#its hard for me to draw these days and thats what this blog was originally for

[franzfriday]

hello!!!! i just got into gankutsuou like february of 2022 and im obsessed hi glad to see you posting again

Hello!!! That is very exciting, I love to see people getting into Gankutsuou this much later from when it originally came out. It just has that charm about it, ya know?

Also, me 'posting again' is relative. I posted once in the past like 2 years??? And now this ask of yours is going to make it twice woah. But nonetheless, it is very kind of you to drop by and leave me an ask :) Basically what I'm trying to say is don't count on me updating again anytime soon. But then again... Maybe I will. Every now and then maybe??? I don't know! Bide your time and hold out hope lol only time will tell.

[stjeromeshospital]

HIIIII!!!!! Im late as hell but, before i get to the art request thing: Ive always been curious about what inspired you to make a lot of your ocs? Like what SPARKED that idea, if anything in particular? Especially for characters like Laika and Audrey!

Also…. Here is my creature son…… I thought you might enjoy him :)

HI MALCALM. i want to say before anything im rlly obsessed bc i think u n me are on the same page in regards to character design that guy with long sharp feature is awesome. like his face shape im obsessed eith i just notice that. i really do fucking love this character design it was fun to draw i need to draw mkre of your chars i never got around to during artfight i can say we both burnt out LAWL

thats a hard quastion but i love you for asking it ehmm its hard because i really dont know i just kind of look at art all the time and what people make and watch and experience and read stuff and 1 small piece of something inspires you until you collect enough small pieces to make 1 big thing. i get inspired by lots of stuff and tuck away whatever i like to use later or i just think alot. these days i dont really have very many OCs that are just "mine" anymore most if not all of them start off as fandom chars and i just make them more complicated until its not abt that anymore. audrey and delainey ar the only characters that i have these days that dont stem from fandom even laika actually is a fan character for my buddy henry's original universe. i like stuff i like what people make and i like that people make things and i like to dance around in them and make stuff up too YAY!

the idea for laika really only exists as it does because of the freedom of the universe theyre in, i wanted to make a character design that is complete nonsense and a premise that i like and think is fun without the restraint of grounding or rulesets, their entire being is based in "i think it would be fun if" and their design is entirely self indulgent. audrey is a different story because he is the oldest character i have and have had, he's gone through a variety of design changes and in fact did not even have a human design until i started posting him on this blog, he had existed for years and years before that. but also he is exactly like laika because he is my MOST self indulgent oc and i do whatever i want to him. having ocs is about smashing them together like barbie

[laughlikeyoumeanit]

Hello, World!

Hi there, Tumblr! I've been meaning to make an account of my own for a while and i finally got around to it today! I have heard that you are all very nice people :)

My name is Mask! It's what most of my friends call me. On this blog you'll mostly find: - Positivity posts! You are all amazing and deserve to be happy, even if we've never met I care about you all! - Pictures of me sometimes! - My thoughts and feelings! unsure how often this will happen haha You can also ask me questions and I might answer them! I hope we can all get along, I'm so happy to chat with all you lovely people!

Hi folks, @w1steria-tea here. This is an askblog for my oc mask. He is technically a youtube ego/markiplier ego oc but the original concept was a one off and never very fleshed out to begin with (It has shown up in canon exactly twice with no distinct character attatched and the meat of it is noncanon sidecontent), so he's sharing custody with canon. as you do.

WHAT TO EXPECT!! Mask will: ☺ Answer questions! The better the question the more time I spend on the drawing. really good ones may even get multiple drawings! ☺ Make in character text posts! i have. zero idea how often this will happen. its my first time w an rp/askblog we'll see ☺ Respond to comments and reblogs! If you leave interesting tags he might say something back!

Uh other stuff i want to say ☆ Boundaries will be fleshed out as I recieve asks and information about him is revealed, this includes content warnings etc. i have no idea how deep into this we'll get. questions will also likely take a minimum of two days to be answered. art is hard guys ☆ Ooc posts will be tagged #ooc, in character posting that is not responding to an ask will be tagged #in character, #mask speaks, or #mask posts. ☆ all art posted on this blog is done by me unless otherwise stated! PS: his desktop has a fun theme if u want to check it out its got a music player and silly blinkies and everything!! minor eyestrain warning tho just an fyi

OK THATS IT GO NUTS HAVE FUN SEND HIM TO UR FRIENDS IDK

[illfoandillfie]

Hi sweetheart, i hope you are doing great! i think you are a beautiful person and an amazing writer, i’ve written lots of things already but i would like to hear some advice from you about writing so i can improve my skills, i really love writing 🫶🏻😩🥹🥰💌✨

lots of love from Argentina

oh gosh im 🤧🤧 thank you, thats so lovely of you to say!

First of all I keep a writing advice tag for any posts I come across with useful writing tips. Some of them are really general, some of them are about writing specific things (like kissing or children), so probably not everything in there will be useful but hopefully some of it is.

As for my own advice.... none of it is going to be groundbreaking stuff. I've never studied writing, I don't think too hard about how I write, and at the end of the day I just write silly fics about silly boys to keep myself entertained. But I'll put a few things under the cut. These are all more general sort of tips so if there are any specific parts of writing you want me to talk about let me know and I'll see what I can give you!

Number 1 is to just have fun with it. Don't get hung up worrying about if a concept is cringe or if its something no one else will like or if it sounds too much like something else you wrote. If it's an idea that interests you, then you're going to find it easier and probably more fun to write. And if you already love writing then you don't want writing to turn into a chore or something you don't enjoy.

Number 2 is to read real books. Reading fanfic is great and fun but it's very useful to read some books that have been professionally edited and published too. There is a craft to writing things that sound good and one of the fastest ways to learn what sounds good is to read books. You don't have to study them or analyse them, your brain will just pick up on patterns, on how sentences fit together, on what sounds good and what doesn't.

One of my fave examples of this is the way we describe things, at least in the English language. There is an unwritten formula for making a description sound good. opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. It's why saying "the silly little pink French book" sounds good but "the pink silly French little book" sounds very strange. No one is taught this formula, no one does it consciously. It's just that one sounds better than the other. And it's the sort of thing you subconsciously pick up from reading.

Number 3 is don't be afraid to do some research. No one knows everything. Sometimes you'll want to write about something that isn't super familiar to you. Whether that be because you're writing is set in a different country to where you are, or you're writing a smut scene with a kink/position you've never done in real life, or you're writing a character with a kid when you don't have kids. Research it! Go on google maps and find the place you want to write about so you can see how the streets look. Find a cosmo article or a youtube video that talks about the kink. Find a site that includes those little drawings of sexual positions (or heck, find some porn if thats more helpful) so you can see how it looks. Find a blog post from a parent and see how they talk about their kid. Listen or watch interviews if you're writing RPF to see how your person talks and what their mannerisms are. Not everything has so be 100% accurate and you're absolutely allowed to make some stuff up but if there's anything you feel unsure about, see if some research helps you.

Number 4 is to read everything you write out loud, but especially dialogue. Sometimes things can sound good while you're writing it but then when you read it back you realise it sounds clunky or it doesn't flow properly. Plus it helps you pick up on mistakes you might otherwise miss (like incorrect spelling or if you meant to delete a sentance but didn't). And I say especially for dialogue because when people talk they'll abbreviate words, they include slang, they use contractions. By reading things out loud to yourself you can hear where inflections are, you can hear if something sounds too formal, or wrong for the emotion you're trying to convey. When I write I make sure that I read it out loud to myself when I'm editing. You don't have to read it to someone else and you can whisper it under your breath so no one else will hear, but it is one of the best things you can do while editing or even if you get stuck while writing a conversation. Sometimes just hearing it out loud will help you identify why its not working.

Those are all the things I can think of off the top of my head but like i said if theres any areas of writing that I haven't mentioned that you'd like my take on let me know!

[tay-bee]

Fresh Start!

Finally finished cleaning this blog! Yeah I could’ve just picked up where I left off, but I wanted a fresh start (plus I didnt want cringe highschool Tay out there eagh)

I deleted all my reblogs up until the last few things- ive left up my own fanart I still kinda like, might keep some of the original art up but idk yet.

I think im going to update my theme but that can wait-

According to dates the last of my activity was 2018- not as far back as I thought! Some life updates below:

I turn 29 in a few days. Ive had this blog since I was 16?Wild!

It still feels like im stuck at 25- Its been hard ngl. Depression makes it hard to keep trying sometimes, but I just keep myself busy.

It was strange going through all the old posts- seeing things from old friends who kinda vanished from my life, old fandoms I used to care so much about. I could see every era of my life and it made me nostalgic as HELL.

I make fursuits full time now! I remember posting my first attempt here in 2017- somehow that escalated to full time self employment!

Its not exactly what I wanted as a career, but hey its close enough!

Art is still my passion though. For a long time it was really hard, my confidence in my work is still broken and im slowly picking up the pieces. Ive been drawing a lot of fanart thats doing well on twitter, but now that site is burning down so trying to get established elsewhere (fuck you, Elon. You’re putting my livelihood in danger because of your midlife crisis)

I would also like to use this blog as a place to kinda put my thoughts into the world maybe? I always felt so afraid to on twitter cause text limits and how public it felt. And I cant afford therapy sooooo-

I miss comics, I really do. I know a good chunk of this blog for a while was just shilling my comics. I still really want to finish Sea Children, at this point I think I need to in order to move on with my life. But I just dont have the time, and its hard to get in the mindset to put that amount of work into a project for the large possibility no one sees it, or that I might end up at square one of feeling like no one cares.

But! Im feeling better about my art, and want to start sharing it again. Gonna start slow, so If anyone cares, might be seeing that soon!

💖💖💖

[oakskull]

Guess who finished this illustration set,,

MEEEEEEE!!!

It's Cogchamp fnf sprites!!! I would have made a mod but unfortunately I don't have the right software to do so

Featuring such characters as

Tutorial Fox

5up.xtml

Brother Dearest

Tub and Crumb

Prime Bell

Um sir.

and last but not least, Sammy wants murder

These are weeks 1-4, and week 5 will be in a separate post bc of image limit(derogatory) and I worked really hard on this!! (more thoughts and stuff under the cut, I got kind of rambly haha)

It was super fun to draw in this style and I feel like I learned a lot about shading and shapes (shoes especially) by trying to recreate the style of a professional artist. I think I'll do more exercises like this in the future, just to keep learning!! Also obligatory reminder that these drawings are referenced HEAVILY from the original game sprites. I was trying to draw the cog champers(and dream) like they would be a mod for the game, so the poses and style are extremely similar if not the same. If I were to redo these illustrations I might put more personality and originality into the poses, but I didn't actually study the style at all before creating the first illustration (fundy, the one I posted here is actually a redraw to make him higher quality, the original was too small)

So yeah, over all, this was super fun and I'd definitely do it again. Maybe I'll redraw some of these in the future to be more creative, you can tell which ones I drew later on bc of the variety in poses and expressions, I was a lot more comfortable with the style (tho I did keep my own eyes and mouth style bc expressions are something thats really important to my style and I didn't want to feel like I was just like,, tracing) Sorry for rambling so long, I'll put this under a cut for all the people who just want to see pretty art.

On a more art related note, you may have noticed that Dream is Pico, you may be thinking "but dream isn't on Cogchamp" and you're Right. I didn't know what else to do okay? He's fundy's Ex so it kind of fits??? I dunno man, I gave him a more steam punk mask but kept the majority of his design similar to my normal dream design, so as to keep the Dream vibe. Yknow where he's always just a green blob? It kinda slaps tbh, branding is important.

Also regarding Prime Bell, again, I didn't know what else to do, I was thinking of doing something with the egg, but that's not on cogchamp (thank goodness) so I needed something else. I decided that the only like, tangentially related thing I could do was make an Evil prime bell, based on how Sam steals it idk maybe in this world its always the demon thing and is kinda like the ring from lord of the rings, where once you have it you can't give it up. In any case designing Prime Bell took a while (plus some help from Yipcord and Chaos Crew thx guys ❤ and specifically @valpurgatory who is what inspired me to personify the Prime Bell in the first place with their turn everything into a women philosophy (I @ed him so you can check out his blog he slaps. She's like the go to for saving women from Wilbur Soot's dirty mits)) but drawing it was surprisingly quick, mostly due to the fact that I figured out how to easily recreate the texture on the Lemon Monster's body. I did no shading bc that's what the Lemon monster looks like, and it kind of hurt bc it just looks kind of unfinished to me,,, I had some trouble with the week 5 design for Prime Bell bc I didn't want to abandon my first idea. I probably should have and would have gotten a better result, but I can't be bothered tbh. This is the 3rd day I'm working on this project (these were surprisingly quick the churn out, probably bc I was having a blast) and I simply do not want to alter anything. My idea was good but the execution didn't pan out. What am I saying the week 5 prime bell design isn't even on this post sjjdjsks

Anyway, go check out fnf(Friday Night Funkin) it's a rhythm game, it's free and the OST Slaps. I'd also highly recommend listening to the Whitty mod songs and the Neo mod songs,,,, good good music.

[keerishima]

HELLO! I saw you were a new blog that needed requests and I was wondering if you could write head-canons for todoroki, bakugou, and kiri (separately) with a s/o that has a witchcraft quirk? TY

well hi! thank you for the request, it was so cool to write! now i’m assuming you mean like a quirk that works like potions and herbs/crystals and spirit summoning and spells which is the road i’m taking i hope that’s okay?

now this boy is

excited

when he first saw the mist swirling around your fingers as you fought the robots in the UA exam, a shock went through his body

what was that? 

okay he didn’t mean to stare- considering he was in the middle of an exam- but the way you moved and the glints of a crystals around your body was just so cool

time passed and he got closer to you, during the dorm competition your room was the only room he wanted to see and boy did he love it

the green ivy and plants in your room, the pots and white smoke curling from diffusers and shelves full of powder and inks organised in a neat row

your room felt like a whole new world- like magic

literally after everyone had left he was still in your room looking around like a meerkat assessing it’s surroundings

fast forward; you guys are dating and he was VERY curious as to how your quirk worked, and you explained how your spells and energy came from the crystals and jewels

each crystal gave you a different energy, which converted to your power!

kirishima literally watched in awe as you pointed at all the different coloured gems and jewels and the symbols on your walls

he even asked to touch some of them and asked where you got them

he also asked to see them in battle, and asked if you had any similar to his own quirk!

the both of you engaged in LOTS of different mock battles, which almost always ended up in a play fight rather than real training- just because he ends up enjoying watching you use your quirk too much to actually focus

once you two had engaged in a long, breathless make out session against one of the walls- what can I say? you wanted to see what it felt like to kiss kirishima in his red riot form and have him melt back to normal under your touch

yeahh...it was a bad idea to do that in the school gym, where half of class 1-B caught you two mushed together against a wall

back to the hc!

he asks SO many questions

sometimes just sits on your bed for ages and asks one after the other after the other, to the point where aizawa has to come and send him back to his side of the dorm

let me tell you now: if you are 1) planning to get anything or 2) NEED anything, don’t let him find out

you once let it slip that you were considering getting pouches to carry these crystals, and the sweet, sweet boy went out and bought BUCKETS of bags

yes buckets because he didn’t know if your crystals would be affected by material or size of the bag or- god forbid what if it did and he ruined your quirk in battle?! 

he’d never forgive himself.

ever.

like literally he’d be on his knees ready for punishment of how you saw fit because of his mistake

what can i say? the boys dramatic

but its endearing :,)

it ended up being the cutest date of you cuddled up on his bed wrapped in his blankets like you were drowning in them,

whilst he sat on the floor, presenting each little bag and pouch to you, all teleshopping style.

‘and THIS 🤩 gorgeous article comes with not just 1😱! not just 2 😱! but THREE 🤯🥵🥳🥳 buttons to clip close to ensure a tight, secure hold of your 😏 special package’

yeah he made a sleazy face

yeah you threw a plushy at him

all of them were bought with your costume in mind and how could you not keep some of the bags? with kirishima watching you with the biggest eyes and slightly-pouting-lips-but-he-would-never-admit-it there was no way you didn’t keep the most useful ones

you asked him to return the extra bags so he wouldn’t have wasted his money, whilst you repaid his kindness with lots and lots of kisses and cuddles

;) or more depending on how you want it

todoroki is uhh...

emotionally constipated

but thats not his fault

#fuckendeavour

sometimes it comes off that he’s not interested in your quirk in a general sense, but it’s only because he doesn’t know how to ask without seeming pushy

he gets shy (but doesn’t show it) but with time that decreases to a sort of dry affection

i’m not saying he’s a dry boyfriend but he definitely isn't as spritely as someone like Denki might be

the way you’d see that he wanted to know more was if he asked you to come and fight with him, train with him and study

this is where he asked about your quirk

he didn’t ask to the extent of kirishima, who said everything that came to mind, he asked precise questions that gave him all the information he was desperate to know because you are so cool it makes his heart burn needed

and he also knew you would add more information as you explained, which he loved because he loved hearing you talk so passionately

this time your quirk allowed you to control people to an extent, depending on different plants and herbs you used

the plants each had a special line, muttered as you dropped the herbs anywhere on your opponent for it to activate

best believe todoroki asked for one to knock endeavour out, literally out of nowhere💀

once, one night you had been laying on your bed, and todoroki had popped over to see you. it was still quite early on in your relationship so you weren’t expecting him to cuddle up beside you and tuck into your smaller body, chin hooked onto your shoulder whilst his eyes bore into yours from below todoroki loves eye contact

‘Do your plants have meanings?’

that’s it, that’s all he softly whispered in your ear

‘What do you mean?’ You whispered back

‘Like...like roses mean love...do your herbs have a meaning linked to what they do?’

okay now he was blushing, very gently because he didn’t want to annoy you, or ask you a question you’d never thought of and make you feel silly or insecure about his quirk

YOU on the other hand were smothering a dopey grin. you knew your boyfriend and his boundaries, and you knew that him asking you in such an intimate setting meant he was trying hard for you

you also knew that he’d just given you free reign to ramble however you saw fit

so you explained, how each herb did this, how if you mixed them they did that, if you made a liquid infused with them it helped with your application in battle and so much more

todoroki listened silently, but his eyes were gleaming

literally glowing in the darkness- I mean was that even possible? it had to have been considering how todoroki looked at you that night

after you were done, he replied with a similar thing about his own quirk, and both of you had a long long chat that went from quirks, to schooling, to life, to aliens and more

todoroki had the weirdest humour, he never knew he was being funny until your quiet giggles morphed into full blown laughter- and caused a knock from the next room over because you were being too loud

he would let out his own little chuckles and smirks, seeing you enjoy his company so much

it was a while after that day when something new happened

you’d sent him a message, whilst he was sitting right next to you, and your contact name flashed on his screen suddenly, catching your eye

‘my calendula’

you looked at todoroki

todoroki looked at you

you both blinked

‘calendula?’ you asked

‘yes’ todoroki replied

‘why calendula?’

‘because,’ todoroki blushed deeply, eyes flickering away from yours

‘because you said calendula means joy...you’re my joy. arent you?’

and god help anyone who tries to say you aren’t todoroki’s joy

because you would literally throw them to the ground

your heart soared at how todoroki loved you and your quirk so much

even though it wasn’t blatantly obvious, it was the little things he did for you 😍

he originally going to call you his basil until Bakugou came round behind him asking him if he was writing the dorms grocery list. safe to say that plan was aborted immediately :D

oho

sorry I just

*pfft*

bakugo amuses me, he really does he’s so entertaining

okay sorry back to the headcanon

I headcanon you’re REALLY strong

like STUPID strong

Remember bakugos reactions to all the students quirks and he was like ‘shit I cant beat them 😨’

And his reaction to todoroki? yeah he’d literally see you use your quirk and just

no I’m joking

but I feel like as your s/o he’d be super obsessed with your quirk

he’d always want to train with you, he’d see it as an amazing part of you that he wants to help hone so you can be the best of the best

not better than him obviously but the best anyway

not that he’d SHOW all of this awe and pride to you, it’s normally delivered in a bunch of bakugo sentences:

‘oi your form is shit. do this instead.’

that means he’s realised a new way you can throw this punch, with much more force

‘tch, go train. you need the training.’

he wants to train with you. again.

‘....finally. took you long enough to learn that.’

you’ve just done something successfully and he’s trying so hard not to blush at how well you did it.

here your power is more destructive

you can create sigils using a your finger in the air and they create attack power

this with bakugos quirk makes a formidable duo, and if he doesn’t get partnered with you he will most likely throw a fit

but not a long fit more of a like ‘oi why is she over there we work better together’

but he realises as heroes you need to work well with anyone you meet, so he’s not too fussy

because of the fact that you draw the sigils, you have a habit of tracing out patterns and new symbols and any sort of designs subconsciously

this is done normally on any part of your skin, with a pen

bakugo being old man bakugo 🙄 got mad at you

he told you off for almost giving yourself ink poisoning and ruining your hand and making it all dirty drama queen

but throughout all of this bakugo had been clutching your hand, and best believe he wasn’t letting go

he used the hand he was holding to pull you along and sit comfortably, dropping his own palm into your lap and mumbling something that kind of, sort of, might have been along the lines of ‘use my arm dumbass’

now you had bakugos arm to scribble on to your hearts content.

you used this when you were stressed, worried that your nerves were causing you to forget things or simply because you wanted to hold bakugo close

in fact, bakugo himself had adopted this habit, and you’ll notice I said arm instead of hand

bakugo got nervous around you, and therefore sweaty, which therefore lead to tiny little explosions in his palms when you were near

but this habit had started to make him feel comfortable with his hands around you, it made him trust himself more

he knew his power was strong and he didn’t want to hurt you, your quirk was something that helped him with that

and he wouldn’t tell you that but he was grateful. VERY grateful

he once asked why you used pen, and not your finger on your skin considering the pen ink is toxic

you answered very quickly, by pulling out a sheet of people and sliding your finger across the surface in a sigil shape

promptly the paper burnt into a cinder :)

and bakugo never asked again

and that is the end! I hope you liked it and I did the idea of Witchcraft justice 😅 please do send some more requests!

god I loved this so much they’re all so cute :,) thank you for this request!!

[ankhisms]

the always wonderful shelley @shanheling tagged me to do this thank u so much!! i think that everyone i wanted to tag has already been tagged to do this but if you feel like doing this feel free to consider urself tagged by me!! im putting this under a readmore bc its long and i ramble a lot

the piece i was tagged to explain my process on is this oc piece! unfortunately i have a habit of deleting my original clip studio file once ive finished my art and saved it as a new png file, so i dont have the file to show the sketch and different stages of this piece. but I still can go through my general process and talk about how i did that piece!

1. planning

honestly i think about the art that i want to do a lot, and in this last year or so ive thought about the art i want to do more than ive been able to actually create and finish that art that i want to do. for my planning i tend to do a lot of different thumbnail sketches for the art im thinking of

these are some examples of thumbnails, a lot of times ill do thumbnails just on pencil and paper and with some of these theyre done quickly with my fingers on my phone note function on a day where i was feeling too bad to get up and draw on paper but still wanted to get the thumbnail ideas down. two of these are for the same songxiao piece that i still havent finished and i have more thumbnails digitally on clip studio for the same piece, i do a lot more thumbnails when a piece isnt working the way i want it to and theres times where ill completely scratch a thumbnail or a sketch and start over in order to do more thumbnails because i dont feel happy with some aspect of it.

two of these are small gouche painting thumbnails for two pieces i did maybe a month or so ago, i did the thumbnails and then tried to expand on them digitally and im wanting to do more thumbnail paintings like this in the future because it was fun

for the piece of my oc trio it was based off a series of ask prompts i got for a few different outfit prompt memes i had reblogged, so i based their outfits on the ones in the meme. when im drawing figures i tend to try and get the movement down in the poses when im sketching, i do several rough sketches of the pose before beginning to start setting down lines (if im doing lineart at all because sometimes i dont like doing lineart and do a more lineless painting kind of style). i really try to get my art to convey some kind of emotion, in the oc piece i wanted it to feel fun and like youre seeing three best friends while theyre out on the town having a fun night

2. creating

this is the only real example i have of a piece in the middle of being filled in and created, this piece is one that im really not very happy with & have had lying around for a while and ill probably scrap it and try to come at it from a different perspective at some point. but anyway it still shows what i do, i lay down a kind of neutral gray color underneath my final sketch/lineart if im doing lineart in that piece and then i start picking out the colors that i want for the piece and kind of setting out a pallette for myself. i dont do this color pallette thing 100% of the time but i do it really often, especially if im working on a commission or a larger piece where i know theres going to be a lot of colors or if its a piece where im not sure exactly what color scheme i want so laying out the colors together helps me kind of decide what kind of scheme i want. i am sooooo picky about my colors in my art i am genuinely obsessed with colors in art and there are times where i really have to stop myself from working on something forever just constantly adding more colors or putting little tiny changes and gradients in the colors.

after ive got the colors i want down i tend to try and block out parts of the piece with the base color for that section, and then i start to paint with the colors that i want to go on top of that base color from there.

once im satisfied with the colors/shading/rendering and everything ill go back and look over things and will fix things that look off or sometimes completely redo segments if they dont look right to me. when i was younger and mainly doing digital art using my phone and my fingers i would use a lot of filters and overlays on top of my art once i was done, and honestly im glad to not be doing that anymore because i dont think it made my art look any better. i do color adjustments and sometimes will put on a color overlay or a layer to emphasize the shadows and the light in the piece, but i try to keep those layers to a minimum and like i said before i have a tendency to obsess over the colors and ill spend a good amount of time in the color adjustment tool of clip studio and then ill just decide "actually it looks fine as it is" so yeah!

3. posting

i feel like i dont have a lot to say here gbfm i mean i honestly have a lot of thoughts about the relationship between artists and social media and how social media changes our views on art including our own art and how we can feel like we constantly need to be posting new art and just become content machines churning out new stuff. but ill save that rant for another time. i used to be really concerned about how many notes my art would get when i was younger, and i dont at all blame anyone who still is very concerned about that bc it sucks when u work hard on something youve created and then you dont get a lot of recognition for it, but honestly within the last two years or so i feel like ive begun to have a lot healthier relationship with posting my art. i really just post my art on my art blog, reblog it to my main blog, and then thats that yknow! i do really appreciate any and all support people give me, it means the world to me, but for me having the mentality where i dont need to post all the art i make and i dont need to be posting every day or every week or every month even has been a lot healthier for me because then im not constantly asking myself why didnt this get notes is my art awful??? and yeah i just kind of post it and my brain goes okay were done with that art we gotta make more

ive honestly been struggling a lot with art thru the pandemic and if youre reading this and have been struggling with creating in any way recently or even before the pandemic, please know theres no shame in having trouble creating and it doesnt make you bad at whatever it is u create!

thank you for reading this, feel free to consider urself tagged by me again if u want to do this!! love u all

[jazzy-art-time]

If it’s okay to ask: so in your experience, which of your pokeask blogs were rebooted? And what were your reasons behind starting fresh with each of them?

I’ve had a LOT. Of pokeask blogs.

Most are deleted and not rebooted. But I do REUSE OC’s from blogs a lot, incorporating them in new blogs or existing ones. But the only blogs of mine that have been officially rebooted are: Ask-Scrafty and Ask-Wasteland-Labs --------------------------------------------------- explaining below cuz lot of text.

Ask-Scrafty was originally EXTREMELY horror video game inspired and was a Choice based ask blog (like those RPG pokeask blogs) but there was a issue. The blog started out with a Altaria OC. This was meant to be the “speaker” OC.  The reason why it was called Ask-Scrafty was because the actual main character of the blog, was a scrafty. So whenever people made a ask/did a choice, they would be ASKING the SCRAFTY. I thought it was funny pun type name to go with as the Altaria “character” wasn’t even a character really, just the Player Character. The main OC WAS IN FACT A SCRAFTY. I even had a animated introduction to the blog plotted and everything but. Someone decided to make a stink over the name of the blog. Like just right in chat call me out saying I needed to change the name of the blog to “something else” cuz the PlayerCharacter was a Altaria and not a scrafty. When I attempted to explain it.... they went on and on about how well stupid it was Then some other people I looked up to, who were friends with the person, agreed to it and just kinda publicly slammed me in a server? and at the time I was just... Butthurt I guess. I had worked SO hard on everything, only to have a group of people publicly roast me in chat for it. OVER THE NAME OF A BLOG. JUST A NAME?? NOTHING ELSE JUST THE NAME OF THE BLOG?? Needless to say, I just gave up on it. Like deadass just gave up on it and just never updated again. I wanted to keep the URL because I love scrafty and I was SO happy that I got the URL in the first place. Even after days of work I just gave up on it. If people were willing to make a public roast over the NAME of the blog? I knew it was going to a bigger pain in my ass than I wanted. If people were willing to make THAT big of a stink over a fucking NAME? Then I already saw future issues. So I never updated the blog again and kept the URL in case I wanted to do something else. Which I did!  Now it has a new story which I adore. Looking back, I was in a bad emotional state and when a group of people decide to roast you publicly in chat and call your idea stupid (before it even ACTUALLY  started)..  I probably could have waited and just continued with my idea anyways and said “fuck them” but I didn’t. /shrugs its okay now. Because I ended up with Jody and thats good. AS FOR ASK-WASTELAND-LABS? I literally could not draw my OC Prescott in a way I wanted. I started it, realized I wasn’t comfortable drawing him and decided to reboot it. Now I know how to draw him so... Blog rebooted just with a different angle. Cuz the first story wasnt as SCP based as I wanted and now it is! i literally couldn’t draw one of the main characters and so I decided to restart it when I could draw them lol

[floridensis]

AH!

(im just rambling under the cut and it got loooong)

ive been looking for the phone i had at this time and i cant find it

okay do you remember back when instagram was for hipsters? like it was literally basically exclusively about putting vintage filters on your pictures to make them look old timey. good times. why cant we go back.

anyway back around (?????) i had an instagram and i literally have no idea if there was a social feature, if there was i never used it. i just used it to make some pretty pictures sometimes.

well back in (??????) we travelled to pennsylvania to visit family, and i loved the vibes there, so much older and less.... whatever its like in my part of florida. i must have decided to take some pictures that matched my vibe. i knew i took some really old cemetery photos and some street photos to instagram, but i had no idea i took this one.

i KNEW i captured this butterfly eating a crabapple, and i had some normal, non-filtered photos, one of which i had as my lock screen. its these photos ive been after for a long time now, because i want to find as many old photos as i can to upload to inaturalist. my main blog has been fantastic for excavating high school finds, but this butterfly has remained elusive. i think i had a tumblr at the time, but some time in the middle of high school something snapped and i manually deleted every single post on my blog with a small handful of hand picked exceptions, so just about everything from before then is no longer there. i never ever ever get rid of my old phones (or most things.... because i have issues) so i know i must have it but i just cant seem to find it anywhere. i was giving the butterfly up for lost. but i was looking at my massive folder full of my photography and related stuff that has only been around for a couple years, and i saw that i must have saved a small handful of my old instagram photos. i opened it expecting to just be nostalgic for pennsylvania but what do you know, i also struck gold!!!!

unfortunately, that instagram account is gone, and this photo is dated at 2017, which must have been when i originally re-discovered it and saved it. the picture is absolutely way older than that, but i have no idea when it was actually taken. my phone would have that information saved, but alas i cant find it. id date this as probably 2009-2011 but i am bad with time in a very big way. i think this might have been a summer visit. so im happy i have this and might upload it to inat in this condition, but i hope im not done. im going to show my mom some of the other instagram pics i had to see if she has an idea about when this was. she most definitely does have that answer though of course she could not pin down the exact date of my butterfly. i will also need her help because i know the exact location of where i took this but i dont actually know where it is. if she gives me the address thatd be perfect.

i also like.... hate the idea of uploading something with a filter but thats all i have until i can find that phoneeeee

(i bet when i find that phone ill also have bunny pictures that will make me literally weep.... i really hope i find it)

isnt it beautiful?

i love floridas nature but i detest the human parts. so modern and ugly. modern doesnt have to be ugly but it sure does like to be. i probably have some not-filtered cemetery shots because these stones were REALLY OLD, but again.... missing the phone. its like impossible to tell from these pics to see what the stones say but they dated back hundreds of years if memory serves.

call it my heavy cancerian influences, i have an immense draw to places and things with strong, long pasts. one day im going to accidentally bring a haunted object home. its hard to articulate my draw but its a feeling i cant deny

[crowsent]

👶,⭐,💘, and💻. Love you!!

thank you for ask anon! writer ask game is here if yall wanna send in something. still taking asks for these btw

👶- advice for new writers =

yall this is hella fucking generic but PRACTISE. theres a reason almost literally every writer on tumblr gives the advise of “practise practise practise” and that reason is it works. practise doesnt mean ‘oh just write bc youll automatically get better over time’ it means ‘write bc if you dont, you wont figure out what you need to improve.’ did yall know that i literally had no sentence variation in the past? i started every sentence with [character name] or [character pronoun] and i didnt realise until i was 15/16 and i only realised bc i started writing a lot.

i think there’s a fear of failure with new writers. there’s this lingering doubt of  “what if its not good?” and boy howdy i will answer that question right fucking now. it wont be good. when i compare my current work to my earlier work, my earlier work sucked fucking shit. i spelled soldier with a fucking ‘j’ and i had no idea what the hell a point of view was. and thats okay. whoever tells you that youre going to perfect writing is a fucking liar. there is no perfecting writing. 20 years from now, imma look at the writing from today and im gonna think it sucks shit. writing is a process. its a craft. you get better and better over time and the way you get better is by experimenting w different styles, different genres, different ways of writing.

and the only way you can experiment and improve is through practise. in video games, especially rpgs (which are my favourite kind of video games), you struggle in the early game. youre at a low level, you dont have good equipment, you have a hard time moving to the next area. but the only way you progress is by grinding, gaining levels, and getting stronger. same w writing. if youre a level 1 writer, just starting out, no idea what to do, just experiment. fuck around a bit. write crackships, write rarepairs, write niche self-indulgent reader/character fics. at the end of the day, you should write for yourself. its good and cool if other people like your stuff and validate all your hard work, but at the end of the day, the one who should enjoy your writing the most is yourself.

you WILL mess up and you WILL struggle, but thats the only way you can improve. i struggle with pacing the most. still do. but others might have pacing down pat and struggle instead with word choice or pov or something else. cant figure out where you need to improve if you dont write, so just practise and worry about all the fine print later

⭐️- how do you get your inspiration? =

this is definitely not universal, but i just sit on my bed, close my eyes, and meditate. cycle through all my emotions and thoughts and filter them out. then i just toss everything out the damn window. like. id just meditate for a while, focus on breathing, on experiencing the present, picture a field and a tree and myself and breathe. thoughts fly by and i let them happen but dont focus on it.

meditating gives me some semblance of emotional control bc i normally have none, and it gives me kind of this space. this safe space that only exists for me and me alone. so i use that space to let the world drift away. just me and my thoughts and sometimes, those thoughts end up being good writing ideas. but i usually meditate for a set amount of time. like 15 minutes or 30 minutes so i dont write until i finish meditating.

then when i get out of my headspace, i open up my laptop and see what i remember. thinking too hard about something causes it to muddy up. same with art. in digital art, artists flip the canvas to refresh their eyes, see if there’s anything weird or wonky about the illustration that they normally dont see bc theyve gotten used to it. flipping the canvas is like giving our eyes a jumpstart and lets us see what we could do better. in traditional art, its turning the canvas this way and that or repositioning yourself. meditating is like that. a break. a cleanse. a kind of pause where you dont think about anything and just try to process what you already have. you relax and kind of let yourself float down a river of thoughts and sometimes, a fish would jump out of that river and youd go “hey, thats a good idea. i should try that” so when you get out of the river, youre refreshed and ready to go.

same principle with showers. more ideas come to you in the shower when you dont have anything to write with bc youre not thinking about it. youre not focusing on finding inspiration or motivation so ideas naturally flow through you. you know that feeling when you want to do x then someone comes along and says “hey you should do x” and suddenly all motivation to do x leaves? same w your brain. focus too much on “i should be writing” or “i want inspiration” and its never gonna come. just let things happen. at least, thats how i do it. some people might get inspiration by reading or watching tv. everyones different so if thats not what works out for you, dont feel pressured to try my method

💘- what’s your favorite AU? Least favorite? =

magic au. specifically fantasy au set in like a pre-modern era. shows like avatar where theres all this magic and fantastical beasts and so on and so forth. semi-modern like six of crows and nevernight are great too. i want that magic to be woven into people’s lives. harry potter is okay but there’s like this separation between magic and muggle. there’s this feeling of “magic” but like as a tool. like a spoon or a gun or a shovel. i want magic au’s that are INTEGRATED with the world its set in.

like in atla, earth kingdom people have trains they move with bending while fire nation people have machines powered by heat and steam. both correspond to their bending and makes sense for the world they live in. but if your plot is like harry potter and its less worldbuilding and more action, then there’s this book series called seasons rising (read it. so good) where there’s a bunch of spells but the spells have character. the people using the spells GIVE it character and it feels much more intimate. pokemon does the whole fantasy mixed w reality better. give two trainers the exact same pokemon and by the time that pokemon reaches lvl 50, its gonna have a different moveset, different fight style, etc bc it was shaped by the world and people around it. i like harry potter but tbh it could have been so much better

for the least favourite au, it’s A/B/O i dont like the whole “omegas are only good for breeding hurr durr” and “alphas are violent and aggressive and cant control themselves around omegas” thing and it squicks me out. major squick. i read the original harry potter squick (THAT one. yeah. you know the one) and i still hate a/b/o more. i get why people like it, and there are one or two fics set in a/b/o au that i enjoy reading, but as a whole, i severely dislike a/b/o fics.

the themes are squick, the character dynamics get so messed up, and shipping dynamics (bc a/b/o fics usually have shipping) just get so blown out of proportion. there are so many a/b/o fics that turn ooc or the character interpretations radically change or something else. no hate against a/b/o fans bc yall are amazing for writing/drawing yalls au. there are things that you can only do in this setting and exploring those things can be incredibly fun for people, but for me personally, its not an au i like to visit.

💻- three works of yours that are must reads =

i. dont know what fandom youre in anon or your genre preferences. so ill just rec you one fic for a different fandom each with kind of different genres. ts masterlist is on my side @hufflepuff-deceit and regular fanfic masterlist is on my writing blog @crownonymous 

(BNHA) Viper. its my first serious attempt at fanfic in YEARS and its my baby. currently has 7 chapters, i havent updated it in a while bc im hyperfocused on ts rn, but i love it to bits. its just all of my fav bnha fics crammed into one fic. quirkless kind of villain izuku with stain as a mentor as they work together to bring light to the injustices of hero society and where bakugos bullying has visible and long-lasting repercussions? sign me the fuck up. you can read it on ao3 HERE bc its not on tumblr. kind of fast-paced, has a lot more action scenes than anything else ive written. heavy plot-wise but has a lot of humour and comedy to break things up

(Kimetsu no Yaiba) I Pray To God He Hears You. not related to my other kny fic oleander which is a multichap retelling au. iptghhy is a standalone one-shot and kind of a character study on one giyuu tomioka. i love him so much. giyuu is my baby and i adore him. so of course i wrote a sad fic focusing on him. well technically, the fic focuses on giyuu AND his relationships.  SPOILERS for chapters 130 and 131 of the manga. focuses mostly on giyuu and sabito, but there’s a fair bit of giyuu and tanjiro and urokodaki.  you can read it HERE bc this is also not on tumblr. also deals with heavy things but more emotion-wise since it doesnt have that much of a plot. loss. grief. moving on. survivors guilt. that kind of stuff.  very sad. hurt but with comfort, especially at the end.

(Sanders Sides) Logan’s Birthday Fic: Logicality. just what the title says. i wrote 5 different fics and published them all on logans bday but the logicality one received the most feedback and honestly? the cutest of the bunch. its gonna be crossposted onto ao3 but for now, you can read it HERE on my ts sideblog. theres no plot since its literally just domestic and relationship fluff. and puns. patton is in the fic, theres gonna be puns. nothing but good things and warm feelings bc logan deserves it.

-

thank you so much for such interesting asks anon! i enjoyed answering these. have a lovely day!

[baybeeralsei]

hewwo everyone!!!! i decided to open commissions mainly cuz i,,do not have the most money and i need to save up 4 things like college, more drawing equipment, etc etc + it’s almost christmas time and my friends/family will crucify them if i dont get them anything haha ((sweats))

ignore how all the examples r ouma im in a phase

for payment I prefer venmo cuz its easier for me to get the money but I understand that its not very professional so paypal is cool too lol

if ur interested feel free to dm me!!!! (not to my ask box pwease) 

even if ur not interested in buying them, rbing will help a ton!!!!

more info/tos under the cut!!!

if u don't wanna dm me emailing me is totally cool too (notoumakin@gmail.com) 

like I said before paypal is fine to use, but venmo is much easier for me for a variety of reasons (partially bc im a minor and its rly hard to even make an account haha)

things i wont draw:

extreme NSFW (including gore, im a minor & don’t feel comfy with that)

art thats being disrespectful/hating on someone (thats rude!! dont do that!!!)

anything considered offensive (like racism n stuff)

anything with on*sion. sorry for being super specific but like. he creeps me out. ew.

mecha type stuff (robots like kiibo and mettaton are fine!! if theyre humanoid ill probably draw them but not straight up mecha)

things i will draw!!:

original characters (please provide a clear reference!!)

fanart

mild nsfw (slight ecchi and mild gore are fine!!)

most other things lol (please hit up my ask box if u have any questions!!)

tos!!

if ur commissioning me heres preeetty much what ur agreeing too:

 until im paid, i will not start a commission.

 i try not to take too long, but comms can take from about 3 days to about 2 months. please dm me if it takes any longer than that!!!

comms will be uploaded on @webzcomm cuz this is a deltarune focused blog lol

 any small mistakes can be fixed!!

 if ur not happy with it, i can redo it free of charge but there are no refunds

please use usd!!!

my do’s/dont’s are non-negotiable, however if you have any questions lmk just dont argue w/ me abt it

 ill rb this post if they close, but as of 12/8/19 theyre open!!

my ask box should be open by the time i upload this so feel free to ask any questions!!!!

[akatsukiarts]

I love your art and it's stunning how close to the original style it looks. I was wondering for how long you've been drawing and how you started out? I know art is a lot of hard work and practice but do you perhaps have any tips for people who want to start but don't know where to begin? :) Have a nice day!

hey there! i’m glad that you like my art! and thank you, that really means a lot to me since i look up to kishimoto 👍

i’ve been drawing since i was in kindergarden! my father used to paint on canvases and kind of passed his passion for art on me XD i found joy and happiness in creating art and i obviously still do!

i started out with sonic the hedgehog fanart (i just loved his games, still do, and got into the fandom really fast) and never really drawed humans until i got into the naruto fandom, which was in 2017 i believe 👀 that’s why my first artworks on my blog look... not so good. but as you can see, if you practise long enough, you can improve your art really fast, like i did! (i hope that doesn’t sound arrogant lol)

and i do have some tips, i hope they’re somehow useful:

1. (most important one imo) draw whenever you feel like it, NEVER force yourself. this will just lead to frustration and often bad results, especially for beginners.

2. please, for the love of god, or whatever you believe in, use references and watch tutorials! there is absolutely nothing wrong with using references, that’s why they’re there for, right? i think it’s okay for beginners to trace references but make sure to “study” the poses while doing so! it helps you to learn the anatomy a lot faster. tutorial videos are great for getting inspiration and learning of course!

3. don’t compare your artworks to artworks from a lot more experienced artists! i mean that you shouldn’t say things like “ohh, they’re so good... i will never be that good” because that’s bullshit. with enough time and practice you will automatically get better, don’t worry. don’t rush yourself!

4. draw what you love :^) nuff said.

[rpgmgames]

November’s Featured Game: Shooty and the Catfish

DEVELOPER(S): Daniel ENGINE: RPGMaker MV GENRE: Adventure, RPG WARNINGS: Course Language, Gore SUMMARY: Shooty and the Zaat are a dynamic duo solving monstrous mysteries!

Play the demo here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Sure! So my name is Daniel, I guess technically I am an animator. I started out making flash cartoons around 2000 just for fun and became a professional animator in the advertising space around 2007. I have been working in media ever since, both in studios and as a contractor working under the Visitors From Dreams label which is also the label I use for my game development. I started dabbling with RPG Maker in around 2002 but I never got very far. Once I got into the media industry I wanted to pick it up again but with Mac being what almost all my work was done on, at home and in studio I didnt get the chance to actually get into it properly again until MV released, infact I was so excited that I purchased MV the day it dropped and immediately begun development on my first title Flatwoods. Ironically Shooty and the Catfish was developed on a PC, but I digress.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Daniel: Shooty and the Catfish is set up pretty simply. The 2 lead characters, Shooty and Zaat run a sort of monster investigation unit out of their home. They get calls to different desitinations to deal with different monster problems. I really wanted it to feel like it was set up in a similar way to a lot of cartoons from the 80s, where every episode had a pretty similar but still managed to feel like a little self contained adventure. I have thrown in some little elements of an larger narrative but they are light until the final episode. Originally the series was pitched to Frederator for Cartoon Hangover, it got a little ways into early development but then Youtube changed its algorythm and animation on the platform became a struggle and the project was dropped. I didnt want to waste all the work I had done on the concepts and so I eventually tried to find a way to work them into a game, its taken me quite a few years to get as far as I have with development, but I would be even further back if I had tried to animate it all alone. I created Flatwoods to try and get a small project out, you know, to get some experience with the engine, little did I know how much more I had to learn!

How long have you been working on your project? *Daniel: I pitched Shooty and the Catfish back in 2013 from memory, but it didn't start to take shape as the project you currently see until the last 12 months. In that sense I am incredibly happy with how quickly the game has come together.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Daniel: So many things have influenced my work its not funny... Where do I even start? Shooty and Zaat have a bit of a Finn and Jake thing going since when the project was originally pitched to Frederator and thats what they were looking for at the time. Resident Evil 4 (the closest any game has ever come to perfection imo) was the inspiration for the games ammo based combat system. Demons Souls originally derailed the project when I tried to emulate its non linear hub based design (you will notice the demo takes place on a single island instead), that created all kinds of balancing issues though so thats all been stripped back and is what lead to the decision to make the game episodic instead. One element from Demons Souls that remains in the game is a diverse mix of linear and looping level designs when it comes to mapping. The game also features towns that have layouts based on unused maps from the Pokemon GS 97 Spaceworld demo since they never made it into any of the actual games in the series. Pokemon GS also influenced the games visuals. I'm not a big RPG guy, but I played a hell of a lot of Pokemon growing up and Gen 2 is still my favorite. Trying to get MV to emulate the limitations of the Game Boy Color was quite the hurdle, I still cant believe I got it working as well as it is. I also have a lot of cameos from other peoples RPGM games, so there's that. Its a big ol' mixing pot of ideas and inspirations.

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Daniel: Countless, the biggest challenge is always scope though. I originally wanted the game to be like 3 hours long tops, now its well in excess of that and that's before I have even put in meaningful NPC interactions. That's why I have decided to break the game up into episodes, each one should be around an hour which is much more my jam. I don't have a lot of free time so I tend to gravitate towards games that are tight and short, I think that's why I am so determined to keep this game in nice manageable chunks. Now that the game is shorter I don't need levelling so I am starting to tone down the RPG elements. One change always leads to another, but episode one is getting damn close to completion. I say this before I have even had the chance to announce the game's going to be episode on my own blog, ha ha. Episode 1 January, The Great Spore Chore! Keep your eyes out for it!

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Daniel: As mentioned above a lot has changed, I feel the biggest change was when I tried to move the game from being episodic into one adventure after playing through a bunch of other RPGM games for ideas, it all started to feel a bit aimless and the storytelling techniques I had planned when it was episodic weren't translating well as the game progressed. So I guess now the game is episodic again we have come full circle! So many ideas seemed good on paper but ended up not really being fun or adding anything in practice. Oh yeah, and the transition from Game Boy green to color was a big one based on feedback from the demo. Some people were finding it hard to tell what elements were interactable, doors in particular, I hope that color has helped minimize that issue. Key items will also have an animation on them so they are hard to miss. I'm not a fan of hunting for items in big maps, it's certainly not something I want to subject people too in my own projects.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Daniel: This project has had a few key people involved. Outside of myself I have worked with 2 musicians. One is an old school friend who did music for my animations back in the early 2000's. He has contributed a bunch of really cool EDM which makes up most of the games OST. On top of that there is also a number of optional bosses (one per episode) that have music composed by Secret Agent Ape who worked on Soma Spirits and a bunch of other upcoming games. I have been really lucky to get to work with such rad dudes.

What is the best part of developing the game? *Daniel: I love designing enemy battlers, my process usually involves me drawing a weird shape, sticking some eyes and a big goofy nose on it and trying to come up with a stupid pun to use for a name while listening to bands like Yes or Klaatu. It's bliss. I have a lot of people ask me why I have limited myself in terms of resolution and color palette, and it comes down to one of the important things I told myself when I got into game making as a hobby was that I would stop if it ever started to feel like work. I spend my days doing heavy visual effects and compositing, sometimes doing complex character animation. I want to keep that stuff as far away from my game development as possible. Ironically working within the incredibly restrictive limitations of the Game Boy has ended up being incredibly liberating and keeps things feeling fun as opposed to feeling like more of what I do all day to pay the bills.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Daniel: I always enjoy checking out demo's of upcoming games. Both Heartbeat and Virgo and the Zodiac's demos blew me away from a technical standpoint on the MV front. I still find it hard to believe those demos were made with the same engine I'm using. I guess it really shows what can be done when the engine is in capable hands. I wish I had more time to play actual full releases, I mean Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass just came out and I have no idea when, if ever I will have the free time to play it because its such a commitment. I feel like I am missing out on some great stuff.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Daniel: I guess I relate to different characters in different ways. Slim Grim is the one who hands out assignments to Shooty and Zaat, he is pretty much done with life, over people and the world itself, I think thats something we all have a bit of inside of us. Shooty is a very positive individual, his solutions to most problems is a bullet with a smile, and I think theres a bit of that in all of us as well. Zaats a bit of a cheeky smart arse, so I guess in a lot of ways I am most like her as a person. One of the episodes also features Gerkinman who is and has been a sort of self insert in my work since 2001 so I guess technically I relate to him most... ha ha, but thats cheating!

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Daniel: I wish I had done a better job keeping the project focused. I feel like a good few months were spent making the game bigger in ways it didnt need to be.

Once you finish your project, do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Daniel: All of my games are loosely connected, taking place in the same world. None of them tie directly into each other, im not big on the cinematic universe concept that seems so popular right now, but events in my previous 2 releases and the 5 planned episodes of Shooty and the Catfish are loosely connected in ways people who take the time to look can find. They are also tied into around 17 years worth of animated shorts I have released. I have no plans on stopping now!

What do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Daniel: Well, theres quite a few things... Mapping for all 5 episodes (outside of towns) is complete, so when Episode 1 is done I will be immediately rolling into Episode 2. I am aiming to have an episode out every 2 months which should be doable with so much of the game already finished. I also have a couple of short films I am looking forward to being able to invest some time into, things have slowed down in recent months due to freelance but I am eager to get to animate some of my own work again. I am also eager to see the comments sections on Lets Plays. Both Flatwoods and Hazmat got a bit of Lets Play action and a couple of those have some pretty substantial comment sections. The amount of theories people try to put together for these projects is staggering. I could never write something as entertaining as what the speculations in these comment sections contain in terms of what my games mean, it cracks me up and I find it quite flattering that random people have put more thought into elements of my stories then I have. Makes me want to keep things deliberately vague just to encourage more of it. Lastly I will be releasing all the build files for the project so if anyone wants to make fangames or whatever they have direct access to all of the core files used to build the games. Im a big fan of the concept of a mod community, and while RPGM doesnt exactly allow for that, id love to see people do similar things to my work as whats been done with a lot of LISA fan games.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Daniel: I don't know about being afraid exactly. I am curious about how my business model for the episodic releases will go over. I was planning on releasing them at $1 an episode and $4 for the bundle when it's all complete. I know some people think thats still charging too much, but some people have also told me im not charging enough and that it lowers price standards accross the board for RPGM content. The way I see it if I can cover the costs of Steam and the music I commissioned then I've done alright since this project was for fun, but that's just me.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Daniel: Just keep at it and set yourself small goals. If your working on a big project break it up into manageable sections. Take things one map at a time, ya know what I mean?

Question from last month's featured dev @overcast-rpg: If you could choose an RPG Maker gamedev to release another game; which one would you choose and why? *Daniel: Oh that's an easy one, The Catamites. I love Space Funeral, it's easily my favorite game made in the engine, and while The Catamites has developed countless games since its release, they have all been in other engines. It would be fun to see them return to the engine after all they have learned about game design since Space Funeral's release and to see what they would do.

We mods would like to thank Daniel for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Shooty and the Catfish if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[callboxkat]

Infinitesimal (part 17)

Author’s note: Happy Monday! 

Warnings: food mention, fear

Word count: 1437

Look for the masterpost in the notes!

...

Logan and Roman had apparently decided that the three of them were all going to eat lunch together in the same room again. They brought in chairs, like before, from the kitchen, and placed them near the table Patton was seated on.

Roman placed two items on the table in front of him. Patton scooted forward once both humans had sat down, pulling both objects towards himself. One was the bottlecap containing his lunch, which he was eager to dig into, but he took a second to inspect the new item first: a fork. It was pale blue, slightly wide for Patton’s hand; but with a little shaving of the handle and some sharpening of the tines, it would be perfect. It would things much easier even before he got the chance to make those modifications. Why would the humans give him this? He looked up, searching for an answer, but all the human did was gesture at his food as if to say, “go ahead”.

The three of them started to eat. Patton had never had a food quite like this one. It had rice and carrots and peas, all of which he had had before, but there were also some little cubes of a weird spongey thing that he didn’t recognize.

“This is called tofu,” Roman supplied after a moment, holding up a larger version of one of the cubes speared on his fork. Patton wondered, not for the first time, if he was really that easy to read. Maybe Roman just assumed that Patton didn’t know anything.

“Oh,” he heard himself say, barely audible even to his own sharp ears.

They ate in silence for a while longer before Roman spoke again.

“So, Pat,” he began, setting his bowl down in his lap. “Did you think about what I asked? About your outfit?”

Patton squirmed a little under the human’s gaze. It didn’t help as Logan glanced curiously between the two of them. He tugged at the fabric of his pantleg, but he quickly stopped when it threatened to unravel in his fingers. He really would have liked something new to wear, something clean and warm, but the thought of what the process of getting a new outfit might entail mildly terrified him. He couldn’t figure out why the human even cared about his clothes. Maybe it was like when Marissa had first given him the doll dress to make his current outfit from: she had wanted him to match the rest of her dolls, in mostly pink. Maybe these humans simply didn’t like this outfit.

“I could give you the materials,” Roman offered. “And you could make it yourself. If you’re feeling up to it, I mean.”

Patton bit his lip in indecision. He wanted to say yes. He really would like some new clothes. He just wasn’t sure what the humans’ motive was. But shouldn’t he just take advantage of the opportunity?

Logan spoke up now. “I can assure you that you have no need to worry. Should the option of crafting your own clothes be most acceptable to you, all we would do is provide the supplies. We could place them on the table for your use and the leave the room while you worked, but we could stay close enough to hear you if you needed something.”

Patton opened his mouth and shut it again. “O-okay,” he mumbled at last.

Logan was apparently satisfied with that response, as he simply went back to eating. Roman gave him what was probably meant to be a reassuring look, but Patton couldn’t help but notice how unhappy the human looked as he, too, resumed his meal.

Patton let out a long breath, relieved to no longer have their attention focused on him. He speared a bit of tofu on his fork. He didn’t know why Roman would be sad that Patton agreed to his idea. But then again, there were many things he didn’t understand about either of them.

…

After several minutes, Roman still hadn’t eaten much of his food. It hurt, honestly, that Patton was still afraid that they were going to do him harm. The little mouse-man’s body language made that clear. He knew he shouldn’t take it personally, but he couldn’t help it. Roman had been trying so hard to help him feel safe, and yet it sometimes felt like he was making no progress.

“I’m going to go get my fabric and things,” he announced softly. “For you to use.”

Roman got up without waiting for a response. He brought his bowl out into the kitchen and left next to the sink, then walked through the kitchen and down the hall to his bedroom. He knelt at the side of his bed and pulled out a cardboard box that was stored there. He scooped that up and brought it over to his desk.

He lifted up the lid and pawed through its contents. After a few moments, he paused, frowning in confusion.

Roman could have sworn that there had been more fabric in this box than there was now. It wasn’t a huge difference—just a handful of pieces; but some patterned buttons he liked, a small patch of lace, and a length of red string should all have been in here. It seemed like there might be more missing, as well, but Roman was unsure. The other absence of the other items that were missing—assuming any other items were, in fact, missing—didn’t immediately jump out at him. As for the ones that he was sure should have been in the box, Roman had no idea where they had gone. Maybe they had fallen out, or had gotten moved somewhere else? Roman wasn’t sure where else they could be, although it was true that it had been some time since he looked through this particular box. It was perfectly plausible that he had misremembered what was originally in it.

He looked through the supplies once more, then at the sides of the box itself. One of its seams had somehow popped out slightly, almost like it had been pulled or pushed. Roman would have thought that perhaps something had fallen on the box and popped it out, but the lid was untouched. He supposed it didn’t matter; it wasn’t an expensive box, and the hole wasn’t big. Still, Roman double checked the floor between the box’s place under his bed and the desk, to see if maybe the supplies had fallen out of the hole when he moved the box. No such luck.

Roman wasn’t disheartened. There should still be plenty here for the mouse-man to work with, including the miniature pair of fabric scissors that had come with a little sewing kit he had. They would still be comically large, but far more usable than a normally sized pair would be for someone like Patton.

‘Someone like Patton’. As he picked out items that Patton might want from the box, Roman shook his head in bewilderment. He didn’t even know what that meant. Neither he nor Logan knew what Patton was, and they probably never would. Granted, Roman didn’t care about the science-y, ‘evolution and biology of the mouse-man’-type stuff like Logan would, but he was plenty interested in the ‘how-the-heck-does-this-tiny-dude-exist’ side of things. He was curious. Of course he was.

Despite his burning curiosity, Roman didn’t mind if he never got an answer to his own questions. Or rather, he supposed he did, but he knew that taking care of the mouse-man was far more important. It wouldn’t be worth scaring Patton to satiate his curiosity. Roman wasn’t heartless. He had only known Patton for a few days—and he still barely knew him—but he already cared about him a great deal.

With a small pile of fabric, thread, and the tiniest needle and fabric scissors he owned, Roman returned to the living room.

…

Patton stared with wide eyes as the human, from his perspective, dumped a small mountain of fabric on the table. The gigantic hand left two more items at the mound’s side: a sewing needle and some scissors.

“You can have whatever you want from here,” Roman said, drawing Patton’s gaze back up to him. “And if you need anything else, just let me know. Okay?” He smiled uncertainly; but he didn’t seem to expect a response, as he went and sat back down without waiting for one.

Patton stared at the pile of fabric for a long moment.

“It’s not going anywhere,” Roman assured gently. Patton slowly looked away again, ducked his head, and went back to eating.

...

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[dragonagecompanions]

DAI- The companions and advisors reaction to coming face to face with an Inquisitor who betrayed them before being utterly defeated. 

I love Evil!Inquisitor with all my heart. (Mage Inky uses a dagger now because yes. I feel as tho romances would be the same. I also couldn’t find the original ask for this and I may or may not have spent more than 12 pages writing this.)

-Mod Other

(Guys, this is as far as Mod Other got. She is not writing as much for the blog, but we wanted to share what she finished before stepping back)

Cassandra- If someone had told her that after Have, the Inquisitor, was working with the enemy and would betray them, she’d laugh. But now standing in another destroyed village she would believe them. Corypheus, the Inquisitor, and their army always seemed one step ahead of them. What remained of the Inquisition looked hopeless, felt hopeless but she would not give up. they traveled to village after village with no avail. Night began to fall on their camp, she and Varric were the only Inner Circle members there, the others were all in their own camps or on a mission. She lingered in her tent, nerves of uncertainty filled her. The thought of failure all to real. Still, they had a long day tomorrow and sleep called for her. When it was finally going to take her she heard telling from outside. It was not the normal commotion of a camp, but the rousing’s of battle. Sleep went away and was replaced with adrenaline as she quickly put on her armor. As she went outside, of all the people around her, she only saw just one. The Inquisitor, the one who had caused all of the pain and suffering. They did not look anything like how she remembered. what was once an inviting face was now looked cold and uninterested with the world around them. She could see the red in their eyes and the corrupted veins on their hand and face. They saw her and a twisted smile spread on their face, as if they finally found someone worth fighting. She could only stare before the anger came and she charged at them, but they were ready. Their fight seemed to last for hours, but it was just mere minutes. Her body ached with every successful strike they landed, the Inquisitor only seemed to get stronger with every hit. As she prepared to land another blow, she lowered her shield, and she felt it. Hot, searing pain in her abdomen. The smallest of all noises escaped her lips as she fell to the ground, she did not know what hurt more, the blade going in or it going out. All she could do was watch helplessly as they walked away. All she could think is that they won. Corypheus and the Inquisitor have won, the Inquisition failed. For the first time since Anthony died, she feels tears burn her face as she falls into darkness.

Varric- Writing letter in the middle of a war was hard, even more so when you’re in the middle of a battle. The camp was cold and dark but it didn’t bother him. He needed to try and contact the other Inner Circle members given that he and Cass were the only ones in the camp. He didn’t want to admit it but the Inquisition was loosing. So many had died, Ferelden and Orlais were falling apart, and Hawke and the Hero of Ferelden were missing. He was so lost in his letters that he barely noticed when his tent opened and in came the former Inquisitor. Then he could hear it, the yelling, fighting, steel on steel, magic being cast. He could only stare at them. they weren’t the person he knew. They stood still, blood dripping from their blade, and traces of red on their eyes and face. “Hmph, what took you so long?” He said oh so softly. He makes no move as they draw closer to him, he was tired of running,of fighting. Closing his eyes he remembered all the good in his life and felt a tear slip down his face,”Maybe, things could’ve been different.

Blackwall- When his own secret was revealed, the Inquisitor took him back, “You had good intentions, perhaps the wrong way to act upon them, but you did try.” He didn’t understand why they didn’t just leave him to die, he thanked them, now believing that anyone could find redemption. But, he didn’t want to give them a chance. While he impersonated a Warden,they were the reason a war had started, why it had gotten worse. The battles were hard fought, lasting for days. He didn’t know how many had been killed, but he knew that Cassandra and Varric had gone dark. He didn’t want anymore to die but would only want the blood of two others. When he came face to face with the Inquisitor at a village by themselves, he felt only hate. They seemed so lifeless, as if they were just a puppet, moving to the commands of its master. Bodies were scattered around them and they were covered in blood. He steeled himself, as much as they were an evil bastard, they were once a friend. He raised his sword, shield, and he charged. They deflected easily and unleashed their own attacks. Steel on steel rang in his ears, and after a series of successful hard blows he knocked them down. As he raised his sword to land the killing blow, he felt a sharp pain in his back followed by another and another. He looked behind him and saw Venatori and red Templar Archers as he looked back down at the Inquisitor they had a sadistic smile on their face. They pushed him to the ground and stood up smoothly. They picked up their own weapon and dangled it close to his neck before walking off. He heard them yell something to the archers and when he turned ot face them he saw them all with their bows drawn. He closed his eyes and prayed for the first time in many years and asked the Maker to forgive him.

Vivienne- She was leading a group of mages back to the remains of an Inquisition camp. They were to look for survivors, but she knew what they were going to find. Cassandra and Varric hadn’t responded to any correspondence but they all knew what that meant. Blackwall was also missing afer he set off on his own. Still, she kept her calm facade when in reality she was terrified.When they go to the camp she immediately noticed something was wrong. Thats when the Red Templar horrors came, making quick work of the less skilled mages. She fought them off, using her skills as a Knight Enchanter and ice magic. But she was the only one left standing and the horrors stopped. she could feel someone behind her and when she turned she saw the Inquisitor, “Quite the show, Madame de Fer, but not quite good enough I’m afraid.” Just by the lines on their face she could tell that red Lyrium was taking their mind. “Thank you Herald, but I’m afraid that you won’t be alive long enough to watch the rest of it.” The laughed darkly and only said,”My, my, Vivienne, quite the bravado, ‘Afraid that won’t help you. Just ask Cassandra, or Varric, or Blackwall. Oh, silly me. I forgot they’re dead.” She felt the disgust boil up inside her. As she charged a spell in her hand, she forgot about the red Templar horrors behind her. She did’t understand why they didn’t move until it was too late, the claws ripped through her back and burst through her chest. The spell discharged and she could feel fire inside her. “Oh Vivienne, you should have listened.” They walked away as the horrors continued to rip through her and she felt tears slip down her cheeks. Yet, she found solace in knowing that she would rejoin her beloved Bastien soon.

Iron bull- He was angry. The Ben-Hasrath warned him but he didn’t listen. Now he led the Chargers through an old ruin on a scouting mission. They needed to find a safe place to hide and regroup after getting word that more of the Inner Circle members were dead or missing. The Inquisition was falling apart with each new day. He was terrified but wouldn’t let it show. In the ruin it felt off, it felt too quiet, too calm. He signaled for the Chargers to get into formation. They moved slowly into the main chamber and into the center of the old building. That’s when the first shot came. It hit Skinner right in the chest and she fell to the ground with a soft thud. Stitches rushed to her side as Krem blocked them both with his shield. Grim, Dalish, and Rocky began to move to where the arrow was shot from. Bull remained calm and gestured to the far left hand side of the building. Yet, before they could reach it, a hail of arrows rained down on them. None of them stood a chance. Krem and Bull only standing because of their armor, but they were hurt badly. “Oh how the morning mighty fall.” He knew that voice. It was the Inquisitor. “Come out you coward!” He could hear their footsteps echo in the empty hall. They stood over him, evil in their eyes. “You think you’re so great? You don’t even do your own dirty work, Boss.” “What would it matter who kills you? We all die in the end.” They lifted up their marked hand and in the quiet he could hear archers drawing back their bows. He closed his eyes and waited for a sting of pain but it never came, instead, a noise from beside him and Krem laid in a pool of blood. “I’LL KILL YOU!” He pushes through the pain and charged but before he reached them, a Red Templar Knight came in and knocked him to the ground and dragged him to a crumbling pillar. “This will be your tomb.” They walked away with their minions in tow. When he watched the doors close behind them, he had hope that the remaining Inquisition members would come for him, but then the walls around him began to crumble and crash all around him.

Sera- She knew this was serious and her normally carefree and joking attitude was gone. Even more with the death of so many Inner Circle members and missing Red Jenny’s. But she was still reckless, which is why she was at a Venatori camp by herself. The remaining Jenny’s said that he Inquisitor was there, and she just wanted them dead for hurting so many people. She saw them sitting on the outer edge of the cam away from everyone else. She felt the hate burn in her and so she took aim with her bow, but before she could draw back fully, she was yanked back by an unseen figure and pulled to where the Inquisitor was. She fought against them and as they neared the Inquisitor they seemed angry that their peace was ruined, but then they saw her and just smiled. “Well, what a lovely surprise, but you were never one for subtlety.” “Go to hell.” “Such a temper. Oh Sera, what am I to do with you?” She spat in their face but they made no move other than wiping their face. “Tsk. Shame your on the wrong side, we could have used someone like you. Just toss her in the hole, she doesn’t deserve to die by my hand.” The templars dragged her but she didn’t go easy. When they reached the ‘hole’ they tossed her in. Sera only thought she was afraid of ‘The Nothing’ but, the dark was too much.

Cole-