#Dead Eyed Ivy fan art

[deadeyedfae]

Wanna see something awesome?!?!

_BubbleVerse featured a poster of Dead Eyed Ivy in her latest comic over on Twitter. You can check it out here

I legitimately love this so much, it was so unexpected and I've been getting teased about it by her and another friend all week! It was worth the wait 😍💜

[winebrightruby]

Y'all gather round; come hear the singer the Muses love. Pretty girl who always knew when to keep her mouth shut and ears open -- listen up now, ya hear, and she'll tell you bout the gods in New Orleans.

The hurricane brothers Maimaktes -- Zeus the Thunderer and green-wreathed Poseidon -- toast their many loves and knock back shots of bourbon. They sing and shout louder than the storms outside, furious merriment that tastes of oak barrels.

Mighty Zeus pulls out Hera's chair, holds her door everywhere they go, and orders her wine. In the early summer, they stroll through City Park with her hand tucked in his elbow: diamonds glint in her earlobes, an anniversary gift. The air smells of magnolias and water. Hera's veil is the shimmer of soft evening rain when she passes her pearls down to her baby girl.

Poseidon's glorious son spans the country: proud Missippos, hailed in song and story, curls lazy and comfortable at last through New Orleans, the jewel in his father's crown. Hephaistos Wall-Builder labored for days to let the city stand on semi-dry land. His uncle, god of the seas, braced his fists on his hips. "Looks good, champ, but I'm gonna tear it all down one day. Water finds a way."

In the swamps and the crisscrossin bayous, Poseidon dallies with nymphs aplenty, charming handmaids of the immortal gods. And once he famously courted green-robed Demeter: their daughter's name is a secret. We call her Lady. Now Demeter and Poseidon and Amphitrite trade recipes, get together for crawfish boils and serve gumbo at the feasts. Hestia bakes the bread. She makes a fire roux. (She's got "old maid" embroidered on her oven mitts and keeps the fans runnin all summer long. Hestia's home is always comfortable.)

On the shores of a lake in Baton Rouge, Zeus suffered a headache the likes of which you ain't never seen. His gray-eyed daughter came thunderin out when the sky was rich purple and the sun a gleam of gold, as fierce and proud as a tiger. Down the road aways in New Orleans, Athena wears snakes around her shoulders; she has a stall in a co-op selling upcycled art. Driftwood earrings, vintage scarves, a roofing tile painted with tiny fleurs-de-lis. Hephaistos hawks handmade jewelry next to her, and they drink together all afternoon. Zeus' many-skilled son freelances as a repairman while his daughter runs a tutoring service out in the East.

Hoyden Artemis hunts in camo but twerks with her girlfriends downtown in cutoffs. Boots both places. Her brother plays every music festival; he's onstage damn near every weekend. And when he's not, Apollon's hangin out at some university or other, maybe takin classes, maybe makin friends. Good friends. Pretty friends. Lots of em.

Hermes runs an internet-famous instagram and a handful of cons on tourists on Rue Bourbon, runs in City Park under his daddy's oaks or along the levee path his brother laid. Wing-footed liar, but he's oh so charming, and we'll forgive a lot for a good story. In a city with more potholes than streets, Hermes always got jokes.

It was one of Zeus' summertime benders that got the Gulf all riled up. Floridia, the blossoming goddess, stepped outta that churned up seafoam and onto a sandy beach, stickin pearls in her hair. She's hotter'n hell and sweet as can be, Aphrodite Foamborn, the queen of desire. It ain't take no time at all to wrap Ares right around her little finger; passion recognizes passion, and they fall into each other. Helpless and happy to be so.

The Dioskouroi run rescue missions outta Poseidon's court. The Kharites serve fried chicken and sweet tea alongside Demeter's endless bounty. The Muses in New Orleans never sleep. But twice-born Dionysos is the god of the city, and everyone knows it. The Liberator is crowned in ivy and rockin sequined high heels; every drink in this lush city is a toast to him. Every dance, smoke, or pill, every vice a prayer. Every cemetery or swamp a temple. And every winter ends with flowers and the dead, masked revelers and plastic treasures, parades in the name of Dionysos Rex, monarch of merriment. We renew ourselves and remember what we love: uninhibited joy, priceless tradition, infinite beauty. Trumpets to always bring us home.

[waterlilyvioletfog]

The Frozen King of Adarlan- A Dorian post-TOG7 oneshot

[Inspired by a few fan arts I’ve seen of Dorian as king, consumed by frost, with the assumption that the worst happens in TOG7. Be warned: angst ahead with no mercy and arguable trigger warnings for suicide. For @propshophannah and @helloprinceling] 

King Dorian Havilliard of Adarlan stared out his window. He could hear the birds singing, the hustle and bustle of the city below, the far corner of the city still being repaired from the Ironteeth attack a year previous. The sun was shining, though it was not as bright as it had been whilst Aelin had lived. Since she had died, the sun had shone a bit more dimly. Dorian wondered if he was the only one who noticed, who remembered Aelin enough to notice. 

He wished the sun were not shining. It did not seem enough that it mourned quietly, to Dorian. The scion of Mala had given up her life for Erilea- the sun should have been stricken from the sky the moment that she was from the world. 

He wished the birds were not singing. He wished they were Rowan and his cousins, Lysandra and the ruks, screaming their grief and rage and brokenness into the heavens, the lament of a thousand birds for the sun queen. But the ruks had returned with Sartaq and Nesryn to the Southern Continent when the fighting had ended, and the others were all gone. Dead. 

He wished Manon were still alive. He wished she was here to help his people, to make them see what he had seen in her- that the witches were not monsters, or that if they were, then they had not always been. Asterin had taken Manon’s body with her to the Western Wastes, and Dorian’s daughter by Manon, too. 

“I don’t care if she’s the heir of Adarlan, Dorian,” she had told him, starry-night eyes flashing, “She’s the queen of the witches, and the witches need a queen more than you do an heir. You can always get another of those.” And with that, the golden haired witch had swirled out, Dorian’s golden-eyed daughter in her aunt’s motherly arms. Mother, maiden, crone. Elena’s final lie. 

He wished the others hadn’t died. Some were still alive, of course: Aedion was in Orynth, acting as regent until Evangeline was of age and could take Aelin’s throne. Aelin had known she would die, had decreed Evangeline her heir, and left her broken, broken-hearted warrior cousin to look after a twelve year old girl. “Evangeline has nightmares.” Aedion’s last letter had read, “Fleetfoot is the only thing that helps. She misses Lysandra. I do too, come to think of it.” That was an understatment- Aedion was devastated.  

Elide was settling into her role as Lady of Perranth, last Dorian had heard. She and Lorcan weren’t married, but everyone knew that they would be, all the same. He had stoutly rejected Galan’s half-hearted offer to be king of Doranelle, saying that he’d served in his mother’s court for long enough. They didn’t need him anymore, if they ever had at all. Nox Owen, the assassin from all those years ago, was a good friend of Elide’s as well.  

Chaol and Yrene were happily married in Annielle. Dorian tried not to miss them and failed. He tried not to resent them for their joy, and failed then as well. 

Fenrys and Gavriel had followed Asterin out into the Witch Kingdom. Dorian hadn’t tried to stop them, not when Aedion and Lorcan hadn’t. 

Dorian turned away from the window. He wanted to read, but what was there to discover? Half of the books in the castle he’d read, another third he’d laughed over with Aelin back when she’d been his Celaena, and the remaining sixth were books he’d never need to read- Aelin, Manon, and his friends who had spent their time in the Southern Continent had figured out everything there was to know in those books already. What more was there left to know? 

Nothing. 

The world was a distant thing for Dorian- the past seemed so much closer. Sorscha’s head lying in a pool of blood; a guard twisting and screaming for his prince; a father begging for his son’s mercy; Manon with blood all about her; Aelin’s smirk; Aelin’s grin; Aelin’s roar of glorious, fiery triumph; Aelin’s tearful smile as she gave up her life that Dorian Havilliard would not die in her stead- 

Ice was crawling over the walls. Ice, just like it had first appeared when Nehemia Ytger had opened him up to magic. Ice, cold and sweet and broken, clambering like ivy over the walls of his room, creeping like a thief across the floor, sealing the doorway. Ice ventured cautiously up his legs, burrowing into his rich, fine clothes. It twirled dreamy patterns like teardrops down to his shirt cuffs, danced around his hands to form gloves, then silvery rings, one a silvery imitation of Athril’s ring, another an imitation of the one he wore as King of Adarlan to seal all official documents, and a final one the imitation of the ring he would have given Manon. 

Ice grew in a crown atop his night-dark hair, weighing it down as loss did his heart.  

The guard busted their way in the next morning, and found King Dorian Havilliard frozen, neither dead nor alive, a silent, icy statue, bearing witness to a thousand loves and hates and deaths. 

King Hollin Havilliard was crowned a week after, and Adarlan was eventually destroyed by the other kingdoms when the young king tried to conquer the other kingdoms as his father had. 

(All the history books whisper that Dorian Havilliard, the half-year king, still stands, entombed in that room, waiting for Aelin’s sun to melt him back alive, that he may be king again and reunite with his daughter, the Golden-Eyed Witch Queen, and restore happiness to all of Erilea.)

[dulwichdiverter]

All Wilby well

COMEDIAN, WRITER, PRESENTER AND LONG-TERM SE22 RESIDENT ROSIE WILBY ON MONOGAMY, POLYAMORY AND THE CHOCOLATE SALAD PROBLEM

BY RONNIE HAYDON

Rosie Wilby looks quite misty eyed when she talks about Dulwich Library. It’s a handsome beast, for sure, and a fine example of the prodigious Victorian philanthropy of John Passmore Edwards. But for Rosie, it was also the starting point of a wide-ranging research project into serial monogamy, which led to the publication of her book.

“I found a whole shelf devoted to relationships in the psychology section while I was mooching around East Dulwich, working through material for my shows,” she says. “It’s so great that my book is on that shelf now.”

The seeds for the funny, thoughtful tome, titled Is Monogamy Dead? were sown by the many years she spent on the comedy circuit, presenting a radio show and podcasting around the subjects of sex, relationships and break-ups.

Rosie’s warm, mischievous talks and discussions about love and heartbreak are often accompanied by statistics from sociological studies, with tangential stories illustrating these facts and figures.

The result is a delicious mix of eye-opening relationship study and belly-clutching hilarity. It’s no wonder she’s been called the “lesbian Eddie Izzard” by one reviewer, which is apt, because Izzard has described himself as a “straight, wannabe lesbian kinda guy”.

“I love Eddie Izzard’s stuff,” smiles Rosie, when we meet for coffee at Rock Steady Rum Lounge on North Cross Road.

As we chat about the book, the conversation turns to the labels we attach to people, and their sexuality.

“The book began with a trilogy of shows, starting with one called The Science of Sex that I toured in 2009-10. That was the show where I sometimes dressed up in a white coat: [a self-styled] ‘Love Doctor’.”

Rosie’s Love Doctor, with her flipchart, survey results and quick-fire gags, presented serious science about human relationships in a “fun and accessible” way.

These talks kicked off what she calls “a long arc of creativity” under which an often vulnerable and heartbroken Rosie sheltered, her personal life strewn with messy break-ups that fuelled more fevered research.

“I think what’s really changed is what it means to be lesbian, or gay, or LGBTQ now,” she says. “Both over my lifetime, or more recently, in the years since I moved to Dulwich in 2002.

“When I started doing comedy there was still an element of risk about which venues you would feel comfortable in, openly talking about being gay, which of course is a weird concept now that we can get married.

“But, in a way, I hanker after the old days of being a lesbian activist and wearing that badge with pride – even though none of us fit into neat boxes, it’s tricky nowadays when everyone’s fluid or pan-sexual or whatever, to find your place, to get a toehold anywhere…”

As if she senses she’s wandering down a potentially contentious path here, Rosie pulls out a gag: “I jokingly say sometimes that everyone’s a bit gay now, but frankly it’s been ruined for us!

“I miss having the secret, rebellious world we used to inhabit. Of course it’s wonderful that we have progressed so far in terms of equality, but I loved that feeling of breaking the rules and being more creative in my approach to relationships.”

Rosie welcomes the chance to be a rebel with her LGBTQ radio show, called Out in South London, which she presents every Tuesday evening at 6.30pm on Resonance FM, a community arts station based in Borough.

“I really appreciate having a dedicated platform that allows our LGBTQ guests to discuss how their sexuality influences their work,” she says.

“I still think there’s a real need to have our own shows, even though our community is in the mainstream now and we’re all cool about being gay, which is the reason the BBC has axed its dedicated shows. I think our voices should be heard on as many platforms as possible.”

Her ready wit and warm, chatty style has led to Rosie’s own voice being heard on a variety of radio shows on the now determinedly unstarchy Radio 4, from presenting her research into monogamy in a Four Thought broadcast (called A New Currency of Commitment) to guesting on Woman’s Hour and Loose Ends.

Her career has come a long way from her Camden years as a wistful singer-songwriter fronting her band, Wilby.

A guitar-strumming early career led Rosie into the world of stand-up comedy and turned into a wonderfully self-deprecating show about failing to make it in the Britpop years.

“I’d always chatted between songs – making jokes at my own expense – and the talking took over from the music,” she explains.

“That was a relief, really, because so much sad stuff had happened [her mother died when Rosie was just 28; a year later she lost everything she owned in a house fire] and I just wanted to park the darkness.”

Gloom was duly banished, as Rosie continued with her comic interludes, and took her first tentative steps into stand-up.

“By the time I got round to comedy I was in my 30s. I had a couple of early successes at a club called Comedy Camp. Gay men make the best audiences. There was a lot of ‘go, girl’ camaraderie. It was a lovely comedian called Simon Happily who gave me my first break.

“Once people started paying me I began gigging, with sets at the Old Nun’s Head and the Ivy House. I even did a show in Peckham Library, at the very top where they have this weird little space capsule. I do like Southwark’s libraries.”

The Science of Sex show, which she took to Edinburgh, led her to question the whole rollercoaster of falling in love, staying in love and committing to one person without it all becoming too domestic and humdrum. It set Rosie off on a path of exploring whether monogamy, as a concept, had outlived its usefulness.

She writes: “Should monogamy, which comes from the Greek, monos gamos, meaning one marriage for life, be newly translated as ‘one marriage until I choose to have an upgrade?’”

“I needed to redefine monogamy, which [for me] had meant a series of monogamous relationships and lots of breaking up, which is why I do the podcast, as well,” she explains.

Rosie presents The Breakup Monologues podcast (it’s free to download), in which she and other comedians (recent guests have included Viv Groskop, Alix Fox and Robyn Perkins) discuss their best and worst break-up stories.

“I still do a comedy talk about monogamy, in which I reference my book. During the talk I ask people what counts as cheating – anything from having sex with, kissing, texting or flirting with someone else.”

Or keeping the biggest portions of food for yourself. Apparently that’s a thing.

“In this interrogation, it seems that monogamy is such an assumed cultural default that many people don’t communicate to [their partners] what monogamy should actually mean, and everyone’s definition of cheating is different.”

She has written that women plus women relationships can be lonely, because it’s hard to have separate girlfriends to love, best buddies, like heterosexual married or partnered-up women do.

She tells a joke in the book, where she tries to distinguish between the many uses of the word “love”: “I love my girlfriend and I love chocolate, yet one of those is an insatiable, obsessive craving… and the other is how I feel about my girlfriend.”

Rosie worries in the book that the “lower-key, humdrum state was how I was supposed to feel about my long-term partner. Maybe she wasn’t chocolate but… a salad. Secretly I still hoped for both. Was a chocolate salad even on the menu?”

Is Monogamy Dead? received rave reviews when it was published in 2017, with Viv Groskop declaring it “bittersweet original, honest and funny”.

She added: “Rosie Wilby nails the challenges of intimacy and romance in this depressing age of Tinder. Would it be wrong to end a life of monogamy and leave m husband for her?”

A follow up book is not out of the question Not for a while, though: Rosie’s busy during festival season, and there’s a long-term partner and resultant house purchase to consider

“It’s great to receive messages from people who have read the book and say it’s made them rethink their own relationships and where their boundaries lie in terms of fidelity,” she says.

“What a lot of people don’t realise is that I’m now in a monogamous relationship. They assume that because I’m asking the question, I’m on a constant polyamorous adventure!”

Which does sound rather exhausting. Has she ever been a fan?

“I think polyamory has advantages. My friends who have polyamorous relationships make the idea work for them in the way that the partners communicate. I learned a lot from them, curiously; these are ideas I can take back into my personal life.”

She seems pretty chuffed with her current monogamous adventure, I observe. “Yes I am. I’ve put up with a lot of uncomfortable situations in the past. I think life is calmer and more contented now. These days if I want to have something that fuels that creative spark, some kind of questioning impulse, I look outside of my personal life to the wider world – in the sense of, ‘What on earth is going on out there right now?’

“Relationship-wise, I’m settled and I get on with my partner really well. We’re buying a place together and I guess I’ve got to a certain point in my life where I’m keen to embrace that chocolate salad.”

[deadeyedfae]

So, uh... The last few parts of Dead Eyed Ivy hit really hard and also your comic about being a plus-sized transwoman made me feel really seen, so even though I'm not very good at Art I got inspired to do a fanart about it I hope that's okay

Woah! I absolutely love this thank you so much! 😊 I'm definitely printing this off for my collection! 💜💜 And I'm so happy you enjoyed them both and that they resonated with you!

Of course fan art is more than okay, I absolutely love seeing people's takes on my Bunnies ^^ and I think you did really well, heck a year ago I wouldn't have been able to draw anything half as good as this! You did amaizng 😁