#How to see unicorns

[ckret2]

i watched Death of a Unicorn today and it reminded me i've been meaning to finish this comic for... two years lol

this is the emotional core of a human bill AU to me.

(if you've never watched the last unicorn it's free and you'll immediately understand 5x as much about me as a writer)

[steelart]

BG3 Comic: The Last Unicorn

Be Forewarned: Dark Urge Spoilers

This comic was inspired by the excellent idea of using The Last Unicorn dialogue for Astarion’s story from @fangsandfeels and the lovely comic made by @solmesia depicting it. You can see the original post here and the comic here.

When I read the original idea I thought that this also potentially works in reverse for a redemption Dark Urge who is horrified by their monstrousness. I did edit and add to the original dialogue for my own purposes.

(Also I really think it would have been cool if slayer form worked more like an uncontrollable werewolf-like curse rather than a gift you have to seek out.)

[prokopetz]

I guess the problem with trying to put together an "obscure webcomics" bracket that's actually true to its name is that by the last few rounds it would have no meaningful polling audience. Like, how are you going to get useful data out out a poll where the matchup is Catball & Clown Girl versus The Lil World of Meekerz?

[teenycat]

oc content but i have no idea wth im doing

context! the blue creature is Spar, a fan oc i made for a fan species @ranfordgallus made for wild kratts

tw for (messily drawn pictures of) blood and dead animals.. and a bunch of yapping about sibling angst under the cut.

Spar got got. by everyone's favorite greasy weasel rat SIR ZACHARY VARMITECH

his herd all escaped except him. one might think it was because he nobly sacrificed himself for their safety... but really it's because he's insane and convinced himself he can take down ~20 armed robots on his own.

the months of recovery followimg his rescue are not fun... mostly cause of the stressful human-filled environment and miscellaneous injuries (the big scar on his back is supposed to be an electrical burn)

but also because when he's able to walk again he isn't put back with his original herd (NOBODY knows where they are rn lol)

he is put with the nearest known group of individuals... which just so happened to include his long lost brother Einhorn (he's the purple one. and @ranfordgallus' oc)

wouldn't say their relationship was "bad" or "toxic" growing up but i'll try and describe it..

yk that person who's always been doing way worse than you in some way? the one who makes you feel good about yourself every time you're able to help them out?

the one you (consciously or otherwise) use as a point of reference whenever you feel bad about your own shortcomings like "at least i'm not doing as bad as that guy!"

yk that feeling of panic when you notice said person rapidly approaching your level... maybe even starts doing BETTER than you? being angry at them and even angrier at yourself for caring so much?

anyway Spar is currently in the process of convincing himself that he is NOT feeling any of these feelings

the REAL reason he's upset is CLEARLY because Einhorn is putting himself in mortal peril by associating with these vile hairless apes... clearly...

anywayyyss that was probably the single angstiest thing i've ever created and the most lore for an oc i've ever successfully worked into a tangible media...

have a kleinhorn for your troubles

[marblerose-rue]

as i work on this series i just want to thank u all for all of the kind words + support!! i truly did not expect my art to reach so many people and to provide the comfort and love it does :,-) eager to get back to drawing unicorns for yall and happy pride! <3

[anghraine]

One of the weirder parts of being formally tested for autism as an adult—apart from the hellscape of hours of math hell—was that they kept asking me for my conclusions or opinions about things I had very little knowledge of. These weren't basic facts you'd expect someone to pick up in the course of a standard US education, and I kept repeating that I would have to do actual research to form opinions on subjects I had no significant information about.

Obviously, "not opinionated" isn't a major problem for me when I do have a reasonable amount of information, but my eventual diagnosis specifically mentioned that I kept repeating that I would have to do more research to acquire the necessary baseline of data for forming opinions on [whatever], and that the phrasing of my various refusals tended to be identical or very similar (I didn't see any need to alter my wording when I was simply repeating the same position over and over).

*cough*

Anyway this is also about Star Trek. (Surprise.) I knew Spock would be relatable before we started the grand TOS watch, but did not expect him to be the most relatable character on television ever, and his continual refusals to deliver opinions without enough data for informed theories was actually a big part of this.

[slunberparty]

The Unicorn King of Snowhere in some cloud themed robes ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

[meattforbrains]

WHAT THE HELL WHY HE A PONY ?!

[puddii-ng]

🍒🤍

[triona-tribblescore]

He owns this, Leo told me himself.

[shyhandart]

We should be so lucky to get Asks from you! I love the pink pony with three legs you uploaded a while ago, you did a great job with her.

Could I get an Octavia? She's my favourite, no surprise. If that's not okay, please draw the pink pony again! I love her mane.

Im so glad you like her!! I'll definitely draw sweetpea more.

Im not super into Octavia but i think shes cute. She gave me very square and sturdy energy for some reason whilst also being rather elegant. I found that combo odd as i typically associate elegance with smoother, flowing shapes. But she spoke to me and who was i to disagree

[rxttenfish]

Did any specific animals inspire you while redesigning Aaravi?

well, considering her design is supposed to be specifically evoking images of unicorns, yes!

mainly i wanted something to contrast against miranda while also fitting with aaravi's own themes... i already knew that she was fae, because that was something that was retained from the original rps that got me shipping miravi, so i wanted to toy with that and toy with that as part of her dual nature. i also wanted something that... didn't actually evoke specifically images of "danger"? as in, i didn't want to lean too heavily on the monstrous or even the predatory. part of it is the fact that she's extremely human-passing, even compared to her own brother, so ultimately i didn't want anything that stuck out too obviously, and because i felt extremely exhausted of all the half-human half-monster designs that go too far into the same token predatory animal motifs over and over...

and because it's still a really common Thing, in the fandom, that if you're talking about aaravi you're taking her as... aggressive, in a way that's hard to explain? because she's more of a complicated person than that. like, i ship miravi so i feel the urge to compare her to miranda, specifically in how i don't think miranda actually wants or likes her specific role in the merkingdom vs. the concept of being a princess alone (which is understandable! a lot of little kids want to be princesses for good reason! it's being told you have inherent worth, no matter what you do and that you don't have to "earn" it, that you're beautiful and loved and admired, and that everyone looks up to you and wants to keep you safe in the same turn), but most interpretations of miranda don't pick up on this. it's like this with aaravi, in terms of being a slayer. she likes protecting people, being admired, being the person to save the day and the person that people can go to and feel safe and like they're protected by, she likes feeling hypercompetent and admired for her skills that she worked hard for, she likes feeling like she can solve problems and fix things. it's just that the circumstances of her life have told her that being a slayer is what's going to provide her with all of this, and because the entire structure of everything she knows has been built around this, she can't really begin to untangle one from the other.

which is to say, aaravi is a lot more nervous and scared and uncertain of a person than a lot of people think of her as, and ultimately because she doesn't want people to think or realize that she's actually feeling this way, least of all herself, it can become really easy to think it's actually how she IS.

which is why i ultimately ended up going with associating her with prey animals, and even moreso with unicorns. because she doesn't want to be seen as vulnerable, because that can get her preyed upon. because this then makes her project such an image of strength that she has to constantly hide anything even vaguely contrary to ensure no one even wants to look twice at her. because she's not really liked or accepted into social situations or circles, in a way that SINCERELY bothers her and upsets her, but is desperate to convince everyone else she's a lone wolf who likes this, actually.

likewise, i think a lot about unicorns specifically in the older kind of idea of, an embodiment of virgin wilderness. of truly untouched wilderness, which repels and is dangerous to humanity, which they cannot go into or face because it is so far from civilization. untouched purity, sure, but the double-edged sword of that, of then being something that cannot be sorted back into society or civilization and is inherently contrary to it. i think about unicorns being so fearsome that they were depicted fighting lions and with the lion as their counterpart, and about the virgin being so important to the unicorn myth because that's what induced docility in them, what allowed hunters to capture or kill unicorns due to what valuable resources could be extracted from them.

and i think this fits aaravi a lot. she's not docile, she's not easy to get along with, she's sincerely quite a difficult person, but being a difficult person doesn't mean you're unworthy of love or that you need to then discard what makes you difficult. i think about the strange way people see her as valuable to them, valuable to take advantage of or throw in other people's path or valuable just as a point of entertainment from the in-group making fun of her, but how this value necessitates not caring about her, herself. i think also about the singleminded way she throws herself into things, the way she charges into everything almost certainly because she's (similar to miri...) always lowkey suicidal and doesn't care if this kills her or not, and how unicorns were said to charge so ferociously at lions that, if the lion dodged out of the way, the unicorn would then lodge themselves in a tree in the charge.

this is why she has the lion's tail that's so drapey and flowing — i wanted to evoke the vine-like tails that classical unicorns get drawn with, with many tufts of fur along the length sprouting off. i also liked how it complimented how much body hair i draw her with, since it also makes it look similarly luxurious, with many tufts and ridges of hair (along her back, over her stomach, over her chest) like regal manes.

that's also why i ended up going with her ears being their specific design. because, aaravi's indian, and the indian rhinoceros is literally called the indian unicorn (with the latin name Rhinoceros unicornis!), and so i wanted her to have ears like one. same thing, for showcasing the seeming vulnerability of a prey animal and a herbivore, but also one that's known for being notoriously ornery and aggressive! i also thought it was nice, as so much of aaravi's mentality as a slayer is that monsters are preying on humanity, and so i wanted something that really showcased that herbivores are not passive and are not docile, that they can be equally or moreso dangerous than carnivores, and should not be taken as nonentities in their own environments. especially an animal that can absolutely kill its own predators too. :>

i also thought about using both the rhino connection and aaravi's connection to insects and arthropods to add some natural armor to her... but ultimately it didn't make the cut. i wanted some arthropod in her because i didn't want her to be straightforwardly mammalian, and there should be something off about her that suggests she's not just a humanoid design with a tail... her dad is effectively all of a forest mashed into one roiling mass of condensed nuclear magic, and she does have some (even if easily hidden) traits that would immediately clue other people in on the fact that she's only half human, and i don't like a lot of those... well, "fantasy races" designs that just puts body hair, a tail, and ears on a human. they feel off to me in a way that's hard to explain, and might just come down to the fact that, it feels like the people making them don't actually understand these traits, evolution, or why they end up selected for... and, again, i wanted the point that aaravi wasn't selected for! she's a first-generation hybrid, she has a lot of weird genetics that are also kinda working against her and would count her as disabled! this doesn't mean what she looks like is wrong or lesser, or that her intense shame and fear around these things is right, but moreso i just wanted to give the correct impression. that she's in a really complicated position that's basically only accepted because she's deemed "human enough", and that she feels pressure to hide or obscure anything and everything that isn't appealing enough about her.

and, honestly, adding arthropod in does this well! it's far enough away from mammalian that it's worth questioning, and doesn't feel like the kind of thing she SHOULD have, and sits a lot closer to the uncanny valley to a lot of people.

this is also why all of her body hair and her nails naturally grows in as purple! i saw on her original design that she had purple hair and purple nails, and she never struck me as the kind of person to dye her hair (nor paint her nails, really... she's butch, to me, in my heart), and i liked the thought that they just... naturally grow that way. that's her natural color. and, of course, both are made of keratin, so everything in her body made of keratin would be colored similarly, and chitin is pretty close to keratin too, isn't it? but it's the kind of thing people wouldn't notice, unless they got particularly close to her, unless they started putting together the pieces. so i ended up REALLY liking it, so now aaravi's body actually produces chitin, not keratin, and it's naturally a soft lavender-color too.

and the same for her mandibles! i wanted more major muscle and skeleton differences in her, since her dad doesn't even have DNA to begin with, but, again, she needed to be able to hide it easily. same goes for liking these differences being basically useless — hybridization isn't meant to be a superpower or to make you a mutant, it's just supposed to be another point of variation in the world. in the long run it's beneficial, certainly, but often it's not in ways that anyone can see, and certainly not in ways that anyone in the moment can tell. so giving her strange teeth (so long that they're worse than normal human teeth) and mandibles (so far back in her mouth they're basically only good for biting herself) fit both really nicely. she also has larger front incisors and a chipped incisor tooth, because i have those as well, and i never see them represented in designs.

her eyeshine is intentionally based off of both crocodiles and tigers, and because it being red is just close enough to being similar to human redeye to where it feels familiar but strange.

also, because it complimented miranda! miranda has blue eyeshine, but she's directly based off of both crocodiles and big cats in her design! miranda also represents both the dragon and the mermaid, in terms of "what she is", and i liked adding aaravi as the unicorn to contrast both of those. miranda's the princess and aaravi's the hero, but they're also the virgin and the unicorn, the dragon and the knight, the mermaid and the unicorn. they're both helpless against larger powers, but also fearsome and evocative in their own rights. i wanted aaravi to represent something that could be both savior and condemnation of miranda, and miranda to represent the same to aaravi, being someone who could kill her as an embodiment of evil, or someone just as good and just as worthy of love. they're both fantasy creatures that have gone the whole gambit, from being embodiments of the wild and untamed, to sexual entities, to representing virtues and beauty, to resources to be exploited, from being loved, to being commodified, to being used as inspiration for children's toys, to being hated and loathed and treated as jokes. they're both wildly different, and look wildly different, but they're also the same in fundamental ways, and find solace in how similar they are even with those differences.

[transmechanicus]

Repeated issue at social functions of ppl asking me what my hand tattoos say and me being profoundly unwilling to share with the class. Not that i feel i made a bad choice, but i did not expect Most Ppl to interrogate past me saying they’re encrypted Sleep Token lyrics. And now i find myself frequently in the position of being asked specifically what they say and being unable to articulate the depth i associate with each phrase in the time frame i have available. I need to get better at lying.

[korppipoika]

Kielo

Watercolor, ink, gouache

Do not copy, repost or use in any other way without permission, thank you

[avastyetwats]

Stede Bonnet seeking guidance/approval from Izzy Hands.

[ranticore]

i did not mean to get so deep into the nature of celebrity & pop culture and objectification thereof but it turns out when you're creating a world with virtual celebrities you have to really get into it