quality is relative I'm posting all of inktober in one chapter

btw follow me on instuh at @starboundseraphim because that's where I post everything five minutes after I draw it. I've kind of shifted over there because it's easier to open up but also because I have this great group chat with some friends and 

yeah I'll still answer PMs on here I just forget sometimes??? Plus I like spam everyone and then I end up with these endless streams of "hi" "hello" "hello" "nice to see you" going down for months /(._.)\

I drew all the amalgamalgamalgams for inktober. Imma try to be quick with the descriptions but I will go over how each character feels about their "true forms" as depicted here and some design notes and quick trivia because these are some of my favorite characters of all time and I can't get over them even if their book is such a clusterfuck it actively screws over me and all my other characters 

RED

"Age": 18

Theme Songs: My Time by Bo En, Our Trauma by Lauren Bousfield, Anathema by Twenty-One Pilots

Primary Beast Form: Wolf/Direwolf (The Amalgams can shapeshift into any creature they want but they sure as hell pick favorites, which are sort of their "defaults". They retain most of their own features in this form.) 

Shapeshifting Specifications: Can't. (Red's lack of flexibility in self-perception as mixed with his intense self-hatred and perpetual anxiety make it near impossible for him to shapeshift without getting stuck.) 

Myers-Briggs: INFJ

Passive Power (their individual, unique ability in addition to shapeshifting): backwards time travel going to a maximum of around a day (he can not skip past that nor his previous "split" point)

Anxiety: off the charts

Wears: the same goddamn trenchcoat all the time

Favorite color: you get one guess

Red's true form shows up in a few other chapters in this and the last book but he never uses it... not to say it won't show up in the book at some point ;) If Red can't even take on other forms dealing with his "truest" version of himself is going to be utterly impossible. He sees himself as dangerous to everyone around himself, so his true form is... fuckin' scary. He's really in denial though. Red is really, really in denial.

ELLE

"Age": 17 (with group), 21-24 (in public, above legal age of consent)

Theme Songs: Moonstruck Blossom (Kirby Triple Deluxe OST, hear me out here), Pretty Little Head by Eliza Rickman, Cut My Hair by Monika, i want you by Summer Camp.

Primary Beast Form: firefly

Shapeshifting Specifications: has greater versatility of wardrobe than the rest, who generally have to manually alter things, furthermore she can take clothes she shapeshifts on off of her body (though they must by attached to her by a thread). She also possesses the ability to alter her human form so she is hard to pick out in a crowd, even for the other Amalgams.

Myers-Briggs: xSTJ

Passive Power: charmspeaking 

(no one knows where she keeps getting those knives from though) 

Favorite food: red wine

Knives: no one has lived to get a good census but experts say probably all the knives. Next time a knife is gone in your house blame Elle. Also possibly consider leaving the area at your earliest convenience. 

Done With Your Shit: Absolutely

Fashion: On Point 

Elle's one of the Amalgams whose true form kind of... grows out of her body? There are a lot of mandibles and limbs involved. It's probably a lot worse than this going down her body. She's quite comfortable with it herself but doesn't like to show it off in public because it's somewhat... well, not embarrassing, but rather personal. Private business.Anyways as shown above she doesn't really view it as a separate entity from herself like Red does 

DAMIEN

"Age": 13

Theme Songs: Messidona by  Driver Friendly, Natural Anthem by the Postal Service, Jackrabbit by San Fermin.

Primary Beast Form: deer/finch/rabbit (I uh... don't know what I'm doing with him)

Shapeshifting Specifications: none really 

Myers-Briggs: ESFP

Passive Power: incredible singer ("that's not a power," says Mary, saltily)

Shaped like: a friend, or a potato

Eligibility for Disney Princesshood?: you betcha

Self-Esteem: poor

Damien also kind of just... develops his (like a magical girl transformation but instead he turns into a cervitaur who may or may not have wings and definitely has full peacock plumage which I kind of symbolically rendered here). He sees his true form as a kind of release from everyone's expectations and judgements, a point at which he is most in tune with himself and who he wants to be.

ANGEL

"Age": 16

Theme Songs: Everything Stays from Adventure Time

That's it I literally never file anything under her 

Primary Beast Form: bear (mama bear) 

Shapeshifting Specifications: also none 

Myers-Briggs: ESFJ (kind of lapses into her "shadow" INTP though) 

Passive Power:  Incredible capacity for picking up intellectual subjects. Taught herself how to read in two months. 

Mom Friend?: Mom friend.

Favorite Genre: Classics, the Dictionary

Favorite Hairstyle: the soon-to-die side braid of the anime mom

Aspirations for the future: owning an SUV, acquiring a "facebook" 

Angel absolutely refuses to confront the effects of her own clinginess on her two charges, Angel and Trace, and I've never really worked out all the details of her true form (this was my last drawing) but it's definitely getting hands when I figure out where to put them... along with those tails, to draw in and strangle its victims. Like Red, Angel is one of the "let's stuff our true nature under the rug and sit on it" crew, but Angel is more prone to fall into it than Red is and Red is concerned with losing control of his body and mind because it will hurt everyone else and Angel just wishes they were all human. As such she sees whatever part of her clearly isn't, the inhuman instincts, the times her empathy falls through or when she gets something wrong... that's a monster. That's a dangerous, disgusting monster... but when it catches up to her, she can't find an in-between, so the only explanation is that she has to be all of those things...

(oh yeah those are wisdom teeth angel's theming is bad and I feel bad) 

DYLAN

"Age": whatever you feel most comfortable with, baby (don't listen to him he's 17 and committed)

Theme Songs: March to the Sea by Twenty One Pilots, Schizophrenia by Jukebox The Ghost, Alcohol by Sisyphus (this one's explicit kids)

(Disclaimer: never in my life have I ever been able to find good music for Dylan. Nothing fits)

Primary Beast Form: fox

Shapeshifting Specifications: Dylan has the best self-esteem but his DNA is also thoroughly chimaeraed to hell and back... they actually WANTED him to be a shapeshifter so he's like an ubershapeshifter now. Dylan can half-transform, he can do animals don't exist, but he always has the distinctive darker streaks of skin (he has something close to lentigo/giant congenital melanocytic nevi) or something equivalent, like fur patterns, no matter how he transforms.

He also has three split consciousnesses and the ability to warp minor lifeforms' lifespans (he can make plants and small animals literally age up and die) in his true form. Dylan is a chaos god.

Myers-Briggs: ExFP. Probably N but I digress.

Passive Power: See above.

Pick Up Lines Per Hour (PULPH): ~5, about 40 around Red (his boyfriend)

Committed: Very

Flirtacious: Very

Into Guys: VERY.

Of: Three minds here, gentlemen.

Dylan's is more animalistic but I really just

love drawing him like this  (I love drawing Dylan in general he's fun)

That's a cat and a dog skull there btw they're not the same and would be more distinct if I could actually draw.

This was a redraw of this:

and when I finished all 12 I went back and did this:

MIMSY

"Age": no one knows 

Theme Songs: This Place is a Prison by the Postal Service, Star (Undertale OST), Buy The Stars by Marina and the Diamonds

Primary Beast Form: cat

Shapeshifting Specifications: albinism.

Myers-Briggs: INFP

Passive Power: Somehow possesses the ability to remember crucial details of the group's past, which may tie into latent powers she refuses to disclose to the group (Red's tried to knock specifics out of her but it appears that some trauma may have sealed much of it shut). 

Favorite Conversation Partner: herself

Characters: several hundred, reportedly, all of whom are cats

Art Skills: poor but she tries very hard and only uses a stick and occasionally MS Paint (when they're in the city)

Favorite Food: raw rabbit

Teeth: pointy

Mimsy's true form is kind of a guard between her and reality so I had her with it draped around her like a costume, or a pelt. I might keep the heart because even though it really detracts from any fierce nobility the design might have had I keep making Mimsy into more of a gremlin so what the heck 

GILLIAN

"Age": 15

Theme Songs: Aradia (Homestuck OST), Battle Against A True Dragonborn (SharaX Remix), BL1ND JUST1C3!!! (Homestuck OST) 

Primary Beast Form: turtle 

Shapeshifting Specifications: the death glare 

Myers-Briggs: ENTJ or ISTJ I haven't decided which 

Passive Power: limb regeneration

(can potentially sense lies in her true form) 

Hobbies: Keeping Everyone In Line, staring blankly at the cieling

Friendliness: like hugging a brick wall

Fuse: long, but when it goes off you and all your loved ones are in grave danger

Gillian sees her true form as a more powerful means of doing what she does on the regular anyways, which would be keeping people in check and keeping the group under control. 

MARY

"Age": 16 (she and Gillian were originally one experiment so they're like twins

Theme Songs:  Ham and Steak (Homestuck OST), Pupa by Morimori Atoshi, U N Owen Was Her (Touhou)

Primary Beast Form: falcon

Shapeshifting Specifications: Supposedly she can handle some of the less threatening creatures she reads about... you know, like dragons.

Myers-Briggs: ExTP

Passive Power: Mary is physically incapable of feeling fear. This informs most of her decisions.

Favorite Genre: Fantasy

Favorite Shows/Movies: Mary would die for anything with lots of violence, overblown dialogue, and dramatic fight sequences.

Ego: Through The Roof

Favorite Color: blue

Glasses: Are completely unneeded she wears them for the look

Mary's true form is still being revamped but she gets four wings and probably a divine sword or something because from her perspective she's the hero. Not just of the book. Of everything. Mary's the hero guys. Anyone who gets in her way is good as dead.

TRACE

"Age": 12-13

Theme Songs: Unity (just search the MAP), The Mother We Share by CHVRCHES, don't be afraid, you have just got your eyes closed by mum, You Are The Moon/Everything Is Alright (two different songs) for her and Adaline as a couple

Primary Beast Form: dragonfly (she doesn't shapeshift much)

Shapeshifting specifications: whatever it is, it'll find some way to sparkle.

Myers-Briggs: xNFP

Passive Power: WARPING THE VERY FABRIC OF SPACETIME ITSELF. (not that she can control it) 

Favorite Food: sugar.

Favorite Genre of Music: jazz

Glitter Glue?: if it's there it's in the hair

Trace's true form is a mannequin with her hair being a conduit for her actual spacetime manipulation. She's pretty okay with it as seen above to be honest I was not entirely sure what to do for her 

ADALINE

"Age": 12-13

Theme Songs: Gem Shards (Steven Universe OST), Snowy (Undertale OST), flowers by in love with a ghost, Little Clown by phemieC.

Primary Beast Form: mouse

Shapeshifting Specifications: the haunted eyes. Sometimes horns or physical deformities.

Myers-Briggs: IxFP

Passive Power: Her true form tends to come out in bits so she'll sort of develop her wendigo claws or start coughing up oil. Really that's... not a power? It's just sad?

Scarf: On 

Eyebrows: Lowered in general concern

Jumpy: like a kernel of popcorn in an oven

Softspoken: you bet

Both Addie and Trace's true forms have this doll-like, inanimate quality to them. However, in Addie's case, said beast is actually the whole reason she was made and it is a killing machine capable of moving at ludicrous speeds, possessing a maw large enough to fit a whole human inside, and horns spiked specifically for goring. This isn't even counting the dozen or so other ways this thing is made to kill you. This has a cyclical effect on her self-esteem essentially assuring she'll never 'gain control' over it (Angel telling her to bottle up her feelings so she doesn't kill everyone is not helping), but the stitches represent her self-control. She might not even be conscious within the will of the beast (like Red who is also... not there at all) but she can at least slow it. Somewhat.

ALEX

"Age": 15

Theme Songs: Colress Theme (Pokemon Black 2/White 2 OST), Indigo Heir (Homestuck OST), Techno Factory (Kirby OST) 

Primary Beast Form: salamander

Shapeshifting Specifications: none 

Myers-Briggs: ESFP

Passive Power: electrokinesis, electricity generation

Passions: memes, graphic design, possibly mixing music

Talents: he can charge computers by jabbing his finger in them

L33T H4CK3R SK1LLZ: non-existent

¿Hablas Espanol?: Más que el autor -_-

this was my first picture and yeah it's a cool salamander/olm thing (an olm being similar to salamanders and an ohm being a unit of electricity)

the symbolism is that it's fucking cool

this was a redraw of this:

which I hate because the colors ruined it and I like the lineart so much better bluh bluh

KALI

"Age": 17

Theme Songs: Control by Halsey, Ugly Betty (Homestuck OST), Avatar Beat (OFF OST), Eyes on Fire by the Blue Foundation

Primary Beast Form: serpent

Shapeshifting Specifications: the eye color. Generally it'll stay blue/purple.

Myers-Briggs: ENTP

Passive Power: immunity to other Amalgams' passive powers, where such an immunity would reasonably exist, general powers afforded as a means of countering them (she was supposed to be a last resort if an insurrection broke out)

aura powers also a plus 

what else do I need to say it's KALI 

Kali enjoys sitting in the maw of the beast. Literally, metaphorically, you name it. Kali will fight you. Kali fights everyone. Kali.