#retw

ok so! Ivy Rose Lohaun is from my story Red Eyes Take Warning, which is..... a lot. it's actually an in-universe comic series in my Eldritchverse setting, and it starts out as a parody of those generic isekai mangas, before gettting Weird as the author is unknowingly long-term exposed to eldritch horrors a little bit.

I don't have any proper art of Ivy Rose but here's what I do have... most of the RETW characters were inspired by ai gen images (*BACK WHEN AI WAS A WEIRD EXPERIMENTAL TYPEA THING) so this is his

and also this is an Arknights au version of him (he is not normally snakeboy)

and I am still sort of figuring out his lore but what I've currently got is that he inherited some sorta really rare special powers (according to my notes he is a witch, something different from mages. but I think I'm going to make it specialer than just that) and there is some sort of curse or prophecy on his family, that anyone born with those powers will die in some circumstances, and trying to evade this always results in things going really bad (possibly involving said powers?) but the curse/prophecy/whatever is vague enough that when he transes his gender, it manages to fulfill the prophecy / neutralize the curse / whatever.

anyway most of that is kind of just background lore, his actual role in the story is that. he starts out as a 'girl' in disguise as a guy (he is closeted/eggmode at this point) and under the name Lohaun he joins Gavin's party (Gavin is the classic isekai hero guy. he's also just a massive jerk) to go adventuring and stuff and also to get away from the gilded cage of richgirl life. then he gets 'found out' as a girl (this is a trope that happens sometimes where the 'crossdressing' character gets found out and then goes back to their 'real' gender like they're fine with it. I don't like this trope very much so he's like a deconstruction or subversion or smth of it.) and briefly tries just going back to girlhood, before deciding that, actually, he'd rather be a guy. so he tries out a couple different combinations of gender terms + presentations, before eventually settling on using he/they, presenting femininely, and using his firstnames and his surname interchangeably. Gavin, being the asshole he is, at first is disappointed by Lohaun deciding to identify as a boy (because the rest* of the party is sort of harem-adjacent, as tends to happen in these isekais)but then they're like "well I'm still pretty and here so does my gender really matter that much" (they don't want him to ditch them) and so he's like "alright I guess I'm 'straight with an exception' now"

OK OK SO. tysm for the ask and sorry for taking so long to answer this oopsies I got distracted badly. (redesigned a few of the labkids and then wanted to redesign the rest of them and then forgor) also this is gonna be a bit messy on account of it is 2 am woopsies. and also uhhh warning for lotsa body horror type stuff and fucked up science things and also most of it is kind of a metaphor for how the education system fails some kids?

ok so. the Hopkins Demonology Lab is trying to create artificial demons. for... reasons. what demons are, though, is pretty fuckin' weird - they're basically like. things that look like some kind of animal or other on the outside just with red eyes, but have the ability to 'evert' or turn themselves inside out and basically go bodyhorror gore monster mode. this is generally a big risk to the whole "bodily integrity and not dying" thing, so demons are generally regarded as pests because they tend to cause problems and then die about it. the bigger ones can cause more problems and are worse at dying, but in general they're just an inconvenience. the lab is trying to change that. specifically, it's trying to create human demons. although, creating them isn't the hard part- creating ones that don't die is the hard part. because the lab demonkids are humans, they're better at putting their bodies back together, but because they're artificially created, things have a tendency to go wrong anyway...

ok and here are some of the characters:

first the ones I don't got (regular) art of (I have some art of them but it's either gore, body horror, or outdated, and I'll put it under a readmore at the bottom of the post)

Oliver Izolde: formerly a regular human, who volunteered to get experimented on for... some reason. probably so he could pay his rent. he's one of the most successful experiments there. and also a huge bully to a lot of the less successful ones, especially Emery.

August Watkins: another one in Oliver's group. possibly an orphan who joined the experiments because it was better than his current life. they regret this very much now! this is because he learned something that Dr. Hopkins didn't want anyone finding out, and she made sure they're incapable of telling anyone. and then decided to do more experiments on them since it was too much of a risk to keep letting them leave the facility. he's basically incapable of using his demon powers because he is very squeamish and faints instantly on the sight of his own internals.

Miles Landon: not an experiment, she's a lab assistant... but they relate more to the experiments than to their bosses. on account of their bosses are, not the nicest exactly.

ok and now ones I do have art of!

Nashville Hopkins: no one's entirely sure what this guy's deal is. he's in his own experimental group separate from both the former-regular-human ones and the fully artificial ones. some of the other experiments (and Miles) wonder if Nash might be Dr. Hopkins' son, but she maintains plausible deniability about that since he doesn't look like her aside from their hair color, and he needed a last name in order to have an official identity and stuff. and that's because he's actually allowed to be out and about, since his powers are fully under control. (that's because he wears a sort of power restricting collar. he'd sort of explode without it so he don't mind.) he often runs errands for the lab, does Dr. Hopkins' grocery shopping, etc.

Enzo: one of the artificial demon kids. he's like 8 when stuff starts going wrong... he starts struggling to complete his exercises, moving less, etc. the 'doctors' at the lab (they do not have medical degrees) brush this off as him just being lazy, but actually his body is destabilizing. while that's all going down, he's besties with Elodie so they get put in the same containment area together.

Elodie: another artificial demonkid, also about 8. like Enzo, she's starting to destabilize. she's also one of the more relatively successful experiments, and gets pushed to try to strengthen her powers more. this is painful for her and she's stressed all the time, which gets brushed off as her just being angry/defiant.

Emery: one of the more... sort of successful artificial ones. they're 19 and haven't destabilized yet, but they also can't fully evert, only partially (and they have a tendency to make eyes where they really shouldn't, unintentionally.) they're one of Dr. Hopkins' favorites, but are kind of not a fan of this because she thinks they're just too stupid to distrust her like most of the others do. (they're autistic and she's terrible.) they help with the younger experiment kids, basically helping them do their exercises, making sure they eat, helping Miles secretly teach them how to read, etc. they're also 6'4 and built like a brick shithouse so the Doc likes to have them around to... help intimidate auditors or whoever else comes around to pry into her business. not that she needs the help!

after Enzo and Elodie both completely destabilize on the same day, causing serious damage to the facility, Emery loses the last remnants of their trust in the 'doctors', and pretty soon after that they escape the place with Miles' help. (Miles also lies to their bosses and says she don't know what happened.)

they're the true protagonist of RETW! they're a member of Gavin's party, and like him they're a "hero" which means basically wandering do-gooder... they help people out, fix things, etc. in comparison to Gavin who's uh. a demonslayer. things don't go too great there but not in the way you'd think. here's them post-escape. they got a sword almost the size of their self

oh and then some time later this kid joins the party... they're like 10 ish, they have Problems, Emery recognizes them, and they keep changing what they say their name is... sometimes Elodie and sometimes Enzo.

ok and now here's the more gorey arts! warning for body horror of various sorts, eye horror?, mouth gore, and a little bit of boob

eeeee tyy thank you for the interest and also because typin stuff up helps me get more insight into the characters also!

also oops I keep thinking I'll write up something interesting and informational to answer this with but then I keep not doing that so instead I'm just gonna list off a few of the main and main-ish groups of characters/plotlines/worldbuilding things/whatever and if you want you could send an ask about whatever sounds the most interesting (if I try to write up smth about just the whole overall thing it is going to get SO long and incoherent so I want to avoid that lol)

Gavin and his party

Hopkins Demonology Lab (warning: body horror and gore in this one)

Emery, Elodie, and other demonkids from the lab (once again the body horror warning applies)

General Falkenrath and the angel army (lil bit of body horror here too)

the apocalypse train and the people living in the places it services (as well as the train's conductor, and her cousin who formerly worked at the lab)

A gente a cada dia vai deixando de ser um pouquinho de quem realmente somos quando deixamos de dizer sobre como determinadas coisas nos magoam, engolir muitos sapos, não dar bastas, não dizer não e não dizer adeus.