Your art is so gorgeous and expressive and idk how to say this well but, like, moody-- do you have any advice about how to improve those parts of a piece?
Thank you!! If I had to say, I think a lot of people underestimate how much hand acting can be used to covey emotions/intent. While expressions are also a very important part, i think hands play just as much into how you can read a character and scene! (extra points if the hands show underlying emotions that are not readily shown in the face!)
I dont have a lot of thoughts on this but man... the pain combining the "I deserved it" conversation with the gaslighter Mirror!Celine could reap. That conversation is driven by the fact that Rumi knows Damn Well Celine is not the person who did all those horrible things, and Celine seems not to.
But when the person who did all those horrible things *was*, to them, just Celine? For any longer than those three sentences? What can possibly be said that Celine would believe now, as far as ever seeing the monster she buried and the she who buried it as separate ever again? Not even her girls, who took everything she gave them on the cheek in both worlds, could.
Aughhh that would hurt so bad. And like Mira and Zoey are pointing out that they thought the things mirror!Celine was saying were wrong and fucked up, they were trying to mitigate harm, they weren’t just taking it, because they knew that something was wrong
And Celine’s just like. No it’s okay I am bad. I got it. It’s okay, really
To which everyone is like no!!! Not okay!!!!! We want to have a relationship with you
Celine: but I am the actual worst and you should just leave me to rot up here before I hurt you more
And there are two points of argument against this that actually kinda work. One, from Rumi: if you suck, then get up and do better. Fix it. Two, from Sarang: but you are the person who makes me feel safest and you can’t just leave me alone 🥺 you promised
Celine does not take either of these well, but she takes them, at least
I just want to hop in rq and thank you for this cool awesome blog it rocketed my love of bugs up by like ten times the original height and is one of my biggest motivators in writing my dnd campaign. I want to force everyone to play thrikreen bug people and force them to look at ur blog to make cool character designs thank you cool blog love the bugs
Thank you so much! You SHOULD force people to experience a bug-rich campaign. They will like it!
May I suggest my one nice bug tag for the coolest bugs that may inspire character designs:
ask about your arranged marriage au you say >:) :evil_hand_rub:
So. to begin with. Why and How is this what happened? is it a postwar diplomatic treaty thing, and Zuko is already too married to Mai to be the one wed? How much Hell did Azula and Katara put whoever suggested it through, and how did it end up happening anyways? What were each of the girls up to prior to the engagement? how do they feel about it? What does the world look like at the time of this AU, both in terms of the big worldwide stuff and the roles and relationships between the Gaang, whatever side characters are around, and their political positions?
Be warned: highly likely that I will continue to enquire
you have unleashed the most self indulgent lore dump. thank you so much for asking. my long winded rambles under the cut
the setting of this au has two major changes; aang is never discovered (im so sorry my baby boy) and iroh is a much more active player within the fire nation. essentially, iroh begins consolidating the white lotus almost immediately after azulon's murder. as such, the fire siblings become terribly co-dependant in both ursa and iroh's absence as he's constantly away scheming against ozai. zuko doesnt get burned at 14. he gets burned at 19! and azula kills ozai for it, setting off a domino effect that lands an underprepared iroh on the throne trying to end the 100 years war as per his agreement with the white lotus members (before azula jumped the gun)
the azutara marriage occurs for like 2000 reasons but the main one is that iroh is forced to make several concessions in order to end the war as his ministers are terribly pro-ozai, thanks to ozai's scheming before azula prematurely offed him, and that the northern water tribe refuses to sign and end the war with the FN, unlike the other nations. azula, having been the princess-general ravaging the earth kingdoms in a five-year long campaign, therefore didnt get to show her face in the water tribes, gets chosen as the one to marry into the southern water tribe. as both a savvy diplomatic move to solidify the peace and to work with said wife towards peace with their sister tribe. iroh has no choice but to agree, and azula as a loyal princess with duty to the throne, also has to agree. (she is terribly, extremely unhappy with this due to ursa-parallel related reasons. and its azula.)
katara is chosen both for her position as the daughter of the chief, and for her prowess as a master bender (to match azula's known reputation). katara herself has been working as a sort of renegade freedom fighter away from the south pole, mostly working against the admiral-prince zuko and his three year campaign against the water tribes. sokka and herself work with an elite team, the black tail wolf pack (extremely indulgent name please forgive me) as guerilla fighters against the fire nation essentially. katara is EXTREMELY unhappy about the marriage alliance that her father has signed her off to, but like azula, her duty to her people and to peace overrides her extreme dislike of the situation.
zuko is the admiral-prince, heir to the throne, burned and shamed by the late firelord ozai, and... marrying toph bei fong. NOW PLEASE hear me out on this. stay with me. as part of the peace agreed by iroh, and the fire nation's precarious position now that expansion and pillaging cant fund their economy, an agreement is made with the earth kingdoms to marry into the wealthiest family in the world. its purely an economic marriage, but since the bei fongs are essentially the only homogenous earth territory ''royals'' that aren't strictly attatched to one kingdom but all of them, and have a daughter to spare, well. their relationship is the funniest to me, they're very much a platonic-married-besties situation. zuko himself is conducting a dreadfully obvious affair with mai, and his siege-weapon of a wife does not care in the slighest. in fact she actively encourages it, as being wife to the heir to the fire nation throne gives her freedom away from her family to be herself. there will be rising tensions between the bei fongs and the fire royals, naturally, as well as toph's own character clashing with the 'no fun allowed' fire nation.
azutara's relationship is an EXTREME slow burn, enemies to enemy-wives to friends to lovers. they're both 20 at the time they're married, but both have been child soldiers for years. azula spends a week acting like an arrogant prat and treating her wife like a peasant through politicking power plays before katara just kicks her ass three times over and azula realises theres actually no power imbalance to play off of. she promptly begins acting like mr darcy. katara has to grapple with the very alien culture of the fire nation and stumbles through all the subtlties of both court and royal life, as well as having to deal with her enemy turned wife and the absolute paradox of a woman that azula is. AND negotiating with her hostile sister tribe into trying to broker peace after a generation of war. i think marrying azula is harder than the whole 'world peace' affair really. they're both miserable and angry and cant understand each other but still see each other
sokka will be an intermitten character, as he becomes a diplomat for the southern water tribe as well as a member of the three nations peace council set up in the wake of the war. im trying to add in suki but im unsure on how, perhaps as another representative or something. ursa will have a plotline and azula will NOT be happy about it at all. iroh is frankly wracked with guilt that in order for peace he has to make the last of his family utterly miserable. all their relationships are complicated and messy and everyone's a little awful
i think a really fun aspect of this au is my odd ideas about azula and gender. azula is, in the eyes of the fire nation, both male AND female. female as a princess, a woman who's royal duties involve marriage and so on. but her status as a master fire bender legally classifies her as male. honestly the fire nation cannot afford to disregard azula on gender lines, since she's the most powerful fire bender on the planet at this point. she's a general in the military too, a traditionally male held role, and so azula herself becomes a grey area in terms of legal gender. as such, azula is technically kataras HUSBAND, not wife. and with that comes all the expectations of a husband over a wife in a royal imperial court. very very indulgent of me i fear
i hope this lore dump/word vomit makes some sort of sense. please feel free to ask more abt this au!!!! i have many many worldbuilding hcs for the fire nation and this au <3333
6853. Have You Seen Trigon's Facial Hair? It Could be a Pantene Ad.
Demons are much more long-lived than most mortals, and as such mature slightly later by human standards. As Raven gets older, she find she inherited some traits from dear old dad. Horns, claws, and fangs aside, the most persistent feature-- regardless of how 'demonic' she is at any given moment-- is a set of truly wicked sideburns. Beast Boy, a fellow sideburn haver post-puberty says they match (and if he's in a silly goofy mood, he calls it Solid Evidence that they are Actually Definitely Biological Siblings, especially to goof on new Titans). Sometimes Raven simply cannot be assed to shave, but when she does she uses a good old-fashioned shaving knife.
I saw a couple of my most beloved celineposters were doing that 'send a fic title' ask game, and a lot of people were sending in song lyrics, so I figured it might be fun to shuffle my playlist and send some lyrics from whatever comes up as the prompt. You, my most admirable secondtolastrow, rolled "The Hazards of Love", "Here in Death (I Have Regained My Breath)", or "Spare the Rod (I Prefer the Lash)" from the song The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!) by The Decemberists (the song on this concept album in which the ghosts of the children a man murdered drag him to hell, which is fucking crazy for this prompt). I thought it'd be fun to give a few for you to pick from, please don't feel urged to do all three. I love your writing, and hope you like this prompt lol
That is a wild track for this game, I love it!
Spare the rod (I prefer the lash)—young Celine with increasing awareness that her household is not normal even amidst the context of a society where corporal punishment of children is broadly accepted as not abuse
Here in death (I have regained my breath)—something something Rumi’s been taught her entire life what to be afraid of. Burning her career, her reputation, her secrets. But, well… it honestly seems a lot nicer on the other side. In my head this is the post-Idol Awards/WISL installment of some larger au, if that makes sense?
The hazards of love—Everything Mira’s ever touched has turned to rot or bitten her back, culminating in that time that she got cursed to turn anyone who looked on her to stone. Enter: two idiots, entirely overconfident; one blindfold, extremely flimsy; and more mirrors than she knew existed
Send me a made up fic title and I’ll tell you what I would write for it
jesus christ every time i scroll down another post you have something fascinating to say abt the azula in ur brain. well?????? what happens to her post canon???!?!?
starrdio we HAVE to kiss. thank you for asking...
SO. my main vision of azula is that immediately post-war zuko has. absolutely no idea what to do with azula. he's just ascended the throne and he has half his country wanting him dead and he's only sixteen. azula was fire lord for a day, wanted to kill him, has tried to kill him, is probably still loyal to ozai (and god he is NOT telling her about the ozai bending-away situation rn. OR URSA.) so he places her in a highly secure prison until he's settled enough to figure out what to do with his war criminal baby sister
and the prison guards... well, they hate azula. to many of them, she's the closest thing they have to punishing ozai so they treat her accordingly (not like the child she is, but some sort of monster they pin all their anger and grief onto). they shave her head as a sign of her defeat, dishonouring her, they put her in a cell with no sunlight, and they regularly try to bait her. not that it ever works
azula goes nonverbal. for months. she's only in the jail for a few weeks before zuko is able to visit, sees her conditions, and promptly banishes the entire staff and takes her back to the palace. he puts her up her own wing of the palace, tries to care for her best he can, but azula is silent. she barely even looks at him, or anyone. it's like her spirit is just... gone. she shoves away all the familiar figures in her life - zuko, mai, ty lee, her servants, mirrors (for fear they're hallucinations. she no longer trusts her own reality and it's terrifying and she's so scared of her own mind. she refuses to bow to the false visions of living and dead, desperately trying to overcome this 'weakness')
for azula, her only words for nearly a year were her anguished screams and cries in the last agni kai. as she no longer feels worthy of her bending after her dishonour and defeat, she no longer uses her voice. her second greatest weapon, her wit and words and the way she weaved them, is gone. in it, azula remains
