Candy Hearts Workshop

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Always thinking about AU sort of a scenarios for my ocs but I get stumped pretty easily with most of them because of their illnesses/disabilities. Like I’m sorry to say in any horror movie scenario the science trio is super dead. Or need the plot to not have them engage in physical encounters. Like none of them except Beck can run from a serial killer.

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Genk and Bobbert being like the main pairing who are totally in love but one is avoidant as hell despite (also being so obvious and obsessive) and the other is a… dumbass. Like… Genk is not saying anything cool or romantic (creatively anyway). Hes very blunt with only like a few good moments of poetic genius. Which comes straight from his blunt honesty.

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Lemon Drop WIP

I was supposed to finish this yesterday for National NB people's day but I'm hella slow at drawing so it's still in the works. I usually suck at colors so I only do sketches but I wanna try coloring for once. I like the lines or whatever well enough I just need to finish cleaning up a few spots and then I'll try and color it. If it goes badly I'll just upload the lines. Regardless it won't be some super rendered thing or whatever, that is not happening. It'll be some light shading and that's it.

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Tarte Citron (Sugar)

Finally drew Tarte Citron in her Sugar form.

She looks quite a bit like Lemon Drop which makes sense since they're cousins but there's like lore reasons for that. That doesn't get explored well in the main series, but Lemon Drop looks a lot like her sibling (who looks like her). As for the hair, that's half angsty lore and half "certain hairstyles are popular in certain families. Like the weird chunky bangs in Genk's family. The bangs and side pieces are kinda meant to be like lemon slices. Tarte's side pieces actually are more... blunt? than Lemon Drop's. Theirs actually are more curved like a lemon slice. There's no deep lore for that, just a fun fact.

Talking a little more about their differences, Tarte has a more... warm/brownish tone to her color palette. You can't see it here because I make all Sugars have black eyes in this artstyle but I changed Tarte's eyes from green to brown. Her side of the family is based on baked lemon goods so they have more brown/earthy colors. Lemon Drop is like fake ginger while she's real ginger.

Also not shown but relevant is Lemon Drop's cheek blush. I (for now) have decided to make it orangey/reddish color. Tarte's meanwhile is a brown. I imagine a scene where Lemon Drop wakes up to Tarte Citron putting makeup on them to make them look like their brother (who has brown cheek marks like her). They have a very complicated relationship with her.

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Lemon Drop Rework

A slight rework of Lemon Drop's design. Their pants were made a bit simpler. Also, I think I'm going to change Lemon Drop from a nickname to their birthname. It makes more sense with the current direction the lore is going in. Their last name is technically still Agrumes.

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Sugar Folk Reproduction

Was randomly deciding to make the whole "Sugar Folk are bad replications of humans and are more like sugar goop monsters at the end of the day" thing more apparent in the story. Well, it's not like you'll hear this explanation in story, but it still happens of course and is another "fun fact" that makes you realise they are just little clown guys.

Anyways, huge disclaimer, I am not learned in this sort of thing (don't even know what the general term would be) so forgive any misused terms, although the physical aspects are all correct although subject to cartoon/alien logic.

So the Sugar Folk do engage in sexual reproduction. That is to say, two Sugars combine their genetic material in order to make offspring. They also have genitalia and there is "female" and "male" types but- they are all the same sex biologically speaking. They are isogamous creatures. Or similar anyway. That is to say, there is no difference in their gametes (like in size and stuff, the genetic material is different of course). There are no ovaries/testes, they all have the same organ that produces their genetic material, it functions the same even though they are positioned as if they were testes/ovaries. They are just copying where humans placed their gamete makers, although their gonads are the same in their species.

Any Sugar, barring infertility or issues with their gametes (etc.), can reproduce with any other Sugar. However. because they based their anatomy on humans (who are anisogamous), they mechanically cannot (i.e. same "sex" Sugars can have children together but their genitalia doesn't allow for it since their gametes can't really meet without assistance). And of course, without a womb, the resulting zygote will die. So male pairs need a surrogate but the child is their genetic offspring. Female pairs have difficulties but especially in modern times don't need medical assistance or special instruments only a clinic would have.

TLDR:

Sugars reproduce sexually.

Sugars are isogamous and thus are all the same sex.

While Sugars are all the same sex they have sex organs similar to humans and label themselves as male and female based on that.

They have the same type of gonad because they all have the same type of gamete. They are just located in different areas depending on if they are "male" or "female"- but they are the same organ.

While any pair can make a zygote, if there is no womb for the zygote to implant into, it will die.

"Fun" Facts

They are not genderless nor do they consider themselves sexless. They do not associate gametes with sex like we do in real life. They do have a proper way to label this sort of thing but it's different*.

In essence they are hermaphrodites. This is not the same as being intersex, thusly people like Bobbert and those with ambiguous genitalia are still treated differently/badly. Of course, them being isogamous has a major effect on this treatment and what even is considered intersex.

They have very different sex chromosomes than humans/how their sex is determined is very different. Which is why Bobbert genuinely has NO SEX WHATSOEVER.

*Subject to change but I think, they have a very organ-based view of male/female. In real life we usually use gametes and if the gametes are the same, then they are usually labelled as -/+ or with some other way to show compatible mating types (rather than male/female). I think this is their version of biological sex overall. So basically isogamy/anisogamy/oogamy is different because they don't consider gametes as the basis for male/female. It'd more so be a basis for separating based on relative size/mobility and how compatible the gametes in a species are (which doesn’t always require male/female labeling). Like a rooster vs. hen. The hen might be + and the rooster -. Currently I am not sure if they would consider them sexless because they do not have outer sexual organs or if they would use their gonads to determine "sex". Either way, while they do have “sex” based on gametes that is not the same term they would use for their physical sex. Canonically, in their language, that’s a separate thing. This is probably better explained in its own post. It’s a wip anyway.

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Recent Commission

Art by kartuuuno on twitter/vgen. She did an amazing job drawing Lemon Drop! They came out so cute!

I went on a mini vgen splurge and found some lovely artists to commission. This is one of the finished pieces~ I have some more coming along that I hope to show. The other two are Lemon Drop (again) and Bobbert.

Heee, I just can't get over how cute Lemon Drop turned out. They truly are one of my favourite designs for this series.

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A small list of what pronoun each Sugar uses for Bobbert.

Fragaria: They

Vacc: He/They

Star: They

Beck: They (Uses he internally)

Genk: She

Lemon Drop: They

Genk’s Mom: Uses they when they have to but otherwise refers to them with phrases like “that child”, “Poppy’s child”, “your friend”, etc. She largely avoids using pronouns on them.

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Sugar Lemon Drop

I realised recently I haven't properly drawn Lemon Drop in their Sugar form.

I am still deciding what their undershirt should be. I thought a double shirt combo would look cute but it looks weird so I might just have it a plain white tshirt underneath. I thought about making the entire shirt stripped but that feels too cluttered. I also am not sure what color to make their cheeks. There's too much yellow/orange but I don't want to make it blue. But maybe I should. I could also try red. I also thought maybe going the Vacc route where I just didn't use the cheek color for the nose blush.

Honestly I feel like a wuss going the Vacc route (which is why I'm planning to change his nose color too), because I don't want so much clutter (or in Vacc's case-I don't want him to look like he has a bruise on his face), but I also want to embrace the clownness of these guys.

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Lemon Drop WIP

Happy Pride. Say high to our nonbinary lemon!

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Oh wow another Genk/Bobbert post. Sorry there’s just a lot to talk about with them. Today’s topic. NSSI. Aka nonsuicidal self-injury.

I mentioned recently (unless I forgot to post it again), Genk gesticulates a lot during conversation in order to regulate his reactions. He is a person who in general is very physical+violent when expressing his emotions. Whether naturally or built up, he has a pretty good pain tolerance even as a child. He is prone to getting himself hurt consequently. This is usually unintentional but sometimes he does do things out of anger that are directly harmful to just himself. Ie he does things to hurt himself. Somethings “just happen” to hurt him but his desk slamming is a primary example of him absolutely just harming himself. There's a mini comic I have planned where you see this breakdown happen. Bobbert often has to work as a shield for him when he does this.

I think generally the self-harm he does is "minor". This might be getting a little tldr but you ever mess up on a project and just get the urge to destroy it, just ruin it because it's already "messed up"? Like, this thing is pissing me off and ruined anyways so just destroy it. I want to tear it apart, stomp on it, burn it, etc. I want to feel it break in my hands. He feels something like that. Smashing his fists (the side not the knuckles), slamming his hands, or kicking a desk/wall/etc. to the point he feels pain is similar for him. It's not just a need to destroy something but the physical sensation as well. It brings a catharsis to him. He doesn't really want it to hurt, which is why I say his self-harm is "minor". Because he is hurting himself, but he never goes far enough to cause more than bruises. That's why I said the squishy side of his fist or the palms of his hands. If he hits these parts they will not break or bleed after multiple hits like his fingers/knuckles would. His self harm tends to get more violent and direct when he's stressed about things he thinks are deficiencies of his (i.e. as his stressors become about things he did "wrong" the more major his sh is as they turn from bad stress relief to outright flagellation). Such as struggling with his homework for long periods of time, having his mother verbally berate him, or after multiple minor stressors pile up. He does not explicitly think of punishing himself when he does any of these actions, although he might call himself demeaning things as he does it. He might do them realising he is channeling his anger from an unacceptable target to a more acceptable one but he does not realise his more extreme behaviours are meant as self-punishment.

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just realised I posted the wrong stuff from my other blog here..... uuuu, kill me

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Child Bobbert

Was planning to order some comms so I made a quick reference sheet for Bobbert.

For this outfit, I would say this is a while after meeting Genk. Hence the extreme amounts of yellow and the ginkgo jewelry/accessories. I don't know if I mentioned this before but as kids Genk was always taking things from the family jewelry box/heirloom room and giving them to Bobbert. You might think a tiny child like them couldn't possibly fit into them, but Genk's family is a super loaded and old money kinda family. They legit just have all this fancy themed jewelry in kid sizes sitting around. A ginkgo child wore these things before them and Genk himself has a lot of fancy/expensive accessories on him. The clothing Bobbert is wearing is not from Genk, however, they bought it themselves. I had a write up about Sugar scents, which I don't remember if I posted, but I mentioned in that post that Bobbert doesn't have a distinct scent like other Sugars. As a kid they hung around Genk so much they ended up smelling like him/his family. Paired with their clothing, I think a lot of people who didn't know who either was tended to assume the two were related.

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I thought I posted this and even referenced this tidbit but I in fact never did, lol.

In a nutshell, all the Sugars, being clowny, tend to gesticulate a lot but Genk especially does so. It's a way to release emotions and regulate his reactions. It's hard for me to explain via text, but say Genk were very mad... his first instinct is to throw punch or something like that. I think, if he were trying to restrain himself, he'd put all the violent energy into movement that mayhaps is still not appropriate but much less violent. Like stamping his feet, clenching his fists, punching the air, or just outright pretending he's doing whatever he wants to do but with the air (like if he wants to punch someone he'll punch the air, or if he wants to strangle someone he'll mime it, etc.).

In the most subtle ways he deals with his anger, he'll either just move his arms a lot more but in a manner that seems "Normal" or in rare cases he might just do the opposite and not move at all. Usually it's something more like the above.

I think Fragaria is the only one who matches his energy in this regard. But Fragaria's movements tend to be for positive emotions.

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Tarte Citron Second Drafts

Second Draft that includes more tart aspects.

Might change her eye color.

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Tarte Citron

Tarte Citron is Lemon Drop's cousin. She's around Fragaria's age. She's taking Clotted Cheese's role story wise-CC still exists he's his story is different now (not that anyone except me knows what that is/was lol). She's based on Alice (an American McGee kinda Alice to be specific). Her inspiration is a lemon tart. She used to live with her parents and older sibling, she currently lives with her grandparents and Lemon Drop. While a sweet child at heart, many consider her off-putting. Specifically, she always seems to be staring off into nothing and yet it also feels like she's boring into your soul. Like she's simultaneously staring through you and somehow seeing every single detail. There's a vacant look to her eyes and a lack of response most times. She's prone to panic attacks and often mumbles things that don't make sense. Most children describe her playing as... strange and uncomfortable.

In terms of design direction, she is based on Alice but she's also based on a tart so I want to add some more crust elements to her but I'm not sure how yet in a way that doesn't feel minor/doesn't overtake the Alice look.

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ARFID was on my twitter timeline and fun fact, Bobbert also has an eating disorder. As a disclaimer, while ARFID was researched while developing Bobbert, they aren’t meant to be representative of it so if you read this and think “that isn’t really ARFID”, it’s because it’s not meant to be. If a character is specifically supposed to have or be something l will mention it or confirm it.

Anyways…

Due to various health problems, Bobbert gets sick very easily and as a child always had something up with their stomach even if it wasn't painful. Foods had to be prepared very carefully or else there'd be a high chance they'd get sick, even if only "mildly". As a child, it was at its worst, to the point they were 100% getting sick/an upset stomach if they ate out. As a teen, they still won't eat anything with raw eggs or meat that isn't well done (among other things) but their health has improved enough that unless there's a "major" food safety violation or it's a "risky" food, they won't get sick. Although they still tend not to eat out or eat anything they don't make themselves. (For example, they opted to not eat their friendsgiving dinner aside from a few bites because they felt there were too many hands working on the food, even if they personally supervised the cooking and know no health violations occurred.)

They are fine with texture and taste but never eat out unless pressured by someone they like and if it's a food that is unlikely to get them sick (in their opinion) (like baked goods). The idea of eating anything that isn’t grains, pastas or plain fruits/vegetables is a turn off because they feel like they’ll get sick. Their thinking is something like... With meats, they worry about it not being cooked properly or something else being wrong with it. With milk and dairy products, they worry about being lactose intolerant (they aren’t) or it being spoiled/filled with bacteria that will hurt their stomach (bacteria one mostly applies to yogurt). Spicy foods are a no go because 1. They just can’t handle spicy and 2. Fear of stomach issues. They generally just think restaurants are icky with so many people handling their food and how everything isn't ultra cleaned and sanitized between uses like they do.

It's important to note they can "logic" themselves into eating dishes if they aren't legitimately risky to their health (because they still have a weakened immune system, so it is still not something they should be doing according to their doctor-such as runny eggs). As a teen, it's settled into something like... they don't dislike foods they just cannot be bothered to deal with food sickness and thus have a very bland and samey diet. Because they always avoided foods so much growing up they also just do not have much appetite in general anymore (medicine messes this up anyway) and they do not crave food outside of their safe foods.

Note:

I think they have mixed feelings about fried food. I think the oil is gross to them if it isn't fresh or if it's too greasy (too much grease gives them a stomachache especially if that's the only thing they ate). But on the other hand, the high temperature makes them more comfortable eating meats and fish (as long as they aren't too thick). However, they didn't eat much fried food. It was easier to eat other things.

They take supplements.

They are very underweight but are not stunted-they were short as a child until puberty.

They definitely have digestion problems. In the sense they end up with messed up bowl movements and kinda impaired digestion. I don't have an official diagnosis for them.

Genk (and Fragaria) are definitely the main reasons they don't just eat oatmeal exclusively. I think as an adult they eat a greater amount of food due to Genk taking kitchen duty in the house. Although they basically eat nothing while at work.