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polarisdelphi · 5 months

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Back on posting old art I never posted, Frau Schneider, my beloved 🖤

I'm seriously considering turning her into a sticker and slapping it everywhere I need to remember something to do. Drinking water? Frau is there judging me. Writing? Frau is waiting. Sleeping at a decent time? She's at the clock, looking at me with hatred in her eyes.

Jokes aside, this was more of a try on stylized drawing, which I completely suck. Since I studied Schneider's face thoroughly once for another drawing, I figured stylizing him would be easier for me as a first try.

I love his nose HAHAHAHA that's my anchor on his likeness xD

Sketches, breakdowns on how I got here, what I thought on shapes and more on his features - and just general artist blabbering, down below!

It was born from these loose sketches:

And I do like the ~proper~ one too. Took a lot of screenshots of the video's making of to understand his mannerisms when ~in Frau~, and there's a big change between the video and the live versions.

Video is a proper, collected, older woman with a dark side from repressed unfulfilled desires, live one is a brute, angry, harshly dominant one. 100% angry all the time, taking her dogs for a walk 🖤

Keeping some harsh shapes on the first one 'cause we all know she's evil, and some more organic ones on the second one 'cause she's UNHINGED.

(Also, Frau's coat are a thousand little Edelweiss 'cause you know. Schneider, Austria, his wife hahahaha aaaaand I have roots from there too, so I decided to shamelessly slap Edelweiss everywhere xD)

Another interesting thing to note, was trying to keep the male proportions on a female presenting appearance. Because we all learn about better shapes for women, how they usually are ~smaller, softer and more delicate~ than males (please read with sarcasm) but Schneider is still a man in woman's clothing, acting like a woman. So I had to keep in mind what I'd draw if it was just him as himself - big hands, big feet, tall as a fucking tree, very large shoulders, toned arms and muscles, all that. No ~delicate~ features 'cause he's still a man, but in here he's a woman.

I'm not saying I succedeed. But it was a good first try :)

Given I have so many drag queen original characters, it's something I think it was nice to study and have in mind T-T

About his features, like I said, I studied him once 'cause I was trying to go for stylized Live aus Berlin Schneider illustration once, but all I got is: I can draw his likeness from memory now, that's it *cries in incompetence*

I said before, I'm not good at stylizing.

So, his key features are: very slim and small mouth, big nose (gods I love his nose, I'll always say that), kinda small eyes and there's almost no distance to his eyebrows (on the video they paint his brows to make a LOT more arched, almost like original Maleficent), longer face, big and square chin, sharp and high cheekbones. I figured if I kept all that in mind, I'd have his likeness.

That's what I used to go figuring out how to draw Frau like that :)

And why am I blabbering all this?

I just hope it helps other self-taught artists out there who have a hard time finding resources and see other people's drawings and go "oooh man how do I get there?" and the artist always go "I dunno just draw a lot and you will get there :)"

Yes, yes, draw a lot. If you don't practice, you won't learn. But there ARE tools, observation studies, drawing studies and a WHOLE lot of things you can learn from other people to get where you want to faster and easier - but most of these resources are, nowadays, behind a paywall. So I just figured I'll share what I learned and hopefully it'll help someone struggling with the same things I did less than a year ago ;)

#schneider #christoph schneider #art #stylized art #illustration #character art #I'm just having nonsensical fun at this point hahaha #I do pity enourmously my mentor #getting all these crazy unhinged people drawings to analyze #but hey I don't make the rules #frau schneider lives rent free in my head #and schneider too for that matter 'cause he's the reason why I remembered I can't live without music #rammstein #frau schneider

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luckiestplartt · 1 day

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For my Literature class i was allowed to make a short comic adaptation of a literary work that influenced me, so I picked Demian. If you want to read my explanation of why I picked it and made certain decisions, you can read it under the cut ! :)

[It is 862 words. I only needed to write 2 paragraphs. I... really like this book LOL]

I chose to adapt Herman Hesse's "Demian" because it's a very influential book for me. I saw myself in the protagonist, Emil Sinclair in how he worries about what other people think of him as a kid, leading him to tell different lies to different people. His struggle to rationalize what is "good" or "evil" is rooted in his religious upbringing, and his first step towards discovering himself and his own values is from someone (Demian) telling him a different perspective, and inviting him to think for himself. I felt seen in how Sinclair wants to be guided by others, but feels unable to teach others, and seeing him eventually reach independence makes me want to reach that point too. He starts off the book seperating things into binaries like Man and Woman, Good and Evil, but over the course of the book those concepts start to overlap and gray for him. He admires Demian and Beatrice for being a boy with feminine features, and a girl with masculine features, and when he eventually meets Frau Eva, he loves how handsome she is. The scene I adapted, where he sees himself in his own painting, not visually but emotionally, really connects with me as an artist who puts themself into their work, and gets a slightly better understanding of myself when I first step back and look at it. I don't want my pictures to look like a mirror of me, but still reflect me somehow. And with my experience with gender, I see myself in Sinclair's idealization of androgyny, even if those sorts of words would not be used at the time. This connection I felt with the book helped move me to read more classic literature and see myself in them.

I decided for the first page to not have a lot of narration because I felt that it could be told through pictures. The scene starts with the sun "slanting red through my window" during sunset, and "Inside my room it was dusk", which gave me my color palette for the comic; reds and warm purples. Sinclair is not very detailed in the first page because I thought it would feel more atmospheric, and to emphasize the self discovery on the second page. The three panels on the bottom were repeated with subtle changes in expression to give the feeling of time passing as, in the narration, "For a long time I sat oppposite it even after the picture had faded out." He blends in with the light of the painting because of how much he's taking it in; the last panel's sudden contrast is the moment of realization leading up to the next page. The painting's sudden detail is partly because I got too into drawing it, but is so important that it should be in substantially more detail; it is a catalyst for Sinclair, and it is symbolic of his connections (and future connections) in the book. Besides Sinclair's emotions, it is the most detailed description in that scene, and the way he describes it radiates joy and excitement.

The first panel of page two has vague drawings of Beatrice and Demian, with Sinclair sparking with recognition. I wanted him to have a similiar feeling as the painting, glowing with color, because this is an important moment for him. Beatrice is not very detailed because he has never talked to her; she is someone who he saw on the street and admired, and at that point, he had not met Demian in years. "But myself" is split from the sentance to give more emphasis on his revelation. The second panel's narration is split but tied together to make it feel more floaty and slow, to emphasize each point, and to help direct readers to the next panel with Demian (the lines in the last panel are also supposed to help cheat with that). The text around Demian purposefully switches alignment and leaves extra space to 1) help connect the flow of narration from the second to the fourth panel, and 2) because it conveys Sinclair's semi-divine view of Demian (masculine and feminine, youthful and mature). The woman in the fourth panel (who he later realizes to be Frau Eva) has especially split narration because he doesn't know her yet, and she is a dreamy "ideal" to him; she isn't concrete in his world yet. For panel 2 and 5, there is an egg cracking and a bird flying off as a reference to a motif later on in the book; "The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born first must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas." This quote has found its way into media inspired by Demian, and influences how people see the characters, and it's an especially touching quote because of how strong and confident it feels. If the bird (Sinclair) is not able to break his egg (the sheltered world he grew up in), he will never "hatch" and fly to Abraxas (self-discovery). It felt especially important to me to include this motif even if it hasn't technically appeared in the book yet, because it is a perfect metaphor for growing up and for Emil Sinclair.

#demian #demian 1919 #herman hesse #plant talk #i reallllyyy need to reread demian this summer itd be good for me

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7rus7m3 · 2 months

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BIG 101 PENTAGON THEORY // SPOILERS FOR CANTO VI, DEMIAN (book), LITTLE PRINCE (book), LEVIATHAN, LIBRARY OF RUINA, a little bit of Divine Comedy too

RG - Red Gaze, PT - Purple Tear, LP - Little Prince, DC - Divine Comedy. Grammar mistakes can appear due to me not being very fluent in English.

So… After the new Demian scene appeared, I found it convenient to finally unleash my Dante=Sinclair pentagon theory, based on some assumptions I made from reading the source books of all of these characters. Before I start, I need to aknowledge some other things:

1. I don’t find this theory as something that actually will happen, since it may be based on my own biased opinions towards some of the characters included

2. Most of my assumptions are made through reading into intertext of the source books and how it would look more cool to potentially appear in a game. PM interpretation of books may be completely opposite from mine, so ig we will see how close I was later

3. I don’t use other sinners for my theory, since most of them are not marked, can’t use shin from what we know and/or mostly have finished self-centered story. The only one that probably will be added to pentagon is Faust, since her source is too important for Hesse as a writer and the motif of soul duality exists as an important topic in both Demian and Faust books. Also she knows too much about the Stars from what we can see in the prologue and later in her dialogues with us.

Part 1. Purple Tear

PT=Demian’s mother feels like canon already for me, but maybe just because I discussed it too much with my friends. So the main point of this theory is that Demian and PT appear to have the same main themes as characters and have similar powers, so him being Iori’s son will be natural. For example, the snake theme being introduced to us with Iori’s snake eyes in Leviathan manga or with the blue snake representing Demian on LCB Sinclair art. Multidimensional traveling powers, Shin being mostly PT’s disciples thing etc etc. Also Demian had purple eyes on his first promotional art and even though it was changed later, it is still an important thing that was planned by PM. For me it's an obvious moment for a lot of reasons, but in reality they just feel like relatives and the more you think about it the more it becomes obvious.

As Demian’s mother, she becomes frau Eva naturally and potential Sinclair milfhunter’s interest.

Also I believe in Iori as a higher-up person in Limbus Company assumption. As a person, who sees countless possibilities, her choices on sinners of LCB feels natural and the fact that Vergilius out of all people becomes our guide just approves it to me.

So I added ‘Demian’ to her as a source just to start, but we can also add ‘Little Prince’ as I believe that she also represents the snake from the start of Prince’s adventure on Earth and his end on it. The Snake claims to have some sort of space-traveling power after all and while representing Birth and Death of Prince on Earth, she's a good pick for a mother figure representation.

Part 2. Red Gaze

Not too much to say here, but the obvious things we know. The Shin user triangle, even though Verg and Demian probably ain’t ever met each other once, still exists in the context of this theory. We can or can not draw a line between Demian and Vergilius, but I like to do it for the sake of making a point how they both are PT’s disciples.

The christmas trauma line here is mostly for funsies, but it’s obviously not a coincidence on how the whole Sinclair’s family killing incident happened at the same time as Vegilius’ orphanage incident and how both suspicious shin users just watched them suffer to mentor them later.

Dante and RG are connected through Divine Comedy, which is told directly from the game.

Part 3. Demian

The most interesting and most intertextually written character in the game.

Sinclair being the rose became more believable to me than him being the fox after a new scene, but I still think both can be true. As we know from Demian book - Sinclair is final destination of Demian’s journey, from whom Max parted for unknown reasons (basically not answered his letters while doing his own fun stuff ig) and even tried to adapt to live in the world ignoring his marked nature (the “I am actually a lieutenant” scene in the 7th chapter). He is meeting Sinclair at first to part with him later just to end up becoming a metaphorical part of him at the end, probably dying physically. The same happens with Prince and Rose relationships in the LP. From them meeting suddenly to part later because of Prince’s complicated feelings to Prince finally coming back to her after learning how to love her and realizing her importance for his existence as a person in the metaphysical form, leaving his physical body behind. The story is too similar for Sinclair to not be Rose. The main counterargument here is the fact that we don’t know when Demian started his journey and Sinclair quoting dialogue of LP with fox. I still believe that Sinclair-Rose theory is more likely though, but Sinclair-Fox is still leading us to doomed yaoi in the end.

The Demian-Beatrice part comes from ‘Demian’ as a source too. Sinclair met Beatrice as his muse and basically Demian’s replacement as an image of his own ideals in life, she became a reason for him to stop his self-destruction path. Young love for Sinclair here is more of a reason to keep moving forward to become a better person than actual loving feeling. She is a mythological muse, but not a romantic interest fully. And in an attempt of engraving her image (haha engraving aspect), he accidentally draws Demian instead. We can put it as a direct equation of her to Demian and as a method of inserting an androgynous archetype into Demian’s character. I think of Demian-Beatrice as a cool way to introduce us to Paradiso later with him being our new guide instead of Vergilius. It will become a more logical guess later, in the context of the main part of this theory.

Part 4. Dante and Sinclair

So… Dante is a book version of Sinclair with part of Demian’s soul inside him theory… The main thing from where we should start to think about this is the whole number dilemma within Sinclair’s coat. He should’ve been the 10th Sinner before Dante appeared, but then got changed to 11th. Which is funny since 1.0 and 1.1 is a funny version number calambour. So, questions that theories answers:

1.Demian having sudden interest in Dante and giving him riddles that mostly answers the nature of more of a Demian himself as a person, than giving Dante actual usable information

2.Dante seem to have mark

3.”What will become of me who have been robbed by me”

4.Sinclair is the only sinner we resonated with out of his Canto

5.Sinclair Canto only focusing on the first two chapters of the book, but not taking it as full. His Canto takes not even half of a book, but focuses on a really small part of it. Moby-Dick is a pre-story in Canto V, same basically for Canto I and Canto IV, we are close to the ending of CaP in Canto II and we have seen the true ending of WH in one of the Mirror Worlds with Cathy and Hareton.

6. Why they aren't changing numbers on Sinclair's coat for six Canto already

7. How Demian is able to understand us and how we are able to deeply understand Demian's feelings

8. Why we have any connections to Demian in the past and why we owe him a drawing of all things (Sinclair was a painter in the book)

9. Star is the main motivation of Dante

10. The whole engraving aspect thing. Again, Sinclair was a painter in the book and used drawing as a way to analyze his instinctive feelings

11. Dante having religious motifs and powers associated with either Tree of Life or Tree of Knowledge. Sinclair’s EGO “Branch of Knowledge” naming based on that

12. Dante’s White Night motifs. White Night is basically an Antichrist, but also a God, which connects it with the concept of both god and demon and connecting it with an Abraxas

Maybe some other questions are answered too if you think about it for a little. This is just a very solid assumption that will explain why Demian is so important for us and why Dante seems like a descendant of the Star in the prologue. As a character having another big source book I also believe in him having his own Canto and if he is a part of Dante's character then we should have the duo Canto for both Dante and Demian.

Main thing is how it happened. It's mainly fanfiction from now on. We know that there are Mirror Worlds where the whole book plot is already happened at some point (Cathy and Hareton scene in C6). So one of these basically is the one where Sinclair journey happened some other way. Maybe it was the one, where Demian helped him before the whole Kromer situation happened. After that moment in book Sinclair fastly falls back to his family and stops questioning their beliefs, so in my theory he could after all have a prosthetic operation that he was destined to before incident. That way we have his life going more calmly and as a son of prosthetic factory owner he could become a big and rich person. That would explain why Panther, Lion and Wolf were very excited over killing him. So, Sinclair of this universe goes over his way just like book Sinclair and participate in the whole June-985 thing. What else happened in June? World War 1 start. Sounds stupid, but WW1 is the main thing to change the world in Demian as a book. So the start of new world is destined to be in June-985 in the City setting, which represents WW1 starting in the Real World. The whole thing happens, and Demian either dies or merges with Sinclair to become some sort of part of him. To prevent the whole June-985 thing from happening, Sinclair travels back in time (which basically not the same, but another Mirror World) using Golden Bough and tries to engrave something that is a key to preventing the whole mass death thing. Limbus World Demian is pissy with Demian from future trying to stop the new World from happening, so he confronts us, but tries to do it in his own way. That way Dante is Sinclair from future from other mirror world and is partly a Demian himself.

In the LP, Pilot also is a child-like adult, really similar to Little Prince in some way. I personally like to read his journey with Prince as a metaphor for himself maturing and letting go his childish side, which Is again connects Dante to Demian.

So, Dante=other Sinclair=Pilot=partly Demian.

#limbus company #limbus theory #sinclair lcb #demian lcb #lcb #dante lcb #vergilius lcb #iori lor #library of ruina

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zooophagous · 1 year

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Artemis adjusted her sleeve and slid her tightly fitted glove over her hand. She made a few grasping motions, testing the movement. Movement was important. Movement was crucial. Movement was the difference between life and death, and if her equipment was too restrictive it could end up killing the hunter it was meant to protect.

Strauss stood across the way from her. He wasn't messing with protective equipment. He didn't need to. He was stretching. He pulled one arm across his chest, then mirrored with the other, and tilted his head to either side, resulting in an audible clicking as his stiff joints readied for action. He looked bored, waiting for her to catch up. He shook out his hands at his sides. Artemis smirked, he looked something like a cowboy at high noon, preparing to draw.

You didn't see very many vampire cowboys.

"I want all of you to pay close attention to Director Van Helsing's technique. She is among the finest among our ranks, and you won't find a better example to learn from. You are all in for a very rare treat. A live mock-slaying like this with a real vampire is the first in the Institute's history." Ursula addressed the audience that filled the bleachers of the gymnasium.

"Mock slaying is it?" Strauss sneered at her. "How presumptuous. I think you'll find it to be more of a simulated feeding than a slaying."

He winked across the way at Artemis, who narrowed her eyes and slid her face mask into position. It was stark white and emotionless, mannekin-like; bulletproof and quite creepy, though whether or not a vampire was intimidated by it was anyone's guess. It was the final piece of the slayer's uniform, which included a neck guard, knee pads, a kevlar vest and threads of real silver that ran through the athletic wear, giving it a shimmering glitter effect that danced in the spotlight. She hated the glitter effect, really. It was hard to look properly intimidating when wearing a sparkly spandex. Let him try and touch it, though, and he'll change his tune, she mused.

"Oh, you think you can take down an actual Van Helsing, do you?" Artemis teased in return.

"I do not think, Frau Van Helsing. I know."

"Then you're not afraid of a little wager? Name your prize."

"I'm not sure I should say what I want from you in mixed company, Frau Van Helsing." He winked at her.

She blushed bright red, but under her mask, luckily the crowd would never tell. Even more luckily for Strauss, Ursula didn't seem to be paying attention to their back and forth, too focused on her students.

"Director Van Helsing will be wearing the standard slayer's uniform. This is the same uniform our field agents and graduates use, and you will hopefully get to see the purpose behind each piece, if Mr. Strauss does not simply lose the round immediately." She glanced disdainfully at the vampire. She didn't have high hopes.

"Mr. Strauss will be wearing standard athletic safety equipment but no other armor. The purpose is to simulate a meeting in the field, in which an agent accosts a vampire en situ without preparation. Director Van Helsing will be using standard issue knives and a Cardi-axe heartstick device much like the ones in your own toolkit. However, given that we do not want to actually murder Mr. Strauss tonight, the silver blade and hydrolic components of the weapons have been replaced with paint dummies. If Director Van Helsing lands a hit, it will show up as a blue mark."

She turned to Strauss, who now had paint on his hands from a marker of his own.

"Mr. Strauss has chosen for a weapon his own natural defenses. Where he touches with his claws, it will show up as a red mark. At the end of the mock fight, the winner will be announced after tallying up the amount of fatal or incapacitating injuries on the combatants."

It was time to square up. Artemis drew her first weapon, a blade, similiar to the rapier one might use in fencing. It was hard to maintain an intimidating look when one glanced down the length of the thing to see a little blue ball at its tip. Beyond the point of the weapon, Strauss stood across the staging area and wiped his palm across his mouth, giving him a red smear along his fangs.

"Beware my bite, Frau Van Helsing. It will leave a mark."

"Trust me Strauss, you won't be getting that close."

He began to pace. Slowly the combatants circled each other. Artemis held her sword up and ready, the point aimed in warning at the creature whose eyes bored into her own. The mask covered much of her face, including the eyes. In theory he shouldn't be able to see her expressions, part of the psychological portion of warfare. She got the feeling that he did, though.

He was much like a tiger; slowly padding around the hunter in careful steps that made no sound. When he spoke to her, it was a deep purr dripping in honey.

"There is no need for that kind of violence. Why don't you set that down, and we can talk this out reasonably?"

He almost sounded... melodic? Artemis shook her head and snorted.

"Are you seriously trying to use hypnosis to get me to drop my weapon? I wasn't born yesterday."

"Worth a shot." He shrugged.

And charged.

Artemis lept deftly to one side as Strauss barrelled past like a locomotive. He swung and missed, and left a red streak on the floor where he used his hand to stop himself and turn. He sprung back at her with a snarl.

She didn't have enough room to stab, but enough time to block. She crossed the rapier over her chest and caught the reddened claw before it hit her. Taking advantage of their closeness, she rammed her knee hard into the vampire's groin.

Strauss grunted and backed off. An athletic cup had mostly saved him, but the surprise at her ferocity had pushed him back, for the moment.

"Remind me not to make you angry outside of the ring."

"And here you thought this would be easy."

She sprung forward with a wide slash of her weapon. Strauss dodged easily, leaping backwards and breaking into a run around her as she desperately pivoted in place to face him. He went at her and she went low. He was strong and wiry, but a skinny thing. She lowered her center of gravity and bowled him over her own head.

He hit the floor. She stood over him with the tip of her blade at his neck.

"Do you yield?"

"You didn't say please."

He kicked her leg out from under her. She fell hard, inwardly cursing herself for the hesitation. She rolled away from him. He grabbed her by the arm but quickly let go with a sharp breath of pain. The silver thread had done its job.

Both of them were up and moving now. They retreated from each other and stood apart, sizing each other up.

"You've a bit of red on you, Frau Van Helsing. Am I getting too close for comfort?"

"If I had a paint marker on my knees you'd be sporting a set of blue balls, Strauss, don't get too cocky."

"What a crass pun. I am having fun today."

"You might feel differently after you lose."

He bared his teeth and ran at her with a roar. She braced with her blade in front of her. He faked left, then went right, then swiped at her sword arm. She struck back. He caught her by the hilt and made to take the weapon from her. She swung her free arm into his face. The glisten of the silver thread that close made him lose a second, which she used to free her weapon and slash it across his torso.

Not a killing blow, but the blue trace across his shirt was clearly a very painful simulated wound. He staggered back, and glanced down at the paint with a scowl. He looked back up at her and gave a hateful hiss.

The red paint on his face and hands gave him the appearance of a creature out for blood. The baleful expression completed the effect.

"Tiger, tiger." Artemis muttered to herself, trying and failing to remember the words of the famous poem.

Strauss sprang forward again. He grabbed her arm hard, despite the sting of the protective thread, and sacrificed a moment of pain for leverage. He grabbed her mask with his spare hand and wrenched it off center, blinding her.

She swung her fist at him hard in the dark. She dropped her rapier. This was going south. With one hand she fumbled her holster for the Cardi-Axe device and with the other she peeled off her mask to face her opponent.

She had just enough time to see him bear down on her hard once again before being taken to the floor.

Strauss had gotten her mask off, and it was all he needed. One hand on her throat, he pinned her to the floor and was at her now exposed neck. She winced under his cold breath and the faintest sensation of his fangs on her skin, threatening to bite.

The bite never came.

Strauss chuckled darkly in her ear and pulled away to see the red mark of paint along the vein in her neck. The mark of a fatal blow.

"Game, set, match, Van Helsing."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Strauss. You lost."

He looked down, and saw with some surprise, a mess of blue paint. She held the spent Cardi-Axe bolt gun in her hand, now covered in sky blue paint from where she had shot him in the chest as they had fallen. A fatal blow was there, directly over the heart.

He touched the paint and examined it with surpirse in his eyes, almost as if it were really his own blood.

Ursula stood stammering with her mouth open, getting increasingly more flustered until she grabbed the mic and addressed the crowd once more.

"Well! I didn't expect Mr. Strauss had enough practice killing people to be that good at this. Seems I was mistaken. We have a tie."

She approached the two fallen warriors with an air of disappointment. "Alas, this is an all too common outcome. The monster is slain, but the hunter is also tragically felled. As you see here we have two fatal blows. I cannot tell you how many good hunters have died and taken their quarry with them. It just goes to show all of you, no matter how good you are or how poor you believe your opponent to be, this is always a life or death matter."

Strauss stood up and offered his hand to Artemis, who took it, and rose to her feet.

"That was a very enlightening sparring match, Frau Van Helsing. Thank you for playing with me today."

"Any time. Too bad about our wager."

"Well. Perhaps since we both won, we should both get something we want, hm?"

"What if we want the same thing?" She winked.

It was Strauss' turn to blush.

"Hold on a moment, Mr. Strauss." Ursula wandered into the ring. "I think for argument's sake, I'd like to go a round with you."

"You?"

"Trust me, it will be over fast."

Strauss smirked. "You know I won't hold back in the ring. Are you certain?"

"Very."

In one fluid moment, Ursula drew a pistol from her pocket. "Do you yield, vampire?"

Strauss chuckled and meekly raised his hands in mock surrender.

"To you, Frau Harker, I yield."

"Not good enough."

POP. POP. POP. POP. POP.

She fired the rounds in rapid succession. Each one struck and exploded across Strauss' shirt in a mess of bright yellow paint. He staggered back and looked down at his ruined shirt in disbelief.

"There. Five fatal blows in a row. That is my most important lesson to impart on all of the students- if you're close enough to use your bladed weapons, you're too close. Don't be stupid. Use ranged whenever possible. Director Van Helsing got lucky here, but the Cardi-Axe device is intended for unconscious or restrained subjects only."

She turned to Strauss with a prideful "Hmph!"

"Go get yourselves cleaned up, you two. And everyone else can head to commissary. Get moving, we have to clean the gym before the damn paint sets."

Strauss headed towards the showers, but not before leaning in conspiratorially to Artemis as he passed.

"Are you quite serious about this 'wager' of ours?"

"Get cleaned up and meet me at my office. We'll talk."

#wayward souls #writing

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t00nyah · 1 year

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i said 'im cringe but im free' because i had a cool oc idea. most of it is going to be very vaguely explained bc i'm still not sure how to write some things into her story yet but. yeah.

-04/27/2023

meet my new and cool (very cool) limbus oc - margarete faust, or gretchen! (me and gearld went and made a whole altbus where the sinners are characters from the same books, but like. completely different characters, not even neccessarily someone who appeared in lcb, like sonya or kromer. no... (there's dunya and frau eva for rodya and sinclair. ...tho they're not really charactarized rn i need to read so much for this))

she's...technically a sinner, but also not really. gretchen was wronged by heinrich faust, her past lover, who is to blame for her family's death. she was struggling with her sorrow, blame, anger. and that's when she met mephisto! ...yes, there's an actual person version of mephistopheles, don't touch me, it's altbus stuff.

transcription: 'People always said ''Don't deal with the Devil''' 'But, weird enough, meeting him saved me, and he turned out a pretty cool guy.'

-05/11/2023

he offered grieving gretchen help to find her place in the City - every day he visits her in the morning and gives her a few job offers, literally ANYTHING possible varying from the Rats to the Arbiter of the Head, different roles she can play, she choses one and spends her day in the position. but she can't really decline all of them and can't settle on one she likes until her own resentment towards heinrich is done with. she despises him, she needs to kill him, and mephisto seems to also have his own troubles with the guy, so it's a win/win. one of gretchen's pretty often jobs is limbus company. she likes her team!

gretchen waiting for mephisto -05/11/2023

weapon/base ego concepts, attempt at battle sprites style -05/05/2023

gretchen's weapon is...a crossbow...project moon please give us more crossbows i screamed when i saw hopkins. i still have no idea how to draw them right but...someday... her base ego...i have no idea what it looks like yet. but i know for sure that stripy cloth she'll have is a pelerine! also her ego's name is Schmuckkästchen! :)

haven't drawn anything on my phone for ages but here's literally the only colored picture of gretchen :] -05/11/2023

yeah...i think that's all? here's another art though:

'pray'st thou for mercy on thy mother's soul, that fell asleep to long, long torment, and through thee?'

#limbus company #limbus oc #gretchen(oc)#altbus oc

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pandoramsbox · 4 months

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Sci-Fi Saturday: Woman in the Moon

Week 5:

Film(s): Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond, Dir. Fritz Lang, 1929, Germany)

Viewing Format: Streaming - Kanopy via San Francisco Public Library

Date Watched: June 6, 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Including Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond, Dir. Fritz Lang, 1929, Germany) on this survey came down to two reasons: curiosity about Fritz Lang's sci-fi follow up to Metropolis (1927, Germany) and the film's reputation as an early cinematic work of "hard" or "serious" science fiction.

For those not familiar with the term, for something to qualify as "hard" science fiction, the technology and world building needs to be based on available scientific facts, and theoretically, realistically possible. Its counterpart, "soft" science fiction comes up with fantastic notions, technology and worlds without much attention given to how these things could be produced in the real world. Neither approach is necessarily a superior way to craft a good work of science fiction. Whether you draw blueprints, or "just make it up," both paths have inspired, or predicted, later technology.

Lang's Metropolis is undoubtedly soft science fiction; its set pieces being more artistic than scientific. Witnessing him take a more factual approach to science fiction, with a foundational figure in the field of rocketry and aeronautics, Hermann Oberth, acting as consultant was an intriguing premise.

Reactions:

Despite knowing that Woman in the Moon was a work of science fiction created with input from a German rocket scientist, my partner and I were still not fully prepared for the way space travel in the film used realistic multi-stage rockets, and depicted methods for how the rocket's passengers would deal with takeoff and landing G-forces and zero gravity in between. Logically, we knew our Space Race history and should not have been surprised: the United States imported Nazi Rocket scientists to help build its space program for a reason (i.e. the V-2 rocket). Yet seeing what became common operational features on a fictional spaceship in 1929, 17 years before the first US V-2 tests, was a paradigm shift.

For this reason, the detail that most sticks in my mind about this film is that the spaceship had leather handles all over its walls, to help passengers navigate around the ship in zero gravity.

However, as much as Woman in the Moon correctly prefigured many details of crewed space travel, it still got some things wrong. When the crew of the Friede reaches the far side of the moon, they discover that it has a breathable atmosphere, as theorized by astronomer Peter Andreas Hansen, and subsequently explore the surface without environmental suits or even oxygen tanks.

As much as I appreciate the film citing its sources, they picked a source that would save on budget and elevate the theories of a German scientist. Perhaps it was a legitimate belief in Hansen's work, not convenience or patriotism, that led to this choice, but the facts remain that an astronomer from the Republic of Ragusa (present day Croatia), Roger Joseph Boscovich, had correctly theorized 85 years prior that the moon lacked a breathable atmosphere.

Yet, I do not think the use of Hansen's theories over Boscovich's detracts from the hard scientific elements of the narrative that turned out to be correct. I think Lang, or screenwriter and author of the novel on which the film was based Thea von Harbou, just wanted serious sci-fi elements and its protagonists to have the ability to kiss on the moon without spacesuits getting in the way. Even the best intentions of hard sci-fi can be derailed by mainstream romance conventions.

In revisiting this film for this blog post, it's admittedly hard to recall the plot without details from films we later watched from the 1950s interceding. The core facets of Woman in the Moon--an experimental rocket ship, a love triangle, stowaways, loss of a necessary component that imperils the crew's ability to return home--would be remixed and reused in similar films about experimental space flights to Earth's moon or Mars, such as Rocketship X-M (Dir. Kurt Neumann, 1950, USA) and Conquest of Space (Dir. Byron Haskin, 1955, USA). Yet this confusion only reinforces the status of Woman in the Moon as essential sci-fi cinema viewing: it told a semi-realistic tale of experimental crewed spaceflight decades before it became a bona fide sci-fi film sub-genre.

#sci-fi saturdays #silent cinema #silent film #fritz lang

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wolfram-but-art · 1 year

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heres some hcs/ lore for my human!Achimedes [long post] [i might edit in the future]

Genereal hcs:

he was created by Medic in a lab. think green goo in a glass tube kind of lab

he also kinda looks like Medic because he used his own DNA to create Archie

Archie is about 3

his body was created to be ~20, but mentally he's about 13

the original Archimedes is still alive too, Medic just took some of his dna

he doesn't talk much, mostly because he doesn't fully know how to, but also he just doesn't feel the need to talk a lot. He can hold up a conversation pretty well if he wants to tho

he liked to listen to people talk, even if he doesn't really understand what they're talking about

he's pretty smart for someone who's had a bird brain for most their life

Archie is also Aroace and has Misophonia

he gets startled easily, and is afraid of loud sounds

for that reason, he often wears noise-cancelling earphones

he often listens to music too, partially because he likes to listen to music, and partially because it's a more fun alternative to noise-cancelling earphones

he actually sometimes pairs two of those up. no noise, just music

he stims a lot!! he gets flappy hands/ jumps around/squeaks when he's happy and rocks/clasps hands when he's uncomfortable

he plays DnD with Miss Pauling and the mercs

Archie also likes wearing dresses, he doesnt really get the concept of gender/ roles, he just wears whatever looks cool

he reffers to pretty much anyone by "Herr" (sir) or "Frau" (miss/mrs). With the exeption of Spy (in my hc hes genderfluid) for how her he uses both Frau and Herr, for Merasmus he'll use Frau, for Pyro he'll use Herr, Frau and nothing (as in he just calls her Pyro)

specific mercs:

Medic:

his father obviously

you make a single hair fall from Archie's head, you're dead.

he's surprisingly a very loving father

he tries to teach him what ~little~ he knows about medicine/anatomy/healing

he infodumps about his projects to him a lot, Archie likes to listen

he teaches him how to read, write and talk, both in English and German

Archie assists him while he's working a lot; he isn't really bothered by surgeries, so he helps out in those too

Medic has so many of his drawings in his office

they talk a lot, he's mostly the one to answer his constant questions about everything (questions like "why is the sky") (Medic enjoys answering them a lot too)

they just hang out together most of the time, whether that's reading, watching a movie, going out for a walk, cooking, just talking and being around eachother in general

Medic genuinely cares about Archie a lot

Pyro:

Archie loves hanging out with Pyro

they make friendship bracelets for everyone

Archie and her play with plushies all the time

they don't talk much when around each other, but they understand each other perfectly

Archie is also one of the few people (besides Engie and Spy) that actually understand what Pyro is saying

they watch cartoons and horror films together

they draw together a lot too!!

Scout:

two dubious little creatures getting up to mischief. this is no good.

that being said, they do pranks all the time together

they get sugar rushes together and run around the base

they do karaoke together!! by that i mean they sing California Girls at like 2 in the morning

Archie, him and Pyro get together sometimes and draw for like 6 hours straight, listening to music/ watching a movie/ just talking

he shows Archie all the cool spots, like how to get to rooftops or good hiding spots in the base

Scout teaches Archie swear words "in secret." Medic isn't too happy about it

we stay silly :p

they watch action movies together

Scout used to make fun of him as a joke, Archie usually laughed along, but one day he was having a bad day and Scout pushed it a little too far and made him cry. He almost got killed for that

they do nerf battles together!! they usually get all the other mercs to play aswell, but sometimes it's just the two of them running around

Scout talks so much to him, because Archie doesn't interrupt him.

Sniper:

they've played like every board game in existence together

Sniper takes Archie camping, and they often hang out together in his van

Archie reads books with him very often, Mundy explains words to him and helps him read hard words

they also watch old movies! mostly comedies

for the two of the most quiet people on the team, they surprisingly talk a lot when they're around eachother!

they also play monopoly with pyro, miss Pauling and demo a lot! they all help Archie read the cards

he teaches Archie how to shoot from a bow

Spy:

Spy is too embarrassed to admit that he cares for Archie

Archie loves getting praised by him for some reason

he gives him headpats a lot

he's very careful not to smoke around him, he know Medic would kill him for it

Archie took his cloak watch that one time, Spy didn't have the heart to take it way from him because he was having fun

Heavy:

Archie was very afraid of him the first few monts, but slowly came around to liking him

they hang out a lot! probably not talking much, mostly reading books in the same room, it's their way of bonding

Heavy takes him on walks a lot

He teaches Archie how to cook too

he tries to be the best dad he can for him

teaches him self defence and how to use guns

he's trying to teach Archie Russian, but knows to take it slow, he knows Medic is trying to teach him two languages already, he knows it'd be too much pressure

you make Archie cry - he will make sure you feel as much pain as physically possible.

Demo:

him, Archie, Pyro, and Sniper play Monopoly a lot!

they mostly do arts n crafts together (carving shit out of wood, making animals out of wires n stuff)

Demo also helps Heavy teach him how to cook

Engi:

He's like a third father to Archie

they also hang out all the time

Engi takes him fishing!

he teaches him how to talk, read and write

he infodumps about his projects to Archie

he also teaches him how to code!

he calls Archie "birdie" all the time

he also calls him "kid/kiddo" / "boy" / "honeybee" / "darling"

(not in a romantic way, he just has a nickname for everyone)

Archie hangs out in his workshop a lot! sometimes with Soldier and Demo too, Engi gives them wood to carve stuff out of

Soldier:

Him, Archie and Sniper go camping every week

regrettably Archie doesn't hang out with him as much, because he is very loud

they still hang out tho!

he "teaches" Archie "history"

they play on girl-go-games.com together

Miss. Pauling:

Archie really likes her actually

she stays with him when the mercs are doing contracts and stuff like that

she also teaches him how to read/write/talk but in a proper way

like she gives him homework n makes sure he's making progress

not that the other people aren't doing it, she's just better at it i guess

She includes him in their DnD sessions! she also plays Monopoly with him, Sniper, Demo and Pyro

#human!archimedes #Archimedes tf2 #tf2 oc #tf2 #tf2 headcanons #sniper tf2 #medic tf2 #soldier tf2 #demoman tf2 #demo tf2 #engi tf2 #engineer tf2 #miss pauling #heavy tf2 #spy tf2 #scout tf2 #pyro tf2

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prussiasqueen · 11 days

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💕 How would a beach date go for you and Gilbert? 💕

Ok so, this would actually be really fun and a bit silly this beach date, then ending in a very sweet way! So in my own personal observations, Gilbert actually doesn’t know how to swim, (hence why he wears floaties a lot and also got really scared when he was younger one time when he almost drowned in cold freezing water (poor baby :’( ) so most of the beach date would contain Brii running around in her black and gold cheetah one piece that’s a one strap, and his pervy self at first blinks a bit gawking at her but then he stops as soon as she challenges him playfully to a match of volleyball. And as she runs across the sand and she tries to play volleyball with him, they get really into it, usually with how much loud banter and playful taunting they do with each other, it usually attracts some other people on the beach to want to join in on a friendly vs. with the game. (Usually by the end of this match though, Gilb has won. Poor Brii but she does put up a fight for it! But she allows her man to get all cocky and rub it in her face. So she would probably I would giggle along and congratulate him but also tease him about it, and as everyone else left the match for us. I’d go to a nearby boardwalk and give him a reward for winning, a nice big ice cream, one so big that when Gilbert gets it his eyes twinkle in delight, but then he looks over at his wifey blushing, mumbling, “meine Schatz…share with me?” So they end up sharing a little ice cream together as he teases her a bit, trying to give her sticky ice cream kisses (ew yuck Pruss! I don’t WANT STICKY D:!!!!!) After that, I’d go to the shallow part of the water and playfully start trying to splash him and let him chase me on the beach some! Oh how much fun and trouble he and I would get into 🤭

And then towards the evening, we build sand castles of course his sandcastle is huge and supreme, he’s even implemented a way for the bridge to draw open on his fortress… (meanwhile my castle is a simple, little default tiny castle) and he notes this, and giggled at it, teasing me about it. So I get mad and kick mine. Gilb then usually realizes I’m a bit perturbed by my castle making skills and just pulls be by the waist and whispers, “I have a better idea mein liebe, let’s build us a castle together, a great and mighty one~ just the two of us~” so that results us working together and we make his castle even more complex and huge. But we did it together and it’s so big it attracts a few people to come and want to take pictures of it! Of course Prussia is beyond cool with that and poses all proud and confident, meanwhile I just do a simple heart gesture in the picture, he notices how standoffish and shy I’m being and immediately pulls me into the picture more and presses his cheek to mine. “Mein Frau! You need to have some pride in yourself too! You built this with me now get in ze picture und show me what a beautiful und confident, brillant woman you are! You built this with me!”

So I comply with it and giggle as we do cute poses for the pictures the admirers of our castle take.

As it heads darker, we eventually lay on our beach towels as I rest my head on his thigh, letting him stroke my head as we both look up at the sky, and see the stars coming out. Brii then slightly lifts her head up to look at him as she moved her position, crawling on top of Gilbert, which at first catches him by surprise, then he just smiles, we banter a bit on the day, then I leave him a small kiss on his chin, then to his cheeks and lips. Which that makes him excited and pulls Brii in, nuzzling her, whispering in her ear how much he loves her and how he loves having his queen, expresses her being his partner in crime and his best friend, they then snuggle together and watch the stars for a bit more before packing up and heading back.

🐥👑

🖤🤍

💜👑

(Hnnn—- This one was quite long, but worth it. I love this so much oh my gosh!)

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wizardofahz · 1 year

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Time's Favorite Superhero

Fandoms: Fringe, 12 Monkeys A/N: Happy 10th end-of-Fringe-aversary! This was written in Cassie's POV, but hopefully it should be readable to 12 Monkeys and Fringe fans alike.

Cassie takes in the lab before her. It was not what she'd imagined, old-fashioned as it is, when the FBI had come to her for help. She had expected something fancier, high-tech, because despite how much government agencies enjoyed griping about their budgets, surely the elite teams got the latest and greatest, right?

Behind them, their FBI guide slips away. A different FBI agent approaches. "Hi. I'm Agent Olivia Dunham with the F--"

"Woah," Jennifer draws out in a long exhale before exclaiming, "Hey, Otter Eyes!" Given their close proximity, Cole jerks back at the volume. "I found someone Time likes as much as you." Jennifer turns back to Agent Dunham with dual finger guns. "You gotta die, but Time will always find a way to bring you back."

"Jennifer!" Cassie scolds. She knows holding the entire timeline in her head is difficult for Jennifer, but she also hoped Jennifer would know better than to talk to people about their deaths by now.

Jennifer observes Agent Dunham carefully.

"Spoiler alert?" she says more contemplatively than guiltily. If Cassie had to guess, Jennifer is sorting through the timeline and double checking which events have already happened.

In the background, an older man in a lab coat leans into the younger man beside him and asks, "Is she an Observer?"

Agent Dunham has clearly experienced her share of weirdness. She barely reacts beyond a quirked eyebrow, and her voice is dry when she responds, "By all accounts, I have died a couple times."

"Right on!" Jennifer cheers as if Coach Time had drawn up a brilliant play and Agent Dunham followed through with a crowd-rousing dunk. She holds up a hand, asking for a high-five that Agent Dunham doesn't seem inclined to reciprocate.

To save them all from further awkwardness, Cassie sticks her hand out in Agent Dunham's direction. "I'm Dr. Cassandra Railly, a virologist with the CDC, but you can call me Cassie."

Jennifer pouts when Agent Dunham reaches for Cassie's hand instead of her own.

Between Jennifer's eccentricities and Cole's lingering post-apocalyptic gremlin social skills, Cassie decides to make the rest of the introductions herself. "That is Jennifer Goines, CEO of the Markridge Group, and this is James Cole."

Agent Dunham's gaze settles on Jennifer, reappraising, then lands on Cole. "And what's your role?"

Cole shrugs. "I just have a vested interest in making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again."

"Again?"

"You know how it is," Cassie steps in. No one needs to know about the pandemic-induced apocalypse they broke time to fix. "Humanity likes repeating history, pandemics included."

"Oh yes," the older man says, sounding entirely too excited.

"This is Dr. Walter Bishop" -- Agent Dunham says, quickly cutting off what Cassie can only assume is Dr. Bishop's incoming pathogenic fanfare -- "and Peter Bishop."

She doesn't expand on Peter Bishop's credentials, but there's clearly a familial resemblance. It seems theirs is not the only family in the world-saving business.

Speaking of families.

Still pouting from the rejection, Jennifer turns her frustration on Cassie.

"I can practically hear Frau Grandma when you say my name like that. 'Ms. Goines,'" she says in mimicry of Jones' disapproving voice, then in Cassie's, "Jennifer."

Agent Dunham clears her throat, a noise bordering on impatience, and begins debriefing Cassie's contingent on the weaponized virus the Fringe team found. The situation is relatively contained at the moment, but they want a cure developed in case of a potential breach.

Cassie and Jennifer join the Bishops in tackling the problem. Agent Dunham sits to the side, occasionally watching and asking questions, but mostly reviewing whatever case evidence they have.

Cole also situates himself elsewhere, antsy with nothing to do. His eyes flit towards Agent Dunham often. She's the only one with a gun and therefore the biggest potential threat, but Cassie notes an underlying curiosity, probably wondering what also made her special in Time's eyes.

Cassie would be curious too, but she has bigger fish to fry. Actually, no. Wrong animal. Because as pressing as another global pandemic is, her most immediate concern is herding cats, super genius cats with an infinite capacity and penchant for chaos. The synergy of Walter and Jennifer is frankly too much for one person to handle.

Peter helps of course. He's friendly and personable, but more importantly he's familiar with Walter's quirks in the same way that Cassie is familiar with Jennifer's. When dealing with such unique minds though, familiarity can only get them so far.

Walter sends Peter in the direction of some shelves and demands a stabilizing agent. "Quickly, Peter!"

"How am I supposed to find it when nothing is organized?" Peter asks with an exasperated petulance only a son could achieve.

"Everything is organized," Walter grumbles. "Where is Astrid? She would know where it is."

Jennifer bites her lip as she carefully pipettes 3 mL from a beaker raised to eye level. Task successfully completed, she responds, "On honeymoon with her wife."

Peter pauses his search and frowns. "How did you know that?"

"Hello???" Jennifer flings her arms out, and Cassie quickly grabs the beaker from her hand. "Primary! Give me yellow and I can paint you the world! Speaking of which, I never got them a present. Do they want a unicorn?"

Cassie doesn't bring up the fact that Jennifer doesn't even know this Astrid, not personally anyway. "Focus," is all she says.

"I want a unicorn," Walter says, focusing on the wrong thing.

"Walter."

Agent Dunham's curt, no-nonsense tone proves the most effective at getting everyone to focus on the problem at hand. Cassie gives her an appreciative nod.

They get in a few hours of productive work before Walter starts wandering around his lab and rifling through his own things.

Peter sighs. "What are you looking for now?"

"My stash of Brown Betty."

Cassie has no idea what that is, but the injection of disapproval, or is it alarm, in Peter's voice has her paying more attention. "No, absolutely not."

"We have been working on this for days," Walter protests. "I need to reset my mind, open it up to a new perspective."

"That's why Olivia brought in Dr. Railly and her team."

"Chill, dude," Jennifer says, once again dipping into her omniscience and leaving Cassie behind. "It's not like he's suggesting we break out the LSD."

Oh, they're talking about drugs.

Oh.

Oh no.

Dealing with Walter and Jennifer sober is already a lot. Cassie is absolutely not up for dealing with them on hallucinogenics.

"What about a food break?" Cassie suggests.

"That's a good idea," Agent Dunham says, and what she says goes.

They end up getting burgers and wraps. Cole ignores their cow's protests and digs right in.

(Right, because they have a cow… Maybe their cow is like Jennifer's turtle. Who knows? Certainly not Cassie.)

"Why yellow?" Walter asks Jennifer. "I merely ask to ascertain which set of primary colors you abide by. You mentioned painting, which leads me to believe your primary system is completed with blue and red, rather than cyan and magenta."

The two talk about Primaries and the Observers that Walter mentioned earlier.

Cassie is happy to let their discussion wash over her until Walter says, "We've had our own dabblings with primary colors of course, but RGB like the cones in our eyes. A simple pattern to induce hypnosis. Green, green, green, red. Green, green, green, red."

Walter's voice morphs into Olivia Kirschner's, ringing in Cassie's ears.

You're walking through a red forest, and the grass is tall. It's just rained. Most of the blood has washed away.

In front of her eyes, a green forest ends, making way for a clearing of tall grass. The scene flashes, green turning to red.

Cassie can't stop her tense voice from wobbling just a little. "Can we not?"

Cole takes a break from ravishing his cheeseburger to give her a look of concern. She waves him off.

Sufficiently rejuvenated after their food break, the scientists get back to work. Heat-shock proteins show the most promise for a treatment strategy, but they find that the virus adapts quickly to rising temperatures. If they can "speed up a fever" and surprise the virus with a high temperature before it can adapt, they might get a culture to produce the immune response they need.

That's a big if.

Brow furrowed and eyes closed, Cassie pinches the bridge of her nose. "There's no way we can instantaneously jump the solution to the right temperature. You might as well be asking for spontaneous human combustion."

"Yes!" Walter claps his hands together. "Olivia!"

"Yes!" Jennifer echoes. She puts on a dramatic voice as if narrating an action movie trailer. "Time for Time's favorite superhero." Then she snorts with laughter. "Ha! Time for Time..."

"No," Agent Dunham says, and to Cassie's surprise, she's reluctant instead of dismissive.

"I'm sorry, superhero?" Cole asks, tone mostly disbelieving but also a little put out.

So Cassie was right. He had been sussing out the competition for Time's favorite, so to speak.

"Don't worry, Otter Eyes," Jennifer says. "You're still Time's favorite non-superhero."

"I don't know how to--" Agent Dunham gestures vaguely at the equipment in front of them.

"You use your powers more than you know," Jennifer says, unusually gentle. "It's why I like being around you. You're so determined, you force Time and all its possibilities to chill. If you can dream a better world, you can make a better world. Makes things a little quieter." She taps the side of her head.

"So what exactly is your superpower?" Cole asks Agent Dunham.

But it's Walter who announces proudly, "Telekinesis."

"What, like making things move around?" Cole continues skeptically. "How is that going to help with your virus thing?"

"Olivia's powers can work at the molecular and even the particle level."

Cassie turns to Agent Dunham as understanding dawns. "So you can direct the speed of the solvent molecules, which will give us the exact temperature we need."

"But I can't control it." The impenetrable aura of Agent Dunham is buckling now, self-doubt making itself known. "Give me a dying patient and then maybe it'll happen, but I can't do it by just staring at a petri dish."

"Hmm." Jennifer taps her chin in thought. "Like the light box bomb."

"We are not attaching a bomb to any of this," Peter growls.

Cassie doesn't know what a light box bomb is or how it relates to the situation, but she does know that Agent Dunham is looking increasingly uncomfortable.

"Hey," she says, approaching Agent Dunham in her least threatening manner. "Do you have somewhere more private we can go? Why don't you come with me, and we'll figure it out."

Cassie doesn't know if her words are all that compelling -- she knows less about the other woman's powers than most in the room -- but Agent Dunham seems to appreciate the opportunity to escape. She gives Cassie a brief nod and then leads her to an adjoining office space.

Agent Dunham isn't exactly the most talkative character, and under stressful circumstances, that seems to hold even more true. Cassie finds herself having to speak first.

"What's your preferred breathing technique when firing a gun?"

The non-sequitur proves effective at pulling Agent Dunham out of her funk. Her eyes snap to Cassie's. "Excuse me?"

"You know: respiratory pause, half-hold; that kind of thing."

"You shoot?"

"It's not a skill that I thought I'd ever pick up, but--" Cassie shrugs. "Life has a way of twisting things around."

She nearly mentions what a good shot she is, how she's better than Cole, who taught her, but then she figures that would probably make Agent Dunham nervous about leaving him with the Bishops.

"The reason I ask," Cassie continues, "is that maybe we can borrow something you're familiar with and transfer it to getting your powers working when you want them to, make it feel more natural."

They work through it that way. One step at a time, seeing what works for Agent Dunham and what doesn't. They borrow other pieces of shooting advice, such as "squeeze, don't pull" for fine-tuned control.

It's still slow going, but they get there in the end. Agent Dunham manages enough control to activate a few test-retest cultures, and the scientists find a potential cure ready for human testing if the need ever arises.

"Thank you for your help," Agent Dunham says as the visitors prepare to leave, and Cassie knows she's talking about more than just the virus.

"I'm glad it worked out," Cassie says, also talking about more than just the virus.

"Auf wiedersehen, Time's favorite superhero," Jennifer says, suddenly appearing and draping an arm around each woman. She tells Agent Dunham, "Tell Astrid she'll have a unicorn waiting for her when she gets back. Would you like a unicorn too? You are after all, a unicorn, among humans."

"I would still like a unicorn," Walter says.

"Three unicorns coming right up," Jennifer crows cheerfully.

"Say good-bye, Jennifer," Cassie says. She'll have to warn Agent Dunham that the unicorns are very real.

She doesn't miss Agent Dunham's grateful look as she drags Jennifer away.

#12 monkeys #cassandra railly #jennifer goines #fringefox #olivia dunham #walter bishop #fringe #some ideas need time to develop roasting slowly over a rotating spit #and some crash into being like a series of bumper car collisions #this was the latter #anyway one day nina tries to recruit jones to massive dynamic #i can't tell if that'll be good or bad for the world #but either way it'll be a 'watch out world' moment #ahzy writes

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noro-noro-noro · 7 months

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had a dream heavily based off almost winning a lantern apostle victory & then going to jail after 5 hours despite having 16 cultists. i hate this stupid game why did I get hebe stanton from a piece of sh14 lore instead of an area that would've given me the rite intercalate. i had every ingredient. anyway what do i remember ...?

- being high up on the walls of a courtyard on a sunny day. it was a very large area enclosed and the walls might have been part of a larger castle.

- I was in a group of people. they were cards on the board and they were there with me out side of my elementary school. one guy had long & light purple hair ? by clicking on him he had some kind of special thing - rich heir maybe? weird family circumstance?

our event (?) here might've been cancelled, but i wanted to do mentor reading to the kids anyway, so we just walked in. it smellrd the same as it always did & made me feel really nostalgic. we were going to talk to the principal to make sure we were allowed to be in here, & asked the first teacher we saw where the principal was. out shopping, she said, and shrugged.

one of the others was reading something on the wall & it was supposed to be an area you draw & write about your friend. one of these hung up drawings and paragraphs had my name & a picture of ME !! i was so touched. I thought it might've been a kid from summer camp that I became friends with (i also recalled that the last time i worked at a summer camp was the year i started college, which was 7 years ago, so no child would be in elementary school postibg drawings remembering me unless they were a baby when i workd with thrm). anyway the others walked on but I wanted to take a picture but t ket ending up blurry. I asked purple hair guy to do it bc he was really tall but idk if It worked then either.

I ended up in the principal's office & was looking around at things I remembered. they'd replaced the ???? from my childhood memory with a pool table. but the double piano was still there. there was an older lady supervising me and said that I could touch the piano once and she wouldn't snitch (I remembered playing fur Elise on it as a kid) & I put down my handful of ??? on top of the piano. thry all immediately fell inside. the lady also immediately got worried that the owner would return and see us touching her stuff & hovered by the windows,.not helping me pick up my things.

- now much more flat based but way more fallen London themed as well. the cards of people were decreased. i could gain a power that would extend the period of time before a failed summon attacked and it was just a cropped panel of izutsumi. ordering purple hair guy to stqy out late on cult business introduced w new annoyance which was "strict family that I'd have to persuade".

i ended up finding tutorials on what to aim for on stackexchange for some godforsaken reason & they basically suggested I needed to perform ultimate summoning, hope the old winter woman wouldn't grab me and instead get one of my minions, & then "try to save him" aka mutilating his transformed and destroyed body until he looked like a cartoon green witch corpse. and with the corpse we ... ??? achieved. something.

unfortunately my brain reintroduced all the requirements of an apostle victory again so I was like damn now I have to prevent the green sun corpse from decaying into two raw prophets. and I ALSO need seven witnesses and the allure and the lantern ichor and frau schussel and

#dreams

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erigold13261 · 1 year

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Hi! In your NSR swap AU, does Sayu still go by ze/mer? Since ze is clearly not a mermaid but a tree person… maybe ze/fir instead?

OMFG that would be awesome!

But uh, I'm thinking of redoing my entire Swap AU, so I don't know if Sayu would still be a plant elemental. I honestly don't like the direction I took with Eve, Sayu, and DJSS. Or at least I don't like their designs all that much anymore (Sayu's I do like but the concept itself I want to change).

I feel like I leaned way too heavily on swapping characters with personalities AND themes. Making it seem like characters are mashing together and overlapping in certain aspects, making them seem less unique to each other.

I do definitely want to keep Sayu as a plant elemental, or something close to that, so ze/fir would be amazing pronouns! So yeah! ze/fir plant Sayu for the win! :D

#nsr #eritalks #noart #asks #i really need to get onto reworking that au #i'm fine with y/inu 1/010 and k/u f/yra's things going on #and taking time to think about other AUs #like my frau #has really helped me try to keep personalities and stuff #so hopefully one day i get to reworking everything #especially since i want to draw luna and zuke together some more #and explore their relationship together

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tehuti88-art · 18 days

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5/17/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Inge (last name never given). (Her name is deliberately meant to evoke Inga Dobermann.) She appears only in backstory as a farm widow whose property Lt. Hesse's unit is billeted at, and the two have a brief relationship. She has a daughter by him but he never learns she exists. There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding her design, like Hesse, she's a blue Doberman pinscher. I'm iffy on her hairstyle, but anyway.

TUMBLR EDIT: Inge never appears in the main story; she only appears in an adult WIP featuring Gunter Hesse and herself, set while Hesse is serving in the Waffen-SS near the Eastern Front. Keep in mind my timeline is slightly different, the war starts and Germany and the Soviet Union part ways sooner. At this time, Hesse is living with the Dobermann family--Adelina is around eleven or so, I think--and is easily radicalized by propaganda of the budding SS, since he's still pretty bitter about how the previous war ended (with him badly injured, alone, and addicted to morphine); Inga, who met him and Louis Dobermann recuperating in hospital (they both fell in love with her there, but Dobermann made the first move), insists on him staying with them after she marries, and although he knows she's off limits now, he vows to get clean for her. He never falls out of love with her, but also never tries anything, and grows quite close to Adelina. So when war breaks out again and he decides to enlist--not in the military, which he feels betrayed him, but in the SS--Adelina is heartbroken, and Inga, despite her growing alarm over his political views, begs him not to go. Inga is actually a big part of the reason why he feels he has to go: He privately hopes that time away may dampen his feelings for her, and if not that, that at least SS life might toughen him up so he can handle things better. He replies to Inga's insistence that he's part of their family and has no need to prove himself again that he really ISN'T part of their family--he has no family--and this is why he has to prove himself, as he has nothing else. The SS will be his family now. He promises to do his best to come back to them, and to write to Lina. His application is accepted, he passes the physical, and he heads off to the front. The Dobermanns don't see him again for several years.

Discipline and a sense of personal purpose are indeed just what Hesse needs; like I said, he never does break Inga's hold on him, but he learns better how to cope with it and conceal his feelings. The SS also gives him a sense of brotherhood and belonging that he's always longed for yet lacked. He's older and more experienced than many of the other recruits, so is soon placed in a position of authority by his unit leader, General Immerwahr. When not engaged in active combat, his unit often patrols areas near the front to watch out for Soviet troops attempting to sneak in; it's a wide-open area of isolated farms, not too different from where the Dobermanns live, and so, often, farms are the only place to stay.

Immerwahr's unit approaches one of these farms one day and is met by a woman with a vaguely hostile demeanor; the Waffen-SS troops are known for their ill treatment of civilians, including their fellow Germans, so of course a woman living on her own--there's no husband or male farmhands anywhere in sight--is understandably nervous. She refuses to give her name, and doesn't ask theirs, making it clear she prefers that they all remain strangers to each other (Immerwahr calls her Frau X), yet she agrees to Immerwahr's request to temporarily billet his men at her place. As they're negotiating terms, the men notice two children, young girls, peering out of a doorway; the woman shoos them back out of sight, obviously distressed that the men know about them now. It's clear she was trying to hide them, which makes it even clearer that she allowed the troops into her home only out of necessity, and planned to offer herself to protect her girls if need be. Immerwahr, picking up on this, says they have no interest in harming her as long as they're allowed to stay, though she plainly doubts.

A newer scene not originally in the WIP occurs around here. As the men are talking and the woman is fetching them drinks, since it's late and she has no food prepared, one of them privately accosts her, demanding something to eat; nothing sexual or anything, but he gets more threatening the more she tries to put him off. He grabs her wrist and then is promptly cuffed upside the head, letting her go; she steps back and watches as Hesse smacks the other officer around a little, berating him for disobeying Immerwahr and ordering him back to the group. He reports the inappropriate behavior to Immerwahr, who apologizes to the woman, and sets the guy up outside to take first watch as punishment. After figuring out when to start preparing breakfast for everyone, the woman starts assigning the men places to sleep; Immerwahr gets an unused bedroom, while most of the others just end up where they doze off. The woman directs Hesse to sleep on the floor near the door of her daughters' room, to keep anyone else out; following what happened earlier, she assumes he's the most trustworthy of the lot. It's late, so everyone heads to bed.

Hesse gets up in the middle of the night to go outside and relieve himself; on his way back to the girls' room, someone reaches out to grasp his arm, startling him. "Sie...?" ("You...?") he says to the woman, since he doesn't know what else to call her, and wonders what she wants. She doesn't say anything, just pulls him into the bedroom after her. He doesn't protest.

Hesse returns to the girls' room a while later without needing to be asked, resuming his spot on the floor. This scene occurs the next morning:

She rose again before daybreak and went to peek in on her girls. The older girl still slept in the bed, though her younger daughter had taken her blankets and her pillow and doll and was curled up on the floor not far from the sleeping lieutenant. She stared at them for a little while before leaving them. She headed to the kitchen, getting the coffee ready.

The house was still rather dark as she moved silently about the room, fetching all the mugs and cups she owned. At least the soldiers weren't choosy. It took so long to prepare the coffee that some of them received it only warm and not hot, but they hadn't complained. She was mulling over what she might need to do over the next few days before they left when a soft voice behind her said, "Sie...?"

She jumped a little and quickly turned. She couldn't make out the features of the man standing in the entry to the kitchen. "Apologies," he said, and she recognized the lieutenant's voice. He spoke very quietly. "Hadn't meant to startle you."

She nervously brushed back her hair. "It's...it's all right. Did my girls wake you? I'm sorry, if they did."

"Nein, I always wake early. That was why I wished to talk, though. One of them, the little one, she got out of the bed sometime during the night, it appears. Fell asleep on the floor. I'm not sure why. I put her back in the bed. If she mentions it later on, that was how it happened, I hope you believe I tried nothing inappropriate."

She let out a small breath. "That's...that's all right. She wakes sometimes. She used to come crawl in the bed with my hus...my husband and me." She flinched a little at her own words, hoping he didn't notice.

She saw him nod. "You need help?"

"This pot needs only to brew. I'm almost done. Danke, though."

"If you don't need anything else I'm going to step outside for a while."

"I..." She started speaking without even thinking; he'd been turning to leave, but halted and looked back. "I could join you," she said quietly, "if you don't mind."

He hesitated. "Your girls?"

"I think they'll be fine. You don't believe your men will bother them?"

"They won't." Another pause. "I don't mind," he added.

While they're together this time, she asks him his name, and tells him her own, Inge. She doesn't understand why this gets such a startled reaction from him. She does notice, however, that he afterward briefly starts referring to her as "Inga"--it could be brushed off as a mistake, except that he does it more than once. She thinks she understands now.

"Your woman," she said softly; he looked at her, brow furrowing slightly. "Your woman is named Inga...?" she asked.

He blinked, then reddened. Sat up a bit abruptly so she backed away a little. "My woman..." he echoed, then, "Nein. Not my woman." He lowered his head, looking aside. "Someone else's woman." A pause. "Your name made me think of her...I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Inge said, hating to embarrass him. "You remind me a little of my husband," she admitted.

He peered back at her. "I...sort of wanted to ask. Where is your husband?"

Inge lowered her eyes, brushed back her hair. "I...we lost him. A little over six months ago."

He flinched slightly at the latter words. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"Sometimes when I wake I still think he's there," Inge murmured. "And then I remember." She smoothed her dress down where his grip had crumpled it over her breasts. "Have you lost anyone?"

"I haven't had anyone to lose, yet," he replied, looking away.

She furrowed her brow. "No one...? No woman of your own?"

"I haven't found her yet."

For some reason this response made her twinge inside, a spark of sadness; there was a resigned note in his voice, as if he doubted she even existed by now. She pulled herself closer again and when he turned back to her she placed her hand against his face. Almost automatically, he placed his hand over hers, fingers grasping.

Inge makes Hesse an offer: "Come to my room tonight. Come to my room every night until you leave. You can be my husband and I can be your Inga. We can be whoever we need each other to be." Hesse, surprised, consents, visiting Inge's room every night, though he stops referring to her as Inga, and she stops trying to imagine him as her late husband. They accept each other as who they actually are, Inge and Hesse, two strangers who aren't meant to know each other for long. When the time comes for Hesse's unit to depart, it's understandably bittersweet--not only have Inge and Hesse grown rather fond of each other, but Inge's two girls have grown close to him, and he seems to like them as well--but neither of them protests it, neither makes any promises to try to find each other again. It's just understood that this is likely not to happen. Hesse takes his place in his unit, Immerwahr thanks Inge for her hospitality, and the unit heads out. Hesse does cast one last glance at Inge and her girls as the men march off. He, and Inge, both feel a wistful twinge. At some other time, in some other circumstances, they might have made a family, the sort of family Hesse always longed for, but never got to have.

Hesse continues in the Waffen-SS, is badly injured, released from service, and then heads back home to the Dobermann estate. Adelina, and Inga, greet him happily; he's stunned that "his little Lina" is nearly grown by now. He accepts Inga's welcome, though when she tries to place her hand against his face, a familiar gesture she's used in the past, he abruptly pulls away. There's a distance between them now, and though Inga isn't sure of the circumstances behind it, she grants Hesse his space. Adelina had expected him to regale her with tales of war, so doesn't understand why he declines to talk much about his service; Inga gently tells her that war takes a lot out of a person, to let him rest, and he'll be his old self sometime soon. She isn't expecting it when, some time later, Hesse receives a letter from SS headquarters, accepting his application to their noncombatant branch...turns out his service to the brotherhood isn't over with just yet.

Hesse moves on, takes up his new job as an investigator for the Allgemeine-SS, starts a relationship with Sophie Sommer. He never stops loving Inga--even unwittingly participating in faking her death--though he keeps his distance, always treats her with respect. And as the Third Reich falls, he makes the split decision to choose her and the Dobermann family over his loyalty to the SS, helping them escape at the cost of his own life. His service did discipline him, made him better able to conceal his feelings, but it never did kill them; even though she was never his to have, he loves Inga to the very end.

There's a small sad postscript which Hesse never realizes while he's alive. Outside the main story, there's a still-canon section I call "In Heaven"--basically, certain characters getting the chance to see, after life, how things could have gone--and following his violent death at the hands of his beloved SS, Hesse chooses to move on to the next life, by living through the lives of everyone else who was impacted by his actions. It's a process that takes a split second, yet also years and years, as time has no meaning in the next life, and given the awful things Hesse did in his first life, it's excruciating and horrible. Mostly. There's a bittersweet moment here and there, in the lives of people to whom Hesse was kind rather than cruel; and one particular set of lives strikes him rather hard:

A few lives are so unexpected they stun him. He lives through the life of a farm woman; it's only when she's newly widowed, and cautiously welcomes a Waffen-SS unit to billet at her house, that he realizes who she is. He starts crying when Inge stands at her window staring at the horizon, straining her eyes for any sign of troops, her hands on her belly. Tells her, in his head, he would have returned for her, if he'd known. He lives through the life of the daughter he never knew and his heart breaks that she never knows him.

--"Hesse In Heaven, Part One"

Hesse loved Inga, though she was never his to love. He loved Sophie and chose to spend his life with her, though it wasn't meant to be. He did have one other chance for a family and a life, though he never knew until it was too late. I don't believe he loved Inge the way he loved Sophie or especially Inga, but he would have returned to her if he'd known. He would have accepted his daughter, and her daughters, as his own. He would have perhaps lived a happy life and died content, finally having the family he always longed for so much.

Alas, that also wasn't meant to be. Hesse dies twice, and both times he dies violently, and alone.

[Inge 2024 [‎Friday, ‎May ‎17, ‎2024, ‏‎12:00:10 AM]]

#artists on tumblr #ibisPaint x #SketchDaily #original characters

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listening-to-free-audiobooks · 11 months

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youtube

Borrower of the Night by Elizabeth Peters (Vicky Bliss #1)

Meet art historian Vicky Bliss, She is as beautiful as she is brainy--with unassailable courage, insatiable curiosity, and an expertise in lost museum treasures that often leads her into the most dangerous of situations. A missing masterwork in wood, the last creation of a master carver who died in the violent tumult of the sixteenth century, may be hidden in a medieval German castle in the town of Rothenburg. The prize has called to Vicky Bliss, drawing her and an arrogant male colleague into the forbidding citadel and its dark secrets. But the treasure hunt soon turns deadly. Here, where the blood of the long forgotten damned stains ancient stones, Vicky must face two equally perilous possibilities. Either a powerful supernatural evil inhabits this place. . .or someone frighteningly real is willing to kill for what Vicky is determined to find.

youtube

Street of the Five Moons by Elizabeth Peters (Vicky Bliss #2)

What did it all mean? The note with the hieroglyphs was found in the pocket of a man lying dead in an alley. The only other item of interest was a piece of jewelry, a reproduction of the Charlemagne talisman. It was good, so good that Vicky Bliss thought she was being shown the real jewel. The goldwork was done by a master; the jewels weren’t glass but top-quality synthetic stones. What did it mean? Vicky didn’t know … yet. But on the sunbathed streets and in the moonlit courtyards of Rome, she was going to find out—if the dangerously exciting young Englishman didn’t get in her way…

youtube

Silhouette in Scarlet by Elizabeth Peters (Vicky Bliss #3)

One perfect red rose, a one-way ticket to Stockholm, and a cryptic "message" consisting of two Latin words intrigue art historian Vicky Bliss—as they were precisely intended to do.Beautiful, brilliant and, as always, dangerously inquisitive, Vicky recognizes the handiwork of her former lover, the daring jewel thief John Smythe. So she takes the bait, eagerly following Smythe's lead in the hope of finding a lost treasure. But the trail begins at a priceless fifth century chalice which will place Vicky at the mercy of a gang of ruthless criminals who have their eyes on an even more valuable prize. And the hunt threatens to turn deadly on a remote island, where a captive Vicky Bliss must lead an excavation into the distant past—and where digging too deep for the truth could dig her own grave.

youtube

Trojan Gold by Elizabeth Peters (Vicky Bliss #4)

But the photograph art historian Vicky Bliss has just received gives rise to a thousand questions instead. A quick glance at the blood-stained envelope is all the proof she needs that something is horribly wrong. The picture itself is familiar: a woman adorned in the gold of Troy. Yet this isn't the famous photograph of Frau Schliemann—no, this picture is contemporary. The gold, as Vicky and her fellow academics know, disappeared at the end of World War II. Now this circle of experts is gathered for a festive Bavarian Christmas. All of them—including the mysterious John Smythe and a very determined killer...

#Vicky Bliss Mystery Series #Youtube #Mystery #Detective #Author: Elizabeth Peters

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ask19thcentury-doctorgilbert · 2 years

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“Back when Ludwig was younger, I did hire a governess for him and several tutors over the course of the years. Unlike most other households though, I don’t have a valet in my service. I prefer to dress myself and I’ve raised Ludwig to do the same. There are other things I prefer to do for myself such as making my own bed and drawing my own bath. I’ve also occasionally cooked for myself and the staff; though not before getting into an argument with Frau Ingrid over it as she tries to shoo me from her kitchen!

Speaking of the kitchen... I wonder when Fraulein Christina is coming back. She’d left a week ago to go visit her ailing mother in Breslau. I sent some medicine and some advice on how to help with what sounded like a mild case of pneumonia from the way she described it. I do hope they’re both alright,”

Because I’m the kind of person who enjoys thinking about background characters, here’s some more little headcanons about Gil’s household staff under the cut!

Before Ludwig came along, Gilbert lived in a much smaller town home right in the heart of the city. Back then he had maybe a cook, a maid / servant or two just for everyday upkeep of the home but since it wasn’t a big place, there was no need to keep a lot of staff on hand. After Ludwig came under his care, they moved into the bigger manor home out in the countryside, which had originally been a gift by Frederick I to his new kingdom after 1701. A bigger house meant needing to hire a larger staff to maintain it.

Gilbert always hires widowed women who’d lost their husbands to the wars, people who’ve grown out of the orphanage system and now needed jobs, and retired / invalid soldiers who can’t enter back into the military service for whatever reason. He tends to be very lax with his staff when it comes to them asking for time off and pays them handsomely as well. He almost always sends them all home during the holidays so they can spend time with their families, though if they didn’t have a home to go to, they were more than welcome to stay without having to work.

Although they did have servants, Ludwig was raised to take care of himself and to keep his space tidy without waiting on the maids to do it for him. He makes his own bed, dresses himself on his own, and puts everything back in its original place when he’s done using them.

Some, but not all, of the staff members are aware of exactly who and what Gilbert and his family are. Frau Agatha knows and as former soldiers, Karsten and Heinrich also know. The live-in staff are more likely to be in the know as opposed to the ones who live off-site.

Marian and Emmett are siblings who grew up in the orphanage system together. She eventually aged out of it and managed to secure work at the von Beilschmidt household, after which she went back for her brother.

Agatha had lived with her husband and her son until she tragically lost both during the Austro-Prussian war. She was hired shortly after to replace the old housekeeper, Frau Luise, who had retired. A stern woman with an eye for detail, she makes sure the house runs like clockwork.

Ingrid hails from Memel in East Prussia and so Gilbert never gets homesick for traditional East Prussian dishes. They usually converse in Eastern Low Prussian to each other, which is the dialect spoken around Memel. During the year Johanna spent staying with her brother, they spent many nights just making Königsberger marzipan with the old cook.

Gisela is a mother of two whose husband suffered a head injury during the Franco-Prussian war, leaving him in a catatonic state which means she had to be the one to make ends meet. Through her job, she managed to earn enough to hire a nurse to keep watch over her husband while she’s at work and to provide for her children. She does not live at the house and goes back home to her family at the end of a work day.

Christina is the youngest of the kitchen staff and hails from Breslau in Silesia. She sends most of her earnings back to her family there for them to use to care for her aging mother.

Karsten and Heinrich are veterans of the last two wars. Karsten was an NCO serving with the artillery units and unfortunately lost an arm during the conflict. Heinrich suffers from PTSD and is prone to debilitating anxiety attacks. Both of them were discharged from the service and are grateful to have found work at Gilbert’s household. Though they didn’t serve under him directly during the war, they were familiar with him and have seen him in action during active combat.

#answered #ask19thcenturydoctorgilbert #Hetalia Ask Blog #aph prussia #hws prussia #gilbert beilschmidt #APH Germany #hws germany #ludwig beilschmidt #me thinking too hard about the background characters #in gil's life??#more likely than you think dksdk

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arttuff · 4 years

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Nightmare Dads by ninja-kitty-more-like-no

LOOK AT THIS CUTE FIC WRITTEN BY @ninja-kitty-more-like-no!!! I AM SO SOFT

It’s not unusual, in a place like this, for people to have nightmares. God knows Heavy’s woken up enough times hearing his doctor gasping awake in the sheets next to him to know that the next step is to gently pull him to his chest and murmur pieces of poetry he can really only half-recall until he slips back into sleep. And honestly, everyone had looked so pitiful watching them that it had seemed like the next logical step when they’d started to appear on their own bad nights, watching nervously from the doorway until either Heavy or Medic had moved over to make room for them.

He remembers his sisters doing the same thing, first when they were little, and then when they were suddenly grown-ups, dealing with terrifying grown-up realities in their fragile child bodies. He wonders what that makes his team, now.

Monsters, he is supplied, and he clutches Medic closer to his chest and disavows his mind.

Part of the issue is that everyone is so quiet about what’s wrong. They never say anything, just bottle it up until they can’t anymore and someone ends up with a knife buried in them.

Usually from Spy. Especially from Spy.

Spy is a menace.

It’s late some January night when he hears small noises coming from the entry to the base while he’s getting water. He thinks perhaps it’s Pyro, at first, but the room is dark when he looks in. The sound resolves into a soft clicking, backed only by the howl of the wind outside. On nights like these, everyone is usually bundled up in their beds, trying to stave off the cold. No one should be awake.

He flicks the lights. The clicking stops. Ms. Pauling points a gun at his head.

He doesn’t move back, because this is not entirely unexpected, but he takes his hand off the light switch. She drops the gun as soon as she realizes who it is. “Heavy- I’m so sorry, I-”

“Is fine,” he tells her. She’s curled up on the floor with her pistol by her side. Her eyes are red, and her hair is around her shoulders. She’s even wearing pajamas. Clearly, something terrible has happened. “Why you are here?”

She sniffs quietly, rubbing one of her eyes under her glasses. “The roads got too bad for me to leave, so the Administrator told me to stay here tonight, and- did I wake you up?”

“No.” He nods towards her pistol. “Why is gun out?”

She’s quiet for a moment. “I… I still have to work tomorrow.”

“The roads-”

“I know,” she murmurs. She rubs her eyes again, dropping her glasses by her pistol. “I know.”

He hesitates for a moment before sighing and stepping closer. “Heavy has idea.”

She blinks up at him. He holds out a hand and helps her up when she takes it before gently leading her back to his room.

Medic is already awake when he comes back, fumbling for his glasses. To his credit, it hardly phases him when he sees Ms. Pauling. He raises an eyebrow at Heavy, but he only pushes her forward towards the bed and goes to find the kettle that Medic keeps by his knife sharpener. She wraps her arms around her torso as he sits up to make sense of the scene. “Guten abend, Frau Pauling. Is there any particular reason you’ve come to join us tonight, or did Heavy simply herd you up here like ein Schaeferhund?”

She opens her mouth to explain, but Heavy interrupts as he turns on one of Medic’s bunsen burners. “Bad roads. Work tomorrow. She won’t sleep.”

“That’s-”

Medic nods. “Mm. I see.”

“I’m fine-”

“You are dying,” Medic says simply. He throws back the covers and hisses as he makes contact with the floor. “You cannot work if you are dying. I’ll call the Administrator and let her know.”

“What are you talking about.” Heavy can hear the frustration in her voice. “I’m not dying- I’m not hurt, I’m- I’m fine, I’m just busy, and I don’t-”

“When was the last time you slept a full night?” Medic asks before she can continue. “How much water do you drink on a normal day? Ms. Pauling-” He looks at her with narrowed eyes as he pulls on his slippers. “When was the last time anyone hugged you?”

She stares blankly for a long time. “Medic, what the hell does that have to do with me dying.”

Heavy smiles as he pours a mug of hot water from the now whistling kettle. He’s heard this speech before. He does so love it when his husband bullies someone into self-care.

“A human being needs at least seven hours of sleep a night to remain productive. At your size, you need to be drinking roughly two point seven liters of water a day to stay hydrated. People need to be hugged four times a day in order to survive. You are not receiving these things. Therefore, you are not surviving, and, therefore, you are dying.”

Heavy plops a teabag into the mug and turns back around to give it to Ms. Pauling, who is still standing next to the bad. He considers, then grabs one of Medic’s bone saws, too. “I have work tomorrow-”

“Work will wait,” Medic insists. He glances at Heavy. “I’m calling the Administrator. You can have one of my days off if she requires one. You are going to drink something hot and sleep until nine in the morning. Doctor’s orders.”

She sniffs quietly. She looks a little bit teary. “You’re not a doctor.”

He stops, then takes a deep breath. “Then as your friend, Ms. Pauling., please get some rest.”

There’s maybe a second before she just starts crying.

Heavy is at her side in an instant, pushing the mug into her hands as he draws her up onto the bed. He sits down next to her, and she immediately rests her head on his shoulder as saltwater drips down her nose. He’s seen this before. He knows what to do. He lays the bone saw next to her, in case she needs the security, but she shakes her head and curls into him. She trusts him.

She reminds him so much of Zhanna that, for a moment, it hurts.

Medic steps into his office to use the phone. When he returns, it is to his husband gently stroking back Ms. Pauling’s hair as she rests half on his chest, snoring quietly. He smiles quietly and sits down next to them. “I can go use a cot if she would feel more comfor-”

Without waking up, she gropes around and squeezes one of Medic’s hands. He smiles softly and squeezes back. “Ah.”

“Administrator-”

“Cleared it,” he reassures Heavy, gently letting go of her hand. “I just have to ride along on one of Ms. Pauling’s jobs, presumably as bait. Nothing I haven’t done before.”

He hums assent. Medic takes off his slippers and pulls the covers back up. Ms. Pauling sighs quietly in her sleep as Medic leans over her and kisses Heavy on the cheek. “Gute Nacht, Schatz.”

He turns off the lamp. Heavy hears him sigh contentedly as he snuggles back into his covers, looking, as he does every night, for all the world one of his fluffy little birds.

Heavy closes his eyes and thinks of Alexander Pushkin’s Talisman, of his sisters, of the cold night and the fragile weight next to him.

“Spokoynoy nochi,” he murmurs, and the gentle night closes in.

——————–

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