#rainbowwhimsyart

Finally get to reveal @lostcap's D&D character commission for her darling Whims, aka Whimsical. I honestly think it's the best character illustration I've done yet! I'm so thrilled with how she turned out.

I...don’t actually.

It’s a miracle I’ve actually given Augus, Gwyn and Ash Celtic astrology starsigns in the first place.

I don’t have the birthdays of any of the Fae Tales characters (or any character) written down on any of their character information sheets. With Fae Tales that’s easy - fae don’t celebrate birthdays, and it’s not a ritual that’s important to them. They sort of mark the years that go by on the winter or summer solstice, or whatever they treat as ‘new year’s.’ So many fae may know their birthday, but won’t do anything for it. And Gwyn was never told his (he only found out when he read Crielle’s journals in COFT).

But even for like, human characters, or characters who might care (say, Mallory and Lewis, or idk, any of the Fae Tales characters in human AUs) I’ve never pinned it down? *hangs head*

I actually really love the tradition of celebrating and doing fanart for characters on their birthday. This seems fairly popular in Japan, and a lot of my favourite mangaka like Yana Toboso typically do illustrations for character’s birthdays. Or you’ll get a huge run of fanart for a character on that day. It was also great for Mo Dao Zu Shi, where this happens too.

I’ve only really noticed it more in the past couple of years, because I’ve swung far more to watching Eastern media overall, so I follow more of those fandom blogs and Twitters.

Initially, when I started thinking of Mosk and him losing his ability to hear the trees, I was actually going to have Fenwrel make like, crystal ‘hearing aids’ that would tune into the wavelengths of trees and allow him to hear something, even though it wouldn’t be as good as what he could initially hear.

For varying reasons that didn’t work, because Fenwrel and Gulvi have to stay behind and run the Unseelie Court, but also because I wanted to explore a total sense loss, and embrace the challenge of writing the loss of a sense that we literally don’t have as people, and still write it in a way that does justice to it and what it means to Mosk. (And also what it means when he begins to find ways of living without it).

But that was going to be one of Mosk’s arcs and it was one of the many I shifted or changed as I started writing, and I liked another path more because I thought it suited him better.

*

I would say that Augus was able to heal over half of the locations of blighted land, and that others he hasn’t reached yet, require too much of his power to be safe to heal, or alternatively, have Genius loci that just reject him outright and refuse his offer to help them heal.

But the willingness of fae to live on previously cursed land is still low. Most fae are the opposite of Gwyn - they are superstitious, and they prefer to stay away from places they have deemed cursed. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, the landscapes themselves are still thriving, and I’d say fae here and there are utilising the spaces. I don’t think there’s much ‘moving back’ though, Augus’ actions directly and indirectly killed a lot of the fae who had lived on that land, and so it would mostly be newcomers making those places their homes now, if they dare.