#bird caws

[painted-fanbird]

Dustfinger! You little-

[painted-blackbird]

I’m not back… yet

So that January return didn’t work out did it? But never fear! I do have an update <3

Firstly and less excitingly, I’ve officially retired Lithaira and her friends. I actually did this IRL like midway through last year and ran this blog on buffer content until I went on hiatus. I made their story when I was in my high school years, and now as an adult I’ve outgrown what I did with it. I still love a lot of what I did, so I’m keeping my favorite parts and tucking them away for another project (not the one I’m currently working on). But those four and this world is retired now, and I’ll be adding a Retired tag to all their posts.

With that out of the way, time for the fun part! That new project I’m working on that sent me into hiatus in the first place! I’m not ready to reveal any details yet, but I’m almost there! What I can say is that this new project is going to be a serially published novella. My plan is one update a week for about a year. With a couple of pre-planned breaks between acts. I’ll be posting here on this blog of course, and also on Tapas! I’m aiming for an early spring release, so late March/early April.

I plan on posting updates and actual details to this blog soon! Just gotta get all my ducks in a row before I do lol. The only thing left for me to sort out before I start revealing stuff is my antagonist and a final plot revision. I’m pretty much set on everything else <3 In the meantime, you can find me on my other blogs if you’d like to see what I’m up too!

@painted-fanbird is my fan blog! This is where I post fanart and headcanons and whatever incomprehensible feelings I have about media that is not my own. The content I post here is not consistent, it’s literally just whatever is in my brain at any given moment lol. I usually post here about once a week!

@reblogging-blackbird is my reblogging blog! This is (obviously) where I reblog stuff, so if you want to see what I’m thinking about, see some cool art (like @meroaw’s OCs and Warriors designs, and @lilianade-comics delightful slice of life (with a dash of family drama) and crafting webcomic) and read my riveting commentary in the tags, this is where to do that!

That’s all I’ve got for now, but expect to hear from me again soon! With actual updates ;)

[painted-fanbird]

I made an observation about how Dustfinger loves the inkworld so so much, and how it loves him right back in a post I reblogged yesterday and now I literally can’t stop thinking about it

Because I just, UGH. He really does, he loves the fire and the fairies and his best friend. His wife, his daughter, his now step-son. The trees, the traveling, the singing, the dancing, even the danger. He loves every part of this world with his whole heart

And it loves him right back! The fairies who healed his face after Basta slashed it, the nymphs who remembered his face even after so long gone, the White Women who love him and his fire, The Great Shapechanger who let him go from her realm of death. For every ounce of love Dustfinger pours into this world, he gets it right back

Which is like, that’s the crux of his character isn’t it? Love. Dustfinger is many things, and he sees himself as many more, but at his core? He is full of love. He loves deeply and wholly. And I love that about him <3

[painted-fanbird]

Oooh I am Unwell(tm) over Fire and Stars and What the Night Hides. Those two chapters so effortlessly and succinctly set up Dustfinger as a character I’m literally about to go insane about it asdfghjkl

Dustfinger’s playfulness and the richness of the prose during performance is SO tasty, oh my word. The way it foreshadows that he’s not from our world, he’s from somewhere different, somewhere more mysterious and magical, somewhere where he can have a word with the wind so it doesn’t play havoc with his fire, somewhere where fire is a creature he’s tamed

Then to follow that immediately with his betrayal! But it’s still a betrayal with an undercurrent of understanding (something Cornelia is so good at, actually. Understanding why people make the choices they do. We see it in Dustfinger and Resa’s dynamic as well). He’s wracked with guilt and shame, and having read the rest of the series that single moment leaves SO MUCH to unpack. This moment sets up the fact that he loves the Inkworld, his home, so fiercely and deeply he would do anything to get back to it. Anything.

Though don’t you think it’s interesting that Dustfinger knows Basta and the others are coming that night, and that’s the night he chooses to perform for Meggie? I think he’d have done this anyway, he delights in showing of his talents, especially to young girls who think he’s cool imo (after all, he had his own young girl back home), but he takes Meggie to the back of the house. Outside and away from the route Basta and his men would use to get to Mo. Dustfinger knows they aren’t under orders to take her, but it’s Basta and Meggie has a spitfire streak so who knows what might happen to her if she tries to stop him. So he keeps his eyes on her, and hers on him, so she doesn’t get tangled up in the mess he’s started. And later, when she’s screaming for her father, Dustfinger’s first instinct is to comfort her. Because he is a father. A father with his own bright, spirited daughter he hasn’t seen in a decade. But he can’t.

He can’t.

[painted-fanbird]

In preparation for The Color of Revenge dropping in October, I’m rereading the entire Inkheart trilogy and oh my WORD I’m literally only one chapter into Inkheart and I’m going to SCREAM.

ITS SO GOOD <3

Cornelia’s prose is just as breathtaking as I remember, the scream I SCRUMPT when Dustfinger (my beloved <3) appeared on literally page 2, and I’m feeling a little insane about Mo’s distaste for fire. Of course it’s partly because book burning, but I do wonder if part of it is because it’s so heavily associated with Dustfinger he can’t help but think of him, and by extension Resa, whenever he sees it…

Also my books have what I believe is the OG cover, and I’m living for how part of the foiled decorative bits aren’t foiled. Like the book is old and worn. Love that <3

[painted-fanbird]

At their core, ghosts are amalgamations of energy. Quite literally, in fact. Ghost cores are coalesced energy that’s taken on an elemental flavor. They’re created in places with high concentrations of ectoplasm, which eventually collects and pulls itself into core. That, in turn, attracts more ectoplasm, which is what creates a sentient ghost. Human souls, being made of energy, are naturally attracted to the energy rich ghost zone once they’re freed from living bodies, and spawn cores after being drenched in ectoplasm.

The vast majority of the time, cores are single element, from the following ten: water, ice, plant, earth, fire, magma, electric, air, light, and void. However, dual element cores do also exist. They very rarely occur naturally, and are more often than not the result of ghost fusion, which is the result more powerful ghost absorbing the energy of a less powerful one. This is widely regarded as taboo, as it’s the only way to really “kill” a ghost. Most of the time “killing” a ghost just disperses their energy, but it will recollect over time and they will respawn. Absorption stops that, because the energy is being functionally held hostage by the more powerful personality/conciseness.

Some hybrid cores are stable, such as plant/earth cores, or electric/light cores. Cores they aren’t holding two opposed elements in one. Cores that are holding opposed elements, Like, say, an ice-fire core, are incredibly volatile. Their powers can be difficult to control, they can cause health issues, and typically need ectoplasm to be constantly expended in order to keep them under control.

As a ghost grows and matures, so too does their core. This results in a general power boost and sometimes entirely new abilities. There are rare occasions where the power of a core outpaces what the body can handle though, and the result is all kinds of power outbursts and unpleasant side effects until the body catches up.

So, in a purely hypothetical scenario, what would happen if you took a mature, yet volatile hybrid core, and suddenly placed it into a body that isn’t used to even having a core at all?

Well…

It isn’t always pretty.

[painted-fanbird]

I rewatched Infinite Realms last night and noticed something curious. When Danny meets Frostbite, Frostbite says that Danny is basically the savior of the Ghost Zone because he’s the one who sealed Pariah Dark in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. Which is mostly true, Danny definitely did the bulk of the fighting and defeating of Pariah, but if we’re feeling pedantic and technical (and obviously I am, since I’m writing this lol) Danny isn’t the one who actually sealed Pariah in the Sarcophagus.

Vlad is. He’s the one who actually had the key and locked Pariah up.

Which I think the show forgot about because you mean to tell me that Vlad isn’t out there taking credit for that? I don’t believe that for a second lol. Vlad would be taking credit for Pariah’s defeat at every opportunity imo, because he’s Like That(tm).

So anyway Halfa!Jazz AU Vlad has 100% taken credit for Pariah’s defeat and Jazz is totally super not bothered about it (she is incredibly bothered about it) (don’t worry she is also getting credit for the fight since she did most of the heavy lifting, Vlad’s just being annoying about it lol)

[painted-fanbird]

I’ve been thinking about a Danny Phantom x Gravity Falls crossover for the last day or so, or as I like to call it “Vlad gets harassed by various combinations of high/middle schoolers.”

Featuring, in no particular order:

• Vlad showing up as Plasmius and immediately getting knocked out cold by Stan.

• A post-comic character development Pacifica snitching on Vlad to the Pines as soon as she sees him at her house. He’s sweet talking her parents and she makes direct eye contact as she texts Dipper like “hey that guy from the woods is at my house”

• Dipper and Mabel become fast friends with Danny once they realize he’s a nice ghost and not a murder ghost lol

• Gravity Falls also pretty quickly figures out Danny, Vlad, and Dani’s whole deal. The three of them are weird, it’s pretty easy to connect them with the weird ghosts that showed up.

• Ford has been to the ghost zone a handful of times during his interdimensional travels

• Ford and Dipper are also banned by Mabel from asking Danny too many questions about the whole ghost thing. This lasts 15 minutes before Dipper asks one innocuous question and suddenly they’re in the woods finding out what exactly Danny is capable of

• Somehow, Sam and Mabel are friends. No one saw this coming, but they are now an unstoppable force of feral teenaged girl.

• Tucker and Ford promptly adopt each other because they’re tech geeks and nerds. It’s great <3

• Danny calls Stan “Grunkle Stan” in earshot of Vlad after the whole punching and stealing of Vlad’s wallet situation, and Vlad is so scandalized that whatever was going on promptly grinds to a halt as he goes off on a rant

• In a Good Dad Vlad flavor of this crossover, Vlad gets a begrudging respect from Stan because of Dani, but he’s still not getting his wallet back lol

• Vlad could also experience some actual character development here. Or we can have a proper Badger Cereal flavor of the crossover. Idk. I like nice(er) Vlad I dunno what you want from me XD

• In a Monster Falls crossover flavor (my personal favorite because monster falls has been living rent free in my head since ~2017 when I first found it), Vlad, Danny, and Dani all turn into full ghosts. Shenanigans ensue.

• Also werewolf Tucker! And plant girl Sam!! Not really a lot of specific thoughts on that front but the vibes are good!! Tucker and Wendy can be werewolf friends <3