#i decided to go with a cover art because there were too many good scenes and i just couldn't make up my mind

[clori-eden]

LU Writer Appreciation Project 2023

hosted by @seekingseven (Seriously love yoouu!!)

My gift for FantomoDrako based on their fanfic Navigating Stormy Seas

I absolutely love this fanfic! Legend and Wind bonding is so, so good, along with all the big brother Wind vibes --I couldn’t get enough! The fight scenes and the emotional aspects between both characters gets me all the time. Definitely can consider this one of my favorite linked universe fanfics!

Here is the drawing without the title. The Hylian is depicting the riddle that is written on the walls at the end of chapter 4.

[sunshine-jesse]

Ashley Graves Did Something Wrong

TCOAL plays a lot of fun games with the ways it makes you perceive events. From the title screen itself, to various pieces of official art, it primes you to accept certain narratives surrounding the game. Namely, the one that Ashley is very not good. She is, in fact, very bad! And it's pretty easy to see why- many of her actions fit neatly into the mold of an abuser. She's controlling, she tries to deflect blame, gaslights Andrew into making him take the blame for things she pushed him to do to begin with, and harasses other women to ruin his relationships with them.

It's all so easy, and makes so much sense. Case closed.

Right? Well, no. But actually yes! But actually, it's not that simple.

Y'see, as I said, the game establishes this framing from the get-go. It introduces us to our, uh, heroes and tells us in no uncertain terms that Ashley is bad and Andrew is a non-entity. It sets this framing intentionally so that many players will engage in a little quirk of human psychology called…

Confirmation bias!

I'm sure we all know what that is, right? Well, for those who don't, it's when we start with a bias towards something- or an idea of how things SHOULD be- and view every piece of evidence as confirmation that said bias is correct. The game, very blatantly, does this with Ashley's actions by priming us to see them as part of an abuse dynamic, with her as the primary abuser. And, indeed, it's not too hard to dig into Andrew's behavior and figure out that he, too, is fucked up and awful and come to the conclusion that their relationship was mutually fucked up and abusive. I did that in my last two essays, so I won't cover that ground again here. With this, it's easy to think that they bring out the worst in each other and that any relationship they have would be toxic, fucked up, dark, and every other word or phrase that describes the same idea, whether it makes them happy or not.

… But what if I told you that this, too, was an intentional misdirection?

So. Let us, for a moment, completely remove the framing that their relationship is toxic. Let us remove the framing that their relationship is abnormal or aberrant. Let's even remove the framing that either one of them is responsible for the harm of the other. I'm not arguing that any of this is not the case. Please, for the love of god, do not think that I am, if only so you can take the rest of what I have to say seriously. What I'm doing is trying to examine the two of them free of as many preconceptions as I can, using nothing but textual evidence and inference to figure out why Andrew and Ashley treat each other the way they do.

I will later examine why they MIStreat each other too, but first comes the reasons they treat each other well.

I'm going to start with Andrew, because, despite being the more complex of the two, it's actually pretty easy to figure out why he treats Ashley the way he does based on what he says. Let's go all the way back to the earliest known incident between the two in the story, where the two of them were at their most, uh, "pure," for lack of a better word: The cupcake scene.

Leyley was supposedly a problem child. She was neglected by her parents, disliked by her friends, and had nobody else but Andrew to rely on. She got nothing- absolutely nothing- from anyone else. And so, Andrew decided to celebrate her birthday, by buying her the cupcakes she wanted, by giving her what she lacked from others. By providing for her, and taking care of her. All he wanted was to make her happy, more than anything else. And, as Nina learned the hard way, at the expense of everyone else.

He doesn't lack empathy, per se. Andy just loves Leyley more than he loves anyone else by such a wide margin that his desire to provide for her overrides his fear of consequences… until those consequences threaten to separate the two of them.

That is a very Gender Roles thing to do. More on that later.

So. Ashley. Everyone's favorite disaster. Why does she treat Andrew the way she does? What does she provide for him? Well, isn't it obvious? She, too, wants to provide for him. Remember, she wanted the lemon cupcake because she thought it's what HE wanted. She also does most of the chores around the house. She prepares food, cleans the house, and does their laundry. She also provides for his non-sexual physical needs by offering him comfort whenever he needs it. It makes her feel useful. Wanted. Needed.

Ah, another very Gender Roles thing to do. See where I'm going with this?

The two neatly fit into a standard husband/wife relationship in a lot of ways. It's THE platonic ideal of such a relationship, actually! They make each other happy and provide WHAT THEY THINK the other really wants. It's really cute and perfect! As long as you ignore all the bad.

ignore all the bad …ignore all the bad… But we obviously shouldn't ignore all the bad. That would be ridiculous.

What I want to do is, instead, examine where the bad comes from, and why it's there. With the abuser/abused dynamic in mind, it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that a mutual desire for control and power over the other is the sole determining factor. It's arguably the Central Theme of the game, and maybe a big part of what Nemlei is trying to convey. But, like, why should it end there? Why should that be where the analysis ends? There's a reason for everything.

They don't want to control each other for its own sake. They don't want to control each other solely to cover their own insecurities.

So why?

Ashley, first. She's obviously an insecure little monster, having never received the validation that she needs to really come into her own as a person. She keeps seeking it. Keeps trying to provide for Andrew. Keeps trying to make herself useful. Now, let's look at her calls towards Julia:

"DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't?"

Ah, wait, hold on a minute.

"You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that."

Where does that wording come from?

"He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything."

She doesn't need validation just for the sake of her insecurities. She needs it because she needs Andrew to be happy, and in her mind, she's the only one who can provide it. She knows him better than anyone else. She can see how happy she seems to make him, and that nobody else can do what she does. She knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she makes Andrew more comfortable than anyone. She knows how important physical affection is to him. She can feel it. She doesn't lack empathy towards his plight or feelings; she has more of it than anyone, actually!

But Andrew, crucially, never seems to provide her any validation for this, even though she knows better. That's why she's so insecure.

"But wait," you might say, "didn't he, literally, fucking kill for her?"

Yes. But he always tries to place the blame on Ashley or use her as a scapegoat, when he was the one who pulled the trigger. He never accepts even the smallest amount of responsibility. And if a man can't even take responsibility for the violence he inflicts on others, what does that say about him? What does it say about how much he actually cares? oh. more gender roles. huh.

In Ashley's mind, that validation isn't validation because he didn't do it to prove he cared about her. He did it to shut her up. And… he never says anything to the contrary. He refuses to. All his validation is depressingly, overbearingly conditional.

His words always come with a caveat. They're always said in spite of something. They lack warmth. They lack kindness. They lack affection. She is never, ever given a key to lock the door to her insecurities…

…even though Andrew obviously has that key. He just refuses to give it to her.

But why?

Society! :D

There is something so fundamentally, obviously wrong with the way Andrew feels towards Ashley. She is a tar soul. A pariah. So horrid that her parents don't want her, so obviously bad that even demons don't want her. And yet Andrew, in spite of everything, still wants her. He wants to take care of her, when society tells him not to bother. He wants to protect her from other men, and even from herself. It manifests as jealousy because…

He, too, thinks the only one qualified to provide for Ashley is himself, because he was the only one who ever had. Violence comes so naturally to him that he takes it for granted. He kills for her, threatens to physically assault her when he thinks she's putting herself in danger.

It's so second nature to him that he thinks it should obviously be enough. But it isn't. His violence is so second nature as to be passive. It's non-committal. And what Ashley wants is committment.

But because of how society views Ashley, and how the world would view a romantic relationship between them, he can't truly commit to her. He can't give her the validation she really needs, because everything and everyone has told him that it's wrong. That she's wrong. And all his parents ever taught him is to be afraid of how others will react to that wrongness.

hey look, a man fearing the commitment a woman wants from him! more gender stereotypes!! I wonder what this game is trying to say!!!

Maybe I'm crazy or something. Maybe I'm just looking into it too deep. But I don't really care. I don't care if this is the intended reading, and neither should you. The fact of the matter is that most of the things that define them as toxic are not their fault. Most of the reasons they mistreat each other come from without, rather than within. The only reason they can't love each other is because the world tells them not to. Because it expects them to fill certain roles, to be certain people.

But Ashley can only ever be herself.

Maybe someone who's an actual expert on this subject matter could weigh in and give a true feminist reading. But me? I'm just here to point out patterns. I'm just here to point out facts. And one of those facts is that, to the world around her, Ashley did something wrong: She was born.

The Steam reviews of this game are fucking funny, but a lot of them say one thing that couldn't be further from the truth:

"I can fix her!"

No, you can't. She's only 'broken' in the context of her environment.

But in the words of another analyst:

It's madness to expect tar to behave like water.

So cut them some slack! They might finally succeed in a world that wanted nothing more than for them to fail. It's not our right to take that away from them.

[kisaamisa]

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒 ™

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ; Bully! Katsumi x F! Reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 ; When a woman meets her middle school bully in a party, things seem to go down a path she didn't expect it to.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ; smut, virginity loss, non-con/dub-con, yandere tendencies, delusion, obsession, masturbation, breeding kink, cream pie, bully x victim trope, blood and gore, mentions and scenes of beating up and attacking someone, spitting, threats, smut with a plot, p in v sex, fingering, size kink, undressing w/o consent, public sex, public masturbation, pet names; darling, sweetie, love, and basically a mess! 😝

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ; no i don't condone bullying, if you have been bullied, please contact someone to talk about it. there's no comfort in this because im lazy but if you would like comfort please request.

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 ; 𝟔,𝟓𝟔𝟔

Katguria Academy for Young Excellences.

A prestigious school in Japan, where only the best of the best could attend. Tuition was always expensive but it was no problem for the kids who went here. The kids that attended were from well respected families such as Samsong, Abbias, Mine, and many more.

In this school resided the adopted son of the man known as Doppo Orochi, God of War, and the daughter of a prestigious company called SVP.

“Guys, look at my new gold medal! I swear, those stupid karate competitions my dad puts me in are wayy too easy!”

November 4th, 2012

The day everything went bad.

It was gloomy day, the clouds covering the sun as rain poured. Most people if not everyone brought an umbrella except you so you were soaked and wet. You sat was near the window in the classroom and you were lost in thought. You had so many tests today and you were hoping one of them got rescheduled to another day. The rain knocked on your window and you finally came back to reality to see your crush, Katsumi Orochi.

You were honestly disappointed to be in love with him, I mean, every girl in the school liked him. It was all girls, loners, popular girls, and even gothic kids. He was the embodiment of perfect. He was good looking, had good grades, was favored by all students and teachers, and even knew how to fight. You were kinda jealous, he had everything. Money, girls, and talent.

You were talented too but not to his extent. You always got what you wanted because of the funds you had from family, you had the best grades in your class, and people liked being in your company. You weren't popular but well known but you had a few close friends to get you through the sixth grade. You were just about to go back to zoning out untill something Katsumi and his friend group said caught your attention.

“Yeah, it's kinda dumb to think that some people couldn't fight at all, its just so easy!”

Well, that was controversial.

You looked his way, your hand on your face with a dead panned expression. You rolled your eyes and muttered a slight ‘stupid’ under your breath before you were interrupted once again by your friend storming towards you.

“Hey [Nameee]! Di- ack, Did you study for the test todayyy?”

Your best friend, Los was in front of you, out of breath. Why the hell would they run here, we aren't even starting class until 8:15. You looked up the clock with your eyes. It read 8:12. Three minutes left, no need to run.

“Well? Did you?”

“Obviously, did you?”

“Of course! I just wanted to make sure my best friend won't fail the next test! We both need to make it in good high schools, y'know?”

All of the boys who were previously talking to each other decided to whisper amongst each other after Los's comment on succeeding in life. After the whispering came snickers.

You ignored their stupid laughs and decided to prepare yourself for the first test of the day, Language Arts.

“Uh, [Name]? Um, you might wanna stop preparing yourself. Karateka is approaching us, like right now. At a fast speed, well not really but he's coming.”

Your best friend kept urging you to look forward and your were so tired of them bugging you so once they stopped talking and only huffs of breathe came out of them, you looked forward to see Katsumi's face right in front of yours.

A loud scream erupted from you so suddenly every single person in the rom or outside of it jumped at the sound of it. You fell over in your chair trying to get away from the guy you considered your crush.

“OH MY GOSH.”

You were scared out of your mind while your crush and his friend group just laughed loudly.

“Hahaha, Dear God, you should've seen your face! You looked like a pufferfish when startled, damn, you could be a comedian with this stuff!”

You slowly got up with a glare on your face. You made sure to shake off any dust on your skirt or cardigan. You picked up your stuff that fell off because of your stupid fall and sat down.

“That wasn't funny Katsumi. That actually hurt.”

“Whatever, boo hoo, you'd never make it in the fighting world.”

“So? I don't even want to fight anyone without a reason so you can respectfully get out of my face.”

“Yeah yeah, suck it up already and hop off me for a sec.”

He rolled his eyes as he walked away from your desk. You started feeling really mad and angered by him but Locs told you it wasn't worth it. You sat back down once the teacher entered the classroom.

“Alright, since everyone is present, we will be commencing our exam now.”

“UGHHHHH! Those test study guides were total scams! I didn't seem half of the question I was expecting to see on the exam. I'm so deadddd…”

Los was trailing behind you as the two of you walked to the lunch room. You both complained about the two unfair exams you just went through because of an inaccurate study guide.

“I know right! I probably got lower than an 80% on the stupid thing!”

As you two entered the luxurious lunch room, you got into line for the lunch lady to serve you both.

“Ooh! Chicken sandwiches, not to bad for a day like this, right?”

“Yeah I guess,”

You couldn't even finish your sentence before you felt a push on your back.

“What the-”

You were about to fall face first unto the floor untill Los caught you just in time.

“Oh Gosh! You okay?”

You somehow managed to shake your head a bit to hard which cracked your neck harshly. You hissed in pain while rubbing your neck in an effort to make it feel better.

“Yeah..Just cracked my neck wayy to hard for my own liking.”

You both laughed it off while you said ‘Thank Goodness for Los’ internally as you looked behind you to see the perpetrator of this heinous act.

“Well hey there, Miss-I-Can’t-Keep-Myself-Off-The-Floor, how are you?”

Katsumi-Fucking-Orochi.

“Dude, what's your problem? I didn't even do anything to you, why are you just randomly picking on me for? What’d I do?”

“Well, you pissed me off this morning so I'm just teaching you a lesson! Simple, really.”

“Not my fault your such a prick, I can't believe there is actual girls who like someone like you.”

What a nice way to out yourself [Name].

“The hell you say? You wanna repeat that for everyone to hear?”

Katsumi walked up to you, practically towering over you. He leaned down to get on your level to try intimidate you. All you did was smirk, if he thought that he would scare you while being a 10 year old, he thought wrong.

You were strong at your age so you didn't mind if you had to fight even though you and Katsumi had a diffrence in height, despite being the same age.

“Sure,”

You took a deep breath and screamed with all your might,

“KATSUMI OROCHI IS A PRICK!”

Every student, teacher, staff member, and anyone who was in the school probably heard the scream. Katsumi stood there with a shocked expression on his face, absolutely baffled that you actually went through with it.

“You b-”

Shortly after your scream, teachers and lunch ladies separated the two of you and sent you both to the Principals office.

You didn't regret it, not one bit.

‘Keep looking at me and I'll beat the shit out of you, stupid Karate Major.’

You and Katsumi had been sitting in Principal's office for about a good 30 minutes and counting while shooting dirty looks at each other to pass the time untill he finally entered. The room was clean and organized but the feeling of dread surrounded the place as he walked in. Not one of you even dared to say a word to each other or to the Principal himself. The scent of paper and rain started to be suffocating.

“So, what happened exactly?”

The Principal tried to break the ice but it wouldn't budge. It seemed if the tension could be cut with a knife, it was just such an uncomfortable room to be in.

After a few minutes of the Principal waiting for a response, Katsumi decided to speak up.

“She called me a prick.”

“Well you pushed me.”

“So? It was by accident.”

“Really? Even though you called me Miss-I-Can’t-Keep-Myself-Off-The-Floor?”

“It was a harmless joke, I don't know why you got so hurt by it.”

You and Katsumi kept going back and forth, spewing insults and starting to raise your volume. That's is until the Principal put your whining to an end.

“That's enough!”

You both went silent as the Principal continued.

“Do you two want me to contact your parents because I will if you two keep provoking me.”

The both of you agreed on something. You couldn't have your parents come here or all hell would let loose. The two of your heads shaked in sync, both signalling the fact of the discomfort at the sound of their parents coming there.

“That's what I perceived. Okay, you two obviously don't get along so I won't waste any more of my time dealing with this. Both of you will a detention on Saturday and you will write apology letters to each other. Understood?”

The sound of his voice and the things he listed made you sick. Apologize, to him? Hell no. You rather die first than apologize to a dick like him. Seemed like Katsumi agreed with you on this one thing and gave you a nasty glare.

But did you have a choice?

“Fine, we'll do it.”

Katsumi’s face seemed like someone just killed his mom. He was furious. You gave him a sign to tell him to shut up so you won't get into more trouble and of course, he obliglied. You decided to speak for the both of you to avoid him protesting.

The following days were absolutely amazing. You kept feeling Katsumi's glare on you and you were dreading the sound of Saturday. You had to tell your mom and dad and of course they were disappointed, they ended up taking away your iPod and Computer so here you were.

Saturday, November 9th

Here you were. In front of the school you went to daily. You were absolutely terrified, you just had a very bad feeling about today, you had a feeling. You tried to tell your mom and dad but they told you that it was punishment and you couldn't escape the ‘consequences of your actions.’

“Love you sweetie! Don't forget, okay?”

You simply waved to your dad who tried to keep everything positive, no matter how negative it might be.

“Love, she's in trouble! We have to be mean and angry!”

Your mom is goofy too but she is wayy more serious than your dad.

“But dear! I just love our little girl, she's such an angel!”

“Ugh, just drive you idiot!”

Your mom and dad were just so lovey dovey, you were kinda glad that they were kissing and making out.

Anyways, on the more important subject at hand, how will you survive the dreading feeling in your stomach?

It didn't matter, you were going to be late, it was already 12:38 and you needed to be there by 12:40.

You quickly rushed inside and got to the library where detention was held.

‘‘What the?’’ you muttered so quietly, you're sure no one heard.

As soon as you walked into the room, you saw Katsumi's whole friend group. They looked at you with the same shit-eating grin that Katsumi had. One of them got up and purposely bumped your shoulder. You looked at him baffled.

Why was Katsumi's whole friend group here? What business did they do?

Whatever, not your problem. You kept walking to an empty seat in the back of the library where a window was. Then came the King.

Katsumi walked in with a duffle bag, he probably just came out of karate practice and came straight here. He looked behind to make sure you were there, which was weird, and once he locked eyes with you, he grinned.

Oh gosh, what are they planning?

The two hours of detention finally went by and you and Katsumi exchanged your apology letters. His glare was deadly and you could tell that everything he wrote wasn't sincere but who cared? You wanted out of here. Like now. Your gut feeling got even worse, it was like you were getting kicked in the stomach.

You were looking really beat up so you asked the teachers who were supervising you to go to the restroom. They told you yes but after going, go downstairs because your parents were already here to pick you up.

You silently agreed and went to the bathroom quickly.

You were inside of the girls bathroom fixing your hair and doing basic toilet things. Of course, as expected, you were the only one there.

That is until you heard Katsumi's voice.

“Knock, knock! Anyone home?”

He intruded anyway, peeking in and telling his friends to follow him.

This wasn't good in any possible way.

“What the hell Katsumi? You guys can't be in here! It's the damn girl's restroom!”

“So? You think I really care about the fact that I can't be in here right now? What I care about,

Katsumi approached you slowly, almost like a snake waiting to bite it's prey.

Is to fucking make your life miserable.”

And with that you were jumped.

“Pleas- ACH!”

You tried to scream out for help but one of the boys holding you down covered your mouth.

“Oh shut up bitch. No one will hear you anyway.”

Tears fell from your eyes, you couldn't see at all. All you could feel was every one of Katsumi's friends beating you up. Kicks, punches, slaps everywhere. One of them kicked you so hard in the stomach to point blood came out of your mouth. They all in unison laughed.

“Guess you won't try and mess with us again right bitch?”

“Hah! If she even tries, she'll be dead!”

They all kicked you and continued to mock you.

“Wah Wah Wah! I want mommy!”

“Hey guys, move out the way. I have something for her.”

Katsumi came from the background, just watching all of this. He stepped up to you while you were now on the floor coughing up blood. You were clutching your stomach and you felt like you were about to die.

“Hey whore! You're done for!”

“Hey Katsumi, try to not kill her, I don't wanna go to juvie!”

“Whatever, whatever. Hey bitch. Look up will you?”

You refused to, keeping your head pointed downward. You couldn't, the pain was excruciating.

“I said to fucking look up.”

His tone got even harsher, you terrified. What could you do? What the hell would happen if you kept disobeying his orders? Well, you were about to find out.

“Fine, I'll force you then. Grab the scissors.”

You froze. Scissors? Was going to stab you? Kill you? Cut you? What the hell was about to happen to you? Oh Gosh. You wished you hadn't talk badly about him that Wednesday. As if one of Katsumi's friends shared a brain with you, he asked the same question you had in your mind.

“Uh Katsumi, I hope you're not planning to hurt her with them?”

“Of course not! I'm just going to cut her clothes.”

Clothes? My clothes? What the hell. Oh God help me, what did I get myself into.

Katsumi bent down to your shriveled figure, shying away from him and his crew.

“Well, you're about to be naked! We might even take pictures!”

He came closer to your face, practically breathing on it.

“So you better make up your fucking mind before I decide to stab you instead.”

‘How the hell was this a 10 year old?’ was the only thought going through your mind.

“Well whore? Speak up!”

All of the boys kept yelling at you to respond to Katsumi's question and you were stuck there. Motionless.

It felt like someone just pushed down a cliff of abyss. You felt like you were falling and the tears came gushing out. You were terrified. Scared. This boy was going to kill you, you didn't know what the hell to do. So many thoughts were running through your mind. Help me. You didn't know what to do, your body shaking rapidly. It was over. And you knew.

“Well, Miss Whore won't respond so I'll just make the decision my self!”

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

part 1 because this thing is longggg 😝👍

rip [name], she be going thru it..

[zecretsanta]

To: @handsometimr

From: @juricha-art

Hello, @handsometimr ! 'Tis I, Juricha, your Zecret Santa this year and I bring to you some gifts and Christmas cheer!

Prompt 1: Anything Akane/Junpei, bonus if they adopted a baby Quark post ZTD and uncle Aoi shows up.

This one was the hardest to draw because I wanted it to as cute and cozy as possible, but couldn't for the life of me think of a proper way to do so. Christmas Eve. The tree and decorations are all put up, Junpei is finishing up the preparations, and Akane is trying to put the kids — their twins, Rei and Nova, and adopted little Quark —  to sleep. But they are all too excited, because they know that Santa is coming tonight. So the only thing to do is to snuggle together in a big armchair and tell them some magical stories. After they fall asleep, Junpei finds this idyllic scene and decides to not disturb them, covers them up with a blanket and kisses them all goodnight, his heart sewling with love and joy. And who is that at the door?..

Prompt 2: The first Christmas Sigma/Diana spent together in Rhizome-9. My heart will shatter even more if Sigma's first Christmas without Diana is touched upon. But for Christmas cheer there's always Sigma/Diana's first Christmas together post ZTD, with Phi! I picked the more cheerful version this time, so I hope it's okay! I did my best to touch upon the opther timelines a bit, though! 

Phi visits Sigma and Diana on Christmas and finds out that they are now engaged! They spend a nice evening together. But if one looks closely, one can see the sinister reflections of many a horrible end — and sometimes with some happiness found — they might have met sometime, somewhere. Thank goodness they could find a happy ending to their story! Prompt 3: Anything with Maria, any depiction is cool w me! We need more of Carlos' sister. I drew a festive portrait of Maria, because we never see her in-game. I kinda got inspired by Maria Robotnik, with all the terminal illness and somebody trying to save the poor girls and screaming "Maria!" stuff.  

And I now kind of headcanon her to be a fellow Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 enjoyer, watchnig Carlos play for her. After she was cured, she went to Kurashikis' wedding together with her brother and made friends with Akane and the others. She got so inspired that she roped Carlos into studying Japanese. Akane and Junpei are proud of her. I think the pearls and the purple-pink colors suit her.

All three artworks were done with a new technique I picked up recently — buying alcohol ink and splattering it across the page, hoping it would not go somewhere I do not want it to go. Then coloring the pictrues with the alcohol markers proper, then adding a bit of ink, acrylic markers and pencil (I really like the Cretacolor pencil that I used for outilining Maria, I think it goes well with the lighter colors and not as overbearing as the darker liners) and editing them a bit after scanning. This year was a rather busy one for me, and I didn't draw much (plus was sick through most of December), so I feel like I'm out of shape. I do hope that you — and everyone else — like the end results! Also, I cannot believe that I've been participating in ZEcret Santa for five consecutive years!, since 2019! Thank you for having me on board for so many years!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to @handsometimr , the ZEcret Santa crew and the entire Zero Escape fandom! May the next year be healthy and productive for everyone! Love and cheers, Juricha.

[miru667]

hiii!! miruu it's me (AGHDG again) i wanted to tell you that....in ur drawing celebrating a decade for the Onceler fandom you left a link to another publication and I BARELY NOTICED IT T-T... but well the topic is uhmmm

i wanted to say how much i adore that you shared that with us aaaandd HOW I LOVE THE DEDICATION YOU PUT TO YOUR DRAWINGS!!! LIKE every line you made- for example the lines you did on the old onceler's suit, GOD and his chain WHAT (i always go to that drawing because you don't know the feelings it transmits to me) i loved what you say about Onceler Aftermath, about what it represents regarding the fandom and how you added so many references that i know are very significant and nostalgic for the fandom and the people who formed it at the time

apart from that i love that you mentioned everything you referenced in the drawing!!thaaanks for that, i must say that i did not know many of them and i even ended up reading one of the ask blogs that you cited hehe

and the fact that it took you 6 MONTHS AAAAA this drawing deserves to be framed in gold

i REALLYYY love reading the history of this fandom and what it means to you...and i know that even though i wasn't there, i can feel the love you have for all of this

im glad that a person like you is still in this, and willing to explain and convey to new travelers (like me) what all this is :")))

and before i go i would like to ask you a question since i read all this ^^

at the beginning of the fandom... did you ever imagine what would come to be formed and then continue to have an impact on people???

THAT'S ALL AAAA A HUGEEE APOLOGYY for the length of the menssage but there were so many things to say TuT that i didn't even say some , reading the entire post made me smile and inspired

SHAKOOOOOOO 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭 Thank you for reading that behind-the-scenes post omg that means a lot to me TTWTT... it's okay if you didn't notice it before, it's because I only recently attached the link onto the main post AGJSGUD BUT STILL like??? The fact that you've been coming back to that zine piece is so 🥺🧡 it makes me happy that someone likes it that much!! Sgjhjd yes I went pretty insane for this picture since it was the COVER so I felt a lot of pressure! 😭 It was a zine to celebrate 10 years of the fandom so I wanted to draw something to represent those 10 years, and so I decided to play to my strengths and take advantage of my knowledge of fandom history :,)...thank goodness they gave us plenty of time to finish our pieces dchgjd

And for your question: NO I absolutely had no idea what the future held back then, nor did i think about it! In 2012 I simply lived for the moment, moment to moment in a state of obsession. I don't think anyone can predict how things will be looked back on in 11 years while you're just enjoying the moment in present time. The way people engage with fandom stuff has shifted greatly in the past decade, attitudes about "cringe" keep changing too, things that are hilarious to us right now could be seen as problematic in another 10 years and vice versa in ways that you're unable to conceive of at present. People have gotten art careers thanks to improving their art through the onceler fandom, others have gotten married to someone they met through the fandom, and others have been traumatized and feel weird when they see old fandom posts being reblogged...there was no way I could've predicted any of that at the beginning. It was my first fandom, tumblr was still relatively new, and the internet was a very very different place! And I was also a very different person.

[goongiveusnothing]

"i think he had better help in the past over his clothes and looks." honestly, I commend you for being able to see this in him years ago because unfortunately i was fooled for a long time lol! I agree he had better help in the past. Though, when I really think about it, Harry could never dress. To the point that it is absurd and frankly laughable that some consider him to be a fashion icon. The man cannot dress well to save his life and also he just doesn't appear to care about fashion... at all. Unless, the fashion is somehow getting him clicks and attention (i.e. every cover shoot he's ever done). And I think you're also right about the looks. Tbh he has historically never been great at not looking unkempt when on his own time-- and maybe that his thing, but I definitely think he's better groomed when under the guise of a team vs not. The problem now, like you mentioned, is I think his team doesn't advise him very well. If I were him, I would've fired harry lambert soooo long ago. Harry's hair and outfits are hardly ever flattering lol. He just does not ever capitalize on his really strong features. He has a nice body, yet he's usually thrown in something extra baggy. He also has a whole sleeve of tattoos (albeit not the best looking) that is often hidden away. He has a really pretty eye color, so darker hair would suit him better to bring out those out. His hairstyles the past few years have been criminally bad (especially the one he has now). He's always pushing his hair away from his forehead and I think some strands need to go down onto his forehead to give him a more youthful look. (what happened to his curls?? was that a perm?) He dresses like a late 40 year old and that's partly why he appears to be aging badly as well. I wonder if he thinks he's above the cool, hip fashion trends the young people are doing these days.. or if he's just mimicking his nepo baby babysitters' style.

i agree with everything.

when i say better dressed i mean the floral suit he once wore for an event, and the basic skinny jeans, chelsea boots, tee shirt look he would wear, that loads of men would wear, because it looked good on many of them.

harry decided all of that was too mainstream and because he no longer even seems to have any normal friends, he's completely out of touch with dressing for himself anymore. it's all the wanky art scene type of dressing that looks deeply uncool to anyone outside of it.

i think he does care about fashion in that he listens to people who kiss his ass telling him what ridiculous thing to go out wearing, but i don't think on his own he has any real interest or knowledge about fashion. he very obviously doesn't enjoy it. there's no fun there or personality or exploration. he dresses off rack. and dresses so badly for his age, his size, his body. no fashionista would've been seen wearing that abomination he wore with taylor when he was karening someone on the phone.

[kris-mage-fics]

Five Comfort Characters, Five Tags

Tagged by @georgiedoesntfloat - This was way harder then I expected because I had to decide what a 'comfort character' even means to me! (Also, I'm not tagging anyone because I tired from editing and this has been sitting in my drafts for days. So if you see this and want to do it too, awesome, consider yourself tagged!) 1) Falkor from The Neverending Story

My sister and I watched the movie a lot when we were kids, and we both loved Falkor so freaking much! He somehow made me feel like things would be okay, both in the story, and even in my own life. Which, frankly, was something I desperately needed growing up. (If you also loved this movie, I highly recommend reading the book! The movie only covers the first 40% or so of the book.) 2) Sarah from The Labyrinth

This was another movie we watched a lot. Looking back I think Sarah was a good hero for me, and in some ways I really related to her. She was another character that made me feel like I could defeat the odds against me and come out the other side. 3) Cove Holden from Our Life: Beginning & Always

This was the first VN I played, I didn't even know what visual novels were when I started playing it! At the time I found it, I was going through a lot in my life, and playing it a billion times helped me work through some really big things. Cove is so kind and really supportive of the MC, the friendship between the two of them is really lovely. Cove, and this game, literally changed my life for the better in multiple ways. 4) Haron Milirose from Ebon Light

Haron's brother, Ernol, may be my favorite romance in the game, but Haron is my comfort character. He's positive, sweet, and flirty in a way I actually think is fun. The MC goes through some shit in this game, and Haron is a ray of sunshine through it all - and he calls her "shining light"! This assassin-in-training takes the honor of being the subject of the first fan fic I wrote. Yes, this was the game that pushed me to start writing, and it's the game that first put the idea in my head that someday I could make my own game. (If you can't read the text, it says: "I said that in complete innocence, madralee." Trust me, his comment prior to this was not completely innocent.)

5) Red Antiqua from Shepherds of Haven (but almost tied with him for comfort characters are: Shery Acquell, Trouble Alder, Caine Tavadon, and Mimir.)

First off I love all the characters in Shepherds of Haven so much, but only some of them would I consider comfort characters. Red very narrowly wins over the rest in the comfort character category. I can't feel bad when I'm playing a scene with Red in it. His kindness, maturity, gentleness, and nerdy infodumps about magic always cheer me up. Red's a bit of a flirt too, but in a different way than Haron. He's another character that makes me feel like things will be okay, even though sometimes the MC has to reassure him since he's a worrier. (This is only part of a beautiful fan art by @stilwaterbutcher of Red and her lovely character, Guinevere. Please go look at the full piece! Y'all have no idea how hard it was to pick only one fan art of Red to use, there are so many stunning pieces out there!)

[positivelybeastly]

She's kicked back on one of those fancy, overstuffed Xavier couches--shoes off, of course. Her legs dangle over the side, and she's propped comfortably on a pillow, gazing at the ceiling. A battered, paperback copy of Murder Ballads--one from Booker's library decades ago--is in her hands.

All at once, she lets out a "fuck," tossing the book onto her stomach. It lands with a little flop and rustle of cover and paper.

"I just remembered James Horner is dead."

The swear has Hank glancing up from his own book - a rather tattered but well loved copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, gifted to him by Logan a good many moons ago - and blinking at Tess. He would ask what's wrong, but he knows her answer will be forthcoming.

Tess isn't the type to misuse her swears, after all. Deploy them in a cluster pattern for maximum efficiency, or with the deadly efficacy of a long range tactical nuclear device, absolutely, but misuse? Not usually.

Then she speaks, and his face falls, too. He brings his book down and taps at the spine, thinking for a moment before sliding his bookmark into place and leaning over to take her hand and squeeze in a way that's the kind of intimate only best friends can manage.

"Have I ever told you the story of when I decided I wanted to be a scientist? I was . . . eight years old, at the time. My father brought home a copy of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on VHS, because that was in the time period when VHS was actually dominant media and not merely an artefact of the before times. I was absolutely enraptured from moment one. The opening narration arrested me - in the 23rd century. I was in. And then, Main Title."

"Enterprise Clears Moorings!"

"Kirk's Explosive Reply!"

"Incredible track after incredible track, set to the single best Star Trek story ever told. William Shatner's single best acting performance, achieved only through sheer bloody persistence by director Nicholas Meyer. A performance of the original Spock by Leonard Nimoy that was good enough that it made him want to return to the role! But. More than anything else, it was the quiet scene in the middle of the film."

"Kirk has nearly been killed by a son he had almost forgotten he had, who is so very much like him, and yet not. Has just seen a man die, pointlessly. He believes he's been marooned on a moon, buried alive, buried aliiiive . . . he lets out a primal scream of agony. He's near the end of his rope, and then, Doctor Carol Marcus appears."

"The entire film is about . . . life, death, birth, rebirth, age, youth, revenge, letting go. And she and Kirk have this incredible conversation. I've never forgotten it, in the twenty nine years that have come since I first heard it."

He puts on his best subdued, mature William Shatner.

"'I did what you wanted. I stayed away . . . why didn't you tell him?'"

And then he shifts his voice. He can't do Bibi Besch, but he can replicate the tones of her voice, the exact moment he fell in love with what science was, with what it could achieve, with what it represented.

"'How can you ask me that? Were we together? Were we going to be? You had your world and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father. ... Actually, he's a lot like you. In many ways . . . please, tell me what you're feeling.'"

Switch back to his Shatner. It's - passable.

"'There's a man out there I haven't seen in fifteen years, who's trying to kill me. You show me a son that'd be happy to help him. My son. My life that could have been ... and wasn't. And what am I feeling? ...Old. ...Worn out.'"

There's a certain mistiness to his eyes. He clearly holds this moment very dear to his heart. These are the words. This was the moment.

"'Let me show you something ...that'll make you feel young, as when the world was new.'"

There's an uncharacteristic crack on the word young.

". . . And then she takes him by the hand, and they walk into the Genesis Cave. The hollowed out interior of an asteroid, turned into a veritable Garden of Eden. Paradise. 'You did all this in a day?' 'The matrix formed in a day. The lifeforms grew later at a ... substantially accelerated rate.' And Carol has this look of absolute pride, and honour, and accomplishment on her face.

Can I cook or can't I?"

"That, was the exact moment I decided I wanted to be a scientist. James Horner gave me that moment, with those strings and that flourish and that sense of wonder. James Horner, and Nicholas Meyer, and William Shatner, and Bibi Besch, every part of it, made me the man I am today."

There's no 'for my sins' or twinge of self-deprecation. This is a moment of pride, and surety, and happiness.

He squeezes Tess' hand again.

"Another Doctor McCoy pointed out, at the end of the film, 'he's really not dead. As long as we remember him.' So. Let's remember him together, Tess."

[hierarchyproblem]

1, 2, 19 for book asks

1. book you’ve reread the most times?

I don't really tend to reread books tbh. There's so many other books I wanna read that I'd get more out of than a second go at something I already remember, y'know? That said, I have read the bible cover-to-cover four times. Normal behaviour.

2. top 5 books of all time?

Aw fuck. I dunno. I'll assume "books" here means "novels" and I'll list five of my top books of all time:

The Dispossessed, by Ursula K Le Guin. I need not labour the piont here 'cause I know you've read it, so I'll simply say that Le Guin is possibly my favourite writer of all time, and this is her at her best.

Ubik, by Philip K Dick. This book gets weirder by the page. PKD loves poking at the nature of reality, and this is the exemplar. A lot of his output reads as surprisingly adventurous work to come from a 60s sci-fi guy, and this is among his most interesting. Several carefully-crafted "wait - oh, shit" moments in a deliberately-contradictory narrative. Head-spinning stuff.

The Fifth Season, by N K Jemisin. A lot of SFF is, like, fun, and that's cool; I like to read that stuff too. This is art, no two ways about it, and of a kind I'm not sure you could easily translate into a different genre or medium. Bold and nuanced exploration both of the apocalypse and of parenthood. Also rocks are magic, and magic is rocks. When people ask me to recommend a book, this is my go-to.

Version Control, by Dexter Palmer. This is pretty lit-ficcy compared with my usual intake (ie. genre fiction that wears it's genre-ness like a tiara). If an act 1 full of normies having brunch doesn't put you off - and it shouldn't, because the characters are extremely well-drawn - then it'll be very satisfying when all the little bits of wrong-ness come together. Also far more prescient as near-future spec-fic than any cyberpunk.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson. Unlike most in the tumblr-popular "SFF imperialism but with lesbians" genre, this one sketches out an imperialism that's mostly plausible and worth exploring. The worldbuilding is really very good. This is mostly a pretty light read, for all it deals in heavy themes. I basically don't believe that spoilers diminish one's enjoyment of a story, though that might just be me, so I still think it's worth reading despite your having looked up the ending on wikipedia. The rapid series of increasingly-punishing gut punches in the final few chapters is worth experiencing first-hand.

19. most disliked popular books?

I'm sure I've bitched about this to you before, but I thought Harrow the Ninth mostly sucked. I respect the ambition of the book's structure, but I felt that it fucked the pacing unbearably. Gideon is way more interesting to read about than anyone else in these books, and I might have felt better about being dragged through 400 pages of Harrow moping by having "you're gonna find out what happened with Gideon soon, I swear!" dangled in front of me like a carrot for a donkey, if the payoff was worth it. Unfortunately the denouement largely consisted of everybody standing there and stating out loud what their master plans were, I guess because the stupid B-plot where I'm somehow expected to care about Ortis at all(??) took up too much space so there was none left for a proper ending. There were some fantastic scenes, but in my opinion they couldn't save the book. I thought Gideon was truly excellent, so this was a bit of a let-down.

Also - if you'll allow me a brief tangential rant - I can only assume the publisher (correctly) decided that the meme references were highly marketable, because otherwise an editor that let that shit through should surely have been let go. It's baffling, because these books are frequently hilarious, but never when referencing Bone Hurting Juice or whatever the fuck. "Oh it's a worldbuilding thing, it shows that John-" no. It's stupid. Piss off.

Thanks for the questions!

[amazing-spiderling]

So for the two ask games: 3,12, 17, 21, 36, 49 for murderdock and 4, 9, 13, 23, 27, 31, 35, 44 for Gwen, then 🧭, ♻️, 🤔, ❤️!

I think I already answered all of those WIP asks (and honestly, I don't have that many going at a time) so I'll answer the character asks!

MURDERDOCK:

3. Obscure headcanon

The Hand tried to diversify their portfolio by breaking into the entertainment industry, starting in Japan with musical groups. Matt had a short-lived stint as a solo artist but the project was eventually scrapped. He still misses it sometimes. Nobody knows about this until Foggy finds a beat up CD case in used music store one day and spends a full minute gawking at the familiar brooding face on the cover.

12. Crack headcanon

I just think it would be funny if he was a vegetarian. I don't even know that I consider this a headcanon, it would just be funny if the guy going around murdering people with his sword cane ate a lot of tofu.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

I've made a few playlists over the years, but a song I haven't had a chance to put on one yet is "Promiseland" by Mika

21. Drink of choice (not just alcoholic)

Robbi Rodriguez has art of him with a martini glass on his IG and I decided it was an appletini not because he likes the flavor but because he's committed to the bit. In the privacy of his own home, I see him as an unsweetened hot green tea kind of guy

36. Their favorite season

Winter. There's less people around, the snow helps muffle the sound and things smell less when they're cold.

49. Favorite toy as a child

Gwen Stacy (65 I presume)

4. Favorite line

"But if the only way I can help is with my fists -- then I've already lost. I have to try a different way. I have to know I tried."

9. Scene that first made me love (or hate) the character

I read Spider-Verse before it was cool (JKJK I mean before the first movie because I was deep in my Spider-Man era) and there's a part in the story where a lot of the main Spider-People split up into pairs to go and visit other universes to recruit more heroes/ ward off the Inheritors etc. Gwen ends up in a world where Peter Parker has become the Goblin, going down a path not too dissimilar from her own Peter's. This Peter also ends up dying in her arms, but she shows a great deal of compassion and understanding towards him and I think that was the moment that really made me want to check out her series. (Which had been written at the time I read that comic, but didn't exist when it had been written, which I think speaks to how good of a job that one scene did at developing a character who had literally just been invented.)

13. Dumbest thing they’ve ever done

Not dumbest in that it was a conscious decision she made, but her complete misreading of the emotions of her friends (Peter's obvious crush on her, MJ's annoyance at Gwen's missing Peter's crush on her, MJ's jealousy and motivation for creating the band in general) sort of stretches the limit of general obliviousness, especially since she CAN read people when she's trying to.

23. If they were a scented candle, what would they smell like?

Backstage sweat and like... raspberry body spray from the drugstore

27. Their guilty pleasure

I'm low-key obsessed with Dollar Dog and I love that for Gwen. I wouldn't say she felt guilty about it before it became a hipster nightclub but she sure does now. I hope it fell out of fashion and Mr. Alby got to run it again.

31. If the had a tumblr what would it look like?

She stayed up late one night picking out some cool colors, hot pink, purple, something very chillwave, and like a very heavily filtered landscape photo of the city to go at the top- she posted semi-regularly for a month and a half and then forgot about it.

35. Their idea of a perfect day

She gets to sleep through most of it, but wakes up and finds out that her dad has invited her over for brunch and she's got time to make it and pick up juice on the way.

44. Their happiest memory

Probably something like a middle school holiday spent with her parents and the Parker family. Before things got complicated. She understands now that the roots of her larger problems were always there, but she can appreciate the comfort her innocence afforded her back then.

[vitaminwaterreviews]

Sugar - Secret (Single) and Sweet Lips (album)

Honestly they started off really well! Secret was nice, and the first three songs on the album were great, and then Sweet Day brought it all down and it never really went back up. Man of Man was definitely the standout, I really really enjoyed it. If their group has a dedicated rapper then I feel bad for her, she only got raps in like three or four songs. Like, Mr. Unnamed Rapper had as many rap lines as she did! I feel like they put all the creativity into the first songs and then just shoved all the rest into the end of the album. The guitar lines were great throughout though, whoever the producer is knows how to use guitar. Average score of 6.7 which is lower than M.I.L.K, but the songs that I enjoyed most from this album were better than my favorites from M.I.L.K

Secret

Apparently this song 1) has a MV and 2) won a MAMA which is pretty cool, that’s why I’m even watching it in the first place

The MV was nothing special by modern sensibilities, but the choreo looked fun

Styling was pretty girl crush

As usual, the intro for some reason is way better than the rest of the song

Still, the song was alright, I vibed, and this could definitely get stuck in my head

7/10

남 의 남자 (Man of Man)

Groovy

Whatever happened to this type of synth sound anyway? Did music just collectively decide to “grow out of” fun synths?

“Did you enjoy that?” Yeah, I did actually, this is fun

r&b tendencies, with that ridiculous synth in the background

Oooh this guitar is actually really good. This is a good song.

9/10

현명한 이별 (Wise Farewell)

This is the only one on the album with an MV, so I guess it’s the TT

Wait why do they look like they’re in a laundry machine and why are they so sad

I love the guitar

I’m torn between enjoying this song and not enjoying this song

The dance scenes are pretty cool

The vocals feel kind of anime outro to me, but the guitar is super classical

7/10, wish I had a better quality version

No Way

Dude how is every song so far totally different? This album is like a breath of fresh air compared to M.I.L.K

They do love their clean guitar plucks though

Pre-chorus is cool, chorus is fun

What is it with introducing a rock guitar just for the rap break? And why do they always introduce unnamed male rappers into a girl group song? This is exactly like M.I.L.K

Ohhh but we do keep the guitar around for the next chorus, that’s cool

And now he’s rapping over the clean guitar! I like the trade-offs

8/10, this won me over

Sweet Day

Here we go, this is the slow jam we were all waiting for

And as usual with slow jams, I have no comments, because I just do not find this style of music very interesting

I wonder if the album cover art is actually the members’ lips, that would be kinda cool but also a little weird

5/10, blindingly average

달콤한 상상 (Sweet Imagination)

I think she’s speaking English in the intro but I couldn’t catch what she said

Oh I heard that growl on the “oh baby,” that’s cool

I’m getting ‘Cause I’m Your Girl vibes from this song

The ad-libs are the best part of the song but honestly… I’m not convinced

6/10

Accident

Bassy

Yeah, you can tell we’ve hit the middle of the album when the songs start to blend into each other

Thing is, if you gave this an MV and put it at the beginning of the album I’d be like “yeah that’s title track material”

It does sound very Destiny’s Child to me for some reason

A purely instrumental bridge with vocalizations in the background? I guess that’s cool

And the synth continues into this verse, nice

6/10, mid, I want something creative and interesting to catch my attention. I just listened to Kiss of Life’s new album earlier today and every song was super distinct and had its own identity. I guess that’s easier for an EP to do though, to be fair.

The Boy Is Mine

Woah that title though haha

“Hey baby wassup?”

“How old are you? 21?? Girl you growin too fast! Nah I’m just playin with you babe”

Seriously though what’s up with introducing these random male rappers? I guess in this case though he’s just speaking

This instrumentation feels super broadway to me

Bit of vocal growl

Well this chorus kind of came out of nowhere

Strings? Don’t really fit imo

Mmm we love the whispers

Okay wait the bass with these strings in the post-chorus and rap section is great. Plus the vocalizing over the rapper? Good stuff

You can tell by my increase of comments that I’m liking this one more

Yeah I still don’t buy the chorus. It feels completely out of place compared to the moody verses

That outro was hot

8/10

Prism

Hmm

These vocals are very different from what we’ve had so far

Almost j-pop? Anime? AKB?

Nothing about the instrumentation sticks out to me though. The bass exists, the strings exist, the background exists, I guess it feels prism-y but it’s not doing anything special for me.

NMIXX CHANGE UP holy shit

Dude what the actual hell, at least Nmixx have the decency to try and make it sound cohesive

This song is so blindingly mid that even the nmixx moment was mid

5/10

The Way

Liking this guitar

Aaaaand there it goes, now we’re in slow jam town

I guess the harmonies are cute

The guitar is back, I like it

It feels a bit too loud in the mix during the chorus but I think I like that

Okay frfr though why does this remind me of Pomp and Circumstance

I guess the outro was okay

6/10

Only One

The chorus is not the same song as the verse and you cannot convince me otherwise

Oooh a proper girl group rap break, we haven’t had one of those yet have we?

The violins here feel super cheesy

The voice doubling on the “you are the only one” is cool

We love singing over a rap break

Yeah think song just gets better as it goes on I guess. Still not amazing but I’ll give it

7/10

Baby Boy

I don’t know what to make of this intro yet

This is quite the extended intro too

The guitar in my right ear is so pretty, can we get more of that in the mix?

Also they’re definitely taking advantage of the stereo audio here which kind of annoys me, I much prefer mono

Forgettable chorus

Okay for real though if there was a song on this album that was exclusively guitar, I’d vibe so hard to that. They do the guitars so well

Another proper rap break, I guess they just saved them for the end of the album lol

7/10

Temptation

Last song on the album, let’s see what we get

Not impressed by the intro so far

This feels almost In Love With A Ghost for some reason?

This song does not feel like it should be called “Temptation,” where’s the sultry and the seduction?

I guess there’s a bit of bow-chicka-wow-wow

Yeah I am not impressed by this as the last song

Oh, there’s our unnamed male rapper!

Random ballad section for the bridge

6/10

[psi-scribe]

The Cloisters

*Lies on the floor*

So I decided to start working on reading some of my non-warhammer books (There are many...) and started with The Cloisters. Dark Academia and occultism mixed in with thriller? Sounds great!

In the premise anyway, in the execution it was... lacking.

Before I go any further I would to once again like to summon a horde of flies to whoever the hell decides to prints stickers onto book covers AH.

More details and spoilers under the read-more:

Buckle up, there’s a lot to talk about.

Ok so let’s start off with the good stuff:

The author nailed the atmosphere, it shifts between dreariness of Ann (our protag) and her view on everything around her, only brightening when at the Cloisters (A real museum so that’s cool) and when around Leo (her love interest) and Rachel (co-worker and person she’s kind of crushing on). There’s also a lot of love towards museums, art and history (fitting given the author’s background as an art history major and teacher).

I also did like the few times the author touched upon the idea that some sections of history are more ‘popular’ than others. How some are more well researched, competition for internships is cut-throat and how people in the field find their ‘spot’ and just stick with it for their whole career.

Negatives... oh boi, there are plenty.

Starting off with the cast, they all suck (and I think that’s the point, which I was fine with). At first I thought Ann’s hollowness was due to the fact she’s dealing with some trauma (Her father has recently died, she was in the accident with him, her mom is grieving hard as well, she’s very introverted) but no she really is just... boring. Like she has no hobbies, she can speak several languages but it’s never a big deal unless she’s translating (and we only we see her using that skill for one scene). She has no common sense and she’s also a terrible daughter (She knows this too).

Leo is her love interest and the museum gardener, he knows a lot about medieval plants and medicine, he’s also a playwright/plays for a band once and a while. Sounds like a decent guy right? Nope, he sells trimmings/bits of those plants (which some are also poisonous in high amounts) illegally in a street market (he doesn’t believe in natural medicine, he just wants the money). And he also steals artifacts from the museum storage and sells them illegally, even views it as a good thing and again, just wants the money. Oh and when he gets caught, he views going to jail as a good thing because it means he can focus on his plays entirely. Yeah, a real catch that one. He’s also a murderer.

Patrick, the murdered guy! He was the curator of the Cloisters, extremely interested in tarot both as a form of occultism and historical practice. Obsessed with it really (fitting for a dark academia book) to the point of losing his temper over it. Also he was sleeping with Rachel so there’s that abuse of power and authority. And he died for it (and for discovering the secret Rachel and Ann were trying to keep secret: aka some cards were way older than they thought and had fake covers).

Rachel: Is the one that convinced Leo to poison Patrick with a higher amount of belladonna, was also sleeping with Leo and using Ann. She also murdered her parents (no idea why), her college roommate (no idea why) and was helping Leo steal artifacts, but never took the money from it because she’s filthy stinking rich. She’s also well respected, popular (despite the open knowledge that she’s got a shady past and is known to be ‘difficult’ to work with) and pretty. Ok girlboss, do your thing I guess. She also dies in the end.

So Ann gets credit for the discovery of older tarot cards, a nice curator job, respect in the community and wealth from selling a tarot deck secretly to the point she can live in NYC comfortably. Also she helped Rachel lie about Patrick’s murder yet snitches on Leo to the police for stealing.

That’s it, that’s the plot of the book. The plot that doesn’t appear until by half way though and Patrick’s death doesn’t happen until the last 3rd. I know thrillers tend to amp up the plot towards the second part but this was ridiculous.

Shout-out to the minor cast: Louis, Moira, Aruna (despite being just a bit shady) and Laure, they deserved better co-workers and a better book. Louis and Moira were just doing their jobs, Laure was one of Ann’s friends (her only one from college apparently) and Aruna constantly warned Ann not to get involved with Rachel and Patrick.

Especially Moira for getting so rudely treated by her co-workers for doing her damn job and being rightfully pissed about them smoking where they shouldn’t be.

As a side note, I wish there had been more conversation about academia and museums as well. It probably wasn’t part of the plan for the book but still one worth noting at least.

[whenyouaredonespn]

A bit of Self Indulgence from the Artist:

     So I wasn’t happy with the end of Supernatural. For what little my opinion on things like that matters; I hold no illusions. Though I did watch from pilot to finale for 15 years as it aired, It's my favorite show- full stop. I’m also one of the fans that other fans tend to hate. Though It had some truly amazing and great moments in later seasons, I feel it peaked in Season 5 and never truly rose to that height again. (holds up a shield to block incoming fruit.) Though there were several times it got very close. (The Demon trials, and Amara for example. Dean’s monologue in the church is maybe my favorite moment in all of TV. Possibly all of Fiction.  There I go contradicting myself.

     At around the same time the show was ending, I was trying to figure out something to work on, something to draw- I needed a project. But I was also so far out of the game that I had no contacts to hit up for a story or script. I was also about three years into a five year artist block which was the result of intense burnout. So I decided to make a fan comic based on Supernatural. It's something that I always wanted to see. Like the post-TV Buffy comics I felt and still feel that SPN would make a great comic. It could get bigger and more over the top. Without constraints of things like budget, actor schedules, make up or special effects or the need to fill up over 20 hours of run time with around ten hours of content. This is stated with full knowledge that there are indeed SPN comics- I have read a lot of them. Some are good, some are… not- (I won’t presume this to be one or the other) BTW to this day Dustin Nguyen’s covers are my favorite pieces of Supernatural art ever made. 

     This fan comic is NOT a “how it should have ended” It's just a scene that always sort of played out in my head. I always wanted them to go out like Thelma and Louise, or Butch and Sundance; no way out but through, launching the car into oblivion, sacrificing themselves while saving the world. I’m a sucker for that trope. (Buffy Season 5- also where it peaked) I also always wanted to see a BIG Monster- we got hints at times. SPN skirted up next to the Elder Gods once or twice- there were tentacles and big looming shadows in the distance. 

If you imagine a story-line where the threat is a bunch of monsters (Capital M- mutated, lizard tail raptor clawed demon creatures instead of just black eyed people- though they are there as well) wreaking havoc on the world and eventually culminating in a Cthulu like hellbeast rising from the depths. What follows is the usual arc of them trying to figure out how to take it out. The usual wins and losses, starts and stops until they figure out what weapon will do the job, then it's acquiring the weapon. Finally stabby stabby. If that is the season- this is the last fifteen minutes of the finale episode. 

     In this alternate timeline or multiversal offramp, Chuck and Amaara effed off to some celestial beach somewhere, drinking mai tais and promptly not Giving a crap about Earth (Or doing the absolute very least required) Jack came and did his thing, and now Team Freewill is Sam Dean Cas and Jack. That's really all you need to know. 

     Finally, if you'll allow me to get personal… It took this thing about two years to make. No- not because it took me that long to draw 20 pages, but because I shelved it. The truth is multifaceted and long-winded. Suffice to say that burn-out is real, artist block is real. This is the first thing that I have completed in over five years. That in itself is the reason I made it, I needed the win, and this thing was about 60 percent done two months ago. Before I started yet ANOTHER new project, I was determined to FINISH SOMETHING; anything. The road of my artistic Journey is flanked by too many corpses of unfinished and shelved projects. Things that were taken too far to be just left unfinished. Like putting a book down with a single chapter left and never picking it up again. It's a source of shame and this is the win I need. 

     I Hope you like it. Or at least think it's nice to look at. 

Hobbs

PS. A final note on the art. I wasn’t going for likenesses, I was trying to portray them as comic characters first- iconography. If Dean looks like Jensen at times and so on, that's great, but I wasn’t aiming for that per se. Castiel’s true form is based on multiple fanart conceptions. Basically he’s just a “draw this in your style”.

[curestardust]

Dust Watched: Boku no Hero Academia Season 6

Genres: Shounen // 25 episodes // S01 (x) | S02 (x) | S03 (x) | S04 (x) | S05 (x) | M01 (x) | M02 (x) | M03 (x)

AND we’re back, baby!

✧  story  ✧

After the incredibly tepid and almost entirely filler that was Season 5, we desperately needed something to kick us back into gear. That season ended setting up the events of the War Arc which Season 6 immediately jumps into without any hesitation.

The whole season keeps a quite fast pace with fewer filler arcs than usual. The first half of the season focuses on the beginning and first day of the War Arc. The heroes form a plan and attack the Meta Liberation Army from 2 different locations at the same time. While things seem to be going well, everything soon goes to shit and the battle culminates in 1 final location with all our biggest players present. 

After that whole shitshow, there’re a few uneventful but still important episodes mostly focusing on the past of certain characters. 

And the 2nd half of the show covers Deku’s rebellious phase as he decides to set out on his own.

I know that most people already know the events of the season from the manga but I’m keeping most of it as vague as possible for those who don’t because Oh My Gosh, this season absolutely slaps.

So many long awaited iconic scenes this season that BONES did 100% effort into. The pace is fast, there’s a lot of action, a lot of conflicting feelings AND-

✧  characters  ✧

A lot of “MY BLORBO!!!” screamed either in delight or despair. Or both. While Class A (with the exception of the main 3) are kind of shafted in the first half (the odds were highly against them but still), they get some spotlight in the Deku’s arc. We get a lot of important info on the Todoroki family, thanks to a certain someone’s reveal, which I thought was incredibly important. The show has been trying to redeem Endeavour for a while now so it could’ve been easy to kind of.. forget, or downplay his abusive behaviour in the past but these flashbacks show us even more what kind of a person he was back then. 

Some side characters like certain previous OFA users and Hawks also get some focus.

And of course Bakugou’s character development (especially regarding our dear broccoli boy) was SO good and needed. It was just so.... I’ve no words, truly.

✧  art  ✧

It’s BONES. Great fight scenes, and animation and all that. This is what they’re known for after all. If I had to nitpick, the colour pallette was kind of dull for most of the anime. The big fight scene of the 1st arc takes place in a basically completely brown area and the 2nd arc has this fugly dark filter on cause they made it Moody and Depressing. I mean, it fits, but it’s still not all too appealing to look at for multiple episodes.

✧  sound ✧

OP/EDs were great but not my favourites from the franchise. The VAs did a fantastic job as usual.

✧  overview ✧

Things don’t seem to be slowing down for the next season either so I’m excited! Leggooo!

My Rating: 9/10

[adventures-of-the-creeping-bam]

NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: THE ADVENTURES OF THE CREEPING BAM,  BOOK TWO: ONE COLD TRAIL - CHAPTER 27

If you’re new to the story, please go check out Book 1 first …

Book 2 Chapter 1 is here …

IMPORTANT:  Please note this story includes content that may be considered mature, such as moderate battle violence, some strong language and occasional mild sexual scenes.

If you want to support my writing, feel free to swing by my Patreon or Ko-fi.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:  GAEL

All right, maybe this place has some kind of rundown charm on a bright sunny day that attracts the Guild’s children to it as Art told us, but right now I personally do not see the charm.  In the failing light, especially since it’s fading so quickly now the storm clouds have started to roll in overhead and the first sprits of rain are starting to wet our surroundings, this strange, dark, empty structure is mostly just creepy.

The building itself seems surprisingly sturdy, but then it’s mostly just some thick stone exterior walls and a tiled roof, the wood in it perhaps somewhat rotted but still seeming to hold up well enough to keep the weather out. There’s a long, open space running right through the centre of the whole thing, with the stalls for the animals once housed on either side, under the cover of the second levels that I imagine were used for feed storage.  The wood in the stalls looks to be faring less well than the roofing, but then Art says this place was abandoned well over a century ago now, so some of it’s rotted right through from long exposure to the summer humidity and no-one left to maintain it.  There’s an identically large exit corresponding to the entrance at the far end of the long courtyard, but the doors are missing there too.  In a way it makes sense that folk might think to use it as a makeshift shortcut between two streets now.

The courtyard was once floored with hard-packed dirt, but it’s long since been reclaimed by nature, the grass spreading all the way from front to back thick and tall now, sweet smelling even though it’s turning brown in the lengthening autumn.  It’s stretched into the building around it too now, choking running riot in places, while airborne seeds have clearly found their way in too because the space has also become generously dotted with bushes and wild plants and even a few trees here and there.  I suspect there were a good deal more flowers in the summer, but with the year growing so late many of the more fragile ones have clearly died off now.  Like I said, I can imagine this place being quite beautiful when the sun’s out, especially in the spring.  Right now, though, it just makes me feel like I’m in some strange ruin lost in the wilderness at night, and it’s not helping my nerves at all.

Kesla’s made us spread out through the building, pointing out the optimum places for each of us to hide and wait, dotted around the edges of the interior. It might have made me more nervous to be alone where I am in this increasingly discomforting place, but thankfully Kesla either sensed my trepidation or just decided on her own I needed company.  So I’ve taken up my own place along with Shay.  I know Driver 8 is now hidden behind a clump of particularly thick hawthorn bushes growing around the tallest tree in here, a young oak which looks set to start breaking the guttering on the nearest roof once it’s thickened out to sufficient growth-rings.  I can’t see him now, even though my nightvision is easily as good as the others’, at least besides Art’s, the vegetation’s thick enough to give him a particularly enviable screen.  I couldn’t begin to guess where the others are now, despite having watched where most went once the positions were arranged, they’re all just so well hidden.  I can only hope we’re both as discreet now.

Honestly, we probably are.  She told Art to find somewhere elevated he could watch from, maybe provide cover if needed, and while he doesn’t have much in the way of ranged weaponry I’ve seen how indescribably lethal he can be with those wicked steel darts of his.  Unless they’re wearing plate steel he’s got a good chance of taking a few down before the rest scatter.  Shay and I got a similar assignment, so she handed off her own beloved shortbow once she’d established that our new half-orc friend has been trained in her own right with one, and once we were inside we looked for a way upstairs.

Getting where we are was no easy feat, what stairs were left were half-rotten and the rest were perilous enough just from rusting nails, but having grown up in the mountains Shay’s impressively sure-footed and found it easy enough to get up.  Then it was just a question of helping me up after her, which I found particularly nerve-wracking, but she reassured me the whole way and I’ve certainly come to trust her enough by now that she didn’t let me down.  Gods know how the hell I’m possibly going to get back down again – it’s not too far down from our questionably firm perch on one of the balconies, reasonably screened as it is by some of the taller bushes, that we couldn’t just jump it, but I’ve never been that confident with this kind of stuff anyway.  I’m not an overly athletic type, jumping around like an acrobat just makes me nervous.  If Shay has to drop down into the fight at any point I really don’t know if I could actually follow her …

The rain’s starting to thicken up, heavier drops pattering on the leaves and dusty, split, cracked decking around us as I pull a little further back to avoid the true downpour as it finally begins.  As I venture a glance down the line of the courtyard to the back entrance, where we’re expecting our quarry to follow the other group through, a bright, jagged line of startling white lightning flashes in the alarmingly close distance.  The massive following crack of thunder sounds barely a beat later, and I feel it right through my bones.  “Bloody hell.”  I can’t help breathing it low.

“Indeed.”  Shay’s crouched nearby, a little deeper in than I am, checking Kesla’s bow over now. It’s an altogether far more modest affair than Yeslee’s immense longbow, which is a little taller than me after it’s been strung, but this still has an inherently dangerous look despite its relatively diminutive size.  Perhaps it’s the striking curves of the recurved arms, with the tips flicking out like angry bull’s horns, but I suspect it’s simply down to what I’ve already seen Kesla do with it when she’s drawn it in anger.  As I watch Shay gives the string an experimental pluck, listening to the subtle twang for a moment before giving it a quick draw without bothering to load it first.

“So you know what you’re doing with that, then?”  In truth I’m partly asking just to cover for my own nervousness, trying to take my mind off our situation and the growing threat of the storm.

“Well enough.  I was never really much of a hunter, but we used these enough times on an ambush that I can generally hit what I aim at.”  She sets the bow down again beside her, but I notice she also does it as far back from the growing line of rain-splashed wetness as she can reach. Now she draws one of the arrows from the generously filled quiver and starts checking it over.  “To be honest I always found a bow most useful whenever we had to run away.  We usually specialised with shortbows like this, anyway.  They’re great for firing from horseback.”

“Not Yeslee, though.”

Shay smiles a little, holding the arrow two-handed now as she looks down the shaft.  “No, Yeslee’s definitely a special case.  She is frightening with that great beast of hers, I must admit.  But it’s best suited for long distances, if you get into close quarters then something like this is much better.”

I nod at that, but I’m not sure if it’s more agreement or just a rote gesture right now.  I lean back against the wall behind me and it creaks significantly, a subtle, cracking pop quickly making me stand up straight again with a wince.  “Fuck … I hate this place.”

“Just breathe.  The floor’s stable enough, at least here.  We’re safe.”  Shay slips the arrow back in, then slides another out and starts all over again. “Kesla really does look after her gear, doesn’t she?”

Taking a deep breath as I decide to just follow her advice the best I can, I take s cautious step closer to her, listening for any more uncomfortable creaking and quite relieved not to hear anything particular, before dropping into a crouch of my own at her side.  “She’s quite religious about it, actually.  She says it’s how she was trained, I understand it’s a mark of great discipline.  That being said, I suspect part of it might be a form of genuine worship.  To Thorin, I mean.  At least unconsciously.”

“I can see that, I’m very particular about my own weapons too.”  She slips this arrow back into the quiver too, then, after a thoughtful moment, slips the strap over her head and lets it rest on her corresponding hip.  “For me, that was just what my mother drummed into me, more so than with my father.  I mean, he cared for his own steel too, but … no, with her it was like you said.  A religious thing, really.  Thorin loves those who respect their steel, she would always say.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Kesla too.”  I have to smile a little at the thought.  “Of course now you have a sword that doesn’t actually need looking after, so …”

“Don’t remind me.”  Shay’s hand goes to the hilt of Ashsong’s former weapon as she speaks and I suspect it’s largely unconscious.  “I’m still a little uncomfortable about learning that this thing drinks blood. Just when I was starting to finally get used to the damn thing.”

“It’s just magic, it’s not actually dangerous.  Just don’t cut yourself with it.”

Shay gives me a look, but doesn’t reply.  I don’t hold her gaze for long, instead looking out through the balustrade into the courtyard.  The rain is torrential now, a constant pattering hiss starting to drown out all other sound, but it’s also making it harder to see what’s going on out there too. “Oh, I don’t know about this. You think this rain might become a problem?”

“More for them than us, I think.”  Shay picks the bow up again, letting it settle across her thighs as she rocks back on her heels a bit.  She’s just about tall enough that she can peer over the railing from this position, it seems.  “As long as we descend on them quickly, we might be able to catch them all without having to spill any blood after all.”

“You really think it’s going to go that smoothly?”  I give her an unconvinced look.  “Our track record since we arrived has been less than stellar.”

She looks back at me now, warmer again.  “Relax.  This is a sound plan, and Kesla knows what she’s doing.  This weather can only help us right now.  So long as you keep your head on straight and trust us to do our part while you just concentrate on doing your own part, this should work out fine.  Okay?”

“So you’re sure about that or are you just trying to convince me?”

That makes her frown a touch, and she looks at me for a long moment before breathing out a very gentle sigh.  “I don’t know.  Maybe both?” She tries a smile, which mostly works.

I don’t know why that makes me feel a little better, but somehow it does, so I smile back again.  “Fair enough. I’m glad you’re here with me, though.  I hate this.”

Blinking, she looks me over for a moment, thoughtful now, then reaches out and wraps her arm around my shoulder as she leans into me enough to give me a little squeeze.  “I know, I’m none too fond myself really.  But we can do this, okay?  Just get your game face on and trust that it’s going to work.”

“Yeah, okay.”  I lay my head on her shoulder, and let her just hold me for a few moments, a little happier now.  “It’s for da, so yeah.  I’ll do my best.”

Smiling, she gives me another squeeze, and lets me stay here a little longer before finally rocking back as she lets me go again.  She stands up almost immediately, cradling the bow now as she takes a cautious little step forward, looking out into the rain again. Sensing the mood shifting, I push myself up after, reaching out for my staff, propped nearby against the rotting wall, almost without looking for it first but I still find it on the first pass.

It can’t be long now, surely.  The sun’s long gone now, but it think it’s more down to us losing what was left of the dusk thanks to the storm rolling in so quickly, so now it’s just black up there now.  Last time Tulen checked in they were getting close, and that was at least ten minutes ago –

“You see that?”  Shay grabs my arm a little firmer than I’d really like and pulls me a little back into the relative darkness again, then points out into the storm.

I’m about to answer her that I can’t see much of anything right now with all this rain, when I just catch a glimpse of something shifting across the rain-slicked roof-tiles above the back entrance.  The slate’s dark enough I almost miss it, but the shape moving across them is just a literal black shadow and there’s a flash of lightning somewhere out in the coming night just as I look which is timed so perfectly I couldn’t miss it if I tried.  Then I realise whoever it is isn’t making too much effort to stay hidden here, compounded when they actually stand up to full height just short of the overflowing guttering and wave a hand over their head.

“What the hell is that about?”  I find myself muttering.

“That … that’s Zuldrad.  Art’s friend.”  Shay puts her thumb and first finger into her mouth and lets out a brief but piercingly clear whistle, stepping up to the rail at the same moment so she can point out into the open towards him.  Signalling to Kesla, wherever she is.

“Well if he’s here, then –”  The world seems to go away inside my head, all sound just muffling to nothing while my vision seems to dwindle into a blurry distant image at the end of a long, dark tunnel, and I realise I’m receiving a message.  A very urgent one given the sudden, jarring extremity of its onset.  Given the circumstances, I simply close my eyes and lace my fingers together again so I can respond as it comes in.

Gael, it’s me. Tulen’s voice says in my head, that incredibly subtle echo sounding a split-second after it.  I’ve never quite been able to work out why it does that.  Sorry to jump on you so hard like this, I hope I didn’t cause you any problems.

Tu, it’s FINE.  What is it? We just spotted Zuldrad.  Does that mean you’re here?

Essentially, yes.  We’ve nearly reached the street, Darwyn says we should be with you in the next few minutes. Some more of them are on their way now, Zuldrad said he’d spotted another four or so making their way in from another direction, but they might be a little longer following this first group. Either way, we’re hustling now, but as far as they can tell it’s simply due to the weather.  Yeslee just went on ahead, so she should be with you any second herself.

Yes well knowing her I doubt she’ll make her presence felt.  You’re sure they haven’t worked out what we’re doing? Given there’s more coming –

We don’t know, but Darwyn doesn’t think so.  According to what Zuldrad signaled to her just before he went in they don’t seem to have changed anything that they’re doing, so he thinks we’ve convinced them.  Are you ready in there?

As far as I can tell.  To be honest once everyone went in I lost track of them all, it’s very hard to make out much out in here, it’s so wild.  And the rain isn’t helping.  Which Shay thinks is a GOOD THING.

We’re crossing now.  We’ll be inside in a minute.  Best let the others know. The sensation eases immediately, and I drop my own responsive spell at once so I can slip out of the near-trance. I have to blink for a moment because of the particularly jarring transition, and Shay reaches out with the intention to steady me as I start to waver, but I wave her off as I settle before becoming unbalanced.  “Oh … no, I’m all right.  That one was just a little more insistent than I would have preferred.”

“What is it?”

“They’re here.  They’re coming in now.  Yeslee might already be in, but she won’t advertise it.  There are maybe four more of … whoever it is.”

Shay stiffens up, her fingers creaking a little as she grips the bow tighter, and she shoots a furtive look out into the rainy gloom.  “They’ve got wise?  Should we be worried?”

“No, from the sound of it they’re more likely reinforcements, coming in from another location.  It’s not a lot, I suspect if they had worked out what we’re doing they either would have called in a good deal more of them but covered up their approach much better, or perhaps they would have just pulled out entirely.”  I shrug, probably looking as unconvinced as I feel. “At least I think so.  I don’t know tactics.  Um … should I send all of that to Kesla?”

“Can you?”  Shay seems surprised.

“Of course.”  I reach into my components bag, take out the bundled length of simple cotton string, shaking it out into my hands and winding it around my fingers before stretching the remaining length of it out between my hands.  Finally I stretch the string over either thumb as I concentrate on Kesla.  Thankfully I don’t need to do this when communicating with Tulen, but then she’s trained to be able to send back herself – if I want Kesla to respond I need the focal point.

Kesla, it’s Gael.  They’re coming in.  Yeslee must already be here, but you know we won’t know it.  Did you see Zuldrad?

Who … what?  Oh … you mean Art’s friend, the hob? There’s a pregnant pause as she must wait for me to respond, and I realise that I’ve never actually done this with Kesla before, she must have just frozen on the spot in terror. Damn it, Gael … you should’ve prepared her better than this.

Yes. Look, there’s no time.  There are MORE OF THEM.  Four more of whoever it is has been shadowing the others are coming in from another direction.  It doesn’t LOOK LIKE they’ve worked out what we’re doing, though.  At least that’s the consensus.  Um … look, I don’t know what I’m doing here, you know that.  What do you want to do?  Should we call it off?  CAN WE?

There’s another pause, and I think Kesla’s just thinking things over, there’s really no way to tell since all I can do is … hear her voice?  It’s not exactly that, either.  This really isn’t like anything else, I can’t blame her for being a little freaked out.

What does Shay think?

Mostly she agrees with me, but she’s being cautious.  I think it’s smart, but … Tulen said Darwyn thinks it’s still all right.  We’re just waiting on YOUR lead, but there’s really no time.

No, I get it.  We’ll stick, we’re too far in now.  We gotta commit.  Pass it on.

I don’t respond, I simply drop the spell and trust that the sudden release of that inexplicable pressure in her head should be confirmation enough.  When I look up again Shay’s watching me closely, and thankfully I’m quick enough realising she’s desperate for a judgement either way.  “Oh, yes. We’re still on.”

“We better be, because they’re here.”  Her voice has dropped to a whisper, even with all the noise of the rain, and as she pulls back a little again she reaches across and pulls one of the arrows from the quiver at her side, dropping to her haunches again as she nocks but doesn’t yet start to draw.

She’s right, as I drop into my own crouch beside her we can just about make Darwyn leading the others inside through the rain, some scattering as they enter.  As I watch the halfling herself vanishes into undergrowth with disturbing ease, the grass in here almost tall enough all she really needs to do is stoop and she just disappears from sight.  The male dwarf, Dumoli, slinks off in the other direction a beat after, but Tulen and Thelgaewynn continue down the middle of the courtyard, where many years of foot traffic have worn a path through the thicker growth around them. Keeping up appearances, I suspect, just in case anyone’s still watching.

Slipping back into my trance again, I focus as lightly as I can on Tulen so she can just keep moving at Thel’s side.  Where are they?

I have NO IDEA.  Once Zuldrad came in he wasn’t keeping an eye on them anymore.  Oh … wait, we didn’t think about that, did we?

Realising she’s right, I pull right out again, and for a split-second I start to focus on Kesla again instead, before I come to a realisation – we still have a much more useful resource right now.  Except I’ve never done this before, I have no idea if I even can.  “Oh gods … Shay?”

“What?”  She turns to me, looking awfully concerned now.  “What’s wrong?”

“I’m about to do something really stupid.  Um … look, keep your lookout like you’re supposed to, but if I start to … I don’t know, if anything happens to me, I need you to get in contact with Kesla any way you can.  Right away, do you understand me?”

“What … Gael, I don’t understand … what are you going to do?”

“Talk to Big Man.”  I shake the string out again and I’m already focusing as I see realisation dawn in her eyes.

“Whoa, wait, Gael, don’t –”

Before she can finish I’m already gone.  I focus on Driver 8 and for a moment it’s just like it always is, there’s no real discernible difference as the world just kind of falls away again, that blurred sensory tunnel stretching out as the outside world retreats and then I close my eyes and suddenly … there’s nothing.  For what feels like a few moments I start to wonder if I’ve perhaps made a terrible mistake, and then I start to think that maybe I should just try and pull myself out even though I suddenly don’t have the first clue how …

… and then I feel him, somehow I just know it’s him even without hearing him yet.  It feels strange, deeply strange, it’s cold and alien in here, not very comfortable at all actually, but somehow … there’s a familiarity to it all the same that somehow I just know is Driver 8, or perhaps it’s just that there’s the subtlest red glow to everything now that instantly reminds me of his gaze.  So I take a figurative deep breath – although I suppose I must do it in real life too, I doubt I can really help it now – and send out a message to him, hoping he can pick up on it.

Big Man?  Are you there?

There’s what feels like a long pause, but I’m starting to suspect that, somehow, time is just stretching out around us.  Gods … is this just how he thinks?  So impossibly fast that he’s just ahead of everything?  Is that how he can seem to focus on everything all at once?

GAEL. This is YOU, is it not?  You are communicating with me using your magic.

Yes, it’s me.  Look … we didn’t quite think this through, Zuldrad was watching the people following us but now he’s in here with us, so –

I understand.  It is now unclear to you where they are or if they are still following the other group. There is no need to be concerned, I picked them up a few minutes ago, they are making their way towards the building with some speed.  Clearly they intend to keep Thelgaewynn and the rest in sight.  One of them is entering now, and the rest of the first group are close behind.

The rest?  Oh, yeah, the second group … is it still just four of them?  What are THEY doing?

Moving in at a more oblique angle, but they are taking their time about it, being much more cautious in their approach.  There are in fact SIX of them.  There are also another four who have now entered my scanning radius, they are approaching from the other side with the same care and stealth.

ANOTHER group?  Oh … how does it look?  Do you think they’ve worked out what we’re doing?

I’m afraid I have no frame of reference to make such a deliberation. As much as I have learned there are still aspects of living sentient nature that I sometimes find difficult to fathom.

Wow … I have no idea what to make of that.  This whole thing is one deeply strange experience for me, really, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of just how inherently different from me Driver 8 actually is.

The first group are now entering the structure.  They are spreading out but I suspect they are making much less of an effort to conceal their own approach now.  Wait … Kesla is moving.

“What?”  It takes me a moment to realise that I’ve actually spoken out loud again, but then this strange new experience ends and I’m back in the material world again and I’m badly out of balance.  A hand grips my shoulder and pushes me upright as I start to teeter, and I work as quickly as I can to get my feet back under me again.  “Oh … that was … oooooh … I don’t know if I should do that again.”

“Please, don’t.”  Shay keeps hold of me for another beat, still watching me, and she looks more concerned than ever now.  “Seriously, that was supremely stupid.  What were you thinking?”

“No, I … there’s no time.  Kesla’s moving.”  I lean forward and for a second I’m unbalanced again, so I just drop forward onto one knee as I grasp my staff with both hands to keep me from falling down.

Shay shuffles forward at the same moment, so she’s looking out into the courtyard just as I am, searching now for Kesla, and I remember once more that I have no idea where she actually is in this whole mess.  It’s not until I look down the other way in the direction that Thelgaewynn and Tulen have gone that I see her, stepping out of the shadows now into the path behind them as they pass by where she must have been hiding. Near the main entrance, I realise.

She just strolls out, moving a few paces forward down the path once she’s reached it, before settling into her usual nonchalant lean onto her left foot, hand laid on Hefdred’s hilt as casual as if this is just a pleasant night out on the town.  Even though the rain is pouring down on her and there are enemies approaching.

“I don’t …”  Shay’s frowning deep now.  “What the fuck is she doing?”

Looking up the other way, I can make out a few of them, moving through the grass down at the other end but starting to move up this way, while one of them is just strolling down the path the same way, seemingly almost as nonchalant now as Kesla.  As I watch something large moves into the open in front of the back entrance, and I realise it’s Driver 8.  Blocking off their escape, should they suddenly realise their predicament.

The figure approaching Kesla slips the broad-brimmed hat off their head as they come, seeming as cool and collected as she is, which would make me nervous enough if it wasn’t for how they look in the first place.  I’m pale, I’ll acknowledge that, but nothing like so much as this one, she looks worse than a bloodless corpse but she’s walking about like she’s hale and healthy.  Skin white as driven snow, and while the rain’s giving it a certain slick sheen it still looks pretty sickly.  Her hair’s white too, but more like bone, even as the rain starts to darken it as it gets wet.  Cropped to her jawline, most swept behind her ears but a few stray bangs falling across her face, the cut similar to mine but straighter.  She’s dressed in dark leathers like the rest, but there’s more matt grey buckskin in the mix, and her long leather coat looks far more expensive than anything else I’ve seen any of them wear.  There’s a longsword on her hip, but I doubt that’s all she’s carrying, knowing the company she keeps.

Seeing the way her green eyes literally flash as she focuses on Kesla, I recognise that this is the infamous Vandryss.  She’s very striking, beautiful in a somewhat feral, sharp-angled way, something deeply predatory in her features, and I can see why her ears might have made the boy mistake her for an elf – they are indeed pointed, but too broad, protruding a little too wide on either side of her head, so they look a little more like Yeslee’s.  Certainly there might be some passing similarities here, but I really doubt she’s a Fir Bolg.  For one thing she’s too small, a few inches shorter than Kesla, it looks like.  Lean, athletic, moving with a particularly feline grace that just adds to her dangerous look.

She flashes a wide grin as she stops a few metres short of Kesla, and it’s instantly clear in that moment that she has far more long, sharp teeth in her mouth than she has any right to.  “You must be Kesla.  Kesla Shoon, do I have that right?  A name that carries much weight, historically.”  Her accent’s thick, reminding me very much of Yeslee’s. She’s from Tektehr.

I can’t see Kesla’s face from this angle, but the way she cocks her head tells me enough – she’s intrigued, but I know she’ll be hiding it as well as she ever does.  “And you’d be Vandryss.  That your real name, by any chance?”

“I suppose it’ll do for now.”  She cocks her own head, her smile narrowing, becoming more shrewd.  “Can’t say I’m particularly surprised to see you here. Given what I know about your father, it makes sense.”

“You didn’t know my da.”  There’s a subtle note of warning in Kesla’s voice, but mostly she keeps her tone light, as I would’ve expected.  “Whoever you are, whatever you are … you don’t know me.  Not really.”

“Perhaps not, I suppose we’ll find out.”  Vandryss looks around, and her eyes seem to flash again, the blazing green seeming to leave strange track-lines in the air as she moves her head. There’s something … it’s almost disorienting looking at them, I think.  It’s very strange.

“Any chance I can convince you to come quietly?”  Kesla wonders, shifting her stance just a little.  To a casual onlooker it could be mistaken for simply getting more comfortable, but I recognise her preparing for … whatever’s next. “Might even be able to make it worth your while, that way.”

“I don’t like this …”  I barely hear Shay whisper it as the bow gives the subtlest creak, and through the corner of my eye I see her drawing the arrow at last, bringing the flights flush to her cheek as she picks her target.  Taking a chance to scan the surroundings of the pair below, I can see the black-clad newcomers who entered with Vandryss spreading out through the grass and leaves around Kesla, clearly intending to surround her.

“Neither do I.”  I start weaving a sigil now, keeping my hand low to the floor so hopefully no-one can see it from down there, and as I prep the spell I focus as much energy as I can into the staff gripped in my other hand.  “But wait for Kesla.  She knows what she’s doing.”

Shay’s breath hisses between her teeth as she draws it in, but she doesn’t let it go yet.  Clearly holding it to steady her hand.  Waiting for … something to happen, like me.

This whole time Vandryss has simply been thinking, her eyes locked on Kesla’s own.  Does she not realise she’s surrounded?  She seems so calm, there’s almost no emotion in her face at all now. Motionless now, almost like a statue, like she’s just carved from alabaster.  The way she looks under that dark leather, I could almost believe that –

When she moves it’s so fact I’m amazed I even caught it, it’s so uncanny I almost don’t believe I’m actually seeing it at all.  One moment she’s stood almost perfectly still, maybe the slightest tilt to her head for a moment, then she just flickers forward, going straight for Kesla.  I think if she’d been closer she might actually kill my friend before she has a chance to react, she moves so quickly.  That sword at her side is drawn and flashing out in her right hand before I quite realise it …

But Kesla was ready, that much is clear given the way she just takes one long step back and turns, drawing Hefdred in that beautifully executed signature move of hers and intercepting the incoming blade before it can bite. The ring of steel is louder than I would have expected, especially in the storm, and it’s enough to break any trance that might have taken hold of me, along with the others, I suspect.

Shay looses a single beat later, and I’ve completed my sigil in the same moment, raising the staff once and bringing it down as hard as I dare on these floorboards. The subtly cracking pop it produces is almost entirely lost as the ground directly under two of the shadows flanking Kesla suddenly erupts upwards, a great blast of disturbed soil and greenery engulfing each as they’re each flung into the air with great booming sounds.  At the same moment Shay’s arrow strikes home, a third one stumbling back with the shaft stuck deep in their chest, and two more are immediately hurled several feet across the wild turf as they catch Yeslee’s distinctive long black arrows.

Now there’s only one of them out there beside Vandryss, and she’s fully engaged with Kesla right now.  She’s wicked fast, each and every stroke of her sword should be swift and deadly enough to end our leader in an instant, but somehow she’s managing to keep up with the pace, responding to each move with startling precision.  I’ve rarely seen Kesla move this fast before, she’s genuinely matching Vandryss as they wheel about, but right now I can’t tell which one’s actually winning here.

The one remaining hood, clearly rattled by seeing most of their party taken down almost as one, turns fast, hands questing inside his cloak for weapons now, and then I barely catch something … no, several somethings flitting out of the gloom of the balcony on the other side, each striking him hard in quick succession.  I couldn’t see what they are if I tried, but I already know they’re those same small, nasty steel darts that Art uses, and the way he slings them hits his target as hard as another arrow from Shay would have done.  Whoever they were under the hood, after two beats that last remaining would-be attacker doesn’t so much fold as just straight drop to the ground, and they don’t move again after.

“So … what, is that it?”  Shay breathes at my side, letting the slack off her second arrow which I suspect was ready for that last one before Art took care of them instead.  She almost looks disappointed, but I can’t help thinking she could be right – Vandryss is all that’s left, and while she’s clearly giving Kesla a run for her money, the way she’s keeping up with her suggests it’s just a waiting game now.  Perhaps she’ll see sense once her situation occurs to her and she’ll just come quietly like Kesla originally requested.  Somehow I doubt she’ll be so accommodating in the end as to actually let her go, but still …

Except there were two more groups coming, and something’s niggling at me … “Hold on.  Just wait for me.”

I barely hear Shay start to ask me what I mean as I slip the string out again and pull it taut, focusing on Driver 8 again.  I dive deep, but it’s probably the sudden urgency I feel that fails to check me in time as I do it, I just drop into that strange dark red emptiness again.

Big Man, what are the rest of them doing?

Gael … a moment please. The red glow seems to dissipate a subtle fraction around me for a moment, but then it rises again as his voice returns.  Both groups have stopped.  Wait … one has disappeared.  NO.  I believe it was a portal.  I have seen this before –

This time when I pull out I do it so quickly I actually stumble backwards, I’ve landed on my backside before I can right myself and Shay’s not quick enough to react in time.  I barely register the momentary pain, however, I’m already focusing on the courtyard below as six more shadowy figures suddenly just drop out of a rift in the air.  One I recognise the moment I see it, but I really hoped I’d never see its like again …

“Minerva …”  I breathe as I force myself up, springing to my feet a good deal more clumsily than I’d like but rally not caring much about decorum now.  “Whatever you do, please don’t shoot me.”

“What?”  Shay starts to protest as I take a step forward.  “Gael, what are you –”

A second rift opens in the air on the opposite side of the yard from the first, closing just as quickly after four more figures tumble from it and land with less sure feet than the first group, but I’m already moving now.  I mutter the incantation under my breath while Shay’s still getting her words out, then I feel that strange inward pull as my portal spell activates and I jump into the middle of the courtyard below.

I set my feet and swing at the nearest target the moment I’m aware of where I’ve landed …

TO BE CONTINUED ...

[kulay-ng-banaag]

☆ LOST & FOUND ☆: What A Concept!

CW: war, blood, death, sharp objects

I revised the comic art. Fixed anatomy here and there, adjusted lighting, BACKGROUNDS!

Working on this comic series will be slowed down significantly. The results of Halalan 2022 was crushing, to say the least. That and college.

I disliked having to look back at the stuff I made, even if it was for good intentions. One hot year since first posting the comic, I allowed myself to truly peruse this comic again. Not only did it resonate still, but it also resonated so much stronger now too. Who would have thought I needed to remind myself too?

I was, and up to now, in disbelief that I could pull off an insanely ambitious project, for a hobbyist of my skill level, in such an unrealistically short amount of time (never again!!!). Ironically, it was after I drilled myself into making the comic that my art style got cleaner and more consistent (I wasn't when it came to characters' faces because I was still figuring out how exactly I want to draw them).

Only the writing was left unchanged. I would crawl into a ball of shyness still about the comic, but nonetheless, I remained very proud of it. I also made a few corrections regarding historic information here and there, as well as dug up as many primary sources as I could access. What amazed me was that there was still no need to make any changes to the story.

At the end of it all, I had no regrets about following my instincts to let this comic happen. Not only did I learn a great deal about the process but I also grew to love it. The only thing stressful about it was the fact that I had to juggle this literal passion project with other commitments. If I had less of the latter, you would see me grind through my art.

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First off, I hoped that the cover illustration did not give off the impression of a 1Px2P self-cest doujin (I don't go there lmao). I was aiming to show the polarities in Piri’s character, the “blue vs. red” side if you would. The title font I used was Kawit.

I initially wanted to use the blue uniform for that spicy color contrast when it got stained in blood. I chose the khaki shade instead for insurrection!Piri because the lighter shade looked better in juxtaposition with his canon (present-day) sailor uniform.

I realized too late that the cape colors, in trying to create the illusion of the PH flag, did not follow the correct vertical orientation. I did not want to alter the entire drawing anymore so I left it that way. It appears in the correct orientation if you flip the image around, though! HA!!

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Piri took the bus because god forbid I had to draw him driving solo through Manila traffic. No thank you.

Piri could drive but he did not own a car. No matter how bad it got, he was content with opting for public transportation. He was partial to walking on his own two feet (in more ways than one).

Piri was very clearly tired, a far cry from his canon bubbly persona. Understandably so when he took an early bus trip. Yet even after hitting up a chat with friends, he was clearly worn down emotionally too.

I set these panels in violet, the color produced when you mixed blue and red. To be specific, I was aiming for the blue-violet end.

When I decided to make a comic about a nation’s flag, I never figured that I would mean that in more ways than one. I swear my choices of color palettes for scenes were pure serendipity!

Ask any Filipino what the blue side of our flag means and chances are peace will be the first word we'll tell you.

Piri wanted to tune himself out from the rest of the world. He wanted to spend just one day getting some “peace and quiet” for himself. He was very good at keeping up a face. For peace’s sake, he had to; but even in those quiet moments, one did not always truly feel “at peace.” Piri was still bracing himself for how he would be spending the rest of the day and it left him a bundle of mixed emotions.

At least he seemed convincingly cheerful enough to his peers.

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At last, Piri was free of the long bus journey out of the metro. He deserved to chill before diving into the moment of angst!

The street snack he had was kwek-kwek.

(For shit and giggles, let me share this innuendo of a song.)

Featured Locations (L to R)

Kennon Road (there was a view spot for picture-taking)

Session Road (a shopping district; I used a photo of the night market situated there)

Burnham Park (it had a lake where visitors could go boating)

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I initially wanted to write the text message in Tagalog but I was wary that it might be too harsh, even if the harshness was the point (it sounded a lot harsher in Tagalog, believe me).

It looked like it was a day of harsh noon sunlight. The scorching heat of the sun was always a nuisance even for those born and bred in this humid, tropical archipelago. It definitely got to Piri.

It was definitely the type of day where one would rather be hidden away from the burning sunlight, lest it shone on something one would rather keep to themselves.

I did not mind Himaruya using funky “unnatural” eye colors for the SEAsians (even though that was usually on drawing funky art with funky palettes) since flipping on canon was a free choice. Alas, I could not resist going off my own way too.

You know how dark brown eyes can sometimes appear golden (technically amber) when facing bright sunlight? Funny how that color sure revealed itself in a bad time. Funny also that gold was the color of the sun in the PH flag. I’m telling you all, Piri had a sunny disposition in more ways than one.

(Y’alls really thought I’d stop at the blue and red?)

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Now we could see the reason Piri went to Baguio for his birthday.

The location was a real museum that housed some of our earliest flags for public viewing! The name of the place?... The Aguinaldo Museum.

Oh to not live under someone else’s shadow.

I owed all Filipinos that read my comic my sincerest apologies for this part. This museum was different from the Aguinaldo Shrine in Cavite. It was specially built because the colder temperatures of Baguio made for an ideal environment for textile preservation.

Had it not been for the pandemic, I would have made a spontaneous trip to confirm the interior layout for myself. Instead, I relied on photographs and videos from bloggers who made their own visits. What I c ould vouch for certain was that the flag has to be kept in a dark room because old textiles faded from the sun's UV rays. I suppose they were aiming for a more serious mood with the choice of room lighting color.

It was definitely violet again. Red-violet this time.

Ask any Filipino what the red side of our flag means and, chances were, war was the first word we answered, but I wanted to go for a more neutral term: Conflict.

One could only imagine the inner conflicts Piri was going through at that moment, especially when he knew the truth.

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(I am not yet a legit historian and the pandemic severely limited how much more I could gather as someone who also likes to read history for leisure so I had to completely rely on what I could find online only.)

Long story short for my non-Filo followers, plenty of us Filipinos (if not most) considered Aguinaldo a very problematic figure in our history. It would not be the full picture, but the research I picked up for the comic would help give the gist as to why.

First off, my reasons for covering up the faces of the cameos of historical figures were:

I wanted to avoid drawing Aguinaldo’s face. By extension I had to apply the same trick for the others to avoid bias.

I got lazy to draw so many faces.

It was a storytelling trick of sorts by diverting the reader’s attention to Piri instead; “Hey, look away from these guys and go back to the real star of the story that’s also in the same panel!”

This was Piri’s story after all. This was his story.

The featured precolonial flag was allegedly the pennant of the Tondo polity*. Allegedly because I could not trace back primary sources to back it up.

*The term used was “bayan” and it was more leniently used to refer to any of the independent states that co-existed during the precolonial era (haha, “independent”). Think of how multiple German states existed pre-unification. No, there were no monarchies (in the strictest sense) in precolonial Philippines, so technically Tondo, Maynila, etc. were not “kingdoms.” Additionally, precolonial Philippines in my own lore also did not go by the name “Tondo.” He does have a tito Tondo.

I decided to feature that flag anyway because, even if it might not necessarily be true, there must be a reason Piri has that particular memory (*coughs* Andres Bonifacio was a Tondo boy).

In the flashback sequence, the first flag seen was the version of the Katipunan flag first shown at the 1897 Naic Assembly.

This was not the first flag of the Katipunan. I depicted a later version because the first one constituted the organization's acronym in white on a red background. The complete name of the organization was: Ang Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (The Supreme and Venerable Association of the Children of the Nation).

I can assure you all that the Katipunan was NOT the same organization nor had any connections whatsoever with a certain white supremacist group.

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The guy with (baby Katipunero!) Piri was Feliciano Jocson. Some claimed he was inspired to draft up a design after seeing the flag of Cuba in the newspaper (that’s right, folks. Cuba/Piri valid!). Sadly, there was no info on the precise drafts that Jocson had, but one could clearly see how the del Pilar flag took cues from that of Cuba. It was called such because Gregorio del Pilar (aka Goyo) made one for himself as a treat for his rank promotion.

“Wait, so how did it go from Jocson to del Pilar?” Alas, I wish I knew because there was frustratingly little information to be found on Jocson, even though he was supposed to be one of the Katipunan’s leading members. He was big enough of a deal that he was bound to strike a chord when he protested the Pact of Biak-na-Bato was only agreed upon amongst Aguinaldo’s inner circle.

It did not help that Jocson simply went off the radar when del Pilar was sent to arrest him.

Del Pilar was loyal to Aguinaldo.

ADDENDUM (01/26/23)

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While exiled in Hong Kong, Aguinaldo approached Marcela Agoncillo to create the flag closest to the version we would know today.

Aside from the fact that I wanted Piri to be present for the making of the flag, he had his reasons for joining Aguinaldo in Hong Kong, which I ought to elaborate on in a future comic.

Piri went fabric shopping with Lorenza, Agoncillo’s eldest daughter. Also, did you know about how Filipinos pointed with their lips? That was what he was doing. 😗👉

The flag was first flown at the port in Cavite, just shortly before the Battle of Alapan (May 28, 1898). Then it was flown again on the declaration of Independence in Kawit, on 612 1898.

Look at how happy Piri was now that he got a flag of HIS OWN.

Did he get to own it though?

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It was a fairly big deal when there were testimonies that Jocson was the real brain behind the (early) design. Although Aguinaldo never claimed that he designed the flag, his contemporaries had the tendency to give him the credit for it, if only because he was the one who made the pitch to Agoncillo.

However, that only partly explained why anyone would put the original flag under the custody of a space dedicated to Aguinaldo. 2 flags contested for the title of being the true original: the Aguinaldo-Suntay flag, and the Agoncillo flag.

(L: top - Aguinaldo-Suntay, bottom - Agoncillo; R: Agoncillo, closeup)

The Aguinaldo-Suntay flag had additional embroidery between the stripes. The Agoncillo flag had faces drawn on both the sun and the stars, and these were also aligned to the flag vertically.

“But wouldn’t the real og flag be the one named Agoncillo? Why do we have to acknowledge the other one?” That was because:

It was still one of our flags.

The thing was that Aguinaldo himself was the one who reported that the PH flag went missing. Twice.

I had to preserve my joke from the original Twitter thread.

In 1919, he said it got lost within the Caraballo mountain range in Nueva Vizcaya. Then in 1925, he wrote to an officer that it got lost along Tayug (Pangasinan). In both instances, he mentioned that the losses occurred during his retreat from the Americans.

The Philippine-American War was from 1899-1902.

Now that made it easier to trace back events! I included a map reference of troop movements as well as one I redrew myself in Google Maps to show where the Caraballo Mountains were.

It would seem that Aguinaldo never went anywhere near that portion of the region…

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After the war, one of Marcela’s daughters stepped forward to claim that Aguinaldo actually had the flag safely stored away in a vault. The flag was conveniently brought out for display at the museum. Additionally, the current extant copy of the Agoncillo flag might only be a replica of the “true original,” if only because its threads were found to be cotton and contradicted statements that the original flag was made of silk.

To add to the confusion, one of Aguinaldo’s own descendants claimed that the flag loss was a red herring from Aguinaldo himself. However, a flag (if not the flag) was returned to Aguinaldo circa 1930. Since then, he never let it out of his sight, to the point that he would sleep next to it. When he passed away, his daughter found the flag under his deathbed.

Personally, I believe that Aguinaldo took after del Pilar and made his own banner as well, but even I could not find information on when the Aguinaldo-Suntay flag was made. In my frustrations to piece it all together, I came up with that banger line on conflicting narratives.

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Well wasn’t that a heck of a ride through memory lane? Sadly, it was time for Piri to go home (but wasn’t he already?), but not without buying the promised barrel man!

He left by sunset because it was prettier to draw and it made the “keeping things in the dark” line slap harder. A play on finding closure, in finding peace in all that red.

Remember what the red stood for?

Oops, another flashback!

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Aguinaldo wanted to transfer his base from Tarlac to Bayombong. He sent some troops, alongside a substantial portion of their equipment and supplies, ahead of him to clear the path. Tayug just happened to be along the way.

The 2nd Division scouts of the American army successfully intercepted the message. Spanish prisoners assured their American liberators that its writing was true. Gen. Henry Ware Lawton was determined to mobilize their troops as quickly as possible, in spite of the serious deficit in supplies.

(William H. Young was under Lawton's command.)

The American side had reasons to be hesitant about the plan that was put forth. They refused to believe that Aguinaldo would give up the railroad, which was used to mobilize his supplies as well as the PH Republic's treasury. It was akin to Aguinaldo abandoning his own resources. The top priority was to capture Aguinaldo because even the American troops themselves could not afford to waste any more of their already diminished resources.

Before I continue, let's grab the troop movement map again and take another look at the purple and red lines.

Notice how there were two places named Bayombong (red line, crossing Tayug) and Bayambang (purple line, with a railroad path).

Notice how Aguinaldo's route initially followed the same as Lawton's, but diverged. It was easy to assume that the change of course was to avoid the Americans at all cost, yet they themselves had a hard time tracking him. Why?

[ This next part is my personal and non-professionally backed opinion. Believe me, I wish I had the academic credentials and the freedom to dig for evidence of the PH troops' war plans from their side. ]

Perhaps that tiny linguistic difference was an intentional red herring. The O and A in Filipino can actually be tricky to discern, depending on your enunciation. My reference did not specify either if the intercepted message was a written or a verbal account (and if the latter, it was extracted from the captured individuals). Hence, the possible mix-up between Bayombong and Bayambang. Perhaps the Americans were wrong to assume that Aguinaldo was unwilling to travel without his supply line, which would also be a serious risk on his part. It meant he was willing to buy time for himself at the cost of his own resources, both material and human. Piri would have thought of it as an outrageous plan as well. And that was why he chose to chaperone his countrymen over his general. Who was going to protect them?

In the end it was a risk that paid off for the Americans.

(Col. Henry Walton Wessels was under Lawton’s command).

☼ ☼ ☼

It was noteworthy that Aguinaldo stated the flag got lost somewhere in Tayug, but not necessarily in Tayug.

I imagined it might have been with someone already in transit out of Tayug. Someone who was busy leading his fellow soldiers. Someone who was determined to see his people outlast the war.

I definitely owed every reader an apology if they were still rattled by this section of the comic. It was a huge risk to let this (partly) be a war story, all the more through the lens of Hetalia. I am not ignorant of the shit people in this fandom were (and are) capable of.

However, I have since learned that it is one thing to be an ally for social justice, and it is a whole ‘nother nuisance when one must always feel the need to intervene for others for the sake of honoring their idea of peace and justice.

Now if that ain’t the Philippine-American War in a nutshell.

(Just a nutshell. Someday I’ll come back around to include HWS America’s perspective. I condemn US imperialism as much as I condemn misinformation arising from avoidance of the US’ prominent role in PH history.)

☼ ☼ ☼

At the end of the day, this was still a story about the flag, about the road to independence. As shitty as Aguinaldo and the war crimes of the Americans were, they all played a part in what independence meant for Piri.

What right do we have to dictate his story for him?

I would admit this section was where the fiction came in. I did not find specifics on the number of lives lost on both sides (with the Tayug takeover at least). In fairness, it was not like any of us would know. We were not there for whatever happened that day.

I was aware that war/armed conflict was a very sensitive topic and even I was not too keen on defaulting to the peace/war meanings for the stripes on the PH flag. Thankfully there is one more analogy for the red side that I wanted to raise: Blood.

I knew terms such as “patriotism” and “valor” were used, but they were often in a phrasing along the lines of “being unafraid to defend one’s homeland up to the last drop of blood.” As honorable as it was, it did not change the fact that it’s a double-edged sword (heh), especially for Piri.

The Tayug takeover was in November 1899. Antonio Luna was assassinated in June that same year. One of the most memorable characters in Philippine history, in Piri’s story, gone.

By then, Piri was at breaking point.

Morale tanked and the losses just kept climbing. Almost immediately after, Aguinaldo switched to guerrilla warfare. A last-resort tactic that was only utilized when the troops were toeing the breaking point. When people were desperate to win, so desperate that nothing would stop them, no matter the risks.

Look at all that bloodshed. Who would have thought that someone who always seemed to look at the bright side of things could also retain a vicious side?

☼ ☼ ☼

Forever grateful that I dug deep enough to confirm that this fight happened in the afternoon. Look at Piri eyes burning brightly like the golden sun, burning in righteous fury.

Bayang magiliw po talaga.

The title of the national anthem was Lupang Hinirang. I just cited the opening line.

Furthermore, the official translation was “land of the morning,” but the literal translation of magiliw was “tender/affectionate/friendly.” It was an apt description for when one saw the morning sun rising over the horizon, but sunlight was also not always gentle. Soaking in too much of it could harm you.

Oof, now that was a roast.

FIRE MAY BE THE GIVER OF LIFE BUT IT COULD ALSO DESTROY!

BEWARE OF FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN LEST YOU BURNED YOURSELF OUT!

Okay that’s enough sun symbolism.

The blood splatters were exaggerated. I let it be that way.

We were still seeing things from Piri’s perspective. You would not see clearly when you were in a frenzied rage. It did not help that seeing all the blood just enabled it too. He surely bottled up his bloodlust for far too long…

(Am I a freak for playing with this sort of character complexity. Yeah. Bluntly, I'm too desensitized when it came to emotional extremities. I learned to live with it. The same could be said for these nation trashbags--I mean, personifications.)

☼ ☼ ☼ Letting Piri go into sword-slashing mode was a personal artistic choice.

I was always finding accounts of how the Americans had the superior guns while the Filipinos had the superior knives. Bolo knives, specifically.

Admittedly the only films I had seen that depicted this period were Heneral Luna (2015) and Goyo (2018), but in both films, even if characters had swords on their person, not once did any of them show our prowess with the blade. Not once. By my artistic hand, I elected to feed myself.

I knew jackshit about how firearms work but I highly doubted that anyone could aim right with a rifle when they just lost an eye. Besides, if Piri’s got a sword on him and he still got the moves, rusty as they may be compared to ~300 years ago, what was stopping him?

“But they used BOLO KNIVES, not SWORDS.” Well clearly Piri’s got his own sword!

Because he’s the anime protagonist. I’m kidding. Don’t worry. It would not be the last appearance of that particular blade.

Story for another day.

☼ ☼ ☼

Don’t you just hate it when you jolted awake from your ride coming to a sudden halt, because your bus driver had no manners at the wheel?

The one blessing to that was that Piri snapped out of a nightmare. A war flashback, if you will.

Piri decided he had enough of the bus and rode a jeep instead. I wanted to respect the repeating flag symbolism throughout the story with the choice of background music playing.

Piri then got off to buy some birthday mamon, like the frugal bakla he was (mamon was also a euphemism for gay men).

Commuting in the PH was not “one-way.” More often than not, people had to take more than one mode of transportation. Sometimes, that mode of transportation was a trike ride that happened to be loaded with neon lights and played music on full blast. It was not all terrible, but it could be overwhelming at times.

Finally, our boy was home sweet home (always has been).

Incorporating tarsier anatomy into my art style had since worked out beautifully. I wanted to draw Pien with the same cheeky little gremlin energy as this scientific illustration.

Most photos show them at rest, but look at this little fella ready to square up!

I wished I showed more of the next room but the details were not necessary to this particular story. I would confirm it was a storage room. My own homage to the iconic storage chapter/episode (Ang Paglilinis ng Bodega AHAHAHAKLSGJHLDKSHASKSKSKSKSKSKS).

Look at all that blue in the room! What was Piri going through this time?

The blue side of the flag stood for peace, but what else came to mind when thinking of what the color represented? What were the odds that sadness was one of those other meanings?

HWS PHILIPPINES?!?!!! A MAN CANONICALLY BRIGHT AND CHEERFUL AND ENTHUSIASTIC AND ALWAYS SO FULL OF ENERGY AND LIFE AND OPTIMISM??????? SAD?!?!?!?!?!?!! DEPRESSED?!?!?!?!!!!!!

Yeah, like any human being would, and yet he was also not like any human being.

It was not just any kind of sadness too. It was melancholy from having to face the truth once more. The truth that, even after all these centuries, Piri still did not know what kind of person he should be.

Man, do I love making these dirt children go into a major identity crisis. The comic was the perfect opportunity to do exactly that. I mean, come on! The flag! The very object that represented these nations! What represented them! What defined them!

Y’all really thought I wanted to draw insurrection!Piri for the sake of depicting him going absolutely feral? Nah, that was totally one of the reasons, just not the only reason.

I held no hate for canon Piri’s personality at all because it was still so relatable as a Filipino! Yet here be a Filipino Hetalia fan clowning around by providing a more polarizing side of Piri. So unfamiliar. So divergent from his canon, true personality (or what you know to be true). It was almost as if he lost his mind at that moment.

But that was still Piri, right? Of course!

It just so happened that what happened, happened. People underwent certain emotions more intensely in certain situations. Welcome to the human condition.

Although he was not exactly human either.

☼ ☼ ☼

This was also me acknowledging two things: How Filipinos were known for our resilience in the face of adversity, and how even that unyielding resilience could backfire.

Even that resilience nearly killed Piri himself. He nearly burned himself out. He nearly lost himself in the process.

But how could we even gauge that? Just how much did we know about Piri? As a person? Exactly what kind of person was Piri supposed to be? What happened when we took away all the things that maked Piri "the Philippines"? Who are we left with?

"Hold up! Shouldn’t we just leave that decision up to Piri himself?" But you know how we say it was the people that made up a nation?

How ironic it was to always let other people make decisions for you. It makes you think if Piri truly “won" his independence.

If reading all those conflicting narratives made you feel frustrated, imagine how it was for Piri. How tiring it must be to have your narrative stolen, lost, and forgotten, over and over again.

For all the inquiries on his history, why hadn’t anyone asked for his story?

☼ ☼ ☼

Now you know how this became a 612 story. A story about independence. A story about the PH flag. How flags are born as a symbol of independence.

Let’s go check back in on the very person for whom that flag stood for.

Another flashback! Look at that sunrise! Or maybe not, Piri sure was not in the mood.

There was the red again. A nicer kind, too. And so was the warrior side of Piri you’ve all been formally introduced to, except you were seeing a warrior that was clearly exhausted and weary.

I won’t lie, letting the flag be returned like that felt too easy of a plot move, but I figured I would rather uphold the mystery.

It begged the question: Why would he just withhold the truth like that? Why didn’t he ever speak up? Why would he make that choice.

...Because he can. Let him.

Why not? That was what he had been fighting for all these years, right? To be his own person?

So what if you just saw how ruthless he could be? It was still Piri. It was not like the rest of him would completely go away as well. Besides, what choice did he have at that time?

It’s agonizing how, for all the times people invoked his name in their actions, Piri never seemed to be allowed to do things for himself. Maybe that was why he would rather keep quiet about the truth. How, all these years, he had been keeping what was rightfully his.

Because the bigger truth was that he still did not know what it means to be independent. He still did not know what it meant to be his own person. He still did not know what kind of person he should be, or wanted to be.

Bayan o sarili? Eh paano na ba kung ikaw mismo ang bayan?

☼ ☼ ☼

Was the flag really just returned to him like that? Who knows? You sure don’t.

Even Piri was surprised at how that happened, but who cared how it happened? At least it was returned.

It’s funny how things you lost would find their way back to you when you stopped looking for them.

I scrapped this to save on page count, but I wanted to show Agoncillo rushing to the McCulloch ship (that Aguinaldo boarded on the trip back to Cavite) the flag in time. It was sewn within 5 days, with little sleep on her end, but she was successful in personally handing over the flag to Aguinaldo.

I’m flipping on that fact and changing it to Piri. IT’S HIS FLAG AFTER ALL!

The dialogue I had in mind was Piri asking Agoncillo what the rush was for and she responded that she had just finished the flag.

You would then see the joy in Piri’s eyes but then he realized that Agoncillo pushed herself in finishing it as soon as possible. He would tell her that there was no need to, but she reassured him that she would be alright. It was all for him.

Once again, I dissed on the actual orientation of the flag, but damn did I go hardcore with the imagery!

THE SUN SHINING BEHIND CENTER PIRI! PIRI BASKING IN THE WARMTH OF A NEW DAY DAWNING FOR THE RED! PIRI MAKING PEACE WITH THE UNCERTAINTY FOR THE BLUE!

"Uncertainty?"

This was still a story about the flag, and who it represented. I will always love and cherish canon Piri unconditionally, but I swear there was so much more to his character. It helped when you knew too well that our flag had a red side too. Thinking about it now, it was weird how Filipinos' automatic first response in describing what the red represents was war.

Thank god Pixiv has an R-18G option. This was not something minors would grasp immediately, but man my people had been through a lot.

By the time our flag (in the form we know today) came to be, we literally just got out of one war only to get dragged into another. It made you think how much of a formative period that had been for Piri.

Almost as if he was in a much bigger war with himself.

“WITH HIMSELF?!”

This was also a story about independence. Our fight for independence. Piri’s fight for independence. His independence. But what did that even mean when he could not even figure out what kind of person he wanted to be?

It grew worse because if you thought jumping from one war to another in roughly half a year was bad enough, so much simultaneous in-fighting happened. It showed in how our own flag came to be, and that was just a fragment of that in-fighting. PH history was littered with inner conflicts.

Imagine how all that affected Piri.

Imagine just how tired and frustrated and progressively angry he must have been in having to deal with his own people throwing fire at each other over and over again due to all of the conflicts of interest in how best to win their independence. His independence. Imagine how much harder it got for Piri to keep to himself. How much it hurt to never openly admit his feelings. How he hated that he could never decide for himself to do. How he could not do whatever he wanted. How he never knew know what it felt like to be independent. Be his own person. Be a person. Maybe that’s one more reason why he snapped so hard in that fight.

And why shouldn’t he fight back? Didn’t he have every right to fight back? To stand up for himself? To take back what was rightfully his? His right to self-sovereignty that was stolen from him?

“BUT WHAT HE DID WAS WRONG!”

(I pull a reverse Uno card.) So now YOU get to decide for him too? YOU get to decide how Piri should have acted? YOU get to decide what kind of person Piri should be because all you know is his good-vibes-only side?

(Did I just go meta as an author? Yes I did. I clowned you all.)

☼ ☼ ☼

Our flag had two stripes, after all. Both with their own meanings.

What did they mean for Piri? What did he know about the kind of person he was supposed to be? Or wanted to be?

It sounded like he did not have the answer to that question, even up to now. All the more when he lived his life letting others make the decisions for him. He had seen all the stupid shit his own people were (and are) capable of. He was not ignorant.

Yet, even with all the shitty people, there were still the good ones too. Piri would remember them all. Even if their names faded out of the history books, or were excluded. Maybe all Piri needed was a gentle reminder to himself. That he did not have to go through it all alone. That it was normal to feel uncertain about yourself. That even if life was full of uncertainties, there were some things that were a certain keeper. Like the people that got you to where you were now. Like your own chaotic circle of friends that sure know how to brighten your day. Your found family. The bonds that were thicker than blood. Maybe he just needed to remind himself that hope was not lost.

☼ ☼ ☼

Be glad I preferred happy endings.

I was aware that if we started the count at 1898, Piri would be 123 years old. To me, Piri was technically much older. He had been, physically, a young adult for a really long time.

Would Piri do a live video in that kind of lighting setup? Absolutely. It was all about the aesthetic. How else could I pull off that banger fade-out too?

The gold was back too. Safe to say he still got that fire in him. Quite the heartwarming reminder.

The best birthday treat.

☼ ☼ ☼

Image Credits

Biomedical Ephemera (Tumblr), boyingski (Blogspot), Emilio Aguinaldo Museum (Facebook), Friend Cheap Menu, National Historical Commission of the Philippines, Philippine Cultural Education, Presidential Museum & Library (Malacañang), Tempo PH, watawat(dot)net - BROKEN SITE, Wikipedia, Yahoo! News (article by Norman Sison, VERA Files), ZEN Rooms

Sources

(The links for the Presidential Museum & Library are broken, but the uniform infographic has been preserved on archive.org)

Agbayani, Eugemio, III. “The Original Philippine Flag, according to Miss Marcela Agoncillo.” National Historical Commission of the Philippines. June 6, 2017. https://nhcp.gov.ph/original-philippine-flag-according-miss-marcela-agoncillo/. Alvarez, Amorico M., and Nicolas G. Ricafrente. “The First Unfurling of the Philippine National Flag.” Philippine Center for Masonic Studies. Accessed March 01, 2022. http://www.philippinemasonry.org/first-unfurling-of-the-philippine-flag.html. Arevalo, Carminda R. “The Philippine Flag: Symbol of our Sovereignty and Solidarity.” National Historical Commission of the Philippines. September 6, 2012. https://nhcp.gov.ph/the-philippine-flag-symbol-of-our-sovereignty-and-solidarity/. Cabreza, Vicente. “In Baguio museum, flags celebrate victories,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 12, 2015. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/697868/in-baguio-museum-flags-celebrate-victories. “A Graphic Timeline of the Philippine-American War (Part Three).” Presidential Museum and Library. Accessed May 29, 2022. http://malacanang.gov.ph/8298-a-graphic-timeline-of-the-philippine-american-war-part-three/. “Infographic: Army of the First Philippine Republic.” Presidential Museum and Library. Accessed May 29, 2022. http://malacanang.gov.ph/76540-infographic-army-of-the-first-philippine-republic/. Linn, Brian McAllister. The Philippine American War, 1899-1902. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Mallari, Perry Gil S. “The Bolomen of the Revolution,” The Manila Times, June 14, 2014. https://www.manilatimes.net/2014/06/14/sports/the-bolomen-of-the-revolution/104227. Meder, William A. “Civilizing 'Em with a Krag : the Story of a Company of U.S. Volunteers in the Philippine Insurrection,” 1978. https://archive.org/details/civilizingemwith00mede. Melendez, Christian Bernard A. “Kalayaan Over Karangyaan - Pursuing Independence in Exchange for Personal Wealth.” National Historical Commission of the Philippines. June 8, 2021. https://nhcp.gov.ph/kalayaan-over-karangyaan-pursuing-independence-in-exchange-for-personal-wealth/. National Historical Commission of the Philippines. Twitter Post. June 9, 2020, 6:00 PM. https://twitter.com/nhcpofficial/status/1270294568504717312?s=21. Ocampo, Ambeth R. “Original or not, it’s still flag of our fathers,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 12, 2011. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/14136/original-or-not-it%E2%80%99s-still-flag-of-our-fathers. Project Vinta. 2020. “On June 9, 1868, patriot and pharmacist Feliciano Jocson was born in Quiapo Manila.” Facebook. June 9, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/pvinta/posts/2687612368152686. “Rout of the Filipinos: American Troops Scatter the Rebels in All Directions.” The Evening Times, November 13, 1899. https://www.gastearsivi.com/gazete/evening_times_dc/1899-11-13/1. Sexton, William Thaddeus. Soldiers in the Sun: An Adventure in Imperialism. The Military Service Publishers Company: 1939. https://archive.org/details/soldiersinthesun000472mbp. Sison, Norman. “An unflagging symbol of nationhood.” Yahoo! News, June 21, 2014. https://ph.news.yahoo.com/blogs/the-inbox/unflagging-symbol-nationhood-232426481.html. United States Philippines Division War Department. Report of E. S. Otis, U. S. Volunteers, on Military Operations and Civil Affairs in the Philippine Islands 1899. (1899). https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=K08tAAAAIAAJ. —. Annual Reports of the War Department: Volume 1, Part 1. U.S. Government Printing Office: 1899. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=hTcaAAAAMAAJ.