Firstly, up top here I’d like to say thank you, thank you, one thousand times thank you, to absolutely everyone who read, enjoyed, or even just tolerated me rambling about my brainworm fic :’) from friends who saw the first few drafts on discord and inspired and celebrated it with me to stunningly kind comments after its posting, y’all make my soul absolutely alight with the joy and warmth of community and it absolutely cannot be overstated. I don’t care if that sounds like purple prose the fic is very much the same anyway lmaoooo

Commentary time! I may as well mention I don’t have much to say about the first and only full color illustration but I do still love how it turned out! As you can see from the signature, most of these are from around two years ago in 2024. I don’t often have the motivation for full color and I’ve long since given up on lineart lmao, but I had a blast with the warm colors and painterly style on this one. Fun fact, the original Google doc has a sort of warm, vintage pink as the page color too. For some reason that color just feels emblematic of the work to me, god knows why lol.

Lmao that feeling when you’re a new dad and it’s scary and also your best friend is here and oh my god he’s so nice and it would be so so cool if you could share a family and be dads together but you fucked up years ago without even realizing and now you’ll forever be close enough to feel teased but not close enough to be fulfilled!! Lmao that feeling !!! That we’ve all uh. Definitely felt

Fun fact, this beautiful comic from honeyciub depicts the moments directly before this so they kinda tie together well! :D

My designs for Suzanne and Maud!! I love them dearly and honestly if I could choose where to put my hyperfocus, they would absolutely deserve a side story of their own. Particularly I always felt like Maud’s perspective would have a lot to be explored. I see her as having been raised to be very permissive and submissive to her family and her husband, poor thing, the type of person who’s just trying to balance a delicate life so hard that she won’t even acknowledge it’s in danger of collapsing for fear of causing it. She knows things aren't really that good with Maximus and their family, she's not stupid, but she's desperate to believe that everything is okay and it puts her pretty deep in denial :'( I think of Suzanne as being more headstrong and practical, and after their husbands disappeared she might have grown a little bitter over the whole situation—but particularly in regard to Maximus, who she always held accountable as a bad influence on her husband and a real letdown of a husband to Maud. And like, sure, Max is trying, but it’s hard and Suzy’s still not particularly wrong. She's the type to try and take up for Maud by criticizing the way her husband treats her, only to be frustrated when Maud insists that there's nothing wrong.

I think after the disappearance the two of them would have grown closer as Maud struggled to cope with it all, with Suzanne sort of defiantly becoming her rock and doing her best to keep both their families afloat. Ruth for sure got a lot of her can-do attitude and toughness from her mother :’) oh also tangential but I think Suzanne could be an author that'd be cool! anyway they both deserve the world and honestly if they decided to be lesbian lovers and finally find real happiness in one another then like. I'm just sayin that'd be neat lmaoooo

The Kiss !! (Non-Gustav Klimt edition lmao)

not too much to say here, this was just one of the scenes that really made me crazy when I was coming up with the fic and so of course I had to draw it. Honey Whiskey by Nothing But Thieves starts playing in my brain every time I reread it hehe

a nice smooch :) a smonch if you will. idk sometimes you just gotta draw em smonchin y'know

Humorous take on Sameth's personal epiphanies in the wake of the honey whiskey kiss lmaoooo. If only Maximus really felt confident and secure enough to walk away casually from such a thing :') ah well don't worry bud your descendant will do that kind of thing and much worse all the time to make up for it!

Nother kinda humorous take on the confession scene teehee I can't help but be sillay it's in my blood. side note it's so hard to take Sameth seriously with that mustache LMAO

nother sad smonch :> that's uhhhh that's it lmao. smonch good

and last but not least, y'all have actually seen this one before--it's a sketch request I took possibly before I ever actually wrote the first draft of the fic! This was my first time drawing them, but not my first time thinking about them and how much tragedy I could possibly fit into their sad little lives lmaoooo you can actually tell from the tags on that post that I was already diseased. actually lookit this it's funny

surpriiiiise I did not stop. lmaoooooo

She was a good mother and a decent friend, and that was on the worst of days. That said, neither of them could get their children to stop crying. Not even Ruth was calming down, and, as feisty as she was, she was usually easy to quell. The noise was getting to be too much for Maud. Suzanne noticed her friend's breathing becoming quick and a bit shallow, which was not a good sign. "Maud? Do you need to step out for a bit," Suzanne inquired. Maud snapped back to reality for a second. She had to pause to realize what was said. "Oh, um. That would be nice! But, are you sure you can handle the little ones on your own?" Suzanne nodded. "If you need a break from the noise I hear the riverbank is a great place to find some quiet. You stay safe out there, okay Maud?" Maud nodded in a silent thanks and left the house.

Maud felt guilty leaving her child alone without his parents, but she would trust Suzanne with her life. Even if Maud never listened to her advice. She took a good walk to the riverbank, simultaneously counting her footsteps to keep herself busy and keeping an eye out for any potential dangers. Once she arrived at the riverbank, she wasn't really sure what to do. There wasn't a guide to this "alone time" thing. So, she kept walking along the shoreline. Eventually, something caught her eye. Through the bushes, she saw a flash of white fur. She suddenly felt a strange mix of emotions. The excitement she gets whenever she sees her husband at all, mixed with the dread she had been feeling around him lately. Maud knew it wasn't ladylike to spy, but she crept down by the bush anyway and peeked into the scene. Despite Maud's keen eye, Maximus was further away than she thought. But, he was with who she suspected him to be at least. She couldn't hear what Sameth or Maximus were saying, but she did see it happen. When they kissed.

She went completely still, but remained completely silent. ...Why wasn't she more upset about this? Sure, she was upset about what would become of her child and her only real friend, but... Seeing Maximus cheating was surprisingly not affecting her. Not directly. After all, it's not like they felt any closer than just friends. Maud scampered away as quietly as she could and found a different bush she could hide behind while she gathered her thoughts.

Her husband, who had never shown any interest in her. Now, apparently, maybe he just wasn't interested in women at all. It made her feel funny, but at least it meant it wasn't her fault. Not her fault for being a bad wife. Not her fault for being unattractive. It also meant he wasn't hanging around other women. It did make a lot more sense why he was always with Sameth now. But what did that mean for Suzanne? For Ruth? For Maud's perfectly stable marriage? Maud decided not to think about it. It was a bad idea to get caught up thinking about the "what ifs".

It was probably a better idea to go back home and watch over what was still "normal" in her life. Maud collected herself, wiped the mud off of her dress (ew), and began walking home. She tried to stay alert, but she was just so caught up in her thoughts. By the time she was at the house, she bumped into Suzanne, who was standing outside and getting some fresh air. Maud snapped out of her little daze, looking up at a very concerned Suzanne. "Maud? Can you hear me?" Maud stuttered, looking embarassed about her mindless wandering. "Y-Yeah, I can hear you. I'm sorry, I wasn't really paying attention..." Maud chuckled awkwardly. She tried to ignore how hard Suzanne was frowning at her. "Honey, you're covered in mud! What happened?" When Maud just looked at the ground, Suzanne let out a soft sigh. Her face softened, not wanting to upset her friend too much. "Let's get you inside and cleaned up, then we can talk about what happened." Maud nodded, letting Suzanne lead her inside. Her hand was soft in all the right places and calloused in all the others. Why was Maud thinking about that right now? Snap out of it.

Maud watched absently as Suzanne picked a nightgown from the closet. She just waited to be instructed. It was the safe thing to do. When Suzanne handed her the dress, she looked around like she had never seen it before and didn't know what to do. It wasn't like she hadn't, or didn't, respectively... she was just worried she would mess it up. Somehow. Suzanne coughed awkwardly. "You can go put that on, M." Maud blushed, embarassed about her skittishness. "Yeah, okay." She meandered off to behind the privacy barrier, quick to finish changing. Being on her own made her squeamish, so she knew she had to be fast. When she returned to Suzanne, she was holding her day dress in a heap. Suzanne took it from her, but not before accidentally brushing against her arm and noticing how cold she was. "Oh, M, you're freezing!" Suzanne dropped the dress haphazardly and hugged Maud firmly.

Maud seemed to lose her breath for a moment. Suzanne was warm, caring, soft, inviting... Maud leaned into her, trying her best to supress sobs. Suzanne patted her friend's back. "What happened out there, Maud?" Maud frowned. Just in this one night, Suzanne had said her name more than her husband had in their whole marriage. Was she undesirable as even a friend?

No, pay attention. Suzanne asked you a question. "I... I fell... r-re-really hard... and.... and..." Maud sniffled. She couldn't hide her tears. She sounded like a child. She hated that. "And it really hu-hurt... and I messed... up... my dress... and..." She was kind of bullshitting, but she did mess up her dress and her knees did hurt from kneeling on the river's shore. Suzanne just kept hugging her, patting her on the back. It was very comforting. Almost as it was uncomfortable. It was weird how much Suzanne cared. It wasn't something Maud was used to. Still, it felt nice. Too nice. But, after tonight, Maud didn't care about what she did or didn't deserve.