mirthalia

[mirthalia]

In honor of the day, That Time My Wife Made Terry Pratchett Spittake.

The scene: Late September 2007, my senior year of college, a few scant months before the Embuggerance diagnosis. My wife (not yet my wife, but we were together at the time) was working at Valley Forge, and found out Sir Terry was doing a book signing in that area.

They skipped work the day of the signing in order to go and get me a birthday present (signed and personalised copy of Making Money, which was the most recent hardcover release at the time). I was unfortunately out of state and unable to attend.

Before the signing proper, there was a Q&A session, one question per person. My wife's choice? "So, Thomas Silverfish. He hasn't been mentioned since Men at Arms, and being the head of the Alchemists' Guild is a notoriously explosive job, so like... is he still alive?" (Moving Pictures is a favorite of theirs, though Small Gods takes the ultimate prize.)

And after spitting out his water, he said, "Well, what do you think?"

And they said, "I think he's smart enough to keep himself alive." So that's the answer - I don't think it ever made it into a book, and who knows if it stayed in Sir Terry's head after that, but Thomas Silverfish is still the head of the Alchemists' Guild.

(The signing was supposed to be a maximum of two books, one personalised and one just autographed. My wife intended the personalised one to be mine, and brought Guards! Guards! - one of the only paperbacks they owned and possibly the first one they could grab before leaving - for the regular signature. He signed Making Money for me and then went "And what's your name?" We sadly don't have that book anymore, as it got eaten by a sudden house move, but Making Money is still one of the centerpieces of my collection.)

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yuri egin is so interesting because like…. she was intentionally and carefully manipulating satan the entire time? (satan, not rinka, since that relationship was very different) she’s an absolute master tamer who looks at the most dangerous demon ever and goes “you want me? here i am. im going to stay with you. we’re going to have a cute peaceful life together and you won’t kill people or take over the world.” and “come run away with me even though you’re dying so you can die peacefully and accept your death and never try to come back because you lived a good happy life here” and just spends so much time just carefully and intentionally guiding him to be way less dangerous than he wants to be but yeah everything yuri does makes so much more sense if you look at it from the point of view that she’s an extremely skilled and incredibly smart exorcist emotionally manipulating an unspeakably dangerous demon into peacefully dying than just “she loved him”. (unfortunately this is where yukio gets his planning skills from and we all know that the yukio style of plan is “i’m doing some nonsense please keep up with me and once the dust settles i’ll tell you all i had a plan the whole time”.)

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“Medieval peasants couldn’t handle my Spotify playlist” but could YOU handle a medieval bard relaying the epic of Beowulf over the course of an hour? Humble yourself.

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ASTRA INCLINANT

"Astra inclinant; sed non obligant." The stars incline us; they do not bind us. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be free? Can someone choose these things for themselves? …Is it fate when you were made for a reason?

Apostle Solis Primus, first replica of the Sainted Aspect Master of the same name, exists for the same reason as all Apostles: to become his Saint's body when he dies, freeing him from the burden of mortality. More importantly, however, he was also made to be a teacher. While indifferent to his projected demise, Solis may have to accept that not everyone sees us as we see ourselves. And perhaps someone sees him as more human than he believes himself to be.

✧˖°.⋆☽｡°✩

Astra Inclinant is an ongoing original SFF work about responsibility to others vs your own happiness, and understanding yourself as an individual. It's also about the mortifying ordeal of being known! It features the mundane relatable issues of Emails, having an Inner Sakura voice for screaming about your evil boss, and feeling positive emotions about experiencing grass. There's eventually romance in the second half, which involves doing whatever is necessary to protect the person you love. Angst with a happy ending. Intended for adult audiences due to heavy themes and possible eventual NSFW.

Also, if you're reading this and going "hey, is this the bug yaoi you talk about?": yes, this is absolutely the bug yaoi.

Read Astra Inclinant to experience:

illustrations for some chapters (embedded), drawn by my wife @othersharkss, who also drew the above

protagonist who is a clone of a bug alien space wizard and is committed to Teacher Vibes

trying to be your best self despite The Horrors

The Worst Guy You've Ever Met (all my readers want to attack him)

clone angst

unreliable narrative POV character

cooking as a love language

a bunch of soft yearning

Three of Swords! (:

body-horror space magic (important)

space stations that are shopping mall-shaped cathedrals

aro-spectrum + ace-spectrum gay protagonist who refuses to think about his own feelings in any context (because clones aren't real people, obviously)

omnicrafter pink side character all my readers love

some kind of horrible situationship (m/m)

eventual m/m romance (bug yaoi)

[Ao3 Link]

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Sliding in with this at the tail end of Mermay...

You usually see octopus mermaids with the torso the other way, but a friend pointed out that octopi have their beaks amid the tentacles, and I thought it'd be fun to play with. Imagine being welcomed into an embrace by all those limbs.

Prints available on Inprnt and in my Etsy shop!

[Image Description: A digital painting of two mermaids in an embrace. The mermaid on the left has the body of an octopus which is black on top and a warm gold on the underside of the tentacles. She has light brown skin and wears a black hijab and long-sleeved grey shirt with a gold pattern. She is reaching around the other mermaid's waist while her tentacles swirl open around them. The mermaid on the right is a fat black woman with black natural hair. Her tail is that of a whiptail catfish and matches the brown of her skin, with a paler gold underbelly. She holds the face of the octopus mermaid in her hands. The two of them smile softly at each other. /end ID]

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I just... The line read got to me lol.

[Image Description: A greyscale digital comic in 3 panels, patterned after the knife meme. Panel 1 shows Cloud from behind, standing just outside the study in the Nibelheim mansion basement. Sephiroth is within, his back to Cloud. Cloud is saying, "Hey, Sephiroth... Whatcha got there?"

Panel 2 shows Sephiroth facing the viewer, holding an open book in both hands. He answers with a smile, "A book!"

Panel 3 shows Sephiroth turning to walk away with his book. Cloud starts to run after him, shouting, "NO." /end ID]

[mirthalia]

FFVII REVISED

Okay, allow me to explain:Recently, it was brought to my attention that some people on my page had a problem with me drawing black people because I, a black man, was drawing far too many of them (and not as stereotypes or tropes) when I’m known for having diverse character designs in the first place. This struck me as odd because there is literally no problem with me drawing characters of other backgrounds any other time, but the moment I start to draw us in a way that doesn’t make us look like the same stereotypes you’re used to seeing, it’s a problem? Check yourself. I literally got asked, “Do you ever draw white people?” And “You only draw black guys. Why?” In the same morning and I’m like, “Oh so this is a PROBLEM now?” Anyone that has seen my work knows that I draw people from all over. That said, there IS a conscious decision to represent my people in a way that is just and equal to how every other race has been represented since like…forever. Don’t come at me for actually taking the time and effort to show us in positive light. If me drawing people of color as characters and not stereotypes and over used tropes offends you, then get ready to hate my black ass then, because I’m not about to sit by and let us not be represented in a respectful, uplifting and positive light anymore and if you don’t like it well…. Too bad. But since it was an issue with me drawing my own heroes of color, I decided to do other heroes and villains from a game I’m fond of and make them people of color…. I specifically chose FFVII because it’s already a diverse case and to Square Enix’s credit, you could literally tell the same story with these designs. Enjoy.

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Finally now that the comic is fully public on comicfury, I get to share it with all of you here, too <3

If you enjoyed, please consider supporting by buying a PDF of the comic on itch.io: https://tawnysoup.itch.io/home-in-the-woods

[mirthalia]

Found my fav Slay the Princess route recently. Dragon my beloved. Your horrifying beak mouth was an impossible-to-refuse lip syncing challenge 💖

Shoutouts to @blacktabbygames for making such a cool game!

[mirthalia]

Don’t let Chrome’s big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome’s invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the “Privacy Sandbox,” is also getting a widespread rollout in Chrome today. If you haven’t been following this, this feature will track the web pages you visit and generate a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask, and it’s built directly into the Chrome browser. It’s been in the news previously as “FLoC” and then the “Topics API,” and despite widespread opposition from just about every non-advertiser in the world, Google owns Chrome and is one of the world’s biggest advertising companies, so this is being railroaded into the production builds.

Use Firefox.

[mirthalia]

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A Betazoid character who isn't in a nurturing profession, but is a tactical officer.

"Captain, I sense they know they're about to get their asses handed to them"

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Chinese artist Shou Xin creates the most wonderful cats with just a few pencil lines

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Pixel Art by Eugenia Goncharova

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Cant have fucking shit in Detroit

[mirthalia]

Children of Gaza suffer from diseases, severe cold and fear of violent bombing. Save the children of Gaza 🙏🍉🥺😭

[mirthalia]

This year's shark baby update for @gwiggs! Figuring out how to interact with air-breathing friend is a work in progress.

[Image Description: A simple digital illustration of a human boy, a mermaid, and a shark with human legs. The boy is brown-skinned with short dark hair, and wears a white tank top and blue shorts. The mermaid is black with her hair in twin buns, and her tail is red-orange. The shark wears a pair of star-patterned shorts. The boy is kneeling over the side of a pier, looking curiously down into the water where the shark is swimming, and the shark smiles back up at him. The mermaid is seated on the opposite side of the pier with her tail dipping into the water, watching the interaction with a grin. /end ID]