#luxa and aurora

[aldoodles]

I hope they got to play ball again sometime

[tangents-within-tangents]

Recently reread the Underland Chronicles so I decided to dig through and find the old fanart I did when I first read the series like 11 years ago (wow i’m old) so please enjoy

Featuring my Mark Crilley manga phase, my terrible handwriting lol, ✨copic markers✨, random details I latched on to for some reason, FEELs wtf bro, and me somehow missing the fact that Luxa got a haircut in book one, and spoilers (fr go read these books if you haven't they are so good)

Luxa and Henry (and questionable armor choices??)

The weave texture was meant to show that their clothes are made of spider silk (Idk what the random thigh pouch is supposed to be tho)

Hamnet and Hazard (and long arms so they can hold hands lol)

Queen Luxa

Yeah 13 year old me really latched on to Luxa and tried to make her my personality lolll

And for some reason the fish-shape crystal thing really stood out to me I guess

And the turtle trapdoor, I remembered that bit specifically during my reread bc I pictured this drawing I did of it. (I also vaguely remember writing (like by hand in my notebook) a mini missing scene fanfic about Luxa using the turtle trapdoor when she snuck out to join the quest in PoB XD)

(Don't ask about that size difference lol)

Okay here come the scenes/spoilers (and FEELS)

(and apparently I thought that holding Ares' claw meant his foot instead of his wing)

There you have it lol

I also distinctly remember making like a montage of Lapblood moments (the dart frog jumping near her face, strangled in the vines, sinking in quicksand (all near death experiences apparently, rip she had it rough), and Gregor brushing her fur) bc those were the moments I remembered and kept picturing during my reread. But unfortunately I could not for the LIFE of me find it!

Anyway, looking at your old art is cringeyyyy but it's still kinda fun too. This really is not how I picture the characters or clothing and stuff anymore, I might do some redraws if I ever find the time/motivation (lol as if) 

[xarva]

the underland chronicles fanart? the underland chronicles fanart!

[m00nboys]

doodles from my 5th or so re-reading of The Underland Chronicles

[rin-solo]

Cartoon Series Pt. 1 | Gregor the Overlander

This is part 1 in a new art series for TUC!! I will probably do one wallpaper for every book/quest. Are you interested in seeing more of these?

Yes, the style is close to Phineas and Ferb; Idk why but, for some reason, I fell in love with the way the characters look in this style.

Disclaimer: the bg is a stock image; the rest is drawn by me!

[originalwinnercheesecake]

I wish we could have gotten more on the bat's and their interpersonal relationships

okay we know which bat's are bonded to which humans, what each bat looks like, and basic descriptions of their personalities

Ex. Ares: large black bat. Had two bonds: Henry and the Gregor. Was very strong, a known risk taker, broody/emo, unpopular with others, still a very good guy.

Aurora: Bright gold bat. Bonded to Queen Luxa. Patient, quiet most of the time. Soft/gentle spoken the rest. Is very brave. Can fly in a series of complicated acrobatics to where a rider has to be very skilled to stay on her. Her and Ares are very close friends.

Nike: Silver and black stripped bat. Daughter to Queen Athena, and the second bond of Howard. Cheerful and helpful. Notably more talkative then other bat's. Boot's is the only one whom she allows to call her "Pincess Nike."

But that is really kinda all we know. Those couple facts about Nike's patentage and Ares&Aroura's friendship, plus maybe that the bats technically need Queen Athena's permission to join the humans for missions, is all we know about their relationships outside of the ones they have outside of their bonds

I do not think Nike is Queen Athena's oldest child. Her being allowed to go on the quest for the plague was explained as the prophacy specifically stating bat's needed to send a representative, and Nike also being a "back up princess incase Boot's role has been misinterpreted". So letting her go off into danger then checks out. The Marks of Secret quest checks out too as it was completely unsanctioned and none of the group had permission to be out searching for the nibbles. All of them knew and said they would be put on house arrest once the returned home.

But still if Nike is next in line for the throne why does the title "Princess" mean so little to her that she only allows a baby who is laughing at an inside joke address that way, She specifically asks others not to "hold it against me" when they try to call her "Princess Nike". Additionally after she and Howard become close and decide they want to eventually bond she starts spending a lot of time with him in the human land. Again there is nothing outright strange about that, plenty of bat's hang out in the humans land with their bonds. But Queen Athena can be noted to mostly stay in her land. The only time she came to the humans land was for the meeting in Curse of the Warmblood. If "overseeing her kingdom" and "preparing to one day rule" were part of Nikes daily life the way they are Luxa's, wouldn't it make more sense for Nike to stay in the fliers land with her mother and Howard to go visit her? Not the other way around? The humans are welcome in the fliers land just like the bat's are in there's. Howard has family connections, medical skills, and is the nicest guy ever. I would be very surprised if he was not allowed to go to any safe land anytime he wants. Nikes disregard of the "Princess" title and seeming freedom to leave her land for adventures as well as casual trips leads me to belive she has unamed older sibling in the bat's land who is on deck to rule befor her.

Gonna move on in a second, but while we are talking about unamed members of Nike's family let's talk about her father. He is not in the books and Queen Athena seemingly rules the Bat's by herself. Does the fandom believe he is dead and Athena was not required to take a second mate/King afterwards, or is he alive and the flyers are a monolithic kingdom (one ruler). Because of Athena's royal status I personally belive the monolithic kingdom. Secondly since Queen Athena is a white bat and Nike is zebra stripped, is her father a dark colored bat, or would that not be how bat genetics work? This is a question I do not know the answer to.

Now let's move on from Nike and talk about our boy Ares. Again even before bonding with Henry he was known to be reckless, disobedient, and a risk taker. While in our safer society this might make Ares seem really cool to kids/teens he was never popular in the underland. Since the underlanders are always at war, or trying to live through or recover from a crisis this possibly made Ares seem like he was kinda crazy/dangerous to be around (You all judged him wrong). After Henry betrayed everybody and Ares broke his bond to save Gregor Ares was then completly shunned by every bat and human, save Luxa and Aurora. Okay to give minor credit: Nerissa still cared about Ares, and the reason he didn't know that was he was avoiding her. While Andromeda and (I guess) Nike did not originally trust Ares after the events of the first book, they got over it and became friends with him. Gregor started visiting more, and Howard is friendly to everybody. But still for like six months Ares had no one in his life but Luxa and Aurora. When they got lost on the second quest he referred to them as his only two reasons to live. He gave up going to the doctor for medical treatment for his mite bites and made a desperate venture into enemy lands alone to search for them, only going back to his cave when he was to sick to keep going.

During all these times there is no mention of Ares having parents, siblings, or relatives of any kind. So was he an orphan who had no one? Or did he originally have family, who after the events of the first book, hated and shunned him with all the rest? And if so were they ever sorry?

Lastly let's talk about Thailiah. Poor, brave, little Thailiah who was such a young bat when she died so tragically. Her friends all tried so hard to take care of her on the quest, and when she still died they all cried and promised to hold her in their hearts forever. Did she have a mother and father back home? What did they think/feel when the "picnic crew" went missing? When Gregor brought the other pups back did her patents believe Thailiah would be with them? Who had to tell them she was never coming home?

[mentalmeles]

Completely forgot to post this doodle of Luxa and Aurora I did at work last night, whoops.

Also this is my first time ever drawing a bat so please be kind 🙏

[brokenfork]

Got to the scene at the end of book 1 where Gregor is sewing up Aurora's wing because he's the only one who has hands, isn't ill or in shock, and isn't a literal toddler. And like. The things I would do for a late series conversation between Aurora and Gregor. He was always trying so hard to protect the two people she loved the most, especially in book 5. I can't believe she wasn't at least a little bit fond of him. What did she think about him telling the adults that Luxa was lying? Did she appreciate him for protecting Luxa? Did she hate him for inadvertently keeping her from the battle as well? Did she ever see the letter? I just have to know.

[quohotos]

what's something you would want to see in an animated adaptation of the underland chronicles?

Oh BOY where to begin?

These are going to be in no particular order...

Each trailer should have the prophecy read out in a dramatic voice. The trailer for the first one will go "And eight will be left when we count up the dead" and then a quick montage of some pretty scary shit happening but the cuts are too fast to see what's actually happening. The only exception to this is the marks of secret where the fact that the song is a prophecy is a reveal (however the song plays in full in the trailer, it's just structured different from the others)

The animation should be a little edgy. Give things hard angles, stay away from the bulbous smooth (Modern) Disney look.

Really go nuts with the bat designs. Embrace the warrior cats OC-ness of it. Let all the background bats be just as vibrant and wacky as the main cast.

Everyone's bond should sorta look like them, kinda the way that dogs kinda look like their owners. Solovet's bond should look like a total villain. Euripides should look like Vikus. I mean, Aurora's got that gold thing going on which Luxa also has with the crown. The bonds gotta look like they belong together spiritually.

The nibblers need to have more of a role before the marks of secret. Have them in the background of other shots, have them actually get lines in the jungle, see if they can be more present at the council discussing the plague, write some new scenes for them, etc. I wouldn't even be against them inventing a new nibbler character and putting them on one of the earlier quests. The audience should already know and care about them before we see them being horribly brutalized in a reenactment of a real world genocide.

Ares, and all the other bats for that matter, need to have very expressive eyes. They don't always get a lot of lines so they should still have a way to have visible presence in the scene's that they're in.

Every time the bats do that thing where they detect rats and their ears shoot up it should play a musical sting

All the underland creatures/factions should have their own leitmotif. Ripred's lieitmotif should be this uncanny blending of both the rat's theme but also with hints of the Regalians and Gregor's. After Gregor think's that boots has died in the labyrinth there should be this super dramatic and gutwrenching theme, and then all the music just stops for the rest of the movie until they reunite and then the music can come back. The most you get is like a minimalist drum and base sequence, but nothing properly melodic until we know that boots is safe.

The sequence Gregor escaping with Ares and Pearlpelt from the labyrinth should be all in one take.

Every time Gregor slips into the Rager state it should be accompanied by a recognizable sound effect sting and have it's own sound effect and muscial sting. Something like glass shattering mixed with reverb and pitch shifted down. Rager sequences should be in first person and show just how much he's dissociated from the violence he's doing. The audience just sees that split vision with all the weak points highlighted and one by one they get crossed out.

I hope they cast someone appropriately nasally to play Ripred, I think he should be a little high pitched and scrungly. However, I would make an exception if they somehow got Kieth David to voice him. I would be very unsatisfied if they cast Ryan Reynolds

I hope they cast someone with a deep voice to play Ares. He needs to be big and imposing and scary. He needs to be like the big kid at the playground. The fact that there's a more pained sensitive side to him needs to be a revelation. He needs to be a bit monstrous so you can understand why everyone sees him that way, and why he's dying not to be seen that way but has basically given up and accepted how the world sees him. I would be very Unsatisfied if they cast Ryan Reynolds. It would be fucking hilarious if they cast Chris Pratt... I would hate it but it would probably work and that makes me very mad.

I don't really care how Gregor is cast. Caleb McLaughlin would be a perfect Gregor, but he's all grown up now. He could probably still voice him but it wouldn't be the same. I do not care so long as it's not Ryan Reynolds.

Please don't have anyone call Gregor "Greg"... that just feels wrong. Well maybe Ripred would do it specifically to piss him off.

Henry needs to have a dumb haircut, like... it has to be stupid and ostentatious.

The audience should get to see Ripred from close to Gregor's perspective often. Have the camera right over his shoulder and tilted up to see just how tall this beast is.

Let us see more of the happy times that are alluded to at the start of the marks of secret. Even if it's just a montage, let us see them being normal. Let us see Gregor and Ares play that ball game and see the kids just hanging out. Please 😭

Make Gregor more talkative. There's great moments of internal monologue that could be lost in a screen adaptation, let him talk to Ares or Luxa or even temp about it.

In the code of claw Ares should go with him to the prophecy room to learn that he's going to die. Gregor should tell him about the stone knight and it can be something they share. You can even set it up with them doing the bond handshake there while laying on the floor so that it's a visual callback later (Fuck, I just thought of that and now I'm destroyed again).

I mentioned this in another post, but I think it would be cool to have Gregor get a walkman or other battery powered music player from the museum. They can have a few tunes to bond over, but eventually they have to take the batteries out to put them into flashlights.

A huge missed opportunity in the books is how basically every single human in the Underland we see is royalty or part of the military. I think it would be cool to let us see a bit more of how the regular people live. Maybe have one or two characters who aren't royal or soldiers.

Earlier entries should try to cut away from the violence, simply showing the character's reactions to the horrible things happening around them. Later entries should stop hiding it, paralleling the loss of innocence of the characters. By the code of claw Gregor and Ares, or at the very least Ripred, should be allowed to swear. There's no way you're getting that story on screen without at least a PG 13 rating, and these people just witnessed a genocide and are about to kill a bunch of people in a war. Gregor can say "Holy shit" instead of "aww Jeez" at least once. I also just think "What's your plaaaaaaan" is great but "What's your fucking plan?" lands pretty hard as well.

Don't make the underland too visible. Don't add global illumination. Let there be darkness, let there be long shadows, let us only barely see distant things. When Gregor finally gets echolocation then make the distant things visible through a strange shader... but cut out the bit where he can echolocate heat that makes no sense.

Ms. Cormaci needs to sound exactly like how she did in the audiobook, this isn't up for debate.

When the Bane calls Gregor and Ares to battle it needs to be one of the most disturbing, blood chilling things the audience has ever heard. It needs to be loud, and painful, and monstrous. You gotta see that the pup we all loved and coddled has fully lost it and become this fascist ball of hatred and murder and violence. It should cut through the audience's core and silence everything else in the scene. Just have it hold there after he's shouted, showing them locking eyes on each-other and cutting back in between the two. Yes, the Bane has completely been subsumed as a symbol of his side, but so has Gregor. He's in the black armor, he's the figurehead as well. There are parallels, y'all.

Let the Shiners be at least 20% less awful. They're funny, but let them have their hero moment where they're redeemed in the marks of secret rather than saving it for the end of code of claw.

Old Hamnet in the flashbacks to the flooding of the garden should be hot. Flashback Ripred who was there is of course also hot. He remains so in the present as well.

The narrative that Gregor is told in the first book, that the natives just let Sandwitch have the Underland because they weren't really using it... it's heavily implied that's a lie, especially after we learn about the Diggers and how they were genocided and basically expunged from history. I think there should be a direct callback to it, make this implication an explicit part of the story.

Give my girl Aurora some more lines. She goes on all these adventures and never gets to be more than "Luxa's bat".

Oh no I hit character limit for this post... uh... I have a lot of thoughts and I probably will have more in the future 😅. Probably way more than you asked for but you opened the floodgates and this was the result.

Thank you for the ask!

[haveihitanerve]

Gregor: I’m fine.

Ripred: Lol, no you’re not. But lucky for you, I don’t care. Wanna go fight other rats?

—

Ares: I’m fine.

Luxa: Okay, I thought you were fine, but now I’m worried.

—

Gregor: I’m fine.

Howard: Is no one going to mention the fact that he’s bleeding from a stab wound?

—

Luxa: I’m fine.

Aurora: Going by historical precedent, I have the feeling I should’ve called Howard an hour ago.

—

Ripred: I’m fine.

Vikus: Perhaps I should invest in a dictionary. It seems that this entire family lacks an understanding of basic English vocabulary.

[aldoodles]

Happy cousins!

[unorthodoxiguana]

I might have seen this said before, on a different post, but I couldn't find it, so I'm just gonna say a few words on this, partially because of that and partially because it's been ages since I've last read the series, despite it being ingrained into my head.

Almost all of the characters in TUC have moments where they are genuine assholes. Gregor has a few points where he says some genuinely disrespectful shit. Luxa, as well as most of the other humans (including Gregor, although arguably to a lesser extent), are deeply prejudiced against the gnawers. Ripred, is, well, Ripred (look, I love him, we all do, but he's a dick).

Even Vikus, arguably one of the nicest characters in the series, admires Sandwich (I think, been a while), a man who literally used poison to commit genocide in the name of stealing land that didn't belong to him.

The only characters I can think of in TUC that don't have flaws are the ones who also have the least lines: Aurora, Dulcet, Miravet. Oh, and all of those characters? Probably also prejudiced against gnawers, just never explicitly stated (to my knowledge), probably due to their obscene lack of lines. Of course there are characters like Lizzie and Hazard, who are literal fucking children so as nice as they are, I think it's safe to say they can't really be counted up here. (Should probably also mention that Gregor and Luxa are also children, just ones that were forced to grow up faster, sadly).

Then again, all of these characters have redeeming qualities. Gregor can be disrespectful at times, but that's mainly because of the stress placed upon him by the various bullshit situations he has to go through, and he usually apologizes after. Luxa and all the humans are deeply prejudiced (actually, I should probably add the fliers might be in that category too), but they are basically raised from birth to hate and kill gnawers, and vice versa. plus, it's shown that despite what is practically being brainwashed from birth, they can grow and change to overcome their own bigotry and accept gnawers as genuine people, as well as friends.

And yes, Ripred, the glorious bastard himself, is a dick. But he's also a war veteran who's lost his family, and most of the respect from his people, meaning he mainly works with humans, who tend to treat him with suspicion, if not outright hostility (until they get to know him). And he makes up for it by letting his guard down at times to be a father to the traumatized pups that dragged him into their pack.

Point is, flawed characters are one of the things that make TUC so great. They're not few and hid away either, they're everywhere, with visible flaws. If you want to make a good character, TUC is a great series to use as an example. Everything casts a shadow, just like every character has a flaw. If they don't, you probably just can't see them from your angle. And if they don't? Like, at all? Give them some, just make sure the shadow they cast matches up with the object itself.

[snekatiemainy]

Some Interesting quotes about Henry and Ares' relationship in book 2.

"Like Henry, you are under the impression that I am a servant."

This is what Ares says to Gregor when Gregor was making demands and trying to order him around. I haven't read book 1 in a while, but I can't recall any standout moments about the ways that Ares and Henry interacted. But this gives a good idea of how it tended to be between them. Henry treated Ares like a servant.

"Henry chose me because I was wild and known to disobey many of the rules of my land. I chose Henry because I was flattered and he was royal and under his protection I knew I could be absolved of many things."

And this is SUCH an interesting insight into Ares and Henry's relationship, tbh. They originally gravitated towards each other for what the other could provide. "I was flattered." That's so... I don't know, superficial? The whole thing is very transactional, as my friend @apple8ees described it.

And also: "It was not all bad. We flew well together and shared many of the same tastes."

The phrasing of 'all bad,' too. The implication that there WAS a lot of bad- likely Henry ordering Ares around like a servant.

Like, their relationship was definitely not the best. That's not to say they weren't close and didn't care about each other- of course they did. But that doesn't mean their interactions will always be healthy.

From the looks of it Henry initially wanted Ares because he was a rebel, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was also because he's very powerful, too. But none of that is about who Ares really is? What he values? Henry wanted a big strong and wild flyer to benefit himself. And Ares wanted the benefits of royal bond. I think that Henry, maybe subconsciously, cared a lot more about what Ares could give to him, than about what he could give to Ares. And it led to that imbalance.

Honestly, it had to have been doomed from the start.

(Makes me wish we had more insight into Aurora and Luxa's relationship- we know they bonded young, but what else? But I imagine it had a lot more to do with a real bond between them than what Ares and Henry had.)

So what is it like for Ares then? To be held back by his grief and the hole left behind by Henry? All while finding a new bond who, eventually, he gets truly close to. Someone who treats him as an equal and friend instead of a servant.

[returntoregalia]

I just listened to the most recent episode, and was thinking of your discussion on how normal it is for people to rescue each other in the Underland, and how that especially applies to the bats. Bonds are obligated of course, but even for strangers, there's a cultural expectation that bats will save people from falling unless they have good reason not to. We're told multiple times that humans are taught from toddlerhood that any bat, anywhere, will catch them. Henry demonstrates this in book one, and Luxa says they would have caught anyone that fell from the bridge, if needed. In the Bane trip, Aurora catches Boots and Temp. In book 3, Gregor notes it would probably usually be awkward to randomly ride Queen Athena. But in an emergency? No complaints from the Queen. I don't think it's a bad cultural norm or an external limitation placed on the bats. If I could fly, I feel like I'd want to save someone's life if I could, even if we weren't best friends. But I think it's an interesting cultural norm for the underland. Enemies (like rats/humans) learn to kill each other for no real reason, but allies (like bats with humans) also learn to save each other without any need for an emotional bond. It's not the same as an actual trusting relationship, just like killing an enemy doesn't require personal hatred.

Whoa this is actually SUCH a good observation! It's really interesting to think about how the bats must get taught from a young age to be on the lookout for falling humans, but the humans get taught to go ahead and jump off of high places all they want.

Thanks for this ask; this is very insightful!

[rin-solo]

Cartoon Series Pt. 4 | Gregor and the Marks of Secret

Now here is the actual part 4 in my cartoon art series for TUC! I am doing one wallpaper for every book/quest. Are you interested in seeing more of these? You can find the previous parts on my profile.

Yes, the style is close to Phineas and Ferb; Idk why but, for some reason, I fell in love with the way the characters look in this style.

Disclaimer: the bg is a stock image; the rest is drawn by me!