#year end work dump

[perpetualexistence]

Bad news: I don't think I'm going to be able to write for ever day of TD horror week as I'd originally imagined.

Good news: The days I am going to be part of will be Cooking. I shan't spoil too much about it but one day already has 2.5K words and is only like a fourth of the way done.

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[devilsskettle]

i feel like i’ve been WAITING for the other shoe to drop wrt people’s opinions about watcher for this very reason. not that i think the reaction is completely not understandable but the greater the parasocial relationship, the greater the fallout as soon as public opinion shifts. you don’t have a relationship with these people they’re just content creators, chill

[sysig]

2023 Art Purge

Fanart edition! Second verse, same as the first, onto the walls of text!

Started the year with a huggy Squirtle! How can you get better than that <3

A solemnly dancing Spamton haha - this one still makes me laugh, what could possible have him so jovially serious

Only one leftover Sarah doodle from this year, inspired by a song that reminded me so much of her and Jocasta - Right Here Waiting is such a beautiful pining song! And since they're separated for such a while, not to mention the angst

Comfort Birdos <3 She's so pretty, I’m love her ♥

I just had to pick some of the most feral-designed Pokemon as my favourite, someday I'll know how to draw Vulpix and Ninetales! Cutest lads, someday someday

It’s actually pretty funny - the first page of this notebook ended up having some Handplates doodles, apropos of nothing, just wanted to draw them out of the blue, and then ended up being on the last pages as I finished it off! Goes to show how long they've been on my mind this year I guess haha

I ended up doing some Eris studies from my favourite scenes from Sinbad, her hair is literally the coolest - so pretty, the movement is incredible! Her proportions are all over the place depending on her size and shape, she's so cool and chaotic

Also had a couple tiny leftover Souichi studies! Cutest lad <3

And his eyes specifically - I'm pretty sure the two small ones around the big one were studied from the same face haha, that's not how his face is shaped!

Scottyiscringe's absolutely incredible After Dark meme was so inspirational to me earlier this year - I'm pretty sure the Yanderapy boys were like 85% inspired by The Vibes, such a beautifully dark and uncomfortable video gosh <3 Greasy main was a real treat to study from as well

The Stanley Parable bunnies! Just a silly idea of what Stanley - specifically Sinister, you can see his burned paw! And arrow-marked ears hehe - and the Narrator would look like as rabbits haha

Smol and I did a few teeny-tiny art trades this year, and for her first two she asked for her Bleach faves, Szayelaporro Grant and Quilge Opie. All I really know about them is they're both bad news bears, which is cool by me 👍

Weegie! I doodled some he and Bowser concepts fairly early on but none made it to final :P He's still a cute lad tho!

The original scratch-sketch for @farouchestray's birthday Raichu and birb! Can you tell I'm not that practiced with drawing birds or Raichu lol

Another leftover Sinister, silly goofy handsome lad

The beginnings of the WOY spam! What would eventually become Sleepy Sunshine Wander, it was definitely an interesting experiment to hold back my sketches until after the digital version was done! :0 It's a habit I've gotten out of

There was decidedly not enough Skeleton Dance this year lol, allow me to at least partially make up for it

Another idea I intended to finish digitally first but wasn't able to swing it! The double edged blade of sitting on doodles unfortunately, I'm not sure if I ever will :( But at least it's here now - a Fist Fighter signing his love to Peepers and Peepers not quite catching his meaning haha ♪

This one made it to digital! And was very silly-fun the whole way haha

Another I wanted to digitize! Heck!! I started thinking about the Animal Crossing/Mii hand style in conjunction with Fist Fighters and

He'll be fine. Probably ouo;

The Little Guys original sketch :D They're so tiny!

A mirror close-up of Peepers in a binder, frustrating to be Not Quite There yet

I read a fic at one point with Peepers described in a very silly-sounding outfit and decided to give an attempt at it haha. He has worn drag in the show, I forgot about how his helmet stuck out until rewatching tho haha

Those red-painted lips, goofy

A continuation of Peepers being left behind with the main duo! Those unpredictable two, and with how much he's put them through, what would they do to him...?

Obviously they'd be nice, trying to pull another Westley with him, but this is Peepers we're talking about! As soon as he knows he's not in danger, acting in animosity is right back on the table haha

Poor Wander just wants to be friends! I don't think he'd actually be all that surprised, just sad that even with how long they've known each other that they still can't break through to him haha

A follow-up to Wander catching Peepers and Sylvia sleeping snuggled up together haha, Peepers does not appreciate being called cute (even if he is)

A WOY-inspired chess set! :D With the villains as the Black Team and heroes as the White Team! Why is Peepers the Queen to Hater's King and not Dominator? It is obvious :) I'm still not sure what to do for the White Team's pawns though, they don't exactly have just a single type of little guy haha

Mad Wander! Look out!

A silly idea I had of Wander trying to corral these rambunctious villains he's thrown in with this time around lol - could also be read as him taking care of babified Hater and Dominator but I feel like he'd just coo over them the entire time haha

A gooey heart-eyed Peepers :) I guess he's stressed, it's a good look on him hehe

Sylvia headshot <3 She's so cool and pretty

More Skeleton Dance! Closer to on-model version of this high-stylized drawing of them :D Lookin' up at him with his big ol' eyes haha

Some kind of situation of Hater having found (more?) Watchdogs and wanting to bring them home by hiding them in his cloak lol idk, I just wanted to draw their big funny heads under his clothes. It's so inconspicuous, Peepers will never know!

Doug Plush!! With removable cloak! :D The cutest squishiest little demon <3 Very good to hug

Ozzy dress concept doodles as prelims to this post, it was really hard to decide what style would suit him! Went through quite a few and still not completely happy with what I ended up with which is a shame 'cause it was such a strong feeling in my head! I know he can rock a dress, just a matter of what style hmm

More of the same, wanted to at least get the composition of the Very Big Thought down before Oz's dress completely frustrated my attempts haha

Thrax was a really fun study, his eyes are beautiful! The way his lids are darkened as part of his design to make him look heavily-lidded under his brows and with dark eye bags is brilliant :)

Couple'a Helix doodles before I looked at references again lol, the impulse hits randomly - maybe Dex got a bad haircut haha

Chibis and angst! My favourite <3 Max is very selfish hehe ♥

You may find me occasionally traipsing through the Landel's Damned gallery lol, I feel very normal and rational and fine about it (lying)

A Rule 63'd Max :D Inspired by drawing him lying on Dex with his shirt open - Max boobs lol

The shot of ZEX looking at his hands </3 I actually drew this one on the context of Max and Dex running away together and Dex returning to their house and still finding ZEX in Max's place :'0 Looking at his new calluses!

Princess ZEX concept art! :D My first pass at his dress and jewelry, I was not satisfied, he is not pretty enough!

Some simple VUX mannequins for alternate outfits - you can see the pieces that eventually formed into the final version :D I am still rather a fan of the split Empress style in the middle there, cute <3

Cleaning up the tiara/jewelry designs, and the sleeve puffs hehe ♪ I think the second tiara looks goofy, like little double mouse ears haha

Closing in on the design! He really does deserve some goofy silly harmless fluffy fun :)

Couple comparisons on shushing VUX vs humans, inspired by Out, where DAX wraps his arm around ZEX's trunk :0 Seemed very drastic to me, but there are instances where humans completely cover other humans' mouths! From there, thinking about what a single finger shush might look like, maybe bumping an arm tip against their "mouth"? Stoppering haha

GLaDOS <3 <3 A spare doodle that I ran out of room for unfortunately but there she is! Love her <3 <3

And a random Core, the nonchalant eye always reminds me of DAX so sure, DAX Core, programmed to barely put up with your nonsense haha

Tried style-matching Florette and Luke from some screenshots, the Humongous Entertainment style is honestly really cute :D Very cartoony! Big thick lines and simple shapes, I'm a fan :D

More smol art trades lol, she got very into Punch Out late in the year :) She picked the characters, I picked the outfits lol, we've got Super Macho Man in a Hawaiian shirt (and bikini underneath) and Don Flamenco in a ?? mesh brazier-corset and biker gloves I guess?? I dunno lol, funsies

The Handplates return!! In the form of Fellplates - I was maybe a mite overdramatically disappointed in looking at Gaster's wing references and that they were only decorative lol, I just love animated wings! Expressive! Cute! Fluffy!! The little sketch on the left is him trying out attaching strings between his sleeves and the wings to have them "flap" with his arms haha

More of the wings motif in his shawl, this time from behind :) I think it'd just be shaped like wings and couldn't actually open :0

Make him cry >:3c

Eyes eyes eyes, every time. Sans' eyes are very pretty, I like how many shapes he can make - expressive! Makes up for how inexpressive the rest of his face can be haha

Anyone remember Gaster's keyhole chibi? I haven't made one in ages but hmmmm hmmmmmmmm

The dangers of off-ramping from Portal into Undertale lol

Did some little scratches of Endogeny 'cause the Amalgamates are lovely and I love them!! Would pet the goop dog 10/10

A scratchy digital warmup Handplates!Sans - I’ve become really enamoured with the look of the screws on their palms, macabre as they are, so making a piece that centered them was double fun :)

Still thinking about them, especially if they happen to fall apart :0 Their second and fifth metacarpals would always be connected somehow huh, not quite Gaster's fused hands but hmm

Bonus version of the Stream-doodle Sans without Papyrus’ text! He turned out really cute haha <3 Squishy lad ♪

[no1ryomafan]

Thinking more about umbraclaw and while there’s stuff to critique from the gameplay side I think probably the biggest flaw of it is like everything to do with the writing, and I don’t mean just plot.

It’s one of those things where it’s like- The basic narrative of the story is got across well regardless of what ending you get-yes I did look it there being multiple endings lol-and it’s the first entry of a series so the story not being the best can be forgiven but it’s a shame NOTHING is super fleshed out. Not just the soul plane but the characters don’t get much at all, they kinda just exist as set pieces to move the narrative forward. Kuon, the mc oddly never talks that the characters always acknowledge it so she’s basically a blank slate and I’m unsure if it’s because we’re meant to project onto her/interpret her whoever we please or if it’s just to reflect she’s not like the others and she’s a normal animal.

We also don’t get to know enough about her owner that it’s actually hard to care about her other then “well she seems nice ig” since you can’t say you want to care about Kuon because she’s blank unless you really put yourself in her shoes or your own pet into her place ig. And don’t even get me on how LOCKE is so weirdly interrogated into the plot and clearly has more to him yet is left off being so vague, like we get teased he’s like you but never are directly shown or hinted at that. He’s just there as a rival but he’s not at ALL fleshed out enough or placed right into the plot even if he’s spared at the end which doesn’t amount to anything, he’s just there yet again to be a set piece that’s just a bit different from the others. (And also how he hints at a deeper theme of losing control of yourself in terms make you forget who you are but it’s not explored ENOUGH even if he’s there to reinforce it it only comes up in one ending)

Like this story doesn’t make me super angry to hate the game as I’m still gonna do another ending and overall playing it is a really interesting experience I won’t get from anything else, but maaan if we get a sequel I hope the plot is reworked significantly cause it sucks how it’s “not a bad story but also a story with no substance”.

Its something that’s satisfying only because it’s a what you see is what you get thing but doesn’t have anything deeper to really pick at.

[heartsofhounds]

long runs the fox

…but at last, he is caught.

(Click for better quality!)

-

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST! Reblogs appreciated!

[pomellon]

One of my favorite things to show people who aren’t familiar with digimon are the digimon evolution lines. Because most people will be familiar with pokemon and know linear evolutions, but the digimon lines look like this:

Or if we start from baby stages, like this:

It’s because they’re literallyTamagotchis, as in they literally started out as Tamagotchi virtual pets but marketed towards boys. So they have a bunch of different evo trees depending how well or bad you raise them, how much battle experience they have, how much they weigh, etc. Which is so much fun :D 

[skhardwarevers1]

spent two hours studying and I’m STILL thinking about Cassie

[beeapocalypse]

trying to come up w a far more contained idea for an rpgmaker thing so it isnt as intimidating to approach and immediately having it spiral out

[born-to-lose]

I LOVE ❤ very openly hating my stupid and evil and gross and awful and cold and lying and cheating and fucking throat goat ex and talking shit about them to my family and friends given the opportunity amen & cheers 🥂

[halinski]

Im wanna evil laugh in my mothers face and to just make her shut up omg

[ranger-kellyn]

these two are going to be the end of me

[orcelito]

Honestly the store has come a long, long way since last January where we were legitimately going to hold a store-wide strike b4 the boss and then-manager panicked and started holding meetings with all of us to try to figure out what to do about it

It's still a workplace, but our current employees r in general much happier and content. + there's a better community in general. It's nice to know I had a part in making this happen.

[sad-endings-suck]

oh my god @kaladinkholins this is so mizu and akemi season two coded istg idkaososklkndlqojkllajs

not "i ship these characters" or "i want them to bond platonically" but a secret 3rd thing (I want them to be forced to interact by the Narrative bc they would HATE that)

[krawdad]

Ooh the camera app I got to replace the shitty built in camera has onion skin tools I could just do stop motion with this

[inbabylontheywept]

The Motherfucking Lizard King

No one at work trusts my boss. 

He's smart. He works hard. He's not trustworthy. He hasn't actually fucked anyone at work over, but he's ruined his last two marriages with affairs, and got dumped by his third fiance when he wouldn't sign a prenup. The fact that we all know this is just a hazard of working in a small town. 

Anyway: The thought process of the people in the lab is that if he screwed over his first wife, and his second wife, and was probably planning on screwing over his third wife, it would be insane for him not to screw us over. After all, what kind of idiot treats their employees better than their spouse? 

I dunno. His kind, I guess? He's had a few chances to fuck us over, and he hasn't taken them. Opposite really. When our parent company was doing furloughs, he stayed in the office almost a hundred hours, talking and talking and talking his way up the corporate ladder. And in the end, no one at our site got furloughed. 

He's pulled strings like that before. And it baffles me, right? Because it really does make zero sense. He'll move the heavens and the earth for us, but his wife and kids are afterthoughts. It feels like any moment, he's going to look into the mirror and realize how stupid that is. It feels like I'm betting on him making the same stupid mistake again, and again, and again - like it would be less cynical to believe he was, eventually, going to stab me in the back. But he hasn't yet, and as far as I can tell he's been making that mistake for close to fifteen years, and it's already cost him everything it can. If he was going to learn, he would have by now. 

So my position on him is that if he wanted to date someone I cared about, I'd warn them off. I don't trust him there. But I tentatively trust him to be my boss. Maybe one day he'll stick the knife in and twist, and everyone will say Ah, Babs, we warned you, but for now, I accept that he's doing a very predictable, very irrational thing, and I've made my peace with it. 

---

My job has glue traps. 

No one likes the glue traps, but we don't have a lot of options. Poison's banned by state law, spring traps are banned by company safety, and several non-lethal options tried in the past failed to work. The mouse problem can get pretty bad if it's ignored, and there's some real health hazards in that. Our site has never had a positive hantavirus test, thank God, but the big base about a half hour away has. That guy's gonna be on oxygen the rest of his life. 

If a mouse gets caught, we just euthanize it. But more than mice get stuck. Lizards can wander into those traps too, and the people working there have different feelings about the lizards. They don't pose nearly the same kind of risk mice do. They're chill little guys, and they keep the moths away, and they're just 

You know. They're friendly. There's something to be said about walking into a room, and hitting the light switch, and seeing two little guys on the wall start to do pushups as soon as they see you. 

People used to just euthanize the lizards too, but I had pet leopard geckos as a kid and I couldn't take that so I wound up googling how to free animals from glue traps. Now, when a lizard gets stuck in a trap - which happens once or twice a week - I get some vegetable oil from the breakroom, and a little plastic fork, and I'll spend fifteen to twenty minutes just kind of gently prying the little guys out. 

I have a team of technicians that help me operate one of the larger machines. They're real blue collar guys, ex-airforce, and they make me look like a little kid. Being an engineer means they'll look to me as a leader sometimes, which is a wild experience. And I started helping the lizards for my own conscience, but one of the crazier consequences of it has been that it seriously boosted my leadership cred. Because those guys see me, and they go: Hey. If he's willing to fight for a lizard, he's gotta be willing to fight for me. 

I cannot overstate how nice that is. Most engineers that want to make a change to a maintenance practice, or try an upgrade, they have to work their asses off to get the techs to buy in. But I can just ask. They already trust me to do good. They know I'm new, and they know I'm not the smartest engineer in the building, but they also know I'm the one who gets lizards out of the glue traps. 

And just because of that, they're willing to follow me. 

---

My boss has a meeting every month or two. It's typically basic house cleaning stuff - reminders about routines we've gotten lazy on, and updates on future projects. Maybe some warnings about problems coming from higher up in the company.

People are, in my opinion, a bit too cynical about the meetings. It stems from people not trusting our boss, which again, I understand, because it would make so much more sense if he wasn't trustworthy. It's a testament to the man's incredibly unhealthy priorities that he is. But as we made it to the end of the meeting, one of bullet points was: 

Do NOT mess with animals in the building. 

So I looked at my techs, and they looked at me, and when he got to the point, he was so scathing I actually just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He said basically that he'd heard some reports about someone in the building handling animals that found their way in and got stuck, and that he just wanted to emphasize how insanely inappropriate that was, not to mention dangerous, and that if he needed to speak to anyone about it again, there would be severe consequences. 

I was willing to just take the shame and move on. I was. But one of my techs is old. Old enough he could've retired two years ago. And his actual literal goal is to one day get angry, yell at someone, and storm out. That's how he wants to retire. So instead of biting his tongue like everyone else, he stood up and said: I hate the glue traps. You hate the glue traps. We all hate glue traps. But we've all sat here for years, ignoring the little things that get stuck in them, watching them die, and then Bab's comes in, and he is the first person in decades to give enough of a shit to start pulling the lizards out. And I don't want him to stop. 

Get humane traps or shut up but we are not going back to the old way of just letting things starve. 

And my boss actually froze up. He got all wide eyed and stared at Marc, and then the other techs jumped in, and there was a very small but intense rebellion in the meeting and my boss kept trying to interrupt while getting absolutely bowled over by this gang of angry middle aged air force vets, and eventually he just went 

I will speak with Babylon about this afterwards! After! And then he will speak with everyone else, but I have more points to cover. 

So they went silent, and my boss rushed through the last five minutes, and we all adjounred. The techs really didn't like that I was going in alone - they thought our boss was going to try and shout me into compliance. Marc in particular was like, Look, if he tries bullying you, stand your ground, and if he threatens anything, just come get us, and we'll give him hell. 

So armed with that, I went to my boss's office. I sat in the chair across from him, and he kept his composure for maybe five seconds before just flopping back into his chair. 

I had no idea you were saving lizards, he said, but I'm glad you are. I always hated seeing them die in the glue.  

I wasn't expecting that. I was about to ask him what the comment from the meeting was about then, but he answered that before I even got the chance.

A snake got into the building last week, and - someone picked it up and chased a coworker around. Turns out that coworker was severely afraid of snakes, and now it's a shitshow. We're a small site, and now I can't ask those two to work together anymore, to say nothing about how the snake fared after all that. Being upset about that is a reasonable thing, right? 

And he gave me a look like he actually wanted an answer, so I said Yeah, totally, chasing a coworker around with a snake is a dick move. Especially if that coworker is already afraid of snakes. 

And he said Exactly! and then we sat there a few moments longer. He looked so incredibly tired that I did, actually, feel kind of bad for him. And then he somehow managed to sink even further into his chair, and said

Look, I know I'm not a good guy. But I'm not evil. I'm not some sort of crazy asshole that's going to demand that everyone watch lizards starve to death. When you go back downstairs, could you try to pass that on? That I'm not evil? 

I said Sure because it wasn't a hard request, and he looked relieved. I actually made it halfway out before I realized I had a question. 

Who grabbed the snake? I asked. 

Not supposed to talk about it, he said. But whoever comes to mind first is probably right. 

ThatGuy? I asked. And he looked me in the face, nodded his head yes, and said No. 

---

The techs seemed a little disappointed that they didn't get to storm the boss's office, but were otherwise in good spirits. They were actually a little bit embarrassed to hear about the snake story - apparently, it wasn't much of a secret. It'd just slipped their minds because it happened three weeks ago. 

We did maintenance after that, the same basic repairs we did every week. The meeting had been stressful and it was a relief to work with my hands. When the parts were reinstalled, everything cleaned and smooth and ready to go, Marc found me again. 

You know what the lesson of today is? he asked. And there were quite a few answers to that that I could have taken - from don't assume the worst of people to be careful with how you spend your trust - we all need it more than we think. 

But instead I said what? because I wanted to hear what his answer was going to be. 

That I got your back, he said. Then he clapped one very, very large hand on my shoulder, gave it a good squeeze, and walked back to dosimetry lab.

---

The next day, Marc gave me a package and told me to open it in my office. I was suspicious, but I followed the request.

Cardboard gave way to a small baggie, obviously full of fabric, which opened to reveal a t-shirt that read

"I Am the Motherfucking Lizard King."

I looked at it, I loved it, and then I got an idea. I went to my boss's office and knocked on the door. When he opened it, I asked him if he would be willing to allow something very unprofessional to happen for morale building purposes.

How unprofessional? he asked. I held the shirt up in answer. He gave the shirt a short look over and snorted.

You can wear it on weeks without customers, he said. Which just so happened to include that week.

I'll pass on that it came with your blessing, I replied, and he looked oddly relieved.

Thanks, he said. And then I went downstairs.

---

The techs were very, very happy to see the shirt. And while my boss's reputation remains in tatters, and probably will be until he moves (or dies), the next time there was a meeting, there was quite a bit less complaining about how mere presence. Which is, I guess, a start.

We'll see if he squanders it.