#knowhere

Thought about how this scene could’ve been punched up a little since the screen gets darker and all knowheres eyes open and glow but very little changes in posing and dynamic.

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And yeah

(Btw, i did the last panel laughing the hell out of me and tearing up while wondering what life choices i had done to lead to this.)

Watched a play-through of The Island of Doctor Morose.

Hi guys, I’ve been working on an AU on disc with a couple of friends, but the original conceptualizer of the AU has given me the control over it, so I really wanted to post it!!! Essentially, it’s a swap au where Howard and Phillip swap roles with Morose (Thomas) and Samantha, as well as ages! So essentially:

Nowhere swaps with Angelique, becomes a human named Nolan Noetall (pronounced know-it-all) while Angelique becomes Elsewhere, a human fused with Angel..dna..or bird DNA due to Phillip’s horrible jealousy in this au. She takes up the role of a jazz singer in the bar at the island, and is a bit more bitter and cynical due to the fact she’s bound to the club for her own safety and for what’s been done to her. (She’s called elsewhere because she’s literally…elsewhere)

Samantha swaps with Howard, I know this initially seems like a weird choice, but I can explain!!! Not only have I seen the devs like a comment saying that Howard looks similar to Samantha, but I do believe they’d share a lot of traits, including impulsivity, determination, and dedication. In canon, Samantha is able to accept the fact there’s nothing more she can do for herself to stop her passing or have children, while Howard is able to accept his mother’s death. They’re both figures in their other half’s life who are able to keep moving forward, both in canon and in this au.

Thomas Morose swaps with Phillip, and the death of Katie Lou is underlying in this au, which only fuels his unspoken possessive behavior toward Howard that he is in denial of. His behavior is fueled but him and Howard’s inability to confirm their feelings, and Howard’s ability to keep moving forward despite his chronic illness, his own losses, and the fact that he seems to be accepting that he’s leaving Phil behind. (Think Too little Too Late)

As for everyone’s designs, I thought it would be fun to make Thomas and Samantha early hippies, since I hc them as non conformists and it just seemed like a nature step. Dunno how much you can tell. Also gave morose a less crazy moustache, and they usually just go by Tom and Sammy/Sam in this au.

I’d say in this au they’re still unmarried, I’m going back and forth on if they’re fiancés or not, but Thomas is very dependent on Samantha. Still, Samantha retains a similar ego to Howard. Thomas was always there for her, looking up to her, yet he is somehow picked over her. She’d likely try to bottle up her envy at first, but unable to seem happy for him since Thomas keeps asking her if she’s truly okay. This ends up blowing up on the last day, and Thomas finally seems how Samantha truly feels and how she sees him. They leave angry, and what’s worse is that this is one of their first BIG fights. Samantha writes and is apologetic, but is unsure how Thomas actually feels about her now.

As for Phillip, I really loved the idea of the jackolope form instead of MOROSE’S tentacles, so I tried to make him a satyr type bunny thing? It’s my first time drawing anything antrho so I hope it’s okay, I tried to make his beard a little longer, change the shape of the robe, and put a star for Howard ofc

Credit to @slythepuffle for coming up with Knowhere’s name! I tried to let him retain some of his feline features, with the stray strands of hair and growing back his arm as a feline arm

Anyway, I think that’s all the lore I have to drop for now, please let me know if you have any suggestions or questions! I know it’s only the main cast for now. I’ll drop the rest of the concepts I have below!! Maybe more to come? I’m unsure at this point but yeah!!

In an Alternate Timeline where the roles have been reversed, Philip is also jealous and resentful of being left behind but does not throw a tantrum like Howard did. He shoves the negativity down and congratulates Howie on finally getting in, reassuring and motivating him when he seems hesitant to go alone. He teases Howard when he starts to cry at the port, gives a 'manly' bear-hug when the cry-baby promises to write back every week and put in a good word for him with the Doctor and ignores how blurry his own vision is getting as the boat sails off.

When the first couple months pass, Philip tries to wave it off. He assures himself that Howie probably forgot to write back because he’s having so much fun. He was always terrible at taking care of himself, without Philip there to keep him alive he probably would’ve starved or burnt his house down years ago.

And then four months passed… six months… by the tenth, Philip was panicking and had started gathering the resources to rent a boat.

On the eleventh month, just when he was pondering whether or not he was overreacting, he heard the ol’ drunkard Montgomery Gunths rambling about the Doctor experimenting on his own crew.

Knowhere would also lambast Philip, but for different reasons: He talks to him about Katie-Lou and her death, how he regrets being a ‘terrible’ big brother (he wasn’t, they were just children, after all), how Philip had intentionally exacerbated Howard’s co-dependency and coddled him, partially as a way to hide from his own unresolved grief but mostly out of a need to feel needed… and how despite all the awful things he’s seen on the island, he still feels the temptation to use the doctor’s research for himself.

The five items Philip must find are:

The pink pillow Katie-Lou made.

A rabbit plush.

The preserved flower that Philip gave Howard when they first met.

A science exam with a 99/100 score.

Howard’s brown hat.

Meanwhile, Howard became resistant to the Mad Doctor’s experiments earlier on, right after Samantha passed away.

He had tried to organise an escape with other scientists who had agreed that Morose was becoming a danger to everyone, but they were caught. Only him being allowed to live because his higher intelligence had already proved to be a great asset and was forced to watch the other’s public executions alongside the remaining survivors.

Being as stubborn as a bull, Howard continued to resist until Morose discovered his crippling fear of the dark. He uses that knowledge to psychologically break Howard down into complacency.

warning: discussion of forced disappearances.

honestly I have way too much knowhere-lore built up in my head. so many things i scrapped from rack & ruin because they didn’t add to the plot and would take up so much space to explain. i love to think about how the snap showed up in different places (lookin at you, florescence) and how the local culture tried to make sense of it. knowhere, i think, was particularly haunted by it — and not just because their population had likely been quartered since thanos’ visit a few — hours? rotations? — earlier.

but even before the guardians, mcu-knowhere was a shelter for fugitives and refugees (admittedly, it becomes a much safer, happier shelter after ownership changes hands). when the snap occurs (and no-one on knowhere knows what it is or what’s going on — not till word spreads to them sixth-hand from ravagers and outlaws who had run-ins with rocket or nebula or kraglin or carol), there’s this period of time where no-one knows what’s happened. i think, in that interim space of not-knowing, the people of knowhere call it the disappearance.

but not like, abracadabra, i’ll make you disappear.