Ok I See Here

Ok I see here

Sam, Farangis, Daryun, Isfan, Estelle, Alfred and Jaswant in this picture 😂😂😂

Don‘t mind me and my silly brain

Nothing to see here, just a horse in a living room watching some familiar characters on TV in Hiromu Arakawa's new manga Daemons of the Shadow Realm.

A four page comic about drawing, drawn for the Portland Public Library's newest exhibit, "Why We Make Comics: Reflections on Storytelling".

If you live in Portland ME, you can see this comic, as well as three others drawn by Isabella Rotman, Caroline Hu, and Liz Prince, on display from October 6th to December 31 at the library!

I absolutely adore Kubards attitude. What a mode 😂

Of course he's sleeping. Of fucking course (affectionate).

A stark contrast against Arslan's personable, warm way of interacting with his subjects. Andragoras is... distant and sharp and cold.

Poor Lushan.

Andragoras? Share his power?

Never!

*copes aggressively via imagining Shapur and Kazai, Isfan and Areyan sharing authority as one entity in Wolfpack*

I imagine Andragoras would've reacted poorly to that as well but at least Arslan would have more sway?

You go, Farangis!!! Fearless lady!!! I love you!!

No, Arslan, it's not you who has something wrong with. It's them. My god, it's them.

It's only natural to be unable to feel relief upon reuniting with people who's always kept you at a twenty-foot-pole's length and never treated you warmly, they might as well be strangers (captors, wardens) to you and it's hard to feel any affection for strangers.

Even feelings of dread would be natural in this sort of situation.

Nothing's wrong with you, my boy.

Kishward can probably tell this does not bode well.

A genius use of perspective. We're looking up at him, from perhaps a similar vantage point as Arslan or anyone who's kneeling behind him— he is King, untouchable, distant, imposing, towering over and bearing down on us.

And look at how his head is framed, the sun ornament on the seat aligns with his head. As if to assert the association the Shah had with the sun. As if to assert his authority even in the way he is framed to the audience.

Upon high-heaven two suns there cannot be, on this earth the Shah is but one!

And Arslan has to respond accordingly— address Andragoras not as a father but as an authority figure.

If we'd had a new chapter of ArSen this month it would've been released yesterday. It's not quite the same thing but maybe I can try to soften the blow a little bit by sharing a (very old) snippet of fic featuring some implied Kubard/Shapur.

Kubard walked towards the row of stables, stretching as he did so and stifling a yawn. The morning sun was bright in his eyes. As he passed under the stable’s awning, Shapur’s chestnut stallion snaked its neck over the door of the stall, ears laid back, as bad-tempered as its rider. Upon seeing that it was Kubard, the ears came forward and the nostrils flared wide.  “Here you go,” he said, extracting a sugar lump from his pocket, not above bribery. Farnaspa, who had been waiting for him in the courtyard, looked surprised.  “Is that…?” “Shapur’s horse? Yeah,” Kubard grinned. “Careful,” he added, seeing his captain begin to extend a hand towards the horse’s muzzle. “It bites.” “But not you, apparently,” Farnaspa said with a raised eyebrow.

Uhh let's see, although I can't remember very well I don't think this was ever supposed to be part of a longer work, just a little scene I came up with that amused me. It's set pre-canon, naturally.

Farnaspa is an OC of mine (it's not his usual timeline, but I felt like giving him a little cameo here)

Kubard bribing Shapur's horse with sugar lumps in exactly the same way he learned to soften up Shapur himself with sweet goods ahaha, but as you can hopefully tell, both the horse and rider have become a bit more welcoming of his presence over time (with the implication here being that Shapur spent the night and hasn't left yet).

There's a persistent myth that chestnut horses are fiery/hot-headed in temperament so it always amused me that in the anime Shapur rides a chestnut, given that I see those same traits in him.

Concept: A witch cat that’s too fat to fly

As much as I know, Andragoras and Tahamine adopted Arslan because Tahamine gave birth to a baby girl, and after that she can't have baby anymore. But why Andragoras didn't try to have other babies with other women? Is there any explanation?

Okay, warning for novel spoilers.

First, the truth about the child born to Andragoras and Tahamenay. The baby was a son rather than a daughter, but unfortunately it was stillborn. This is revealed by Zahhak in Book 16:

'"If Tahamenay had given birth to the child without mishap, things would have turned out differently. Since the son born to that woman was stillborn, Andragoras panicked and staged a foolish charade. No only did he bring in someone else's son, but he also bought three baby girls, gave them the appropriate silver bracelets and sent them off to separate parts of the country. This was all for the sake of preventing the infertile Tahamenay from committing suicide."' (Book 16, Chapter Five, Part ii)

You're right that Tahamenay was left infertile after giving birth. I assume the birth itself must have been pretty traumatic for those who attended her to know this was the case right away, as if Andragoras had believed she was able to give him more children, I doubt he would have gone to all this effort.

As for why he didn't father children with anyone else, as far as I know there are no details about this, but we can make some guesses.

Andragoras doesn't seem to particularly care about the continuation of the royal line. He sees it for what it is, and in all honestly I think he gets a grim sense of satisfaction from hinting at the unpleasant truth while never revealing it in full, and was fully prepared to let the line die out after his death. I'm sure that in an ideal world he'd have liked to have his son inherit, but when that's not possible (specifically, when it's not possible for him to have another child with Tahamenay), from his point of view, a substitute will do.

He needed an heir in order to maintain stability in his rule, which is likely a big motivation for taking Arslan. By the time Arslan is named Crown Prince and officially designated as his heir, five years have passed. During that time, perhaps he held on to some hope that Tahamenay would somehow conceive again, but after five years it must have been apparent that it truly was impossible.

I do think, in the absence of a biological child with Tahamenay, he fully intended for Arslan to become Shah after his death, but was more interested in preserving his own power during his lifetime than he was in setting Arslan up for success.

For Andragoras, I think his biggest motivation was "having". The throne. The wealth and power that came with it. Pars itself. And Tahamenay as his queen. He wanted more than anything to possess her, and he did it by controlling her since he couldn't force her to love him and he knew that without believing she had a living child out there somewhere, she would find a way to escape by killing herself. Perhaps he was even so obsessed with her that no other woman would do. I believe all of this mattered more to him than thinking about what would happen to the country after his own death. He's a very selfish person, especially compared to Arslan.

Unlike Andragoras, Arslan has no personal desire for power and does not wish to be Shah for his own sake, but rather views it as his duty. He spends his whole life wondering what an ideal ruler is like and worries about not living up to that ideal. He is conscientious and puts the future of his people before all else. He doesn't care about riches or treasure. And he does not want to marry or have an heir of his own. They are total opposites in every way.

(That last bit was a digression; I just find it interesting. Hopefully this has answered your question!)