Bit of a ramble post, I’ve just been feeling a lack of motivation to draw recently and I thought writing it out might help as well as to figure out what I'm gonna do going forward.

My enthusiasm for drawing has really fallen off recently, mainly around October. I knew Inktober was going to be hard for me to finish, I had planned on wrapping it up by the end of November but I dropped off on that quickly and I’ve struggled to really have the motivation to continue. With Inktober or any other kind of drawing really, my job is definitely a factor, I’ve been very busy with work and that’s left me very drained in the evening. Though I don’t think that’s the only reason, there has been some negative feelings I’ve had on my drawings as well, I don’t know if my skills are really improving, don’t know if I’ve really got a style I can call my own and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the projects I want to complete actually done. I never thought I’d get to a professional level, I’m not entirely sure what level of artistic skill I can reach that would make me feel satisfied. Just recently I’ve felt more and more I'm on the outside looking in rather than a proper member of the artistic community and seeing so many talented artists on this site does make me feel a bit like a kid at the adults table. There’s so many great pieces of art being posted I feel somewhat inept.

I know it's not ideal to compare myself to strangers, I never went to art school and art my job, there will always be people who've had better education, have more knowledge, skill and time than I do towards making better art. At the end of the day I can only make what I am capable of making. If I'm not happy with my output the solution is too work on myself so I can make things I can be proud of making, not looking at others' work and comparing the gap between me and them.

I guess questions I should try to answer is, what do I want out of my creative endeavours, and how do I get there. 

The creative area’s I’m interested in are drawing, writing and comics, drawings the most I’ve done, writing not so much, and I’ve only tried my hand at two short comics, one drawn by myself and one I commissioned another artist to do. I have a few other comic project ideas I’d want to have made if I can, either drawn by me, or commissioned by someone else. 

Getting my drawing skills up is my main priority, again I don’t know what level of drawing ability I’d be satisfied with, I hope to know when, or if I get there, writing I find a harder thing to qualify. I think the best way to figure it out is to get on with some writing and then I can review from there how to improve or where I want to be with it. 

Where do I go from here? Getting back to drawing would be a good start, I'm thinking about redoing the art course that got me into drawing, completing that again from start to finish to maybe re-learn some of the basics. Maybe pick up a new cores for more advanced techniques or to help develop a style, and in the short term I might give myself some simple projects to get my hand back in. 

I may re-visit Inktober 24, certainly would not be the first time I've left it off and picked it up again much later, though I'll see where things take me, might want to work on simpler, one off illustrations first, maybe try doing things in other mediums.

I would like to try writing again as well, though what I am most interested in is writing for comics. I have done some short stories. I find writing projects harder to stick with than drawing, there’s still one from 2021 I never finished due to losing faith in it, so finishing that would be a good start. 

Once that’s done I’ll move on to the scripts for the comic idea’s I have and then look into getting them illustrated, either by myself or through another artist. 

Will have to see where 2025 takes me, but to summarise what I’m aiming for next year and how to get there. 

Improve art skills, maybe try developing my own style.

• Re-do the drawing course I initially completed to learn the basics of drawing. 
• Get back into drawing, painting etc. some fairly easy short term projects to start with. 
• Maybe do fresh online course to learn more advanced art techniques and see if I can develop my own style / take my art to the next level. 

Do more writing

• Finish story “home” last left off in 2021. 
• Work on scripts for comic projects

Comics 

• With finished scripts work on getting them illustrated, ether by me or by another artist. 

This may not be the plan I stick too but one thing I know is I don’t want to quit, or go so long without doing anything that I then find it harder to get back into. I sometimes find the motivation to draw difficult but I feel worse if I do nothing at all.

I hope 2025 is a good creative year for everyone, whatever your personal creative journey looks like.

October's come and gone, by far my favourite time of year, I love Halloween, it's my birthday, there's Inktober and Comic Con so lots of nice things. Time of year that really makes me want to indulge in horror games & movies and gets some of the creativity flowing. Thought I'd do a look back over some of what I did this month and what I wanted to accomplish and how well I did that.

Artwork.

Inktober not going as well as I would have liked, I never expected to do 31 in 31 days, I'm not a partially fast drawer and I got a full time job, plus other things I wanted to do so it was never going to be a full one a day. I did a few in September to get a head start and was hoping to get around 10 a month but I fell short on that as well. I think part of the issue is once I've already fallen off the daily posting that dose then set the bar lower and it's easy to keep putting it off. My initial goal was to finish by end of November but I think I've fallen off track to achieve that as well unless I really kick it up with drawing output.

I'm thinking I may need to scale it back, someone suggested to me that in September perhaps just pick my 10 favourite drawings from the list, in whatever order they come in and just do those ones and upload on there retrospective days, maybe pick up more if I have time so will give that a go. But who knows perhaps I'll learn to manage my time better and/or learn to draw faster so I can actually meet all of them, will need to see where I am next year.

Collab project

I like monster and creature design, so I gave a shot at managing a collaborative creature design project, advertising on Jamriot's discord I put together a rough theme and collected artwork and a music theme for the piece.

I enjoyed doing it, there some problems I did not think off in advance and got fewer entries than I would have liked, but I'm trying to look at it as a learning experience. There are some things I would look to do differently should I attempt this again and I think I would like too. I enjoy projects where there's multiple artists work on display, and again fan of creature design so this is the sort of project I'm interested in.

ComicCon!

October ComicCon in London, third year running, I really enjoy getting to meet creators first hand to discuss there works, mainly graphic novels, some game developers as well and between that and my birthday I got a lot of new reading material. Admittedly I am a slow reader so this will keep me busy for a while, one goal was to stock up on decent reading material and I think I've successfully done that, as well as support indie creators with books and other artwork.

Overall good month, sort of wish I'd gotten more done with Inktober and maybe some other creative projects but there's only so much I can fit in with my work, and going to ComicCon is a couple whole days in of itself.

I would like next year to get some more creative projects done, perhaps not all in October itself, but get some things planned, started and maybe finished in time for that, such as artwork, maybe even a horror comic. For now my goal is too finish my Inktober's, I would like to see the full 31 prompt list though to the end.

So yeah I only made it too day 9 of Inktober, at least in terms of keeping it up to date, I was never expecting to make 31 one images in 31 days, I'm a slow drawer and with my work / other hobbies It would be quite hard for me to keep up.

I do plan on finishing the whole 2024 prompt list, ideally before the end of November.

Buckshot Roulette, the only game where you play Russian roulette, with a shotgun with a demonic pac man at a nightclub. 

Gameplay’s simple, you and the Dealer take turns with a shotgun randomly loaded with blanks and live rounds, live rounds damage you both but shooting yourself with a blank round gives you a free turn to possibly hurt the Dealer. For example if there’s one of each and you take the risk and it’s a blank, you get to shoot the Dealer who otherwise would be the one shooting you. If the gun runs out it gets re-loaded until the level is cleared, there are 3 levels total, each one giving you both more health, and beyond the first round things get more tactical, each time the gun is loaded you get items that let you do new actions. 

Handcuffs guarantee you two turns in the row by cuffing your opponent, a magnifying glass lets you peek at what the current shell is, saw lets you deal double damage if the next round is lived. Cigarettes let you heal and beer lets you cock the current shell and move on to the next one. 

Between keeping track of how many of each type of ammo you have and figuring out the best uses of your items the game creates a fun, tense puzzle where the solution is always gun. And frankly I think more puzzle games should try that. 

It is a short game, you can watch it start to finish and see almost everything there is to see in less than 20 minutes on YouTube, but it’s only $1.20 and I think it’s well worth it. The satisfaction of getting one over the Dealer with well used puzzles and the terrifying anticipation of waiting to see if your next shot will be a live or blank round is a great emotional high I think is best experienced 1st hand. 

The games’ short but what there is has been polished well with lots of little touches, the gun always shakes in your character's hands, clearly nervous. When you're shot the music gets louder and more intense, before stopping completely entirely when it comes near the end of the game to really build up the tension.  

Even the way the player and the Dealer handle some items are different, the dealer always cuffs you when he decides to use the handcuffs, but when you use them he takes them off you to cuff himself. Like he's determined to keep as much control over the game as possible. For a NPC who does not have a voice there's a lot of personality to him, he smiles when you start but instantly drops it when shot just once, at the start he loads the gun slowly, then gets quicker as he starts taking things more seriously. All the while dropping taunts or warnings to you, trying to unnerve you. There's so many more little touch ups I could not cover here but again I think this game was well polished and Mike Klubnika did a great job with it. 

Some quick tips for playing. 

1. Whenever the gun is loaded you always go first which can be played to your advantage. 

2. You can keep items between reloads so stack up on items for combo uses, but items do not carry between levels, so if the end is possibly near don't hold back. 

3. Pay attention to the Dealer's items, he can pull off some nasty combos himself with the right set up so try to mess with him if you can. 

I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know if you're somehow reading this, but I really like this game and I wanted to give it, and Mike some praise. I think he’s a creator to keep an eye on and I’m hoping for some kind of further development of Buckshot. I've seen many people expressing interest in a multiplayer mode and I really hope that can happen one day. 

Thanks for reading and have fun blowing your face off!

Link to game: https://mikeklubnika.itch.io/buckshot-roulette

It was dangerous to enter the Forest around Northwood at night, for a darkness lurked between the trees there, a darkness that hungered and stalked like a beast, tearing flesh from the bones of any creature it courted. It had no call or voice of its own, but took the voices of those it killed, the last thing a victim would hear would be the chatter of the dead, the last thing they would see is darkness and then they would become a part of it. 

The people of Northwood called it the Whispering Darkness, as terrifying as it was they had grown to know it well, the Darkness did not approach light, and it only hunted four months of the year. The first two leading to the winter solstice, and two afterwards, when the nights were at their longest. 

It was unknown where the Whispering Darkness spent the rest of the year, perhaps in some lair deep underground, but during the months it was active, the creatures of the forest either hid or abandoned the forest entirely until it was safe again. There was only one species that lived without fear of it, small creatures that glowed green, the light they gave meant the Whispering Darkness could not get close enough to eat them. The children said they were fairies, the adults said there were no such things, only insects with glowing behinds, whatever they were, they were safe. 

The people of Northwood stayed safe with wood, coal and oil, burning fireplaces, street lamps and hand held lanterns provided adequate protection. Northwood was kept bright at night, and the people slept soundly for the most part, although they rarely ventured out late during the Whispering Darkness’ hunting season.

Despite the safety of the town, there were always those willing to push their luck, especially among the young, on the night of the winter solstice, it had become tradition with the towns youth to use the Whispering Darkness as a way of testing bravery among themselves. The older youths would bring children on their twelve years into a clearing in the forest a short way from town, then once the sun had set they challenge them to walk the path back, alone with only a lantern for protection. 

Tonight was that night, completing this task was seen as transitioning from child to adult, to pass meant being accepted into their social circle, to refuse the walk alone meant being labelled a coward, although the name rarely lasted into adulthood proper. Still every child wants to be accepted among their seniors, and themselves be the ones to test the next generation. 

James, along with his fellows in the trial stood with lanterns in hand. "Tim's turn!" the older kids cried, he was brought forward, holding his lantern close to his chest. He was nervous, but unwilling to fail, walked on, their encouragement was yelled after him until he was out of sight, the older kids then talked, laughed and drank what alcohol they could steal from the adults. A ring of torches had been set up in the snow, and everyone had their own lanterns close by. 

James was left the last one to walk, feeling equally afraid of the Whispering Darkness and of social rejection, lantern in hand until he was told to walk, Tim, and every other child who had gone before him had walked, if he did not do it, he would be outcasted. As far as he knew no one who had walked the path before him had seen or heard the Whispering Darkness directly during their walk, he only needed to swallow his fear for a little bit and everything would be alright. 

“Keep your lantern held tightly, and don't stray from the path” One of them told him as he was guided to the entrance, he received a reassuring pat on the shoulder and began to walk.

He knew that, as long as those two rules were obeyed, he would be safe, the ordeal would be over, and he could join the festivities the rest of Northwood were enjoying and take his place among his seniors. 

This path was chosen specifically because it winded in a way that meant both ends were out of sight for most of the walk, he progressed slowly, snow and fallen leaves crunching underfoot, he could see the footprints of the others who had gone before him. This gave him confidence and he walked faster, if they could do it, then so could he. 

The walk started to become somewhat pleasant, the night was quiet, and the air refreshingly cool. Before long he could see the end of the path. The exit was light up just as the start was, he was almost finished. 

James saw it before it made any sound, the exit vanished as something moved between him and it, causing him to stop dead, a dark barrier now blocked his view, James stopped dead, his blood ran cold as he realised what he was facing. 

He began to shake as it looked into the black abyss, in the night, the moon's light blocked by trees it was hard to tell where the Whispering Dark began and the forest's natural darkness ended, he swallowed as he began to hear it. The dreaded whispering of the dead that it had consumed, they sounded distant and far away, too numerous and quiet to identify any one voice from the mix. Chattering quickly, at each other, at James or at something else entirely he was not sure, it was impossible to understand them. 

He stood rooted to the spot, quivering, his lantern was still brightly lit, it could not get close to the light James knew, but seeing it before him, no more than twenty paces away, paralysed him with fear. He could not just stay here he had to move, eventually he willed himself to take a step, walking towards the danger, extending his arm to hold the lantern further from him, hoping to scare it away. 

He took one, two, three steps, then the Whispering Darkness screamed, the voices all shrieking in unison. James' resolve shattered and he ran, forgetting the path he ran directly away from it as fast as he could. Trying to clear as much ground as quickly as possible, crashing through the undergrowth, twigs scratching his face, catching his clothing. 

The Darkness followed, as James moved further back into its domain, away from safety, away from the Town's lights that kept it at bay, away from people who could save him, James had become its prey.  

The boy ran, he could hear it behind him, that he could not tell if he was putting any actual distance between him and it, he could still hear those incomprehensible voices. He focused solely on running as fast as he could, he ran and ran, then tripped. Catching his foot on a tree root he fell hard on the ground, the lantern flew out of his hands and smashed in the darkness before him. 

Cold dread filled James, he could hear the voices getting closer, he scrabbled, and crawled in almost pitch blackness until he hit a tree, and then moved behind it, unable to see he covered his mouth, back to it. 

Tears ran down his cheeks as the voices, they were no longer screaming now, they were whispering, but they were getting closer. He thought he could hear them calling his name, as he sat in the darkness. 

He closed his eyes, it was almost on top of him now, he knew it would be over soon, the Whispering Darkness would devour him, and add his voice to the cacophony of the dead, he waited, and waited, but nothing happened. 

The chatter did not stop, but neither was he eaten, James opened his eyes slowly, the area around him was illuminated, but not by the yellow flame of a lantern, everything was bathed in green. All over his body, hundreds of green lights sat on him, their combined light made his whole body shine in the darkness. 

"The fairies!" James thought to himself. The Whispering Darkness was still close to him, maybe closer to him than it had ever been, he did not know if it was above him, or behind him or elsewhere, the glow of the fairies only extended a little way, and with the forest devoid of light, the creature was invisible. That did not matter however, their light combined was keeping him safe. 

Slowly, very slowly, he stood up, the fairies remained on his body, a few moved around to his back once he removed himself from the tree. Keeping an even aura around him, he began to walk, he'd lost his way but if he could just find a path, he could follow it home. 

As he walked the Whispering Darkness followed, James could hear its stolen voices, to his ear they sounded like they sounded desperate, he tried to ignore them, and focused on walking as carefully as he could. Afraid to dislodge the fairies on him, eventually James found a path, and following it, he found the Northwood’s walls, lanterns where placed all the way around, creating a barrier of light to repel the Whispering Darkness. James walked towards it and stood its glow, only then did he turn around. 

He thought he could perhaps see it, the Whispering Darkness, its form shifting and writhing between the trees, its voices had stopped now, the night was silent again, James thought he could just about see its dark mass retreating back into the forest, giving up its chase. 

The fairies on James' body began to move, they flew off him, they gathered in the air swarming in a bright display, then flew back into the forest. 

"Thank you!" James yelled after them as he watched them go. 

Short story for 2nd writers Jam finished! I hope you enjoyed it, feedback would be appreciated ether here or DMed on discord. Thank you Jamriot for running this again!

Prompt I chose was Lantern if that was not obvious, defiantly leaned more onto a fantasy horror type story, I love monsters, cryptids and things that go bump in the night style stories. So consider this my first real attempt at creating a creature. (I think I might have a failed SPC floating around somewhere)

"Evil darkness" has defiantly been done before, I had to re-think my monster at one point when I realized I'd largely re-created a Doctor who creature, but I'm hoping this has enough of it's own elements to maybe be it's own thing? Idk let me know if you think I did or if I'm just a hack who needs more originality.

Good luck to everyone that entered!

With Inktober 23 around the corner I wanted to shear my drawings for 2021, currently the only Inktober I have fully finished and posted, I have finished 2020 but my scanner is not working so those will be posted somewhere when I can.

I thought rather than posting them all up on here I'd just share the link I made to a slideshow of them, I may post some of my favas up here this week, then hopefully do this years as and when they are posted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1T2wGV2gas

In Jack's room, across no man's land two forces of Lego warriors faced one and other, the barbaric Verg hoard, and the kingdom of Albion, Albion had the numbers, the skilled warriors, and powerful siege weapons, but the Verg had numbers, beasts, and a Dark Wizard with them. Both forces occasionally had its out of place ally, the Verg's for example had the giant plush snake, "Kandoor the world eater" he'd been named. The Albion forces had a remote controlled robot called "Gage" who towered over his Lego allies.  

The Verg’s were the aggressors launching, attacks from their bookshelf fortress. Their forces positioned between books and nick nacks, the Albion's kingdom stood on top of the windowsill opposite. The space between serving as battlegrounds, no man's land, and occasionally other scenes as needed. 

The war had been going on for nearly two whole months, the Verg attacking, the nights going out to fight them while arrows rained from above, so far the Verg had been forced back each and every time. 

Both sides had setbacks, the giant cat monster Milo, had gotten into Jack's room and had messed up his carefully arranged Verg warriors, then there had been time he'd left the windows open, and Albions forces got wet from the rain.

Since the war started there had been tragedy, drama and action! King Randle had been assassinated at his own banquet, Ze, the warrior princess had abandoned the Verg’s and joined Albion after she fell in love with Alex the Strong, leaving the forever scowling Dark Wizard to lead them. However he died fighting Kandoor to stop him eating the villagers, and she had vanished, heartbroken. 

Now leading the Verg, the Dark Wizard had attempted a ritual to unleash a curse on Albion, but had been interrupted at the last minute by the White Knights, Albion's elite warriors, he had gotten away, but had lost a hand in the fight. 

So much more had happened, and so much more was to happen! But mum wanted him to tidy up, so Jack led both forces in their final battle! 

The Verg started first, marching across the floor to the wall, Albion's ground forces waiting for them, miss matched Lego forces and other toys clashed while the catapults fired, taking down a good number of their forces, but then a dragon appeared! 

It flew across the wall, and with its fire breath wiped out most of the weapons, before flying away. Using the distraction the Verg pushed their way though the ground forces and reached the base of the wall, and with the cunning use of blue tac they climbed. 

Gage, seeing this moved in, any that had not started climbing were knocked down by him, as Jack used the remote to make him charge, slightly awkwardly forward. Bulldozing his way through them, before turning 90 degrees and moving forward to the Dark Wizard. 

The dragon meanwhile came back! But this time the Albion knights were ready, they fired the catapults, and hitting the monster it fell, crashing onto the windowsill it was finished off by the White Knights. 

The climbing Verg managed to reach the top, skirmishes broke out between them and the defending Albion forces, with their superior weapons and armour they made short work of them, but more kept coming! 

The Dark Wizard meanwhile took down Gage with a fireball before advancing to the battle himself, raising his one hand and firing lighting at the wall's forces. Albions forces were forced to fall back to the far edge of the windowsill, behind the yellow brick barricade as the Verg forces advanced. The Dark Wizard ordered his pet, Kandoor to advance, it slithered its way up the chair and desk, almost level with the knights, Albion was doomed, once the windowsill was lost, the kingdom would fall. 

But then, a horn sounded in the distance! The Dark Wizard looked over, it was Ze! She was leading a mounted squad, they charged and the Verg on the wall were thrown off as the horses charged through them. 

Ze jumped and landed on Kandoor, the two struggled but she stabbed it in the head with her spear!

The Dark Wizard tried to run, but a catapult fired, and he was crushed under a boulder! With his last breath he cursed Ze and the kingdom of Albion before dying, and a mighty cheer went up from the warriors. 

Just like that, the battle was over, the kingdom of Albion had won! However despite their victory, the kingdom would not last, Verg and Albion forces alike, packed away in the same toy box. Lost limbs reattached, weapons removed, and moved under the bed until summoned again, to play new roles, to carry out new stories the next time Jack needed something to pass the time. Their struggle may not have been real, but the joy Jack felt he would member for years too come.

The end.

Short story for Writers Jam, using the prompt Kingdom, I hope you enjoyed this, I enjoyed writing it and drawing on my own memory's of bedroom kingdoms and battles, I'm sure we all have memory's of elaborate toy set ups.

I'd like too thank Jamriot for putting this together and I look forward to reading the other story entries.

P.S. Sorry for any spelling issues, I am dyslexic and as per the set up I did not have as much time for spellchecking as I would have liked.

Captain Gravitas flew across the city as fast as his powers would allow, he had found and defused the bombs, fought off the attack robots, and saved a bus full of civilians from being drowned. Tasks she’d set up to distract him, but now it was time to face the big boss herself.   

He stopped as he reached the top of the Spencer building, the tallest structure in Centerville, there she was, Devastator. Dark purple spandex, long black flowing hair, heavy eye makeup, she looked as unhinged as one would expect from a villain who had descended into attempting to destroy the city over and over out of some vague notion of revenge. Her motivations had always been corrupt but once they had at least been sane, but now? It was just destruction for its own sake. 

“You're too late Captain!” She yelled. “This whole city will be sucked into an escapable black hole! You’ve crossed me too often! Now everyone dies!” 

“Devastator, please don’t do this! It doesn't have to end this way!” He yelled back, floating in the air around him where camera droids recording the encounter. Gravitas was the archetype hero, strong, handsome, with orange hair that glowed when he engaged his powers, somewhat older than most other heroes in the business but still well respected and powerful. 

“Oh we are long past the point of no return Captain! I warned you last time what would happen if you got in the way, but you. Did. Not. Listen!” 

She rushed him, flying across the air at close to the speed of sound, her body coated in a dark, purple aura, Captain Gravitas’ body glowed orange. The two collided and began throwing punches and kicks in mid-air, each blow each hit that collided created a small shockwave. The hero ended the exchange of blows by grabbing Devastator’s arm, spinning 180 degrees and throwing her into another building, causing her to break through the wall into an empty office floor. He raised his hand and fired an orange ball of energy, hitting her square in the chest just before she was about to rush him again, she fell to her hands and knees as a powerful gravitational force descended on her. 

Gravitas did not let up, he fired a second attack, this one caused a powerful pull towards her, the loose debris from the broken wall, as well as any and all objects within thirty feet of her were pulled in. A shell of rubble, computers and other office furniture formed around her, with any luck keeping her distracted long enough for him to deal with the device. 

Turning his attention to it, he and the drones looked it over; it mainly consisted of a large, metal ring about seven feet across, connected to a control panel and a small, nuclear generator. Inside the metal ring a small, black ball of pulsating energy, that was slowly getting larger. 

He turned to one of the drones, “Can you tell me how to shut it down?” 

On the other end of the feed a woman was watching the events unfold, her name was Jenny, sidekick and tech support. “No, there’s not enough time, you’ll have to get rid of it!” She said in his earpiece.

“Understood” 

He flew over, grabbed the device, he easily lifted the device and threw it as hard as he could into the sky. 

Behind him there was an explosion as an energy pulse from Devastator vaporised the objects that had been attracted to her, free she looked up at her device being launched.

She screamed in rage and began to fly up but Captain Gravitas got in her way. “No Devastator! it will destroy you too!”

“Out of my way!” She fired two energy beams from her eyes, they hit the superhero in the chest, he managed to absorb the damage, but the attack winded him, she took the chance to fly up and strike him hard across the face, dazed he was unable to stop her flying above him to her device. 

She reached it just as the black ball of energy was big enough to touch the edges of the metal ring, the city watched as the black hole formed. In a matter of seconds it rapidly expanded, then collapsed in on itself. Leaving no trace of it, or its maker, as high up as it was, the device failed to suck in anything from the city. 

Jenny watched as Captain Gravitas witnessed this, he sighed then looked at the drone and offered a smile. “We did it,” He told her. “The city is safe” 

Later that day he was shaking hands with the mayor of the city, it was customary for him to do a press conference after any major villain fights. 

With the powers of super strength, speed, hearing, durability, flight and ability to manipulate gravity, he was a force to be reckoned with, for almost two decades he had defended Centerville from any and all threats. One by one his foes had been defeated and turned over to the government to be held in a nigh impregnable prison, all but one, Devastator. 

He’d lost track of how many times he’d saved the city, and how many conferences he’s done, the hero was largely tuned out as the Mayor said a few words to the journalists that had gathered. It got boring but it was part of the contract, the city allocated a budget to him so he could be their full-time protector and make public appearances for the city’s morale. 

Once the mayor's opening statements were done he stood up, said a few words, thanked his support staff, mainly Jenny for their assistance today and talked about the importance of the city coming together to defend itself against criminals. Both powered and non-powered. 

During questioning one interview asked him if he thought Devastator was gone for good. 

“I don’t know about that, but I am confident we won’t be seeing her any time soon, in any case my team will be keeping a close watch on the city for me, and I’ll be ready to respond at a moment's notice.” 

He spoke in his well-rehearsed ‘hero voice’ and wore his carefully practiced expressions to best bring across his brand image. 

Photos were taken, autographs signed, he de-briefed with his team, he told them that the battle had worn him out somewhat and that he’d be out of costume for a while to recover, but to contact him at any sign of danger.

It was then time to return home, he had a civilian identity for when he was off the clock so that he could enjoy some level of normalcy, out of his hero costume he wore jeans and a shirt that hugged his muscular frame. He entered the apartment complex and took the lift up, his room was a luxury apartment on the 15th floor, all paid for by the city. 

He took a moment to take in the view as the sun set, then begun to make himself a drink, however he stopped when he heard movement, in a flash he turned around and grabbed the figure who was trying to sneak up on him by the shoulder and raised his fist, ready to punch whoever the intruder was, he stopped however when he saw who it was. 

He let her go with an annoyed sigh. “I told you not to do that!” 

“Sorry love…” She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. “It was too tempting to resist” 

Without her pale foundation, heavy eyeliner, contacts and black wig, Devastator looked like a typical, mid 30s woman with short brown hair and green eyes, fairly plain by most standards, the woman who was terrorising the city just a few hours ago, now would not get a second glance in the street. 

“Why are you here? We’re not leaving until Tuesday…”

“I wanted you to myself for a couple of days before we flew out” She said sweetly, then frowned as she looked at the side of his face. “Sorry, did I hit you a too hard?”

He put a hand up to his bruised cheek. “I’ve had worse, mostly from you.” 

Devastator had not seriously threatened the city for a few years, with him having turned over the rest of his rogues gallery to the government, and her having given up on her former ambitions that lead her to become a supervillain in the first place, the two of them had come up with this scheme. It kept him relevant along with his funding and in the meantime, she could enjoy civilian life without him coming for her; over time, their business partnership had formed into a relationship. Come Tuesday the two of them would leave for a nice long holiday to Hawaii, paid for by the city, like almost everything else in the hero’s life. 

They enjoyed each other's company until there was a ring at the apartment door, Devastator, or Mel outside of costume, waited in the bedroom while he answered.

It was Jenny, his heart sank as he saw the concerned look on her face. “Hi Ca-Matt” She said, ‘out of costume’ meant civilian names, even if they were alone. “Can I come in?”

“Of course” 

Jenny was a handful of years younger than himself, slightly overweight with sandy blond hair and glasses. She joined his support staff after graduating from MIT, having good tech support personnel was very valuable back when the likes of Devastator were constantly inventing doomsday devices. She was a powered individual as well, although not a very top tire one, ‘Super Stamina’, able to function for days at a time without sleeping or eating. A very helpful power for a staff member who might need to act at any time of the day, but she had a tendency to overdo it, even if she did not feel tired mentally or physically, working too much still was not good for her health. 

She entered the apartment and made a beeline to his kitchen table, he winced slightly under his breath, but the bedroom door was closed. She pulled out her laptop from her rucksack and began pulling up files, showing images of Devastators device that was taken by the drones. 

“I just can’t help but think, was today planned? Like, could this be another one of her schemes? Remember when we thought she was dead during the station bombing but she then ambushed you the next day at the fundraiser?” 

A few notes and calculations came up alongside the images taken and she got him to take a look, even though most of it flew over his head. 

“I don’t think a device this large could realistically threaten the whole city, and she was right next to it, I could believe she’d be crazy enough to kill herself along with us…but she must have known this would, at best only have an effective range of about 1500 feet before closing in on itself, you saw how short lived it was earlier this afternoon. She normally is much smarter than this, what if…”

Jenny went on to list her theory, she had a habit to go on and on when she was worked up, Matt raised a hand to stop her, and mentally switched back into ‘hero mode’. 

“Jenny, I’m proud of your commitment, but you need to take care of yourself too, all this overtime is not good for your health.” His preferred tone was one that was that of a strong, authoritative figure but not too patronising or threatening. 

“We both know Devastator's mental state has been declining for years, it makes sense the quality of her inventions would decline as well. I can tell you're worried but please, relax, I’m taking some time off, I suggest you do the same, I promise if she does come back, I’ll be here in a flash, I will keep you safe.”

He gave her his best, confident smile, that seemed to work, she smiled weakly back. “Thanks, enjoy your time off, I’ll leave you alone now” 

Once he saw her out he let out a sigh, Devastator came out and looked at him, concerned. “What’s the matter? 

“It’s nothing, just Jenny overdoing it” He told her. 

She shrugged “She’ll be fine, she always is” She wrapped her arms around his torso. “Lets go to bed, it’s been a long day” 

...

My entry for the NG Fests 2023 Short Story Contest!

I've had this idea for a while about a super hero/super villain who secretly are just doing an act, ether for attention or profit. I don't really care about winning the short story contest, but it was a good incentive for me to sit down and actually commit some idea's to paper. I may continue this story in some way, putting in other chapters about them running there scheme. If you like heroic fiction let me know what you think, I don't do a lot of wrighting and feedback would be appreciated, I mostly only write content for Mutants and Mastermind games so this sort of short story format is new to me.

Hello,

Well here I am, I thought I would do a introduction post, not really done one for any other website so don't know how this will turn out but lets go for it.

I live in London, I have a degree in Business Study's and I currently work administration for the Civil Service, over the 2010s I started getting interested in manga and comics, both mainstream series and independent projects. I had of course been watching anime such as Bleach, Naruto and DBZ as far back as the late 2000s like most boys my age. (I presume some girls too but I was at a single sex 2ndary school)

I grew to enjoy seeing what sort of things people could put onto page, impactful illustrations, and the unique characters, worlds and scenes people could make with ink, pencil or digital art.

I started reading graphic novels near the end of the 2010s and took up drawing as a hobby in around 2018, doing online courses on Unity and working from art books, in 2019 I started uploading onto DeviantArt. It was hard for me, and I would not say I'm a great drawer, I doodled like most kids in school but never really took up art as a subject and by university I had stopped all together. I do regret not studying art for GCSE's because now I really want to draw well but I had years of inactivity before I got more serious, had I worked on it sooner I may now be a better

The COVID lockdown therefore, did give me a good chance to at least get more into it and explore the world of art and animation more, I also took the chance to apply for more 9-5 jobs so I would not have to go back to working in a pub kitchen which I was successful in!

Today I work my office job, drawing where I can, tho I'm a bit short on free time as my job is a long commute and when I get home I'm more in the mood to relax and watch anime than draw. I hope to do my own comic projects in the near future, probably hiring another artist rather than drawing myself but I'd like to mock up my own concept art for them to work off.

My main interests are art, animation, graphic novels, manga+anime, gaming (PC), Tabletop RPG games (Mostly Mutants and Masterminds but also DnD 5E) and this year I even got into Larping which I've really enjoyed and will be doing more off next year.

I was aware of Newgrounds for years and some of my favourite animators did come from here, I'm even supporting Harry Partridge's Patron now. I was drawn into Newgrounds as it's a very creator supportive site, and I want to be there to help support it as a independent platform that fosters talent so here I am. I don't know how much of my own stuff I'll upload I'm not much of an artist myself, I'd like to share some of my commissioned work (credited of course) and see where it goes from there.

This is been my introduction, I look forward to getting to know more people in this site and seeing what it has to offer.

- Arsonist