#hk indrel

[circusmothman]

I remember tears streaming down your face When I said I'll never let you go When all those shadows almost killed your light I remember you said don't leave me here alone But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight

Just close your eyes, the sun is going down You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound

"Safe & Sound" cover by Me vs Gravity

At 6:26am on August 20th 2022, exactly one year ago, Indrel and Atrax officially became a ship. I still remember it well because up until that point we didn't even know how their story would end, with how often they butted heads it seemed very possible that things would fall apart, yet in the end they've managed to come together after all. I remember I didn't sleep on the 19th, because I was suddenly struck with ideas that kept my mind buzzing too much to find rest, those ideas would end up forming into the first 3 acts of their story. Following them through their initial life together, through Indrel's many reincarnations, and finally their reunion which brought many more changes.

I initially sent my ideas at half past 7pm on the 19th and then waited for my friend to get back to me after their shift was over, it was walls of text to reply to after all. At 4:08am the replies finally started coming in, and to my surprise my friend chose to reply with Atrax's perspective for the stated events, basically making it a sort of role play, our first. That experience was without a doubt still the highlight of this whole collaboration, at 6:26am we pronounced it official and were both high on the excitement. It's a moment I doubt I will forget anytime soon.

Now it's exactly one year later, many things happened, many changed, and these two have been though a lot, good and bad, troubles in and out of story. But in the end they are still here and closer than ever, and I still cannot believe sometimes just how much they ended up meaning to me. Their story may never be fully revealed publicly, but it will forever remain special and irreplaceable. So I am glad I was able to give them something little in return for this day despite the continuous burnout and art block. This will likely be the only anniversary piece I do for them, but after everything we've been through together this year, it was too important to me to not make something in memorial of this day. And as the new dawn rises, so too does another year for this amazing pair.

Happy anniversary.

[circusmothman]

April - “University AU”

Next entry for the monthly prompt, a tad bit late but I had it mostly done yesterday so it counts even if delayed. That last week of the month was just a no-go for art due to electrical issues, the laptop being out of commission for a few days due to Noisy Fan(tm), and then me also being away over the weekend. But at least I still managed to get the lineart done during my trip.

Similar to last month, we got another AU, but this time it’s the College/University AU, which... I know it doesn’t look like it in the drawing itself, but it is a scene from it. X’D Namely one of Indrel and Mircea’s first dates. Spooder, being the heccin child he is sometimes, wanted to go to the aquarium. He also wanted a kiss by the fishies and a selfie as proof, so this is basically it.

[circusmothman]

“I’m sure you’ll love it there! We got a big house with lots of cool stuff, I got tons of toys we could share, and dad has like a billion books! We could even play outside in the garden.”

March - “Fresh starts”

Aaaaand I’m back with the third part of the monthly OTP prompt, and of course I had to squish it in the last day hhhhh.

But yes the theme I chose for this month ended up fitting perfectly for one of my favorite AU’s of these two. Namely, the Mercy AU. This is a massive canon divergence AU in which Indrel and Mircea (Atrax’s true birthname) meet during childhood, which then results in Mircea being adopted by the Velastryl family and growing up with Indrel in his homeland. This scene is in fact them sitting in the carriage on their journey back to Kharasta. Indrel is super excited about having made a new friend, while Mircea is still internally quite nervous about the whole thing but trying to appear positive.

The two meet while Indrel and his family were visiting Mircea’s home kingdom, Cania, during a diplomatic business trip. Indrel was exploring the city with his mother when he smelled blood and followed the trail to find the young spiderling hiding in an alley. He was able to coax Mircea to come with him to have his wound taken care of, and within the next few days plans were made to take the boy back home with them. As Mircea himself claimed to be an orphan. In truth Indrel’s parents knew there was more to that story, but Shade (the mother) had quickly grown attached to the boy and had quite a few concerns regarding his state. It took a long time of living with them for Mircea to finally open up about his past and reveal the truth of who he was and what happened to him, but by that point he had become a full part of the family and was surrounded by all the love and support he needed.

This AU is basically just a very self-indulgent “good timeline” that removes the majority of the trauma Mircea suffered during his life. Unfortunately the early childhood damage prevails and still affects him, but the worst of what happens during his story and leads to him becoming Atrax, has been avoided. Although that also means that the Mircea of this story and good ol canon Atrax are honestly like night and day in terms of behavior. But I love em both equally regardless and it’s that affection that drove the making of this AU that just gave him a far better life from nearly the start. In canon however that meeting never could have happened as the two of them were actually born almost a thousand years apart, and instead Indrel showed up in Aizsaule while Atrax was at his worst and managed to pull him out of that pit over the course of many lifetimes and a lot of persistence. But whether canon or any of the many AUs I have for them so far, these two always become quite inseparable and enrich each other’s lives considerably. They are just meant to be and I love them for that <3

[circusmothman]

January - “Snow”

Will be attempting an OTP prompt challenge for my beloved spoodermoffs here. So for each month I will try to make one drawing or fic based on the prompt list I got. This one is teeeeechnically a wee bit late, but it was like 90% done in January still, it was literally just the snow and border I needed to add lol.

So have Indrel and Atrax just being silly lovebugs in the snow, wearing a scarf in the most impractical way possible, but hey at least Indrel is a giant heating pad wrapped in floof so he’s staying warm either way and Atrax is simply taking advantage of that body heat, so they’re both good XD

Also another drawing that was mixed programs, most of it was done in GIMP while the shading was done in Rebelle 5 to get a more paintery effect.

[circusmothman]

Here we have a follow up to yesterday’s post, Meeko’s ref, or as close to one as I made so far, mostly to test the design back then. Quite the difference to Indrel’s original appearance, in more ways than one, it was the only life where he truly yearned for his old body and self back, but it’s no wonder given how much he endured in that life.

I will go a little bit into it below, but cw for mentions of child abuse (physical and emotional), manipulation, imprisonment and malnourished/food related abuse.

Basically Indrel’s soul always chooses where he wishes to be reborn, but the couple he chose that time had underlying issues he wasn’t aware of and thus chose very poorly. The mother died shortly after his birth, and the father turned into a monster. He was extremely controlling and abusive due to blaming Indrel/Meeko for his mate’s death and took it out on him since day 1 almost. He was physically and verbally abusive and kept him isolated from everyone else, so that Indrel grew up in constant fear and without any outside support. His father had even gone so far as to crush his wings while he was still young, forcing them to grow deformed and useless, so that he could never fly in that life. He also constantly underfed him or tempered with the food in other ways to just make it taste worse etc. It was a very horrid life and that’s not even all the details.

So the constant stress of it all actually caused Indrel’s past life memories to start resurfacing when he was 11, and by 13 he remembered everything. That’s also when he knew not everything was lost, he just had to endure until Atrax came to find him, but it would still be a long time until then. He was 20 when his spider finally came for him and made that swine of a “father” pay for what he’s done in quite the brutal ways, Indrel relished it. Afterwards they went back home to Atrax’s estate in Aizsaule where it started the long grueling process of rehabilitating Indrel after all he’d been through. It certainly put a lot of strain on both of them, but Atrax really shined in this one with how well he took care of him. And with Atrax’s own history that says something.

~

"Forgive me, dear, for I fear I will be quite insufferable in this life."

“Insufferable is what I’ve been all of one of your lives, two maybe. I’m hardly tasting my own medicine this way.”

~

It was a life full of hardship, but one that in the end just brought them closer together. Indrel recovered, and later reclaimed all that was lost and even managed his own revenge much much later down the line. Not sure if I will ever share the full details of that story since it really does get dark, but this is at least the basic short of it so that the impact of things at least makes sense.

[circusmothman]

Still one of my favorites and finally posting it, also the first ever spoodermoff drawing I did. Which... is so dang funny because boi don’t Indrel look a bit weird there huh? XD

So big purple moff Indrel dies of old age at the end of Act I, but not before giving his spoodery partner a way to track him through his future lifetimes. Yea we goin the reincarnation route with this one and boi is it a ride. So Indrel went from massive Death’s Head/Vampire moff to tiny 5ft Silver Royal butterfly known as Meeko. Now Meeko wasn’t Indrel’s second life but in fact a few lifetimes down the line, however he’s been the most notable one so far because... trauma! :D

Yeah let’s just say he rolled really bad on the parents bingo in this one. :’)

So this is very much the sad boi timeline, but I will get more into that one later. But it is iconic due to its heaviness and being the life where Indrel remembered his true self and Atrax very early on and continued that trend into the future lives. It’s also what fully cemented his devotion to the spider as well as started in motion the events leading to the third act.

It was a very interesting lifetime for sure as it served as a great character study for both of em and completely flipped their dynamic for a while.

[circusmothman]

Old!Indrel drawn a few months ago, decided now would be a good time to post to go along with the child version. Mans aged like fine wine during his twilight years, a bit duller in coloration and mellow in personality, but still quite the refined gentleman.

He makes it into his 90ies before peacefully passing on in his sleep, his last couple decades spent in retirement from his psychology work and simply enjoying life with his partner. As mentioned before, Atrax took Indrel’s aging and upcoming death quite hard, downside of being immortal and having very few people in his life he actually felt close to, especially a partner who could put up with his behavior for over five decades. But in the end the blow was softened as Indrel came upon a bit of knowledge that would help them out in the future.

After all, death may be an end, but it doesn’t have to be a permanent one.

[circusmothman]

Little boy Indrel I drew to go along with an AU I’ve been working on, tho this is his canon young appearance as well. He had such polite kid vibes, and then he’d pull up his blood filled sippy cup for a drink because vampire genes lmao.