The artwork this ficlet originally went with originally used Craiyon-generated assets. As I no longer believe in using Craiyon assets in my artwork, said artwork has been removed.
Original Twitter Upload Date: November 1, 2022.
[Hynde Manor. The Hynde family is away on vacation, and Gilda and Wendy have been instructed to look after the mansion. As they walk toward the building…]
Gilda: “Ah, crap.”
Wendy: “What? What’s going on?”
Gilda: “I forgot Buffett’s mouse back at the commune.”
Wendy: “You did?”
Gilda: “Yeah, I guess I was just in such a hurry to leave I forgot it.”
Wendy: “Well, you better find one! If you raid the fridge for anything, Mrs. Hynde’s gonna know. She keeps track of everything that goes in and out of that thing.”
Gilda: “Don’t worry, I got an idea.”
Wendy: “You do? What’s your idea?”
Gilda: “I hear and feel wild rodents in the walls pretty much every time I’m there. I’ll just hunt down the first one I see.” [opens the door in] “You go take care of the flowers in the garden. Just trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
Wendy: [beat] “Good luck, then.” [walks off to the garden]
[Gilda walks into the manor. She listens for noises as she walks slowly, through the foyer and up the stairs. After reaching the stair second from the top, she hears scurrying, and freezes]
Gilda: [whispering] “The attic, of course! A wild rodent’s taste of civilization.”
[Gilda walks up what little of the staircase she has left to go, and pulls down the lever for the attic. She waits for the staircase to unfold, then walks up it, slowly once again. She turns her head toward the scurrying that she hears, and sees, as her head enters the attic space, a brown mouse, eating a fly]
Gilda: “There you are.”
[the mouse looks at Gilda and runs. Gilda chases them through a narrow passageway among the boxes, until the mouse comes across a small gap in between two boxes in the corner. They try to squeeze through, but Gilda grabs them by the tail and holds them up. They squirm as they dangle from Gilda’s fingers]
Gilda: “Sorry mouse, but my friend’s gull needs food.” [pinches the mouse’s head and twists it back, breaking their neck. She feels the mouse’s chest for a heartbeat. None occurs] “There we go. A fresh mouse.” [looks over to her left, at the pink fiberglass insulation in the wall] “I know my grandma says not to touch it, but… heheh. Grandma’s not here.” [puts her right hand against the fiberglass to feel it] “Ahhhhh.” [goes big-eyed and yanks her hand back] “Ouch! Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!”
[Gilda runs out of the attic, holding the dead mouse in her left hand while her right is clenched in a fist. On her way out, she knocks over a box marked ‘Russell’s Wedding’, which falls down the attic steps, then stops for a second on top of the foyer steps, before tumbling down them too. On the bottom, it spills out its contents, which include photographs, a VHS tape, three yellow tuxedos, a yellow dress, and some accessories, both masculine and feminine. Gilda runs out of the foyer as the box spills]
[in the kitchen, Gilda washes off her injured hand]
Gilda: “Ow ow ow ow ow! If it’s not supposed to be touched, they shouldn’t make it look like cotton candy!” [wipes hand with washcloth]
Buffett: “Reeawk! Reeawk! Reeawk!”
Gilda: “Here you go, Buffett.” [picks up the mouse and throws it at Buffett, who catches it in his mouth and flies away. Gilda holds her right hand out and wiggles her fingers] “Still itching, hopefully it’ll stop soon.” [sees Wendy walk into the kitchen. She clenches her hand into a fist] “Hey, Wendy. How’s it going?”
Wendy: “Going well. Finished with the roses, now onto… everything else. Heheh.” [notices Gilda’s hand] “Why are you making a fist?”
Gilda: “Um…” [hides hand] “I’m not making a fist?”
Wendy: [rolls eyes] “You stuck your hand in fiberglass.”
Gilda: “No!” [beat] “Yes.”
Wendy: “That was silly of you. Don’t do that. I’ve seen Nicole do that once, she stuck her hand so deep couldn’t hold anything worth a crap for a week. Well, she could. But she groaned with pain every time.” [looks at Gilda’s hand again] “At least you were… wise? Enough to do it with your non-dominant hand.”
Gilda: “I also think I knocked a box over. I think I heard it spill, too”
Wendy: “Well, you better clean it up.”
Gilda: “I wonder what’s inside of it.”
[Gilda and Wendy walk into the foyer to observe the mess the box has left on the floor. Gilda runs ahead to get a closer look at it]
Gilda: “‘Russell’s Wedding’. Oh, right, that uncle of Margo’s that married the oakey tonic dine I don’t know how to say it.”
Wendy: “Awk-ah-tawn-ine.” (Ochotonine)
Gilda: “Right, that.” [looks through the mess] “VHS tape, no label. Mini photo book…” [flips through it] “Haha, look at this, Mr. Shaun dancing like a chicken.” [shows said photo to Wendy; Shaun’s hairstyle in the photo is a short, curly style with frosted tips. Wendy laughs]
Wendy: “Who knew Shaun liked the Justin Timberlake look?”
Gilda: “Tuxedos, one of them’s Shaun’s, of course. Uh… a dress.” [stands up and holds said dress up] “Huh, this must’ve been Mrs. Hynde’s bridesmaid dress.” [looks at the rest of what spilled] “Yellow pumps, white gloves, a turquoise bead necklace, clip-on earrings that look like the necklace, a bracelet that looks like the rest of the jewelry, a wide-brimmed hat like it’s from the 40s — yep, Mrs. Hynde definitely wore this to the wedding.” [looks through the photo book for proof] “And there it is.” [shows Wendy the photo; it features Sally teasing Shaun by sticking a bouquet of flowers in his face… and sure enough, Sally is wearing that yellow dress, and the associated accessories] “You know, why can’t we see more of Mrs. Hynde when she’s all bubbly like this?”
Wendy: “I don’t think she thinks we deserve to see her like that.”
[pause, as Gilda looks over the dress and accessories]
Gilda: “Can I be honest, Wendy?”
Wendy: “Yeah?”
Gilda: “I think I wanna steal this dress.”
Wendy: [beat] “What? You can’t do that!”
Gilda: “Why not? It’s not like Mrs. Hynde ever wears the thing. It was in a box in the attic for gourd’s sake.”
Wendy: “Yeah, but what if she ever decides she wants to go looking for it?”
Gilda: “Right, because she’d want to go looking for a dress she only ever wore once. Also, did you forget that the Hyndes are rich?”
Wendy: “You don’t steal from the rich just because they’re rich! Also, what do you think Margo’s gonna think?”
[Gilda’s phone rings. She pulls it out, and sees Margo is calling]
Gilda: “Shhhhh.” [answers the phone] “Hello?”
Margo: “Go for it. My mom is overdue for a blow to her ego.”
Gilda: “Heh? Uh… what are you talking about?”
Margo: “I’m saying go ahead and steal the dress. It’ll be fun to watch her have a conniption. Just don’t wear it in front of her.”
Gilda: [to Wendy] “Well, look at that. Margo herself doesn’t have a problem.”
Wendy: “W-w-wait a minute, Margo, how did you know we were talking about stealing your mother’s dress?”
Margo: “Because you butt-dialed me. You’ve been on the phone for like two minutes now. Funny it took you till now to notice.”
[Wendy pulls out her phone; sure enough, she’s had Margo on call for about as long as she and Gilda were looking over the contents of the box]
Wendy: “Whoops.” [hangs up]
Margo: “So Gilda, go ahead and steal. Just not my stuff. Oh, and don’t forget to feed my gull. Not that I think you would. And Wendy, keep your phone locked next time. As for me, I’ve got a selfie to take with some guy named Oscar Wilde. Bye.”
[Margo hangs up. After a short pause, Gilda stuffs everything except the dress and accessories back into the box, and carries the box back up the stairs]
Wendy: “If you get in trouble with Mrs. Hynde, I’m not taking any of the fall for you! This is you and Margo’s doing, don’t forget it!”
I completed the script above shortly before the announcement of DeviantArt’s new AI image generator, and had it saved in Sta.sh during my transition to Newgrounds/here. This is the farthest I got on an aborted DA upload; so far I even wrote out the entire script. This description itself, however, is completely original to here. Let’s… let’s get into this artwork.
I don’t think I’ve drawn Gilda in this outfit since Margo gave her the holy grail of Sega console games. Well, at least as far as the Saturn is concerned. In terms of the Genesis, it’s Crusader of Centy, and on the Dreamcast, it’s Illbleed. And on the Master System it’s… *checks PriceCharting* …James Buster Douglas Knockout Boxing? Seriously? But sports fans and video game fans have little to no overlap unless your internet name is SNESDrunk or Sega Lord X!
…back on track to the artwork.
I decided to bring back this outfit, since I was feeling nostalgic, I know how popular this outfit was with some of my followers, and… I wanted to create some lore around it. Namely, that it was originally Margo’s mother Sally’s outfit that she wore to her brother Russell’s wedding. I’ve long headcanoned that the Ketcham siblings married in each year of the first half of the 2000s on the strict timeline; Richard Jr. and Ivy in 2000, Russell and Amy in 2001, Randall and Ebony in 2002, and as already seen, Sally and Harry in 2003, and Shaun and Roxanne in 2004. And, well, consider me saying it now, and doubling down on it on the script above, as me making it canon.
This artwork took approximately 4 hours and 19 minutes to finish total, going by ASP estimates. I also wanted to challenge myself with this piece, see how well I could draw interior shots without tracing or fresh pasta. I also wanted to imitate live-action cinematography elements, in particular the depth of field. Gilda in the foreground and her bed in the background/reflection is blurred, putting her reflection as the main focus of the image. If you look closely at the mirror, you’ll notice I was aiming for realism there too; the edges of the mirror are fogged, and there’s some scuffing and scratches to sell the illusion of an authentic mirror.
The only use of fresh pasta or any assets, stock image or AI generation, is the portrait at the top-left of the frame. It’s a Craiyon generation of ‘Animal Crossing raccoons’, which, full disclosure, I’m surprised there aren’t any. And before you say the Nook family, they’re not procyonines, they’re nyctereutes.
Anyways, the generated image is here because, when looking at only the bottom, and with the image blurred, I feel it looks like a landscape painting. Would Gilda have one in her room? I don’t know, I think she would if it interested her enough.
She definitely would have that dresser with labeled compartments for Game Boar/Boy, Game Gear, and ‘other’ handheld games. What’s in the ‘other’ section? The stuff that can’t be classified as Nintendo or Sega, of course! Like the Lynx and the WonderSwan and the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Yes, Gilda dabbles in imports, what of it?
Overall, glad to finally have this artwork, and this script, out for the public, so I can be one step closer to leaving DeviantArt behind. That’ll be all for this piece, and until next time, take care, stay safe, reject crypto, get vaccinated (I can’t believe that part still needs to be said), remember that not everyone in Florida supports that shit-for-brains DeSantis, and have a good one.
Twitter: twitter.com/StormyAdlerPoG
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YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCXj2N…
Discord: Contact me by my tag (Stormy Adler, P.o.G.#1752) for an invite to my server.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).
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