- Updated character bios:
- Chiharu Matsuda
- CRAVE (Seychelle Nuvia)
- Added images:
- Vivien Belgica
- Wilhelm Doctorow
- Bella Luna
- Mitchie Xavier
- Tony Santos
- CRAVE
- Lenny
- Added watermarks to existing images:
- Carmen Serafim
- Ofelia Luna
- CRAVE
- Lenny
- Minor gallery tweak to some pages for consistency.
Changelog:
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Whenever I feel like the amount of characters I make or acquire spirals out of control, I have the urge to merge some characters together, or give some designs away. I was fine with simply trading them for art, raffling them off, or giving them to whoever asked first.
The next time I part with a character design (and additional art of that character) that I am allowed to resell, I may be more reluctant to accept art. I always love art of my characters, but some extra cash to buy consumables (rubber gloves, disposables) for my classes is always nice. Characters with personal-use physical items that I will never sell (e.g. keybies of 松田千春 and a shirt of Philia) will always be with me. The most I'd do is retire such a character that I no longer intended to use (e.g. Finch Able, Jay Naic, Makoto Hiiragi.) The first two died in the Vast Purge, nullifying their existence in my current settings. Makoto died before the Vast Purge, but passing mention of him where relevant will suffice. This is where it begins -- one character rehomed or deleted, until entire stories are scrapped, even the ones that received so much of my love and labour. Almost four months ago, I purged many of my characters, not only from Toyhou.se, but also from my online back-ups. (I still have some artwork of these old characters on my external harddrive, but I will delete these files as soon as I find them.) It took me almost three months to delete most of them from Weebly, because I deleted Chiharu's page by mistake (and I wanted to avoid contacting support just to have some pages reinstated.) I also ended up having to reupload many of my characters to Toyhou.se I had accidentally purged. After holding off on a decision for a long time, I decided to reinstate links for completed projects that I have "released". The correct term is "retired," or even "disowned." While I no longer intend to continue or reboot Salvo_Project, others may still find it to be of interest. I will update this blog once I make a decision about the fate of the series. March was the month when all the stress I had from Salvo_Project reached a breaking point. I wasn't certain if I'd pass gross anatomy and neuroscience - I fared well in the third grading period of the former subject, but I was not sure if it was enough to offset my performance in the first semester. Neuroscience, on the other hand, "is everyone's problem," according to one of my mentors. I did not want to get delayed by a year just because of one subject. I knew my problem. I lacked focus. It's easy for me to get distracted, to lose myself in the worlds I've created, in the characters I've treated as and referred to as my "babies," in flights of ideas, in brainstorming for the next chapter of Salvo_Project at the wrong time. I love every bit of medical school, and it bothered me that I could not go through a single day without getting at least one thought about my stories in the middle of class. I would not be surprised if people think I'm spaced out too often, or if it seemed like I had my own world. Salvo I / ANOTHERTOKYO (2012) Salvo began some time in 2012 as a story heavily inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei series, shortly before I made this Weebly site. Since then, I tried to write Salvo countless times, but never finished anything by that name. I wrote the first version of Salvo in 2012, but never finished it. That became "ANOTHERTOKYO". I do not know if I still have any copies of the full draft (doubtful,) but that is a story that I do not intend to revisit. Shin Megami Tensei very strongly influenced my creative output for five (!) years, and vestiges of inspiration from the series can still be found in some of my more recent work, but I wish to distance myself from work strongly referencing the series. Shin Megami Tensei was a game I played throughout the most difficult (and miserable) times of my life. It fed my escapism more than any other work of fiction and I felt like it was consuming me. To this day, I am a huge fan of the music from the series (especially soundtracks from the Persona franchise,) but I've linked the series to many people, pains, and things I no longer wish to remember. Seeing characters I initially made for the series (in fanwork and communities) was no longer healthy when they brought me to tears and rendered me laying down in bed for a few hours. Salvo II / Chain of Curse / Retrogenesis II (2013) I tried to write Salvo again in 2013, as yet another entry to NaNoWriMo. I renamed this story to "Chain of Curse" when the direction I wanted "Salvo" to take changed drastically -- Chain of Curse became an "origin" story of sorts, albeit the fifth in a series. Someone who comes across this page and happens to be SMT-savvy will recognise the reference in the title. This was no longer a SMT fan story, it was my own world. Yuan and Yuri -- I am still mulling over whether I'd like to keep them with me or not -- were loosely inspired by two people who were very close to me at the time. A lot of development for Yuri, in particular, was made with one of these people. It might be for that reason that it's very hard for me to let go of Yuri. Long story short, one of those people abruptly ceased contact with me. I still speak to the other person from time to time, but as I came to know that person better, I realise that the way I portray Yuan is disrespectful. I wanted to make a good high fantasy-cum-sci-fi story, just as I tried with the original Retrogenesis (initially entitled "exilium".) I did not have a good idea of how to convincingly write a Russian man or a Japanese woman. High fantasy was a genre that fascinated me, but it was not my forte. I was vehemently denying to myself that prose was not my forte. The Three Books (Dear Daiary, Operation May, OMEN) (2013-2014) "Books" may be an inaccurate term. What began as a short story I adapted to Subeta.net for use as an "anonymous plot" (a (usually) interactive story delivered through anonymous gifts that recipients post to the forums) became three anonymous plots. "Letters from May" / "Dear Daiary" was the simplest (and possibly the sweetest.) "Operation May" was the hardest to match. I spent a few months making that plot, with more than a month poured into the "mini-game" made on the Urban Dead Wiki. It was not too difficult to adapt these stories to Subeta lore, since there were many parallels between Eidhu and Skedhu (Eidhu was originally named Ordale itself, but I grew to prefer the former.) I enjoyed making Operation May. It did not come across to me that I could make a multi-media plot that could reel people in, a story whose characters other people can have emotional investment in. Though I've retired its entire (!) cast, Perhaps it was with some hubris that I thought I could turn "OMEN" into a successful plot. I knew that the system of The Order was too confusing without a guide or explanation -- I even made a chart to clarify some people's confusion. I no longer had the time to create something as huge (in terms of length and scale) as Operation May, both on the writing side and the gifitng side (I did my best to make the gifts follow a theme based on the story, but some items became too expensive.) I knew that OMEN may be the last plot I'd make for Subeta, if only because I felt none of my future creative outputs would best OpMay. I am still happy that I was able to finish these three stories. They were the best release I had at the time. Without my then-boyfriend, I'm sure I would not have been able to finish the series (he did supply dialogue for the Silent Observer, after all.) It was for this very reason that I believed I'd never part with the characters from these stories. I was so emotionally invested in them -- they were my most precious "babies". I think Peng started to follow my stories after he saw the Operation May mini-games on the Urban Dead Wiki. I have him to thank for all the feedback he has given me for my stories. We continue to collaborate on World's Craziest Hospital. I also gave him Vera Wong and ALiCE. He created so much art and had a lot of headcanons/ideas for the two, and I believe he's the only person who can take both characters to their full potential. I am pleased with his characterisations of the two, as of the time of writing. Casa Macoto (2014-2016) After OMEN, I started to work on a forum for OMEN, which would become the home to "Casa Macoto," the prequel to OMEN. I was following the interactive aspect of the Operation May Plurk pages, albeit with a dedicated forum this time. It was ambitious to try making threads spanning the ten years between the events of Operation May and OMEN. Events after OMEN leading up to Salvo were also supposed to be part of the project. I had to be creative with how I encorporated the dates, since I have no idea how to change the dates of threads and posts on ZetaBoards (is that even possible?) I used Casa Macoto as my motivation to finally write Salvo itself, which would have been the fifth part of Salvo_Project. It was while making Casa Macoto that I entertained the thought of my efforts towards Salvo being in vain. Something in me knew that I'd never be able to finish it. I wanted Salvo to be a magnum opus of sorts. I was afraid of failing when I had big ambitions for it. No, I did not want it to be a television series or some lucrative franchise. I just wanted to create a story I can accurately illustrate based on how it played out in my mind. With the persuasion of Peng, I knew Salvo HAD to be a comic series, not a work of prose. As part of the plot (and also because I was too busy to post as all 30 members of the forum,) I took the board offline. Little did I know that this would all end up in vain. Ironbane (2015) I started to move away from personally designing my characters since OMEN (where Nilas Salole, whose design was by nepheloyd, was a minor character.) There were designs I got on Subeta.net simply because of their visual appeal, but most of them did inspire longer stories. I used at least one of them in a roleplay. I began to collect some designs that fit characters I've fleshed out but had no visual appearance. Ironbane was one of the designs I got but had no set story for, until the ideas suddenly came rushing to me. I thought I'd be able to finish his tale, one that would link Phiem to the rest of the Senerian stories (especially the third incarnation of Salvo.) Just like the previous two NaNoWriMo entries, I never finished this -- more understandable since I was already in my first year of medical school at the time. The Breakdown Let's return to March 2016. I told my mother about my stories. She knows I wrote a few of them, but I never wanted her to read any of my literary work (unless it was something I was turning in for school. Pharmacy and medical studies do not really allow for a lot of prose.) She knew I was stressed out and bothered by something, but I was hesitant to tell her exactly what it was. I spent too much time updating my character profiles on Toyhou.se. I never got to draw the anatomy "comics" I wanted to do because most of the art I did was not related to medical school (it's a wonder that I managed to turn in most of my histology worksheets.) I don't like being behind schedule, but I was so disorganised at the time. All because I spent an inordinate amount of time doing things not related to my studies. My mother suggested that I let go of some characters. It made me feel a bit better, but it wasn't enough. She came with the idea of releasing the stories I have not finished and apologising to everyone I owed art to (she was always opposed to me taking art commissions during the regular school year, but now, she does not want me to take them at all.) The latter was easy, but I just did not have the heart to do that. The former, however... I cried. Possibly for two hours. I spent years developing these creations of mine. It did not make sense for me to let go of stories I have already finished, but without knowing how much stress I gave myself for never being able to make something as satisfactory as Operation May (to my standards,) she told me that holding on to those stories may be the one thing that weighed me down. I tried to think about it carefully. I wanted to rationalise it, but I understood that she had a point. I also wrote the finished parts of Salvo_Project during turbulent times. They were my refuge. At a time I no longer played video games of any sort (I don't count Pokemon because you can put that game down and play it at your own pace if you're not constantly trading or battling other people online,) they fed my escapism. My breakdown mirrored Salvo itself. I always had plans for Salvo in my head - I knew how I wanted it to begin and end. I know a lot of the details I wanted to incorporate. I just did not believe in my ability to carry it out. I was impatient, but also exhausted. It was time for me to lay it to rest. Salvo was borne out of loneliness and unhappiness, no wonder it made me so unhappy to carry on with it even if the thrill of completing the story would be rewarding in itself. It was detrimental to my mental health. Just as Vera Wong committed omnicide in a desperate bid to save her world, I killed off characters and stories left and right in a desperate bid to save my sanity. I cannot let go of trying to develop stories, but I believe I may be able to attenuate my insatiable creatives urges over time (or at least, suspend them indulging in them is no longer a luxury.) Now that I am left with stories borne out of recovery and hope, I believe these will not be as distracting. Time will tell whether I will finish these, but I'm not in a rush this time. Today's Updates:
I only have two weeks before my classes resume. I have ten subjects for this semester (yikes!) and even ignoring my extra-curricular involvement, my schedule is packed. It's funny that it's when I'm not supposed to be taking on creative endeavours that I get so much inspiration for my stories. This is the reason why I don't like to watch series / read fictional books even when I have nothing better to do.
For the last few days, I've been working with a mini-comic concept for Medici del Mondo. I don't think I'll make it a full-blown comic series. I'll just have comics for some situations/backstories that I feel require more exposition. Might also do a page (or more) of dauntless before the semester begins, now that I don't owe others as much art as I did when my "vacation" began. I've really wanted to develop Storge and Virtus further, because they're my current muses. I do want to work on the rest of Medici del Mondo's board (and possibly some of the aiDOLLS) as well. We'll see what will happen, but I anticipate a dearth of art updates during the semesters and more writing / worldbuilding. Now that Weebly added the ability to set a page as a navigational menu (eliminating the need for me to think of a description for "nested page" placeholders, I took some time to re-organise the comics section. Today's Updates:
The lack of meaningful updates on this site for a few weeks has less to do with my schedule (I have more idle moments than I'd like to admit) than with my other preoccupations. I'm hoping to taper my activity on another website before the semester starts -- it's very time consuming if you're active in its events.
At the same time, recently rediscovering Minecraft (my laptop can no longer handle it, so I use the Pocket Edition) allowed me to explore some ideas I had for the Post-Purge world. I stealth-updated a few pages (not currently visible to the public) a few days ago. If some of the things I recently planned are not feasible (i.e. the formation of a landmass from underwater volcanic eruptions,) I may scrap them. Considering the entire premise of the New World's creation, it's unlikely. As Peng and I throw ideas at each other for our collaborative project, "World's Craziest Hospital," I've also been able to give some of my characters a little more characterisation. I hope to be able to write more about them (or ideally, have small comics showing more of their personality traits) in the near future! |
Archives
July 2019
For April 2015 (Casa Macoto) and July 2015 (Viatralles/Vitrialles.) For April (Operation May) and July 2014 (OMEN.) |