#this wasn't supposed to be fully rendered

[braindamagedrizz]

"Do I remind you of someone?"

Don't acknowledge my god awful attemps at Riskrunner and Ace Of Spades, I kind of eyeballed everything and guessed

Some more Ruxiz and Cayde artwork, I kind of started drawing them together as a joke because I thought they were just silly guys, but after sitting down and trying to rework Ruxiz' story I think it'd be funny for them to know each other and have a love/hate relationship of sorts.

I'll probably try explaining that later, I'm honestly still not sure whats going on with Ruxiz I just know bestie is a little saucy and wields bows better than guns. Also I haven't done anything shaded like this in a while! I think it looks good for something that was meant to only be a sketch, definitely improving on Cayde's armour now that I have a better reference to use. Reference pose was found on google, I can't find the exact people who posed for the image.

[moonstruckdraws]

The Changes Through Time

And my project is finish! My gift to the CAS series and @somerandomdudelmao! (This is technically supposed to be for the 1 year anniversary of CAS, but I don't have the time to post it on the 12th and I don't understand the queue system lol)

I deeply love this series as I have made fanart for it before several times and honestly it really improved my art. Cass is also an amazing creator and I look forward to anything they post in the future.

(A bit of a spiel about the illustrations from this point on)

I was honestly going to go for more of a tarot card style with boarders and everything, but as I was composing the 1st illustration, I ditched the idea and just when for simple text. The third image (like how tarot cards read the past, present/current, & future) was going to be the present, but honestly I was confused enough trying to decide which illustration was the past & future with the first two. Plus the "current" state of the story doesn't have much significance yet (and references of them aren't made because it's generally their other outfits) so I went with their spirits!

1st illustration: Representing the start of it all with the current state of all the characters. Of course we didn't know the condition of Raph in the beginning, but since he remained static until Casey found him I believe it's safe to assume that he was in that state the whole time. This illustration is unfortunately my least favorite because it's not rendered the same as the others, due to it being the first fully rendered image I've done in a while. But oh well, I still like it for the most part.

2nd illustration: Representing all of the turtles resurrections with a group hug. Not much else to note about the meaning other than the fact that I almost gave Leo an arm that he does not have. This one was also the greatest to render as I had the most fun with the bright colors. This one is definitely my favorite.

3rd illustration: Representing the turtles spirits when they were dead. Though the last one was the best to render, this one was the best to compose as a whole. Mikey and Donnie were the easiest to do since their broken states were shown in the comic, but with Raph and Leo I had to be a bit creative. With Raph I wanted to show the lack of his senses due to being in a robot for a long time and everything being subconscious. It's not as strongly detailed as the others, but he did have the most stable conditions compared to the rest of his brothers. With Leo I wanted to display his lack of self physically. Since he was fading away, at first, I wanted his spirit to be more faded and weaker compared to the rest.

Nothing else to be said that wasn't said before, but I am very glad that I started reading CAS. I've never felt more invested and moved by a fanmade comic before, so this experience is actually life changing for me. And seeing others fanart for it only inspired me! I am truly amazed by Cass and this series. Happy early 1 year anniversary

[boxbug]

A Canary’s Final Flight

My piece for @trafficzine 4th edition! Get it for free here! 200 pages of excellent art and fics, incredible work from all participants and from the mods especially!! huge shoutout to the mods for real

Process notes under the cut! (I struggled a lot so it's a bit of a novel)

So the entire process was a Ride. I knew when I picked this prompt that I was going to have a hard time, because Jimmy’s final death had been illustrated a billion times over by extremely talented artists. But I had a Vision of the snapshot of the second before the impact, when everything is still but you know what’s about happen. It was very much inspired by the clip of Fog by Jabberwocky, bu the thing is, they have the advantage of all the build up of the fall, and that’s when the trouble started.

This was my first version, and obviously it wasn't working. And I was trying so hard, with so many iterations! Small wings, big wings, no wings, different poses, less backgrounds elements. I'd done compositions were everything seemed peaceful but something is Wrong, but it wasn't working this time.

So instead I focused on what rendering I'd like to do - I tried a painterly approach, for that visceral feeling, but it wasn't working either (but hey, I did keep the red sky, so, progress)

At this point I'd been doing back and forths for weeks and I was just as lost as at the start. Now that's my tip for people who make art of any kind, in situations like that, stop thinking about how you can make the best piece possible, and think about you can have fun with it (because when you aren't it's visible). And for that was, 1 - going back to using ink and pen nibs and doing way too detailed inking, and 2- looking at Dave McKean's covers for Sandman (which, funnily enough, was also a reference for my previous trafficzine piece)

And from there I was actually going somewhere! Between the jagged rocks, the red sky, and the increased verticality with the borders, I had hit the vibes I wanted.

I did some experimentation with the border, and even though I really liked the bad boys I drew they were taking too much away from the lonely desolation, so I actually used Red (Unecessary Redstone)'s idea of all of Jimmy's worldy's possessions scattered on the ground post impact, with the idea to make it looks like the central image is his grave being dug.

(and yes for a short amount of time the were supposed to be clock markings on the sun, but there was already enough going with the wings so I scrapped that) (also fun fact the reason why the wings aren't fully material but more ghostly is because my toddler cousin was watching me draw the very first draft and asked why he didn't just use his wings and i went :( so the wings are a metaphor now)

So from there I found a bunch of picture and took some myself, cut and assembled everything together, added shadows in all the appropriate places, and repainted some elements so that everything would look better intergrated (some of the wheats are basically 100% handpainted, the cardboard as well). This took a suprisingly long amount of time, but I was done!

Well I wasn't expecting to have that much to say, but I hope if you're still reading, it was at least interesting!

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

Impulse

AN: Um so, I wasn't supposed to post this, let alone be working on this, today. I blame @majestyjun for violently tossing me back into severe Beomgyu brainrot and, my brain produced this in a few hours as a result. I have 6 other fics I've been actively working on and this is what I did instead. ONE OF THEM IS EVEN A TXT FIC. Either way, enjoy the fruit of my suffering.

Synopsis: After two weeks of no sex while visiting your parents, Beomgyu is beyond frustrated. You completely empathise with your boyfriend but, you're determined to tough it out. You fail to consider just how persuasive Beomgyu can be.

Heads up: Choi Beomgyu x Fem! Reader, established relationship, mostly pwp, dirty talk, pet names, incredibly mild degradation (f. receiving), risky sex, fingering (f. receiving), Monster dick! Beomgyu agenda, Pussy whipped! Beomgyu (is this going to become a thing lol?), Dick whipped! Reader, unprotected piv sex, breeding kink and creampie.

Word count: 1807

I will block you if you are a minor and/or have no easily visible indication of your age on your blog if you interact with me in any way.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

"Beomgyu," you chastise when you feel your boyfriend's hand sneak its way up your tank top.

"I can't help it. You just look so hot and you feel so soft. It's been for fucking ever," he groans against your neck, leaving goosebumps in his wake. You pointedly ignore the dull ache you feel between your thighs.

"I know, baby but, we're just here for one more week," you respond sympathetically. It's not as though you don't understand his frustration. If anything, it resonates with you a little too deeply. So many mornings of waking up to him hard and hot and pressed against your thigh have really been testing your own sanity. Having to push down your baser instincts as you get out of bed and get ready to spend another day with your family.

None of this is helped by how needy Beomgyu has been as the days with no sex tick by. Desperate, messy make-out sessions before bed and one night of a quick blowjob not nearly enough for either of you. However, he's been trying to tempt you more and more in recent days, and your fragile composure is dangerously close to shattering.

"I can't do this for another week," he whines, his fingers toying with one of your already hard nipples. Before you can chastise him again, he grinds his fully hard cock against your ass and, words completely fail you.

You bite your bottom lip in an attempt to silence the moan that bubbles up from the action and the sensation of his fingers pinching your sensitive nipple. Instinct is what makes you press your ass back into him, and Beomgyu seems to lose it at that.

"You want this just as badly as I do. Don't worry, baby. We'll be quiet. Make sure noone hears," he whispers while his hand finds itself in your sleeping shorts, and more specifically, your panties.

"Fuck. Shit. You're already wet," he practically moans when he first comes into contact with your pussy. Expert fingers rubbing circles against your clit in the way he knows will render you little better than a whimpering mess.

You try your best to silence your sounds against the pillow. Fingernails digging into his forearm while he rubs your clit and grinds against your ass in search of some sort of relief. You accidentally bite your tongue when he pushes two of his stupidly long fingers inside of you.

"Wanna fuck you so badly. You're so wet and tight and warm," he breathes behind you while his fingers stretch you out. A slightly louder cry flies from your lips when he sinks a third finger into you. Beomgyu doesn't give you much time to get used to the intrusion. Curling his fingers mercilessly inside of you while his filthy mouth keeps going.

"Fuck, I missed this. Missed feeling your pussy. Can't wait to feel you around my cock," he groans, his thumb rubbing fast circles on your clit this time around. Your thighs begin to quiver violently, and you feel the knot in your core tightening with each one of his ministrations. You're embarrassingly close already.

"Are you gonna cum for me, baby? Huh? Already? That's so hot. You're so hot. Please cum for me. I wanna feel you cum."

Between his words and fingers, you never stood a chance. You shove your face deeper into the pillow in an attempt to muffle your whimpers and moans when you do eventually fall apart on his hand. Your mind is too dazed to be certain, but you're pretty sure you can hear Beomgyu still talking. For the life of you, you can't make out what his saying though. Tremors still wreaking havoc on your body as he slowly fingers you through it all.

You haven't cum this hard and quickly in what feels like ages. The one time you caved and touched yourself in the shower a few days ago not coming anywhere close to this. Beomgyu might've seriously spoiled you for anyone else. Even yourself, apparently.

"Baby," you eventually hear him whine desperately against your shoulder as he grinds against your ass more aggressively now. Looks like seeing and feeling you cum did quite the number on him.

"I know, Gyu," you soothe, rubbing his forearm, "I can suck you off," you offer.

You feel him shake his head behind you. Jolting slightly when his fingers move inside of you before he speaks, "I wanna fuck you," he says, the throatiness in his voice making you clench around him instinctively.

This is incredibly stupid and risky but, you're already so far gone and you miss feeling him inside of you.

"Okay."

That's how you find yourself with your face in one of the pillows and your ass in the air for him. Anticipation and desire mixing into a heady cocktail in your system as you hear him shuffling behind you. You'd love to see his face. Beomgyu always makes the most attractive faces but, you're just happy to be getting fucked in general.

You gasp softly when you feel his cock prod at your soaking entrance. Wetness smearing your inner thighs and likely coating his tip. You imagine you're making quite the sight right now. Beomgyu, never one for shyness when it came to you, admitted that one of the reasons taking you from behind is so enjoyable to him is the view he gets.

"You're dripping onto my dick, princess," he whispers, running his cock along your slit and letting your juices cover him. "Beomgyu, don't tease," you respond, meeting his lidded gaze over your shoulder.

You're not sure what he sees on your face but, evidently it's enough to finally get him to push into you. He hasn't even started yet and you already find yourself biting down on the pillow and clawing at the sheets beneath you. Your pussy definitely feels that it's been two weeks without feeling him inside of you. The stretch stinging more than it usually would.

"Relax for me, baby," he coos softly, his thumbs soothingly rubbing your hips as he slowly eases into you. You try your best to. Tears accumulating in the corners of your eyes as he sinks inch after inch into you. God, it feels otherworldly. Even with the slight pain that comes along with feeling him pulse inside of you.

"Fuck," he groans when you take initiative and push yourself back until he's completely sheathed inside of you. The grip he has on your hips becoming bruising as you both try to catch your breaths and regain some semblance of composure.

Your thighs are already shaking, and you let out small whimpers and moans just from feeling him bottom out. His tip brushing against places you still can't comprehend exist sometimes despite being with him for months now. Beomgyu, for his part, seems to be struggling more than you currently. His cock throbbing violently inside of you as he grits out curses and groans between his laboured breathing.

"You little slut. I could've cum," he moans and god, you really wish you could see his face. Before you can fire back a retort, he pulls back before thrusting back into you. The drag of his girthy cock along your walls dissolving your mind into a puddle. One thrust, and you were already a drooling mess.

You're not the only one affected if his strangled moan is anything to go by. His pace picking up considerably once he's sure you've mostly adjusted to him. You pray to whatever deity is willing to listen that the walls of your childhood bedroom are decent. There's no way you two could silence the sounds of skin slapping against skin even if you tried.

He doesn't give you a moment to catch your breath. His cock splitting you open over and over again while all your body can think to do is fist the sheets and take it.

"So wet and tight around my dick," he moans as quietly as he can manage, "Missed this pretty pussy." You feel him spread your ass to seemingly get a better view. A breathy 'fuck' and a particularly brutal thrust confirming your suspicions.

You can tell he's close. He was barely hanging on by a thread when he eased into you but, the uncoordinated nature of his thrusts and increase in sounds tell you all you need to know.

Taking all the energy and brain power you have, you look at him once more over your shoulder, "Beomie, I ah want you to cum insi-inside me pl-please," you whine. The glazed look in his eyes is replaced by something more dangerous. Something more feral. You walls tighten around him in anticipation, and a shiver runs down your spine.

His arms wrap around you while he fucks into you faster, chasing his own release. "Yeah? Does my baby want my cum? Want me to cum inside until it's dripping out of you?" He asks darkly against your ear, nipping the lobe in the process. You're sure he could tell at this point in your relationship but, fuck you love it when he gets like this. You weren't sure if you could cum again but, he certainly is trying to get you there.

"Ye-yes, please. Wa-want it. I need i-it," you whimper in response, a few tears rolling down your heated face.

"Ah fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Your pussy is gonna make me cum," he moans, his cock pulsing incessantly while his thrusts become sloppier and sloppier. "You're gonna take it like a good girl, yeah? Take all of it. Let me breed this pretty pussy until you're filled with nothing but, my cum," he rambles bordering on delirious. His words making you grip him even tighter, "Yes Beomie, please please please."

That does it for him.

His broken whines and moans flood your ears while his cock pulses inside of you. His tip feeling as though it's kissing your cervix with how deeply he's nestled in your pussy. He holds onto you like a lifeline as he rides out his release, his warm cum filling you to what seems like the brim.

For a moment, all that can be heard is your laboured breathing. Beomgyu sagging against you as you two crumple onto the bed.

"Maybe we should wait weeks to have sex more often. That was so fucking hot," he mutters against your shoulder and you valiantly resist the urge to roll your eyes.

"Do you really want to go weeks without having sex again?"

"... Fair point," he responds sheepishly.

You do snort at that. Shaking your head good-naturedly at him.

"So, can we do it again?"

"Beomgyu, you just came,"

"Yeah but, I'll be ready to go in like 20 minutes,"

You love your boyfriend's stamina but, it really was a double-edged sword at times.

[asdaricus]

Roughly twenty years ago or more (like 2005 and earlier), practically another lifetime for me, I did 3D-modeling and then renders of my models in a now fully ancient software application called 'Bryce.' It was lots of fun, though I certainly wasn't going to quit my day job. This picture is called 'Azalang Palace.' It's supposed to be an extra-dimensional palace in the mythical city of Azalamb.

by Bryce

I'll be posting more of these, so you can see how far digital art has come.

[toomanythoughts4myhead]

A drop of poison goes a long way

Summary: More insight in Coriolanuses work life and the veil of what is going inside his past loves head is finaly revealed. Coriolanus is offered what he wants. Will it be his doom again?

Warnings: Coriolanus Snow and his brain; mentions of attempted murder, shooting, gun violence, prosthetic as result; Capitol people.

Pairing: Coriolanus Snow x reader

A/N: I am so sorry it took me this long to write this. December wasn't 🎄Decembering🎄 it was 📝Decembering📝. I hope you enjoy and I will try to be more on schedule. Hope yall enjoy.

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Coriolanus liked to think of himself as a sensible individual by Capitol standards, to say the least.

Then why has he been on the verge of ripping his hair out for the past day and a half?

Ever since Dr Gaul had presented to him his "fixed" songbird he has been in a state of mind unbecoming of the image he has built himself to be. He even had to cancel his lunch outing with Solicis Saddler, a hefty sponsor of the games with an odd bloodthirst for someone who was missing most of his natural teeth and had gotten a tacky golden replacement.

Dr Gaul hadn't allowed for him to take you home or stay long, not that he had been able to protest, eyes glued to your form like ot would set you on fire or make you crawl back in his arms. He didn't want to think about the consequences; he knew he had failed whatever test this was supposed to be. He should have remained stoic and proud, barely sparing you a glance. Instead, he gaped at you, hopefully with a closed mouth.

He had gotten used to troubling his mind with various plots and schemes before bed, usually that kept his mind at bay and away from you. Now, you came back in strutting to render him powerless over his own being. He felt stupid and weak, unsure who to hate more - himself or you.

He decides he hates you most.

After the encounter, he had gotten back in his car and gone to work, collecting himself now that you were out of sight. With the rise of popularity after the 11th and especially 12th game the making of the Hunger Games had become a lot more professional and lavish, the personal had expanded and even changed and added buildings to the office.

As a head game maker, he worked and operated over the main building, the center, and the gem of the whole operation. The building itself was in various shades of whites and blacks, and all in-between, a lot of the structure was from black and white marble with golden cracks. Coriolanus liked working there, in his expensive suits and office at the top of the building, overlooking the whole Capitol. he felt powerful, as he should. He was the one in control.

The main game makers teams were separated and had multiple departments that discussed locations, structures, finances, networking and so on and forth, anything needed for the games to run smoothly and be as entertaining as possible. He was the one who organized meetings and approved ideas and made sure they would also be reasonable by the almost limitless budget. This meant he technically worked only a few hours; the other time, he spent building ties and attending lunches and dinners that would benefit him. Technically, since he is the head and face of the operating, whatever helped him helped the community. So, no one complained or questioned him.

This day was horrible and he breezed by most of it, he felt that on the back of his mind he was reliving this morning over and over and decided its best not to interact with one of his best sponsors when not fully with hus mind. He had fumbled some excuse on his way back from work that he didn't feel good, which was partly true.

Now, the hot water of his shower was burning his skin as he increased it again. He didn't like the burning hot but thus was about discipline. I remember who he was now and for what eh stood. He wouldn't allow you to take this away from him again.

His sleep was troubled and came upon him way too late, his skin felt raw and sensitive from the waterx maybe he shouldn't over do it too much, he wouldn't like for people to notice. His carefully glided back curls were sticking everywhere, and he felt aggitated, but he fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. Not uncommon.

° ❄️ ° ❄️ ° ❄️ ° ❄️ ° ❄️ ° ❄️ ° ❄️ ° ❄️ °

In the morning, he felt better. He rose with the same confidence he had adopted and went out for a run. At least his stay in the districts had taught him discipline and instilled the need to train his body, something all the spoiled and often drugged up or obese people of the Capitol seem to lack. It made him stand out, with his sculpted torso and wide shoulders, strong but not intimidating brutishly so, he filled out his shirts and suits in way he never could back when he was barely eating anything with substance.

It had snowed again last night, surely a good fortune. His sneakers left imprints in the still not cleared up paths in the near park, his breath fanned over his face in clouds of white smoke, he could feel the chilling air nip at his sides through the thin running clothes he had. He felt alive.

By this time, his avoxes were up and on the go, tending to the apartment and the his work clothes and breakfast. He knew their routine like the back of his hand, and so they didn't dare step out of it; it felt good. Each day he got the same royal treatment, no back talk (or any talk for that matter), after a while even he didn't have to talk to them, they knew what to do, he would often limited himself to simple commands. It was a pleasant start to his day since he had to deal with pompous arrogant moneybags for a living.

When he reached the street on which his apartment resided the sun was starting to turn the sky redish. He felt a faint sheen of sweat on his doby and shuddered as his body started to cool down from the exercise, what caught his attention was one of his avoxes waiting for him at the threshold of the apartment. Coriolanus raised an eyebrow as he approached, straightening his back and slowing down his breathing. Judging by the unsure look on their face he knew something had gone wrong, they weren't supposed to be here.

"Could you explain to me what you are doing outside?"

The avoxe looked up at him with gaze that held too much fear, sure he had punished avoxes before but not so cruelly. A mere doubling of chores or less food had been all he had done, merely disciplinary shows of power. The same way a dog needs to be taught, so do humans. The avoxe passed him a note, an envelope sealed with red wax in the capitols symbol. A message from the Citadel.

Coriolanus lifted an eyebrow. Receiving mail isn't exactly an out of the ordinary thing, he doesn't think it's really worth it freeze his ass of and catch something over a letter, but his gnawing intuition told him it was something bad. The realization seeped through and he felt an unpleasant churning in his timach as he ripped the envelope and read the letter.

It would hardly be called a letter since it consistented barely two sentences but It made his head spin.

"Take this as an encouragement from the staff of the Citadel for all your hard work. We hope you don't mind we clipped your Songbirds wings a little."

It wasn't signed but it didn't have to be. Who else could have scared his staff this badly but Dr Gaul? The implications of the letter set in and he barged into his apartment way too quickly, almaot shoving the avoxes down the stairs.

Snow fells and littered his floor, making wet spots on his white rug, but it wasn't the only thing tainting his apartment. There on his couch he found you, sitting cross-legged and fighting woth the decorative bouquet of roses on the coffee table. Your gaze snapped to him, watching hiw with curiosity and a startled look in your eyes as he stared back with such intensity it made you feel uncomfortable.

The hospital gown he had seen before had been switched for a creame white knitted dress that reached your knees and black leggings with boots, semi-useful for the weather and surprisingly basic for the extravagant taste of the Capitol. In the natural light seeping from the glass wall your prosthetic arm looked too natural. You looked too natural, unchanged, maybe even bettered by some fancy Capitol equipment.

What surprised him most was the way you looked at him.

He had spend a long time going over all possibilities of interactions between him and you, he had imagined a cold shoulder, yelling, screaming, maybe you would even try to attack him. But you looked at him with admiration, your face brightened as you placed your warm gaze on him. Not lovingly like before, you didn't seem to recognize him fully.

He walked closer until your knees were a hairstarnd away from his thigh and stopped. He didn't know how to react, he could feel the grasp of control he wielded best at his own house. You just had that effect on him, maybe it was the puppy smile on your face.

As he approaches you stand up, now he can clearly see the white bow on your head, truly wrapped like a present for him.

"Dr Gaul sends her warmest regards. And im here to thank you personally for all you have done for me."

Coriolanus despote everything found himself even more confused. Sure, he had done a lot of you: kept you alive during the Hunger games, cheat in the Hunger games for you, carry out some duty in district 12. He hadn't imagined you'd be thankful for it now. His lack of response must have confused you.

"I am so very thankful you saved me from the districts. I would have been left for dead if you hadnt sent your team of doctors to help me." - you add with a sweet genuine smile and loving gaze.

What?

"Well i couldnt leave my girl for dead among these animals. You know I'd do anything for you." - he smiled back and went as far as to gently grasp your hand in a sweet gesture.

He is grasping at loose straws here. It was evident that your memory was very... selective and altered. He could somewhat force himself to imagine that it was all due to the incident, but he knew better. This was all Dr Gauls idea and work. He needed to figure out more of the scenario Dr Gaul had constructed for you. And to find out how.

You seemed to like the gesture, squeezing his hand into your smaller one. Your hands were softer, not calloused or rough from playing guitar or surviving, but soft and inviting. Your nails were even done, he had to give it up.to the person in charge of your presentation, they had truly went all in.

"It all happened so fast, the doctors never filled me in fully of what exactly happened." - he said feigning ignorance and worry.

"It was horrible. After i returned i wanted to see my family so bad, but everyone turned on me. They chased me down through the forest because i had managed to get a glimpse of what thwy want - wealth and power, even if briefly from the Capitol. My own family tried to shoot me." - you said and it visibly made you upset, your voice became more uneven, wobbling lightly with along with your bottom lip.

Your own blood? You had no living family, you'd said so yourself before. It appears the lab team had decided to do this in the most dramatic way possible.

He put his thumb on your slightly trembling chin, running his knuckles over your reddening bottom lip and coo at you sympatheticly, as much as he could.

"My poor girl, im so sorry it took us this long to get you back and kicking. Those people certainly did a number on your poor body." - he ran his free hand up on the prosthetic bicep, it felt colder to the touch, not as squishy as human flesh and fat, but surprisingly close.

You nod into the palm of his hand, looking at him with big watery eyes. This is amazing, Coriolanus thought. He had you right how he always wanted you, under his thumb and eating out of his palm. You were like a frail little fawn waking up after the cruel winter had passed, everything is different but so so familiar. He would be your guide, he will show you the right way, he will be your light and your dark. You will worship and thank him for taking your control and responsibilities away.

All hate seemed to be burried for now, this opportunity made Coriolanus too excited, to have his favorite toy back. You weren't the girl who had sicked a snake on him, no, that girl was dead, trapped in her own body but permanently erased. Whatever he had now was the perfect doll with your face slapped on it.

"Oh my precious lamb, welcome home."

He cooed and tried to keep the sadistic glint in his eyes from showing too much. He put his arms around you, big hands digging into the warm material of your lower back, the rose ring on his pointer finger scraped the material. Your cheek was pressed against collarbone, nosing at his neck. Even a few seconds in his embrace and the sickeningly sweet smell of white roses was clinging to your whole body. Even a few minutes were enough for his poison to take root.

He runs his hands up and down your back, keeping you close. It felt good, to feel your warmth again, it made something tick in his brain whenever he felt your warmer weaker body against his. Call it animal instincts or a sick mind, neither are too far off.

"Ive missed you" he croons in your neck, his nose bumps your pulse point and it makes your head feel lighter. You are alsmot too loat in each other, but the feeling of being watched makes you open your eyes to find a nervous looking older woman. You instinctively true and pull away from Coriolanuses tight embrace but he doesn't let up, his hands just dig deeper into the fat on your hips and sides.

"Where do you think you are running off to? Are you not happy to be mine?" - he asked with a mocking tone but the intensity in his eyes never wavered.

"Corio, there is someone her-"

"Just an avoxe, no need to be shy. She wont say a peep." - replied clamly and stood back to his full height, keeping you good to his side like an accessory. Your face was held to his chest by the back of your neck, the hold wasn't strong but you hadnt tried to break free either. It made your cheeks burn a tad bit. "What seemes to be the problem?"

The woman stood still and pondered how to explain it without actual words but the loud bickering of an old man that could be also drunk and rattle of metal made Coriolanuses breath hitches for a moment.

Solicis Saddler.

He had promised dinner at his penthouse to make up for canceling, to go over the future plans of the games to keep the bloodthirsty man at bay and his wallet open for all gruesome scenes. Judging by his pompous screaming and yelling at his staff he had taken the invitation to heart.

Coriolanus had completely forgot about this. And it made him feel like the ever-growing tower that was his life was tilting, he was getting sloppy. He needed to focus again. He won't repeat the same mistakes.

Pressed against him, Coriolanus could feel you flinch as the octaves kept on getting louder. He needed to apologize to his neighbors tomorrow for all the chatter. He gave your waist a squeeze and kept you locked to him.

"Let him in."

(Not my best but lemme cook chat, i.swear ill do better next time.)

[ghoultyrant]

Anime Sakura vs Manga Sakura

I first got into Naruto the way a lot of English-language fans very clearly did: by virtue of the anime starting to run in my region. More specifically, I got into it partway through the first Toonami airing of the Wave Country Arc -which, for those who don't know (or don't remember), lead to the anime looping back to the beginning as soon as that arc concluded while localization worked on getting the following episodes localized.

I was sufficiently hooked that this wasn't really enough for me, particularly once the anime got back to the episodes I'd already seen, so I checked out fanfic, became aware the series' original form was a manga, and started reading that. This confluence of events resulted in me becoming aware of something I suspect a lot of fans never notice:

That the anime actually changes a lot of early scenes.

Some of this is actually quite appreciated. For example, in the manga Naruto's classmates don't exist in the first chapter: Sakura and Sasuke don't exist until it's time for team assignments in the second chapter, and the rest of Naruto's classmates don't exist until they show up in the Chunin Exams -this is why Naruto breaks the fourth wall and gives an intro for each of them when they show up there, even in the anime where we actually saw them all in the very first episode. The anime adding them in to the beginning is nice!

By a similar token, the manga actually skips the fight between Tenten and Temari, so jarringly I actually had to double-check and make sure I wasn't missing a chapter somehow; the anime giving us the actual fight in detail is also appreciated!

Other changes are sort of random-feeling if you're not familiar with the tendency for anime adaptations to overtake the manga they're rendering in animated form, but understandable if you are familiar with this point: for example, there's an entire episode dedicated to Naruto having a Wacky Adventure in trying to get to the Chunin Exams' final stage on time, involving silliness like running from an entire stampede, which... has no relevancy to the larger plot because it's an anime-only filler episode to stall for time, not based on anything from the manga.

And then there's how Sakura gets changed.

This is kind of weird to describe, because the anime doesn't cut anything or completely rewrite any scenes: it only ever adds bits. The problem is, the bits that are added are... problematic. Consistently, up until about her Chunin Exam fight scenes. But since it is only addition, I'm going to start from just describing Manga Sakura, then explain the changes.

In the manga, Sakura starts essentially exactly as she does in the anime; she doesn't like Naruto, she's pursuing Sasuke... the only 'difference' is that of course Ino doesn't exist until the Chunin Exams and so the whole Ino/Sakura rivalry thing doesn't come up.

However, in short order Sakura starts changing her mind about Naruto; she attempts to confess to Sasuke, it doesn't work out, and she finds the rejection a fairly unpleasant experience and then connects this pretty immediately to her own rather harsh rejections of Naruto's requests for dates and resolves to not be such a jerk to him in future.

And she does in fact stick to that for... at least everything I read. (I've yet to get fully through the Shinobi World War Arc, so I suppose it's possible she goes back on her word somewhere past there)

This is how Manga Sakura goes overall; she starts as a bit of a shallow, thoughtlessly cruel person who isn't really taking this whole 'life and death battles as a ninja' thing adequately seriously, but tends to be quick to engage in introspection, resolve to change such behaviors, and then stick out this resolution; the Sakura we see in the Chunin Exams is something of a culmination of how Sakura has been progressing this whole time.

Anime Sakura still has these moments, but... they get undercut. The date thing is the bit I still vividly remember: Anime Sakura makes her resolution to not be so cruel to Naruto-

-and Naruto immediately shows up, asks for a date, and Sakura punches him out and goes 'never mind' about her resolution.

There's a lot of moments like this with Anime Sakura: 15-45 seconds of content added to otherwise-faithful-to-the-manga scenes where said added content is 'comedy' moments that horribly undercut Sakura's character development. Taken seriously, they make her into an incredibly unpleasant person who intentionally rejects opportunities to become less unpleasant; it's little wonder that so many of the fanfics I saw in the early days really did not like Sakura.

Once the Chunin Exam starts these added bits of unpleasantness stop occurring, but after so long seeing Anime Sakura do things like make resolutions and immediately break them, I imagine lots of viewers found Sakura's Big Resolutions and Major Character Development difficult to take as intended; if I'd not read the manga, I know I would've been expecting these moments to not really stick.

The whole thing is particularly frustrating for how easy it is to overlook; if I'd not been experiencing the manga and anime near-simultaneously, I never would have realized these quick bits of character assassination were anime-only additions. And if you go look at a wiki or the like, you're not going to trivially learn this info, unlike how basically everyone knows that the Anime Filler Arcs are, in fact, the Anime Filler Arcs.

So I've long suspected lots of people are unaware that Sakura comes across very differently in the early anime vs the early manga.

[dysaniadisorder]

welcome to about a billion tma drawings i did and did not finish or post i think

[ID: 1. A half finished line drawing of Sasha James, she's wearing a hijab and has one hand in her pocket while carrying a tape recorder, and laughing to herself. 2. A half finished line reference drawing of Tim and Sasha. Tim is short and is wearing a skirt and Sasha is tall and has a cane. 3. An unfinished drawing of Jon and Martin in the same position as 'The Kiss' by Gustav Klimt. 4. A colored drawing of Michael Shelley as a human. He has reddish brown hair and is wearing a colorful sweater. 5. A line drawing of Jon and Martin, both of them wearing cute dresses. Martin is sitting on the ground and Jon is standing over him, and they're holding hands. 6. A bust sketch of Georgie, who has freckles, glasses, and an afro, and is casually holding the Admiral in her arms while he screams. 7. Some doodles of Oliver Banks, one showing him before the apocalypse, and the rest after. He has long locs and piercings, and after the apocalypse he's wearing a beach outfit and has black tendrils lining his skin. it show's him watering the roots on the ground, and him spotting Jon and Martin in his domain and calling 'Archivist!' out to Jon. 8. A fully rendered drawing of Georgie and Melanie in season 4. Georgie has vitiligo and her hair in a large ponytail, and is wearing a long sleeved what the ghost shirt, holding the Admiral, a calico cat, in her arms. Melanie is next to her, and she's shorter, has black hair with faded blue dye, freckles, and many piercings including knife earrings. She's wearing a what the ghost tank top over a sweater, and has her seeing cane in one hand. 9. An unfinished drawing of Archivist Sasha. She has a pained, desperate smile with one hand over half her face. She doesn't have glasses, and the other visible part of her face has many eyes. 10. An unfinished drawing of Jon and Martin. Martin is laying on the ground and Jon is sitting down, leaning on him. Jon doesn't have eyes and has a scar in the middle of their chest, and is trying to crochet something. 11. A colored drawing of Jon, laying on the ground sleepily. They have entirely gray hair and are laying opposite a three legged calico cat also sleeping, who they have one hand on. 12. An unfinished drawing of Melanie without eyes, knees deep wading in a creek. 13. A doodle of Basira reading a statement, she starts with; "I know how it sounds, but murder club wasn't supposed to be like this." There's a smaller doodle of her looking confused. Next to that is a doodle of Gerry Delano looking annoyed, and they have a speech bubble with the Jurgen Lietner copypasta pasted over it. end ID]

[bosskie]

Draw Abe and Molluck kissing.

'You know, Abe, I always somehow liked you. I didn't name you the employee of the year for nothing. I designed Mudokon Pops look like you for a reason. I would still have enjoyed killing you, I wasn't even supposed to like you, so killing you including my own feelings toward you would have been the right choice. You, blue bastard, ruined my life but also saved it... I have dreamed of crushing you but now, instead of that, I feel another kind of desire of a crush. Kiss me, you schmuck!' Molluck told Abe after they had done their parts of the deal of helping each other.

I'm actually glad that you suggested me to draw that since I have been joking about Molluck and Abe turning from enemies into lovers but never said a word about it. So, thank you for giving me a reason to draw it! (Y) Yeah, what an odd couple they would be but hey, it's Oddworld! The best 'from enemies to lovers' thing I could still imagine (I know nothing about this stuff though, only the concept).

Frankly, I'm kinda surprised at how little Abe x Molluck stuff I have seen, just one 'spicy' drawing... (I don't know about fan fiction, I don't read it.) So yeah, I personally like this ship. It's not easy to explain why but it just has depth, is odd but 'makes sense'... It's just would be quite interesting in general.

I basically had two ideas for this but I chose this one since I got this 'from enemies to lovers' idea, and well, now I 'came out' with it. I wasn't sure about where to draw them but they are somewhere at Nolybab where the sun doesn't shine, underground I mean. Molluck's name has been cleared and Abe could meet his mother, and it was all thanks to their collaboration. They were reluctant to work together at first but their relationship developed during that, and Molluck let his softer side come out more. This is idea is basically behind this Molluck x Abe thing. I know, it can sound so odd but it's not the first time if I'm odd for something I like; I have heard it for so many times already. Oh, and yeah, maybe you also noticed that Abe has no longer his stitches; it makes the kissing easier too. (Y)

And yeah, this came out more 'proper' than I planned but it's still 'quick-ish' since it's not fully rendered and looks kinda sketchy. This was also challenging to draw and I wasn't' sure of how to draw them kissing, like I didn't want it to be 'too intimate', so something simple enough. I hope that this looks okay at least. I just felt really bad about my drawing skills last night out of nowhere, so I just wish that my art doesn't look like Slog shit. I just kinda don't like how this came out but that 'better image' I have inside my head feels 'too intimate'... Just didn't feel like going 'too far' with this. Also yeah, I used a bit different style here since I'm still trying to figure out my way to do digital art, even I have done it for so many years... It's just that it feels like I'm never pleased with my art style; it makes difficult for me to feel like I had any artistic talent... I'm still always just trying my best.

Let's just say that posting stuff like this in public is difficult for me, even I still would like to post stuff like this... I don't even draw proper self-ship stuff and I rarely even draw it, even I think about myself with Molluck every single day. I guess it's mainly due to my self-hatred, like why I would spend so much time on drawing something only I'll see. I just have never drawn anything as proper as this about me and Molluck. Maybe I should but I cannot help myself but think that it's waste... I'm sorry but I just feel so awful about myself... Last night was just another night when I asked Molluck to eat me... I'm so sorry for this vent but I'm just so tired of this and cannot be silent, pretend that I was okay when I feel like crying...

I still hope that my stuff is enjoyable, even when I feel like I should just delete everything here... It's just because I can see my stuff looking so awful sometimes. I just don't feel like I draw Molluck well enough; he is still challenging to draw... I think that I should end writing for now; I just feel so bad about my stuff right now...

This doesn't really relate to the drawing, anon. This is just the usual stuff my condition makes me feel... But hopefully you like it and don't regret suggesting me to draw that kiss. I really liked drawing this still and that's probably why I painted this more than I planned; the idea of this drawing amuses me. (I tend to enjoy creating stuff in general but I rarely like what I created, the outcome I mean... Oh, and I don't really mind Molluck being with someone else than me. They are just different stories and I'm just glad that Molluck gets love!)

I just have difficulties with expressing love in public (even if it didn't relate to me, being about a ship like this), even I do have done it many times here, told you how much I love Molluck but, it still feels challenging... Like posting my 'Molluck love sculpt' was kinda scary actually but I still posted it, especially because I put so much effort on him. I don't even know what I was afraid of, I'm already used to people seeing me as a weirdo. Maybe I'm just afraid of love because this self-hatred just makes me even wish that no one loved me. But my heart still tells me that it's not true that I'm not someone to love.

Even I love Molluck with my whole heart, wish to hug and kiss him, enjoy his body every single day, it kinda scares me to be loved back... I know, it can sound odd but it's just that I don't see myself worth loving and just wish good for the others when I try to prevent them from loving me since I feel like I'm only waste of everything. My condition really makes me act and think like this. Even I realize how this is unhealthy and I imagine Molluck being confused about this behavior, it's still so difficult to feel like I'm someone to love... But the important thing is at least that I always imagine Molluck loving me, even it's difficult for me to receive that love. Even I do enjoy imagining that Molluck enjoys and loves me too, I still can feel like it's better for Molluck if he didn't... It makes me feel bad/sad but it just feels 'right' since I'm not someone to love...

These awful thoughts just don't wanna leave me alone... And if I sometimes do not vent to my posts, it doesn't always mean that I felt better. It can also mean that I feel like I should be just silent, I'm only ruining everything with my vent... It's just making me feel a bit less alone with this shit when I write this stuff here, and hopefully I can give some peer support. Also, if one day my stuff is gone or if this blog seems abandoned, you know why. I don't wish to bring more negative energy to here but I just cannot hide my condition; I'm just trying to save my life.

~ I really appreciate your tolerance and support!

[creetchure]

Please tell me about your ideas for the fallout for like everyone post gotham war (if not everyone than just Jason is fine too, i am very curious about your ideas for an arc for him)

hi hello!!! my thoughts are more directed to jason because he's the one who went through the brunt of things, BUT i have thoughts on all of them. i also have sort of separate thoughts because of the detective comics anouncement, but they contain spoilers for the future issues of detective comics, so if you don't want that, i'm putting it under read more after this.

also typing this and realizing it's REALLY long, so i'm gonna put a tldr at the end of each character LMAO

first off, dick is never forgiving bruce for this. we know exactly how protective of his siblings he is -- he killed joker for implying having killed tim -- and i can't see him letting this slide, no matter how much bruce pleads the "it wasn't me i was being influenced by the personality i created as a backup". Of course, because they're bruceanddick and they're always in a cycle of coming back to each other, eventually, little by little, dick is going to start working with him again, but i don't think this is something he'll ever *forgive*. or forget for that matter. so to me, this should spark an arc of nightwing becoming more separate from batman than he's been in years.

TL;DR: Dick isn't forgiving bruce for this, but will eventually work with him again

second off. there are a lot of things i would like to see for jason, some more likely than others. ill start by what i *know* won't happen, but would be best for his character imo.

Jason is a character we've seen move forward and backwards so many times, mostly because he sells well, and so the writers keep him stuck in this red hood limbo of eing a loner and making friends, and hating bruce and forgiving him, and it's been the same arc since his resurection, and i'm tired. which is why i think what'd be best for him is an Oracle arc, for lack of a better term.

Jason will never leave Gotham for an extended period of time. it's home to him as much as it is to Bruce. he might go away for a bit (id like to see him in Blud but ill get into that later), but he'll always come back. he also will never give up trying to protect Gotham and the people in it, because he never has. But he can't be a vigilante in the same way anymore, functionally, what Bruce has done to him is profoundly disabling in day to day life, let alone doing things that are made to trigger the panic response.

I don't think that should stop him. Personally, my vision for it is to put him at the head of a spy network, to render Batman obsolete and stop major crime before it even happens (potentially also feeding batman fake info to make him look bad), but like. you could do other things. it's just the idea that i'm going with.

But I do think that unlike Dick, jason is going to forgive bruce for this (against his better sense or wishes. he does understand how fucked this is) because he understands altered states of mind (NOT talking about the pit. talking about good old fashioned brain fuckery). but it's also going to cause a rift in their relationship that i don't see them bridging anytime soon, and Jason *will* be extremely uncomfortable for a long time.

Thats only if they don't walk back the panic thing, though, which i firmly believe they will. a Red Hood solo has been in the works for ages, and is supposed to come p soon, and i doubt they'd start it off with Jason unable to *be* Red Hood. They might not fully fix it, but they'll make it much more manageable.

overall, i'd like to see Jason in Bludhaven after this for a bit. I kind of just want a focus on him and Dick for a while, though I dread what Tom Taylor might write of the two of them. I'd also like a mantle change, but that's just me dreaming.

TL;DR: if it was up to me, Jason would have an Oracle arc and be the head of a spy network. it's not, and all I can hope for is Jason moving to Bludhaven and detaching himself from Bruce for a while

third off, tim. I don't have many thoughts about him, if I'm honest, mostly because he's one of the least directly affected by Bruce's actions, imo. i'm also less of a fan of his character, making it harder for me to see all the implications that this arc will have on him. I do firmly believe that he'll stick to his siblings rather than Bruce, because he does know how to look at reality and call out Bruce's bullshit.

TL;DR: i don't know/don't care enough about Tim to have that many thoughts. he'll pick his siblings side.

fourth! Cass! She isn't really present in the event much (doesn't sell as well i assume) but this is important to me so. To me, this causes damage to her and Bruce's relationship as well, that he'll have to work to fix. She is loyal to the Bat and what the symbol represents before she is loyal to the man wearing the suit, and I think that to her, this is betrayal of the ideals Batman stands for. bruce isn't a hero in this arc, and he's not a symbol of hope like the bat stands for. What I would like for Cass is for her to keep going on the missions, keep doing good, but doing so independantly from Batman. She stops answering to him entirely up until she feels he has made amends and has worked himself back to the standard he used to be. I want her to stay in Gotham, and keep protecting it the way the Bat should, even from the bat himself.

TL;DR: cass should stay in Gotham and be batman and not return Bruce's calls.

Damian is the one i'm not exactly sure i know where the writers are leading, but i can still speculate and tell you what *id* do.

we know that him and bruce are still going to be friendly and on the same side by the end of this from Batman and Robin #1. we also know Damian in that issue is kind of distant, doesn't really stick around Bruce much. Williamson's damian always reads sort of. depressed. so idk how much of that is in reaction to Gotham war or just from the way Williamson characterizes him, but there's that.

Imo, Damian will forgive bruce, but is also internalizing a lot of the bad shit that happen in Gotham war. Bruce leaving him needs to be something that stays, because he's 14 and his dad is his hero and he left him behind *anyway* and that's bound to fuck you up.

So I think Damian is staying in Gotham, and he's staying with Bruce, but he's also going to be dealing with the aftermath of that for a while, potentially up to a boiling point, which i'd really like to see. Also i'd like to see this compound with the fact that Talia left him with his father, and how that computes together in his head etc etc.

TL;DR: Damian will stick by Bruce for better or for worse, and might have a shit time mentally dealing with the aftermath of this.

I don't have many thoughts on steph, babs, or selina, since 1) i don't know selina and babs well enough to speak on their character, and 2) steph hasn't been there much, and i don't have a Vision for her like i do for Cass.

okay. those are my thoughts. Now for those on the tec announcement

right so. forget literally all i've said about bruce, because he's going to die.

I'm not pulling this out of thin air, in issue 1080 of detective comics, it's said that Bruce is killed by the orghams, leading to the entirety of gotham city forgetting him. Now, I have no idea how this is getting implemented, so I can't say much about how the members of the Batfamily will react. But I can say that this is, in fact, the natural progression for bruce's character.

in the past year or so, both Zdarski and Ram V have been talking about how Bruce is getting too old, and putting more tangible, permanent consequences on what he does (losing a hand, zur, etc).

On top of that, he has been made to make amends with Dick, Tim, and Jason over the course of that same year (nightwing 100, cheer, failsafe arc, etc)

To me, this arc is the culmination of months of foreshadowing.

Though i'll admit, i thought they were going to just retire bruce for a little while, not fucking *kill him*. it won't last for more than a few years, he sells too well, but i genuinely thought this would be like a knightfall situation.

when it comes to the question of who gets to be batman (i swear, last paragraph and i'm done), i think that gotham war also serves to tell us that *no one* will be. I don't see Dick picking it up in those conditions, Jason won't either, Tim is scared of becoming batman, and Damian might but they won't really let him. ofc they won't let Cass take up the mantle either.

Woo. hope you're happy with this and tihs wasn't more than you bargained for. i'm a bit insane about this.

[toaarcan]

Arcan Grumbles About Mecha Sally, Part 1: The Wrong Protagonists

Alright I've had this gripe bubbling away in my head for a while (Actually it's part of a larger gripe but I'm trying to avoid devoting too much time to griping about things), so here goes.

Archie Sonic's Mecha Sally saga has the wrong protagonists.

Let's take the premise of the arc in isolation for a moment: Sally Acorn, leader of the Freedom Fighters, is turned into a robotic minion of Dr. Eggman, and everyone else has to try and get her back.

Who, then, should be the characters who get the most focus in this story? Well, obviously Sally's closest friends, and those who would have the most angst about it, right?

Sonic is currently Sally's boyfriend, and he's the main character of the book, so he kinda has to be there regardless of that, even if he's contractually obligated to care significantly less than he should, thanks SEGA. Way to make the comic worse in the name of Brand Identity, where the fuck were you when Penders was here?

But then the list of characters I'd want to give the most focus to in this situation is this: Bunnie, Antoine, Nicole, and Elias.

None of whom are actually properly involved in the published arc after Issue 235.

Bunnie is a really obvious pick. She's Sally's best friend, the two have been all but inseparable since like Day 3, and Bunnie is the powerhouse of the team, of course she should be there. Even from a pure spectacle perspective, Bunnie vs. Mecha Sally should be a good battle, we've seen that Flynn can write a good fight scene with Bunnie on more than one occasion, so hey, let them go at it and it'll be both an entertaining fight and an emotionally fraught scene.

So what does Bunnie do in the actual story? She gets accidentally depowered by a wizard, forgets that she's been depowered and thus becomes the only character in the entire book to outright lose to weaponised Mecha Sally, watches her husband explode, and then runs away to go and get turned back into a cyborg by her Eggman-serving Lost Causer uncle.

Antoine, then. Antoine used to be in love with Sally, and while that's far behind him now, he was also originally meant to be her bodyguard. He must have some extremely complex feelings about what's going on, maybe he even feels like he failed her, like his original task of putting his life on the line to protect her fell by the wayside, and thus when he could have saved her by taking a bullet for her, he wasn't even there. He could, and probably should, have a massive amount of survivor's guilt, feeling that this whole crisis only happened because he didn't do his job.

So, how does he fare in the book? He gets Geoff found guilty of his treachery, only for that to be rendered immediately futile by Naugus. He tells Bunnie that she's strong without being a cyborg, which immediately turns out to be not true. He then sacrifices himself to save Elias, and while more could've been done with this if it was later in the story, he'd got more focus, and he viewed it as an atonement for his not being there to protect Sally, then it could've been really poignant, but it comes super-early in proceedings, and it's framed as a culmination of Antoine's growth from being a coward, an arc across the wider book that ended years ago, than it was as part of the current proceedings. He spends the rest of the arc in a coma, and never wakes up before the reboot.

And, bear in mind, according to Lost Hedgehog Tales, this was supposed to be his death. He was going to be killed off here, and they only changed their minds because of negative online reactions to how bleak the story had been since Issue 225. Either way, it's still a wrap on Antoine, written out of the story completely before it's even finished its opening act.

Nicole, then. Nicole has by far the most reasons to be a main character here. Not only is she Sally's other best friend, but her feelings probably run deeper than that (Even before it was fully intended, Sallicole still had better chemistry than like 90% of the other pairings in the book, I read Stargazing, you can't fool me), and a big part of the last major arc was Sally freeing Nicole from the Iron Queen's control, an event that's still relevant at this point in the comic. The most fulfilling conclusion to that subplot is to have Nicole be part of the protagonist group, actively trying to return the favour and free Sally from Eggman. It's so damn obvious!

And there's no reason to not do it either. Eggman has found a way to protect Mecha Sally from being hacked, so Nicole can't just end the story in Issue 236, they have to actually capture her and get the Power Ring Matrix turned off before Nicole can do her thing. Likewise, Nicole has no reason to stay at home, she's been exiled from the city, so why not join the quest to save the person she cares about more than anyone else? Oh, her handheld form was destroyed? Make a new one. Or make a body out of nanites, we've seen that the nanites don't lose cohesion outside of the city, because Rotor can take his nanite armour to Artika without it immediately dissolving. She has every reason to be there and no reason not to be.

So what does she do in the book? She goes into an angst coma, hashes things out with Mina, makes some natty uniforms for the Secret Freedom Fighters, and then gets unexiled because Naugus is a failure. That's it. She never leaves Freedom HQ or Mobotropolis for the entire storyline.

Finally, Elias. Elias isn't a slouch, he's plenty capable of being a badass on his own. His sister has been enslaved and he just so happened to lose his position as king on the same day. Much like Nicole, there's no reason for him to not go after her and try to save her. Plus, Elias going into open combat with Eggman would be an opportunity to have an actual confrontation between the leaders of these warring factions, even if Elias isn't currently in charge of the Republic of Acorn. And it would be another point of contrast between him and his father: Max basically only left Knothole for glad-handing tours of the kingdom and was an asshole to his family, so here's Elias going out and fighting for his people, protecting them from Eggman's attacks, and moving heaven and earth to save his sister. And it would be much more satisfying for Elias to win back the support that Naugus stole from him through heroism rather than simply undoing Naugus' mind control by way of "Naugus had a headache."

So... the actual book, then? Elias basically retires, avoids being assassinated twice, the first time because Eggman just gives up, the second time because Mecha Sally doesn't know what a back door is, and then he becomes a secret agent and spends pretty much all his time trying to get his throne back. He ends up tied far more to the political subplot revolving around the crown, which is a giant bugbear all of its own, so that's a gripe for another day.

What we get instead of the above group of characters, who really should be the ones saving Sally, are the SEGA trio of Sonic, Tails and Amy.

As I said above, Sonic should be there, and he also has to be there, but he can't carry a story that needs to be emotionally harrowing at this point in the comic. SEGA are already creeping in and trying to dumb him down to the "COOL WHOA YEAH" flat character he became in their games. He's not allowed to love, he's not allowed to cry, he's not allowed to lose. They're peeling the soul out of the character and this is the worst possible time for that to happen, because it takes all the tension out of the story. It's hard to feel the alleged direness of the situation when the literal main protagonist is going "Hey guys, let's have a contest to see who can break the most robots!" and saying "Ah well, we'll get her next time!" as he stands in place and watches Mecha Sally fly away for the third time in a row.

Tails could be a resonant character for this story, but he just... kinda isn't. He and Sally have long had a surrogate familial bond, but it's been largely unexplored for a long time now, and has fallen almost completely by the wayside since Amadeus and Rosemary came back. Tails as a character kinda got left in the lurch by the comics, the Great Harmony was partially done for him, by a machine, while he was asleep, and then Flynn said that he lost all of his powers except flight off-panel. How he feels about the Love Triangle Pileup is pretty much entirely glossed over. Any weight that could be applied to him finally getting his parents back, only to find that they've become assholes that are enamoured with the politics of a planet that imprisoned them for the better part of a decade due to guilt by association, and care more about advancing their agenda and being dicks to his friends than they do about him is stymied by SEGA banning him from acknowledging that they're his parents.

And the Mecha Sally arc didn't really change that for him. He's just there. This Tails at least knows how to throw a damn punch, unlike the way the games were using him at the time, but he's not exactly setting the world on fire. He's just... present.

What would've been cool is if Tails' main role in this story was being the one to finally build a Deroboticizer. He's the one that finally figures out how to undo Eggman's greatest weapon of enslavement. Let his technological skills be used for more than repairing a plane and building a vaguely uncanny robot dog.

And Amy... I feel like Issue 239 really wants us to buy that Amy and Sally are now close friends, but the comic hasn't done nearly enough legwork before this point to actually sell that. I buy that they're friends. I don't buy that they're best friends, and the result is that her focal scenes feel like a store-brand substitute for what we could've had with Bunnie or Nicole present.

Besides that, Amy still faces the same "Emotional range constrained by SEGA" problems as Sonic and Tails, both to a lesser and greater extent than they do. Lesser, because SEGA has always allowed Amy to be more emotional than either of her teammates (I wonder why...), so she still gets to motivate Sonic by getting angry, which is a good scene for her. Greater, because at the time, the most recent main series game was Sonic Generations, so SEGA is still presenting Amy as a character who considers Sonic more important than breathing. We're a long way out from them trying to unfuck her character still, and that means that when Amy has to have her Mandatory Flirting With Sonic Quota moments, she's... flirting with a guy who is actively fighting to save his brainwashed girlfriend.

And that's not a criticism of Amy herself, I know people get rather defensive about modern Amy, so I'm making it clear that I'm not saying that Amy is a bad character because of this. Rather, I consider the presence of the Obligatory Reminder That Amy Loves Sonic moments to be a disservice to Amy's character. She should have the emotional intelligence to know that this is not the time. It turns her previous decision that she's okay to wait for Sonic to reciprocate her affections into "Sally has been out of the picture for 0.5 picoseconds, time to get me some Sonic!"

And the thing is, it didn't need to be this way. Ian Flynn has confirmed that making Sonic, Tails, and Amy the sole main characters of the comic for the majority of the Mecha Sally arc was his decision and his decision alone. He chose this. He wanted them to be in the spotlight for a while because the previous few arcs had put more attention on Sally, Bunnie, Rotor, and Nicole. And that's fine, that makes sense, if you're writing a long-running story with multiple smaller arcs and a large ensemble cast, it makes sense to shuffle which of of that cast are the foremost characters from arc to arc. But "Sally gets roboticized and everyone has to save her" was not the arc to do that with.

Other stories could be told with the SEGA trio, this one needed Archie characters in the limelight to sell the weight and the stakes, and it needed the characters who were closest to Sally to achieve the maximum emotional resonance that a story this fraught should have.

It could've been great. As it stands... it's easily the nadir of Flynn's run on the book, and for a bunch more reasons besides this one. I'll cover those another time, for now this is about as much grumbling as I'm willing to do, but I'll certainly come back to "Arcan Grumbles About Mecha Sally" or whatever eventually.

[alittleofsomethingarts]

So, everyone, I got a story about this picture right here. I will include some pics from the process and there's even a moral at the end.

So the client approached me about it, I sketched it out, standard affair. It was supposed to be a gif image and I imagined her moving side to side while her sword glowed.

Mistake number one I did not plan out the side to side movements. This was the only rough I did before I started rendering it.

"Wow this is going to be so cool" I thought.

"This is going to be a piece of cake"

I wanted to animate it on Clip Studio Paint EX that I got this year specifically so I could do animation there.

I ended up drawing all the assets and I was happy with them. Side note, in pixelated animation it is better to use as little colors as possible, and I ended up having a lot more than 256 colors with the colored lineart here n stuff. That was my mistake number two. I really need to work on that.

I warmed my hands as the program was opening, ready to do some animation, only to come across a very unexpected problem.

In the end I have made a reddit post describing it, but you can basically see the results of it in this test animation

I spent an entire freaking day trying to figure out what to do with the blurring. It seems that it functions as intended, but it would be really nice if CSP didn't do this. I had to go back to photoshop to do the actual animation.

... I couldn't quite do the diagonal movement I wanted. Right, so I settled on this.

I drew like 3 movement frames for the white and blue cape and ended up not using it because it looked awful. And the sleeve movement is so wrong.

This is why you test these things, guys! In sketch phase!

So I made these static gifs, thinking this is probably over now and I did a good job.

Nope. Not even close.

My big brain missed one crucial detail in the initial sketching phase...

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BIG BEEFY GLOWING SWORD!

To be fair the initial glow was cool, the client didn't realize what I've been drawing. So we both missed it. Okay, fine. I decided to just redraw the glow, thankfully it didn't take long at all.

... Right we got another problem. How do I animate a sudden burst of energy coming from the sword?

... Oh no.

My head drew a blank.

I felt... I felt... Like a failure. I failed the client. I thought I could do this but it's not right.

I decided to slap a glowing effect and hide the burst under a white screen.

I couldn't imagine anything better.

Despair, utter despair.

In the end the version that looked the best was this one.

Feeling horrible, I decided to make a free quickie for the client to make up for my failures.

I poured my disappointment with myself and my ability to come up with cool animation into this little tiny owl that did nothing wrong. I gave her the most adorable but angry stare I could muster.

She's angry because she's short

... too short for this picture.

The client assured me that my work was fully acceptable from start to finish and that it's all great. That I shouldn't beat myself up.

But I usually get it all from the very beginning, you see. I typically don't do too much revisions. This kind of situation is not common. I wasn't able to see my clients needs and make the kind of gif that was needed from the beginning.

And I've been tipped extra for this picture too.

It's like the money I got was not quite worth the gif I ended up with.

I suppose it covered the extra useless work I did drawing the assets, but... I feel guilty, like I ripped off the client.

If I just needed to draw the static gif with some glow I could've made it cheaper.

Perhaps I undervalue myself and it costs more than I charged for it.

I don't know.

The moral of the story is DO TEST ANIMATIONS IN SKETCH PHASE. ALWAYS. FOR EVERYTHING.

I swear I got it the first time, why make this mistake so many years later? smh...

[shadowqueenjude]

Elorcan again

For @decadentpostnacho <3 Elide smiled at her husband's sleeping form. He almost always woke up before her, so it was a nice change to see his harsh face relaxed by sleep. He looked younger and more human like this, his hair mussed up across his forehead, his jawline a little softer around the edges, his full lips soft and inviting. Unable to help herself, Elide ran her fingers through his hair. He purred then opened his eyes blearily. "Elide?" His voice was hoarse from sleep but he smiled lazily as Elide continued to stroke his hair while her other hand wandered down his body. "Good morning, husband," Elide whispered. "Good morning, wifey. You're up early." "Yes. Do you have any idea how early I had to get up to beat you? Can't you ever sleep in?" Lorcan huffed out a laugh. "No." Elide pouted. "Not even for me?" Lorcan sighed. "If you want me t-" "I was joking, darling, relax. I actually woke up early because I wanted to ask you something." "Yes?" Elide swallowed. "I'd like you to teach me how to fight." Lorcan slowly got up fully, looking at her. "With a sword?" Elide blinked. "Is there another way to fight?" Lorcan smirked. "Well, you could always fight with my axe..." Elide knew he was referring to that moment Elide had slayed the ilken with his axe. "Those were extreme circumstances." "I know, Elide. In reality, it will probably take a long time for you to be able to truly handle a sword properly." Elide shook her head. "I don't need to be properly trained. Just...teach me basics. Please." Lorcan nodded before slumping back on the bed. "Are you...going back to sleep?" Lorcan grumbled, "You woke me up an hour early." Elide snickered. "You big bear." Lorcan mumbled, "Leave me alone," and Elide only laughed louder. "Big scary man needs his sleep." "Sleep is essential for good health," Lorcan muttered. Elide couldn't stop laughing even as she left the room to find breakfast. Elide stood in an open space behind their house. She felt awkward standing there in a dress typical of a lady of Perranth, but she didn't have any armor. At least Lorcan wasn't in armor either. "Before you pick up a weapon," Lorcan said, noticing her staring at the weapons rack, "do you know basic self-defense tactics?" Elide tilted her head slightly. "Like what?" Lorcan shrugged. "Typical vulnerable places to hit someone. Kicking them in the groin, shoving their nose, elbowing...I guess not," he said when he saw Elide's blank expression. Well, you're smaller, so if you get attacked, it's better to go with the elbow strike rather than the fists, which hurt more. Let me show you." He gently wrapped his arms around her waist, and Elide leaned back into him. "Elide, what are you doing?" Elide blinked. "You're supposed to try and escape my grip, not get further in it." Oh. Right. Elide blushed as she pulled away, not missing Lorcan's smile as she pushed off. "Drop your weight down, get your hips lower than mine, and bend your head forward." Elide obeyed, frowning at the strain it put on her still-healing ankle. "Ok, now elbow me." Elide almost refused before she realized that he'd gone through much worse and she probably wouldn't be able to hurt him physically anyway. So, she twisted her hips and swung her elbow into his face as hard as she could. As she expected, Lorcan barely even flinched, but he let go of her. "Good. That strike would've broken most people's noses." "But not yours, because you're a super strong male," Elide teased. Lorcan blushed. "I-uh-anyway, sometimes they'll grab your arms and render them unusable, in which case the back of your head is a powerful weapon." He wrapped his arms around her again, this time carefully restraining her arms. "Go ahead. Hit me." Elide squatted down, preparing herself. Then she leaped and slapped the back of her head into Lorcan's face. Again, he barely flinched, although he smiled in approval at her form. Then he went to the weapon rack and picked a wooden sword, handing it to her. "Very good, Elide. Now try this one."

[saffron0v0]

Future hashira au where tanjiro isn't a demon, I've been daydreaming about how the plot would go and I'm loving how it sounds in my head so hope someone enjoys it!

Explanation of the au→

So basically, muzan had made a plan C before the final battle, (he's a tinge bit less arrogant in this au) he wanted to make sure that even if he couldn't escape from the demon slayers in time, he could still live on, and conquer the sun. It was all planned from when he saw through hantengu the earrings and nezuko, he would get into tanjiro's body, add the property of sun immunity to his blood, and then transfer his soul telepathically to his 'daughter'. Apparently, muzan made her to be the perfect vessel for his blood, and placed some of it inside her, but didn't fully turn her into a demon, she does get nauseated at human food sometimes but she's still capable of eating. She doesn't have demonic powers, because all of the blood is stored in side a small part of her brain that muzan can control effortlessly (i.e not much power needed so even if Tamayo poisoned him, he could still do the blood manifestation, she did poison him by stabbing him early on with her poison and was taken away by one of the hashira, and sent to the farthest place she could get, far from the dk's reach), on a telepathic level. What happens when muzan proceeds with the blood manifestation is as the following >

1. The daughter becomes a demon

2. She is basically muzan but in a child body

3. His original body is rendered lifeless

4. Muzan's soul is transferred to the

daughter.

5. The daughter is now partiality immune to the sun and practically almost invincible, unless you cut up all of the atoms in her body, which is some yoriichi level stuff. Another option is the antidote, which is the option they'll most probably use.

In this au, he managed to get close enough to tanjiro and poured himself into tanjiro when he just barely joined the battle, so tanjiro isn't poisoned and didn't lose any limbs yet. So he does what he does, and fully transitions into his daughter, with his wife waiting expectantly. She's a powerful demon in this au, she got turned a while ago, muzan making her an experiment, and when he found her blood demon arts useful and rare, he suggested a marriage, she consented but muzan would have done it anyways. He told her of the plan and it all worked thanks to one of her blood demon arts that helped store the blood in the daughter's brain. She wasn't actually their daughter, she was an orphan they raised to keep the facade of a happy family.

The 'wife' was kibitsuji tamaki, she was a beautiful woman of mysterious background, no parents, no siblings, no relatives. She was the perfect spouse, she had no real friends and never stayed in the same place, so no one knows too much of her existence, she had no morals and pride, she played dirty just to survive, but was loyal to those she deemed worthy and powerful. She was power starved and a liar, and she knew that. She loved and mastered the art of manipulation, she always had a smile on her face, never feeling remorseful of her actions, she was almost as much of a monster as muzan.

What a match made in hell.

Back at the battle field, everyone is confused as quack and no one has an idea of what the heck just happened. They were still in the dead of the night, 2 hours away from dawn. Alot of the hashira were gravely injured, muzan wanted to wipe out the supposed strongest out of spite, and everyone was a lot more injured, especially Obanai, he was deflecting all attacks sent his way, AND any extra attacks on mitsuri.

The hashira that died are as follows >

1. Kocho, cause of death > douma being disgusting

2. Himejima, cause of death > blood loss and demon slayer mark

3. Tokito, cause of death > split in half like a mozzarella stick

4. Iguro, cause of death > grave injuries injuries and blood loss

Mitsuri survives because the amount of damage she got was big but treatable. She had broken arms and 3 broken ribs, a concussion, and a slash that just barely missed her chest, and several bruises and cuts across her body.

Iguro does confess, and she reciprocated, but he went limp after uttering his confession of love. Mitsuri screams for him to wake up and continues to ball her eyes out, loudly confessing her love and begging him to stay with her.

The kakushi weren't expecting to be called until at least an hour later, but they were able to appear as quickly as possible.

Tamayo hears of the news, and is pissed.

She screams and curses at kibitsuji for what seemed like forever. She had to eventually leave with yushiro and return back to the butterfly mansion.

Everyone is taken for treatment, tanjiro has all of his body parts intact, kanao didn't have to use the antidote, since muzan left his body almost instantly. Tanjiro's wounds were all healed, so he doesn't have any of his scars anymore.

Since zenitsu, inosuke and kanao didn't engage too much into battle, they're in condition where they can fight again, after getting rehab and a lot of rest to heal.

Aoi and senjuro would be picking up their blades and going into battle in this au, and they're besties in my au fight meh if you disagree.

This is the au main plot, the mini skits and drabbles will explain what happens later. Hope this is a good plot, I worked so hard on the idea, and I can't believe it came out well, it actually kinda makes sense! I'm so proud of this!

Link To other posts related to the lore ➜➜➜

Muzan leaving tanjiro out of context

The beginning of the therapy arc

Random drabble (platonic inoaoi)

Taisho secret

1st patient:Shinazugawa Sanemi

2nd patient:Agatsuma Zenitsu

Sanemi gives mitsuri 'good' advice

Mitsuri decided to cut her hair as one last goodbye

I wrapped up the entire therapy arc into one post

2-3 weeks after the battle

Shinobu's loss' affect on aoi, yes, I am biased.

Kanao's character development (I have no idea if this is development though)

Aoi's exposure therapy (first post on my new blog @saffron-rose

Sayaki's character info post (it's long overdue lol)

[aita-blorbos]

aita for feeding my friend?

she's had this curse for a few years now. she's bonded to a wolfish creature inside her that will remain dormant so long as it's fed live flesh. my friend doesn't want to eat anything alive, which is fair, but if she doesn't eat, then the wolf will slowly transform her body and heighten her hunger for flesh, and if it doesn't get fed for a long enough period of time, it will take full control and render her a mindless, starving animal that will hunt down anything with flesh and a pulse to stop.

we work as assassins, sometimes put together for jobs, and i've taken to providing her food when she's about to start transforming and making sure she eats before a hit so she doesn't transform mid-assassination. she's obviously not a fan of the curse or of having to eat live animals, but she's never been upset at me, specifically, for providing her food, until a couple nights ago.

we were on a job. and we needed to bring our target back alive, which would've been incredibly easy, but some complications popped up. my friend and i got split up trying to deal with them all and reunited a little while later, where i found our target pinned in place and my friend mid-transformation. she was surprisingly far along, must've started soon after we split up, but she was resisting the urge to feed herself because that was supposed to be my job. i was going to find an animal, since we were in the middle of the woods, but then the curse had her lunge at our target. and i couldn't let her kill him, so i had to jump in and restrain her. and at that point, there wasn't much else i could do aside from what i did—our target wasn't able to flee, so i couldn't let my friend go because she'd kill him, but if i didn't find her something to eat then she'd fully transform and i'd have to kill her, so i rolled up my sleeve and stuck my arm in front of her mouth.

she dug her teeth in but didn't actually take a bite. instead, she broke away from me and lunged for an animal nearby, using the little bit of clarity my flesh and blood was able to grant her. but she's not happy that i tried to feed her my arm. however, she's currently not a wolf, and the scars are pretty badass, so i think, y'know, in the end, no harm no foul. i mean, there was a little bit of harm. to my arm and also to all the birds she ate. and our target got away. so there was some harm. and maybe a little bit of foul. i dunno. aita?

[jorality]

I watched Lolirock and I gotta say what interesting timing.

So there I was having the most cursed 2 weeks of my life, my (only) cornea fucking split open rendering me blinder than I already am, my dog literally went missing for a week and during that week Aunt Flo decided that 30 would be the age she would finally kill me. Cornea is still better, I have my dog back and for once Aunt Flo only lasted the promised 7 days, but I'm pretty sure I'm anemic now. Can't bounce back from immense blood loss like I used to.

ANYWAY, between putting a thousand eye drops in, having my throat close up due to stress and cramps I found Lolirock's youtube channel and decided to give it a go. I like watching cartoons because even if my glasses don't work I can see cartoons well enough without them. Lolirock's distinctive artstyle was super easy to see so I binged seasons 1 and 2. I had been kinda aware of the show but it never fully got on my radar. At first I thought it was a Canadian cartoon, but it's French, which explains why I kept thinking about Miraculous Ladybug every time the opening theme played. i also saw that it aired while I was in college. It was on Netflix but again it somehow avoided my radar, which is for the best because season 3 was announced last year which is awesome because season 2 ended with the perfect set up for a third season and I was surprised there wasn't a season 3 despite the show's age.

So here are some of my thoughts:

I was glad my hunch about Aunt Ellen was right, can't believe the reveal took so long tho.

I really thought they were going to find a way to make Nate into a fighter or something. Like when the twins unleashed that spell that made all those dark crystal spikes capture people I thought Amaru was gonna swoop in and scoop him up. Though Nate will probably be the main focus of Praxina's rage in season 3, so let's see if he'll get a chance to use magic. If not, I love a male damsel in distress. Too bad he forgot about everything after Iris turned back time with Izira's...brooch? Brooch.

Speaking of love interests, bring back Kyle, I was so surprised to see him and Mark come back. More on Talia and Auriana's love lives please! Can't let Iris have ALL the smooches.

I truly hope Mephisto is alive. I definitely preferred him over Praxina, and the episode where Praxina lost her memories threw me for a loop. I was low-key hoping Mephisto would take the opportunity to defect from Gramorr because frankly it seems like his heart wasn't really in it when it came to being evil. With Praxina's bloodlust lowered I'm sure the princesses would've accepted their help, but alas. He mentions getting a reward from Gramorr in the season finale but Gramorr ignores him.

Also, who the fuck is Banes? That is the shiftiest big cat in animation since Scar. He is absolutely primed to be the ultimate Big Bad, once the princesses fix Praxina and reunite her with Mephisto they can all take down Banes. (Not sure if that's really the route they'd go since Banes is supposed to be more like a familiar the way Amaru is)

I would also love to know Mephisto and Praxina's backstory, in the episode where Mephisto uses their family heirloom Praxina mentions the relative it belonged to was the Court jester.

(Also, sorry about not knowing episode names as mentioned above I could see the art but I couldn't read.)

Doug came out of nowhere but I like him.

I like the songs, although Celebrate seems to be in the wrong key during the chorus. Other than that the songs are super fun, I especially like Higher, Party Talking and Reach the Stars.

I'm interested in the lore, can't wait for that to be expanded. I poked around the fandom a lil bit, will be poking again.