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Description
My boyfriend's birthday came and I hadn't yet settled on what to draw for him. I wanted to draw a couple of characters that had some meaning to us, possibly something romantic, but I couldn't settle on which characters to draw. Somewhere along the line I got the idea to create this, and the number of characters I added kept growing and growing. As nerdy as it may sound, these are characters representing our roleplaying characters over the past six or seven years (yes, since even before we started dating). This is only the sketch version because I forgot to bring the carefully-penciled final version when I scanned my pictures, so at some point I might replace this with a better scan of the final picture. I had thought about putting them all in some sort of generic fantasy medieval costumes, but that wasn't going to work, so I opted for a modern setting. It took a surprising amount of work figuring out what everyone would be wearing!

Clockwise, from the piano:
Phantom and Amaya, our two half-elves from Imperium MUD, the characters we were playing when we started dating. Amaya is a bard, and Phantom is her beloved. Lots of melodrama involved, but suffice to say they are madly in love, so that even though Amaya is singing a torch song for the whole club, really, she's just singing it to him.

Laena and Murkley, of a unique-to-the-setting orcish race. We played them about a year or two before we started dating, in an ill-fated game that didn't last too long, but it lasted long enough for there to be a weird sort of romantic tension between these two. He's the club bouncer. She's hitting on him.

Miria, Celia, Dias, and Kindle, seated around the table. Miria and Celia are from one game set in the Suikoden universe. You can see Celia in my "On the Rooftops" picture. Dias is from an older game, one we were playing around the time we got together. And Kindle is a superhero NPC from the game we're playing right now. None of these really had/have any romantic interests in their respective games, but they're all strong-willed women, and I like the thought of them hanging out together in a sort of ladies' night out. I think you can tell who the most talkative of them is. Also, Kindle is a teacher who has to deal with troublemakers and troubled kids pretty often. She is looking at the two young couples and thinking "One of these is trouble, and one of these is not."

Mena and Silvan, in the far foreground. I don't think I really need to introduce these two if you've spent much time at all looking in my gallery, but Silvan is my boyfriend's NPC in my game, and Mena is his not-girlfriend. I like how they don't even recognize that anybody else exists.

Finally, Ardith and Tori, seated on the left-hand side. An unfinished, on-hold game (sequel to the game with Celia and Miria). They are, as you can probably tell, nerds. In a fantasy setting, nerds are magicians, but they are still nerds. Ardith is that kid who got beat up a lot for reading books all the time. Tori is a little more socially savvy. They are adorable, IMHO, and have a healthy - if a little awkward - relationship.

Yes, that was long. I know most people won't bother reading this and the few who do read it probably won't care, BUT in case anyone's curious, the information is out there for them.

I have considered making a colored version of this picture but that would take a really long time. I might still try it at some point anyway.

Description
My boyfriend's birthday came and I hadn't yet settled on what to draw for him. I wanted to draw a couple of characters that had some meaning to us, possibly something romantic, but I couldn't settle on which characters to draw. Somewhere along the line I got the idea to create this, and the number of characters I added kept growing and growing. As nerdy as it may sound, these are characters representing our roleplaying characters over the past six or seven years (yes, since even before we started dating). This is only the sketch version because I forgot to bring the carefully-penciled final version when I scanned my pictures, so at some point I might replace this with a better scan of the final picture. I had thought about putting them all in some sort of generic fantasy medieval costumes, but that wasn't going to work, so I opted for a modern setting. It took a surprising amount of work figuring out what everyone would be wearing!

Clockwise, from the piano:
Phantom and Amaya, our two half-elves from Imperium MUD, the characters we were playing when we started dating. Amaya is a bard, and Phantom is her beloved. Lots of melodrama involved, but suffice to say they are madly in love, so that even though Amaya is singing a torch song for the whole club, really, she's just singing it to him.

Laena and Murkley, of a unique-to-the-setting orcish race. We played them about a year or two before we started dating, in an ill-fated game that didn't last too long, but it lasted long enough for there to be a weird sort of romantic tension between these two. He's the club bouncer. She's hitting on him.

Miria, Celia, Dias, and Kindle, seated around the table. Miria and Celia are from one game set in the Suikoden universe. You can see Celia in my "On the Rooftops" picture. Dias is from an older game, one we were playing around the time we got together. And Kindle is a superhero NPC from the game we're playing right now. None of these really had/have any romantic interests in their respective games, but they're all strong-willed women, and I like the thought of them hanging out together in a sort of ladies' night out. I think you can tell who the most talkative of them is. Also, Kindle is a teacher who has to deal with troublemakers and troubled kids pretty often. She is looking at the two young couples and thinking "One of these is trouble, and one of these is not."

Mena and Silvan, in the far foreground. I don't think I really need to introduce these two if you've spent much time at all looking in my gallery, but Silvan is my boyfriend's NPC in my game, and Mena is his not-girlfriend. I like how they don't even recognize that anybody else exists.

Finally, Ardith and Tori, seated on the left-hand side. An unfinished, on-hold game (sequel to the game with Celia and Miria). They are, as you can probably tell, nerds. In a fantasy setting, nerds are magicians, but they are still nerds. Ardith is that kid who got beat up a lot for reading books all the time. Tori is a little more socially savvy. They are adorable, IMHO, and have a healthy - if a little awkward - relationship.

Yes, that was long. I know most people won't bother reading this and the few who do read it probably won't care, BUT in case anyone's curious, the information is out there for them.

I have considered making a colored version of this picture but that would take a really long time. I might still try it at some point anyway.