shore leave

Cahira: Your a none binary? So you have no binary?

Them: I-yeah I guess so.

my ocs really have a chokehold on me lately

okay, so I have this oc named "Them." i named them that because I couldn't think of an actual name, this is a problem i have, and pretty much every oc i still make art of was given a name by somebody i know, i'm just really bad at it. I wouldn't mind suggestions, honestly.

i started drawing Them maybe around 2021 or so, I'm not 100% positive. But for a good long while I just drew them to have an aesthetically pleasing, and interesting, character to draw when i needed something to draw. They didn't have much backstory, beyond being an alien crashed to earth... here's a couple collages i've made over the last few years.

^ this one is probably the oldest and most inconsistent art of Them. that's okay, I was messing around. you gotta in order to figure your characters out.

i did more explorations, some style challenges (yes there is dp art style in there)... started to figure out a more consistent look for Them. lots of green, purple, orange.

this one has a sprinkling of different eras - started leaning more to the blue side, here. (really happy with the chalk art one, to be quite honest.) the scar on their face moves around a bit. I started to wonder what they might have looked like when they crashed on earth. here's a couple animations also for good measure:

Recently, I was challenged to make an AU for an oc based off a playlist i was given, and i honestly kind of made that AU canon. I arranged the mismatched aspects of their face to align better with a recovered facial injury, and added an additional emotion to their vibe: Abandonment.

my idea here was that Them crashed their ship, perhaps after the rest of the crew had ejected via escape pods. They called home, were assured rescue, and then got radio silence for years. Eventually, at some point or another, they get arrested on earth, maybe by a group wanting to control the narrative on aliens, maybe because Them did something that was illegal, I'm not sure. This builds on the original feeling of entrapment - trapped on this planet, trapped in a cell. Them gets their hair cut, because they're at their lowest, and it's a bit easier to handle it all when you don't have to worry about tangles.

then, finally, just after they escape prison - either by force or on good behavior - it doesn't really matter because THAT'S when rescue shows up. Except they're not there to take Them home, they're there to put Them on trial, for breaking protocol, for making contact with humans without orders, without clearance. Instead of an apology for making Them wait so long, instead of an offer of compensation for the abandonment, instead of an offer to help them study humankind, they're met with more punishment.