where Warrior Cats is concerned, I find book packaging typically creatively bankrupt, let alone a HarperCollins deal with like 7 ghostwriters writing under a psuedonym ... it's not anybody's baby, passion, or pride, it's essentially just a franchise ordered by a publishing company to sell to a niche, to make money, and whenever these sorts of things are wildly successful, I feel kind of bleak. If it was some individual cat lover's passion project and pet world they'd developed, I'd feel more indifferent, but the reality of it is pretty grim to me. I think it shows in the inconsistency of even cat's markings or basic details being lost between books; it's obviously being juggled between ghost writers who don't care. A work created this sort of way kind of can't have coherency, meaning, themes, direction...

As far as I understood the first author didn't even like cats ? and no part of the worldbuilding or world to me, seems to come from someone who loves cats or perhaps even animals ... by comparison, say, Watership Down or even Ga'hoole are more endearingly infodumping you real animal facts, or trying to base their culture and lives on their ecology ... (though I didn't read ga'hoole growing up, I did like Watership Down)

I don't really talk about this because I imagine it would just make 100,000 people angery and feel judged or defensive. And maybe like snip at me for liking, Pokemon, or some other franchise with a very soulless creative team... hypocrite.... . But you know, I don't look down on people who love Warrior Cats, especially people with childhood nostalgia for it, I mean book packaging is successful for a reason ... companies know what kids or tweens or teens want ... arbitrarily, I find Warrior Cats a drag.

As a child it was of course simpler, I just didn't (and don't) like this 'style' of worldbuilding for ferals ?? it feels ahnnn boring and pointless to meee ... whenever there's some sort of, set of rules and religion and a belief system that is Real and True within the series lol, The Warrior Code, starclannnmmm mm clanssssz its offputting. It feels too adjacent to christianity to me at times so, it's not an escapist fantasy ................ I don't want to be subjected to any of this nonsense -.- as a cat... how tedious....

Moreover it's like, if it's not interesting with HUMANS, it's not actually going to suddenly become interesting with ANIMALS. I don't care for some sort of psuedo-tribal spiritualism clan war bullshit glkfjdg;ldlkdjgs;glskg;dgkdsl;g;f I don't care if it's a Medicine Cat ... it's boring ... series of Rules and Roles ...

Redwall is about the same in its own way, I do not care for this, style, of world and universe, either, it doesn't make it better that it is, mice and whatall... there are a lot of series about like tiny knight mice and kings and whatever, I sleep ........... I sleep ..... not a genre of intrigue... things like Warrior Cats or Redwall, I felt like, yeah this is a Genre that Exists and that I am Dodging as a child into ferals, I'm like.. "ughhh but not like this".

these days I just get like sad when I see a cute cat OC and am like KITTY!!! and then its like ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh they're always warrior cats lol, I wish I saw more cat OCs in people's own worlds..... can't cats have sex without being apprentices and warriors...

Flickr.com is a photography website I regularly use for nature and animal photography.

It helps to first try to find specific names of ecosystems, parks, in a general wiki search before going into a deep dive! For instance I may search for ONSEN-> then browse specific ONSEN located in mountain regions-> discover 'Towa-Hachimantai National Park' & be able to seek photos of that specific park.

I may search for 'peat bog'-> discover 'Shropshire Wildlife Trust'-> find a whole list of specific reserves under that trust's umbrella I can browse for reference of specific environments!

inaturalist is also valuable for unique new photos of unusual, rare animals.

I like searching animal names in Japanese on twitter, as a lot of photographers and zoos tag their photography on twitter via hashtags! Then you can browse their RTs, or who they follow.

for information on size/weight I utilize a combination of dimensions.com & animalia.bio

and of course youtube is an IMMENSE resource; many zoos, sanctuary, aviary, post endless resources or longform content on whatever animal your looking for. Stable Horse Training is for instance my favorite for horse body language and herd dynamics! Kingsdown Ferrets has loads of beautiful wonderful Ferret footage! Creek Valley Critters has delightful mouse footage!

ohh yeah, for whatever reason I've had much less of an impulse to make tumblr posts or otherwise large thoughts this winter! He's in general gradually become a lot less active publicly and posts mostly to his patreon, as of late. His casual scribbles be there monthly.

It's pretty normal for us to swing into less & more active phases depending on season, and winter is pretty low-key. Spring tends to be more spritely!!

And some other offline stuff going on lately I thuppose :o3 but all positive stuff mooostly!!! he's got dingdang eye surgery coming up soon... iyaaa... so May will probably also be quite low-key ........ as he Recovers....

Its also kind of been the launch of SILKSONG, REANIMAL, Silent Hill f, among other things, so we've just been streaming more and sharing our presence in that way! Rather than making a bunch of posts, we just do hours of streams and share those >> the winter of ... gamez...

but all this said definitely don't worry about us hehe. I hope our streams at least serve as proof we're just goofing off together IRL like we always dooooo

I've drawn fish in a context like predation in particular, and I could see something like that working for these (like a kitten monching a bunch of bubble-eye goldfish or betta or something)... but I'm sorry if the desire here would be more like fish protagonist!! It's a little hard for me to wrap my head around, but mostly just 'cuz of the highly differing sexual anatomy/sexuality expression. I'm pretty basic and just like humping, mounting, biting, penetration etc, not so much into spawning... I could see fish being an Element of a scene with other creatures, but not a central role role. For one I've got planned I'm planning some salamanders to feature in the BG... there is space in my mind for oddball things, tadpoles, minnows, baby frog, buggies... as a part of the world.

OVERALL my expectations for PP are incredibly low, but in the lighthearted and fun way. All I seek, are fun environments and a silly cute creature/toy. And some Child Torture ig.

I would say ch5 (Broken Things) had more in this vein than ch4 (Safe Haven), which barely had anything delightful for me to sink my teeth into! The Doctor's aesthetic and the pretty generic robotic, vibes, most of the rooms, prisons, were nothing altogether new or stimulating, didn't play as camp to me. And I think of PP as a kind of camp horror, like FNAF is, it's honestly ABOUT the silliness and absurd extremes, not really meant to be taken seriously, I consider these franchises as motivated by humor and amusement as 'horror'. I felt like it got distracted and was like, "no kids we can be Cool Too! In the way Gamer love" SLAPS THEM!!! NO!! ALL THINGS SHOULD GO BOING WHEN YOU HIT THEM!!!!

Nothing has ever topped ch3 (Deep Sleep) which was such a peak in every way!! Traveling in this GONDOLA while a man gives an EPCOT-era Walt-level speech, the PLAYCARE, the ORPHANS, Ollie is the funniest thing ever, love how he sounds like a child detective in a 90s edutainment CD-ROM... etc etc. Catnap is sexy and getting into this hilarious orphan-into-ghoul pipeline is top notch. We get a fun peep into player character psyche in the form of a guild-ridden nightmare, the cool TV Huggy sequences... (: I was in that playcare... running thru the tubes and throwin my body around the padded walls... wheeeeeee

Ch 4, I liked Safe Haven (the place) to some extent but...? Everything outside of that quite plain or pretty standard, felt a bit like I was in a different game universe. But moving on to, 5 (Broken Things)....

LOVED THE INDOCTRINATION TAPES!!! WOOOO so funny and so everything, Whim and I were like, auuuhhh I wanna be sooooft yeeessss ahhh my friends--! Yaaaaaay! I think they shoulda gone harder into a Big Comfy Couch energy but I still like it as it is! That this was an element of things is in that sphere of camp/humor I go to something like PP for!

Lily Lovebraids herself is aesthetically not anything but, her house was very spectacular and the kind of environment I'm thirsty for after ch4 being so thin on the bone. I really loved the different playful environments, I could kind of imagine a world where a bunch of kids-turned-toys are scampering around the equipment in-character as Smiling Critters and like, shot with a dart if they aren't joyous about it. THATS WHAT I WANNA THINK ABOUT!!! wheeeeeeeeeeee

Getting to go through Huggy's memories and play as Huggy felt like, YESSS !! and also omfg of course, now this is what everyone would want out of PP, right?! Let me into the memories of the tortured childrens firsthand. I WANNA BE A CURSED TOUY!!! I wanna go on a murder rampage with my big fluffy arms :DDD A LOT OF THESE FRANCHISES WON'T GIVE YA WHAT YA WANT!!!! thank you PP

I had guessed the Prototype would be some sort of Dr. Loveless Spidertaur and I was more or less right, but the jester angle, I hadn't anticipated at all, and... I'm amenable to it, enough, it's not as bad as it could be. I'm kind of intrigued by Ollie's psyche choosing a jester persona? With what we know of him... hmm. I fucks with him still. It cannot be helped that literally every time he talks at all Whim and I go "you'd sound like this if you could", he nods and hides his face and sighs. If you want to know Whim's Heart, his True Self, it would sound something like Prototype. And the Ollie persona critically in tandem. It's ahhhnn... just how it is...

Uhm so its like Confirmed then that Ollie and Poppy are essentially brother and sister, epic win. BUCKETS. The vibes in light of this, top notch. While the aspect of having once been jealous of daddy's obsession with Poppy was initially tiresome, I'm intrigued by Ludwig's suggestion that Ollie would like Poppy, and the following period of time wherein Ollie DOES get to meet and comfort Poppy...? and how that congeals into the goal to protect her, destroy everything for her, now... he's become single-focus. I like that he has lost his sense of still 'being Ollie', in my mind in the same way someone like Hanako no longer thinks of the person he is as 'Amane'. In this mindset, having performed as Ollie for all of ch3 becomes very interesting psychologically, eh? Ollie's dialogue was so cutesy and innocent and put-on... love that for Prototype. A vision of your past self as so precious.

I guess it's stimulated me enough to be tapping my finger against my teeth about it. Hrmmm.

Harley Sawyer I wrestle with lol. When he came back at the end we were like NOOOO!!!

The problem with Harley Sawyer is his Coolness Factor makes me cringe out of my body, this kind of character I see as, the most annoying thing guys come up with. Ouughhh just a supergenius scientist man who is all domineering and calm and Truly Evil... but if I TRY to move past that, there is like, that weird element where Sawyer was like another psuedo-son to Ludwig ??????? They kind of have a Tai Lung & Shifu thing going on, where Ludwig really believed in and empowered Sawyer as a child, but let him go in the end for the Bad Vibes he was giving off. He Never Understood What Progress Is All For (Love Smiles Family Etc). I just wrestle with how annoyingly Kimblee FMA he is, you know. But they could, pull it back for me, if they could dig into the Ludwig history. He's all Unflappable Genius now but he was an unstable child once! Can we tap into that...

So. We've got this. Repetitive theme of Daddy Doesn't Love Me. Many such cases. Poppy the absolutely original child who died, the precious perfect daughter. Sawyer the protégé case, neglected/unloved genius child with some generic Videogame Sociopath Unspecified Disorder who is eventually rejected/abandoned by Daddy Ludwig. Oliver seemed to be a child procured in some manner after Poppy's death, seemingly an experiment case with a complex about dad's fixation on Dead Daughter. Well, these things make enough sense as a pattern...

as far as I understand much of Ollie's origin is still a mystery ?? But GOD KNOWS this game loves to just Throw documents at you with no build-up so maybe I've missed something... I don't know if Ollie was ever a real child, an adoption case, or entirely some sort of, Experimental Faux Child for Ludwig to test-run things on the path to somehow reviving Poppy. A stepping stone. But I'm intrigued if his endgame was to simply have Two Children in the end, and if Ollie was ? designed ? in concert to her in some way, made to be her friend as much as a prototype for revivification. Designed for Poppy to love?

That mutilated child body found with Ludwig's body was ? probably Ollie ?
But then its like OK. Did Leith Pierre murder and frame Ludwig in order to take over the company (he has the more 'ultimate complete evil monster no redeeming qualities' thing going on, while also sounding like Cave Johnson so you know the devs have a boner for him), or did Harley Sawyer do it out of revenge for Ludwig's rejection/abandonment (I feel this is a red herring... but whatever).

Now actual chapter discussion is like, while I love Lily Lovebraids' barbie dreamhouse, I have no idea why this was chosen as the set for Prototype face reveal and reunion with Poppy .... it has 0 significance to us or to them, as far as I know. I would have really liked something more personal lol, even returning back to the glass case room he had imprisoned her in...? Why is Lily here, I feel so nothing for her... can we have a moment.

I liked the Prototype describing Poppy as designed to be a child... do you not see yourself as a child, Ollie....? I doubt we will ever meaningfully delve into how the various children perceive themselves but, well I'll think about it. Did Catnap still feel like a child, no matter how many years passed? Gracie did have a whole mantra about being as kid forever.... and growing up being scary...

To meaninglessly connect 100 thoughts, Ollie not personally seeing himself as child-minded as a Catnap or Poppy (who he feels at will to manipulate), does not say much about what may be true about him. Asriel Dreemurr came to see himself as something so far from his original child self, as Flowey, as God of Hyperdeath, but in the end, his tantrums and behavior are all extraordinarily childish. We couldn't earnestly say he 'matured' in those decades of resets, couldn't say he 'grew up'. Of course he didn't! He just became a kid going through torture endlessly. Chara I would say is the same way, of course, even if the vision of self is something like, The Demon that Comes When you Call Its Name, that in-and-of-itself is a product of a child's black/white thinking. I'm always down for a gap between perception and reality.

anyway,

Unlike a lot of people I don't REALLY have a problem with them constantly throwing more stupid nonsense at us, because I would love for this train to keep on rolling in perpetuity, 100 chapters Poppy Playtime, and they should throw as many toys at my eyeballs as they can until they trip over a really sexy one (again) (catnap) (everyone agrees). HOWEVER!!! DIAL IT BACK FOR DA IMPACTFUL MOMENTS!! Make a big yarn lion chase us all around for an hour sure, make a baker's dozen ugly little trolls, BUT!!! Trim it dooooown to like 3 bodies for big moments.

Wait I went this far and I never talked about Spore Grox. What in the world is that. I can't even make sense of him aesthetically in comparison to the PP cast. And what is his name, GIBLET? He should be named something like Scroomples or Eebies or Wally Wonk !! Bibly!!! Babbling Bawp!! I wish he died in a fire, I hate that we are going into ch6 with this ugly freak. Chomp or whatever is fine he's cool.

I liked Huggy & Kissy reunion moment but I slightly don't know how to interpret it in conjunction with previous scenes. But whatever. They won't replay their own game before writing new chapters WHO WOULD?? It could not matter less. I hope they, fuse into, 1 Huggy ... wouldn't that be sweet. The HuggyKissy... the WuggyMissy.... and it could be our friend. It could have 2 arms and 4 legs ... which is kind of another centaur, perfect, it can have a kaiju battle with, Prototype...

Not into diapers at all, neither of us will ever want to draw them! Extremely aesthetic & textural & experiential NO!!! for both of us haha. We find them extremely a turn-off!!!! They've become so ubiquitous in recent years and much more entangled with general lolisho on the western side, which has been a shock to me. I never used to see it so much. Odd cultural shift to me! I guess it's a very stark visual signifier of something...? I always saw it as super niche...

Honestly the age of which a baby wears a diaper is ahm, extremely narrow and not at all relevant to me...? Not a babyfucker at all... not projecting .... not uhm trying to be 1.... there is such a VAST DIFFERENCE between a, 1 year old's experiences and feelings and, even a 5 year old or more relevantly, 11 or 14, 15 etc. Not a headspace I occupy....

I also have no personal fond memories or nostalgia associated with diapers ?? I guess I don't think of diapers as comforting or cozy or fun for babies??? If I was a baby or thinking about being a baby I would probably like to be naked. They tend to hate all clothes....

In terms of what we like about piss, it's definitely that animalistic edge, the look of it, smell warmth, etc, tragic to not let it flow freely </3 imagining soaked diaper makes me feel itchy and rashy... what a waste of piss...

As for pacifiers, much more applicable, though not a passionate or vetted interest; seems fun and comforting, sometimes it's cute to think a particular character might cling to pacifier past the age they are meant to be taken away, perhaps hiding or stealing them to continue use. As a sign of someone being stunted or unwilling to give up comfort, we can enjoy. I could see whim enjoying one IRL for the mouth stim idly.

Laughing a bit at the "not a fetish question in any way" .... ??? do you remember where you are??? He is out here drawing Sunny with a pacifier receiving a blowjob from his sister.......... I kind of think for us this sort of thing could only be a fetish or accessory to. Not personally employing some sort of nonsexual agere as I hear about these days .... we are porn brained and fetish motivated... I'm sorry if it'd be better to answer it as ? SFW ? interest ? but for our own lives and brains I can't untangle it from fetish.

Not generally, no!! Well... it depends on what is 'small' dunnit. I tend to conceptualize a lot of ideas on a theme all at once and pitch them all on one big canvas, sometimes making that canvas bigger or smaller along the way. The individual drawings will be quite small often, but I'm workshopping a whole set of them, discarding and adding willy-nilly.

That said I overall much prefer to work in small sizes with a 1px brush or at most, 6px or something. So generally nothing gets very 'large' in the, like, '300dpi print size' sense! For instance, my various DELTARUNE pieces recently made, were all conceptualized at once on a canvas about 8,000px x 5,000px. That includes all of the references, thumbnails, of around 10 pieces I was conceptualizing (not all were finished). The final individual images when cut out were more like 600px x 500px.

My SPLATOON pieces were all on one canvas around 5,000px x 1,000px. One of the final images cut from it is around 500px x 500px.

I tend to thumbnail a bunch of things at once, then ink everything at once, etc, so even if it will eventually be 10 discreet individual images, they often start out on the same canvas. I have a habit of completing things in 'batches'...

I tend to like a lot of 'gutters', excess room all around to 'cut out' and move things around in, if I want to re-draw a portion of a drawing or take another whack at it, I want to just duplicate the chunk and keep it on retainer on the canvas, while I redraw it. So everything always has all of this scrap nonsense floating around the actual drawing. The very last thing I do is crop all of this nonsense out. My work often has 'frames' around drawings because this is just the most useful way to remember what I'm constraining things to, to remember the borders I'm imagining....