Stablehand scrap update: 4/20~10/31

The interval between these only gets longer, but at least this time it's mostly because I've actually been posting things as proper posts instead of in here. Still, there are a few things.

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First, the Observers' colour is apparently called "atoll" as I found out on this neat website. Neat bit of trivia. I remember back when all MBs were going to be variations of that colour, a time this post still hasn't gotten out of.

My mind couldn't think of the word "papaya", so it tried to pull out the word "pomegranate", but it couldn't come up with that either, so I accidentally ended up noting that a bunch of "Portent seeds" had spilled all over the floor and for at least five minutes intermittently laughed about it while picking up "Portent seeds".

Then there was the portent seed incident.

I had to settle on appropriate background colours for... shh, a super-secret thing, and went back to my swans to pick them, resulting in a new set of single "official" attribute colours. Later I had to re-pick a couple colours again, partly thanks to Clarity replacing Duplicity.

A number of process pics happened.

And also Fuchsia.

I may as well say a bit about Fuchsia [...]. She's one of a number of side characters that played important roles in Aluma's history; to be a bit more specific she was a superhero of sorts known as The Superpower, and the first of the Superpower archetype. In present times there's at least one comic about "The Superpower" very loosely based on her, but almost everybody forgets it was based on an actual person. Kris, one of the main characters, was greatly influenced by this comic.

I'd had the basic idea for her design with the big poofy wing-shaped hair and the "feathered" cape for some time but then recently I found out about SU and realised it would make way more sense if Kris with her vague mineral theme admired somebody who also had a connection to minerals... so I shamelessly gave her a dark pink topaz stone clasp as a rôle object. :p

(Fun fact: Fuchsia is supposed to represent Faith, so her original name was Fiducia [trust/confidence in Latin], but that sounded like Fuchsia so I decided she'd probably go by that more often, and then fuchsia became the colour of Faith, so her gem is meant to match both her attribute and her name)

[C]haracter logo sketches I plan to vectorise soon. Lance's, Ssiv's, Sleipnir's, and Ariana's in a counterclockwise circle around the Yanha shape I drew to draw markings on but didn't (:p), to be specific. There are also some attempts at Io's logo but I don't really like how any of them came out.

Yeah, the rest of the main character logos are going to be a post some time in the near future. Here's Ssiv's:

Lastly, some chroma scribbles (that post conflated them with genders because it was an early version):

Me quickly scribbling out the gender symbols used for each chroma.

The current version of this particular worldbuilding facet, if you're totally lost right now, is that mystery beings don't have a gender, but have something called a chroma, which is related to their behaviour and general nature and as such people see it as kind of like a gender. People also sometimes identify as "gender Zed" and "gender Xai", etc., sometimes while also identifying as a "traditional" gender, like Flash Karkira who is malezed.

From top left: Xai, Zed, Omega, Omicron. Omega is Zed + Xai, kinda the "Totality attribute" of chromas, and Omicron is sort of the "Nothing attribute" of chromas. If it looks familiar from Ssiv's logo, it’s because Ssiv is more or less gender Omicron. I should have mentioned that. :p

Incongruity and Duplicity Sing the Blues

Alone
(Girders baulk at the sun)
Unknown
(Them frogs ain't singin' yer mead)
On my own
(Dustbrooms fight for blue skies)
Tempest-blown
(Axes grindin' the lead)

I've no name to my name
(When I catch 'em cornhusks twinklin' in the night)
And no face to my frame
(When I set 'em peaks of deep-fried melodies right)

If I could just get a gasp within my grasp
(For a day when grates can fly like crows!)
To tag this seamless vault without a clasp
(When fir trees's sproutin' feet and toes)

Would I at long last have the code to self-reclaim?

Only one
(If this one fine rooster don't count)
On the run
(Vetch sprigs whistle the blues)
Never done
(Dial 'dirt' for earthworm buffets)
Helped by none
(As all the roads depart on a cruise)

I've no face to my space
(When I see 'em crystals myanderin' in the morn')
But much race to my pace
(When I fly like a madjay from the cattails' thorns)

If I could just fill a bill of will
(If bats could dive and snakes could fly)
Could I kill every last urge to do ill?
(A flightless teacup's gotta try)

Or would I still be a coaster made of sin-pierced lace?

[Instrumental meanderings]

I've no name to my name
(If an eight-legged horse ain't gonna make the cut)
And no face to my frame
(Honey, would you move my tractor outta this rut)

If I could just find the zeal to get a reel
('Cause these wily leaves won't count themselves)
On this shifting self I cannot feel
(Only the swallows' paths could tell)
But when I don't have a self to know as me
(And an unmarked dishrag buys no hay)
How could I rise out of obscurity?
(A speechless vase could hardly say)

If I could only just out my true face
('Fore the key fobs blot the light of day)
Could I pull myself out of disgrace
(With the pea pods singin' yippee-kai-yay)

But when I don't have a self to know as me
(And the misplaced tribrachs cannot scream)
Where would I put my new integrity?
(Would it just leak out like a tea kettle's steam)

Or will I ever wander round without a place?

Stablehand: song drawings

My friends and I occasionally do this thing where we each pick a song and somebody else draws music to it. Anyway, I drew Sleipnir and Hughes from Stablehand! As I said, Hughes thinks he’s great friends with Sleipnir but Sleipnir doesn’t really care about him most of the time (it depends on the day; sometimes he’s on okay terms with him but most of the time he just finds him annoying), so it wouldn’t be unlike Sleipnir to just decide to leave him behind one day without saying anything.

Yeah. This is actually my first decent drawing of Sleipnir OR Hughes, so I thought it was worth posting here.

And this is... Lance. This one isn't really as good but at least it gives you an idea of what I want his Stablehand appearance to look like.

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11-22 Edit: looks like I have one more to add!

This is completely stupid, but every time the song [The Riddle, Gigi D'Agostino] said "Sly looks in corridors" I couldn’t help but think of Sleipnir ("Sly") trying to look through corridors carefully without being detected but Hughes just out singing this crazy song out in the open like, whatever.

Stablehand: Incongruity and Duplicity Sing the Blues

This one has kind of a weird story behind it, but here goes.

In Stablehand there are two wandering characters who go by the names Sleipnir and Hughes. Hughes is (or at least appears to be) a talking crow with a Southern accent who wears a straw hat and a vest. He tends to be quirkily optimistic and often says random, bizarre things. A fairly typical example of the Incongruity attribute.

Sleipnir, who Hughes often just refers to as "Sly", is a bit more complicated, but he might best be described as an obscure, elusive criminal. He has no idea who he is because he has no defined appearance or name—he can remember the codename Sleipnir having been applied to something at some point, but the first twenty or so years of his life are otherwise blank to him. He just kind of wanders around and does whatever jobs are available, whether legal or illegal, and every so often his appearance just sort of shifts into what appears to be an entirely different person. He's kind of solitary and introverted, and has a bad habit of appearing suspicious after a while even if he hasn't done a single thing worthy of suspicion recently, which forces him to move to new places often (a pretty typical example of the Duplicity attribute). Deep down, he really wishes that some day he could simply be a single, honest person with a defined identity who never had to take underground jobs or lie to people or assume new identities or anything.

In the song, Sleipnir is trying to sing a serious song about his solitude and his wish to go "clean", while Hughes is soiling the song with random silliness because he thinks it's kind of dumb; he doesn't understand why Sleipnir always ignores his attempts at companionship when he's right there, and as he knows it's pretty much impossible for him to change his ways, he thinks it's kind of ridiculous he'd even try.

Lyrics here.