Maniac with a Spade

Grunlau or Eugene

[grunlaureiser]

AU posting?

yes

yes, but without gore

no

Voting ended onJan 10, 2025

[extra-vertebrae]

A Pokemon-themed digital sketch commission for a private client! I was requested to reinterpret Machoke and Alakazam within the constraints of my personal Pokemon reinterpretation project. General thought process behind Alakazam is included below, because it received the largest change between the two:

The Kadabra line is the quintessential psiovore of the Pokemon world. While psychically formidable, it’s physically weak and fragile. As Abra most of its body is soft and is grublike in appearance. Its tail is a reservoir of psionic energy provided to it by its parents as a yolk, off of which it will feed until it learns how to draw such energy for itself from the living things around it. Portions of its anatomy will harden and grow stronger as it develops into an adult as Kadabra, where most will physiologically remain. A Kadabra further developing into Alakazam is very rare. While most of its body has hardened at this stage, its fragility has not lessened. Its brain can be seen through its partially transparent skull and its ability to retain a psionic reservoir for itself has been greatly decreased. Its smaller reservoir results in increased risk of starvation. To this end, to keep an Alakazam healthy, it must be housed among psychics upon which it can feed. Due to its immense psychic power, an Alakazam is a restricted Pokemon, and not allowed to be let out of its Pokeball within a densely populated area unless that area is rated as possessing high natural psychic resistance (herd resistance / immunity) or wide and easy access to psychic scramblers for those at risk to negative psionic radiation and exposure.

[grunlaureiser]

spoiler alert

[grunlaureiser]

Musical inspiration: Deki Alem - Fun (was contemplating whether to include it here) The loop is full to the brim of illogical designs. This is because the Machine, at the moment of combining pieces from different parts of the Earth, was guided by the likeness of small details, and not by what it would look like as a whole, and certainly not by how it should work together. Like so, you get maps with houses on top of houses, rooms that can only be reached through sewers, cords connecting two walls in the same room, barns with ten floors, each of different height.

On many maps you can find some tech devices. They are not directly related to the Machine, but were developed by the same groups of scientists, at the same time as it. Shortly after the looping, when the very first armed conflict turned from blazing flames into inert smoldering, and people started collecting, these parts motivated them to find more of the tech. They started to scatter from 2fort to neighboring maps looking for more. It’s not so easy to get to some, but we have rocket and sticky jumps, and later will have teleports. We have a person who can figure out how the Machine operates. We only need to find him more terminals, that’s it, and then he’ll manage himself. In any case, new technologies will serve us well, we just need to not stop. Perhaps on one of the many lost maps at the end of a shrinking house, in an inconspicuous tin box behind a locked door, there is a document that will turn everything upside down and highlight a way out of the cycle. Moreover, the problem of clones is already brewing, so it is vital to populate and inhabit new places to keep us a good distance away from each other’s throats. On this map we’ve found a chocolate bar — on the next we will find a microchip! We just need to not stop. Much is already clear with this Machine. It is clear that it will not let you die from wounds, and will not let you die of hunger by respawning canned food, and this is a bright side, because we really don’t like each other. Ammo is also respawned. But if we put aside our disputes for a while, or keep them to ourselves at least, if we are more patient, there is a chance that it will pay off and the loop will break. We will find a way out, if not in this office —, then in the next one. We just need to not stop. The Machine does let you out of bounds, sure, but there's nothing even remotely resembling the rest of the Earth. In fact, there's nothing. You can go anywhere but it will be no use. Organizing underground passages between maps no longer seems like too idiotic of an idea. It is indeed stupid, but there have been more stupid ones. Sometimes, if you break through a wall in a room, you can find a narrow passage a few feet wide behind it. It has lights, it has wiring, it has tiling, the only thing missing is doors. If you break the wall at the opposite end, it might just lead somewhere else. Somewhere useful. Maybe it will even allow us to take possession of the intel that another expedition hid from us. You just need to not stop.

[hello-smile]

I have never painted so seriously for a long time.

This character from @grunlaureiser , I really like it

Picture 2 is Drawing attempt

[grunlaureiser]

Musical inspiration: Yabujin - BAATH

Pike is a happy little beast. Despite being a pyro, he loves water and is a very good swimmer. Apart from burning people alive, it is one of his few joys in this world. The gas mask grew dead into his head, sealing his nose, melting his ears, laminating his eyes under the glass, and twisting his mouth to an extent that even though the mouth is open, he still cannot speak. However, Pike has an open frontal nose in his crest, and he happily uses it as a snorkel for diving. At the same time, water procedures wash away the sharp burnt smell from inside his crest that most of the time prevents him from smelling anything else (but even then his sense of smell barely works).

The fireproof suit that became one with his skin prevents him from feeling the wetness of the water, and Pike has poor sense of touch and temperature in general. When swimming, he does not feel the waterness, but weightlessness and the soothing swaying of his body back and forth with the waves. It feels neat.

[grunlaureiser]

Hullo!

I was curious about the Mourtairs; do they happen to have a preferred diet? :’-O

Hallo freund! The short answer is "the same as humans." Mourtairs are mutated humans and normally retain their human qualities, the diet being one of them. The long answer is "it depends on the personality." Mourts can't taste, only smell, which could affect their preferences. Mourts are designed to merge with different objects, sometimes inorganic, and to renew or grow those parts back, they will have to eat something that contains the required compounds. They are not suited for chewing, so gulping the food whole becomes a more comfortable way of consuming things for them. And, to top it all off, they are noticeably more resistant to food poisoning than regular humans. They still can be poisoned, though. Maniac often explores the limits of his body and boundaries of his diet by trying to rot his food, melt it in acid and lye, burn, macerate, and so on, and so on. Mirage's diet had a plenty of alcohol even back when he was a pure human, now it is obligatory. He also has to eat and drink a lot, and I mean a lot, because one of his attacks is stomach acid spewing. Pike can be found tasting or huffing gasoline or other flammables (no, not to get high). Spy does his best to control his food so that it is as "human" as possible. He won't eat anything that appears stale, but he cannot know for sure. Note: the mourtair are not unique to the Loop. They can live anywhere where humans live.

[grunlaureiser]

This is not the final version of King's external appearance, and to mask it I used this interesting lightning and made him half-open the metal carapace so that you can't really tell which part is what. We have been haunting each other for a long time now, but I only know what details should definitely be in the design and what maybe shouldn't be there. But if I never try to settle it in a drawing, the image won’t ever emerge, will it? Be ready for occasional redesigns.

The King is the most successful follower of the idea of ​​combining man and machine. He strives for symbiosis, for an improved being, where the machine would correct the shortcomings of the fleshy shell, and the living part would support the machine in what it is technically lacking. He doesn't remotely feel his inorganic parts as alien or awkward, so closely are they intertwined with the nerve system and so obedient to him. He is not restricted by his personal steel coffin, he is the steel coffin. And since the replacement continued over many years, step by step, he also had virtually no problems with mastering the new parts of himself. He feels all the gears, axles, doors and injectors like the back of his hand. His movements are effortless and alive, unlike what one might expect from usual machinery. The King is actually part computer, which has enhanced his human computing potential exponentially. And he doesn’t really need this for war, although, of course, it won’t work out completely without war. In his research, he tries to keep the moral standard at an acceptable level, but is forced to continue experiments on people. Fortunately, the cult around his personality arose more or less by itself, when rumors began to spread about his successes with prosthetics of almost anything, and not just for someones, but primarily for himself. He respects the choice of some engineers to remain pure or with only minimal implants that do not affect their humanity, without trying to impose any "tech-doctrine" on them. At the same time, he gladly cooperates with cultists, who see the God's image in the machine and without hesitation turn themselves into a pile of iron. He needs both sides and is smart enough to balance them. He is powerful and helpless at the same time. He needs the Guild to continue the research.

[grunlaureiser]

Hi, hope you have\had a good day today! Hope you wouldn't mind few questions about your characters in LOOP, would be very glad to know a bit 1. Can Spiders-scouts purr? I ask because there is a type of spider "Gladicosa gulosa" who can make purr-like sounds, and for some reason I thought that it seems very fitting for Spider-scouts 2. By the story it seems that Maniac and Freidrich was working with one another, and knew one another personally. But they look like a complete opposites of one another, - Maniac looks like a very calculative and calm person, he seems pretty emotionally distant from everyone around, while Fritz seems to be fighting in-between of phlegmatic/depressed personality and angrily disstressed paranoic. I may be wrong about their personalities of course, you are free to correct me, but how come that this two got so close with one another? and how their social interractions looked like before Fritz lost his squad? If they never actually was close, then how would their interractions looked like? 3. I noticed that through different art the colour pallete of Fritz changes, - sometimes he is almost sky blue, sometimes he is more green. It's a stylistic choice, or colour of his skin really changed through story? 4. What is your own view on the LOOP-world nowadays? May be a bit too personal question, you are free to ignore it. Question arises from the fact that I noticed how some parts of the LOOP was appearing but then disappearing, such as Gera and Treespans. Do you ever felt like you want to redo it completely into something else? Or it looks more like looking at a living science experiment, living on it's own, and you write your observations? Thank you very much for your time and work, and have a pleasant day ♥

Hello, anonymous friend. I sure don't mind, especially because writing is a lot faster than drawing actual things, hehe. 1. Scouders have some "cute" habits, like sleeping/resting in huge flocks, but purring isn't one of them. I looked up the species, and I need to point out that, since I've never specified the animal, Gladicosa gulosa is what they could be. While they do not purr, they can tremble the chelicerae against their teeth, producing rapid clicking sounds. Scouders have a few signals used to expand their communication, the most common being one single click after anything said in human, which stands for "sike/not". 2. Tumblr won't let me publish the whole thing. I'll add it somewhere near the original post. 3. It's half the artistic choice and half me being unable to pick the correct color. His "true" skin color is a bruise purple-green-ish like that of a decomposing body, but I'm good with seeing him more brightly colored. 4. No worries! I never intended it to be a complete story or stories, and see the Loop more like a training ground where almost anything can happen. Observation is a good woord choice. Some are more complete than others. Some still stay mostly hidden from me—the Trespen being a good example. I'd be happy to tell more about them, but I don't have much. Sometimes I have to change major plot points to make them connect, but trying to find a satisfying explanation without too many changes feels more rewarding. Thank you for your interest, kind stranger. Have good weather with you.

[grunlaureiser]

2. Sidenote: this partially happened because I had a period when I wanted to cut ties between the Loop and TF2, and Fritz was one of the few I took out—and then had to put back in. They knew each other long before being hired, Maniac was the canon medic (until he wasn't), while Fritz has been a separate person. Friedrich Hupfauer is one of the patients who came to Doctor Reiser because he felt that his life was falling apart because of something being wrong with him. The doctor, thrilled to have full access to his brain and psyche, started various treatments, which were not of much help but of very much fun. Oddly, this was enough to bond Fritz to the medic. He finally had someone who tried to help and seemingly was on his side. The medic, in turn, was okay with Fritz frequenting and sometimes assisting when he needed a spare pair of hands. Then, the medic found out about the Mann brothers. If Fritz's violent desires can't be cured, why not embrace them! A paid killer is surely what he needs to be. He excitingly shares the news with his patient/assistant/friend. Both end up hired as medics, but for opposite teams. And while the medic is successful by being efficient enough to overshadow the questionable methods, Fritz, with his unattended mentality and barely existing medical skills, isn't doing as great. Seeing as his life started to fall apart again, he grows frustrated. A few years skipped, the teams achieve equilibrium; both RED and BLU now have 9 mercs and are starting to have the clones issue. There are some significant discoveries about the Loop world and a few expeditions going around. Maniac offers Fritz help again. Surely, some of those discoveries can be used to do something fun to patients, just like the good old days! This should ease his mind. Fritz takes RED hostages to experiment on them and heads underground in hopes of finding something useful there. Maniac takes BLU hostages and escorts them to the Rift, that weird-looking black crack in the sky. There was nothing of use underground. Fritz's demomen showed less and less compliance. Everything he had—people's trust, time, resources—was running thin. In a last-ditch effort, he collects random small animals he's able to find nearby and starts telefrag-fusing the hostages in hopes something comes out of it. It does. He creates himself, the fish human, the spider scout, the armadillo bug demo, the centipede sniper, the roach soldier, and others (I have no certain info on what animals the rest of the team were). The demomen revolt, blowing up as many ways out of the Catacombs as they could to trap the monsters and flee. The Inhuman team doesn't seem to take lightly what happened to them, either. Mantis, the roach soldier, steps up, and Fritz has a meltdown. Scouder escapes the Catacombs by parkouring his way out, and Shelldem is able to fend Fritz off with his armor plates. The rest die, respawn as pure humans, and go spill the horrifying tales, adding colorful details to demonize Fritz even more. Maniac manages his hostages better and builds some trust with the BLU spy and engineer. He enters the Rift, and comes out changed. His personality flips completely, and he calmly notes that he's met the God there—and killed him. As proof, he now has this strange serum; he has already injected himself with it, and you should, too. Spy sees this as an opportunity and gets fully into it, convincing the rest of the team to take the risks. This doesn't make them any more divine than they already were, and Spy silently regrets this decision to this day but still holds Maniac's mourtair team together, seeing other benefits in continuing doing so.

[grunlaureiser]

Hi, hope you have\had a good day today! Hope you wouldn't mind few questions about your characters in LOOP, would be very glad to know a bit 1. Can Spiders-scouts purr? I ask because there is a type of spider "Gladicosa gulosa" who can make purr-like sounds, and for some reason I thought that it seems very fitting for Spider-scouts 2. By the story it seems that Maniac and Freidrich was working with one another, and knew one another personally. But they look like a complete opposites of one another, - Maniac looks like a very calculative and calm person, he seems pretty emotionally distant from everyone around, while Fritz seems to be fighting in-between of phlegmatic/depressed personality and angrily disstressed paranoic. I may be wrong about their personalities of course, you are free to correct me, but how come that this two got so close with one another? and how their social interractions looked like before Fritz lost his squad? If they never actually was close, then how would their interractions looked like? 3. I noticed that through different art the colour pallete of Fritz changes, - sometimes he is almost sky blue, sometimes he is more green. It's a stylistic choice, or colour of his skin really changed through story? 4. What is your own view on the LOOP-world nowadays? May be a bit too personal question, you are free to ignore it. Question arises from the fact that I noticed how some parts of the LOOP was appearing but then disappearing, such as Gera and Treespans. Do you ever felt like you want to redo it completely into something else? Or it looks more like looking at a living science experiment, living on it's own, and you write your observations? Thank you very much for your time and work, and have a pleasant day ♥

Hello, anonymous friend. I sure don't mind, especially because writing is a lot faster than drawing actual things, hehe. 1. Scouders have some "cute" habits, like sleeping/resting in huge flocks, but purring isn't one of them. I looked up the species, and I need to point out that, since I've never specified the animal, Gladicosa gulosa is what they could be. While they do not purr, they can tremble the chelicerae against their teeth, producing rapid clicking sounds. Scouders have a few signals used to expand their communication, the most common being one single click after anything said in human, which stands for "sike/not". 2. Tumblr won't let me publish the whole thing. I'll add it somewhere near the original post. 3. It's half the artistic choice and half me being unable to pick the correct color. His "true" skin color is a bruise purple-green-ish like that of a decomposing body, but I'm good with seeing him more brightly colored. 4. No worries! I never intended it to be a complete story or stories, and see the Loop more like a training ground where almost anything can happen. Observation is a good word choice. Some are more complete than others. Some still stay mostly hidden from me—the Trespen being a good example. I'd be happy to tell more about them, but I don't have much. Sometimes I have to change major plot points to make them connect, but trying to find a satisfying explanation without too many changes feels more rewarding. Thank you for your interest, kind stranger. Have good weather with you.

[grunlaureiser]

Work fragment. The whole piece is not finished yet, and it (likely) won't be posted here because it's not about the Loop, but its characters are here so I might as well post this part.

[grunlaureiser]

I'm quite confused about if it's only one au or more than one, probably is well put and I just couldn't read it right, but if you could explain it'd be nice!

Hello, kind stranger! There is only one AU, the Loop. In a nutshell, it is as much game-accurate world as possible. There are no comics characters and no Halloween characters - not within the Loop, at least, - only the mercenaries and variations of them. The classes are clones of each other, can respawn, things around them can respawn too, and this is how they have not leveled their entire world yet. Their general motif is looking how to break the Loop. They don't know what will happen if they do, and if there is a way to get back home at all, and still, it's one of the main reasons they fight each other, because the winner who has the intelligence (presumably) gets to leave. On the way to discover the laws of the new world and ways to interact with it, they tame many fantastic phenomenons and create the things we know from the OG game - spawnpoints, teleports, healing weapons, futuristic laser weapons, flaming hats that do not burn, etc, etc. There are also things unique to the Loop, and I'd have redone or removed completely some of them if I were to make this world now; alas, most of them are traces of how I was thinking in the past and are not easily corrected when I'm so used to them.

[grunlaureiser]

the heaby

[grunlaureiser]

Who's the king who wears the crown? No light, just horrible sounds The hollow voices carrying My body, my pride, my radiant insight I figured all this focus, had just been given to me So set in self derision, as I feel my vision slipping away I figured I was worthless, destined to wither away

King is the Guild's leader engineer. That much is obvious, but let's start our acquaintance with him from a more recognizable piece, of which very little remains. He went a long way to become this. Before being called King, he started from the periphery, slowly, gradually, step by step getting rid of the unnecessary parts of himself that were technically easier to replace. Fingers, then hands and feet, then arms up to the elbows and legs up to the knees, and then most of the muscles, followed by the bones... Freed from the isolation of flesh, the nerves, like wires, were reconnected to the mechanical components to now control them. The head changed very little. Despite several important implants, it is essentially the same as always: King sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, and speaks through his mouth. Moreover, he eats through his mouth, too.

The rudimental organic body is very small and does not need much food, but it still does need some, and it turned out to be easier to leave the natural way of converting food into energy designed by nature than to reinvent it. Of course, his organ complex has been proportionally reduced to fit the new requirements. The heart has been replaced with a smaller one — there is no need for high pressure for just the head, the nervous system, and a couple of tiny organs. The digestive tract has also been reduced here and there, either on its own or with outer help. The lungs have been replaced, except for the layer of diffuse tissue, whose job is to deliver oxygen to the blood. All of this is secured directly under the head, in a box that replaces the rib cage. No matter how little remains of the body, it is still subject to the usual physical ailments and may require medical maintenance, so a significant portion of the organic matter is neatly arranged to ensure easy access to any organ.

It is not good to remain at the doctor's appointment with the armor plates open for too long, it might be dangerous.

[grunlaureiser]

haiiiii grunlau

stupid ask coming in bcs i have TWO things to share and they’re both abt eugene yahhhh

i was trying to #share my love of him to a friend (one whose already heard about him enough .. giggles) and i accidentally pressed space while typing and it ??? autocorrected to WIFE???? now what would eugene think of this does this mean he’s wife material . . .. is he MY wife??? by jove what’s going on

perhaps i made a typo somewhere else in it for that to happen tho…… Hhhmmm …

SECONDLYYYT shuffles feet… i finally did a layout of him i think it’s super duper cools yahhh i lovb it a lot except i may change the status emoji bcoz i don’t like how bright red it is compared 2 everything else on my profile LOL

yah that’s all … u could say i’m a fan of him

Hey there! What Eugene thinks/feels is always a tough question, mainly because he's unable to access most human reactions to display them. Oftentimes when he tries to express something it ends in an error - luckily, not dealing any damage or discomfort. He makes a few tries and then time runs out.

He's able to reach some emotions, meaning that the error (or one of them) is sitting somewhere in the early action groups. However, the emotions he can reach are mostly negative; he can express nervousness, fear, panic, melancholy and other things of this part of the spectrum. He is terribly afraid of Ghost taking him over or even being close by, but is pacified when other deadmates are around him, especially Rotten and Sturm. Rotten often makes him follow him as a mobile ammo dispenser, and despite the discomfort of spewing ammo packs, Eugene goes without hesitation. Which leads to that he's okay with being a wife material. He's not feeling anything in particular about the fact; him being still and docile is a good enough sign. You can bathe him, give him toys and treats, and buy cute clothes, he won't mind. Hey, that looks very cool! Like a mini online-shrine (which it probably is).

[kittin12376]

Art trade with the amazing @grunlaureiser of their awesome Sniper Grinning! It's been 3000 years since I last posted any art here lol

Check out their piece here where they drew my boy

[grunlaureiser]

HIII i survived my smoke alarm going off multiple times (EVEN into the morning … what the freak guys!!) and NO i didn’t mean fire alarm idk how i got the words confused that badly oh my god

anyways …… is there maybe Anything….. u can tell me abt my favorite guys ever (eugene, scouders, scoy, scout) (as if you need a reminder when i mention them all the freaking time LOL)

just literally anything about them,, maybe fun little details if there’s stuff you can share that isn’t a big thing for the AU and can’t be shared yet or however else you word that i just wanna know about those silly silly goobs

WAIT DO ANY OF THEM HAVE FAVORITE COLORS OR ANY KIND OF FAVORITE THING………. oouuhhgmnyhoooddd I’ll sob and cry if they do . especially eugene

Hey there! I'm glad to know you survived the smoke alarm. Getting a good sleep is a sensitive subject for me, I'm happy you've endured this. Hopefully it won't freak out ever again without a good reason. Hmm... There are many small trivia about them, but when I'm asked like this, I get lost in what I could provide, heh. I never actually dove deep to find out the "insignificant" information like the favorite color or food, or shape, or season. Might be a fun thing to do. Eugene probably doesn't have a favorite color now, as well as he almost doesn't have his original personality anymore. Most of his self became inaccessible because of the Machine error. Explanation: the Machine stores the information about a person in two separate ways. The data like speed, weight, height, backpack content - everything that's always is his characteristics - is stored statically and doesn't need frequent updates. The data like memory, experience, battle stats - which is dynamic and changes often - is written down constantly, "once per tick" (figuratively speaking, in the actuality I don't know whether the Machine measures any kind of ticks). This allows the locals to keep their memories about previous deaths, despite being reborn with fresh brains during the respawn procedure. At the same time, the locals on themselves are "keys" of sorts. The personal memory is (almost) always tied to a certain clone and should be accessible to him and only him. You are the device to read your own mind. In the case of Eugene, he can't access most of the memory assigned to him. This happened due to the code error somewhere at the early parts of his memory - he still can behave like a very basic human, can understand speech directed at him, can carry out given orders and seems to have a few idle routines, but that's about it.

But! I once had a dream - unfortunately, I've lost the original script I wrote down as soon as I recollected it, so here's a worsened recollection years later - where me as Eugene was walking about a train station enjoying himself. It was a pleasant sunny day with lots of sparkling green around. He also seemed alive, pre-deadmate, although I haven't checked my body to be sure of that. Suddenly, I was attacked by some person who thought I was train hopping, and I was, in fact, planning to, but the attack was a bit too brutal for what I've been doing. The last "shot" of the dream I remember is that we're fighting, the man that looks a little bit like Soldier, knocked me off and is trying to beat me while I'm on the ground, but I'm no weakling. I grab him across the face, covering his nose and mouth, his hair and irises are pure white, his gaze is furious. I think Eugene's favorite color is white.