oh man it's so hard not say, one of each please. can we hear more about Graphite Bruises and your original story???
(bonus if you'd like to share a poem, you know i can't resist!)
You are so lovely, have I told you this????
Graphite Bruises is my modern CaitVi AU which is wonderfully self-indulgent, meaning they're both artistic and I've based Piltover on a city I love here in the UK. Caitlyn's come back home from London after being shot in the leg and suspended from the police, following unsanctioned investigations into corruption and organised crime. Jayce tells her to pick up an old hobby and go to a life drawing class at a local arts centre Mel owns. And who is the model for the life drawing class? You get one guess and the guess can't be Heimerdinger. This is also an AU where Caitlyn has a dog named after Eowyn because she's a nerd and Vi has a formerly-stray cat called Bones (full name Fishbones). My gay little hands are all over this AU and no one can stop me.
I struggled to pick one snippet for this because there were several I liked, but y'know what I'm going with a Vi POV that may not even end up as part of the thing (it's meant to be all Caitlyn's POV but I couldn't help myself)
Vi stepped off the platform, her bare feet making contact with cool, polished tile. She threw on her sweats and tank, not bothering with underwear, given that she was only going to take it all off again in a minute. If it was up to her, she wouldn’t have bothered getting half-dressed for the break at all, but not everyone was as relaxed about nudity as Vi outside the studio, despite having just spent a good while studying it. Brits were especially weird about it, compared to the expats and international students. Sometimes she was tempted to just shake out her tits in public to see what would happen.
The artists gradually filed out of the room, some chatting to one another, some giving longing glances back at their unfinished sketches. Vi let her eyes roam over the sheets of paper as she went to catch up with Ekko. She liked seeing the differences in style and approaches to drawing the same subject. Most focused on getting the whole pose drawn within the short time limit, sacrificing accuracy for a general sense of form and weight. A few were clearly naturals with anatomy, manging to turn quick lines of graphite into shapes that seemed to have life. It also amused Vi to see that some people were clearly more used to drawing other types of bodies. Those who tended to prefer a stereotypical cisgender male had ended up with their ‘Vi’s looking like dehydrated gym rats. On the other end of the scale, there were a few sketches that depicted a bustier hourglass figure that was more like the kind of body Vi wanted to worship than the one she saw in the mirror.
Then one particular easel caught her attention.
Instead of trying to quickly capture the whole of the poses Vi had struck, this artist had chosen certain features to focus on each time, allowing them to include a little more detail. The sketches were of her hands, her shoulders and breasts, and often her face, each time drawn with a level of gentleness and attention that made Vi wonder about how the artist saw the world.
The original story is what Enys originally comes from (before I threw her in bg3 as durge)! It started as like......'escaped lab experiment' trope except fantasy, with a religious cult rather than the government or a corporation. Although when I say fantasy, it's slightly more technologically advanced fantasy than the typical medieval-adjacent variety. And then it grew from there into a story idea. Main cast is a 'monster' with a good heart who is discovering the world and also that she's a lesbian (Enys), a smart stubborn lesbian investigating corruption (Mirren), and an ex-religious terrorist lesbian out for revenge (Hunter). Not everyone in the story is a lesbian but even if they were it'd be valid honestly.
“But what is it? What are you?”
The presence that wasn’t a voice answered, rolling over her skin in ripples of air and time. In the corner of her eye, she felt the smell of brine. At the edge of her fingertips, she heard the gathering of dewdrops.
Our sister. Our father. Ourself. We are the same. We birthed one another. There is no beginning and no end.
“Right, let’s try something else.” Mirren snapped, ignoring how unnerved she was by falling back on pragmatism. “Are you gods? Spirits? Forces of nature? Or have I lost my mind while, quite literally, talking to a wall?”
We are all and none.
She fought the urge to pace. Then gave in. Paced.
“Thank you, that cleared things up. Remind me why you can’t talk to me normally?”
The souls inside the shells of your people are infant. You cannot yet be as we are. You cannot fathom us.
