#lev draws

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All the words I couldn’t say to you

All the damage I’d have wrought

That old house, those rotted memories

Burned easier than I’d have thought

— The Well, The Crane Wives

I really liked the underpainting on this one.

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But even that hardest of hearts unhardened

Suddenly, when he saw her there

Persephone in her mother’s garden

Sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair

The smell of the flowers she held in her hand

And the pollen that fell from her fingertips

And suddenly Hades was only a man

With a taste of nectar upon his lips

Epic III (Hadestown) (Not the Broadway version that one’s different) (the OG musical) (actually how about I just link it here)

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See you later.

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I just think Brian is having a nice time on goat planet is all :))

WIP sketch under the cut

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his dark materials AU pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3

Sana — Kaibolo, Cheetah (he/him)

Runners up: housecat, but I was pretty set on giving her a big cat from the start.

I think it’s pretty funny to give Sana a big, charismatic daemon but to then make it the flightiest, most anxious creature on this side of space. He can stray unusually far from her, and is able to roam basically anywhere on the Rumor he pleases, regardless of where Sana is on the ship. (When they move to the Iris, his leash shortens considerably, to both of their displeasure.)

Arkady — Penelope, Painted Bat (she/her)

Runners up: corn snake, jumping mouse

Arkady gets a tiny guy that lives on the inside of her jacket (quite literally close to the chest) and the fun thing with painted bats is that they are bright orange. She crawls out periodically to whisper to Arkady, but is shy to anybody else. HDM does not elaborate on how daemon genders work, so I got to have fun figuring out what a “gender opposite” means for half of the crew.

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hello have a bit of Krejjh fanart (plus a bonus doodle of my cat) (design details under the cut)

The design concept is based on dwarnian evolution from a waterfowl ancestor, though the face is referenced off of an ornate hawk eagle. Shoutout to the avian furries and their incredible drawing references for wings because I would have lost it trying to do that without help lmao.

A few extras for the road:

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his dark materials AU pt. III | pt. II | pt. I

McCabe — Xerith, they/them, Sulawesi Violet Tarantula

Runners Up: this is sort of a reverse runners-up, but my wife originally suggested a tarantula for Violet. I liked the idea, but after thinking about it I decided I liked it a little bit better for RJ.

It’s unclear whether daemons take a suitable form based on the actual characteristics of an animal or based on their person’s perception of the characteristics of that animal, but I think either way McCabe was pretty thrilled with how their daemon settled. As previously noted, I think daemons very rarely change their pronouns, so it would have been socially significant for McCabe to change their own pronouns to match.

Park — Fia, she/her, Monarch Butterfly

Runners up: dragonfly

Park is deeply protective of his daemon and would, on the whole, prefer she hang out on his shoulder, or perhaps in his pocket, or really just anywhere that isn’t lighting on people’s sleeves in the world’s most tenuous game of “I’m Not Touching You.” Unfortunately, Fia is quite social and chatty, and short of keeping her in a jar there’s not much he can do. Not that he hasn’t considered it.

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his dark materials AU pt. II | pt. I | pt. III

Violet — Taleo, he/him, antelope jackrabbit

Runners up: coyote

Violet gets a brash, outspoken little desert-dweller with a stare so piercing and otherworldly you start to understand why people mythologized these guys as jackalopes. She likes to research other peoples’ daemons, but that can go from “neat party trick” to “touchy subject” real fast, so she tends to keep that hobby to herself. Still, she is desperately curious as to whether Kaibolo can actually sprint the length of the Rumor in under three seconds.

Brian — Aster, she/her, common raven

Runners up: a couple other bird species, briefly

When we get to Brian, we come across the very interesting question: when a person changes their pronouns, does their daemon also change their pronouns? The HDM author is on record saying he doesn’t actually know how the pronoun thing works which means I get to answer this question, and my answer is that the soul is far less tolerant of bullshit when it has a voice of its own. Aster always had she/her pronouns and Brian mostly just stopped being called a lesbian when he changed his. As a side note, the boots Brian is depicted wearing were a gift from Krejjh, who endured a very confusing afternoon learning about human shoe sizes.

Krejjh — Barophet, generally will not respond to the same pronoun for more than about 5 minutes but has taken a shine to fae/faer, unnamed alien species (modeled after a Corsac fox)

Runners up: I originally wanted to give Krejjh a mashup between a peacock and an iguana

What is the opposite of “dislikes pronouns”? And how do you catch a wave upon the sand? Introducing: a flagrant disregard for the human notion of gender except this time it’s more like a disco ball. I really like the idea that dwarnians just assumed their daemons also didnt care to denote gender with pronouns, only to make contact with alien species and discover that their daemons generally think pronouns are really weird and neat.