#sigruned

[chaikachi]

For the drawing requests post, I always thought miss Merrill dragon age or Aerith from FF7 would look very cute in your style. No worries if you don't feel like it though 👍

I watched a compilation of Merrill moments before drawing this and 10/10 character right there

[st-whalefall]

@sigruned say more about that

[strqyr]

The longer I think about it the more convinced I'm getting that, if Gretchen was the spring maiden, she got involved in Summer's mission somehow and that led to her death? (My current theory is also that Summer used the first question in the lamp, but the specifics don't matter so much, just that spring was involved). A training accident never cut it for me as an explanation for what happened to her, but I would have thought if it was a lie and if Oz was going to come clean about this it would have most likely been in the whale during v8? Like sure you're still hiding things from everyone else but I would have expected him to at least explain to Oscar the real reason Hazel hates him so much given the circumstances. What if he actually doesn't know the full story himself for once?

what gets me is that, in what happened to gretchen, we only have ozpin's word—one that was only heard by oscar—to go by. hazel obviously blames ozpin, and he allied with salem because he believes she has a vision of world with no kingdoms and no huntsmen academies, but i can't remember a moment where hazel actually talks about what happened to gretchen, and thus we have no way of really knowing if it lines up with what ozpin is saying or not.

perhaps fittingly, hazel does say this on monstra: "nice story. but if gretchen's death taught me one thing, it was never to trust you." of course this isn't in response to anything gretchen related, but if there's something afoot with her death, well. it's a pretty telling line.

it's not unheard of that a student could die on a training mission—a signal student died (and that caused the teacher in-charge of them to resign), and yang almost died on a mission she should not have been on in a first place as a first-year student (which does not help ozpin's case here)—but there's definitely this feeling that something's up with gretchen's death, especially with how choice comes up alongside it; pyrrha was said to have made a choice too, but it wasn't exactly an informed, let alone 'no-pressure' one.

it's possible ozpin doesn't know the full story, but if gretchen was the spring maiden, it's an easy conclusion to come to that her presumed death had something to do with that. the 'training accident' explanation alone could be a cover-up to some extent. it could also explain the discrepancy: gretchen died on a 'training mission' and the spring maiden 'ran away', and if ozpin doesn't know what really happened to gretchen (but has his suspicions because she's a maiden and missing) then it's better to muddle the truth instead of connecting these two events and risk the information getting out. else the next thing you know, everyone is looking for gretchen rainart and if she's not already dead, then the chances are she will be soon.

it'd be a bit convoluted way to go about things, but it's not impossible. (it's not like the inner circle is ensuring that the maidens have a proper support system or anything. they're pretty alone out there, so hey, what's possibly-sorta-kinda faking a death of one in an opportune moment gonna matter? no need to get their family involved too.)

and if there is more going on with gretchen's death, then connecting it to summer's mission would make sense. hazel's dead so there's no reason to talk about it for closure, so the other option is to tie it into something really important... and maybe learn if there's an alternative, narrative-only meaning behind the "no more gretchens" line.

[chaikachi]

"So rather than try, she throws out her hands with a growl, grabs him by the lapels of his stupid coat. Lets the conversation crash to a halt as she pulls him into her space and…"

Hey... go read Reciprocity by @sigruned if you haven't already. It's phenomenal. bonus sketches under the cut

I sketched this in procreate initially cause I didn't think I would colour it. Ended up bringing it into sai and lost a bit of the emotion from the original sketch by having to redraw it, but oh well. 😔 Also a zoom in on the doodles in the corner inspired by another part of the fic's most recent chapter:

I support Ruby shaking Oscar (and/or Oz) like a pringles can whenever they're being cagey little jerks.

[chaikachi]

Even though I only recognized 2/6 of the characters in your fanart challenge I just wanted to say what a delight it's been seeing more full color artwork from you! your highlights and shading are so smooth, I want to eat them

Ahhh thank you so much! Chefkachi is happy to serve 👩‍🍳

It was nice to make some fully rendered pieces for once. Been tricky trying to get back into drawing for a while now, and this challenge certainly helped. I missed it 😫

It was also really humbling seeing how few people were familiar with the characters I picked LOL. I am forever living in my 2010s semi-niche anime bubble, i suppose.

[st-whalefall]

Happy trick or treat season! 🍬

Happy Samhain, my friend! Imma pass this one to you like a hockey puck.

Incoming! Marzipan upon ye!

[st-whalefall]

@sigruned

X

[byakuya-mioda]

sigruned replied to your post:sigruned said: prepare to be sad 👀 I AM READY...

Ep 4 is also where trigger warnings are necessary, not just fro the end like in 2 but for the whole thing. I don’t know how much of that you’ve seen, but 4 ups the ante quite a bit

I’ve just finished Episode 1, and I don’t know enough about the rest of the game to tell what happens. But, oh goodness. Thank you for letting me know!