Personal Update

This might get long, or not, but there is a TL;DR:

I basically just wanted to tell you guys one thing: I'm going to take art more seriously now and will begin a 2-year art education in January and this means I won't be that active anymore - this is also a last call for commissions.

Art always has been something that was just a casual hobby to me, always just doodling around a bit. There was never that much time for art in my life, either because I was a student with a part-time job to support myself, or because I'm working full-time after graduation. It was something I did to relax, but never too seriously. Just drawing the characters I currently liked, and I wanted to share it in case someone liked the same characters as me.

Sure, I bought some books, I watched video tutorials, I bought some "classes" on Gumroad, but it was just me wanting to get a bit better with no real commitment - it's just a hobby, right? I exclusively used the money from commissions to support this hobby, and for that I am grateful for every single one of you who decided to hire me to bring your beloved characters to life. This means a lot to me.

But things have changed. The more time passes, the more I realize that art and making art becomes a bigger and more meaningful part in my life. It's what I want to do.

And a few months ago I started a new job that allows me to actually invest in art. This is why I have decided to enroll in an art school and take art more seriously as I'm finally in a position that allows me to do so. I always perceived my progress as slow and unfulfilling, often feeling frustrated with my own pace and the disconnect between the images in my head, the stuff I want to do, and the things that come out of my hand. I want to change that.

This means I won't be as active (not that I'm very active) on here anymore, as I will be taking art classes right after work. I might post some things I have done for the classes or some personal projects I manage to squeeze out in between. But I hope to come back with a much higher quality.

This also means this will be your last chance to get a commission from me for a very long time. If you are interested, you have until the end of December to contact me.

Thank you everyone for your continuous support, I wouldn't be here without you.

Cheers, Vauclair

@dr-vauclair - has done it again! She's knocked this one out of the ballpark, too! Thank you so very much, my friend! Your work is sooooo amazing and I just love how you've adapted it to my AU setting! <3

Major Coats from Mass Effect but in my ME/WWII crossover where he is a liason between the Normandy Group and a French Resistance cell run by Abby Williams. Part of the Something Wicked This Way Comes series. Their story will be called Dancing With the Devil.

“I’m…heading over to France,” Coats finally said, hoping his friend wouldn’t push for details. 

One of Shepard’s eyebrows arched.  

Coats huffed softly in response.  “Yeah, that was my thought, too.”

“You aren’t a Spectre.” A wry chuckle slipped past Coats’ lips.  “Nah, couldn’t pay me enough to be as crazy as you, Shannon.”  He hesitated a second, then added, “I’m being sent over to liaise with a Resistance cell.  They claim to have intel that might help people like you.  Command isn’t as convinced, so they’re sending me instead of risking one of you lot.”  He made a face.  “Guess, they think I’m expendable.”

Gillian: You’re wearing more makeup than me.

Bob: And I look absolutely excellent doing so.

Gillian: In no small part due to my steady hand.

Bob: True.

for @dr-vauclair

Opening Lines Game

I was tagged by @fireandfolds, thank you for the tag!!! This was a welcome distraction from actually writing ;)

rules:

list the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all)

see if there are any patterns

choose your favorite opening line

tag some people to play the next round

IR-8 doesn’t drink booze ‘cuz it fucks with their meds, so they nurse a ginger ale and cherry. (Berlin Burns)

Sometimes he dreams that he’s back in the labyrinth. (lost)

Manuela awoke with an aching head and a cramped, hot feeling on her chest. (the youngest we’ll ever be)

“Troy, no! I can’t—” (never gonna say I’m sorry)

“Where. Is. Olivia?” (Mirror Dance)

Audran hits ‘brew’ on the coffee maker, starting another pot of the expensive beans that Vauclair likes. (what tenderness remains)

The Kreuzbasar has always been a broken sigh, syllables stuttering on the verge of collapse. (worth waiting for)

“Tell me who did this to you,” IR-8 growled. (All Mouth and Bad Ideas)

Back when Penny was a little girl—back when she still wore pants and cut her hair short, back when the bus still ran to Calico Desert and Mom still drove, back when Dad still swept Penny in his arms so the eucalyptus smell of his aftershave tickled her nose—Penny caught a jarful of fireflies. (Fireflies)

“It looks like a flower!” says Sera, poking at the green vegetable sitting on her plate. (A Most Edible Thistle)

Hawke hisses between her teeth as she rocks first one way, then the other, knees twisting in an attempt to dislodge Meredith. (Blood and Iron)

Jack thinks of poetry as pain, as want, as something raw and measured in equal parts. (nothing like poetry)

“Shut the door, shut the door!” Verna screamed, boots skidding across the wooden floors of the forgotten library.  (Primary Sources)

Katagawa—the only Katagawa worth mentioning now, not Junior, not eleven other siblings wrestling for the family name, and even Naoko is a soon-to-be-dead memory—sprawls back in the opulence of his king-sized bed, curling his toes against the silk sheets. (His Favorite CEO)

“Restraint does not become you, my love,” Vivienne said dryly, leaning against the balcony with a glass of wine in her hand. (Restraint)

“You are the Lady of Iron, and you remain unconquered,” Svarah said, blood on her teeth as she smiled around a split lip. (Unconquered)

“I’m the Butcher, and you’re the Hatchet. Frankly, I don’t see how it was gonna be any other way.” (any other way)

“Holy shit, Miri! We might not make it out of this one!” Vera shouts, snakes whipping past her shoulders as she spins the getaway car through a tight corner. (Spousal Privilege)

Danse blinks as he enters the Atomic Wrangler, the dust from his boots drifting to settle between the worn floorboards. (Danse Does Vegas)

“Go away, I’m dying.” (where you sleep at night)

Most of my opening lines are short and to the point, interrupting the characters mid-scene and establishing the set-up. The longer ones tend to for longer or more thoughtful, introspective fics, which I hope calibrates audience expectation appropriately.

That said, 9 is currently my favorite. It’s longer, meandering, and incorporates memory as an emotional touchstone in a way that I think really fits the mood of the fic. I also like 7, though I still waffle on whether the mood of the fic and the prose really match the canon.

And if you want to play... @anneapocalypse, @bittylildragon, @sioirsebhan, @psykopsy, @deacons-wig, @h1bernate, and @fireferns? :D

Heretic update

[previously]

So Andreas was stripped of his title, land, and his betrothed by Edward, Black Prince of England, and was thrown into the dungeon of the palace at Poitiers. Tomassin begged the Order of St. Agnes to send help; but the Order, struggling against the onset of Plague, could not come.

So the Abbess of the Order called upon a fragile and wary alliance, and bid the infamous Murnau family to send a party of their hell-touched inquisitors. Sir Anderlyn von Murnau, the knight-detective, unorthodox and grieving; Margaret von Murnau, a wayward byblow pagan girl; and Sylvain, a man-at-arms with a dark and occult past in France, arrived in Poitiers and plucked Andreas from Edward’s clutches with the use of their baffling and miraculous powers.

 They joined up with Tomassin and fled Poitiers, leaving Edward occupying Andreas’s city, palace, and throne.

The world Andreas emerged from the darkness into was one gripped by the throat by the Plague. His first thought was to join up with his other surviving friends: especially Philippe, his best friend who, alone of his closest allies, could do nothing to protect himself from the Black Death. Philippe was imprisoned in the fortress-town of Niort, waiting for his ransom to be paid. Niort had been under English occupation for nearly a year, but Andreas would not let another of his friends die because of his blunder in underestimating Edward. And Philippe has always been his best friend.

But Niort, when they arrived, was in anarchy. The townsfolk had succumbed to bacchanalian madness, in the face of the great dying, and the English had shut the gates of the castle, as much to keep out the rioting peasants as to keep out the plague after the rioters had broken into the prison and dragged the prisoners out.

Philippe was somewhere in a town that was now divided into the Revel, and those who slunk from hiding place to hiding place in fear of them. The horrors Andreas saw during those days shook him free of the last vestiges of his narcissistic belief that he might be the son of Satan: if these were Satan-worshippers - if all this blood and violation pleased Satan - then Andreas wanted nothing to do with him.

If the Black Captain is Satan, He is not the Satan worshipped by the Revel.

It was by the spare, strange favor of the Black Captain that Andreas found Philippe: by cutting a blade into his own arm, and following the blood as it flowed from his fingertips and turned, in spits and gushes, into boiling saltwater. Philippe was astounded to see him; clutched him, begged Andreas to take him from this place; but not without Nina.

Who is Nina, Andreas wanted to know. Philippe had never cared about - anyone, except for Andreas and himself.

Who is Nina remained the question even after they rescued her from the black mass of the Revel. It was the question when she flew at Philippe with a knife, screaming murderer, and had to be restrained from killing him. It was the question when they crept away from the rest of the group that night, and made love. It was the question when they avoided each other every daylight hour, and Philippe informed Andreas that he intended to marry her, and that she intended to accept.

Nina, Andreas would learn later, was the instrument of Philippe’s soul’s subjugation to the Sunflower King, the god of the Revel; as he was hers. They damned each other. They had no choice. Without their ritual circle of two, they would be driven to damn everyone around them.

Andreas had reached the vaster question: Who is the Sunflower King?

What if you don’t have to sell your soul to the Devil, Philippe said, broken in his arms. What if just seeing him is enough? He cursed me through my eyes. He stole my soul through my eyes.

Do not let me drag you into this with me, Philippe said. I know I will try.

The group reached La Rochelle, where Princess Blanche was sequestered in Castle Vauclair. La Rochelle, an independent commune, hidden behind the impassible Forest of Argenson, its harbor protected by the great Chain and Lantern Towers, maintains a fragile neutrality in the war between the English and the French by raising no flags and sustaining no army. Blanche is its lady; and the plague-ridden townspeople of La Rochelle who crawl to the walls of Castle of Vauclair to be nearer to their princess, last child of the Capetian line of kings, favored by God, do not die.

They do not die.

Blanche was a prisoner within, of her lifelong guardian, Sir Tristan, last of the old shattered Templar Order. Wracked with a terrifying vitality, she vomited insects, did not eat or sleep, and woke the dead by her mere proximity. Anyone spending more than an hour in her company died, burst open by twitching, erupting cancers. She did not know what was happening to her. It started when the Plague began. (The Plague that she foretold.)

And she had been sleepwalking, into the forest. In the direction of the Roman shrine where Sir Tristan, 16 years ago, had slept one night, and had a vision of Holy Mother, telling him to go to Blanche, and protect her.

With no other options, Andreas decided to sneak her out of the castle and let her sleepwalk to the shrine, in the hopes that something could at least be learned. With dread, Andreas, Sir Anderlyn, Margaret, and Tomassin ventured into the wood, following a sleepwalker who found a path through the black and frozen twisting mire unerringly. 

And then the bugs came. And the wolves. Or they were something like wolves. And the wall of eyes, reflected in the torchlight, that undulated as the earth breathed beneath their feet. And the stars began to swim like fireflies.

Shredded by a two-headed abomination of a wolf, moments from death, Andreas realized that something was close to here, something that would protect him; something that had been left for him. While the animal nearly tore off his arm, Andreas pushed a boulder loose from a stony hollow (while the others screamed what are you doing, and fought for their lives) and found, hidden there, a dagger.

A Roman pugio, its hilt rotted away. Inscribed on the blade in Latin were the words even a god has his duty. It slew the horror-wolf in two blows.

He was separated from the rest of his party. They stayed behind to fight more of their wild, unnatural attackers; Andreas had to pursue Blanche, who was disappearing between the trees, even while the wood became more and more alien and wonderous.

He saw a stranger whose face he could not remember, who told him he could ask it three questions. It called him the Boreal Knight. It told him (obliquely) that his powers, which had brought him so much suffering and terror ever since he was six years old, were the result of being knighted by the Black Captain, to protect the world from the rupture caused by the division of the hours. It told him that Blanche was a part of that rupture. It told him he had to stop her.

He was not, then, her fated ally, or lover, as they, in their adoration, had assumed. His purpose was to stop her by any means, and to kill her if he had to.

And it told him that if she reached that shrine, Holy Mother White would wake up, and they would all be lost. Andreas ran deeper into the Wood.

(What to say about the other visitor he had, in this last, awful leg of his flight towards the shrine? The woman standing amid the trees, blindfolded, pretty and distorted and grey-haired, small and as tall as the trees, fragile and made of the same bones as the world? He touched a flame to his heart when he saw her, wondering, and she touched her hand to her lips and extended it to him. The way to Blanche opened up ahead of him, and her moths kissed his cheek.)

He reached Blanche. She could not be woken. She could not even be touched. She dissolved into insects whenever he reached for her, reforming in a swell of flickering wings. The shrine was close. Blanche’s eyes were white, and when he begged her to see him, a locust leapt from her mouth and tried to sting him.

And then, waiting at the shrine, was Bernadetta, and her accuser-turned-knight, Vauquelin. Bernadetta knew this place had to be protected, somehow, and knew that he would come. She knelt upon the shrine and erupted into a pillar of flames. The unclean children of Mother White burned.

But Blanche was still coming. White-eyed, implacable, while spores and locusts whorled around her.

Andreas heard the Black Captain’s voice for the first time since that night in his cell. It said, the Boreal Knight knows what to do.

And he did.

He took the dagger that had been left for him a thousand years ago, scratched a line into the dirt at the foot of the shrine - no further than this - advanced to meet Blanche, the woman he loves, and plunged the dagger into her heart.

Blanche woke up. Met his eyes. Coughed up blood, and slumped to her knees. And Andreas, using the purifying fire that had earned him torture and condemnation his whole life, tore the knife free from her chest and healed her before she could almost-instantly exsanguinate.

Bernadetta and Vauquelin defended the shrine, as Andreas and a sobbing Blanche fled.

The blind forest-woman’s silvery moths formed a storm behind Andreas and Blanche as they ran, blocking the way to the tidal wave of furious, biting locusts that pursued them. The moths died by the thousands; one, resting on Andreas’s cheek again, fluttered its wings to urge him to run faster.

They emerged from the Wood, back into the forest. Blanche’s hideous malady relieved; her connection with Mother White, at least for the moment, quieted.

These strange and dark saints now stand together in La Rochelle; alive, and intact, doomed by varying degrees. They have to find their place over unsteady feet, put from their mind their thousands of questions, and face what’s in front of them:

The Plague, held at bay by Blanche’s terrible vitality, is about to arrive in La Rochelle in full force.

Edward, the Black Prince, knows that they are there, and will do anything to return Andreas to his power.

And the young man Andreas hired to spy for him - a young man he had liked - has gone missing. The only explanation is that the English have taken him. And he knows where they can find Andreas.

Song Obsessions

Rules: list 10 songs you’re obsessed with and tag 10 people

Mmm. How about “Current Song Obsessions” and I tag 5, so I that I’m more likely to read/listen to their responses. Tagged By: @epistaxisxjensen Why thank you, dear. Btw, that Aesthetic Perfection track was pleasing. 1. Uncharted Worlds - Mass Effect Soundtrack : (Extended) Well, better not call this one a “current obsession”. I loved it the first time I heard it years ago... Someone once asked what song/track I would choose if I could only listen to one song/track for the rest of my life and, although such a fate would be pretty awful, this chose this without much hesitation. I wake up every morning to this as my alarm...and it’s a beautiful way to welcome the day. 2. Dream Town - Fallout OST : Here’s another beautiful ambient gem, but a really recent obsession. It was a near tie between this and Metallic Monks , which now vies for an obsession spot now that I listen to it. I chose this one though, because (with Fallout as context) it speaks of tranquility and a hopeful -possibly futile- longing in an awful, tormented, ugly nightmare of world of our own making. I imagine the incoherent whispers as a father quietly speaking to his spouse about adult woes as their child drifts asleep in the next room - blissfully ignorant of their troubles.  3. It’s a Sin to Tell A Lie - The Inkspots : (Fallout OST Version) Tag. Jumping to another song that made its way into Fallout. I did not like this one at first, because I found the singer’s enunciation both creepy and irritating, but damn did it grow on me...so much so that I don’t care for any other version out there. To me it’s a really great blend of that dark, listless Fallout irony, a hopeful sincerity...and a threat! *insert evil cackle here* Perfect for villainous characters such as the one I currently RP. 4. 0:59 - Danger : Speaking of villainy, a friend recommended this to me a while back and I find it so incredibly inspiring when writing that cyberpunk-y, gloomy, hopeless sort of passage. I do not know about you, but here’s the strong image I get: A woman dressed in unfortunate-white frantically runs through the alleys of a dark, rain drenched city, as a man, coated in black, calmly follows her trail. She is careless in her fright, and finds herself trapped either at the end of an alley or inside an abode she once thought as safe. Whirling around, her thin hands draw a pistol from her belt. She levels it at her pursuer, whom pauses at the sight of its metal gleam if only for a moment. With wide eyes she cries out a warning: “Stay where you are!”. But he does not listen. She’s shaking so bad that the barrel trembles in her grasp. “I’m warning you!”. He’s nearer now. So she fires. It does nothing to deter him. 5. Confrontation - Speed Machine : I write/talk too much? Here is one I’m obsessed with simply because it is kickass-aggressive. 6. U Got U - Rodg : Another track I’m currently obsessed with because it’s aggressive (especially the last 30 seconds...mmmmmgoodyes). For no apparent reason I envision a lean, half-naked, heavily tattooed man with black lip piercings beckoning/taunting me into a fight as his sword (some overrated Japanese sort - I’m not sorry) glints white in the morning light. ...*shrugs* This is my mind. 7. Unyt - Scann-Tec : I cheated. I love this entire album. So much. It’s a journey of beauty. A lot of ambient/psytrance tracks tend to drone out after a while, which is all fine and dandy, but at times this lends itself into boredom. This man keeps it interesting with such delightful little tweaks and twists. I think everyone who enjoys this type of music and has listened to Parsec, as an example, has had their mind blown. Plus it’s endearing that the man made this triumph of an album in honor of his daughter. 8. Giving Up - Oscuro : Ever...taste a song? I donno. I taste this one. Actually it’s more of a texture. Hard to describe...but I feel it...Can you taste it? 9. Lament for Thorin - Eurielle : Beautiful. 10. Surtr Boss Battle - Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice : And I leave you with angry Vikings. God. Yes. I’M SO PUMPED RIGHT NOW. Tagging: @bitchywombatstuff, @amantisdedeus, @king-oikawa-trash, @doctor-angelicus, @jcd2187, @dr-vauclair, @raethechemist ...okay 7.

The Beginning

@dr-vauclair

Prompt: Canon Drabble. (Walton) Meeting Page for the first time. There was nothing gentle about the hall that was kept secret from the world. Oppressive were its reaching, red pillars, and dark were its polished, marble floors. Reflections went on forever there, though no one stopped and looked down at the ground to see how far. All eyes faced forward. And up.

There, at the end of the long corridor that smelled of static and stone, high above any height of man, stretched a dark hand, the symbol of their ever reaching power. Midas might have been the carving’s mighty inspiration, but gold was not this one’s reward. Under long, squared digits of ashy volcanic stone was the world - rotating in all its azure, pearl and emerald splendors. A hologram, it flickered static as a man shrouded in black and white drew near.

“So good of you to come,” greeted a voice from the right, a low alto with a humored yet serrated edge. “Punctual as always.”

The shadowed visitor’s heavy footsteps halt beneath the turning globe, casting the hall in a silence broken only by the lighter step of a woman’s heels retreating to the distance. The man waits until her sharp clicks subside before his own voice slips through the air like cloth over metal. “I am here as requested,” he greets somberly with a tilt of his near-shaved head towards the host’s direction. “Though I have yet to learn why.”

The other grins beneath the shade of the dark hand. His teeth, as white and straight as the three-piece suit he flaunts, glimmer like fangs underneath the fire-red irises of the man’s augmented eyes and quaffed hair. With a swiftness he rises from his lean upon the statue’s wrist and closes the distance between them. The suited man’s step is formal, but not without a subtle rhythm. It echoes the confident dance of one who has not known need for quite some time. “Always business with you,” he chimes, his hand clasping the other’s shoulder, only to receive a patient stare in return. Red eyes narrow. “No matter…” He takes a step back. “Your appointment to FEMA should be finalized within the week,“ he continues, “I have already discussed the matter with the senator.”

The visitor’s dark lashed eyes flutter once with quiet interest, though his expression is dull and holds no outward mirth over his considerable lift in status. “I take it he was agreeable,” he asks, the softest notes of dark pride playing at the ends of his stoic words.

“He didn’t really have a choice,” the man in white replies, catching the hidden grin behind the other’s question, and playing it up with a smirk of his own.

But a brow quirks. “Has he been infected?”

“Oh yes.” The redhead responds quickly with an upward tilt if his chin. There is a snickering satisfaction to his voice. “Most certainly. When I mentioned that we could put him on the priority list for the Ambrosia vaccine he was so willing it was almost pathetic.”

With lips pursed in thought, the man trenched in black turns his head towards end of the hall - to the doors from which he entered the secret alcove. He did not share the host’s soaring pride over this particular detail. Barring coding, the man knew the mechanized virus and its effects intimately. He saw it day after day and in more ways than one. The other’s nonchalance troubled him. “This plague,” he speaks, softly still, “ - the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.”

“Why contain it,” the other boldly declares, gesturing out with an open hand. “Let it spill over to the schools and churches. Let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end they’ll beg us to save them.” “I’ve received reports of armed attacks on shipments,” the man in black slowly advises, always the antithesis to the other in all except motive. “There’s not enough vaccine to go around, and the underclasses are starting to get desperate.” “Of course they’re desperate,” the redhead scoffs. “They can smell their deaths, and the sound they’ll make rattling their cages will serve as a warning to the rest.” Smokey eyes drift towards the other’s ember red. “Hmm. I hope you’re not underestimating the problem,” he says, pocketing his scar-laced hands into his coat’s deep pockets before casually leaning his weight onto one foot. “The others may not go as quietly as you think – intelligence indicates they’re behind the problems in Paris.” It is sudden - the change from simmering pride to boiling rage - and it is ugly upon the suited man’s handsomely groomed face. The fervor bares a terrible contrast to his previous smirks and snorts of confidence. “A bunch of pretentious old men playing at running the world,” he hisses between grinding teeth, the whites of his eyes growing beneath the shadow of a creased brow. But then, as quick as his anger came it went, and the man’s expression fell once again into a practiced grin. “But the world left them behind long ago,” he chides with a purr. “We are the future.” Unphased by the upset the man in black continues. “We have other problems.” “UNATCO?” A nod. “Formed by executive order after the terrorist strike on the Statue. I have someone in place though. I’m more concerned about Savage – he’s relocated to Vandenberg.” The host is quick to retort with yet another wave of a manicured hand. “Our biochem corpus is far in advance of theirs, as is our electronic sentience, and their…” slipping into thought, he rolls his head to one side, “ethical inflexibility has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider.” Something, a blush, perhaps born from a rare show of emotion, flashes across the visitor’s pale skin and emboldens the shadows below their eyes. It appeared purple under the light of the arched, red hall. “The augmentation project?” he whispers, gesturing for the man to answer. “Among other things - ,” a shrug, “ - but I must admit that I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the performance of the primary unit.” A sneer rumbles behind his words. 

Straightening, the visitor assumes another layer of professionalism to his usual calm. Like an officer giving a report he answers: “The secondary unit should be online soon. He’s currently undergoing preparations and should be operational within six months. My people will continue to report on his progress.” Without pause he adds: “If necessary, the primary will be terminated.” The answer pleases the man in white, whom nods approvingly and draws slowly towards his darker clad colleague. “We’ve had to endure much, you and I,” he sighs, resting a hand, once again, on the visitor’s shoulder, “but soon there will be order again, a new age.” A squeeze and a release. The man in black watches in silence as the other takes a step towards the dark hand, and tilts his head up to gaze at the fingers hooking the holo of the world. Their vision of Earth spins slowly, a gentle whirl of colour and hope surrounded by an unyielding stone of pocked grey. “Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill,” the man hums in awe, his breathy words severing the silence smothering the atmosphere of the cruel hall. “Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its kings.” He grins and gasps, dreams afire. “Or better than kings. Gods.”

My part of the art trade with @dr-vauclair hope you like it dear! :DDD Here’s the other half which is amazing! I’m still in awe of it :D 

“Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere though of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. A dog or rabbit doesn't behave like that. They put their energy into staying alive themselves until times get better. But human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves, and live on forever. You could call it hope. That, or desperation. As a species we're pathetic that way. Anyway, maybe there weren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain.”

▲ Dr. Gillian E. Thorndale ▲ Deus Ex Original Character ▲ Art/Aesthetic/Ask/Roleplay ▲ Semi-Selective & Slow Activity ▲ Drawn and written by Vauclair (18+)

ONE WORD DESCRIPTIONS

oooo I have never done one of these! tagged by the amazing @dragonie (i sympathize so deeply with the chocolate answers, btw)

Where is your phone? Desk

Your hair? Damp

Your dad? Elsewhere

Your other half? *laughs*

Your favourite food? Chocolate!

Your dream last night? Fragmented

Your favourite drink? Cocoa

Fear? Submarines

Favourite shoes? HEELYS!

Favourite way to relax? Games

Your mood? Grumpy

I love? Occasionally

Where were you last night? Walking

Something that you aren’t? Pineapple

Muffins? Rarely

Wish list item? Pillow

Where you grew up? ‘murca (this one is not fitting in one word)

Last thing you did? Eat

What are you wearing right now? Jeans

Something you hate? Irrationality

Your pets? Weird

Friends? SQUAAADDDDDD

Life? Trying

Regrets? Yeah

Missing someone? Apparently.

alright lemme tag some mutuals who i hope wont immediately regret following me @matelate @oppadisneystyle @skartoargento @bastet-thewritingcat @dr-vauclair uh if I missed you I’m sorry! go do the thing, if you feel like it!

I posted 3,524 times in 2022

412 posts created (12%)

3,112 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@mtreebeardiles

@theoriginalladya

@shadoedseptmbr

@hunnybadgerv

I tagged 3,487 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#mass effect - 1,022 posts

#kaidan alenko - 709 posts

#nature - 615 posts

#landscape - 561 posts

#photo - 533 posts

#mshenko - 410 posts

#commander shepard - 344 posts

#ladya writes - 267 posts

#fic recommendation - 213 posts

#reblog - 199 posts

Longest Tag: 134 characters

#once in a very blue moon i will get my first name spelled right and then it usually shocks me so badly i need to sit for a minute! lol

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

(commissioned art of Caleb Shepard by the fabulous @dr-vauclair-art)

In an effort to try and stir the muses awake in Caleb's ME/WWII crossover world, I've been combing through some prompt lists to see what provokes them. From the 100 Ways to Say I Love You list:

Series: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Work: Keep To the West

Chapter 7: It's okay. I couldn't sleep anyway." (Read in full on AO3)

Snippet:

The glass-paned windows rattled sharply as the wind whipped against them startling Kaidan from restless slumber.  Blinking through the dark, the threads of sleep reluctant to release him to the waking world, he yawned.  Something stirred in his mind – part memory, part dream, yet a reminder of something that was – and he rolled to his other side, content to slip back into unconsciousness.  As tired as he was from the last mission, it was easy to give in, and he nearly had until his arm met emptiness instead of the warmth of the body he expected. 

He's gone…isn’t he?  Lost over the side of –

Bolting upright, a surge of adrenaline raced through him, seeking and finding the weak spots within.  Panic, icy and unrelenting, chilled him to the bone and all thoughts of sleep fled.  The bedding fell in a tangled pool around his waist, restraining him, and his heart thumped wildly in his chest.  It took long moments for calm to return, for memories to sort, for reality to stake its claim once more.

Shepard…alive, returned, safe…

A soft whimper broke free of his chest and escaped his lips.  So much had happened, it was difficult to discern truth and reality from the nightmares that had haunted him for months.

It wasn’t just a dream…was it?  Shepard is alive…?

Read in full on AO3 here

40 notes - Posted May 30, 2022

#4

Had the Humblebi pattern come across my dash recently and I decided to make a gift for a friend's daughter who likes bees. Fiddled with gauge and yarn (worsted weight (Red Heart Gold) and size 9 needles) to make it a bit bigger, but it knit up like a dream. I've never done a bottom-up knit before, and aside from the struggle of counting out to make sure I had enough stitches at the beginning, it was fun! Might have to make one for myself now! :)

41 notes - Posted May 21, 2022

#3

and...voila! One Starry Night cake of yarn. The darker color bled a bit during the wash and the lighter colors aren't so bright now, but it still looks really good! Can't wait to have a chance to knit this up!

42 notes - Posted August 31, 2022

#2

(top picture: Serafina MacKinnon and Alistair Theirin)

(bottom picture: Serafina and her twin, Sean)

Was thinking about my girl earlier today, and decided to stare at the lovely art that @xla-hainex did for me for a while.

Really hoping this means she's prepared to start talking to me again so I can get back to her story over in Dragon Age. She and her twin, Sean, have a LOT to share, and if I can finally get that done, then I might be able to get back to the two of them over in Mass Effect.

45 notes - Posted August 31, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Happy Birthday, Commander Shepard!

See the full post

105 notes - Posted April 11, 2022

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