#these things just help me draw like a steam engine

[marcheriest]

Any advice for an artist fighting through a 4 year art block?

-become a bar regular

-develop a fetish

i thought i had more advice but that’s basically it

#unfortunately not qualified to give advice because i've never really been through a block before #these things just help me draw like a steam engine

[loveinhawkins]

Steve gets the idea from Dustin and Robin, in a roundabout way: Robin insists on buying a camping stove from The War Zone, which Dustin pounces upon with glee as soon as he notices it.

“Oh, we’re cooking with gas now,” he says, which is the worst pun Steve has heard thus far.

Eddie snorts, almost but not quite hidden underneath the sound of the engine. Steve smiles.

“Y’know there’s a stove right here?” he asks in benign exasperation, gestures behind him to the little kitchen area of the RV.

“Steve,” Robin says, “that’s not as fun.”

“Yeah, come on, Steve! It’ll be like at Camp Know Where—”

“Know Nothing,” Steve mutters automatically.

“—we oft dined al fresco.”

“Oft,” Eddie parrots, and Steve can faintly feel the movement of him laughing, from where he’s pressed up against the back of the driver’s seat. “Al fresco. Henderson, what lab did they make you in?”

“Eddie, either shut up or back me up, I wanna get a culturally enriching experience outta this.”

“Oh, excuse me, didn’t realise this was a field trip.”

“You’re excused.”

“Okay,” Steve cuts in, “have fun playing at camping, Henderson, but don’t come crying to me if you, like, blow yourself up.”

Robin chuckles. “Such a happy camper.”

“Boo,” Steve says flatly.

He parks the RV a little bit away from a store just off the main road—heads in alone as it’ll draw less attention. Out loud, he says it’s so he can focus without hearing whining pleas to buy junk food, whether Dustin-approved or not, but he already knows he’ll cater to each and every one of the group’s demands.

Eddie, surprisingly, doesn’t put in a request, says he’s happy to just go along with whatever everyone else wants—a far cry from when Nancy had relayed, with more amusement than frustration, “He said he wants a six-pack.”

Steve figures that the whole being wanted for murder thing would kill anyone’s appetite, but it still makes his stomach sink, that the most substantial meal Eddie’s gotten a chance to eat has been lukewarm Spaghettios.

They set up ‘camp’ in a field, and Robin’s the first to rush outside, shortly followed by Dustin, both intent on using the stove she’s bought.

Steve leaves them all to it, kind of enjoys the temporary peace of just messing about in the RV on his own—it gives him enough time to find where some crockery is kept, anyway.

He’s heating up chicken noodle soup on the stove when Eddie comes back in and tells him, “They got it working, no explosions yet.”

“Oh, miracles can happen. Good timing, by the way.” Steve switches the burner off, pours the soup into a bowl and sets it down on the table—where he’s already laid out a spoon. “Yours is ready.”

At first he doesn’t think the silence is all that unusual. He’s not really looking either, focusing on rinsing out the pan he’d used. But when he does glance up, it’s to see Eddie just standing there, looking at the bowl of soup and blinking rapidly.

It’s almost like… almost like he’s—

“Woah, hey,” Steve says, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Eddie says, even though he’s still quite clearly tearing up. “Absolutely nothing. Jesus Christ.” He groans, presses a couple of fingers to the inner corner of his eyes. “This is fucking mortifying, just pretend you didn’t—ugh.”

In barely a blink, he shuts himself away in the bathroom.

Steve opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries again. “Hate soup that much, huh?”

A watery laugh from behind the door. “No.”

There’s a silence. Steve dries the pan and puts it away before calling, “It’s gonna get cold!”

It won’t for a while yet; he can still see tendrils of steam rising from the bowl.

There’s a long, drawn out sigh, and then Eddie opens the door, sidles in to take a seat at the table.

For a moment, Steve thinks he isn’t going to acknowledge it, which is fine. But as Eddie picks up the spoon he says, head down, “It’s just. That was, uh. Really—really nice.”

Steve’s concern abates a little; he can’t help giving a slight smirk. “Would it help if I was mean instead?”

Eddie laughs again, no tears in it this time. He shrugs with a grin. “Do whatever you want, man.”

He’s eating slowly, his spoon dragging through the soup. His eyes seem distant.

“It’s just… I miss—” His voice threatens to break, but doesn’t quite get there. “I miss… home.”

Before Steve can think of a reasonable reply, Eddie scoffs, rolling his eyes. He drops the spoon with a clatter. “God, that sounds so—”

“It doesn’t,” Steve interrupts.

“Yeah, sure.” Eddie picks up the spoon again, keeps scraping it against the bottom of the bowl.

“Dude, what did I tell you? You’ve gotta give yourself a break.”

Steve pauses, stuck on what to say next.

He can’t even relate, honestly. Home has long become something he couldn’t… Something he couldn’t really miss, exactly.

It’s ever-changing: the luxury of eating a late breakfast in History; the crunch of leaves underfoot as he walked the railroad tracks with Dustin; the chill of the freezer in Scoops Ahoy, Robin’s snorting laugh bouncing off the walls.

Now it’s his car radio playing as he gives rides on busy school mornings. A high school basketball game. A goddamn video store.

“I think you have this thing,” Steve says slowly.

“A promising start,” Eddie says, lips twitching.

He’s finished the soup. The sight spurs Steve on.

“I think you have this thing,” he repeats, more confidently, “where you think that, like, we’re seasoned monster-killers, and you’re—”

“Uh, speaking objectively, Harrington, that’s kinda what you are.”

“My point is,” Steve says, “that you don’t need to—shit, I don’t know, man. Just. You don’t need to apologise or whatever. You’re doing fine.”

Eddie blinks. He’s cupping the empty bowl with his hands, breathing a little deeper, like the residual warmth is calming.

And that Steve can relate to: in the days after Starcourt, when Robin pretty much dragged him to her house, empty thanks to her folks visiting extended family. They both pretended that they just wanted to stay up late because they could, because they were just teenagers enjoying the summer, and Robin had made shitty hot chocolate from a powder, heating up milk on the stove; when Steve complained that he could hardly enjoy it through a busted lip, she’d said, still jittery, “I just thought—it’s just nice to hold, y’know?”

She was right.

One of Eddie’s fingers starts tapping against the bowl, the underside of his ring making a series of restless clinks. Steve wants to still his hand, gently press it further into the warmth. Settle him.

Eddie stands up with the bowl.

“I can—”

“Nah, I’ve got it,” Eddie says, already at the sink. He turns on the faucet, smiles. “Thanks, by the way.”

It’s so simple, so domestic, and all of a sudden, Steve’s struck with a thought: oh, I want this.

“No problem. I’ll get you something better, after… um, everything.”

Eddie chuckles. “Oh, Jesus, I think I actually would kill for some fries.”

Steve clicks his fingers. “So we’ll make it happen.”

“We?”

“Yeah, I hate to break it to you, man, but as soon as they hear about free fries—” Steve jerks his head towards the chatter outside, “—they’re gonna demand to come with, they’re like piranhas.”

He expects Eddie to play up the joke, to groan and complain.

But while he does laugh, Eddie just sighs before saying in earnest, “That sounds fucking fantastic.”

And his eyes are warm and fond, like maybe he’s found another home in all of them, too.

#another ‘throwaway’ line from a previous ficlet wouldn’t let me go #pre steddie #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steve and robin #steve and the party #eddie and the party #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steve and dustin #eddie and dustin

[partycatty]

I don’t know if you’re open to requests but me and my friend have this hc and I would like to see your rendition of it. The reader is stressed about their Algebra test coming up and since Johnny has a PhD in quantum mechanics and deals with that stuff, he offers to help. And as the reader is thinking on the problem Johnny gives them, they put the pencil in their mouth seductively but are unaware of it and Johnny gets a little… riled up. And you can take it from there :)

Love ya !! 🥰💜

ough i love me a big smart man

johnny cage > teach you a lesson

notes: my last fic took all of my mental strength for smut for now so it's only gonna be implied

[ masterlist ]

• damn you and your stubbornness, you're here trying to get your engineering degree and the class you put off all these years finally creeps up on you... and you hate math. thankfully, your best friend has a phd (which still baffles you when you think about it too much; not that he's stupid, more that it's so out of left field for him that you thought he was joking when he first told you).

• knocking on his door, he answers so quickly you wonder if he tumbled down the stairs to answer you in record time. he was always ready to do anything you asked of him, so you knew he was the right person to go to

• you explain the situation, about how you're teetering on the edge of just tearing your textbooks apart with your teeth before he slows you down with his hands on your shoulders.

• johnny ushers you in, welcoming you to his dining room after sweeping the various accumulation of stuff littering every surface to a degree.

• johnny's smarter than you gave him credit for, focusing on his well-articulated lecture but you find yourself missing the middle portion of his lessons when his veiny arms are exposed as he rolls up his shirt. his hands were so defined, so strong...

• "are you even listening?" he groans dramatically, waving said head in front of your face. "you wanna pass this class or not?"

• you swallow thickly, though the subject is still shamefully fuzzy in your mind. nodding slowly, johnny pinches the bridge of his nose before resuming.

• "maybe this'll be easier if we..." he leans over your seated form, towering over you as he flips your notes to a blank page over your shoulder. "here." he writes an example equation, a relatively easy one so he could break it down for you.

• shaking the dirty thoughts, you try to pick the equation apart, separating what you know is in the correct order of operations, but you're stumped when the denominators don't add up like they should.

• the tip of your pencil brushes against your bottom lip as your brows knit in thought. it swiped across the width of your lip, pushing in ever so slightly against your teeth as you desperately try to find a way past the confusion.

• johnny falls eerily silent, fists clenching as he breathing feels hot and heavy down your neck. he rubs his face, circling the table with a long sigh. the noise draws your attention, completely oblivious to how tight his pants were from the display.

• "sorry," you sheepishly look down at the paper. "this is... a lot."

• "no... no! you're fine!" johnny snaps himself back to reality at your puppy eyed expression, like his desperation for you was somehow your fault when it was really his for not knowing how to keep things in control.

• you feel smaller as you sink into the chair, trying to retrace your steps through the numbers. instinctively, the pencil finds its way to your mouth again and you gently suck on the shortened eraser, your tongue pressing against the head of it as the multiplication takes its time in your mind.

• johnny chokes on air, punching his chest to hide his flustered face. he can't even look at you or you might notice the steam from his ears.... why were you here again?

• "you're not helping," you remind him teasingly, and he jogs to your side with a cool breath to regulate his temperature. "did i do this right?"

• johnny leans down, his chin almost on your shoulder as he inspects your work. the error stands out to him at lightning speed and he pulls at your wrist, abruptly tugging the pencil from your mouth and slamming it against the table.

• "there," he huffs out, circling the error with his finger. "five over nine. not nine over five." his eyes flick between the back of your head and the pencil, and the way the eraser shines. he might pass out if he thinks too hard about it.

• he should've picked an easier equation so you'd stop thinking so damn hard about this, he thinks. the pencil wanders back between your lips and it's when you bite down on the pink tip his flat palm slaps the table, making everything rattle. you jump and look up with a shocked expression.

• "can you... not." he breathes, cheeks red and brows furrowed.

• "not... what?" you look down, maybe you had a bad habit in the math process?

• "don't do that." he's being vague, it's getting on your nerves.

• "you're gonna have to be clearer."

• "keep that thing away from your mouth," johnny points at your fingers twirling the pencil, an accusatory finger firm like he caught it committing a crime.

• "the pencil?" you're caught off guard, wondering what his issue is.

• "yes, the damn pencil!" he groans, running a hand down his face. "can't think straight for a single second when you're... you know."

• it clicks in your head, what he's asking of you. it flusters you but also fills you with an egotistical desire. you always had a lingering crush on your best friend, but you never wanted to act on it out of fear of losing the best thing that ever happened to you. johnny's deep, dark voice makes your core stir as you think about the possibilities, how to test the waters from here.

• you slowly place it flat against your tongue, trying to ignore the taste as you relish in the way johnny twitches his eye at the sight. he wants to look away but you're forcing him to, that knowing glint fatal for his heart. the thought of your tongue holding the heavy weight of his thumb, or worse, his dick, is driving him up the wall.

• johnny stomps beside you, grabbing your wrist and pulling the pencil away, managing to throw it out of your grasp and capturing your lips with his own as the pencil rolls off on its own adventure.

• his kiss is consuming, far too much for your mind as you grow dizzy at the loss of breath. his hands pull at your face and neck, trying to squish your face against his as he swallows every whimper and gasp for breath you expel.

• just as he pulls away to get oxygen, his thumb slides between your lips and presses against your tongue, your hot and heavy breath driving him wild.

• "are you really trying to do this to me?" he asks as your lips wrap around his finger, sucking gently. his eyes flutter shut and he groans, nodding downward with his head.

• "maybe," you quietly reply through his finger, sinking to your knees in front of him, sliding your hands up his outer thighs. you're perfectly in line with his crotch, but your eyes are too busy admiring the flustered actor above you as he looks down his nose. he pulls his thumb away, groaning at the thin trail of saliva that falls down your lip from the loss.

• "i'll teach you a lesson," he reaches for his belt buckle, the clinking of metal dulling every sense but your hearing.

• you can study later... probably.

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat x reader #johnny cage #mk1 #johnny cage x reader #johnny cage smut #mortal kombat smut #marley writes ☆

[lumikore]

My Medic loadout I still don't know if he's an oc or not I guess he could be categorised as self insert oc but he's not really he's just my loadout guy but I do imagine him in my head in little scenarios mostly like stuff that would happen to me ingame and he acts like how I would but he's a little more mean and depressed like another day another dollar kinda vibe yknow so he's not me but he kind of is like he's my loadout yknow that's what other people see when they see me playing medic but also I don't 'kin' medic or anything like that if anything I think I'm most like engineer if I had to pick one Idk maybe he's a tf2-sona if that's a thing he's not exactly like me but he kind of represents me I mean he's my pfp as well on here and on Steam and on yt maybe he's like a mascot for my brand like Ronald McDonald or Chuck E Cheese but for Lumikore Tf2 Drawings And Etc Incorporated you feel me but like I also have hcs for him I guess they're canon if he's my character but anyway I think he plays the harp which well I mean I play the harp so I guess I'm projecting onto him a little bit there but it's ok like I project onto every single character I make ever it doesn't mean it's me it just means it is influenced by me which of course it's going to be if I made it and guys sorry for not using commas or full stops I can't help it this is what my thoughts sound like to me and it feels really weird and unnatural when I have to add pauses instead of just connecting all my thoughts in one sentence like how they come to me in my brain I didn't sleep very well last night btw so I'm kinda going a little crazy I slept 4 hours and then got up at midnight to eat strawberries and cherries and prosciutto and brie as stated in my other post and then tried to go back to sleep but it didn't work so I just layed awake for a bit now it's about 11:30 and I'm quite tired now thinking about it but I mustn't have a nap or my sleep cycle will get even worse and it also just occurred to me no one wants to read this and I think I got a little off topic as well but if I write a big enough wall of text peole will have no choice but to see it and think wow what is this guy on about that he needs to write so much under a little drawing post guys write Krampus in the comments if you read this far I'm also kind of sad rn about Krampus because after the event is over I'll have to wait another year before I can see my lovely wife Krampus again and she's gonna be so lonely without me like what does she do all year stay at home all alone it's sad really who's going to give her love and attention while I'm off fighting in the war (2fort) and genuinely aside from Krampus I really like the Smissmas maps especially Carrier and Galleria I don't really like Haarp it's very confusing and stressful but still I hope some of them stay throughout the year because I just know if they only come back in December then they will get hardly any players ever again cause people want to play the new maps every year and I think I should stop writing so I can go play tf2 now so I can play the event maps before they're gone so bye.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 medic #medic tf2 #tf2 fanart #tf2 medic oc #tf2 oc #stream of consciousness

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA MARCH DEV LOG : "If you have love in your heart"

Hi! For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, you should already know what the gist is here, but for those of you who are new, or just new to our tumblr, let me fill you in!

For 2024, I am trying to release a dev log about HYPERSOMNIA once a month, may come earlier, may come a little late, but I'm doing this to help give insight on to how the game is going, and to give me motivation to work on the game.

First things first, sorry about the incomplete drawing for this month's log. I've been sitting on this drawing for months and haven't touched it, and I needed a drawing for this months log so I thought "Eh, what the hell."

For this month, things have been a bit up and down, I've been focusing on more smaller stuff in engine this month, and bigger stuff outside of engine. So there's not a lot that's been added but there is new stuff that I'd like to share. :)

I'd like to start with the smaller stuff first, since I feel like most logs I've started with the bigger stuff and kinda run out of steam by the end. So it'll be along the lines of "Small in-engine stuff > Big in-engine stuff > News/closing thoughts".

NOW LET'S GET TO THOSE UPDATES!

Lots of menu work has been done this month, which isn't very exciting sounding but it's nice to be getting this stuff over with.

HYPERSOMNIA has a smaller resolution than RPG Maker MV's default, and the thing about that is a lot of content in menus doesn't scale accordingly, leaving stuff to get cut off and preventing the player from accessing information.

One of the things I've had to do is get the player's HP and HS to appear on the status screen. These usually appear on the main menu of the game, but since I use an alternate menu for screen space, they had to be relocated. (courtesy of SundialShark, I'm not familiar with JS so they've been a super big help with certain things in the game.)

The game's title screen also saw a slight improvement, I found a plugin that replaces the windowed options on the title screen with pictures, making them more customized. The title screen artwork itself will be revised later, as I whipped it up as a placeholder.

Also, do you remember last month's dev log? Specifically, the part of it where I talked about the equip menu in battle? Well shortly after writing that dev log, it was finished!

This works how you'd expect it to, you can equip/unequip eyes and give them to other party members. The only drawback to this is that touchscreen isn't fully supported I've been told, which is fine since this is a game intended for PC. It does work with controller though which is nice.

Speaking of battles, I've been working on special attack animations! I have the main 4's offense animations done.

My personal favourite is Jack's. Everyone else does it all cool but Jack aims like he's holding a gun which is cooler. I'll probably touch up Ross' animation, since it looks kinda weird to me. I think his head might be too small.

Also, would you believe me if I told you that isn't all the battle stuff that was done this month? This is where that "Big in-engine" stuff kicks in.

THE BACKGROUND SYSTEM HAS BEEN IMPROVED! (ALONG WITH ME DESIGNING SOME NEW ENEMIES!)

This took a bit of time to configure, but I replaced the old background system for a new one

(Which was originally set up with my buddy Majimjam of HYADES, awesome game that has a demo out RIGHT NOW!)

With Jengamon's EarthBound Backgrounds plugin, it's been really fun to just toy with it and see what I can make. I would try and run down how this works, but the funny thing is I don't even know how this works. Or, at least in full anyways. I know how to configure it and set up new presets for enemies.

That's pretty much all the in-engine stuff I've done this month, but I'm not out of stuff to talk about yet.

First, I recently wrote a thread on the RPG Maker Forums about HYPERSOMNIA, which you can read here!

Secondly, some of you might've seen this already but I decided to cut FIREBALL from the game's soundtrack fully.

There were a multitude of reasons as to why, but the biggest one is I just don't feel like FIREBALL fits HYPERSOMNIA anymore. The vision has shifted since 2021 and I feel like music for battles could reflect it better, so FIREBALL was scrapped.

The song was uploaded to my personal YouTube channel though, so you can still listen to it here.

Third, THE NEW TRAILER IS ALMOST DONE!

There's still a few things that need to be touched up, but the music and footage is all fully recorded! All that's left to do is throw it in the editor and refine it until it's finished.

I'm very proud of this trailer so far, and I think it'll blow every other trailer I've made out of the water. My goal for this trailer was to improve the editing and I think that's definitely one of the highlights for this trailer.

I'd really like to post a quick sneak peak, but everything about this trailer I feel will be such a surprise that I don't want to spoil it. You'll just have to wait for the Mother Direct!

And that's it for this month! Slow but steady progress is how I'd sum up March. I'm definitely looking forward to the future. Mostly because I'm going to a restaurant with family later today, but next month will have more in store. Like my birthday! Big things coming.

Thanks for reading to the end of the dev log, same as always, these are fun to write. I appreciate you reading them!

If this is your first log you're reading, or even your first time seeing ANYTHING relating to HYPERSOMNIA, I got a whole bunch of links for you to check out if you wanna know more about me and my stupid little game.

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#hypersomniagame #rpgmaker #indie dev #updates #dev log #rpg #indiedev #earthbound #unique indie rpgs

[ladyofsnark]

Garrus wasn’t jealous.

He liked Lex. He respected her–admired her, even.

And true, he also thought Lex was beautiful. He didn’t have a human fetish, but there was something about her that went so much deeper than appearances. The way she commanded attention. The way everyone turned to look at her. That kind of presence–that power–was intoxicating in its own way. He was cocky, but he knew what to be cocky about. He knew his strengths and played to them. Lex played to everything and anything with a devastating amount of self-assuredness. Or suicidality. It was hard to tell sometimes.

He glanced back out the windows that looked down into the shuttle bay. They’d created a makeshift firing range there to test their weapons and help the team blow off steam in between missions and long stints at the Citadel. It was Kelly's idea, since half of the ground team needed anger management lessons and this was as close as they would get.

There was no real danger to it. Nothing short of actual AA guns could pierce the Normandy's hull and they used soft-polymer rounds for safety in close quarters, so the most anyone was risking was a painful bruise. Of course, Lex loved it. She cared for her rifles like they were her children and she never wasted an opportunity to tinker with them.

But she was practicing with Thane.

Garrus sighed and pushed away from the window. It bothered him and it bothered him that it bothered him. Lex also practiced with him and with Grunt and Zaeed and she and Jack challenged each other to trick shots when they weren’t being supervised.

Hell, he liked the assassin. Respected him, even. It seemed like there was a sore lack of good people in the universe and few tried half as hard as Thane did to be one.

So why this? This irrational annoyance. This irritation. He couldn’t help but think back to Oraka in Chora’s Den moping over Sha’ira and it didn’t do great things for his ego.

Garrus was so distracted he didn’t even hear the elevator ping. 

“Hey, I was wondering where you’d gotten to,” Jon said as he stepped off. “I looked in the main battery and thought something must have gone horribly wrong to drag you away from your terminal. What’s up?”

Garrus straightened, looking away quickly from the shuttle bay. “Nothing,” he said. “I just came down here to talk to the engineers about the power draw from the new guns.”

Jon leaned against the opposite bulkhead and then glanced out the window, at his sister who was listening to Thane explain something to her with rapt attention. “Uh huh.”

It was more of a grunt than words, loaded with as much skepticism as the older of the Shepard twins could muster.

Before Garrus could make good his escape, Jon spoke again: “You two are a lot alike, you know.”

Garrus gave him a dubious look. “How?”

“Well for one, you’re both dumbasses,” Jon said, surprising a laugh out of the turian, who then reached up to rub the sore side of his face. The man smiled, only half apologetic. “My sister tells me everything and I can count on one hand how many times she’s said she loves me. So, if you’re waiting for her to make the first move, you’ll be waiting for a while.”

Spirits, they were so unmistakably related. Jon might have been the diplomat of the pair but that was only by default, because Lex’s idea of diplomacy involved a dictionary of curse words and probably at least one explosion.

Garrus glanced back down at the shuttle bay, at Lex. “I’m sure she wants something closer to home…”

“And closer to home is someone else with scales? And hallucinogenic saliva?” Jon snorted. “Garrus. Think of it like this. You’re up here pining for a woman who would have thrown her whole life–her whole career–away to go with you to Omega. I can tell you right now, Lex wouldn’t do that for anyone else. Maybe not even me. So the only thing in your way is you.”

He had a point. He usually did, but this was a particularly annoying example.

"You're her brother, aren't you supposed to be threatening me? Not trying to set us up?" Garrus asked, with humor.

Jon laughed. "When we were sixteen one of the Reds decided to cop a feel and Lex almost beat him to death with a datapad. I don't need to come to her rescue. Yours, maybe. But not hers."

#mass effect #shepard twins #shakarian

[its-my-whump]

"It should have been me." (Alt 4)

TW: emotional whump, fear of death, sacrifice, gore

Something prickled in the back of his neck. He was the last of them to draw a stick. His heart sunk. All three already had a piece in hand. And all these pieces looked just too long. He had seen the straws before. There was no way in hell, that it wasn't the short one still left to draw.

His stomach flipped. His fingers trembled. He didn't want to pull it out of that man's hand. If he wouldn't see it. If he hadn't had to touch it and seal his own fate by drawing that damn last straw, everything would be okay. Than all of this was just a bad dream.

4 pairs of eyes were eagerly watching him. He wanted to run and hide. Every fibre of his body was surely shivering, just because his heart was hammering like a malfunctioning steam engine. That cruel bastard really made him draw. He could have just opened his damn palm and showed the unevitable.

Every single one of them already knew what he was about to draw. His comrades, all of them grown man, looking at him, like he was their child and just fell from his bicycle. And the bad guy silently smirked. Lips turning up with every moment he hesitated.

Reflexively his eyes closed, when he pulled. A desperate breath escaped him.

The bad guy making them draw in the first place laughed shortly. His eyes mercilessly fixating on him, a cold expression in his face.

"So, it's the little one, I guess. Don't worry, you'll get a blindfold, so you won't see it coming." The laugh turned into something diabolic.

Tears had already started falling, he hadn't even noticed them summoning.

He had never thought, a firing squad behind enemy lines would be his way to go. But what did he really know, he was but a child compared to his comrades. Not, that he'd wished this happening to any one of them at all. But he was scared!

It was a miracle, he hadn't wet himself, when they bound his hands and made him stand in the yard. He couldn't breath, when that bastard put the blindfold around his head. His heart was pounding so loud and frantic, it really hurt. But at least he hadn't had to hear the full extent of that evil laugh, while the strap around his head was pulled too tight.

His comrades, his family was fighting. They were fighting for him. There was a scuffle, shouting, punches and grunts. Only fragments, four-letter words, swearing and the sound of swifting feet on the ground reached him. But his whole attention was circling around his dominantly pinching fear of dying any moment. Another language, foreign words, more shouts. More shouts from his friends.

Suddenly a gun discharged.

He flinched, his shoulders went to his ears, while he turtlenecked and his knees automatically buckled a few inches.

But no pain! Another shot. Something, someone slammed into him. His legs were swepped from under him. With his hands bound behind his back, he was not able to stop his fall. His shoulder crashed into the unyielding floor, his head followed a heartbeat later. All air left his lungs with a painful grunt. White stars danced in his black vision. A heavy body was above him. Pain in his shoulder, his head, in his ribs, where he was tackled. Something wet, he smelled blood.

But the pain was coming from everywhere. He wasn't sure, if he had been shot or not. His mind was preparing for the agony to set in, but it didn't come.

Whatever was laying on him was slack and someone was panting strained, in addition to his own gasping for air. More shouting.

Hands grabbed him. The blindfold was pulled away. The slack thing above him was his superior. The wet stuff was his brother's blood. So much red, a leaking hole in the other man's guts. Hands of his comrades pressed onto the lieutenant's abdomen, while they pulled the kid from under him.

Weary, tired eyes were looking up, searching for the baffled young man. Still the expression of a proud father in those eyes.

His bound hands came free by the help of a comrade. He robbled to his superior, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.

"NO! Lieutenant. NO! It should have been me!"

My whumptember2023 masterlist

#Whumptember2023 #Whumptember2023 day 19 #day 19 #altprompt four: It should have been me #whump #writing #whump writing #military whump

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

hms captain??

hms captain indeed!!

i meant for this to be a short post but oops its really long already and im nowhere near finished so if you wanna learn about this terribly designed warship, join me after the cut; if you dont, enjoy this picture of an oddly designed ship.

the hms captain was a british warship. it was built during a time where shipbuilders were phasing sails out for steam engines, and where warships were being much better armoured. for example, the hms captain was steam-powered with two propellers and had wrought iron armour.

wrought iron armour caused a problem for warships. like think of any pirate media youve seen where theyve got wooden ships with these iron cannonballs; the cannonballs very easily breach the wooden ships. they dont really do that with iron armour. instead, they bounced off.

so the british admiralty, media and public were all in want, to some extent, of a ship with better guns that could breach ship armour. enter cowper phipps cole:

a man who looks like a rasputin prototype and seems to have the charisma to back up the comparison.

see coles was very good at public engagement. when he needed to, he could very easily get the media and public on his side, which is a power he leveraged in order to get hms captain approved, commissioned and built.

his design, oddly enough, goes back to a raft from the crimean war.

this is the lady nancy, constructed in 1855 to aid during the siege of taganrog. it was for shore bombardment which you can see in this illustration of it. while cameras were a thing back then (i think daguerreotypes existed during this time), i dont believe we have any photos of the lady nancy.

coles was a captain in the navy in 1855, and him and a group of sailors constructed it. according to those there, the guns on the raft were protected by some kind of dome structure or a "cupola" as they called it.

hms captain was inspired by the lady nancy, and so, it was also intended for shore bombardment. for this purpose, two big fuck off rotating turrets were mounted inside the hull on the gun deck.

these had been patented by coles himself in 1859 which is partly how he became a consultant for the admiralty when it came to building ships. being the nephew of admiral lord edmund lyons 1st baron lyons gcb gcmg kch, by marriage, twice over certainly also helped.

quick note on that:

its not technically incest, i think, his wife emily pearson was lyons niece and his mom is the sister of lyons wife augusta

i also didnt know what those acronyms meant beforehand, gcb is a british order of chivalry called most honourable order of the bath, gcmg is another one: most distinguished order of saint michael and saint george, kch is a hanoverian order of chivlary called royal guelphic order. yeah thats just gobbledegook.

lyons was important because of his role in the crimean war as commander-in-chief of the mediterranean fleet (suddenly i feel like im reading an icemav fic) and hes credited as ensuring victory for britain.

originally, the admiralty just ordered prototypes of his big fuck off turrets and they were actually impressed with them.

and so the hms prince albert was built with four of them (is that four turrets in your pants or are you just happy to see me) and the hms royal sovereign was converted to be a turret ship. both, however, could only operate as coastal service vessels.

hence, the admiralty allowed coles to draw up plans for a two (2) turret oceangoing ship in 1863, working with nathaniel barnaby who was chief constructor for the navy. keep in mind, coles had little to no experience in ship design.

then, they suspended the project.

but they allowed him to work on a one (1) turret oceangoing ship that was based on the hms pallas with joseph scullard who was head draughtsman in 1864.

and then in 1865, a committee rejected/cancelled his projects, and decided to move forward with a different design for a two (2) turret ship called hms monarch.

this made coles very angry, and an angry coles is not a good thing for the british admiralty.

(i spent an hour making this because im so bad at making things look purposefully bad)

so you know like today where bad actors like andrew tate, tucker carlson, joe rogan and even like graham hancock can just use public platforms and social medias to get a relatively large portion of the population of their side, seemingly with ease, just by talking/communicating confidently, playing into fears and anxieties of the public, and creating an us and them?

yeah so cowper phipps coles was also really good at this. grifters, liars and pretenders have alway existed.

(milo rossi brings discusses this a lot in his series on hancock's ancient apocalypse docuseries, and id 100% recommend the whole series.)

so how did coles do this?

well, he began with a very strong and very harsh attack on robert spencer robinson who was a vice admiral and controller of the navy, and his full title was admiral sir robert spencer robinson kcb frs.

the title admiral sir is very funny, like i want to get a cat called that with the nickname addy. kcb is basically the same as gcb. lyons was general grand cross and robinson was knight commander, because of fucking course its this stupid. frs is an award given to you from the royal society of london; the fellowship of the ring royal society is granted to those who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science".

it wasnt just mr admiral sir that coles attacked; he also attacked several other admirals who were on the committee but he really seemed to hate robinson. coles also lobbied parliament and the press, focussing on the flaws he saw in monarchs design and how britain was going to be left behind in the shipping arms race since many other nations were pressing ahead with several oceangoing turret ships. unsurprisingly, it was the united states that were winning the race so far.

around this time, coles' contract as a navy consultant was terminated in january 1866. like thats as hard as he was going, he fully lost his job. of course he had his dear not-quite-incest uncle lord lyons to fall back on. one hell of a safety net, very well entwined.

in response to this professional fuck you, coles simply protested that he had been misunderstood and the man must have rolled a nat 20 on his charisma saving roll because on the 1st march 1886, he was re-employed.

he waited a month and a half to submit his critique of the monarch proposal on the 16th april. he refused to publicly support a vessel that didnt represent his "views of a sea going turret-ship" because He Was Like That™. we're in the cowper karen era. his critique went on to say that hms monarch could not give his "principle a satisfactory and conclusive trial."

now at this point, the admiralty really should have just sent him packing. theyve given him chance after chance after chance despite him having pretty much no experience.

like say you have a blocked toilet that you cant unblock, but instead of calling a plumber, you ask your friends nephew whos an art curator who really wants to give this plumbing thing a go. then his first attempt makes it worse; now the taps in your bath turn on everytime you use the kitchen sink and your toilets still blocked. but you give him another go and now theres a shower curtain stuck in your toilet which is still blocked. and now youre fingers are hovering over the call button on a plumbers number when your friend calls and asks you to give their nephew another go. its only been three weeks and theres a 24 hours mcdonalds up the road that you can go to for the bathroom and youve got a shower at work you can use, so you think, okay, sure. and then he accidentally rips your kitchen sink out and you still have a blocked toilet and a non-working shower and your bath taps are running 24/7, and your friend asks you again to give him a "second chance."

like youre not giving him another chance, theres a goddamn shower curtain in your toilet and your kitchen sink is in your fucking living room. of course, youre not giving him another chance.

but say everyone in your street and everyone in your friend group is on his side because hes been telling little lies and charming them all with his aunts baked goods and his knowledge of local art and history. and everyone else is rooting for him and they all believe this is the chance.

thats the situation first naval lord admiral frederick grey (full title: admiral the hon. sir frederick william grey gcb) found himself in. obviously coles should not be given another chance, but the whole country believes he should.

so on the 21st april (thats me moms birthday :)) he agreed that coles should be allowed to build his "perfect" oceangoing turret ship.

and so the hms captain was born

the ship was to be built on a private shipyard and coles selected laird brothers' chesire yard on the 8th may 1866.

one of the biggest problems ship designers had with turret ships is that ships tend to have quite a lot of rigging that gets in the way of the turrets. this was a genuine design flaw for the hms monarch, it was brought up by the chief designer sir edward james reed kcb rfs, but he was overuled. he didnt think a turret ship should have either a forecastle or poop deck.

on a typical warship, youll see a small rise on either end of the ship. at the front/bow, you have the forecastle which was typically used as a defensive measure. at the back/stern, youd typically have the captain quarters within the hull and the roof of that is the poop deck. it would be used for either the captain or a helmsman or a first mate maybe to supervise the crew and their work.

reed, very correctly, did not want these measures because they interfered with the turrets. he also wanted much less rigging because the more wooden beams and rope and sail youve got, the less room the turrets have to fire.

he wrote that "the middle of the upper deck of a full-rigged ship is not a very eligible place for fighting large guns."

and coles and the lairds seemed to agree with this sentiment because their design corrected these flaws.

their solutions were to erect a hurricane deck to place the rigging on. this is an upper deck that is above the frame of the hull. they also used tripod masts to reduce rigging. they also placed the turrets within the hull in their own special gun deck.

now, just because youve corrected for some flaws doesnt mean you havent introduced several of your own which spoiler, the captain had a lot of flaws which we will be getting into.

captain had a length of 320ft or 97.54m; she had a beam (width at the widest part) of 53ft3 or 16.23m; her draught (the distance between the waterline and the keel/bottom of the hull) was 24ft10 or 7.57m; and her top speed was 15 knots which is about 17mph.

in a futile attempt at a balanced view, i will say that the speed was fairly impressive. most other ships had top speeds of 10-12 knots or about 11-14mph. the use of double propellers was a good choice.

one of the very few good choices.

see the captain was designed to displace or essentially weigh 6910 long tons, and was expected to have a freeboard of about 8ft or 2.4m.

a ships freeboard is the distance between her exposed upper deck and the waterline. typically, warships have high freeboards. its not quite as simple as the higher the freeboard, the more stable your ship is, but in general, higher freeboards do offer more stability. this is something the captain needed

see, most of her weight was high up in the ship which meant she had a low metacentric height. to not get into all of the complicated science that im not entirely sure i understand (dyspraxic nation rise up), lower metacentric heights tend to make ships more unstable.

[from wikipedia:]

so all of this is a bad design. apart from her impressive speed, she seemed like a ship with poor stability and a real risk of flooding because of the exposed gun decks. and with flooding, you might just fucking capsize 🚢⬆️↗️↘️🌊☠️

mr admiral sir robert spencer robins already raised concerns at the design stage in regards to the low freeboard and flooding. reed also raised concerns about the ship being too heavy and having too high a centre of gravity, but they were ignored.

if i had a nickel for every time edward james reed was overruled after raising a legitimate concern about the design of a turret ship, id have two nickels, but its weird its happened twice.

still, first lord of the admiralty (genuinely feel like this is a made up job) sir john pakington approved the design on the 23rd july 1866, though he did note that coles and the lairds would be held responsible for any failures.

if youre interested, john pakingtons full title is john somerset pakington 1st baron hampton gcb pc frs and he was a fucking tory, and the right honourable lord hampton, which okay, dude, you overcompensating for anything over there? pc means he was a member of his majestys most honourable privy council, who are all advisors yes-men to whichever bellend is on the crown.

moving past that cag-mag of a man, lets talk about how this mess got even worse. and you might be asking, "kai, how can it get worse? havent you already told me that the ship can easily sink?"

and you know, fair point, but you can always make your ship even more likely to sink.

see coles came down with an illness during the building of the ship. im not sure what it was; i cant find anything on it, but whatever it was, it meant he couldnt supervise the building of his ship. now, im not sure how much that would help considering he was the art curator turned amateur plumber in the metaphor, but maybe it would have done some good.

because when she was finished, she did not displace 6910 long tons. no, she displaced 7767 long tons. and her 8ft freeboard turned into a 6ft6 or 1.98m freeboard. she was floating 22 inches deeper than expected. oh, and her centre of gravity raised by 10 inches!

reed didnt just raise hell over this, he dragged heaven down too. and its not like he was wrong. the ship was a floating disaster.

hms captain had an angle of list of 21°. this means of she listed 21° or more, she would capsize.

now, theres no real average angle of list, but most people would say 40-50° as a reasonable yardstick. for some vessels, it might dip into the 30s°, but 21° is a ridiculously low angle of list.

for reference, this is a 20° angle.

its not much of an angle, is it?

and remember, the captain is meant to be an oceangoing vessel. the oceans dont exactly have a reputation for being calm.

unless youve got a direct telegram to poseidon and are in a place where you can ask him to calm down, the captains not gonna have fun.

and of course when reed raised his concerns, he was overuled.

if i had a nickel for every time edward james reed was overruled after raising a legitimate concern about the design of a turret ship, id have three nickels, and its kinda concerning that its happened three times.

instead, she was commissioned on the 30th april 1870 under captain hugh talbot burgoyne vc. to commission a ship is simply to place it into active service. also vc simply means burgoyne received the victoria cross whatever that one is.

anyway, she underwent several trials in the months after this and i guess everyone had pre-ordered their rose-coloured glasses because the captain won many supporters and was considered everything that coles had promised.

part of these trials were the gunnery trials. these took place in vigo and the captain was against both hms monarch and hms hercules, a non-turret ship. their target was a 600ft long, 60ft high rock. they each had 5 minutes of continuous firing.

all three ships had problems with aiming after the first few shots because the smoke emitted from the weapons meant they couldnt fucking see anything.

still, hms hercules had an accuracy rate of 65%, while hms monarch came in with a 40% rate and hms captain limped in with a 35% rate.

and im not just using "limped" as an exaggeration, these trials showed that when the turrets fired, it caused the ship to list and the list was 20°.

im sure you can see the problem there.

if you can, youre better than the admiralty who just ignored it and was like fantastic, she works. coles straight up had the entire admiralty hostage and the only person speaking up was reed.

if i had a nickel for every time edward james reed was overruled after raising a legitimate concern about the design of a turret ship, id have four nickels, which is great and all but id rather give reed a hug at this point.

-

now the 35% accuracy didnt really matter if the captain was going to be used for shore bombardment. most of the time, youre not aiming for anything specific, youre just trying to cause as much damage as possible.

but that 20° list? that mattered.

it mattered a lot because on the 7th september 1870, she capsized.

shocking i know. only five months after being commissioned and everything.

that day, she was running trials in the bay of biscay during a storm when she was hit by a gale of wind. she rolled over and capsized.

there were over 500 people on board and only 18 survived. coles was among the dead. i hope their souls were able to find peace.

theres a memorial for them in st paul's cathedral in london if youd ever like to pay your respect to them.

now theres not much else to say about the captain other than the inquiry into the sinking blame the public for it.

they concluded that "the captain was built in deference to public opinion expressed in parliament and through other channels, and in opposition to views and opinions of the controller and his department" and this was pretty significant in victorian britain as it was unprecedented.

but realistically, it wasnt wrong. they were the ones backing coles the whole time.

so i guess if theres something to learn from this mess, its that if youre going to support a public figure, whether it be a celebrity or politician or scientist or whatever, take a step back and ask yourself "do i agree with what theyre saying or are they just very good at talking?"

im sure someones said it better than me, but you know, that sentiment. we can also laugh at how much of a disaster hms captain was.

#anon #kai rambles #ships #hms captain #warships #warship #british warships #history #shipping history #history of ships #ship history #idk what to tag here honestly #shipposting

[xaphrin]

From This Prompt List 

This one kind of ends weird, so I may have to write more. Oh no. 

Adult Nonsense Ahead

- - -

Dick stared down into the engine, his eyebrows knitting together as he tried to understand exactly what he was looking at. Whatever basic auto care his brothers had tried to teach him seemed useless at this point. Something was steaming and hissing, and there was a metallic, pungent smell that assaulted his nose with every rush of wind. He sighed and cursed under his breath, his fingers tightening on the frame. 

Not for the first time in his life, he wished that he had the same technical know-how as his brothers. Jason and Tim could probably fix it outright, or at least jerry-rig the engine to limp it to civilization a few miles up the road. Dick definitely didn’t possess those same skills, and so he was staring down into the engine feeling like he was trying to learn a foreign language without a textbook.

On the other side of the car, half-obscured by the darkness and the heavy snowfall, Raven was checking the radar on her phone. Even from here, Dick could see the dark splash of color that indicated the blizzard had no intention of stopping anytime soon. With a sigh and a frustrated curse, she sidled up beside him, trying to draw from his warmth.  

“What’s the verdict on the car?” The wind whipped around them as she was speaking, carrying her words down the steep slope of the mountain. 

“The tow company is backed-up because of the storm. They’re saying it’s going to be three to four hours, at least. I called my family, but all the roads are blocked right now until the plow trucks can clear some of the snow.” He slammed the hood down and looked over at her. “We could try walking into town, but…” Dick trailed off, tilting his head to look over the sheer drop of the cliff. 

Raven snorted. “I’d rather we didn’t fall to our untimely demise.” She glanced around the dark road, listening to the wild wind howl like a demon. “Let’s just wait. Four hours isn’t so bad, and someone might happen to drive by that can give us a lift.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Dick didn’t believe anyone was going to come out in this storm on a winding mountain road, and he knew Raven didn’t believe either. But, at least they were clinging to a little bit of hope. That was better than nothing.  

Dick walked around to the trunk of his car, digging through it to find a few wool blankets and a camp light. Raven had already climbed into the backseat of the car, shivering against the chill that was creeping in. He climbed in on the other side and slammed the door close, flicking on the camp light. The interior of the car was bathed in a pale glow, which cast intimate shadows over the both of them. 

“When you invited me to stay with your family over holiday break, I had such high hopes we would be drinking hot chocolate by the fireplace the entire time.” Raven took one of the blankets from him and wrapped it over her legs. “Instead we’re trapped on a mountain in the middle of a blizzard, waiting for someone to come get us.” 

“There are worse things.” Dick fished out his insulated thermos, glad his leftover coffee was still mostly warm. He poured Raven a cup and pushed it into her hands. “At least we have help coming.”

“Mm.” Raven took a sip of the coffee and looked over at him, her expression dark. “So, what are we going to do for four whole hours while we wait for the tow truck?”

He fished around in his pocket, looking for his phone. “I think I can find a movie for us to watch. I should have pretty decent battery left.”

“Mm-hm.” She nodded, taking another sip of the coffee in her hands. “…or we could get naked.” 

Dick nearly dropped his phone and he scrambled to keep a hold on it. Sucking in a shocked breath, he looked over at Raven, who was nonchalantly sipping coffee, as if she didn’t just drop that bomb on him. Was she… serious? She couldn’t be serious, right? Raven had been his best friend for years - since high school. They had become friends quickly and developed a bond unlike any of their other friends. They had decided to go to the same college together, had chosen to go to grad school at the same time, and through all of that, they remained best friends. 

Dick wasn’t sure when he had actually developed romantic feelings for her, probably some time in high school. It was a slow building of a romance - attraction, then desire, and finally love. He knew he loved her, and he wasn’t going to deny those feelings for her. But, Raven never gave him any indication that she returned the sentiment, so he had always assumed those feelings were one-sided. 

He was clearly mistaken.

Her eyes met his, and she offered a coquettish smile before looking out the backseat window again. “It’s really coming down now.” 

“Hang on.” Dick put his hand out to stop her from speaking anymore. He stared at her vague profile in the thin light of his car, feeling his blood pulse through his veins. “You don’t get to say something like that, and then talk about the weather like you didn’t say anything.” 

She shrugged, pretending not to care, but there was a sharpness to her shoulders, as if she was trying to protect herself against the possibility of rejection. “It’s cold, we have time to kill… I thought it might be fun.” She took a sip of coffee again, her expression blank. "But, if you're not interested, I understand. We can watch a movie."

Oh, he was very interested. Dick sat there, suddenly remembering all of the times he knew he wanted her. Their senior prom, when she wore that little black dress. Their first year in college, when they both got a little drunk and started telling low-brow jokes. His first heartache. Her first break-up. There seemed to be too many to count. But… he didn’t want to do this if it was just because she was bored. He wanted there to be something real behind it. 

“So…” Dick scratched at his jaw and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. His nerves felt like they were ready to jump out of his skin, and he tried to keep his mind grounded. “Is this supposed to be casual then?”

“If you want to keep it that way.” Her face was hidden in the shadows, but Dick could sense her trepidation, as if she was suddenly doubting what she just said. “We are friends, and we could keep this just between friends.”  

He nodded slowly, still trying to process her suggestion. “And… what if I don’t want to? Keep it casual, I mean.”

There was a long, heavy pause as Raven let his words settle between them. It was as if she hadn’t considered the idea that Dick may want something more than just a casual encounter in the back of his car while they waited for a tow. How? How could she not have seen or understood what he wanted? Was he really that dense? Was she? 

Raven shifted on the seat and turned her face towards him. “Is that what you really want? Something more than just a quick fuck in the back of your car? Or are you just trying to protect my feelings?”

Dick should have been offended that she framed his suggestion like that, but he couldn't blame her for thinking this way. He had spent nearly all of their relationship trying to reinforce the idea that they were just friends, and that he didn’t have any romantic feelings towards her. To him, Raven’s friendship meant more than anything, and he didn’t want to jeopardize that friendship by pursuing a relationship that may have been unrequited. He loved Raven, but he loved her in her entirety.  

“I have wanted to sleep with you since senior year in high school, and I’ve wanted to kiss you for even longer than that.” Dick leaned forward, placing his hands on the empty space between them in the back seat. His tongue came out to wet his lips, and he gently pushed the cup of coffee aside so he could move into her space. 

She smelled familiar, like vanilla and tea, and something he could never quite place. His heart was hammering in his chest, fluttering like a wild bird. Part of him felt stupid for giving into his feelings after controlling them for all this time, but another part of him knew this moment was inevitable. It was only a matter of time before he confessed everything to her, and fate had decided that now was the perfect moment for that confession.

“But if this is just because you’re bored, Raven, then I don’t want it. I want something more than casual. I want you - all of you..” There was a long, heavy pause, and he cupped her cheek, sliding the icy touch of his thumb over her warm skin. Dick watched as Raven’s lips opened on a soft gasp, and he leaned even closer, dropping his voice to a low hum. “Raven, I love you.”

Her shoulders dropped and she let go of a rush of breath, tension leaving her body like a storm racing away from shore. A soft laugh escaped, and she met his stare with a tilted, almost sheepish smile. “Oh, thank god. I love you too.” 

Whatever response Dick had expected, it was not that. He sat there, blinking in shock for a fraction of a moment, trying to process exactly what she had said. She loved him. She loved him in the same way that he loved her. Not just as friends, but as something so much more. He opened his mouth, trying to think of something he could possibly say to her, but whatever words he tried to find, disappeared the moment Raven pressed her lips against hers. 

Dick sat there, shock coursing through his veins. He had dreamed of this kiss for years, and now that he had it, it felt almost surreal. A moment passed, then another, and without any kind of warning, every good sense in his body disappeared. He wanted her, desperately. With a low curse, he threaded his fingers into her hair, and pulled her hard against his body. Raven made a soft sound in the back of her throat, and she met him kiss-for-kiss, each touch of her lips fervent and desperate. Dick groaned as she swung a leg around his hips, falling onto his chest. 

“This isn’t exactly how I imagined this night would go.” He was pushing at her coat, shoving it down her shoulders with shaking hands. Raven was already pulling at her sweater underneath, as if she refused to wait a minute longer. Dick didn’t blame her, they had both spent far too long trying to hide their feelings, and they had to make up for lost time. As soon as possible. “I thought we would just get to the cabin-”

“I was going to sneak into your room.” Raven dropped her sweater onto the floor, and Dick groaned as he skated his fingers up her waist to her breasts, cupping them through the soft cotton of her bra. He could feel her nipples peak under the fabric, and he pulled the cups down.The light might have been thin in the space, but he felt like he could see every inch of her beautiful body, and God, she was gorgeous. Dick leaned forward and wrapped his mouth around a nipple, drawing it into his mouth. 

Raven’s head tilted back as let go of a sound that traveled straight to Dick’s groin, and he pushed his hips up into hers. Raven’s breath stuttered, but she didn’t stop talking. Her fingers dug into his hair, holding his mouth tight to her chest. “I was going to confess to you this week anyway. I just thought it would be by a fire and in the lingerie I brought.”

Wait. What? Dick pulled back, scraping his teeth along her sensitive nipple as his eyes flicked to her face. Raven shuddered again, and he thought about her in something black and lacy, and his heart roared to life. With a curse, he slid his tongue up the valley of her breasts, pressing kisses to her sternum. “Put a pin in that thought, because… fuck.” 

His words trailed off as Raven’s bra finally joined her sweater on the floor, and Dick felt his mouth water at the sight of her bare just for him. Cursing under his breath, he leaned forward and kissed down her neck, nibbling and tasting her skin as his hands made quick work of her jeans. She tasted of cold sweat clinging to her skin, and each pass of his lips and tongue felt like a flame held against ice.

He pushed the fabric over her trim hips, taking her underwear with her. His fingers slid up the inside of her thighs and he found her dripping and wet between her soft thighs. Raven let go of a little squeak and she writhed against him, her arms going tight around his shoulders. 

“Cold!” Her voice was a breathy laugh as she wiggled against his lap. “Your hands are so damn cold! You’re gonna freeze my damn clit off!”

Dick grinned up at her, his whole soul feeling lighter than it had in years. “Yeah? I can fix that.” 

Before she had time to question him, Dick pulled her down against his lap, and then somehow managed to maneuver her to stretch out along the bench of the seat beneath him. Raven’s shoulders pushed up against the icy window, which was quickly fogging up, and without another thought, Dick dropped his mouth to taste between her thighs. 

Fuck, yes.

Raven let go of a groan that matched the roar of the wind outside, and seemed to rattle the whole car. Her back arched against the cold glass, and her hand fell into his hair, threading her fingers through the black strands. “I… oh… yes.” Whatever quip she was going to say seemed to die on her tongue, and Raven pushed her hips up into his mouth. “Please.”

Dick was only too happy to oblige. Without another thought, he hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and he let himself find heaven in between her legs. His tongue circled her clit slowly, stroking and flicking against it as he tried to learn exactly what she liked the most. He wanted her a writhing mess beneath him - after all he had so much lost time to make up for. Only minutes ago they thought they were only best friends, and then they were kissing for the first time, and now he was eating her out like a starved man. 

Part of himself believed he should have treated this moment with more reverence and care, or at the very least taken her out on a proper date first. But another part of him didn’t want to wait any longer. He was given a gift, and he refused to deny himself the pleasure of enjoying that gift. And he definitely enjoyed it. 

His tongue traced the length of her, teasing and tasting her before he sucked hard on her clit. Raven moaned again, and her fingers tightened in his hair almost painfully. “Dick…”

The way she spoke his name made him curse. It was drawn out so tightly in lust that it sounded like she was going to snap any moment. She was so close, and there was a distinctly male pride in him that rose up inside him. He did this to her - made her lose control. With a grin, he redoubled his efforts, spelling his name tight against her clit. Raven’s head flew back, smacking against the glass behind her. 

“I’m so close.” 

He knew. Dick pressed harder and tighter against her clit, the moment stretching out into forever before Raven’s whole body tensed up. Every muscle drew tight inside her, and a begging scream escaped her throat. She pushed her hips tight against his mouth as her orgasm wracked her body. Wave after wave of pleasure wrapped around her, sending her soul out into the storm as she rode Dick’s face. It was as if her whole body was alight with pleasure, and he didn’t back down, continuing to lap at her until she sagged against the seat with a curse and a sigh. 

Dick pulled back, smirking as he licked his lips. Raven was dazed, staring at the ceiling as she swallowed breath after breath, trying to calm down. He just smiled as he kissed up her stomach and over her breasts to her neck. 

“Worth the wait?”

Raven let go of a low, sultry laugh, and she leveled a teasing smile at him. “Tit for tat, Dick.”

Oh. He wasn’t sure if he was going to survive her. 

#dickrae #robrae #adult nonsense

[bluepeachstudios]

So, me and @wondrous-art kind of went insane and just started talking about this TMNT AU where Splinter raised them in the forest outside of New York City instead of in the sewers of the city, and now it's become its own monster. So here are the turtle designs and April and Master Splinter. Infodump about the turtles in this AU below the read more.

Leonardo

Leo's an eastern diamondback terrapin and he's the oldest at 15 and the one "in charge" because he's the oldest. He fights with a bokken and is working on using two of them because Splinter didn't have access to a whole ass blacksmith, so the boys get wooden weapons. Leo's got some issues with OCD, mostly he's got hurt-obsession and has intrusive thoughts about accidentally hurting his family, and his rituals are based around keeping that from happening. He likes his long mask tails and thinks they make him look like a hero. I tried to combine a bit of 2003, 2012 and Rise Leo so he tries to be responsible but he's still a teenager and goofs around and makes jokes. He wants to be a dang hero!! Anime is cool! He's especially interested in learning about Japan because it's Splinter's culture, and Splinter raised them with aspects of Japanese culture. His main interest is still training to become better at ninjutsu, but he's also got Heavy Interest in anime. He's the family medic.

Raphael

Raph's a wood turtle and the second oldest at 15 (just a month behind Leo). He argues with Leo a lot because Leo wants to do the right thing and Raph thinks they shouldn't get involved with stuff that isn't their business. Again, I tried to get a mix of the Raphs, so he's got anger issues but the one thing that overrides that is the protectiveness over his family. He does a lot of weight training, climbing, and hiking for fun. He's also the family cook! Splinter taught him. He likes to pretend he'd rather be alone but really, he sticks to his family unless he's trying to blow off steam. Because wood turtles estivate, he's sensitive to the heat and has passed out during training in the summer before. He was not happy about that. Raph fights with a wooden jutte and calls Splinter "Oyaji" because he's a rude little shit. He'll also call Leo "aniki" when he's trying to make a point.

Donatello

Donnie's an eastern spiny softshell turtle and 14 years old. He can breathe underwater! But this also means his above-water lungs aren't as strong and he's got asthma. He's autistic and uses his bo staff as a stim half the time and chewing on the ends of his mask the other half of the time. His interests are mainly engineering, insects, and biology, but he's always interested in whatever modern technology Splinter lets him get a hold of. He refuses to wear knee and elbow pads because they squeeze his joints and he doesn't like the sensation of them. He's got a sarcastic side and when he's serious he can get snippy. He would have been the family medic but he saw blood exactly One Time and hit the floor. He's fine when it comes to any blood other than his family's, but god forbid one of his brothers bleed or he's out like a light. He's got little webs between his fingers and toes that help him, he's the best swimmer in the whole fam.

Michelangelo

The babiest baby, a spotted turtle at the age of 13. He's sensitive to temperature and is constantly complaining that it's too hot or too cold, there is no good temperature. He's got ADHD bad and keeps at least two fidget toys in his belt at all times. He's an artist and likes to paint and draw, mostly abstract paintings but he likes to draw things he's seen around the woods or cool machine designs that he asks Donnie to try and make. He's got the URGE to dig during the summers to try and stay cool. He's the most emotionally intelligent and opens up easily about how he's feeling and can usually figure out how his brothers are feeling as well. If he cries it is Everyone's Problem. He doesn't like being treated openly like a child, but he still does things like climb into his brother's beds after nightmares, climb all over them, ask for bites of their food, and generally he just wants to be given Attention and Love at all times. He calls Splinter "Otochan" unless his brothers are calling him, then he switches to "Tosan" like them. He'll occasionally call his brothers "onii-san" but it's when he's trying to be cute and get something. He has nunchucks that he likes to spin when his hands aren't busy.

#TMNT #Teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt au #tmnt art #tmnt fandom #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt raphael #tmnt donatello #tmnt leonardo #tmnt splinter #tmnt april #Mystic Forest AU

[rejke]

TailQuest - 5 years of development and release of the game created by 2 people (tower defense)

For many years, we have been creating games in a micro-team, usually just my husband and me. After years of working together, we understand each other almost without words, know each other's habits, and our workflow. This is a solid foundation on which to build something great.

We've always made small games suitable for our small team, but a few years ago, we wanted to create something more complex. So the idea was born to create a tower defense game in a tiny 3D world and add a secret quest to it.

We had experience using the LibGDX library, and we've been experimenting with the GODOT engine for a while, so we chose Godot Engine for our project. Why GODOT? Because it's open source, because it works well on linux, and because we can be part of an amazing community :)

When we started working on TailQuest, version 2.0 of GODOT had just been released. Yes... it was a long time ago!

In the beginning, our game was controlled by touch or mouse cursor. But when Nintendo Switch came out, we thought, "hey, maybe it would be fun to do tower defense for consoles!" So we changed the game to be controlled by the player's character instead of the mouse cursor. This changed a lot of things in our design, but the core principles remained the same - tower defense and secret-seeking.

We had to change a lot of things in our game at this point, such as the design of the towers and levels. In the first version of the game, the towers had eyes with which to track enemies. But when the cutest character in the game appeared, we realized that towers with eyes were too much.

Old Towers:

New Towers:

Creating a cute character wasn't easy for me because I'm not a great graphic designer, but I'm stubborn. So I stubbornly created new versions of the character.

The level design also had to be designed differently now - now every place and every secret had to be designed so that you could just walk into it. This may not sound like a serious problem - but it changed a lot and made the project suddenly our biggest project in life. Anyway, that was one of the reasons :)

My hand drawing skills didn't help much either - my drawings are terrible!

But it's not that important, really. I really like to draw my concepts by hand - it allows me to organize my thoughts and ideas.

So... if you're not very good at drawing, don't worry, you'll be fine!

More on creating levels can be found here:https://www.indiedb.com/games/riven-tails/tutorials/level-design-from-an-ugly-sketch-to-playable-level

And now, after many years of really hard work just the two of us - the release of our game is really close!

Unfortunately, we've never had good marketing, so almost no one knows about our project, and we have a really small number of wishlists.

Since the number of wishlists is one of the factors contributing to how Steam treats the game upon release, we have a great request. If you like what you see, please wishlist our game.

Store.steampowered.com

Thank you! It means a lot to us.

If you want to know more, want to talk to us, see the progress of the game day by day, - we invite you to our discord.

https://discord.gg/dYJVNQb

our micro-team :)

#game #gamedev #indiegame #tailquest #godot #godot engine #tower defense #steam #coop #linux #gaming

[1863-project]

There's a TV that plays kids shows at my school's computer lab and I saw Thomas the Tank Engine again for the first time since they were like, live action figures. It's kinda surprising how animated and expressive they are now...

Anyway! I've been turning nonhuman things into human things lately so I was wondering...

If Ingo and Emmet were trains, what kind would they be? 🤔🤔 Would they have Thomas the Tank Engine self-inserts? I feel like this is something you've talked about already but I don't really remember haha.

Ah, yeah, it's animated now! And they've even added an autistic character voiced by an autistic actor, which is great! I grew up with the show being done with actual model trains - the switch to CGI happened some time after I had stopped watching, but this 2D animated style is new and really cute.

I did do a Thomas and Friends post a while back - mostly from the perspective of someone around Ingo and Emmet's perceived age who grew up with the original show. And rather conveniently, the show has a pair of inseparable twins, Donald and Douglas, whose entire initial storyline revolves around ensuring they get to stay together and that neither of them is scrapped. I keep meaning to draw Submas wearing shirts reading '9' and '10' as a thinly veiled reference (as well as a plea to not separate them) but never get around to it. The thing I wrote was here! So if they grew up with the show the way I did, they might have identified with that particular story, especially given recent events involving a hula hoop llama deity. If the Fat Controller/Sir Topham Hatt can let both Donald and Douglas stay, so can you, Arceus.

I was way too little to even know what a self-insert was when I was in the target audience for the show, but it did help instill a lifelong love of steam preservation in me, which definitely still shows today - I'm huge on railroad history preservation efforts and keeping steam locomotives and other historic locomotives and railway equipment operable to make history come alive and become more tangible. And I wouldn't be surprised if it had that same effect on the two of them as children, too.

In general I tend to have Ingo lean a bit more towards steam and Emmet lean a bit more towards electric, but that's based on Chandelure and Eelektross and is also a great example of my personal biases creeping in so I can draw Emmet with my favorite electric locomotive, the 1930s Pennsylvania Railroad GG1, which I have been strangely obsessed with since age 3 or so.

It also allows me to juxtapose them a little bit - I can depict Ingo with New York Central stuff, particularly the powerful streamlined 4-6-4 Hudson locomotives, and Emmet with Pennsylvania Railroad stuff via the GG1, which covers the two major railroad terminals in Midtown Manhattan. I'm not just doing it randomly...but I am being a big nerd.

#replies #donuts4evry1 #I like trains #Pokemon #Submas #Thomas and Friends #TTTE #Thomas the Tank Engine #Shining Time Station

[mrssimply]

16th: Silence

There are many drawings of catboy!Johnny on twitter, and no I think it's very fitting because Johnny is totally a stray cat. It's a metaphor I've used many times before, so maybe it was time I embraced it fully. On my list of ideas, this one was supposed to be... so much more than that. But every time I thought about writing yet another silverdyne long fic, I would lose steam 'cause I think the last one, To the Day I die, was like a purge and I couldn't find energy to write another one.

But it was still in my head still demanding to be known so here it is, just a glimpse of what I had in mind.

Oh, and despite being about cat!persons, there is no concept of heat (not at this moment in the story I had in mind), and it's neither funny nor sexy because well... I love complicated things ;) It's T-rated.

You can find the prompt list here.

Every fic will be posted on my AO3 Account here.

There is someone slumped against Milt’s door. Kerry thinks it’s a man, maybe a few years older than him. He’s pale, and way too thin, like he hasn’t had a good meal in ages. His skin is covered in bruises, some old, some new, and Kerry recognizes the kind: he’s been beaten up. He is naked except for a pair of ratty jeans, and Kerry would bet he lost the rest of his clothes in the fights that got him those many bruises. There is blood at the corner of his mouth, and tickling out of his right ear. Kerry is fascinated by the ear, because it’s not a human ear, it’s a cat ear. Covered in fur black as the stranger’s hair, Kerry would have missed it, if not for the blood. It twitches weakly as rain falls on it, a sluggish reflex. There are other particular features on the stranger, like his tail, limp and lifeless between his legs. The boy is sagged sideways, allowing Kerry to see where the boy’s skin slowly transforms into fur as it forms the tail. Last notable thing is his left arm: it’s a heavy piece of cyberware, military grade, crudely sewn into his flesh. The chrome flashes with the neon’s sign flickering above them that says there is a ripper’s clinic here.

Kerry lives in the building above the clinic with two of his older sisters, and the boy is literally on his way to access the back entrance, which he prefers to use. Crouching in front of the young man, Kerry extends an arm to brush the tip of the fur-covered ear. It twitches again, evading his intrusive touch. 

Biting his lower lip, Kerry makes a decision. 

Five minutes later, Kerry is back with Milt, the ripperdoc. 

“Damn”, the man whispers and it doesn’t reassure Kerry. 

“Is he gonna be alright?”

“I dunno. Help me get him inside.”

-

The boy is heavier than he looks, so it’s panting and heaving that they push him on the medbed. Diagnostics start to run as soon as Milt turns on the scanner. Kerry looks at the monitor and the cat person intermittently. 

Milt mutters about dehydration and undernourishment, about broken ribs and concussions. He straps an IV to the stranger and injects a cocktail of meds and stim to go with the fluids.

Then, the doc starts looking at the arm.

“Arasaka,” he says, more to himself than to Kerry. Hanging around his neck are dog tags, or well — cat tags, Kerry supposes.

“RJL-20.103”,” the doc reads. 

“Is that a code or something?" Kerry asks.

"Designation. Company and platoon, probably,” he explains while pointing to the two numbers separated by a dot, “and then his personal ID.”

“No name?”

“Don’t think they give them names...”

Kerry lowers his eyes. Cat people were first engineered by the army, to combine human intelligence with the agility, strength and endurance of big cats. Later, when the war was “won”, they sold the patent to interested private corps, which birthed them for commercial purposes, mostly for the pleasure business.

The boy is obviously military oriented, the tags are a clue if the arm wasn’t sufficient, and if he’s here alone, then that means he escaped.

“Deserted” would have been the term for any normal soldier, but cats are not citizens, they are property of the army, or the Corp which birthed them. They don’t get the same rights, their purpose is to live and die on the battlefield. There is an entire army corp with just cats, and they get deployed in the most dangerous zones. They are used as cannon fodder, and stay simple soldiers all their short lives since the officers' positions are given to humans.

Kerry watches as Milt tenderly moves a lock of hair away from the boy’s cheek, and remembers the doc’s son enlisted some years ago, and that Milt has had no news ever since. Kerry doesn’t remember how the conversation went, but he knows Milt and his son, Cody, parted in anger. People that enlist nowaday are guaranteed a good position, the field work is mostly done by cat people, so ambitious young folk try their chance at war, thinking themselves safe from harm in command tents. The doc was opposed to his son enlisting, but Cody felt the army would give him better, and easier prospects than staying here to learn his father’s practice.

Milt sighs, says they now have to wait and see, and goes to fetch a blanket. Kerry watches over the stray. He is filthy, but Kerry can tell he would be real pretty usually. They almost always are, with genes handpicked for their purpose. That one got long dark lashes, the echoes of a smirk on his thin lips, and the beginning of a beard. He can’t be over twenty.

Kerry brushes his fingers behind the cat’s ear, stroking the soft fur, fascinated by the creature resting on the bed.

-

Kerry fell asleep on the couch, lured by the warmth and the regular beeps of the medical equipment of the clinic. He came back after dinner to see if their rescue was awake, but was informed by Milt there had been no change. He practiced on his guitar for a while, and then the tiredness of the day caught up with him. Since he turned eighteen, his sisters have asked Kerry to help them with the rent, saying he’s now a man and has to do his share: he can’t lay around all day just playing guitar, since that doesn’t pay for food. Yet. Kerry has big dreams.

Dreams that are violently interrupted by an aborted shout, followed by a growl. He opens his eyes in time to see the catboy jump/fall from the med bed, tearing up at the tube Milt linked into him and kicking the equipment around in his wild thrashing.

“Hey, wow, calm down!” Kerry speaks while getting up. Intense dark eyes zero on him before the young catboy crouches, ears flattening on his skull. He stills, body brimming with tension except for his tail which is swishing slowly behind him. Kerry raises his hands in the air.

“It’s ok, you’re safe here. You’re in a ripperdoc clinic.”

The catboy’s head wipes around, maybe searching for the doc, or just finally realizing where he is. It doesn’t relax him in the slightest, but he looks less ready to jump at Kerry.

Milt appears in the doorframe, probably alerted by the ruckus. When the stray sees him, he finally relaxes and rises slowly to his feet. His ears perk up, although one stays bent toward Kerry, as if keeping him in check while his attention is focused on the doc.

“You’re awake, good.”

Milt comes forward, outwardly relaxed. The catboy follows him with his eyes.

“I can remove this,” the doc indicates, pointing to the tube and cable he linked to his patient for diagnosis. 

After a moment of hesitation, the young soldier leans against the med med and extends his arms. Milt removes the IV, and the wire connecting to the chrome arm. 

“How do you feel?” he asks, but gets no reply. 

The catboy is looking at Milt very intently and Kerry even catches him taking a sniff. He swallows, glances at Kerry and nods to himself like he’s reached a conclusion.

He hops on the bed and takes off his left boot. Kerry sees him manipulate the heel until a small compartment opens. He tips the boot and something falls into his waiting palm. Too curious, Kerry approaches and the cat’s gaze pins him for a second before deeming him as no threat. The experience is still jarring, but Kerry is no chicken so he comes closer anyway.

It’s another set of dog tags, and these ones are more classical, displaying the soldier’s last name, the initials of his name, blood type, the acronym “USMC” and a religious preference (which indicates “none”).

The catboy hands it to Milt, who looks at the tags with shock. Kerry takes a better look and feels his stomach fall, because the last name reads Nauman. The doc takes the little metal plates with trembling fingers and reads the rest of the data. His mouth parts around a silent sob, and it’s all the confirmation Kerry needs. 

Cody was about five years older than Kerry, and he dated one of his sisters for a while, so the young man remembers him fondly. He had no musical sense, but he could talk about the history of music for ages. He was one of the coolest guys Kerry ever knew and his death feels strange. Like an impossibility.

On the bed, the catboy looks sad. His head is bowed, eyes hidden from view but his ears and tail telegraph his emotion clearly. Beside the obvious grief, there is something else on the stranger's face. Regrets, anger, guilt…  A mix of all three. It distracts Kerry from his own emotions until he hears Milt’s harsh breathing.

Both young men catch the tears on the doc’s face, silently running as he continues to look at the tags, and they tense, unprepared to deal with such display of emotion. The soldier in particular looks absolutely terrified, eyes widening and panicking as he finds himself caught in the grief of a father.

“Thank you,” Milt breathes, barely hiding the sob in his voice. “Thank you for bringing me this I… How…” He stops, closes his eyes and turns away. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, before practically running out of the room.

Kerry and the catboy look at him go, helpless to help. Kerry feels tears stinging at the back of his eyes and blinks furiously. The news hasn’t really sunk yet, but it feels like a gaping hole opened inside his chest. 

He is pulled out of his grief by the stray putting his shoe back on. Kerry looks at him doing it with empty eyes, and it’s only when the young man jumps on his feet that he reacts.

“You’re going?”

The other nods warily, looking at him with suspicion.

“You can’t go yet, Milt… Milt will want to talk to you, you… What happened? How did it happen?”

The cat looks distinctly uncomfortable, his face is closed off but his ears are back to being flat against his skull and his tail is rigid between his legs. He eyes the door and tension fills his body gradually, like he is seriously thinking about bolting out.

Kerry catches his wrist tightly, making the catboy twist toward him with a snarl. Startled, the other boy released him with a gasp.

“Sorry,” he mutters as fresh tears rise to his waterline. He lowers his head to hide them, chest feeling tight, like the rejection is breaking something inside of him.

The cat sighs and fidgets before circling back to the med bed, hovering uncertainly. The strange feeling inside Kerry settles, and he looks back to where Milt disappeared. He lives upstairs with his wife, and Kerry supposes he will need time alone with her to process the news.

The two young men look at each other in awkward silence, when suddenly, the catboy’s stomach grumbles loudly. Kerry smiles faintly and turns to take his guitar back.

“We should find you something to eat, c’mon.”

He gestures for the other boy to follow, and after a moment of hesitation, he steps behind Kerry. 

-

The catboy took a tour of the flat while Kerry reheated the pasta his sister Emma made earlier. She works the night shift as a dispatcher for the trauma team’s med center, so she cooked before going to work. Kerry ate with his oldest sister Malika while the stray was still sleeping, eager to get back to watching him. The moment the leftovers are served on a plate and put in front of the stranger, he seems to forget all about his wariness and digs into the plate with abandon. It’s a bit obscene to watch, but Kerry can’t tear his eyes away; he really must have been starved. After a few bites, he slows down and Kerry can tell it’s at the price of a great effort but he seems to know that eating too fast will just make him sick. He frequently glances at his host, and during such instances, Kerry gets a better look at his eyes. They are of a rich dark brown, but the pupil is slit like one of a pet cat, and the young guitarist feels a bit like a mouse when that gaze stares at him intensely.

Kerry drinks his Nicola in silence, and can’t help but note that the catboy won’t touch his, but he drinks the tap water from the jug next to the can eagerly. In silence, Kerry observes his various bruises and wounds. Some look really gross, still an angry red, even though they can’t be that recent. Those around the arms are the most impressive: the skin there looks tender and sensitive, but not in a good way. He is also really dirty, with stripes of dry sweat visible on his torso, and he smells really bad too.

“What about a shower?” Kerry offers once the plate has been mostly cleared. The catboy tenses, looks around, seems to weigh his options before nodding with a displeased expression. Obviously, he’s not super keen on the idea, but he’s also pragmatic: he doesn’t know when the opportunity will present itself again.

-

Kerry shows him the bathroom before going to his room to fetch clothes: a sweatpant and an oversized shirt. Even if the cat is really underweight, his frame speaks of military training and his shoulders are wider than the average male of his age. When Kerry reappears in the bathroom, the other boy hasn't moved an iota, struck looking at his reflection and touching his jaw length black hair like he doesn’t recognise it. 

“Here, that should suit you. C’mon, I’ll show you how the shower works.”

He gets the water on slightly hotter than he prefers, and steps back when he thinks everything is set. Turning around, he loses what he wanted to say, looking at the catboy standing naked under the shitty light. He is fucking hung!

Kerry’s mouth opens in surprise and he can’t tear his eyes from the tableau; they really make them perfect. The stray smiles slyly when he catches him looking and his expression deepens when Kerry blushes and averts his gaze promptly. 

“Ok, I’ll leave you to it,” the host declares, passing by his guest, only to be yanked back and pushed into the shower. He stammers, winces when his head collides with the tiles, and sputters when the hot stream hits him in the face. 

When he finds his bearings enough to open his eyes and takes stock of the situation, the catboy is still holding him fast against the wall of the shower, and he growls when Kerry tries to disentangle himself.

The sound prompts a shiver to run down Kerry’s spine, and he forces himself to relax, hands going lax on his sides. They look at each other for a moment before the catboy relaxes somewhat, but he still holds Kerry firmly against the wall.

“Ok,” the young man breathes, “ok I’m staying,” he says and the other nods like he’s happy he made himself clear. Kerry doesn’t really understand what happened, but sure, he can stay here, it’s just super uncomfortable in his wet jeans. 

Meanwhile, the boy is back to looking at the door, like he expects to be attacked any minute and Kerry finally understands: he’s here to watch the stranger’s back while he is in a vulnerable position. 

“Can I just get rid of my clothes?” he asks and after a glance and a moment of hesitation, the cat steps back.

Kerry keeps his boxers on like they are a last barrier against the strangeness of the situation, and pours shampoo in his hands before slowly raising them to his guest’s hair, stopping with a questioning gaze.

Again, there is a moment of hesitation before the young ex-soldier lowers his head a fraction and Kerry starts massaging his scalp. He keeps an eye on the door for a while, but before long, Kerry sees his shoulders drop in relaxation. Huffing out a small laugh, Kerry continues his massage and even chances to rub the boy’s nape. 

It takes a small minute, but Kerry suddenly realizes there is a soft vibration under his fingers and he stills. With the shower running, he can’t hear it but he is pretty sure the boy is purring. He starts his massage again, trying to act like nothing happened, persuaded that remarking on it would make the cat stop.

Slowly, the boy raises his head and lets the water wash the shampoo away, allowing Kerry to wash the rest of his upper body. His gaze looks hazy, a far cry from the  previous tension, even if he jumps a bit everytime fingers brush against his scars. 

Shyly, Kerry stops when he reaches his guest’s waist, and the other boy seems to get out of his trance. He smirks and raises a challenging eyebrow at Kerry, who colors even more with a mix of embarrassment and anger. He accepts the challenge and wash the rest of his guest’s body with jerkier movements than before. He takes mean pleasure in grabbing his cock a bit too tight and even stroking it once under the pretense of cleaning it. The catboy’s expression is smug, even if he blink and jerks forward when Kerry gets to his cock. 

“There, all clean,” the host declares with a glare, taking the shower head to rinse him, and making sure to direct the stream right in his face. The ex-soldier sputters and growls, but Kerry can tell he’s not really angry. They get out of the shower and dry themselves in silence.

With a head movement, Kerry brings the catboy to his room.

“This is my sisters’ room. They’re not here. Emma is working and Malika is out with her boyfriend,” he explains as they pass the door in the corridor.

At the mention of Malika’s name, the boy perks up.

“Yeah,” Kerry says sadly, “she and Cody were together for a while. He told you about her?”

The catboy nods and continues looking at the door with something of a sad expression.

“You liked him?”

A shrug, but Kerry can tell they were close, maybe a bit like what Cody used to have with Kerry. The thought brings a fresh wave of grief to Kerry, who swallows thickly and continues to his room. He will deal with the emotions later, he doesn't want to right now.

-

In Kerry’s small bedroom, the two guitars he owns have a prime position. The one he had downstairs is his most recent acquisition. His sisters think he bought it thanks to doing more hours at Caliente, but in truth Kerry klepped it. His sisters understand nothing about music, so they didn’t recognise the quality of the instrument. The other one belonged to his father, also a good brand, though that one is really vintage. Both are electric, and there is an amp waiting in between. 

The cat immediately takes an interest now that he is not in survival mode, and Kerry wonders if he can play. He sits on his bed and pats the spot next to him before grabbing his father’s axe.

The boy sits gingerly next to him, still taking in the rest of the room, but his attention zeroes on Kerry when he starts playing. The first notes of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence float in the quiet of the flat, and despite the amp being set to medium, it sounds really loud. 

The boy listens intently, ears perking and tail tense as he looks at Kerry’s fingers on the guitar’s neck. 

“You know how to play?” Kerry asks, never stopping to play. 

A swish of tail, and then a tiny nod.

“You know that one?”

Both ears twitch back, like he is hesitating again. 

“Take the other one if you wanna,” Kerry offers and that seems to decide his guest. He grabs the axe and takes his time admiring the quality of the work. Kerry can tell he is impressed and he grins, recognising someone who knows his guitars.

When he starts playing, it’s obvious the cat is skilled: his technique is good, the rhythm is perfect, and he even adds some personal style to it. Kerry is mesmerized, and he’s clearly not prepared for what happens next.

The boy starts to sing.

His voice is low and rough, like he hasn’t spoken in a month or two, and it waivers as he tries to find the right pitch. It’s unequal, and the process looks painful but he plows through it and it’s the most beautiful thing Kerry has ever heard.

As the chorus nears, Kerry snaps out of it and starts playing again, even joining him in the singing. When they finish the song, they both linger on the last notes and Kerry can’t help but grin.

“You can speak.”

The catboy smiles smugly and winks.

“I’m Kerry,” the host says, realizing they never exchanged names.

“I know. Cody said you were like a little brother to him.”

Kerry looks down and bites his lip.

“Yeah, he really was the big brother I never had.”

His voice is rough again, sorrow making the words difficult to get out. The cat shifts on the bed, uncomfortable. When Kerry glances at him, he seems lost in thought, sorrow threatening to take him under, too.

“He was my captain. Only decent officer ‘round. He really cared about us.”

His voice is but a whisper, and when he finishes, his tail swish back and forth nervously, like he’s said too much.

“Do you have a name?” Kerry asks next, trying to bury the sadness.

The boy shrugs.

“RJL, that’s how they referred to me. But Cody called me Johnny.”

“Johnny,” Kerry repeats and the other young man stares at him intensely, a small smile lifting his mouth. The host’s expression rises to match, and the smiles transform into grins, reflecting the elation they both feel for reasons they can’t yet explain.

The moment is interrupted by the doorbell chiming. It’s Milt, asking to speak to Johnny. Taking a deep breath, the catboy accepts, ears low and tail curled around his leg. Two hours later, Johnny climbs the fire escape to knock on Kerry’s window, tells him Milt wants him to stay with him for now, until they can make him papers by taking advantage of Night City liberal regulations about cat persons. For lack of a better option, Johnny said yes, he would stay, but just for a while. 

-

Kerry was already in bed, tossing and turning, so he scoots back to give some space to his new friend, and ignores his heart when it races as the other boy lies down next to him. They talk until the wee hours of morning, avoiding the painful subjects and concentrating on music, until Johnny falls asleep under Kerry’s attentive gaze.

In hindsight, Kerry will know this is the moment he fell in love. But right now, he knows nothing about the pain and trials they’re gonna face, together and alone. He knows nothing about what Johnny will accomplish for cat people and the world, and how extreme he will get to achieve his goals. He knows nothing about the depth of the emotions he will experience for Johnny, and the destructive devotion he will endure for him. He knows nothing about how the intensity of his love will be matched, though nearly never acknowledged by his friend. He knows nothing about how dark some days will get, but that in the end, it will be worth it. For now, Kerry just watches Johnny sleep, watches his ears twitch as he dreams, his tail curled around his friend’s waist possessively.

Wows are spoken To be broken Feelings are intense Words are trivial Pleasures remain So does the pain Words are meaningless And forgettable 

All I ever wanted All I ever needed Is here in my arms Words are very  Unnecessary They can only do harm

#silverdyne #johnny silverhand #kerry eurodyne #Kerry x Johnny #Johnny x Kerry #cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #my writing #fic advent calendar

[chaotic-minds-think-alike]

So I don’t really plan to draw QWERTY with any of the main characters in ultrakill because they have their own story with V1 (and QWERTY operates differently, not really as aggressive/eye catching as V1) but I kinda wanna draw them at least encountering Gabriel (because I’m silly)(and don’t want to make an angel oc I’ll barely use)

This next part is just me saying things but it’s kinda plausible? For them to get noticed, I mean. I imagine QWERTY is much more resilient than the V models but that means their only strength in speed is their rollerblades and they’re pretty clumsy otherwise. Like hi Gabriel ultrakill I’ve survived the worst experiences of my life, I am a roach that can’t be killed and I will scurry around hell causing havoc where I see fit. <- speaking of the roach thing, back to that detailed art I did (which I am still insane about, wtf possessed me) in the last 2 panels QWERTY is taking a hell energy blast directly and only being knocked out of the way rather than absolutely blowing up

Ok now I’m just going to ramble about my OC:

I haven’t rlly thought of it’s origins but because I based them off the V models, I believe it was some sort of tank war machine. I mentioned yeah, they’re clumsy (looks around. At the atrocious restarts I had for V2 and Gabriel fights) and a short time in hell solidified their first goal: we need to be faster. So, of course, they get into a fight with a machine and steal their legs lol. QWERTY’s legs before would’ve probably been similar to a sentry’s. Now that I think about it… QWERTY does display qualities that’d make them older than V1 but to make sense of the gap in combat experience V1 has over them we’re just going to say that QWERTY was put into storage after being deemed “not needed anymore” (ouch). Because QWERTY is older, their design is prone to overheating when stressed both physically or emotionally. The lights on their face & arms, wings, and around the eyes will heat up and glow a dangerous orange. It’s not until the stressor at hand is removed that they’ll relax and steam will be expelled in an attempt to cool themselves off, leading to dangerous situations as they struggle to focus on multiple points of interest.

QWERTY favors piercing weaponry with the sharpshooter revolver being their main weapon of choice. The only other character I’ve made them meet is the Swordsmachine purely because when I played the demo I did so horribly against them. Just going to bend canon a little and say V1 crippled the machine during their 2nd fight and later on QWERTY finds them and ends them, taking their sword for their own.

This above is where the sword thing comes from lol, I still really wish we had swords as an option. Though the sword isnt in QWERTY's primary weapon picks, it's still used here and there; you never know when you'll meet another swordsman you can spar with.

At the moment I'm running out of things to talk about because my brain is a little fried but going back to the overheating thing: because of the obvious "this thing is going to have to deal with this status for a while" they're built to withstand the heat longer than a normal machine. This allows them to also take hell energy attacks decently well though it's immunity only slightly helps when in contact with lava or greed's golden sand. I imagine when they're in this state they make a sort of muffled but mechanical "thump thump thump" sound from idk their engine or whatever working overtime in their chest.

I guess since I'm on the topic of sounds now, it's capable of speech although they don't talk much at all and the lack of opportunities to is leading them to lose their speech. Aside from that, they often hiss and make grinding sounds from their chest and maybe the occasional whirring. If I'm to be honest I can see them attempt to "sing" in tune with the sword's motor when it's revved.

#thunderposting i guess #ultrakill #ultrakill oc #love rambling about things rambling things the ever

[kingdicemrwheezyflowertor]

So after seeing @crows-ttte-phase Bulstrode; It made me want to make Bulstrode in my world to get my ass out of art block!!

Unfortunately I can’t draw chubby people so well and so I only did a Half body drawing of Bulstrode. Then I remembered I haven’t drawn my Harvey either so I drew him after I drew Bulstrode!

Here is some info on Bulstrode before I do Harvey:

Bulstrode is literally the embodiment of Positive vibes. Anytime Bulstrode comes to shore on Sodor; He always has a smile on his face. He is really great friends with the dock boys; Skiff and even all the engines; Steam or Diesel. He is a very chubby man so he gets made fun of all the time for it by passengers or even workmen.

But he doesn’t let these get to him though. He only know that they are just comments; He doesn’t need to listen to them to be happy. Now when I say he’s the embodiment of Positive vibes; I mean he can turn someone’s mood around like a dime.

He does have some health issues due to his chubbiness though but he keeps it in check because he wants to have a great life and he wants to look on the bright side of life (Lol; Get the Reference?)

Another thing is that Bulstrode is currently single but a certain Crane and Dockside Shunter might let him join their relationship if he wants to. Another thing about Bulstrode’s ears is that he got them from his mother’s side of the family. He wants to get them pierced one day but he knows about the high pain tolerance with his ears.

Now onto Harvey.

Harvey is a Very chubby man too but he doesn’t have as many health issues as Bulstrode. Harvey is a really kind engine who has the best laugh that can put a smile on anyone’s face or even make them laugh too. He basically has a Santa laugh and belly that moves when he laughs.

Harvey is quite the Kids lover because of his Driver. His driver (Who I’m calling Allen) has 3 kids and the kids love Harvey to the point where they call him Grandpa Harvey. Harvey isn’t quite grandpa Status but he does like being called one by his drivers kids.

Harvey is also really hard working; He’s always willing to lend a hook or a hand or whatever lol. Harvey is always willing to help engines; Animals and Passengers alike.

Harvey is also a Carpenter on the sidelines. He works with all sorts of different wood he finds from trees that are taken down by Storms on Sodor. Some are even from Henry’s Forest and Harvey is grateful that Henry is letting him have a fallen tree or two for his work. He even gave Henry a gift out of one of the trees from the forest.

Another thing about Harvey is that his ears twitch whenever he gets an itch; When he hears something or when he’s excited or Happy. It’s always really cute when his ears twitch.

#ttte #my art #inspiration #ttte bulstrode #ttte harvey

[feverinfeveroutfic]

flowers for alexander | chapter ten

The stage at the center part of the airship was just big enough for Testament themselves and perhaps a tech or two, surrounded by the tall network of steam pipes that led back to the boiler at the side of the ship. The whole entire thing was to be run on pure steam alone, and yet there was something about the whole thing that struck Florence and Francine both as peculiar: it had all been wedged into a rather tiny part of the ship, as if the designer had completely forgotten about the fact that there had to be a stage for the band at some point until the very last minute when overviewing the initial designs. The mere sight of it all made Florence shake her head as she and Francine stood in the doorway by the left exit by the stage. She scanned over the audience area, which only to be large enough to fit a cement truck rather than a bunch of fans who boarded the ship, and then again, she wondered as to if and when the people would board the ship down the line to see them perform.

“Look at this place,” she remarked as she and Francine inspected the stage for themselves prior to rehearsals. “I mean, look at how cramped it all is.”

“I know, right? My auto drawing teacher would be having a coronary at this whole thing.”

“I mean, I'm no architect, but this whole thing feels like it was put together out of sheer arrogance,” Florence remarked. “I mean, look at the rest of the ship comparison to this. It's all elaborate except for this tiny pocket here.”

“You’d make a great architect, Flo,” Francine pointed out, to which Florence shook her head.

“Nah, there’s no way I could. For one, I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. And second—you know how cutthroat that field gets? Oh, my god—and you and Mom thought engineers get nasty with each other.”

“Especially the girls,” Francine recalled with a slight shudder.

Florence gripped onto the banister next to the stairwell which led her up to the stage itself. The nuts at the joints of the steps themselves creaked a bit under her weight: though she had a way to go before she was properly showing, she couldn’t help but feel that the steps could only hold so much weight before it ended in disaster.

“I feel like they cut corners on this thing,” she told Francine in a loud enough voice for her to hear over the chatter at the doorway behind her. Chuck and Alex emerged from the corridor there: the two of them each carried something in their hands and Florence couldn’t help but swallow at the mere sight of it. The former ran his fingers through his espresso-colored hair and showed off a little smile.

“What’s going on this side?” he asked the two young women.

“Florence doesn’t think this stairwell here is very safe,” Francine replied without a bat of a lash.

“Oh, shit, really?” Chuck gaped at her.

“Yeah, if I'm able to walk up this thing and the damn joints are creaking underneath me, and it’s making me nervous, then I worry about you guys,” Florence explained in a single breath. She eyed the black object in Alex’s left hand, and she realized that it was his amp. “I also wonder how you guys are going to play music on electronic devices when this whole thing is powered by steam.”

“We’ve got converters,” Alex assured her, and he reached into his pocket for a little black box about half the size of his palm.

“That little thing?” she asked him as she reached the top of the stairs.

“Yeah. Here—I'll come up the stairs with my amp and this thing and I'll plug ‘em in.”

Florence nibbled on her bottom lip. Alex locked eyes with her for a few seconds before he reached the bottom step. He took one step forward, followed by the next one, and the next one. None of the steps creaked under his weight, and he was carrying twice as much weight as her from the amp in his hand alone. She sighed through her nose, and she padded over to the other side of the stage with her back turned towards him.

It was just like the first time she had been proven wrong by someone in one of her classes right at freshman year, and that someone just so happened to be a lot smarter than her, much like how Alex was much smarter than her and most people whom she knew as well. The blush crossed her face as a result, and she bowed her head and brought a hand up to her face. She then felt a hand on her shoulder: she turned around to see Alex himself, those blue eyes as bold and bright as the ocean down below and the little plume of gray dangled down over his forehead like an icicle off the side of a gutter.

“Are you alright?” he asked her in a low voice.

“I feel incredibly paranoid now,” she confessed with a shake of her head.

“You’re not paranoid,” he assured her. “You’re just—a scientist. Scientists take precautions. Nothing wrong with that at all. Hey, look at it like this: I would rather you warn us about it now than have one of us fall clear through one of those steps without any warning whatsoever, and neither of us having any idea as to what the hell went wrong to boot.” He flashed her a wink, and she showed him a small smile in return.

Though she and Alex had long separated, she knew that he would always remain friendly towards her. Right behind him, she spotted Chuck and Francine gingerly making their way up the steps to the stage as well. He stopped at the very top of the stairs and extended a hand to her before she reached there herself, albeit with a bit of a shake to her hands and feet. Alex turned around all to take a glimpse back at her for himself.

“Are we alright back here?” he asked them.

“Indeed, we are!” Chuck proclaimed, still with that big beaming smile on his face.

“Let’s get a move on then,” Alex suggested with a little twinkle in his eye, and he lugged his amp over to the far side of the stage: Florence spotted a small rack of guitars which awaited him, including a little bright red one right at the closest side. She lingered there off to the side as he set up his rig: she glanced up over at Chuck and Francine on the other side of the stage. He was showing her his microphone and the elaborate stand with the bat wings right at the top part and she said something to him right then.

Florence could hear Louie and Greg’s voices in the hallway right behind her, and yet she saw the missing part of the ensemble as clear as day.

“Where’s Eric?” she asked aloud.

“Not too sure,” Alex replied as he plugged the converter into the outlet in the wall behind him. “I did see him over by the windows with you and Francine, though.”

“Yeah, and then he disappeared after that,” she added.

“He likes to do that for some reason,” he muttered nonchalantly, and then he plugged in that red guitar into the amp.

“Alex, I want to do something nice for you,” she blurted out, and he raised his eyebrows at her.

“Oh, really? What'd you have in mind?”

“I don’t really know. But it’s just—you've been alone a lot and I see the way that you look at me, too.”

“The way that I look at you,” he echoed, slightly baffled.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” she continued, and she knew that she had said far too much right then. “But I see the way that you look at me sometimes, though. I can feel a little something in there each time. Like a—lost feeling. I don’t really know how to put it into words.”

He knitted his dark eyebrows together at that: she never liked it whenever he had that look on his face. It always looked as though he had been greatly disappointed by something she said to him. There was only one other time in which she knew that she had disappointed him, and he had that look on his face. That was the only time in which she couldn’t kiss him; add to this, this time around, she definitely couldn’t kiss him. She knew that she would have to do it to take the pain away from him, and yet, she couldn’t do that.

“I feel something inside of you,” she continued, that time with a much smaller clearance between their faces. “I feel something within you, Alex—but I don’t know if you’ll ever admit it to me.”

He swallowed, and he lowered his gaze a bit to her prominent chest, and then back up to her face. Those eyes were so much deeper than she had ever seen before: it felt as though he was swallowing her whole, as if she was falling to the bottom of the ocean underneath his feet and the sheer weight of his body.

“There’s a series of catacombs inside that mind of yours,” she said in a near whisper. “There’s something growing in there, a garden of sorts, a lush rainforest of plants and things that seem to be festering off something that you’re afraid to show me. Tell me, Alex—what are you growing? Trees? Vegetables? Flowers? Mushrooms?”

He swallowed again, and that time, he lowered his gaze to the guitar cradled in his lap, and then back up to her face once again, but not without a good long stop on her chest.

“You’re definitely growing mushrooms, aren’t you,” she declared to him.

“Depends on what you call mushrooms, Florence,” he finally said back to her in a hushed voice.

“Flo!” Francine called out to her from clear across the stage. Florence raised her gaze from Alex’s face only to find her best friend and Chuck gesturing for her to come on over to them.

“I’ll be back for more of this later on,” she vowed to Alex in a hushed whisper, and she ducked over to them. All the while, she kept a hand on her middle as if she was touching her child: not nearly that prominent at the moment, and yet, she could feel them in there. She sauntered up to Francine who showed her an unsure smile at what had happened back there without her and Chuck hearing anything.

“What was going on over there?” he asked her in a low voice. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Oh, you know—just a little bit of chitchat between exes,” she replied with a shrug. “Exes can do that, after all.”

“True. It’s just—you know, been a while since I saw you and Alex get together to talk about anything.”

“A lot has happened between now and when they split,” Francine pointed out.

“I never understood why you and him never worked out,” he confessed as he ran his long fingers through his smooth dark curls: it was right then when Florence caught the glimpse of the silver rings on his pinky and ring fingers in respective fashion, and she had never seen them before.

“I just—had deeper feelings for Eric,” she admitted to him. “The chemistry between me and Alex was always odd, too. But we promised to remain friendly with one another, though.” She then ran her hand down her chest onto her belly, and like clockwork, Eric emerged from right behind Chuck with his guitar tucked in his hand. He nudged his black hair back from his shoulder and his collar bone with two fingers on his free hand and showed Florence a little smile.

“You talking about me?” he asked them.

“Maybe,” she replied.

“Yeah, we were also going to tell you that he’s here,” Francine told her, and then she returned to Eric. “She was just wondering where you were at.”

“I don’t think this stage area is safe, to be honest,” Florence informed him.

“What makes you think that?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Never mind the steps over there, but this whole thing looks like it was slapped together at the last minute,” she told him. “I worry about this stage collapsing if you guys aren’t too careful. Besides, aren’t there going to be people in here?”

“In here?” Eric gaped at her.

“Not in here,” Chuck told her. “We’re gonna be swooping down to the ground and performing to people on the ground instead.”

“Holy shit,” Francine declared.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s going to be crazy.”

Florence and Francine gaped at each other: all the former could think about was the fact they were going to be in zero gravity for some length of time, and the whole stage looked as though it had been thrown together with haste all because the entire ship called for it. Perhaps it wasn’t so much the designer’s fault, but the people responsible for building the ship instead.

Eric ducked back to the area behind the stage, and Chuck followed him, which in turn left Florence and Francine alone together with dumbfounded looks upon their faces.

“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this, Flo,” Francine lamented in a low voice.

“I do, too, Frankie,” Florence added. “It also makes me wonder about the other two ships, too.”

“I need to sit down...” Francine followed the two men to the backstage area, and that was when Florence felt another tap on her shoulder. She turned to find Alex right there behind her, still with that thoughtful look upon his face.

“I should probably tell you that I had a crush on Eric not long ago,” he told her, and she gaped at him. And then he bowed his head at that. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why?” she sputtered, baffled. “And when was this?”

“It was before you and I started going out,” he confessed to her. “But then it fizzled out almost immediately when I found out that he wasn’t interested. It's... It’s stupid. And like I said, it didn’t last.”

He shook his head and returned to his spot on the stage with his guitar. Florence watched him all the while.

There was something about that that didn’t sit well with her: maybe he was telling the truth, but there was something more there. She had a full tour to expand upon it, complete with the threat of everything around them falling apart at the seams, especially once they found themselves in the realm of zero gravity on the way down to people on the ground.

#fanfic #fanfiction #flowers for alexander #flowers for alexander fanfic #chapter 10 #testament #testament band #testament fanfic #alex skolnick #chuck billy #eric peterson #oc tag #sci-fi #science fiction #scifi au #sci fi writing #romance #sci fi romance #ao3fic #ao3 fic #ao3 fanfic #writing #text