[Image description: A watercolour picture of three of my characters, Roger and Jess, who are sleeping and their imaginary sister Screwball watching over them. Roger (left) is a brown anthro rabbit with long, orange-tipped brown hair in a ponytail. He is wearing a colourful hoodie decorated with a jackalope shoulder patch and a desert with cacti landscape, a brown t-shirt with a rabbit skeleton on it, a Playboy bunny earring, and ripped blue jeans with a charm of Mirko from MHA hanging from the pocket. Jess (right) is a human girl with long, wavy red hair. She is wearing a Miffy hair clip, a yellow varsity sweater with her name on it, a red pleated skirt and yellow knee-high socks. Screwball (top) is a white toon rabbit with short, red hair, a swirl in one eye and a lop ear. She is wearing a blue and yellow polka dot bow, yellow gloves and a puffy red dress with different patterned patches sewn on it. They are in a colourful cloud world, asleep on a cloud table which has their real homework and textbooks scattered on it. Screwball's friends, various anthro foodstuffs and trees with pie-eyes, are partying behind them.]

In the world of my detective story Truth Seekers, there are many supernatural creatures with individual approaches to integrating with humans. Some hide amongst humans and some isolate themselves in their communities, but this can cause problems for human/supernatural hybrids like the two in the picture.

Roger (left) and Jess (right) are twins with a half-jackalope father and a human mother. Their father is determined to be fully human, to the point of forcing his kids to hide their non-human features and moving them to the UK to get away from other jackalopes. The pressure of keeping this secret and having to adjust to a new school and curriculum is pushing the twins to their breaking point.

Roger hides it very well behind his easy-going slacker persona and he has made friends very quickly, but having to constantly hold human form is taxing on his body and mind. Even at home, his jackalope features mean that he’s the scapegoat child, having to put up with his father’s blatant disdain for him. To spite his father, he’s taken to wearing rabbit-themed clothing and pestering him with questions about jackalope culture.

In contrast, Jess is hiding it a lot less well. Leaning on her alpha-bitch cheerleader persona was bad enough in America, but in Britain it just looks ridiculous and it guarantees that she won’t make any friends in her new school. In fact, she’s already made at least one enemy, a truant student named Ariel who has to put up with Jess harassing her any time she actually shows up for school. At home, Jess is a very different person. As the golden child, she has to be perfect and meek around her father, so that she doesn’t lose his favour.

All that Roger and Jess have is each other. Together, they have retreated into a private fantasy land. It started out as a story they wrote together based on the cartoons they loved as kids, but then they started dreaming of their cartoon land every single night. They knew that was strange, but they didn’t want give up their safe place, so they continued to dream. They soon decided that they should liven up the place by making a wacky toon rabbit to be their friend. They named her Screwball and made her their little sister. Her endearingly wacky antics made their lives a lot brighter, but there are signs that she’s a little too clingy to her big bro and sis. If it were up to her, they’d stay with her forever…

(Yes, this is all one big Roger Rabbit reference. These characters started out as fan-kids for Roger and Jessica that I made as a teenager and I'm repurposing them.)

Medium: Watercolour pens on paper.

Links to other versions: DeviantART Instagram

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