#red ramble

It's so awful seeing the state DeviantArt is in these days. I started my artist journey on there, joining little warrior cat roleplay groups and having the time of my life as a dumb 13 year old. Now they brag about how much money their AI 'artists' steal from actual, hardworking people every year. Absolutely absurd how far they've fallen. I know Tumblr hasn't been that much better recently? I remember hearing about a post they made, but at least they're not holding AI 'artists' up like trophy children while killing off the rest... Yet.

Grumpy because for two days you've only eaten a square of chocolate, aren't you?

In the past, I was keen to avoiding giving mental illnesses to my characters. It was in some way cruel, you know? It was ironic too, I still gave sad backstories back at the time;; But now growing more focused and interested in OC building / backstory building / etc; There’s always been a character that I’ve created that had to have something in them. I’m pretty happy with how I turned out with having Jay ( him being the second, MOST written in threads character and what great character development process I’ve gone through him ), and being able to write even HIS own vulnerabilities, despite him presenting himself as lacking one. I never liked him just being a SERIAL killer, because he wasn’t technically one. As a HUMAN who kills human, that would mean a lot. Now, he’s really just some ghoul / vampire mix that’s a species supposed to be involved in population balance. Never liked making characters JUST as serial killers and basing their personalities of it ( before I begrudgingly did it and made myself think I liked it, but It was mostly because I wanted to garner attention from creepypasta roleplayers. It was silly. ), since It really made no sense and didn’t make them into a potential character in my terms. Speaking to the theme prior about my in the past avoidance to giving characters mental illnesses, I’ve found a couple characters of mine fitting for it. Seiko Valentis happened to be the character that endured ... a lot, mentally. Before, I had given him BDP (bipolar personality disorder) but a part of me wasn’t certain of It, and most of the time the portrayal was lacking. I wasn’t even doing / proper / research then -- Just two articles and called it a day. Eventually had gone to taking C:PTSD ( in longer terms, complex post traumatic stress disorder ), since the criteria did seem most fitting to his past experiences. Wanted to make him into a snarky character, but also what lead to him partly developing a snarky / bad attitude. Part of It is his mothers’ attitude, meaning a gene thing, but also adding that MI to reason with his irrational decisions and reactions + more to it. The same happened with Barnaby -- I’ve always imagined him being kind of like an impulse guy, but I didn’t want him to be JUST an impulsive guy. I happened to recently discover the possibilities of having ADHD myself ( so many criteria ... the list goes on ) So, I’ve found that particular MI fitting to him, especially the backstory behind of that development. I really never got straight to what specific form of ADD/ADHD he had ( let’s be real ... that’s no surprise from an ADD’er LOL ), loosely went with one specific type and called it a day. But either way, I really love growing up and discovering a lot about things related with your thinking / mentality / etc, along with what type of person you can happen to be in the future and what can be done so you’re driven onto that point. Be it positively or negatively. My PROUDEST joy was my recent ( old but gold ) character Jack. He was a basic ass serial killer and used for THIRST writing in the past, which kinda drove me off from wanting to write with him ever again. I kind of recently discovered old notes of mine that had a list of old characters, and he was in the list. I tried to remember bits of it through my memories, the sketches and drabbles I wrote on paper, and recalled a lot. Eventually had rewritten him a little bit, kept the same -- slightly edgy backstory, but kept It all because It made sense, It eventually lead to him being a potential meaningful character and more. I didn’t come to giving him any mental illnesses because ... It’s not fitting, and his life is a bit different. I’m not just going to dunk MI’s on each character, just because. I’m just saying, I’m pretty happy that I eventually got to figure out how to deal with some characters I never really was sure of going anywhere with, but I’m happy to have gone on the right direction. Besides, It’s always going to be some change from time to time. Maybe in 5 years time I’ll say that this was shit and move on to other ideas; while now I think this is great. Either way, I’m happy lots that I at least get to do things with my OCs that I like.