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Rips my freaking tide

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Blehhh

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I love putting her eye patch on whatever eye I don't feel like drawing

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yikes vampire twins

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punk rock jinx !!

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my arch nemesis cynthia is, of course, at the bank, because we both were sent like clockwork to pick up the checks of our husbands. she is wearing a lovely long green gown, which i know was on behalf of me, because, as my husband will tell you, our house abhors green and glamour. already the tellers look at each other under their little hats, for they love our tirades, i’m sure, although not more than i hate them. 

“oh, is that your knitting?” my arch nemesis cynthia peers her eyes at my hands. “is it some kind of… sock?” everyone knows she and i used to be close before we were married and our husbands, smartly so, have introduced us to the idea of true vengeance.

“it is a scarf,” i say. i want to tell her that when the time comes and the world gets cold it will go over my mouth and i will breathe warm air and it will fill my lungs and i will be able to run around with my love even in the dark night. “it is not,” i say, “over surprising that you should be caught unawares of a scarf,” i say, “as i’m sure enjoying winter festivities are too beneath the handsome qualities your husband prefers.” pompous ass.

the tellers pass each other eyes for now it has started and they are delighted.

my arch nemesis cynthia thrusts out her hand. a white bottle. “rat poison,” she says. “i would expect the whole town knows about your little problem.” stage whisper. “such a shame, my dear.” then she rustles her long green skirts - which i know she wore on behalf of me - and she shimmies herself out of the room like royalty. oh, she floats everywhere she goes, beautiful black hair behind her. the bottle in my palm is cold. i will devise how to get her back starting first thing tomorrow.

the week, as always, is a long week, for there is much to make and do and knit and be. my husband comes home and i love him for who he is; for he never comes home without checking the state of the house up and down. he is the kind who loves his home so completely and sets each room like a stage for a great band to come playing. i am too ashamed to tell him why so many of the rats go missing, only make him a stew the next morning to celebrate. his favorite, although not mine, i’m afraid. plenty left over.

my arch nemesis today - of course - in a green the color of rotting. a bruise is uncarefully covered on her cheekbone, so striking against all of her dainty. her husband would say it was for her ungraceful nature, and i know mine would agree. i strike first, already delighted by my master plan, shoving over our best picnic basket tied with a bow. “i made you and yours a stew,” i say, “for beneath all that you carry” all that horrible wealth of your husband  “it seems you’re getting rather skinny.” i can’t resist one last comment. “i am worried you’re about to waste to nothing.”

She plucks it out of my hand. “yes, if it weren’t for you and your husband’s dwindling wealth,” her sarcasm is biting, “i’m sure i will be nothing in, oh, 5 weeks time.” she arches a brow. “so long from now.”

“i am counting the days,” i tell her. her lips purse. the tellers behind me make a choked titter. perhaps, by their estimation, i have won this round quite completely. i go home to my husband smiling. he asks where i have been and i tell him i’ve been at the bank, but he checks anyway because i like to get up to tricks and he doesn’t like to fall for it. it is a good game we play. at night, when he is asleep, i am so in love that i must convince myself to pull the covers over my nose and practice breathing. how silly to wake him up for a young girl’s feelings. 

the first week of five: she gives me a solid, ugly ring that requires three knuckles to hold. “i feel so badly for your status, and i must remember to practice charity,” she says. “it such a small thing, but do be careful amongst all that thin pine furnishing of your house, which dents so easily.” my husband appears at the bank’s front door. just checking. so lovely to be picked up by him. at night, in a rage, i try it - beneath the table bends easily. i scuff out the scratch with walnut before my husband can see. i pull the covers over my face in bed and breathe.

the second week: i wear her ugly ring and give her more stew, this time hearty with meat. her dress is a meadow. my heart each time it sees her collapses on itself. she hands me clothes for my husband, since his wealth continues to go missing, and the charity of her heart is so loving. i am so ashamed i bury them far by the old tree, where all my shames go hiding. again, the covers. it, by now, helps me sleep. i have gotten so good at it that i can simply shimmy my shoulders to be perfectly toasty and buried.

the third week: she asks how comes my knitting. i tell her it’s nearly complete. she asks how comes my husband, whom she must know has been ill recently, and who is doing quite badly. i go home to him, shaking. even sick he is a good housekeeper, who comes home examining for dust and dinge so i do not fall behind on my chores. who checks to be sure i spoke to only him and no one more, for fear a man might snatch me. tell me, who else has a man so involved, in this day and age?

the fourth week she is envy green. i shove a whole heaping of stew at her, for now her husband has gotten it. i say it will return him to spirits, she laughs, a sudden, beautiful sound, even in the quiet of a bank. everyone stares. maybe it is the stress that is making her quite improper. i feel the same way. so much is happening and it always seems she knows. she says she heard he has left me nothing in the will, which everyone already knows. she says she doubts either of us can dig upwards from the hole we’re both in. i look at the bruise on her nose. i tell her to mind her own husband, and be careful where she goes.

the fifth week: so final. her, garishly lime green. and i in black, to pick up a check that hardly seems the effort. it will be enough to cover my husband’s funeral. she smiles at me and hands me a silver bottle. she says quietly: now that i am destitute, there is one thing for it all, and everyone would understand quite completely. it would be quiet, and quick, and complete.

it is the night of the new moon, so dark no man can see in it. i receive notice her husband has died, and i am sorry to say i find a terrible joy in it. the air has changed cold. i have left a note asking to be buried in my scarf, the last thing i have made on this earth. i go through each perfect room, but there is nothing else to take with me, for the house has always been his and his alone, and now aches to be gone of him. i would not serve as a good tender for it. having spent so many nights watched carefully, the silly girlish freedom i’d gain would surely set the house ablaze.

i follow her instructions. quick, quiet, complete.

the horrible rustling is what does it. like a million green skirts. and then it is dark, and i am in my own coffin, eerie with pine. my head hurts but i must be quick and quiet. they have listened and buried me with my scarf. i shimmy my shoulders just-so and get it over my face. bring my arms up, ugly ring heavy, and begin to hit as hard as i can, over and over, the thin wood of my husband’s favorite furniture, the cretin. it would be pine, of course - he left me no money to be buried in any nicer recourse.

the wood splits so horribly, and then it is very hard to breathe, harder than under the covers, and i have to remind myself to be patient and continue to dig upwards, while my throat closes and my heart beats so loudly and the whole thing is so heavy it is a universe. the shifting of gravedirt is loud, and loud, and i feel i will be turned into a worm, and i fear everyone has forgotten about me, or i have gotten the timing wrong, or i will really die down here in the dirt and the cold

but then her hand, and my hand, and we are both digging towards each other, and she lifts me so easily from the ground like a plucked turnip and holds me against her, us both panting and muddied. we can only stay like this for so long, here in my pauper grave, and then we are both running to the old tree where we met, and unburying a second thing; my lovely box of shame, and men’s clothes, and all of my husband’s dwindling fortune i have slowly been squirrelling away.

my love and angel cynthia, who has black hair like a curtain and a mind so fast i sometimes am in frank awe at it, who is, even now and dirty and raw: even now the only sun in my life.

like this, i a man in an almost-dawn, and us cleaned by the river, and her smiling so widely, and only a faint bruise on her, and our pasts behind us in ugly garish colors. and her delicate hand and beautiful nose and when i finally get to kiss her it feels like green feels; my favorite color, all warm and nature and sunny grace and grass and lying awake so filled with love it makes you shake.

i hold her, and she holds me, and our future is a love like a dream unburied.

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I like to draw gold

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if it’s not too much trouble could you redesign either Cricket or Moon? I love your art it’s so beautiful!! Your glory was design was just chefs kiss. Have an amazing day!

Thank you so much! Here's my take:

(I saw that a lot of people loved the creepy Wasp design, and trust me I DID think about making Cricket look similar but like.. I can't. I can't do that to her. I'll do it to Lady Scarab.)

Cricket's redesign is definitely one of those where I kind of didn't really do anything to change it - I really like her current design, and so most of this was just changing little things I think would've made it better. The main adjustments I made were definitely to her proportions - Cricket's wiki description is slightly vague on her build (because she has book cover art, I assume) but I was honestly never a huge fan of how slender she appeared in some splash art since I always imagined her being a little bit shorter/more muscular. She isn't doing hardcore farm work at her agricultural school, but she still probably knows a thing or two about hauling massive plants from room to room for class. That might just be me, though.

I also made her glasses way thicker and bigger, and really tried to lean into the octagonal shape they have - although I might have made that a little bit unclear. I really like to think that she's like those characters whose eyes turn into little dots when she takes her glasses off. The rest of her design is relatively the same - aside from her orange tinted wings and additional black/mustard splotches. Finally, I thought it would be cute to change the bag around her chest into a smaller satchel that rests at her side and wraps around her neck. I think I can safely say Cricket's book was my favorite from all of the arc 3 books - from the presentation and exploration of Jewel hive to the temple of clearsight, and most importantly how Cricket interacts with these events as they come and go. I seriously think it's the gem of the arc (but you guys can probably tell that based on how much I talk about its content in my other posts.)

To all of you who have been following for a while (or those who just stopped by,) thank you so much for your support! If you're interested in requesting a WoF character to be redesigned, head to my inbox or check out my pinned post and see if they're already on the waitlist! And to any fellow artists who are interested, I am running an art contest until the end of june! The challenge is to draw a scene from any WoF book or graphic novel, and there are more details below:

This link will take you to my discord server!

Thanks for reading this far! See you later ♡(>ᴗ•)

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literally my most inconsistent design ever

save me from my exams jay ferin save me

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First we Wonder. Then we Lust.

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GO PERIL GO!!!

idk why I’m on a skywing kick right now but hey hey hey it’s my girl. inspired from the one panel from the book5 graphic novel

I’d make it my blog header but the current one is still funny to me

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JRWI deck of many things: Euryale

i’ve got nothing to say for myself but uh… oops?

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// Spoilers for JRWI riptide post 109

+ CW: Skull + bit of gore what's good chip enjoyers?

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what would ancient nightwing fashion look like? because in darkstalkers book they had a lot of jewelry featured

Good question! After a lot of thinking, I finally have an answer and some art!

Nightwings and the Jazz Era

TLDR

I've come to the conclusion that ancient nightwing society would have the fashion of the Jazz Era. also known as the roaring 1920s, the Jazz Era was a time (1918-29) in the US which was characterized by new music, culture and swift economic growth. Following the end of world war 1, the frivolous partying, spending and inventing of the Jazz era is quite similar to the attitude of the ancient night kingdom - which was an international hub for trade and art, as well as the inventor of written dragon language. Both the Jazz era and the nightwing kingdom also share the morbid similarity that they came to a swift, chaotic end - either through a stock market crash or a genocidal magician.

When creating this post, I focused mostly on 1920s fashion - but I did also take some inspiration from other sources, such as the adjacent 1910s and house of Dior. I was chasing any kind of style which I thought mirrored the artistic success of the nightwing kingdom, so these headcanons stray partially from the 1920s to include some of my own artistic liberties and ideas. I hope you enjoy, and maybe even remember Lackadaisy is a good franchise worth WoF crossover fanart.

Day-to-Day

Starting off strong with the everyday nightwing's attire - I wanted to consider how nightwing society functions and plan accordingly through fashion. Not only do they live on a nocturnal schedule, they also - surprisingly - do not have total night vision. Because of this, I think nightwing merchants would sport brighter clothing with small gold/shiny accents (if they can afford it,) in order to catch the attention of passing dragons in the night market. These clothes would consist of a chest piece with dethatched sleeves for better maneuverability, and use leather or fur to create distinct shapes in order to compensate for their lack of actual detail.

The non-storekeeping nightwing would not have any need to stand out in a crowd, and might choose colors that better complement their scales or scale patterns. Regardless, I think the chest piece + dethatched sleeve combo would be a staple feature of everyday clothing design, given that it's the easiest to wear and would allow nightwings freedom of movement.

Party Clothes

Ancient nightwing society was one that loved art, festival and music - so they would undoubtedly have clothes to compensate for their frequent celebrations. Here, I took direct inspiration from the 1920s 'flapper girl' fashion, which was a specific look worn primarily by young women who didn't care for traditional (religious) values. These garments would probably harder to manufacture and a little bit more expensive, using long feathers for the dress portion + silky fabric and lots of beads; imported from other tribes but tailored in the kingdom.

Clips and buckles could fasten these pieces around a dragon's neck, shoulder and torso - but there would absolutely be shorter variations made for those who don't appreciate the long train around their legs. A long string of pearls and a nice headdress would accompany this dress, which would've been imported from the seawing kingdom.

Noble Wear

Finally, the finest clothes of the kingdom. I wasn't really sure of how to go about this at first, but ended up coming up with some good ideas after considering the nightwings beyond their fashion. I think the nobles and royalty of the nightwing kingdom would've dressed more for art than wealth - by which I mean, they focused more on displaying themselves in an artistic manner than showing off jewels or physical wealth. For a society which values art so heavily, being seen as a piece itself would likely be a better indicator of status than adorning yourself in diamonds.

For this reason, I focused more on couture when sketching these clothes - intricate patterns, textiles and shapes which were handcrafted by a studio of dragons and assembled to be worn only once or twice. These garments would absolutely match the current topic or festival - and in spite of their status, nobles would still opt to follow the trends of the kingdom in their own way: using the same shapes, beads and pearls to create a high-class cousin to Jass Era fashion.

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If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed these headcanons as much as I enjoyed making them. My inbox is always open to questions, critiques and suggestions of any kind - so if you'd like to inquire about the lore/fashion of your favorite tribe, don't hesitate to ask!

A few people have asked, so I'll just make it clear: I love seeing the interpretations and discussions of my headcanons, and you are absolutely free to use these ideas if you so desire. My only request is credit on any of the things I came up with (not the 1920s itself, obviously) and that you tag me so I can see your awesome work!!

Later ( • ⩊ • )

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My card for the JRWI Deck of Many Things event on twitter! ft. the midnight circle <3

go check it out at @JRWIDeckOfMany on twt! all of the cards are so cool

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Drew some guys :) (Click on it for better quality please please please)