reindeer tale by Aksenova Natalia

Winter Tale by Serhiy Otroshchenko, 1960s

(My app is being weird with asks so answering like this instead @neongreenllama @lynxindisguise )

Hello thank you both!! <3

Winter tale is a “small” thing I first thought about in November. I wanted to make something to post during December, leading up to Midwinter - which I obviously didn’t because 1) I still barely got any words out when trying to write, and 2) I realised that even if I could write this small tale in time, half the point of it was also illustrating it. And yeah, I’m too slow for that. I’m not actively working on this, but I do love it so we’ll see! 

The vibe that inspired it is long winter nights in an old forest covered in snow and sparkling with magic beneath a starlit sky. The story idea is based around Scandinavian folklore about werewolves, mainly that they turn every night, not only during the full moon, and the curse can be broken by someone calling them by their (christian) name while they’re transformed.

Snippet:

What’s your name? 

Silence, a bowed head, eyes on the grass between his fingers. I don’t know. I don’t remember. 

Don’t people call you anything?

A wry smile in the corner of his lips, where one scar stretches. Lots of things. Nothing quite right for a name, though. 

Sirius frowns, and the boy looks back at him from under long lashes, head tilted slightly to the side. You really don’t know? He asks it with a small voice giving away his uncertainty, and maybe also the slightest glimmer of hope.

The story is that Sirius is a witch apprentice to his mother, but doesn’t want to follow in her footsteps (needless to say, she disapproves of this). One morning when he avoids his duties by sneaking out into the nearby forest, he stumbles upon a wounded boy. The boy is scared, quiet, and doesn’t remember his own name. As Sirius keeps finding him the same way each morning, always taking care of him as much as he’s allowed, the boy eventually tells him he’s a werewolf. The village isn’t safe for him because everyone knows about him and would shoot the wolf on sight, and while he can’t remember his life before the wolf, he has a vague sense of home somewhere on the other side of the forest. He has tried many times to head there, but the wolf always returns to this village.

As autumn shifts into winter, and the nights grow longer, Sirius runs away from home, to follow Moony through the dark and mysterious forest. Hoping to find family on the other side, able to tell who he is, before Midwinter marks the night he will be turned to a wolf for good.

Send me WIP asks!

Ferdynand Ruszczyc (1870-1936, Polish) ~ Winter Tale, 1904

[Source: mnk.pl]

In his daydreams, Will even imagined having successfully persuaded Nico to go ice skating. Both hand in hand, smoothly sliding across the frozen water.

No sea salt

I used to put sea salt in my hot chocolate, it enhances the flavour, makes the other spices more present. Actually, I used to put lots of weird things in my hot chocolate. For science, for the shits and giggles, you know? People limit themselves to cinnamon, marshmallow, ginger and sugar, but they just lack imagination, any condiment one can find in a kitchen can and should end up in a steaming cup of hot chocolate, even just once. You name it: cardamon, curry, tabasco, corn starch (for the texture), garlic, soy sauce, maple syrup. It’s like that Forrest Gump quote, but liquid and hot. Since that day, though, I don’t use sea salt anymore. It was a pale winter’s day, one for the tales, had it not been a work day. The sky was empty and the sun timidly shone above the roof, not quite enough to warm your skin, but enough to make you squint your eyes. I was on my way to work, muttering in my scarf about the warmth of my bed and the failure of capitalism that had me out of it in winter, my left hand out of my pocket only to hold the only redeeming factor of this wretched situation: a thermos full of liquid happiness, with three drops of tabasco to help with my runny nose and a few grains of sea salt. It was still untouched, because I walked fast and didn’t want to risk spilling any, which would have convinced me that the day was doomed, that I was myself deeply cursed, and then I would have had to call in sick, that if I did I would lose my job, and then I wouldn’t be able to buy dark chocolate to melt and trap in a thermos and then depression and death would surely follow, wouldn’t they? But as I stopped rambling and slowed down my pace to take the first sip, I heard a gasp. On the other side of the street was a tiny man with an angelic face, who looked in his twenties, in shabby brown clothes. He had stopped walking and was staring at my thermos, completely transfixed. After a few seconds, he seemed to get out of his torpor and gingerly crossed the street, his gaze still locked on the lid of the thermos. He finally seemed to notice me, and his eyes very slowly went up to meet mine. He asked, almost pleading, in a voice as frail as he was, if he could taste it, that “it had been eons” since he had some. (It would take an embarrassing lot of time before I wondered if he really meant it) Now. I’m not a man that shares his morning chocolate, especially not on cold winter mornings, especially not on terrible work days, and definitely not to creeps in the street. But as I opened my mouth to refuse, I found myself unable to say anything but a weak “please, help yourself, I haven’t touched it yet”. His face broke up in a childish grin, oh so pure – I could’ve cried. Maybe I did, as a matter of fact. Reverently, he opened the lid and sniffed the chocolate. Then he coughed violently, and for a second his whole body convulsed violently, twisted in a way that didn’t seem entirely human. In an instant it was over. I felt like I had missed a step, or blacked out, and there he stood, and with the most heartbroken expression he said: “I can’t drink it. Sea salt, you understand. It burns.” And just like that, he was gone. And by gone, I don’t mean that he ran away. I had this strange sensation that the planet axis had tilted for the tiniest fraction of degree, and suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. The rest of the day went on painfully normal, when I got to the office, I drank my – now tepid – chocolate, the delicious sea salt a reminder of my adventure. But the next morning, as I was choosing how I would season my hot chocolate, I looked at the salt jar with something akin to disgust. How dare it, I thought to myself, how dare this salt make the tiny man look so sad, how dare it make him disappear? I put it in the back of my cupboard and stared at my kitchen, wondering. The tiny man really had looked out of this world. So very young when he had smiled, and so very old when he had realised, he couldn’t drink. I added a small chunk of butter and watched it dissolve – what my nan called the fae’s treat. For once, I went to work with a spring in my step, watching the street with alert eyes to see if I would again meet the tiny man, my hand clenched around the thermos, unbothered by the cold. Just when I was about to pass the place where I had met him, I heard, like an echo, the same gasp than the day before. And sure enough, when I turned my head, the tiny man was there, in the place my eyes had just left, but this time he was looking with longing. He sighed and tore his gaze from the thermos, resigned. I crossed the street and said: “there’s only butter, I change every day, you can have it if you want.” Wearily, he grabbed the thermos and gave it a prudent sniff, then stopped and his eyes opened to the size of saucers, then he sniffed it again with delight, and downed the half pint of steaming chocolate in one gulp. He shuddered and again, I had this blackout sensation, and suddenly I was holding my thermos again, full to the brim. He smiled a very kind smile. “This was very nice, I hope it stays warm for you.” He looked pointedly at the thermos and added, “won’t it?” and he disappeared. The chocolate did indeed stay warm, as I paused in the middle of my path to work to sip it pensively. To this day, I haven’t had another tepid chocolate. Neither have I used sea salt.

I Hope that they will made the movie Winter's tale based on Shakespeare starring Dakota Blues Richard in the role of Hermione, Dafne Keen in the role of Perdita, Chris Hemsworth in the role of Leontes, Edward Speleers in the role of Polixenes, Jacob Tremblay in the role of Florizel and Anne-Marie Duff in the role of Paulina

My favorite Shakespeare thing is when he writes a major plot point but just has someone tell us about it to save on special effects.

Hamlet gets kidnapped by pirates but we don’t see that part. It’s a letter.

The Oracle of Delphi shows up in the Winter’s Tale and rather than do all the special effects required to make that adequately supernatural, two guys come on stage and go “woah that was cool”

There’s a big storm on the night that Duncan is murdered and we learn about this when half the cast of Macbeth says “sure was stormy last night”

Shakespeare, the OG low-budget director taking the easy way out.

Told y'all I'd be back with more Duke. Today I demonstrate how Duke is as much of a chaos gremlin as the rest of them. Case in point:

Danny as Duke's son

Duke is getting ready to end his patrol when he hears crying coming from an alley. He goes to investigate and quickly finds a baby tucked away in a corner. The first thing Duke notices about this baby is the soft green glow around him (so either a meta or something else got it). The second thing he notices is how this baby fits in perfectly with the rest of his brothers. This quickly sparks an idea in Duke's mind.

There's no way he's putting a meta baby in the Gotham foster system. He might as well just hand the poor guy to the traffickers at that point. Instead, Duke decides to play a prank on his family while giving this baby a safe home at the same time.

The prank is simple, he's going to take care of the baby as if nothing is out of the ordinary. If anyone asks, he's gonna pretend it's someone else's secret love child that he's just babysitting. Given that the Wayne's have never heard of the term communication, Duke imagines it's going to take painfully long for everyone to realize the truth. The only people he's telling are Alfred and Barbara because let's be honest, there's no he'd be able to keep the truth from those two. Plus a little help from them will really help sell everything. Let the prank begin!

“There is nothing worst in this

Christmas time than unhappy heart!”

With love Sam

I’ve changed my mind my favourite D&D monster is the coldlight walker look at this fucking guy

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen

Artist : Errol le Cain (1941-1989)

❄️ Happy winter & Merry Christmas~! 🎄✨

"Maintenant, on est des vrais super-héros avec des capes !" "Now, we're true superheroes with capes!"

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winter + art