#the other halves of that mix-and-match are also going into another 'custom' but uh. I need to figure out A Thing first before I jump in.

[sword-and-lance]

BEHOLD

I went on ahead and made a Blue custom Zoid :D First ever (almost) all-over paint job I've attempted like this

...really do need to go back through and touch up some paint overruns I have, mind you, so he's not 100% complete (just more like 99%), but

here is The Boy anyway

considering he "canonically" looks like this (thank you Saintgale for the art):

I think I did not half-bad here lmao

[twilightsunclan-fr]

Disco’s has an active imagination part 2

At first Disco thought Ophrys might have been a girl. A sweet delicate girl to balance Ivory’s large size and somewhat rough appearance. She probably wore long flowing skirts and layered blouses and sunhats. Someone with long brown hair and slight enough for Ivory to pick up and spin around. (Ivory seemed like the type to want to twirl his significant other around.) A girl with a bubbly personality and and cheerful disposition to match Ivory’s relentlessly positive and slightly scatterbrained personality.

Disco was ready and willing to admit that he had been rather, okay, very sexist on this. The whole basis for his first image was Ivory telling him that Ophrys’ name was based on a flower and that Ophrys had an intense interest in the Topiary Gardens. And was only backed up when Ivory spent a good deal of time chatting with the berry stall owners in Joint Avenue.

“Why did you spend a good thirty minutes talking to the berry farmers?” Disco originally intended to bypass the stand altogether. Berries weren’t something he was overly interested in. But Ivory insisted on going over. Then instead of buying whatever berries he could have possibly wanted, spent the time asking incredibly detailed questions about the care of their berries and some of their growing techniques. And recording the answers in texts on his phone.

“Ophrys is a berry farmer.” Ivory said absently, still texting to the mysterious Ophrys. He didn’t say anymore about it and Disco didn’t see it as polite to complain. He was taking Ivory away from Ophrys for an extended period of time. If Ivory took a little extra time here and there to cater to his love’s interests, Disco didn’t see a problem. He did mentally revise his image of long flowing skirts and loose blouses to overalls, denim, workpants, t-shirts and heavy work gloves. Maybe a streak of dirt across the nose, freckles over her face and her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

It didn’t take long for Ivory to throw another wrench into that image.

“Oh man,” Ivory gushed, eyes not wavering from the pokemon in front of them. “He’d go crazy over this.” A roselia and a roserade danced in perfect sync, a demonstration of a coordinator’s star pair for the evening’s contest.

“Who?” Disco raised an eyebrow, he felt like he’d been asking that a lot recently. The Roselia executed an energy ball attack perfectly timed to catch the bright orange rays of the roserade’s sunny day, creating a beautiful explosions of warmth with green and orange sparkles.

“Rhys. He loves the shit outta grass types.” Honestly, Disco didn’t know why he hadn’t realized Ivory was either gay or bi earlier. He mentally tallied that under ‘personal information that hadn’t needed to be shared earlier’ and once again revised his version of Ophrys. From a slender young woman to a maybe slightly taller, slender young man with a little bit of muscle. Who had short brown hair and blue eyes. Wore work pants and tank tops and wide brimmed sunhats to keep the sun from his freckles. And carried baskets of berries in from the fields and laughed and smiled all the time.

Something else that Disco had written off at first but over the journey realized was now a thing, were care packages. Disco got the occasional one from his best friend, Miranda and he knew that Ivory also got a rare package from Iubar, when Ivory had bothered to tell Iubar where they were headed. However now, now Ivory got a care package at every center they stopped at.

Each one was hand packed and custom filled for Ivory and his team.

The box itself was divided into two halves. One half was full of dry goods. The brand of cereal that Ivory loved in small baggies, trail mix and granola bars. Also of course, small bags of different candy. All Ivory’s favorites. Gumiworms and bears, sour patch kids and twizzlers. Sometimes there’d be a pair of socks stuffed in, or other small camping gear that Ivory either lost or broke and needed a replacement of.

And always, always a single bottled water, tucked into a corner of the box. Every time Ivory saw it, his face quickly became scarlet. Disco was surprised he didn’t faint from all the blood rushing to his face so fast.

“I-inside joke.” Ivory told him shakily when he asked. “I’m al-always trying to get him to uh...hydrate more.” Disco sensed there was more to the story, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

The other half of Ivory’s care packages were for his pokemon. Dried berries of every shape, size and color as well as poke puffs. They were separated into ziplock bags and each bag had a typed label on it for which of Ivory’s pokemon it was meant for. Disco had blinked at the level of care. Each bag held different treats in accordance with that pokemon’s likes and dislikes. No wonder Ivory’s dragons were calmer now, if his boyfriend was providing a steady supply of custom made treats.

“He makes them himself.” Ivory mentioned in an offhand manner as he sorted the baggies of treats and berries out. “Baking is something of a…” He paused and twirled a hand in the air while thinking of the word. “Spite hobby of his.” That should really have been the first clue for Disco that all was not well with his mental image.

“What the hell is a spite hobby and why would baking be one?” Disco couldn’t help asking. It wasn’t a term he’d ever heard before. He accepted a handful of gumiworms.

“Rhys is blind.” Ivory said bluntly, generously not remarking on the way Disco had choked on a gumi worm. The look on his face was part annoyed and part fond. “He grew up with people telling him left right and center all the things he couldn’t do. He wasn’t even allowed to be a trainer. When he picked up baking, well, he kept at it, just to show everyone that he could.” Ivory shrugged, the flash of anger when he mentioned Ophrys being denied the ability to be a trainer gone. He held up a slightly squashed poke puff. “He’s really good at it now.”

“Wait, Ophrys is blind?” This was information that Disco honestly thought would be one of the first things that Ivory would share. Not regulated to a whole month and half the region of their trip later. Ivory didn’t seem to notice Disco’s mild distress. Merely thoughtfully squeezed the poke puff again.

“Uh-huh. Accident as a kid. He has a service Chikorita named Bean for when he has to brave the great public outdoors or if I move a chair and forget to put it back. She’s fucking adorable.” And so Disco’s mental image changed again. Saying good bye to bright blue eyes, replacing them with pale blind ones and adding a cavorting chikorita around the feet of the boy. He pictured Ophrys with small slender hands. Ones that could easily pick berries, but also mix batter, pipe frosting and skillfully pack the care packages.

He really was clueless.