#this was also part of the timed sketches thing I did except it turned out so good i rendered it a bit more LMFAO

[corvidaearts]

this is all the musketeers' fault.

[anonymous-eggy]

Quest with an artist Mc

bc i cant stop thinking ab himb....

i wrote this very impulsively so. yeah. theres a bit of horny towards the end, but theres also fluffy sweet things

• he learns of you being an artist when you find the time to create bloomic fanart.

• and you got endless showers of praise from him on how good it was (especially if the fanart included Xander)

• he just thinks its so neat. his artistic expression of choice is poetry, so he's not much of an artist when it comes to drawing.

• he can draw some basic flowers, but thats where his talents end.

• no matter your usual art media, buy gold (body safe) paint and paint his scars. kind of like how you paint the cracks of repaired pottery and such? except make it a vulnerable bonding experience.

• he has many scars all around his body from past accidents and gang related violence.

• i feel like he gets really insecure about them sometimes and worries theyll make you think too much about his past

• but seeing you turn them into something golden and beautiful with such ease and affection... gives him a new appreciation for those parts of him.

• he loves it even more when you connect nearby scars like intricate rivers of gold flowing across his body.

• make sure you fill the comfortable silence with lovely soft words of affirmation and kisses every now and then for the best results.

• absolutely call him your golden boy.

• the only issue is that he feels really bad for having to eventually wash them off.

• so take pictures and send them to him for just you two to hold onto ;)

• despite feeling bad about washing them off, he always feels so much better about his scars and body.

• and let him know this is exactly how you see his scars <3

• i feel like during times when you're not able to paint on him because of a late shift or something, he just looks back at the pictures and replays the soft memories for comfort.

• this is more towards the beginning of your relationship with him, when his insecurities about his past bothering you were the worst

• moving on from that, he is the perfect man to reference.

• he would find it so very funny if you ever complained about parts of him that are hard to draw.

• i could imagine just sitting there watching him work out and just... drawing the way his muscles flex and the way his body bends... dear lord those thighs...

• when you first did this, he immediately noticed. he didnt quite have the courage to ask if you were drawing him (after all, forms of art are very personal things)

• but when he sees you're staring at the sketchbook page more than him, he decides to take a break and ask you.

• not because he's getting jealous of the notebook. hes not a jealous person. the curiosity just takes over because the stares mean you're stuck on smthn or you're finished.

• and boy is he beyond flattered. flustered even.

• he's never really... thought much about himself. physically and mentally. so the fact that he's worth being sketched touches his very soul.

• if you're the type of artist who loves gushing over defined shapes and begin to ramble about the shapes that you love about him, his cheeks will be red and he will patiently listen to every word you have to say.

• as weird as it is to listen to someone describe his physical features with such passion, there's something special about the way you talk about it.

• especially if you suddenly realize what you're saying and get flustered.

• he likes feeling like art when its you. he loves the way you map out his body and turn the shapes of him into strokes of graphite poetry.

• .... he wouldnt mind if you drew him suggestively as well... so long as its for your eyes and his eyes only...

• of course there would be teasing about just how much you seem to adore his body, but never in a way that deters you from sketching him more.

• which, knowing Quest, his teasing quickly veers into horny territory. at the very least deep kisses.

• he says he just want to "give you more inspiration" and that "its his job as your muse"

• he definitely develops a fixation on your hands specifically. the way your hands trace his body delicately as if trying to memorize every line of him while making out with him on his lap.

• it absolutely drives him insane.

• the way his large hands encircle your wrist while his fingers press on your palms in bed. or when his fingers tangle with yours. and he can see you looking at it. memorizing every moment of it. of him. of the emotions tied to the image.

• that part he loves the most about your art. the pure emotion of it captured so perfectly

• oh yeah it definitely awakens something in him. especially if he finds you sketching those the next day peacfully at your desk.

• honestly i think you being an artist just changes the way he sees things. in the best of ways.

• he also finds himself massaging your hands absent mindedly while cuddling. and softly kissing them... they work so hard and he wants to take care of them for you.

• he is just so very happy to be your favorite muse.

~sigh. time to make a Blooming Panic section on my masterlist...

[eveningrainstorm]

my take on teenage raz and lili!

some design notes under the cut:

They're intended to be about 16 here! I didn't go for anything too drastic in terms of changes -- these are largely just what I'd consider natural evolutions of their canon designs

For Raz, my main focus besides just making him look older was to add a bit more resemblance to the other Aquatos in his design, since his relationship with them wouldn't be strained like it is during canon

Raz is shown with very straight hair in canon, but since most of his family's hair is more wavy or curly I tend to imagine he styles it that way on purpose as part of his Sasha Nein cosplay or whatever. He wouldn't still feel the need to do that at this point, though, so for this design I wanted to make it more curly, similar to Augustus or Frazie, while still similar to his canon style. This turned out to be incredibly difficult and I'm still not entirely happy with where I landed, but it's good enough

I didn't think he would still wear the helmet but I didn't want to discard it entirely, so the goggles were a compromise. I meant to give them some visible scratches and wear and tear since they're presumably the same goggles he's been wearing since he was 10, but I forgot. rip

Obviously the most notable change to Raz's outfit is the scarf -- I wanted something that would tie him visually to the other Aquatos while still fitting with his general look. I imagine they gave it to him as a gift, sort of an acknowledgement that even if he doesn't perform with them as an acrobat, doing his Psychonaut work is his own way of being an Aquato

Raz's outfit here is honestly very similar to his PN2 outfit. This is because in my eyes "long coat and turtleneck" is Peak Character Design and cannot be improved on. (Hence why I may not be the best person to redesign Raz.) He has an actual coat rather than just an oversized blazer this time though, so that's an improvement. With the turtleneck I was was vaguely intending for it to be color-wise something of a middle ground between the Sasha-style green striped turtleneck and the Aquato blue/green and white stripes, but it ended up basically just being the PN1 stripes with the PN2 color. which, you know, that works

I went back and forth on what their heights should be -- I thought it would be kind of funny if Raz ended up short and Lili ended up taller than him, but then I decided to just make them more in line with their families, with Raz being tall and lanky and Lili being average verging on short. Except then I accidentally made Lili tall anyway because I was only vaguely considering her height relative to Raz. I guess Lili's probably taller than her dad now? good for her ig

Most of their facial features are just slight variations of how they look in canon -- slightly smaller eyes and so on. the only real specific change is that Lili has a more defined nose now, similar in shape to her father's

Lili's outfit here is more different from either of her canon outfits than Raz's is, but there's still not much that really requires a ton of explanation. The goal was to make her look vaguely cool and fashionable, although as I am neither of those things I cannot guarantee I was successful

I tried a couple different hairstyles for Lili, and I'm still not entirely set on this one -- Originally what I settled on was to give her two braids, which I did like, but I kept doing sketches of her where I just drew the top part of the hair and was like "ngl this kind of works on its own" and so I ended up going with the short hair. I also briefly tried an asymmetrical haircut but I couldn't get it to look right. I think this one suits her though

Lili's tattoo (on her left wrist) was a later addition to the design, and even in the later stages of drawing this I wasn't sure whether to keep it. I like it conceptually I just haven't figured out a consistent design for it yet, only that it has to be of plants

god these notes got way longer than I meant them to be I am so sorry. Uh basically I'm still figuring out the details of these designs but for now here's Raz and Lili, they're teenagers now, thanks for reading

[spacer-case]

...and when the last blood-beast comes to rest unto the Earth, what next will arrive to inherit it?

i drew this sci fi piece for my portfolio, but it also turned loosely into a marcoace au because my brain got zoomies

short version: guy on a joyride (coughs ace) accidentally travels to another world filled with mythological-ish creatures, but they're actually all robots mimicking life with no real sentience of their own - except one lone, lonely consciousness (coughs marco) whose mind was digitally preserved before the rest of organic life got wiped out, and has been waiting a long time for a friend

long nerdy version under the cut:

ace's world is a fun and scrappy sci fi future world, with stuff like his hovercraft that syncs to his body's movements too

he was out riding with deuce and got too caught up in the thrill of flying that he went way out of safe bounds (not pictured: deuce panicking) and got swallowed by a giant sky beast

somehow (i haven't thought that hard about it) he appears in marco's world after this - when i first had this idea i was just thinking of a literal reference to the philosophical concept of animals as other worlds/animal alterity, a la Barbara Noske), plus i like the idea of gateways being where you least expect them

anyway yeah he gets isekai'd

enter: marco's world!! this is a land where organic life once thrived, including sentient beings (i haven't decided if they were also humans), but all organic life has long since died out and given way to a new, constructed "ecology"

it's full of seemingly mythological-ish creatures (phoenix, dragon, etc. but all are also warped from what we would imagine)!! but SIKE they are actually robots; cybernetic constructs!!! each one goes through the motions of life for many years until they steadily break down. their parts get recycled and they are remade to spawn from egg-like structures (like the one in the bottom left corner of the drawing)

and who is remaking them? MARCO! aka the last, lone remaining consciousness from the sentient race that died out. his mind was preserved digitally, but by the time he awoke he only remembers snapshots of his original life. he continuously cares for and builds all the robots, and uploads himself into different bodies whenever he wants, but no matter what he tries he can't recreate anything truly alive with its own free will

so he's lonely and sad

basically the whole thing was an exploration of the concept of a man-made mythos! and the boundaries of what defines life, will, sentience, etc. etc.

but when he meets ace - a real, living breathing organic human - it will change his life! because............because...i haven't thought that far

many questions remain...is ace's world a past version of marco's? will he find a way to restore organic life to marco's world? should he even do that? will he find a way back home? will they kiss? ? will marco get a human body?? will i ever make something bigger from this or even turn it back into ocs instead of op characters??? will they wear wigs???? when will they wear wigs????????? who knows!

but for now it is what it is hehe

i doubt anyone read all that, but if you did, thank you for your time....here i reward you with a secret:

below is an early sketch of this illustration, and underneath that, the composition originally came from A FAILED DRAWING OF MARCO!!!

the brainrot goes deep :')

[mumatsi]

Bill Cipher was in my weird dream last night so I documented it at 3 AM through these sketches!

Have fun reading this absolute fever nightmare 0.0

(Start Text)

So, I was in a "carnival" but I was also part of an organization tasked with a very important rescue mission. But I didn't wanna be there and felt guilty for some reason

Then we were in a capsule thing and normal people thought we were part of the carnival. So no one suspected anything.

Depiction of capsule: (Image) Red lights, white + silver walls. Watch guard of the team. Nintendo switch he always played. TT switch.

We had a switch with the ability to reset time back to when our capsule had first arrived to the carnival. We needed to rescue the "timeline" here because an entity was going to destroy the world here through the carnival somehow. For some reason the carnival had Poppy Playtime themed rides IDFK why.

Suddenly my head turned towards a dark hole leading into a tunnel attraction. And something ripped the fabric of reality.

Tunnel depiction: (image) rip in reality

It was far away from me but in full view. It looked childish but things felt scary once the rip appeared.

I am not even joking, the entity that came out of the rip was BILL CIPHER. I knew I was obsessed with GF but I never thought something this random would happen?? It was kinda exciting!! :D

(Image) "sup I'm in ur dream" "omg!"

Too bad becase he was so fucking scary in the dream I couldn't even get excited! He moved so fast and was silent the whole time.

(Image) My Teammates DIED.

I suddenly ran to the switch inside the capsule and activated it by holding it for 3 seconds, idk how I knew to do that.

(Image) playing games on nintendo. holding switch.

When I went in, guard guy (GG) was plsying games. I asked what was going on and he took off his headphones to say "The entity came before us, hold the switch so we can restart the mission" then went back to gaming. I held the switch, it all went white, and...

It reset. We were all alive. Nobody was aware. When I tried to say it, they did not care. GG told me to "call him for resets instead of running back to the capsule everytime" EVERYTIME?? That was going to repeat???

The same thing happened more than I could count. We tried to detect the anomaly causing the entity but in the end Bill showed up and I had to call GG for a reset, each time. My teammates died a lot but I didn't. Each reset seemed to change my teammates. All of them except for me and GG. Then I finally figured it out.

(Image) "As long as we keep people away, we're safe."

Going near the tunnel is what really triggers his appearance.

I tried to tell them but they knew something I didn't, I was untrustable.

(Image) "DON'T LEAVE!" "LOL nope."

They went in. I couldn't scream as THEY died too.

(Image) !? ?!

I called GG for a reset. But it didn't happen... Again and again and again. He was not answering. WHY???

(Image) "Bzzt!! Bzzt!!!" "Zzz"

He fell asleep. He didn't hear my calls through his headphones. He was too busy on his slacking off that he tired himself out.

(Image) "NAME." "oh."

Then I heard my own mom's voice call me. Very mad and low.

(Image) lol

Before I knew it, I got thrown so hard that all my bones broke and reattached in less than 2 seconds.

Bill said "You're weird!" very happily, I took the chance to recover and run for the switch.

(Image) "I know how weird you are!"

I ran in, Bill laughed and made no attempt to stop me. I couldn't look back as the door closed behind me and the red lights turned back on.

(Image) HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHA

I started holding the switch, also tried talking to GG but he was unresponsive.

(Image) *click* "GG?? u ok??" "......"

3..2..1.. it all went white.

Then I woke up. Idk what that was but I wanna go back. What happened to GG? Why was Bill Cipher there too?? Why the hell was the carnival Huggy Wuggy themed??? Idfk. It was AWESOME!!!

(Image) "WTF. that was EPIC..."

(End text)

Yeah... If you read all of this, thanks! Let me know what you thought because I am still very confused about this dream.

[miharuki]

I'm thinking about something...or rather...someone.

Just a few sketches...

—Y-your highn- I mean, sir Link...—the man with long hair looks up, observing his figure as he nervously clasps both hands in front of him—D-do you... need any help?

Oh, no, thank you. I'm fine here—you glance at the container filled with food that the boy is preparing, witnessing the skills of the so-called "Link Chef" or just "Chef" or even "Wild Hero" as the group calls him, working on the group's meal.

You feel lost and, above all, guilty for not being able to help at all, even though you don't really know these guys well, and this isn't your land.

—Alright...—you walk away a bit quickly, heading to the corner where the group's temporary camp would be, the group you feel disconnected from, despite being a hero, technically.

Watching everyone chatting and even joking and laughing with each other, while you remain in the corner, waiting to be somehow useful.

Looking at where the chef is, you notice many cooking items he has with him, perhaps things that you don't even know what they are, much like how did you get here? Or, what world is this?

—So, what about it?—you say challengingly while flexing your fingers, looking at the boy in the blue scarf, your arm positioned for an arm wrestling match.

—Afraid of losing?—you devilishly smile beneath a seemingly gentle gaze.

The boy just sighs before smiling challengingly, raising his arm and clasping yours.

—I bet I'll win!

"You got this, War!" shouted the newest group member, watching the scene unfold and the arm wrestling match begin. Though it didn't mean much when you had already won.

—Ah, now it's my turn!—Twilight says, tapping War's shoulder, smiling confidently, thinking he might have a chance, especially after all he's been through.

But it was a surprise for everyone, including Twilight, when you held his arm on the table for a while without even giving him a chance to try.

—I told you!—you smile again as you watch the boy shake his hand.

—Dude, you lost to a woman!—War says, playfully hitting Twilight's shoulder—Look who's talking!

—f.fou--..muhpmm?!?!—surprised at being interrupted when the blacksmith boy decides to make you stay quiet, kissing you, while holding the back of your neck, so you don't stray. It wasn't enough that you arrived at the time he separated but also being extremely adorable. You tried to push the boy, but he held you tight, if that wasn't enough, you felt something wet enter your mouth, it was at that moment that your face was redder than ever, this boy not only stole your first kiss but also your first French kiss.

-fuck! How did we let this happen!

-I don't know! But…

. —oh man! she's so cute, I can't help it! —I think I want to stay longer….

—we want…! It had been a few minutes since you stopped pushing, you didn't know why, but you liked the feeling, he was warm, and for some reason, it was actually good, except for the part where you saw 4 people just like the blacksmith, but you were already forgetting, how could you think about that when the boy in front of you felt the need to take you right there, to make you stutter, and not bear it any longer until you forgot what you saw, until you could no longer bear the pain in your pants , he wants to take her Right there, they want to, and maybe that happens, maybe that way you keep secrets, maybe you like being fucked by all of them. And then, you can go out on a date, maybe even be together, he wants that so much.

Just a fanfic prototype that might come out, if you like it maybe I'll turn it into a fanfic.

[moonlightndaydreams]

Forbidden (A SKZ Family Secret) Part 8 of 8

Read: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 2.5 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8

Fem reader // Han Jisung // female Aunty Lina (Lino) // Hyuna (Hyunjin) // Suengmin

You are the nanny/housekeeper for Han and Hyuna (Hyunjin), helping take care of their two sons and keeping daily life in order. But what happens when Han and his Sister-in-law Lina take an extra liking to you, and you are caught up in a secret that you never could have imagined?

Chapter Summary: We wrap this story up. A baby is born.

Writer's Note: I can't believe I am at the end of another story. In my head this one was more fleshed out and in depth but I didn't have the skills to really do it justice. I just hope your love of SKZ family and your imagination brought it to life for you.

I now also have a thing for Aunty Lina.

Word Count: 3.7k approx. (part 8)

Warnings: This chapter contains mature themes, childbirth, mentions of trauma and healing (not related to birth but as a family), mentions of sex and kinks.

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

Being tied up and used as some sort of breeding slave did tire you out, so after your bath with Lina you took a quick nap for an hour or so. You were woken to the sound of voices in the other room, and decided to get up and say hello and see if you could help with anything. You walked out into the living room to find Suengmin and Channie were just arriving home. Lina was folding clean laundry and Han was on the coach reading a book. Yep, they’d definitely been fucking while you were napping, you could tell.

“We had a wonderful time, didn’t we?” Seungmin said, looking at Channie who he was carrying in his arms. “We went to the aquarium and looked at the fishes, didn’t we?”

He looked like such a father in that moment, and you wondered what thoughts must go through his mind when he spends time with Chan like this?

Seungmin tried to put Chan down on the floor, but he protested and clung to him tightly. “Oh that’s right, you like Uncle Seungmin to carry you? He wouldn’t let me put him down for a second.” He said bewildered. “Must like being up high up. Daddy isn’t quite this tall, is he?” He quipped and danced around the room making Channie laugh. Han rolled his eyes at his brother’s dig about his height.

Just then the front door opened. Binnie had arrived home too. He stood dead still when he saw the scene in front of him. A look of absolute horror on his face. You knew what he was thinking. You’d been thinking it too. That watching Suengmin and Channie together in this way looked just like the sketches Hyuna had in her book.

“Oh, hi Bin!” Han stood up, but Binnie silently stormed off to his room.

“Teenage boys.” Han shrugged.

“Why don’t you show me your cars, Channie?” Suengmin suggested in the hopes the boy would let him put him down. To his relief, Channie was happy to go look for his toys. “That kid’s getting heavy.” Seungmin sighed rubbing his shoulder.

“Here let me help you, Sweetheart.” Lina went and sat down by Chan’s box of toys. “Now which one should we show Uncle Seungmin?”

“LOOK!” A loud, distressed voice interrupted. Everyone paused and turned to see Binnie, standing, furious with tears streaming down his face. He was holding Lina’s sketchbook, holding it open at a page where Suengmin was holding one of his sons up in the air playing airplanes.

Seungmin’s eyes widened in shock when he saw the sketch.

“Look!” Binnie said again, walking further into the room so everyone could see clearly what he was showing them.

The room fell silent except for the heavy panting coming from Binnie as he tried to control his anger. He flicked a few pages and held them up aw well.

“IT’S ALL FAKE ISN’T IT? You’re our father aren’t you? THIS FAMILY IS FAKE!” He screamed and started tearing the pages out of the sketchbook and tossing them into the air.

“No Binnie!” you cried, holding your hands out to stop him. But you were too far away and it was too late. Pages upon pages flew around the room landing all over the floor.

The front door opened once again. Hyuna. Her eyes darted to each person then her gaze fell to the floor, landing on on the pages that fallen. She ran over to a page, kneeling down and took it in her hand. Her other hand covered her mouth in disbelief. She looked up at you with tears in her eyes. “How could you?” she trembled, thinking that it must have been you that brought the book out.

Binnie turned to you. “YOU KNEW!?” he looked at you like he was about to murder you, then he looked around at the room. “YOU’RE ALL LIARS. THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU.” And he ran off to his room and slammed his door. Hyuna ran down the hall after him.

“Binnie? Please honey! Open up.” You could hear her pleas from where you stood in the living room.

You swallowed hard and looked at Han. He bent down and picked up a page that had fallen at his feet, and stood silently looking at the sketch in hand. “Is it true?” he whispered.

“I’m sorry, Han.” Seungmin said softly. Han didn’t even respond to Suengmin. Han was looking at you, shaking. “You knew?” his voice trembled. He looked so betrayed and you hated yourself so much. He took your silence as a yes, dropped the paper to the floor and walked out of the house without a word. Lina jumped up “Han. Please wait.” She called as she chased after him.

That left just you, Seungmin and little Channie in the room. You felt panic rise through you. You thought you were going to vomit. You looked around at the pages on the floor. “This is such a mess.” You sobbed as you got down on the floor, frantically trying to gather all the sketches. “We have to fix this.” You mumbled to yourself. You paused to see Seungmin crouch down beside you to help pick up the pieces. If this whole thing was killing you, what must it be doing to Seungmin?

“You knew?” he asked surprised.

You nodded. “Hyuna told me.” You sucked your lip in. “You know about this, right?” you pointed to your stomach.

“Yeah. You fit right in with our family.” He chuckled sarcastically.

“I’m going to go put these in my room. I don’t want Hyuna to see this destroyed. I’ll see what I can do to fix it.”

“Do you think it can be fixed?” he asked.

You looked at him sorrowfully. “I really hope so.” You whispered.

Neither of you were talking about the sketchbook.

You put the ruined sketchbook and all it’s torn pages in your bedside drawer. You were determined that you were going to put it back together for Hyuna. You sat on your bed defeated. This was so fucked up. Who knew where Han was? You hoped Lina was able to catch him up. But oh God you felt like you had ripped his heart out and stomped on it. You had never wanted to keep secrets from him. He probably felt like his whole world had crumbled in that one moment. You broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. You could hardly breath as your chest heaved and snot ran down your face. You felt like you were hyperventilating. You couldn't get enough oxygen into your lungs. Then you felt a strong pain in your abdomen. Your baby. Your hands clutched your stomach as you tried to calm your breath, but you were suddenly so frightened that you felt like your were having heart palpitations. Something was wrong.

You felt another strong pain. Oh no!

You made your way back to the living room. “Seungmin?” you stumble towards him.

Seungmin looked up from where he was on the floor with Chan with red and bleary eyes. He immediately saw that something was wrong.

“I think I need to go to the hospital.” You managed.

He stood up. “Should I get Hyuna?” You shook your head. You didn’t want to disturb her if she was talking to Binnie. “You’ll have to take me.”

Seungmin’s eyes darted around the room as though he was trying to find another solution, but eventually nodded. “We’ll have to take Channie with us.” He concluded.

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

You sat in silence on the way to the hospital, trying to remain as calm as possible. Next week you would be considered full term and so if the baby was to come now you hoped that she had a good chance of being born safely.

Suengmin tried calling Han on speaker phone in the car, but his phone was turned off. So was Lina’s. They were supposed to keep their phones charged and ready in case of a situation like this, but after what just happened back at the house you couldn’t blame them for not wanting to be reached. You didn’t even know if Lina had managed to catch up to Han. Hyuna’s phone was switched on, but she didn’t answer. At least Suengmin could leave a voice message and hope that she called back soon.

Seungmin looked at you empathetically. This was absolutely not the way you envisioned going to the hospital - with Seungmin and Channie in tow.

At the hospital you were taken to a bed and hooked up to some monitors for observation.

“You are two centimetres dilated. You are in the very early stages of labour. Normally you would stay home until things progressed further.” They said. “But you’re heart rate and blood pressure are extremely high. We need to keep you in to monitor you. Then we can decide whether or not you can go home until you’re closer to delivery.” They explained. “You might want to see if anyone else can look after your son, it’s going to be a long wait for him.” They suggested, nodding towards Channie, and left you and Seungmin alone.

Suengmin’s eyes lingered on Chan who was sitting on his lap, then to you. “Are they really thinking of sending you home? You’re in labour. They said so themselves.” He said in disbelief.

“I’m just relieved that they don’t consider this an emergency.” You sighed in relief. “You really don’t don’t have to stay, Seungmin. You should take Channie home. I’ll be alright.”

Seungmin didn’t answer. “Do you really want to give her up to me and Lina?” he said suddenly.

You looked down at your stomach but didn’t say anything.

“Because if you do, I don’t want to pretend I’m her real father.” He said softly. You lifted your gaze to meet his. What was he saying? “I mean, I’ll raise her like she was my own, but I can’t do to this to Han. It fucking hurts like hell to not have your children know who you are.” His eyes filled with tears, and so did yours. “Could you really cope with your baby calling Lina Mummy and not you?”

“But what about Lina?” you looked at Seungmin unsure.

“I know she wants to me a mother, but I know you want to be too.”

The tears spilled down your cheeks. He was right. You wanted to be a mother. You wanted your baby to call you Mummy. You just thought it couldn’t be possible.

“I’m not even sure what’s going to happen now anyway.” You said sadly, thinking about what had happened back at the house. Everything had crumbled.

“Don’t keep this lie up just because I was a coward. You don’t know how many times I wished I had stood up to our parents and told them I was going to marry Hyuna? This whole family is a mess is because of me.” He said solemnly. He squeezed his arms around Channie in a tight embrace.

“Oh Seungmin, it’s not your —”

The door flung open and Han and Lina rushed in. “Baby!” Han wailed. “Oh my God, tell me everything is okay.” He was at your side fussing over you.

“Han?” Seungmin said hesitantly.

“Suengmin?” Lina patted him gently on the shoulder. “Let’s take Channie to our house. Hyuna is…well she has her hands full with Binnie… Come, let’s give them space.” She said quietly.

“I’ll speak to you later, okay, Hannie?” Suengmin tried again, but Han ignored him.

“Come on Channie, let’s go back to Aunty Lina’s.” Lina scooped up Chan and smiled at you kindly with red, puffy eyes and her and Seungmin left the room.

“Oh Han!” You held his face in your hands. “I’m so sorry.” You wiped his tears from his cheeks.

“I was so scared something had happened to you or the baby. I don’t know what I would do if —”

“Shh, Han. I’m okay, and so is the baby. They’re just keeping me in for observation and to see if I can go home. But…” he looked at you with concern. “They said I am in early labour. So we should meet our little girl soon enough.” Han’s expression changed from pained to relieved.

“She’s going to be here soon? I’m going to be dad. Really this time.” He half smiled.

“Han, you’re already a Dad.” You reassured him, squeezing his hand.

He shook his head. “Am I? Binnie was so distressed. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him when we get home. I don’t even know if I should try calling him. I just…” you could see the anxiety taking over. “I’m not really his father!” he choked.

“Hannie,” your tried to sooth him. “Binnie told me he’d always think of you as his Dad.” You went on to explain how you found Binnie with the sketchbook and that he had suspicions already.

“Is that how you knew too? The sketchbook?” he blinked away his tears.

You shook your head slowly.

“Then how did you know?” he asked puzzled.

“Hyuna told me.” You whispered softly. Han dropped your hands and sat back creating distance between the two of you. “She knew everything Han. About you and Lina, me, the baby. She knew it all.” You said bewildered.

“Seungmin too?” he pushed. You nodded. He dropped his head in defeat.

“Is there anything else?” his wounded eyes met yours.

“Yes.” His face couldn’t look any more hurt. “Hyuna… She’s painted a portrait of me…as a gift for me to remember by pregnancy. She thought it might be a nice keepsake when I give the baby up.”

“She did that for you?” you nodded. “ahhh!” you winced as you clutched your stomach.

“Baby?” Han was immediately close to you again, holding your hands in his. You had been keeping the discomfort of the contractions to yourself. They’d been manageable for the time being. But they were getting slightly stronger.

“I think we should focus on you and the baby right now. I love you. I’m not going to be angry at you for keeping secrets. Who am I to do that when look at me? Look at my family.” He scratched his head. “It’s all messed up but we can figure it out later.” He became suddenly focused on the immediate situation. Everything else would have to wait.

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

After a few hours the doctors were happy with your’s and your baby’s obs, but your contractions were becoming stronger and closer together, and your cervix was dilating rapidly. You were really about to have your baby.

Lina had returned to the hospital. She quickly updated you on what was happening on the home front, and that Hyuna and Seungmin were tending to Binnie and Channie. Lina seemed to be putting aside the family crisis, just like Han was doing, despite the whole situation being just as much a shock for her as it was for Han. Their world had just been torn apart, but here they were supporting you through the hardest but most rewarding thing you’ve ever done.

At three-ten in the morning your little girl was born. Little baby Yongbok. She was absolutely perfect. As you held her in your arms you promised her that you would never leave her. No matter what was going to happen you were going to be part of her life. You were going to be her mother. You couldn’t imagine any alternative. Not now. The words of Hyuna, Binnie and even Seungmin echoed through your mind. That lies and resentment eat you. That you’d be denying your baby the truth of who they were. That you’d be living a lie to fulfill an expectation of other people. To think about what you wanted. Everyone knew the truth of your baby now anyway. But what about Lina? You’d break her heart.

You looked to Lina who seemed to somehow sense your thoughts.

“She belongs with you, kitten. You’re her mother.” She whispered with tears in her eyes.

“Oh Lina, I need you!” you sobbed. “I need you to be her mother too. You’re part of this - you, me and Han. Our baby…Oh Han!” you reached out for him, pulling him close. The man was a blubbering mess. The three of you cuddled together around your baby. Baby Yongbook. A little ray of sunshine.

For the next little while it was like the four of you had run away. For the next little while nothing else mattered. You looked down at the most precious and perfect thing you had ever seen in your entire life and you felt a sense of calm, and you trusted that everything was going to work out.

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

Once you returned home, you’d found that Hyuna had moved into your room so you could have the master room where you could fit a cradle and would have more space for you and Yongbok. She left all of Han’s clothes and items in there, insisting that the two of you should be together, especially in these early days. She’d hung your portrait on the wall too. “Holy shit, baby!” Han said when he saw it. “Yep, I definitely want to keep you pregnant all the time.”

You felt guilty that Hyuna had given up her space like this, but you were extremely grateful. Your room was not big enough to accommodate baby furniture.

Then reality set in. The whole family was hurting. There was tension between Han and Seungmin. Lina felt resentful that Hyuna had lied about the father of the boys. Everyone hurt for Han and Binnie who slowly came to terms with the reality that they weren’t biologically father and son, but still Dad and Son.

Everyone loved little Yongbok though. She was the one thing that brought hope to the family. It was as though whenever anyone held her they’d feel this sense of peace and hope. Everything could be worked out. When they held her they could understand what it was like to be in each other’s shoes. It still hurt and everything was still a mess. But it seemed like everyone wanted to heal and forgive.

Suengmin had said it best. “It’s like everything had to fall apart and crumble, so we can start to build things back up properly. The way it should have been built in the first place.”

Everyone agreed that they felt the same way too. But it was also made clear that no one was allowed to rush each other in their healing. Each person was affected differently, and they had the right to take as long as they needed.

That was especially true for Binnie. It was going to take a long time for him to work through the confusion he felt. He was having an identity crisis and trust issues. His Dad - that wasn’t really his dad - had a baby with the nanny? But, being the insightful and wise young man he was, he tried to remember that he now had an opportunity to have a second father. “Dad will always be Dad, but Seungmin, well, he’s not just an uncle. He’s a second dad. But I’m still going to call him Seungmin.” He concluded.

Han, once he realised that his position as “Dad” wasn’t really under threat, his confidence started to return. Han wasn’t as hurt as he probably should have been to learn that his wife and brother were in a lifelong secret relationship. His view as always was “Why can’t you love more than one person?” and this sentiment applied to his wife and brother.

Lina focused all her time and attention on you and Yongbok. She didn’t really share much about how she felt about the secrets coming out. You were pretty sure that, although she hated seeing Han hurt, inside she was relieved that she didn’t have to keep living her life in secret.

It eventually came time to discuss the inevitable. What was the family going to do moving forward? One thing was clear though. Everyone should be with their rightful lovers. “But who moves in with who?” asked Lina. Han didn’t want to simply swap with Seungmin because he wanted to be with Binnie and Channie.

“Maybe Yongbok and I can move in with Lina, and Seungmin move in here?” you offered. Han looked absolutely horrified. “Wait! And I stay here alone in my bed?” he pouted. Everyone sat in silence racking their brains.

“What if everyone just moves in here?” Binnie suggested? “But I don’t want to see any funny business. That’d be weird… and gross.”

“There’s not a lot of room,” Han sat in thought. “But I think we can make it work.” He nodded like he’d cracked the case. Everyone turned to Han waiting to be enlightened. “We’ll turn my office, because it’s biggest, into a bedroom, and make - now Hyuna’s - bedroom into an office.” He said brightly.

“Who gets the room with the en-suite?” Suengmin said flatly. Hyuna hit him in the arm.

“They do of course. They need a bigger room, there’s four of them. We can just use the main bathroom.” She explained.

Binnie threw his hands over his ears. “I DO NOT need to hear about the throuple sleeping situation.” He cried shaking his head.

So that’s what happened for the time being. Everyone moved into the one house.

The entire family continued to live a lie, but this time it was a facade for the outside world. Inside, however, the family had never been more open and honest with each other than they were being right now. They could start building a new future, bit by bit. They each wanted the same thing. Love and happiness, not just for themselves, but each other too.

————————

A year or so later… an update, because I want to wrap this up and this was the lazy way. Think of it like those clips you get at the end of a movie that shows you what happened without it taking another half an hour.

* Everyone still lives in the one house. They got too comfortable and fell into a routine that was “good enough”.

*Turns out Hyuna and Seungmin are really feely-touchy touchy with each other and no one saw that coming.

You glued the sketchbook back together.

* Channie calls Seungmin “Daddy” much to the encouragement from Han who decided his brother should be able to claim a son as his.

* Yongbok calls you “Mummy”, and Lina “Umma” and Han “Daddy” (yay!!)… although really, she can’t quite talk (but you’re teaching her who is who)

* Oh, and Lina has morning sickness! (Oh snap!)

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

It’s never really the end…

who knows I might write more little side stories, and I’m definitely open to answering “asks” related to this Skz Family universe. 🥰

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

Forbidden Tag List @lyramundana @channieandhisgoonsquad @2chopsticks2eyes @queenmea604 @leeknowsthigh @chlodavids @antoniorhinothethird @bangtanmix73 @linocvp1d @sunshinesquokka @lolareadsimagines @hannieslovebot @noellllslut @sweetracha @mrblue-kai @muddy-waters

[gamerbearmira]

Hello resident evil au person sorry for the hiatus but I am back! First off I would like to say thank you Soo much for that snippet it was sooo beautiful and well done I've read it like 10 times now and I can't wait to see what you come up with next! also I love what you did with Isabela camilo and Bruno designs they look so cool!

I thought about what you said about the children idea and I agree that it would make sense for her to get them a bit how Alcina got her daughter so I thought about it and decided that Miranda would probably pick three orphaned children around five or younger (I was thinking boys since in the Madrigal family there's a generation of two girls and a boy then a generation of two boys and a girl and then one with all girls but not one with all boys and I don't know it just feels like it completes the rotation if that make sense?)

Their names are Desmond, Cassius and Sebastian they like Alcina's daughters have no memory of their human life and immediately saw Mirabel as their mother they can turn into moths just like she can but it's different species of moths for all four of them Mirabel can turn into the Madagascan sunset moth Desmond turns into the White witch Cassius turns into the Antheraea assamensis and Sebastian turns into the Polyphemus moth. I don't have much for each of their personalities just that Sebastian is a mama's boy and follows Mirabel wherever she goes and does whatever she says and gets jealous whenever she isn't paying attention to him (if it's his brothers his a little more tolerant but after an hour he will start to get huffy). Desmond is a bookworm and will read everything he can no matter what the book is about he also loves to paint play music and to make things out of yarn with Mirabel whether that's embroidering knitting whatever. Cassius is the wild child running around getting into anything and everything he can he has a temper that rivals pepas he has rage fits that he has a hard time controlling and usually goes to Mirabel when he's getting too worked up and she helps calm him down. I haven't thought about what they looked like I thought I would leave that up to you!

As always any and all artwork is appreciated and loved!

YOU THOUGHT I WAS DONE BUT I’M BACK 🙏

No but I am SOOOOO sorry this took basically a month the to get back to??? I was busy a lot of June and the thing is?? I literally started the drawing?? But I got distracted and completely forgot BUT THE ETHAN DRAWING REMINDED ME!! SO WE'RE BACK ON THE GRIND❗❗❗💪💪💪💪

ALSO I'M GLAD YOU LIKED THE SNIPPET!!! Maybe I'll do more hmmmm 🦫🦫

ANYWAYYYYY I finally did Luisa and Agustín. Eventually I'll do all of the family with color, but for now only sketches 😞But I'm glad you liked Isabela, Camilo and Bruno! Fun fact lol, at the time I had redone Camilo's jacket bout 3 times 💀💀

And I did get to do the triplets!! Also I like the idea of three boys, very fitting now that you mention the other gens 🤭🤭

They are very silly...I tried my best to match them based on their personalities. Also note, if they were colored in, their antennae and wings would match the moths, I swear 😭 also I gave them antenna and wings. Because they are still small children being exposed to the black mold 🌚 and I think they'd look more similar to Mirabel in that way. Except Mirabel has dragonfly wings, BUT THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT

An idea I had, like Antonio lol, I think the younger the subject, the more susceptible they are to more physical/openly visual changes. Another fun fact, I almost gave the family members bug parts based on what you discribed them 🪕🪕🪕

ALSO RANDOM QUESTION...but like still related. If there was a family tree (given that this Casita is basically a darker, probably black mold invested version), would it be normal OR.

Would Mirabel be at the top and everyone just below her because, by Miranda's rules, she's technically the head of the house, not Alma. The seniority isn't by age but rather by the fact that Mirabel was named as that by Miranda. Idk, I was just thinking about it 🦀🦀

[sir-subpar]

Blitzo

All right! Redesigned/reimagined Blitzo.

So, heres the thing, I don't hate his current design, but I don't love it either.

Under the cut I will talk more

Alright, Blitzo. Biy do I have some thoughts on Blitzo.

I do love the idea of a failed clown turning into an assassin. I love the idea of an assassin from hell slaughtering people that sinners pay him to. I like the idea that this is his way of proving others wrong and trying to redeem himself. Him not wanting to be a failure anymore is a decent idea for a character.

The issues I have:

His treatment towards other characters. I am not opposed to him being an asshole. I like characters who start off terrible but then become good people through consequences and change in Behavior. But blitz's Behavior doesn't actually change for the better in the show. It's more like everyone around him changes to justify everything that he does.

Stalking your employees? Barely addressed.

Setting your best friend on fire? And insulting and guilttripping said friend in a half-assed apology? Apparently good enough.

Stealing from your girlfriend? (I have thoughts on Verosika too, I'll get to her at some point). It brought up in maybe two conversations and never again.

My big issue here isn't so much that Blitz is a bad person as much as the fact that there's no consequences for him except for when the plot demands it. And then said consequences go away an episode later. Especially if we're meant to sympathize with him.

I hate this line. So much. This is one of those times where you can't really redeem a person. Not when they say something like this:

Anyway, back to the design.

Once again, like usual with Viv, there's too much red.

It's kind of easy to lose track of details in his design.

His feet are just really weird to me. Why are they shaped like shoes? His heels are really weird

As mentioned in some of my concept sketches, I feel like if he survived a fire that did *this* to fizz

It should have done more damage to Blitzo. Hence why I made him blind in one eye

I gave him fingers similar to his sister Barbie wire, it just looks better to me. And since they're twins I think it makes sense. Once again, I will do her design as well soon

I do keep his striped horns, as I feel like it makes sense for him to have them with the whole ex clown thing, but since a lot of the other characters aren't clown based they won't get the same stripes on their horns. I know Viv said that hell is like a circus, but it so rarely comes up outside of the jester designs that I decided to omit that in my rewrite

I really want to lean into the idea that he goes through change and improves his behavior bit by bit. With little hints of his soft side towards the beginning, that comes out more clearly as time goes on. Him learning something different from each character

He could learn to take accountability from fizz. Learn professionalism and good business practices from Moxxie. Learn boundaries from his daughter Loona. Etc.

I made him pink as I've heard a few ideas floating around that he might be part succubus or part lust imp and I think that fits him.

And finally... the elephant in the room. Where does Stolas come in?

Look. The way it's portrayed in the show, I don't like it. I liked Stoas better in the pilot. He was just a rich 1% who did what he wanted regardless of who it hurt. I like the idea of that for an antagonist. Blitzo uses him, he uses Blitzo. They both did things for selfish gains.

I also liked the idea that he would send IMP on hit jobs as well. That would have been really interesting to see in the show

I will discuss more about their Dynamic when I do stolas's design. I will give some quick bullet points for now

Blitzo and Stolas don't fall in love.

Stolas constantly holds the grimoire over Blitzo's head to get what he wants. He knows Blitzo's business and livelihood depends on it and he takes full advantage of it.

Blitzo doesn't want to be Shackled to the prince, but doesn't see any other options until Striker appears (again, I will explain that when I get to it).

He resents stolas (and himself) for being trapped in this arrangement

[nogacheloveka-blog]

The Bad Sanses somehow ended up in the Backrooms. №14

next 15

prev 13

This is the translation of the another post from Russian to English. I understand English, but it is very difficult for me to write in English, so I asked chat GPT to help me. I have corrected some parts, but there still may be mistakes.

There will be no romantic lines in this story. I don't think it's appropriate to introduce romance, the story just isn't about that. Perhaps there will be some hints (I love some pairing and polyamory in the gang), but this work is just a research and hobby for me, a platform for experiments. Killer is just fooling around because he gets an interesting reaction in return.

Well, now I want to experiment with the number of images. I will be adding more relevant illustrations to the text. For now, I'll start with two or three and see how it turns out. I don't think I'll have time to add the gang to all the images, but perhaps in the future, I'll do.

What Error identified as an "exit" turned out to be a broken arcade machine. The power cable was torn and led to a small dirty puddle, one of the walls was scratched with claw marks, as if a wild beast had sharpened its claws on it, and the coin slot was overgrown with moss. But Error was convinced that this thing could serve as a way out of here (he sees more than the others), when they look around. After all, they have just arrived. However, level 25, where the arcade machine presumably led, was a good opportunity to choose their own path ahead (Nightmare was happy to have the chance to predict his own life).

The description of level 23 in the database described the ruins of a past civilization. Engaging in archaeology would not be amiss. Moreover, in addition to items, human organizations hunted for information (Killer understood their curiosity). Old bricks, ruins, a couple of rusty coins, sketches of various architectural styles - the group looked with admiration (except for Error) at their boss, who surprisingly well oriented himself in the value of archaeological finds.

Many of them sometimes forgot that their boss had lived a long life and loved learning new things.

The group's inventory, although it allowed carrying many items, was limited and had already been filled with essential items. They had to choose. Some things were discarded based on data from the Backroom database, some did not represent historical value. Mostly, the subordinates of Nightmare were engaged in the search: Killer brought everything he saw, while Horror enthusiastically searched for edible and medicinal plants.

Dust was the only one who purposefully searched for artifacts. He admired Nightmare's skills and was interested in learning more about history from him. Forest butterflies flocked to him. It even seemed to Dust that they were trying to help him in his search within their capabilities. Perhaps it was his imagination. But he managed to find a couple of interesting frescoes and fragments of some strange tools, which Nightmare identified as "valuable".

Some of the finds resembled musical instruments, some looked like weapons or tools. They seemed damaged, but Killer's attempt to break one of the ancient items failed: they turned out to be surprisingly strong.

Horror found wild grapes and a bunch of snails on them. It took him a couple of days to prepare the snails (each of them knew about snails from the old lady), but the berries tasted good. As if the plant came here not from the forest, but from the plantation. That explained the snails.

Error used strings to catch animals and let Horror cook it. It was just rational. The big guy could cook well. In a way, Horror bought Error's loyalty. For now.

Overall, they stayed in these forests for about two weeks and did not notice any signs of a possible way to get to their home dimension. It seemed that the human settlement was also too far from the place where they were (Enrico could have had a hard time). And everything that people knew, they immediately published on Reddit or the knowledge base, and they had not yet come across any secret communities. The latter was very disappointing Nightmare.

With some caution (the dimension-killer could play a trick on them, but going all the way back was too tedious. They were, after all, Sanses), the group returned to the arcade machine by a shortcut.

It was standing there.

Waiting for them.

Error could not make it work just like that. He saw the executable code for moving to level 25. But the Backrooms did not allow him to change or initiate anything. Fortunately, there was a real thing in front of him. And the code for moving was launched manually. He just needed to reconnect the wires and microchips that would do all the work for him.

Error stuck his hands inside the broken machine and released the threads. They slid inside, weaving through the broken parts. The power source was still working - the cord outside was decoration.

The mechanism seemed complex, but Error only needed to fix what was involved in executing the code. It took some time, but the Destroyer managed to do it. The machine still looked deactivated, and its screen remained dark. But inside, music could be heard, and the coin slot glowed with light bulbs. One of the ancient coins they found managed to squeeze inside. Now they just needed to press a few buttons, simulating the game. Killer happily pounced on the levers and keyboard. After a few actions, Error began to reboot, and Killer got into the game - it seemed that the arcade machine contained some kind of fighting game. It was difficult to orientate oneself by the sounds of battle, but the skeleton got carried away and played until the transfer worked.

They all appeared in the hall, level 25. The second crossroads of the Backrooms. Many arcade machines, billiards, mini-bars, soda machines, ping-pong and other entertainment.

Killer immediately offered to play something. He playfully used his body as a bet.

Nightmare belongs to Jokublog Killer belongs to RahafWabas Dust belongs to Ask-DustTale Horror belongs to Sour-Apple-Studios Error belongs to CrayonQueen Cross belongs to JakeiArtwork

[cursedvibes]

For the ship ask, shamelessly targeting your weaknesses: TenKen and ItaMahi

And because I like to set tiny fires: SatoSugu

Oh, spicy! Time to fan that fire 😆

TenKen

Ship It

What made you ship it?

I got interested as soon as we met Tengen in ch 145. Her calling Kenjaku a "child" (unfortunately the official translation forgot about that) and Kenjaku previously calling her basically a stagnant, unimportant geezer made me sure there must be some drama hidden in their past and boy was I right. I initially only saw them as a broken up teacher-student dynamic, where the favourite student went astray or maybe a parent-child one and I still hold onto that (not even Tengen is save from Kenjaku's mommy issues), but it evolved way beyond that. I really fell down the rabbit hole when the fight against Yuki started and I've been down here ever since. Still see them mostly as queer-platonic though, not necessarily romantic or sexual, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of pining and longing and vore to work with.

What are your favourite things about the ship?

I like how we see a completely different side of Kenjaku when they are around Tengen. They act like a petulant child screaming for attention or a slighted ex. They get loud and petty, very unlike their usual composed appearance. And even if Tengen is good at hiding it, she clearly feels something for Kenjaku too because we wouldn't be in this situation if she had just told one of her six eyes users to kill Kenjaku once and for all. It would take more effort to pull them back at the last second than just let them pulverize Kenjaku. Also, generally the dichotomy between them (dark/light, young/old, progress/stagnation etc) and how they are still always drawn to each other gives so much to explore and it only gets better the more information we get. And there's the implication that they both experimented with Sukuna's body, possibly at the same time. Morally dubious scientist power couple?

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

There aren't really that many opinions on them out there...maybe: let Tengen be old. Her whole thing is aging, so I don't think she looked like in that one sketch we got in the Heian era or Nara period before she merged with a Star Plasma Vessel.

ItaMahi

Ship It

What made you ship it?

I'm usually not big on shipping Yuuji with anyone, but the end of the Shibuya arc definitely unlocked something for me and the anime gave me new fuel. Some great fanart and fic did the rest. I think what I like most about it is how it brings out a more cold and cruel side of Yuuji, very unlike what we see in his relationships with other characters except maybe Sukuna, but with Mahito it feels a lot more raw.

What are your favourite things about the ship?

There is just that pure hate and contrary to Sukuna for example, they are on eye level. They develop together, they challenge each other, they bring out the worst in each other. During their fight you really get the feeling of them just desperately clawing at each other and wanting to kill the other by any means necessary. Very beautiful. Mahito enjoying himself during it and Yuuji taking his own satisfaction in chasing him down make it especially juicy. It's so animalistic and pure and could easily turn into great hate sex.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I don't like when people turn this into basically Mahito just torturing and raping Yuuji, but unfortunately that is a big part of the content that does exist for this ship. The great thing about this ship is their dynamic of push and pull and that there isn't any clear power imbalance between them and I personally enjoy seeing Yuuji push Mahito into the dirt and humiliating him. So I only like it if Yuuji is either the more dominant one (don't care about top or bottom) or it switches between them.

SatoSugu

Why don’t you ship it?

Well, I do think they have some feelings for each other that go beyond being ex-high school friends and I think that's pretty much canon too, no matter if you think those feelings are platonic or not. They give me the impression of being very repressed, but who knows, maybe they used to date or maybe they fucked right up until Gojo blew a hole into Geto. Who cares. As you know, it doesn't work for me for similar reasons as you have. I can't stand Geto and I think he brings out the worst in Gojo. Like Gojo is at his most annoying when he's whining about Geto (although his behaviour during the Sukuna fight is a close second). I used to have a bit more appreciation for their bond during Hidden Inventory, but the ever-present fandom of this ship soured me a lot on it. I prefer to stay away as far as I can from it now.

What would have made you like it?

Geto being a less punchable person? Being less bigoted and overall being a grand idiot about it too? There's not much about it that would honestly make me ship it unless you massively change the characters involved.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

It was very nice of Gojo to not destroy Geto's body out of sentimentality and leave room for Kenjaku to jump in :)

[starsh0cked]

okay so. two things!! first of all, over the course of january (and the beginning of february) i participated in the kirby oc secret santa, which was wonderfully hosted by @/moonverc3x. i was lucky enough to be the santa for @/starflungwaddledee, and ended up with two of my best pieces so far!!

these were CHALLENGING, though. which is where the second thing comes in!! under the cut, i'll be going over some of the sketches, drafts and phases of either piece! there's also a speedpaint. exciting!!

i'll be starting with my starstruck piece! the theme here was wanderlust - literally one of the most whimsical words i know - and generally anything to do with the stars. i had a few things in mind, but considering how long it sometimes takes to make artwork, i decided to roll with what inspired me the most.

this is the final sketch compared to the final artwork. certainly one of the crazier transformations i've done. i had a mental image of most parts of the artwork, from the material of starstruck's bow to the lighting cast by the stars. everything except for the grass (i hate grass!!) i ended up rendering the grass and background first, anyway.

doing the background before the rest of the artwork helps define the lighting and shadows! if i decided to draw starstruck before the background, i'd have to draw it according to the lighting.

weird explanation, but in summary: background before character helps the character look like a part of the environment! character before background means extra steps need to be taken before the character fits in the environment!

starstruck's bow was also a decent challenge! i'm a fan of bows and satin, so a satin bow sounded like a good idea. it was, but i've never drawn satin before. the workaround was an active satin study! i stared at a satin bow i found on pinterest and tried to understand how light spread over the material. it's quite interesting!!

you might notice that i flipped the direction of the shooting stars. this is for composition reasons!! i wanted to make starstruck the obvious focus, and while the contrast between her warmer palette and the background's cooler palette easily achieve that, i wanted to cement it. i also added little hand drawn sparklies everywhere. because i like it.

of course, i have to talk about the eyes!! if anything, i noticed that in all of starflung's drawings of starstruck, she had really glittery eyes. literally adorable. so i made it my mission to capture her feelings in her eyes!! i had a lot of fun making them super shiny and adding little stars in there. i also needed to pay attention to the subtle gradient, though - they fade from blue to pink if you zoom into starflung's artworks - and decided to keep it vibrant.

okay. thats all for this one!! i'd like to mention that in the original sketch for this specific pose, bandee was in the background. i really regret scrapping that now. oh, well!

time for morpho dee! i'll be starting for with the speedpaint for this one, mainly because it sort of explains some of the process by itself.

i restarted the shading... three or four times at least? so yeah. i was losing it on this piece. i'll be completely honest, i contemplated dropping it for the sake of meeting the deadline. it wasn't stressing me out, but i had studies to worry about too, and i was worried that it wouldn't be of great quality? but after some advice from my beloved older sister, i managed to turn the tide!!

this is a first for me, but everything here was a challenge. if you scroll through my account and the few artworks i've posted, you'll notice that i draw gijinkas far more than orbs. now, you may be wondering why this didn't pose so much of an issue for my starstruck piece! it's mainly because i chose a far simpler pose for her than i did for morpho over here.

for morpho, the artwork needed to be dramatic. i draw cutesy things - while i've always wanted to draw something dramatic, i've never pushed myself to do it. until this artwork! i went for a dynamic pose which would (hopefully) pull the viewer's eye towards morpho dee. that's what's up with the foreshortned spear! i also realised that the plcement of his feet would be quite significant to the artwork. you might not know this, but feet are my greatest enemy. i'm still trying to figure out how best to draw them for people or orbs, but i'm getting there.

after 'lineart' (which really ended up being a cleaned sketch - this was supposed to be linelessly rendered, but i gave up on that) the pose was no longer a problem. because the shading was! hooray!!

nothing has quite bewildered me like metal shading has. i've shaded gold. satin. cotton, fluffy scarves, shiny things, grass. yet metal shading continues to elude me! this was, hands down, the most difficult part of this artwork. i struggled to make sense of how the lighting was supposed to work, even with references. and every time i thought it made sense, i ended up with something i didn't like the look of. the solution? long breaks, more references and pinterest tutorials. i have no clue how i managed this, but we got here anyways. i finished it off by colouring the lineart according to the shading.

i have experience with drawing fire, at least! it was three or four years ago in an old artwork, but i have experience! i simply had to figure out how to work it into the atmosphere. for the glow, i duplicated the layer, gaussian blurred it and used a slight glow layer! i did something similar for the durst particles, but i used motion blur instead.

i also want to talk about the spear a little bit. you might notice that i added a bit of ambient glow around the blue gem. that was with the light intensity in mind, but also for a sense of realism! i also had to keep the pink light in mind, though. so i ended up using an airbrush to create a base for the lighting and i continued from there. i added a few scratches on the handle just to give it a bit more life, too.

and, finally, a one-to-one comparison between the sketch and the final! i have literally no idea how i pulled either of these pieces off, but i'm quite proud of them.

i recommend you drop by @/kirbyoc-secretsanta for other artworks! a total of 75 artists participated, so there are plenty of super cool ocs to adore over there and new artists to find!! this was my first secret santa experience, and @/moonverc3x made an amazing host (thank you for hosting, by the way!!) bye bye!!

[firekit21]

Life Series AU

Wrote some lore about the life series characters as Gods with Witchcraft SMP in mind. It got out of hand, and now I have a 1.4k story below.

        As everyone knows, from the oldest, crankiest elder to the youngest, brightest toddler, magic is a part of this world as surely as Winter melts into Spring.

We can see it in people, like the illusionist who passed by the town with the circus group. In the wild, we can see it flitting between the trees, lighting up the world. It is in the ground, seeping up when it is called.

But we haven’t always had magic. Once, the only ones to possess it were the Gods.

Seventeen of them, each with a different domain. They lived in harmony, watching over the world., creating and destroying as they saw fit. Anytime they wished to meet, they met around the Watching Crystal. None of them knew what it was, only that if any of them died, it would store their powers and souls. Of course, they had varying ways of interaction with mortals. For instance, the Sky God liked to reveal himself to humans in the hope that they would worship him. He was a fickle god, that one. Or the God of Fire, who played deadly games with life-changing prizes.

Among them was the Starborne. He had perhaps the strangest and least explainable gift. He was the first prophet. Though he often advocated for humans to get a taste of divine magic, he was usually overruled.

One day, he had a vision. The Scarlet Witch, the harbinger of death, was standing in a clearing, ichor dripping from her scythes.

Now, the Scarlet Witch was an enigma to most of the others, almost never turning up to the meetings the other sixteen called. She was a grim woman who often laughed at the suffering of those around her. She was hard to get alone with, so most of the other Gods shunned her, with only three exceptions. The God of Emotions, also known as the patron of bakers, was sympathetic to her. The Lady of Time was her partner in chaos. And the Starborne was her closest friend, her confidant. If anyone was going to be on her side, he would.

When the Starborne received this vision of things to come, he naturally became scared. His trusted ally, who had a reputation for being unhinged, was going to kill another God. So he did what he always did, and sketched out what he had seen to flesh out all the important details.

The Sky God had been in a silly, goofy mood, so he decided he was going to snoop around. His first target: a certain prophet. He walked into the room where all the visions were gathered. And lo and behold: in the center of the pictures of prophecies, was the recently sketched vision, the one that foretold the death of at least one God.

This scared the Sky God. He had never liked the Scarlet Witch. She was always a little too chaotic, a little too bloody for his liking. So, he decided to make sure this prophecy wouldn’t come true. He called a meeting with as many Gods as he could. Under the light of the Watching Crystal, he wove the tale of what was to come. Seeing as the Scarlet Witch had not been invited, and the Starborne had not made an appearance, she had no warning of the prophecy. After gathering five of his most trusted friends, he went after her.

It was a close fight. It is said that the famous scar over the Scarlet Witch’s eye was made during that battle. None of the Gods that fought were weak. But the Scarlet Witch was Death itself, ready to collect a divine life at long last. The Canary, the god of luck, was the first to fall. Two more of them were slain before the Sky God called for a retreat that ultimately failed. The Queen of Shadows was cut down, and her husband followed soon after. The final attacker, the God of Chaos, died of his injuries soon after.

After that, she disappeared for a few years. Alone in a forest in the North, she had a lot of time to think, to reflect. She knew that if a God died, their powers would be stored in the Watching Crystal. And the seventeen - well, eleven now - of them were far from orderly. If there were fewer of them, they could rule more effectively. Besides, they could probably find a way to access the powers of the Gods who were deemed unfit through the Crystal. So she watched and waited for someone to find her. Death is patient, after all.

The other Gods were scared. The Scarlet Witch was one of the most formidable among them, and would not listen to anything they had to say. So, they decided to try and flush her out of hiding by using her best friend. Some of them wanted the Starborne dead, because their friends and loved ones were gone. Others wanted to use him as a hostage. So they went to his board of visions, where all of his visions were recorded. He would be there, after all. The Lady of Time tried to stall the others, back them down. But the desperation and fear had caught up to them, and they forced past her.

They went into the room he used, covered with notes and pictures and scattered papers. On the table in the center, they saw a picture. It was a mid action shot of the Starborne exploding in a rush of light. It is said that he was smiling. There was neither hide nor hair of him anywhere. So, they moved back to the search for the threat. And, one or two expeditions were successful. But they did not consider that anyone they sent was liable to death themselves.

The God of Illusions powers of persuasion couldn’t save him when he needed them the most. The God of Emotions was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and couldn’t back down his former friend. Then came three more deaths. Then the Scarlet Witch emerged from hiding to cut down two more.

Finally, the Lady of Time had enough. There were only four Gods left. Knowing that the Starborne would not be helpful in a fight, even if they could find him and convince him to help kill his best friend, the Lady banded together with the Runemaster to end the threat at last.

The Runemaster used his powers of Listening to find the Scarlet Witch. They both tracked her down to the forest where she had spent so much time. The three of them fought. It was a hard, bitter battle. In the end, ichor dripping from her scythes, the Scarlet Witch claimed a hard-earned victory.

She celebrated her success. There would be no more chaos now that it was just her. There would be no more wars, no more extortion of the mortals by any Gods. The only divine force would be Death, which would take without remorse.

Then she remembered that she was not alone. There was still one more God. And she knew just where to find him.

Nobody knows what would have happened if the Starborne had backed down. Maybe they would have ruled side by side. Maybe he would have been killed for lack of loyalty.

But when the Scarlet Witch went to the Watching Crystal to meet with the only being that could compare to her. The inside of the Crystal pulsed with moving lights, like the souls trapped inside were still alive, waiting to be released.

The Scarlet Witch went in there, sure she’d win again. But she was not up against a soul that wished to remain in this world. The Starborne believed that neither of them deserved life. He had been a coward who ran away instead of helping his friends, and their blood still stained the Witch’s red cloak. So he smiled as he activated his secret power. When he wished to die, he would explode, taking everything in the nearby radius down with him.

The Watching Crystal shattered, then fell down, down, down. The pieces scattered all across the lands, seeping magic into the earth. The magic of the Gods started to exhibit itself in nearby mortals, the first magic users.

But Gods do not die that easily, some say. There are whispers that they could be reborn, into mortal bodies like ours. We may be walking among them right now.

Of course, those are just myths. Nobody is that optimistic or pessimistic to believe in such tales. The Gods are dead. We all go to Death, even the Reaper herself.

Nobody knows why we do not have prophets. Maybe the Starborne decided not to pass down his gift, knowing the burden it placed upon the holder. But to this day, the magic of Death, necromancy, has been shunned from all parts of society. And in honor of the catalyst of this whole mess, we call ourselves witches.

So, if you ever see magic, remember how it got here and who it came from. Because every good thing has a price. This one was paid in divine blood.

[llitchilitchi]

This might be a lot to ask, but do you have, like, a monarchy restoration timeline? A general outline? Your comics are just always so cool.

okay I'm gonna fully reveal myself here - there was never any proper outline

one of the great things about working in a snippet format, with relaying the story out of order through in medias res comics or single pieces, there was never any pressure to make a fully canonical order of events or space things out. I could add things if I felt like they missed somewhere, hell, the whole romantic aspect of DNF can be ignored if you are not into it. I was influenced by a lot of other AUs of the time, like guard dog or aeri's revive book!Dream au, where things were vague and canon could change if people wanted it to change in a way

the overall idea for the first arc, though, was gonna be approximately this:

- Dream is taken to Kinoko and recovers for an unspecified amount of time - George and Sapnap start fighting over his presence and they realise that something is wrong. both try to ignore it and come up with different justifications for why it's okay to treat Dream the way they do - sometime after Dream's recovery, Karl returns from his time travel journey. Sapnap, worried about Karl possibly turning Dream in, tries to ease Karl into knowing about Dream's presence and finds out Karl doesn't remember Dream At All except for some early days minor conflicts. Sapnap then proceeds to lie to him and manipulate him into helping keep Dream safe - all the while, there is a search for Dream ongoing in the mainlands. Sapnap joins it to keep up appearances and works with Punz - Dream struggles trying to pull himself together while being constantly surveilled by George and Sapnap. he can't exactly go with his plan while they are around, he doesn't fully trust them after everything that happened. cue angst and arguing and everyone being absolutely horrible to each other - things get worse as things go on because the tensions are high and everyone is anxious. Dream, desperate to get Sapnap to listen, snaps about how he has no idea what he could even do to get Sapnap to listen to him at all. Sapnap tells him he might start by returning the crown to George. through Sapnap's pressure and George's much gentler but much more manipulative prodding, he gives in - predictably enough things are still not great but Sapnap gives Dream the benefit of doubt and listens to what he has to say - that eventually leaves to Dream revealing more and more about the prison and in the end revealing more secrets from the revive book as the Dream Team finally start pulling themselves back together

and that would be the end of the first arc! which would be marked by Sapnap revealing the death book to Dream and saying that he wants to make up for all the things he did to Dream while he was in Kinoko!

there were of course some side stories, like Dream and Tina becoming friends as was hinted at in one of the comics, or Niki finding out about Dream staying in Kinoko and reporting to the Syndicate, prompting Techno to come investigate (he knew about Dream being there but since Niki insisted he decided to come talk to the homeless teletubby. it was gonna be part funny part genuine and wholesome.) then, of course, there was the whole Karl plot, and the Punz plot, and a little bit more of DreamXD meddling and trying to get George's attention all for himself.

there were also plans for a second arc to the story that I have only few vague plans for. like Dream confronting Sam, Bad and Ant at some point about his treatment. (Sam was going to lose all his canon lives one at a time to each member of the Dream Team, actually :D) as one of my old sketches suggests, there would be a confrontation with Quackity, in which Sapnap would stand in between Q and Dream and take Dream's side in the conflict. Dream was going to revive Ranboo and there was going to be a full Endersmile Worked Together The Whole Time thing. also a Dream and Foolish allyship. somewhere.

I wanted to involve a whole lot more characters and I was always reminded of Someone by people in the tags/asks that I forgot about - these tags and asks helped shape a lot of the story

the second arc is a lot more Vague Nothing than the first one so I can't really add much lol

[destinylordoffreaks]

has promised my yearly strong heart bears piece it's been 7 years of draw her the idea began because I remember seeing a breast cancer awareness bear when I was a kid and thought the idea was intriguing Care Bears that taught awareness and understanding of health issues As someone who grew up with physical and mental disabilities, it’s been cool to be able to see representation, but I’ve never really seen anything for my specific issue, so I decided to make one. 

Strong heart bear and grumpy bear enjoying a beautiful day in the forest of feelings with their family after the rain

I did it I finally did it. It took me over two weeks from start to finish. It’s finally done. I had to push myself so hard to finish the coloring job on this like I hit a wall where I just did not want to finish but I promised you guys art and so here it is.

So the concept was kind of like a follow up to my earlier strong heart bear and grumpy bear piece where strong heart is sort of comforting him because he’s upset and the idea is sort of the sunshine after the rain how sometimes you just need someone to be there and it helps I had at one point considered making this as a two-part piece and having a second piece that would’ve been just strong heart and grumpy bear but I’m not sure if I’m gonna finish it if I do I’ll post it but at the moment it’s just a Sketch’s

You also may have noticed I kind of a redesigned, noble, hard horse a little. It always bugged me that in the cartoon he didn’t really look like a horse where has in his original sketches. He looks a lot more horselike as well as the comics, so I just sort of decided to change that a little and I feel like I like the way it turned out. I also tried to make the colors on all of the care Bears has close to their original stuffed animals has possible except true heart and noble heart colors are sort of a mix between their concept art and their movie art although I ended up using their concept art belly badges I use their TV art colors has the umbrella that they’re holding so fun fact for you.

And the trees in the background were off pain I redrew them like three or four times trying to get this look just right, so I hope you guys enjoy it and I don’t know if I ever said it, but I would love to hear comments and opinions, especially on any of my random thought posts Even if it’s constructive criticism like if I missed something or forgot some thing remembered feel free to chat I can’t guarantee that I will respond quickly, but I will try to respond .

[angelsandarsenic]

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much there is to question about the genloss finale

Here's my theory

So someone tagged this on a post I made about Ranboo bowing at the end (this post)

and it made me think—"well hang on, supposedly Ranboo had broken free of Showfall Media’s control?" Except he didn’t! Because Hetch (hedge??? Hatchet?? I’m sorry I didn’t catch the name) wasn’t actually a good guy! Or on the other hand, maybe he was at first, but then Showfall put him under their control, but I highly doubt that one, given his presence in the mall and all his cryptic nonsense. He was super sketch from the beginning, I don’t even need to explain how, y'all know.

So then that begs the question: what’s going on with Ranboo? The mask is still on, the wires and the Showfall media bit in the back are still connected (and Hetch convinced them not to take it off and admitted he had some sort of control over it) but they more or less seem to be acting of free will? But at the same time, there were those moments that didn’t quite make sense; primarily, as I mentioned in the post before, Ranboo bowing at the end, but also when his whole demeanor shifted and he stabbed the guy. Finally, even after spending the entire episode angsting about his friends dying and not being able to save them, he simply stood and watched Charlie get mauled by the security beast—not even reacting. I suspect that since Showfall has no qualms about killing people in the first place, the entire premise of the gore filter and Ranboo discovering the truth was planned, the entire thing is an entertainment show (like irl). I think for the sake of it, they turned off his mask, or it did get damaged when The Puzzler shocked him, so plenty of the third episode is his own actions, but I think Showfall is still in control. I’m honestly not sure if Ranboo listening to the viewers or putting in his own code to the computer was part of that script, but I doubt it would have mattered.

Here’s the specifics:

I think Showfall Media is having trouble controlling their people. I won't speculate whether Showfall is aliens, demons or whatever, but we know that it's not human and specifically that it's still having trouble imitating human life. (Dear gods, isn't that creepy? I funcking love it).

As we've seen, the Filter is breaking more and more throughout the episodes. In the very beginning, Ranboo wakes up in the cabin and the mask isn't on. They don't know where they are, they're distressed, and they try to take the mask off. It isn't until the jar breaks and Ranboo is investigating the ashes that it turns on. I've been incredibly puzzled with why Showfall would turn the mask on then and why Ranboo would have such an upset reaction to it, but after seeing the finale, I think that Showfall was afraid Ranboo would remember something and realize what was going on too soon. Since they can supposedly reanimate people, "rewire, rescript" them and we saw with the tapes at the end (and I think Ranboo said) that there are prequels to the Social Experiments, I bet the ashes belong to someone who died in the episode right before. Then, when the mask turned on, Ranboo remembered the feeling of them getting in his head and panicked. Unfortunately, it was too late.

Right after that, they became the perfect scripted character. The next part that I want to mention, I thought was strange even before the second or third episode came out. It's when Charlie says "Uh oh! I think our contestant is running out of slime! I mean slime- I mean slime-". It reminded me of a skipping record and you can see his smile falling and getting slightly more distressed the more he says it. Because this is where Charlie is supposedly talking to the cameras, I think that lead him to start to remember/realize the truth, but the Filter kept him from saying it, and since this is the very beginning of a new show, the characters have just been "rewired" so their brains are as under Showfall's control as they can be. After that episode, there were no more shots of anyone talking to the cameras.

In the transition to the next episode and when Ranboo wakes up in the chair, the mask is still glowing. It flickers a little bit, but ultimately stays on, and being freaked out when you wake up tied to a chair in a warehouse is a completely normal reaction. I think it was when the Puzzler shocked him though, that the mask started to actually glitch and break. Specifically, the Puzzler insisted on zapping Ranboo anyway, with enough power to knock them out for a minute, and we saw the mask light flash and turn off, and Ranboo said his brain felt a little fried and foggy. Afterward, Puzzler insisted that he didn't mean to do that much, honest.

The Puzzler was a human, just like everyone else in the cast. Whenever he had his mask, however, he was holding it up and away from his face, which I thought was strange, why do that? Of course, the Puzzler is just a strange guy, but he was surprisingly helpful along the way; his puzzles didn't have any real consequences that people didn't almost directly walk into and he even let Sneeg go when he said he needed go to the bathroom. That could of course be chalked up to comedy, or Showfall not understanding humans, but Showfall is smarter than to let them go simply because someone said to. (I won't get into all the little things the Puzzler did and said, or all the glitches/inconsistencies, this will be long enough as is, but oooh there's so much to dissect). I think the Puzzler was Aware and trying to help Ranboo, while staying under cover so he wouldn't get found out. At the end, he even says "I've been doing this for over thirty years, this group is by far the most unbelievable--you fucked up the whole thing!" Because he's aware and he made it so easy for them!

Before you come at me saying "oh but Angel, everyone DIED" LISTEN--the Puzzler gave them very obvious and plain notes saying "DON'T PRESS THIS BUTTON" and "NOT HERE" with arrows pointing to the right stuff. Sure he was supposed to be the Puzzler, so it would be reasonable to assume they were tricks, but everything he'd shown up until that point was just as much of a flop as if they were legit (which they were). Meanwhile, Squiggles is in the corner saying "ooh a button you should press it" and other such stuff. As for Nikki, yeah that one sucked. As the Puzzler said though, he wasn't expecting her to come in there and said he felt bad. After seeing what happened to Sneeg, I bet he was afraid the Showfall goons were coming for him and got spooked and shot too soon. Why would he have been hiding anyway? Furthermore, he released everyone on the carousel sooner or later even though they were supposed to die.

When the Puzzler blows up at the end, he didn't get revived. Showfall revived Charlie at least three times, Sneeg like- twice, and if they can do that so easily, then it's no wonder that they're so chill about killing off their characters. So why didn't the Puzzler come back? When Ranboo and Charlie found his little memorial thing, they were sorry for him, they didn't view him as a Showfall puppet even though he was one of the game masters. More importantly though, is that on Puzzler's memorial is a giant sign that said "TERMINATED". Terminated is intentional, Showfall Media killed the Puzzler, because they realized he wasn't under their control.

I think they also killed Sneeg permanently too. He was more aware than anyone else right before he ran, I think, which is why he ran and struggled so much. He also kept coming back to awareness multiple times, such as when the Puzzler put the hat on his head, backward and covered in gore. Running away during a livestream forced Showfall to restrain and mask him again on screen, so they couldn't have that happening again, then Sneeg interfered with the final puzzle. He seemed very mind controlled through the whole rest of the episode, but someone pointed out that in the final part with the wall, Sneeg held Austin back, not because Showfall wanted them to succeed, but because if Austin kept pushing and panicking, they would all get crushed. It also makes sense that if he knew he'd been through this all several times, then he knew he'd be reset when he died.

We're almost at the end, I promise. If you've stuck around this long, great job, I hope it wasn't too chaotic. Anyway, all of this to say that

Showfall is still figuring out how to control humans. In fact, I think their control is flimsy and relies on the Filter to work. Hetch said that Ranboo passed a test or something, so it wasn't all scripted and planned, plus people keep breaking out of the control. On the other hand, the masked "employees" (robots?? they're filled with wires) are completely controlled and only imitating people.

The way they control people is most effective with masks, but if you break the illusion that everything is fine, they'll wake up. That's why the Filter is so important and it's a problem when it glitches. That's also why all the streamers had their little setups in the mall that looked like their actual offices/rooms and why Charlie, unlike Puzzler, didn't have a mask, but supposedly his set was the cabin where he grew up.

Showfall needs the mask to control Ranboo (and it was broken in the last scenes (how did that happen?? can it still work??)) but he was still under their control for the entirety of episode 3. They may have killed him, but he'd not dead. Side theory— using the mask versus not having a mask for everyone else, while obviously a way to keep Ranboo’s identity a secret, it might canonically end up attached to his face. What if he’s already becoming one of the robopeople?? We saw their skin underneath, but there are all these wire and the control thing attached to the base of his skull and it’s controlling his brain. What if he becomes a monster or on the flip side, terribly injured when he ever takes it off

Ok so what's the deal with Hetch?

Even when he's "helping" Ranboo, he always tried to convince them to just keep going, don't resist, and trust him. Even when Showfall's control is supposedly glitching, Squiggles is on screen, which I found strange, and Hetch's help is never helpful. Hetch says at the end of the Spirit of the Cabin that Ranboo "made it to episode two", implying that he's well aware of what Showfall is putting on (which isn't the same way he presented in the finale), then even saying "I hope you're good at puzzles".

This, combined with Hetch's lackluster attempts to "help" Ranboo in the finale and him convincing them to keep the mask on and not leave, then faking his death, all strongly support the idea that Hetch is a Showfall Media "employee" (The Founder???) who is trying to manipulate Ranboo whenever the mask starts failing and they start waking up. Then of course, the end of the finale proves Hetch was evil all along.

Everything we've seen so far is a big experiment for Showfall Media, but what is it all for? Are they gonna take over the world??? Guess we'll just have to find out.