How do you pick your colors? Your art style is so cohesive and i love the palettes you use!!

thank you! im a very intuitive artist, i think i draw frequently enough to know my preferences pretty well lol, but recently I’ve been enjoying working with somehow complementary colors?

like these don't look that similar but i did use the same 4 colors or so! i like to complement yellow/orange (skin) with teal (most of the clothes lol), I think they make each other pop rlly well

i also keep my palettes very minimal, i used the same blue hues for bokuto's hair, outfit, and the pigeons, too! same with deku’s outfits and hair, it’s the same color in different hues :)

i keep my palettes very minimal in general, i think its easier to create a somehow cohesive/harmonious palette and illustrations if you limit yourself :) as you can see, the colors I predominantly use are all hues of green and yellow, I let the overlay balance it all out and make it look less harsh I guess

also i don’t limit myself to fixed color palettes, i just use the same base color and overlay layer for most illustrations, I think those bring everything together even if I dont really know what I’m doing, i hope this helpssss

Do you like Kakashi's dogs? Let's talk about why there are eight of them.

another example of naruto's ✨cultural code✨

contents | the eight dog warriors chronicles · legacy · eight confucian virtues. also look at the cuties love them sm

Naruto Vol. 10 CH 90

[ one dog is wonderful, I'm saying as the owner of a sweet little york terrier. two dogs are good, they won't be bored together. three dogs? yeah, cool! how are you going to walk them though? four? yes... look, maybe we have to draw the line h- wha- EIGHT? Excuse Me!? ]

surely, it's worth starting with the fact that eight is a lucky number in Japanese culture — everybody watched Hachi. of course, this is not the only cultural detail where the eight is mentioned. I want to pay special attention to a thing that I didn't know about until I googled it, and this is clearly what Kishimoto was doing homage to with Kakashi's eight ninken.

The Eight Dog Warriors Chronicles

Better known as Nansō Satomi Hakkenden. and it's not just some kind of book, it's a novel, consisting of 106 booklets written by Kyokutei Bakin in XIX century. Hakkenden is considered the largest novel in the history of Japanese Literature. this is one of the main representatives of the gesaku genre, which includes works of a frivolous, joking, silly nature. further I will emphasize a few more times how damn popular this work is and how often it is reflected in culture.

here are some illustrations for these books

now let's talk about the plot. It's weird, but it's weird at samurai-dogs-story level so stay here.

In brief, the story tells about the commander Satomi Yoshizane, whose native lands were attacked by the army of a man, whose forces surpassed those of Satomi, and the samurai in despair swore to a dog named Yatsufusa that the dog would get his beloved daughter Fuse as a wife if he chewed that man's throat. surprisingly, the dog not only understood the owner, but also fulfilled his wish! after that the commander refused to keep the promise. however, Fuse, true to her word of honor, went with Yatsufusa to the mountains and became his wife. upon learning that his daughter was pregnant, Satomi, in a rage, sent a samurai to kill Yatsufusa and bring Fuse home. she stood up for the dog anyways and died with him. at that moment, eight pearls with hieroglyphs that denoted the foundations of Confucian virtue burst out of her womb. (...cheers for mythology, I guess)

Soon, eight dog warriors who were Fuse's spiritual children were born in different parts of Awa province. after going through hardships, they got together and became vassals of the Satomi clan, then won the battle, and soon reached peace.

some more illustrations made by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. from left to right: Inukawa Sōsuke (the dog warrior), Inumura Daikaku (the dog warrior), Princess Fuse (their mother).

the novel mainly tells about each individual warrior dog and his shenanigans in a funny adventurous way. huge fame has led to excerpts from Hakkenden being staged at the Kabuki Theater and mentioned in the anime and manga, such as Inuyasha, Dragon Ball, as it turned out, Naruto and so on. there's also a lot of films and video games.

The eight virtues

these are loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, honesty, justice, harmony, and peace.

they relate more to Chinese culture, but basically Hakkenden was inspired by it too. since I did not read the whole novel, I would still like to mention at least the values on which it is based, and which were embedded in the symbolism of this story. It's quite interesting to apply this to Kakashi's dogs. gives them more weight and depth.

It is also interesting to note that the reason why Fuse gave birth to dogs was also that her father was cursed earlier in the story in a way that his descendants would become depraved like dogs. in Japanese culture, dogs embody the duality of character: the same mentioned filth and depravity, and devotion and bravery. so as samurai. but this is a different conversation, more related to Kakashi and his dog poetry.

Did you get here? Here's an additional discovery for you✨

Pakkun's name (パックン) is derived from the Japanese onomatopoeia “pakupaku” (パクパク) which reflects the sound of munching.

Kakashi, that's very sweet of you.

thank you for reading this to the end ♡

I binged the entire Good Omens season 2 today, and, well. I certainly don’t have anyone in the Real World to talk to about it, so here is my review. Under the cut, because spoilers.

Good Omens 2 was ALWAYS going to be a hard sell, because season 1 was so damn perfect. It was a closed story, based on a book, very faithful to that book, yet still added enough to keep things interesting. Amazing actors, great costumes and set design, it was funny, it had a great theme, and was very layered.

It is also literally the only time that I saw the kind of relationship I feel like I’d want for my self. Ever. Anywhere.

So yeah. I very much would have loved if the show had just left things there. What I was telling myself is that I trust Neil Gaiman, and that whatever happens, he knows what he is doing and why. I’ll get back to this.

The majority of the season was fun, but significantly less good than the first one. As I said, the standard was very high, so no surprise there. What I was surprised by, however, was just how much the characters who are not Crowley or Aziraphale (I wouldn’t even call them side characters, they are just as if not more vital to the plot) added to the whole. They were not in this season, and the show is definitely poorer without them. Gone with them are the fun and whimsical worldbuilding things that made this story so good, like the witches and the prophecies and the children and their way of making sense of the world. It is also a loss not to have any of those very colourful people mentioned again.

The side characters that this season does have are a lot less interesting than the ones in the previous season. They also don’t seem to add as much to the theme as the old ones did. Every character in season 1 revolved around love, love for humanity and love for someone they were supposed to be adversaries with (looking at you Anathema and Newt). Meanwhile in season 2 we get two shopkeepers on the same street who kind of have a crush on each other. It is much lower conflict, and much less relevant to the theme of the story. Ass far as strength of character goes, I feel like none of them live up to, for example, Mme Tracey.

The scope of the story feels smaller, too, possibly because the action is almost all happening on Aziraphale’s street, while season 1 had a significant part be in Tadfield, and Aziraphale and Crowley were moving around much more. We also get fewer, but longer, history flashbacks, and no voiceover narration or animated sequences to illustrate said narration.

A lot of the plot is ideas that I’ve seen online in the fandom. I’m not sure whether it is because we were particularly good in guessing stuff, if said tropes were already known from previous things said by Gaiman and Pratchett, or if Gaiman got inspired by popular headcanons and used them in his work. I also don’t care where the ideas came from. I definitely enjoyed seeing things on screen that I knew from up here, including but not limited to that one crack ship I used to read some fics about back in 2019 because one of the two partners uses genderneutral pronouns.

Ah, talking about. Gender. And general queerness. It’s there, but feels less overwhelming than it did four years ago. Maybe that’s me, but I definitely did miss the parts where Crowley was presenting as female. Most shopkeepers on that street seem queer in some way, and one of them has a visibly nonbinary partner, but it was all very much in the background. I would have liked these things to be a little more prominent. Season 1, I still go back sometimes and rewatch Pollution’s introduction, just to hear God use they/them pronouns. Season 2 didn’t have any moments like this.

Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley and Aziraphale... Oh dear. Please let me repeat again that I am not going to be able to be completely objective about them. (Neither is anyone else in this fandom. At least I’m honest about it.)

So I was very happy with most of the season. Not great, but it was nice and fun. And then the ending hit.

As I said, Neil Gaiman clearly knows what he’s doing. What he is doing, is setting things up for a third season. As far as cliffhangers go, this one was very elaborate, instead of just throwing in a scene at the end, but also, I really, really wish that he hadn’t.

I’m not sure that Neil Gaiman understands just how important Good Omens was to many of us BECAUSE of the happy ending. And obviously he doesn’t owe us anything and is not responsible for my emotional reaction, but this doesn’t change the fact that I am very, very deeply hurt, because it feels like we’d been given the perfect fairy tale, back in 2019, and now it all got ripped away. And for what. Also, I do trust Gaiman, but I do very, very much NOT trust Amazon. If he doesn’t get a third season, then I don’t want the story to be left like this.

There are a lot of deep conversations that we could, and should, have here. About streaming shows and their obsession with cliffhangers, about our cultural inability to conceive of two characters who are just together, without any drama, and also love stories that are not about getting together. We could talk about abusive situations and how difficult is to get away and not be dragged in, and how maybe the show will explore that. About queer representation in particular and how tired many of us are to see our few couples being kept apart again and again, with no promise of a further season to fix things (remember First Kill).

I am not going to have any of these here. Obviously.

What I AM, however, bothered by, is just how out of nowhere it seems to have come? I honestly feel like Aziraphale’s character development had been set back to episode 3 of the first season, where he still believed that Heaven was good and worth trying to work with. After that, he realized that it is very much not the case, openly defied Heaven, was almost killed for it, and then got a happy ending by getting rid of them all and being allowed to stay on Earth. WHY IS AZIRAPHALE EVEN SLIGHTLY INTERESTED IN THE IDEA OF GOING BACK TO HEAVEN AND RUNNING THE PLACE?! I mean, that was the whole point of his character, wasn’t it?? An angel who loves Earth and humanity enough to defy the will of God, just so he can stay and spend more time here. WHY WOULD HE WANT TO DO SOMETHING ELSE NOW??! 

So the thing is, I understand why he would want to go back to an abusive institution. I wanted to go back to school, too, after the first attempt almost killed me. The problem is that I did not see this coming. If you want to change a character’s motivation this much, then you need to set it up very carefully. Throughout the season, we’ve seen Heaven be generally kind of awful, and Aziraphale didn’t show any signs of missing being part of it. There also isn’t anything they can really offer him, because he was already together with Crowley. It’s very weird. Gaiman seems to be setting up a getting-together story, but like, we’ve been through that already in season 1? He actually talked about it multiple times himself how he purposefully structured it as a love story? And like, he IS a very talented and experienced writer. He would be absolutely able to set up some interesting conflict for an already-together Azirapahle and Crowley, that doesn’t feel like setting their arc back half the story??

I don’t understand why he chose to do this. I am always very annoyed if I don’t understand where storytelling choices are coming from. It’s why the Supernatural finale pulled me back in so strongly.

I am also very hurt, but mostly angry. I don’t feel like I really have the right to be, but I am.

Books that Made Me

I was thinking about an idea for a video and stumbled across a “favorite books of all time” that also had books that impacted the person the most. That got me thinking about the books that were influential to me and some of them would be what I consider nostalgic, but I am not a person that values nostalgia that much. It was great at the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s a favorite now. So, I decided to make a Tumblr post about it instead since I don’t want to really recommend all of these. I just want to leave a record somewhere of the books that impacted me even though I changed my mind about some of them. I will go in order since I was a child up to now. I will tag some people at the end because I am curious, but don’t feel obligated to do it.

1. Fairy Tales

I used to read and reread a lot of fairy tales and fables as a kid. The ones I read the most were, of course, the Brothers Grimm and Andersen fairy tales. But I also used to read the fables of La Fontaine and Aesop and even bible stories adapted for kids with all of the pictures. I don’t love fairy tales as much now, but I still admire the influence they have on so many fantasy books. My favorite fairy tale was the Snow Queen and that is the reason the book “The Raven and the Reindeer” by T. Kingfisher is special to me, even though it’s not even my favorite by her. It’s weird that I haven’t found many fairy tale inspired fantasy books that I like, but I do enjoy books with a fairy tale like atmosphere and some of the elements in those stories.

2. “A Floresta” (The Forest) by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

Ooops a Portuguese book with no translation. This is a children’s book about a girl that finds a little dwarf (more like a gnome really) and there is this theme of saving the forest and being conscious to not harm nature. This is sort of like the Lorax for Portuguese people. I also really liked another book from this author called “A Fada Oriana”, which is about a fairy that neglects her duty of protecting the forest because she falls in love with her own reflection and then shit happens. Pretty sure you’ve also heard similar stories before.

3. “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens

I’ve read an abridged version of it as a child and I used to loved stories about thieves and orphans so of course I loved the Artful Dodger. I also watched a lot of adaptations of the book, but my favorite was the cartoon with the animals (not the Disney one). Not sure if anyone else watched that. Anyways, I loved it as a child but then I read the complete book in my early 20s and I was both bored and disappointed by it. This is also why I say if I had read “The Thief Lord” by Cornelia Funke in 4th grade I would have loved it so much. That book has everything I used to love then.

4. Biography of Florence Nightingale

I don’t even know who wrote this particular book and I don’t know why I picked it up from the adult section of the library as a small child (and they let me). All I remember is that it was the first book that made me cry. I remember nothing else about it, but it certainly affected me. I mean, I know the basics about Florence Nightingale, but the book itself I have no clue.

5. St. Clare’s series by Enid Blyton

Oh! My first book series ahah I am pretty sure these books are very outdated now, but I want to reread them at some point. I used to reread them a lot. I even painted the black and white illustrations in my books and I kind of shipped Pat and Joana without even knowing it. These books are about two twins that go to a private school for girls and need to learn how to be less pretentious and to behave like “good girls”. I remember they did practical jokes all the time and I remember that new characters suddenly appeared in one of the books. I only found out later that it was because there were books missing in the collection because those weren’t written by Enid Blyton... It was ridiculous to sell the collection like that. Either way, my favorites were the first 3 because it focused on the twins and their class and I liked the evolution of Pat and Joana clashing with each other and then becoming best friends. Pat used to be my fav because she was outspoken, determined and a bitch. Joana was the prankster and I am not sure if that is her name in English because we used to translate everything.

6. Calvin and Hobbes series by Bill Watterson

There were little comic strips in every Portuguese school book I ever owned and I loved it. I then read the comics and those are funny, clever and adorable. It brings me good comforting memories and I used to love comic strips. This one was my favorite of the kind.

7. “Trapped in Bat Wing Hall” (Give Yourself Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine

I still remember that I only organized one birthday party in my life and that my best friend at the time was sick so she didn’t show up, but her sister brought her gift and it was this book. It’s the only goosebumps book I own and it’s falling apart because I read it so much. It’s one of those choose your own path books and it was the only one of those where I managed to get an “happy” ending on the first try. When my sister was old enough I read it with her and we had fun with it. I had to read it because child me put barbie stamps on it that showed which was the good and which was the bad option ahahah So, I read it so she couldn’t cheat.

8. Harry Potter

I would be lying if I said this series didn’t have a huge impact on me. It doesn’t anymore and I haven’t given it as much importance for some years now, but I can’t deny it was important in my teens.

9. “Petshop of Horrors” by Matsuri Akino

My favorite kind of anime is episodic ones. That means that each episode (sometimes 2 or 3 episodes) stand on it’s own, but there is always something that connects them, usually a character. Petshop of Horrors is like that. It’s about a mysterious pet shop owner called Count D that sells exotic pets that are not what they seem. There is a detective that knows something fishy is going on and it’s always trying to catch him while at the same time forming a sort of friendship with him. Count D is still one of my favorite characters ever and liking animals more than humans was relatable at the time ahah But, just like Count D, I grew and found that humans aren’t all that bad. This sort of narrative structure that is also found in “Kino’s Journey” and “Mushishi” is why I really liked “The Empress of Salt and Fortune” by Nghi Vo.

10. “Monster” by Naoki Urasawa

Psychological thrillers represent! For some time, Urasawa was my only favorite mangaka. Besides “Monster”, I read “20th Century Boys” and “Pluto” and they’re all amazing even though “20th Century Boys” extends for too long and some of it could be cut. I really like psychological thrillers even though I don’t read them much (usually is just the movies I pick) so I needed something here to show my love for it and nothing better than this guy. He also is responsible for the amazing documentary series about mangakas called Manben. The main idea of the value of a life and the responsibility of a doctor is amazingly explored here.

11. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde

This was the first classic I ever read (not counting the ones for school and Oliver Twist) and I loved it. This book is at fault for my pretentious years of reading only the classics. I still love it and fortunately the pretentiousness was lost along the way. One of my friends bought me an Oscar Wilde fridge magnet. They all knew I was obsessed. I also watched an adaptation of “The Happy Prince” as a child and shamelessly ripped it off in 4th grade and made my teacher cry. But, in my story the main character was a scarecrow instead of a statue. Me unknowingly being influenced by Oscar Wilde since ever XD

12. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell

The book that got me interested in politics. So short and so powerful. I remember making fun of it because of the translated title, which is something like “Pig revolution”, but I was impressed when I read it. I read it English and it was for the best I think.

13. “The Illustrated Man” by Ray Bradbury

I used to think I didn’t like scifi unless it was dystopian. This book made me see that I do like it as long as it focuses on the human elements and it doesn’t look like I am reading a science textbook. I have to reread it in order to know if I still like it because I have been disappointed by this author’s works recently, but I loved it at the time and it made me question some societal issues.

14. “Solanin” by Asano Inio

This is my biggest example of right book at the right time. I read it in my early 20s when I was questioning what to do with my life and I was bored with my job and disappointed by everything and this manga is exactly about that. It follows a young adult couple trying to navigate through life and questioning if they should chase their dreams or conform. Their friends are also battling with this and everyone chooses a different path. Asano Inio is not an optimist or pessimist and that is why the ending of this manga is so comforting to me. It keeps it real and makes me see that no matter what there will always be good and bad moments and I should come to terms with it at my own pace.

15. “Murder on the Orient Express” and “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie

I read both around the same time and I didn’t guess who did it in any of them, but I loved how much heart Poirot had in the resolution of the case and I found a love for closed circle mysteries. I haven’t read that much mystery novels yet, but I do enjoy a mystery, especially when a bunch of people are trapped in one place and try to figure out which of them is the killer. Lately, I have been noticing the racism more and more in Agatha Christie’s novels though so I haven’t been wanting to read them.

16. “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

I like romance? Me? I do. In small doses and it needs to have something else going on besides the romance. I found out I enjoyed Austen and tried to figure out the difference between this and other romances and it boils down to social commentary and comedy. I am not even a fan of the couples in the novels I have read by Austen, but I am a fan of the main female characters and other side characters, I am a fan of the humor and clever dialogue. I hope to find more books like this. I attempted modern romances and nothing hits the same. Those are also too focused on sex, which isn’t my favorite thing to read about.

17. Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

Reading Pratchett was such a surprise. I started with “The Colour of Magic” and found the dynamic between Rincewind and Twoflower charming. Plus, the book was funny. Now, I realize that it’s not the best in the series, but I count on Discword to provide funny clever commentary about social issues when I need it. This was the first author to get close to Oscar Wilde for me. I really had a soft spot for funny authors in my early 20s. I still do, but not as much.

18. Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb

Ahah did this one impact me more than others... I was so obsessed it dethroned Oscar Wilde. Now my friends only think Fitz and the Fool because I wouldn’t shut up about it. This was the reason I found online friends because I was in so much need to talk to someone that would understand my joy and pain. It’s also part of my first real fandom experience and it’s great. I had never found characters that felt as real as this ones did and I never had a book made me cry as much as “Fool’s Fate” did. I don’t love the latest books in the series as much, but it’s still precious to me for how much of an impact these characters, themes and stories had. I read this series at a really low point in my life and it gave me a reason to keep living and to hope for a better future, which is why it’s a bit disappointing to see how “grimdark” the last trilogy is. It’s the only series I read all at once and in a short period of time despite having so many books. I am glad that by the time I finished the Rain Wild Chronicles I was in a better mental state because the darkness in the last books is really disheartening. The books always had sad, dark moments but they had happy relaxing times to balance it out too. I had an emptiness that I filled with RotE and that partially explains the obsession at the time ahah

19. The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

I put the first trilogy only because that was the one with an ending that surprised me. I also had never read grimdark before besides “A Game of Thrones” and I was pleasantly surprised. I never read anything like it in terms of characters and meandering plot that ultimately had the message of “things change but not really”. It’s not a message I want to see over and over again, but as a first time it worked brilliantly. Plus, the humor and calm times make the series not look so dark and edgy as others in the genre,

20. “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynne Jones

I am so glad I read this book even though I wasn’t much of a fan of the movie. I only did it because @monpetitrenard said she loved it and she was the biggest RotE fan I had ever met and I trusted her taste. This book made me realize that middle grade books can still be wonderful for adults and it made me appreciate the movie. I know that sometimes it is categorized as YA, but I don’t quite agree. Once again, the dynamic between Howl and Sophie is so funny it had my heart. The easiest way to make me love something is to make me laugh in moderation I guess XD

21. “The Goblin Emperor” by Katherine Addison

If First Law made me like a mostly dark atmosphere this one did the opposite. Maia, the main character, is kind and sweet, but this isn’t portrayed in an unrealistic way. I always have trouble with characters that are just morally black or white because it doesn’t feel realistic to not have both good and bad traits and it also makes for usually boring characters (unless they are funny like Disney villains). So, this was the book that showed me a character that was very morally good while being realistic instead of a saint.

22. “Pandora Hearts” by Jun Mochizuki

This one that made me rediscover my love for manga, which I thought was dead. Turns out that I can find something that hits differently now and then. Oz is a shonen mc that acts like the usual silly one while being in fact very attentive and clever. He is not the usual super strong let’s go into battle type. This manga is a fantasy mystery with a medium moving plot that is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. It has one of my favorite characters of all time and I am so glad I gave this another try after giving up on the anime in my teens. This mangaka has the gift of wonderful pacing using panels and it was a joy to see the evolution of her art style from the first volume of “Pandora Hearts” to “The Case Study of Vanitas”.  I also own the box set which is the most beautiful collection ever.

23. “Kindred” by Octavia E. Butler

Never have I ever read a book that included this many different perspectives on slavery even though it’s a first person narrative. It blew my mind, but it also felt very real and honest, even with the scifi element of time travel. It’s wonderful and I wish more people read books by this author because she was brilliant. I can’t really say much about it because I think the book is better enjoyed if you don’t know anything going into it. It’s one of those. “The Parable of the Sower” is also brilliant.

24. “Carmilla” by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

This is here because of the audiobook version with a full cast that I love. It made me see that audiobooks can be amazing. I have trouble paying attention to audio so not all of them work for me, but this one certainly did. The performances were amazing and improved the story. I just love Rose Leslie’s voice! And David Tennant’s! They were both in it. It was so damn good! The performances were so engaging that they didn’t let me space out, but I think that the book being really short also helped.

25. “Yotsuba&!” by Kiyohiko Azuma

This is just so charming. I can’t help smiling and feeling relaxed while reading this silly manga. This is about a young girl called Yotsuba and her interactions with her father and the next door neighbours. Youtsuba’s bluntness and joy at discovering the simplest things about the world always put a smile on my face. This is a perfect comfort read for me.

I tag: @monpetitrenard @whatevsbla @alloysius-g @electropeach @vydumaj @song-of-amethyst @aseaoftomes @garnetrena @logarithmicpanda @xserpx​ @random-jot​ @pretenderoftheeast​ (only if you want to do it of course)

A chat with author Melissa Wiley

In 1996, HarperCollins published six Carmen Sandiego chapter books, featuring VILE villains from the then-current "Deluxe"/"CD-ROM"/"Classic" generation of computer games and a new lineup of Acme agents, headed by a Black female Chief (Lynne Thigpen ha impact), and focusing on kid detectives Maya and Ben.

The series included two books each by two writing teams and one solo act, Melissa Peterson. I got in touch with Melissa, who now uses the pen name Melissa Wiley, and she graciously answered some questions about writing the Carmen books and beyond.

To get you caught up to my knowledge before the interview, here's Melissa's website, and here's her bio as printed in the two Carmen books (accompanied by the caricature above):

Melissa Peterson is the author of several books for young readers. Born in Alamogordo, New Mexico, she has lived in eight different states and visited Germany and France. She has never ridden a dolphin, but she did eat a great deal of sour cherry ice cream outside the cathedral in Cologne. [Note: These are both references to plot points in Hasta la Vista, Blarney.] Her research for Hasta la Vista, Blarney included many hours playing Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? An official ACME Master Detective, she lives in New York City with her husband and young daughter.

FYCS: Thanks so much for agreeing to this interview.

Melissa Wiley: What a fun blast from the past! The Carmen books were my first professional writing gig and I had so much fun working on them.

That's so exciting to hear! With that being the case, how did you get involved with the books?

I was an assistant editor at HarperCollins, working for the wonderful Stephanie Spinner. I started out as her editorial assistant at Random House right after grad school and moved to Harper with her a year later, shortly after [my husband] Scott and I got married. Stephanie knew that I wanted to be a writer, and she often sent in-house writing assignments my way (lots of cover copy). When I left Harper in 1995 to have a baby, Stephanie recommended me for several book assignments, including the two Carmen Sandiego novels. That project had been underway for several months—Harper was doing a tie-in with the game and TV show. There were six books in total; two were assigned to me and four went to other writing teams [Ellen Weiss and Mel Friedman, and Bonnie Bader and Tracey West]. I often joke that I got my first modem, my first baby, and my first book deal in the same month!

I loved working with my Carmen Sandiego editor, Kris Gilson. The two books were a blast to write and a great learning opportunity for me. Ellen Weiss remains a good friend of mine. She's a true gem of a person!

Have your experiences writing the Carmen books influenced your work since then?

With Carmen, I discovered how much I love writing humor. Before that (in grad school), my poems and stories were on the serious side. I had so much fun with the playful, sometimes goofy tone of the Carmen Sandiego books that I definitely shifted afterward to more of a focus on humor in my books. I still find writing from a place of playfulness to be my most satisfying kind of work.

Were you familiar with Carmen Sandiego before writing the books?

I loved the computer game! I'd seen several episodes of the show—it's all a bit blurry now and hard to say which I encountered first—and really enjoyed it, but I especially loved the game. Instant classic!

How much guidance did you receive from HarperCollins / Brøderbund? Were the plots your own, or were you given plot outlines?

We were given the basic descriptions for the two kid detectives, and I had a couple of meetings with the editors and the other writers to flesh out the characters a bit more—give them personalities. I don't think Mel was in the meetings, but Ellen was there, and Tracey and Bonnie.

Then I wrote outlines for my two books and the other writers outlined theirs. I was assigned one "Where in the World" mystery and one "Where in Time" mystery. I think I submitted several plot ideas for each—the big challenge was thinking up interesting objects for Carmen and her henchmen to steal. The Blarney Stone and cocoa beans were my favorite ideas and I was thrilled that they got picked!

How did you research the books?

Those were AOL days, and the web wasn't yet a place for intensive research, so I spent a lot of time in the library. For The Cocoa Commotion, I conducted phone interviews with staff members at the Hershey chocolate factory—lots of fun. But I never did get to visit the Blarney Stone!

What was your favorite part of working on the books?

Researching the history of chocolate! Naturally I had to do a lot of sampling in order to describe it properly. ;)

Your author bio in the books mentions that the scene in which Maya and Ben eat sour cherry ice cream in Cologne, Germany was inspired by an actual experience of yours. Did any other experiences of yours make it into the books? Have you had any other travel experiences that notable? (Note: I'm originally from Northern Michigan, so travel experiences involving tart cherries are a high bar to clear for me.)

Ohhh, that sour cherry ice cream! I hope I get to taste it again someday. Apart from eating a lot of chocolate, I can't remember any other personal experiences that informed the books. If I were to write one today, I'd make sure to set a scene in Barcelona. My husband and I spent a week there in 2008 and it was an incredible trip. The paella! The Gaudí buildings! Art on every corner! I'd love to go back someday.

The bio also features a caricature of you with your baby daughter...

That drawing was made by the brilliant comic book artist Rick Burchett, who was working with Scott on Batman comics at the time. Scott was an editor at DC Comics and Rick was one of his favorite artists to work with. When I needed a bio illustration for the Carmen Sandiego books, we commissioned Rick to draw it. I love that piece so much! The baby is my oldest, Kate, who was born right around the time I started working on the books. We still have the original art!

You've written over 20 children's books for a variety of ages, in a variety of genres. Do you have any favorites among them?

That's so hard to say—I'm fond of all of them and I dearly loved creating worlds and adventures for Charlotte and Martha in my Little House prequels—but The Prairie Thief and The Nerviest Girl in the World are extra-special to me. I grew up in Aurora, Colorado and had a summer job at a wildlife refuge on the prairie, a landscape that served as the setting for Prairie Thief. I loved getting to weave secrets into the prairie setting that means so much to me.

Your most recent book, The Nerviest Girl in the World, was published last August. Can you tell us a bit about why you wrote it?

I lived for 11 years in La Mesa, California, a small town just outside San Diego. While I was there, I learned that in the very early days of silent film, there had been a film studio in town. Eventually the studio moved to Santa Barbara, but it was exciting to discover that before Hollywood was the center of the American film industry, little old La Mesa was a moviemaking place. I began reading everything I could find about the studio, and when I learned that many of the cowboys in those early Westerns were real cowboys and ranchers, an idea for a book began to take shape—the story of an adventurous girl who stumbled into work as a daredevil film actress along with her cowboy brothers.

Of course, I'm legally compelled to ask the question that literally every interview currently includes: how has the pandemic changed your job?

LOL! Yes, it's the question right now, isn't it! Well, I've worked at home since the Carmen Sandiego days, and I homeschool my kids, so in the biggest ways our lives weren't hugely affected by the shutdown. But I used to do a lot of my writing in cafés, and I miss that like crazy! I had to think up all sorts of new strategies for staying focused at home this past year. I'm hoping to get back to the coffee shops this summer!

Something I found really interesting is that you have a Patreon, which you explain you started to help pay for medical bills. How has that experience affected your work as an author?

I've played with lots of kinds of content on Patreon and really enjoy having a space to share behind-the-scenes stories. It's a more intimate and personal space than social media, so I feel free to let my hair down and be really frank.

Thanks so much for these fantastic questions! I had so much fun reminiscing about the Carmen Sandiego adventure!

Hey Squid 👋🏻 Regarding your Sunrise AMA, what is one of your favourite moments from the story, or favourite thing about Sunrise in general? Was their a line or paragraph that stands out to you as one were you were like yes, this is good and just flowed easiest? Did you have any things that you knew straight away that you needed or wanted to write about? Also I was wondering what inspired you to have them join the Circus? And what do you think their kids jobs would be when they grow up? (I probably have a dozen more but I will just leave it at that for now 😊 ty!)

Heya!  Let’s see.  Since we’ve got multiple questions, I think I’ll leave the favorite moment(s) question for someone else to ask.   Favorite thing about Sunrise: I started it a few days after finishing the game.  From the savefiles and my chapter 1 posting date, it was only four days.  Obviously Arthur touched something emotional within me, like he did for a lot of people, and seeing Sadie so cold, alone, and fatalistic in the Epilogue hurt too.  I wanted to see if I tried to write what could have happened after that fight on the ridge where it might lead.   So I guess my favorite thing about Sunrise is that it debunked the assumption that Arthur had to die for the story to work or matter.  I wrote a journey for him and for Sadie that a lot of people connected to and told me that meant a lot to them to see them thrive and heal.  Characters don’t need a tragic ending to be deeply meaningful.  Characters don’t have to die for redemption.  It’s not somehow more artistically pure or daring to kill someone off.  I didn’t break RDR1 by writing Sunrise, and I made the plot beats of the RDR2 Epilogue work.  So Arthur’s death also frankly wasn’t necessary for plot integrity towards the events of 1907 and 1911. A line or paragraph that I really enjoyed writing: I’ll go with one early on, from chapter 6, “Death Is A Woman”, that actually gave the chapter its title. He managed a low, dark chuckle at that, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. His lungs gave a bit of a grouchy hitch at it. “Newsmen are a different breed of confidence men and liars, that’s all. Anyway, I’m sure Death’s got to be a woman, Sister, cause it seems even she won’t have me.” That one made me feel like I really finally nailed Arthur and his character and state of mind in the weeks right after he’s had his entire life and identity knocked out from under him.  But of course he has to couch it in a self-deprecating quip.  Also kind of a funny line in retrospect because I hadn’t planned anything with Death/The Strange Man cropping up in the story at this point, but apparently Arthur’s wrong and Death is not a woman in RDRverse.  ;)   Things I immediately needed or wanted to write about: Giving Sadie a voice and POV to show what was going on in her head.  Beyond that, giving both of them the respect of acknowledging their PTSD, but doing my best to let show what trauma recovery really looks like, and showing that it’s possible.  I didn’t want to either shrug it off as inconvenient to a happy ending, or else treat them like permanently broken things.  I wanted it to be a journey.  When it came to Arthur’s TB, I also wanted to write something realistic and accurate to the period in terms of his recovery rather than just sort of handwaving it.  Historical medicine’s an interest of mine, so this was a good chance to explore some of that.  Joining the circus: This is one of the rarer instances where the tail sort of wagged the dog and I had to make something fit to an immovable future plan.  I had them in 1904 having claimed a homestead up in Canada that needed to be settled and improved within three years.  And I knew for 1907 Team Griffith needed to be in the five-state area of the RDR2 map in order to be involved in the Epilogue.  I could have had them go back to Chuparosa and continue eking out a living, and debated pushing them back on the bounty hunter path to put them being sometimes in those American states that would let them cross paths with the Marstons somehow. Didn’t really like it.  Given how averse they were to bounty hunting together with two very young children at home, how Sadie absolutely wasn’t going to be the little wife sitting at home and letting Arthur go alone into danger as an alternative, and how much they both liked the idea that they no longer needed to live that sort of life, it felt like I needed something else.  And it needed to be something that they could walk away with no offense taken from in three years.  In retrospect, I could have had them hire on at MacFarlane’s full time rather than seasonal and developed that bond even more, but I ended up coming up with a circus that folds in 1907 as a good alternative.  Given they’re ace riders and crack shots and pretty fair actors, that Arthur was very used to a nomadic lifestyle, that circus folk are great actors and can deal some mild well-meaning trickery as part of the delight, that they were fairly egalitarian for the time, and that traveling circus folk sort of existed as a quasi-disreputable and tightly knit “outsider” group, it felt like a neat chance to mirror the gang, but in a positive way.  So with the circus, I got to write Sadie and Arthur getting to live the best version of that kind of life, and sort of coming to peace with more of the past by it.  Proving the things they missed about the gang weren’t the robberies or Dutch’s antisocial philosophy, but the people they loved and the freewheeling lifestyle.  Also proving that while they enjoy that life, they do both really want to have something more settled and put down solid roots.  Sadie misses that, and Arthur yearns for it as something he’s never had. Also noting I hadn’t planned at all on Arkady Rudenko when I wrote Sadie and Arthur performing as the “Cossack Karolovs”, and I only realized that connection after I’d written the final chapter.  Guess my unconscious brain knew more than I thought even back then, though I’d only earmarked a few months before that final chapter trying to possibly work in the interesting fact of Ukrainians being a very prevalent immigrant group to the Canadian prairie provinces at the time.  But yeah, as an actual Cossack kid, Archie’s probably going to laugh his ass off. Kid’s jobs: So I actually have a short scrapped bit that I didn’t include as an extra document at the end of chapter 88, though I debated it.  I like the piece, but I wanted to leave it with Sadie and Arthur’s journal entries and the circle of things being sort of complete. It’s a preface to a book called “Red Dead Redemption” written by Jack--who’s become a writer of a fairly famous radio play turned TV serial--in the ‘60′s once all the OGs are finally gone and he feels safe to tell that story.  It mentions that the illustrations were done by his wife, Bea.  So yeah, Bea got Arthur’s artistic talent, and by submitting her work as “B.M. Griffith”, she managed to get some illustration jobs that would have been denied to her as “Beatrice”.   Mattie (Matt as he grows older), becomes a doctor.  He’s already got the caring heart and desire to heal and help people.  He’ll likely end up helping Felipe out as a teenager and learning some of the ropes there before going to college. Susie ended up becoming a teacher.  There were definitely still strictures at the time against married women working as teachers, so if/when she got married (and I think if so, she did it later in life) she’d have been expected to retire and effectively become a housewife.  But she’d still keep teaching as a tutor.  Andy, with his energy and love of horses and the outdoors, actually shows a passion for farming and ranching.  So he’s the one who ends up running the day-to-day of Paradise Run as the next generation.     Feel free to keep up with the AMA with those further questions!  Might be better to send them in individually, though, as this one got pretty long.  ;)

What I Saw on Mulberry Street

At first, I was slightly amused by the whole brouhaha that followed the announcement last week by the estate of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, that it would stop republishing and selling six of the famous author’s books, including such classics as And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, On Beyond Zebra, and McElligot’s Pool.  I know all these books; they were classics of children’s literature so long ago that I remember reading them when I actually was a child and enjoying them immensely. We all did. Dr. Seuss was part of the children’s canon back then: read by all, touted endlessly by librarians and teachers, and considered controversial—as far as I recall—by none. Just the opposite, actually: if there was one children’s author from back then whose whimsy was deemed charming and fully acceptable, it would certainly have been Dr. Seuss.

But times have changed. And there is no question that illustrations in all the books in question feature caricatures of various minority groups, particularly Asians (depicted with slanty lines for eyes, pigtails, and conical coolie-style hats) and Black people (shown shirtless, shoeless, and wearing grass skirts). On the other hand, Dr. Seuss himself was a powerful enemy of fascism who published more than 400 wartime cartoons savaging Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese leadership. And some of his books were thinly veiled anti-fascist parables: it is widely understood, for example, that Yertle the Turtle (1958) was meant as a direct attack on fascism (apparently dictatorial Yertle originally sported a Hitler-style moustache) and that Horton Hears a Who (1954) was meant as a kind of encouraging parable about the American occupation of Japan. More to the point for Jewish readers is that The Sneetches (1961), a book that the estate will continue to publish, is a focused, double-barreled attack on racism and anti-Semitism and was understood that way from the time it was published. Nor was this imputed meaning—the author himself was widely quoted at the time as saying formally, that The Sneetches “was inspired by my opposition to anti-Semitism.”

So we are left with an interesting dilemma. Geisel, a life-long Lutheran who actually suffered a bit of anti-Semitic discrimination in college when he was mistaken by some bigoted classmates for a Jew, was a proud anti-fascist, a virulent opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, and a true American patriot. And he published some books that featured images which feel—at least by today’s standards—racist or at the very least inappropriate for books pitched at impressionable children. The managers of his estate solved their problem the easy way by deciding simply not to republish six of the man’s books, thus ending the controversy by eliminating the problem. An alternate approach, of course, would have been to re-edit the books, eliminate the offensive imagery, and bring out versions that feature the original text with illustrations tailored more precisely to suit modern sensitivity. And speaking specifically as a Jewish American, the fact that there aren’t any Stürmer-style caricatures of hook-nosed Jews holding huge bags of money in these books shouldn’t be a factor in our evaluation of the evidence: if anything, the thought of Black parents cringing when they come across racist caricatures of Africans should be more than resonant with Jewish parents able to imagine being in exactly the same position and feeling exactly the same level of hurt and outrage. And that brings me to the question that feels to me to be at the heart of the matter: should works deemed utterly non-offensive in their day be altered, either slightly or dramatically, to suit evolving standards with respect to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, etc.? It’s an interesting question, one that goes to the heart of the question of what literature actually is and what role it could or should play in society.

There are, of course, lots of examples of books that have been successfully revised to suit modern tastes. Agatha Christie’s book And Then There Were None was originally published in the U.K. as Ten Little Negroes (and the third word on the cover was specifically not “Negroes”). That was deemed offensive here, so the publisher just made up a different title. (The English publishers eventually did the same and brought the book out under the marginally less offensive title Ten Little Indians.) In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a favorite of my own children years ago, Roald Dahl originally depicted the Oompa-Loompas who worked in the factory as African pygmies and the depiction was basically of them as slaves and certainly not as dignified, salaried employees. A century earlier, Dickens himself was prevailed upon to tone down Fagan’s Jewishness in Oliver Twist, which he did by halfheartedly removing some of the references to Fagan’s ethnicity. Of course, when the author himself makes the revisions we are having an entirely different discussion: surely the actual authors of books should feel free make whatever changes they wish to their own work. The question is whether the world should “fix” published works to make them suit issues that were on no one’s radar, or hardly anyone’s radar, when the book was written and published.

Some readers will recall that one of my pandemic coping exercises last spring was embarking on a re-read of Mark Twain, a favorite author of my younger years. I was surprised how well many of his books stood the test of time, but I found myself most engaged of all by my re-read of Huckleberry Finn. Widely and entirely reasonably acclaimed as an American classic, the book is basically about the relationship of Huck and Jim, who is almost invariably referred to as Negro Jim. (Again, that’s not the word that appears in the book.) Of course, Mark Twain was writing about Missouri life in the 1830s and he himself was from Missouri and a child of that era. So he certainly knew how people spoke and I’m entirely sure that that word was in common use to reference Black people. Today, that word is anathema to all and is considered unusable in normal discourse, written or oral. But what about the book itself? Should it be “fixed” by having the dialogue altered specifically to reflect a dialect of English spoken in those days by no one at all? Or should the book itself be dropped from high school or even college reading lists as something too offensive to allow, let alone to require, young people to read? Huckleberry Finn is an interesting book for many different reasons, not least of all because Jim, a slave, is depicted sympathetically as a man of character, virtue, and strong moral values—a fact made all the more poignant by the fact that he is depicted as almost wholly uneducated. Indeed, Jim is a grown man with a wife and family, while Huck is a boy of thirteen or fourteen and the clear implication is that while the white world has failed utterly to make Huck into a decent adolescent, Black Jim, an uneducated slave, is quite able to bring him to the threshold of decency by showing him how to behave in an upright manner. So the book is hardly anti-Black. Just the opposite is far more true: in many ways, Jim, not Huck, is the hero of the book. And yet the constant use of that word is beyond jarring. Editions have been published for use in school that simply omit the word or change it. Is that a rational compromise? Or does that kind of bowdlerization deprive the book of its essential honesty, of its ability to depict a society as it truly was and not as moderns vaguely wish it had been? It’s not that easy to say.

When I was deeply involved in the research that led me to publish my translation of the Psalms, I became aware—slightly to my naïve amazement—of the existence of Christian editions of the Psalms from which all references to internecine strife, violent clashes between opposing groups in old Jerusalem, the corruption that led at least some poets to condemn the Temple priesthood, and the deep alienation from God with which at least some psalmists struggled—that the psalms depicting all of that challenging stuff had been nicely excised from the book so as to create a book of “nice” poems. (This parallels a Christian edition of the Old Testament I once saw from which the entire book of Leviticus had been omitted, presumably lest readers be offended by the notion that animal sacrifice and the safeguarding of ritual purity were essential elements of the covenant between God and Israel.) Those editions of the Psalms struck me as ridiculous and precisely because the resultant book was specifically nothing like the original work and gave a totally incorrect impression of the original work. But would one of the Dr. Seuss books under discussion really have been substantially altered by some of the drawings of black or Asian people replaced with more respectful images?

My feeling is that the Dr. Seuss affair is indicative of a larger issue in society. Obviously, changing a few drawings in a book is not such a big deal and is something that I’m sure happens without fanfare in the world of publishing all the time. But this specific issue seems to have struck such a chord with so many precisely because Dr. Seuss is deemed, not entirely incorrectly, as representative of a simpler world—by which term people generally mean one in which it wasn’t deemed necessary to care what smaller groups in society felt or thought. We’ve come a long way since then, and rightly so. The Seuss estate could certainly have felt justified in commissioning some new drawing to avoid going against modern feelings about ethnic or racial stereotyping. The books themselves would have been substantially the same. Once that line is crossed, however, and the book no longer is the same as it was—“fixing” the language in Huckleberry Finn, for example, or eliminating Shylock’s Jewishness from the play or Othello’s blackness—that is missing almost entirely the reason literature exists in the first place: to stir up emotion, to challenge readers’ preconceptions, and to educate—in the literal sense of the world: to draw the reader forward to a new level of understanding of the world of the author…and of the reader as well.

(MAXENCE DANET-FAUVEL, NONBINARY) - Have you seen VIKTOR SAMUELS? VIKTOR is in HIS/THEIR SENIOR year. The VISUAL ARTS MAJOR is 24 years old & is a CAPRICORN. People say HE/THEY are OBSERVANT, INGENIOUS, RETICENT and DEPENDENT. Rumors say they’re a member of KINCAID. I heard from the gossip blog that THEY'RE HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH THEIR THERAPIST. (JAMES. 21. EST. THEY/THEM.)

dont. look at me. i know. anyways if it wasnt obvs i abandoned cupid (n darrow) in order 2 bring the two ocs tht he ws inspired by n ws a combination of bt. theyre better as different ppl methinks.

DEATH, HEAVY GRIEF, OVERDOSE / DRUG ADDICTION, HOSPITALIZATION, HYPERSEXUALITY, RELIGION MENTIONS TW

aesthetic.

old tvs and their static, worn tapes, horror movie screams, spilled ink, a sculptor’s hands, clay-stained, chicken scratch handwriting, messy notes, messy hair, scoffs and eye-rolls, bruised knuckles, sore throats, funeral homes and a crying preacher, shattered ceramics, knife fights, high ledges, vertically-striped pants, red lights, the moon shrouded in clouds, cigarette butts, graveyards and half-empty wine bottles, sitting there for hours and talking to nothing, about nothing, a god complex, gold rings adorning both hands, barbwire baseball bats, having never played baseball in your life, deep eyebags and broken mirrors, a permanent chip on one’s shoulder, yearning, longing, wishing.

basics.

full name: viktor phillip samuels

nickname(s): icky vicky :/

b.o.d. - january 2nd, 1996

label(s): the black hole, the crepehanger, the impious, the opaque, the tempest, etc.

height: 6′1″

hometown: preaker, vermont

sexuality: pansexual uwu

pinterest

stats

favorite song: disorder, joy division / it’s getting faster, moving faster / now it’s getting out of hand / on the tenth floor, down the back stairs / it’s a no man’s land / lights are flashing, cars are crashing / getting frequent now / i’ve got the spirit, lose the feeling / let it out somehow

background.

born to mama and papa (preacher) samuels in preaker, vermont - fifteen minutes after his twin sister, tatiana samuels. years later, rosa samuels joined the gang.

was an awkward, quiet kid growing up, he didn’t interact well with others and preferred being left alone to dig up worms and draw on the walls of their childhood home. the only exception was his twin, really.

as he got older he grew out of this, but instead became like … sort of an asshole? maybe to compensate for years of childhood awkwardness. he’s the sort of person who will bite the hand that feeds him & developed into a full time nuisance by middle school, unlike tatiana who was much more subtle about her conniving manners.

always has been a fan of ‘darker’ materials. grim & creepy morbid shit. probably the biggest tim burton fan, ever since he was a kid … not a good look for a preacher’s son, but he never really felt ‘in’ with the rest of his family to begin with. classic black sheep syndrome.

drew disturbing pictures as a kid that probably prompted one or two or five phone calls home to assure everything was fine.

just really had a knack for art at a young age, from drawing to painting to playing with clay. it’s always been his thing and probably is the only thing he’s good at.

being twins with tatiana was hard. they were near opposite besides both being quite mean-spirited. tatiana handled being in public better, left a better image behind - but viktor had talent, more than she did. they loved each other deeply - y’know, those unbreakable twin bonds as cliche as it sounds - but found each other as competition for their parents’ attention. a rivalry for affection.

in high school is when viktor really started to act out. it started extreme, like losing his virginity in their church and vandalism around the neighborhoods. faked being possessed in the middle of sunday service & almost had an exorcism performed on him.

his only redeemable trait was like … just his sheer talent in the arts. was in a 3d art ap course and specialized in sculptures. he could pretty much create anything he wanted with enough dedication.

because he was the problem child, the one who deserved to be disciplined for all his antics, tatiana could sneak away and get away with whatever she wanted much easier. on the bright-side, for her, i guess.

not a very motivated person - wasn’t planning on going to college, much less going to yates but his parents literally wrote & sent his college application for him because they weren’t going to house a deadbeat but had too much heart to kick him out onto the streets. cool!

he’s actually pretty smart but he just doesn’t apply himself. has a minor in english because he didn’t care for an extra course-load, but he’s good at writing & analyzing literature. is going to use it to write and illustrate his own series of children books with a style similar to tim burton’s. not for the kids, but because he likes to leave a trail of terror in whatever he does.

has been experimenting with himself since high school but college is where he really had started to crack down on himself. was out as pansexual & nonbinary by his sophomore year of college just … not to his parents, who don’t really need to know.

if you asked him if he believed in twins having a psychic connection with each other - he’d tell you he wouldn’t know. it felt believable at times, but sometimes he had no idea what was going on inside of tatiana’as head. on the other hand - viktor had always felt oddly transparent to her, like she knew all of his moves before he did. the only person who could predict him accurately.

( tw death, grief, overdose / hospitalization beyond this point )

when tatiana disappeared, viktor knew something was up. it was a twist in his gut, pure instinct that something wasn’t right. and it wasn’t right - and when she was proclaimed missing, they couldn’t find her.

and when tatiana died - viktor knew. it felt wrong, something cut so severely in him he could pinpoint her death to the second. he didn’t know how, or why, but he knew it. knew it before anybody else had.

afterwards he went on a sort of bender. he’d begun to struggle with a mild drug addiction late senior year of high school / early college, but he was managing it up until this point.

his mental health had also sunk to an all-time low, when it’d never been great to begin with. (manic & depressive episodes. once fixated on a sculpting project for six months and then knocked it off the table and destroyed it as soon as he finished it for no apparent reason.)

tatiana’s body wasn’t found immediately, and when it was … viktor went off the rails. ended up overdosing & being hospitalized. spent six months in & out of psychiatric care after that.

came back to yates to finish his senior year because … for the reasons above, he hadn’t been able to complete it. just wants to get his credits and get out of here.

is still dealing with a lot of trauma & grief - causes him to spiral and be unpredictable in regards of his mental health. he stopped taking his medication, so. :/ some days are alright, other days are pretty bad.

personality & facts.

the human embodiment of a gremlin that was fed after midnight. a goblin, if you will. one of those cats with a narrow head and really big ears … that’s them!

a big horror & halloween enthusiast. loves the old campy horror movies & probably has an abundance of masks from different movies. dresses like a grimy millennial beetlejuice more than they should because they just … love those black & white vertical-striped pants.

can appreciate the ~urban legends~ at yates and likes to feed into the fear that surrounds them. is probably the cause of a few ‘anomalies’ and ‘paranormal sightings’ because they’re just … a jerk.

fashion alternates between e-boy (they would be tiktok famous if they were 17 & didn’t think that a majorly minor based app was weird.), millennial beetlejuice, and goth in a crop top & sweatpants. big fan of crop tops and a big fan of sweatpants.

they can be really fucking mean? petty, aggressive, a major instigator. will literally spit in your face for little to no reason, you could just look at them the wrong way. the kind of person who will stick their gum into someone else’s hair. other than that? they’re like … sort of okay. they’re not always mean, just a dick about 90% of the time lmao

like okay yeah they’ll call someone a stinky bitch for no reason except they feel like it and believes it. it’s fine, they’re fine, we’re fine.

despite the fact that they’re probably getting into a fight whenever, considers themself to be a lover and not a fighter but that’a primarily because they fuck a lot. uses it as a coping mechanism, like they’re this big fancy carnival show that’s like ‘come one, come all! fuck the dead girl’s twin brother!’ and it’s … a lot. might have a problem with hypsersexuality but they’re not fully aware of it.

the preacher’s whore son, basically :)

pansexual & nonbinary, switches between he & they pronouns often and without a pattern, but they have such a fragile grip on their identity that you could call them ‘dog-faced bitch’ and they’d turn around like. sup.

vastly impulsive … like i said, they destroy their own creations for the fun of it. spends all their money on useless shit, will cheat on someone because they feel like it & likes the thrill, screams into the night sky frequently like a cat in heat.

will also spend months creating useless shit for no reason too. spent six of them sculpting a hollowed out tree the size of them & then took a sledgehammer to it.

they’re very super dramatic. would play the organ at church when nobody was looking after them and service was about to start. would just churn out these super haunting, creepy melodies like they were phantom of the opera. would do the same exact thing at home on their keyboard with the pipe organ setting whenever they got grounded until their parents took it away hbdsjfngkh

will absolutely not talk about their ‘time away’ because it’s not anyone’s business, not even their own younger sister. still refuses to talk about tatiana’s death, or their mental health, or their addiction (fallen back into it but it hasn’t gotten severe … yet :/), or anything involving their own emotions.

will just change the topic abruptly, no warning. asks about the jonas brothers instead and they fucking hate the jonas brothers.

that being said they’re absolutely not over tatiana’s death & it’s to the point of obsession over it. like there’s some kind of secret that needs to be uncovered, even though there just. isn’t. tatiana was their rock and they were pretty much dependent on her. kept them grounded. could control them when nobody else could, got into their head easier than others. it’s sort of like rosa lost two siblings that day because viktor hasn’t been the same since.

emotionally unavailable while also crying twice a day. cries during their brawls but still wins. is stony-faced when they tell you they cheated on you with your much hotter best friend.

will tell you straight up what they want from you, no bullshit & no beating around the bush. just blunt. if they want to fuck, nothing else, then that’s it. if they feel deviation or developing feelings then they’ll ghost in less than a second. is awful like that but feels no shame.

but also emotional as shit and it’s confusing. will cry on a whim and then flip you off if you try to console them or ask them what’s up. will bite you.

they go to therapy but they just fuck around and wastes their therapists’ time … also is fucking their therapist, but that’s neither here nor there. so they’re not really getting the help they need.

likes to be intimidating but not … with their body or anything because they’re a twig but uses their love & knowledge of horror and creepy shit to their advantage. has an abundance of fake blood. has channeled the energy of jack nicholson and used it on tatiana’s boyfriends before (also is a big fan of sfx makeup & has dabbled in it)

probably chases kids around with a chainsaw without the chain on halloween every year.

generally never doing good, both mental health wise & morally. would probably steal candy from a baby for funsies.

i don’t know if there’s a good to them somewhere deep down, but they don’t see any issues with themself either. nothing really breaks through to them anymore because the only person who ever made them stop and think about their actions was tatiana, and well, y’know. :/

an introverted reclusive type who doesn’t like most people or going out, but does so anyway if it means a quick high & a cheap thrill.

pretty observant and likes to analyze people even though they’re often like … partially wrong. judgmental because they like to make people feel bad, not because they’re a righteous mighty person. because they’re not. so like, a hypocrite!

wanted connections.

religious trauma? oh worm ;; three cheers fr <3 guilt <3 anyways uh. just people tht viktor hs known thru the church in some way even tho hes a fkn. freak now. maybe even family friends. 

the horror of our love :/ ;; hmm. any romance tht cld b toxic i think this cld fit. just rly a bad fit. viktor doesnt rly know hw to love so nothing rly lasts bt. maybe they try n try n nothing works bt they keep trying. cld also just be anything unrequited.

little fkn gremlins ;; theyre all evil n mean. bt theyre all friends. <3 

you are nothing ;; uuh. enemy plots. spicy enemies. rly bad enemies. rivals. they r brutal towards each other bcos nothing viktor does is ever soft.

fuck u dont pity me ;; uh. people who try to get close to viktor n he just. bites at them. he’s like no. bc he assumes ppl who r kind in response 2 his vileness r. theres smth wrong w them. n it might hv to do with pity. n he hates pity.

ugh. locals x ;; ppl who also grew up around preaker, vermont. the samuels r <3 well known folks n the uh. hm. the murder is an ongoing case. so they cld know abt it <3

dont tell anybody x ;; this is for soft plots. i dont know much about soft plots but. 

maybe i am part of the problem ;; the problem is chlamydiagate. this is a hook-ups connection. fwbs n one night stands. ppl viktor hs brutally ghosted. he doesnt acknowledge their existence outside of these events, perhaps. 

dont u just wna go apeshit ;; this is where viktor becomes a bad influence.

bt uh. anything. pelase

John Torrington: A Portrait of the Stoker as a Young Man

(Previous posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Different forms of art have depicted Torrington in different ways. In my last post I discussed how in music Torrington seems to be depicted as either some sort of restless spirit or reanimated man-out-of-time, with a focus on his death and the eerie undead appearance of his mummified body. There’s not much of a focus on what he was like when he was alive, with the inspiration for these works coming from the image of his dead body. Sadly, we don’t have any pictures of what he looked like when he was alive, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t tried to imagine it. In fact, Torrington’s depiction in visual artworks often focus more on what he was like when he was alive, with various attempts at reconstructing what he may have looked like before he died and was buried on Beechey.

One of the first attempts at recreating what he may have looked like comes from the Nova documentary “Buried in Ice.” At the very end of the documentary, there are artistic reconstructions of Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine. I’m not entirely sure who the artist was, but the credits list an illustrator, Wayne Schneider, and he may have been the one to draw these. I can’t find the illustrations outside of the documentary, so please forgive the bad quality of the screenshot I had to use below.

Here we have a John Torrington who looks aged before his time. He was only twenty when he died, but judging by the state of his lungs, he probably had a hard life, so he may have looked much older than his years. This is a very serious-looking Torrington, as if he were standing for a portrait or daguerreotype for several minutes and had to stay completely still.

This drawing also gives him almost shoulder-length hair. Owen Beattie was a technical consultant on the documentary, so he probably had a say in what the recreations of the Beechey Boys may have looked like. This makes me think that the hair length shown here is most likely how long his hair actually was. Yes, I know, I’m going on about his hair again, but due to the confusion over what his hair looked like, it tends to vary across artistic depictions, as we shall see.

Another thing of note in this recreation is the noticeable lines around his mouth. In the pictures of Torrington’s mummified body, there are prominent lines around his mouth, but how much of that was due to postmortem distortions and how much would have shown on his face in life is hard to know. The artwork above is not an official forensic facial reconstruction, and even official reconstructions are highly subjective, so this is just one possible interpretation.

There’s another artistic interpretation of Torrington from around the same time. Remember the children’s book Buried in Ice? Well, what’s a kid’s book without some illustrations?

Now that’s the face of a man who got sick of backbreaking, lung-destroying labor in Manchester and said, “Screw it, I’m going to the Arctic.” The hair here is similar to that depicted in the documentary illustration, but the lines around his mouth are softened. The illustrations for this book were done by Janet Wilson, and she brought a liveliness to Torrington’s face that the somber drawing from the documentary greatly lacked. He still has a slightly careworn face, but he looks closer to his actual age. Janet Wilson also did wonderful detailing on the shirt that he was buried in, which he is wearing in her drawing. The kerchief tied around his head in death is here tied around his neck—and I love the inclusion of the blue border around the kerchief, which is not really noticeable in the photos from his exhumation but is noted in the reports on his burial clothes.

I’m fond of this picture because it gives Torrington some personality beyond that of a sad, tragic victim. It makes him seem like a real person who lived, with a bit of a sly and carefree attitude. He also gives off a kind of back alley salesman vibe, like he knows a guy who knows a guy who could sell you a kidney. But I especially like it because he’s smiling as he’s speaking, and after seeing picture after picture of Torrington’s frozen death grimace, I would love to know what he looked like when he smiled.

There’s another artistic reconstruction which I found on YouTube. It’s by artist M.A. Ludwig, who has a YouTube channel (under the name JudeMaris) dedicated to facial reconstructions of various historical figures, including all three of the Beechey Boys. Here’s Ludwig’s interpretation of what Torrington may have looked like:

He looks much younger here than in either of the two previous interpretations. This John Torrington looks like a young man ready for adventure, with hopes and dreams of a long future. He has slightly shorter hair in this interpretation, but also, he’s blond. I’ve noticed confusion online about the color as well as length of Torrington’s hair, with a lot of people these days thinking he’s blond. I think that may have something to do with the wood shavings he’s resting on in photos, which as I discussed in a previous post, some people have confused for his hair. I’ve also encountered a few versions of the usual photos of him where the lighting looks different, resulting in the few visible wisps of his hair looking much lighter than official reports have described them. Interestingly, the blond hair makes him look younger and gives him an innocent and almost naïve appearance, completely different from the sly, I’ve-got-a-bridge-to-sell-you Torrington from the children’s book.

Now I’m going to move on to an artist who is well known to Franklinites. Kristina Gehrmann (@iceboundterror​) is a German illustrator and graphic artist who specializes in works with a historical or fantasy setting. She has drawn many pictures inspired by the Franklin Expedition, and I have bought several of them from her shop on Etsy, including three different versions of the ships Terror and Erebus sailing in the Arctic or caught in the ice. Currently, those three pictures are on my wall next to a large painting I inherited from my grandparents of two non-Franklin-related ships that I pretend are Terror and Erebus anyway (I call this wall The Boat Place). Gehrmann also wrote and illustrated a graphic novel in German about the Franklin Expedition, Im Eisland, published in three parts and available through Amazon. But if, like me, you don’t speak German, Gerhmann has made an English translation, titled Icebound, available for free here.

Gehrmann has actually drawn two slightly different versions of Torrington, one of which is more like the artistic reconstructions shown above and the other is of a fictionalized Torrington in the graphic novel Im Eisland. I love both of her interpretations, but they are of two different styles. Let’s start with the graphic novel version.

Im Eisland uses a manga-like style, so this version of Torrington is based in that. It gives him a wide-eyed, youthful—and joyful—appearance (when he isn’t dying of consumption, of course). This is the happiest and liveliest Torrington I’ve seen. The manga art style results in some simplified features and a rather modern hairstyle, but there’s nothing wrong with using some artistic license to better convey the personality of a character.

Gerhmann’s other illustration of Torrington is possibly my favorite, even if it might not be the most accurate:

This is a lovely illustration, and it really plays up Torrington’s youth, making him look almost angelic. I’m going to be completely honest—he is very pretty. This version of Torrington is an incredibly handsome young lad, and if Torrington really looked like this, then I think he probably would have been very popular in life. I could go on, but I probably shouldn’t.

I also love the amazing detail on the shirt. You may have noticed some slight variations in these recreations when it comes to his shirt, and I think that’s due to the fact that his shirt looks downright complicated in the few pictures we have of it. There are horizontal stripes and vertical stripes. There’s a high collar and buttons and all these folds that it can be hard to see exactly what it looks like, and unfortunately there were no textile experts present during the exhumation, so there was no one to lay out the shirt and take a closer look at it before redressing and burying him. But every time someone gives their best attempt at figuring out the puzzle that is his shirt, I’m happy, and this one looks very close to how it may have actually looked. My one issue with this picture is that his hair is short and blond, which doesn’t fit the description provided in the autopsy report. But the facial features look true, so I tend to overlook that little nitpick.

This version of Torrington, by the way, is probably the most well-known interpretation. In fact, when you search for John Torrington on Google, this picture crops up:

I have even seen online articles about Torrington that use this picture as a reconstruction example. This is in no way an official reconstruction of him, but it is by far the most popular. (And yes, I bought a copy of this picture, too.)

While reconstructions of what Torrington may have looked like when alive are common among artists depicting him, there is some artwork that uses images of his mummified body as inspiration instead. Irish artist Vincent Sheridan has a gorgeous collection of work inspired by the Franklin Expedition. Several of these feature the mummy of John Torrington, including an etching aptly named “John Torrington.”

Torrington appears as a ghostly apparition in many of these prints, alongside the repeated imagery of a skull, two very physical signs of the human cost of the expedition. While most of the bodies of the men lost have yet to be found, their bones scattered or buried across King William Island, Torrington’s body is a stark reminder that this tragedy did happen, and that these men did die, not just vanish off the face of the earth. I’ve described Torrington as the poster boy for the expedition before, and here his death seems to represent the death of everyone who sailed with Franklin, his face a haunting piece of evidence for the fate that met them all.

Now, I’m not entirely sure how best to transition between that solemn reminder of death and this last piece of Torrington-inspired artwork that I would like to mention, so I’m just going to dive in. This next artwork also uses the image of Torrington’s mummy as inspiration, but in a completely different manner from Sheridan’s work. I refer, of course, to the John Torrington plushie.

This adorable little mummy plushie was created by craft artist Nancy Soares, aka sinnabunnycrafts on Etsy (@sinnaminie​). Whether you think a plushie of a mummified body is in good taste or not, you have to agree that this little guy is freakin’ cute. I might be slightly biased, though, because he was originally crafted for a custom request from my sister as a birthday present for me. But now anyone can buy him or his Beechey buddies. This little guy even made a special appearance during John Geiger’s presentation at the Mystic Seaport Museum’s symposium, Franklin Lost and Found.

I think the fact that there’s a plushie of John Torrington is amazing. People used to take pictures of the recently deceased and use their dead loved one’s hair in jewelry to remember them, so this isn’t that different. To me, at least, it’s a memento to honor him, reminding me that Torrington was more than just a boy who died but a boy who once lived as well.

It is also super adorable.

Next: Torrington as depicted in literature. Spoiler alert! He dies. A lot.

<<Back | Next >>

Torrington Series Masterlist

Meet Indiana-based Artist Daniel Mitsui

DANIEL PAUL MITSUI is a Hobart, Indiana-based artist specializing in ink drawing on calfskin and paper.  His work is mostly religious in subject, inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts, panel paintings and tapestries. www.danielmitsui.com

CATHOLIC ARTIST CONNECTION: Where are you from originally, and what brought you to Hobart, IN?

DANIEL MITSUI: I was born at Fort Benning, Georgia, where my father was an infantry officer. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and lived in Chicago for most of my adult life. About two and a half years ago, I moved with my wife and four kids to Hobart, Indiana, which is sort of the easternmost edge of Chicagoland.

How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist? "Catholic Art" can mean a number of different things: art that happens to be made by a Catholic, whatever it is; art that communicates Catholic ideas and values; art that explicitly treats the Catholic religion as its subject; or art that is considered "sacred" art, meaning that it is intended to communicate religious truth and to assist prayer.

Most of my artwork is of this last kind, so I understand my task as twofold. First, I do my best to follow an established tradition as far as composition and arrangement are concerned. Sacred art should corroborate sacred scripture and liturgy, and the exegesis of the Church Fathers - because it too is a means by which the memory of Jesus Christ's revelation is carried forward through the centuries.

Second, I do my best to make the art as beautiful as possible, because the experience of beauty is a way for men and women in a fallen world to remember dimly the prelapsarian world, and to grow in their desire for reunion with God. As I wrote in one of my lectures:

It is important "not to consider sacred art a completed task, not to consider any historical artifact to be a supreme model to be imitated without improvement. To make art ever more beautiful is not to take it away from its source in history, but to take it back to its source in Heaven. Sacred art does not have a geographic or chronological center; it has, rather, two foci, like a planetary orbit. These correspond to tradition and beauty. One is the foot of the Cross; the other is the Garden of Eden."

I am Catholic, and an artist, so I have no objection to being called a "Catholic artist.” However, I do not want to make an advertisement of my personal faith or piety, to suggest to other Catholics that they ought to buy or commission artwork from me because of the sort of person I am, rather than because of the artwork's own merits. An artist who would make an advertisement of his personal faith or piety has received his reward.

At this time, my personal mission is to complete a large cycle of 235 drawings, together making an iconographic summary of the Old and New Testaments and illustrating the events that are most prominent in sacred liturgy and patristic exegesis. I call this the Summula Pictoria, and I plan to spend the next twelve years of so working to complete it, alongside other commissions. I already have spent more than two years on it, mostly on preliminary research and design work.

Where have you found support in the Church for your vocation as an artist? The Catholic Church is of course much more than its institutional structures; it is all the faithful. Most of my patronage comes from private individuals rather than parishes and dioceses. I do receive some commissions  from ecclesiastical institutions - in 2011 I even completed a large project for the Vatican - but I do not go out of my way to secure them. In ecclesiastical institutions, there tend to be committees involved, and a whole lot of politics; the usual result is that an artist spends time preparing proposals, reserving his most interesting ideas, and just fighting for permission to make the best artwork possible. I feel sorry for artists like architects and sacred musicians who, by the nature of their medium, have to do this. I avoid it whenever possible.

I choose to make artwork that is small enough and inexpensive enough that private individuals can commission and buy it. I think this may be the future of Catholic art patronage; there is not much reason to think that ecclesiastical institutions will be able to provide it much longer. You can look at the demographic changes, at the money lost both through diminishing donations and lawsuits because of clerical scandals, at the amount of artwork already available as salvage from closed parishes - none of this suggests that ecclesiastical institutions will become great patrons of new sacred art any time soon.

How can the Church be more welcoming to artists? I think that sacred art should have four qualities: it should be traditional and beautiful, as I said already; and it should be real and interesting.

What the clergy and theologians of the Church could do to help artists is to advance an argument for art that has these qualities. They have not advanced this argument much lately, and a good number of them probably don't even believe it.

By "real" I mean that sacred art ought, at least as an ideal, to be made by real human hands or voices. Music sung or played in person is a different thing, and a better thing, than an electronic recording. A picture drawn by hand is qualitatively superior to picture printed by a computer. There is at least a rule on the books that liturgical music needs to be sung or played live, not off of a CD, but even there a lot of fake things are broadly tolerated: bell sound effects played from speakers in a tower, or synthesizers dressed up in casings to look like pipe organs. Visual artists don't even have this sort of rule in place for them. Printing technology - both 2D and 3D - is now so sophisticated that I worry about it displacing human artists, without the clergy or theologians objecting.

I fear that some time soon, one of the great artistic or architectural treasures of Christianity will be ruined - more completely and irreparably than Notre Dame de Paris -  and that in response to demands that it be rebuilt exactly as it was before, living artists will dismissed from the task as untrustworthy. Instead, a computer model will be constructed from the photographic record, and everything will be 3D printed in concrete or faux wood. Once that happens, a precedent is set, and living artists and architects thenceforth will compete, most likely at an economic disadvantage, against computers imitating the old masters.

I don’t oppose reproductions themselves; I have digital prints on display in my own home, and I sell digital prints of my own artwork. I listen to recordings of music. I do oppose the idea that these can, in themselves, provide a sufficient experience of art and music. I oppose the idea that sacred art and music can be fostered through attitudes that would have made their existence impossible in the first place.

By "interesting," I mean that art and music should command attention. So many Catholics have gotten it into their minds that the very definition of prayer or worship is "thinking pious thoughts to oneself.” They close their eyes and obsess about whether they can think those pious thoughts through to a conclusion without noticing anything else. With this mindset, art and music are praised as"prayerful" simply for being easy to ignore. Art or music that are particularly excellent are condemned as "distracting.”

This, really, is wrongheaded. Distractions from prayer are foremost interior, the result of our own loud and busy and selfish thoughts. Sacred art or music that draw us out of our own thoughts, that make us notice their beauty, are fulfilling their purpose; they are bringing us closer to the source of all beauty, God.

I can't remember the last time I heard a living priest of theologian say as much.

How can the artistic world be more welcoming to artists of faith? I don't really think that it makes sense to speak of an artistic world as opposed to any other world, at least when it comes to sacred art.

This art is meant to be in churches, or in homes, or in any places where people pray - that is to say, anywhere. It belongs to everyone. I have no objection to seeing my artwork in galleries or museums, but I don't seek out those spaces; I try to make my artwork available to anyone, as directly as possible.

How do you afford housing as an artist? The medium in which I chose to work - small scale ink drawing - does not require a very large working space, and uses no toxic materials or dangerous equipment. So really, all I need is a room in which to work. It doesn't need to be a space outside the home, or away from my kids.

So affording housing as an artist is, for me, the same as affording housing in general. I moved to my current home after my wife and I decided that our family was too large to stay in apartments any more; we have four children, and wanted a yard of our own for them. We wanted to be near Chicago, but everything on the Illinois side of the border was too expensive. It took about six months of house hunting, and one temporary move, before we found what we wanted, and we had to borrow most of the money to buy it. So I don't know that I should be giving out advice, except perhaps to urban artists who are "apartment poor" like I used to be, not to let that situation go on too long.

I advise any artists who are still early enough in their careers not to be wedded to a particular medium to consider how their choice of medium will affect what sort of living space they will need eventually, especially if they hope to have a family. If you want to paint pictures or make prints that require pigments or chemicals too toxic to have around young children or pregnant women, that is something you should be prepared to deal with in advance.

How do you financially support yourself as an artist? My artwork is my livelihood. About half of my income is from commissioned drawing, and about half from print sales, licensing and book royalties. I do teach, write and lecture on occasion, but this is not a significant part of my income. I've never had a residency or a grant, and I do not seek them out.

I've had my own website, www.danielmitsui.com, since maybe 2005, and use this as the primary means of displaying, selling and promoting my work.

What are your top 3 pieces of advice for Catholic artists? In one of my lectures, Heavenly Outlook, I gave three pieces of advice to anyone who want to appreciate or make sacred art, and I will repeat them here:

First, never treat art like data. Second, be guided by holy writ and by tradition itself: liturgical prayer, the writings of the church fathers and the art of the past. Third, do not consider sacred art a completed task. Do not consider any historical artifact to be a supreme model to be imitated without improvement. Please pray for me, and for my family.

ART SCHOOL | INTERVIEW WITH JUSTINE JONES

Baltimore based artist and illustrator Justine Jones creates her vein of psychedelic fantasy horror drawings–filled with tiny black lines and an occasional pop of bright colors–which have been featured on the covers of Kobold Press and Warlock magazine. Using the hashtag #VisibleWomen to amplify the voices and portfolios of women comic artists, Justine has be able to do more illustrative work and character design. We’re excited to find out more about Justine’s artistic journey, her love of role-playing games, comics, art, her influences and much more. . .  Take the leap! 

Photography courtesy of the artist. 

Introduce yourself?    Hi, I’m Justine!  I’ve lived in Baltimore Maryland for the past decade and currently live in a small apartment downtown with my partner and my shiba inu Mo, who is a cool and grumpy guy.

How would you describe your work to someone who is just coming across it? I used to call it storybook surrealism, but now I guess it’s more like psychedelic fantasy horror?  Monsters and Wizards.  Lots of tiny black lines, sometimes with lots of bright intense colors.

How did you start from doodling and drawing to what you do now? I feel like it sort of happened organically.  When I was younger, I would do just pencil drawings, and then in my late teens, I got more into using micron pens.  I didn’t really discover color until a few years ago, so I’m a huge color noob.  I think a lot of it also came from working in comic shops for years and going to conventions.  Seeing all of these amazing artists grow, and thinking hey, I could maybe also do that! I first started with t-shirt designs because it just seemed really fun, and I used to have a really hard time selling prints.  People don’t need more prints, but they can always use clothes!  Now i’m getting more into illustrative work and character design, and I’m loving it!

Who and what were some of your early artistic influences? When I was a baby, my dad hung an Aubrey Beardsley print over my crib.  My mom thought it would make me deranged, and maybe it did, but it also made me love ink work and Art Nouveau style haha.  I was obsessed with sword and sorcery stuff and loooved cartoons like He-Man and She-ra, and later, Pirates of Darkwater. I also spent a lot of time in elementary school copying sexy comic book ladies from 90s comics, and I know that is pretty far from what I do now, but it’s honestly how I learned to draw.  I also copied a lot from children’s storybooks when I was little.  

What are some things that inspire the drawings you make? What are some of your favorite creatures and beings you like to explore in your art? Video games are a huge inspiration to me, from SNES JRPGs, to games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne.  Also folklore and mythology from around the world, and fantasy artwork from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.  Basically anything fantasy.  My favorite things to draw are wizards and monsters.  I love body horror, anything disgusting and beautiful at the same time.  I take a lot of inspiration from Manga, like Berserk, or anything Junji Ito.  I’ve done a lot of Illustrations for Clark Ashton Smith stories, which I find endlessly inspiring, visually.  Just like, fantasy/ sci fi/ dying earth type stuff.

When did you start collaborating with Kobold Press on creating some awesome fantasy art covers for their publications?  I remember getting the email from them when I was on the way to Necronomicon Providence in 2017.  I thiiiink they found my stuff through the visible women hashtag on twitter?  I was very excited because I owned some of their adventures from back in the day when I played Pathfinder!!  Plus, I have always always wanted to draw things for table top RPGs, so it’s been really cool to actually do it! The Warlock mag that I’ve been doing covers for is awesome because it’s going for an old school DND vibe, but it’s all things that are made for 5th edition.  You can get it on their patreon, and I hiiiighly recommend it to anyone who plays 5e dnd!!  

Take us through your artistic process? What’s a typical day in the studio like? Haha extremely chaotic!  I don’t even have a real set workspace, which I really need to change, I just draw where ever. Just chill out, listen to music or a podcast, and draw.  If I’m further along in a drawing and don’t need to focus so much, I’ll watch movies or video gameπ– let’s plays while I’m drawing.  I also love to listen to/ watch things that are in theme with what I’m drawing, to give me some inspiration.  I try to go to coffee shops to change things up sometimes!  Basically I just do a bunch of sketches until something materializes, and then I will just slowly refine the sketch.  I guess it’s not that exciting, but it’s cool to see the first sketch and the finished product because in my head, the sketch always looked like the finished product, but when you go back to look at it, it’s usually just indecipherable scribbles.

What are your essential art tools and materials? 90% of my art is just done using a .05 mechanical pencil and micron pens.  I also draw everything on smooth bristol.  If I have time and want to make my lines super crisp before I scan them in, i will use a light box.   Then for color, I generally use Kyle T Webster brushes in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet.   If I’m on the go, I like to draw things in Procreate on my iPad Pro, but I’m definitely not as good at doing detailed lines digitally.  

What do you do when you’re not drawing or working on projects? How do you unplug? Haha, I wish I ever truly unplugged, I think my brain is now melded into the internet!  But mostly I love to play video games.  JRPGs and anything From Software/ Soulsborne (currently obsessed with Sekiro!)  I also love comics and manga.  I’ve been reading The Girl From the Other Side, which is a beautiful dark fairytale Manga by Nagabe.  I also just got one called Witch Hat Atelier, which has the most amazing art! My partner also owns an insane amount of board games, so we play a lot of those.  I’m obsessed with coffee, and work part time at a coffee shop, and my favorite thing in the world to do is eat good food.    

What has been the most challenging project you’ve worked on? How did you overcome those obstacles and what did you take away from it? I made a kind of cosmic horror short story in mini comic form last year for SPX, I had very little time,  and it was my first time actually writing a story/ dialogue to go with my pictures.  It was insanely challenging.  I ended up with a finished product that I’m really proud of and that I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on.  I think it really drove home the fact that I just need to stick with things and finish them, even if I don’t feel like they’re perfect.  I’m never going to have the time that I want, and I’m never going to feel like anything is perfect.  I can still make a great thing!  

What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and pursue art? Don’t spend 4 years doing nothing, but playing World of Warcraft (Or doooo?).  Uhhh, believe in yourself.  Be nice to other artists.  Draw all the time! Immerse yourself in things that inspire you!  Also, like I said before, things don’t need to be perfect.  Let go of perfect, because sometimes it’s an unattainable ideal.  Just do as good as you can, and don’t beat yourself up so much!  I’m horrible at advice!!!

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks?   Haha, I moved to Baltimore to go to MICA like, 14 years ago, and then realized I was poor, and would never be able to go to MICA… sooo… I never went to real art school.  I wanted to go so bad, and I still wish I’d had that experience, but I want other people who can’t afford it to know that you don’t NEED it.  Things are a bit harder, but you can find so much free info online if you have the drive, you can teach yourself so many things.  Don’t get discouraged just because art school isn’t gonna happen for you.

What are your favorite style of VANS? I love my lavender/ sea fog Authentic Vans, because they basically go with anything, but I am always eyeing those Sk8-His.

Anything you can share that is coming up?   Ahhhh, I have some realllly cool things that I can’t share yet, but just everyone keep an eye out (It will be very exciting, i swear)!!  As for things I can share, I’m working on some new t-shirt designs, and another comic, and also plan on drawing some more cool wizards in my spare time.   So if you wanna see some cool wizards, uhhh, come to my Instagram–you guys!  Let’s hang out and look at wizards.  And talk about wizards.  And if you don’t like wizards well, don’t come I guess.

FOLLOW JUSTINE: INSTAGRAM | WEBSITE | TWITTER | STORE 

June 29th-July 5th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from June 29th, 2020 to July 5th, 2020.  The chat focused on Without Moonlight by Tantz Aerine.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Without Moonlight by Tantz Aerine~! (https://withoutmoonlightcomic.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until July 5th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I really like the flash forward aspect of the beginning - keeping the scene in the back of your mind really helps keep things tense as you see the story build towards the scene we see at the start.

(it also helps with the tone - it would be pretty jarring to go from kids stealing food from trucks to the scenes where bodies start dropping if we hadn't established that dark tone early on)

One thing I like about the comic is how the text colors switch based off languages - blue is greek, black is german, red is english, and i believe green is italian. Really makes the language switches easier to keep track of in the back of your head.

I like the comic's theme of... "your actions have consequences", essentially. There are dozens of moments where something bad happened because of one character's action or lack of action, and it's a matter of... when there are so many factors, who should be held responsible for these bad events?

RebelVampire

I like that the beginning of the comic is...more light-hearted despite the situation? I mean it's tragic and I don't mean to paint the situation lightly, but it's also kids and kids are like beacons of hope. So despite it all there were happy smiling faces. Before the chaos descended. My favorite moment in the comic so far was probably when Basil was rescuing Fotis and Wolff decides to let them go. It was a rare moment of humanity where there was no whose side is whose. Just two people doing a bro favor because neither thought a child deserved to be tortured. My favorite character is Basil. Basil really is just the down-to-earth dude he kind of finds that balance between doing what's right but with principle. And he also gets going when the going gets tough. And I'm sure nothing ever bad happened to him in this comic. My favorite characters interacting are probably Fotis and Martha right now. I like this dynamic that they're brought together by tragedy. So it's kind of interesting to see that bond, while also kind of experiencing this weird age gap where even though Fotis is much younger, he grew up almost instantly cause of tragedy. Something I like about the art is just kind of the grim color palettes. The comic is not overly bright, and I think this choice really enhances the grim situation of the comic. It also adds more of a sense of realism because WWII is serious business and was not fun at all for anybody. For themes, I love that the comic kind of explores demonization vs. humanity, especially through Wolff. It is always extremely to demonize the side you're not on, and we see Wolff both do this himself and be a recipient of it. And the comic really wants us to ask are they monsters, or are they still, unfortunately, humans doing really shitty things.

As for the comic's overall story, I love that not only is it historical in its setting, but just that the comic really throws no punches. You have people dying in gruesome ways, torture, espionage, double agents, greed, etc. Just like everything you'd expect regarding war. In regards to strengths, honestly, what I just said above. So many stories are really, really terrified to actually go deep into that grim reality that is war. And even fewer are willing to show that war very rarely has heroes since at the end, it's people killing people which is not cool. And I think this really makes the comic stand out since there are parts that are gonna stick with me for years.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. What is your takeaway in regards to the comic’s themes about war and the horrors and tragedy that happen because of it? In regards to these themes, how do you feel about Arthur Wolff, and do you think it’s possible for him to be redeemed and/or at least forgiven?

10. What do you think the comic has to say about survival and hope, especially when humans are faced with the most horrid of circumstances? What moment stood out to you the most regarding this? Also, who do you think will survive the story?

11. Do you think anything will actually happen to Orestes in regards to his actions so far? If so, what unintended affects might occur because of whatever does happen? Additionally, what do you think will happen to his contact, Iris?

12. How do you think the events of the story will continue to change Fotis, and will it be for better or for worse? What about the other children? Given the historical base, what do you think they’ll even do once the occupation ends?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

My takeaway from the comic is that war sucks, nobody wins, everyone suffers, and that even good people do some terrible stuff in the name of survival. However, within all that, we're all essentially human and have the capacity for good. Which is why I feel Wolff is an important character, since he's that shining beacon that reminds us that people on the worst side of history possible can still take a step back and go, "Wait a second." As for redemption and forgiveness, I think this is a yes an no. Can he redeem and forgive himself as far as he's personally concerned? Maybe someday. Will others? Probably not in a million years. In contrast to the above, I think that the comic also has strong messages that, even in the face of desperation, humans, as a whole, have a tendency to fight and that, much like everybody in Star Wars, will always have hope. As for the moment that stood out to me the most, I think it was actually the beginning when the kids are risking everything to get supplies. They know it's dangerous, and yet they persevere and don't give up despite being who'd you think would give up first. As for who will survive, maybe Alex cause Alex is toeing the line of safety and staying out of the spy drama. I think Orestes still won't be dealt with for a while, and if anything, will be the victim of vigilante justice because someone didn't want to wait for even a sham trial. I think that they won't realize in his traitorous ways though he really did help out, and will find themselves more at odd with the Nazis. As for Iris, she probably gonna die. Cause that's what happens when you play double agent. I think the events of the story really aren't gonna do good for Fotis, and, at the very least (and assuming he's not dead), he's going to be bitter and have a ton of PTSD. Probably the same for all the children, and I think overall they'll just feel lost once the occupation ends cause normalcy forms fast.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Thank you so much for all the thoughtful analysis and commentary @RebelVampire ! I'm so glad that you have found all these themes in my story

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

I am most looking forward to seeing if Fotis has some epiphany about the horrors of the path he's on. Right now I kind of think he's just kind of...going through the motions and acting mostly on anger. And so I'm interested to see if this will be the case throughout the rest of the story or if at some point his brain stops for a moment and goes "Hey wait a minute these are some pretty serious implications." I think either could change how his character development proceeds. My final words are that I admire this comic's bravery and risks. A lot of creators don't want to write about things like WWII because it's still a little too close to home and painful. But I think these topics are important to show with historical fiction cause not only is it an opportunity to teach about lesser known history in greater detail, but an opportunity to otherwise humanize an event that comes off different when you're just reading facts in a book. So bravo to this comic for doing that.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

@RebelVampire Thank you so much! You honour me. Researching this comic has been both a revelation and a painful affair. As for Fotis, you're very right he IS very angry and very grieved at this point in time. We'll see how he will be soon! I can't begin to say how much your words warm my heart thank you again.

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Without Moonlight this week! Please also give a special thank you to Tantz Aerine for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Without Moonlight, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://withoutmoonlightcomic.com/

Tantz’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/withoutmoonlight

Tantz’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/tantzaerine&#39;

Tantz’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/TantzAerine

Tortall Daemon AU

Under the cut are my ramblings on an HDM AU for the Tortall Universe. In this week’s episode: Alanna!

For those already familiar with His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, all you need to know is that my proposed AU only carries over the concept of daemons. Nothing else from the series. So no witches, no panserbjorne, no alethiometers.

But if you didn’t understand that bit, then read this part! In His Dark Materials, a novel trilogy by Philip Pullman, people don’t keep their souls inside their bodies. Rather, they live outside them, each one taking on the form of an animal. These are called daemons (pronounced just like the regular word ‘demons’.) I thought it would be fun to imagine the Tortall verse with daemons,so here we are.

A little necessary info on daemons before we start:

Daemons can talk. They speak to their humans, both out loud and telepathically. They also share their humans’ dreams.

A daemon can disagree with their human, argue with them, and notice things the human might not. (For instance, a cat daemon can see better in the dark than their human.)

Each person’s daemon becomes an animal that represents them in some fashion. It could be metaphorical or practical, or simply a shape that the daemon likes. 

When people are children, their daemons can change into pretty much any animal shape that they want to, but sometime around early puberty they ‘settle’; that is, they become one thing forever.

Daemons and their humans are one being in two bodies, so they can’t go far from each other without suffering a lot of pain or possibly death

Touching another person’s daemon is a huge taboo. It’s seen as almost a kind of assault when done without consent.

This one I don’t love but...generally a man has a female daemon and a woman has a male daemon. It’s not common to have a same-sex daemon. In concept it’s an ok idea but it leans pretty hard toward the concept of binary genders, which is kinda uncool.

But enough background, let’s get to it!

Alanna’s Daemon is a lioness

I know, I know, a bit on the nose. Bear with me. Song of the Lioness is pretty appropriately named, as it has the most ‘epic song’ or ‘epic poem’ feel of any of the Tortall books. Characters as outrageously hot as Jon and Thayet; or as incredible as the Shang Dragon, with his color-changing eyes; or as mysterious as Faithful just aren’t as common in the other books. Or at least, they are examined more closely in the other books. In Song of the Lioness, we just accept them as being amazing, strange, exceptional people because honestly most of the characters are exceptional.The facts of Alanna’s story are wonderful and incredible, and they’re meant to be. Alanna herself acknowledges to Kel that she isn’t an ordinary knight, and nobody could do what she did. So giving Alanna a lioness is appropriate, and fits with the epic, romantic vibe of her books.

Giving Alanna a non-domestic daemon also lends a more impressive and strange air to her. After all, most Tortallans (or Gallans, Tyrans, or what have you) have probably never seen a lion before. There are mentions of ‘hill lions’ in Tortall’s eastern hill country, but I’ve always assumed that those were analogous to our world’s cougars. A lion is something you might have seen on a memorable trip to a menagerie if you were lucky, or heard about or seen in a book’s illustration if you were well-read. Basically, knowing much of anything about lions, at least for a Tortallan, would require status, money, an education. This speaks to Alanna’s “noble-mindedness” to quote Faithful. She has a fancy, high-falutin foreign daemon. But rather than being a mere status symbol, Alanna’s daemon is representative of her strength, wanderlust, and genuinely impressive destiny.

Given the rarity of a woman having a female daemon, Alanna’s gal would help her to fit in with a bunch of boys who also have female daemons. But while she helps disguise Alanna, she also serves as a little hint as to what god she and Alanna serve. As a follower of the Goddess, it seems fitting that even Alanna’s daemon would be female. Also, as a big ol kitty cat, it foreshadows her future kinship with Faithful. He ultimately spends at least as much time riding around on the back of Alanna’s daemon as he does on Alanna’s shoulders.

Alanna would settle a bit late, at the age of fourteen. When she and Jon face the Ysandir, Alanna’s daemon would become the most dangerous form she can. She would have been a lioness before, of course, but this time it sticks. Afterward, it would never be very clear whether she settled as a lioness due to the battle with the Ysandir being such a significant win for her as a hero, or whether it’s more to do with the fact that she was in lioness form when Jon accepted her for who she truly was.

In this AU, the nickname ‘the Lioness” for Alanna would of course originate with her daemon, and would be the inspiration for Thom’s design of her shield. 

Uh, this is getting long so I’ll stop here. But man do I have loads of Thoughts about this verse so maybe I’ll do more later!

Velveteen Wishes: Chapter 1

Title: Velveteen Wishes

Summary:  In an attic of a dilapidated house laid three toys who were just as real as you and I are. For their owner, a brown-haired boy with rosy cheeks and chestnut eyes, made them so through his love.  These three toys were all he had. They were his only friends and together they fought against evil in the Imagination Land.

But evil lurks in the real world, danger that the toys cannot protect their boy from. Patton, Virgil and Logan will have to become more than mere toys to save Roman.

Pairings: platonic lamp

Words: 2406

Warnings: death mention, verbal/physical abuse, child abandonment, crying, sickness

Previous | Present | Next

First off, thank you to everyone who left a flood of nice comments on my fics tonight--I’m crying?? It inspired me to actually write this AU idea I got last night. The title is a reference to the Velveteen Rabbit, which is one of my all-time favorite children stories. 

I hope you guys enjoy this! <3

In an attic of a dilapidated house laid three toys who were just as real as you and I are. For their owner, a brown-haired boy with rosy cheeks and chestnut eyes, made them so through his love. These three toys were all he had. They were his only friends and together they fought against evil in the Imagination Land.

The biggest of the toys was a light blue teddybear. He was half the boy’s current size and had been a gift when the boy had been but a babe. For as long as the boy could remember, he always had his teddybear at his side. When he was little, he had called the bear Patsy. But as the boy grew older, so did the bear in his heart’s mind.

Patsy had imaginary children and that meant he was a dad now. In the boy’s mind, all grown-ups needed serious names. Without his parents’ permission, he’d taken a book from their bookshelf. He knew he should’ve have! They were very, very angry when they found out. But both Patsy and him figured they could find a good name in a book so heavy and thick.

The book was full of big words that the boy had never seen before. He was very good at reading things. He loved reading stories. But it was hard for him to read such a big book! He and Patsy had been right, however. Because there was a lot of names in the book. The problem was finding one that was a good one.

Patsy didn’t look like a George. He wasn’t an Abraham or a Thomas either. It was towards near the end of the book when they finally found it. In the midst a page that illustrated armored tanks was a section about someone named General Patton. The boy didn’t really know who this guy was, but he sounded like an important guy! Patsy agreed with him, and that was how Patsy became Patton.

Logan came after Patton. He wasn’t truly meant for playing. He was an owl knickknack meant to collect dust on top of a shelf.  But the boy thought he looked sad sitting up there alone all by himself. The boy rescued him by standing on his tippy-toes on a chair to reach him. He dusted him off and christened him Logan, after one of his favorite superheroes, Wolverine.

He thought Wolverine was so cool with his hands that shot out razor claws. Logan didn’t understand the boy’s logic. He was an owl—and owls were smart, wise creatures. They’re nothing like Wolverine who fought with his fists. But Logan accepted the name all the same.

The boy was afraid his mother would notice the disappearance of one of her knickknacks. For several weeks, he made sure to hide Logan underneath his bed covers from his parents. But she didn’t seem to notice Logan was gone from his perch above the kitchen cupboards. For that, the boy let out a sigh of relief.

Finally, there was Virgil. He was a black cat plushie with a missing eye. The boy found him in a yard sale he attended with his mother. She dragged him along after school to look at the clothing they had to offer. Not clothing for little boys, even though the boy desperately needed new trousers. But clothing for herself. He spied Virgil on top of a pile of other plushies. While there were perfectly other good stuffed animals there, the boy’s heart ached for him.

“Please, can we get him?” The boy asked, hugging Virgil tightly to his chest.

“What? No! Put that away, it’s ratty and old! You don’t want a stuffed animal with only one eye, do you?”

“Fine.” The boy bit his lips, moving to put the stuffed animal away. But the truth was that he did want Virgil very much. When no one was looking, he snuck the stuffed animal into his backpack. He knew it was wrong to steal, but he couldn’t leave him. What if no one gave him a home?

His mother just about had a fit when she discovered what her son had done. She wanted him to return Virgil, but he begged and pleaded to keep him. He sobbed loudly until she slapped him across the face.

“Enough!” She yelled, “Quit crying and I’ll let you keep him, alright?”

The boy nodded his head as he held onto the stuffed animal tighter. Virgil was just as frightened as him when his mother threatened to get rid of him. But the black cat did his best to soothe the boy’s tears. A broken toy like him didn’t deserve such a kind and good owner. After all, his previous owner immediately abandoned him as soon as he lost his eye. He pledged to protect the boy to the best of his ability.

The boy named him Virgil after his class’s pet mouse. He thought it was funny to name a cat after a mouse. Virgil appreciated the irony.

It was summertime. Every day before the boy’s parents left for work, they locked him in the attic. It had always been this way since his grandmother died. The boy missed his grandmother terribly. She used to listen to his stories with the reverence his parents never had. She made cookies that both the boy and Patton loved. She told stories of her childhood that the boy and Logan loved. She comforted the boy and Virgil during fierce thunderstorms.

But without his grandmother, there was no one to watch him during the day. Rather than hire a babysitter or send him to daycare, they locked him in the attic. It was cheaper that way. With his parents, it was always about the money. The boy didn’t understand what money was apart from the fact it was boring adult stuff.

The boy thought all parents locked their children in the attic. Maybe if he was friends with other kids, he’d know it wasn’t the case. But the boy had no friends apart from his toys. The boy tried hard to make friends. But all the kids thought he was weird with his ill-washed clothes and scuffed up shoes. That was alright, because he had his imagination. In his imagination, he was a prince like in the Disney movies! He rescued people, and everyone loved him. It was the best thing ever!

Being locked inside the attic wasn’t the worse thing. It was better than being locked inside the closet. His parents only locked him inside the closet if he had misbehaved.  It was dark and scary inside the closet. He was sure a spider crawled over his foot once in there. Worse of all, he usually didn’t have any of his toys in the closet with him. He was all alone and he hated it.

Yes, the attic was much nicer. The attic was where his bedroom was and where all his toys lived. It was in the attic where together he and his toys went on adventures in Imagination Land. His parents hated it when he played anywhere other than the attic. They claimed he was too loud and he made a mess of things.

It was a summer day—the attic was sweltering. The little fan attached to the attic window was too weak to combat the temps. It was all due to the dastardly evil Dragon Witch. She made the attic room unbelievably warm with her ferocious fire. The boy had to venture into Imagination Land to defeat her.

No matter how many times the Prince and his courageous knights of Etherwood defeated her, she’d always returned. It was endless clash of good and evil. The Dragon Witch was too pompous to realize that good always saved the day, no matter what. But where was the fun without a bad guy to fight?

“Look, that’s where her evil fortress awaits us!” The boy pointed out excitedly, his other hand held onto his sword with a firm grip.

In the distance to where he gestured, stood a dilapidated castle. Heavy fog surrounded it, making it appear even more ominous and eerie. They heard a roar echo the perimeters, sending bats scurrying out of its depths.

“Oh no, do you think there’s spiders in there?” Patton said, hiding behind Virgil.  

“You know spiders are relatively harmless—” Logan began.

“It’s a creepy old castle, of course there’s spiders.” Virgil shrugged his shoulders. Patton made concerned noises.

“It’s okay, Patton! I’ll kill the scary spiders, for ya!” The boy promised, despite being just as scared of the spiders himself.

“Thanks kiddo, you’re the best!” Patton chirped.

When they finally entered the Dragon Witch’s lair, numerous trials awaited them. They had to be careful treading their way down the shadowy hallways. One wrong step, and they’d activate a trap. Virgil led the way, his overcautious nature coming in handy.

The winding hallways led them down to the dungeons. An enormous three-headed dog guarded the entrance. The others gathered their weapons to fight the beast when Patton gasped and ran to it.

“Puppy!” He called out joyfully, petting its underbelly.

The beast responded by attacking Patton with all three of its’ tongues. He laughed as the tongues washed over him, coating him with saliva.

“Quick, while it’s distracted.” The boy whispered to the others and they raced through the gate. Once they reached the other side, he called after Patton to join them.

“Aw, alright.” Patton pouted, giving one last pet to the three-headed dog before leaving him.

The last trial before they faced was a riddle. None of them except Logan could make heads nor tails of it.

You can carry it everywhere you go, and it does not get heavy. What is it?

“Air?” Patton suggested.

“You can’t carry air though.” Virgil pointed out.

“You can carry a balloon full of air, or a plastic bag!” Patton grinned, “Those aren’t heavy at all!”

“It’s not something literal, Patton, it’s metaphoric.” Logan’s eyes lit up in realization, “Your name!”

The final gate creaked, startling the group, as it swung open.

“Good job, Logan!” The boy praised him.

“It was nothing.” Logan promised, although he sounded smug.

They continued walking until they reached the heart of the dungeons. There, standing in all her horrific glory was the Dragon Witch. She was in her dragon form, a great big green beast. On top of her head, was the stereotypical pointy hat with purple trim. The room burned bright with the fire from her breath.

“There you are, you evil queen!” The boy yelled.

The Dragon Witch smirked, but before she could launch into an evil monologue—he rushed at her with his sword. With his friends at his side—there was no way they could lose to her! But as the fight went on, he grew more and more weary. His thoughts grew discombobulated.

The dungeon kept glitching into his attic. Of course, he knew the Imagination Land was all make-believe. There’s a small part in every child that recognizes this truth. But usually he had a better control on it than this. His stomach grumbled. When was the last time he ate? He can’t remember if he had breakfast today. Sometimes his parents forgot to give him breakfast.

Dragon Witch’s flames furled around him as she cackled. Virgil and the others led a charge against her, but with a swipe of her tail she sent them crashing against the wall.

“Poor little prince, all alone,” She crooned as she pinned the boy underneath her claw, “what ever will he do now?”

The boy attempted reaching for his sword, but he couldn’t grasp it. Tears streamed down his cheeks. The Dragon Witch was right; he was all alone.

“Get away from him!” Three collective voices shouted at once. The Dragon Witch was taken for surprise, screeching as she tried escaping the wrath of the boy’s friends. The events that happened afterwards were blurry for the boy. His eyelids felt heavy, and his head hurt so much. Why won’t it stop hurting?

He whimpered, and something soft brushed against his cheek.

“Shhh,” A voice whispered, “You’re safe now, sleep.”

“Patsy?” The boy murmured.

“Yup, it’s your Patsy-Watsy.” The voice chuckled, “Virgil and Logan are here too. But you gotta sleep, we’ll watch over you, okay?”

“Okay.” The boy said as he drifted off to sleep.

Once certain he was unconscious, the three toys gazed at one another in concern.

“He’s getting worse, isn’t he?” Virgil asked, his tail twitching in agitation, “should we be letting him sleep? What if he doesn’t wake up?”

“I’m sure our kiddo will be right as rain!” Patton reassured, placing an arm around him, “right, Logan?”

Both Patton and Virgil looked over to Logan. He knew the most about anything and everything. His only entertainment for years had been listening to the television from his shelf.

“Rest is the best thing when a human is sick,” Logan said, hesitated, “although I do think perhaps he’s getting worse.”

“He’s going to die.” Virgil muttered darkly.

“No he isn’t!” Patton protested.

“He’s been sick for two days without food or water!” Virgil exclaimed, “all because those jerks forgot about him.”

“They didn’t forget—not on purpose, I mean—” Patton’s voice faltered, unable to put a positive spin on it, “Logan?”

He looked towards the owl for help. But the owl remained oddly silent; for once, he was unable to come up with an argument that negated Virgil’s worries.

“I’m afraid, unless he gets help soon, the outcome is bleak.” Logan said at last, his voice as fragile as the porcelain he was made of.

Patton, Logan and Virgil may be real as you and I are. But in that moment, they felt imaginary. Because as real as they were, they were still just toys. Toys couldn’t lock pick doors or scream for help. They could only look on helplessly as their boy took shallower and shallower breaths.

Desperately they all wished that they could be more than toys. All of them loved the attention and love they received from the boy as toys. But a toy is not what their boy needed. He needed guardians who’d give him the love and care he deserved. Things as toys they couldn’t give to him. 

At that exact moment of their wish, a shooting star traveled across the sky.

General Tag List:  @yourhappypappypatton@alextheodd@cryingtitan @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2@usothemarshmallow@madly-handsome  @i-just-wanna-be-alone-blog @remy-alagaesias-dragon-queen@ashrain5 @otaku-marijane @pathos-logical@moonstone-fox@violetvirgil @fandergecko @echomist13 

I posted this a while back on Patreon, with the intention of turning most of these sketches into a fun ATOM Bonus File called “Know Your Retrosaurs,” which would be written like an in-universe children’s book that serves as an introduction to paleontology.  That project hasn’t manifested because it’s a lot of work for something so ancillary, and now that drawing’s a lot more difficult to me it’s unlikely to happen at all, so I figured there’s no harm in spilling the beans on it now.  So I’m gonna go through these one by one for funsies after the cut.

1. Primitive Herbivorous Retrosaur: This guy, who I’m gonna call Agamadon, would have been the first species discussed in the Know Your Retrosaurs Book, and is based on the Crystal Palace Iguanadon sculpture.

2. Primitive Carnivorous Retrosaur: My first attempt at a primitive carnivorous retrosaur for the book.  While it has a suitable slurpasaur vibe to it and clearly shows their crocodilian ancestry, the design felt just a bit lacking.

3. Long Necked Goliath: Like the previous entry, I felt this illustrated what makes a Long Neck Goliath different from a modern, scientifically accurate reconstruction of a sauropod, but otherwise felt just a tad bland.

4. True Tyrant: This Gwangi looking fucker, on the other hand, felt just right.  I think the plan was to name him Hausenosaurus, after Ray Harryhausen, of course.

5. Duck-billed Goliath: People who’ve read the first few chapters of ATOM (as published on Horror Flora) may remember that I’ve re-purposed some dead and dubious taxonomic names as retrosaur species, because that’s the kind of nerdy shit that’s fun for me.  This fella would have been named Trachodon.

6. Tiny Tyrant: When I was a kid my dad got a big laugh out of learning there was a dinosaur called “Saltoposuchus” (which he pronounced “SaltopoSUCKus!”).  In honor of that bit of weirdness, this guy shall be named Nanosuchus.

7. Helmeted Goliath: I don’t think I got to the point of giving this guy a name, so I guess I’ll do this now.  Galeasaurus works, right?  It just means Helmet Lizard.  There’s a Bonus File kaiju whose design got its start here too, but we’ll get to that later.

8. Egg Thief: Benettosaurus, in honor of Jeff Benette, because this struthiomimus won’t settle for the dregs.

9. Spike Tailed Goliath: Coopersaurus!  After Merian C. Cooper, of course.

10. Flying Tyrant: Gonna steal a bit from the big book of 2005 Skull Island and call this one a Vultursaurus.

11. Club Tailed Goliath: Crassusaurus!  It means “fat lizard.”  Look, this fella’s fine with it, ok?

12. Transitional Tyrant: In the style of Japanese dinosaur names, let’s call this one Tsubururyu, i.e. “Tsuburuya’s Dragon.”

13. Horned Goliath: One of the reasons I won’t do a big bestiary of retrosaurs is that they’d all need latin names, and most of the good ones are taken.  Anyway, here’s Monocerasaurus.

14. Long Necked Sea Tyrant: When I get further into the Cryptid Crisis Files on Horror Flora, you’ll learn that there are two main body types for the surviving Long Neck Sea Tyrant cryptids: the Essies and the Pogos.  This design sits sort of in the middle of them.  I didn’t plan on using it in the “Know Your Retrosaurs” book, though, because it felt a bit awkward and unpolished.

15. Long Tailed Sea Tyrant: I like how snake-y this one feels.  Anguillasaurus!

16. Short Necked Sea Tyrant: This guy is sort of a prototype for Bigjaw.  Magnadon seems a suitable name.

17. Apex Predator: This guy would have flanked Agamadon at the start of the book, being a more refined Primitive Carnivorous retrosaur.  Let’s dub it Archaeosaurus.

18. Inedible Herbivore: There are a lot of ways to approach this prompt (by design), but I went the “so big nothing could kill it” route.  This would be our illustration for the Long Necked Goliaths, and we shall dub it Supremosaurus.

19. Plodding Giant: This one’s nspired by modern discoveries of some truly ENORMOUS hadrosaurs, because I didn’t want to do two long necked goliaths in a row.

20. Bizarre Burrower: the prehistoric ancestor to creatures like Burodon.

21. Swift Runner: Not super pleased how this fellow came out.  The concept I had in mind was a super fast helmeted goliath that could hit other retrosaurs like a living bullet, but I don’t think I ever figured out how to pull it off.

22. Cunning Pack Hunter: The obvious choice for this prompt would be a Tiny Tyrant, but I went a Flying Tyrant route instead.  I imagine these critters would act like flying pop culture piranhas, stripping larger animals of flesh with ridiculous speed.

23. Good Mother: That’s a Nessie!  Specifically, its a recreation of a Loch Ness Monster character I came up with as a kid that I only barely remember, the mother of a whole family of nessies who got into wild adventures while trying to avoid detection by human beings.  This would have been our Long Necked Sea Tyrant illustration.

24. Only Known from Fossils of Its Oversized Arms: It’s Dominox!  As a way of explanation: the Indominus rex, who Dominox obviously homages, had Therizinosaurus DNA to give it those big ass claws it has.  Therizinosaurus used to be only known from fossils of its ridiculously large arms, and outdated speculative depictions of it often looked pretty close to what the Indominus rex looks like, i.e. a big theropod with enormous arms and claws.  So Dominox is basically a retrosaur version of a Therizinosaurus, even if most people wouldn’t recognize her as such.

25. Famous Rivals (Carnivore): This is Manospondylus gigas/Dynamosaurus imperiosus, the largest terrestrial carnivore in the fossil record of ATOM’s universe.  Though once considered two separate species because of different horn arrangements and skull proportions, the discovery of Tyrantis and Tyranta (distant descendants of this ancient clade) threw that into question, as it now seems more likely that Manospondylus is just a female Dynamosaurus.  The name Manospondylus was briefly rendered a dead name as a result, only to be applied to the non-kaiju Dynamosaurus-descendants that the Reptodites often employ as mounts.

26. Famous Rivals (Herbivore): Agathaumasaurus is the largest non-kaiju species of Horned Goliath ever discovered, and is considered the end product of an evolutionary arms race between Horned Goliaths and True Tyrants.  Few reconstructions depicting the late Cretaceous would omit a face off between this well armored herbivore and its nemesis, the equally impressive killing machine Dynamosaurus!  This illustration and the one of Manospondylus before it would have been combined to make the “cover” of the Know Your Retrosaurs book.

27. Mistake of Nature: I chose a stegosaurus-inspired spike tailed goliath because people just LOVE to bring up the “brain the size of a walnut” factoid, even to this day.  This guy probably wouldn’t have made it into the book because it’s just a bit too silly.

28. Chaos Effect Style Hybrid: It’s Juggerdon, herself an homage to the Ultimasaurus from the failed Jurassic Park: Chaos Effect toyline!

29. Dinosapien: I could have just drawn a normal Reptodite, but instead I chose to give a glimpse into a parallel universe where Reptodites are a bit more like traditional depictions of Reptoids, the cryptid on which they’re partially based.  In other words, they’re lizard people who can alter their appearance to blend in with humans.

30. Artist’s Choice: It’s Diablosaurus!

Spice and Inspiration

Prompt: Write a piece about someone who can’t handle spicy food (from @dropkickwritersblock )

Author’s Note: I’ve decided that along with my sucky poetry I’m going to try to get stated on some short stories and try to wake up my love for writing again

I never thought I was the type of person to wear a silk red dress to a first date, but then again I never thought I was the type of person to go on a blind date set up by a close friend so I guess tonight is full of lots of surprises. And as they say, fortune favors the bold. 

Cautiously sliding into the backseat of an Uber, I give the driver an address my friend, Audrey, texted me and try to calm my nerves as the car started along the crowded streets of San Fransisco at night. 

Leg bouncing restlessly the entire ride, I franticly text Audrey about my date.

Me: Are you sure this is a good idea? What if he’s crazy? Or a serial killer or something?

Audrey: Relax, Viv, this date will be good for you. Sure, he’s pretty much the exact opposite of the guys you usually go for, but I think it’s time for a little change, don't you think?

I sigh, knowing she’s right. These past couple months have been nothing but immense boredom after I moved into my new apartment. I have my degree as an artist that I’m not using because my motivation and inspiration had plummeted after graduation. Now, working as a children's book illustrator, I can’t bring myself to sketch anything outside of a silly elephant or anything only a 6 year old would appreciate. 

Hopefully, this date will bring back some of that inspiration. As I noticed through my rollercoaster life, my best inspiration for art comes when I’m around love, whether that’s at Audrey’s wedding or on a date. So maybe, meeting this guy who Audrey says is different than my usual type with strike up that urge to paint and draw and sketch that I’ve been missing lately.

All of these hopeful thoughts disappear as soon as the Uber pulls up to the mystery restaurant that I’m meeting my date at.

“What a bitch,” I mutter under my breath, seeing that the restaurant is a popular Mexican place that is known for having the spiciest menu in all of San Fransico. Audrey knows I can’t handle spicy foods at all, so this must have been some kind of gag joke to her.

The Uber driver gives me a funny look, “Well it was nice driving you, Miss. I wish your date the best of luck.” 

I pay the Uber, hop out, and walk into the restaurant hoping I have time to let my nerves settle. Not really knowing where I was going, I wandered into the restaurant, looking around for a guy around my age sitting alone.

“Vivian?” I hear a voice call from behind me. I turn quickly to see a tall red haired boy with dozens of freckles giving me the biggest and goofiest smile I’ve ever seen. 

“Hi,” I say, a little shocked. Usually I only date the mysterious brooding type, which has led me to lots of heartbreak in the past, so seeing this smiley goofy boy in front of me is a bit of a surprise. 

Confidently, my date takes my hand in his and leads me to a secluded booth in the back of the room. This bold action was also different, he was the first guy I’ve ever met to break the awkward touch barrier within the first 5 seconds of meeting someone. 

He took a seat across from me as I squeezed into the booth across from him, extremely aware of how little space was between our legs which were already touching underneath the small booth.

I pick up the menu, already nervous about what I should order and hoping it won’t set my mouth on fire.

“Do you know if anything here isn’t spicy? I’m really bad with spicy food,” I confess quickly, nerves getting the best of me.

I don’t see my date behind my open menu, but I can hear the sound of a smirk in his voice.

“Yeah, I know the perfect thing, I’ll order for you,” he says.

We carried on small talk until the waiter arrived with chips and salsa and took our orders. When he left, the red head across from me dunked a chip into the salsa, pilling loads of it onto his chip, and popped it in his mouth. His cheeks turned the same color as his hair, and he took a huge gulp of water. I have to admit, seeing his cheeks flush like that made my stomach fill with butterflies. Even though he’s not my usual type, he sure is cute. Thank you, Audrey.

“Damn, that’s hot,” he laughs after draining half his water glass. 

I nodded, “I hate spicy food too. It freaks me out because sometimes you can never tell what has a hint of spice in it. All those surprises of not knowing what level of spiciness is going to hit you stresses me out.”

He smiles and replies, “Surprises can be good sometimes.”

Right then the waiter arrives with our food, setting the plates in front of us. My food looked delicious, some kind of burrito with lettuce and cheese that smelled so good I was afraid the boy across from me could hear my stomach growl. I took a bite of the food, and immediately my tongue felt like fire.

My face burns as I tried to spit my food in my napkin as politely as possible, grabbing for my water to fight the spicy taste in my mouth.

“What the hell,” I say angrily after recovering from the spice. My date is sitting across from me almost falling over with laughter after seeing my freak out.

“You told me that wasn’t spicy!” I exclaimed, throwing a chip at him across the table. All he did was continue to laugh, burying his head in his hands to muffle his giggles. Although I was pretty pissed at him, that giggle sent another butterfly loose in my stomach.

“Some date you are,” I say sarcastically, but giving in to a little laugh anyways.

He lifts his head, side smile still etched into his face and raises an eyebrow. “Oh I’m the bad date here?” He asks, eyes a little watery from laughing so hard.

I nod, taking another sip of water, still with red cheeks.

“Ok,” he says, losing the grin and scooting his face closer to me. Naturally, I draw in towards him. How could I not, with those freckles and red curls of his?

“What’s my name?” He asks, face inches away from mine.

I feel my face get hotter than it did when I ate my spicy burrito.

“Oh my god,” I say, utter embarrassment overcoming me, causing me to hide my head in my hands. I had been so nervous about the date and the food that I completely forgot to ask his name. 

This exchange set him off on another fit of laughter, this time drawing attention from other people in the restaurant to give us funny looks.

“I am so sorry, I was just so nervous I forgot to ask,” I say, trying to redeem myself. He continues laughing, but once he calms down he wipes his eyes again and leans closer to me again.

“It’s Daniel, thank you for asking” he says. At this moment, he notices I haven’t touched my food after the spice incident.

“Here,” he says, reaching across the table and switching our plates, “I actually did order something you would like, I just gave you the spicy one after you never asked my name.” 

I laugh, and the rest of our meal goes smoothly as we talk casually for the next hour. For the first time in a long while, Daniel’s stories he tells actually make me laugh and the butterflies in my stomach never settle down. I find out that he’s a high school english teacher, which at first takes me by surprise but now makes sense as I picture him in a white button up and tie teaching about the works of Shakespeare and I can’t help but think how lucky some of those high school girls are to stare at him for a whole hour long class. 

“So, I hear you're an artist. Are you any good?” He asks after we finish eating.

“Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not,” I confess.

“What are you right now?” He asks, seeming genuinely interested in the conversation.

I consider his question before responding honestly, “Before this date, I wasn’t any good. But now? I’m a good artist.”

“What makes you better?” He asks.

I shrug, “I draw inspiration from interesting people. And you’re one of the oddest people I’ve ever met. So right now I have tons of odd ideas bobbling around in my head, thanks to you.”

He grins, hops out of his seat, and slides into my booth until he’s sitting right next to me, arm touching my arm, leg touching my leg. “Draw me,” he says, giddy with a childlike tone to his voice.

I smile, grabbing a napkin and pulling a red pen out of my purse, and I begin sketching the shape of his face on the napkin. He remains motionless as I sketch, and the pen flows under my hand like magic, that wonderful feeling of happiness I get while creating art making me feel giddy.

“I really like your dress,” he says after a couple minutes of me sketching silently. I’m starting to learn that this guy is a natural talker and never silent, but for some reason that seems very charming to me.

“Thanks,” I respond.

“Is red your favorite color?” He asks, motioning towards the red pen in my hand  and brushing a freckled hand over the side of my dress, which causes my breath to catch in my throat.

“It is now,” I say, looking at his red curls, giving him a flirty smile. I’m usually never that forward but something about this guy pulls the confidence and inspiration right out of me. 

He grins, his smile getting even larger than before.

I finish my drawing, scooting it over towards him to see, even though we are sitting so close he’s already got a pretty good view of it. He looks over the thin lines of red ink, shaping into unruly red curls and little red dots to reflect his freckles that cover his entire face.

“Damn, this is really good,” he says, seemingly genuinely awe struck by my work. I smile, feeling a warm feeling build in my chest.

“Keep it,” I tell him.

He shakes his head, passing it back to me. “You keep it, as a way to remember me.”

I laugh, “Trust me Daniel, this is a date I will never forget.”

Daniel grins again as I scrawl my phone number on the back of his picture and hand it back to him.

“Well now I have to keep it,” he confesses, “How else will I get to keep the phone number of a beautiful girl?”

A blush spreads across my cheeks and I don’t have any time to think before he is leaning in and giving me a kiss on the lips. It starts of nice, but then I recoil from him, tasting the spice on his lips from his food.

I grab my water, and he laughs once again.

“Sorry,” he says, a little embarrassed. “I promise the next kiss will be a thousand times better, and I won’t have spice on my breath.”

“The next kiss? Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?” I ask playfully, already excited for our next kiss.

“Vivian, after forgetting to ask my name for almost all of dinner, you at least owe me a second date,” he responds.

I roll my eyes jokingly, “Fine.” I respond, already excited for my next date with the odd boy that is Daniel, ready for my next dose of spice and inspiration.