Tradition vs Modernity vs Comradery
+ context & lore:
In the first drawing, Fernando is wearing a capote de paseo, which is what bullfighters wear before the match begins, as seen below:
In the second, Seb is shouting the very familiar "Olé" which is shouted by the crowd to praise the matador. He's a little brat, so of course he's yelling it for himself, but he did get many 💐
The third(which was a random sketch I had that I didn't think I'd finish tonight, so ignore if its messy) has very important context to me. Before going to the final act and killing the bull, matadors dedicate their montera(hat)(and symbolically: their kill) to a a specific person in the audience(or just the public as a whole.) Seb and Fernando are finally in the same color! Seb is bowing!!! And Fernando is honoring Seb!!!! Also ignore that I drew Seb's post-retirement hair. Though, maybe this drawing is supposed to represent Fernando making a dedication to his now-gone rival 😔(Seb: stop telling people im dead!)
Now, some more lore :D
So I talked about this in my last matador post but I'll expand more. I think it's very funny to characterize Fernando in this au as this fun-hating traditionalist. Because you have to understand; he's only this way when it comes to Seb. Because you absolutely KNOW he was doing silly, unserious shit back when he was younger. But absolutely god forbid Seb do anything silly.
It's very ironic because there literally is a part in the third act of a bull fight where it's basically encouraged to be a bit silly. This is a tad morbid, but basically right before they deliver the killing blow, some show their mastery over the bull by doing some superfluous action(ex. kissing the bull, kneeling in front of the bull.) There's some guy who literally would lean on the bull and mime taking a call. But anyways, Seb would def do this. I've not been able to draw it exactly how I want, but he would bend down and do his little bull horn symbol and mime charging at the bull. (Fernando, trying to make up reasons to hate Seb: oh my god, look at this blatant disrespect, look how he is disrespecting the bull, I cannot believe how rude this boy is!)
Also there's something to be said about how the matador shows mastery over the bull by kissing it or bowing to it...and Seb is technically the bull in this au and Fernando is the matador. There's just this unfortunate level of weird power inbalance that still lingers even though their rivalry is over and can't be affected anymore. There was no succinct answer about who truly was better because Seb was forced out of it. So there's always gonna be this level of "is he just pitying me? Is he just mocking me? Is he just patronizing me?" on Seb's part whenever Fernando praises him or makes dedications to him. And Fernando's always going to be haunted by the fact that there's no answer to who is truly better because he'll never know if Seb had reached his full potential or not. Anyways, they also have nasty sex while wearing their costumes and do weird bull/matador roleplay :)
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My friend is running a text-based rpg campaign, and I'm absolutely in love with it, so I decided to draw a 'cover' for each day in the story. We'll see if I can do one for each day, but I'm SO proud of how these turned out so far - all of them are inked in my notebook first, and then coloured digitally. If anyone's interested in the story, I've explained more about it all under the cut!
OKAY. So the game is called City of Mists, and basically it's...kinda hard to explain, but I'd call it 'cyberpunk noir', but with a 90s technological aesthetic. Kinda like when you read Issac Asimov's books and they're using computers but it's all cassettes and film-based technology. Anyway, it's awesome. Every character has a normal life in the city - their 'logos' - but there are some characters who are called Rifts, who have something mythological manifest within them - their 'mythos'. Now, the mythos can kinda be anything, but the point is that it's a legend or story that manifests within the character, and thus gives them new abilities. And every Rift has to balance their logos and their mythos - because to delve too much into your mythos means you forget your normal life and become entirely consumed by the mythos...but to focus too much on your logos means to lose, and forget, your mythos entirely. The 'mist' of the city obscures mythological and supernatural things from those who haven't 'awakened' yet - but Rifts can see through the mist.
So, my little guy is - sighs. Okay. Y'all are gonna laugh. Please be aware that I know, okay? I know. It's fine. This is a choice I've made. But he's called Nakis Sandhu, and he's an investigative journalist (NOT with amnesia) who, when he was a kid, was involved in a train accident that killed his parents, but him and his twin sister miraculously survived. He's trans, and he has a van - he doesn't live in it, thank goodness, but it is important because his mythos is Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (this is why he looks like Sacha Dhawan, because like....Sacha Dhawan should play Captain Nemo and I'll die on that hill). And so Nakis, when his mythos awakened, turned his van into the Nautilus - Captain Nemo's submarine - and so it now works underwater too, and can travel undetected. He also becomes like, a technological genius and can invent stuff on the fly, but he never studied engineering or anything - it just comes to him in flashes of inspiration.
Nakis' main thing is that he's trying to figure out what happened in the train crash when he was a kid. He saw something different to everyone else, because he saw through the mist - what everyone else thought was an accident was actually two Rifts duking it out (I think). One of these Rifts was a blue bull that is apparently called 'the Bull of Thunder', and the other was a man with fire based abilities - called 'The Burning Man'. On Day 2, Nakis discovered a metal case that had belonged to the Burning Man, that had been hidden for twenty years - since the day of the accident - and was full of clues, including some photographic film that needed developing. Unfortunately, seems that there's a strange filter on the photos, so it's impossible to tell what's on them...luckily, my guy made friends with a photographer on Day 1 (who I believe is another player character) whilst investigating something else, and as a result he's now passed the film on to him, in the hopes that he'll be able to clear them up.
One funny thing: Day 0 was supposed to be a 'chill' day to figure out how the game mechanics worked, and figure out what your character would do on a normal day. Nakis immediately went to investigate something and then nearly ended up drowning RIP. On Day 1, when continuing to investigate the thing from Day 0, he...got shot in the shoulder HAHAHAH but he's fine, he's doing great, he didn't bleed out in his apartment which is always a win. He also bumped into another player character by doing this - so yay!
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