Maritime Shadiness

Oh boy. I told my friends that I was "rotating Cypress in my head but like killing him in various ways" and my friend Pierce (creator of The Wrath!) hit me with the idea of Cy dying and joining The Wrath. Obviously since I haven't gotten aound to writing a page for The Wrath I'll have to explain the concept here for now.

Basically, The Wrath is much like the Flying Dutchman. Dying on open water means The Wrath will take you to the afterlife. Unless you join the crew. The crew consists almost exclusively of AU'd Fullmetal Alchemist OCs but that's unimportant. The Wrath is named for the Captain (named Pierce)'s anger. One of the main crew members, named Xiaoyu Han, remains on the ship to keep a distant eye on her sister, Ai-Mei. All the crew are transformed to humanoid monstrosities, much like the Flying Duchman's crew in Pirates of The Carribean. Xiaoyu is based on a lion fish, for example.

ANYWAY now that you get the gist, back to Cypress.

I've been thinking about killing Cypress off for awhile. I drew him dying last year and haven't stopped thinking about it since. Pierce suggested that he be killed by Sobek's thugs as he sacrifices himself to let The East, and its crew, escape - full on like Boromir from The Lord of The Rings.

We discussed what Cypress' transformed form would be like and we decided on a Kelpie-vibe. Much more humanoid though. Here's a sketch I did of him:

Basically, I gave him seaweed hair and fins, along with a staff with a horse skull on it. Also gave him a little sea glass bracelet since his wrist seemed bare. I wanted to keep him recognizeable for the angst of Leaf recognizing her definitely dead twin. He'll have blue-tinted skin when I get around to coloring this. Maybe I'll tatter his clothes some too... much to think about design-wise... Maybe since he's only been on the ship a short time that'd be the reason he's so human-appearing compared to Xiaoyu (pictured below)?

I think Cypress is definitely the most interesting character to kill off. I'm not sure why, maybe because he's so close to his sister. Maybe because, along with Asu and Hassan, he's one of the 'starting' members of the crew, chronologically, not creation-wise. Unsure but I think this is super fun and will definitely be thinking about it more!

I’ve been thinking about my Demon Herders, specifically Anrai and their existence as a half-demon Dullahan (that is, half-Dullahan-half-human, as, in my universe, Dullahans are considered demons). They're very secretive about them being half-demon, and even avoided telling August until he finds out himself. I’m sure Auggie felt betrayed when he found out (how could his closest friend keep such a huge secret from him, ya know?) but after it sinks in, Auggie would be Anrai’s biggest ally.

Half-demons are looked down upon by both demons and humans, living in the in-between of both worlds. Being a half-demon who looks fully human (so long as their head is attached) means Anrai prefers living among humans. They avoid letting people know anything about them, though, keeping as much about themself private as they can. Prior to Auggie finding out, the only other person who know about them being half-demon was their group’s medic, Mina. She only knew because she had to help him keep his head stitched on.

I have a scene in my head of when Auggie finds out Anrai is a Dullahan. Basically, Anrai’s head gets knocked off and August freaks out, not realizing that Anrai is (mostly) fine, and not, in fact, very dead. Auggie cries and kills the attacker only to hear a quiet “ouch” from Anrai’s head. Anrai is very much concussed after this, but alive. Auggie refuses to speak to them on the way back.

Eventually, they get back to Headquarters and Anrai goes straight to Mina to get their head sewn back on (it requires a lot of mana to keep it on without the help of stitches). After awhile, August goes to apologize to Anrai. All ends up well in the end, but things are awkward for a short while.

Anrai and Auggie are made to be a couple, so they have to make up (lol).

I still don’t have solid designs for Anrai, August, or Mina, but I’ll get there eventually. I messed around with a couple Picrews for inspiration so I have an idea of what I want the three of them to look like. I also started drawing Anrai and I’m liking how it’s turning out. I really need to draw my main group and work on ref sheets but oof that is So Much to do.

Anyway! That’s all I had on my mind I think. I just needed to write it down somewhere so I made this new page. Hopefully I’ll add more entries here sometime