woah !!!! who's that merchant pulling those strings......
this is one of my pieces for the recent @engraverszine !!! it was an honor to be in the zine and a dishonor to represent otter swain once again <3 (you can find a higher quality version on twitter or in the zine itself!)
I love your redesign for shaula, they really did do her wrong with that bikini
ahhh tysm for liking my shaula redesign!!! if anyone is seeing this and going what shaula design it is my icon atm. and you can find it here also <3) and its on my redbubble.
but yes like... theres a lot of really really cool things in her character design. like her scorpion braid, the fact that her braid is also a high braid (i feel like characters with a high ponytail/braid hairstyle tend to be on the chipper/sporty side so this fits well!!), the hairtie, the little star design, the black and yellow color scheme to mirror subaru.... its really really cool. but then the bikini... especially when tappei Loves to keep talking about shaulas boobs... like cmon :(( i feel like the bikini is such a waste. and even if she isnt affected by the desert this is such poor attire for the setting HAH. but yes i quite like shaula i wish her outfit wasnt like that :((( waste of potential and it does her dirty :<< (and i DO love the idea of giving her a shawl ok. shaula. Shawla...)
anyway i really gotta draw her more :o shes fun to draw.... <3 and i had to give her a slightly different outfit at least like that bikini is just :,)) and i had fun doing that last drawing i did of her yes :o !! here you can have a sketch i did of shaula during class once (and a bonus marone bc she and shaula look a little similar so i was trying to differentiate them!!):
Otto clads himself in green clothes because he believes it's a calming, relaxing color. His attire is meant to diminish the risk of provoking those he deals with.
Marone's dress has a light green shade to it too.
So, I present to you the following thought:
Marone's favorite color is green.
Her outlook is completely different from Otto's, though.
She sees green as an energizing, motivating color, a symbol of prosperity as well. She wears it because she feels like it reflects her spirit.
Plus, isn't it cute how Marone's hair is red, which also happens to be Otto's favorite color?
Anyway, I just think that'd be a nice detail to add to the fun contrast that already exists between these two.
After Otto rescued Marone from the bandits and freed her from slavery, she asked for his name, but Otto dodged the question.
Even though they went their separate ways afterwards, with Otto likely assuming he wouldn't see her again, Marone was determined to meet him anew.
She went as far as to disregard her own desire to move to Flanders in favor of settling at a short enough distance from Guineb, in case Otto chose to peddle in the area again.
And due to Marone's keen nature, I believe it's apt that, although encountering Regin was a coincidence, her choosing to stay with him was not. Even if she had no way of knowing Otto and Regin were related, they share several characteristics; plus, Regin could've mentioned his family and thus confirmed those suspicions at some point.
There was a considerable effort put into earning the slim chance of a reencounter with a man whose name she didn't even know.
But there's something that intrigues me about all this. How come Marone never told Otto her full name?
Wouldn't it have made sense for her to do so, if she was so eager to meet him again? It's hard to believe that she'd simply forget it.
It's not until their reencounter in Pappelt that she finally introduces herself as Marone Lisbon.
So, what if Lisbon isn't Marone's birth surname?
Prior to their first farewell, Marone reveals to Otto that she doesn't have any family members who would mourn her absence in Guineb, the city she seems to have been born in. She's described as close in age to Otto, so she is most likely in her early twenties, quite young.
How long has she lived alone? What happened to her family? Are they dead? Perhaps she's an orphan and, therefore, doesn't know her birth surname to begin with. Or her family died when she was younger and she'd rather not bear the surname for complicated reasons.
Did they simply move somewhere else at some point in her life, for whatever reason? Or maybe she did have a family, but wished to cut ties with them? If she had a strained relationship with her parents or whoever raised her, that could be a motive to discard her birth surname and choose another at the start of her new life away from Guineb, and that could be why she only calls herself Marone Lisbon from that moment onwards.
In either case, it leads me to reflect on when she adopted the Earth Spider, calling herself its mother in a lighthearted fashion. Previously, she told the spirit, "You don't have to carry this burden alone."
Was Marone projecting? Did it remind her of herself in some way?
She saw this little creature lost and alone, and decided nobody should feel the way she did, nobody should be alone like she was.
And if that's the case, it just makes the scene a lot sweeter and Marone more admirable.
