The labyrinth that Daedalus build so cunningly that he himself could barely escape....

I should be working on various projects, but instead I'll try one of these again.

So... ask me things. About me, about my OCs, about life in general.

Personal or general, it matters not.

Just wondering if any of my watchers would be interested in my posting more fetish-y commissions? Transformation stuff, mostly. Maybe a bit of body horror and guro, too? I don't necessarily want to alienate anyone though, so I can make a separate account for that stuff if viewers would rather.


I also plan on posting more general NSFW art of my OCs. I'm focusing a lot on Lux as a male now, but there's still female Lux stuff too that'll come down the line.

Either way,
Stay legend.

Why is Splatoon so perfect??

It's the most insanely fun thing I've played on a Nintendo console in some time**. Also cute SQUID PEOPLE. Who make cute SQUID NOISES. With cute SQUID MUSIC.

...I'm so hyped for this game I even pre-ordered the stupid Amiibos. Help me.




**apart from kicking ppl's asses in Smash with my Villager.

Feel like trying new things.

Tell me what anthropomorphic animal you want to see my character Lux be in an alternate universe or something.

Song only vaguely related.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7fS.....C57C610DDDC3E4

The Chinese knock off of Gumball is p. funny...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCfBIor9QJA

Notice Gumball no longer has mixed species parents.
Or a sister.
Darwin seems to be a sentient booger or something?

There's a Chinese Adventure Time as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIgWgFjTG8A

I will eagerly await Chinese Steven Universe.

I grow more and more convinced as time goes on that the Swans may just be the greatest band in the world.

I adore their output throughout the late 80s and 90s (Great Annihilator being my personal favorite), but their comeback has just blown me away. Aren't artists supposed to be LESS good when they make a "come back?"

2010's My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky / Look At Me Go

Brilliant.

2012's The Seer

Utterly amazing.

2014's To Be Kind.

Holy Shit. The best Swans album ever?? One of the best albums ever??


Oh shit and blood! Forever love!

In my spare time I used to fancy myself an archeologist.

There was an abandoned office complex near the suburbs where I used to live, but it was still open to the public because a small movie theater resided somewhere in its depths. Much of it was barren and closed off though, and I'd often just visit to roam the empty corridors and stairwells. It was a failed venture originally intended as some kind of underground business center. Instead it ended up being the perfect setting for a slasher flick or the shambling undead. What made it particularly eerie was that it had been abandoned from the outset, so everything was left untouched, including napkin holders and straw dispensers. It was like a mausoleum with a food court. The only sound was the faint whirring of a floor buffer being pushed around by an otherwise silent figure, a lone specter always haunting the corridors. A guardian tasked with watching over the decrepit specter of someone's dream.

These days I'm somewhat obsessed with abandoned projects, urban ruins, and remnants of the often bizarre intersection between commerce and culture.

My favorite such place is Tiger Balm Gardens. It was built in early 20th century Hong Kong by a wealthy family to promote their Tiger Balm line of products. It was an urban park of sorts with rides and concessions, but its main attraction was a massive lot of disturbing statues. A Google image search will give you some slim idea as to what the vibe of this place was like. You'll see warriors standing next to politicians, demons of all shapes and sizes, and a giant crab with the smiling head of a little boy coming out of its shell. Large grandiose displays depict scenes from Chinese mythology, including panoramas of hell and many of its unspeakable tortures to delight children of all ages. Get your photo taken against a backdrop of colorfully painted stone breasts. When it's all said and done, be sure to buy some Tiger Balm to sooth your nerves.

Sadly the park was eventually shut down and turned into a housing development, though plenty of unsettling statuary remains as a testament to one family's curious vision. If anything time has only served to enhance the fever dream-like quality of the gardens. Seeing the chipped paint, empty benches, and other remnants of the park amidst the urban backdrop, I can't help but feel a certain sense of melancholy.

The same thing can be seen in the digital realm, and the outcome is perhaps even more fascinating. We've all stumbled upon ancient websites from the early days of ALO. With online gaming however entire worlds are forsaken and preserved as digital ghost towns. Some projects like Worlds and Digital Space Traveler are just plain weird, attempts at expanding the concept of chat rooms into various open world environments that are often quite trippy. With hardly anyone using these things now, what's left behind are vast, truly alien realms.

Worlds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqel0k0NzNU

Digital Space Traveler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ab55DHN0w

These remind me of the abandoned underground food court or the Tiger Balm Gardens, lonely places that are at once both familiar and alien, places built out of cultural artifacts and remembrances. The best part is that just about anyone can explore them.

Let's be digital archeologists together.

I've been neglecting Bringback, my poor squid lady who works as a dream janitor.

I'm just never quite satisfied with her design. Which is no fault of the artists who've drawn her, just my own inability to know what I want in the first place.

I've also been neglecting Vespa, my rivet gun toting scrapbooking-obsessed goblin shark. For much of the same reasons as above: her design just isn't coming together in my head properly.

...

So the first item on my agenda is to neglect both of these babbs less.

Second item is to finally give ol' Luxembutt a ref. sheet. I've been having a lot of fun seeing different artist interpretations of her, so I wouldn't really want it to hinder artistic liberties, but rather serve as a more convenient starting point.

Speaking of artistic liberties, I've been having a lot of fun encouraging artists to draw Lux as different species. Given the nature of her job (handling potentially volatile magic artifacts), it seems fitting to have random TFs and other such outcomes.

Third item? Um... I really want a frog character.

I still remember watching this commercial in the late 80s as a little kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md_uz1dKMTM

OH GOSH that's like the most perfect 80s commercial ever.

I think there's a Whatchamacallit bar somewhere in the deep recesses of my psyche. Too bad they (the actual candy bar) aren't that good.

If anyone wants to add me, my name there is Luxembourg.

https://www.weasyl.com/~luxembourg

I just signed up, so uh, nothing there as of right now. That should change when I get around to figuring out how things there work.

^ n00b

Happy New Year 'n' whatnot.

One of my goals for 2014 is to get more art for characters other than Luxembourg. Nothing wrong with Lux, mind. She's my 'sona, and I love her to bits (I wanna kiss her on the lips). However the other butts are getting sad and feeling neglected. This includes:

Bringback:
An alien squid-type lady person. She's very grumpy and not a particularly nice person, used to getting her way and being spoiled with material things. However most of her life she was ignored by her father who is head inquisitor and not nice in a less tsundere and much more "torture people" kind of way. At some point she devised a plot to have him killed, but she was found out and as a result he branded her an outcast. Now she works as a dream janitor of sorts, cleaning up the psychic residue her species leaves behind in the dream realm. Part of this punishment is that she never gets to dream herself, so this makes her very weary and even grumpier. The dream residue can also have long term effects like causing mental illness. Oh dear.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10881876/

Vespa:
A goblin shark who is maybe --just a wee bit-- unstable. She's trying to hunt Lux down in the storyline on which I've been working. Has an obsession with studded clothing and rivets (her primary weapon is a rivet gun she stole from a construction site; perhaps she's a BioShock fan too?). She likes to daydream and record said daydreams in a journal. Her goggles have the words "THE END" scrawled on them in white paint for some reason.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11275700/

Leorta:
My Drell girl. Mass Effect fandom wankery. She works on the Citadel doing questionable aftermarket modifications to omni tools. Her parents were killed a long time ago by space pirates while escorting a Hanar diplomat, and she spent a good part of her early life in captivity. She was rescued by an Asari crew, and the captain ended up adopting and raising her. She has vivid flashbacks thanks to her Drell abilities, so it makes dealing with her trauma difficult. She tries to lose herself in Asari culture, dressing and talking like her adoptive mother. Wants to eventually study Asari music.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11501183/

* * *

I've got a few other characters floating around inside my skull, so maybe they'll pop up too. OTHER GOALS include finally uploading some written material (if anyone is actually interested in readying my stories...lol) and also getting the rest of my commissions up in my gallery. Apparently it pisses people off when I just +FAV them and don't repost? Yeah.

Eleven dollars and eleven cents.

I will refresh the random # generator page again and again until the number of someone I like comes up and screencap it, k?

To enter just get a tattoo of my page's URL somewhere on yer body. I will check each one to make sure it's not sharpie!

^_______________^

Q: If you were a song, what song would you be?

A: I was going to say "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush, but that would be a little too self aggrandizing, so I feel more comfortable saying I'm Chromatic's cover of the song off their Night Drive album. I have an idea of how I want to be, but I know I fall pretty far from that mark.

It's 'officially' Shark Week! Hooray!

Of course, in my world every week is shark week.

Thug lyfe.

I generally don't make OCs in pre-existing fandoms, but Mass Effect is such a fertile ground for that kind of thing, so I couldn't help myself.

The result is Leorta. She's a female drell, roughly equivalent to an 18-year-old in human age (I think human and drell lifespan is similar?). She resides in the lower wards of the citadel where she runs a small kiosk selling cheap omni tool upgrades. She has no blood relations but an adoptive asari mother of sorts whom she lives with and adores. Leorta's biological kinfolk resided on Kahje, several generations of which served a rather well-to-do household. When she was a wee lass she accompanied her parents on a voyage with a hanar diplomat, but unfortunately they never made it to their destination, as their ship was diverted by pirates and ransacked.

The only one left alive was Leorta. The pirates took a fancy to her and decided they wanted a drell "pet" as a plaything and trophy. Leorta was kept in captivity for nearly three years, accompanying the pirates on raids across the Terminus System. She spent this time studying schematics of security systems, traps, and crude incendiary devices, basically teaching herself basic engineering and saboteur techniques. Her drell memory definitely came in handy, allowing her to sneak off for a few stolen moments to look at blueprints or listen in on conversations whenever they docked at Omega or other seedy outposts. Biding her time, she waited for the right opportunity to present itself to make her escape.

The opportunity finally presented itself when the pirates ran afoul of a group of asari mercenaries. Sabotaging the pirates' defense systems and setting traps, Leorta was able to help tip the battle in the asari's favor. When she discovered the young drell and what she had done, the merc leader offered to help her escape. Leorta pleaded not to be taken back to Kahje however; she wanted to stay with her rescuers and make herself useful in any way she could. Most of the mercs where against the idea of playing babysitter, however their leader was intrigued by the young drell and respected her wishes, and over time the two became quite close.

In fact, the asari came to see Leorta as a daughter of sorts. She had been looking for an excuse to "retire" from the merc lifestyle and settle down, so pulling some favors and cashing in a few debts, she and the drell---now in her teenage years---came to live in the lower wards of the Citadel. There Leorta puts her engineering skills to use at her somewhat menial but steady job, enjoying the sense of stability her life now has. She is still haunted by flashbacks (those powerful ones drell can get lost in while recollecting) of her abuse and time spent in captivity however, and in additional to those psychological scars she also carries a physical reminder in the form of a gash across the bridge of her nose that runs from one cheek to another.

Leorta is extremely attached to her adoptive mother and asari culture in general. She'll often wear asari attire, say asari phrases, and practice their customs. She also follows their pop culture as best she can in an attempt to stay current with popular trends. She's been pushed to reconnect with her drell heritage, but at this point she shows little interest---even outright aversion---to that end. Personality-wise, Leorta is immensely stubborn and insists on doing things her way. She's obsessive compulsive, and she often approaches things in a very specific ritualistic way, so when others don't follow along this upsets her. She's extremely meticulous which stems in part from her hating to feel like she's not in control of a situation.

At this point in her life, Leorta feels a strong sense of obligation toward her adoptive mother despite the latter's desire for her to go out into the world and flourish. Leorta can't help but feel a bit bored with her life's predictability, yet she's also terrified at the prospect of losing that predictability at the same time. She's a fairly conflicted individual as a result of this. Leorta is drawn to other races and their cultures, not just the asari, and one of her biggest pleasures is discovering new styles of music. Her omni tool is loaded with tons of music from various parts of the galaxy, and one of her most popular mods she sells is upgrading lower-end omni tools to have better audio playback quality. She can be found frequently annoying neighboring kiosk owners in the wards due to her playing vorcha "opera" at incessantly loud volumes.

Hey look another TL;DR journal post.

First off, a big heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful artists who have drawn Lux, either through commissions or as gifts. I've also gotten some positive feedback on her design and personality, which means quite a lot to me. I plan on posting some stories that feature her at some point in the not-too-distant-future, so I look forward to seeing how people respond to her further development.

While Lux is really dear to me---she's basically my 'sona---I'm still rather attached to my other characters, some of which have been kicking around the back of my head for years. One of these is the squid girl you may have seen in some of my commissions. Her name is Bring-Back. I was a bit fixated on her (and the band Sigh) when I created this account a few years back, hence my username.

Older art will likely depict her with four humanoid arms, but something about that arrangement bothered me. I think maybe she looked a bit too awkward, not streamlined enough? I've since dropped the second set and elongated her midsection somewhat in an effort to make her sleeker and more squid-like. Also squids have ten appendages, so if she has four arms and two legs, that only leaves four tentacles which added to the awkwardness of her design a bit further. Six tentacles forming her "skirt" seems better, plus it allows her two human arms to stand in for the two longer arms squids possess.

Anyway, one of the ideas behind her design was that the tentacles around her waist form a sort of organic skirt. They're somewhat flat and broad to accommodate the set of humanoid legs she has as well. In that sense she's not a mermaid-type character; she can walk on land without any difficulty. But yeah, if the tentacles were too rounded it would add too much bulk down below like a massive bustle-y Victorian dress, so I made them more like strips of flesh. They move around but have a somewhat limited range of motion. At some point I want to carry the "living dress" thing a bit further and add a web of skin covering her chest from shoulder to shoulder like a capelet of sorts. Skin texture is somewhat rubbery I'd imagine, and it varies in color from lighter flesh tones to a darker purply color. I also picture splotches of this darker coloring in places. I'm thinking her 'hair' is maybe some kind of analog to human hair. Maybe.

This is actually a species design too, as the main inhabitants of Lux's world are these squid-folk (I haven't settled on a name, but I have several ideas). In that sense Bring-Back is pretty run of the mill. I'll post more about the species as a whole later, but for now suffice it to say Bring-Back is actually quite stereotypical in a lot of respects despite her attempts to be original. She's also something of a troublemaker. Her father is the Grand Inquisitor, which means he's the head of that region's "morality police" which sits at the intersection of their society's religious institutions and law enforcement. She harbors a profound bitterness toward him, so she had dug up some dirt to try to discredit him.

Which landed her in a lot of hot water. When her father discovered his daughter's treachery, he had her stripped of her title and social standing and branded one of The Dead. It's a designation for social undesirables and outcasts, a scarlet letter of sorts. As such her full name with title is Bring-Back The Dead. She's forbidden to enter residential districts and visit certain establishments now, can't interact with higher castes, can't own property. The real punishment comes at night however. Dreams are extremely important for her race of squid-folk, and they have a certain collective subconscious wherein they interact more intimately and share thoughts and feelings. The Dead are basically shut off from the rest of their kind when dreaming, alone and forced to stifle their emotions without an outlet to offload onto. Over time it takes a huge toll, and some unfortunate souls end up going mad and/or committing violent acts during the daylight hours. To add insult to injury, The Dead are also tasked with cleaning up other peoples' psychic residue. In other words they're janitors of the dream world. This residue is quite potent, and exposure to it can trigger very unpleasant thoughts and sensations. Also they're sometimes tasked with capturing nightmare beasts. It's one of the only highlights as far as the mind-numbing tedium is concerned, but unfortunately it's an exceedingly dangerous one. Their name ('The Dead') comes from their hollow stares during daylight hours, as they are often emotionally and physically exhausted.

Personality wise, Bring-Back is not particularly pleasant. Her race is known among outsiders for being arrogant and somewhat conniving, and she doesn't do much to dispel these negative stereotypes. She has quite a haughty attitude to boot. Many of her kind seem resistant to opening themselves up to others, but this is partially the result of their being more emotionally intimate during their sleep cycle. Not having this outlet has taken its toll on her, and she feels vulnerable and lonely, but she's reluctant to admit as much. It becomes somewhat obvious however that this is a driving factor behind her befriending Lux.

Speaking of, the shark humanoids I mentioned before are somewhat common in this society. The squid-folk have been in contact with humans for a while now, and they've taken to using human stock for the purposes of familiars and as a convenient labor source. The squid-folk are highly predisposed to the arcane arts; they use their magic to mix humans with various "lower lifeforms," usually infusing said lifeforms with cataloged human properties, but in some cases abducting humans and doing it the other way around. These hybrids are often bonded to a particular wizard and serve him/her obediently; in those cases their level of care depends on their benefactor, ranging from 'slave' to 'one of the family.' Now and then a hybrid will be dismissed or its master will die, and so it enters society at the bottom of the social ladder so to speak, basically eking out a living doing menial work.

Lux actually does quite well for herself, and she has a bit of social standing relatively speaking, at least as much as hybrids tend to get on their own. Still, associating with her is something Bring-Back would likely not do if it weren't for her being an outcast herself. The two have a somewhat shaky friendship for a while, but gradually things begin to thaw. I'll probably elaborate more on their interactions later.

I've had quite a few characters bouncing around inside my brain for a while now, so it's nice to finally see some of them liberated from those confines and out in the open thanks to talented artists here on FA.

On that note, the other shark girl aside from Lux (the dorky one in the suspenders) you'll be seeing in my commissions is named Vespa. Y'know, like the Italian scooters? She's based loosely on a goblin shark. She was created by a witch, though rather than making a shark into a human-like creature a la Luxembourg, she's the result of a human being made into a shark-like creature. The whole thing sort of broke her mind, so she's pretty much mad as a hatter now.

She functions as a familiar of sorts to this witch. It just so happens that this was the witch who killed Lux's wizard-pappy in a magic duel too. Turns out mister wizard had something this witch really wants: some kind of artifact or similarly cliche item probably. When Lux left the castle she deactivated the magic barriers that isolated her from the outside world. Now wide open, the castle was ransacked by Vespa in an effort to locate the item in question. Turns out Vespa found it right off the bat but in one of her "moments" chucked it into the ocean and reported back that is was missing. The witch could only assume Lux had taken it with her, so much to Vespa's delight---just as she had hoped---the order came to track Lux down.

Vespa has a completely irrational obsession when it comes to Lux and really couldn't give a flip about the mission otherwise. Why Lux? It's a secret. At least for now. Really though, this fixation is a little hard to pin down, and it's not entirely clear just what she intends to do with Lux when she finds her. At times Vespa seems to almost idolize her, keeping a diary filled with page after page of scribblings about how she imagines Lux to be. There are hundreds of different permutations, different character profiles and possible scenarios in that thing. Other times she seems to despise her and has some rather dark fantasies to that effect. She has a definite violent streak and has little regard for the feelings of others much of the time.

Her relationship with her master, the witch, is equally complex. In either case however Vespa seems mainly driven by blunt emotions and drives. She seldom plans things out in advance and isn't what one might call a schemer. Many of her actions (such as tossing the artifact into the sea) are done spur of the moment. It's quite possible that even Vespa doesn't know what she herself wants from Lux.

Physically she resembles Lux in some respects: pointy teeth, gills, fins, a tail. She's around the same height, though she's not as gangly as Lux and has more of a curvy figure. Her skin is light gray, and her hair lacks any pigmentation (naturally white). She wears it shorter in the back with longer bangs in the front. The witch more or less grooms her. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of hers however is the large horn-like protrusion coming from her head. It's a goblin shark thang.

She usually wears jackets or coats of varying lengths that have numerous rivets and studs that form a trim of sorts. Vespa is obsessed with rivets and studs. She also wears a pair of goggles with the words "THE END" drawn onto the lenses.

Thought I'd post something about my characters just to give my commissions a bit more context. This is mostly for my own sake, to organize my thoughts, though if someone else reads my descriptions per chance and finds them amusing, well, hey, that's neat.

The shark girl is named Lux. It's short for Luxembourg.

I'm fairly sure she's an oceanic white tip or something along those lines.

She was created by a hoary old wizard who needed someone to salvage stuff from the lower levels of his castle after they were flooded. She wasn't given much in the way of a personality or cognitive skills, basically just a shell to do menial labor. Not long after that the wizard was killed in a magic duel with a rival, and so Lux was left alone and unattended in the castle without any orders or sense of direction. A few years passed, and eventually Lux started to explore, slowly but surely gaining more self awareness and transcending her infantile mental state. When she happened across the wizard's library, she spent several more years teaching herself language and various facts about the world outside.

With sentience came a new and profound sense of boredom, and so Lux worked up the courage to venture beyond the confines of the castle, the only existence she knew. Swiping a few artifacts from the wizard's cache and enough coin to start a life for herself, she sallied forth and made her way to the first city she could find that suited her: a large, bustling seaside port. Magical creatures weren't as novel there as you might think, so she was able to settle in without much resistance. Having money and huge teeth to scare people away from trying to take said money certainly helps in that respect.

Now she basically works as a customs agent keeping track of ship manifests and inspecting incoming cargo. In a way this is ideal for her, as it allows her to be close to the water; she also has a deep seated fascination with enchanted items, artifacts, and magic-powered automata, so she's always on the lookout for them amongst the items that pass through day to day. She spends her spare time studying such artifacts and translating ancient tomes on enchanting, and in the evenings she assists the senior researchers at the local university for the arcane arts. From time to time she'll also teach introductory courses in enchantment to unenthusiastic novice initiates.

Personality wise she often seems distracted and preoccupied. She tends to ruminate a lot, and her thoughts typically diverge into numerous tangents; essentially she's off in her own world during these times. It's not uncommon to find her with her nose buried in a book. She's fairly awkward, at least on land, and she's been known to run into her desk while pacing about her office. Quirks include chewing on just about anything within arms reach---typically desktop supplies---which are then ruined in the process. She also makes a rather curious expression while mulling things over: flashing her teeth with the corners of her mouth downturned, like a toothy grimace.

She's amiable enough most of the time, if a bit absent minded, and she's prone to bouts of enthusiasm when talking about her interests. Though she might seem oblivious, she's actually very good at reading people and sensing emotions thanks to her predatory senses. How she responds to those emotions however is another matter. She's rather socially awkward when it comes to delicate matters and discretion, though she's not shy. She can also be a bit of a smart ass when she's annoyed.

Her style of dress could perhaps be described as falling somewhere along the continuum between "professor" and "paper boy." Slacks, tweed pants, button up shirts, vests, jackets, wingtip shoes, ties. The most ubiquitous look for her involves suspenders and a Greek fisherman type cap. She has glasses (usually boxy or horn rimmed style frames) that come out whenever she's reading or just wants to look smart. Her eyesight is best suited for underwater environments.

Her body is also built for swimming. She's lanky and has somewhat broad shoulders, her bust size is rather small to make her more hydrodynamic, she's got gills on her neck, and her digits are webbed slightly (no more than 1/4th along their length). Due to her build and style of dress she's a fairly androgynous looking individual. Her gender is basically fluid.

As far as her appearance goes, take a look at the various commissions of her. To be perfectly honest I'm pretty flexible in how she's portrayed. I've never been the type of individual to get all uptight about the specific details of my OCs, and I encourage artists to exercise some freedom in how they portray her. For example the exact ratio of shark to human isn't necessarily set in concrete: she can be more overtly shark-like with a longer pointy head, or she can have a more human shaped head with a snout, or she can even have a totally human head with a set of big ol' shark chompers. Whatever floats the artist's boat.

Additionally her backstory can be applied to a variety of different settings. Perhaps she was made by a space wizard in a castle on another planet, and she works for a customs office at a space port.

Oh, and as for her name: she was never given an official name by her creator. I assume she took "Luxembourg" from a book or something, as she liked the way it sounded. Also "Lux" means light. Maybe that has some kind of significance? Maybe not. Whatevs.

Sometime I'll talk about the squid girl, too.