#I’ve found that bowser has become my go-to thing to draw

[dragonfollies]

I haven’t posted my drawings to tumblr in a while, so here’s a couple of sketchbook doodles of Nintendo characters from the past week

[falcon6]

Learning to Create

It’s really difficult for me to admit that I’m an artist of any capacity. A lot of times, I consider that sort of term to be dedicated only to the working artist. You know, the ones who actually get paid for their work. The ones who end up creating things for everyone. The ones I admire greatly, to the point that I consider them to be living on Mt. Olympus while I’m stuck at a temple waiting for a chariot up a very steep road.

The place I work at now is a place where I don’t get to really create for myself. I create for other people. When I’m done there, I seldom get to make things for myself at home. There is an effort, of course, when I’m able to do so, but it’s hard to be that focused after toiling a retail job for 7 hours a day. You end up taking the opportunity to decompress and that ends up becoming an 8-hour decompress and you need to go to bed. That’s how it is for an adult, I guess. Don’t recommend growing up.

And that “9-5 Job, Now Do Nothing For Hours” mindset is something I need to work on, to be sure. In my mind, I see myself as someone who needs to be able to do something. I can’t make art to decompress, because art is supposed to be something important. I toil and toil, thinking about the process I need to decide on doing. “How do I become an artist like my favorite artists?” “What is the correct methods of learning it?”

How do I climb the mountain and join the greats?

In my monthly stint of introspection, I was watching a friend play Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. To this day, it may still be my favorite game. Watching it again brings back a lot of genuinely good memories, both inside and outside of the game. The charm that filled the game’s varied and interesting world and cast has still yet to be matched for my personal tastes. And for years, it was the game I played whenever I needed a good pick-me-up.

Watching him play it for the first time and getting to hear the same sort of reactions I had to it 14 years ago ended up bringing an...odd memory back to me. And it involves this image.

Low-Quality Vivian For The Low-Quality Needs

Perhaps not this specific image in particular - the internet could have phased out that one- but something similar to it.

See, back in 2004 I was just getting in on the whole Internet thing. This was back when people used what was called an “internet forum”. This was a place where people can post their thoughts on a wide range of topics, such as: “How do you jump in Metroid?”, “This game sucks”, and “Do you think Kingdom Hearts 2 will be on Gamecube?”.

I was part of one forum for a good part of my teenage life. I started at around January of 2004, in fact. I suppose I consider that a turning point in my life if I remember it to that degree.

I was fairly active in that forum. And as I began to make my posts, I began to notice something. At the bottom of every post was what you called a signature.

Copyright Falcon 2018, filed under the Trademark of Best Girl 2004

They were a cute little way to signify that you were the one who was making the post. It was one of the small creative outlets this particular forum had given users, though you still needed it to be both 45-ish pixels tall and kept at a low file size to help those with 56k modems.

Typing that out makes me feel really old.

There were people who were making these small images underneath their posts and the cool, hip guy I was as a teenager was like “OH BOY I WANNA DO THAT TOO!”. Of course, in order to create this sort of stuff I had to be...sneaky.

Back then, I found a pirated copy of Paint Shop Pro 7. It worked decently enough for me, but as I was a young lad with strong moral values - I didn’t even curse until well into my later teens, the frickin’ twit - I felt extremely guilty doing this. So for my birthday that year, I ended up getting a legit copy of Paint Shop Pro 8. It was at that point, I suppose, that my desire to create stuff was ignited. I was thrown into the wide world of graphic design, making sigs for myself and others.

I eventually upgraded to Photoshop 7 - after throwing away all of those moral values and growing the confidence to say the fuck-word - walking even further into this new world for me. I started making signatures for people in flashier ways, abused lens flare to the point of blinding half of Nintendo fanboys, and even dabbled in creating wallpapers for people to use. This was back when 1024x768 was the norm, if you can believe that.

I talk about this because when my friend was playing TTYD, I decided to look up art of some characters again, and found Vivian - one of the party members in the game - once more. Only, this time, in a way higher fidelity than I had 14 years ago.

Best Girl in A Good Resolution.

In general, I’d consider TTYD as the game that first got me encroaching into graphic design. This was not due to the game’s art, which is still fantastic, but because of so many people suddenly wanting signatures of their favorite new party members in that restrictive 48 pixel height.

I would get private messages in the forum asking for sigs with Mario, Goombella, Koops, Yoshi, Vivian, Bobbery, the X-Nauts, Bowser, Peach...Rawk Hawk a few times...even had Zess T. the cook in there. It was wild.

So imagine my surprise going through Google Image Search for a post about Vivian and finding an image of her that was extremely close to the kind of art I had to work with back then. I worked for a long time trying to figure out how to deal with the blur of the pisspoor scan with its low resolution and JPEG artifacts. Back then, finding official art was pretty difficult alone, and official art that actually looked like it was scanned with proper care? You were basically stuck with what you had and needed to figure out how to hide it. The people who could find clean concept art became our dealer providing the good shit while we provided our services to others.

Otherwise, you just worked with what you had. This was problem solving. Back then, you didn’t have access to as many tutorials as you do now. You absolutely didn’t have as much access to tablets. Those were from Wacom only and they were expensive. So you were essentially on your own, only getting help from the occasional artist who decided to make small tutorials on the forum.

Thankfully most of the people for signature requests were also teenagers as well, who just thought you were amazing for doing this for them.

I suppose all this reminiscing got me thinking about that mountain again. The paths up the mountain are long but they’re rarely ever getting longer or shorter, just easier to traverse. Nowadays, tablets are so much easier to acquire and art programs have gotten a lot more manageable. Art you want to look at or study or even use for your small projects are readily available, with services that makes buying personalized art easy and supporting artists even easier.

The knowledge about art programs and processes is nigh-infinite at this point. You can get a young artist’s commentary about their own virtues of art in a single tweet at lunch and get an experienced artist’s commentary at dinner. You can get atelier-level art lessons for free on Youtube.

Almost anything you want to learn is feasible now. Climbing the mountain is easier than ever.

So naturally, with my inferiority complex in full swing, I always have to ask myself why I haven’t started climbing the mountain yet. Why haven’t I just started the trek up the mountain pass already towards becoming a technically-skilled artist?

And the answer is, I am.

It’s just at my pace.

When I was a kid playing make-believe with others in the playground, I was making steps. Throughout all my teenage years of making signatures for people, making wallpapers for others, and even making a properly-awful sprite comic, I was making steps. When I was getting people stealing my sketchbook and making marks over my drawing of a Sonic character at lunch in high school, I was still making steps. When I was being critiqued by people for my skills in ways I felt were unfair or spiteful, I was still making steps. Every time I open Photoshop or SAI and stare at a blank canvas and will myself into making a mark on there, I’m still making a step.

Every step further from the start point, which is far and away from where I am now.

In my mind, I still can’t help but feel like where I should be is as some sort of master of art, but it’s really not fair to me. In hindsight, if I had drawn something every single day with intent, I could be a technical genius with knowledge of all the principles of design lodged firmly in my mind. It sounds amazing, but that’s not something I did.

Considering “what could have been” ignores what I am now. I am someone with knowledge in these various programs for over 14 years. I’ve dabbled in multiple projects, some in my own design. I can consider those things invariably shit, but the stuff I did there was stuff I did on my own terms, which I learned from. I wrote fanfics, did signatures for people, made wallpapers and webcomics, designed websites, did roleplaying, made a storyline based on friends’ characters in an MMO, and played tabletop games creating characters that became some of my favorite creations in my lifetime.

I would never want to trade that away for some sort of technical skill level-up. I’ve made too many great friends because of all of this. I am who I am because of how I’ve gotten here.

Learning how to create is all about taking the opportunities as they come along. Even this post is, essentially, me seeing one image online after a game session with friends and getting a nostalgia blast for something completely unrelated to the game itself.

The act of creating is simply doing. If you do, you create. If you create, you create art.

If you create art, you are an artist.

Don’t let your inner thoughts dissuade you from that fact, ever.

Thanks for reading.

[chaoticsoulsword]

You see, I’m a person who rarely holds grudge against other people, but I just can’t (literally I can’t, my brain keeps all kinds of memories) forget what those people did to me. And since I’m in a moment of my life when every single time I lay my head on the pillow I remember things that hurt me in the past, I thought it would help if I shared one of them, mostly because it’s about how some religious people can be a messed-up shit.

So, I was 4/5 yo and I really loved watching and playing Supernintendo at my aunt’s place. My favorite games were Mario and Donkey Kong and I was always thinking of them because, well, I was a child.

One day at school, before the teacher comes in to class, all kids were playing, talking or just chilling in the classroom. I’ve always been that weird kid who is always alone, so I decided to draw something on the blackboard. And I thought: “Oh, I’m gonna draw Bowser because yesterday my aunt defetead him.”

So I TRIED. Again, I was a child. All I could remember of a pixeled dragon inside a tiny TV was a spiky shell aaaaaand... Horns.

The teacher arrived, everyone came back to their places. Suddendly, the teacher saw my drawing and much to my surprise... She hated it. She didn’t know the responsible for that atrocity (and luckily no one saw me, or at least sold me out), but she swore she would call the responsible’s parents because she couldn’t tolerate a demon on her blackboard. Yep, a demon. She said God was sad and this person should pray for forgiveness, and their heart might be full of evil to the point of drawing a demon.

And I was like: “but it’s just Bowser... Sure he has horns, but he’s more like a dragon, turtle or something”. And I felt bad because I really love drawing, even if it’s just terrible. And I also felt guilty because I thought I was wrong and I should stop playing Mario because there was a demon there and I didn’t want to go to Hell.

Thank the dark lords, I didn’t stop playing video games, mostly Mario. Because I always loved these games, I used to roleplay as Dixie and Geno during my child’s plays. I just couldn’t. But there was more.

I loved Powerpuff Girls, just like any ordinary kid. So one day another aunt of mine gave me the girls dolls as a gift for my birthday. I loved them with all my heart. But my mother came to me and said: “If you flip Bubble’s pigtails, they become horns. Buttercup haircut’s also horns. And finally, you see Blossom’s bow? Guess what? HORNS.” So she made me throw them away because Powerpuff was evil propaganda. That’s right.

But it was not the only toy I was forced to throw away because DEMONS. I was a Pokémon freaky. I still fucking love Pokémon until this day, I even have a Haunter plushie and used playing competitive Smogon until 6th generation. But at that time? I was forbidden to watch Pokémon. Yet I managed to find a tiny Pikachu among toys my neighbors didn’t want anymore. I hid it because I knew I would be forced to throw it away. Still, my mother found it and guess what? Goodbye, Pikachu.

I had lots of VHS tapes (oooold) and one of those was Mulan. Mulan is the love of my life and the cover had some Chinese kanji. I didn’t know the differences between Chinese and Japanese at that time, but I always loved anime and manga style, and a friend of mine showed me InuYasha, so I tried to draw a highschool girl and copied one of those kanjis from Mulan’s cover. I showed my mother and she was like: “You know what’s written in there? It could be anything, it could be DEMON or something. Also I don’t like this style with big eyes. I didn’t like it at all.” Well, all I remember is that I crushed the drawing and threw it away.

Oh, Dragon Ball? Everyone was talking about Dragon Ball when I was a child. And I was lucky because my parents were working at the time it was aired. Yet our housekeeper found me watching it and said: “Are you going to watch this devil’s show?” and I was like: “Uh, no, just trying to find something to watch.” And what she did? SHE TOLD MY PARENTS, OF COURSE.

It was not limited to toys and tv shows, naturally.

Years later, I was forced to attend religion classes, was said I was going to burn in hell if I had sex before marriage, had my All Star consecrated by a priest because it was a devil’s brand. Harry Porrer? I had to burn a magazine just because Daniel Radcliffe was on its cover. I was even FORCED TO DATE the boy I first kissed because I wasn’t allowed to kiss without commitment (and I was only 13 yo lol)

FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

Religion only brought me suffering and opression. I respect who believes in God or whatever you want to believe, but just fucking leave me alone with this bullshit about Hell or Heaven. If God sends his beloved children to Hell because they are just watching or drawing a fucking anime, there must be something very wrong with your God (or with you, in any case). No, seriously, if you’re a parent or a teacher, don’t fuck your kids’ childhood and younghood like they’ve fucked mine. Seriously.

Regards.

[heroesofcrash]

10/27/18 - Halloween 2018

Happy Halloween from TheHeroesOfCRASH.com! Remember to Vote Blue, or Gritty will EAT YOUR SOUL.

Usually, my Halloween fillers will include some nostalgic costumes, but there were too many cases of "I Couldn't Resist" with more recent stuff...!

I absolutely loved Shuri in Black Panther; with her brains, wisecracks, and cool hand-blasters, she was easily my favorite character. Plus, she's canonically smarter than Tony Stark, who I think needs to be brought down a peg (Admittedly, that's largely because I still have a somewhat petty grudge against Robert Downy Jr. for his not-terribly-Sherlock-y portrayal of Sherlock Holmes). She's a VERY close second to Deadpool for my favorite Marvel movie characters. There was no way I was missing a chance to dress Enticia up as such an awesome character, even if her design was tricky to figure out, simplify, and draw.

Titanium Maiden always goes as redheaded characters for Halloween, and I FINALLY saw the movie Brave this summer (and liked it). TM's Merida-styled hair was a bit less tricky than I was afraid it would be; I found myself blocking out the general shape first, and then doing the outermost strands.

Cannon always modifies his helmet for Halloween costumes, and this isn't his first time dressing as a Mega Man character (He dressed up as Protoman for the very first Halloween filler!). Cannon and Acid Man (from the new Mega Man 11) share a similar color scheme, have bulky armor above a skinny torso, and wield a barrel-shaped arm cannon on their right arm. The resemblance is unCannony- er, uncanny!

Every year, Belt Boy dresses as a superhero, and every year it's NEVER someone from either DC or Marvel! While the Big Two have come up with some great characters, a lot of my favorite superheroes are from outside their universes. Nearly all of Belt Boy's previous costumes have been characters with only one canon universe (making them easy characters to follow and understand), they tend to explore some inventive worldbuilding, and most of them have strong elements of humor. I haven't seen much of One Punch Man, but I would like to see more. I probably would have had BB dress as him last year if I hadn't chosen All Might. One more note: Belt Boy is intentionally trying to maintain his character's half-lidded gaze and small anime mouth. He takes his costumes seriously.

Gritty is TERRIFYING. He looks like a Muppet with the dead eyes of a Five Nights at Freddies animatronic. As a Pennsylvanian with Philadelphian parents, I'm a little embarrassed for my own home team. But Gritty has a few things going for him. For one, the concept drawings of him look MUCH less terrifying than the actual mascot costume. And for another, Philadelphia's citizens have kinda adopted him as an anti-Trump mascot. I guess sometimes you have to fight fire WITH fire... or perhaps fight a nightmare-inducing orange monster with bad hair WITH a nightmare-inducing orange monster with bad hair. Being big and orange, I knew Unk was the perfect character to pull him off (And yes, those creepy eyes are glued to Unk's signature sunglasses).

And finally, there's Miss Sunflower. This is only her second appearance in a Halloween costume (The first being Gozer the Gozerian). Everyone's been drawing Bowsette lately, and it was only a matter of time until I got into the action. People have been drawing her different ways, combining different degrees of Peach and Bowser's designs. Some make her look mostly like Peach (blonde, waifish, and almost entirely humanoid), while others mix a bit more Bowser into her design (giving her red hair, a bulky physique, and/or a more reptilian design). While I briefly considered drawing Titanium Maiden as a bulky, redheaded Bowsette, it didn't take me long to realize that Miss Sunflower - as a villain with actual horns like most Bowsettes - was a WAY better choice. Outside of her red hair, and her signature makeup, Sunflower's design is mostly like that found in the original Bowsette comic that started this meme (By the way, if Toadette becomes "Peachette", shouldn't Bowser become "Peachser"? I'm just saying...).

One last note; I was originally going to draw a different Halloween filler based on the idea of there being unwanted attention at a Halloween party. In honor of The Heroes Of C.R.A.S.H. joining the Collective of Heroes, I was going to promote it by having some other CoH characters show up, with Cannon unsuccessfully hitting on the superheroines and making a less-than-stellar first impression. However, since it was pretty late in the game for me to ask permission to use characters, and I already signed up to do a Halloween art trade for the CoH, I decided it would be best not to start things off by biting off more than I could chew. You should still totally read the other Collective of Heroes comics. The ones I've been reading have been pretty great. And their Featured Comic for the week is- GASP! It's The Heroes Of C.R.A.S.H.! :-D

[yooka-kazooie]

liveblog of me watching the sonic movie courtesy of me yell-typing at my friend on discord

#long post #spoilers 

6:48 PM] Me: well guess I'm gonna rent it on cable [6:50 PM] Me: ok so far the cc works [6:50 PM] Me: which is good news on optimum [6:50 PM] Friend: good [6:50 PM] Me: upp spoke too soon [6:50 PM] Me: where did the cc go [6:51 PM] Me: first the sound didn't work and now the cc goes I keep having to close the movie and resume [6:51 PM] Me: I already dont know this owl character [6:51 PM] Me: like I'm not a HUGE fan of sonic but who is she [6:51 PM] Friend: I don't think she was in the games [6:52 PM] Friend: just an owl who adopted sonic [6:52 PM] Me: oh no is she from the original archie comics [6:52 PM] Me: I've also never seen sonic younger than like 15 [6:52 PM] Friend: no idea [6:52 PM] Me: were those echidnas [6:53 PM] Friend: the old sonic show (the good one) had an episode where sonic goes back in time and meets himself as a kid [6:53 PM] Me: oh good he's a cop good /s [6:53 PM] Me: the urkel one? [6:53 PM] Friend: yeah echidnas [6:53 PM] Friend: yeah [6:53 PM] Friend: there were two urkel ones [6:54 PM] Friend: aired at the same time [6:54 PM] Friend: or same year [6:54 PM] Me: he was in both of them??? [6:54 PM] Friend: yep [6:54 PM] Me: I never watched the "good one" [6:54 PM] Me: sat am? [6:54 PM] Friend: yeah [6:54 PM] Me: yeah I literally never saw it [6:54 PM] Friend: I think [6:54 PM] Me: til Nostalgia Critic [6:57 PM] Me: did crazy carl's drawing look like sanic I can't rewind with ondemand [6:58 PM] Friend: yes it did [7:05 PM] Me: whoops sonic emp [7:07 PM] Me: I assume these old people are describing eggman [7:07 PM] Me: so eggman is human [7:08 PM] friend: yeah [7:10 PM] Me: whos stone [7:10 PM] Me: like did Eggman need a human y.. [7:10 PM] Me: wait is he a robot [7:10 PM] Me: "a human yesman" is what I was going to say [7:10 PM] Me: it seems weird to me that he'd pay a human yesman instead of building a robot yesman [7:11 PM] friend: to be fair he has a human yesman in that old show too [7:11 PM] Me: the show I didnt watch? [7:11 PM] friend: yeah [7:11 PM] Me: I watched the pumpkin show [7:11 PM] Me: and sonic boom cartoon [7:12 PM] Me: and I played sonic adventure 2 [7:12 PM] Me: and sonic 06 [7:13 PM] Me: I'm just letting you know what I know [7:13 PM] Me: what sonic media I've consumed [7:13 PM] Me: I never played the 2D games [7:13 PM] Me: never saw Sonic Sat Am [7:14 PM] Me: uhh meow [7:14 PM] Me: oh neat I didn't know that's how the rings would work [7:14 PM] Friend: lol nice to know where you are in the movie [7:15 PM] Me: donut lord shouldn't be so confused this is at least his second time finding a small talking furry animal-like creature [7:15 PM] Me: I'm sorry but the fact that this dude had the same role in hop is hilarious [7:15 PM] Me: how do you get typecast like that [7:16 PM] Me: "where are the mushrooms and why am I still on earth" is a mood [7:16 PM] Me: his eyes are cool looking [7:16 PM] Me: I can't remember what the old design looked like and I'm scared to look it up [7:17 PM] Me: did I tell you someone proved that it wasn't a stunt and that was the actual real design [7:17 PM] friend: someone told me that [7:17 PM] Me: because they found the merch they were making and they actually made some with the old design [7:17 PM] Me: that was intentional [7:18 PM] Me: oh I like those videogame control gloves [7:18 PM] Me: they need to make those for VR [7:21 PM] Me: raccoons are so cute [7:21 PM] Me: I want one for a pet [7:23 PM] Me: no I'm calling it, Stone is secretly a robot [7:25 PM] Me: the more he says mushroom planet the more I realize it's a nintendo joke [7:25 PM] Me: the mushroom planet has to be the mushroom kingdom [7:25 PM] Me: he doesn't want to go where mario lives [7:26 PM] Me: now I want mushrooms (food) [7:26 PM] Friend: every time he talks about the mushroom planet I want them to make a nintendo cinematic universe [7:26 PM] Me: man Sonic's individual quills look weird? [7:27 PM] Me: whenever I focus on them [7:27 PM] Me: not that bad but it's weird [7:28 PM] Friend: the ones still on his body? I know the one not on his body was never changed [7:28 PM] Me: yeah the ones on him [7:28 PM] Me: it's fine looking when I don't focus on them [7:29 PM] Me: this movie has Antman vibes [7:29 PM] Me: similar humor [7:35 PM] Me: hipsters how do you even convince someone you're not that lol [7:35 PM] Me: oh here we go first standstill [7:36 PM] Me: it's really cool actually, like that one xmen scene [7:36 PM] Me: god that is just ridiculously fast [7:36 PM] Me: so far this movie is better than it looked [7:37 PM] Me: especially before the redesign [7:37 PM] Me: ugh [7:37 PM] friend: I do wonder how much, if any, the story changed with the design [7:37 PM] Me: I'm just guessing that it's the same but there could have been more changes [7:39 PM] Me: ok if mushroom world has no breathable air I'd say that's not a safe place to go [7:39 PM] Me: for sonic??? [7:40 PM] Friend: I do question how a planet full of mushrooms can have enough oxygen in it. there must be something producing more oxygen though [7:41 PM] Me: if Stone isn't a robot that eggman built I hope he's paid well [7:41 PM] Me: he literally just said it doesn't have breathable air [7:41 PM] Friend: I thought he said it did [7:42 PM] Me: ... [7:42 PM] Me: I can't rewind [7:42 PM] Me: a babysitter is infinitely better than a cop tho [7:42 PM] Me: acab [7:44 PM] Me: does he go super sonic in this [7:44 PM] Me: like gold [7:45 PM] Me: aaand he's flossing [7:45 PM] Me: how old is sonic [7:45 PM] Me: is this a child [7:45 PM] friend: idk they should have mentioned it somewhere [7:46 PM] Me: are those children fighting over a switch or a tablet [7:46 PM] Me: jesus sonic just killed eggman [7:46 PM] Me: like I understand but [7:46 PM] Me: oh he waasn't in that one [7:46 PM] Me: I guess [7:49 PM] Me: it seems weird that that exploded [7:49 PM] Me: what if it killed sonic [7:49 PM] Me: what if it damaged the remains [7:49 PM] Me: didnt eggman want to study him [7:50 PM] Me: ok well eggman just called Stone a human being so I hope he's being paid well [7:53 PM] Me: ok how is it fun to be chased by a holographic dinosaur [7:53 PM] Me: I literally have nightmares that are that [7:53 PM] Me: except in nightmares you can feel terror and pain [7:56 PM] Me: are those the shoes that had a deal with sonic adventure 2 [7:57 PM] Me: ah man this is the kinda guy who would either get fired because he's too good to be a cop or be corrupted by getting the job [7:57 PM] Me: I've been reading a lot of stories of what happens to "good cops" lately [7:58 PM] Me: and either they get fired for not being terrible or they become terrible [7:58 PM] Me: remember there are no good cops [7:59 PM] friend: well that is going to change soon [7:59 PM] friend: or it better [7:59 PM] Me: no more cops [7:59 PM] Me: abolish cops [7:59 PM] Me: freedom [8:03 PM] Me: oooo he called him eggman [8:03 PM] Me: took me a second to realize that wasn't just his name [8:03 PM] friend: he is eggman in japan and robotnic in america [8:04 PM] Me: I just think of him as Dr Eggman Robotnic [8:04 PM] Me: like bowser is King Bowser Koopa [8:04 PM] Me: Princess Peach Toadstool [8:04 PM] Me: ... I wasn't paying attention did sonic's speed just fail [8:05 PM] Me: *ring get noise* Me: oh no how many of those rings does he have [8:07 PM] Me: like not an infinite amount [8:07 PM] Me: wait [8:07 PM] Me: aren't the pyramids like [8:07 PM] Me: next to a city [8:08 PM] Me: and not in the middle of endless sand [8:08 PM] friend: yeah [8:09 PM] friend: from pictures there does seem to be a lot of sand around them [8:10 PM] Me: its the angle [8:10 PM] Me: the pyramids are like [8:10 PM] Me: inbetween endless sand and a city [8:10 PM] friend: sure [8:10 PM] Me: well he's going Blue Super Sonic [8:10 PM] Me: still not gold/yellow [8:11 PM] friend: well he does need all the chaos emeralds to go gold [8:12 PM] Me: so what is this form called [8:12 PM] Me: canonically [8:12 PM] friend: idk [8:12 PM] Me: blue lightning sonic [8:13 PM] friend: all that comes up is a truck [8:14 PM] Me: try tvtropes [8:17 PM] Me: well they're treating him like a child? I think? [8:17 PM] Me: like they adopted him [8:17 PM] Me: he's flossing and has a racecar bed [8:17 PM] Me: I think he's a child??? [8:18 PM] Me: hye look its eggman [8:18 PM] Me: he's gonna be so pissed when he gets back [8:18 PM] Me: pff stone isn't a human anymore [8:18 PM] Me: I guess the air is breathable [8:18 PM] Me: how does he get fat on msuhroom world [8:19 PM] Me: are the mushrooms edible [8:19 PM] friend: I would hope at least some of them are [8:19 PM] Me: wait why did he shave [8:19 PM] Me: I saw him do it but it's not explained why [8:19 PM] Me: did he get gum in his hair what did I miss [8:20 PM] friend: well if his mustache is any indication his hair might have gotten... idk weird, so he shaved it [8:21 PM] friend: remember end credit scenes [8:21 PM] Me: ah mood [8:21 PM] Me: I'm watching the credits yes [8:21 PM] Me: I mean I feel like shaving my head would feel infinitely weirder so I just buzz it short but mood [8:21 PM] friend: idr if there was a thing at the very end of the credits [8:21 PM] Me: oh here we go some woods TAILS [8:21 PM] Me: NO [8:21 PM] Me: they had to redesign tails [8:21 PM] Me: too [8:21 PM] Me: wait [8:21 PM] Me: uh [8:21 PM] Me: that was [8:21 PM] Me: really fast for tails [8:22 PM] Me: I guess he's not as fast as sonic but he's not supposed to be that fast [8:22 PM] Me: aaand more credits [8:22 PM] friend: well he can be fast in the games [8:23 PM] Me: he was slow in sonic boom cartoon [8:23 PM] Me: maybe???

[fountainpenguin]

P & Q

P: How much do you plan in advance versus letting the story unfold as you go?

Story-wise, ends and general events are always planned early on (All 130 Prompts, most of Identity Theft, Hawthorn Haven, Little Imperfections, No Anesthetic, Factor It In, Devil’s Backbone, and so on are already planned even though I won’t be posting some of these things for years), so it’s just a matter of doing the actual writing. Beginnings come next and middles come last.

For me, writing is a matter of saying, “Here is my destination. Where are we coming from and how do we get there?” Depending on what I’m writing, sometimes where I’m coming from is the previous chapter, sometimes it’s a specific point in my timeline. Chapters don’t require a lot of set-up because readers should more or less remember what’s recently happened to a character, but with one-shots I have to clarify not only the setting, but recent events as best as I can. There’s a different mindset there.

Origin, Knots, and the Prompts are divided into over a hundred different files in Google Docs, so I can’t give an accurate word count, but I probably have 200k words on hand for both Origin and Knots and at least 300k for the Prompts. I wrote scenes I consider significant early on and I’m working my way towards them, correcting inconsistencies along the way.

What I plan worldbuilding-wise for a fantasy series is another topic altogether (Expanded on below the cut).

Sociopolitical Aspects

For my Mario works, for example, the first thing planned was how the Koopa Kingdom is laid out, and where the Koopalings fit into my ideas. Then it was a matter of deciding which parts of canon I want to draw from and what I want to do with it. I didn’t rule out the new kingdoms revealed in Odyssey, but I definitely didn’t erase Sarasaland and the Beanbean Kingdom either. I worked out the political systems of a few countries, what the social norms and big crimes are, and the basics of Bowser’s inclination towards violence.

I have a document noting what the people of each land are called and what their native languages are so I don’t have to worry about contradicting myself later, which has been extremely useful. I even determined populations for different kingdoms, with the Mushroom Kingdom at about 235 million people, the Koopa Kingdom almost twice that, and the Beanbean Kingdom a measly 4 million. Even if this info never comes up in story, it helps me understand how people interact with one another and fit into this system.

In my FOP works, I worked out the history of Fairy/Anti-Fairy conflicts, drawing from aspects of canon such as the known war over human godchildren. The Pixies fit in there too as the neutral party. Then there’s the matter of fitting in the aliens and humans. Deeper yet, the Ghosts and Beasts. Figuring out the international relationships up front works best for me, and then I can later determine how characters with this background interact in this environment.

In my Danny Phantom works, I drew from a comment Butch made once that although King Pariah was a tyrant, he did keep the Ghost Zone organized and it’s fallen to chaos since he was overthrown. I worked out Ghost-Skeleton relations, how the Observants play into things, and what the space within the world might be like.

In my WordGirl works, determining how Hexagon functions was crucial to what I decided to do with Kid Math: In this case, his planet is obsessed with math to the point they only have spoken language, not a written one. They use numbers and mark up blueprints, but written language is for the Lexiconians [Insert snobby scoffing].

When writing Rhyme and Reason backstory, I worked out how common powers are, how those with certain powers are treated by society, what kind of education kids with powers get pushed towards, what laws might exist, how many heroes there might be, and how police involvement works in cities that have heroes. In this alternate world, there are things called charm schools that are “finishing schools” for kids with powers, and Rhyme was almost sent to one until she ran away.

Physical Aspects

I made the Mushroom Kingdom an archipelago and chose Indonesia as my main inspiration country, researching the climate, seasons, plants, and meals typically found there. I know exactly when the dry season ends and the wet season starts and how this affects the Piranha Plants.

In FOP, I understand the landscapes of Fairy World and Anti-Fairy World, what kinds of mountains and water features they can have, and the flora and fauna found in each location. I know ways to move between locations, what travel is possible with magic, and what happens in times there isn’t any magic. I know what the major buildings are, where they are, and what they do.

In my DP works, there are certain stable parts of the Ghost Zone and certain unstable parts. It’s easy to get lost if you’re new there and not used to things moving around, but as you learn the rules of the world, you’re able to identify landmarks. I know which populations live where and what those landscapes are like. I came up with rules for how lairs work and how far things can move about the Zone. I know how things work and which characters know X amount of information about their surroundings.

Cultural Aspects

I pored over a LOT of small details in canon for my Mario works. I took painstaking notes about the Soybean civilization, the ancient Luffs, the fallen Bask Kingdom, and all sorts of historical tidbits and worked those into modern canon. Some stuff didn’t cross my path during my personal gameplay, but I like knowing about it anyhow.

I considered Peach’s pathway to becoming queen and how she fits her role, especially compared to her predecessors. I made stars important in Mushroom Kingdom culture and the moon important in Koopa culture. I created lore for why karting exists, canonizing all locations and the general idea of kart racing even if I’m not going to make every kart track canon or organize each game in a timeline.

FOP worldbuilding involved gathering as much canon from the show as possible, collecting info from folklore, plucking bits and pieces from insect and bat biology, and marrying the three together. It was important to me to give Fairy World a distinct culture different from any on Earth, and really examine how magic affects daily life in this world.

Anthropomorphizing insect behaviors gave me Fairies who lick faces as a form of greeting and who favor those with freckles above those without. Not exactly accurate to show canon, but it works great. Gyne and drone relationships have been fun to build, and I made sure my timeline included points in the past where such relations were different than modern times. Changes in relationships over time is something that really fascinates me.

Anti-Fairy World also gets a unique culture. Since they’re evil antagonists in show canon, I certainly didn’t want to race-code them like any group of people on Earth. I’ve tried to design them their own culture, heavily inspired by bats and a belief in luck above all. Bats aren’t sociosexual, but they are promiscuous, so I don’t stick wholly to bat behaviors either: they’re partially based on bonobos. Most importantly, I made sure everything I did was fun for me to write.

With my particular writing style, it works to have deep, complex culture for the Anti-Fairies. If I wanted to write short, lighthearted pieces, that would impact where my worldbuilding priorities lay (Probably lots of cute holiday traditions and less focus on why Anti-Fairy culture revolves around causing others harm).

General Research

Heights, timelines, food, and clothes are all things I settle as soon as possible, and I keep ref sheets on hand so I can fact check myself at a glance. Fairies and Anti-Fairies, being a species who live in the clouds, have easier access to silkworms than cotton plants. That determines what their clothing is made of, what products are expensive, and what gets worn on certain occasions. 

I draw from canon where possible, using screenshots or known character heights (Mario canonically 5′1″) and comparing them to others. Being of a different height can impact how others view you. Dining etiquette is a fun cultural difference that can create conversation or social awkwardness and really set the mood.

With fanfics, I dig as deep as I can. Did you know Wario canonically doesn’t know how old he is because his mom never threw him a birthday party? Or that he keeps a matchbox of ants in his cabinet and is “waiting until they worship him as a god”? I drink details like this by the gallon.

I prefer nailing this stuff down before getting far in my writing because that’s what works for me personally. I worldbuild further over time as I think up new questions I didn’t already have answers for.

Unique Aspects

Magic systems are complex. They generally take me longest and are more work than play. I like to have an outline of how a magic system works, write the story, figure out what I absolutely need magic to do and what I don’t want it to do, and then tighten the system during the revision process. For example, I weakened shapeshifting in my FOP works so you can’t easily hold another form while aroused- I personally didn’t want age changes to be involved in lovemaking. That expanded to making it hard to hold a form when you’re drunk too.

It was important to me in my Mario works to have 1-Up mushrooms exist and be capable of saving your life, but I also needed a reason why people don’t walk around with 99 lives and consume 1-Ups at all times. After wrestling with plans for a while, I decided to make them time-sensitive. You have to consume them often to have more than one life on a regular basis, and they’re pretty rare. As long as I can justify why someone has access to this rare item, I can utilize a 1-Up’s power, but I can also justify killing someone off if enough time has passed since they last consumed one.

With Fairly OddParents, I’d seen enough episodes to understand the basics of wishes, magical backup, and Da Rules. When I became serious about writing FOP ‘fics, I started noting the times Cosmo and Wanda failed to use magic for reasons other than Da Rules (Not in sync with each other, low battery, lack of belief in magic, Big Wand toppled over, etc.) and built my version of the FOP magic system to accommodate as many of these “inconsistencies” as I could. My take on magic is complex, but I can stretch the system many ways, so it works great for me.

Will I use everything I’ve worldbuilt in story? I might not say it directly, but having a pool of information I can draw from helps me find ways to flesh out a character’s life. Some stuff makes it in, other stuff is only vaguely glimpsed. To me, diving into worldbuilding is fun. Taking what I have and creating something with it is even more fun. I could whip out a bunch of one-shots about basic slice-of-life events without doing all this work, but tying my stories to social, political, or culture aspects of the world is what I really enjoy.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

//Laughs

I don’t like deleting things, so I move them to scrap docs instead. Origin, Knots, and the 130 Prompts each have a scrap file of 50+ pages (91 pages of scrapped Prompt scenes) and I can usually remember keywords so the deleted scenes are easy to search for if I need them. Some get recycled, even back into the same chapter I originally deleted them from, but a lot stay dead because they were either irrelevant or inconsistent with the final material. 

Fortunately for me, I have a good memory of what I kept vs. what I scrapped. I’ve compiled some favorites in my deviantArt Sta.sh and linked them in my FOP sideblog because they’re my version of sketchdumps. Even if they’re unfinished, I still think they’re interesting to look at.

For some reason I don’t delete much from my standalone one-shots, just my multi-chapter stuff. Most of what enters my standalones survives.

The projects I’m most hurt to have left hanging are my Total Drama stories The Beatin’ Path and Lions Under Palm Trees, keeping with my tradition of writing stories about eliminated contestants at that season’s elimination location from the perspective of the first character eliminated. I have a good 15k words written for the former and 25k for the latter, and I just… let them slip through my fingers in favor of Fairly OddParents years ago.

Arguably letting them go is for the best because I took the “cartoon physics are canon” concept and RAN with it, so I have an entire plot arc about one character coming into puberty and having his ability to utilize cartoon physics switch on for the first time. I personally consider Lions one of my best works in terms of matching my niche interests, but the acknowledgement of cartoon physics does stray from Total Drama canon, and I just couldn’t get over that enough to keep posting it.

Some of my all-time favorite scenes and characterizations are in these stories. I’m glad I have what I do for myself because these works make me smile even all these years later, buuut it’s probably best if I keep most of this nonsense private. This is probably my favorite snippet of the entire Lions draft, though:

“What’s in the box?”

Don’t say the hearts of small animals, don’t say the hearts of small animals.

“Stuff for my girlfriend.” It wasn’t untrue.

The least loved always end up my favorites somehow. I’m still so in love with my delusional wizard. I honestly might love Leonard more than I love any of the FOP characters I write about nowadays; he was the best I ever had. I mean, look at this FREAKING CHILD-

====

“Hand me my dice.”

Beardo dropped the dice in his hand. Leonard rolled them across the grass. Nine. He groaned. But, obediently, he knelt and poked his head inside the damaged zeppelin.

“Roll me an observance check.”

“Snake eyes.”

“Seriously? It’s dark. Try again. Higher this time.”

Beardo gave the dice another toss. “Lucky lucky seven.”

Leonard let out a high whistle between his front teeth. “No response,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think there are any animals down there, except maybe a few rats and some bugs. All right, I’m jumping down. Keep an eye on my back.”

He slid through the gap and dropped out of sight. Beardo heard him say, “Lux up,” and click the penlight on his keychain.

====

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction.

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction. The Christmas advertisements blared on. Leonard raised his wand to his eye, then slapped the tip a few times against his palm. “Come on, wand. Tammy isn’t here anymore. Why aren’t you working? I still believe in you.”

The door eased open. “Hey, Leonard,” Jen said in a voice of false cheerfulness. “I got your toothbrush out of… the other room.”

Leonard didn’t try to switch off the TV and faced the window instead. “Brushing teeth is for people who can’t do it with magic.”

====

“Wait.” Leonard raised both hands above his head, squeezing his eyelids tight. “Wait. What you’re saying is, Scarlett pulled a Courtney to the extreme and hid her secret identity as an ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain shaman queen this entire time. She played a character so well that even her closest friend – not to mention Chris – couldn’t see through her act until she chose to reveal herself. At which point she then convinced everyone that she was actually said ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain. You’re telling me there was a LARPing goddess in my presence, and I completely missed it.”

“I didn’t put it in those words for a reason,” Jasmine said, “but at its core, yes.”

Leonard pressed his hands to his cheeks and stared into his salad. “Holy flipping plot twist. I am so turned on right now.”

“No,” Jasmine said, jabbing him in the chest with one finger, “No you are not.”

Amy clicked her tongue. “Leonard, you have a girlfriend.”

“Not anymore. That’s it. I’m breaking up with Tammy for real this time.”

Beardo slapped him on the back of the head and made a sound like a police siren.

====

One Lions chapter was named “Baa Baa Blackmail” if that tells you anything. Ah, memories… It’s probably for the best if these projects stay retired, but I love them so very much.

Fanfic Ask Meme