Bungou Stray Dogs: Cherish

No no no no no…not discontinued! 🩷 I’m just….putting it on hiatus for the time being, anon. I still love Cherish, I still want to finish it — I just…can’t, right now.

I believe I made a post about it here….? Though I’m not sure how deeply I got into it.

Original Commentary Tags:

#dear sweet anon

#please don’t worry for Cherish

#It hasn’t been forgotten

“Verlaine shot Rimbaud ‘cause he loved him so —”

Bullshit.

Verlaine shot Rimbaud because he was a manipulative, homicidal asshole who hid behind his drinking to try to excuse his cruel and violent tendencies, who had tried to kill many people who were close to him multiple times throughout his life — who reacted not with just sorrow but anger at the thought that his little side piece had finally had enough of his guilt-tripping and abuse and was ending the relationship.

There is absolutely nothing less exemplary of love — nothing which proves its absence more — than having the instinct to put someone in any sort of harm’s way (much less actively endanger their life!) as retaliation for a parting of ways.

While I think it’s definitely accurate to Paul’s attitude and viewpoint of their relationship, I have always hated the way this song paints the real, actual, gruesome and ugly physical and emotional abuse and manipulation that he committed towards Arthur as being the ultimate expression of love and romance, when there is absolutely nothing from which it could be farther.

Verlaine shot Rimbaud because he was an entitled piece of shit who thought that because he, as a fully grown adult man of 27 years old, picked this traumatized 16 year old up from an abusive household and took him in, sometimes deigning to treat him a little nicely and support his dreams using his pre-existing high society influence and money, that meant that he was eternally owed a relationship with him.

I still intend to write a full article about this at some point going over the whole matter and the absolutely sickening takes that come out of the rampant spread of misinformation of these events, but seriously, don’t give this man so much credit and sympathy for being a legitimately terrible person and blaming his disloyalty and all of his very much pre-existing issues on an impoverished, traumatized teenager whom he tried to end the life of twice.

Arthur wasn’t a saint — few, if any, people are — but he sure as Hell didn’t deserve any of what he got, and it most certainly wasn’t a matter of love that inspired it to happen.

Do not repost this artwork anywhere without my explicit permission or claim it as your own. See F.A.Q.s for details.

Songs I listened to while drawing this:

Verlaine Shot Rimbaud (Live) — Lydia Loveless (also linked above)

My Cherish Playlist (the public and currently only partial version of which you can listen to here.)

It might have taken me a good six months, but I’ve finally managed to finish cleaning up and coloring the old sketch I’d made and released on the second anniversary of my beloved on-going fic, Cherish.

Although much time has passed since then and I’ve currently been on a bit of a mental health break, my gratitude and happiness at the successfulness of this story has never faded even a little.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all once more, and I hope you’ll stick around with me to see Cherish’s bright and beautiful future that I know is ahead of it for many years to come.

Do not repost this artwork anywhere without my explicit permission or claim it as your own. See F.A.Q.s for details.

Songs I listened to while drawing this:

My Cherish Playlist (the public and currently only partial version of which you can listen to here.)

Darling, I forgive you, after all Anything is better than to be alone And in the end I guess I had to fall; Always find my place among the ashes…

So, a short time back, I released a poll asking people if they wanted new angst art for Cherish, and the replies given were overwhelmingly positive, so here it is: the first work in a two-part set of angst art pieces.

There is a lot I would like to say in regards to this particular piece and the symbolism behind it, but I think that I will save that for under the cut, due to post length, zoomed in images, and talk of some much heavier subjects.

The idea behind creating these two art pieces was initially to participate in Domestic Violence Awareness Month (which is of course in October, which is also coincidentally Arthur’s birth month), if that gives you any idea of some of the subjects that will be below the cut (along with the usual stuff that I include in all of my art posts).

…And most importantly, if you can, please consider donating to some of the lovely organizations that help victims of various forms of abuse. I don’t want to recommend any particular ones in this post, as I don’t want to accidentally link to a place that may not be as on the level as some others out there, but if you have the time, please explore the Domestic Violence Awareness Month topic online, as I’m sure there are many lovely folks who can direct you to some great ones.

Also, if you think you or someone you know is being abused, or you just want to educate yourself on domestic violence and abuse, please visit thehotline.org and loveisrespect.org, which are two very very lovely sites dedicated to helping people in abusive situations that I myself have visited in the past.

I love you all so much.

Do not repost this artwork anywhere without my explicit permission or claim it as your own. See F.A.Q.s for details.

It’s been awhile since I’ve released a speedpaint over on my main YouTube channel, so I decided to put some background music to this video and finally get the ball rolling on that again.

Today on “Cherish crossover artworks that literally no one asked for expected and AUs I will probably never write”, I would like to present y’all with this artwork based on The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which has had me in a very powerful death grip ever since I saw it in theaters with my father on November 30th.

I may or may not be reading the entire book series now thanks to a new friend’s kind uploading of photos of their copy. Help.

Anyway, because I can’t get away from the constant pain and angst that torments me on the daily, I decided to make this cute little drawing of Paul as young Coriolanus Snow and poet Arthur as Lucy (or Lucien, I guess, given the genderbend) Gray Baird.

(If you understand the significance of me choosing Lucien as the genderbend name for this in the context of these two, I love hate you. 💖)

Do not repost this artwork anywhere without my explicit permission or claim it as your own. See F.A.Q.s for details.

Songs I listened to while drawing this:

My Cherish Playlist (the public and currently only partial version of which you can listen to here.)

At All Costs — Chris Pine and Ariana DeBose

Nothing You Can Take From Me (Boot-Stompin’ Version) — Rachel Zegler and the Covey Band

The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird — Rachel Zegler

The Old Therebefore/Singing at Snakes — Rachel Zegler

Original Commentary Tags:

#as to whether or not they’d end up happy in this AU I’ll leave to your interpretation

#Not that I don’t know myself

After eight long months of hard work, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that I finally premiere my first ever full-length animatic — and one that is meant to encapsulate the main story and conflict of my beloved Cherish’s entire first arc, at that.

I find it extremely amusing that I had begun this animatic on a whim back in early April when I was very sick with the flu, as all this time later, that is also the state of health in which I finally finished it off, too. I suppose flus just make me surprisingly productive creatively sometimes, somehow.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cherish’s storyline, it might be a little confusing to watch, but the long and short of most of it is that in the fic, in the fairly far future of the BSD universe, Paul eventually runs into another version of Arthur Rimbaud (most specifically, a slightly AU version of the author from our world) who was brought into this world by way of some sort of mysterious portal, just after his version of Paul Verlaine (and his lover, at that) had made an attempt on his life.

After a number of circumstances, it ends up so that if Arthur wishes to remain in this world, he must learn to trust in the mysterious stranger that helped get him aid for his injuries…but inevitably the secret of the blond’s real identity eventually must come forth, and when it does, Rimbaud is sent into shock and fear at the revelation.

Can Arthur overcome the scars of his past and learn to trust this new Verlaine by his current actions, rather than the name which he shares with his former lover, abuser, and attempted murderer?

Likewise, can Paul learn to forgive himself enough to allow himself into the life of this other Arthur Rimbaud, despite knowing that even in another world, he seems destined to repeat the act that he most regrets today?

Is it possible for either of them to believe in themselves and in each other, or is the weight of their pasts too much to bear in the end? These are the questions that Arc 1 asks most of all, and the dilemma which this animatic thereby truly represents at its core.

I hope you will enjoy watching it, and look forward to the upcoming Chapter 15, which will finally give its answer and finally bring the first arc of the story to a close.

Oh, and, as with the fic, viewer discretion is advised: be aware this animatic holds some extremely heavy themes within it, such as domestic violence, blood, serious injuries and attempted homicide, among other things. In general, you should probably just apply the fic’s tags to this as well.

The song is Movies by Conan Gray, but shoutout to the song Fight or Flight by the same artist — which I also listened to in between the former from time to time while working on this video.

Original Commentary Tags:

So, a good many months back, after finishing the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 DLC, I had been in quite the Xenoblade spirit, and decided I had wanted to make a few cool little crossover artworks between XC3 and Cherish to celebrate that fact.

Due to a number of circumstances that I can’t seem to recall at the moment, the project eventually got shelved, however, and it was only now that I was finally able to return to those artworks and complete them.

For Arthur, I’ve drawn him to be an Agnian offseer, as I feel it best befits his rebel attitude in not wanting to directly partake in the cycle of death and war, and for Paul, I’ve depicted him as a steel-rank Kevesi commander who has dual-wielding swords — to portray him as someone who is not by any means an amateur at war, and to reflect the deadly nature of his ability as we see it at the end of Fifteen, and also in Storm Bringer. They are both in their eighth terms.

I think the idea of a Paul who, despite being a fairly high-ranking and trusted commander, would one day meet Arthur and feel compelled to defect from their lives in the colonies and protect him, despite Arthur being an Agnian and in spite of the danger it puts them in to do it, would very much capture both the spirit of Cherish and Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s overarching theme.

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed the artworks above. ^-^

Do not repost this artwork anywhere without my explicit permission or claim it as your own. See F.A.Q.s for details.

Songs I listened to while drawing this:

My Cherish Playlist (the public and currently only partial version of which you can listen to here.)

Good Little Girl/Bad Little Boy — Kade

Car’s Outside — James Arthur

Original Commentary Tags:

#someone in here there is a metaphor

Alright, I hear y’all. The votes from my poll have spoken. (No, not THAT poll y’all are so nuts about. That’s a whole other matter. 😭)

Enjoy this small snippet of a preview for an Arc 1 animatic I’ve been working on since early April. Sound should be turned on for the experience, obviously.

So, after all of that angst I’d created and everything that was going on at the time of drawing the second half of that (which is still currently in progress), I really ended up needing some fluff — which led to the birth of the artwork that you see now.

I know that in a previous post on my main blog, I had already mentioned fluff among the things I possibly wanted to draw, but this was actually not the drawing I’d had in mind when I said that; rather, this is an idea that came to me suddenly on one fine recent night, and the other drawing will also still come into existence at some point, too. (Though, I don’t know when it will — given that I still need to do both my 1500 hits celebration post and the Halloween one, and to finish the second piece for that angst drawing; I suppose after all of those would be the logical conclusion.)

The outfit that Arthur is wearing in this does have a particular origin and is fashioned after an outfit that genuinely does exist, but I’ll leave the sleuthing out of that up to Cherish’s audience for now, as well as the consideration of whatever that may or may not mean. (As of posting this, there are only two people out there who sort of know the origins of it.)

The same is true of Paul’s, too, but…that would be much harder to narrow down for the average person, I think.

On a less subtle note, yeah, the wedding-reminiscent light and dark colors of the clothes weren’t entirely intentional at the beginning, but I’m not dissatisfied that they’re there, either.

I’d also really like to give a shout-out to Cherish’s co-artist and my dear friend, @asachuu , on this one, for teaching me the all-important skill of how to draw lace and lacy frills. 🥺💖 Your aid really was a lifesaver.

Do not repost this artwork anywhere without my explicit permission or claim it as your own. See F.A.Q.s for details.

Songs I listened to while drawing this:

My Cherish Playlist (the public and currently only partial version of which you can listen to here.)

You Are The Reason — Calum Scott

Stuck on You — Lionel Richie

You’re the Inspiration — Chicago

More Than I Can Say (Remastered) Leo Sayer

When I Need You (Remastered) — Leo Sayer

Cherish — Kool & The Gang

(And mostly unrelated to the vibe but I listened to these too)

Hard to Say I’m Sorry — Chicago

If You Leave Me Now - Chicago

Original Commentary Tags:

#ironically this artwork vaguely reminds me of one of the first artworks I ever made of these two

#which I don’t believe I’ve ever posted here and kinda wanna redo first before I ever do

#but yee

#they’re so soft 🥺💖

#god help me