#also my finances are a little yikes this month: if you get a full body commission i'll also throw in a little thank you head sketch of your

[katabay]

full body commissions, at long last!

the base price is $100 for a single figure, and then you add on the price for colors if you want that! flat color prices vary on complexity. if you have someone in a suit, then it's just +$30, but it's more like a complex period costume, then it's closer to +$40-50 (same for simple renders)

(simple renders are not an additional fee on top of the flat colors! I realize that it might be a little confusing, flat colors + simple renders is it's own thing, which starts at +$40)

anything over $100 can be paid either in it's entirety up front, or $100 up front, and the rest once completed (for this, I'll send a lower resolution jpeg of the finished illustration when it's finished, and the high res png when the payment goes through)

visual references are a big help! either art of the character, or things like a face claim or actor. if you have a character from a specific time period, please also send references of the clothes you'd like them in! if you have a pose in mind, feel free to tell me! It can be anything from standing around, to sitting down, jumping, etc.

these prices are for private commissions only! which means you can go ahead and get 'em printed or whatever for your own personal use but you can't use them commercially

currently, I don't have prices for a commission with a second full body figure! if you really want something like that, we can work out a price.

I'm also using a dead line weight in these examples, but if you want something that looks more like the inking style that I use in Trikaranos, just let me know!

🍊 commissions will be on a 10x15 in canvas at 300dpi :)

🍊 email me at machiavellerie@gmail.com, and we can talk details! I use paypal for payment, do not send me money ahead of time because this is not my paypal email and I use invoices.

if I don't reply in like, a day, feel free to message me here and I'll give you my other email where we can hash out details because sometimes, the perils of having an email on public display is that people will sign your email up for junk mail and it takes a minute to mark it all as spam

things I'll draw: established characters, ocs, your favorite dead roman or greek hero, I'm cool with it all!

things I won't draw: generally, I'm not too keen on drawing anyone under 18, as you may realize from the fact that many characters on my blog are vaguely in their 30s. like, it's not a hard rule, but I will fully admit right here that I'm better at drawing people over 20.

(also! again. money this month sucks, and the economy is honestly just a huge bummer for literally everyone everywhere. if my prices for full body comms are out of your range, I'm cool to do payments in $50 a month installments!)

[haru-desune]

Grimmtober Day 31: The Robber Bridegroom

One of them noticed a gold ring on the murdered girl's little finger. Because it did not come off easily, he took an ax and chopped the finger off, but it flew into the air and over the barrel, falling right into the bride's lap.

--

A spooky one to celebrate the last day of Grimmtober! Content warnings for women in peril, cannibalism, murder, mutilation, and gore. This is a story of ATU type 955, and it is told like this:

Once there was a miller who had a beautiful daughter of marriageable age. He decided he would get her married to the first suitable groom who passed by. Soon there came a wealthy man who seemed of good sorts, and the betrothal was set. However, the man left the young bride with a deep sense of unease which she could not place.

At first, all was well, as they stayed apart, but eventually, the bridegroom asked the woman why she wouldn't visit him though they had been betrothed for several months. First, she tried to say that she did not know where he lived, but he told her he lived in the middle of the forest.

This only strengthened her unease, and she tried to excuse herself by saying she wouldn't know how to find it. But the Bridegroom said that he'd leave a trail of ashes for her to follow. Unable to put it off anymore, she agreed.

The time came for the young bride to visit the house, and she set off into the forest with a pocket full of peas and lentils, dropping one along the path as she walked. Eventually, she came across a lonely old house and she was filled with an even greater sense of dread.

As she entered a bird in a cage in the corner of the first room warned her away, telling her that she was in a murderer's house. She ignored the warning and ventured forth. Every room she passed was empty. Finally, she came to the cellar, where she found an old woman tending to a cauldron.

The old woman told her that this was a house of cabalistic robbers, of which her bridegroom was the leader, who were certain to have her killed and eaten if she married into the household. The old woman hid her away behind a large cask of wine and promised that she would help her escape that night, for she too was looking for a way to leave the house.

No sooner had she done this, than the door opened and the band of robbers returned, carrying a struggling young woman. They made her drink three glasses of wine, red, white, and yellow, and she fell down dead. They then stripped the body of jewels and finery, chopped her up, and cooked her to eat.

As they ate, one of the robbers noticed a gold ring on a finger of the body. It was not easy to remove, so he took an axe and chopped off the finger. But the finger flew into the air and landed in the lap of the bride behind the cask. The robbers searched the room but were unable to find the finger. Just as they were to check behind the cask, the old woman convinced them to give up the search, as the finger wasn't likely to run away in the night.

The woman then drugged the robbers' wine, and once they were all asleep, she and the young bride snuck away. The trail of ashes was destroyed, but the peas and lentils had sprouted enough for them to find their way out of the forest. The girl ran home and told her father everything.

On the day of the wedding, the bridegroom and his gang arrived, along with a large number of other guests, as the miller had invited all of his friends and relatives. At the wedding feast, each was asked to tell a story, and the bride sat through it all in silence. Then the groom urged her to tell a story of her own, so she told the story of her adventure in the robbers' house - but she framed it as though it was something she experienced in the dream.

After each sentence she spoke, the robber tried to say that it was only a dream, but then she mentioned the finger with the golden ring and pulled out the same finger as evidence. The robber went pale and tried to run away, but he and his band were caught by the rest of the wedding guests and turned over to the courts. He and his entire band were executed for their crimes.

How's that for a Halloween tale?! This was first published in Children's and Household Tales, though I can't imagine reading it to any child today. It certainly makes for a grim bedtime story (pun fully intended).

I was originally going to do Bluebeard for today's tale, which was in the original Grimm's fairytales. However, the Grimms took their version of the story out of subsequent printings as they felt it belonged more to the French storytelling tradition. It's really hard to find their version online - most of the ones I found are just Perrault's tale attributed to the Grimms - and it looks like you may only be able to read it if you're lucky enough to find it in print. The Jack Zipes translation is supposed to be quite good. I did find this cool blog post comparing the two though if you are interested.

The Robber Bridegroom has a lot of similarities to Bluebeard and other ATU 312 tales. However, it isn't the "sin" of curiosity (The blog I linked has a good point to make about that in the Grimm version vs the Perrault version of Bluebeard) that gets the girl in trouble. She finds herself in danger because she ignores her gut feeling and more explicit warnings. At the same time, it is her quick wit, and, importantly, the help of the old lady - another woman in a similar situation as the bride.

Looking at folklore and fairy tales through a feminist lens can be tricky. Many stories either fall into a "Woman as a prize/prop/victim" category or exist in a sort of grey area in terms of agency. Part of this is because of the tropey nature of the tales - you're literally working with archetypes and stock characters. In most cases, unless the character is the protagonist, they're not going to be particularly fleshed out. So it's no real coincidence that the Grimm stories that give the most agency to women are usually the ones where the women are the protagonists (this one, Seven Ravens, and even to an extent the original Cinderella for example).

There's also the time period to take into account. Most folk/fairy tales were meant to educate as much as they were meant to entertain. Your protagonists should have traits that you want your children to emulate. So the view of femininity and the woman's role in society at the time will play a part in how women are portrayed in folktales. (There are a lot of papers out there that explain it better than me). Looking at it from a modern lens, I see this as a story about a girl who got bad vibes about her finance, was proven right on further investigation, and managed to bring him to justice with the help of another victim of his abuse. What did it represent to women in the 19th century?

On a lighter note: I can't end the month of Grimmtober without my usual PSA for today's shitty parent - our buddy the miller. Would it kill you to do a background check on your future son-in-law? Rich dude comes up to your door, no background or history, lives in a spooky house in the woods with a bunch of friends, no apparent job to speak of, and you're like "yeah seems legit"? Maybe a house call, or asking around if anyone knows the dude, anything before marrying off your only child. YIKES, my man. Big Yikes.

Further Reading:

The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre - Jack Zipes

Women Who Open Doors: Bluebeard and Horror - Chloe N. Clark

Not So Very Blue, after All: Resisting the Temptation to Correct Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard - Nicholas Ruddick

Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths And Stories Of The Wild Woman Archetype - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Bluebeard's Female Helper: The Ambiguous Role of the Strange Old Woman in the Grimms' "Castle of Murder" and "The Robber Bridegroom." - Daniela Hempen

Fractured fairy tales: German women authors and the Grimm tradition - Janine Blackwell

"Some Day My Prince Will Come": Female Acculturation through the Fairy Tale - Marcia R. Lieberman

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Check out this post. Wildbow talks about his life on reddit. This explains so much about Taylor’s school experience. No Worm spoilers

This sounds interesting. I’ve frequently wondered about how Wildbow’s life shaped this story.

Let’s take a look.

Redditors who have opted out of a standard approach to life (study then full time work, mortgage etc), please share your stories. What are the best and worst things about your lifestyle, and do you have any regrets?

Well, the title is already intriguing.

Hermit writer here.

Born hard of hearing, went to a regular school. Struggled in middle school. Struggled in high school. Kids who were in my class in kindergarten were in my classes all the way through to grade ten, with the elementary/middle school and high school being a stone's throw from one another.

I kind of knew about the hard of hearing bit already. I can’t find the ask that told me about it, though (it was probably before I stopped using screenshots for asks).

So far this sounds relatively normal, except for that part. But I’m guessing he’s going to elaborate a bit on the struggles surrounding his school life and hearing problems?

In grade 10, after years of bullying and a peer group that had established who was 'in' and who was 'out' when I was knee-high, tired of struggling, I was walking down the halls and I found myself wondering when the last time I'd even opened my mouth in school was.

Oh wow.

I stopped dead in my tracks, just paralyzed by loneliness. I asked myself what the point was, couldn't come up with an answer, resumed walking, went out the side door of the school and went home.

This clearly parallels a few of the last times we saw Taylor at Winslow High.

The start of me just not going to school for that entire year. Nobody noticed.

Damn. He really did write all that from experience. It took a while for Taylor’s absence to get noted, too.

Taylor’s absence getting noted at all actually seems like a fantasy compared to this.

I got caught at the end of the year, did the same thing the next year, got caught only at the end.

What the hell sort of attendance routines did this school have? Clearly not good ones.

Ended up going to an Alternative school (Self study), proved to myself that I had it in me when I got 3 years of studying done in 8 months, won two awards... and then had to go back to my old school for what was essentially grade 13, where I struggled.

Huh. Well done.

People learn in very different ways. Some people can do this much more effectively than learning in a group. Some people are like me and can’t make themselves keep up the effort required to self study, or learn better from lectures than reading.

Some people learn by observing their surroundings while flying.

I worked retail and found it fine. But family wanted me to go to University and figure myself out.

I’m currently working retail, taking a break from the educational system and buying time to figure out what to study.

I went to University and I struggled.

Guys, I’m sensing a theme here.

I spent a long, long time trying to figure out why I struggled, why I was tired all the time, and it took a kind of confluence of events before I realized what should've been obvious. I found the social stuff hard and I was exhausted after a day of listening because I'm severely to profoundly deaf.

Oh yeah, that makes a ton of sense. It’s like how focusing is exhausting when you have trouble doing that, how reading without glasses you need tires out your eyes and brain, etc.

Honestly, it’s a little surprising that I haven’t (explicitly) met a hard of hearing character in Worm yet. Maybe later? Oh wait, there was that deaf waitress at the villain pub in Hive.

Beyond that, the 'path' just isn't for me. The systems and institutions just grind me down. The idea of a 9 to 5 is death to me. These things are built and streamlined for the average person, and between disability and a fairly extreme degree of introversion, I'm far from that average.

That is very fair. There’s definitely a brand of ableism in that system.

In the end, I stepped off the path. I'd been writing a thing online as a side project and the reception was good, so I decided to leave school earlier than planned, use the savings I had, stretch things as far as I could, and work when I could (with a family friend when he needed the help and had the cash to spare, doing some landscaping, drywall installation, house painting, all prepping houses for sale in a boom market) to stretch things further.

This would be too early for that thing online to be Worm, right?

It just occurred to me that I have no idea how old Wildbow is.

And I wrote as seriously as I could while people close to me told me that I didn't deserve to 'get lucky' and have the writing work out because I hadn't seen University all the way through, or openly expressed doubts and disappointments.

Yikes.

Fuck that noise. Writing is tons of effort!

But you know, it worked out in the end. I wrote the equivalent of 20 books in 2.4 years, wrote another 10 for my next series in the ensuing 1.2 years, and I've kept up a similar pace over the last 7 years and two months.

Especially when you’re this coddamn productive!

That’s 8.33 books a year!

I started writing mid- 2011, left school at the start of 2012, went full-time-paying-the-bills in 2014 with an income around minimum wage. I moved to a small town (no car, nothing fancy) that same year. I'm now closer to the average Canadian wage. It's been two chapters a week (2.5 if crowdfunding money is enough) since the beginning.

Oh, I suppose that means it would be Worm after all.

When was this written... huh, yesterday? Well, that explains why this hasn’t been sent to me before.

Writing being Wildbow’s only/main income makes me feel even more right about my decision to set things up so that some of the money from my Patreon goes to Wildbow. It’s not that big a portion of his income (apparently average Canadian wage is 986 CAD or 755 USD per week, and I chip in with about 3.26 CAD or 2.50 USD per week), but it’s something.

My reality: I can go a week or two without really talking to anyone that isn't a cashier.

Sounds a bit lonely in the long run, but as a fellow introvert (or maybe I’m an ambivert, in the systems where that’s actually a thing), I get it - it also does sound pretty good. Especially if you’ve got internet people to casually interact with at your own leisure.

Every two months or so I go to a relative's to dogsit while they're on vacation or to see someone for their birthday, and that gives me most of my fill of socialization and companionship.

Nice!

I don't have a car, so it's usually walking or taking the train to another city, and using public transpo there. I subsisted on a rice and beans diet for a good stretch, one $15 video game bought in a year, and my level of expenses hasn't really risen that much from that point. I eat better and buy a couple more things, but nothing major.

So I guess this would be somewhere between average and reserved?

I don’t know. Being Norwegian spoils me on these things.

60%+ of what I earn goes to savings, which gives me security when my income could fluctuate or disappear at any time.

Oh, that’s smart. I suppose writing would be a bit of a risky business, what with writer’s block, audience fluctuations, sudden drops in popularity because something you wrote didn’t go over as well as you thought it would, etc.

My schedule is entirely my own, which usually amounts to 2.5 15+ hour workdays a week and another 5-10 hours a week spent managing community, finances, and exchanging emails with tv/movie studios, publishers or startups.

I was going to talk about the long but few workdays, but tv/movie studios excuse me what

Is a TV series version of something Wildbow wrote (Worm or otherwise) a serious possibility right now?? :o

Best things - I love what I do. I love creating, I love my reader's tears, I love my readers being horrified.

This is really important. You gotta enjoy what you do.

I get to make monsters and be surprised by what my characters do. Many of my fans are just the absolute coolest people - people I'm now insanely glad to have met and include in my life. There's amazing fanart of my work out there, music, people have gotten tattoos. Tattoos. That's insane.

People have permanently, painfully painted their appreciation of your work into their bodies, Wildbow!

The bad- I'm an online content creator, and it's impossible to convey just how toxic the toxic elements of a fandom can get and how negative the negative aspects can get, and how much it can affect you.

That is true. There will always be a toxic side, and I can imagine works like Worm would attract a lot of the edgy sort.

I've seen 20 online content creators either break down or remark on the effect it has, and it's wholly accurate- and my audience isn't even ~that~ large.

Yeah, it doesn’t take that many people to start brewing fandom sides like this.

This is multiplied by the fact that writing is lonely as a profession (I know too many writers who can't even talk to their life partners about their work) and it can be hard to find perspective or balance as you take it all in, when you don't have people to communicate with.

Robert Jordan used his wife as a beta reader or editor of sorts. She was there to tell him when something he wrote didn’t quite come across, to make up for the fact that he couldn’t tell. After all, he knew what he meant by that one line.

On a similar note, some casual dating would be nice, and living in a small town for economical reasons doesn't leave me with a large dating pool, and at this point I'm not even sure if I could or should inflict myself on someone.

Oof.

There are way too many people who think like that. I hope you find happiness with someone who sees you for the good bean you are, Wildbow.

I'm healthy, groomed, I can hold a conversation, I'm just pretty set in my introverted ways.

...relatable, though.

But still, I’m pretty sure there are people out there for us, who not only tolerate but appreciate the introvert lifestyle.

Hell, both of my crushes have been very introverted, even compared to myself, so I know those people exist because I’m among them.

On another, less social note, there is the fact that as an online content creator, you can't really take breaks. Or you can, but it costs. Consistency and frequency of updates are god, and a hiatus is a death knell.

No wonder he criticized me on this that one time. In his situation, it matters a lot.

I don't even know what an effective vacation would entail, because I feel like finding my stride again would cost more than I gained from having the break. So it's been seven years and two months without a vacation, writing a short book every month.

Damn.

You deserve so many props, Wildbow.

...at some point here I started talking to Wildbow, just like I do to Taylor and other Worm characters. Well, at least this time there’s actually a chance he’s going to read this sometime, if he hasn’t dropped my blog.

I just hope he doesn’t think it’s weird that I’m liveblogging his life story.

It makes for a very strange sort of burnout, when I love it so much, I can still regularly put out some great work to acclaim and praise, but am nonetheless worn down around the edges.

That does not sound healthy.

No regrets. This is me. This is what I'm built for.

As long as you feel it’s right for you, this is good. :)

I could do with less negativity from some fans and getting regular good nights of sleep (the deafness comes with insomnia by way of terminal tinnitus), but both of those just come with the territory.

Ouch.

I feel you on the sleep front (ADD has its ways of messing with your ability to fall asleep too), but tinnitus sounds like a particularly annoying way to be inflicted with it.

I've been telling family for the last year that I'll move to a city with more going on than (as my elderly neighbor phrased it) drinking and meth, where there's classes to take, a possible dating pool, and/or activities that could break me out of my hermit shell... but my current apartment is amazing and cheap, with the nicest landlords ever. It's just in a do-nothing town. I haven't found anything remotely competitive, even taking 'cheap' off the table.

I’ve lived in small-ish towns all my life. It’s pretty nice, especially as an introvert.

So that's where I'm at.

Thank you, Wildbow. This was an interesting read. I feel like I know you a bit better now. :)

(Again, if you’re reading this, I hope it wasn’t too weird to see me liveblogging this.)

[judyjeter]

April and May

It’s been a momentous few months, and full of all the emotions life can bring in such seasons of change. We’ve smiled and belly-laughed, cried and wept, experienced deep loss and relinquishment, felt dread, fear, deep body and soul fatigue, reminisced hundreds of memories, and spoken so many goodbyes.  We’ve experienced such joy and love, friendship and kindness, compassion and generosity...beyond what we could have imagined. And such is the stuff life is made of! 

But we are on the other side of the move and beginning to settle into our new “normal”. Thankfully!

We gave ourselves a short get-away retreat at the end of March anticipating what was to come and spent five nights at the LaQuinta Resort in the Palm Springs area.  We loved being there for my 50th birthday and again loved being there for my 66th birthday! Yikes...where does the time go? We love the desert in bloom and it was particularly beautiful this year.

We then headed for Turlock and began the process of moving. Our wonderful friends generously gave hours of their time and energy to help sort, pack, label and box our belongings. And then took multiple loads to Off Center Thrift, Goodwill and who knows where else. Many hands make labor light. And again we declared our mutual desires for a simpler life!

We shared farewells with two groups that week; our neighbors and our church family. We have felt so privileged to live on a street with such wonderful people and for 17 years have enjoyed our neighborhood get-togethers and informal gatherings.  We have literally watched the kids in several families grow up. We will so miss them! We also had an informal reception at Monte Vista Chapel where we said more goodbyes. I have been part of this wonderful church for 51 years...John for 43 years. There is nothing like the local church. It is here we have learned to live with and love a great diversity of people. People of different ethnicities, backgrounds, economics, status, jobs, political views, temperaments and passions, education and philosophies. The church is God’s plan A for growing us in love for one another. How grateful I am for how this group of Christ-followers have loved and nurtured me (and my family) for these many years.  We will so miss you MVC! Here’s some of my friends that made this happen.

We headed to Morro Bay for another ten days of getting our house here ready for the boxes and furniture soon to be arriving. And here I have developed a wonderful friendship with Laura, a woman I met at our church in Morro Bay who comes to be with me once or twice a week for 4 hours and gives John some time away (usually on a motorcycle). What I love about Laura is that she makes any task fun and interesting because of the soul-full conversations we engage in. You may have read the book “Tuesdays with Morrie” about a man spending Tuesdays with his beloved professor who was dying of ALS. I call our time together “Thursdays with Laura”, though I am not dying.  She has worked feverishly this past month helping me decide what stays, what goes and where to make it all fit. Her passion is organized closets and so is mine. Could not have done it without her!

The final farewell was in our backyard just three days before the house closed and the furniture movers packed us up. We enjoyed the company of friends and family from all the varied intersections of life in this wonderful community.  And another highlight was being able to introduce Josh’s finance Sarah to our world. It was a very special evening and our hearts will never forget it!

I could have never imagined moving away from Turlock at this age, but it feels good and right. But hard! And isn’t that true of much of life? It is the pain and difficult places we endure and persevere through that bring us to deeper places of peace and joy than we could have imagined. Oh how we will miss Turlock! It’s where my dad’s Swedish ancestors settled in 1903. There have been Molines and Claes in Turlock ever since. The stability of life that comes from being in a community over a long period of time is a gift many will never experience, but how grateful we are that we did. We are excited to have sold our home to a gentleman who is a longtime Turlock native who loves its unique features and who will care for it well. Thank you Ken!

We no sooner got the boxes unpacked in Morro Bay and John took off on a much-deserved five day motorcycle ride with his two good friends through California, Nevada, and Utah. Nothing recharges his batteries more than the beauty of God’s creation and a “crotch-rocket.”  Nothing recharges my soul more than good friends, laughter, deep conversations, a little shopping and cards.  I am so grateful for Carla, Belinda and Jackie who came down to care for me in John’s absence. The highlight being we got to share in a very special day...Carla’s 70th birthday! 

We spent three days in Santa Barbara last week, seeing my ALS neurologist and my Parkinson’s Disease neurologist.  Also had a 4 hour neuro-psych evaluation. The fun never stops! But the good news is that both doctors were quite surprised at how much better I am doing. The exams showed “remarkable” improvement in my strength, which has resulted in many of my daily tasks being easier and my stamina increasing. Whether it’s the increased dosage of Parkinson’s meds, the answer to prayers for healing, the move completed and the decrease of stress, or all of the above...we are celebrating! The doctors always remind us of how unusual my case is and they can’t predict anything because they’ve never seen anything like it.  But they both said that I “made their days”!  Not often do they see improvement with diseases like these.

So on that bright note, I will close this lengthy blog until the next time.