♡ A Three Outfit Designs magical girl commission for @dualityandsuch​ !

Soft Taakos and Hard Taakos

In Taako’s defence, he never thought he had to run a perception check whilst packing for an adventure. That was his line and he was sticking to it. Even with an actual baby on the battlefield.

“I’m not a baby,” insisted Angus McDonald, fresh out of Taako’s Pocket Spa and smelling of pumpkin spice, for some reason. Also an actual baby. “I am twelve, sir.”

“Horseshit,” said Taako reflexively. “You were eleven, last year.”

“That’s kind of how years work, sir. They pile up.”

“That’s nice,” said Taako. “Keep your baby head down or you won’t be getting any more pile.”

“I’m not a ba--”

“FUCKING DUCK!” Taako shoved him down, moving into the way of some bad guy’s overpowered arcane blast. He shot something from his Umbrastaff, but it didn’t look good for the world’s favourite flipwizard.

Taako fell. Singed to a crisp. Down to negative hit points.

“SIR!” Angus readied his wand and fired off the heaviest-hitting spell he knew, one of Taako’s specials. “Abraca-fuck you!”

Frankly, it was amazing that it took the bad guy down. Angus didn’t have that many levels nor that many spell slots. The heroes of Story and Song would later claim that they had softened the big bad up for him.

But that wasn’t important to Angus right now. He ran to Taako, frantic, and poured a healing potion into his mouth. “Sir! Are you all right, sir?”

“...I canonically cannot die,” murmured Taako. He opened his mismatched eyes and smiled. “There’s my beautiful magic boy...”

“Sir, you nearly died.”

“Key word - nearly. That’s the important part,” he sat up and ruffled Angus’ hair. “Chillax, okay? Taako’s gonna be fine.”

“What the hell were you doing here, kid?” Magnus demanded. “That was fuckin’ dangerous. Never do that again!”

“Ease off, Magnuts. He saved my life. Technically.”

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 2]

    Oh, wow, really? Ok sure, I can try to explain myself the best I can…

Honestly, I don’t do… concept art or refined processing in the professional sense? At least, none I keep in folders or anything- I’m so impatient, and frankly, it does me little good with how I’m constantly trying to improve. I just end up going back and redoing my designs anyways!  ( Something I’ll painfully have to restrain once I start doing webcomics and such. ) ;v;

When it comes to design or composition I really just draw as the idea comes! Yes- even with my animations. They’re drawn with a vague idea of what the gesture and movement will be, frame by frame, only occasional pre-planning. ( I’m hoping to be…….. more refined after animation classes?)

Oh oh but~ design and inspiration wise? I do have a pinterest that sums my interests up perfectly if you want! The none private boards are pretty much JUST for art inspiration.  Silent films, circuses, abstract fashion, weird artisan dolls, etc.

There were certain advantages to living on the moon. For starters, the regular threats couldn’t get to them. Second, Kalen had no idea where any of his favourite targets were. Third...

“There’s a fucking Fantasy Olive Garden on the MOON!”

None of their patchwork family had seen Taako flip out like this about a restaurant. In fact, they’d never seen him excited about anything related to food since -well- since Glamour Springs.

“Fantasy Olive Garden?” said Merle, who missed the drama in Glamour Springs. “Really?”

“Shoosh,” advised Mak’arune. “This is good.”

“It might be the best,” said Angus.

“I didn’t know you were into Fantasy Italian,” said Magnus.

Taako said, “I’m always a slut for pasta.” He was looking at the Fantasy Olive Garden like someone who was looking at paradise. “And those bread sticks... hmmm...”

The rest of the patchwork family looked at each other with speculation in their eyes. They had a plan.

So, too, did Madam Director, who had added the Fantasy Olive Garden to the moon base five seconds after she heard about Taako’s difficulties with food. It took a special kind of genius to know how to use someone’s weaknesses for the greater good.

[AN: One universe at a time, pls. The combo thing means - combos of words. My bad for not saying that. Three stories for the price of one!

1. Saccharine - LA

[AN: LA stands for Little Accidents. A universe in which a WAY younger La’ming and a WAY nastier Sazed manage to create half-Elf Angus. La’ming and Taako raise him and Nono in a loving -if mobile- home with La’ming pretending to be older and Taako pretending to be hetero and married to La’ming. 90% angst]

The fair was under full enough swing that Taako couldn’t give food away. Which meant that Sizzle it Up! was not doing any shows until after a majority of the other food carts had closed for the evening. On the plus side, plenty of time to spend looking around for ideas. On the minus side, he had to keep the kids entertained as well as himself.

In a fairground, that meant the potential for encountering processed sugar and, in the case of tiny little Angus, someone using cow milk instead of any of the perfectly reasonable alternatives. Taako knew he couldn’t go anywhere near a peanut, and as for the rest of their little family of four... staying away from processed sugar was just smart.

“Oh look. Miller Labs. They’re always good for a giggle. They’re doing a food science show.”

Minmin, pretending to be an adult, also pretended cheer for her babies, Nono and Ango. “Yay,” she said. “Food science.”

The kids were less than enthused. However, the bribe of some spun maple candy and a hot dog in combination with a place to sit seemed to keep them appeased. They would be appeased and sticky in less than ten minutes, Taako guessed. He kept an eye on the kids -all three of them- and watched the show.

This one was a new alchemical wonder. Sugarless sugar, called saccharine, and Miller Labs was so sure of its safety that they were allowing volunteers to come up and taste their saccharine-laced fare.

“I wanna,” piped tiny little Angus.

Taako took the baby boy into his lap. “No you don’t, son-of-mine. You’re a little young to turn into a guinea pig.”

Since he had his hands full with Angus, and Minmin was busy trying to take him back, Nono leaped up, waving a hand in the air and bouncing out of parental reach. “I want to try!”

“...gods damn it...” muttered Taako. Too late, he handed Ango back to his mother and stood, ready to field an errant Elven teen...

...who already had a cake in her mouth.

“Damnit, Nono...” he sighed. “This is not the time or place to be rebellious streaking. Fuck.”

Nono was wincing. “Too sweet,” she complained. “It’s like way, way too sweet... it’s--” no further words came out of her, but there was a torrent of regurgitated cake, dissolved maple sugar, and hotdog.

Taako wasn’t about to sabotage a fellow food show. “Aw, honey,” he said, pitching his voice to carry. “I told you three goes on the Chunderwonder was two too many.” He sampled a cupcake for himself. Eugh. WAY too sweet. “Needs more lemon curd,” he said, and then quickly got outta dodge because -damn- that stuff made him want to hurl, and he’d survived the slop they served at Saint Vingo’s.

He didn’t get as far as that, though, but did find cool relief in a green patch far away from the smells of the fair. Nono fanned him with his wizarding hat and Minmin provided the damn cloth for his brow.

“Are you okay, Daddy?” said tiny little Ango.

“I will be. Eventually,” Taako panted. “Moral of this story, try new foodstuffs with caution. They always test on Humanmen... ooogh...”

The things he did for love.

2. Sunbathing - Monty Pithon

It had been a rougher winter than Varmvale, and therefore the circus that stayed there, was used to. The spring had been weak, for the first month, but now the sun was out with a vengeance and all the cold-blooded species were out, too.

Lulu and Koko, also thawing in the sunshine, found Monty, Mrs Monty, and all the Montlings spread out on a stretch of dark stone and sighing in the sunlight.

“Say, chief, aren’t we late to get on the road?” said Koko with fake enthusiasm.

“Yeah,” said Lulu, who knew that a cold-fogged Monty was a gullible Monty. “We got a circus to put on. Acts to plan. Rubes to bilk...”

“Time to quit sunbathing and start moneymaking,” said Koko, hoping that Monty hadn’t heard that last bit.

Montgomery Pithon was neither impressed nor swayed. “The roads will still be mud, the people know to expect us closer to summer, and I’m not falling for that horseshit again.”

Drat. Koko sighed and settled down on the rock. “Mind if we thaw with you?”

3. Harsh Whisper - Little Domestic

There is but one truth of life on the streets - cold kills. Pass out or try to sleep away from the warmth - any kind of warmth - and you could die. Even in summer’s last hurrah before winter moved in, you could die from the cold.

Lulu had been looking for more clothes to line their little nest-box with. Koko was prone to chills at the best of times, and this coming winter wasn’t looking to be the best. They were lucky they got through the last one with all their fingers and toes intact.

They were not lucky in the fact that the City Watch was clamping down on homeless people camping out in or near the old steam tunnels. The worse news was that more and more places that used to be safe were employing hostile architecture to try and get the homeless to move away - or at least die somewhere out of sight of all the nice, orderly rent-payers in the city.

At least here, they had a shelter from the wind and a steady supply of half-eaten food via the dumpster and the neighbouring blocks of flats. Lulu was moderately sure she could figure out how to pick the lock and get into the basement before the snows came. That way, she and Koko could huddle in a corner near the furnace and stay nice and toasty during the worst of the winter.

That had been the plan, anyway.

Right up until the instant a huge garbage bag fell on Koko from above with the sound of shattering glass and the sickening thud of one baby twin brother hitting the uncaring concrete of the alleyway floor.

Lulu dropped everything -literally- and ran to her brothers side. She could roll the garbage bag off her brother. He was beat up, cut a little, but still breathing. Okay. Okay. That was fine. That was okay.

“Koko?” she managed in a harsh whisper, lest any noise alert anyone prone to narc. She shook him a little. “Koko?”

His hair was straight. His hair was never perfectly straight. There was always a kink or a curl or straight-up frizz. Lulu couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen her brother’s hair completely limp.

“Koko...” Lulu wrestled his head and half his body into her lap. “Koko.” Nothing. He was completely limp, just like his hair. And there was a wet patch of blood spreading out through those golden locks and -oh gods- “Koko, don’t die! Koko!”

Panic. Utter panic. Koko was going to die because some asshole dumped garbage on him and they were going to take them both away and she’d never know where he was buried if he even got a burial and they couldn’t take him away, they couldn’t! He was her heart! He was her whole heart and the only reason she even bothered waking up in the morning and Koko! Koko please! Wake up, Koko! KOKO!

There was an adult Elf leaning over them, and that was when Lulu went from ordinary hysterical to full-blown scream-crying and fuck whatever authorities wanted to take them away. She’d scream and scream and scream until the whole world vanished. She’d scream her heart and soul away if it got her Koko back.

The Sea Elf kept murmuring and cooing and gently touching them both in an I-won’t-hurt-you-ever way. She had half a bagel that she picked little mouthfuls off of to offer Lulu and things that stopped the blood and a way of showing Lulu that her dumb baby brother was still alive, just unconscious. She had a better, cleaner place where he could recover and they could both get clean and she could cook them a nice, hot meal and wouldn’t everything be better after a hot chocolate?

There came a point in a cascade of terrible events where just about anything was a step up. If it turned out that this Sea Elf was some kind of horrible, they could bail anyway and be no worse off. In the meantime, there would be a clean place and hot food and new clothes and, once Koko was back to wakefulness, a real bath with real soap and real hot water.

All the same, Lulu refused to let go of Koko and flat-out refused to let him out of her sight. All the way up to a tiny, one-bedroom flat where Koko looked even tinier inside a grownups’ bed. All the way through patching him up and getting him clean and making sure he wasn’t in real danger. All the way through a quick mercy run to the local Bodega -don’t go anywhere! Not that Lulu had any such plans.

All the way through dinosaur chicken nuggets and bubble-and-squeak patties all cooked in the microwave with ketchup on the side.

Koko was awake. Koko was okay. That was all that mattered. Koko passed the weird-ass concussion test, which was better. Koko was also amazingly cool about letting a stranger bathe them and clothe them in identical baggy I (heart) NW tee shirts and ludicrous, one-size-fits-nobody pull-cord pants.

“You sure you’re okay, Koko?” Lulu whispered after the stranger called La’ming tucked them in for the night. “You’re not complaining about anything.”

“Bad food is better than no food,” he whispered right back. “This place is okay. It’s out of the weather and she seems to care enough to want to look after us. Worst comes to the worst, we’re outta here when it gets warm.”

Lulu wrapped herself around her brother. “That’s the dumb baby brother I know,” she cooed. “Always planning for the worst.”

“Geez, make me puke,” Koko mockingly scolded. “Then she’ll call the Fantasy CDC on our asses.”

[TAZ Prompts remaining: 0]