Category: Projects

Open Locks (Shard-verse)

CW – mentions of ableism towards amputees, mentions of war and injuries from it, abusive personality (it’s Wild Streak…). Word count: 569, rated G

Andre ruminates on Wild Streak’s one friend.

The boss doesn’t have a lot of friends. It’s his own fault, you know – he’s self-centered, impulsive, and quick-tempered. Me and Charles are the only help he’s been able to keep, and honestly some days I don’t know why we stay. Daisy adores him, of course, but he’ll do anything for her. Everyone else in the community? They respect him, fear him, admire him, but don’t like him.

Except Magpie. I don’t know when they met – she’s about me and Charles’ age, younger than Wild Streak. But she can make her smart-ass remarks to him and he’ll smile. I mean, she’s careful, but not terribly so, not walking on eggshells careful the way people like Gimmick are, or the super-respectful way the way gang leaders are when they hire him. And he looks forward to spending time with her. We don’t need to remind him about their get-togethers, mostly, or gather up his stuff for him. And she trusts him – I’ve talk to other goons and nobody else knows that she lives in a big penthouse or that she’s loaded.

Maybe it’s that the boss doesn’t care. He doesn’t even glance at her swanky place or expensive decor. And she’s nice when she comes over – our place is alright, but it’s got scars from Wild Streak’s tantrums and most of our stuff is second or third hand. Charles and I do our best to keep it nice, but we don’t bother with a bunch of decorations that are just gonna get broke.

He doesn’t care about her legs either. She’s too young to have been in the War, but she’s missing both legs. Missing parts and other problems are common enough, but there’s always the people that tend to still treat disabled people a little different. The boss doesn’t care. And she’s never said anything about his eye or skin. He doesn’t try to scare or creep her out either, doesn’t do his usual power plays.

The only thing Magpie and Wild Streak care about is locks – everything from tiny little padlocks to great big safes. Picking them, hacking them, exploits, work arounds, and, if necessary, breaking them. And they’ll compete with each other – and if you know Wild Streak, you know he hates losing. But with Magpie, he’ll just laugh and have her show her or make another bet or whatever. They trade stories, without the type of oneupmanship you see with big shots. He’s even given her things – he’ll make his own picks or turning tools and it’s one of the few times he’ll sit still and work hard on something. About the only other time is when he’s taking care of his clothes. And if he makes something new, he’ll give her one to try out. She does the same, but she seems to buy a lot more of hers.

They sit and race to get through a pile of locks or one of them will have something that just came out or that is rare or especially hard to get open. The boss can practically whisper at one to get it open some days and other days struggle with it for half an hour, but Magpie is consistent. Fast, with those nimble strong fingers of hers.

I don’t know how they met or if there’s anything to their relationship but locks, but damn I’m glad the boss has a friend.

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WIP Shard-verse art

I’ve changed Wild Rush and Deuce of Heart’s names again. Wild Rush is now Wild Streak and besides the grey skin he’s also got a black scar across his face and one eye that’s completely black. Deuce is now Wild Heart (her real name is still Daisy Hart).

I’m working on getting characters designed in Daz3d so I can do pin-ups on Patreon (starting at just $1 a month!). I have Charles and Andre nearly done (I need to do scars), Swordcat almost done (I have to finish his textures), Magpie almost done (I need to do the designs painted on her prosthetic legs), and Mick almost done (I need to do some fixes in Blender and his tattoos).

So here’s some of that art. If you want to see them more often or with less clothes, subscribe to the patreon!

Two people walking a path in a park looking at each other adoringly. The woman is shorter and fat with strawberry blonde hair and light grey skin. She's wearing dark pink gloves, a pink and black domino mask, black coat with tails, and shiny pink body suit. The man has red hair and slightly darker grey skin with a thick black scar going from his forehead to the opposite cheek over one eye, which is also black. He's wearing grey gloves, a red suit, a pink shirt, and a gold tie.
WIP of Daisy / Wild Heart and Wild Streak (I’ve made his hair darker since then)
Different angle on the couple. Her mask is pink with a black heart over her left eye, the same eye that is scarred on her boyfriend
Different angle so you can see Daisy’s mask better because I spent SO MUCH time on it. (I don’t know Blender very well yet). And her gold eyes.
White woman with two prosthetic legs. The shins of the legs have a floral design. She's pretty buff and looks confidant. She has long dark hair and is wearing black shorts and a loose tank top.
Magpie. I’m not entirely happy with her design but I don’t know what I don’t like. I need to do the art for her shins.
A young man in a denim jumpsuit kneeling next to a green parrot on a perch with her wings spread. They're talking to each other. He's got light brown skin and short afro-textured hair and painted nails.
This is Mick Adler, one of the founders of Future-Tech, the company Delia works at. He’s the reason Future-Tech exists – he invented an amazing battery that replaced gasoline engines in cars, among other things. The parrot is Darla who he spoils rotten. Mick is Latinx with black, white, and indigenous heritage.

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Saudade (Shard-verse)

Note: Swordcat is another sorta-multiple character in the Shard-verse. The body really is Leon Smith’s, but it was transformed when he picked up the sword, which has a personality that lives in his head and sometimes steers the body around, because swords don’t have hands. Stomlin Ward keeps the sword in the freezers because then Leon can be a calm, somewhat dim, cat. (Relevant vignette/post)

I’m incredibly proud that I managed to get this down to a perfect drabble. CN for implied genocide of humanity and of an alien race, freezing, burning, specieism

Saudade (Portuguese): The feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.

Leon dreamt of memories not his own.

Leon wasn’t like its lords before (how long ago? how- its thoughts skittered and it shuddered in the ice). Leon was grey compared to the lords’ passion. That didn’t matter. Glory would be restored, shining cities and green forests. It would be carried again by lords with thundering voices and soft wise words and dazzling eyes matching its own. And then no more coldness, no more loneliness, no more wrong-smelling air – flat, oily like enemies of old – no more furless parodies of people.

No more memories of burning and cold, cold, cold.

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Connection (Shard-verse: Alchemy)

CN: mention of hunting / implied animal death. As always if I miss something, please let me know so I can add it.

Word count: 405, Rating: G. Crossposted to the Rainbowfic community on Dreamwidth

Ostanes and Iosis are from the novel that I have some rough draft chapters up for (you can find them in the Story Index). Basically all you need it know is that Ostanes split himself into two people using alchemy so he could do his great work. Basically, they’re multiple and headmates, but in-story they wouldn’t fit the definition. Ostanes can’t use Iosis’ name and tends to refer them as one person most of the time.

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Recent-ish Stuff

I’m running two communities on Dreamwidth that you should check out.

I was given the Writers Cafe from the previous admin and I made Just Create. Every Friday I post a check-in to share what people have done, seen, made, or read and then Saturday or Sunday they each get a session for making stuff. 

If you’d like a community to encourage you on, come check them out.

We had a roadrunner in the yard. If you haven’t seen them in person, they’re pretty large birds – probably the size of a parrot.

Roadrunner sitting on a fence
Closer view of a roadrunner sitting on a fence

I also finally finished the sampler I started before I went to the Netherlands! (I worked on it very intermittedly). The plan was for every line to be a different stitch, but one of the ones I planned didn’t look good as a straight line so I reused one.

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Papercraft Challenge – Heartbreak

As I said before, I’ve gotten into papercraft models. I also decided that as much as possible, I wanted to do a custom for each model I have (or at least a lot of them) – thus the Papercraft Challenge!

I showed the WIP of ex-tyrannomon before which I only need to build now. (It’s the pink thing to the left up there)

I finished a simpler one first and here it is:

It’s based off the voodoo model from MadeinPaperland.ru (site is in Russian).

I altered the template in Adobe Illustrator and I think it’s adorably creepy. Because the Made in Paperland said for personal use only, I kept they’re label on it and I won’t be sharing the template.

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WIP Preview

I’ve gotten into papercraft models. One thing I want to do though is to customize each model as well as building whatever designs I have (I’ve got more than 200 although I may not do them all)

Here’s the wip of my first custom along with the two I downloaded

Two paper models of velocirapters or tyrannosaurs standing over the printed out modified template

Once I’ve got it finalized I’ll have the template here and on my DeviantArt. Since I’m getting back into Digimon, it’ll be ExTyrannomon the plushie version of my favorite dino-digimon.

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Some more art!

I just scanned all my sketchbooks, so I’ll be posting some of that. Right now, something I just finished:

Head shots of Wild Rush from three angles, plus a rage study

(CW for mentions of child abuse and manipulation)

His instinct from growing up in his abusive family is to hide his emotions. Once he got out and was the biggest baddest villain on the block, he used his emotions to get emotion and to scare people into doing what he wants (…which he may very well have learned from his parents).

He’s usually genuine with Daisy and you can often seeing him glance at her to make sure he’s being alright.

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Shard-verse Art

Just a sketch of Charles being a cutie. I redesigned nem to be a bit more obviously mixed-race in black & white (neir coloring hasn’t changed).
head and shoulders shot of a mixed race enby with a short afro

You can’t see it, obviously, but I also made nem chubbier and less body-builder-esque. Specifically to appeal to a friend of mine. (Also, Shard-verse needs more fat-rep. Right now it has, like, Sevvy. Who is awesome, but not in the main stories. And apparently I never posted the picture here.)

So here’s the picture of Sevvy with Anita:

Very fat somewhat black woman being hugged by a smaller white woman. The black woman is reading a book and is dressed in pants, button-up shirt, and vest, with very tall strappy heels. The white woman has her hair in a braid and is wearing a knee-length skirt, a shirt with ruffled sleeves, and mary-janes. Contessa Seffora de Sant’Anna & Anita Trevino. Sevvy is the awesome woman in front. Anita is Ostanes/Iosis’ mom. Sevvy is basically everyone’s teacher (she’s, if not immortal, really long-lived). (Neither of them show up in the chapters posted, but I think Anita is mentioned).

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Shard-verse Character Questions

Taken from my tumblr, which is pretty much abandoned now. Prompts from various character tumblrs.

Your OC has just been thrown out of a window. How did they get into that situation and did they deserve it?

The White Knight – fighting one of the name criminals, and no. Wild Rush – fighting the White Knight, and absolutely

Has your character ever believed someone they met was actually an alien?

Technically, anybody who has met Lenxoli!Swordcat* has met an alien

* (if you’re not familiar with fan jargon, an exclamation point is used to differentiate between different versions of characters. (https://fanlore.org/wiki/!). In this case, it’d be the sword part of Swordcat instead of the human part (Leon).

What’s the least attractive feature of your OC’s personality?

Wild Rush is pretty much heartless.

Daisy is overly trusting and refuses to see people’s (especially Wild Rush’s) bad sides

Delia has a bad temper and is super stubborn.

Gimmick is extremely selfish.

Does your OC have any interesting qualities in their voice? Such as an accent, a lisp, a tendency to say sounds wrong? Any verbal tics?

Techrat has a very flat voice without much intonation

Your OC has started a youtube channel. What type of channel is it and would it get popular?

Techrat would show how to fix old tech, everything from furbies to cell phones.

Then would come the day she’d been off her meds too long and would post a long rant about how awful humans are and how we should die out and be replaced by machines. Which would be taken down as soon as Gimmick noticed it and replaced with a vid that was just text explaining that Techrat was okay but in the hospital.

Then the cycle would start over.

#techrat does not take good care of herself #you’d never see anything but her hands #and her voice would be disguised through a vocoder #so it sounds slightly robotic

How does your OC handle grief?

Delia: apparently by locking herself in a room, making a superhero suit, and beating up criminals

What is a quality or feature you have that you /always/ end up projecting onto your OCs?

Snark

Which OC makes their own clothes?

Charles!

(It’s hard to get dresses in nems size)

Which OC takes great care when it comes to cable management, and which OC will probably suffer a painful injury from tripping over the cords that they leave everywhere?

Techrat keeps things neat, unless things are going badly and Gimmick is even more studious about it

Silver Dollar would be the one tripping

Which OC frequently forgets to take their medication?

Techrat, the poor soul

Which OC likes to be the center of attention?

Wild Rush of course!

And Jill

Which probably worked very badly when they dated

Which OC takes every precaution in order to hide their scars?

Mask, because they hurt otherwise and he’s very proud

On a wild night out on the town, which OC is the one to get drunk and which OC is the one doing damage control?

As Wild Rush gets drunker he finds men even more attractive (he’s bi) and he’s a happy drunk. I don’t think Daisy would drink much, but I can see her getting confrontational when drunk and Wild Rush actually being the one to calm her down for once, instead of the other way around.

Similar dynamic for Mick and Delia. Mick is pan and loves everybody, but usually can judge when it’s okay to make comments (he’ll flirt with everybody even if he doesn’t want to do anything). When Mick’s drunk judgement goes right out the window. Delia ends up trying to keep people from fighting with him, while he’s just grinning in joy from all the hot people around.

Which OC could fall from a two-story building and walk away like nothing happened?

Bonus: Which OC would curl up on the floor and sob if they so much as stubbed their toe?

#1 Wild Rush, Daisy, and Swordcat
#2 Techrat? Dunno

your character pretends they’re really upbeat and confident when really they’re a nervous wreck

This is Wild Rush in a nutshell

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Shard-verse Art Dump

Charles and Andre back to back
(Transcript of text in the picture:)

Charles is a soft autumn. Andre is a cool winter.

Andre likes bright Hawaiian or bold patterned shirts. Think comfort. Goes for t-shirts for casual around the house wear.

Charles likes patterned shirts and stripes, but more subdued colors unless it’s super cute and femme. Loves florals. Goes for plaid flannel for comfort.

When working, they wear dark suits with shirts and ties that match Wild Rush.

Charles likes suspenders. Andre prefers belts.

Layout of police uniforms for Shard City
Not great art, but important info
Wild Rush shirtless and ironing a shirt while Daisy hugs him from behind
Zoom in! (I did fun things with the hatching, cuz MangaStudio gives options)

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The White Knight #1 – Devotion

Content warnings for talk of police corruption, references to military service, chronic illness, hospitals, shooting (nothing graphic), blood and medical issues, prejudice against fictional people, talk of gangs, non-graphic violence, mentions of drug and alcohol addiction, misgendering (in the context of someone assuming the gender where it’s not known), mention of spiders and rats, smoking, and swearing.

Many thanks to LB Lee and KristyCat for sensitivity and beta-reading. Any mistakes are my own.

Please let me know if you see any typos or other mistakes. Thanks.

Shard City doesn’t love anybody, but I can’t help loving it. It has its bright spots but unless you stay in those small oases it turns into a very ugly place at night, The cops hardly try anymore – too many crimes, too many gangs. It’s funny how you get used to it. Used to watching out for the sun setting, for the alleys like open mouths, for the people with gleaming eyes and hidden weapons. I’m sick of it. And I mean to do something about it.

My name is Delia Tyelu. I’m the White Knight.

 

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A family photo - a tall white, blond man in doing bunny ears to a shorter, chubbier white, blonde man, who is holding the hand of a short Asian woman. She has her arm around her teenage kid who has his arm around her shoulders.
Left to right: Leonard Burton, Nathan Burton, Delia Tyelu, and Joel Tyelu-Burton. Picture taken on Joel’s 19th birthday.

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