Original Twitter Upload Date: March 30, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA on the same day, and has been revised minimally from the original version.
[March 29, 2018 on the strict timeline of ZP-51498. Gilda and Abby are in the kitchen of the Lowry household, assembling the molds of the agar-agar they’ve made for Auggie and April’s 13th, into pride flags. Gilda, holding a pizza cutter, is the one doing the cutting, while Abby, holding repurposed putty knives, is doing the scooping. They’re on the yellow of the non-binary flag, and Gilda is far along making the third and final slice into it]
Abby: “What did you say agar is made out again? Kelp?”
Gilda: “Seaweed.” [finishes cutting] “It’s made out of seaweed.”
Abby: “Seaweed? Really?”
Gilda: “Red algae, specifically.”
Abby: [jaw drops] “Algae? You mean the stuff that grows in swamp water?”
Gilda: “That’s some of what it is. And it’s also what most know as seaweed.”
Abby: [scoops the first portion of the yellow] “That’s… fascinating. And from what I’ve seen, it makes a damn good Jell-O alternative.” [has the portion slide into the first tray of non-binary flag agar, next to the white] “About the only thing different is that you can’t see through it.”
Gilda: “But it’s still just as delicious. Well, the taste, anyway. The process of making gelatin is actually gross. Which is why I never make any recipes using it. Agar only.”
[Abby scoops up the second yellow portion]
Gilda: “So, uh, which are you gonna have first, of the scraps?”
Abby: “A white one, the pitaya-flavored.” [slides the portion into the second tray of nonbinary flag agar] “What exactly is pitaya, anyway? Other than a wicked-looking fruit with a surprisingly mild taste?”
Gilda: “It’s a tropical fruit, grown in Central Amareica. Also known as the dragonfruit, for how its exterior resembles the fire and scales of a dragon.” [fiddles fingers in front of mouth to imitate fire] “GRAHHHHH! Dennis Quaid, let’s do some goofy and over-the-top things togethah!” [imitates fire again] “GRAHHHHH!”
Abby: [noticeably confused] “Huh?”
Gilda: “Dragonheart. Ever seen Dragonheart?”
Abby: “No, I haven’t even heard of it.”
Gilda: “1996 film starring Dennis Quaid and a CGI dragon voiced by Sean Connery. It’s an action-adventure movie, it’s not really supposed to be a comedy, but it’s so soaked in 90s cheese that you’d believe anyone who told you it was.”
Abby: “Well, you know how much I love cheesy stuff! Especially retro cheese. I oughta watch it sometime. In fact…” [pulls out phone] “Dra-gon-heart. Save!”
Gilda: “Dragonheart‘s just about the only good dragon movie ever made. All the other good dragon-related pieces of media are video games.”
Abby: “What about Dragon Tales?”
Gilda: “Okay, besides that one. Video games about dragons tend to be awesome.”
Abby: [scoops the third yellow portion, leaving just a single strip in the tray] “Isn’t there just Spyro?”
Gilda: “No, there isn’t just the Spyro games. Although those are the best ones. Stewart Copeland’s music truly made those games. Yes, even Enter the Dragonfly.”
Abby: [slides the portion into the third tray] “But you didn’t answer my question. What other dragon games are there?”
Gilda: “Well, there’s Double Dragon…” [Abby scowls] “Hey, games containing the word in its title count too!”
Abby: “How about games that actually have dragons in them?”
Gilda: “Well, there’s Dragon Warrior, awesome franchise. Actually prefer it over Final Fantasy. It’s actually called Dragon Quest, but…” [chuckles] “…let’s be honest, Dragon Warrior is way cooler. Objective fact.” [eyes dart around] “Not a fact, just my strong opinion.”
Abby: “Ah, cool. What else is there?”
Gilda: “Dragon’s Lair, the absolutely groundbreaking LaserDisc game from Don Bluth.”
Abby: “Who?”
Gilda: “The director of The Secret of NIMH and An American Tail.”
Abby: “Oh, cool! I love Secret of NIMH.“
Gilda: “Who doesn’t?” [beat] “Anyways, uh… what else, does Minecraft count? It does have that dragon in it, doesn’t it?”
Abby: “Yeah, it does. And…” [beat] “…you’re speaking my language now, Gilda. I love Minecraft. The building in it, so much fun. I’ve logged like a thousand hours into building in that game. One of these days, I oughta invite you into my server to show you everything I’ve made. I’m a real pro.”
Gilda: “Hm. Oh, and there’s Lair. You ever heard of Lair?”
Abby: “Um…” [stops to think] “No?”
Gilda: [beat] “Yeah, you don’t need to play Lair.”
[she and Abby look at the strips of agar they haven’t used for the flags]
Gilda: “So, that just leaves these as the scraps.”
Abby: “Yep.”
[a short pause between the two. Then, Gilda cuts into what is left of the dark orange used for the lesbian flags, and pops a square of it into her mouth]
Abby: [chuckles] “Of course you go for the orange.”
Gilda: “Well, what did you think I was gonna go for? The licorice?”
Yeah, I’m doing a series for the Tetrad’s 13th birthdays, too. And since I showed Wendy’s on her canonical birthday of March 7th on Twitter and her canonical bat mitzvah celebration date of March 10th, time to show April and Auggie’s today, their canonical birthday of March 30th.
Now to the artwork!
As I’ve been doing a lot lately, I used fresh pasta stock images (as a refresher, that’s a portmanteau and mispronunciation of ‘thresholding’ and ‘posterization’, the effects used to create the filtered look) for the scenery, namely the background1 and table texture. However, the table outline and the agar trays were still drawn by me, using a one-point perspective that I think came out quite nicely. For those wondering, I get these images from a site called Pexels. And then in ASP, I cut them out and edit them how I see fit. Sometimes, I do take my own images, though. I actually have an artwork planned of the Tetrad fishing; it’s gonna use some images I took recently at the Civil War campground, after it got flooded in a rainstorm.2
1 Gourd, how did that thing end up looking like a Craiyon asset when it isn’t even Craiyon?
2 I, uh… I think I still have those images? I have a large backlog of art ideas that I never ended up making.
This is my first time drawing Auggie since I revealed them to be genderfluid, meaning sometimes they feel more masculine and sometimes they feel more feminine. As a recap, they don’t mind being called by their birth name ‘August’, but they also go by the more feminine ‘Augustine’ and the gender-neutral ‘Auggie’. I’ll use the latter name outside of dialogue in my cartoons3, though, because I feel it’s the most respectful to use for this canonically non-binary character.
3 And ficlets.
Anyways, this 13-year-old version of Auggie has their hair grown out (not as far as their 15-year-old self, however), and a single pair of eyelashes. The latter of which will be a permanent change to even their 11-year-old design, and the former of which will not be added to their 11-year-old self, where they will keep the undercut. I got the idea of the single-eyelashes from the ACNH villager Sasha, a lazy leporine added into the 2.0 version, and the most feminine of all the male villagers in the game (he’s the only male villager with the fashion hobby). I thought up the design of the shirt as I was looking at images of ruffled shirts, which April has described before as ‘[Auggie’s] thing‘. What I was going for, was something that looked both masculine and feminine at the same time. Something that an enby would wear. And… that shirt is what I came up with. Do enbys dress like that? Well, Auggie does. Not that I ever intended for them to be the end-all-be-all representation of all enbys, or any of my characters to be the end-all-be-all rep of any group, but still.
I figured out while drawing this that, if Abby were to be 6’6″/1.98m at age 13, and she’s 4’10″/1.47m at age 8, she’d have to grow an average of four and a half inches every year. Which is why this 10-year-old version is drawn as 5’7″/1.70m, same as April at age 11. And in case you’re wondering, Auggie is 6’1″/1.85m here, and April is 5’10.5″/1.79m. April and Abby have been established to have conflicting personalities, with April being a girly-girl and Abby being a bit of a tomboy. And I made their different takes on femininity show through their outfits here; April is quite heavily made up but wearing minimal jewelry, while Abby is bare-faced but heavily accessorized.
I’ve always liked the idea of Gilda and Abby befriending each other when they’re older, and first explored it in the above-linked “A Panel of Lowry Brow Humor”. I figure they have a similar friendship to the one Gilda has with Nicole, where they know each other through one being a sibling of the other’s friend, one is older and a bit of a teacher to the younger, while the younger easily gets along with the older because of traits or interests that they share. Gilda and Nicole share being on the spectrum, and Gilda and Abby share a love of retro culture4.
4 Nicole also has somewhat of an interest in retro culture, but not to the same level as Gilda and Abby.
And I made sure Abby’s outfit shows that love of retro culture just through the color palette, with the purple and cyan being inspired by the CGA color palette of 1980s computers. Honestly, is there a more 80s color combination that blue or cyan and purple or pink? I think not.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, and have a good one.
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Twitter (Art): https://twitter.com/TheOfficialOTOG
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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 2.35:1).
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