Have This Phone Drawing I Finished In The Car

More progress on my hollow knight piece 🐛 I love dense green places

Hk enemy randomizers can be the craziest things ever. You could be fighting for dear life trying to march over to the boss arena, finally make it to the boss and watch as their introduction cutscene plays out, only for the boss to turn into like… a squit.

Yes this is partially about me fighting for dear life getting the flames for the grimmchild, only for Grimm to transform into a damn armored squit and stab me, no I don’t wanna talk about it /j

do you think hornet would have survivors guilt. yeah she's not a vessel but shes still a child of the pale king and one of the few of millions--possibly billions to have knowingly survived. combine that with the guilt that comes with having to kill(?) the ones who ARE alive because she knows what they'd do. now top that with her feeling the need to take up the role of sentinel to protect her father's legacy, mother's sacrifice, and siblings tomb. uuuough

lineart

You know what I always considered a really weird detail about the Pure Vessel's cut Dream Nail Dialog?

"Do not think, do not speak, do not hope, do not..."

"Do not speak"

Why? Why 'speak'? Why that word, specifically?

"Because it references back to the "No mind to think no will to break, no voice to cry suffering" thing, duh.

Well, yes.

But the other two parts of PV's DN dialog directly contradicts two of the requirements the King gave for a "Pure Vessel" -

Hollow CAN think; the dialog itself is proof of that.

And Hollow, by the very fact that they need to tell themselves NOT to hope, suggested that they did have some sort of hope they were attempting not to experience. To hope is to have a will for something, a desire, a wish. A will that the Radiance HAD broken to infect them.

So that just leaves us with "Do not Speak" and "No Voice to Cry Suffering"...

And if Hollow has a mind and a will...

Do they also possess a voice as well?

Why else would the word "Speak" be used as the direct contradiction for "No Voice"? Why else would the Pure Vessel need to remind themselves to not speak?

It makes me wonder if the King was wrong about even that aspect of the Vessel(s).

And the other thing that I find interesting: What is the Pure Vessel refraining themselves from saying? What do they want to say that they aren't allowing themselves to?

Just some food for thought

Oouuuggghhh I can't sleep, incoherent ramble time:

Why is the Knight/Ghost so tiny in comparison to their siblings? The Hollow Knight is goddamn huge, and even the Broken Vessel is a fair bit taller than Ghost.

But like, Ghost is the same age as the Hollow Knight. Why 'n how are they so different? Like, at first I was thinking maybe it had something to do with the way the Pale King brought up THK. Cultivating THK's power or something, I dunno. But then I gotta wonder, what's up with BV? We don't really know why it's outside the Abyss; whether it's another escapee like Ghost - in which case, it would've grown to that size on its own - or they were let out of the Abyss as a potential candidate for containing the Radiance - in which case, the growth again could've been due to the Pale King giving them protein shakes or whatever. They still have a rounded face, similar to Ghost, so I guess you could say it didn't finish growing up - whether being unable to survive on their own or being killed purposefully for not being hollow.

But also, like, we see other Vessels out and about in Hallownest. Again, never made clear if they escaped on their own or were let out. But they generally seem pretty close to Ghost in terms of size. I think maybe some are slightly bigger? I'd have to look again, it's been a while. So, who knows why they're all the sizes they are.

I guess, the only other thought I had was, if you want to go with "all Vessels can get that big even without PK's help" is that maybe Ghost was dormant or something. We don't know much about what they were up to before the game started. Just that it was somewhere outside Hallownest. Maybe Ghost just took a really long nap, and after waking up, made its way back to Hallownest. Ghost didn't get big, since it wasn't eating or fighting or anything. Just conserving their energy. I rly dunno.

My personal hc about the Sanctums - both this and Stone one, is that they used to be hospitals. I also think snails' mounds were also some kind of clinics but not nearly as large. With Soul Sanctum, I think it was also some kind of medical university, mostly regarding the uses of the soul (hence the name), which requires to it to be not only a healing item but also a weapon to help fighting off harmful microorganisms.

The Soul Master. Well, firstly, I hc him to be a brother to Sprint Master and Dash Master. During his youth he's been called Jump Master. I also hc No-Eyes to be their sister, called Float Master. Don't think those were their actual names, though. I hc that they were all children of the Stone Sanctum leader, who tended to those coming through the Pilgrim Way - a pretty dangerous place for most Hallownest bugs. No-Eyes inherited it because she was the eldest and most skilled - mentally and physically.

The future Soul Master went to the capital, hoping to achieve even greater things at a Soul Sanctum. Which he did. He quickly became the star student, capturing the attention of the current leader, who later made him his right hand. Since that leader didn't have any heirs - non of their children ever showed interest in medicine, it wasn't too hard for SM to take the place of a leader after their retirement.

I personally hc SM to be not too bad of a person before the Infection. I imagine him to be very ambitious, slightly pomptious and arrogant, but also sincerelly caring towards the patients, of both - higher and lower birth. I hc him, Monomon and Lurien to be in a pretty good relationship with one another.

When the infection had stricken he was in a panic. He even begged the King to help him with researches by supplying the Sanctum with more soul, since the King is a pale being. However the Wyrm forsaw the massacre SM will commit without seeing the reasons and asumed this to happen as a result of him oblidging. Not only he denied the SM's request but strictly forbade him to attempt any research regarding the cure and just perform palliative care to all of the infected. That cause SM to start resenting the King. He asumed the only reason of his refusal was the arrogance and jealousy towards the mortal. This resentment only grew worse when his sister has met her tragic demise because of the infection (points at No-Eyes' backstory). The Lurien, as usual, fully supported the King, which really soured the relationship between him and SM. Also I hc that after the whole vessel plan was fullfilled, despite being in peace about the Infection (not for long as we know) SM felt a little insulted that the King didn't even thought to offer him to becomes a Dreamer, but making a Beast of Deepnest to be one (classical bug racism).

I imagine SM becoming the selfish, hubristic, mad scientist we see him as, during the second wave of the infection. The same wave that caused the King to hide and the Kingdom to fall. No longer does he care about the well-being of his patients, especially those of a lower birth. He only uses them as tools to prolong his and his coleagues' existence. And no longer does he care about the infection. He only considers it as another tool, while we know it was entirely other way around.

Soul Sanctum. What are y'all's thoughts, impressions, and/or headcanons about the place and the bugs within?

a simple sketch grim

my favourite little guy in unn’s temple!!

i have drawn him here before, yes, but 'twas a long while back and, in my opinion, i did not draw him nearly shaped enough. he's quirrel, he should be shaped!

so. here :]