#also i'm of the opinion that ears no cool fins that are in the place an ear should be yes

[mossfeathers]

Thanks again for responding and sharing. I'm glad these asks make you happy ^^

(You don't have to look further into Harvest Moon but If you do look for a lets play of sorts or something Harvest Moon DS/DS Cute & Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town (Gameboy) are the ones that from my knowledge look the most visually similar to Stardew Valley. But Harvest Moon Animal Parade takes place in a coastal/island-like town.)

The dynamics seem like they'll be really fun! It was also nice to hear the reasoning behind it all. You've put a lot of thought into how they interact. I'm excited for future scenarios ^^ I really enjoyed reading all of it. Also thanks for talking about them as siblings. You don't have to apologize for not answering tho, you can always not answer, I'll understand.

Addionally, I think it's really cool how the lionfish worked out ^^

Okay so for BigB's tail, I wanted to give proper ideas, I only came up with three sorta suggestions so I’ll also share my thought process a bit so that maybe that instead will help you further decide what you do or don’t want. So my first thought was a shark. I’m not entirely sure that’s, like, equivalent to Scar being a lionfish but I think that the reason I considered the idea is that sharks can be dangerous but, like, also they’re not as dangerous to humans as they're portrayed? Ya know what I mean, like I think it’s gotten better but like they were more feared than need be. Like I’m struggling with the words but do you get what I’m saying and the correlation? Idk. If not that's okay. I wasn’t really sure about sharks anyway. Next,

I searched for fish that burrowed. And I did this because I was thinking about why canary!BigB and rabbit!BigB exist and if I recall correctly him being in the mines/underground alot were overlapping points. (I woulda considered satyr!BigB but I know nothing about that. And thinking about it now dogs like to dig too and sometimes he’s got dog ears because double life so I think this is an okay hole I went down). I’m too indecisive and picky  and wasn't sure what kind of fish you'd like though so I only have three fish to present to you as options so hopefully if none of these strike a chord with you. This whole thing helps somehow:

1, The Bonnethead Shark. Yea I found a shark that burrows. So even though I wasn’t entirely sure about sharks and I gave up on finding small sharks, I thought I’d share this one. Besides sharks are cool even if many fear them & Jimmy & Grian come to think BigB's cool right? So maybe that lines up?

(Also did you know that sharks used to be called "sea dogs" and that there is a Dogfish Shark, I didn't do much research so I can't give it as a suggestion but I just looked it up while typing this so I thought I'd mention it.)

2, The Yellow Headed Jawfish, this fish was honestly just too pretty for me not to recommend. It’s got a bit of blue in its fins (and that’s really all I can give you on blue fish). Plus on a site that sells fish they were described as “playful and like to people watch” so I thought it might be fitting. Note though, if you look up this fish, you might come across images of it carrying lots of eggs in its mouth. That’s something they do, carry their eggs in their mouth. I did see a term for it but I forgot what it was. But if that’s gonna be too disturbing you might wanna be cautious(wasn't the first few images when I looked it up) or maybe not look it up just in case. But it is really pretty in my opinion if you do.

And lastly there's the Southern Stargazer. I guess it is considered an ugly fish so heads up on that? Personally, I do think looking at a close up of it's face while it's buried can be a bit spooky but also I think otherwise it's a bit fun to look at & its tail is neat. And it turns out they're also venomous, not enough to kill, but it's still painful, can cause swelling and induce shock. ("also" because Scar's a lionfish)

Speaking of, this fish is the closest one I found in terms of size to Lionfish not sure that matters to you but yea

I did attempt looking for, like, actually blue fish but like the Cichlid is a freshwater fish and Idk if it's a funny or cruel irony to suggest a damselfish when they are actually seen as food to lionfish if in a tank together. Especially when I don't know if it's true for all damselfish or just the yellow tailed ones. (Plus they don't do great in solitude which kept being a thing for blue fish but I think I mainly found, like, river fish.) But I guess this difficulty is probably part of the reason you said it didn't have to be a blue fish lol

Thanks for sharing what you do have so far for the side characters :3 Question: For the pub, does it include the arcade area and/or would the stage be in that general area?

Also it seems like a cool idea to include more creatures. Besides the spirits are there any you're thinking of but haven't decided who it could be? Or alternatively, any others you think you'd want to be something supernatural but haven't decided what yet?

And if it's not too much to ask, do you think that on an events timeline the potential Pearl arc would be closer to the beginning or further down the line.

And yea it's totally fine for you to leave it in the ask box, I'm glad you find it's something you'd want to look back at at all ^^ Thank you for your time and thanks again for sharing your thoughts/ideas.

anon i love you so much. genuinely you are the BEST. im so sorry for letting this rot in the inbox for so long, i both forgot about it and just didn't even know how to respond since this is so good (and also wanted to get some more polished drawings of all 3 possible fish, but my motivation just wasn't having it so just a couple doodles im sorry). genuinely so sorry about how long this took, time just got away from me.

I absolutely LOVE your idea for bigb as a shark, when I first read that I think I genuinely yelled out in excitement. You're a GENIUS. That's such a good idea, I really enjoy it and you got your point across well! I love canary/rabbit!bigb (my design for him is a bunny so this is RIGHT up my alley) and I love the idea of a burrowing fish and bonnethead shark is absolutely GENIUS. He was really fun to draw too!! Thank you SO much for the suggestion! I think I want a scaled fish design, though, but I still appreciate this one so much since it was SUCH an interesting idea. Sharks are sea puppies, dogs dig, rabbits also dig, so burrowing. Very logical line of thought from me.

Oh this guy is GORGEOUS!!!!! So pretty and so lovely. I think fish and the ocean is so cool so I thought the egg carrying is actually so fascinating so don't worry, both of the little warnings you gave about weird fish weren't necessary fish are awesome and cool forever. I don't know what to say, just a very pretty fish and fun to draw!!

The stargazer is SO HANDSOME!!! I can't believe its considered ugly :( I love that little connection to Scar's lionfish-ness, this is such a cool fish (the fins are gorgeous)

Thank you SO much for the fish suggestions! I really liked the yellow headed jawfish, the colors were just so gorgeous, so I think i'm gonna go with that one! Genuinely can't thank you enough for this, I was losing my mind over that.

Answering questions time! Here's a little doodle of what the saloon looks like! (names still pending but probably something moon or dogwarts related) Theres a kitchen and backstage area somewhere but that doesnt matter right now :)

Man, I had one draft of this response where I had everything written out for other creatures but my computer restarted and didn't save it but I will try my best to write it out again!

I like the idea of fae or some kind of land-based creature, but I feel like fae are a really complex species and just in general such a large world to also incorporate if I do go for any land-based creatures, so I don't think I will sadly. Trying to think about this in terms of how I would tell the story in an actual piece of writing instead of these posts of loads of exposition, yknow? So, final verdict, no cool land creatures (except maybe werewolf because i am a sucker for some rendog werewolf fun) . I love avian stuff though so a very high likelihood of birds coming into play in at least some form? Birds are just so cool to me. Also, there are probably gonna be a decent variety in sea creature species! Like there are sirens, standard merfolk, and selkies so far but if I can think of another type of sea creature then i'll probably add them in. On the topic of sea creatures, an updated list on all the merfolk! (also if you want to see some other hermit mermaids, or mermits, check out jalo-parker's art from the past few weeks! we thought up some fish designs just for his own use and they're really cute, and if some of the humans were mermaids they would 100% be those) Scar lionfish, Bigb yellowheaded jawfish, Bub whale shark, Cleo sea nettle jellyfish, Etho AND Bdubs selkies, Joe Hills leaf sheep nudibranch, and even though Martyn is a human if he was a mermaid he would be a mimic octopus! These aren't all of the merfolk, they're just the ones i've decided on and assigned a fish (or selkie) to :)

Also don't worry! I actually already have a barebones timeline for what I think is going to happen with the plot points I know so far! Jimmy and Grian move, hang out for like 4 days, then the whole siren plotline starts and ends, since everyone is now happy they have a good few months of just bonding with the merfolk and the townsfolk which I can't wait to think about more, then Pearl's whole arc starts! I think that's the natural progression of the plot as the stakes in Pearl's arc is the actual apocalypse bringing the end of the universe which is just a little bit more intense. I don't know a whole lot of the details about that quite yet though.

Thank you so much for the ask again! I genuinely can't apologize enough for how long this took to answer, and I hope it doesn't discourage you from sending another one in. I absolutely love seeing your opinions and ideas :) Thanks for listening to my rambling about my ideas again :D

[time-was-over]

(Surface)

4 17 29

(Sunlight Zone)

8 20 24

(Twilight Zone)

4 5 8 27 29 30

(Midnight Zone)

13 15 19 20 21 22 23 29

(Abyss)

1 2 3 12 27

(Trench)

3 7 13 14 18 24 30

Unsure if it was an ask game or not but I'm asking anyways. Answer each question for the character(s) you'd have most fun with their answer for, feel free to skip numbers or add ones if there's any you really want to say that I didn't put :)

*cracks knuckes* let’s go. i’m doing this with the agents because i have a more solid understanding of their personalities than my other splat ocs

surface

4: i’ll answer this one with sigma (agent 4). her species of squid (bobtail squid) is nocturnal but she functions diurnally

17: iota (agent 8) is really good with hardware for electronics (especially computers). if you have a virus he’ll hit your computer with a hammer and it’ll work fine. he’ll explain what he did in excruciating detail if you ask.

29: iota absolutely cries easily. he cries when he drops his ice cream scoop on the ground. he would cry the hardest if he was all alone and didn’t know where anyone was.

sunlight zone

8: epsilon (cap) cannot cook. like. at all. they have a tragic lack of vegetables in their life because of this and orders food from fast food restaurants all of the time.

20: sigma has LOTS of friends. not a lot of deep-bond friends, though. if you asked her, she’d probably say something like “idk man. like at least 12.” she only tends to make surface level friends because she doesn’t really think too hard about friendships. she’s independent.

24: psi (new agent three) HATES talking. like he does sometimes, but he finds it way more interesting when someone else is talking. she is also socially inept.

twilight zone

4: HOH BOY. epsilon isn’t quick to anger, but when they do get pissed, uh. don’t expect to not get decked when they see you. with petty opinions nothing really comes to mind except for like. hating the french jellyfish because he’s an asshole

5: psi has scopophobia. it hates being perceived at all actually

8: sigma has a tattoo of a steelhead on her forearm because her partner is a steelhead that moved to splatsville because it got bored. she looks at it whenever she’s sad. bonus: her partner has a squid tattoo on its right fin

27: epsilon has a shit ton of piercings. they went to a place to get them done once and got their ears pierced. they went back a week later. they got them because an old woman had a lot of body mods and they were like ‘what if i was a cool old person. with piercings’

29: oh my god okay. so epsilon talks really slowly and uses filler words a lot. so they’ll be like ‘and so ummmmmmmmmmmmm. you should uhhhhhhh.’ for the entire conversation. sigma talks really, really fast and really really loudly. she wants to hold your attention for as long as possible. she also breaks eye contact all of the time and will walk in circles when excited or agitated. iota is mute but when he uses sign he’ll accidentally sign words twice. psi will not make eye contact at all and litters his speech with swear words, even when around young children.

30: all of them do. most common to least common:

psi, sigma, epsilon, iota

midnight zone

13: psi defaults to flight. as much as she’d like to pretend she’s tough, her brain automates to running away from difficult situations, which also catalyzes a lot of problems she has.

15: epsilon loves writing. they will write constantly. they keep a little notepad in their pocket with lines of dialogue they come up with suddenly. they have an extensive vocabulary and are pretty eloquent (except for the fact that they go ‘uhhhhhhhjhhhhhh’ every two seconds)

19: so all of them have pretty good vision except for iota, and even then, his vision is moderately bad. he can’t read well on a whiteboard from 20ft away, but honestly, who can?

20: iota just. cries. he worries about everything, but he isn’t completely helpless. he does what he can to stop stressing and goes out of his way to get rid of the stressor.

21: epsilon used to not be able to, but they’ve started to get into poems. they help a lot with relaxing

22: i feel like iota would have splatoon geocities as his only form of social media. he would have an incredibly elaborate theme and 500 blinkies

23: sigma likes cheese puffs or even just cheese. yum. she keeps processed cheese in her locker inside of a cooler so she can eat it in between matches

29: psi would use the dab for The Funny

abyss

1: epsilon steals things from makomart sometimes.

2: if tearing armies apart counts then yes for all of them. they were just kinda like ‘please have respawn machines bro’

3: sigma has a ton of scars because most of what she does is salmon run. she gets bit by chums and cohocks. the few exceptions are from her running into doors.

12: psi did that when he was younger, but he’s trying not to. she still does it in small ways, but nothing major, and she tries to apologize afterwards

27: boring answer, but no. psi probably used to believe in whatever religion is most commonplace but stopped

trench

3: (cw: sigma sees her mom dead) when sigma was 6, her mother died from cardiac arrest. it was jarring. her father was especially heartbroken and became extremely depressed. he began to neglect his kids because of this. the memory that stands out to her is walking into her parents’ room and seeing her mother slumped over in her chair. she thought she was asleep and didn’t say anything until her dad walked into the room and saw her. at first, she blamed herself for that, but she received counseling.

7: epsilon struggles with balancing work and life. they work themself to exhaustion and have no time for hobbies. iota has to make them stay home when they’re sick.

13: sigma is enigmatic. nobody really knows what’s going on with her. it’s not really because she doesn’t let people in, it’s just that nobody really asks. the few people that she’s told everything about herself to are her girlfriend and marie.

14: to psi, love at first sight is a fairy tale concept that doesn’t have any place in real life relationships. in his mind, you can’t really love someone in a romantic way until you really know them and you’re willing to give everything to them. she’s also never had a partner, so take every she says with a grain of salt.

18: iota loves watching pet videos. they make him laugh a lot and it relaxes him. it’s very easy to make him nervous so if he pulls out his phone and starts watching videos, it’s because he got scared.

24: no but i do have a couple non agent ocs who have

30: sigma got her arm bit off by a maws once when she couldn’t get out of the way in time. she walked off of the helicopter and stood in front the mr grizz statue before he said ‘Holy shit.’