#scratchverse

[softgrungeprophet]

waaaaa i commissioned @noisyghost to draw TJ (and his ferrets) and look at him... cute boy... 😍

🥺🥺🥺

oh i just noticed the ferrets don't have whiskers 😂 but I can do that myself haha

ta-daa, whiskers lol

[djhypnotize]

🔥 HZATRON Skratch EP OUT NOW! 🔥

[softgrungeprophet]

as mentioned in my op tags: i could PROBABLY find a way to make analogue costume changes work for most of the characters… but also it is a pain in the ass. lol.

of course for some of them it would still be a magical girl transformation, particularly for like... the illusionists like the psykopomp or auraglow, and maybe still for scratch since their flames involve teleportation anyway (which is essentially what the magical transformation is; teleporting a different outfit on) but for others like dr. wormwood, it's like, her power is super strength and LARPing...

and then there's TJ who only starts wearing a costume after he realizes he can pretend he's a bootleg power ranger... lmao

there's an element to the upgraded costumes that can be handwaved to some extent in that they are made by specialty tailors in most cases, not by the heroes themselves but by people such as Sonam/Solomon (Sulum) or other tailors... but that's just in terms of like, form factor and useful features rather than anything else.

And in the case of eg Geckonyx if she can't henshin her way between glove and headwear styles then that makes it so that the conflicting needs of both being a wallcrawler and venomous, which is to say full vs fingerless gloves and helmet vs mask, is more of a PITA— though hypothetically I could probably also say she has a bit of a specialty case w/ the construction of gloves and helmet being a built in technological thing. Like, the whole thing w/ the Garden of Eden Meta-Atelier is that Sonam is a shapeshifter so they are in fact working on shapeshifting textiles, so that on its own is pretty easy to handwave if we assume that Naomi goes to Sonam's shop for her costume even though Sonam's shop is technically illegal and not certified to be in business. (lol) Or that there are certified metahuman tailors with similar tech of course. which itself raises the question of like, well I'd need to double check to see if Naomi is registered as a vigilante because there's a reason Sonam is blackmarket, because of material restrictions, approval processes, etc. and if Naomi has carbon nanotubes in her costume it would likely either need to be blackmarket or approved through bureaucratic loopholes, which, either is probably workable particularly because the CNTs' main function in her costume is to allow her to wallcrawl without being barefoot... as opposed to being like... some weird body armor or smth

feels like kind of a cop-out to make all the costume stuff in scratchverse work via magical girl style transformations but also. it does make my life easier. lmao.

[starrykitty013]

This is my oc that is part of the scratch verse, her name is Ness

[ask-uwu-scratch]

(If the text is like this it means it's taken)

Ok so, currently we have:

Gun Doc - taken by @ask-scratch-but-with-a-gun

Bussinesman Doc- Free

Baby Doc - taken by @ask-baby-scratch

UwU Doc - taken by @ask-uwu-scratch

Troll Doc - taken by Someone™, if you don't want to run the blog just say it, and i'll give this cursed job to someone else

Scottie Doc - Free

Computer head Doc - taken by @the-guiding-anon

(If you can think of any more docs just say it, this is gonna be a fucking scratch army)

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

back in 2023 i did a little doodle with a handful of my OCs and their relevant pride flags so I thought I would do that for TJ and co. since he wasn't really kicking around yet then

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

inspired to draw this by a prompt in this comicfury thread lol

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

character exploration aka "boobies"

I think she goes for the pixie cut eventually 'cause i like it and i think it's cute and I Love Butch and also TJ-related character reasons wrt sensory preferences, but also i'm not sure how long it would take her to be comfortable with haircuts because of plot stuff.

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

damn just realized i missed femslash friday (in addition to february 😂)

yuri ysaturday

anyway added color to one of the sketches i never finished for oc kiss week. decided it would be fun to draw hypothetical t4t girl-on-girl Lilith x JJ...

EDIT just realized 2 months later i forgot JJ's face tattoo lol

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

dumb joke secondary to actual prop design/worldbuilding/whatever

(Nina is TJ's dead mom lol)

notes:

referencing this obv

i considered his family doing an empty niche in a mausoleum but the locker room linoleum floor aesthetics are so bad and TJ is a rambunctious very active outside kind of guy so small empty grave instead. when he does eventually die he'll be cremated (unlike his mom) and they'll just bury the urn in front of the existing headstone.

TBH I considered multiple things to put on TJ's headstone and I'm still not sold on "loving son & grandson" because it feels a little generic but, no more generic than "beloved daughter" etc. lol — maybe if i come up w/ something better in the future i'll change it.

also i just copy-pasted the cyrillic for TJ's mom's name so if it's like... wrong... I don't THINK it's wrong but if it is lmk.

(Yanina Anatoliivna Stasiuk ~> TJ's mom's side is Ukrainian)

Also, no, TJ does not actually die at age 31 lol — but there is a point where he is disappeared and his family is told he's dead. His dad doesn't necessarily believe it but what else can you do 🤷

as far as all the crosses go, fwiw TJ is extremely lapsed but he was baptized as a baby and went to sunday school for a little bit as a kid and they do occasional xmas and easter stuff. dad is also kind of lapsed but btwn dad and baba (and aunt and paternal grandparents' influence) some crosses make sense and his empty grave is probably in a catholic cemetery, so they might require a religious symbol anyway...

TJ was raised in the latin tradition but mom's side is mostly eastern catholics (tho mom herself kind of assimilated) so eastern cross is partly just about his heritage in this case rather than him being raised in an eastern catholic tradition... though i'm sure there are things he does at home with baba (like easter) that are more influenced by eastern catholicism

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

not new art, but recolors of existing art. since it's 🌈pride month🌈 I thought it would be fun to do some pride-themed recolors of some of these guys' costumes.

I stuck to just these four to keep it simple but in theory I could do everyone lol

i also did a more accurate-to-the-flag variant for Veritas' intersex colored one

Bright yellow catsuit just strikes me as a bit much, is all 😅 — anyway, lesbian and intersex for Kala! I couldn't come up with any good puns for Veritas or Scratch lol

more closeups:

agender and rainbow/gay pride for Seth — they can't magically change the color of their costume but they can change the flame color, so... that's always fun.

Lilith and TJ have the same color schemes since they're both bisexual and, eventually, both trans lol — and let me tell you, not news, but the bisexual flag colors are such a pain in the ass to work with. But you know what. It's in-character for TJ's attempt at a bi-colored costume to be fugly. the Bikopomp and BIfactor... Bykopomp? well anyway.

Lilith actually would be able to change the color or appearance of her costume at will since she's got that whole "illusions" thing going on.

For comparison, these characters' actual costumes below:

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

I've been practicing drawing Lilith's face recently (I have a hard time with her big blue eyes lol) and I doodled this on the side, based on that sailor moon screencap—

(i drew her in sailor mercury's outfit because of the hermes/mercury theming in her actual costume lol)

sailor moon screencap in question:

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

redid/repurposed one of the kissy sketches to fit what makes sense to me — imagine this as a reunion kiss of sorts. they haven't seen each other in at least a year, let alone kissed.

[softgrungeprophet]

commissioned kadavarium on bsky to draw TJ and Kent and I think it turned out very nice 😏🤭

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

Bonus of Veritas, REfactor and the Psykopomp all next to each other. 'Cause as I'm imagining it now, Veritas ends up working with them and is part of why REfactor even gets a fancy costume...

edited to remove seams on Veritas' costume

edited again in April 2025 to add fem version of REfactor

and again in May to update Kala's height lol

[softgrungeprophet]

realized i can post this for @ockissweek

If you want to read TJ and Lilith's first (and second) kisses—

—here's a little-to-no-context snippet:

Valentine's Day

2023

"So it is you…"

A familiar form, and a familiar face; narrow-bodied, blue-eyed, pale-skinned and slightly flushed from anger or maybe something else. A sharpness in her eyes.

"Oh, don't act like you knew this whole time!" Lilith glowered at him.

The hint of a grin tugged at TJ's mouth and he said, "You've been stalking me."

Lilith flushed a deeper red. "I—"

"You liiike me…" TJ let himself smile, a teasing lilt to his voice.

"Why would I like you?! You're—" Lilith fumed as she searched for the right words. "You're insufferable! And stupid! And I wasn't stalking you! I was just keeping an eye out! You know, covering all my bases—"

TJ kissed her.

She tensed at first, startled. Then softened, one gloved hand coming to rest on TJ's face.

Tensed again— shoved him away with a grunt.

Then she disappeared, vanishing into the air with a rustle, the only indication of her trajectory a loose stone that skittered away from an invisible foot.

For a moment, TJ just stared in that direction."…Shit."

***

Three months later

May 17th, 2023

12:45 am

TJ sighed as he turned out the lights [at work], making his final detour to change into a spare set of clothes in the bathroom.

Outside air— what a relief from the humid stuffiness of the dishwasher and sinks. No chemical smells, no mish-mash of wet food. Just the brisk night, clean and clear and…

TJ lit a cigarette with a snap of his fingers and a little spark of light, and took a long drag, glancing up at the under-lit clouds before letting the smoke drift from his mouth.

Of course, it mostly came out as breath, a thin mist. The weirder side of his powers, filtering and purifying the toxins he'd grown so accustomed to. As long as it didn't purify the important part (nicotine) he didn't really give a shit either way, but even after a year, that didn't make it any less strange to fill the negative space with… what? Warm, dry air? Vaguely, faintly acrid, but more like stale days-old smoke lingering in an enclosed space than anything freshly smoldering.

…He couldn't help feeling like he was being watched.

A familiar feeling at this point, and a familiar car parked in front of the restaurant…

An olive green Mercedes, a head of curly crimson hair, and a sharp stare tracking him as he sauntered over with his cigarette dangling between his lips.

Lilith rolled the window down and before TJ could say anything, snapped, "I've been sitting here for almost two hours. Get in."

TJ huffed. "You really are a stalker."

Her face pinched, but she didn't rise to the bait for once. Just said, "Let me give you a ride home."

"You literally parked next to my truck." Blued-out Datsun, directly beside her Mercedes.

But TJ paused, then said, "…Ah, fuck it."

He tossed his backpack into the footwell and slid into the passenger seat anyway, letting a cloud of smoke halo around his head and dissipate strangely as his lungs processed it and the gentle breeze thinned it away, half steam.

"Next time, maybe you should…" TJ twirled his cigarette between his fingers, reaching into its fibers to waterlog the embers until it fizzled out, and pocketed it as he shut the door.

"…I don't know… text me or something?"

Lilith grabbed him by the collar and tugged him close.

TJ's turn to be slightly surprised by a kiss, but he immediately relaxed into her touch with a soft, curious sound in the back of his throat, and reached up to tangle his fingers into her hair.

She didn't seem to mind.

Though she briefly parted from him to mutter, "You smell like dog food," before a sudden shift occurred in the interior of the car and his body— As if someone had just skimmed all the foulness from the air and fabric, trapping it in a filter to leave behind something much cleaner, albeit slightly empty and vaguely synthetic (illusory).

TJ laughed under his breath, and Lilith kissed him quiet.