I Got Too Much Sleep This Year To Be Able To Properly Make Some New Ones, So Last Year's Are Back! Happy

I worked all morning on this.

The Elena of Avalor quarantine alignment chart!

Alignment chart template from: @burnonyou 

Sketches of young and old Roland II and Tilly I made. Their child designs are really cute, and also I think it's funny how tall he becomes compared to her. Are these two separate artworks, or is this some kind of time travel/future/past vision scenario? You decide!

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).

I noticed that all the very young royals in EOA have one thing in common: the colour green. So I decided to draw a picture of them all together! 💚 Isa, Caterina and Ari all like building things, and Nico likes flying, so they're all building a glider together.

[Image ID: A pencil crayon and ink drawing of Prince Ari, Prince Nico, Princess Caterina, and Princes Isabel from Elena of Avalor. Ari and Caterina are in the foreground holding some light purple fabric for the glider’s wing. Nico and Isabel  are holding the glider steady. End ID]

Soooo I saw you're taking requests for mini fanfics 👀 Could I request something with Elena and Skylar? I really love their friendship :>

  “¡Hola Reina!”

 Elena knew that voice, she looked up from the scroll she'd been reading. “Hi Skylar-” But the words were cut off with a gasp. Instead of the blue and gold macaw jaguar she expected to see, before her stood a somewhat shaggy looking fellow with dark hair, bright eyes, and a golden & blue outfit. 

  “Wait, Skylar is that you!?” She exclaimed. 

 He shrugged his shoulders, looking around. “Skylar, who's Skylar? I'm uhh, Tylar, yeah, Tylar the totally normal human!” But the goofy grin on his face betrayed his attempt at a prank. 

 Elena leaned forward “Really? Hmmmmm, you certainly sound like him...are you SURE you're not Skylar?”

  “Oh, come on I didn't recognize YOU when you were a jaquin!”

  “Ha, well you still gave me a shock!” she replied, getting up from her desk, the paperwork could wait, this was important. “So, Mateo made you a human potion?”

 He nodded “Yeah, I thought that if you could have such a great time being a Jaquin, then it's only fair that I try out being a human to see how fun it was. Come on, you can show me how to do human things!”

  “Sure, I have some spare time, what kind of ‘human things' do you want to do?”

  “Well, I’ve never gone shopping before, and if we go then I can get stuff for even more human activities! I saw some really cool looking musical instruments being sold at the market. If I got one for my own, then you could teach me how to play it!”

 Elena clapped “Sounds like a plan!” They both walked out of the room and down the hall together. “The mercado gets pretty busy in the afternoon, so we better get going.”

 He smiled “Then there's no time to lose, right?” They were at the top of a staircase, but instead of taking the stairs, Skyler climbed over the banister and jumped.

  “SKYLER NO!” Yelled Elena, her fear magic kicking in and pulling him back up before he could hit the ground.

  “Whoops, I forgot humans can't fly.” he said, looking slightly shaken from the realisation. 

 Elena caught her breath, calming her dress back down to red. “Yeah, it's a pretty unfortunate part of being a human.”

  “I'll just go down the stairs the way they were meant to be.” He said, climbing onto the railing and using it to slide all the way down. Then he waved at Elena from the bottom. She shrugged and took the railing slide as well.

 A while later, Elena and Skylar were walking down the busy street, carrying over a dozen shopping bags between them. With Elena paying for the two of them, they had both gone a little bit overboard with their spending but they were having such a good time, they didn't even notice.

 Skylar pointed at the one building they hadn't visited yet. “Let’s go there!”

 “Are you sure? That’s Doña Paloma’s emporium, shopping there might be pretty intense compared to everywhere else we've been.”

 “But we're royalty, so that'll probably make things easier, right?”

 “Possibly?” She said with doubt in her voice, but Skylar was already running through the door.

  When Doña Paloma saw them both enter, she turned away from two of the other customers she had been talking with to give them her full attention. “Hello and welcome to my emporium, Queen Elena. And hello to you as well, I don't believe we've met before?”

  Elena gave a wave that was weighed down by her shopping bags. “Hola Doña Paloma, this is-”

  “I am a Prince from a distant Kingdom, and I’ve come here to do some shopping!” Said Skylar with a big smile. Elena noticed the touch of mischief in his expression.

  “A Prince!” Her eyes lit up with the light of opportunity. “Well, hello there, your majesty.” She said with a bow “You have definitely come to the right place, my store carries a grander selection than any other in the kingdom! Here let me take you on the grand tour.” She took him by the arm and led him into her store.

  “¡Gracias!” said Skylar putting down his bag before walking along beside her.

 Elena followed along behind, as she realized this may have been a bad idea.

 After what felt like hours Skylar had been shown so many interesting things that Elena had to hold him back from buying the entire store. But in the end he had selected a fair number of things to get, including a harp, an extra large bottle of paprika, and a shovel.

  “An absolutely wonderful selection, your majesty. Thank you so much for choosing to shop at my emporium.” Exclaimed Doña Paloma, personally ringing up the goods at the till.

  “You're welcome, your store is really cool! Adios!” replied Skylar once he loaded the final bag into the waggon he had also just bought and began to walk towards the door.

  “Haha, wait a minute, Your Majesty, you have forgotten to pay for those.” She reminded him with a very forced smile.

  He stopped “Oh, well I don't have any money.”

  “You don't have any money!?” She looked shocked, but she quickly regained her composure. “Ah, so I see, His Majesty doesn't carry around any money, that is wise, you wouldn't want to get robbed. So, I assume you have a line of credit you could use?”

  “What's credit?”

  “You…you don't know what credit is?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the stuff.” said Elena,

 But she ignored her “How do you not have any money or know what credit is?”

 “Well, back in my kingdom we don't need to buy anything, so it's not necessary to have any money. Honestly, I'm not even sure I understand what money is. Why is it considered valuable in the first place?”

  “You don't know what money is!? I can’t believe it; no, I refuse to believe it!” She looked personally insulted. 

  “Here Doña Paloma, this is all the money for the stuff, we’re sorry if we offended you.” She put the money on the counter “Okay, Skylar, let's go.”

  “Wait a minute, Skylar! You are that jaquin prince, aren't you? You have a lot of nerve to pull a stunt like this after what you did four months ago!”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

 She scowled at him “Really? You don't remember how you knocked over my entire display I had in front of the store. Then you said you had to leave on “royal business” before you could help clean it all up?”

  “Oh yeah.” He looked at her sheepishly “Well, in my defence I was trying to get home fast, my dad gets really grumpy when I’m late.”

  “Hmph, well, since you don't have those wings to knock things down anymore, how about you make it up to me now. I need the tops of the shelves dusted.”

 Elena stepped between the two of them, “Look, Doña Paloma, I can pay you back for any of the damages he caused.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Skylar insisted “I want to do this, it’s the responsible thing to do and I've never dusted a shelf before, could be fun!”

  “Good, you can start with that one.” Said Paloma, pointing to the nearest shelf with her fan.

 He walked confidently towards it, then turned back with a confused look “So, do I just put dust on the shelves? There's plenty of dust outside I could get, the Mercado has some really good dust.”

 Paloma smiled smugly “No, that's not quite how you do it, but I'm sure Queen Elena would be able to show you how.”

 Skyler looked at her hopefully and Elena sighed, they were probably going to be here for a while. 

Elena and Gabe for the ask game, please?

(I have answered this ask for Gabe which you can find right here)

Princess Elena

Favorite thing about them: That she's fun and friendly but also willing to throw hands. Sure, I like sweet cute princesses as much as the next person but it just feels good for her to be able to fight back as well. Her kindness and diplomacy also balance this out really well. She'll be accommodating and try to see things from other people's perspectives, and oftentimes that'll be enough to solve the problem. But if they're being truly awful and unfair then she’s not afraid to stand up for herself and others.

Least favorite thing about them: Her political policies when it comes to incarcerating and/or punishing criminals.* (Except for Shuriki, that was self-defense and justified).

Favorite line: "I don't need to be one of the kings, because I'm going to be a QUEEN!"

BrOTP: Well the 3 amigos immediately come to mind but I also believe that her friendship with Skyler is something that really can't be overlooked. He's there for her whenever she needs to pursue bad guys or just go for a nice fly.

Random headcanon: Elena has always loved horses, and ever since she was little she's always loved riding and brushing them. Another shock that came to her after liberating Avalor was the realization that all the horses that she'd had as a child 41 years ago were now all gone. She was devastated but nevertheless she would need to choose a new horse to be her personal one now that she was crown princess. When she went to the stables a certain horse immediately came up to Elena and started rubbing against her and tried to eat her hair flowers. Elena laugthed and told the horse that she couldn't have those flowers but she could give the horse some different ones. She brushed the horse's hair and decorated it with the new flowers which made the horse very happy. After that Elena knew that this was the horse for her and named her Canela.

Unpopular opinion: *I could rant all day about this, so I'll keep this brief. The palace dungeon looks like it is designed as a series of holding cells and doesn't seem fit to hold someone for any longer than a week. Also while it was never confirmed in the show one way or the other if they would have kept Victor petrified indefinitely if they didn't need him for a practical purpose, the very fact that that could be possible unnerves me. Now while it may not have not have been solely Elena's fault considering the bureaucracy, she never said anything against it either, which does not bode well for me. But this doesn't make me dislike her as a character or label her as a villain, if anything this just shows that even the best rulers can make mistakes.

Songs I associate with them: I Won't Let Go by Brothers Bright - Karma by AJR - The Whole World & You by Tally Hall

Favorite picture of them:

Elena holding a baby butter frog, after saving it from falling, absolutely adorable! 🐸🦋

Little Black Dress

On April Fool's Day of 2020, I posted this Fanfiction onto the EOA Discord server under the gauze that it was a summary of an upcoming episode. We were all very anxious for any news about future episodes, and I was able to fool some people with this. I wrote this before “Crash Course” came out so all the “main plot things” that happened in this were just me guessing and making jokes about what could possibly happen. Originally I thought of just doing a little description, but pretty soon it turned into an entire plot summary. I just thought of all the things that would be cool to see in the show, as well as some things in my personal life, and wrote it all on April Fool's Day itself.

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[Here's the introduction I did for it, straight from the server itself:] Hey guys I just found this full on plot summary of the Elena of Avalor episode that comes after Crash Course! So don't read this Unless you are ready to get spoiled big time!

Ready for spoilers? Okay, here we go! The episode is titled “Little Black Dress” Mini description is: “Elena and Naomi have to find a way to stop Elena’s new dress colour and power, Meanwhile Gabe, and Mateo try to stop Ash, with help from an unlikely ally.”

That description makes it sound really good but wait, I have the whole plot summary so here you go: [Synopsis under the cut]

It starts off at the castle, we see Elena, reading a book in her room. Naomi comes in and asks what book she is reading while also making the bed, since now Naomi's technically out of an official job so she's been trying a lot of stuff around the palace to see what job sticks. We even get a little montage of this. It turns out Elena is reading a book that Naomi recommended to her and is almost finished,  Naomi is happy to hear that, and decides to leave Elena in peace until she's finished reading.

But just as she's about to leave the room she hears Elena's scream and she runs back into the room to find that Elena's dress has turned black!  All of the light seems like it's being sucked out of the room while a feeling  of the deepest despair comes over them, but Naomi is able to make it across the room and sing a bit of love always to Elena, which gets her back to normal. Then Naomi asks Elena what happened, why did the dress change colour like that?

Elena takes a deep breath and explains to Naomi that the book ended on a cliffhanger, why had she not told her that this book ended on such a big cliffhanger! Naomi tells her that she'd read the book so long ago, she had sort of forgotten the weight of the cliffhanger at the end. Naomi tells her that she had once checked before if there was a sequel to this book, and there wasn't, but she's pretty sure that the author is planning one. Elena retains her composure, but you can tell she is still deeply disturbed. But it's time for the Grand Council meeting now, so she goes to the Grand Council room. Cut to the Grand council meeting, Doña Paloma and Julio are already there, arguing over kingdom finances, when Elena comes in and apologizes for being late. Her grandparents start to fill her in on what has been happening in the meeting when Doña interrupts them. She tells Elena how they've been arguing over whether to spend tax money on relief to chocolate farmers who are having trouble with a fungus that's been growing on the chocolate trees making them less productive. She believes the farmers should spend their own money on anti-fungus measures for the trees but Julio disagrees, so what does she think they should do?

But Elena's dress turns black,  almost all the light gets sucked out of the room and strong winds begin to blow, everyone gets under the table. Her grandparents are able to calm her down and ask her what happened. She explains about the new dress colour and that the mention of fungus reminded her of how that book ended with half the characters getting possessed by an evil mushroom that was bent on taking over the world, and not knowing would happen next was filling her with suspense and dread. Julio recommends that she go find the author of the book and ask them how it ends. Elena thinks that's a great idea and decides to do that with Naomi.

Just as she's leaving the grand Council room she bumps into Mateo and Gabe, they tell her that they have some important security matters they need to share with the Grand Council, so they can get the green light to go ahead with their defeating-evil plans. “Just do whatever you must!” She tells Mateo and Gabe before leaving with Naomi to go find the author. They take this to mean they can do ANYTHING they feel they need too.

We follow Gabe and Mateo down to the dungeon where they go to Carla’s cell. She's petting the dog and looking out the window when she hears them come in. She turns and is quite surprised to see them. They tell her that they are planning an important mission that will stop Ash, and her gang, but they need her help to pull it off. She tells them that she will only help them if they de-stone Victor. They agree that they will do that once the mission is completed, as long as she doesn't double-cross them. Carla says they have a deal, and asks them what the plan is.

Gabe explains to her that the guards have sightings of Ash’s gang on the coast of Avalor in a certain village, which means that there is only one place they could be going… “Los Diamante!” finished Carla. It was one of the most famous card game playing houses and music lounges in the entire Everealm. It was run by a gang of criminals and Malvagos led by El Destello. They are so powerful that during Shuriki’s rain they were still able to operate, because they could destroy any Royal Guards or other threats to the place.

It would be a disaster if Ash got them as allies, so Gabe and Mateo decided they would try to convince El Destello to join the good guy side (or at least not join Ash). But they knew they wouldn't last five minutes in that place without a criminal who could help guide them through it, and that's why they needed Carla.

Carla told them that  her father had told her all about this place before, and that the place had a strict dress code they would need to follow before they got there (“They don’t let Guards or nerds in there” she said). The dress code was formal suits and dresses. So they got changed and then rode some Jaquins to Los Diamante, and went inside.

The place was very ritzy, and it still had that Avaloran style architecture to it. There were guys playing Go Fish at the tables, people ordering drinks from the counter, and a big stage where an Avaloran-style jazz band is playing. Everyone had a Churro in their mouth. Mateo went to the drink counter and ordered an apple juice, but the guy behind the counter said they didn't have any, but they did have tomato juice, and chocolate milk. Mateo realized they were in the deep end now.

Suddenly Ash, Esteban, and Chatana walk in, all of them dressed up in super fancy outfits. Ash walked up to one of the burly looking criminals standing by the door and asked to see El Destello, so she could give him an offer he couldn't refuse.  He said that she would have to wait half an hour for him to finish with his  accountant upstairs before he could see anyone. 

Carla, Gabe, and Mateo (who had hidden under a table when those three came in), heard all of this and knew they needed to come up with a plan to stop this.

Meanwhile, Elena and Naomi were in the middle of town looking through the town records, to see if they could find the author's name and address. One of the clerks at the building asked them what they were doing and they explained to her their situation. She said she knew where the author lived (whose name was Q.W. Southland)  and gave them her address, but told them that the author was planning on leaving Avalor for Norberg today, so they better hurry.

They both ran to the author's house, but they saw that they were too late, a carriage was already leaving the house with Southland inside! Elena refused to give up, so she and Naomi hopped into an empty cart, and attached a large sheet to it like a sail.  Elena mustered up her feelings and the strong winds blew,  blowing their cart towards the carriage.  The carriage sped up in reaction to this, and now they were in a full-on chase scene,  zooming through the streets of the city towards the port. Finally, the carriage stopped right before it fell into the water but Elena's cart fell into the water and she and Naomi had to swim back to shore. They were just in time to reach Southland before she got on the ship. 

Elena begged to know the rest of the story, but Southland explained to her that she wasn't going to tell any of her readers anything about the next book until it was published, even if they were a princess. Elena would have to wait another eight months like everyone else.

Elena and Naomi were deeply saddened. Elena said that she wished there was at least something she could have to keep her occupied until the next book came out.  Naomi looks like she has a moment of inspiration, and tells Elena that she needs to get home and that she should go back to the palace and wait for her there. Elena is confused by this, but sees her friend’s enthusiasm and agrees.

Meanwhile in Los Diamante, El Destello had finally finished with his upstairs business and had come down to the lounge. Ash walked over to him and began to tell him about who she was and about her plans for the most powerful group of dark wizards ever. Suddenly Carla jumped out and interrupted her, she told El Destello that she heard he liked music (why else would you keep a music lounge open during Shiriki’s rain?) and that she was a great singer and dancer.

Carla said that she and her team (Mateo and Gabe) would challenge Ash and her team to a music contest, and that whoever lost wouldn't be able to get help from El Destello or his gang. El Destello thought that sounded like a great idea and agreed. Ash, still surprised by this turn of events, wasn't going to back down from a challenge and also agreed.

So the music contest began. Ash and Chatana sang a Peggy Lee-style song called  “Touch of a Feather'' with Esteban playing guitar to back them up. It's lyrics show that it's a really good villain song, referencing Ash’s ambition and Chatana’s yearning for a world she can control. It went off without a hitch, except for when Chatana did a spin and her wings knocked Ash, and Esteban off the stage at the end of it.

Carla sang a Nancy Sinatra-style song called “These Violet Times” with Mateo and Gabe singing backup (Gabe also had a trumpet solo at one point). The lyrics reflect Carla’s feelings about her past and hopes for her future (They also make some not-so-passive-aggressive jabs at Ash).

El Destello said both songs were good, but there was only one winner. He beckoned Ash and her team over to him. Ash smiled, said she was glad to have won, and asked if this meant that he would accept their deal of a partnership?

He told her no, she had not won. He just summoned them over to tell them that they had five minutes to leave before his gang would throw them out. Ash was shocked, Esteban then teleported them out of there before Ash had a chance to do something violent.

El Destello congratulated team Carla on the win. Mateo asked if this meant he would never colaberbate with Ash, and he said “Of course and that from now on whenever they came back to Los Diamante, drinks were on the house.”

Gabe and Mateo were happy that the mission had gone so successfully, and thanked Carla for her help. She asked if this meant that they would free Victor now, and they said yes. “What are we waiting for” yelled Carla as she grabbed them by the hands and dragged them out to the Jaquins, to get them back to the Palace as fast as they could.

Back at the Palace, Elena is sitting in her room tuning her guitar when Naomi walks in with a bundle of scrolls and papers in her hands. She tells Elena when she had finished that book a long time ago, she had been destroyed by the cliffhanger ending as well. So she had written a whole bunch of fanfiction about what could happen next. Then, with all the crazy stuff that's happened in the last few months she forgot about it. She said it's not as good as another book but at least they have it. Elena smiled and said that it's just as good as another book, but then she asked Naomi, “You did complete these right? They don't end on cliffhangers too, do they?”

“No,” Naomi said with a smile “I made sure of that.”

The episode ends with Gabe, Mateo and Carla in the palace garden. Mateo is holding a small vial which he then hands it to Carla, saying she should do the honour. She runs over to Victor and says:  “Finally you can be free, Papa!” She holds the potion above his head and pours it on him. And just as the potion touches his forehead- the credits cut in and you have to wait until next episode to see what happens next.

So that definitely sounds like an episode I would want to see, if only it were real… Happy April Fool's Day everyone!

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[And now for a bit of a retrospective on that piece. Reading this again really takes me back. Back then I was so worried about Carla and Victor, sometimes I wondered if they'd even get a redemption arc at all. But as the moral of this episode goes “Fanfiction and other fans make you feel less bad about waiting for new content.” And writing this did make me feel a little bit better about everything.

Oh yes who can forget the “ what if black is an emotion colour” theory.  most people were taking that to really angsty places, but I decided to do something a little closer to home for me. There was a certain book series [Wings of Fire] that I had in mind writing the plot with Elena. Because I really did feel those emotions when it left off on a cliffhanger. And that was kind of the same with the show as well.

I always liked it and shows and movies where they have parodies of 1930s gangster movies, so I decided to do a kid-friendly parody version of that. I always love the fancy outfits the characters have in those. I realized that churros look like cigars from a distance, so that's why I mentioned that. I was also really hoping for another villain song, and for Carla to confront her mom. So I just fused the two together.

In my mind when I was writing this I imagined that Pili and Tziloco were in another section of Los Diamante, that was meant for Animal Companions, waiting for the rest of Team Ash to finish. And at one point they play some kind of card game against the Jaquins. But I didn't know where I could smoothly fit that into the summary, so I left it out.

Also I just want to explain the title, I decided on it because 1, Elena's dress turns black in this. And 2, a little black dress is a term that's often used for describing simple, yet fancy dresses that some women wear, and that would be fitting for the other plot of this story. So it's sort of a pun!]

Okay so I got tagged in this little game by my cool friend @blueflyingturtleontheway, here it is: Rules: Post the names of your WIPs, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you asks with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! Then tag as people to do this as well. (You can make your own post or reblog this one!) I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

Here they are, my works in progress:

Elena of Avalor:

Ghost of the Past Grove of Memories Peabunnies On Coronation Day Science + Magic = Chaos Snow Day To Queen or Not to Queen Continuation AU Untitled Encarcelado sequel +Various mini fics

Other fandoms: Marnie's Magical Moniker Mystery (Stardew Valley) Parents to the Rescue (DC Superhero Girls)

Tagging: @cc-starship

Made this for @blueflyingturtleontheway last year! I loved drawing all the details! (Also, ferrets.)

[Image ID: A pencil crayon and ink drawing of Princess Chole from Elena of Avalor. She is standing in a neutral pose looking towards the viewer, as if posing for a portrait. In her arm she is holding a basket with two ferrets inside it. The first is a solid cream colour, the second is a sable standard pattern. End ID]