I haven’t edited paintings on my phone in forever, so fun challenge
OOOHHHH MY GOODNESSS, THIS IS SO PRETTY, I’M STUNNED ToT i love this so much, i just might hafta see if there’s any way for me to rearrange my cork board so i can print this and pin it next to your other art
I may not be the best at drawing, but I wanted to put this out there as a thank you to the lovely people out there who have given fanart to my fics. They have all genuinely made me smile and have left such a mark on me that I felt I needed to reach back out.
You all know @phooen1x, @lovesim09, and @limboni. The characters for Lovesim are their interpretation of Shadow Milk in their drawings of KoB. Limboni is a Child of Light (affectionately also known as Moth) from the Sky: Children of the Light comic they had up. Phooen1x is the profile picture they have on the comments I have on my story.
@fayefableillustrations is a special case since I have not received permission from her yet to share her drawings outside of their Instagram, so if you get the chance, I highly recommend seeing their work. They have done a fantastic set of illustrations inspired by KoB, and they are gorgeous. I'm putting their Instagram here since they have mentioned they use Insta more often (fayfableillustrations)
Thank you so much, Phooen1x, Lovesim, Limboni, and Fayfables, for your incredible works. I will forever cherish them!
With the escape room event I’ve seen a couple people talking about how they think it’s so cool and they really want to watch cellbit but they don’t speak any portuguese, so I just wanted to remind everyone that cellbit has subtitles enabled on twitch! He uses the ultimate closed captions plugin, and while the translation is not going to be perfect, it’s very good for live captions!
Speaking from personal experience, when I started watching cellbit I knew NO portuguese. I was completely reliant on subtitles to understand anything. And I still had a great time watching the streams! Even if you don’t know the language, you can understand a lot through tone and context. Understanding something 100% is not a prerequisite to enjoying it, and having fun is a great way to learn!
Had a very emotional dentist appointment today, but it was immediately followed by me telling my mom all about Tina and Leo meeting
I just can perfectly remember Tina’s “There’s a baby in the club!” and “I haven’t met you before but I have a feeling you’re gonna be my favorite.” Two best lines, always brings me joy
Bonus points for “That’s your dad 😒”
I need to do another painting of them, also really want to paint Tr!Ros (and maybe Tr!Tina learning magic together)
au where Cellbit ascends to godhood for seemingly no reason and has No Idea what he’s the god of. And so naturally he teams up with Roier, the priest of a mysterious unknown god, to figure out what he’s actually the god of
Cellbit didn’t feel super welcome on Mount Quesadilla, so he went back down to the human realm to try and figure himself out. The war was still going on, of course, so he did That for a bit because he didn’t know what else to do
That’s where he met Roier, who was kind of just chilling in the middle of a battlefield playing cards with some soldiers. He looked up as Cellbit approached, and he smiled, and he invited Cellbit to play with him
(Cellbit, of course, won. What kind of soldier doesn’t know how to cheat at cards?)
After all the other soldiers left to go die, Roier asked who Cellbit was. Cellbit gave him his name, but Roier leaned in real close and asked who he really was. Because he was a priest, see, and he knew gods well enough to know one when he was looking at one
Cellbit said that he didn’t know what he was the god of, so he wasn’t really much of a god
And Roier just laughed and said that it’s fine, nobody knows immediately. But he’ll help Cellbit out because his god is very interested in Cellbit
And so they left the battlefield, and so we enter the present as they continue searching for Cellbit’s domain
Next, Roier wants to see if Cellbit is a water god. So he calls up his friend Rivers, the Goddess of the Rivers (and a war goddess who sometimes goes to the human realm to challenge humans to boxing matches), and they all take a trip to the ocean
Problem: Cellbit can’t swim, and he tells them this as he tries to make a run for it back to safe, dry land
Rivers throws him in, anyway, just in case… and she and Roier have to save him almost immediately (as it turns out, gods can drown!)
So now they aren’t going anywhere near water, like. Ever again
Gods can share domains. Philza and BadBoyHalo are both gods of parenthood. There are multiple war deities. There are too many gods of invention to count
On that note, domains can change. Baghera used to be the Goddess of Knowledge, sharing a domain with Antoine. Now, she’s worshipped as a war goddess known for causing madness in both her worshippers and enemies
Cellbit wouldn’t mind being a god of war. War is all he’s ever known, it would just make sense
But Roier’s god? “Mmm, spiders,” is all Roier says when asked. Which… doesn’t clear much up at all, actually
Next, it’s Cellbit’s turn to choose, and he, of course, chooses a battlefield. He’s sure he’s supposed to be a war god, he’s sure of it!
He and Roier somehow get separated immediately in the chaos.
Before long, Cellbit finds himself behind a rock summoning his Godly Weapon- a cool-ass knife, of course
He hears a noise at his feet and looks down to see… a child. A child. Wearing armor and carrying a spear three times her size
“Wow,” she gasps, “are you a god?”
“Yes,” Cellbit replies. “I am.”
After looking around, checking for enemies, he crouches in front of the child and asks, gently, “Are you a soldier?”
She nods firmly. “My dad was too sick to go to war, so my family sent me instead, ‘cause I’m the oldest.”
Cellbit looks at her spear, then back at her. “Your weapon is a little big. Here, take mine.”
He gives her his weapon, taking hers in turn.
He hears Roier’s voice, then, calling his name.
Quickly, he adjusts the girl’s hold on his knife and says, “You’re small, use that. They won’t be expecting a child, so make them regret it. Aim upwards, especially if it’s a man. Hit him where it’ll hurt most.”
She giggles. He smiles and ruffles the feathers on her helmet.
“Make it home, don’t do anything reckless. Make sure your father sees his daughter again,” he finishes.
Roier rounds the corner. “Cellbit!”
He immediately pulls Cellbit into a hug. By the time Cellbit turns back around, the girl is gone
Tactics, Cellbit settles on, which feels right. Roier ends up agreeing with him if only because every single order Cellbit gives him in battle ends in a victory
“Strategic thinking,” Roier says, sounding impressed. “Our first nerdy war god.”
He yelps as Cellbit starts chasing him, but they’re both laughing
But… something still feels missing. Plenty of gods have multiple domains, that’s how it works, so…
Roier, tending the fire, freezes briefly before relaxing and laughing. Outwardly, nothing changes, but the world around him seems to shift as he lets some kind of enchantment fade
He looks at Cellbit with a smile. “What god do you think I am?”
Cellbit thinks. Spiders, wars…
“I remember hearing stories as a kid,” he says, thinking as he speaks, “about the betrayal of the God of Love.”
Roier nods. Doesn’t say anything.
“His friend, the God of the Hunt, was tricked by Chaos into killing him. That’s how Death first appeared, she was born when the God of Love’s blood hit the ground,” Cellbit continues. “I met Death. She brought me to meet the other gods when I died.”
“She’s very kind,” Roier comments. “It’s a shame she’s friends with BadBoyHalo.”
“After the betrayal, it’s said that the God of Love died,” Cellbit says. “It took a thousand years before Quacki ascended.”
“She’s weird.”
Cellbit nods. “She is. But-” (He looks at Roier.) “-other legends say that the God of Love actually joined Death’s domain as her spy. He lurks in the shadows using spiders as his eyes. He doesn’t live on the mountain with the other gods, preferring to stay on Earth.”
Roier’s smile turns sharp.
“The first war started after the God of Love’s death,” Cellbit lowly says. He moves closer to Roier, just a little bit more with every word. “Nobody has ever figured out which war god was the first. Some say it was Etoiles or Philza, others say it was Rivers or Fit.”
Roier leans in close, so close that his breath ghosts across Cellbit’s face.
“Oh, yeah?” he asks. “Who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know, God of Discord.”
The opposite of love: hate. The cause of every conflict in human history, and the root of every argument to have ever existed. From him came Death, and he has served her ever since.
All the same, Cellbit feels nothing but love as he leans in and kisses Roier for the first time.
And then, to wrap everything up nicely, Cellbit’s first temple is built in a small town no one has ever heard of.
He goes to visit it, of course, and that’s when he sees her for the first time in almost fifty years: the little girl from the battlefield, now the first head priestess of Cellbit’s temple
The temple’s statue of him makes him look much younger than he actually looks, but it makes sense once he realizes that everyone inside has a baby with them
“Look at you,” Roier fondly says, arm wrapped around Cellbit’s, “Cellbit, patron and protector of children.”
Cellbit was a child when he first went to war. Every battle he ever fought him had him side-by-side with other child soldiers
He died in battle protecting a little boy
Finally, he’s figured it out. Cellbit, God of Tactical Warfare, Protector of Children, and husband to the God of Discord
It starts deceptively simple: Cellbit and Roier are taking a walk together through the Favela at sunset, fresh coffees in their hands from Starbobby. Cellbit can’t stop staring at Roier. Roier can’t stop staring at Cellbit. Bobby is watching from above, probably rolling his eyes at how goofy Roier looks when he’s in love.
There are two creatures walking a step behind Cellbit and Roier that Cellbit is purposefully ignoring.
Roier’s shoe comes untied next to a recently-added flowerbed. Cellbit offers to tie it, Roier laughs and teases Cellbit, Cellbit hands Roier his coffee to hold as he crouches and takes Roier’s shoelaces in his hands.
Just barely visible through the gap between Roier’s legs, Pulgoier looks blankly up at the flowers. They’re taller than it is, but just barely.
?, the disgusting little thing, follows Pulgoier’s gaze. And then, horrifyingly, and entirely of its own accord, it reaches up and snaps a flower off at the base of its stem. It holds the flower out to Pulgoier, head ducked just slightly, almost bashfully; Pulgoier doesn’t smile, because it can’t, because it isn’t real, but it does take the flower.
Frozen in abject horror, Cellbit doesn’t react as Roier annoyedly taps at his head and asks what’s taking so long. Why is he just sitting there, what’s wrong?
And then Roier turns around and sees his Mini-Me holding the flower close to its chest and pressing a plastic kiss to ?’s cheek, and Roier gasps.
“Aww, look!” he coos, fingers tangling in Cellbit’s hair excitedly. “They’re in love!”
And Cellbit feels nothing.
-
Cellbit’s son is gone. So is a significant part of Cellbit’s heart, and yet he knows that he is still capable of feeling love. He’s alive, after all: he isn’t a religious man, but he likes to think that everything with a heart can feel love. Dogs love their owners. Lions love their mates. Crocodiles love the hunt. Parrots love to show off.
The Mini-Mes? Notably not alive. They aren’t real. They’re plastic and felt and yarn and whatever-the-fuck electronics the Federation shoved into their fake little bodies. Their nerves are made out of copper. Their veins are filled with self-recycling machine oil. Their hearts are combustion engines that run off of the items that their islander counterparts provide them daily.
Cellbit knows this. He’s cut his Mini-Me apart so many times that ? knows not to squirm on the dissection table. Every time he’s sewn ? back together, he’s made ? hold the roll of string so it doesn't roll away. He’s made ? bleed oil to the point that he once caught ? drinking gasoline when Cellbit’s back was turned.
The Mini-Mes don’t feel emotions. They can’t. They aren’t real. They’re creatures, if one could call an inhuman amalgamation of wires and eco-friendly microplastics a creature. It’s more apt to call them robots.
Monsters.
Cellbit knows that the MIni-Mes were created for war. He watched the video at that conference, he knows exactly what the little assholes were made for. Now that they’re stolen, their purpose has probably been shifted by the Federation from fighting to spying.
They can’t feel love. This much, Cellbit knows. They were created for battle, and now they’re just biding their time. Waiting.
The fact that ? seems to be in love with Pulgoier is an outlier that should not be considered. They’re both just mimicking their owners, that’s all. Which begs the question of exactly how adaptive the Mini-Mes are; they can change appearance at the drop of a hat, but behavior? They’ve been robotic up to this point, what changed?
Cellbit asks this to ? as ? sits in its cage staring at the oil-stained wall.
?, of course, doesn’t respond. That’s good, Cellbit doesn’t know what he’d do if the little bastard learned how to talk.
But, at the lack of a response, Cellbit inexplicably feels a sense of… God, is this bravery he’s feeling coming off of ?? Is that it? An attitude?
Cellbit’s eyes narrow, and he leans in closer to the cage with a sneer.
“Whatever you’re doing, I’m onto it,” he growls.
? just adjusts its goggles in response. Its hand briefly dips into the Fear Room’s light, exposing a thin black line drawn around ?’s left hand ring finger. A ring.
Cellbit is so surprised that he doesn’t even feel angry for a good moment.
But then ? looks up at him as if asking, “And what about it?”, and Cellbit finds himself standing and kicking the cage so hard that it falls over, sending ? toppling.
A ring. A goddamn ring.
A goddamn mockery, more like. It’s mocking him. The Federation is mocking him, he knows it. He fucking knows it.
(But… why?)
-
Pulgoier starts holding ?’s hand. ? keeps picking things off of the side of the road to give to Pulgoier, and Cellbit hates it.
Roier makes a little shoebox bed for them that he puts under his and Cellbit’s own bed. Instead of powering off for the day in a corner of the room, ? and Pulgoier go there at night, and Cellbit hates it.
? and Pulgoier sit across from each other on the floor when their owners have their meals. Sometimes they pretend to eat, usually pretending to feed each other, and Cellbit hates it.
Richarlyson would have killed them by now. Cellbit wishes he was here to do so, but.
But.
-
But it’s well past midnight, and Cellbit can’t sleep. This isn’t anything too unusual; he learned how to live off minimal sleep back during the War, for better or for worse.
But Roier can’t sleep, which means that he’s somewhere in the castle, which means that Cellbit is somewhere in the castle because there’s no way in Hell he’s letting his depressed and sleep-deprived husband wander around mourning.
Tonight’s ‘somewhere’ is the garden, and Cellbit has Roier in his arms as they sway back and forth to the music playing softly on Roier’s communicator. (The Federation is shitty for so many reasons, but at least it’s providing the island with Spotify Premium free-of-charge.)
The song is unimportant. So are the two little freaks of nature watching from beneath a rosebush. So are the Federation’s hidden cameras, and Bad somewhere downstairs trying to carry Cellbit’s dining table out the door, and the itching bloodlust in the back of Cellbit’s brain.
What is important is Roier, and so Cellbit focuses all his attention on him.
He’s tired, clearly so: his hair is more of a mess than usual, his clothes are rumpled and wrinkled, his shoes are untied, his bandana is lost somewhere in the bedroom, his lips are chapped, and the circles under his eyes are dark enough to rival Cellbit’s.
Cellbit doesn’t think he’s ever seen a more beautiful man in his life.
He says as much, words ghosting across Roier’s pale lips.
Roier smiles weakly, and he murmurs a quiet, “No, you.”
The song changes to something a bit quicker. They both ignore the change in tempo and decide to follow each other’s, instead.
Cellbit’s arms tighten around Roier. He pulls him closer, nose burying itself in the side of Roier’s neck and breathing in his scent and internalizing it, filing it away in the little cabinet in his brain labeled ‘Roier’.
“You stink,” he grumbles.
“Yeah, because you’re all over me,” Roier responds. He lightly pinches Cellbit’s side. “I know what we’re doing when we get back inside.”
Cellbit whines, sagging in Roier’s arms. He loves his husband, but he does not love showering with him; Roier takes so long under the water that it’s running cold by the time it’s Cellbit’s turn, and his shampoo smells so strongly that it makes Cellbit have an asthma attack.
Cellbit doesn’t even have asthma!
What Cellbit does have is an unfortunately-acute sense of hearing. It’s a blessing at times, and it’s a curse.
His eyebrow twitches in annoyance as he hears the absolute faintest of sounds: the crunching of grass beneath clumsy feet, and the overworking of machinery as it tries to figure out how to laugh.
At the same time, Roier gasps, “Mira, mira!”
But Cellbit doesn’t look. Why should he? He’s having a good time. He doesn’t need some… some… some things ruining it.
“Ay,” Roier insists, poking Cellbit between his ribs once. “Gatinho, mira.”
Another poke. “Mira.”
Another poke. “Cellbit.”
(Poke.) “Cellbo.”
Cellbit’s eyes squeeze shut. He presses a kiss to the crook of Roier’s neck to try and appease him, but Roier just pokes him again. With determination.
“Stop ignoring me!” he huffs. “Unless… you hate me? You want a divorce?”
At that, Cellbit’s head snaps up in a panic.
“Não!” he shouts. Why would Roier ever…
Lips twitching into a semblance of a smile, Roier grabs Cellbit’s face with one hand- squeezing his cheeks together and making him feel a bit like a fish- and turns it to the side.
…right. If there’s one thing Roier is, it’s a fucking asshole. (And a handsome one at that.)
Cellbit’s shoulders sag in relief, but said relief quickly melts back into annoyance as he’s forced to look at the Mini-Mes and their… well. It isn’t dancing, that’s for certain.
Pulgoier has taken the lead, just like Roier has. It’s holding ?’s little hands and rocking from side-to-side: left, right. Left, right. Left, right. It doesn’t move from its spot other than a small amount of shuffling as it tries pulling at ?’s hands in an attempt to get it to actually move.
? is still. It’s staring directly into Pulgoier’s beady little eyes, absolutely frozen. If it could blush, Cellbit is sure that it would be doing so.
Cellbit inadvertently copies it, stiffening against Roier’s body and stopping any and all movements. He doesn’t mean to- he wants to keep dancing, to keep ignoring the Mini-Mes and their bastardized attempt at “romance”, but…
“Look,” Roier quietly says, sounding almost awed.
He lets go of Cellbit’s face so he can press his cheek against Cellbit’s.
Cellbit feels Roier’s jaw work against his as he concludes, “It’s us.”
Because… it is. It is, somehow, in such a fundamental way that Cellbit can’t really identify it as anything but Cellbit-And-Roier.
“Oh,” says Cellbit, voice hardly above a whisper.
He watches as Pulgoier tugs on ?’s arms, and as ?’s legs start to shake under it.
Cellbit doesn’t actually remember a lot of his wedding reception; between the explosions and the alcohol, it’s all just a lot of blurry faces and the feeling of Roier-Roier-Roier-Roier-Roier.
What he does remember is being ushered into the center of the dance floor along with Roier and freezing. The world faded from around him, and all he could think about was Roier’s smile as he took Cellbit into his arms; Roier’s warm hands on his body; Roier’s alcohol-laced breath across his face. His body was a stranger.
He remembers thinking, ‘Shit. I don’t know how to dance.’ Because he didn’t, and he still doesn’t, because he never had a chance to learn how. It just never came up in his life, and then, suddenly, he was supposed to dance. At his wedding. In front of the entire island. And everyone he knew.
And he remembers the way Roier’s face softened as he picked up on Cellbit’s anxiety. His hands slid from Cellbit’s back, up to his shoulders, down the lengths of his arms, and to his hands. He tangled their fingers together, took a step back, and winked.
Pulgoier physically can’t wink, but it otherwise does exactly what Roier did all those months ago: it takes a step back, and it just starts spinning.
? can’t shout like Cellbit did back then, but it otherwise does what he did all those months ago: it gets pulled along, forced to spin along with its partner, stumbling over its own feet and flailing about like a doll caught in the wind.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” Cellbit mutters.
“I can,” Roier replies. “He’s your Mini-Me, of course he can’t dance for shit.”
He yelps out a laugh as Cellbit indignantly steps on his foot.
Roier’s right, though; Cellbit can’t dance for shit. And neither can ?, being Cellbit’s shitty little clone.
The night of the wedding, it took Cellbit a good solid minute to get his feet back under him. He felt himself smiling, and, maybe it was the wine in his system, but he found himself tugging Roier in a spin in the opposite direction. He was dizzy as Hell, but it made Roier laugh when he did it, so he just… kept doing it. Eventually, the spin led into a proper attempt at a slow dance that failed so miserably that the two of them gave up and jumped onto the stage for another round of karaoke.
Tonight, ? picks up on things a bit quicker than Cellbit had. It stabilizes, nods to itself, and starts pulling Pulgoier into its own spin. Almost immediately, they’re attempting a proper waltz, and Cellbit…
Cellbit doesn’t get it.
At first, Cellbit wasn’t sure what the end goal of the Mini-Mes was. Then, he realized that they’re little soldiers. Robotic supersoldiers capable of self-multiplication and growth, literal war machines.
But then… why do they look like the islanders? Why does Pulgoier have the same dark circles as Roier? Why does ? have the same scar across its chest that Cellbit does? What’s the point? The Federation doesn’t do anything without a purpose, so why do the Mini-Mes have to look like their owners if they’re meant to grow up and kill them?
Why can they dance?
“What’s the point?” he murmurs. Roier hums in acknowledgement, and Cellbit takes that as a sign to continue: “Of copying us?”
“Because we’re sexy,” Roier responds.
Cellbit rolls his eyes. “True. But, think about it, what purpose does any of…” (He waves his hand in the MIni-Mes’ general direction.) “...this serve?”
“I don’t know, but… look at them.”
Cellbit looks. He doesn’t understand. Something uncomfortable rises in his throat.
? twirls Pulgoier, leading it into a dip. Pulgoier raises its head and presses its painted mouth against ?’s.
Chest clenching, Cellbit tries to tear his eyes away, but he just… can’t. He can’t. Not when they’re right there, not when they’re-
“You think they’re learning from us, right?” Roier asks. “So… maybe they aren’t learning how to kill us. Maybe they’re learning to be us.”
Cellbit gives him a flat look. “Isn’t that just as bad?”
Roier shrugs, still watching the little monsters.
“Maybe,” he replies. “I’m not a scientist. But… isn’t it kinda crazy that we taught robots how to love?”
But robots can’t love. They can’t. But.
Roier’s arms tighten around Cellbit’s body. His smile is just as forced as it has been since the eggs all vanished, but his eyes are surprisingly soft as he watches the Mini-Mes tumble into the grass from the force of their silent, impossible laughter.
“Maybe,” Roier hums. One hand travels up to cup the back of Cellbit’s head, gently pulling it against his chest. Cellbit listens to Roier’s heartbeat and wills his own heart to match its pace.
“Or,” he continues, “maybe it is. We found our reasons. Maybe they found theirs.”
They watch the Mini-Mes, and the Mini-Mes don’t notice.
The song changes, and Roier starts leading Cellbit into another dance.
Cellbit’s eyes slip shut, and he lets himself get swept away by Roier’s movements.
(Bagi would call Cellbit a monster, but Cellbit found love in the end. So maybe, just maybe, ? could have done the same.)