the adventures of trina the forest imp

37 || NB future blog for my short stories. artblog: mouseofgolb || blog: mouseimp

[trinaimp]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chowder Day

Trina found herself on the edge of the stage, listening to the preamble for herself. She checked the blouse she was wearing, and gritted her teeth. It had buttons. She liked buttons, just not these kinds. She also didn’t think she looked good in this shade of blue, on account of it being the same color as her skin.

[trinaimp]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

The End Of Time

We're astral projecting, today.

[trinaimp]

A Spark & A Charge

In the middle of the woods, on a thawing planet, somewhere else so entirely Else that it’s more conceivable to just say, someone made it up, was a summer storm. It seemed more aggressive than most years, the surging wind and rain making even under the croft of the heavy, summer pines treacherous and painstaking.

Most years, the creatures were thankful for the storm— the sound of wind and rain, and the darkening of the atmosphere for a couple of days or more, in the height of the sun’s circular phase? It was a welcomed midpoint where every critter could get a wink or two, before the summer constant descended on them for a few more weeks.

There was something odd about this year’s storm.

Read more on Archive Of Our Own...

[mouseimp]

I'm a little behind on my writing, and now it's spring-cleaning season D: But dw I've got some sketches I'm working on for later this week. Here's what my forest-imp, Trina, has to fight in the episode/story I'm writing, minus the gore:

[mouseimp]

I'm heavily considering posting the first couple of chapters of my stories online in the next couple of weeks. No spoilers for anything coming up, but I feel.... idk. I'm AFAB, but I have had gender, and just general body dysphoria, my entire life. Being adopted messes with a person. it's kind of what led me to creating my forest imp characters. And I really want to share them with the world. So, the tl;dr of it is: Otters. The otters evolved into mermaids, hairy mermaids because this planet is late-snowball-stage and still actively thawing. Eventually, these mermaids found land, and evolved into these furry "merrish" creatures I call Otter Elves. The ones that stayed on the coast stayed tall and lanky, but the ones who migrated into the woods shrunk and started to branch out. A lot. There's gnomes, goblins, nematoads, trolls, and forest imps. Of the branching halfling races, the forest imp is the most diverse. They are a very transformative race. They use magical enchantment "chowders" in special community rituals when one of them comes of age and has chosen what they want to be in life. Some pick bird enchantments, some pick cat or wolf enchantments, some toolmakers even pick bug enchantments. Every imp has their own transformation, and every imp has their own transformative journey. The wolves made a Moon-Pact (She is sentient) and went Bipedal a long time ago. Also, the cats just... talk. And have taken over the fishing industry. Magic is a sort of Creative Visualization concept. Wizards/Witches become so by choice and by being very, very, VERY into whatever it is they are into. I've been worried about bringing out my imps into the world for years. After everything I've gone through in my life, and seeing it mirrored in others' experiences, I just... I'm tired of keeping them to myself. I'm tired of worrying about adversity over them. I love them. I hope others will, too.

[mouseofgolb]

Random creatures from my brain. 1. This thing wanders the ocean floors in the alien world I'm writing, swallowing entire mermaid villages in its wake. What should I name it? 2. A multi-deer??? Concept for my character that is the forest's superhero that everyone calls The Beast. 3. I.... don't know why, but I really like this lizard dude. 4. The Vampire Leech from Book 2 of my stories. No spoilers, will start posting them soon, but this monster eats "mana" which is... basically your soul's will to live and thrive, so-to-speak. 5. I don't know what this guy is, I was trying to workshop some forest imp designs and ended up here lol. I might keep them for a later story idk yet

[mouseofgolb]

My forest imp oc, Trina Tree! She's had three coffees this morning. Silly imp.

[mouseofgolb]

Just a little digital pastel doodle of my oc forest imp, Trina. Enjoying a cloudy spring morning :) Her dress was kind of inspired by cartoon-Lydia's spiderweb dress. I want to start putting my short stories out, soon. I don't exactly know how to approach something like this, though ^_^; I've been nudging around ideas like scenes made into comic-pages, putting out more illustrations to show what I'm going for, etc.

It's about a forest imp on an alien planet. Her name's Trina, and she wants to be the new alchemist. That nobody is really asking for, but they obviously need it. In this forest, Alchemists don't just make potions.... They're supposed to help heal the self, too! She may be biased because of her choice of work, but she thinks her forest community needs a bit more.... magic, in their souls. Creativity Magic. It tends to help with the monster problems..... Her mate/best friend is a necromancer, and their boss is a giant, talking Sitka Spruce. They get into a lot of mayhem.

[mouseofgolb]

A character of mine from one of my upcoming short stories, the egg witch. They don't really have chickens on the island my aliens live on, they have Terror Birds-- wild ones roam free in the deeper woods, some as big as an otter-elf! Domesticated ones only grow up to their waist, or the size of a fully grown forest imp. Egg witch lady here hangs out deep deep deep in the woods with the wild Terror Birds and gains their trust, honing her magic, and her cooking skills, in secret. Most people would judge a chef with chicken-feet, she fears....

Here's a mallard-type domesticated Terror Bird. Should I sketch more kinds lol? It's a Pacific-NW/alien ecosystem.

[mouseofgolb]

My forest imp characters, Trina and Static! Trina's an alchemist, and Static is a forest keeper. My alien forest imps use a special enchantment chowder to celebrate their affinity with the forest and take on extra biological traits. Static chose deer, Trina.... well, there was an accident. Involving flowers.

Why forest imps? When I was a kid, they used to be another kind of small hero race popularized by the great Tolkien. I was super into The Hobbit when I was a kid, before I discovered Discworld, and I've always been short lol. Eventually, I learned certain kinds of names can't be used by others, and started calling them halflings, etc, but.... then, Final Fantasy IX came out, with all of its creature-centered worldbuilding, and it inspired me to do something entirely new with my characters. Static used to be a literal imp, like a copy of Impmon almost lol Twenty five years plus later, and I'm glad I made the change.

[mouseofgolb]

This is a character of mine that I've been writing short stories about for the past twenty years, but mostly since the 2020s. Her name is Trina and she's a mammalian forest imp. She wants to be the next Alchemist of the Forest, and she lives in a universe where magic is tied to your own creative visualization. I'm at about the 50-story mark, all around 3k-7k words with some as big as 15k, but none of them have been edited or worked enough to Put Out There. But, it is my goal, eventually, to properly introduce the world to my forest imps and their absurd little late-snowball-stage island.