The last chapter of my mlp infection AU! Thank you to everyone who followed along. Some final thoughts on my twitter @cracklewink if anyone's interested : )
Really fucked up that, when they’re young, Patrick and Art are SO tactile with each other, so comfortable sharing the same space. Art lets Patrick touch him and move him and physically overwhelm him and easily acquiesces to it, if not outright enjoys it.
Then in the present, they’ve been so far out of each other’s orbit for so long, held such animosity that when they have their moment alone in the sauna, Art physically recoils from Patrick’s close proximity! It’s so painful to watch because even as Patrick’s goading him, it’s so obvious he wants to be able to get back into Art’s space. But Art has erected all these walls around himself, he refuses to give Patrick an inch or even admit to missing how close they used to be!
AND THEN we see Art and Tashi later and he wants her to hold him, to be gentle with him, and just TOUCH him. Like, he does miss that kind of close physical contact! He either doesn’t know how to ask for it or is uncomfortable being that openly vulnerable. Worth noting that he pretty much always defers to Tashi in regard to initiating physical intimacy (with their first kiss, though he does state his desire, SHE has to be the one to make the first move). And it seems pretty obvious that Tashi herself isn’t comfortable providing that intimacy, whereas Patrick actively seeks to provide it (the hug/forehead kiss after their win together in the early years, dragging the stool closer to him).
Art has tried very hard to act like he doesn’t need physical affection and even though his discipline and devotion to Tashi has made him a stronger tennis player, it’s made him a hollow person, which, in turn, has kept him from becoming a GREAT tennis player.
All of this, of course, is why the ending hits so damn hard.
OK I WENT AND SCANNED THE ZINE I MADE AND... here are most of the pages - so every middle "spread" has one left and right page on the back of it and then a bigger pic once its unfolded, but didnt include every side for every larger spread.
this basically explores a bit of folke and adrian's relationship - adrian, the Creature, ends up finding folke's brother's recently deceased corpse and imitates his appearence, the only real way for a basilisk in their world to learn to shapeshift into something.
So their relationship is a bit complicated. but also, it ends up eventually settling into something that isnt only full of bitterness...
I know people are just joking when they say stuff like “Mithrun is an old grandpa he doesn’t know he can’t say those words anymore he doesn’t know they don’t have any book tokens anymore” because of these extras below:
and whatever but like it honestly drives me kind of crazy. Like can we look at this for a second.
He was the lord of the dungeon for five years. Then he was being rehabilitated for TWENTY YEARS. That’s not super long for elves, that’s like four years for us, but that’s still a long time. And then he was the captain for another fourteen years, but he didn’t have any desire other than getting revenge on the demon.
Mithrun hasn’t really been properly socialized for a total of FORTY YEARS, which is like eight years for elves. He was totally shut off from the world, then he was rehabilitated, and then he was with the Canaries on a onetrack mindset to go after the demon. Mithrun was doing bad, he was recovering, and then he was better enough to be the captain of the Canaries again, but he was still not “better.” In all that time, the world didn’t wait for him when he was at his low point. It didn’t wait for him when he was spending all that time recovering. And by the time it’s near the end of the story where these comics take place he’s just been so far detached from the world. Like he’s most likely never tried to go buy a book token after becoming a dungeon lord. He’s most likely never talked to people and learned the new slang of the time, he’s never been caught up which words are good versus outdated. Mithrun is technically better enough to be captain, he’s better enough to have reintegrated into society, but he’s not quite adjusted yet. He’s been out for so many years suffering under the hands of the demon and scraping his way through recovery and trying to work to get to the demon that by the time he’s stopped and done stuff like gift exchanges or whatever many aspects of the world are vastly different from what he remembers. I think that’s a lot like a lot of people in real life too who have similar experiences. People in mental health centers or hospitals who spends even just months recovering can miss out on so much.
Does this make any sense? It’s kind of late so I don’t really know what I’m saying and I’m probably repeating myself but like Mithrun was at a low point and then he was recovering for so long!!!! And then when he’s reintegrated back into the world it’s changed without him!!!! He’s not some racist old man!!! The world just kept on turning when he was struggling and how is he even supposed to deal with that? Like he doesn’t have much desire but everybody is so upset with him for not knowing things like outdated terms or using cash because he didn’t know there were no more book tokens and he just can’t have known that because he literally wasn’t in a state to keep up with all of the stuff like that and now everything is different and maybe he doesn’t care because he has no desire to but like aghhhhhhhhhhhh sob sob sniffle oughhhhh 😭😭😭😭 Mithrun 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 imagine I’m shaking him back and forth that’s how I feel right now oughhhhh
(note: original image is from HERE (link) - but I edited it to add a wider variety of options.. also added $3 extra to the total, even though I know that makes it more uneven lol, I thought if you're adding 10 whole extra items, the money to spend should at least be increased slightly, if that makes sense..)
you don't get it. she loved him once. she didn't have a maester, she had a brother. he sold their mother's crown to keep them fed. he said Dany, please. she loved him, once.
To love a God is heretical. It is an act of blasphemy– it is to drag them down from their throne of hollow gold, to topple the pedestal the worshipers uphold on their shoulders like lambs at the herders heel. It is the act of forcing them to their knees and ripping that beating heart of glorious gold and beautiful, cruel divinity from their chest, so pure it burns.
To love a God is to make them sin. To make them painfully, horribly human.
To love a God is to sin.
The love of a worshiper is no love at all, brilliant in its raw purity, untainted by sin. It is fear and obedience masked by adoration so overpowering it corrupts. It makes the lamb so unquestioning in it's faith it will never question the knife that cuts, the teeth that rip, the claws that tear. If the Creator deemed them unworthy of the very life crafted by their hands, then they must have committed a sin so grave there lay no salvation for their horrid soul.
But she is no worshiper– her lips speak of heresy as easily as she breathes, her words nothing but lies, cold and cruel like the ice that crawls along her skin like webs.
She loves a God like a lover should.
A damned sinner reaching longingly for the heavens.
She loves a God in the subtle brush of their lips, their muffled voices behind closed doors as they indulge in curiosity untamed. She is a sinner through and through, but she feels herself fall further with every brush of her hand across their cheeks, every touch she bestows upon them like a lover. She memorizes the imperfections of their body like memorizing a map– every scar, every mark, every line drawn on their body like a canvas, her touch the brush that stains the pristine white.
No devoted lamb shall ever see the painting they create in these stolen moments– it is for the eyes of a heretic so vile it makes them shudder, their body dirtied by the love of a woman so vile even their divinity is obscured by the ice.
The lambs may be satisfied with fleeting glimpses of gold and empty words from lips that guide them to the jaws of the wolves, but she is not. Her hands crave them like a starving hound, aching to touch that imperfect skin hidden by the veil of gold that obscures the painfully human body beneath. She longs to free them from the golden cage that binds them– to see their wings blot out the sky, their divinity tainted by sin and making them all the more beautiful for it.
It is a longing that leaves a festering wound that cannot heal, will not heal. Even if it could, she would not let it.
For as much as she tries, deny it as she may, she is no better then the blind lambs following the herder who holds a blade in their hand, glittering like gold in the sun, stained by dull red.
She is a fool, and what a fool they make of her with the touch of their hands against her skin– so cold it leaves frost on their fingertips. Yet they do not fear the cold, mapping out every inch of her imperfections, carved into her body by her own hands.
She has always been a heretic, cursing the divine until she could speak no more, but if divinity can be found in them – in this love that consumes, that burns her hands and her lips – then she is a Saint, praying at the altar until her throat bled.
But in the end, she has and will always be a cold woman with hands stained with blood. Until it is all she can taste, until it is all she can smell, until it is all she can feel. These hands of hers, heretical and divine, will bleed the God from their veins– she will become the wolf to their lamb until the rivers of Teyvat run gold with their ichor, until the gold bleeds into red, the taste of their divinity on her tongue.
Until she drags a God from their lofty throne and makes of them a monster.
There is no greater triumph to the heretic then to love a God into sin. To make a God sin to love.
To love is to be human, and they are no God.
Even if she must tear the gold from their very being until all that's left is something human. Even if Teyvat crumbles and decays, even if it begins over and over again..
She will do it again and again, until the gold can bleed no longer. Until her sins grow too great for Teyvat to contain.
To love a God is to devour, and be devoured. An endless cycle of sin that dulls the glow of gold into something new– something horrifying and divine, in it's own right. Something just as horrid as her, just as divinely corrupted by the sins she carries on her shoulders like a trophy, as gold as the sun and as cold as ice.
Divinity, carved into something human by love all consuming, until it all bleeds away and they begin their dance anew, for as many cycles as it takes.
An eternity, if she must, of dooming this world of theirs to fire and decay for a glimpse of the being snared by their golden shackles.
I've decideeeed to do a "draw fast" experiment this week. Basically: given a sketch I already have on hand, I have to get to "finish" (new line art, flats, & shading) in under two hours - the closer to 1hr, the better.
The idea with this is that, like... trying to get a fast time will keep me from sitting and overthinking things, then fidgeting with it. I just gotta get stuff on the page. Don't know how, if at all, it'll help my art, but I think it'll be fun.
I figured my "three iteration" sketches I did last week were good ones to use, so have some Leo's for today. This one was at 1hr 32min.
realized a drawing i'm doing rn is almost identically posed to one i did 8.5 years ago of a different oc, except the old drawing was instantly tainted by one of the players featured messaging me asking if i could take it down because their abusive, possessive rp partner saw it and got jealous of them "roleplaying behind their back" and i said "nah" and it became a whole Thing that i should have walked away from at that exact moment but didn't and the 6 months that followed contained some of the most truly condensed batshit i have ever witnessed in an rp community already well-known for its batshittery.
... anyway i love my friends. so happy to accidentally redeem the pose.
Oscurucho: Welcome back, brother.
Cucurucho: What.
Oscurucho: Not even a "Good morning"? How cold.
Here's Cucurucho and Oscurucho's long lore conversation from yesterday! The entire conversation lasted about 8 minutes, but most of that time was just silence between each exchange, so I edited out the long pauses and got it down to ~3 minutes. I also fixed the audio levels and added subtitles since I personally find it difficult to understand Oscurucho sometimes :'D
I hope folks find this helpful!
[ Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]
-
Oscurucho: Welcome back, brother.
Cucurucho: What.
Oscurucho: Not even a "Good morning"? How cold.
[They enter Cucurucho's office]
Oscurucho: I wanted to see if you're still as rigid in your beliefs as ever. You see, I've been thinking about our... Let's call it "philosophical divergence." You stand for order, for predictability. But where's the fun in that? You see, brother, while you build, I ponder the beauty in tearing down. It's not just destruction - it's rebirth. A chance to remake things in a more... thrilling image.
[...]
Oscurucho: You once had a backbone for our cause. Now, I see a softness in you, a sentimental weakness for those Eggs. Mere experiments, and yet - they've softened you.
Cucurucho: Your vision obstructs the path to perfection. You fail to understand the potential of the Eggs.
Oscurucho: Potential? They're but catalysts for change - for revolution. Without them, stagnation reigns.
[...]
Oscurucho: You chase perfection, I embrace the beauty of flaws. Your world is one of order, mine thrives in chaos. You wish for everything to run smoothly, I dream of watching it all burn to the ground. We may share a name, but our souls are worlds apart. All your efforts, all for what? Mere acknowledgment from a Duck who told you to do it? Imagine the possibilities - rather, show me where it is, and I'll do the rest.
[...]
Oscurucho: Speaking of possibilities, I couldn't help but notice how easily others can access the island. It seems your security measures aren't as impenetrable as you think.
Cucurucho: No. My island's vulnerabilities are of your own making. Do not mistake restraint for ignorance.
Oscurucho: Pity. But then again, I never really needed your approval. Just consider: Cucurucho - in your quest for order, have you not sown the seeds of your own undoing? Do you genuinely trust all your Federation minions?
Cucurucho: ...
Oscurucho: Perhaps it's time you question not just my intentions, but those who you believe stand with you.
Cucurucho: That is none of your business, I shall say. Now, leave me alone and try to disturb someone else.