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Investing in a pen and ink has me writing letters like an unmarried aunt. Here's a load of mermaids, sister who lives in Paisley 🐚

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Some Downtime

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Hello! This is me from my aforementioned art blog :D

The banner for this one derives from the core inspiration for the Allaitri Chalice's design in the first place. That is to say, the Sam Maguire cup and the Ardagh Chalice.

For those of you who don't know, these are two cups that are very important in Irish culture.

The Sam Maguire is the cup that the winners of the senior men's All Ireland Football Championship lift every year.

(I can't go mentioning this without making a joke about County Mayo. Superstition says they're cursed, they haven't won since 1951! There's a whole story behind that, lol)

Meanwhile, the Ardagh Chalice is a relic that was found in a field near Ardagh, County Limerick. Last time I heard, it was being stored in a museum in Dublin* (which younger me, and current me honestly, thinks is daft. There's a museum in Limerick city!)

For simplicity reasons, the banner I made is a copy of the Ardagh Chalice's design. But, the actual design for the Allaitri Chalice is more along the lines of it having some of the design motifs from the Ardagh Chalice, some design differences to reflect more Helindian-style motifs but the Chalice itself is the size of the Sam Maguire. (Albeit with a shallower basin, and it's also light enough to be held in one hand)

The Sam Maguire is a hefty yolk of a thing. Its basin is large enough to fit an adult's head in there, and the cup seems to be heavy enough that even professional footballers hold it with two hands (or hold it with teammates). And that's the replica (the real one is probably stashed in a GAA museum up in Dublin or something).

Something I noticed at a rather young age was how similar the two cups look. My personal theory is that the Sam Maguire was inspired by the Ardagh Chalice's design. Those cups carry very distinct and numerous similarities, it's almost uncanny.

(For the pictures; Sam Maguire's on the left [taken in 2022, when Mayo lost to Tyrone], the Ardagh Chalice is on the right. Neither of the images are mine, the left came from Getty images, the other from a site that has since expired, but the image was on Pinterest.)

As for the Chalice itself, the idea of it and what happened to it was inspired by the mystery surrounding the Irish Crown Jewels. I first heard about them when I was 16, sitting in Geography class. When the teacher introduced the concept, my first thought was that the jewels were in Britain, kept secret or otherwise without people realising what it is. It wouldn't be first time the Brits stole another country's national treasure and kept it on their mainland (*cough* Kohinoor diamond *cough*).

The teacher's next sentence was that the prevailing theory surrounding the Irish Crown Jewels is that they got split up and spread across the country/further afield.

The idea of the Allaitri Chalice being kept in one place, going missing when in fact it got stored somewhere else derived from my personal theory.

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*Dublin, the Republic of Ireland's capital, for better or worse gets the most funding, resources, etc out of the entire country. Aka, 'Dublin gets everything!'. This point actually inspired the gripes people have in A Healing for the Birds, because Arobyre, the capital, seems to get everything, even the Allaitri Chalice it seems.

WTW Power Prompts — Day One: Origin

As a response to the prompt event hosted by @/welcometowriteblr, where said event concerns all things magic!

For this whole week, I'm doing to delve into various aspects of my world's magic system, though with a specific focus to what's relevant to my current wip, A Healing for the Birds.

Today's edition, as the title suggests, is about the origins, the beginning :D

(Also you may see reblogs from my art account, talking about the inspiration behind the day's banner 😆)

Anyway, it's about time I actually started lol

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Magic, within the entire domain of Emariya, is a naturally occurring biological substance in the world. Not all plants, animals and other organisms have it, but for those that do it is embedded into their genetic code, yet is simultaneously fluid and malleable to environmental factors. Otherwise most living things have a tolerance for it.

As a nebulous force, it is understood as something that is just “there”, akin to energy in the real world. However, what is not fully understood is why it manifests the way it does. Why can words be shaped to carry and implement magical intent? Why can people manipulate the elements? Why can some people do other things, like shapeshift, teleport, weave souls? Why do certain things block magic and/or cause harm to those with magic?

These and other questions are things that some have set forth to answer. Some attempt to do so scientifically, while others explain it through mythology, religion and general speculation. Raikaliç (the main religion of Seldaika), explains this through the idea of magic being the connection with the world, imparted by Galista to all who were born on its soil. This concept gives an explanation as to why not all mortal humans have magic, because they are originally from a different world, so therefore they lack the connection.

Meanwhile, a common belief for it in Helinda is that magic is the essence of the old deities, spilled through the world once they passed. A theory spread by a small minority is that the more people/faeries present on the land, the more divided the pool of magic. In other words, they believe there is a fixed amount of magic and if it is split between five people, it is more potent than magic split between a few million. This theory is rather unpopular for a number of reasons, one of the most notable being that large families are a status symbol.

Another major question is the matter of the divine relics. There are a few particularly bespoke items scattered across the world, such as the mirror buried within the castle in Therae, Kerras. This mirror is said to enable communication with the seafolk, and perhaps even the deities and the dead, but no one is known to have cracked it. More commonly, people report to have seen dreamscapes and nightmares, with some stories alleging that the mirror sucks people in without return. Some believe it was forged, others think it is some naturally occurring (or divinely gifted) phenomenon that the castle was built over.

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Another matter is the Allaitri Chalice. It is the holy relic of Helinda, able to purify water and grant it healing powers. Prior to Helinda’s founding, it was stored in a grove situated within the mountains between a few provinces. Seven nymphs guarded it, and they allowed other faeries to drink from it in exchange for a major sacrifice, such as a pound of flesh or severing a major relationship. One day, it went missing. No one knows where it disappeared to nor who stole it, only it is gone. Every so often, someone will allege that they found who stole it and a series of petty feuds occur. Sometimes this escalates to civil war. Other times it exacerbates ongoing conflicts or it's just a collection of petty feuds.

Various other magical phenomena occur across the world regardless of explanation, some major and others small.

Tagging the General taglist for this (ask/comment/reblog, etc if you'd like to be added or subtracted): @mr-orion @the-ellia-west @guessillcallitart-deactivated20 @thereadingfoz @glassstardust22124 @honeybewrites @ashirisu @drowsy-quill @oliolioxenfreewrites @theglitchywriterboi @seastarblue @gioiaalbanoart @rae-butter @corinneglass @oros-ash3s @jacqueswriteblrlibrary @rainbowsnowflake @fourwingedwriter @oddcryptidwrites

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Ah shoot, wrong blog lol

Hoping to use Funguary to get back into painting. I enjoy painting, I'm not particularly skilled and don't have a lot of time to spend doing it so these won't be amazing but I want to do a few quick studies. Watercolour isn't the best medium for this particular fungi due to the white "skirt" which would be easier to layer on with a more solid paint. And the backgrounds could benefit from more time spend on them but I quite like how the anthropomorphic version has come out.

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Veiled Lady

— Funguary Week 1

Welcome to my first post for Funguary! I'm doing this challenge as a way for me to dip my toes into drawing, and see what comes out of it.

The first three ideas were my initial thoughts, and then after drawing the little guy, I did a pattern on the bottom of the page, which sprouted the last two.

(I've scrolled through some of the tag earlier, and there's some beautiful pieces on there.)

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Hi, @tryingtimi’s here with another blog to try and get back into the habit of creating visual stuff besides writing. Hah. We’ll see how it goes.

What you’ll find.

Mostly digital sketches, full digital paintings ocasionally, traditional paintings once in a full moon, and when I get myself together to open an animation program again, short little animations. Probably silly too.

The themes will vary as I plan to start off with challenges, but once I’m more confident and consistent, I’ll stray to create stuff for the stories I’m writing. (Friends’s too)

What to expect.

Yes, the above two things are entirely different in my case, lol.

art practice sketches

art ramble from time to time

bad anatomy for the time being

fanart maybe

mostly fantasy

nothing nsfw as long as i’m bad at anatomy

a sudden announcement of open comissions because that’s another (albeit long-term) goal of this little endeavor here

reblogs of other people’s art

reblogs of tutorials

reblogs of nsfw and gore art (probably, it’s not a promise, but minors stay away just in case)

Tags & Other blogs.

Plan is to crosspost on instagram, but the beginnings are always lowkey on my end, so come back for that in a year, lmao. Tags will come too, when I already posted.

writeblr (main) | writing advice | writeblr recs

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"if i had a flower

for every time i thought of you,

i could walk in my garden forever."

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

🪻

linktree

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Ey! My first post that isn't an intro or a reblog! This comes from a page of the notebook where I'm putting some of my writing notes (for context, this page pertains to the events at the end/after Soulswapped). I have another notebook filled with writing snippets, where I like to put little doodles based on the piece.

And that carried over into this notebook. I looked up how to draw a crow and gave it a go :D

(If anyone wishes to be on a taglist for when I post my own art or anything, let me know 👀)

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February is right around the corner, which means it’s soon time for Funguary 2025! The drawing event where we draw a bunch of mushroom based characters during the month of February.

Rules are super simple, just draw art related to mushrooms! No need to complete all the prompts, just pick and choose from the ones you feel inspired by🍄

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.•°.•° ☆ The All-Important Introduction ☆°•.°•.

Hi! Welcome to my blog, which is the one stop shop for all my art stuff! I follow from @aalinaaaaaa , my main blog, which is where I post my writing, reblog other people's writing and all sorts of writeblr stuff.

On this blog, you'll find things like:

Random sketches and art practice (I want to learn how to do art, I'm very much so a beginner as of typing)

Art of my characters and the setting they're in (plus AU stuff from time to time) [some of the character art may appear on my main blog too]

Designs for my Flash Fiction Friday pieces (I have a fancy notebook that I want to put handwritten, illustrated versions of my short stories in)

Reblogs of other people's art and/or art tutorials

Things that inspire the aesthetic of my own works (landscapes, clothing, etc)

Anything else remotely related to art (like photography, for example)

What else do you do in your free time? Some may ask. Well, I'm currently a college student bogged down in lab reports (lol), and I also do things like writing (my stronger creative suit), art practice, doing stuff for my blog and I also enjoy going to rugby and hurling matches (when I actually have the time, lol).

Also, I forgot to mention one thing:

No sending me asks/messages/etc asking for money! I have ZERO tolerance for begging, thank you.