#I am trying to briefly sort of journal out reviews of shows after I watch them and post that more often

[nakanotamu]

2023.09.24 5 Star GP 2023 in Sanjou Sanjou City Public Hall 504 people (sold out)

Hanan vs Waka Tsukiyama

The Hanan to Club Venus saga continues. I mean not really since Mariah was about to leave and it’s more just a fun interaction than a real story per se but it’s still fun seeing them interact. Anyway I thought this was a perfectly solid singles opener. Maybe a little slow but I think that’s understandable given Hanan was in the 5 Star and this is right in the peak of when people were dropping like flies. It’s interesting in hindsight given where Hanan’s at now and the two of them feuding over the New Blood Tag belts but nothing crazy, totally fine for what it is. - 3

Koguma vs Saki Kashima vs Yuna Mizumori

Wow…. Saki before the days of “No running, no bumps, no high speed”... I had fun with this but it’s also a very standard house show sort of high speed three way. It was fine and the finish was fun but there was really nothing to it and all 3 of them can for sure do more. In my insane dedication to watching my backlog shows it’s such a bummer seeing perfectly fine matches like this that just have no story running through them at all. - 2.5

Suzu Suzuki & Mei Seira vs Megan Bayne & Hanako

Mei really really brings out the best in Megan and Hanako is so good, especially for how long she’d been around at this point. I don’t like Megan no-selling and warping a whole match around her at the best of times, but she actually gave Suzu & Mei a little, and even got to lose bc she was with a rookie! She’s also at her best just literally tossing someone like Mei around, even better given how much fun Mei obviously has doing it. She took some gnarly bumps here too that were really not necessary for what the match was or this house show but I hope she had fun. - 3

Red Stars: Syuri vs Starlight Kid

I thought about skipping this match bc I didn’t really want to watch Kid bust her ankle, but she came in with it already taped up and was pretty clearly trying to work around it already. Given she was working against that I thought this was really solid and I remain pretty consistently impressed the 5 Star is as good as it was given the backstage stuff at the time. I liked Kid trying to work Syuri’s leg vs Syuri being. Syuri. And you could kind of see Daichi and Syuri using the fake checking on Syuri’s knee at the end to actually check on Kid’s ankle, which I thought was sweet. I’m sure in a better situation Kid and Syuri could do way more than this but I still liked it. Oh, and the booking of this show itself - like, the order of the card was fucked. Why on earth was this not the main. On a 5 Star show where it’s the only 5 Star match???? - 3

Mina Shirakawa & Mariah May vs Natsuko Tora & Ruaka

Every Rose Gold match is a precious treasure to be cherished, and this was the last one…. Truly tragic, not doing anything crazy but an enjoyable sendoff for a tag team I would not have expected to like as much as I did or see kiss as much as I have. I hope everyone else is taking notes. - 3

Giulia & Maika vs Hazuki & Saya Iida

This would be like a perfectly fine house show main event but again it’s just absolute nonsense that this was the main to this show. Has no character stuff really at all even, coming during a weird down period in the on-again-off-again Maika leaving DDM story that ultimately went nowhere. Not that that's their fault but it still sucks. I did actually end up enjoying this more than I expected to, my hopes weren’t high going into it but I enjoyed every combination of people in this and Hazuki and Maika in particular were really cooking, that could very much be My Shit and I’d love to see a lot more from them together. I mean I would like to see a lot more from Hazuki all of the time in any context but this was a good combo. All in all perfectly solid house show when you take into account when it took place and what was going on. - 3

[simplysnexual]

Got inspired by @doctor492 ‘s SCP!au with Erasermic! I don’t often post my stories so have mercy! I took some creative liberties with their abilities and such. I’m also not terribly educated when it comes to all the SCP lore. 

Excerpts from a guard’s journal.

Day 1

My first day in this sector of the facility. There are 4 keter class anomalies in this sector. Two of which I am in charge of dealing with. These two are kinda...humanoid in appearance but I have yet to see more than quick glances. Training is extensive in this sector as one wrong move either means death or worse: the escape of a dangerous creature. Training has mostly been computerized and kinda boring. Can't wait to get to the hands on stuff. 

Day 5

Finally onto some interesting stuff. I’ve had my first encounter with the SCP nicknamed Eraserhead. He...well I suppose it, though it does have a masculine body type. Plus its kinda weird calling such a humanoid creature an it so I’ll just say him. Anyway, he is a shadowy figure that appears to be made of an ever shifting inky mass. He has bright, misty yellow “eyes.” These eye-like features could be something else entirely their own but appear to act like eyes, blinking and fixating on whatever his attention is on. White cloth-like ribbons float around him constantly like thin snakes writhing in the air. Wispy outlines that look like hair also frame his head and face. I don't know much else about Eraserhead but I’m excited to learn more.

Day 7

First encounter with the “Voice Demon.” Yet another humanoid anomaly, this one more so than Eraserhead. The Voice Demon appears to be a 6’1” white male with long blonde hair. The most jaring and notably inhuman feature is its mouth. A wide maw stretches past the normal stretch of a human mouth, wrapping around all the way to its ears. Its, well I’d called this one a he too. He has lacerations around his throat that appear to have been stitched up and plucked at only to be stitched again. I don’t know for sure but I believe those injuries were inflicted by the Foundation…

Day 10

Something rather interesting happened today. On my usual rounds to check on the anomalies, I discovered Eraserhead standing at the plexi glass window of his containment unit. Mirroring him on the other side of the hall was the “Voice Demon.” The demon’s spirling green eyes seemed softer than his usual jaring glare. As could be said for Eraserhead. But shortly after they noticed my presence, they went back to the darker corners of their units. 

Day 12

I’ve finally found out more about my two favorite SCPs. Turns out Eraserhead has the ability to not only control the writhing ribbons around him, but can also erase one function of the human body, such as the respiratory system or cardiac system. Pretty scary stuff right? A few guards have fallen to this creature’s abilities. I guess I have to be wary not to piss him off huh? As for the Voice Demon, his name is very fitting. His voice can reach beyond 177 decibels, a range passing which is dangerous to humans. This level of sound can burst cells in your lungs, shake your bones and even cause long term damage to your joints. I believe the facility tried to sever his vocal chords but found that not to be the source of his ability. I’ve yet to hear (hehe) of his ability being used or how they keep him from using it. 

Day 16

First incident on my shift, A fellow guard wasn’t being so careful around Eraserhead’s unit. There's an existing rule that you don’t stick around the plexi glass viewing window of his unit. Apparently this guy forgot or didn’t listen to the warning. Dude’s respiratory system shut down and I found him after hearing his gasping wheezes. The SCP medical team took him away. I’m not sure where to but I have a feeling it wasn’t to a hospital…

Day 18

Caught my favorite two charges interacting across the hall again. I hid around the corner to see what they did away from prying eyes. They seemed to be making gestures to each other and after a bit I noticed the Voice Demon fogging up the glass with his breath and drawing things, cats and flowers and the like. Eraserhead’s yellow slits of eyes squinted like how mine do when I smile. Strange...but endearing. Humanizing almost... 

Day 21

Found out what the Voice Demon’s smile looks like...Seems I made him laugh, not sure I can call it that but I’m guessing it was a laugh. I tripped on my idiot coworkers spilled coffee and kissed the floor. Once the Voice Demon made his laugh like noise, I turned to him and saw his lips had curved up and his eyes squinted. Eraserhead matched his squinting. I couldn’t help but smile myself...heh I guess I’m just as strange huh? Smiling at the strange and deadly creatures I guard from the world everyday. But hey it’s the little things that remind you of your humanity when you’re stuck in sterile white hallways all the time.

Day 25

A few guards went into Voice Demon’s unit to try to draw blood or something. Most came out with bleeding ears. Two came out in body bags after a gas filled the room to incapacitate the creature. I’m beginning to doubt the Foundation’s care for its employees…

Day 26

After reviewing the security footage of yesterday’s incident, I noticed the shifting form and writhing ribbons of Eraserhead had increased in their violent motion. His inky, ever-moving form had gone rough around the edges and his ribbons whipped as if in a tornado. Almost like...he was upset?  Angered that his neighbor, maybe even his friend was hurt?

Day 31 

Eraserhead and the Voice Demon are definitely friends of some sort. Yes I know I’m not supposed to humanize the anomalies but I can’t help myself. Their interactions continue and grow in complexity and frequency. It's kinda endearing to be honest. I don’t see much friendly interaction in this place. I feel just as trapped as they do sometimes…

Day 40

My first interaction with the Voice Demon. Guess I pissed off the facility or something cuz they sent me in ALONE to try to draw blood. I’d pretty much accepted my death sentence the second the doors closed behind me. But to my surprise the creature looked at me...curiously? I knelt down to try to seem less threatening and spoke to him like I would a scared child, like my siblings when they hid from a storm. Across the hall I caught a glimpse of Eraserhead’s form shifting violently again. I sat cross legged for a while, slowly trying to coax him over. I couldn’t believe it when the creature approached me and extended his arm for me. I held his wrist like I had when my little sister scraped her elbow. I spoke softly like I had to her as I took the Voice Demons blood, totally unaware of why but fixated on the sentience in his eyes. 

Day 45

The facility sent me into Eraserhead’s unit after my success with the Voice Demon. They didn’t send me for blood, I don’t even know if he has blood?? I think they sent me in for the hell of it, to watch a keter class at work or see what this one did with a human actually in his unit not just outside his window. Turns out, not much. The creature merely stared me down before shifting away and turning his back on me. Without anything really interesting happening for a good while, the high ups let me back out. I’m just as much contained as they are these days. I haven’t been allowed to leave since the interaction with the Voice Demon. But I can’t find it in myself to regret it.

Day 50

I don’t trust this place anymore. The staggering number of guards lost in a month is beyond what could be just “accidents.” The measures they go to “contain” these creatures they label monsters are beyond what’s right. Nearly worse than what the creatures do themselves. A place which considers beating what I could nearly call a person into submission just doesn’t seem right.

Day 51

I treated the Voice demon’s wounds today. He seemed sedated as I worked with him as gently as I could. I talked softly to him, about nothing in general but just to give him some comfort, something to focus on. My heart nearly stopped when I heard his voice. It was only a soft. “Thank you.”. His voice was soft but raspy from lack of use. I met his gaze and that’s when I made my decision. I’m getting them out of here. Him and Eraserhead. After all, what use is it freeing a lone creature to face the world outside without a friend?

Day 55

This Foundation is run by idiots. All this secretive crap covers up their incompetence. But this plan isn’t going to go through without sacrifice. It’s worth it. Without my family around to need me anymore I’m happy to die for a good reason. I’ve faced death before just for this stupid Foundation’s fun. Tomorrow during shift change I’m cutting the power on the sector where Eraserhead and the Voice Demon reside. It’ll be just long enough for the locks to fail and let them escape. I hope they get far away from this hell hole and pathe their way in the outside world. And maybe….just maybe, remember me fondly.

This was the last entry written in the young man’s journal. SCP guard Scarleton lay dying in the glistening blood pooling around him. The red flashing of alarms briefly illuminating the hall in intervals. His dying sight was the Voice Demon’s toxic green eyes spilling over with tears as he grasped the only guard, hell the only human to treat him like anything other than a monster. One more little smile found the man’s lips as he showed his blood stained teeth, eyes sliding closed. “Go on….be free.” He let out a wet laugh and went still. A shifting black form took the arm of the green eyed creature and drug him away to follow through on the guard’s dying words.

[argylemnwrites]

Night Float

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x MC (Cassie Vanderfield)

Book: Open Heart

Word Count: ~2200

Rating: PG

Summary: When Bryce and Cassie are both working nights, they find a little downtime to have an important conversation.

Author’s Note: Whoever said nothing good happens after 2 am never had the joys of working night float.

Cassie flopped onto the resident lounge’s lumpy old couch and pulled a coffee-stained blanket over her lap. God, she hated night float. This was the first time she’d been able to sit down since getting signout from the day team at 8 pm. It was now after 2 am. She knew she should be working on her notes from the three admissions she’d already done, but she just wanted to catch her breath for 15 minutes.

Her patients were not sick enough for the night to be this busy. But Mr. Lindel’s son had come in and downloaded the MyChart app on his father’s phone, so she spent over an hour in 410 going over the meaning of every lab test he’d had this admission. At no other point in the night had her pager been silent for more than 10 minutes, but of course when she could have used an excuse to leave a room, none came. Then, as she was finally leaving his room, the nurse for 402 grabbed her. Apparently, there were some concerns about his diet order for the next afternoon, even though he was NPO overnight for his endoscopy tomorrow morning. Cassie was pretty sure she was due for some 3 am pages after dismissing their concerns as a “day team problem.” After that, she’d been paged about inadequate pain control on the kidney stone patient that had been punted to their team by urology because of the patient’s heart failure. Heart failure that was well controlled, but of course the patient had ended up on their service. The admissions had been overly chatty, too. During the daytime, Cassie loved talking to her patients, but after 10 pm, she just wanted to get through her history and physical.

She dug through the stacks of New England Journals and finally found the remote, flipping on the TV in hopes of landing on some mindless sitcom to watch. All she could find was infomercial after infomercial. What she really wanted was someone to talk to. Walking over to the computer stations, she logged on to Amion to see who else was working tonight. An emergency rotator, a family med rotator, and Aurora. Well, that was just perfect.

“You know he’s working tonight, too,” a little voice pestered in the back of her head. The surgical interns didn’t have months of night float like the IM interns, but Bryce was working nights on the gen surg floor this week. Cassie hesitated to text him, though. She wasn’t really sure where they stood. Sure, they’d been hooking up for several weeks, but they’d never really talked about what they were. Was it friends with benefits? Casual dating? Heading towards a relationship? At first, it had been a lot of fun, but now, Cassie wanted a clearer picture of what was going on between them. But she was nervous to be “that girl,” the one who made things awkward when she pushed for a “relationship talk” too early.

Truth be told, she’d been avoiding Bryce a little bit over the past couple of weeks. Things had just felt… unsettled between them since he’d cancelled what she thought was supposed to be their first actual date. Sure, they’d hung out before, but it was always a spur of the moment thing or the two of them breaking off from the group. But just over two weeks ago, they had made actual plans to go to out for dinner at The Salty Pig. However, at the very last minute, just as Cassie had been about to head out the door, he had texted her, saying he was in the OR and would not be able to make it. He’d sent another apology text later, but hadn’t made any move to reschedule. The whole thing left Cassie wondering if he had gotten cold feet about actually going on a date with her, and the OR just served as a convenient excuse, so she’d backed off texting him quite a bit. She didn’t want to come across as clingy if the thought of one dinner with her sent him running for the hills.

Resigning herself to a frustrating rest of her shift, she opened up the chart of her first admit and starting typing up her note, trying to discern what she had scribbled about when dyspnea began, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Bryce. She didn’t like that things had gotten awkward. Even if he didn’t want to date her, she liked spending time with him. He was one of the few surgeons who didn’t walk around with a permanent scowl etched into his face, and he was genuinely funny. She just wished that she knew what he was thinking when it came to the two of them.

Just then, the door to the resident lounge swung open, the man in question striding through, surgical cap on and holding a coffee in his hand, looking all too pleased with himself. He smiled brightly when he saw her.

“Hey, I was hoping I’d run into you. How’s your night been?”

“Not as good as yours, I’m guessing. What has you so chipper?”

“Emergency lap appy. And Palmer’s the attending on, so guess who got to run the show?”

“Did you just come here to brag? Some of us have work to do.”

“Wow, that bad of a night, huh?”

“Not even that bad, just… annoying, I guess.”

Bryce leaned over to look at her computer screen and what she was working on. “H&P? Come on, that can wait. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“To do something that will put you in a better mood,” he whispered, dropping his lips right against her ear.

“Bryce, I am not having sex in a call room.”

Bryce leaned back, his eyes comically wide as he looked at her with an air of innocence he had no right to have. “Hey, I was just talking about getting some food. You have a dirty mind if that’s what you jumped to. I’m appalled, Dr. Vanderfield, that you would-”

Cassie slapped her hand over his mouth, effectively cutting off his teasing. “Let me just finish up this note.”

Bryce shook his head as he smiled. “Not an option. One, you are clearly all sorts of hangry right now, so we’re correcting that,” Cassie opened her mouth to challenge that statement, but Bryce kept going, “And two, the cafeteria shuts down the grill at 3, so unless you want day-old sandwiches or cold cereal, we better go now.”

Cassie bit her lip, glancing between her half finished admission note and Bryce. She could probably wrap this note up in 20 minutes or so, but that would be calling it tight with the cafeteria hours. Plus, as much as she hated to admit it, Bryce was right. She was starving, having only eaten a granola bar since the start of her shift. He seemed to sense that she was caving, because he reached over and grabbed the mouse, saved her note as incomplete, and logged her out of the computer. He then offered his hand to her. “Come on, you know you want to.”

Cassie sighed and rolled her eyes before grabbing his hand, allowing him to tug her out of her chair. “Fine, fine. We’ll have to swing by my workroom, though. I need to grab my wallet.”

“Nah, it’s my treat. Or rather, the surgical program’s treat,” he said with a smile, flashing a meal card from the front pocket of his scrubs as they left the resident lounge and walked toward the employee elevators.

“Ohhhh, big spender.”

“Hey, what can I say? I know how to treat a lady. Plus, I do kind of owe you after I cancelled on you.”

This was her in. He had brought up their dinner. As Bryce pushed the elevator call button, Cassie finally asked the question that had been bugging her for weeks, “Why didn’t you try to reschedule?”

“I was with Madhani starting the next day, and she’s notorious for kicking you out of the OR if you can’t answer a question, so I kinda needed to have my nights free to review my cases, and then you went to night float.”

“I guess that’s fair.”

“Plus… ah, nevermind,” Bryce trailed off as they entered the elevator, pressing the button for the basement.

“No way, you don’t get to start that thought and not finish it.”

Bryce smiled sheepishly, “I thought some of the other surgical residents might have been giving you a hard time about it.”

“About you canceling?”

“No, about us going to dinner at all.”

“How would they have known?”

“I was in the OR when I realized I wasn’t going to make it. How do you think I texted you?”

Cassie’s eyes widened as she realized that if he was scrubbed into a case, he would not have been able to access his phone, which meant…

“Who texted me to cancel?” she asked as they exited the elevator and turned to the right, passing a pair of OBGYN residents on their way back from the cafeteria.

“The circulating nurse. Chou was my attending, and he found it hilarious when she asked me how I wanted to phrase it. He tried to convince her to page you instead of texting. I thought it would just be some light ribbing from him, but it turns out the anesthesiology resident who was in that case is a giant gossip. By the next morning, about half the surgical residents already knew. I’m shocked none of them have said anything to you.”

“No one’s said a thing.”

“Well, that’s good. I just thought they probably would have and that it made you feel weird that they all knew. I thought maybe you didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Know what? What exactly is there to know, Bryce?”

He turned to face her briefly. “Alright, we can do this now,” he replied before stepping up to the employee at the grill station, “One grilled chicken sandwich, thanks.”

As the cafeteria worker threw a chicken breast on the grill, Cassie stepped up next to Bryce, looking at him out of the corner of her eye, “What are we doing, Bryce?”

“Right now, we’re ordering food.” He gestured to the employee, who was staring at her expectantly.

“I’ll have a chicken quesadilla,” Cassie said before turning to face Bryce, “I’m serious, Bryce. We’ve never really talked about what’s going on between us.”

“I thought things between us were good. It seemed like we’re both enjoying ourselves.”

“So, that’s all this is? We’re just having fun?”

“Hey, I never said we were just having fun, only that I thought things were going well.”

“Okay, if this isn’t just fooling around, then what are we doing?”

“Cassie, I don’t know. I like spending time with you. I asked you out to dinner. I don’t really care what you want to call it.”

“I guess I kind of wondered if there were other people you were asking out to dinner.”

It really was the biggest question on her mind when it came to her relationship with Bryce. He was just so flirty, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was sleeping with other people. And in the beginning, it didn’t bother her, but now it had been long enough that she just didn’t feel great about being one of several casual hook ups.

Bryce gave her a little smirk before he answered, “Cassie, I am at the hospital more than 80 hours a week. Where do you think I have all this time to have a string of casual flings?”

“So, you aren’t seeing anyone else?”

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

“Well, then that’s settled; are we good here?”

Cassie nodded and smiled. She didn’t need him to vow some heavy commitment. She just wanted to make sure they were on the same page.

“Okay, good. Otherwise waiting around for our food was about to get real awkward.”

Cassie laughed, feeling much lighter than she had the rest of the night. “So, is this our makeup date, then?”

“Come on, you have to think I have better game than the hospital cafeteria!” he said, nudging her playfully.

“I don’t know. I’ve yet to see ‘date Bryce’ in action.”

“I’ll tell you what. You come out with me for breakfast after sign out, and I’ll let you be the judge of ‘date Bryce’ in all his glory.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Cassie said, but before she could say any more, her pager went off.

“Come: Pt in 429 with 10/10 pain, PRN tylenol already given”

Letting out a groan, her eyes rolled over to the grill. Her quesadilla was nowhere near ready.

“Go,” said Bryce, “I’ll bring it up to the res lounge for you.”

“Will you be there with it?”

“Sure, barring a medical emergency... so probably not,” he said with a laugh before adding, “Seriously though, if I’m not there when you get back, let’s meet there after sign out. I wasn’t joking about grabbing some breakfast together.”

Cassie winked at him and nodded before taking off back toward the staff elevators. Maybe night float wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

[mysticsparklewings]

Daises on Strawberry Hill‪

Well, this looks a bit different from my usual content, doesn't it? Full disclosure that this art was made primarily as art inspired by one of my favorite books of all time (seriously, I have three different editions of this thing)--Looking for Alaska by John Green--as an excuse to talk about the new Hulu series of the same name that's based on the book. Because if you know me at all, you know I am notoriously hard on book-to-screen adaptions, particularly those based on books I love as if they were family members. And originally, this description was going to include a pretty blow-by-blow, lengthy review of my thoughts on the series. However, it's been quite a while since I first started trying to type out said review, and frankly, I've decided instead to, after I talk about the art, to just give some general, spoiler-free thoughts; the most important opinions I have on the series and leave it at that. I am still planning on completing and putting my full-length, in-depth thoughts out, but that'll be at some other time. Perhaps I'll put them in a journal/blog post instead of adding to the description here. Whatever happens, I'll update this description so that those who are interested in my deep-dive can find it when the time comes. That said, let's talk about the artwork now :) LfA isn't a fantasy or sci-fi book, so it doesn't have any cool dramatic scenes or neato devices/objects that have a lot of significance to the plot that would be fun to draw, which is why I never made any fan art or inspired-by-art for it before. But I really wanted an excuse to talk about the series, and so I pondered what symbols or imagery the series might have that I could make into art, even if none of it was terribly relevant to the plot or exciting on its own. This led me to the cheap wine that's mentioned a few times throughout the book: Strawberry Hill. Drawing just a bottle of wine seemed kind of boring and not very specific to the book/series, so I ended up adding in some white daisies since white flowers and daises specifically do have some significance to the plot. (In a way, they're a bit of a crux to it, at least for a key epiphany moment.) Originally, I was going to make this piece traditionally, and I did start with a traditional sketch of the wine bottle and one daisy to use as a template for more to follow. However, I pretty quickly got the idea for doing something more line-art heavy on a black background, as the cover for the book is black and the sort of chalkboard/blacklight look I was picturing in my head seemed fitting for the tone of the story, and despite my best efforts I couldn't think of a way/combination of media to accomplish what I wanted traditionally without also giving myself a major headache and making the project take infinitely longer than I wanted it to. So while I stalled in production, I ended up on my tablet for something else and figure I'd scan in my sketches and maybe make a line art to print off and manipulate into what I wanted traditionally later. But then, just as I started working on that, I figured, "You know what, if I'm going to go through all of the trouble to ink/line this digitally and I wanted it to be more line-focused anyway, I might as well take a crack at just doing the full artwork digitally. I'll get the lines done either way, and if it doesn't work out then at least I can say I tried, I know some of what not to do, and I end up with a digital mock-up for the final version." Fortunately, things ended up working out much better than I expected. I purposefully wasn't too fussy about the lines, partly because I just didn't have the patience at the time to be super precise about it, and also because for this specific project I kind of liked the idea of a more doodle-ish look (even though it's not super doodle-y in the final product). This also made things move a lot faster, which was nice and pretty satisfying. I started with the wine bottle from my sketch, including trying a new liquid drawing technique I half picked up from an art Youtuber I just recently started following that makes drawing liquid in a style similar to this look like a lot of fun. I knew I wanted the bottle to be mostly transparent/just lines, so the goal here was more about getting the wine bottle shape/structure familiar enough than it was about anything else. The label took a bit more though since in my mind, ever since I read the book, I had a pretty specific image of a pinkish bottle with a yellowish liquid and this cream-colored label with dark brown/sepia text, and I had not previously considered the label into that whole primarily line-focused image in my mind.  So in the end, I decided the label would be solid so I could get the proper imagery across and the text and stuff could still be seen properly. Additionally, you'll notice I couldn't help myself being a little on-the-nose and sticking a tiny strawberry and mountain/hill on the label for good measure and to fill some space without having to look up wine bottle references just to stare at the labels for a ridiculous amount of time.   The daises were also infinitely easier to do digitally since I could just copy, paste, and rotate first the petals to make one flower, and then copy, paste, rotate that one flower a few more times, instead of having to draw individual petals and flowers every time. This also gave me a little more freedom in that I could re-size the flowers pretty easily to make it more visually interesting than just a bunch of flowers that were all the same size. All that ended up being less line-focused than I originally intended, but I acknowledged that happening as I worked, and I'm not upset about the shift in focus. I think what I ended up with still has about the same visual impact I was hoping for, and that's all I really wanted anyway. And as sort of the icing on the cake, I ended up adding in that wisp/smoke trail in the background because of 1. It seemed kind of empty and unfinished with just the flowers and wine bottle and 2. When I tried adding a green vine to fix that issue, it just wasn't working for me. That's when I realized I could have a stronger reference to the book by putting something similar to smoke in the background since the original cover of the book has a smoke plume front-and-center. It took a few tries and some tweaking to get something I was happy with on that front, but I am so glad I stuck with the idea. It just adds something I can't quite place that the piece really needed before. The content is pretty different for me--I don't drink and I don't really endorse the idea--and the style is a little beyond my usual realms, but I do really like how it turned out. I feel like it's done well enough that you can appreciate the symbols and references if you know the book, but it also works as just a kitsch art piece if you're completely unfamiliar with the source material too. I don't think it's super accurate to when a bottle of the stuff shows up in the Hulu series, but it was on screen so briefly and my mind was focusing on other aspects while I was watching, so I didn't get a super good look at it.  But I still think it'll suffice well enough despite that. I'm happy with how it turned out, and that's all that really matters, right? Now, then, as for the thoughts I have on the Hulu series that I think need to be shared sooner rather than later. I'll start by going on record to say, as someone that is notoriously hard on book-to-screen adaptions, that I did actually like the LfA series pretty good. I'd say it's about a 7 out of 10, which an exceptionally good score coming from me. It's not my most favorite show of all time, but it's notably better than "just okay," which is historically the highest praise I've ever been able to give a book-to-screen adaption. It had its faults and things I would've done differently if it were up to me, but fortunately, it did an infinitely better job than I was expecting. My main issues, as with all book-to-screen adaptions, come in the form of some of the changes that were made between the book and the screen. Fortunately, this time around the problems I do have are not egregious offenders. Most changes that were made still make sense within the story and while the overall message isn't quite the same as the book, it didn't totally squander what the book was trying to say. All of which are problems that most book-to-screen adaptions suffer from horribly. And while I won't talk too much at length about this (that's for the long-form review later ) I think this has a lot to do with the series being roughly 7-8 hours of content, as opposed to the either extremely rushed 2-hours-or-less a movie would've been, or the more-time-than-we-know-what-to-do-with 13+ hours of...certain book-to-screen adaptions that failed miserably at their job. (*cough* 13 Reasons Why *cough*) As I said, it's not perfect, but I do think as far as allotted time and time-management that they hit something of a sweet spot so that they'd have enough time to give the plot the room it needs to breathe without having so much time that they have to start making stuff up to fill it all. The other thing I'd like to point out is that, honestly, they did what 13 Reasons Why wanted to do way better than that series could ever hope to. They told the story of teenagers experiencing darker themes and elements of life so much more tactfully, and, in my opinion, more realistically. And they didn't wait for a controversy to spike and then do something about it--they didn't bank on the publicity of a controversy. Right from episode one, every episode starts with a warning that this series is meant for an adult audience (because of its themes) and viewer discretion is advised. And at the end of every episode, as the series does featuring smoking and drinking on more than one occasion, they provide resources to visit if you or someone you know has a problem with either of those things. I don't know if the people at Hulu saw what happened to Netflix with 13 RW and learned from their mistakes or if they just knew better, but either way, I'm so glad it was handled so much better, regardless of why or how it happened. As far as recommendations, if you're a John Green and/or Looking for Alaska book fan, I'd say it's definitely worth the watch. For outside viewers...I think you have to really be into the YA drama scene to appreciate it. Just be prepared for some more adult content than you might typically find in a YA movie. It's all done pretty tastefully and the majority isn't there senselessly; most of it serves some kind of purpose to the story, which is why it doesn't bother me (a very prude-ish person) all that much. I think that's everything I feel like needs to be said right now about the series until I can get the long-form review finished. (It's maybe 1/3 of the way done currently...and already getting on the long side )   I have to admit, this does make me more hopeful for the future of book-to-screen adaptions, at least those that end up being handled the way this one was. In fact, I'm actually really hoping that if Turtles All the Way Down, John Green's newest book, ever sees a screen adaption that it's handled in a series form and is done at least as well as LfA was. Time will tell, I suppose. In fact, I believe any day now, Let it Snow, a book that John Green wrote 1/3 of is supposed to have its movie adaption dropped on Netflix. I'm not super confident in Netflix's handling of adaptions for reasons mentioned earlier, but maybe just maybe it'll be okay? ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings I do not own Looking for Alaska and/or associated content ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram