Little gay monks but make it worst™

I'm really bad at updating this blog consistently but hey. I'm back with some bad AU stuff.

The bad AU or 'bad timeline' AU is basically an exploration of how different (and worst) the life of the monks would be if they hadn't stumbled upon the monastery, because I love drama and I love to suffer (but also it does make the canon even more sweet knowing that actually the kids are alright in their little found family)

The Prince is found by the king and rejoins the royal family, he never finds his heart and his emotionlessness definitely gets used for the worst reasons. A reign of terror ensues.

Venya still gets abandoned by his uncle and aunt after his parents die, but this time he wanders aimlessly until he stumble upon a farm that agrees to take him as a hand. He works himself into an early grave due to the threat of being kicked out if he doesn't, ends up getting sicks and dying alone.

Semyon stays up North and take his father's place after his death. He's driven by revenge and ends up being just another cog in the war with the kingdom, will probably die in battle or publicly executed after getting captured.

Artsiom becomes a blood cultist after losing everything to the deity he sought the help of when his village was being attacked. 

Grigoriy remains a street urchin, plagued by his prophetic nightmares. He pretty much gets used by other urchins to get the upper hand on different gangs, and will most likely end up dying of sleep exhaustion.

Mikalay is taken by the fairies. By that age he pretty much is too far gone as a feral child to ever have any chance to rejoin human society, turns out fairies aren't ideal for raising a human child.

 

If you think this AU is bad enough as it is, you just have to imagine the shitshow that would ensue if they still got to meet. The Prince kills Semyon in battle. Artsiom stabs Mikalay in the forsest. Venya gets mugged by Grigoriy. FUN FUN FUN (tho my brain also likes imagining them as a found family in this AU too. Like. Found family but everyone is really fucked up)

Somebody stop me

I just can't resist designing all of my characters' families and this is getting out of hand. Here's baby Artsiom with his big sister Halyna, his big (big) brother Heorhiy, his dad Pavlo, and his other brother Fedir.

Fun fact, you know how the monks in this universe all get a new name upon joining the monastery ? Artsiom's birth name is 'Yuliy'. Because why have characters have only one name when you can give them multiple ?

Artsiom and his family are goat keeper (or more like, were). Here Halyna is herding the cow by kulning, which I gotta link a vid to because it's so cool. 

And you bet your ass the whole family knows hot to do this herding call.

And now for less wholesome things…

I won't go too into details because I really want to make an actual comic about these characters. But enjoy good old trauma (is it a nightmare, is it a memory, what a mystery)

Love at first sight (romance is dead)

And now for some pain™

Fedir dies on the battlefield and I apparently just could not stop drawing it over and over.

ofc it's not fun if his big brother doesn't get to survive. Else how is he going to feel the pain ?

and now that's just mean.

On another note, I wanted to draw grown-up Fedir in an AU where he did not die so young, so here he is in his glorious pretty-but-still-feisty glory.

I also got some old drawings from july that I did not post yet, so have some modern AU babies

Venya and the prince's never ending PDA

I actually forgot to scan the first page in this post (because apparently I'm a moron)

Modern AU Semyon is given too much power to be torture Artsiom. Also I'm going full 90s slav kids aesthetic with this AU you cannot stop me.

 Long time not seen the changeling prince, I wanted to do a little 'oh so that's how the prince ended up knocked out in the forest'. Weirdly enough, without the changeling prince, he wouldn't have met the monks, so. Maybe don't try to kill him next time baby.

Now moving onto the prince and Venya's PDA:

Despite not feeling 'feelings', the prince can definitely feel touch, so once he got to learn what touch is you can bet your ass he relished in the feeling. That's good for Venya who gets to cuddle his crush lol

 Artsiom, or the only sane person who remembers that the prince tried to kill Venya like, two weeks ago.

You're (not) my dad, boogie woogie woogie

Some snippets of Semyon's childhood, right before the monastery, because I really wanted to draw baby Semyon, Dmytro (ponytail dad) and Semyon's actual dad (dude who's not having a good day)

I haven't talked about this in length before, but Semyon, contrary to the other boys in the monastery, comes from the 'north', which in their universe is separated from the 'kingdom' by the sea. Northerners worship the sea (compared to the people from the kingdom who's main Goddess is the tree goddess) and are a nation of warriors who the kingdom sees as barbarians. Without too much surprise, with only the sea to separate them, and the kingdom disliking the northerners coming too close, the two enters a war. Semyon's dad was the leader of the northerners, and Dmytro saved Semyon from being discovered as being the son of the enemy by taking him away to the monastery.

Anyway, then it's mostly hijinks of them travelling to the monastery while not speaking the same tongue (Semyon barely spoke the kingdom's tongue, but at least more than Dmytro speaks the northern language).

Once at the monastery it doesn't go 100% smoothly, and we all know Semyon remains a gremlin forever.

I will also need to draw the 'before the monastery' of the other boys, so look forward to this… At some point.

Unrelated, but have an AU where Semyon is a selkie and Artsiom is a knight, for aesthetic™

No homo, just bees

 Venya has such a big crush on the prince, it's almost embarrassing. You go monk boy, live your dreams

 You can't have a monastery without a brewery. Semyon always manages to trick Artsiom into having a drink with him when he catches him drinking the mead, which always ends up turning into many drinks. Artsiom will regret this in the morning, but he'll still get tricked by Semyon the next time.

Even if they're the oldest they're still very much dumb teens.

 Exhibit A of Artsiom being a mom. Semyon likes to wrestle bears for fun, Artsiom hates it.

 Exhibit B of Artsiom being a mom, and a good friend. Gotta make sure your friend eats, even if the cramps are killing them.

Did you know that in the middles ages, when people had period, they would often sit over a fire on a plank with a hole to alleviate the pain with the warmth ? Hopefully Semyon can get his hand on some kind of hot water bottle, it seems easier than that.

 I'm pretty much just illustrating every single artisan good the boys produce in the monastery at this point (too much Stardew Valley will do that to you). They get to treat themselves with honey because life is hard enough as is.

 Also, the boys don't have cows or goats (they get their protein from eggs), but there's a farm not to far away and the lady there sends her daughters to check on the boys and bring them some milk, in exchange of a special favor (I will go into more details later).

And a little fun I had with peeps on instagram. I asked for outfit suggestions for the boys, and that's what we ended with !

Boys boys boys

Remember the AU where the original prince survived ? I wanted to expand on it, and I might have gone a little ham with it.

I'll let the drawings speak for themselves.

 (surely this is not what he was expecting while going to get some wood)

 That's how you make friends, right.

 So yeah, wanted to expand a little on this AU, ended up with a whole new squad of boys, because clearly I don't have enough OCs as is. 

Expect more, tally ho.

Actually, can I have five more of these little blonde bitches ?

 It had been a long time since I had drawn the Prince, which is a shame because he's always really aesthetically pleasing in the weirdest way.

 People requested I 1) draw the Prince happy 2) for someone to braid is hair. Of course this someone must be his mom because he's a mommy's boy.

Now onto spicier stuff, I've been toying with the idea of the original prince actually surviving (gasp) and being brought up by the forest witch. The contrast between changeling boy trying his best to look human despite growing more and more trollish vs the actual human prince being almost feral is really cool to me.

The idea is that in the process of making the changeling, the heart of the prince was taken from him, so now all he has his an hole and god knows what in there. It does mean that he can literally feel nothing. He just feels numb and passionless, he doesn't get mad or sad or happy, and he just listen to what his 'mom' tells him to do without ever fighting it. 

The real drama comes from the fact that even just looking at his 'mom' and other 'normal' creatures, he can tell that being numb is not the norm, so he wants to find his heart to feel things, but the witch isn't super set in actually helping him because what's better than a mindless, feelingless boy to do your bidding ?

Or I can just call it 'even more sad blond boys AU'

puberty am I right

 I teased drawing the baby prince older and I had to at some point, so here he is at like 10, 14-15ish and 18. As I said, he's shedding his human appearance as he grows older -tho he'll never turn totally troll like due to his changeling nature, he'll always remain somewhat in between-, so he gets to have a super puberty, as if it wasn't hard enough for regular people.

 And as he did when he was a kid, strong emotions still make his human features weaker.

Also it was the heatwave when I drew him, so I thought about how terrible it must be to be covered in fur during summer. 

And back to some teenage prince, already not feeling the whole 'getting more troll like' thing.

baby boy baby

I'm pretty sure I haven't introduced this baby boy here yet so here he is ! The boy !

He's a troll changeling who was used as a decoy to curse a kingdom by taking the place of the prince, an infant at the time.

As often with changeling, the lad had no idea he was not the original prince. Drama ensues when he starts losing his baby teeth and pointy teeth grow in their places, and his royal parents start suspecting something is up. 

He's chased away from the kingdom and ended up stumbling on a witch (the cat pictured above, who is my friend's character)(and yes the cat form is her true form, she's a magic cat) who kinds of take him in.

He's just name 'the prince' or 'little prince' because of existential crisis and not knowing who he is beside that anymore. Yay !

 The whole curse thing happened allegedly because the King & Queen were disrespectful to the forest spirits/the forest, but dragging a troll child into it ? Bad move, forest witch.

 Another important thing about the prince is that his human 'glamour' gets weaker when he feels strong emotions, and he's slowly shedding it as he grows up -meaning that his troll like features get permanent-. So, that's some fun puberty he's going to go through.

Speaking of puberty, here's the little prince slightly older, maybe around 14-15. The 'no mom I won't cute my hair' phase is strong in him.