#sootballs

[microplasticpear]

happy easter !!!

[friedcheesemogu]

For my dear @fuddlewuddle, Will and Sootball Mav comforting Ethan with hugs and hot cocoa on a sad day.

I'm sorry about today, I hope tomorrow is easier on your heart. ❤️❤️❤️

[snewdraws]

this meme spoke to me (characters are from my d&d group)

[voidbeau]

I should draw more Sootball

And more Mr. Flower

I should draw Mr. Flower holding Sootball

I NEED Mr. Flower holding Sootball

[officialgleamstar]

Hi! For the ask game - I'd love to see you break down Garnet and Lug ^_^ have a nice day!

ask game

hi sootball! :D yippee, another day of being weird about oxventure characters XD <3

Garnet

How I feel about this character

ough i absolutely ADORE garnet. my thoughts on her are pretty simple. i just like her. but they are all positive ehehehe shes so COOL, i love when a female character dresses in traditionally masculine clothes, especially in historical settings. and she's a lesbian. to me <3

All the people I ship romantically with this character

as with every other deadlands character XD just edie! deadlands, in my head, is truly a polycule with edie in the center

My non-romantic OTP for this character

SILAS <33333 qpr of all time

My unpopular opinion about this character

i dont know that i really have one? tbh i think garnet, as a whole, is very hard to characterize. i dont tend to love other people's depiction of her in fan works, but i also do not like my depiction of her lmaooo ill go back through her episodes and take some notes on characterization mayhaps

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

i would love for garnet to, in character, confirm that she was raised by a single dad! no real preference on what happened with her mom, just. single dad. girldad. i just think that would be neat :] (has this happened, actually. am i just forgetting something. head in hands. i need to rewatch deadlands before the new season comes out)

Lug

How I feel about this character

lug has a special place in my heart... for being the only mike PC who does not have a special place in my heart XD that being said, i think he's fantastic, even if he doesnt grab me the way that eggy and silas and barney do. i love mike playing a more serious character while still having that goofy edge, i LOVE the concept of a passive aggressive barbarian, and he's fun to draw <333

All the people I ship romantically with this character

i really like him with happen, and i really like him with willowfine :] i could be swayed with other ships as well im sure

My non-romantic OTP for this character

once again. willowfine LOL i think they could be besties

My unpopular opinion about this character

i dont think i particularly have one! i generally agree with what other people say about him. so instead, i will give a headcanon that i brainstormed with my dear spouses dora and hop - i think lug is pretty short for a firbolg, so he doesn't see himself as big as he is. cressida or happen make some joke or complaint about being short and he tries to join in and cressida gets so mad XD

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

speaking of lug being small for a firbolg - i wanna see other firbolgs!! i wanna see lug interact with another firbolg!!!!!!!! i think its so interesting that hes so isolated, and i want to know if thats common for firbolgs or if thats a lug specific deal

[thegreatcrowdragon]

Said I'd write something for The Arachnid and then just fucking. Didn't. So here’s some stuff since I'm thinking of her again 

-Got chased out of shaded by scavs, so naturally she dislikes them (not on Arti’s level though)

-Can spit venom, originally I was going to give her noticeable cheek glands but decided it looked too Pikachu-esqe 

-Very agile, can scale walls when needed (she's a spider, duh) 

-Purposed organism, though what for exactly is unknown. Presumably to manufacture high quality silk.

-Adopts a slugpup at the end of her campaign (if you don't go for void)

-Very puffy, looks like a ball of soot 

-Extra pair of arms and eyes, has more but they’re hidden (translation: Don’t want to draw them)

-Weird hivemind thing with the other spiders, she can give them orders and they’ll listen (Coalascipide stuff) 

-Very sensitive to light, it takes her longer to adjust to bright lights than other slugcats (Pebbles thought she was dead or something because she just laid there blinking for so long)

-Sometimes makes small harmonious vocalizations, aka “singing” but rarely and only to things she considers pups/when trying to soothe something (namely Moon when she accidentally ate one of her neurons), this is NOT the same as purring (which she can still do) 

Extra addition: I kinda ship her with Survivor now! Bit hypocritical of me considering how I say how much I dislike oc x canon but eh-

[fuddlewuddle]

Drew some more Sootball MavCat

On his own playing with his ball of yarn

And then with Slider and Ice getting involved.

He’s so fluffy I can’t stop drawing him 🥺🥺

[officialbruciewayne]

I bet if you were actually a cat alfiecat would adopt you

Pspsps! I believe that has happened- aha!

Bruce scoops up the little black sootball, the tiny kitten dwarfed in just one of his hands. He rubs just two fingers against the cat's cheek.

This is Bruce. Better Bruce.

@bruce-but-kitten

[sanctus-ingenium]

i answer your asks vol... 6?

This one made me actually consider how they balance the humours beyond just a simply "they scour it out". Because sometimes a holy beast gets 'sick' and it's not necessarily related to any sort of tissue growth, it's more often a mechanical fault and because the beast is considered to be alive, he is then therefore 'sick'. So how do we deal with this? An enginesmith will make the necessary repairs, but sometimes the sickness is related to environmental conditions. The four humours are arranged on a scale like this:

A mechanical fault associated with being too hot and dry could be something like a lack of lubrication on moving machine parts. So this would be considered the reason for a production of yellow bile (excess of yellow bile, btw, was what Pantera was diagnosed with on his last outing). Whether or not the bile is literal or more symbolic depends on the case. Anyway this was the reason Pantera is associated with fire (originally, when I was designing them all) and Leun, diametrically opposite, is associated with phlegm, water, acid, etc.

But anyway, the way to fix these imbalances in hot/cold/wet/dry is to simply reduce whichever one is excessive. In practice, keeping holy beasts maintained even when they're not out on a crusade is a full time job for an army of workers, where the atmospheric conditions need to be as neutral as possible. Too wet and you've got rust, too dry and the metal fatigues, to hot and it might warp and break, too cold and the joints won't fit properly, etc etc. Although the enginesmiths view this through a lens of The Four Humours, it's also just good practice to try to keep things balanced.

Btw while they do cure an excess of blood by bleeding the holy beast, they don't make leeches big enough :'(

-

There are illustrated representations of dragons that are pretty traditionally dragony (typically a winged serpent with many tails representing the stinging tendrils). These are added to drawings and art as a catch-all symbol for a conscious and targeted Evil. The laity, which is very devout, is unlikely to associate dragons with resistance - dragons cause a lot of damage too, and those stinging barbs will kill you just from the trauma of the impalement before the venom even has a chance to (unless you just get grazed, in which case.. the venom will paralyse you. then kill you)

So active rebellions/civil wars/wars of succession have occurred many times. The subjugated Midaean nation/territory (depending on who you ask) rallies around their beloved Saint Lycaon, a wolf. Flags and signs depicting a wolf devouring a crocodile/a lion/whatever holy beast currently tops the hierarchy of the church would be more likely. Rebellion itself is rarely black and white and as neat as picking a symbol the church hates. It is more likely people would pick a symbol that they love. Outside of Midea, the Mezian empire might not be at its peak but it also has not given its own citizens and laity a reason to take up arms against it.

at the start of the story, at least

-

awesome questions thank you @curious-sootball !

So the nerve cords inside the vertebrae are artificial, but they still perform the same physiological function as a real spinal column. They interface with a knight's dialogue. This produces an incredible amount of heat - this is why the spines are often exposed, even though that might be a point of vulnerability. The spinous processes in particular are very effective heat sinks.

But the tail? In most cases we don't need the tail, really. The spinal column ends at the base of the pelvis. The tail is cropped for most beasts on purpose - we don't need this thing dangling around and becoming entangled, and it has no machinery around it to act as replacement muscles so it couldn't move even if they wanted it to. Krokodilos's tail is the exception and it's just extremely heavy for not much pay off. That's a lot of additional engines we gotta maintain.

So the tail tends to be abandoned. The bones are kept of course but not mounted on the chassis where they're not needed. With no nerve cord running through them they don't run hot either so they won't disperse heat all that well.

Now for replacing bones... they don't. The bones that exist in the chassis are the bare minimum needed to perform the required functions - basic movement. They don't have ribs, they often don't have phalanges. A skull is there to complete the nerve cord - but all you need of that skull is the occipital bone. Nothing more.

If they break a leg, it might be repaired using screw and plate fixation. The bone may deign to knit together (enginesmiths swear that they don't allow tissue growth ever.. but sometimes you need some periosteum. Don't tell the bishops). But if it gets crushed? That's the holy beast done, scrap heap time. The majority of all holy beasts that have ever existed have already broken down and been decommissioned at the start of this story - we only have seven left (eight if you count krokodilos). Krokodilos is an unusual case because he is not dead, so they can't just hold a state funeral and add his heart engine block to the big hall of old hearts in the cathedral. He's sleeping.

But he's the exception. Take Saint Guinefort - dead as a doornail. He had a full funeral, his heart was put in the hall and his body was [redacted] like they do with all dead holy beasts. And then he was [redacted] and now our pal "Sir Victory" with the metal arm uses him as Nosewyse. Circle of life.

I think sidecar motorcycle is a pretty apt way of looking at him lmao. You don't wanna know how many people he's cooked.

-

Hey there! So I know I've mentioned they are similar to pterosaurs but they are not related to them at all. In fact they are cetaceans :) Later art I did of them plays up the mammal traits a bit more. Check out these nipples

However it is a fact that they are not closely related to modern cetaceans - as in, they did not evolve from modern whales and dolphins, but belong to a side branch that diverged relatively early, around the same time dragons were leaving the water for the skies. That art is quite old too, from before I kind of nailed it all down, so if I drew them now I would remove the more derived traits (i.e the single blowhole, the tail flukes, etc) and tidy it up a little. They diverged from the lineage that would become modern whales before the pelvic limbs were lost. I originally depict them having the crowbar-like claws on their feet to lever skin parasites off the dragon, but i think they are more likely to not use their feet much at all, and are more likely to use their single huge beak-like tooth to do the job instead. They cannot walk on flat surfaces.

-

Only insects and, specifically, winged insects :) I know it would be really cool to have various other giant arthropods but milennia ago, when they crossed into Thera for the first time, insects were the only fliers. And there is no other way to get over the mountain range quickly enough for it not to kill you. The mountain range in which the endless city sits is completely and 100% devoid of life. A journey on foot for a tiny bug would be next to impossible - they are more likely to starve or simply turn around and go back to where the food is.

The winged insects, otoh, can cross the range in a day or less, if the breeze is flowing right. And they would find plants already there in Thera - also solely wind-dispersed species from the previous time the mountains arrived and linked the world with Earth. The insects didn't really come by choice, sometimes the wind just blows the wrong way, but they definitely got lucky.

There are wingless insects in Thera today but only because they lost that trait over time (like ants or larviform female beetles). They have managed to colonise every reasonable habitat, including the sea (though the sea is not very salty) and have developed into a lot of very strange forms which might be unrecognisable to us. But a lot of them just got bigger and smarter.

This time round, in the period of time the story is set (early 1900s on earth), the mountains appeared and new animals crossed over who were not insects. Birds have become invasive in Thera, happily taking advantage of the smaller insect species who are completely unprepared for this new threat. There are also some wind-dispersed spiders hanging out now.

EDIT: oh i forgor the parasites on the flying insects that first colonised thera... yes they would have mites and horsehair worms and things of that nature

[opalai-pixel-witch]

Return of the Fakelings

Heavily inspired by the sootballs in Spirited Away

[friedcheesemogu]

Omega Ethan and Sootball Mav for the amazing @fuddlewuddle. Thank you for everything you do ❤️

[snewdraws]

shes just a little guy

[voidbeau]

Anyway, have some wips in the mean time while I slog thru this week!

I need to draw Sootball more, she deserves more attention.

Justice for Sootball!!!

There are also a couple more things in the works as well beyond this stuff. A couple more shippy things and a fanfic but I'm not getting my hopes up for the fic getting done anytime soon.

That one's been in progress for months. BUT, there's been more progress lately so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Im hoping 2025 is the year I finally get to my backlog of twomp fics that have been sitting around forever.

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

req'd by @curious-sootball

actually you know what fair

text: The one food you're not supposed to eat is FISH! I said *nothing* about ASS!

[muffinrecord]

So you know how Hikaru has the Hikaru army for a magia

Could she use them to do chores?

or is this a strictly fighting thing.

Look I'm just saying, it'd be amazing for my adhd if I could expend a little magical power and cast spell "sootballs clean my room for me please"

[dogicrimsonofficial]

1. What was the first lie your OC ever believed? How did they come to learn the truth? Or have they yet to do so?

7. Are there any secrets held by your OC's culture of origin that are held to be sacred? What are the punishments for revealing these to outsiders?

42. Has your OC ever broken a promise to another person? Did they ever intend to keep this promise? What made them break it?

for Vent Rat!

Secrets and Lies || Open

@shyotic you're a bean for tossing these at my way!

1. Well there is a list of all the silly lies the adults tell their kids - don't swallow seeds or tree grows in your stomach, good children don't get a visit from Santa-gin, what have you. The lie told to Vent Rat - innocent and small lie for an innocent and small Vent, back in the days when his eyes were wider, brighter, when his tail was smooth and his ears didn't perk up at every sound of possible danger - was the circumstances how the Beast Tribes found him, along with other silly stories. Every tribe had their own story - Amal'jaa were adamant Vent Rat looks like a little sootball is because he accidentally got charred by the cooking fire. Meanwhile Kobolds claimed they found Vent inside a big rock they managed to break open. He believed all of them until he gained a better understanding of how reproduction and genetics actually work... yet he still prefers their stories to the truth.

7. If we're talking about the true origin... no. Vent knows naught about those people, nor does he care to know.

If we're talking about Beast Tribes however, oh yes. He knows their rituals, hiding places, camps, battle-techniques... Growing among them has taught him quite a bit. More than a bit.

The punishments from revealing all of these wary from death penalty to banishment. Neither option, nor anything between, not to mention the loss of lives and trust is something Vent desires - so he will lie, he will cheat, he will omit and divert. Anything to keep those secrets from the ears of those who would bring the pain.

42. Small promises and not on purpose, yes. Sometimes he was late for things. Sometimes he thought he could handle something, and couldn't. One time he was supposed to not eat a thing and yet he did. Things like that.

However there is only one case so far where he broke a serious promise on purpose, without much remorse.

He promised not to leave ██████ ███ █████. He promised not to disappear from Ul'dah. He promised to be theirs.

But they were to break their promise first, as the scar on his lip can attest.