I was still in a bit of an Avatar mood after finishing the February NHML pic. I liked the idea of doing an Ask with Azula, though I wasn’t sure if hooking up with the original “Gaang” would be her first priority in the Studio. Zuko’s sort of part of that group, and I thought she’d want to reconnect with him. I’ve talked before about how some people’s personalities shift when coming into the Studio, and that’s how you can have villains and world conquerors living alongside heroes and the like. Canon Azula probably could not function in any society where she isn’t in charge of everyone, so Studio Azula’s a bit more stable and sociable. Hopefully this version of her can continue to have a more enjoyable relationship with her brother than what occurred in the show.
I’m not sure how to talk about this one, and I feel like I will probably not represent my thought process well. I don’t really know Luck that well, but I don’t picture him sitting around daydreaming about meeting someone in the Studio like some characters might. I know he likes to seek out powerful opponents, and that might parallel into his Studio self wanting to seek out, like… big cocks or something, but it just didn’t sit right with me. Similarly, I’ve had some Asks I’ve had to pass over trying to pair Luck up with other eclectic-powered characters based solely on their powers being related. I don’t want to do those Asks, because I feel like they’re inviting answers with a lot of electricity flying around, or some electroshock stuff that I just don’t have any interest or intention of drawing. So this is sort of a compromise between a couple of different Luck Asks I didn’t feel I could work with, in an attempt to still give people some Luck yaoi crossover action I hope they will like.
So I don’t play or know much about Genshin Impact. All I know about Bennett is he’s an adventurer with bad luck who picks up a lot of injuries. Maybe off of that I could’ve paired him up with a woman who plays into his gimmick, I don’t know, but nobody really came to mind (and there’s no women from Genshin Impact in the Studio yet). I decided to go instead with a random pairing for this Ask, picking Mermista from She-Ra for a handful of reasons. One is that she definitely has the right energy for pegging; it’s very easy to picture her being the top in a heterosexual relationship. Another is just that I thought her colors would compliment Bennett’s colors well. Lastly, I just really like Mermista and had already been thinking of doing something with her again. So even if there’s no thematic element tying these two together, I think for the purposes of Bennett expanding his experience I can see them teaming up.
I didn’t really like the idea of nailing Cocotte down to a “favorite” partner. We’ve locked her in pretty tightly with Zangya through other Asks, but I’m not really invested in setting up any other permanent or recurring pairings with her at this time. However, I did like the idea of throwing her together with a new partner for this Ask, and I chose Shego as that person for a couple of different reasons. One is just that I’d already been considering doing something with Shego again, and this seemed like as good an opportunity as any. Another is that I thought their skin tones would compliment each other nicely. The final reason, though, is that I’ve begun to really like the idea of this Pride Trooper, a warrior of justice, unwittingly associating herself with a variety of people who were villains in their pre-Studio lives.
I admit that I’ve sort of fallen out of the habit of working on Applebridge content. I think I lost a little bit of my passion for these characters somewhere along the way, though I’m confident it’ll come back eventually. In the meantime, I saw this Ask as a good excuse to draw Loren again. Loren’s something of a simple, straight-forward boy, and I thought leaning into that element of his character might be kinda fun in this answer.