ECTO-IMPLOSION 2023

!! gore warning ⚠️ !!

Here's my piece to go with @ashgunnywolf's AWESOME oneshot!! THIS WAS SO FUN TO DRAW SKFJSKS >:3

It's based on Rembrandt's "The Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" !!

GO READ THE FIC, FOLKS :D

Here are some close-ups 👇👇

i think i've decided to only eat in the honor of my deities, i personally am not a fan of leaving food out/wasting food and find it a lot more personal to "share meal"

if i do offer food, i think ill offer digitally

one day i think ill actually buy fake food to leave out as offerings, or even make my own! theres so much i have planned for my future, but i have to get better at living in the present ":>

Saw this and felt unhinged. remembered you and thought why not share and add to the unhinge-ness BYE

I'm also just going to put the blurb Mhok (twt can pry this spelling from my cold dead hands) read out here because I'm having a Time:

"Hello. My name in Mee. I'm about to fade away. According to the myth, only sunshine can break the curse. Or perhaps I'm just having a nightmare. Who knows? Tonight, when I close my eyes all of this will just vanish." Sweet dreams

I keep thinking about @casualavocados's post about how much importance is given to tiny details and even here there is so much attention on Mhok flipping open the book. You can see the moment he decides he's going to say sweet dreams. And he brushes it off as just being written in the book but he's spent the whole episode brushing things off while giving off the heartiest of eyes (styling day's hair, the changing room, the metro, everywhere) (and seriously, there's a very specific brand of P'Aof heart eyes that he gets out of people and I didn't even think Jimmy was capable of heart eyes of this calibre and YET HERE WE ARE)

I mentioned intentionality with that moment by the door but the intentionality of that scene began here. When he decided that he is going to risk it, he is going to wish Day sweet dreams. Because he wants Day, who is reading this book because Aon said it might suit him, to not relate to this. To not have nightmares or just fade away when he goes to sleep. He wants Day to have sweet dreams. Before dropping the pretense of the book for pure sincerity because he really does want that.

SO YEAH. I'M FEELING INCREDIBLY UNHINGED. THANKS

fat tail nation rise UP.

Any hints on what you’ve got cookin pls?? I can’t wait to see your more of your work!!!

My life has been utterly consumed by Barry Sloane, so this might not be what you're expecting but it's a small piece of my massive Joe Graves fic (and it really is massive. Its already 13k, no smut. Send help).

You expected stagnancy. Normalcy.

And then—

A flash from the corner of your eye. Two fingers jerking up once, flagging you down. The universal sign for hey, bartender, over here. You obey the command, painting an unnecessary smile on your face, one that rarely ever goes acknowledged, and turn to the man who waved you over, and—

Well.

He's massive. Different, but decidedly not out of place in a room that reeks of stale beer and lemon cleaner. He moulds to the shadows, sticking like glue to the crevasse in the corner.

Something about him prickles your skin. A break in the routine.

When you're close enough, he dips his chin. The thick auburn beard covering his face is rough and worn; it's unkempt, like his hair—moused, greasy—and his clothes—stained and wrinkled.

He's in a state of disarray. Chaotically unkempt, but the shadows under his eyes—tenebrism on breathing flesh—tell you, implicitly, that he does not care. A chiaroscuro in sabotage, he leaks ruin when you lean in with a tight, shaky smile.

No greeting. Just—

"Whisky. Two shots."

It's blunt. Unapologetic in this direct dismissal.

You're used to men like him sidling up to the bar, barking out their drink of choice without so much as a hello, lovely evening for it. This is no different from anyone else who sat on that same chair, ordered the same drink, and stank of the same corrosive rot.

Nothing different at all.

Yet, he leaks octane out of every pore of his body. The rust in his gaze is a warning sign: this is a man on the verge of collapse, and one less stable than Betelgeuse.

Your smile wobbles. "Sure."

He's dangerous. The hissing in your head say he's everything you should run from.

(Too bad for them, no one ever taught you how.)

I made a purchase...

I have my wizard robe, I guess now I need my wizard hat?

Updated the pinned Table of Consent post with all the March Madness that's planned.

I do hope you'll join me ^_^

I'm going to die. (It's fine.)

Pray for me, all. Comps are about to kick my behind.

Musical Diplomacy/Book History

1. Loscocco article. (That was a really well-written article.)

Comps

2. Study the baroque materials. (*sigh*)

3. Study the classical materials. (*another sigh*)

4. Study the Schumann materials. (My advisor always gives constructive feedback but good Lord this is his literal specialty.)

5. Study the theory materials. (I should be able to do a quick review of my assignments from the class -- this is why I kept them all.)

Adulting

6. Gym trip #1. (Done.)

7. Laundry. (Done.)

I'm taking the thesis off the list this week because I really, really need to focus on comps. If I get some done this week that'll be awesome, but it will be after and only after I successfully complete my comps.

Happy World Building Wednesday! We are still relatively new to each other's properties, so tell me about a fun detail that you don't usually get to talk about! Maybe something you know but doesn't actually show up in the story or anything that you're really proud of :)

Mmmm. I'll do this for Peasant and the Legendarium! Mild spoilers for a back-end nontextual Peasant magic information.

Peasant's the worldbuilding-lightest world I've done, specifically because, as I believe I've mentioned -- the world was constructed entirely for Emilia's sake. I had a character vibe that I wanted and needed for the project to come alive, and I had my pride as a writer, so I needed to understand what made Emilia like that. So I just...scratch built the whole world such that a character like Emilia could exist? She is the Empire, the Imperial Majesty and custom, crystallized into a person. She's so good at thaumaturgy because, in part, she is thaumaturgy. Thaumaturgy made the Empire, and the Empire made HER.

Which is also a great segue into an actual worldbuilding detail, which is that the magic system in Peasant is actually way more complicated than anyone knows, and is significantly more subtle! The only person who might be able to identify this is Noam, and none of his words would be able to explain exactly what happens to everyone else...in a way they'd understand. Thaumaturgy is active, but there's a whole swathe of passive world implications to how it works, many of which funnel into the agents of the Empire -- a positive feedback loop that continues to propel the Imperial crop above the rest of the world. Emilia is the perfect heir because she stepped into that role, and because the Empire demanded a perfect heir, and so Emilia became it. It's extremely soft and fuzzy, and appears most obviously in how scenes bend around Emilia. She is the Most Important Thing there, and she Knows It, and so does the world. Noam picks this up. Noam calls it something, but I'm not entirely sure what. We don't get a lot of an idea of what Noam's thinking....

For the LEGENDARIUM, one thing that I really desperately love and will probably not get to actually talk about in-text is the level of...integration? Between civilizations and the landscape. The continent is old, having a massive history of cultivation and development that spans way more than the 300-odd years after the Age of Powder and the subsequent cataclysm. The world was old when gunpowder was invented, and the world was old when the Mordan Empire was founded, and that Empire is functionally from the dawn of time already!

One of the quiet ways this manifests is...a lot of environments, though their stewards were killed, lost, or scattered, are just...more habitable. More bountiful. Travel is easier, because long ago, elves cultivated all these lands into massive food oases, just because they could, and they were there. Nomad-paths wind in and through the hills and terrain, and old, old, old campsites are worn into stone and cliff and cave, having been used for countless generations of nomads on their holy paths. Mordan cities are built and rebuilt and reconstructed and renovated, year in and year out, decade after decade of some of the best engineers in the world redesigning the towns and cities to not only undo the wear of time, but improve and expand upon the city.

Even the wildernesses and the wastes, ruined Erde and cursed Danaan, still bear the stamps of their respective old civilizations -- Erde is built into the damn mountains, that's how old it is. The territories that were Erde have made a good effort of outlasting geological features.

The world is old, old, old, but a lot of those connections are cut, decaying, atrophied -- the woods are no longer actively tended by elves, in most places, and though nomads do their best, they are travelers, not cultivators. Erde is abandoned. Danaan is a graveyard. Sacred sites have gone quiet, tended only by nomads, keeping the faith for if the gods ever grace it again.

It's a somber world.

Thanks for the ask, @tc-doherty! See you around, I'm sure--

I have to drive my husband's land yacht of a vehicle tomorrow to get serviced and I'm seriously not looking forward to it.

It's just for like ... five miles, but I am already dragging my feet.

Me: [opening a gift, nearly weeping with joy as I lift it from its wrapping and show the room as if it were a newborn] "I got a rock."

The rock in question: [chunk of labradorite bigger than my fully extended hand]

it’s here! 

the way this hat looks so ridiculous

Art your putting is god damn fantastic. I have a quick question. What’s your opinions on Dr. Easterman and his wife?

thank you!

my thoughts on Easterman and his wife are completely neutral tbh :) i like Easterman, he's a real intriguing character to dissect and i am very fond of his voice!

as for his wife, irene—i have no concrete thoughts on her to be fair! i'm always eager to learn more but i feel like irene is a little lacking, and i hope they expand more on her (and Easterman's relationship with her) in the future essentially i think they're both neat in lore context but i am mentally focusing more on my more prominent faves if that makes sense!!