#their sona looks so similar to my old one and a lot of the traits they display are similar to ours

[annwayne]

Writing Interview Tag Game!

Thanks @bagheerita and @chaniis-atlantis atlantis for the tag!! This looks like lots of fun :3 Interesting to see what all everyone says.

(questions w/o answers below the read more.)

About me

When did you start writing?

Sixth grade, otherwise around 10/11? I think that's how old I was in sixth grade lol.

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

Absolutely! I write mostly romance and fantasy/sci fi, but I love most genres. Murder mysteries are a particular favorite of mine.

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

Not a clue. I read voraciously as a child until college, and just now I'm starting to pick the habit back up again-which is to say I couldn't tell you what authors inspired me as a kid and I'm not familiar enough with any authors I'm reading now to tell you what I want to emulate. No one has compared my writing to anyone that I know of.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I mostly write on the pc, which is in our office. The desk is not deep enough to my liking but the chair is comfy. Perry's got a bunch of little knickknacks all around the monitor (since it's his side of the desk technically) and I've got a bunch of shelves full of decorations, collectables, so forth, along the wall/in the shelves that connect to the desk.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Engage with the material that first sparked inspiration over and over and over again. This keeps the ideas flowing and often brings about dreams of said material, which help greatly.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

Hahahahahaha. Ha. Yeah, you could say that.

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

Yes and no. See the question above.

Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

You're asking me to pick a favorite child 😩 Ok. I'll talk about Alice bc I'm working on the sga bridgerton!au. Alice's backstory isn't fully figured out, I'm debating if she'll be adopted or not. I know for sure her relationship with her family is terrible and that's why she was so willing to join the Atlantis expedition despite no guarantee of return. She never learned how to balance work and life, thus leading to a rather isolated adulthood where she spent most of her time in the lab. But hey, her work was well acclaimed and got her to the Pegasus galaxy. Her personality has really come through while working on this bridgerton!au fic. She's terribly anxious, but aware of that anxiety having little logic behind it, so a lot of her actions are based on being brave despite being terrified. She's very courageous in that sense. I'd say her biggest arc (at least in the bridgerton!au) is learning how to voice her wants. She's good at speaking up for others but not so much for herself. Also genderweird feminine presenting chubby scientist in 2000's woo.

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

I can't deicde if it'd be a "get along swell because they are so similar" or a "so alike they can't stand each other" situation with my fandom ocs tbh. I think I might befriend Anya and Awyn, but Alice might upset me too much lol. I can say, for my Angel and Death characters from an original work of mine, they would be my friends.

Which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

Again, not sure. Hard to tell.

Tell me about the process of coming up with your characters?

I watch a show I like a character I make a sona/insert/version of myself I think would fit well in that world, make a cool story, and be a good ship with the character I like. Then the character blooms as I write.

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

Parental issues, adoption abandonment, cults. Yeah. There's a few.

How do you picture your characters?

I usually draw them! :D

My writing

What’s your reason for writing?

Self expression, I can do it better (fix-it-fics), and entertainment. The process of writing itself is very enjoyable for me.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

When readers pick up on foreshadowing and hints I'm putting down, when they leave behind long "book reports," as I call them, detailing narrative devices/thematic beats/etc., and when they tell me outright how excited they are to read more of the story. But literally any comment is like gold to me.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Uhh. I've never thought of this before. I hope they enjoy my writing? And my ocs? I wouldn't mind being thought of as the person to go to with oc thoughts-not even about my own but anyones. I love ocs. I love seeing someone new I get to learn all about thrown into a world with all these characters I love. It's such a fun thing.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I'm not insecure with my writing lol. Art school really took the brunt of that one. But for a technical answer, I'd say character dynamics? Like. I'm good at a lot of things, but I think recently my ability to emphasize the emotions two characters have for each other (whatever those may be) has improved immensely.

Have you been told what is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

I've been told I capture individual character voice's rather well. The trick, imo, is once you have heard the character speak enough that you can hear their voice in your head, you can tell when dialogue fits them or not. (obviously this goes for mediums where there is an aloud voice to hear lol.)

How do you feel about your own writing?

I love it! I'm a good writer and I'm always improving.

If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?

Yep. Re-reading my writing is fun!

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

Might be a mix? When I have an audience in mind (like for trades, gifts, and friends who are hype about wips I share with them) I tend to think past myself into bigger ideas. I'm still writing what I want to read, but I'm just giving more thought about the execution lol.

npt: @wolveria @nimata-beroya @silverwings22 @klynnvakarian @the-itzy-bitzy-spider

About me

When did you start writing?

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

Tell me about the process of coming up with your characters?

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

How do you picture your characters?

My writing

What’s your reason for writing?

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Have you been told what is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

How do you feel about your own writing?

If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

[ravio-rants]

2 for any, uhh I cannot remember what it is but..7 for any, cause it’s my lucky number :smiles:

Why does your oc look the way they do? What are your reasons for their appearance?

gonna answer this for most of them bc its fun lol

Raide is actually way different than they originally were designed. she used to be a sona, or, my sona (ravio)'s opposite twin thing. i didnt like that idea anymore so i revamped him completely, and ended up mashing together "skull pattern bc its cool" "keep her hair similar" and "colors i like" and ending up with what we have now. oh, her hair actually originally was designed after a spatoon oc i had, and then i Hated drawing the hair so much that i never drew him, so, with my siblings advice, i made them wear a crown that looks similar to his old hair, and her new hair still has similar vibes but is much easier to draw.

Calen actually hasnt changed too much, to be honest. he used to be just an offbrand version of a character i liked from a fandom im no longer in, and because i had already made him kinda my own, i kept him around and changed him into a twili to match Raide. his colors are blue and gold because thats what his colors originally were, and his skin is tinted green because i didnt want All my twili to just be black and white. thats boring.

Vang was the first of the twins to be made, and was also my first twili oc, so she kinda became the outline for them. Her and her brother, Kalt, are supposed to look like siblings, but also look closer to Midna from canon, because they are part of the royal lineage, and i wanted them to match more with the canon looks we are given for twili.

Kalt is vang but to the left, design wise, honestly. they probably looked Very similar, if not identical before she transitioned, but neither of them minds. he has the same hair as The Hero (link from twilight princess) because he looks up to him and wants to be cool. (aka he started as just a twili Link design but i made him my own.)

(all of the twili are actually undergoing mild design changes currently. undecided if some of the new design choices will be part of an au or not, so i wont be explaining them here, since they arent complete yet anyways.)

Hobic the wizard design choices? uh. slutty gay wizard with his tits out. that was the whole design idea. also green. i dont think too deeply about these things, he's entirely a joke character.

The M Crew, Moss, Marble, and Media are actually mostly three colors. green, purple, and orange. Moss is Purple with green clothes, Marble is Green with orange clothes, and Media is Orange with purple clothes. the intent is to make them look fine on their own, but also like a fun group when put together. Media is supposed to look simplistic but kinda punk. (the end result is them looking like a bouncer at a concert but thats okay lol.) Moss is supposed to have a similar outfit to what i usually wear. letterman jacket, combat boots, ripped jeans. Marble.. marble was a struggle and a half and i dont like her outfit at all. she looks like she got a witch costume from spirit halloween and called it good, so i have to fix that.

Does your oc have any notable skills or good personality traits? Why did you give them those traits? Why do they exist in-universe?

hm. Raide is good at most forms of art. i gave them that skill because im a jack of all trades, and my oc's are almost always an extension of myself. Raide is a good artist in universe because she loves art a lot, and doesnt want to be a royal guard anyway, so why not try Every type of art while he finds out what they want to do? right?

Calen is good at mixing potions, and is pretty charismatic. honestly hes had these since being created so i dont know why he has them. as for in universe explaination: potions are his job, so hes been trained on how to make them(and he Has to know how to make potions.. because they keep him alive..) . charisma is also job related. hes a merchant of many wares (potions are just the ones he makes himself.), so he's gotten pretty good at being charming but honest. it helps people buy his shit.

this got long lmao- and those two are the only ones i could think of answers for quickly(they may or may not be my fav oc's of mine...) so if you wanna ask about other beans feel free!!

[peekychu]

The history of my fursonas! 🐱

I’m in an especially infodump-y mood at the moment and I watched a video about fursonas that inspired me (Shoutout to Pocari Roo’s channel!) so here we go ^o^ 

Click under the cut to read the whole enchilada! (It’s a long post, make sure you have the appetite for it first xD)

I first learned about the furry fandom in about 2013-14 from some friends at school! Granted, the two teenage boys I talked to a lot were more obsessed with the... sexual side of that xD I won’t go into that though because that would involve me talking about more uncomfortable stuff >.> I also had another friend that was such a huge influence to me and they’re a big reason that I still draw fuzzy animals to this day! Their fursona at the time was named Icy and I thought that character was the freakin’ coolest. I remember going home after talking to them, filled with inspiration and making my very first fursona!

Her original name was Rogue Feather, but the name Scarlett came later and ultimately stuck way better! Her design was simple, a red fox with a purple bandana! Not much thought was put into her, I just put together what I thought a typical fursona would look like :P I didn’t draw her much since I was way more focused on MLP and my ponysona Starfruit, but I still enjoyed doodling her!

Shortly after Scarlett, I created Citrus the cat! To be honest, she didn’t really represent me other than being a cat xD Her design was actually based off of a girl that I had a crush on at that time, but that’s a whole other story >.>

Also, it was coincidental that Twinkie has elements from both of these beginning characters, I just noticed that making this post! I learned that I loved cats from creating citrus, and I loved drawing Scarlett’s wings and bandanas so I suppose it was natural that my current fursona would have all of these traits :P

Well, months pass after posting the first drawings of Citrus and Scarlett on my Instagram, and at this point I decided to try taking up digital art! I downloaded FireAlpaca for free (still my program of choice x3) and worked really hard at drawing with only my mouse!

My friend that inspired me to draw more furry characters had changed their fursona over from a bright sparkledog-ish color scheme to another character with muted browns and oranges. Inspired once again, I designed another cat character to represent myself!

Meet Macchiato (or Mac for short)! They were made when I switched my focus from My Little Pony to furry characters, and I moved from Instagram to DeviantArt as my main art site. 

When I made Mac, I was close to beginning high school and I questioned a lot about my identity, mainly my gender and sexuality :P For a period of time, I pushed aside my adoration for ponies, Pokemon and colorful things in favor of things I thought were “cooler” and more boyish. A large part of this was my complicated relationship with my gender identity, but also because I thought I had to act more mature... so I expressed this by drawing myself as a cat? It was complicated xD

Anyways, while I have a soft spot for Mac, they’re sort of my own Rex Dangervest if that makes sense :P I mean, they were my first expression of feeling neutral to gender which was a big deal for me, but when I look at their drab colors it sort of makes me sad that I didn’t have much fun designing them. (I did have a blast drawing that pixel reference though, I remember that xD)

I also created a few more furry characters just for the fun of it! I won’t post pictures of all of them for the sake of length, but they were Chamomile the fennec fox, Minx the cat, Caira the alien dog, Pfeffer the bunny, Flicker the bat (who I should draw again sometime >.>) Mitzi the dog and... Whatever animal Skyler was supposed to be xD I made all these characters before I attempted to make a fursona that I felt more connected with...

Along came Clash the cat, an even more depressing character than Mac for me to look at xD I was considerably depressed at this point from the pressure of high school and my identity issues, the droopy eyelids and chaotic color scheme of him sort of reflect this. 

It’s a good thing you can’t read his description in that screenshot, Believe me, but I think I should quote a part of it because it greatly represents how I felt about myself during the time period when I made him.

“If you were to dissect his brain, you’d see something much like somebody’s tangled collection of thread and yarn. Colorful, unkept, and full of pushed aside potential.”

Ouch!!

Well, after a period of depressing fursonas I played that one cat icon creator game that circulated on Tumblr for a while, and I made my favorite old fursona! I think that he had a lot in common with Twinkie and I used them more than everyone else beforepaw.

Here’s Cetrada, my little Nickelodeon slime cat xD I named them after the Italian citron-flavored soda that my friend Francesca (Love ya buddy!) sent to me in the mail! That soda is actually spelled Cedrata, the misspelling of the name was not a creative choice but an actual dumb mistake xP 

I genuinely still love this character, I nicknamed them Limey since it’s simple and cutesy like them, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever use them again. Think of them as teenage Twinkie I guess xD I love ya Cetrada, you were a good kitty <3

Eventually Cetrada grew stale for me and I went through a couple of other fursonas. I don’t have much to say about them since they were pretty short lived, but I’ll post a single picture of each of them! I’m getting a bit tired of making mini collages of them anyways :P

While Reese’s design and colors are a bit awkward, I genuinely adore their mini companion Mallow the bat :P They look like pistachio pudding, what a cutie!

Ugh, this fursona stresses me out to look at too xD I mean arguably they’re the closest in design to Twinkie (yellow cat with angel wings and star knee markings) but they remind me of a rough time I suppose? I drew a couple pictures of them looking more sexualized and with a more slim body type when in reality I was overweight and scared of intimacy... they just remind me of an unhealthy period of my life @_@ I must have felt that too though, I dropped this fursona pretty quickly.

I do actually like Kit even though I used him very briefly, I was starting to have WAY more fun with bright colors in my drawings! Sure he’s a bit too pastel 2015 Tumblr, but I do still like that pink and yellow combo ^w^

Eventually I grew sick of my DeviantArt and mostly just posted art on my main Tumblr where I got super into the kidcore scene! I had rediscovered my love of fun colors and sparkly eyes, kidcore sparked a new me! I wasn’t doing fantastic in life, but I developed more optimism and a genuine love for simple things which grounded me a lot. This was such a wild part of my life, through reblogging pictures of rainbows and Pokemon and slime I gained over 2,000 followers O.O Two of my closest friends told me that they found me by my influence in the kidcore Tumblr community back around 2016 and were intimidated to talk which is just nuts to me x’D

Anyways I’ll try not to go on a tangent about that anymore, but 2016-17 was wild! I should give a shoutout to my very first sparklesona Cosi, but he was made only barely before my true fursona...

That’s right babey, the one... The only!!!

HE’S FINALLY HERE! Twinkie, the fursona I truly felt a personal connection with. I mean, he’s everything I love bundled into one! Pikachu has been my hugest comfort ever since I was four years old so naturally I would have to incorporate it into my fursona somehow! I also gave him a bandana, my favorite accessory to draw on furry characters, and wings! Of course I love rainbows too so I gave him rainbow wings..... But I tweaked his design since the colored wings made him more bird-like. Nothing against birds of course, but I thought plain white angel wings were simpler and more iconic for him! I did give him a touch of rainbow later with his tag design! I also scrapped his red dot eyebrows and his tail bandana, but overall I loved the character I made! I was thrilled to have a fun cartoon kitty that I could use to express myself :3

Before him my only true-feeling ‘sona was Starfruit the pegasus, it was fulfilling because I feel like when I made Twinkie, I started to find myself! 

Twinkie did go through a couple redesigns including a semi-drastic color change sometime in early 2018, but I really do feel content with the way he looks right now! In Twinkie I see friendliness, optimism, and a caring heart which is what I strive for! He represents the journeys I took to be more comfortable with myself and he radiates the confidence that I hope to achieve one day as well >:3 I mean it is possible I could change him for a new fursona or even flat out drop him in the future, but after 3 strong years I think Twinkie will stay a part of me for a while ^w^

Anyways, if you’ve read all of this, THANK YOU!! This was a really personal post and I think it’s fascinating to look at my own self progression this way, I hope somebody gained something from this but if it was just for me that’s okay too xD

If anyone read all of this looong post and wants to make a similar post, PLEASE tag me! I’ve been so interested in fursonas and how people see/represent themselves through cartoon animals, isn’t it a wild phenomenon?? 

If you don’t feel like making a big post like I did though, you should reply with some cool facts about your fursona or count how many you’ve made in the past xD That would be rad <3