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Description

I'm so happy Shadow got approved in time to participate in the event!!

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Shadow’s nictitating membranes flick closed and open again as a gust of frostbitten wind surges violently, carrying with it various debris. A shower of powdery snow from a recent storm, a few crackling dry leaves, even some flecks of dirt that have somehow escaped being cemented into the rock-solid ground. With the gust of wind also comes a resurgence of the Void.

The familiar unsettling feeling, empty and aching, weighs heavily on Shadow’s heart. It drives her to search. She pokes her flat head into nooks and crannies between ice-slicked rocks, but they hold no secrets for her to find. She scales the peaks of her frozen mountainside boundary, but they hold no answers. Only more snow. It’s so cold here in the northern mountains of Greenland, that even in midsummer everything remains chilly, frosted, hardened with lack of energy. Desolate. Like the feelings in Shadow’s not-heart. Her transformation into an esk never sat well with her, never felt… right. Something has felt off ever since that fateful day.

Is it the gaping hole in her memories, or the sense of being trapped by something that wasn’t her choice? Will finding who she was help? Or might it only disturb her further? Shadow doesn’t know. And, secretive as ever, she keeps such questions to herself.

Interrupting her contemplations, a gentle tug on her soul captures Shadow’s attention. It feels… like the blooming of something gentle. A seed she didn’t even know was there awakening within her. Wary of the sensation, she attempts to bury it beneath brooding thoughts. What was she in her past life? Why can’t she remember something so basic as that, while she can remember so much about what was done to her? Was she a human, or an animal? How old was she? What was her favorite color, food, smell, flower, anything? Did she like the ocean? Had she ever been? Did she ever feel the salt water on her skin, taste the brine on the air from the gentle breeze?

Wait… she hadn’t intended to think about the ocean. She hadn’t ever thought about it before. Yet, there it was again. That quiet yet insistent blooming, tugging on her consciousness. Still wary of the call, Shadow turns it over in her mind. It seems innocent enough. Looking off towards the coast, which now she can somehow sense, she can tell the blossoming feeling yearns for her to go there.

Faced with the call’s gentle insistence, Shadow hesitantly decides to venture beyond her boundary. She will not leave her biome. Terrible and desolate and frostbitten as they might be, the polar regions feel more like home than anywhere else. She isn’t sure why this is. Still, it’s one of very few clues she possesses about who she may have been… and the frosty, harsh lands cater to her personality very well. No one to bother her about her past. No one to ask invasive questions, or demand answers she doesn’t have. No one to try and force their ridiculous, cheery dispositions on her, and no mortal life forms too innocent to be acquainted with the harsh realities of existence. Are marine life forms acquainted with those terrible realities?, she wonders. Do they understand how futile the fight for life can be?

Continuing to muse on how marine life forms might view the world, Shadow descends ice-encrusted cliffs, traverses frozen hillsides, passes desolate tundra, until she finally arrives at a snowy beach. The blooming call in her not-heart swells from a quiet seed into a thriving bud. It’s a deep yearning that’s also somehow satisfying in and of itself. Open, but filling. Room for more, yet enough by itself. Despite her generally negative disposition, Shadow feels… almost good, being here. The sensation is thrilling and worrisome together. Does she have any right to feel good, knowing all that was done to her, knowing all that’s wrong in this world? Can it be possible to feel relief, even without having her memories back?

Shaking herself, Shadow mercilessly quells the sensation. No, she will not allow herself to feel happy again. Not yet. Not when she’s trapped in this little not-body, ethereal and strange, when her purpose is clearly to discover … what her purpose is. Alright, she doesn’t know what her purpose is. She’s angry about that, and upset about her transformation, and none of this is fair. And that’s precisely why she can’t let herself be distracted from discovering what’s happening here. Investigate the weird yearning, figure out what the heck this blooming is, then return to her mountains to search.

Nodding her head brusquely, she jumps down from the ledge she was standing on, and onto the snowy beach below. She stalks from shadow to shadow. Following the tugging sensation, she passes by strange clusters of objects. Life vests, coral pieces of unnatural shapes, discarded minerals, skeletons, plastic containers, scrap metal, kelp, beached wood, and more; the variety surprises Shadow. She didn’t expect so much garbage to litter the coast. Eventually, following the mysterious yearning, she ventures out onto a peculiar stretch of beach. Towards the end of the peninsula, a cluster of objects almost seems to echo the blooming in her chest.

A polished conch shell, generally brown, but with patches more orange, red and yellow than others, and deeper brown stripes, rests in the snow as if placed there intentionally. Close to it rests a strange greenish rock, semi-translucent and very reflective. Somehow, Shadow knows it to be a variety of green obsidian. And a third object, some sort of eccentric sword-shaped trinket, metallic and black, with spheres stacked on top of one another instead of a blade.

Looking from one object to the others, Shadow knows which one echoes the quiet yearning the most. Using her levitation ability, she picks it up, and ventures on with it.

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total AP: 112

total GP: 45.5

ART portion:

Base Score: 10 AP (Shaded Illustration)
+5 AP (Full Body)
+30 AP (Full/Scenic Background)
+20 AP (Event Bonus)

+5 AP (personal work bonus)

Total AP per submission: 70

Base Score: 4 GP (Shaded Illustration)
+2 GP (Full Body)
+10 GP (Full/Scenic Background)
+10 GP (Event Bonus)
Total GP per submission: 26

Written portion:

WORD PALETTE USED: "Yearning, Blooming, Quiet"

Base Score: 19 AP (Writing: 974 words)
+10 AP (Event Bonus)
+8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)

+5 AP (personal work bonus)

Total AP per submission: 42

Base Score: 9.5 GP (Writing: 974 words)
+4 GP (Event Bonus)
+6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)
Total GP per submission: 19.5

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Want a super cool drawing of YOUR character??

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN!!

lesascommissions.carrd.co/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You do NOT have permission to copy, download, re-post, or use this piece (or character design) in any way. My art is not for use as NFT's, resale, or AI in any way, shape or form. Please respect my art!!

Description

I'm so happy Shadow got approved in time to participate in the event!!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shadow’s nictitating membranes flick closed and open again as a gust of frostbitten wind surges violently, carrying with it various debris. A shower of powdery snow from a recent storm, a few crackling dry leaves, even some flecks of dirt that have somehow escaped being cemented into the rock-solid ground. With the gust of wind also comes a resurgence of the Void.

The familiar unsettling feeling, empty and aching, weighs heavily on Shadow’s heart. It drives her to search. She pokes her flat head into nooks and crannies between ice-slicked rocks, but they hold no secrets for her to find. She scales the peaks of her frozen mountainside boundary, but they hold no answers. Only more snow. It’s so cold here in the northern mountains of Greenland, that even in midsummer everything remains chilly, frosted, hardened with lack of energy. Desolate. Like the feelings in Shadow’s not-heart. Her transformation into an esk never sat well with her, never felt… right. Something has felt off ever since that fateful day.

Is it the gaping hole in her memories, or the sense of being trapped by something that wasn’t her choice? Will finding who she was help? Or might it only disturb her further? Shadow doesn’t know. And, secretive as ever, she keeps such questions to herself.

Interrupting her contemplations, a gentle tug on her soul captures Shadow’s attention. It feels… like the blooming of something gentle. A seed she didn’t even know was there awakening within her. Wary of the sensation, she attempts to bury it beneath brooding thoughts. What was she in her past life? Why can’t she remember something so basic as that, while she can remember so much about what was done to her? Was she a human, or an animal? How old was she? What was her favorite color, food, smell, flower, anything? Did she like the ocean? Had she ever been? Did she ever feel the salt water on her skin, taste the brine on the air from the gentle breeze?

Wait… she hadn’t intended to think about the ocean. She hadn’t ever thought about it before. Yet, there it was again. That quiet yet insistent blooming, tugging on her consciousness. Still wary of the call, Shadow turns it over in her mind. It seems innocent enough. Looking off towards the coast, which now she can somehow sense, she can tell the blossoming feeling yearns for her to go there.

Faced with the call’s gentle insistence, Shadow hesitantly decides to venture beyond her boundary. She will not leave her biome. Terrible and desolate and frostbitten as they might be, the polar regions feel more like home than anywhere else. She isn’t sure why this is. Still, it’s one of very few clues she possesses about who she may have been… and the frosty, harsh lands cater to her personality very well. No one to bother her about her past. No one to ask invasive questions, or demand answers she doesn’t have. No one to try and force their ridiculous, cheery dispositions on her, and no mortal life forms too innocent to be acquainted with the harsh realities of existence. Are marine life forms acquainted with those terrible realities?, she wonders. Do they understand how futile the fight for life can be?

Continuing to muse on how marine life forms might view the world, Shadow descends ice-encrusted cliffs, traverses frozen hillsides, passes desolate tundra, until she finally arrives at a snowy beach. The blooming call in her not-heart swells from a quiet seed into a thriving bud. It’s a deep yearning that’s also somehow satisfying in and of itself. Open, but filling. Room for more, yet enough by itself. Despite her generally negative disposition, Shadow feels… almost good, being here. The sensation is thrilling and worrisome together. Does she have any right to feel good, knowing all that was done to her, knowing all that’s wrong in this world? Can it be possible to feel relief, even without having her memories back?

Shaking herself, Shadow mercilessly quells the sensation. No, she will not allow herself to feel happy again. Not yet. Not when she’s trapped in this little not-body, ethereal and strange, when her purpose is clearly to discover … what her purpose is. Alright, she doesn’t know what her purpose is. She’s angry about that, and upset about her transformation, and none of this is fair. And that’s precisely why she can’t let herself be distracted from discovering what’s happening here. Investigate the weird yearning, figure out what the heck this blooming is, then return to her mountains to search.

Nodding her head brusquely, she jumps down from the ledge she was standing on, and onto the snowy beach below. She stalks from shadow to shadow. Following the tugging sensation, she passes by strange clusters of objects. Life vests, coral pieces of unnatural shapes, discarded minerals, skeletons, plastic containers, scrap metal, kelp, beached wood, and more; the variety surprises Shadow. She didn’t expect so much garbage to litter the coast. Eventually, following the mysterious yearning, she ventures out onto a peculiar stretch of beach. Towards the end of the peninsula, a cluster of objects almost seems to echo the blooming in her chest.

A polished conch shell, generally brown, but with patches more orange, red and yellow than others, and deeper brown stripes, rests in the snow as if placed there intentionally. Close to it rests a strange greenish rock, semi-translucent and very reflective. Somehow, Shadow knows it to be a variety of green obsidian. And a third object, some sort of eccentric sword-shaped trinket, metallic and black, with spheres stacked on top of one another instead of a blade.

Looking from one object to the others, Shadow knows which one echoes the quiet yearning the most. Using her levitation ability, she picks it up, and ventures on with it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

total AP: 112

total GP: 45.5

ART portion:

Base Score: 10 AP (Shaded Illustration)
+5 AP (Full Body)
+30 AP (Full/Scenic Background)
+20 AP (Event Bonus)

+5 AP (personal work bonus)

Total AP per submission: 70

Base Score: 4 GP (Shaded Illustration)
+2 GP (Full Body)
+10 GP (Full/Scenic Background)
+10 GP (Event Bonus)
Total GP per submission: 26

Written portion:

WORD PALETTE USED: "Yearning, Blooming, Quiet"

Base Score: 19 AP (Writing: 974 words)
+10 AP (Event Bonus)
+8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)

+5 AP (personal work bonus)

Total AP per submission: 42

Base Score: 9.5 GP (Writing: 974 words)
+4 GP (Event Bonus)
+6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)
Total GP per submission: 19.5

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Want a super cool drawing of YOUR character??

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN!!

lesascommissions.carrd.co/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You do NOT have permission to copy, download, re-post, or use this piece (or character design) in any way. My art is not for use as NFT's, resale, or AI in any way, shape or form. Please respect my art!!