I finally managed to finish the first half of the prologue of Hope Beyond :’))
There are some familiar creatures in there, from the inktober arts for example :D
Since zooming is hard with tumblr, below is a closeup collection thingy, not sure how much better it works, though XD
If you want to see the entire thing at its full resolution (please do, there are SO MANY DETAILS), I uploaded it at deviantART because that allows proper showing :D
Tags below the cut (of both Hope Beyond and art taglist) <3 If you want to join/be removed from either, please tell me!
This is “Tiny Mighty One” and her treasure, Precious. XD She will fight you hiss at you if you dare try and take it from her, but she will also purr if you pet her with a single finger, very gently. She likes hiding among the tall grasses outside, or sleeping curled around a mug of hot tea. Basically, she’s a mix of dragon and kitten :3 Phaedra named the ring because she loves LOTR, even if she herself can’t see Tiny Mighty One xD
As I might have mentioned elsewhere, this inktober all my art will be tied to my multimedia WIP, Hope Beyond (if you want to know more about it, here’s the introduction post), or you click on the “keep readiing”, I’ll put a basic description there, too!
I will start writing it during NaNoWriMo, and Inktober is more or less the first concept/idea phase for the comic part of it :3
All art will be either of the characters or the creatures!
If you want to be tagged for my other inktober art (or the wip in general), I’ll gladly add you to the taglist :3
For now, I’m tagging my usual art and hope beyond taglist, but inktober is 31 images so please tell me if you want to be tagged for the other ones, too :3 Lists below the cut!
@writingwordsanddrawingpictures partner in suffering, I’m glad we’re doing this 2-month marathon together x)
About Hope Beyond:
Hope Beyond is about a young imaginative girl, her (adoptive) book-and-cats-loving sister, and their next-door neighbor, a veteran who loves to paint with Bob Ross. It’s a story about recovery and letting yourself heal, working through your trauma, and making the world a better place through kindness and compassion. (Because I need more stories like that ;W;)
It’s in the Hope Punk and Magical Realism genres! :3
There are three different types of chapters:
NOVEL, 3rd person past tense (Morgan’s POV);
Morgan has a lot of pent-up anger and guilt and pain — when she was a teenager, she ran away from home and broke off all contact to her parents. A few years later, she found out that they’d died in a car crash — and that they had adopted a little girl some time ago (to replace her??), who is the only one who survived, but fell into a deep coma. So what to do now, ten years later, when that girl suddenly wakes up and recovers? Morgan decides to move to the countryside and give them a new shot at being a family. Including her 5 cats, and several tons of books :)
COMIC, maybe with some animated scenery (Alia’s POV);
Alia Nyx (a.k.a. Lia) is very imaginative and sees beauty and whimsy and magic everywhere, which usually manifests in the form of creatures and possible adventures.
She was in a car accident when she was nine, which killed her adoptive parents. Now she’s nineteen, and has just woken up with a mission: to make the world a better place through kindness and love.
Lia refuses to bow and let herself be worn down by “reality” even if her past should have broken her… but she also refuses to let herself acknowledge that past.
DIARY ENTRIES, first person present/past (Phaedra’s POV);
Phaedra recently lost a leg, which is the main reason she retired from the army.
She’s also disenchanted with her life and the things she did, has lost many of her friends, and has decided to move away from the city, her family, and life in general. To let herself heal.
And then she starts getting to know her neighbors, and her life is irreversibly changed.
Sometimes a family is three weird women who have all been through hell. And five cats. And a huge (possibly imaginary) flying snake made of interlocking branches that only one of them can see. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
✿ Magical Realism | Hope Punk
✿ mixed-media story
✿ 3 POV characters ⇢ 3 types of chapters (limited perspective)
✿ comic, novel (3rd person), diary entries (1st person)
✿ currently in the planning stage; to be started during Inktober and NaNoWriMo
✿ standalone, webseries/webcomic which I will update weekly once it gets rolling :3
Hope Beyond is about a young imaginative girl, her (adoptive) book-and-cats-loving sister, and their next-door neighbor, a veteran who loves to paint with Bob Ross. It’s a story about recovery and letting yourself heal, working through your trauma, and making the world a better place through kindness and compassion. (Because I need more stories like that ;W;)
After ten years on life support, ALIA’s awakening and subsequent (impossible) recovery are nothing short of a miracle. The problem? Lia’s family is dead. Her adoptive parents died in the car crash that nearly killed her, too, back when she was only nine. The only one she has left is Morgan, the adoptive sister she only knows from stories and pictures, who ran away from home and cut off all contact before Lia even got adopted.
But all that doesn’t matter, because Lia has returned with a quest: To make the world a better place, one person at a time. Morgan will be the first, even if she doesn’t know it yet. (Good thing that Lia has Rhisíl, then, her Guardian snake from the dreamworld she spent the past ten years in...)
After watching Lia recover in less than half a year, MORGAN decides that this is obviously a sign. So she packs their things, quits her teaching position in the city, and moves out to the countryside with Lia and all 5 of her cats… to give this thing called “family” another shot, even if it’s a bit more unconventional this time around. Lia needs help if she’s ever going to fit into society, and (even if Morgan won’t let herself see it), she herself needs help, too. There’s a lot of built-up pain, rage, and guilt to work through, after all.
It doesn’t take long to befriend their equally new next-door neighbor, a veteran in her late forties named PHAEDRA, who recently lost everything (including her job and a leg), and who is in desperate need of friends.
Even if they come in the form of a strangely endearing, bouncy teen who behaves like a little kid and sees magical creatures everywhere, and a young bookworm/crazy cat lady, who is overwhelmed by suddenly having a child to take care of.
Actually, these two might be perfect.
Sometimes a family is three weird women who have all been through hell. And five cats. And a huge (possibly imaginary) flying snake made of interlocking branches that only one of them can see. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
I’m SO! EXCITED! about this project and plan on starting with the art and the writing during Inktober and NaNoWriMo this year, as a sort of intense marathon session :’D Let’s see how that works out! also someone plz kill me why am I making another wip
About the POV characters:
ALIA NYX. COMIC. She sees the darkness in the world, but chooses to focus on the light and magic. She’s an optimistic ray of sunshine and suppresses all bad memories aggressively. She also sees creatures everywhere, because she’s brought the dream realm she created during her coma with her. Internally, she’s still 9, so that’s how she looks in her comics. (She’ll age slowly over the course of the story as she learns to deal with her trauma, until she reaches her actual physical age). Bby :’3
MORGAN. NOVEL. 3rd person. She’s aro-ace and until recently lived together with only five cats and a ton of books. She ran away from home when she was 16 after some bad encounters with her parents, and managed to become a teacher through a photographic memory, working several jobs, having somewhat understanding grandparents, and a general love for knowledge and teaching. She consists mostly of coffee, spite, guilt, and rage. She also doesn’t trust people. I love her so much
PHAEDRA. DIARY ENTRIES. 1st person. She joined the army after school, a decision influenced and supported by her family. She enjoyed the comradery (and the training, if not the fighting) so she stayed... until a year ago, when her whole platoon got blown up, she lost her leg, and was sent home. Disillusioned with the past, the army, and war in general, she’s finally moved as far away from her family as she could, hoping to start a new life somewhere else. Nowadays, she spends most her time painting because she watched Bob Ross on youtube and decided that it was the perfect therapy. (Her therapist agrees). Happy little clouds all the way. :’))))
If you want to be tagged in future posts, please tell me <3
tagging some of the usual peeps to get this rolling:
Alia finds the creature in the woods, next to a re-awakened stream. Morgan can hear her sharp intake of breath, and when she turns around, Alia is half-kneeling, half-lying on the muddy ground, hugging something that for all intents and purposes doesn’t exist.
She turns away, uncertain what to do, uncomfortable in the face of Alia’s strangeness. How do you deal with a 19-year-old who behaves like a 9-year-old, has survived a car crash and a coma, shouldn’t even be alive — and sees things that aren’t real? Can’t be real?
That’s right.
You don’t.
… at least you try not to.
Dammit, I should be getting better at this stuff, I should—
But Morgan pushes the thoughts away, and tries to think of other things. Easier things.
It’s getting cooler every day, now, and the brisk autumn air carries the scent of dead leaves, and the sharpness of winter. Delicate, icy tendrils form intricate patterns on the rough bark of the trees, the stalks of dying grass and soggy leaves, melting with the new day’s arrival. It’s still fairly early in the morning, and usually Morgan wouldn’t even be awake yet, except that Alia’s a morning person. Because of course she has to be.
A sudden wind tears through the trees, making Morgan shiver; she pushes her hands deeper into the pockets of her hoodie and regrets most of her life-choices. Why did I think it was warm enough for a hoodie, again? There’s frost everywhere!
(and because this got kinda long, the second half is below the cut, and also my inktober taglist :3)
When they finally leave the soggy woods behind, stomping in rubber boots across the equally soggy meadow that lies between them and the village, Alia is lost deep in thoughts, her face strangely melancholic. She’s also rubbing at her hands as if they’re sticky, and Morgan isn’t sure if she wants to ask about that or not.
What do you say in a situation like this? How do you address the hallucinations of a little girl who’s both the strongest and most fragile person you’ve ever met? Do you just continue ignoring it?
“It was too late.”
Morgan blinks. “Sorry?”
“There was nothing I could do.” There are actual tears in Alia’s eyes. Morgan hasn’t seen her cry, ever. Everything that happened to her in the past, and she cries over an imaginary (possibly even dead) beast?
“Sometimes they just … give up. And leave. Their bodies stay behind for a while but… empty. Like the house a snail leaves behind. Rhisíl told me about them, but I’ve never seen one before. It’s so sad.” She sniffs. “I didn’t believe it before. Not really. And the goop…”
For a moment Morgan tries to sort her thoughts, but then she just gives up. “So… the thing you found was dead?” And goopy?
Alia frowns. “No… not really? They are already dead. They’re spirits, where else would they go? I think it’s the… final death. They just … let go and stop.” A tear rolls down the side of her face and she looks so small and lost in the too-large coat that, for the first time ever, Morgan knows exactly what to do. She warps her arms around the girl, pulls her close, and after a tiny moment of hesitation, Alia snuggles into the hug and puts her head on Morgan’s shoulder.
It’s really unfair how someone who’s mentally nine can still be taller, though.
“Thank you”, Lia whispers, her voice cracking. “I always wish that you could see them but today… today I’m glad you can’t.”
Morgan doesn’t know how to respond to that, even if a shiver runs down her spine.
Legend is a very old, huge, black whale. Alia’s a bit afraid of him, but that’s just because he’s so huge and she’s sure that he’s never noticed her, ever, so it’s mostly awe (and a feeling of being tiny and unimportant by comparison).
He’s always surrounded by swarms of mostly normal-sized aquatic animals, swimming through the air and breaking out of solid ground as if the sea they once lived in was still there. Legend’s role is basically the equivalent of Bloom’s, but for sealife :)
Bloom is definitely one of the oldest Guardians. Alia doesn’t know very much about him, either, but he’s one of those everyone seems to know. He isn’t one of those who interact a lot with her; he’s mostly there for the newer spirits, as a kind of mentor and protector. Alia suspects that he was once a creature of the seas, or at least lived near the coast, because there are clams and capers growing on his horns, head and shoulder; but it’s hard to tell the origins of some of the Guardians because they’ve evolved so much since they ascended to take care of the “regular” animals’ souls.
Alia has given him his name, though, because she loves the flowers on his nose-(tree)-horn, and it fits his gentle, calm personality.
Basically, there are two kinds of beings in Alia’s spirit world: The souls of deceased animals, and the souls of those animals who decided to “ascend” to a more guiding role (for the “normal” ones), and thus became Guardians. The spirit world kind of existed before Alia, too, but more in a dreaming/seed state: Alia is the one who gives the creatures their shapes, subconsciously, and their appearance is strongly tied to her mental state (deteriorating into creepy/more obviously dead creatures when she feels bad, etc). She hasn’t realized this, though, at least not consciously. Some of the spirits don’t really appreciate that very much and try to keep away from her.
The Kraken is the Guardian of the gateway Alia enters through when she first enters (/creates) the Spirit World.
872 words || Part 1 (Day 24 | Dizzy) || Part 2 (Day 23 | Ancient)
One moment they’re driving, and the next there’s a truck in front of them, a noise like striking thunder, followed by a bright, flashing pain. Like lightning. Isn’t lightning supposed to come first?— Can’t—can’t breathe—
The air feels thick and strange, like water, and as much as Alia tries to breathe, it doesn’t help, makes her choke, cough—
The darkness blossoms out, like ink in water, and Alia feels herself being carried away like a leaf on a stream, with no control of her own. Drifting upward, outward, through dark spaces. The darkness swallows her.
For a moment she loses all sense of direction, where is up, where is down, twisting, turning, spiralling—
No air—
A light appears, faint through the tangles of darkness.
She pushes herself off something rigid, can’t tell what, shoots up.
Breaks through the surface, takes her first proper breath in what feels like centuries.
It’s brighter up her, the light gets reflected into eternity by a hundred thousand small fishes circling and flying all around her. She’s still swimming in an ocean of darkness, but the fish are above her, in the air. Sometimes small bubbles drift down toward her.
She feels dizzy.
What is this place, if it’s even a place?
Something touches her foot and she shrieks, kicks out, and her foot connects with … something.
Something that’s both hard and soft at the same time, hard upon impact, growing soft and malleable immediately after. It lazily encircles her calf, almost in a caring way, moving down until it reaches her ankle. Then it becomes hard like rock, enclosing her ankle her like a manacle. She trashes about, but the grip only gets tighter as she continues to struggle, until she feels like her foot is going to fall off, so she gives up, breathing heavily. Why am I even swimming?, she wonders dimly, the thoughts drifting up through her fatigue, her panic, her pain, the confusion and terror.
The thing starts dragging her after it, and she can’t even tell what it is because the darkness is everywhere, except above. Above there are only fish, shining like rainbows and light.
Her head is rumbling like an earthquake.
Is she hanging upside down?
Where am I? Where are my— my—
It lets go of her foot. Her momentum stops. There’s movement around her but she still can’t tell if it’s just from the not-water, or from the Thing. The half-finished thought drifts from her mind in the face of their sudden stop.
She looks around, taking in everything from the flashy fish to the endless divide of darkness below and light above, and—
Rocks. Rising higher, in the distance. A coast? No more than ten feet away!
Land!
She coughs, her heart beating quicker, relief surging. Struggles forward, ignoring the illogical fact that she never learned how to swim in the first place, reaches the rocks. The darkness clings to her clothes in a sticky, weird way, sloughing off in dried, glass-like shards.
She finally makes herself stand, dazed, and then forces her way up the rocky coast.
Looking back, it’s obvious that it wasn’t water. It’s black, with a metallic sheen, sometimes reflecting the light the way oil does, with a rainbow of dark greens, blues, purples… and it’s too slow and viscous to be water. She breathes out and watches as bubbles make their way in a lopsided, whimsical manner downward, popping apart as they touch the rocks, a strange small glow exploding outward, dissipating.
Not for the first time, she wonders where she is.
Welcome, a thought pops into her head, but it’s not hers. She whirls around, but there’s nothing there. Her heart thuds in her chest like a panicked little beast, trying to escape.
Then something heaves itself from the not-water. Something huge, strangely shiny, its skin made out of strange, rigid round plates where it’s supposed to be soft. A bit like coins, but not coins. Metallic, though, in a strange way.
An octopus, its eye along bigger than her head. She feels dizzy, standing in front of something so huge, something that looks just like the water she came from. The Not-water.
“Is that your ink?”, she hears herself say. Her voice sounds unafraid, calm, fascinated. As if there’s another person in her head, someone who isn’t her.
Maybe, it thinks inside her head. I am the kraken, little one. Who are you?
Her head is woozy, her mind strange. She looks him in the eye, and her two selves re-unite.
“I am Alia Nyx”, she says. Her fear is suddenly gone, whisked away. “Why am I here? And where is ‘here’. Where are my parents?”
I cannot answer these questions, he replies gently. You must ask the Mother. Just walk inland, and you will meet her.
Do not be afraid.
You will be all right.
She blinks a few times.
The dizziness leaves.
“Thank you”, she says, and then she wanders away.
Her mind is suddenly blank, calm. Strange.
She doesn’t remember why she was afraid in the first place. This place is strangely beautiful. A swarm of fish follow her, shining in the air.
Half dream and half creature, Morpheus is Alia’s Dream Guide, mentoring, helping and protecting her when her dreams turn bad.
He’s there for her when she gets sucked into the depths of her nightmares, helping her realize that it’s just a dream and guiding her back to the better parts of her mind.
He is a bit apart from all the other Guardian creatures, and she usually only encounters him in her dreams. If she sees him when she’s awake, he’s usually just a shadow, disappearing when she looks at him directly.
