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milkovski · 2 years

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hello can I ask how you got into drawing? it's something that i want to do for a long time but I don't know where to start 😔

hello!!!! this answer is going to get nerdy as hell look away. this is also going to be a lot of long, boring story time bc I like reminiscing abt this and i like talking and im painting a story of my journey!!!! but I will also try to give like semi-useful information at the end?? It's long so under the cut:

Thinking way way back to when i was a little kid doodling, the thing that got me most into it was manga/anime (i think this is evident in my style?). I think i was prob vaguely into drawing cuz of like, Sailor Moon, but I definitely remember the moment I REALLY got into drawing was when someone introduced me to Inuyasha (*fondly thinking of grade 2 elementary school*). I got obsessed with the manga, trying to redraw my fav scenes, eventually drawing the characters (well, just Kagome for the curious heehee) from memory. I did this for years. I got into other manga/anime and eventually started emulating those styles. I think the thing that must've really spurred me on, though, was finally being online and seeing what other people were drawing and being like, I want to be able to do that.

Reading a lot of manga is a lot easier online for obvious reasons; I consumed a lot. Meanwhile I continued looking at other artists' art. I got a tablet and drew. I really got into Smackjeeves (shout-out to anyone who remembers this site) and was super impressed that people were drawing their own characters and comics. I created my own characters (with the intention of drawing a comic someday. this will never happen but to this day I still draw and think/write about ocs I created like a decade ago!)!!! Eventually I found my own style. But obviously incorporated bits and pieces of what I liked/learned from other artists into my own art (i like the way this artist draws mouths, i like the way that artists renders eyes, let me try that. etc.). I really got into various pieces of media (which I won't name gasdfgd) and was really inspired to draw a lot of fanart, and post it to tumblr.

For various reasons I won't go into because they sound annoyingly self-deprecating, I never really had a lot of artist friends. But I joined twitter and finally made a few, and it was a lot easier to talk to people and be talked to on twitter (tags are so awesome I love reading every single one!! but it's much easier to reply to comments on twitter). they had cool ocs and cool art and like, for the first time ever people were commenting on my original art (which is a great feeling) and I spent a lot of time and effort developing ocs. Continued to get into various media and draw fanart.

Over the years, inevitably there have been times when I drew almost nothing at all (school kept me busy, or I just didn't feel like it) and stagnated or got worse. And there were times that I just like improved super quickly because I was drawing so much. And I was drawing so much because I was really inspired because I was so obsessed with whatever I was into at the time (whether that be a piece of media or my own ocs) and having fun.

So I hope the thread throughout this answer is at least somewhat clear. If your question is how to start drawing it's as simple as seeing something you like, picking up a pencil and trying to draw it. if your question is what's the fastest way to improve, draw as much as you can - it helps to find something you really, really like! You'll naturally want to draw a lot, and draw the subjects in all kinds of situations, and convey your ideas. Look at other peoples' art of the subjects. If you can, maybe find a few like-minded people. I can't give good advice about to how to get really technically good (I still can’t draw bgs, or very varied features, etc. Other people have said a million better things about it: do studies, etc. etc.) but like, being into something will essentially force you to search up references and get good at drawing various things. I used to be one of those people who drew characters with hands behind their back because I couldn't draw them. Then I became determined to draw them - looked at my own hands, practiced, looked at how other people drew hands. Now they're like my favourite thing to draw! I used to only draw individual characters facing 3/4 left lol - now I draw couples, etc. from different angles (or at least, I try to) because I wanted to draw my own ocs interacting, or characters I liked interacting. I got into various pieces of live action media, which forced me to try to translate real people features into my own style so the characters would be at least slightly recognizable.

There’s that one tweet that’s like “the best way to get better at drawing is to become some kind of pervert” <- so true.

I don’t know how useful this answer will be and sorry if it’s preachy! Reiterating: just like, find something you like. Draw it. Keep finding things you like and which inspire you, and draw those too. Definitely look at other art (different forms too! you’ll notice different things you like from paintings, or movies, or digital vs traditional, or comics) and learn and be inspired. Even when you’re not actively drawing, you can be improving just by observing things. (And remember that sometimes improvement won’t be immediately evident - maybe it’s just that it’s a bit easier for you to draw something; maybe you’ve gotten faster at something; the angle of the jaws you draw is just slightly more realistic; the colours you choose are more interesting. Also note that since you’ll be seeing your own art all the time you won’t really notice even the bigger differences unless you’re looking at the most recent art vs. art from like months ago.) The other thing, which I am super guilty of not doing, is think while you draw. I’m really bad about this and then look back at something and am like damn why’d I do that (for example, I’m really bad about remembering that the thing I’m drawing is 3D, and thinking about how things act in 3D while I draw). So then the next advice is look at your own art a bit after you make it and notice the things you like and what you’d do differently for your next piece. Learn from your own art. Try your best!!! Not everything you draw will be good. Sometimes you’ll try to draw and everything will suck - whatever! like, truly, no skin off your back. try again tomorrow

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dat4l0re · 3 years

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In my world, Data reassembles and "fixes" Lore some time after Descent.

one day i'll finish the fanfic about that

(images look better when clicked)

#my drawings #datalore #data soong #lore soong #theyre on some kind of star trek #drew the bg a long time ago and wanted to use it in something #so here is a little highly imperfect something #lore star trek #data star trek #this is not necessarily a scene from my fic

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meruz · 3 years

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once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous)

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL.

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close.

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

#ask #trying this new thing where i tag people in the body of the post instead

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marauder-exe · 3 years

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Self care- p!Tommyinnit x reader

i wish i was bsfriends w tommy :’)

Word count: 1.3k

Warnings:themes of depression, nothing too deep

A/N: Taking Tommy and Wilbur requests!! u cant tell me tommy doesn’t do the classic british X’s on txts to his friends

It had been a rough stream, 8 hours sat in the same chair putting on the same happy face, it was unbelievably exhausting some days. You took of your headset and set it down after pressing ‘end stream’, you ruffled your hair and took in a deep breath, throwing a glance at the clock on your computer. 5am. You tried to throw caution to the wind, maybe it was an off day? But no, you could feel it, deep inside, another episode. You looked directly into the webcam, your face scrunching up as you take note of your appearance, your ruffled hair, your dark eye bags. It felt like hours, just staring at yourself, your famous thousand-yard stare painted across the screen. Suddenly, your phone vibrated from its place on the desk. You lethargically picked it up as the bright screen illuminated your otherwise dark room. It was Tommy.

Big T: ‘bedwars stream tmrw? : ) x’

You really didn't feel up to it in all honesty, but you didn’t want to let Tommy down like that, he loves bedwars. A sad smile made its way to your face as you drafted your text back.

Gremlin: ‘only if were on duos together : ) x’

Big T: ‘5pm? X’ You responded with a simple yeee.

You discarded your phone to the side and stood up for the first time in hours. Your bones ached as you outstretched your limbs. Pain. You walked over to your bed and sat on the edge, eyes scouring the room, even though you weren't sure what you were looking for, an escape maybe? It wasn’t even like you had anything to be upset over, great friends, successful streamer, everything was going great, but alas, depression does not give a shit. You crawled into bed, putting your phone on charge and grabbed all of your covers over your head, a long sigh making its way from your lips.

The next day/

Tommy loaded up minecraft on his computer, reading to slay game at bedwars with you. He got unusually excited when he played minecraft with you, even more excited than normal. There was something about you man, but he just couldn’t figure it out. Youd met in high school, same town and everything, and since then you were like a drug. Not a day had gone by since year 9 that you didn’t talk. He decided to drop you a message as you hadn't texted first. He asked if you were still up for bedwars. Surprisingly though, he didn’t receive a response. He waited. Just 5 minutes he said. And then 10. And then 20. Then 30. He decided to ring you just to check. Plus, he wanted to hear your voice. It rang thrice and nothing. His eyebrows drew together in confusion. You were almost always online. He tried not to overthink, but this is Tommy were talking about. Maybe you were still asleep? He wanted to believe that, but there was an itch, in his brain, that told him not to. Just to make sure, he decided to ask some of your mutual friends on the server. He clicked onto the group discord and noticed Wilbur, philza and Nikki in a vc.

“Hello Hoes and Homies alike” He bellowed when he joined the vc. Wilbur drew a confused look.

“I thought you were doing duo bed wars with (Y/N) today?” Tommy scoffed.

“Well yah, Wilburrrrr, if you let me get a word out” He joked light heartedly “No seriously though has anyone heard from her since her stream last night” They all looked confused and shook their heads. This made him even more concerned than he was. He quickly thanked them before disconnecting. His mind was running rampant. He quickly decided to throw his shoes on, you didn’t live that far, only a bus ride away on the otherside of town. He grabbed his keys and his jacket and rushed down the stairs.

“Going over to (Y/N)s for a bit” He shouted to Motherinnit as he slammed the door shut.

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

You were straing at the roof in a pit of self loathing when you heard your phone ring. Ugh. It seemed so much work to pick it up. Your hand made its way from under the mountain of covers and snatched your phonr from the side. Tommy. You felt a sting in the back of your eyes and tossed your phone on the bed, turning over and curling up in the covers. You stared at the inside of your covers for minutes on end. Your doorbell sent a sharp chime through the house as your mother went to answer it.

“Hello Tommy, what a surprise" He threw her a quickly greeted her and got straight to the point.

“Is (Y/N) in?”

“Shes upstairs I think, I havent heard from her all day though. Go on up” She stood to the side and let him pass.

You heard the entire conversation through your open window, and let out a heavy sigh, although you were secretly thanking Tommy in uour head for checking up on you. You heard his converse hit the steps as your door was threw open. Tommy immediately regretted his actions, wondering if you were asleep as he took note of the heap of covers on the bed. He let out a quiet whisper.

“(Y/N)?”

You didn’t really feel like talking, but you let out a quiet ‘yeah’. He rushed over to your side upon hearing your weak response.

“is everything alright? We were meant to be playing bedwars like an hour ago” This prompted you to pull the covers off your head and look at him. He took note of your puffy red eyes, and the dark eye bgs lying underneath. He looked around your room, empty energy drink cand and food containers littered your room. It suddenly clicked to him. You weren't doing okay. He looked back at you deeply, something about that look just caused the floodgates to open. Your eyes were glassy, as Tommy practically melted. He hated seeing you like this. Sure he had the bit of him being a big man with no emotions, but you where his weakness. “Hey, cmon don’t cry” He whispered as he opened his arms, welcoming you into a hug. In an instant you where in his arms, leaving tear stains on his TShirt. He didn’t seem to mind though. After a moment of silence, only broken by your sobs, he piped up. “How about, we forget about the stream for today, and ill go to the corner shop and get us some snacks, and marshmallows and whipped cream, and we can have those killer hot chocolates your mom makes. We can watch a bunch of movies, and ill even let you put one of those stupid facemasks on me, yeah?” This caused a laugh to pierce your sobs, which started to lighten up. You sniffled and pulled back from his hug, a huge smile making its way onto your face, the first genuine smile in a while.

“Thats my girl, that’s what I love to see” He matched your smile. You quickly threw your arms around him and pulled him into a long hug.

“Thank you Tommy” You said sincerely.

“Anything for my favourite girl” He smiled, as he pulled back from the hug. “Maybe while im gone you could try to shower?” He knew how tough some simple things where when you felt like this. You nodded smally and sat up. He leapt from the bed and smiled. “Okay, I wont be long!” And with that, he dashed out of the room.

You lay back on your bed. You werent okay, but that’s okay, because Tommyinnit is your best friend :)

#tommy #tommyinnit #tommyinit #tommyinnitt #tommyinitt #tommyinnit x reader #mcyt #mcyt imagine #mcyt x reader #smp

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callboxkat · 3 years

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Statement of Patton Sanders

Author’s note: Anon, this is probably not what you meant, but, hey! Here you go!

Summary: Statement of Patton Sanders regarding a series of accidents. Statement recorded live from subject, February 7th, 2021, by Logan Sanders—no relation—Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

(Necessary bg info: The Magnus Institute is an organization that takes and investigates statements about paranormal experiences. Jurgen Leitner is a character who collected books with supernatural powers.)

Warnings: This is a The Magnus Archives AU, so if you’ve listened to that you should know what to expect. Body horror (cut off fingers, broken neck), nondescriptive vomiting, blood mention, food mention. Child abuse, sort of. It's in a story in this story. No character death or villain characters.

Word Count: 3289

Original prompt:

Writing Masterpost!

Ao3 Link

@badthingshappenbingo

...

“Hey, we have the same glasses.”

“Yes, I suppose we do—Do you need help with the chair? Oh, you’ve got it.”

Patton and the other man sat down on opposite sides of a desk. He was a weary-looking, bespectacled man who couldn’t have been much different in age from himself, although slivers of premature gray were visible in his hair.

The man—an archivist, he’d introduced himself as—leaned forward to turn on a tape recorder. It seemed a little old-fashioned, but it certainly did fit in with the overall vibe of the place (recording on a laptop would have probably felt out of place), and Patton didn’t mind. This would be much easier than hand-writing his entire statement.

The archivist cleared his throat. “Statement of Patton Sanders regarding a series of accidents. Statement recorded live from subject, February 6th, 2021, by Logan Sanders—no relation—Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”

Patton shifted in his seat. The archivist sat across him, looking at him expectantly. The tape recorder lay innocently on the desk between them, the tape inside slowly turning with a quiet tick. They sat in the basement of the oft-mocked Magnus Institute. They were in an office, but even here the walls were lined with bookcases, stacked with boxes upon boxes, each of them, it appeared, filled to the brim with folders, or with cassette tapes. Other peoples’ statements, presumably. Patton wasn’t sure how he felt about that. His story just being one of hundreds more, maybe thousands, in those boxes.

“Do I just… start?” he asked.

The archivist adjusted his glasses. “Yes, please.”

He nodded, swallowed, and even before he’d fully decided where to begin, he spoke. The words came surprisingly easily.

“I used to work at a library in my home town, back in the US. It’s a little town in Florida, almost at the border with Georgia, pretty near the coast. I don’t… I don’t work there anymore, of course. But at the time—this was about three years ago, back in 2017—I was there most days.

“One day we got this book in the return bin. It was weird. Not one of ours. It didn’t have a title that I could see, but there was a label on the inside cover. It was a bit smudged, but the last name was Leitner. I don’t know if it belonged to them, or if that was the author… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, I guess.”

He noticed that the archivist suddenly seemed very interested in what he was saying, even leaning forward to hear.

“I was about to move the book over to the donations bin—I figured that’s what it was, you know, just a book somebody didn’t want, and decided to give to us rather than throw away, and got the wrong bin by mistake. But… I don’t know. Something about it just drew me in. I have no idea what; usually I go more for cookbooks, or crafts stuff, or um, lighter fiction. Not… that.”

He tried for a weak smile, but the archivist didn’t seem open to humor. Which Patton have once found awkward, but now it was almost a relief. He wasn’t sure how to make his story funny.

“So I took it out of the return bin, and I put it on my desk, instead. I was busy right then, but when I had a free moment, I sat down to take a look at it. It was old and worn, and like I said, there was no title. But it had this… weird feeling to it. Something off about it. I didn’t like it at all. But it was like I had to open it.

Patton sighed, glancing away. Suddenly, he felt on the edge of tears.

“And I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I opened that book.

“It was a story about a child who keeps refusing to do his chores. His mom would give him things to do, and the kid would say, ‘Yes, I’ll do them!’ but then as soon as the mom leaves, he’d drop the broom or whatever and run off to play with his toys instead. And as time goes on the mom gets more and more tired of this, because she has to do all the chores he doesn’t want to do.

“So, she takes him aside, and tells him sternly that he has to do his chores, or there would be consequences. And of course, he doesn’t listen, because he’s a kid.

“So the next day, takes him aside again, and tells him again to do his chores, and he continues not to. And it continues like that for ten days. But on the tenth day, the mom trips on the broom that the kid left in the middle of the floor, and she hurts herself. Very, um… very badly. She… breaks her neck. But she gets up off the floor, and her neck is all… it’s bent at a 90 degree angle. And there’s blood on the floor. I remember that page very vividly. Most of the book was in black ink, with some—” He made a face, “—illustrations. In the picture on that page, the blood was red.

“So, the mom… she goes to the kid, her neck all wrong, and she tells him, ‘You’re going to clean until your fingers fall off! Which… he does. She makes him clean, and clean, and clean. He has to scrub the floor, and when he finishes, she makes him start all over again, and again, and again. And, one by one, his fingers just… fall off.”

Patton was silent for a moment.

“On the last page of the book, there was a handprint. It wasn’t printed, you know, with ink. It was stuck in with a dark substance. I like to think maybe it was chocolate or something… but I doubt it. The weirdest thing about it, though, was that it had no fingers.

“When I closed that awful thing, I looked up, and it was dark outside. I’d apparently been reading for hours. I want you to understand—this wasn’t a big book. Maybe twenty pages, tops. And I’d found it near the start of my shift. I have no idea where all that time went, or how I didn’t notice it passing. Or why no one came in to disturb me. It’s like no one came to the library that entire day. I lived in a small town, like I said, but it wasn’t that small. We usually had people trickling in and out, even on slow days. Retired people who needed something to do, school kids doing homework, you know. You have a library here, you should understand, even if yours is more, uh… specific. So, it was really strange that no one had come in at all.

“Anyway, it was a horrible, horrible book. It was like someone set out to write a kids’ book about why they should do their chores, but instead of that, it was this nightmare version. I really didn’t want to add it to our library. Where would you even put a book like that? So I didn’t put it in the donation pile like I’d planned. But I also didn’t seem… able to just, like, get rid of it. I couldn’t just throw it away. Not because it was old and weird and maybe worth some money, no, more like… I don’t know. I just couldn’t do it. It’s hard to explain. So I put it in my desk, went home, and tried to forget about it.

“I’ll admit that, at the time, my apartment—my flat, you call ‘em here—wasn’t the cleanest back then. And thinking of that book, I kind of wanted to clean it. But also… I really didn’t. Thinking of that book made me very aware of the mess, but I kept thinking of that kid and the way his fingers just fell off, one by one, with that horrifying mom with her broken neck just watching, and then that handprint in the back of the book.

“I thought maybe whoever owned the book last, that Leitner person or whoever, put the handprint in there as some kind of joke. Just tilted up their fingers so they didn’t touch the page, to make it look like they didn’t have any. But I guess I kinda doubted that, even then.

“I made dinner that night, fed Jim and Pam—they’re my cats—and I left the plates in the sink to clean the next day.

“In the morning, they were stacked on the counter, perfectly clean. I tried to tell myself maybe I’d cleaned them and forgot, or maybe the cats had…. Somehow bumped them, and licked them clean, and it had just coincidentally looked purposeful. I don’t know. Pam liked to jump up on tables.

“I’d almost put it out of my head when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting any visitors, but sometimes a couple of my friends would drop by at random, so I might not have thought much of it, except that my cats suddenly started acting different. Scared. They were hissing, and they ran off to hide. That wasn’t like them at all. …I didn’t answer the door.

“A half hour or so passed, and I figured whoever it was was probably gone, so I went to peek out the front window. Sure enough, whoever it was… if there ever even was anyone out there… was gone. But there was a box sitting on the welcome mat. Plain cardboard, no shipping label or address or anything.

“I should have left it alone. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything, but… who knows.” He let out a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t leave it alone. I looked around, I wanted to make sure no one was there. No one was, as far as I could tell, so I opened the door.

“The box was small, maybe 6 inches long, a little less tall and wide than that—err, I’m not sure what that is in metric. Maybe like… 15 centimeters?”

The archivist waved him off. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry. So the box was small, and it was very light when I picked it up, which was honestly a bit of a relief at the time. I could practically hear one of my friends, Virgil, screaming at me about mail bombs. He’s a pretty cautious guy. Now I think maybe he had the right idea.

“I thought maybe the box was empty, even, until I stepped over the threshold and… and I uh, felt something rolling around in there.”

He shuddered at the memory.

“I brought it into the kitchen and opened up the box. Inside was… inside was a single, human finger, cut off just below where the joint would have been on the person’s hand.

“I felt sick. I was sick. I barely made it to the trash can. I remember my cats still didn’t come back to see what was going on, which was unusual for them. Normally they were very nosy little guys. It was like they knew something was very, very wrong. I don’t blame them for staying away.

“I called the cops right away, of course. Or, as soon as I’d calmed down enough to dial the number. I mean, course I did. Someone had dropped off a finger at my door.

“The lady on the phone was very nice, but I don’t think she believed me at first. Or maybe she just couldn’t understand what I was saying. I was a little upset, obviously. Eventually, though, the police did show up. They took the box, asked me some questions, and they left.

“That night, I was in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes, trying to forget the whole thing. I was almost done, but then, somehow… the garbage disposal turned itself on. Something wrong with the wiring, they told maybe. I was so surprised that I dropped the plate I was holding, and the stack of dishes shifted, and somehow, my hand ended up… my finger went down the drain. Into the garbage disposal. It all happened so fast. One second I was just washing a plate, humming the intro to Steven Universe, and the next….

“I scrambled to turn it off, but it was too late. I grabbed a dish towel and drove myself to the hospital in a panic. Only remembered later to send someone to look after the cats.

“They couldn’t save my finger, even if they had tried. There wasn’t anything left to save.

“A week later, I got another package. Left at my door, just like the last one. Identical to the first, but this time it was a different finger. Maybe from the same hand, but it wasn’t like I looked at it long enough to know for sure. And I’m not a doctor. I called the cops again, and they came. They weren’t much help. They poked around a bit, talked to the neighbors, and told me to get a security camera. I did do that.

“I was very careful that day, remembering what had happened last time, even though I knew it was ridiculous. What, some crazy person leaves a severed finger on my doorstep, and that somehow makes me lose my own in a freak accident? …But I was careful, anyway. And nothing happened that day. But the next morning, when I went to go to work… I slammed the car door shut on my finger.

“It kept happening. The same plain cardboard boxes left at my door. The camera always seemed to cut out when they were delivered, although once I swear I caught a glimpse of a silhouette. It looked… wrong, though. Maybe it was a tree casting a shadow or something. No one’s head looks like that.

“I stopped calling the police, eventually. They didn’t help. Just asked the same questions, swore they were doing all they could, and left. I stopped opening the boxes, too. I tried throwing them out, burning them, kicking them into the gutter. I went to stay with my friend Virgil, but the box found me there, too. I moved twice. It didn’t seem to matter. Every week, a box would show up, and within a day or two, even if I never even opened my front door or looked at the box, I’d lose another finger. Until….”

Patton looked down at his lap, where his hands sat. Where each finger should be, they instead ended in neat little stubs just after the knuckle. They were remarkably even, considering that he’d lost each one in different ways, in different weeks. One after the other.

“After that, it finally stopped. My hands healed as much as they ever would, and I went back to work—I still don’t know how I kept that job—and I found that book in my desk. I tried to throw it out, but I couldn’t make myself let go of it. I tried to feed it to the paper shredder, but I couldn’t make myself rip out the pages. Eventually I just threw it across the room, and it landed neatly in the pile of donated books. Apparently, it would have let me just… add it to the collection. But I couldn’t let other people read it—What if the same thing happened to them? So I took it home with me.

“I did try to get rid of it on the way there. I stopped by the river, a dumpster… I tried to set it on fire. Imagine trying to get a lighter to work like this. I couldn’t follow through with any of them, though, and not just because of my hands. The book wouldn’t let me. Or I wouldn’t let myself. I don’t know which it was, really. Maybe I was afraid something worse would happen if I managed to destroy it. I don’t know.

“I locked it away. Buried it where I couldn’t see it. Still, it was like it was calling to me, telling it to hold it, to read it, to place my own hand over that awful handprint. It was driving me crazy. The cats wouldn’t go near the room it was in.

“I tried to ignore it. To forget about it. For a while, I thought it was working. I was still constantly aware of where it was, but it got easier to ignore.

“Then, one day, the doorbell rang. It was another box. Inside was a single, severed toe.”

A silence stretched between them, yawning between Patton and the archivist. The tape recorder ticked on. A tear rolled down Patton’s cheek. When he continued, his voice was choked.

“I will never forgive myself for what I did next, but I couldn’t go through that again. Please don’t judge me. I know it’s unforgiveable. But you can’t understand what it was like, not if you’ve never been through something like that. I knew it was the book by now, that was doing this to me, and I had to be rid of it. I still couldn’t destroy it, but I could… give it away. So I went and I got the book, and I wrapped it up as best I could, and I wrote ‘DO NOT READ’ on the package in capital letters. And I gave it away. I don’t know who I gave it to, and I don’t want to know. I drove across town, stopped at a random house, and stuffed the book in their mailbox. I can only hope they never read it.”

Patton let out a shaky breath. “It worked.”

The archivist’s face was impassive.

“After that was all finally over, I decided I needed to get out of there. Not just out of the town, but as far as I could get. I had family in the UK, and one of my friends studied abroad here and loved it, plus you guys speak English, so it seemed like as good a place to go as any. So I moved. Nothing else has happened since. I don’t have any fingers, but at least I have all my toes, and I’m rid of that awful book. I’ve tried to forget the whole thing, which as you might imagine, is a little difficult, but I try. Still, when one of my coworkers mentioned this place—I work at a shop now, restocking at night, so I don’t have to see the customers—I decided to come. I just want to be rid of this story. So… if you guys can track down that book, stop it from hurting anyone else, please do.” He clenched his hands, as well as he could. “I don’t want its weight on my mind anymore. It’s done enough to me.”

He fell silent.

“Statement ends,” said Logan. The archivist leaned forward and turned off the tape recorder. “Thank you for coming in. You can leave the way you came. Roman, my assistant, will take down your details. We might contact you if we need further information. Do you, by chance, remember the address of the house where you left the book?”

Patton shook his head. “No, I… I didn’t want to know.”

Logan nodded slowly. “Alright. Well… we appreciate your time.”

“I hope my statement… ah, comes in handy,” Patton joked weakly. He almost smiled at the gobsmacked look on the archivist’s face, the most emotion he’d shown the entire time Patton had been there. And then, he got up, and he left his story behind. He’d given it away to someone else, and he was done with it.

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purplesurveys · 3 years

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1183

survey by xflirtykaosx

Alphabetti Spaghetti (1/3)

And we will fall in love with shooting stars. - A

Have you ever seen an Aardvark? I don’t think so.

Were you ever abandoned in a public place as a child? Where? Abandoned is a pretty harsh word lol. My parents did like playing pranks on me and hide whenever I’d get distracted at the grocery or department store. They’d let me get nervous or even tear up for a bit until showing up again.

What accent do you have? I guess just your standard Filipino English accent that’s common among people who were able to take up English studies. I don’t really know how to describe it.

Is there someone in your family addicted to something? What is it? I don’t think so.

Have you ever been under general anaesthetic? What were you having done? I think so? When I had a tooth extraction done on me two years ago I was told I was going to be injected with anaesthesia, but I didn’t feel as if anything changed throughout the procedure. Either my dentist told me fake news lol or he’s just really good at his job for me to not notice anything.

How do you show the ones you love affection? It depends on the person. Around my friends, I know I’ve had taken a liking to them once I start getting especially talkative with them. For people I have even deeper relationships with, I like...buying them gifts, I guess. Getting them things that remind me of them. I would also bend over backwards to do nice deeds for them, like driving them to their destination even if I find it far.

Are you more passive or aggressive? I tend to be very passive aggressive in the way I deal with things.

Do you like the band Aha!? Not in particular.

Do you know anyone called Aidan? What are they like? Nope.

Ever heard of the band Ajax? No but I know that’s a brand of like cleaner or something. That’s close enough to ‘band’ haha.

Do you know anyone called Akash? I don’t either.

Do the sound of fire alarms scare you? They would obviously be scary if it rang for a real reason. Who wouldn’t freak out over a fire?

Do you live in America? If so, which state? If visited, where'd you go? No, and I’ve never visited either. I’d love to take a trip to cities like New York, New Orleans, Portland, and Chicago one of these days.

Have you ever had an ant infestation in your house? Only when there’s food left out accidentally.

Aora - did I spell that correctly? I don’t even know what you’re referring to, so I can’t tell you if you’ve spelled whatever it is right.

Do you have a preference in Apple? What type do you prefer? I don’t quite get this question - like a preference within Apple products? I mean, a phone and a laptop are essentials for me, and generally I do prefer having an iPhone and Macbook over other brands; but I can live without an iPad, an Apple Watch, iMac, Apple Pen, etc...if this is what you mean.

Are you an Aquarian? Is anyone in your family/your partner/best friend? ...You mean Aquarius? No. I don’t believe in astrology nor pay attention to zodiac signs either, so I wouldn’t be able to name Aquariuses that I know right off the bat.

Have you ever worn any type of armor? Which type? I don’t think I’ve ever had to, no.

Do you use the word ass a lot? Kinda, but it’s usually part of a longer word, i.e. asshole, asshat, deadass, etc.

Have you or your family had an attorney? What for? Not to my knowledge.

Is your car/family’s car an automatic gear or manual? Automatic.

Are you interested in aviation, piloting and aircrafts? Just the slightest bit. I would love to learn how to fly a plane, and I would be willing to pay for lessons. It’s just the type of activity that’s super hard to squeeze into an already-hectic schedule of mine.

What was the last award you recieved for? A academic distinction in college.

Axl Rose - like or dislike? Like, but I’m nowhere near a passionate fan. I just don’t have any reasons to actively dislike him.

Do you like air being spelt ayre or ayer in rap or hiphop or is it nasty? I don’t care.

Is the sky outside Azure? If not, what shade is it? No, it’s pitch black.

Belle amour (we've been here before). - B

Do you call anyone baby? Is it sweet or an overrated name for affection? Just my dogs. I find it sweet; it’s my preferred term of endearment if in a relationship.

Bby - does this shortened version bug you? No; my friends and I use this with each other.

Do you know what BC in terms of time stands for? Before Christ, but I prefer using BCE.

BDf - For or against? I don’t know what this is referring to.

Do you prefer beach breaks, city breaks or winter breaks? Why? Beach breaks. Winter break is an immediate cross-out since we don’t even have winter; and I already live and work in an urban area as it is. Beaches are my way to go if I want to escape life for a bit and completely unwind.

Do you spell out boyfriend properly or put bf in texts/online? I can use either depending on what I feel like typing out. It’s not that serious haha.

Do you know what bg is short for? Upon reading this question I immediately thought ‘background,’ but if this question had another meaning in mind I wouldn’t be aware of it.

Do you know anyone with the last name Bhays? No.

Have you ever been bird watching? What did you see? No, doesn’t sound like my kind of hobby.

Do you like Bjork? Not in particular, but just like the Axl Rose question I don’t have anything against her either.

What does this read: bk 2moz miss u lyk fk. Doesn't this text speak annoy? No one types like this anymore at least among people I know, but I imagine it would lowkey bother me a bit.

Do you like BMWs? They’re whatever. I don’t pay attention to cars much.

What is the nearest book to you called? How many times have you read it? There aren’t any books here up on the rooftop.

BnQ - gone there? What did you buy? Idk what that is.

Are you more brainy or brave? I wanna say brainy, if anything? I’m pretty jumpy lol.

Did you like the BSBs (Backstreet Boys) as a kid? How about now? No, I’m a little too young for that generation of artists and groups.

Burgers, Hot Dogs or Salads at a Barbecue? We don’t really practice ~barbecues~ here. But at Filipino parties I would usually flock to lumpia and fried chicken, hehe.

Do you have a Byro? No, because I also don’t know what that is.

Cold eyes and filthy lies all leave me petrified. - C

Do you have a Cactus (Cacti)? No, I don’t like plans.

Do you know what a CCTV is? Yes...?

How many CDs are in the room you are currently in? None where I am right now but I have all of Beyoncé’s albums save for Lemonade in my bedroom. I also have Paramore’s self-titled album and Hayley Williams’ Petals For Armor. My CD collection is about to experience a revival because of BTS, though. My plan to get all versions of all their albums is rock solid, lmao.

What's your favourite cereal brand? Cookie Crisps.

Do you like children's TV shows still? Which one(s)? I’ll revisit an episode or two of shows I watched as a kid at a given time for old times’ sake, but I don’t regularly watch children’s TV shows anymore. I haven’t for a very long time.

Cinnamon - Yum or Yuck? I’m actually kind of in the middle about it. I feel like too many desserts have been banking on cinnamon, so the taste of it can be a little tiring. It’s delicious if I haven’t had it for a while, though.

Do you know anyone with the initials and or name CJ? Quite the opposite; I know PLENTY of JCs, even my sister is one. I know one or two CJs but that’s it.

Have you ever met a self professed clairvoyant? What did they do/say? No.

Do you watch CNN News? What's your prefered news channel/show? I don’t tune into the channel but every once in a while I will encounter a CNN link on social media that I’d actually click on and read through. As for preferred news sources, I don’t have one as there are matters to criticize about 99% of them lol; but I am most likely to trust articles I from AP or Reuters. Just things you pick up as a journalism student.

How many cousins do you have? I have 9 first cousins. I lose count by the time I try to go beyond that since I don’t even know all of my dad’s cousins, which makes it hard to track who my second cousins are.

Do you still draw with crayons? When was the last time you did? Drew what? I don’t remember anymore.

Do you know what a CSS feed is? What is it? I’m familiar with the term but never bothered to learn about what it is.

Do you like cycling/biking? What type of bike do you have? ...I don’t even know how to ride a bike.

Do you really like it, is it is it wicked. - D

What is the most dangerous animal you've petted/held? I can’t decide between snake or crocodile.

Do you like Death Metal? If so, which band(s)? I wouldn’t say I do.

Did you ever keep a diary/journal? I did a million attempts to keep a diary when I was younger, but I was never able to keep up with any of them and I ended up having 4598358395 notebooks with one or two entries each at most. Having a Tumblr page for surveys has so far been my most successful streak at keeping some type of journal.

Do you prefer small, medium, large or no dogs? I prefer all dogs.

Do you know what DP stands for in porn? Yes.

Have you ever dressed up as a celebrity for a party/Halloween? I went as my favorite female wrestler once. I wouldn’t strictly call her a celebrity, but she’s a very well-known personality in the wrestling industry so she’s popular in that right.

DS or Wii? Why? Wii. I was able to make more memories with it.

Does dust make you sneeze or cough? Sneeze, usually.

How many DVDs do you have all together? Idk, I don’t buy DVDs anymore.

Do you dye your hair regularly, sometimes or never? I’ve never done it.

Every love lies sometimes . . . - E

What's something you refuse to eat? Most fruits.

Don't you think the word ebb is so pretty? I’m neutral about it. I don’t use it a lot.

Do you like Chocolate Eclairs? I love eclairs in general haha. Chocolate eclairs in particular sound delicious.

Ever tried edible paper? Yeah, with the White Rabbit candy.

Eevee - pretty name or too Pokemon-y? Definitely very Pokemon-y.

Do you sometimes mix up the spellings/meanings of affection and defection? Erm, no? They have completely different spellings and meanings, so I personally have never switched them up.

Do you have a big ego, low self esteem or somewhere in between? I think I’m somewhere in between. I’m insecure about some things about myself, but I don’t really put myself down 24/7. I feel like that would put such a strain on my mental health, which I certainly would never need.

What Element does your starsign fall under? I think earth? My co-workers were just discussing this last Friday, but I couldn’t really butt in since I can’t bring myself to care about astrology. I know they mentioned Taurus being an earth sign though.

Do you show your emotions easily and freely or hide them? Depends...I can do either depending on the situation.

What is your favourite form of entertainment? Korean reality shows are quickly becoming a favorite of mine at the moment. I also like compilation videos on YouTube.

What will they write on your epitaph? I’ve honestly hadn’t put much thought into this yet, and I don’t plan to anytime soon. It just seems like a super grave thing to think about lol.

Estimate/guess what number we are on now? Maybe 60s or 70s?

Do you know basic social etiquette? I mean etiquette will always differ per country or culture, so what is basic in other countries might not be here, and vice versa. I think it’s hard to measure.

Does your country use the Euro, Great British Pound, Dollar or other? Other.

Do you still get excited on Christmas Eve? Yes. Mostly for the free food and the opportunity to see relatives I really only ever see every December 24.

What animal/creature that is extinct do you wish wasn't? Those that went extinct from human activity.

What colour eyes do your parents have? Black/dark brown.

#survey #surveys

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erin-epica · 4 years

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Woop-de-doo, it's Lord Scarlet stuff part 2

This was a post I planned on making WAY sooner, but I accidentally lost the original draft so I didn't even bother to try doing it gain until recently. And just now something happened that changed everything; and I mean what both DID and DIDN'T automatically give me the right to post this. I almost deleted my first post at that, and here's why:

In the first post, I mentioned that when I initially found out Vic was lying to me, I was quiet about it and just stopped talking to her out of fear, and then when I asked for help on what to do I was told to leave without a word. I don't think that was entirely the right thing to do in the long run, because it may have been the easiest way out but I'm better off with proper closure.

And the thoughts she left me scarred with never left my head. Time and time again, I'd find myself crying myself to sleep again at the thought of Brock forced to hide romantic feelings for Master Frown and not know who he was anymore while Frown was left unaware and in love with someone else, even if it wasn't Lord Scarlet.

And the pain sometimes came with a want to confront Vic one last time and open up to her about how I wasn't blind anymore, and how much she really hurt me. But I, again, wass scared she wouldn't care and would cut me off.

So when the pain got worse, I did what any coward would do: tell everyone else about my pain.

Now I DID tell friends of mine other than the Unikitty Amino staff about what happened, and they were all sympathetic and understanding about it. But then I told almost everyone, and then made my vent post on here (as well as Wattpad). As much as I wouldn't want to call them call out posts, they might as well have been. I didn't want people to harass Vic and make her mad...but at the same time I kinda did. I was too scared to face her that I was hoping that someone would do it for me. I even tagged accounts of Vic's. Not cool of me at all.

Now the Tumblr and Wattpad posts got me pretty much more of the same: sympathy, and acceptance that I had moved on. No one came after Vic but we could still agree that none of her actions were justified (I even got @careeningle's attention...sorry about the aneurysm)

Now comes the next important thing that happened, because I mentioned @friffinx kinda being responsible for me getting back to the Lord Scarlet Amino to write the message that I did. In it, I said that after I sent the message I did I would leave the Amino again & for good.

Well...I lied. I still checked in every day for the same reason I started venting: I kinda wanted Vic to see my message. Even if she'd ban me, I wanted to see if she'd ever notice my message. And that would've been the end of it if it wasn't for Brook.

I briefly mentioned Brook in the last post. She was another OC of Vic's, and was exactly to Brock what Lord Scarlet was to Master Frown; a carbon copy love interest. Except Lord Scarlet was far more developed and drawn & written about more. Brook didn't even really have a distinct personality, she was a girl Brock and that was it. But with reptilian overlord eyes. (To be fair, Vic drew Brock like that sometimes too)

(I didn't include Vic's art unless it was in chat bgs or whatever in the last post, but for the sake of referencing/proving a point, this is what Brook looks like)

No one really paid attention to her for the longest time. She was there in the fanfics because according to Vic, "Scarlet needed a friend." And like I said in the first post, Brook wasn't said to be canon so I never found a reason to really care for her. Plus I can only recall someone giving Vic fanart with her, and it was with Scarlet (@plastic-papercuts made it, go follow her she's gr8).

But then one day, for some reason, something in me clicked. I actually thought of a story idea for her. Somehow this bland cutout of a character had potential in my eyes, and I weirdly started liking her because of it. She suddenly felt...more real. I got pretty invested in my idea and newfound interpretation of Brook, and describing it would make this post way longer than it is so if anyone asks about it, I'll probably make a whole other post about it.

Anyway, I came up with a little plan: draw out this idea in the form of a comic and post it to the Lord Scarlet Amino. And see if Vic gets suspicious and checks out my profile and then maybe bans me. It felt a bit better than total silence and she'd probably see that someone gave a crap about Brook after all.

So I started a new chat called "It's Brook" to share my progress with the other members of the Amino, which there weren't too many of but we had fun in it. It was basically me, @friffinx , @soapycocacola, @plastic-papercuts, and a few others who aren't on Tumblr (or at least don't think are) chatting about how awful Vic was and calling out her lazy art tactics like tracing and using assets/clips right from the show. And of course me sharing the comic progress I was making. Again, this doesn't make anything we did right but it felt good getting everything off our chests. We were like a secret rebellion against an absentee dictator. One time Vic came online as we were chatting and even viewed my profile, but nothing happened. And it stayed that way until I opened Amino up one morning. For those of you who don't have it, the menu shows all the communities you're in when you open the app, and all of mine were there except for the Lord Scarlet Amino. I assumed I must've been banned overnight. But I wasn't banned from Vic's other Amino so I commented on her wall on that one. For Vic's sake, I won't show how the conversation went (and I'll explain why at the end) but here's how it went:

Me: Did you ban me from the LS Amino?

Her: There was drama in one of the chat rooms and I'm not having it. I didn't want to do it and it's not a big deal It's just an amino and you're still on this one AM I RIGHT?

Me: Yes, but I assume you read my updated bio. As I hoped you would.

Her: Nope.

Me: Oh. But you know what? Ban me from here too for all I care, I feel like you deserve to know why I left and came back: *insert me finally telling her how I know she lied, that she hurt me, and what I did was wrong here*

Her: Lol ok be that person but keep in mind that I'm one of those people that doesn't gibe a fuck lol

And then she banned me from that Amino too before I could type and submit a fitting farewell reply.

At least I finally got all the built-up emotional pain out of me, but it did help me realize something important: we never really were friends. I wanted more of her content despite all her red flags as a person so I tried enduring them, thinking it'd be worth it, and she only kinda cared about me when I was being a yes man. She never kept any promises and didn't respect me the same way I did her. So I could at least feel confident knowing she most likely didn't care at all when I first left.

@friffinx and the others didn't get banned, though, and Friff even started another chat on the LS Amino called "It's Brook 2" where they talked more about Vic being a terrible person. And it didn't take long for her to shut that chat down too and ban everyone from it that time. Friff sent me screenshots of what happened next (which again, I'm not gonna show), where Vic basically had a meltdown. She changed her username to "Little Miss Guillotine", and made a post about her being "finished with the bushit". In it, she announced that she didn't even like Unikitty! anymore but was still gonna keep/use Lord Scarlet because she wanted to. The part that made my blood almost boil wasn't her views on the show, she's free to have her opinion and I couldn't care less about it. What DID was that she acknowledged that she lied the whole time because "she didn't care anymore" and said that it was "our faults for believing it in the first place" and that "we needed to grow up"/"stop brining it up"

Ooooh boy, victim blaming, my favortie...

Since then she changed the Lord Scarlet Amino's theme to make it about The Penguins of Madagacar (again, fine with me). Either way she was still a narcissist and I thought she'd, sadly, likely never change. And my friends and I all thought that was the end of it.

Until a few hours ago...

I was browsing the Unikitty Amino and saw a new member named BlueCat. Didn't think anything else of it until the user PMed me. And this is what happened:

I didn't know what to think other than "I thought this day would never come", I was that shaken. This was so left field-ish that what else could I do but believe her? It didn't even seem suspicious or like she was trying to be a suck up, that wasn't Vic at all.

But the one thing I knew I had to do was ban her because even if she meant well and did it for the right(?) reasons, but I still asked if I should in the staff chat. @girly-glorious (also amazing so pls check her out :D) told me that yes, it was ban evasion so since I'm a leader too now I could to it on my own. But I knew I had to message Vic first and Girly told me to be careful, so this is what I sent:

And then I banned her, the end (not really)

Now I don't understand how or why this sudden behavior change happened but I don't know if I should question it in case it's personal. But again, I at least want to believe that she's really being genuine and had a change of heart because never in a million years could I imagine her being this mature. Again, she didn't demand that I forgive me or probably even expect me to. But the message still does leave me feeling sorry for her.

Now I thought that was the real end of it until I see the Penguins of Madagascar/old Lord Scarlet Amino on my sideboard.

She unbanned me.

Now I don't know where we'll go from here, if anywhere. I'm not too sure if I can really let my guard down around someone who hurt me so badly just in case she does it again. So I may not talk to her again, but if she really asks something from me, I might try and build up courage to ask her more about how she came to apologizing to me. Plus she followed me on Wattpad too.

But this is why I didn't show our conversation right before my ban or her "f.u." posts. Because I don't want people seeing more of Vic's past behavior and possibly embarrassing her about it if she ever sees this. But that's kinda why I felt like it was 100% necessary to finally make a sequel post in the end; I'm hoping people at least acknowledge Vic has changed and don't keep thinking about based on what I shared out of attempts to gain sympathy like a crybaby.

So before I go: PLEASE, DON'T GO AFTER OR HARASS VIC. I KNOW YOU PROBABLY WON'T, BUT THIS IS SERIOUS. ALL THE PROBLEMATIC LORD SCARLET DRAMA IS STUFF OF THE PAST AND NEITHER OF US WANT TO KEEP LOOKING BACK ON IT.

I hope this helps whoever's reading as much as it did me.

#unikitty #unikitty!#master frown #brock #lord Scarlet #brook #vic #vicslayer #scream queen savage #Victoria #update #amino

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aharris00britney · 4 years

Photo

ASKS 19

It’s 6am and Brandon woke me up when he got up to go to work so now... i answer asks bc i cant sleep.

@mileyzangel said: Can you please make a Harley Quinn hairstyle from both Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey?

I went and watched Birds of Prey the other night and it was really good. Brandon went to sleep I think tfgvhb. But I doubt I’ll try doing her hair from either of the films. @enriques4 is working on one for her Birds of Prey look if you are interested in that <3

Anonymous said: is tiny living worth it? im leaning towards the gameplay although i love cas. is the gameplay as bad as people say?

I honestly don’t think the new beds do anything. They’re... there. Lmao I think the CAS and buy items are very nice. If we get some cc murphy beds then that would make them a lot more usable tbh.

Anonymous said: how do you and ayoshi keep making some fantastic collabs?? y'all are literally the first people i go to when I make a fresh install and I can't wait to see what you do next

Anonymous said: AxA CC KINGS!!!

Anonymous said: you guys didnt have to snap like that on AxA

Anonymous said: I LOVE EVERY SINGLE PACK U AND AYOSHI DO PLEASE KEEP MAKING MORE

Anonymous said: another iconic ah00b x ayoshi collab YAS LESSGOOOO

We put a bunch of cc ideas (hair and clothes) in a discord server we have together and then work on the stuff together on call usually so each item is the way we both want me. Like for example i’ll be meshing the Ivy top while he works on texturing the ribbed version. We also only do collabs when they happen, we didn’t plan AxA 2019 or this new set, mainly just made cc starting in May and wrapped it up in July to release in August. Then this time we started making stuff late December and got most of it done by the time I got done with my break. Having a planned collab/deadline makes stuff less stressful and the stuff usually turns out better imo

Anonymous said: hi! ur sims are so prettyyyy what skin texture and eyes do u use?

Anonymous said: hi! wcif the eyes of the sim in the edit that Dogsill edited for you please? thank you!

Anonymous said: Hi! I really love the way your sims looks so, I was what skin and eyes you use?

I actually am changing my default eyes so I need to update my resource page soon ;n; but the skins they use are all listed for each sim on the resource page here

Anonymous said: you always name axa packs by the year but this one was named after a season those that mean.... 👀

We are wanting to do something in the fall, just not sure how our lives will be then ya know? There’s a chance that this will be the AxA 2020. Since we weren’t sure I didn’t want to label it that if 2 AxA’s release this year lmao

Anonymous said: what game is the pokemon thing you're playing!? pls help a guy out i'm in love with the art style

Pokemon Sword and Shield (I have shield) for Nintendo Switch. I’ll prob post more pics once I get some new shinies :P

@kristabunny said: lol is it bad that when I saw your Santana hair I read it as Satan Hair XD

tbhhhhh it was lowkey referencing that lmao. I made the hair in October for a speed meshing video and since it was around Halloween I was like “lemme give her an almost demonic name” also Santana from glee is a queen

Anonymous said: Tbh I absolutely adore your female cc but I LIVE for your male cc!!!

Thank you! lmao the only thing I can take full credit for is the AxA male hairs. I mesh the clothes for packs but ayoshi does the texturing for them.

Anonymous said: Could you have a go at the updo Dua Lipa has on the cover of her Future Nostalgia? The high bun with a flick in it and the strands of hair down the sides. Thanks if so :)

I’m not the biggest fan of the hairstyle tbh ;n; but we will see. (Physical is a serve, just saying)

Anonymous said: So ive never played pokemon before until my friend gave me a copy of pokemon moon. I love cats so of course my starter was a litten, but i had no clue about evolutions or anything like that. I was heartbroken when my cute litten turned into some big man cat :(

omg noooo ;n; yeah Litten is a cutie... incineroar is... well I got used to him tbh and kind of like him now? I absolutely hate scorbunny’s evolution (and most of the SWSH starters final evolution) so I think that made incineroar slightly better in my eyes. My shiny litten will be staying a kitten however :)

@multifandom-slytherin said: Hello! I love your cc! Would it be possible for you to make the bangs from your Bree Hair a separate accessory that you can put with other hairs (for example the BG low ponytail)? Thank you so much!

Anonymous said: have u considered making or allowing someone to make an acc version of your handmade bangs?

I have thought of doing accessory bangs tbh, I just like... don’t like using accessory bangs myself. So I’m not sure if I’ll end up doing it. I might try it for myself and see how many hairs they work with, and if it is a decent amount I’ll release.

Anonymous said: First off I want to say how amazing all of your hairs and collabs are! Second I was curious if you ever thought of going back to your old hairs and updating their thumbnails / display indexes so they matched your stuff now?

I really really wanted to have all my 2019 hairs updated by 2020. It was only January 2019-April 2019 that needed updated (thumbnails and display indexes). But I just lost motivation for doing it. I will focus on it next time I have a big break from school. Also planning on updating select stuff from 2018 and 2017.

Anonymous said: please put Sophia Barker in the gallery. PLEASEEEEE it's the most beautiful sim I EVER seen! >:3 PLEASEEE!!!!!!!!!!

She should be on there? I think? Make sure you have CC enabled and if you can’t find me through the gallery her tray files are here

Anonymous said: Hi! After the recent patch I started having a small issue with Bree hair(without bangs), when I zoom out it looks like a completely different hair, something similar to that one basegame hair that's layered with tips pointed outward but longer. Thought I'd let you know, maybe others have had a similar issue or maybe I need to change a setting or something. Love your work so much!

Really surprised this is the first time someone told me about this lmao. The hair should be updated now on SFS/Patreon <3

Anonymous said: I tried to look around for this on your "Asks" portion before bothering you (so sorry), but do you have a link perhaps for all the lips you use on your models? Are they in game or a cc you create? Thanks so much! Love all of your work! I'm super new to cc stuff and I found yours like 2 days ago and have been going nuts with downloads lol

like presets? None of my cc models use a lip preset. I do use this slider on some of them though. For lipsticks, that is listed for each model on my resource page <3

Anonymous said: i’ve been looking for a hair like lexi that i actually like forever and now i find it but it’s for paterson peeps and i’m like actually broke and i’m like :/

im sorry ;n; at least it wasn’t too long of a wait? :/ I hope you liked the hair

Anonymous said: I can't find your jisoo ponytails in your downloads?

they’re in my retired section... may they rest in peace. scroll to the bottom of my downloads and youll see ‘RETIRED.’ click that for the retired download page.

@eclypt-0-sims said: Hi, I recently started making MM hair and I know you're probably an expert at this but; every time I go into CAS to test a hair, all of my accessories clip with the hair. Like the hair texture would cover some glasses if my sim was wearing glasses. I don't know how to fix it, someone told me to delete an eye weight in blender but I don't really understand weight painting that much, any suggestions? love your content btw

this is a late as hell reply i’m sorry. I think that you have texture where the glasses texture would be. Hair texture should only be in hair section or hat section (if you don’t want it hat compatible). Here is a UV map layout that I use for making hair textures. It shouldnt have anything to do with weights

Anonymous said: Do you use reshade when you take previews for your cc? and also is the tropical punch ombre overlay a palette or did you make it?

I do use reshade when I take cc previews. It adds a bit of saturation to my sims and gives them some shadows under their chin/clothes. Nothing major. Also, myself and @imvikai came up with the tropical punch palette together.

@little-eris said: You probably have answered this before but who drew your tumblr icon? I’ve seen the same art style with other simmers 👉🏼👈🏼 it’s super cute!

thank you! here is their twitter

Anonymous said: The male sim in your Tiny Living review looks soo familiar; was there inspiration from anyone IRL? The person he reminds me of isn't even famous so I don't even know! He is very pretty though *-*

He was a gallery sim that I just revamped a bit so I’m honestly not super sure lmao. But he is very attractive yes I agree

that concludes this ask ceremony please collect your things and move to the exit to your left. fvghbjn if you sent something I didn’t answer and it was off anon I’ll get to you soon (person who asked what beards I used for AxA... I see you)

#asks #not me spending an hour doing this #im actually kinda tired now but do i sleep #or do i just stay up... i have class at 12 #it is 7am now

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teal-crown · 5 years

Text

Hello guys; Mitt here.

It disapoints me to have to bring this situation to the public, but I really can't let it get any worse, so I'll clear it up, once and for all. I believe only in the truth, and I can't let any more people be manipulated or hurt, and I don't want lies to be spread to people I care about. I need to get this out of my chest, so I have no reason to distort reality, since I don't have anything to hide.

I'm here to defend my friends, my art and my dignity as a game developer, as well hopefully make this person make the right decisions, since contacting him privately has proven it to be useless.

Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, I want to let you guys know that if you don't care about drama at all, feel free to ignore this one post, hopefully I won't have to address any more situations like this in the future.

However, if you are part of any game dev community, like ours, this post might make you a bit more aware, as when I was starting out, I was way too naíve. Also this post is super long, sorry for that.

We good to go?

Good.

All of this started, for me, in early 2018, so one year ago.

The user I'm going to talk about, is Rosary of the Reaper's developer, who I'll refer to as Yomi.

Now, please note that I don't have anything against his game itself, and with all of this talk, I don't want to discourage anyone to stop supporting him. Whatever conclusion you guys take out of this- don't harass any of the mentioned users. We are all adults here.

Before meeting Yomi, I had recently started this blog and soon after joined the infamous RPG Maker Horror Discord group that everyone seems to hate. I didn't think that way, and I had never really heard of whatever dramas happened before. I didn't care.

I was a newbie who just loved all of these amazing gems, pretty much like many of you reading this. I think it's something we all have in common.

So I was really excited to finally join a community of people that I admired!

All of the devs were so kind and welcoming, so I felt comfy there, and since then, I acctually made true friends with some of the devs that have helped me a bunch. I wasn't expecting it at all, but I'm still really happy because of it! Though I never relied on their friendships, I definetely rarely opened up to them since I already have a long time confident to open up to.

Either way, time passed and eventually I saw that ROTR's dev had joined the group! I was super excited since, at the time, I really admired him. I admired his games' maps, busts and all of the cool aesthetic CGs. It caught my eye, so I always looked forward to his posts.

It was to my surprise that he DM'd me one day!

Now, before I continue, I want to clarify something.

A LOT of messages that we exchange at the time, were deleted by Yomi. He deleted them quite recently, as well as his account, but the ones that I sent are still there. Not only messages he sent to me, but also to other people, and I'm acctually stunned on how much work it might have been to delete all of that stuff from a year ago, besides deleting posts from artists he used and ditched. I can't express how childish I think that move was.

That means you KNOW you did something wrong.

I can't recover any messages, because there is no way to do that in discord, but since you were so determined, I'll be determined enough to look for anything that looks coherent. I won't mentioned anything that I can't remember clearly.

But I'll let you know that I have screenshots from messages you deleted, Yomi. At the time I was nervous because of some things you said, so I asked advice to my confident, who has nothing to do with this, but has always been there to listen to me rambling. I never deleted any messages or edited them to incriminate/protect myself from the consequences of my actions. This is perhaps what makes me the most disgusted in this whole situation.

So- Yomi DM'd me on discord, at first, to ask for critiques on his game's story at the time. As a newbie like lil' Mitt, I was completely baffled! How come a much bigger dev wants critique from me?

I also thought he did everything, from all of the art to the maps, to the characters, since he never really credited his artists publicly. I was a bit disappointed to find out he didn't do all of that, but I brushed it off, since I still admired him.

I was super interested and he spoiled me a lot on his game (though I've heard the story changed a lot, but whatever, it's not the important thing here) I was imediately eager to tell him about my game too, since I was a solo dev at the time! Though I didn't do that until much later, and incompletely since there was a bit of a lack of interest on his side, at least compared to how hyped I was.

I sent him my blog and he showed interest in my skills.

That's where I noticed a bunch of messages are missing now, but I'll send the screenshots anyway.

There's messages missing when I was saying "O-of course!" and "I'd love to!" Though I can't recall what I was replying to, and sadly I didn't save the messages at the time. All of my messages are still there, and...his aren't. And I doubt these screenshots are totally complete because of it, but it's the evidence I have for this part of the story.

Oh boy, little did I know that it now really feels like a pact with the devil kek

I remember he would often refer to this as a golden pact/opportunity, and I should have seen that as a red flag language. I was naíve and didn't mind the odd comments. Sadly, I have barely any proof of this, so it's up to you to believe me or not. Though, other people do have proof of some of his odd comments, but it's up to them to release those and call him out on them.

Jokes aside, we joined forces, agreeing to help each other, but as it turns out, barely any progress on Marinette was made when I was working with him, although I managed to start testing with mapping styles and improve, and I also drew busts, sprites, CGs and other stuff for him (that was all discarded in the end. Well...almost everything.)

Currently he does use something that I did, without credit, but we'll get to it.

I did those things in such a short amout of time, and even though it started fun, it progressively started kind of sucking my energy and I felt for the first time what it was like to overwork myself.

Interestingly enough, I would act as if I was being commissioned or something, sending updates of every little thing. It was very time consuming to do that several days straight.

And did I tell him it was tiring me? I didn't have the guts to, until I left. I felt guilty if I took more than two days off because of the things he said.

I was not his partner at all, I was his spare artist, who he was happy to not have to pay.

He often made me edit his other artists' work so that he wouldn't have to pay extra for the edits! How on earth did I agree to this...?! I dunno, but I mentioned to him how uncomfortable I was with it later on.

Today, I feel manipulated and I know exactly what his reaction would be if I denied working on something.

He reffered to the things I did as "assignments". He would tell me that "maybe you're not up for the task" "Are you turning down an assignment?" if I showed myself a bit relunctant and now I realize how innapropriate those comments were...and how dumb I was to not step out sooner.

I am lucky I didn't get too emotionally attatched to him too(like others did), but it still hit my pride when he made those comments, so I kept going.

Time passed and eventually he wanted me to design characters for him. Two in fact.

The one you know today as "Mira" and also a redesign of Kamui, that he hasn't officially used yet.

And that's where I want to claim credit for my work.

Proof of Kamui, in case he uses this design.

And most importantly. Proof I designed Mira:

(fun fact, Mira was supposed to have baggy pants ahaha)

This went on for quite some time, until I got called by my parents. Keep in mind I was a minor and as such, I had to hurry. I was being yelled at, but Yomi couldn't wait.

I can't express how frustrated I was. The messages that he deleted really were rushing me and I was still finishing the background (hence why the sudden "Fffffff").

I managed to rush my way through the BG and sent it to him, and still got scolded by my parents for taking so long. That was the story with Mira's designing "adventure".

...

Now...he still uses that design.

It is in his title screen, in the game he released the other day.

The title screen that was drawn by one of his artists, who I don’t even know who is.

The same picture he holds on the blog's frontpage.

But the design...was made by little ol' Mitt.

But was I ever credited for it? No.

...

Before I dive into when I left the partership with him, let me finish talking about this Mira situation.

I did send him a message a few days ago, asking him to credit me for designing Mira at least.

It's not a big deal, right? All he has to do is write the name "Mitty" in the credits. You know what the answer was?

To which I answered:

Which I got no answer to.

I'm just...disappointed. You still used it in the title Yomi. It's out there and it's the design WE made.

If you don't want to do a thing as simple as crediting, then I ask you, right here, right now, to completely change the design, because I'm not getting a character I designed for a game by someone who treated me the way you did ESPECIALLY without credit.

I have nothing against your game, but I hope you either add my name in the credits or remove this design you have of Mira completely out of your game or completely redesigned and CLEARLY distinct from this one.

It's a complete lie to say that my design was not used as a refference, no matter how many artists you had drawing her afterwards.

...

I'm not done yet, as much as I would like to be. I said I have screenshots from how mean and manipulative you were when I quit, and I'm tired of seeing you have that same behaviour with so many people. The fact that you deleted the messages just proves how much of a coward you are. I should have never let it pass like that.

These are the messages I have in my discord right now, from when I quit, which are incomplete:

Well...you get the gist.

It does seem pretty odd, no? It almost looks like I'm talking alone. Thankfully I got screenshots of the complete chat below.

I was panicking with this conversation, so I asked my confident and another friend for advice on it, while it was happening. Thanks to that, I have screenshots from the complete chat in this section.

And the complete chat is here:

I think the chat speaks for itself, and it's the most concrete proof I have of Yomi's innapropriate behaviour towards me. I also remember clearly that later he excused his behaviour by saying he has autism, but the message is deleted and I have no proof. That statement just..saddens me.

Even after all of this, Yomi kept sending me updates on his game and complaining about how other devs kept "yelling" at him (when in fact they were just suggesting a more readable way to present text), though the messages were deleted, mine are still there, when I tried to help him with it. It felt like he was vitimizing himself for every little thing, with no reason.

I ended up telling him I wasn't comfortable with those updates and we eventually stopped talking and we parted ways, until this situation happened and I noticed the deleted messages; I was also contacted by some friends who went through simmilar experiences.

I feel the need to talk because my experience is more work related, and not as much emotional related, even though some elements of it are present. I'm afraid the other people don't have much proof since Yomi deleted so much stuff, but I hope justice is made and we can all just keep going on with our lives.

Now, I wouldn't elaborate such a post if I didn't have the reasons to, so I'm here to defend also the +16 people that Yomi treated poorly in one way or another, I don't think what he did and is still doing is right. But I also won't expose their experiences without their consent.

Whatever happens from now on depends on who reads this. I've provided the information that I could, to clear things out on my end, as well as my opinion on the whole shazam.

Thank you so much if you've read this, and thank you for your support, it does mean a lot to me, and I wouldn't have grown so much if it weren't for every experience I had here and for each one of you who give me the motivation to keep going.

Ah, I think I've already spent enough energy with all of this. I hope you, Yomi, make the right decision. It can't just stay like this.

I'll go back to focusing on my game now that I've spoken up. Stay awesome, and I wish y'all the best,

Mitt.

#rosary of the reaper #RPGMaker #Horror RPG #deity sphere

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maiamaiden · 6 years

Note

I actually really like your art! (the despair dungeon pic you drew is actually my keyboard background on my phone!) the lines are super clean, and the shading and colors are extremely pleasing to look at. i know its hard to feel successful as an artist, but thats just because you can see every minor detail that you think could have been improved. other people can't see those tiny things when viewing your art, trust me. and PLEASE dont judge your worth by notes, because it's way too hard to (1/2)

get your art spread around on tumblr unless you're already popular. which is bullshit, but there's not much you can do about it. just know that there is definitely someone out there who admires your art, and that its far from terrible (2/2)

thank you anon

coloring specifically is something i've struggled with for a long time. i started drawing when i was about 8 or 9 but i couldn't really color stuff until i got a tablet when i was like 14 and even then i didn't really start coloring a lot until a few years ago so i have waaaaay more experience with just drawing than i do with coloring. i'm actually pretty happy with my drawing style as it is now because it took me years to finally get a style that's recognizably mine that doesn't constantly change every time i draw something.

coloring, and more specifically shading, is something i've been focusing on more recently because i want to have softer art, but i'm not good at painting so i've kinda been doing a mix of hard and soft shading with the watercolor tool in sai. i haven't really liked it tho (and even in the despair dungeon piece i really don't like it that much). so i've been wanting to just go back to only doing hard shading.

anyway today i wanted to try just straight up painting but i was having a lot of trouble with shading the face and i spent hours on it looking up lots of tutorials and speedpaints but i couldn't do it and i got really frustrated and had a breakdown (which has since been deleted bc i've calmed down). it actually had nothing to do with notes on my art for once (altho that's certainly a constant worry even tho i know it's mostly circumstantial).

i went and looked at the despair dungeon drawing again to remind myself what i did like bc i was actually really proud of it for being the first drawing i've ever finished with an actual completed background. even if it's not as good as i wanted it to be, there was actually gonna be a palm tree in the beach portion but i had to scrap it bc i learned that i can't draw palm trees lol. even then i really liked how the dungeon/brick wall portion came out and also the candle. i was also really happy with how asahina turned out bc i'm not as good at drawing profile view.

anyway i just wanted to kinda explain a bit and i really appreciate you sending this it was very uplifting!

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yuseirra · 6 years

Text

I’m planning to make a game!

(long post warning)

Hello.. so that’s a thing that’s been going on in my mind for awhile/////v////// I feel extremely shy about this, but I’m planning to make a dr fangame using the Visual Novel Maker tool that will be available soon. (if I’m correct, it will be out in Nov 16th!) If you’ve been following my posts for awhile I have been talking about my dr ocs. It’s going to be about them.

I have no idea on how the thing’ll look like because I have no experience on using the tool (moreover, making games in general); but I believe it’ll be more or less in a visual novel format. Perhaps it’s really early to talk because I haven’t really sat down and gotten a thing done. I’m not sure how long it will take to complete either, and I have so many things I have to look into like putting decent bgs, incorporating music, sprites and just bringing the whole thing together. I think I’ll just have to tackle everything one at a time.

The reason I’m still talking about this despite the fact NOTHING is practically done regarding the game making process is because- because I got the whole flow of the story established and finalized just earlier this week!!/// I have been thinking about making my own version of dr for some time, and I started to get down a bit and form more concrete ideas (and drew little comics along the way to conceptualize things more) around August-September last year before the release of drv3. I had other things going on with my life like always, of course, so it was a thing that’s been going on and off for awhile

and this week was the week where a lot of things got established and finalized!// I felt really excited about it, but since everything about this story came from only my head I needed some feedback before I could confirm things altogether. In which happened a lot earlier than I anticipated.. my friend did that for me. Just two or three days ago. I let her out everything I’ve made of the story from the beginning to the very end, and she gave me a very very positive reaction about how it goes which gave me a lot of confidence. While that was going on I also found a nice song that I feel would be GREAT to use for the end credits too and I remembered having been recommended to use the new visual novel game maker tool-

So uh, I really want to do this..// it’d be embarrassing if I end up failing the project or give up in the process but I don’t want to worry about that now. I feel it’d be a nice challenge for me and most of all, I very look forward to showing you all of what I’ve come up with. It will make me so happy if you could have fun or feel something from what I could offer, because I’ve been enjoying my time here with everyone I’ve met and I’m always grateful for all your support.

Plus hehe// I do really like the dr franchise. This is about something I’ve felt about it and what comes from it.. I’m curious what my friends and followers and viewers would feel about this crude and kinda half-baked as it is, and I also feel I could learn a lot from giving something like this a try. If you feel like it, please wish me luck!// Ahh also, I might upload bits and pieces of the game if I do end up making it (like a chapter or the prologue) so perhaps play it and give me feedback when I do?// It will help me a lot and develop it in a better direction plus you’ll also be contributing lot to the story!

..honestly it’s too early to talk about something when I’ve got nothing to offer; I’ll bring back something next time when I talk about the project again but this is how I’m feeling// ;v;

This got soooo long but in short,

I am planning to make a dr fangame in a visual game format (probably)

The main storyline is confirmed solid as well as some of the details (like the song for the end credits, character relationships and development etc)

I may ask for some feedback here as it’s being made time to time.

Also additionally,

I need help on creating good, convincing murder tricks for the culprits. This is the part that’s been giving me a lot of trouble. If you could think up any cool tricks that you feel ppl could do and attempt to get away with please send me via ask/submit/messaging system or maybe DM me on twitter too, I’m willing to listen anytime!! (PLEASE I NEED HELP sending SOS)

gOD I’d be so happy if people play the game and have fun

Going to share stuff about the story/ocs on my blog and maybe draw a comic version & post

※SOBS I talked about this project to friends and they said wouldn’t having voiceovers’d be nice- YEAH??????? The idea of that makes me cry but I’d first have to get the things I can do regarding this done but it’s great to dream high I think that’s good for creators hhn thanks for giving me ideas

That is all! :D I could keep all these in my head but I think I wouldn’t have even begun to think about doing this without all the time and support I got here. You all make me want to do a lot of things. So I want to put this out// Sorry for being chatty, I’ll be working on this!

+attaching drawings of the characters I’ve got from my friend

thank you for reading! I can’t wait to show what stories they form together!

#random blabbering #long post #dr alternate #my ocs #MY KIDS #I might end up making a fool of myself but I want to at least..give this a try!!//#sends love to all of you who's been giving me a LOT of love and support I send u my blessings

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buriedalive-blog · 6 years

Text

CURTIS HERON INTERVIEW

BA. So you are Curtis heron, is that a created name or one you’ve always had?

CH. a name i made combining the names of my musical heroes

BA. Who would that be? And aside from them who were some other inspirations?

CH. curtis mayfield and gil scott heron,

other inspirations would be george clinton, brian eno, john coltrane just to name a few

BA. tell me some more about Curtis heron

CH. i've been making music since i was 17, i have been apart of TEAMSESH since July of 2013. I have 3 compilations out right now and 2 EP's

songs with BONES, Chris Travis, Eddy Baker, Xavier Wulf, Drew The Architect, Drip-133, `Cat Soup, Fifty Grand, GREAF, Frenchford Adams, HNRK, Smitty the BG, Wifisfuneral, ASAP Rocky, Misogi, Night Lovell, Rozz Dyliams, Black Kray, and more.

BA. Damn you’re early on! How long were you making music before becoming a member of teamsesh? how did you become a member? And also that’s impressive! Got anything major planned for this year yet?

CH. maybe a year prior, and that was a long time ago so i don't really remember but im glad and thankful to be in teamsesh

And I don't know about major but im just working on music and more projects, i want to have more output this year than the 2 last previous years. so im just focused on creating but i don't want to rush anything nothing good comes out of that. but i guess getting better and better are my "major plans" i have a lot of things that i can tap into musically but i want to build on that and make sure i can present it in a good way, i just want to make music, put it out, and keep creating

eventually i will put out an "album". when the time and situation is right, when i think of an album i mean working on a whole year on something nonstop

the releases i put out before then will be building up to that

but besides my solo work, im going to have atleast 3 or 4 projects produced by me that i work on with some different artists. i plan on it but its all about fitting schedules and all that so we will see but its the beginning of the year so there is a lot of time

BA. Very nice man, I’m excited to hear. Something I’ve wondered is how the lightchaser logo and everything came about? and what light chaser means to you?

CH. the lightchaser logo is something i feel that represents or represented me because to me it looks like somebody who is coming out of a dark place and seeing light and being blinded by it, but that makes me think of how i was living at the time when i saw the image and what it said to me

going through depression at the time and here and there now that image represented to me somebody going through a dark time but finally stumbling upon light and feeling salvation, and thats something i still want to do

because darkness surrounds us all. thats something we all should do, chase light

BA. I always thought the stance was some one holding a camera, that meaning is very important though. Makes me look at it a whole other way

CH. people usually ask me what it is, and maybe my explanation might not look like how i explained it, but thats the way i see it so thats what im going with

BA. Some one u clearly respect would be yams (rest in peace) what’s the history behind that?

CH. rest in peace to yams, but he hit me up years ago looking for beats for the asap mob to get on i didn't have anything right away AND at that point i was till pretty new to producing so i took a couple days to send him a couple beats and one of them was multiply then a year later it came out

he wanted me to be apart of a producing group he was starting, but im kind of glad that didn't happen because at the time i wasn't that confident in my production abilities and i would have needed some developing

BA. That’s interesting though. Speaking of ASAP mob of course there’s canal street, aswell as the nba ad with the dirt instrumental chopped and screwed. What do you think about that? Do you now how canal street fall into place?

CH. I think canal street was cool i like the song and im not sure but maybe the same way it did for me. mutual respect from one another and wanting to work on something with each other

BA. Yeah a lot of ppl complain about canal street, or the fans that it brings. But I don’t agree with that, any creation Is beautiful, wether or not some one sees that beauty

CH. i agree with you, but some people will see it how they see it and thats alright.

BA. Of course. When you make music do you pull certain emotions? Or what non music influences do you have? A lot of your tracks have a distant emotional feeling to them, like almost an emotional ambience. For example “thenoiseinsidemyhead” “wherethetreesmeetthefreeway” and “1968”

CH. a lot of my music is inspired by everything happening in life

even things that might not directly effect me

but could help somebody else feel safe

or feel good right then and there

BA. Are there any specific things you have witnessed that make you feel that way?

CH. just living is all the inspiration i need for anything this shit is not easy and music helps

BA. Recently you have dropped “up at dawn” I found it to have a very nostalgic sound, and some old Jayz vibes. Can you tell us some more about the project

CH. well at first i was going to drop 2 different projects but i thought whats the point of that so i combined all the tracks i had an made it 1 release and to me they ended up blending together pretty well

thats a sound i've always loved and it was kind of an ode to old school shit with some "new" sounding stuff in there aswell

my supporters can expect to hear that sound from me every now and then because i like making that kind of stuff

BA. I love it man. Well before we go anything you want to say?

CH. thank you for this and to anybody who supports im going hard for you, your not gonna see what i mean by that right away but you will hear it in my music as time goes on

BA. Can’t wait to see what you create in the future! Thank you for being on.

SUPPORT US

CURTIS HERON

https://twitter.com/CurtisHeron?s=17

https://soundcloud.com/curtisheron

BURIED ALIVE

https://twitter.com/_buried_alive?s=17

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blooblooded · 5 years

Text

3500 words of BG doing nothing

This could have been way longer but I wanted to finish it up during my night shift so I’m saying it’s done. Ignore any plot set up this is literally Team BG doing nothing.

Nightmare Squad is so lame and awkward compared to Death Squad. Like. They kind of suck when they aren’t being deployed for their specific flavor of terror types of missions....also BG sucks as a leader and one of his big flaws I think is that he overlooks people doing bad things just because he is close to them (Silas, Lady). Also he is brainwashed and {Kip Voice} kind of a fascist.

They all kind of suck except for Bizo.

#######

Stakeouts were the best kind of mission. Everyone wanted to be assigned to them. They provided copious amounts of free time out in the city. They allowed agents briefly to feel like they had normal lives if the mission involved hiding in someone’s apartment or going undercover. They were also very rare-- usually assassinations and secret executions could be carried out by a squad quickly over a single shift. Anything that could not be done in this fashion meant that the intended victim was weary prey that was difficult to track as well as dangerous, even for the secret police. Because of this, stakeouts were more rare than the usual ops and were only assigned to Elites.

Team BG was made up of Elites. However, they did not have a good kill record, even compared to Team Smiles, which was always held back by containing a B-Class and C-Class agent. Bubblegum’s squad just..ill-suited for physical combat. Their main purpose was basic counterintelligence and causing terror. There was a reason other agents referred to the group as “Nightmare Squad”. BG’s primary skill was agility, and quickly getting to places others could not. Lady was terrible in the field, on account of her being psychicly unstable and unable to take even a single punch. Bizo could fight, but she was better suited to demolitions. And Echo was the best physical fighter out of all of them but they were so moody that sometimes they didn’t want to act as part of the team.

It was all very hopeless, which was why the Directors rarely assigned them all to the field at the same time. Until BG realized that Team Smiles was getting more field missions and kills than they were and had petitioned to be assigned more Elite Missions. It had taken a while, and it had taken some arguing with the Handlers on duty.

It had also taken some convincing to get Echo to stop bitching about having to be outside of the dorms for an entire weekend. They were worried about not having access to a shower or soap or many of the other items that their vanity necessitated.

“Bro, chill,” BG told them as the squad prepared to infiltrate the apartment building that their target lived in. “Civies have showers and shit, and also you’re not gonna die if you don’t shower for a couple of days.”

-You have no way of knowing that- Echo fingerspelled crossly. They were standing next to him, hunched over with their arms crossed. Echo’s uniform was tailored better than everyone else’s. Black tactical gear and black boots. They were wearing their helmet unlike everybody else, but had the tinted glass visor propped open so that their hollow gray-blue eyes could be seen. Also unlike everyone else on the squad, they carried a firearm: a light rifle that they kept strapped across their back. -Just because you have awful hygiene doesn’t mean the rest of us are like that--.

“Ughhh!” BG rolled his eyes.

“Are you guys fighting?” asked Bizo. Her specially made, acid-proof uniform made her look dumpy. Even though the squad had only been waiting outside of the apartment building for 15 minutes, she was already bored and sitting down. By her side was a creature about the size of a cat, that was made entirely of black slime and unnatural wiry hair that looked like spider-legs. She was also bored and had all 2 dozen of her eyes closed. Zoey brought this creature, Dot, on all of the missions she went on. She-- and the rest of the squad-- didn’t want to risk another agent stumbling across her and exterminating it. “This is supposed to be a fun mission…” Zoey was not wearing a helmet. She never did. Her greasy brown hair, so different than everyone else’s shaved heads, sweetly framed her round face.

“We’re not fighting!”

It was 8pm on a Friday night and they were still standing on a rooftop across from the apartment building they were about to break into and make themselves at home inside. The 14 story apartment building in question was built in the Brutalist fashion that so many buildings in the lower level residential areas were. BG didn’t know much about architecture, but he knew that this style was ugly, cold, and associated with poverty. He also knew that this was the kind of building he lost his left arm to when he had clipped into one 5 years ago.

That was the kind of thing he couldn’t focus on. It made him feel phantom pains, and he massaged the skin of his shoulder where his metal prosthetic was bolted to. He shook himself.

Beside him, Lady was standing with her eyes closed as she focused on the 11th floor of the building. When she determined that the coast was clear, BG would simply teleport them all one-by-one into the room they were going to hide out in. Lady was a powerful psychic but an unfortunate telepath. Her skills were grounded in causing pain and accessing trauma memories, not reading thoughts as they happened. Her thin black brows were furrowed in concentration. In the past week, Lady had grown more decidedly frail. They had her working overtime up in the re-education rooms after losing another Elite psychic. Hopefully she was up for the job.

BG wanted to ask Lady how much longer she thought it was going to be, but didn’t want to distract her. He turned to Echo and tried to touch their firearm. They swatted him away. This continued for the next 2 minutes.

Finally, Lady opened her eyes. She swayed for a second and BG swerved to lend her his support. He was the only one she ever let touch her. She held onto his flesh arm. “Clear,” she said. She was breathing heavily. BG had wanted to ask her what was going on for a long time but at this point in their...friendship, he knew better than that. “There’s nobody in there and everyone on that floor is too far away or too occupied to hear the noise if you miscalculate and bang into a table or something. Next door neighbor just started a shower. You might want to hurry.”

-It took you that long to figure that out? Really? What’s wrong with you?- Echo fingerspelled before BG could slap their hands down.

Lady inhaled sharply, her lips pulled back from her teeth. The next moment, Echo made a terrible noise of pain and fear, their eyes went glassy, their face blank. It was the same face BG saw all the time on C-class agents who were trying not to let something truly nauseating make them feel bad. Echo made another frightened noise. BG had to quickly look away from his friend.

Other squads had a no-tolerance policy when it came to psychics hurting their own team-mates. Or at least, Smiles had a no tolerance policy. But BG didn’t want to do that to Lady, she didn’t have any other way of defending herself.

And she had been his partner first.

“Ok,” said BG. “Alley-Oop! Let’s get going, guys! Lady, you first.” He wanted to get her away from Echo, just in case she was still hurting them. He easily put his flesh arm around her waist. Lady was so thin. He could feel her bones pressing into him and it made him hold onto her tighter. She put both her arms around his neck. “Deep breath!”

The first time teleporting into an unknown area was always the hardest. There were too many variables like furniture that BG was unable to visualize, and it was common for him to knock into tables and chairs. His spatial awareness when it came to things like walls was supernaturally good-- unless he was stressed or otherwise impaired.

BG closed his eyes, concentrated on his spatial understanding of the blueprints he had studied prior to the mission, and then released his energy.

In less than half a heartbeat, he and Lady were inside room 113 on the 11th floor of the apartment building. They appeared right over an unaccounted for coffee table in the living room and tumbled over it with a loud crash. The two of them landed heavily, with BG mashing Lady into the floor.

“Sorry,” said BG. He bounded to his feet, unhurt, then helped Lady up. She winced like she had bruised something. BG helped her to the couch. “You good?” He started to move the coffee table out of the way for his next trip.

Lady sat down gingerly. “I guess,” she said bitterly. She looked very angry.

“You sure?”

“I said I’m fine.” She drew her dainty feet up onto the couch and wrapped her arms around her legs.

BG shrugged. “Ok,” he said. “I’ll be back in a jiffy” And he teleported back out to the rooftop where the others were waiting.

The first thing he saw when he got there was Bizo standing close to Echo and whispering to them. She had her back turned to BG and didn’t see him when he appeared. Dot was awake and wrapped herself around Echo’s boot, purring softly. Zoey had taken one of Echo’s slender, long-fingered hands into her own chubby one. It took a monstrous amount of effort for her to ever touch someone without burning them on accident with the chemicals on her skin. BG could count the number of times she had touched him. She must...really have wanted to comfort Echo for some reason.

It wasn’t like Echo had ever had to go through really horrible shit like some other agents. They were A-Class and had a cushy position. What could Lady find in their memories that could possibly hurt them that bad?

He cleared his throat. Zoey jumped. Echo pulled their hand back quickly.

“You ready, Zoey?” he asked, purposefully not looking at Echo because he didn’t want to embarrass them.

Bizo bent down to grab Dot and then shuffled over to BG. He put his metal arm around her. It was specially made to not corrode if it accidentally touched her. Dot oozed out of Bizo’s grip and up his arm, making snuffling sounds. Some of her gelatinous body seeped into the cracks of his metal joints and moved around. “Is this a bad jump?” she asked. Out of the whole crew, she was the only one who still occasionally threw up when he teleported her too far. It was hard on the human body to be spatially disrupted like that.

“It’s not bad. There’s a trash can in the living room too.”

Zoey nodded and squeezed her eyes closed.

This jump was perfectly smooth. They both landed on their feet in the middle of the living room. “Urgh,” said Bizo. She wobbled to the floor. Dot followed her and lost all her shape until she looked like a black puddle.

“You good?” he asked, for the second time in five minutes.

“Urghhh,” said Bizo, who had her eyes closed tightly. The black puddle beside her bubbled.

BG took that as a yes. He briefly looked at Lady, who had not yet uncurled herself from the couch. She seemed good too.

He teleported to the roof for a final time. Echo stood out there by themselves. Their eyes were still glassy, like they weren’t really seeing the world around them.

“Hey,” said BG. “Are you ok?”

Echo didn’t answer him.

BG walked up to them awkwardly. “Dude, seriously, are you ok? Your face is freaking me out right now, you look like Smiles does right before he goes crazy and tries to kill people, like all blank and shit. What did she make you see?”

Again, Echo didn’t answer him. But they blinked and their expression began to focus again. They looked at BG, their Primary and best friend, and swallowed hard. And then they put one arm out, in the same way everybody did when BG was about to teleport them somewhere. Operating under this assumption, BG walked up and put his flesh arm around Echo’s thin waist, but was caught off guard when Echo embraced him. For a second he froze, uncomfortable with this sudden display of intimacy. Echo was not usually the type of person who went for hugs. After a short hesitation, he hugged them back.

The hug lasted for a long time. Finally BG stood back. Echo looked like they still wanted to be touching. But they were both wasting time.

“Ok man,” said BG. “Enough of that shit, just know I’m here for you and all that junk.”

Echo nodded.

“Like, I’ll always be here for you bro. I mean, just because I have to make hard calls for the whole squad doesn’t mean I’m not specifically caring about you too.”

Echo nodded again. They still looked a bit sad.

And BG grabbed hold of them for a second time, held them as tightly as he could. Echo held onto him with both arms. BG took a deep breath and then teleported for the final time that weekend, determined to make it a good one for his friend.

######

The first thing that BG did when all 4 of them were settled into the apartment was go for the fridge.

The rations that they got at the cafeteria were nutritionally dense but bland. Any treats agents could buy at the commissary were very much the same. Unlike the rest of his squad, BG had access to snacks that were otherwise contraband— always gum and candy— because of his closeness to the Executive Director, the strange but wonderful woman who spent her time hidden behind computer screens at the very top of the Capitol Building. But civie food? He could only remember eating it a few times.

He grabbed a carton of something called strawberry almond milk. BG knew he liked strawberries, since he liked that flavor of candy. He wasn’t so sure about almonds. He had only a basic idea of what an almond was. He opened the carton and gulped some of it down. Very cold and sweet.

“Hey,” he said.

Everyone looked at him. Lady still hadn’t moved from the couch. She looked like she was curling in on herself. When she looked up at him, BG caught a flash of the bored buzzing malevolence she viewed others with. Bizo sat cross legged on the floor, still jump-sick. Dot was on top of her head, chewing a big strand of her hair. Bizo and Dot were so wide-eyes. Echo had slouched their awkward body into an armchair in a way that looked uncomfortable. They sullenly played with their rifle, pretending to work.

BG cared about all of them very much, but in that moment, he felt stupid and didn’t know what to say. All he could do was stare at them while holding the milk carton.

“You have a pink mustache,” Bizo said, helpfully.

BG wiped it away with his metal fingers. “Guys, let’s totally have a good time on this op,” he said. He gestured at the fridge behind him. “Let’s have fun. Let’s eat!”

“We have rations for the weekend,” said Lady. She unfolded herself from the tight knot she was in like a spider unfurling its legs. “We can’t just eat out of someone’s fridge.”

Bizo was already on board. She popped up so quickly that Dot fell off her head and landed on the floor with a splat. Shuffling up to the fridge, she said, “Yeah but we’re gonna kill the people who live here, we can do whatever we want to their stuff and nobody will even know or care!” Then she paused and looked around the apartment. She took in all the nice things and the luxuries they weren’t afforded at home. She looked at BG with realization on her flat, dull face. “We can pretend we live here. Like normal civilians.”

Like playing house. BG hadn’t thought about that. He just wanted to party, and unlike Bizo, he had no fantasies about civilian life. He liked working for the Agency. But since this idea made her happy, it made him happy.

“That’s boring,” Lady said flatly. Chances were, if she was ‘bored’ for too long, she would resort to entertaining herself by doing something terrible to Echo or Zoey. That needed to be avoided.

BG and Bizo started to paw through the rest of the fridge together. There wasn’t much fresh produce, but lots of pre-made or frozen food. Ingredients the two of them had never heard of. Salad dressing? Relish? Chicken livers? This was what normal people ate? Bizo took an olive out of a jar, put it in her mouth, then immediately spit it back out. On the floor, Dot snorkeled it up and mimicked human laughter.

“Ok,” said Bizo, after the horror of tasting an olive had worn off. “What should we have? We can eat a big breakfast after we sleep?”

BG picked up a can of whipped cream and considered its mechanics. “I’m not that hungry in the morning.”

“What about noon?”

“That’s better.” He figured out how to work the whipped cream can and sprayed it into his mouth. Echo was glaring daggers at him. “We can all pick out what we want and shit and get settled for this op. Targets have a pattern of not coming back until Monday, so we have some time to kill.” He sprayed whipped cream into Bizo’s mouth, then on top of Dot’s body. The little creature created a mouth on top of her back to slurp it up.

Although it was early, hr figured they needed to get some sleep. Despite playing house, this was still a mission.

“Lady, you get first watch,” he said. “Echo, you get second. Me and Zoey will switch off tomorrow night.”

The targets’ apartment was small. The living room opened up into a kitchen without a wall to divide it. To one side was the bedroom, which had a bathroom connected to it. Sparse living for civilians, but extravagant for BG and his team. Here there were couches and a tv and pictures and all sorts of treasures. There were all kinds of things to do and see. All while waiting to kill a couple of criminals in their own home.

This was what Team Smiles did all the time. No wonder they were so unruly. They had too much freedom…

And it was nice.

All 4 of them crowded into the bathroom to get ready for bed, They had only brought the necessary toiletries-- toothbrushes and deodorant. But like any people in their late teens and early 20’s, they were interested in looking nice, so their targets’ bathroom became a treasure trove of luxury.

Lady washed her face, then took a bottle of expensive looking moisturizer out of the medicine cabinet and smeared it all over herself. She stared at her reflection in the mirror with her big black eyes as if trying to recognize the person looking back. She touched her own face and watched her reflection do the same.

Echo clearly wanted to take a shower, but couldn’t since Bizo was already making herself an unmeltable sleeping space in the bathtub. Instead, they just brushed their teeth and rifled through the medical cabinet. They pulled out an old prescription bottle and rattled it, showing it to BG. It was made out to the female target; antidepressant pills.

BG didn’t have much of a bedtime ritual. He ruffled his hair and thought about shaving it but it was too late. He just wanted to go to sleep and was thinking about what a real bed with nice blankets would feel like. He stripped down to his boxers, since that was all he wore to bed. Lady must have been annoyed by his jostling, because she pinched some of his pudge. BG jabbed her in the ribs. This nearly caused an all out scuffle because he probably jabbed her harder than he should have, but he teleported away before Lady could get him.

He teleported right into the bed.

BG saw clouds in the sky whenever he made his forays into the outside. Laying in this bed was what he imagined sitting on a cloud felt like. He snuggled his chunky body into it and pulled the covers up to his chin.

Why were the beds in the dorms so spartan and uncomfortable, he wondered, if there were beds that felt like this?

BG closed his eyes. He heard the quiet padding of Lady’s feet as she made her way to the living room to keep watch. Probably to stare out the window for 6 hours without blinking. When he heard Echo’s familiar footsteps (always distinct because their feet were clammy and made weird sounds on the floor) he opened his eyes again.

Unlike him, Echo liked to be covered up when they slept. They had their leggings and baggy grey shirt on. So cute. So grumpy, as usual.

“Bizo tucked in?” he asked them.

Echo nodded. Even though they would never admit it, they cared about Bizo like a sibling would and would go to great effort to make sure she was ok. People bullied Bizo a lot and made fun of her. It infuriated Echo. One time they nearly tried to fight the abnormal type agent, Pete, after seeing her pretend to be nice to Bizo while making jokes about her that went over her head. Both Lady and BG had stepped in on that one.

BG patted the bed beside him. “Snuggle up, bro, you get a couple of hours of sleep before you have to be on watch at 0200.”

Echo sneered. -I’ll sleep on the floor-

“You can’t be pissy forever, dude, and this bed is hella comfortable.”

Echo made a point of laying down on the floor without a pillow or a blanket. They just sort of stiffly curled up on the rug. BG grabbed a throw blanket off the end of the bed and a pillow. He jumped out of the bed, put the blanket over them and dropped the pillow on top of their head, then teleported back to his cozy nest before he got cold. He watched them situate themself under the blanket.

“You’re like, difficult on purpose, you know that?” he told them.

They didn’t answer, except for an irritated sigh.

BG shook his head, then closed his eyes himself and quickly drifted off to sleep.

BG slept in longer than the rest of the squad. He opened his eyes and then started, teleporting out of bed in a fright. For a brief moment, he had forgotten where he was. This was not the stark dormitory he loved! But by the time his feet touched the carpet, he remembered and relaxed.

He could hear Bizo chattering out in the living room. In the bathroom, the shower was on. BG stretched. He rolled the ball joints in his prosthesis. He had grown in the last year and needed a new one. By his estimates, he was only 18, and would need several more by the time...by the time...well, he didn’t want to think about that! Nope! Too fucked up!.

Lady, Bizo, and Echo were all a couple years older than him. He really, really didn’t want to think about what he would have to see happen to them eventually. That was extra turbo-fucked up.

Usually in the morning, BG did calisthenics, but he wandered out to the living room instead. Lady and Bizo were sitting at the small kitchen table with an assortment of food in front of them. Bizo had poured cereal into a mug and was eating it with her fingers. Lady held a jar of pickled eggs in her lap and ate one on the end of a fork. Both had mugs filled with coffee. He stood and looked at them. For a second, they didn’t notice him.

“And then in my dream,” Bizo was saying, “I was very small and I was in that rec-room that smells like pee, and I was trying to lift a weight that was bigger than I was.” And as she spoke, Lady just nodded along blankly, appearing to be listening.

He cleared his throat. Bizo jumped. Lady flushed as if she had been caught doing something wrong.

“Did you guys sleep good?” he asked.

“I love bath-tubs,” said Bizo. “I don’t have to worry about getting slime on the bed…”

Zoey’s ability was kind of grody.

“I stayed up all night and talked to Echo,” said Lady. BG grimaced. He knew what that meant. She was still getting in their head, after he had specifically hoped that she wouldn’t. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it…

He knew that his biggest flaw as a Primary was his inability to keep his Subordinates in check. He liked them all too much to ever reprimand them, it would feel too weird. He just wasn’t as….Bossy as Smiles or Creedo or Crossfire, who would snap at their underlings immediately, but were somehow able to keep any messed up inner-team bullying from within their ranks.

“I slept so hard,” he said. BG crossed the small room and sat down at the table. He took Lady’s mug of coffee and drank it. It was much better than what they got in the caf. Probably had caffeine in it too, which he realized as his heart began to pump faster. “I didn’t even know where I was when I got up. What’s with that?”

Lady put a whole pickled egg in her mouth.

On the floor, Dot was lapping up crumbs. She oozed over to BG’s bare foot and licked it gently. He kept drinking the coffee and jittered his leg.

One of the girls had turned the TV on. In the dorms, there were only TVs in the terrible common rooms, and they only played carefully moderated government news channels. This one had one of the big pop-news channels on. BG turned his head to watch it.

“There’s no more information on the terrorists who hijacked the truck that breached the wall earlier this week,” said a perky Artificial newscaster. “And since there’s no official footage, you’ll have to come to your own conclusion about what happened! Remember, it’s dangerous out there in the wilds! Anyone who goes out there, well, I guess they have nothing to lose!”

“Weren’t those the people who wasted Smiles and got away?” BG asked.

“He got sent up to see me after that day,” said Lady. She hummed to herself and smiled in a way that was almost sickening and made BG keep his eyes on the TV.

The TV rain to a commercial for chicken nuggets. All three of them watched, entranced. Chicken nuggets looked like the most wonderful things in the world…

BG jittered both legs. Fuck, was this what coffee did to people? Why was anyone allowed to have it? It should be a banned substance! Unable to stop himself, he began to tap on the table with his metal finger.

“You ok?” Bizo asked around a mouthful of dry cereal.

“I’m gonna check on Echo!” BG said, a bit too loudly and enthusiastically due to his excess energy. He teleported himself into the bathroom.

He ended up on top of the toilet. Echo screamed and fell over in the shower.

“Good morning bro!” said BG, like a train on fire.

Echo picked themselves up and poked their head around the curtain to glare at him. They looked extra tired. Their strange, high-cheekboned face was drawn and they still had that thousand-yard stare thing going on in the eyes. No sleep really took it out of a person. Lady took even more out.

The shower was still running. Echo liked hot hot showers and always took forever. Since BG wasn’t saying something for once in his life, they went back to their shower. The air was full of steam. BG ran his finger down the mirror and left a trail in the fog.

He wanted to say something nice to his friend, like he had last night on the roof, but he couldn’t think of anything. BG wasn’t good with words. He was even worse with words when his brain was racing a million miles a minute because of he had caffeinated it. Whatever he said was just going to annoy Echo, a person who was notoriously easy to annoy. And no matter what he said, it wouldn’t really matter would it? Because he was never going to talk to Lady about this, he was never going to tell her to stop digging around in her teammates’ brains for shits and giggles. What good would that do?

Suddenly he wished that he wasn’t trapped in the civilian world for the weekend. It was easier back at the dorms, where there was order and people to enforce the rules. It was better when all the decision making and power wasn’t in his hands.

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