Reblogged
Reblogged
The summoned hero has one critical flaw: They have sociopathic and psychopathic traits. However, psychopathy and sociopathy don't automatically equate to being a bad person. The hero genuinely tries to do the right thing, resulting in situations which are either hilarious or horrifying...
The drag of blade against blood-slicked flesh was satisfying in an unspeakable way. A simple, detached, sensory thing. They pried the sword from the monster’s corpse, flicked the gore cursorily from the blade, then swiped the metal flat against beast’s fur to get the rest of it.
They considered the carcass, its vicious maw open wide in death, with a clinical eye. The commission was for the great ivory tusks it had for canines; they were in good condition. It was more difficult than expected, but a few rough slashes at the gums, and they managed to wrenched the impressive fangs out.
When it was done—the fangs stashed away, the sword cleaned again—they finally turned back, and a small, trembling form was still folded into herself where they left her, shaking on the ground like a gust would blow her over. Doe eyes blown wide and cheeks tearstained, her skirts a nest of dishevelled fabric around her, she was the poster girl for a pitiful sight. The fair maiden opened her mouth as they approached, but in the end couldn’t make a sound. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably, chest heaving too quickly.
They glanced over her, scanning for wounds. She seemed fine, more or less. Her hair was frazzled and skirt streaked with dirt, and scrapes and cuts from fleeing through brambles littered her bare arms—but there were worse states to be in. They glanced back at the gutted beast’s body, at its bloody, defanged maw. Then back to the uneaten, entirely intact, unmaimed woman. Yeah, not bad. As expected of a hero’s fortunate timing.
When she seemed in no state to stand by herself, they leaned down to her and offered a hand.
“Are you alright?” they were planning to say, probably paired with a practised grin. But the maiden stared silently at the outstretched hand, paled to the shade of bone, and went deathly still. A unique reaction… Bemused, they followed her gaze down and saw—too late—a gore-drenched glove still dripping with viscous, clumping blood. Drip, drip… drip. The globules fell heavy, and landed in spatters of stringy crimson on the woman’s pale dress. It was the final straw.
“Ahh,” the hero sighed, dropped to one knee, and got into position just in time for the woman to summarily faint into their arms.
The hike back to town was decidedly more difficult with a human package slung over one’s shoulders. It wasn’t an insignificant distance, either… But at least, for better or worse, they were spared from the full journey.
Someone from the town met them halfway—the exuberant man who’d posted the commission. An aspiring craftsman or something like that, young and bouncing with excitement. From a distance, they saw him waving his arms vigorously, even jumping up and down. They had gotten the impression, earlier, that he was the particularly volatile sort, susceptible to being overwhelmed by emotion. But his impatience had saved them half a trip, and any assistance in carrying this burden was more than welcome.
The craftsman rushed over when their trudging pace showed no sign of improving. For a moment, his expression was bright. “Good to see you! How—oh, Gods! Who is that?! Is she alright?!”
“Yep,” they grunted, and manoeuvred a hand free to unclasp the bag of spoils from their belt. The body jostled and slipped a little as they did, and the commissioner jerked fretfully forward as if reaching out to catch her if she fell. “Here, this is for you. And then help me take her legs.”
They held the bag out, waiting for the man to accept it with thanks. But he just stared, eyes bouncing between the proffered bag and the woman’s limp body.
There was a painfully extended moment of just standing there, arm outstretched, client making no move to claim his commission. What a bother. They frowned, thought for a moment, analysed the scene from a different perspective. The craftsman was still flitting about indecisively, expression caught between concerned and dazed. Ah, they must not have been considerate enough of this overly emotional man’s feelings.
“Don’t worry, she’s not dead,” they assured him, injecting confidence into their voice. It came out suitably authoritative. “I made sure of it.”
Of the responses this had been meant to encourage, this was not it. The man’s eyes bugged out of his face. They watched as he raised a shaking finger, pointed it for some reason accusingly at their face, and then was struck with an unwelcome burst of deja vu as the spirited man’s complexion went pallid.
“Y—You… you…” he managed to sputter out. He staggered backwards—they considered his wobbling legs warily, and stepped forward to follow, arm raised to spot him. For some reason, this only set him off further. He screamed like terror was a tangible thing crawling up and tearing out of his throat. And then his eyes rolled back.
“Damn,” they said, saving the second person of the day from kissing dirt. What was his problem? They didn’t possess enough patience for the luxury of it wearing thin. Was it simply the fate of a hero to be constantly loaded with distressed citizens of poor constitution?
Only after unhappily throwing both bodies over their shoulders did it occur to them how they must have looked—armed, ragged from a fight, covered in bloody guts, lugging around seemingly lifeless humans.
…No wonder the craftsman had lost it.
They clicked their tongue, and briefly, not entirely insincerely, weighed the costs and benefits of just dumping both the bodies where they stood. The idea was turned over, affectionately considered, but inevitably brushed away, and they began wearily back on the long path to town.
Ideally they would not encounter anyone else on this road... The ground was hard, after all, and the hero had no free hands left.
Reblogged
Infinity, what's in a name?
1 week 59 layers and 16 exports later I feel that comics are the embodiment of being Rotten Work But Not To Me, Not If It's You (Blorbo)
for non-mandarin-understanders:
- 无限 (wúxiàn) is the immortal (?) guy's name and they've translated it to Infinity in the dub but tbh it's more like limitless
- 妖精 (yāojing) is translated to elfin but it can mean anything from spirit to monster depending on context (yay we love creative ambiguity)
(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)
Peeling off the broken breastplate of a stoic knight who only fights and never speaks, just to realize there’s nothing in there. Not metaphorically—the armor is literally empty. It doesn’t appear to affect him. If the armor stays mostly in the shape of a knight, he just gets back up to keep fighting. But with the chest plate off he just sits there, equally impervious to curiosity as I reach up into the cavity where his body might’ve gone. Stubbornly, no answers are found anywhere in there.
So I forge him a new breastplate and on the inside, because I know he has plenty of room, I put a little pocket. Not big enough to hold anything functional of course. Just a little extra piece to see what he’ll do with it.
Reblogged archerdepartures116
what's better than one kitty in a box...two kitties in a box...? or three kitties haha!
got a liucheng suggestion and decided to try my hand at the trapped in a box thing (bonus kitty mu qing)
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[Timkon lovesquare au] okay here’s the part I never posted here! This was a two part comic with the first one exploring superboy going for more traditional superman look (sort of based on an mlb episode where chat noir changes his whole suit and demeanor) after getting shunned by the public and media while this part was about Tim’s belief in him inspiring him to just be superboy
I’ve honestly been so busy with two jobs and having like no free time that I barely draw but I want to add more comics to this au 😣🙏
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Platform Decay posting now that I've finally got to spend time in the tags
- Murderbot has in fact freed other secunits before. Multiple times. Do not forget that. But also one time it offered and the combat unit was like I ACTIVELY WANT TO MURDER THE FUCK OUT OF YOU. So. It's cautious.
- Three is doing something so developmentally important here. It's NOT just that Three knows it has a team to fall back on if it gets into trouble with the baddies, it's also that Three has figured out it can get in trouble with it's own side and that's ok. It's not thrilled to have pissed off ART but it did it anyways! It now knows it can be in trouble and not get tortured or disassembled over it! It did something it wasn't supposed to and then came home to the people who would be mad about it, even though it didn't have to! It could have run off to keep doing it's own thing but didn't.
- I love that Murderbot's POV is so limited because it just only cares about it's own missions. If we hear in 2 books from now about how every SecUnit in the Torus deserted their post and have colonized a moon together or something somewhere Murderbot would just be like "huh". Like there would be an emotion check about it but it's not going to stop it's soap operas for more than 3 minutes about it.
- I know the idea of the rogue unit that approached Murderbot recognizing Murderbot as the originator of the code is hilarious, but also, let us consider that if it doesn't recognize Murderbot as the originator of the code that unit is gonna get such a weird view of the world. Like sometimes you live your whole life in shackles and then somebody breaks them for you and you run around and the next SecUnit you run into is already free. You'd have to wonder, then, if freedom is far more normal than you'd realized. And you'd have to think- these free units are doing ok. Maybe I can also be ok. Also, the successful free unit is wearing a highly distinctive garment that must have a tactical purpose given than it is still on a mission. And is telling you to change your clothes. So like...maybe it is tactically useful to wear a very colorful poncho thing. Maybe it should tell the other free units to get those, to. It seems to have been aiding that successful free unit. And thus, free sec unit fashion culture is born.
- Have we considered that Jollybaby might actually be trolling Murderbot on purpose? It's sophisticated enough to know that Murderbot is grouchy at it. Maybe it's sticking it giant metal ass in Murderbot's way deliberately.
Reblogged sunderwight
ok so this is another long shot but a few years ago there was a twitter post (in japanese i think?) that had measurememts for how to make this book stand thing out of cardboard that you could use to double up books and use up more space on shelves
back then i made a bunch of these but by now i lost the pic and dont know how to find the original post anymore
if it comes down to it i can just take one apart and get the measurements from there but i would be very grateful if anyone happens to have the original post or something similar??
don't mind how long it's been since i made this post, anyway i realized that i don't even need to take one apart to get the measurements when i can literally just unfold it and refold it /FACEPALM
so anyway here is the diagram for anyone else who is interested!!
this requires pretty big carboard pieces, if you have a really big box or something you can make it from one piece, but if you don't, you can also just make each of the pieces individually and then tape them together
and then in the end you put it together like this!!
and then when you make a bunch you can put them all next to each other and stack your books like crazy