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nuagederose · 1 month ago

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i’ve been thinking about this for a long time now.

would anyone be interested in a mermay-themed artbook from me?

I have 5 years’ worth of drawings, from my first session during quarantine to this year’s horror show that I just… don’t ever want to think about again, even though I said I wanted to use them as kindling because i’m ashamed of them: there’s a big part of me that wants to spare them from the flames and bring them together into something.

I see artists do this all the time and it is something that I want to do—i’ll probably self-publish because I can’t envision any formal publisher taking my art—let alone any of my writing—seriously, and I like being in control. i’ll cross that bridge when i get there, though.

and—actually reply to this. please. really, don’t be a cliché tumblr dickhead where, someone will ask a (oftentimes important) question and they’ll only receive a sympathetic™️ like and they wonder why they even bother. “we’re mutuals! i support you!” You never even met me. You say that as if you personally know me: you don’t. every single one of you who perpetuates this obnoxious, weirdly-detached, overly saccharine Gen Z school of thinking is nearly indiscernible from those emails from cancelled subscriptions, “we miss you!” the one difference is that those are automated messages. since my joining tumblr years ago, I sometimes wonder if i’m just too alien for this place: tumblr is a bastion of people ranging from self-loathing introverts who talk like the understudy from seinfeld and think they’re clever to glowy-eyed 20-year-olds who can barely string a sentence together and makes me ask how they got into college.

so, I’m saying this with absolutely zero hope because the gofundme to save my now-old house was a complete waste, and i actually forgot i set up a tip jar a couple of weeks ago. if no one cares, i’ll understand completely. my art career the last 12 years on the internet has been nothing but disappointing, painful, abysmal, infuriating, frustrating, depressing, lonely, and riddled with anxiety drama and hate mail with very few good and fun moments interspersed (Jesus, and everyone wonders why I toy with the idea of quitting and vanishing time and time again: all anyone wants to do is use me as their personal toilet. I know my art sucks, you don’t need to remind me of it). i really don’t expect this piece of shit website to react to this, and not to rant, but I love how seasoned, ~professional~ artists will tell you to just do this thing on the internet and you’ll be right as rain, like… they don’t seem to realize that literally nothing works in the clear-cut way they suggest it does. I thought we as a collective were past “if i did it, you can do it, too.” “Oh, i’m an artist, i live in a fantasy”, wow, that’s totally not a cop-out at this point. Point is I wonder why i even bothered with crowdfunding because no, i don’t think anyone would pay me even 1¢ for something i made. it’s one of the reasons why i’m comfortable with the idea of going to work the more time goes on because asking people to help me in the digital world is completely worthless—I don’t live in the middle of nowhere anymore, either. there’s actually opportunity for me now.

prove my thoughts wrong, though. is this something that i should do?

#art book #mermay #mermaid art #merfolk #traditional art #digital art #artists on tumblr #badgalnirvhannahart

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nuagederose · 1 month ago

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Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Twenty-Six: River Song

ao3 link

The rain persisted all around Alex and Christine, and all the while, he kept his arm around her and his body close to her. Her body shuddered and shook from the feeling. The truth was out in the open, and that was all she could think about as well; at one point, she lifted her head for a look out the window before them. The rainwater streaked down the pane of glass towards the gutters; everything was soaking out there; there was no way they could go anywhere from there, not without something to keep them afloat.

She lifted her head to find him looking at her with a rather stern look upon his face, and she couldn’t help but sniffle and feel the tears well up once again.

“You’re not mad about me not telling you about Chris sooner?” she asked him in a small voice, to which he raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes at her.

“Mad? Why would I be mad? It’s a heavy, horrible thing that you carry around, and something that you’ve carried around since you were a kid, and you weren’t going to tell me until you were ready.”

Christine closed her eyes and bowed her head as if to hide away the tears, but none beckoned forth.

“I just think of the times you’ve been up front with me, though,” she confessed with a shake of her head.

“Yeah, that’s me and how I feel,” he pointed out to her. “You only talk about these things when you feel like it.”

She sniffled and lifted her head again, right as the rain began to die down: the gray sky could not be denied, however. The same shade of gray as that shock of hair at the crown of his head, and the gray that washed out from her within those very moments.

“I think the rain’s clearing,” he told her in a gentle voice. “You wanna bounce on up to Lake Placid?”

“Right now?” She was taken aback by that. “Alex, it’s like three hundred miles away!”

He paused for a second, and she could see him formulating a plan of sorts. “Think about it this way. It’s raining. It’s the middle of summer. You just exposed a very deep wound to me. Let’s gradually work our way there. All the while let’s go out to the woods up the road from here. All the while, we’ll work our way up, work our way up to where things bleed more and more with the passing of time. Let’s go to where things are peaceful.”

“You really wanna do that?”

“Yeah,” he insisted. “But in the meantime, let’s get you out of here and into some fresh air. The way you are right now, I’d take you there if it was dumping snow, dear Christine.”

“What if we get sick, though?” she asked him as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” he assured her with a wave towards her. “Besides, it’s the middle of summer. It’s not cold at all. We’ll be fine, I promise.”

Christine ran her fingers through her ponytail, and then she followed Alex towards the door. When they stepped outside, they were met with not only the waning rain but the warmth of the day as well. She swore that she heard thunder off in the distance, but then again, it could’ve been her own imagination speaking to her in tongues.

He swiped his keys, and they headed for the car. Once they had strapped themselves in, the rain backed off again for a second, and then, like clockwork, once Alex had fired it up, the rain picked up once more. Despite it being the middle of the day, the sky had darkened enough to the point the lights along the edges of the highway flickered on and bathed the wet pavement in soft orange-yellow light. Every so often, a car passed by in the two lanes headed in the opposite direction and the headlights reflected against the growing lake on the lanes of the highway.

“We’re like a couple of thieves in the night,” she breathed out.

“A couple of thieves in the night with our wounds as the diamonds we haul away,” he added as he flicked on the turn signal and merged lanes to be in the middle. A sign passed by to show that they were only about an hour away from the nearest lake and accompanying vista point. Three hundred miles away from where things had come to an end, though.

It was only an hour across the backwoods of Massachusetts. An hour before the trees thickened and she knew that they were well within the heart of New England. An hour before Alex spoke again. An hour of purely comfortable silence.

“Pie stand,” he remarked with a gesture out the window. “And a little place to get some coffee, too.”

“We had that marvelous tres leches cake, though,” Christine pointed out as he merged lanes once again.

“Of course! But… I do enjoy a slice of pie, though.”

“As do I,” she assured him, nonplussed. She then nibbled on her bottom lip. “And I know you enjoy a slice of my pie as well.”

Alex wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue at the sound of that, and then he followed it up with a hearty chuckle.

“Put a little icing on your cake, too,” he added with a flick of an eyebrow at her, and she reached over and playfully slapped him on the shoulder. She then dropped her hand to his chubby little belly for a slight massage, but then he flinched away from her.

“Christine, I’m driving,” he said in a huff. “When we get there, you can hold me and touch me as much as you’d like.” She looked over at him right as he winked at her from behind his glasses. Christine licked her lips and sank back into the comfy seat: the windows fogged up a bit from the clash of the rain and the warmth of the day as well as within the car. It almost felt as though they were being enclosed in there, locked in their own private safe space away from the world.

The trees grew much thicker and greener with each passing mile closer to the lake. Within a matter of seconds, however, the trees opened up and beheld the vast blue-gray waters of the lake: it wasn’t Lake Placid, but for the time being, it would have to do. The slight breeze outside did not suffice to give the water any waves; it stood like a smooth pane of glass. The next exit for the lakeshore and a vista point emerged in their view, to which Alex took to it. The little road wound down to the shore itself: there was no one else there but the two of them.

At least they could have a moment alone together.

He switched off the car, and they climbed out of there in unison. The warmth of the day wrapped her up like a blanket. Alex tugged down his shirttail and hitched up his jeans before they headed to the lake’s edge together. A large smooth slab of stone over the shoreline itself looked as though it could be her steppingstone of sorts. Indeed, she climbed upon the surface of the stone and pressed her hands to her hips. The clouds hung low over their heads, but no rain fell over them, no rain but a mist emerged from the surface of the lake before them. Christine stood there at the water’s edge and gazed down at the surface in front of her. Alex hung off to her left with his hands tucked into his jeans pockets and his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose; the stone made her slightly taller, and tall enough to look at him in the eye as well.

Silence surrounded them. Silence except for the stray chirping of a lone bird up in the trees next to them.

Silence, and a single shadow.

“Alex, it’s beautiful up here,” she remarked in a light gasp of a voice, and she closed her eyes. The memory was still so very fresh in the back of her mind. The memory was so long ago and yet it still felt so close to her. Three hundred miles away and yet ground zero felt so close to her.

She pictured Chris there on her left, complete with his fingers linked around her own. To think that he had died not too far from there, and now Alex was at her side instead; indeed, she swore that she felt his hand clasped against her own palm. But she opened her eyes and raised her head to find Alex with his hair drenched and matted down to all sides of his head; his glasses fogged up and coated with little water droplets; his shirt soaked through which in turn showed off his nipples as well as the full shape of his body. Through the fog which covered the lenses of his glasses, she could see the blue of his eyes. For a split second, she believed that she was looking at the older version of Chris, the one who survived the wreckage and returned to be there with her.

Completely drenched herself, Christine put her arms around Alex’s waist and lifted herself up onto her toes so as to kiss him on the lips. Water dripped down the sides of her face onto his arms as well as his shoulders and his chest. It would make no difference if they both fell into the lake right at that moment because they would become one with the water, away from the world, and especially away from Captain Howdy.

Christine could feel his arms make their way towards the small of her back; the curls at the sides of his head grazed against her own face like light little feathers. She pressed her body against his own, and then she let go of his waist. She cupped his face with her hands and kissed him even harder than she ever had before.

“Never let me go,” she whispered to him. “I’m in love with you. Never let me go.”

“I could drown in this lake right now and I’d be holding you still,” he vowed to her in a husky tone; his tongue slithered into her lips, and they locked in deep. The water on his glasses dripped onto her cheekbones and the tip of her nose.

Christine pressed her hand to his chest, and she bowed her head. She couldn’t think of Chris anymore at that very moment; instead, she was met with the corridor that bestowed on her with his ghost; she was met with Alex. She lifted her hand from his chest and pressed a finger to his lips, as ripe as fresh cherries.

More droplets of water caressed over the side of her face and the crest of her shoulder. She lifted her head and gazed up to the sky overhead right as the gray clouds hung down low over them.

“It’s raining again,” she told him as the vast cold waters of Lake Placid churned before them.

“And it’s coming down good, too—let’s get up to that cabin and get something to eat,” he suggested, and he broke a crooked smile at the sound of that. Christine rested a hand on his belly and kissed the smooth but wet side of his neck from the feeling.

“Always,” she whispered to him over the noise of the incoming rain around them. “Always and forever, baby.”

He interlocked his fingers with hers, and then he led her back to the trees as well as the car. She remembered that pie stand and the little café right across the pavement back up the road from there, and she hoped that she could feed Alex a few bites of some lush blackberry. Water dripped down from the sides of her head onto her shoulders and her chest, and it was right then that a chill crossed over her body, right down her arms and the crest of her spine. Alex raked his hair with his fingers before he climbed into the driver’s seat.

They closed the doors in unison, and Christine couldn’t help but laugh right then. Alex looked over at her, perplexed.

“You okay?” he asked her, and she returned her attention to him as stray droplets of rain streaked down the side of her face.

“No,” she answered. “Yes and no, I should say. No, because…” She sputtered and wiped a few tears from her eye, and he nodded at her.

“Yeah, I get it,” he replied with a break in his voice. From behind his wet, foggy glasses, she could see it in his eyes. He had no tears there to speak, but she could see it in there without even asking him about it. He nodded his head at her. “I get it completely, Christine.” He returned his attention to the windshield before him, right as more rain fell on the pane and created little rivers at the top of the hood.

Christine wiped away a few droplets from her eyes, and she had neither desire nor inquiry to figure out if it was tears or mere rain. She knew that things were going to be heavy if and when they made their way up to Lake Placid.

“Shall we go to the pie stand?” she suggested to him with a break in her voice.

“After that, we deserve slices of pie,” he told her. “You deserve a slice of pie.”

He fired up the car, and they returned up the little road to the highway, back for the pie stand and the café in question. The silence around them was once again comfortable as Alex hummed something to himself. Christine never shivered or questioned any of it for a second. It almost felt like a cleansing of sorts, and more so when she remembered that Chuck was supposed to catch them in the act up at Lake Placid. It was three hundred miles away.

To her, the more that she thought about it, none of it ever happened.

Alex pulled into the narrow parking lot right before the pie stand, a long low wooden building with a sloped roof decorated with black shingles. He took to the spot closest to the road; she spotted the sign pointing at the back of the building which told her that the line was supposed to collect there. Alex then reached into his front pocket and unsheathed his wallet.

“Put me down for a slice of some Dutch apple,” he told her with a five-dollar bill nestled in between his fingers, that lopsided grin on his face, as well as a nudge of his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Would you like it with a li’l scoop of ice cream?” she added.

“Definitely,” he replied, and his face lit up at the sound of that. Christine kissed him on the side of the face once again, and she climbed out of the car right as the clouds broke apart: pure sunlight shone down upon her, accentuated by the rich dark gray clouds. Despite the heat of the day persisting all around her, she still had a chill in her body as she rounded the corner to the counter. It was there that she spotted Chuck, also dripping wet and waiting in line; his luminous eyes seemed to shine like diamonds against the bright sunlight.

“Hey!” he greeted her with a smile.

“Hey!” she returned the favor, and another wave of tears swept over her. It was then she remembered what he had intended, even if they were three hundred miles away from Lake Placid. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“A little bird told me,” he promised her in a soft voice, and he showed her a wink. She then returned the favor to him with a little smile.

“I got it good,” he promised her. “I even took a few pictures of the two of you.” He took the digital camera out from his jean pocket, and her heart skipped a few beats at the sight of it.

“Oh, good boy,” she breathed to him, and she continued to sniffle and wipe away tears regardless of that fact.

“Are you okay?” he inquired her, slightly taken aback.

“Yeah,” she assured him. “I’m just… I’m just…” She could hardly speak, however. Chuck put his arm around her and held her despite the two of them being doused in rainwater.

“I won’t tell a soul,” he promised her in a low voice, but that was the least of her problems at that moment. She had told Alex a truth that had haunted her for what felt like an eternity, but now she had another lie manifested right before her very eyes.

“I completely forgot about that plan that you had told me,” she whispered to him, and Chuck flashed her a wink in response. With nothing more to add, he stepped forward to the counter’s edge to fetch a slice of pie for himself. Christine held back with a hand rested upon her chest and her heart hammering hard inside of her. She watched Chuck pick out a slice of a Manchester tart for himself, and she remembered that Alex had wanted some Dutch apple.

“You’re just in luck—it’s the last one we’ve got,” she heard the man behind the counter tell him. She waited a few moments before Chuck doubled back away from there with a slice of what appeared to be a custard tart but decorated in shredded coconut as well as a little red cherry. The look of it was so humble and yet something about the coconut and the round little cherry made her think of kissing Alex after he hadn’t shaved his face in a few days.

It was then she had an idea for him when she returned to the car. She took a step forward and asked for two slices of pie, one Dutch apple for him, and one blackberry for herself, and for both slices to be served à la mode as well.

She paid the five dollars for both slices and ice cream, and then she thanked the man with a smile and returned to Alex, who appeared to struggle in wiping his glasses free of the rainwater. She returned to him with the plates in either hand as if she was a waitress.

If there was any silver lining to telling Alex the truth about Chris, it was that she had thrown the biggest spanner in the works with the wedding on that alone, and she had all but forgotten about it. It was there that she knew that she had him in the palm of her hand, and Lake Placid was about to be the biggest break of them all.

#as the seasons grey #as the seasons grey fanfic #dark roots of earth #dark roots of earth fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic with art #traditional art #alex skolnick #christine peck #oc art #ao3 fanfic #artists on tumblr #badgalnirvhannahart #Spotify

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