𝙵𝚘𝚜𝚌 ✘

𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙾𝙵𝙵𝙸𝙲𝙸𝙰𝙻 𝙶𝚁𝙸𝙼𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 𝙼𝙸𝚂𝙵𝙸𝚃𝚂 𝙱𝙻𝙾𝙶

Hi! My name is Fosc X, and this is the official blog for my passion project, The Grimport Misfits! Happy to have you here ♥ Feel free to shoot me an ask via the Grimport Post/Q&A button!

LINKS: ⤁ 𝙻𝙾𝚁𝙴 ⤁ 𝚂𝙷𝙾𝙿 ⤁ 𝚂𝚄𝙿𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 ⤁ 𝚂𝙾𝙲𝙸𝙰𝙻𝚂

The dads ❤️❤️ I love them dearly

Uh oh, Rick almost meets his maker AGAIN 😩🤌 for once it was a good reason, though, don't worry (YET)

Jake (Rick's and FJ's adopted son) never really would have met the Kostrovs had there not been for Maggie. She was the one who saw Jake being bullied, pulled Rick by the collar and went "You're scary, fix this".

And fix he did. Unfortunarely, Maggie didn't know at the time just how bad Jake's situation was and how tangled up in his story Rick would quickly become. It's what eventually lead to this situation which will haunt the family, especially Jake, for years to come, and Maggie couldn't help but blame herself.

She was, after all, the reason why Rick got involved in Jake's life, and as much as that was, above all, the right thing to do, she wasn't ready to almost lose her dad. Not after she lost her mother in such a similar way.

Maggie btw :(

Such a sad critter

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Still some of my favorite Rick drawings to date haha, I have to do more of theseee

#MyOC | "Blah blah blah pretty tall man blah blah" is what I imagine goes on inside of FJ's head when he's tolerating Rick's quadrillionth ramble about safety 😩 that and the irressistably sassy backtalking he's about to unleash

This is one of the book scenes (during the saddest book ofc, it's FJ's memory ❤️) and it's much longer than this, but since socials punish me when I post longer clips... you shall see it in parts muaHAHA

Anyway, Rick is scared of everything and, at this point in the story, FJ still thought Rick didn't have a reason for that. He also thought no one wouls hurt them because... why would anyone? Who are they that they'd deserve that?

Safe to say, FJ was very much wrong haha :,D and they did indeed have lots of things to worry about

Thank you SO MUCH as always to @/doofguyva (tiktok) for voicing Rick and @/pandavoicing (tiktok) for lending a voice to FJ 🥰❤️ I love their work!!

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❤️‍🩹 THEGRIMPORTMISFITS DOT COM ➾ Story lore

🐦‍⬛ My animations, art and upcoming books are all funded through this support and allow me to work on this project as a part time job, so any little bit helps the production 🐦‍⬛

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✨️ P♡treon and Ko-Fi Grimport Residents:

✮ Zo

✮ Fiishfinity

✮ Shepherd

✮ OddFandango

✮ Drakona

✮ OcelotTeddy

✮ NeonManatee

✮ Skullkid

✮ Awimoweh

✮ Kera A Braun

✮ Fr0stBites

✮ Kyan

✮ Bunnzybae

✮ Sara Prior

✮ Figment

✮ Saberton

✮ GCAT01

✮ That_one_weirdo_who_party_rocked_too_hard_and_now_her_knees_hurt

✮ Sam

✮ Dani C

✮ Jewls Reign

✮ Frankie-Ann Lovejoy

✮ Etchuron

Heyy! 🥰❤️

Definitely! You'll actually get a voice reveal for FJ in one of the upcoming book scenes I'll be posting after the last merch updates for the summer ❤️‍🩹❤️ patreons already heard him a few times, both in the trailer and in the scene sketches 🫂

We'll also get to meet Justus', Maggie's and Farci's voice actors in the trailer later in the year, and we'll hear some more of Misha. I have many more scenes recorded with some other characters as well, but those will be saved for some future scenes when I'm done with the trailer 🫶

The nights were never cold since these two met

A little comic study I did some years ago but never got around to posting it, but I still love it so much. These two go through way too many turmoils but they have the coziest times when life allows them. It's one of the things that keeps them perpetually stuck together. They make each other feel so safe and at home.

Of course, there IS the plot. And this is not the case at a certain point, but today... today we shall talk about softness alone

https://ko-fi.com/foscx ➾ THE KOSTROV TRACES TRAILER FUNDING

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- SH♡P ➾ Get charms, prints, stickers, and lots more!

- THEGRIMPORTMISFITS DOT COM ➾ Story lore

I'm hoping to get them on most major platforms, but I am yet to dabble in this sometime at the end of the year. They will for sure be available worldwide and online, as an ebook, paperback and a red-highlighted hardcover (or so that's the plan so far!)

I hope they'll be an interesting read! :D I put a lot of heart into them and so did my editors, so I do believe in them strongly, and I'm gonna do my best to make them visually cool pieces to have around ❤️ so far, each book in the trilogy has 25 full illustrations, illustrated chapter pages, first pages, and lots of random cool small visual elements to immerse you in the story!

No need to answer this if you don't feel comfortable! Cuz like whenever I make a Fan Art, my brain literally makes a small scene where I meet you irl and I'm like really really happy to finally have meet my most favorite content creator! (I also made a New Fan Art! I sent it on your IG DMs, hope you can open it by the time it's Father's Day 💛 I'm really excited for you to see it! Have a lovely time FoscX!)

Heyaa!

Only a few times! So far it's been a lovely experience haha :D I more often vaguely hear about people knowing about my art without knowing who I am or where I live, which is honestly kind of what I like most! I'm much more fond of letting my art live in the world on its own than I am of being the spokesperson for it (it's why I don't really show my face or talk about much besides work. It keeps this level of privacy I value a lot).

I totally wouldn't mind interacting with people, though! The few times it did happen, I've always had a really lovely time and they were all very lovely people, so I'd be delighted ❤️ if I ever went on one of those con-things where you sell your merch in person, I'd be more than happy to say hi 🥰

I'd definitely prefer to stay incognito in my general daily life, though. I'm kinda private and paranoid HAHAha so lots of things scare me :,D I'm much happier existing within textual form than in person just because it adds this level of safety.

If you had to compare or draw connections from your story to another piece of media, what would it be?

Do you have a playlist you've made for working on the Grimport Misfits? Or is there a specific show or YouTuber you put on in the background to keep yourself sane?

Does it ever feel odd to know people REALLY admire you and your story? If so, how do you deal with that?

Are there any massive changes you've had in your story since you first started working on THIS version of it, that make you look back and chuckle?

What breed is Rick's dog?

Are there any artists who've really inspired you to make this story, or that have inspired your art style?

How do you stay sane while animating??? It takes forever.

Are there any artists or writers you'd want to shout out or recommend people to check out?

Besides Rick, who is YOUR favourite Grimport character?

Outside of art, do you have any hobbies or interests?

What has the editing and publishing process on your first trilogy been like? Are there any words of wisdom you'd pass to other creators wanting to publish?

Is there anything that worries you about having a fandom?

If you had to correlate an animal to each of your characters, what would the animals be?

I'm sorry for how many questions there are 😭 I hope you don't mind answering them!! Have a good day ❤️

Hoy hoyy! 🥰❤️ I don't mind at all! I love answering these heheh the more the marrier!

Let us beginnn:

- I honestly wouldn't know what to compare it with. Obviously you guys will see comparisons between similar type of stories much easier, but since this story is generally inspired by life instead of other media, it's genuinely impossible for me to single out a piece of media to really say "Grimport is like this!". I will say, I do love literaly realism. I can only dream of achieving the level of writing these guys had, but I always had a similar need to talk about the social struggles of people, be it class, marginalization, or anything similar, so perhaps that's a line of similarity that can be drawn.

- I usually don't listen to music when I draw actually! I can only listen to music while writing and for that I do have spotify playlists, though I mix it up with random music sometimes, depending on the mood :D this one is for The Kostrov Traces for example.

While I animate and work in general, I usually either watch movies or put on youtube. This is generally a problem because I listen to movies without actually ever watching them haha so it sometimes takes years for me to properly "watch" something with my eyes lmao. I also love history docs about 20th century and internet mysteries, and I LOOOVE liminal space games. That's usually what's in the background if I'm not rewatching my favorite films for the 800th time.

- I don't think I ever really acknowledged people really do know this story outside of my head HAHA. I only had a few situations when people directly recognized me for what I do in real life and every time I was like "??? Wait how??" Haha 😭 it's like a separate reality so it's always a shock when people who aren't a part of my friendgroup actually come up to me and tell me they love my stuff, it's very humbling and heartwarming ❤️ this project is really all I ever wanted to be doing, and my mantra about posting has always been "so long as one person out there finds comfort in these guys as I have, it's worth it" and to have such a massive amount of people actually really liking these guys is the biggest compliment I could ever get. I truly cannot tell you how blessed I feel for that.

- Oh absolutely, there were a bunch of changes that happened since this is a super old story that was with me through all my life eras, including my OG angst teen era. The cities were all changed, the storyline was altered a bit, but strangely the family dynamics were almost always like this. One of the funniest things that were canon that absolutely aren't canon anymore is that Rick wasn't always a writer. He had a BAND. And everyone in the family was in this band LMAO, including Michael (Maggie's boyfriend) and somehow excluding Jake because he was shy or something. It was like a heavy metal band and Rick was ofc a singler HAHA, think Lordi but with Rick 😭 why?? Idk I just like music and I thought that was hella cool man. He was also a Canadian by blood for a long time and born in Manhattan which was also very random.

- Rick's dog Ryan doesn't have a breed, he's a random mutt he found on the street! He's some sort of a shephard mix, though there is a theory that he had a wolfdog down in his lineage because he can't bark, has yellow eyes and is pretty skittish otherwise. Plus the size of course, but that was never really confirmed.

- Oh man, it's so difficult to narrow these inspirations down haha! I think my style must have first began with Fox and the Hound since I drew fanart of that constantly when I was a kid (specifically of the animals because I couldn't draw humans haha). I'm also just in general, especially lately, really inspired by mix of abstract and figurative art. I think I spent such a long time in my life chasing perfection that I'm now learning to deconstruct things and I enjoy every bit of it ❤️ I think, at least animation-wise, I'm most inspired by Treasure Planet and all the artists that worked on that. It's truly my biggest wish to animate anything similar to that level of beauty one day.

- I honestly just love problem solving and seeing things come to life 🫶 I actually don't often come back to watch my own animations once they're done because all I see are mistakes and where I could improve HAHA. Like I love watching them back, but I love working on them much more, and I honestly feel that's the main part about animation that keeps me sane. I really love process more than I love the end result. I think that's where the magic happens and where I, as an artist, exist. Once the product is done, it's on the world to embrace it, but there is a certain intimacy when it's just me and the piece I'm working on. There's a million small problems to solve and to see them solved is so satisfying haha I could literally do it all day every day ❤️

- God, too many to count! I love Beidak's art, Arttwins, Elk, Labottegadelleart, Wregularknight, Jaredpike.art, Whydoihavetoart, 02png... I could go on haha. These are just some of my favorite style-wise, but I also really love Gerald Scarfe's Pink Floyd - The Wall animation, I love David Firth's Salad Fingers a LOT, and I could count more categories since I also have favorite tattoo artists and so on haha

- I honestly really love all the Kostrovs. I draw Rick the most since he's the main character but I love them all somewhat equally I think haha. Besides the Kostrovs, my absolute favorite character is Justus Harris. He's what I'm super excited for you all to meet in the books. The only levelheaded guy lmao 🤲❤️ he's quite a stable force which I love for this chaotic story, and I feel like he's strangely the most morally sound considering his position (so not morally pure, but stable in terms of his views).

- Iiiii.... work too much to have hobbies that aren't work HAHA 😭 No I'm lying (not really haha). Rick story was my hobby before it became a job, so now I'm in this weird spot where I work 24/7 all year round but, since this is also a hobby... it doesn't feel like it? I have a tendency to not be able to immerse myself into things unless I do it crazily, and since work takes up 90% of my life, I kinda just don't have much time outside of that left.

I do love to collect things if that counts as a hobby haha. I love collecting bird enamel pins, special hardcover book editions and McFarlane dragons. I've also grown to love experimenting with fashion since starting my OCD/anxiety meds (that actually allowed me to wear more than 1 thing for 10 years), so I love funky clothes that kind of look classically nice (think 1920s fashion mixed with '80s dad mixed with gothic vampire). I love spending time with my dog, I love grabbing a cup of tea with friends whenever all of us manage to catch a moment of spare time haha. I also really like going to the mountains and just chilling in the woods, and I'm trying to learn how to play a tin whistle but work has been not very friendly to that. I also love playing liminal space games (also doesn't happen often because work).

Idk if those count as hobbies but they are things I do either while I work or at rare points when I don't ✨️

- I'll have to get back to you on publishing when I actually do end up fully publishing the trilogy so we know for certain I didn't massively fuck up any part of it by accident HAHA 😭

My favorite part so far has been working with the editors and beta readers! They have been the first people to get these books after way too many years of me rewriting them over and over, so to hear critiques and what they love, their overviews... it's been super helpful for me as a writer and made me look at my writing from a bit of a different perspective, too. Creating all the art for the trilogy is also mad fun, I love it haha

Some of the advice I'd give in general:

Definitely do yourself a favor and plan your books out before you start writing if you can. At least a skeleton. I wouldn't have been rewriting these for years had I done so in the first place haha.

There's usually a reason an editor is mega cheap (like cheap beyond reason and without an explanation). Definitely go for an editor that can give you an editing sample and is in the mid-rage price-wise so you know you'll actually get what you paid for. Research is your friend.

You do need an editor, so definitely invest at least some momey into hiring them.

Reserve yourself more time than you expect if you're doing this alone. I thought I'd be done with everything by now but you never know when unexpected things will arise when you work with other people (which is totally normal), so make sure you reach out to people way ahead of time.

- The only thing that really worries me about having a fandom are really:

1. Parasocial relationships: I'm one person behind several hundred thousand of you guys across all plaforms, and my social battery is already fucked. This happens rarely thankfully, I feel because I'm very strict about the 18+ rules for my pages and usually it's kids who get a bit weird about parasocial things, but in general, I'm pretty private as a person and I'd like for things to stay that way. I do love connecting with people a LOT, but there is a line between socializing and actual friendships which I like to keep. Just because people know my story doesn't usually mean they know me as a person and I do like to keep this creator-audience line clear.

2. Kids - Younger people are a part of any audience, but I don't think this story is for them, both because of the themes and because I'd prefer to discuss this story with people who are at least 18 so we can actually talk openly. There is a boundary any adult worth their salt should have with kids, especially online, and this can't often be easily established, so I prefer to simply not have too much interaction with them if I can avoid it.

3. Bullying - Because obviously. Let's be respectful.

The gaps are definitely a stylistic choice of his ❤️ he does actually spend a good amount of time on his beard so he likes to keep it neat and fancy like that.

His whole male side of the family has incredible hair genes, so while he's definitely not balding much, it's also impossible for him to not at least have a stubble unless he shaves multiple times a day. This also means his unkempt beard (the one that he just let's grow as it wants) is super massive and really difficult to tame haha 😭

It's not necessarily bad-looking, he just likes to keep it sharp so it frames his face instead of swallowing it

His little patches grow back quickly, so whenever he's having a pain flare or during any of his recoveries, his beard just puffs out, and even then, FJ usually trims it a little bit for him like seen on the example below on the right (mostly to keep Rick from constantly complaining about it lmao)

Hii hii! I'm always so excited to answer these and ramble so ask as many as you wish hehe ❤️

Hearts were one of the things that happened quite randomly, similarly to the birds, shades of red, etc. It was an esthetic choice that turned into deliberate symbolism.

My little heart pendant (on my persona) is my most precious necklace with my family's and my dog's pictures in it that I have irl and wear often, which just accidentally parallels this story, as many things in my life happen to, haha.

Grimport Misfits is, among many things, a love story. It's not a romance or anything similar, but a story about love, for oneself, for others, for the world, strangers, creatures around you... it's a psychological drama but it really is a love story at the basis of it, and an exploration of how a lack of love in one aspect of your life can affect how you love other things you hold very dear.

Hearts are a reflection of that. Rick's heart glasses also happen to appear during a specific moment in his life when he's rediscovering himself and his identity after many years of trauma. He was very much manic when he found them, and he did a lot of crazy shit wearing them, but they did mark a shift in his life that freed him of chains he'd been dragging along since childhood.

I have a similar relationship with hearts where they kind of became a part of my own search for identity and letting go of preconceived barriers I've put around myself just to look and behave a certain way. It's a reminder that love and joy are necessary and important, above many other things.

It's not the biggest symbol in the story, just something that happens to come up every now and then, but it's very important to me personally haha, I love hearts and their various meanings.

What better way to start June than with some more angst 😭🤲❤️ I animated them happy last week, you'll have to forgive this one haha

Story rambling:

FJ stumbled his way into Rick's life on a very random day in the middle of many different chaotic events. Rick's wife had just passed some years ago, he was a single dad raising Maggie, he just won a defamation case against his employers, got his job back, but not his reputation... it was, to say the least, not a great time to be Rick at all.

When he was with FJ, though, he was just Rick. He wasn't a widower, a single dad, a rogue cop... he was just Rick. He got to start over, in a way, and pretend that he was happy.

FJ, in the mean time, got the best version of Rick. He saw him as his savior, his backbone, his fix to every issue and a shoulder to cry on. He relied on him for everything and often gave him the benefit of the doubt, even when he feared Rick may not be doing well. It's Rick, after all, and he always finds a way out of any trouble. He's strong enough on his own.

Until he wasn't. And for a long, long time, this completely shook FJ's world to the core. He didn't know what to do and how to trust they were okay again, and the more he doubted Rick, the more he seemed to push him away.

It took many years before they learned how to coexist with their individual flaws and virtues and these troubles really only made their connection stronger, but it was a difficult fight and an even more difficult recovery.

Haha oh I always love this question

Rick would 100% just kill me 😭 there are a few examples in the books about how he treats specifically people who have done some harm to his family, and usually he's not very forgiving :,) he's a bit of a grudge holder and I fully doubt, if he truly knew I was to blame for what happened to Loretta alone for example, that all the good things I also made him go through would make up for that ❤️‍🩹 He simply loved people around him too much to accept the tragedies that happened to them just because he still got to live a somewhat enjoyable life. He loved FJ and the kids but I don't think Rick has the capability of making peace with some fates.

FJ would probably also at least not want anything to do with me, not necessarily because of what happened to him but because of what happened to Rick during the accident :,) I truly think he would hate me the most for that and would not tolerate me lmao. He did go through some horrible things in his past but FJ did still get the "net positive" in a sense that he really loved his life after he met Rick. Rick also liked his life, but he was just way too traumatized to forgive it, but FJ was more capable of leading an ordinary life to hold much of a grudge in his later years. Still, Rick's accident nearly drove him mad and he'd be very annoyed at me about that ahahah and rightfully so

Jake would probably be my bestie haha. He hated his early childhood but he got the better end of the stick and had the best family later (with Rick and FJ). He was also, while cynical, generally a pretty positive person that tried to find meaning behind things, and in his adulthood, he had a much healthier mindset about his childhood than Rick did, for example. He would try to wrap his head around it and move on, he'd try to find reasons for certain situations.

Maggie would also probably want me dead hahaha for the same reason FJ would have, plus her mom. She didn't have as much trouble accepting and forgiving things as Rick did but she's a bit more rough around the edges and slightly more stubborn than he is, so she'd definitely not be on friendly terms with me :,) she'd argue I destroyed her life and she got the positives out of it anyway before she slams a fist in my face, and I'd deserve it.

Loretta is a very interesting case because I actually think she'd be understanding. Not necessarily because she's happy with how things have gone down (I'd get a knee to the gut at least for all the Rick horrors and having people scare her kid) but because of how many people Rick actually helped because he was angry enough about what happened to her, I think she'd be more forgiving. She always wanted to help others and wanted Grimport to change above all else, and her unfortunate situation did spark that change over the course of decades. She would also be happy about Jake and FJ and how Maggie grew up and everything, so I believe she'd take all the good that happened into consideration. I doubt she'd be my friend but she'd at least not totally hate me haha

Ryan would love me cause I'm yet to meet a dog I'm not besties with HAHA, i love dogs 🫂