So Since We've Finally Established Bill Isn't Actually Human...

So since we've finally established Bill isn't actually human...

Consider this a teaser for next chapter.

(Transcript below)

Do you know what it's like to not exist?

I have the power to do everything but never get anything out of it. No smell. No taste. No touch. No sensation at all. Just... Nothing.  A vast nothingness stretching on and on forever like the uncomfortable silence after a bad joke. I could watch. Nothing more. Infinite power but no meaningful way to use it.

It's self preservation, really. Stealing bodies. I never wanted to be human. I didn't. It's all that damn shaman's fault. He was supposed to help me. Save me. But he betrayed me. He cut the lifeline and tried to kill me with an ancient ritual. A human energy circle. 

But they didn't have the right humans.

Lacking quality, they made up for it with quantity. The entire island. All those tiny little candlelights throwing themselves together into one flash of an inferno before burning out. The energy was immense.

But not enough.

They couldn't destroy me. But he could stall me.  He went into my mind.  He removed all knowledge of where the island was, where the gateway had been built, how it looked, and how to find it. With his last breath he cursed the land itself. That no-one would ever be able to find it without being led there.  That it would never be added to a map. 

All so that I wouldn't find it.

He couldn’t blind my all-seeing eye. But he did mar it.

So, I did the next best thing. I settled for experiencing the world through human eyes.  Kings, queens, beggars and priests… I was everything. It was intense. It was vibrant. I was alive.

A human body is a prison, but a prison is better than a nothing.

But eventually, it wasn't enough.

I'm a being of unlimited power. Do you have any idea how constricting it is needing to waste a quarter of my life asleep? Do you have any idea how bad food tastes after centuries of eating it? I have been like this for ages. Everything is the same flavour of bland. The pleasure. The pain...

None of it is fun anymore.

Without chasing the next high, I feel nothing. And every time I need to reach higher and higher to get anything out of it at all.

I need to exist as me. No matter who has to die.

So, I made a new goal for myself: Find my old gateway.  Find a body. Find a crew. Don't stop sailing until I track it down.

I couldn't remember the location. I couldn’t remember the name. All I could remember was the smell of salt and the sound of churning waterfalls. So, when my first crew asked, I simply called it ‘the waterfall port’. ‘El puerto de la cascada’.

I moved from crew to crew, century to century, body to body.

It didn't matter that my eyes went from blue to brown to grey. 

It didn't matter if the shade of my hair changed. 

It didn't matter if scars under my clothes came and went. 

Very few who came close enough to notice ever lived to talk about it.

With a changing world came changing languages. And eventually, my island's title was shortened and corrupted until it was just simply…

"Port Cascada".

That name found you. And you found me. How?

... You're not even listening. Are you?

Eye see you there

Not super comfortable with making big prop heads yet, but this turned out neat! On the off chance any one of you is at NärCon in Sweden come find me!

Wow! Your realistic portraits are amazing! How do you do it?

Made another one to answer this!

Thank you! I'm far from an expert with realism yet, but it's been fun to experiment. It's a lot different than my usual style; instead of focusing on lines I have to focus way more on building up the facial structure and giving depth though shading. And since I'm trying to work with sort of realism, I also have to limit the amount of clear lines and focus on differentiating parts through shading.

- Sketch

- Fill in the major colour fields of the sketch with each colour on a different layer

- Use a clipping mask to shade (multiply) and highlight (overlay/high opacity light colour) each field separately and add details like eyes

- Add mostly flat background

- Blend character with background using additional ambient shading (multiply) and add other effects

Maybe I should try my hand at speed drawing again sometime...

Going through my old Pirate AU drawings for inspiration to try and get back into the swing of drawing and realized I had plenty of Bill pictures I never shared due to spoilers. But since last comic and last chapter sort of revealed he's not entirely human...

Art dump, anyone?

Calling the captain a man was inaccurate. The word tasted wrong in conjunction with his name. The crew knew, of course. All of them were acutely aware. The man they looked at wasn't their captain. It wasn't the man they bowed to and cowered from. It wasn't the man who's word they obeyed with fearful precision. The man wasn't their captain. The thing wearing his skin was. (Next chapter sneak peek?)

Expression practice + Bill's motive rant, before the comic

Brief idea I had for a "bad end" to chapter 6, and what probably would have happened if Ford hadn't gotten seriously ill and made Bill throw him off the ship. Bill possesses people who fit a profile so he can pretend he's all the same person and that profile is, well, young adult male with brown hair. Ford.

**Edit**

Oh shoot I forgot one! Different Bills, and what they were before "becoming him"

Resources:

abortionfinder.org

abortionfunds.org

lifebeat.org

plannedparenthoodaction.org

Hope things become less stressful for you soon!

how about Mabel and Ford bonding?

Heck yeah sweater twins bonding! Reused an old sketch that'd been lying around for a bit

(This also goes out to the Anon who wanted Ford and Mabel hugs!)