YoinkTober 2020 - Prompts & Grossling Challenge

[wavewright62]

Better late than never - Mielikki & Tapio just hanging out in the forest, creating bears, as you do.

(Will come & read stories later, promise)

[Jitter]

Wave! I absolutely love your Mielikki! Here’s a true mistress of the forest, not a mere wisp of a girl

Everyone please note, that she can be all of these versions and more. She’s a deity, and varies her appearance as she wants.

[Lallicat]

Here's my Sigrun fic, in honor of our most best captain's birthday.

---Sigrun---

"Sigrun, you wanted to discuss a new weapon you found for the army?" Her parents were staring at her curiously.

"Yes, I found an old pre-rash weapon that, with a few modifications, could be very effective against trolls and beasts. Maybe even giants!" she added excitedly. "I'm thinking we can call it the 'Flying Disk of Doom.' Don't you think that sounds so cool? It's like-"

"Sigrun, focus please," her mother begged. "The weapon?"

"Oh yeah," Sigrun replied with an apologetic grin. "Like I said, me and Mikkel came across one. We played around with it for a while. Pretty hard to get it to fly straight, but if you throw it right, it could slice right through anything in its path, if you sharpened the edges. I almost decapitated Mikkel with it," she added as an afterthought.

Her parents exchanged a look. This could be a powerful weapon by the sound of it. Not that they had a very clear idea of what it was yet.

"Do you know what the lost weapon was called?" Her father asked. Sigrun screwed up her face in concentration.

"Yeah, Mikkel mentioned it. I think it's called a frisbee.

Spoiler: show

I can't be the only one who finds the idea of weaponized frisbees terrifying, right?

[wavewright62]

"That's, The Frisbee of Death to you."

I couldn't come up with anything clever for Sigrun, so have a comic panel redraw - Sigrun menaced by gulls:

[wavewright62]

I also just now got around to Jitter's two stories.  Ever'body is dying to know how the whole Ukko-Pekka thing came about, and that one works for me!  Bonding over sauna, as you do.

By now, we will have seen Mikkel apprising Sigrun of the situation (one of the few times that Minna has explicitly shown translation), and your segment certainly agrees with that canon!

[Annuil]

Jitter, I really like your “Shelter in the rain” story, it’s really well-written
And I enjoyed reading the Finnish phrases

Wave, that’s an interesting interpretation of Tapio & Mielikki, I love the way you draw movements, they are always so natural and realistic 
For some reason, I cannot see your last drawing  :'(

Lallicat, ahah, I love your frisbee idea, it’s great! And you pictured Sigrun very well, very passionate about the new weapon  :'D

Here is my “Sigrun”, that I finished only today (too much school yesterday):

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsSnHPIBASO_syB2zAgZEV16udMe

Spoiler: show

 Actually, there is a funny thing... yesterday (October 7th) was my grandma’s birthday as well :'D

[Jitter]

Mask


Emil rushed in banging the door loudly and waking Lalli up with a start. Alarmed, Lalli jumped up and grabbed his blade, while Emil was trying to regain enough breath to tell him what the matter was.
“Tr... phhh... trolls! In the village!”
“What! This can’t be happening! Are you sure!?”
“Yes! I saw three trolls, about human-sized, approaching the central square!”
“But it’s still daylight!... Now, hold on! What did they look like? Exactly?”
“They were sturdy and furred, and had great claws! And large bulbous heads with horns! At least one of them had also growths looking like antlers, protruding from its body! They were making a wailing sound! What are you waiting for! You must come quickly!”
Lalli considered the matter for a second. It was tempting, but no. He decided to spare Emil. This time.

“Honey, remember how we discussed yesterday, that Kekri will be soon?”
“Yes, so? We’ll hardly be having a festival when we are under attack!” Emil was besides himself.
“And how do we have the festival, hmm?”
“Lalli, why...”
“Just humor me.”
“Ok, so Kekri festivities include eating and drinking, and... oh by Mielikki!” Emil Slapped his forehead (in a rather dramatic but weirdly attractive way, in Lalli’s opinion).
“Go on!”
“And some people dress as the Kekripukki and go around the village, asking for food and inviting people to the party. Lalli, I am an idiot!”
“I know. But you are a good baker! Help me carry the cakes.”

Kekri was the festival of the ending of the farming year. It was perhaps the most important of celebrations for the common people, and also marked the change of year. It was originally not tied to one specific date, but villages and even farms may have theirs when the harvest and autumn work was done. Usually this took place sometime in October, later it was decribed as having been observed somewhere between Mikkelinpäivä (Michaelmas) and Pyhäinpäivä (All Hallows). These describers obviously were following a Christian calendar. It was important that everyone got drunk, because that brought good harvest for the next year. Dressing up was related to the feasting but according to my source also to the ancestors and representing them in this world. Also representation of wild powers of nature, as opposed to order of human society, may be involved, similar to other carnivalistic traditions.

Later it became connected to All Hallows and assimilated by Christianity, as so often happened. It was nevertheless observed in some form until 1800’s and even later as a tradition thing. Now it’s been gaining traction again, and Kajaani has built a straw goat for Kekri and burned it for two decades.

Here are a couple of pictures of the dressing up, and background although unfortunately in Finnish only.

https://www.nykysuomi.com/2016/10/27/unohda-halloween-kekri-on-meidan-juttu/

EDIT the “media” linked is dubious, only look at the pics. Please note I do NOT endorse nykysuomi . com (this article seems fine but it has intolerance and content bordering on hateful at the least)

Surprisingly difficult to find pictures but here are a couple of recomstructions: https://relokatiivi.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/happy-kekri/


Thank you for comments all! And great Sigruns! Annuil, what or earth is she using as bait? Do I want to know? There is btw another great Sigrun by Tacita in the Art Museum thread (as I’m sure everyone has noticed alread)

[Lallicat]

XD oh Emil you doofus!

[wavewright62]

Ooo, Jitter, nice one - a bit of authentic Finnish culture, and an accurate characterisation of Emil.  I'll check out the link later.

"Hej, can you come out to slay, I mean, play?"  Great Sigrun!
Annuil, that Sigrun was shared off imgur, which you seem to have trouble with, but I'll share it off tumblr so you can see it.  I'll put it under the cut to avoid spamming.

Spoiler: different link to my sigrun drawing • show

[Annuil]

Haha, Jitter, that Emil  :'D nice story!

Wave, thank you! I love your Sigrun, and those seagulls’ faces...

Also, thanks for your comments! Yeah, Jitter, that’s just... a bunch of stuff that she took out of animals and trolls that she killed on the way, tied up into a lump  I wanted to draw something a little bit disgusting  :'D
(I’m so bad at drawing cats...)

[Mirasol]

Man, now I kinda wish the "sauna"-prompt was todays prompt... the coincidence would have been hilarious.

Lallicat and Jitter, lovely stories! Thanks for the links too, it´s always cool to learn about Finnish culture. And yes, more of Dagny, please!

Wave, your Tapio and Mielikki are amazing! I agree with Annuil, the movement looks really natural. And your Sigrun´s facial expression is on point!

Annuil, some more beautiful pictures! I especially like how dynamic Sigrun looks. You can almost see her getting ready to jump at her "prey".


Also thank you all again for the nice comments!
Now I have finally time to post the next batch of mine here:

6.10. No Minnawork-themed drawing (which turned out to be a good decision, as some of my markers were empty and completely ruined the picture I drew instead...)

7.10 Went with both of the promts for the day. This photo was taken on Sigruns first successfull troll-hunt (though the person taking the photo insisted that her wounds would be treated first before posing), and later printed and given to her as a gift to her 12th birthday by her parents. (Happy birthday to our most-best captain, though it is long over by the time I´m posting this.)


8.10. Something a little different. Less of an artwork, more of a fancy blueprint of the parts one would need to try and recreate the Adventure 1-face masks (loosely based on the pattern of an actual face-mask I own). I got the idea from a discussion on disqus that apparently happened two months ago (how???), so credit goes to Microferret on disqus, who was the first to say they wanted to try and recreate it.
Not everything on here is super thought-out, nor actually measured, basically just an idea of how it could work. And would definitly not be Covid-proof, but I guess nice for cosplaying.

[Jitter]

Food

Lalli came home to find the kitchen in floury chaos and smelling of burnt bread. What’s this? Emil had said he’d cook, but hadn’t mentioned baking. Besides he was a very good baker, Lalli thought fondly. He wouldn’t burn things. By accident. Not in the kitchen anyways. Any more. The oven was hot nevertheless, and a flat piece of something was waiting to be baked.

“Oh, there you are! Go change, the dinner will be ready soon!” Lalli did as told, although there didn’t seem to be any proper food around. A casserole would give out a smell if it were almost ready.

Soon Emil called him to table. He had cleaned most of the flour, but had an incredibly goofy and adorable spot of flour on his cheek. He seemed a bit anxious when he produced two plates and then lifted the flat thing on the table. It was... weird. Some sort of weird ugly pie. It had some reddish sauce, a little meat, onion and cheese. And based on the smell, a lot of garlic. Emil had noticed that Lalli was a picky eater when there was possibility to choose, and usually he discussed any new foods beforehand. This was weird. Still, Lalli was determined to give it a try, although he was expecting to hate it. It looked stupid so it couldn’t possibly taste good!

“Hmh, what have you been up to? What is this?”
“It’s a new recipe, very hot in Mora! I found it in one of the magazines I got last week. It’s special for us.”
“Ok?”
“According to the mag, we brought some cookbooks from the expedition! One of them, named Ii-taal-lii-aan cooking has been translated into Swedish* last year and it’s become very popular! This kind of dish is called ‘pizza’”
“Pissa?** Urgh!”
“No no no sorry! Pizzzzzza, with zee!”
“What sort of a stupid name is that!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what Ii-taal-lii-aan means either! It’s just the name of the food, and the book! It’s probably in foreign!”
“Why are you cooking foreign food in the first place? Don’t you like Finland any more?”
Emil looked hurt, almost brimming with tears. “Don’t say that! I just wanted to try something new! And it’s made of the same things anyway! Why must you be so mean!”

Lalli felt chastened. Maybe his comment had been uncalled for. “Sorry. Hungry. Can we eat now?” Grudgingly, he grabbed a piece of the weird pie (not pissa pie, he reminded himself) and bit into it. Emil was watching him intently. Lalli bit into the pie, and chewed. Not too bad actually. A weird combination, but not too bad. He made short work of the first slice. As he grabbed another one, Emil relaxed and took one fo himself too.

After a period of munching, Lalli looked up at Emil “Really, beloved, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You know I’m particular with my food so I wasn’t happy to be surprised.”
“Don’t I know! You are an absolute nightmare to cook anything for! And even worse, when you haven’t eaten! I just wanted to make something different, hopefully something nice. Since it was brought back by us, it’s a bit like our dish, don’t you think?”
“Well, I suppose you could think about it like that. And... it’s good. Weird but good. It looks stupid but tastes all right.”
“Thank you for admitting it! There is no single ingredient you wouldn’t normally eat. And not really weird texture either. It’s just arranged a bit different is all. I didn’t even consider any of the more weird versions!”
“Ok ok. Thank you for the pis... pizzzzza. And thinking about me when choosing the recipe.”
“You are welcome, love. And you know what, I’ll bake some crackers and put them at the door. So that you can get a little snack the minute you come in.”
“Shut up you! Have some more pizzzzzza before I eat it all!”


* Books salvaged from Denmark are presumably mostly in Danish
** pissa = pee in Finnish

NOTE I don’t think Emil is a homemaker in their relationship. Lalli also cooks, and Emil works. In this case it had to Emil finding a new recipe and Lalli being grumpy.


Thank you again for the comments! Some more Emilalli fluff for you today! Has anyone met a guy like that, who is very grumpy when hungry but nice immediately after getting a bite? (Choice of “guy” intentional...)

Mirasol both your pieces are great! The idea of such a birthday present (so this happened before she turned 12!) is very clever! And your schematics for a mask is both interesting and looks nice!

[Lallicat]

Here is my mask, a day late, but it's better late than never!

*DISCLAIMER: All of this is from Reynir's point of view, which is not necessarily mine.*

---Mask---

Reynir was not in the dreamworld. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but got no results. He was not in the dreamworld, he was in some sort of room. Every surface shined like it was coated with gems, and he could see his reflection in the floor. He glanced up at the ceiling which seemed to stretch on forever. Reynir suddenly felt very small.
A flash of movement caught his eye and he turned to face a female-like figure, whose features were ever-shifting, like some sort of human kaleidoscope.

"Welcome," it (she?) said, "to the Museum of the Universe!" She hadn't spoken very loudly, but her voice seemed to echo throughout the room. "I am Kalei, one of the Keepers. The Museum of the Universe contains information about everything that has or will ever happen. It contains an answer to every question ever asked. It contains the timelines of all alternate universes. It is essentially a giant encyclopedia of Everything." Kalei then proceeded to pull a book and armchair out from nowhere and started reading.

"Um, Ms. Kalei?" Reynir asked tentatively after a moment of silence. "How did I get here?" Kalei looked up from her copy of Stand Still, Stay Silent.

"I have no idea. It just happens sometimes. Unfortunately, you can't visit any wings that concern your reality or you could look it up yourself." Reynir felt lost.

"Soo... what do I do here?" Kalei gestured vaguely at the room. "You can look around until you wake up, I guess. I can answer any questions you have." Reynir really wanted to know why she kept shifting like that, but he refrained from doing so, feeling like it wouldn't be very polite. As he glanced around, trying to find the displays Kalei had talked about, the room flickered, and a bunch of doors became instantly visible. He picked one at random, not bothering to look at the heading on top of the door. Inside was a hallway with doors stretching along on either side. It seemed to go on forever. He walked along the hallway for what seemed like hours, before choosing one that held the simple description "2020". There was so much to see, that Reynir didn't know where to start. He wandered around, looking at everything until he came to a rather large section titled "COVID-19." There was a sign reading "COVID-19 was a disease that killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide..." Reynir was fascinated, reading about the start of a plague so similar, and yet so different from the Rash. What fascinated him most though, was the thin piece of blue material they called a mask. If that was all they used to protect themselves, no wonder so many people perished... Those flimsy things were nothing like his mask at all. Then again, he was looking at the early stages of the disease, maybe they hadn't figured out how to make those types of masks yet. It was all so fascinating, he was seriously disappointed when he woke up. He would have to ask Lalli next night if he knew what that place was.

(My food prompt isn't quite ready yet, so I'll post that most likely later tonight)

[Lallicat]

Mirasol, you Sigrun and mask drawings are so pretty! And I love the idea that the team brought back a cookbook from the Silent World, Jitter! (Pissa pie :'D)
Here is my "food" prompt. (Should I have done dusklings instead? I should have done the dusklings.)

---Food---

Sigrun was bored. And hungry.

“Mikkel!” She hollered across the room, where the man in question was sitting in an armchair, knitting some baby-sized socks. “I’m bored!” Mikkel glanced up over green and yellow balls of yarn.

“I could teach you how to knit,” he offered. Sigrun made a face. “Or not,” he conceded. He raised his eyebrows as Sigrun’s rather large stomach growled louder than those bear beasts they had fought so long ago. “You could cook some food. I have a rather simple cookie recipe that I think you could follow without too much trouble.” Sigrun considered it for a moment.

“Fine. Let’s go bake some cookies.”

*’*’*

 The kitchen was an ungodly mess. There was more dough on the ceiling (how did it get up there?) than in the oven, three cracked eggs on the countertop, and flour EVERYWHERE. Kitty was perched high out of reach on top of a cabinet, looking disapprovingly down at Dagny, who was more white than orange at this point.
The cookies themselves were surprisingly tasty; Mikkel only found a few unidentifiable bits in the one he ate.

“Well?” Sigrun asked with a grin. “How did I do?”

“You are no longer allowed in the kitchen unsupervised,” replied Mikkel.

[wavewright62]

Baking shenanigans!  I'm glad they both turned out okay.
Lallicat, your Museum sounds amazing, a bit of sci-fi for us - it could almost be CoH Reynir, except for the Rash parallells to Covid.
Mirasol, I love 12yo Sigrun's triumph, and the mask schematic is good for the cosplayers.  Working out the logistics of alt-tech is great fun.

I haven't been completely idle.  Below I've combined the grossling for the 8th (Summon Bigger Fish) with the prompt for the 9th (Food). If you squint and turn your head sideways, you could also say that the trash can Masks Lalli & Emil's presence, covering another prompt.   (Not to worry, Lallicat, I gotcha covered on the duskling front.)


I attended an Urban Sketchers session today on the 10th, and was intending for that to take the place of my contribution for Guardian.  I got stuck in trying to render the textures of this Moreton Bay fig tree and pittosporum armed only with a 0.5mm ink pen, but ran out of time.  As much as I'd like to "finish" it, it may be a little overcooked already, so I present it as is. 

I suppose if you keep squinting and turn your head the other way, you could convince yourself that this is an image of a forest guardian or something?  Maybe?  I answer myself: Naaaaah...