Nero Fanart Gallery

 I wanted to share some fanart/trades I've gotten of Nero.

by TelstarTelstar, for Artfight 2025

Tithe, and an Introduction to Nero

    This was originally published on my ao3 in December of 2023, actually almost exactly two years ago to the day. It features Nero, my vampire warlord who happens to be a pretty chill dude.

    Nero embodies the fantasy of the sugar daddy, the soft and kind dom. He is rich but austere, generous but undemanding. He showers you with gifts and affection and praise for doing the bare minimum. He is the power fantasy of having all the money and power in the world and all the sub(ject)s you could ever wish to dote on.

    Less intimately, he considers his vampirism a terrible burden he must bear for the Good of Society, for only he is benevolent and savvy enough to deserve to rule, and only he is strong and cunning enough to shoulder the burden. At least, that's what he seems to think. This benevolent dictatorship is just another form of power fantasy, really.

The Scorpion and the Frog

    This was originally written in 2022, for a writing competition. It didn't win, although it did get perfect scores from every judge but one. I'm definitely not still mad about that.

——— 

    One summer day, a frog came across a scorpion on the bank of a river. “Hello, stranger. I know this is a lot to ask,” the scorpion began, “but could you help me cross the river here?”

    The frog contemplated this for a moment. “I would be happy to help, but how do I know that you won’t sting me?”

    The scorpion shrugged. “If I stung you while we were crossing the river, I would surely drown.”

    Convinced, the frog allowed the scorpion to climb upon his back and began ferrying him across the river.

    Halfway across, the frog asked “Why do you need to cross the river?”

    The scorpion replied “I’m an engineer. We are going to build a bridge so that it’ll be easier to cross for everyone.”

    The frog nodded and carried on. They crossed the river together with no incident.

    “Thank you.” the scorpion said, and left.

Golden Eyes, ch1: An Ending

    This was originally published on my ao3 in October of 2024. I'm reuploading it here, because I want to.

    The story was inspired by an adoptable I picked up from the excellent artist RetroHurricane, pictured below.

Bradbury, cybernetic Martian orc

 

 

    What really drew me to the Martian theming here was those lovely golden eyes. Ray Bradbury was an author I read a lot of as a kid, and his Martian Chronicles always stood out to me in particular... There is something wistful and sad in Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed, one of my favorites; a story of a family of colonists on Mars who change, bit by bit, until they believe they have always been native Martians.

    I hope the literary barallels are self-evident.

We Blog

This is a fine kettle of fish, isn't it? If you haven't heard, several payment processors such as paypal, stripe, visa, and mastercard are all engaging in self-destructive and pointless censorship, and for some reason people think the answer is making our own websites. I don't particularly buy that, but I suppose it doesn't hurt. So here we are. A website. Let's see if I can keep it updated.

Two Cakes

I open my heart and pour blood into the rich batter. I pull out my brain and wring it out, mixing the technicolor sludge in with a heavy hand. There’s no rack; I hold the pan up while the cake bakes and my hands burn. It’s overcooked. I toss it out and open a new bag of sugar and an old, drained heart. But that’s okay. It’s the hard work that matters.

An Introduction

Hello, dear reader, to the digital archive of squidpizza. There will be all sorts of stuff here, most of which is very very gay.

I hope you enjoy it.

A little head-start on labels:

Updates: Things I want you to know.

Personal: Things I need to talk about.

Art: Digital art, usually pixel art.

Writing: Catchall for anything that's purely written text.

Games: Interactive media of all sorts.

Worldbuilding: Articles and art that are setting up context and details rather than telling stories.

Empty Gardens: Optimistic sci-fi setting. Lots of my longform work takes place in it.

Dead but Dreaming: Fantasy setting detailing the decay of deities.

Strange Reflections: Everything else that's original, most of it one-offs.

Fanworks: Anything that's not my purely-original content.

Pocket Beasts: Fanworks specifically pertaining to a certain franchise.

SFW: Anything that's unobjectionable to see in public.

Mild NSFW: Somewhat explicit, but not pornographic; pinups, anatomical references, stories about sex and sexuality but no vivid descriptions.

Spicy NSFW: Relatively vanilla pornography. Examine it at your own discretion.

Sriracha NSFW: Kinky pornography. The preview will describe it in more detail.