my finished piece of the FWMS (official name definitely 100%) thing we started a few days ago! I had fun I hope folks had and/or continue to have fun with the sketch as well.
@orangerosebush's post here, with my comment and @fowlblue's tags today got me thinking.
Artemis Senior has been teaching his son matters of business from a young age. Not only was Artemis, at 11 years old, discussing stocks with his father, but Fowl Senior had been imparting his wisdom onto his son for years by that point, discussing the ever-increasing value of gold with him before tucking him into bed. Even outside of pure monetary value, Sr. had tried to go legitimate with his business dealings, leading Artemis to have a few legal ventures of his own.
We also see very early on in the books that Artemis has been regularly using Butler as a resource for his plots: bouncing ideas off him was apparently a fairly common tactic when he was scheming.
Both Artemis Senior and Butler are interested in (or at least, not opposed to) educating Artemis on the ways of their lifestyle(s). It would be Artemis Senior who would have taught his son the value of banks and safety deposit boxes and hidden safes but it was Butler who was actively working with Artemis to rob those safety deposit boxes.
In the same vein of breaking-and-entering, TLC also gives us the fun little moment where Butler hands Artemis his own lockpicks, to get into the workings of the bomb.
With one line we learn that Artemis knows how to pick locks, but does not have his own set of lockpicks. Butler, on the other hand, has both the tools and knowledge how to use them. Partnered with a brief mention in TTP of some the specific trades of those previously employed by Artemis Senior (including such things as crime lords, insider traders, and cat burglars), we can extrapolate that Artemis Senior would generally hire someone to pick a lock for him, rather than do so himself.
It's pretty logical to conclude then that Artemis learned big-picture management from his father, and day-to-day skillsets from his bodyguard.
Essentially, Artemis Senior taught Artemis how to run a criminal empire. Butler taught Artemis how to be a criminal.
OKAY HELL YEAH THE POWER'S BACK ON HERE SO, VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE!!
SOME-FUCKING-HOW I'VE GOTTEN TO ✨300✨ FOLLOWERS!!!!!
I DO NOT KNOW HOW THIS IS POSSIBLE BUT, I AM BEYOND AMAZED BY THE SUPPORT AND LOVE YOU'VE ALL GIVEN ME SO THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! ❤❤❤ YOU'RE ALL TOO SWEET AND KIND AND I LOVE EVERY ONE OF YOU /PLAT 🤗
this came a lot sooner than i expected, so i didn't have the best of plans to celebrate... but i do have a good Babysitter Fakey to offer. i hope you like him 😊
and... some ramblings under the cut, if anyone cares about hearing me yell for a moment...
but.... let me just say that, moving my art onto Tumblr has been one of the best decisions i've ever made. the love and support from here compared to Instagram is unreal, and, something i never saw coming, i've actually made some real close friends here. and me being the socially-awkward weirdo i am, it really means a lot to me. you guys have been helping me feel not just better about myself, but helping me reach out and talk to others like me, it's just insane. i genuinely mean it, thank you guys so much. you're the best ❤😭❤
and another thing..... i've been a bit busy with stuff lately, but i promise i'm trying to work on stuff! i've got a few drawing asks i really need to work on, and as for my writing..... okay i still haven't started it. but i AM trying to figure out how best to write it, because i plan on doing both split parts AND drawings for it. i want to make sure it comes out the best it possibly can. but stay tuned, there's a lot i've got to finish up!
..... oh alright. one more bonus if you've made it this far. lo and behold: the very first art piece i ever posted to Tumblr, not thinking i'd be moving fully onto here hehe 😅 enjoy Peppino's old design in all its full glory ✨✨✨
Hello! I just discovered your blog and I immediately became captivated by your webcomic, but I'm unsure where to read all of it. I know it's on Webtoons, but I can see it hasn't been updated for a while, and you still post about it.
Are your physical novels just prints of the webcomic? Are they a continuation? Is the story complete? Thanks in advance!
Hi there!
Glad you found me and are enjoying my comic!
It's only on webtoons, and the story is not complete yet! We're 2/3 of the way through right now. It's currently on hiatus, and it's scheduled to come back in about 2 months!
I'll explain why it's been so long if you're curious, but also for my followers who might also be wondering about it under the cut. Sorry, it's pretty much just me complaining haha
I took a month off
I took 2 months to get the books printed
I took a month to prepare my next comic
and I took 2 months to write the rest of the series (I knew the character arcs I wanted, but not the time periods or mysteries!!!)
I've been working on actual episodes since then
I had to take some time off because of some pretty extreme burnout due to the sheer amount of work it was to draw over 800 pages and write 6 complete stories in a year and a half... I was getting sick almost weekly due to the overwork, it was really really bad honestly. I was having to work 60+ hours every week just to keep up...
The nature of the comic itself is also difficult... Each of the arcs is a complete, self contained story which can be read (ideally) without context, and my arcs need to be about 10-13 episodes each... And since I have an exact number of episodes to work with, it's even harder.
It takes a ton of planning and a ton of refinement, and working week to week with no breaks I was forced to put out second or even first drafts, so I just wasn't happy with the work I was doing... And to do that for the rest of the series? I wouldn't be proud of the work I did.
Plus... To be entirely honest, webtoon has treated me quite badly IN MY OPINION... They deprioritized me before I launched (I had to beg for more promotion, I'm not exaggerating), they outright denied me the opportunity to even ask for a raise, I don't make any money on fast pass and they pay me less than my partner makes working at trader joes. My first editor left me completely hanging, my second editor (who I loved) was fired... And they told me I wouldn't get a third season before my first season even finished. So it was just repeatedly completely demoralizing.
I'm sorry it has taken so long, it'll have been 10 months by the time I come back. But I realized... I won't get promotion either way. I won't get more episodes either way. I won't get more money either way. So to finish everything, to make it feel good, to make it something I'm proud of, I chose to take longer to make it better.
I am fully aware I will lose a significant amount of my readership for this and it might genuinely affect my career moving forward. But it's what I had to do! So I'm sticking to my guns on it, and I'm confident long term it'll be worth it. It never could have been this good if I didn't take this much time.
I am Desperate to hear more of your mk worldbuilding headcanons (also, your art is stunning)
Aaaa thank you 💕 Don’t worry I got you
Zaterrans are modern human’s missing ancestor.
Male Osh-Tekk are teal while females are brown. They also have feathers instead of hair with bird hands and feet.
Edenia has a huge veiling culture.
The Kollector was the one who brought Sento to Outworld, Shang Tsung purchased it from him.
Khao is made entirely of islands completely disconnected from each other (ex. desert island right next to a swamp island). On the other hand Seido is one large continent with little biodiversity.
Omegis is the baba yaga.
Cyromancers naturally have fast heartbeats because their heart is trying to compensate for how cold their bodies are.
Most folklore creatures come from races and animals from different realms accidentally crossing a rift.
There aren’t many coastal settlements in Outworld because the merging of realms always causes flooding.
oh nuts. a life experience has given me a new layer of perspective on Cas's homosexual declaration of love to Dean.
recently I had occasion to tell a person I had feelings for them knowing full well they didn't feel even a twinge of the same thing for me. while the whole thing was a decidedly unpleasant experience, I kept laughing at myself internally bc I didn't want to say "the happiness is just in saying it" like fucking Castiel over here. (we don't need to talk about it, it's fine.) (I am happier having said it and it's kind of bullshit, but I digress.)
because the thing is, the happiness isn't in just saying it, right? the happiness is in the having. I made a whole TikTok "proving" that the Empty didn't come for Cas when he confessed his love, but rather when he realized Dean loved him back. even for Cas, the happiness was in the having, not in the saying, however brief it was.
and I've always been one of those people who rolled their eyes at the whole concept. why would the happiness be in just being, in just saying it, if it's right there in front of you to have. and then it hit me like a tonne of bricks (as I was washing my kitchen counters).
Cas really didn't think he could have Dean.
at all. in any capacity. he really, truly, and honestly felt to the depths of himself that Dean did not have any twinge of similar feelings, that this really was a Hail Mary shot-in-the-dark. and I think me, personally, really didn't understand that about Cas. that his belief in his love being unrequited was that unshakable.
something else I've been pondering is how audiences have so much more empathy for fictional characters who share traits that IRL they find objectionable and unappealing. but the thing is about fictional characters is that we follow them around in their most private, vulnerable moments. we see Dean mourning Cas when he dies, literally killing himself because he can't live without him, but it's so easy to forget that we're the omniscient ones here.
Cas never knew.
Dean's whole thing was pushing him away, keeping him at arm's length, making it seem like whatever heroic thing he does for Cas he'd do for anyone. he downplays how important it is for Dean to share the Deancave with him, to show him his favourite movies, share his favourite songs. he acts like the things Cas does for him don't mean that much to hide how much they do mean. he uses "we" whenever he even gets in the vicinity of expressing a feeling. "We were worried." "We're glad you're back." "We needed a win." "You're our brother." The audience knew the difference. We saw how he'd clench his jaw or swallow hard or make a face that said "God, I'm being such an idiot". Because we saw him in those little moments. We got to see the cracks in the mask.
but Cas never knew.
the self-hating angel of Thursday was never going to think it was all a way for Dean to protect himself. obviously, that's the delicious tragedy of it all, but what I think I realized at the end of all that is Cas confessing his love to a Dean who didn't love him back wouldn't have worked. Because the happiness really is in the having. If happiness was just in saying it, then The Empty would have come before Cas even finished getting the words out of his mouth.
so Cas's plan wouldn't have worked if Dean didn't love him back.
this is just me yapping on about my own nonsense, but I do think it's really interesting. there's contentment in "just saying it". there's freedom and relief and an unburdening. I think one can argue that it makes being happy in the being easier. there is certainly some joy in telling a person you think that highly of them. but true happiness?
nah.
true happiness is always going to only be in the having. Cas didn't understand the difference until he experienced it, and by then, it was too late.
I have always admired people who could write one fic or draw a comic for years because I am living in a constant fear of not finishing what I have started. Not in a 'maybe something terrible will happen to me' way, but simply knowing myself and that after a couple of months or years, I will catch a new fixation and finishing the old story will become hard. And yeah sure, I have heard people say "You don't have to finish if it doesn't interest you anymore" or "It's your art and you decide what it will be about" and I fully agree, but I still love those old things I came up with you know? I still love these characters and I want their stories to be told, but at the same time there already are new characters with new stories in my head and I want to tell them too.
so no one was going to tell me if i got literally one episode further tenax drops that he’s the one who saved scorpus from his mom’s pimp AND that he’s intimately familiar with scorpus’ dick when he was younger. guys. guys.
april 28th: extremely ill + no sleep in days, no food in 8 or 9 days, extremely dehydrated, still trying to smile through it
may 19: eating a cheese stick or a meal once a day, sleeping better, drinking water like a pro, getting some of my color & health back
today, may 29th: feeling much better + eating at least one meal a day :) still lots of pain and nausea in the mornings but i’m doing a lot better!! can’t drink 64oz of water per day like before but i’m really grateful that i’m able to drink a little more than a quarter of that and im SUPER excited to get back to the gym in the next few weeks. i’m looking more and more like my normal self each day <3
I guess this is my sign it's time to throw together a FAQ post to link to lol.
Yes, every event for this blog is fanfic friendly :D
Though as I mentioned on my Ominous October post, for events that include multiple short stories, I encourage everyone to flex their creativity and take one of their planned short story fanfics, and at least *attempt* to turn one of them into something entirely original; rebuilding a character and story from the ground up to stand on its own two legs is no easy feat, and that is what makes it so fun!
It really gets your creative gears turning, to make an "au of an existing material" to be something entirely original, and you can be pleasantly surprised about the things you come up with!
As a few people say, its not just a matter of "filing the serial numbers off" -- you have to add in just as much *or more* as what you take out when you are turning a fanfiction into something that is original and completely divorced from its original source material / inspiration, and that is a hard, but very rewarding challenge!
Obviously, this is not a requirement (there's no hard requirements for any of the challenges, other than no cheating, including no using AI),
but if you would like an extra challenge for the short story events and you're planning on doing entirely fan-fiction, I highly recommend trying it out at least once, and seeing where it leads you--
you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you find down that rabbit hole!
the post grad why did i get an art degree what am i even doing what do i want in life where am i going crisis has finally hit i want to. lie down in the dirt. or something