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msmkcreates · 5 years

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Ok, so, I had this commission drabble done for a little bit buuuuut I couldn't help but draw it so I held into it while I attempted several times to draw Megamind lol.

This is a commission for @kine-iende who requested Papyrus giving Megamind a pep talk! Megamind was hard to write, so apologies if he seems off-character. Sorry this took so long, I hope you enjoy!

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“I simply believed it would all be better if I won,” Megamind sighed, running his finger along the edge of the glass in front of him. “But, when it happened? I just felt so...empty.”

“THINGS DON’T ALWAYS TURN OUT THE WAY WE PERCEIVE THEM IN OUR MIND,” Papyrus agreed, leaning on his hand and glancing at his friend. “NO MATTER HOW MEGA THEY MAY BE.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t prepared for the world without Metroman,” he said, gazing dramatically out the window. Papyrus definitely appreciated his friend’s dramatic flair. “The world was so empty, so...mel-an-kully.”

Papyrus decided not to tell him he mispronounced the word “melancholy”. For somebody so smart, he did that a lot.

“AND HAVING A HERO IS IMPORTANT, TO YOU?” It was hard to keep his therapist tendencies to himself when people seem to need it. And though his new friend was out-of-the-ordinary, he was still not looking for a therapist. He was looking for a friend.

“I don’t know. It’s just...always been there. I’d learned, from such a young, tender age, that there would always be someone to foil my plans.” He sighed again, looking down wistfully. “And after he left my life, and I tried to make a new hero that failed miserably due to his terrible personality, I was even more confused.”

“WELL, YOU KNOW, EVIL ISN’T THE ONLY WAY TO GO ABOUT LIFE.”

“Oh, but what can you know, you’ve been the hero your whole life! Look at you, all white and shiny with a red cape. I bet you got picked first in every game and had tons of friends growing up. Not like me.”

“WELL, YOU KNOW,” Papyrus said carefully, ordering two more root beer floats for them. “I DIDN’T, ACTUALLY.”

“Come again?”

Papyrus smiled brightly at the alien, who regarded him with suspicion and confusion. It was easy to see he didn’t believe him.

“I WAS ACTUALLY TERRIBLY LONELY GROWING UP! OUTSIDE OF MY BROTHER, I NEVER SEEMED TO ATTRACT ANY FRIENDS. MY MAILBOX WAS ALWAYS EMPTY, AND I MUST HAVE PESTERED UNDYNE DAILY TO MAKE HER EVEN CONSIDER HANGING OUT WITH ME LONG ENOUGH TO TRAIN ME FOR THE GUARD.”

“But you’re so charming!” Megamind said, dismay evident in his voice. “And easy to talk to!”

“YES, I’M A DELIGHT,” Papyrus sighed, nodding thanks to Grillby as he set the root beer floats down. “BUT SOMETHING ABOUT MY OVERLY CHEERY AND COMPETITIVE NATURE SEEMED TO PUT OFF MOST PEOPLE. I DON’T KNOW WHY.”

“And your brother? Was he an outcast, too?”

“OH, NO, SANS HAS ALWAYS BEEN INCREDIBLY POPULAR! HE HAD COOL MAGIC AND A LAID-BACK DEMEANOR. HE WAS SO EFFORTLESS WITH EVERYTHING, AND YET MONSTERS FLOCKED TO HIM!” Papyrus sipped his float as Megamind seemed to consider his words, crossing his arms and furrowing his brow.

“So what did you do? Surely you challenged him.” Megamind asked, subtly pulling out a notebook.

“OF COURSE NOT! BESIDES BEING BROTHERS, WE ARE ALSO FRIENDS, HAVING BEEN TOGETHER FOR SO LONG. FROM THE VERY BEGINNING HE WAS THERE! I’M NOTHING BUT PROUD OF HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS!”

“What?” Megamind scratched his head with his pen, leaving a deep navy scribble on his dome. “Proud? That he succeeded while you failed? You weren’t upset that he got in your way?”

“IN MY WAY?” Papyrus hummed, tapping his glass with a tiny clink. “I NEVER SAW IT THAT WAY. SANS’ SUCCESS DOESN’T MARK MY FAILURE--IF ANYTHING, I PERHAPS SHOULD HAVE WATCHED A LITTLE CLOSER AND LEARNED FROM HIS BEHAVIOR, INSTEAD. BUT NO, I SEE NO REASON WHY HIM HAVING FRIENDS MEANS I COULD NOT--AFTER ALL, IT ISN’T LIKE ONE CANNOT BE FRIENDS WITH MORE THAN ONE PERSON!”

“I suppose you are correct in that,” Megamind hummed, doodling a few notes and a silly robot on his paper. “Maybe if I had had that mindset from the beginning, things might have turned out differently.”

“IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BETTER ONESELF!” Papyrus asserted. “THERE IS GOOD IN EVERYBODY! IF YOU WISH TO CHANGE, THEN ALL YOU NEED IS TO MAKE IT SO!”

“...You really think so?”

Papyrus smiled softly at him. “YOU SAVED YOUR CITY ONCE, DIDN’T YOU?”

Megamind’s frown grew slowly into a smile, and he stared at his float. “Yes...I suppose I did. But does one instance a good person make?”

“THE MOST IMPORTANT CHOICE A PERSON CAN EVER MAKE…” Papyrus placed a hand on his shoulder, and Megamind flinched, before realizing it was friendly. “...IS THE NEXT ONE.”

Megamind chuckled, clicking his pen and scribbling in his journal. “The next one. I’ll have to remember that...for the next time I’m saving the city.”

“THAT’S THE SPIRIT! GRILLBY! TWO MORE FLOATS, PLEASE!”

#megamind #papyrus #mkwrites #mkdraws #fanart

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queenslasharchive · 5 years

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For so many years have gone, though I'm older but a year

Freddie reincarnated AU, with snippets of once Poly!Queen. :D (Just as trashy and horribly sad as it sounds). Features Queen’s ‘39.

Chapter 1: For my life still ahead, pity me.

“Don’t you hear my call though you’re many years away Don’t you hear me calling you Write your letters in the sand For the day I take your hand In the land that our grandchildren knew…"

Beauregard LaCroix walked out to meet-and-greet the guests after the second act, still dressed as The Sugar Plum Fairy.

An oddly androgynous Sugar Plum Fairy.

It was the end of Nutcracker season, Hell-incarnate for the Royal Ballet. Beau was one of the only principal dancers not out on injury and the show must go on, even if that meant trussing up a baby-faced androgynous boy like a pink sweets fairy and having him dance the pas de deux with a pretty male soloist on pointe. Then so be it. (It wasn’t desperation, they were just being ‘inclusive’.)

Inclusive, his ass. Beau was just the youngest, smallest and the only male principal who could go up on pointe without it being a joke. Ergo, the only one who could easily pass for a girl with long blonde ringlets.

“The Sugar Plum Fairy? …From the Land of Sweets, I presume?”

Beau turned with his stage persona mega-wattage smile already in place, expecting to see the children that the warm voice had been humoring. He wasn’t disappointed by the sight of an elderly man with two small children, a boy and a girl. Both at the age that made hiding behind trouser legs the perfect disguise.

He bent down with a little bow.

“Why yes, ’tis I! Who do I have the honor of speaking with?”

“I’m Alexander.” The little boy spoke softly, a thumb trying to inch its way back into his mouth. “She’s Freddie. This is our Grandpa.”

He was cut off by his sister with a, “Are you a real fairy? Like Tinkerbell?”

Beau had no qualms about nodding, allowing her to swipe some glitter from his cheeks, calling it fairy dust. She squinted at the back of his sparkly costume to see if she could see his wings, he told her they were invisible while he was tall. (When he was Tinkerbell-sized, they were enormous.) She and Alexander were transfixed, believing every falsehood that came out of his mouth.

“Do fairies believe in space? My Grandpa studies it.” Alexander sounded so proud, as Beau assured him that oh yes, how else could fairies fly home to Neverland? They needed the second star to the right to guide them and the planets to mark their way.

When Beau raised his big blue eyes to look up at the beloved Grandpa in question, he spied a familiar smile in that head of incorrigible snowy white curls. He knew that beautiful face once, before the lines took over, knew that body and those incongruous warm hands. Before age softened his middle and jawline and those liver spots stole the property of freckles on his skin. Beau knew that nose, those eyes, the quirk of those caterpillar eyebrows.

For the first time in his life, nineteen-year-old Beau LaCroix looked into the face of Dr. Brian May: astrophysicist and former guitarist of Queen.

For the first time in twenty-five years, Freddie Mercury looked into the face of the best-friend and lover he’d left behind.

They just so happened to be one and the same.

-X-

Beau was a fussy baby.

His fathers’ had already raised up three rough-and-tumble little boys before him, yet their youngest was on a different level of difficulty. He was forever unhappy.

Not even the screaming sort of unhappy, that they could’ve dealt with. No, Beau’s was the kind of unhappy that left him sniffling and crying into his stuffed animals at night. As if he was forever looking around for someone or something that wasn’t there. It was a deep visceral sadness that clung to him.

Even after he grew into a sweet little boy with 3c blonde curls and fair skin, covered in so many big moles and birthmarks that the other kids in kindergarten called him a dalmatian, the sadness stayed. He would run and play and laugh with his brothers, but there was always an aura of age around him. Wisdom and sadness that oozed from him beyond all else. Even when he was smiling, with that quirk of covering up his mouth with his hand, the smiles never reached his eyes.

It scared his poor fathers something awful, but what could they do?

Beau was just an odd little boy.

A child with a man’s eyes. Who could lie on the carpet and color with fat wax crayons for hours on end. Drawing out snatches of beautiful scenery and people they’d never met, with skills not often attributed to children his age. They just assumed he was talented and imaginative.

He would vividly describe places that he had never been, like a lovely place in Switzerland called Montreux or a tiny studio in Munich, Germany. They just assumed those drawings and stories were the product of far too many hours of children’s programing. Beau couldn’t possibly be remembering a life he’d never lived.

(Even if he did wake up with these horrible night terrors, screaming about how he couldn’t breathe. Or his inability to be alone in the dark or in small confined spaces. Once his brothers zipped him up in a sleeping bag as a joke, the poor little boy was so shaken up afterwards that he didn’t speak coherently for days, just staring straight ahead and warbling in an odd language that none of them knew).

The small family moved to New Orleans when Beau was six, it was where Adamien (Beau’s Papa) had grown up, and where there was a big extended family waiting around every corner of the French Quarter.

Kit (Adamien’s husband and Beau’s Daddy) had been apprehensive at first, but the boys seemed to enjoy the new haunts and change of scenery, all things seemed to be going to plan. Damie’s family could finally meet the kids and they could grow up as warm and loved as Damie had. In a beautiful, burgeoning multicultural society. (Where the birthmarks and moles on Beau’s body were the least of everyone’s concerns).

The kids: Charlie, fifteen and far too smart for his own good, Baptiste, thirteen and the family’s sensitive little peacemaker, Henri, the then ten-year-old demon he was, and Beau, six and as shy as could be, flourished like flowers reaching for the sun. Damie’s family enveloped the tiny clan with all the joy and acceptance in the world. An endless clutch of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents charging into their lives with open arms.

The matriarch of their large loving family, Mama Delia, was a Voodoo Queen, one of the most well-known in New Orleans. She took one look at her youngest grandchild and understood.

“He remembers, poor bébé.” She crooned, Beau curled up in her lap asleep, as she rocked them back and forth in her creaky old patio rocking chair. Her grown son had simply looked confused. “What do you mean, Mama?”

“Those reborn never remember their pasts, maybe they keep a few quirks after a traumatic death, but your poor bébé… he remembers all of his. He will have a very hard life, mon chou.” A very hard life.

Little Beau slept on in her honeysuckle grip, flyaway curls falling in front of his closed pacific eyes. Dreaming of a life that ended a long time ago, a life that he never really forgot.

-X-

Beau screamed the first time he got into Kit’s record collection and happened to pick up Queen’s News of the World album. Really and truly screamed.

The young father assumed it was because the robot on the front must have looked scary to those soft seven-year-old eyes.

But his poor tiny son was just sobbing his little heart out, running his fingers over the characters in the robot’s hands. Still dressed in his sweaty leotard from ballet class, tears smeared across his flushed pockmarked cheeks.

Kit gingerly scooped up his heartbroken little boy, pressing a halo of kisses into his youngest son’s sweat-dampened fairy blonde curls. “Oh, angel. It’s alright. Those are just the band members. That’s—“ He was about to list them, but Beau cut him off, softly.

“I know, Daddy. Roggie’s on the back, Deaky’s on the bottom of the front bit, but me and Bri are still in the robot’s hand. I died first…” His thumb rubbed over the cherry-red blood stain splattered across Freddie Mercury’s chest. Warm, fat tears fell and slid off the cardboard cover in rivulets.

Kit froze, eyes wide as his distraught son curled up into his neck.

“I miss them… Daddy, why did I have to die first?”

The eyes of a dead man looked up from his child’s round splotchy face and Kit felt his heart stutter in his chest.

-X-

When Beau sang, it felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest.

It hurt, in a way nothing had ever hurt before.

Even the time he jumped off the school swing-set at Henri’s urging and broke his ankle.

When he sang, (because of all the things to carry over to his next life, it would be his voice), the pain in his chest was worse than the normal sort of pain. It felt like he was being smothered with a handkerchief full of chloroform, having it shoved it down his throat to torch chemical burns down his esophagus. When he sang, his pacific-blue eyes closed and he was back to being fully himself again. He was back playing at the Rainbow in ’74. Twirling on stage at Live Aid in ’85. Looking to the side to see Deaky bopping about, brunet head tossed back with bliss.

Roger opening his mouth to let out that dog whistle pitch, a challenge that was only evident when they jammed together, him rutting and jiving with Roggie’s drum kit. Making the blonde imp laugh and mimic his frantic movements with equal gusto.

Then trusty Brian on Red, looking at him like he was something truly special. One of a kind. Their Freddie. (He had never loved being anything more).

It was always awful when he opened up his eyes again, to look in the mirror and see a lost little child with Shirley Temple pin curls and chipped black-lacquered fingernails on one hand, skin dotted in the dozens of birthmarks and moles he hated. A mockery of the man he used to be.

Who was he supposed to be now?

His first life was over.

And his second was only a pale imitation.

-X-

He remembered his own death.

-X-

He studied cosmology and astronomy for Brian.

It sounded silly, he knew.

But there was just something about looking up into the sky and seeing all those stars beam back down at him, that made him feel anchored to this new life. Freddie Mercury had never had a head for numbers. So Beau didn’t either, but he still remembered Brian taking them out with a shitty telescope at Ridge Farm as he was writing that space song of his.

Whenever Beau struggled, whenever it all felt too much. That was what he remembered, what he used to guide him. His polaris.

He heard Brian’s warm soft-spoken voice in his head. Thick and creamy as pancake batter, the ones his Papa could make from scratch.

‘That’s Argo Navis. It’s Jason’s ship, the one from Greek mythology.’

He had hummed, curling into Brian’s bicep and holding on like a limpet. ‘Jason and the Argonauts’. Yes, he knew about mythology, even back then. (He had named himself Mercury after the god, after all).

There was an asteroid named after him.

17473 Freddiemercury.

He’d cried when he found out. Cried until he was blue in the face and drowning in his own body all over again. Oh Maggie, why?

When all I ever did was ruin your life?

Darling, I can never apologize enough for what I did to you.

To everyone I ever said I loved.

-X-

Once he had a spot at the Royal Ballet, he started visiting Jim’s grave quite frequently.

Leaving little parcels and trinkets behind, flowers too. All his husband’s favorites. He never allowed himself to stay too long. He wouldn’t sully his husband’s grave with his presence, not the way he had once sullied his life.

He knew what Jim would say to such thoughts. His sweet, long-suffering Jim, who had always accepted his every idiosyncrasy and oddity. His every mistake. Including the one that he’d bloody passed on.

‘Freddie, love, stop. You didn’t know, there’s nothing you could have done. I had a long, happy life. Go out, live your own.’

As if he wasn’t in purgatory.

As if this wasn’t a new form of Hell.

Living in a world that remembered him. With his friends getting on in age, Brian and Roger were still touring, the two old queens still rocking away. But they didn’t know him with this face, this body. He was a stranger. And if he told them? If he tracked them down and bared his soul like a lamb to the slaughter? They would never believe. He would simply hurt them in an entirely new way this time. And it would be all his selfishness to blame. Just the same as the first time.

His sister was still alive, with babies and grand-babies of her very own, his little Kash. He ached to hold her in his arms again, just one more time, but he knew such dreams were lost on the wings of butterflies. Lost to the sands of time. Just as he should have been. Oh, how he wished he’d just stayed dead.

It was better than continuing on as he was.

John, oh Deaky. (Did he even deserve to use that name anymore, after all he’d done?)

He had stolen Deaky’s passion. The thrum of a bass had been in that boy’s devil heart long before Freddie, long before Queen. But with his loss, the world had lost the sound of John Deacon’s fabulous strumming heart. And Freddie would never forgive himself. Beau would never forgive himself.

Sometimes he wondered where Freddie stopped and Beau was meant to begin.

-X-

He tried to kill himself once. (Well, he’d thought about it).

He was going to do it too.

Didn’t see a point anymore, living a shade of another life.

Stared at that bottle of pills until the long scientific name blurred in front of his eyes. (Roger would have known what it was, Roggie, his Rog. Beau had watched those interviews, the ones about how Rog had been driving, almost there. Poor Phoebe had broken the news to him behind the wheel of a car. …Roger breaking down every time he talked about it).

Beau didn’t do it.

This life was his penance.

He deserved to hurt.

Just like he’d hurt them.

-X-

Brian came back again, to the Ballet.

Just as Beau was finishing up a performance of Swan Lake, still dressed as Odile. The Black Swan. Yet another female character he’d found himself playing. Dressed in all black garb, a feathered tunic that flared out at the bottom, black nails on one hand (his own constant addition), and a pair of dying black pointe shoes that he’d torn to pieces. His dark gnarled crown crested above his curls and he was allowed to wear his spots without the makeup he so often used to cover them. He felt naked.

Even more so when he found Brian waiting for him.

“Hello, Sugar Plum Fairy. Or shall I say Odile? Mr. Black Swan?”

“Beau is fine. Beauregard LaCroix.” Freddie. Brian, it’s me. “I suppose we didn’t have a proper introduction last time, Dr. May?”

“You know my name?” Honestly surprised. Humble Bri. Beau made sure to pour more New Orleans into his words, careful to not slip into the British intonation he’d always preferred.

“Doesn’t everyone? Where are the children?” His eyes searched out the familiar round faces. Yet couldn’t locate them in the crowd. A flush climbed those lined cheeks he once knew so well. Oh.

“I came alone, actually.”

“Ah. Well, why wouldn’t you? I’m quite the show stopper, if I do say so myself.” A put-upon showman’s grin twitching to life on his painted lips. “But dear, I can get you free tickets. You needn’t go broke trying to see me. In fact, would you like my number? Maybe we can have coffee sometime.”

What are you doing? The voice in his head screamed. He isn’t yours anymore.

Brian’s smile was like a breath of fresh air. Oh how he’d missed that lovely smile.

“I’d like that very much.”

-X-

“For the earth is old and grey, little darling we’ll away But my love this cannot be For so many years have gone though I’m older but a year Your mother’s eyes from your eyes cry to me…”

Comment: Ohmylooord, this is only the introduction and it’s already the best ever! It has so many ‘openings’ to new dimensions and storylines, there are so many little hints and details as to what happened and what will happen next, and I can’t wait to read the rest of it! It’s briliant like we’re used to from @waywardrunawaycherryblossom ^^

#fic #submission #author: waywardrunawaycherryblossom #au #freddie: reincarnated #series: for so many years i have gone #angst #relationship: polyamorous

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aphelyons · 5 years

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My Creative Year in Review 2018

stolen from but also requested by inspired by @drstrangewillseeyounow

Preface: This will be a bit of a mashup of two things; art and writing. But I’ll be clear. This is also a long post, I’m very sorry. Apparently I don’t shut up.

Total number of creations? (Or a rough guess!)

Art - Finished; 221 (not all published) Art - WIPS; 25 Writing - Published; 4 Writing - WIPS; 9 ?

Was there a project that you didn’t get around to?

In terms of starting or finishing? Lol. I didn’t get around to publishing the first chapter of the MU fic, which I desperately still want to before S2 starts. Because I keep writing all the middle bits instead. Nor did I get around to start writing the “winter fic” beyond plot points and a few little scenes.

There’s a looooooooooooooot of art I didn’t get around to either starting properly or finishing. Lol. I have a L’Rell piece I really want to do, as well as [another] mirror Stamets piece I want to do.

What was the creation you had the most fun making?

Art: Oh that’s hard. A lot of things for a lot of different reasons. I enjoyed the Holiday artworks because they were….really out of my depth and fun. Mostly I loved sending them out on cards to friends.

More recently I had a lot of fun doing the Patroclus and Achilles piece. Loved using golden hues.

Also have a lot of fun with Not Safe for Work-Viewing pieces, but those will never be published here. :D Sorry.

Writing: I had a surprising amount of fun writing the Vampire AU fic [Just a Taste] for Halloween. Which I never expected to write anything vampiric, ever, and also it came together really quickly. Building the world in that short fic was a lot of fun.

Any surprises? (E.g. a character or ship you never thought you’d create for or a project that came out of nowhere?)

Well honestly this whole revival to art and writing came as a surprise, I hadn’t done either in many years. I was also never a Star Trek fan prior to Disco, nor have I ever been a part of a fandom before. This is my first! So that was surprising, also surprising was how massively obsessed I became and how important it became to me. But the best surprise out of all of that is the connections to people I’ve made and the friendships that have come from that. ily. <3 Also not going to lie, pretty surprised that suddenly my art has become mega-fuckin-colourful. Where did this love of neon come from??? Wtf

What was the hardest creation to make?

Writing; MU fic - hands down. I have pages and pages and pages of resources. Not only is it going to be a long story (I endeavour and hope) but also from the amount of which I am pulling from and want to align to canon as as best I can as well. Being a new fan to Trek also... it’s been pretty overwhelming to get these details right. But at the same time, really trying to flesh out a character we never met or saw in the show, and have them interact with the established canon and have that all make sense… That and have the science in it make as much sense as possible, I’ve based a few new things on scientific principles and things that exist and just trying to elevate them to a cosmic scale… and hope I can pull that off too. It’s pretty intimidating. Not going into it, but the way the story weaves and intersects with a few different genres.. I just want to have it make sense in it’s self contained body of work.

Yeah it’s hard. Lol. Biggest thing I’ve ever tried to do. But, I love it, truly. I think about this whole project an inhumane amount of times every day, and I love that.

It’s also hard because I’d love to be a linear writer, but I am not. At all. I’m constantly writing ahead, well and truly ahead, but then coming back, adding to and editing earlier bits and rewriting and rewriting….rewriting… ugh

The subjects and themes are also a little heavy, and it’s cathartic to write about, sure, but also wanting to do those moments justice and with respect and integrity - because that’s important to me too.

The whole thing is just a lot of fuckin work, lol. But I really love it. Already - and it’s nowhere near done.

Art; Probably the one where Paul is laying down [crying] in the spore chamber. It was my first return to trying to paint semi-realism, and... it didn’t work out. I’m not happy with it anymore, but also proud that I pulled it off. That pose? Hair? HAND? UGH those took me too long to get right. But, overall it certainly taught me a lot to use on future more realism-ish pieces such as the Cosmic/Celestial pics of Hugh and Paul [which I love.]

What inspired you the most this year?

Oh, easy. Discovery. Hugh and Paul, hands down both of those things. But also to the endlessly talented people who I’ve come to know and also enjoy the works of - be it written, art, or otherwise. Creativity inspires creativity.

What are you most proud of? (A creation, something you learned, etc)

Art: The Cosmic/Celestial pieces. Very proud of those. (So much so I made metal prints of them and they sit on my bookshelf between a salt lamp.) I really love how they came out, and really the original (Cosmic Paul) was kind of an accident, a happy accident if you will.

Also the piece of Anthony I did for Anthony’s birthday. That was a lot of fun constructing something visually representative of a person.

Any goals/plans/ideas for next year?

Fucking get some headway on my MU fic so I can stop being so annoying by just talking about it, and fucking start publishing it already - for then it then it would EXIST in the word. LOL. Ugh. That’s the only big plan, that’s all I want to do. Whatever art I will do - I will just find inspiration in the moment to do. No plans, other than the L’Rell piece and a couple other WIPs - maybe.

Honestly just that and trying to keep improving, both in writing and in drawing. I feel like I’ve improved over this past year, so would love to just continue on that trajectory.

Pick your favourite creations! (Post links and tell us why you love them!)

The Cosmic and Celestial Series I just love how these turned out, especially because it was such a surprise how it turned out originally. But being able portray this cosmic divinity of which I uphold them both to be in my mind was really awesome to pull off. The colours, and dramatic light, this whole thing was so fucking fun. The whole painting with colours as highlights / shadows / dual light source was a huge experiment for me and it taught me a huge amount, so I really love it for many reasons.

The Song of Achilles I started sketching this while I was listening to the audio book and while I fell in love with these two. Please, again, do go read this book. But the detailing on the spear, the auras and Achilles hair were my favourite bits. Oh and the gold blood. Of course, lol. Loved doing the symbolic imagery

Anthony Rapp’s Birthday Portrait Because this man means a whole lot to me, and it was nice really nice for a change of pace to try and depict him and things that are important to him. Also really proud of that shoe, ngl. & And MU Stamets and his Mycelium Sun

Huge experiment in terms of colour and lighting for me, and I love love love how it turned out. Even if it’s a little rough. This one was so much fun, and I also printed this out on metal actually lol. Looks pretty cool. & First MU Culmets Work Still in my heart, even though it’s a earlier work, because it was the first exploitation of this duo for me, and how they might be together. Also where I came up with the HC for his facial scar, which I always will include in any MU Hugh depiction of mine. But I still really like how their characterisation translates in this one.

Writing

Nomenclature.

The archaeology AU story I wrote for 30MinuteLoop. Also well, this is the only one that’s safe for viewing that’s published, lol, but I am genuinely really proud of this and seeing it through to completion.

But also the MU story is a fave, but this is the only published section so far:

MU Snippet (These next couple of questions are directly from @drstrangewillseeyounow sorry I’ll be so literal in their structure, lmao)

How you decide on which style to use for individual pieces?

Unless it’s something very specific in mind (like the holiday pieces) I just kind of let it take a life of its own. See what it evolves into. I might have one idea to where I want it to go before I export it to PS, but once in PS it might take a whole new life (prime example if the original Cosmic/Celestial Paul. The original was very flat, and pretty boring lol but really became something else in PS. Actually it was supposed to be originally a visual piece to accompany my Vampire fic - and Vampire Hugh picture. But that changed entirely once I got it into PS.)

(It’s hard to see but there’s a bite mark on the original side.)

I'd also know more about your literal process, as in: what's your hardware set-up, what software do you use?

I have a weird all over the place set up. Lol.

So I do the majority of the work on my iPad, up until a stage where I don’t think I can go any further with it (or need more than 6 layers at my disposal) and then export it to my PC (either work or home) and then work on it further in Photoshop. Of which it then gains infinite amount of layers, lmao. Oh god.

As for the file on the iPad, when I’m working on that I can only have 6 layers. So usually will do sketch/line-work on one (or two, if I have to work a problematic bit but then merge it with the rest) and same with the colour/painting. That’s always on one layer, which I’ve grown to really like working like that. I might do skin on one, then clothes on another, but eventually will merge them. If it’s a full paint (or even half paint maybe), the colour and line layer will eventually be merged as I erase the lines I no longer need as I go and blend that layer more seamlessly into the painted layer. It just ending up a purely painted file without the original lines. Another layer may be added for more delicate details such as eyelashes and eyebrows, things like that.

Everything I do once exported to Photoshop is just with a mouse, I have a Wacom tablet… But I don’t use it, because I haven’t been bothered calibrating it with my dual monitor setup, and am happy doing most of the work on the iPad anyway as it kinda acts like a Cintiq in that regard. But localised. (Plus I can take it anywhere with me, interstate, overseas, to work, to the park, etc. I love that mobility.) Depending if I need a certain element that’s vector based, I’ll make it in Corel Draw or Illustrator, too. I also have Corel painter....buuuuuuuuut still haven’t used it. That’s a goal for 2019 for sure, lmao. Very occasionally I will physically sketch out the idea (like the holiday pieces) scan, and rework, redraw, line it, or whatever in the iPad then go forth with all of the above processes.

How long does it usually take you from start to finish?

Art: How long a piece takes really varies lol. Sketches can be between 1 - 4 hours on average, sometimes more. Flat colours will be a couple hours more. Half paints usually 4-8 more hours. Full paints and more realism stuff like the Cosmic/Celestial is total of 18hours+ but those times are just a rough idea, sometimes something just works out a lot quicker. Sometimes longer.

Writing: FOR FUYCKING EVER. I’m the slowest writer ever.

Do you have art WIPs and what do you think keeps you from finishing them?

I have a lot of art WIPs lol I think just losing drive or inspiration to finish them is what mainly kills them, or me getting frustrated that it isn’t working out like I wanted. Sometimes I just forget they exist.

Probably same goes for writing, too. Lol. Also it could be that I’ll dream up the entire (or mostly) of the story, but then getting it onto the page is hard. I want to work at getting better at that.

Do you do any non-fanart, too?

Sure. Although not often anymore, I’m honestly just inhumanly obsessed with Hugh and Paul.. Even when I start a project that isn’t centric to either or both of them… Often it will kind of morph into them. oops.

I want to say yes to fic too...but That’s a project I haven’t worked on in fucking years and years, so I doubt that really counts anymore.

//end

Wow I am so sorry that was me just rambling on. Anyway, cool. Hi to anyone who made it this far. I’ll also parrot the line of: Everyone who created/posted art, fic, gif-sets, vids, cosplay, etc., consider yourself tagged if you’d like to be. I’m curious! (I’m fucking serious, P L E A S E D O.)

#long post #Asks #Q&A #my art #my writing #about me

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huntermun · 7 years

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Road to #AD21XX: Maverick Hunter Fighter

Once upon a time, I was a student at Wren High School in upstate South Carolina, and I owned a TI-86 Calculator. It could download games just like it could download applications for doing math equations and such… not unlike what you can do in a much more advanced sense with modern day smart phones—holy shit, I am referencing back to an age before I had a cell phone… I am old—and it could be used for entertainment or homework. Like most people should, I chose to use it for both.

I discovered that even though there were games running on the device that were as complex as Doom and Tetris, that it also had it’s own BASIC Language before I even knew what BASIC was. TI-BASIC taught me the power of Goto and Labels, Variables and Output. But the calculator couldn't do all the teaching, no. I’m Huntermun, and I’ve got to learn things backwards apparently… stripping down something that already exists and discovering how it works.

Most applications’ code couldn’t be viewed… or, at least, none I had seen yet. All these games, I would learn, were self contained… inside an executable file of sorts. They were whole things that could run on the internal programming of the calculator, but they couldn’t actually be made on the calculator. As a result, they were nebulous things to me, just like programs were on the computer, in that I knew someone had to make them, but I didn’t know how it would be done.

I wanted to know how.

And then I found this simple little game called “Hick Quest III”. I don’t even remember all the details of this game, but it was a very simple fighting game of sorts. Very much a “press button, attack badguy” sort of affair, with your name on screen to one side and your opponent’s name to the other not unlike Pokémon. It was simple, but simple gave me hope. Long before I would complete the game—in which I recall my blood turning into alcohol, and dying—I would go into the programs on my calculator and discover it was my first TI-BASIC game.

The key difference between the other applications I’d downloaded to my phone and this one was that I could actually open up game as code rather than simply seeing it sitting there all "yup, I'm a program". Not only could I look around through all the code, I could read the code… because BASIC is super-basic, and it’s not hard to figure out “This Number is in X variable” and “This Goto tells the Code to skip to X Line”. At least, it wasn't hard for me to figure that out…

But far more importantly than simply looking at how the code probably worked and how the calculator read it was the quick realization that I could edit it. And with years of lost data experience behind me, I knew I needed to back the game up first, and I did. After that, I start fiddling with things… all the things.

At first, I replaced the names of the baddies, and that was neat. But shortly after that, I figured out how to add more… thereby doubling the number of enemies in the game by creating a second location. I altered the title screen, and changed up how the information for you and the opponent was laid out. I altered the opening plot and even added additional pages to it to set up the story.

And thus Maverick Hunter Fighter was born.

But was it? I was making this game for myself and my friends on a calculator at school, so I wasn't at all worried about copyright issues because, if nothing else, I was a minor. Suck it, Capcom! But, seriously, I loved Mega Man X then and still do now and I'd already been creating FanFiction in its universe long before this game. But the idea that I could make my own text-based Mega Man X game was crazy to me, and yet… here it sort of was.

Some of you are thinking about how you've done this same thing while others are thinking what I was thinking at this moment: you didn't really make a game… you gutted someone else's. And that got to me only a little, because I was already beyond the start of MHF. I'd learned. I understood all the above, and even started using Output to draw graphics onto the screen. Text-Based Graphics. I even animated them, and I was so proud of myself… still am.

The original MHF didn't last long, and it would fit the model of a different Capcom game of the fighting-variety, Street Fighter. Street Fighter, the first one, sucks, and that sort of became MHF. And just like Street Fighter, nothing carried over when I opened up SimpleText on my Performa 6220CD and started writing a new MHF from scratch. In a very short amount of time, the first version of that game came out and it was a hit.

And that's no joke. Maverick Hunter Fighter II had an animated Title Screen; It had Save Files for multiple playthroughs; there were Weapon and Armour Upgrades; Heart Tanks to expand your health; multiple locations to visit and different modes of transportation to acquire in order to travel to them; there was a stat screen and character sheet; and I even animated "READY!" to appear on screen whenever you started a new fight.

Instead of version numbers, the game's title mutated as a purposeful spoof on Street Fighter. Maverick Hunter Fighter II became II Turbo, II Hyper, III, Z, Zero, Alpha II Turbo, and any number of other permutations. It was great! And, best of all, it turned out the game also ran on the TI-85, a less powerful piece of hardware that was a lot more populous at Wren. And it was here I learned two additional things about my game: it was fun, and it was bloated.

It being fun was great… people I didn't even know or know people who knew them were sitting in the cafeteria playing MHF when I came in. I cannot express how amazing that feeling was. But that feeling was quickly stunted by a revelation that I'd put too much into the game… not for the 86, but for the 85. It was literally running out of space to hold the game and anything else.

This is how MHF taught me to code better.

You better believe there was a lot of junk code in the game. Every villain having a slight alteration to the fighting system? Check. Their own stats, even if they were duplicate? Check. Multiple variables for each linear upgrade item? Check.

Suddenly, my code was a mess again. How could I not have seen it? But I went after it with dedication, writing entire new swaths of code simpler so that more parts of the game could utilize the same variable and draws. But even as I hacked out unnecessary parts, I still ended up hitting that wall that was the TI-85… and like any good game dev, I both wanted to keep my install base while also giving those with the bigger memory and more powerful 86 something more.

This is how MHF taught me to code for cross-generational gaming.

Look, it may be simple, but it is a vital skill to learn. By keeping the items linear in the 85 Version, I could keep them in. Meanwhile, on the 86 I added a shop and expanded it to allow for multi-linear gameplay. Rather than always having a single weapon, you could swap out weapons. There was an additional area of the game to move to and fight. The 86 Version of the game was just a bigger experience, and each time I could shave off some little thing in the 85 version and put in a new feature, I would.

Way back in the late 1990's, this was a huge deal for me. Not only did I know coding—simple coding still counts!—but I had learned it all on my own. I felt really good about my product, and people at my school enjoyed it. I had, maybe, twenty or more people actually walking around with it in their pocket, enjoying their experience… and I always made sure to make it so Save Files would be able to carry forward into the next release.

All in all, I was very happy with what I had done… but after I graduated and went on to my first college, I quickly learned that TI-BASIC might have been a good primer, but it wasn't very fitting for the types of games I wanted to make. In time, I would hit my head against QBASIC and Visual Basic and C-Sharp and C++… and it wouldn't be until this time last year that I stumbled into something that would let me finally make a new and more expansive game than I'd ever made before.

But that's a story for a different day. For now, please join me in sparing a moment to recall that it was today, last year, that the first version of #AD21XX was typed into. While I had poked and prodded at the idea of Adaptation (20XX) before then, I had not really gotten my own hands to make my own code again until February 16, 2016. Yes, I had tried. All the above as well as Xcode had landed on my plate over the years, but nothing quite felt as much like home to me as TWINE and SugarCube 2.

Today I, if no one else, celebrates the One Year Anniversary of the first Code I wrote towards the game and series I hope will become Adaptation 21XX.  See you in the Future, —Huntermun / Tyler N. Sewell

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