Final chapter will be posted some time next Sunday.
quick hiatus
Just doing a quick hiatus on this blog (just this one, I'll still be on Tumblr), probably for the next week or so. There's no problem, I was just flipping through my art files with no idea what to post for tomorrow, so it sounds like a little break is in order.
The next Muse chapter will show up as usual on Monday.
My old OC Pentecost. I never wrote much about her, but she was an extremely Machiavellian courtier who, despite her intentions to reform a corrupt government from the inside, often read more as a villain than a hero. Also she has one of my silliest names (in a very strong field).
The Suikoden 2 anime should include the Clive quest.
The SEES girls on a sleepover. Minako is the only one enjoying the horror movie, Mitsuru and Yukari are both scared of the horror movie, Aigis has racked up four different nail polish brushes onto her finger guns, and Fuuka waits quiet and prepared to see what her nails' fate will be.
daily-rayless reblogged
Could you do me a quick favor?
I'm an indie author and I'm working on the cover for my next book. If you have a second, could you glance at my past book covers and vote which one you like best?
1:
2:
3:
Each has a different feel, and this is a quick way to learn what people like.
Thank you! Please feel free to reblog to increase the sample size!
Jane and Loren from Metallic Love, the sequel to The Silver Metal Lover.
My feelings on the book are somewhat mixed -- I can only imagine that longtime fans of the first book, who'd grown up on it, had very mixed feelings about this sequel that came out of nowhere so long after the first. On one hand, I don't feel like TSML ever needed a sequel -- I think the ending stands beautifully on its own. On the other hand, ML does some interesting stuff, and I think it's clever and ambitious and reflective how Tanith Lee used it to "talk back" to her earlier book.
My biggest worry going in, and part of the time while I was reading, was that a sequel would would reframe/cancel out the first book in some way. But fortunately Lee was too skilled to let that happen. Does ML need to exist? I don't know. But it's a good book, definitely worth the read. And while I didn't like everything it did, I'll always be sad that Lee died before she could finish the trilogy, because I really have no idea what was going to happen with the ending ML gave us.
The Muse of Revision -- Chapter 34
Updates Mondays.
Oh, it's another Archer.
Finishing old art: Shinjiro and Minako, nuzzling up to your girlfriend and then your heads go *bonk*.
daily-rayless reblogged
Akantha, the protagonist of my latest book, the weird little local girl helps run a cult in the Roman colonies on the moon fantasy.
My mom is a lifelong bat and bird enthusiast, so growing up I was always aware that winged characters' wings are biomechanically way too small. A human-sized creature would need absurdly large wings to achieve any sort of flight.
But unless you're aiming for the strictest realism in your world-building, I think achieving a nice aesthetic effect is good enough. The Kynthians are the only winged race on the moon, and while they're not constantly flying (it'd be tiring; are you constantly running around?) and they don't build their homes high in trees or in the clouds, their wings are a very important part of their culture. I didn't want to infodump about that kind of thing in the text, but I was able to drop in brief mentions. Many Kynthians have rooms in their homes that are only accessible via flight, they have different means of "looping" their young children's wings to prevent them from flying (vastly unsuccessful), and the wings themselves are very difficult to keep warm during cold weather -- not only do you have to moisturize the membranes, unless you straight up cover them entirely you just have these huge swaths of naked body shivering in the elements. So in cold weather, most Kynthians swaddle their wings up in special woven covers and don't fly until spring again.
But I think my favorite aspect of writing a winged protagonist was using her two extra limbs to show what she's feeling -- her wings might lift when she's apprehensive, relax when she lets down her guard. She wraps them around people she loves, she uses them defensively when she's afraid of being attacked (those talons are sharp), she even hides behind them if she's feeling self-conscious. It gave me a whole new type of body language to play with.
I feel like if you had wings, they probably would end up affecting every area of your life and culture in little ways. If I ever come back to this fictional universe in a short story or anything, I'll probably speculate and extrapolate more details about Kynthians' wings. It's the sort of thing you can't really put a limit on.
They do mean I have to stipple in a lot more freckles though.
Rosa Joanna Farrell, one of my earliest favorite characters.
Thanks for the tag @iffylogic!
Post the very first piece of artwork that you ever posted publicly for your favorite fandom. Tag your friends!
I'll go with Tales of the Abyss as my favorite fandom, and I think this angsty AschNatalia piece would be the first, posted in January 2009 to deviantArt.
They don't look too bad -- Natalia particularly looks nice, I think -- but I had a lot to learn.
Tagging anyone who'd like to participate, but calling out @somacruising, @sweet-suzume, and @thunderboltfire in particular.
Gin and Prez from The Caligula Effect 2. I really like their dynamic. Anywhere, they're here to judge and question people.
Hakuno and Tamamo, hanging out on a back stoop somewhere. I wonder what they're talking about?
The Muse of Revision -- Chapter 33
Updates Mondays.