Dark Strange Daughter

Kiss 11/50

For day 1 of the #jayvikkissweek ✨

so... it's a fun photoshoot, but i'm sure i wasn't the only one scratching my head for what about it was supposed to be victorian - even if it's just victorian-inspired.

I mean, just look at this:

even just limiting our view to women's dress (because it's for sure not men's) and taking the trousers for granted, the silhouette is just not there at all! looking at fashion plates from the era, only at the veeery tail end of the century does the skirt start to slim down a little from pettycoats and bustles. and that loose top, it's just.... it's nothing

so naturally i decided to play some victorian-inspired dress-up with Roman myself

Our first look: inspired by early working women's attire, with a simple shirtwaist blouse and optional maroon wool jacket.

Roman's nobility though, not working class, so he requires fancier fits. Not to worry, we provide.

Our next look includes a twill and velvet bodice, to create an outfit to stroll and be seen in around town

now that's more like it! I love the big puffy 'leg-of-mutton' sleeves that kept coming back this century

And lastly, for those special occasions: the evening gown, styled with pearls, flowers, and lace

the white makes it nearly look like a wedding dress, but just take a look at what dresses in that era actually looked like! honestly this is a very basic dress considering the things they used to wear back then. srry roman but i aint drawing all of that

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

My revamped design of Remy/sleep I was looking at old drawings I did a while back of him and I think I failed to capture his energy then.

I love the Harem Birthday Roman photoshoot <3

I don't mean you can't get good at things through repeated practice. You can do that, I have done that, but I don't trust it.

I was driving this morning and thinking about how I have never developed the blasé contempt for it most people seem to despite never having caused an accident in 20 years because my sense of time is such that I might as well have been driving for a week. I'm a good, safe driver, but I do not have a heap of confidence in my driving despite having regularly done it for two decades because my sense of time is such that those two decades may as well not have happened.

I finished editing a novel today. When I publish it, it will be the 64th novel I have published in the last 10 years, not counting ghostwritten work. You'd think after a decade and 63 novels I'd be confident that I was capable of writing, editing, and publishing a novel—even be confident about the timeline for this—but no. No, I feel like I'm doing it for the first time, every time, and I was surprised to have finished the editing at all, let alone on time. Because those other 63 novels were published in a past I have a vague at best concept of. I have a record that says it happened but I do not feel it.

I cannot trust my future behaviour because for me there is functionally no past. I know it occurred, I have records, but I don't feel it the way people without this kind of memory issue do. I feel inexperienced at everything I've ever done and I cannot accurately estimate my skill level at anything, particularly not on the fly.

❝Today marks the anniversary of the first appearance of my Prince character, and for his Era Look, we took inspo from the Victorian Era, with its dynamic silhouettes and use of lace. Definitely was feeling the creative vibes during this shoot! Happy Birthday, Princey!! ❤️🎂❞

Because the moths themselves don’t eat and only live long enough to mate and then starve to death, the entire culture is made up of children and adolescents. The older children raise the younger ones, with families being made up of hatchmates from different years.

Because molts and eventual transformation into a short lived adult happen on a set schedule, families have a cycle— when your oldest set of siblings cocoon to become adults, you wait at the mating grounds and try to adopt their newborns after they pass. If that fails, you take any ‘orphans’ you can find.

Because death and birth are nearly simultaneous, they have a religion based around reincarnation, and infants with markings similar to a parent are often given their name. Claiming the offspring of a beloved family member is vitally important, because you want to be able to protect their soul and keep them close.

Because it’s hard to track the offspring of your male family members, there are sometimes major fights when a family sees an infant with familiar markings in another family’s clutch.