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lakelandseo · 1 year

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A Small Gift for Local SEOs and a Big Cheer for Original Images

“Localism” - Miriam Ellis

We know that a picture is worth a thousand words and that Google is betting the house on a visual future, yet I’ve often struggled to find the exact image asset I want to illustrate the story of local businesses and local SEO. So, I decided to create my own asset, and today, I would like to offer the above painting to all of my colleagues in local search. Please, feel free to use it in your speaker decks, client pitches, articles, marketing materials, and any place else you would like to instantly convey the thriving spirit of economic localism which underpins the passion we have in common with our audiences and clients.

This impressionist painting is original, hand-done, by me (no AI) and I offer use of it as my valentine to all of my colleagues and to local business owners with affection and tremendous respect for all of your contributions to many communities. I hope it will add vivid storytelling power to your work! If you would like to credit me, my fine art website is at MiriamEllis.com.

According to 3M research, visual aids improve learning by 400% and humans process visual media 60,000 times faster than text. Meanwhile, Time’sTop 100 photos focus on the mighty power of imagery to make an emotional connection. But we’re at a funny moment in time with image content, because we could be on the verge of inundation. I’d like to look at this phenomenon with you today and consider how the local businesses you market can stand out in an increasingly-illustrated world.

Thinking about imagery at this moment in time

Local places matter to us. Petrus Christus knew it when he painted “A Goldsmith in His Shop” six hundred years ago (local SEOs might call it the Barbara Oliver Jewelry of its day!):

Van Gogh was just one of thousands of painters who have worked to capture the mood of local “cafe society” and – if they had mobile devices – what do you think these people would be writing in their Yelp reviews?

And Hopper’s “Nighthawks”, set in a Greenwich Village diner, has become one of the most-recognized paintings in American art history. Looking at it 80 years after it was painted, it evokes a feeling in me of the value of local businesses keeping the light on in hard times:

Point being: local businesses are so vibrant a component of culture that they inspire fine art. They are an integral part of the history of communities, towns, and cities, and they readily lend themselves to impactful visual representation.

It’s a topic for this moment in time, because we are poised between a past littered with bad stock photos and a future that could be made up of assembly line AI graphics. Some may argue that the availability of images for pennies or the capacity to command robots to produce pictures is democratizing, and I can respect that viewpoint, but I have also noticed that mass-produced art lacking in meaningful human intention can quickly become clutter, overlooked by the very people we are trying to reach.

And that’s a problem, because when we look at art that we find beautiful, blood flow to the brain increases by 10%. According to University College London, this is the same lift we get from seeing the face of a loved one, and I have to wonder, then, what it does to us to be subjected to imagery that we find dull, repetitive, and soulless. Andy Warhol may have seen beauty in Campbell’s soup, but how often do you gaze with joy at can labels in the grocery store, when every single tin on the shelves offers a picture?

What will search be like when every query ends up in a kind of supermarket aisle, full of visuals? In 2016, visual elements made up just 2% of mobile search results, but now they make up 36%. Google reps are very transparent about this, stating,

“We’re transforming the SERP into an endless stream of visual ideas.”

As an artist, I’m automatically intrigued by any visual medium, and am keeping both eyes on multisearch, visual search, and all the permutations of image search. Now is the time to consider how visual media will fare if we become oversaturated with it in the next few years.

Standing out amid visual clutter

The art of differentiation is always going to be a relevant question for SEOs and local SEOs. Right now, we know how much of a competitive advantage high quality visuals can give our clients. Google says that shoppers are 90% more likely to purchase from businesses with images in Maps and search. Large, high quality images can have a demonstrable impact on organic rankings and Google’s own documentation cites their impact on local rank. UGC-uploaded photos even impact Google review order. Early adopters will get early benefits, but diminishing returns can result once a practice that was formerly special becomes commonplace.

Right now, we haven’t yet reached peak images in local SEO. Expert and friend, Darren Shaw, recently offered an excellent Twitter thread on the 7 types of visuals every Google Business Profile needs, including brand identity shots, exterior and interior premise shots, staff photos, product/service photos, UGC, and review screenshots. It’s a list long enough to keep any business busy in 2023, and the truth is that so many local businesses haven’t even created listings yet, but I’d like to encourage you to begin thinking beyond the standards before they become givens.

If your plan is to use AI graphics to keep pace with competitors, you may end up looking just like them, and that’s in direct contrast to one of the core reasons independent local businesses are beloved: because they are different! Predictability may be what made fast food chains a success via the McDonaldization phenomenon, but uniqueness of products, services and experiences is the magic ingredient behind 3 in 4 customers shopping small and local. Doesn’t it stand to reason that your digital visual presentation could take its cues from this existing dynamic and dare to be different?

To that end, here are my five outside-the-box suggestions for visually differentiating the local businesses you market online from less creative competitors:

Hire a local artist to paint your business. Imagine how uncommon your Google Business Profile photo deck would look if it included glowing fine art featuring your store, your grounds, your staff, your inventory, and customers coming in for experiences with you. I guarantee that there is a good fine artist near you with the talent of capturing how your business is a vibrant part of the local community. Give your staff and your customers reasons to feel proud of where they work and shop.

Hire a creative professional photographer to make your business look intriguing. Joel Headley has already documented the lift in traffic, calls and other conversion metrics when stock photos are replaced by original images, and you need basic shots of the assets Darren Shaw mentions, but a talented art photographer could take this a step further by photographing aspects of your business in such a way that the public will want to come experience them personally.

Are you working in a vertical people constantly call “boring?” Would it lend itself to humor that could make your listings stand out? Consider hiring a local cartoonist to make your community laugh with you and remember your brand.

Maximize every opportunity for making your premises a green space. Connectivity with nature is increasingly cited as key to mental health. It’s why Trinity College Dublin has torn up its lawns and replacd them with wildflower patches, full of blooms and butterflies. Photograph the planted areas people can experience when they visit you, and be sure to highlight accessibility and areas for sitting and quiet contemplation as a break from shopping.

Consider the role of art at your place of business, be that paintings, photography, sculpture, community projects, music, and more. A grocery store can have a great soundtrack and a retail shop with wall space can double as a gallery or a social media hotspot. The more inviting your premises are, the more likely that customers are to want to photograph themselves there. Because every person is unique, that thing we call UGC can become a major asset, enabling you and your community to see how your business looks through the gaze of many.

My two-point perspective

On the one hand, convenience sells. Why open a cookbook, turn on a light switch, sweep your own floor, work hard on writing something, or mix your own colors for a hand-done painting when a robot can do it all for you? We’re all so fatigued, so why not take it easy? But the thing is…there is something about this perspective that’s really been bothering me lately, and I think I’ve figured out what it is. It sounds like the little voice in my head that would let me be monumentally lazy instead of struggling to do my best despite living with a chronic disability. That insidious voice that wants me to take it too easy instead of doing as much as I’m able to for myself, and that is reinforced by every marketed offer to take every load off my shoulders.

I suppose that because I’ve pushed back against this temptation for years and pushed myself to stay positive and creative in some very hard times, I am wary of this insidious voice being a driving force in society. I don’t think everything should always be as easy as possible, because I don’t believe humans produce great writing, art, music, movements, or anything of lasting value when shortcuts are prioritized over strenuous effort. Yes, we can increasingly choose to let machines do all the work for us, and even think for us, but my other perspective tells me what we may miss if we never do the hard work ourselves.

I’ve entered a number of juried art events over the years, and there is nothing quite like the thrill of walking into a big, buzzing exhibition grounds, searching the crowded walls for your painting, finding a blue ribbon hanging on it and seeing that little “sold” sticker on the accompanying card. You know exactly what you put into that piece, from ideation, to drafting, to completion, and there is such joy in realizing that someone else saw your work and chose it as the best in the show, or even as something to bring home into their personal space.

This is the sense of accomplishment I want local business owners and their marketers to feel when they are chosen because, instead of giving into low standards, they have brought the highest standards to bear in the creative presentation of their companies. When local businesses go the extra mile, it can be deeply felt in the quality of life enjoyed by their whole community. It’s a very good thing.

I hope you may find a use for my painting in your work, even if it’s only as a spark for your own ideas about being seen amid the clutter of an increasingly-automated visual web. Your inventiveness, intentions, and most of all, your uniqueness matter. Some say that life is an artform, so let’s close with a quote from Cézanne today, who said it so well:

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”

No matter how artificially “intelligent” we make the bots, the emotions are all on our side, ready to connect us with the people we care for and serve.

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bfxenon · 1 year

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A Small Gift for Local SEOs and a Big Cheer for Original Images

“Localism” - Miriam Ellis

Thinking about imagery at this moment in time

Local places matter to us. Petrus Christus knew it when he painted “A Goldsmith in His Shop” six hundred years ago (local SEOs might call it the Barbara Oliver Jewelry of its day!):

“We’re transforming the SERP into an endless stream of visual ideas.”

Standing out amid visual clutter

To that end, here are my five outside-the-box suggestions for visually differentiating the local businesses you market online from less creative competitors:

My two-point perspective

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”

No matter how artificially “intelligent” we make the bots, the emotions are all on our side, ready to connect us with the people we care for and serve.

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glowyjellyfish · 2 years

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When I started playing with a modern Ubermegahood using the new additional LTWs mod, I intended to give fairly regular updates on how it was going. Not detailed posts or anything, just some pictures illustrating a little summary. Alas, I did not. Now, I’ve got a little frustration with trying to figure out a couple of mods that aren’t working right--hey, at least it’s not heavy GUID crashing like the Megakingdom! ...but I want to make my little post anyway, for the sake of momentum.

Last time, I talked about the Goodies and the Newsons. Today, I’ll start with the Gavigan family

Last time I played a standard Ubermegahood, I moved the Gavigans into a small house in Belladonna Cove with a mansard roof, and then struggled with both finances and space the entire time. This time, I thought I’d be clever and move them into a modest apartment while they save up a bit for a good house with room to grow. (...the houses that come with more recent EPs are utter garbage at being good for a growing family. They’re often garbage at other key features like being nice to look at, being physically usable, and looking like a house a real human person would ever live in, but that’s beside the point.)

So of course, Nathan Gavigan rolled the LTW of Harvest 2000 Best Quality Garden Crops.

Sigh

It’s fine. I gave them a round in the apartment, and they might take another. Nathan’s only 23, he has a long time to grow crops.

Mary’s new LTW was Create 200 Robots, so she’s got a little workstation and eventually bought a small shop (in Bluewater Village because I didn’t want to build a fresh one) to sell her robots. Basically, I think I’m only going to let sims sell to the catalogue if they can’t start a home or community lot business, for whatever reason. I am considering the possibility of killing two birds with one stone and building a new house for them on a fresh lot with a little robot-and-veggies home business downstairs, but haven’t really decided yet. I don’t think their net worth is higher than they started with yet, so either way they will have to start small.

It took Mary a few tries to get pregnant like she wanted, and with hours to spare she gave birth to a daughter, Ruth, the firstborn sim of the ubermegahood from a player perspective, but likely to be one of the last born in this round from a sim perspective. Sim time is weird like that. She was born about 1:30 AM on Fall 5, 2001, and I am considering whether it would be fun to keep full track of the time of birth like that. She is going to register as a full day younger than sims born before 6 PM, but that’s just par for the course.

Not much else happened. Isaiah learned to study and made friends with a couple townies, Nathan took a low-level business job to support his family until they can move someplace with a yard.

Oh, and full traits:

Nathan: Loves to Swim, Lucky, Brooding, Star Quality, Clumsy; hobby is Nature

Mary: Bookworm, Hydrophobic, Charismatic, Ambitious, Excitable; hobby is Tinkering

Isaiah: Excitable, Clumsy, Hydrophobic; hobby is Games.

Next, the Cleveland family:

The Clevelands started out a little boring to me, but got more interesting as I went on. Both Jason and Marissa wound up with the same LTW to own 5 top-level businesses. First of all, that is a LTW I am NOT good at fulfilling; second I have to do it twice! And come up with enough damn businesses for these chuckleheads to make! So, I left Jason in his Law Enforcement job to support them as they get started, and Marissa bought a little shop in Bluewater Village. I couldn’t decide what to do with it and ended up settling on Home Decor. Other ideas for future businesses include a salon, a coffee shop, a music venue, and a park. I think I am going to insist on a preference for local business, though. Next business either of them buys has to be in BDC, even if I have to build it myself. It’ll be a little while, though. Marissa wanted to have a baby, and ended up having twin girls, Mary Anne and Monet. Monet has freckles! Their apartment isn’t terribly small, but they do need to move to a bigger place before the girls age up to children. That gives them a couple rounds to earn the cash.

I... didn’t do a great job taking pictures while I played them.

Traits:

Marissa: Excitable, Eccentric, Dramatic, Loser, Hydrophobic

Jason: Star Quality, Unlucky, Clumsy, Flirty, Adventurous

Justin: Eccentric, Clumsy, Night Owl, Over-Emotional

Finally for this post, there’s Carlos Contender.

Okay, here we go. Sometimes I find Carlos a bit boring to play, but in this game he rolled a LTW to earn $10,000 being a personal trainer, which sounds amazing and perfect for him. I’m trying to figure out whether it is possible for him to offer private lessons in his home without opening a home business—probably not, but it would be cool. He also made out with Jessica Peterson while at the gym, and I might make that happen.

I’ve been sending him to the gym to act as personal trainer usually twice a day–morning and evening. Realistically, I should use some sort of “sim returns home at the time they left the community lot” mod I’m pretty sure exists, but so far he’s in luck, pulling double or triple shifts without loss of job or sleep. It’s kind of necessary–he’s using the premade gym in Belladonna Cove, and sims there gravitate towards the pool and the vending machines long before they touch the exercise machines. He usually needs to hang around for hours before he gets an opportunity to train anybody. Still, he managed to make around $1100 at it this round, training such sims as Mary Gavigan, Patrizio Monty, and Gabe O’Mackey. There was also some highly amusing background drama from loitering sims. A heavily pregnant Pascal stops by the gym virtually every day, and never does any exercise of any kind. He’s been seen laughing at the gym’s bowling trophy display and socializing. Similarly, Ana Patel sometimes shows up. If I was writing a full story of some kind, I’d make up a mini plot about the two of them attending some kind of prenatal yoga class. You get lots of random premade sims from any and all subhoods, but most amusingly one time Connor Weir tried to make out with Titania Summerdream and was rejected; a couple days later (nsert sim) tried it and succeeded! (I’ll only break up existing couples if the chemistry for a new partner is 3 bolts, or if the sims involved have lots of wants about it.)

Back to Carlos, although he was working hard at fulfilling his LTW, his lesser wants were unrelated and needed attention. I had him invite Jessica over one time, and his other interest Chastity Gere another time. Later in the round, he invited each of them over separately for a whirl in the jacuzzi. He’s more into Chastity, but since he’s a Romance sim I’m not sure how much it matters. (Plus, that’s what I did in my last Megahood…) I’m definitely going to be playing each of those ladies for a round, and we’ll see what they want. I know Jessica’s Fortune, so it seems to me like she might enjoy marrying Carlos for his money and then letting him have fun with Chastity, but we’ll see.

Carlos’ traits: Socially Awkward, Ambitious, Daredevil, Clumsy, Loser

I’ve also played through the Cordials, the Patels, and started on Jessica Peterson, all pretty interesting so far, but Kimberly Cordial gave me trouble with the Grumpy trait not working and getting her fired, and Jessica is the sim who could not propose engagement to Carlos despite wanting to, and despite Samantha Cordial having no trouble proposing to Armand DeBateau a short while ago. But this post feels quite long already, so... perhaps next time.

#the sims 2 #sims 2 #simblr #ubermegahood

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tyrantisterror · 3 years

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THE A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!!

YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE! YOU THOUGHT THAT THE TIME OF MONSTERS WAS AT AN END! BUT YOU WERE WRONG, FOR NOW YOU MUST WITNESS…

THE A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!!

That’s right, it’s back! Celebrating the publication of The Atomic Time of Monsters Volume 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth! (which in turn completes The Ballad of Tyrantis arc for this series), I’m holding another monster design jam. The third of such jams, in fact!

Like the first A.T.O.M. Create a Kaiju Contest, the aim of this contest is to create kaiju that would fit within the setting of my big kaiju story series, The Atomic Time of Monsters. Think of it as me letting you into my sandbox to play with my toys for a bit, or like you’re being put in the director’s chair of a new ATOM-verse kaiju movie. That means your entry does have to fit into ATOM’s world, which in turn means that yes, there are limitations to your creativity here. But limitations can be good sometimes - they can make us explore options we wouldn’t consider when given completely free rein to do what we want!

(also you don’t have to make a three dimensional image or anything, the title’s just a pun on how the third movie in a monster movie franchise will often be a 3-D film)

Read below the cut to learn the rules and whatnot:

THE RULES:

1. You are limited to one entry per person. Work hard and make your entry count!

2. Your kaiju must have some sort of description of its physical appearance and its personality - you can submit a drawing or a written description (or both!) for the physical appearance depending on what you’re most comfortable with. Using the same template/format as my official ATOM Kaiju Files (https://horrorflora.com/monster-menageries/atom-kaiju-files/) isn’t required, but it was cool when people did it in the last contest, so feel free to do so this time too!

3. The kaiju you create must specifically be created for this contest - no repurposing characters you made for other, wildly different stories. This is not “trick TT into drawing/canonizing my main OC” time.

4. The kaiju must fit the setting and aesthetics of ATOM. I’ll explain this in more detail down below.

5. The kaiju should add something meaningful to the world of ATOM. The more unique and interesting your kaiju is, the more likely you will win the contest.

6. Don’t make your kaiju too dependent on pre-existing ATOM characters - no “Tyrantis’s long lost evil brother who’s the strongest kaiju in the world.” These should be to Tyrantis’s story what War of the Gargantuas is to Godzilla’s movies – heroes (well, monsters) of another story in the same world.

THE REWARDS:

I will make pencil sketches of the top 5 entries in the contest.

I will then make fully rendered illustrations (lineart, colors, & shading) of the top three entries.

The winning entry will be made into a model ala the ones I’ve been making for ATOM’s core 50 monsters, which can then be shipped to the person who created it (should they be able to cover the shipping costs). That’s right, your kaiju could be brought to life in THREE GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR DIMENSIONS! (Hey, we worked the gag title in to the prizes!)

THE DEADLINE: All entries must be submitted by July 3rd, 2021. You can submit it here on tumblr, via the horror flora e-mail, or any other channel you know how to reach me through. I’m in a lot of places.

THE GUIDELINES (TO HELP YOUR ENTRY FIT THE RULES AND WIN):

The smartest thing you could do if you want to win this contest is familiarize yourself with the world of ATOM by, y’know, reading all the material I’ve published on the subject. In addition to the many kaiju files that are free to read on horrorflora.com, there are now TWO, count ‘em, TWO novels in this series for you to peruse, both of which establish many of the rules of the setting as well as its general themes and tone! You can get them in either paperback or e-book formatting (I’d recommend the former over the latter since I lack the technology to make a really nice ebook, but if money is an object, the kindle version is only $1). Here’s the links again if you missed them:

Vol. 1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us!

Vol. 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth!

However, since I know reading a bunch of stuff is, y’know, not something everyone is inclined to do, I’ll jot some good bullet points for you in an attempt to outline how ATOM works in a brief, easily digested way:

ATOM is an homage to the monster fiction of the 1950’s and 60’s (i.e. the Atomic Age), and is set in those two decades, albeit an alternate universe version of them where, y’know, monsters and space aliens exist. If you aren’t familiar with the monster fiction I’m referring to, there will be some reference material provided at the end of this post along with some recommendations for further research.

Kaiju/giant monsters in ATOM work under very specific rules. There’s a full description of those rules at this link, but here’s the jist:

ATOM Kaiju are created created by the radiation of a mineral called Yamaneon, which naturally converts harmful radiation into its own unique energy. In natural circumstances, it takes hundreds of years of exposure to Yamaneon radiation for a creature to become fully transform into a kaiju (luckily, Yamaneon radiation slows the aging process while speeding up the healing process). However, an explosive burst of energy - such as the geothermal and kinetic energy released by an earthquake, or the blast of a nuclear weapon - can speed up the process, turning a normal animal into a kaiju within a matter of seconds.

All ATOM kaiju can heal grievous wounds within minutes or even seconds, are supernaturally strong and durable, and can convert harmful radiation to harmless energy that they then feed off of. Kaiju do not have an equivalent of old age, and can theoretically live forever (though their violent lifestyle means that few do).

ATOM Kaiju generally don’t need to eat unless they are severely injured, getting most of the energy they need from solar or geothermal radiation - but many still have instincts that drive them to seek out food from time to time.

Most ATOM kaiju stand roughly 100 feet tall (depending on their body shape), i.e. smaller than the original 1954 Godzilla. There are exceptions to this rule - younger kaiju can be smaller, while exceedingly old kaiju can be significantly larger, but these are rare.

In general, ATOM kaiju are significantly more intelligent and emotionally complex than people expect animals to be, though most are incapable of speech or complex tool use. There’s a reason ATOM Kaiju Files have a “personality” section.

Most ATOM Kaiju are tooth and claw fighters - ranged weapons are a rarity in this setting.

While the terrestrial monsters in ATOM look strange, they are intended to fit within the taxonomy of animals in reality - reptiles, mammals, fish, arthropods, molluscs, etc.

ATOM’s mesozoic era was dominated by a fictional clade of crocodile-relatives called retrosaurs, which are based on the outdated paleoart that one would find in the 1950’s/60’s fiction - i.e. when dinosaurs were viewed as trail dragging lizards instead of strange birds. You can learn more about retrosaurs here (https://horrorflora.com/2016/11/15/atom-kaiju-file-bonus-a-guide-to-retrosaurs/).

Kaiju appear on every continent in ATOM, but certain areas tend to be dominated by different types.

North America is mainly besieged by retrosaur kaiju and giant arthropods.

East Asia is technically also mainly plagued by retrosaurs and big arthropods, though they tend to look more fantastical and mythic - and, often, oddly well suited to being portrayed by a person wearing a monster suit.

Russia is beset by prehistoric monsters that seem to come from the Cenozoic, particularly the Ice Age.

Western Europe is plagued by creatures that vaguely resemble creatures from myth, if they were also prehistoric. Dragon-y lizards, fiery birds, etc.

Towards the mid-way point of ATOM’s timeline, earth is invaded by a coalition of aliens from different solar systems called the Beyonder Alliance, and as a result a bunch of alien monsters can be found on earth.

Mars and Venus both host (or hosted in Mars’s case) animal life. The surviving Martians colonized Venus, and sent some of their kaiju guardians to earth to help us fend off the Beyonders (who are responsible for the destruction of Mars’s ecosystem). Martian and Venusian kaiju have specific anatomical quirks, which you can see by looking at these kaiju files:

Venusians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/03/atom-kaiju-file-29-karamtor/

Martians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-39-kemlasulla/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-40-podritak/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-41-sombarvot/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-38-ullawdra/

Giant robots exist in ATOM, but are big, bulky, and incredibly expensive. Fancy beam weapons also exist, but are similarly clunky - there are no sleek, elegant machines in ATOM.

Since the fiction ATOM takes inspiration from was made at a time when interplanetary travel was only just beginning to be possible, its scope is significantly smaller than modern sci-fi. Alternate universes/dimensions were pretty uncommon because the idea of alien planets still held a lot of wonder to it. So, as a general rule, don’t try to go farther than the one galaxy.

ATOM is a setting for stories that are focused on humanity learning to coexist with monsters, rather than humanity destroying them. A certain level of sympathy is put into almost every creature of its canon, even the ones that are meant to be villains.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

Here is a playlist of 1950′s monster movie trailers.

Here is some reference material from various monster comics of the 50′s and 60′s.

Good movies to track down to understand ATOM’s inspiration and tone include Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Them!, The Black Scorpion, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Gamera, The Giant Claw, and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

And here’s the intro cutscenes for all the different giant monsters in the PS2 videogame War of the Monsters.

#The Atomic Time of Monsters #The ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3D

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shinesurge · 3 years

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I’ve been holding off on making this post because I wanted to try it out myself and get settled in and make sure everything went okay, but seeing as I’ve gone ahead and updated my site and everything I thought now might be a good time to start talking about this publicly!

If you’ve known me for more than five minutes you know I fucking hate Webtoon, like, a lot. Every aspect of it disgusts me to the core of my being, and while Webtoon is the ugliest version of them the aspects that I hate also extend to basically any comic aggregate site. I hate that they treat artists like content robots, I hate that they treat comic readers like morons who aren’t capable of engaging with complex stories, I hate that they actively try to strip away all the cool parts of indie comics by cultivating sterile and impersonal environments that discourage artistic experimentation and unique expression.

So! I hope you’ll be interested in what I have to say about this new platform that’s (hopefully) going to be out of alpha this summer. If you think you like reading comics on Webtoon, I really encourage you to check out Dillyhub once it launches. That’s the short version, but I have a LOT to say about this! So I’m putting the rest of this under a cut.

Full disclosure, I’m not getting paid or anything for this. The creative outreach at Dillyhub contacted me a few weeks ago asking if I’d be interested in having Kidd Commander be one of their launch titles when they go live this summer. I was hesitant at first, since I actively distrust anything claiming to be For Creators at this point, but they answered my pushy questions patiently and everything seemed on the up and up so I gave it a shot; I’ve been needing a mobile mirror for KC anyway. Eventually they invited me to the alpha creator discord, where they’ve been working directly with all of us artists to improve the platform, and now to be honest I’m REALLY excited for this thing to get off the ground. Nobody asked me to make this post, but since I’ve spent years whining and bitching about how other services do wrong by their creators, I thought I’d talk about this one that’s doing things right.

So, the biggest advantage this site has for creators over others in my opinion is that it. Treats us like individuals, regardless of follower count lmfao. If you’re a new person just starting out with your new webcomic, here’s what webtoon does for you:

Note: you don’t get a custom banner, you don’t even get to choose the solid color it is. That big circle icon is ALSO the image that shows up in searches, but everywhere else on the site it’s a 100x100px square, so you have to choose whether you want it to look good as a giant circle at the top of your comic’s page OR whether you want to look good in search results. Which, by the way, is the ONLY way for people to find you if you’re not partnered. And that’s it! You have no monetization options, you won’t show up on the genre pages, and when someone DOES stumble across your page it looks super unprofessional. Good Luck!

Now here’s my Dillyhub page(s):

You don’t get a static banner and one icon, you get a whole carousel banner with as many images as you want front and center as soon as you get to the project page. You get seven (custom!) genre tags, as opposed to Webtoon’s single tag you have to pick from their list, and plenty of room to talk about your work. The episodes are even laid out better, you get a MUCH bigger preview space to work with and they’re nice and big on the bottom half of the page:

you know, like they’re actually presenting ART lmfao.

That’s already an ENORMOUS improvement, but here’s my favorite thing.

o hm that’s a lot of super cushy settings I have for every individual episode, but what’s that, Episode Type?

LIKE.

listen, i know this is probably a bit specialized if you’re not a comic maker yourself, but this is a HUGE DEAL. You can post vertically OR page by page! You can even post pages two at a time for double page spreads, or so they read like a physical comic book! AND their specs are really open, as long as the file meets the size requirement you can make it whatever shape you want. You don’t have to reformat all your shit to post here!! I posted the entire first volume of KC STRAIGHT FROM THE PRINT FILES in like half an hour!!! The episodes can also be any amount of pages, you can post a single page or an entire chapter all in one go!

So that’s just the project page for the comic, let’s see what happens when I click on my username there.

Each author gets their own unique page (which you can tack a vanity url to!) to present themselves however they want! You always have the banner at the top, but beyond that you have a ton of options. Among other incredibly useful tools that really should just be bare fucking minimum at this point, like the ability to preview your page on different devices, you start customizing your blank page with this set of widgets,

and from THERE you can customize them MORE, you can promote your patreon or your kickstarter or whatever! Having this creator space ALSO means that if you run several comics, or if you want to promote your comic AND your illustrations, you can just separate them into individual projects! Each with their own page! This is also really nice as a reader because you can subscribe to a creator but you can also just subscribe to specific projects, if you don’t want to get ALL of their stuff in your inbox. It’s so good y’all hh.

Once again, all of this functionality is just THERE as soon as you make your account. You don’t need to be “partnered” or whatever the fuck, you don’t need to meet a certain follower threshold to unlock the ability to operate normally. You get your own creator space to present yourself how you prefer, you get pages for all your projects, you can even set up monetization options (and change them for individual pages IN a project) right from the start.

ok ok let’s compare this to my webtoon page

oh that’s right webtoon just puts your greyed out name at the bottom of each comic and that’s it because human beings don’t make this stuff, my bad lol anyway

Other fun shit that Dillyhub does that makes me feel like they’re people who have actually consumed or made comics on the internet at some point in their lives:

-When you log into the “studio” space, you’re in your creator account. When you log OUT of the studio space, it’s like you swap to a “reader” account, where you can access your pull list and comment on things with a different name and profile icon. Again, maybe only cool if you’re a creator, but if you ARE then you know exactly why this is incredibly useful lmao

-You can set up “hidden” projects, so if you only want certain things to be accessible by certain people or to not show up in searches that’s an option! You have SO much control here it’s great.

-The comment section has moderation options GODDD. You also have a real comment space, you know, so it actually encourages building a community (and a rapport with your community, if you like), and you also can just turn comments off entirely if you want! I haven’t used it much yet, obviously, but it’s been made very clear in the discord that artists want better control over their comment sections and the devs have it on their priority list.

-Absolutely every step of customization gives you a preview before it’s live, so you can easily see what these images you’re posting in different places are going to look like before you beam them to your followers’ inboxes. This includes individual episodes!

-This was sort of in one of the screenshots but it’s important so I’m saying it here too: the option to mark individual episodes as mature or with content warnings, rather than having to mark an entire comic as Mature Spooky Scary Content because of one or two pages getting a bit hairy.

This site is only in alpha right now, and it’s invite-only until they get to beta (for creators; anyone can make a reader account! but they haven’t set up a way to browse comics without direct links yet so) but honest to god it’s already blowing every other site I’ve used clean out of the water. And the staff has been really kind and responsive to us proposing fixes or changes! I will always defend individual websites as being the best option for an indie comic, but everybody’s gotta start somewhere and we NEED something that isn’t Tumblr or Webtoon to fill this role; this site feels a lot more like a symbiotic relationship than any of the other staples available for new creators right now. If you’re a comic reader and you want to see your favorite comics on Dillyhub I’d suggest keeping an eye on this site and once it’s live start poking them to look into it, and if you’re a creator follow their social media and hop in when they open up for anybody to join. I would LOVE to see this site take off as a viable option for hosting and reading comics.

Thanks for reading all this! I haven’t quite finished setting up yet, but if you want to poke around a project/creator page for yourself mine is here have at it. As things progress I’m sure I’ll have more to say, but since I’m usually so aggressively negative about places like this I just wanted to give some credit where it was due. fucking finally.

#long post #i want this site to obliterate webtoon so fucking bad lmfao

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hachichimitsu2 · 3 years

Text

ABOUT ME

Hachi ✨ 20 ✨ She/Her ✨ 🇵🇭 ✨ INFJ 6w5

Hello, I’m Hachi! I'm a full-time freelance illustrator on Fiverr, and I hopefully plan to branch out in other artistic areas in my life! Expect me to dump all of my artistic interests over here : #hachichiart

I also have a children’s picture e-book that I self-published on Amazon. I made it as a requirement for my high school thesis, so while the art there is definitely a representation of my past, I still stand by the message I was trying to send. I hope to eventually branch out this series in a form of a webcomic of sorts, for people who can’t afford to purchase my e-book for financial reasons. These characters are extremely dear to me, and I can’t wait to expound on them when I have the time lmao. Here’s a tag regarding the series: #behindtheartistichand

Some note-worthy things to mention, this blog is generally 15+, but I do make sure to tag any NSFW content and general triggers out there. I often post and retweet adult animation, so I’d say tread carefully if you’re a minor. I’m also critical with the media I consume, but most of the time, I like to talk about why I like something rather than why I hate it. I just find it more fun to expound on the positives of my favorite things. I also don’t take everything seriously.

Please let me know privately if I did or say anything wrong. Sometimes I say things without meaning to, and I’m not the brightest crayon in the box, so constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. If you take offense with anything I posted, just send a polite DM and explain why it offended you so I can be educated regarding the subject. I’m also available for any questions, DMs and a genuine chit-chat.

MAIN INTERESTS

1. Character-Driven Storytelling

2. Adult Cartoons

3. CGDCT / Slice-of-Life Shows

4. Pastel Goth / Creepy Cute Fashion

5. Coming-of-Age Stories

6. Magical Girls

7. Psychological Horror

8. Well-Written Children’s Media

9. RPG Maker Horror Games

10. Video Essays & Film Studies

11. Speed Metal / Vaporwave / Shibuya-Kei

12. K-POP / J-POP Girl Groups (Serotonin Babey!)

13. 4LT (MBTI), Typology, Cognitive Functions

14. All Types of Artistic Endeavors (OCs, FanArt, Comics, Film, Music, Fanfiction, etc.)

TOP 5 ANIME SERIES (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

1. K-ON!!

2. Hunter x Hunter

3. Neon Genesis Evangelion

4. Ojamajo Doremi

5. Ouran Highschool Host Club.

TOP 5 CARTOON SERIES (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

1. South Park

2. Bojack Horseman

3. Moral Orel

4. Ed, Edd n Eddy

5. Infinity Train

FAVORITE MOVIES

1. Interstellar (Favorite Sci-Fi Movie of All Time)

2. Nacho Libre (Favorite Guilty Pleasure Movie)

3. Johnny Got His Gun (Scariest movie of all time due to the sheer existential dread)

4. Studio Ghibli Films (Particularly Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro & Grave of the Fireflies)

5. Perfect Blue (Favorite Anime Movie)

6. One Cut of the Dead (It’s hard to recommend this movie without spoiling it, but it’s an absolute must that you finish it in its entirety before you proceed to make any further judgments)

7. Coraline (I know almost everyone loves Coraline at this point, but it’s genuinely good.)

8. Interview with the Vampire (Favorite Vampire movie of all time that doesn’t seem overdone or cliché. It’s also really gay)

9. Get Out (2017)

10. Us (2019)

11. Up (2009)

12. Toy Story (Movies 1 to 3)

13. Hereditary (2018)

14. The Shining (1980)

15. Audition (1999)

16. Misery (1990)

17. The Green Mile (1999)

18. Shawshank Redemption (1994)

19. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

20. Mommie Dearest (1981)

21. The Others (2001)

22. The Platform (2020)

23. The Lodge (2019)

OTHERS

1. Homestuck (It’s been a good while since I read Homestuck, so my memory of the general storyline is fuzzy. I’ll re-read it once I have the chance)

2. When They Cry (Currently up-to date with the Higurashi anime and watched the live-action movies. Finally started to tackle the sound novels. Have yet to encounter Umineko and Ciconia)

3. Age of Youth (Favorite K-drama of all time.)

4. Squid Game (Battle Royale-type thriller series that tackles capitalism and the illusion of choice and free will? Sign me the fuck up)

5. Majisuka Gakuen (Favorite J-drama of all time. Also, yes, I’m biased because of my love for AKB48.)

6. Flight of the Conchords (Favorite live-action series of all time.)

7. Adult Cartoons (The Boondocks, Camp Camp, Superjail, The Oblongs, Bob’s Burgers, The Simpsons, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Beavis & Butthead, Daria, Smiling Friends, Aggretsuko)

8. FilmCow (I absolutely love everything they put out. Currently up to date with VuloLives’s broadcasts)

9. The Eric Andre Show (A good friend recommended me this show, and I haven’t stopped since.)

10. Nathan for You (My humor condensed into one show)

11. CGDCT / Slice-of-Life Shows (Sweetness & Lightning, The Amazing World of Gumball, Spongebob Squarepants, Gakkou Gurashi, Lucky Star, Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight, Koufuku Graffiti, Hidamari Sketch, Pita-Ten, A Little Snow Fairy Sugar, Di Gi Charat, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, Yama no Susume, Shirobako, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Saint Young Men, Gunslinger Girl, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou, Osomatsu-san, Hey Arnold, The Peanuts, Arthur, Hibike! Euphonium, Nichijou, Asobi Asobase, Azumanga Daioh, Codename: Kids Next Door, Chowder)

12. Idol Anime (Love Live! School Idol Project, Aikatsu, Revue Starlight, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Pretty Rhythm, AKB600SEC // Will get into IDOLMASTER eventually)

13. Undertale (Will pick up Earthbound and Omori eventually)

14. RPGMaker Horror Games (Mad Father, Misao, The Witch’s House, Ao Oni, etc. Hoping to get into newer released games!)

15. Fictional Children / Adolescents Getting Trapped in Dangerous Scenarios (Digimon Tamers, Made in Abyss, The Promised Neverland, Alice Academy, Code Lyoko, The World Ends with You, Total Drama Island, Danganronpa)

16. Weird, Experimental or Slightly Disturbing Series (Serial Experiments Lain, Kuchuu Buranko, Invader Zim, Flapjack, Salad Fingers)

17. Shounen Anime (Yu Yu Hakusho, Mob Psycho 100, Dragon Ball Z)

18. Magical Girl Anime (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo Mew Mew, Mermaid Melody, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, RWBY, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, My Little Pony, Princess Tutu, Powerpuff Girls, My Life As A Teenage Robot, Bee and Puppycat, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Steven Universe // Will pick up She-Ra & The Owl House Eventually)

19. The Haunting of Hill House / Bly Manor (Don’t let the jump-scares deceive you. It’s a genuinely good character-driven horror series)

20. Sci-Fi Cartoons (Rick & Morty, Solar Opposites, Futurama, Bravest Warriors)

ROLE MODELS / BIASES / OSHIMENS / BEST GIRLS

1. Trey Parker & Matt Stone

2. Gain & Narsha (BROWN EYED GIRLS)

3. Hyuna (SOLOIST)

4. Sooyoung (SNSD)

5. Gyuri (KARA)

6. Hani (EXID)

7. Seulgi & Yeri (RED VELVET)

8. Sana (TWICE)

9. Yves & Olivia Hye (LOONA)

10. Shuhua (G-IDLE)

11. Yena (IZ*ONE)

12. Winter (AESPA)

13. SUZUKA (ATARASHII GAKKOU)

14. Shiroma Miru (NMB48)

15. Yabuki Nako (HKT48)

16. Takahashi Minami (ex-AKB48)

17. Kojima Haruna (ex-AKB48)

18. Shinoda Mariko (ex-AKB48)

19. Sayaka Akimoto (ex-AKB48)

20. Watanabe Mayu (ex-AKB48)

21. Shimazaki Haruka (ex-AKB48)

22. Matsui Jurina (ex-SKE48)

23. Sakura Miko (HOLOLIVE)

24. Natsuiro Matsuri (HOLOLIVE)

25. Oozora Subaru (HOLOLIVE)

26. Inugami Korone (HOLOLIVE)

27. Houshou Marine (HOLOLIVE)

28. Kiryu Coco (ex-HOLOLIVE)

29. Momosuzu Nene (HOLOLIVE)

30. Kureiji Ollie (HOLOLIVE)

31. Takanashi Kiara (HOLOLIVE)

32. VuloLives (INDEPENDENT VTUBER)

CONTACTS

• Instagram: @Hachichimitsu

• Twitter: @Hachichimitsu

• I take art commissions on Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/hachichimitsu

• I have a children’s e-book on Amazon. Make sure to download the Amazon Kindle app to be able to read it on your smart device: https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Artistic-Erika-Marie-Vargas-ebook/dp/B08789CW3V

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dystopiantales · 4 years

Photo

Welcome to this world full of adventures and danger...

I have a lot of plots and stories. Too much. And I'd like to share all these with draws that sometimes I know you can't understand because I can't show you everything in my head.

So I've decided to put an order to certain "plots" or "universes" that in itself do not have a fixed project [comic or novel] This is more like a universe building and random comics or character designs or even comic and illustration tests. But from there I can do future projects.

Take it as a Concept Art folder, little things I do more for fun, but maybe it will help land everything I have on top of it and you can be part of these universes <3 <3

There will be drawings of friends that I invite to the plots and unconsciously we build it more, creating mini stories or characters, as if it were a type of anthology, but of the same universe, in this case: Dystopian Tales.

--- What is it all about?

Dystopian Tales is about the wreath race having lived for a long time with aliens and magical beings in the future, advancing technologically, however, at some point they have to ruin everything as always and the earth was embroiled in dangerous things and wars from which it was not ready, so they decided with extraterrestrial technologies, use them to colonize other planets or other parts of space.

However, someone had the wonderful idea of starting races with ships on certain planets, starting with the earth, and this became like a WOW! that good idea, and as always, they have to monetize everything. The races became something important in society [as well as football (?)] getting to championships and professional careers even on other planets. Where certain groups are moved by mafias or alien companies, divided to earn money, prestige and power. There are wilder races like the "illegal" but everything is united in a certain way, like that they take out some runners who have potential and so on.

And on the other side, there are certain landowners who figured out how to make money at the expense of others: Struggles.

Which consists of making a kind of bond with a gigantic alien creature where they fight in an arena [And obviously there are also clandestine fights]

Careers and fights have a constant struggle over those who have the greatest fame or power in society.

But there can be a lot more. The awesome of a universe like this is that it can expand further. With many possibilities.

These are all ideas from sci-fi stuff and movies that have been inspiration to me. [Alita, Love, Death and Robots, MadMax... etc etc]

I hope you enjoy it~

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you-guys--are-losers · 5 years

Note

Your version of the upside down Spidey kiss? :)

//Ooh, yes! I know that I have gotten multiple requests for this prompt, so excited to finally write it!

By the way, if anyone knows who originally created the art below, please let me know! I can’t seem to find who it is and I want to give credit. ;)

A Bit Tangled Up

Summary: When the opportunity presents itself, MJ decides to try her hand at the classic “Spider-Man” kiss.

Warnings: Language, Second-Hand Embarrassment ;)

Word Count: 3,281

Characters: Michelle Jones x Peter Parker

“Did you know that there’s a species of ant named after Manhattan?”

MJ’s question reaches Peter’s ear through his headset, and he can practically picture her face as she says it. She’s probably leaning back in her worn desk chair, peering at the laptop that rests on top of her crossed legs. That’s the position he most often finds her in, after all, when he returns to her quiet room in Queens after a night of patrolling. It’s peaceful, really, to know what to expect when he comes back, and the reminder is sort of nice.

At least, it would be if he weren’t trying to fight off three different amateur thieves at once.

“Couldn’t have picked a better time, MJ,” Peter responds, his voice slightly flustered as he dodges one poorly-aimed shot, then another.

The man holding the gun appears confused, and his brow furrows beneath the stupid ski-mask he is wearing. “What did you say, asshole?” the man snaps. Though Peter can tell he’s trying to sound gruff, there is an uncertain undertone in his voice.

Peter glances up to focus on him, pausing in his task of selecting a web from Karen. “I wasn’t talking to you. It’s rude to listen in on other peoples’ conversations, man.” With that, Peter sends a taser web his way, and the man’s body spasms before he drops to the ground.

“They found it in Manhattan, and they realized that they hadn’t seen the species before.” MJ’s nonchalant voice enters his ear again, causing a mixed wave of amusement and exasperation to wash over Peter. “Guess what they named it?”

“Um…” Peter’s mind scrambles to try to figure it out as he continues in his task.

One of the other men makes a grab for the fallen gun, which Peter easily webs into his own hand. “Hey, man, really? Taking someone else’s toys isn’t cool.” Peter takes the opportunity to web the man to the ground.

MJ’s voice resumes in Peter’s headset. “Don’t want to alarm you or anything, but there’s a stacked guy like three times your height with a meat cleaver on your left.”

Now, it’s Karen who is speaking in Peter’s ear. “Activate Trochanter Protocol?”

“Go for it. Thanks, Karen,” Peter pants. As he turns, four sets of massive, iron legs erupt from the suit, smacking away the attacker with so much force that the man is flung across the alleyway. “The Big Ant-ple?”

“Come on, Bug Boy, I’m disappointed in you.”

“It’s not exactly the best time,” Peter points out as he turns to face his fallen foe.

“How do you expect to handle decathlon if you can’t perform under pressure?” He can hear a hint of amusement in her voice now, and Peter grins as the guy pulls out a knife and charges him.

“I think I’ll manage,” he responds, raising an eyebrow. Peter raises the legs threateningly, but he makes no move to charge the thug. Instead, he allows his attacker to come to him. When the man is inches away, Peter reacts with lightning-fast reflexes. He grabs the knife between two fingers, using his super-strength to stop the blade in its tracks.

Peter watches as the man, who is still holding the blade, blanches behind the ski mask. “Hey, man, have you ever stuck a fork in an outlet?” Peter questions.

The thug’s eyes widen, but that’s all the warning Karen needs. An electrical charge leaves the fingertips of Peter’s suit, traveling through the blade and then to Peter’s attacker, flowing through his body. Peter allows the charge to flow through his body for a few seconds before letting go. The man falls to the ground, and the blade clatters to the pavement.

“I haven’t, no, but I did make a sculpture involving a fork and a toaster to illustrate the delicate balance between genius and insanity. Does that count?” Peter might be imagining it, but he could swear that MJ’s voice is slightly more relaxed now that he is out of danger.

“I mean, your brain isn’t fried,” Peter reasons, “so I don’t think so. But I appreciate the effort.”

Now that the three are down, there isn’t such a dire need for speed. However, Peter does want to be out of here before the authorities arrive, so he is swift in webbing the cleaver and the gun to the wall.

Once he has finished, Peter leaps into the air, attaching his web to the antenna on top of one of the buildings nearby. Once he has shot up into the air, it is easy swinging, and Peter begins to take the familiar route to MJ’s room.

“ManhattAnt.”

Peter furrows his brow against the cold as he swings into the quiet of MJ’s street. “What did you just say?”

“ManhattAnt. What they named the species of ant.”

A snort escapes Peter as he spots her apartment building. “You’re kidding,” he responds as he lands on the roof of the shorter building next to hers. The gravel shifts slightly beneath his feet, but he stays completely steady as he spots her window, which is eye level with him. Peter shoots a thin stream of web towards her window, nowhere near strong enough to carry him. It is just enough for a little “thunk” to be heard.

There is a rustling of lavender curtains, and a moment later, the window opens. MJ slides the glass pane all the way up, raising an eyebrow. Peter can’t keep his heart from skipping a beat when he sees her. Her messy curls are pulled up into a loose bun, and she’s wearing those glasses with the thick black rims that Peter secretly loves.

“Do you really think I would joke about something this serious, Parker?” MJ prods, raising an eyebrow. “Come on in. I’ve got your glass of bug spray waiting for you.”

MJ moves away from the window, making it easy for Peter to make the quick leap onto her building and to slide in through the window. From there, Peter drops onto her floor and slides the window shut before turning to face her room.

As much as Peter loves coming back to his house, he thinks that MJ’s might be his favorite place to be after patrol. The soft, comforting gray of her walls paired with her gentle salt lamps and the abundance of activist posters, sweet-smelling teas, and comfortable places to sit make her room the perfect contrast to the overstimulating city he spends his nights defending.

It’s not often that he comes here. Normally, she joins Ned in Peter’s room, but Ned had to go on a family trip tonight, so here they are. Peter is perfectly alright with that… In fact, maybe a little bit too alright. He’s been trying to keep the thought out of his mind, but lately, when he’s found out he’s going to be spending time alone with MJ, Peter hasn’t felt the least upset.

In fact, Peter might look forward to spending alone time with his other best friend a little bit too much.

MJ has seated herself in her spinning chair again, though her laptop rests on her bed now as she turns to face him. The chair is still spinning slightly, and one of her legs, clad in Ravenclaw sweatpants, dangles loose. Peter can see a pair of fuzzy socks poking out from under the pants, and for some reason, a twinge of fondness enters him.

“It’s lavender tonight,” she hums, gesturing to a mug perched on the edge of her desk beside a plate of pumpkin bread. She’s holding a mug of what Peter can tell is the same tea.

The warm ceramic feels good in Peter’s hand, even through the suit. Peter lifts up the bottom of his mask in order to sip it, and he lets out a hum as the warm liquid washes down his parched throat. “Is anyone home?” he asks, curious about how soon he has to leave.

“Not tonight,” MJ replies. “Mom took Sonny to see a movie for his birthday, so- did you just drink that whole thing?”

Peter’s mechanical white eyes widen over the now-empty mug, and he offers a sheepish shrug as he sets down the burgundy mug. “It was good,” he defends. “Sweet.”

“That’s because I put a shit-ton of honey in it, loser,” she retorts as he moves on to the pumpkin bread, scarfing it down nearly as fast. “You know, that’s only supposed to work on flies. Not spiders.”

“Sugar is sugar,” Peter replies through the last bit of pumpkin bread, setting down the plate.

“And you take your tea like juice,” MJ responds, settling back in her seat. She takes another sit before adding, “I think you finished that in under a minute.”

“Thanks, MJ,” Peter responds, pulling his mask back down. “Seriously. I know you don’t have to do any of this.”

“Please, Parker. I’d much rather sit on the headset than actually do my homework. We both know that I live to watch Flash’s face when I finish it in ten minutes.”

“You know, one of these days he’s going to figure out that you just memorize the answers that you write out beforehand,” Peter points out, reclining against the wall.

“But it’s so much more fun to let him think I’m a robot,” MJ replies, arching an eyebrow. She sets her half-full mug on her desk, then, peering at him. “So was it a good night, then? All in all? Or did having my genius on the other side of the headset distract you?”

Under her gaze, Peter’s skin seems to crawl beneath the suit. He takes a breath then, glancing towards the window. Suddenly, Peter is in possession of more nervous energy than he knows what to do with, and he needs to move or be consumed on it. Peter turns to her wall, allowing his fingers to stick to it, then unstick.

“Yeah,” he says, trying for nonchalance. “I mean, I got the bad guys, you know? All in a day’s work.” Peter sticks his fingers to the wall again, beginning to climb effortlessly. At least, this way, his back is turned towards her. And besides, he’s done this sort of thing with her and with Ned before while hanging out. It isn’t that weird.

MJ lets out an amused puff of air, raising an eyebrow. “You’re not good at that part, Parker.”

By then, Peter has reached the ceiling of her room, where he is suspended by his fingers and the tips of his toes. Peter peers at her, upside down, and his white eyes on the mask widen conspicuously. “I- What?” Peter stammers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

MJ leans back in the chair, peering at him over the rims of the glasses he likes so much. “That part of superhero-ing,” MJ hums, arching an eyebrow as amusement creeps into her tone. “The part where you have to act all cool and humble and pretend you don’t care.”

“Pfft, I… What?” Peter’s voice rises to the point of almost cracking near the end of the statement, and he allows a thin stream of web to attach him to her ceiling so that he can slowly lower himself, suspended. “I don’t– What are you talking about? I don’t do that-”

“You do, Parker, and you suck at it.” MJ tucks a stray strand of hair away from her face with long, slender fingers, a little motion that succeeds in further erasing every logical thought from Peter’s mind. “It’s alright, though.”

Peter lets out a sharp breath, struggling to control his mess of flustered emotions. Just when he thinks he might have himself at a manageable level of stupidity, though, she says the one thing that could possibly take him right back to square one.

“It’s pretty cute.”

Everything that follows happens so fast. Peter has lost control over everything– including his webbing.

The strands suspending him to the ceiling release, sending him falling sharply. In an effort to keep himself from falling, Peter shoots his web back towards the ceiling, but he is falling at an angle. His efforts at securing himself accomplish two things: one, they actually secure him, and two, Peter succeeds in trapping himself in a tangled cocoon of web.

Maybe this is some sort of twisted karma, Peter reasons as he dangles six feet above MJ’s floor. If this is what every single bad guy he’s webbed feels like, then he understands why they all seem so pissed off. But Peter doesn’t have much time to explore that thought, because at the moment there is only one subject that is pushing itself to the forefront of his mind.

MJ.

MJ thinks he’s cute. Or does she? Wait– did she only mean that his attempt at humility was cute, and not the rest of him? Maybe she had been making fun of him, the way that they always did, as a part of their banter. But then why would she say that, of all things?

And more importantly, why had it had such an effect on him?

As the thoughts about MJ dance around Peter’s mind, he forgets to think about one terribly, crucially important detail: MJ herself. It is not until the webbing turns him towards the desk chair that Peter realizes his mistake. Because MJ is not curled up at her desk with a computer perched in her lap, sipping at tea.

Instead, she is standing from her chair with a slight smirk on her lips, and she is taking a step towards him.

“Um, MJ, I-I…” Peter stammers, sure that his cheeks are the color of his suit beneath the Iron Spider mask. “That was totally intentional. Definitely. And, um, if you could maybe just help me-”

“You want to come down from your cocoon?” MJ prods, her eyes glimmering with a wicked sort of amusement. “Well, it looks like you’ve got yourself in a tangle. I could just leave you here, you know… I mean, I’ve had weirder things hanging in my room before than a Spiderboy. ”

Peter winces. “Right. Bug puns. Um…” Peter is having a hard time focusing, however, because even upside-down, his best friend is the prettiest girl he has ever seen. And right now, dangling at eye-level with her, he has no way of looking away from the deep brown eyes that seem to pore into him from behind her glasses lenses.

She’s his friend, one of his best friends. He can’t be feeling this way about her– what if she doesn’t feel the same?

“Peter, your heartbeat is reaching an alarming rate,” Karen’s voice says loudly in his ear. “Would you like me to call May Parker and inform her that-”

“No, don’t do that!” Peter exclaims. The words are frantic, panicked as they tear themselves from his lips. MJ stops in her tracks, eyes widening slightly. There is confusion in them now, and Peter is even more flustered than he was before.

“Parker, are you okay?” MJ says slowly. “I was kidding, but if you need me to help you down, I can-”

“No,” he interrupts immediately, blinking rapidly. “No, it’s not you, I wasn’t talking to… Um…” Words are flitting through his mind too fast to say, creating a buzz that is only more distracting. MJ is frozen now, and she seems just as unsure about what to do as he is.

“Look, MJ, I…” Peter struggles for words, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. “I wasn’t expecting you to say… That.”

MJ blinks once, then twice. Then, however, a little smile tugs at the corner of her lips. It’s hesitant, and it’s shy, but it’s unmistakable. “You didn’t expect me to tell you that you were cute.”

So she did mean it that way, then. She meant that he was cute, and she’d said it to him. And of course Peter had panicked like a dork, and now there was no hope of recovering his pride from this.

But maybe he can rein it in. Maybe if he says something profound, or smooth, he can get this situation back in his favor…

“Um… Nope.”

Getting those two measly words out takes more energy than fighting off all three of the men had.

MJ’s smirk returns, and she shakes her head slightly. For a moment, there is quiet between them, and then a quiet laugh leaves her. Peter stiffens at the sound, but when it washes over him, his whole body relaxes. One laugh, then another, and then she turns her gaze to the ceiling as if she is searching for words.

“You are,” she informs him with mirth-filled eyes, “such a…”

“Loser.”

Peter doesn’t have to wait to know the proper term. Beneath the mask, a lopsided grin of his own twists his mouth. When he finishes her sentence, those dark, playful eyes come to meet his own, upside down. However, the moment that their eyes meet, something in the mood shifts.

MJ’s grin fades, and so does Peter’s own. For a moment, Peter forgets the stupidity of the situation he is in. He is too busy being wrapped up in the web that is MJ, in her sharp quips and her wicked smirks and her deep, dark eyes.

All amusement drains out of MJ’s face as she straightens herself up, blinking at him from across the space that divides them. For a moment, the air between them feels electric, and Peter is frozen in her current.

Then, MJ takes a step towards him. Another, and another, and Peter is frozen in place, upside down as she increases their proximity. MJ’s feet bring her closer to him, so close that Peter can’t breathe.

And then, MJ’s face is so close that their foreheads are almost touching. Peter is close enough to count her dark lashes, to study every twist of her thick curls, to memorize the rise and fall of her cupid’s bow. His heart pounds out of control, but now Karen has the good sense to stay quiet.

A tangled mess of emotions sweeps over Peter: awe, panic, hope, the works. They simmer together and bubble over, pouring out of his lips as a stammered, “MJ, you-”

“Shh,” MJ hums. Her dark eyes seem to scour the mechanical eyes of the mask, and slowly, her fingers rise to brush against the line of his jaw. Peter doesn’t realize what she is doing until she has lifted the mask, gathering it to just below his nose. Peter draws in a sharp breath as the cool air washes over the lower half of his face.

MJ’s fingers, soft and cool, brush against the corner of his lips, and a shiver goes down Peter’s spine. This close, MJ smells like lemon and lavender tea, and her soft, cooling touch is enough to send his skin tingling. His lips part slightly to speak, though Peter is not sure what he plans to say.

A long, slender finger comes to rest on Peter’s lips. MJ raises an eyebrow at him through the mask, her eyes meeting his own. “Shut up, loser,” she breathes, and then her eyes flutter shut. Before Peter can disobey her, MJ closes the distance, bringing her lips to rest atop his own.

MJ’s hands rise to cradle his face, and she arches her back as their lips move together. Peter is not sure how long they remain their, lips moving, exploring in the quiet of MJ’s room.

All he knows is that MJ tastes like honey, and now Peter understands why a creature would be willing to take its last breath in hope of just one taste.

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taffystake · 4 years

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Time Paradox Ghostwriter

Written by: Kenji Ichima

Illustrated by: Tsunehiro Date

Now....when I feel inspired to write, it typically involves either a work I utterly disdain or something I absolutely adore. And usually, for the second one, it takes me a long time to finally reach my conclusion that I like said thing. With the comic reviews, I was only all in with certain comics either do to previous work by the writer or due to the amount of time allowing me to finally draw my conclusion. With manga, it takes even longer since while I get new portions of the story weekly, those portions are generally quick snippets that can vary on how much they offer to sway me on whether I am all in or not with the story.

And then sometimes, crazy shit like Time Paradox Ghostwriter happens. Where barely ten chapters of the manga are out and I am already full-on ride or die for this story and want others to join me on this ABSOLUTELY insane and touching story.

Time Paradox Ghostwriter is the story of Teppei Sasaki, a small-time artist attempting to make his first break into the manga industry after showing some promise in his younger days. But as he nears his 25th birthday and has faced a duo of rejections as he continues attempting to create a manga that will evidently appeal to everyone, he pledges to quit if he can manage to say the words. And just as he is about to, lightning strikes his apartment and absolutely ruins his microwave, his fridge, and a robot figurine, fusing them into a small monstrosity. Said monstrosity suddenly dings before the microwave pops open and deposits a copy of Shonen Jump into his room. A copy from ten years in the future, just as a new manga has debuted. Reading this manga from the future, Teppei is absolutely blown away with the quality of both the art and the story offered by this first chapter and screams it out into the still-raging storm after leaving the magazine behind. But as he returns to his room, he finds the strange future manga is no longer there.

Chalking it up to a simple burst of inspiration made manifest, Teppei quickly sets to drawing an entire copy of this first chapter in the final 24 hours before a meeting at Shonen Jump for what entries will be given a one-shot. And while he manages to do this, he is denied the one-shot. Instead, due to the copy landing in the hands of a lead editor, the manga is instead picked up as a new series directly. Which is interesting, since that whole time travel thing wasn’t a dream and the original author of the series sees a concept that she has only begun to work suddenly in Shonen Jump in a fully fleshed-out form.

From there, the manga is quick to establish and build up the relationship between Teppei and this original author, Itsuki Aino, a 17 year old girl who soon becomes a drawing assistant to Teppei. And while it could lose some of the drama that this first chapter and the second chapter introducing Itsuki produce, the story just keeps things focused onto the manga from the future and the eventual results that these alterations to the timeline are aimed to produce. And while it does so, the story begins to make some commentary about creative works and some of the pitfalls that one can fall into involving them, ranging from imposter syndrome, unattainable standards, and deleterious efforts to maintain some perceived level of quality or appeal within a work.

And while I would have stayed on the fence usually, Chapter 10 pushed me over the edge to write this piece, just because of how pointed it is with the discussions about those creative pitfalls that were mentioned. And it does so while showing a very relatable story that just drives the point home. And I dare not spoil any of it. I’d rather leave it for anyone who reads this and looks at the manga to discover.\

On top of that, the art is exceptional, with a great level of detail to the expressions and the actions, which is especially shown in moments like the leadup to the lightning strike in Chapter 1, the rushes of drafts during chapters 3 and 4 as Teppei attempts to continue creating the manga, and even more moments beyond.

You can check out a few free chapters for this manga on the Viz website at https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/chapters/time-paradox-ghostwriter. And honestly, just read the first chapter. As a single one-shot, it works exceptionally and knowing that you can continue on from where it ends just leaves you wanting to continue forward as quickly as you can.

#shonen jump #shonen #viz media #viz #review #manga review #time paradox ghostwriter #taffys take #manga

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jimintomystery · 4 years

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Review: Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

I was drawn to this story when I heard it starts with a woman matter-of-factly relating the time she fell in a hole in the ground and landed on a giant robot hand. I suppose something about that reminds me of The Martian, perhaps because both stories introduce a wild sci-fi premise but the characters stay level-headed and professional about it. If your world turns into an Outer Limits episode you can either ooh and ahh at how incredible it is, or you can get to work. Sleeping Giants emphasizes the latter, and illustrates the shocking level of pragmatism needed for that.

I got the audiobook, and that happened to be a stroke of luck because I suspect that’s the best format for experiencing the story. Sleeping Giants is primarily related in the form of audio recordings of conversations. The audiobook is performed by a full cast (at least 6-7 people, I think), and it’s almost more like a radio play than a prose novel. I’ve never listened to podcast audio dramas but I suspect that if you’re into that sort of thing, you’d enjoy this. As long as the central character doesn’t get on your nerves...

I’m reluctant to say Sleeping Giants has a single main protagonist--it’s more of an ensemble cast--but the lion’s share of dialogue goes to the guy with the tape recorder. We never learn his name (I sort of hope that comes up in the book’s sequels), but he’s clearly some high-ranking spook from some “if I told you I’d have to kill you” kind of organization. He’s the straw that stirs the drink, always advancing the efforts to locate all the giant robot parts, assemble them, and determine where they came from. He’s not always (if ever) in charge of the project, but somehow he’s always there, finding just the right way to cajole, manipulate, or threaten people into deciding it’s in their best interests to do as he suggests. He’s pedantic, smug, and insufferable, but he manages to be one of the most interesting characters I’ve encountered in ages.

At first the project seems to be a straightforward US military operation, with oversight from at least one mysterious intelligence agency. But through various twists and turns, you realize it’s about the handful of the people most crucial to the work. The format of the story doesn’t reveal a lot of the interpersonal relationships and emotional connections, but what I picked up reminded me of a found-family dynamic. The mystery man I mentioned above has a few scenes where he almost seems more concerned with the well-being of his associates than the fate of the project, and you start to wonder if he sees them as friends but can’t reveal that for their own sake. If you enjoy the ups and downs of Elim Garak’s relationships with the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I think you’ll find something to like here.

I said there were twists and turns. There’s an old bit of advice for writers that, when they get stuck, they should do the worst thing that could possibly happen to their characters to shake up the plot. I’ve never totally bought into that, because when I imagine “the worst thing” it’s so catastrophic that it would completely shut down the story. Neuvel manages to do it about three or four times. Each time I kinda had to stop the audiobook because it was hard for me to process such a massive setback to the project, and how the characters could recover from their losses. But eventually I had to know what happens next, so I got back into it.

Oh, eventually the origins of the giant robot are hinted at. There is talk of ancient aliens intermingling with humans, with allusions to the offspring of Uranus (heaven) and Gaea (earth) and the Nephilim from Genesis 6. So yeah, this is my jam.

There are a few scenes in the book that made me cringe enough that I feel I have to bring it up here. I think all of them involve Kara Resnik, the most prominent female character. Male characters are a little too committed to describing her appearance. And there’s this geneticist who keeps trying to take tissue samples without her consent, and something about the way Neuvel writes about that gives me the willies. I toughed it out, but if you’re wary of this sort of thing, you might want to give this book a pass.

Overall, though, I liked the story, and it really pulled me into What’s-His-Name’s ruthless commitment to bringing the project to fruition. Why’s it so important to him--politically, professionally, and, personally? At what point would the price be too high--in money or human lives--to keep going? These are the questions that will probably compel me to read the sequels. I have to know if this guy is going to ever feel doubt about his convictions, and wonder if it would have been safer for everyone if he’d left the robot parts underground. You know, better to let sleeping giants lie...hey, I just got that!

#sleeping giants #the themis files #books #check 'em out

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vee-angel · 4 years

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Talynn’s Edge (Part 2)

(Just reposted the first part of this story with the corresponding illustration. This section will have a pretty significant amount of blood and violence, both sexual and non-sexual. And just an FYI, this part is not a stand-alone story by any means. If you want to understand what’s going on, I recommend reading the first part, and if you want to understand what’s going on well, I recommend reading the first part, and watching “Sonnie’s Edge” from the Love, Death + Robots anthology series on Netflix. If you want to completely understand, than do all that, and also read the short story by Peter F. Hamilton.)

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Something was different about the vibes tonight. Me and the rest of Sonnie’s Predators had seen plenty of fight nights, but this was the fight night. Khanivore vs. Hellcat. Me vs…. her.

Seems like a pair of woman beastie baiters going head to head was a bigger draw than I’d thought. Traffic is shit in the cities anyway, but the sludge of vehicles and bodies round the arena made it so the old twenty-wheeler’s cab had to slog inch by inch before we could unload Khanivore’s pod.

Hadn’t seen Talynn since that night months ago in the shitty spunk-stained hotel room. Fight promoters had set everything up. Closest thing we’d got to talking was signing the same fight contract. Still, she’d been in my head more than I’d have liked.

I felt ready, though. Near half a thousand dead rabbits made sure of that. Gotten to the point Khanivore had the muscle memory to spear a frantic hare running full clip near a hundred-percent of the time. Her bone-blade tentacles should make quick work of Hellcat even with its ungodly speed.

Wondered if Talynn still remembered the agreement we made that night. Winner gets to have their way with the loser. Ain’t exactly any way I’d have to pay up if I lose, but if I win, I wouldn’t mind a good shag. Honestly, I’d got a bit obsessive as of late, and needed the release.

I’d scouted the set-up a couple weeks before. Arena was bigger than the last one, but same basic set-up. Fight-pit dropped into the floor with rows and rows of people packed like sardines. Pit was the biggest one I’d seen so far, made room to maneuver, also meant her beastie had room to pick up speed.

After we finally got unloaded and took care of pre-fight business, we waited for the ring-master to start talking me up so I could make my entrance. Heard the clamor of the crowd before taking a step out into the open with Wes and Ivrina on either side. The Sonnie’s Predators fans jumped to their feet and went wild. My fans, I was the one putting it all on the line after all. God it felt good. I was the champion, and I wasn’t about to let some yankee cunt take that away from me.

Announcer kept on with peppy hyperbolic fanfare as I settled down in my signature zen pose at the edge of the pit. They could pretend they was excited because we were both undefeated, but really it was just that both pilots had tits for the first time.

Finally saw Talynn walking out from the other side of the arena. My heart beat a little faster and I couldn’t tell if it was because I still fancied her a bit or because the psychotic twat scared me a little. Honestly, probably a bit of both.

“Fuckin’ Hell, do you suppose that’s real?” Wes asked

“Fake stuff don’t clot like that.” Ivrina said back.

For half a second I wasn’t sure what they was talking about. Then I saw it. I mistook her for wearin that same shiny red skin-suit I’d seen her in last time, but it wasn’t that. It was blood.

Fuckin’ perfect outfit to intimidate, I figure. Ain’t nothing gonna scare the shit out of somebody quite like walking out naked smeared with gore. Her face was different, too. No babydoll grin, just this death scowl pointed right in my direction. Whole affair gave her this look like some kinda Aztek deity you could summon if you knifed out enough living people’s hearts as tribute.

She was taking this one serious, I figure. Ain’t no point in going the whole nine to intimidate unless you’re scared yourself. She didn’t think this up last minute. Maybe over this last stretch this fight had been running through my head more times than it ought to, but now I knew. I’d gotten into her brain-space, too.

“You ready, Sonnie?” Ivrina’s voice came real gentle from the side. She didn’t want to fuck my concentration. I didn’t even look at her or Wes, just gave a quick nod staring straight ahead. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“A’right, booting the Affinity Link… Now.”

There was a brief flash where I was falling through a thick ocean of pitch black, but my brain did quick work making sense of the sensorium coming through my body... Khanivore’s body. My eyes opened to the sight of the pod freshly opened and I stepped out on freakish strong thighs.

I heard the announcer saying my name and dashed out into the fight-pit. I moved quick, but not too quick. Didn’t want to telegraph how fast I’d become.

Hellcat got announced then. The black beast stalked out slow and confident-like. Didn’t make any fancy display like the first time I saw. She wanted to save all its energy for ripping limb from limb and then fucking the dead, bloody stumps.

This is when fear kicked in; locked in a pit with nothing between me and this prickly murderbeast that wanted nothing more than to kill me. This is when it got real. My survival instincts start screaming at me and I became primality incarnate. My body tensed, bone blades poised to strike, legs ready to dodge. This was it.

The fight lights went on.

Nothing.

Hellcat stared, quiet menace rising off it like smoke. Didn’t strike, didn’t lunge.

It started to move, real slow like. Tense steps around the edge of the pit like it was circling prey. I did the same; wasn’t about to let it flank me. I couldn’t let my guard down. I’d seen how fast it was. Talynn wasn’t going to let me survive a mis-step.

We’d gone around a full three-sixty with careful slow steps, staring one another down. The crowd had gone quiet, too; just waiting. Was this her strategy? Wear out my patience, wait for a mistake? A reckless move? Not gonna happen. She can take as many moments as she likes, and I’ll savor every one. Because if I fuck up, I won’t be having any moments ever again.

I kept my nerves steady, If anyone was going to be reckless it’d be her. . . and she was. She kept on going round, but she was moving farther from the edge. She had her eyes locked on and couldn’t help but get closer. She may have been fast, but I still had murderous tentacular range. The spiny hyaenodon was inching dangerous close to the point where I could hit it before it could attack me.

Few more steps and the fucker’d be just within my attack radius. Decided to let it get a hair closer just to make sure…

By the time the crowd gasped, I had two bone-tipped tentacles buried near half a meter into the side of Hellcat’s neck. With two more vipering straight into a spot behind its shoulder.

Couldn’t have been more than a third of a second it took to get all four blades embedded in its flesh, and I wasn’t lettin go easy.

Turns out Hellcat didn’t plan on letting go either. Fuckin beastie rolled toward me, wrapping my tendril arms around itself and aerating them with hundreds of jagged porcupine quills. It near pulled itself close enough to start ripping and gashing with claws and teeth when I whipped it across the pit with a sickening velcro sound of spines ripping out of its back.

Hellcat hit the wall hard but made a quick recovery. Blood from its wounds had already stopped flowing. It felt like it left a couple of kilos worth of needles in each one of my bone-blade tentacle arms. That was going to slow me down. I shouldn’t have thrown it; I’d panicked. Fuck!

The beastie gathered its footing then rocketed straight across the pit. I tried spearing it, but I was too slow with the shredded muscles. I felt those diamond hard shark teeth clamp into my thigh and rip through a chunk of armor and flesh before dodging back to the far side of the pit.

I’d seen this before when it fought Minogore. Now that Talynn had relieved me of my best weapon, it was back to typical strategy. Hellcat was going to rip off little bits of me until there was too little left to fight back when it went in for the kill. Shit!!

I wasn’t gonna go out that way, couldn’t let it happen. Had to stay calm, strategize. Hellcat was digging in its feet for another rush. Just as it took off I speared the floor between me and it. The appendages might have been too slow to attack, but I could use them as a barrier. And stuck full of needles as they were, they’d be too nasty to bite through. Hellcat veered off and spun around looking damn near offended that I wouldn’t just lay down and die.

I stayed low and kept on with the same strategy. I was fighting defensive now, putting thorny tentacle arms between me and the beastie every time it lunged. A couple cycles in of this and I learned I could direct the fucker left or right as I pleased. Started using this to my advantage and swiped off a good few chunks of its back legs with clawed fingers.

For a minute I thought I was getting the upper hand, but then the little beastie got around the tentacular cage I’d been keeping myself in and nipped off a good bit of shin. Told myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. But then... it did happen again. And again. And again.

What the fuck was going on! I had a good strategy, but then it seemed like Hellcat somehow managed to get even faster. I got this sick feeling when it dawned on me. It wasn’t faster… I was slower. Why!? Khanivore had enough oxygenated blood to fight for an hour at least. It wasn’t near that long, yet. I’d barely lost a drop of blood. There was no goddamn reason I should be fatiguing just now! Did the team miss something after the last fight? Did Wes or Ivrina fuck something up in Khanivore’s pod?!?

Not now, survive first, kick their arses later. It wasn’t time for thinking or clever strategies no more. This was time to not die; to go for full berzerk primality!

Enemy was readying its footing for a death-blow. My thoughts had all collapsed into a single brutal directive: Kill.

Hellcat lunged, I lunged straight back at it. Clawed fingers shoved straight down its gullet as I tackled the fucker to the ground. Serrated shark teeth crunched my right hand straight off while my left was carving out its eye. I yanked the mutilated limb from its maw and put the beastie in a headlock with the stump. I felt every remaining spine it had digging into my guts, but I didn’t give the tiniest fuck. I was going to rip this cunt apart!

The beast thrashed about as the claws of my left hand ripped through its gut, yanking out bones and ribs before frantically scooping out every bit of meat and organ I could reach at through its soft underbelly. It kept thrashing about in a panic way longer than most, a testament to Talynn’s bioengineering prowess. But I could feel the life draining on account of my savage evisceration.

I had won. Hellcat was dying.

I dropped the scooped-out fiend to the floor of the pit to let it make it’s death-rattle before finally going limp.

I heard Talynn shriek as her Affinity link to Hellcat died. The blood-clad beauty wasn’t intimidating anymore. I saw her eyes filled with terror and hands shaking as she rushed forward. Look on her face actually made me feel bad for her.

The girl actually continued forward, making this panicked climb into the fight pit. Just kept repeating, “No, no, no, please no.” in this hysterical, teary voice. The drop into the pit was a good three meters, even from hanging. Looked like she cracked an ankle the way she limped over to Hellcat’s side.

She went prostrate next to her dead monster, face a mess of tears and snot, and started doing these great big heaving sobs as she laid her hand on its face. Whole thing was fucking tragic.

I had just enough strength to raise a bloodied arm in triumph, but the crowd wasn’t quite as thrilled as it should have been. The bloody crying girl really fucked the vibe. Couldn’t worry about it now; Khanivore needed to get back to her pod, and fast.

I hobbled back down the corridor on half-eaten legs and felt a relief when the pod sealed. Now that I was animating a human body again, I could appreciate the fight I’d just had and won. There was times I worried I was over-preparing for this one bought, but now I knew she was everything I was expecting her to be. Talynn was batshit, but fucking brilliant as a baiter.

I remembered our deal about winner fucks the loser, but by the look on her face out there, figured I ought to give her some time. I headed backstage and we opened up a nice expensive bottle we got just for this particular win. Had a toast to no more fucking rabbit stew.

Then something happened. Wes poured a shot and slid it over to me, but the glass shattered on the floor before I’d even raised my hand to catch it. It was the same feeling I’d had out in the pit…. I was getting slower. Wasn’t a problem with Khanivore’s body… problem was the brain inside it.

“Somethin’s wrong.” I told them. “It was like this out in the pit. My reflexes was getting slower right near the end. Still getting slower now. She did something to Khanivore, something that’s fucking up my brain.”

The team rushed to the pod. Wes hooked up the interface and checked some measurements and data I didn’t quite understand. Started looking real panicked. Came back to tell us something about something was wrong with the nervous system.

“Cheatin’ fucking cunt.” Ivrina said. “I’ll bet her beastie’s got some kinda neurotoxin on those goddamn spines.”

“And Khanivore ain’t got no filter organs; the pod can do the basic stuff but it wasn’t meant to contend with poison.” I was pissed off. Talynn meant to kill my beastie even though she’d lost. Only she didn’t know it was my brain inside of her. I pounded a fist on Khanivore’s pod. “She’s gonna tell me how to fix this, even if I have to beat it out of her.” I stormed out headin straight for the opposing team’s green room. The team called something after me about saying they was going to keep trying to see what they could do. They seemed shaken. I couldn’t blame them. I was too.

Made my way through the under-halls to the sound of spectators filing out above me, eventually burst in on Talynn sitting in the dark staring at the empty pod, knees hugged up to her chest.

“Talynn,” she cringed a bit hearing my voice, but didn’t turn around. Seeing her look so defeated drained the anger right out of me. Probably a good thing, too. I had to speak gentle. Ten seconds ago, I’d planned to go all fire and intimidation, but antagonizing her wouldn’t do any good. “Hey… I’m sorry about your beastie, but I got to talk to you. Something’s wrong with Khanivore, she’s still dying even in the pod. We got to thinking it might of been your Hellcat. Those spines got poison on ‘em, don’t they?”

There was a long pause, “Venom.” Talynn corrected in this little sotto voice.

“Yeah, all right. Go to admit, I never would have thought to do that.” I felt like a damn hostage negotiator, and come to think of it, I kinda was, “But the fight’s over now, so I need you to fix it. Give me the antidote or tell me what I got to do so Khanivore doesn’t die.”

“Why the fuck should I?” Talynn snarled all sudden-like, finally turning to face me. She stood, limping forward angrily and got right up in front of me. Olfactory presence almost made me wretch; drenched in rotted blood made her smell like a mass grave. “Hellcat died! You killed her! Why shouldn’t you have to watch your own precious Khanivore fade away?? Maybe then you can know what you did to me!”

“I won’t know anything! I’ll be fuckin’ dead!” I paused to steady myself. Talynn gave this narrowed eyed look of suspicious incomprehension. Fuck, I had to tell her. “I ain’t in here, not anymore.” I poked a finger aggressive at my temple, “This body’s just animated by a bioware processor stuck on top of a spine. My real brain’s getting rotted away by your fuckin venom right now. If Khanivore dies, I die.”

Talynn took a step back in stupefaction. She just stared for a moment like she was trying to figure out whether to take me serious or not. I didn’t even see her hand reach back to grab the three kilo wrench that’d been set down next to the pod. Not until she whipped it around and cracked open the side of my head with it.

“Fuckin’ hell!!!” My hand went to my temple, which was several centimeters sunken in now. For a second, my thoughts flashed that she was crazy, then I realized why she’d done it. If I was lying, she figured I deserved to be killed, and if I wasn’t, she wanted proof.

I guessed that one side of my skull looked like a Jack-O-Lantern left out ‘til July, so the fact that I was still standing there glaring at her should be proof enough that there wasn’t anything neurologically essential inside my skull.

Talynn looked wide eyed for a moment, “You’re… that’s fucking insane.” was all she said. Thought I saw a flash of a smile for a second as she turned around and rushed toward a big trunk. Yanked out a big handful of hypodermic syringes full up with some amber liquid. She handed some of them to me. “Three should be enough for Khanivore. I need to keep a couple as a backup in case one of my team pricks themselves while they’re...” she just trailed off, not wanting to say ‘handling Hellcat’s corpse.’

I rushed back without a word, and near crashed into Ivrina halfway. She came to look for me, worried that I’d collapsed or something. And honestly, I was feeling like my ability to control equilibrium was fading fast. I ended up handing the syringes to her while she told me just sit down on this grimy wooden bench in the hall.

My heart was pounding, for the next few minutes I sat there doing mental exercises and seeing how well I could touch my fingers to one another. Not that well, it was seeming. But after about ten minutes, my thoughts seemed to settle down, I felt like my brain was doing a proper job animating my body through Affinity again. The antidote worked.

For a while I sat there thinking about what if Talynn was right about me being the crazy one. She at least had the good sense not to get into the pit herself; except she did just that after her beastie died. Maybe the two of us were psychotic. Maybe that’s how come I didn’t feel mad at her no more. I didn’t just fancy her cuz she was pretty, maybe I like that she’s the only one I’d met who’s just as fuckin’ mental as I was.

Barely noticed the man walking up on me until he’d sat on the rotted wooden bench next to me. I recognized him as one of Talynn’s crew, older than the rest. Had this way about him like he was some detective from a noir style American film. Tough as nails type who’s been too jaded to care about rules no more.

I pulled my hood farther to hide the shattered skull, but he didn’t look in my direction, just stared straight ahead as he lit up a cigarette and started talking at me.

“I want to tell you a story.” His voice was deep and dark, full of gravel and gravitas. “Once upon a time there was a little girl named Tara-Lynn. She ended up in the care of the state at a young age. Parents abandoned her, or maybe they got themselves killed. Doesn’t really matter.” He paused to take a draw at the crackling ciggie.

“One day a couple comes along and decides that they’d like little Tara-Lynn to join their happy little family.” he continues, “Except she finds out it’s not so happy. Her new mommy and daddy expect her to pay back the adoption fees with interest. What’s little Tara-Lynn to do? Well… mommy and daddy thought of that, too. It seems they knew some men who’d pay them a lot of money for some time with little Tara-Lynn. You know the type of things men pay to do with little girls?” he paused to take another drag, “Yeah, I hear you know a little about that.”

Sitting there listening, I felt a sick bit of bile boiling up in my gut. Felt like I should say something, but he kept on before I had a chance.

“Story doesn’t end there. One night the police were called to Tara-Lynn’s house after a neighbor complained about a smell like a dead animal coming from the premises. Cops got inside to find mommy and daddy stabbed to death in their bed and little Tara-Lynn still clutching a bloody kitchen knife. Dried blood caked onto her pink pajamas. “Little girl went into custody, mommy and daddy went to the morgue. She said she didn’t do it, and for a while, they believed her. Medical examiner said there was no way a ten-year-old could have committed such a beastly crime. They were stabbed so many times, he stopped counting wounds after two hundred… each. “When they asked little Tara-Lynn what happened, she told them that an angel had come to rescue her. An angel named Talynn. After a few months visiting with a shrink, they finally got it figured out. She told them what they were doing to her, and she got a diagnosis. Split personality.”

“Jesus fuck...” the words came from my mouth an awed whisper.

“Talynn,” he ploughed on, “isn’t a person. And she’s definitely no angel. Closer to a demon. And demons don’t just sit quietly and wait when there’s nothing to do. Tara-Lynn may have escaped mommy and daddy, but she ended up with a new monster; one that lives inside of her.”

My mind flashed back to that night with her naked body across the motel room mattress. I remembered seeing all the scars that looked self-inflicted. It made sense now, Talynn had been hurting her. Wheels in my head turned, before things finally clicked into place, “That’s why she does it, then” I interrupt the man before he has a chance to keep talking, “She had a beastie livin’ in her head her whole life, then finds out she can just custom make a suit for the monster inside, then stick it in a pit an’ let it do what it does best.”

Man took a final puff on the cancer stick then stood up to snuff it under a cracked leather boot. “Except you killed the suit, broke the cage. And now the monster is pissed off.”

I took his meaning that he was frightened that with Hellcat dead, Talynn’s demon was going to go back to hurting her to get its jollies. Maybe even hurting others. “Ay!” I called after him as he started walking away, “the fuck you want me to do about it?”

* * *

I spent half a week giving the situation a good thinking over before I got around to calling Talynn. Normally I wouldn’t give a rat-shit about anybody, but something bout her story made me want to be helpful like. Maybe it was because I felt responsible on account of I killed her beastie. Maybe it was because she’d really been raped and brutalized while I was going round lying about it. Maybe I was just randy for her, I don’t fuckin’ know.

Anyway, I’d come up with this plan, right? If Talynn had this demon living in her head that might end up on a killer rampage unless it had somewhere to focus its hate, I was gonna give it something to focus on. A bit of tough love is what she needed, I figure.

I rang her up, half expecting her to back out of the arrangement we had, due to I would have been dead if she’d won. She sounded downtrodden still, but also seemed eager for a bit of distraction and self-destruction.

I had her show up at the shit-hole warehouse that served as the home-base for Sonnie’s Predators. A good half the team lived there, but I threw them a few quid and told them to find someplace else to be for the night.

Khanivore was in her pod at the far side of the big room. She wasn’t terribly visible, since I’d turned out all the lights except for the big one over the training ring that clicks on with a big, dramatic snap. The circle we had laid out in the middle was roughly the size of a fight-pit, and used primarily for training and testing. Could still get a whiff of old rabbit’s blood if you was paying attention. Outside the ring was a few bits of machinery, but mostly some big crates filled with jugs of intravenous nutrient juice, and a few tanks of preservative fluid for when she needs her pod re-filled with fresh stuff. There was one big box with biohazard stickers all over it that had Khanivore’s excreta inside it.

I paced around a bit, half nervous, half excited. Then I hear a knock at the big metal door. I click the button that loudly rattles the huge metal warehouse door up. I see Talynn standing there; she hadn’t bothered to dress up for our ‘date’ by the look of it. She had this ragged sweater on, and even defeated as she looked, there was still a spark of fire in her eyes. She stepped inside and I clicked the door motors to put the door closed again.

“Welcome to the HQ.” I said with a flourish of my arms that was maybe I bit more smug than it had to be. Her eyes stayed locked on me.

“If you’re going to fuck me, just get on with it.” she said. I could tell it was Tara-Lynn speaking. The voice was little, and a bit scared. It wasn’t the big, bad beastie that lived in her head.

“I got a question for you.” she didn’t react. “When I made that deal with you. About the winner gets to have their way with the loser. Which one of you was I talking to?” ‘

Her face flashed a snarl for just a moment when she realized somebody told me about her bisected psyche. She took a few seconds to turn it over in her mind, “What’s it matter?”

“Matters ‘cuz I think that big, bad Talynn made a bet, and is here expecting little Tara-Lynn to pay up since she lost. So I got a new idea.” I toss her over a pair of those old fighting gloves they used in caged MMA matches. “Double or nothing. You and me, nothing lab-grown. If I win, I get to have my way with Talynn. I ain’t got no interest in bullying a crying, little victim; but a hard bitch who carves up pedos… that’s something that’ll hold my interest.”

She looked down at the floor, worried like. Then in an instant all the worry drained away and these inferno-hot eyes shot up to meet with mine. “And if I win, you’ll submit to me?” She growled the words as she stalked forward at me with these slow, menacing panther steps. A little grin formed at the side of my mouth as I saw the beast I faced in the pit a few days ago appear in front of me in human form.

“That’s the way of it, yeah.” The night was lookin like it’d shape up to be my own private carnival of depravity.

A few rips of velco had our fighting gloves on. I popped off my shoes so I was down to just the threadbare wife-beater and my capris. Talynn had a few more layers to get down to an appropriate amount of covering. Yank wasn’t acclimated to the London chill.

It’d been a good few years since I’d been in a proper scrap using the body I was in now. Last time was in my teen years when this little twat and her friend jumped me calling me a slut and saying I’d fucked her boyfriend. Had her in a solid ground-and-pound position when the friend glassed me in the side of the head with a bottle she’d hidden in her backpack. Probably still have the scar on my cheek from it, but nowadays it’s blended in with the mess of mutilation my face has become.

Talynn steps inside the taped off area that served as our make-shift pit. She starts circling real careful the way she did in her beastie form. I wasn’t having none of that bullshit, so I charge straight in stabbing and elbow into her left tit. She tries to grab on but loses her balance.

She’s on the ground and I start putting some kicks on her. One of her lips splits open pretty good before she sinks her teeth into one of my toes with this feral little-girl growl. I can’t get it dislodged even when she starts coiling the rest of her limbs around my leg. A couple good jerks and thrashes got me off my feet crashing onto the cement. She twists around and drives her heel straight up into my cunt a couple times.

Don’t rightly know how, but somehow I grappled her around until I had her under me, face down. That hair-glue she puts in her mohawk let me get a good grip on it even though there wasn’t much to grab. I said to her that she better admit defeat or I’d bash her face right open here and now on the rock floor. She says “Eat shit” and I bash her face a couple times so as to let her know I ain’t joking. She gets angry-quiet and doesn’t say anything for a while. Too long for my liking so I collide her face with the cement once more. Finally she admits that I’d won.

I take a minute to catch my breath. This fight went quick but I had to admit that Talynn had this brutal ferality that got me good and randy. She kept glaring at me as I chained her wrists strappado style up to this overhead winch that ran on a track the length of the warehouse. I gave her enough slack that she could kneel down without her shoulders coming dislocated, but not much more than that.

I fade into the shade round the edges of the room for a minute to grab some of what I’d gathered in pre-planning. I stuck a good sharp straight razor in my pocket and picked up this novelty camera I’d gotten a few years back. It was supposed to look like one of them old nineteen hundreds ones that print out the pictures as you take them.

I clicked off a few piccies and tossed the print-outs on the floor in front of her. Her face looked venomous at me as she realized her private humiliation was gonna be saved for posterity. I hang the insta-camera from my belt and got to work with the razor. I made a real show of turning her outfit into garbage.

I take a few more images of her naked body, making sure to get some real nice close ups of the intimate bits. Then I got to examining her real close, like she was a piece of meat. I figured neither of us put any time limit on things, so I didn’t have no need to be expedient.

Talynn didn’t resist, but she wasn’t really cooperating neither. Took a solid kick in the calf-meat to get her to put her legs apart. “You’re 0 for 2, beastie.” I whisper to her as I stand behind her and run my fingers from her cunt up over her arsehole.

“Ain’t so tough without a half-tonne of claws and teeth to slip in to, yeah?” She stood still just glaring off into the distance. I got up real close behind her and yanked her arse back against my hips. Put my arm around her waist and bend forward real close, so I was talking into her ear. “Tell me what it felt like when I was ripping your guts out.” Her teeth clenched so hard, I’m surprised she didn’t crack one.

“Staying quiet, eh? Maybe you need a reminder.” I put her in a headlock just the way I did in the ring, shoulders twisted to just near popping. I press the straight edge to her chest and slide it down between her tits, just hard enough to let out some drops of ruby red, but not so deep that she’d need more than a few stitches to patch her up. Carved a ragged line almost all the way down to her cunt hair.

I hold her close as I whip out the insta-cam and flash a pic of us cheek to cheek. I see she’s got this look of sick disbelief in her eyes. The polaroid falls to the floor to stain with the drippies of blood slowly hanging out her torso.

I walk around real slow to get right in front of her. Her eyes was all fury and fear and fuck-yous. “You still with me, beastie?” I asked her. The carnal hate was my answer, it was still Talynn I was talking to. “Good, wouldn’t want you to miss anything.” I took her chin in my hand and hold up the straight-edge, “You remember the night we met? When you said about my scars that they was ‘love-letters written in flesh’ and asked if I get wet when I look at them. I’ll give you a chance to find out yourself.” I leaned in to kiss her lips real gentle, then I pulled back just far enough that I could see her eyes as I gashed one half of a Chelsea smile into the meat of her cheek. She started whimpering and her eyes filled up before angry tears started streaming down and mixing in with the blood.

I kept hold of her chin as I sliced the other cheek to match, a big red grin carved from the edges of her mouth more than halfway to her ears. I had this twinge of guilt, chopping up her face the way I was. Maybe I was going too far; then again, scars didn’t need to be permanent these days. Hell, I couldn’t go half a week without some twat telling me about a plastic surgeon that could make my face baby-smooth with the newest laser treatment. This bitch could afford it, anyway.

That was the agreement anyway, right? I won, so I get to do whatever gets my jollies. And seeing her here, helpless, crying, bleeding; fuck that gets me off. Best to keep going then.

A sort of artistry took over me, I didn’t want to randomly slice her up like some street-tough. I took my time; smooth, clean incisions all across her skin. Pretty red lines organized aesthetically across her light-tan flesh. I got caught up in myself, and all her screaming and crying turned into background noise, couldn’t even have guessed how much time had passed.

I finally came back to my senses when I took a step back to admire. I caught Talynn’s eye and slowly felt the reality that my canvas was a living person who’d been suffering the torments of Hell this whole time. Something about this felt like being in the fight pit again, yet different. Smell of blood, struggle of mortal fear, but this was quieter, meditative; almost loving in a way. I’d always been the fury and fire type, but I was beginning to see why serial killers who snatched women off the street and take them out slow did it that way. Except Talynn would be walking away tonight.

I almost forgot to take a few more pictures. She was dripping with so much blood, it brought me back to the way she walked out on fight-night. Except she wasn't full of menace any longer. She just looked… pathetic, defeated. Couldn’t let what little sliver of conscience I had left get in the way of the job I had to do. That beastie in her head needed a purpose, prey to obsess on; I was gonna make sure that was me.

“I’m… sorry.”

It came out in this little mouse voice that was so small I wasn’t sure if I’d heard anything. “You say something?” I shot back at her.

“I’m sorry!” She heaved it out through weepy sighs. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry, please just let me go. You win! You’re better than me! I’ve learned my lesson!”

I just stare at her for a good long second. “That what you think this is? I’m teaching you a lesson on account of I’m just a cunt who doesn’t like to be challenged?” She looked confused and fearful, I give her this real arrogant grin back. “Nah, it’s just the opposite, mate. I want you coming for me. See, I been winning so many times in a row now that I’m starting to lose the fear.” I get real up to her face and whisper the next bit, “I can’t have that, beastie. Fear is what gives me my edge. You gave it back to me fresh in our battle… I ain’t ready to let that go yet.”

She hung there from her wrists, heaving and wheezing and bloodied. Then all of a sudden she got grave-quiet, her head raised up to face me. Her gaze impacted me in a way that made my skin to ice. There was that babydoll grin again, “I should have known I couldn’t manipulate you. You’re just like me, aren’t you?” Her voice was rock-steady and psychopath calm, “That’s why it has to be me. I have to be the one to kill you, Sonnie.” I could tell soon as the words left her mouth that there wasn’t one molecule of bluff in them. Fuck, even like this, she had moments where she could still be absolutely terrifying; the fear elates me as the goosebumps on my skin start to smooth out.

“You want to do me in? I’ll give you a chance right here.” I toss the straight-edge to her feet amidst a pile of bloodied photo-prints and then stick the key to the cuffs into her hand. I start walking into the darkness round the edges of the warehouse, and make a show of tapping the side of my head and saying, “Case you’d forgotten, I ain’t in here.”

Wish I’d seen the look on her face, but I was busy starting up the automated protocol to shut down the Affinity link without a handler. Countdown started and I quick got into meditative pose so as I wouldn’t crack my skull open once motor control shut down. I felt that familiar sense of falling through darkness before the world faded in around me.

My pod was already opening. Khanivore’s muscles felt insane-strong. This body wasn’t fully repaired yet, but new pieces were in place. The replacement for the hand that Hellcat bit off felt like I had to concentrate real hard to get it to move; nerves grafts must not have taken full hold yet. My bone-blade tentacles had to be scrapped outright after what she did to them. Just as well, we’d been talking about an upgrade anyway. New set-up had five instead of four, and this was the first time I’d gotten to feel them. Put in more specialization, too, but they were still too fresh to really get a sense of that yet. With only the base muscle-structure implanted, my tentacular glory was blunt and unarmored. In fact, all five were still foetal soft.

Even so, I’d have to be careful. Last time I’d done this sort of thing was when Khanovire was turning Dicko and his Spetsnaz girl to mincemeat. Was the first time I’d felt what Khanivore’s body could do against human flesh; it was like a child manipulating this wet, cracking bit of playdough.

I saw Talynn in the light. She’d gotten her wristlocks undone and she had picked up the razor. She held it in two shaking hands in front of her in this defensive pose as I came into the light. She did this quick back and forth glance between the ten-centimeter hunk of metal in her hands, and the towering three-meters tall death-beast approaching her. She throws the blade to the floor with an echoing clatter and dashes fast toward the warehouse controls. Her feet slip on her own slick blood for a few steps before she can get traction, but that’s enough. I’d have laughed if I could, half a minute ago she was thinking she’d seize control of the situation, and now here she was practically shittin’ herself with mortal fear.

One powerful bound and a couple of steps puts me between Talynn and the door. A tentacle lashed out faster than even I expected and had her constricted round the waist and pulled off the floor. I take a moment, and ease off; a firm twitch and I could turn her torso into something looks like a used up tube of toothpaste.

I take my time walking her back into the light, I was going to need it for this. Khanivore didn’t have the best fine-touch pressure nerves, so I’d have to do a lot of this by sight. Talynn kept looking up at me, convinced she was about to die. I figured I best let her know my intentions. Two more tentacles coiled around her bloodied ankles and slowly pulled them apart ‘til she was about two thirds to a full split. Look on her face was distress as she realized her imminant rape, but not so much agony as to make me think I’d dislocated a leg on accident. And my grip on her waist left her enough room to breathe, though not too deeply it looked like.

I lifted her up and the last two foetal tentacles lined up ready to go inside her, each of them thicker than the fists she was using to pound and flail helplessly against me. The way she screeched when I violated my way into her arse and cunt holes made me think I’d ripped my way in. The trickle of blood from her shitter said I was right. Kept a careful eye on the depth, even blunted, my tentacles were strong enough to rip their way well into her ribcage.

Suddenly I understand why Talynn gave her beastie a cock all full of nerve endings. I wanted to feel this; the clenching and thrashing as I raped my way into her. I wished I could feel every twitch, every weeping heave from inside of her body. I wanted to milk every ounce of divine pleasure from her torment and humiliation. Too bad Khanivore wasn’t built with the pleasure nerves for that sort of thing. Tearful screams came like music one after another as I thrust in and out of her.

It was beauty, pure and simple. A naked girl, ruby droplets still gently streaming from my cold steel artistry. Her expression spoke of equal parts shame and agony. It was so gorgeous I wanted to weep right then and there from the sheer resplendence. I want her to feel this, I want her to remember this always.

A few minutes of thrusting in and out of her tiny little body; then it seemed like something in her mind broke. The crying subsided, and she just got this look on her face like she wasn’t there anymore. I got a flash in my head of what this must have looked like, felt like. A monster, towering over her, raping it’s way into her with no regard for what it was doing to her. Christ, I’d taken it too far. I was making her re-live the way those pedo fucks had treated her when she was little. Part of me felt a bit sick with what I’d done. I decide to let her go and place her gently on the floor. I climb back into the pod and the A.I. program I rigged up knew to put Khanivore back in storage and put me back in human form.

I took a quick few seconds to collect myself. A part of me wanted to apologize, say I got carried away, but then that’d negate the entirety of what I was trying to do. If I wanted that psychological tumor laser-focused on me, I’d have to make sure it thinks I’m really that heartless.

Talynn just laid there panting. Seemed like the trauma left her in a state just before catatonic. I take a few last photo print-outs for posterity and then I tell her to get up. Had to repeat it a few times before she climbed shaking up to her feet. I grab the back of her neck and guide her to the big, rattling service door. I punch the button and the big slab of corrugated sheet metal starts curling up to the ceiling.

I push her out onto the asphalt, and the polluted, icy breeze of outdoors needles its way into her open wounds and gaping nethers. She gasps and seems shook out of her thousand-yard-stare. She moves her hands like she’s ashamed of being naked out in the open. She blinks a few times before her blue eyes point in my direction. She speaks quiet at me; not threatening or boasting, just meditative calm like she was making an oath, “I’m going to kill you, Sonnie.”

I hit the door-close and the big metal wall begins to inch its way down between us.

“You’ll have your shot.” I say it with this smug look right before the door makes us lose sight of each other.

I walk off into the warehouse and tell myself I did a good thing. I got the monster in her head obsessed on me so it wasn’t gonna be hurting anybody else. A deep down part of me knows that’s just horseshit. I liked hurting her, I liked raping her; I wanted her to know that I was better than her, stronger. And if next time I face her in the fight pit, it ends up being my last time, than a broken little girl gets to have justice. And that ain’t so bad, is it?

* * *

“Everyone out.” I dismiss the team calmly. This is a sacred moment. I need to commune with the new body I’d made for Talynn. Our own body still pains us from what Sonnie did. The scars still ache and itch even after all these months. I could have them removed; two, three treatments at most. But it wouldn’t matter. The pain of knowing that Sonnie is still alive after what she did to me is worse than any of the slings and arrows that could befall my mortal flesh.

We worked tirelessly, we needed a new body, a better vessel. We were too confident last time and Sonnie destroyed us. My avenging angel was trapped without a body of her own. How could she do this to my champion, to my love??

It didn’t matter now, her new body was finally finished. It had been so crowded in here with both of us. But now my white knight would finally get to put on her new armor.

I lowered the lights to a few lumens above pure blackness. Talynn would need time for her new senses to all properly synergize with one another, and with the bioware processor; it’s best not to overwhelm the senses right away.

I press a few buttons and the Affinity Link is active. I take a deep breath as I feel the pod open. Heavy footsteps thud against the cement hard enough to rattle the walls of the building.

She’s moving slowly on all fours, this arrangement of anatomy would take some getting used to. I felt her moving toward me slowly through the darkness.

A glint in the darkness catches my eye a foot or so in front of my face, her smooth, diamond-hard teeth. I blink a few times as my eyes adjust to the darkness, and I smile as the obsidian hide of her head comes into view. I reach up to caress her neck as her other two heads slowly begin to appear in the darkness.

“Welcome back, precious.”

#talynnsedge

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