holy wounds

it's my birthday today & that means i'm legally old enough to get maimed by scary cute monster lesbians. happy pride 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️I!!!

first try at a riso illust zine, printed by Pizzeria Press and bound by me ❤️ learned a lot.....i already have a bunch of notes on edits to make to improve the second printing lol!!

this started as a series of humanoid monster x human lesbian couples in 2025, and i worked on it on and off until this april :) insp. by someone in a full sweet lolita coord i saw sitting at the bar alone who then disappeared into the night. i wanted some horror elements in these illustrations, but also silly stuff & tropes & playfulness drawn from that original inspo!

picked some favs to preview here. plenty more in the actual zine ^^ background photos taken by me at the wildrose, my sister's room, and a gaming bar in seattle that played tokyo ghoul episodes in full with ads the whole time we were there

pasting in my descr. from insta~ oniisama e is awesome the characters are all so trapped by their institutions and expectations and memories and in the end no one really makes it out. it’s so of its time and forward thinking and the interpersonal relationships are generationally messy.

i drew this while ago?? a year ago?? the project’s wrapped up and the final donation was made (yay!) so i can share it now :)

when i was first drafting this, i wanted to mix both adolescence and tv anime versions of utena and anthy into one narrative. something that feels, like, appropriately angsty mid-20s lesbian with all the iconography i want in there!!! like our lady of sorrows and the arrangement of swords and a crucifix on page three (even with reverse image search i could not find the source for the life of me, but it’s referenced from a photo of a statue!).

i have a bad habit of thinking of cool imagery or references before actually writing dialogue though lmaooo. i think i was listening to a lot of preacher’s daughter at the time…..i know what i want to work on for future comics now at least >_>