#just two books to go

[faeassassin]

I've been getting down on myself because I don't feel like I'm making *enough* progress on The Madness of Verwyn. But then I look at the word count and realize that at least I *am* making progress. Plus, I've got over 2k on Children of Chaos written, so that's nothing to sneeze at.

The problem hasn't been the writing at all. It's tucking in all the loose threads and answering all the promises I made in the previous books and stories. That takes more concentration and planning than I anticipated.

And no, an outline wouldn't have helped. These silly people go off script as often as I do already, from draft to draft, because something that will make the story better pops into my head. Or I write an offhand comment that's just decorative and then realize that it contradicts something else I put in a later rough draft. Sure, sure, unreliable narrator *IS* very deliberate in the Agrad POV novels, but unreliable author needs to be beaten down as much as possible.

I'm getting there. But there's a lot of work behind the scenes in wrapping up a series. Worth it, absolutely, but it's not as easy as I'd assumed it would be.

[egophiliac]

crossing my fingers and wishing upon every star that chapter 10 finally brings us the tweel cards 🤞🤞

[not-so-rosyyy]

they keep baiting her but she said:

[sophfandoms53]

Anyway shout out to Dewey who constantly looked like he was having the worst time of his fucking life in the pitches

Just an 11 year old pissed off at the world it seems😭

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[ashleyloob]

I randomly got dragged to Mormon church and met the illustrator for A Series of Unfortunate Events who is apparently a bishop at the church, and now we are Instagram mutuals. today was so bizarre

[astralibrary]

hi @marykedoesart, this is my gift to you for @natsume-ss' spring exchange!

you said you like tanuma/natsume and heartfelt, emotional themes so i went very symbolic with this, haha. i really love the idea of using imagery from the fish pond in tanuma's backyard to represent these two and their dynamic, so that became the concept i ran with. i'll explain my whole thought process below, but in the meantime i hope you like it! 💖

pls bear with me here bc this is going to be very long and wordy lol

so there's a definite theme of separate worlds here; while the environments are both pretty abstract, the idea was that tanuma is sitting in his house looking out towards his backyard where the pond is, representing the "real world," whereas natsume is in a more fantastical underwater setting, representing the world of youkai. also there's the implication that he's sitting at the bottom of the pond, aka completely immersed in that other world, while tanuma can only perceive hints of it in the reflected light & shadow on the wall.

tanuma's side is lit by the glow of the setting sun, and natsume's by an otherworldly blue light. also, there's their clothes: tanuma is in his regular school uniform while natsume is in a yukata, something that pretty much all humanoid youkai wear.

next, their poses; they're both sitting exactly the same way as a reflection of each other but natsume has his head bowed while tanuma is looking up; this is meant to represent their different approaches to their relationship. natsume is definitely more closed off, both as a defense mechanism and because he wants to protect tanuma & keep him away from the dangers of youkai. tanuma, though, is open and contemplative, maybe even hopeful; he wants to be let in and he wants to help, even if it is dangerous.

the lighting reinforces these conflicting attitudes, with tanuma's side being brighter and warmer while natsume's is darker and colder, representing this sort of "optimism vs pessimism" dynamic.

so now, the fish. the bridge between their different worlds, basically. on natsume's side it's a real fish while on tanuma's it's a shadow cast on the wall, which is obviously the original conceit of the scene in the source material: natsume can literally see the fish, while tanuma can only see its shadow. still, even if it manifests differently, it still exists to both of them, so it's a connection between them concerning youkai.

so they're both in their separate worlds, but because of this connection they affect each other, maybe in small ways at first; as the fish crosses over the barrier it leaves little effects, little disturbances behind. on natsume's side, bubbles drift up towards the surface, little pockets of air like little lifelines showing the way, and on tanuma's side little droplets fall and create ripples in the reflected water, these small things that grow and grow outward until they're not so small anymore. little feelings that bubble up and ripple out, hoping to reach the other in their own way.

the fish brings these feelings across the barrier, endlessly looping around them as they endlessly call out to each other, trying to navigate this relationship they have; it's possible to bridge the gap between them as long as they look and listen and learn to embrace the things that make them different just as much as those that bring them together.

and that's about it! my goal was to make a symbolic piece about their struggle to understand each other but with a hopeful note, so hopefully that comes across! i hope my explanation at least sort of made sense and wasn't too confusing! (to be completely transparent i only had about half of that in mind while i was drawing it, the rest sort of came together as i was writing this. neat!)

and finally, here's a still frame in the original higher resolution so you can see it a bit nicer! 💖

[54625]

"Have you no more memories?"

I am made of memories.

"Speak, then."

[stealingyourbones]

Watching Loki. I’m on episode 4 and I’m trying to see what the hype was about

[iryght]

I have finished reading The Sun And The Star, so here's some fanart to celebrate 🎊

[arkangelo-7]

The fact that DC isn’t capitalizing on the Billionaire Romance potential between Bruce in Clark is criminal.

It has all the markings of success. Tall, dark, brooding love interests that’s richer than God but has a tortured soul? Check. Small town protagonist who’s in over their head but too in love to care? Double check. Complicated family and/or workplace dynamics that could pull the couple apart? Triple check.

Superbat is like an Ana Huang book on steroids; I know I’ll never see it actualized but DAMN is Bruce and Clark’s dynamic perfect for it…

[rayroseu]

RAMBLES.... This is just a little thing I found on Knight of Dawn's sprite, but HE ACTUALLY WEARS THE AURORAL RING AS A RING??? LIKE ON HIS HAND??? I assumed all this time that him and Silver always wore it as a necklace bcs both their rings has a chain on it and it glows only on their chest.

Maybe they just draw it like this bcs the screen of the game is very limited. It would look awkward if all this time, Dawn wore it as a ring and they tried to place the glow on his hand (which will be hidden by the thick dialogue box lol) TWST just pls make cutscene illustrations for once--

Although this is so interesting though?? What do you mean that Dawn has a seperate sprite where he has no armor and we can actually see the ring on his hand (despite the fact that all this time they have only been implied to wear it as a necklace) I feel like this guy will really come back on main story once we get to the lore of this ring 😭✨✨

PLS twst im clawing at your door,,, the RING LORE,,, we dont know anything about it fr, at least for Princess Glow, we know that stone only works with Meleanor and its able to grant miracles like restoring health, but for the ring, we only know it didnt come from the Silver Owls, it was left with Dawn ever since he was born (so he didnt create it) and its able to guide you out of the darkness and it only operates with Silver's UM.

Now that I think about it, isnt this auroral ring and Princess Glow operates the same way lol Only follows one caster/magic and able to create miracles (auroral ring's miracle is that its able to fight against the darkness and we know no one has been able to rise up from the darkness yet except Silver with his ring)

I personally think that other than Malleus, Silver will still be a relevant character once we get to Book 8. This magic and Malleus' UM sounds like it'll be useful to make Yuu meet Mickey or make them go home ig. Malleus' UM allows you to initiate a dream while Silver's UM allows you to travel around that dream conciously.

Also wild guess, but if Grim's overblot happens, I just know Silver will be the one to make it 😭

If Book 7 allowed Silver and Sebek to work together, maybe Book 8 will be about Malleus and Silver working together??? 🥺🙏✨

full sprite if anyone wants to see it lol (its from @twstassets)

WAITING FOR THE PART THAT SILVER GETS TO CAST A SWORD LIKE KNIGHT OF DAWN TOO ALKSJDALKD LOOK i feel that they made their model look exactly the same bcs they're trying to reuse this animation on Silver on the latter part of the book----

also looking at his normal outfit,,, Dawn's clothes really resembles too much with RSA's uniform 😭✨

[egophiliac]

do skully have pokemon?

Pumpkaboo is the obvious one, but y'know, sometimes the obvious one is the right one! (we'll say SUPER SIZE Pumpkaboo, just for fun. big pumpkin for big skeleton boy.) and another person actually also suggested Greavard, which I somehow hadn't considered, but feels so perfect that I feel like I should have. dangit.

(they can also have little Nightmare Suit costumes :D)

[benevolenterrancy]

okay finished the first book of the fish isekai series and it is RIDICULOUSLY fun -- it's like eating candy, sweet and stupid and very hard to stop. prince jing is perfect, i adore him

[sceebybeeby]

⚠️the book of bill spoils, blood⚠️

"Hey, brother, it's Sixer."

[lotus-pear]

i think you guys are onto smth..

i unironically got invested in this HELP