It’s really hit me recently how weird my username is. That’s just not my name, y’know? I am neither an Emma nor a Smoke. It was a character I came up with when I was way younger, and just let be my username on Wattpad of all things. When I got Ao3, I decided to keep the names the same because branding and also so people know it’s cross-posting, not stealing. And now I’m just that everywhere. People, especially on this app, will call me Emma, and find that so fucking hilarious
So, shout out to all the Emma’s out there. This one’s for you
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I posted recently about where my blog title ("Summoner's Sketchbook") came from, where I mentioned in the tags on that one that it started with a "summoner" persona that eventually developed into my "Kogarashi" online presence. So I figure, why not make a little lore post about it?
With art! Because of course I have related art. (And this doubles as another showcase of my art evolution over the course of my college years and after.)
It all starts back in college.
I started college in 2000. Made a small group of friends, and for a while we had the idea of doing a silly webcomic based on us being fangirls and going around kidnapping cute anime characters for fun and profit. I started doodling out designs for all of us in said comic, and then, having recently been introduced to the Final Fantasy franchise, I drew us in Final Fantasy-style costumes for when we'd go invade the FF universe. I ended up going with the "summoner" class as mine, and created a design:
(I can't seem to find the un-cropped version of the digitally colored piece, so you get the one that was used on a web layout at the time.)
Behold, my art style in 2002. Starting to pick up a little polish from what I did in high school, starting to be influenced by anime, but still plenty rough around the edges. She has a unicorn horn because some of the Final Fantasy games give the summoner class horns (especially FF9, my all-time favorite).
And that was the start of me actually having an online persona. I figured at the time, why not build my Geocities website network (because it was easier to sign up for a few free accounts rather than pay for additional space) around the vibe that I was a summoner? My art was under the header "Summoner's Dreams," my writing under "Summoner's Visions," my tutorials and tips under "Summoner's Power" (what the colored image above was used for), etc. The hub was "Summoner's Garden," where all these ideas "grew."
Well. The group webcomic idea quickly fell through, but at the same time, I was trying to start up my own original fantasy webcomic, heavily inspired by things like Inuyasha (still probably my favorite anime). It was the trend at the time to have a self-insert character who would represent the comic artist when they had to address the audience, and of course, I came up with one for myself.
Meet "youkai summoner," not yet named, and very obviously Inuyasha-inspired. She's even meant to be a dog youkai. I think this is the only time she got shoes, still in the very rough concept phase for my comic idea.
Well, I continued to work on fleshing out the comic idea, building a story, and jumping ahead to come up with a story (and a name) for this character. I picked out a name for her from a Japanese-English dictionary (I was taking Japanese classes at college at the time), "Kogarashi," which meant "chill winter wind" according to said dictionary and my class kanji guide. I gave her a color scheme (based more or less off of my own skin and hair colors, though Kogarashi's hair is two-tone and mine is not). I started playing with what her facial markings looked like. I put her hair up in a ponytail.
Then I decided she needed to look a little less like an obvious Inuyasha rip-off. 😏 So I took her gi and tied it around her waist like a jacket instead, and gave her a black-and-yellow top, as well as a long yellow scarf to go with it. I fleshed out summoners in the comic story more, giving them beads to represent their contracts with the spirits they summon, as well as a single "birth summon" that manifests and bonds to them at a very young age and functions somewhat like a familiar and their most-used companion. In Kogarashi's case, it was a little wind spirit named "Kaze" (Japanese for "wind," because Kogarashi was air-themed to match my element according to a zodiac bookmark I picked up in high school; Kogarashi was also a dog-youkai to match my Chinese zodiac).
I also designed a cat-youkai character for my college roommate and best friend Anki (@shadrachanki) so I could include her in the story.
Oh, and I got a haircut in 2003, and Kogarashi's design reflected that change.
(Kaze is visible in the chibi picture above, in his original design. I later swapped out his loincloth and tail for a pair of tattered shorts.)
In 2004, I got a graphics tablet, and I celebrated by using it to digitally paint a view of the mountains near my university as I saw them one morning on the way to class (fog-shrouded, faint pink in the sky), and then did a version with Kogarashi doodled on top of it. (Yes, this does mean that the digital coloring jobs above were done with a mouse.)
I continued to improve my art skills, even as doing the comic actually also fell through. I'm very easily distractible from projects, unfortunately. But I still kept Kogarashi as the representation of myself online, especially in usernames. Whenever "Kogarashi" itself wasn't available, I would go with "KogarashiKaze" as a variation, and only rarely have I had to use something other than one of those two. Art-wise, I did a fair amount of designs in chibi form, because sometimes I find that easier for iterating on character ideas.
(In the middle: a design for a wolf-youkai boyfriend for Kogarashi, based on my then-boyfriend now-husband. And Anki is back, once with actual cat-ears instead of her comic-style youkai ears, because I also drew her for our shared personal website. (Kogarashi also has a twin brother, even though I don't have any brothers at all, but I don't think I've ever drawn him, at least outside of one very loose concept sketch.)
I drew Kogarashi more. Short hair when my hair was short, longer hair when I let it grow out, once for a Christmas card.
I drew her twice for personal information purposes on Deviantart:
(The full-color one is missing the two-tone hair for some reason. 🤷♀️)
And sketched out concepts for redoing my website with her on it (which never came to fruition).
I think one of the most recent times I've drawn her was for ArtSlam in 2010. Settling more on the mostly-short hair as her constant look, rather than based on my own hairstyle.
I miss listening to leftover crack and choking victim in my old bedroom with nothing planned for weeks except doing just that over and over and sewing shit on occasion
Ok so I feel like I should open this rant by saying that the TF at the end of my username stands for transformers. Like I've got the starscream brain worms bad and even though my irl car is blue it has racing stripes for one reason and one reason only.🐝 So I have a lot of feeling about these fictional robots that are literally the reason I found tumblr and fanfiction in the first place.
So I've heard that the writers for s2 of Earthspark aren't the same as s1 and you can tell, omfg you can tell. Literally the entire time I was watching s1 I kept on having the thought of "plz don't let the orange man hear about this show" and at this point I'm starting to think someone snitched. (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻ like wtf was that opening? all decepticons are evil cause they're decepticon?! the fuck you mean?! did the new writers even watch s1?!
Like I literally thought the opening scene for s2 was going to be a training room fake-out, where one of the decepticons was going to go a little too far and the simulation would shut down with them being all "omp I'm so sorry I had a war flashback and forgot this was training!" but nope they really just said fuck you and your freewill.
If this show kept the same quality it had in s1 I think it would've ranked higher than Transformers Prime in my eyes, I might've even ranked it higher than gen1! At this point if you like transformers and haven't watched Earthspark yet please watch it but DO NOT watch past s1! Then go on ao3 or your local fanfic site and find some good ones to help treat the brainrot cause I've never gotten this mad about a shows quality going down during different seasons and I've watched both Voltron and The Dragon Prince multiple times!
Honestly might write my own fic cause I'm so mad but plz send me any good Earthspark fix-it fics that pick up right after s1 ending too, cause all I want is for the malto fam to treat starscream like a wet kitten they found outside in a storm, and even though he keeps biting/hissing/scratching them, they refuse to give up on him until finally he falls asleep purring on someone's lap!
So ya feel free to add your rant/praises of this show in the comments, reblogs or my dms cause I have so many feels and 0 friends that had Starscream as their sexual awakening like transformers.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Why are you a big fan of Christmas? It's in both ur usernames?
Yes so it’s in reference to the song last Christmas and it’s one of my favorite holiday songs and I was listening to it once and was like “wow that’d make a good username” so it’s that on pretty much everything (that or Lstchr1stmas) and lowkey kept it cause people kept singing the song to me in games and I think it’s cute and stuff so that’s why! Yay! Username lore:)) thanks for the ask
Mine is: ‘mrs’ = because I’m old, and married 😆, ‘jelly’ = my IRL nickname, ‘munson’ = well, that should be obvious…
I know some people’s stories, but I’d love to know more (with absolutely no obligation to divulge) from @jamdoughnutmagician @airen256 @the-unforgivenn @bettyfrommars @somnambulic-thing @trashmouth-richie @apomaro-mellow @wynnyfryd @lonelysatellites @wonderlanddreamer @katethetank @mediocredreams @sunshinepeachx @maedesculpaeusoubi @morningberriesao3 @hugdealer @abibliophobiaa @sweetsweetjellybean @pinkrelish
I saw this on @rebelfell ‘s blog but it was a generic post and I wanted to make it more eddie-fandom specific. Tag more people if you like!!
