#sonbol

As promised upon seeing the original cat photo, I drew the squad.

Ok, OK, you guys! Since the two of you who actually give a toss about these are still here, I might as well crosspost this one here.

So, for a while, now, I've had this urge to draw the Of Roses Unfurling gang like one of the Addams Family movie posters. But as you can see, I keep running out of space! An A5 sketchbook really isn't ideal for group portraits, but I was too far in with this one to quit in the middle (I can never ditch even wobbly work; that's my problem. If I've put heart and soul into it, it becomes alive and I would feel like cutting off a digit if I ditched it). So you get a very squashed-up version.

ALSO, I came up with an entire complex explanation behind Zahra's last-minute fixing of Yassamin's veil! Since normally, *Yassamin* is the OCD neurotic of the two who tears her hair out over household stuff, and Zahra is the more sensible, down-to-earth one who helps Yass keep her shit together, right? So I figured she wants that veil to look good for a reason--that this is some official portrait which also serves to showcase her work as a seamstress. So that must mean she has career plans beyond just housekeeping--Yassamin has wanted her to leave it to the less super-skilled servants anyway so Zahra could really shine at all that crafts stuff she's ace at. So, Zahra, off-screen, has been getting together with some local women at the mosque and at the baths, other black freedwomen especially, and guess what? They are starting a sewing/tailoring guild of their own, serving their own community because they're sick of being looked down upon (not getting work from some posh fucks who think associating with blacks is impure, which is what you got at the time) and want to establish an industry of their own. (This actually did happen at the time, BTW; medieval Persia was so diverse an empire that you had brotherhoods for everything from black artisans to blind Qur'an readers to transvestite musicians.) SO this elaborate embroidery is going to be a bravura piece for Zahra, a mistresswork, if you will. Something that will be presented as an example of what she--the guild's president--and the guild as a whole are capable of doing. And I also expect that the veil looked fine when Zahra finished it, but because Yassamin is such a klutz (or because Jaffar has torn it from her quivering body and used it to tie her wrists while bumming her wildly on the garden bench), it has at least one run in it by the time they pose for the picture.

*Inhales* *Exhales* anyway.

Sonbol is, as usual, So Very Done With This Shit But At Least He Is Paid Well, Fadl is being his usual belligerent bastard self (the man needs some Prozac!), Salsabil I deliberately wanted to sport a chilling Wednesday face (poor Ishtiaq is not happy about being used as a rag doll), Anwar is a nerd as usual and Zainab's doing what she does best: bling and boobs and hair.

It's funny how it's all the supporting characters who are actually doing something characteristic, here, something that relates to "gen" stuff (i.e. them having lives), and Jaffar and Yassamin are just busy being lovers. That's kind of what you get when you build a story on the basis of a ship and most of it concerns their sex life, I guess--OCs have always been the plot-enabling, gen-type elements for me first and foremost. I can't *believe* there are a full FOUR characters in here who they haven't shagged (and newbies note: I'm still not over how these bastards got cynical, old childfree me to even write kids and family fluff of all things, but Connie is a fucking boundary-pusher who will make you enjoy even things you'd normally be turned off, even deeply squicked by). FOUR! Ok, so Zahra once unfed in the background of one of Jaffar's harem orgies and he gave that sex device to Sonbol to help him get off despite his eunuchness, but still. What has become of me?!

The pros and cons of having a wizard husband/father/brother when it's a heavy snowfall day. (Full size here)