation.

"Do you have to be an asshole all the time?" you turned to him and met his eyes focused on you behind his mask, "I wasn't even talking to you. Plus, I tune you out at any given opportunity."

He didn't respond immediately. Just slowly turned back without another word.

"You know, I'd be more willing to actually listen to you when you aren't calling me a moron."

"Maybe stop being a moron and I'll be a little more nice to you." he quickly replied, remaining away from your gaze.

You rolled your eyes and stood up, tightening the bandages over your knuckles.

"Why the hell do I even try with you? I too wonder just what Lord Liu Kang was thinking to put us together. Figure this shit out on your own." you said, getting low before moving to a different spot.

As Bi Han was about to respond, he noticed a suspiciously placed patch on the grass that you were approaching. In his mind, he figured you saw it already and wasn't going to say anything. You had gotten on his last nerve once again, so why would he help you?

You heard a faint voice calling out in the distance that was gradually coming closer. You looked in that direction since you recognized the voice; it was one of the guys running towards you and Bi Han and waving his arms.

"Trap! It's a trap!" he yelled, but he was still too far to hear. "Retreat!!"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Before you could even process the sound you were hearing, the surrounding area was set off by mini land mines while the building stayed in tact. You were able to dodge the patch that went off, but the aftershock caused everyone to be blown back a long distance from the laboratory, which eventually knocked you out from impact.

-

"Ugh, where am...I...?" you leaned up, wincing from the pain on your back and legs. The air around you was dusty, hazy, and heavily polluted by whatever the hell was in that debris. You looked around and could really only see the ground and the trees as far as your vision went before it looked light gray again.

You got up with the strength left in your body, aiming to find someone, anyone. Wandering around for so long caused you to have to pay attention to a body wound from the adrenaline dying down. You checked it out and realized it wasn't so bad, so you used pyromancy to close it up for the time being. It hurt like a bitch, but it worked.

You made the emergency call sound for anyone on your team to hear, still nothing. You tried again, only to hear heavy breathing and curses following after it.

"God damn it!" you heard, immediately thinking it had to be...

"Bi Han?" you called out, still holding onto your side while you walked towards the voice with high caution. Silence filled the air. This stubborn fucker...

"I know it's you, hard ass." you said, walking just close enough to see Bi Han leaning on a tree while holding onto his side. You'd be more concerned if he didn't not answer you on purpose.

Upon seeing your face, he was clearly not in the mood for your presence, especially at his most vulnerable state. The man was beaten up and in genuine pain, unable to tend to his own wounds, let alone stand.

Once you stopped in front of him he just looked away. He was embarrassed to say the least. Everyone else is usually hurt and he had to watch over/take care of them. But this time his own rival stood before him, just as beat up but still able to walk around.

"Who were you expecting to be here?" you asked.

"Anyone but you." he replied, clenching his jaw.

"That's no way to talk to someone who could help you. The other members are probably scattered somewhere looking for us and each other, but nowhere to be found." You paused in between sentences to see if he'd have anything to say, but he didn't budge not one bit. You noticed a deep gash on his arm and dried blood around where his ribcage would be under the uniform.

"Let's make this simple. We cut the rivalry bullshit so I can help you, or I can leave you to it while you likely just bleed out. Your call, Grandmaster." you watched his face twitch at the sound of his title. His mask not being on his face freaked you out sometimes since you could fully see his face and every expression on it.

"How could you help me?" he asked, putting emphasis on "you" as if it was impossible. You lifted your shirt halfway to show him the wound you patched up.

"I just sealed this with heat. It still hurts but at least it's not bleeding anymore. For yours it would probably take longer and a little more heat to seal but it's the better option." you said. The look on his face stilled in contemplation. He really couldn't stand the idea of being in debt to you.

"You know what, I can go, don't wanna piss you off-"

"No! Please...I need help. I need your help." he groaned out in pain when he leaned forward in desperation. You kneeled in front of him with a half smile.

"Don't utter a word of this." he said, slowly taking his shirt off to reveal the wound that stained his sculpture of a body. Lord have mercy...

"Wouldn't dream of it..." you said, moving closer next to him and getting to work. "I'll do your arm too."

You watched as he wanted to say something, but simply didn't. Like a lump was caught in his throat.

"You're welcome." you mumbled. You were so focused on his wound while simultaneously keeping your composure, you didn't notice the very, very slight blush forming on his cheeks. The feeling of your hot hands on his cold skin, and the look of pure concentration in your eyes had a different feeling coursing through his body.

He cleared his throat and looked off in the distance, a quiet, but genuine "thank you" finally coming from him.

-

It's been a couple weeks since. Everyone found their way back and managed to heal in due time. Since the mission was nowhere near successful, Liu Kang wanted you all to reside at the Lin Kuei temple to continue with altering plans after getting a thorough rest.

After helping out in the infirmary for a while, you realized Bi Han hadn't shown up so much outside of leading his clan in their daily routines. You left the room and looked around for him everywhere asking if anyone saw him recently. One of his clan members overheard you and let you know he mentioned he wasn't feeling well as of lately, so he's been going straight to his room after their sparring sessions.

You took it upon yourself to make a cup of tea, heating it with your own hands before heading over to his bedroom. The closer you got there, you could hear him talking out loud. He seemed to be babbling something over and over again before he realized he was getting loud. You stood outside his door and eavesdropped carefully, wondering just what the hell he was saying.

"Ah, fuck," he kept repeating everytime he exhaled, which just gradually became raspier and more strained.

After knocking two times it didn't take long for the sound of shuffling and him asking who it was outside of his door at this time to fill your ears. You sheepishly answered back, letting him know you brought tea since you heard he wasn't feeling well.

He quickly opened the door and pulled you in without a thought, closing it behind you before looking at you with an expression you've never seen before. This man looked stressed as all hell, but not the work kind; the faint pink on his face let you know it was a different kind of stress.

"Look what you did to me." he said, pointing to his face which was gradually getting hotter at the sight of you. He took the tea out of your hand and placed it on his dresser before grabbing one of your hands. "You need to fix this."

You couldn't help but smile mischievously at him. He was indirectly begging you to fulfill his needs, but you couldn't let him have it that easily.

"I'm confused, what are you asking of me exactly?" your feigned confusion only riled him up more and he was on the verge of being a sputtering mess.

"You-" he paused. "I...need you. Your touch."

"My touch?" you asked, walking closer to him and feeling his grip loosen just a little bit.

"The heat that comes from your hands. It...felt nice. And the way you looked at me that day has been occupying my mind since."

You tried not to show it on your face how in utter shock you were at his confession. He looked away before speaking again.

"Please." he whispered as he briefly closed his eyes. His quiet plea was louder than anything he's ever said to you in all the time you've known him.

With no time wasted, you grabbed his jaw and kissed him, feeling him stiffen from getting startled before melting into your touch (no pun intended).

Pushing him to sit on the bed, you had never seen a man like him just look so...submissive. And the fact that it was Bi Han, because of you, had you thinking your life was complete.

His bun came undone and let his hair flow free. You softly grabbed the back of his head and massaged his hair, letting him feel the heat emitting from your palms. With the other hand you undid his belt and there it was. His bare body before you, and his dick half flaccid.

One grab at the base nearly made him fall limp. Your warm hands caressing his hair and shaft was likely the trick to make him cum right here right now. It didn't take long for that feeling to swell up inside of him, making him harden way faster than he expected.

"Look at me." you demanded, watching his eyes flutter open. If his cheeks weren't a deep red before, they sure are now. The pace of your hand quickened, but not too much to watch the friction. "You're going to cum when I tell you to. Not beforehand, understood?"

As he nodded you could feel his breath hitching. You never tore your eyes away from his even upon hearing the sound of slick getting louder with every stroke.

"See? I knew you could be a good boy, Bi Han."

He grunted at his senses heightening to the sound of your voice, his name, and being called a good boy all in one. He couldn't hold out for much longer now.

"Please-" he whispered. Nothing like a cold glass of man begging in the afternoon.

"Please what?" you stopped your hand, squeezing around the tip. You reveled in the way it looked like he was about to cry real tears.

"Please- Ah, I'm so close-"

"What do you want me to do about that?"

"Move your hand, fuck-" he started to lose sense of his surroundings as soon as you lightly pulled on his hair. You finally gave in, the look on his face and the utter desperation on display made you hot all over (no pun intended)

You didn't expect a small cracking in his voice to appear. With this you only egged him on further to express just how good you make him feel.

"Cum."

And that is exactly what he did. The moment he started to get loud you covered his mouth with the hand that was in his hair. Did you ever think you'd hear Bi Han whimper and sniffle just from your warm hand gliding up and down his shaft? No, but it made everything that lead up to this point worth it.

You didn't stop stroking. You couldn't stop. His eyebrows were upturned and he looked like the perfect bottom bitch. If you told anybody about this, albeit you wouldn't dare, nobody would believe you. You had the Grandmaster of the Lin fucking Kuei under your palm, literally.

As he kept cumming from overstimulation, ice crept up to his elbows. It's like he lacked control from the amount of pleasure he received. He definitely needed this to say the least.

He finally calmed down, and you slowed your hand to a stop. Luckily he only got it on his abdomen and not his beloved robe otherwise you wouldn't hear the end of it.

You sat next to his tired form, looking at him from the side and tucking his hair behind his ear.

"You really put the 'sub' in Sub Zero." you said, reaching up to have him face you again. Hesitant at first, you leaned in and gave him a peck on the lips to see his reaction. He just stared at you, but this time his face was relaxed, not a frown line to be found. A smidge of a smile on his face.

"You're cleaning this up."

-

a/n: thanks for reading! my asks are open! <3

[taylor-titmouse]

Meatheads, by R/L Monroe

it's another month gone by, which means another cover for another @petitemortality R/L Monroe book! this one goes hard and sweaty and meaty, and the worldbuilding is both really funny and really fascinating in the little glimpse of it we get. and also there's three huge fuckin dudes going to town on each other. check it out, and follow along on the process for designing the cover below!

FYF 3: Meatheads $3

Trapped by a lethal boiling sun, in the neon ruins of a fallen supercity, three tank-grown ultrasoldiers have nothing to kill but time and no enemy but their own overheated flesh. Daily hormone shots gave them hard bodies, but without a seedsucker to offer them relief, they soon have something even harder to contend with. It's not gay if you come out on top...right? Almost 7k words(!), EPUB and PDF format. Content: -M/M/M -straight turned gay -testosterone dosing -cum harvesting/drinking -dominance struggle -sexual hazing -rough sex

THUMBNAILS

i lost track of the initial notes for these, but the first two were really just me spinning my wheels. my instinct was something with greek wrestling, stylized like pottery. we usually do the covers early in the month, so i hadn't read the finished book yet and didn't have a clear sense of the aesthetic yet. i did know there were three guys, which made composition tough. fighting is not, typically, a three-man's game. lee suggested looking at WWE and rugby

which led me to looking at turkish oil wrestling, because truly, what is greasier than that. originally there was a reference image of turkish oil wrestling here, but tumblr hated it so much that they flagged the post and denied appeal. those men were wearing pants. this post is free to read on patreon so you can see the greasy boys there.

moving on.

AH SHIT THAT'S TOO SCARY

so while we were talking about the color palette, lee brought up 80s splatterfest VHS cover design. we agreed on violent red and purple, but the topic of horror led me in a horror direction. gritty lines, harsh light and shadow, scary imagery with the single red eye, etc. and we agreed this look is Sick and Rules, but wasn't quite right for neon future climatepunk.

so i went back to the drawing board and totally got rid of the hatching. we're looking for neon, for black velvet, for graphic

definitely closer to the final product! though of course as soon as i saw it in discord i realized the purple on the middle guy's back and the third guy's leg were competing too much with the top guy's back and making it hard to know where to look. so: more variants

adding the paint strokes down was just something i wanted to try at the last minute, and it was definitely the right move! there were like five more variations of just That with the gradient map very very slightly adjusted, but honestly it's not worth posting all of those lol. the version we settled with was the best one!

and that's the process for this month's fuck yourself friday cover! this is both my favorite cover so far AND my favorite story. i love high concept worldbuilding that serves the fucking. if you're here and supporting my work, i bet you do too! so go read it! it's only $3 dude!!

[sailing-ever-west]

had a nonverbal episode yesterday and naturally am coping with autistic blorbos so it got me thinking about nonverbal Luffy and how that would affect the plot, especially with a character who is typically, well, yelling all the time.

like canon Luffy can't really keep his mouth shut and this causes many problems but I fully believe that he would be able to wreak just as much havoc if not more without ever talking.

him using sign language is super cool for a starting place, but

1. I'm honestly not sure who would've taught it to him because he didn't have a consistent education or guardian so what he knows is probably somewhat incomplete/rudimentary. Garp would've made a solid attempt I think but he probably would've tried to do it in like a strict lesson format and Luffy's brain would just ADHD straight outta there, but I think he still learned the basics.

2. Signing wouldn't always work to communicate because not everyone knows it so he would still often have to find other ways to get across what he's saying. The crew would learn sign and just get used to his various other ways of communicating but people all over the world when they're traveling can't be counted on to know stuff.

Random ideas I have

keeping a little flag with a jolly roger on it in his pocket and just pointing to it to tell people he's a pirate

just not bothering to try to communicate with people who have oficially pissed him off. sorry loser your privileges have been revoked I'm just gonna punch you now

marines getting really annoyed at first because they think he's staying silent to snub them and then realizing he just can't talk but by the time they figure that out he's already down to fight them anyway

stretching his arms into shapes of things to get an idea across

quickly drawing illustrations (not terribly helpful because he's awful at it, but he continues to do it anyway)

Zoro/someone else on the crew explaining things to a new person and Luffy just nodding proudly like yep that's my crewmate they get it :))

still makes Noises. nonverbal =/= quiet and boy does Luffy prove that

He used to sign "food" at Sanji but eventually he just Shows Up in the kitchen or approaches him with big eyes and Sanji knows what he wants

there's a rumor going around that he communicates with his crew telepathically because people cannot figure out HOW the ideas are getting across

asks people to join his crew by just showing them the little flag and motioning to follow him. once you come with him there's no going back he's like ok you're my best friend forever and within like 24 hours you're like well I guess I'm on a pirate crew

doesn't say gum gum when he does a move he just starts screaming. it's like far more terrifying and villains have no idea what's happening until they're being punched in the face by a nonverbal teenager in flip flops

basically take how abrupt and confusing Luffy already is to everyone else in the world and then imagine he doesn't announce anything before doing it

Thinking of doing some little fics or mini comics of major scenes in this AU idk

[t34-mt]

unfinished pieces of 2022

I lied the last one is from this month, pieces are in order from oldest to newest so the first two have missing stuff from the current Canon.

Small explanations of each images below - >

first features tamtam and his white cazoar reaching the southern coast for the first time, in a strongly idealized view of the real crossing. I absolutely love to remake it one day as this is quite old and features off-saddle, clothing, and even cazoar anatomy (long tail), id like to have this remade alongside a historically accurate one in a single post. Just to show how the "realistic" oil paintings (a technique created in late AOS by kyhuines) were commissioned to romanticize reality and make it glorious. To be then used as propaganda for GA (in kaar'kchir). the drawing itself feels super empty and i just didn't know what do do to fix it, so i abandoned it!

The second is about south-west kyhuines ( because of blue gular skin) relaxing in their typical highly climbable city, with a female having a snack and a male with smoke coming out of opperculums, background as family groups that i initially wanted them to eat together, on the wall behind them i was planning on decorating it with neolithic like cave paintings. the drawing was started before i gave them tahofahs so in the piece its missing on the two kyhuines you see. started this drawing on FA then got bored of that program to go back on ms paint for the render, i feel like its a bit too decorated for a kyhuine town, just something about it isn't good so i won't continue.

and now for last! just a sub-adult (no blue feather reflection or white undercoats) north-east maanul (characterized by having dark feathers due to the rock coloration there, from ancient volcanic activities. and also having the ear hood skin covered in feathers) going out for a hunt in the large open sea. as maanuls live in coast and cliffs, with it the sea sometimes cut in two parts, by natural rock formation, large mangrove roots or even corals. hunting is done by going in the open sea, usually with several people, using primitive yet efficient harpoons. I wanted to add a marine animal under them that is just curious about the maanul, but i left that drawing so now it will be a blob of color with white under! the maanul isn't wearing anything which isn't normal, while rendering i was planning on adding minimal bracelets, necklaces, and a bit more, as the rest would be left at home.

plus sub-adults don't have access to certain types of permanent jewels as well as dyes, scarifications, and tattoos so they're naturally less decorated. also,peaking out the head to probably look at something interesting, not to breathe! with tahofahs hanging out to smell, when diving back it will be retracted as if wet its almost impossible to smell for several minutes.

[hollownoire]

Current W.I.P's and Future Plans! Exciting Shit!

A lot of ya'll may have noticed I've been kind of quiet or otherwise preoccupied lately, and that's because there's a ton of really exciting stuff I'm currently working on! :3

There's a lot I wanna share, so for those of you who are interested this post is gonna go over all of the stuff I've been doing lately, a glimpse at what things might look like for me down the line.

TL:DR : Taking art more seriously, tons of art studies and practice, just finished moving, drawing projects and W.I.P's, working on making a YouTube channel and picking up filmmaking?!?!?!?!

So, a bit ago I set off to do this 30 day "learn to draw" practice/routine/program thing by Marc Brunet on YouTube.

I picked it up because I've felt like I lacked a lot of knowledge regarding space and perspective that you'd typically learn practicing the fundamentals of art. I understood that I needed to make things look three dimensional, and had the smallest grasp on how to do that, but the core understanding and experience was something I lacked.

For anyone trying to learn how to draw, I highly recommend checking out this video and giving it a go! I'm not going to go over every single day's exercise I did, partly because I didn't actually finish the whole program... (There's so much to do lately hnngn)

But, I made this thing! Tada!

I'm also delving into making my first drawing timelapses in clip studio with these next couple of projects I'm currently working on...

One of them being a commission for a friend's DnD character, a sort of gambler themed vigilante called "Vermillion" that was made for my DnD setting, Benediction. Here's the progress I have so far on our resident card-thrower:

...Neat, right? This drawing was one of the most recent ones where I'm really trying to challenge myself with perspective, foreshortening, and composition work. I've fallen in love with painting and you'll most likely see it as a permanent addition to my art style.

A lot of that is thanks to Bluebiscuits, who's art style has been a massive inspiration to mine for a very long time. Their art guides have been invaluable to my creative growth, and they deserve all of the support they could possibly get.

They have a patreon, so maybe check that out if you're interested in their work. :>

The other big project I'm working on is actually design work for a very important character I'm making. This is tied into the potentiality of YouTube and all that would entail, so bare with me for this next part.

It's a kind of...mascot, of sorts. An evolution of my avatar(s) that I've been fucking with on and off for years at this point. It's kind of important to get that nailed down, because...well, it's the first thing people are gonna see when they check out my stuff, so, I needed to make a "face" for my art.

Especially if I want to do YouTube. Which...I do! I've wanted to have a creative outlet like that for a while. I have tons of things to say and share, and a lot of it would probably be best off in video format.

Plus, then I get to have an excuse to design an eldritch girl-thing to be on screen and talk for me. Yeah, the second project is a RantSona. I mean...it's more than just a rantsona, but this design has been workshopped to be used for that...while also doing other important things! Like being a hot eldritch horror-lady generally. A suitable vessel for my creative endeavors >:3

Meet "Hollow", or, I guess the early blueprints of Hollow. Hollow-to-be if you will:

Presto! What will most likely end up being my..."Mascot"? My avatar...thing. Me. Me but way cooler.

On the side there you can see some early attempts at making a good "talking mouth", all of which....didn't...look great. Mouths are hard it turns out! Even harder when you're making a puppet for entertainment purposes.

One day, one day there will be a marketable Hollow plush. One day.

I still have tons of work to do, I mean, look at this shit:

I have a lot to do. That drawing up there is the result of like...over a couple of weeks of design-work, reference gathering, and notetaking.

Which you cant get a little looksie at down here:

This was the early framework for giving myself direction. Haven't really ever done something like this for an art project, so it's been really damn cool seeing where it's led me. I'm definitely going to be using this kind of "set up" going forward for my creative endeavors.

In a way it feels like all of my progress so far was put to the test. I buckled the fuck up and really started trying to chisel at something...big. I made myself a work schedule, a posting schedule, and am (trying) to wake up at 9:00 every day to squeeze in as much time as possible.

I'm getting side-tracked, but, yeah! Framework! Moodboards! Milanote:

Milanote is actually fucking GOATED, I'd be absolutely crippled trying to make this project work without it's help. Those two little design sheets I made by hand in clip studio took honest to god days to make, when I could have used Milanote to just make a mood board...reference....thing...instead.

I ended up doing that regardless, cause I needed to make a vibe board to refer to during the building of Hollow's outfit/body design, which is also the stage I'm currently on in the whole process.

Literally all of it is just drag-and-drop. I didn't even need to download all of these images, cause Milanote just lets you drag an image off of a website and shove it in that bitch all easy-like. It's incredible.

You can add text, links, images, yadda yadda yadda, this sounds like a sponsorship but I am in fact just sharing the gospel of this unit of a website. It's good, it might help you, check it out? Do whatever you want.

Anyway, after making a good enough pool of references I started working on Hollow's body/outfit. I'm extra, so I wanted something eye-catching that won't...hopefully...be too distracting in a video. I mean...well, if its distracting in a bad way. I do like having eyes on me, after all. ;]

I've been rambling, so I'm going to try to be more concise from this point onward.

In order to really nail the character design I need to communicate the important bits effectively. That means a strong silhouette, shape language, design, and conveying the character properly. I mean, I'm trying to make an eldritch horror girl, here, if you can't tell that on first glance I did something wrong.

In summary, I gave myself six dummies to practice on. Using my candy pile on milanote I pick and choose various elements from designs I like and incorporate them into my own while keeping in mind the important elements I listed in my outline from earlier.

Ideally, by the time the sixth is finished, I'll have a good idea of what I like and don't like about each one, and can compile all of that into a "Pre-final draft" where I put it alllll together :3

The main thing is I'm trying to make her clothing look like it's a part of her. Kind of organic. Able to be changed at her will, her skin, basically. So there's lots of carapaces and warframe-like skin material there.

I'm very pleased with how it's going so far. Even just the second iteration looks fuckin' fantastic imo. Very Arrancar/Vasto Lorde (From Bleach). Good shit.

That's basically it. I probably skimmed over a lot of stuff, but at this point the caffeine and vyvanse is wearing off, and I'm crashinnnggg.

Before I go, the film I'm making. Yeah, so I needed practice learning a video editing software, especially if I was going to fuck around with a rantsona, so I've been editing a ton of Lethal Company footage I've saved over...quite a long damn time.

I wanted to do something a little bit more on-theme with me, my aesthetic, and the shit I want to do in the future, rather than just mash a bunch of "hehe funnies" together and call it a day. There will still be some of that, it is lethal company after all, but I wanted to be a little bit more dramatic than that...

The result is a meta-ey surreal analog horror style experience with some elements of an ARG. The primary premise is an artist's descent into madness, the game being "haunted", the power of belief, and artistic depictions of very real struggles I and many others have. Depression, isolation, loneliness, feelings of disconnection, and other things of that nature.

I find the contrast very fascinating. I've even reached out to several...oh god what's the word...? Music artist. Not musician. People who make digital music, like game OST's. Those.

I reached out to some people including a close friend of mine and "CAMA", one of the folks who contributed to making the sound overhaul mod "Lethal Resonance" for lethal company, for permission to use music, or in my friend's case make original music for the film. (My sentence structure is falling apart, I'm so sorry I'm almost done).

Cama has a soundcloud, check it out and give them some support, their music makes my ears happy.

Okay. That's it. I don't currently have a set title for this short film yet, but I do have a placeholder (That may just end up being the actual title. I don't fucking know dude, dinner is still cooking.) that I'll leave you with,

"I am not me."

If anybody actually read all of that, congrats! You're now one of my favorite people. Take care of yourself <3

[pipmcmayhem]

Pip's Process for Making Comics :)

Hi everyone! I know I'm rarely on here, but I've decided to share my process for my webcomic in case it could help anyone. I've been building my story for many years in my head (it's a paracosm that's been with me basically since I could hold a pencil), and it wasn't until about 2021 that I was finally able to start getting it down, and this is the process that works for me. This process is more aimed at super-lengthy ongoing multiple-arc type things, so those with massive fantasy epics, this is for you!

1) Make an outline for the arc. I make a list of each episode, and the basic events that happen in them. I typically have 11-13 chapters per arc and 2-3 focus-events happen in a chapter, because I try not to have "too much going on". Breaking down the focuses in a list is also useful in that you can gauge the flow of the focus and not have it "jump around" too much, and also balance how much you focus on one character to another, etc.

(As you can see, this is very basic, but keep in mind I've had "the party episode" in my head for years so I didn't need to write out a scene I already knew like the back of my hand in the list)

2) Once the list is done, start writing the episodes in a script-like format. If you're doing your project solo, literally no one has to understand the script but you. Write it how you envision it in a way you can understand. And don't be afraid to stray slightly from the list! Do whatever feels more natural.

3+) After you've scripted the final scripts for each episode, write down ANOTHER list of all the significant things that DO happen, so you can reference back to it in the future to avoid things like plotholes and accidental repeat of events. You could also, instead, edit the original list from step 1; I just personally like to have multiple documents so I can see changes and where they happened. 4) This is where the drawing begins. What I do is make REALLY rough drafts for every page in each episode. Think kinda like thumbnailing for storyboards; I just scribble down the basic events I want happening, the area of the dialogue (with the beginning few words of the line, to keep track) And after that, it's clean(ish) sketches*, lineart, coloring, etc. I typically do all the roughs in order, and then do the same with clean sketches, and then do the rest page-by-page. (*EDIT: I wan't to elaborate that I highly recommend adding the text in as early as you feasibly can so you don't have to worry about text fitting, as you can work around it)

IMPORTANT NOTE! DO NOT be afraid to stray from ANY of the initial writing! If your script's dialogue is fine but doesn't have enough pages, make more pages! As you can see, I had to split what was originally going to be 1 page. There was even a crucial scene in chapter 3 of my comic that didn't even happen in the scripts, but it needed to. If you feel a change is needed, do it! Don't restrict yourself too much; see the script as more of a guideline.

So yeah, there's my method. I know it was unprompted and all, but for so many years I felt hopelessly lost when trying to get this MASSIVE story down, and my goal of posting this is because if there's the slightest possibility this could help someone, I want it to do that. :) Hopefully this helps someone, but now is my time to say that I'm by no means a professional; I'm self-taught and I've only been making the actual comic for 3-4 years, however I have 5 out of 10+ of the arcs fully scripted :) If you're interested in my comic, you can read it here! If you check it out, know that that means the world to me ;w; Have a nice day/night <3

[saint-amand]

Hi!! I love your artwork, your comics look really polished and professional! I was wondering if you had any inspirations/favorite mangaka or comic artists, or if you had any tips for starting on making comics ^^

Thank you so much!

To be honest... I have not actively kept up with manga for a long time (I really should for someone drawing one), although I'm exposed to a bit of the doujinshi community in general just by way of social media. I would say the look I've arrived at stems from having drawn comics for years and so having those opportunities to experiment with different ways of doing things.

The #漫画が読めるハッシュタグ tag on Twitter is a fun trove of seeing what's out there and some professionals also use it to plug upcoming publications by posting the first chapter (it's heavily used though so you might need to wade through a lot). Also recommend finding manga anthologies or magazines because it's a good way to compare a lot of artists in a small space!

As for tips on starting... I feel I can say a lot of things but it depends what kind of detail and what topics!! (I wanted to start a blog on this before but the idea dropped off because I didn't have a lot of time to write) Anyway I'll rattle off about some key points:

Deciding technical details Figure out what your intended specs are -- are you publishing digitally or do you want to print it? Both? Or digitally for now with possibility of printing in the far future? So then what size? Is it in pages or long webtoon format? What DPI will you draw in? Colour or B&W?

Storytelling and panelling Assuming you already have a story in mind and have written some kind of script, you then need to figure out how you're going to tell and pace it, and how you're going to lay it out on a page. I start with going over the script and splitting them into pages, cutting them at points that seem to make sense to be a good stop. And then I split the lines into panels. Now you know how many panels there are going to be per page*, you can begin storyboading (infamously the hardest part of comics). *But at the same time, you might only get a better sense of this once you've had more experience laying out pages. It's a huge spectrum. Depending on the tone of your story, if it's slow, loose, emotional and fluffy, there tends to be less panels on a page. More active and actiony, or if you just need to get through a lot and want to keep the scene going without lingering too long you would have more panels. Some manga average at like 3-6 panels per page whereas some people with higher density go for 5-8... And some people can fit up to 10 depending on the type of scene. It's all up to you! It's not a hard rule though obviously and it can create a lot of impact to mix it around. For example it's really impactful if you typically have 7 panels and suddenly something major happens and there's only 2 panels on the next page. Likewise you can create a sense of franticness or comedy if it's a slow moving story with 3 panels and suddenly there's 8 on the next page. Not to mention there are then a gazillion ways you can shape the panels on the page, and then compose the speech balloons and shots in them. Maybe you already have an image of mind of 1 shot and need to figure out everything around it. I recommend analysing at what other comic artists do for reference! Take your time because this is the most thinking-intensive part of the entire process. It's kind of a problem or puzzle-solving exercise though and it's satisfying once you arrive at your solution for that page.

Drawing style Since you're going to be drawing multiple pages, you need to decide how you want it to look so that it's consistent. There are an unlimited number of combinations, but just keep in mind the more detailed the style and the more drawing steps there are is the longer it takes to complete a page -- it's a balance of quantity vs quality. In the end you want to tell a story but you don't want to take 2 years drawing 30 pages. Some questions to ask yourself: - How detailed is the lineart? How detailed is everyone's clothes keeping in mind that you then need to draw it every panel and every page? - How do you shade it? Not at all? Flats or with some gradients? Screentones or nah? (PS: I only really do screentones because I'm genuinely prepping for print and I like the texture, but beware it doesn't show up great digitally) - Overall black and white balance of a page and how much you do your black fills/shadows - (If it's manga) How do you deal with black hair? (I'm so serious there are so many ways to do this if you have black hair characters) - Do you draw the backgrounds? Or process photos? Or use 3D?

Typesetting Nothing ruins good art faster than shitty typesetting. I have a strong opinion about this but please hand draw/hand lasso your balloons rather than using ellipse tools. And make sure there is enough space between the letters and the edge of the balloons. Nate Piekos' Better Letterer tips is a GREAT resource for this and explains everything far better than I can -- I highly recommend this for everyone wanting to get into comics.

Anyway, in a nutshell, drawing comics is a series of decisions you have to make. Break it up in various stages because thinking about everything at once can be overwhelming!

Start small and don't burn yourself out. It can very much be an exercise in stamina and if you can maintain passion towards a project. In terms of the reality of it, the process can be hard and time-consuming with varying levels of reward and satisfaction at the end. Just remember you're also doing it for yourself though -- because you've been gripped by a great compulsion to tell a story :)

[dlaprobably]

Servantember, Day 1: Johannes Gutenberg (Caster)

So, back in January, I decided I would take out two New Year's resolutions in one (doing stuff with all the concepts I had for Fate OCs and finally getting around to practicing drawing), and ultimately I decided to give myself a month-long challenge of drawing a character a day, chucking the list of names into a randomizer wheel and drawing whoever came up. I didn't quite manage to stick to the daily thing as I ended up busier than expected, some days having to double or triple up to play catch-up, and I didn't manage to stick to it for the whole month, but I made it 23 days in, which was pretty damn close, and I do intend to get back to the rest at some point. With all of that said, I'll be posting those here for the next while, each with a bit of lore/trivia/etc. to go with them under the cut.

First one to come up was Johannes Gutenberg, German inventor who revolutionized European publishing with his printing press! He's accompanied by Titivillus, a demon said to be responsible for causing mistakes in manuscripts on the devil's behalf, and considered to be a possible origin for the term "printer's devil", used to refer to a printer's apprentice.

Lore Notes:

-A dignified, serious sort, for the most part, befitting of his status as a master craftsman. He's constantly tinkering with something or other, and thrives on new ideas, however foolish they might seem in concept. He admires creativity in his Masters, and when he does manage to get a plan going, he can't help but have himself a good laugh. It'd be easy to underestimate him based on his lack of magical ability, but you would come to regret it quickly, as he can be a dastardly son of a gun when he wants to be.

-Gutenberg's magecraft is based on the spread of information. While his combat ability is practically nonexistent, he excels in his particular niche and is very much a force to be reckoned with.

-His main Noble Phantasm, Das Werk der Bücher, is the conceptual embodiment of his invention of the printing press, and the free spread of information it entails, granting his Master unlimited access to information on their opponents, as well as the ability to pass on that knowledge to others far and wide if they so wish. It can also be weaponized to bombard one's enemies with useless information, serve as a distraction, or even print money. As long as it's within the realm of distributing information or printing things, he can make it happen. The main drawback of this ability is that it takes extensive setup, as he must first rebuild his printing press from scratch with all of the trial and error that it took the first time.

-His passive Noble Phantasm, Aventur und Kunst, allows him to read through existing archives and written texts pretty much instantly as long as he can access them in some format, as well as allowing him free reign over physical printing of said information, since he claimed his initial period of research granted him the secret of printing.

-He's a frowned-upon choice by the Mage's Association and mage society at large, what with the importance of one's methods maintaining their secrecy. If there's a Holy Grail War banlist, he's certainly on there, however unofficially.

-Titivillus typically hangs around Gutenberg's rival, Johann Fust, but has unwittingly been dragged along with Gutenberg this time. As part of his responsibility as a demon is collecting stray chatter and misspoken words during church services, he carries his ERRATA sack with him. He's agreed to serve as a proper assistant to Gutenberg while he's around, peppering his enemies' works with typos, making them trip up their words at critical moments, and generally helping out with printer's devil duties. He may not seem like much, but it might be he's just holding back until he gets the raise he's been hoping for.

-While Gutenberg's workings mainly involve printing and information, he's also quite skilled in the making of mirrors. They have no magical effects whatsoever, and mostly just kind of look nice, but maybe you can pass them off as something special and make a quick buck?

Design Notes:

Went fairly straightforward with the depiction to start things off, using the few existing posthumous portraits of Gutenberg as a reference for his appearance. The coat was initially going to be designed to look like an open book, but I liked the idea of making it out of pieces of type more, so I went with that instead, keeping the book thing to the lapels. There are two easter eggs hidden on the coat, if you're interested in looking for them! Finally, Titivillus was the result of me going down a rabbit hole researching the term "printer's devil", and I thought the office worker getup made sense for a more bureaucratic, word-based type of demon.

[springcatalyst]

Okay, slithering back in here again💕💘💞💗💖💘💕💞. I'm a linguistics freak. I need to know if you have plans for language(s) in your work.

Are there any characters with distinct speech patterns, maybe using different sorts of words than others (due to heritage, education, geographic location)?

Do you ever use modern slang or local vernacular when writing? Is it a conscious or unconscious choice? Do you take influences from any real world english dialects in your work?

My god hello I love this ask so much thank you for the interest ily.

I DO have language things, but I absolutely have NO linquistic background and don't really know how languages are put together most of the time but what i DO have is very specific ideas about what they SOUND like so. Bear with me

Each species has their own native language, and most everybody is also fluent in a common language, Solan (they might be SOME exceptions but you would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know it)

I don't have a TON of specific stuff about Solan, but generally it's a mishmash of words from each individual language, warped over the centuries into a more distinct set of sounds. It began as more of a pidgin language, very disconnected, mostly just enough to serve the purpose of interspecies communication without a whole lot of personality or flow. As time (LOTS of it) passed, some parts of Solan evolved in one way while other languages evolved another until it is now distinct, but you could still trace many words back to their roots in their language of origin, if you wanted.

The species languages are still a work in progress, but I have pretty set ideas about a few of them. Disregard my names if you want because I don't know if i'm gonna want better etymology for them later or anything (right now it's just... what sounds nice to my ears). Montaran (fauns), Arbor (satyrs), and Praetar (ipotanes) are all in the same family, kind of like romance languages or whatnot, but don't draw from each other quite as much as, say, italian and spanish, for example. But they're formed with generally the same collection of sounds, with similar enough grammar structures (particularly Arbor and Praetar) that they are more coherent to each other than to any of the others.

Montaran in particular is the one of these I've fleshed out most thus far: it is heavy in repetition and is mostly hard sounds. I don't know if any of this will make sense because again- no linguistic knowledge in this brain- but Montaran uses the repetition of a base segment, usually a vowel sound, as a distinction between meanings. This is especially evident in names, which all follow a sort of consonant-vowel-repeat-at-will format. (where most non-name words follow a consonant-vowel-consonant format. I know that sounds extremely similar, but the difference is mostly in how they end. Non-name words end in consonants). For example, Natakala might be the name of a town: that's four segments, each with the same vowel sound. Place names are typically long, whereas people's names are typically actually rather short- just two or three syllables, because of the way that fauns use them among families.

This is getting a little off topic now but fauns typically have children in sets of twins- just a little biological quirk (like having litters of kittens or whatnot). Because of this, twins will typically be referred to as one whole, rather than two separate entities. They have individual names, but they are built within each other so as to be used as one- let me give another example because I don't know how else to explain it: you have a twin named Sumaya and a twin named Suna, those twins, as they would typically spend lots of time together, would often be referred to as Sumayasuna, like one single being. That name, and their individual names, were chosen to be part of one another, they are named to be meshed, or rather, they are given an enmeshed name which can be split. And both their individual and twinned names follow that consonant-vowel-repeat format, because that's the rule of faun names.

I feel like this is really long already but you asked and I love to deliver so the other language I have anything concrete on is Shotali (nightlings). They're unique in the sense that the other humanoids have distinctly mammalian phonetics, either because they're mammals, or, in the case of iarans (a species of merfolk- I'll get into nix later), because they evolved to mimic the sounds made by those mammals. Nightlings do utilize much of the same phonetics (again, driven by mimicry), but because there is an evolutionary gap where they did not mimic other humanoids, because they were separated from them, their is a distinct avian aspect to their languages that other species lack. This is also something that makes me have such specific ideas for what nightlngs' voices sound like, but that's another thing entirely so I won't get into it.

Nightlings have an odd ability to make this clicking sound at the back of their throat- like clicking your tongue, but it makes the sound from something specialized for that sound, rather than just jury-rigging something with your tongue and the roof of your mouth. This, naturally, forms a part of their language. It's used much like a glottal stop, but whereas a glottal stop is the absence of sound, this click is an additional one and so is almost treated like a consonant. The only time it's used in conjuncture with another sound is in hard consonants, which are rare in Shotali (it's mostly soft consonants and vowels), in which the sound, say a K or V, is made at the same time as that click. Nightlings new to speaking Solan, particularly early post-cataclysm, as otherwise they would learn it throughout childhood like the other species, may pronounce this clicking consonant even in Solan as part of that accent.

Merfolk are the other species that has Things, because I just have yet to have any concrete ideas about how Arbor, Praetar, or Homonic (humans) function. Iarans, as vocal mimics, can and do speak, but they actually lack a verbal native language. What they do have is a visual language, stemmed from nix, who lack vocal chords. This sign language (I just... I just called it Handspeak but that sounds stupid so,,, i'll come up with something better maybe eventually) isn't quite like any terrestrial sign, real-world or otherwise, but it IS the linguistic precursor to Solan sign, used on land across species as needed (the only language to not have a 'home' species). Because they use it underwater, it's slower, with less focus on movement than in asl (i'm using asl as an example because it's the one I know, but a lot of sign languages are similar in structure, especially french sign language). Rather, handshape has much greater meaning and is more complex, less repeated, because fast movements underwater are harder to make, so rather than exist in a general-handshape and specific-motion format, Handspeak exists in more of a specific-handshape general-motion form. That 'base motion' is typically slower and larger- accounting a little for decreased visibility in water.

Solan sign, or just Sign, made it's way out of water and is used across the continent, but is very concentrated on coasts, because it's used to talk with merfolk (particularly nix). It's more common than sign languages typically are by hearing folks in the real world, but it's still not necessarily a language that lots of people are familiar with, especially inland. It has a very different structure than Handspeak, as it isn't hindered by water and is used in a different context. Sign typically does follow the more familiar general-handshape specific-motion pattern, so it's a bit easier to learn and moves quicker than Handspeak. A lot of the words use the non-dominant hand as a 'base' of sorts, providing a center point for the other, by which the motion of the dominant hand and its position in reference to the base define the meanings of the words. Another example because I don't know how to explain: Think of the ASL word for 'year' (google it assuming you don't know, handspeak.com my beloved). The 'base' hand is like the one that stays in the middle, while the dominant hand is the one that revolves around the other. So in Sign, that base could be held in the center of the body, or to the right, or wherever you want that's convenient, and the hand that's doing the motion is defining the word by it's relation to that base. If you only have one hand free, the base is assumed to be the center of your body, which requires you to be a little cleaner with your signs, but you can easily do it one-handed, which is useful for when you're busy with other things. ASL relies a lot on placement in relation to the body: one thing by your head means a different thing than if you sign the same motion with the same handshape by your chest, or up in the air, etc. Sign relies less on that, and more on a base hand, or the implication of one, in the case of one-handed signing. Not to say it never uses the body because it does, but not as much, and not as inherently.

Oh god oh fuck I'm writing you an essay.

I haven't played as much with distinct speech patterns as I probably could have, because i'm really uncertain how i would want to go about it???? I mean, i guess i do a little bit but not quite consciously. Like I've written a few things with Julian and/or his family, and in my quest to find a good 'god.' substitute in a christianless environment (lol) i gave them a weird little specific curse that I now realize nobody else has ever used and i don't like enough to extend across others, so it now sounds like either his family specifically, or the region he grew up in, has this way of cussing that nobody else does. And I don't like it as a world thing, but i do like it as a family thing, because then that's a little something specific to just them that I can play around with.

Or say, Reiji speaks very formally. Not in the sense that he's overly stuffy or even... formal isn't quite the right word, but he's very deliberate about his choice of words most of the time. In an attempt to minimize misunderstanding, he is overly specific and/or tries to capture exactly precisely what he's trying to say in a way that is satisfying, which sometimes leaves more questions than if he said something less accurate to what he wants to convey, but more broad and thus easier to understand. He is usually very clear, very little grey area for interpretation, but when even he isn't sure what he's conveying, he gets really confusing really fast if whoever he's talking to can't make the logic leaps that he can in those connections.

And then like the thing about modern slang and local vernacular is that i almost certainly incorporate it into my writing without even meaning to, because that's how I talk and think and hear people talking and thinking. And I am also subject to using hyperspecific words because I want things to mean exactly what I'm thinking and that's how i start to become best friends with words like 'rouged.' The same with dialects, I don't on purpose take influence from them, but the ones I hear and use make their way into my writing because I have different associations for each one. I can't think of a really good example right now but I mean,,, is writing not just returning all the words you've read and heard and said into something else? Into something that's hopefully a little bit more than the sum of its parts?

I'm going to thank you once more in the actual body of this post because this ask made me go "FUUUUCK YESSSSSSSS" and i'm so glad you like to hear about my fucked up world in my fucked up brain or whatever the hell. if you (actually have knowledge of linguistics) want to recommend things or say something doesn't make sense or say literally anything about literally anything PLEASE DO. I LOVE INPUT AND COLLABORATION AND YOU ARE A REAL ONE <3 <3

[joeys-piano]

Writer Ask Game: 4, 8, and 11

Thanks for the questions, peep!

4. When did you start writing? How?

December 2011. So I've been writing for about 12.5 years at this point. In the summer of 2017, I started writing more consistently. I believe in the summer of 2020, I had a personal challenge of completing a story from start to finish in one month so I could get used to sharing my works and how to finish things. In April 2022, I switched my posting schedule and made it a free-for-all; this gave me the opportunity to work on longer, more ambitious projects without me trying to kill myself to get so much done in one month. And well, I'm a slow writer - so this change was such a big help for my physical and mental well-being. Publicly, I've shared over 200 stories across fandoms in my writing life. There are some original poetry here and there, but all of that energy goes into fanworks because I feel more of a connection there. I started writing in December 2011 because when you're a young Asian who is not good at math and can barely draw and feel like you're a black sheep amongst the Asian kids, there's writing. Writing was the one endeavor I never heard any of the other Asians around me doing. Essentially, I pioneered this hobby in my early grade school life because I wanted to do something that I could do and know that no one else I knew did it, so that translates to being cool. (It doesn't work like that, but kid!me was convinced) I liked telling stories already, so I just had to put it down onto paper or something. And that's how I started. I basically felt like a failure Asian child for being so average, which I didn't have a name for at the time but it was something I could tell because of the people around me, so I went out to do a thing. And while the thing is hard and ugly and has tried to murder me, writing is stuck with me. It's just how it is.

8. What do you love about your writing style?

This sounds cliche, but my style is unique. I come from a literary fiction background. Or let me rephrase that: I'm inspired by the old-school classics and the pre-WWII British and American writing styles. Francis Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and the such. And I'm inspired by the Beat Poets of the 1940s and 50s. So that cheddar cheese potluck of queer and strange things did a doozy on my writing style. The best way I can describe my writing is that it's indulgent, in that I've been force fed writing rules from the internet and stopped giving a fuck in my 20s so I could tell the stories I wanted to tell. And my writing is a love letter to the things I love about writing - it's pretty much poetry disguised as a narrative: you have the meter, you have the rhythm, you have the techniques more commonly see in poetry than prose writing, but in the format of a story with characters and arcs and tragedy. Somewhere about that isn't typically seen in the fandom scene, unless you're in a fandom that pulls on that through the canon material. And that's what my writing style is. Granted, I didn't start with this style. It was one I started developing in 2020 and have matured it like a rich wine since then, and will continue still with every story I try. I've only ever found one other fanfic writer whose style was really similar to mine. So I guess that's a bonus.

11. Character/WIP Lore! (blabber about character/ WIP of choice)

I think I'm at the skill level I want to be to fulfill a writing bucket list item that I've had since 2020 or 2021. I've been wanting to write a story that features the critiques I have about the Christian religion and more openly, write about a story of why people are gravitated towards having a faith even if it makes them do things they don't normally do and how they grapple with that and eventually, if they choose, deconstruct from those ideals. And Black Polish, my current WIP, is a culmination of personal projects in the past that had to fail before I could get here. And in its own way, it is finding closure and closing a door on something I'd rather choose for myself than be nudged into just because I was a kid at the time. It's all about finding the right fandom for the project you want to do. I'd say I struck the land mine with Trigun.

Writer Ask Thingies

[chaotic-tired-cat]

Heads up i have posted!!! a new fic!!! but AO3 seems to have eaten it, which is unfortunate. If the link ever works it's Day By Day We Stumble On - Chapter 1 - Sandtalon - 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga) [Archive of Our Own] Alas. It does not. I am dealing with the results of my own misplaced trust in technology by cross-posting the first chapter here so there will be a copy of it SOMEWHERE (deleted my copy after posting whoops.)

So, for whoever wants it, here is a tumblr-formatted copy of my terrible comedy jjk & naruto crossover where Shoko does exactly what you may expect given the title.

Summary: Every sorcerer has their own way to cope with the stress tremors quaking the jujutsu world. Satoru stomps his way through paper lines in shifting sand. Mei Mei-senpai draws new ones. Utahime cares for who she can, where she can, to keep from being buried. Nanami makes his peace. None of these methods are wrong, but they don't fit Shoko. She is tired, overworked, and so used to a life judged by the service she provides that she can't imagine functioning without it. Satoru's brother is familiar with the concept.

Friendship can look like two people sitting in a tub of misery, side by side. It works for them.

(Reincarnation AU but it's not about reincarnation or dimension travel. No, that's not on anyone's radar except for the guy it happened to. Shoko is in charge of this story, and she has decided this narrative will focus on the local coffee-addict finally catching a break.)

(This fic includes medical issues, chronic illness, and canon-typical child soldier nonsense, as well as topics like overwork, medical malpractice, smoking & alcohol use, and unhealthy work-life balance. It also includes mention of patricide, child abuse, and strangulation.)

Gojo Satoru has the eyes of a Furby and the soul of a slightly drunk hyena. 

This isn't a facet of her friend that Shoko needs to be paid to confront, necessarily, right up until it really, really is. Those cursed - and sometimes Cursed - occasions are reserved for the worst possible time, like Satoru's all-seeing luck peered directly through Shoko's life to hand-pick her unluckiest days. It's a talent. The worst talent in the world, and sometimes Shoko understands how Utahime wonders why they get along so well. Then again, that's coming from someone who barely considers herself to be reluctant acquaintances, let alone tentative friends with "the local nuisance."

Utahime would have opinions about a lot of Shoko's life decisions. Most of them would be correct, because it's Utahime. Unfortunately, she’s an unreliable source of wisdom due to losing about half her common sense to Satoru’s baiting on the regular. Shoko can understand it sometimes.

Such as now. Three in the ungodly morning is not a good time to test if Shoko's medical license is just for show.

It's just not.

Satoru knows this.

Just as he knows that the only thing that can get Shoko livid enough to act on her anger is functioning on less than two hours of sleep.

He could probably see that she was awake anyway and contemplating just how many shots of espresso puts her on the ungovernable side of a caffeine addiction, but she's refusing to acknowledge that. It's too early for comprehensive thought processing. Too late. Too far on one end of the sun's presence in the sky, but just tired enough to forget if the rise or setting is closer. Time has lost all meaning. Satoru can probably see her brain trying desperately to fire neurotransmitters to wake her up properly. On top of that, he knows she's frustrated at the higher-ups for pushing her working hours into barely manageable configurations when she complains. It shows in the way his voice stays under the headache threshold of volume. She is so damn tired.

Stop.

Drink the damn coffee.

Breathe.

She won't make his life more difficult than it already is. He didn't intend to test her patience and skill by spontaneously threatening the puppet masters of the jujutsu world, taking on a special grade in Hokkaido, and somehow returning with a mysterious brother. Lost sleep isn't personal. Shoko knows this.

Friends don't press each other into this lukewarm hell of overwork unless the situation is dire, which makes her current conundrum just that extra bit of a headache.

She crosses her arms at the cot.

Did-

Did Satoru spawn via mitosis?

She can never tell with him. This is a legitimate question.

Shoko has had the tentatively arguable displeasure of being his friend for years and is firmly of the belief that things like Conservation of Matter apply to Satoru only because they amuse him. It's her leading theory. Generations have passed since the last holder of the Six Eyes, and every moldy text on the abilities they hold is wrapped up in musty ancient language that relies on metaphors more than actual instruction. There is no recipe card for the Gojo clan's sacred technique. Just confusion and a hyperactive teenager who somehow grew weirder with time. He ages like cheese.

"You've cloned yourself," Shoko diagnoses even as her technique rules out that possibility.

Satoru preens. "The world couldn't handle two of me."

He's not wrong.

She listens to his chatter while she checks over the sibling he has managed to pull from thin air. Honestly. Of all the things to make a man who is harder to pin down than the raccoon in her apartment garage – that kind of person – ask for help… well. She wasn't expecting a brother. 

It's impossible to tell if the unconscious brother even looks like Satoru. Satoru covers only his eyes, while this guy covers everything but one of his eyes. A dark mask stretches down from the bridge of his nose, and there's a wide band of fabric pulled over the other eye. Apparently that one got gouged out for some reason Satoru cheerfully seethes over when she notices the old injury. The elder Gojo's got slightly darker grey hair than Satoru’s white, though. A bit more gravity-defying, and thank goodness for that. Identical twins would have snapped her last brain cell clean in half.

Shoko chooses to believe in mitosis. It's easier that way.

Satoru goes quiet when she asks for details as to why his spontaneously new brother is unconscious and needing a doctor. A quiet Satoru is about as good a sign as a harbinger of doom.

"I just need to know what took him out," she assures him. It's Satoru's business what secrets he wants to keep. “That’s it.”

"No." Satoru braces his elbows on his knees and bends over in the uncomfortable chair. He's smiling. Like a kitsune, yeah, but that anger is not her problem. "I'm tired of hiding, and Kakashi has never cared either way."

"Alright."

The story clarifies little.

Gojo Kakashi is three years Satori's elder. Kicked out of the Gojo line of succession due to a weak constitution and being physically incapable of wielding cursed energy, Kakashi should have died from his illness years ago. He did not. As far as Shoko can tell, spite created willpower and that, more than anything, fueled his survival-based cursed technique. It’s very odd. Lupine, lightning-based cursed energy sparks in a blaze of white energy that stitches his health back together like a calamity that is self-sustaining out of luck and little else. It gets tripped up around the eye he keeps covered as if expecting the Six Eyes to spontaneously manifest, but all that's done is fry his optic nerves from the inside out.

In short, Kakashi's body tried so hard to activate a technique it does not have that it blinded him in one eye. He was lucky not to lose both. It probably drained him half to death.

Ouch.

Satoru says in cheerful, acidic words that Kakashi’s worth has always been in his use to the Gojo clan elders. Both brothers have that in common. The crucial difference is that while Satoru got fucked-up eyes, Kakashi got fucked-up cursed energy due to the circle of a family tree the Gojo clan insists on to keep their technique from fading. It puts Satoru's sharp distaste of his own clan's politics in perspective.

Bluntly speaking, the elder brother is considered ‘better off dead’ by those old bastards. 

He's bought survival in unnatural talent for every single weapon put into his hands, but even that is shaky ground. He is chronically ill. Satoru’s pretty sure they’re bleeding his older brother dry, because apparently the second Kakashi was able to perform light exercise, marching orders rolled out. There was no regard for the fact that his health was tentative at best. Pricy medical assistance could not make up for self-destructive cursed energy, though patience was bought in the map of scar tissue and poorly-healed old injuries Shoko notices. It seems this has never mattered. Kakashi has apparently spent his entire life quietly training as a good little bodyguard for the Gojo elders to order around.

A little bit of treason in the form of one child soldier, as a treat to themselves.

It explains so much about Satoru. All the gift shopping and refusal to explain who made the dango he sometimes brought to school suddenly makes so much sense. His cute little bento boxes were always a touch too neat to be made by someone so impatient. Yes, Satoru is the kind of person to cut out nori in a ‘you can do it!’ message across bento onigiri for himself, but he wouldn’t be that protective of it. Wouldn’t have cared when Suguru filched one.

Satoru’s hidden temper boils as he tells a story from the impersonal plastic chairs Shoko uses to make unwanted visitors leave faster. His voice is syrup-happy.

Bitter.

He softens when he talks about his brother, though.

Plain as day.

Kakashi has spent the majority of his life wandering through his little section the Gojo compound, safe under a fairly high-powered barrier. It’s like a lethal hermit lifestyle. They apparently instituted it because Kakashi’s cursed energy and trouble attraction abilities had every medical professional saying, "welp. That's weird," before doing absolutely nothing. This led the Gojo clan to further seal away their eldest heir for twenty or so years, except for when they toss him like a pipe bomb at people they dislike.

You know.

As one does.

A weird assassination tactic, but it apparently works. Kakashi seems very talented at surviving despite the concentrated efforts of nearly everyone he's ever met. Shoko reads his vitals and thinks he's good at surviving despite himself as well. This man has not respected his mortal limits if he has that kind of muscle mass while suffering an untreated illness. 

…He probably didn't have much choice.

Shoko gets why Satoru has been hiding his brother. The inner workings of his clan must be a nightmare.

Ooh, those politics.

So much backstabbing and old-people gossip exists there. The toxic vibes must boost their cursed energy and explain why the six eyes manifested at all. Disgusting. Never shall she ask for details. It makes a bit of Satoru's squirreliness understandable. Just the littlest bit.

She doesn't know if it justifies keeping a secret this big. They may be antagonistic, and Satoru may be stuck in a shitty situation, but there's no way he'd hide an entire brother without someone manipulating the game. Shoko has been the one member of their weird little trio to see her friend in nearly all the best and worst moments of his life. He’s done the same for her. Even when she crashed into his weird little abode with rattling bottles and insults for every single professor to gift her the workload of a pre-med disaster, Satoru had decency to commiserate together. They’ve always been more alike than anyone wanted to acknowledge. It makes the secrecy a little less surprising, but still. 

Satoru, a younger brother. 

What?

Who initiated the process of pulling his strings to keep that hidden?

It gets pretty clear as Satoru explains.

Damn.

His father sucks.

Kakashi apparently wasn't meant to survive to adulthood, to ensure Satoru could become the next Gojo head without any opposing factions. It would be logical in a horrible sort of way, if Satoru didn't have the skillset of a mildly over-caffeinated god. There's also the helpful fact that Kakashi is willing and able to kill for his brother.

And he has, though Satoru leaves out what happened. Shoko hears it in the silence anyway. There was a time, when Satoru became clan successor, that Suguru quietly admitted to her that something was wrong. Facts didn't add up. The old Gojo head was decently strong, enough so to win against the curse that supposedly killed him. Satoru was at school when it happened, but… Shoko can guess what Kakashi did.

Patricide.

Lovely.

Kakashi is apparently just as unhinged as Satoru. It must be hereditary.

In response to that cute little murder, the Gojo elders apparently took away medical assistance to help get rid of their former heir faster. This was probably the beginning of the end.

Kakashi's hermit lifestyle lasted a few more years through ailing health out of sheer spite until Satoru had enough and outright threatened his clan elders a week ago. Shoko decides not to ask what caused the escalation, because Kakashi's lungs are ruined from an infection created by his own cursed energy. She already has her answers. It's a marvel he's still alive.

The elders did what they thought was sensible and sent a few special grade curses after Satoru as a slap on the wrist. It had the opposite effect. He met fire with the fire that stunt deserved, and dropped one of the special grades directly into their meeting room.

Right onto the table.

As a gift.

The 'old farts' disliked their brand new centerpiece. They disliked it enough to make sure Satoru was very aware of their big feelings and continued to dislike it while they delt with it. Loudly. Violently. There was allegedly lots of shouting. Satoru gets a little hazy with the details, but apparently his elders came to a quicker decision than he thinks they’d ever managed before in their lives.

They proceeded to take inspiration from Satoru's spite and decided to bait a new curse into Kakashi's cute little hermit abode.

Just for fun.

Kakashi, who is lethal in all ways except for the fact that he cannot handle cursed energy, responded by exorcizing the curse with his bare hands and promptly passing out. He charged reverse-cursed energy into his palms and apparently gave it a mild static shock while he strangled it in his kitchen. Satoru came home from a day out to find his brother dying and a curse already dead, after elders warned him at the gates that he’d find things the other way around.

Shoko wants to dissect that curse so badly. Curiosity itches under her skin.

That leads them to now, after Satoru has followed through on his threat. His clan is short a few elders and one house-arrest heir as of this evening.

Cool.

Shoko's compliant in a revolution now. She is perfectly fine with that.

"Kakashi's cursed energy and reverse-curse are generated at the same time," Satoru says, like he didn't just terraform a feared jujutsu clan's politics in a week. "Normally that should cancel out most of it, but his just kind of doesn't. Like ice cream, you know?"

Shoko does not know. "Ice cream."

"Yeah, like how chocolate and vanilla ice cream swirl!"

"I see," Shoko says, and takes a second to admire the fact that she's not even lying.

Satoru shrugs and hums a nonsensical tune like he isn't willing to burn down the world for those he cares about.

He never really changes in that way.

Shoko runs through the usual procedure and documents it all in the looping scrawl of medical professionals. Satoru is right – cursed energy and reverse-curse energy should cancel itself out slightly. It's why Shoko's technique is so rare: she's able to separate them before that process starts.

Kakashi's does not cancel out or separate.

It combines. The whole process and resulting mixture is, in Shoko's professional opinion, weird as fuck. Curses can probably sense it from across the prefecture. That's outrageous. It’s honestly no wonder he got put under house arrest instead of being exiled when Satoru pissed off the elders. The fallout from Kakashi wandering around outside a barrier would be immense. The Gojo compound would survive his stepping outside their wards, but their family’s reputation would not. 

He could probably annihilate a city just by walking through it.

"Well?" Satoru leans over so his chin is propped on her shoulder. 

"Congratulations," Shoko says flatly as she taps her clipboard with the pen. "He'll live. I might even be able to make him less of a curse-bait, but he'll need to be awake for that."

She's so tired.

Satoru flutters around her like a gangly, unhinged butterfly who refuses to take his hands out of his pockets. "You can fix it?"

Fix it.

Ha.

Shoko’s pen drums a faster rhythm on the paperwork. She can't even comprehend much beyond that this Cursed Energy nonsense is not killing Kakashi any faster than the blood loss. Satoru takes her clipboard and she barely notices.

"He'll survive the night," Shoko says as she finishes the basic first aid to keep her patient stable. "We'll worry about the rest in the morning."

"Not now?"

Shoko holds up a hand and notes the exact moment Satoru realizes how badly she's shaking. "Tomorrow. Doing anything right now lowers chances of success, and I'm not risking your brother."

He's lost enough.

"There's a line of emergency numbers on the desk," she starts. Satoru lets Shoko run through all the things to do if his brother wakes up, what not to touch in the office, who to call if she is too deep in REM sleep to hear her phone ringing-

She is so tired.

Shoko blinks and finds herself in her apartment, already half-forgetting how she got there. It's possible Satoru dropped her off. That was nice of him.

What a fucking day, she thinks as she flops onto her couch.

The next morning, she barely makes it onto Jujutsu High’s main campus before things get complicated. It happens before she can even get inside - an unexpected and unwanted visitor finds her in the foggy predawn chill between parking lot and building. Shoko stands with her coffee, bag, and exhaustion as a wizened old man tries to manipulate her. It is not an auspicious start to the day.

“I trust you know he is of better use resting than healed,” says the council elder with grey hair and Cursed Energy that eats at the morning silence like acid. Unspoken is a threat: you are of use to us. Do not change this.

Shoko looks down at her coffee, then back at the elder.

She raises an eyebrow.

“Are you telling me to ignore my oath?” Not that she cares about it, but still. If she gives ground now, they’ll never stop asking for more.

“I am telling you to listen to your funding.” A grim smile twists up. “It wouldn’t do to lose that.”

Well. Yeah, she can’t lose the only way she's able to keep sorcerers with the self-preservation instincts of lemmings alive. Shoko’s overworked and understaffed. She’s doing the job of four people all alone. School nurse, mortician, autopsy specialist, and on-call Cursed Energy healer. That’s not even counting her research on far too many projects.

“I am very tired,” Shoko says flatly. “So you’re going to have to spell this out for me. Please use small words.”

“Gojo Satoru needs to be controlled,” the old man says, which shows astronomically bad social awareness on his part. That’s her former classmate they’re talking about blackmailing. Her friend. If Satoru finds out about this he’s going to bait the bastards into a homicidal rage, which is not fun, thrifty, or enjoyable in any way. Then Utahime will have to spend a day watching Shoko lie on the floor contemplating her place in the universe. Nobody will have a halfway decent time, except Meimei-senpai, who may actually enjoy it so long as she gets paid time off while the jujutsu world burns and Satoru dances in the ashes. 

This is a terrible marketing pitch. Shoko stares at her coffee and scrambles for any reaction that is not going to make her life harder. She finds nothing in her brain but the most basic rule of surviving a toxic workplace.

“Can you give that to me in writing?” Shoko asks. “In the meantime, I have patients to see. So. Thank you for stopping by.”

She all but forces them to run through the social dance of goodbyes, and walks past him into the building. She has until that email arrives to make her last free move. Better start now.

Shoko climbs the school stairs and texts her med school group chat about the unfairness of the world. One of her friends who went on to be a paramedic immediately sends emoji hearts and commiserating tears in equal measure. It helps.

Those emoji hearts continue helping her all through the paperwork. Help looks like Satoru's hand on her elbow that stops her just shy of walking into a wall. It looks like a filled mug passed into willing hands.

Like unexpected patience.

Shoko wouldn't ask for that last one, so she prioritizes accordingly and shuffles her newest patient to the top of the list. Financial threats and demands of old farts would have her swamped for the week, so Shoko pretends she simply forgot to check her email that morning and gets to work. Her friend has waited long enough.

Besides, Satoru is not a worried person. He stews and giggles like a child attempting to scream defiance. Satoru usually burns the attempts of a world powerless to set him into a nondescript beige box like the rest of them. It is vicious. Spiteful. Petty. Worry on Satoru is a near-imperceptible thing that turns poison into a halberd swung wildly through tightening tripwires. He is uncontrollable, except-

Except.

"You should tell people you care for them," Shoko says lowly as she tugs on blue gloves. Satoru smiles wide and guileless. It is a devastatingly untrustworthy look on him.

"Aw, are you concerned about little old me, Shoko-chan?"

Yes.

Somebody's got to be, but he'll be insufferable if she says that.

Shoko settles for tossing him an unimpressed look, and knows her point is received when his smile grows the tiniest bit more honest. Worry is still settled in the teeth of it. It's almost funny, how there's once again two people Shoko knows of who Satoru can worry like that for. She thought he lost that ability along with Suguru. Turns out, he just learned to hide the lengths to which he can be pushed. It's not her business what alerted Satoru to that danger.

Threats come in many shapes and sizes.

As if to prove that point, Gojo Kakashi's first instinct upon awakening is to try stabbing her with a knife he should not have. 

Luckily, Satoru's first instinct upon seeing his brother wake up is to tackle-hug him right off the hospital bed, so the knife goes wide and Shoko remains uninjured to ignore them and return to her paperwork. Those idiots can figure out they're mortal and breakable without her spelling it out for them. Their terrible choices seem to cancel each other out. It makes a humorous kind of sense.

"You brought me to your school," Kakashi notes once he and Satoru have reached a limpet-shaped stalemate on Shoko's thoroughly sanitized tile floors. He pats his brother on the shoulder and executes a bendy maneuver to extract himself from the hug. It is strangely effective. Unfortunately, now Shoko refuses to believe this weirdo possesses bones.

"Aw, are you intimidated?" Satoru reaches out to pinch his older brother's cheeks and nearly gets stabbed. “All these kiddos to corrupt, and so little time! Don’t worry, nii-san. I believe in you.”

"This is an entire school-"

"Such marvelous powers of observation-"

"-Full of very mortal people-"

"-You can tell we're related, it's all in the eyes-

"-And I'm a curse-magnet," Kakashi stresses, inching suspiciously closer to the window. "This is a terrible idea."

"It kind of is," Shoko agrees, pressing her cheek further into her desk and wishing for a vacation. All she gets is paper stuck to her face.

Kakashi shoots her a thankful look. He is now her favorite of the two.

"Maybe. But then I thought, hey, showing up with a clone would be just the thing to throw those old farts into hysterics." Satoru beams. "Do you think the shock will finally take them out?"

"It won't," Shoko tells them before Satoru can make fools of them all or get his hopes up.

“Aww, where’s your ganbaru spirit? Your gaman-suru? You know, the I can do it!” Satoru says with a little hand gesture that practically sounds like a background chorus of children saying ‘yay!’ in some kind of weekend educational television program. The whole thing shows both terrible grammar and energy that’s not remotely as cutesy as he’s trying to make it.

“Killed it,” Shoko says automatically, just as Kakashi says, “Lost it on the road of life.”

“Besides,” Kakashi adds, “I thought the goal was not to make them stab me. That’s going to take some work, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am prime knife real estate.”

“It’s the scarecrow energy,” Satoru says. “Come on, nii-san. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Kakashi goes quiet, and as one, their attention turns to the edge of a lurid orange book, half-hidden in the pile of fabric abandoned on a nearby chair. Shoko hadn't bothered looking at the visibly bulletproof armor Satoru brought his brother in with. It wasn't her business.

Satoru and Kakashi meet eyes - as much as they can with only one of four eyes visible - and Shoko can physically see the clown-to-clown communication transpire in real time. 

Oh, no. 

There's two of them.

"You're technically an assassin," Satoru notes. Shoko really hates that she's not surprised this is where the conversation is going already.

The lone eye crinkles up as if Kakashi is smiling.

"How many dishes would I have to clean for-"

"Out," Shoko interrupts. When Satoru opens his mouth to confirm something she doesn't want to know about, she adds, "plausible deniability is all I'm asking for. I don't care what's going on so long as it happens outside. Go on."

Kakashi has the utter gall to coyly wave at her while Satoru lifts him up in a princess carry. He is no longer her favorite. She is exhausted by them both equally.

Shoko presses her forehead to the desk and takes a steadying breath.

She wants to sink into the earth. Who invented bones? That was a terrible idea. Actually, who decided they should grow legs and leave the ocean at all? Look at where that’s gotten all of humanity. They have paperwork.

Wait.

The door nearly splinters when she slams it open to point an accusing finger at the brothers. They're only halfway down the hallway. Small mercies.

"Don't walk, don't run, don't do anything more strenuous than eat and breathe, got it?!"

Satoru beams, and Kakashi projects lazy indifference through the mask.

Whatever, they heard her.

Good enough.

It takes three hours for the gossip to reach Shoko that Gojo Kakashi has been instituted as a sorcerer. The movers and shakers of the jujutsu world have found the second Gojo to be steeped in similar potential as his brother. An exhibition match is being planned.

Four hours to know who came up with that bright idea.

Six hours to know they want to test his combat abilities.

Shoko stares through the ink staining her papers and realizes she needs to make a choice.

Shoko's heels click down the hallway's wooden floors like a war anthem. She likes the sound - it's a bit of a reminder to herself that she's allowed to make noise, that her words have worth. After growing up alongside two legends, she carries that with her.

They all used to command attention in different ways.

Satoru and his personality, a noxiously potent force he's crafted as if desperate to be defined by more than the weight of unbeatable power.

Suguru had a kind of danger about him like a riptide current. Hidden and waiting. It dragged him under eventually.

Shoko pushes her limits until they snap, and is very aware this makes her peers view her as terrifyingly impossible to rattle. It's her own brand of danger. A time limit.

Kakashi blinks at her from behind his nearly-neon book, unperturbed despite having been relegated to waiting outside the meeting room like a scolded child. Shoko pauses just long enough to warn him not to stand up from that chair before entering.

"He's not cleared for combat," Shoko announces as she pulls open the door. Yoshinobu-sensei glares up at her from his seat, one eye visible behind drooping white eyebrows. A gnarled hand pauses from stroking his beard, and Shoko knows to the depths of her soul that he's judging her choice of caffeine.

"Shoko-san," Yoshinobu-sensei greets. 

Fuck you, old man.

There's a doctorate that goes with that name and owes her at least the sensei suffix. Yeah, she cheated her way through, but it still fucking counts, doesn’t it? If he has a problem, he can give her another raise that will allow actual retirement to maybe happen soon in her lifetime. Then they’ll all be rid of her. Everybody wins.

She offers the slightest of acceptable bows and pulls the door closed.

Satoru tips his head back on his seat to grin at her, upside down and unrepentant. "Oh?"

"Gojo Kakashi can barely stand, let alone fight." Shoko chews over her words before gritting out, "I'm barring him from using cursed techniques and anything more than bedrest. Estimated two weeks 'till walking or light stretching. If he's gotta go up stairs within the month, there damn well better be a railing."

It's something she does less than she should. Usually she just doesn't give a shit, so Shoko can count on being taken seriously.

Satoru whistles lowly, because he must aggravate every situation he is forced into.

The look Yoshinobu-sense gives her makes it clear that Shoko's next words should be offering to speed up the healing timetable, like that's something she can do easily. "He will be required to undergo a performance review to assess his skill level."

“If you’re putting a sorcerer out there,” Shoko says with all the energy of a commuting salaryman who just got rainwater in his crocs, “then I am healing them. That is my oath.”

Yoshinobu-sensei hunches over his cane. "Unfortunate."

For him?

Maybe.

Shoko, however, could not care less. She has paperwork to fill out and an autopsy to do, unless it's Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? She's planning on spilling hot asphalt over her keyboard as an excuse for missing a conference call then.

Shoko drains the last of her cup and tosses it in the trash. "I can't stay long, but that's my say."

"We will take it under advisement."

Sure.

Shoko turns around and leaves. She needs a smoke.

"You heard the doctor," Satoru says with vicious glee as she slides the door closed. "Hey, hey, did you know that-"

Wood clacks shut; sound oddly muted beyond.

Shoko takes a moment to mourn her lack of beverage, then glances to her right at the eldest troublemaker. The reluctance in his shoulders hints that she is rather lucky to find him where he was left. Kakashi meets her apathetic look with steady resignment and raises his book in a silent toast to mutual suffering. It's the first of many similar moments.

In the end, common sense prevails. Kakashi is not required to partake in an exhibition match, which is fun, fantastic, and fortunate. Shoko loves being listened to. Respect is hard to come by. The politics that accompany both Gojo brothers are horrible and best not thought of, so she switches tasks every time her mind wanders too far and tries to keep this problem in the pocket of her lab coat amongst ink stains and soft lint. It’s the wisest choice.

Shoko submerges herself in work. Days pass, crawling by with email after email until Utahime appears to drag her out of the school.

"They're terrible," Utahime says when they find a precious moment of silence at a bus stop. Aching hands curl over coffee, as if Shoko can leach the warmth into her bones. Decaf, for once.

"Pretty sure mine are worse," Shoko grumbles. "There’s a little international shop just outside the school grounds, and for some hellish reason every last student adores their food violations. They put green food coloring in the guacamole. It’s an insult to the meal."

Utahime frowns. "What?"

"Food coloring."

"Why?"

"To hide that it expired."

Shoko's eyes close.

There's an empty sort of quiet in her head, like the seaside ponds undisturbed by crashing waves a little step away. Her jaw is amber, eyes opal, and there is a crystallized stillness that drifts like swamp water through her chest. It will break under this stress. Cracks and impurities lace structural weakness through her cartilage in the form of weight on her shoulders. Exhaustion is familiar. Waking up after a full night's sleep is not.

Caffeine withdrawal, or she just isn't used to having free time not spent desperately clawing back lost hours of sleep.

Or both.

Both is good.

"Alright," Utahime says. "You've got me there."

Shoko smiles into her cup.

Exhaustion is easy, but life is still so, so good. Days like these are nectar and ambrosia, water in the desert or pulled from the tap in her kitchen sink past 3am and all the sweeter for that late hour.

They go back to Utahime's flat, and Shoko manages to claim cooking duty. She starts the rice cooker and starts rustling through the fridge, only to learn that Utahime has placed her firmly in checkmate.

"Bath's ready," is all the warning Shoko has before Utahime all but marches her down the hallway.

Sweatpants and a shirt Utahime has never worn in her life despite buying them new are dumped into her hands. The lights are all shut off but for a soft nightlight Utahime swears isn't because Shoko lives most of her life with a headache. The large rubber duckie in the corner glows like a nightlight with dim ambient color that’s just soft enough to be comfortable. On her way out, Utahime blows a kiss at Shoko like she’d throw a fastball.

The bathroom door is shut.

Mochi promptly raises a racket.

The door is opened, cat let in, and shut again.

Shoko watches Mochi curl up next to the tub and wonders what kind of hubris that must be. Someday that cat is going to slip into bathwater and emerge a tan-white ball of soaking wrath. There will be claws. Complaints. Maybe even some yelling from multiple species, if it's a particularly fancy occasion.

Everyone gets humbled eventually.

The bath is nice. Tension drains as steam rises. Just for a moment, the strain she carries with her eases, though the weight dragging her down stays. Water to marinate in up past her shoulders can only fix so much. Pain is always a dull ache and constant drag, but her burdens seem to float in the bath, at least.

Pressure becomes manageable.

She used to think everyone felt like this: like there were chains reaching from the center of the earth to wrap around her shoulders, her head, her hips. They anchor in her cheekbones and pull her down with exhaustion. Not everyone struggles so much to stand, to walk, to work. Schedules and medication heal only so much. The rest needs careful attention. Care. Effort and discipline.

Shoko closes aching eyes and wishes she were born a fish.

Fish don't have curses.

Actually, that's not true. Some fish are curses, which kind of sucks for them. Shoko pulled the guts out of one a couple months ago and learned quite a bit about how cursed energy can interact with aquatic species. That one used it to replace oxygen. The whole thing is bizarre. Theoretically she could launch one into space and it’d survive just fine beyond issues like a lack of atmospheric pressure.

…Shoko still wishes she were born a fish.

Tomorrow she will go back to work. She isn't even being called in to do her actual job - no, tomorrow is all for office politics.

What a fucking farce.

Ceramic presses into her cheek as Shoko props her face up beside the cat. One brilliant green eye opens, pupil contracting and expanding as it adjusts to warm yellow lamplight. The cat's nose twitches.

"You don't even have a salary," Shoko whispers. Her voice catches and scrapes like thick paint under a palette knife.

One white paw reaches out, toe pads pressing against Shoko's nose. Mochi rolls, one triangle ear nearly brushing the water. Another paw lands on Shoko's chin. Back feet stick straight up, claws extended and toes wiggling with the stretch.

Yeah.

Mochi's too cute to work.

Would that they all be so lucky.

Shoko exits the bathroom in worn sleepwear to the smell of cooking garlic and onion.

After evening has fallen, she flops onto the empty futon by Utahime's occupied one. It's warm, proof Utahime plugged in her hair dryer and swept it under the blankets like a cheap heating pad. The mellow lamp between their beds stays on for a few minutes of precious silence. Mochi arrives to purr and make biscuits on Utahime's blankets.

These are the good moments.

Almost nothing hurts.

Utahime reaches out of her pile of blankets, hand offered across the floor. Shoko stretches out her own arm, braving cold in the apartment air from where her shirt sleeve ends with its promise of warmth. Their fingers lace together like the stitches holding Shoko's heart in one piece.

"Good night, ‘Hime."

Utahime's free hand blindly slaps at the light until it turns off. She has to twist at an awkward angle to do it, all elbows and the soft clumsiness that only appears with this apartment's safety.

"'Night."

The new sorcerer settles in well enough.

He's a terrible patient and a headache to deal with, but Kakashi seems aware she's regularly pulling overtime to get him functional. He never goes too far out of his way to antagonize her, and Shoko repays it by watching her cruel streak. With a little communication they strike a comfortable balance. From the rumors, she is one of the very few people he's not actively trying to tempt into homicide.

That's a misconception she's never quite understood.

Suffering does not breed wisdom. It does not cultivate patience or serenity. Gojo Kakashi is chronically ill and raging against the world. He sulks and thrashes recklessly against his limits, baiting every sorcerer he meets into a fight with poisonous cheer that mirrors his little brother's habit of smiling though anger. Shoko understands from the depths of her soul. She, too, knows what it is to be defined by too-confining limits, to wake up in the night because everything hurts too much to sleep. People like them are screaming inside, but have only headache and heartache to show for the effort. The only difference is that Kakashi turns to trolling and bad literature while Shoko marinates in apathetic smoke-drunk sorrows.

They are mutually poor role models for this kind of thing.

Kakashi sends off several Valentine's Day glitter bombs. Shoko lets him put down her flat as the return address, if only so she can witness the fallout. It goes as expected. Sheer lethality seems to be keeping the remaining Gojo elders from sniping Kakashi at long range.

Utahime watches it all from Kyoto warily. She and the new guy get along disconcertingly well for all that they logically shouldn’t.

Shoko puts it out of her mind and turns to more important matters. The students are sparring with no regard for their health, and the new first year incoming batch has only two potential recruits. Keeping them alive to adulthood is a fool's errand. Still worth a try, though.

At least it seems all the students are enjoying their summer break.

Something Shoko has never really talked about to anyone but her two closest friends in high school is that there’s an empathy component to her technique.

Cursed energy is created out of emotions. It’s a funny thing, how the nature of those components are mixed and compressed into a tangible form that can interact with the spiritual layer of the world. For an introspective technique like hers, Shoko is very aware of what negative and positive emotions are bleeding into that energy. It’s an awareness that can’t be turned off.

And the survival instinct that’s keeping Kakashi together only shuts off when he gets gleeful enough about annoying the higher-ups. It even halts the grief that follows him like a cloud of mold spores, though that’s not surprising for someone who lost the first twenty or so years of their life to an illness that may never be completely cured.

She really could not care less about who he’s tempting into murder, so long as the fallout does not reach her.

So Shoko shoos Kakashi away and stitches him back together through a series of appointments.

They might be something like friends.

Maybe.

He’s less malevolent than Satoru, more willing to let her pass out on the sofa of his ramshackle house in the woods, when leaving campus would go against her contract but staying awake would lead to injury. In return, she drops the formality and occasionally heals him outside the clinic. The big nerd hates the smell of cleaning chemicals. She bullies him into caring for himself, he adjusts his life to allow her a few seconds of sleep, and they keep each other alive. 

One night he shows up at her window, Utahime behind him and Nanami hauled over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and demands they roast a wild boar he somehow hunted and killed for fun. Utahime claimed there was no ethical problem with game animals the government is literally advertising to minimize farm damage, but Shoko is already both not sure enough to ask and too tired of the hereditary Gojo nonsense to question it. Nanami later informs them that boar-hunting alone is ill advised. How he sounds regretfully familiar with the process is a mystery Shoko is content to ignore until she forgets it. Besides, if Kakashi can take out an adult wild boar while alone, he can hunt however he wants.

So.

Friends.

He’s like a feral cat.

But when Kakashi wanders through the door to her infirmary with a book practically glued to his face and a little brother skipping at his heels, Shoko isn't expecting thanks. That's not something doctors get in the jujutsu world when they bar sorcerers from fighting. Theirs is the duty of resupplying soldiers in this never-ending war against curses, and any spare time can be spent in more productive ways than loitering around and recovering.

They get complaints from impatient brats. Pleas for help with fallen teammates and friends. Resentment for failure to fix the world. Demands from their superiors.

Not thanks.

"You didn't have to buy us time back then," Kakashi says vaguely, and it's honest and cheeky like the lethal menace Shoko just knows he'll end up becoming once fully healed. "Thanks."

Sounds fake, but okay. Sure. "Is this because I'm about to operate on you?"

Satoru faux-gasps at her cruelty, but Kakashi just crinkles his visible eye. 

"Maa, didn't you know? It's good to be on decent terms with your doctor."

Shoko rolls her eyes and checks her own reserves of reverse-cursed energy as she drones, "shut up and lie down. Satoru, you can sit in the chair if Kakashi is fine with that, but one step closer and I'll ruin your life."

Satoru parks himself on the chair, elbows on his knees and grin a bit too wide. "That was almost a decent threat."

"I have blackmail and your brother's phone number."

Satoru makes a sound like she just hit him with a rubber chicken, and Kakashi wheezes a laugh until Shoko shoves a clipboard in his face to fill out.

She's nearly finished coaxing his cursed energy into something a little less noxious, and by all accounts he's capable of entering the field physically. He's got enough of a clean bill of health. At the very least, she's not going to limit his exercise anymore.

The problem is that he's still functionally curse-bait. Stepping outside the barrier will make his presence light up like a beacon.

Last night she scraped together just enough sleep for steady hands. It’s not enough to deal with everything, but… enough to let him go without fighting for his life every second he's outside a barrier. She can grant him subtlety. Mostly. Particularly sensitive curses will still notice that something's wrong, though.

It takes three hours of ridiculously delicate focus on Kakashi's cursed and reverse-cursed energy.

Three hours of mind-numbing details, miniscule adjustments, and use of old techniques that are all but crumbled to dust.

But she does it, tells Satoru to keep an eye on his brother while she passes out for five minutes, and tosses her gloves in the trash. He'll notice if anything is wrong. That's pretty much what his technique was made for, after all. Whether he has to climb onto the cot and wrap his spindly brother in a hug is another matter entirely.

Kakashi endures the obnoxious mother-henning with a resigned grace Shoko is very familiar with. Satoru tends to inspire that reaction in his close friends.

It's fine.

It's done.

She can sleep for a few damn minutes.

Shoko's eyes slip closed the second she collapses at her desk. She wonders, as she notes the heavy pull of drowsiness, how this will come back to bite her.

Technically she shouldn't nod off at work.

Technically.

Satoru has the basic decency to keep his voice at a manageable level as she dozes. It's not behavior anyone expects from a man who does his best to embody a lethal court jester to the utmost degree, but people forget that Satoru knows weakness. He knows how easy bones crack and shatter; how fragile lives are when contrasted with Infinity. Untouchability throws the world into stark comparison. He can probably see the buildup of stress in her mind, the blood flow and developing bags under her eyes, and the red tracing over her sclera as capillaries burst from lack of sleep.

So, no.

Satoru's not going to piss off a doctor. Much less his friend, who he saw go from a grungy kid with an attitude problem to the chain-smoking wine aunt she is now.

It is, Shoko thinks as she accidentally drops into a deeper sleep, his most redeeming quality.

She wakes up eighteen hours later with a killer headache on Satoru’s ridiculously expensive couch. Some merciful deity has encouraged Satoru to keep the lights off and leave a paper napkin on the table next to her in their usual signal. Shoko remembers high school. She remembers collapsing in the back of black cars, both her boys beside her after a mission accomplished. They’d all nod off in the wake of an adrenaline high. She can picture it now - Suguru sitting up straight like some kind of monster, Shoko leaning on his left shoulder, and Satoru drooling on his right.

Good times.

Then one died, one lost his anchor, and one lost her way.

Now she's waking up and her mouth feels like something died in it, her eyes are crusted over, and the blanket tossed over her has slipped away to leave her cold as a frozen hell. At least the lights are off.

Small mercies.

Shoko grabs the napkin and finds her way to the fridge, cracking it open to pour holy light across kitchen tiles and countertops. Squinting past illuminated sweets, Shoko fishes out the takeout.

Yakisoba.

Nice.

Dim streetlights pour illumination in from open windows, helping Shoko stumble towards Satoru’s bedroom door. Luck and little else keep her from tripping on the carpet before finding it nearly closed. He even put a nameplate on it. Cute. She does him the favor of opening it past the carpet to preserve the expensive repairs from this exact scenario, which repeats at least biannually. Habit makes her check there’s no weird knives tucked on top of the door frame before stepping back and kicking the door open with little ceremony. Noodles are shoved into her mouth as she peers in.

Satoru’s not there. Kakashi is passed out like a starfish, but Shoko could care less about that one. She’s looking for her honorary brother. The sweet-tooth dumbass.

Oh, that fucking idiot.

She retreats to the room she was in and yep, there he is, passed out while sitting in the window like the world’s most dandelion-shaped target. Some people make the worst decisions. Worse still, they have the skills to half-way justify it, which only makes the dumbass ideas hit slightly different. This feels like a rosemary-flavored mistake. Satoru has herbs growing in a line of pots by his bedroom, though it's only recently that she discovered he isn't at fault for the little garden at all.

She thinks the rosemary is named Bisuke.

Or Pakkun.

Whatever.

Someday Satoru is going to get sniped.

Shoko considers kicking her former teammate for old time’s sake.

Upsides: he’s near indestructible and wouldn’t be hurt by the fall. He also wouldn't be offended - if anything, it'd be nostalgic given what he and Suguru used to pull when they devolved into wrestling.

Downsides: he’d be loud about it.

She kicks him.

Gently.

Really, it's his own surprise and need for drama that tips him out the window. They both know this, but his squirrel brain loves it for some reason.

Once Satoru has been defenestrated, re-fenestrated, and subsequently complained about the entire process, Shoko is feeling a little better.

She spends the next day at Satoru's apartment, sheltering from her responsibilities like she's sixteen years old again. Sixteen and bright. Sixteen and proud. Sixteen and able to shirk these duties without counting the lives her days off cost on tackily painted nails.

But everyone needs a break.

Overwork is a medical condition.

Shoko lies on the scraggly rug in Satoru's apartment, head on a pillow from the couch and blanket on her lap. She watches the wind blow thin curtains into the room like tidal waves. It is the way of things; this push and pull. Sunlight paints the fabric brilliant white, like it's washed the cotton with water, time, and thyme.

Ceramic clinks.

"A medic's first duty is to heal and keep healing until the job is done," Kakashi says as he sets a cup of tea on the floor somewhere by her elbow. "A medic's second duty is to let their comrades hold the fighting far away from them."

Shoko sighs from the depths of her soul.

"A medic's third duty," he says, "is to die last."

"Which old journal did you pull that from?"

Kakashi smiles behind the mask.

It's such a non-answer.

Shoko looks at him with a doctor's mind and notes how the shadow under his visible eye is already lesser. The other is hidden under fabric, because despite whatever injury cost him it, Kakashi scorns real eye patches. He's so weird. Shoko loves that for him. She also fully supports the healthy color he's already regaining.

"Alright, then," she says, too exhausted and aching to really push this or any other matter. "Keep your secrets."

"Headache?"

"Fading." Shoko eyes him, noting the tension he always holds. It's lesser, yes, but not gone. "You?"

Kakashi tips his head to the side. "Better."

Alright.

Shoko debates hauling herself upright and decides against it. "So, how's Satoru treating your new read?"

Kakashi hacks out an oddly lupine laugh and plops down to sprawl just out of reach. They sit on the ground, forsaking the couch entirely, as he tells her exactly how scandalized his little brother is at his newest choice in smutty romance novels.

-

Satoru drags Megumi off on a field trip and comes back with a vessel of Sukuna. 

Shoko hears about it and mourns all the time she'll have to spend patching up a teenager with that kind of risk assessment skills. The kid looked at a shriveled-up finger that radiated pure evil, and said: wouldn't it be wild if someone ate that? Hey. Hey, is anyone gonna…? Let me just… just put this in my mouth like a toddler. 

Then he didn't wait for an answer.

Disgusting.

Who even does that?

Kakashi and Nanami have started a running bet on what kind of monsters Satoru's students will turn into. One of them's already apparently unhinged, and Megumi goes completely wild if he's pushed far enough in a fight. Shinigami users resemble their spirits over time due to the leaking energy of their techniques, and it shows. Kugisaki – the new student Shoko doesn’t know past paperwork – has pride to spare and brutality to match. She's got a technique the higher-ups can market as merciful. Elegant. It hides the blood. 

They're going to be world-shakers.

Do we get paid overtime for this, Nanami types into their group chat. Kakashi sends him a reply made only of assorted emoji hearts.

No💖, he adds like an afterthought.

Ugh.

Shoko would bet on Satoru snapping and killing the elders before Itadori Yuuji consumes all ten fingers, but Kakashi is right there. Waiting. Lurking in the rafters like an evil little patch of mold. Her workload is heavy enough without this all boiling over, because if there's no fatalities due to internal squabbling, Shoko will be honestly surprised. Stress bubbles under her skin.

She needs to do her taxes.

Shoko goes home, flops face-first onto her couch, and screams into the cushions.

An email notification pops up, one solitary light in the dark apartment. Shoko glares at her phone from the corner of her eye and wonders who will die if she calls in sick tomorrow.

She won't.

Some days, Shoko's mind and body calls it quits. She saves her sick days for when she physically can't get out the door. It's not worth wasting time off that will be needed unexpectedly later. Burnout is hard to fight when her cursed technique is holding up half the jujutsu world. Doctors don't sleep enough, but sorcerers push their medical teams to the edge daily. Shoko thinks it's part of the exorcist culture.

There are so many people who are irreplaceable and running on fumes all at once.

Mei Mei-senpai would make the list if she weren't expensive enough to make the elders wary. Self-employed and a prodigious sensory technique, combined with perfect awareness of her value. She answers to nobody but her bank account. It's not a fair comparison when the rest of them trudge along through political quagmire.

Rats in a maze.

Mei Mei-senpai made a place for herself. Suguru cracked under the pressure. Satoru kicks the whole maze around until it rearranges to his liking, damn the consequences and everyone else. Shoko wonders who will be next to shift this house of cards.

It's trembling.

Do the elders see?

She passes out on that couch, too tired to heat dinner in the microwave. It takes most of her energy to plug in her phone and snag a blanket from the floor.

Morning sun drifts through the windows.

Screeching music drills into her ears.

Five, Shoko tells herself. Four. Three, two, one- She pushes herself off the couch and smacks into the floor. A bruised hip and elbow chivvy her upright, then through her morning routine.

Email notifications follow her out the door.

She is halfway awake by the train station.

Three-quarters awake and covering a yawn by the time she reaches the school entrance.

A man in a business suit is waiting at her office door. Shoko scans him for injuries out of habit, notes the regulation white dress shirt, black jacket, black slacks, and wonders who she pissed off this time.

He introduces himself but Shoko's coffee burns her hands, and she misses his name. It feels rude to ask again, so she gets a business card. She finds she does not need it when he steps aside, and a wizened old man appears from behind him in the world’s shittiest magic trick.

An esteemed elder.

Not one she's ever spoken to, though.

He has questions about her two least favorite patients.

About what happened to the last Gojo head.

About how strong Kakashi is. Does she know he beat a special grade with his bare hands and no formal training? How did he do it? Did she detect anomalies while healing him?

Confidentiality is something they seem rather intent on ignoring, no matter how often she cites the law. Not like that could hold anyone back in the jujutsu world, but Shoko is still beholden to her oaths.

In all honesty she really doesn't pay them much notice, but they’re useful. Sometimes.

Like now.

"I am delighted to inform you that the Gojo brothers are none of my business," Shoko says flatly as she flicks on the overhead lights. "It's my new favorite motto. The world is weird, and I'm tired, so I've decided that unless given a good reason, I am minding my own business."

"He is nearly a curse-user," the elder notes, which is a captivatingly bold lie. Kakashi is unhinged as a half-rabid wolf, but he hides it right up until someone threatens his brother.

Besides, what’s the definition of curse-user? Someone who has a technique and uses it in a way that’s not perfectly what the old busybodies want? Big fuckin’ whoop. They can call her when she makes the list. Until then, Shoko is going to sit in her lab sharing a smoke with her wine and her misery.

"Oh?" Shoko says, as if distracted by finding gloves. They're in the same place as always, but she rustles through a cabinet to show proper disdain for the authorities. Ignoring him feels delightfully petty. "Is that all?"

"If he refuses to submit his techniques for testing again, we will take measures."

Satoru would have a field day with that.

She kind of wants them to take those cute little ‘measures’ just so everyone getting comfy with their unquestioned power remembers a bit of humility. There's no need for the jujutsu world to resemble a dictatorship quite so closely.

"I simply do not care about that." The curse she needs to inspect makes a heavy splat sound as she drops it on the dissection table.

The old man pointedly lifts a sleeve over his nose.

He is ignored.

If she cycles her technique internally, Shoko can cleanse her lungs of chemical fumes with every inhale. This ability is not replicable. Sooner rather than later, she will be left alone. Shoko pries cartilage loose from a femur and cracks it open to sniff at cursed bone marrow. 

Apparently he has no clue how to deal with her apathy, because he rambles on as if she didn't say anything. It's annoying. Shoko guts another curse and spills bleach across the floor until he gets the hint and leaves. Good riddance.

Windows are thrown open, fans turned on, the floor cleaned, and Shoko contentedly settles elbow-deep in her research.

She stays there until her lunch break, which Shoko uses to march into the forest towards a tiny little cottage-like residence Satoru recently pushed, prodded, and bullied his way into securing. The idea of giving a former curse-magnet access to a barrier space that can contain that issue should it resurface was just logical enough for the elders. They chose a little scrap of land in the forest, had the beefiest barriers they could think of built up, and seemed content to forget about it entirely. Whether the building appeared within these barriers before or after barrier creation is unclear. It has a coffee machine, a couch, and an owner that doesn't mind her crashing at his place for five blessed minutes.

Kakashi is good like that, even if he's a menace.

Luckily, her friend is sitting outside like usual these days. He's sharpening blades the old-fashioned way with a whetstone, though Shoko ignores this.

"Is anyone listening in?"

Kakashi turns towards her just enough to watch, likely caught off guard by the bluntness. They tend to poke at each other and complain about whatever inconvenience caught their fraying attention. It’s a habit built out of long hours dragging his health into something manageable. They know each other's boundaries; Shoko complains, Kakashi trolls, and they mutually go easy on each other. 

Kakashi leans back until he's leaning on one of the paper ofuda plastered around his little building. "No."

"When this all goes up in flames," Shoko says, "do me a favor? Kill your targets."

Kakashi's hands pause on the blade. "That's treason."

Treason.

What an archaic term for the mercy she's asking. 

"I am so tired," Shoko says quietly. "Please. Don't let them push my technique past its limits in the aftermath."

Stone and steel scrape together one last time before Kakashi chooses another blade.

"Some things never change," he says, so quietly Shoko wonders if she's supposed to hear. Then, louder, "alright."

Thank goodness and good riddance.

Shoko could refuse to heal whoever shows up for emergency treatment in the aftermath of that inevitable conflict. She could pick and choose. Doing so would break many rules, though.

Shoko isn't Kakashi or Satoru. Her worth and use fail if she refuses to offer them up for consumption. It is an exhausting way of life that leaves her feeling hollow and beaten, but she is still standing. Despite it all, Shoko is still here. That matters.

"Thanks," is all she says.

-

A/N: Regarding how/why Kakashi reincarnated: thats really up to you as a reader. I, personally, think the Sage was skipping stones across the tanabata star river and accidentally beaned a ninja in the head with one. A second chance at life is his apology gift. Kakashi remembers none of this. He is living off the goal to someday figure out how to summon his doggos, completely unaware that the ninja world he left is dealing with the fact that several dozen witnesses saw an elite assassin get struck down from the sky. Divine judgement to the extreme. They then saw an old due with horns and unmistakable resemblance to many folktales to show up, scratch his head at the whole aftermath, and go "whoops" before dipping. My basis for this theory is that I think it's funny

[jupitercl0uds]

please for the love of god talk to me about fonts. please i’m so serious i need to get infodumped at about this

this is mostly technical stuff but then again i am obviously an artist so i might bring up more artsy stuff

also this is going off the top of my head so some aspects may be inaccurate!!! particularly the stuff about pre-digital fonts!!!

while fonts have kinda existed as long as writing, they really started to properly exist around the time of the printing press, in the 1400s. then, in the victorian era, they invented the typewriter. these obviously had plenty of benefits to society as a whole, but i'm kinda gonna just. overlook that. cause it doesnt really matter here.

while the printing press didn't really have 1 font, typewriters did have a standard font, as i'm sure youre aware. in america (and plenty of other countries), this was american typewriter, which you can still use today!

fun fact: there's a good change your favourite font predates digital fonts!!! some examples are times new roman, papyrus and (as i said earlier) american typewriter

in the 80s, paste up, a long tedious process where you would have to cut out and paste everything onto a grid by hand, was rendered obsolete, because of the growing use of home computers. 3 companies (apple, microsoft and adobe) play a giant role in everything because capitalism.

while apple was the most popular at first, you probably already know that microsoft would then dominate the market, offering alongside itself all those wonderful little microsoft office programs i know so well. all of these companies had a big design rivalry, and like most rivalries of that kind, they've definitely died down a bit by now. don't get me wrong, they're still competitors, so they're still gonna have their discrepancies, but microsoft and apple aren't design companies, so they're kinda just. eh.

they also had SO MANY BAD THINGS about them. did you know that arial shouldn't exist? oh and by the way, i HATE arial. its so ugly. its an eyesore. same with helvetica, though i think i prefer arial.

arial was created specifically to imitate the ever-successful helvetica, which is why the two fonts look so similar. you see, apple owned the rights to helvetica and microsoft wanted it for themself, so, they commissioned a very very similar font instead. i believe there was a legal issue over here in europe that never happened in the usa, because if you can create the same product in a different way in the usa, you can get the same patent. the same rule does not apply in the eu. there are differences between helvetica and arial, but they are predominantly in the way they're drawn. i dont have my graphic design program installed right now, so i cant give a good visual demonstration, but i'll try to explain.

basically, in vector graphics, there's always multiple ways to create the same image. for example, if i want to make a circle, i can use 4 rounded vertices or i could use 5 and still get the same image.

anyway, this is what microsoft did for the majority of the letters, with a few exceptions, such as capital G. also i believe the kerning and spacing is slightly different??? btw, kerning is like complicated spacing. it's specifically the space between 2 characters rather than the entire body of text.

then theres the file formats.

it's important to know the difference between bitmap and vector. if you draw, you're probably using bitmap, if you design, you're probably using vector. in adobe terms, photoshop is bitmap while illustrator is vector.

bitmap is typically easier and more standard for general images, for example when a vector image is exported as an image, all the most common image files (png, gif, jpg, hell even webp*) are bitmap.

*i hate webp files a lot.

however, vector can give you a more crisp image in a more lightweight manor. whats more, no matter how large you make your bitmap image, when you zoom in enough, you will eventually start to see the pixels. that isn't the case for vector graphics, because it specifically stores the instructions for how to make an image rather than the actual image itself.

so, when everyone's been using bitmap fonts and then suddenly adobe come out with these amazing new otf files, which use vector over bitmap, everyone wants in. the main issue?

what is always adobe's biggest problem? that's right,

CORPORATE GREED 🎉🎉🎉

adobe paywalled otf files, so what did apple and microsoft do? apple created ttf files, which is basically the same thing as an otf file, and also gave them to microsoft for completely free. this then pressured adobe into releasing otf files to the public, too. funnily enough, while both file formats are commonly used, it's probably more likely that you use TTF files in your everyday life.

while i have more to say (because i ALWAYS have more to say), that's all i can at the moment. as i said, fonts have a very rich history and that's only the tip of the iceberg!!!

[thatoneguy031]

I made some drawings on a whiteboard, featuring some other characters I conjured up in my free time. I'll provide some context for these guys as they're shown, but please mind my ramblings.

First, these guys. These lovely bastards.

For those who have a keen eye, this is formatted in the same way as TWEWY's Fusion Attacks, specifically from the DS.

These are the two main characters of a PMD plot I'm working on(Which I might write a pilot for, if y'all want that), and despite the group consisting of five Pokemon, these two are especially close, and have went on the most missions together out of everyone on the team.

Noibat(Top): Chris. He's the main main character, and he's a human sent here by Arceus, yada yada world-ending event, you get the idea. He has some killer leadership skills, and is typically the peace-keeper of the team. He's normally the one getting into problems with the villians when he doesn't need to(You guys know Izuku, Bakugo and Shoto from MHA? Basically them), and his team is almost always referred to as the "problem children".

Cubone(Bottom): Lucas. Think of him as Chris's "Second-in-command". He's the second opinion everyone needs when it comes to certain topics. His mother is(More like was, but I'll get to that when the time comes) a previous Rescue Ranger, so he has a natural knack for the whole business. He's admittedly a bit emotional, crying when even the smallest things go wrong, but he's still a solid addition to the team, and he'll be there when anyone needs it. He also might have a super-duper crush on Chris, but that's neither here nor there.

For what they're saying in the image:

Chris: "Rush 'em, Lucas-" Lucas: "I'm there!"

I have a whole system similar to the Stride Cross Battle mechanic from TWEWY, and it functions like the Alliances from Super Mystery Dungeon, but again, I'll get to that when I begin writing this thing.

Also, don't mind Chris's earpiece. He just uses it because he isn't quite used to being a Noibat just yet, at the time of this pic.

Speaking of TWEWY...

Say hi to Azure, I guess(Actually don't, he might wanna throw hands with you).

He's super antisocial, but unlike Neku, he's willing to fight anyone that does as little as breathe the wrong way in his direction.

And his getup? His entry fee for the Reapers Game is his uniqueness, obviously something he didn't know he respected about himself so much until it was taken away from him. Because of that, he dawns an outfit similar to that of our favorite legendary Player, of course with a few changes(And it also explains his amnesia. I just drew him as a dragon just because, which is a habit you'll see in a lot of my drawings from here on).

He's also treated as if he's Neku(Specifically, Neku from the events of Neo onwards); as if he's been through this before. As you can probably guess, he definitely has not. After a certain point, he fights nothing but Boss Noise and even Reapers themselves, leaving his partner very confused as to why this is happening to them. Azure himself has a hard time grasping the fact that he's dead, despite it being told to him about a dozen times, but it comes from a sense of denial. He doesn't want to believe he's dead, mostly because that's something he, like many other people, is scared of... death itself.

Don't mistake Azure's aggression for meanness, however. When the time comes, he does care for people's well-being, and will even risk his erasure for their safety, which is a large reason why he even participates in the Game during his third week instead of just becoming a Reaper, which he calls "The coward's way out".

Here's a fun game: See if y'all can guess which pins Azure's wearing! These are some of the most used pins I had during my playthrough of Final Remix(Which is still going on, if you're curious), and I just wanted to feature them in the picture, as these would be a lot of Azure's favorite pins to use as well.

Don't mind the background, I know I drew the 104 building wrong, okay?

[doodleferp]

Finished the next OC ref! Now it’s Allison’s turn! Story's under the cut cuz I just tried a new format.

Why'd You Make Her?: She was a self-insert like a lot of my present-day OCs that I made back in late 2020 when I finally watched all of Hellsing Ultimate. I'm a serial shipper and I really got attached to Alucard, so I made her as someone he could connect with and confide in. I have a thing with wanting to give characters friends/lovers. I feel like nowadays she's responsible for a lot of my followers lol

What's Her Deal?: Allison's that typical Victorian lady -- soft, prim and proper, all about manners and respect. She's very much attached to her husband, for better or worse, and while she doesn't like to fight (it's so unseemly) she is not afraid to cross swords if she believes her loved ones are being threatened. Her compassionate nature is often pitted against common vampire complexes, and she also has a lot of insecurities from others mocking her or not taking her seriously (which happened quite often in her childhood and only continued when she became Alucard's wife). Alucard and Integra are probably the only ones who can tell what she's hiding, because she's gotten good at presenting a front for the sake of a tougher appearance. Thankfully, her hundred years of life has helped to harden her up, and while she's very devoted to Alucard she doesn't let him get away with anything.

In terms of powers, she can do pretty much all the stuff her husband can. Thanks to some stuff Van Helsing did to them, Allison would only drink her husband's blood for upwards of seventy years -- thus, her powers are much stronger than a typical vampire her age's would be.

Do I Ship Her?: Yes, with Alucard. I really like characters with a Hades/Persephone dynamic, and it's really fun to write/draw Alucard. I guess that even as creepy as they seemed, even back when they were a fresh new couple, their marriage was pretty damn progressive for their time, becausethe general Victorian norm was that married women became property to their husbands, giving them rights to what their bodies produced, and Alucard is hella big on consent so their marriage is based off "hey, is this okay honey? i wanna make sure you're comfortable with this first."

What's The Story?: Allison was born in Connecticut in June 1859, and is the eldest of four children. Her dad was an awful person, but rather than being the physically-abusive Victorian Dad stereotype, he relied more on mental and emotional abuse. He really didn't like Allison because he wanted a firstborn son instead, and pretty much forgot about her when her younger brother(s) were born. Somehow, she managed to con her dad into letting her go to college in London (Bedford College!), where she got a degree in English.

Allison met Alucard (then Dracula) in Transylvania while attempting to study abroad. Originally intending to turn her and make her another servant, Alucard decided against it after, for some reason, he couldn’t go through with it and dropped her at a halfway house. Allison, in the contagious spirit of “what the actual fuck”, stormed back to the townhouse Alucard was staying in, and demanded he give her an explanation. Imagine her surprise when Alucard broke down and started crying that he didn’t know why he wanted to spare her, and she stayed with him out of a weird gut feeling. They eventually moved to his castle in Transylvania, and over time the two fell in love. They married three years after they met, and Allison was turned on their wedding night. The couple went back to London for their five-year wedding anniversary, and through a series of extremely unfortunate events, they were captured by Abraham Van Helsing. Alucard was able to save their lives by swearing his servitude to Van Helsing’s bloodline, and the rest is pretty much history. Allison now lives in the sub-basement of the Hellsing manor, with the intent of keeping Alucard company while he waits for his contract with the Hellsings to be finished.

[fixing-bad-comic-art]

Lol thank you. Also i didn't put a lot of details because i didn't want to come off as aggressive/demanding. But im using a tablet connected to my desktop and im using photoshop. I guess my main issue is coloring digital. I can do it traditional but digitally it just never comes off right when i do it. Just... colors man. My local colors are fine but anything more than that it comes off bad. Actually now that im writing this i probably just need to do some more studies. SO actually do you have any tips about layers/layer blending modes?

ok so the color thing is Super common because the color theory in digital is just slightly different from in traditional so everything just feels off if you're used to trad

So, screens use rgb displays, and photoshop can either work in rgb(red green blue) or cymk (cyan yellow magenta black), this is important because it means every color is a mix of either rgb or cymk as opposed to what traditional artists would be used to, which is ryb (red yellow blue). this leads to some color mixings just not working the way they should,

maroon mixed with an equal amount of cyan in paint will make a nice purple but in digital it will make a nasty grey.

to work around this you need to think of every color as having a cool and warm varient, cools work best with cools and warms work best with warms. so a cool blue will look best next to a cool red as apposed to a warm red.

and the digital color wheel is drastically different from the trad color wheel because what can be displayed on a screen isnt every color possible, which means that trying to use the standard color combo formats on a digital color wheel is pointless and you need to be referencing a trad color wheel like this one.

and now onto advice about layers.

pray.

but more seriously, layers are typically sorted into four groups, i cant remember the order they are in photoshop so you're going to have to put up with the painter order, sorry,

group one is all the layers that make things darker, these are your burns, multiplies, and darkens. they make the colors beneath them darker based on the color of the working layer using different math formulas. i am not good at math nor do i remember which formula goes to which layer type.

group two makes things lighter

group 3 does both

and group 4 are effect layers, which i dont think photoshop actually has, they get sorted under other tools if memory serves.

take the time to figure out which group each layer type belongs to and roughly what they do. this will just Drastically speed up your work flow. but when all else fails there's nothing stopping you from just scrolling through the layer styles until you find one you like.

and now onto misq layer advice

photshop lets you group layers. Group Your Layers, its quick, and it'll help you find things a Lot quicker.

also Lock your layers when you're done with them so that you dont draw on the wrong layer,

ideally you should get in the habit of naming them too, but only nerds who can read actually name their layers.

merge your layers too, once you're done with them merge them, having a trillion layers makes your computer sad and more likely to throw a fit (read: crash) it also makes navigation Infinitely easier

if you're more of a painter, use fewer layers. photoshop especially Hates it when you use a blending/painting brush with sample lower layers enabled, it just Chugs and crashes a lot, so trying to do all of your painting on one or two layers is Very important to not wanting to yeet your computer and strangle adobe.

and a final not is this, find the curves tab, and have it open and easily accessible on your layout at all times, i personally liked keeping mine on the right side above my layers and below my color wheel.

the curves panel is your new best friend, use it, go to the movies with it, fall in love with it, marry the god damned curves panel. it will make your coloring life Infinitely easier.

i think thats all i have to say on this.