#completely unrelated to the drag queens btw

[ghostlylicious]

im calling them sugarspice because i will

also used this ref!!

https://pin.it/4i1W2s1e4

[deathsmallcaps]

July’s Story

My fifteenth Win A Commission contest is Crystal the Wise! If you would like to see my version, and see all my drawings together, please

There once was a gentleman who had quite a daughter. Whatever her teachers gave her to learn, she gobbled up. Foreign languages, geography, so—all were unspeakably easy for her. And mathematics! She could add up columns of figures far better than her father’s accountants could. Before long, she could have taken their place.

When Crystal (for so she was called) grew a bit older, the neighboring children came over to ask her to explain the problems their tutors had set. Soon everyone came to learn from her. In time, word of this reached the king. He wrote to the young woman, saying, “My son is nearly grown, but my daughter has trouble with her lessons, and needs a teacher who could make her understand. Will you come and stay with us for a few months?”

Crystal was delighted to do so. When she arrived at the palace, the king, queen, and princess greeted her warmly. The prince, however, sulked like a little child. He had offered to tutor the princess himself, but the king had said, “You’re too impatient. I have found someone else who can do a better job than you can.”

Over the next few weeks, the prince sat in the back of the classroom and contradicted Crystal whenever she spoke. His interruptions grew more and more frequent. Still, Crystal continued to teach, because she liked the little princess and wanted her to do well. Tired of being ignored, the prince stood up one day and said, “This isn’t how I learned it. Everything you’re teaching my sister is wrong.” Crystal walked right up and slapped him! After that, the prince kept away from her lessons.

When the time came for Crystal to leave, the prince went to his parents.

“I’m grateful for all Crystal taught me, and after all, she’s the cleverest woman in the kingdom. May I have your permission to marry her?” The king and queen eagerly agreed, and Crystal also accepted, figuring it was a good marriage. She hadn’t realized she was worth more. 

After the wedding, the prince took his bride to a secluded cottage deep in the forest. As she was changing into her nightclothes, he came in and said, “Well, Crystal, are you ready to apologize for slapping me?”

“Apologize? I was right to slap you! And I’ll do it again if you keep on about it.” Crystal didn’t enjoy violence but knew when to defend herself.

“Is that so?” the prince snarled. He and a couple servants dragged her down to the cellar, where he thrust her through a trapdoor, into a little cell under the floorboards. There was a bed and a table and almost nothing else. In the morning, he asked her if she’d changed her mind, but she said no. Every day he came down and demanded she repent. Every day she refused, despite knowing her chances of survival were diminishing rapidly in such a dangerous situation. She had tried to run away when he first grabbed her, but even her considerable talents were no match against ten armed men. 

Crystal grew weary of her imprisonment, but there was no way she would apologize. One day, she noticed a corner of her cell was blowing air, due to a spider’s web flying into her face. She blessed the spider for alerting her, tand investigated the hole. There, she discovered a rushing underground stream. She dug a hole big enough to squeeze through, and managed to swim all the way to her father’s house.

Her father was appalled to find out how she’d been treated. “I’ll see the king immediately.”

“Oh, no, don’t,” Crystal said. “Just dig a tunnel into my cell and bring me some decent food, and of course, my books. The prince only lowers bread and water.” And Crystal swam back to her cell with the prince none the wiser.

At last, he grew tired of her refusals and called down, “I’m going to Paris to enjoy myself. I’ll have a servant feed you while I’m having fun.”

“Go ahead,” she called back cheerfully. 

As soon as the prince had left, Crystal bribed the servant to stop lowering bread and water, telling him to lie to the prince should he come back. She ran to her father and, with plenty of money from him, hurried to Paris, formulating a brilliant plan to ruin him forever with her father. There she disguised herself as a girl named ‘Marie’ and bought a house next to her husband’s. 

She then forged a letter to the prince’s parents, explaining that ’Crystal’ had died en route to Paris, and that he was going to mourn for a while. Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew this was a dangerous course of action, and very unhealthy emotionally. But she was SO angry.

Then, each day, she drove out in her carriage behind four white horses. Her gown was thick with embroidery, and her fan was trimmed with delicate lace, and she adopted a beautiful Parisian accent. When the prince saw her, he was dazzled by her beauty, though he didn’t recognize her in Parisian fashions. He began courting her, and wedded ‘Marie’ inside a month, never mentioning, of course, that he had another wife back home. Nor did he notice her glittering intellect, and thought her a dumb but lovely creature.  Nine months later, she gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy. Since Crystal had learned a bit, she made the prince sign a contract, vowing the children would be his heirs. He signed it, thinking it would be invalid, for she had drawn it up herself and he thought her stupid. He was mistaken. 

Three years passed. Then the prince told her he had been summoned home, but didn’t tell her it was for a new marriage. He didn’t know that this third bride had been set up by Crystal’s father. Feeling bored with his (supposedly) new and beautiful wife, he agreed to return home and decided to leave Crystal and his children behind. 

Returning home, the prince hurried to the cottage but discovered the cell empty. The servant told him Crystal had died of loneliness, so the prince thought he was in the clear. 

His family got him all set up for the wedding, disallowing him to meet his match, claiming superstition. When the day finally came, he said the vows, and everyone cheered. He raised her veil, and saw Crystal grinning triumphantly back at him. His children toddled out from the audience, and he knew he was in trouble.

Stunned to see his triply-wed wife, the prince knelt down before the court and begged her forgiveness. But it turned out, she didn’t have to forgive him. 

Her father produced the contract proclaiming the children as the prince’s heirs and a written account of what had passed by Crystal verified by many sources, including the servant who was supposed to feed her. Disgusted by their son, the King and Queen banished him and stripped him of his personal land, money and title, immediately giving them to Crystal. She and her family promptly lived happily ever after. 

My Notes

Now, you may not have noticed, but this story? Extremely messed up. I mean, this woman is degraded and goes on the biggest revenge plot I’ve ever seen a female character do in a fairy tale. She even has revenge babies! They are going to have a pretty messed up childhood. 

Why did I choose Crystal the Wise? Well, for three reasons. 

One, I heard it on, you guessed it, the Myths and Legends podcast. I really liked his rendition, but I did NOT want to type the whole thing out (I did that with a different story of his that I’m going to give to a different little cousin). I found this version online. And this all happens in the story! Crystal is just that machiavellian, and I applaud her! I kind of wish she didn’t feel like she had to continue having relations with her abuser, or to change herself so completely, but she really hit him with the ol’ one-two, and I like it when people can dole out justice like that. Hopefully she had someone to talk to afterwards? Also its pretty problematic the King and Queen did not realize how much of a little creep they raised to be their heir. 

Two, I realized I hadn’t done a story from South America yet! I realize its definitely a more modern story, with less ties to the Native people of Chile (btw the royal family of Chile isn’t a real thing), but I really liked it. 

Three, I was looking up the Aymara people of Chile for unrelated reasons when I realized I would love to draw the women! I don’t know what the textile industry over there is like, but it must be pretty entrenched in the culture, because they have so many pretty patterns and colors in their everyday wear! Combined with the bowler hats (legend has it that a shipment of bowler hats made it to Chile just when they went out of style, so the haberdashers marketed them to women!) with all the lovely flowers added on, I was excited! So I wanted to draw an Aymara girl. 

Now that I’ve explained that, I’d like to explain my drawings. They weren’t as full of background as some of my other drawings, but trust me, I put a lot of effort into them! I had a kabillion reference pictures.

The title is not based off of any movie logo I’ve seen, for once. Rather, it is based a bit off of the ACDC logo. I was working one day, when someone with that logo on his shirt came up to the register. I was inspired! So I quickly sketched out a sort of geometric, sort of lightning-bolt-esque title in between customers. And I liked it!

The second picture, the slap, was a difficult one for me. It combined an unusual perspective, unusual clothing, and unusual face shapes for me. As you’ve seen with my art, and maybe with your own art, it is often very easy to have a character face you and not interact with another object or person, You can’t really have that happen with a slap. 

This story is supposed to be set in the early 1700s, when Paris was very in vogue. But as I really wanted to draw a modern Aymara woman, I did play little fast and loose with the fashion. There isn’t too many reference pictures for old Chilean fashion. I had to reach a little. Which led me to using a more European style of dress for the Prince. And this is the only time you get to see *Crystal dress in a way that is normal and comfortable to her. This is an important ‘theme’ of the story - sorry to go all English class on you!

*Just remembered that Crystal is not a very Spanish-sounding name. I’ve never found the story outside, even when I try to look it up in Spanish, so some part of me is worried that someone made it up and pretended it was Chilean. Please let me know if you find anything. 

Their faces are different than what I’ve drawn before. As you can see on the prince’s face, he has serious acne. I’m not trying to demonize acne, but I decided that he’s one of those boys who hates getting clean and despite literally everyone telling him so, will not stop touching his face and causing acne. I went through a stubborn phase like that. But I also wanted to show how young and already so privileged the guy is. I really wanted to make him annoying. Crystal also has a bit of acne, to show her youth, but what really makes her face different than my usual fare is the fact she has a mole, never gets to smile of joy in my illustrations, and she is plump. I have a tendency to draw skinny characters I’m trying to get rid of as an artist -  I want to be able to draw everyone, anyone. And i think she turned out quite pretty!

Third picture, the cave, was again sort of a challenge. I wasn’t sure at the beginning how to place Crystal so you could sort of see the hole that leads into her room, while also showing her climbing down and the underground waterways she is going to enter. And as you’ve might’ve seen before, when I draw caves and rocks, all I think of is really ‘geometry’ but in the way the guy in this meme thinks of aliens (look up history channel aliens if you don’t know).

But I guess I did it? As for Crystal, you can tell she’s uncomfortable, she’s skinnier in an unhealthy way and colder than before, her hair isn’t in the customary braids but in a crappy bun to keep it off her face, and her dress is in tatters. Not a happy camper, and understandably so.

Last picture, Crystal’s wedding dress, was sort of hard in a different way, again! I decided early on I wanted to base her dress off of Elizabeth’s wedding dress from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. But I had to draw that while Crystal was holding her two kids on her hips, and smirking. I think I managed it, though. I think it’s interesting to note that the look epitomizes the kind of person she had to emulate while tricking the prince; a meek, european-mimicking little wifey. Totally different than the person she really is, the person she is illustrated to be in the first picture. 

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed that! Another problematic story will be the one for next month! Thanks for reading!

@boopboopboopbadoop​

[pastel-popplio]

1, 4, 19 and 4 for those oc asks!!

You put 4 twice so i just went ahead and did 44 lmao

1. Your first OC ever? Ohhh boy, if we're talking very first character ( bc i didn't know the term then ) , I made up this little dog when I was 3 years old, her name was Puppy. She was a tiny pure white maltese/poodle mix, and I never drew her surprisingly but I pretended to be her whenever my sister and I played pretend if it had to do with animals or I'd toss her into our games with a random toy to act as the body since I didn't have any white dog plushies. Even back then I was a total angsty fuck when it came to backstories because she was always either abused by her owners or abandoned and living half-starved as a stray ( often in the cold rain ) and she'd be super grateful to anyone who helped her/taught her the ways of the streets. She was very playful and sweet but quick to cry when someone was mean to her and I loved her so much dude oh man, I don't think I completely stopped using her ( in the rare times I still played with my lil sister ) until around 5th grade maybe?

I'm super tempted to try and draw her now not gonna lie, in my head she basically looked like the lil maltese in the DOGZ gba game mixed with disney lady and the tramp style lmao

4. An OC you rarely talk about? I'll go with my ( very self-indulgent ) oc Xarrnacc ( pronounced Zar-nack ) . I made her up like a day after I started binging the Ju/stice Leag/ue animated series on netflix a couple years back lmao. Here is the link to her ref pics ( don't bother reading the info bc it's either old or stated below lmao )

http://pastel-popplio.tumblr.com/post/145593516169/oh-btw-guys-here-is-another-dc-oc-of-mine-but-she

http://scourgefeather.deviantart.com/art/Xarrnacc-bust-doodle-614140861

GET READY FOR AN INFO DUMP BC I NEVER GET TO TALK ABOUT OR DRAW HER BUT I THOUGHT ABOUT HER SO MUCH WHEN I MADE HER MMMM

She's a horribly shy alien babe who's a scientific genius ( especially with physics and chemistry ) and also studies Ice Magic. She worked as an engineer for the highest members of her planet in the capital city ( a lot of the planet is still entirely natural resources bc they care more about their ecosystem than we do, so the other scattered inhabited areas make up a small enough portion that they only need the one really big city for the government/royals to rule everyone else from ) , but was eventually framed by a few jealous coworkers. The Mistress ( her planet's ruler who's basically a mix of President and Queen ) had no choice but to ( reluctantly ) exile her from the planet for the severe crime/rule infraction.

She was sent to Earth to die in the arctic ( since not only was it rumored to be inhospitable, but her planet didn't know Earth had really moved past the ice age since it's so far away. They pretty much spun a wheel of dangerous planet names and launched her there ) , but ended up meeting an old man in the cold barren area who was charged with the noble duty of protecting a hidden library of old spellbooks. She befriended him and lived/with worked under him as a fellow magic user until he was killed while on a trip. She didn't know of his death until a couple days after he'd left, when a few members of the League tracked down the library while investigating an unrelated magic incident and she attacked them ( in an attempt to defend the books from strange intruders ) . Once they managed to convince her they weren't thieves and explained they'd found his murdered body in the snow a half-hour's trek from the library, she ended up joining them on what was supposed to be a one time mission to assist with the magic part.

She was inducted into the League permanently after that and wanted to learn more about Earth, so she started living in the space station headquarters with Mart/ian Man/hunter, who sometimes helps teach her written english ( she learned the verbal language earlier when the old man dug up a spellbook that allowed the two of them to communicate by swapping memories ) . She's pretty close to The Fla/sh since he's the friendliest, and he usually is the one who forces her out of space hiding to experience the magic of actual society, fast food diners, and hitting on the ladies ( the latter of which has her a nervous wreck plz stop dragging her on spontaneous blind double dates ) . She admires WW a lot for her confidence and physical fighting skills, and sometimes they have talks or training sessions together. She lowkey has a crush on Haw/kgirl but she's taken and also intimidating af so Xarrnacc knows she's kinda screwed there oops. Super/man is okay but usually too busy being a leader with a double life to interact with her outside of missions, she's terrified of ol' Bats he's very intimidating. Doesn't really feel one way or the other about Gr/een Lante/rn, she doesn't talk to him much so they don't know each other really.

She adores books and can sometimes spend hours in big libraries if she has another league member to accompany her and help translate. She's not huge on public parks, if only because she had a very bad experience once when The F/lash took her and she mistook a squirrel as acceptable food and thought hunting was allowed and tried to eat one in front of a screaming child.

Fun fact: her species is deathly allergic to chocolate, something she found out the hard way after The Flas/h offered her a bite of his Hershey bar and had her in the League ER for like 2 weeks RIP

I have more but this is long enough jfc

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you ( and explain why ) . This boi Darren right here means a ton to me!

https://toyhou.se/606692.darren

Not only is he a pretty personal character bc of certain personality aspects ( hello shyness/social anxiety venting lmao ) or the fact that he was one of my main sort of daydreaming ocs ( aka a character that I would shove into different show universes and think about how he'd interact with everyone when I was bored ) before I finally found him his home, but he was the very first rp character I ever made! Joining the group he was in ( when I was a smol ms paint artist ) helped me learn a ton about everything from rping itself to cat anatomy to writing to character development and all kinds of stuff inbetween, and I made so many friends because of it, even one of my best, who is actually the founder of the group! I never would be near where I am today without that group, or this adorable character that I loved to bits and motivated me to draw him 24/7 lmao.

Plus he has cool lightning powers and a pet puffin, and the silver tabby w/blue eyes is my favourite cat design ever probably

44. Something you like about your ocs in general? The amount of detail I give them, be it personality, backstory or just little goofy facts! I've gotten a lot of compliments on the depth of my chars before, and I really do try to make them all unique from each other!Thank you so much for asking these bby! 💜