#also i messed up the illustrations' order so some of these
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Monster Mayhem: Siren's Song [Part 2]
Gender Neutral Reader x Vil Schoenheit
Word Count: 4.6k
Summary: Fish are friends (?). You are not food.
[PART 1] [PART 2]
The Siren wasn’t leaving.
Which a part of you had been expecting. Because surely if there had been a snowball’s chance in Hell of him making it out into the open ocean alive before you’d cut through the ropes, he would have taken it and left you stranded without a second thought. And his odds weren’t that much better now—his fins were still a mangled mess and the wounds all along his scales and dainty featherings were still raw and oozing. It only made sense that he’d take at least a few days to try and recover.
But… But still.
Did he have to make it so obvious that he was sticking around?
The glint of the light off his tail was a constant distraction—always bright and eye-catching even at the cloudiest points of the day. Always flashing just out of the corner of your eye as a perpetual reminder that there was something in the water that would very happily gobble you up if you bothered making a swim for safety.
He’d also taken to sunning himself. Like some kind of overgrown mer-cat. Stretched out languidly on a flat rock with the tips of his violet fins hanging over the edge—just enough for the gauzy edges to play along the surf and avoid drying out entirely. His pale hair splayed out in a halo around him as he snoozed softly in the heat of the afternoon.
Which! No fair! This wasn’t a vacation! This was a stranding! An SOS! A Rose Queen Procedural Rule Four-Hundred-and-Four! And him taking up the whole of the cove to, I don’t know, tan, felt like another intentional slap in the face. The sun rose over the bay, which meant this stretch of shore was facing East. Which was the direction your vessel had been coming from. Which meant that this was the place on the little islet where you needed to be. Subsection Three of Procedural Four-O’-Four. ‘In the case of Crew Overboard, we will always travel the same route as planned. In order to give the Strandee a chance to map out a reconnection point.’ Riddle always had been so smart about these kinds of things.
‘It’s just until he’s better,’ you reassured yourself for the umpteenth time that morning. ‘Then he’ll leave and I can get rescued or die here alone and in peace.’
A fin flicked up from the shallows to spray you with saltwater splatters and you spluttered indignantly when it ran down into your eyes. You glared at the Siren’s retreating back, musing bitterly about how you’d never thought it was possible for someone to make the tuck of their shoulders look smug.
‘Alone and in peace,’ you repeated hopefully. And it sounded like such far off dream.
.
.
On the second day post-rope-removal, the Siren waved you down with a sharp flick of his wrist.
You approached the waterline hesitantly, still mostly waiting for him to turn on you and make toothpicks out of your bones. But instead of murdering you and getting crafty with your corpse, he just pointed to some scribbles in the sand. You squinted at the loop-de-loops suspiciously. It almost looked like an illustration of dancing bubbles—the lot of them curling and popping along the ground in a line like a limerick.
“Uhm, very nice,” you tried, and the fins flattened pissilly all along the side of his head.
He jabbed his claw towards the mess again. Then firmly at your eyes (hopefully not as a threat that he’d be happy to take them right out of your head if you continued to be obtuse). And then back again. He made a point to move the tip of his sharp nail from one swirl to the next in a little hop-hop-hop. It reminded you a bit deliriously of Riddle trying to teach some of the more socially bereft members of the crew their letters, and—
“You want me to read that?” you gaped, staring at the elegant curls of nonsense in the sand.
The Siren crossed his arms across his lean chest with a scoff that puffed past his lips hard enough to fluff out some of the paler, purple-tipped, hair hanging by his chin. He rolled his eyes at you and muttered something thin and spicy under his breath that you just knew had to be some sort of insult.
“I can read!” you defended, because it felt like it needed defending.
He leveled you with an entirely unimpressed ‘Oh, I’m sure you can’ sneer and you dropped to your knees, incensed. You dug your fingers into the sand and started sculpting out your own very cheery message into the muck.
When you were done, you waved a hand towards your proclamation and watched his brows pull together at the center into a teeny, pinched sort of expression. He let himself roll forward with the seafoam to lay more fully on the shore, and stared down at the mess you’d made like it was some strange code. Even reaching out to poke softly at the straight edge of a ‘T’ with one of his knife-sharp talons.
After a long moment of contemplation, he looked back up at you with an arched brow that was so unintentionally poised and not full of spite that it almost took your breath away. Who knew how pretty an already stunning face could become when it wasn’t twisted up in absolute vitriol? You shook away that absolutely damning thought in horror. That’s exactly what he’d want you to think. Siren, and all. Using his hotness to lure people onto his dinner table. Not you, baby. Because you were smart. And so gross from being stranded under island sunshine for a week that surely you’d taste like some absolutely rancid jerky at this point.
“Oh no,” you droned, and immediately that subtle curiosity of his ticked right back into irritation. “Two creatures from entirely different species and ecosystems have somehow managed to develop unique alphabets. What a completely unpredictable complication.”
The Siren puffed up like an angry lionfish and turned with a snarl to dive back into the shallows—making sure to whip his tail in your face and slam into the water with a huge splash as he went. The salt spray pelted down like rain and you snickered as it sloughed off your cheeks in rivulets, content to sit merrily in the wet sand beside your hastily scribbled: ‘Mermen Are Vicious Bitches. Hit Me if You Agree :)’
.
.
The next morning, there were more fish on the shoreline. Though these ones looked a bit less like they’d been dragged up by their souls and left to writhe in the wake of Siren-Screaming-Agony and more just like the unfortunate victims of a pair of too sharp claws.
You frowned down at a brown, sad-looking flounder that had clearly found itself at the very wrong end of a certain merman still swanning about in the bay not fifty feet away. It was mostly intact, and pleasantly plump for a flat, pancake-looking blob of muck. Your stomach gurgled and the thought of a nice, coal-charred, fillet really seemed quite nice. You chanced another peek at your resident Asshole, debating if it was worth swiping his snack. Another ominous rumble from your abdomen and you reached down to steal your prize and scuttle off deeper inland like a troll returning to its layer.
It didn’t take very long to get a small fire going, and within the hour you’d been fed and were more than ready for a cozy, full-bellied nap in the soft sand.
By the time you began to make your way back to the cove, the sun was high in the sky and you were already dreading sitting beneath its weighted rays for another afternoon. So you slowed your pace to a near snail crawl, dragging your feet as you went.
The little octopus from earlier was still swaying contentedly around the tide pool you’d shoved it into. It probably needed to be carried back out to the bay at some point so that it could swim back into the depths of the ocean, but the poor thing was just so small and round. Surely it’d get devoured by the first sharp-toothed thing that caught sight of it. Especially with your merman apparently being out for the blood of whatever other scaly things were swimming about in his temporary home. So for now you slipped it some small bits of leftover fish instead. You sat, crouched at the pool’s edge, and watched raptly as it grabbed the shredded bits of pale meat with its chubby tentacles to shove towards an eager beak.
“You’re the only friend I have left in the whole world,” you told the octopus miserably, wiping the greasy remnants of your lunch off your chin with a sigh.
The traitor hurriedly moved to snatch up the treat you’d offered it and hide itself away between some rocky crevices. You sighed louder. Rejected. What a time to be alive.
.
.
The next morning, the Siren was singing again.
That familiar prickle danced its way up your arms, leaving pinpricks of goosebumps in its wake. Some pirates told tales of storms leaving their mark in such a way—that seasoned sailors could feel the tickle of thunder against their skin long before they could spot dark clouds on the horizon. You’d have to amend that little legend whenever you found your way back to The Rose Queen. Siren Sense was a lot cooler, anyways. Any idiot with arthritis could tell you when rain was due.
But either way, Mister Merman was back to idly circling the bay and calling into the distance. At least it wasn’t as miserable as it had been the other day—more of a leisurely pacing than the frantic, near-feral caterwauling that had soured your gut so terribly.
There was another fat fish on the shore. A bright, red snapper so brilliantly crimson that it was almost impossible to make out the garish wounds in its side. Almost. And even if it hadn’t been, the drooping, rust colored, rivulets dug into the sand would have been enough of a clue.
Why the Siren was bothering to leave his clawed-up kills at your feet like some overgrown cat dragging in mice, you had no idea. Maybe he was poisoning them, and subsequently you. Maybe he was bored and it was some sort of fishy enrichment. Maybe he just didn’t want to bother leaving dead things around to contaminate his favorite sunning spots, and tossing his leftovers in your vicinity was as close to a reliable dumpster as he could find on a remote island. Who’s to say.
Either way, you dutifully ignored the magical tingles racing up your shoulders and brought the newest fish back to your makeshift firepit. You grilled the snapper in silence, debating. Then you fed your octopus friend and returned to the beach, cooked fillets in tow.
You waited in awkward silence for a few moments, fish burning your palms, before raising your fingers to your lips and whistling loud enough to make your teeth ache. The mystical static faded from the air and you watched in pleasant (?) surprise as the Siren made his way back to where you’d set up camp. He rolled in with the tide, cresting on a gentle bit of surf and coming to rest neatly in the shallows—fins splayed out beneath him like a lord lying amidst his many silken robes. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at you with an arched brow and slanted frown.
You awkwardly extended a hand—roasted snapper still resting in your open palm and burning the absolute fuck out of your fingers.
“Uhm,” you said, feeling a bit too much like the local idiot trying to feed one of the rabid, wandering, strays around town. “Food?”
He scoffed and rolled his eyes at you.
“Do you want food?” you tried.
The other brow joined the first, nearly rising all the way into his hairline. It wasn’t a pleasant sort of surprise.
“It’s better cooked?” you coaxed in the face of his outright constipated scowl. Be fed and full, you thought hopefully. Maybe then you won’t fucking look at me like I’m a boxed lunch.
He jabbed a sharpened, black talon in your direction, and then pointedly again angled up towards your mouth. Then back to the fish still roasting your poor cuticles straight off your fingers.
You blinked, a bit thrown.
“What? It’s supposed to be for me?”
He nodded, throwing in another one of those bombastically snarky eyerolls for good measure. ‘Obviously,’ that sneer said.
“Well,” you huffed, plopping down to sit cross-legged in the sand and offering up one of the fillets. “There’s plenty for both of us.” When he stared at you like you were attempting to serve him up a choice pile of literal dog shit, you wiggled your hand and entreated, “Please just take it before my skin melts off.”
The Siren huffed and reached out, plucking up the fish with the tips of his claws. He observed your meager meal as one might a particularly unappealing cockroach, and after a long moment, his nose scrunched (cute, you thought absently before immediately suffocating every wayward braincell that would dare call your murderous shore-neighbor anything of the sort) and he leaned forward to nip at a crisped, pink corner with the barest edge of one canine.
When your culinary creation didn’t immediately strike him dead on the spot, he took another, equally dainty bite. And then another. The tight pucker of his mouth eased as he chewed, and you watched as the harsh cut of his purple irises warmed with that same intrigue as they had when you’d first scribbled your foreign letters into the sand.
He readjusted his grip on the fish between his claws to get a better angle and took a proper bite, chewing thoughtfully. Before you knew it, you were watching him nip at the pads of his fingers, his gaze going a bit round and shocked when he realized that he’d devoured the entirety of it.
“See?” you hummed, tucking into your own portion with gusto. “Not all things humans come up with are terrible.” He harumphed and turned to glare back out over the bay, slouching into the surf with an expression that was most certainly not a pout. “But maybe you’d know that if you bothered to do anything other than murder and devour us on sight,” you chirped.
To which you were immediately doused with an armful of water for your troubles. The Siren glowered petulantly from where he’d just wave-bombed you, and then dove back into the deeper waters of the sandbar. He immediately started up his stupid singing all over again—pointedly keeping his chin high above the surface and splashing brine into your face anytime he looped close enough to shore.
“I don’t know why I bother,” you huffed, and ate your sopping snapper in grumpy silence.
.
.
There was a ship wrecked off the coast.
Nothing overly cool, and definitely only a small chunk of what had probably at one point been a rather impressive vessel. But it was something. The first change in pace you’d had in days and oozing with possibilities.
The only problem was that the great, rotting, hull of the thing was dug up into a jagged skerry about a hundred yards off the shore—wedged into the pointed rocks with no chance of any wave or breeze sending it adrift. You could swim perfectly well. I mean, living your life on a ship surrounded by tumultuous, depthless, ocean would have been a hugely stupid career move otherwise. The issue, naturally, was the thing currently making its home in these waters. Sharks and barracudas, blablabla. They were just animals, no matter how many teeth they had. The Siren had a grudge. And just as many teeth.
Right now, said spiky pain in your ass was lounging in the shallows like the froth was an elegant daybed made just for him—shredded fins swaying in the soft tides and his hair floating about him that same, white-gold halo that made him look far too peaceful for anyone’s good sense. He wasn’t singing today, which was great for the local wildlife population but terrible for your Siren Sense. Once you waded into the waves, you’d have no real way to keep track of him. Hope, maybe, that he didn’t think fucking with you was worth messing up whatever tan-line he had going on. But nothing concrete that you’d be willing to bet the safety of your limbs on.
You wiggled your toes in the sand and stared longingly out at the stupid, wrecked ship that was so stupidly close. If you swam your fastest you could probably make it there in under two minutes—less than that, even. But that was still more than enough time for the Siren to rake those dark claws of his across your throat and drag you down into the depths to drown.
Riddle’s angry, red face swam through your thoughts, and you could practically see him shoving that beloved law tome of his under your nose for the umpteenth time.
‘Rule 32, never make dangerous bets that you’re certain you won’t win, particularly if you are betting against a Blue Nosed Beetle.’
‘Rule 15, do not needlessly sacrifice your life in the name of curiosity, excluding—of course—if you hail from Cheshire or are a Cat.’
‘It’s only a dumb shipwreck,’ you thought miserably, if rationally. ‘It’s probably not even that cool.’
Your captain would be so proud.
.
.
The next morning you were rolling up the cuffs on your pants and wading into the cool shallows, silently lighting a candle in your heart for your beloved, steam-faced leader and promising that you would at the very least cover the costs of your own funeral so as not to inconvenience him further.
The waves lapped against your ankles and the waters themselves were shockingly clear and blue. You could practically see each grain of sand beneath your heels—make out each pointy rock and the little, red crabs that scuttled away from your tromping like civilians fleeing from the shadow of a leviathan. The Siren was back to singing today. Perhaps his poor, overworked throat simply needed a break every now and again. But either way, your Merman Magic Missive was working in full force. The hairs on your arms stood at full attention and you liked to imagine you could see them twitching in circles to follow his long, looping arcs through the bay.
You made it up to your knees and waited, eyes scanning the open water and nose twitching like maybe you could smell the fucker. There was nothing but a familiar prickle along your shoulders and that deep sense of ‘tug tug tug’ with no answer, so you took a deep breath and pushed further, the water sloshing up to your hips, your chest, and finally you were floating—paddling slow and cautious towards the wreckage.
It really was insanely close. Even moving at your most cautious, sneakiest crawl, you’d made it nearly three-quarters of the way there within perhaps five minutes. And no signs of a vengeful, hungry Siren circling the waters beneath you either. More rules that perhaps that you’d have to tell Riddle might need some amending once you finally made it back home to your crew. ‘Dangerous bets,’ who? ‘Needless sacrifice,’ what? You might as well have outsmarted the whole ocean.
As you moved closer, you could make out a strange coat of arms on the side of the hull that you didn’t recognize. Twining, silver songbirds soaring against the sparkly backdrop of an otherwise plain faced crest, which honestly looked far too delicate to be heading the broken remains of what was no doubt at one point an absolute monster of a vessel. You reached out to brush your fingers against the shining plaque and then you were underwater.
You fought the immediate impulse to gasp in surprise, because expediting the process of your inevitable drowning just seemed stupid even by your standards. There was a clawed hand wrapped around your calf yanking you down, and you squinted through a stream of panicked bubbles to see your terrible, horrible, completely thankless co-strandee snarling up at you with sharp teeth and a sharper flail of his delicate gills. Thankfully the water wasn’t all that deep, so by the time you’d been dragged to the bottom you were maybe only ten feet under. But still. It was the goddamn principle! And besides, you’d heard about enough drunks drowning in puddles to know that this was more than enough Liquid Death to put you in an early grave.
The Siren looped around you in tight circles, and you could feel the brush of his tattered fins against your skin like the ghostly fingers of a reaper trailing down your spine. You’d known he was big—giant, even. Long, and impressive, and built to rule the very depths he’d dragged you into. Large enough to wrestle with sharks and capsize lifeboats. Big enough, no doubt, to eat you whole and still be hungry enough for seconds.
The salt stung your eyes and you blinked hard to keep his vibrant, amethyst tail in focus. Would he strike from the back, where you couldn’t see? Or would he go right for your throat—a direct, full frontal, ‘fuck you, human’ if there ever was one. And honestly, what were you expecting? That a good deed and a few pieces of cooked fish would sway him from devouring you whole? Maybe the island sun had fried whatever remained of your rattled brain.
He stopped in front of you and hissed—a stream of tight, tiny, bubbles jetting past his canines. You glared in petulant confusion, absolutely refusing to give your would-be murderer whatever reaction he was hoping for. His brow pinched into a tight, angry, v and he snarled again. You snarled back, and with that, the last breath in your lungs swooped out of you in a tight squeak. You choked, and struggled, and kicked at the claws holding you down. The Siren reared back, eyes widening in something that looked insultingly like genuine surprise, and you used his moment of hesitation to propel yourself off the sandbar and back to the choppy surface.
You gasped in a hasty breath, expecting to immediately be dragged back under. But when you weren’t pulled back down to your watery grave, you took in another and another. Gasping, and hacking, and spitting up seafoam. The Siren’s head crested the surface beside you and you flailed away, nearly pushing yourself under all over again. You paddled frantically, trying to keep your nose above the tide, and then suddenly there was something under you. You squawked and kicked it on instinct. The Siren snapped his pointy teeth in your face and you realized with a start that oh. That was him, wasn’t it? The long, winding, scaled muscles of his tail curled beneath your toes in what almost seemed like an attempt to keep you upright.
He stared at you with those unnervingly bright eyes of his—blonde hair curling softly at the edges where it plastered elegantly along his finned ears, and those too-long lashes dripping with small, sparkly, drops of salt water.
“What the hell is this bullshit?” you choked, coughing up more bubbly froth. “You don’t get to look so—so put together after trying to murder me!”
The Siren huffed out something that the delusional, still half-drowned, part of you wanted to classify as a laugh. And then he organized that bemused expression back into its usual, haughty, iciness and began to carefully make his way back towards the shore—towing you along like a poor, little, lost buoy with nowhere else to go.
You let him drag you up into the sand and only flopped around a little. He flicked his tail at you and your dramatics and you turned on him with a fierce, waterlogged scowl—a bit more confident now that he didn’t have the home field advantage.
“What was that for! I just wanted to look at the ship! I wasn’t even doing anything to you!” you wailed. “I haven’t done anything to you at all! Ever! Why do you keep—" you collapsed back into the sand with a miserable whine that rattled all the teeth in your head, and ground the heels of your palms into your eyes until you saw stars.
After a long moment of nothing, you felt a gentle tap at your shoulder.
You looked back up with a start to see Mister Merman looking nearly sheepish.Or as much of an equivalent that his aloof mask of a face was capable of pulling off. The clawed finger resting at your collarbone dropped to the sand by your hip, and he carefully began to draw more of those squiggles. No, scratch that. Not the dancing, popping, ones from the other day. These actually looked sort of like the silver songbirds from that shipwreck. More jagged, certainly. But similar enough that you felt something a bit too coldly cautious to be confusion seep through your guts.
Once he was finished, he looked up and met your gaze—sharp, pointed. And then he reached back out and smeared the birds into nothing and shook his head, firm. His red lips moved slowly, exaggerated, again and again. And you could make out the vague shape of words you’d had shouted at you a hundred times over.
‘Not safe.’
That same, shivery, nervous feeling bit at your limbs.
“…okay,” you said after a moment. And then leaned forward to dig your own fingers into the sand, dutifully ignoring how your elbows knocked against his own.
‘Not safe,’ you wrote, and watched his eyes trace each letter like a treasure map.
There was another tap at your shoulder. And then he pointed to the words in the muck, then to himself.
You rolled your eyes. “Yes, yes. You’re not safe either.”
He sighed dramatically enough to ruffle the ends of your still soaked hair. And then pointed to the words again, tapping at the ‘N’ with the curved tip of a claw.
“Nnnn?” you mouthed, confused.
He moved to the ‘o’ next and it clicked.
“You want me to teach you how to read my letters?” you asked, flabbergasted. Another sigh, like you’d dropped the weight of all the world on his pale shoulders. Or perhaps that your idiocy was enough to put that hearty mass to shame. You decided that you were still feeling a bit too much like you’d only just barely escaped a brush with death, dismemberment, and dinner plans to push your luck with sassing him back too harshly, and just blinked owlishly in dazed surprise. “But why?”
His purple eyes trailed in the direction of the shipwreck and something cutting and poisonous clouded his expression. He pointed to the words again.
‘Not safe.’
“Alright,” you said, looking out over the water with a strange sort of sinking feeling in your gut. You leaned forward and began to draw the alphabet at your feet. His tail twitched by your fingers and you ignored the soft brush of his still-healing fins. “This one’s an ‘A’, like in ‘Asshole’—"
Whomp went the tail as he cracked it across your knuckles like a school matron with a ruler. And you couldn’t help the startled burst of genuine, tinkling laughter that bubbled past your lips for the first time since you’d been dragged overboard.
.
.
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#twisted wonderland imagines#twisted wonderland#twst x reader#Vil Schoenheit x Reader#Vil x Reader#vil schoenheit#Mermay#Monster Mayhem#My Writing#vil shoenheit#Siren!Vil#Mermaid!Vil#Fantasy AU#Monster Mayhem Vil Part 2
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Hi! I finally got the chance to read Aurora a bit ago. It's a wonderful story--all I was expecting and better! I was particularly amazed and delighted by the artwork and visual mechanics used to tell the story, so I wrote a post to yell about how cool it is and break some of it down. (No criticism, just praise.) I'm mostly a hobbyist, so I'm hoping I've done it justice.
That said: zero pressure to read it or respond to this ask. Normally I wouldn't send it since I tagged, but I know Tumblr's notifs are a mess and things get lost very easily. I've been in both the "one (1) word of praise will feed me for a year" and the "oh gods don't talk about my writing/art because anything that seems Off will break my brain" modes before, and I absolutely don't want to push or make you uncomfortable!
If you are comfortable, however, I wanted to ask about your use of what I'm assuming are Screen and blending modes in sound effect words. (I'm only guessing that's the technique, though, so I could be totally wrong about how it's done! I'm mostly experienced in image manipulation in Photoshop.) Making them semi-transparent over the actions is genius :) What inspired you to do that, and are there specific techniques you use to make it work?
Same questions go for using specific colors to distinguish different characters' words and actions. I really noticed it in the cave sequence with Falst and Dainix, since their colors are so vivid in the dark (ex. Falst's little swats and Dainix's swooping kick at 1.20.9). It lends excellent clarity to busy scenes.
Thanks! Have a lovely day, enjoy your break, and happy holidays <3
You're correct about the technique! "Screen" is the blend mode I use most often for sound effects. I stumbled on it mostly through trial and error - I love how sound effects add depth to a comic panel, but it's very easy for them to obscure the art in a way I find counterproductive, so "Screen" lets me put the sound effect directly over the origin of the sound while still letting it be visible through the word. Early chapters didn't have it as much-
Most of the sound effects in early chapters are just solid colors with reduced opacity if I'm feeling fancy. But I started figuring it out around chapter 8 and 9, because Falst is kind of a sound-effect-heavy guy, especially in his fight scenes.
In order to make sure they don't impede the visibility of the action, I'll often soft-erase the top or bottom half of the SFX to reduce its opacity while still leaving it readable.
I'll usually double that up with an outline on the SFX so it's still readable. This is an especially important consideration if the SFX goes over an area of the background that's very bright or glowing.
Color-coding the speed lines and SFX to the character or force causing them isn't a hard and fast rule, but I like using it (in part because it's a habit from the OSP illustrations, where every character has a single pop of color in their lineart) mostly because it sort of codes every sound to make it clear where it's emanating from, or the general feeling of the sound. Since I normally do character-colors for SFX, something like this stands out more jarringly-
Which it's supposed to, but a big lightning strike doesn't register as anything too worrying because it's just Tess up to her usual shenanigans.
It's also very useful for magic effects, because each form of magic has its own associated palette.
And when I had a very complicated fight scene in a dark environment, I used the texture pattern I'd already made for the monster to color its SFX, so when I Screened them onto the panels they didn't obscure too much while still communicating "this is something else."
Changing the weight, lined-vs-not-lined, and opacity of the SFX words also helps to communicate that not every sound has the same feeling. A strong motion is solid and aggressive, but a crackling, unstable sound is more ephemeral and staticky.
It's definitely been a process of learning as I go - looking back at the earlier chapters I can actually see when I first tried various tricks I now use regularly, like doubling and distorting an SFX to produce the effect of a camera-shaking impact. I haven't really seen any other comics that do it like I do, probably because most other comics follow a more traditional production pipeline where text bubbles and sound effects get locked into the composition early, before the inking stage, because traditional physical comics don't have digital-art layers to play with. Adding sound effects to a page is almost the last thing I do before exporting them, and that only works because digital art and layers allow for a ton of flexibility.
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The Trees are part of the Squid's Plan! (major main quest spoilers)
After spending way too long playing through the new quests in SSO, I've come up with a theory. A real long theory. That the Life Wardens are siding with both Dark Riders and Soul Riders in order to repair the Wild Weave and reconnect with one another, inadvertently helping the Dark Riders to free Garnok.
Lemme explain.
This is the map in the Fort Maria portal room. It shows the seven major Life Wardens that we know of, but it also gives us some clues about the story going forwards.
First, the obvious.
Yeah, there's no way that little illustration in the corner is anything but Ol' Squiddy's Tentacles. But we knew he was imprisoned between worlds, in neither Pandoria nor Jorvik - so finding out he's been chilling in the Wild Weave, or a location only accessible by it, makes sense.
Next, when it comes to putting a name to each of these trees I think most are fairly self explanatory. We've known about most of these trees for years, even if they've never been a part of the story, such as with the Ice Tree by the Stonecutter's Vault in Dino Valley, and the Unnamed Tree way up near where you finish the Red String Trail in the Firgrove Mountains.
Where it gets interesting is with the two trees I couldn't place; such as the one between the Sentinel Tree in Mistfall and the Ice Tree in Dino Valley; and the one on the far left, signified by floating islands.
In my mind it makes sense to have a couple of the trees sprouting in Pandoria, since the two worlds are connected by the tree roots - and the only floating rocks I know about are in Pandoria - but who knows.
Overlaying the normal map on top of these locations makes it pretty clear that they're supposed to correspond to real map locations. The only anomaly is the Ice Tree and Sentinel Tree, whose positions are reversed on the portal map.
What's interesting is that Garnok, if I'm following the map's logic correctly, would hold exactly the same positioning as the Dark Core Oil Rig.
(For context, we know the Rig's position from old skybox errors that used to show it when stood in the right spots, some maps from the books (which I know aren't always canon anymore, but hey it's the best we've got) and, most recently, if the player looks South when entering Devil's Gap, thanks to that little black hole we helped Sunshine open up recently.)
Where am I going with all this? Okay!
Firstly, we know that the trees have helped the Dark Riders in the past. The Life Wardens have repeatedly said the only loyalty they have is to each other, and quite frankly after what the Jarl did, who can blame them. (Thanks Jon).
This is going into massive spoiler territory for the most recent quest as of 17/1/24 so if you haven't completed it yet, flee.
The Sentinel Tree in the Wildwoods has been corrupted by Pandorian magic for a while now. But in the newest quest, we saw Sabine using the Runesmasher to break into it and create a portal to free Erissa.
Side tangent about the hammer:
For those who didn't play the Halloween quests, basically one of the Jarl's servants got the ice valley smith to make a hammer that could destroy runestones, broke one open, and a Vala witch gave him immortality. Aka. Sive (or an identical Vala witch), who is deeply connected with the Life Wardens and who probably gave Sabine the hammer when we saw her in Devil's Gap, has no problem with this action.
The Life Wardens, or at the very least Sive, their ally, wanted the portal opened and Erissa freed.
Why?
To re-grow the Wild Weave.
Assuming Garnok's position on my map was correct, the only way the Dark Riders now have to free him is to go directly through the Wild Weave.
And since we're good people who like nature... yeahhh the Soul Riders are totally going to end up healing some trees and inadvertently opening the path to Garnok wide open.
Oh yeah. We're going to mess up royally.
#star stable online#star stable halloween#star stable theory#star stable spoilers#star stable sabine#star stable dark riders#ssoblr
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what order would you recommend reading the batman comics in? also where do you find the comics?
"What order would you recommend reading the Batman comics in?" only has one answer and that answer is for me to immediately burst into tears.
Okay, this list is designed around what I think is most likely to get you into comics and having a good time, if you're enjoying the kind of posts that appear on this blog:
- Nightwing 2016, you can start from issue #1 and just keep reading (well, once you hit the Ric Grayson arc, you can skim if you want) because it's a fun, light-hearted series that's just very easy to read and is my comfort series in a lot of ways. I enjoy Dick Grayson's character, it does a lot of work to establish him in his own city, but also touches on his relationships with his family, and I think is a great starting place.
You can start with Better Than Batman, Back to Bludhaven, Nightwing Must Die, Blockbuster, Raptor's Revenge, The Untouchable, The Bleeding Edge, Knight Terrors (not to be confused with the 2023 event of the same name!), Burnback, The Gray Son Legacy, The Joker War, Fear State
Then there's something of a 'soft reboot' where the volume numbering starts over (but issue #s keep going) with: Leaping into the Light, Get Grayson, The Battle for Blüdhaven's Heart
- Robin & Batman (2022), a beautifully illustrated series from the early days of Bruce and Dick, where Bruce is not exactly the world's greatest parent, but he's trying, there's an amazingly emotionally satisfying hug, and it shows what a delightful hurricane child Dick Grayson was.
- "The Murder Club" is just one story out of many in Batman: Urban Legends but it's a fantastic one, with beautiful art and a story that's about Thomas and Martha Wayne traveling forward in time to see what's become of their son, and they don't necessarily approve--until Dick and Damian are basically impossible to ignore and they see what Bruce is fighting for.
For more general Batman stories (rather than ones focused on my Blorbo), I'm enjoying:
- The Court of Owls [vol. 1][vol. 2] by Scott Snyder, which is a solid case story and introduces the Court of Owls, which I genuinely like as a relatively recent addition to Batman's rogues gallery!
- Batman 2016 is a bit of a controversial pick, because not everyone enjoys the authors writing for this series, but I've had a blast with a lot of Tom King's writing, personally. I especially enjoyed a lot of the run-up to the Bruce/Selina wedding with Rebirth book 3 (there's a double date with Bruce/Selina and Clark/Lois that's just a silly, fun good time!), The Rules of Engagement, Bride or Burglar, The Wedding, and Cold Days. I wasn't really a big Bruce/Selina shipper before those issues, but they really won me over because I love a good hot mess of a couple that have a bunch of thorny issues between them, that Selina loves Bruce not as some mythic figure but as the dumbass guy she loves, and then some bonus quality content with Bruce's kids, especially once the wedding falls apart and he's in such a bad place and Dick Grayson is so good at stabilizing Bruce that it's unreal.
(You can also read Preludes to the Wedding in around here, if nothing else the Dick + Hush one was really, really fun! Clark and Dick take Bruce to Batburger for his bachelor's party because they're horrible people who think they're funny, and it's DELIGHTFUL.)
- Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2022) by Mark Waid is also more light-hearted, but is so much fun, the characters banter with each other, but you can see their genuine friendship and how it became to be one of foundational relationships in both their lives, and plus Dan Mora's art is always TOP NOTCH. (Plus, volume 2 is out as well.)
I limited myself to anything from the 2016 reboot ("Rebirth") because I think that's easiest to draw someone in and these are the starting places that I would enjoy, though, they do assume a fair amount of pre-knowledge about Batman characters, like personally I enjoyed Batman & Robin Eternal but I don't think it's a good starting point for what the comics are actually like.
As always, if someone has a good suggestion for a newer fan, I'd love to hear them! Especially since I tend to be Nightwing-focused, that's where my area of expertise is, if you have some good Tim or Jason or Damian recs, feel free! Though, in general, I think you can pick up almost any trade paperback and it'll be designed to be read without too much confusion, so just find a character you think you'll like and jump in! :D
(p.s. I'm linking to Hoopla pages because, if you have a library card with your local library, you can use it to sign in to Hoopla!)
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Hi I took a SEQA class last fall and learned about comics
Here are some photos of my notes that aren't super helpful on their own, so I decided to explain things further with visuals from comics I drew for or following this class
The writing on that blue sticky note is hard to read, so:
Panel Hierarchy
Size - Big = Important
Color - What "pops out" is important
Elimination of BG - Discards extraneous detail
Elimination of Frame - Remove border = More important
Also, some things not included here that I remember being told:
Don't overload your speech bubbles! My professor told us to imagine that each bubble is something being said in one breath. Obviously there are no concrete rules, but generally, if you'd take a breath somewhere, break it up into a new bubble or even a new panel. You don't want to make the audience read massive clumps of text.
Vertical panels will force readers to slow down. If you want them to linger on something, you can make it vertical. But remember, if you have two panels stacked on top of each other and another one next to them, readers are used to moving one direction continuously, so don't make them jump back and forth from the top panel to the side to the bottom one. Go top to bottom, then to the side.
This is a big one I see people struggling with a lot, but it's REALLY jarring if you mess it up. You want to arrange speech bubbles to be read in order. Make it very clear what the correct order is. The hierarchy typically goes like this: Top to bottom, then left to right (if you're in the west). If you have a character on the right and their speech is meant to come first, put their bubble higher in the panel than the other characters', I beg of you.
ANYWAYS. More stuff below the cut. I won't be describing each illustration in ALT text (I'm sorry) but I WILL transcribe all my handwriting there.
Here's a comic that net me my highest grade of any assignment that quarter, which was very surprising because my apple pencil broke right before I could start it and I ended up being unable to get a replacement until the day it was due, after which I drew for 10 hours straight to get it in on time BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT.
Moving on.
Here are two pages from unrelated comics that both feature the Aspect to Aspect transition! One for suspense and one for comedy.
Here's some use of Moment to Moment transitions, again for varying purposes.
I'm not a teacher, so I'm sure I could have done this better, but hopefully this can at least offer some help to someone
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cabezadeperro's year in review (fic version)
Hi, hello! It's the last day of the year, and what a year 2023 has been. I moved to a different continent in Fall 2022, but I somehow found the time to keep writing and posting Star Wars fanfiction for the fourth year in a row.
These are some of my favourite fics I posted this year. I didn't write as much or as often as I'd like, but I am pretty proud of some of my work, so. Here it is!
Also, I'm very bad at replying to comments but thanks so much to all of you who take the time and leave one. I know my stuff is very often niche and kind of weird, so if you clicked and read and enjoyed one of my fics this year: I appreciate it a lot. Thank you so much.
dead men walking | E | Commander Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi | 63k
It was supposed to be an easy job: prisoner transports are always quick money.
Three years after waking up from cryo, Cody—formerly known as ICC-2224—finds himself working as a bounty hunter for one of the guilds. He has a body that doesn’t feel his, a memory full of holes, and little else. When the man he’s guarding escapes, Cody finds himself following one Obi-Wan Kenobi across a war-torn galaxy and into the most dangerous job of all: stealing a mysterious artifact from the heart of the New Republic.
This was my fic for the 2022 Codywan Big Bang. It was Very hard to write and the reason I decided to stop participating in events for the rest of 2023. I kind of hate it, but I'm also pretty proud of it (because I finished despite it all, and also I think it's pretty good).
You'll like it if: you enjoy good artwork (cowboy's illustration of Cody in bed is probably one of my favourite pieces of Cody fanart, and I love punk's cover an absurd amount), weird AUs, cyberpunk, and being depressed.
fortunate son | M | Commander Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Commander Cody/Commander Fox, Commander Cody & Captain Rex | 12k
On change.
This was one of those fics I started in 2022 and finished in 2023. It's my take of the No Order 66 trope that attempts to deal with ideas of change and growing and adapting to new places, new people, and new sides of people you've known for a while. (Gee, I wonder why I wrote this fic the year I moved across the world.)
I'm also really proud of the codyfox prequel I published the other day, secant, but I think this one is more--ambitious?
You'll like it if: you like studying Cody like the bug and complicated relationships, and would like to read a slightly different take on the Fix-It/No Order 66 trope.
sulphur and tea | M | Obi-Wan Kenobi/Jango Fett | 1.8K
They say Jango Fett fell in battle, that the thing that walks and fights and wears his beskar is something else. Obi-Wan knows better.
There are a few games I get very obsessed with every now and then, and one of them is Ghost of Tsushima. This fic is a very vague adaptation of the concept behind the main character of those games, applied to Jango. I had A Lot of fun writing it though it fought me quite a bit, and it allowed me to play with one of the most popular kenfetti tropes from a different perspective. It's one of those fics that I'd like to write a sequel/prequel/spin-off to sometime.
You'll like it if: you like whump (especifically Jango whump) and What Ifs about the Mandalorian Civil War and the first years of Anakin's padawanship.
choosing to be chosen | E | ARC Trooper Echo/ARC Trooper Fives | 6.6k
ARC troopers always work in pairs.
I wrote this as a gift for a friend who wrote what's probably my favourite Echo/Fives fic ever (which I just remembered was also a gift for me lmao). I don't write this ship as much or as often as I'd like, but I'm very happy about how this one turned out--I think I nailed why I find this relationship so compelling (the inevitable tragedy, the fact that they keep choosing each other, the fact that they cannot help but choose each other). I also had a lot of fun writing Fives! He's such a messed up, interesting little dude.
You'll like it if: you enjoy intense relationships, sexual and romantic tension, baby's first attempt at milwank, Fives being clever and in love and just that tiny bit manipulative.
the price of blood | T | Commander Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi | 13.8k
A year and a half after the beginning of Cody and Rex's rebellion, Palpatine reaches out to Kenobi: he wants to talk to him, and he doesn't want Cody to be there.
It goes as well as expected.
This is one of those fics that get out of hand. I wrote it because someone left an ask saying they loved the first part of what is now a series (it's not actually a series on AO3; I was planning to make it one but I forgor. as I do.) I really love fantasy and all its subgenres and I don't write it as much as I'd like, so it was the perfect chance to go ham and do a bit of of worldbuilding for fun. I'm not super happy with the ending, but I really like everything else, so.
You'll like it if: you like low fantasy, the environmental storytelling approach to fantasy worldbuilding, complicated relationships and characters keeping secrets. Oh, and Cody whump.
five times cody and rex shared a bed and one time they wished they could | T | Commander Cody/Captain Rex | 4.7k
Cody and Rex throughout the war.
This fic is very much what it says on the tin: Cody and Rex from when they first meet each other, through the war and their slow loss of trust in each other, until they meet again after the war ends. This format of fic is very popular for a reason, what can I say. I really enjoyed writing it, and I think I did a pretty good job portraying their potential relationship as I see it through a bunch of scenes.
You'll like it if: you like bittersweet endings, canon-adjacent fic, and Cody and Rex being insane about each other.
And that's it! Thanks for reading (again), and I hope you have a great NYE and a great 2024--I think we all fucking deserve it.
#codywan#echo5#jangobi#codex#kenfetti#maría writes#i almost added some of the prompt fics but this list is long enough already lol
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i think the post-fire topmew scene is a perfect illustration of what some people are struggling to either understand at all or reconcile with while watching ofts.
top expressed the sentiment that he could deal with his trauma just because mew was there. some people are going to jump to the conclusion that the voice of god, manifested through top, is saying that if you just find the right person, you can suddenly easily deal with your trauma. in reality, there is no voice of god - there is just top, who has changed and dealt with some of his issues throughout the series, but who ties all that change directly to mew, and so he thinks him dealing with his trauma is also thanks to mew.
mew expressed the sentiment that top was the one to take leadership and deal with the situation all on his own. some people are going to breathe out - thank gods, the voice of god, manifested through mew, is saying that of course mew didn't magically heal top's trauma. in reality, there is still no voice of god - whether positive or negative - there is just mew who saw how top dealing with everything and who also wanted to comfort his boyfriend.
it is so easy to fall into the idea that everything said by characters in fiction is exactly what the authors think. but - while i do not personally like certain things being inserted into fiction unchallenged, because i think they can contribute to the further normalisation of already normalised horrible behavior (e.g. certain depictions of rape in media contributing to rape culture) and i also acknowledge that this line is drawn at different points for different people - it is important to recognise that we're not always going to get what we want and sometimes the authors just explore something entirely from the characters' pov. not everything is going to be a fable that ends with a moral lesson and an easily digestible quote.
and i think it's crucial to point out that this particular show has always positioned itself as a mess on a mess wrapped up in another mess, and ALL characters in it were allowed to be very selfish and hypocritical and at the same time found themselves in certain situations they didn't necessarily "deserve" to be in. but some media is just not about what someone deserves and what is morally or ethically right or what is fair or what is good. and if that's not your cup of tea - that's fine. but watching something that people made posts about saying "disclaimer: i am turning my morals off while watching ofts" because it was abundantly clear it was going to be complete chaos and then expecting it to be something else is kind of like watching hannibal and then asking "hey, why is this show named after a cannibalistic murderer is not really condeming murder and romanticising cannibalism?"
essentially: don't come to a coffee shop to order a three-course meal - there are plenty of restaurants.
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been experimenting with how I visualise fashion in the Shivering Isles for fun and to help me flesh it out in my head... shoddily ordered design notes under the cut for those who are interested
the figure second from the right is armed and armoured in amber. they are a lumberjack. you never know which plants will take umbrage at being harvested so it's best to come prepared
inspiration was pretty heavily drawn from various historical fashions, as I'm sure is visible - regency and tudor a little bit, among others - but I also drew a lot from various historical costume designers like giuseppe arcimboldo, c. wilhelm and attilio comelli. maybe sometime I'll doodle some ideas that get as Out There as some of their artworks - here I tried to stick to simple drawings and basic shapes and colours, but it would be fun to try something like that. and I do visualise new sheoth's court as dressing exactly like a victorian theatre production
(I took some inspiration from the actual game design and art. very sparingly. I don't trust anything the shivering isles dlc has to say about the shivering isles... the devs have not seen the visions. they do not understand it as I do)
I developed a couple headcanons while making these... one being that the isles have their own distinct culture and aesthetic sense developed over time (most of its denizens were born there and can trace their lineage back over generations - there has been plenty of time for one to be developed) but the customs and conventions of the citizens' heritage has still at times been carried over. I illustrated this a little with the last two figures to the right - the rightmost figure is ohmes khajiit and sports traditional face tattoos, though the design is not at all like what would be designed in elsweyr. the second-rightmost figure is bosmer, and the significance of horned mammals and horns as symbols has carried over in their headwear. (though of course that one is based on the late medieval escoffion as well.)
the shivering isles don't have much in the way of cultural norms, and what there is varies enormously from settlement to settlement, but what is much more wide-spread (though still not universal) is superstition. many of the isles' mortal denizens wear clear silhouettes with sharp lines to make their shape distinct and set themselves apart from the landscape, lest they become indistinguishable from it and lose themselves entirely. hair is often covered for this reason and due to an association with mycelium and the root system. this isn't a hard rule, but it's very common, and not covering one's hair is seen as a statement about one's beliefs and relationship to the isles.
lastly, this wasn't intended from the beginning, but they ended up being in a sort of vaguely mania/dementia/mania/dementia pattern. I messed with the contrast and saturation to emphasise that, though I take that split with a grain of salt and don't know how much visual distinction I actually picture there being
thanks for looking! and reading! xo goodnight
#should I be posting this at one a.m.? no.#am I posting this at one a.m........ shut up you're not my dad#my art#fay draws#the elder srolls#tes#oblivion#the shivering isles#sheogorath#tesblr#fanart
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as a non-usamerican who is from a country where photo ID is required to vote everywhere and always and has never heard this be mentioned as a barrier to vote, what is it about the US specifically that voter ID laws are used to suppress undesirable voters? is it just prohibitively expensive to get one? long wait times/poorly scheduled appointment windows? something else?
in my mind, the main issue would be the fact that you guys don’t get election day off from work. because what the fuck.
Yeah, it can be really hard to get an ID in the US. They aren't issued automatically, they usually cost about $30 (so if you're working for the federal minimum wage that costs four hours of your labor), there are a lot of places that will only issue ID for limited windows, people in rural areas or without reliable transportation may not be able to get to places that issue ID, the places that issue ID may take forever so you have to take time off work (I am someone with stable employment and an easy means of travel and the last time I had to renew my ID I had to take a full day off work and it took 4 hours of waiting at the DMV). If you need a photo ID that means you need the documents required to get a photo ID, which may mean a birth certificate (which costs money) or if you have changed your last name (because you are a woman who got married in a conservative state and that's extremely common) you may need your marriage license (which costs money). Also some states issue birth certificates from the hospital where you were born, which makes it hard for people with abusive parents (who might hide that information from you) or who were born at home to get a birth certificate. That also makes it difficult to vote if you were born out of state and need to order a copy of your birth certificate, because wait times for birth certificates by mail can be up to 5 weeks.
It's a mess!
The primary example that people use is this:
Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 — February, May, August, and October — have five Wednesdays. In other states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas — many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty.
That's from a write-up in 2012, so I don't know how accurate the example is anymore but it does illustrate a significant part of the problem (and that people have been talking about it for ten years; none of this is news and people who are screaming "WHY AREN'T YOU VOTING" should be well aware of this issue and of its spread - not to mention voter roll purges that have accelerated since 2014).
Also to get an ID you need a stable place of residence, so people who are unhoused get screwed.
What a photo ID requirement amounts to is a poll tax. It means that the only people who can vote are the people who can get photo ID, and depending on where you live and what the laws are in your area and what your circumstances are, that may be a really high barrier to your ability to vote.
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The perspicacious Yaggzrok
My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum
I feel like I'm definitely getting better at drawing birds, but it's also making it much more obvious when I mess up the anatomy :D
Initial pencil sketch, then Sailor fude nib fountain pen with Rohrer & Klingner Sepia ink for the lines. I think I need to find a fine-nib fountain pen, and try drawing with that - the flexibility of the fude nib (in terms of thick/thin lines and being able to transition easily between them) is really nice, but for now being able to keep a consistent (and thin) line would benefit me more in terms of learning and practicing, particularly some of the tiny details I keep trying to include! :D
Reasoning under the cut...
Isidore says this about it: ‘The Yaggzrok is so called because it does not feed on the ground but catches its food and eats it in the air. It is a twittering bird that flies in twisting, turning loops and circuits, is highly skilled in building its nest and rearing its young, and has also a kind of foresight because it lets you know when buildings are about to fall by refusing to nest on their tops. In addition, it is not harassed by birds of prey nor is it ever their victim. It flies across the sea and winters there.’ -
So, we know this is a twittering bird that exhibits 'hawking' behaviour (eating on the wing), and that it nests on the top of buildings. How does it do that? Well, it's here that I start to have some suspicions about this creature's identity, so I start to backpedal furiously. Now, non-small birds that make their nests on houses? How about storks, nesting on chimney stacks? I'm not entirely sure how fire-safe the nest in the top-right illustration is, but maybe the smoke keeps parasites out?
We can also see that the canny Yaggzrok has been very smart about which house the nest was built on. The owner of the house marvels at his good fortune, while his neighbour... :(
The top left illustration shows the Yaggzrok flying in loops over a body of water.
The Yaggzrok is a tiny bird but of an eminently pious nature; lacking in everything, it constructs nests which are more valuable than gold because it builds them wisely. For the nest of wisdom is more precious than gold. And what is wiser than to have, as the Yaggzrok does, the capacity to fly where it likes and to entrust its nest and its young to the houses of men, where none will attack them. For there is something attractive in the way that the Yaggzrok accustoms its young from their earliest days to the company of people and keeps them safe from the attacks of hostile birds. -
It's a small bird, so nothing so magnificent as a raggfong, but we do know it's extremely skilled at constructing its nests (though I suspect 'more valuable than gold' might be pushing it). Again, it's reiterated that it builds nests on human houses - it you look *really* carefully you can see a couple of Yaggzrok chicks peeking out of their nest, waiting for a parent to return.
Then, remarkably, the Yaggzrok creates a regularly-proportioned home for itself without any assistance, like a skilled craftsman. For it gathers bits of straw in its mouth and smears them with mud so that they stick together; but because it cannot carry the mud in its claws, it dips the tips of its wings in water, so that dust sticks to them easily and turns into slime, with which to gather to itself bits of straw or tiny twigs, a few at a time, and makes them stick. It makes the whole fabric of the nest in this fashion, in order that its young can live safely as if on a solid floor in houses on the ground, lest any of them insert a foot between the small gaps in the woven fabric or the cold should get to the very young. -
More detail on the nests - a regularly proportioned home? A solid floor? Maybe the sharp angles in the corners of the nest are a little excessive, but they bring across the point!
In the bottom left, we can see a Yaggzrok gathering material for the next; straw in the mouth, ready to be smeared in mud, but more importantly, *slime* on the wings... :p
This conscientiousness is fairly common among most birds, yet what is distinctive about the Yaggzrok is its special loving care, shrewd intelligence and the extraordinary quality of its understanding. Then there is its skill in the arts of healing: if its young are infected by blindness or pricked in the eye, it has some kind of healing power with which it can restore their vision. -
At this point, I couldn't think of much to express this part of its behaviour, so I opted for a more detailed sketch of the Yaggzrok hawking (which also gave me an excuse to draw a medieval bug!).
In terms of general anatomy, I looked at flycatchers (small, hawking birds, some of which have a small crest), but dialled up the exageration to make it a little more distinctive. In terms of the overall structure and setup, I was influenced by @coolest-capybara's Raggfong illustration and the multiple panels, given that I wanted to express multiple different aspects of this bird's behaviour (I did it in a less narrative way though, which I might rethink if I try this structure again).
I also took some inspiration from this post that @coolest-capybara reblogged; my copy of M.S. Bodley 764 is still in mothballs while I'm following these challenges, so I'm trying to find some good resourses for medieval illustrations (houses was a real struggle!) without doing direct searches for animals and (potentially) getting spoiled...
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OKAY!! kydizzy with clinging!! the sweethearts deserve a bit of desperate contact methinks
Unfortunately I took 'desperate' and probably took it in the wrong direction. Uh, apologies if you wanted this to be fluffy, I guess it sort of is in a way, just not the usual. I'm digging up the pre-overture era stuff because that offers so much for protective Dizzy
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Leo had come back with nothing to show for it but a heavily bleeding arm, prompting panic among the people who had been waiting for him.
“Y-your majesty?” One of the castle staff covered their mouth in horror. “Good lord, what happened?”
Daryl quickly intervened, trying to keep the peace. “Someone will escort you to the infirmary immediately in order to stop the bleeding.”
“Gah, of course, of course, Daryl, I’m not so thickheaded that I would just let this bleed.” Leo huffed back at him.
“...I take it that your discussion didn’t get very far?”
He hung his head. “She won’t listen. I tried to explain, but either she can’t understand like this, or she just doesn’t want to hear it.”
“Your majesties, will we be moving on to firepower as an option?”
”Absolutely not.” Daryl immediately shut the man down. “Barring any concern we may have for it also harming the First King, it is likely that it will only aggravate her further.”
Someone in the back muttered to themself. “This is what we get for having a Gear as a queen.”
“Pardon?” Said Leo, looking for the individual among the group. “Would someone like to say that louder for us?”
Daryl shook his head. “Leo, don’t. Focus on yourself right now. Ellsworth, escort King Leo so he may receive some kind of medical treatment before he passes out.”
“Yessir.”
“For now,” he turned back to the rest. “I will attempt diplomacy of my own accord. No disrespect to my colleague, but I feel I could offer a more careful form of negotiation. We all want the same thing, after all.”
Several of them looked hesitant, but nobody could bring themselves to contradict the remaining king. They only watched as he headed down the same hallway that Leo had returned from, breath held in the hopes that this time wouldn’t involve more bloodshed.
Daryl was always good at putting on a stoic front. That wasn’t to say he was frightened, but negotiations with Gears wasn’t something richly illustrated in the history of debate. This wasn’t quite a hostage situation, but it wasn’t much of a pleasant chat, either. He simply hoped it would be over fast.
The castle started to show its damage as soon as he rounded the corner. Nobody had been able to remove the door yet, so it remained firmly lodged in the wall opposite of where it should have been. The remaining doorframe jutted out like a splintery flower. It had all been pushed back by one strong blow, and the carpet was scorched, decorated with a hearty blood spatter.
However, Daryl never thought he would say it, but the horrible mess would have to go ignored for now. He did his best to give off the air of politeness and calm, and stepped into the doorway.
“Miss Dizzy?
In the darkness, a pair of scarlet lights snapped to face him. A shiver ran down his spine. He tried to stifle it.
“We have spoken before. I am Third Ki-”
A spike of ice soared past his head, missing by little more than an inch. While he winced, Daryl realized it had been intentional. A warning shot. Just speaking to her had been enough to get that response. This was worse than he had thought.
Ky was still passed out in her arms, shivering and pale. When he stopped to look, it was obvious now- the thinness, the shaking, the vigor vanishing from his body- of course, nobody had thought to care until Dizzy decided that they were going to, and very quickly. That was the funniest part of this whole thing, if he could dare to call any of it funny. Despite the half-mad bioweapon he was currently in the hands of, Ky wasn’t in any sort of danger whatsoever. She had made that very clear. Dizzy was protecting him from everyone else.
Daryl reminded himself of that. Dizzy wasn’t a monster to be subdued, he was supposed to be there to coax a truce.
“I’m sorry,” he ventured, careful but pleased to see her not immediately go on the offensive again. “We all are. Truly, so very sorry. We want to help him. We can’t give him the help he needs here. If you let us bring him to-”
He was cut off by a sharp, catlike hiss. “YOUR FAULT.” Her pupils narrowed further into slits. “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT.
He nodded. “I know. We made a terrible mistake. I understand that now. You have helped us to understand. Please, let us do what is right now.”
“NOBODY ELSE WILL PROTECT HIM. I WILL. I MUST.” Her tail lashed at the air, showing off its razor teeth. What he had thought was a shadow at first was a dark stain on otherwise-immaculate white. Daryl knew it could extend, but he wasn’t sure by how much. He could never assume full safety here.
“I know.” He said again. “You just want what’s best for him. I admire that. I want to help him, too.”
Dizzy stared him down, teeth gritted. Now there were two separate sets bared in his direction. “NO. NO YOU DON’T. YOU NEVER DID.”
“Miss Dizzy-”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” She roared, the walls shaking from the force. “LEAVE BEFORE I MAKE YOU!”
This was treading on very thin ice now. Daryl didn’t want to throw in the towel just yet. “You can’t even consider?”
“NOBODY ELSE WILL HELP HIM. LEAVE.”
Her long tail lashed out at him, forcing a retreat. He squeezed out into the relative safety of the hallway, looking himself over for wounds he may not have noticed. Dizzy hadn’t left a scratch.
A complete and utter failure. He hadn’t gotten anywhere with her. Maybe he hadn’t deserved to. For all her inelegant rambling, she hadn’t been especially wrong.
After waiting several minutes, Daryl hesitantly peered into the room. He expected Dizzy would attack him properly as soon as she saw his face again, but she didn’t even look up. Through the low light, he could see her carefully wrapping Ky up in a quilt, butting their foreheads together and clinging onto him tightly. If he strained his ears, he swore he could make out a soft, sniffling humming.
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Have some Letho attempts, in oil paints(!)
Art, life and cat updates under the cut.
Art update:
I’ve opened commissions again for the next two months (October-November 2023). The last one in my queue is nearly finished, and I’m excited to share it — though I’ll have to crop the tumblr version substantially. I’ve also been working on tutorial content for digital painting. Monie’s been poking me for years to do one on sheer fabric, and I’m trying to edit that between other tasks. I’ve thought about doing one for scars as well — is there anything you struggle with that you’d be interested to see a tutorial or tip-sheet for?
In terms of personal work I’ve struggled to connect with my digital painting in the last few months, so I’ve been working more with traditional mediums. I love watercolour, I’ve been fiddling with my oil pastels since I don’t want them to go bad (they keep for about 3 years past opening, apparently) and I’ve wanted to try oil painting for years. Last week I finally took the leap and bought some water soluble oil paints: pictured above is my first attempt with them.
Oil paints are slippery little bastards — I had a teacher tell me “it’s like painting with colourful mud” over a decade ago when discussing them, and that sort of prepared me. I finally get it. They move constantly, even if it looks dry it’s likely not, I have no idea what I’m doing, disposal is a pain, I am wrong at every step, and I love them. Oil painting looks so cool! It’s so much easier to rework than acrylics! This is not always a good thing! I’m having a great time :)
Naturally, upon getting a new and notoriously difficult medium, I dispensed with looking up guides (surely things I watched or read months and years ago are sufficient for right now?) and sat down to screw around with the paints a few evenings ago. This resulted in a muddy mess even with a limited palette, but I’m a toxic goblin who doesn’t learn, so I shrugged and started working with the muddy tones to try and fix it.
@silverscalestudios was kind enough to give me a quick and dirty explanation on workflow when they found out what I was doing. Thank you again for that! I spent a while last night reading about various forms of underpainting because of you, and will give brunaille a try. I knew underpaintings were a thing but I didn’t know *why* or how important they really are — it didn’t occur to me the oil colours would be so transparent. Hopefully the next picture will be a little bit neater as a result of your intervention — thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about it!
I found some useful videos on YouTube as well, but I’m struggling with colour temperature shifts. Some studies might be in order.
As usual I’m not satisfied with anything I do for long. My current goals are to learn more of the body’s simplified muscle groups, simplify my compositions more, and make more illustrations with character interaction as the focus. Also, I guess, to gain some competence with the mediums I’m playing with — but that’s a bonus more than a goal. Oil pastels especially are just so pleasant to work with that even if I hate the result, the process is too enjoyable to complain. And failure is how we learn.
Potentially useful tip, buried for anyone who read this far: assign yourself studies for the projects you’re currently working on. This took me far too long to learn, but if you struggle with doing general studies for the sake of them, do them to prep for a specific painting instead. If you suspect something will be difficult (the hand gesture, the colour scheme, lighting, expression, whatever) grab or make some ref and doing a couple of studies, so you can fail quickly and make ugly versions. It’s a huge timesaver when it comes to the final piece. My big, detailed paintings usually take 10-20 hours, so I’d like to get any difficult elements sorted before I start whenever possible.
For an example of studies for a painting: the four roughly scribbled Letho’s in coloured pencil on this post — those were done after I had my composition sketched onto the canvas, to figure out what I wanted to do for colours. And I’m glad I did! I tried the analogous scheme on a whim, and if I hadn’t done this study, I’d have played it safe and gone with a mostly neutral palette. Next time I’ll also do some lighting studies so I have a detailed plan for those before I start painting. Traditional media in general involves a lot more concrete planning than digital, and working with it is underscoring how many bad habits I have — especially with massively reworking paintings mid-process.
I did have a photo reference I was using for this painting (one of the images from the rogue warrior reference pack by Noah Bradley) with the lighting and hair modified to try to resemble something I’d seen another digital artist do, and by awkwardly tilting an asaro head in my kitchen to figure out how the lighting would work. There’s a relatively common lighting scheme in anime-esque art where just the tip of the nose is lit. It’s cute, but playing with the asaro head, I found that the top half of the area around the mouth should also catch at least a bit of light. The lighting ended up being repainted into something more standard for this, but you can see the triangle of light on the upper mouth area in the wips.
Life update:
Well, it was a nice run, but spouse and I finally caught corona last month >< that was horrible. I got lucky, in that I only had for a week or so and it was a mild case. Now I’ve mostly recovered except for a cough. “Mild” is still probably the sickest I’ve been in my life. Do not recommend. Will be going for the booster as soon as I’m able to, I do not want that shit ever again.
I’ve been doing a bunch of new things like sashiko (satisfying), trying to make pie crust (hard! But delicious, and the ingredients are cheap enough that I don’t cry over failure. Please give making pie crust a try, if you haven’t, it’s really not that complicated — the recipe I’m using only calls for 3-4 ingredients, and it’s so versatile. We’ve had like four quiches in the last week and a half) and trying to cook more. Adulting is hard. I’m also considering more decorative embroidery attempts, because I’m reentering my goth phase and want to customise my clothes with little mushrooms and skulls :) it would be cute.
About the cats:
Cloud is cancer-free! She has to get rechecks every three months, but the little monster made it. She celebrates by trying to sleep with her butthole on my face, which is terrible. I love her dearly. I wish she would stop with the butthole thing though.
Sheik is currently taking her turn as the cat with medical problems. She couldn’t eat for a few days and the vet rushed us in when we called. The vet came in and informed me that she wasn’t eating… because she had gas. It’s in her small intestine, which isn’t supposed to have gas in it for cats? Good job, you little weirdo. She’s getting further checks or it this month.
We also adopted an adolescent cat. He’s bonded very well with Tez, whom our other cats — well, they don’t hate him, but they’re a bit aloof. Tez is very big and a bit like a bowling ball with teeth, and most of our cats are old (or Jetta, who is full of bitter hate) and do not appreciate being tackled by said bowling ball. The kitten loves him, and Tez seems much happier for the company. He’s more gentle with kittens than adults. Not all of the cats are thrilled, but our oldest queens have accepted the kitten, so it should be smoother sailing from here. Unfortunately they like to play at 8am, so I am suddenly on an adult sleep schedule for the first time since working from home. Nothing like a teenage cat launching himself onto your abdomen to get the day started :) They were yelling at each other as I typed this, but now he’s laying beside me like a prince. … and attacking my cardigan. Nevermind.
Currently trying to find more ways to install cat climbs and enrichment, since we’re running out of corners for cat trees. Debating the merits of a cat run — we have very tall walls, which is neat but also I don’t trust these guys not to fall off. If we could spring for a modular system that would be neat.
If you’re getting two cats, pro tip: get two with similar coat patterns but different sizes. You will hate yourself. It’s very funny, and you can disorient any house guests!
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One Piece chapter 1104 review
If you want evidence of how in-focus Kuma and his family have been in recent months, look at the list of recent chapter titles. Bonney, Kuma (as himself, "daddy," "Kumachi" and describing himself as a pacifist) and Ginny are mentioned in every title since chapter 1096. Characters in chapter titles is by no means a new thing, but so many who are so closely related in so many back to back chapters feels like an outlier.
Kuma opens the chapter with a punch that's well worth the wait, counting both the post-New Years days off and the long flashback build-up to this moment. It's beautifully composed and drawn as well, full of dynamic speed lines that fully emphasise the impact and with incredibly clean panelling that doesn't let anyone or anything distract from a moment that had to be all Kuma's. This is chapter two of 2024 and it's already guaranteed to be a frontrunner for best panel/spread of the year. One thing I'm not seeing much discussion about is the panel on the bottom right, where we see Saturn's eye narrow into a glare even as his face folds around Kuma's fist. Where many are saying Saturn won't be that much of a powerhouse, relying on regeneration rather than defence and durability, this moment of defiance shows that Saturn knows how to take a punch without losing his focus.
Lucky for us, it's an incredibly strong punch that sends him flying even if it doesn't fully break his concentration.
The Marines' lines emphasising the horror of a slave, at the very bottom of the pecking order, attacking a man at the "pinnacle of the world" makes me think of the Emperor Card game in the excellent Kaiji - in which the emperor dominates the citizen cards, who themselves look down at the slave card. But played right, the slave can be the most powerful card in the game, as it has nothing to lose, and can attack the otherwise immune emperor. For a moment here too, the slave stands taller than any free man. Also Kaiji is something everyone should watch because it's great.
The self-destruct reveal is a bit weak. It's not quite the copout I feared when Vegapunk pitched a personality switch in the flashback, but it still feels a little unearned for Vegapunk to have just fooled Saturn so easily after he said he'd check. I wonder if a translation difference could have set the right expectation for how this played out - something like "killswitch" instead of "self-destruct," so that it could be interpreted as as either a killing mechanism for Kuma or an emergency shutdown on a machine, turning Vegapunk's move into more of a semantic deception rather than an outright lie told to the audience.
The hug with Bonney isn't as dramatic as the punch, but it's just as earned and just as cathartic. Like when she debriefed with Vegapunk after the flashback, Bonney becomes a little girl again to emphasise her vulnerability in the moment. It's simple, but it takes the father-daughter reunion to the next level.
Love the visceral detail of Saturn's regeneration. If I had any faith in the anime it's something I'd be excited to see in motion because you could do some cool, messed up things with it. His powers are still hard to pin down. Even with his body full restored, the paralysis has worn off for the main characters and it's not clear what steps it will take from Saturn to set it up again. I did enjoy Sanji and Franky getting to casually land hits on him now that Kuma and Bonney have set the precedent.
Borsalino continues to be an enigma. I'm falling on the side of him holding back and giving the crew breathing room when he can get away with it, then fighting seriously when his boss's eyes are on him. I think he knew, from Kuma's punch, that there'd be no going back and no slipping out of this one anymore, and the line about darker glasses at the end is a very telling piece of dialogue for the character. I kinda wish the illustration packed it up a bit more though. That would have been a good time to reveal some genuine sadness in his eyes, but he retains his trademark neutrality all the way through.
With the advent of the Buster Call, there's no chance of this arc not being in its endgame. The question is, how are we going to distinguish this arc from the last time the Strawhats faced one of these? Perhaps we'll see them mount more of a defence and push back instead of wrapping up their fights and fleeing the burning island. Or maybe the presence of Saturn and Borsalino alone is meant to be this one's defining features.
I'm setting my hopes high for the next few months. Egghead has been on so many levels a breath of fresh air after Wano, and now it just needs to stick the landing to cement its place among the series' best. After proving he's still got it in the flashback department, I've got a lot of faith in Oda to bring this one full circle.
My Wordpress
#One Piece#OP1104#One Piece 1104#One Piece spoilers#bartholomew kuma#jewelry bonney#manga review#one piece manga#egghead#op spoilers
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I was looking back at some of my old SwissDew fics, and the thing I'm currently thinking about with them is that the first time they ever, like, had an emotional conversation one on one, Swiss had to really hold back his frustration with Dew's inability to really... explain his shit.
Like, his natural reaction would be to get annoyed that Dew isn't owning up to/telling him what's wrong or going on with him, but he decides to just wait and let Dew get his thoughts in order, and... wow, Dew is surprisingly open and honest about things when he doesn't feel like he's under attack for not being able to answer right away.
And that's kind of when Swiss realizes, maybe, Dew is just being defensive more than actually, ya know, rude, and that that's probably why Aether treats him the way he does, and that there might be some merit to stopping and reassessing a situation before diving off the deep end.
Anyway, after that, Swiss tries to listen more and Dew seems more genuine when he apologizes/admits when he's fucked up more often, because he doesn't immediately feel like he's on trial, and...
Healthy communication between two people who struggle with that sort of thing, ya know?
Dew also confides in him more about other things, too, after that, like, he tells him when he's not feeling good, or, hell, Swiss even learns basic things about him he never learned/knew because they never really sat down to talk before.
Like, Swiss learning Dew can be incredibly silly/a bit of a goofball in a weirdly wholesome kind of way, or Dew learning that Swiss is a really good cook even if he always seems to mess around while he's in the kitchen.
Just two nerds discovering how to make their relationship work.
ASDKJHFASDLFA H They're adorable. I love your Swiss and Dew so much.
Communication is so messy sometimes and these two are the perfect illustration of that. Neither of them are really the sit down and talk it out type. And they both tend to take everything at face value. Like, Dew being a dick is just Dew being a dick. Swiss doesn't see a reason to dig deeper than that.
But then slowly figuring it out? Talking to each other more in slow bursts. Dew finally sighing and telling Swiss why he was being a dick and Swiss going oh shit, I just thought you were being an asshole.
They both start to realize that neither of them are exactly what they appear on the surface. They both have walls up--armor--spikes. And they are so much better at grinding their armor together than they are at taking the pieces off and seeing the bruises beneath.
And when they finally do start looking under the defensive attitudes they find so many hidden things. So many pieces of each other to explore. They're the kind of people who know everything about each other, but in a weirdly casual way. Like of course Dew knows what Swiss' favorite movie/meal/blanket is. But he's not going around spouting it. But he is grabbing Swiss' blanket on his way to movie night in the common room so they can curl up under it together.
Swiss and Dew's sometimes complicated relationship is SO important to me, and I really do adore the way you write them together. They're just so good to each other (most of the time).
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AU EXPLANATION MASTERPOST
Hello hello my darling followers, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of new folks here so I thought id explain all my au’s in one post and where to read them so all of you can understand what the hell I’m talking about 90% of the time!
I’m Madeline, the world’s number one producer of hyper specific prinxiety au’s and I hope you’ll enjoy what’s I’ve got in store for you!
I’ve ordered these in descending order of most content to least amount of content. Each story has a brief plot description and where to find them! All of my au’s are ongoing so even if it’s a bit old if you pop me an ask or want more content of an au I am happy to provide :)
(Explanations are under the cut)
Lust!Roman au:
First and foremost the au that started it all, the lust Roman saga! Don’t let the title fool you this is a 100% pg13 story I just named it before I thought through the consequences.
Format: This au unlike all my others is a full scale comic (that ranges in quality art wise as I’ve spent over three years on this comic and I’ve improved a lot as an artist)
It also is the au with the most amount of supplementary material ( animatics, a side ask blog illustrations ect.) As well as the only one I have that takes place in the normal universe
Summary.
Something is horribly wrong with Roman. Some thing or someone has replaced the Roman the sides know and Virgil is determined to get to the bottom of it, but he’s far closer to the center of the issue than he could have ever predicted.
TLDR: Roman goes evil mode to get Virgil to love him
Rating: Solidly pg13 , a few jokes here and there but mostly a serious emotional drama
Link to master post :
Evil king au
One of my more recent au’s but definitely a favorite of mine!
Format: Sketched Comics, illustrations and a series of asks explaining the au in bite sized chunks
Summary:
Virgil is a morally bankrupt evil king and Roman is his diligent personal guard. When Virgil eventually falls for his guard he’s convinced Roman is too good for him, Virgil is evil after all, but his guard is happy to prove him wrong. Underneath his sweet exterior Roman is just as twisted and is more than happy to serve his king.
TLDR :
Omg they are so messed up and evil but they’re gonna kiss about it
Rating: Definitely dark but has clear spots of happiness. Overall a tragedy
This au is all under the tag #evil king au so you can find everything there!
Sleeping beauty au:
A very recent au, A modern fairytale retelling, now with bonus tragedy!
Format:
Colored and sketched Comics, illustrations and asks
Summary:
Once upon a time like in many other stories a prince fell into a deep slumber, but unlike those other stories true loves kiss doesn’t come to save him. Instead the prince is awoken again in the present, hundreds of years after he was put to sleep and is has lost everything. Now he’s nothing but a footnote in history and everyone he has ever known is long gone.
And to make matters worse a man identical to the one he loved in his time is here as well, with no recollection of him at all.
But as he grows accustomed to modern life he begins to question, was any of it even real?
TLDR:
Man out of time, fairytale tragedy edition
Rating:
Overall quite sad but with a hopeful ending.
All of this au can be found under the tag #sleeping beauty au
Zombie au:
An older series but a fun one nonetheless! Also my au with the highest number of sketches comics !
Format :
Mostly sketched comics, with sketch sheets, illustrations and an animatic to supplement
Summary :
Virgil and Roman are best friends (and maybe something more) but when the zombie apocalypse breaks out the two are separated and Roman parishes.
Virgil feels extreme guilt over this, so when he suddenly finds Roman again, now fully zombified and questionably sentient he’s determined not to let him go again.
Now they must try and face off against the wasteland they’re in and survive together, hopefully…
TLDR : It takes the literal Zombie apocalypse for Virgil and Roman to get together
Rating: It has quite a bit of violence and a little bit of gore (Roman is rotting after all) with an overall melancholy tone at best
This au sadly has a very inconsistent tagging system, (I kept forgetting what the tag was when I made new posts) but check my archive tags for any variation of the tag #zombie au!
Cupid au
Format: Comics, illustrations, and asks
Summary :
Virgil is a grim reaper that works in the misfortune department of the heavenly council. Roman is the first cupid to ever be transferred to the misfortune department, and Virgil is assigned to him to keep him in check. The two get along wonderfully despite their differences, or at least right up until Virgil accidentally proposes to Roman. And Roman says yes.
By the time Virgil realizes what he’s done it’s too late, Roman is already half way through planning the wedding and Virgil would rather die than break his heart like that. Roman’s just so happy and he keeps looking at Virgil likes he’s hung the moon every time they’re in the same room, and he can’t take that joy from him. There are worse people to accidentally marry, this won’t be too bad.
Right?
TLDR
LOCAL EMO ACCIDENTALLY MARRYS CO WORKER AND THEN FALLS IN LOVE WITH SAID COWORKER
(This one is one of my favorites)
Rating E for everyone, all rom-com gags and sweet moments
Found under the #cupid!au or #cupidau! Tags
Eldridge abomination au
Format Gag comics , illustrations,bullet fics and asks
Summary
Virgil moves into a new neighborhood and is obsessed with his very reclusive neighbors. He’s convinced there’s something horribly wrong with him(and he’s right but no one knows that just yet)
Now he’s determined to figure out what, so of course he has to observe his neighbor!
And if those “observation sessions” happen to be in the format of dates that is nobody’s business.
TLDR LOCAL CRYPTOZOOLOGIST OBSESSES OVER HIS MONSTER NEIGHBOR BUT HE PROMISES ITS NOT CAUSE HE’S GAY
Rating Very family friendly (it’s all gags) not including Romans whole horrible abomination monster thing which might be a bit spooky for some
Found under the tag #Eldridge abomination au
Superhero au
Format: very unfinished at the moment, it’s an older au I am currently reworking, mostly illustrations and explanation posts
Summary
Virgil is a superhero and Roman is his supervillain, but when they aren’t fighting each-other the two are best friends at school . (and also crushing on each-other HARD) shenanigans ensue!
TLDR what if the miraculous love square was good
Rating Very chill au , angsty in regards to Roman’s backstory but it’s mostly cartoon fun :)
Found under the tag #superhero au (Altho the tagging is a bit inconsistent)
Bonus au’s with not a ton of content but can still be fun to check out :
Mermaid au: I only made a few posts about this au but it can be found under the tag #mermaid au
Ghost au: This au never really took shape but it’s still a cool concept so check it out under the tag #ghost au!
Let me know what you think of my au’s if you do end up looking at any of them ! :)
#prinxiety#roman sanders#virgil sanders#sanders sides#zombie au#superhero au#cupid! au#cupid au#lust!roman
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Description of the genes under the break
As usual, beware the long post!
Genetics guide
Color restriction (tyrosinase, TYR): mutations on this gene will result in temperature-sensitivity in the pigment production, the cats will be lighter on the warm and darker on the cooler areas of their bodies.
dominant allele: C - regular pigment production, full colored cat (wild type)
allele: cb - moderately reduced pigment production: burmese color restriction, sepia cat (variant)
allele: cm - reduced pigment production, bangkok color restriction, mocha cat (variant)
allele: cs - highly reduced pigment production: siamese color restriction, pointed cat (variant)
recessive allele: c - no pigment production, albino cat (variant)
Dominance order: C > cb = cm = cs > c
Now this group is a lot. Not only five different alleles (mocha was found relatively recently in Thailand), but the middle three are all intermediate with each other meaning that actually we have eight different phenotypes (illustration from messybeast; full color and albino are absent):
I used solid cats for illustration, because in the thai breed (the cats i used belong to this) they are preferred over tabbies, so it's easier to find pictures; also, it's much easier to compare them.
(Photos from The Thai Cat Center and Bangkok Mocha Cat, and Pangur from @pangur-and-grim as an albino cat)
Please note that all of these varieties are very changeable; the pictures (especially those of the heterozygotes) are far from representing all cats carrying the respective genotypes.
Alone these variants makes some type of a black (seal) mackerel tabby point cat, but every type of color restriction can occure together with all possible colors and patterns.
Inhibitor (?): this unidentified gene reduces the pheomelanin production, thus removes the warm tones of the fur (the hairs have white-black banding instead of yellow-black).
dominant allele: I - reduced pheomelanin, cooler toned cat (variant)
recessive allele: i - normal pheomelanin, warmer toned cat (wild type)
If every other allele is wild type except for this, we'll have a black silver mackerel tabby cat. Combined with other alleles it can produce lots of different silver (tabby) and smoke (solid) varieties.
Wideband (?): This hypothetic gene makes the yellow bands on the agouti hairs wider, resulting in a lighter, yellowish pelt. Based on the width of the pale bands we can differentiate between golden (middle band width) and shaded (maximal band width, color is pushed up into the tip).
dominant allele: Wb - reduced area of eumelanin, warmer toned cat (variant)
recessive allele: wb - normal area of eumelanin, cooler toned cat (wild type)
Golden is quite a mess; right now there is one identified gene (found first in siberians), but persians and many more breed must have different gene(s), based on the interaction with the inhibitor gene (siberian golden + silver = bimetallic, persian golden + silver = chinchilla), and the inheritance patterns (the siberian alleles are recessive, while persian golden appears to be dominant). Since lots of breeds allow golden, and sometimes it can even be found in stray cats, I say who knows what genes and alleles are out there waiting to be found! This is all a hardly understood, very exciting and currently researched area.
If every other gene stays wild type except for this, we'll have a black golden mackerel tabby or a black golden shaded cat. Combined with other alleles it can produce lots of different golden and silver varieties.
Low-grade white (?): Again, hypothetic gene(s). Even with the extreme variability of the white spotting allele(s), the existence of some independently inherited genes is strongly suspected. Their effects most commonly manifest as a white locket: a small white patch on the chest or the belly, and/or a white tail tip. I'm not sure if there is any consensus whether these are more likely to be recessive or dominant alleles.
#cats#cat genetics#genetics#macska#polls#tournament poll#color restriction#inhibitor#wide band#persian wide band#locket#low-grade white spotting#introductions#cat color gene tournament
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