#and ig

This original started as a drawing my favorite charters in my outfits.

And then I decided to draw some of my head cannons I don't normally add. It's a whole lotta a lot of everything leaves you with nothing.

I head Canon ace to have a little bit of every species in him but since it's all pushed together he's just like a human but with bad genetics.

I think his grandfather is an actual walrus merfolk which in my au have ties to being more like sirens which are the very rare fea and merfolk hybrid. I think I'd be really funny if in twst the Walrus was both the Oyster and the Walrus, like the whole pearl in shell thing is normaly sirens and the whole siren were probs Walrus is kinda funny, so making that kinda cannon.

It's also why Ace is so good at mimicry, it's supposed to be more of a fea thing which is also why is around his pupil glows slightly. Not a lot by any means Sebeks glows more but it's there.

The slightly slitted eyes are from his Grandma that's a fox beastman

Also I made him tanner cause you can drag my Ace hails from a coastal town au out of my cold dead hands. I also think I'd be funny if he went to protests a lot, plus I think he can spary paint so it's also due to hobbies.

His ears are a funny shape tho, and his little fangs he actually has to file down. Not lately it something that happened when he was a child. But his ears point in two places, at the top and then a little bit further down.

The underside of his hair is blue. No guessing I have decided that it's blue. Noone in the fam knows where it came from.

Started making a Daily Du Pays Spotify playlist to listen to while doodling these while I was doodling this

Also Hard drive started playing as I was doodling so I had to draw Loop

So you guys get a Loop extra today

And then? He comes back and Max is in a coma. And he couldn't do anything to help her. He didn't know. Imagine him blaming himself for leaving because if he hadn't left, there may have been someone else with Lucas during their fucking reckless plan. If he hadn't left, he may have been able to connect the dots just a day earlier. He could have helped at least a little bit. But now? She's gone, and he could do absolutely nothing. Mike, the paladin meant to protect, did not fight hard enough and now Max is practically dead.

But that's the worst part: she isn't dead. She can not be dead. He cannot grieve her properly because grieving would mean she is actually gone. So Mike just has to sit there and watch Lucas, his best friend, and El, his girlfriend, lose the person they care about so much, as well as him losing one of his best friends. So he sits there and regrets ever saying their party didn't need a zoomer, regrets all the arguing, regrets letting her slip away because now he's here and she's gone. But she isn't gone because she can't be so what can he do? He doesn't know what the fuck Vecna can do, he doesn't know how Vecna does it, he doesn't know how to help. He is completely helpless. Maybe that was the worst part for Mike: how he did nothing to protect her and can do nothing to save her anymore.

Yet there Lucas is, reading her books and playing her song and holding her hand like she'll come back, but really isn't it Mike's fault that she isn't here in the first place? He has to sit there and watch people grasp at straws that she's able to come back when he did nothing. He cannot grieve, he cannot be sad, so what is there to do but be angry? He sits there and watches her lifeless body that is still breathing and seethes because he cannot do anything other than that. He can no longer protect his friends, and he hates himself for it. He can't protect Lucas, or Will, or Dustin, or El, or Max. And then what is he? Not Mike the Brave, no, not the palidan he grasps to to keep himself sane. Not even just Mike: the one who protected his friends two years ago. He is nothing, not anymore, because he couldn't save her despite the fact she isn't dead. Maybe two years ago he would have kept hope like he did for El, but he isn't that Mike anymore, so what's the point?

And I think, at this point, he really loses himself. Any modicum of what he once was is lost the moment he looks at her body. I think he keeps her letter close, but I don't think he ever read it. If he reads it, then she really is gone, then he really did fail to protect someone he loves. And I think he looks at that letter, and over the next eighteen months, realizes he has to build himself back up from scratch. He realizes that for her, for the person he couldn't save, he has to be better. He has to find his hope, find his selflessness, find his love. Every wall he'd built was wrecked, in fact, everything about him was ruined, so he'll rebuild it better. For her. So when, when, she wakes up, he won't be angry, he'll say "welcome back zoomer," and he wont mean the bickering words, and he won't let her slip away, and it will be better. And he'll protect her like he should have done from the start.

I think Mike sits there next to Lucas and reads the Lord of the Rings to Max even though she'd probably hate it, and he tells her about all the campaigns where Lucas did stupid shit, and alone he asks her quiet questions about why she never talked to him, why he never talked to her when maybe they weren't so different. And he stops wondering where everything went wrong and starts figuring out how to build it back up. And all I can imagine is Mike wishing she were here to help him, and then realizing that even if she isn't, the others are. And Mike learns somewhere along the line that he loves her, and maybe that isn't something to be scared of because when you love your friends, you protect them, and when she wakes up, he will protect her while he protects everyone else.

Guys im so cringe hate on me