#before switching to character blobs

[apples-with-sauceee]

Blobs...just blobs

[kwanisms]

Kinktober 「10:13」 — w.junhui

» seventeen menu | jun menu | kinktober masterlist «

➮ shapeshifter!Junhui × fem!Reader wc: 3k summary: Jun is a witch and has been practicing his shapeshifting. He’s excited to show Y/N his new trick which has an unintended reaction. genres/themes/au: angst/fluff/smut; supernatural, horror, thriller; non idol au, monster idol au warnings: adult dialogue, female reader, supernatural and horror themes, mentions of: witchcraft & magic; sexual content (18+ mdni), see smut warnings under the cut! taglist has been moved to reblogs join my taglists! kinktober taglist is CLOSED! Strikethrough means I cannot tag you.  MINORS WILL BE BLACKLISTED & BLOCKED. AGELESS BLOGS WILL ALSO BE BLOCKED.

a/n: a special thank you to June and Jupiter for your help with the mechanics of this! I love you both muah muah. This came pretty easily and i’m not opposed to revisiting this couple in the future. We shall see. Thank you for reading! The next part is vampire!Wonwoo which will conclude week two of kinktober! as always, this is a work of fiction and all characters are not reflective of their respective irl counterparts. for entertainment purposes only. 

smut warnings: teratophilia (aka monsterfucking), mutual masturbation, voyeurism (f receiving, m receiving), use of pet names (bao bei, babe, etc.), unprotected sex (but reader is on birth control), soft dom!Jun, switch!Reader, non-human genitalia (Jun can shapeshift all parts of him, including his dick lol), cum inside, dirty talk, it’s pretty simple but if I missed something let me know! kinks: Mutual masturbation + voyeurism dialogue prompt: ❛❛ Lay back and touch yourself, I’m going to watch. ❜❜

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

When Jun first started learning witchcraft and practicing, he was most excited about shifting. Being able to turn into anyone or anything was the most fascinating and exciting part of magic for him. He’d worked his way up from changing his hair color and facial features until he was able to start shifting into entirely different creatures. The first time he swapped his ears for dog ears he was beyond excited.

Of course, he had rushed at the opportunity to show you, his best friend.

Ever since then, he always came to you to show you his newest tricks, no matter how big or small. In the beginning, you showed as much enthusiasm as he did but over time, most of his tricks were the same and while you were happy he was excited, you didn’t exhibit the same enthusiasm anymore. Something Jun noticed as he stood in front of your bed.

He had just shifted into a blob-like creature, translucent green in color. It was impressive as he’d never managed to get the translucence consistency correct. “Oh neat,” you said as he shifted back, getting up off the floor. “You’ve never gotten the translucence down before. It looks believable!” you added encouragingly.

“And check this one out!” he said, giving you a smirk. You watched with mild amusement as he transformed into a hulking form covered in gray fur, a mass of muscles under his skin. He panted heavily, drool hanging from sharp teeth as yellow eyes stared at you. The pointed ears on top of his head flicked in the direction of different sounds.

“A werewolf?” you asked, holding back a smirk. “You’ve shown me this one before,” you told him, picking up your phone and scrolling through your feed. His brows seemed to furrow in disappointment, the ears laying back against his head. “But look!” he pouted, his voice the exact same.

You raised your eyes as he turned, showing you a large bushy tail that curled up towards his back. “I couldn’t get the tail down before!” he explained. You chuckled, returning to your phone. “Very cute,” you said as you resumed scrolling. Jun let out a low huff and growl before shifting back to his human form.

“Fine, what about this?” he asked, making you look up as he transformed again, his body elongating as scales erupted all over his skin. The lower half of his body transformed into a snake-like body, his torso staying mostly the same except for the scales on his sides and shoulders. His eyes were very viper-like, bright orange with vertical slits. He opened his mouth, a soft hiss escaping as a forked tongue peeked out.

“You’ve shown me that one, too,” you replied. “You usually go for the venomous snakes,” you added. “I’ve never seen you do a constrictor.” Jun’s shoulders slumped as you returned your focus once again to the device in your hand. He changed back, adjusting his shirt and pulled his jacket off, tossing it on the end of the bed.

“Alright,” he said softly. “What about this?”

You looked up, unamused at his antics as he changed again, into a towering figure with a vaguely humanoid shape. He wore a black suit, skin white and massive tentacles writhing from his back. “Slenderman?” you asked, sounding unimpressed yet again.

“Come on, man,” you whined. “I’ve seen all of these before!”

One of the tentacles shot out, wrapping around your ankle but you barely flinched. “Get your slimy tentacle off me before I cut it off and feed it to my cat,” you said without looking up. The tentacle retracted slowly, wiggling off the bed as they all returned to his body and he changed back into his human form. “Seriously?” he asked, running his fingers through his hair frustratedly.

“I’ve seen all these before!” you countered. “You haven’t shown me something new in a long time.”

Jun stared at you, wracking his brain as you scrolled through your phone. An idea popped into his head. He shifted again, a pair of brown cat ears poking up from his hair as a brown tail sprouted from his back, sneaking down the back of his shorts.

“What about this?” he asked, making you look up.

Your eyes met his and a smile spread across your face. “Oh, how cute,” you said as he crawled onto the bed. “A tail too?” you asked as he sat back on his heels, showing off the tail. “Yeah!” he said. “It’s not entirely impressive,” he said. “But normally I do entire body transformations to wow you,” he said. “It’s not every day I do these small ones.”

You chuckled as you leaned forward, reaching up to scratch one of the ears. Jun leaned into your touch, a purr rumbling from his throat. “Cute,” you said again as you reached out to allow the tail to slide through your palm. “What if I change into a werecat!” he said suddenly and moved to get up but you were tired of him constantly changing and just wanted to hang out with your best friend.

You hadn’t meant to pull his tail but your hand closed around it and you tugged lightly. Jun let out a moan and you stared at him, eyes wide as his own wide eyes met yours. Silence fell over you as you stared at one another trying to figure out what just happened.

“What was that?” you asked softly. Jun’s cheeks flushed as he tried to snatch the tail away but you pulled again, another moan slipping past his lips. “Oh,” you said, your mouth forming a perfect circle. A smirk took over as you tugged again, the moan even louder. “S-stop!” he stammered, grabbing the tail from you and glaring as he changed back, the cat ears turning back into his human ones and the tail shrinking until it disappeared.

Your eyes followed the tail as it retracted into his loose shorts and it was then you could see the outline of his semi-hard cock. Your eyes continued up, meeting his gaze. “Enjoyed that a little too much, did you?” you asked. Jun glanced down at his crotch and quickly grabbed one of your plushies, using it to cover his lap. You let out an indignant noise, snatching the plushie from him.

“NOT MR. SNUFFLES!” you shouted, taking the elephant from him and glaring at him. “You pervert!” Jun glared at you. “You’re the one who looked!” he retorted, trying to cover himself with his hands. “Not my fault,” you said as you leaned back against your pillows. “Your shorts don’t exactly keep things contained. Are you even wearing underwear?”

Jun glared at you. “Now who’s the pervert?!” he asked, cheeks turning even redder. You shrugged as you lifted Mr. Snuffles to look at him before tossing him off the bed with the pile of your other plushies. “I’m not wearing any underwear,” you added as if you were discussing the weather.

Jun felt his cock twitch in his shorts. He was wearing underwear but now he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that you were not. “Wh-why did you tell me that?” he asked, turning his head to look at the pile of stuffed animals that lay on the floor in the corner of your room, their lifeless black glass eyes staring back at him.

“Can you change your dick?” you asked suddenly, making him choke on his own spit. He turned to look at you, finding your curious eyes staring back at him. “Wh-what?!” he asked incredulously. You rolled your eyes before asking again.

“When you transform into, like, a werewolf or even that cat hybrid, does your dick change too?” Jun stared back at you in awe of not only your confidence but your audacity. “N-no,” he answered, shaking his head. You clicked your tongue in disappointment, picking up your phone.

“I mean,” he started, gulping. “I’ve never purposefully done it.” You glanced up at him. “I-I could try.” A smile spread across your face. “Would you show me if you did?” you asked. Jun couldn’t believe his ears. You, his best friend, was asking him to show him shapeshifting his cock.

He glanced down at his crotch briefly before looking back up, eyes scanning over your shorts.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said suddenly, catching you off guard. “I can’t shapeshift,” you said in return. Jun merely shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna see. If I’m gonna show you my dick, you gotta give me something in return.”

You stared at him, considering your options. When you took too long to answer, he was afraid he’d crossed a line but then you locked your phone, setting it aside as you got up onto your knees. “Okay,” you answered, pushing down your shorts and sitting back to kick them off, keeping your legs closed and your pussy hidden from view.

“Show me,” Jun ordered and you let out a giggle, shaking your head. “You first.” Jun narrowed his eyes before he got up, pushing his shorts and underwear down in one motion, his cock springing free as he let the material fall to the floor. He stepped out of it as your eyes followed his cock.

It wasn’t what you were expecting. It was a good five or six inches in length, maybe about five in girth. The shaft was a lighter tone of his skin, like his skin was in the winter when he didn’t go outside, the head was a darker peach, a small bead of precum already forming at the slit.

He sat back down. “Alright,” he said, drawing your attention from his cock. “Your turn.”

A smile crossed your face as you parted your knees, giving him a direct view of your cunt. Jun let out a strained noise that sounded like a cross between a groan and a gasp. His eyes continued to look, drinking in every detail. “Spread,” he said simply. You hesitated, tilting your head to the side before you obliged, spreading your feet on your bed, knees bent as you slid a hand down and spread your folds, giving him a view of your very wet pussy.

His lips parted slightly as he stared, taking in even more detail. His thoughts were interrupted as you let out a giggle, teeth digging into your bottom lip as you watched him. “Like what you see?” you asked in a low breathy voice. Jun swallowed the lump in his throat but said nothing. He wanted so desperately to touch you, curl his fingers into the plush of your thighs as he tasted you, as he sank his cock into you and fucked you against your pillows.

“So can you make your dick change?” you asked, drawing him from his thoughts. He looked up to meet your gaze. “What would you like to see?” You pondered his question for a moment before giving him a devilish smile. “What would it look like if you transformed into a werewolf?”

Jun licked his lips before focusing his attention transforming only his cock. You watched as the color and shape changed before your eyes. The head became more pointed as the entire thing turned reddish, two knots forming a bulbous base. “A knot, huh?” you asked, giving him a smirk, one of your brows raising.

“I mean,” he started, glancing down at it. “Wolves are canines,” he continued. “And dogs have very distinct genitals.” He glanced back up, noticing that your fingers were playing with your clit slowly. “Are.. are you touching yourself?” he asked, eyes widening. “Why?” you asked. “Do you want me to stop?” you asked, fingers stilling.

“N-no,” he said softly. “Keep going.”

You resumed moving, your fingers dipping down to your slit only to drag back up, spreading your folds so he could see your wet hole. “What else can you change it into?” you asked, nodding towards his cock. He glanced down and back up. “What else do you want to see?”

“Hmm,” you hummed as your legs spread more, giving him a better view of you playing with your pussy. “Surprise me.” Jun glanced down, watching as the pointed head changed, flaring out as the shaft grew, a thick ring forming in the middle. Your eyes widened. “Horse?” you asked. Jun looked up at you, letting out a low groan as your fingers sank into your heat. “That’s not fair,” he whined.

You let out a giggle, nodding towards his cock. “No one said you couldn’t touch yourself,” you reminded him. He glanced down at the transformed cock. “I’d rather have something else wrapped around it,” he murmured. You let out a giggle. “Touch yourself first and I’ll let you fuck me,” you retorted. Jun met your gaze. “Are you serious?” he asked, excitement bubbling in his chest. “Yes,” you answered. “But you have to touch yourself first. Until I say so.”

“Fine,” he answered, quickly grabbing the back of his shirt and removing it. “But you have to take the rest of your clothes off.” You did as he said, withdrawing your fingers long enough to pull your top off and toss it aside, revealing your bare chest to him.

Jun leaned back, resting his hand on the bed behind him as he wrapped his fingers around the base of his shaft. “Now,” he said as you stared back at him. “Lay back and touch yourself. I’m going to watch.” You leaned back against the pillows, spreading your legs so he had an unobstructed view of your cunt, fingers spreading your folds for him.

“Fuck,” he groaned, hand working up and down the thick shaft of his transformed cock. “What I wouldn’t give for a taste,” he said as he watched you play with yourself. “Sink your fingers in that pretty cunt again. I want you to touch yourself with both hands. Play with your tits, yeah?” he ordered, hand moving up and down slowly.

Your free hand found purchase on your breast, squeezing and kneading as you sank your fingers into your heat, letting out a satisfied groan as you started to slowly pump them in and out of you. You kept your eyes on Jun’s face but every so often, you’d glance down at the horse cock. You wanted him to fill you with it, wondering if it changed the amount of cum he produced.

As you stared at it, Jun let out a chuckle. Before your eyes, his cock changed again. This time it changed to a bright blue, the head of his cock elongating to a point while ridges appeared along the shaft, a thick vein appearing on the underside. You wanted so badly to have him shove all of it inside you. “What’s that?” you asked breathlessly. He shrugged. “No idea,” he answered.

“I made it up.”

You let out a moan, walls clenching around your fingers as you threw your head back against the pillows.

“You want it inside you?” he asked, a surge of confidence as his hand moved faster along his cock. “Yes,” you gasped. “God yes, Jun!” Your hand moved faster as you pinched your pert nipple, rolling the bud between your fingers, digging the heel of your hand into your clit as your hips started to buck.

“Yeah, babe?” Jun asked breathlessly, his own hips starting to buck as his cock changed again into a more human-like one. “Want me to fill that tight little hole? Fuck you like you deserve?” You let out another moan, back arching. “Yes! Please! I want you inside me so bad, Junnie,” you whimpered. Jun let out a groan as he felt his cock twitch in his hand. He was losing control of his transformations as his climax neared. “Would you let me cum inside you?” he asked suddenly.

You nodded eagerly. “Yes,” you gasped. “I’m on birth control!” Jun let out a groan. “Fuck, M’gonna cum,” he groaned as your own orgasm came even closer. “I’m close, Junnie,” you whined. “I need m-more. N-need your cock!”

Jun stifled a moan, hips bucking up as he fucked his hand. He wanted to be inside you so bad but he couldn’t bring himself to move. “C-can you move?” he asked in a breathy voice. “Wh-what?” you asked. “Come here,” he said quickly. “Come sit on it or I’ll make a mess all over your nice clean bed.”

You scrambled up, quickly crawling over to him and straddling his hips as he held his cock still. You slowly sank down on him, both of you moaning in unison as his cock stretched your walls. “F-fuck,” he said with a tremble in his voice. You started moving quickly, bouncing on his cock as his hands grabbed your waist. “Change,” you said simply.

“What?” he asked, looking up at you as rode him, breast bouncing in his face. “Turn into that cat boy, quick,” you moaned, hands finding purchase on his shoulders. Jun obliged, the ears and tail returning. “Come on, bao bei,” he groaned, urging you on, his thumb moving to your clit. “Cum for me.”

You let out a cry of pleasure as your orgasm washed over you, your body shaking as you sank on Jun’s cock, taking all of it in you. As your walls spasmed around him, he bucked up, releasing inside you with a moan as his head fell forward onto your chest, his arms wrapping around your waist as he pumped you full of his cum.

You let out one final moan as you wrapped your arms around his neck, combing your fingers through his hair, the cat ears twitching and flicking as his cum spilled out of your hole around his cock and dripped down onto the inside of his thighs and the sheets under him.

You tried to regain your breath as you stroked his hair, gently rubbing the base of his cat ears. A gentle purr sounded from his throat, making you giggle. He nuzzled further into your bare chest, you felt his purring vibrate against you soothingly.

“M’tired,” he murmured and you scoffed. “You barely did anything!” you admonished as he giggled against your skin. “Well,” he continued, pulling back to look up at you, blinking softly. “Give me like five minutes and I’ll show you what I can do.” You took his face in your hands and leaned down to press your lips against his. 

“Use that horse cock from earlier and you got yourself a deal, catboy.”

©️ kwanisms 2024 | all works on this blog are protected under copyright. Do not repost, continue, or translate my works. All graphics made by me.

[darknight3904]

All Too Well

Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Joel run into Jackson's biggest threat.

Warnings: Violence, guns, minor character death, racist remakes, ageism (sorta), language mentions of slavery/ slavers.

Word Count: 2.9k

Previous Part / Series Masterlist / Main Masterlist

May 2024

The first thing Joel registers in the morning is how cold he is. He must’ve nodded off while keeping watch. The second is Louis, who is shaking him awake like the world was ending…again. 

“Get up, man!” 

“What’s wrong?” Joel mumbles, his eyelids peeling open to the unwelcome morning light. His back is stiff from leaning against the old porch’s support beams.

“She’s gone!” 

Joel follows Louis’ pointed finger to where the horses had been tied last night. Sure enough, one is missing from its fence post. 

“Fuck.” 

Your trail is easy to follow. The ground is soft from the spring rain and Pepper’s hooves have sunk into the Earth, leaving a clear path to wherever you’ve run off. Joel sighs as his own horse, Turnip trots along. At the very least, he knows you haven’t been taken from the cabin. If raiders had found you all last night, well, you’d all be dead in said cabin. 

“Thought you had it under control.” Brett huffs from Joel’s left 

Despite the comment being meant for Joel, Louis responds. 

“Women are unpredictable. Everyone knows that.”

Joel chooses not to comment. It’s true many women were unpredictable, not you though. Or well, Joel thought you weren’t. He could’ve sworn he had been getting to know you in the past months. Last night had been so perfect, laying next to him, smiling and laughing like everything was normal. 

You and Joel had switched with Louis and Brett sometime around 2 am. Joel had sat down next to you on the rickety front porch, eyes fixed on the treeline in case anything were to come out of it. When the hell had he fallen asleep? You must’ve slipped away sometime after 4 am, surely he had made it at least two hours? 

“Hold up. Look, two o’clock.” Brett points 

Joel’s eyes scan the woods, eventually landing on a motionless blob on the green forest floor. He flicks Turnip’s reins and moves towards the human-shaped thing, praying it’s not your lifeless body. Relief floods his system when he sees it’s not you but a dead infected. 

Louis jumps off his horse with ease, something Joel hasn’t been able to do in twenty years, to examine the corpse. A single bullet hole rests in the face of this Stalker, it’s a perfect shot, and Brett takes the time to point it out. 

“Let’s keep movin’. She’s close, I can feel it.” Joel says, his eyes roaming around, making sure there aren’t any more infected lurking in the bushes. 

They make it about another half mile or so before it happens. There’s a shout and then the crack of a gun. Brett shouts a loud curse as his horse panics. A searing pain rips through Joel’s shoulder, the feel of the bullet is unmistakeable as he reaches for the rifle he has strapped to Turnip’s saddle bag. A whistle sounds and before Joel can warn him, an arrow has made its home between Louis’ eyes. Joel’s hands land on the rifle, ready to pull it free but a deep voice has him stopping as Louis’ body falls from his horse with a thump. 

“Don’t you fucking dare.” 

The cocking of a gun has Joel’s hands freezing. From above of all places is where they lurk. Three men, descend from the trees, dressed in dark green, mud smeared to their faces in an effort to blend in. 

“Get off the horses. Slow.” One of them orders. 

Joel lifts himself from his saddle, his shoulder burning as he does. Warm blood trickles down his skin and gets caught in the soft fabric of his shirt, the same shirt you were resting on last night. 

“We don’t want any trouble,” Joel says as his feet hit the ground, his eyes fixed on his gun that sits in his saddle.

Brett’s eyes are locked on Joel, he looks scared out of his fucking mind. Joel should’ve expected this would happen. He was at most 25 maybe 26. Too fucking young. 

“Let us pass, we’re looking for someone,” Joel says, his eyes fixed on the one who spoke first, he has red shoelaces. 

Brett looks at him, his eyes almost saying “Are you kidding? They just killed Louis, we need revenge!”. Revenge of course was the last thing on Joel’s mind. He needed to find you, fast. Who knows how many more of these tree-climbing fuckers there were. 

“These two look strong.” Red shoelaces says, ignoring Joel’s request. 

One of the other men gets in Joel’s face, his horrible breath nearly kills Joel’s entire sense of smell as he stares at him. 

“This one’s like…sixty fucking years old. He won’t be any good.” 

“Well, I’m not the one who shot that one in the fucking face, am I?” Red laces seethes, looking at the last man, who has his bow slung over his shoulder. 

“Don’t see why it matters, buyers hate the ones that aren’t white anyway.” Louis’ killer shrugs.

“They don’t want grandpas either, you fucking idiot.” Red laces says, shaking his gun at Joel, “How old are you?” 

Joel stays silent. He’s said what he wants. Whatever these men need young bodies for, doesn’t matter to him, he won’t be sticking around to find out. 

“Does it even matter? Let’s take them back, and get the boss's opinion.” The man with the bow says 

Joel’s mind begins to plot a way out of this. He can take at least two of them but the question is if Brett will be able to take out the third. Joel can see he’s shaking a bit, scared now that his friend has been killed. 

“We’re looking for a woman.” Brett’s shaking voice fills his ears 

Joel wants to punch Brett in the face. Why would he tell him that? He should’ve just brought Tommy, this naive fucker was going to get himself killed. Joel’s glare could probably freeze hell over as he tries to telepathically tell Brett to shut the fuck up. 

“A woman?” Red laces smiles, “We got women. Brought a nice looking in earlier, she’s got a nice ass.” 

It’s not you. Joel’s mind swirls as his eyes fixed on the path Pepper’s hooves have left. They lead further into the forest. It can’t be you they’re talking about. There’s the crackle of a radio suddenly, Joel doesn’t catch what’s being said, not that it matters since the one with the bad breath is slamming the handle of his pistol right into Joel’s temple, knocking him unconscious. 

You groan a bit as you stretch out on the ground. Your back protests as you try to rearrange here in this bush. The Walrus’ camp is only a few thousand feet from you. This bush conceals you nicely as you get a good head count on everyone. Counting The Walrus, there are two other armed men. You hadn’t meant to stumble upon their camp, you’d heard it, the laughter of men as you were riding through the trees, hoping for a clue of where Adam had come from. You hadn’t expected to find everything, just sitting here in the woods. 

The two men that work with The Walrus aren’t familiar to you. You wonder if there are any left from your time with him, perhaps Adam had been the last one. One of them listens to the crackle of a walkie-talkie, their patrol must’ve found something. 

You’re not sure where this patrol of theirs is all you know is that they hadn’t seen you, otherwise, you’d probably be sitting in the mud with the four other people they’re holding captive. Two young men, probably around Brett and Louis’ age, and two women are tied to trees. One of the women, her greying hair the only sign of her age occasionally calls out to the younger girl who has a dinosaur t-shirt on. You decide that they are mother and daughter and that they’re going to get out of their ropes first. 

Where the fuck was Joel? You swore he would’ve found you by now, he’d gone on and on about his tracking skills a few weeks ago, why hadn’t he found you yet? Your hands grip your rifle, could you take the three of them by yourself? Certainly not…of course you could pick them off from here. But, you wanted to see The Walrus, you wanted to get up close and watch him die, the same way you had with Adam. You needed it. 

You remain curled up here in your bush, hoping that you’d tied Pepper off well. You’d left here about a mile away, whispering into her mane that you’d be back soon. Hopefully, that wasn’t going to turn into a lie.

The loud whoops and yells of men have you fixing your gaze back on the camp and shock fills your system. Three more men have appeared, no doubt the ones who were on patrol. They drag two unconscious bodies with them, Brett and most importantly, Joel. 

Joel wakes up right as they drop him face-first into the dirt. His tongue tastes the ground below him as someone laughs at his misfortune. His head hurts a bit, nothing serious though, bad breath didn’t hit too hard. His focus was on his shoulder which was still slowly bleeding. It hadn’t hit anything major, Joel was sure of it, otherwise, he would’ve bled out by now. 

Joel pushes himself up, Brett who must’ve been hit harder has been left face down in the mud as their captors stare down at Joel, sneering, whispering their thoughts about him. Their guns remain pointed at him and Joel wracks his brain for ways to take them out without Brett’s help. He really should’ve brought Tommy. 

Joel looks at the other four people who look terrified. A woman and a teen girl are what catches his eye though. They’re clearly related, with similar facial features along with matching scowls as they stare at him. Joel’s been alive a long time though, long enough to see that they’re both terrified despite their best efforts to look at him with disdain. As for the men, Joel can’t quite place their emotions, he knows they’re not related though. All he can manage right now is relief, you’re not here. You must’ve slipped through their patrol somehow, maybe they were lurking in other trees when you passed through.  

“Time to meet the man.” Red Laces says suddenly, his voice giddy with anticipation.

A tent unzips and a man approaches, a long beard adorns his face, and greasy unwashed hair sits atop his head and when he opens his mouth to speak, Joel notices he’s missing two of his front teeth. No doubt about it, this is Adam’s boss.

Joel listens to your quiet voice as you explain who Adam is and what he did to you. Joel nearly gets up four times, ready to rip the man apart limb from limb. You seem so small and fragile, curled in on yourself under the blankets here on his couch as you talk about how you lost your beloved cat. 

“There was another man…missing two teeth who killed Loki and turned him into a fucking bowl of soup. He used to hurt me too, for fun.” 

If there weren’t five guns pointed at his head right now, Joel would be up and ripping the head off his toothless fucker for what he’s done. The thought of leaving you and Ellie behind has him still in the dirt. He eyes this “leader” the other men seem to respect. What was there to respect? The fact that he was a fucking psychopath who fed girls their pets and cut them up for fun?

“Oliver shot the other young one. Says it was an accident.” Red Laces throws his patrol partner under the bus immediately. 

“Fuck you, man. The brown ones don’t sell anyway!” Oliver defends himself behind obvious racism. What a fucking pig.

Joel looks at the leader and his missing teeth, he’s yet to speak, listening to the way his men bicker. 

“And you think someone as old as him will?” Red Laces argues back, pointing at Joel, “He’s got more fucking gray hairs than all of us combined!” 

Joel watches as Brett begins to stir, his eyes pulling open as his hand flies up to his temple where he’d been hit. A small groan escapes his lips as the one with the bad breath pulls him up and into a kneeling position, mimicking Joel’s current stance. 

“Now that we’re all awake…Let’s get some things straight.” 

Laces and Oliver stop their arguing, their boss's voice has them rigid as they shut their mouths for once. The boss turns to Oliver and even though Joel has just met this man, he can tell he’s angry. A deep frown on his face as he practically spits in Oliver’s face as he yells.

“I fucking told you! I wanted them all alive!” 

“I’m sorry!” Oliver cowers, “I didn’t mean to, I was aiming for his arm, I swear!” 

The boss grabs Oliver by the collar, shaking him as spit flies into his face, 

“Shooting them in the fucking arm is damaging the goods!” 

He whips around and gestures down to Joel, “Age doesn’t matter if they’re strong! You’ve cut into my profits…Who shot him?” 

Silence follows as their boss, whose face has gone red with anger demands an answer. Joel deduces that these men must be selling to slavers. He’d heard that in some areas communities used captive people to build their societies, treating the people they bought as literal machines. There was of course the second option as well, there was a flesh market down in Mexico he’d heard about years ago. Some gang that had been big back before the outbreak was now running the border and bought and sold people to be used for other’s pleasures.

Fuck…He couldn’t be sold off to some slaver somewhere. He needed to find you and get back to Jackson. This man and his group needed to die, he’d done too much to you, not to mention they’d clearly been planning to take Jackson for their own personal profits. 

Suddenly the boss is leaning down, a pungent smell of body oder and who knows what else assaults Joel’s senses as he speaks, 

“Who shot you?” 

Joel nods to Red Laces who seems to be nonverbally pleading with him not to rat him out. Of course, Joel doesn’t give two shits if Mr. Laces is punished, why should he? 

Red Laces is given a good right hook by his boss who threatens him, 

“If you shoot another piece of my cargo, I’ll sell you the next time we go down to Kansas, Got it?”  

Joel listens as he gives the same ultimatum to Oliver who begins to grovel and apologize for murdering Louis earlier. He looks at Brett who seems to be about two minutes away from pissing his pants. Joel nods towards the knife that sits tucked into the bottom pocket of the leader's pants. They hadn’t been tied up yet, this was their chance and Joel was going to take it. Brett shakes his head in fear and Joel shoots him a look. 

The leader turns back to Joel, satisfied with his speech to his men, 

“They said you’re looking for a woman.” He motions towards the woman tied to the tree behind him, “That her?” 

Joel remains silent and stares back at this stinking reeking sorry excuse for a human being. Joel could grab the knife if he just took a step closer. There was a pistol tucked into the front of his pants, Joel could easily shoot quicker than this man’s people. They were young, and unseasoned, the oldest, Laces was surely no more than 40. Joel was a better shot than all of them combined. 

“Quiet, huh? Whatta shame.” 

The leader turns on his heel, ready to go back to his tent. He takes a few steps before tossing his order over his shoulder,

“Tie the younger one up. Shoot the old man, he won’t sell.” 

Red Laces pulls his gun out from its holster and points it at Joel’s face. Joel’s thighs tense, it’s now or never. As if it’s in slow motion like some action movie from years ago, he lunges for the gun, ready to hit it out of his would-be killer's hands. 

Before his hands can make contact with the metal of the gun, the sound of a single shot rings out. At first Joel’s sure he’s a goner, that the gun has gone off and there’s a bullet in his head. 

Instead, a warm splatter of blood is raining down on him, and a metallic taste of iron fills his mouth as Red Laces drops to the ground, the top part of his head has been ripped open by one well-placed shot. 

You curse as your foot gets caught in a tangle of weeds. Nearly tripping over your own feet, you burst out of the bush. The one who was standing over him is dead, you’re sure of it. Your legs burn as you sprint towards the camp, rifle slung over your shoulder as you pull your beloved Colt Python from its holster. You cock your gun, you have to get to him. You’re closing the distance now, closing the distance between you and him. 

Between you and Joel. 

Next Part

Justice will be had for Loki the cat.

If you're reading this, please leave me a comment or reblog. It's lonely just getting likes on my fics. I yearn for your opinions and feedback.

Been feeling kinda down recently, I don't really know what it is. Oh well, here's a Joel pic from Pinterest:

Comment to be added to the tag list. This tag list is not chapter by chapter, I carry the tags over to each part.

Tags:

@lunaticgurly  @orcasoul  @snowlycanroc  @freythecrazyfae

@person-005 @greenwitchfromthewoods

@elli3williams @yawnzzzzzzzz @am-3-thyst  @concrete-jungleeee

@cherrypieyourface  @kanyewestest @bambisweethearts

@sarahhxx03 @loveisacowboyyy @amyispxnk @lou-la-lou @dancinglotusbud

[newttxt]

hi quip! i really like your one piece comics and i am curious how you do them! i'm not good at comics and want to be better at drawing them! how do you learn how to make comics?

thank you!

uh oh... im afraid u have caught me at the perfect crossroad of "bored at work" and "unrelated task ive been meaning to do but keep putting off."

this is long. i hope you like reading (and grayscale progress pics). and of course!!! disclaimer before we begin that this is just how I, personally draw comics. there is no "right way."

quip's comic-making process!

Switching my typing to make this more legible...

My process can kinda be broken down into 6 steps:

Brainstorming

Thumbnailing

Sketching

Panels & Text

Lines

Tones/Colors

1. Brainstorming

My brain is a leaky sieve on a good day, so I sloppily jot down ideas in my phone notes the moment I have them. This helps me when it's time to draw too, because if I feel art blocked, I can look through old concepts and see what catches my interest.

Otherwise, I love drawing for other people's writing. :) And if worst comes to worst, doing manga/comic page redraws in my style teaches me new things every time.

Once I have my idea, I'll usually make a bulletpoint list of "plot points" or "story beats" I want. Then I plan the comic with this format that I've adapted from a tutorial I read once. I'm going to use my most recent comic (original comic post) as an example.

I start in the third column, writing notes of what I'd want to see in each panel. I also include the dialogue (in this case, I didn't have to write the dialogue! it's from the fanfic linked in the original comic post!). I usually write the whole name like [Luffy:], but at this point I've drawn so much of these guys, just the first letter works.

I like to handwrite these notes to get an idea for how much text I'm putting in a single panel.

After I describe all the panels, I go back and separate them into pages. I can't tell you how to know how many panels to a page. It's whatever works for you. I just kinda know about how big each panel will be, and so I can feel when I'm probably running out of space. (Also. You can change things later. I don't in this example, but I add/drop pages/panels all the time.)

2. Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing—as the name suggests—should be done tiny. Too tiny to accidentally get sucked into details.

This is about marking down blobs where items/characters go, and figuring out the paneling. I'll draw and redraw these a bunch of times too.

This is also the most time-consuming/brain-working part for me. If I were in a zine that did progress percentage, I'd try to finish thumbnailing around the 50% mark (but I'm also a moderately fast artist, so your mileage may vary).

I think the terrible quality makes them charming, actually. I really like how silly they look. :')))

I will add, when you draw your "page" rectangle, make sure it's the same proportions as your actual canvas for the final image. You want an accurate idea of how much space each panel will take up, especially if you have a lot of text.

3. Sketching

This is my most recent change to my usual workflow, and it's saving me a lot of time. I make my thumbnails a bit bigger (each one about half the size of the final canvas), and I sketch these basic body forms right over them.

It just helps give me placement for my actual lines!

I usually draw these in a paleish color so I can lower the opacity and not get distracted by them while lining. The random darker parts are to either help keep two forms separate (like when two characters have their limbs all over) or to better define sections that were too sloppy/poorly proportioned.

I also think this helps my poses stay looser, because I have more dramatic/wriggly shapes that aren't too bogged down by proportions yet.

Sidenote: I CANNOT show this here, but sometimes this is when I take videos. Of myself. I prop my phone camera up and shoot a video of me acting each panel. :/// It looks really dumb, but it also shows me fun body language ideas like hand gestures, expressions, weight distribution, etc. Just pretend you're an overdramatic cartoon character, and try not to worry about your roommates or mother walking in on you doing odd things. (You can also use the video for anatomy reference later, but I usually just capture the vibe and don't try to copy the actual video frame.)

4. Panels & Text

Oh, boy. So, the panels are usually just straight lines (though it's fun to make creative exceptions, like a round panel to mimic looking through a spyglass), but there are some fancy rules that I don't strictly adhere to.

I believe (I have no technical training in this. Take everything I say with a grain of salt) the vertical gaps (between two side-by-side panels) should all be a consistent width and the horizontal gaps (between two panels on top of each other) should be another. The vertical ones? Should be thinner? Because you want the eye to easily glide between them, whereas the horizontal gaps should be a visual barrier to keep you from jumping ahead. Just something I've vaguely noticed.

There are lots of fun "default layouts" you can look up. Or keep it a consistent grid. I think it's fun to sometimes have characters/objects sticking out of panels and overlapping others. This is just a matter of taste, creativity, and inspiration. (Read Witch Hat Atelier... It has some of my favorite paneling...)

You may also notice I have already done the speech bubbles. This is, to me, a crucial step. This helps me catch early if I don't have enough room for all the words. It also lets me plan the art in each panel with the speech bubbles in mind. There's nothing worse than working really hard on a panel, and then you realize there's no room for the bubbles.

I also try to lay them out in a way that guides the eye! Even without art, can people tell where to go next? Better yet, if I want people to look at panels out of order (aka not left to right, in my case), can I use the speech bubble path to make them? Here's just a vague example of what I mean.

As an added bonus, doing speech bubbles early also allows me to be lazy! :) Ignore the comic; I'm not supposed to post it yet oops,, There's a whole lot of drawing to do on each comic page, and I am not wasting my time on stuff that will be covered up. So yes, if I hide my bubbles, there are a lot of unfinished lines trailing off into nothing. (As a bonus, if there's a part of a character you're struggling with—and it won't look weird to do so—you can move speech bubbles to just hide the problem area yayyy)

Making the actual bubbles could be their own whole tutorial, tbh, but there are some general guidelines I use.

Zoom out when you choose your font size. You want to know how it will look to the average reader, so it isn't super teeny tiny or way too big. You generally want to keep the same text size for all your pages/bubbles.

When I draw bubbles, I try to size them about one vertical letter height (and some change) around the words [left side]. This isn't always the case though, because humorously large or funny shaped text bubbles can convey different feelings [right side].

On Procreate, I set my bubble lines to Reference and just drag-and-drop the white fill on a separate layer below the lines. (Remember to turn Reference back off again when you're done, or your fill bucket won't work right when you're drawing.)

To get the white outlines I use to keep the bubbles from cluttering up the art, I literally just Gaussian blur an all-white copy of the lines + fills... and then I copy and merge it 5 times until it's opaque enough. This is a terrible way to do it, but it works for me. :')

5. Lines

This is the part that I can't tell you how to do. I literally just. Draw right over my wacky sketched body forms. Boom. Comic drawn.

I'll make three suggestions:

Don't focus on making every panel perfect. Give a little extra love to big ones or ones you want people to linger on. Otherwise, know that people are typically speeding through the art. It's way more important to focus on storytelling than art technique. In my opinion, a good story that's told well will always be better than a beautiful one told poorly. (Some comics are beautiful AND well-written... Alas, I am just a hobbyist who needs to get the ideas out of my head at top speed.)

Put your background lines on a different layer. Put your foreground lines on a different layer too, if you have those. Basically, I try to keep the main part of each panel (usually a character or object) on my lines layer so I can erase background/foreground/etc lines to ensure clarity/focus.

You can make background lines lighter colors too. I have too many numbers sorry. (1) Background. The stuff that's farthest away. Lightest lines. Few details; more focused on shapes and the suggestion of a background (I'm not good at backgrounds). (2) Midground. Same distance away as the characters are. Lines can be black. (3) Also midground, and also the same distance away. But they're very detailed, so I lighten them so they aren't so distracting. (4) The characters. Black lines for focus. For people who haven't seen the comic, I swear they are just hugging. This is SFW. D:

6. Tones/Colors

Do not. Do NOT ask me. I don't understand colors. I hate working with them, but I try because I want to improve. I hate doing anything beyond the simplest grayscale shading. Please go elsewhere for your coloring/tone advice. This is how my color picker looks 95% of the time. I have pre-set "percentages" of black that I got by lowering the opacity of a black layer and just color picking it. I don't even know the exact percentages I used. Good luck out there. Be better than me.

7. Sharing

This is a bonus step that I didn't mention earlier, but it's actually the most important of all of them.

You need a friend. Or maybe a groupchat or discord. A family member or coworker if you're really close like that. I don't know.

Find SOMEWHERE you can spam wips and be cheered on. Drawing comics takes a while, especially if you're trying to tell longer stories than I'd dare to attempt. If I don't force someone to praise me for every line I draw, I shrivel up and die.

Also if and when you post online, add alt text. I'll admit I'm the first person to complain and drag my feet on this, and I literally use a screenreader myself when my eyes hurt (strong prescription glasses wearer). Comics should be accessible, because stories are fun and everyone should be able to enjoy them.

***

Learning???

And I guess lastly, how do you learn to make comics? Two steps: 1) read them and 2) make them. This is the tragedy of creating things.

1) Reading them: I grew up reading comic strips, western serialized comics, and webcomics. I've always loved graphic novels too. Then in late middle school, I started reading manga (Death Note and Haikyuu were my first two), and now I'm trying to read more webtoons (sorry im so slow bree)!

I also... mass-consume doujinshi, thanks to proxy mailing services and bilingual friends/Google Translate/knowing some Korean. (I have an entire bookshelf of doujin, actually,,)

The thing is, it's not usually enough to just read comics. You also need to be thinking. :/ I notice paneling, comic devices, clever comedic timing, etc. as I go. It's just a lot of studying/learning while also enjoying the story.

2) Making them: You just have to start. :( Even if you think they're "bad." My first comics were actually just drawings placed randomly all over the page, connected by speech bubbles (yay... I was already practicing how to place bubbles to lead the eye around the page...). I was going to post a pic here, but I'm a coward. Backscroll my account and you can find some older ones though.

I also know my art in general improved dramatically when I did ten comics in ten weeks for my friend's fic. Don't do this. It hurt my hands/wrists. But do practice in moderation.

***

If you actually read all that... I hope it made even a modicum of sense. And maybe it was even helpful? Just know at the end of the day, there is literally no right way to draw a comic.

And if you aren't ready to go for it yet, you can start by just adding a couple speech bubbles to your illustrations or doodles! It's a way to add storytelling and dialogue writing to things you may already be making.

Yay. I love comics. :))))

[breadbrobin]

the bet

part two

cedric diggory x reader — harry potter

[fem!best friend reader]

summary: the summer is going well. you’re not in love with cedric, and you’re so gonna win this bet. totally. right?

warnings: quite a lot of swearing, betting/gambling, underage drinking, cringey flirting (PLS i wrote this years ago), GOD they’re so in love it’s stupid, minor character death (sort of???), i think i’m a comedian (i’m not), switched from an x oc story so might have a few mistakes oops, mediocre writing (again i wrote this years ago and this is the worst part i think)

word count: 2.7k

(ok first of all tyyyy for the love on the first part i can’t wait for y’all to read part three! there is just one more part after this and it’s the best one imo)

part one

part three

——————————————

The Flowers

Cedric was splayed out on your bed. One of his feet hung off near your head and you was infinitely glad for his quality hygiene.

You were reading the Wizard of Oz again, and he was dutifully drawing something that he refused to show you.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I’m done.”

You finished your page and slipped the bookmark in, turning to him. “Can I see?”

“No, I drew this for you but you’re never allowed to look at it.” he teased, straight faced.

“Never?”

“Never.” He broke into a smile and shoved the sketch pad in your face.

It was a… Well, you weren’t exactly sure what it was. There was some interesting shading, a tuft of what could either be grass or hair and a strange egg shaped blob in the middle.

You hoped your face didn’t show your emotions as you quickly schooled your features into a smile. “It’s great, Ced.”

He had a wide grin plastered on his face as he nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I know. Now turn the page.”

You did as he said and blinked in shock, your jaw dropping. “There is no way you drew this.”

“I’ve been practising.”

“Have you been taking classes from freaking Van Gogh in between Quidditch practise?” you gaped, looking from the sketch of sunflowers and daisies and his beaming face.

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “An artist never reveals his secrets.”

“I think that’s meant to be magician.”

“Same thing.” he waved her off. “Anyway, I know sunflowers are your favourite, and daisies are my favourite. So I combined them.”

“This is honestly incredible.” you gushed.

“Oh, stop it.”

“No, seriously.” You stood up. “Can I put it on my wall?”

“Go for it,” he beamed, somehow even brighter than before.

You gently pulled the page from the pad and ripped a tab of blu-tack off, sticking it to the wall above your desk. Once it was hung, you stepped back to admire it. “Oh!” you gasped. “You need to sign it!”

Cedric stood up and brushed past you, scribbling his signature on the bottom right corner with a small heart. “Happy?”

“Mhm.”

That should have been your second sign.

They stood side by side and admired it for a moment.

Then you broke the silence.

“I can’t draw for shit,” you laughed. “And look at you. Mister Artist himself.”

“Oh, piss off,” he groaned, hugging your shoulders from behind and resting his chin on your head. “You can sing though. I can’t.”

“Liar.” you scoffed, patting his arm. “I’ve heard you sing. Besides, you’re practically perfect at everything you do.”

Just as he was about to respond, Cordelia burst through the lightly shut door, eyes still red and puffy. The two separated. “Lunch is ready.”

“Thanks, Dells,” he nodded. “We’ll be right there.”

As she left, he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and led you out. “God, I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving.”

“Very funny.”

The Second Week

As with most summers, you and Cedric spent almost every waking moment in each other’s company.

Unlike most summers, however, you couldn’t chase the thoughts of a certain bet from your mind.

You knew, you knew, that there was nothing to it. That it was just your friends being annoying and messing with you and everything you’d started reading into was just in your head… But, God, was it hard to remember sometimes.

You were mostly worried that he’d find out. Maybe one of your friends would send you a letter mentioning it? (Not that he’d ever read your letters.) What if Liz came for a random visit? Or worse: what if she told her friends, the Weasley twins, and they came for a visit?

You chased your swirling thoughts from your mind as Cedric walked through the front door, performing the mental equivalent of shoving all of the mess in your room into the wardrobe and hoping it closed right.

“Hey,” you smiled, standing up with your bowl of milk that used to hold cereal. “You’re early.”

“It’s eleven o’clock.”

“Yeah, early,” you shrugged, setting the now empty bowl in the sink. “What’s up?”

“Wanna go into town?” he asked, leaning on the counter and gesturing to the fruit bowl.

You tossed him an apple. “Sure. When?”

“Now?”

You sighed heavily, half-joking. “A bit more warning would be nice. Lemme go get changed.”

“Yes!” he cheered through a mouthful of apple. “You’re the best, N/N!”

N/N? You wondered as she jogged up the stairs. Since when am I N/N?

If you’d been listening carefully, you would have heard Cedric bang his head against the kitchen bench.

The town was quiet as always.

A farmer’s market was dying down, most vendors packing their remaining wares and smiling sheepishly at you and Cedric as you wove your way through the stunted stalls. You purchased a fresh bread roll and split it between you as you walked, both surprised that it was still warm.

“You know,” Cedric said after a few minutes of silence as you left the market and strolled along the main street. “We should do this more often.”

You squinted as you looked up at him, the sun assaulting your eyes. “Really?” you asked dryly. “What, burn ourselves to a crisp and get blinded while we’re at it?”

“No, dummy. Do stuff.”

“What? You don’t like doing nothing with me?” you teased.

“No, no, I love doing nothing with you,” he stole a chunk of bread that you’d been eyeing up. “But I also like spending money.”

“I bought the bread. I was the one who spent the money.”

He gasped, as if he didn’t already know. “What? Really?”

“Shut up, Ced,” you smiled, pushing him and stealing the last chunk of bread from the packet.

You were awake uncharacteristically early, so when you knocked on the Diggory’s front door, Cedric looked supremely confused.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked. “Did someone die?”

“No, why would you— You’re an arsehole, you know that?” you pouted.

“Yeah, I know. Come on.”

He led you down the short hallway and into the living area. You sighed contentedly. The Diggory’s house always smelled amazing; a combination of vanilla, coffee and cleaning supplies that somehow worked. Cedric often smelled similar, you realised. The vanilla that clouded the house seemed to hang around him as well. You shook yourself out of it as he began speaking.

“My dad’s gotten obsessed with the TV,” he admitted, nodding towards the man who was watching with a rapt expression. “He doesn’t really understand it, but he’s addicted. He really likes cricket. Probably because he can’t figure out how to change the channel.”

“Oh, I used to play cricket! I love it so much!” you gushed, joining Amos on the couch. “Who’s playing?”

“England and India,” he said distractedly.

“ODI, T20 or test?”

“Test. We’re on Day Two.”

“So England’s batted?”

“Three-thirty-seven.”

“Not bad,” you squinted at the numbers on the screen, showing one-twenty-eight for six.

“I have no idea what you guys are saying,” Cedric cut in, looking blankly between you two.

“We’re talking sport,” Amos said, almost giddily.

You didn’t spare either of them a glance as the English captain went upstairs for a review. “Yeah, get back in the kitchen. Go make us a sandwich.” you teased.

“I thought you were coming to hang out with me,” he almost pouted.

You finally dragged your eyes from the screen. “But… Cricket…”

He shook his head with a smile. “Right, of course. Two sandwiches coming right up.”

The Moment You Knew

The days seemed doomed to repeat. Groundhog day, your mum had called it. So, when you found a way to rid yourself of the monotony of daily life, you took it without a second thought.

“Mum, please!”

“I don’t know…”

“I’ll even get petrol! I’ll… I’ll… I’ll pay for it myself too!”

“Y/N…”

“Mum,” you pleaded. “It’s just me and Ced. It’s a twenty minute drive and I’ll get petrol on the way back. We’ll be back by four and I’ll wear suitable shoes while driving.”

Whitney pursed her lips in thought. Then she sighed. “Fine. Don’t bother getting petrol, I’ll fill up on the way home from work on Monday.”

You squeaked in excitement, hugging your mum tightly. “Thank you! You’re the best! I love you!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Love you too, hun,” she smiled.

True to her word, you did wear suitable shoes. The drive ended up taking around twenty-five minutes, but you supposed your mother couldn’t fault you for driving just under the speed limit all the way there.

There was a secluded lake you’d found out about from an old magazine in your mum’s collection, when you’d been looking for something, anything, to make your days less boring.

“This is awesome,” Cedric breathed as you broke through the treeline and onto the rocky shore of the small lake.

“Yeah,” you sighed contentedly, breathing in the fresh air.

You set up their towels and supplies in the shade of a tree and pulled off your sturdy shoes.

Cedric pulled his shirt over his head. You would be lying if you said your eyes didn’t catch on his muscles.

“Race you in,” he said as you had your own shirt halfway over your head.

“What?” you asked, hearing him run away. “Oh, you prick!”

You tossed your shirt on the ground, followed by your shorts, leaving you in your swim suit, pouting as Cedric splashed around in the cool, blue water.

You stomped over to the water’s edge, frowning down at him. The rock you were standing on was about a metre above the surface, casting a navy shadow over the rippling water. He waded a few metres out from you.

“You coming?” he asked.

“No,” you pouted, folding your arms. “I don’t swim with cheaters.”

He barked a laugh, swimming over to the edge and pulling himself out. Droplets of water hit your skin.

You backed away. “Cedric…”

He took a step closer.

“Don’t you dare, Diggory…”

He tilted his head, grinning widely as he continued to step closer to you. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Sure, you don’t,” you pointed at him. “Stay back!”

He laughed and pushed off his heels, springing towards you. Before he could reach you, however, you turned tail and ran, feet skimming over the rocks as you raced for the safety of the towels.

You only managed to get a few steps in before he caught you, his cold arms wrapping around your waist and lifting you off the ground. He spun around, carrying you back to the edge of the water and tossing you into the lake.

You yelped as the cold water hit you, but remembered to hold your breath, your hair swirling around your face in the water. You heard the telltale sound of him jumping in too and forced yourself up to the surface.

“I hate you!” you gasped, pushing your hair off your forehead. “I hate you so fucking much!”

“Liar!” he retorted, shaking his head and sending water droplets flying everywhere. “You love me.”

You didn’t respond for a moment, treading water and staring at him. “You wish,” you finally uttered.

He just smiled.

The days ticked by much faster than expected. Soon, Cedric was waving his parents off on their week-long trip and then hauling his bags over to your house, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“What did you do?” you immediately asked when you were alone.

He closed the door gently before skipping over to the bed in the guest bedroom he was staying in. He sat on it cross-legged, still smiling, and patted the mattress ahead of him.

When you finally sat down, he leaned forward.

“Guess what I bought,” he said.

You waited.

“You’re meant to ask,” he sighed.

“Oh, my bad,” you cleared your throat. “What did you bring, Cedric?”

He didn’t answer, simply reaching down to his backpack and pulling out a bottle of firewhiskey.

“That’s it? Oh, you sweet, sweet child,” you teased. “I have three of those in my room.”

“Sorry, N/N, not all of us are casual rulebreakers,” he sniffed.

You pushed his shoulder. “I’m kidding, Ced. I mean, technically, I’m not, but I do appreciate the sentiment.”

He poked his tongue out at you.

The Night Things Happened

The day started like any other.

You and Cedric usually woke up at vastly different times, so when he woke up, he went for a run, had a shower and ate a light breakfast before going to wake you.

A lot of groaning and a few thrown pillows later, you were standing in the kitchen making pancakes.

As you flipped another one, leading to Cedric cheering as if you’d never done it before, Whitney entered the kitchen.

“Morning, you two,” she greeted, kissing your temple and patting Cedric’s shoulder. “Cords and I are going to that Girl Scouts sleepover tonight, remember? So you’ll have to make dinner yourselves.”

“Yup, we know, Mum,” you said, taking the pancake out of the pan and slapping it onto a plate. “We’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you burning the house down. Remember last time?”

“Mum.” You turned to her grimly. “We don’t talk about last time.”

Whitney raised her hands in surrender. “Right, right. But, on a more serious note. I shouldn’t have to tell you not to invite anyone else over and to be in bed by one, should I? And I won’t come home to drunk teenagers all over my house?”

“Nope, we’ll be all good, Ms Ridge,” Cedric shot her a winning smile.

She pursed her lips jokingly. “Mhm… Alright, I trust you two. I’m going to the shops, need anything?”

“We need more eggs.”

“Eggs, got it.”

The night was when things changed.

After Whitney and Cordelia were gone, at least long enough that it was unlikely they’d turn around and come back, you took your first swig of firewhiskey.

It burned its way down your throat, like it always did. Cedric coughed and sputtered, nearly spitting it mouthful out.

You held back a laugh. “You alright, Golden Boy?”

“Shut up,” he seethed, voice hoarse.

You raised your hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. I was just asking.”

You sat and ate the pizza you’d ordered already, taking sips of firewhiskey whenever you felt like it.

You closed your pizza box one slice after Cedric did, placing it on top of his on the coffee table. “You good?”

“Great,” he smiled dopily. It seemed the whiskey was hitting him harder than he was letting on.

You smiled back. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You took a larger swig of whiskey, shaking your head at the strength. “I just wanna point out that if you get sick, I’m not cleaning you up. Got it?”

“Yeah, got it.” He nodded, looking a little bit more put together. “I’d clean you up though. If you got sick.”

You smiled again. “Thanks, Ced.”

The night was going surprisingly well. You’d turned on the TV, both staring, fixated at Friends reruns, leaning heavily on each other. The bottle was half gone and, as the advertisements came on, you each took another swig.

Cedric was looking at you weird.

You straightened up, frowning in confusion. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he slurred slightly. “You’re just… Fuck, you’re pretty.”

Your heart fluttered. “Oh. So are you.”

He blushed, looking down. “Yeah, I know.”

You couldn’t stop yourself from laughing. “Yeah, I bet you do, Goldie.”

“Goldie?”

“Golden Boy. It’s cute.”

“You’re cute.”

“You’re cute.”

“No, you’re cute.”

“You’re cuter.”

“No, you are.”

“You are.”

“You…” he was very close to you now, his grey eyes darting between you eyes and your lips. “You’re very pretty. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” you breathed.

“No, I don’t think you know how pretty you are. Like… When you laugh your eyes light up, and… And when you do that thing when you’re thinking… Where your eyebrow twitches… Oh, and that thing you do… The thing when your favourite songs come on and you tap your legs really fast…”

You swallowed tightly as his hand brushed your cheek. His breath smelled of firewhiskey, but you were sure yours did too.

He wasn’t looking at your eyes anymore. “You’re incredible, Y/N. And you deserve to know that.”

“Cedric…” you started.

“Sh…” he cut you off. He was hardly an inch away now. “Don’t talk. Just…”

Friends came back on the TV.

“Just watch Friends with me.” He leaned back, looping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you flush against his side.

You tried with all your might to ignore your pounding heart.

You weren’t sure if you were going to win this bet after all.

[hello-mishki]

How to create your OC in RDR2 story mode!

So I've been asked how I create my OC in screenshots and figured I'd to a tutorial on how to do this.

It's a long one, with visual references, so I'll stick this under the cut to spare those of you not interested in this kind of thing. It's divided into 2 parts:

Mods

Creating your OC and getting it ready for animating/creating a scene

I will create a separate tutorial post on how to animate characters as this will be way too long otherwise.

Part 1: Install the required mods

Rampage Trainer 

So we can change models, add animations etc. https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/233 (Read the requirements and install information thoroughly as we need ScriptHook for this mod to work)

Outfit Changer 

So we can outfit our models, also has all the items from RDO https://www.rdr2mods.com/downloads/rdr2/scripts/12-rdr-2-outfit-changer/

Animation dictionary list for Rampage Trainer By default Rampage comes with only a very limited amount of animations, so we want to fix that. 1. Download the full animation list here: https://github.com/kaphzi/RDR2_stuff/blob/main/PedAnimList.txt 2. Move it into your RampageFiles/Lists folder to replace the original PedAnimList.txt

Optional mods:

RDR2 2025 Enhanced Edition Reshade 

This is just a personal preference but I like the overall aesthetic which means i don't have to edit my screenshots, also having ReShade installed means i can save higher quality screenshot files and add DoF https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/5549

Otis_Inf RDR2 photomode tools https://opm.fransbouma.com/Cameras/rdr2.htm

I use this exclusively for all my screenshots and recordings but it costs money (once-off via Patreon)

Photo Mode Enhancer https://www.rdr2mods.com/downloads/rdr2/scripts/8-photo-mode-enhancer/

A free alternative which is still heaps better than the standard photomode in RDR2

Notes

If this is your first time installing mods: I highly recommend you take a screenshot of your RDR2 folder so you can reference what it should look like with mods disabled and have a mods backup folder somewhere easily accessible to you so you can always reference which mods you are using. (In case of mod issues or you want to switch to online mode)

Here is a handy tutorial if you are new to RDR2 modding: https://youtu.be/msrGfWySX_0?si=N1FfbUbTwzfAPJUi

If you already have other mods installed: Outfit Changer does not work with WhyEm’s DLC and has issues with other online content mods like Red Dead Offline and Online Content Unlocker, so make sure you turn them off.

If you installed the mods correctly you should hear 3 beeping sounds when you launch the game.

Part 2: Creating your OC in story mode

So you’ve loaded up the game and the mods are working fine, so lets start creating our OC in-game!

Mod Settings F5 - Opens Rampage Trainer

F2 - Opens Outfit Changer

Step 1: Create your character

Open Rampage (F5) and go to Player > Wardrobe

Select Model Changer

Go down to Search for Peds and select Search for a Ped

Enter mp_female or mp_male (for this tutorial we will be using female)

Select the model and it will load looking a bit strange with missing limbs, that’s fine we will add these with outfit changer soon.

Go back to Wardrobe and select Walk Styles

Select Brave (this fixes the fatigued stance the models seem to load with)

Step 2: Add model parts and clothing

Close Rampage (F5) and open Outfit Changer (F2)

The first things we want to add to the model before we start building an outfit are Head, Torso, and Legs - write down the values for later use (in case you accidentally delete or overwrite the config files or the game crashes while doing this step)

I would personally leave hair until we have fine-tuned our face later or pick a hairstyle that doesn't obscure the face.

These aren't going to look the best straight away (if you’ve ever made a character in RDO we know how hard it is to make a decent character) but we will tweak the body model later in rampage trainer. Now we can start building the outfit.

Select "Change Ped Components MP Female" (or male depending on which model you chose)

Once you’re happy with the base model and outfit, save it in the Save Current Outfit option so we don’t have to build this base model and outfit again next time we log in. You can save multiple outfits so have fun!

Step 3: Fine tuning our character’s look

This is where something like Otif camera tools come in handy so we can really get the camera up close while we work on the face.

Open Rampage (F5) and go to Player > Wardrobe

Select Meta Tag Expressions

Tweak these to your heart's desire and trust the process! When you’re happy with the final outcome I would write down any changes you made so you can recreate your character in future, at present there is no way to save these meta tag expressions that I'm aware of so you have to do this every time you want to use your OC!

You can now go back to the Outfit Changer and add whatever hairstyle and hat you want. (Don't forget to save!)

Step 4: Setting up finalised character to use

Now, we need to clone our character so it’s its own character to use and pose how we like. 

Go back to Rampage trainer and in the Player menu, scroll down to ‘Clone Player’ and select. Voila! There is your OC!

Now let's change back to Arthur. Back in the Player > Wardrobe > Model Changer menu, select Reset

Now we can change Arthur to another character much like we did when we changed them to the mp_female model or we can spawn in other peds.

I normally like to leave Arthur as is and then spawn in other Peds.

Additional: Spawning in other characters to create a scene.

In this example I’m going to spawn in Micah to create a scene with.

Go to Spawner > Peds > Spawner Settings

Make sure Frozen is ticked

Go back to the Ped Spawner and select ‘Search Peds’

Just enter in Micah and enter

From the list select CS_MICAHBELL and our stinky lil' man will spawn in

So, to use these characters we’ve added, we need to add them to the Ped Database so we can select them and switch to them any time we want.

There’s a few ways to do this but this is how i like to do it:

Back in the Spawner menu, go to Objects

Go to Cam Settings turn off Take Player With Cam

Go back and click to turn on Creator Cam

Now we can use our mouse to move the characters around, yay!

This is what we’ll be using to position our characters in scenes easily.

We need to add our OC and Micah to the database so we can use them with their own context menus, so lets right click on our character to select them and then click E to add them to the database, do the same for any other characters you want to use.

Back in our Spawner Ped menu, if we go to Ped Database, we should now see mp_female and CS_MICAHBELL in there

Scroll to a character in the list, and click them to get to their own context menus

To change Micah’s outfit for example, we would make sure we had selected them in the database so we can access their context menu and in the Outfit Variation section, choose one we like. Now that we’ve created our characters for a scene and added them to the database so we can use them via their own context menus, we can move on to animating them. How to animate your characters: https://www.tumblr.com/hello-mishki/781576015936995328/how-to-create-your-oc-in-rdr2-story-mode-part-ii?source=share

[trungles]

Processing Process, and More Processing

I made this post free and publicly readable on Patreon, but I'm reposting the whole thing right here too because, well, it's a free post, and I don't want to make you click away from your dashboard if you don't need to. But also if you want to support my work, here's the link to the post.

It's a little bit about cartooning, a little bit about drawing, and then it turns into a eulogy for a chicken.

I wrote “process” more than once, and now the word looks funny and is beginning to lose its meaning to me.

This post is about a few things, and it’s a little bit on the sad end of things. Nothing dire! No worries. There’s just a little mention of death, just as a heads up.

Before we get to that, though, I’ve been doing some work and had some thoughts.

I’m often asked about how I draw the noodle hair on my characters, and the answer is typically that I draw each and every line with my hand. But there are considerations of movement and volume that go into it beyond its texturally decorative purposes. I love being able to convey shape and motion with it. It’s less evident, I think, in my illustration work, but I think it’s much more obvious when I do sequential work. In the above image, you can see me working out a sequence of Angelica having a series of thoughts. Her head sort of moves, and her eyes follow. You can see I’d planned out the general shape of the hair and how I’d like it to move.

I wound up moving the drawings a little bit so that the readers eyes will actually follow the character’s eyes as it moves gently rightward on the page. The hair is there to accentuate the movement, like so:

It’s a consideration I employ in all my drawings, but especially when I’m drawing hair and fabric. I don’t use a lot of action lines, so this becomes an important way to give the reader the information that someone is moving through a space. Resistance, gravity, and motion are all things I have to keep in the back of my head when I’m doing these little drawings. I think the planning actually takes more time than the inking, which can happen pretty quickly once I map it all out.

In other news, I’m starting to take my extracurricular artistic development a little more seriously in the silliest way possible.

You wouldn’t know it, but I studied painting college—a medium I switched to after the printmaking professor and head of the Art Department at the time told me I probably shouldn’t be an artist (he gave me a hard candy for my trouble). I recently bought a bunch of little dolls, dressed them up, and am returning to my painting roots. It feels really nice to work in big blobs of color instead of lines. It’s an exercise I came up with in response to a common lament from art students.

One of the more aggravating generational tensions described to me by art school students is when professors describe a student’s portfolio as “too anime” without much explanation. I know what the professor means. They’re trying to get at how referencing your favorite anime or cartoons means that your style becomes a simulacrum, an imperfect copy of a copy, and you never learn to develop your own sense of judgment about where a line or a shape needs to go. And we can tell. It’s a way of working that is perfectly fine for cartooning because cartooning is closer to hand-writing than it is to drawing. I always turn to Charles Schulz’s work for an example. Those figures aren’t literally depicting children—with their little chessboard-pawn proportions and bread-loaf feet—but we read them as endearing children because we’ve come to a consensus between us, the readers, and Charles Schulz, the author, that those shapes mean those things. There are no whiskers or paws in the shape of the word “CAT” but you look at those three letters together, and you know the thing to which it refers. That’s an aspect of cartooning, too. Of course, what elevates it from mere writing is, in part, due to the fact that those little figures do not lose their meaning the more you depict them.

To really draw well, though, you have to do those fundamentals. You have to draw from life. There’s no way around it. It helps you develop a stronger sense of where you like to lay down your lines and shapes, no matter how stylized you like to work. It grows your judgment, and every artist’s best tool is their own well-honed sense of artistic discernment about their own work.

But that doesn’t mean you have to surrender the stuff you like or the things that inspire you to make art! I tell students that if they want to hold fast to their anime style AND hone their fundamentals to develop their eye as an artist, they should buy little figurines and toys of their favorite characters, prop those up against a light source, and draw them as still life objects. Like, yes, do the vases and the figure drawings and all those, I still think those are important. But if this is what you need to keep you interested in drawing from life, having some toys around is a great way to do it! Also, bless those sculptors and toy designers. They’re the best.

I think there’s something to be said about remembering to imagine the physicality of the things we draw, in all its dimensions and in the way it catches the light or casts a shadow. It helps sentimentalize things, too. Makes them feel more real, even emotionally.

Edwina died on Tuesday night, after a few final snuggles, surrounded by her favorite treats. She was about five years old, which is old for a chicken, and she had a very comfortable life. We buried her this morning. She was a good hen, J’s personal favorite.

It really feels like the end of an era. She was the last surviving member of our very first flock. After the other hens died, she really seemed to prefer the company of people over other hens. She is survived by Snooki and Nelly, our two other young birds who get along quite well together, actually.

A baby chick costs between three and five American dollars, typically. An egg-laying hen could be between twenty and fifty bucks, depending on the breed. There are roughly 26 billion chickens living in the world today, about 518 million of them here in the United States. They come pretty cheap. And a part of me was moved to cynicism, entertaining the thought that it might be strange to feel sadly over a little animal that, at most, might be roughly equivalent to the price of a fancy lunch and a coffee.

I watched the 1974 musical version of The Little Prince recently, and I remember it mostly because Bob Fosse was in it and scared the crap out of me as a kid—he played the snake that would take the Little Prince back into the sky when his body gets too heavy to take with him. Gene Wilder plays the Fox whom the Little Prince befriends and tames among a garden of roses. The Fox explains that he is like any other fox in the world, but he is changed—made special and particular to the Little Prince—with time, effort, and patience. So, too, is the Prince’s little flower special to him. Out of all the flowers in the universe, she was the one he watered and protected under a little glass jar. And that’s enough.

I knew my little hen would not live that long. It could be very easy to take a broad view of the life expectancy of a hen and distance myself from it by virtue of its mortality and its commonness. People who raise livestock do it all the time. But I also think it’s wonderful that we should all be capable of loving very small, very brief little things. Edwina is not, to my mind, the rough equivalent of a fancy lunch and a coffee. She was our little hen. For her whole life, she was ours. And I’m so happy she was here.

[cloudedcreams]

endless epiphanies ch.1

nagito k. x reader ( in which you find yourself isekai’d into sdr2. )

You’re scared when you wake up.

It's easier to recognise how you feel you note. You squint your eyes, cringing at how bright it is. the sun. You're out of the void.

You're surrounded by something. Some things? A few of the blobs begin to move out of your blurred vision and you start to realise how loud it is, covering your ears to try and block out the sounds of multiple sounds mashing themselves together, blinking as colours begin to make themselves more vibrant, more known. your view is beginning to define itself, which you're happy to know as you notice that you're mostly alone now.

There's a light touch on your shoulder, and blinking away the last feelings of sleep you come to realise the girl seems oddly familiar. She tucks away a strand of purple hair behind her left ear and you can't help but notice how choppy the ends are.

She must have cut them herself, you muse. She looks down at you, and a feeling lodges itself inside your chest, and you can't help but lean your head back again. you feel weak, and she seems to know this as she begins to speak, her voice hesitant and soft.

"A-are you okay? You just appeared passed out a-and I don't mean t-to say you can't take care of yourself. I'm not trying to b-be annoying or anything, I just w-wanted to m-make sure you're feeling a-alright!"

You stare up at her, slightly annoyed at her inability to speak clearly, though you can't say you don't appreciate the notion. though through her kindness there's something about her that you can't ignore, or rather something to do with you.

You know her name. You recognise her.

Unable to find it in yourself to speak, you find yourself nodding, lifting yourself as she supports your back. Mikan Tsumiki. She had been an... interesting character to observe through the screen of your Nintendo switch. only now she's undeniably in front of you, breathing and staring at you with a worried, and yet slightly scared gaze.

"Y-you shouldn't strain yourself too much! Try to t-take it slow, I'll stay with you for the time being to make sure you're stable. I-if you don't mind that is. It would just make me feel a lot better, seeing as I-I'm the ultimate nurse and such."

You clear your throat, nodding at her as you begin to speak.

"of course not. I really appreciate it."

Your voice is better at least. The tension in her face starts to slowly slip away, a more relaxed expression making its way onto her features. It suits her more pleasantly you note.

"T-thank you. Can I ask what your ultimate is?"

Ultimate.

Can she ask what your ultimate is? Your ultimate?

You don't suppose you have one. Her brown eyes stare at you with curiosity, a finger placed on her chin. you don't suppose you should lie. but do you really want to let yourself be seen as a loser? A talentless *loser*?

Your eyes wander around the island, meeting the back of someone's head. You suppose a little white lie wouldn't hurt.

"I forgot. quite strange it is."

Her eyes slightly widen, though you can tell she's trying to hold back some of her shock as she responds.

"You forgot? that is strange, every other student remembers theirs. I don't suppose you have a concussion or something? perhaps I should examine your head. Oh n-not that I'm trying to accuse you or anything! I just think it's a bit weird- I'm not calling you weird I just-"

You cut her off swiftly, lightly flapping your hand.

"I understand what you mean. rest assured, I take no offense. I know it's a bit weird, but thank you truly for your clarification. I... appreciate it"

This only seems to shock her more, but she seems assured at the least, giving you a small and thankful nod.

"Thank you. Uh, if you'd like we could explore the island together? As we do that could you maybe relay to me what happened before you passed out so I can come to understanding what might have caused you to a-and maybe try to get the situation more as you weren't in the classroom with us."

You weren't? You suppose it makes sense, and your thoughts linger back to the time you spent in that spaceless void, trapped and alone. You can't tell her about that though, how can you expect her to understand what even you don't? But you can't let her know you're not from here. Wherever 'here' is. You don't want anyone to know that you shouldn't be here, at least nobody who can't help.

"I was walking into hope's peak academy. I'm assuming you're also a student there? Anyway I don't remember much but I do remember seeing a room. I'm unsure of what happened next though. I don't recall walking inside, or anything of the sort."

She nods in response, and you can't help feeling slightly accomplished. Your lies are believable at least. You're running on improv but maybe somehow you'll be able to make this work? Worm your way correctly in the code and be overlooked? She's speaking again but you can't help but let your mind drift away again.

Danganronpa. you're in Danganronpa 2. it's been a while to say the least. But why? Out of anywhere why would you end up here?

Your eyes flitter around, taking in your surroundings. The game hasn't really started yet, has it? You can note other students walking around, observing the subtle things they do, the looks they give around unseen.

What brought you here? You should be asking yourself that, right?

But somehow you can’t bring yourself to ponder around it for too long. Before long mikan has noticed you aren’t really paying attention, though it seems she actually has something she deems important to say, placing a hand on your shoulder.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I-I’m not trying to be a bother but you still look a bit out of it?”

You glance at her for a moment. She’s nice at least, though you can very clearly remember her being batshit crazy in the game. you’re glad her memories aren’t back.

“I’m fine. I’m just now realising that I still haven’t introduced myself. I’m [name].”

“Oh! I can’t believe I skipped past that. argh... I’m so sorry. I’m Mikan Tsumiki, but you’re free to call me by my first name.”

There’s a silence between the two of you. You can’t help but think you’re missing something, but she seems to think the same too, her gaze wandering away from yours.

“There’s a supermarket. We should go inside.”

You nod. She sounds slightly more assertive now, though you can’t find it in yourself to mind, following her as she leads you towards the entrance, skimming past shelves. You stare at mikan for a moment, though seeing her focus is elsewhere you make your way to a shelf, picking out an aloe vera drink. You make your way back to her, finding she seems to be in a conversation with none other than...

Hajime and Nagito. Which to be fair you didn’t find too unnatural, as you lightly scratched your head trying to recall the contents of the conversation they had had in game.

“-And... I went through all the trouble of preparing 5,000 different topics to discuss after conversation!”

Ah of course.

“It’s okay if you take your time and remember slowly. We’ll wait as long as it takes. We’ll wait for you forever, if that’s what it takes.” Nagito responds, and staring at him you can’t help but think of how... boring he is. for the time being, you suppose it’s for the best though.

“Huh... aaaaaah!”

You’re content to let their conversation continue, making your way through the shop silently as you search through the shelves more. Not much finds itself to be of interest, though looking through the food brands you find that at the least you shouldn’t have too much problems with craving foods too often.

“I can’t remember the last time I made any friends... other than [Name] I mean. Are we friends? Ah not that you actually want to be friends with me.. wait where even is she?”

“[Name]? I thought we must have introduced ourselves to everyone by now.” Hajime mutters, and you can’t help but think about how tired he must be by now. Mikan starts to look around, and as she makes eye contact with you mid-sentence, you smile, inching closer though slightly nervous.

“You w-were passed out and she was as well. She’s- oh t-there you are! Where did you go?”

You stand besides her, a small ding! sound going off as you finally pause by her side. Hajime takes out and checks a small tablet – crap you forgot its name – and stares at it for a moment before putting it away in satisfaction.

“I’m Hajime.”

He finally greets you, a calm expression on his face. You nod, focusing your gaze away from him as you meet Nagito’s, his eyes skimming over you in a slightly sceptical and yet annoyingly kind expression. You offer him a nod as well, to which he returns it, introducing himself.

“And I’m Nagito. It’s weird, I don’t seem to recognise you from the website either.”

“Website?” You ask, tilting your head.

“The Hope’s Peak academy one. I thought I must have skimmed past Hajime’s one but I don’t think I saw your name on their either.”

Of course you wouldn’t be there, you thought. You could only ponder on the majority of the questions you had still unanswered, and Hajime seemed to pause at a realisation, his voice gaining your attention again.

“[Name]? You’re not in the e-handbook either.”

There’s a moment of silence.

It’s called an e-handbook! Oh, but the slightly tense silence should be your main priority now, but you can’t help but remain unbothered. but clearly the awkward situation is starting to get to mikan at least.

“I did find it weird that we haven’t reached a hope fragment yet.” She says, staring at you and you offer her a thoughtful hum, trying your best to appear confused but really you can’t help your thoughts at bay.

So you’re really not supposed to be here? It doesn’t make sense, and the explanation as to how you even wound up here is one you need to solve as well. but you suppose for now, surrounded by other – slightly sweaty – teens they wouldn’t be the best person to ask.

Damn. The park really did have a warm atmosphere. You stare back at Hajime.

“How am I meant to respond to that? Surely you don't expect me to know more than you do.”

Another small moment of silence. Can you be blamed? You suppose Nagito must be thinking along the same lines though, as he asserts himself into the conversation.

“A witty response, as expected from the ultimate...”

He’s waiting for you to finish his sentence. He stares at you with an expectant look in his eyes, his words trying to subtly coax you into formulating an answer. You look away from him for a moment to look at Mikan, who’s also waiting for you to explain yourself, before looking back at him. Come a few seconds later, she seems to realise you don’t intend to respond, hastily saying something in your place.

“It seems she’s still in a state of s-shock as to be expected of course. For now, they don’t seem to recall their ultimate.”

By this point they were all staring at you. you couldn’t help the small anxiousness that begin to surround you at their unflinching gazes, avoiding eye contact as you try to fumble up with some kind of response-

Ding dong, Bing bong.

“Was that a school bell just now..?” Hajime asks, trailing off as he frantically looks around. In the corner of your eyes you can make out a small monitor starting to come to life, and Nagito follows your gaze, before nudging Hajime lightly.

“Hajime. look at that monitor over there.”

He looks over and you all wait in anticipation as the bear you can easily recognise as Usami starts to speak.

“Congratulations everyone! It appears that everyone has finished collecting the hope fragments!”

You can feel yourself starting to become slightly sick, noticing the way Nagito gives you a blunt side eye, as Mikan starts to fidget lightly with her fingers. It seems Hajime is the only one giving Usami his full attention, and she continues to drone on.

“I’m *sniff*... I’m so happy... soooo... I’ve prepared a present for everyone that’ll make you all veeeeery happy! I apologise for the trouble, but please gather at the beach! tee hee hee! may shining hope be with you all!”

Before you can embarrass yourself by calling out to the screen it switches off, leaving yet another small tense silence between the four of you. Hajime opens his mouth to speak, but just as quickly Nagito is already cutting him off.

“No matter! She said to meet at the beach, right? How about instead of overthinking this we make our way there? I’m sure Usami has some sort of explanation. Hajime, let’s go on ahead!”

You feel as though it doesn’t take too long for them to leave, Hajime scurrying on to follow Nagito. You almost roll your eyes, finding it pathetic to witness as you stare back at Mikan, who seems even more nervous than she was before, though she still tries to speak and assure you.

“J-just as he said I’m sure it’s nothing! L-let’s head over to the beach!”

You sigh. At least with this you know that Usami probably hasn't even realise you’re here. After all, this whole hope fragment situation? You only hope you’ll be able to speak to her before Monokuma can corrupt the files.

You wonder if you’re doing the same thing? You’re definitely not supposed to be here but surely it can’t simply be some kind of mess up of code to so randomly entrap you here. You’re here for a reason, you’re sure of it. You’re here for some kind of reason and as the beach starts to come into view you promise yourself one solid resolution.

You will fulfil it. you must, because somehow something tells you that if you don’t you’ll wind up deleted, before you can willingly find your way out. After all, relating yourself to Junko placed yourself in the same fate as her.

i always find myself coming back to this fanfic during breaks!! i’m gonna be trying to upload more and this is an old fanfic i abandoned since i wanna pick it up again !! :) ty for reading, please leave a note or a kudo if you enjoyed. i’ll be trying to republish old chapters here on my page daily as i work on new ones. <3

[popculturebuffet]

Into the Bobbins Verse: Your Guide to the Works of John Allison

So this is a little side project that's been bubbling in my brain. So Next Month, grod willing, I begin a retrospective i've wanted to do since I started this blog that i've put off for various reasons: Wanting to do the comic it's a spinoff of first, loosing most of my copies of said comic, my terrible scheduling skills, etc. I will be covering the comic book Giant Days. All 57 issues across two volumes, all the specials all of it.

But while gearing up for this i've not only fallen in love with giant days all over again but John Allisons other myraid of works he's slowly been putting back up online. And it's great stuff: i've mad it a concious goal to both get the rest of giant days AND bad machinery in print and whatever else I can grabble before inevitably the number of books avaliable becomes too small and the prices shoot up.

So I want to share that love with all you fine people paticuarlly my friends and patreons, as well as have a nice catalogue handy of John's MANY works for personal refrence and for anyone to use.

So for this guide i'll be going in a rough chronological order rather than release order, but 9/10 you can read most of these without having picked up another work. Before we can dive in though

WHO THE FLIP IS JOHN ALLISON

John Allison is a british author and very loveably weird man. He has a penchant for snappy dialouge, being unapologetically british in his settings and nicely bouncing back between slice of life, mystery and supernatual shenanigans, sometimes in the same comic. He's been at this since 1998 working primarily on the web with various web comics, cycling them out when he gets a new idea or when something has run it's course, breaking into print with his ongoing series Giant Days and since doing a few series there on and off. He's got a quirky sensebility and the bulk of his earlier work is set in the quirky english town of Tackleford before branching out to the small hamlet of Tregdin and the bustling real life town of Shefield. He is by all accounts a very nice guy, interacts with his fans regularly and is again a very deeply weird man in the best way possible, once saying he'd prefer any crossovers he does to be unexpected ones like Giant Days meeting Rom Space Knight.. and proving it by releasing his planned but shelved Batman Giant Days one shot to promote that books library editions on kickstarter.

So with that i'll be going in rough chronological order and telling you where you can read them.

DAS COMICS

Bobbins Classic:

Avaliable on Keenspot

I'm only mentoning this one for historical reasons as it was Allison's first.. and it shows. Bobbins dosen't look great for the bulk of i'ts life, only getting better when John switched to using Adobe Illustrator which while mildly dated, helped the art considerably.

Bobbins is an unfocused comic about a bunch of 20 somethigns working at a listings magazine in Tackleford. I'll talk more about it's cast in the next entry as their mostly just undefined blobs doing random shit: it's an early webcomic and thus has that throw shit at the wall and see what sticks sensiblity a lot had, with reality being loose, plot twists being thrown in and a lot of characters that go nowhere, with John having not quite figured out what he wanted. By the end he decided to abandon it leading to his breakout work. But more on that in a minute as for the strips anniversary.. he did a remake

Bobbins.Horse Avaliable At: scarygoround.com

Bobbins.Horse was intitally just a fun experiment: John went back to the original and wanted to fill in a major gap important to Bobbins sequel Scary Go Round: How goofy well meaning weird ray of sunshine Shelley Winters became best friends with the younger, wild and tatooed sass mouth Amy Chilton. In doing so he realized there was a lot of raw potetial in his old concept, and decided to do a bunch of comic strips. It's a soft reboot: parts of the original are still canon as John eventually found the format too limiting for how much his art had evolved, but it expands on loose concepts from a bitter young man into the detailed characte orinted stuff Allison would go on to make.

Bobbins.Horse is a good time and a solid entry point that follows Shelly and Amy. Amy at the time is a just turned 18 teen with a history of acting out caught in a divorce between her uncaring mom and doting but strict fater who dosen't know the real her. In the middle of writing a sex and the city style collumn, throwing a halloween party, dealing with Shelly's high school boyfriend she's outgrown and other shenanigans, are their friends and co workers: Tim, a sideburned decked soon to be inventor and gentlemen whose not intrested in Amy's obvious antics, Holly, SHelly's friend and local asshole, Rich, Tim's horny best friend and Ryan, Shelly and Tim's muttual close friend from high school, a wistful weirdo and layabout slowly getting out of the hole he's trapped in.

Bobbins.Horse is fantastic stuff, nicely segues into Allison's big work on which he formed the core of this unvierse and is one of my faviorites. Check it out. Also check out expecting to fly, a two issue comic allison did that's on his gumroad page (I'll link it in the next entry) that gives the origins of Shelley, Ryan and Tim.

Scary Go Round Found At: John's Gumroad Store

Scary Go Round was John Allison's big breakout work. The work that would help define his career. It defined his cast and who it didn't define it created. Scary Go Round is the swirling primordial core from which all of Allison's later works sprung.

It was originally intended as a full spinoff, with John not bringing his original cast back. This lasted all of one story before they quickly came back and his killing off Bobbins lead Shelley outraged fans enough to lead to a long and fantastic arc where Ryan, in his grief and with advice from a creepy old man, brings Shelley back from the dead. With this arc Scary Go Round had it's clear direction: A mix of slice of life and supernatual elements with Shelley, Ryan and soon Amy at it's core. Tim was at it's core at first but eventualy left.

Over the comic a massive amount of new characters came in to join the crew: Hugo, a track suited sandwich owner and wannabe mogul, The Boy, Tim's hormonal shy assitant, Erin, Shelley's resentful sister, and Esther, a perky goth who would get her own series soon enough. We also got Desmond fishman, a literal fishman who despite the verse leaning more towards the grounded these days, sticks around and has gone on quite the journey.

The comic did well.. but started to slip as Allison started to loose intrest, in part because he was stuck with a large cast, some of whom he cared about more than others. Introducing teens to the cast was a good idea, but he admitted regret to not giving them their own comic and instead trying to mash the two groups together. He eventually ended things and came up with a few spinoffs. The first would be his first mainstream hit, the second his biggest mainstream hit and the third.. well it sure did happen.

Avalible: Three Web Issues are at scarygoround.com, print issues are avaliable wherever books are sold probably and in digtial on amazon and are part of comixology unlimited if your intrested in binging this one.

Giant Days is John's most succesful work. That's not hyperbole, he says so on his own website. It's also the one that brought me to the dance, having gotten the first volume digitally for only a dollar and quickly devouring every inch of his work that was around at the time.

Giant Days follows Esther to college, quickly picking up two new friends; Daisy, a naive and optimistc but wise puffy haired girl from a small town and Susan, a cynical detective/med student who never lacks a sharp quip. Joining them as they grapple with college are Ed, a sunny naive programmer with a hopeless crush on Esther, McGraw, ed's best friend and susan's former friend who it's complicated with and workman extrodinare and Dean Thomas, an obnoxious entitled ass who sorta oozed his way into the boys lives. Our cast deal with the ups and downs of University life.

The comic started with three more experimental issues that got the format down: tight one in done stories that made up a larger narrative and were more grounded slice of life shenanigans without the supernatural stuff of Scary Go Round or Bad Machinery. There were still some growing pains: the first issue took on a more scott pilgrim bent than any of john's other work and the third included Erin before John decided to not use her after all due to developments in other comics. Still it was set and he wanted to do the project: while it was originally set up as a failsafe in case his next flagship bad machinery failed, it was something he wanted to do, he just didn't have the bandwith to draw it himself, having moved on from illustrator mid scary go round. Thankfully he found Boom, found great creative partners in Lissa Tremain (for the first 6 issues ) and Max Sarin (everything else), and the rest is history. Giant Days is a wonderful comic with loads of character, gorgeous art, and a nice combo of one in done single issues that merge into one long epic.

Destory History:

Avaliable: ScaryGoRound.com

Destory history like Giant Days takes place in the gap between Scary Go Round and it's more direct sequel Bad Machinery. Like Giant Days it was made in case the big shifts with Bad Machinery didn't quite pan out. Unlike Giant Days Though while Allison returned to it once or twice it didn't take off. Following Shelley in London as she journeys thorugh time it only got one story that has yet to be fully concluded as Allison just hasn't felt it.

Avaliable At: gocomics.com or in print

Bad Machinery was John's first mainstream success and helped him get to giant days which in turn boosted Bad Machinery's profile despite BM's publisher, Oni Press, turning it down, a decision they no doubt regretted.

Bad Machinery takes place 5 years after Scary Go Round. Ryan and Amy are now playing support as a teacher and local antiques dealer (And to my delight a married couple), as is Erin as a local reporter. The bulk of it's main cast are precicious kids who debuted towards the end of Bad Machinery: Charlotte Grote, a spacey ragamuffin with a mind for mystery, her tough but kind bestie Shauna, the shy ,nervous and Imaginative Jack and Jack's best mate nad pain in the ass Linton. Joining them in the series proper are Mildred, a wild child with a scientfic mind, and Sonny, a shy boy of few words, and eventually claire, a girl with a lisp, some pyromania and a kind soul.

The kids would solve mysteries as they slowly grew, often with a supernatual bent while dealing witht he perils of growing up: rivalries, bullying, family drama, relationships, growing apart.. all the pain of adolsecnse that got increasingly grounded. There was still magical mysteries, but as the kids grew their problems did and eventaully they outgrew the format, with John ending the series. He's since returend to the former mystery kids giving three of them their own spotlights we'll get to. It's a great run and well worth your time if you like kids getting into shenanigans and danger, which I know is most of my audience.

That and Murder She Writes:

Avaliable at: John's Gumroad

Two one off stories john did that follow Lottie and Shelley. Shelley was largely absent from Bad Machinery apart from mentions of her, to help let the new main characters settle in, but was given a few one offs to show she'd become both a succesful author and Charlotte's mentor.

New Bobbins: Avaliable: Via Gumroad or John's Patreon

New Bobbins was an experiment that didn't quite work out, updating us on the old guard at the same time as Bad Machinery. Due to both pushing the timeline forward more than he wanted to for BM and getting all dramatic, John Quitely canceled this revival, but did bring it back to wrap up loose ends. In fact he intended to end his comics as a whole, only keeping giant days, but realized he coudln't part. This era also includes Mordawaa which is also on gumroad and I won't go into due to spoilers.

Epheimera

Avaliable: John's Patreon and for Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers, Archive.Org

Various bibs and bobs I thoguht lost but... nope . YOuc an find most on john's patreon if you fancy and the graphic novel heavy metal hearts and flowers, which It hought lost, is on the internet archive.

Avaliable: In print or digital

Not super necessary to the lore but a fun side story about two friends documenting strange stuff. Need to read this one in full sometime.

Avaliable: First arc: in Print via Darkhorse or digital via amazon. Other Arcs: in print and online via scarygoround.com.

Steeple was like By Night a break from the usual group of Allison Regulars, with an all new cast following prelate Billie and her new friend Maggie.. who happened to be working for the chruch of satan. It started as a mini series at dark horse that john continued on his web site that dark horse printed, ending earlier this year when Dark HOrse decided they were done, though with hints john would pick up the characters again.

It follows the small town of tregdyn, where monsters rise from the sea, a preist hunts them, the local santatic minister thinks he's a super villian and his helper brian is a kind of werewolf. It's a return to the more supernatual stuff tha'ts fun, engaging and good stuff. It eventually firmly became bobbins canon, with Lottie doing a guest spot to find a missing shelley and shelley eventaully dating the local preist what hutns monsters.

Avaliable: Print and Digital

Wicked Things is the comics equilvent of a failed Pilot. It's still canon, but due to the independent publishing scene drying up slightly, it failed to get the sales to go to full series. As such it follows Lottie a few years after bad machinery, on the cusp of university.. only to loose it when she's framed for murder, this 6 part mini covering her working with the london police as the quirky kind of consultant you see again these days with Elsbeth or High Potetial. Had the series come just a few years later it probably would've been a big hit. Probably. Lottie gets aquitted but who framed her is left dangling.. and that becomes the catlyst for Lottie's next adventure

Avaliable at: badmachinery.com. Yes I know it's confusing bad machinery isn't on there.

After a pilot and the crossover, John went full hog into Charlotte's next phase of her life: at a crossroads and working as a barista, a meeting with new zeland immigrant Glenn, a careers advisor working the grind of the job to have a place to sleep, finally lights a fire under a restless Lottie. Quickly solving her bestie Clarie's school issues, teh duo head to sheffield, and Lottie quickly decides rather than be a detective to become a problem solver, fixing people's issues while trying to avoid finding a longterm solution for her life and dragging Glenn in as he's good at presnting stuff. IT's one of my faviorite thigns John's done, nicely evolving Lottie and CLarie, adding in glenn for flavor and even bringing back Dena. No one asked him too but it works out. The series is currently running through a direct sequel to wicked things, Wobbly Head and Solver as a whole stands on it's own well enough to jump righ tinto. Please do

Avaliable At: badmachinery.com

John Allison's latest pilot and what seems to be a bold new ongoing that's both a prequel and a sequel as Jack from bad machinery, who god already wasn't all that fond of, gets the short end of the stick again: he's sent back to the 90's, can't say anything about the future and is left stuck not remembering WHY he was sent there and with only a college age Shelley as an ally. It's a eerie yet still deeply funny work and I can't wait to see more of it at some point next year after Wobbly Head concludes.

Avaliable: in print and digital

Taking place around the same time as solver, GBBO reunites Allison and Sarin for a quick and breezy four part murder mystery at UK Bakery Tent. Shauna is invited to participate but soon witnesses an attempted murder with her new friends and fellow bakers Sunil and Jil. Now Shauna has to both try and solve a mystery before anyone else is poisoned, and not get eliminated while almost everyone around her is a suspect.

So there you go. A bunch of good poitns to start with, a bunch of great comics all outlined. Get out ther eand start reading and thanks for reading this

[fuk1ngb1tch]

More ENA OCs hehe.

Not all the characters here *are* ENA OCs- some concepts that I didn't continue with. Although, the black block creature isn't ENA at all. It's my sona<3 funky

Also, transparent version & closeups under the cut

Transparent Version

First Version of NENA. I didn't like the symmetry of the hair, so I changed it. Also I hadn't fully decided how I wanted to do her eye shape, so I changed that too

Second Version of NENA! Landed on a hairstyle then started playing around with some expressions. I think they turned out pretty well!

Also, a bit of an explanation on her eyes and why they tilt.

Then both ENA (species) OCs, NENA and RENA. Just their heads, yes, but I thought it was cute and neat:3

Then RENA's versions. Had a hair change like NENA's first design, as that first version is the FIRST drawing I did of them, traditional drawings coming afterwards, but the change of hairstyle (along with their eyes, or eye) really isn't that drastic. Her colours though? I got the hair immediately but her face colours was so difficult to decide on. I switched through multiple colours on the first version before being somewhat happy, until I changed it again in the second version. I'm pretty happy with it now though!

RENA expressions! I, sort of, don't know what her "sides" are yet- even so, it's still fun to draw her

Concept and my sona. My sona is a weird black blob that changes shape but "normally" just vaguely resembles a human. Fun to play around with!

And Finally, more concepts and ACTUAL ENA OCs that aren't the ENA Species guys. The one with a void face is called, well, Void Face. Was technically a temporary name for them, but I decided that it fit.

The bunny though is currently unnamed- all I know is that they're feminine presenting.

Oh and eyes too ig

Btw drawing expressions is very fun🥰

[crystalkitty1220]

Said I'd post this on my birthday, so here y'all go.

Hullabaloo is by Rare Americans. | IBVS is by onebizarrekai.

I scrapped this pmv/animatic (whatever you wanna call it) because the AU had changed a lot, plus I ran out of time on the computers I was working on, plus I wanted to make some artstyle changes, etc. You can find out more about curse!ibvs here.

In case you're curious, the original script is below the cut. I made some changes while drawing, which you can probably notice, but the core is still there.

Speaking parts: Drew Isaac Edward Chris Charlie Nevin Each character other than Drew will have a blob of colors floating around their head at all times, except when stated otherwise.

(Intro) Foxfield High School, losing color and becoming the desaturated and more dangerous appearance that signifies Curse!IBVS. Drew walks into Foxfield and down one of the halls, looking a little confused at his surroundings. There’s a duller and more monstrous appearance to everything, plus all of the kids don’t seem to recognize Drew. He’s very saturated compared to the rest of them.

“Excuse the renovations, our Doberman Dalmatians.” Edward blocks Drew’s view of the art room. Edward believes Drew is a new student. After all, he’d never met this kid before. Edward just wants this new guy’s first impression not to be “This place is full of weirdos.”

“We're just making preparations for the false flag operation.” Ed making excuses and walking down the hall, Drew in tow. Isaac, with only half of his face shown, raises an eyebrow and follows.

“Anyway, your participation in The Lemming Corporation includes two full weeks paid vacation, white-washed accommodations.” Edward is still talking to Drew while walking, purposefully blocking half of Isaac’s face every time the trumpet in the song makes a noise. Whenever Ed isn’t blocking it, something else is conveniently blocking it from the camera’s view.

“At the company plantation, there's a safe sensation, bottomless libations with your full cooperation.” Isaac ignores Edward and joins in with the tour, walking around Drew in a clockwise direction so the other half of his face still cannot be seen. At “full cooperation” Drew tugs on Isaac’s sleeve, and Isaac stops.

“Thank you for your patience…” Isaac says this, confused, and turns his head, so the drawing half of his face is finally on-screen and very much moving. Drew isn’t really scared at this part, just frightened/surprised.

“We're here to help, we're here to help you! You need not worry 'bout that” Edward interrupts and quickly tries to distract Drew from Isaac. At the five guitar strums, everywhere around Drew flickers into a colorful void. The colors are actually Edward and Isaac’s emotions, but Drew doesn’t realize this yet.

“Hullabaloo, hullabaloo, hull-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaa-baloo” Drew, now panicking, looks around the void, and suddenly feels something touch his shoulder (this is Isaac, trying to see if Drew is okay, but Drew and the viewers are unable to see him). He freaks out and dashes down the invisible hallway, running into invisible walls and eventually finding an invisible corner to turn. There are different colors in the place he ends up in.

“Doom is the mood in the room.” The void fades back into reality, the colors fading away to reveal Chris and Charlie, arguing in an empty classroom. Neither have noticed Drew. No emotion colors at all in this part or the next.

“Evil looms, darkness lurks. Safety in numbers, members perks! Things are sad, they will get worse. We want you bad, this army church!” Chris appears to switch between different sides of the argument, but it’s actually him and Charlie arguing and flipping between who’s controlling Chris’ body.

“The fence is not a safe place for you to stay. Don't think you understand the forces at play!” They argue more, and Drew gets a headache so he holds his head in his hands.

“Care for a Serviette, James?” The room fades into colors once more, and Drew slumps against the invisible wall, head still in hands.

“You got Kool-Aid, kid, all over your face! Hear my words, sing my song…” Drew watches the colors swap places as the person speaking switches. That’s strange, ‘cause he was told Charlie wasn’t stuck with Chris anymore.

“Opportunities knockin, ding-ding-ity-dong!” Drew returns to reality, with Chris and Charlie talking to him. Charlie knocks on Drew’s head at the “ding-ding-ity-dong!” part, in an “earth to the new kid, wakey wakey” fashion.

“We're encrypted, subscripted, soldiers of the brand. Homo-lookalikes, million-man marching band.” Charlie points out that Drew looks so much like Nevin. Chris wants to leave this kid alone.

“So let me look ya in the eye straight when I ask ya!” Charlie talks to Drew, but Drew ignores him and stands up.

“Will you take my word? Will ya take my hand?” Drew wobbles over to the door, Charlie still talking to him in the background.

“Shake it, shake it, shake it! Shake my goddamn ole, wrinkly hand!” Drew looks down the hall and sees Edward’s and Isaac’s emotion colors getting closer (Drew has a sort of ‘shit, not again’ look), before he gets blinded by their and Chris/Charlie’s emotions again.

“Hullabaloo, hullabaloo, hull-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaa-baloo! (Hull-a-bal-oo, hull-a-bal-oo)” Drew once again panics and runs through the colors, occasionally running into the walls of the invisible hallway.

“I got this buzzin' in my ear, it's here for good I fear, my dear.” He eventually gets far enough away that he can kinda see the hallway, and opens a difficult-to-see door he recognizes leads out to behind the school. He runs through the door, slams it closed and sits against the wall next to it.

“Got these spots in my sights like I can't turn out the lights…” He closes his eyes, holding his forehead.

“Sweat drips from my palms all day long. Don't wanna fuck this up man, I can't get this wrong! It's clear in my mind as a traffic jam, I think there might be something wrong with Uncle” A new set of colors fades in, returning Drew to utter blindness. He looks up, scared, and watches where he guesses the source of the colors is. The colors drop down to the point where the source (or a barely visible silhouette?) would be at eye level with Drew, and remain frozen like that for the entirety of “I think there might be something wrong with uncle-”.

“Graham…” Drew can once again see and the source of the emotions is revealed to be Nevin, who has carefully placed his hands on Drew’s shoulders reassuringly.

“It's calm in my head as a high-speed chase.” Drew and Nevin stand up, and Drew hugs Nevin. Nevin is surprised and sad, keeping his arms at least a few inches away from Drew.

“Got those memories man, that you can't erase.” Drew talks to Nevin, and Nevin gives a reassuring smile.

“I do what I gotta do.” Drew backs away and pulls on Nevin’s wrist to get him to run, and Nevin accidentally grabs onto Drew’s arm for support, causing Drew to grip his own arm and cry out in pain. Nevin steps back, horrified. His expression softens and shadows shield his face.

“Just run away from that” He then turns around to face the door and speaks. He knows Drew isn’t meant to be here (though he thinks Drew is a ghost or something). The world once again flickers into colors.

“Hullabaloo! Hullabaloo!” Drew stays for a moment, but decides to just start running the opposite direction of Nevin’s emotions, still holding onto his own injured arm.

“Hull-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaa-baloo!” He runs far enough that the colors start fading away again.

“Hull-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaa-” While running, suddenly a circular portal appears in front of him. He doesn’t have time to stop before he trips through it-

“-baloo!” -and finds himself on the floor of his bedroom, having fallen onto his injured arm. Afterward, he assumes he simply had a nightmare and fell off his bed, hurting his arm in the process.

[theonevoice]

Mini painting process breakdown

I'm really bad at explaining my mostly-winged-it process, but since a couple of people asked here's a mini-breakdown of what I have been doing on my journey to this pseudo-painterly style:

Disclaimer: I have no formal art training of any kind, I'm guessing my way through this artsy season of my life that just restarted last October; this is merely a general description of what I am doing these days, not a tutorial or a guide to tell anyone what they should do. Anyone has a different process and I am a strong believer in doing whatever works for you, no matter what "The Rules" or other people say.

0. Before I even start drawing, I collect a bazillion reference pictures for every single thing that I plan to represent, from Michael Sheen's face to gold embroidery texture on 1800s extant garments;

1. (undocumented because when I said that I'm bad at this I meant it and sure enough I forgot to grab a screenshot of this step) I establish the general background color and draw a very loose sketch of the character;

2. I switch to a basic hard round brush and free-hand some color blobs to establish the position, general shape and values of the character, using the colors that are already in the background to make sure that the charater "belongs" in that space (tip: if I need to introduce new colors I pick a shade that seems close to what I want, put it on a separate layer, and then lower the opacity of that layer until the background color bleeds through and harmonizes the new shade);

3. I divide the character into smaller bits (face, hand, jacket, sash...) and apply clipping masks to bring the color blobs into reasonable shapes, in this case a left hand (I found that I can fine-tune the shapes at any moment by playing with highlights and deep shadows on the edges);

4. I then switch to an equally basic airbrush for the main rendering, using the color picker tool to blend midtones and highlights/shadows until my shape starts looking 3Dish (this part can be quick or take forever depending on a variety of factors that I honestly cannot explain);

5. I bring down the airbrush size to add finer details that can sell the illusion (here still in progress);

6. (eventually) I add a ton of adjustment layers to make sure that the completed part is consistent with the rest of the image (tip: if there are more bits of the same "family", e.g. skintones, I use the color picker tool to grab the midtones that already exist instead of mixing them ex novo).

That's it, I believe, unless I am forgetting something. Feel free to ask if there is something more specific that you'd like to know!

[ut-versotale]

Update Time, Update Time

Welcome back, everyone. Hope you all had a very happy New Years! I come bearing a late present for you all: A Versotale update!

Game Progress

As I anticipated, I needed to take a break around the middle of November so I could focus on schoolwork. Now that we've been on break for a little while again and will continue to be for the better part of January, I've already gotten a sizable chunk of stuff done. Still not as much as I would've LIKED to have completed - There are still like only three fully-completed rooms at the moment, and even then they have a ton of WIP assets and first-pass dialogue and all - but, that is the way of coding a game solo, mostly from scratch, and with the occasional glances at Undertale's code, isn't it?

Unfortunately, while I really want to share stuff with you guys, it's all in some way a spoiler that I don't want to spoil for the people who'd rather experience everything fresh for themselves.

...

So, if you DO wanna experience everything fresh for yourself, feel free to bow out of this post here. If you're sticking around, enjoy some mild spoiler-y content, some character designs, and some fun vague allusions to things I still really wanna talk about! I need to give you guys SOMETHING after this long wait, right?

Game Progress: Slightly Spoiler-y Edition

The OPENING CUTSCENE you saw a while back has been tweaked slightly to make Hercine more likable, and so the dialogue can flow a bit more naturally.

Two new cutscenes have been added to the beginning, albeit with some rough visuals. These three all flow into each other, and if you're speaking through each line of dialogue, they only take up about six minutes total. Still, it is a TAD bit too long for my liking without any gameplay behind it, so there's a chance I might cut a cutscene or switch the order of things around so there's a brief gameplay section before the last one. Who knows.

Undyne has been redesigned. Undyne now sports some less bulky armor that combines aspects of her canon casual and armored forms. If she's gonna be there the entire game, she may as well have a visually-interesting design rather than the blob of bluish-grey her armor used to be. I'm sure some people will consider this a downgrade, which is always the risk you run when you redesign a character you've already shown off... but I personally just can't stand working with that old design any longer. The colors barely pop, it looks messy, the armor's boring and flat-colored and almost even blends into her scales, etc.

You didn't get to see the outdated Frisk design I had for this iteration of the project, and I'm glad you didn't, because upon writing more of their scenes and reconfiguring their personality, I HAD to redesign them again. I don't anticipate this one changing ANY time soon, but, as with Undyne, no promises.

Next up, some important human characters in the first area that AREN'T Frisk! You'll meet them later on, and I really hope you all end up liking them and the story behind them! In the meantime, here, have their designs. Again, they might change, but I'm comfortable with these for now.

That's all I feel comfortable showing off for the first area at the moment! I'm hoping to record everything up until the first save point and post it on YouTube at some point before the end of January (Again, as I must reiterate, in its very unfinished form), but no promises!

While that's all for the first area, I have been poking around with redesigning some of the later characters you guys have not even seen yet. Particularly, the primary antagonist of the new Cold West. I have to admit, I was a little worried that, if I didn't switch up his design, people would start comparing him to Clover since Undertale Yellow is still fresh in a lot of our memories right now, but... I think you guys will really like "The long scarf of the law." He's a fun character.

Alright, that's all from me! I hope you guys enjoyed this brief little peek at some mild spoiler-y content! I hope to be back soon with some neat stuff for y'all to see in action!

[sirowsky-stories]

Grumpy Pumpkin

Sirowsky's 600 & 700 Followers Celebration

Submitted by @heareball Prompt #3: You're supposed to carve the pumpkin, not crush it. Character: Pero Tovar

Rating: Teen Warnings: Pero Tovar x Gender Neutral Reader. AU. Established relationship. Pero's having a day. Word Count: 750 Masterlist of the Celebration Sirowsky's Main Masterlist

   “Stop pouting over there, there’s a perfectly good pumpkin waiting for you over here. Look, I even made sure that yours is bigger than mine, so you won’t feel inferior,” you said, casually pointing at the large orange ball at the other end of the table, while glaring intently at him.

   He’d been sitting in a corner sulking all day because you’d chosen to carve decorations rather than help him work on his car. Which was kinda ridiculous because you never helped anything out there anyway, you didn’t know any of that stuff, so it was just boring for you to passively participate in.    But you still humored him now and then, which was why you were getting back at him today, because he rarely did the same for you and you were a bit sick of it.

   “Fine. Be that way. But if you’re not gonna help then get out of the kitchen. I don’t sit and glare at you when you’re tinkering with that engine and talking about the moon for all I know about cars, hour after hour after hour.    Go on, scoot!” you chastised him, threatening to throw pumpkin seeds at him if he wasn’t gonna listen either.

   “Fine,” he sourly grumbled, but instead of leaving, he came to the table and picked up a knife, stabbing it into the top of the pumpkin and then carving off the lid.

   You were so unprepared for it that you stopped working as you watched him, mildly mesmerized by the sight of him handling the blade. He’d always been fantastically skillful with knives.    Then, once he had the top off, he switched to a scooping tool and started emptying the thing, but he was so forceful in his efforts that he risked destroying it.

   “Hey, take it easy. It’s not a sprint. You’re supposed to try and have fun with this.”

   “What’s so funny about a fucking pumpkin? It’s just a big orange blob with holes in it…”

   “See, that offends me, because I’ve been working on this one for two hours and I think it looks pretty damned good,” you countered, before turning your blob around so that he could see the truly excellent scary face you were just about done with.

   He merely glared at it for a few seconds, then returned to his carving, so you put the finishing touches to your masterpiece and immediately got started on the next one.    You kept close watch on what he was doing, though, so you noticed that he started cutting the face without drawing it first, but you refrained from commenting on it.    About a minute later, you suddenly heard a minor breaking sound, and looked up to find him holding half the face of his blob in his hand.

   “Pero… You’re supposed to carve the pumpkin, not crush it,” you whined, and without missing a beat, he turned his head to give you a perfectly executed side-eye.

   “I didn’t like the way it looked at me,” he grumbled, and within a second you were suddenly doubled over in laughter because his delivery was spot on, flawless comedic timing.

   Whether he’d meant it as a joke or not, your reaction apparently rubbed off on him, because he was soon on the floor with you, laughing hysterically.    After a day of so much tension, the sudden levity was more than welcome, it was needed, and you both allowed it to feed you all the positivity that you’d been keeping each other away from with your taciturn antics.    Which was why, by the time you’d stopped giggling, you were sitting huddled together against the kitchen counter, leaning on each other.

   This was your routine. The tension never lasted too long between you, but it could get really intense at times, which almost always led to stuff like this.    Because he wasn’t a grumpy person at all, that was just a smoke screen. He asked you to join him in the garage sometimes simply because he got lonely out there. And he joined in with the pumpkins for the same reason, even though he knew that it would backfire because he really didn’t have a clue of how to properly carve one.

   And as much as he might’ve hated feeling ignorant, he hated being alone more.

   “I love you, grouch,” you warmly reaffirmed.

   “It really did look at me funny,” he said, teasing you, so you slapped him lightly over his chest, making him chuckle. “I love you too, pumpkin.”

THE END

Thank you, Ashlee! This got a bit deeper than I'd intended, but I kinda love the dynamic between them and the underlying understanding that even though it might look like they're angry or annoyed with each other, it's all just for show.

@pedrostories @harriedandharassed

[mancunian-death-worm]

Prompt: A character enters an unfamiliar place for the first time

The floor is wet under my shoes, I find myself praying that it’s just water from leaky pipes as I step forward through the doorframe into the dark entry hall, but there’s something curling in the pit of my stomach that says otherwise.

Nothing happens at the click of the light switch, besides a disturbed spider scrambling away from my hand and up to the ceiling. I end up closing the door behind me, I’m better off sheltering in a dusty, cobweb covered bungalow with no power than to take my chances searching for the next semi-usable structure, with no guarantee that it would be any better.

The light from outside just about lets me see the outlines of furniture, a side table in the entry way, with a dark blob I assume to be a landline phone. There are a further three doorways, one being a little shorter and skinnier than the others, trying my luck, I’m rewarded with a closet full of coats, of which I take two. I put on the dark green jacket immediately, it’s getting colder the further into autumn it gets and my shirt just isn’t cutting it anymore. The other, a long black winter coat, gets draped over my arm for the time being. I’m careful to close the closet door again, better to keep the contents from the elements as much as possible for the next lodger, coats are a scarce commodity nowadays.

Moving to the next door, slowly manouvring the handle in case it creaks, I discover the living room, with a small kitchenette on the farthest side. I head straight for the closest cupboard, ignoring the ancient fridge as I search for something non-perishable, though freeze when I hear a clatter coming from outside, sounding somewhat like a cat jumping down from the roof. There haven’t been any cats for quite a long time now.

After a beat of silence, I crouch down, now much more aware of the noise I was making and the locations of the windows. My movements have an urgency to them as I try to search the lower cupboards, tins of beans, soup and tuna catch my eye. Now knowing where they are, I make a mental note for later, it’s clearly been years since the place has been touched by anything human, there’s bound to be some kind of bag I can carry these in around here somewhere… but that can wait for the morning, when the thing outside has fucked off back to wherever it sleeps during the day.

Crawling back the way I came; a creeping realisation begins to dawn on me. I didn’t close the front door behind me. My eyes dart to the wide-open entrance but just because I can’t spot anything, doesn’t mean nothing has spotted me. I scramble to the third door, wrenching it open and slamming it shut just as it thumps against the door behind me. I’m lucky this ones too young to open doors, but it won’t be long before it’s fully grown counterpart arrives at its cries. It also dawns on me that the reason this area seems to be unlooted is likely because no one has previously been able to leave with any findings, piles of clothes in all different sizes dwarf me as I attempt to shove myself past them, a shoe that falls from somewhere overhead still has a foot in it.

I go still again, the best thing to do is see if I can fake them out. The little ones are kind of dumb, and the adults aren’t here right now or the door would’ve been shattered behind me. The room stinks of rot, but that’ll mask me, if I dig myself into a good spot under the mountains of clothes and body parts. I won’t be able to see the sunrise but staying longer than I need to beats getting torn apart.

[doctorstrangereview]

0088: Marvel Premiere #3

Cover Date: July 1972 On-Sale Date: April 25, 1972

Doc once again gets some solo adventures! Marvel Premiere was a sort of try-out book and if the featured characters proved popular enough they could graduate to their own title. Doc will prove popular enough for this to happen. He will be featured in Marvel Premiere until issue 14 and then he gets a solo title. This time it starts with issue #1! The tale is written by Stan Lee. We again get Doc spouting lots of purple prose. Don't worry, he's only here for this one story. Art is handled by Barry (not yet Windsor) Smith. His style here is a bit rougher than the absolutely gorgeous job he would do in things like the Machine Man limited series and the Ororo focused X-Men stories Lifedeath and Lifedeath II. It's still very good and very appropriate for the subject matter. Weirdly, Doc's face on the splash page looks very John Byrne. But he's not really a thing just yet while Barry already had a hit with Conan the Barbarian. Barry pencils one more issue. A series of writers and artists switch things around until the legendary team of Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner put their stamp on the series with issue #9.

Doc is walking Greenwich Village in a great deal of rain. We presume he's near his Sanctum Sanctorum as he's walking under a Bleeker Street sign. The captions let us know that Doc is distracted. He crosses the street and is nearly hit by a truck. Fortunately his mystical reactions kick in just in time.

The astonished onlookers wonder how he stopped the truck by waving his hands. He admonishes himself in thoughts for practicing the mystic arts in front of the common rabble. Apparently this was right in front of the Sanctum as he walks right from the truck into his home. After being displeased with himself for casting spells in public he then can't be bother to physically close the door and casts a spell in front of the public to shut it. Doc, you are distracted!

Doc walks through his Sanctum talking to himself about feeling danger, even in his home. Barry has redecorated the Sanctum. It's gone all mod and colorful! I really like the pink columns.

Doc even gets a funky chair. Not quite Ditko weird, but still strange and awesome! And lots of purple and pink!

For some reason, Doc goes ghost to check things out. He takes a peek outside. I think this is supposed to be our first clue that things aren't right. Look at that giant green moon behind the Sanctum. Also, the surrounding buildings have disappeared. But a lamppost remains. Are we in Narnia? Barry doesn't get the Vishanti window right. 😕

Doc won't go outside, but chooses to remain astral while he continues to investigate. His tool for this task is the Orb of Agamotto. Barry has traded the Orb's ornate enclosure for a weirdly twisted wire stand. This is one of Barry's less successful remodels.

This wisest of all is The Ancient One. We see The Ancient One levitating in his pad. The colorist made an odd choice for skin color.

Does 1) The Ancient One have funky lighting in that room? 2) The Ancient One have a tan? 3) Is The Ancient One's liver failing? 4) Is this not really The Ancient One? Also, why is he wearing only some underwear and a headband? Ditko and Colan always gave him luxurious outfits and headwear. Other artists at least gave him a robe. Does Barry have a thing for 600-year-old nearly nude dudes?

After the ominous warning, Doc finds he's trapped in the room. Uh-oh! His body is unoccupied and unprotected! Where have we seen this before? We've seen it multiple times. Doc chooses to use his precious Orb of Agamotto to take out one of the walls and then rush to his body.

We get to see more of Doc's rad new decor. I think he might have had a set designer from The Avengers (that would be the 1960s TV show Avengers) remodel his place. Doc attempts to blast the little blob of light but it splits into hundreds more blobs. Doc banishes all but one and it gets into his head. Another Uh-oh!

The force possessing Doc's body starts to speak and doesn't have nice things to say. It attempts to kill Doc's astral from.

Doc fights back with the conundrum that he can't be to aggressive and hurt his own body. Doc does fight back and realizes that his astral form can touch his physical form. The force possessing it says Doc is getting too close and jumps out the window. Good thing Doc's ghost can touch things now because he can grab his body before it goes splat below. Taking a look outside again, Doc realizes things have gotten even weirder! Maybe the moon really is made of green cheese?

The force possessing his body leaves and he goes ephemeral once again. Uh-oh again! He can't hold his body anymore and it starts it fall to splatsville again. Ghost Doc races down to rejoin his body just in time and lands. Instead of the city streets and buildings, he's in what looks like a park.

He hears a voice calling out for help. It turns out to be Doc's face in a tree. The tree repeats The Ancient One's advice of his Secret is his power and his power is his secret. The it keeps harping on him to surrender. Naturally Doc refuses and he sees his face everywhere in everything around him. They all tell him to surrender for he is mad. Doc then decides to try probing the tree's mind with the All-Purpose Amulet. He sees a replay of the accident with a truck, but with a big difference. He wasn't able to utter his spell and the truck actually struck him. He's really lying in a hospital yelling all sorts of batcrap crazy things to the attending medical personnel.

"Hmm. Which of my enemies could do this?" thinks Doc. "I know! It must be Nightmare!" Sure enough, the dream demon gallops into the frame on his horse, Dreamstalker.

Switching back to the emergency room, we see that Doc's rantings are being replayed in real time to the E/R docs as they attempt to restrain him and figure out what the hell is wrong with the bizarrely dressed dude. Doc and Nightmare get into a full blown mystic battle and even a bit of fisticuffs. Doc suspects Nightmare isn't acting alone which dreamy denies. The amulet in lie detector mode tells Doc he's lying.

Doc attempts to interrogate Nightmare further, but a spell of silence keeps him from answering. I'm guessing this is similar to the spell Baron Mordo used on Doc in his origin story because Nightmare is able to blab on about other things.

I like Barry's carrying the broken pieces of shield into the next panel. Nightmare is now entirely mute and the tree grabs him like that kid in Poltergeist. Doc makes to leave, but Nightmare offers to join forces and conquer stuff. Doc refuses and hikes on outta there.

Doc wakes up in the hospital. He non-consensually wipes the mind of the attending who's about to go for the doctor. Unrealistically, Doc is still in his costume. We all know from shows like E/R and Nurse Jackie those would have been in shreds on the floor and Doc in a cute gown with butt exposed from a badly tied knot in the back. Doc retrieves his cloak and exits through the window. Heading back to the Sanctum, a shadowy figure awaits him.

Like the previous Spidey story, Doc is all business here. Personal quirks and foibles don't shine through the no-nonsense exterior. But because it's a solo story it is SO MUCH better than the previous effort because Doc is more than a plot device here. It's a shame continuity wasn't really a thing in the early days. It would have been nice to have a consistent view of the Sanctum. It changes drastically with each artist. This is sort of retconned as a thing when we find out in a couple of decades that the house is sort of alive and things can shift around like Hogwarts. Still, it should be stylistically consistent. Barry's late 60s makeover doesn't last. I did like the polka dots. They're very TARDIS-y.

It's a nice reintroduction to Doc. Limited references to the past make it a good jumping on point of you've never read Doc up till now. The story itself is delightfully weird and the slowly growing dreamscape is great. Nightmare is one of my favorite villains and he's still wonderfully arrogant despite being the pawn of our still unknown main villain. He believes he's far more capable than truly is. Doc's dialogue isn't quite a horrendously pompous as the previous Spidey story. We're going to get several writers over the coming issues and this will vary. Doc's speech improves greatly once Englehart takes over. It's an exciting beginning to a consequential arc.