#Wolf Maiden Tsukiko

[americangecko]

COVID = Increased Availibility

For those interested, there’s a TL;DR at the bottom of this gigantic thing.

So, COVID, amiright?

Anyways, as I’m sure is the case with most of the world, Florida has been put under a “self-isolation quarantine”, and we’re having to practice the now infamous social distancing when we go out. Before that took place, my and my wife’s employer (a very famous Mouse) told us they were closing for the foreseeable future until the sitch with COVID-19 improves (unfortunately, neither of our jobs can be done remotely, but we still have them, thankfully—we’re actually still being paid through the 18th of this month, and will be furloughed after that until the Mouse deems it safe to reopen). As a result, the wife and I have been staying home almost constantly lately. If it weren’t for FaceTime and Zoom, we’d probably be going out of our minds with the lack of social interaction.

BUUUUT......On the bright side, that means I have a lot more free time to work on the creative projects that I’ve had little time for the past few months. There are a lot of them, but I wanted to cover some of the highlights here:

##############################################

####################

My Kim Possible fanfiction universe, Plausible Possibilities, over at fanfiction.net/~americangecko

####################

Don’t worry about this ongoing project—it is FAR from dead.  I simply haven’t had the time lately to work on it.  Not to mention that almost everything I had as far as notes, drawings, and other notable materials pertaining to it, has been trapped on a jump drive that I can’t access due to my wife’s laptop not wanting to charge anymore. (If you’re confused, I actually have an iPad now, and am currently working on my projects on it for the foreseeable future—that’s actually where I’m typing this journal up at the moment.). However, I’ve been working on remembering as much as I can about where I wanted this stuff to go, and so far I’ve been remembering far more than I expected to.  Hopefully that means I can have an update out in the very near future.

####################

Kim Possible fanart for DA for my fanfiction and other miscellaneous

####################

Again, still in the pipes, but also mostly stuck on the aforementioned jump drive.  However, this might be slightly more difficult to produce in the near future, due to the previously mentioned computer problems.  I’ve been trying to find a decent drawing app for the iPad, but seeing as I can’t exactly afford an Apple Pencil—big shock there, I know—I’ve been struggling with them since most have a feature of touch sensitivity that I can’t access.  Or, you know, they cost money I can’t afford (damn, I hate being broke).  But either way, I’m doing my best to add to my meager KP gallery

####################

Personal manga 1 – Working Title: Wolf Maiden Tsukiko

####################

Soooo…for those that don’t know me, I’ve always had this unusual fascination with werewolves/lycanthropes.  And unfortunately, to my dismay, most of the time they are depicted as the bad guys or sidekicks to the heroes.  And 9/10 times, when it’s werewolves vs. vampires, the vampires are the good guys while the werewolves are the villains. Hell, even things like the Underworld series (with the exception of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) or the Twilight series cast werewolves in secondary or villainous roles

Well, I’m doing something about that.  For many years, I’ve been toying with the idea of creating my own comic/manga/graphic novel where the werewolves are the protectors of humanity.  And with the recent uptick in my free time due to the quarantine, that old train of thought has been rolling more and more on this idea.  I’ve even started mapping out characters and story ideas for it, as well as the beginnings of layouts.  So far, I’ve got Point A, Point B, Point C, Point D, etc., partially established, and now I just have to figure out how to get there.  But at least the train isn’t stalled on the tracks anymore.

####################

Personal manga 2 – Working Title: HYBRIDS

####################

Blame my fascination with werewolves, but for the past few years I’ve become more interested in anthro-style comics and animations. You could also point the finger at Disney’s Zootopia, Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda series, or any number of “anthro-animal” cartoons I saw as a kid (proud fan of ‘80’s TMNT, Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, etc.).  I’ve also started re-watching one of my favorite classic anime, s-CRY-ed, as well as Netflix’s new Beastars (I absolutely love Legoshi, Haru, and Louis).  Anyway, a few years back, when I first heard that Disney was working on the movie about Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, it jogged something from my brain.

When I was younger, I’d developed an idea for a cartoon that was a sort of hybridization (pun not intended, unfortunately) of s-CRY-ed and Marvel’s X-Men series, but featuring human/animal hybrids.  I’d developed it to the point that I had determined it would follow twin brothers, both of whom could transform into the same hybrid (I originally thought wolves—blame the werewolf addiction), and who were recruited into a special law-enforcement-style group composed of other hybrid characters and worked to take down hybrid criminals and other threats.  I even came up with a few of the villain groups, and determined that the brothers would have different experiences and thus reactions to their environment and those around them.

Now, also thanks to the quarantine, that train has also gained a little bit of coal in the furnace and started moving on the tracks again.

###################

A few…ahem…stories/novels of a Mature nature

###################

I don’t know if they’ll ever see the light of day here or over at DA, but I’ve been working on several written stories of a more…Mature nature for several years now.  I may even eventually create another DA account to feature them, but that’s a colossally gigantic ”MAYBE” right now.  Lately, however, when I’ve needed a break from one of the other projects I’ve been working on during the quarantine, this is what I find myself working on.  These are actually the most developed of my various projects (apart from my Kim Possible fanfiction), and I’ve actually been looking at maybe sending one or two to an adult books publisher.  Who knows if I’ll ever actually get one of them complete enough to follow through, but we’ll see what happens.

###################

Other various projects

###################

Of course, there are other projects I’ve been working on, but there’s so many that it would take forever to list them.  So I’ll just include them here and say that none of them should be considered dead by any means.  Life support, maybe, but they all can relate to Not-Dead-Fred (“I’m not dead yet! I feel happy! I feel…HAPPY!”) from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Monty Python’s Spamalot fame in that they’re not quite finished yet.

##############################################

ANYWHOOOO, that’s the update.  So far, both the wife and I have avoided any big or life-altering complications from the COVID crisis, and hopefully this continues to be the case.  Meanwhile I’ll continue moving these ideas along during the quarantine, and hopefully finish at least ONE by the time this crazy sitch has passed us all by.

Stay safe, everyone!

~ A.G.

TL;DR

The COVID quarantine, while not yet personally affecting my health, has left me with enough free time that I am resuming work on several of my creative projects.

[americangecko]

Reblogging for future use.

A vampire is a creature from folklore that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living.  Vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures; the term vampire was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. (x)