#kai dara koth

[butts-art]

monthly sketch for the lovely @aftergloom

[shibara]

Finished commission for @nxctuaryninetythree portraying Feral and OC Kai Dara Koth!

It was such a sweet process bringing this from the sketch to the final render. I've forgotten how satisfying it is to render little details like pockets, and seams > u <

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

Quick self promo: I've still got two slots left for discounted Star Wars-related commissions. After those are gone, full illustrations like this one will go for my regular price, so if you've got a SW oc, or canon character you'd like me to work on, now's probably the best moment~

--------------- Finally, have a few close-up crops beneath the cut ^ ^~

[thenightmarketofdathomir]

Trick or Treat:D

CoH B-Sides with the usual suspects: Feral, Savage, Kai.

"Don't let anyone give you a tour you don't ask for," he warned her. "And keep an eye on your weapons."

"Especially in the Night Market."

"Definitely in the Night Market."

"And don't go into the temples alone at night," Feral added.

"Or at all without an escort," Savage murmured. 

"Or just at all."

"And don't accept trinkets, especially if someone claims there's magic in it."

"Best keep your hands in your pockets."

"Thieves?" Kai asked.

Feral glanced at his brother. "Someone is more likely to put a talisman on you. A wayfinder. Bone tracker. Spell bauble.” He pulled a face. “You’ll end up down an alley and then I’ll have to explain the bodies to my brother —“

“I think I can manage.”

“It’s not you that I’m worried about, Koth.”

Kai heaved a heavy breath. Held it. Looked between them.

"Is there a Cantina at least?"

Feral tipped his head, questioning.

"I could really use a stiff drink."

He smirked, but it faded quickly.

"Nightbrother tavern," he said, searching her, then Savage. "Catacombs."

"Catacombs," Kai repeated on a breath, wary, suddenly of the implications.

"It's where we bury our dead."

She winced. Of course they did.

He nudged her. “At least the neighbours don’t complain when the patrons get too rowdy.”

[herbalinz-of-yesteryear]

Ede & Kai. Not-happening AU xD

Thank you for letting me draw your Kai in this meme which makes perfect sense (in my head 😂), @aftergloom

Here’s one for the foundlings in our stories 🫗

[aftergloom]

🖤 rules: create a moodboard using photos from your camera roll 🖤

Thank you for the tag @dawdreygore <3

I had to edit this a bit because people IRL are in my most recent so, eh, this is a bit curated?

Tagging: @botherbother-blog @gran-maul-seizure @zara2148 @herbalinz-of-yesteryear @grinningnexu and anyone else who might want to play.

[butts-art]

March sketch for @aftergloom three lil fools enjoying a night out

[shibara]

Streaming~ Shading

https://www.twitch.tv/artofshibara

Starting on the shading for this comm for @nxctuaryninetythree portraying Feral and Kai~

[butts-art]

King and Queen of Darkness

patreon sketch comm for @nxctuaryninetythree

[butts-art]

Lovely commission done for @nxctuaryninetythree

Feral and Kai being adorable little shits!

[aftergloom]

Five Songs

Rules: 🎶 when you get this, list 5 songs you’ve been listening to & tag 5-10 people. Thanks @zara2148

Literally everything I've been listening to lately is build for Crown of Horns. Like, compulsively. The same tracks over and over as the ship makes this sweeping pass over the planet and all Kai sees for miles is wartime remnants in the aftermath of the Nightsister genocide (then Savage takes this one sharp turn and boom, there's the Night City tucked in between the mountains.)

Some character and scene anthems below with very little context.

Jambi by Tool "Kohlma, again." Kai's Descent

So if I could I'd wish it all away If I thought tomorrow would take you away You, my peace of mind, my all, my center Just trying to hold on one more day

Darkangel by VNV Nation Feral's Theme

There is no faith in which to hide, even truth is filled with lies Doubting angels fall to walk among the living I'm in this mood because of scorn, I'm in a mood for total war To the darkened skies once more and ever onward

Emerge by Fischerspooner "The Malachor Incident" chapter anthem

You don't need to, emerge from nothing You don't need to tear away

Hopeless Wanderer by Mumford & Sons "Midnight on Moraband" chapter anthem

Don't hold a glass over the flame Don't let your heart grow cold I will call you by name I will share your road

The Grand Bazaar by The Tea Party Kai & Feral in the Night Market

Silence swimming in a pool of dreams Beneath its depths forgotten streams Above, the city of the evening star Behind its walls, the grand bazaar As she walks through its endless maze Cursing those who mistrust her ways Please my friend no matter what she sees Tell my lover come back to me

Tagging (No pressure): @herbalinz-of-yesteryear @grinningnexu @botherbother-blog @dawdreygore @spinejackel @gran-maul-seizure @maulieber

[aftergloom]

Six Sentence Sunday

Was tagged by @herbalina-of-yesteryear last week (thank you!) but with NaNoWriMo just starting I didn't have anything but word barf on offer.

Eight sentences from this year's project, Crown of Horns: a haunting. (CW: for past child abuse)

Tagging the server's NaNoWriMo writers who are among my Moots: @dawdreygore @botherbother-blog @zabrak-show if they want to share.

They’d abandoned it, she realized — this mausoleum.

They’d left the carcass of a once-imposing megalith to decay, withering away just like the organization that made it fearsome. All that power and all that effort, scattered to the edges of the known universe and forgotten.

No one remembered what they did here.

No one but her. 

“I’ve never seen someone stop and stare and nothing for so many minutes,” Feral said eventually.

Distracted, Kai pulled her attention from a little holding room: the fixtures on the floor and walls discarded into the edges. She didn’t step in, but considered it from the corridor as if she’d become a spectator at a museum.

[butts-art]

Feral and Kai @aftergloom

[aftergloom]

I'm re-reading a few scenes I've been toiling over (yesterday was a research session that has yielded a little mountain of wonderful things to work with but no actual words) and all I can say is there is wonderful character revelation found in the quiet moments where you see two blorbos falling in love but neither is acknowledging it yet.

And they're just sharing a meal, you know? And talking. And making observations about each other in this haunting setting that they've barely survived, but they're together but not and so it aches right under the ribcage to have to watch them.

That's the good shit -- the littlest revelations resulting from the calculated destruction of who they thought they were and what they thought they wanted.

No Six Sentence Sunday today, just a few thoughts about being both puppetmaster and being able to enjoy the process. Sometimes it's really good, even when it's a lot of work, and I hope you have a good day with your blorbos too.

[aftergloom]

2022 - By the Numbers

368,791 total words written

Crown of Horns took the greatest chunk at 260,395 words

The Night Market of Dathomir and Opress Oneshots came in second at 108,396 words

152 smutty ficlets, drabbles, and headcanons for @thenightmarketofdathomir

15 gen headcanons for @fromdathomirwithlove (but it's new so I'll forgive myself)

One 50k NaNoWriMo Win

Two Camp NaNoWriMo Wins (30k each)

Fave WIP: Three Princes (Feral Opress x Reader) Fave Oneshot: The Collector (Darth Maul x Reader)

Fave Unreleased Work: Crown of Horns (Feral Opress x OC - Kai Dara Koth) Archangel (Darth Maul x Reader) Most Popular Work: Evidence in the Aftermath (probably? I'm guessing based on how many times it's showed up in my notifications.)

Most Underrated Work: This Fic is Cursed (Opress Bros x Readers) Most Surprising (that I actually did the thing): Homecoming (Rogue x Gambit)

Fave One-liner: Too many of them.

I know 2023 is going to be a busy year for me for my writing, but how much of that happens here versus what's happening behind the scenes is up in the air.

I have some bigger projects that I want to finish, and I know some of my focus is shifting back to original work, and maybe, like, two fics that need attention/completion that I'm still thinking about.

By my own self-assessment, and looking at the numbers month over month, I burned pretty hard but this isn't enough for me. It's rarely, if ever, enough for me.

I want half a million words in for 2023, including at least two complete drafts of novel-length work, with one outline for a new project, and maybe six short stories (original horror content) that I can take to market. Gonna be busy.

Let's fucking go, kids.

[aftergloom]

Six Sentence Sunday 

Fanfiction but make it metal. Excerpts from three fics:

Crown of Horns

88:88

Three Princes - The Shadow Hand

Crown of Horns (Vacation on Moraband)

“It’s a tomb.”

Kai didn’t ask whose. 

She touched her blasters. Her fingers traced the hilt of her glaive. 

“I know this place,” Feral whispered, and the silence turned ringing as he slipped away, leaving only the fading warmth of his touch and the hollow connection of the physical bridge between them sagging and falling away. 

In Feral’s absence, Kai looked around again at the chamber that awaited them — long, and shaded, and anything but empty because at the end, the darkness took on form:

A figure so oppressive that the effigy’s face was lost to the upper echelons of a ceiling that never manifested. The gloom parted around him, swallowing Feral’s shape as if he’d stepped through the gauzy veil of shifting shadow.

88:88

The four of you hover in the moment, the lap of water and the drum of a woodpecker in the distance measuring the spaces between you all and the city behind, and it feels like the suspension point midway on a rope bridge: neither where you were nor where you’re going, just swaying in the middle, suspended by the too-light feeling in your chest, feet not quite grazing the ground… And that’s alright because between the blub of fishes and the cold beer sweating through your fingers, there’s only this moment right here, and it’s held in place by four sets of feet in too-chilly water.

“I’ll get the fire started,” Savage says. 

Three Princes - The Shadow Hand

“Warm in here,” you tell him.

It’s hard to see everything with the lights so dim and your pupils blown so wide, and you’re shucking off your jacket and dropping it on the floor, stumbling into the wide desk beneath the first shelf, catching yourself on abused stone. The table’s been carved right out of the mountainside. So have the shelves.

Despite the solidity of the furniture, you manage to rock a few bottles in your collision. In two strides, you’re off your feet once more, hefted bodily and spun so that when your ass hits the table’s surface, you bounce. 

Savage leans in. “Try to contain your enthusiasm,” he rumbles, and you shiver at the growl in his timber. 

[aftergloom]

Six Sentence Sunday in Six Fics

...Or, "Every WIP I ignored in favour of NaNoWriMo."

Haven't done one of these in a hot minute.

1. The Collector - Maul x Reader, Bookshop AU 2. Archangel - Maul x Reader, BDSM AU 3. Heartsease - Maul x Reader, Darkfic, New Dathomir-verse 4. Late November - Maul x Reader, Punk Rock AU 5. Better than a meddroid - Savage x Reader 6. Crown of Horns - Feral x OC

(Nothing explicit, only suggestive. No warnings.)

1. The Collector Maul deals in rare editions and obscure titles, only. The sort that go to auction when the first editions become so hard to obtain that a buyer will send someone like you to broker the negotiation. You’ve never failed to secure a tome before, no matter how obscure and old, but some books take on a will of their own, occasionally: they do not want to be found.

2. Archangel

If there remains some sort of surreal quality to the way the light slants into the shop when the door opens and the little bell overhead tinkles, you feel its chime in your bones just as surely as his presence slides into the room.

3. Heartsease

In the span of a second, an eternity happens within the vacuum of space and time as you cast your consciousness out into the aether, and it recoils as quickly. You’re alone here. But you knew this would happen: Maul’s people’s rituals are meant to test the hearts and souls of those who’d prove themselves.

The weak do not survive.

4. Late November

“What are you waiting for?” Maul asks, and spread-kneed on that stoop before the door that leads to the labyrinth backstage, the little explosion of his cigarette against wet concrete is almost as bright as the fire in his eyes.

5. Better than a meddroid

“Could you please make it feel better?” you plead, hasty and irritable, and impatient all at once. It aches, but not so bad that you can feel your heartbeat between your legs. Not yet.

6. Crown of Horns

That shut him up just long enough for Savage to meander back into the room, his gaze trained on the tiny datapad in his hand. Wordlessly, he set a bottle on the table between them. An invitation to a truce, perhaps: or an opportunity to spill secrets and pour confessions.

The heat unfurling from Feral’s body could’ve given her a sunburn, were she still capable of that.

“Perhaps a moment of reflection would better reset the alignments of our perspectives,” Savage offered.