So a few nights ago, @kitteei and I streamed on Magma Studio so we could draw and talk about our character lore to develop their story, and this is a collection and a summary of what happened in each slide, lol. If you're interested in following our streams, I'll link my channel on YouTube and Twitch at the end, since I'm streaming on both and preserving the streams on YouTube- until I'm able to save the streams on Twitch, since I'm still new there. Annnyways, here's the story!
Scampi was human at one point, and her life came filled with little rest and over exhaustion. She and her family were owned servants to an egotistical and tyrannical family that turned their habitable town into a nightmare under their rule. When she wasn't being forced into heavy manual labor despite her short frame, she was ordered to make long trips to deliver material in the worst and hottest times of the day. Her only escape was her mind, and her secret cave by the beach. The island was relatively small, but with enough people to run a village for years to come. The edge of the beach was not far from where she lived, and when nightfall comes, that's Scampi's signal to go. Clocked by the dark, she takes the opportunity to sneak into a secluded cave she claimed years ago to paint with materials she's "collected" during her work assignments. No one knows of her stash- not even her family. That is, until she unknowingly gets the attention of a curious aristocrat.
When the eldest son found her art stash, he saw it as an opportunity to add his own influence into the town, so he took her pieces and claimed them as his own. Their property produced more property, so he believes.
It wasn't long until Scampi was forced to face with her spirit being paraded around under the name of another. Colors that painted the hurt she felt and the hunger for more were treated as decoration and display for the whole town. Like her heart, the will to keep playing along just broke. She corrected the narrative in town and called the man out a thief, and the whole family as frauds and abusers, and she continued- speaking all the anger and frustration she had been forced to keep bottled up for appearance sake. Though her words rang true for the people who heard, there was no body who would step in to agree.
This outburst, of course, did not go well. She and her family were fired, shamed, and exiled on the island the live on. It was difficult enough for them to make it by, having to gather and stretching every bit they have amongst each other, but and now they see little chance of making it at all. She was beaten ruthlessly that night by them and then abandoned by her family. Whether she survived or not, they didn't care anymore. By their account, she left them with a reciprocal fate for them to deal with in life.
She wanted to go back to her cave and disappear. Exhausted and dizzy, she writhes as she crawls to the last comfort she can think of. Small little burrow rats poke their heads out of their holes to watch her. The gentle breeze catches her attention, though, and she stops. Her cave is just at the other side of the mountain range, but at this point she realizes how foolish it would be to make that attempt with the little time she feels in her left. Scampi stops at the water's edge and she stares, mesmerized by the calming sway of the gentle sea. Tears well up, feeling her strength in her beginning to fail. She turmoils over her life, over what could have been, over what is. What do you think if these are your last moments? She hopes to be somewhere else if she wakes up the next day. The thought repeated itself, ringing louder and louder in her head and her heart like chanting a mantra to the sea itself.
She awoke to uneven sways and heavy creaks by her head. Scared of the sound, she sits up, alerted- just to be face to face with the fattest rat she had ever seen, holy moly, what ARE YOU? (His name is Top Hat Waldo) But wait, there's more. She leans back and sees herself surrounded by rats. Scampi shrieks and hugs herself tightly, afraid of possibly being eaten by a group of hungry rats- and that's when she felt the fur on her legs. She glanced down and almost fainted. The rats piled up to help her sit, an action she was surprised by. A group of them came to her, holding up pieces of metal and pointing to her missing limbs. Her eyes widen and stares at the group accusatorily- the squeaks and shaking of their cute little heads was enough for her to recognize the level of communication she has with them. She can understand them. They hailed her as their captain and she takes command of the SeaRat, now fitted with a goal of leading and steering the ship to find anyone else that's lost in the vast, purple sea in the perpetually starry night sky.
This here be the SeaRat- where all of you rats live!
The ship itself is a large craft of endless doors, hallways, and activities to pursue (but you're safest in the basement, trust me.) It's a world in and of itself, and it seems like Scampi is the only one who can communicate with the ship, even if she doesn't know it. The other rats don't have that same courtesy of the ship, and thus they end up either lost, or somewhere pleasant, or somewhere horrible. Alla House of Leaves and Backrooms-esque.
It has a personality too, so be careful around it. It communicates as well, but you have to be aware enough to recognize the patterns, such as creaking the floorboards or opening doors, especially odd sounds. It doesn't talk though. If you hear talking and it's not Trench or Scampi, run. You just have to be good at understanding it, and then maybe it'll help you too.
Kind of treat it like Karma, what you do is what you get back through the ship.
One day Scampi finds a red book floating in the sea. She fishes it up and finds a kelpy slug wrapped tightly around it and covering the title itself. She tried to clean him up, but the kelp grew back almost immediately. She doesn't get an answer back when she inquired about its book. The thing could follow her gaze, but it wasn't communicative, so she set it down and let it do its own thing- where it explores the ship, dragging the large red book behind it.
Days go by where the slug is exploring, and Scampi finds the little thing curious, so she starts following it around. She just wants to know what kind of book it is at this point, she hasn't seen the thing open it AT ALL! Luckily, the fates granted her a chance on a quiet, boring day when it was distracted by a very colorful room. So, as any good pirate, Scampi took the booty. The book was full of half empty stories- of concepts for beginnings and middles, but no ends. She decided to add to it herself, helping the story take shape.
The slug noticed something was different the moment it connected back to its book, and it looked through it for the offending difference. It eventually found the additions Scampi left. She stayed by, wanting to see its reaction. It connected the dots that she had something to do with it. It looked back down and pondered over her writing for a long time, unmoving. Scampi thought it died for a second, but no. It was still slimy, kelpy, and it was reading the text, so something was functioning. She gave up eventually- taking breaks to go mess with the rats and then come back to see it still in the same position she left it in before. It reanimates long after everyone has crawled into their burrows and nests. It makes sound for the first time since boarding the ship- it laughs.
Before it was found, the slug was in a hibernative sleep state. It has been contemplating its existence since the moment it became conscious. It slept deep in the deepest trenches of the sea, and despite the depth, it woke when it felt a stirring above on the surface of the water. It looked around, tried to jump towards the sign of life, and that movement dislodged the book it was clinging to, allowing it to rise up to the surface, and to be eventually found by Scampi.
The more it connected the dots between the future storyline that was possible because of her, the more he resonated with a purpose. It was like a memory coming back to it as it laughed, and it laughed harder than before. It was a deep and hardy laugh, coming straight from the gut. While it laughed, its skin broke open, shedding the kelp and separating like a glass plate with the spaces between pulsating a shiny golden liquid. It grew, and it metamorphized.
The next day Scampi awoke to find a strangely beautiful merman with the occasional octopus features, glittery and bubbly, but difficult to understand. He could get a word or two across in the morning, but by night he was basically fluent in English. The entire time he was pushing to express more creativity, to write, and to make any and everything that was possible to make! He fully shared his book with her, which was called "The Syncing Ship", and he was was very, very excited to be around Scampi. She helped him figure out that his purpose is to write and create stories, but he has to learn from humans to make it be the best story possible! He didn't come prepackaged with a name, so Scampi names him after where she found him- Trench. This formed the partnership between the two, where they collaborate frequently and build stories together.
Trench's tentacles produce ink from his head, so he's an endless supply of paint, which is also how he writes his stories. He dabs a little of magic head ink onto the canvas paper and voila, the ink forms to the image in his mind! If only it were that easy.
Trench also comes with another side called "The Joy of Creation", or T'Joc for short. It's an essence that speaks through him at times, but he can't predict or control when it appears. It's much more chaotic and boisterous than Trench, who is lethargic most of the time, but can switch to an absolute energetic making machine if it's at all something he's interested in, which is a lot of things (being that his whole purpose is to learn in order to make). T'Joc acts like a riddle that teases an answer, just to get you asking the right questions. It promotes chaos in order to create a plot so we could have a story at all. It loves to watch stressful situations come about so it can witness how the characters go about and solve it and the intelligence behind each of them. Life is just a movie to T'Joc. Trench, on the other hand, is the inexperienced side that needs to learn, because that process is fundamental for him to be able to create anything. Because of this, Trench is more human and empathetic, wanting to create joy and excitement rather than the chaos and suffering that T'Joc promotes. Despite this, he understands his other's viewpoint, and can't disagree fully with it. And as a thing like him that loves to learn, he's happy to be used as a tool for creation.
When T'Joc reveals itself, it appears through the number "3", typically by multiplying Trench's arms between his base skin, the glitter layer, and the ichor fluid. Other pieces that multiply are completely up to T'Joc's discretion, like the ears, eyes, fingers, tendrils. Ultimately Trench is just a canvas for its creativity as the red book is a canvas for Trench.
As Trench and Scampi create stories in The Syncing Ship, the stories come to life in the form of islands that the SeaRat can visit. Using the Syncing Sea Map, they're able to locate the story they want to finish next and help steer the ending into a good direction. The creations of these islands brings along a new problem for the crew- Chaos.
Originally Chaos was a thought in the purple sea of primordial chaos. It sought to know itself and why it existed, but with nobody but it, it grew bitter and angry and scornful of its existence. At the same time that Chaos was developing its anger, a small little slug was being formed in the deepest crevices of the trenches of the sea. The book came first, and then the slug grew from the skin of its cover. Time flows differently when it does not exist, but it's almost as if the influence of a human being that tugged on the chain of events to begin The Calming of Chaos.
With no distinct form, Chaos appears to disrupt the islands that Trench and Scampi are creating. It wants to destroy and undo any creation and return it back into the empty sea it was birthed from. To keep the stories alive, Trench and Scampi travel to the lands that Chaos is affecting and lead the story back into a peaceful route for a good ending.
We didn't draw Trench and Scampi's alternate designs when they are "turned" by Chaos, but they exist! We'll draw them out later. Below are the reference images for Trench and Scampi, and etc art from stream!
TopHat Waldo is our favorite chunky rat wearing a top hat, guys!
I have no words for what happened here. You just had to be there when Alexis lost her mind.
Thanks to P2 on board (stream), for we now agree that Trench brought the bakery with him when he boarded.
Hope you like our Pirate Rat Girl and Androgynous Deidic Merman!
Lol here are the links if you wanna join the next time I stream.
YouTube: Ri0 Grande
Twitch: el_ri0grande
Syncing Ship YT (Where KitTeei and I post animations): Syncing Ship Studios
Lmao this was fun, I gotta post the one we did for EI about the games Aiecd and Sheei like to play, but we didn't get to finish Shee's last game because it was late, so I'll post that collection when we finish it next time.
Quick little doodle of an over the shoulder glare. Aiecd is really fun to draw, with his poofy hair and intense expressions. Glares are just one of my many favorites of faces to draw. Which really is every face. I love drawing faces.
Just drew this with my girlfriend, @kitteei on stream. We used Magma studio- super fun! Spent the stream talking about AU ideas and better ways that Urbain could have influenced the story.
Just like my last post with Lan and Hub, when I found out that X SANG BEGIN THE TRY for an EXE ending-- I just had to draw the recording session with Alia... and an enamored Zero, obv.
Said Lan and Hub post linked for your convenience. It's a touching story, really.
💬 1 🔁 5 ❤️ 49 · When I realized Lan and Hub were singing the Axess ed theme I just had to draw the cutest visual of the recording booth se
When I realized Lan and Hub were singing the Axess ed theme I just had to draw the cutest visual of the recording booth session. LOOK AT THEM, THEY DESERVE THE WORLD
Old art I'm reposting, do ignore Hub's elastic arm lol--
Short gif of Roll I made back in 2019! I can't wait to get back into animating, but I need to finish my 1st book so I can make more animatics and the longer animations I've got backlogged in my head lol
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