#took so long to write this out lol

[koolkat9]

Dewy and Cozy

Spoilers for the last two seasons of MLP gen 4

Now it seems that Cozy getting redeemed is debated on, but whether you think she deserves it or not, or you think she wouldn't bother, I am just having fun and I love me a good redemption arc. Also, this is going on the headcanon that she actually is just a filly.

So Dewy, despite having moved out of the Castle with Luna and eventually marrying her, can't help but think back to Cozy. Despite having been imprisoned by her, Tirek and Chrysalis and doing battle with Cozy specifically, Dewy can't help but feel sympathy. I'm thinking that during their battle, Dewy brings up something about parents and it strikes a nerve with Cozy leading Dewy to suspect that maybe Cozy has got some parent baggage, and Dewy also having parent baggage (she was left at an orphanage when very young with no information about her family and no one came looking for her), the encounter is always at the back of her mind. She begins to wonder that perhaps if she didn't get a positive influence in her life from that local librarian she would have gone down a similar path, and she loved the Nightmare Moon story it seemed all the more possible.

A year or two later, Once everything calms down in her life after moving, settling in a new place and being away from her friends, the wedding, the honeymoon then settling into married life, Cozy and the potential parallels to Dewy's own life becomes more of a constant thought. She can't bear to tell Luna but perhaps going to visit the statue and talking to her friends, maybe even Twilight will help. So she tells Luna she's going to Canterlot for a girls' weekend.

Bramble admits that she also has started feeling bad whenever she passes by the statue, but still, what Cozy did was terrible. Dewy can't help but bring up all their current allies who threatened the world, how Starlight tried to reach out to Chrysalis, Cozy didn't seem to get that. Bramble not sure what to say suggests they just leave it. It's not their place. But Dewy won't take that and arranges to meet with Twilight to hear exactly how everything went down.

She questions Twilight about Cozy's punishment, both the first time and the time now. How she sent her right to Tirek. Did she even attempt to extend a hoof, fight for Cozy to be better like she did for Starlight? Twi says she let Cozy explain herself. Dewy shoots back that's not the same. How Twilight was patient, showing her the mistakes she was making despite how stubborn and cruel she continued to be, getting to the bottom of her motivation that way she could help show her a better way. Twilight argues Cozy was a student, if she was going to change she would have. Dewy says Cozy was different, the mindset Cozy was in, she needed different lessons. Deconstruct that idea that friendship would give her power through manipulation. Twilight falls silent and Dewy can't tell if she just made her angry or if she is actually considering what she said. Dewy, frustrated excuses herself.

She ends up bringing her concerns to Celestia and Luna who also share concerns. Even Luna who got her own redemption. They get into an argument and Dewy decides that maybe she needs some space to calm down. Originally she was going to go back to Canterlot to spend more time with her friends, but then she thinks back to argument with Twilight and thinks maybe Starlight could give her some advice, she'd understand this better than anyone.

Starlight is also hesitant, trusting Twilight and also personally victimized by Cozy, but Dewy pleads with her, reminding her of what Twilight did for her, and what Starlight herself did for the Pony of Shadows. Doesn't Cozy deserve to have some pony do the same? Especially since she's so young. Starlight agrees but bring up the concern of Cozy's manipulation. Dewy assures her that she plans on finding a truth spell or something of the like. Starlight agrees to help search.

Bramble comes around to Dewy's plan and starts helping her research that truth spell. Blaze, though still hesitant can see how much this means to Dewy and agrees to help looking into said truth spell. Starlight ropes in Trixie, tries to rope in Discord but still feeling guilty for his mess up pretending to be Grogar plus he doesn't really have anything to gain anyway.

With everything coming together, Dewy approaches Luna once more. Much calmer now, she admits that she's doing this not just out of the goodness of her heart. Part of it comes from seeing herself in Cozy and a lingering fear that she herself could have turned out like Cozy. Luna can sympathize also having wanted to help many ponies she saw herself in. She listens to Dewy's plan and seeing all the bases covered, agrees to bring it up with Celestia and Twilight.

Eventually they convince Twilight and some of the still hesitant members of the mane six and Cozy is freed. Cozy though scared tries to put on her innocent act, but Dewy and Luna shut that down. "I'm being merciful but not stupid," Dewy says. She explains she wants Cozy to do better, but also knows she's very clever and manipulative. So for the time being, she'll be under a truth spell as they determine if Dewy is right that Cozy can be better. Cozy is not happy about it, but at least she's out.

So Dewy tries her best to get through to her, trying to get her to help around the castle/city, but Cozy is not at all interested and is trying to worm her way out of it all. If anything she tries to cause trouble only to be shut down by Dewy and her friends. Dewy starts to doubt that bringing Cozy back was a good idea. Perhaps Twilight was right that she couldn't be redeemed, at least not now. Cozy ends up overhearing this and she's surprised to find it kind of hurts. As much as she wanted to return to her own plan, it was nice having someone vouch for the real her. But now...

Cozy ends up running away. Even with the truth spell still on her, she knows she's clever and she'll figure something out to regain power. But distracted by what has transpired she ends up running into trouble (still not sure what this trouble it. A monster of some kind probably, but I can't think of one where Cozy wouldn't easily out smart it but anyway...). Dewy comes to her rescue, putting her life on the line to save her. The two end up working together to get out of it.

From then one, Cozy is still a bit of a trouble maker with an ego, but she settles into this more calm life. She slowly opens up to Dewy about her difficult childhood. I read the idea once that Cozy was born to powerful unicorn parents and being a pegasus, they look down on her. I think this really makes sense with the line she says about power types relying on their magic instead of their brain which always gave me a sense of that as much as she craved power, she had a bitterness towards magic. Perhaps that was instilled in her by her parents disappointment in her despite being so clever. Dewy sympathizes with her over her own poor childhood providing further basis for a bond.

Anyway, Cozy makes a real friend for the first time, she ends up healing, gets a found family with Dewy and Cozy. And that's all I got so far other than Cozy ends up becoming a strategist for the royal guard when she is older, but I don't have much details on how she gets there.

[mintypsii]

not a part 2, but here's a prequel to this sanuso comic I did last month !!! (takes place the night before ,, technically after the first three panels)

[arcadiii]

Like the gentle warmth of a morning’s sunrise, Marcy greets her on the horizon. Truthfully, she hadn’t expected to see Marcy anytime soon or, if she was completely honest, ever again. Of course, there’d been a sliver of hope that their paths would cross once more – it’s a small world after all – but after staying together in the mountain shelter for what felt like days, their bubbled moment of time alone had shattered. A sharp pop of stark reality with the world rushing back in, whisking them away, back into their own lives as though nothing had ever happened in the first place. --- Whilst working her job at the mountain park, Anne meets Marcy again after the storm and this time, she's the one who falls. Ranger AU.

so I maybe finished a fic for the amazing @goodartitude based on this incredible artwork as part of Ranger AU. if you like soft, silly marcanne moments, you'll love this one. enjoy!

[soranker]

hi….! any chance we can see your art process ? it’s fine if not! i was wondering if u do a sketch before your lines or you just skip directly to lineart? your art is very beautiful!

HI!!! AUGGHHHJHH THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH T__T my art style is kinda simple imo so my process is pretty bare-bones ^^;; there's not rly much too it!! it also kinda changes depending on how uhhhh lazy im feeling in the moment HAHA

probably around half of my drawings are straight to line art bc they're rly just doodles or things i decide to draw without any planning (but also im kinda impatient so i try to skip the sketching step if i can LOL...). but if i DO have a specific pose in mind for a drawing, i'll start with a sort of mannequin sketch or loose pass, then depending on how messy it is, ill either do the lineart pass on the layer on top or duplicate the sketch and then clean it up.

and then my coloring process is not sophisticated at all i just create a new layer and then paint bucket tool away LMAOOOO

here's an example of a drawing where i did sketch first ^_^

[wikiangela]

wip wednesday🎄

tagged by @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove

i wasn't gonna post anything but i wrote quite a lot today and need validation lmao (I think I might be about halfway done but who knows, it always gets away from me haha) today some buckley siblings feels, and hopefully soon ill get to the fluffy christmas part haha

prev snippet

___

"(...) I used to make stuff for Maddie, and then when I was older I would save money to buy her something small and mostly symbolic.” he glances at Eddie. There’s a mix of bittersweet nostalgia and sadness on his face. “She made all my Christmases bearable, and after she left-” he stops abruptly and quietly clears his throat. When he speaks again, he doesn’t finish the sentence. Eddie wants to ask, but he figures Buck will share what he’s comfortable sharing, he doesn’t want to push. “But that was the one thing I wanted so badly, more than anything, more than any cool toys or- or anything,” he chuckles again, “and Maddie tried to give it to me, and she got in trouble for it. So after that, I just never asked again.”

“Buck.” Eddie says softly, wishing he could do anything to make it better, to fucking go back in time and give Buck all the Christmases he ever dreamt about.

“But I always wished-” Buck continues, then glances at Eddie nervously. 

“Wished what?” Eddie’s thumb softly swipes along Buck’s neck and jawline, as far as he can reach. He just wants to comfort him somehow, and at the moment this is the only way he knows how, just a comforting touch, being there, listening.

“That one day, when I grew up,” Buck looks down at his lap again, his voice getting even quieter, “I’d have my own family and I’m gonna do matching Christmas sweaters every single year, and take tons of pictures of us all together, and-” he pauses again, and, with a teary laugh, raises his hand to wipe at his eyes. Eddie wants to wrap him in his arms and hold him. (...) “But it doesn’t matter, I don’t-” Buck shakes his head, and leans away from Eddie’s touch. Eddie aches to keep touching him, to reach out and follow, but he respects that clearly that’s not what Buck wants anymore, that’s fine. “I don’t have my own family yet, so it doesn't matter. Let’s just drop it.” he says, tone decisive, face red, eyes glued to the screen again. 

Eddie frowns. What the hell is Buck talking about? He has a family, right here.

___

no pressure tags: @elvensorceress @gaydiaz @diazass @thebravebitch @silentxxsoul @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @arthursdent @911onabc @spagheddiediaz @housewifebuck @rogerzsteven @watchyourbuck @honestlydarkprincess @underwater-ninja-13 @eowon @weewootruck @loserdiaz @evanbegins @steadfastsaturnsrings @ladydorian05 @malewifediaz @pirrusstuff @theotherbuckley @911-on-abc @hoodie-buck @wildlife4life @fortheloveofbuddie @nmcggg @diazpatcher @jesuisici33 @lover-of-mine @giddyupbuck @spotsandsocks @exhuastedpigeon @buckaroosheart @hippolotamus @king-buckley @callmenewbie @jeeyuns @disasterbuckdiaz @monsterrae1 @thewolvesof1998 @jamespearce9-1-1 @daffi-990

[lucabyte]

Your gender thought type essays have made me curious about what your oc creation/development process is like! It seems to be something you put a lot of thought into and that’s very interesting (especially cause my circles don’t often go into detail in that area)

I'm delighted to hear you're curious!! I'll give as thorough an answer as I can manage, though it'll likely be a bit disorganised. Okay, so... I'm gonna use a couple examples for this, and since you specified gender stuff I'm gonna go for some where gender/sexuality are integral, even if in seemingly counterproducive ways (but that'll be the last few...)

So. The first character that comes to mind here for me in terms of like... A lot of thought going into their gender is Lavender.

So going all the way back... Lavender was made in 2015.

Spreadsheet puts her at the 13th character in the setting, creation-date ways! So she's Been around a while.

Part 1: A Core Idea

Now, why was Lavender made? This is the first step of character creation. Well, she was made to tick a bit of a box. I realised my only girls at the time were all tomboyish so I needed a cute girl. And this was 2015, so she arose in the form of a Waifu Joke. She was intended to be a side-character with no real plot ties, so I just designed a character as cute as possible, named her simply (Lavender Wafeu == literally Colour and Waifu) and was basically done? 7 months later I would make Mafioso to slightly further the joke, in that giving Lavender a girlfriend makes her unpursuable* as a waifu. This also gave me a stark butch/femme pair, and I recall around this era there was a joke going around on tumblr of 'Indestructable Lesbians' as opposed to buried gays. This kinda became their thing. Two lesbians the plot wouldn't touch and they wouldn't be endangered.

.... And then that was kinda it. She was a cute girl who was fun to draw, shy, and reserved in nature. An opposition to Mafioso's brash (but secretly a little nervous) demeanor. I would literally just liken this to flutterdash outright. I was basically just doing flutterdash in terms of their personalities.

SO: This is the first step to all my characters. Find a core concept, or more likely, a core joke. Lavender's core joke is a very rough and (frankly unfunny) "your waifu isn't going to fuck you" joke. But you can see how she was built out of it. And we'll get to how that building happened next.

(^ Weird 2015 era lavender with her total lack of emotive range and flat characterisation)

Part 2: Dormancy

Lavender stayed unchanged for quite a while, in this flat state. She picked up a few things, mostly little 'twists' to her character. ie. she could hold her own in a fight, is surprisingly quick to jump to (cartoonish) violence, and likes a good steak. All very basic little things, obvious "oh bet you didn't expect That" contradictions.

She didn't recieve much attention during this time despite me really liking her design still. Mafioso languished even worse in this era, with her mother Omerta picking up most of the development instead. Overall, these two were very, very boring. No amount of little superficial additions could save them from this.

But it... hints at something, right? It hints that maybe there's a facade somewhere, that maybe the perfect-cute-girl thing might actually take a little bit of effort to upkeep...? Hrm...

Part 3: A Fresh Perspective

So, sometime in 2020, I was finally remaking my 2016-era spreadsheet of all my characters from the ground up, since I needed to remove a lot of ms excel specific formatting it had in it.

And while going through, I was being helped by @samhainian, who I had befriended in the years between. And they remarked that I didn't have enough directly trans characters in the cast, to which I agreed. I had a handful of tokens at the time (Adder and Angel spring to mind?) but not many more, so we literally just went down the list with suggestions. And when Sam suggested Lavender, I reacted with confusion. Because... Wait. Is she not trans? But she's so feminine? All of my characters lean extremely gender-neutral in presentation unless they're trying to do gender on purpose...?

And this just, unlocked her whole character like a skeleton key.

I was making her do her gender on purpose. The reason she had those contradictions is because she's putting in the effort to appear like this perfect, girl-next-door, waifu type. Something that doesn't really work if she doesn't have girlhood to prove.

From here, her coy 'maybe she has more to her than cute girl' hints were instantly recontextualised as a thing She was Doing. And instead of being random superficial tidbits, they were Depth. And her cartoonish 'extremely mild-mannered and polite persona' suddenly became a very human facade.

So, she had a new core to build around. And her lack of anything going on before in terms of backstory suddenly felt contextual? She's clearly fresh new to this. She had already had the backstory of being a very young (about 19~21) person who had moved to a new town to live on her own-- Suddenly that makes sense. She's forging a whole new identity. Her polite 'never really talking about herself because she's an object for the audience to desire' quietness becomes intentional evasion. She doesn't have a backstory, because she doesn't want it to be any of your business.

And ironically, this immediately Gave Her the backstory she had been missing. Her wiles and hidden 'smarter than she looks' becomes so relevant as to be real character traits...

I already somewhat went over this (and a number of other gender thoughts, including my thoughts on my myriad 'cis but not' or 'nb in a specific direction') in a thing I wrote, woof, 2 years ago: (LINK) which was a ramble about a lot of my character's genders... In that I summarised Lavender's gender as such:

Part 4: In practice

Okay so it's all well and good that I realised Lavender is Trans Gemder. But that's not where it ends, because she finally became refined and polished to the point of um. Quadrupling her image count on toyhouse. because of Purrgatorio.

See, the other reason I was getting my spreadsheets in order was for Purrgatorio (the original flavour of it, the visual novel) and I needed to just do some general housekeeping.

Lavender, Mafioso and Ess shared a route in VN!Purrgatorio, being that I saw them as a triad of characters. While this characterisation of her basically did nothing interesting, aside from showing her fiery side, this would later become the basis for her being one of the first characters met in actual purrgatorio, where she, being polite and nice, and established back in 2016ish to be one of the few characters Chrome isn't a total asshole to--- She gets to meet Ali.

Now this is where I would say a lot of the real development happened. Right there, in action, in putting her to the test of real writing. All of her characterisation stops being hypothetical, and instead something I have to portray. And I found as I wrote, she grew more deep simply by giving her such an odd situation to be in. And of note, by having Ali be intimidated by talking to cute girls, it gave her the upper hand in the dynamic-- Really allowing me to show off her ability to lead a conversation, and her quiet confidence in herself-- as well as hinting at the thing she isn't quite so confident with.

It's also allowed me to start thinking about her sexuality, too. This is another thing that goes back to her flimsy core concept. The Waifu is generally a sexless being in their own right, having sexuality projected onto them by the narrative or audience. In fact, a lot of shounen girls don't get to be romantically forward-- both because it risks alienating the intended selfshipper-audience, and also because showing too much confidence and autonomy in their sexuality can be too threatening for the chuunibyo audience, who aren't yet comfortable with their own sexuality and-- wait! Look at that! Another part of the core concept I can toy with! Wouldn't it make sense, if she's meant to be a deconstruction of The Waifu Archetype, for her to have that confidence and autonomy? This is what 2015-me was clumsily trying to grasp with the whole lesbian thing... So why not just re-angle that into her being confident and forward. It fits with her new personality, so it works!

*oh hey there's that asterisk. I also realised she had chemistry with Ali! Given the way she is level-headed and rather logical deep down, her curiosity drives this. She's not going to pass up a chance to know a literal Alien... But it also further illustrates how badly Mafioso has been left in the dust by her. (She's been quietly tinkered with behind the scenes ready for her reintrodcution, but for a while, I was really struggling!! Like, considering overhauling her character levels of struggling!! But, we managed, I think. She's yet to be introduced and put into practice yet, but it's upcoming.) To the point where I've broken them up! At least for now. Mafioso needs to prove herself I think, since now she can't rely on Lavender being waifish and easily won over.

TO SUMMARISE THE MAJOR POINTS THERE:

Any joke/idea can be a suitable core, even if flimsy, you just need to find which parts are interesting to either double down on or deconstruct

It's okay for characters to take a long time to form! If you don't feel connected to a character they might need a shake up, but also YOU might need a shake up. Lavender needed a new perspective from someone with a different approach to gender as me, and for I myself to become more comfortable with Real Sexuality (ive literally just aged nearly 10 years itll happen) before she could really shine.

Following on from the above you basically never need to throw a character out completely. You should try and find what it is you like about them, or consider core, and perhaps try and reframe or refract those elements. A character might get demoted to non-main status sometimes, but why throw away that depth? They can hang out on the sidelines if that's better for them.

Sometimes a character won't feel done until you write them! You can do this with RP if you have the ability, but I wrote Purrgatorio instead, which is intentionally low-stakes and non-canon so I don't get too freaked out about writing it. It's a playground for testing characterisaton, and putting characters in weird pairings they otherwise wouldn't to see if something interesting arises.

SOME OTHER EXAMPLES FROM MY BACK CATALOGUE:

Lavender is a bit of a daunting pick, given that she's spent nearly 10 years slowly rotating in my brain, only to finally become realised in the last 3-4 or so. But I do have some more recent quick examples, as well as another giant thing you can read if you want to.

GIANT THING TO READ IF YOU WANT IT: I've posted abt this before way ages ago but I wrote up a whole gigantic thing on my probably 2 most in depth characters. It can be found here (LINK) and also has a longass diatribe about their genders, sexualities, and the core thing they were originally riffing on. (Which was like. a specific type of anime boy ship i was a sucker for, that I eventually realised I was making way more interesting than most anime i was into was bothered to do)

It's a very thorough look into my thought process, including ANOTHER diatribe on purrgatorio granting me some good boons of character.

OTHER EXAMPLE 1: ALI

Okay Ali is too complicated to get into thoroughly here, but they're another good example of a core idea spiralling out.

Core idea: Blank slate visual novel protagonist, so gender neutral and a bit of a flimsy everyman. No real name, only a default name if you left the entry blank. (Ali, a shortening of the canon surname). #FFFFFF skin to keep the jokey ambiguity and pink hair to reference Dante's silly red hat.

Twists: Canon assigned surname of Alighieri, implying them to be some descendent of The Real Dante. And they're in a VN so there's a spooky easter egg where you can roll a death screen that shows them as an ominous demonic Thing instead of a regular human.

The, VN!Purrgatorio got shelved, and because they were human instead of a furry they got shuffled into other projects. A furry version of them showed up in a different project riffing on the demon thing, making them a child-friendly antichrist with 2 siblings based on the tragicomedy masks. Then that furry version's stuff got shoved onto the human version who was just a half-demon kid in Creature Feature. THEN we decided they'd be half-succubus to keep the ability to shift between the sexes (referencing the blank slate gender ambiguity of the VN). THEN that became 'nerd who is freaked out by being a sex demon and doesn't like the ethical implications of their existance but is still kinda miffed that they arent Getting Any' who STILL HAD the antichrist stuff from the furry version....

(^ technically a completely seperate ali ive not done anything with in years lol)

Like you get it. It's a giant katamari of STUFF from all different settings. This is what I mean by 'you never really need to scrap a character'. Because after all this shoving them around into different projects and them accruing things (the 'guy who is really concerned with informed consent is a succubus/incubus' angle really informed them here, as well as deciding that they're apathetic about the magic sex characteristic changes.) we threw them right back into the original setting of Purrgatorio and it went WAY BETTER once they actually had some character traits!

But that core idea still stands a little. Not in them being an everyman, but in prompting them to become an altersex character when fleshed out, and in the way that they're distinctly still tied to that second-person-narration that VNs have, and the eventual 4th wall break they got in the VN informed their powerset as 'narrative manipulator'.

also as a note here: DON'T BE AFRAID TO PLAY WHILE YOUR SETTING ISN'T DONE!

VN!Purrgatorio got shelved because I redid a bunch of MYMK's setting when I was finishing it up. But It was worth it even unfinished.

Ali themselves when in Current!Purrgatorio has spent, up until very recently, their whole time with their home setting (Creature Feature) in a state of being deeply unfinished and in need of a reshake. It's finally getting that now, but it was still fine for me to reference what I knew likely wouldn't be changing! They were able to function just fine without their home setting being solid for upwards of 2-3 years. Obviously this shouldn't be done for *finished* works, but when you're just playing, like I am with Purrgatorio, it's okay to keep things fluid and effectively quietly retcon things later.

OTHER EXAMPLE 2: PEACH TRACY

Peach tracy is an actually recent character, and is under @samhainian's purview, as with the rest of Moraine. Now, she was made with a very distinct gender/sexuality in mind, unlike a lot of my characters who stumble ass-backwards into one.

Peach is the 'token girl' of her group (the other two being Red, a closeted and unaware transfem, and Toyon a he/him butch.) and well, her gender is basically "tik tok girlie", as is her core concept. She only works if she's a pampered cisgender straight girl from a rich background. She's nice! But she's privileged.

Her twist however, is that she is wracked by the guilt of her and her group letting a friend take the fall for an Illegal Youtube Prank to save their own skin, and as such her entire character unravels from there.

Because she has all this guilt, it stands that her Girliepop Persona must be somewhat constructed. She's leaning in to the femininity as a shield and a deflector. She's, y'know, a white girl.

So her gender ends up being overperformed, and she's petrified of expressing her sexuality due to it being tied up in this image of purity. She's the exact type of person to psyche herself out into believing those 'having a crush on your friend is problematic' tumblr posts.

But none of this would really work if she did not start as a (white) girl, able to use that shield. If she were a dude or nonwhite-coded she would not have the ability to react to her situation that way. Ergo, she is actually built out of her identity this way.

(As for her sexuality, she is unhealthily self-flagellating about it, so it ends up just being unpleasant. This was a genuine surprise to myself and @samhainian when we were discussing it. We hadn't thought about it prior to starting some lighthearted riffing about assigning characters kinks literally bc we were bored when we had the horrifying realisation that Peach would not be safe about this shit AT ALL due to a lack of self preservation and way more ambient suicidality than we realised she had until we dug here. We quickly resurfaced from the joke conversation into an actual deconstruction of how she's internalised a lot of blame and decided to go distinctly carceral with it for herself. so there's another tip: Even if you aren't making nsfw content, poking around a character's sexuality will sometimes reveal raw truths that come from sexuality being very vulnerable by default.)

Peach is overall an interesting contrast to Lavender, since they're both Girls Being Feminine On Purpose, but one is transfem and one is. Well god idk what peach will end up but she'll need to unpack it.

(I note that peach is white also, since while I rarely intentionally racially code my characters, sometimes i SUPER do.)

OTHER EXAMPLE 3: VIRGIL MALACODA

Okay because I've talked about a number of girls so far lets be brief about a fuckin Dude.

Virgil is like, some real toxic masculinity shit. He would probably be fucked up in some different way if he were born a girl, but he's distinctly falling into a lot of traps due to his upbringing as "A dude who was promised he'd get power when he grew up".

His dude-ness is a very flat fact to me in that way, and he's similar to Tabitha in that regard since it's one of the ways they're meant to reflect each other. Dudes who's place as patriarch-to-be saved them from being pawned off as a wife, but is still responsible for a lot of their misery. Certainly the better of the two options, but could still be better!

Virgil's themes of masculinity being a simultaneous shield and blinder is a simple one but I go back to it a lot because it can be true a lot of the time in antiquated social situations like, say, the upper class. So, being a villain, he does end up being a condemnation of the structures that disincentivise healthy masculinity. He's necessarily amab because he is the result of how particularly regressive views of masculinity can shape a child into a repressed and miserable adult.

Whether or not virgil stays a dude or not if he ever figures out his way of viewing power structures was Fucked Up and Bad is anybody's guess. It's not really Masculinity that was hurting him, so much as a rich asshole's narrow view of it. So there's no real reason for him to reject a healthier version of it outright, it's just whether he'll ever get there...

CLOSING REMARKS:

Okay writing in the tumblr post editor is starting to scare me with errors so I should probably close this out. But yeah this is a little bit of a run down of where my head is usually at when making characters. A lot of it is just batting jokes back and forth until they become something more solid, which I don't know that I really got across here.

Like, a lot a lot of my characters are built around a core joke. Usually what-ifs like.

"What if a shounen-type card game anime protagonist was just as brash and head-full-of-air as the rest of the, but a girl"

"What if Ed Sheeran had a cheating scandal with two tboys and it made the radio fucking horrible to listen to"

"What if a wrestler was really, really wide and also clearly into rubber"

"What if somebody took the 'blonde anime boy who barely shows emotion' trope seriously because that kind of repression can't be good"

"What if a guy was specifically interested in becoming a Soil Scientist from like, age 4, and never gave up that dream"

^ If you can figure out who's who then you win a prize (a kiss)

But yeah. Jokes upon jokes upon jokes. Assign them classpects and pokemon and put them into speed/power/fly formation and just joke for as long as you possibly can until you hit on something. And if a joke feels really right, or completely off the mark, try and dig in and find why.

Like. I joke about the sexuality thing but it does help since it's so disarming and immediately a bit childishly funny often. Sometimes you'll end up with say, something as serious as "Despite being friends with The Fence, Selene probably shouldn't be left unsupurvised in kink spaces because she ABSOLUTELY does not have the ability to restrain herself and not take her anger issues out on strangers" and sometimes its as silly as "even outside of being asexual, ess is never jackin that shit because if he got caught in any kind of mildly embarrasing scenario it'd ruin his whole year so the cost/benefit analysis of that really doesn't work out"

Because like. both tell you about the characters, and you can also read them more broadly now. Selene ruins relationships by letting anger at unrelated things get in the way, Ess keeps himself from doing even utterly harmless things out of deep social anxiety.

Like yeah, i got to them via goofing about sex but it's still character analysis at the end of the day so long as you put The Reading first*

*DISCLAIMER: im asexual im only ever doing stuff for the read lol . it might be more difficult if youre allosexual . or maybe itll be easier. i dont know just dont get too lost in the sauce. think with ur brain not ur other parts

ALSO gender and sexualty often end up linked so it makes sense to end up at one from the other a lot of the time. It happens.

And as an addendum if you wonder where i tend to literally Design characters? Like visually? It's usually at some point between the first few jokes and before naming them. Though sometimes names come first.

OVERALL: A character should have a core concept to them to start with. This core concept CAN SUCK and be flimsy, or a joke, or even a joke you no longer find funny. But you can always refer back to it when building a character up. If you want to capture the concept, work toward it, if you want to deconstruct or mock the concept, then do that instead. If you sour on a joke, maybe find a way to satirise or deconstruct what you're no longer finding funny.

Sometimes this core concept is steeped in a specific cultural thing, be it race, gender, sexuality, ect, and those necessitate thinking about. Sometimes it's not and those things can practically be an afterthought, but once you lock it in it's likely to begin informing the later choices as it becomes part of the scaffolding.

(To hop back to why you even asked this Q: I so thoroughly read Siffrin as amab BECAUSE they had so many themes about Not Having Changed and clinging to what they knew, and so working backwards from that it only made sense to me that they mustn't've done a big overhaul YET or made any big decisions about that YET by the time we see them in game, because that's what gels best with their themes of being Too Afraid To Change and being a contrast to Isa who has changed a bunch, and a comfort to Mira who hasn't changed at all in their gender. Then it was a case of looking through the game for more evidence either for or against this reading, and I found a lot of evidence for it, in my opinion. But I did so Because I noticed that the themes were Stronger if read this way, and because I conceptualise characters as themes and concepts FIRST it made sense to try and work back to those themes.)

But yeah. TL;DR:

Ground yourself with a Hook for the character, sometimes making it sillier makes it easier to think about.

Try and think about how they would be formed by the world around them, or what their behaviour says about how they must've been formed

Don't worry about things taking a long time. Sometimes a character needs someone else to make a suggestion, or for you to grow and change a little before they click

Putting it into action helps a lot, even if its just roleplay or short snippets. If you can't 'feel out' what a character would do in a situation, that's when it's time to think about their goals for how they want to be seen as a person (including, if they don't want to be seen at all...!) and what hard boundaries they have say, morally.

I am by no means a like. Expert on any of this. I'm fumbling through it all just as much as the next guy (AND... I'M ACTUALLY SOMEWHAT OF A HYPOCRITE. I THINK CHARACTERS ARE BEST SEEN AS 'NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTS' RATHER THAN 'PEOPLE', SO ALL THIS ADVICE BEING SO CHARACTER FOCUSED RATHER THAN NARRATIVE FOCUSED IS MISSING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES LOL....) but apparently people do Like my characters? So, what do I know i suppose LMAO

[sualne]

Listen as someone who has been obsessed with vampires like my entire life (but not in a ooh there sexy way its like the symbolism man of what vampires can mean) i am a huge fan of your op vanpire au.

I know you just made a post with lore (amazing art btw) but is there anything else about the au you want to talk about. Id love to hear everything

there's a lot of things i want to talk about the au!! im going to use the frantic energy from the year to get myself some bravery and say some of it is inspired by my own experiences with hallucinations and delusion (dont ask about it pls), with the au i want to explore what it would be like having the person who changed you being very literally stuck with you.

i love stories where characters end up sharing a mind and/or body, i also really dont like when its just good person vs bad person, nuance is a lot more fun lol. the relationship luffy and mingo will be forced into stuck as they are is something important to me. mingo is an awful monster but since he can feel everything luffy does he ends up trying to teach him how to live as a vampire, how to take care of himself. im also very found of the concept of parasite (they're literally the worst thing ever and so fucking scary, so naturally they keep coming up in my stories).

it's also about luffy's body and mind failing him, because of the mindlink he has a hard time knowing where he is, sometimes who he is, what is relationships were supposed to be with others, it gets complicated for him! how hard it is to go through one's daily life when your sense are all messed up! (mingo also struggles with that a bit, but this isn't about him, even thought it's new for him too he get used to it much more easily for plot convenience).

other's ppl reaction to the situation also, i feel, completely unconsciously was also incidentally inspired by my own fear of being seen as a monster or dangerous, something to be put down or locked away!

there's also a few jokes in that lore post that reflects this here:

bugs are a pretty common brand of hallucination, be they crawling in the corner of your sight or inside you, making you feel like a walking hives, this was a funny reference to that!

"surprisingly he doesn't start biting people or become violent." this is my not very subtle "mentally ill and neurodivergent folks aren't inherently dangerous pls stop killing us". the occasional euphoria from bloodthist is vaguely inspired by some manic episode, the happy kind.

there's more, about the way this is about trauma and feeling alienated, i guess this is also a "character realize they've got a disorder/develop one and now has to live with it" kind of story.

[deoidesign]

Hello I stumbled across your profile and I just say I love your art style! I've gotta ask, how'd your develop it? And do you have any advice for someone who can't decide what they want their art to look like?

Thank you so much!

To be entirely honest, I don't feel like I truly "developed" my style. I feel a lot more like I finally let myself draw it! But I am incredibly deliberate with my work, and I do have clear tendencies and preferences... So I'll do my best to explain how I got to where I am now as an artist.

It's important to remember that "style" is something of a nebulous concept. It changes with you as you grow as a person, and most artists can work in and emulate many art styles! Art really is a form of communication with yourself, and your "style" is a reflection of the tendencies and preferences you have. My art does not look how it looked 5 years ago, and my art will look different 5 years from now too. I've changed, and my art reflects that!

(2012, 2018, 2023; two pieces I remember being incredibly proud of and considered my best work up til that point, and then my most recent piece)

What you need to do, as everyone will tell you, is study the fundamentals (anatomy, perspective, form and structure, lighting and shadow, color, and composition) so you have the proper tools to make the most informed decisions possible about your art, and so you can deliberately break or follow rules as you please for your desired effect. I know it sounds silly to learn rules if you're not gonna be following them anyways, but they help you be much more consistent and intentional! More knowledge is NEVER a bad thing to have!

However, I know it's a bit demoralizing to just be told to study fundamentals. Everyone knows you're supposed to do that, but it takes YEARS to learn, and people want their art to feel how they want it to now (which is very very very normal to want!)

So on that front, I have 2 follow up suggestions that I personally find helpful (of course, everyone is different, so it's not like this is the only way to learn! But, if it resonates with you, it might mean it will work for you too.)

1: Separate study from application

I believe this is beneficial for a few reasons:

If the goal of every piece is learning, it can become frustrating, overwhelming, and boring

It's harder to self critique when there are multiple variables to investigate. I like to study one fundamental at a time

Study (usually) works best with a large quantity of output, whereas application of knowledge (finished pieces) is often more satisfying and effective when you get to take your time

Deliberate practical application of what you've learned in a finished piece helps cement the learning in your mind, and also lets you get satisfying finished pieces with noticeable improvement after a good study session!

I've found that keeping these things separate helps me improve faster and more deliberately, and it takes a lot of the pressure off of both aspects! I'm not worried about my studies looking beautiful, they're just to learn! And I don't feel pressured to critique my finished pieces, cause they're just for fun and to make something pretty. I personally find this helps me have a much healthier relationship with my art.

When studying, copy! Copy things as best as you can, all the time. It gives you something to compare to for self critique (and of course, if you're copying someone else's work and you share the study, ALWAYS give credit, share the original, and say it was for study.) In application, don't copy: reference. Make it yours!

2: Let yourself do the things that feel "easy" or like "cheating"

This one is simpler: nothing in art is easy.

If something feels easy to you, most of the time it's not because it's actually any easier... It's because it's part of your natural tendencies and preferences! This took me forever to realize, but as long as you're actually doing some study, then you're learning. You don't need to learn All The Time. When you're doing the "application" portion, you should let yourself do whatever is actually the most fun and feels easiest! This is where your style will start to come through, and where you get to learn about yourself. Take the pressure off, and have fun!!!

The only cheating in art is theft. If you're not stealing, then it's allowed!

My whole life (and yes, still!) I'd get regular criticism about both my style and my subject matter. You will too. You'll see a thousand different styles, and a hundred different things to admire in each. Your heart will ache that you don't draw like others do.

But art is a form of communication with yourself. It's like your voice, or your accent; just something that's a part of you! It can be fun to mimic others', but when you sit to have a conversation you speak naturally. (I know some people want to and do change their voice, but this is a metaphor and metaphors aren't perfect)

Don't stress so much about what you want your art to look like, especially if you're not sure. There's a lot of value to be had in constant experimentation, I think it'd be rather boring to only draw one style the rest of my life. What I draw is what I want to see, right now, for who I am now! It's a part of me and comes naturally, if I let it!

I hope this helps!

[strawbubbysugar]

[blaithnne]

Top five animals, Sadie. I trust you.

I can’t count

[iamthepulta]

i did it u_u

[pink-lemonadefairy]

idk if it’s worth it to post this but i did deactivate blumisiu. rip 🪦💔 putting this here just in case people get Confused.

i reblogged all my works on @blumisiu-archive, though <3

[2hoothoots]

"Dion! Dioooon!" Mirtala’s voice rang out across the campsite; clear like a bell, pleading like a kitten’s mew, and shrill in the way only the cries of a five-and-a-half-year-old girl could be. Dion winced. Nona had always said, ever since the day Mirtala had been born, that she had ‘a good pair of lungs’. Dion thought that was a nice way of saying that she was loud. She’d been a loud baby, and now she was a loud little girl, who didn’t seem to have realised that she didn’t need to yell all the time. Especially when the person she was trying to talk to was only a few feet away through an open window. He sighed, fixing his own grim expression resolutely in the mirror. “What is it?” Mirtala’s bells jingled, and in his peripheral vision he could see her stretch up to put her little hands on the edge of the dressing-room windowsill. "I have a question," she announced. "Can it wait?" "No! It's important!" "I'm kinda busy here, Tala–" "But it's the importantest!" This was not a battle he was going to win. Dion put down the pot of pomade, and turned to where Mirtala's huge blue eyes were peering up at him through the open window. "Fine," he said. "What do you want?" Mirtala, with some ceremony, tucked her hands behind her back and tipped her head. "Are crabs fishes?"

i've been off work this week, so finished up this long-neglected wip! a couple years before the events of the games, Dion takes Mirtala and Raz to an aquarium.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Adventures through Liminal Spaces.

[zeroducks-2]

Me in 2018, writing a specific whump dynamic that makes me tear up, gag and feel like I'm going to be physically sick: OH wow I wonder what's wrong with me today hahaha haha

Me in 2023, still tearing up, gagging and feeling like I'm going to be physically sick every time I write that specific whump dynamic: Hey it only took me five years to identify a trigger! I'm so smart!!

[evanescentdawn]

Making soft landing in concrete

Fic for IR BigBang! 🍓@ichirukicollab. Artists: @hakucho-art and (twt) @0516_AMC <3

Pairing: kuchiki rukia/kurosaki ichigo

Tags: alternative universe — college/university, reunions, angst and feels, fluff and humor

Rating: teens

Chapter(s): 1 and 2

summary:

“…Ichigo?”

He knows that voice. Ichigo turns around with a thundering heart.

She stands in front of him. Impossible as it should be. Her eyes lock with his, looking as shocked as he feels.

Ichigo and Rukia have an unexpected reunion at university, where the last time they’ve seen each other was years ago, at highschool….until Rukia’s sudden transfer.

[ON AO3]