Quick doodle inspired by the lemon demon song. Feels right for my mood about now.
(yes dra can be inserted into anything if you're deranged enough)
Variant + The old sketch that was lying around for who knows how long before I unearthed it today:
he's a trick of the light to love you tonight, can't you see him? why can't you see him? he needs to feel like he exists, so please baby, please baby, step into the mist
Also, since pride month is coming soon, and my new years resolution was to be more visible, here's ftm Yuki in a binder. Just like me. This is one of the headcanons for him and Utsuro I have a soft spot for, but rarely show off in art or writing.
Been thinking about this moment during the first investigation...
another series spoilers ahead
Revisited this moment today and it really just has the same vibe as that one meme...
This kind of reaction is just one of many reasons I can't take the idea that the two Maedas are interchangeable seriously lol.
Like look me straight in the eye and tell me sumaeda wouldn't also be cying and/or throwing up in the bathroom right now. In what world would that Maeda ever stand here a few feet away from Kiyoka's dead body just after they've found her and tell Teruya to stop whining.
Obviously like, yeah, logically, it is in Teruya's best interest to find some way to go forward, and in danmaeda's defense, he does start this interaction by asking Teruya if he's okay, (and when he comes back later he makes Teruya feel a bit better while talking about the antique store stuff) but like... the way he says it lol... it kills me. Like dra1 yuki does scream and shout and does feel fear and grief for sure, but he also has cowards/cowardice as a dislike... Plus, he sometimes has an overly harsh or judgemental reaction to someone showing a very normal emotional response to the situation for a teenager to have lol. (And he seemingly struggles to fully empathize with the very anxious and homesick Otori during their first ftes) I have my own interpretations on that, and it's fun to build off or imagine the whole divine luck/utsuro of it all influencing things...
I'm sorry, I can't help picturing sumaeda here in this situation, and danmaeda seeing him crying and pulling the same damn thing lmao. (putting the whole same face and name identity crisis of it all aside for this hypothetical scenario lol)
A friend of mine recently pointed out some similarities between DRA1 Teruya and SDRA2 Yuki... and I gotta say, yeah, I see it, especially early on. But honestly, if anything, everyone else still keeping their cool in these two casts after the first murder are the weird ones for just being able to bottle it all up just like that. /hj It's is a pretty normal reaction to being put in this kind of situation I think. It's interesting though, thinking about SDRA2 Otori potentially seeing his past self in Maeda...
Back at it again with random crossover aus that probably have very little intersection lol! This time dra is getting mashed together with hunter x hunter! I've had insects on the brain lately so it felt right to dust off some old sketches and give this design another look
more sketches + au ramblings below the cut
original sketches (from last winter after revisiting the chimera ant arc)
About Ant!Yuki:
phagogenesis hybrid of ladybug, human, feline, and rabbit
memories from kouhei and aiko maeda (human parts)
ladybug wings and antennae, wings can fold away or smoosh and drape down in a cape-like way similar to Shaiapouf.
rabbit feet (yknow)
cat tail + some fur mixed with hair
Kouhei was a nen user, so he has nen potential too
Loyally follows orders as a drone until one particular hunting mission. After his fellow Ants target one particular human, he steps in and refuses to let them take him, leading to a fight that ends in his exile from the colony and capture by humans.
Chimera ant name: Kikkou, Koki, or Yukoi?
Kouhei & Tsurugi
Early on before the chimera ants completely took over the NGL, Kouhei and Tsurugi were sent into the NGL on an undercover investigation related to the NGL's drug cartel or chasing a criminal who'd fled there.
The details are unclear, but Tsurugi was probably incapacitated or separated from Kouhei after their small team was swarmed by chimera ants. Only two nen users would have been fine if they were just dealing with fairly ordinary human criminals, but the Ants were a completely new and unknown threat that they had no way of countering.
In the end, Kouhei fights to protect two innocent civilians trying to flee the NGL (the Maedas) and is killed by Ants alongside Aiko. After finding remains and/or the bloody evidence of this fight, Tsurugi realizes he is the only survivor. He ends up being forced to leave the NGL alone.
Thanks to the NGL's rejection of modern technology and synthetic materials and strict examinations of anyone who entered, plus the whole thing being a front for Gyro's D2 drug empire, it's not possible for outside investigators to enter normally. Since everyone on the team had to sneak in and the whole thing was secretive, even when the mission when horribly wrong, it was still mostly covered up...
A few months to a year later, when the chimera ant invasion starts to become a severe issue, Tsurugi volunteers himself to return to the NGL as part of a team of nen users investigating the crisis, outwardly saying it's because he is one of the few to have seen the beasts and lived, but also because he's still not over Kouhei's death and has a need to know exactly what happened and how he died.
When Tsurugi Kinjo meets one particular captive Ant who seemingly betrayed orders to protect a human, it becomes clear that he knows things about Tsurugi despite never meeting before. Perhaps the human this ant seemingly saved, Yuki Maeda, might help unravel this mystery… but of course, an Ant is still an Ant, and so must be exterminated, …right?
The Maedas
Yuki Maeda and his mother, Aiko Maeda, ended up in the NGL thanks to Utsuro and Akane. Their kidnapping and abandonment there eventually led to Aiko being killed by the chimera ants. I don't think Utsuro or Akane had any idea the invasion would occur but did put them in the NGL with no means of escape...
Utsuro and Akane may also have later been caught up in this and killed/transformed.
Yuki is fairly freaked out by the chimera ant that's taken an interest in him... after all, he's one of the monsters that killed his mother and have continually attacked himself and the humans he's sheltered with. However, there's something familiar about him that Yuki can't quite shake, and he did risk his own life to save Yuki's...
