#i keep wanting to work on my stories but i can only make silly doodles and one-off pieces. sigh

[keeps-ache]

WAIT. my art so cool actually

[donelywell]

November 21 2023

Oh wow!! Thank you for +500 followers!! I wasn't actually expecting to hit this number so soon! As a thank you, here's the real MVP, the true reason you wonderful people follow me, Big the Capybara!

I'm only joking, I guess my brain is trying to make jokes to try to process things, and this number is huge! +500 different people like my stuff enough to want to keep tabs on what I post! That's mind boggling!

As an apology for the joke, especially at a monumental occasion such as this, I'll show you a teaser of what the project is that you're gonna start seeing in about... 3 days.

Yep, I've been working on a Sonic Unleashed reimagine thingy! I'm most likely gonna call it Sonic Unleashed: World Reimagined, because it's like a mix of the 2 different titles for the game and it is a world reimagine thing!

It's a collection of doodles that I've drawn (you'd be surprised that even though I've put a lot of effort into this, it's not even at the first Gaia Temple yet ;-;') that will have notes written down about what happens. Hopefully I can someday make an actual story out of this rather than just doodles and summaries.

But all that aside, thank you so much for +500 followers! I didn't think my silly doodles and ideas would be noticed or even liked by so many of you! I hope you all have a wonderful day/ evening/ night! <3

[numbuh424]

Hello! I really love your Death Note art!! Especially your blog header. I saw it and thought it was so cool how you copied the manga style!! Your posts about it say they're you're Death Note OC? Do you have anymore info you can share about them or previous posts about them? Are they a Death Note user? I'm really curious cause the art is so cool and I love reading about people's OCs. That's all, thanks for all the cool art you make!

Hello!! Thank you so much for enjoying my art 🙏 And thank you for asking about my OC! I've never really talked about her publicly before just cause I've never really... Made an OC before? So this ask made me really happy 🥹 I'll try to keep this short but it definitely won't be lol because I don't know when I'll ever get to talk about her again.

Years ago I had a plot stewing in my head for a story where Near shuts down the L successor program, steps down as L, and puts the title to rest. It takes place a year after the A-Kira story, which is around 10 years after Death Note's main story.

The idea was that someone began exposing Wammy's for their covered-up misdeeds and the fact that this is where successors of L were being raised. Because of that information being leaked, Wammy's House becomes unsafe for everyone in it.

OC talk under the cut 🙏

Apart from needing an antagonist who leaks all this information, I also needed a character who was there during the years Near wasn't to fill in the gaps for him and lead him to the culprit.

All the major information about her is here on this OC character profile I made a while back. Lee honestly began as a general persona/self-insert that I use whenever I want to draw myself. I still often use her as my persona when I make silly doodles and whatnot. However, as a Death Note OC, I've really lost control of her and she has just gone on to take a life of her own lol

Lee comes from Wammy's House and entered when she was 12, a lot later than the rest. She first arrived only months before L died and Near and Mello left to hunt Kira. Though gifted with photographic memory, she could never really make it into the successor program through that alone. Despite this, she dedicated her years at Wammy's to pursuing the title against all odds, only to come up short every single time until she finally graduated. Knowing she wasted years pursuing the title, she grew bitter towards L and the program and left the orphanage to pursue an art career like she originally wanted.

She became an art teacher and kept her distance from anything related to the crime/police/investigators. Unfortunately, as fate would have it (fate being me, the person controlling everything about her life), she became a witness to a crime where she used her skills to draw the culprit. Her sketch is what gets the man arrested and what causes the police to recruit her. Though she always said she'd abstain from detective work after wasting her time on it at Wammy's, she wants to be useful so she agrees to work part-time lowkey.

She doesn't like having the spotlight on her, as years of fighting for it in her youth have worn out her motivation for being seen. She keeps her past under lock and key and lies about it constantly, but her memory allows her to keep track of her lies easily.

Her role in the story is that her past identity (her real name and lived experiences) is stolen and used to frame her as the person leaking information about the orphanage - an "insider tells all" who wants to destroy L, Quillish Wammy, and the orphanage. Because Lee is so detached from her past, at first she lets the culprit just use her old identity. It's not her anymore, anyway, so why bother her about it? It's only when the culprit starts murdering people and throws her current identity under the bus that she starts sweating. There's a criminal investigation underway and she's their only suspect.

Near and his team know she's not behind any of this; they're really the only ones who know for sure because of his ties to Wammy's (it's kind of a reverse L and Light situation where he's sure it's not her but everyone else is out to get her lol). However, she can definitely help point them in the direction of the person who's behind it all.

The problem is Lee's animosity towards the L program extend to Near, who is the only L she really knows considering the real L died a few months after she arrived at the orphanage. Near tries to bring her on board for the case since she's the best lead they could possibly ask for, but because of her distaste towards L and the orphanage, she refuses to join at first. The culprit going one step further and framing her for murder is what pushes her to finally go with Near and his team because her life has fallen apart and the police are coming to get her.

She really doesn't wanna help L and joins mostly for self preservation. She kinda gets a kick out of the fact that she has information the world's greatest detective can't get from anyone else. It's childish of her, but what's Death Note without a bit of childishness.

Also, to answer your other question, she's not a Death Note user. I certainly intended for her to be back then (hence the art I made for her where she has the notebook) but the story I came up with has undergone dramatic changes since. She still very much works with pen and paper, just not in that way anymore lol

That's most of the basic information about her and her role in the story I may or may not ever write. I honestly have the broad strokes mapped out already, including the ending.

Spoilers (for a story that only exists in my head lol), Near has Wammy's House demolished and has a new institution built for the kids. The successor program is dissolved and he has Lee head the art department since she was already an art teacher before everything happened.

Thanks so much for asking about her 🙏

[sanddusted-wisteria]

Doodle Dump, 4/2024 - Now (part 2)

I hit the image limit on the last part, so here's the rest of my doodling lol.

[Another long post below]

Qi needs to be bridal/princess carried. idk what else to say aldkfjlakdr

I seriously doubt that the builder's able to get off completely psychologically unscathed from all the spoiler events, especially if they're anything like Wis and just wanted to live their silly simple lil builder life :( This idea and others like it are being shelved for the moment bc her longfic is already a ton to think about and that only takes us to the end of the spoiler arc...

Tears prickled at Qi’s own eyes as his heart swelled. The lump in his throat stoppered any words he could have said. He held her tighter, feeling an ache with every one of her sobs. “I’m just…e-exhausted,” Wisteria whispered as her tears subsided enough for her to speak. She sniffed, taking another shaky breath in. “I-I…I never asked for any of this. This…this ‘hero’ bullshit. I just w-w… I never— I-I-I…” She gasped a few shallow breaths. “I’m just a builder…”

Mel (@/illusidy) introduced me to this great pencil brush on CSP (SU cream pencil) and I've been using it ever since :>

Another outfit for Wis <3

Since Wis is a clone, she and the others would make for a sick blind box/gacha series asldkrlakj

Also, underneath all the heavyhanded emotions and symbolism I'm writing for her, Wis always exists like this in my brain.

What a nerd. <3

We were thinking up genderbends over on OTAS, and the only name I could come up with for M!Wis was "Winston" 💀 It sounded like a butler name, so his story is that he was hired by Yan to make him look all cool and rich lol. What he really wants is to open his own hotel, but that's expensive, so he has to do other bit work he can with a hospitality degree. Probably bonds with Qi in that both of them have big dreams and an interest in relics, until oops, they're crushing on each other. Qi'll probably offer Winston an assistant position so he can earn more than the pennies that Yan gives him...totally not bc he likes him and hates watching him toil for nothing...

Some silly doodles with Duvos!Wis, ft. @/spookemsdukems 's "Builder", @/florisam 's Lev, and @peenuttg 's Saran :> (don't worry, she's got a newer prosthetic elsewhere...she's just keeping "Builder" occupied)

I just needed to see them in lab coats :>

And that's it for now! Hopefully I'll be better about posting stuff here in the future lol. Thanks for reading if you've made it all the way down both posts. <3

[eclipnet]

!! ava/avm fandom !!

(2024 edit: as of now, i unfortunately don't have time to make AVOT, nor the skills to make it yet, and the project i originally needed it for is no longer required, so unfortunately i won't be making AVOT as of now, but i still wanted to keep the posts up)

hi hello !! :)

long story short: i have a big school project that i need done completely by march of next year, so im making a "educational" parody/inspired video of the "animation vs" series for it !!

its going to be "Animation Vs Oregon Trail", or AVOT for short, and i plan on keeping it still technically educational, but its going to still be enjoyable to watch and (hopefully) similar to a actual alan becker video

it wont be done until sometime next year, presumably march 2024, due to working on this alongside school, (and this entire thing is done from scratch by just me), but its going to be roughly 5 minutes long and im going to try to replicate the style of alan becker's animations in it the best i can !! i only started learning animation over the summer so i cant guarantee itll be the best thing in the world as theres a ton of things i plan on doing in the video that ive never done before animation-wise, but i do still hope it keeps the charm and silliness of alan's animations :)

i have a ton of "concept art"/doodles for it alongside a storyboard thats a work-in-progress so if anyones interested in me posting more about this as i work on it i will gladly do so !!

also my askbox is open so if anyone wants to ask or suggest anything relating to avot ill try my best to respond !! :)

thank you for reading and i'll probably post more updates as i work on it !! :)

[doughguts-art]

Okay okay back with more Bandit questions and observations now!!! Hi!!! First off, what's the model of his gun? Literally just curious, really doesn't mean anything unless I feel like drawing it lmao. Secondly, what's his thoughts on the people in power/the guardians + the queen (I'm lumping the Judge into the guardians)? You said he won't work when he can survive well on his own, but does his dislike stretch out to even wishing harm on the guardians? Actually, does he know if a guardian dies, their Zone dies, too? How knowledgeable is he on the world of OFF's lore and how it functions?? Thirdly, does he have any friends I should know about? You drew him interacting with Project Goldfinch/Just Finch to break up the text in my first ask, what's their relationship? Does Bandit scam him to hell and back, or do they just casually chat every now and then? Fourthly, I VERY BRIEFLY checked out Ask Bandit and here are some observations I made: Uno, how come you ship him with Red from Animal Crossing? Is it cuz they both steal and resell?? If so, that's hilarious and I love your sense of humor. Dos, when drawing him with Elsen 7 I did not know Bandit currently resides in Zone Three, because 7 lives in Zone One. This whole time I was under the impression he travels through Zones for some reason lol? I guess that's my curse of having a handful of ECU Elsen that do that themselves lmao. Last but not least, not something Ask Bandit related, just generally speaking, would you like to see any future doodles I make of Bandit, whether he's interacting with my own OCs or otherwise? If not, I totally get it lol. Sorry if this is too many questions btw!! You're free to infiltrate my inbox with silly questions too if you want, just to make it more fair. Thank you! :]

Apologies in advance, I didn't make any new Bandit art for this post so I'm just linking something I drew in April that I don't think I shared to tumblr XD Answer time!

I modeled Bandit's gun after a Glock?? Kinda?? I didn't really reference a specific model, more like loosely inspired. I probably should create a prop-reference for it, but I haven't yet.

Bandit's dislike for authority does not stretch to wanting to take out the guardians. It would be counter-intuitive to his role as a merchant to kill off his customers by killing off the guardians. Bandit cares too much about profit, and although the guardians are annoying, without them he wouldn't have profit.

Bandit is fully aware on how the world of OFF works, it's inner workings, and other meta things.

Bandit will say anyone is his friend, even if they clearly hate him. Louis would be the only one that would truly think of Bandit as a friend (except maybe my elsen-sona, but they're a mary-sue type oc and should probably not be counted if we're talking in-universe/story lol)

As Finch is the protagonist in my game concept, Bandit will be the merchant selling them items. Finch is distrusting of Bandit, but sees him as a necessity in their mission. I do have an idea where Bandit does steal something from Finch to propel the plot, but who knows if that'll stay in the final lol

Bandit x Redd is a joke ship created by @brandy-elsen (tagging the account it was posted on and not your current account because I do not wanna waste a tag on this I am sorry Brandy AHHSGFG). All the credits to her for the comedic genius. I think you guessed right as to why that ship exists tho. I just drew it for that post because it met the "two pieces of fanart" criteria I set.

Bandit travels the zones, your initial assumption was right. He is only in Zone 3 on the askbandit blog because of the story being told on there. He's gotta refill his stock of sugar manually since sugar happens to be one of the things he cannot magically pull from his pack.

I would love to see future doodles you make of Bandit! I like collecting all the fanart I get and posting it (with credits/links) to his gallery on toyhouse.

I'm terrible with asking questions, but I'll keep your offer in mind if I have any in the future! :D

a dapper Bandit in a suit

[diy-fire-water-pups]

(( I feel the need to come here now and ask some people to be more considerate. ))

(( I created this blog for fun on my SPARE time, which is little to none because I need to worry about getting money constantly so I can eat. Not to make it everyone's problem but I literally haven't eaten anything today yet and it's currently 6:30 PM as I'm publishing this post right now. There is food at home but it's just one option, which I'm so tired of eating it constantly for being one of the cheapest things to buy, it doesn't satisfy me anymore and we're just halfway through the month. I don't have any source of secure income and I got four other mouths to feed ASIDE OF MY OWN. I am constantly overworked with my underpaid part time job as English teacher because neither my father or younger brother can help me checking these homeworks or exams, they don't know English language like I do, and I still need to balance that with drawing for commissions, which are the only way I got to get money during the month. My father is too old to get hired for anything. My brother is still finishing college, if only that shit would end their strike to continue classes so he can graduate still this year and look for a proper job, which will also probably take some time, it's not easy to get a job here.

And it takes a lot of time for me to draw and answer the asks in this blog, usually over 1 hour and half, up to two hours or even longer when there's all three pups + something else they're doing or for the background - that is, if I work on it non-stop, because I usually draw a sketch, it sits there for a few days, until I stop again to clean it up and draw the lineart, then wait a few more days until I go and color it to finish and publish the answered ask. I have some drafts with a doodled answer waiting for a week or even two, still waiting for me to finish the art and post them. I'm having fun with these on my own time.

WITH ALL THAT SAID, I cannot afford Magic!Anons that demand for specific amounts of asks to be worked on, no matter how many. You gotta understand it: If I would start the M!A effect tomorrow, the first ask with that effect would show up like, one whole week AFTER or so. It just does NOT work here. Besides, I have some stories going on in the blog, like this entire thing about Marshall's incoming deafness, which took me what, let me see... Two weeks and half since I replied the first Anon who started it and it's still not done completely yet. I still got another interesting story to start and entertain you all with it, this other one has been waiting sitting in this blog's drafts for literally ONE MONTH now. I'm not gonna interrupt them with side effects.

If you want to dare my pups to do something funny or silly, that's cool! But it'll go for only your dare ask and that's it. I'm not gonna disturb other asks or RPs. Magic!Anons are to be fun and short and sadly I do not have the time to have anything going on for too long like that, not when it's something that changes appearances, or whatever like that.

I am not mad, or angry. I'm just asking for consideration. I am an exhausted and probably currently underweight old artist who just wants to have fun and have some food to go by every day. I'm not a tireless art machine. I'm doing this for fun, every day I wake up I'm glad to have started this askblog and see how much you guys enjoy it and enjoy my portrayal of these pups we love so much, it always makes me smile and feel like I can do some more and keep going, despite all things being against me. But sometimes I need to be firm and say no as well. I have my limits.

Thank you if you read this far. And please, don't ask who was it or what happened, I don't want anyone going after who tried to push this specific M!A here. They're a very nice person who just happened to insist on something I said no before, and I do not condone people attacking others on someone else's behalf, as much as your intention is to defend someone, that's just shitty attitude!

Let's go back to this blog's usual business, shall we? Though now I gotta get back to checking those exams answers, Idk if I'll get time to draw any other reply for tonight, maybe past midnight. I still need to stop and get up to go eat, ugh. ))

[biframes]

Alright, I must say, your art? ✨Delicious✨

Your writing? ✨Fantabulous✨

Your characterization of the Payday characters? ✨I might steal it for my own works :}✨

But I must ask: how in the FUCK do you plan your stuff? Drawings and writings, cause there's no way you pull that literal art out of thin air. (also what program do you use, I don't know if this has already been answered before and if so sorry for the repeat question)

Thank you so much! Your message is so kind... thank you.

I am appreciative that you like how I characterise the Payday gang. I don't think it is stealing for you to see them the same, and if it is I don't care, since it would only make me happy.

I will put the rest under a cut to save space.

I don't really plan very well. The drawings I post to this blog are done quickly, because I want to have fun making them instead of them feeling like work. I think art is most fun when you make things for yourself, and if other people enjoy them it is a bonus. I will often see a text post or image that I think would fit the characters well, or I think of a thing they would say to each other, or I am just being self indulgent and drawing characters sleeping beside each other or being gentle because I like it. I imagine the scene in my head and then I draw it. If I took the time to sketch more the drawings would probably look better, but I would get impatient and make less of them. (This is why there are no backgrounds... sorry.)

It can help to think of a drawing as like a shot in a tv show or movie. Who is in the frame, what are they saying, what is their expression and body language? If imagining is difficult, try drawing a small and fast doodle version of the scene you want to draw. That will give you an idea of how it will look, and it doesn't take much time or effort.

I use Clip Studio Paint EX (version 1) and draw with a hard brush set to very small. I keep the canvas at 50% zoom, so actually if I zoomed in on the drawings, you would see the lines are messy (a sneaky trick. Sorry!) I generally will open a large canvas and just keep using it until it is filled with drawings.

Writing is disorganised too.. I think of scenes I want to be in a story and then I write them, and then I try to fill in the gaps in-between. I get frustrated at the end of writing a story because I am stuck with the parts I have had the most trouble trying to fill in. (I just want to write the fun parts! I'm impatient.) I also don't have any friends that I can show my writing to without embarrassment, so it is harder to get feedback. It makes me happy that you are kind about my writing, since I am not confident about it. Thank you.

I feel fortunate whenever people here are kind about my art and writing. It is wonderful that I can have fun drawing something silly and then others can enjoy it, even though it is not a masterpiece. And I hope that it is making me improve at drawing human faces, which I have always struggled with.

Thank you again for your kind message. I hope to see your works too!

[skelleste]

2023 Art Summary

Some of the many things I worked on over the past 365 days. More details below.

Happy New Year!

Just like last year, 2023 was full of even more character art, including a brand spanking new OC. You haven't seen much of the comic yet, because it's not done, but there's been progress on that in the background as well. I also started commissions last March. None are featured in this post so I could focus more on original art, but I wanted to give a special thank-you to all my past commissioners. Not a single one of you were a customer service nightmare, in fact it was quite the opposite. I appreciate everyone who's been kind enough to give me work and treat me well.

The rest of this post is going to be some of my favorite pieces by month, and a little about them. I usually spare my followers from most details in my posts, because there's often not much of interest to the public to say, so this is mostly self indulgent.

January

I decided to revisit Tom and Maudlin, as I hadn't drawn them much since creating them. Whenever I make a new character of importance, I try to go out of my way to put them in varied poses and expressions so that I am able to understand how their bodies work by the time I need them for a real project. It's also a great way to explore their personalities, although I feel that I'll have to push Tom's emotional side more in the future.

February

Props for the comic! It sucks to have to design things on the fly, so it helps to have notable objects designed beforehand. Especially if it's important to the plot. Some of these appear in more panels than others, but it smooths out the comic process nevertheless to have ample references on hand.

March

More character designs to spare me from designing mid-comic production. If they don't have lines in the comic, then I ask random people to assign names to them to make it fun, and because it's easier to keep straight who's who when they're not named Man 1 and Man 2. Left to right, they are Johnifer (you can already see why I name the ones with dialogue myself), Wanda, Jean Vincent, Booker, Charles, Maribelle, and Gertrude.

April

It'd be silly of me to pretend as if 90% of my output isn't shitposts. When you dedicate most of your art time to a project, then you're not going to end up making any other art unless you satisfy primitive monkey brain somehow. In my case, that's usually addressed by drawing funny shit. Early this year is when I discovered how easy it is to crack jokes with Scatterbrain. This goofiness is now embedded into her personality permanently. Expect more of this.

May

April-June is when I do my Art Fight preppin', which usually consists of me making a list of my most neglected OCs and giving them some attention. I also try to get around to eventually making all of them a reference sheet in this style, just so they have something standardized between them. This year, Walla Walla had her turn. She's a shitpost character, so I won't be drawing her much again, but she's a good excuse to draw some J-fashion doodles. My interests outside of cartoon stupidity don't really make it into my art often, so she's a minor outlet for some of it.

June

I've made even more character designs this year than last year, but they were all background characters, making Raoul the only new important one. He's been officially-unofficially written into the story since 2022, but it's very hard for me to make OCs that are written before they are designed. Everyone else was designed first and assigned a role in the plot later, so he got put off for a good while. I finally got around to it though, after I killed some darlings. He is now an all-new species, and I modified the chain design to something less clunky compared to what would be historically accurate.

July

July is, of course, Art Fight month. All other art is put on pause. This year, my favorite attack was a drawing of Enchanted Bones for my friend Bugles. I drew the character independently from the background, which is why the lighting situation is as unfortunate as it is, but we don't talk about that. Thank you to everyone who attacked me and made awesome art, I'll revenge you maybe in a few years. Sorry for the wait, but the backlog is mighty long.

August

Stanson got a slight redesign in the last year, so he can fit with the style of the comic better. He's actually the oldest character out of the bunch. I had no purpose for Scott when I made him and threw them together in the same folder. I had a few one-off designs that I figured I'd keep around in case I ever did an OCT, but these two got yoinked out of it when I started getting story ideas for the them. Stanson is a cowboy (not really), so it became a western setting to make sense of it. I plan on giving him the same sketchpage treatment the other characters have gotten, but I've been putting it off purposely for a while. You'll just have to wait.

September

And there it is, the inevitable page of Raoul getting into various mischief (and subsequently getting his ass beat half of the time). He has a very abrasive personality that gets him into trouble. I don't want the comic to be heavily action-based, but he naturally lands himself in these positions and it lets me draw characters in new situations. His introduction to the story is still a long way off at this point, but I can't wait to pit him against Scott in some slapstick shenanigans.

October

Spooky month is incredibly busy for me in real life, so there isn't as much time for art as I'd like there to be. That's why I dedicated all my time that month to trying to get Halloween art done in time. I've been a fan of Homestar Runner since childhood, and as soon as I thought that Raoul would pull off a Jigen Daisuke look, I knew I wanted to do a full Homestar-esque set of costumes. The other ideas quickly fell into place. My version came out way more detailed than theirs usually are though. The spirit of Halloween possessed me.

November

I started going full gear on the comic around this time (I think 28 hours in one week when I stayed home), so there's an absence of polished personal art here. Scatterbrain eating some spaghetti is my placeholder art for "I worked on a website a bunch instead". It's far from done, but I've made major strides since then.

December

A secret santa gift for my friend, Toby! I continued doing mostly comic work, but I also made room for a secret santa and scheduled a bunch of art trades to complete between December and March. The rest still have to be completed, so you'll see that throughout 2024. Anyway, Toby's OC, Thomas, is based on the state of Michigan. I plastered him on a postcard in front of a highway sign with some Robins because they're the state bird.

There were many more drawings of course, and you can find them scrolling through my Tumblr, or on my DeviantART (I switched to Tumblr as my main site in late August). I hope the new year brings many improvements and happiness for everyone. Last year my goal was simply to start on the comic, which I did, but it was also to get it uploadable, which I didn't. I'm gonna have to aim for the same goal again. Life things were largely fine but still tumultuous enough to throw me off-course, but now my most dangerous family member has moved out and it should be somewhat safer to live here. Not 100% safe though. It never will be. I generally avoid talking about the comic extensively as I won't have a solid release date for some time, so this is the last you'll hear of it for now outside of the rare WIP screenshot. Wish me luck and have a wonderful new year!

[ask-the-splitmind-au]

Random Q&A with the Artist!

I really wanted to answer some questions I figure are probably floating around but go unasked due to them being not super related to the silly sluggies. So, here's some Q&A about my designs and the lore!

Alternative title, 'Angel wants to talk about stuff nobody is going to ask her because it only matters to her'

Q: Why does all your art have the tan background?

A: It's a soft background to help prevent eyestrain when I'm working on answering asks. Since I screenshot answers instead of saving them as an image, it's just easier to let the background be a soft color than change it back and forth every time.

Asks with Moon don't get the background itself changed, but I just put a box of dark gray behind the doodle.

Q: Why do you screenshot instead of saving the image?

A: While saving the image could get me transparent versions, since all asks are given small doodles, having one big canvas where I draw them small and then screenshot just them makes it easier. I also keep previous asks stored on different layers in case I need to drag them out for whatever reason!

Q: Why does Saint have a tamed lizard, and why is a Strawberry?

A: Originally, Saint didn't have any lizards! But, as I was readying his post, I got the idea suggested by my brother when we were playing Rain World and thought it would be really cute to have. Pacifist is a Strawberry because 1) it makes sense and 2) batflies were the only thing Splitmind Saint could reliably catch to tame anything with.

Also, a fun fact! Paci was tamed before Saint ever met Sliver, and she chose to risk their life by staying with her fluffy slugcat friend. Paci also had a brother named Geegee/GG, short for Gentle Giant, who was tamed before Sliver and her grubby ascension mitts got him.

Q: Do any other slugcats have non-sluggie friends? (Lizard, Vulture, Scavenger, etc)

A: Yes! Obviously Saint has Pacifist, but a few others have some. Ranger has a scavenger friend he sometimes visits named Acrid, and has a tamed pink lizard named Gumdrop. Arti helps carry Gumdrop places she can't normally reach. Gourmand has several scavengers he's on good terms with, but more concernedly, the slugcat colony as a whole (but mostly Gourmand) has a communally tamed Red Lizard named Crimson. Sadly, Crimson's back at the colony, and will not be appearing in the near future.

Q: Will the other slugcats (Monk, Survivor, etc) ever be available for asks?

A: Probably not. This is already a lot for me to answer, and Inv being added on as kind of an extra was a fun accident. I don't plan on letting it happen again, but with where I plan to take this blog as a story, they might show up again!

Everyone asks are the bane of my existence.

Q: Where are all the slugcats at when we ask them?

A: So! The scugerators are all gathered about half a dozen cycles' walk from the slugcat colony Gourmand leads. Gourmand is actually planning something very special about this.

I may have prepared a comic/story thing that we're getting to, very soon! It will probably be written out.

Q: How tired are you?

A: Very.

Q: How many asks are in your inbox right now?

A: 43 Splitmind asks. Yeowch.

Q: Why have asks been so slow lately?

A: The short answer is life. The long answer is that my phone is broken and I can't reliably draw on it anymore, so I'm learning my drawing tablet for Splitmind asks still. Additionally, I don't want to answer any asks until i can get the Sliver arc finished. Also, with school in session, it's harder for me to find time, and for the past week or so my cat has been fighting a losing battle against cancer. I spend most of my free time with him.

I'm almost there! Brace yourselves for some fluffy angst with Sliver and Suns!

[toxycodone]

Can't send images but I've started working on a silly kobold man

He/Him pronouns, bisexual old man

any name suggestions?? hes just a guy that smelled senshi's cooking and immediately tried to get into the party because damn... Anything sounds better than the shitty rations he haphazardly threw into his pack.

Quick fire random facts:

His fur is short but very soft, he feels like a 3 month old puppy texturally despite being around 38

he needs weight on his chest to sleep well and having pressure on his body is generally comforting for him

he doesn't mind eating strange things as long as they taste good (he's the kinda guy that would try anything once, plus he understands being desperate and having to make things work)

he had a wife (divorced) and a daughter he took care of until she moved out to live with her girlfriend.. so now he is just wandering around aimlessly without any goals, trying to make money and keep in touch with his daughter

hates when people touch him without his consent, especially if they are one of the fully human races (elf, half-foot, etc) trying to pet him/treat him like a dog

The only exception to this rule is senshi (old man yaoi? old man dog yaoi??)

I wish I could send images while anonymous... if u want I can send u the two little doodles I have of him in dms ..? If ur dms r open and ur comfortable with it, imagine a fat short-haired kobold with black, white, and brown fur idk he has black around his face, ears, and down his back, and white where the black ends, and then the rest is dull brown almost grey (with his eyes closed)

Also if u have any ideas story and clothing wise please please give I need some input on this silly man !! help me build this guy Mr. Codon sir..... if u will

oh. ohh my God.

I absolutely, positively, totally love this. like. dungeon meshi has SUCH a silly little world and I love serious OCs just as much as I love the silly ones…

(I volunteer as tribute to sleep on him every night MOVE OVER SENSHI)

BUT OKAY. BAM. LOVE THIS A LOT SO FAR. LET ME GIVE YOU A BACKSTORY IDEA FOR HIM. And some questions to think of

His life before dungeon crawling. Did he live in a typical kobold village? What drove him to take up dungeon crawling (besides money. Was it because the entrance to the Island dungeon was found and Gold stripping became popular and easyish money?)

Why did he and his wife get divorced? How does this affect his relationship with Senshi?

Plus, how do they deal with the language barrier if applicable and the long lived versus short lived life?

And as for backstory ideas on how he meets the party before smelling Senshi’s cooking, I think a good idea would maybe be like…the rest of his party died and he didn’t feel like waiting for the corpse retrievers and decided to finish the job on his own until uh oh! Good ass cooking! (Since he has such a negative view on fully human races anyways and considering how they treat kobolds and don’t value them, maybe this kinda detached approach to dungeon crawling works for him until he becomes close to Laios’s party?)

Just ideas!

Also OFC I WANNA SEE PICS. Can you submit bc my DMs sometimes suck ass and are temperamental

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I saw you post about Seafarers, but to me, your finest work will always be Fifteen Notes to You, reread all of it the other day and... yeah, it still hits like a fucking bullet train.

I genuinely don't think it's possible to capture Mono's descent into insanity better than you did here. It reminds me a little of The Last Weekend from the anthology Inside no.9, in that, you know, both from the story itself and the context it exists in, that it won't have a happy ending, but the humanization of the characters just forces you to cling to hope that something will go right. But that rarely, if ever, happens in The Nowhere.

FNTY... Now THAT'S a name I haven't heard in years...

Thank you so much!!!! I'm super grateful to see folks still enjoy my old stories :)it seems to be the general consensus even among my friends that FNTY is the best complete fic I've put out. Reading thru the comments, I remember one of a person who told me that it made them cry - and the comment made ME cry LMAOOOOOOO😭

I'm very proud of it myself as it was not only my first published fic, but my first multichaptered fic I ever completed as well. Though I am a slow writer (SEAFARERS CHAPTER 5 IS IN THE WORKS😭), for FNTY it was never because I had excessive trouble figuring out what to put on paper - especially never when in regards to the letters themselves. The most troubling parts were the in betweens, funnily enough.

Mono and Thin Man come very naturally to me when writing. I think it may be because I tend to interpret them as having very big feelings... like myself, I guess. And since the story itself is short, I suppose that I managed to make the thing itself feel like there are many big feelings in a tiny box. I will admit I got emotional myself a couple of times... then went on to edit like nothing was wrong LMAOOOO like this is how I looked writing and then editing vvv

For Seafarers, the emotional payoff has yet to come, and it will be different -- considering we have World's Most Emotionally Constipated Woman and Our Strongest Soldier (the PTSD has yet to hit because she's still actively experiencing the horrors) as the protagonists this time.

Six and the Lady are both considerably harder to write for me. I had my chance to write the Big Feeler at the very beginning because the stakes there were skyrocketing from the getgo, but now things have gotten considerably more... silent. The feelings are there but they're all kept in. OUGHHHHHHHHH

I also can't wait to introduce more stuff; I've been writing down concepts for shadow magic and powers, how the Maw works, the various things the Lady of the Maw has to look after to keep it afloat... and the Ladies. Look, I'll say that I'm really happy with what I'm doing with Teapot and Rascal. And with Teapot in general. I really like the characterization I pulled out of my ass LMAOOOOOO and the DESIGN... ok so I'm willing to share a couple of the Teapot's I've doodled

(She's genuinely very silly [read: sick in the head]... i gave all the Ladies some nice additional details because. Ik the point is that they all look very similar but I love designing outfits fuck it this is MY au i do what I want)

So right now I have a suspicion that Seafarers will hit better when it's finished and can be read from beginning to end. Since it's longer (I plan it to be... around 15 chapters? A bit longer if the events require it to be.), there will be more time to let the stuff brew until it reaches its climax as intended.

[angelicdonuts]

what was your first ps oc? what was their personality/design like?

(oh my god it's been my THIRD TIME having to rewrite ALL of this because I keep accidentally wiping it..BUT IM NO QUITTER!!! And 3rd times a charm!! :3)

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR ASKING THIS!! (feels silly having to type that for the 3rd time lol!)

After thinking through and having to write this multiple times now, I've come to the conclusion that my first Pico's School oc actually started out as just a concept, then became a fully fledged oc only after I already made a few others, but I think the title still goes to them!

As a concept, they were a spiteful ghost. Not sure why, where they came from, nor did I ever decide literally anything else about them. Their whole thing was that they were this spiteful ghost who was also kinda silly? All I really remember was that they liked messing with Pico and enjoyed the thought of everyone in the world meeting a horrible end? Strange, I know. But don't worry, it gets worse, LMAO!!

When I brought up the idea to my best friend and got a mixed review, I immediately dropped them out of embarrassment, just to bring them back to add something to another PS oc of mine who I made with a whole batch of them (All of which I still have and TREASURE because they all mean so much to me)

Their name is Noah, and their whole character (at least at the time since they're DRASTICALLY different now) was that they were super shy, EXTREMELY timid, and depressed. (And also dinosaurs!!) And remember the first oc I mentioned? Well, their name is now Glass, thanks to the same best friend, and their whole existence revolves around making Noah's life a living hell.

The whole story behind the two was that Noah got bullied when they were younger and obviously at a different school and got forced to go into the boiler room that was rumored to be haunted?? Henceforth, Noah got semi-possessed by Glass.

Nearly everything about Glass revolves around Noah, so it's a little hard to explain them by themself, but there are a few things about them that are particularly interesting.

Their silliness and spitefullness are now split into two completely different personalities, but both with the ultimate goal of getting Noah to 'self-destruct' (I swear its for a reason but GOD that sounds so bad to the point its funny) The spiteful side did so by telling them horrible things and just making Noah hate themself in general. The silly side did so by making sure that any peace Noah ever found never lasted by being atrociously annoying.

Also they shapeshift, because they can. And that's cool. So yeah!

They don't have an exact story behind why they are the way they are. They've gone from 'kid who got murdered' to 'ghost with no chill' to 'weird other dimensional being that wants humanity dead' to 'demon who wants to wreak havoc on mankind'.

And as of now, I don't know what to do with Glass, both in terms of character and appearance wise, since I really haven't worked on them whatsoever for what feels like years, and like I said I completely reworked Noah, character and all, and their entire existence revolves around them, so I think it's only right that I completely rework them and maybe even finally give them a solid backstory and character.

As for what they look like actually isn't too hard even if they do shapeshift since I gave them this sort of 'normal' or 'standard' form, which itself has two different versions depending on which personality is talking. Heres my most recent take on what they look(ed?) like (and I mean recent as in literally right now LOL):

I think it's obvious on its own but left side is 'meanie' right side is 'silly'

The pictures around the edge are OLD OOOLD doodles I've made of them (some of them have Noah's old designs in them too :3), but basically 'meanie' is pretty boring, but they do literally all of the shapeshifting, meanwhile 'silly' is ribbon-like? And they have a mouth and arms. Smaller differences are the cowlicks and whatever the hell you call that strand of hair in the middle of their face

Anywaysss! I could talk all about Noah and literally EVERYTHING about them, but that's probably for another time considering how long this already is!

[princesseevee06]

are there any changes to the floormasters in ytr? <- autistic abt the floormasters

im assuming rio ranger doesnt exist here, because. sei. but im curioieus

i am so glad you asked!!! i’ve been waiting for an excuse to talk about the floormasters, they’re just not as fleshed out as i want them to be yet…(this is partially because i keep agonizing over what i want their designs to look like. it’s hard to find a balance between “silly yet stylish” and “just walked out of the evil clown circus”)

originally, i was planning to keep them the same but i quickly realized that would not work because sei and sou are both participants and therefore ranger and “midori” never Exist. so yes, they (most of them) are swapped too!

i will say that i kept gashu and meister in the same roles though. gashu because i think it would be vv interesting to see kai interact with his father in the death game (since he never gets the chance to in canon), and meister because 1. he almost certainly has ties to sara and 2. atp in the game he hasn’t played a big enough role to the point that i really even know what to do with him? so i was hesitant to swap him at all.

but but but!!! i’ll get into who takes the roles of the other 4 floormasters below (i hope this is what you were asking for???)!!! bear with me if it’s a little barebones compared to the main cast descriptions i’m still figuring things out

Megumi Sasahara > Sue Miley

Tbh I have my suspicions that canon Megumi already has ties to Asunaro so making her a floormaster in this AU felt like a logical move. I don’t have that much to say about her as of yet, but since she’s the first floormaster she sets a much different tone for the beginning of the story in comparison to Miley. Whereas Miley’s presentation feels very ‘cartoonishly evil,’ Megumi is a lot more serious about the game which kind of hammers in for the participants how highly important their captors regard the Death Game. Basically…even more dread and unease…especially after Nao’s death.

Hinako Mishuku (fake) > Rio Ranger

So this one is kind of what spurred on the idea of swapping the floormasters as well, because I really wanted to do something with pink-haired Hinako and/or see her interact with black-haired Hinako. Then I thought of a very tragic idea: what if pink-haired Hinako and black-haired Hinako were twins?

So I thought of the name Hana Mishuku for her. Basically, my idea was that the Mishuku twins’ parents split up because one of them started getting involved with Asunaro, and as a result the twins were separated. While Hinako led a relatively normal life, Hana was stuck with her father and unwittingly forced into becoming an agent for Asunaro at a very young age.

She acts similar to her canon personality, with a sort of dry callousness. She does still have a soft spot for her sister (and seeing her again after years doesn’t help) but she believes that’s something she has to ruthlessly stamp out in order to survive in the organization. (can you tell thinking about her makes me sad…)

Shunsuke Hayasaka > Tia Safalin

I am so sorry to all Hayasaka fans but his character is the definition of wasted potential to me. He clearly had ties to Asunaro (albeit seemingly unwillingly) and yet this is something that comes up like. Once? So I decided to take advantage of it here and make him play a bigger role. Rather than just doing dirty work for the organization, he gets swept into it and he HATES it. He’s pretty much only following orders because he doesn’t want to be killed, and rather than acting like a mild-mannered office worker he acts much more like a jaded, pessimistic office worker (someone please help this man). I also think he’d have a fun dynamic with Hana, but that’s something I’ll likely elaborate on in future doodles…

Momdori/Mrs. Hiyori/whatever you wanna call her > Midori

This one was probably the most fun for me to put together. Maybe it’s bias because the mysteries of Sou Hiyori’s family will forever intrigue me, but I think that his mom (or who I presume is his mom but really we only have a silhouette) has such interesting potential. I definitely don’t believe her and Sou would have a healthy dynamic here, what with just the way both of them act (i.e. insufferably) and their seemingly incompatible views of Asunaro (borderline religious devotion vs. as a tool for further experimentation/entertainment). (i could go on for literally hours and hours about their dynamic in this au but i’ll save that for another day)

As for her actual role in the story, I think she’d act very similar to Midori at first, but over time be revealed to have less of the childish behavior and more cruelty + cult-ish behavior. She’d also regard the participants differently: constantly emphasizing how they’re all fated to be sacrifices for God etc, etc until everyone is incredibly annoyed. (good thing for them that the goal of the subgame is to kill her!)

uhhhhh uhhhh anyways i don’t know what else to say but i hope this satisfies your curiosity! i’ll definitely revisit the floormasters again once i figure out what the hell to do with their designs but for now, as thanks for reaching the end of this rant take this momdori:

[dykefish]

sometimes you gotta make the nothingburger doodles with no passion behind them for the good ideas to come. get all the old bad stuff out leave a clean slate for the new. not every art piece needs to be super personal or authentic or whatever. insisting that artists should only create for themselves is kind of stupid bc humans thrive off validation and social behavior. make things that other people want you to make! make something super self indulgent! eventually an idea you like will come to you, you can't force it unfortunately. i have been trying it just does not work. keep drawing soldier i fucking love your art

smiling real wide at you with gratitude

i do make things that other people want me to make, but it feels like thats all ive been doing for a long time, every time i think about drawing i think about posting it later, and while that does bring me something seeing people react and like my art its not a sustainable source for satisfaction, because the more you make the less reactions you get, despite knowing logically everyone likes my stuff, they cant express that everytime, and the joy of showing people my things only lasts for a little bit before i run out and start making something else,

thats the issue, i WANT to make something self indulgent, i want to make something that comes easy to me because its a stupid thing i like that makes me happpy, but theres nothing TO indulge in, i used to be able to do it, i used to make embarrassing gay little doodles of me in scenarios, i used to make stupid yaoi that wasnt very smart but got me THINKING i imagined scenarios and fake fanfics for more than 2 seconds, id look back on the art and get giddy, i want that again, i want to make stories and things that last and things that make me feel like im 9 years old and waiting to get home so i can roleplay on animal jam with my friends

i could coome up with thousands of interesting art ideas that mean something, a billion experimental pieces that make someone in the tags start drooling, and that would give me some sort of satisfaction, but i dont have the energy for that, and even if i did i cant have JUST that, i need something more, and i need to be able to do it by myself, because if i just wait for someone to come play with me its not gonna happen,

i look at my friends and they all could go on for hours an hours on a game or a media they like, they all have SOMETHING to look foward to, something theyre passionate about, no matter how small or silly it is, and they can rely on it to bring them simple joy, i want that

and i want to do that with other people, i REALLY want to do that with people, but i cant force it, so for most of my time i sit watching other people do things, and itd be nice if i had something for myself,

i dont enjoy anything, thats an exagerration, but i dont get hyperfixated easy, i have one thing that i could safely call a special interest, and thats art, but sometimes i dont have the energy to find an artist i like and get neurotic on how to mimic them to get better, i want something stupid to make me happy, i want to do something stupid and feel good about it, i want to be able to think about anything

[swaps55]

2022 Writing Wrap Up

Tagged by @commander-krios. Thank you!

I wasn't going to do one of these things because I didn't think I'd accomplished as much as I have in the past couple of years, but I am thankful you tagged me, because when I looked at it, there was a lot to be proud of, and I think it's important when we work so hard to sit back and RECOGNIZE what we've done, instead of just dwelling on what we haven't.

Total Words Published: 122,327. I think. I had to do math, and my math is never trustworthy. I don’t think I forgot anything? I might have. Part of me feels like I shouldn’t get credit for Concerto, because it was more or less a rewrite, but at the same time it was a lot of work so I should get credit, heh.

Additional Words Written: 27,923. This only counts drafts I intend to actually publish some day (namely two entire Fugue chapters, the beginning of a third one, and Cadenza, a fic that will get written eventually). It doesn’t include the scribbles that may or may not turn into something, or the discarded scenes that got rewritten. This number is probably MUCH higher, but I’m not doing that math.

Grand Total of Words: 150,250. I’m very happy with that. It felt like less.

Fandoms: Mass Effect. It is the only fandom I write for. I’m a one trick pony.

Highest Everything (raw kudos, hits, comments): Of fic published this year, Cantata reigns supreme in every category, even though a big hunk of it was earned in 2021. But the comments on the final chapter alone, which is definitely 2022, are mind blowing to me. Nothing I write will ever match the top kudosed stories in the Ao3 mshenko tag, but I’m floored at how much engagement Opus gets. I’ll take that over any metric.   

Highest Kudos to Hits Ratio: I think it’s Hearstoppers Beyond the Veil. Which I find delightful. It’s such a silly, sweet fic.

New Things I Tried: Sam’s POV is off-limits in Opus, but I have some future scenes that I’m going to need in which he’s my only POV option unless I get creative. So I’ve gotten creative, and am doodling some things in 2nd person to see if I can get what I need while still filtering Sam through the eyes of someone else (in this case, a more omniscient narrator Sam is unaware of). I am pleased with the results so far enough to keep working at it.

Fic I Spent The Most Time On: Fugue. Every single chapter of Fugue feels like a dogfight. It’s such a difficult and complex story to navigate on every level. The story as a whole obviously has been the biggest time investment this year, but each individual chapter is like climbing a mountain.

Fic I Spent The Least Time On: Yours, which is a first kiss AU. It’s a fairly simple story, but it fell out of my head and onto the page with very little prompting from me, and I love it to pieces.  

Favorite Thing I Wrote: It’s hard not to say Cantata or Fugue, but of the one-shots, I’ll give it to Space Talk because I got to make a cow-tipping joke and connect it to Arcturus.

Favorite Thing I Read: This is a very non-inclusive list. Sunset and Evening Star by @shadesofmauve, Trikalon by @dandenbo, Far From Comfortable by @screwyouflightlieutenant, Alke by @mallaidhsomo, red sky at morning by @shadoedseptmbr, we’ll dance this fading life away by @tiltingheartand, Eric and Stella's Cabo Adventure, by @writes-in-space, Friend of a Friend by @otemporanerys, in the deep dark by @urrone

Writing Goals for 2023: Finish Fugue (I am so close I can taste it) and (after a decent break), start Mezzo, Opus’ ME2 story.

New Works: Heartstoppers from Beyond the Veil, Space Talk, Concerto, Warm With You, Yours.  

Tagging (no pressure!) @baejax-the-great, @mallaidhsomo, @screwyouflightlieutenant, @shadesofmauve. Hell, if I tagged you anywhere in this post, consider yourself tagged. And anyone who wants to feel proud of what they did this year? Do it and tag me back so I can cheerlead you.

BE PROUD OF YOUR WORK. If you didn't post anything? Be proud of what you wrote for yourself. Didn't write much? Be proud of your daydreams and ideas and OCs that rotate in your head like a rotisserie chicken. It's ALL worth celebrating. Tell me about it and I'll celebrate with you!