A rather rough drawing of one of the "Enforcer" characters in my friend's fic. They know who they are. I'm too lazy to get my white ink out to fix it and make it pretty.
(Ugh! I lied when I said I was all drawâd out today!)
Random Notes:
Violet dancing with a skeleton is kind of morbid, but itâs in-character. Itâs very sad to think about.
Solstice was always intended to become the keeper of the Hero Scarf for better and worse eventually. Her shadow powers were never intended to be a benevolent force in the first place and ask a lot of her in return for itâs use.
Despite chakram being the main weapon I draw Solstice with, her original weapons were small knives and theyâre the only weapons sheâs actually used with both her hands and her powers. Any other armament sheâs used sheâs controlled only with her powers and thrown them from a distance. She would have eventually transitioned back to using knives and close quarters skirmishing, much to her displeasure.
Mitsuki had a lot of tissue damage to the area around her eye when it was taken out by a falling support beam in her childhood. Itâs very difficult to cover up, but she manages just barely.
Both Solstice and Helia donât enjoy using their powers for anything other that combat. Not even movement/flight. Solstice just exerted use of them enough to support her bad leg (but was still constantly in pain) and only used flight powers if absolutely necessary.
One of the few scribbles of Helia I forgot (more like couldnât find because it wasnât named properly) to put in her photoset. I donât actually feel like finishing it but here it is. Random commentary under the cut, I suppose(?).
This was actually one of the earliest drawingâs done of Post-Reset Solstice (AKA Scavenger!Solstice) and one of the drawings explores the differences that can possibly occur between a pre and post-reset versions of a character. It was just a bonus that Helia was in the drawing so it could be put in the photoset, but it primarily didnât really feature her. This really was a Solstice drawing. In fact, the original prompt for this was, âDraw Solstice as a member of Baelâs crewâ. While that isnât exactly occurring here, as I donât think Solstice would ACTIVELY be a part of his group (but wouldnât mind helping them out once in a blue moon), I kind of feel this sort of fits the kind of things sheâd do in the new environment(?). I hesitate, because I donât think anyone really expected this and donât expect this kind of high-strung, loner behavior to be normal or typical for someone like Solstice, especially not Suppressionâs Solstice. I find this to really suit her, but because this really was what she did when she was first made. And Iâm not talking about the âRP versionâ that Degulus consantly refers to, because that really was a rewritten version of her to fit that story. Iâm actually talking about the very first incarnation of her from maybe a little over five years prior (I guess itâs story time?!).
In that one, while she was part of a team, she was separate from that team and would assist them from afar. To the end, she resolved to be apart from everything else because she felt she was too dangerous and unstable as part of the greater world her friends lived in till she finally died. And no one even really knew she died helping them and accepted she wouldnât be rewarded for her deeds. She didnât deserve the recognition for the things she did and that was perfectly fine.
I donât see Solstice traveling alone though really in Suppression because she canât exactly just talk to people on a cell phone or a computer that she doesnât have. Her moral compass, I feel, is really messed up without a someone practically yelling at her to steer her away from constantly rushing in to death. Solâs really the kind of person who would accept dying if she thinks her death is worth what she accomplishes with it. Sheâd really need someone dedicated to constantly keeping her away from crossing the river Styx and also be willing to go along with whatever she wants to do without much fuss.
Unfortunately, I canât really find other characters in Suppressionâs cast that Solstice would actually listen to or would fit that type of role. While they could be kinda nice, none of them wouldnât really take a bullet for other characters or accept the kinds of things Sol would want to do. Theyâre all really kind of self-serving and egotistical, looking out for only themselves. So, while Helia isnât a character that is particularly great for that, I kind of retrofitted her to fit in that slot till more things get finalized. It kind of works because âLia was originally written to become incredibly distressed over people she would care about and if harm would come to them and would take a hit if it prevents someone she likes from getting hurt.
Otherwise, one day Iâll actually have a full sheet/set of Scavenger!Solstice drawings because I really like her a lot.
I never really had set outfits for them aside from Merry and Samantha, though the fixings on Samanthaâs dresses always change depending on my mood for the day. Sadly, Samantha doesnât really look like Samantha but I tried(?). Unlike the others, Samanthaâs iconic looks donât work well when sheâs alive.
Helia Character Scribbles (+ Some Scavenger!Solstice) AKA my latest obsession to draw.
Sheâs not a character that shows up in Suppression in particular (though I often draw or write her showing up in that universe) or any other things I work on, but I just enjoy drawing her a lot. She was supposed to show up in Side Material for Suppression but it never became a thing.
As for why her designs are drastically different, half the drawings are pre-Reset/Reboot Suppression and post-Reset Suppression. You can probably tell which is what. She would play drastically different roles in either setting.
Some fun details for Helia as a character:
Helia actually has a small emergency first aid kit and is one of the few characters equipped with medical supplies (among the other unsavory crap she carries around on her utility belt) that Iâve made. Itâs behind her on her belt (small of her back) so these drawings donât usually show it.
When I actually take the time to put value in her drawings, around one of the eyes of the mask I draw her with has runic text that say âScramble Identityâ.
Helia does wear lipstick when sheâs not out being a civvie and adores stage makeup in general. She doesnât often wear cosmetics as a civilian though.
Post-Reset/Reboot Helia is often drawn with Scavenger!Solstice and goes along with her bullshit as long as it doesnât get either of them hurt or killed. Sheâd most likely end up being a substitute living meat shield and act sort of as Solsticeâs voice of reason (mostly just tell her to not die from her own stupidity and recklessness and not so much âdo goody-two-shoesâ things) for Kevin if he canât do it and no one can really handle Solsticeâs volatility or the fact she refuses to play nice with others well.
Pre-Reset/Reboot Helia is drawn with either a character named Gavan (whom no one should know but myself and my acquaintances) and/or Kevin. However, Helia written to be friends with and reluctant ally to Secretary!Solstice. She thinks Solstice really shouldnât be going through with her ideas and scheming. This is usually what results in this huge contrast in personality between Pre-Reset who is more chill and complacent and Post-Reset who is more off the wall.
(REMINDER: None of this really is canon or a thing but I penned this down at some point to flesh her out as a character and get a feel for how she would behave.)
This isnât actually a thing thatâs a thing but some friends had lots of fun having just odd character pairings just talking with each other about things. I couldnât pass up this one with Solstice and Santris. They feel like the type to just have calm and serene conversations like this and still be chatting rather candidly about raising hell for people. Regardless of the context, the feeling is cool to me and Solstice fits in well with more villainous/Chaotic cliques. Her mannar of speaking meshes well with them. Bravo.
Suppression is produced and maintained by my friend Degulus
SUPPRESSION RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS - KEVIN AND SOLSTICE
NOTE: These arenât ACTUAL translations of these songs. Theyâre close but occasionally there are just lines I rewrite to fit the characters I associate with them. I also didnât write these translations, but Iâve long since forgotten where Iâve gotten these translations. I know some are from Kafka-fuura (for Touhou songs) and some from other sources that Iâve modified.
If you donât know what Suppression actually is, itâs a webcomic that was created and maintained by my friend Degulus, which you can read here. Iâve worked on it from time to time. Particularly, I wrote the original incarnations of Solstice Disglair and Kevin Sentor and helped adapt them over as well as assist in the development of other characters in Suppression.
This one is a little different. I WOULD just talk about Kevin but itâs difficult to talk about Kevin without going into things like his dynamic with Solstice. They were designed as a pair, but Kevinâs more heavily reliant on Solstice, whereas Solstice can act independently. I donât exactly understand how or why, but theyâve always been a pair designed to be like soulmates.
They are both simultaneously the Sun and Moon, where the Sun can stand bright on itâs own but only distantly and the Moon that reflects the Sun in all of itâs aspects and sides but is much closer. They reflect each other in their actions and their personalities compensate to suit the situation theyâre in.
KEVIN AND GREED
So, where do I start?
Kevin/Kamine has always been fairly sensitive to the suffering of others. Probably too sensitive. Heâs practically drawn to it and always attempts to resolve their issues, with his mileage varying on how well he does. He wants to help everyone he can with whatever he can. In fact, the net he casts is too wide. But he canât help everyone. Thatâs madness. It overwhelms him.
And he canât take too many strides towards change in his position. Kevin/Kamine is too visible, because unlike Solstice and others like her, he has a position of power that he was born in to from the start. He canât move without a million eyes watching him. He didnât earn anyoneâs trust himself.
Enter his attachment to Solstice.
If he canât save everyone, he can at least save this one person who canât help herself. And he puts all his energy into accomplishing just that. Their relationship starts from this thought and it stays with him even as their friendship and partnership evolves and changes.
But his relationship with Solstice is a fairly tentative one. Itâs full of trust and mistrust.
Over time, Kevin realizes that Solstice is fully capable of taking care of herself. Sheâs not a damsel in distress. And sheâs not entirely helpless. His friend has enough drive and motivation to accomplish the goals she sets out for herself and is generally very smart about it. Solstice doesnât need Kevin for those sorts of things and Kevin acknowledges this. And Kevin knows that Solstice is a kind soul. She wants to do the right thing and they bond on that. He tries to help her when he can in this capacity and allows her to freely make her own choices and decisions without his input but with his support.
However, her ambition and bitterness causes her to spiral out of control.
It breaks her. It causes her to compromise her kindness and love of the world. Kevin doesnât want this person that he treasures to destroy themselves and the things they care about pursuing what is right and just. He doesnât believe that she wonât be consumed by her greed just like all the other people around him. Heâs seen it happen too many times. Itâs the world heâs trying to escape. His position is product of greed and ambition. Itâs the world he comes from.
Kevin doesnât want that for her. He doesnât want that for anyone. He doesnât want her accomplishments and happiness to be seen as something born out of just her selfishness like the rest.
So, he turns to lying for her sake; he lies to the world and he lies to himself. Heâs also greedy like the rest. Heâs driven to keep her away from her own ambition... To save her. To save everyone from her ambition. But most of all, he wants her to be happy as the kind soul he treasures. And he despairs knowing that those two things will never meet.
He knows all too well that she canât be happy and get what she wants without giving up part of herself in the process. He doesnât want to accept that the darkness she has is also what makes her who she is.
But he can try. He can damn well try... And he knows heâs failing. And it hurts.
All he can do is watch Solstice and slow her down so she doesnât take on too much and too quickly, and thatâs okay because she still stays the same. Sheâs still his friend and the person he cares about... But thatâs not the world they both live in. Things escalate too quickly. Too rapidly. And the power she accumulates does too.
He canât trust her to not give in to temptation. The possibility that everything will fall apart with her at the helm torments him. Itâs keeps him up at night. And he canât stop her anymore. Sheâs become much bigger now. Sheâs not just his treasured person anymore. She represents so much more to their world.
And he can only watch as everything falls apart with her at the center of it.
Solstice is living proof that a peaceful world cannot exist without conflict, strife and suffering. And Kevin cannot accept that and move on.
As usual, donât expect this to be a thing in Suppression. These are the incarnations of the characters as were originally plotted out to be, even outside of the context of Suppression since theyâre used in multiple places. Iâll probably always see them like this though.
Suppression!Kevin is really just emotional, irritable and quirky big kid with a mild superhero complex. A huge gag character. Since Solstice doesnât dive in to the murky grey area, there isnât any real reason for Kevin to either. Your mileage may vary on how you interpret them.
SONGS FEATURED:
Otsukimi Recital (ăȘăăăăȘă”ă€ăżă« - Moon-Viewing Recital); By èȘç¶ăźæ”P (Shizen no Teki-P) aka ăă (Jin); Vocals by: IA ; Cover by: kradness ; Album: ăĄă«ăŻă·ăăŁăŹăłăŒăș (Mekakucity Records)
Shonen Brave (ć°ćčŽăăŹă€ăŽ - Brave Boy); By èȘç¶ăźæ”P (Shizen no Teki-P) aka ăă (Jin); Vocals by: IA ; Album: ăĄă«ăŻă·ăăŁăŹăłăŒăș (Mekakucity Records)
SUPPRESSION CHARACTERIZATION - SOLSTICE DISGLAIR ( BASED ON [THE LOST ONEâS WEEPING], [CLEAN FREAK], [IRONY] and [THAT WHICH REMAIN UNCHANGING] )
NOTE: These arenât ACTUAL translations of these songs. Theyâre close but occasionally there are just lines I rewrite to fit the characters I associate with them. I also didnât write these translations, but Iâve long since forgotten where Iâve gotten these translations. I know some are from Kafka-fuura (for Touhou songs) and some from other sources that Iâve modified.
So if you donât know what Suppression actually is, itâs a webcomic that was created and maintained by my friend Degulus, which you can read here. Iâve worked on it from time to time. Particularly, I wrote the original incarnations of Solstice Disglair and Kevin Sentor and helped adapt them over as well as develop other characters to Suppression.
Suddenly creator commentary? I donât know what this is. I felt like writing something about this stuff, considering the time and effort put into this. Story being: a while ago, I made these series of videos with art, mostly with the purpose of sharing my perspective on how these characters feel and acted. Though, I never really expanded on what they meant. They were just something abstract that looked like they informed very little. I shared them, but never got much feedback on them. Looking back at it, I probably should have said more... But better late than never, right?
Itâs fairly interesting, knowing that a lot of my decisions on how I wrote a lot of these characters end up strongly tied to the music I associate with them. Solstice and Kevin/Kamine tend to be kind of my babies that fascinate me, mainly since the characters themselves are written to be fairly depressing in nature. They generally have fairly polarizing music on their playlists despite constantly being written as dorky people with weird quirks but seem pretty chipper.
SOLSTICE AS THE SHADOW
In any instance of her that Iâve written. Solstice is easily tempted by the darkness that was born out of her own loneliness and frantically grasps at things to fill in that space. She wants control. She wants stability. She desperately wants the power to make it happen.
And yet these are things she cannot have. Solstice doesnât know a life where she can control anything that happens, her environment is incredibly unstable and will probably stay that way for the rest of her lifetime, and she is nothing against the powers that cause things to go awry.
All she can do is fall back to the darkness and the chaos to create order and will embrace those aspects of herself. Theyâre the only things that will welcome her back with open arms and she believes theyâre the only things that can grant her what she wants (but not always what she needs). She will always be at a loss when trying to embrace the ways of the light. She only knows how to manipulate the dark.
But the darkness is not always evil. Just different.
While Solsticeâs intentions arenât evil, she will drag herself down to sickening levels to eliminate problems and potential problems. She is not above being underhanded. She is willing to kill people that get in her way. She will manipulate the world like itâs some kind of twisted game. She will break things to put them back together the way she wants them to be. She will drag people to Hell with her to create the world she wants to exist. And at that point, Solstice is no different from a villain. She just wants different things from the villains in her story. She only knows how to be a villain to accomplish good things.
Solstice knows this. Sheâs aware that she can never be a wholly good person after crossing the threshold which allowed her to do abhorrent things. And doesnât mind if those actions creates her desired Utopia. But she can never be a representative of that Utopia; only itâs supporter. Solstice has long been unworthy of being a representative. She doesnât fit her Utopiaâs ideal. She cannot see the world she lives in as beautiful in itself in all itâs imperfections, but she searches for itâs potential to be beautiful in the things that exist in it and treasures what she finds.
To abandon this aspect of herself to try and be â100% goodâ suddenly removes a huge aspect of her identity. Her understanding of herself leaves her. She would feel she is suddenly someone with no direction. There would just be the stinging loneliness that can never be erased that was always there. And the despair that comes with that feeling is worse than the feelings that come with being a villain in someoneâs story.
You can never ask her to be âgoodâ. Itâs a promise she canât keep. You can only ask her to be âbetterâ.
As with most things adapted for Suppresion, this pretty much isnât in Degulusâ interpretation of her in Suppressionâs main story line. Solstice is interpreted to be more-or-less okay with how her life is, thus your mileage may vary on how you read her in Suppression.
Iâll probably always see her as this very sad person who would never be 100% happy in her life. Just content and never satisfied with the way things are. Solstice is forced to live with what she got and would forever strive to change things for the better using whatever method she needs to no matter how messy it is, as long as no one else notices.
But for the most part, actual Suppression!Solstice is just your quirky âgood informant-allyâ character. There arenât really any deep shades of grey sheâll dive in to that would make the reader question her morality and whether what sheâs doing is right or not because sheâs a âgoodâ character of such a configuration. Thatâs really all sheâll probably ever be in the end. Who knows. I could be wrong. But so far I havenât seen much evidence that Iâm not that I hadnât put in myself. People are definitely free to make me eat my hat though if I am wrong.
(...But not actually make me eat my hat because it would be a waste of a good hat...)
SONGS FEATURED:
Lost One no Goukoku (ăăčăăŻăłăźć·ć - The Lost One's Weeping) - By Neru; Vocals by ăăȘ or ééŁ (Sana)
Irony (ăąă€ăă) - By scop; Vocals by ăȘăăăă (Nayugorou)
"Iâve seen what you do⊠You call to them and call them by new names⊠He was Avaritia. She was Ira. You laughed as they tore apart the world⊠ And⊠I wonder⊠How many souls have you found like themâŠ"
âIâve seen what youâve done... And I hide away. The horrors of the world eat away at my soul. And give it my all to avert my eyes so I may never feel the sting of my reality again.â
Rhonada âRoniâ Brinks of Suppression (webcomic)
"I still hear you... And I remember the way you called to me. You said you would be with me forever if I let you stay... And... I wonder... How many people like me have you made that same promise to..."
Azure Neuvet (Character Model Sheet) of Suppression (Webcomic)
Source Comic created and maintained by Degulus
Character Sheet drawn by Me on 2015APR20
Most of this iteration of her design didnât get put into her final model aside from the length of her hair and her color palette. But I still find her a very pretty character.
Consider this a late Christmas present to people who know about Suppression. I donât know exactly how many of these sheets I plan on releasing. A lot of the art for the recent characters are scattered about. I actually had to redraw Azureâs model on the right because it was corrupted originally.
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