#got a bit carried away with doing character illustrations

[bobbybutterfly]

It’s been over 2 weeks since I last posted. Well. I hope that these four pieces were worth the wait.

Mulori! Boy I’m proud of this piece! I tried experimenting with colour by using warmer colours for shadows and cool colours for lights. She’s really giving angel of war descending from the heavens.

What to say about Mulori? Her death! You’re telling me that scout Gosemdouchi got a whole ass music video dedicated to him and Mulori gets NOTHING?! I’m outraged. But her edition of In the Years I Spent Far From Home is just so beautiful. Now I’m writing about it, I’m not sure if they made a separate cover for when she sings it in Operation White Snow or she was always singing it. Non the less it slaps.

Interesting was to see she’s shown often with Commander Gosemdouchi. He personally sends her off on her mission to stop the weasel spies (I’m sorry I don’t remember the name of their group). He cries when she dies, proclaiming they should fire their missiles for Mulori. The reason why I find it interesting is that when I went to write a short story about Mulori’s time in the military, I made them have a let’s say weird relationship. Maybe it got saved in my unconscious memory. Just like with Udochi being scout Gosemdouchi’s younger brother LOL. I thought I made that up but no!

I should maybe go back to that story sometime. Probably change Commander Gosemdouchi to a lower rank hedgehog that still has authority over her. A country leader would not have time to bully some low rank scout. Even though it is quite funny when I think about it.

Oewepali! I got told that this piece lacks depth because I use the same colours in the foreground and background. That’s a problem in all my pieces. It’s my fault for trying to use a very limited colour palette. Also what happened to his left arm and now that I’m looking at it, where’s his tail? The lighting too is… With the lighting in these pieces I wasn’t thinking about where it would logically go. I just made the lighter parts where they would look good compositionally. Yeah. I’m not that proud of the last two pictures.

As for what I think of this character… I originally thought that he got some developmental disability. I thought it would be interesting to write about a character during war that doesn’t really understand what’s going on. Kinda like Forest Gump. After rewatching the series (I still have to rewatch last two episodes) I came to the conclusion that he’s neurotypical but bullied by his brothers into thinking that he’s stupid. In the later episodes he’s shown to be actually quite capable. If I ever write a story featuring him I might give him like dyslexia though. I imagine he and his brothers went through a lot of trauma. Because he was the youngest and maybe had difficulty with learning they picked on him to let their frustration out.

Mulsajo! That’s right! I know his name now! I drew his paw like that because it was like that in the reference. I don’t really like it but I don’t have an idea how I would change it. I did change though, his teeth. My mom shown me rodent teeth because she didn’t like the mice have cat fangs. So he is a little more anatomically correct. Ignore the dog nose and that he’s anthropomorphic. LOL.

I took just so many screenshots! I should sometime post them. I love how they’re drawn in this picture! SO CUTE!

Mulsajo has one of the best designs in the show. The ripped up purple shirt is iconic. It was a while since I’ve seen the episodes with him. Before rewatching the show I thought he was a decent guy. Then I rewatch the show and he’s so mean to poor Oewepali. Dude can’t get a break. My head cannon still is that he’s nice but because they were starving, he’s aloud to be a bit grumpy. He’s also spiritual. Giving us one of the funnier jokes when Oewepali asks if he can eat the big fish only to be told no and then complain that Mulmangcho should have died earlier. This show’s dark humour is pretty great.

I want to develop my own mythology for my AU. Such as the mouse kings being descended from the sea god because Mulmangcho (he’s a king in exile in my AU) is often shown by the sea. It’s something I was thinking about when I drew this piece. It’s also inspired by Mulsajo’s death. Now if we’re talking about a main side character dying, Mulsajo has it the worst. He is never mentioned again in season 1. If you didn’t pay attention you wouldn’t have noticed he died. He is only sort of mentioned in season 2 episode 1. Mulmangcho is in disguise as a squirrel making up stories about what the wolves did to him and his family. He mentions his twelve dead brothers and how they cut off his tail. You begin to realise that he’s talking about what Flower Hill did to him. Obviously the moral is to never trust strangers no matter what they tell you. But I like to view it as a rare sympathetic scene for Mulmangcho. If someone was to write a continuation of season 2 I would like to see them expand on that scene.

Also fan art idea to design Mulmangcho’s 11 other dead brothers?

Last one up is Scout Gosemdouchi. Please don’t pay much attention to the plane. I really got to do some airplane studies. For the background I tried something more graphic and non literal. Lots of people I shown it to think he’s jumping out of the plane.

I actually have some trauma dumping I want to do. I swear it’s related to Squirrel and Hedgehog. If you don’t want to hear me whine about my catholic trauma then skip the next paragraph.

Alright then. Let’s get on with it. So I was like 8 years old. Our whole catholic school went to church. The priest starts preaching about this “real” story from China. The communists were cracking down on Christians. Some soldiers trashed a church. Taking special care the throw the Eucharist on the ground and stomp it with their muddy boots. Later a little girl would sneak into the boarded up church and lick the Eucharist off the ground. One day a soldier noticed her doing that AND SHOT HER ON SIGHT! Lesson? Be willing to die for your god.

I guess I like the cartoon because it reminds me of my childhood. LOL. Be sure to share your stories of childhood indoctrination in the comments! For real though, scout Gosemdouchi’s and Mulori’s deaths are to me the grossest parts of Squirrel and Hedgehog. Luckily I’ve got my head cannons that sort of fix that for me.

Originally this was the first picture I talked about but I found what I had to say was quite depressing. Plus religion is a touchy subject. I hope I didn’t offend anyone. I’m just talking about my own experiences. Also it’s good to have it off my chest. Now I don’t have to think about it anymore! YAY!

[bluegekk0]

you've talked about the au characters' strenght combat-wise, but how about their physical strenght? like, what's the heaviest thing they could lift from the floor

I think it would help to mention their sizes again. They're not insect sized, I mentioned before that FPK is around the height of a raccoon standing up, but that includes the horns, so he is generally quite a lot smaller.

Cooked up a really quick comparison to illustrate it. It's very rough and I used size comparisons I found online as reference so I can't 100% verify that the raccoon silhouette sizes are accurate.

As you can see, FPK is definitely smaller in mass than a raccoon, so he would also be lighter than one. I imagine he'd weigh around 6-7 kilograms, so within the weight range of an average raccoon but definitely lower on the scale. Grimm would be around 8 kg I think, Hornet would be around 4 kg, Holly between 10 and 12 kg (depending on whether they're wearing their prosthetic arm), Zote about 1.5 kg. Lewk would be around the weight and size of a 2 month old kitten, so just under a kilogram. Asta and Milo are similar in size but Milo is definitely lighter, but they would be more or less similar to a 3-4 weeks old kitten in weight, so under 400 grams.

As to how much they can can lift:

FPK's muscles are definitely in a far better condition than they used to be before hibernation. So he's pretty strong, he can run on all fours for a short distance so his arms can handle quite a lot of weight. I think using the other characters as reference would work best. He has no trouble picking up Lewk and the twins, as well as Zote. He can lift up Hornet since she's very skinny and light, and he can do so with Grimm as well, though for a very short time (Grimm's long legs would definitely make it a bit difficult).

Grimm is actually not that much bigger than him when it comes to mass, he only looks so because of his long legs, and so he's just a little bit heavier. If you compare their torsos, they're almost the same length. His arms and legs are more muscular than FPK's, so he's also a bit stronger physically (the fact that the arms are long also makes lifting things up easier). Again, no issue carrying his children or Zote, same as Hornet. He can also lift up FPK and carry him around (though the difference in weight between him and Hornet would be very noticeable), and since Holly is quite light, he can also lift them up for a bit.

Holly is, like I said, not very heavy. Similarly to Grimm, their imposing stature is all thanks to their long legs, their actual torso is proportionally small. They're a bit heavier than Grimm, though a lot of it is their big head and the metal scrap arm, which adds additional weight. But unlike him, they're not very strong, due to the damage they received while infected. They can pick up anyone with no problem right until it gets to FPK. They are able to carry him, but his weight would strain their weakened muscles so they would struggle a bit. And I don't think they can lift up Grimm.

Hornet is also not particularly strong physically, she definitely relies more on agility, but unlike Holly her muscles are in top shape so she wouldn't struggle as much as they do. She can carry Lewk, the twins and Zote without trouble, and she can even lift up FPK if she uses the right technique. But I don't think she would be able to do so with Grimm.

Lewk is still very young and small so he can only carry his little siblings, and the twins wouldn't be able to carry anyone.

This is already very long but I hope the answer was satisfying. I definitely got a little carried away with the height comparison and the weights, but I just really like talking about this kind of stuff.

[touchmycoat]

Shitty comic transmigration, fake white lotus!SJ AU

There were servants, and silk, and sunlight.

"Good morning, Young Master Shen. Did you have a good rest?"

And there was this comic.

"...Mmh, yes. Thank you."

The comic told a tale of romance and triumph over lofty class disparity and illustrated, at one point, the bedroom of the main antagonist--the treasured son of a merchant so wealthy that his political clout sometimes outweighed that of the nation's Emperor's. That bedroom was the quintessential embodiment of that power, sculpted out of pale birch, marble, and imported ivory. It was dustless and glowed with the gentle warmth that only the magnificently wealthy could afford.

"Where would Young Master like to take breakfast today?"

Shen Yuan's attention lingered on the intricately pale room surrounding him, gaze filled not with covetousness but with mild exasperation.

"Right here is fine. Ming Fan?"

"Yes, Young Master?"

He managed to turn the twitch of his lips into a smile when the servant answered to the name. Alright. Alright.

"Wasn't there a super expensive tea gifted to us recently? I'll have that please."

He could deal with this.

//

Shen Yuan's general opinion on the comic was that it was a damn shame how it played out. He'd been ready to look past the uninspired and vague setting and all the tropey character executions because of one thing--that truly brilliant kernel of an idea at the very heart of the story.

What if the white lotus main character was acting all along?

What if, in the classic tale of the saintly poor underdog defeating evil aristocratic entitlement to secure his place on a royal throne, the underdog was every bit as manipulative and nasty as his antagonists?

Enter Shen Jiu, street rat and dreamer of grandeur far beyond his station. Enslaved at a young age, Xiao Jiu was one day suffering yet another very public and humiliating dressing down when Young Master Shen happened to be dining in town. Irked by the noise, Young Master Shen had in turn publicly humiliated Qiu Jianluo, Xiao Jiu's master, which Qiu Jianluo could do nothing but take given the difference in their stations. Of course, later that day, Qiu Jianluo took all his fury out on Xiao Jiu, a session of brutal torture that ultimately became the last straw. Xiao Jiu killed Qiu Jianluo, burned down the Qiu estate, and escaped to the Capital. He found grunt work for room and board at one of the Shen Empire's pig farms and for legal ease, took on the Shen surname.

Then he began scheming. His target was Young Master Shen, who by all accounts was careless with his privilege at best, destructive at worst. Shen Jiu may carry scars from Qiu Jianluo's whips, but he attributed them to Young Master Shen. How was it that some people could be born into nothing but wealth, comfort, and luxury, while others had to suffer the burden of their existence? Why did Young Master Shen get the banquet halls, the expensive robes, the handsome Crown Prince fiance while Shen Jiu got beaten, used, and thrown away?

Shen Jiu decided with the taking of his surname that he would usurp all that Young Master Shen had for himself. Why not? Had Young Master Shen done anything to deserve his privilege? Would anything Shen Jiu do make him undeserving of that same privilege, more undeserving than Young Master Shen?

That was the bit of the story that got Shen Yuan hooked.

The rest of the comic, unfortunately, was seemingly dedicated to undermining all the murky ethics and tangled potentiality of that single bit. After the reveal of Shen Jiu's true nature (in chapter three--that should've been Shen Yuan's first clue that the pacing was going to fail him), the narrative quickly devolved into recycled harem dynamics and tired romance tropes. Poor Shen Jiu was given nothing but a few ominous panels of him smirking past a veil of tears, and Young Master Shen was nothing more than an automaton set to rinse and repeat Humiliation Plot A, B, or C, and get humiliated in turn by a member of Shen Jiu's sparkly boy-harem following a timely rescue of Shen Jiu from that plot.

To say that Shen Yuan had been disappointed would be an understatement.

But that didn't mean Shen Yuan wanted to be transported into this story and take the place of Young Master Shen, way past the point in the story where he'd invoked Shen Jiu's ceaseless retribution. He had actually always rooted for Shen Jiu; as a fuerdai himself, Shen Yuan had been morbidly invested in Shen Jiu's plot to yank this Young Master Shen from his high horse and drag his body three times around the city walls to boot. It was far from sainthood but would it have been wrong? Shen Yuan wanted to know.

...He wanted to know a little less, now that it was his metaphorical corpse on the line. Or perhaps real corpse--there had been a line implying Young Master Shen's suicide at the end of the comic. Forgive Shen Yuan if he wasn't so keen on fulfilling the role of Shen Jiu's punching bag.

So what was he to do? Assuming the worst, Shen Jiu had the protagonist halo and Shen Yuan couldn't just be rid of him. Hug his thighs? No no, from what Shen Yuan knew of Shen Jiu's backstory, their dark protagonist was a hundred percent the type to take every advantage he could from Shen Yuan's capitulation. What Shen Jiu wanted wasn't just the riches, after all, but Young Master Shen's psychological destruction. The moment Shen Yuan started begging for mercy, Shen Jiu wouldn't let him stop.

That left only one option: play Shen Jiu's game all while not worsening Shen Jiu's resentment toward him until he could convince Shen Jiu that destroying Young Master Shen wasn't what he truly wanted. That had to be it, right? Yeah yeah, he may have to take some pain to absolve Shen Jiu's old and frankly warranted grudge (stupid cocky Young Master Shen--couldn't he have just bought and freed Xiao Jiu and called it a day?!), but surely at the end of it all, Shen Jiu's character arc was about building his own life back up from ashes and finding true emotional fulfillment? And romantic love? He had all those pretty-boys dancing around for his attention after all.

All Shen Yuan had to do was ensure Shen Jiu proceeded down that narrative path, and maybe squirrel away a rainy day fund he could take on the run, just in case his father's trade empire truly had to collapse. Shen Yuan hardly needed ivory and marble. A nice little house with all the necessities for life would do.

His mind made up, Shen Yuan stood with a self-affirming nod. Ming Fan immediately clapped his hands.

"Bring them in!"

Servants swarmed with five sets of luxurious designer robes, dripping in rich colors with jewelry in jade and precious metals to match. Shen Yuan blinked, and blinked some more.

Ming Fan, reading his hesitation as dissatisfaction, quickly explained, "that damn sewing house wasn't able to finish the vermillion one in time tonight, but they assure it will be ready in time for the imperial banquet. Would Young Master like me to go 'persuade' them to work faster? That vermillion truly was amazing on Young Master--"

"No, Ming Fan, these will be fine," Shen Yuan absently interrupted. He'd zoned out for the majority of Ming Fan's explanation as to what these outfits were even for, but Shen Yuan had enough context clues to guess he was prepping for a banquet. Hang on, a vermillion designer gown unfinished for some reason? Oh, this must be the banquet where--

Shen Yuan considered the options before him with a little more intent. He thought about color theory. And symbolism.

"The white one with the pale green," he decided. The servants holding the pieces he did not choose quickly filed out, leaving only the garment that Ming Fan was now lifting.

"Excellent choice, Young Master," Ming Fan gushed, smoothing a hand over the fabric and bringing jade piece after jade piece up against it. There was a jade-handle paper fan among the accessories and Shen Yuan picked it up, intrigued. "Young Master will look like a veritable--"

"White lotus?"

Ming Fan nodded enthusiastically, and Shen Yuan hid a chuckle behind the fan. Well. His end goal was Shen Jiu's absolution and happiness, but it didn't mean he couldn't have some fun with irony on the way there.

[dedfa]

Hi there this may be inappropriate to ask and please understand I only ask this because I really love this story. But I was wondering if you are the individual who wrote it's a small universe. If so I just wanted to express my gratitude because Mike and mickal and Jane and hunu and even unnamed octopus guy are some of my most favorite characters ever and the story you wrote despite being short is one of my favorite stories I have red. ever. Period. I reread a chapter or two every month and on nights I can't sleep I'll reread the whole thing. I have also made countless fan arts of all the characters! But to get to the point I was wondering if it is abandoned? I understand that fics get abandoned all the time and that's fine I was just hoping for a definitive conclusion on that. If it is I was hoping if it would be ok to ask for one small favor. I want to know how mikes mom reacted to her new grandbabies. If it's not abandoned and is just on a indefinite hiatus then AWESOME! You have at least one obsessed fan ready for the moment you post a new chapter! I totally understand not wanting to work on something for a long time. I ask you this now because ordinarily I just leave the fic open as a tab on my phone and computer but I recently got a new phone and I had to look for it way harder and noticed it has a lock which makes me a bit worried haha! I'm sorry about my rant and hopefully you are the right person if not I'm sorry for sending this but if you are than I just wanted you to know how much I love this story and how much it has impacted me. Thanks!

I am the one who wrote it! It makes me so happy how much people have loved this story. Unfortunately I don't know if I'll ever get back to it, life has been so crazy for me sometimes looking back at it feels like I was someone else completely when I wrote it

(It got locked because of the AI scraping)

Mike's mother was ecstatic to meet her grandchildren and travels out to meet up with them to do the most over the top photo shoots with costumes and props. She carries the pictures everywhere that she will whip out of her wallet to show anyone if they so much as make eye contact too long. She has also face punched several people who made comments about their species in a negative way because she's 'old enough to get away with it'.

She's really proud of her children and the weird alien messes they get into and has her own entry in the human guide as an illustration about how human mothers without juvenile offspring tend to aggressively care for anyone and anything that looks mildly sad around them.

[pengychan]

[Baldur's Gate III] Hell to Pay, Ch. 3

Illustration by @raphaels-little-beast

Title: Hell to Pay Summary: Assassinating an archdevil is a daunting task, even for the heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Some inside help from ‘the devil they know’ would be good, if not for the detail their last meeting ended with said devil dead in his own home. Or did it? Characters: Raphael, the Dark Urge, Astarion, Haarlep, Halsin, Karlach, Wyll. Rating: M Status: In progress

All chapters will be tagged as ‘hell to pay’ on my blog. Also on Ao3.

*** Raphael is having a bad time. Raphael will keep having a bad time for the foreseeable future. ***

For three days and as many nights, Raphael remained, to put it kindly, asleep. To put it more bluntly, he was unconscious as a rock.  

He didn’t stir when Isobel cast healing spell after healing spell, shattered bones slowly mending, gaping wounds closing at a snail's pace, nor did he stir when his bandages were changed daily. He didn’t stir with healing potions were poured down his throat, along with honey, water and some broth to make sure he wouldn’t starve before waking up. 

He didn’t even stir when an especially kind-hearted maid took it upon herself to bring warm water, scissors and a comb into the room to do something about the mess of blood and matted hair on the cambion’s head.

“I’d have taken care of it quicker, if you let me slice his entire head off,” Dame Aylin said, watching the maid leave with the small basin now full of bloody water. She was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed as she stared at Raphael. As always, he remained unconscious, but he no longer looked like he had some sort of butchered mammal on top of his head. An improvement, that. “Or crush it as I crushed Ketheric Thorm’s.”

“Now that’s something I’d love to watch,” Astarion replied, and Durge was suddenly rather glad they had decided to stay in the room, before those two got carried away and did something that they would… well, no, they probably wouldn’t regret it. It wasn’t like Durge would cry a river over it, either. 

But in the back of their mind there was the unyielding grasp of Bhaal over his soul as he tried to extinguish their life, and Raphael’s broken body as Mephistopheles prepared to devour him. One had been a sensation, the other an image, and now they were mingling in their mind and their dreams until they couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. 

“If he tries anything,” they had finally said, “you’re very welcome to have his head.”

“And mount it on the wall,” Astarion suggested, just as Aylin scoffed.

“Of course he’ll try something. He’s a devil.”

“Not anymore, if my theory is correct.”

“That’s a big if, my love.”

“Well, there is a precedent,” Durge replied, and felt just a touch smug when neither Astarion nor Aylin had anything to retort to that.

It had taken them some time to recall any details - so many of their memories from before remained vague - but they did recall learning of something similar having occurred once… and to another son of Mephistopheles no less. It had been Art Cullagh, still fading away in his bed but more peaceful than ever, to provide the missing pieces once Durge had visited him and told him about the situation. 

“Ah,” he had said, smiling faintly. “It seems I can help you, after all. I fear I may have been trapped in shadows at the time, but a bard who came a couple of months ago wrote half a ballad about it. The cambion you’re thinking of was called Magadon Kest.”

As it often happened, the one bit of information was all that was needed to unlock more from the back of their still damaged mind. Yes, Durge had indeed read that name before, as they learned all they could about Mephistopheles and Cania, preparing to steal the Crown of Karsus from the archdevil’s vault.

Magadon, himself a son of Mephistopheles, had his soul torn in half by his own father. Mephistopheles had only released his son’s devilish side, keeping his human side hostage until a friend of Magadon fulfilled a bargain at the cost of his own life. It seemed a fate similar, if opposite, had befallen Raphael. His soul was ripped in half, much like Magadon’s, but it had been the human half that got away. Still…

“What would Mephistopheles do with half of Raphael’s soul?” they’d asked aloud.

Art had laughed. “Ah, my friend,” he’d said. “You’re asking too much of a humble soldier.”

Durge had left the room with at least one answer, but even more questions. Whether or not Raphael would be willing or able to answer them remained to be seen, but until he woke up--

“I hope you appreciate,” Aylin spoke up, snapping Durge from their thoughts, “that I am probably the first aasimar to ever stand in the same room as a cambion and not run a blade through his rotten heart. And I’m holding back for your sake.”

“I truly do appreciate--”

“I am barely holding back for your sake.”

“... Perhaps it would be best for you to leave the room? Isobel has been working really hard to heal him. It would be a shame to undo all her work,” Durge added, and Aylin snorted a laugh.

“Hah! Using the love of my life against me, I see. That is a low blow.”

“Well, I’m no Paladin,” Durge grinned, all fangs, and Aylin raised an eyebrow. Durge shrugged. “Well, if nothing else, he was the reason why nearly all of Shar’s worshippers in the Gauntlet were butchered. He didn’t necessarily work against us.”

“He certainly didn’t have them butchered for my sake. But yes, point taken. Loath as I am to say so, he unintentionally did me a favor. My imprisonment was a dark enough time without Sharrans coming to plunge their spear into my heart time and time again.”

“... I can’t imagine what that was like.”

“I think I can,” Astarion muttered, his voice a bit too light not to guess there was something else beneath - more understanding than he’d have liked, probably. Aylin nodded.

“... Yes, I know you can. Horrible of me to say, but it helps to know someone who understands,” Aylin was saying, her voice low. Her expression had turned dark, a distant cast to her eyes, then she seemed to shake something off and stepped towards the door, the ever-present armor clinking. “... I believe I’ll stand in the sun for a while. I did not miss sunlight as much as I missed the caress of moonlight, but I did yearn for it all the same.”

“Yes, I think I can imagine that too,” Astarion quipped, and Aylin froze in her tracks. 

“By the Moonmaiden, I did not mean to-- I did not think before speaking, Astarion. I do apologize.”

A smile could hide a great many things, especially on Astarion’s face, but Durge had grown to know him too well not to see it - the painful resentment over the fact Aylin got, at last, to stand in the sun. His own taste of sunlight after two centuries had been brief, and despite their travels since he and Durge had yet to find a solution that would let him walk freely in the sun once more. They had been happy travels - they were happy - but no happiness is without some clouds, and this was theirs.

And it was enough for Durge to speak to Gale, quickly and in private, before leaving their small gathering. If anyone could find a solution, they’d reasoned, it was Gale of Waterdeep - but at the same time, they were not quite confident enough to get Astarion’s hopes up. Gale had seemed plenty confident for both of them that he could work something out, but-- well, it was Gale being Gale. Earnest, kind, but more than a little overconfident. 

Yet he had good reason to be confident, most times, so Durge remained somewhat hopeful. 

Unaware of their thoughts, Astarion shook his head. “Don’t apologize for enjoying all you can. Never. I know I am giving no apologies whatsoever.”

“... Very well. I am sure your quest will bear fruit, and I look forward to the day we both can stand in the sun. Until then, may the Moonmaiden always watch over you.”

“I, ah, I really rather hope she doesn’t. Not all the time. Some nighttime activities can be quite a private thing, you understand,” he replied, and Aylin laughed. 

“The Moonmaiden is maiden in title only, rest assured. She will not blush,” she added, and gave Astarion’s shoulder a friendly nudge before leaving the room. Astarion made a face, rubbing said shoulder. 

“If that’s what her friendly nudges are like, I’m happy we were never enemies. I’m also happy for her timing in leaving, really,” he added, tilting his head towards the bed. The groan reached Durge’s ears the next instant. 

“Uhnnn…”

Ah, there he was. Durge turned to see Raphael stir under the blankets, and his features twist in discomfort before he finally blinked his eyes open. They were vaguely aware of Astarion slipping a hand closer to the hilt of his dagger, and they did prepare to cast if need be… but most of their attention remained focused on Raphael’s face as he blinked his surroundings into focus, frowned, and tried to sit up.

With somewhat predictable results, given that something like half his bones had not yet finished healing.

“AGH!”

Raphael let out a cry and fell back against the pillow, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed shut.  The hand Durge had been holding up to cast a spell if needed went to grab a potion on the nightstand. 

“Drink this. It serves to dull the pain, or so I’m told.”

Raphael’s eyes snapped open, and turned to them for the first time. His features twisted, and his breath seemed to catch before he spoke, slowly, voice hoarse. He didn’t even look at the potion Durge was handing to him.

“... Haarlep?”

Ah. “Er…”

“Oh dear, I really hope not,” Astarion commented, nudging Durge’s arm with an elbow. “Or I’ll have to ask for last night back. And then kill you.”

It was Astarion’s presence, more than Durge’s hesitation, that made Raphael realize it was definitely not his incubus sitting by the side of his bed. He bared his teeth in a growl and tried to stand again, but this time Durge was ready. A scroll of Hold Person and Raphael was pinned back, immobile and none too pleased about it… but at least spared the indignity of falling onto the floor in a heap of bandaged limbs. For now. He was not very grateful about it.

“You-- release me right this instant!”

“Would I get something in return?”

“The overly generous chance to run ,” Raphael seethed, either entirely unaware of his current predicament or very, very deep in denial. Durge raised an eyebrow and tapped their chin with a finger, pretending to consider. Astarion grinned.

“I for one would love to watch him try to crawl after us,” he said, and Durge entertained the mental image for just a moment or two more than necessary before they spoke. 

“A tempting deal,” they said instead. “I’m almost sorry to turn it down.”

A scoff, full of contempt. “Of course, that’s what you do, isn’t it?” Raphael snapped. “Turn down perfectly good deals, proposed in perfectly good faith, to sneak behind my back and steal from me like the rat you are.”

Durge decided to choose another moment to breach the subject of their very different ideas of perfectly good faith. “I thought I was a mouse.”

“What you are is a wretched creature I’ll very much enjoy crushing under my heel.”

“Didn’t work too well last time, did it now?” Astarion asked, tilting his head. “And you still had powers then. I don’t fancy your chances now, as much as I’d love to see you try.”

“What…?” That gave Raphael pause, for a moment, and his eyes darted away from the two of them, across the room, to pause on the collection of emptied bottles that had once contained healing potions, on the rolls of clean bandages waiting to be used. He stared for several moments, as though not comprehending, and Durge turned to Astarion. 

“Might be the right moment to let Halsin know he’s awake. No need for him to come in, just make him and Isobel aware. Discreetly.”

“Oh, please. Discreet is my middle name,” Astarion said. “And if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to get me out of this room.”

“I am trying to get you out of this room.”

Astarion squinted. “... You’re not actually his incubus, are you?”

“Not last I checked,” Durge replied, and Astarion chuckled before standing with a dramatic sigh.

“Very well. I will go, like an exile, to bear your message while you’re up here having all the fun. ”

Durge suspected they were not going to have any fun in that room - the part of them that enjoyed others’ plight had been mostly snuffed out when Bhaal had tried to kill them, it seemed - but they just snorted. “How dramatic.”

“Dramatic, me? Perish the thought,” Astarion sighed, but did squeeze their shoulder in a silent reminder - if anything happens, shout - before he left the room and headed downstairs, looking for Halsin.

***

“Look, soldier, I think this is a bad idea.”

“A courtly dance is never a bad idea.”

“I stepped on your foot something like seven times, and I’m no lightweight.”

“It was only five.”

“No, it was not.”

“Five and a half,” Wyll retorted, and Karlach snorted out a laugh. 

“How the fuck does one step on a foot half a time?”

Wyll smiled, and twirled under her arm before pulling away, still holding onto her hand. “By getting better.”

“I dance like a bear.” Still, Karlach pulled him back and followed his lead again, trying to match his steps. It wasn’t often that they got some time to breathe in Avernus, with both demons and devils sent by Zariel to deal with, one wave after the other - but sometimes they could take a break and gods, it was nice. It was great. It made her stupid giddy and she got to really pause and see Wyll smile, which was a relief. She worried many times that he’d come to regret this, coming to Avernus with her, and she was ready to let him go if he decided he wanted to return to the material plane instead.

But he never did. And he never seemed to regret being there, which blew Karlach’s mind and probably would have done something to her heart, too, if she still had her own beating in her chest.

“No, you do not,” Wyll was saying, pressing a palm against hers and guiding her into a slow, circular motion. “I’ve seen a bear dance, and you’re far more graceful.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Halsin drunk on fermented fruit counts as seeing a bear dance. He just stumbled around and flattened Jaheira’s tent.”

“... I have seen another bear dance,” Wyll muttered, and Karlach laughed again. It still seemed so odd to hear her own laughter echoing in the hot, sulfurous air of Avernus. In the ten years she had been there before, she hardly had any chances to laugh. Now there were so many more, and she treasured each of them. 

“Well, I’m your only available dance partner, so I’ll try to get better,” she promised.

Least I could do. You came to live in Hell for me.

Unaware of her thoughts, Wyll smiled. “You’re already getting much bett--” he began, only to trail off when something reached them both - a smell of sulfur stronger than what usually surrounded them, the very air around them seeming to grow thicker.

A devil was coming.

They broke apart without the need to exchange more than a glance; their weapons were never far from their reach, and within seconds Karlach was holding up her greataxe, Wyll had unsheathed his rapier. 

But they wouldn’t use their weapons now, however much Karlach would have liked to. 

“Oh dear, pet. It seems I’ll need to start sending a message before I show up, before you greet me with a blade through the chest,” an all too familiar voice rang out, as the figure before them stretched her wings. “It would be most inconvenient.”

Ugh. Mizora.

Karlach bit back a comment or two about where she wanted to shove her axe - her chest not being her first choice - and let Wyll speak. He was not pleased to see her, he never would be, but in his own words she had given him with a loose leash, and he was keen on keeping things that way. Angering her needlessly would work against them. 

“Mizora. I assume you have a new mission for me?”

A smile, insufferable as always. “That I do! A big one. You see, my pet, you’ve been giving me a bit of a headache. I feel it’s time to solve the problem at the root before you become a liability, don’t you think?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Karlach snapped, hands itching to wrap around MIzora’s neck. Fingers around the neck, thumbs on her throat. Shake and squeeze. Oh, wouldn’t that feel good. “Wyll has done everything you’ve asked of him!”

A dismissive wave of a hand. “Yes, and he has been so very effective. I have no complaints. And he’s been also busy helping you keep Zariel’s forces at bay, so that you’re not, um, recruited again. I am sure you know that, with the Netherbrain taken care of, Zariel is more keen than ever to have you back in her ranks. Or, if you won’t go back, to have your head on a pike. It discourages deserters, you see.”

Wyll stepped forward. “I will not return her to Zariel,” he spoke. “I’ll let you destroy my soul before--”

“Wyll, no. I can’t let you--”

“Oh, please, spare me the moving and noble self-sacrifice, both of you,” Mizora cut them off. “That is not my mission. Although, you see, Wyll’s continued aid of you has not gone unnoticed. And this puts me, as his patron, on a tight spot.”

Wyll blinked, staring at her, and hesitated for a moment before he spoke. “... Does Zariel know…?”

“That you’re a warlock? Yes. Does she know whose warlock?” Mizora smiled. “She does not. She knows I am patron to warlocks, as many devils are, but most of their identities are unknown to her. She was never curious enough to check. But now oh, she is very interested in finding out who your patron is. And she will, eventually, if given enough time. Once she does… I’m sure you can imagine, she will not be very happy with me. Allowing you to run amok in Avernus, turning a blind eye to your continued assistance of a fugitive. Even if I had you turn her in now-- ”

“I would never--”

“Forget your noble soul for a moment and pretend you would. Zariel still  would not be pleased that, for all this time, I let my own warlock stand between her and her prey. See, this is where our interests align quite conveniently. So, your mission.” Mizora waved her hand, and wisps of smoke gathered to show a face Karlach knew and despised - archdevil Zariel’s.

“I know of your little plan to break in her foundry and find a way to fix the tin can in your chest, Karlach, so that it may allow you to live in the material plane. It is not a bad plan. I think it has fairly good chances to work. However, Zariel will keep chasing you even there. You know she will. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a permanent solution? For all of us?"

Karlach laughed. “Yeah, right. The only permanent solution would be to take Zariel herself out, and that is… that would be…” A pause. Mizora smiled. Karlach gaped. “... Wait. What , are you seriously…?”

As she stammered, Mizora’s smile widened. A swipe of her hand, and the smokey likeness of Zariel was gone. “Ah,” she muttered. “I always thought you were smarter than you look.”

***

For what felt like a long time, but was probably about a minute, Raphael could only stare at his surroundings. He looked at the bandages and healing potions no devil would ever need in such amounts to recover; he took note of his every broken bone, of the empty chasm aching cold within him, and let the implications sink in. 

It was no graceful sinking, no gentle descent under the waves in cold and silence: it felt more like the crashing of the floating cities of the Netheril Empire, stone hitting stone, bodies and buildings alike shattering into a fine mist. The people in those cities had seen the ground rushing up to meet them, and screamed and prayed and hoped, somehow, for a miracle to save them at the last moment. Closing their eyes, praying they’d open them to find it had all been a dream.

He’d thought it pathetic then, and he thought it pathetic now. The line between hope and denial, Raphael had always found, was extremely thin. He’d always despised both; he wouldn’t lower himself to resort to either now.

So he set his jaw, breathed out, and spoke with his gaze fixed on the ceiling. 

“I suppose,” he snapped, “that you have come to gloat.”

“... No, I have not. I did not come here expecting to find you. 

“Where am I?”

“The Last Light Inn. Someone who looked like me took you here. I can only assume it was Haarlep.”

“Ah, yes. Haarlep.” Raphael sneered. “You came into my home, stole from me, bedded my personal incubus--”

“That wasn’t planned, I just needed the information--”

“-- killed me in my own home--”

“Didn’t kill you very dead, by the looks of it.” The rat leaned in to look at him more closely, and Raphael wished more than anything that he could move, that he had any power to burn that inquisitive look off their scaly face. “And believe me, I usually know how to kill someone very dead. But you know that. You knew from the start what I was, didn’t you?”

A scoff. “Who do you take me for? However poor Bhaal’s choice was, of course I’d know the face of the Chosen Bhaalspawn.”

“Former. My father himself killed off that part of me, though I cannot say that was his plan. What yours did, on the other hand, seems far more deliberate.”

The sneer on Raphael’s lips froze, and even the idea of burning off that creature’s odious face lost its appeal. He set his jaw, and swallowed before he spoke again. It felt like trying to force words out through a mouthful of ashes. 

“What do you know of what Mephistopheles did?”

A shrug. “I don’t know for a fact what he did to you. But I know he had you in his grasp after we supposedly killed you - saw it in an orb of Infernal Envisioning first, and then in your mind. I know there is every indication your devilish powers are no more. And I know what he did to one of your half-brothers, once. How he tore his soul in two and only let him retain the devilish part of it.”

So, they knew of Magadon. Of course they did. For someone who had their cranium cracked open and brain skewered with a knife, the-- little mouse -- accursed rat knew an annoying array of things.

“And I can guess,” they were adding, still looking him in the eye, “that the half I am speaking to right now is the human one. Isn’t it?”

The empty nothing at his core ached, but Raphael refused to acknowledge it and forced the sneer back on his face. “What a display of obvious conclusions drawn from well known facts. Utterly mediocre, yet impressive coming from you.”

“That’s a long-winded way to admit you’re mortal, then?”

“Listen here, pipsque--” Raphael snapped, and instinctively tried to sit up just as the spell that kept him still waned. It took less than half a second for white-hot pain to shoot up his spine, sink its claws in his side, and replace what remained of the bones in his legs with shards of glass. He let out a strangled, utterly undignified cry, and fell back on the mattress in a shuddering, sweaty mass of agony, everything around him growing distant and dark. He dimly felt a hand cradling the back of his head, felt something being pressed against his lips, then there was liquid in his mouth and he realized he was thirsty, too, mouth parched dry as the Calim Desert. 

He drank, and the pain subsided almost immediately, turning into a more distant and bearable ache; the darkness retreated, his vision cleared, and his head was leaned back on the pillow. 

“Don’t move. The healing process is slow. You’re still severely injured.”

There was a harsh sound that could have been a laugh; Raphael realized only after a few moments that it had come from him. “What-- do you think you’re doing, little mouse?” he managed, turning to look at them. They still had the empty bottle in their hand. “You think it best to get me back on my feet before you try again to kill me very dead, don’t you? Makes it feel more fair, doesn't it? Like you’re giving me a fair chance.”

A scoff. “I have no intention to kill you, unless you give me reason.”

“Since when,” he sneered, “does the Chosen Bhaalspawn need reason to kill?”

“Since they defied Bhaal and lived to tell the tale,” they replied, unblinking and, most annoyingly, seemingly unimpressed.

“You tried to murder me before.”

“You left me no choice. You made sure our only way out would be through you. I did what I had to do.”

“You could have taken the deal, and received the hammer from my own hands!”

“On conditions I could not accept.”

“I’d have dealt with you fairly. I held my half of the bargain with the vampire spawn, didn’t I?”

“You’ll admit that taking down an orthon is several steps removed from handing you a crown with the power to conquer all nine Hells.”

Raphael didn’t tell them he’d walk back into Mephistopheles’ maw before he lowered himself to admitting a thing to them, but he rather hoped his glare was enough to convey the message. The rat just shrugged. 

“We had no reason to believe you’d have stopped at ruling the nine Hells.”

“It was in the contract, you imbecile! Infernal contracts are binding, even the lowest lemure would know--”

“Ah, yes,” was the deadpan reply. “The contract written in a language I don’t understand, which I got to see for all of thirty seconds. The devil’s in the details, as you said yourself, and one should always check the fine print. Yet you were careful to ensure we could not check that fine print. Or any print at all. It was nowhere as subtle as you thought it was.”

Raphael ground his teeth. Everything about the being before him infuriated him, and at the moment the most aggravating part was that they were correct. Of course they were correct. I will remain within the borders of my kingdom means nothing when no clearer definition of the kingdom’s borders is set and you see any Plane within reach as rightfully yours.

“Either way,” the rat went on, “I’d have gladly resolved it with no violence. You acted much too rashly.”

It wasn’t often that Raphael was left speechless - it was, truth be told, an extremely rare occurrence - but this was one such time. The sheer scale of the idiocy on display left him struggling for words. “Rashly!” he finally barked out, and tried again to sit up. Pain flared, and he fell back with a groan. “That’s-- rashly! The rat who tried to steal in the house of a devil thinks I was rash!” A laugh, even as his ribs ached. What kind of nonsense was this? Was he still in Cania, perhaps, unconscious, hallucinating? He had to be. This made no sense.

A huff. “No more rash than signing a contract I couldn’t read,” the rat muttered. “And besides, our interests aligned. Killing us there would have meant letting the Netherbrain win, which would have meant no more souls for you in turn. I have it on good authority that Mindflayers make terrible clients. What was your plan to deal with that once you’d destroyed us?”

There had been no plan, of course. Only the fury of knowing the perplexing, aggravating, and aggravatingly perplexing mortals he’d thought he had finally reeled into his net were robbing him. That if word got out that he had thieves in his own house he’d be the joke of Avernus and perhaps of Cania, where few at his father’s court would pass up a chance to have a laugh of his expenses. 

Devils of Cania were always delighted to see a whelp of Mephistopheles fail.

Raphael’s features twisted, and he turned away, to the window. He could see the sky, hear the sound of leaves rustling in the wind and… chattering children. Wonderful, simply wonderful. One of the things he hated most. All that was missing now was a litter of kittens under the bed, and his torment would be complete. 

“I assume,” he finally ground out, “that you put the hammer to use.”

“... That we did. It gave us the means to free Orpheus and take on the Netherbrain.”

“I’m amazed you found it in you to defy the Emperor. I’m sure it didn’t take it well.”

A sigh. “Sure didn’t. The Emperor was no more willing than you were to compromise. Just as unnecessarily, I might add. We needed not stop being allies, but his mind was set. He made his call, and we made ours.”

“Ah, I see. So you killed it, too?”

“We lost sight of the Emperor when we went to strike down the Brain. I don’t know what became of him afterwards.” A pause, then, “I was always told that killing a devil in their home - in the Hells - means killing them for good. How did you survive?”

Still looking at the annoyingly bright sky, Raphael snorted. “I have a couple of guesses, neither of which I am interested in sharing with you.”

“Fair enough. I suppose I’ll get the same answer if I ask how you fled Mephistopheles’ wrath?”

That was a more difficult question, and frustrating in the sense that Raphael knew and did not know the answer. He knew how he got out of Cania; he knew who took him there. What he did not know was why. Someone who was not Haarlep and certainly not the debtor who’d given him the ring must have orchestrated his escape, and no one in Hell ever did anything out of the kindness of their heart. But what could anyone want from him now that he was less than half of what he once was - weak, near powerless, mortal ?

I am reduced to nothing, Raphael thought, the empty space somewhere at his core colder than his father’s frozen throne. Half of nothing. 

What value did he have to anyone, what reason would there be to risk Mephistopheles’ wrath to keep him alive? He had no answer to any of those questions, and it ate at him. But surely, his mysterious savior would appear, eventually, explain, and maybe work out an agreement that may satisfy them both. Maybe the half of his soul Mephistopheles had ripped away was not lost; if Magadon could recover his lost half, then by the nine Hells so could he. 

Unless, of course, no one came. No savior, no answer, no deals. Only unanswered questions and a lifetime, a mortal lifetime, of powerlessness. A blink of an eye, and it would be all over. Ashes and dust, a name for Jergal’s archives and nothing more. He’d die. He’d grow old and even frailer, and then die. He was slowly dying right now.

“... Raphael?” the rat spoke, and he ground his teeth against his own growing dread. 

“Yes,” he finally snapped, without turning. He squeezes his eyes shut against the light coming from the window. “You’ll get the same answer. Spare yourself the effort to ask, and me the aggravation of listening to your voice.”

A pause, and finally he heard them stand, making floorboards creak. “Very well. I’ll let you rest. Isobel will be here to check on you, and I suggest you don’t anger her. Or the aasimar bound to her. Especially do not anger Dame Aylin, come to think of it.” 

Ah, yes, the aasimar. Brilliant. This just kept getting better. 

For just a moment, the thought - it may be more dignified to let the aasimar end me now - crossed his mind, but he forced himself to push it down. No - no. This was not him. He did not fail. He did not fall. This was a setback, that was all. There had to be a way to reclaim the other half of his soul, and by all the reeking Hells he’d find it. He’d take it back, take it all back, and he’d visit revenge upon his enemies such as the material plane had never seen.

But until then… until then, he had to bid his time. Survive. Recover. Plan. Even mortals were not entirely powerless, as the infuriating being by his bedside and their companions proved. He would pull together every scrap of strength and power he could still wield, until he could use it. And if that meant having to go along with whatever game the rat was playing, very well. He could do that, and wait for the right moment to sink a blade in their back.

Two of them could play that game.

“I can bring you something to read, if you want,” the rat was saying, and Raphael almost scowled before he got a grip on himself. If he was to play a part, he may as well start now. So he turned, looked at them, and forced himself to keep his voice even. No need to sound overly grateful, it wouldn’t be believable, but begrudging acceptance could be a start.

“... I would appreciate that.”

A nod, and they turned to leave. Raphael stared at their retreating back, trying to imagine what breaking their spine would feel like, then called out. “I know what your name is. The real one. If you’d like to know.”

A pause in their stride, a hand already on the door handle. “And I suppose you want something in return.”

He could reply he wanted nothing, but again, it wouldn’t be believable. “If this place has any decent red wine,” he said, “I’ll take a goblet of that in exchange, as soon as I can sit up to drink it properly.”

A chuckle and then, without turning, they shook their head. “I’ll get you the wine if the healer approves, but I need nothing Bhaal gave me. My true family calls me Durge. It will suffice.”

Well. That was a bit too much for Raphael not to comment on. “That’s the most idiotic name I ever heard,” he muttered, and got a laugh in return. 

“Oh, it is a rather stupid name. Gale meant it as a joke, I believe. But it is mine,” Durge replied, and left the room without another word.

***

“I think,” Wyll said, after a very long silence, still staring at the spot where Mizora had been standing until mere minutes earlier, “that we’re going to need some help.”

“No shit,” Karlach muttered, and lit herself another cigar.

***

[Back to Chapter 2]

[On to Chapter 4]

[Back to Start]

[evenmoreacid]

[Source]

The creators of dhmis take five screenshots (one from each episode of the TV show) and explain the thought process behind them :)

There’s something quite unnerving about a lot of kids TV shows, whether that be the larger than life primary coloured creatures, the bizarrely off-kilter humour, or the often inexplicably surreal scenarios the characters find themselves in. And it’s precisely this premise that Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared takes and runs with.

Helmed by creators Becky Sloan, Joseph Pelling and Baker Terry – who also voice some of the puppets – the darkly comedic show first launched as a YouTube series back in 2011. Taking a satirically educational-cum-existential nightmare format, the short episodes quickly garnered a cult following. Starring Yellow Guy, Red Guy and Duck as the main puppet protagonists, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared juxtaposes the apparent innocence of colourful kids TV with fever-dream horror, often switching between the two with hilariously unsettling rapidity.

Fast forward to now – over a decade since the show first etched itself into our minds – and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is back with a whole Channel 4 series. Expanding on the YouTube shorts, the six half-hour-long episodes amp up the charmingly unhinged reality and surreal situations that Yellow Guy, Red Guy and Duck find themselves in, learning about everything from jobs to family, death and more. Think Sesame Street as a warped acid-trip with a healthy dose of Cronenberg-tinged visceral body horror.

With the new Channel 4 season out now, Sloan, Pelling and Terry talk us through a series of snapshots from the series, giving some behind-the-scenes insights into the creation and incredibly crafted detail of the cult series. Read on for easter eggs, filming techniques and some, er, interesting fan art.

1.

Jobs

Joseph Pelling: Even though this is the first image we’re going to talk about, it’s probably the last thing we shot. Some of these more stylistic images, where you have the backgrounds become graphic flat backgrounds, we shot them using back projection. Which is fun, because it’s quite an old-school technique but it fits. It’s very theatrical and doesn’t lend itself to realism in any way. So for us, it’s a perfect tool because we were lucky to be working with this format where things don’t need to look real.

Becky Sloan: These bits are probably one of the funnest bits about the show. It’s a chance to dive into these other worlds and other styles. You can go into any different medium – 2D animation, CGI – and be really playful with it.

JP: This is probably too technical, but we did this interesting thing where we had to whip pan into the shots. Because the sets didn’t exist past the size of the screen, we lit the screens with back projection as this illustration. We also had printouts of that same illustration in the foreground in front of the characters so that when you whipped over them, you’ve got this kind of motion blur, in camera, of the same image, but in the foreground. You can use it to extend the set and that kind of in camera Gondry style, [which] is the kind of stuff that we love. We always try to do as much of that as we can even if you can tell it’s quite shonky and fake. It adds to the weird handmade-ness.

BS: The ties they’re wearing all match the colours of the characters, which is pretty cool. The art director went out of their way to do that, which is a nice touch.

2.

Death

BS: Me and Baker were on this set, because we have two sets up and running at the same time. We got really carried away dressing the set with loads and loads of fake silicone meat. Joe was on the other set and I remember hearing Joe over the walkie talkie saying, “We need to rein in the meat”. We were putting it everywhere – on the clocks, on the walls. This image was where we ended up, we needed to actually make it look like they’re cooking a shepherd’s pie not like they’ve like murdered someone in their kitchen.

JP: This was the end of the shepherd’s pie We‘ve Got to Get Things Ready song. Which was a fun sequence in terms of it being a bit in the episode where it’s not necessarily descending into something dark like in other songs or veering off into something more strange… but just becoming more stupid.

BS: That shot made me think of a typical last minute thing with the art department where we were like, “We need two chef hats quick, go find some! Or make one right now in five minutes”. There’s always so much stuff like that – where we forget what we need for a scene or think of stuff on the spot. We were shooting in a studio at Canada Water so luckily there were some nearby shops for people to go out on a mission to find all these random things we added to the list.

JP: I remember when we first started making these. Before we had a whole crew, we’d have maybe one person helping and everything had to be made prior to the shoot because obviously you spend your entire time on set just just trying to film it and puppeteer it. With this, half the stuff that actually needed to be made was being made in tandem with the shoot so we had this amazing workshop of of props and puppets being made right down to the wire.

BS: Every time the art department would be like, “Okay, we’re almost done”, it was a massive to do list and then never-ending stuff kept getting added to it. I remember being like, “We need peas! Punched out some felt peas and carrots”. “How many?” “I don’t know 100 peas?”. It’s quite mad on set.

3.

Family

JP: As an image this sums up some of the scenes across the series where we had to write dialogue and build up character between the three guys. In contrast to the previous two images, we couldn’t just rely on loads of prop based or visual jokes or adding in lots of things, because it’s just too many props. We had to try and write some quite nice weird little claustrophobic scenes. I like this scene where they’re discussing their own TV show, and then Duck comes in and does the three guesses thing. It makes you feel that they have a really horrible dynamic.

BS: It’s nice that every episode starts in that way. A bit of calm before all the chaos, like a typical kid show. The sky outside the windows is real, it’s all in camera in case anyone was wondering. The fridge is riddled with Easter Eggs.

JP: Mainly, it’s just a nice moment between them. And that sets up the theme of the episode being about them. Not really understanding why they hang around together. Because if they’re not a family, then what are they? That idea came from us talking about kid show episodes where you’d have a generic kind of kid show where there’s a bunch of creatures that live together. It’s not really explained why they live together or how they know each other. We thought it was funny that they addressed that quite full on.

BS: Like that Candy and Andy thing we’re obsessed with, the Gerry Anderson show that never made it ’cause it’s so creepy. It features mannequin dolls called Candy and Andy and they have panda bears for parents. It was very inspiring for Lily and Todney… maybe too inspiring. There’s hardback collectible books you can get on eBay. And I bought a few and one of them had the scrawlings of a demon inside, all the eyeballs scribbled out in red.

4.

Friendship

BS: It was fun working with the VFX guys who were doing all these animated bits and writing a list of objects that were a mixture of really random or mundane and a few easter eggs from the show for the people who knew the YouTube series. Some of them are so quick you wouldn’t really even notice it.

JP: It looks quite similar to what we did with episode four of the YouTube series where the digital world is this quite naff looking clunky gridworld.

Baker Terry: In hindsight, we shouldn’t have done that, because it’s very disrespectful to the digital world. It’s more important even than the real world at this point or it is the real world rather.

JP: True, I feel more real online. Another technical thing that we always have trouble with is that we can’t really use green screen or blue screen very effectively, because the characters are blue and green. So we end up having to rotoscope loads of bits which is probably not a problem that most people have on a regular shoot. Duck doesn’t work on green screen and Yellow Guy doesn’t work on blue screen and Red Guy wouldn’t work on pink screen so I think we had to have loads of different strips.

We kept changing all the little jokes in there, that don’t massively change the story, up until the last minute or even after we shot it. Because you can get away with really easily dubbing over characters, especially Red Guy, and we’d get tired of the jokes so it’s quite an irritating process.

BS: Looking at the script for so long, by the time it comes down to filming we’re like this is so not funny anymore. But then to someone who hasn’t heard it before they might laugh at it so sometimes it’s a bit dangerous to keep changing it and you lose some comedy gold.

5.

Transport

JP: It only made sense for us to do this episode later in the series because it’s about one character getting tired of everything, getting tired of the format that he’s stuck in.

BS: This was Red Guy’s episode, wasn’t it? They each have one episode where the story is slightly more focussed on them. This was Red Guy trying to escape their world and failing.

JP: It’s a good example of why expanding the show so it was set within this whole little town of characters, which we had talked about before, wouldn’t work. This kind of episode wouldn’t have worked because the whole point is that he becomes aware that he’s only really able to go from room to room. It’s a good example of why we wanted to keep it claustrophobic.

BS: The train comes out of the fireplace. That still was probably one of the funniest moments for me, that little crappy remote control train coming out of the fireplace. It was going to come out of a mouse hole at one point.

JP: Didn’t someone ask us if it was a reference to a Magritte painting? There’s a Magritte where this train comes out of a fireplace. We were like, yep.

6.

Electricity

BS: Originally they were all going to be rocking out with these colourful electric guitars but then we thought it’d be quite funny if Yellow Guy just has a really shit guitar that’s just made of cardboard and we don’t paint it or anything. I remember giving that task to Beattie [Hartley] in the art department: “you’ve got 10 minutes, I don’t want you to spend any longer on it”. She came back with that and it was perfect.

BT: Lots of the nicest almost unspoken details are from Beattie right? She did so much.

JP: Because we shoot everything with puppets we have all these rigs for the puppeteers. Which means we can’t move the cameras so that we can then get a clean version of the background and paint out the puppeteers. But if you add lighting, it’s such a dangerous thing to do, because you end up changing the background. I’m amazed that we managed to do it on this because it must have been quite a lot of post-production to clean it all up.

BS: Any wide shots like that, where you can see them standing, we have to rig them. It takes quite a long time. That’s one of the unique things about the show. In most puppet shows like Sesame Street it’s always from the waist up. We’ve always been keen to show the floor and do wide shots which is more of a challenge to shoot but that adds to the magic of puppetry.

This isn’t really linked but it’s just quite funny that all the fans are obsessed with drawing the characters as humans and shipping them – which is making them have sex with other characters and stuff. Really sexy drawings of Electracy, it’s so weird.

JP: No, it’s not. It’s great. We love it. Keep doing it.

BS: We love it, it’s bizarre.

JP: I love it. My family loves it.

BS: Yeah, that’s a whole rabbit hole of fun to explore.

[starlight-time-machine]

Week in Review

01/07/2024 – 01/13/2024

Sunday

SpyFam was the only manga that updated today, and it was pretty cute. It hits all the typical SpyFam comedy beats, and I’m guessing that Anya will end up with 8 Stellas and 7 Tonitruses by the end for the drama of it all. We finally got to see Demetrius and wow…I guess he takes after his father in the looks department. I really hope that with all of the Desmonds introduced now, we can actually explore their personalities and dynamics in more depth.

Monday

Whoops

Tuesday

Chainsaw Man is back, and it’s still pretty bleak. I’m curious to see how this arc plays out, but it’s not looking good for our boy.

Wednesday

Ah

Thursday

This really isn’t a good look for the first Week in Review of 2024, huh. But in my defense, the weather’s gotten cold enough that my hibernation instincts have kicked in…

Friday

DunMesh is still really good, I love all the little animation flourishes and comedic moments, and the look and feel of it all is quite comforting. I guess the only little nag that I have is that because they’re putting all these manga chapters into one episode, I wish there was some more indication of time passing because it felt like they were eating three lunches in one day lol. I’m also glad to see Chilchuck, my favourite character, getting a lot of screentime and fun bits throughout the episode. The ending theme was cute if a little plain, but at least we got some gorgeous Ryoko Kui illustrations out of it.

Saturday

It’s time for the second Drag Race premiere, and it was pretty okay. Megami and Nymphia were the two on my radar after the Meet the Queens video – Megami for her nerd cred and entrance look and Nymphia for her Taiwanese rep and polished fashion sense and perspective. As a Chinese person, it’s really exciting to see a Taiwanese girl on Drag Race for the first time, and I think she might be my frontrunner after this episode…but more on that later. I also liked Plasma’s entrance line and personality, and her talent show number was fun. The photoshoot improv bit was much funnier than last episode’s – TS Madison is always a joy to see. The talent show was more lowkey, though, with only a few girls doing high energy dance numbers. I looooooooved Nymphia’s Chinese style makeup and water sleeve dancing, that was really the highlight of the episode for me. And it was ironic to me that Plane Jane was like “what’s your talent, holding up a sign?” when I could say the same for her (“what’s your talent, squirting condiments onto your boobs?”). Nymphia and Plasma were my favourites of the bunch for sure. Runway-wise, Nymphia’s was a little disappointing to me, but I’m hoping that after this episode she can veer away from the banana theming a little bit. Hershii’s dress was absolutely incredible – the color is stunning, for one, but also the fact that it’s all so perfectly smooth on her body is so impressive, plus I like the triangular glasses.

Plane Jane is a little…her incessant quips feel less fun mean and more just mean mean, so I’m not really enjoying her. Her attitude throughout the whole episode was kind of off-putting to me, especially with how she acted in the lip-sync and flipping in her hair in Geneva’s face. I’m usually not a reality TV villain fan, but I can see their merit in shaping an interesting narrative – here it just feels like she’s going beyond entertaining villainy and just into unsportsmanship and attention-seeking behaviour. Maybe she’ll get a sympathetic redemption arc later on, but right now I just want to see her comeuppance.

The theme across this split premiere has definitely been breastplate shenanigans…I’m looking forward to seeing the two groups mingle next week. As for my little Fantasy Drag Race activity, Megami unfortunately did not impress me enough to make the cut, so my final roster is Sapphira, Dawn, and Nymphia. I think these three are all multitalented and have a clear sense of self that’ll carry them far in the competition, so let’s see how the points stack up by the end of the season.

[enber-refs]

Welcome to my little reference corner!

I'm @enberlight, and my art gallery here on Tumblr is at @caffeinatedmagpie.

This page here is a mini-gallery to give you an idea of my asset library for 3D renders. A few older finished examples are above as a placeholder. Below, you'll find the promotional images for the assets I have in my library. (I did not generate those pictures! Think of them as a catalogue.)

I have... at least a few thousand invested in my 3D rendering library at this point. Don't worry, it isn't AI or anything. These are purchased, licensed assets. I don't have a license to make a game with them, (I wouldn't know where to begin), but I CAN render you a lovely character portrait. Or ten, because once I customize your character? Posing and outfit changes are a much smaller matter, so you can come back for updates when you like!

You'll see the range of models I have below. Skintone and hairstyles haven't been added yet, it was a doozy just to document all of THESE. But take a peek, and see what kind of creatures I can churn out for your character sheets and story illustrations!

I also have a lot of buildings, natural settings, outfits, props, and whatnots that... will probably just take longer to document than for you go go "hey, ya got this"? I'll make a general post about those as well.

PS: I can do "turnaround" shots of any of these in various sorts of poses and put them up as reference packs, if anyone would like a bit of an assist in visualizing angles and such. That was originally what I used these for... then I got carried away and started editing them.

[legy]

random game roundup 3

A Hell of a Journey - PWYW

what if it was the divine comedy but virgil was just an absolute piece of shit. he had no fucking idea what was going on. you have to go through hell to get to purgatory and this idiot is no help at all

this is a short & sweet twine game. the illustrations carry it. it's pretty cute and took me under 5 minutes to read

Samorost 2 - $4.99

hey i said this was random game roundup not random itch game roundup. i just have 3000 itch games

amanita design is literally like the all-timer for 00s indie devs. ive known of their point-and-clicks for basically the entire time ive been conscious. i think ive only played samorost 1 and machinarium before now.

its hard to beat the level of vibes-based gaming samorost operates on. this is what gnome tumblr is all about

apparently in 2020 this got a remaster that let the game support modern resolutions using AI upscaling on old assets, and to its credit it ran awesome for a game this old. it didnt fuss at all about tabbing out or using a second monitor while playing. however i think the upscaled assets look pretty shit? lol. like the art direction in this game is extremely strong but the raster images definitely were not meant to be seen bigger than 1024x768 and it makes the characters who scaled up much better stick out suuuper bad.

music completely rips ass tho. hell yeah brother

i actually went ahead and finished this at an entire half an hour playtime. big fan of samorost 2

T.A.R.S - $1.99

included in: Bundle for Ukraine

first thing i got struck by with this game is that it is extremely good looking for the price tag and my lowered standards. there is also a lot of voice acting which is pretty amateur but a lot of heart went into it. i could not find an option to subtitle the dialogue which kinda sucked

T.A.R.S is a third person shooter with a focus on difficulty via being killed in one hit and having very limited resources. you're fighting werewolves or something. i didn't play long enough to see them do more than just chase after me in a straight line so idk if the enemy AI is interesting

one of the big downsides of T.A.R.S is that the game is dark as fuck. shot like a modern hollywood film. like that one episode of game of thrones. i cant play this on my high refresh rate monitor because the sun is up right now and the ambient light in my room is too much and i cant see anything. also the game emphasizes wearing headphones and focusing on hearing the enemies before you see them but the sound design is um. not great. i kept getting snuck up on because the guys dont make any noises until theyre two inches away

i don't think i gave this a good enough chance but i'm not a horror fan nor am i a shooter fan so it's really not for caelums. maybe you'll like it tho

Panic Factory - $1.50

included in: Bundle for Ukraine

panic factory is a puzzler pretending to be a shooter. you are an eco-activist that has been trapped in a torture dungeon by a corporate CEO and need to figure your way out. with a shotgun. and whatever ammo you can scrounge up

the voice acting in this is very hammy and the pixel art is appealing to look at so the presentation is pretty solid. i found this difficult to spend a lot of time in because again i don't like shooters and i found that the reaction times this game expects out of you in the first level to a be a bit extreme. also required arrow keys to move :thumbsdown:

Weird Grief - PWYW

im so fucking sorry for how hard i laughed

i honestly really liked this. weird grief is a twine about the immediate aftermath and slow recovery after the death of a loved one. and you are poly. and furry. it has explicit sex scenes so watch out for that. but this is worth reading imo

[characterdigital]

Reflection:

Before this course I wasn't too unfamiliar with drawing, but It wasn't until I had to go through the process of character illustration that things got really hard. I wasnt use to such a long process to create a character, I usually just draw a character and then make up a story about them. Something else that was really hard was doing the backstory, I kept getting carried away and writing to much detail. For example:

"Setting (+Patchy’s home environment): For the whole of Patchy’s life (Or Ian as he was known when he was a boy), he had lived on the outskirts of a suburb, the kind of suburb to have a neighborhood watch and to have small parties on the street when their favorite sports team won a game. The house he was at didn’t help improve his life, rather it made his life a struggle. Because his mum was such a big smoker for his whole life, the walls were stained brown. When Patchy (Ian) was only 10 years old, he was locked in his room for biting his nails. When the biting continued (Because locking him in his room did nothing), his mum put bitter gel on his fingers, he bit the skin around it causes her to finally lock him in the basement. Because of her smoking habits, she ended up going to hospital, completely neglecting the fact that she had a son. When she got home, she stopped caring, so the house turned damp and moldy, the kitchen grew a thick layer of rotten food, the bathroom never got washed and most of the house had pills layering around. The basement wasn’t any better. It was wet, cold and had a rat family living in the walls. Patchy (Ian) stuck to a corner, where water slowly dripped down from outside. Over the years he was down there, he tried his best to ration whatever food his mum had stored away in case of an emergency. But that food only lasted a few months. Rats, and whatever other creatures that were hiding were the only good source of food that kept him alive."

That was seen as too much detail and then having to tone it down to something a lot smaller and pretty much narrowing it down to important things, I found that very hard. Although coming up with the backstory I enjoyed because I love that sort of thing and I think its so interesting to be able to make a character from nothing and then to have a full poster, backstory. Although the feedback that I got about pretty much everything really helped to make my work better and having the outsider view made me see what the parts that didnt look right were. The things that I did learn, I had someone already previous knowledge about but getting a more in depth look into what I already knew and ways that I could make it better. The part that I did enjoy the most would have to have been the backstory stuff, I enjoy writing and creating characters on paper so I was able to do those things without really needing to have a break because I felt like I was on a roll. Overall this course helped me to understand the whole creation of character illustration and how its a lot of trial and error with what works and what dosent.

[characterillustrationoliviap]

Character Illustration: Value Study and 2nd Character

Today we started this class by having a brief recap of what we did on Tuesday lesson. I used this time to rewatch the video on values so that it is fresh in my mind for today's application of values. This video really made me consider how I should use contrast in an illustration. Normally I just colour my whole illustration using the full value scale. I've never really focused on using different scales for fore ground and the mid ground. This is definitely something I want to take into account when we make these next characters. I also think I could try using varying line weights to empathise the character's pose. In my duck from class 1 while the lines were pretty smooth, some were really thick and others were quite thin. Normally a line will be thinner if it closer to the light source. I'm going to try using line weight more in my next character to show the pose better.

We also did a value study today. The aim was to recreate the image using only the 10 shades of grey in the middle. This was the document at the start of the exercise. I had my layers palette open and the brushes palette open. In the layers palette, I double clicked the background to make the image into a layer. I then used the Rectangle Marquee Tool to remove the white on the right side. I then made a layer under this layer. I'll be doing the drawing on the bottom layer. I chose a thick solid brush rather than one with blended edges. I didn't need the colour palette as I'm only using those 10 shades of grey.

I then started making the image. I started by building up the base colours in rough blocks.

I kept adding grey in sections and it started to resemble the image more.

I found this took quite a long time. I was constantly drawing a shape, deciding I didn't like it before re doing it a lot of times. At the start it was quite therapeutic but the longer the task went on I became quite frustrated. But while I was getting fed up I do think this task made me understand the values of an image better. I used a lot of the mid tones and only a very small amount of 1 and 10.

It really started to take shape here and I started making by brush smaller to add smaller details. This was my final result. I'm really pleased with it as i think it looks pretty similar to the eye image. For the next one, I'm doing to try and do this a bit faster. The start of the process was very slow and I think I could have done it faster.

Later I started the other value study. This was the image I was building up to.

I started by getting the base shapes in. I achieved by goal and made this base in a very short amount of time. I didn't worry about making each shape perfect, instead I just did then roughly and edited it as I worked.

I then started adding some smaller sections so it resembles an eye more. I added the actual eye and I think by adding some of the cresses started to make it look older.

At this point I just continued adding the layers of tone. I was frequently doing something and then deciding the shade was too light or dark. I'm finding that at this point the nose is definitely the hardest part for me. It does't have much variation in tone so trying to keep the value range very small while also still trying to create that 3D effect is quite challenging.

This is wear I've got to by the end of the night. I focused on getting the shading in the eye and eyebrow as best as I could as it is the focal point of the image. I think getting these points right will help me when building outwards. It gives me another reference as to how dark a tone should be.

I then decided to simplify the base at the bottom a bit more. It wasn't quite looking like the image

I then worked on the eyebrows and the eye bag. This was the final product. I could have probably built up the tones more but I've found I keep going over and over the same areas. I'm pretty pleased but I think I got a bit carried away when doing the actual eye as it's a bit detailed for a value study.

Overall I really liked doing these value studies. While I really enjoyed doing them, it's helped me understand how I should colour in illustrations I make in the future. The first value study was my favourite compared to the second one. It was quite tedious trying put in all the tones of the wrinkles as there was so many of them and if I went too far it became very detailed and strayed away from the point of the exercise.

We then started making our next character. We only had a few hours to do this so I wanted to go with something fair simple. I ended up looking through animal pictures on the internet and found this image of a fox which I really liked.

I started by splitting this fox into basic shapes and lines so when I sketched it I could use this as a guide. I added a layer on top of the image and called it shapes. I used three circles to represent the main body and then used rectangles for the legs and snout. I used some smaller circles to get the shape of the joints, a curved triangle for the ear and I just sketched the rough shape of the tail. I then drew a lot of marker lines across the image. This will help me aline sections of the body. Like the first leg is in line with the front edge of the middle circle.

Using that combinations of shapes, I started to sketch the rough shape of my fox next to it. This was the rough sketch I ended up with.

I then made another layer and called it outline. I traced over this sketch to get the outline of the fox. I gave the outline a mouth and made the ear lines more obvious.

I then looked at some grey values of how I could colour the fox.I think the first one was a bit too low in contrast. The second one was better but I don't like the dark patch that lead onto the leg. I think it would look better without it and I could add it as a shadow in another layer. I removed the patch in the third one and I like it a lot more.

I then added base colours onto a new layer. I also reshaped a new parts of the outline like the paws so that they were more recognisable as paws, not stumps.

I then made a new layer called shadows and added some shadows onto the fox's back to show the density and texture of the fur. I'll probably add some more shadows but I really wanted to get those in to show the different shades in the fur.

I then added an eye but I didn't really like it. The character has no clear personality or obvious emotions. I chose to redo the eyes in a more cartoonish style. I wanted to make it look like it was bulging at something the fox is chasing. I also decided I wanted to have the mouth of the fox open. I had the tongue of the fox hanging out like it is drooling after what it is chasing.

I then added some of the pinkish colour into the ears so help balance the character a bit more.

I then drew some sausages in using the wacom tablet so that the fox was chasing something.

This is my final character. I don't really love it but I think its ok. I knew I wanted to have him chasing something but I really wasn't sure as to what. If I was to redo this I would definitely come up with a more interesting background story so give me some ideas for the character's physical appearance.

[xamvjay]

Can you maybe do Toji x f!reader riding him? It's fine if not btw :D (I'M 19 BTW)

|Ride me - Toji x afab!reader|

**WARNINGS: contains smut, explicit language, and sexual themes. MINORS DNI although I know yall horny out there reading it**

The picture above is NOT MINE and goes to the rightful credited owner.

All characters mentioned below are NOT MINE and belong to the Original Creator/Author/Illustrator.

This piece is a work of fiction and is pure imagination and is not real and does not involve in the original story/timeline.

Genre: smut, romance

cw: switchTOJI!?, switch afab!READER?!, fem!reader, exhibitionist, voyeurism, PDA, not proofread sorry folks

A/N: first ever req im getting (and i'm thrilled af pls) – thanks anon <3, i'm assuming yall loves dilfs huhhuh. and YES absolutely! AND WHYD THIS TAKE ME 4HRS LMAO IM SO BAD WITH THIS buttt here ya goo and enjoyy ~

wc: 3.3k sheesh -----------------------------------------------------------

‘And I’m done!’ I thought happily, appreciating the way I looked, shown by the reflection. Twirling a bit as I spritz some of the DIOR J'adore Eau De Parfum on myself and sigh happily at myself. Today was a special day. Today was the day when I finally got hold of my boyfriend, Toji who seemed way too busy with the odd job that he never told in detail. We planned a date after struggling to match with our hectic schedule giving no chance and decided that today was the day. Smoothing little unnoticeable wrinkles from my satin, black skater dress I slipped inside my cheetah print full sleeve jacket. A beautiful, plain diamond jewelry settled nicely on the base of my neck which was paired with a pair of simple dangling earrings.  

Combing through my hair that I styled with my utmost effort, I reached out the lip gloss in the shade of power red and swiped another coat on my lip and correcting the smudges and maintaining a gradient look. My eye makeup was rather done simply allowing my bright eyes to be the star of the show. Grabbing the purse that was sitting idly on my bed, I slipped my phone in but not before I checked the time. 6:55 PM – it read. I had a couple of minutes before I head out. Going to the small walk-in closet I turned over to choose what footwear will it be today. ‘I’ll just match with my jacket’ I thought mindlessly and bent over to take the high-block heel. Switching off the lights that were open, I took a glance once more at my well-maintained apartment and decided it was time. Today’s venue happened to be the cinema and it was perfect because I was able to get hold of the tickets for the most anticipated movie in my opinion – Top Gun – Maverick. Locking my apartment, I trotted over to the elevator and entered it while humming away at a random tune. A familiar ding was heard, and the doors slid, either way, revealing the exit/entrance of the building. Greeting a ‘have a good evening’ to the nearby staff I walked over to my car and revved up the engine.

Today Toji had some personal things to deal with so he said he wouldn’t be able to join me on the ride on the way to the cinema and said he would reach there on his way. Shrugging the sadness away as nothing when I heard that since he never broke any promises and always showed up one way or another was reassuring. A podcast played in the background from my open radio as I drove to the cinema. Today the city looked incredible. It could just be my happy mood, or it was always this extraordinary. The city lights blared from all directions, blinding your eyes in a good way. The level of serotonin I got from the view of the bustling people carrying out different activities was really thrilling. A group of musicians cheerfully played their best tunes while the crowd formed praised away. Smiling slightly, I focused on my driving.

Today’s gonna be good.

Parking my car at an empty spot I found I climbed out of my car, making sure I collected my belongings and switched off the engine, and locked the car. Checking the time once again it read 7:22 PM. ‘Oh great, I’m not late.’ I thought and strolled into the cinema and was introduced to a large hall filled with full of movie posters and stations packed with various flavoured popcorns and different soda machines all lined up. This time, the cinema was quite packed compared to other days. Families, couples, friends, and numerous groups of people were scattered around the place. Drifting my eyes from the crowd I performed a slow 360o spin and admired the neon lights that were running across the walls giving it a bit of a club vibe. Whilst spinning I accidentally bumped into someone but not too harshly but rather a soft one. Without looking I apologized several times and was ready to walk away until that person spoke with a hot breath next to the shell of my ear. “God was definitely showing off when He created you huh.” That voice. It was a perfect balance of clear but rough pure masculinity tone. I whipped my head immediately to that person and engulfed him in a big hug. “TOJI!” I squealed in happiness as I looked up, peeking through my lashes while his towering figure looked down on me. “Hey, babe.” There was a soft smirk drawn on his lips while that scar was stretched ever so slightly due to that motion. His black hair was shaggy as usual covering his eyes a bit. I stepped back and looked up and down at his attire. And boy did he look SEXY.

A black full-sleeved dress shirt was worn paired with black slacks. The first couple of buttons were undone from his shirt and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. A hand was tucked inside his dress pant pocket while the other was brushing on his hair. There was a black band ring that sat comfortably on the index finger of his right hand. Flustered slightly at the way his strong muscles were hugged by the black shirt. It was evident he was a built man. Every move he did there was a slight ripple and strain in those carved muscles I’ve witnessed under that shirt. It almost felt like the clothes he wore was just a second layer of skin. Going closer to him I whispered enough for him to hear. “You look really good tonight, a little too good.” I stated humorously giggling in the process and to hold of his free hand and dragged him into the cinema hall #4 where the promotions and advertisements were playing already.

The room was completely dimmed down while there was in built small circular lights on the stairs giving a nice relaxing illuminating glow. I choose the furthest row at the back so we can comfortably have a view of the full screen. There were very few people at that row, only two people were sat at the very far end from our seat. The below row was also empty to an extent as well. sitting in our respectable places I told Toji I was to collect the snacks, but he urged that he would do so. After exchanging few words of who should go, he won and left the room before I could argue anymore. Huffing slightly at his sweet acts, I sat rather graciously and settled my items, so I was relaxed. Few minutes passed and Toji appeared cradling a large popcorn bucket alongside with two cups of cold drinks, one being my favourite and a bag of other snacks hanging off his elbow. Helping to keep the items safely and not creating a mess, he soon joined me, and the movie finally started.

Around sometime in the movie I felt Toji excuse himself to the restroom which I nodded unconsciously since I was so focused on the movie. Few minutes passed and soon I realized he still hadn’t appeared. I decided not to give too much thought too it and opted to hang around for some time before I gave him a call. Few moments passed he came back looking rather disoriented. The light from the large, displayed screen showed how his shirt was more undone. There was a layer of sheen sweat on his Godly built chest. He plopped down on the seat and manspread-ed, occupying the entirety of his seat. He was slightly more slumped against the chair and his right hand was placed lightly on his finger; his expression tells me he’s in some deep thought.

“Babe? You alright? You don’t look too good.” I spoke out with great concern. Lifting my hand, I pressed against his forehead was felt extremely hot. Snatching my hand away I glanced at him with worry. “You are developing a fever!” I quickly got up only to be pulled down immediately with his arm wrapped on my arm. I fell atop him, my chest near his vision. Blushing at the odd position I was in, I wriggled from his grip. “Toji, what’re you doing!?” I exclaimed quietly. “I got this fever because of you.” He spoke lowly. What? I caused his upcoming fever? Impossible. “You’re gonna have to elaborate more on that but do that later when we bring that fever down.” I said sternly, trying my best to break free from his grasp but no luck. Couple of seconds passed and he gave no response but just staggering breathes were heard. “Toji, darling what’s wrong?” I muttered out softly. I brought my hand after gently convincing him that I’m not getting up and caressed his face. “Ever since I laid my eyes on you, I got so fucking hard it was unbearable.”  I gasped at his confession and locked eyes with him. “Darling, you were so focused in your movie I couldn’t disturb you. So, I thought I could take care of it myself.” Poor him. He was dealing with all this all alone without me knowing.

“Babe, you should’ve told me. I could’ve helped you; you know.” I spoke sweetly whilst my hands slid down his chest ever so slowly until it reached the problem. I softly caressed his hard on and kept a fixed stare on his face. “Babe– fuck, please help me…” He gently pleaded. How could I not help him when he laid there in front of me, looking so helpless. How sweet it was of him to not disturb me when watching the movie not knowing I’d drop anything to help him. Grabbing his large rough hands, I led them to run my hair over and hold a makeshift ponytail. I settled on the carpeted ground and unzipped his pants and stared at it. There was a wet patch on the dark, tight boxers he wore that hugged onto his pure thick muscular thighs. Freeing the hard dick from the strains, there it stood proudly. The tip had an angry shade of red – thanks to the light coming from the screen I was able to appreciate his dick properly.

The cockhead was leaking generous amount of pre-cum which dribbled down uncaringly. A thick vein ran underneath the shaft and made its way to the thick, large fat balls. Licking my lips at the delicious sight, I looked up at him once more only to find him looking back at me with such intensity in his green eyes. He bit his lip as he let out a low groan. “Fuck, you look so good down there.” The grip he had on my ponytail was tightened and pushing my face to his hard cock. Preparing my mouth for the abuse I kitty licked the tip and kissed the sides. Sucking the tip like a candy I stuck my tongue out and allowed myself to wrap the tip carelessly. I slipped the cock to entire my hot cavern and the part that didn’t fit I wrapped it with my hands. Pumping with my hands and I bobbed my head up and down I fought back the gag-reflex. I looked at him through my lashes as I kept my cheek hallowed and kissed the tip several times. Spitting the built of drool on the head, I kept pumping his cock and once again swallowed his dick.

“You look so fucking hot right now.” He spoke with a low pitch and letting occasional groans. Thank goodness to the blaring speakers of the movie hall, it masked the erotic sounds we were producing. Suddenly my head was yanked back harshly as he came closer to my face. A finger was stuck in my wet mouth, and I sucked it, swirling my tongue. Toji tightened his jaw when he saw how obedient I was being. A smirk broke out as my eyes land on those pink lips of his that was adorned with that scar. “As much as I’d like to fill your mouth with my cum and have you kept it till the movie’s finished, I think I’ll use that pussy of yours instead.” His voice was rough and hoarse but had a hint of degradation.

His hand motioned towards his thick thighs, and I gulped at the sight. “Get on my lap, now.” He ordered with a gravely tone. Nodding I sat immediately on hard thighs. His right hand that was in my mouth was now removing my panty and was completely removed. Feeling the cool air hit my bare cunt I gripped onto the arm rest wondering what he’ll do. “Don’t make a fucking noise, got it?” He spoke right next to my ear as I nodded. His free hand wrapped around my neck and had a slight tight grip, enough to cut out a bit of oxygen. “Where’s your manners? Hm?” He questioned threateningly. Nervously I answered “Y-yes sir.” A satisfied hum was heard, and my underwear was now a small ball and was near my mouth. Getting the idea, I opened my mouth, and the panty was shoved inside. “Very good.” His voice so husky, his tongue licked my jawline as he brought my back against his hard, chiseled chest.

The finger with the ring was wet presumably from his spit and now made his way to my cunt. His thighs nudged my thighs to open up more. His hands were carrassing my inner thigh as he teased my pussy but not quite relieving any pressure.  All of a sudden, he stopped his actions and moved around a bit, most likely removing something from his pocket. “Open it.” He whispered hotly and gave it to me, which I obeyed and opened the black case. There it was a purple clit vibrator. I gasped at what I opened but that went unnoticed as I had a makeshift gag ball in my mouth. He then took it from me and then placed it on my clit., nestling it and making it fit right. Squirming on his thighs at this foreign object contacting my pussy was kind of exciting.

“Relax darling, it’s just a vibrator.” He reassured and kept it there for some time while he held it. Few minutes later he proceeded to whip out the remote and there he played with the controls going from low to high intensity. Immediately I thrashed a bit at the random, sudden sensation I was dealing with, but Toji was quick to stop my movements and had me attached to his back. His free hand roamed around my torso until he it massaged my covered breasts. He slipped his hands under the dress and then tugged the bra under and kept teasing my tits. He flicked, pinched, rubbed circles and pressed on the hard nubs of mine. He did the same with my other boob switching hands and felt the cold ring tease my hard ass nipples. Moans were escaping my mouth but were muffled by the gag. My hand went to his cock that was right under my pussy, which was rubbing it, making it hard as fuck.

“Shit, if you keep that up, I’ll fuck you right here, right now.” He stated with few light groans releasing into the warm air. I moaned at his words and pushed my hands to have a faster pace. I want him to fuck me right here. Having a hundred or two sitting in the same room, shrouded with darkness with nothing but just the projector as our light. Anyone could catch us. We could get caught. We could deal with the securities but that’s what made my pussy clenching on nothing. I let out some words but were intelligible. “What d’ya say sweetheart? You wanna get fucked right here? Like a dirty slut? Hmm?” He questioned one after another, his tone had a patrionising tone. I nodded as fast as I could and urged his hand from my breast to go to my gushing cunt. A deep chuckled reverberated from his chest. “Well, do it yourself then. Use me while fucking me. C’mon darling ride me.” He spoke lazily as he flipped through the intensities making me groan and break out into tears. The thought just past my head. Riding him in a public place, sitting innocently on my boyfriend’s lap while no one knows what was actually going on. That he was practically rearranging my guts.

I lifted my hip and used my hand to align his hard leaking cock into my fluttering hole. Going down I felt him practically rip me open. He was so fucking big it hurt deliciously. Once he was fully inside me, barely sat comfortably as I felt his cockhead kiss the opening of my cervix. Looking down there was a bulge formed on my tummy where my uterus would be. “I filled you up so good, didn’t I?” He spoke to himself and tapped on my thighs to start moving. I slid up and down much with all the energy I had. This kept going on for maybe around ten minutes and Toji just sat there, doing nothing, his eyes were on the movie while he mindlessly switched intensities. Letting out a whine and tears of frustration came out as I couldn’t reach the high that was seconds of breaking open but not quite there yet. “What’s wrong baby? Can’t cum? Need my help?” I nodded but he still sat there looking at me deeply. Soon he removed the gag from my mouth. “Use your words.” He spoke with a bored expression while his face rest on his palm whilst his elbow rested on the armrest.

“Y-yes sir, p-please mmmhm I wanna cum so badly.” I pouted as I squirmed once again. His hands than held onto my hip and helped me to move up and down while simultaneously he pistoned his hips inside me deeply and accurately managing to hit that favourite spot of mines. My gummy wet walls wrapped around my cock as I felt my high coming closer. He set the vibrator at a high setting and alongside with him brutally hammering inside me was really pushing it. Groans and moans escaped quietly from both of us and mingled together. The slapping noise was there but thanks to the climatic scene that was playing, the speakers were blaring with all sorts of loud noises. Few more thrusts what caused the tight knot to snap and caused me to squeal out loud. The dress had already fallen back, concealing everything while couple of people below us had turned around, trying to find where the noise had come from. His warm cum painting my walls white as the remote was switched off to stop me from overstimulating. I rolled my hips, grinding and milking the remaining cum of from his shaft and squeezed Toji’s balls. “Fuck, you better keep quiet if you don’t want to get caught.” He snapped while tugging my hair making me fall backwards.

After two or three minutes of cockwarming and him softening up, still semi-hard he removed himself and helped me sit by the near seat. The soaked panty that was held in front of me and Toji, he smirked and assisted me in slipping it back on. “Don’t want that precious cum leaking out now, do we?” He spoke smugly, his vibrant green eyes were clouded with various emotions and one being is lust mixed with affection. It was slightly shroud with his jagged hair that stuck to his forehead due to the sweat. He tucked himself in and got up disposing the waste in the spare bag he brought. He enclosed the vibrator and slipped it back on his pocket. The movie ended alongside, and the lights returned, brightening up the place. As he stood up, totally towering me he leaned down and stole a wet kiss from me, his gorgeous veiny hard hands swiped away presumably the smudged lipstick from my cheeks and chin.

“Get your ass up, I’m not done with you yet.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[apompkwrites]

reader impact || first meeting: archon edition

series masterlist characters: venti, zhongli genre: fluff summary: a game has been released entitled genshin impact, consisting of otherworldly abilities relying on the basic elements of nature. the game follows the story of an interdimensional traveling twin in search of their other half. along this journey, they meet different characters that live in this world. including you. notes: i still don't know if this will be a series but last post would've been too long if i had all four in one

venti's playthrough -

hoo boy, venti's streams would be VERY chaotic.

this boy has nothing to tie him down except for his own mortality, but will that stop him? no.

lots of late night or early morning streams because his sleep schedule is practically nonexistent.

he does a lot of singing or storytelling streams, which is why the time is perfect.

he'll sing lullabies and read bedtime stories at night. in the morning, he'll sing soft songs to wake up his viewers and talk about the rare dreams he'd have once he passes out.

he'll also have drinking streams where he just drinks as much as he can. he's a drunkard, what can i say?

anyway, gaming is something he isn't opposed to, but mainly ones with music or just pure crackhead energy.

when his viewers suggest genshin impact, he'd be somewhat hesitant?

he needs games that are chaotic and filled with energy to keep his attention.

his mods and viewers, however, are able to convince him because of a certain drunken character.

as soon as he sees the non-spoiled description of your character, he's off to download.

he actually enjoys a lot of the adventure aspects of the game, even if he's known as a lazy streamer.

anyway, his viewers definitely should have warned him about your appearance.

they never told him you were such a cute character!

"don't be afraid. it's alright now, i'm back."

"HASGDGSJFK"

he shrieked when you started talking.

"HOW ARE THEY SO CUTE?!?!"

he gets sad when his character sets off dvalin...

you disappear and your dragon friend flies off... now venti's just sad he might've made you upset.

he's pouting the whole way through mondstadt, thinking of ways to make it up to you.

he doesn't care if you're a video game character, he loves you nonetheless.

and once dvalin shows up in mondstadt, he's genuinely excited. he knows your bound to appear again because your friend is here.

when you help venti fly behind dvalin, his chat is teasing him because of the grin on his face.

he's so soft for you, man...

he will spend hours just ranting about you when he's going through the domains with the standard characters.

when he finds the other statues in mondstadt, he likes to climb up it to admire your archon design.

even though he's known you for a few minutes, he will automatically recognize your face in the game.

he knows it's annoying but he can't help but ask his chat if he'll get to see you again soon. he really doesn't want to spend hours without hearing you and seeing you in game.

he likes to yell at paimon whenever she makes fun of you

he shrieks again when he sees you running past the fountain.

he almost cries when he sees you playing your lyre for the first time.

you're perfect in his eyes and all he wants is to spend every minute of this game with you.

although, he did have to take a break the first time he saw your archon form illustrated.

you just... look like an angel and his body can't handle that.

he loves listening to your tales. like the battle pass story that occurs every time it renews, he never skips it. soon, he'll memorize it and recite it with you once it appears.

"oh! i remember you two. you both scared dvalin away!"

"I'M SORRY"

please forgive him. he knows you won't because the game doesn't require it, but he decides to always call stormterror dvalin to make up for it.

"ah, right! i haven't introduced myself... i'm (name) the bard!"

please this boy is so smitten for a video game character.

when you're revealed to be the archon, he's not too surprised? i mean, he already recognized you from the statue.

he is so excited to steal the lyre for you.

it takes him a bit, though, just because he has a bad attention span and ends up revealing his location.

he's even more excited to learn you're a regular at diluc's tavern.

he would do anything to drink with you.

he'll reluctantly end the game there just because it's time for his bedtime songs/stories.

"i'll be back tomorrow, (name), my love! i promise!"

zhongli's playthrough -

zhongli's a really good streamer even when he doesn't try to be.

he is basically the king of just chatting streams.

daily tea times and storytime streams are a go!

his voice is what lures them in and his charm is what traps them there.

he's still poor, though...

he relies on the donations from his viewers but he always expresses his gratitude.

man's respectful, what can i say?

anyway, he does play games every now and then. he doesn't tend to enjoy fighting games though.

although, he's rather good at them... for some reason.

his gaming streams tend to be a lot longer because he picks games with an overarching story.

i'm talking long games like night in the woods, detroit: become human, really any long game with deep meanings and stories.

his viewers will pay for him to just sit there and read to them.

anyway, someone donates to him and recommends he play genshin impact because of the long story and hidden lore.

he definitely enjoyed the beginning of the story, but got even more attached once he reached liyue.

he seems very intrigued when he begins the quest by watching liyue's archon fall dead on the ground.

he would definitely go on a long rant about gods and goddesses that have fallen.

when he meets childe, he does take a liking to him.

now, this man is known for being stoic and serious, so it comes as a surprise when he almost loses his composure when you appear.

keyword being almost.

he manages to stay composed but his chat knows for a fact he's freaking out over you.

your fancy suit/dress reminds him of the anthropological tales of gods/goddesses and kings/queens.

let this man drink tea with you please--

"it is an honor to meet you. i have heard tell of you from mondstadt."

"... they have quite the pleasant voice."

his chat is going wild at this point.

they get to listen to two heavenly voices talk to each other at the same time?! it's a dream come true!

another man that will let your long lines of dialogue play, listening intently to the stories you tell his character.

he actually really likes the image of his character talking to you.

he's so short compared to you--

he also really likes your animation when you're standing still.

not your idle animations, even though those are really nice as well. i'm talking about the movement of your clothes when your character is standing there. it's just so... soothing to him.

the gradient of your hair color to your elemental gnosis is also a nice detail to him. he likes how there are subtle ways archons look compared to normal citizens in teyvat.

when he finds out you are also a person who struggles with money... oh boy, this man cannot relate more.

you both can be broke together.

he will look to his chat for help every time a bargaining option occurs.

similar to venti, he'd be able to tell you were an archon automatically, mainly because of the way you carry yourself and your design.

when you give away your gnosis, he was really interested in the fact that you were so dedicated to your title of the archon of contracts that you would just willingly give your gnosis away.

when he meets the adepti, his chat jokingly says that the yaksha is yours and his adopted child.

"... i would not be opposed to that idea."

all of the artists and writers in his chat are dying at this point.

he'd look up all of the lore, especially ones involving you, and use them for his storytime streams.

[babycharmander]

If you think you have never stolen artwork, read this post.

So, art theft. If you've been a follower of mine, you've heard my barely-coherent rants about this before, but I thought it might be more productive to make a more coherent post on the subject.

If you're wondering about the title of the post here, it's because I feel like a lot of people aren't really grasping what exactly art theft is, and a LOT of people, even well-meaning ones, do it without even realizing it.

"But wait," you say. "I would never STEAL from an artist!! I never claim it as my own!" And that's all fine and good, but you're missing something here.

To start things off, what IS art theft? (It's not what deviantART said it was several years back, I'll tell you that much. *cough*)

We all know what art is, so let's talk about theft. Dictionary.com defines "theft" as "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny." Okay, makes sense, but what about that other word there, stealing? Dictionary.com defines "steal" as "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force."

From those definitions, we can go on to define art theft as, specifically, "taking art without permission or right." In the context of art, that typically involves reposting it (not reblogging--reblogging is different) or using it for other things.

And there, my friends, is the issue.

If something is taken or used without permission, it is stolen. Permission is the important thing here--if an artist says "oh yeah, you can go ahead and use this!" then it's not stolen. You have their permission. But if you DON'T have that, then it IS stolen. It IS theft.

"But I'm not claiming it as my own!" you say. But you don't have to claim it as your own--the act of taking it in and of itself is an act of theft.

"But I said 'credit to the artist!'" The "credit" thing is a whole other conversation, but here's the short of it: The entire point of credit is to direct people to the source of something. If you are not directly linking to where you got the art from, you are not giving credit. "Credit to the artist" is not actually credit of any kind whatsoever. (Also, Google and Pinterest are not sources.)

"But I DID link back to the artist!" Okay, now this is where it may get confusing, because you may think you're covered because you actually did give credit. Here's the problem: if you reposted it or used it without permission, regardless of whether you gave credit or not, it's still stealing.

I'm bolding this because it's a point that a lot of people get tripped up on. Let me explain it this way: If you went into your neighbor's house and took something of theirs without their permission, but you told people "oh yeah, I got this from [neighbor]'s house!" that that would still, of course, be stealing, and it's no different for art.

Another thing is that even when you credit, people don't always check the source. Very recently I found a case where someone had reposted a piece of artwork of mine to Pinterest that was deliberately made to look like it came from the source material (it wasn't meant to confuse anyone, though--the description of my original post made it very clear that it was fanart). The person who reposted had linked back to my original post. The problem? The comments had people asking if this was official, where it happened in the source material, etc. Despite the fact that the source was right there, no one thought to look at it.

Even if you link back to the source, if you did it without the artist's permission, it's still stealing, and still causes problems for us artists.

"But I just posted it to my Pinterest--" DO NOT DO THIS. DO NOT POST AN ARTIST'S WORK TO PINTEREST IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THEIR EXPLICIT PERMISSION TO DO SO.

"But this artist friend of mine says they're okay if I post their work to my Pinterest so long as I link back to them!" Good for your friend! But the fact that your friend is okay with it doesn't mean that all artists are okay with it. For me, personally, I am very not okay with my work being posted to Pinterest, and say as much on my art blog description and posts (which people tend to ignore).

The problem with Pinterest--and reposting art in general--is that we artists don't know when it happens unless we're told, or unless we find it ourselves. It causes us to lose control of our art. And because of this, our art can spiral further out of our control, because when our works get posted to Pinterest or other similar websites, people who have no grasp whatsoever on how art works will just take it as "free art" and then use it for whatever they want.

That's how a piece I spent 20+ hours on was used as a poster for a paid event, without my permission, and without any payment or credit to me.

If an artist has said nothing about Pinterest (or other similar image sharing sites), your default should be to assume that they don't want their artwork posted there.

"Well I didn't repost someone's art, but I did use it for my avatar/RPing icon/video/fic cover/photo edit--" That's still stealing. If you're using it without their permission for any reason, that is stealing. Not to mention, the artist may not be cool with what you're using their art for anyway. (Looking at you, people who use platonic art in your shipping videos.)

“I MEANT to ask them for permission, but I forgot!” This can ONLY happen if you used the artwork BEFORE you asked for permission. You can resolve this by asking for permission BEFORE you use it, rather than assuming the answer will be “yes” and using it before asking.

"But it took me a really long time to make that icon/video/cover/edit!!" How long do you think it took the original artist to draw their piece? It doesn't matter how much work you put into modifying someone else's art--if you're doing it without their permission, you're still stealing.

"But I couldn't find the original artist! I tried to find them, I really did, but I couldn't. Is it okay to use their art then?" No, because you still don't have permission, and by reposting it anyway, you’re continuing to make the artwork spiral out of their control.

"What if I found the artist, but they speak a different language from mine? I can't ask them for permission, so is it okay if I repost their art anyway?" NO!! DO NOT DO THIS!! If there is a language barrier, use Google translate or find someone to translate for you and get a hold of the artist that way to ask them for their permission. The language barrier is NEVER an excuse to steal artwork. There are plenty of non-English-speaking artists who have taken ALL OF THEIR ARTWORK OFFLINE because the art theft was completely out of control. (And this isn't just exclusive to English-speakers stealing art from people who don't speak their language. It happens artists who don't speak English stealing art from English-speakers, too, but as this post is written in English it doesn't do much good for me to rant about this here.) If you can’t ask their permission, do not use it!!

"But what about reblogging?! Isn't that the same as reposting?? Should we not reblog art at all then?" No, reblogging (or retweeting) is not the same as reposting. If you reblog art, you keep all the information that we attached to the art, including our blog name and the description attached to the art. Reblogging/retweeting actually helps us artists A LOT, so as long as you're reblogging from the original artist (and not someone who's reposting their art), by all means, reblog our art!

"What if I just want to share someone else's artwork on Discord or show it to a friend?" This one's a bit different and is not actually as problematic. If you want to share our work on Discord or whatever, just link directly to where we posted it. Please don't post the art itself, unless you're doing it alongside a link because Discord won't show a preview or something.

"What about a forum or a site like Reddit?" This one's a bit different, since due to the way Reddit functions, if you LINK to the art, you have to go directly to the artist's original page to view it. (At least, that’s what it’s like the last time I was active there.) In a way it's roughly the same as with Discord--be sure you're linking directly to the actual post rather than just uploading the art on its own--but I would also ask the artist if they're okay with it, because they may be a member of the subreddit or forum and want to post it themselves, or they might not want their work shared to specific communities. (Some communities have a function where a bot will repost the artwork to Imgur, and some artists don't want that done with their art.)

"What if I'm saving it to my computer/phone to look at later, or making it into my desktop/phone wallpaper?" IMO this is fine, since your computer/phone files aren't public, and neither is your wallpaper. It's only a problem when you post it to public places without our permission.

"What if it's art I commissioned?" Well... like... in that case, it's art you paid for, so unless the artist you commissioned laid out very specific terms for you, you should be good to use that art. Like, at most, the artist may ask you to credit them somewhere in your blog description if they drew your icon or something, or credit them in a fic description if you commissioned a fic illustration from them, or something to that effect. It's really something you should have already worked out with the artist beforehand, but for the most part you should probably be fine to use art you paid for however you like.

"What about art I requested?" This is a bit different from commissioned work. Just because the art was drawn at your request doesn't mean it's explicitly yours (unless it's like, a drawing of your original character or something). Some artists take requests more as suggestions, so the art they draw in response to a suggestion or request is still theirs. Treat this as you would any other artwork and ask the artist for permission first before you do anything with the artwork you requested from them.

“What about NFTs?” ... Okay this one I can’t really go over too much because I barely understand it in the first place, but NFTs are BAD for artists and are a form of art theft. Do not turn people’s art into NFTs. This is a crappy thing to do. (If you want more information on this one, you’ll have to look it up yourself. It’s a form of cryptocurrency and it’s confusing.)

“If you don’t want your art stolen you shouldn’t post it in the first place.” This is fascinating logic. Try applying it to something else and see how it holds up. “If you don’t want your merchandise stolen, you shouldn’t open a booth.” “If you don’t want to get poisoned you shouldn’t eat food.” “If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t walk outside.” Yes. Flawless logic. Truly.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?! I'm sharing your art because I like it! That's a compliment! Shouldn't you be happy?" Well, we're certainly glad you like our art, but the problem is... as I've said before, reposting our art causes us to lose our control over it. When we lose control of our art, that damages our livelihood. As I said before, other people have made money off of my artwork. As well, some artists lose jobs because when their potential employers check out their portfolio, they may find artwork that's been reposted everywhere online, so they cannot hire the artist because they believe they may have stolen the artwork in their own portfolio.

Your reposting an image you thought was cute to Facebook or Pinterest could cost an artist their job. Think about that.

So, tl;dr, keep this in mind: you need the artist's permission to repost or use their artwork. If you do not have it, it is stealing, even if you credit the artist.

I know this post is really harsh in places, but this is such an important thing for all artists, and there's so many misconceptions about art theft online. And I feel like one of the biggest problems is that when some people see posts on art theft, they ignore them, because they think they've never done it or would never do it, so that's why I worded this post the way I did. I'm not trying to hurt anyone--I just want people to understand what art theft is, how it affects us artists, and how you can avoid it. Thank you for reading.

[wkemeup]

Sunrise (5)

summary: After an explosion takes his arm and his only sense of belonging, Bucky is content to live out the rest of his days in the hollow comfort of the dark. This is, until Sam drags him down to the local VA and he meets you. (Modern AU) pairings: bucky x reader chapter word count: 4.3k warnings: really flippin sweet fluff, more book recs a/n: to avoid confusion - the manner in which Bucky lost his arm is different in this series than in canon  🧡 series masterlist / series playlist

For the first time since Bucky was discharged from active duty, he had a routine again.  

The curtains were open before he took a shower in the morning; sunlight streaming in through the windows and casting a gentle glow over the apartment. It touched over books piled high on the coffee table, pillows neatly lined on the sofa, and blankets folded over the arm rest. Steve had nearly done a double take the first time he made his usual beeline to whip open the curtains to expose a dusty and unkempt apartment, only to find Bucky making coffee in the kitchen, freshly showered, and the sun shining high in the sky.  

It had been almost a month since his first attendance at book club and he’d gone through nearly a book a week just to have the excuse to visit you at the library again for another. You’d given him your number after his first trip to the library with a binding promise to text you if he was held up in his apartment in pain again. You’d sworn to bring books straight to him and read them aloud if you had to.  

You had laughed as you said it, like it was only a joke. Bucky had nodded along, but if he were honest, he would have liked that very much.  

He’d arrange for times to meet you at the library at the end of your shift where you’d always have a book waiting for him. There’d be a few sitting on the shelf you’d set aside, but without fail, he always opted for the first one you presented to him. You hadn’t led him wrong so far.  

After, though neither of you directly proposed it, you’d often find yourselves back at Luciana’s. It was like your feet simply carried you there, a silent agreement to spend as much time together as you could, even if you were both too afraid to admit it out loud.  

He came to understand why Sunday was your favorite day of the week. Bucky started to take it upon himself to meet you at the library to walk you to the VA where he fulfilled his word to help move the couches before the usual members arrived. The look of surprise on your face when you bounced down the library steps and caught sight of him leaning on the pillar a few steps away from the busy sidewalk had been enough to convince him to never leave your side again. 

Your smile was one he’d learned to memorize. He conjured it when the strangers bumped into him on the sidewalk threatened to collapse his racing heart entirely and it pushed him further. It was enough to convince him to keep going beyond the safety of his apartment walls and it was worth it every time. Just to see you smile at him like that.  

***

“Have you started it yet?”

Bucky blinked a few times, reminding himself of his surroundings. You stood on his right side in line at Luciana’s behind a couple of tourists who were having a hard time discerning the difference between a cappuccino and an americano. He raised an eyebrow, confused, and you gestured to the book in his bag.  

“Oh, I just flipped through the pages so far,” Bucky said, pulling the book from his bag; thick black cover with a small white illustrated creature staring up at the stars. Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too written by an author that seemed to go by a name as misspelled as the title, Jomny Sun. “It looks like a children’s book?”

You grinned and your shoulders lifted in a shrug. “It’s somewhere in between. You have to trust me on this one. It may seem young on the surface but it’ll tug at your heart strings. Hold your judgement until you’ve actually read it, Barnes.”

Bucky chuckled, nodding. “Hey, I never said I didn’t trust you. Just curious where you’re leading me on this one.”

“Be blind, Bucky,” you sang, teasing him. “I won’t guide you into a creepy forest or the bottom of the ocean, I promise.”

“Oh good. I was starting to worry.”  

It was strange to feel so light again, but there was something about your presence that allowed him to let go of all the weight he carried. He could set down his baggage at his feet for just a minute to give his back a break, to stretch out his muscles and find relief in the solace. You would have offered to carry some of it yourself if he’d asked— of that he was certain. But it was a heavy load, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for you to see what was inside just yet.

The bell to the café rang behind him and a mother and her young son walked inside. The little boy held the woman’s hand as he scrunched his nose at the smell of the coffee, pouting up at her. A bright red backpack hung off his shoulders, Velcro ties over his tiny sneakers. The soles lit up as he walked.  

“Mommy, I want to go to the playground,” the kid whined and Bucky watched you laugh to yourself from the corner of his eye.  

“We will, sweetness,” the mother replied calmly. She bent down to brush the hair from the boy’s eyes. “Mommy just needs a bit of caffeine before we—”

“Whoa! What happened to that guy’s arm?” the kid gasped, a mixture of shock and amazement in his tiny little voice.  

Bucky tensed up immediately, every muscle in his body turning to stone. When strangers noticed his arm, he was usually met with unwanted stares and hushed whispered, but children were a whole different story. They had no filter, no sense of the unspoken rules garnered by society; they were driven by their own curiosity and something as trivial as politeness did not get in the way of that.  

“Oh, honey,” the mother gripped tight to the boy’s arm, lowing her voice in hopes Bucky hadn’t heard him, “you can’t ask things like that.”

“Why not?” the boy replied innocently. “Where’d it go?”

Bucky could feel your eyes on him, studying for his reaction, but he couldn’t offer one. He was stone, after all. A frown tugged at your lips to see the sudden distress wash over him and he felt an aching puncture of embarrassment deep into his stomach. It only took the mere mention of his arm to wipe him to a blank slate, to throw him back to the battlefield where it was torn from his body. Any unexpected reminder of it usually did.  

You nodded at him, offered a small smile, like you were trying to tell him it would be alright. Then slowly, you turned around and knelt in front of the boy.  

“Hi,” you said sweetly, catching the mother off guard.  

“Do you know what happened to his arm?” the boy asked, must to the dismay of his mother.

“Mason! Oh God, I am so very sorry,” the mother quickly apologized, flustered as she desperately tried to hush the boy. He pressed his face into his mother’s arm.  

Bucky stole a glance over his shoulder to find you kneeling on the floor beside the boy, smiling at him as he clutched a plush triceratops to his chest. You tilted your head at him, trying to get a better look at the boy.  

“You want to know what happened?” you asked softly. He nodded, arms wrapped tight around his stuffed toy. You glanced up at Bucky and his eyes narrowed on you, heart beating a little faster, stomach twisting, before you turned back to the boy. “He did something really brave.”

Fuck. 

Did you know? 

Did Sam tell you? 

Bucky’s legs started to feel weak.  

“You like superheroes, huh?” you continued, pointing at the image of a man in a red cape flying on the boy’s t-shirt. The boy nodded shyly. “They swoop in and save the day with their super strength or magic powers, right?”

The boy started laughing, he was smiling again, standing free from his mother’s hold. She was staring at you like you were akin to one of the characters on the boy’s shirt. Bucky felt the stones cracking around his body, freeing him from their grip.  

“Is he Super Man?” Mason whispered, glancing up at Bucky with such wonder, it took him by surprise. The boy was so small, no older than four years old. Bucky didn’t know the last time he’d even talked to a kid that young and yet here you were, at the boy’s level, making him laugh and smile and easing the concerns of his mother.  

“No, he’s not,” you laughed for a moment. Then, you softened, gathering the boy’s attention again. “My friend here doesn’t have super powers. So, when he saved someone, he got hurt. But I think that makes him very brave, don’t you?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically, grinning so wide Bucky wondered how it was possible your smile could be so infectious. The mother mouthed a soft ‘thank you’ in your direction as the boy quickly changed subjects to the sprinkled donut he was going to eat for snack. She caught Bucky’s eye for a minute and nodded at him, almost in appreciation. He pressed his lips to a thin line. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say anything back.  

You ordered his usual coffee and one of the freshly baked muffins, then a drink and a pastry for yourself. In Bucky’s distraction with the kid, he hadn’t noticed you pay before he had a chance. He felt like he was in a bit of a trance as you led him back to a table in the far corner of the shop, away from the windows and the customers.  

“You alright?” you asked as you slid into your chair opposite him.  

“Did Sam tell you?” Bucky blurted out before he had a chance to bite his tongue. It was the last thing he wanted you to know about and he had half a mind to storm up to the VA just to rip Sam a new one before he shut himself off in his apartment for a few weeks.  

It was the reason for the reoccurring nightmares that hadn’t let up in the last month, even when he’d started to have more good days than bad. They’d celebrated him for what he’d done, given him a medal, and thanked him for his service. The very thought of it made him want to vomit.  

“Hey, hey, Bucky look at me,” you called gently, your voice at the end of a dark tunnel. He blinked, adjusting to the light. “Sam didn’t say a word about what happened. I had a theory and I made a guess. You’re clearly a good man. It didn’t feel like much of a stretch. That’s all.”

Bucky clenched his jaw, staring down at the muffin as he picked at the paper cup. He heard you sigh, surprised that he couldn’t find a single sliver of impatience in your voice. When he looked up again, you smiled sweetly at him and asked him about Alien – Aliebn? – book; quickly lost in tangent of your favorite pages and moments you were excited for him to read.  

He was grateful for the change in subject, but more than that, it gave him a chance to just admire you. There was nothing strange about watching a woman, studying the intricacies on her face and the passion in her voice, when she was speaking right to him. He nodded along, doing his best to actually take in what you were saying, but he was so easily distracted by the brush of steam touching your nose, the press of your lips into your cheeks, the lines on your forehead, and the way your eyes seemed to light up the entire city block.  

The kid, his arm, and nearly six years of combat were quickly forgotten when he had the chance to watch you like that. You hardly let him get a word on, too caught up in your own excitement for the novels you placed in his hand, but he didn’t mind. He preferred to listen to you anyway. Your voice had a calming presence about it; soothing and gentle, loving and joyous. If it weren’t for the clock hanging on the wall above your head, he might have sat there all night with you.

“We should probably head over,” he pointed out reluctantly, gesturing to the clock as it approached six.  

You frowned, following his gaze to see the time had slipped by quicker than you realized. As you began to clear off the table, throwing the scraps in the garbage and setting the mugs on the counter for Luciana, Bucky began to wonder if maybe you would have sat there all night with him, too. If only he could find the courage to ask.

***

Bucky removed the clip from the book, closed the back binding, and slumped back into the cushions. The room was still pretty quiet, everyone’s noses still down in their books as the soft strum of Simon & Garfunkel played from the speaker by the coffee table. He glanced over at you as you sat beside him, a little closer than usual, though he didn’t mind. Your hip brushed his every so often when you adjusted position. It was a kind of closeness that left him wanting more.  

You were only halfway through your own book, but you could clearly sense him watching you because you slowly looked up in his direction, a pointed smile on your face.  

“You were right,” he admitted, his voice a hushed whisper in effort not to disturb the other members. “Surprisingly deep considering it’s a children’s book for adults.”  

“Hey maybe we need pictures on our pages, too,” you whispered back, teasing him with a nudged to his right shoulder. He laughed, leaning back comfortably against the couch as Tony’s eyes glared over in his direction from the top of his book. He pressed his lips together to keep quiet.

You snickered into Bucky’s shoulder, lips pressing against the sleeve of his jacket and he had never wanted to remove that layer more in his life; to actually feel the imprint of your mouth instead of just the press of your face, to feel the heat in your breath breathe through the thin layer of his t-shirt. He shivered.  

“Alright kids,” you said aloud, setting your book on the table. “Times up for today.”

“Oh, come on, Y/n! I’ve only got one chapter left!” Clint whined, stretching out dramatically along the table he was laying across.  

“Glad to hear it, Clint,” you smirked, hands planted firm on your hips. “Finish on your own time.”

A couple of ‘ooo’s rang out and it reminded Bucky of his days sitting behind a desk in class in grade school and a kid would get called up to the principal's office. Clint took it in stride though and seemed to bask in it, throwing up a pose in face of the chorus.  

The crowd quickly dispersed after that, though a few of the older members lingered behind to update you on how far they’d gotten in their books. Bucky watched you from a distance as he started to move the couches back into place, mesmerized by the glimmer in your eye as you spoke to them, a soft hand resting on the crook of their arm, nodding along with a smile on your face – always so genuine in every interaction, in every bone in your body.  

Bucky had practically finished arranging the entire room by the time you walked back inside. Your jaw dropped, wide eyes meeting his. ��

“You didn’t have to do all that by yourself!”  

Bucky shrugged. “How long were you doing it on your own before I came along? Take the help when it’s offered, Y/n.”

You smiled at that. “Still. I appreciate it.”

“It’s really nothing,” Bucky said simply.

He hadn’t felt a drive like this is years. Not even before his final tour and the destruction that came with it. He hadn’t remembered what it felt like to want to lift even the smallest of burdens for someone else just to see the weight slip from their shoulders, just to see them smile. He found himself wanting to carry everything you had, even if it started with arranging the heavy furniture of the empty VA library.  

You chewed on the edge of your lip as you watched him approach the door, your jacket in his hand. He had wanted to hold it open for you, to let you turn your back and slip your arms through the sleeves, but it just wasn’t something he could do with one hand, and instead, he placed it to hang over your forearm. 

A longing for a world in which you met him before his body had been put through the shredder ached deep into his gut. It started to push a frown onto his lips, but then your voice broke through and he shook it away.  

“Ready?” you asked, gesturing to the door and he nodded, following closely behind.  

There was a sudden nervous energy in the air he didn’t expect, and for once, it wasn’t coming from him. He glanced over at you as you walked in line with him to find you fidgeting with the zipper of your jacket, hands wringing into the fabric, and hair falling out of place and down into your eyes. You exhaled a few tense breaths as Bucky opened the main door for you, following behind as you stepped out onto the side walk.  

The two of you stood there for a minute, neither one making a move to leave. You kept glancing back at the VA, then to your watch, barely able to look in Bucky’s direction and he started to feel that familiar twist of anxiety in his stomach.  

“Hey, are you oka—”

“Do you want to go for a walk?” you blurted out before he could finish, biting down quickly on your lip as if to stop yourself from saying more.  

Bucky froze, confused. He glanced down at his watch. It would be dark soon. “Now?”  

A flash of embarrassment quickly passed over your features and Bucky’s stomach dropped. 

Was it possible that you just wanted to spend more time with him? That maybe you could crave his presence the same way he did yours?  

“N-No, no, you’re right. It’s late. I’m sorry,” you muttered quickly, arms folding protectively over your chest. You kicked at a stone on the sidewalk, watching as it rolled over on its side. “I should, uh, I should head home then. I’ll see you later, Bucky.”

“There’s a park nearby,” Bucky offered before you could turn away. You lifted your head.  

“Yeah?” A cautious smile hung on your lips as you stepped closer to him.  

Bucky nodded, trying to push away the shaking in his hand. “Yeah, come on.”

A couple minutes passed by in silence as you walked along his side. Every so often, your knuckles would brush up against his hand, a nervous laughter between you as you pulled away. It happened so quickly each time, he never had a chance to respond. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure he would have had the courage to twist his fingers into yours, hold your hand tight to his own, feel the warmth of your palm and guide you along the cobblestones to the small space of greenery amongst brick and steel and concrete.  

“I hope you don’t mind me keeping you out late,” you said slowly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you waited at the intersection to cross the street.  

“Not at all,” Bucky replied sincerely, offering you a small smile in hopes to ease your nervousness. Part of him wished he said more, maybe told you that spending time with you was the best part of his day or that you were the reason he was getting out of bed most mornings, but it was too big of an admission. It could scare you away and that was the last thing he wanted. Before he had a chance to decide, the light turned and you stepped out onto the street. Bucky followed closely behind.  

The entrance to the park was bordered with a dark metal fence, an arch way carrying over the brick walkway decorated with flowers and vines. You crossed underneath, pausing to stare up the twisting of the leaved through the pattern in the arch, a delicate finger reaching out to touch the tip of a petal. You looked back at Bucky with a smile twice as wide on your face and he hung his head, a breath of a laugh in his chest.  

The park was mostly empty for a Sunday evening. The last remaining streams of sunlight lit up the greenery, touching over the flowers and the reflecting into the pond at the center where a family of ducks were waddling along the edge. You seemed to like that, watching how the babies followed the mama along the rim of the water. Bucky turned to his right to find you imitating their walk, chasing after them until they stepped into the water.  

Meanwhile, Bucky found a bench sitting under an old oak tree. Its branches hung draped over the bench enough to provide a shadow from the closing sun. It faced the west side of the park, where the sun was setting just over the tops of the buildings and illuminating the sky in brilliant shades of golden orange and vibrant reds.  

“You want to sit for a bit?” Bucky asked, gesturing to the bench. His feet were a little tired from walking through Brooklyn all day with the library, the VA, and now this. It was more than he usually did these days – not that he minded. He’d happily allow his legs to be a little sore if it meant more time with you. He’d walk through busy streets for miles if it was you he was walking towards.  

You plopped down on the bench on his right, sinking into the old wood. You glanced over at him, hiding behind a strand of hair that had fallen down into your face.  

“Thanks for amusing me.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, chuckling to himself. “You act like I don’t want to be here.”

“I know, I know,” you laughed, swinging your feet off the side of the bench. “It’s just... and I hope this isn’t a strange thing to say but... I just like spending time with you. Wanted a little more of it today, I suppose.”

Bucky swallowed, his throat feeling suddenly very dry. His heart stammered a bit inside his chest, butterflies causing chaos in his stomach, but it didn’t make him want to run. He felt no drive to escape, to push those sensations so far out of reach he turned back to the numbed and empty version of himself he’d been occupied by for months before he met you. They were frightening feelings, yes, but they were pleasant ones, ones he welcomed and invited inside.  

“You can have as much of my time as you want,” Bucky said as the words fell off his tongue. No filter, no second guessing. No chance to bite his tongue. You looked up at him with a kind of hope in your eyes that made his cheeks start to hurt from how much he was smiling.  

You settled back in on the bench, gazing up at the sunset as it lowered behind the buildings. Brush strokes of softer tones blended into the fading blues in the sky, giving way to the moon and stars as they emerged beyond the clouds.  

He glanced down at your hand as it rested on the bench by your thigh. There was hardly even a breath of air between his pinky to yours. You were so close; it would only take one instant of courage to bar the space between you.  

Be brave, Barnes.

Testing the waters, Bucky allowed the very edge of his fingers to brush over your knuckles. Your skin was softer than he’d remembered from that first handshake in the VA nearly a month earlier. He felt your breath hitch like a jolt of electricity had rushed though you, though you didn’t tear your eyes away from the sunset. Your thumb ran a tender line along his hand as you turned your palm up. Bucky swallowed.  

He slipped his hand into yours, curling his fingers to the space between your own, and for a moment he just let himself feel.

He felt for the slight give in your hand, the twitch in your movements as you settled in against him. He felt the gentle sway of your thumb as it painted a line along his, comforting sweeps like you were reminding him you were there. He felt the chill in your skin – cold hands, like he remembered from before – and the heat of his own.  

Then, your head on his shoulder. Your legs crossed towards him as you leaned in closer and he made no efforts to move. A gesture like that would have thrown him in a tailspin before he met you; to be this close to someone, to anyone, to sit in the vulnerability of allowing someone to know and feel him.  

He looked back up at the sunset. It had nearly dipped below the horizon now; only a few glimpses of color remaining in the sky and the shine of the lamppost just a few feet away.  

You sighed in a contented hum, circling your free hand to rest on the inside of his bicep, hooked around his arm. You held him against you like a teddy bear, just wanting to feel more of him. 

It was a strange sensation, he thought; this new urge to want to give you as much as his body could offer.  

[notanotherreidgirl]

could u do some fluff with reid... maybe like u both are extremely tired and you lay on the couch and end up having a sloppy yet romantic make out sesh on the couch? it could end in you guys falling asleep on the couch

I loved this request! I’ll admit this one was a bit self-indulgent - describing my personal reading style and choosing my favorite stories from The Illustrated Man - but I hope you guys still like it :)

Word Count: 680

Warnings: kissing

It was no secret that Spencer Reid loved to read. But he also loved to be read to. In fact, he would take someone reading to him over reading by himself any day of the week even if that meant it took longer, especially because it took longer. When his mother read to him, her love of the text came through - always pausing to point out compelling prose or encourage him to identify literary devices. When Spencer started to read aloud to her he made the words come alive off the page, allowing her to get lost in the adventures printed on those precious pages. Ever the showman his voice would rise and fall, changing his intonation to suit the characters and the mood. He could whisk you away to far-off lands and immerse you in unknown worlds. His very best magic trick.

But Spencer’s favorite was when you read to him. You didn’t stop in the middle of the story with analytical interjections or get carried away doing the voices. No, you had your own style. You read in a warm and even tone - the safe harbor of your voice anchoring him to you as conflict arose in the story and the stakes got higher and higher.

It had been a hectic case punctuated by a long jet ride and the first thing he did was collapse into your arms, letting you take off his tie and help him kick off his shoes before wordlessly opening the nearest book. You had started reading The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury- traversing the perpetually dark and rainy planet Venus, spending the last night on Earth, braving the perilous shapeshifting nursery commanded by maleficent children. And through it all your arms were around him and your even pace served as a refuge amidst the tumultuous tales.

He buried his face deeper into your chest, letting out a contented yawn and you responded by carding your fingers through his hair. “You tired? Wanna go to bed?”

“No,” he protested stubbornly, craning his head upwards so he could kiss the corner of your mouth. “Keep reading”

You smiled, scanning the page for your place and picking up where you left off. But once he got a taste of you he couldn’t stop, crowding your jawline and cheeks with soft kisses and pawing at your shirt. You laughed, “Spence, I can’t read like this”

No matter how much Spencer liked being read to, it couldn’t compare with kissing you. “Then don’t”

You had just enough time to chuck the book on the coffee table before Spencer pushed himself up on his hands and captured your lips with his. The kiss was hot and needy, slipping his tongue in your mouth and hands traveling up your sides and coming to cup your face. He wanted more. Always more. Even when he was kissing you and kissing you and kissing you, he wished he could have more - never able to get enough of you.

You met his desperation with steady hands, grasping at his shirt and pulling him in closer with the self-assured confidence that had attracted him to you in the first place. You knew what you wanted and how to get it. You knew everything about how to kiss him - how to make him moan by biting his lower lip, how to make his back arch, how to make him tremble with a whisper of his name.

He traveled down your jawline, laying sloppy open-mouthed kisses down the column of your jaw and into the valley between your tits. You played with his hair while catching your breath, massaging his scalp lightly as made himself comfortable on your chest using your breasts as a pillow. His warm breath fanned against your skin and he started tracing shapes onto your arm with a finger. His next words were hushed, a barely-there murmur against your skin but you recognized them all the same - he had picked up from where you left off, reciting the book from memory and lulling you into a peaceful sleep.

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