Pyroscythe Propaganda - in the form of MonCo AU doodles
yeah i want Pyro to win the @umcytblrsexyman tournament. i want to see how much he'll try for the cosplay.
so, have some doodles for now, and I'll release more Pyro-centric MonCo AU stuff as the tournament progresses! I have a lot of it planned.
likely 1 chapter per round won.
submit proof of vote and i'll doodle any MonCo character or duo. (VSMP cast + Cambam, Cherrifire, Louis, Elle, Maddy Millkberry)
as usual: yaps under cut
yapping about MonCo AU lore!
yes, the Ruby Manor dorms are irregular in size. the largest room by occupancy is the 4 person room, which is shared by Maddy, Pyro, Apo, and Cherri. there's also one 3 person room, shared by Avid, Elle, and Drift. there are a couple pairs: Cleo & Pearl, Louis & Owen, Scott & Shelby. Everyone else has no roommate, although Legs has a 2-bed room with a spare bed (that is lowkey treated like a hospital bed).
M calls the 4 person room the "double dating roommates". all 4 of them have asked him to please stop saying that. he has not stopped saying it. to be fair, the 4 of them do hang out a lot and sometimes it does feel like a "double dating" situation.
I did not realize that in the MonCo AU, Pyro has longer hair than the 3 feminine characters he rooms with until I drew these references. it's probably a consequence of directly translating the proportions from the Event V!Pyro skin- most other fanarts I've seen using the ponytail hairstyle tend to make it more reasonable looking and not a literal waist-length ponytail.
Shelby still definitely has the longest hair of the MonCo cast though. which is also a consequence of forcing the proportions to be as close to the Minecraft skin as I can- mid-thigh-length curls is a bit ridiculous on a non-Minecraft character base, but alas. my need for "accuracy".
when it comes to relationships, Shelby and Pyro are still friends in the MonCo AU. Shelby didn't seek them out initially and Pyro generally does not initiate interactions, but after a bit they start to interact and get along well.
honestly, having Maddy and Cherri around in this AU means that Pyro and Apo are just generally having a better time. no Scott manipulation shenanigans, as it’d just get insta-blocked by those two the moment they notice any negative effects on their roommate. ...Majorscythe as a relationship basically doesn't exist in this AU because there's simply no logical basis for Scott and Pyro to interact with each other.
Pyro and Apo are still considered "Truffle's Parents". Truffle is one of the pigs in the animal collection the Monster College keeps for classes related to animal care & agriculture. Students can volunteer to take care of one of the animals for a couple extra merits to their house. (Merits are basically points for the year-long running competition between the houses/manor-dorms.) Truffle lives in the animal barn, and Pyro and Apo visit frequently (at least multiple times a day between both of them for feeding and cleaning and everything else necessary).
Dorito exists in the MonCo AU. They're a rat Pyro found in the basement cellar one day and decided to start feeding. He's trying to play it off as some sort of social experiment but basically he adopted one of the local rats for an emotional support pet that does live with him. Dorito has a little nest in his room and is like the world's most spoiled rat (since they also live with Maddy, a nature fae who can communicate with animals).
everyone thinks the 4 person room is going to have a "roommate divorce" at some point or experience issues since it's basically 2 established pairs thrown into one big room to live together. but surprisingly, there's actually minimal issues going on. Cherri made them all have a good long discussion on night 1 to resolve any potential issues that may arise.
to be fair, the 4 person room is also rarely all home. they don't have a ton of class overlap, so there's usually someone in class. Cherri is a fashion student with long studio hours, she's very frequently in the studio. similarly, Apo is also often doing studio work/modeling as an architecture student, or visiting Truffle. Pyro probably is in the room the least- he has Truffle care duty as well as a more academic/reading-writing course load that means he spends a lot of time at the library. Maddy is probably in the room the most- she has a somewhat reading-writing based course load but also isn't a library lurker, so she'll typically be doing homework in the dorm.
the main issue when it comes to the 4 person living together is of course the elephant in the room: fire girl and water boy. Cherri cannot touch water without being hurt, Pyro is constantly sopping wet and generates moisture. except most of this issue is bypassed when you consider how little they see each other despite being roommates. and when they are all together in one place, they've simply learned to always keep someone else between those two.
MonCo AU Pyro is often more comfortable underwater. after about 200 years as a cryptid, he's long gotten used to the drowning curse to the point they don't really notice it anymore. it's just their existence. it's normal now. he'll lurk at the bottom of the "lake" (large pond w. a bunch of weird stuff in it) if he feels like going somewhere others can't follow. he floods the bathtub to sleep in it so that his passive moisture curse doesn't wreck his surroundings. their roommates let them do this because he tends to come back to the dorm late at night (10-11pm or even later), and Maddy explained to them that it's not new.
so... MonCo AU Pyro is in general a lurker who... doesn't really understand social interaction. for those 200-ish years as a cryptid they had one person they regularly interacted with- Maddy. 3 roommates and Abolish and Shelby is enough for him. he's fine with just lurking somewhere alone to read or do something else peaceful/calming, that they tend not to notice their lack of interacting with others. and there are frequent times where he just doesn't want to interact with others or deal with the buzz of a populated area, so he goes to quiet places to lurk.
"Abolish secret room" is one of those things on the spoiler list of "stuff to be revealed in chapters" that I'm not going to fully explain here. But basically Abolish lives in this "servant's quarters" hidden room in the walls of Ruby Manor. His room is on the first floor and has an exterior window, so everyone knows it exists, but no one has figured out how to get in. Except Pyro. This means that Abolish's room is basically the Firelocke hangout and one of Pyro's "avoiding people" spots. Abolish is extremely chill about Pyro randomly visiting, often just to read and not chat. Abolish basically thinks anyone who's found out how to get to his room has "earned" the right to visit whenever.
about the Fledglingz drawing: yes, I genuinely do headcanon Shelby and Pyro to have an extreme height gap. Shelby is the shortest of the Ruby Manor crew at barely 5'. Pyro is one of the tallest at about 6'0.
(dear gods k-pop has infected the way i speak with how i pluralize duo names with a z)
randomly feeling like i need to restate this as a reminder, but: MonCo AU Pyro has dark hair still. I just only bothered to shade in the black half of Abolish's hair to make the split colouring sufficiently obvious.
other MonCo AU Pyro reminder for the Firelocke doodle: he's basically got his eyes closed. he doesn't have eyeballs so his eyelids can't physically "close" much, but instead the blue iris & pupil part will disappear to leave only an empty black socket. i am realizing how cursed it looks after having drawn it... but that was the original point. MonCo AU Pyro is supposed to be cursed and uncanny.
despite this being supposed to be a Pyro-centric page, Abolish's ribbed sweater was probably the most difficult to draw detail. I do not know how I thought that thing was supposed to be constructed. the lines probably don't make perfect sense, don't overthink it.
okay, other difficult to draw bit, simply because i'm a bit out of practice with it: the hollow eye outline/"white eyelashes" for Abolish's right eye. can y'all please also consider this Abolish propaganda at this point?
Fledglingz have winter fits. thank you User Nickcaver for introducing me to the lovely concept of fur collar for Pyro, I will be stealing it as I desire. the jacket structure is mildly inspired by a SKZ Felix stage outfit but with a capelet slapped on top to make it read more as Pyro in vibes. this coat is probably the nicest thing MonCo AU Pyro owns and the most "Scott approved" when it comes to them being seen hanging out with his roommate-who-he's-somewhat-possessive-of. and also it is up to you whether Shelby is wearing leggings or if she's pulling a "shorts hidden under long sweater" and flexing her vampiric resistance to cold. I'm leaning towards the second because I think it's funnier if "year round miniskirts/shorts" is Shelby's fashion sense.
recently decided to start drawing Pyro with a mole where CC!Pyro has one, on the right side of his face. Just a small “character variety” detail since I’m a bit obsessed with building sufficient character variety.
I haven't been online for a while due to lack of time, as well some personal issues, but I just want to say that i obviously don't condone all of the abuse William Gold made Shelby endure. I stand with Shelby, and anyone who does otherwise, unfollow me immediately.
In regards to the characters Wilbur and Quackity from dream SMP, I have absolutely no idea what to do about it all. They've felt more like my characters ever since the end of their direct interactions on dsmp anyway, and frankly almost all of the content I've produced of them is significantly more so based off of me and my partner (however "cringe" that sounds), so it's a difficult situation for me. I won't be deleting any of my posts or art. I don't know what I'll be doing with all of the content I've made but haven't posted, which includes a couple chapters of the Losing Face rewrite. I might turn cQ and cWilbur into actual original characters. I've been thinking about doing a complete redesign either way - the only immediate issue I have is the names, as I can't think of anything that'd fit. If I end up figuring it out, I might try to turn the rewrite of Losing Face into an original story, but that's gonna be very difficult, considering the context needed for the story is Dream SMP lore. The fic is also structured around William Gold's song, which I'll have to obviously change too, if I end up doing anything with it.
If any other tnt duo artists have any thoughts regarding how to tastefully handle this, I'd appreciate it, as honestly, I can't say I'm not still hyperfixated, unfortunately.
For now I'll most likely just see how the situation develops, and decide when my personal life is less of a mess. This whole shit show has hit a little too close to home with my current issues too, so I'll be frank, I don't think I'll be posting anything, regardless of whether it's tnt duo or not.
Anyway, stay safe everyone, and let me know what you think about how i could figure this pickle out
Update: as of now I've decided I'll most likely just keep on creating content of the characters which have belonged to the fandom for years now. The situation with my fic is more complicated, since not just the title is named after the song Losing Face, but also each chapter is named after the song's lyrics, and each of those has been carefully fitted to represent the plot of the chapter. I don't think I feel comfortable with that anymore, and I will have to rework the pacing to fit a different song (I haven't yet decided what song exactly).
This might get long but it’s on the brain right now. Not much organization just ranting.
Not proof read immediately, might make edits later.
The Wilbur situation. It’d fucking sickening to think about but when I see posts ranting I kinda have to and now it won’t leave.
Wilbur soot, since June or July of 2022, was such an inspiration to me. His acting, his music, what he was able to create through just a computer screen and a game where everything is shaped like a block. It was amazing.
I loved watching him and his interactions with people like Tommy, Phil, Techno (RIP 👑) and anyone else on the dsmp server or the osmp or anything else he had joined since.
I had loved his characters and the way things developed. His music could be something I blast in my headphones, something I could cry to, or something to just vibe to. Hell, his fucking band was my top artist last year for Spotify wrapped.
I’d cosplayed tallulah and taken pictures with Wilburs at a convention. More people he had impacted and sparked creativity in.
He was a part or daily life, honestly.
And that all came crashing down yesterday.
I got the news at school from a friend that enjoyed Wilbur’s content before everything. During lunch she said, “He basically admitted to the allegations.”
I needed to see it to fully comprehend it, but there it was later when I checked discord. A half-assed apology for the abuse allegations flooding in after Shelby’s stream. I was disgusted.
I watched Shelby’s vod of the stream next. Everything I heard clicked with what I read on the “apology.” It only deepened what I was feeling and what my friends were feeling.
10 fucking months Shelby took to recover from this relationship. And all she gets is “whoops I was an asshole but therapy!!”
Physical, emotional, and financial abuse. And we only have what she said on stream, apparently not even half of it.
She’s right to not accept his apology.
She deserves so much better and I am so happy fans are providing her support and showing just how proud they are that she was able to come out with this story.
I’ve seen many realizing that they are in or have been in relationships like this through Shelby. And though this should never be something that happens, being able to spread awareness, prevent these types of things from happening to other people, and shutting down an abuser is just. I’m glad at least a few good things came out of that horrid relationship.
My heart goes out to Shelby and any other victims.
This is not all I wanted to say but with the progression of this rant there’s nowhere to really put them.
That is all.
Support victims, fuck Wilbur Soot, send all love and support to Shubble.
