#two of the hardest things to draw (robot and human) but somehow this was pretty chill
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older egg siblings for the comet au :>
#two of the hardest things to draw (robot and human) but somehow this was pretty chill#coloring wasn't even that bad i was just being dramatic#raviolisketches#metal sonic#neo metal sonic#sage sonic#sage the ai#sonic sage#egg siblings#oh also sage is like. way taller than metal i was just too lazy to change any sizes#also also this is what my colors are SUPPOSED to look like :>#couldn't adjust my tablet correctly so. i was just constantly sending it to my phone to tweak the colors#i need to draw sage more often so i can use my pixel brushes again.. i miss them#comet au
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2010-2019 Or The Overly Non Dramatic Story of How Kyuri's Decade Went
Technically this isn't a part of this decade review but I'm posting this on December 24th specifically because 10 years ago today I spoke to @mist-over-water on the phone for the first time after having known her for three years and I'm pretty sure we both cried
2010
met @mist-over-water for the first time in person. Took her to the beach where she promptly got roasted by the sun. Took her to the mountains. Took her out to practice driving in a local high school parking lot because why not. I cried so hard when she had to go home and God help me I'd only known her four years at that point.
Flunked a math class for the first time. Funny enough, it was because I'd been put in the advanced math courses for years and that was the year I both had a teacher I hated and could no longer reasonably fake my way through understanding math. Don't put your kids in advanced courses unless you're certain they can keep up with it people I only really was an advanced reader.
My dog Scruffy passed away :(
Started my senior year of high school
2011
Managed to graduate high school on time despite having to take 2 whole math courses during senior year (and with @mist-over-water 's who will now be referred to as Gabby because simplicity buddies sending me 'GRADUATE' messages so I'd have the motivation to go see her in person)
Got to go to England to see Gabby which, dream come true. Had a blast. Met the two precious nieces she had, her brother who's accent I couldn't understand, her mom who is one of the sweetest people, and her grandparents who I got to watch a lot of old British gameshows with.
Saw Wicked from second row seats in London.
Saw Cars 2 three times with Gabby which is why I'm still emotionally invested in Cars 2 because boy getting to see the sequel movie to the movie that ended up allowing you to cross paths with someone you really clicked with is AN. EXPERIENCE.
Cried when I finally had to leave because I was 18 and terrified of the future and didn't know when or if I'd ever see my friend in person again.
Started at community college in the film and video program
2012
Finished my first year of community college
Wrote my first original novel that will honestly never see the light of day. It's terrible ya'll
Through circumstances I still regret started losing my friendship with Gabby and boy do I hate who I was a person during that time
Started my second year of community college
2013
Worked on the X Factor as a production assistant.
Probably around this time that Gabby and I stopped talking which was better for us at that point. Still took an emotional toll to lose a friend that I'd known for 7 years at that point but in the long run we did need the distance (and I'm sorry to throw it all out here like this Gabby if you want it edited tell me I'm just putting it all out lmao)
Through a cosmic aligning of the universe by which I mean a special interest in both Minecraft and Achievement Hunter at the same time, I found a small Minecraft server that I could play on and met some really great people
Started my third year of community college
Oh yeah met @inspector-starfish from the Minecraft server for the first time in person, me and my brother stole her from her college and took her to the state fair with us.
2014
Started easing into talking to Gabby again (I remember the message with new baby Imogen!!!) Which was a blessing
I can't remember if it was 2014 or 2015 but at some point Gabby also hung out with me on the Minecraft server with my other buddies
Worked on Catfish as a Production Assistant for like 2 days and I still think I was fired lmao
My dad was arrested. Which is... The hardest thing to type out. Because everything before 2014 feels so distant because of the events.
He got put in jail and we bailed him out, but a month later he got arrested again and we couldn't bail him out this time.
God help me I'm so glad I had gotten back to talking to Gabby at this point I vaguely remember a sobbing Skype call between us.
I don't even remember what classes I was in at community college anymore that's how bad it is.
I basically dropped out though.
I stopped writing, I stopped drawing, I stopped... Being. That's really what it narrows down to. Only one of my real life friends knew what happened and I broke down everytime I thought about it so i'm pretty sure at one point I had a panic attack on my way to hang out with Friend A, who knew, and Friend B, who didn't.
I did start talking to @rhysispiecess that year. Through a post on here actually (we were also on the same Minecraft server but because I didn't really play that much that I remember after this whole thing I kinda forgot who he was).
I think (maybe???) I also met @belle-sourires and @youllthinkofsomething that year.
We moved from the house we'd lived in 13 years to a little rental house where we had the sweetest neighbors
2015
I spent a lot of time reading and crying in 2015 lmao
Also spent a lot of time talking to @rhysispiecess (the FNAF AU years God bless them for being a much needed distraction from real life)
Dad went to actual prison and boy that's an experience having to visit him there every week
We moved again this time to a small apartment
Got my first real job that wasn't being a production assistant (the same job I still have!)
Started to make actual attempts at writing again but struggled with it a lot
2016
For the first time since 2014 I actually wrote more than a simple one off story of the course of a month
Saved up my money and went to California to meet @rhysispiecess and @27thousandlizards.
Confused the shit out of Luke's (@27thousandlizards ) grandma
Was so tired I cried when I saw how little Corgi puppies are
Got to see @inspector-starfish and @youllthinkofsomething in San Diego where they were doing a robot thing as usual
Got to see the end bit of Route 66 cause wouldn't you know Rhys lives right near it (and as a huge Cars fan oh my God FATE)
Had an absolute blast with both Rhys and Luke and cried when I had to leave them because boy do I love friends
2017
Cars 3 came out and I transcended to a higher plane of being
Okay not really but I'm sure ya'll remember the days where I was mostly a Cars blog
100% I know I've said this before but all of the Cars movies have hit with specific messages at exactly the point in my life I needed to hear those messages so like. Poetic cinema.
Made some fantastic friends from those days
After 11 years of attempts at writing a redemption arc for a certain Cars character I finally wrote one and IT WAS GREAT
Cars 3 also managed to make me write again which has continued to be a struggle since 2014
Oh yeah became single again I was in a relationship but that ended TIME FOR ALONE (learned I'm still a terrible person who doesn't handle relationships well so hey not bad I'll leave people out of my overly anxious 'they must hate me' mentality)
2018
Fell out of writing again after the Cars 3 hype died down enough lmao
Got to meet @whipplefilter and @the-kings-tail-fin for a road trip around NC which was fantastic
Played way too much Nintendo Switch
Gabby got engaged and I absolutely cried for like an hour because how the fuck do you not cry when someone you've known for so long gets engaged (I'm still so happy for her @onetruejonsey seems like a really wonderful guy)
Oh yeah we moved again we have a real house now but the neighbors are redneck assholes
2019
Thanks to FNAF Help Wanted, I got whiplashed back into that fandom BUT I did start writing pretty regularly again. In fact I've written more this year than all the years since I stopped COMBINED. Which means I was both in the right headspace to actually want to write again as well as being able to keep myself focused on it.
Met Jodie Benson (ARIEL!!!!!!), Daniel Logan (KID BOBA FETT) and Christopher Sabat at GalaxyCon. Right. I went to my first convention despite being terrified of it
I cried like a bitch meeting Jodie Benson and she hugged me. I told Daniel Logan I'd had a crush on him as a kid and that Attack of the Clones was still my favorite Star Wars (which it is I wasn't lying) and he hugged me. Got to hear Sean Schemmel call Christopher Sabat out for being so friendly that his line was ridiculous which was great because boy did I not have enough money to meet more than three people. Christopher Sabat was fantastic too.
Went to DC with my 3 closest IRL buddies I've known since like 2008 and despite some arguments none of us killed each other. Nearly destroyed my feet from all the walking though. Don't know how we'd survive a trip to Japan which they all want to do.
Started formulating my next novel idea
It's been a long decade. Really the first half feels like it happened to another person.
I want to say, more than anything, if it weren't for Gabby I never would have had the courage to meet so many of my other online friends. She flew over here to meet me when I was 17 and she was 15 going on 16. We were so young and my dad and her mom worked so hard to make sure that we could actually meet each other and I'm forever thankful for that. I went across the ocean by myself at 18, an autistic disaster of a human, and somehow I didn't panic or get lost or anything. Without those experiences I never would have had the courage to do a lot of the things I've done since.
I'm still terrified of the future though. I have no idea if I'll even save enough money to go to England to see Gabby again (and God we actually need to talk more because I feel like a terrible friend ALL I DO IS SEND GIRAFFE PHOTOS). I don't even know what I want out of life.
Here's hoping though that I can continue to have some adventures and meet more of my online buddies in the next decade!
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Hi! I love your writing so much! I don't know if I submitted this ask. So sorry if I did and forgot. Given Shaun somehow is able to "age" or progress as a person, could you write the different kinds of childhoods he'd have and what type of person he'd become based on the companion Sole raises him with. (And could I pretty please have a bonus where he's raised a little by everyone?)
(Thank you! Andyou’re fine, as long as you don’t spam me with a bunch of requestsyou don’t have to worry about resubmitting the occasional ask.Dogmeat and Codsworth excluded in the solo reactions)
It takes a villageto raise a child; Sole and their compatriots take this phrase maybe atad literally. On the bright side, Shaun has a deep, deep pool ofaunts and uncles to draw knowledge from on subjects he isn’t familiarwith. Danse and MacCready often fight over who should teach him toshoot (“I can hit a bloatfly from two miles out, I think I canteach a kid how to handle a gun.” “If he doesn’t plan on scoutingout sniper nests for a hour before every altercation, he’ll learnfrom me!”). Strong is the cause of his first broken bone when Shauntries to have an arm wrestling match. Curie is the one to set it andscold Strong. Cait and Hancock sneak him his first tastes of alcohol,each thinking they’re the only ones who do so. Cait in particular,after an intense round of day drinking, gives him an impromptu sex edlesson, and it’s an almost too honest -and descriptive- answer toShaun’s question of what sex was, not to mention quite different thanthe diagrams Curie showed him on reproductive organs. Piper isundoubtedly his best aunt, or at least, the closest thing to awell-rounded adult figure in his life. She’s usually the one he comesto with problems, and also dispels many of the myths Deacon handsdown (“No, you do not become a werebear if you eat charred yao guaimeat.”) Nick is more of the grandfather that knows card tricks.Codsworth is Codsworth, remaining the same mildly overbearing nannybot he’s always been. Preston never really gets the hang of him. Hetreats him a lot younger, being unsure what kids Shaun’s age are “into”. X6 isn’t the most helpful when it comes to rearing kids, andShaun only really turns to him when he wants brutal honesty.
Between the lot ofthem, Shaun ends up fairly well-rounded, with an…eclectic set ofskills, to say the least. He’s taught a little of everything. When itcomes time for him to leave the settlement, he leaves on dozens ofhandshakes and more than a few proud tears.
Danse- With Danse, he is groomed intothe picture of an army brat. It goes without saying that hisupbringing is strict, sometimes even a little harsh, but loving andfull of happy memories as well. Danse is not entirely warm, but then,he’s not entirely cold either. Sole never lets Danse treat Shaun toomuch like a Brotherhood initiate. They have to remind him now andthen that they’re not going to shoehorn their son into a militarycareer when he’s instructing him on the meticulous way a soldiershould make his bed in the mornings. He does learn a lot onmaintaining power armor and firearms, and leans more into becoming amechanic when he starts working. That, or following his father’sfootsteps into the Brotherhood (though he’s not popular, consideringDanse’s history with them). Making his father proud is tantamount inShaun’s mind, he pursues any life that would do just that. Danseraises him to be brave in the face of doubt, do what feels right, andto never let others decide your fate.
Hancock- Despitehis laz a fair approach to his own life, he does try to set Shaun ona better path than the one he ended up going down. He cleans up alittle, weans himself from the harder chems, and if he does keep afew habits, he doesn’t do them around the kid. He’s very much the “goask Sole” type of father, and Shaun gets away with a lot aroundhim. Just enough to be considered a mischievous kid and not adelinquent. He gets his first taste of beer early, his ownswitchblade, his own tricorn hat when he’s old enough it doesn’tslough off to one side of his head. Shaun adopts a lot of Hancock’svirtues, his self-confidence, loyalty, leadership skills, charm, butis taught to avoid many of his vices (which is mostly Sole’s doing).If he doesn’t end up taking up Hancock’s mantle of mayor, he likelyends up leader of a group like the Minutemen, leaving a string ofbroken hearts along the way of whatever path he treads. He’s acharmer, quick witted, and is taught to use his head above all- whichalso consists of keeping it clean. He doesn’t take up the casual chemuse that Hancock suffers from.
Deacon- Littlewhite lies are all Shaun is really allowed, yet he makes the best ofthem, and he develops a good poker face early on. Deacon is morehonest with Sole than anyone else, but first and foremost, he is apathological liar, prone to wild stories, and Shaun adopts that alittle too well. He impresses his school mates with all the storiesof his heroism, like the time he took down a radstag single-handed with nothing but a hunting knife. His tall tales either earn him agullible flock of followers or a beating from the kids smart enoughto see through his bravado. But he doesn’t just learn lying fromDeacon- he also learns compassion, fighting for what you think isright, protecting the people who are most vulnerable. And he is thesingle hardest kid to trick. He sees through deception just as easilyas he carries it out, so he quickly unravels most of the stories kidsget told (Sole has a nightmare of a time trying to convince him ofSanta Claus). His tendency towards “exaggeration” places him inthe position of a salesman later in life, hyping up his wares justenough that they seem shiny and appealing. If not that, then he’dfind himself with the Railroad, helping in whatever cause they followwhen the Institute is gone. Learning from Deacon’s mistakes, hebecomes an honest liar, easy going, and fights for the marginalized.
Piper- Havingmostly raised her little sister on her own, Piper sidles prettyeasily into the role of a mother, and his childhood is earnestlyclose to “normal” with her and Sole as parents. As normal asthings ever really got in the Commonwealth. He does, however, getinto scrapes in search of stories for Piper to cover. Being aninvestigative journalist is on par with being a spy in his mind-keeping your eyes and ears open, finding contacts, meeting in secret.He mostly grows out of this, but Piper still instills in him a loveof the written word and a desire to educate the Wastes on thingsbeyond the farms and cities they relegate themselves to. He takes totraveling at a young age, writing of his experiences in theCommonwealth and eventually, the rest of the ruins of the UnitedStates. If he doesn’t become a writer, he likely goes into lawenforcement, making sure (like Piper always taught him) that justicecomes to those who wrong others. He’s as silver tongued,compassionate, and as worldly as the woman who helps raise him.
Curie- She’slearning how to act human as much as Shaun is, so she mostly goeswith whatever Sole says when it comes to raising him. They knowbetter than she would; despite knowing how to keep kids healthy, shehad little experience with their emotional needs. Still, she does herbest. She reads him stories, partakes in nightly rituals like tuckinghim in and humming him to sleep, and when he’s too old for all that,she giddily encourages him in his studies. He learns more from herthan anything taught in school. She teaches him not only how to treatdisease, but passes on a genuine compassion and desire to help, tolearn, to make the Wastes a little better in some small capacity.When the time comes for him to strike out on his own, he travelsfurther than Curie ever has in search of knowledge, and exchanges theknowledge he brought from the Commowealth. He saves lives, being akind and caring figure all the while. He becomes everything Fathercould have been before he was twisted by the Institute.
Nick- Having arobot detective as a father is probably the coolest thing a childcould experience, and Shaun is in near constant awe of Nick. Nickhimself takes easily to being a dad and enjoys it. Shaun is his son,and really, with them both being synths cast from similar molds, itnever once felt like he wasn’t family. Having someone he could passthings on to… it was more than Nick had ever really hoped for. Hespends much of his childhood in the glow of the heart-shaped signoutside Valentine’s Detective Agency, reading through old case files,picking over evidence from new case files, and each case is a puzzlefor him to piece together. He grows up sharp and inquisitive, eagleeyed with a nose for lies. He also learns as much about synth’s innerworkings as he does humans. Nick needs the occasional tuneup whenSole isn’t around, so he helps now and then with the screws andpanels he can’t reach on his own. With this knowledge, if he doesn’tend up taking over the agency, he goes out to help runaway synthsstill wandering the Commonwealth, confused and with heads full ofmemories that aren’t their own. He grows to be perceptive, a naturalproblem solver, and sets the wrong things right wherever he goes.
Cait- Her biggestfear, besides sliding back into old habits, is becoming her parents.She does her damn best to be a good parent almost entirely out ofspite. Shaun is absolutely spoiled rotten. If Sole won’t give himsomething, he asks Caits, and nine times out of ten he gets what hewants. She’s as short tempered as she’s always been, yet for him, shekeeps it together. For him, she does better. She’s also wildlyprotective, and unsurprisingly, teaches him most problems can besolved with his fists. He’s reared knowing how to stick up forhimself, and the two of them spar a few times a week until he’s oldand skilled enough to actually beat her in a fight. By the time he’sready to leave home, there is no doubt in anyone’s minds that he’sbeen raised to take care of himself, whatever is thrown at him.Strength and fighting skills usually don’t amount to much more thanfalling in with a gang of raiders, but Shaun knows that’s not thelife either of his parents want, and the thrashing he would get ifCait knew he even considered it, so he goes into work as a bountyhunter, a body guard; anything that lets him both use his skills andsleep with an easy conscience. He’s a little wilder, a little louder,and grows up to be a fighter.
MacCready- Havingsome experience raising kids, he takes in Shaun without secondthought. Duncan has a big brother when he arrives in theCommonwealth, the two of them taking to each other almost right away.There’s hardly a day they’re separated, playing catch and shooting BBguns with their father. Shaun is protective and immensely proud ofhis younger sibling, and MacCready can finally loosen the tight griphe’d kept on his youngest son. He still keeps a watchful eye over thetwo of them, but he feels like, finally, there was someone he trustedimplicitly to keep Duncan safe. Of course, the more he gains, themore he fears losing, and he can sometimes be a bit harsh if eitherone of them do something dangerous. He couldn’t take losing them.This drives Shaun to leave at a fairly young age, learningMacCready’s stubbornness and the bravado of his youth, and Duncan isquick to follow. The two, having been taught to shoot guns beforethey could read (as well as stay out of the thick of fights) endup becoming a formidable pair of snipers. They know better than tojoin up with the Gunners or other mercenary gangs, instead becomingguns for hire. Freelance killers with a bit stricter moral codes thantheir father. If only a bit. He’s cunning, careful, and a hell of agood shot.
Preston- Being asyoung and new to parenthood as he is, he isn’t entirely prepared toraise a child who came to them fully formed. He’s anxious, alwaysconcerned he’s doing something wrong, but he does the things hisfather did for him. Teaches Shaun to shoot, the importance of a goodbook, that being kind is a reward in itself. He also teaches him thethings he had to learn for himself; that it’s fine to cry, to not beokay, to rely on others for strength when you feel like your own isfailing. Shaun’s childhood is as bumpy as any child’s is in theCommonwealth, but with Preston, there’s light even in the darkesttimes. He carries this indomitable sense of good and rightness withhim even when he’s grown, and if he doesn’t settle into a simplerlife in a settlement, he joins the Minutemen, carrying on the valueshe’s been taught. Preston teaches him the strength in community, thathope and mercy are not weakness, and to always lend a hand, whateverhe does.
X6-88- He hasspent more time with Shaun (this version and technically, the humanShaun as well) than Sole ever has, only, just not in any kind of parentalrole. He ferried him back and forth from the Institute and theCommonwealth and their relationship never went far past that. It wasstrange, suddenly being a role model for someone. Siblings, parents,family, they weren’t really an option for synths in the Institute.For Coursers, even less so. The first few years, he’s more of abodyguard than a parental figure. Learning to let go of the deathgrip he has on Institute protocol and the image of synths as tools,that takes awhile. Shaun helps. He loves him, which meant a synthlike X6 was capable of that. It was a comforting thought that one dayhe’d feel for Shaun what Shaun felt for him. He relies more on Solefor getting through the emotional turmoil of youth, as most of X6’sresponses to trivial things like school and first loves is fairlycold indifference. Not like he really understood it, he’d been madewithout thought for such things. He was still navigating some things(like first love) himself. What he does instruct Shaun in mostlypertains to combat, though he does teach him a skill that helped X6survive in the Institute- masking your true emotions. He’d have beenreprogrammed a long time ago if he hadn’t picked up that talent.Shaun grows up somewhat cold with him, making a habit of keepingthose pesky feelings to himself early on, to the point not even Solecan really coax them out of him. Not fully. As X6 learns how to bemore human, Shaun learns to be more machine. His nature andintelligence veer him, oddly enough, into politics. From X6 he learnscold calculation, the importance of keeping your cards close to yourchest, and that there’s little use for remorse.
Strong- Childhoodwith Strong being a co-parent is… weird. To say the least. Soledoes everything they can to keep him from feeding the kid human meat, eventhough he insists it will help Shaun grow big and strong, but now andthen there are a few bits of mystery meat sneaking their way into hismeals whose origins Sole couldn’t quite suss out. Regardless of hispotential foray into cannibalism, Shaun does, surprisingly, learn athing or two from his Super Mutant guardian. Mostly the things a mancan say that will make their fellow man spontaneously shitthemselves. More than a few scrapes with older children ends withShaun bellowing in his closest approximation of Strong; “THIS ISWHAT DEATH LOOKS LIKE UP CLOSE!” Despite Sole’s best efforts, Shauntakes after him, even beyond shouting his throat raw.Many arguments with him end in headbutts. He grows into a young manwho takes no shit from anyone, who understands brutality can be anecessity, and who fights with the feral tenacity of a mutie. Ignoring family protests, he goes into raiding (ever the lucrative business)and is renowned for his uncanny ability to shout down Super Mutantsbands that encroach on his band’s territory. That, or he’s a respectedfighter in the nearest Thorn. Sole might have more influence on hismorals, but Strong passes on the knowledge of Super Mutants. Whichisn’t much beyond violence and shouting. He grows up pretty confused.
#first reaction of 2018 WOOP#companion reactions#fallout 4#strong#codsworth#paladin danse#maccready#curie#Piper Wright#cait#Robert Joseph MacCready#preston garvey#nick valentine#hancock#deacon#synth!shaun
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1-50
oh my god dude
im gonna put this under a cut bc this is a lot. this is a ride, have fun i guess
1. Your first OC ever?god. its got to be Super Kitty. when i was like … an incredibly small child I used to draw comic strips about this feline caped crusader, who was friends with everyone in the city, and the comics always involved him stopping an evil banana man from stealing money from the local bank. He was paid with donuts for his service to the city. i still remember how to draw him.
2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?i’d get arrested if I didn’t answer this with Bronze, probably… but really, they’re very important to me
3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?man, i cant remember! i really dont think i have… P:
4. A character you rarely talk about?there’s loads of characters ive never even posted a single picture of on tumblr, i wouldnt even know where to start asdf
5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be? bronze is the easy answer, but… i guess that could also go to Servant or Westrin. Servant has a comic project in the works that basically stars him, sort of a series of one-shots about the things he’s experienced, i feel like that would be a good thing to take off and run with. Westrin’s just fun as hell, i love the guy.
6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related?real talk now… there’s at least five different characters that i refer to as a whole as “bronze-tangential”, who started out as, “what would bronze be like if they were in this world?” and then becoming their own thing within said world because i just get stupid attached
its an epidemic
7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?nearly all of them, actually. that’s the main reason i make characters, after all! too many to really go into specifics here, again P:
8. Do you RP as any of your OCs? If you do, introduce one of your RP OCs here!not often, but i think Bronze and Westrin are the most common ones. unless playing a character in dnd, or running an npc in dnd counts… then a whole lot more hahaha
9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else?it depends on the circumstances. i don’t really like the idea, though.
10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design? Westrin’s old getup is a pain to draw, and there was one other design i did that I cant find anywhere… whichever way, i dont often tend to draw super complicated things often
a couple fakemon ive designed though… heheh those can get pretty finicky
11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”? hmmmmmmmm my immediate thought was Eric Silverdale from a comic i was working on a few years ago. hes a darling, i want him to be my friend irl
12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lothow could you do this to me i love each and every one of all my friends ocs GOD the first one who comes to mind is @d20-official‘s Smith, whos Bronze’s friend… everyone in that DND party actually
13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs? Rated on a scale from “harmless” to “honestly somewhat frightening”: -Baromet (charming and quite friendly but definitely a kleptomaniac),-Westrin (demigod of bards and travelers), -XEN09 (a nonsense hacker), -Conny (needlessly contrarian and dumb as HELL), -Enza Colie (long fucking story but hes a good-for-nothing), -Hemlocke (mad scientist, chaotic evil), -Iris (AI and hacker, VERY bad), -The Terminus (glitch-in-the-matrix demon, chaotic evil), -and Sydd (the Queen of the Faeries, hopefully the danger there needs no explaining :’D)
14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory Mmm… there’s a few of them, most obviously Lent (whose background I did a short comic about). Basically his entire town got eaten by ghosts and turned into zombies, he only barely survived with a sliver of his soul left.
15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?yes, i often discuss storylines and such with friends
16. Which one of your OCs would be the best at biology (school subject)? Probably Bronze’s dad! I don’t talk about him much, but his name’s Devon Reed, and he was a biotech developer specialising in android design.
I often describe him as being something of a reverse Arthur Weasley - a very fatherly scientist fascinated to the moon and back with the concept of magic.
17. Any OC OTPs? having trouble thinking of a lot of them right now, but there’s Eric + Lent & Naiadine + Tailias from Emerald Sigil, Avken + Baromet from my space campaign world, Sydd + Wyvv from my unnamed campaign world, and I’ve been considering Westrin + Servant as an interesting dynamic in Servant’s story
18. Any OC crackships? My character Bismuth and @autistictimeknight‘s oc Eros. Theyre so fucking in love, I love it. Its been awhile but I do still think about them sometimes.
As I recall, Eros is an empath, she can read other people’s emotions. But Bismuth is a robot, and Eros can’t read her. Because of this Eros can let go of her fear of unintentionally manipulating the emotions of her date, which would hold her back from most other relationships.
19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)Hey, meet Bronze! I definitely do not talk about them every five minutes, why would you say that.
Bronze was with me through two of the hardest years of my life so far, and being a DND character they grew with me, both as a fighter and as a person. They were non-binary before I started using those pronouns, they were the first character or person or anything who I fought someone about using the right pronouns for, they make a great icebreaker for if I want to see how someone reacts to non-binary pronouns …
One funny anecdote about Bronze is that when I first made them, their “gimmick” was that they would sometimes glitch out and mess up their speech, mostly because I wanted an excuse not to engage in the roleplaying (which I was very bad at). The interesting thing is that as I got better at interacting with the group, we both grew out of needing it very quickly.
I’m very proud of Bronze.
20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)?Westrin is a bard! His singing voice sounds like Bill Wurtz and these are his theme songs.
21. Your most artistic OCProbably Westrin again, he writes a lot of songs… and Hallux is a game designer?
22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how? I honestly dont know… no-one talks to me about them, haha!
people use all manner of pronouns for bronze, though.
23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?I’m gonna go with Enza for this one. Enza Colie was originally written entirely because I wanted an antagonist for a short starring his sister, Jane Colie. But the more I fleshed out his reasonings for acting how he did and explored his character, the more I realised he’d make an even more interesting character if allowed to have a redemption arc, too.
I just want to state for the record that I was very reluctant to the idea, and he basically dragged his way out of the villain pit entirely of his own accord. I am dubiously proud of him, and also a bit scared.
24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why?Probably either Eric (Big Man, Best Friend), Crocus (Mother figure), Reed (Father Figure), Westrin (hed just make a good friend u kno??), or Bismuth (she makes good conversation!)
25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)probably the homestuck fan-troll Hallux, but that’s mostly because they were based on a troll-sona I made awhile ago. They’re a hope/prospit game designer who is small and full of rage and love
oh, and there’s dave! dave’s a superhero speedster, existing in a modern-day superhero version of seattle. theyre idiot, just like me,
26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will? this is an interesting one… i don’t think ive ever had something Bad in a design ive done called to my attention by someone, but I did create my character Servant at around the same time I was first really expanding the diversity of my casts. (since i don’t talk about him often, a little context: he’s a magic spirit creature bound to human form to serve the royal family of the land and follow their orders.)
somehow, younger-and-more-stupid me managed to have the revelation that making this “eternal slave” character literally anything other than a white man, especially as a white author, would be Pretty Not Good. im … thats really, really not something i should pat myself on the back for, but i do consider it one of the biggest bullets dodged in my artistic career so far that i realised that not all representation is good representation so quickly, before i could make that incredibly, incurably stupid mistake.
after that, trying to make sure my characters and their presentations don’t harm anyone pretty much has become a paranoia. i don’t seem to have stepped on any toes yet, but when it inevitably happens, please let me know - i didnt know, and i want to fix it!
27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song? None that I can think of, actually! I don’t really do that often.
28. Your most dangerous OC? god damn it i have no idea!!! is it the terminus? glitch in the matrix god of chaos motherfucker?is it sarle? terrifying calculating scientist with the power of the soul at her fingertips ??? is it ares??? is it athena????? is it petra?????? the gatekeeper????
… actually, the gatekeeper might be it, if “dangerous” just refers to “the amount of raw power it can wield”. the Gatekeeper is a titanic entity that exists in interdimensional multiverse space, and its implied to have the ability to create and destroy entire universe bubbles at will. for what cosmic purpose, no-one knows.
at a more personal scale, though, literally all of the aforementioned characters are pretty bad to run into too.
29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?god. Mina or Tawn. Tawn is the Indiana Jonesy type and probably dumb enough, but also competent enough not to get into too much trouble there. Mina would probably drag her friends along.
30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection? XEN09. No-one knows, because no-one knows xir personal identity. Xe absolutely does, though. It’s less of a secret if you know xir in person, but good luck finding out about it otherwise.
31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)dave just reblogs memes all the time tbh. they like to keep tabs on the ridiculous superhero news going on, and they show human jokes and cat videos to their alien gf. they dont really post or add to posts, but they talk in tags a lot.
32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why? i want to say tawn because i literally just realised ive been imagining their voice as sounding like luigi this entire fucking time and i never realised until this exact instant
33. Your shyest OC?probably baromet. they prefer to keep to themself in their hideout, with their collection of shiny things. they don’t really enjoy trying to communicate much, mostly because they expect to get yelled at.
34. Do you have any twin characters?Yes! At least two sets;
- Crocus and Sarle. (x) (x) They don’t exactly have a very well-developed relationship, but they are both quite important to the plot of my campaign world, and they are both very interesting. Crocus is a motherly figure who just exudes friendliness, while Sarle is .. very much not that, a researcher studying very gruesome things and pushing the boundaries of reality.
- Jane and Enza Colie. I haven’t talked a whole lot about either of them here, but I’d rather leave their story to do the talking whenever I get around to it. Essentially, the both of them were intended to do the dirty work for their crime boss family, but Jane ditched to study medicine. Most of the conflict between the two of them comes out of Enza not understanding why she made the choice she did, and coming to understand how he’s been manipulated.
35. Any sibling characters? I can’t really think of any off the top of my head, I should … I should really work on that.
I can talk about Westrin, though. Westrin (a demigod of many things, but namely bards, travel, travelers, and people who are lost) often becomes close friends with mortals, sometimes practically adopting them. These people who consider him family, and people who have received his blessing, are able to use his surname, Brilanta, as their own if they choose. So I guess all of the Brilantas are siblings, at least in spirit.
Oh, and XEN09 has like, seven siblings. Xe is the second-oldest, and least remarkable.
36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else (siblings, lovers, friends etc)? I already talked about Eros and Bismuth up there a ways in question 18, but I’ll talk about another relationship here. @autistictimeknight‘s character, Nova the Alchemist, is mentor and adopted parental figure to my character Munna. Munna … Munna isn’t a very good apprentice. She tries very hard.
37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human That’s most of them, I’m not quite sure what to say here. Bronze is an android? Bronze again? Westrin? All the aliens ??
38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer? man. uh. westrin or jean. or perhaps valencia.
39. Introduce any character you want ??? uhhhHHHhhHHH Lord Brillium is the reigning deity of the Cloud Kingdoms in the other campaign setting I’m working on. They represent light and the quest for knowledge, and spend most of their days in the Cathedral Observatory watching the stars.
40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!one time bronze flew a hover-bike through the stained glass window in a cathedral blaring all star by smash mouth on their iguana
also one time bronze rickrolled a rakshasa demon and then pulled updog on it like, two minutes later
another time bronze scared off an entire army by pretending to be an automated security system
41. Has anyone drawn fanart of your OCs? If yes, maybe show a picture or two here (remember sources & permissions!)ive got a whole little folder on here from all you blessed people !!!! right now ive got a drawing quinn did of one o fmy characters as my lockscreen
but i think the one i’ll really never ever get over is this piece of Jane, by @rabendraws / @owoltron:
(i bet you thought i forgot about this, dude. dude. think again.)
42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods? this is kind of a weird question, m, I feel like Bismuth would find learning about the mythos utterly fascinating, as would Tawn.
43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confesshaha. uh. i might.
aside from the entire “bronze-tangential characters” thing i mentioned awhile back, I tend to really like designing characters with hair color lighter than their skin color. it just looks so cool man. i love drawing freckles but dont put them on enough characters. i like really curly hair, but also really long and flowy hair. i like drawing triangular body types, and pointy/prominent noses.
44. Something you like about your OCs in generaluhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is a really vague question. m. m.
45. A character you no longer use?there’s old versions of characters, but a lot of my older ones have been somehow repurposed. I guess there’s Turien, my first-ever DND character, who’s just kind of sitting dead now. Haven’t really done anything with him other than a pretty recent tangential character.
46. Has anyone ever told you that you treat your OCs badly?Not that I can think of.
47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child? Im certain it’s happened, but I can’t remember any specific instances.
48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pureSpring. spring knows nothing of th dangers of the world who is letting them into fights someon eneeds to stop this
(spring roll, hehe.)
49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memesim not sure what this question is asking since many of my ocs actively enjoy memes including but not limited to westrin, dave, bronze, xen09, iris, and doctor archersen
50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you wanti think. i think im going to pass on this one. i gave you the good old oc talk. your damn turn, yall:
if you have any questions about any of these guys feel free to shoot one at me!
thats all from me im tired and its one am. techskylander you absolute madman
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The Unexpected Tutelage of Cuphead
Lot of Life Knowledge in those cups.
I am not a fan of horror movies. Sure, I almost always like them when I find myself watching them, but that usually takes a Herculean effort of an enthusiastic friend or a total lack of desire to drudge up an explanation why I don’t want to watch something called Happy Death Day 2U. The reason I don’t like them? Simple- life is terrifying enough as is, and seeing as I don’t like ruminating in fear with my precious free time, the idea of willingly being scared strikes me as preposterous.
While there are some “scary” games like the new Resident Evil*, for me the real parallel to scary movies in the video game world is difficult games. Most current video games are super user-friendly, oftentimes because the software developers want you to see the entirety of the thing they’ve spent hundreds of thousands of hours and hundreds of millions of dollars creating. In other words, they don’t want you to get pissed and bail without showing off what they spent a good chunk of their lives working on. And while I have played video games long enough to be pretty good at them (I’m not), I actually appreciate the lowering of the difficulty bar. Much like scary movies, I usually stray away from difficult games. Why? Again, simple- frustration ain’t welcome in my leisure time. I’m trying to enjoy myself, not get all red-faced and hurl hard plastic as a torrent of never-before-heard profanity gushes out of my mouth because I’m trying to defeat some recluse’s brainchild/ torture device.
*A stone cold modern classic for the first hour alone
But, many hardcore* gamers find modern games’ user- friendliness/ forgiveness to be insulting to their cheesy-dusted core. Many of this ilk were raised in the original Nintendo-era, where difficulty was praised and games like Ninja Gaiden and Battletoads were designed to be essentially impossible to defeat, thus making it a bragging-worthy accomplishment if you could.
*Bathe in the irony of me using a pornographic term to describe a gamer
But, as video games started to expand their audience, many of these Capital G Gamers who loved the feeling of accomplishment that accompanied victory over insanely hard games were kind of forgotten, given “Hard” modes on otherwise easy games to satiate their thirst for difficulty, but that’s about it. After being avoided for what to them must have felt like ions, things finally began to change when games like the rebooted Ninja Gaiden and the fetishized Dark Soul franchises started catering to those who those studs who think replacing l3tt3rs with numb3rs is cool and that the best games are the ones that only those with superhuman focus and tenacity can defeat.
Enter: Cuphead. A long-in-development indie game that looks like a gorgeously* animated WW 2-era cartoon a la Betty Boop or Woody Woodpecker yet is as difficult as finding a WiFi hotspot during the Great Depression. A simple shooter, the game does an excellent job of drawing you in with its eye-popping looks and catchy soundtrack before it intentionally overwhelms you. Because it’s you, a literal cup of coffee whose only offense is a finger-gun (seriously) and the ability to jump, fighting enemies so large their eyeballs fill the screen. To put it politely, you’re fucked.
*And buddy, it is one seriously gorgeous game. One of the things that keeps you playing is the desire to see all of the peerless art and monster design
Again, it’s you:

Versus (that’s you in the little red airplane- everything that’s glowing will kill you instantly, but that’s a good life lesson within itself):

Again, fucked. And that’s one of the earliest bosses. Just about everything on screen kills you, and there are no checkpoints from which you can start over. It often takes several consecutive minutes of flawless playing to even make a dent. But amongst all the gorgeous ass-kicking chaos, the game does something profound on the sly: it gives you hope.
I realize this sounds silly- hope, arguably existence’s sweetest gift, is given by a game where Asperger’s is almost a prerequisite to win? But it’s true.
At 35, I’m at the age where I doubt that most things can or will change. Sure, shoes look different, the popularity of some philosophies surge then retract, the younger get old who in turn die, but much of life is being reminded that real human change simply does not happen. Socially awkward at 15? Probably won’t be much different at 45. Addictive personality? Better find a healthy outlet because the addictive part probably ain’t going anywhere. Planning on writing the Great American Novel? Drinking like the other millions who tried that is much more likely. Want to pick up a language in your 30s? Maybe an instrument? Good luck, those parts of your brain stopped working while you were cursing at the iPod speaker because it wasn’t playing Master of Puppets loud enough after that gin bucket incident.
The more life’s inevitable stasis solidifies in the brain, the more harrowing it is- the more dangerous the feeling of defeat and despair become. Grand realizations and epiphanies start feeling like the stuff of fiction. Things perpetually prove pointless, because if you can’t change, what exactly is the point of existence? The one thing you know for sure that does change is our planet’s resources (they dwindle) as we march- or should I say sail- to our doom.
“Hold it right there, Mr. Goth McDowner,” Cuphead whispers at you after about an hour of play.
Because not being good at Cuphead is exactly what you should be once you start playing it. Failure is certain. You die all the time. Like within seconds, over and over and over. You’ve got a gnat’s chance against a windshield. Fail. Fail. Fail.
But while Cuphead first appears to be the masochist’s wet dream, you realize that why everything still overwhelms and doom as is certain as time itself, you’re- somehow- getting better. Slowly, sure. In most instances, you’re not even sure how. It’s almost imperceptible when it isn’t imperceptible. But, sure enough, keep at it, and you will improve.
And that is the direct result of Cuphead’s design. For while it is hard- easily one of the hardest games I actually enjoyed playing- it is never cheap. The game doesn’t want to defeat you with bullshit tactics like games from the 80s. Much like the loving, hardass parents everybody probably needs, It wants you to get better, and is more than willing to kick your ass to get you there. How does it do both? By subtly encouraging you through how it is made. Getting better boils down to two things: sharpening your hand-eye coordination and muscle memory*, and recognizing patterns that start simple but become supremely sophisticated, ranging from the speed of enemies to knowing the exact positions where the 12,000 objects flying at you will miss you by a millipixel. Nothing truly random ever occurs, so you won’t have to bear the true indignity of finding meaning in a game you’ve played for dozens of hours about coffee cups cheap deaths (or cheap wins) just when you’re about to see that sweet, sweet Victory! screen. The game also does something genius when it comes to letting you know you’re progressing: Every time you lose, a timeline appears where you see how close you were to victory.
*Sorry, A.I., but that one requires practice, which means dying. A lot.
Plus, it’s just funny to lose to characters from the 30′s who then insult you with Vaudevillian trash talk. None of them have voices, but I like to think they all sound like the Penguin from Adam West’s Batman.
At first this seems boisterous if not barbaric in the worst possible way- a na na nee boo boo for the Switch generation. It quickly proves to be just the thing you need to see that you are in fact making progress. Yes, it makes some of the frustrations sting a lot more (I was this close). But it also gives you hope (I was this close). It’s the first time I’ve seen such a mechanic in a game, and I will be amazed if it is the last.
Eventually, after you’ve beaten the Robot that has been giving you a headache for the better part of 10 hours, a weird feeling may hit you like it hit me: not accomplishment- although that is most certainly present- but hope. Hope that if you are willing to be persistent, you will get better. Sure, that’s not an guarantee, but one thing is for sure: you can’t improve- in this game, in life- if you quit. Persistence is the best quality a person can have, as it is pretty much the only one they can control. Why? Because hope- the beautiful thing that makes happy people happy- is the fruit of persistence. And the truly ingenious thing about Cuphead is that its design encourages such epiphanies. Not bad for $20.
Does constant failure suck? Speaking as an ad writer and more generally as a person I can tell you from experience that yes it indeed does. It’s humbling. It can be crippling. It’s demoralizing. But if you’re willing to fail with both feet, you will get better. At least sometimes. And if you don’t, just remember to not chuck your Switch in the lake.
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