#parziivale

[the-demoness-next-door]

*IMMEDIATELY UNDERSTANDS AND CRIES TO YOU ABOUT CATHAIR AND DATIVO*

THEY MEAN SO SO SO FUCKING MUCH TO ME

[a-third-attempt]

iv,

My grandmother Janet is 96 years old. The last time I visited, while drinking the traditional after-dinner gin and tonics, we got to talking about the treasures lying around her house. Somehow we settled on a particular needlepoint hanging on the wall.

She asked: Who made that one, does it say?

And I said: It says "Deedee".

And she laughed: I didn't remember making that one!

My brain wasn't working as fast as my tongue that night— perhaps on account of the gin— and I said: Wait, who is Deedee?

She laughed again, and explained. It was what her parents called her, and the name that she used until she went to high school. All her best friends, everyone who knew her from back in the day, they still call her Deedee.

And then she said to me: You know, Janet is not my real name either. Nobody calls me by my real name, because nobody alive remembers it. And I'm not telling anyone now. It is just for me.

iii,

I was studying abroad in Budapest when I received a facebook message from Rob. A friend, not quite 21, from college back home, saying: I have a secret to tell you, but I do not want anyone else to know. I don't even want to write it here.

I replied, Here is my address. Write it down and mail it to me. I will read it, and then I will burn it; and he agreed.

I left the house, went all the way to the end of the metro, found a convenience store, bought a pack of matches, and sat down in the nearby park.

The three sentences at the start of the letter were: I am transgender. I am a man. My name is not [what we once called him], it is Rob.

This much is no longer a secret, but the three pages that followed are not my stories to tell.

(Have you ever tried to burn a letter? With a match. It is harder than you’d think.)

It is common now for a trans person to refer to their "old" name, the one assigned to them that they no longer use, as their deadname. Rob did not use this language in the letter, probably only because he did not know it yet.

Some of the debris from the letter made it into a trash can. But most blew away into the Hungarian landscape, white flecks scattered in the wind.

ii,

I set my father into the ground in October. He would have been 71.

It was a whirlwind of a weekend, of a week, really. Gatherings every night, friends and family buzzing in the house all day, as if the collective strength of so many silent prayers might summon him, Christ-like, into our midst.

Flying was my dad's first love. I was born near the end of his distinguished career as a fighter pilot in the Air Force. He continued flying, commercially, for as long as I lived under his roof.

A fighter's call sign is what the other fighters call them over the radio when flying together. Pragmatically it is a mask for when enemies intercept communication. But to the squadron, there is nothing secret about this identity; it is more a name than their name is. My dad's call sign is— was— Bear. At the memorial gathering, that was the name that rang long after sundown, that echoed in the still desert air. 

Bear was rowdy, gregarious, and virile. Stories about his after-work antics sprang readily to the lips of the guests. Boozy, shirtless memories of he and his fighter friends, boys who aged but never grew up. And then, after the laughs and a moment's pause, they would add sincere praise about Bear the professional. Thoughtful. Whip-smart. Straightforward. Generous. Passionate.

This man they described was familiar enough, but deeply unrecognizable. He bore little resemblance to the temperamental and stern authority of my childhood memories. Even less to the man I knew on equal footing, after several medical emergencies brought an early and unceremonious end to a lifetime in the cockpit.

I would have liked Bear, I think, but I never met him— I knew him too late.

i,

There are many stories to tell of my father, the man-who-was-not-Bear. I never know which one to start with.

I once asked my mom if I could paint my nails red. I don't remember my mother wearing colored nail polish, it must have been a neighbor who I saw, and the idea enchanted me. And yet somehow, there was the bottle, right underneath the phone. It would have been so easy. But mom said no, dad would be furious. And we both knew that was the end of that.

I liked my hair long. My parents did not. They tolerated it, in the way that one tolerates such inconsequential teenage lashings-out. But the frequency of snide remarks would increase in proportion with its length, and roughly every 6 months I would give in.

(When I was older, I discovered that my hair actually would not get much longer than that. After about 9 months, I shed.)

And if I could see you, I would see these stories fall lighter on your brow than on they lay on my psyche. And I would be suddenly tempted to strike cheap, to scowl forty-five and let sympathy roll in. But it’s too… it’s dehumanizing, and it’s not even narratively right— it doesn’t describe the heft of the uncertainty he left me with, any more than a dumbbell thrown at your face conveys the weight of a blanket.

The household I grew up in was reductivist when not mechanistic, and my childhood gave but scant framework to understand the impact of a thousand unremarkable moments. Still, human, I could not divert myself from the creation of my personal mythology, grasping at any explanation for those forces of parental nature. Nor from this private, shameful conclusion: that this love is, perhaps, conditional. Not necessarily. But the threat was there, and I, conflict-shy, colored inside the lines.

Dharys was 29 when my father died. Or maybe he was 2. (...let's not think too hard about that one.) In any case, my father never met Dharys, and for this alone I still grieve. In the dark I wonder if he ever had these feelings about Bear— this bridgeless chasm between us, etched in time. The quiet, tugging sadness that I would never know him as he was.

Perhaps he never could have, I reason, hopefully. Tieflings learn young, after all, how to hide. Perhaps Dharys can only live because not-Bear has died.

Or perhaps he knew me too early.

* * *

A/N: The picture in this post was drawn by @parziivale; I'll be posting about it separately.

[luqlustra]

Revenge attack against @parziivale of their character, Pearl Ballard!

I am such a huge fan of stars and sparkle with a little bit of body horror, it’s my absolute favourite!! The colours were super fun to work with!

Their Artfight can be found here:

[broeckchen]

Love that I can actually upload this directly here without a workaround! *glares at Youtube and Patreon*

@parziivale 's Beau being a smug butt! You might recognize this from Art Fight because that's when this was made!

[kasurequiem]

An Art Fight attack from the last season ♥

Roman © Parziivale

❦ Commissions Open ❦

[sunfloralchaos]

I'm now on Vgen!

Moving all my comm options over there and will be on the road to get verified ✨️(follows help with this even if you won't be comm'ing me immediately)

Hoping the platform treats me well and that it'll be easier to manage than using Google forms 🫡

[a-third-attempt]

This is the piece I commissioned for Dharys’ (stealth?) three-year anniversary letter, drawn by @parziivale.

The work for this is almost certainly the most background material that I've ever given an artist to read— including a pretty fleshed-out draft of the letter itself. Parziivale handled it like a champ, though >.<

It was very communicative through the whole process. After sending my initial email we talked in Discord throughout the process. It produced a couple sketches for me and was patient with me as I figured out the posing and clothing that I wanted, both of which involved some redesigns for the picture.

There were about four weeks from our first emails to the finished drawing, with most of the Discord conversation in the last two weeks. Apparently this was slightly accelerated from it's usual working timeline, but it was also respectful of my own deadline.

Parziivale was a pleasure to work with, and the final result is excellent, especially considering the rather modest price points. I hope you will consider it for your next commission!

A lovely illustration commission I got the honor of drawing for A-third-attempt of their character Dharys! I loved working on this, they had a clear concept in mind and such a cool idea, thank you for commissioning me!

[littlemisspractical]

My Secret Satan gift for @parziivale! A very dramatic Morrigan for you!

And an extra ink drawing of Matt ^^ (I really hope I got his tattoo down OK!)

[crocodile-carousel]

its secret satan time once again! this time i got @parziivale and its character was a ton of fun to draw!!

[eaglewind13]

I did a few busts for ArtFight:

Benediction for @plaguecleric

Morrigan for @parziivale

& Happenstance for @semageon

[oc-tournaments]

ROUND ONE - MATCH 5

LEAH GARMINEBHEL vs TRISTAN CASTELLANE

Leah Garminebhel: @literatureinducedexhaustion

Tristan Castellane: @the-demoness-next-door

VOTE BASED ON THE INFORMATION BELOW CUT!!

Propoganda Content Warnings: Apocalypse, eldritch horrors, neglect, timeline fuckery for LEAH. Physical torture for TRISTAN.

LEAH GARMINEBHEL:

PROPAGANDA: Leah's status as the universe's favourite pain sponge starts with them generally being a nervous wreck when nothing interesting is happening. Their current state, by contrast, is being one of a handful of humans left alive on Earth after 2 separate apocalypses, and, at present, is the only person capable of saving the world, TWICE OVER. They've watched the place they call home be destroyed at least thrice by this point, counting their mother's house, their original base, and their temporary refuge (and there's probably more coming if the canon I'm basing this off of is any indication). They have 3 anxiety disorders for good reason. Their arc includes having to:

- watch the world be engulfed in flames

- fight dragons, skeletons, witches, and other mythological creatures with no magic training

- survive the Count of Monte Cristo dragging them into a mind dungeon

- put up with Thomas Edison at close range

- fight the King of Demons with their bare hands

- survive a reenactment of the Salem Witch Trials but with eldritch horrors

- see a lot a lot of corpses

- parent their younger siblings through a good portion of life, including apocalypse number 1

- watch an alien invasion destroy their home and all life as we know it

- watch their siblings get themselves kidnapped to protect Leah when apocalypse number 2 began

- listen to their parents scream at each other for seventeen hours as a result of said kidnapping, while trapped in a vessel barely larger than a Winnebago

- endure rampant power abuse from their boss

- be isolated from their support system for months due to not having enough magic to keep them all corporeal at once

- destroy 7+ alternate timelines for a chance of bringing their home back

- do all this through some of the worst autistic burnout known to science

- work through deep-rooted self-hatred that was in their brain BEFORE ANY OF THE ABOVE HAPPENED

Leah can no longer function in society. They have no idea what their life will look like after the world is saved. help.

THEME SONG:

TRISTAN CASTELLANE:

PROPAGANDA: okay so this blue eyed bitch boy (he's a sweetie ignore me) is LITERALLY a god's punching bag. spent almost seven thousand years being exactly that bc the god of hatred + hope wanted to prove a point to his enemies. to be clear tristan is just A Guy. normal guy you would find on the street. nothing special about him. apart from the fact hes very pretty if thats ur thing. and he spent. seven thousand years enduring nothing short of Actual Torture every cpl days. and now he's got real severe trauma bcos of it bc... how could he not. like cmon he's LITERALLY a god's punching bag what more can i say. also he's a demipan demiboy so we love a queer king

side note the image i'm submitting him with is by parziivale (same username on all platforms)

THEME SONG:

[the-demoness-next-door]

@parziivale's character lea in a dress i like

(she/they)

no lighting version below the cut!

[meowrai]

Here's my piece for the #genasiandaasimarsecretsatan2024 for @parziivale ! ^^

[71eh]

artfights so far…

characters belong to cherpiet, @spacesquidz, druzsea, @parziivale, and heapsoeclair!

[drewpicturesani]

It's Secret Satan Submission Day so here's my piece for the wonderful @parziivale 💜

I'm on my once a year kick of trying to actively think about my colour choices so we wound up with a purple/orange/green tertiary palette, although the green is only very subtle accents. I'm really pleased with how the whole piece came out ngl 👉👈

[kasurequiem]

An Art Fight attack for @parziivale of her girl, Audra ♥

❦ Commissions Open ❦