An idea I had for a trio of paintings a long time ago and only just finished now. (click for larger)
Akuliina Volkova, Emperor’s Wrath Continue reading
Sith Triptych
Leave a Reply
Author Archives: Illinia
Murlesson
Had a cranky start to the day (why I gotta drive an hour to get to work on Saturdays, totally ruins the rest of my day) so I decided to draw a full-effort Murlesson with an anime lens flare??? I’m not going to question it. (Referenced some stock image of a dude in a hooded cloak off Google image search)
Oddly, this is the first time I’ve drawn OG Murlesson for all that he’s been so prolific in spawning plot bunnies and AUs in my head. Drew while listening to the Star Wars OT OST.
I’ve been drawing more than usual recently (by which I mean, more than zero). It’s more inspiring than writing at the moment, I guess??
Captain Guillaume
I actually drew something this winter; I drew a picture of a possible NPC for our campaign – a half-elf swashbuckler rogue named Captain Guillaume. I think he’s a pirate. He dual-wields rapiers and has a sailing ship, I know that much. His face is based off Clementine Delauney of Visions of Atlantis, because he needs to be HOT, and his outfit is based off google-searching for Italian Renaissance doublets because he needs to be stylish. Unconvinced by the colour scheme, if you have other suggestions for outfit colours let me know and I’ll try them if I ever draw him again.
A little bit rushed (but still pleased with it ’cause it’s pretty good for my current state of burn-out); it was a Christmas gift for my best friend the DM who would eventually be playing this character.
FFXIV: Thancred
Somehow, I wrote a chapter. It took a long time because I am chronically overstressed with work right now, and future chapters will probably continue to be slow (until the winter holiday season? I might write faster then.). But now that I put Scrivener on my tablet, I can write in comfy places, and even times when I’m not at home. It’s nice to be able to do that.
But exciting things have happened! First of all, Aentfryn talked to me and we worked out a character arc for him! I’m so glad, he felt a little pointless until now. I had wanted a contrasting character to all the young hot excitable heroes when I made him, but since he didn’t openly want any of the same things that they did, it was tough for me to figure out what his deal was. But he has an arc now, and that’s why we’re starting this chapter with him, to celebrate!
Another thing is that despite the game plot being absolutely thrilling and me wanting to show you the impact it has on my PCs, I need to not forget to focus on the relationships between the PCs, and between the PCs and NPCs, above all else (and not just the romantic ones). I want more bonding moments between all of these people! They’re friends, right?
Vivienne gear update! Yes, she is beginning the Anima Weapon quests this chapter, but also – I have decided that she’ll get her “character design” Omicron chestpiece at level 70, when you’re supposed to get it, so at this point in the story she should be wearing something like the High Allagan chestpiece, that’s also a pretty sexy tank chestpiece.
I’ve been playing through ARR on a new character and I’m really excited at the changes I’ve seen so far. Toto-rak isn’t the worst dungeon ever! Copperbell’s new bosses feel better too! The new piñata-less Rhitahtyn battle is so awesome I almost want to go back and rewrite my chapter! Castrum is beautifully streamlined! However, despite the mechanics of the new Lahabread battle being much more exciting, I can’t condone canonically killing (and rezzing) the WoL so soon in the story. We’ve been a zombie this whole time??? No, even if it highlights Laha’s ancient power and the WoL’s noobness, that doesn’t sit well with me.
Finally, I learned that I actually know more of the ARR voice actors than I thought! For instance, Urianger is the same voice as Fenris from DA2! (and Raubahn is Hawke : O ) And most importantly, Thancred is voiced by Taliesin Jaffe, under an alias in the credits! No wonder I thought he had a sexy voice in ARR! It’s a lot like his Percy de Rolo voice. I like Taliesin’s Thancred better than Peter Bramhill’s Thancred (his is a lot less sassy, imo) so now that I know who it is, I can just think of Percy. : ) Continue reading
BC Trip 2022: Exterior
After the events of the previous post, we got back on Friday night from our trip all over the BC mainland, and the rest of the trip was almost entirely on Vancouver Island. Saturday we just spent relaxing, I think we made Japanese-curry-in-a-box for dinner. Played some videogames (Tales of Arise is very on my to-play list!). Caught up with internet friends. I don’t remember what else right now, so it must have been properly chill. I think we went to buy beer? Tharash wanted to check out the local breweries so we bought three cans at the liquor store. Tharash picked two based on recommendations from the store worker, and I picked one based entirely on the label art which was pretty. We split all of them and drank one a day.
Sunday was a big day, we went whale watching! So we walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf, saw the houseboats and all the brightly painted unique designs, and got on our tour boat along with a large group of teenagers from… I think it was Brazil? A lot of them weren’t dressed for cold sea air, so I hope they were okay. The first part was spent just getting out away from shore, and the boat went very fast. When it slowed down again, somewhere halfway to Port Angeles, we were invited up to the bridge along with the only other two people who weren’t with the teenage tour group. We saw orcas from up there! The whale watching tours all talk to each other about where the animals are, and there are laws against getting closer than 200m, so there was a ring of boats around the whales, who were just chilling out – they didn’t breach or anything. It was also interesting for me to see the Olympic Mountains more close than normal. Unfortunately, after a little time up there, I started to feel seasick. The crew had some nice ginger chewy candies, and I had my water, but it didn’t stop me from actually being seasick off the back. I spent most of the rest of the trip half-napping on the back benches to avoid feeling any more sick. Tharash didn’t get sick at all because he is much more used to being on the water, and he had a very good time with his camera. Continue reading
BC Trip 2022: Interior
Last year was going to be the year, but there were still too many restrictions on, so it was this year that my best friend came over for another of our crazy travel adventures. Ever since he caught a glimpse of BC in 2018, he’d been wanting more, and I’d been wanting to show him, so here we are!
Some of these pictures are from his camera; some are from my new phone (and a couple are from his phone). I really like having a panorama function now! Choosing pictures was really really hard though! (for the full unlabelled photo experience click here) Continue reading
Devil’s Due: Part 38: Perchance to Scheme
Okay now we’re done. EDIT: I rewrote everything for a third time, for reasons explained after the chapter.
Thank you again to Tharash/Aristheron, who allowed me to use his character and mangle his story into something entirely new, who beta-read from Chapter 31 to 33, and helped shape the rest of the story arc strategically, and gave me advice through all these years of writing. He made it exponentially better from my first drafts and inspired me a lot. Without him this final, most original arc would have fallen flat.
Part 38: Perchance to Scheme
It had been six months. Six long months since his Ascension, and yet they had flown by in a tearing hurry. He didn’t want to talk about all the times he’d nearly died again some more, but he was still very much alive, to the disappointment of many people. Some of those people he had eliminated himself, or arranged for their demise, both to get back at them and to make life easier. And every day that he lived, he grew stronger.
Aristheron was still there, and Akuliina, and he found himself working closely with both of them, especially Akuliina. It was… fun. The Empire had had far too many crises in such a short time, crises that the three young Sith had been called on to quell together – to be sure, any nation went through periods of great turmoil periodically, any cursory glance at the past would show that. It was just very good luck for him that he happened to be in power during such a time.
He swivelled his chair so he could look out of the window of his grand office high in the Sith Sanctum, putting his feet up on the right wing of his desk. His hands were steepled across his chest as he contemplated both the never-ending thunderstorm of Kaas City and his next moves. He really didn’t like Darth Aruk over in the Ministry of Philosphy, and the feeling was mutual. But it wasn’t time to pull him down yet. Far better to infiltrate the other Ministries, the other Spheres, and plant resources to prepare for his ultimate goal.
I mean, who really expects the librarian to be the terrorist? he asked himself, inwardly amused at both the over-simplification of his duties and the way they hid his true nature. He rather thought he’d been doing well at proving himself to the Empire, setting himself up as ‘helpful, but not to be crossed’, pretending his only agenda was to learn his place as quickly as possible lest the others kill him for incompetence. Which was a little bit true, but any subservience they detected from him was an act; he’d submit to no one ever again. When he got better at his job, he’d switch his open hidden agenda to bickering with Aruk. Let them think that such a petty rivalry was all the danger he could muster towards them.
His messages inbox beeped in the tone that indicated it was a message from his cult. He almost tuned it out, but after a minute more, turned back to his desk and checked it.
It was a forwarded message… from Ashara.
Hey! What’s up? It’s been a while! I’ve heard you’re keeping busy with Aristheron while I’m away. I hope you’re not being mean to too many people. I miss you, do you wanna hang out and catch up? Maybe on Commenor again? Let me know the next time you’re out that way and I’ll get the Rurouni to stop by! We’ll actually be in the area in a few days, but I know it’s short notice and I don’t know where you’re at and you’re probably stupid busy as usual. But I wanted to take the opportunity to say hi anyway, since it’s been a while. Hope you’re doing well!
Love, Ashara
He flattened his hands against the desk, trying to contain the uncontainable – the spark of Light within him welling up in unexpected joy, cutting through all his dark schemes with a pure happiness and delight that only she could bring out in him, even now. He missed her terribly, and… she didn’t hate him.
Rylee: return message. “I’ll be there in three days.” He sent the message and stood, touching his comm. “Revel. Warm up the Viper. I’m leaving Dromund Kaas.”
Thank you so much for reading! This story was a massive (300K words) 5-year endeavour, and in many places it went in unexpected directions. If you managed to stick through the whole thing (and I’m guessing you did if you’re here), I’d be interested in your thoughts! Even if it’s been years, I check comments regularly.
So in the previous version of this ‘epilogue’ I received a comment from someone saying it didn’t really feel like the end of the story? And that person is 100% correct, because it’s not the end of the story, but I did a bad job of making it feel like the end of the fic – I think because I still had Ashara/Murlesson soundtracks I wanted to use (Jonathan Young’s covers of Shut Up and Dance and Every Time We Touch, and Disturbed’s You’re Mine), and because I wasn’t planning to write a sequel so I wanted to let everyone know how things were going in Murlesson’s future a bit.
However. I’m now attempting to begin work on writing a sequel. And it’s going to be just as big as this one. Even though it’s annoyingly hard to be ambitiously creative when feeling on the edge of burning out all the time, and I also feel like I need to play all the content so I can fit in my OC story arcs, so it’s going to take a while because ugh I hate playing that game. So if you read the previous version of this epilogue and are wondering where all the content went, fear not! It’s going to get recycled into the new fic (tentatively called The Devil You Know). I’m also working on a Holiday Special, because it’s funny.
(more self-critique: I feel, upon months-later read-throughs, that Act 4 is a bit uneven. It certainly has stakes and tension, but it was difficult to create a through-line of plot, because I decided to have it do a lot of timeskips. I also had a lot of ideas for how to make Murlesson’s life hard, and maybe using ALL of them was overkill on the pacing. So it is what it is, but I’ll be keeping these thoughts in mind next time I write something similar. : D )
Anyway, I’ll see you in an unspecified future time frame with more Sith bois and girls! Murlesson/Aristheron/Akuliina team-up! Cheers!
Devil’s Due: Part 37: Ascension
I’m actually surprised that a few people weren’t sure which companion Murlesson was going to pick to keep and which to put in the Rakata box, I thought it was pretty obvious. ; )
Turns out this is the second-last chapter after all because I always underestimate how long social scenes are going to go. ONE MORE I PROMISE
Part 37: Ascension
Thanaton’s body was unmoving where it sprawled, his presence was well and truly snuffed out. The final explosion of his soul had not done much damage, only sweeping a hot, bitter wind over everyone. Murlesson let himself float to the ground and nearly staggered from weariness, as he capped his internal wellspring, pulling his aura back in close – though he wasn’t as careful as usual, what was the point? The whirlwind of rubble collapsed unceremoniously, and the dark swirling clouds overhead dissipated like they’d never been. Continue reading
Devil’s Due: Part 36: Darth Nox
Soundtracks for this chapter: Scene one gets a blend of two of the best soundtracks from Corpse Party, The Nightmare of the School Years (which I used before but it’s still good) and Chapter 5’s Main Theme. But the final fight is upon us! I’ve used so many different tracks for this fight I have a whole playlist just for this one fight. The first one on there was The Stains of Time from MGR (for some reason I’ve always felt like that was the most edgey teenage boy song on the OST), which in a way was a callback to the very first soundtrack of this story, from the very first chapter, being I’m My Own Master Now also from MGR. Then over time the playlist also expanded to include Angel of the Dark by Aviators as a callback to when Murlesson first showed power and mysticism in public (although in this scene it actually goes at the end), and then Change the World by Man With a Mission, and finally a song which I think is called something about ParadiseLost (Belial Avatar BGM) from Granblue Fantasy (I felt “let me feel the power that could rip me to shreds” was a pretty appropriate chorus line!). I hope it lives up to the hype I’ve built!
Part 36: Darth Nox
Bursting through the door down from the roof, he nearly crashed into Revel. “Had a fight with Shara, huh?”
“Shut up,” Murlesson growled, storming past him at a run. “I don’t have time. She’s in trouble.”
“So you’re going to rescue her anyway, of course,” Revel said, turning to jog after him. “She’s really got you wrapped around her finger.”
Murlesson turned, eyes raw and blazing. “Don’t you talk about either of us like that.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Revel said. “I’m surprised you haven’t had more fights-“ Continue reading
Devil’s Due: Part 35: Paradigm
Sorry to the people who don’t like this sort of drama? (and yes I threw in a bit about my obsession with urban planning lol – in my opinion, Corellia in-game has the perfect aesthetic for Corellia, it’s just how I imagined it… but from an immersion standpoint, it doesn’t look like a place I would want to live. BioWare is really, really bad with big maps and it’s particularly bothersome to me here. There’s no draw to exploring because every bit looks the same as every other bit. (the MMO with the best, most explorable maps, imo, is probably GW2.))
Part 35: Paradigm
The tunnels were dark and he’d lost all sense of direction. A full battalion of enemy soldiers led by Lord Kogni, a fraction of the attacking force but still enough to give him a bad day, had pursued him into the depths of Coronet City and were right behind him as he ran. Continue reading