Heart and Hooves Day 2015

Because everyone deserves some love on a day like today, even if you hate them, and they ruined your wedding, and they kidnapped you, and they trapped you in a cave, and they impersonated you, and they tried to steal your Fiancé, and they brainwashed you, and they took over your kingdom, and they tried to enslave everyone you know and love.

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So yes, no dead puppies for this holiday. Not even one!

I was originally going to get a theme going and try to ruin every holiday. My first concept for this piece was a shot over Chrysalis's shoulder. She was holding a picture of Cadance and Shining Armor at a carnival, and Cadance was holding up a giant Teddy Bear in a green magical aura that made it clear the picture was taken while Chrysalis was in Cadance's form. And what you could see of Chrysalis’s face was streaming tears, and they were splattering onto the picture. You know, real cheery stuff.

There's a reason why Shining Armor and Cadance are wearing winter outfits, and it has to do with the inspiration for this.

Soon after I came up with the concept for this picture, I realized how much it resembled a scene from one of the first chapters of Ah! My Goddess. For those who aren't familiar with the manga, I'll give a quick explanation.

At the start of the story, Keiichi is visited by a goddess, Belldandy, who grants him one wish. He thinks he's either dreaming or it's all some kind of prank, so he wishes for her to always be by her side. Since it's not a joke, she grants his wish, and then wacky hijinks (actually quite sweet and heartwarming hijinks) proceed to take place.

In order to keep the wish true, there's something called the System Force that enforces wishes, and that means attempts to break up Keiichi and Belldandy trigger kickbacks from the system. So when a popular girl at the college tries to steal him away, worse and worse things keep happening to stop her, finally ending when the girl invites him to her house alone, and a huge snow storm covers the entire area in about two hours.

She thinks Keiichi isn't going to come, obviously, but then he shows up, and with Belldandy, and they give her a cake and end up staying for a bit to talk and just hang out, as friends.

The parallels are pretty obvious here, and I only realized that after thinking about it for a bit. But I decided to run with it; it's a really nice theme, the two people who are in love trying to befriend the other person who wants to break them up, steal one of them, etc.

Also, I live in Minnesota. Trust me, there's snow on the ground and you wear coats and hats if you go outside right now.

Anyway, here's that sweet and serious thing I promised for today. Now I have six more cards to finish up, the ones I said are less serious and more... well, you know what most of the things I draw are like.

**edit** DA's image resizing is terrible, so make sure you expand the image to its full size. This thing is 1920 by 1080, full desktop background size.