Art for my country Branch au 🥰 Details abt it under the cut ⬇️
Here's my silly little au! So basically Branch ran away from Pop village because everyone (minus Poppy) treated him terribly. While exploring he stumbles upon the outskirts of Lonesome Flats, where he trips and sprains his ankle. Delta finds him and is like "What tf you look weird but ig ur my son now." And from then on she takes care of him. Somewhere along the way Branch starts to call her Mom (or Mama/ Ma). Clampers is born at some point, making her Branch’s cousin. They love/hate each other and have that unhinged sibling dynamic. They just turn into a cute little family and I love em sm.
Delta also helps Branch regain his colors, although they are slightly muted tones of his true colors. Because the county trolls are so adept at dealing with grief, Branch is allowed to process his grandmothers death and his fear of singing with a good mentality. This leads to him slowly gaining his colors back (hence the blue streaks in his hair) and learning to be happy again. He does start to sing again but it's a mix of country and Pop. (Which comes into play during TWT, but more on that later).
Also I made Gary (the remote Imao) into a goat critter. He's stupid and I love him. Delta has an ongoing feud with Gary bc he constantly tears up the garden but she can't do anything brash because Branch absolutely loves him.
There is more but that's it for nowww! Feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them! Give me ideas for this aus name pls I have nothing
She's a Country Troll, and her name is Crystal Dawn. Delta Dawn is her aunt (although they act more like sisters due to how close they are in age), and Clampers is her baby cousin.
More information below the cut:
Crystal is an ex-beauty pageant winner. She had won every pageant she was a part of since she was quite young up until she was a young adult, when a mental break made it necessary for her to quit for her own health (and the health of those around her). [The exact number of pageants won is still to be determined, although I might settle on 19.]
Nowadays, Crystal works in the mines, minding her own business. She specifically mines and collects wishing stones (which I headcanon are more like geodes in Lonesome Flats).
Crystal is very soft-spoken, and she still deals with quite a bit of PTSD from her pageant days. However, she tries her best to be kind and mindful of others, and she'll fiercely defend the choices and autonomy of others as she would defend her own.
(Also, Delta looking proud as Clampers gets closer <3)
Of course, the craziness does not take away how adorable she can be, just look how she gets
And now to admire Lonesome flats. The land itself appears to be mostly made of cloth and cotton, practically puffy territory as seen here and in the previous Gifs
Not only that, since this is where you can best appreciate how the water is made with a texture similar to a reflective fabric, which is great so that, despite being textured, it gives an impression of crystal clear water
A similar scene that I love is this one, where the water's edge looks like a torn cloth
Once again I want to turn my attention to Clampers because it's adorable the way she imitates Delta and then gets into her hair, it reminds me a lot of a baby kangaroo getting into its mother's pouch <3
Fill for @blooeyedtroll ‘s Hairoween prompt, crossposted at AO3 here.
Song reference, "Kiss an angel good morning" by Charlie Pride.
Headcanon - My brain can't make sense of where all the really highly processed stuff from really specific environments that aren't reasonably accessible to Trolls comes from so it went full kookoo and decided fantasy logic.
So The mines outside of Lonesome Flats is a spice mine, where they dig out huge hunks of capsaicin in the form of rhinestones from between the quilt like dirt. When it turns winter in the mountains, the river freezes upstream and turns to a trickle, and there's runoff from said mountain, leaving another kind of spice to be panned for. It's pumpkin spice season folks.
Fill under cut
Delta Dawn heaves a deep sigh as she gazes out into her namesake, hour early enough that there’s still a nip of cold set into the porch from the moon’s cool, sleepy gaze. The year has tipped forward again, through near miserable summer into something most folks might call tolerable. In the near dawn, it’s downright chilly, and she sits on her creaky old rocking chair, front hooves tapping lightly against the worn wood of her front porch and time soft shawl across her shoulders, some old thing her great granny had stolen from the mountain folk years ago, color long and lovingly faded into dark navy and a red just a few shades darker than mud. Long shadows stretch between buildings as the sun yawns, and she finds herself fallowing suit.
It’s quiet. But it’s acceptably so. Her fingers itch to pluck at her strings, but the town still sleeps while the cool will let them, and no respectable folk would suffer even her disturbance when the heat hasn't set in yet. Instead, she leans her head back against the rim of her chair and lets the gentle, rhythmic sway lullaby her into contentment.
There’s a beat there, in the downtap of every swing of her chair, in the sway of chimes from the rafters, in the little grumbles and occasional spiting of Miss Daisy Dukes as she clacks her knitting needles across the way on her own porch. Old woman sleeps on her porch, if she sleeps at all, and was never much for respectable otherwise. But there’s something there, and the Mayor chases it with a hum, breaking every now and again to wet her throat with the warm drink steaming gently on the little rough aside table she keeps besides her chair for just this occasion.
It hot and just on the right side of spice. As the cool settles into the desert nights and the cold snow settles into the mountains the river running right along their fair little settlement runs just almost dry, and the little ones spend their days panning for the rhinestone bright crystals they grind into spice. What they dig from the mines is hot and painful in the mouth after years baking in the sun, but the dark muddy nuggets from the river are bitter and musky with clove and cinnamon. Soon, very soon, the Prairie folk will flood the highways, running from the snow, with all sorts of goods and commerce, and Dawn will be able to sweeten her morning milk with a great dollop of baked pumpkin whisked up to a froth, a flavor she’ll tire of quickly, but enjoy the novelty of for the week or so it’s new.
But for now, she’ll enjoy the fruits of her little girl’s labors, the first round of hours of meticulously panning through near mud and tirelessly grinding rock hard spices in her little girl size pestle, a past time Delta Dawn herself partook as a child, and savored the once a year treat all the more for.
Quick as a whip, her hand shoots out and grasps the wrist of the little hand creeping up over the edge of her side table, making not for her drink, but for the still untouched slab of cornbread, frosted liberally with butter, on the little tin plate next to it. No doubt the smell of it baking was what woke the little terror, and Dawn cracks just enough of an eye to stare the child down.
An approximation of dressed, in the very same pair of dirty denim she’d been in before bed, but that was well enough when she’d just dirty a newer pair just as soon. Still in her night cap at least, which was a relief. She was just getting old enough to know better than to go out without her hair properly braided, and the tender headed rug rat had been putting up a fuss lately that her Auntie was in no mood for.
“Not for you.” Dawn puts down in her sternest voice, and the frown she gets in return lets her know it’s gonna be a fightin day. “Now go wash your face for breakfast.”
“Already did.”
“You most certainly did not, I can see the crust of your eyes from here.”
A grumble, a put upon sigh, and she waits one beat, two, before her hand shoots out again.
“Not,” and rather than grabbing, this times it’s punctuated with a swat “For you.”
Old Daisy cackles across the road instead of minding her own business, covering little Clamper’s growl, but get she goes, and Dawn lets herself fall back into the last scant moments of peace she’ll have in the day.
Her swattin hand does not give Clamper’s a third chance to listen when the girl gets her gumption up again for another try. Rather, the goodly Mayor smirks up the ceiling, and then meets that smirk to Old Daisy’s own at the sound of content chewing. Dawn take a slab of cornbread herself, warm from the oven and rich with butter and cinnamon, and hotter than the devil’s sweat with a thick spread of time soured chili paste hidden under the butter. Dawn’s own face immediately flushes with the heat and pungent vinegar, and she sees the very second her unsuspecting child realizes what she’s done to the treat.
Old Daisy joins her in a cackle far to loud for the morning hour as the little girl hops impotently and hollers through her nose, breathing fire and spitting mad for it. When the hollering goes just to the side of whimpers that Dawn knows means the heat is to much, she scoops up the mason jar of spiced Bugfaloo milk she’d hid in the shadow of her chair and pops the top, unbothered when the little one hops onto her front right knee with force set to bruise and lets her have the jar.
“You’d think you’d listen by now.” She coos as she let’s the girl drink and swish away the offensive burn. Delta Dawn waits until Clampers spits out a long stream of milk over the edge of the porch and keeps drinking before she eases off the nightcap and pulls a comb from where it was tucked up in her own massive mane, beginning the meticulous task of splitting the great mess into something resembling locks to braid.
“Wasn’t funny.” Comes the pettish reply.
“Was a little funny.” If only because she knew the little girl couldn’t help herself. Indeed if she’d gone and listened and washed her face, she would have found her own little pan of bread, dirty brown with her hard won spices and half a cup of sugared cream to dress it with, sitting warm on the stove.
Instead, petulant but passive, the little girl whines, but lays her head just above her Auntie’s bosom. The angle is awkward as she tries to wrangle the bright orange bristles her ward calls hair, but a great wave of matronly love washes over her anyways.
“I’ve always got a smiling face.” She starts, letting the little rhythmic something hiding in Old Daisy’s knitting needles bubble up as a tune. It’s just a little snip of a thing, not quite whole, but coming none the less. “Any time and anyplace. And anytime they ask me why, I just smile and say.”
She holds the note, tugs a pigtail as she ties it off until Clampers is looking at her.
“You’ve got to-” And with that, she smacks a kiss onto the part she’d created as she gathers the other half of marginally tamed hair. “Kiss an angel good morning.” There’s more to the tune she’s sure, but it’s all she needed to get a giggle and a spot of forgiveness for her trick.
