#I even dug out my deviantart account for this

[calamitaswrath]

Thank you, Mira. Farewell, BLADE.

(Link to a proper full resolution view version of this picture, without tumblr's compression)

While X' servers were still up and running, I spent a lot of time wandering around Mira, tracking down other players' Crosses, and screenshotting them whenever they had what I would consider a "farewell message". And the other day, reddit user NoodleTF2 posted a compilation of places where other players' Crosses can appear on Mira, which featured several people that I never saw (or never saw outside of menus). This big chonker of a picture (seriously, it's 5850 x 4320 - make sure to look at it in a full view!) is the result of me compiling every single ones of these farewell messages into one singular pic. The centrepiece is an edited screenshot of my own, since I obviously couldn't screenshot my own Cross, and thought that the sunset view of NLA made for a good middle of it all.

Thank you for everyone who came together in X' last days. You all made the end something to remember.

Featuring:

Aeviann @baevi

Alban

Alex

Alice

Alvis

Amanda

Ambri

Amiya

Andrew

Apples

Aquila

Artek

Arugula

Aspirety

Aurora

Basil

Bernd

Bobby Joe

Britney Sp

Calamitas

Chicken

Corvus

Cross

Cross

Cynthia

Desu

Dimitri

Don Akechi

Duncan

Edx7

Ele

Elhaym

Elliya

Eve @faleve

Eve

Fina

Fiora

Flame

Fliro

Flit

Francisco

Galaxy

Gaz

Georley

Gigia

Gnosis

Hirschulat

Ilyana

Indigo

Jackson

Jacob

James

Jay

Jazz

Jenny X°X

Justin

Kairo

Kaz

Kerion

Killer Bee

Kleio

Kris @kay-faraway

Leonidas

Magnetara

Mario

Maya @wall-maria-around-ba-sing-se

Meivi

Miaa

Micahel

Micaiah

Michael @freakburger

Mimi

Minuske

Mio

Morp

Nanami

Nephiros

Nhi

Osmin

Patrick

Pneuma

Pyra

R-A

Ralph

Robert

Ross

Rubedo

Rus

Sam

Sarah

Scoren

Sette

Shigeru

Shunk

Simon

Skye

Soraya

Stella @eshehdafah

Sydnee

Travis

Tris

Vah Shan

Valerian

Vikky

Xelia

Yanis

Yuliya

Yuuki

Zac

Zero

[astrowonder98]

Turning 25, and about time for a quarter-life crisis.

What a mess social media has found itself in. Facebook and Twitter are either seen as a joke or in disrepair, Places like DeviantART want to experiment with AI art and it has hindered the site, and no one is in a prime position to take over and be the new place we can all hang out. The internet is going though a major painful metamorphosis and I am not sure how to feel about it... cause who the heck knows the result? Not me!

It's probably a fitting time as ever. This month will mark the big 25 (specifically July 7th, give Ringo Starr my birthday cheer, too.) and I have been doing a lot of thinking in my life about what I want to do and how I can do it while still being able to survive. And the honest to goodness fact is that I haven't come up with any answers, at least not any good answers that I can work with.

I'm going to try and make my thoughts on what is going on with me as simple as possible.

I've worked in the same dead end part-time job for the past two years. It's above minimum wage, sure, but it's not a living wage either. It's also a highly physical job. Most of the time I'm in the parking lot outside. In the burning sun. Lifting heavy objects and pushing carts. Despite it being part-time, I feel wiped out after the fact and not want to do anything else. This has frustrated people who wonder why this can possibly happen (my workplace and a couple of my close family.) The only reason I am still here at this point is because I need the healthcare.

In spite of a degree in Computer Science, virtually every application sent with using it in mind has never been acted upon, not even getting to the interview phase. Just rejected. What's ironic is that applications sent to other retail places have gotten quick responses back. People look at my resume with my degree and see more readily a sales representative than a software developer and it doesn't make me feel great...

All of this culminates in coming back home without feeling a thing. Completely emotionless. I'm in therapy for this, but it's been a slow progress to get to this point. And unless I do something drastic I might be stuck in a loop for a while longer, which stinks.

It was a mistake thinking that making art and creating stuff for people to enjoy would do anything to change that and hoping, somehow, it could turn into an actual career. I really held out hope in this avenue but have now reached a conclusion that it will just be nothing more than a hobby I do on the side. The fact that any original material (Always Lagging Behind, Rocket Board, and other original character art) I've created has gotten less attention and praise than fanart does not help in me reaching this conclusion (especially with my involvement in Pokemon Mystery Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Heroes.)

By extension, I accidentally made things I like to do for fun or should be relaxing as work I must do, and that's just not good for my mind, let alone anyone's mind. It's probably why I don't feel happy when trying to relax and try to enjoy things, but it also might be more complicated than that...

All of this has made me reach this conclusion: I need to make a change immediately. There are a number of things I'll be doing, but here are three things that are relevant to the internet world specifically:

Howie's Convenience - Clean Up After Yourself! will continue as I planned before making this... post? monologue? snapping point? I'll let you pick. I will pick the voices for the characters in late July, record with the cast, and then animate the thing whenever I get a chance to do so when I'm not doing whatever I can do get myself out of this hole I dug.

I'm now only going to use social media to post things I want to post. That's it. No looking at what everyone else is doing and liking and sharing.

Twitter and YouTube are now considered cold turkeys. YouTube will only be used for when I'm uploading something to the site. My Twitter accounts will just not be used altogether and will be closed July 31st.

I know those of you who care about what I do might find it very sudden. It honestly is. I have a bad habit of putting things off on most days and then somehow finding the will in me to actually make a drastic step to change my life. With how I worded some of this stuff, you might come to the conclusion that I hate my audience or other people for just liking what they do and they don't match up with what I want them to like. I do not. I hate myself for even wanting to humor that notion. It's not my fault people just have different tastes and likes. It just means I should just keep drawing what I like in that moment and be proud of what I make.

I'll keep posting here on Tumblr to keep you updated on that Howie's Convenience project I've only just now told you about on this site (another bad habit) but for the most part, consider this post as me acknowledging the mistakes I've made and doing what I can to get out of it.

I'll be seeing you around.

Erin Strouder (HeyStrouder/AstroWonder98)

[jaderimehardt]

RedBubble Tiers Rant

This is probably going to be a long one so strap in 🙃

Yesterday a lot of us RedBubble artists received some ridiculous e-mail about RB going into 3 tiers soon. Standard, Premium, and Pro. This e-mail arrived not too long after us receiving another e-mail about them changing their payment system from us getting checks on the 15th, to us now getting them at the end of the month (for whatever reason).

Premium and Pro tiers basically won't get charged anything, if you happen to fall into those. Standard tier will get charged a fee every month depending on how much you make. You cannot choose your tier.

There also seems to be no rhyme or reason to which tier you get placed in.

In this example, that they- themselves, provided, if you were to earn 300$, you’d only receive 47$ of it after all was said and done. It’s down right baffling. (if you do the math, that’s 15% for this one specific example.)

They provide a chart so it breaks down further, here on this page. I'd include the chart they have but, it's massive and scrolls this post way more than I'm already going to do with all my rambling and ranting.

They’re basically taking an average of 40% of the artist’s earnings. (after already taking 50% to begin with.)

It's like they saw Etsy do it, and thought 'Hey, we can do this too'. I hate this so much. I used RedBubble because I work with digital art programs, not physical items.

(Or at least, I currently do.)

If you look on Twitter, everyone is abandoning ship. People hate this. It's like a repeat of DeviantArt when they implemented AI. They didn't consult the community first, they just outright added it and the community retaliated by deleting their art, deleting their accounts, and voicing their disdain.

That's exactly what's happening here; backlash. People are deleting their accounts and voicing how much they oppose this. Even buyers who don't have shops are being vocal about how they will never buy from RedBubble ever again because of this. They literally just dug themselves a grave. Great job guys 👍🏻 You have some real brainiacs over there running (more like ruining) your company.

Speaking of... RB: I see your stocks have been down and declining since the middle of 2018. Perhaps you should backtrack and start looking at what went wrong around that time, and oh~ I don't know. Try and reverse what went wrong. Do some damage control. Something. Something clearly in that time frame took a turn for the worse, but THIS. This is not the solution. This is an asinine decision. You're pushing away both your artists and buyers. How is that good for anyone?

Before things took a complete spiral south and I got that awful e-mail yesterday, I was looking up dozens upon dozens resin videos. It's something I've been looking into for a few months now and I'm hoping to completely dive into within the month or two?

I'm trying really hard to NOT see this as a train-wreck and more as an opportunity to Tony Stark, Clean Slate protocol.

Wipe out my RedBubble shop. Nuke my Wordpress, Instagram, Twitter, etc etc social platforms that go with it. Start anew probably on Etsy (as much as I don't think that's better). Pair it with Printful for those hoodies, t-shirts, mugs, stickers, prints, etc. And when I've got my resin items completed and good to go, I can add those into my shop too. It'll all be in one place.

But as much as I'm like ~there's light at the end of the tunnel, this will be good~ I keep spinning back around to 'aaaa~!' because frankly it's overwhelming. There's so much to do and so much to learn. I'm sure I'm not alone in that feeling. I just have to take it one step at a time and ease into it.

I told my friends I feel like I'm going through the 7 stages of grief because I'm cycling through anger and depression and acceptance and denial and I literally just keep looping, lol. *sigh* I'll get over it. I always do. I just need to turn on some good music or audio book and doodle something.

Whelp. One last look back before the end of the month and I delete my shop forever 🫡. Was good while it lasted? I guess? I don't know. (might delete it sooner, adkjskad)

I'm going my rounds on this, but I might straight up delete my 'stand-alone' (business) Wordpress entirely, and my Tumblr (not this one). Thinking about using this Tumblr and my blog Wordpress to keep things simple? Perhaps that’s why I’m over complicating some things…

[koyacyi-vode]

3 and 14??

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand. i shot myself in the foot with that last ask saying how long ive kept my sketchbooks didnt i

my oldest sketchbooks are deeply buried in boxes, so i dug this out of my old deviantart account. Drawing your art again is a great way to see how you improve!! Even this is a little old for my newer stuff, but it gets my point across. Original drawing was 2015 if i remember right.

14. What do you like drawing the most?

people!! characters are always my go-to. so much so that i have horrifically neglected my background skills sjjahahs. but people are very fun to draw, whether it's painting or gestural or character design.

[gumnut-logic]

Oooh, I just dug up my old Deviant Art account.

It is 14 years old and has five pieces of ‘art’ in it from 2010. They were created with my now dead laptop, a mouse and my left hand (unlike Virgil, I am not ambidextrous, just right handed).

Why with my left hand? In 2010, I decided that it was time to take the steps I needed to take to become a professional artist. This was before I did the two years of painting classes that developed the skill I have today. However, I had just had my second daughter, time was at a minimum, and often that time was spent breastfeeding...so left hand on the laptop during that was all I could spare 😁

I also had almost zero experience with digital painting and these five drawings were done on the then infant DA Muro online art application....it didn’t even have a save option at the time. You drew and exported a final piece and that was it, no more edits.

So considering the above, at the time, I was quite happy with the experiments. Of course, over the last few months here, I have finally cracked my digital painting style with Procreate and my Apple Pencil. The question is...should I start uploading my stuff to DA? Do any of you have DAs? Should I invest time there?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Nutty

(Sometimes artist, sometimes writer)

[whimsycatcher]

Dear followers...

Firstly... Hi! I'm alive! >_> Sorry to have been ridiculously inactive as “whimsycatcher” for the past long while. There’s been a few different reasons for that, but I’m okay, and aim to post more eventually... Secondly, I'm writing this in regards to Tumblr's announcement of their upcoming, uh... porn-free policy, I'll call it. So, like many NSFW artists on here, I'm having a crisis about the fate of a good chunk of my art posts but, as of now, I don’t intend to abandon this account as long as my fandom communities manage to be decently active. I still would like to keep drawing indulgent fanart for fellow fans of Merthur, Stucky, etc... but I do hope the whole site doesn't feel like a censored pit (or orifice, rather) of despair...

Despite being such a perv, the majority of my work (past and future) is pretty innocent. Speaking for myself, it's not like my art tag will be full of tumbleweeds (tumblrweeds?) if all my raunchy works go poof. As for those raunchy works of mine, I want to choose a place for them all to be archived/posted (and eventually added to) for ppl to still have a look... I might just do this by updating one or more of my other "whimsycatcher" accounts - LJ, deviantart, AO3 - where my content is far faaar behind what I've shared here over the years. So an intense day or two of updating would be involved to basically copy/paste all my art. I’m also looking into other options that I’ve been finding out about recently... So, no decision yet, but I will keep you all updated about what safe place my stuff will settle at. I may also try “backing up” my blog somewhere but I haven’t dug deep into how that works yet.

I’m mostly pretty devastated about losing all the tags and comments on those works... I do read them for a pick-me-up every so often. Anyway, I want to try this... I may go through all my flagged/flaggable art posts before the 17th and replace the image with a cropped thumbnail, perhaps just to show faces - then add a caption that says “Adult content removed. Please see bio for more info.” Then in my bio I can let people know where to see the full pieces? I wonder if a staffer reviewing my flagged posts would deem them okay after? Or else this would be a waste of time, ahh...

ON ANOTHER NOTE - has anyone else looked through their blog today and seen that all the posts that were flagged in the last couple days are now UNFLAGGED? @staff What does that mean? Eesh... Are they reconsidering? Or will I not even be able to request reviews of my cropped thumbnail replacements? I hope they didn’t decide to not even allow us to fight for individual posts before the deletions... sigh... Also, I never got the email they said would be sent to accounts with flagged posts, hmm...

Well, that went from an update to a rant, sorry! And sorry this site is making such a ridiculous mistake... I wouldn’t mind hearing others’ thoughts on my plans, or suggestions. And I’d like to hear what other content creators (fellow Merlin artists?) are thinking of doing.

Best wishes, everyone!

[34rfrees3s34]

Glitchedpuppet/Glip/Purplekecleon and Lexy Eevee are on Mastodon

https://awoo.space/@glip // screenshot

https://mastodon.social/@eevee // screenshot

Warnings for child sexual abuse, CSA, pedophilia

SCROLL BELOW TO SKIP INTRO

its time for me to talk about these people. eevee has been on mastodon.social for awhile now and glip just joined awoo.space. i thought for awhile people were not aware of any sort of claims against eevee or who they were affiliated with, but ive begun to realize that in fact no. people are actually aware of the claims, theyre just only hearing eevee's side of it because of his place in the tech community. im fed up fediverse. ive lost countless friends and communities for this, so even though i hate having to be the one to do it, here it comes regardless.

this thread will compile verifiable evidence (aka "not screenshots"). i am not going to speak on the current legal allegations which may never be confirmed/denied, only actions which are archived and shouldnt be overlooked when considering their involvement in our community. i will not be speaking on the issue with marl. marl stayed behind the scenes, i suspect theres a reason for it but that can only be speculation on my part. marl is not on mastodon so im focusing on eevee and glip right now.

to preface this i feel the need to remind everyone that these people have following and support. this is probably self evident but im not just trying to throw anyone under the bus because i dont like them. eevee is a moderately well known programmer/website host and glip is a successful artist. both of them have been around online for a long time, so personally im not gonna hear that theyre the sole victims of 4chan smear campaign. this is the result of long term bad behaviour.

im not here to laugh at these people. i dont think theres anything funny about this situation. i am being as wordy as possible because i see these people being wordy as hell to cover it up too. if youre willing to read their paragraph long posts on patreon pleading for acceptance on behalf of their "poor cute oddball family," you can read this too.

im a completely uninvolved party, but i think they pose a real threat. the extent of my involvement is that i was a fan of glip when they were known as PK (okay bear with me i am bad at numbers/time but i think i was aged 14-15 or something probably), i was not involved in PMD-E and i didnt go to their servers. later i found their porn blog, by then i was around 18-19 at the time i think, so i just wrote it off as "gross," because while im not a fan of porn in the first place i especially think its uncomfortable to see it with childhood based characters. its one of those things i wouldnt have thought about as a minor but i began to realize as i aged. whatever, anyways.

it was only after i stopped following them that i discovered what was going on. so this isnt any kind of grudge, i assure you. i will refer the kiwifarms thread but i took no part in it. ive never met or talked to these people and i never will. also before you suggest it, no im really not going to try to talk to them. countless people have tried to talk to them. i have read many of their posts and claims. i do not trust them. i am staying the fuck away from them.

i know people are invariably going to say to me "well kiwifarms dug this up so you cant trust it!" and to a degree i get it. i do not support kiwifarms for their harassment and mob mentality in general. they are hugely homophobic/transphobic and if it were not for the "funny drama" i think they would have ignored the fact that glip drew child porn as well because they dont give a fuck about lolicon/shotacon.

but i am not going to throw information under the bus just because of where it came from, these people are riding on the hope that people wont be willing to dig through tons of information from kiwifarms to uncover what theyve done. people NEED to pay attention to this if theyre going to have these people in their circles. the admins of awoo.space and mastodon.social are to be held responsible for giving these people platform. these people cannot undo the harm which they've willfully perpetuated, no amount of apologies can ever make up for this. get them out of our spaces.

this thread will not be a complete example of their behaviours by any means and i do believe the kiwifarms thread has a lot of it which should be looked at and accounted for when judging this. i believe they have been a danger to children on the internet for a long time in more ways than one. i think it started as smug/dramatic deviantArt personalities and grew into something hideous. there are accounts of them harassing and making fun of other artists and children (and i still see them doing it), but i am focusing on the more immediately harmful stuff.

finally i would like to remind people that this entire group of people has stuck together through these allegations, for that reason i feel we shouldnt overlook eevee’s actions for glip’s, or glip’s actions for marl’s. theyre all aware of whats going on and this is only going to give them more leeway when being faced with these serious problems. they’re going to rely on each other for as long as they can slide by doing that.

END SCROLLING HERE TO SKIP INTRO

eevee defending ownership of child porn- SCREENSHOT (including just because its easier to read): https://kiwifarms.net/attachments/eevee-defend-jpg.38156/

ARCHIVES (for confirmation): http://tweetsave.com/eevee/status/244965411521708032 http://tweetsave.com/eevee/status/244966006211092480 http://tweetsave.com/eevee/status/244976970209837056 http://tweetsave.com/eevee/status/244978882191695872 http://tweetsave.com/eevee/status/244985791657426946 http://tweetsave.com/eevee/status/244990121911414784 http://tweetsave.com/eevee/status/244993723384078336

eevee in response to someone talking about their actual, real CSA says he wishes that was him (its 10 years old but shouldnt be thrown aside)- ARCHIVES: https://archive.is/5JTEL#selection-2833.0-2833.57

glip's collection of child porn which she drew herself of her own characters (yes these ones are screenshots hosted on kiwifarms but you cant fake that much art)- THREAD LINK: https://kiwifarms.is/threads/melanie-herring-purplekecleon-pk-papayakitty-glitchedpuppet-floraverse-forbidden-flora.5567/page-514#post-2411146

ARCHIVES: http://oresund4.rssing.com/chan-3345726/all_p11.html

glip includes a ball gag as an accessory in a deviantArt roleplay game (PMD-E) she and the group hosted which was knowingly comprised of mostly children- ARCHIVE: https://comments.deviantart.com/1/290954538/2461459333?offset=0#comments // archive

glip also then took the ideas of that project and turned it into a physical doujin to sell, note some of these are the same characters those children interacted with in the ARPG and she still continues to include children in the stories themselves: ARCHIVE (page is SFW but comes from a doujin she published): https://archive.is/3ObC1#selection-435.8-435.19

here's her character from PMD-E having sex with a child- ARCHIVE !!!VIEW WITH EXTREME CAUTION!!!: https://archive.is/YlCzT

more "dubious age" character porn LINK WITH ARCHIVES INSIDE !!!VIEW WITH EXTREME CAUTION!!!: https://kiwifarms.is/threads/melanie-herring-purplekecleon-pk-papayakitty-glitchedpuppet-floraverse-forbidden-flora.5567/page-515#post-2411705

she tags her own porn with shotacon- LINK WITH ARCHIVES INSIDE: https://kiwifarms.is/threads/melanie-herring-purplekecleon-pk-papayakitty-glitchedpuppet-floraverse-forbidden-flora.5567/page-515#post-2411899

she even contributes to a cub porn/shotacon magazine, credited as 'papaya kitty': ARCHIVES !!!VIEW WITH EXTREME CAUTION!!!: https://archive.fo/jaHzt https://archive.fo/IczP7

HERES ANOTHER POST I FOUND WHICH OUTLINES SOME MORE QUESTIONABLE SHIT AS WELL:

https://bestofglitchedpuppet.tumblr.com/post/162852252909/callout-glitchedpuppet

[stopscaringsmithers]

I read your fanfic it was amazing even if it had a sad ending, do you have more about are gay sons? Please link them. I wanna read them all so i can draw some cool fan art when i get home :D

Thanks, it’s always nice to know there are people who like my work, even if the writing is its own reward. I would be flattered as hell if something I wrote inspired fan art. Recommendations/links of my fanfics are below the cut:

There is the Burns Song Trilogy currently in progress (no, I have NOT given up on it!) but parts one and two are complete and can stand on their own. I don’t think it’s as well-written as This Is Your Strife (part one was my first Simpsons fic and was originally a ten-page oneshot that I wrote in a single night but had to continue, kickstarting my Burns/Smithers shipping), but it has its moments, and if you like novella-length drama-filled Burns/Smithers, you might like this one.

My favorite short one that I’ve written is Prohibition. It takes place during a single night while Springfield has revived prohibition and Burns and Smithers are out drinking at Moe’s speakeasy. The pacing is similar to a short play. There are a lot of lines layered with dual meanings, mostly poignant reflections of potentially unrequited love, not crude sexual innuendos (though there is some of that too).

You’ve Got Male is an intermediate length (about 15,000 words) story where Smithers feels bad that Mr. Burns is feeling so unwanted when no one is responding to his Internet personal ad, so he makes an account using a picture of himself in drag and sends him some compliments, meaning to lift his spirits, but as their Internet conversations grow increasingly intimate, Smithers realizes he’s dug himself in too deep and fears both their hearts will break if the truth is revealed. I got a little more lavish and self-indulgent with the descriptions, but not quite as much as with Resonance.

Still Monty is a very sad one with a bittersweet ending (I'm rather fond of those, you might notice). It’s about Mr. Burns developing dementia and Smithers coming to terms with the fact that he’s losing the one he loves and that they won’t ever be more than friends. Nevertheless, there are some Simpsons-style humorous moments, and it’s probably the story of mine where everyone is the most in-character.

The Beginning of Eternity is another medium-length fic (about 23,000 words) inspired by Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity, the classic science fiction novel. In both of them, a protagonist risks altering the future to spare the life of someone he has affection for, but that’s about where the similarities end. In my story, Mr. Burns uses a time machine Frink invented to go back and save Smithers Senior’s life. We see how Smithers Junior would grow up with his father, radically altering the course of his life.

I also wrote an elaborate parody of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, where I used the meter and rhyme scheme from The Raven, called A Poem of Romantic Intent. It’s written from Burns’ perspective, and rather than being about a long-lost love, it’s about Burns finding love with Smithers. It was inspired by a deviantart picture by AlBrolz of Burns writing something.

My fanfiction.net account is Lambent Flame, so if you’re interested in checking out anything else, that’s there. I will warn you that Confessions of an Industrialist, Resonance, and Burns Song Trilogy III are all incomplete with quite a ways to go, and since I have such a backlog of work to do and only recently overcome my writer’s block, it will be a while before I can finish those (though I’ve already begun working on the latest chapters to all three of them).

[iamthewanderingbard]

From Finner

Everypony has someone who influences them, changes their lives. For Lyric, that someone was Finner, an old stallion who lived by the sea.

This story was greatly inspired by the song From Finner by Of Monsters and Men.

Many thanks to these wonderful people for helping to turn this story into the best that it could be: KellyTheDrawingUni, Protopony350, Kirito-Persona, MelancholyIguana, Will-Owl-the-Wisp, and Haycart.

You may also find this story on my FIMFiction and DeviantArt accounts.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

From Finner

“Finner, guess what!” Lyric cried as she pushed open the houseboat’s door. Bits clinked together as she moved, her cloak weighed down by her coin pouch. The tavern had been full of revelers that night. The houseboat, however, was still. Lyric sheepishly slipped in, moving carefully so as not to disturb the stallion. The stove was out. Lyric looked upon it, her ears standing alert. Even while he slept, Finner kept the stove on low so that he would have heat in his home. The chips must have burnt away. This was quite likely, Lyric decided, and so she bent to open the stove door. The metal was cold to the touch. Not surprising, Lyric told herself. Yet, for some reason, her senses were on edge. As she fumbled for the shovel, her hoof bumped against the handle, and it fell over with a CLANG! Lyric winced at the sound. She dropped to the floor to feel for the shovel in the dark. As the ringing of metal faded away, she realized what was wrong. The houseboat was silent. Finner was not usually one to travel out late at night, not unless he was taking part in the merriment at the tavern. But he had not been there, nor had she passed by him on her journey back. And if he had been sleeping, she would have heard his snores when she returned, or at least he would have started when the shovel fell. Lyric’s heart hammered in her chest. “Finner?” she called again, her voice rising. No answer. He must be visiting Lady. Yes, that has to be it, Lyric thought as she raced to his bedside. Like her bunk, Finner’s bed was sheltered behind a curtain. She put a hoof to it, screwing her eyes shut. Steeling herself, she pulled it open. There Finner lay, the moonlight shining upon him through the window above his bed. His back was towards her. He was motionless, and he made no sound. “F-Finner?” Lyric’s voice shook as she approached. In his hooves, Finner held the portrait of a mare. Her coat was a pale pink, spotted with brown. Her mane was white, flowing. Lyric reached out to it. Still he did not move. Her hoof trembled, and she pulled it back. Although she wished she could deny it, she knew that Finner, her friend, was gone. Lyric’s legs buckled underneath her, and she sank to the floor. Her forehead rested against Finner’s bedside. With her fore hooves wrapped tightly around herself, Lyric wept. ~*~ Finner was carried up the path from the beach to where Lady lay. A fresh hole had been dug beside her. Lyric, and all of the ponies from Bluff, watched, solemn, as Finner was laid to rest. Once this was done, ponies came forward to share some anecdote of or to pay their respects to their beloved comrade. Lyric waited until she was the last to go. Stepping out of the crowd, she walked towards Lady’s stone. Lifting the seashell nestled atop it with her hoof, she beheld it with a kind of reverence before placing it on Finner’s casket. “Wherever you are, I hope that you and she are together again.” Her voice caught as she spoke. Wiping her eyes, she moved back to the space between the ponies and Finner’s resting place. Lyric took her lute up into her hooves and played a few chords, readying herself. When she had, she sang. Sleep now, dear one Here beside the sea Sleep now and forever Your spirit is set free Free to dance upon the gale And to skip on each wave You will never end your tale Alone in your grave For the waters are your spirit The birds’ cries are your song And the moon will always guide you In your journey on So sleep now, dear one Here beside the sea Sleep now and forever Your spirit is set free Towards the end, Lyric fought to keep her voice steady. Finner had only sung the song once, but she had spent hours with her lute, recalling the words and working out the melody. She could think of no better way to honor her friend. Those gathered thanked her, many with tears in their eyes. And then, one by one, they made their ways back into town. All except for a single stallion. Turning to Lyric, he held out an envelope. “Here,” he said. “It’s for you.” With quiet gratitude, Lyric took it. Once she had, the stallion turned to the task of burying Finner. After a moment, Lyric made her way down the road towards Bluff. Before she reached the town, she paused, surveying the area around her. Seeing that she was alone, she set to inspecting the envelope. Her name was written on the outside. She did not recognize the writing, but she was intrigued. Opening it, she pulled out a piece of parchment. The words were a slanted scrawl, but still legible enough for her to read. Lyric, it said, I dunno if I’ll get the chance teh tell yeh this, but I wanted yeh teh know that I believe in yeh. Yeh’re quite the musician, an’ yeh’re gonna be a darn fine storyteller teh boot. Yeh’re gonna go far, Lyric. I can tell. I’m sorry I won’t be there teh see it. But don’t cry for me. Just keep movin’, an’ always remember teh keep yehr head held high. From, Finner Her eyes watered as she read. Tears streamed down Lyric’s cheeks, landing on the paper she held. These were Finner’s last words to her, ones he felt were important enough for her to see. And he, with all his years, all his experience, all his wisdom, he believed in her. She hugged the letter to her chest. Thank you, Finner. She turned in the direction of the ocean. The wind blew off of it, towards her. She breathed in the scent of its brine. Seagulls flew overhead, their calls filling her ears. Through her tears, she smiled. I’ll always remember you. She brushed her hoof across her eyes, her cheeks, and tucked the letter into her cloak. Her task complete, she stood, stepping back onto the road. I will keep moving, Finner. She looked up to the sky. And I will always keep my head held high. Lyric took off down the road, passing through Bluff a final time, exchanging farewells with those she met along the way. But she did not stop, not until she was far along the path. When she did, she turned, taking one last, long look at the seaside town. From here, she could see it all: the weathered buildings, the main road, and, fading off into the distance, the ocean. She imagined that, if she looked towards the water hard enough, she would be able to see the houseboat, and the place where two ponies now lay. After many moments, she tore her gaze away. It was time for her to move on.