I cook Cinderella Boy fanfics and podfics, plus whatever else catches my fancy https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineValley/pseuds/SunshineValley (they/them)
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Relationships: Chase & His Issues, Buddy/Chase Hollow, Chase Hollow & Original character(s)
Characters: Chase Hollow, Buddy (Cinderella boy), Princess Diana, Queen Angela
Additional Tags: Murder mystery, existensial horror, grief/mourning, some fluff when im nice.
Summary: Spurred on by a sleepless night, Chase goes on a solo adventure into a book. It seems like the standard fairytale of a princess looking after her kingdom, but... Buddy is nowhere to found and family responsibilities soon start piling on the princess' shoulders.
Chase goes into a strange fairy tale, where the princess looks after her bedridden mother. He's very normal about this.
(Ive been brainrotting over plot bunnies for this fic for weeks. Enjoy🐸)
i was getting frustrated working on my main vamp au piece so i thought it’d be fun to make like…fake historical records for them basically….teaser/lore drop perhaps?
Season 1 Varian will always be my favourite, he’s very special to me. There are so many cool things about him and his little arc that have driven me crazy for… 3 years next month !😵💫 He’s doomed by the narrative, he’s completely understandable, he is definitely unhinged. He’s terrifyingly competent, he’s a fourteen year old in the middle of a breakdown, he’s a vigilante terrorist, he just wants his dad back- yeah alright I could go on for a long while. The brain worms are so loud.
This was a sketch I brought into procreate with the intention of just colouring it, but I went a bit overboard with the cleanup lol. Finished piece it is! :D
Season 1 Varian will always be my favourite, he’s very special to me. There are so many cool things about him and his little arc that have driven me crazy for… 3 years next month !😵💫 He’s doomed by the narrative, he’s completely understandable, he is definitely unhinged. He’s terrifyingly competent, he’s a fourteen year old in the middle of a breakdown, he’s a vigilante terrorist, he just wants his dad back- yeah alright I could go on for a long while. The brain worms are so loud.
This was a sketch I brought into procreate with the intention of just colouring it, but I went a bit overboard with the cleanup lol. Finished piece it is! :D
Gobbles is like a kindergarten teacher thrown into a warzone. He's here with his ABC book and children's songs, meanwhile his colleagues are preventing terrorism and carry rocket launchers.
One of the best moments in this flashback arc was the very transition into it.
A gradient from a shaded starry sky to pitch black occupies three pages. The bright stars in the sky slowly lose their radiance as they turn into water droplets in the darkest depths. It's one of the many times Shirahama has shown Qifrey and Olruggio breaking the barrier between the starry sky and the sea.
After this transition, the story stays in this ocean, with the panels for the flashback arc all being accompanied by the black background. Of course, this is also just the style that has been used for almost every flashback in the manga. It conveys how each character holds their memories close to their chest in a secluded part of their heart, whether that's Richeh, Custas, Olruggio, and more.
However, it is especially effective here since the water droplets convey that this dark surrounding carries the effect of the Great Hall, a stifling environment buried deep in the ocean. A place that Olly and Qifrey both felt unhappy in—until they found each other and began making frequent expeditions under the stars.
It is when they are exploring the freedom of the outside world that after 3 chapters of the dark background, a radiant light is shed on the memory.
Within ch92, we are greeted with a fully white background, the brightest moment in the entire arc so far.
Panels of their travels hang behind them, like photographs framed across the walls of a person's precious home. That's what having a home is all about. A place where even the very walls confide in you that you can share all your memories, wholly and truthfully, with the people you love.
Unfortunately, this dream of a home full of truth is a lie. Because he cannot share everything.
The roots from the silverwood tree in this panel emerge from the earlier spread of the vision of home. The branches stretch out and hang a shadow over Qifrey; once again, returning the narrative to darkness.
These pages really bring together witch hat's themes on memories, the future, and finding a home. It strongly reminds me of ch85, when Dagda has a monologue about Custas.
What makes this interesting is how Dagda recalls a long ago memory—before Custas knew of magic and even before his legs were broken—yet the monologue itself talks about his potential future. During this silver eve arc, Custas has changed so much as a person. Dagda's loop means he doesn't even form new memories during this change. However, because of the memories they share together, Dagda is certain in the kind of person Custas is and is certain that it is someone he can call his son.
The gradient from black to white in this page follows Custas' monologue. He goes from uncertainty to a moment of clarity about his happiness. With these black panels, there's still so many things he doesn't know about magic because the darkness of the outside world; with Dagda's assurance that he can rest, Dagda shelters him for a moment from the dark outside, evoking a dim but warm light like a fireplace. Custas is home.
Ch91 gives Qifrey a similar page as he daydreams a future.
Rather than the clear spread in ch92, the warm light exists within the black background of the flashback arc. This makes it especially similar to the Custas page. Both have the darkness and upside down position that evokes the vertigo and fear of the unknown that both still have, and yet they are still able to grasp the warm light from the one they love.
Olruggio is painfully similar to Dagda. After being memory wiped over and over, there's an entire side of the person they love that they don't even know. Despite of all that, Olruggio plunges into the perilous darkness with Qifrey. Because of the trust between them, he's willing to be with Qifrey, even if the darkness prevents them from fully knowing each other. Even if the darkness obscures the walls decorated with memories, the safety of the walls still exist. When they are with each other, they are still home.
"No way. He's not my Dad" (Custas Character Analysis)
is how Custas responds when Coco asks about Dagda. It's chapter 43 that we are properly introduced to Custas. The previous chapters, he's an just unknowing that got into an accident. In this chapter, we learn that he is a traveler, can play several instruments, and has a bond with a man who he says is not his father but someone he "crossed paths" with.
In fact, he doesn't understand why Dagda is still staying with him. "He's too nice. It's not his fault I got hurt." Dagda comes back from mercenary work and Custas begs him to just leave him. He sees Dagda as chained down by the responsibility, especially since he strongly believes that everyone should have freedom.
(spoilers up to ch86 ahead)
(P.S this is a repost with some edits)
There are many chains bringing both of them down. They can't use magic to aid themselves. Their lack of a home restricts his opportunities, coupled with not going to school and always having to worry about food and money. He wishes to be free from these chains restricting the ways he can live, and the freedom he craves is symbolized as the flight of birds.
The first appearance of the motif of birds is in ch 45. A flashback features a starving Custas who attacks a crow. The page draws a direct parallel between the crow and the privileged people above Custas, perched on top the very walls that confine him.
It's an action for survival but also filled with resentment. He envies those that have wings, an appendage that'd let him fly over those imprisoning walls. His first meeting with Dagda and hearing his ballad makes him a little more optimistic, though. A panel two pages later features the same birds flying away, with a quote from Dagda's song: "You've gotta believe the chains of fate exist in order to have something to grab onto and throw off."
With Coco and Tartah's contraption, he's able to soar through the sky. He's able to have a taste of the amount of freedom witches have, and more importantly to him, he believes he's free from feeling like a burden to those around him. He even apologizes to Coco for not realizing that her "fate" being born a witch was just as much undecided as his situation.
But in his next meeting with Coco, everything changes. This happens in Ch 51, which has a cover where he is completely cloaked in feathers.
Now, after receiving silverwood legs from Ininia, he learns from the Brimhats that it's not birthright--it's not fate--that prevented him from using magic, but a secret that the pointed hats keep to themselves. This makes him lash out at Coco and Tartah, saying that they "wouldn't want me knowing how to help myself […] I'm supposed to keep relying on one of you to to show up." He still is living by the lyrics from Dagda's song. "You've gotta believe the chains of fate exist in order to have something to grab onto and throw off." Now he believes Coco and Tartah were lying about what those chains really were, and by crossing the line into forbidden magic, he can finally perch on top of the imprisoning walls like other privileged do.
Coco creates the next turning point in Custas' character in chapter 73. As Custas is dealing with the witches and knights still trying to apprehend him for rescuing people with forbidden magic, his rage for the unequality grows. Coco interrupts the situation by using a spell that blows away his brim into a pointed hat, with feathers errupting all around. Because he is just trying to help others, Coco believes that he should be on the side of the pointed hats. A bold, perhaps even naiive action, but the feathers being blown away start to hint that this isn't something he should have to face alone, that he should be able to join the pointed hats to keep helping people.
There's a lot to unpack in the chaos of the leech arc, but I will narrow my focus to its aftermath. In Chapter 81, he is not seen fighting witches or knights anymore, but being carried on Dagda's back. Coco assures him that the King can treat Dagda, and for once he can rest easy.
This is one of the most important pages to Custas' and Coco's characters. All this time he was so frustrated with how Dagda always risked his life for him, and he wanted to be free of owing anyone anything. But it's here that Custas realizes that he's the same way as Coco and Dagda--helping people isn't out of malice or control, they don't expect anything in return. It's just who they all are.
Finding this resolution with himself and feeling relief over Dagda's situation is what makes his body give in to slumber.
In Chapter 85, Dagda makes the same point. Just like how Custas was surprised that Dagda chose to go out and do Mercenary work for him when he could have easily gone back to travelling, Dagda sees how Custas could have done whatever he wants with his magic, but spent all of his efforts helping not only Dagda, but the muckpool people who are strangers to him.
These panels in 85 juxtapose the panels in chapter 45 where he is grimacing at the birds above him and attacks one. In this flashback with Dagda, he is at peace with the birds around him, even despite living a life of hardship that pointed hats would not know. Magic didn't bring him this life, finding Dagda did.
"I guess this is it"
"My happiness"
”My happiness isn't in magic"
"It's here with you"
"Father"
In chapter 86, another bird-like creature is introduced. A silverwood seed awakens when the bird is injured, giving it the ability to fly again. Ironically, this ability is only given so that the bird can be rooted--chained down--to be part of a silverwood tree for the rest of its existence.
Custas believed that the silverwood legs and his knowledge of magic gave him the ability to 'fly' at the same level as the witches. However, they became the agent of his demise. It's a tragedy, except the "fatal flaw" of Custas is just that he wants to save others more than he's always being saved.
Indeed, what truly rid him of his burdens was accepting that help--doesn't matter if he "earned" it or not. Even with his resentment for the pointed hats, he accepted Coco and worked with her to find a solution. And in the end, it wasn't the silverwood prosthetic that brought him to safety like in the bird's case, but being carried on Dagda's back.
Magic is a powerful force that enables people to do things they couldn't, but it can never be happiness itself. What do you truly desire from it?
Back in chapter 45, it wasn't the mere ability to fly wherever that gave Custas pure happiness. It was the ability to fly into his father's arms.
Yo everyone wake up, @oh-shtars just dropped a new RFTS!AU lore post. I sketched this super quickly after coming home from orientation today (I'm gonna have so many classes this year guys, I'm low-key kinda scared).
And here's a bonus doodle of Sueño trying to rizz Asha up to cancel out the angst.
