#but also -- if you get Bernini Apollo and Daphne vibes from this art you are correct

[saturdaysky]

You may resist, but it's too late. You already embraced the powers the parasite gave you. You leveraged them to manipulate, to dominate, to survive. Your nature is no longer your own.

Mayhew failed the save to resist the Emperor's offer, and I have never been more pleased at a consequence! What an amazing moment.

Timelapse, line drawing, and character musing beneath the cut.

This choice!! Or rather, this lack of choice!

I love, love, love how failing the save made Mayhew's own will ambiguous, even to himself. He didn't want to be changed, he didn't want to forfeit his humanity (gnomanity)...or did he? He resisted. He opened his mouth to say I will not, but the door to his mind was already unlocked, power welcomed in. Mayhew will never know who unlatched it.

Also, while this is a Gale run -- Mayhew and Gale make each other worse in the most devoted, well-meaning way; the heavens will rue their names -- it also kind of feels like an Emperor run. A subtextual badwrong not-romance.

The Emperor and Mayhew are allies of circumstance turned intimate enemies. The Emperor listens to Mayhew's every thought, gives protection which Mayhew needs, offers advice and temptations which Mayhew takes. Mayhew likes the Dream Guardian; Mayhew cannot shut the Emperor out. Mayhew would see the Emperor dead, if he let himself think about it, but he would miss him after he was gone. And, of course, Mayhew is too curious for his own good, and the Emperor is full of answers.

For the two of them, partial ceremorphosis is a kind of consummation: what could be more intimate than shaping someone from within and without? Metaphorphosis is a gift, by one telling, and a horror story by another.

You are exquisite, the Emperor praised. Mayhew will never know if he became so by his own will.

(He failed the save by one (1) point.)

---

Timelapse! It includes all the silly things I drew for my friends, including: 1 tonsure, 3 neon signs, 2 cat emoji, 1 crotch face, and the emperor's armor drawn with my left hand. Spot them all!

Lines!

I don't usually work primarily with line, but I love it. In some ways, it's easier than painting, and in other ways much harder. I find I can't fudge things as much with linework as I can with paint; because the stroke is smaller, I have to be more specific. Even if I abstract details away, I need to understand the underlying form until I know what I am abstracting. It was fun having to be so rigorous.