#IF I HAD DONE THIS TRADITIONALLY I WOULD NOT HAVE STRUGGLED SO MUCH WHILE DRAWING THE HAIR.

[wooahaes]

Hi! How are you? Hope you've had some relief from your migraine! In answer to your question, I really like that you talk about those sorts of topics. I saw someone said that they add another level of depth to your work and I agree. It also makes me feel seen/understood knowing that someone else (albeit fictional) is going through those sorts of things. -🍧

Also, sorry, while I remember. I hadn't heard married to the music before you posted about it the other day so I looked it up out of interest. I've had it playing on repeat since then lol, so thankyou for your (perhaps unintentional) song suggestion! -🍧

me winnin w getting you w that shinee rec hehe <3 u don't know how much joy this brings me!!! married to the music my beloved <3 shinee my beloved in general tbh <3

honestly i drank a gatorade i had in the fridge + took some medicine and my migrane finally cleared up enough that i could sleep for a few hours, so i'm feelin pretty good after sleeping <3 i'm def gonna start keeping track of my migraines/headaches from now on tbh just for health reasons

but thank u for answering!! as much as i do love writing fluff, i also like writing that extra layer of depth into fics. writing has always been a way for me to process my own emotions and express them in a way that feels safer to access, so being able to sit down and think more about the emotions i think would be going on in a scene is always interesting to me? stuff like drifting from your best friend, the painful parts of being hurt by someone, the struggle w identity sometimes. other times, i intentionally kind of do it to make people think if i'm writing a longer piece.

like... holly and i talked about sweet night and i brought up the fact that reader is a woman in business who worked hard to get to where she is, and therefore feels like she has to hold herself up differently in order to be taken seriously. it kinda draws on my experiences in seeing both women in politics and the fictional portrayals of women in business settings having to be that stoic/mature person while people literally say the most sexist shit (typically about their moods during menstruation) and undermine them for being a woman instead of criticizing any work they've done. its bullshit.

like. sweet night could have been more "whats wrong with secretary kim" adjacent if i had reader be mingyu's secretary that fell for each other, but imo it didn't fit the original idea (broken engagement due to essentially infidelity, even if it was purely emotional). i wanted reader to fully be his equal, and i feel like while i could have done that with her being a secretary, there's a more interesting story of the expectations placed upon reader due to her position in her own company.

i could literally also go into the topic of making the decision for all secretaries we see being portrayed by men, putting them into a typically role traditionally filled by women, but this would get long sdkfhdsf

thank u for the feedback tho!!! love u <3 mwah i hope you're doing well!!!

[arcticfox007]

Day 4: Secrets

This is a follow up to Day 1. Check out the master-list if you’d like to catch up!

Read it on AO3 - kudos and comments are always welcome :)

It had been two weeks since Cas had awkwardly stuck his nose into Dean Winchester’s personal business and he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Cas had gone to the Harvest Festival to meet Dean only to be pleasantly surprised to find him running a bakery booth. Dean then began to regale Cas with the tale of how his love of pie had led him to opening his own bakery and while Cas admired Dean for following his passion, he also gained a better understanding as to why Dean struggled with paying for his medication as maintaining a small business was often a balancing act. Even with Dean’s business doing well, the cost of taking care of himself when he had a chronic illness must be a constant stress on him, and not just financially.

               Cas had taken the time to share his sister’s story with Dean as they walked around the festival that first night. While Anna’s situation hadn’t been quite the same, Dean understood why Cas felt compelled to talk to him. Dean assured Cas that while he’d had times where he struggled with depression because of the constant pain RA caused him when untreated (and sometimes even with his medication), that he wasn’t going to give up. Dean told him how Dr. Barnes had changed his life when she got him on his current medication and that he trusted her to help him make it through the issues he was having now with his new insurance company. Then he winked at Cas, tipping his mouth up in a smirk, and told the blue-eyed man that he certainly intended to take care of himself if it meant he’d get the chance to see more of Cas.

               Since the Harvest festival they’d only managed to meet up for coffee a few times, but they had a date planned for tonight. Dean had asked Cas what his favorite baked treat was and Cas had immediately responded with peach pie. Dean had then brought Cas a slice of his bakery’s peach pie while Cas was studying one night and while Cas had enjoyed it, he’d eventually confessed that he’d meant his grandmother’s recipe when he’d talked about it earlier. That had led to Dean insisting Cas share the baked good that was better than his peach pie and Cas had agreed to get a hold of the recipe.

               Cas pulled up to the still lit windows of Winchester’s Pies and Pastries in his beat-up Chevy Cobalt. The car was a bit of a lemon but Cas was attached to it as it had been his constant companion since leaving home for college. He smiled as he locked the car door, recalling how Dean had tried for all of five minutes to refrain from criticizing it. Looking up at the bakery windows Cas shivers in anticipation of finally having a night alone with the man he’s rapidly become infatuated with. He eagerly strides up to the door, texting as he walks to let Dean know he’s arrived.

               “Hey Cas! C’mon in!” Dean’s smile is bright as he holds open the door and Cas shyly kisses Dean’s cheek as he walks in and pulls off his trench coat, draping it over his arm. Cas is happy that Dean takes the kiss in stride as they had barely done more than hold hands up until this point. He’s aware why he’s taking his physical advances slow, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to ask why Dean hasn’t made a move. While it feels like he’s known Dean for ages, Cas doesn’t want to presume that the handsome baker feels the same way, and as Cas has little previous experience with relationships to draw on, he’s unsure as to what is normal and what isn’t at this point in time.

               “Hello Dean. How was your day?” Dean locks the front door and waves Cas over towards the back.

               “It was alright, bakeries are pretty popular in the fall and there’s some huge family reunion going on in town that about wiped me out this afternoon. Oh, and then Sam called to say he plans on staying in Stanford for Thanksgiving because he feels like he needs the time to catch up.” Cas could hear the disappointment in Dean’s voice and he reached out to grab Dean’s hand.

               “I’m sorry your brother won’t be home as soon as you’d hoped. I know you’ve missed him since he started his freshman year at Stanford.” Dean squeezed Cas’ hand in response and then pulled him into the bakery kitchen.

               “It’ll be fine, it’s not like we had a big Thanksgiving planned or anything.” Cas hesitates for a moment wondering if a handful of partial dates was enough to justify spending holidays together. Then he decided he’d already chased after a man he didn’t know because he overheard his private conversation so maybe what he and Dean were doing wasn’t meant to be traditionally paced anyway.

               “Well, if you don’t have other plans, would you like to come over my place for Thanksgiving? Only my brother Gabe will be there, and maybe his girlfriend, Kali, if they aren’t on one of their break-up phases, but I can promise decent food and drinks.”

               “Really? I mean, thanks angel, but I don’t want to intrude.”  Cas tilted his head and narrowed his eyes trying to figure out what Dean really wanted. Dean was rubbing the back of his neck while standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen. Cas wasn’t always great at social interaction but reading Dean… there was something about him that spoke to Cas.

               “Dean, please come over for Thanksgiving. I don’t know about you, but I feel like you belong in my life – even if it’s just as friends. To be clear though, I’m very interested in being more than friends with you.” Dean flashes Cas a cocky smile and Cas holds up his hand to stall any response. “That’s probably beside the point. What I’m trying to say is you are not only welcome at my place for Thanksgiving, but I’d be happier if I got to spend the holiday with you.”

               “Cas.” Dean’s fingers dance across Cas’ cheek and he finds himself leaning into Dean’s touch. “Okay. I’ll bring the pie.” Cas laughs softly and nods.

               “I’m sorry if it seems like I’m moving too fast, inviting you over for a holiday and all.”

               “Well, Thanksgiving isn’t exactly picking out curtains together. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t really know how fast something like this is supposed to move anyway. Maybe we can both just make it up as we go?” Cas turns his head towards the hand that’s now cupping his face and kisses Dean’s palm softly. Dean responds by pulling Cas closer, until they are close enough to touch their noses together.

               “In that spirit, I have a secret I’d like to share.” Dean’s breath smells like apples and Cas idly wonders how much of his own products Dean subsists off of. It’d be easy to lean in and see how much Dean tastes like the pies he creates.

               “Yeah? I’m all ears, sunshine.” Dean’s grin is mischievous as Cas runs a thumb along the bottom of Dean’s lip.

               “I’d really like to kiss you right now, and I don’t want to stop kissing you anytime soon.” Dean’s lips are on him as soon as the words leave his mouth. The last coherent thought has for the next while is that Dean does taste like pie, but also, he feels like coming home.

@nguyenxtrang

[leefi]

Hi, I noticed you did the MBTI types of the ORV characters, and I was wondering what you think the MBTI types are for the Revue Starlight gals :D

Anon, I want you to know that this google doc is 14 pages single-spaced, and I'm still not done.

WITH THAT BEING SAID, I'm so glad you asked!! I'll be breaking this up into four parts so we don't have to scroll through one massive wall of text. The other schools will take a bit more time to publish as I'm still working on a couple from each (I think I have four girls left!).

But without further ado:

Starira MBTI Part 1 - Seisho

Siegfeld

Frontier

Rinmeikan

I had a lot of help with all of this reading @HalfACape’s wonderful character analyses of so many of the girls on twitter, as well as consulting the Personality Database page for the characters I was less sure about (though there were a few I disagreed with on there - none in Seisho, we'll be discussing the others later). But everyone feel free to discuss if you disagree with anything!

Karen Aijo: ENFP

ENFPs’ dominant function is Ne (extroverted intuition) (that running gag Karen has in the game where she mishears words, spouting off suggestions even if they make absolutely zero sense to the situation at hand - “telescope? telephone? telenovella?” - is such stereotypical Ne). Ne is always running towards any possibility, no matter how unlikely it seems, and I don’t need to spell out for you how much of that we saw from Karen in the anime. Ne-Fi feed each other to create a rebel/free-spirit type of personality (Ne seeks all possibilities, Fi holds strong inner values and selfish desires - what do I want, what do I need? How does this make me feel?). Her Te isn’t too developed yet, which is fine because it’s tertiary and she’s still so young. That tertiary, undeveloped Te shows up in her scatterbrained, lackadaisical, go-with-the-flow attitude (but when dominant Fi gets fired up by something - like an old childhood friend coming home - it kicks Te into high gear). Inferior introverted Sensing shows no respect towards rules or regulations - see her revue with Junna (Si-dominant) and the anger she draws out of Maya for (a child of the system and traditionally hard worker) in their Revue of Pride. Karen is the natural rebel, the forever optimist, the sunshine girl - textbook ENFP.

Mahiru Tsuyuzaki: INFP

If you want to see what leading with an introverted function looks like compared to an extroverted function, compare Mahiru to Karen! They share the exact same functions, just flipped on the I/E axis. So Mahiru is Fi, Ne, Si, Te. Karen is Ne, Fi, Te, Si. And Mahiru is a very clear example of an INFP - such a warm, brilliant, awe-inspiring person, but can also be her own worst enemy and others tend to underestimate her. And it’s hard, I don’t blame her! Leading with Fi and not having that physical/in the moment Se to support it (like ISFPs do, just compare her to Kaoruko--yes--they’re only one letter off from each other) means that it’s extremely hard for INFPs to naturally advocate for themselves...so instead, they retreat into their own imaginations where it’s safer (Ne). BUT THEY’RE SO INCREDIBLE!! THERE’S SO MUCH THERE TO RESPECT AND ADMIRE!! *shakes her like maracas* IF YOU WOULD JUST SHOW US!!!!!!! (and this is her whole arc in the anime i don’t need to tell her lol). It’s actually so interesting how she and Karen’s Fi and Ne escapism manifests in their respective introverted/extroverted personalities. These two really are more similar than most of us think!

I love INFPs so, so much because they’re like sleeping giants. Once they get a hold of and develop that inferior extroverted Thinking it’s over - nobody else can compare. They’re like the characters in video games that start off super weak, and then you blink and suddenly they’ve become the most powerful units near the end of the game.

Kagura Hikari: INTJ

ENFP’s stereotypical partner (I swear every other reserved person A/sunshine person B couple in fiction is this type pairing) and while it’s tropey it works because these two types play off each other so well. I actually originally had her pegged as an ISTJ, but I think that her bullheadedness earlier in the anime is more indicative of Ni being stubborn. Hikari is cagey, reserved (tert Fi/inferior Se), and an incredibly high-achieving individual (dominant Ni sets specific goals, auxiliary Te implements). Her tertiary Fi (which INTJs LOVE to keep locked up, right here, forever, until they die) is so obvious as you slowly learn just how much of a sap/romantic she is. It’s her weaker Fi that holds that sentimentality towards Starlight after all these years, her Fi that struggles to hold on to that childhood promise, her Fi that has her following Karen (and eventually Mahiru as well) around like a duckling (though we initially get the impression that the dynamic is the other way around). She grows to care deeply for all the other girls around her and that’s all her tertiary introverted Feeling getting stronger as the story progresses! Like so many people in the fandom have realized, she isn’t a mean person, she’s just socially awkward. Not too much to say on her inferior Se, that mostly manifests in how she’s a homelier person who would rather stay in than go out, and doesn’t actively try to seek new experiences (this was what had me thinking ISTJ at first).

Junna Hoshimi: ISTJ

Karen’s polar opposite - they actually share the exact same functions, just in reverse! So Junna leads with introverted Sensing where it’s Karen’s weakest, and Karen leads with extroverted Intuition where it’s Junna’s weakest. And we see this play out in their revue!

Junna is one of my favorite characters in the series for a reason and it’s because it’s SO rare to see the ISTJ in a rebellious role. Si is all about following and respecting order, and Junna breaks all of that to create her own! We see that dominant Si show up in literally every other facet of her life, though - from her by-the-book attitude to her stringency with deadlines and tardiness to her respect for the creatives of old - Shakespeare, Nietschze, etc. She’s an incredibly bright and successful student as well (any type can be of course but the “kind of student” she is is very much Te supporting Si - super studious and placing heavy weight on studying and getting straight A’s). And her Fi is SO GOOD. SO SO SO SO GOOD AND SO APPARENT - MUCH stronger than IxTJ’s sibling Hikari’s at the start of the anime. That’s where the rebellious part of her spirit comes from - her values, her strong sense of self and desire for autonomy (EXTREMELY Fi thing - Fi is all about the self, how I feel about something, what I want out of this, not feeling trapped by others’ expectations, etc.). Inferior Ne manifests in how she struggles with improvisation, ends up tunnel visioning (see her revue with Karen), and can sometimes struggle to accept new ideas or ways of doing things (Junna works so hard, but it’s evident in the anime and a lot of her starira bond stories that she can end up getting stuck in her old ways if someone else doesn’t come in to offer a new perspective -- see her Jekyll bond story dialogue with Maya!). Another example we see is when her extroverted xSTJ sibling Akira, who has Ne a step higher than her but understands where she’s coming from with their shared functions, guides her towards using it in the High Priestess bond story!

Nana Daiba: ESFJ

Textbook ESFJ!! Caring, motherly, affable; Fe doms are always looking to appeal to the group and make sure that everybody feels comfortable (and, likewise, are very keen on suppressing their own insecurities/emotions/discomforts). Nana is not ambitious for ambition’s sake, and in fact suppresses her own talents to appeal to the group. As for that Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :)

Unhealthy Si can manifest as an extreme fixation on past experiences and a fear of moving on (we’re going to see this later with Si-dom Fumi too). Her poor tertiary Ne had gotten absolutely quashed by her stronger auxiliary Si in the anime - it doesn’t want to change anything! Claudine and Maya can be the leads again. We don’t need to modify the script. The first one was already perfect, why are we risking failure by changing things?! Also, holding herself back for the sake of everyones’ happiness is so Fe dom it hurts. If you want to see the difference between ESFJ and ENFJ (the two Fe-doms of MBTI), compare her to Michiru, who also suppresses her talents -- yes to cultivate the other girls’ (specifically Akira’s) brilliance but also for the sake of her ulterior motives to one day create her own troupe (aux Ni at work vs. Nana’s aux Si). Nana’s is more deferrant, but still just as ferocious - she’ll defeat Maya 60 times over to get what she wants. And the craziest thing is that all of this comes out of love and fear - she’s scared, and all of that is coming from her unhealthy Si aux. Junna is a very good example for her to follow for healthier Si.

Claudine Saijo: ENTJ

“DON’T IGNORE MY LINES!!!” ENTJs LOVE being at the top - the leaders of the pride, the people in charge, the ones you have to answer to (AND she’s a Leo too. Jfc girl pick a struggle LMAOOOOO). You get the picture - except Claudine isn’t in that position. Maya is. Claudine doesn’t even get a revue or her own song, because she’s Maya’s eternal second. This is a really, really uncomfortable spot for an ENTJ to be in, and it’s evident in how hard she pushes herself - and how antsy she gets whenever Maya is around. But Claudine never blames an outside system or factors like Karen (inferior Si) does for her situation - she just gets angry and more driven to succeed, bulldozing her way to the finish line (dominant Te-tertiary Se interacting). The tragedy of her character is that she will never surpass Maya, so we see her Ni begin to reframe achieving the very top to becoming the only star in Maya’s eye (little does she know that she’s already succeeded). That ripping off of her cloak at the end of the revue duet - “the only loser here is me” - is her inferior Fi poking its head out. At the end of the day, Claudine is an interesting character because she’s a walking contradiction. She’s a star denied a spotlight, but she isn’t a failure either, so she’s forced to grapple with this ambiguous, there-but-not-quite-there middle ground. It’s one big identity crisis in the making, and it’s clear to see why so many people relate to her and love her as a character - a lot of us can empathize with never quite being satisfied, and looking up towards heights that can appear insurmountable.

Maya Tendo: INFJ

She seems so normal and established and then you look closer and realize there’s something seriously wrong with her and oh my god where did this massive god complex come from. Typical Ni dom

From her detached, more “mature” personality to her altruistic and often surprisingly keen insight towards people, she has so many key makings of an INFJ. That dominant Ni is strong in Maya - everything is poured into theatre. Everything. From her hobbies to her interests to her personality, everything Maya does in her life is deliberate and all of it is for the sake of theatre. Ni bitches LOVE to fixate on just one thing, and for Maya, that is the stage. “I have no need for those who lack willpower...Come climb up here if you have the resolve...A single step forward is a step closer to my dream” is just...yeah I’m being redundant. Dominant introverted intuition. Ni Ni Ni Ni. This girl embodies it - while Hikari is also a Ni-dom, Maya shows a TON more of it than her (can’t say I blame the writers - Ni is probably the most difficult function to write because it requires thinking so many steps ahead for your character). We can see a marked difference between INFJs and INTJs here in how Maya and Hikari practice solitude - Hikari purposely isolates herself from Karen to avoid hurting her, while Maya purposely isolates and crafts herself into an untouchable God to serve as an inspiration to others (auxiliary extroverted Feeling). Want to see how this looks with the INFJ’s extroverted sibling, the ENFJ? Look at how Michiru crafts Akira’s public image. That’s Ni and Fe at work, just in different priority slots (Maya is Ni dominant, Michiru is Fe dominant - they share the same functions, just flipped on the I/E axis). That tertiary Ti is very prevalent too - Maya mostly keeps her thoughts to herself, and loves to mull over things. She definitely isn’t the first one to shout out an answer, she prefers to think things over.

One interesting comment that really stood out to me on her personality database page was how she’s an INFJ with an INTP persona in the anime, and I think I agree (INFJs and INTPs tend to present similarly and can be easily confused with each other anyway)! But I want to add on to that - I think that INTP presentation is her auxiliary Fe at play crafting a persona that better coincides with Claudine’s, as ENTJ/INTP matchups are extremely compatible (not saying Maya was thinking about MBTI LOL but rather she brought out and exemplified aspects of her personality that would better complement Claudine’s - their partnership is not a one-way street at all! Maya does so much for her!!). Just compare anime Maya to stageplay Maya, where she gives no headway and is absolutely brutal to Claudine.

Futaba Isurigi: ISTP

Futaba is such a great example of what a healthy ISTP can look like! Dominant Ti shows up in how she communicates with others - she's honest, direct, and to the point, but it's never utilized in a way that’s mean-spirited (contrary to how her girlfriend often can be) - it’s just how she communicates. Claudine (a Te dom which works SO well with Ti) actually points out in Starira that this is why they get along so well. Aux Se shows up in her physicality - her love and strength is in stage fights, she's into mechanics with her motorcycle and does all the maintenance herself, etc. Funnily enough, I think that tert Ni, while a slot above Fe, is actually Futaba’s least developed trait (or, at least, the one she's most guarded about) - she went into Seisho to follow Kaoruko, and her aux Se dominates that tert slot and gives her a … little bit of a lackadaisical attitude? Obviously not as much as someone like Karen, but in many senses she doesn't outwardly display a strong fear or anxiety towards the future like the other girls (completely understandably) do - and it’s that tert Ni getting angry when she feels as if Kaoruko is stagnating in her plans. There’s some inklings of her own plan for the future, but Futaba’s own individual plans are mostly kept to herself, so we don’t know how much or little she’s done about them. (I have more to add but will not continue as I’m venturing into movie spoilers territory, but for those that have watched/read them, try to draw your own conclusions based on what I’ve said!). I think that having such a close relationship with Kaoruko is what pushed her to develop that inferior Fe so early to support her girlfriend's dominant Fi. I actually originally had her typed as ESTP for how strong her Fe was (ESTPs have it a slot higher than their introverted siblings), but she really doesn’t strike me as an extrovert, and ISTPs with developed Fe can be very warm, affable people too!

Kaoruko Hanayagi: ISFP

“Kaoruko Hanayagi’s dream is world domination.”

Kaoruko is such a great example of what an unhealthy ISFP can look like! LMAOOO but no, I’m dead serious - if you want to know what unhealthy introverted Feeling looks like, look to Kaoruko. Everything is me me me me me me me, to hell with what anyone else wants (if you want to compare unhealthy Fe to unhealthy Fi, compare Nana and Kaoruko). Tertiary Ni shows up to support Fi in how surprisingly sharp she is towards other people - what makes them tick, exactly where to hurt, their inner thoughts and feelings (see her bathtub conversation with Mahiru).

BUT THAT DOMINANT Fi IS ALSO SUCH A POWERFUL THING. That “me me me me me me” is going to turn into “my vision, and what I want to create, and what I’m going to do” (once that inferior Te finally develops - which Kaoruko is going to be forced to put work into eventually). This is why, like Mahiru, I think that Kaoruko is seriously going to blossom later on in life - ISFPs and INFPs, the Pisces of the MBTI, have this weird penchant for going under the rader and then becoming insanely fucking successful OUT OF NOWHERE??? Like, they aren’t super motivated and driven with a specific plan like Ni-strong xNxJs, or disciplined and hardworking like Te-strong xSTJs, but???? You blink and suddenly they’re millionaires with four creative projects going on simultaneously (but if they get bored with any of them they’ll drop them instantly - you could not pay me all the money in the world to be an IxFP’s manager it must be an absolute nightmare <3). Just...legends out of nowhere? Rihanna is an ISFP Pisces so I have real world evidence to back this up.

[havenoffandoms]

Hello and congrats on 800 followers!!! Could I ask for an Eskel x female cat Witcher!reader with prompts 3 or 5? Thanks 😊

Hi anon! Thanks so much and thanks for this really fun combination of prompt. Here’s my little silly take on cat!witcher!reader x Eskel. Hope you like it. 

Send your prompt requests here.

Cat!Witcher!reader x Eskel: “it’s really not that complicated” (prompt 3) and “we could get arrested for this” (prompt 5)

“Would you hurry up, wolf?” you urge your travel companion as he struggles to pick a simple lock, “it’s really not that complicated, for the love of the gods.”

“You try and pick a lock in a tight space with little to no natural light,” you hear the witcher known as Eskel snide back. A guttural groan pushes past his lips as he tugs on the lock in his frustration. “Fucking thing!”

“Oh, get out of my damn way,” you snap at him as you squeeze yourself into said tight space, elbowing Eskel in the ribs as you wriggle up to where the lock is resisting the wolf witcher, “here, watch an expert at work.”

“Why am I not surprised that you Cat witchers know how to pick locks?” Eskel punctuates his words with a pointed eyeroll. 

“At least Guxart taught us some street smarts. What do you bring to the table, your theoretical knowledge of monsters? Your working knowledge of poetry? How’s that gonna help, you gonna bore the guards to death by reciting a couple of verses?” 

“Fuck you.”

“Make me,” you hiss in response, but your mood quickly brightens when you hear the familiar ‘click’ sound as the lock yields under your nimble fingers. You pull on it harshly and manage to open the trap door, your only escape out of these dungeons. “Hah! Where does that take us?”

“Sewers, judging by the stench,” Eskel remarks, his nose scrunching up in distaste. You can’t help but agree with your companion on this one. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”

“Let’s go, then.”

With the agility worthy of your namesake, you jump down yet another hole tight and land on your feet and hands. You keep this position long enough to assess your surroundings, your yellow-green eyes picking up every movement without needing to use a Cat potion. Unlike Eskel, who is probably downing one as you wait for him to follow you into the sewers. Once you are satisfied that there is no immediate danger, you rise to your full height and silently slip along the humid walls. You hear rats squeaking in the distance and scattering as the sound of Eskel landing next to you spook them. 

“Any idea which direction we should be taking, street-smarts?” 

“Well, the exit was north-west of our cell, so I’m gonna take a wild guess and say we should be heading that way,” you point in the direction you were referring to, “you got your swords?”

“Duh,” is all Eskel offered in response, “do you think so little of me?”

“Do you want an honest answer to that question? C’mon, we’ve wasted enough time waiting for you to drink that stupid Cat potion.”

You ignore Eskel’s grumbled response and take off without another word. You and Eskel have known each other for years. You first met on the path after he saved you from a particularly aggressive female wyvern. The beast was in heat and very territorial, and she did not appreciate anyone interrupting her mating rituals. There had been no contract on her head, you just happened to have the worst of luck. After Eskel saved you, he could hardly believe that he was not only standing face to face with a witcher from the School of the Cat, notoriously responsible for the creation of a famously vicious breed of emotionally-volatile assassins, but face to face with a female witcher no less. Your school often trained women, but very few of those were put through the trials and even fewer survived. You managed to beat the odds. You’re exceptionally good at what you do, which is why you and Eskel got along so well. 

After months of travelling together, and after a boozy night following a successful contract, you and Eskel became lovers. At first, it was purely physical, but as the months bled into years you realised that it was nice to have someone to go back to after an exceedingy shitty year on the Path. You started to miss Eskel after prolonged periods of not seeing each other and that’s when you admitted to yourself that it had stopped being purely physical a long time ago. You couldn’t let Eskel know, though. It would only get to his head. That’s why you settled for the tough love approach instead. It worked fine. Eskel had yet to run away.

Your train of thought is interrupted when you hear the familiar hiss of drowners in the darkness. You and Eskel simultaneously unsheathe your swords and brace yourself for an attack. One drowner sneaks up on Eskel from behind, but you notice it first out of the corner of your eyes and blast Igni in its face. In the meantime, Eskel hacks off the arm of another beast before running his silver sword through its abdomen, killing it with one powerful thrust. In the distance, you hear the echoes of more drowners heading your way. 

“Shit. We need to fucking hurry.” 

You run blindly through the labyrinth of underground tunnels. The truth is that neither of you knows where the exit is, or if there even is an exit. There has to be, you reason, the sewers always lead somewhere. Traditionally to a river, at least. There had to be an exit, or else the underground tunnels would be flooded and you would be swimming in shitwater by now. The fact that you aren’t is a fucking sign right? Right?

“There? You feel that?” Eskel suddenly speaks and instantly every hair on your body bristles in anticipation. 

“Feel what?”

“A draught.” Yes. You do feel it now that Eskel mentioned it. “Follow me. Turn to the left.”

You follow Eskel through the sewers, and to the relief of you both, you’re running away from the nest of drowners rather than towards it. Under any other circumstance neither of you would’ve shied from a group of drowners, but you were trying to escape and not draw more attention to yourself. Some other witcher, one that was preferably not wanted in Temeria, could take care of that one.

“We’re getting closer,” you say when your nose picks up the smell of fish and seawater, “we’ve almost made it.”

You and Eskel reach an opening several frantic minutes later, at once out of breath but also relieved that you managed to find your way out of those dungeons. It’s dark outside, which will help you and Eskel escape without raising too much attention, or so you hope. You both manage to exit the sewers soundlessly. Even Eskel with his impressive size manages to stealth his way past guards and civilians alike. Not as flawlessly as yourself, mind you, but you weren’t one to brag. 

Well, maybe a little bit, but there would be time for boasting later. 

“Hey look, there’s some horses there,” you tell him, your voice too quiet for any mortal ear to pick up but you knew Eskel could hear you loud and clear. 

“No. I need to get back to Scorpion.”

“Oh good gods - really? Eskel, we don’t have time for this. Scorpion is stabled near the city gates… at the other side of fucking town.”

“I’m not leaving Scorpion.”

With that, Eskel takes off in the opposite direction, leaving you to ponder whether you should follow him or go your own way and hope that your paths will cross again eventually. Fuck it, who are you kidding, you wouldn’t let that idiot risk his life for a stupid horse on his own. Well, if he gets caught you might just let him ride it out for a while… you know, just to teach him a lesson. 

You follow Eskel’s trail, making sure to remain unseen. Your hand reaches up and touches your witcher medallion, shaped in the form of a cat’s head, something you’ve done since the trials to ground you, to calm your nerves. After what felt like the longest fucking chase ever, you see Eskel pressed against the wall of the stables that you recognise as the place you two had left your horses in two days ago when you first arrived. Eskel peeks around the corner, checking for guards, and when he’s satisfied that he hasn’t been spotted he climbs up the side of the building at a surprising speed. You curse under your breath, but follow him up onto the roof of the building. 

“You know we could get arrested for this?” you tell him once you reach the top. Eskel raises an eyebrow, a mocking grin tugging at the scarless corner of his lips. Anticipating his smartass remark, you hiss: “I’ve just sneaked out of a dungeon, I don’t fancy another trip through those sewers.”

“Don’t worry, this won’t take you long.”

“Me? Whatever do you mean, me?” Your eyes land on the chimney and its opening, too narrow for Eskel to fit through, but not too narrow to fit… you. Oh, the bastard was going to pay for this. When you turn to glare at your companion, all you can see is the protruding lower lip and the pleading eyes. 

“No…”

“Please? Scorpion means the world to me.”

“What about me?” you snap, forcing yourself to look away or risk falling for Eskel’s pretty face all over again, “don’t I mean the world to you?”

“Of course,” he says, his tone growing softer, “and I’m sure if the situations were reversed, Scorpion would do the same for you.”

“Urgh, fine!” you eventually relent despite the absurdity of Eskel’s last comment, “but you owe me for this.”

To this day you don’t know how you and Eskel didn’t get caught sneaking a massive war stallion out of the stables, nor how you two managed to escape the guards at the city gates. It certainly made for an interesting story that winter when you and Eskel travelled back to Kaer Morhen.  

Lambert relentlessly teases you for ‘growing too soft’ and ‘being wrapped around Eskel’s little finger’, but when you see the open adoration written plainly on Eskel’s face as soon as he and you retreat back to his room, well, you simply don’t find it in yourself to truly mind all that much. 

[ladytygrycomics]

Hey there!! I just read all of Unguarded, and I loved it! You are a fantastic storyteller, and add a lot of depth and nuance to Freeza, who's by far my favorite DBZ character. I have a question for you, as a gay man what originally drew me to Freeza was his effeminate mannerisms and looks, and while it came from queer coding that is very common in villains, I found it very cool to see such an iconic character seem so unashamedly gay. I was wondering what your opinion on Freezas sexuality is?

    Hello! Thank you for the kind words. It always makes me smile when someone tells me they’re enjoying the story. It continues to update twice per week on ladytygrycomics.com and three times per week on the patreon; there is plenty more story to come!

    I can count on one. . . finger the amount of cold questions I’ve gotten over the last year so I will try my best to make this count. 😊

    Please forgive me my verbose tendencies but I feel like a simplistic response isn’t the way to go here.

     One of the paradoxical blessings and curses of Toriyama’s writing is that he doesn’t overthink decisions like these (if he considers them at all). Like you said, Freeza is interpreted as heavily queer-coded, at least by many Western fans—typified even more if they are fans of the Funi dub. I tack on that clarification because I’ve heard it argued that Japanese audiences read his mannerisms differently and I don’t have the background to comment one way or another on that.

    In addition to not addressing these types of questions, not that I blame him given the tone and genre of his story, Toriyama is inconsistent with the decisions he does make. Similarly, the responses he gives in interviews have to be taken with a grain of salt. It is hard to read them as anything other than Toriyama shooting from the hip since they almost never see fruition in the actual story.

    I mention this because it really gives fans the freedom to interpret these characters however they want. When fans have a blank slate, they sometimes project their own preferences onto the characters and they start to look for clues throughout the series that reinforce those interpretations.

    Now, the reason I brought all of THAT up is because I feel the need to differentiate between my interpretation, what I actually write, and what the showrunners are likely to do if they ever had to commit to a decision.

I’ll start with the canonical show. For reasons of practicality, I imagine the character is intended to be asexual. Toriyama developed a tendency to trot out female characters when [Saiyan] offspring were needed only to toss them to the wayside once the addition is done.

    We saw asexual procreation with Piccolo and Cell. The current showrunners seem to struggle with writing female characters in general and based on how they handled (or didn’t, rather) the Kale x Caulifla relationship, I don’t see them changing up the formula any time soon. DBS is trying to step outside old tendencies in that regard but it’s baby steps.

   Growing up, Friends was the most popular TV show with my peers. I personally preferred Frasier. By the time I was in middle school, this was likely one of the key reasons why I was familiar, and comfortable, with metrosexual men.

    My personal experiences growing up involved a lot of frustration in people misinterpreting my sexuality solely because I had interests and hobbies that were traditionally masculine. I also preferred t-shirts and jeans (still do) over traditionally feminine clothing.  While I no longer harbor insecurity about that sort of thing, this, coupled with the metrosexuality oozing throughout Frasier, was likely a big reason why I didn’t see Freeza’s mannerisms or appearance as an indication of his sexuality.

    Stepping back from any intentional implications from Toriyama, I presently view the character as either asexual (if his species is revealed to procreate that way canonically) or pansexual. Freeza is very much his own being and if he has an interest in someone, I feel like someone’s gender isn’t going to stop him.

I suppose the next logical question would be related to how Freeza’s sexuality is presented in Unguarded. In case anyone who is curious happens upon this response and feels this is important in deciding whether to read my fan comic, the sexual experiences I have planned for him are those of convenient proximity and utility. I’m not above raunchy fanservice (it’s actually one of my favorite things to draw) but the inner working of Freeza’s sexuality is not something I plan to make a major focus.

Still, even if it oversimplifies everything to answer this way, I feel I should give a straightforward reply: his sexual encounters in Unguarded are depicted as heterosexual.

Tl;dr He’s an alien. He could be anything. 😊

[obaby-me]

Don’t You Know?

Mammon x Reader

Mammon’s found a flower dyed in red.  He knows only one human who could possibly have thrown it up in the House of Lamentation bathroom.

Author’s Note: Traditionally, Hanahaki disease will result in death if Peron A’s love is not returned by Person B, or if Person A does not receive surgery to remove the flowers from their lungs.  The only consequence of the surgery is that they’ll never be able to love that one person again.  

I’ve upped the ante.  If your love goes unrequited, you either die or the surgery results in you being unable to feel love ever again.  Just feels right to me.

“Who is it?”  Mammon growled as he swung open the door to your room, startling you awake.

Groggily you rolled over in your bed to face him.  “Mammon? Wha- “

“I said, who the fuck is it!”  Mammon seethed, slamming the door behind him.

“Who?”  You manage to yawn out as you sit up from your bed.

From his hands he tosses a wilting crumpled flower from his hand.  It’s stained with blood, old and dried.

“Where’d you get- “

“In the bathroom behind the trash.  Must have missed the can when you were throwin’ it out after hackin’ it up!”  

The shock of his outburst left you stunned.  You stared at the flower he dropped in front of you with a furrowed brow as you struggled to process what was happening very suddenly at 2 o’clock in the morning.

“I said I wanna know who it is,” he spat as he stomped over to your bedside.  “I wanna know how long you’ve been sick, I wanna know how bad it’s gotten.”  He took your desk chair for his seat beside you.

Mammon wasn’t sure what upset him more:  the fact that you were ill, the fact that you were hiding you were ill, or the fact that you were ill because you were pining over someone.  Someone who was clearly not worth any of your attention if he’d made you ill in the first place by not loving you back.  Who in the world couldn’t love you?

When you finally came out of morning daze, he watched the realization dawn on you what he’d found.  Regret pulled your features into a tight frown and shame heated your cheeks.  When you could finally get your tongue to work, you tried to appease him, “Mammon, it’s okay.”

“No, it ain’t!” Mammon protested, refusing any excuse. “I’m your first man, I’m supposed to take care of you, and here you are, dyin’ on me!”  He let out a noise of frustration, his hands moved to run through his hair, mussing it up.  “And over someone who ain’t gonna love you back!”  He hissed, his frustration boiling over into a rising voice.

He sent you a glare, but the look you gave him in return was as if he’d struck you across the face. He would have felt regret if he weren’t busy being so pissed.

Suddenly a fit of coughing seized you, bending you in half as you choked up another pair of flowers.  Full bloom, and quite large, and drenched in red.  He stood from the chair quickly, a hand reaching out to rub your back—any anger he held dissipating into concern.

“I’m fine,” you said in a strained voice, your breathing labored.  More reassurances that fell flat to its intended purpose.

When you could sit upright again, you reiterated an “I’m fine.”  Bullshit, Mammon thought to comment though through clenched teeth he held it in.

“How long?”  Mammon asked again.

“Two months.”

“Two whole months? This can kill you three!  Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”  He asked exasperated.

He waited for what felt like forever but was only a matter of minutes. But there wasn’t an answer.  There was a silence—poignant and telling on its own.

Mammon’s insides churned. His every hair stood on end and a chill ran along his spine.

“I-I’ll get Lucifer to make you an appointment first thing tomorrow.”

“Appointment?”

“We’ll set you up with a doctor who can help you get rid of-of, y’know” he waved his hands at the flowers that littered your lap.  They were beautiful.  He hated them.

Why did you have to go and fall in love with someone?

Or at least, why did you have to go and fall in love with someone else?

If it had been him, you wouldn’t be this way.

“Look at the trouble you put me through,” he sighed collapsing back into the chair with a frustrated sigh.

You lowered your head, looking distraught.  Clearly you weren’t in any emotional shape to take his usual empty complaints.

Mammon moved his hand to stroke your hair, as he had done so many times before when comforting you—as you had done so many times before for him—and was startled when you swatted his hand away.  “Hey now, human—"

“I don’t know if I want surgery.”  You murmured.

His heart sank heavy into his stomach.  His throat constricted, and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in his lungs.  “Whaddya mean you don’t know?  Ya realize what you’re sayin’?”  He yelled, incredulous.  “If you don’t get the surgery, you’ll—you’ll…”

“I—I know.  I know,” you whispered to him, a hand gripping at your chest as if holding back another bout of a flower fit at the very thought.

“It’s not worth it.” Mammon growled.  “Whoever this is, isn’t worth you.”

“If I have this surgery, they’ll cut me open to take the flowers, yes.  But they’ll also remove the only thing in life worth living for.” You whispered.  “Without love, Mammon, I’d be alive, yes, but empty.  I wouldn’t feel any of joys of life the way I did before.  I wouldn’t love kittens, or sweets, or TSL, or movies, or anything.  What kind of life would that be?”  You choked out on a sob.

Mammon leaned forward into his chair; hands fisted into his hair.

He wondered briefly, if flowers had bloomed in his lungs, if it had threatened to choke him out of existence, would he choose the same?  Would he choose never to laugh as loud, or grin as wide as he did texting you at 3AM? To never feel that pounding beat in his chest and that coil in his stomach when he held you close while binging Hexflix? Or that feeling of being lighter than air and warmth in his cheeks when you praised him.

If he could no longer feel it but did remember the feeling, though never felt it again, would it be so insufferable that he’d want death himself.

“You still haven’t given me a name,” he reminded you.  He flit his gaze up to you between his palms.  “At least tell me who it is.”

Your breathing settled but your hands shook as you considered your answer.  “Mammon,” you whispered, looking at him desperately.  Were you afraid to tell him?  Did you think he would harm them?  He would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it.

“Please,” he begged, his voice cracking.  “At least tell me who it is that’s taking you from me.”

A remnant of a laugh huffed out of you.  “I just did.” You turned glassy eyes on him, a lopsided smile at the irony.  “I love you, Mammon.  You’re my very best friend in all the worlds.”  You laid a hand out for him to hold.  “And it’s okay that you don’t love me back.”

The statement shook him.

It’s okay you don’t love me back rang loudly over and over in his head like a migraine.  

“None of this is your fault, Mammon.  I’ve known from the start it would never work out.  But I fell in love anyway.”  A sob caught your next breath despite the smile on your face.  “And it was worth it, Mammon.  It was worth every minute.”

Was, you say, as if you were already long gone.

Another fit of coughing, another flower and barrage of buds and petals adds to the pile within your lap.

“But that doesn’t make any sense!”

“What doesn’t make any sense?”  You wheeze, the last of the petals you pick from your lips.

“How can you be sittin’ in a pile of flowers if you love me?”  Mammon yelled.

You simply stared at him, hesitant to pick up the implication he’d thrown you.

“I—I,” he started with a stutter.  Courage failed him even now and he looked away from you.  “I shouldn’t even have to say it!”

Your eyes widen, shock clearly written across your features and a hopeful glimmer in your eyes as you stared him down.  At least it seemed to get through to you—if the blush that bloomed across your features was any indication.  He could feel his own face heating, and his heart pounded.  It wasn’t the confession he’d dreamed of giving you.  He’d hoped he’d be suaver than that.

But the sound of your cough draws his attention, his head whipping up to see petals drop into your lap.

“S-so, now that you know, h-how long’s that gonna take to go away?”  He asked, embarrassment slowly fading to concern.  He moved closer to assess the damage this coughing fit wrought.

“It should go away instantly.”  You muttered softly.  Your head hung low, picking up one of the petals from your lap to rub between your fingers.

“Then why didn’t it go away? I mean,” Mammon asked, suddenly frantic.

"You shouldn’t lie, Mammon," you chastise, voice laced in pain.

“It wasn’t a lie!”  Mammon shouted desperately.

Had he not been clear enough?  Is that why it hadn’t worked?  "I-I," he stuttered again, struggling with a phrase that hadn’t slipped his tongue in any honest way in a long time.  Reaching his hands out, he pulled your hand between his two palms, holding tight as if in prayer.  His grip was strong but not enough to hide his shaking.  "I do love you," he pleaded.

Another flower was caught in your throat, he could tell by the way your chest wretched, but you refused to let out.  One hand flit to your mouth to cover it, just in case.  It seemed to hurt you, either to hold it in, or because you were choking on what felt like another lie.

For Mammon, it was akin to being stabbed.

He was at a loss.  For a while he simply held tightly to the hand that used to run though his hair, soothing him after his latest squabbles with his brothers or after a failure in his latest money-making venture.  There was no comfort in it now, even as you gave his fingers a soft squeeze of assurance.  As if he needed it, and not you.

“Mammon, it’s okay. It’s really okay.”

Was the way his heart lifted at the sight of you, or the way it fluttered when you praised him, or the way it beat right out of his chest when he got so much as to touch you, not love? What about his endless nights lying awake re-reading your messages, or his hours spent day dreaming of ways to make you smile or laugh, not enough?  How about the restlessness he felt when you were away from him, or the desire he felt to simply drop everything he was doing just to see you?

It wasn’t a lie.  It wasn’t.

"You don't believe me," Mammon realized, his voice cutting through the silence sharply.  "I ain't lying, you just don't believe me!" He shouted, indignantly.  You flinched.

"Mammon," your voice gentle in an attempt to calm him, turning your head the other way, as if looking at him hurt you.

That hurt him.

Not to be ignored, he moved himself to sit on the bed beside you.  "What do I have to do so you understand?"  He asked, his hands gripped your shoulders for a literal grab for your attention.  "I mean it!  I love you!"

You looked up at him with eyes that seemed to struggle with the comprehension.  Your lips were wet coated in blood, your face streaked with tears. His assessment of you must have embarrassed you as your eyes darted away again.  Before you could find a way to turn away from him again, his hands moved up to cup your face, gently as he could to hold you in place.  He leaned in quickly to plant a kiss before you could attempt to slip away.

He could feel you go rigid, and he could feel your flush radiate heat against him.  He wondered if maybe you could feel his as well.  He held this kiss for as long as he could and soon you seemed to lax into him.

"I love you so much,” he rasped when he regretfully pulled away for air.  “I-I ain't that good with sayin’ stuff, b-but," and it was all he could get out for the time being, as he tried to collect words and form them into something more substantial than the three words he knew. He held you in his hands softly, pressing his forehead against yours as if he held you close enough, his feelings might make it through from him to you without him having to struggle with the vocabulary.

"Mammon, will you show me instead," you cooed, rocking your head against his forehead to tilt his head up again.  He sighed relieved at your request.

“Yeah,” he whispered, “I can do that.”

Your lips met his again and your arms looped around his neck, with one hand snaking in his hair to keep him close.  He always loved your hands in his hair.

Again, and again, he kissed you, your breathy giggles encouraging him to be bolder, kisses getting longer, fiercer.  He could feel your smile pressed against his lips and it in turn made him grin.

Wrapping his arms around you he held you close, laying down beside you as he spent as much time as you would let him convey just how much he loved you, until sleep overtook you.

Not another flower, or petal, fell from your lips again.

[lutrain2020]

Meet the Creator!

Introducing: Roane or Mangoisee!

Commission:  I've never done commissions before, but I am considering opening them in the future!

Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mangoisee/

What's your artistic process like?

I tend to sketch, and just clean it up from there rather than using a separate layer for the lineart. I like doing interesting poses, and digital art makes it super easy for me to move certain parts of the drawing around, much more so than traditional. I really like using earthy and warm tones for the colouring too!

Tell us a little bit about yourself!

I like to play the ukulele and violin in addition to drawing, as well as play sports like volleyball! I love space and quantum physics, so I'm hoping to do some sort of research into that as a career! Some may call me a nerd, but I like to think of myself as having a diverse skillset. :)

What kind of mediums do you like to use?

I mostly doodle traditionally, and do finished pieces digitally. I really want to get into sculpting and embroidery as well!

What got you into art? what inspires you to keep creating art?

I think it was Gravity Falls that really got me into art, and once I started doodling a random classmate in middle school (who tended to be very critical) said that I was really good! That was sort of the spark that initiated me being open to sharing my work. Now, it's mostly fandom that keeps me drawing, but I am hoping to work on a webcomic soon!

What's your favorite/least favorite subjects to use in your art?

I enjoy drawing people and scenes with characters I like in them. Backgrounds are often the bane of my existence, though. Animals are pretty hard for me, too, but I'm working on getting better. I really like drawing people with fluffy hair, too, to the point where I'm incapable of actually drawing people with non-fluffy hair!

What's the worst thing you had to draw?

I had to draw a rabbit a while back for a birthday gift, and the anatomy absolutely. would. not. work. with. me.

Is there something that you struggled with that made you grow as an artist?

Definitely it was trying to branch out into drawing dudes! I went through a phase where I absolutely would only draw girls, and any guy I tried to draw just looked like a girl with short hair. Zelda (and LU in particular) definitely helped, because there are a bunch of dudes who I really really wanted to draw, and it really forced me to broaden my skillset!

If you have any fun stories about the pieces you made, please do share!

Most of my art comes out of me getting hit by inspiration and staring at my computer for hours while I complete it! Generally, if I split the work between two days, it ain't getting finished.

[arborpunk-fr]

This is actually going on my IG sometime later this week (you can see my handle on there - ArborMakesArt), but I decided I might as well just post this here too since it’s relevant and already has the right formatting. And I can make a lot more commentary! Under a cut. Its the step by step of how I made the art of My Son the other day and kinda what happened during the process

1 - Extreme Rough - This is a pretty small thumbnail that I scanned and worked on digitally. This was a huge challenge since its been a long time since I colored more than one character in a drawing. If it were the same species it would be one thing but I needed to play around digitally for a while to get the scale of the dragon figured out. By the way I fount it was lot easier to just block out a shape for him than to do thinner lines, not sure why that is (maybe easier to process the volume?) but I thought that was interesting

2 - Sketch pass 1 - Entirely digital, still rough but now it’s looking like something

3 - Sketch pass 2 - Pencil. I printed out #2, stuck it on a lightbox, and refined the lines. I’ve never worked this way (digital to traditional) but it turned out way better than expected. He looks so cute :D

4 - Ink Lines - Printed out a copy of #3, inked using lightbox. Normally I’d spend forever going over lines trying to thicken them up but I was trying to refrain from overworking them and did this all in one pass. I was very proud of myself |D

5 - Flat Color - Yeah so actually for the most part it went really well, it just took forever getting the blending and this is also a large piece of paper. I’ve never tried coloring a glowing orb traditionally so that required a lot of pondering, but it was fun. However. After the flat colors were done was when the problems started. 

FR colors don’t exist in markers, so I had to layer them a lot in order to get an approximation. So when I started trying to shade this, instead of layering some more, the paper reached it’s saturation point sooner than I guessed and just started pushing the colors around into a gross mess instead. For example the whole back of the dragon’s neck that would be in shadow smeared itself together. I didn’t get a scan of this because it was very upsetting, but thankfully stopped trying to marker shade before it did too much more damage.

6 - Shading Attempt and other stuff - Now I had to try to hide the color-smeared parts and shade more than I wanted to with colored pencils; I had planned to use them mostly just for highlights. And then...this next part was my fault. 8) I have an old set of pencils that younger me had a Big Fumble Day with and dropped, several times, in a row. I’ve dubiously microwaved them multiple times since then, figured they were all still shattered, decided to use them here anyway, lo and behold, they are all in fact, still shattered. Every time I thought about sharpening, immediate breakage. Tips falling out left and right. Barely got enough usable pieces out of the colors I needed to get this to a ‘close enough’ kind of state. I held onto them for a long time because they cost so much originally but obviously I just need to throw what’s left away and get a new set. 

So that’s how this went! The ending was a struggle and so frustrating, an exclamation point to a generally terrible last week I was having. Although its not originally what I was hoping for I don’t think this is a bad piece or anything. Sometimes you know....stuff just happens. There is a lot I do like and I learned a lot of misc little things throughout the process. The colors are really pretty! And I love the lines a lot. He’s adorable and he’s one of my favorite characters anyway so I’m always so pleased every time he turns out nice. |Da The pencil pass lives on its own piece of paper from the finished one so I can still pull it out and enjoy that version whenever I want too.

[indig0tea]

Final 2020 Update: 2021 Goals!!

Cross posting from my devART

Also links to all my alts and shit will be at the end of the post if you need them!

So some of these may be unrealistic due to my struggles with ADHD/Depression Combo but. I wanted to get these down somewhere so you guys can see them and be aware..

Please note, my executive functioning abilities are absolutely Butchered on the regular by my ADHD alone, and the various stressors of 2020 have absolutely taken anything else I might have had in that department and tossed it out the window.

Something something something, financial stressors outside of my control sends me into shut down mode and I can't do anything productive or even fun until it's handled, but because I'm not doing anything productive, I'm not making any money, and the stressors gets worse and worse and it just ends up in a horrible cycle where I constantly want to die because I'm not able to create anything to relieve the stress! Which is why you've all seen... pretty much a standstill on my productivity save one or two pieces a month if I'm lucky

That said, I'm going to start trying (hopefully with some outside help/accountability to keep me on track while I'm unmedicated) to put a system in place that doesn't make me constantly want to die while like. maybe actually getting stuff done! So I'm making some optimistic goals for 2021 regarding both my art and ability to make money, so here goes!

I'm breaking this down into 3 parts:

Changes to expect regarding my social media, commissions in general, posting, etc;

Overall Goals for 2021;

and Goals for January specifically.

Changes to expect going forward from here:

I'm going to be making some changes regarding my social media accounts, including this one, mostly concerning when, where, and how I'm posting.

I am also going to be making some changes to my commission policies, prices, and payments in the coming year, namely:

Lastly, I will be making some changes to my art discord server!

Moving forward, I am going to be MOST active on my twitter and tumblr accounts. They're just easier for me to maintain in general, and although I hate twitter's formatting, it's just easier and faster, and frankly after deviantART and Instagram fucked with their websites/algorithms, it just makes the most sense for me as an artist.

I'm also going to be making an effort to make scheduled cross-posts on all my accounts. In the past, I've been really irregular about when and where I post things (most things got posted to my old tumblr account but never here, i rarely remember to post to instagram, etc).

This is going to include commission slots, finished piece dumps, etc.

I will also be making an effort to semi-regularly post sketch dumps, both digitial and traditional. I am also considering at this time offering a monthly digital download of my sketch collections, though I am undecided as I'm not really sure how many people would be interested.

Increasing commissions prices to reflect time spent working on specific commission types, as well as my personal cost of living.

Planning and announcing commission slots in advance.

Taking and finishing regular commissions to cover living expenses on a monthly basis

Payments will be exclusively through paypal invoice, and will be broken up in halves: first half will be taken up front after I have started and given proof of start (base sketch), the second half will be paid after completion, with WIPS given between first and second payment. Fully completed art will be given after receipt of second half. This is both for my personal protection as an artist, as well as for the comfort of the commissioner as my completion time can sometimes be long due to my ADHD/executive dysfunction.

Moving forward into 2020, my discord will be SFW, but 18+ only. This is a personal comfort thing. I'm 25 years old now, and just really don't want to spend time hanging out with teenagers.

I'm also going to start trying to schedule art streams again! Since this is the only place I can live stream due to my art computer's limitations, it just makes sense to like. Schedule them so more people are able to attend. I haven't decided exactly how that's going to look, but once I have I'm going to make an announcement and formatting guide somewhere for people to see so they can make an informed decision about joining the server.

I will also be regularly posting in the server again. This may or may not be cross posts from twitter and such, we'll see, but I DO plan on being more active there since it's been kind of dead.

I may also reformat the whole server again. We'll see!

Goals for 2021

Regular Adopt Sets -- 2-3 per month. Size, price, and number in set will be decided on case by case basis.

I'll be doing a monthly prompt for myself as well. This is just to get me back in the habit of creating things I like for myself to just feel... less bad about my art in general, and about making art. Also it'll be good for my artistic development i think?

Keeping a monthly sketchbook for warm-ups and in-between pieces. May be offered as a paid download at the end of the month, we'll see.

Might start a patreon? This is EXTREMELY dependent on what my userbase looks like. Tiers and rewards to be decided at a later date

Regular traditional sketches + scan and upload of said sketches. May also be offered in the monthly sketchbook.

Draw more self portraits & self-expression pieces! I don't know if any of yall realize how repressed I've been in the last year without therapy, and I did't either until I forced myself to pursue a vent piece earlier this month, and then felt immensely better afterward so. Going to start doing that! Maybe I'll feel better weee

Regular posting to social media! (see changes above)

Drawing less fantrolls bc I'm just bleh about them lately, drawing more original content!

Drawing fancontent that ISN'T homestuck? We'll see but I'd like to. I don't usually draw fan art bc like. Idk in my mind I don't feel like my interpretation of things is important or cool and I think thats a confidence thing and I'd like to change that so! I'm gonna start making more fan content.

Draw more full illustrations & backgrounds in general because I actually enjoy doing them it turns out?

Practice painting more !! Both traditionally and digitally....

Goals for January 2021

Finish at LEAST 1/4 of my art queue. I'm shooting for half, really, because fully completing it might actually kill me but! We'll see! Maybe I'll surprise myself. But I'm setting the goal low to keep my mental health problems in mind.

Finish and release the base set i've been working on, on and off. It's an homage to  the old pixel doll days of 2009-2012, and the full sheet will be free to use (with stipulations, as I have some people blocked that I don't want using it). BUT! There will also be a mix and match .psd that will be pay to use (it'll be pay to use a, bc it'll be huge, and b, bc the edits to make it mix and match results in like 6 seperate bases in general so.... yeah. pay to use)

Finish the pay-to-use base pack i started in june (i may scrap and restart though, we'll see)

Possibly release all old p2u bases of mine in one pack on gumroad? price tbd but it will include old iterations as well as unreleased remakes.

Making some dainty-specific bases! One will be f2u, one will be p2u.

I have a whole dainty YCH set for january! I just have to finish the example... (:

Perhaps I'll be announcing a collaborative project later in the month! It depends on where each of us are at, at the time! We'll see! (: You should be excited though! It'll be a ton of fun!

EXTERNAL LINKS

Instagram

Twitter

Tumblr

deviantART

Discord server

[inikavulpixelreviews]

Let’s Talk About Pokemon - Gen 8 Retrospective

This Generational recap itself might be a bit on the shorter side, since I already said my peace on the games themselves and their less than stellar impact on the fandom before I even started them. (Not that there isn’t a lot I’m talking about here today though, hoo boy.) Though just know between a repeat playthrough and my opinion on the Pokemon dropping as I've analyzed them more, I'd say my final verdict is that they're a decent enough swan song to the way Pokemon games used to be that made Gym battles feel special again but lacked in a lot of other areas. 6/10 overall.

Though obviously Gen 8 isn't done yet. Since DLC is on the way, as I've said several times already. My general thoughts on the concept of Pokemon DLC replacing the traditional “Third Version” is good. For one thing I'd much rather pay $30 for access to new content immediately over paying another $60 for a “Pokemon Armor” version that had most of its new content back-loaded in the postgame. $30 is still steep... but it's better. And of course, the prospect of releasing more new Pokemon via DLC is a good one too. Hopefully releasing DLC rather than a full game every year will relinquish some of the workload off Gamefreak... so perhaps we can get smaller batches of new Pokemon released mid-generation to help mitigate just how many Pokemon felt like they didn't get finished in time. But also hopefully it'll mean Gen 9 will be all the better when we get there... Gamefreak has stated they're really challenging themselves with the next major Pokemon games so hopefully they're taking the more level-headed criticism to heart and it's not all talk but we'll have to see.

Yeah, that's about all I have to say about the state of Pokemon as of right now, neverminding my multiple rants and tangents since I've already gone to great lengths to state that Gen 8 isn't as good as I might've initially thought. I still like it overall, and it's probably still not my least favorite Gen... but it's very much like Gen 4 with an EXTREMELY mixed bag. Certainly felt like for every excellently designed Pokemon they had below-average flunky that feels like it should've gone back to the drawing board once or twice. But even all that aside, one of my more annoying sticking points with Gen 8 is the severe lack of new animals.

So in place of my usual ramblings on my thoughts on a generation as a whole, let's do a little Compare and Contrast. Let's look at the past few Generations and see just how noticeable this flood of species redo's is. Green checks are significantly new enough animals, Red crosses are for animal origins that have been done before, Yellow slashes for Pokemon with vague or heavily mixed taxonomic origins, and Grey circles for Pokemon that are disqualified for being Objectmon, since we've yet to get repeats of those. (Also disqualifying Gen 8's regional evos other than Obstagoon since it's not necessarily their fault that they're repeats.)

Are there arbitration in places? Probably. But I feel like the point still stands that Gen 8 was waaaaay too reliant on touching up on animals already covered in Pokemon before. Especially when there's still so many animals that have yet to get a Pokemon to their name. The one plus Gen 8 does have in this regard is that it has a few more “taxonomically vague” Pokemon than usual. But repeating animals in and of itself isn't all that bad, if you make the repeat different enough to be interesting in its own right. The one thing you could do wrong in that regard is to just make your monster notably more “normal” compared to the Pokemon it's repeating. So how does that hold up?

As much as I've established that one's a crow and the other's a raven, the two animals are still very much similar creatures. But I do feel like Murkrow and Corviknight are differentiated enough while both still being a “fantasy” creature in their own way. Murkrow is very much a gangly, cartoony crow while Corviknight covers the more majestic side of corvids.

Another one that's pretty blatant is that we now have two regions with a Ladybird as the common bug. Orbeetle does however get to be more accurate to the Ladybird life cycle, starting out with a larvae and ending with the beetle. Again, Ledian and Orbeetle are very different flavors of the same creature, Orbeetle not skimping out on any outlandish elements. In fact, it's more visibly outlandish than Ledian was.

This is where things start to get hazy. I've stated that Nickit and Thievul are sadly my least favorite fox Pokemon to date, simply because it has the least to offer imaginatively than all the other foxes that accompany it. Ninetales has the kitsune thing going on, while its Alolan variant covers Arctic Foxes. Zorua is a fantastical take on the tricky nature of foxes by combining aspects of shapeshifting kitsunes or tanookies while throwing in a bit of Kabuki. And Fennekin grows up to be more of a wizard. Thievul is very much a stereotypical red fox while having the trickster nature of foxes that's not only been done by Zorua before, but also in a much more stereotypical thieving way like a Swiper the Fox sort of thing.

Wooloo always struck me as odd ever since it turned out it wasn't the region's common Normal-type. I can excuse plainness in the common woodland animal since they're rather uniformly not terribly interesting (and arguably are like that by design). So it turns out it's more of a common early-game fodder just like Mareep is, but Mareep is just a smidge more interesting by being elemental, and also it turns into Ampharos, a weird little bipedal lamb with little flippers for some reason. Which is reasonably more imaginative than a Pokemon that's mostly just a sheep.

Sandaconda is another one that feels significantly fantastical and unique compared to its previous serpentine cousins. The only snake Pokemon beforehand that was hugely different from the template of what a snake usually is was Snivy. Sandaconda is even unique as far as cobra monsters go, with its “hood” being a big ol' sac that it keeps its projectile Anakin-repelent in.

Centiskorch is a little iffy. It's cool that they turned a real centipede's grappling maneuver and turned it into an even more effective weapon via its heat spots. But in terms of body shape it's significantly more normal looking for a centipede than Scolipede's almost horse-like proportions, isn't it?

Another iffy comparison since they're both fairly “regular” looking Octopus monsters. But even so, I'd count it as a point against Gen 8 since there's been more than plenty of time to come up with a cool and unique body type for an octopus.

That's better! Eiscue, while normal-looking if you only count the penguin body, is still a funny and imaginative take on a penguin monster that is a completely different flavor from Empoleon's stern look to boot.

Another dodgy one to justify. There's neat theming in there, but there's hardly any denying that an elephant that rolls up into a wheel and rolls around is notably a much weirder take on an elephant that Copperajah going by an elephant's body shape to a T.

Had they gone for a look more purposefully weirdly geometric like they SEEM to be going for, I probably would've given it a hand-wave, but even with that in mind, Copperajah is pretty vanilla in terms of Elephant monsters. Especially compared to Donphan.

...So even then, it's pretty mixed in that regard. Some Pokemon feel like worthwhile additions to the biodiversity, but others I can't help but wonder what the point was. Did Wooloo really need to exist in a series that already had Mareep? Couldn't they push Copperajah's concept further to better contrast with Donphan? Having repeats isn’t BAD, pretty sure every Gen past the 2nd has done them. But it’s hard to find sticking points on Gen 6 and 7′s repeats. Aurorus is totally different from Meganium. Vikavolt, while being much more close to realism in body structure compared to Pinsir, is still a vastly different fantasy creature just on account of having a gun for a face. And the whole Goomy line is almost nothing like Magcargo. And all that is WHILE still bringing in plenty of new animals to play with.

So yeah, I hope all that can help with understanding why I was a little harsh on Gen 8. It's still not my least favorite, cause we still got a ton of good out of it, and I would much rather have a mixed Gen of “Some Really Good, Some Not So Great” over Gen 2 and 4's “Some are good but the rest are really plain and boring.” But of course, as per usual, we gotta do the lists...

Top 10 Favorites of Gen 8:

Like I said, the new Pokemon that are good are REALLY good. Still struggled to make a Top 10, for good reason!

Top 10 Favorites Overall:

That said, there wasn’t a ton of impact on my Top 10. Top 50 maybe, but not here.

Bottom 10 Least Favorites of Gen 8:

Sadly there was plenty I was just plain not a fan of. Has there ever been a Gen where I just straight up dislike the whole Bottom 10? Hmm...

Bottom 10 Least Favorites Overall:

And tragically, this Gen did make a pretty deep cut into my least favorites, oof. It is an unholy image to not see Gallade be all the way to the left up there.

The Cutest:

The Coolest:

The Prettiest:

Corviknight and Eternatus aren’t just there because I ran out of traditionally pretty ones, just so you know. There’s something about a sleek, nearly all-black design that is genuinely gorgeous-looking to me.

The Spookiest:

Most Creative:

Weirdest/Most Unique:

Most Forgettable:

Most Personality:

At least there were still plenty of personality-driven designs! Look at all these adorable little charmers and smug little shits.

Most Under-Appreciated:

Best Regional Variants:

I’ve probably said it already but I am legitimately ecstatic with Regional Variation being a mainstay feature now. There is INFINITE potential with the concept and totally didn’t deserve to get ditched after a single use just in Alola. In fact I think it’d be rad if they do any more remakes they retroactively made “Sinnohan” or “Hoenn” forms of Pokemon. I thought they might’ve made some “Kantonian” forms for Pokemon in Let’s Go and redesigned a few modern Pokemon to look a bit like they were designed back in the 90s... but sadly that didn’t happen. Despite how cool it would’ve been. But Kanto is sacred ground that cannot ever be changed, I guess...

Best Ultra Beasts: (????????????????)

h

Best G-Maxes:

I still love the concept of G-Maxes, and we’ll probably get a few more before Gen 8 is done entirely. But it does stink that the concept in the end felt a little half-baked. Speaking of which...

Pokemon That SHOULD'VE Gotten G-Maxes:

Because G-Maxes wound up being locked to only be for Gen 1 or 8 Pokemon, with only a handful of exceptions. MAYBE they’ll stretch into other Gens in the DLC, but until then lemme just make a personal wishlist of SQUANDERED potential. Though I’ll limit myself to Pokemon that are only in the current Galardex as to not be here all day.

I’m sure if you pay attention to the Fakemon scene at all, you’ve already seen a few G-Max Dhelmises where the seaweed has grown so massive that it’s now able to possess an entire haunted ship. And they are CORRECT to make such a thing because GOD what were they thinking NOT doing that?!? It’s right there under your noses!!!

Still bummed there was never a Mega Vanilluxe... but this could easily make up for it! A towering snowing mountain of ice cream is a super cool idea for a kaiju-size ice cream monster, maybe even ditching the icicle shaped cone in favor of having it rest in a “bowl” of ice!

Like??? Hello????? Are you telling me you’re making Kaijumon over here and you’re NOT gonna make a giant mecha?????????????????

Because a giant living beehive deploying swarms upon swarms of Combee is a badass concept just by itself.

Like c’mon this one was REALLY staring you in the face. A region set in Poke-England and you’re not gonna make a funny giant Zeppelin?

Just trying to imagine a colossal haunted chandelier is giving me chills by itself. Especially if you were to make it look elaborately regal and all that.

I’ve not got a specific idea, you’d just think they’d compensate for the lack of a Mega form.

G-Max Rillaboom has me feeling like this one’s likely to not happen, since I imagined a cool idea for a G-Max Trevenant was to make it a giant Deku-Tree looking haunted tree with a colossal trunk and even bigger canopy.

I guess Butterfree already had the spot taken for “Mothra stand-in”, but I feel like Frosmoth has just as much cool potential for a G-Max form as Butterfree did. Especially with the powdery snow scales it has.

Perfect opportunity to give Goodra a giant, more monstrous slug-like form. But no dice there either. Maybe next form gimmick...

Okay, C’MON. We KNOW they weren’t that bothered about giving G-Max forms out to Pokemon that already had Megas. This is the most obvious one of all! ESPECIALLY since its defacto-Mecha Godzilla got a G-Max but it didn’t.

Most “Unfinished” Feeling:

Since “least favorite” doesn't necessarily meant “unfinished.” (As much as I dislike Toxel, it doesn't really strike me as “not done.”) Not that I have clairvoyance on Gamefreak's internal workings, but some of these Pokemon definitely feel like they're not up to scratch with the series's usual quality standard.

My Disappointment is Immeasurable and My Day is Ruined:

To pick on Gen 8 one last time... and since it was a running gag anyway, here's the Pokemon that just crush my dreams the most. Except Appletun, mostly. It's good enough to be let off the hook. The rest? They were things that were on my wishlist of things and animals I would've LOVED to see get turned into Pokemon, only for my hopes and dreams to sink faster than the Titanic. Considering a majority of concepts within Pokemon don't come back, if not for a very long time, these Pokemon mean that I have to reluctantly strike a cake monster, a snowman, a coal monster, a train monster, a sea urchin, a pie monster, and some fresh Lapras attention off my wishlist. Sigh.

With two rounds of DLC coming, the main Pokemon review series probably won't be back until the tail end of this year shortly after Crowned Tundra is released. I am excited to get to talk about some of what they've shown so far, but I'd rather wait until the content is released and we know everything about the new Pokemon and Regionals. There will however be at least one more little bonus article about Gen 8 and the future of the series, but I wouldn't expect it to be out for a while. Before the DLC is out probably, but still a long ways off.

[Archive]

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Surviving in a Different Medium: The Struggles of Making a Comic Book Movie

There have been live-action film adaptations of just about everything under the sun, from video games to cartoons, to books, to television shows, heck, even to amusement park rides or board games.  While some adaptations can turn out some….less-than-great products (Street Fighter, Inspector Gadget, Dune), other adaptations tend to do fairly well, such as adaptations like Jaws, The Princess Bride, or Forrest Gump.

Not all adaptations are created equal.  Some source materials are simply easier to adapt to the big screen, such as novels.  Others, like cartoons, are considerably harder to turn into a coherent, movie-length story.  But none of these, it would seem, pose quite the challenge that is the balancing act of a comic-book adaptation.

Comic book movies are odd in that, when they are successful, they are extremely so, but when they aren’t, they’re really bad.   For every major hit, there has been twice as many misses, (up until recent years).  For every Superman, there is a Supergirl.  For every Batman, a Catwoman looms.  For every Blade, there’s a Steel.

And that’s not even mentioning the sequels, or heaven forbid, Howard the Duck.

When you think about it, it’s kind of odd that studios should have so much trouble with what seems like a very simple task: cast actors who look like comic characters, take a story from a comic, and make a movie.  The plot and characters are already there.  All the filmmakers have to do is make a movie out of it, right?

Easier said than done.

Wait a minute, you might say.  I’m not blind.  Have you seen Marvel’s film roster over the past ten years?  They’ve been very successful!  And what about Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy?  Or Wonder Woman?

Admittedly, comic book films have been far more successful (and respected) in recent years than they have been in the past.  This is a good thing.  It means filmmakers are learning.  But by the same token, even in this new age of comic book blockbusters, there are some films that haven’t done so well.  The Fantastic Four.  Green Lantern.  Daredevil.  Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  

The question is, why?  Like I said, a comic book movie seems like it’d be much easier to do than a board-game film.  Comic books themselves are practically story boards.  What is so hard about lifting a comic onto the big screen?  Or, put another way:

How can comic books survive in a different medium, specifically live-action film?

That’s the question we’re going to be answering today, particularly as it pertains to superhero films.  Let’s take a look.

Comic books are, by nature, visual novels.  They are stories told through pictures as much as words, typically full of larger-than-life characters or situations that are nearly impossible to replicate on-screen.  You can do anything with comics.  The sky is the limit.  The creativity of the illustrator (and author) are the rule-makers in the universe of comics.  It is due to this unlimited creativity that villains such as Stilt-Man can exist, or heroes like Spider-Ham.  The costumes or abilities of characters are not governed by what can realistically be shown the audience.  They are governed by what the artist is able to draw.

Already, we’ve stumbled upon problem number one.

When adapting a comic to film, already, something has been lost: the freedom of visual style.  Comic characters have the benefit of being drawn by different artists, in distinctive styles, with costumes or abilities that are difficult to be done with on screen.  For this reason, many costumes for film adaptations end up changed for practicality reasons, such as any version of the Wonder Woman ensemble, or Scarlet Witch’s costume.  The recent adaptation of Captain America redesigned the look for a less-goofy design, and even the Batman costume, while remaining one of the most accurately depicted, has had a few changes in order to function on a movie set.

The realistic nature of live-action also cuts down on the heroes and villains that are usable.  Batman, the Joker, and the majority of his Rogues Gallery are able to be adapted to film with relative ease, as their gimmicks, while outlandish, don’t require an inordinate amount of special effects.  On the other hand, Marvel villains such as M.O.D.O.K. are far more difficult to replicate without it looking unrealistic or overly disturbing.  This is the primary reason that of Superman’s villains, only Lex Luthor has adapted well to the big screen: he is the most human, and therefore, the easiest to do realistically.

The problems with adaptation don’t lie merely in the visuals, however.  More difficult (and important) is the translation of character.

Comic book characters, specifically superheroes, are big and bold, with personalities to match.  On top of that, especially in older comics, characters were typically stagnant.  Up until more recent years, there wasn’t a whole lot of development, so readers weren’t confused if they happened to miss a few issues.  On top of that, thanks to the different iterations of each character, trying to find the ‘definitive’ version to adapt can be challenging, especially with all the alternate timelines, clones, and other odd occurrences that can make for new methods of storytelling with the same characters.  These methods, while good for comic readership, don’t make for easy, accessible adaptations for wider audiences.

As a result, we can get films like Man of Steel, where interpretations of the character are wildly different from traditional comic canon, or the change for Tim Burton’s Batman to disregard the ‘no-kill’ rule that has been widely accepted as a trait of the character.  To create a distilled version of a character, some traits have to be changed, or removed altogether.  The problem comes with how this is done, trying to make it work within the context of the character, and the context of the story you are telling.

So, to successfully adapt a comic book character, we’ve addressed that you need to change both the personality somewhat, and the look, if casual audiences are to enjoy the film version of this character.  While doing this, you must also balance the existing, canon character most traditionally viewed, ensuring that you do not alienate the already-existing fans by changing the character too drastically.  It’s a tough balance, but it’s one that more and more filmmakers are hitting, and have been since Christopher Reeve first donned the Superman cape in 1978.   But there’s more to comics than just the characters.

The stories have to be changed too.

In recent years, superhero blockbusters have become bigger and bigger spectacles, with the world (or the universe) at stake.  Some of these stories are original to the filmmakers, taking well-known villains and heroes and creating their own story.  Others, on the other hand, try to compress comic-book storylines into movie form, and therein lies problem number three, if anyone’s keeping count.

The issue with adapting the plot of a superhero comic is twofold: format and pacing, and nature and scope.  In the first of these two problems, the problem is very simple: movies don’t have the time for it.

In a comic series, a storyline can have several issues to play out, as demonstrated by The Dark Phoenix Saga, Snowbirds Don’t Fly, and The Dark Knight Returns.  In arcs like these, it can take several issues for a plot to be wrapped up, and in cases like Infinity Gauntlet, these stories are so vast that they are practically impossible to adapt into one concise film without leaving anything out.  As a result, the scissors come out.

In a lot of these cases, such as Marvel’s Infinity War/Endgame films, stories are condensed in order to fit into one (or two) films.  Subplots and characters are cut, things are switched around, and sometimes, the final result is very different from the original comic.  This is the risk of adaptation, no matter what format, but for comics, there’s a little more to it than that.

The nature of comic book stories is very eye-catching, expansive, larger-than-life.  The dialogue is typically over the top (either campy or dark), the comics are full of action scenes, (nobody wants to read a comic about a bunch of people standing around and talking) and the stakes are grand, the action grander.  The visuals of comics are a large part of what draws people to them, and so it’s for the best that they’re big and bold.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t exactly translate the best to live-action film.

Except in cases like Batman from 1989 and the original Superman film from 1978, most comic book films have a very hard time pulling off the ‘campy’ feeling from the comics while also being a genuinely good film.  Straddling the line between keeping the same tone from the comics while making sure it works in the context of the film is tough, with most subsequent films going too far either way.  Either a film becomes so over-the-top campy that it’s impossible to take it seriously (Batman & Robin, Superman IV, the original Captain America attempt), or so gritty that it can be alienating (Man of Steel, Batman Returns, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice).  While both extremes have their fans, most fans seem to be the happiest with a balance, again, a balance that’s hard to achieve, especially when you’re working with caped crusaders and flying people in tights.

When it’s put like this, it can seem almost impossible to make a good comic book movie, especially by the time you work in a script, actors that might work, and actually begin shooting the thing.  It seems like an uphill battle.  But there is good news.

Like I said, since 1978, superhero films based on comics have been hit or miss, but recently, there’s been more hits than misses.  Besides the original Superman and Batman films, there are newer endeavors like the MCU and Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam, all of which are proving that live-action superhero films can be done, and done well, by achieving that balance.  There will always be misses, but the odds of filmmakers understanding the delicate stability of the elements to making comic book films are looking better with every passing movie.

The secret to helping comic books survive in a different medium is a blend of styles and focus, everything from the visuals to the characters.  That’s it.  There’s no secret tip or trick, nothing that the filmmakers are ‘overlooking’, very simply, the secret to a good comic book film is just knowing what to keep and what to leave out, which can vary from project to project.  Some films operate better as darker, more serious films.  Some thrive on the ‘campy’ source material.  Some movies work better with changes made to the characters, others succeed far better with a more accurate portrayal of the characters.  It depends on the individual story, characters, and even filmmakers.  There’s no manual to make a movie a success, no matter the source material.

In short?

For a comic book to survive as a live-action film adaptation, the people behind it must have understanding and respect for the source material, combined with an understanding of both mediums involved.  When you have the respect already in place, and the desire to make a good movie, the rest doesn’t seem quite so impossible.  

Thank you guys so much for reading!  Don’t forget that the ask box is always open for questions, discussions, suggestions, recommendations, or conversations.  I hope to see you in the next article.

[ethandigby]

『 LANDON LIBOIRON ❙ GENDERQUEER 』 ⟿ looks like ETHAN DIGBY is here for THEIR SECOND year as a VISUAL ART GRAD student. HE is 27 years old & known to be DEDICATED, HONEST, STUBBORN & PESSIMISTIC. They’re living in NOLAND, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ drew. twenty-two. est. he/him. ethan’s pinterest

trivia:

he really likes white cholate & hot chocolate, often eating handfuls of white chocolate baking discs regardless of the time of day. 

visual art major --- tends to stray towards sculptures and installation pieces, though he does have a love for bob ross style landscape pieces. draws a lot of inspiration from older art, and many of his pieces are designed to look worn-out and as though they are missing pieces. 

perpetually exhausted --- for all his love of schedules, he has never managed to consistently get enough sleep and though he loves tea, that never seems to have enough of an impact to truly wake him up ---- a.k.a he is a yawn prone little fuck

doesn’t quite believe the local legends, though he doesn’t dismiss them outright either. the statue by wishing tree has, however, made it into several of his works ---- statues seem to have her facial features without him ever meaning to and he will swear to anyone that asks that in sophomore year of his bachelor’s degree he woke up one morning to her face staring at him from amongst the trees on a painting he had been working on. he will hesitantly add that it’s possible that he had just been thinking of her while half asleep, though ethan doesn’t really believe that

currently working as a TA for some of the freshman art classes, as well as overseeing the use of the different art studios from time to time. 

doesn’t believe in labels --- and that’s corny as hell, but he just wants to be able to be whoever he is in the moment and has had some harsher reactions when he uses umbrella terms, so he just refuses to label himself. relationship-wise it’s a whole different issue, he floats from one major relationship to another and often times will cycle back to one that’s already gone sour. 

has recently started going to a therapist to talk about some of the issues he has processing emotions and his fear of change ---- it’s been helping but he’s still very much on the verge of flight mode and will run away from situations that demand any real sort of emotional input from him on occasion. 

personality:

he is cynical, despite a desire to believe the best in people and the world - he has seen too much of the darker side of the world to ever truly believe it ---- this is reflected not only in his interactions with people ( he is open about expressing doubt and disbelief, he won’t believe a word you say, and he overanalyzes promises / invitations / declarations of love ) but also in his art and aesthetic which veers towards the dark and damned, a lot of his work is themed around broken things

stubborn as a mule ---- once he gets an idea in his mind, it can be hard to change his mind with logical arguments though an emotional appeal will have a better chance ---- he’s very set in his ways and struggles with questioning why things are the way they are, insisting that somethings should just be. loathes change and isn’t afraid to express this dislike --- tends to eat the same foods, wear the same clothes, go to the same places ---- despite a childhood dislike of routine, he finds it comforting nowadays, it feels safe.

loyal as all hell, you can hurt him a million times and he will still struggle to walk away and a genuine apology will win him back in an instant. he struggles to cut ties, even with those that he knows aren’t the best for him and has only successfully done so when it is possible for him to do so in a swift and permanent way. in most cases, he will eventually find his way back to those that he knows. 

friendly but not overly so --- he has no issue approaching people if he needs something, but he’s not generally one to approach you just to “chat” b/c he’s not big on small talk in general and honestly? he’d never say it but if he doesn’t know you, he doesn’t really give a damn how your day went or how you feel about the weather or current events. if he drinks, he becomes a little more sociable in that matter, but that often drifts into “ethan is going to info-dump about whatever has his interest in the moment and the only way to stop him is to like physically place something in / on his mouth” territory which is a whole different level of awkward. 

backstory:

growing up in a household where routine took priority, ethan spent a long time feel stifled by his parent’s demands that everything turned out perfectly ---- the neverending need to do things at just the right time, in just the right way. it was like fitting into a sweater that was just a tad too small, wrong in a way that is hard to explain

it’s in high school that he meets a true kindred spirit in the form of his art teacher ---- he helps ethan to realize his need for freedom and self-expression, and embraces his abilities in a way that he had always been afraid to. it’s a change that his parents are disapproving of, trying to reroute their son’s future to one of the paths that they would have approved of. but for once, he allows himself to rebel.

and after graduation, he leaves. running to new york, where he throws himself into the art scene head first without any real plans. for two years, he works multiple jobs as he cycles through sketchy roommates in his shitty apartment and equally shitty life partners, trying to discover things about himself that he hadn’t known before.

he’s still figuring some of that out, unsure of how to label his gender or his sexuality --- wishing more than anything that he could just be, a desire that he has long held onto since childhood that’s coming back to haunt them at last. 

that’s not the only thing that’s caught up with them as of late, the digby’s finally managing to track him down in new york and showing up at his apartment two years after he initially ran off. they came with open minds and a burning desire to see their son do something other than work minimum wage jobs and live in run-down apartments. they were quiet and subdued in a way that they never had been.

it took six months for them to convince him to enroll in college, and he eventually chose to attend radcliffe with an undeclared major. it was far enough from his hometown that his parents couldn’t reasonably drive up too often, but close enough that he could go home if he had wanted. a three-hour drive in the best traffic.

the distance proved to be the right amount --- though his parents certainly seemed to pop up over the first three months with containers of food and worries that their child would have run off, they eventually learned to trust him. and slowly, the wounds healed ---- ethan wouldn’t say that they’re close but they’ve learned to respect each other’s boundaries.

and he’s never seen them more proud than at graduation, except maybe when he told them that he was going to apply to grad school. it wasn’t the path that they had planned for ethan, but they had learned to be enthusiastic about his success, about his dreams and about his art.

doing his master’s degree - it’s been weird. being here is weird for him in general, he still misses new york even though it was a whole different kind of existence ---- he misses the stability of going to work everyday and being completely independent. here, he has to rely on his professors and classmates, he has people that expect him to check in with them and there’s more socialization --- mostly because he’s been trying to do better with that. 

connections:

good / bad influence: okay so traditionally, i think these would be separate connections but i think in this case, it’s more convoluted than that. for all of ethan running away from the environment his parents made, he’s very much stuck to those rules and expectations --- i would love for someone to start to break him out of that --- encourage him to party and drink and live life, and it doesn’t all have to be bad, it can be good too. you know, them bringing him to parties and him learning actually valuable lessons from it --- idk open to talking about their potential influence on each other, i think it could be fun

frenemies ( onesided or not ): i think a lot of ethan’s trust issues are a projection mechanism because he knows that in some ways that he can’t be trusted --- so i wld love for someone who they act like best friends when they’re together and then ethan just ... talks smack about them and doesn’t keep their secrets ( and maybe they do the same?? ) 

exes ( of all types / genders / whatever ): this one, my dear ethan, has gotten around a bit --- maybe they hooked up and now it’s awkward ---- maybe they dated for a while and keep circling back to each other despite knowing that they’re bad for each other ( a la unmiss you by clara mae ) ---- maybe they dated for a while and now they never talk so when they do see each other it’s just ... awkward as hell ---- open to literally anything with this one guys

art buddies: just two pals, palling around --- only prerequisite is that your character has some sort of interest in an art ( writing, theatre, music, film, etc etc ) --- and hey maybe they don’t get along but they put up a united front against the STEM majors who mock their choices in major? 

other: open to discussing dormates, coworkers, current love interests and literally anything else that you can think of --- does your character need someone over 21 to buy them alcohol? call ethan. for real tho, hit me up and let’s come up with some stuff!

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

September 13, 2020

My weekly roundup of things I am working on. Topics include wildfires, exotic energy sources, speculative energy sources, the Biden housing plan, and creative outlets.

Wildfires in Oregon

Oregon, along with the rest of the West Coast, has been in the news for devastating wildfires that are still ongoing. This is certainly the worst I have experienced, much worse that the 2017 fires in California. Both Oregon and California are having their worst seasons on record.

In Oregon, it started last Monday, when a strong (and unseasonably early) east wind came over an already dry state, drying the air further and spreading fires rapidly. The Portland metro area experienced sporadic bad air quality on Monday and Tuesday, and it has been consistently bad since Wednesday. Today is no noticeable improvement. The weather forecast is for clouds on Monday and some rain on Tuesday, which should finally bring about some improvement.

So far there have been dozens of deaths in the West and several dozen more people unaccounted for and significant property damage. My guess is that most of the damage will be harder to see: the impact of the poor air quality on people who are already vulnerable. These events bring about yet more disruption in a region that has already been reeling from the pandemic, economic hardship, and civil unrest.

I made a facetious remark on Twitter about solar radiation management, but I really have been struck at how much the weather has cooled down. The temperature is at least 20 degrees (F) cooler than it should have been, due to soot particles reflecting sunlight. In my neighborhood, the light-sensitive streetlights are on during the day. I can look directly at the Sun without hurting my eyes. Needless to say, I will need to be convinced that any solar radiation management scheme will not significantly harm air quality before I will believe it’s a good idea.

If anyone is actually reading this, I would implore you not to use the fires merely as a talking point for your pet climate policy. This is something that irritates me greatly. In the immediate term, we need relief and a stronger firefighting force. In the medium term, we need better forest management practices. Greenhouse gas mitigation helps only marginally in the long term. Don’t try to tell me that building a bike lane in New York City is the solution we in the West are looking for. Once the fires are extinguished, most climate activists will lose interest in our land use needs and move on to the next disaster.

Exotic Energy Sources

This week I added an Exotic Energy section to Urban Cruise Ship. I had been considering this for a long time, and I went ahead and did it mainly because I have been stuck on some harder projects and wanted to do something relatively easy. There are no graphics planned, as I don’t see the topic as important enough to justify assigning more work to our graphics guy, but there are a few interesting things.

One recurring scheme is various ways to capture piezoelectricity, which is generated through pressure on a surface, such as when people walk over a plate or cars drive over it. One study in Australia found that with more advanced generators, an educational building at Macquarie University might recover 0.5% of its electricity usage by installing generators at high traffic points. With technology that was current at the time of the study, it’s probably more like 0.06%.

As for roadways, I cited several studies that report levelized costs of electricity in the range of multiple dollars per kilowatt-hour (wholesale prices tend to be in the range of 3-6 cents/kWh and retail on the order of 10 cents). The exception was a California study that reported 8-20 cents/kWh, which as far as I can tell is just an uncritical repetition of claims from the vendor. Also not discussed is the fact the source of energy is kinetic energy from cars, so unless the car is braking, the generators are stealing energy from motorists. We might as well be using diesel generators then.

If I were to make a guess, the pilot project is little more than California burning several million dollars on a patently unworkable scheme because of some marketing by a shady vendor. I’m all for trying bold ideas that are not guaranteed to succeed, but one must draw the line at ideas that clearly won’t succeed or where basic feasibility questions haven’t even been asked.

Biomechanical energy harvesting is an idea that got a bit of hype a few years ago, but now few people seem to still be interested. Making some extremely generous assumptions, I estimated that it would have a theoretical of about 1 exajoule per year, or about 0.2% of primary energy supply. More medium-case assumptions would cut that by at least a factor of five. Plus that doesn’t account for extra exertion required by the person or embodied energy in the devices.

There are probably some niche use cases for piezoelectric generators and biomechanical systems, such as low power distributed sensors and personal electronics respectively.

I even commented on the power from rainfall paper earlier in the year, an idea too silly to take seriously.

Speculative Energy Sources

But even with the above we’re not done. I decided to venture into the realm of speculative physics.

In quantum physics, even a system with zero temperature must have some latent energy due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This has been termed the zero point. So naturally that leads people to speculate that zero point energy could be harvested for useful purposes. The near-consensus seems to be that this is impossible, that it must violate thermodynamics somehow, though I found it surprisingly difficult to find a rigorous explanation of why this is the case. This paper from 2019 is all I found, and even then, it only rules out two of three proposed ZPE extraction methods based on thermodynamic principles. Incidentally, the authors hold a patent on the third method and claim there is inconclusive evidence that it works.

Additionally, there is the NASA Eagleworks project to use the quantum vacuum to develop a spacecraft that can operate without onboard propellant.

There is a lot of interesting physics here that I don’t understand. I was expecting to write a short, dismissive comment for the website, but it would seem that ZPE is a legitimate area of scientific research. Maybe this will actually work for energy production someday. But there is no solid evidence yet, and any claims of a currently working ZPE device can be safely rejected.

Some other ideas that pop up, based in speculative physics, including hydrinos, neutrinos, quark fusion, and the ever popular perpetual motion machine. At least neutrinos and quark fusion are legitimate physics, but as far as useful energy production goes, these are all pathological ideas. I’ll add more as I see them. I briefly covered cold fusion a while ago on the Fusion page.

I expect that when the site is finally done, of the many things people could fairly accuse me of, not being comprehensive will not be one of them.

The Biden Housing Plan

Evidently I am a few weeks late, but the Biden-Harris campaign has a housing plan. The tl;dr is that there might be a few good things here, but I’m not too impressed.

When it comes to housing affordability, the principle I’ve tried to reiterate over and over again is that it comes down to supply. If there are 1,000,000 people who want to live in a city with a zoned capacity for 800,000, then 200,000 people will not be able to live there. It doesn’t matter if you impose rent control, eviction moratoria, inclusionary zoning rules, offer Section 8 or other subsidies, or whatever. As long as the supply is fixed, all these do is change the rationing mechanism from price to something else. Which, it must be acknowledged, is often the intent.

Traditionally, the federal government has a limited role in zoning. That could change of course; the federal government today has major roles in many areas where it previously had a limited or no role. As it is now, I see two plausible hooks for federal involvement in the near term. The first is the Fair Housing Act, where it can be argued fairly convincingly that zoning rules have disparate impact on protected groups, and in some cases intentional impact; and the second is to tie zoning reform to federal Community Development Block Grants or transportation funding, where reform is a matter of insuring that federal spending is actually used effectively.

The Biden plan calls for reinstatement of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which while imperfect, I think is better than what the Trump Administration decided to go with, which is nothing. As for the second, I momentarily got my hopes up when I saw that they were promoting legislation to do just that. But upon reading the details of the HOME Act (which was introduced last year but I was unfamiliar with until now), I see that the list of measures the bill calls for to promote “inclusive land use” are wide-ranging, and only some of them can reasonably be expected to increase the housing supply. It could be a good piece of legislation, but much rides on the implementation. Zoning reform advocates at the state level routinely underestimate the creativity that municipalities will show in evading the intent of their laws.

Anyway, there is a lot of other stuff here on racial discrimination, energy efficiency, and the Davis-Bacon Act (which probably makes housing less affordable by running up construction costs), but I won’t belabor the issues. All in all, it’s a plan that reflects the set Democratic interests pretty well, has a lot of stuff in it, and would do little to achieve broad-based housing affordability.

Creative Outlets

Like many people, I have been continuing to struggle with a variety of stressful circumstances. I took more time than usual this week on some creative projects, which has helped.

The newest one I am calling Project Epsilon, which for now is a maze generator. I’ve long had a fascination with generative content, and I would like to see how far the concept can be taken, but for now it is really just for fun. It is not deployed, but someone knowledgeable with Python and Flask in particular can download and run it fairly easily. Not that there is much to see yet. All it does it let the user input a few parameters and make a maze.

The other is Repair the Cosmos, which is deployed but hasn’t been updated publicly in a long time, despite considerable local activity. This is an incremental game that is meant to tell the story of humanity from the Paleolithic to the far future. I started it in January and have been working very intermittently since then, but I finally have a burst of creativity going for the first time in months. I still expect at least a few weeks before the next update, and I can only go for so long before I start feeling guilty about not doing real work.

[mysticsparklewings]

The Dream Crosser

Surprise! NaPoWriMo didn't kill me (and I'm not abandoning dA because of the incoming Eclipse update either, more on that situation here), I just needed a week off to recuperate...and obsessively play Animal Crossing: New Horizons... Admittedly, I actually drew this well over a month ago (and wrote up the majority of the description!), not just before NaPoWriMo but before I actually had New Horizons in my grasp. The plan was to post it the day I got the game. Which was supposed to be much closer to the game's launch (March 20th). That ended up not happening and the day I got the game was the first day of NaPoWriMo, but 1. I messed up with the non-uniform prompts and spent all of the day trying to catch up so I couldn't even play the game yet, and 2. As a side effect, I ended up having two posts that day and a lot of work to do to catch up the second, and I hardly had time to think about posting this. And even if I had posted it, it would've been drowned in the incoming NaPoWriMo posts. And so, here we are. Really, really, I do have to mention that I truly feel for anyone else still waiting on the game for whatever reason. You have my deepest sympathy and I'm so sorry I can't just give you the game right now and make it better.  I know the wait was hard enough for me, being this is the one game I highly anticipated in over a year and I essentially had the rug yanked out from under me. But I'll save that story for after I talk about the art itself since I'm sure that's what most people are here for and not my pre-order frustrations. So in case you don't know or couldn't tell, this is the lovely Luna from AC: New Leaf's Dream Suite. From what we've seen of New Horizons since it's release, the Dream Suite's functions and purpose have been mostly absolved into the Airport and Dodo Codes, and so I'm very doubtful Luna will actually be in the game in any capacity, which makes me sad. A typical player (including me) wouldn't even necessarily interact with Luna that much in New Leaf unless you really enjoy visiting other towns using Dream Codes, so I'm not sure what it is, but for some reason I just really like her. That's why I picked her to draw to celebrate. I very nearly drew her a long time ago when I was on an Animal Crossing kick in 2018, but at the time I didn't like the idea of pressuring myself into drawing all and/or multiple AC characters just because I wanted to be "fair" to them all (much the same reason I don't draw Pokemon very often), so I ended up drawing One Little Spark, a crossover of the Disney character Figment drawn in the New Leaf style, instead. So in a way, she's had this coming for quite a while. At the time I started working on her, (way back in early March, because I was hoping beyond hope my pre-order would arrive to me actually on launch day, but ha ha ha look who's got egg on her face for that ) I was running a bit dry on artistic motivation, and so while I tried to draw her in my usual manner: Making a sketch, transferring the sketch onto different paper with finalized lines, then picking whichever coloring method I was most into at the time), I was struggling with the sketch. I've had days where I have to work on a sketch for a really long time before I can get something I'm happy with, but this day I was just so not into the whole sketching process. I wanted to create, but I wanted it to be quick and easy and simple. I didn't want to have to poke at it for hours and hours and then still maybe not be happy when I was done. So when I got discouraged enough, I broke away from trying to draw Luna and just drew mandalas instead. (As had become my art-block crutch for a little while.) Somewhere in me, as I worked on other things, I kept going back and forth on what to do about Luna, though. I did still want to draw her, but my usual formula just wasn't working for me. Not for her. I even tried briefly to draw her linelessly, digitally, as what was supposed to be a quick and simple experiment, but that went downhill even faster than sketching did. Although, for some reason, the lineless idea wouldn't leave me alone after that. Finally, I decided to try something completely different. I was going to try and free-handedly draw her, without lines, traditionally. With, primarily, alcohol markers. Honestly, the thought minorly horrifies me now just as much as it did before I started. And yet, here we are and I actually like how it turned out. Allow me to explain how this came together: So, since I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out once I decided to try it, I opted to use my not-so-great mixed media paper so I wouldn't feel guilty about wasting better paper if I ended up hating it. Naturally, this did lead to some notable limitations, but not enough to discourage me from trying. I dove right in with the dark brown for her head and body, focusing on getting the general shapes down. I'd noticed some glaring mistakes in my mostly unproductive sketching when it came to Luna's body proportions, so I tried to keep those things in mind and adjust accordingly as I went. It was scary because there is no erasing this way short of using white paint and because this paper feathers pretty noticeably with markers. Then once I got to a certain point, I had to switch and bring in some pink and off-white markers to draw in parts of her dress so I knew where to put her other arm and her legs. And here is where I technically cheated; I did use my "clear" Stardust Gelly Roll pen to do most of the outlines for her dress. I needed some kind of guideline, but pencil tends to get yucky when you put markers on top and at the time I couldn't really think of a better option. (The joke was kind of on me because somehow I still got a nasty gray line that looked like pencil under her bust that I had to gently edit out later in Photoshop, but I digress.) As I went with the markers, I was also doing some light shading. Not too much, because this paper is really fussy with layers and blending, but enough that I felt like it didn't look completely flat and I could tell where one shape ended and another started. Though, for her nose (trunk? I believe Luna is supposed to be a Tapir) and her raised arm, I had to get a little creative and I used a white brush pen meant for glass/ceramics to put in the lines so you could actually see them. And later I would use the same pen in 3-4 layers to add the white back in for her eyes. With the base for her body, dress, and the bun part of her hair done though, then I had the task of figuring out what to do for her shoes and the details of her face. (Without having to mix and use specific paint for those tiny details.) In the end, I opted to mostly use my classic red Gelly Roll pen for her shoes, and a little bit of a dark red alcohol marker for shading. And then I got to experiment with mixing the classic red and one of the Moonlight Gelly Rolls for her lips so that the color would be visible and not just a dark lip-shaped "what is this." This was because the classic Gelly Rolls don't show up super well on dark surfaces and the Moonlight ones do, but I didn't have the right color straight out of a Moonlight pen. It did take 2-3 careful layers, but I think I managed well enough in the end. I used just one black pen, a Prismacolor brush-tip fine liner, for her eyes, though in-person the white base underneath makes her pupils look about a shade or two lighter from certain angles, which was a very unintentional nice touch. My answer to everything else ended up being gouache, although I did try to come up with pen colors for her eye shadow and the blue dots on her cheeks before admitting defeat that I just didn't have the colors I needed. Originally, I had actually been thinking of trying a lineless art piece with gouache, as I think it would work particularly well for that look, but I wasn't ready to fully commit to the idea, mostly because I seem to be even worse at mixing a non-excessive amount of a specific color with gouache than I am with acrylics, and that sounds like a fantastic way to waste a bunch of palette space because I mixed too much but it's gouache so it can be re-wet and re-use it and I don't want to just throw it away...  (Although I suppose this could be half-way solved by getting a bigger palette specifically for mixing gouache, but I also don't want to have to buy yet another palette when I have some perfectly good ones...If I could just use up all the paint in them already...) Anyway. Point: This is kind of a step between a full lineless gouache piece and not doing one at all. Baby steps, yes? I knew from fairly early on that I was probably going to have to use gouache for the front part of her hair/bangs, since I did not thoroughly plan ahead enough and didn't leave a gap there to do it with markers. Fortunately, I didn't have to do much mixing since my gouache already has a nice yellow ochre color included, and I could use a bit of the other two browns and one I had some leftover mixed already from Roses in Your Eyes for shading. (White for the flowers, too, thank goodness.) And I actually ended up going over most of her bun with gouache too since, by comparison, the marker didn't look like it had much shading and it was bothering me. I did have to mix my own blue and pinky-purple for her makeup, and I ended up with a lot of leftover pinky-purple. But it's kind of okay because by itself it's such a pretty color I'm sure I'll find an excuse to use that one. After that, I just had to do some minor tweaks where the gouache had gotten a bit away from me and then I went ham on the shading for the dress based on my reference photo. Then I realized I wanted some kind of background because this seemed awfully boring without one. And, naturally, I hadn't really planned ahead for that, me being me and being in habit of doing the background last... At first, I wanted to do something hot pink, since her official Amiibo card has a hot pink background, but then I thought that might be a little too loud and I wasn't really sure the best way to apply one without potentially messing her up. And also, this isn't watercolor or paper thicker than 140 lb, which immediately threw watercolor out the window unless I wanted a very uneven paper when I was finished. I'd already pushed my luck with the gouache and been very careful about not using much water with it; I decided it was best not to push my luck any farther. Also, I couldn't use my pink PanPastel, despite that being maybe my best option, because it is still perpetually screwed onto the little Pan Pastel stack with no hope of getting unstuck anytime soon. (One of these days I swear, I will order either another set like the one I have or an individual Pink one to solve this problem, but until then, I am going to bring it up every single time as a caution to others to please be very careful when screwing and unscrewing your own Pan Pastels if you store them screwed together.) And I didn't feel like dragging out some of my drawing pastels and/or makeup that's too expired to use on my face and very slowly building up color and hoping it'll do what the Pan Pastels do. With no better ideas coming to me, I decided I'd leave the drawing for the night and come back to it the next day. After yet more brainstorming the next day, I finally settled on doing a glittery rounded rectangle and filling it with washi tape stripes. This plan did change a little as I figured out which tapes I wanted to use (a purple-y, champagne gold, and light pink ones, the latter two of which look more different in-person than they do on the scan) and as I actually started applying the lines. Partially because this tape is a bit thin and partially because I'm not used to cutting tape around very specific shapes, it took a very long time to both place strips of the tape and then get them cut to fit right up to Luna without looking strange. Once I got to a certain point going in one direction, I realized my next couple of cuts were just going to be too hard for me to stand. I had a choice: Ditch the tape, or figure something else out. Taking a risk, I decided to try and salvage it by doing an almost-plaid/checkerboard with the tape, specifically leaving out certain areas where I knew it would be too tricky to cut the tape. This also turned out to be a good way to use up some of the pieces of tape I'd already cut off that were too small to be used the other way. It's still not the greatest background solution I've ever come up with, but it does the job of making it look less empty, and that's really all I wanted anyway. And you know, compared to official images her proportions look wonky, but by herself (meaning, without comparing the two) I think Luna looks pretty good, actually. (Though, I admit I did have to tweak her right ear in Photoshop because it came out entirely too long and there wasn't really a good way for me to fix it by hand.) To think, this piece started out as such a mess. Or rather, I was such a mess when I started. And yet, here we are, and it looks kinda okay. Okay enough that I finished it and am posting it, at least.   I have no idea if I'll be returning to this style/method for art-making in the future, but even if I don't it was a nice experiment to try, and that's what art is really all about isn't it? Experimenting, trying new things? Speaking of experimenting though, about those pre-order frustrations I mentioned now that I've covered everything about the art itself...(in small text for those that don't care to easily skip over) Back in February I tried twice to pre-order New Horizons from Target, since they were running an ad where if you pre-ordered the game you'd also get an AC themed journal with it, and that combined with my family member's employee discount made it the cheapest/best value way for us to buy the game. As I said, I tried to order it twice. Both times, it was sold out. My family member had even tried to go to the store and have them order it before then, to no avail. After the second time, which was the day after Target sent out the sale paper with the new ad in it, while I was still frustratedly wondering how on earth do you sell out of a pre-order?? I kept refreshing the page every so often just to see if by some fluke it would miraculously not be sold out. I got very lucky around 3 in the afternoon and we managed to get the order in before it sold out again. Now, we're a relatively cheap family, so we didn't pay for the "express shipping" or whatever. Although, this was a $60 game and we were ordering it three whole weeks (on March 2nd) before release. If you ask me, the least they could do is have it shipped out either on launch day (March 20th) or the day after. Especially if I can pre-order a book on Amazon with three days' notice and they can still get it to me on release day. But, okay, I could live with waiting an extra day or up to maybe three if I had to. (And, to be fair, this was all before a certain virus exploded into chaos here in the US.) Much to my dismay, a week before NH release day, I checked the order status with Target only to be told I wouldn't get it until the 26th. A week later. That was pretty disappointing at the time, but it didn't really bother me until the day before and the day of launch when some people were getting their pre-orders early from places like Amazon and Best Buy (and some of them didn't even pay for the express shipping option from their selected source). If those two companies could plan around virus constraints to do that, why in the heck couldn't Target? But, okay, fine. Maybe the virus had something to do with it and they were really doing the best they could. Whatever. A week. Fine. I'll wait a week. A few days later though, we got an email saying: Surprise! Don't expect your dumb video game until April 3rd because we couldn't get our act together! (Okay, that's not what it really said, but that's what it felt like.) And I know, I promise I so know there are much more serious issues going on in the world right now and a video game about talking animals isn't exactly a priority shipment. I know. But it was still massively upsetting after I'd already waited so long. And, honestly, I feel like they had plenty of time and notice to take care of the game before everything else exploded and messed it all up. Again, especially if other companies already had time to even ship orders early and/or get the games to people on launch day. Or the day after. TWO WEEKS after launch, and you don't tell me about the secondary delay until the week I started expecting the game to already be in the mail on it's way to me? The only tiny silver lining is that as I was checking the order to make sure it didn't miraculously get pushed back to sometime in 2021 (because I really had no faith in Target's time estimates at this point) is that it did get bumped back up to April 1st. Although, I did think that it would be the absolute least funny April Fools' Day Joke ever if the day came and it was late because screw me.  But it did arrive to me on April 1st as promised; I just had a million other things to do before I could play it. ) And I will say, I know I could've just canceled the pre-order and bought the game digitally, but it was enough of a hassle to order it in the first place, and if I did that I'd also lose my pre-order bonus. And all that aside, I specifically wanted a physical copy to begin with. I always prefer that when it's possible. So people on the internet that want to eat me alive for not canceling when the shipping got screwed up, there are my reasons. Take 'em or leave 'em. (Seriously, I've seen some people be really rude about this just because they didn't like hearing people upset that they didn't have the game yet...when they already had it themselves or didn't care about AC in the first place...) Moral of the story: Don't pre-order from Target. Or, at least, don't expect the item to actually get to you right around release day. Account for at least two additional weeks of not having the thing. ...Seriously though, how do you sell out of a pre-order?? At least, when it's a highly anticipated game and you're a big company and not some small indie company with limited resources! Sheesh! Anyway. I have the game now, I've been playing it as much as possible and enjoying it. I still have a ways to go before my island is "complete" per se, but it's coming along nicely and I feel more comfortable now taking some more time away from it to get back into the swing of making art and things like that. So hopefully I'll be getting back into a regular posting schedule and you'll have that to look forward to. 

____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[firstpresfp]

Easter Sunday Bulletin 4/12/2020

The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection, Eugène Burnand 1898

Prelude

“This Easter Celebration” to the tune of The Church’s One Foundation

This Easter celebration is not like ones we've known. We pray in isolation, we sing the hymns alone. We're distant from our neighbors — from worship leaders, too. No flowers grace the chancel to set a festive mood. No gathered choirs are singing; no banners lead the way.

O God of love and promise, where's joy this Easter Day? With sanctuaries empty, may homes become the place  we ponder resurrection and celebrate your grace. Our joy won't come from worship that's in a crowded room  but from the news of women who saw the empty tomb.

Our joy comes from disciples who ran with haste to see — who heard that Christ is risen, and then, by grace, believed. In all the grief and suffering, may we remember well: Christ suffered crucifixion and faced the powers of hell. Each Easter bears the promise: Christ rose that glorious day! 

Now nothing in creation can keep your love away. We thank you that on Easter, your church is blessed to be a scattered, faithful body that's doing ministry. In homes and in the places of help and healing, too, we live the Easter message by gladly serving you.

Opening Sentences

Do not be afraid: Jesus is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!  This is the good news by which we are saved: The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!  The crucified One is risen from the dead. We are witnesses: Christ is risen indeed! 

Litany for Easter 

Jesus came to deliver us and set us free from anything that holds us back from wholehearted service. From chaos and destruction to construction; from vanity and pride, from oppression and our own selfish ways –

Lord of life, deliver us.

From the valley of dry bones and the furnace of blazing fire, experiences like those of Ezekiel and Daniel,

O Lord of life, deliver us.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Alleluia! The Lord is risen indeed! 

This is the good news we have received:

Christ came and lived, died and rose again to show us possibilities for the future! 

Alleluia! The Lord is risen indeed! 

Prayers of the People

God of mercy, we no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for He is alive and the Lord of life. Increase in us the risen life we can share with Christ and help us to grow as Your people, through Your power – in unity with You, our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen. 

Light candle as a symbol that we pray for the Lord to illuminate His work for us again this day. 

Prayer before Scripture

Living God, with joy we celebrate the presence of Your risen Word. Light up our hearts by Your Holy Spirit so that we proclaim the Good News of eternal and abundant life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Scripture John 20: 1-18

The Resurrection of Jesus 20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene 11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look[a] into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,[b] “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Message Our Hope and Joy by Pastor Tom

After the message:

Blessed be the Lord, who has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Affirmation of Faith

I Cor. 15:1-6; Mark 16: 1-9; Matthew 16:16; Rev. 22:13; John 20: 28 This is the good news which we received, in which we stand and by which we are saved: That Christ died for our sake according to the Scriptures, That He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, And that He appeared first to the women, Then to Peter and the Twelve, And then to many faithful witnesses. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus Christ is the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He is our Lord and our God. Amen.  

Prayers of Intercession

Draw near to God, who is good, whose faithful love endures forever.  Let us pray to the Lord, our Savior.

God of salvation, hear us as we come to You. 

Thank you Lord for Your grace and mercy toward Your children.  Thank you for Your power to heal and save. We are grateful beyond words.  Holy God, we pray for:

Those who are sick and suffering.

Lord, hear our prayers.

Holy God, we pray for:  Those who grieve loss of loved ones, Medical personnel and others who work to help and heal, Anyone suffering abuse or discrimination. Those whose livelihood is threatened by business closures. Families learning to live, work and learn together in close quarters Those who have no homes and those who are not safe in their homes. Those who struggle with isolation, loneliness or addiction. Churches seeking to implement new faithful forms of ministry. Wisdom for all those in leadership that You would control every decision and action.

Lord, hear our prayers.

Gracious God, keep us strong, working and praying for the coming of Your holy realm of peace, when we will share abundant life with You; through Jesus Christ our risen Lord. AMEN. 

Together we pray the perfect prayer that Your Son taught us: 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive our sins as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. Deliver us from evil because Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Amen. 

The Offering

Deposit in envelopes if you wish and mail to church at 300 Grand Ave., Fort Payne, AL 35967. Easter Sunday is the Sunday we also give a special offering for the One Great Hour of Sharing. Holy Week is when we traditionally take up special love offering for Christian Cares at P.O. Box 681311, 35968,   Please remember and honor these opportunities to give of your time, talents and treasures. 

Acts 2: 44-46 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[a] to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home[b] and ate their food with glad and generous[c] hearts,

In the spirit of the first believers, we are called to share our goods in common and contribute to the needs of the poor with glad and generous hearts. 

Let us offer our lives to the Lord. 

Great Thanksgiving

The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.  It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is truly right and our greatest joy to give God thanks and praise.

Eternal God, creator and ruler of the universe, we praise You that Your glory has dawned on us, and brought us into this Resurrection Day 2020.

We rejoice that the grave could not hold Your Son, that He conquered death, rose to rule over all powers of the earth. We praise You that Jesus Christ summons us to new life, to follow Him with gladness. By Your Spirit, lift us from doubt and despair, and set our feet in Christ’s holy way so that our lives are signs of His life, and all we have may be signs of His life and all we have show Your love. Praise, glory and thanksgiving to You, our God, forever and ever. Amen.  

Therefore we praise You, joining our voices with angels and archangels and with all the faithful of every time and place, who forever sing to the glory of Your name. 

Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come again. 

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! 

Blessing and Charge

May the steadfast love of the Lord be yours, this day and forever. Alleluia! Christ is risen! Do not be afraid.

Share the good news that Christ is risen! 

Christ is risen indeed!  Amen! 

Thanks be to God!

This Easter Celebration

AURELIA 7.6.7.6 D ("The Church's One Foundation")

This Easter celebration is not like ones we've known. We pray in isolation, we sing the hymns alone. We're distant from our neighbors — from worship leaders, too. No flowers grace the chancel to set a festive mood. No gathered choirs are singing; no banners lead the way.

O God of love and promise, where's joy this Easter Day? With sanctuaries empty, may homes become the place we ponder resurrection and celebrate your grace. Our joy won't come from worship that's in a crowded room but from the news of women who saw the empty tomb.

Our joy comes from disciples who ran with haste to see — who heard that Christ is risen, and then, by grace, believed. In all the grief and suffering, may we remember well: Christ suffered crucifixion and faced the powers of hell. Each Easter bears the promise: Christ rose that glorious day!

Now nothing in creation can keep your love away. We thank you that on Easter, your church is blessed to be a scattered, faithful body that's doing ministry. In homes and in the places of help and healing, too, we live the Easter message by gladly serving you.

Tune: Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1864 ("The Church's One Foundation")  (MIDI) Text: Copyright © 2020 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved. Email: carolynshymns@gmail.com     New Hymns: www.carolynshymns.com/ 

This new hymn is a prayer to be used in Easter 2020 worship services, while most churches are closed and people are remaining in their homes because of the pandemic. It can be used for online worship or in online written communications from a church to its members. Permission is given for free use.

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found, He is my light, my strength, my song; This Cornerstone, this solid Ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace, When fears are stilled, when strivings cease! My Comforter, my All in All, Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh, Fullness of God in helpless babe. This gift of love and righteousness, Scorned by the ones He came to save: Till on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied – For every sin on Him was laid; Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain: Then bursting forth in glorious day Up from the grave He rose again! And as He stands in victory Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me, For I am His and He is mine – Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death, This is the power of Christ in me; From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from His hand: Till He returns or calls me home, Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

Dulce Et Decorum Est - Chapter 2

It’s finally here! This chapter has been written (as will be this whole story) in cooperation with @lightsaberwieldingdalek. Here’s the Link to AO3.

Summary: A beloved Queen's funeral and an unwilling coronation.

Quick note: Both Niflheim and Tenebrae have their own language. In this 'verse Lucian is the lingua franca, so the few foreign terms used will be shown at the beginning of each chapter.

Tenebrani (language of Tenebrae): élèvet = form of address for a viceroy

Nifasi (language of Niflheim): fanis = set phrase marking the end of an official (in the past mostly religious) speech sitrapp = viceroy

Lunafreya tried to steady her shaking hands, to keep her breath even and only concentrate upon the task in front of her. She could not fail at this. If she did the consequences may be disastrous.

Ravus should be here to do this, not me. I should be the one helping him. He has such steady hands.  

Her breath hitched and she desperately tried to keep it in, to cease breathing altogether, but her traitorous body made her release it in a heaving sob when her sight started to blur from lack of oxygen. Oxygen. A word her mother had taught her mere weeks before.

Another sobbing breath.

She could cry if she wanted to. No one was there to see, as she was alone in her mother’s study. Resolutely she scrubbed the growing tears from her eyes. After she had done this, she could cry all she wanted but now there was no time for it. Not when she had to do the tasks Ravus should have done were he here. 

On the desk in front of her laid a heavy, open book. Her mother’s flower lexicon. Her own flower lexicon now, she supposed. If Niflheim deigned to let her keep it, that was. 

Its paper was thick and cream with the pictures of the flowers and various plants related to Tenebrani flower language, shown in detailed hand drawings. The pages were currently practically buried under papers full of practice drawings, pencils and unused paint brushes.

Despite her young age, Lunafreya knew that the situation she now was in would not be easy for both her or her brother - wherever he had managed to hide - and not only because she had witnessed her mother’s death. The last thing she had seen of her brother was him kneeling by their mother’s side begging King Regis for help. Lunafreya had seen the pure desperation in Ravus’ eyes and hadn’t been able to run anymore, her strength leaving her, and so she had stayed. A small part of her whispered that that had been a truly bad idea.

Hopefully Ravus would stay hidden, even if she desperately wanted him to be here with her to make their mother’s burial mask.

If he was still alive, a traitorous voice whispered in her mind. But he had to be. He just had to.

Her fingers skimmed the slightly uneven surface of the mask in her lap. The features didn’t resemble her mother, not truly. Her captors had forbidden her from commissioning one of the specialized artisans to craft it. Traditionally, a royal burial mask was crafted from fine ceramic edged in silver. This one, however, was made from clay, formed by the inexperienced hands of a child helped by one of the maids who had taken pity on her.

What silver leaf Lunafreya had been able to scrounge together, she had used to line the eyes and lips, the edges slightly uneven. Now she sat there, forcing her hands to stay steady as she proceeded to carefully paint flowers upon its surface. They formed a band from the lower left to the upper right. Lunafreya knew the barest minimum about actually arranging the flowers, so she grouped them together the way she liked them, and hoped it would be enough for her mother’s soul to remember herself.

She started with the sage, as that had been what her mother was with her deepest devotion. A healer.

The sun set and Lunafreya continued to struggle, her small hands smudged with paint and formal dress stained and crumpled. She had been here all day, hidden in her mother’s study, to pick out the flowers and painstakingly paint them with unpracticed hands upon the mask.

Even as the light faded, she squinted by the large, ornate window, before harsh electric light sparked in sudden brightness. Lunafreya flinched back from where her nose was nearly touching the drying paint. Luckily the paintbrush hadn’t been touching the clay surface, otherwise there would now be an ugly purple stain on its cheek.

The harsh sound of metal boots on marble grated against her ears. Not a second later the door was thrown open violently enough that it crashed against the wall, and a struggling old man was pulled into the room, dressed only in night clothes. A rifle was pointed at him as he puffed and panted, clearly not having been able to keep up with these soldiers.

His wizened face was streaked by teartracks, and a large black eye was forming over a bruise the shape of a rifle’s butt. Stammering, he turned to the soldiers who dragged him in: “I-I-I can’t do this here, there are ceremonies! Please, General Glauca has to know- The crown, the sceptre, everything! We’re not even at the Oracle’s temple!”

His voice was high pitched and loud in his panic.

She knew who this poor old man was without having to look. He was the High Priest of Shiva. If the Oracle was unable to preside over a holy ceremony, it was him who did it. Last year he had spoken the grace of the new year because her mother had been away to help the rising number of scourge-sick.

Lunafreya curled into a ball, tears dripping silently down her face, as a second bruise was added to match the first, the old man crumpling to the floor. She ducked her head as a steel toed boot thudded into his gut, and a scream echoed through the high-ceilinged room. 

Eventually, a shaking hand touched Lunafreya’s shoulder. Much quieter than before, his voice rough from screaming the old man asked: “Do you-” a harsh cough splattered fine droplets of blood onto her dress “h-h-have a crown?”

Not able to bring herself to speak, Lunafreya reached for her mother’s desk and opened the topmost drawer, revealing the circlet sitting there, the one her mother likes - liked, she reminded herself, a tear dripping from her nose - to wear for informal photos.

The dripping of blood on marble sounded like a drumbeat in the silent room. Luna shivered as the empty eyes of the magitek soldiers drilled into her through opaque masks, a twisted parody of the mask sitting forgotten in her lap.

A quavering voice filled her ears, circlet held high above her head with trembling hands. 

“I speak in the name of Shiva, the Glacian, the final kiss of winter, the last breath. I hold up to the Gods this wo- girl”, he quickly corrected, but even that small stumble had an ominous click coming from the nearest gun as it was pointed at the High Priest’s back.

Blood splattered the priests fist as he coughed again. “This girl, blood of the Oracles, first born daughter of the Oracle Sylva Via Fleuret, whom now walks in Ramuh’s Domain. “

No she doesn’t, whispered that voice in Luna’s mind once more, as she stares transfixed in horror at the old man. Mother has to drown first.

The words continued, but Lunafreya they sounded as if spoken underwater. Only now did she realize this is was a coronation. Her initiation as an Oracle. The only reason she would be crowned was if- she couldn’t even think of it.

The plain silver circlet was lowered onto her head, stained with fresh blood, and tilting awkwardly down one side.  

In the reflection of the dark window, Lunafreya saw a slight young girl, eyes wide and tearful and blonde hair touched with red at the temples. The too large circlet only emphasising her age. Or rather her lack thereof. 

For the first time since her mother burned, Lunafreya seemed to wake from her shock, looking out at the city. Its lights twinkled in the growing darkness as if nothing had happened a mere two days ago.

The High Priest bowed as low as he was able, nightclothes stained a deep red. 

“My Lady,” he rasped. But not queen.

The 114th Oracle of Tenebrae, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, burst into tears.

The first silvery grey bands of the morning lightened the horizon over the still waters of Queensgrave Bay, its waters a deep black full of nightly shadows that clung to the arriving day. A single long rowing boat rocked gently by the shore, its oars neatly tucked in and new midnight blue paint barely dry enough for it not to dissipate into the water. The sheer cloth, light as a breeze, that should cover the precious cargo it carried, was instead a solid, heavy fabric that reminded Lunafreya of a bed sheet. 

The young princess stood in front of the gathered crowd, dressed in a heavy gown of midnight blue, her royal mourning mask covering the right half of her face. After making her mother’s burial mask and organizing a funeral boat with the help of a few servants she hadn’t had the time to make a personalized one. 

Next to her stood the man who would rule Tenebrae from now on as a protectorate of Niflheim. His name was Forsett Dunridge and Lunafreya could practically feel the oily and greedy aura the man gave off. He wore a mourning mask that covered the right half of his face, which was coloured a solid blue and had no adornments. Lunafreya wanted to tear it off his face and claw the man’s eyes out while she was at it.

But she couldn’t.

Instead she refused to look at him as he gave his speech. There wasn’t supposed to be a speech. Or any talking at all. Burials, especially royal ones, were to be attended in silence. 

Everything about this Élèvet Dunridge was aggravating, but right now it was especially his voice. It was a nasally thing, strangely high pitched and the man made what he probably thought was a dramatic pause, every three words. Lunafreya concentrated on the crowd in front of her, on the blank stares and barely veiled fury paired with resignation she found there, and forced herself to listen. If she wanted to survive, to fulfill her calling, she needed to know this man as best as she could.

“... is our solemn duty to now bid farewell to one of Eos’ greatest women. Her grace and beauty will be missed by all. May the Astrals watch over her passing and guide her into the Beyond. Fanis.”

Finally, there was silence. Only now that he stopped speaking did Élèvet Dunridge seem to realize that something was not quite right. Viciously, Lunafreya wondered if it was the lack of applause that tipped him off. The new viceroy stood there, in his garish black and red military style robes that were supplemented by pieces of decorative armour in the newest Niflheimr fashion, clearly waiting for something to happen.

Lunafreya could practically feel the man vibrate in impacience, before he gave a quiet huff and waved to a group of soldiers standing at the edge of the crowd near her mother’s funeral boat. They weren’t those new magitek soldiers but actual Niflheimr people in flesh and blood. The young princess counted seven of them, one of them clearly of a higher rank. They all wore helmets that reminded her of buckets with bars through which she could see their faces.

The crowd grew visibly nervous as they started to move and arranged themselves at the shore, near the water’s edge, close to the boat in which her mother lay dead. Three on one side, three on the other and their leader in front of them. All but him carried elaborate rifles at their sides.

He gave an order. Lunafreya couldn’t understand it over the sound of the wind dancing over the glittering waves. In a few precise movements the other six held the rifles out in front of them, as the sun rose over the horizon another order came to which they aimed their guns into the air and fired.

Lunafreya jerked in surprise and she could feel her stomach drop in dread. Her brother’s face as the shot clipped his arm flashed through her mind and all she could do was to suppress the urge to scream, tugging it tightly behind her clenched teeth. Other people in the crowd broke their solemn silence in their fear, as they screamed and ducked for cover. 

Again, the six soldiers fired, the sound of the shots echoing over the still waters and the wide plaza of Queensgrave Bay. It was near deafening. But through all that noise, the gunshots and the people screaming below them, she could still hear what Dunridge said: “And these are the people I’m supposed to rule? Pathetic.”

Silence gradually descended upon the beach again when it became clear that no more shots would be fired. Lunafreya stood there, next to this vile man, and had no idea what to do. Sweat made the palm of her hands slick and dripped down her neck. Her skin prickled uncomfortably as she slowly and carefully turned towards Dunridge. 

“May I ask what this was about, Élèvet Dunridge?” she asked, her voice carefully soft and her hands clasped in front of her.

The man stared at her, disdain clear in his watery eyes. “Sitrapp, if you please, or Viceroy, if you must. It is customary to salute a deceased leader in this way.” He hesitated for barely a moment before adding, as if it was an afterthought: “Is this not done here?”

Lunafreya swallowed dryly around her nervousness and scrambled for a fitting answer. Dunridge however, had already turned away from her to watch the following proceedings. 

He does not care.

The realization hit her like one of Ramuh’s devine lightning bolts. She didn’t know why deep down she had clung to the faintest hope that this man might respect Tenebrae. It had been stupid. So utterly stupid. The foolish hope of a foolish little girl. It nearly made her break down again right then and there. 

The only thing keeping her upright and her tears at bay as the soldiers returned to their original spot with brisk steps and four servants dressed in midnight blue and dark silver robes started to push her mother’s funeral boat into the still ocean, was her will to not prove this man next to her right. 

She knew he thought her to be a weak willed little child he had to put up with because she was the next Oracle - no, she was the Oracle now and that thought burned like acid in her mind. She knew he thought of the Tenebrani as wimpy weaklings who should not have the international influence and power they had. And now he was saddled with them. 

The solid blue cloth covering her mother fluttered in the wind as the boat slowly drifted out into the bay as if to remind her why she stood there, on the bay, in the first place. A breeze tugged gently at a strand of her blonde hair, like her mother had often done when reprimanding her for not paying attention. 

Her mother was right: she could think about such things later. Now she needed to fokus. 

She needed to be ready to sing the traditional tunes the moment the boat started to sink. It wasn’t a song sung in words, but a series of notes, rising and falling, made to imitate the tides in respect to Leviathan. 

Behind her, the crowd joined her, voices lifting in the wind, the tones a plea for the Hydraean to guide the dead Queen through her depths. And Lunafreya watched as her mother drowned.

She could still see the sinking ship in her mind like a recording, playing again and again and again, as she was pushed towards an armoured car, waiting just at the end of the plaza. Dunridge had clamped a meaty hand on her shoulder the moment she had started to sing in a subtle attempt to guide her off the platform. But she had refused to budge. This was a duty she refused to abandon with every ounce of strength left within her. 

The sinking boat was still visible as a black shadow under the water, as mutterings rose within the crowd she was being pushed through. Magitek soldiers in front of her pushed the spectators aside mercilessly to free the way.

They hadn’t made it past the halfway point when the mutterings turned into loud and angry voices. And when she tore her eyes from where she knew the glittering ocean to be, as rocks began to hail down around them, and the man behind her ordered “Warning shots”, the young Oracle’s eyes met another’s, eyes as cold as ice.

Shiva, the Glacian, the Gentle, the Beauty of the first Snow, carefully suppressed the urge of her host-body to huff in annoyance. She would not lower herself to that mortal reaction. She couldn’t, however, contain her ire enough to not freeze a train conveniently coming up near her corpse-body. 

Everything had gone wrong. So horribly wrong. 

The sacrifice-child was far too caught in her own head, drowning in grief and self-pity, to be of any use for now. Her brother had disappeared. Somehow he was hiding from her divine gaze. It made her feel… disconcerted. 

She needed to find him again. And fast. That boy may just be a backup, but power still slept within his blood. Power, that should not go unsupervised and unguided by the right hands. But that would have to come later. For now she needed to be the one to lend the sacrifice-child a sympathetic ear.

She kept watching until the car started to drive away from the angry mob, and the blighted puppet soldiers retaliated in kind to their growing unrest. Then she vanished, unnoticed, in a gust of icy cold wind to await her charge within her chambers.