Fundraiser Masterpost

Did some writing while procrastinating on drawing Cecie’s reference sheets. It’s rough, and I haven’t decided if it’s canonical or not, but here’s a concept for Cecie and Francis meeting (written from Francis’s POV):

Featuring: Cecie (she/they), Francis (they/them)

Mentioning: Maddox (he/him), Inanna (she/it)

With Maddox’s help, I’ve gained a decent grasp on the local language and culture. While before I had to use magic to surmount the language barrier, we now converse quite comfortably in his native tongue. I’m teaching him the Primordial language, too, but that one will take longer for him to master. Until I learned about his people’s customs, I had remained in isolation, not wanting to embarrass myself (or worse, garner suspicion of my origins).

I decided I was now ready to pay a visit to someone important. Important to him, and revered by the general public. Although Inanna had been keeping tabs on her for a while, I’ve never properly met her. Today, we’re going to fix that. Maddox was able to pull some strings to allow her and I to meet privately, so we wouldn’t have to be wary of the eyes and ears in her walls. I do wonder what he said when first mentioning me to her.

She had an ethereal sort of beauty, like she was standing with one foot in the realms of the arcane. She was always immaculately dressed; thick white hair braided to frame her face, modest but elaborate clothing draped over her figure to add to her mystique. Her kind grey eyes often seemed distant, as if she was listening to words the rest of us cannot hear. She carried herself with poise and grace (and forearm crutches, sometimes). She was one of the few people I struggled to read, her fair face a perfect mask of calm. It’s needless to say that she caught my eye, especially after Maddox told me about her unique gift and the people who abuse it.

I strode into the room, idly examining my nails, stopping when I saw that the woman had already arrived. She sat on the couch with her legs folded and hands clasped in her lap. When I entered, she appeared to snap out of a daze, eyes boring into me with surprising intensity.

“Francis.”

“Cecie.” I settled in the plush chair adjacent to her, getting comfortable, with my eyes never leaving hers.

“Tell me why I’ve been seeing you every night in my dreams for the past six months.” Cecie’s voice is soft, and delicate, but no less serious. I carefully controlled my reaction, not wanting to betray anything incriminating.

“I don’t know, Cecie. That could be caused by any number of things. I’d have to see your dreams to give you a definite answer.”

“You’d… be able to do that?” The tone of her voice shifted ever so slightly. I raised an eyebrow. “As in, see my dreams? I thought only I could...”

The corner of my lips quirked up as I responded. “Yes. Though, I won’t without your consent. I wouldn’t want to violate your privacy.”

Cecie grew quiet, eyes now fixed on a faraway point. She idly twirled a lock of her hair in her neatly manicured fingers. I’ve intrigued her, I can tell. And she has intrigued me.

“…Interesting. I’ve… I’ve tried showing others before, but… it never seems to work. They aren’t able to discern what they see, and… sometimes I can’t, either…” Cecie sighed wistfully, falling silent again.

I’m more than a little surprised that she admitted this so quickly. From what I’ve heard, Cecie hasn’t ever struggled to understand the signs she sees. She’s always been held up as being the flawless mouthpiece of the Divines. I can’t help but wonder how much of her image has been fabricated by the ones around her. Who Cecie is, behind the veil.

I reached out and gently took one of her hands in my own, tracing the lines of her palm with my thumb. Her hands were soft, and cold, and trembling ever so slightly, like she thought I wouldn’t notice her anxiety. She glanced back at me, startled by the contact.

“I can help with that… if you’ll allow me to.” I was close enough to smell the faint scent of lavender that clung to her skin. The soothing fragrance suited her perfectly. “You aren’t the first seer I’ve met in my time.”

“I…” Cecie pursed her lips, brows furrowed. “…Who are you, Francis?”

“A friend, if you’d like me to be.” I lowered my voice, matching her soft tone. “I don’t want to overstep my bounds, but.. I will say that Maddox has shared some about your situation. And… I understand how it feels.”

Cecie’s eyes widened as she took in a sharp breath. She gripped my hand tighter than either of us expected her to. “Wh- what did he say about me?”

“Essentially, that you live with overbearing relatives and haven’t had much of a say in what goes on in your life. He didn’t go into specifics.” I gave a wry smile, somewhat regretting having brought the topic up. Alas, it was bound to happen at some point.

“…He told me that you’d be able to help, if I reached out to you. I… I want to believe him…” Cecie trailed off, attention returning to where our fingers were now intertwined. Unsure what to make of me.

Now I knew I had her hooked. The desperation in her voice was well concealed, but not well enough. This is the voice of a woman who is desperate to live. A voice I’m all too familiar with.

“Then allow me to prove him right.”

Trick or treat, but we pull up a UNO reverse card (whatever that does, we've only once played UNO and forgot everything about it), and we give you this plastic pony we took a photo of once at night.

He says you seem nice so he won't eat your soul :33

i humbly accept this marvelous gift 😁

When’s your birthday then?

jan 28!

so i caved and now have a sideblog for the arcana: @vesuvian-vampire

dunno how active i’ll be on it but i figured i might as well make one just in case! i’m generally not a fandom person so the main purpose for the blog right now is to document my style studying, once i get around to doing it

because yeah. i’m challenging myself to try to emulate the game’s style. all art i post on that blog will be adhering to that challenge!

that moment when the nickname you’ve been known as for years is no longer applicable but it’s too iconic to ditch

a number of people call me coffee, which arose when i used to have a coffee addiction, but now even one cup’s worth of caffeine is too much for my lil ole heart so my blood pressure drops LMAO

many thanks for inviting me to do one :)) !!

@caustic-caffeine and I did a collab!! :)

figured i’d add to this! here is a process reel going into how i generally do things, and an unlisted youtube video with the speedpaint and additional thoughts is in the works! (because i’m a masochist like that…/nsrs)

obviously i’m still working to improve and this isn’t a tutorial per say; it’s just explaining how i do things, since a few people wanted to know and it seemed fun to talk about lmao

(also, this is fran’s mermay ref, not canonical in the slightest but i figured i’d make one for funsies yk?)

since instagram decided to be hot and sexy and make this image crunchy on their site:

[francis, ayelet (ayelet’s @boxxed-upkr ‘s)]

I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

Pajiba

How Many More Times Can We Say It? Your Harry Potter Addiction Is Funding Transphobia

When one person can give £70,000 to a hate group's legal funds, maybe it's time to bin the Dobby plushies.

further solidifies the point of posting your work with ai poisoning applied! it isn’t a permanent solution, but it’s the best we have for if you wanna keep posting with your work not getting scraped as easily!

how does it feel knowing tumblr is the only (i think) safe space with no ai

i’ll be real with you: there aren’t any truly ”safe” platforms out there while good, universal regulations aren’t in place. nothing’s stopping ai bros from going to tumblr and manually grabbing images to train their algorithms on. i feel like platforms not doing the same (or at the very least, making it a permanent easy option to opt out) is bare minimum for any platform that wants to respect its users (yes, including the users who don’t post art, since on instagram for example they’re scraping ALL posts, not just art).

i’m happy that to my knowledge tumblr is still a platform that wants to respect the artist community, but either way i’d still be posting. we aren’t gonna win against ai by running away from the platforms that don’t respect us— we’ll win by staying and supporting each other, continuing to use the current ai poisoning methods, and campaigning for our rights as artists and copyright holders of our work!