Apologies for the lateness of this one! As usual, real life matters have been keeping me so occupied that I've had very little time to do much in the way of artwork. This is probably why much of this pic - aside of course from its main subject, Shinobu Kocho from Demon Slayer - looks extremely and painfully phoned-in, rushed, and a lot less double-checked for quality than I usually do. The overall idea here is that in keeping with the title I have planned for this pic, this is an alternate timeline where Shinobu was just a little less careful about her poison usage and also ended up facing the Mother Spider Demon rather than the Daughter. In hindsight, though, I should've used Rui as the tickler, especially since I've read the Demon Slayer manga all the way up to around Volume 7 which means I'm technically past the point where the protagonists deal with him. Like I said, this was very much rushed towards the end of the sketching process... Let's just assume the Mother was smart enough in this timeline to not come for Tanjiro and instead bided her time until Shinobu came along. Yeah.
By the way, just to quell any obvious concerns, Shinobu is apparently confirmed to be 18 in the source material. I have to check back to see whether it's in the manga itself or somewhere in the supplementary documentation, but so many secondhand sources online state this fact that I figured it was official. I was worried about having to age up whomever among the cast members of this series I found appealing, but since that doesn't seem to be necessary with her, I guess picking her and calling it a day was a safer bet than most after all, huh? XD
The final version of this piece will (hopefully) be available on Saturday, April 8!