#i look at rook and go 'oughghg my precious baby'

[multi-lefaiye]

happy blorbo blursday! if you're participating today I'd love to hear about whatever oc is in the brain microwave as of late :)

OKAY i wanted to answer the Rook Vibes asks first b/c i decided that i'm gonna talk about rook here :D i did talk about them a bit with those vibes, but i want to talk about them more because they are my special little guy.

first up, let me share some art of my baby <3 this is a color palette meme thing i did for them! i randomly generated a color palette and found a random pose and outfit and went wild.

[Image Description: A drawing of my OC Rook in a limited color palette, shown from around the knees up. The palette is primarily made up of shades of blue, with a vibrant red as well. Rook is a lean person with scars littering their skin and large, pointed ears. They have eyes with black sclerae and colored irises, short dark hair, long claws, and sharp teeth. In the drawing, Rook is wearing a loose wrap around their chest and shoulders and a long skirt. They are holding a baseball bat with one hand, resting it on their shoulders, and their other hand is resting on their hip. The background of the drawing is dark blue with a red stripe diagonally across it. End ID.]

ANYWAY so rook is the protagonist of a wip i keep going back and forth on the name of, but for now i just call it 'rook' as a working title. simple title, it's fine. the basic premise of the story is that it's about rook, a monster that's kinda like. some sort of zombie shapeshifter creature. rook was the victim of a violent, horrific murder, and they were resurrected an unknown amount of time later by someone who wanted a pet monster to order around and do his bidding.

instead of becoming their creator's little pet monster, though, rook ends up being found by a local woman named kay, who sees humanity in them when no one else does and takes them in. she and rook become friends, and a large chunk of the story centers around rook, who has no memory of their existence as a human, trying to Be A Person.

however, WELL, rook does know their death wasn't pretty, and as much as they want to be a nice person and have a happy life, they also want some kind of justice (or vengeance, whatever works). another big element of the story is rook trying to hunt down the one who killed them and get their fucking revenge. already a daunting task, made harder by the fact that they don't remember anything about what happened in the first place.

i'm very into stories that center around recovery, mental health, and identity, so that's a lot of what rook's story is. with an added element of "rook wants to do some murder so so badly."

anyway uhhh some facts about rook:

i have a lot of thoughts about rook's powers and the drawbacks of those powers, as well as why they have them in the first place, but honestly that's probably worth a whole separate post. i've thought about making them a void-walker, but i want them to have their own lore. (plus, well, rook is a shapeshifter and void-walkers can't do that)

rook was given their name by their creator, a man who's obsessed with chess metaphors. they're also not the only monster he's created--boy's goin for the whole set. they initially rejected this name, but eventually they come to reclaim it as their own. they make their own meaning.

for a while, rook really leans into the perception that they are a terrible, horrible monster who only causes harm. they refer to themself as a devil and a demon and a bunch of other shit, because there's a period in their story where they decide to be just as monstrous as they were "meant" to be.

i wrote a short story a couple of years ago about rook's murder and all the backstory around that, only to decide later that none of that was canon anymore for the most part. welp!

the actual perfect rook song is louie zong's song pumpkin's revenge. once again, if i had the energy to make something with them based on this song.... it'd be all over for y'all (i'm kidding)

rook loves animals, but unfortunately most animals are afraid of them :(

rook is a shapeshifter, but they don't actually have that much ability to change their physical form without a large amount of effort and energy. there are a lot of things about rook's appearance that generally can't change, regardless of the form they take, such as their scars and sharp teeth.

okay yeah that's my baby <3 i love them so so dearly and they matter so so much to me <3