#extasy

Thank youuuu SO MUCH to @this-game-has-themes for helping me with the lineart :D !!!!!!!!

Three lovely dancers employed at @madamebawdesmenagerie!

BLISS, the "River Maiden"

Bliss (Barb) is a bubbly Grubb. She was forcibly relocated from her home due to industrial development at a young age and ended up living the city with an abusive, controlling boyfriend who seldom let her outside. Due to having no access to education and her boyfriend forcibly keeping her in the dark about many things, she is very naive and very air headed. All she has known her whole life is how to look pretty for men.  After a more violent instance of physical abuse from her boyfriend, She ran away and ended up at Madame Bawdes.  She was taken in instantly and reassured that she would be treated much better, but unfortunately, much as Bawde did with her other girls,  She took advantage of Bliss's "beauty" and ditzy personality, keeping her a bimbo to appeal to customers. Bliss doesn't know a lot of things, and whenever she grows curious about anything and asks questions about anything, Bawde tells her not to worry about it and that all she needs to do is look pretty. Her act revolves around fetishizing her native Grubb heritage, even though she has been deliberately kept in the dark about her own indigenous culture.

IDYLL, the "Heavy Hen"

Idyll (Gertie) is a naughty Clakker. While she started out working as a waitress, Bawde noticed her popularity with customers and decided to take advantage of that by making her one of the main attractions. She is the most popular opening act at the Menagerie. She's a big woman, both in personality and physicality. She has a very nasty sense of humor and her opening act is more of a stand-up comedy performance where she mocks the audience rather than any sort of elaborate dance, but it makes her very popular with regulars. She has been working for Bawde longer than most of the other girls at the Menagerie. Idyll insists that she is the most beautiful one there, and the reason that people bother showing up in the first place. Despite her confidence on the surface a lot of it is a coping mechanism, as the moment she started working the stage Bawde had her wings clipped. She also insisted that Idyll wear very uncomfortable shoes because customers were mentioning that Clakker feet were very unattractive to look at.

EXTASY, the "Poor Thing"

Extasy (Agnes) was purchased by Bawde from a corrective facility that was "legally" trafficking Mudokon queens to third-Oddworld-country factories. Unlike the other Mudokon dancers, the only cosmetic surgery she has gone through is having her pinky toes docked. She's far from the most popular act at the Managerie and is incredibly jealous of the attention that Paradise gets. She's very miserable and nervous around men, and often gets a verbal beat down from Bawde for making mistakes during rehearsals and coming onstage with runny makeup after crying. She hates her own body and she hates the way that men look at it, but her coworkers and Bawde herself have all insisted she is beautiful and must learn to love herself.  Unbeknownst to Extasy's co-workers, Bawde has actually forced her onto a steady intake of Chill Pills to reduce the amount of breakdowns she has before performances. Bawde fetishizes her reluctance and advertises it as a part of the act.

The dancers at the Menagerie do not go by their given names. Bawde calls them by names that she finds pretty and believes that her customers will find pretty. She never refers to her employees by their given names, only the ones that she has picked for them.

Bawde does not have the best interest of her dancers in mind. She lures them in with a false sense of security, insisting that she does and insisting that she is providing them with a safer environment than they were in before. However, in reality her goal is simply to make money off of them, just as every other Glukkon.

Bonus: original doodles + an old sketch of Bliss with her fins down

women 💘