HAPPY SECRET SAMOL EVERYONE! This is my gift to @lie-lichen, their prompt was "Pickman trapped in a coffee shop AU" and it's genuinely one of the best prompts I've ever gotten.
I was so incredibly thrilled to be assigned to you these have been a labour of (many many hours) of love! For the rest of you who didn't get to read my email I give you Lye Lychen and Es, swing dancing and sneaking off from a party you're supposed to be infiltrating you guys!!!
I'm not gonna have time to do a full drawing today, and I'm on a train which makes smooth lines really tricky, so here's a super rough concept of a lyke card, plus the seven different iterations of the hanged man that I own from different sets.
I think it's very funny that everyone went for the hanged man as their tarot card, but it is the one that Keith and Austin chose for lyke, so I felt obliged.
The hanged man is a great card, deeply ambiguous. It's sometimes read as a traitor, or a mystic, or a version of odin. The figure hangs in this deeply ambiguous point between passivity and active choice. It's meant to be unclear whether they have been placed in this situation and are trapped, or whether this is an active decision to reach enlightenment. I want to evoke all those elements with Lyke, and lean into the uncertainty of his choices, which is why there's a shrew skull in the lower left corner, for chine. Roses, naturally, for Aterika'kaal - and rose thorns binding lyke's foot to the beam. The ravening beast appears from behind his coat, and tombo in its bowl is between his hands, which are stained with spider ink. Tombo is drawn to deliberately echo one half of the "two fish as yin and yang" image that is so popular, which is extremely corny but I like the idea of it feeling like something out of balance, that there's a missing presence. I might try and add a few more details, like junk spilling out of lyke's pockets, and some element of fire somewhere. He has one eye closed as a deliberate evocation of odin, because doing something stupid in the pursuit of knowledge is very lyke.
The cards in the picture on the right are from seven different decks - centre is the thoth tarot deck, centre top is the little monsters deck, and then going clockwise it's the corrupted tarot deck by wyrmwood, the star spinner tarot, the botanica tarot, the crow tarot and the literary tarot. If you're curious about any of those decks I wrote up a big post on all of them that you can find on this blog. But it's fun to look at all of them together and see the consistencies as well as the variations.
Lye „Lyke“ Lychen as a sacrifical altar (to Aterika’Kaal)
(but he's also kind of the sacrifice)
my @secret-samol gift for @bronanlynch! for the Aterika’Kaal/Lyke prompt of „what if things had gone differently and Aterika'Kaal was still with Lyke“.
notes on this under the readmore!
AU
In this scenario Lyke would succeed in getting the heart of the Motherbeast in Episode 47 and while Alaway would notice & probably still call out to Aterika’Kaal the way he presumably did in canon, Lyke would be there and get to make a compelling case to Aterika’Kaal the likes of „If you stay with me I am going to feed you. I’ve taken care of you until now, I’ll keep doing that“ (argument supported by the fact he’s currently holding the heart of an incredibly powerful dead god).
Aterika’kaal agrees and they barely escape through the Sanctum of the Stone Chorus portal. I think it's fun if Lyke then stays there after the hour described in the move is over, maybe knowing he can't convince Pickman & the others that what he's done is actually good, and fine, there's not even anything to worry about he has this totally handled, But yeah he then sets out from whereever in Sangfielle Aterika'Kaals domain is (Austin did say it was an actual place somewhere), and the rest of the Blackwick Group is left to wonder what the hell happened since Lyke just vanished! Alaway has possibly fucked off too after losing the heart. And them getting fired, the Carnival of Moted Light etc. would still happen (and I guess Chine would succeed at what they were doing since Lyke isn’t there?) and who knows if they’d take any action in finding Lyke after that!
All that aside though, Lyke basically offers himself to feed on (through blood and/or energy) and to sustain that he keeps consuming(not literally eating) powerful objects/artifacts/resources and possibly eventually living things (I’d imagine he'd still take work as a „please deal with this weird shit for us“ person and when he has to kill a cursed beast or whatnot... might aswell feed Aterika'Kaal?)
(What also plays into that decision, and is part of Lyke justifying this to himself, is that without him, Aterika’Kaal would become too powerful. So he aims to function as kind of a conduit & control the power intake so to speak. I think this probably doesn’t work for very long.)
I think this eventually goes bad for him because it’s super taxing on his body and the whole deal kind of flips with Aterika’Kaal feeding/keeping HIM alive. He starts finding bodies in the domain again (alternatively, Aterika'Kaal gets better at hiding them because it knows Lyke doesn't particulary like it when it does that). Lyke probably gets stronger due to this power/magic wise, but also way more fragile (he's constantly anemic!).
(„I love you. I want us both to eat well.“ - Christopher Citro)
(„When I write of hunger I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and it is all one.“ M.K. Fisher)
Notes:
I put some resources Lyke’s canonically had in-game + some extra stuff in this picture (the arrow is a reference to Marn’s epilogue, the bugs are bugs (with possibly sinister connotations. If you want them to have those, it’s optional) and the fur is from the Ravening Beast). Another detail I came up with I might aswell tell you because otherwise noone might ever know: the ring with the blue stone is a gift from Es.
Sketch Notes:
1. Lyke turning his head to kiss a rose / exposing his neck was one of my very first ideas/sketches I made while working on this, and I liked it too much to not include it.
2. This is supposed to be Aterika'Kaal giving Lyke a blood transfusion but it rather looks like it's feeding on him instead...! I like how the relaxed pose turned out.
3. I wanted to draw something smaller in a simpler style to fill the big canvas I was drawing these on (even though now I put them in separate files anyways...). The day I drew this I saw a tweet about a medieval monks sketchbook, so I was still thinking about that. I didn't even plan to color it originally but I ended up getting invested, haha
Inspired mainly by these 3 quotes:
„KEITH: I’m a walking- I am a shrine to Aterika’Kaal.“
(Sangfielle 12: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 4)
„KEITH: There's a version of dealing with Aterika'Kaal that ends with Lyke being satisfied that he rehabilitated a god or at least it looks […] like what he thinks Aterika'Kaal would have been before the YVEs showed up. That's probably his main retirement path, but it also might kill him instead.”
(Sangfielle 47: Wax, Iron, and Ichor Pt. 4)
„AUSTIN: As you’re fading, the last thing that you do is make this blood sacrifice to Aterika’Kaal. Your own blood.“
(Sangfielle 52: Six Travelers: Lyke)
first crossover fanart… steven adventure zone and tombo sangfielle rivals to lovers veterinarian meet cute 🤝🤝 (i’m relistening to taz balance and these fishies in orbs are so important)