#i've been toiling over this post for the past week

[cautiously0ptimistic]

And we go beyond the farthest reaches, where the light bends and wraps beneath us. And I know, as you collapse into me, this is the start of something.

[rad-roche]

i have to say, having watched you toil over that comic for weeks through the snippets & sneak peeks & somesuch you were posting, the end result is absolutely incredible, and i admire you greatly for pulling it of so well despite your claims of little previous comic-making knowledge. you totally rock!!

thank you very, very much, that's so sweet!! i'm thankfully not starting from zero, i've been doing art and writing for years, but i only 'got' comics over the past twooooo months? maybe? a portion of that was just reading books to find my footing and studying and such, picking through comics and manga i like, taking notes. you can actually track my improvement almost to the year, here's a panel of fanart i did for death shroud late last may

i think it's cute! i'm still fond of this i think she looks charming, it's not bad at all. these i did this year, almost to the day

i've got a long ways to go still, but i'm feeling pretty good! looking forward to improving. thank you again

[theskeletonprior]

Write Time: Day Twelve

This month, my goal is a cool 30 000 words written. I’ll be carrying on with more RAVENOT. If you’re curious, you can take a look at my WIP intro right here. And if you’re really keen, you can read the first chapter (sort of a pilot as I toil) right here! Now onto the daily ramble.

I'm behind! The past couple days I've found myself incredibly exhausted, though I'm not sure what it is that has me so worn out. Overall, I've just been slower to bounce back from work this week, and I must admit that this time of year sucks the energy right out of me. I'll have to pick up some vitamin supplements and see if that helps. As usual, the end of the week is going to pose some challenges to my word count, but even if I don't make the final count I was hoping for, I have made considerable progress. I'm not about to turn my nose up at what I have accomplished so far. I'm almost 30% of the way there, and if I can just get the words out over the next couple of days, I'll be back on track in no time. This has been helping, generally, with how slowly my words come. I think I had been a little damaged by the horrors, and this had interfered with my ability to write freely. I've taken some steps to repair that damage though, and I think that it shows, even if I'm not right on top of the target I've set. Anyway, please behold my excerpt for today.

For the moment, the summer persisted, the young trees growing wild, bearing fruit that no wise person would ever set against their teeth. Ravenot had no desire for such things, but when stray blossoms fluttered and landed in his hair, he let them linger for awhile, until the motion of his stride shook them free again. The wisps came, drawn forth by the Unmade's presence, jingling softly and swirling about their ankles, but he knew better than to follow the lights. And so, instead, the wisps went after him, laughing softly amongst themselves at the change of pace.

We thought you might be coming. And here you are!

Here you are.

Ravenot did not answer them, following only the trail left behind by the beast before it had crossed the arch.

Uh-oh.

Careful!

He's going to step in it.

Step in it.

Still, Ravenot paid no mind to the banter. It was only in the fey lands that wisps were so audible, which was a tremendous relief, but he knew it was among their favorite mischiefs to sew uncertainty in the mind of a traveller. Distraction, too, was one of the great talents of these wisps, and so Ravenot paid particular attention to their surroundings. The fey folk tended to be so at one with the natural world that it was, at times, difficult to discern between the two, and given that the fey had a preference for dangerous fun, Ravenot had to take care. When something moved in the canopy above him, he continued on, pretending as though he hadn't seen it, feigning some attention to the wisps. But he could hear the creaking in the branches, the soft scraping of claws against worn bark.

Until next time!

Taglist: @alexanderflowerbird @void-botanist @carmillasboywife @ceph-the-ghost-writer @wintherlywords

As always, let me know if you’d like to join or leave the taglist, and I’ll act accordingly. You can reply right on this post, if you'd like. Divider by @/strangergraphics, from this set: here. Thank you!

[clarktooncrossing]

Happy #throwbackthursday people of today and robots of tomorrow! It is I, Clark, with your weekly dose of nostalgia. Seeing as I'm new to tumblr and most of my work is still over on deviantART, I've decided to upload one of my older pieces each Thursday until I inevitably run out of stuff to repost. With that said, we now travel back to the ancient times of 2020 for this week's pic.

Okay, so we're not traveling that far back in time for my first nostalgic post, but I figured it'd be better if I posted this on tumblr first before somebody else does it. That's happened with a lot of my fanart for My Little Pony, people posting it over on a site called Derpibooru without my consent. Granted they still credit me as the artist, but a little heads up still would've been nice. Hence why I'm posting this here now. It also doesn't hurt that the My Little Pony franchise as a whole celebrates it's 40th anniversary this year.

What you're seeing here is a cover to a previously planned review for Season 8 of Friendship is Magic, made back when I was trying to review every individual season. At the time my typing this I haven't finished Season 8 yet, but I do dig the Student Six. Seeing as they were the main focus on the show I felt it important I included them as well as this season's twist villain Cozy Glow. After toiling over what to draw for this cover, the comic-loving side of my brain took over, taking inspiration from the renowned X-Men story Days of Future Past. Most of the X'd out characters you know, save for the one in the middle. That would be yours truly in all his geeky giraffe glory! Speaking of geeky, you might be wondering what's up with the Pinkie Pie puppet in Cozy's arms. She's dressed as the underrated character Gwenpool, a running gag that started when I actually reviewed Season 1 of the show. And yes, I will be getting around to posting that. Until then I hope you all enjoy this cover as much as Cozy Glow here does. School's out FOREVER!

[wernher-von-brawny]

My sisters, brothers, and others in Christ, I would LOVE to believe voting can fight fascism.

Believe me, I'd really, REALLY love to hold any hope that, after the past 40 years of "adjustments to the system" by the patrons and apparatchiks of the Reagan Revolution, there was any mechanism of government left un-molested, un-gerrymandered, un-pushed, un-filed, un-stamped, un-indexed, un-briefed, un-debriefed, or un-numbered, any fragment of the levers of power that still held the possibility of restraining or regulating power, but…

dude…

I've been watching this show for 50+ years.

The fascists weren't eliminated after WW2; they just went underground.

Fascism may have become unfashionable in the popular media, but to the aristocracy it is the love that will never die; an allegiance that trumps all others.

They kept all their money, and retained ownership of all the corporations, the good land, and most of the stocks.

The folks who bought Hitler and Mussolini their nice uniforms and paid the rental fees for the great halls in which they held their rallies -- those folks kept to the shadows before, during, and after the "unpleasantness".

And while the rest of the world was occupied with digging itself out of the rubble, the aristos turned their efforts to creating foundations and institutes and think tanks and journals. While the rest of the world was toiling for bread, the aristos were devising long-term strategic plans for a new campaign to spread fascism across the world. This time, they'd do it slowly, incrementally. It would be the work of generations, but they had the money, the manpower, and most importantly the class consciousness necessary to prosecute, nurture, and pivot over the next 80 years.

And what the hell, they did it.

As Emma Goldman said over 100 years ago, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

Voting won't stop fascism.

Of course, we don't want voting to go away, even if it has all the legitimacy of USSR show trials; it can be a useful tool if elections are free and fair, but as any tween who's read up on the electoral college or Florida felons can tell you, at the present moment our system ain't free or fair.

So what's left? What works? How did we get 8 hour work days and weekends and the end of children working in coal mines? How did we end the Vietnam war and end the draft?

(Yeah, sure, Reagan brought back selective service registration, and the 8 hour workday has joined habeus corpus on that fabled "upstate farm", but we once had them both.)

How did we get them back in the day? By being ungovernable and meeting violence with violence. By mobbing in the streets relentlessly for years and years and YEARS until the only way to get us back into our little boxes was to give us 5 or 10% of what we demanded.

And for that, you can thank the union organizers who were murdered by Pinkertons and National Guard. Thank the Weather Underground. And while you're at it, thank John Brown.

The open question is this: Is it possible for us -- in the contemporary circumstance -- to unite and use this one and only proven method to force the aristocracy to give us an extra three cents worth of tartar sauce?

Can we get past the programming we've been fed? Can we wise up and reject the propaganda that there are different "races" of humans -- a fantasy which has been used effectively for centuries to make us self-segregate and kill each other, rather than unite behind our common economic interests?

Can we look up from our entertainments, games, and devices and reclaim the hours, days, weeks, months, and years we've put into Fortnite and Insta and rage-posting about She-Hulk, and instead put that labor into building organizations and movements around focused political goals that can successfully execute long-term strategic plans?

The adversary can, but then, they have all the money -- and thus, all the time and resources -- in the world. Which is kinda the point.

I have my opinion on this, and it's a cynical one, but then, I'll be dead before too long, so my time is pretty much done. But if you've got another 50 years ahead of you, then this is your time, and this is your fight.

In my time, I inhabited the late 20th century -- for some, the most privileged time in human history -- as a member of that most privileged demographic. A lower-caste member for sure, but privileged nonetheless.

I also got to watch as the foundations of that society were incrementally and strategically molested, gerrymandered, pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, and numbered into oblivion.

And I personally voted them out of existence. Twice. I bought the bullshit the Clintons were selling, and in exchange they ended welfare as we know it, and unleashed the banks to collapse the global economy in 2008.

In hindsight, we can see that it was all part of a plan, a plan so well-executed, that most of us only became aware of its shape after the dastardly deed was irretrievably well and done.

(And too many of us will, to this very day, not only deny its existence, but will spew hate on anyone who befouls our convenient beliefs with inconvenient facts.)

In this current bitch of a world, that's what voting gets you: the choice between losing a little now and a little more later, or losing a lot immediately.

But when it's backed up by the threat of mobs of us in the streets willing to burn everything down, when the elites are in a constant state of cautious restraint lest they provoke us into damaging their property, then you might -- but only might -- get the option of voting for a little more for yourselves.

Not a lot. Not a lot, just a little, but that's the best this country has ever offered in all its 240+ years. And unless you demonstrate to your masters that you are constantly seconds away from wilding, they'll treat you like a seat cushion.

It's exhausting, sure. Our fatigue is their best weapon. But evil never rests, so neither can we.

You don't vote away fascism. You scare it off with violence.

So… what are you going to do?

Fascism and corporate greed are two sides of the same 'corporate agenda' coin.

We can use policies to fight inflation.

We can use voting to fight fascism.

[eponymous-rose]

Weird request, but you summarize stuff. I've only caught a few episodes of Critical Role but am curious about Kima and Allura. What's the story there? Don't worry about spoilers, I'm never gonna get caught up on this show anyway, but I am curious!

Oh gosh! Okay. This actually dovetails nicely with some logistical stuff I need to figure out for reasons, so hey, here’s my really long-winded summary (and other folks, please chime in if I get something wrong, there’s a lot of ground to cover here ranging from pre-series to right up where we are now):

So, basically, Allura (human wizard) and Kima (halfling paladin of Bahamut) were part of the same adventuring party, and their exploits culminated in a big ol’ boss battle fifteen years before the start of Critical Role against an ancient red dragon named Thordak. Their party managed to seal Thordak in the Elemental Plane of Fire, but in the process three members of their party were killed (Sirus, Dohla, and Ghenn), leaving only Kima, Allura, and their elementalist friend Drake Thunderbrand standing at the end of it.

In the wake of the battle, the three of them went their separate ways, despite the romantic relationship that had developed between Kima and Allura. Allura accepted an offer to become a member of the Council of Tal’Dorei in the capital city of Emon, but Kima wasn’t exactly keen on a political position and traveled north to the holy city of Vasselheim instead, where she worked with Highbearer Vord, the leader of the Order of Bahamut. Kima mentions in early episodes of the show that she and Allura would still try to meet up every few months for drinks, but their lives were pulling them in different directions. 

Matt’s made it pretty clear that Allura still spent a lot of time thinking about Kima during those years---in his playlist he posted way back in 2015, he says of Allura: “So long as protecting the realm means protecting this one person, then all the toil and challenge is worth it.” Kima also wound up struggling a lot with her faith in the wake of all the evils she’d seen, and frequently butted heads with Highbearer Vord and the more straitlaced folks she worked with.

Fast-forward fifteen years, when Kima starts to get visions of a terrible evil brewing under the dwarven city of Kraghammer and rushes in half-cocked. Allura starts to get worried after several weeks pass with no word and hires a group of adventurers that she’s worked with in the past to go find Kima---the adventurers, of course, are Vox Machina, and this push was the impetus for the first on-stream plot arc of the show.

Vox Machina manage to get Kima out of a bad situation in the Underdark, and then they all wind up embroiled in a conflict against a particularly corrupted beholder named K’Varn, who’s managed to get his hands (eye-tentacles?) on a Horn of Orcus and is sort of chilling with his mind flayer pals as a lowkey champion of the god of undeath, which is not fantastic. VM kill K’Varn, and together with Kima (who’d been turned to stone by a basilisk, thus beginning her longstanding pattern of bad luck on missions involving VM) just barely manage to escape via teleportation circle back to Emon.

After a Weekend-at-Bernie’s-esque pub crawl with Kima still in stone form, the party finally manages to restore her, and they all head over to explain the events to Allura. Allura is delighted to see Kima again, and they have a tearful reunion. Kima does travel with VM back to Vasselheim to seal the Horn of Orcus in the Platinum Sanctuary (a temple of Bahamut), leaving Allura in Emon. VM eventually moves on to the next plot, leaving Kima in Vasselheim.

Once VM finishes dealing with the next major arc of the show, the end result is a tiny floating, spinning ball in a forgotten ziggurat under the human city of Whitestone that also happens to nullify all magic for a wide radius in its vicinity. You know, your standard everyday stuff. Completely out of their depths, they ask Allura to travel to Whitestone and check it out while they return home to Emon, a decision that possibly winds up saving her life.

Allura heads to Whitestone and brings Drake Thunderbrand on board to evaluate the situation with the orb. When some of her arcane connections with cities across Tal’Dorei start to go dark, she heads back to Emon to report in to VM at their Keep just outside the city and figure out what the heck’s going on.

She and Drake arrive to find the party in the middle of a very serious argument, on the verge of an all-out brawl, over a magical skull housing some sort of entity that claims to be able to grant any wish. Why is a wish particularly tempting right now? Oh hey, turns out four ancient chromatic dragons, the Chroma Conclave (excellent 80s band name), just attacked Emon, killed most of the Tal’Dorei Council, made a beeline for and destroyed Allura’s home, and are spreading out to destroy most bastions of civilization across the continents of Tal’Dorei and Wildmount. When VM reveals that the leader of the group was Thordak, the same dragon that Allura and Drake barely survived sealing in the Plane of Fire, Allura is in shock.

Allura and Drake head out to the ruins of the Cobalt Reserve in Westruun to try and find some information that could help them defeat the Conclave. VM eventually make their way to Vasselheim in search of allies, and are startled to discover that the city is unaware of the devastation happening across the ocean. When Kima finds out about the destruction of Emon, she’s frantic and her first thought is to find a way to get to Allura. VM manage to assure her that Allura is as safe as anyone can be right now, and Kima joins them on their disastrous journey to the sunken tomb, where they face another beholder and Kima is nearly killed by a long fall in the battle. In the aftermath, she makes her way with the party back to Whitestone, and finds out for the first time that the leader of the Conclave is indeed Thordak---the news puts her into an uncharacteristic state of panic.

While VM travels around in search of ancient weapons to help defeat the Conclave, Allura eventually turns up in Whitestone, which has become the unofficial seat of a new war council. By the time VM shows up again, having killed one member of the Conclave, Kima and Allura are both there to greet them. At this point, the two of them have moved into a house in Whitestone together (there’s a cute moment where Vex knocks on Allura’s door early in the morning and Kima answers it in a too-big nightshirt) and are helping to coordinate studies of the orb under Whitestone as well as the defense of the city itself, once it becomes clear that forces are amassing there. Kima takes out a would-be assassin who comes after them in their home (part of an elaborate rakshasa revenge plot; Gilmore pulps his assassin, it’s a whole thing).

Kima winds up accompanying VM on their mission to Draconia to kill Vorugal, a member of the Conclave, and discovers before leaving that another member of the Conclave, Raishan, has been (in disguise) in Whitestone for some time, that she knows all of their secrets and could wipe out the last form of resistance in an instant, and that the party has worked out a very shaky secret deal with her, since it turns out they all want to kill Thordak. Despite Scanlan’s attempts to modify her memory to make her forget this revelation, Kima knows about the infiltration, and agrees to move forward with the plan regardless. The party manages to kill Vorugal and return back to Whitestone, at which point Raishan’s identity is revealed, for better or worse, to the entire war council.

Kima and Allura go to Fort Daxio to help coordinate troops for a final push against Thordak, who has settled down over the city of Emon and is slowly shaping the land into some sort of super-evil volcano. As you do. At Fort Daxio, Gatekeeper Xanthas, a former ally from Emon, reveals himself to have switched allegiances to work with Thordak, and manages to cast a Feeblemind spell on Allura. VM shows up in time to take Xanthas out and reverse the effects of the spell, at which point an extremely shaken Kima and Allura have their first “on-screen” kiss.

After Thordak is defeated, and Raishan escapes an attack from VM in the immediate aftermath of the battle, Kima and Allura accompany VM to Raishan’s hideout on the Island of Viscan, which once served as the home base of long-dead necromancer Opash. After some shenanigans with gravity-reversal and a whole lot of undead bodies, the party battles Raishan, with both Allura and Kima coming very close to death in the fight. In the aftermath, the party tries to escape the island with their dead and wounded... and discovers when their first spell fails that this island has some defenses in place against transportation magic.

Allura eventually manages to put down a teleportation circle and step through, but Kima hangs back a second, telling VM that something looks off about the circle. Before anyone can decide what to do, Kima resolutely steps through after Allura, and they both vanish. Keyleth manages to scry on them and discovers that they’ve landed in open ocean somewhere, which is bad news if you happen to be in full plate armor, like Kima. Through a complete fluke of a dice-roll (natural 20 on a perception check), Keyleth manages to spot them from the beach---swimming in the wrong direction and already exhausted---and Vex shoots out after them on her broom. 

She grabs Allura, Allura grabs Kima, and bookish-wizard Allura, zero-strength-modifier Allura manages to roll a natural 20 on her strength check to hang on to Kima until they get to safety.

In the aftermath, Allura and Kima are helping to put things back in order in Emon, ensuring together that more shadowy organizations like the Clasp don’t make too much of a bid for power in the chaos. When VM heads out on their next adventure, Kima makes sure to tell them that if they see Highbearer Vord, they should just pretend they haven’t seen her; she’s staying with Allura.