One of my favorite commissions I've ever worked on; what a fantastic cast of designs and characters and what a delight and honor it was to be asked to draw them (no less, to be one of the party and get to play alongside them!!).
From left to right (ignoring one of the lovely elven kingdom denizens manning the bar in the back) we have Gol the drow (@phantomseptember 's), Row the water genasi (mine), Kat the dragonborn (@phantomseptember 's with a bit of prior party influence), Hek the faun turned halfling disguising self as a faun ( @drawinglobster 's) , Coconut the skeleton (@phantomseptember 's), Daph the gnome ( @ifitisntflow 's), Balmus the warforged ( Everly's over on https://www.twitch.tv/everthewhimsywitch) and Yossie the gnome with Beetlejuz the fire beetle ( S2's over on https://www.twitch.tv/scarey_2).
Also thank you to our amazing GM, @phantomseptember, for sending me one of his campaign maps for me to set out on the table!
currently watching: oh man too much... i'm really bad with finishing shows. in the middle of Westworld and Dandadan currently
currently reading: Crime and Punishment, Of Human Bondage (for like 6 months...), The Oxygen Advantage
current obsession: obsessed with my yards 😍 my flowers that i planted last year are coming in and they really exceeded my expectations cuz i didn't really take care of them at all. gonna plant more stuff this year and take better care of everything!!
currently working on: trying to learn a lot of new stuff at work 👎
last browser search: "hose connector stuck on spigot" unfortunately an issue i'm facing in the backyard
1. Did you set a goal for yourself this year? How did you do? If not, why not?
Nah, I don't really care much about goals, especially not for things that are just for fun and don't involve a skill I need to practise. Occasionally I might have a very basic goal of just, reading at all, but that's about it ^^
3. Did consuming any piece of media inspire you to pick up the book? How did it compare?
I finally picked up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy this year, I saw the movie yeeeears ago but I'd say it's more the prevalent place it keeps within nerd culture that made me finally read the original text. Hard to compare it to the movie since it was so long ago that I saw it, but I think I enjoyed the book a bit more, the language in it was one of the highlights and that's not really something you can bring with you into a movie ^^
8. If someone were to ask you what your top ten books for this year were, which would you choose?
The Mask of Mirrors - M.A. Carrick
The Liar's Knot - M.A. Carrick
Labyrinth's Heart - M.A.Carrick
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
To Be Taught If Fortunate - Becky Chambers
Another Day - David Levithan
Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi
This Fatal Kiss - Alicia Jasinska
Nordiska Väsen - Johan Egerkrans
Fence Vol. 3 - C.S. Pacat
I don't think I know about the OCs you've tagged! So I'm going to do random asks for each! Fizz: 15, 16, 17 Tez: 29, 35, 80 Cyrlen: 20, 36, 50 and Eris: 10, 39, 75? Can I also ask ones for OCs of yours that weren't tagged?
Thank you so much for these asks!
Fizz and Tez and Eris are all from my current WIPs of novels. Cyrlen is from Dragon Age: Inquisition. Thank you so much for taking interest in them!
Also, funny enough, a lot of your questions hit close to spoilers or important character development. It was really fun either hinting at these, or writing them out!
And of COURSE you can ask questions about any OC :D I just didn’t want to flood my tags with too many names.
Fizz
15. What was something their parents taught them?
The one thing that his parents taught him was to ignore responsibility and have fun. His parents loved their parties, loved letting loose, and encouraged Fizz to enjoy every second of life. He unfortunately has sort of chosen to ignore this in his later life and is a bit of a downer.
Everything else Fizz had to fight to learn, and he learned it on his own.
16. Are they religious?
Funny enough, there aren't necessarily any religions in this novel. No gods. But! There are a lot of myths and ideas of interconnecting worlds. And he does believe in those - along with ghosts and psychics and etc.
17. Where were they born?
This is actually really funny because this is minor spoiler territory for the novel. I can't answer this! But I can let you know that throughout the years he's traveled wide and far, and has a new story about his childhood every time someone asks.
Tez
29. How would they describe their own personality?
I think this would be best if I wrote this like an interview;
"Uh, I don't know! I tend to think I'm pretty easy going! I like to bring others up and I think it's pretty hard to get me down. Though a lot of people might say my enthusiasm is a bit annoying..."
He's a happy-go-lucky sorta guy. Lots of smiles and laughter with this one.
35. What is the easiest way to annoy them?
Honestly, it's really hard to annoy Tez. He'd get hurt before you annoy him. And if you did manage to annoy him, you've probably just pissed him off. You would have to be a really, really crappy person to make Tez annoyed.
I'd say the person he gets annoyed with the most is himself.
80. Are they a morning person or a night owl?
Tez is one of those annoying people that always seem like they're up bright and happy at any hour. But due to some secret ailments, he usually doesn't sleep well or sleep at all. So, when he does sleep, it's usually a hard crash of 12-15 hours or so for a day, then he's good for the month.
Cyrlen
20. Do they have any titles? How did they earn them?
Uhhh, “The First”, “The Herald of Andraste”, “the Inquisitor” - titles he never wanted, all sort of necessary because of how things fell into place. But there are titles like “Ser Lordybloomers” “Lord Too-Tight-of-Breeches”, or “brother”, or “my love” that he’s earned. And he keeps all of those very close to his heart.
36. What is their sense of humor like? Give an example of a joke they would find humorous.
Dry humor is where Cyrlen’s niche is. He likes quips and banter - inappropriate jokes just mostly make him embarrassed. He will drop a pun time to time just to make people groan. Though because Cyrlen is extremely hard to read, his heavy sarcasm is often missed.
--
“Boss, you fell.” The Iron Bull lifted Cyrlen up with little to no issue. Cyrlen suspected that the man mostly flexed to show off his muscle, not so much because of the strain.
“Oh? Is that what happened?” Cyrlen said as dryly as he could, despite the heat rising to his cheeks. “I thought that the river was trying to eat me.”
Sera snickered behind him.
50. How would you describe their style of clothing? How would they describe their style of clothing?
Left to his own devices, one could best describe Cyrlen’s garb as “casual” if they’re kind. Though, after becoming somewhat of a notable figure, Cyrlen started to care a bit more about his fashion. Especially because he was trying to impress a certain mustached man.
He would define his clothes as practical, but elegant. Though, he does love to wear tight pants.
Eris
10. What are some of their talents/skills?
This is a difficult question to answer without diving into the lore of the book, so I’ll say it lightly; Eris is equivalent to a wizard or a mage, and he knows his magic very well. But unfortunately, that’s about all Eris really knows.
Oh! I guess I could also say, Eris knows a great portion of the world like the back of his hand. He is a living map. You would never get lost if you traveled with him.
(I’m laughing at the idea of Eris being a living GPS)
39. What does their happily ever after look like?
Diving into the full of this would be more spoilers! So, again, lightly, Eris’ happy ending is the simplest ending of all. All he wants to be is in love, and remembered and loved by the one he loves. Simple, really.
But his story borderlines a tragedy.
75. If given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?
That depends - is there a likelihood someone will see this? Where is this paper? Who left it?
In Eris’ life, if someone hands an item to him and walks away, they’re not likely to remember him at all. So, usually he would just doodle something silly or write something mischievously cryptic and walk away.
The fun thing with Eris is that even if someone watched him doodle silly things on a paper, as soon as Eris left, they wouldn’t remember who doodled it at all.
Hei, I have a quick question about bones, if you have the time. I am having trouble finding information on my own on Tulli, and thought you might be able to help. I want to buy a domestic horse skull online from Spain (I live in Finland). Are there any Finnish customs issues or laws that would make that a bad idea? My Finnish isn't very good (yet) so I'm having trouble finding information on my own. I really want to buy it but want to make sure it's legal first.
Hi! Domestic horse skulls are perfectly legal to buy and own since they’re not part of an endangered or protected species.
Whenever I’m unsure about the legality of acquiring new taxidermy items, I check Species+. It’s a reliable and up-to-date database about wildlife trade regulations and tells clearly what animal and plant species are protected and whether you need any permits to import their parts (CITES and EU Wildlife Trade Regulations are the ones you need to keep an eye out). You can always call Tulli or Ymparisto.fi if you’re unsure, I’ve done that a couple of times. Tulli won’t collect any customs charges or value-added taxes because both Finland and Spain belong to the European Union and trade between EU countries is very free and easy in most cases. So you shouldn’t have any problems buying a horse skull from Spain. Just remember to buy from a reliable seller and be mindful that horse skulls are big and heavy so shipping them is usually pretty expensive.
phantomseptember replied to your post “Having just had a baby and returned to academia, I can safely say that...”
If you end up having time to talk about these observations in more detail on here, I'd love to read about it! :0
I should probably back things up a bit and note that the one specific place where this has happened with me on a research level was when I was doing a literature review of articles relevant to scientific discourse in Middlemarch, and I only found one piece (Doreen Thierauf’s really fascinating “The Hidden Abortion Plot in Middemarch” which seems to have been written very early in her career) that even touches on all the manifold issues connecting the troubles in the Lydgates’ marriage to Rosamond’s stillbirth. I haven’t done quite as much research on Wuthering Heights and even less on Portrait of a Lady but I feel like a lot of the discussions I’ve had in academic settings with other people in my field are not giving nearly enough weight to Cathy’s pregnancy or the death of Isabel’s child.
And especially in the case of Rosamond and Cathy, there’s this pervasive popular reading of both women as being irredeemably terrible in ways that don’t really take into account the trauma relating to motherhood that they undergo. I’m not claiming that either character is justified in all that they do, but I often have no real sense that most of the people talking about Rosamond’s selfishness really have a feel for what it might be like to deliver a dead child and then live in silence with your husband who doesn’t want to mention it and who keeps a pickled anencephalic fetus as a scientific curiosity. Cathy gets a little more acknowledgment, given how her delivery of Cathy 2.0 kills her, but the fact that she is seven months pregnant should really make one think more than I feel many people do as to why a woman might irrationally refuse food and seemingly enter a hallucinatory fugue about how impossibly trapped she feels.
And work on these sort of topics is certainly getting done, mind you (probably more than I think, given that I specialize in something very different). Historical examinations of women’s reproductive lives by scholars capable of having kids definitely seems to be on the upswing. So much of the earlier criticism, however, and so much of the way we’ve come to talk about these books seems to come from cis male readers and scholars (big surprise!) and it seems to me that a lot of our way of reading women from this period is informed by that in ways I find really alienating.
So this is the gift I made for Tanzblr Secret Santa! I got @phantomseptember and they said their favorite character was Herbert so I did three pretty Herberts for them :D!
I apologize for taking so long to post it, I was busy with family stuff, but here it is! The quality of the pic is not the best but I tried to lighten up so the colors would show better! Took the liberty to make a purple streak on his hair!
