#yes Jin is intentionally Tumblr sexyman bait. I thought it would be funny

[i-am-literally-deranged]

Again, I don't care to write numbers but here are your questions for the ask game ~

What’s a bad habit you picked up this year?

What’s something new about your place of residence (room, home, or general location) now vs the start of the year?

Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one

Ennnnnioy~~

Oh man, the home thing is a pretty big one! My living situation has been pretty goofy for a while, but earlier this year I moved back in with my mom, and it's actually surprisingly been really good. Since I've come back, our relationship has been improving a lot. We've been getting along better than we have since I was little, and I'm really grateful that I've had the opportunity to live with her again and for that to be a positive experience.

This bad habit isn't exactly a new one, but an old one that I overcame and then it came back with a vengeance this year. Randomly ghosting people. I sometimes find myself sort of immobilized when it comes to replying to people, and I'd put some real effort into getting over it and message people anyway. But man this last year I have absolutely been slipping. I don't think I've initiated a conversation with, like, anyone at all. I reply, sometimes. I've been TERRIBLE about just dropping off the face of planet earth periodically because I had one too many things on my mind and lost patience for any and all human interaction. I do feel bad about it at least.

Also the SHEER EXCITEMENT OF GETTING ASKED ABOUT CHARACTERS OH BOY!!

While I've mostly worked on continuing older projects this year featuring older characters, I DID write a short story featuring some new faces this year!

It follows Evan Juliet, a seer, and the demon that has taken up residence in his home.

Jin, a gambling demon, was doing pretty well for himself in the soul collecting game. Maybe a little too well, for an independent operator who didn't care too much for the intricacies of demonic hierarchies. His success caught the eye of a demon king, not something you ever want to do, and in a single night's confrontation with them was stripped of almost all of his power. In desperate need of a place to crash, and a soul to steal, Jin was ready to try just about anything.

Evan had never done anything well for himself in his entire short, miserable life. He was the sort of perfectly mediocre that was destined to fall through the cracks from day one. When his father died, he inherited just enough money to not be poor enough for benefits, but not nearly enough to be comfortable, along with a house that was haunted in more ways than one. Most of that mediocrity was a direct product of the terrible, terrible fear that governed his existence. You see, Evan was gifted with the curse of seeing that which ordinary humans do not. Haunted all his life by visions of spirits, and terrified to do anything that might catch their attention, he hid away and did as little of any note as possible.

He was mostly successful in avoiding the notice of any of the incorporeal beasts that stalked in the corners of his vision, until he found his house had been broken into. When he goes to accept his fate, no doubt dying at the hands of burglars, two things are realized simultaneously. Jin realizes that this boy can see him, and Evan realizes that his house was never broken into at all.

From here, they strike a deal. Jin will teach Evan everything he needs to know to not only keep himself safe from the spirits that have tormented him since he was small, but how to hunt them and profit off of it too. In exchange, anything that Evan hunts is given to Jin to claim its soul and slowly rebuild his power.

The short story, or more collection of short stories, is a sort of odd couple buddy cop thing where the two of them hunt ghosts and such together. Jin takes on a sort of fatherly role in Evan's life, and they get unexpectedly close. I spend a frankly disproportionate amount of time on how magic works in this world, because I'm a fucking nerd, but the main focus of it all is on their dynamic, and Jin coming into this fatherly role and finding their place together. It's called Necromancy For Dummies, and the whole thing will never ever see the light of day, but you can see some excerpts from it because I like you, and also I can never keep my projects to myself

Here's the original concept drawings of them from early this year when I was kinda figuring out what I wanted to do with them

+ the most recent drawing of Evan (left), which is an abandoned wip ft another entirely unrelated character