I Wanted Reblog This Post With Tages.

halloween island

Play me a memory--A sigma fic

Summary: Sigma hopes to transcribe the universe’s melody, in hopes of awakening his true powers, but gets more than he bargains for when the government facility he has escaped from has found him once again.

Read it here, or find it on AO3

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Sigma sits in front of a piano. Not the Bechstein studio grand piano that used to sit in his apartment in The Hague but a cheap, upright Yamaha instead. He knows it is old just from the touch, the damp thud of the keys and the slow responsiveness of the pedals. Most aggravating of all is the tuning, the way the notes sound off to his ears. He does not have perfect pitch, and he never will, but if he concentrates hard enough, he can feel the shape of a note. Middle C is a yellow circle, and if he rises it up to a D, it transforms into an orange triangle. He hypothesizes that his abilities over gravity have given him a sensitivity to the electromagnetic waves that make up sound, but he cannot test this without rigorous testing. The beauty of these powers is that there are so many potential experiments and possibilities.

It’s been a long time since he’s played. Or at least, he thinks it’s been a long time. The last time he had touched a piano was one week before he went up to the international space station that caused his accident, but time is no longer linear and memories no longer make sense and he cannot say how many years have already passed since then. Has it been three years or longer? He cannot say.

He very much prefers listening to music rather than playing it, but he does not have that luxury. Talon is many things but it is not a musically inclined organization. His previous request for an parabolic microphone must have fallen upon flat ears for the next day he gets a regular microphone, the kind used for karaoke parties. It didn’t even have the batteries in it. So it is a miracle of sorts that his request for a piano got through. It was probably salvaged from a nearby dump, but it is still in working order, and he is grateful for whatever gifts Talon bestow upon him.

His body suddenly stiffens as he feels a shift in the air. He turns his head slowly, eyes wide as he finds himself staring back into his face. Only it’s not his face but another version of him, decked out in the orange jumpsuit that government facility crafted specifically for him. His copy smirks sinisterly.

 “Gravity is like sanity. All you need is a little push.”

“W-w-what?”

 “They called the geniuses of old insane back in their times.”

He is frozen in fear, staring into a face that is his but not his. The other approaches him and places his hands on his shoulders. He can feel the energy being sapped away from his body, his twisted mirror image growing larger, impossibly larger than him. As the energy leaves his body, he can feel his mind clearing. As his mind clears, he can see this twisted alter ego for what it truly is. It is sin, the devil in disguise. And behind that disguise is the black hole that destroyed his career and his mind. And it laughs. It laughs so viciously.

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Ace Attorney parody.

I don't want to be cringe, but I just had a vision that Bruno in a modern version of Encanto would upload his rat soap operas to youtube with titles like "RAT_WEDDING.mp4" (because he's an old man who doesn't know much about Youtube) and they would blow up in the ARG world because people would be convinced that there was some secret underlying message or code, especially once they realized that he was totally filming this in someone's walls. The only person who gets it is Dolores, whom the videos are intended for.

insert bitter caption

Thinking of a decidedly non-fixit Arcane AU where Silco and Vander both live, but now have to navigate negotiations with Piltover for the nation of Zaun, and the fallout in their families.

Eight years ago, when Marcus spirited Vi away to rot in prison, unbeknownst to anyone he managed to take a just-barely-alive Vander, too. Vander remains Marcus’ best-kept secret, but after Silco and Jinx are arrested, he’s yanked from the bowels of Stillwater and reinstalled as leader of the newly declared nation of Zaun.

Reeling from his change of circumstance and the paths his family has taken during his imprisonment, Vander must now navigate the aftermath of the very different plans Vi and Silco have laid for an independent Zaun. 

But after five months of negotiations, all Zaunite prisoners are released from Piltovan prisons, and Vander and Vi must confront their siblings, and grapple with the base violence necessary for change. Takes place at the end of an alternate Act III.

Vander survived like Vi did, but Vi does not realize this at the time. She spends her entire time in Stillwater believing he died of his injuries.

Shimmer did allow him to survive, but he remains Vander rather than Warwick the robot-zombie-werewolf/living embodiment of the Hound of the Underground he will almost certainly be in canon.

The plot of Arcane proceeds pretty much normally. Caitlyn does not initially learn of Vander, as he wasn’t involved in the incident with Silco’s henchman. Few Piltovans know about Vander, and prior to Jayce and Mel’s initiative, even fewer care enough about Zaun to bother with him. After Caitlyn and Vi address the Council, Marcus’ dealings are discovered, and the idea of Zaunite independence is floated, some rusty gears start turning, but Jayce isn’t privy to this and still attempts to negotiate with Silco.

Silco still spirals when offered independence at the price of his daughter, and still monologues to Vander[‘s statue] about it. However, word of the terms, and Silco’s refusal of them, somehow gets out to the other Chembarons, and then to Zaun at large.

Fortunately, this manages to head off Jinx’s tea party of horrors.

Unfortunately, this leads to a (very understandably) enraged mob of Zaunites willing to drag both father and daughter to the bridge of Piltover for the price of one, and/or stone them in the streets.

Silco has precious few moments to assure Jinx he’d never forsake her. When the mob comes for them, he tells her to go and tries to cover her escape, but Jinx refuses to be separated from him. The mob washes over them.

Jinx, as she always does, fights like a woman possessed. Silco may be rusty, but he is and will always be a son of Zaun, and he is scrappy. When a man cuts off one of Jinx’s braids and starts tearing at her clothes, Silco stabs him to death with his own knife. But when the first stone is thrown, at the foot of the Bridge, all he can do is throw his scrawny body over hers in a desperate attempt to shield her.

Meanwhile, Cassandra Kirammen has just seen fit to reveal Vander’s survival to Caitlyn, who races to tell Vi (who is in Zaun hunting Sevika).

Vi is nearly overcome with joy at his survival and the prospect of rebuilding Zaun with a stable adult, and almost as pleased when they hear an angry mob has come for Silco. However, her joy turns to horror when she realizes Powder is with him, and Jinx is just as much a target of the mob as Silco is.

Vi races over the rooftops in the mob’s wake trying to reach her sister. She’s horrified to see a dead man, stabbed and trampled and still clutching a bright blue braid.

The mob surrounds Silco and Jinx at the Bridge, hurling stones. They are dispersed by a warning shot from Cassandra Kiramman, backed by a squad of Enforcers. The first thing Silco sees, when he’s able to lift his head, is a Piltovan gun pointed at him and his daughter.

Vi arrives at the rooftops overlooking the scene to hear Cassandra Kiramman tell them that Violet was right, their own people did turn on them. The anguish in Jinx’s cry as she buries her face in Silco’s chest and he tries to comfort her will haunt Vi for years. For a moment, Silco sees Vi above them, and the accusation and rage on his face as he holds his battered, traumatized daughter is chilling.

Cassandra then drops the bombshell than not only has Vander survived, he’s now poised to become the new leader of Zaun (provided cooperation with the Council). Cue Silco breakdown.

Vi watches the Enforcers arrest Silco and Jinx as Zaun processes this news. Having all but traded places with her sister after all these years, her reunion with Vander takes a bittersweet cast as she, Vander, and Ekko set about rebuilding Zaun and dismantling Silco’s Shimmer empire.

The chembarons put up a fight, but not as much as they might’ve, at least openly. Sevika managed to avoid the mob and she quickly emerges as one of the voices Vander knows he’ll have to negotiate with. Ekko and especially Vi are not happy with this, but the fact remains that Zaun is sorely lacking in any remaining competent leadership who’s been in the Lanes for the past 8 years and is even remotely trusted by the people.

Meanwhile, Silco and Jinx have had near-simultaneous breakdowns with the reveal that Vander is alive, Vi “betrayed” them to Piltover, and both of them are now working with Topside for the independence Silco’s (allegedly) been working for for the past 8 years. Convinced more than ever that everyone else betrays them, they become, if possible, even more codependent.

They are separated during intake (Jinx’s other braid is cut so she's not lopsided), and their frantic reunion in the canteen attracts attention, and some crude suggestions that Jinx should find herself a younger man. Silco, disgusted, says she’s his daughter.

Silco has failed to stand up to Piltover, failed to keep power in Zaun, and now apparently failed to kill Vander. His single-minded devotion to Jinx is all that stands between him and a complete breakdown, but his power to protect his child is severely limited in prison; in Zaun he was a king, here he’s just a sump-rat. And he’s fading.

Like the mutant fish that prowl the waters, Silco is adapted to the chemicals and pollutants in Zaun, and when cut off from the Shimmer, like a fish out of water, he gets very sick, very quickly.

Silco and Jinx see each other at meals and outdoor hour (no effort is made to separate men and women), but otherwise prisoners are left to rot. Neither engage with any other prisoners, even their henchmen. But Silco gets weaker, and as the months turn colder, he becomes too sick to leave his cell. When he doesn’t show at the canteen, Jinx takes it upon herself to go to him. She locates his cell and sneaks in at night (with some lockpicking help from Mylo’s ghost?). She can evade the guards, but she tells Silco they’re more concerned about keeping prisoners in Stillwater than what they do in there. Silco is more concerned about the implications of who might be able to get into his teenage daughter’s cell.

Silco is not doing well. Guards bring food to his cell, but don’t bother to see if he eats it. He can’t keep it down, and he’s becoming too weak to try. He tries to give it to Jinx, telling her not to waste it. It’s the only thing he can do for her.

He’s dying, and despite his attempts to reassure Jinx she’ll be alright, he’s terrified at the thought leaving her alone. Jinx is determined to keep him alive though.

She makes it to his cell every night, rumors be damned. When be becomes too weak to eat, she feeds him, doing everything she can to keep him fed, keep him warm, keep him breathing through the night. Fluid fills his lungs, leaving him in a state of constant drowning. He lapses into delirium, raving about Marcus and Vander and Vi, about Piltover and Shimmer and the nation of Zaun. Eventually, he can barely keep down water, and all Jinx can do for him is draw sharks on the walls and ceiling of his cell, to guard him when he’s trapped in nightmares he can’t wake from (she gets it.)

After five months of negotiations (~December?), Vander and Vi secure the release of all Zaunite prisoners from Piltovan prisons. What to do with them presents a challenge, as Zaun has no criminal justice system and next-to-no legitimate economy. Many of the prisoners are petty criminals by Piltovan standards, but ordinary citizens caught by Topside in Zaun. Then there are prisoners like Silco and Jinx, considered personae non gratae even (or especially) in Zaun. No one knows what to do with them, but it’s agreed they should face Zaunite justice.

Piltover knows that “Zaunite justice” could involve another mob, but they don’t care enough to object. Vi and Vander also know this, and care very much.

Vi is still in denial that Powder/Jinx is hated as much or more than Silco.

The prisoner transfer comes with little warning in the bowels of Stillwater, as the guards round up all the “sump-rat” prisoners one morning and send them to the Bridge, where the leaders of Zaun have assembled.

Vi is overcome with relief when she sees Powder among the released prisoners, but Jinx can’t find Silco.

He’s at the end of the crowd. As per the agreement, Piltover will release prisoners at the bridge, but he must cross it himself, and he’s barely able to walk. When he tries he immediately slips on the icy ground and doesn’t get up. Guards are laughing, Jinx is becoming frantic, and Sevika senses danger. 

Lying face-up on the bridge, Silco looks up at the flag of the new nation of Zaun and almost gives in. And then he hears Jinx screaming his name.

Silco can’t walk and Jinx can’t carry him. But she won’t allow anyone near, and Vander and Vi just agitate her more. Sevika finally steps forward to carry him to a van that will take him and Jinx back to Zaun.

Sevika takes a moment to assess their condition before making the executive decision to drug Jinx unconscious and carry Silco into the Last Drop

 Vander takes one look at him and calls for a doctor. When it becomes clear that Singed expects him to die and is a little too enthusiastic at the prospect of dissecting his eye, Caitlyn offers her father’s services as a doctor and escorts him to Zaun.

Vi stays at Powder’s bedside. When Jinx wakes asking for Silco, Vi tries to assure her she’ll never have to see him again, only for Jinx to punch her in the face and rush to Silco’s bedside calling for her father.

The first thing she sees is Vander standing over him, and she wrenches him away with strength that shouldn’t be possible. When Vander comes face to face with his youngest daughter after 8 years he can’t help but flinch.

Powder was his kindest of his children, the sweetest, gentlest, always trying to please. Jinx looks at him with rage and fear and accusation and betrayal and hate. She looks at him with Silco’s eyes, the last time he saw him.

Then she has him on the ground, too fast for him to react, going for his knife as Vi and Sevika try to separate them. Jinx and Vi briefly square off to defend their fathers, before Silco stirs.

Tobias Kiramman arrives to find the leader of Zaun battered and brooding, Caitlyn comforting a tearful Vi (who’s sporting a black eye), and Silco and Jinx reuniting for the first time in an independent Zaun. Both are weeping. It would be touching, if they weren’t who they were.

He recognizes Singed as a disgraced former doctor turned serial killer, and is concerned by the Zaunites’ unsurprised reactions. He’s the only doctor in Zaun, and the good ones wouldn’t come to the Undercity if they had any choice.

He’s also disturbed by the condition Silco’s in. It should have been obvious he was ill, but it’s clear he received no medical care in prison.

When Vander slashed his face open, chemicals in the water leached into the wound, formed crystals in his flesh, in the back of his eye. His eye’s turned black, the flesh of his cheek underneath caved in and rotted away. What was in that water? Singed would love to find out! Some phenol maybe. Shimmer kept its spread at bay, but now…

He’s so weak Tobias warns Vander he may not live, but Vander tells him he will, because Silco’s a survivor, for better or worse.

Silco and Jinx’s move back in the Last Drop goes about as well as Sevika expects. They put Jinx in Powder’s old room, leading to disturbing, violent meltdowns that Vi and Vander are unprepared to deal with, while Silco’s health crashes several times in one night.

Vander concedes that it’s unsustainable and, on Sevika’s suggestion, eventually puts Jinx with Silco over Vi’s objections, as he’s the only one who can halfway calm her during meltdowns and she's the only one with experience with his healthcare.

Jinx has become Silco’s sole motivation to go on, and their dynamics subtly reverse. Clinginess and insecurity are traits readily associated with Jinx, but not obviously with Silco. Jinx has always been dependent on Silco, but in Stillwater and after she cared for him. This wasn’t to pump up her feelings of importance, or even a child’s desperation to avoid losing another parental figure; Jinx sincerely cared for her father out of concern. When he tells her she saved his life, she tells him children can take care of parents when they grow up. 

The threat to their relationship was never Vander. Vi is another story, but Silco is Jinx’s father, not him.

Vander is unwilling to ask anyone else to care for Silco, and whatever Jinx can’t do Vander does himself. Silco alternates between vicious cruelty and such obvious physical and mental agony it’s impossible to fake, and he can swing unpredictably from one to another. He doesn’t need to accuse Vander; he knows.

Silco’s necessarily feeling overwhelmed and emotional after learning of Vander’s survival and Zaun gaining independence. He’d finally understood and and even forgiven Vander when he believed him to be dead, but the reality of confronting him alive is very different.

Vander: Sweeps in to gain independence and claim leadership of Zaun after 8 years in solitary confinement 🙌

Silco: half-carried out by his teenage daughter after 5 months in prison

Yeah, Silco doesn’t like that.

On one night, Vander freezes outside Silco’s door, listening to his brother curse Marcus and his deception, writhing and crying in pain from the wounds Vander gave him, as Jinx tries to soothe him by describing how she killed Marcus in graphic detail and offering to kill his 5-year old daughter. He curses Vander too, and Vander flinches when he hears Powder offer to kill him as well, if it would make him feel better. But even wracked with pain, Silco realizes how dangerous this could be and that he needs to be the adult in this situation. He declines, and tells Jinx to be absolutely sure he’s lucid before carrying out any hit jobs he issues. 

On another night, Vander finds Silco passed out covered in vomit and carries him to the bathroom to clean him up; as he puts him in the tub Silco comes to and panics at the combination of Vander and water, struggling violently enough to injure Vander and himself. Vander in frustration finally asks if he would burden Jinx with all of his care, and Silco begrudgingly surrenders. When Vander makes him admit he hasn’t kept any food down all day, he brings him new food for to eat and watch him eat it. Silco tries to tell him not to waste it and give it to Jinx, but Vander snaps at him that it’s not a waste.

They begin to speak, a little, about their children. What to do with Jinx? Redeem her as Powder or prosecute her as Jinx? Silco credits Jinx’s theft of the Hex gem and threat to Piltover for Zaunite independence, the base violence necessary for change. She’s perfect, he tells Vander, a true daughter of Zaun. She’s done what we never could.

Vander’s learned a lot about the things Jinx has done, what Powder’s turned into. He can’t tell if Silco is truly that blind to her faults or if he’s in denial. When he presses Silco about what role he played in making Jinx, Silco riles, but not at the accusation he corrupted her. He genuinely believes that becoming Jinx was the only way to heal Powder from the pain of betrayal, something he knows well.

He tells Vander that after Vander tried to kill him, he returned to the mines, through paths even Vander never knew. He stumbled for days (though he admits that he might have been hallucinating, as there are things in the mines that can make you “see things”) before he came to an underground clearing filled with impossible flowers sustained by a mysterious glowing fluid. He collapsed there, and it was there Singed found him. Singed asked him if he wanted to live, and Silco tells Vander he wanted revenge.

Vander’s heard enough and turns to go, but Silco becomes more agitated, snarling at Vander not to turn away from him, to look at him. But to Vander’s surprise, her doesn’t seem motivated by anger or possessiveness or a disagreement in ideology; he’s terrified for what will happen to Jinx if they try to force her to become Powder again, reduced to begging Vander not to do that to her.

When news comes that Piltover has officially recognized the nation of Zaun, most of the surviving adults of the rebellion generation are overcome with emotion at the news. Silco breaks down as Jinx comforts him and Vi finds Vander weeping it the Last Drop and goes to him. Caitlyn spies Sevika crying quietly in a back room and slips away before she sees.

Silco and Vander have achieved everything they once wanted with the nation of Zaun, but they cannot share this victory together, not now. The truth they are unwilling to concede is that Zaun’s independence took both Silco and Jinx’s “base violence necessary for change,” and Vander and Vi’s diplomacy and compromise with Piltover. They need to be united, as they once were, as they always planned to be, if they are to move forward. But they won’t. They can’t. Not anymore.

Vander was never meant to be the diplomat. Silco was supposed to be the clever one, the negotiator, who wove his way through a trail of paperwork and legalese, who’d gain the respect of the Pilties once Vander was done cowing them from the Undercity. It takes more than a revolution to build a nation. Vander needs his brother now.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? Silco’s there, he’s right there, down the hall, on the other side of the door! But his brother is gone.

On top of that, wanting Silco dead is one of the few things that unite most in Zaun (and Vi and Ekko aren’t inclined to deny them). Vander insists he will stand trial once he’s strong enough to stand, but many would prefer a quicker end to justice. Fear of Jinx is all that stands between Silco and a very easy death.

Sevika: You’re welcome to try. It’s just a matter of how many of you Jinx will take with her.

Vander is between a rock in a very hard place. One night, Silco wakes to Vander crying silently over him, but gives no indication that he’s awake. Silco and Jinx are monsters, but they are monsters of Vander’s own making. It is not possible for Vander to pursue justice for Zaun without betraying his brother and his daughter, again.

Silco gradually becomes aware that a significant factor in independence negotiations was the return of the Hextech gem to Piltover, and it hasn’t been returned yet, because Vander and Vi can’t find it in the Undercity. When Jinx confides that she hid it before the mob took her and knows its location, for the first time since Stillwater, Silco has some hope.

 For better or worse, Silco is back in the game. He starts to pull himself together. His hair’s grown out, hanging unevenly to his jaw, clipped back with Jinx’s sparkly barrettes. He's lost so much weight his dress shirts no longer fit, so he wears them wrapped around, held in place with a belt that needed a new hole worked into it, and what look like pinstriped pajama bottoms. Tobias Kiramman hears one Zaunite comment that “at least he’s dressing normally now.”

At one point he also watches in horror as Silco, barely strong enough to walk, lights up a cigarette. When Dr. Kiramman protests, citing his lungs, Silco coolly asks Jinx to open a window, allowing a haze of greenish smog to enter. As Tobias chokes and coughs, the two Zaunites remain impassive, and three glowing eyes stare at him through the haze.

Sevika also pays Silco a visit. She denies being a traitor, as she worked for Zaun, not Silco, but tells him she wasn’t the one who exposed his deal with Piltover to the Chembarons and to Zaun (That was Renni, and I honestly can’t blame her). She also tells him he looks like shit, but he looks more like himself than he has in years.

Silco’s plan is to use knowledge of the Hex gem as a bargaining chip. Not to avoid prosecution, he knows that’s impossible, but his goal is to get a sentence that’s survivable rather than being left to rot in Stillwater, with a guard bribable enough to allow Jinx visits (and potentially explore other means of leverage).

He also seeks to shield Jinx from prosecution, taking all blame for her crimes however implausible. Everyone in Zaun knows it’s a lie, but Silco’s hoping that apathy will save them rather than ignorance. 

Ironically enough, his and Vi’s goals are completely aligned, had they ever considered coordinating their assertions that Jinx was blameless and acting solely on Silco’s orders.

However, all his plans fall to nothing when, on trial by the leaders of Piltover and Zaun, Jinx lives up to her name, threatening them with Hextech weaponry in a bid to protect Silco. Sevika later finds him crumpled in a corner, helpless and out of options to save his daughter or himself.

(This family is so doomed by the narrative).

why would you distort “Severus changed sides because of Lily” to “Severus only changed sides because of Lily”? Trying to save someone you care about is a pretty good reason imo.

love ur hk designs! how did u come up w/them? do u have any notes?

aww thank you so much anon !! i DO in fact have notes but theyre a lot so [cracks knuckles] lets go thru this --

i love designing and humanizing characters as its a real fun brain exercise and such, but humanizing the hk characters has really given me a lotta gusto that perplexes even me ?? either way im not complaining its very fun and im glad to elaborate on all (bc its a bit much) the thought that went into these!!

Image Description: Digital art of humanoid Hollow Knight Characters. Quirrel, Hornet, the Knight, and the Hollow Knight are all hanging around a bench and looking at the camera. The Knight is sitting on the bench, their legs dangling off, and holding their helmet. The Hollow Knight, all bandaged up, is sitting on the ground but leaning their head on the back of the bench. Quirrel is standing and leaning on the bench back, making a thumbs up and smiling a big smile. Hornet is also standing, though she rests three of her hands on the bench with an unimpressed expression. End ID.

in this post i’ll be talking about inspirations and show off the designs of the knight, hornet, quirrel, thk, the dreamers, and some less polished higher beings designs -- and go over it all with my neverending commentary! everything's under the cut in order to spare y'all's dashes LMAO

one must begin with groundwork. try to figure out what aspects of the character you want to be most important. do you want their silhouette to be immediately recognizable? are you inspired by a particular time period or region, or want to set it in that time period or region? do you want to prioritize colors? are you willing to let go of silhouette / direct visual relatability in lieu of emphasizing personality in the little details of appearance? try to strike that balance and see what is to your taste.

you should also consider how seriously you want to take things. will you consider things down to material and essentially fabricate hallownest's textile economy or do you just want to ball off of vibes? (i like incorporating historical garments and feels into things because i think they're neat, but i do get silly here. maybe i'll bow to my inner desire to ground everything some day and take another stab at, well, all of this.)

there are some things you can easily render turning bug to person (as i love diverse face shapes so you’ll see a trend of pointy in game, pointy here) and some that are much harder. either you can go for what is straightforward and easy for someone to be like “oh hornet head shaped mask! that must be hornet!” or you can not do that! your humanizations, your rules. hollow knight has a very simple, curve and shape-based art style, so you can incorporate a lot of subtle details on that! you can also do any other motif and really lay into it -- if you look at my monomon i have all these that are jellyfish-esque: her gown shape, her choker, her braids, the embroidery on her gown, etc.

or you can ignore all my advice and do what you want! i’m not the boss of you.

so , FIRST THINGS FIRST: aesthetic inspirations ! i did a few passes based on a variety of regions but i decided go with a pre-modern era european influence, largely because of the general influences and vibes i saw in the in-game architecture and appearances for things and places. i decided to land my inspirations anywhere from the 1500s to late 1700s / veery early 1800s, though im just aiming for fantastical with a heavy side of inspiration.

i decided to have individuals from before the fall of hallownest have look inspirations from Later in this time frame with those after being Earlier to get this kind of ‘technology and society has backslid’ idea. that, and because i thought the aesthetics of later monarchist europe -- l’ancien regime and all that, if you will -- quite fitting with hallownest right before its fall. because of this extremely broad time frame (300 years!) and also me just generally not trying to be concerned with ‘historical accuracy’ as this is both non-historical and very fantastical, there’s going to be a mess of silhouettes and such -- though i do love a rich deep dive into history, this is a time for fantasy fun and nonsense :-)

i decided to constrain myself with a few internal rules: one being the inspirations i draw on, and another main one being regarding masks. i decided to restrict mask wearing to as little as possible -- no shade to people who include masks in their gijinkas! i think they look wonderful with them And are lore relevant! but i felt like me, personally, using masks would keep me at times from being at the very top of my design experimentation game. so, as a little sort of fun challenge, i’m keeping away masks as much as possible in these people’s everyday wear. this means it is harder to keep silhouettes, but my priority is less 100% sticking close to silhouettes (though that is something to consider) and more evoking enough motifs and such to where they’re recognizable.

SO LET’S BREAK DOWN SOME DESIGNS!

Image Description: A reference sheet with various views of a humanized Knight. They’re a pale little humanoid thing armed with a shortsword, their skin and hair that same color of off-white, and always maintaining that same wide-eyed, small-mouthed, and neutral (yet almost determined?) look. They’re dressed in virtually rags from neck to boots, and all dark colors - navy blues, greys, dark brown leather, and even the deepest blacks. Charms are studded to their outermost cloak (and there seems to be a pair of vestigial, black-soaked wings under said outer cloak). They have a flat, square face, and a flat, square nose, though their corners are blunted. Their hair should be straight but it has gone long unbrushed; it stops in bangs at their forehead then cascades to their chin, where it hugs their jaw, especially at two points on the left and right where two ticks stick out on each side.

They can be seen also wearing headgear: a chainmail hood with old, yellowed horns poking out at either temple. They are also shown with their hair up in a little bun, or in two pigtails remniscient of their canon horns (one can thank Mato!). There is a little drawing of their exposed arm, showing how all their joints are harshly segmented, as if an insect or porcelain doll. In the corner, their dark shade chases after them. End ID.

an idea i wanted to play with for the knight -- and any of the vessels, for that matter -- is that of the uncanny. they are almost human! (as im approaching these humanizations with the idea of ‘human au’ and less so ‘everyone must be humanoid’, the higher beings are markedly less human here. ill get to that in a bit.) i decided to go for the concept that the knight is a living porcelain doll -- hollow, white, uncanny. they’re probably not shiny -- their surface probably feels like it was once porcelain smooth but is now ever so slightly abraded -- and theyre also not LITERALLY a doll. they do have a crackable exterior, yes, and are hollow, yes, but their segmented joints and such are less ‘doll’ and more ‘insect exoskeleton segments’. thank their dad (though i always thought he was more of a tapeworm / platyhelminth. but that aside--)

them being this humanoid non-human lends to some fun details! this is an example i like but is extraordinarily hard to communicate thru just stylized art: their eyes cannot close as they have been ‘carved’ that way & their pupils are just a hole into their void interior, and thus if you look at their face at an angle or profile you can see a little ridge / rim of the thin layer of their eye-white ‘porcelain’. they are also virtually dressed in rags, though the bottom cloak layer of those rags are wing-shaped, but still vestigial w/o the monarch wings, like in-game. and the two little hair-ticks on either side of their chin are meant to evoke their horns! :-)

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Hornet. She’s a thin, lithe person, with a long thin face wider at the top than the bottom and a thin chin. She has four eyes, and four arms. She has brown skin, with the exception of a patch of pale skin in the shape of her canon head right over her nose, with the ‘horns’ extending up into her scalp. There’s a flash of white coming from her forehead amongst her curly black hair, which is tied back into a bun by a hairtie shaped like two lightly curving pale horns. She has a long and pointy nose with a thin bridge, but it is crooked slightly. She largely has an unimpressed and stern look on her face.

She wears a bright red cloak with three weaverling buttons on the front, and white embroidery on the collar, back, and hem. The design on the back is a heavily stylized spider: a round body of eyes, with floral arms extending out from the junction between the body and the curving leaf-mandibles. Underneath her cloak she wears a white top with gold embroidery down the center (that goes up her neck to the underside of her jaw, and can be optionally decorated or plainly wrapped in white) and a bodice that is black on the sides but gold and white in the center at her torso. Tied to her belt is a silver chatelaine with sewing supplies. She has red puffy sleeves, slitted to show white fabric showing through, and black forearm-length fingerless gloves. There are a few more sketches: one of her with a double-horned hennin (her formal wear, maybe she wore when young), one of her as a child shouting excitedly for her ma, and a tiny her standing unimpressed next to a wide-eyed Knight. End ID.

hornet was kind of difficult, particularly because… of her head shape… but i fired out several solutions! the double-horned hennin (the funny two-cone hat) is from history, though the idea was scrapped as i imagine hornet in the present, as you see her, would not be of a mind to wear such finery. thus, i decided to give her a hairpiece shaped into horns, to evoke that silhouette. much more practical. (same idea goes with her patch of pale skin.)

as i mentioned this is a not-strictly-humans scenario, so i decided to splurge on the weavers and spiders and give them some differing anatomy, ie some extra arms and eyes. as a treat. i havent entirely sussed out (lol) the exact logic of her wear -- turns out making real things fantasy makes them, construction-wise, rather odd -- and is always subject to change. hornet wears things rather simple, for practicality reasons; and though her outfit is highly fictionalized (lmao) her garments under her cloak are somewhat based off of the portraits by cranach the elder. (all weaver clothings generally would feature repeating shoulder puffs. not leg-of-mutton style, but moreso in the image of the 1530s-40s. you'll see this more on herrah.)

the knight is a bit too ’young’ to have these features be quite apparent so they are the exception, but the trend with the ‘pale lineage’ is that of very pointed chins, long faces, and thin long noses. you'll see this on the hollow knight and the pale king, and you almost see this with hornet. she is still somewhat her father's creature, though he was never quite in her life.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Quirrel. He's a portly brown man (with warm-toned skin) with a squat (but not comically so) face, a pointy and stick-out nose, freckles concentrated around the top of his nose and where his eyes meet, relaxed, monolidded black eyes, and straight black hair. His hair falls short onto his forehead and comes down his cheek in sideburns, but is pulled back into a low bun -- though it is usually covered by a dark grey-blue headscarf. He has silver plate armor on his upper body, upper arms, and over his thighs, with a sash winding 'round his waist and holding up his scabbard; he too wears long black gloves, and thigh-length leg gaiters over brown breeches. Covering his neck is a white neck stock. He has a bit of a hunched posture, his hips and neck both leaned forward; his belly is well-rounded, and his long legs are rather spindly.

He is also seen younger, before the fall of Hallownest. Here he has less wrinkles, though his face is much the same. His black hair is tied back in a headscarf (though actually short here); and he's clad in a segmented grey coat, high collar with a white cravat, green vest with rich gold embroideries, high knee stockings covering brown breeches, and over all that a segmented cropped tailcoat. He dresses pretty well, as befitting his station -- but not as well as he could (science gets messy!) End ID.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Quirrel. He's a portly brown man (with warm-toned skin) with a squat (but not comically so) face, a pointy and stick-out nose, freckles concentrated around the top of his nose and where his eyes meet, relaxed, monolidded black eyes, and straight black hair. His hair falls short onto his forehead and comes down his cheek in sideburns, but is pulled back into a low bun -- though it is usually covered by a dark grey-blue headscarf. He has silver plate armor on his upper body, upper arms, and over his thighs, with a sash winding 'round his waist and holding up his scabbard; he too wears long black gloves, and thigh-length leg gaiters over brown breeches. Covering his neck is a white neck stock. He has a bit of a hunched posture, his hips and neck both leaned forward; his belly is well-rounded, and his long legs are rather spindly.

He is also seen younger, before the fall of Hallownest. Here he has less wrinkles, though his face is much the same. His black hair is tied back in a headscarf (though actually short here). He has a couple possible outfits: a more realistic one, a dark greatcoat with multiple capelets over a sky blue waistcoat, high collar with a white cravat and pin, high black hosen with brown breeches; and an alternate one: a segmented grey coat, high collar with a white cravat, green vest with rich gold embroideries, high knee stockings with brown breeches, and over all that a segmented cropped tailcoat. He dresses pretty well, as befitting his station -- but not as well as he could (science gets messy!) End ID.

quirrel was both easy and hard. to mimic his segments i decided to give him plate armor -- reasons for this are fairly obvious i imagine LMAO (segments!) (though his armor isn’t based on or accurate to any particular armor style. this is because i do not like drawing armor.) for his outfit pre-fall of hallownest, i gave him some breeches and leggings, as is typical for his very regency / turn of the century inspirations, but those give him the effect of white legs. to sort of mimic the black legs he has in-game, i instead gave him black thigh gaiters! i could have gave him long boots (and i imagine he did have a pair) but 1 i liked the gaiters more 2 i forgor :(

a fun little add-on eagle-eyed viewers (?? i feel like a youtuber saying that) may spot is that the brooch on his neckcloth is an isopod shell! in some illustrations i draw this brooch directly on the cloth / above the knot and not on the draped part. no man would wear a stickpin / brooch like that on his tie in real life. i just don’t like drawing knots. younger quirrel also features more teals and greens in his design, along with gold accents, to fit more with the archive’s colors. (even in the present day, hidden under his headscarf, he uses a green ribbon to tie his hair back.)

honestly, he and monomon were the main reasons i decided to extend the period outside of late medieval. it’s their fault! not only did monomon fit really well to the dress silhouette of one of these later decades, but i really wanted quirrel to have a napoleonic / regency feel. this is largely because with the enlightenment there came the rise of natural philosophers and the scientific sorts of fellows, which have become sort of their own iconic archetype in the public consciousness (and in fiction. stephen maturin my beloved.) i thought that would fit him well, and so i went for it.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Hollow Knight. They’re a very tall and svelte hollow humanoid, almost gangly in their proportions. They have a very elongated face with a straight, aquiline nose, large almond-shaped eyes, and a permanent expression that is all at once solemn, neutral, and melancholic. They look a lot like their father. They’re pale white on their skin and hair -- hair that is parted in the center at the forehead and tucked behind more hair, which cascades down to their torso when not tied up. Framing their face on either side are two slightly shorter bits of hair with three little spikes on each.

As the Pure Vessel, they stand straight and tall, completely cloaked in deep grey cloaks and holding a broadsword in firm gloved hands. Over their cloak is pale silver-white armor, with three-layered spaulders, a cuirass, and a helmet with large horns. Holding the Radiance within them, their cloak is torn and their armor and helmet are gone, with their hair splaying out loose. One of their boots is missing, exposing a segmented leg. Their right arm is gone, and a crack runs down their face down their forehead, into their eye, and down their cheek, exposing a bright yellow light from within. Still, they clutch their sword. In a corner of the image a tiny Hollow Knight looks with wide eyes at an even tinier, shouting Hornet. End ID.

the hollow knight’s design was fairly straightforward as i had figures out their siblings before them. even their armor -- which has been pointed out to be largely ornamental and they do not actually use it when fighting -- was easy to transpose. i was, admittedly, trying to avoid helmets (especially those that completely cover the face, though their’s isn’t) largely because i just dislike drawing them, but i felt i really HAD to with the hollow knight and so i just went for it !

i purposefully gave them a sort of gangly and out-of-proportion feel to them -- i like to think their grace is that of a stick-legged bird, like a heron or flamingo... someone stretched them in taffy help! /j but it also speaks to their true delicacy and fragility - both emotionally and literally. they’re a perfect hollow creation, but could very easily fall... or something like that !

but-- yeah, as i mentioned earlier, their design was a natural conclusion to come to from that of their relatives, so there’s not much new to say about them!

next, let’s look at the dreamers!

Image Description: The three dreamers, standing primly. In order from left to right there is: Herrah the beast, Lurien the watcher, and Monomon the teacher.

Herrah is a tall brown and broad-set, wide-shouldered woman. She has six eyes and an aquiline nose, and curly hair; on her head she wears a horned metal helmet and a dark blue bandanna covering the lower half of her face. From her neck there is a waist-length dark blue-grey cloak that cascades out behind her back. She wears a pale grey-blue doublet with a full skirt; on her arms there are rows of pinched pale fabric to look puffed, and her forearms are covered in dark grey fabric to the knuckles. She has striped grey spanish breeches and black hosen and shoes. One pair of arms is crossed, the other pair of arms rests on the hilt of a thin sword.

Lurien is a short brown man with an upside-down droplet shaped head. He has very short wavy hair and a long straight nose; a large teardrop shaped mouche is placed at the bridge of his nose and between his eyes. He has a navy blue cloak draped over his entire body; underneath he has a white circular millhouse ruff that hugs close to his neck, a black doublet, black breeches, and white hosen. He has two strings of beads: around his neck with a king’s idol, and in his hands -- which hold each other -- with a silver pomander.

Monomon is a tall black woman with an oval-shaped head, a wide nose, and a long, thin neck. She wears a rather unadorned teal gown with a wide, almost bell shape skirt, split down the center. At the top of the bell meeting the waist are two layers of teardrop shapes in light cyan fabric emitting out, similar to those on a jellyfish. At the bottom of the bell are more cyan embroideries, this time of floral motifs in the general shape of jellyfish. Her sleeves can either be puffed (for inaccuracy but design fun) or unpuffed (for accuracy) and then drape to the elbow, and she wears forearm-length white gloves. Her stomacher is green, with lighter green designs: four eye-like ovals, two smaller ones on top of the larger ones, with floral decorations around them. She has a dark blue headscarf, but seen coming out of it are four braids. End ID.

first to clarify: monomon’s braids are floating so you can see her gown easier! it’s not literal :-) second to clarify: in this sort of little half-baked au-thing i decided to make their masks a part of the spell. that is, their mask is one of the seals binding them to their slumber, and all that good rot. this means they follow my no-mask rule when not sleeping AND their masks remain relevant (namely, quirrel taking monomon’s mask to her.)

the dreamers are all based off of different centuries and it is pretty easy to tell with them standing side by side, hah! hell, they even go in order: herrah i largely based on the 1500s, lurien the 1600s, and monomon the 1700s...! that was unintentional.

herrah largely has this kind of puffiness to her body segments in the game, and so my first thought was immediately: 1500s style puffs. the sleeve puffs (as also seen on hornet, and they were often slitted. think the og disney snow white!) and also the very wide and puffy breeches (which i always thought were hilarious). unlike hornet’s hairpiece, i gave her a helmet to show her horns! i felt it fit her more than it did hornet -- maybe it’s just me, but i feel like hornet wouldn’t be one for metal armor. in formal or dressy wear she likely switches the helmet for a headdress like a hennin or escoffion.

however, i am feeling not 100% satisfied with her design as it is right now, though i do think it works on the levels of thought i put into the other designs. i dunno! i’ll change it when i feel like it -- such is the nature of these :-)

ngl i put the least effort into lurien out of the 3 dreamers… sorry king i just don't care much about you comparatively… im pretty content with his design though! i decided to base him off of the more subtle and understated north europe fashions, as i felt they’d fit him. however, the bigass ruff is the biggest staple of this design for me (in my mind at least!) it’s drawn from the period and it also introduces a big round shape into his general design (when his in-game design is literally Round + drapey cloth LMAO)

i decided to have him wear largely black to show status! normally in this time period richer folks would wear black - which may seem odd and plain to us but is rather telling of status as rich, deep black is quite hard to dye. however i still gave him a dark blue cloak to more allude to his ingame design.

i imagine he is devout from the few bits of in-game characterization we get -- hence the idol. he also has a pomander! they were medieval scent-objects thought to keep away miasma, or plague air. (they contained strong scents! it was for the same reason plague doctors stuffed their beaks with herbs: good scents keep away bad air! or so they thought.) i draw people with them a lot -- i just think they’re neat things and one of my favorite medieval objects :-)

as for the thing on his face - a mouche! what are mouches? i recommend you watch mina le's wonderful video on the subject -- she could explain it far better and in a more entertaining way than i.

i had SO MUCH FUN with monomon! (and i think that’s easy to see, hah!) dresses and gowns from the latter 1700s (though not yet regency like quirrel is -- dresses got kinda tube-shaped in regency) really do give the look of a jellyfish bell. a thin waist (comparatively speaking from the wideness of her dress -- though one can also look to the corset) would mimic monomon’s sort of thin neck (??) you see right before the grey-blue cloth in her in-game design. and since she isn't wearing a mask here, i put the imagery of the two pairs of eyes on her stomacher instead! wide puff and then pinching / thin segments is kind of the theme of her entire design - in her dress, in her sleeves (though it's innacurate and also optional tbh), even in her neck and head. sort of bowling ball -esque i suppose! (sorry monomon.)

her braids being similar to her tentacles was an idea i believe inspired by @valdotpng​ 's depiction of her, and it's a great idea ! another allusion to jellyfish is the four little oval shapes i put on the skirt of her dress, to mimic that on jellyfish. (those are, in fact, their gonads.)

i haven’t drawn them, but if you or i were to draw them while in sleep then there would be cloth completely covering their shoulders and up, and the mask over where their face would be. just like in game !

last but not least i have some tentative sketches of some higher beings !

Image Description: Sketches of some higher beings.

The Pale King is a segmented worm with several rows of arms; he wears a rather simple white robe with embroidered trim. He has a svelte, high-cheekboned face, with a long aquiline nose and long straight hair with some pulled back in a bun -- his entire surface, skin and hair, is entirely pale white. Atop his hair he has a spiked crown. However, that human face is a false magical add-on; this ‘face’ is detachable, with the true head and mouth at the ‘crown’.

The White Lady is a large tree-woman; she has a oval face and delicate, pointed nose, but out of where her hair would be if she were a human extends out innumerable tree branches out in every direction. from the branches and to her face and downward are dignified wrinkles of bark. She is, however, restrained and bound in magical cloth.

Unn is a large hunched woman, her form covered almost completely in water plants that droop down to the lake she comes out of. Amongst the shadows of the fronds peeks a weary smile, though all else is covered. However, out of the plants peeks out two eyes on stalks. She is smiling down at a very small Knight.

The Radiance’s face is entirely obscured in darkness, and long hair flows down from her sun-ray crown. Out of her back come countless moth wings, large and small, each one covered in countless eyes of various sizes, though the lower wings turn into longer ray-like fronds. From under the wings comes a long-nailed hand, which is held up to her hair-covered chest. End ID.

outside of the pale king and mmmaybe the white lady im rather unsure about these...!!! radiance i’ve barely thought about -- so ill have to work on her a bit more ! this is more of a sketch of general motifs and the direction i wanna go in

as aformentioned i wanted to take more non-really-human designs for the gods. they’ve just got a different spin on their in-game motifs, with ‘humanoid’ added to the blender as well. for example-- the pale king is still the rather insectoid-wormoid-wyrm that he is in the original, but what he is trying to do here is appear like that of a man and not a common bug. (an extra thought tidbit: the lines on his face and wyrm body are meant to evoke the seals of binding, though they’re rather simplified here they’d be more detailed in an actual polished picture.)

since they aren’t meant to be human we get fun stuff like literal tree woman white lady, and all that !! it’ll be fun to think some more on it.

NOW, that’s it for the characters for this post! i’ll go over more if people want ‘em lmao but i cant let this post go on forever HAH....

a few more scrap thoughts:

1 there is a common thread amongst Hallownest clothing, despite the decade differences, that i want to keep in mind when drawing these characters, to maintain consistency and believability that they're from the same region. the main thing is embroidery and just general decorative choices! i’ve tried to involve a mix of straight and curvy lines (heavy emphasis on lines in these designs in fact) along with floral motifs. though not a direct inspiration, try thinking about the motifs of real life period decorations, paired with the swirling curves balanced with geometric / curved / straight lines of the ui menus and such in the game !

2 hallownest would still have insectoid iconography in its art and its architecture -- the gods they worship are still rather insectoid, after all. and there is still no reason they wouldn't use insects in their iconography the same way european cultures have historically used bird and mammal motifs. as for what their architecture would be -- i think in game is a perfectly fine, but also i’d tentatively throw the dart at gothic with some dashes of late romanesque.

3 my art, me drawing these designs, is horribly inconsistent. that’s fine with me!! these are all for fun -- i think putting metric tons of thought into these are fun, as much as i think making tweaks depending on how i’m feeling is fun.

with ALL OF THIS IN MIND… i bid thee, reader, adieu! i hope you enjoyed my ramblings! id love to hear your own thoughts about all this and feel free to ask me questions about characters i haven’t mentioned here, an aspect you’re curious about, or anything at all! hopefully it made sense! (and if you wish to and are feeling either exceptionally charitable or exceptionally inspired, i give my express permission to draw all these, just please @ me so i can see it! i’m bad at social media so i don't like, check tags and stuff.)

:-) <3