bizarremonsters

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Short comic I made in IbisPaint of Lucas and Victor. Because heaven forbid asexual folk can have sex because they want to, as well as other asexual folk not being interested in having sex.

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Here is Victor’s father, Dante Esposito. Poor guy has been through a lot. His one true love, Beatrice Bianchi, was murdered by a bigot via electrocution a month after their son Antonio was born, then he got baby trapped by his ex-wife into a loveless marriage after she sabotaged the condoms he used, lasting for six years until he got the courage to divorce her. Finally, his son Victor was murdered by the same man who murdered Beatrice, this time via being frozen to death.

With all of this said, he still loves his younger children even with the fact that they were the result of him being baby trapped, and after Victor’s death, he became an advocate for trans rights to avoid what happened to him happening to other trans folks. In other words, Dante is a very sweet man who has the short end of the stick.

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Bizarre Monsters now has a dedicated store! Here is the link: https://bizarre-monsters.printify.me/

Art is free of AI and all designed by Layla Reeves, AKA Mr. Spectre and GadgetCoat83, the person behind this blog.

(Even though Bizarre Monsters is an Australian series, the store is in USD. However, I don’t know how to change this, sorry).

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It’s Victor! But he’s… a woman?

In all seriousness, I made this as part of a challenge I found on Pinterest. This is actually a gender bent version of Victor called Vivian, and she’s a trans woman with short hair as opposed to a trans man with long hair. Height wise, she would be taller than Victor, but very minimally (being 2cm taller than him at tallest).

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‘You don’t have to make your characters LGBT+.’

I haven’t heard anyone say this to me, but I want to reply to this anyway. Yes, I don’t have to, but I choose to because it provides more representation for the group and its members. Because if you’re unhappy with the representation now, you’d might as well make your own.

My LGBT+ OCs, by the way:

- Maxwell-Ming Chen (bisexual cis man in a relationship with Lucas).

- Lucas Ashford (biromantic asexual trans man in a relationship with Maxwell).

- Victor Hades Esposito (aroace trans man).

- Andy Anderson (aroace trans woman).

- Cindy Anderson (agender person attracted to women. Goes by she/her pronouns like her sister).

- Oliver Humerus (Pansexual cis man).

- Henri Allard (aromantic pansexual cis man).

- Manuel Gomez-Garcia (panromantic asexual enby. Goes by he/him and they/them pronouns).

(Also, I’m calling bullshit on the belief that in order to write a character in a particular group, you have to be in that group. So, as an autistic person, I can’t write about allistic folks and can only write autistic characters. Just write and draw what you want, as long as it’s not promoting harmful ideals).

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Let me share some rules about werewolves in my works, both fan and original:

Apart from the head shape being different and the thighs of the werewolf being thicker (not for any lewd reason, just to look more wolf-like), the physique of the werewolf in their wolf form is the same as their human form (so no ridiculously buff or curvy werewolves unless if they had that physique as a human).

Even in their human form, werewolves need to eat meat to survive (because wolves are carnivores), and thus, cravings for meat arise (I admit, I was partially inspired by Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman for this trait. I’m not a massive fan of the portrayal of werewolf Theodore as being dog-like for a majority of the time, but I can’t argue with the meat cravings).

Contrary to popular belief, werewolves do not become violent upon transforming, only becoming aggressive when a loved one or themself is hurt. If a werewolf is aggressive outside of that, then they likely are aggressive as a human. That’s not to say that a person’s personality is not modified at all in their wolf form, though, but it’s not that drastic or it makes repressed sides more out in the open (for example, someone suppressing a more playful side might become playful as a werewolf).

A werewolf’s wolf form just looks like an anthropomorphic wolf wearing the clothes that they were wearing as a human, including glasses if they were wearing them as a human.

A werewolf’s human form might change hair colour after their first transformation, but this isn’t guaranteed.

Werewolves do not transform on the night they were turned. Rather, they transform the next full moon.

In their human form, a werewolf has sharper canines than usual, but it’s not very noticeable unless you really take a good look.

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Maxwell is a rather twink-y guy who has long hair and a high pitched voice. Maxwell is a cis man.

Lucas is a muscular guy with a light goatee, arm hair and a deeper voice (not as deep as Victor’s, though). Lucas is a trans man.

Physique, hair length and voice pitch do not indicate gender identity. Granted, Victor (also a trans man) also has long hair, but his voice is deeper than Lucas’, let alone Maxwell’s.

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Facts about Victor:

He is Italian-Australian. However, he was born in Australia, he just happens to have heavy Italian descent, even being fluent in Italian despite being in the third generation of the family. Definitely fits the stereotype of Italians being overly emotional (if being ‘emotional’ means being a short tempered shit).

He hates it when restaurants have carbonara yet put ingredients like onions, mushrooms and cream in it. The fact that he loves carbonara doesn’t help.

Speaking of which, his favourite Italian meals are carbonara, Margherita pizzas and pannacotta.

He has a light goatee in his human and spirit forms (much like Lucas, though at least Victor got to have one in life).

He has an older brother called ‘Antonio’ and a younger sister called ‘Bianca’, both of them being cis unlike Victor, as well as being taller than him (he’s 157cm tall, so short, even by the societal expectations of AFAB folks like him).

Victor has a much better relationship with his father than his mother, with the former being much more accepting of his identity than the latter, not to mention standing up for him whenever a family member makes a hateful comment towards his identity.

As a human, Victor had rather dark skin. He’s not black, but he’s certainly not fair skinned. Same can be said for most of his family.

His favourite flower is, ironically, a rose.

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Time to introduce a ‘new’ character (she’s only new because I haven’t introduced her into the public yet, not because I made her recently). This is Andy (she/her), a ghost that lived in Boston in life, and thus has a Boston accent. She’s also an aroace trans woman, but the only thing that makes her different to a cis woman is that her voice is a tenor at deepest. Other than that, she is no different to a cis woman.

As you can tell, Andy loves pink and contrary to her hoodie, she has ‘feminine’ interests such as clothes shopping and cosmetics. Too bad many of the women who shares these interests with her that she tries to bond with end up dismissing her simply for being a trans woman.

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Jiangshi:

Type: Undead.

Danger level: High.

Notable physical characteristics:

Green skin.

Sharp teeth.

Yellow eyes.

Narrow pupils.

Unique form of transportation without a specific talisman.

Notes:

Despite also being known as ‘Chinese vampires’, jiangshi can also be Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese. They are also more similar to a zombie than a vampire.

Their name means ‘hopping corpse’ in Chinese, referencing how they move. However, many jiangshi have opted to use a special talisman to make it so they can move ‘normally’.

Their danger is only high because of their need to eat life force being inherently dangerous. Otherwise, contrary to popular depictions, many jiangshi are actually quite pleasant folks, particularly the ones found in Chinatowns such as Kyon Town (though contrary to the name ‘Chinatown’, there are non-Chinese inhabitants, and there are even some non-jiangshi residents who live there).

It is very rare for a jiangshi to not be at least Asian in descent. Generally, at most, the jiangshi would be mixed race (two examples being Maxwell-Ming and Lihua, who are Chinese-white and Chinese-black, respectively).

Not every jiangshi is compelled to count rice. In fact, some of them are even allergic to specific kinds of rice (such as glutinous rice).

Contrary to popular depictions, jiangshi don’t wear the uniform of an official during the Qing Dynasty.

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I want to include another mixed race jiangshi character like Maxwell, but instead of being a Chinese-white man, I’m thinking of a Chinese-black woman. That way there’s more mixed race representation in BM, and I’m also thinking of the two bonding over each other because of their experiences being mixed race, even if they’re not the exact same (since Maxwell is part white and the other character, who I’m going to call Lihua, is black).

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(TW: Explicit descriptions about eating disorders and death).

It’s not prevalent as I opt for an Inspector Gadget-like way of drawing pupils (that is, drawing them as black rings), but Lucas has green eyes.

Lucas is from America. This has caused him to get confused whenever Maxwell uses English slang, though Maxwell will typically tell him what it means whenever he asks.

Lucas suffered from BED when he was a teenager and a very young adult. This wasn’t helped by his parents forcing a ‘finish your plate’ mentality on him. This ended up causing him to become quite fat, resulting in health issues that led to his death at the age of 18. The reason why he became an angel as opposed to a demon is that the higher ups of Heaven acknowledged that he was in need of help and was clearly suffering, so they helped him get on the right track in recovering. Since then, he has fully recovered and while he’s still not a slim guy, the fat has been replaced with muscle. Though even now, he still freezes when he’s expected to eat more than he can handle.

Despite being a burly trans man, he’s still willing to wear dresses and pink (though the latter is obvious, as he wears pink in his main outfit).

Lucas is not a middle aged man, he is actually 23 years old and two months younger than Maxwell (I’ve already stated this in a previous post, but I want to make it even clearer that the two are consenting adults who are close in age).

Unrelated to his current character, but his original name was ‘Maxie’. Even before I made him and Maxwell boyfriends, I changed it to ‘Lucas’ as it sounded better.

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More Facts About Maxwell:

As mentioned before, Maxwell has a received pronunciation English accent. Pretty much, he sounds like your typical Englishman despite his Chinese descent (I know that I’m going to get flack for this, but it’s not unrealistic for someone like him to not have an Asian accent. Don’t believe me? Watch a King of Skill video (he’s not Chinese or English, as he’s Korean-Canadian, but my point remains the same)). He also came from London.

He specialises in Asian baked goods, not just Chinese baked goods. Needless to say, some people are not impressed about this despite the amount of non-Asian bakeries out there (besides, Asian bakeries and grocers are freaking cool! Granted, I’m a white Australian person, but it’s an opportunity to try something you typically don’t have, even if I didn’t happen to like some of the sweet items I’ve had at this Asian bakery called ‘Bread Top’, but at least I tried them).

He’s allergic to glutinous rice.

His favourite colour is pink.

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Facts about Maxwell and Lucas:

Both are 23 years old, but Maxwell is slightly older than Lucas by two months (so if anyone goes and assumes Lucas is a middle aged man who goes after younger men, this just proves them wrong. Besides, I thought it’d be less stereotypical if the ‘twink’ is the older one, even if the age gap is very small between them).

Both haven’t met each other in life, but have done so in undeath when they were 21.

Both are biromantic, though only Maxwell is bisexual as Lucas is asexual.

Both have struggled with a mental disorder before (harm OCD for Maxwell and BED for Lucas, though I’m not going to go into detail about the latter here and I’ve already talked about the former). However, Maxwell has been working to lessen the impact of his OCD and Lucas has recovered from BED.

Both happen to be white or partly white, Lucas fitting the former and Maxwell fitting the latter (Maxwell is the son of a happily married pair consisting of a white Englishwoman and a Chinese man who is from a family of Chinese immigrants, making him mixed race of white and Asian, hence his eye shape. Despite this, Maxwell has a received pronunciation English accent due to living in London for his life).

Both have black as their natural hair colours, though only Maxwell has voluntarily dyed his hair.

(Also, no, Maxwell being a guy with ‘Max’ in his name as well as sharp teeth and a partner/boyfriend who is much bulkier (whether in fat or muscle) is not meant to be a deliberate reference to Max from Sam & Max, though maybe the latter was influenced by that. Besides, I made Maxwell before I had a Sam & Max obsession recently, and Maxwell is much less violent than Max).

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I’m finally making a proper comic for Bizarre Monsters! This is a comic revolving around Maxwell and Lucas, and it’ll be called ‘Baker’s Dozen’. I am creating this entirely by the seat of my pants with no script, but I have an idea of how I want the story to go.

Anyway, here are the first two pages for it. Once I’m done finishing the comic, I’ll be posting all of the pages onto WebToon, albeit on Canvas so I still have the rights to the characters and comic. Just note that this series (Maxwell and Lucas) will be rated young adult for potential uncensored swearing and sensitive themes such as harm OCD.

The main inspiration for this comic? A combination of Sam & Max and Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf or Death (though it’s more like a sprinkle of the latter, and the villain is a baker themself who preys on customers for their own nefarious ends. Funnily enough, both series both have games made by Telltale Games, though I have only played the Sam & Max games and even then, I’ve never played Devil’s Playhouse. That said, I am very aware of the ending and things like Noir Sam).

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‘Kittens are Cute, OCD is Not’.

Just a potential print idea, though I won’t act on it yet. Also no, this is not against those with OCD, hell no, especially as someone who has OCD herself. No, this is against the romanticism of OCD as a ‘cute quirk’, despite how many people legitimately suffer from it. While this drawing is quite ‘cutesy’, it is in spite of the OCD, not because of the OCD (I mean, of course it’s going to be cute, it has a cute little blue kitten in it!).

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Lucas: ‘Maxwell, are you okay?’.

A silence fills the room.

Lucas: ‘Ming…?’.

TW: Depictions of harm OCD, murder and mild fantasy (as in, the blood isn’t red) gore.

(The red blotch underneath mental Lucas is his shadow, not blood: the blood is the teal stuff coming out of his back and on mental Maxwell’s knife).

He was using that knife to prepare tea, but alas…