WORKING ON A REWRITE

Calico is backstory for Jay. After running away from his flock, how does he navigate this bizarre, terrifying, and vast world now laid out before him? Who told this bird about HRT and reassignment surgery? Who pointed him to Zuzu city? Who showed up at his freshest and funkiest new low to help him out, and why's the guy so freaky?

Losing Game is backstory for Harvey (and his twin sister, Miranda). How did his parents handle having an autistic, queer kid? Uh. Not well. The answer is not well. Read the content warning tags on this one, cause I'm putting my PhD in child abuse survivor to very good use here, and thos is babys. If I missed anything, please tell me.

i'm trying to escape homelessness through making music. when you join my Patreon, you get a new song almost every day, early access to the albums before they're posted on Bandcamp, and exclusives that won't be posted anywhere else. you'll also get my personal commentary on the music and if you join as a free member, you get the first song on every album early for free!

please consider supporting me on Patreon for as little as $1/mo. your support will contribute to me being able to get off the streets and become safely housed ❤️

here's an example of an exclusive song you can get at any tier:

If you are not in the first three but you still join at the same tier as those that get their slots, you also have a chance at it - this is determined completely by how much I'm able to do, however, and there is no guarantee that I'll do more than 3. I'll put a more in-depth explanation under the cut of some example scenarios to try and clarify how this could go.

But first:

This is Mesa, the first eridian oc I came up with (though the most recently completed one), so you can get an idea of what yours might look like in my style. You can also look through my "#byrd's silly art" tag to find other stuff I've drawn as well.

I also have two more I made today, Brick and Block.

Anyways. Under the cut I'm going to just. give some examples to try and clarify ways that this could go, since my phrasing may be a bit unclear.

[ID in alt text]

"Tutorial" on how to draw an OC with dwarfism (well, some of it).

Boring tired disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is an introductory "drawing" "tutorial" and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. Which happens to be true for everything in general.

You are heavily encouraged to do your own research because this does not contain everything you should know before making a character with any type of dwarfism.

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

brick (left, all pronouns) and block (right, it/its)

and bonus never before seen artwork of brick with her new job as an ewc note delivery worker - now in a xenonite suit!

i think he knows that this is not considered proper note delivery etiquette for humans any more than it would be for Eridians, but the EWC told them to and shi LIVES for the drama. in my mind the note is a perfectly normal note saying something like "we upgrade your windows today :) hooray :)" but the ewc looked at the trope of brick note delivery in earth media and decided that this would be a perfect way to announce it. i think grace appreciates the bit tho ngl :>

block on the other hand is another eridian that happens to be small enough to look like an older pebble especially at a glance. it's a grown-ass rock tho. block uses this for mischief and shenanigans and brick 100% enables it. the prank siblings. I've also just decided that block is responsible for some aspect of the biodome construction/maintenance, probably the finer detail stuff, maybe even decor?

grace and block bonding over learning new crafts... i think they can be buddies :>

they love each other ur honor

(if you need separate images i can link you the original brick and block post from my blog later 👍)

So most stories take place when Events are Happening, and this means that no matter what kind of job the characters have, they’re probably not too focused on them. Fanfics, on the other hand, often show the down time. Which means that the writer has to figure out what the hell these characters do in their jobs. Unless the characters have a job the author understands or knows well, the author is often at a loss for what to have the character doing.

So they sit them at a desk and give them paperwork. What is the paperwork for? Rarely specified. It is Paper Work for the characters Important Adult Job they have and they need to read or sign it or something. And there’s always a line about how Character Hates Paperwork. Doesn’t matter if Character is a Mafia Boss or a General or a Diplomat, here they are in an office trying to get out of Doing Paperwork.

There’s also a sense of, like, humor and mundanity that comes with it. Like the examples above, it always particularly stands out to me when a dangerous individual is griping about some paper they need to sign or something. The less you can picture Character doing paperwork, all the better to force it upon them. If Character is saddled with Paperwork, they’re usually now concerned about the physical damages their motley crew causes, because damage = More Paperwork.

Timesheets

Expense reports

Requisition requests

Budget justifications

Payroll

Performance evaluations

Incident reports

After action reviews / post-mortem analyses

Incident Action Plans

Contracts

Contract proposals / grant applications

even when the royalty look like they're just fucking off to have fun, they're doing Socially Mandated Fuck-Off and Have Fun Time

Invoices.

Intake sheets (information about new clients. The one for my firm is 13 pages and requires an hour long meeting. Then you have to do something with the info gathered)

Data entry for invoices and intake sheets.

Billing. (More involved than timesheets because you’re justifying to clients why you’re getting paid so much).

Form letters.

Taxes. Including 1099s for any contracted work.

Bank statements/accounting spreadsheets. Gotta track how expenses are trending.

Insurance documents.

General messages. Lots of office still use a paper system for missed calls and “important” stuff because it just works better than emails and chats for some people.

Cause there’s the invoice, and the follow up invoice and the we are about to have a problem follow-up invoice.

There’s the incident report and then the I swear I yelled at that worker about this don’t be mad at me if they do it again second warning documentation

The requisition form and the it has been six months now get me the fucking thing or you’re gonna hear from Cindy escalations form.

We never kissed. We never even held hands. I pretended to fall asleep on his shoulder once in the car, and one day I gave him a little kiss on the cheek. And that was it. We said goodbye two weeks later and we both thought it was forever and I pined so hard that I threw up.

A month later he sent me an apologetic letter saying that he was sorry for being so presumptuous when I clearly had no romantic interest in him, but that he had to be honest that he was in love with me. And I was like, "What?! He was in love with me this whole time???"