#chedanta chronicles

[parakaryote]

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week from an arospec creator! 😁💚🤍🩶🖤 Have one of the MCs of the Chedanta Chronicles (my WIP fantasy series) and an important character who’ll show up in Book 2.

Darby is the second-youngest child of the Chedanta family, a historical artisan family of waning prestige - though she no longer lives or associates much with them, having left their precious metal-and-gemstone-filled home district for the seaside. She’s a precog (able to see multiple possible near futures) and really likes jewelry and nail polish.

Yanivari is a sports announcer and commentator who lives in one of Datéyon’s desert-facing districts. She’s easily bored, but also easily amused. Her own favourite sport is arthropod mecha racing, and she’s interested in the world outside the megacity. Also, yes, that is in fact her legal name that she was given at birth.

They’re FWBs.

[Image descriptions: Two digital drawings of the characters discussed above. Both are white women.

Image 1: A woman with a dusty pink shag cut, off-white eyes, pink nail polish, and a multicoloured bead necklace leaning on a small table and looking to the right with a smile. Text next to her reads: Darbicor “Darby” Chedanta. Greyromantic bisexual.

Image 2: A woman with green-streaked short brown hair, heterochromia (right eye brown, left eye green), and a double-sleeved blue shirt. She is smiling at the viewer as she talks into a microphone, sweeping one hand out as if showing something off. Text next to her reads: Yanivari Yanivaryas. Aromantic lesbian.

End ID.]

[vivianwrite]

Announcement re: Apricot Sun

I think it's time to officially announce that Apricot Sun is the first instalment in a series! I have five books planned.

Going forwards, all posts about it will also be tagged with the name of the series: the Chedanta Chronicles.

[parakaryote]

More old(ish) sketchbook stuff.

The first one is post-main story Walter and Lucian at a book signing, specifically for a book by an acclaimed Dielist author they’ve known since their Erebus days. The second one is Consicor in the process of taking measurements for a clothing design for her brother Arimeo (scribbled out because I really can’t stand how I drew him).

[Image descriptions: Two pencil sketches.

Image 1: A pencil sketch of two smiling brown-haired thin white men. The one in the front has longer, wavier hair and is clean-shaven, and is holding out a small book to someone offscreen. The one in the back has shorter, straighter hair and beard stubble, and is looking at the other man.

Image 2: A pencil sketch of a fat white woman with a black bob smiling at someone offscreen as she stretches a tape measure between her hands.

End ID.]

[parakaryote]

[Image description: A digital drawing of a white woman with a dusty pink shag cut and white irises walking to the left and smiling at the viewer. She has on a purple sports bra and shorts, light blue and green kinesiology tape on her left shoulder, matching braces on her left wrist and right knee, and a multicoloured bead necklace. Next to her is a symbol of an eye looking at a bunch of layered shapes that get larger but less numerous as they go out. Text reads: Darbicor (Darby). gHSD + autism + PTSD. Braces and tapes problem joints (not every night). End ID.]

Part 2 of the disabled OC series (previous instalment here)! Here we have Darby herself, the main protagonist of the Chedanta Chronicles.

Some notes:

This is specifically her from book 2 onwards. She has no idea she’s disabled and needs aids throughout the majority of Apricot Sun.

I’ve decided to tweak her hair to be redder and her necklace to be less eye-searing.

The symbol is an in-universe symbol for precogs, representing the relationship between the distance, number, and probability of the possible futures they can see.

I know there’s controversy about the HSD vs hEDS diagnoses. I’m under the impression that there isn’t a clear distinction, given the similar symptoms (sometimes even similar severity!) and the fact that we don’t completely understand the genetics, but for this I’m going with what Téya and Darby would more likely be diagnosed with on present-day Earth.

[parakaryote]

A couple of Harenocus doodles.

The first is a concept of segans, the demigod Seganvel’s semblance-species, as mousebird descendants instead of hawks. Still not 100% committed to it, though the idea is kind of cool. The design is referenced off of ospreys, falcons, and of course mousebirds.

The second is Orybri, a character in Apricot Sun. She’s a mind reader with power-limiting earrings - with them on, she can’t read anyone’s thoughts unless they specifically want her to. (That is her right hand, the drawing is a bit confusing. Yes, I drew it too large.)

[Image descriptions:

Image 1: A digital drawing of a blue-black and white bird with long wings, a long tail, and a crest on the head. Text reads: Segan (IPA pronunciation: say-gan, “gan” rhymes with “fan”). Piscivorous coliiform. Used in Old Datéy falconry. Fur-like feathers on torso and head. Pamprodactyl.

Image 2: A pencil sketch of a white woman with short brown hair and disc-shaped earrings looking nervously at the viewer with one hand raised to her face.

End ID.]

[parakaryote]

I decided to draw a bunch of my disabled characters before Disability Pride Month ends, with a focus on physical disability because I haven’t really done that yet.

First up: Téya from the Chedanta Chronicles! A game-loving lady who befriends Darby (the MC), and helps spur her realization that her symptoms aren’t “just little quirks”.

In addition to puzzles, she also loves fashion. This is relevant to the plot of Book 1 😉

The retractability of her crutches is to make it easier to sit down without having to lean them against things.

[Image description: A pencil drawing of an East Asian (equivalent) woman with medium-length black hair. She is standing with forearm crutches, looking to the right with a smile. She is wearing a short dress with a bunch of spiral designs, dark leggings with bands around the knees, and light makeup over her eyes. A crossword puzzle is drawn next to her. Text reads: Téya. hEDS + POTS. Forearm crutches are retractable via pashinbir. Leggings are a combination of compression garments and soft knee braces. End ID.]

[parakaryote]

Darby reference sheet! Redone because I realized I could’ve done much better on the old one (now deleted).

She’s the main character of my current WIP novel The Mysteries of the Apricot Sun. One Harenocan year / two and a half Earth years before the beginning of the story, she ran away from home after her father kept pestering her to use her psychic powers to help him gamble. She’s carefully built herself a new life in a coastal district of her world’s megacity (also its only city), but now strange events are threatening to shatter it…

[Image description: A reference sheet for Darbicor “Darby” Chedanta, a young white woman with off-white eyes and a dusty pink shag cut. On the left she is standing and waving at the viewer. She is wearing an oversized shirt, long pants, and flip-flops. Her nails are painted green, and she has a bracelet on her left wrist and a ring on her right index finger. In the upper right are her colour palette, hair and eye details, and her happy and nervous expressions. Below are her favourite pieces of jewelry: a multicoloured bead necklace, a translucent bracelet with pink hearts, and a silver ring with a nighttime ocean inset. In the bottom right are two drawings. In one she’s drinking juice while sitting on a chair with her right arm twisted around so her hand rests backwards on her thigh, labelled “casual pose”. In the other she’s walking with her legs unusually straight, looking at the viewer with a pained smile and saying “ow”.

Text reads:

Harenocan human

(female gender symbol) She/her

8 Harenocan years (20 Earth years)

Psychic (precog)

176 cm (5’9”)

Mostly wears loose shirts

Often paints her nails in bright colours

Likes: Jewelry, salty foods, the beach

Dislikes: Betting (don’t ask)

Perpetually wide-eyed

Hypermobile, but doesn’t realize it for a long time. Biggest problem joints are her knees, especially left; tends to walk with a stiff-legged gait.

End ID.]

[parakaryote]

Darby and another character from her setting.

[Image description: Two women standing side-by-side, shown from the chest up. They are both white and in their 20s. The one on the left has a dusty pink shag cut and is wearing an oversized orangey-yellow shirt with a silver necklace. She is looking at the other woman with a smile. The other woman has short brown hair with two thick mint-green streaks and complete heterochromia iridum (left eye brown, right eye green), and is wearing a blue suit-like garment with double sleeves. She is looking at the viewer with half-lidded eyes and waving with her right hand. End ID.]