Reupploading
I'll just re-upload from the Small Artists. But also tell a bit more about the character. And also the setting.
So here we have
✨Patches✨
Patches is the main character of the story, thus the "redrawing first" privileges. She's curious, she's optimistic, she didn't lie about that. She's also pretty determined and goal-oriented. But she also tends to jump to conclusions, assumes stuff often, and generally thinks that she knows everything better than anyone. Main character syndrome, "main characters don't die". She usually doesn't listen to any authority. You got it - she's a rebel. A pretty bad one. She's naive as hell.
Now, about the setting.
Fun fact: the first version of this universe was created by ChatGPT. I asked it to make up some concepts out of boredom and it offered a "dollhouse setting". So I got inspired and thought - why not do a sentient dollhouse? An unstable one, maybe?
This is the setting. An unstable dollhouse. It's like a regular dollhouse (I am going for Sylvania family with the vibes) but well... Unstable. Shocker.
Generally, the dollhouse is divided into two zones - stable and unstable. Stable zone is the circular area in the dead centre of the dollhouse. It's maybe around a square kilometre. Not big. And the unstable zone surrounds the stable zone like a ring, and the size of this zone is, frankly, huge. Much bigger than the stable zone. It's KNOWN that the exit to another stable zone is somewhere deep in the unstable zone, but no one dares to walk there.
Now, why is it known, and not rumored? It's because a few hundred years ago, the unstable zone literally didn't exist. No one knows when exactly it came around, but when it did, the inhabitants just shrugged and decided to not do anything about it. It started small, just a tiny rim around the walls. Even the first Tide wasn't too scary (the Tides are basically the events when the unstable zone "rushes" a few kilometres forward, swallowing up everything on it's way, and then retreats, usually taking several rooms with it as it never retracts to it's original size - it's always slightly bigger than it was before). But several years ago, it became an actual problem as the Tide sped up and started eating up living spaces. The ones who were in those spaces during the Tides weren't exactly happy. Probably. No one saw them again. Currently, there's just this patch of the stable zone and the unstable zone that gets bigger and devours this tiny patch pretty quickly. Patches doesn't understand why nobody besides one excile (will tell about him later) is doing anything about this.
The inhabitants of this dollhouse are, as you may have already guessed, dolls. I'm thinking porcelain/plastic dolls with reattachable limbs. Detaching and replacing limbs or even torsos is actually a common practice among dolls. As long as you have materials, you can get rid of any disability and modify your body however you like (another problem with the Tide is that it claimed the craft rooms with materials, so the remaining dolls are running on spare limbs which don't fit usually, no torsos left). Also dolls are basically genderless, the only way to tell gender is by the hair length, clothes and sometimes body complexion. And that doesn't work all the time (there are girl dolls with short hair and boy dolls with long hair). So they just decided "screw everything, we'll give the babies initial identification and then they'll figure it out somehow".
Speaking of kids. Even though dolls appear as newborns, they are not born. They appear in a small basket called "the Cradle", and then raised into an adult by the community. They just spawn. As babies. Randomly.
Currently, there's only 6 dolls left at the dollhouse, including Patches - 4 adults, teenager Patches and a child. Of course, adults are thoroughly traumatized, it was my goal to make them suffer. Because damn, if your population goes from 1000+ to 6 while you're alive and witnessing it - you'll probably be a bit sad at the very least. I'll throw in the old arts to show the characters, but I'll redraw them soon.
The cast is (excluding Patches):
Sunflower, the Sun Doll. The toddler who is growing up in a rather tense household (because every adult besides, maybe, Melissa, is screwed up). Everyone tries to keep up the facade of normalcy for him, but he isn't stupid and sees that something is wrong. More later.
Key & Lock, the Twin Dolls. I will give them a big rework. In the first version, they were the villains. Like, you know. Evil twins. Currently, they're just rulers who have no idea what to do - staying in the stable zone is a death sentence, venturing in the unstable zone is also a death sentence, probably an even worse one. Also I want to make them different characters and not just "twins". Me in 2024 tended to see twins as one person when they are not. More later.
Jack, the Grumbler Doll. He's that excile who I mentioned earlier. He's the only one who's trying to do something about the unstable zone. He's trying to study it, is currently failing miserably, but he has to because twins are not doing anything. More later.
Melissa, the Dreamer Doll. She's the local librarian and also archivist. Will be redesigning her soon because it doesn't fit her design. Also she's the "mediator" between Patches, twins and Jack.
This is pretty much it. The amount of text is... Scary.
