have you read/heard of laika albarn's limerence comics? dad/daughter but peak and the daughter is questionably transmasc/an egg
not to brag but I'm the og Laika enjoyer, I found her twitter when she'd only had it for about a year and I was like 'yooo same wavelength' bc I had just started writing August as a character, bc I hadn't found any emotionally insightful dadcest or anything involving trans guys. and there she was with her internet-poisoned gender-questioning daughter character and autistic emotionally neglectful comic artist dad character and their complicated but somehow ultimately healthy relationship
it's legit so sad she's offline
too many people who can not appreciate art and transmedia storytelling found her and got really outraged and annoying about it!! so I don't even blame her for logging off and deleting everything. I'm so glad I bought all her Limerence volumes and downloaded the Ao3 fanfics before that happened. my personal collection.... #mycollection
konrad and alex!!!!! does konrad's wife know? do his daughters? or is there just a big thing of suspicion? how are the family dynamics as seen by an outsider?
nobody knows. they're usually very careful to not arouse any suspicion, on Konrad's insistence. no public displays of affection initiated by Konrad. even platonic or familial might look sus after a lifetime of them not getting along. he stays careful, so he can stay calm and stay confident that his thing with Alex stays a secret. Alex does do some hugs and leans. (tries more, but Konrad gets mad at casual totally straight sportsmanly things like ass slaps lol.) but his mom takes notice that they've gotten closer than before. which she's really glad about!! her two favorite boys finally declared peace. :') she doesn't see anything to read into.
except Konrad too gets playful and lets loose when alone with Alex sometimes, resulting in bite marks on him which are hard to explain. Alex takes the blame. at least they try hardest to avoid back scratches and hickeys, which might be impossible to explain away.... on Konrad at least. Alex sleeps around anyway, so his body is fair game to decorate. here, cropped this sketch bc it got maybe too explicit. (misgendering cw, Konrad doesn't think Alex has "earned his place as a man" yet :/ sorry he sucks)
as for Alex's sisters:
his older sister, about 10 years older than him, lives away from home and is doing some tradwife shit and doesn't want trans people near her children. they were close before she left, she tried to protect Alex from physical abuse, but nowadays she's got a grudge about having been the third parent as the oldest daughter. unfortunately got conned into believing weird shit. likely by her boyfriend. but Alex isn't sure, she doesn't tell him much. and he doesn't tell her anything bc she broke his trust with all the bigotry.
Alex's younger sister is incapable of connecting with Konrad because she happens to not like anything he does... Alex's theory is because she grew up on the internet, that she read Gyo too early and was traumatized about everything fish-related. Alex can bond with her through a few videogames. he tries not to push her away, but is most scared that she will eventually see through him if they remain close, so he keeps his distance. he isn't sure whether her being fine with it or her being horrified would be worse... her mom likes doing her hair, she's the only one who still has long hair in their family.
they look like a pretty average family to outsiders, with the emotionally distant father, a doting but tired mother, with one adult child who's moved out and two younger siblings still at home. and ofc the son prefers the father's company and will take his dad's place at his job once he retires because nepotism.
konrad and alex?? pleaaaase can i get more konrad and alex????
Alex facts:
good swimmer
immune to blunt force damage
daddy's boy but he also hates his dad for failing him in several ways. but still craves his approval. his mom is busy with and gets along better with his 2 sisters.
anxious nail chewer (used to be a hair chewer but the last time he had long hair was when he was 9)
likes salty snacks rather than sweets
likes the texture of beard. :) on his tongue. lick.
there is nothing he wants more than to be a cis gay blonde military twink who gets railed by masculine men. and then gets dishonorably discharged bc that is not allowed. and it hopefully causes a scandal that reflects badly on his dad, but makes Alex look like an epic playerrrr to anyone who isn't homophobic. but alas he is a short skinny trans man
his weight fluctuates over the years so he doesn't stay skinny with big hips forever (body type he hates. he has some pretty bad dysphoria before testosterone evens him out a bit)
his camo style comes across as 'butch lesbian' to most ppl. (at first, on the first few years of T, 19-25) which distresses him. he is very into men and not interested in women.
would rather even go for straight men than any women. and does. if a hot guy is attracted to him, why would he turn that down? (...the dysphoria can wait until after he gets laid)
leftist anarchist. in the Vaushite and debate bro enjoyer way. a bit contentious and edgy. sincerity over optics
considers himself basically winning at life. he even totally fixed his relationship with his dad who he was scared of and hated for like 13 years of his life. he is dominating, he is winning, he is THE man
except for when he gets overwhelmed and anxious about the weight of Everything Ever In His Life and feels like a worthless disaster loser and then he wants to die. wants to take the wheel and steer dad's stupid vintage cabin cruiser into a cargo ship to kill them both
Alex realised in his teens (from uhhh explicit romance manga. and gay porn) that gay bears exist and that men who look like his dad can also get rawed. and later by extension that his dad is kinda fine. and saw him truly weirded the fuck out when he threw a kinda sexually aggressive joke 'compliment' at him in response to getting chewed out again. he'd never seen Konrad look that lost, even vulnerable. essentially he realized the appeal of catcalling and the power that comes with it. after trying it on his dad who had mistreated him his entire life. basically, that unlocked his true nature.
Konrad facts:
fish 🐟
sailing 🛥 and making out with his son who he hates? loves?, in his vintage cabin cruiser
.....selling people out to the KGB 40 years ago....? traitor to his country
dgaf about his other 2 daughters bc those two don't care about fish or sailing or politics, so he can't connect with them
physical abuse "within reason"
claims to be communist, is more like opportunist? switching sides depending on sustainability and the current power structure.
yes he was happily in the red army, yes he was also in the Baltic chain, no this isn't a contradiction to him. he stays on the winning side and his family is well off all thanks to him
also doesn't vote, considers all current politicians conmen and scammers. does support workers rights and unions and will fight for his subordinates. except the lazy and incompetent ones who he HATES, and especially not the ones who FUCK his sondaughter
would never hurt his precious wife. he can take out anything on Alex though, he knows he can take it
his wife leans anxious and he grounds her by basically never panicking. almost nothing is a surprise for him. except for many things that Alex does. and Alex is always looking for a reaction from him
he only minds Alex sleeping around when some of the men Alex goes for are Konrad's coworkers and subordinates and it reflects badly on him. he sees it as an insult, a way for them to toy with something that belongs to him just to piss him off
...that's his way of saying he thinks Alex is being used and he's worried he'll be mistreated... but he would never say that out loud
actually there's a lot he would never verbalize because "talk can be dishonest and what matters to him are actions"
does not know about gay bears. will not believe you if you explain gay bears to him. certain there is a look to being gay or bi, so he would never be that. (he has a beard so he is straight) his sondaughter is not a real man so it doesn't count as gay and not really a woman anymore either, so it doesn't count as cheating. like a freebie
it's truly always something new with Alex... he loves his weird son and since he turned out this fine, Konrad is vindicated for the tough love approach and is sure he did nothing wrong.
here's the dadson OC sketch for an ask that got out of hand. Alex and Konrad get playful. like cats. and bite and wrestle and have sex without caring about being related. also like cats. spay them
Would absolutely love to hear more about mishka and gus? Like anything really. Maybe you could explain the timeline of how their story happens (i love that kind of thing) or just tell me something you find interesting about them or just ramble whats on your mind?
I'm excited to answer, but are YOU excited for the wall of text you're about to see?? I probably overthought and revised this answer for way too long.
these OCs have wayyyy too much lore and backstory which I might draw at some point. eventually.
backstory in short:
Mishka is a 22yo depressed lonely college dropout NEET trans guy. he's in love with his dad, bc he can't connect to new people easily, and his dad's the only one who has just always been there for him, unconditionally.
his 45yo dad Gustav is a woodworking teacher. a single father who's doing his best. caring, and maybe even lenient with his precious son. he does not reciprocate though. at first.
backstory in long:
so basically Mishka was doomed from the start. his mom was not good at being a mother (violent) and gave him childhood trauma. she left eventually, and dad became a single father when Mishka was 7-9. he comes out as a trans boy in his teens, 14-15. his dad is accepting but his school is not. he makes no permanent connections in 12 years of being in school. just internet friends.
Mishka drops out of college at 22 because of many problems piling up there (adhd, loneliness, misunderstandings, transphobia) and overwhelming him for months. he breaks down in the middle of his last year of undergraduate (he probably could've weathered the storm and finished...), gives up, drops out, goes home and holes up in his room, in his dad's apartment...
Mishka developed a crush on his dad while halfway through college, at around 21 yeard old, but thought he'd get over it and not feel that way anymore when he got back home. lol. lmao.
when dad hugs him after he gets off the train, that notion quickly disappears.
at first he tries to hide it. he doesn't want his dad to hate him. Gustav is happy to see him again, and can tell something's bothering his son, but can never get a straightforward answer. he's worried.
confession scene comic drafts:
eventually, after a month of being back home, Mishka says "fuck it, I've already fucked up my life, I'm already a social outcast, I'm already a garbagefire, I have nothing to lose, I'll tell my dad and either he feels the same or he disowns me!!"
(here, I'll add some sketches I've made for the confession scene. amongst other sketches.)
Mishka confesses kinda hopeful (delusional) that maybe his dad might feel the same.
...but dad does NOT feel the same... he takes some time to process what he just heard.
Mishka is red in the face, sweating, panicking, tearing up bc this is humiliating and painfully awkward and he "should not have told him, should have taken it to the grave!! fuuuuuck"
Gustav is confused and concerned. it doesn't register until he asks again and Mishka's like "this is humiliating enough, don't make me say it again...."
(I need to work out the dialogue here I think..... Gus doesn't disown him, he's extremely uncomfortable with the idea, but ALSO doesn't want to reject Mishka!! he's at a loss and doesn't know how to respond so he's like "it's late, I need some time to think, let's talk about this tomorrow")
he loves his son. but not like that.
(extra long post and more sketches under the Keep Reading)
and then there's an awkward moment / fake-out where Mishka may or may not have been aiming for a kiss. dad turns that down real fast though, uncomfortable. Mishka fears this may have just caused a permanent rift between them, that they can never be affectionate again, and begs him to forget the whole thing.
Gustav can tell that Mishka's gonna be agonizing over this (oh, Gus is too. but doesn't want to double the panic here*) and tells his son to not hurt himself. (Mishka tends to pull at his hair and scratch his skin up to release emotion)
*main things on Gustav's mind: since he's a teacher, he would not only get fired, but hunted for sport if he was actually in an illicit relationship with his son, so he really doesn't want to even entertain the idea. especially since he already feels like he's on thin ice at his workplace - he's good at his job, but it's an open secret that he's "gay" (he's not even gay, he's bi!!)
they retreat to their rooms to turn in for the night. Mishka writes to his bestie Kaito who's the only one he talks to about his feelings for his dad (strangers on the internet and people who took his incest vagueposting as a joke don't count haha).
Gus looks to the internet for any advice on this situation he never expected to be in as a father. "wtf do I do when my own flesh and blood, my own son, half my age, is in love with me, romantically? and maybe sexually?? how do I turn him down without hurting his feelings" he somehow phrases it in such a way that he mostly gets porn results, which is the opposite of what he's looking for! XD it's a very popular porn category and that makes him feel even worse.
here's another WIP I'm trying to work on about this scene. the confession, plus a moment when Gus remembers fearing homophobia in his teen years, but confessing to a classmate regardless (he's bi but most people assume he's either gay or straight)... and immediately shuts it down, thinking to himself "wait that's not even remotely the same thing!! s-some things are societally unacceptable with good reason!"
I'm just trying to work out the dialogue more, to better show Gustav's confusion, apprehension, empathy and an attempt at a gentle rejection.
afterward, they try to go on as normal but now that it's out there, Mishka gets bolder with his affection. and gets reprimanded. occasionally. Gustav's body welcomes the touch, but Gus himself is not happy with this for a multitude of reasons!!!! it's ok, he gets over his incest aversion. he may have felt some sort of way about Mishka's scruffy facial hair and deeper voice when he saw him again for the first time in half a year, but chalked it up to aesthetic appreciation? "what the hell, my son's grown so much... he's so cute... uh, objectively."
they got some mutual desperation and loneliness going on, they're perfect for each other.
I like this fragile and uncertain time in their life and relationship the most so I draw it the most. guilty and hesitant indulgence in forbidden fruit... typical will-they-wont-they situation. but it's like they-probably-shouldnt. but they will.
thanks for asking!! 💘 hope this has been an interesting read. glad you like my characters. :) if this caused more questions than answers, feel free to ask more about them!
I'm really curious to know how gus ends up liking mishka back if he didn't return his feelings at first.
in short: Gustav lowkey felt the same (Mishka's young cute scruffy guy charm + quirky loser rizz + his passion for art 💘), but didn't want to, he would rather have moved on and buried those feelings for countless obvious reasons, but Mishka digs those buried feelings up and makes him feel young again with all this thrilling rule-breaking (intimacy in an illicit incestuous relationship which nobody can ever know about) in their somewhat boring life. Gus also needed to realise his son is a grown-ass man with AuDHD, not the sad little girl he expected her him to always be.
in long: Gus is at a kind of a lonely period in his life where he's lost contact with a lot of friends and family. he only really had Marleen's (Mishka's mother) family but he's still ashamed to face them after she left them both on bad terms and cut contact. even though it's been over 10 years. even though they don't blame him and care for him a lot. (Marleen is a loose end: Gus didn't realize that he basically pressured her into having a child, not until it was too late. he feels pained and guilty about this and will never get to apologize. and ofc his precious son hates her. which also causes Gustav pain. Mishka has only experienced the "incompetent and abusive mother" side of her, so he doesn't get wtf his dad saw in her.)
so yes, he's lonely and notices that Mishka at 22 years old has grown into a kind of a good-looking young man. Gustav hadn't quite realised or come to terms with Mishka being both a grown adult AND a man. as a father, he still couldn't help but see him as his young daughter, a teenager with short hair at most. until Mishka comes back home from college, a few years on T, and actually kinda looks the part?? (Gus did NOT think testosterone HRT could do that much bc he's still a 45 year old cis man who doesn't quite understand HRT bc he has never needed to understand it.) he was always accepting and supportive, but did just assume Mishka would always look like a girl with short hair. he wouldn't say that to him, but that's what he thought.
but no, his son is a pretty fucking cute young man with still soft boyish features and freckles and dark but patchy facial hair, with an actual adult man's voice. 💘 Gus feels ssssomething(?!) about it, a spark of something that makes his heart race, and he extinguishes that spark immediately and puts it out of his mind and moves on bc why would he ever dwell on a bit of a taboo thought that will never actually come up in real life? as in, objectively cute of course, he tells himself.
(idk, this is probably a common feeling when you notice + acknowledge + discard that someone off-limits is quite attractive, right? you go "would" in your mind and move on bc it's irrelevant and won't come up. this is probably what Mishka could/should have done if he wasn't feeling like a hopeless social outcast from failing at college)
he stays oblivious to Mishka's flirting or takes it as a joke. until it's not. until his son sits them down and tells him how he feels and now Gustav has to actually face those feelings he didn't think were realistic or worth any thought. and no, they're still not realistic, they're still absurd and unacceptable.
despite that brief spark earlier, Gustav IS put off by the whole image of "carnal relationship between father and son" that flashes in his mind, and all the connotations that come with it, so he pushes back hard. or tries to. he's uncomfortable but doesn't want to hurt his son's feelings (he can tell Mishka is doing pretty badly rn) and turns him down gently. Mishka is still hurt. but relieved as he expected it to go worse. dad took it well!
dad actually did NOT take it well, he's kinda stressed out of his mind bc this - son has an incest crush on me - isn't something he ever expected to deal with, so he doesn't know how to address it.
he doesn't want to push Mishka away or punish him for just "wrong feelings." doesn't want to lose him.
he doesn't want to reciprocate either. if it ever comes out, he will look like a creep and have his life ruined, since he works at a school.
he's conscious that it just feels wrong in general: Mishka still seems young and vulnerable. what if he doesn't understand the implications?? (lol jfc. still not quite processed the "grown-ass man" part)
he knows Mishka can do better. he's sure with his looks his son could pull anyone, if he only gave them more of a chance...
and from that point, there's some weird tension for a few months bc they're not quite on the same page. Mishka got turned down, but obv the feelings didn't go anywhere. Gus hopes Mishka will get over it, he hopes he himself will get over it. coincidentally, it's 2020 and they're not gonna be able to get any distance from each other for a while!!
they've always been pretty close, but now it's different, and the transgression is noticeable when Mishka gets too handsy a few times, stressing them both out. they argue, apologize, try to talk it out or somehow put it all behind them several times. Mishka already went through all stages of grief about this crush in the last year and doesn't feel bad about the "incest crush = societally unacceptable" part, but only specifically the "dad seems stressed about this" part. who cares about society, he just cares about his dad and wants him, but doesn't want to hurt him, but just wants to feel him up a bit, it's not like anyone will know... but Gustav has a job and a life that can still be ruined so he IS still concerned with society, the guilt and fear about the entire thing is fresh in his mind, conflicting with the part of him that does kinda maybe want this and more.
it just kind of gets better over time through communication. Mishka tries to address the guilt and make his dad feel better, explaining his side, how he also felt pretty fucking bad about this, but that his feelings are genuine, not temporary. or maybe it's just that he wears him down. or maybe he's actually just charming even when he passionately talks about the right type of paper for charcoal drawing, the useless thing he excels at.
Gus gets a bit more lenient and lets Mishka push more boundaries. he also lets himself have a proper look at his son's body. it's a relief that he looks masculine, with some good body hair coverage. he was afraid anything intimate would feel like he's taking advantage of a teenager. but his son really is an adult, bristly body hair and everything. he would actually just fucking off himself if Mishka looked any younger and smoother... or if he looked more like Marleen.
so then for a while it's half-hearted resistance as Gustav starts to feel more comfortable with the idea, but it's all still sorta will-they-won't-they. some pretty bad post-nut clarity and morning-afters because Gus gets sad about it and Mishka is sad that he keeps making him sad. lol.
they finally actually talk it through at some point and dad confesses he's not just indulging him, he's also fucked in the head. it was never one-sided. but they have to agree on some ground rules before he'll feel actually somewhat fine with this. nothing weird or obvious in public, nobody can know, this relationship is only temporary, they'll surely both find someone else eventually. the concerns get addressed somewhat, Gustav feels less bad and Mishka feels wanted. the guilt is still ever-present, but in the way that it fuels the excitement about the whole thing. it's illegal, immoral, thrilling, to get intimate with your own son who wants it sooo fucking bad. they trust each other. they feel safe with each other. nobody else would get it, it's just for the two of them.
dad who finds life boring, routine, and uneventful, until his son propositions him and he knows it's not a good idea, but the idea of a taboo secret and indulging in forbidden fruit is so intriguing that they do end up fucking 💖
Alex and Konrad - OC color scheme tests and idk random notes.
affection and love doesn't come naturally to Konrad, so his son will take it by force. (sex) everything wrong with Alex is his dad's fault, he says, so it's only justified.
they're fun characters to write even without the incest but I have trouble trying to grasp how selfish boomer dads justify being dicks themselves sometimes. I guess the same thing from a different angle? "I'm better than my own father therefore I've done nothing wrong ever in my life" ?
anyway wow I'm very NOT good at staying on-model. many proportions shift around lol.
