I Did The The “Six Fanarts” Challenge Again, This Time Using Recommendations Given To Me By My Friend, @lilystar244 ! I

Hi I love your art so much, Wo-Chien is so cute! Since you asked for art suggestions, could please draw Wo-Chien with a Syringa (Lilac) plant?

W: (as he tries his hardest to hold back his emotions) "This flower is quite pretty~ Your words are very appreciated too~ You may have this gracidea in thanks~"

--

Thank you!

I knew that, after looking it up, Wo had to wear a flower crown~

He would've made it himself too, with a lot of hours being spent looking for the flowers and putting it together.

Wo would begin to grow them in his allotment alongside the gracideas.

Also - aw~! Thanks for liking him so much~!

Hi there! I read your post about Egypt and Cleopatra, and now I am really curious about the African Kingdoms you mentioned and was wondering if you could tell us more about them please, they sound really interesting.

Oh, there's SO much I could tell you, and there's so many African kingdoms that have been woefully understudied--and many more aside from the ones I mentioned. They all have their own rich histories, cultures, political intrigue, and it's an actual tragedy that they aren't discussed more. I'm still researching myself, so I'll just review some of my favorite things from each kingdom.

Aksumite/Axumite Empire: Located in modern-day Ethiopia, this empire existed from the 1st to 8th century CE, though its prime was from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE. The Axumites converted to Christianity of their own free will over 1,000 years before colonialism and as a result have ancient churches, some made of stone and carved from the earth itself. They also were the first African kingdom to mint their own coins, and their capital city of Axum had, at its peak, 20,000 people living in it. Also, I love the Dungur palace. Here's a reconstruction of what it looked like:

LOOK AT IT.

Source: x

Kongo: Located in central Africa around modern-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. This kingdom had a rich social hierarchy, apparently had ambassadors to Europe, and some people practiced Catholicism, which led to their own branch of Christianity led by a woman named Beatriz Kimpa Vita in the 1600s who believed she had visions that informed her Jesus actually came from Kongo. Yeah.

Sources: x, x

Loango: A neighbor of Kongo, but one we know much less about due to Kongo having a long, well-documented history of interacting with Europe (see: the ambassadors), and Loango... does not. But we do know they also had a rich social hierarchy, and we have this map of their capital city.

Sources: x, x

Great Zimbabwe: From 1100- 1500, located in modern-day Zimbabwe, this was a city of the Zimbabwe empire that was either used for storing grain or as a royal residence. Either way, the ruins of said city look like this:

Here's a reconstruction:

Sources: x, x, x, x

Ghana/Mali/Songhai: These were three successive empires from West Africa, with Ghana being the first from the 7th to 13th centuries, Mali being the second from the 13th to 16th centuries, and Songhai being the last one from the 15th to 16th centuries. If you learn about a non-Egyptian African civilization at all in school, chances are it's the Ghana empire and its successive empires, and they're most famous for gold, Timbuktu (with its ancient mosques, library, and university), and Mansa Musa.

Sources: x, x, x, x, x

Ashanti/Asante Empire: Located in modern day Ghana, this kingdom lasted from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. This kingdom is most well-known for its role in the slave trade. The Ashanti had well-built roads and architecture, and a little fun tidbit about them is that, after the introduction of guns, they actually had a minor firearms industry.

Here's their capital, Kumasi:

Source: x, x

Swahili Coastline: The coastline was made up of MANY city-states that saw their prime in the 11th to 15th centuries--including Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa--that participated in the Indian Ocean trade route, and pottery from as far away as China has been found in these cities. Many of these cities also practiced Islam and had their own mosques. Kilwa is my personal favorite:

These cities were built of stone, but Kilwa's palace, in particular, was built of coral. Its architecture led to the city being described by Ibn Battuta as one of the most beautiful in the world, which is part of why it's so fascinating to me.

Source: x, x

Of course, this barely scratches the surface. There are many more kingdoms all over the continent and a variety from ancient and pre-medieval times that deserve much more love.

And this image doesn't even cover them all!

So yes, ancient and medieval Africa deserve much more love, more research and more hype, and hopefully one day soon they'll get just that.

La Reina de Rosas

(Original pencil sketch under the cut)

Are you taking requests? If you are, could you draw Sirena!Elena? If you’re not, than I apologize for this ask.

Sure! Here you go!

Freeze! ✧ ─=≡Σ((( つ•̀ω•́)つ You’re under arrest for being so lovely. Copy this message to 10 other blogs that you think are beautiful and deserve it. Keep the game going and make others feel beautiful!

I don't usually like chain messages but this one's cute so >.<

Thanks Blue! ❤

mateo and gabe for the character ask please :D

Mateo

Favorite thing about them: His dorky adorableness. He's always just so excited about learning new nerdy things about magic, it's so sweet.

Least favorite thing about them: That he didn't have more magic training scenes with Olivia.

Random headcanon: Not only does he not eat chocolate, but he also just doesn't like sweet foods very much in general. In social situations he'll sometimes eat them to be polite but he just prefers vegetables to fruit and bread cookies. Rafa didn't mind this and tried to only make him food that he would really enjoy, but it did become a bit of a problem once he moved into the palace and started getting Palace food. But they eventually sorted it out.

Unpopular opinion: Has anyone ever noticed that he sounds a lot like intern Carl from Phineas and Ferb?

Song I associate with them: It Has Begun by Starset and Karma by OR3O

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gabe

Favorite thing about them: His caring and compassionate leadership skills. He's in the military but he doesn't give in to apathy or toxic coolness, he cares about the people he's protecting and the people who serve under him.

Least favorite thing about them: The fact that he rarely gets a chance to use his tactical knowledge to create the plans to help save the day. Oftentimes his okay plans end up falling through and his good plans end up getting ignored.

Random headcanon: Gabe and Migs often work together in joint training exercises for the Guards and the Guardians. They have created plenty of attack patterns and battle strategies so humans and jaquins can fight together as a team in case either of their kingdoms were attacked again.

Unpopular opinion: Even though "The Gecko's Tale" was a fairly forgettable episode (because it had no song), I do wish that his fear of geckos had come up again at some point in the series. As well as his love adventuring and exploring. (It's sort of implied by the fact that he is a royal guard always protecting the kingdom and searching for bad guys, but it would have been interesting to see that pop up again in a more specific way, I mean I guess there was the time where he wanted to go to Norberg because he's never been there before...).

Song I associate with them: The Royal Guard by Sabaton

(Decided it would be easier to just do both of them at once so) Favorite pictures of them:

↑ The three different moods they have when they're with each other.

Do You Have any Ixlan and Antonia Headcanons ? 🤩 Please🤩! And also I did read you Ixlantonia Fanfic called Translation 🤩and it was so Freaking cute 🤩!!!

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed my story! 🤩 I do have some headcanons about how they met and how their relationship grew, here they are (I use they/them pronouns for Ixlan here):

The first time that Antonia saw Ixlan was during that scene in “The Lightning Warrior” episode when Victor and Carla apologize to Elena. (We can see briefly that the guard that led them in was Antonia, so logically that was the first time she saw Ixlan.) When most of them leave to go talk to Quita Moz, Antonia begins to ask the Delgados about Ixlan. (“What is Ixlan like? How strong are they? How are they so amazingly good looking?”). The two tell her what they can, but suggest she go and introduce herself and get to know them personally. Antonia is too nervous to do it that day.

She doesn't get to formally meet them until a guard training session a few days later, when Ixlan came by to see how strong the guards were. They are not very impressed by the guards drills, and decide it would be best to test a guard’s strength in one-on-one combat.

Everyone is intimidated by Ixlan’s strength and personality, but Antonia accepts the challenge. Ixlan is impressed by her tenacity and fights her fists vs sword.

The fight goes on for longer than expected, Antonia is able to hold her own with the sword and make clever quips during the fight. Eventually, though, Ixlan is able to disarm her, but is quite happy to have found a worthy opponent (Plus some of those quips were quite…intriguing to the Lightning Warrior, they definitely wanted to get to know Antonia better now).

They start having regular meetings whenever Antonia is not on guard duty. They do things like talking a bit about their cultures, sparring, and having witty banter with each other, enjoying spending time together

Antonia began to see the depths of emotion and wit within the Lightning Warrior. They weren't just good looking, they had a noble heart, and strength of will. Antonia's feelings grew much deeper than just a crush.

Occasionally Ixlan spoke about their past to Antonia. Previously they were able to work out some of their feelings of grief and regret with Quita Moz, but having Antonia leaning beside them listening to everything warmed Ixlan’s heart. She said such comforting things and even in the times where they were bott quiet it felt reassuring. Ixlan hadn't felt that in a long time. That's when Ixlan began to consider asking Antonia if they'd like to be their girlfriend.

But in the end it's Antonia who decides to finally ask Ixlan if they could maybe start dating each other. They respond:

“Isn't that what we were already doing?” “No, I mean like not just friendship dates, but romantic dates.” “Oh yes, I was going to ask you that myself.” Antonia laughed, “Well, it looks like I've just stolen your thunder.” Ixlan smiled.

From that point on, they were a couple.

Manifesting this ending, I just want them to live happily ever after together.

Since we never see him in the show, except for his hat, I have decided to make my own design for Birk Balthazar, Miranda’s first husband!Using what little we know about him from sources outside the show and combining them with my own headcanons, I am really happy with how this all came together.

Since he is Sofia's biological dad, I think she must have inherited her hair colour and texture from him, so I wanted to show that.  Since he is from Freezenberg and is a sailor I thought he should have a big beard and mustache. He is wearing a long coat that he ripped the sleeves off so his sailor tattoos could be seen. On his right arm he has tattoos of an anchor (because he sailed across the ocean to the western kingdoms many times before), a polar bear (his favorite animal, and one of the main animals of his homeland), and one he keeps covered with a scarf Miranda gave him. On his left arm he has a carnation (the flower of Miranda's homeland), and an orca (given to him after he saved a ship from a sea monster as a token of his bravery).

What about you drawing enraged elena in orange-dressed in your art?

Sure, here you go!

I drew this without a reference while I was in the middle of completing paperwork to be able to properly channel the emotions needed for this piece