#anyway those redesigns were fun i got to do some lil ideas i had on my brain for a long time like

[bubblellop]

The siblings with horns and tails

[Redesign]

I had actually done a redesign for these two like ...months ago as a fun exercise, so it was fun to be able to draw them out !!!

The idea was to re imagine them having more, out there designs I suppose, since these two are supposed to be elemental aliens they don't entirely look the part, even if its on purpose.

Adalia has dragon adjacent characteristics, while Lilyana has more aquatic ones, also they are 16 cuz TALLER

[fish-at-fish-fish-resort]

holds out hands . may i hear your oc lore

since this is a sequel to this unanswered ask from my main

ill give you my agents (and 2 related ocs) bc giving you all the ocs in one post will be really hard i have SO MANY. too many. ANYWAY sillies under cut!!!

lets start with 3 because thats where the timeline starts

heres a p old timeline drawing thingy that still holds up i think

yeah just read through it. holds up. three is mostly the target of self projection lmao.

smore fun facts ab them:

they were team callie in the s1 final fest

they are wildly competitive

they sleep with an eyemask on bc the scrred eye glows in the dark (it bothers eight)

they value abilities over looks on gear so most their outfits are atrocious unless someone forces them to look good.

they can speak octarian

if they had a penny for every time they let an octarian who just got to inkopilis live with them theyd have two pennies. which isnt a lot but its weird it happened twice right?

which brings us to the next one which is actually an octoling oc i made back in like 2016??? def splatoon 1 era. shes been redesigned a bajillion times but the story is mostly the same. after the octavio fight she is also one of those octos who tried to get to inkopolis. this one was found by three who was like. i jave no idea what ur saying ur coming with the the old man totes knows octarian from his divorce. this n that and they teach eachother language and culture and its sweet and cool and they probabyl had some wlw stuff going on until 3 had a wholeass gender crisis

this is her btw. the drawing on the right is more up to date. im still thinking of renaming her. ill never find a name that fits. her original name was marianna but thats too close to marina!!!!!

shes also a fashion designer! she likes to use traditional octarian or military designs in her clothes. her pieces are not meant for turf wars though. shes still in close contact with three, and they hang out a lot. she wants to get three to ask the squid sisters if they could wear some of her clothes on a splatfest. three forgets.

next up!!!!! agent 4. i have two of those. they independently became agent 4 and then unrelatedly also became college roommates.

hash is more of a canon adjacent agent 4. poser, loser, really dramatic and really loud. kidna does whatever they want and also likes to leave graffitti on the kettles they clear. theyre also an only child. they also call marie mom jsut to annoy her. also their hairstyle is the bob in the front but the back is spiky/shaved. theyre a silly lil punk.

ikarus is a cynical asshole. and also a self centered poser whos set on looking cool for whoevers watching. he has 2 younger siblings and 1 older sister. hes from outside greater inkopolis, thinks hes better than the in city inkopolitans but behaves the exact same. he sucks i love him. he really looks up to n respects marie bc she reminds him of his elder sister. his fav brand is toni kensa

ikarus got the agent job first, n got rlly mad when they found out that theres another agent 4 bc he didnt show up enough nd marie just hired someone else. they share a uniform. they try to annoy eachother by puttinf the weirdest smelling stuff in the uniform b4 leaving it at the canyon. when talking ab em as agent 4 i like to use #4 for hash and n°4 for ikarus

the two also have a 3rd roommate

she doesnt have a name though. and if she does i forgot it :(

the three actually make a pretty good unit in their apartement. hash and ikarus only find out theyre both agent 4 when its time for the boss fight and both of them show up to get it done with. theyre both very competitive. they end up fighting over it and hash wins. ikarus is on the truck w sheldon and marie and is yelling insults at the battlefield until marie shuts him up so she can sing.

thw three roommates also always do salmon run shifts together. if they fuck up on a wave they always blame it on the one freelancer. yes they also kiss.

for eight i actually made this ref here recently!

theyve always been really fascinated with inklings and also were going to become an engineer before running off and landing in the metro.

they are very well spoken but also pretty shy. they try to make a good impression on people. finds it hard to trust others.

it took a while until he got used to sleeping in a bed. still sleeps with an eye open sometimes. its a habit.

theyre usualyl the one forcing three into at least okay looking clothes. oh also this tall loser likes to wear heels n platforms. hes literally taller than marina and still wears heels.

he actually started learning inklish back in octo valley from really outdated books. after coming to inkopolis hes been given a buncha annotated language books from marina (and from three, who still had the ones they used w the other octo girlie). but they still end up using some really old phrases and words that kinda leave some people perplexed.

oh also they're not THAT good at fighting (they were never a soldier) theyre smart and persistent though. still ended up severely in debt w pearl bc of the metro. pearl offered he can just work as stage crew for off the hook for a few tours or so and theyre good. he took the offer immediately bc bro barely got income to repay that all normally.

[ask-obt]

Lady Woo whose the favorite OBT design?

// the......... unseen milotic design LMAO

but that's mostly because I already love milotic!! it's my number one favorite pokemon, with cresselia following closely behind (whose design I also like, but don't wanna show until she appears in the comic. I think I posted it on twitter once, but good luck digging through that if you wanna find it)

out of characters who have actually shown up, my favorite is dielle! I struggled for a while finding a good look for her, before hitting (what I think is) gold. maybe I just like fluffy cats? hehe

I do also like rune and malachi's designs, but I actually can't take credit for them! you may remember a previous ask I mentioned I was playing design telephone with those two since they were my oldest characters- and trying to get out of my head to redesign them was a tough task. so, I enlisted the help of my partner Pika to help me redesign them!

She took Rune from this:

To this!

So you can thank her for Rune's cute pink heart motif, instead of looking like she rolled in dirt! She also gave her the trademark Vulpix curls back. I ended up slicking her hair back later because Rune has a lot of expressions with her eyebrows that got covered up by the hair, which made drawing her a pain.

And Malachi used to look less like a half-evolved Shinx and more like a very small Luxray:

Which Pika also fixed!

I love this rendition of him a lot more haha, he looks like such a lil nerd! He also got his tail back in this redesign, which I quite liked. It's hard to imagine both of them with their old designs now!

As far as designs go, I also like Requiem's! Their design actually has a little bit of a backstory, funny enough. See when I was a kid, my mom was friends with a face/body painter at the local art market, and I loved getting paintings of various things I liked. One such thing was [REDACTED], my absolute favorite pokemon for SOME REASON as a kid. I would bring a reference for her (in the form of one of those pokedex books found at book fairs) and I always loved her style and thought she was an amazing artist for being able to paint full characters in mere minutes. One day I forgot to bring a reference of [REDACTED] and she went by memory- it looked a bit bootleggy, but I was absolutely enamored with the design. So soon I started "forgetting" my reference... on purpose. I loved seeing how the design for [REDACTED] developed and became something new over time. I think she was always a bit embarrassed with the inaccuracies, but my favorite one was one that made [REDACTED] look like a completely different pokemon. Like some sort of big, flowy purple dragon kangaroo creature. I think I especially loved it because it looked like a combination of [REDACTED] and [REDACTED... 2!]. That was the last time she drew [REDACTED] for me, and she retired from face/body painting shortly after to pursue other artistic interests. A lot of Requiem's design is based off of what I remember from that painting! Though without kangaroo legs, haha. I'd love to share a picture of the painting, but I'm not sure if we ever took one. Maybe I'll bug my mom to see if we can find it.

I won't be sharing the artist's name here due to internet privacy reasons, but I do have some art she made for me once! I didn't have a bedroom for many years growing up, and my mom's solution to that was a (kinda crusty) camp trailer, which her friend painted the front of with a fun ocean view. This trailer has long since fallen into disrepair (it's almost completely rotted now), but the painting still remains.

and to give you an idea of how far flung her designs could be without reference, here's the seahorse toy I had that painting was based off of haha

anyway this huge ramble all to say... I love character designs, and varying from the norm!

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom 8-13 thoughts! again, under the cut bc I blew through 6 episodes in one go...

-LOVE THE WAY THE GHOST ZONE LOOKS. but theres fucking ghost cops??? ghost jail??? that SUCKS imagine dying and going to jail in your AFTERLIFE. danny going to JAIL WAS NOT something I expected. but seeing all the enemies together and work with danny to bust out. SO ICONIC I love that actually. and the thing about real world stuff acting as ghosts in the ghost zone is very cool.

-'there are some things more important that hunting ghosts!' mrs fenton says, about her husband forgetting their anaversary (FOR THE 18TH YEAR IN A ROW?? CHRIST) and not about, idk, their son clearly freaked out. she didnt even notice he was gone into the ghost zone!!! he might be a bad husband BUT shes not the best mom. they suck and I don't care about their relationship problems I care about these kids. danny doing his best to clean the house to keep his mom from getting mad at his dad?? hes such a good boy I want to cry, this is not his place, his dad should be cleaning his own shit up!!!

-maddie's butch lesbian sister is living my best life in her lil cabin. also being a snarky bitch to jack. queen. and her getting a 10th anniversary of her divorce. LOVE IT.

-mr. lancer being a cheerleader in his younger years makes perfect sense to me. king shit.

-dr. spectra's cat ears/mullet hairstyle?? sooo cute. I also just love the concept of a ghost just. sucking out people's positivity and feeding on emotions. a great villain. she put danny in a fucking diaper what the FUCK. and keeping it cold so no one would suspect shes a ghost??? INCREDIBLE. and her gay little blob sidekick. wlw mlm evil solidarity.

-JAZZ FOCUSED EP. YEAAAH!!! her first thought when she saw the ghosts was like 'omg i gotta tell danny :)' and her going to the teacher and also councilor trying to get help for him...shes just 16 but shes trying so hard to help him out :( watching this when youre younger I can imagine ppl are like omg annoying!! but watching this when im older im just like :( jazz baby im SO sorry </3 SHE BODIED THAT GHOST THOUGH. and the fact she didnt tell danny she knew surprised me. like, shes patient and waiting on him to tell her when hes ready!! thats so so sweet.

-christ the parents talking about 'PEELING IT LIKE AN ONION. AND EXAMINING REMAINS' of ghosts RIGHT INFRONT OF DANNY.

-'why am i so depressed and angry all the time!!' DANNY YOURE 14. i mean it IS a ghost this time, but...

-579$ top?? VALERIE NO ITS NOT EVEN CUTE IT DOESNT EVEN GO WITH THAT OUTFIT AAAA. tho this ep is called shades of gray..VALERIE FOCUSED EP FINALLY????! *THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE* I already knew about red huntress from my redesigns, but I didn't exactly know what that entails or how/why, so, it's fun to see the Origins.

-ghost pubby! ghost pubby!!!!! why is the dog a ghost?? the implication that the company had guard dogs and got rid of them...what did they DO. is it just the unfinished business?? of not having that toy it was looking for?? god I hope so.

I feel SOOO bad for valerie tho, my god. her friends are shunning her for what, because her dad lost her job and she had to move??? horrible. (and the fact the dog wrecked the moving van too...) I also love how 'from wisconsin' on the package was an IMMEDIATE RED FLAG FOR ME. WISCONSIN=EVIL NOW. vlads so petty.

-it took valerie like 5 mins to get the hang of hunting ghosts and shes already a much bigger threat than his parents tbh. who've been trying and studying this for years. and a more valid reason <3 love her shes so cute and cool. new daughter alert.

-'i should do SOMETHING to help valerie' no shit danny???

-'who is that, awesome outfit!' -top gay sam moments. i was going to say. before it immediately cuts to sam kissing danny LMFAOOO. don't think I like that, it puts tucker in a weird third wheel position... the next ep involves them holding hands and blushing when danny's cold...URGH No. not a fan ngl. the trope of 'if theres a girl in a trio she has to end up with one of the two guys!!'

-right as I say that they take it to extremes!! and ember shoots him with a love ray gun that makes him OBSESSIVE OVER SAM. AND SHE TAKES HIS HANDS AND SAYS 'YOU DONT FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT ME, I DONT FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT YOU' and her saying she doesnt want to be together like this. and tucker saying 'i always knew you two would get together!!' dont manifest it tucker please. the show pushing for it so hard makes me not want it KSHKJKJD I KNOW its probably canon. it sucks though. im a hater.

-vlad just LURKING AROUND THE SCHOOL GIVING VALERIE GIFTS ASJKDHKJ YOU WEIRD PETTY OLD MAN GO HOME!!!

-EMBERRRRR YOU WILL REMEMBERRRRRR . this is the one thing I kinda remember from when I was a kid EMBERRRRR ilu. top 10 cartoon bops. sams being a hater. popular things are popular for a reason. mr. lancer also being a hater. also everyone wearing her color scheme ..its a really good look, the purple, black, and minty color...

-penguins exist in the ghost zone. confirmed.

-EMBER JUST SHOWING UP AT A RANDOM HIGHSCHOOL TO PLAY?? UNANNOUNCED, MID DAY??? girl get a tour schedule. make some money or smth damn. I know shes probably doing it for the power boost but. lord. anyway if your show doesnt have a concert scene/ep, is it even valid.

-fellas is this gay. (she uses a GRAPPLING HOOK TO SHOOT OUT THE WINDOW AFTER SEEING AN EMBER VAN GO BY RIGHT AFTER THIS SHOT)

-hey, she had an undercut at some point!! my redesign!!! was accurate!! in..a way

-I feel like danny has a lot of pent up aggression ngl, him being heartbroken about sam and immediately going IM GONNA GO TAKE IT OUT ON EMBER. I mean she needs to be stopped I guess But. jazz has the right idea he needs therapy and a HEALTHY outlet.

-tucker singing > my singing

-girls cant be gamers -tucker and danny sexist moments. her being chaos in the game OWNED.

-TUCKERS HAT IS A BERET??? I THOUGHT IT WAS A BEANIE. SAM CALLED IT A BERET. WH.

-it was actually nice of lancer to let danny retake the test, and he go to play games again. smh. epic cringe gamer moments compilation. and driving him home!!! I actually like him as a character. anyway teachers like lancer are SO appreciated. I was failing middle school because of mental problems, and felt so dumb and got embarrassed by teachers who would just get onto me instead of bothering to ask what the real problem was, but when I was taking my ged classes I had a wonderful teacher who kept reassuring me that I was smart, and I got honors!! danny is SUCH a little shit to him (understandable, 14, but) but seeing them getting along better and danny putting in effort. SO CUTE. THATS MY SON, STUDYING HARD!!!! and being so PROUD OF HIMSELF!!! 91!!! BITCH!!! A- is STILL AN A!!!

-'why dont they ever realize thats me in a dress' mr lancer i am CRYING. i realized.

-technus being my ghost grandpa who cant game asking tucker for help. bless his heart. his out of date old ppl lingo circles back to being endearing <3 tucker not recognizing him despite the like, lack of any kind of serious disguise...I do love their lil in-game outfits....sam being the tank rules. I like technus' spider design also. more characters need to be giant freaky spiders, imo.

-finding your gf a new host because she cant maintain her ghost body outside the zone? amazing. using jazz as the host? ILL KILL YOU. jazz immediately accepting a ride home from a guy she just met and letting him know where she lives. letting him IN THE HOUSE??? nooo girl no lets use common sense </3

-sooo cringe the parents were like 'good job for spying on your sister' tho wtffff. doesnt matter if hes a bad guy, thats fucked. everytime these parents BREATHE im like. these are MY kids now <3

-BAD LUCK BEING A THEME OF THE 13TH EPISODE. thats super fun. johnny 13 being his name is so. iconic. your last name is a NUMBER? also goth tucker. I actually love the look. everyone looks good goth. 'the ladies love the eyeliner and onyx nail polish' sam you are sooo right every man needs to at least try those two things. im a lesbian and I agree. same, danny, your bff is gnc af

-LOVE kitty's design. and just, the concept of a ghost with a bike. couple goals, except yes stay away from jazz.

[weirdo-with-a-nametag]

Brain is tv static with random frames interspersed

Think I'm like. Really stressed and jumping between topics to try and find something that helps / feels good

Topics:

Anyone know a good health tracking app for adhd people? I want one that like pops up when you open your phone, maybe? But is unobtrusive. Like maybe you just rate your mood or whatever when you open your phone, and it closes, and you go about your business. I just hate every app and paper method I've tried but really want to track some stuff

Pigeon. ? Pigeon as pet?

Service animals re: cats, pigeons, my cat specifically, and then also ESAs and also what to use as treats while training my cat (he's pretty happy to learn behaviors with praise and pets as reinforcement, but treats would make everything move much faster, but I haven't found something I want to give him so we've just been y'know. Chillin)

Service animals re: what tasks can my pet potentially do that would help me? I don't really know a lot about service animals and there is a Huge range. If anyone has suggestions, or places to read about it, I'd appreciate it! Mostly thinking they may help with anxiety, sensory, and mobility/fatigue related stuff. Not much of a need for medical alerts.

Bioactive enclosures for my snakes, need to research their biomes and make progress on designs and equipment specifications

Also. Hit a seriously hard patch and haven't been handling them much at all this month so that's not great

Casting stuff. Saw jewelry today made of metal casts of claws, skulls, etc, and they were really well done and made me want to do that

Some taxidermy / vulture culture stuff I won't get into right now

Puzzles????

How to organize my room

Need a shower

Need to organize bathroom

So Much Schoolwork

Uhhhhh trying, but not making much headway, to figure out how I want to do my music collection. Also really need to clean my records..

Make?

Food??? Ew.

Dental hygiene ://

Plampts. So many. Houseplants need maintenance, many need repotting. Keep taking in people's problem plants and like, they're doing better, largely, after being trimmed and watered and whatnot, but need repotting. Also need to trim some aquarium plants.

Also need to put water in tanks. And spray nepenthes.

Laundry.

Gotta pick up trash in my room. There's so much. Everywhere. Why.

Schoolwork. I'm so behind. So, so stuck. Kind of feel like I'm dying.

Going on a picnic tomorrow. Have to figure out what still needs doing for that, probably need to go to the store.

Leo needs water. I'm so....ugh, I'm trying so hard, but it feels impossible. I do my best to take good care of my pets, and I think they live pretty good lives most of the time, but sometimes I get like This and completely drop off the face of the earth and then like, wake up or whatever and two weeks have passed by and I have not cleaned a water bowl! That's a serious problem!!!! I do not know how to combat that, really, besides more reminders. Having someone around who is willing to like, help, when things are especially hard, would be great, but I don't live with my partner right now and do not feel like I can ask anyone here for that. But I can't put my animals at risk. I check on them every day, and if their bowls are dirty I do take them out and clean them, but sometimes (like now) i cannot get myself to do it without a pressure like a dirty bowl, or a feeding day. And like, it's really important that they have clean water. I'm talking to myself here but like, if anyone has advice. Please. With the tank redesigns and upgrades, the bowls will be more accessible, which will help because one of them is very heavy at the angle I have to pick it up, and another requires moving a lot of branches and is best to take out while the snake is out (this is Leo) which is fine because I love my boy, but adds time to the process, and makes it harder to start, you know? Maybe if I just got more bowls - I could take the bowl out and immediately replace it, fill the new one, and replace the decor and snake, and then clean the bowl as a separate task? That would be easier for my brain. Currently I have a Specific bowl I prefer to use for each tank, and then everything else is Just In Case, but I mean. Acquiring extras is something I want to do anyway, and it may help with several problems, so. Yeah. I'll try that. But also, any other ideas, guys?

Anxiety: can't stop picking at my face, skin, nails, cuticles, scalp, pretty much everywhere with callouses, also scratched a mole off my face, which is something I've been trying Not to do for a while, so that's...not great. Can't find my earmuffs, and also all of my headphones are painful? Ears are really sensitive lately.

Been playing a lot of Moth Game (flutter: starlight if you wanna be friends say hey I don't know how to do it but would enjoy talking about moths if nothing else. The game is just like, an idle ish collecting game with cutesy versions of different species, and very little actual information, but it's still fun, and if anyone else is on there and also Into Moths like I am, hiiiii) and like it's fun and cute but also greatly impacting my productivity, and raises my stress levels during events, which is most days, so the game has. Not been helping. But I can't stop because then I'll miss Exclusive Moths.

Anyway. Had baklava and two mugs of Thai tea today and the sugar has made me nauseous.

Trying to journal. Hurts to write. Also takes too long. Also my handwriting is very bad. But typing is..not as good

Want to draw. Thinking about drawing cats

Plants again! Want to make seed bombs, have seeds, have most of the other ingredients, just need to put em together, basically.

Really sad :(

Or am I?

Weird noise coming from dining room?

Birds. Spent half an hour at least on the deck tonight listening to a hundred different bird calls (literally) to identify one I was hearing, it was a pine siskin, which I checked early on but the recording was bad and I didn't realize which call was identified. Anyway, cool to put a name to a face, so to speak.

Need to practice for ASL

So much.....to do...

Only had like >3 hours of work this week which was not great because money, but also like I'm really feeling those 3 hours....

My cat is basically refusing to come into my room? Which is very strange and I'm worried something is Off but cannot figure out what. Also means less cuddles which means I'm sad.

It feels strange whenever people follow me, the attention is nice but I have no idea what content y'all are here for. So to everyone: hi, enjoy, hope my random personal posts aren't a surprise to anyone who followed for like. News reblogs and informational stuff.

Do I even have it in me to..be successful in school? Should I drop out of college? I'm struggling really hard and do not feel like I'm building on the skills I need to continue, so like. Uh.

My dad is being. Abrasive.

Mom and grandma are very angry lately

Housemate is also angry, about things i thought we were on good terms about, so I am stressed because like,, are we okay?

Can't find my eye mask :(

Yoga? Like...restorative yoga? Need to track down my PT stuff. And. Do it.

Need to put the stickers on my license plates....oops...

Still haven't found my antidepressants! Yay!

Do I want to store my stuff in open bins, or with lids? Which stuff needs spill protection and stacking capability and which stuff needs easy access?

How to earn money without..chaos

Gotta go to the pet store tomorrow. Have to compile my list of pet store items i need. Uhhhhhhhhhh

Also I have an essay due tomorrow that I've barely started. So. Wooooooo

Kt tape for supporting arches / inner ankles? I keep messing up my ankles, and part of it is walking wrong because I don't have the energy to engage the muscles in my feet/legs right to like, avoid injury, and part of it is I just need new shoes inserts. But i wear slippers a lot and they do not have arch support and it hurts. PT to help with this also but Where Is It

Family can't seem to get dish soap I can use, so I've just been having to avoid washing anything by hand, or being in the general kitchen area while anyone uses the stuff, which has led to more of my dishes sitting out, and more conflict over dishes. Lovely.

How hard is it for parents to learn they have to respect boundaries? Very hard, apparently. And you're supposed to just sort of remind people, and explain, over and over and over but like at this point my self worth is actually pretty good and the lifetime of proof that they do not want to listen? That's making me want to stop trying. Like, if you're not going to respect my boundaries I'm just not going to involve you in my life. I'm not talking to my dad right now because of this. Maybe I'll decide to lay things out to him, again and again and again again, maybe not. And I'm comfortable saying that's on him.

How to drink water

Am I dehydrated or are my hands just completely callous now. My fingertips have such hard skin. Why? It's uncomfortable. This is part of why I've been biting them.

Also testosterone. Been having a lot of trouble doing my shots, because anxiety and physical freakouts, but also not feeling super urgent about it. Which I'm realizing may be a sign i need to look at the effects so far and the possible effects of continuing, and see what they make me feel. It's possible I'm where I want to be as far as T, and don't really want to stay on it. A big thing for me is a deeper voice, so it seems time to take a look at whether I like my voice where it is or want to see if it'll drop any more. Etc etc

Miss my lil sisters

Saw a lot of cool rocks today. Huge (like hand sized) ammonite for $28. May go back and buy one because. Wow.

Want to plant food plants

Also my natives. Whole garden plot standing empty with a bunch of stuff waiting in nursery pots, needing to go in the ground. Because I can't get out of bed. Love that. Stuff is dying out there, I'm dying in here, there's a poetry to it and I do not want to romanticize suffering so I will say this: I brought a Bucket full of moss home a month ago and planted it and now go outside sometimes to drench my moss and it is very rewarding because the stuff is just so green. Incredible. When the rest of my plants are finally in the ground, that feeling will only intensify. But, for now, the moss is very nice.

Made a glow in the dark bead lizard from memory during therapy yesterday, and I love him. Also, still struggling with bringing up autism and psychosis topics with my therapist. Still very worried about. Things. Would like to get a new person? But sometimes she is helpful? And we have a routine. It's very hard to break the routine. Maybe I can set some time aside during the summer, to figure out what to do there.

Term ends in a couple weeks. The task of catching up, of passing, seems impossible. I really need to pass my courses. I'm on academic warning, because my GPA is lower than it should be, and if I can pass all of my classes this term I can get off academic warning but otherwise I'm not sure what will happen to my financial aid.

My phone is playing the same 50-100 songs on shuffle and I don't even particularly like most of them and it is very strange

Got my face wipes! Hooray, i can wash my face again

Been eating too much sugar in general. It's making my joints hurt more, and the nausea

Pet a dog the other day. I miss that. It would be really nice to have a dog in the house again. The exuberance, the cuddles, the tail wagging, the walks... I'd really like that. Maybe once I'm out in my room, tanks and catio built and everyone is situated, I'll look into getting a dog instead of a cat next. Was planning on holding off in case I'm not physically able to take them out on walks and such, but I've been pretty successful at doing this job, and I think that my main hurdle for walking really is motivation. Dog walking is a strong motivator for me. Best to start by fostering, or just do Wag, for a while though. I'm feeling overwhelmed with my current responsibilities, and here I am talking about getting a dog. Good job, me

How do you get wax off of somewhat water soluble rocks? My housemate broke my lava lamp on some of my rock collection and I am not sure how to get some of them clean without damage.

I am...pretty sure there are collared doves nesting over my room but it seems they're less common around here than I thought? But they are..pretty distinctive. Like if I'm wrong, what are those birds. Some very distinctly colored feral pigeons? Who are nesting here, in a tree, without their flock, and who happen to have pretty much the exact same pattern?

Probably should go to the dollar store and get some bins for organizing

Been wanting to keep a bin by the door and stock it with stim/fidget stuff people can just .have ..like extras of some of my favorites and other things i can get ahold of, to offer to my friends who haven't really had the chance to explore the world of stim toys

Hands are really just not doing great the last several weeks. Arthritis type pain cropping up more and more in all the little joints, making it hurt more to write, type, or just use them for whatever. Coordination isn't great because of that distraction, and because my hands/arms are slow to respond and kinda weak. Most people would say I'm not using them enough but I've been doing 15ish hours of manual labor per week, so maybe it's the other direction? More water would help. If only it wasn't so heavy.

I haven't taken a single shower since I started my job. Which was March 29th. That's not great.

Practiced parallel parking today. 10/10 still very bad at it.

Having anxiety that my friends think I'm lying about things, faking, and are watching me to see if I'll slip up. So that sucks. Can either talk about that directly or indirectly, or just shut up about those things until I can get my brain under control again. I'm not sure right now if the reassurance would work as a reality check or make me believe it more, right now, so might hold off on the talking bit for a little while.

Saw, smelled, picked a couple pretty roses. Good times

At this point I'm just trying to list all my thoughts so that maybe I'll be able to sleep and not worry I'll forget

My mom has put her spider plant on the deck, and it has maybe five living leaves. I have no idea how she killed such a well established spider plant, the last time I saw it it was so happy. Did she stick it in a corner and forget to water it? Whatever happened, it is now in the Plant ER, so hopefully I'll be able to...help get it on the up and up again

Leo is such a pretty noodle. He's so pretty. He's posing. Hi, baby boy.

Oh, he saw me moving around and decided to come say hi. Sorry little man, i did not mean to disturb you. Please resume lounging. I can't bring you out right now, I'm trying to sleep.

Also, terrariums. Water features. Need to ask. Someone. The one who was making that super cool garter snake enclosure and blogging the progress? With the lazy river and pool? About maintenance on that kind of setup. My milk snake really enjoys water, and I'd love to put a water feature in his tank. But I'm unclear on how to keep it clean, or honestly where to start. Don't want any huge falls or anything, though it actually may not make the humidity too high if I did maybe a small drip wall into the pool? That seems like something he would enjoy, and a good way to support different types of plants. But like, that's the thing, it's bioactive and I haven't done that before and no amount of research is ever enough.

Oh, Shogun has a dirt hat. How cute. I love when they do that

See, this is the thing. My snakes make me so happy. All three of them are actually hanging out where I can see them from my bed right now, and it's really nice. I want their lives to be the best possible, and I think I have the resources to do that. Which is so exciting. Now if only my brain and body would cooperate. It would hurt quite a lot to have to re-home any of them, but the most important thing is their health and quality of life, you know? If I can't get my act together somewhat, it may be that one or all of them would be better off with another keeper. I don't know. It's just, i talk about all these tank ideas and all this husbandry standards stuff but how much of it actually gets applied to my own animals whose lives are in my hands? How well am I caring for them, really?

Oh!!! My red thread! I thought that was gone forever.

Anyway, please do not worry. My snakes are healthy. I pay attention, and watch for signs of illness, and they're okay. There will always be places to improve, and the water is a big one, but most of the time i change their water out frequently, I'm just worried because of bad depression and fatigue times, you know? I'm working on making the most self sustaining systems i can, in part so that I am sure they'll be okay if I mess up sometimes. Just saying this because I hope you guys don't feel like you need to worry about the welfare of my pets. They're okay, i just always want better for them, is all.

Anyway, the sun is coming up and I should probably go to sleep. So uh, thanks for reading, if you read all of this randomness, and if anyone has thoughts or advice on anything in this post, i would welcome it! Good night!

[angel-gidget]

Amethyst #1: A Riveting Reboot

I could say Amethyst #1 written and illustrated by Amy Reeder is a work of art and you’d all be like “no duh, gidge. comics are half art” but Amethyst #1 is also clearly a work of LOVE. I’ve been reading and flailing and feeling like I should review, but have been uncertain where to start. So I shall try to simply pick 10 delights that stand out to me.

Heads up for spoilers!

1. Her mom and dad. Amy’s origin has clearly been restored from the left turn at Albuquerque that was the nu52. I love that Reeder shows right out the gate that Amy’s adoptive parents are supportive yet struggling with raising a daughter that spends more and more time in a magical realm they can’t enter. Or can they? We will see what the rules are as we go.

In the original series, anybody who didn’t have magic risked getting lost and stranded between realms if they tried to cross between the Gemworld and earth. That doesn’t conflict with the glimpses we’ve seen in YJ, exactly, so we’ll wait and see how things unfold.

2. One thing that DOES conflict with what we’ve seen in YJ though: Turquoise’s number of arms. Or, the number of arms on anybody living in her entire kingdom for that matter. Might be that Reeder and Bendis didn’t get a chance to double-check those details against each other before committing to their scripts. But who thinks to ask about things like that though? (“Hey, your redesign of this character has the standard 4 limbs or less, not 6, right?”)

You know what? I’m okay with this. We get pretty Bendis/Gleason?/Timms? design and this totally funky four-armed broad-sword user and I think I will enjoy seeing if they actually DO come up with an in-canon explanation of the discrepancy.

Also, apparently this Turquoise is married? He’s clearly a consort rather than a ruler, and I wanna know more. (All of the bullpen appears on board with avoiding the Amy/Topaz/Turquoise love triangle from the original series and that’s probably for the best. I just hope that we’ll get to see my boy Topaz at some point anyway, even if he’s no longer a romantic candidate for either fair lady.)

3. Hallelujah! We have a name! I have always loved that Amethyst rides around on a pegasus/pegacorn (another YJ mismatch here, but seems like semantics to me). BUT HE’S NEVER HAD A NAME. HE FINALLY HAS A NAME! IT’S A BADASS NAME. Ypsilos. Greek & unique. I dig it. ‘Bout time.

4. Her mentors. Granch and Citrine(a) are back! Ok, they’re actually missing, but it was good to see their faces smiling down on itty bitty!Amy. I dug the way “witch mother Citrina” would roll off the tongue in the original series, but it didn’t make totally sense that everybody gets to take the exact name of a gemstone while Citrine gets her name kinda anglicized by sticking an A on the end. Small fix, I appreciate the logic.

I’m wondering if Cintrine is as powerful of a magic user in this story as she was in the original. I mean, probably not, bc of House Amethyst disapearing without a trace, but it will be cool to see how it goes. I dig how Amy notes how much she usually relies on them, and how this sensibly leads to…

5. Noob ruler, a lil’ tone-deaf. She’s clearly trying. Taking some good speech-giving cues from Braveheart, probably. But this scene shows she IS inexperienced and bc she’s still in training, she doesn’t have a lot of trust from her neighboring common people. PEOPLE IN THE CROWD ARE MISSING LIMBS. Turquoise warned her about this. These people clearly HAVE been fighting. They aren’t turning her down bc they lack courage. They’re just insulted that this tiny neighbor princess showed up in a BALLGOWN royal-splaining warrior grit to them.

I gotta admit, I was a bit worried when Amy Reeder’s interview (also at the back of the comic) came out, and she talked about Amy Winston having a “little miss perfect” personality. There were some character details that never got fleshed out about 80′s Amy, but I’m relieved that this new iteration actually has some of the original character flaws shown.

She’s a lil’ presumptuous. She gets her ideas from watching Earth movies and TV. Sometimes it pans out, and she’s like “Of course it did! You backwards middle ages people are so quaint. No worries, I will bless you with my high school knowledge of democracy and vaccination.” But she lacks the foresight to see when and why a youthful earth-style plan won’t work in the Gemworld’s environment.

Re-worked Amy just gets really lucky here that Nameless Warrior of the Cool Haircut and Rad Caterpillar Creature sees that she’s such a tiny summer child and decides to assist, impugning of honor aside.

6. Monsters vs. Innocent Creatures. This was always a fun aspect of the Gemworld! Is that a terrifying monster or a cute critter? Maybe it’s both! Or maybe its not a monster at all, and you’re just biased. Nice to meet you, Stan.

7. Living birth parents? That’s a twist (Or, it still CAN be.) In the original series, Amy’s birth father was revealed be the host of a Lord of Order (If that sounds familiar, it’s a Dr. Fate thing.) That meant she technically had an original living parent, but… that’s where the writing went South and turned obnoxiously edgy and tangential. But this implies that both her bio mom and dad are plain-ol’-fashioned alive. Which is new and an intriguing dangling plot-thread. Cool cool.

8. He’s just… so evil. It’s great. I’ve already blubbered about the pleasant simplicity of Dark Opal’s villainy, but I also appreciate that his funky face clasp is back, and I dig the drone-spiders. In the original series, his adopted son Carnelian was the techie, so I’ll be curious to see if there any nods to that in the future.

9. One seriously solid exposition page. Pretty, concise... and just enough holes to entice. This implies that the events of the first Amethyst mini series have ALREADY HAPPENED in this continuity. But some things are CLEARLY different. (Turquoise kingdom world-building, Amy does not change her age between realms, etc.) That leaves some surprises in store.

10. First issue parallels. It’s her birthday. Again. Her parents are giving her title-drop jewelry. Again. She’s all gussied up in an over-the-top dress for her mentor’s sake, but it’s completely inappropriate for battling evil which is what she’s gonna have to ACTUALLY go do bc that’s her luck. Again. I do love me some good symmetry.

TO CONCLUDE... I am so, so happy to read this. Reeder has done right by my girl, and I look forward to issue #2. Huzzah!