Val, Scourge Aasimar Barbarian, youngest son of a noble house, desperately trying to mask his true nature with wigs and makeup but never quite able to stifle his divinity or his temper.
---
I had to redesign this guy bc his original design was grey-white monochrome instead of gold but he just looked like a weird AU Astarion.
I haven't posted in a year bc I haven't drawn anything in... a year, but I'm excited for a new ttrpg starting soon so have a headshot of my new thembo.
The little man carefully inspected him, section by section, then put out one arm and leaned negligently against the Earthman’s waistline. “When did you descend the old gangplank?”
– David Starr, Space Ranger, Isaac Asimov
Smol Martian farmboy attempts to assert dominance over fancypants Earthie, in no way blatantly hits on same.
please read this series this is 110% canon and they only get more gay from there
[image description: Two men facing each other against a starry sunset background. The left one, Lucky, is tall, standing up straight with his thumb hooked in his pocket, and is looking down and smiling in amusement. The right one, Bigman, is short and also leaning forward, resting his elbow on Lucky’s belt. His other hand is on his hip. His grin is wide and his expression is challenging.]
His right eye shone white under the lamp-light. The sight about froze Five's blood for a second, his mind swirling with images of [Viktor] mid-meltdown -- until they got a little closer and he realized it was just a prosthetic. A crosshair pattern instead of an iris and pupil. Cute.
Taking the Auspices, Ch. 6
Evil AU son boy, with and without lazy background shading
Detail shots of the parts I do like (his face and arms)
Haven't drawn much worth sharing lately but I started working on my hiatus'd fics again and it made me want to draw my evil au son. And rewatch The Last Action Hero. So I did both.
Haven't drawn much worth sharing lately but I started working on my hiatus'd fics again and it made me want to draw my evil au son. And rewatch The Last Action Hero. So I did both.
Been brainstorming more Lost Room stuff, and I have in mind three potential ways the plot could regain access to the Room, with Joe being the key (no pun intended). I couldn't settle on one and I had clear scenes in mind for each so I just wrote all three.
Read on Ao3
----
1. Interaction
It always comes back to this god-forsaken place. The broken husk of a no-name motel in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Even blindfolded in the back of a van, he'd known exactly where they were going, from the way every last nerve crackled like a match laid to a line of gunpowder.
Rough hands shove him to his knees. Gravel digs into his flesh through his jeans, a dull counterpoint to the screeching in his spine. Light replaces the blindfold, bright afternoon sun that erases everything in vicious white-gold. Joe squints his smarting eyes against the glare.
A shape coalesces out of the light, red and then black before fading into human features, recognizable features. Martin Ruber smiles down at him. "Hello, Joe."
The rest of Martin's congregation, his own personal splinter of the new religion, are arranged around them in a rough circle. Maybe two dozen. Men in suits and women in sundresses and blouses and hats, like they're ready for Sunday mass. More than a few are visibly armed. Two of the guns are trained on the backs of Jennifer and Anna's heads. They're both on their knees, too, hands bound and eyes blindfolded, too far for him to reach even if he wasn't tied up, too far for him to protect. The sight makes his blood boil and that cuts through the pain of being Here.
Ruber waits patiently for Joe's gaze to return to him. He's managed to position himself so that the Sunshine Motel logo is directly behind him, its chipped yellow rays framing him in a blasphemous mockery of a halo.
"We need the Key, Joe."
A murmur of agreement goes around the circle. Joe says nothing. He's already been over this with Ruber, but the man is too far gone to listen.
Ruber spreads his arms to either side, raises his thready voice to address the assembly.
"This man has attempted to thwart our divine purpose! He has hidden the Key where he thinks no one can ever reach it!" Another murmur in the crowd, this one angry. "But do not fear, my brothers and sisters. Do not fret. The Objects have spoken to me! They have told me that he who hid it, can also reclaim it! All that he needs--" Ruber crouches down to Joe's level, drawing something from his back pocket as he does. "--is this."
The Polaroid thrums at him from between Ruber's thumb and forefinger. Looking into its undeveloped blackness makes Joe's pupils itch. That's a fun new sensation to add to the rest of the cacophony.
He looks into Ruber's eyes instead. Once, not so long ago at all, he'd considered this man a friend.
"If I get you the Key, you let them go, unharmed."
Joe doesn't waste time negotiating for himself. He knows Ruber's little cult is far from done with him. From Ruber's admiring smile, he knows exactly what's on Joe's mind.
"Always so noble, Detective," he says, sincerely. "I give you my word. Do as I ask and no harm will come to Anna or your lady friend."
Joe swallows and jerks his chin toward the Polaroid. "I'll need my hands free."
Ruber's smile becomes a grin. "Margaret, untie him." While the woman steps forward, Ruber turns to his other followers. "Take off their blindfolds. Let them see."
Joe rises to his feet, rubbing the feeling back into his hands. It doesn't help. Every inch of his skin prickles and hums. He turns and looks at Anna and Jennifer again. They both look terrified. Jennifer is enraged by her helplessness. She meets his eyes and gives the slightest shake of her head, but they both know he doesn't have a choice.
"It's gonna be okay," he says, because he has to say something. He turns away again.
Ruber offers him the Polaroid with all the significance of a priest offering communion. Joe takes it without flourish. The nerves in his fingertips go quiet, the Object settling in his grip like a tame animal.
Stepping into the space that would be Room 10 takes an effort of will. Reality vibrates where the place that shouldn't be and never was sits just below or above or outside the place that is. Crossing the threshold gives the unpleasant sensation of stepping onto a moving platform without warning, and Joe has to stop for a second just to regain his equilibrium.
He can feel Ruber at his elbow, feel the Glasses hooked on Ruber's collar, both of them quivering with eagerness. Joe raises the Polaroid. He hears gasps from the congregation as the image forms within its white frame. He's pretty sure he hears someone fall to the ground and begin to loudly weep. It's hard to tell for sure, with the blood rushing so loudly in his ears that he can taste it.
Joe turns, slowly, focused entirely on the golden-cast Room beyond the Polaroid's frame. It's not the same image as before. It's empty, now, the bed stripped, the table clear, most of the furniture gone. The way it Is instead of the way it Was.
There was a desk by the window, once, and that's where the Key belongs. Without the Desk, the Key and the other Objects that it should hold rest instead on the carpet, shining in the perpetual golden sunlight.
Joe kneels, slowly, bringing the frame closer to the Key. Ruber's breath catches.
More gasps erupt as Joe reaches into the Polaroid. His hand contorts through the too-small frame in a way that makes his mind ache when he looks at it. He closes his eyes.
It's... nice. Like plunging his hand into a warm bath. Or just... out of the sensory hell that is his daily reality. Joe feels along the carpet until he finds cool, smooth metal. Closing his fingertips around it, he draws his hand back through the frame.
Ruber stares expectantly as Joe stands, small dark eyes gleaming, a manic smile slowly tugging back his lips.
Joe looks him in the eye, puts the Object in his mouth, and swallows.
Edges catch and scrape in his throat. The taste of metal fills his mouth. He barely manages to suppress a gag, swallows again and forces it the rest of the way down.
It's almost worth it for Ruber's expression of furious disbelief alone. Ruber's mouth works silently around several words before he finally manages a sound. "That," his voice shakes with rage, "was a mistake." He turns to issue an order.
The crack of a gunshot cuts him off, then a second. The weapons pointed at Anna and Jennifer fall from nerveless hands. Joe is already running to them, trusting that the memory-construct the Quarter has raised will cover him.
Lou Destefano always was a crack shot.
----
2. Doorway
The Room is as it always is, stuck in an endless moment, an oasis out of time. Golden light streams in through the windows and softens every edge.
It's quiet in here. Outside, the Objects clamor, their signals a constant chaos that his brain struggles to interpret into sensations. Phantom tastes, sounds, scents, feelings intrude on every moment of his waking life.
But in here -- in here, he can hear himself think. In here, he feels like himself again.
The window slides open under the slightest pressure from his fingertips. A desert breeze catches the light inner curtains and sends them dancing to either side of him. He leans on the sill and closes his eyes. The warm air caresses his face, brings with it the familiar scents of dry grass and asphalt and oil.
The breeze dies down, and a different scent comes to his attention. A whiff of something earthy, musty -- something wrong. Dry rot.
The walls are already starting to decay by the time he turns around. Paint flakes and peels as the boards start to vibrate. The ceiling bows and cracks. A keening sound vibrates up from his feet through his spine and into his ears and he can't tell if it's the sound making the Room shake or if the Room itself is screaming. Wall slats break away, rays of sunlight pouring through with an eager roar, no longer soft and golden but hard and bright, prickling against his skin like they might tear through it and pour into him, too. It's the Objects. The Objects, clamoring, reaching, ripping the world apart to try and get to him--
Hands grab his collar and whip him around. Squinting against the overbearing light, Joe can barely make out Karl Kreutzfeld, frantic and scared, an empty red socket where his right eye should be.
"Make it stop!" Karl screams, he has to scream and Joe can still barely hear him over the cacophony.
"I can't!" Joe can't even hear himself, the vibrations in his head are too loud. "I don't have the Key!"
Maybe he only thinks he says it, maybe Karl can't hear him, or maybe Karl Kreutzfeld is just used to the world changing when he demands it, because Karl just shakes Joe and screams again: "Make it stop!"
Joe opens his mouth to try and yell again but the sunlight reaches sharp, hot fingers into his throat and plunges into his eyes and the world goes white.
Joe wakes up with a gasp.
The room is dark. It's the middle of the night. Joe blinks floating sparks out of his vision and tunes out the whine of the Nail File. Jennifer is beside him, her chest rising and falling in the slow, even rhythm of a sound sleep. Anna's in the other bed. He has to strain but can just barely hear her breathing, too.
He gets up, careful not to disturb either of them, and goes to the bathroom. He only turns the light on once the door is closed.
The nightmares keep getting worse. If he didn't know better, he would say that the Key was angry at being trapped in the Room -- but he does know better. The Objects aren't angry, any more than nitroglycerin is angry. They don't want, any more than a magnet wants. They don't get restless, any more than water flowing through a cracked roof tile is restless.
Aside from him, the Objects are just objects. And yet, in their own undirected non-sentient way, they want, they grow restless, and they are angry. They beat at the edges of his consciousness, and the reality is only marginally more bearable than his nightmares make it out to be.
Joe splashes a handful of lukewarm water over his face. His skin is burning. His reflection looks back at him, pale and gray-tinged and haggard. He realizes, belatedly, that he feels nauseated. That doesn't make sense. An Object shouldn't be able to get sick, should it? His throat feels dry and scratchy, bringing back the image of bright fingers of sunlight tearing their way into him. Drinking a handful of the barely-cool water helps a little but he drinks too fast and starts to cough.
The coughing doesn't stop.
Joe leans over the sink, his arms shaking, as the coughing gets worse. Raspy hacking wracks his body and turns to heaving spasms. He tastes metal and feels a hot scratching in his throat, his stomach lurches as he gags around something hard and sharp and vibrating its way up his esophagus. A pealing note in his ears seems to overtake every other sound.
Finally, with a last retch, the thing inside of him clatters into the sink. He barely hears it over the ringing in his skull.
The spell passes slowly. Joe stays half-bent over the sink, the cool porcelain the only sensation keeping him grounded. The tinnitus recedes first, and he can hear his own breathing again, harsh gulps of air like he's just run a marathon. A soft humming sound makes itself known underneath his gasps.
He opens his eyes, somehow already knowing what he'll see.
The Key gleams up at him from the sink basin and thrums contentedly.
----
3. Conduit
There's five of them, now. Joe and Jennifer, and Howard, and Wally (however reluctantly), and now Lee Bridgewater. She's still not okay, but she's coming to terms with 'not okay' being her new baseline, as long as she can channel her nervous energy into hunting Ruber. That, at least, she and Joe can agree on.
When they need Joe, someone has to stay with Anna. Howard might not seem like the logical choice, but Joe knows that he would die before he let anything happen to her. So when Joe has to deal with something personally, Howard watches Anna.
As they return to their temporary base of operations, Joe almost doesn't notice the first warning sign. He doesn't miss the second: the door is ajar.
The first sign is that Joe can't feel the Pen.
Joe rushes in, gun already in hand. The place is trashed. The scents of blood and gunpowder and burnt flesh mingle in the air. Blood streaks the floor. Howard is splayed out in a pool of red, far, far too much red.
Joe drops to his knees at Howard's side, doing his best to ignore the cool liquid immediately seeping into his jeans. Howard's shirt is saturated and shiny around ragged red-black bullet holes. Joe takes his hand to check for a pulse and Howard coughs wetly, words struggling out on a trickle of blood.
"Joe-- the Order, they-- Anna-- I couldn't stop them-- I'm sorry--"
"Sh-sh-sh, it's okay," Joe says, squeezing with one hand while he checks the wounds with the other. At least three gunshots to the chest. One of them bubbles every time Howard breathes, fast and harsh and shallow. Jennifer tries to apply pressure and Howard gasps and a fresh gout gurgles under her hands.
"Joe, he's lost too much blood," Lee says urgently. "We have to get him to a hospital."
"N-No--" It seems to take every ounce of Howard's energy to shake his head. "Go. Go get Anna. Don't--" He flags, his eyes slipping closed.
"Howard," Joe snaps. Howard's eyes flicker open and fail to focus. "Stay with me. Everyone, get back. Give me some space." Jennifer stares at him. She's the only one who knows what he suspects, what he hasn't had the courage to test, because he doesn't know what it will mean if he's right. Right now, it doesn't matter what it means. "I need space," he repeats softly.
She nods and backs off, joining Lee and Wally behind him. Where he can't accidentally look their way.
Joe closes his eyes and breathes in and lets his mind open. The Objects resonate at him, through him, each of them finding a nerve and plucking it like a harp string. He reaches past those ones. Those are the loose ones, the wild ones, the ones that cry out to be brought home. He shoves those sensations aside and reaches for the ones that are already contentedly humming away within him.
He's been able to hear them since he ditched the Key, but it's taken him a long time to understand what he could do with that, and even longer to work up to trying it.
The contented hum slowly rises, slowly drowning out the sounds of the world as it fills his ears with white noise. Sparks shimmer behind the eyelid of his right eye and send slivers of electricity back into his skull.
When he opens his eyes, the right iris is blue. The edges of his vision disappear into white static until all he can see is the bulletholes in Howard's flesh. The Eye glows a pale blue as he coaxes out its power. Heal, he pleads, a silent litany, heal, heal, heal. The Eye can do so much harm in an instant if he slips.
It only takes a few moments. The holes knit themselves closed. Howard's breathing eases. A healthy flush creeps back into his skin. He blinks dazedly at the ceiling, sits up, runs a hand over his chest. Rips open his already ruined shirt to find bloody but unblemished flesh.
Joe sits back and buries his face in his shaking hands. Slowly, the static fades, leaving the space behind his eyelids dark and letting him hear again. The room is hushed.
"Did he just--?" Lee whispers.
"Holy shit," Wally whispers back.
Jennifer says nothing, but he can feel her hand hovering over his shoulder, wanting to offer comfort but not wanting to distract his focus.
Only when he's absolutely sure he's not going to accidentally atomize any of the people he cares about, does Joe finally open his eyes.
Howard is still on the floor in front of him, staring at him in open wonder. Relief rushes in to replace the static. Joe grabs his face in bloodied hands and kisses his bloody lips and then leans their foreheads together and just laughs.
Jennifer kneels beside them, one hand squeezing his shoulder, and ruffles Howard's hair. "Glad you're not dead, Weasel."
"Yeah, me too," Howard laughs, still breathless.
Joe feels exhausted, like he could sleep for a week-- but that's going to have to wait. He forces himself shakily to his feet, leaning more on Jennifer than he likes. "Let's go get Anna back."
Howard grins fiercely and takes his hand.
---
Brainstorming Notes:
All three of these theories assume that every Object Karl was carrying ended up back in the Room.
1. The mechanics of this one are pretty straightforward but also not. Since Joe is an Object, he interacts differently with certain other Objects. I figure, why not have his interaction with the Polaroid turn it into a backdoor into the Room? (Yes, the Quarter operating the same way for him was a gamble, but so was the door still being in Karl's office. Joe gambles sometimes.)
This was the first idea I had, and like most first thoughts I feel it's not as strong as it could be. Plus, trying to visualize a grown man's hand fitting through a polaroid frame hurts my brain a little. Plot-wise, though, it's probably the least disruptive way to regain access to the Room.
2. Joe has a connection to the Room more or less literally inside of him which the Objects can pass through, and which he may not be able to consciously control. Based on the vague idea that although the Objects want to come together, they also don't like to stay in one place, and the Key is gonna find a way out one way or another.
This one's the most upsettingly visceral imo which kind of appeals to the horror fan in me. If nothing else, the nightmare in this section is definitely getting worked into any other Joe writing I do.
3. Joe embodies the Room and all of the Objects within it, and can (with difficulty) channel their effects through his own body.
Easily the most overpowered option, especially with the Eye in there, so would require a lot of drawbacks and a lot of careful writing to keep it from bulldozing the plot. On the other hand, I just wanted to write Joe busting out some healing.
