#Yes I drew them in a silly anime pose I was having FUN

[kakusu-shipping]

Two Urchins and a Jellyfish; Childhood friends to lovers and also I'm there. Platonically.

Felt like doodling @cakeships tonight for funsies. Having a good time.

[sysig]

Requestober: Vargas Edition

Day 3. I really liked Edgar’s face, clearly. It’s too bad I couldn’t draw Scriabin right behind him for the final version since Edgar was sitting but at least I got to draw it here. They’re both a bit catlike!

Bonk ✨

My original idea(s) for Day 6′s “Fluff” theme kept turning out silly instead of fluffy so I had to scrap them, so have a concept version of Scriabin picking on Edgar by calling him a teratophile lol (He’s referring to himself of course)

So many notes lol, I do still want to redo this one, I can’t let go of how much I like the hand positioning, somehow using a prop made it more dynamic, who’d’ve thought haha

And then what I finally settled on for Fluff. I had to move Scriabin back a good bit for the digital sketch to better see Todd, always so center-frame ♥

My only sketch note for this one was two arrows pointing towards both of them and just “closer” - Walk closer! They are in the digital version so I’m happy. I had to consider how to include Shmee too, since Todd was there. I felt like Scriabin wouldn’t want to hold him directly haha

Day 23, cute costume time!! I grabbed details from a few different sources before settling on anything, and it was so fun to draw pirate stuff again ♪ I wasn’t expecting to get so emotionally invested in the ninja costume but drawing a gi top made me feel so nostalgic, ah. I also forgot which side laid over which until I mimed putting mine on and realized I’d drawn it wrong - my references lied to me! I still ended up getting it wrong in the final version lol, just chalk it up to a cheap costume. What belt would Edgar have, hmm...

Basically all my notes are just iterations of “cute” lol. I was planning on adding toy weapons to the final version and then I forgot lol. I liked the idea of him showing off, tiny happies ♪

The sketch that would become the final version! I wasn’t having the best drawing day so I knew I wanted to change Scriabin’s pose a good bit but getting anything down to paper to use as a base was the real goal here lol. The pumpkin originally had a little pressed-in jack-o-lantern face, I used to have one of those ♪

Even after I drew the final version I still wanted to draw them being cute hehe. Scriabin’s just like “More candy for me thx.” How many Oos and Aas do you suppose they got dressed so? The cutest kids

And then right into Diaryfic for Day 24! Yay. His arm did originally say “Scriabin” but I scratched it out a little too much and it just looks like messy crosshatching now lol. I was intending to go quite ambitious for this one and try to make a storyboard, and then I realized that if I wanted to post it anytime close to the date, I had to skip out this time :’D A lot changed between the sketch and the final version anyway, so even if I didn’t get to do that, I’m glad I spent my time polishing it. And I did get to do a little bit of animation!

Day 29. I haven’t drawn Johnny seriously since like, 2013 lol. I did forget that his shirt was fun to draw! Flap flap. I kinda just let my pencil loose to try and get some of the energy that these three in one room would generate lol. I quite liked how much motion ended up in their hair, stress floofs!

Ah yes, the Draw The Squad. I waffled on this one for-approximately-ever, not least of all trying to figure out which would be which in the main duo, who would give either of them a low five?? Each of them has a note-title, the first one being “Is literally anyone in the story happy about this??” and the second’s “Congrats for growing a pair lol” Honestly I even considered Shmee being the third wheel since at least he can see just how many concessions they’d have to make to get to that point, but it was too ridiculous lol

Day 31′s prompt was “Edgar and Scriabin holding each other and/or kissing” and like - you can’t encourage me like that, I have negative control when it comes to them being sweet to each other, as evidenced, to the point where I didn’t even use any of these, I made all of these based on the prompt and it still wasn’t enough! Lol. The first set was just my brain running away with the thought of if Edgar could comfortably initiate a kiss, he tends to channel his nervousness into aggression so what if he was feeling calm? A big ask lol. I didn’t mean to make the last one so sensual but I’m not mad about it so lol. The sleepy one was specifically inspired by the final scene from You Can’t Live Like This, I love that one ♥

Since you asked you didn’t here’s a doodle from my other notebook from when the tenderness just took over for a bit, completely unrelated, just yet more proof of not being able to stop myself lol

And that’s all the Vargas Requests! :D I had fun with them!

[sweetcatmintea]

When Cats Stare

Hello hello! Flash Fiction Friday again! I wanted to give you something a little more fun since I won’t be able to write for a while. I’m going to the land of beans on toast with my dad and I’m very excited! I’ve never been on a plane before, much less over seas! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this story! Feedback is appreciated ^u^

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Words: 1565

It’s never a good sign when your cat stares intently beyond you. You can tell they’re not daydreaming, but you don’t really want to know what they’re looking at. So, when my own furred goblin was sitting bolt upright on my chest in the middle of the night, staring at something, I did my best to ignore him and go back to staying up way too late watching videos on my phone. His persistence waivered my resolve. Usually he would flop himself against my face in a loving kind of smother. The closer to suffocation I am, the more he feels accomplished in his affection giving. But not tonight. He stared with those big green eyes into the space above my head. I figured I should at least try to assure him that the only thing silly enough to be up in the deep dark night was us.

“What are you looking at Bud? You staring at ghosties?” The last word was lost in a yawn.

His soft black fur was warm against my palms. He hunkered down, devoid of his usual purr, still staring.

“If it’s a demon, are you going to earn your rent and protect me like those animals in the hero pet compilations?” I kissed his little nose. “No, probably not. You’d leave me hanging, wouldn’t you, Basil Boy. I’d save you y’know. I mean, I probably wouldn’t be very good against a demon, but the thought is there.” Another yawn. At least my rambling was putting someone to sleep. Basil’s paw silenced my next round of spouted nonsense. The cheek of this cat! It’s hard to contain giggles at one in the morning. Harder still to contain the shriek. Long, slender fingers stretch like tendrils reached down from above. Cracked nails barely glanced my scalp when I looked up in my mirth. Fight, flight, or freeze. I froze. Burning, swirling, bottomless pits on a face of twisted fur matted with what I could only describe as ichor. The hand paused over me, deliberating. Its head tilted slowly, slowly, mechanically unwinding itself from the body while the neck grew longer and longer. Hot goats’ breath fanned my face. I sunk back as far as the twelve or so pillows allowed. It didn’t move. Basil, surprisingly, stayed hunkered on my chest. Of course he wouldn’t make things easier and just run away.

For several long seconds, we stayed like that. Me, pressed into my bed. Basil, squat on my torso. And the creature, looming above. No one moved. No one spoke. There’s an unwritten conversational rule where, if a silence stretches longer than four seconds, it becomes increasingly awkward. Not going to lie, I already don’t do well with social stuff. The more time stretched the more I hoped something would, well, happen.

“Sooo…” I began, tapping my index fingers against the mattress. “What brings ya here?”

It drew back. Not by a lot, still very much in my personal space bubble, but I’m not complaining. It was a start. Its mouth parted, tasting the thought before voicing it. (Or preparing to lunge, I’m not exactly a strange night creature psychologist.) Huh. There’s a beak under all that wiry fur. Cool.

“soOoO…” My own voice parroted back, warped. I guess the beak is just for show. The noise reverberated around us, no indication of its source. Other voices mixed in, creating a jittery, juttering kind of speech. “SsSooOO… SsssoooOoo…”

“… Cool… Are you uh.. Here to kill me maybe?”

“NnoOo.”

That’s promising. I’m sure they’re a very honest.. being…

“Are you a ghost?”

“nnNOo.”

Hmm. “Aaare you a demon?”

“YyEsS.”

K. “Are you here on business or pleasure? Not Pleasure pleasure. Fun pleasure. Like, a holiday or something.”

They pause, crinkling a long finger against their chin. A thinking pose. “PleAsUReee. NoTTt PPleaSuREE pleasure.”

Thank cat beans. That could have been awkward. Their neck clicked as they turned to look at Basil.

“PLeAsuRe…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re not here to steal my cat are you?”

No response. I sat up, drawing Basil closer to myself.

“I mean like, you can pat him if you don’t have that death touch thing going on, but he’s my baby. You can’t take him.”

“Ssoofftt…” They trailed a finger through his fur. The traitor started purring. “NicCee…”

Scooting up so I was sitting, I patted the bed, motioning for the demon to pop a squat beside me. They complied, creaking as they unfolded themselves joint by joint, from their ceiling perch. Basil wiggled from my grip, smacking me in the face with his tail in his haste to double cross me and sit in the demon’s lap. Somehow, I got the feeling this wasn’t their first meeting.

“So that’s Basil.”

“BaAssIiLll. LLikE BaSsIlL.”

“He’s a cool little dude. Do you have cats in the demon world, or where ever you come from?”

“CaaAnn. WaAnTtT BaaSiLLl.”

“Again, and this is super important, you can’t have Basil. He is my baby cat.” I leaned back, shoulders popping in that satisfying way. “Although, we might be able to arrange something for you.”

The demon tilted its head again. I could have sworn there was excitement in those deep, deep, deep pits. Deep, dark.. What was I saying? Oh yeah. Arrangements.

“One month. If you can show me that you are able to properly care for a cat, I’ll get you one in a months’ time. You can stay here and show me with Basil, or show me where you live and that you are able to fulfil a cats’ needs. They need more than food you know. You’ve gotta play with them, desex them, take them to the vet, make sure they have grass to munch on. It’s a big responsibility. I’ll show you some good websites though so you’re not going in blind or anything. What do you think? Sound good?”

They nodded. “SssoUnd GoOd.”

And that’s how I ended up with a demon roommate for a month. Once we got over the initial awkwardness like bathroom schedules, possible dietary issues, and the appropriateness of guests from the underworlds, it was actually pretty nice. We had long discussions about cats, obviously, but also about life. Our experiences were totally different, but we discovered new things together. They made a point of watching 2D animated movies with me and I got really into demonic card games. It was a lot of fun. We added each other on pokemon go and finally cleared some research tasks. They showed me their realm (more pokestops than you would expect) and we worked together to construct a proper cat enclosure using Ikea hacks and the Kitten Lady’s youtube videos. I even had a nice little existential… What’s the opposite of crisis? Calmness? Low-fi study music moment? Experience? Where life after death was confirmed. Damnation may be upgraded to Ikea jigsaws now. Sorry about that. That one’s on me…

It felt like no time at all had passed between that late night conversation and walking into the local animal shelter. The demon (who I should have mentioned wanted to be called Toto after the fuzzy bear dude from My Neighbour Totoro) had taken a human(ish) appearance. A totally generic stranger that was easily forgotten but that something nagged at you that it wasn’t quite right. Today was the day. We’d been approved as potential adopters and were picking out Toto’s new best friend. The lady gave us a friendly greeting and led us straight to the cat room at the back, debriefing along the way. I always forgot how loud it could be back there. Cats yowled and mewed, much to the chagrin of their quieter shelter mates. We looked at kittens and adults, fluffy cats and patchy cats, noisy cats and shy cats. Each one Toto inspected with care. I did not envy their choice. If I could, I’d take them all home. Toto stopped at the far corner. I peeked over their shoulder to see which one had caught their attention.

It was… Unfortunate. A scraggly brown cat with fur guaranteed to mat at a slight breeze. A short little thing with, what I think, was a snaggle tooth sticking out of his mouth. It was not a pageant winner. If someone took a year old loaf of bread and had it trampled by a herd of heavily concussed camels, and one buttered donkey, stuck whiskers on the rounder side and a bottle brush on the rear, it’d be in the same ball park as this ugly cat. It opened its mouth and gargled at us.

“ThHiSs OnEE iS GooOd.”

“I thought you’d say that.” I checked the info card. Not much to go on. The shelter guessed she was about 14. Ah, man. That’s… That’s not great…

“I’m, I’m not sure this is a good choice for your first cat, Bud. She’s pretty old… It’s a pretty difficult thing to go through, y’know, when your pet passes away…”

“NoO gUaRantEE FoR AnYtHiNG.”    

“That’s true… I’m definitely not saying don’t get an old cat, just don’t want you to get hurt so soon… Would she stay with you as a spirit cat?”

“If ShE WiLLs It. CaTs WaNdER.”

“Oh. Sweet. Let’s get her then.”

“yeS.”

“What are you going to call her?”

He inspected her again. Human skin crinkling into a smile when she sneezed and left her tongue poking out.

“FrRiEnDd.”

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Tag list

@snobbysnekboi, @inkovert, @kainablue, @i-rove-rock-n-roll, and @goblin-writer 

[midwesttiltking-blog]

10- Plain Speaking

Last installment was the sad story of Garrett’s demise. as we found out last time Klint is the villain, this week we get a small window into what he’s been doing. Hope you like it! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The abandoned GM plant in Lansing was fully lit and hummed with production. The parking lot was as empty as it ever was. Inside up-to-date robots and conveyors stretched from end to end of the plant floor. No employee walked the floor but production continued on at full speed. The body assembly area had been completely re-purposed creating machines of variable shape and size. Inside the main office two humans sat chatting. A man and a woman, the man wearing a suit with a scarf, his hair slicked back, he stood tall and slender. His hands clasped behind his back looking onto the production floor.

“I just don’t understand. Why do they resist? Why do they not see the truth and power of my knowledge?”

The woman laid out on a couch with a GameCube controller in hand playing Super Smash Bros. Melee. She had picked fox and moved frame perfect quickly eliminating the bots she was matched against. She was very slim and stood about six inches shorter than the man. She paused her game and smiled at him. “Cause Klint, nobody could possibly be as smart as you, they can’t see the world how we do.” Her tone was slightly sarcastic. The inflection and rhythm of her speech matched exactly with how Kevin spoke. “Besides, who cares we have each other. Don’t let those other people bring you down.”

“They are slowing down progress though!” smashing his fist against the wall as he turned back to the woman and crouched down to match her height “I want to make the world perfect for you Emma. I want us to live in a place where people actually value knowledge, and will take the time to learn what they don’t know, and we can have productive arguments among educated people.”

Emma reached out a hand and ruffled Klint’s hair “You shouldn’t do your hair like this, it makes you look like an anime villain, besides I think you look cute when it's just natural. Anyway, Does it really matter that much? Maybe some people should be allowed to just screw off. You know we made it this far without everyone being perfect”

Klint smiled and kissed her. He pulled out a phone and tapped a few buttons. Emma turned back to her game and began playing again her serious game face returning. Klint sat down at a desk and popped up a projection, a map of North America. He let out a deep sigh before speaking again. “OK let's review what has happened so far.”

Emma paused her game again and stood up “Oh sweet, we can really list out just how great I am at this...and how...OK your plans were.”

“Hey, I spent years crafting this plan, if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be here. Give me some credit at least.”

“Yeah yeah, just remember who the best is while we do this”

Klint extended an arm, pointing this his finger, “yellow” he spoke clearly, marks appeared on the map. He began shading in the Midwest.

Emma struck a comical pose learning backwards and extending her arm out, her hand shaped like a gun. “Red” she closed one eye “bang” Red marks splattered across a large portion of the south and west. She then opened her hand keeping her fingers together “fwoosh, schwing schwing” she made large lines cutting through almost all of Canada.

Klint finished filling in the east coast and shook his head. Before he could say anything Emma poked him. “See, look at my part, it's like thirty-five times bigger than yours”

“I’ll give you three maybe…”

“No way! Its definitely more than three”

“Calculate area as percent, yellow against red”

On the projection a display popped up “27% yellow 73% Red” Emma put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest “See, you got wrecked”

“That isn't three times, sooooo”

“Doesn’t matter I still beat you so hard”

“I’m not wrong though. Besides I highly doubt your drawing is accurate, how can you even know you covered that much area and mine that isn’t overlapping with yours”

Emma sighed “Whatever Klint I don’t want to sit here and argue with you about this. Let's get to the next part”

“Green” Klint slowly drew a line starting from Portland as it moved east the line widened, splitting off at a few points. It ended just east of Omaha. He then moved over to the east coast. He began shading in near DC extending to the coast and a few cities south. The calculation still on display now showed “21% Yellow 60% Red” “These areas and that fucking internet troll account for the resistors.”

“Ah, that troll. I kind of love that guy. He's fighting for the people”

“Yeah but what is he really defending. He may be enlightened himself but he fights to defend a world of idiots sharing unverified information on the internet?”

“You gotta it admit, even if it is dangerous, The internet is really fun sometimes”

“Yeah but are those fun times worth it?”

“I think so, if you have a truly unrestricted platform like that, sure maybe it allows for some people to circulate in their stupidity, but it also opens paths for great-” Klint pressed a button on his phone and Emma fell silent.

She walked over and calmly sat down in Klint’s lap as he continued on. “The recon probes I’ve sent out show in the east a small military force has survived. They are going to be a problem. But when we have finished manufacturing the auto-tanks, we should be able to wipe them out pretty quick”

“Yah know, if we just went with my idea and waited to launch the virus until we had weapons built you wouldn’t have to deal with this uprising”

Klint playfully tickled her sides “Oh you are so smart aren’t you, you predicted that some military brat would survive.” His voice changed to a more serious tone “But waiting would have been too risky, you think I could have operated this plant when everybody was just living their day to day lives?”

“...yeah. It's an abandoned building nobody has been in this thing for a millions of years until we came along”

“I just think the likelihood of someone catching us coming in here was too high”

Emma sighed “OK, I don’t care, your plan didn’t work. So obviously there were better options”

“No but seriously, how could we have pulled it off?”

“Klint. I don’t care.”

“Alright alright, this line in the west though, that is what has me concerned.”

“Ah yes the ‘all of our hard work undone by seemingly normal people’ line”

“Yes… How the fuck are these people surviving. Most of the cities are stable, nobody is rioting or murdering each other, no zombies within their city limits. It just doesn’t make sense!”

“Maybe they stopped the zombies using the power of positivity” Emma jumped out of the chair and pointed to the ceiling “They never gave up hope and they took all of your silly survival calculations and threw them out the window! They made the impossible possible”

Klint laughed off the idea “Oh yeah, that thing Kevin was always going on about, how any human has the potential to be truly great if they believe in themselves”

Emma tilted her head “Who is Kevin?”

Klint looked at her with a confused expression “I’ve told you about him before. He is like you, but you know, a guy.” Klint paused for a second his voice now becoming somber “He was my best friend before the outbreak”

Emma wrapped her arms around Klint “Don’t worry, well get to see him eventually Right? When we meet him Ima destroy him in smash bros. If he is just like me a bet he’s pretty good”

Klint looked at her for a moment “yeah… yeah I’ll get to see him again. But I just don’t know if he’ll ever be the same.”

He took another deep breath “What do we do about this green line?”

“Well we can’t just march out there and tell them ‘give up, kill yourselves!’ So we just have to keep watching the recon reports until we figure out how they are doing this”

“You are right, there has to be something logical to explain what is happening here. I’m just really surprised people are surviving out there without structure. I figured most women didn’t really have the skills to survive in the wild”

“Why does it have to be women?” Emma turned to look at him, her face a few degrees away from rage.

“Well a lot of girls just aren’t really brought up to have skills you’d need, yah know like hunting, making shelter stuff like that”

“Oh and guys are any different. Don’t most of you just sit around playing video games or jerking off”

“Hey now, plenty of guys still learn those skills though, even if it is just recreational”

“Tell me Klint” Emma put her hand gently under his chin “Who cooks dinner every night, me or you? Who would do that for you without society?” Klint turned to his phone again and the conversation ended.