#dana-willowfeather

[exmakina]

I just finished reading Gideon the Ninth and I have to thank you profusely for your drawing with all the necromancers and cavaliers!! I seriously don't think I would have been able to read it without! The book was awesome, but I could never remember visual details like who is the mayonnaise uncle or who is the one with beautiful gray eyes. You made everything 100% easier for me and it let me enjoy the book more! Thank you again!

Heya, that’s awesome! :D I love GtN but the large cast is definitely is a lot to take in on top of the setting and everything that’s going on, so I’m stoked that my drawing helped you get through and enjoy the book. Thanks for the lovely message and when you’re ready to dive into Harrow the Ninth, happy reading~

[boatboys]

Hello to all of you! I'm currently re-reading After the Storm since my mental health was declining and I recalled that this book was basically therapy for me. And it's working again! It feels so healing and good to immerse myself in this world and see Rich get better! It is truly inspiring and also makes me appreciate more the good things I have in my life. If he can heal and find people who loves and understands him, so can I! Thank you so much for this gem!

This fills us with joy and good feelings! :D :D :D Hurt/comfort is such a powerful, cathartic genre and IDK about my co-writers but I find writing it very emotional and powerful in and of itself--if we can bring some of that to the people reading as well, then that’s the highest honor we can hope for.  I’m so glad we could help you out!

[mias-back-from-the-dead]

Following your recommendations, I listened to The Bifrost Incident because I wanted to discover The Mechanisms and... agshdfgsfaatfafdydt I was so not ready for that! The creative way to use Norse mythology! Queer Loki (yes!) The plot twists! The cosmic horror! That ending that both gave me chills and scared me! Ben tabarnak! That was epic! Thank you for talking about it so i would discover it!

AWWWW HECK YES JJOIN ME

[whatsarasaid]

The End of Death Stranding: Sam and the Cuff Links

The lovely @dana-willowfeather and I were talking over chat, and she asked,

What's your thoughts about Sam getting rid of the "handcuff" and possibly hiding somewhere with Lou? First of all, do you analyse the ending as Sam making sure nobody can track him?

The end of Death Stranding is interesting, albeit somewhat antithetical to the game's central message of relationship and connectedness. At least at first glance. In it, we see Sam free Louise from her BB pod, opting to break the law and be banished from Bridges' society so he might raise her. She dies. Sam panics and grieves. Then, she starts crying a moment later. In the next shot, we see Lou holding Amelie's quipu, indicating that Amelie returned her to the land of the living as one last gift for Sam—a symbol of their connection.

This plays into Kojima's theme. But then Sam tosses his Bridges cuff links into the incinerator, therefore breaking his bond with Bridges and all the characters to whom he has grown close. While it makes sense that he would choose Lou over the rest of the cast, it also feels oddly contradictory. We get multiple speeches about "reconnecting America" throughout the game. It has been iterated and reiterated. But in the end, Sam breaks his ties to go solo with Lou.

It confused me initially. But then, I kept going back to what Mama said in her storyline,

You have to break some ties to forge others. You can't be connected to everything.

The game is about connection, yes, but it's also about being discerning and wise with those bonds. Mama moved on because it was unfair to Lockne and their deceased daughter to stay tethered. Heartman moved on because it was unfair to himself to remain tethered to his lost family. Fragile moved on from revenge because she realized killing Higgs would keep her tethered to her anger (and therefore to Higgs as well).

While it's disappointing to see Sam leave Bridges, he does it for the right reasons. Throughout the narrative, he chooses to make the right bonds. Sam chooses Amelie at the end of the world and saves everyone. He chooses Lou over Bridges and creates a way for their future.

[marrowage]

My fav song of the year are "Pale Yellow" by Woodkid, "Pink Lightning" by Purity Ring and "Wake of a Nation" by Zeal and Ardor! I'm super glad that those three bands released new albums this year and it brought a lot of joy to me!

oooh these are lovely! i really loved pink lightning <3 glad they brought you some happiness this year

[the-knights-who-say-book]

I really liked Leviathan! I tought that the worldbuilding was so great and I discovered one of my fave artist with the beautiful illustrations (Keith Thompson).

i love the illustrations! they were a huge selling point to me when i put the book on my list. i put my time into finishing A Memory Called Empire today but i’m excited to get back to Leviathan!

[abaratabridged]

Yeah like... Finnegan,,, my mans.... you can do so much better than Boa...

I think Finnegan should hook up with someone nice and cool. Pg 1/7

[creativefiend19]

Tumblr Catch Up

Tagged by: @two-of-swords-621 - thank you! :)

Answer the questions and tag nine people you want to catch up with.

Last song I listened to: Shimmy Shimmy Ya by Ol' Dirty Bastard is playing rn (I fell down a Wu-Tang and old school hip hop rabbit hole after being reminded of the Luke Cake OST recently)

Last film: I think it might've been ... The Old Guard? I haven’t watched a new film in a while tbh

Show I’m watching: I finished Shadow and Bone recently, and I'm in the process of rewatching Star Trek Deep Space Nine

Book I’m reading: I'm going to start on the 'sequel' duology to Six of Crows (and hopefully finish it before I get MI!)

I’m tagging: @portiaadams @hklnvgl @har-graves @ephemeraltea @behindtheatlantic @houseofmaedhros @your-void-senpai @xenogl0ssia @dana-willowfeather 

[kindness-ricochets]

Cake for @dana-willowfeather (posted with permission)

Happy gender, aquarium hero!

The stencils weren't perfect but I wanted it to say "You're a boy", like "it's a boy". Only better.

[gaychaosdemon]

Get to know your mutuals. When you get this, it means someone wants to know more about you, so list 5 things about yourself you want your followers to know. They can be as simple as your age or as complex as your deepest fear, as long as it’s something you’re comfortable with sharing. When you’re done, send this to 10 people you want to get to know better!

Aaaa thank you @sokkalogic for this ily Boo 💖

1. I am a huge craft beer geek, it's probably my second important passion right after art, and i sometimes work at a beershop (I'm not right now, because everything is closed due to covid). I've been a regular at said beershop for two years before actually being hired and it's my favorite place in my whole town. The people I work with are amazing and it's such a nice working environment. Do not make jokes about "gays who drink beer" at me because I literally hate liquor. I just drink beer.

2. My family owns a masseria (a southern italian style farmhouse) in the countryside. It's not active anymore, the animals were sold right before I was born, and the barn and house itself are. Let's say. Decading. But it's a place where most of my happiest childhood memories are (and teenage too). I love it so much. We received a buying offer last years and i literally raised hell, not that my other family members wanted to sell.

3. I am an only child but I have two cousins that are brothers to me, one 21 and the other 29. The oldest lives in milan (which is like. Very very far from where we live). But we have this silent agreement that the money we make and save is going to be used for fixing and bringing the masseria back to its past splendor.

4. I am literally always broke. The boheme broke artist fantasy you dream about? I'm living it. It's not that cool.

5. In high school, my favorite subjects were latin literature, greek literature, and philosophy. I also was on of the best students in my class for those subjects.

I tag @gaynanlynch @darkadam @holdinfast @dana-willowfeather feel free to ignore this fhdgdhf

[occultdigest]

@dana-willowfeather Not conventionally trapped! Feylands and “The Real World” are their own separate planes of existence! Fey can pass back and forth as they please! Humans can’t pass into the Feylands easily except for wandering into the occasional faerie circle. Horehound is in such proximity to the Feylands that the court nearby has their own strange control over weather in the area

[kindness-ricochets]

@dana-willowfeather

why stop at mutuals. we should be lovers

[whatsarasaid]

Hello! I really like your character analyses because it help me a lot understand them better. I didn't play the game, only watched Jacksepticeye playthrough. It made it possible to enjoy the game, but I missed a lot of details that way. And many characters appeared interesting but a bit empty to me, like Higgs and Fragile. Now they are much more interesting, thanks to you! (I'm always down to talk about the game more with messages, if you are interested)

Hello, friend! 👋🖤 Thank you so much!

To be critical toward Death Stranding for a moment: it does over-explain most some things but strangely under-explain others. It could have used more subtlety, better dialogue, and a team of script editors to polish it to crisp cohesion. The story is fascinating—I love it—but it has a great many flaws (like its entire third act).

Sean’s playthrough was great, but he didn’t have time to read through the logs and journals on-air (understandable—there are a lot of them!), which means it’s possible to miss some stuff if that’s your only experience. Glad I could help fill in some gaps! I do have to caveat that my analysis is subjective. Not everyone will agree with my interpretation. That’s the fun of consuming and dissecting a narrative-rich piece of media, though.

Sure! Any time you want to talk, my chat and ask box are always open. Feel free to drop me a line whenever. 👍

[salavante]

Inktober 14: Aubépine

This one ended up being one of my favorites as well! A very cute fae character commissioned by @dana-willowfeather. Her name means ‘Hawthorne’ in French. 

Inktober Commission Sale / Artblog 

[kindness-ricochets]

@dana-willowfeather check out this awesome poster!!

[eregyrn-falls-art]

Art Raffle Grand Prize! - Portal Ford & Dreimok Friends, Dawn Hike (click to embiggen)

At last!  This was done as the grand prize for the art raffle I held last fall, for @dana-willowfeather!  She wanted to see more of Portal Ford interacting with her OC aliens, the dreimok (which you saw previously in my warm-up piece, here); and one of the ideas she gave me was them going to look at some pish, the winged animal you see in the background.  We talked a lot about appropriate landscapes and so on.  I originally conceived of this while it was winter and I was in the mood to do a wintery scene; who knew that it would still be cold and snowy enough in April that this would still be appropriate?

There’s lots more info on the dreimok here, on her blog.  I had the idea that the pish, being a large winged creature, would tend to nest near cliff edges, so they could drop off into flight.  But, once the babies are old enough to leave the nest and start playing, a parent will need to be careful to place themselves between the rambunctious babies and the cliff edge!  Some pish are domesticated by the dreimok, which might explain why this parent has allowed those two and Ford to get so close without becoming alarmed.

Tons of thanks to Dana for furnishing a lot of references for her creations!  The dreimok and pish designs belong to her, as does the overall look of the world. :) And thank you for being so patient with the process of this, as well!

(This was done in a mixture of traditional coloring, with Copics, and digital coloring.  I thought the detail views would be interesting, and as a bonus it gives a closer view of the coloring mistakes, lol.)