#These days

[lileiv]

My full illustration for Good Omens for Palestine fanzine! It was a delight to work on and lovely to go back to drawing these two.

[mumblelard]

sitting on cornerstones or this morning i stumbled across more than a dozen folks praying at various spots in the woods by the river. not together. they didn't seem organized. not part of a group. just a lot of individuals all at once needing to be alone, surrounded by trees, staring silently at the water

[turndecassette2]

I do remember those magic knight people! Every once in a while I go back on your blog to try to track down those drawings because I like them and the concept in the description so much. I would love to hear more about them. Do you have a story planned out?

yeah, vaguely. so for the cosmology; there's this dystopian city I desperately need to draw a map of built above the fossilised remains of an ancient hell. the city mines the hell for 'hell-flesh', a semi-sentient magical substance that's kind of the physical container of the souls of the damned. I suppose this is like fantasy rare earths for fantasy compute or w/e. this has been going on for a while and the city is, kiruna-style, gradually falling down the pit. also as more of the hell is laid bare, semi-autonomous demonic creatures are let loose, maybe as a kind of immune response against human incursion.

(imagining this sort of thing + branching passages. but in the middle of an italian intra-feuding city-state w a population ca modern day singapore)

a kind of grid of bridges and fortresses has been built above the pit to protect the fancier, upper parts of the city from the decaying/descending bits below. the lower city is mostly miners etc & due to the fucked up mutagenic influence of living near a hell & touching hell stuff all day the people in the upper city treat them with suspicion. there's a 'join the US navy-army-whatever to get health insurance & education & basic human dignity' or like french foreign legion situation where by joining the elite magic army manning the little fortresses, ppl from the lower city can gain some access to the upper. in the reverse I guess for the upper city ppl it functions a bit like 'the wall' in asoiaf where criminals, noble bastards etc go to maybe redeem themselves or die horribly.

the fire magic used by the guards to fight demons etc is derived from the burning corpse of a god that is said to have been there since before the founding of the city (presumably the entity responsible for the hell situation in the first place). by swearing fealty to this dead(-ish) god one gets the ability to summon his divine flame but you forfeit your chance at an afterlife, or maybe you go to hell (no-one is quite sure). everyone kind of assumes once the body is fully burned the god will return/reincarnate (and either save or destroy the city, depending on who you ask).

the politics part; at its founding the city was part of some empire that has since collapsed (pretty recently). the city is dependent on trade to stay viable/fed and to appease the new warring states/mini-empires that have sprung up around it. the current ruler is a reclusive young queen & she has her favourite lord/advisor, an ageing academic who is sort of trying to liberalise the place or make it superficially less fashy. other lords dislike this & are working to either find her a proper king or hasten the return of some deity or other that will return the place to its former glory.

I guess the story? has this noble child bastard protagonist from a shady family* of word-mages who is sent to the 'centre' fortress & works her way up to become the apprentice of some hero-knight demon slayer guy with a possibly shady past (I think rn the name I have for the guy is Chaimé & idk if this is a good name? like the spanish jaime but w more e, & the tiny bastard is Myia I think). I imagine her being the sasuke to a happier, more popular girl who saves her from a demon (embarrassing) then is outed as a half-demon herself (she's the redhead in the drawings) & Myia warms up to her as she (demon girl) becomes increasingly isolated from the outside city (being supposedly dangerous or too powerful? I don't think Myia has much natural magic or w/e in her aside from being a nerd & very persistent).

sorry there's a lot here that would be SPOILERS if I ever actually made this into something coherent enough to be an actual comic ha ha. the knight/mentor guy gets dragged into a kind of fantasy 'business plot' & I guess part of that would be like, seeing to what extent he goes along with it & if he's actually a good person ha ha. + there's a bunch of other characters w stuff going on that I haven't figured out the looks of yet but. they're important in my head. the big bear-ish bf guy who gets sent on an expedition down the pit etc

* I have a distinct image of these people living hidden away in some gormenghast-style estate. they've habsburged themselves into being mostly deaf but the only ones around who can fully read/write the divine language that lets them do word-based magic & the other houses kind of have to put up w their weirdness. also scheming nobles in dune using sign language is 1 of my favourite things in the new film adaption & I like the idea of outsiders being forced to learn to sign (or else being cut-off from higher level magic) as some sort of power move? I don't think they involve themselves that much in politics since that's below them but are def part of the 'bring the gods back' thing, for better or worse. anyway after 'avas demon' (GUILTY PLEASURE I know it has such pretty colours but comes from such an unhinged part of the internet, will never stop apologising for this) started posting again I realised it had a character w the same look & vibe so will try and re-design protag girl to look more like this cute person I saw in a fashion post on IG

... let's see how this goes. came up w all this BS after some viz lady at comicon asked me if I wanted to make them a manga but it's grown from being too little to being too unwieldy to pitch. will see after I finish up my current projects. how much blood, swearing & genocide can a story have before it stops being YA. I think chainsaw man is sort of YA but dorohedoro isn't

[chavisory]

One of the things, ironically, that the whole "Last Supper" controversy with regard to the Olympic Opening Ceremony has highlighted to me... is that some of you really need to know more mainline Christians.

Because most of us? Even if we mistook the scene as being based on the Last Supper and not the Feast of Dionysus? Were really just not that offended or ruffled about it. Like I heard a complaint about it from zero--truly, absolutely, zero--of the many, many fellow Christians in my social circles. Not my parents, not the people I grew up with who still go to my childhood church, not any of my friends who are church musicians or choir directors or Sunday school teachers or clergy. Not when I was in church this past Sunday! Nobody.

And I feel the need to say this not because I'm offended or desperate to make this about us, but...it is being made about "Christians" as a general category that does not really exist, and that is in serious danger of being used to further a "Christians" vs. "non-Christians" perspective that serves the MAGA/evangelical faction but does not hold up to reality.

Because most of us? Think the Christians who have their panties in a bunch about this are being ridiculous, aren't reading scripture seriously, and don't have enough to do or better things to be concerned about.

So consider incorporating that into the "they're weird" narrative that is proving very, very potent right now, maybe, because most of us think that they are absolute weirdos whose priorities are completely upside down.

You don't have to be a Christian to be able to tell these people that you know they don't speak for "Christians" as a faith and that their fellow Christians, in fact, think that their priorities are screwed up and their emphasis on this is weird, and we are rolling our eyes at it.

PS--that Wikipedia link notes, correctly, that mainliners now make up a minority of American Protestants, and that's true, but that statistic does not incorporate Catholics, Mormons, UU's, or the Black or Orthodox churches. Evangelicals and fundamentalists make up a minority of American Christians.

They want to believe and want you to believe, that they stand for what Christianity means.

You don't have to. You don't have to accept that the world is the way they say it is.

[marilynmydarlinggirl]

I’m so interested in old people, like yes, please tell me your backstories and experiences you had back in high school, I’m all ears.

[ace-cf-cups]

Friendly reminder that up until 4B/S5 (so, until writers began to mess her up), Belle has never had problems with Rumple's magic, in Enchanted Forest or Storybrooke. She even liked it.

In fact, her only issue with Rumple in earlier seasons wasn't his use of magic but his reluctance to be completely honest with her / share things with her.

[adriheavymetal]

istening to these days……………🎧🎼🎸🥁🎤🎹🎷🎻🎧🎶👌☺☺❤❤ I usually don't listen to live albums too much, but this one is just incredible, I loved ,Randy iconic and one of the greatest guitarists of all time,#riprandyrhoads🎼🎸🔝🤘🤘❤☺ #listening #thesedays

[springs-hurts]

Why do you want to hate Merlin? R

O baba no!! Rationally speaking,i legit love Merlin, have always loved him.

These days, it's just me being irrational and Merlin is main character and I've seen so many bad Arthur takes that I'm kinda fed up. Also cause of my own insecurities, but I promise that's just me being insane.

Whenever I'm able to think like a sane human, I love merlin, he's such a complex, lovable character that you can't not. But I'm in a bad space these days and well, you always need an outlet, Merlin is that kinda outlet for me. Even though I love him...think after sometimes I'd start loving him again, just like I used to do.

[jt1674]

[mumblelard]

pocket-sized or sorrow delayed is sorrow denied

saturday i ate sheet pan nachos and shared one of my favorite movies with one of my favorite peoples

on sunday i slept late, washed my sheets, and wrote a bin poem to clear my head

last night a contractor, confused, i suppose, by the shabby maze of buildings where i am tucked, pushed my door hard against a straining threshold in an effort to force it open, and dropped me cold in the hole of sheriffs serving warrants

today i walked the worst hills over until all i could hear was sore joints and water from your eyes

[alicewhimzy]

Me, coming back to this franchise/fandom only to discover SIX new versions of the game that came with it;

🙂

[closertotheheart]

[aishi03]

I have been trying to work on my term papers and nothing fills my head with ideas or thoughts these days. Feeling bothered but willing to ace along. ✌️ 🕊️

TMI --

[theemeraldforestscrapbook]

"Why do games make you rage nowadays?"

Ages ago, me and @nixelei strolled into a random twitch stream, where a guy was playing a Soulsborne game called 'Nioh' and he kept dying. And he, just off-the-cuff, said that line that I quoted above. It's since become an in-joke, that we continue to refer to years after the fact, whenever a game gets a bit too... frustrating. I'm currently playing a game from 1999 (Thief Gold) which is supposed to be a bit of an all time classic - and it's been a good time thus far, but this level is really taking the cheesecake. Seriously. Why do games from 1999 make you rage nowadays?

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Brothers Comatose and AJ Lee - “These Days”

AJ Lee is a Comatose Sister on “These Days.”

The wide-awake singer and her mandolin temporarily joined the Brothers Comatose to record the Jackson Browne cover in an informal studio setting and in doing so made the case for a longer-term partnership.

Fully acoustic, devoid of drums and with harmonies as rich as Warren Buffett, this latest rendition of “These Days” seems destined to become the definitive cover of the song; flawless to the point it’s nearly impossible to believe it’s a live take.

Grade card: Brothers Comatose and AJ Lee - “These Days” - A+

8/21/24