Welcome to the Dragon Wagon

Sometimes i draw shit, sometimes i write shit, sometimes both at the same time.♠ Aro/Ace, (They/Them), Chaotic Good Disaster, definitely a human person

[jcryptid]

Little AU fanfic I’ve been cooking up…

More info under the cut:

The Watching Beast

"When Martin Blackwood was exiled from Greymoor with the condition he only be allowed to return with the head of The Watching Beast, he was under no illusion that his lord had sent him there to die. But having uncovered the knowledge that lord of Greymoor had been sacrificing his subjects to the Mysts, and being the only one of them with nothing left to lose, his resolve to return to his homeland and expose the true nature Lukas's rule is the only thing on his mind when he braves the Deep Woods to find and slay the beast of legend. But as Martin will soon find there is far more to his quarry that first meets the eye, with the monsters of the Deep Woods growing restless as a plot centuries in the making is finally reaching its conclusion. And at the centre of it all, is a mysterious library and a man cursed and burdened with a quest of his own."

[I'll be popping the Ao3 link here when it's posted]

(There's something spectacular about having a plot for a fic finally click in your brain.)

(Title Free version here as well:)

[jcryptid]

quick doodle I did on a whim of my take on Lance from @pendragonsgallery 's fic 'Asterism' because sometimes you need something to do with your hands while you're stressing

(He's changed so much, it's kind of beautiful.)

[jcryptid]

Some roughs I did for my Watching Beast AU, because I am way too excited about all of the obscure fairytale references and tropes I've wrapped up in all of them. Everyone here has their own sideplot stuff going on, and i'm very excited to reveal it all in the fic itself.

Explanation under the cut:

Unfortunately, i am one impatient son of a bitch, so I'm going to gush a little and give you a preivew:

Tim is a Woodsman, his tale is inspired by the Goblin Market and the role of the Woodsman in tales like Red Riding Hood.

Sasha is a Scholar, she's a little based on stories like the sorcerer's apprentice, but she's got her own thing going on really that's a lot more wrapped up in the central plot. Her tale draws on a lot more on stories of travelling and exiled philosophers throughout history, particularly those who spoke out against their rulers and paid the price. Alongside figures like Prometheus & mythological figures stealing fire from the gods.

Georgie's tale is primarily inspired by that of Godfather Death, though she doesn't take to becoming a doctor like the protagonist of the original story. She's the primary Innkeeper at The Phantom's Queary, a name that took on a rather unfortunately personal meaning to her after the fateful encounter she had on her 16th birthday.

Melanie King is a forcibly retired ex-adventurer and something of a bard, though her story is at least a little inspired by that of Gretir the Strong and Adrocles & the Lion, (though that last one is mostly just because of the paralells of taking the painful pointy thing out of the thing that wants to kill you).

Basira is quite obviously a knight in shining armour, but she has her own love that she's lost and is waiting on from afar, so at least in theory she's our princess in the tower archetype. That doesn't mean she's hasn't been keeping herself busy at the watchtower she's stationed at though. She doesn't quite have a specific tale tied to her, but i like to imagine she's more thematically tied to the fable of the Lion and the Mouse than anything else.

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The Watching Beast in a shellnut

(God help these poor idiots, if only one extremely simple piece of information could fix the absolute mess they've gotten themselves into)

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"First make it exist, then you make it good."

Trying something new here and sharing a bit of my process for this piece I did for the fic I'm working on.

[jcryptid]

Once upon the misty moors...

... there lived a lonely young man, living simply with his mother as many did in a small house in a village on the domain of their lord in Greymoor.

Not much can be said of those early years, not much this young man would have wanted to repeat that bore mentioning at least. All that can be said was that one day his mother fell ill, and with the rumoured sightings of a strange woman in a red skirt, face hidden by a cloak and smelling of death, bringing with her to his door nothing more than rake whilst he was away...they should have known there was nothing that could be done.

But that certainly didn't stop him from trying though. Working hard and long each day on their farm and on the properties surrounding it. Selling their only cow, their chickens and what little of value they could spare to afford the herbs that could ease her pain, only to return to scorn and stubborness in her delirium with a soft smile on his face as he tended to her, nevertheless.

All the same it didn't change her fate. Nor the fate of the lonely young man, now adrift and lost without much in the way of direction.

Untill at least, he was approached one misty afternoon by their Local Lord of Greymoor, who spoke to him with hollow geniality, and offered him a job as a servant in his castle.

And so, with nothing in the way of excuse to prevent him from doing so, he accepted. And soon, Martin Blackwood found himself selling what was little was left of his mother's small slice of domesticity in Greymoor, and like so many others was whisked away to live and work at the feet of their lord. Bouncing between fetching food from the kitchens or fixing pots of tea; setting kindling alight to warm cold rooms that made your breath fog up if left to themselves too long; keeping clean what he could when he was ordered and keeping his head down whenever he could.

All the same he found something of a friend in that castle more than once, and had to himself the gift of an extra hour each day to sneak away and write poetry on a little rock in the shade of a willow tree by the loch. One of the few things he could say was truly his.

Of course even setting aside the whispered legends of the figure of pestilance that had taken his mother, Greymoor, just like the other lands just on the other side of the Deep Wood, was no stranger to monsters of its own. So much so that despite the dissmissals and denials of their Lordship for as long as anyone can remember, there have always been the mists.

Not much is known, as with any of the beings that creep along the shadows of rumors and heresay and children torn from their beds before they can so much as scream. What can be said, was that at least once a year, maybe more than once, should someone be caught out too late at the wrong time, they would find themselves lost to the mists. Alone and forever wandering between a state of life and death to wither away as nothing more than ghosts on that very same moorland from which they dissapeared.

And so it was, that after a time of keeping his head down and doing what he was told, Martin would one night find himself staying out a little too late by the loch into nightfall; and in doing so soon found himself running into one of his fellow servants, a woman named Naomi Herne; who'd go on to explain, had been sent on orders from Lukas to pick berries under the cover of moonlight from the nearby woods (having found his supplies empty of such fruits despite the supply run they'd made just earlier that day).

Of course, finding the request rather unreasonable given the dangers of ventering out too late into the night by one's self, he offered to help her in her task, and not too long after, the two ran afoul of the mists, and knowing the legends, and hearing the whispers on the gentle wind that only one of their number need be lost, handed the only stubborn flame that hadn't gone dark to Naomi, and told her to run back to the Lord's castle.

Naomi, despite her hesistance to leave her only companion in the misty darkness, complied, and ran back with their only light to the Castle in a panic and raised all the nearby servants she could from their posts to come and help him. Immediately, despite the fear, a few rose to help her. Some stepping in to calm her down and ascertain what had happened, a few of the others grabbing their coats and lighting lanterns to aid in the search, despite their fears and the insistence of a few that there was nothing that could be done. But not a foot had breached the doorway when their Lord and employer Lukas stepped into the room and forbade them from going. Demanding they stay and not risk themselves catching a cold or getting lost in the dark. Ordering them wait and do nothing more than pray that by morning Martin found his way back to them on his own time.

No one beleived he would of course. The mists were like that you see. Those who wandered too far would never return to them, they never had.

And then, three days later, Martin returned to them.

Stumbling up the grassy hill just as the sun was setting. Freezing cold to the touch; dispondant and pale, with hair turned a snow white and breath misting even in warmer in air. Changed, or so it seemed, by his time alone in those mists.

The others were astounded of course. The head of them sending some of them off to fetch warm cloths and furs to warm him whilst they let him sit by the fire of the servants quarters. Asking him what happened despite his barely there eyes and the and the shaking hands cupping a hastily made mug of tea.

All the same it didn't take long for the news to find it's way to Lord Lukas, who at once demanded Martin's presence in his study despite the soft protests of those who could tell he was not well.

All the same Martin stood without a word from his place, still hardly warmed from his time by the fire, to meet with him.

"I saw you in the mists," he said once they were alone, "You told me I would forever be alone,"

And then he asked, simply, though by no mean masking the anger in now cold blue eyes, "You sent her out on purpose didn't you? You knew the mists were out that night."

Not a moment later, in a sea of fog that swept through the room and drained the life and colour from its walls, and the Lord Lukas was alone. Martin nowhere to be seen when he opened the door and stepped out, refusing to answer anyone's questions when they inquired on his health.

This time, it takes two days for Martin to return, and when he does Lukas gives them all new orders.

Namely that Martin Blackwood, not be allowed to return to the Grey Moors, lest it be with the head of the Watcher Beast, residing so they said, in ancient ruins found in the deep woods by the borders of land Panopticon.

He's given a day to prepare his leave.

And so it was, with nothing more than a single short sword, a map and some rations put together by those that asked after him, Martin was sent away without so much as the chance for a goodbye.

Martin himself, under no illusions that their Lord of Greymoor, had sent him there to die.

"Let them try," he'd whisper to himself as the foggy outline of a cold stone castle faded away by the rhythm and rumble of a horse pulled cart. "Let them try," even as the thought came again, that maybe this really was nothing more than a good way to get killed.

[jcryptid]

Needed a break from uni work, so I decided to do some more concept art exploration for a Monster Jon design I've been sitting on for a while for what I will hesitantly call a swan lake au.

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New Year, New Profile Pic!

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low key kind of obsessed with the Faroeverse atm…

So here’s my take on our girl c. S1 & S4

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Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that’s why we doodle on company time :)

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Two thumbnails that definitely didn't stay thumbnails, I did for my concept design class

[jcryptid]

Writing a thing...

"The Australian convicts sent to Shelby Island are already struggling to survive under the brutality of their wardens, when a new supernatural threat arrives to throw the entire colony into chaos."

[comicaurora]

a very gentle PSA that a writer is not a short-order cook, please do not try to order off the menu

[comicaurora]

I do wanna expand on this slightly because I have to stress - I'm not mad about this ask, and I totally understand the impulse. But I think it's a useful avenue of analysis to unpack a couple things about fandom, critique, and interacting with creators.

When an artist is in the process of making something, they might seek out peers to get another set of eyes on their work so they can polish it up. This is critique. It is specifically solicited from someone the artist knows and trusts the opinion of, and it can shape the art if the artist chooses to take it into account.

When an artist makes something and publishes it for an audience, they're presenting a completed work. A response to this will be analysis and review and can serve as a guide to buyers, readers, and writers who want to analyze why the story did or didn't work for them and what they can learn from if. It cannot change the work of art itself, although the artist might take some analysis/reviews to heart and use them as a guide to their own future improvement. However, this is inadvisable, because writers should generally not engage with their own reviews - it can be a form of digital self-harm to seek them out and obsess over them.

When an artist makes something, publishes it, and a community forms and starts expanding on the story or speculating where it might go in future, this is fandom, producing fanworks. This is also not something that can or should influence the original work. In fact, there are multitudinous legal reasons why it really, really shouldn't.

The internet has made it easier than ever to get in touch with artists, and it's also made it easier than ever for artists to serialize their own work. This combines to mean it is now very easy to contact a writer mid-story and tell them what you think they should do with it. To the person reaching out in this way, this feels like good clean fandom. It is no different from any other fan analysis or fanfic, except for the fact that it is being directed to the author and framed as if it were peer review, aka the only kind of story analysis that can actually be used to modify the original work.

However, it is unsolicited, and it betrays a sense of entitlement to the original work - a sense that is, factually, an element of transformative fandom as a whole. Transformative fandom takes a work that belongs to nobody but the author, and then treats it like an open source raw material to play around in. This is all in good fun, and it is 100% fine and great for fandoms to play with source material. But the line is drawn at the borders of the author's work. That is under nobody's control but the author. Only peer review can touch it, and only if it is invited in.

If you ask a writer to write their story the way you want it, you indicate that you think the story exists solely to be exactly what you wanted it to be, and that the author is simply failing to achieve this goal and needs correction. This is not true. The author is doing something. How you feel about it is entirely up to you, but the way the story goes is not.

I think some elements of fandom, for all its wonderful qualities, makes this very easy to forget.

[jcryptid]

Poster for a Screenwriting course :)

(I'll update this with the Logline in a bit, just gotta sleep first -_- )

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Been thinking about starting a comic lately…

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“She feels angry all the time, because of what they did to her. She’s so angry she doesn’t know what to do with it… sometimes I feel like that, you know?”

Trying out procreate on my new iPad, and my country keeps trying to revoke basic human rights. So needless to say Jason Todd has become something of a comfort character lately.

[jcryptid]

Getting over art block by drawing me and my brother’s sonas as our favourite eevelutions.