Yui B. Ozwald (They/Them) Liker of Clowns, Hater of Loud Sounds Artist and Appreciator of Art. I'll mostly be posting my art here, because everywhere else is too scary for my idiot brain to use.https://yuibozwald.carrd.co/
I'm an aspiring comic artist / character designer who draws a little too much fanart.
This blog is mostly a place for me to post my silly art about stuff I like, with the occasional appearance of my original characters! Don't expect consistent posting because I am currently in school.
Feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions!
Here's my pronouns page:
Hi, Im Yui! I like demons, clowns, demon clowns, and mascot horror. Kill the part of you that cringes, not the part that cringes.…
This blog has content that might not be suitable for all audiences! Please heed any and all warnings that may be tagged! If I forget to add a content warning, feel free to shoot me and ask or something to remind me! Just be nice.
We mostly agree that Legundo is a victor in Apo's district, but what if he wasn't the only option, what if there was another.
Enter Owen. Owen is the complete opposite of Legs when it comes to his victory. Instead of winning for survival/ perceived method of mercy killing, he won cause of his down right anger.
Why? Cause he was reaped twice. The first time he was so sickly everyone knew he wouldn't survive, he was written off almost immediately. He was barely 13 , wire frame and recked by disease. Victors in their district was rare enough, wood was not a luxury for the capital so no one was paid as such, there was no money for training careers so reaping was often a death sentence, even if you weren't ill.
So it was a shock when the mayor's son raised his hand.
Louis loved Owen the way any teenager loves their first love, wholly and undeniably. It was the right thing to do in his eyes.
The capital was enraptured by this story of love and sacrifice. After all, romance makes for a good story, especially when it bridges divides of poverty and power. A prince and the pauper. Louis becomes a popular tribute within the capital, painted as a bleeding heart lover boy.
But love isn't enough, Louis is killed towards the end of his games. It causes a great disappointment in the capital viewers. Flowers are sent to his home, and somehow, someone funds Owen health care that he recovers. He becomes stronger than he ever has, turning his grief into rage which he funnels in his lumberjacking, as it is all he has left.
The months pass by and Owen finds himself once again in the district square/plaza and now 14 he hears his name called again.
He thinks it must be a cruel trick of fate. He screams and thrashes until he is restrained and pulled away. No one meets him to give him a memento.
While in the capital it becomes clear to the viewers who this is, this is the mayor's son's lover. And he is angry. He gets very few sponsors much to the annoyance of his mentor. At one point his mentor has to pull him aside to tell him if he keeps going the way he is that the capital will have him silenced.
Owen can't have that. He has to win. For Louis, to prove to everyone the mistake they made.
It was one of the shortest games in history.
With the use of his trapping and tracking knowledge from hunting, his brute strength from labour and a wicked sharp axe he finds, Owen carves a bloody path through the arena. He is not merciful as there was no mercy for Louis. The capital wants a monster so they are going to get one.
Of all the victors, Owen is seen the least. He is never chosen to mentor for fear of the ideals he will instil. At age 16 he watches Legs poison the water.
He views legs as naive at best and a cowardly monster at worse.
op you've given my a brain worm. The only reason im not tying up a whole rant about which district each resident of Oakhurst is from rn is because im actually supposed to be asleep right now. Godspeed.
okay brain worm still at it. Whose in what fucking district. Main four vamps so that I don't go crazy all at once.
Scott Goldsmith is a Capitol citizen, absolutely no room for argument. He's rich and powerful and bloodthirsty and he's the correct amount of camp for all of the weird-looking Capitol clothes to look perfect on him. If he HAD to be a District citizen (which he wouldn't be) he would be in District One, as it's the wealthiest and also produces luxury goods for the Capitol. It's also heavily associated with gemstones and precious metals due to the naming conventions of the District One children, so like. Gold. As for him in the Capitol - I don't actually think he'd be Gamemaker or like... the stand-in for President Snow, though I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. I think he'd moreso be a District escort, seeing as how much Scott seemingly wants to do whatever the fuck he wants, and I just feel like the first two options have too much responsibilities that would start to bore him after a while. Escort? He can do whatever he pleases for the rest of the year and gets a taste of the accolades so long as his assigned District wins. And if they don't, well he still gets to see the show go down.
Owen. No brainer. He's District Seven, which is lumber. It's in the latter half of the Districts, so the standard of living is lower, and they'd have lesser access to medicine for his condition. But it's not so far back in the order that living in squalor would be common like it is in say, District Twelve, so could still have grown up feeling particularly isolated from the rest of his District citizens. Also, in the scenario OOP described, would also make Louis District Seven. (Also, and this for @maxximatics, if we're trying to keep Louis on-theme for being Breton, it's decently likely D7 borders the ocean, so you can make arguments about salt-farming...)
Pyro. Honestly, there's a world where Pyro is actually a capitol citizen sent to the Districts due to being disowned and having debts (a scenario President Snow talks about in TBOSAS). However we wouldn't toss him in the arena if this is the case (at least I don't think so?) so we're going Districts. Probably upper half of the Districts 1-6, and he'd been in the wealthier minority within that "wealthier" minority. Pyro's got a weird thing for sewer systems, so we can take that into account. Technically none of the Districts explicitly have a specialty this would fully fit within... You could make the argument for five and possibly just replace the sewer autism with hydro dam autism. I, however, will be putting him in Three, as it's specialty is a more broad, and despite seemingly having the lowest living standard of the top four Districts, is still high enough that I could see Scott jumping at the chance to be this District's Escort (also if we're taking in account him being a Sadist... Them being excluded from the Career Pack most of the time makes me think they have generally less of the odds in their favor... Maybe he'd find them losing entertaining.) ALSO!!!! Because of -
Shelby. I like the idea of Pyro and Shelby coming from the same District. Granted, if they were specifically District PARTNERS then only one would have come home from whatever games they were in... But like... Think about it. Shelby does kill Pyro. So like... Y'know. I specifically like this scenario where Scott is their Escort, cuz you know his ass would favor Shelby above Pyro. Now I associate Shelby the most with books and stories, none of which are a District specialty (unless you count them under luxuries, but I don't think that makes sense.) However, it's heavily implied D3 expects all of its citizens to know how to work with its District specialty, as the Tributes are shown a few times to know how to fuck with tech. Which means the average Three citizen has access to at least a baseline technology. Ergo - Shelby could have access the Panem equivalent of AO3, and also have enough basic computer knowledge run something like a fanblog or a Tumblr account. They'd also probably have easier access to online books and television shows (though, it would only be what the Capitol allows of course).
You know what, yeah, I'm committing. Shelby and Pyro were District partners, Scott as their escort, and Shelby ended up killing Pyro to win. They wrote the Vampire Diaries or whatever as their Victor talent/sales/whatever they call that thing Victors do with their free time and spotlight after winning.
We mostly agree that Legundo is a victor in Apo's district, but what if he wasn't the only option, what if there was another.
Enter Owen. Owen is the complete opposite of Legs when it comes to his victory. Instead of winning for survival/ perceived method of mercy killing, he won cause of his down right anger.
Why? Cause he was reaped twice. The first time he was so sickly everyone knew he wouldn't survive, he was written off almost immediately. He was barely 13 , wire frame and recked by disease. Victors in their district was rare enough, wood was not a luxury for the capital so no one was paid as such, there was no money for training careers so reaping was often a death sentence, even if you weren't ill.
So it was a shock when the mayor's son raised his hand.
Louis loved Owen the way any teenager loves their first love, wholly and undeniably. It was the right thing to do in his eyes.
The capital was enraptured by this story of love and sacrifice. After all, romance makes for a good story, especially when it bridges divides of poverty and power. A prince and the pauper. Louis becomes a popular tribute within the capital, painted as a bleeding heart lover boy.
But love isn't enough, Louis is killed towards the end of his games. It causes a great disappointment in the capital viewers. Flowers are sent to his home, and somehow, someone funds Owen health care that he recovers. He becomes stronger than he ever has, turning his grief into rage which he funnels in his lumberjacking, as it is all he has left.
The months pass by and Owen finds himself once again in the district square/plaza and now 14 he hears his name called again.
He thinks it must be a cruel trick of fate. He screams and thrashes until he is restrained and pulled away. No one meets him to give him a memento.
While in the capital it becomes clear to the viewers who this is, this is the mayor's son's lover. And he is angry. He gets very few sponsors much to the annoyance of his mentor. At one point his mentor has to pull him aside to tell him if he keeps going the way he is that the capital will have him silenced.
Owen can't have that. He has to win. For Louis, to prove to everyone the mistake they made.
It was one of the shortest games in history.
With the use of his trapping and tracking knowledge from hunting, his brute strength from labour and a wicked sharp axe he finds, Owen carves a bloody path through the arena. He is not merciful as there was no mercy for Louis. The capital wants a monster so they are going to get one.
Of all the victors, Owen is seen the least. He is never chosen to mentor for fear of the ideals he will instil. At age 16 he watches Legs poison the water.
He views legs as naive at best and a cowardly monster at worse.
op you've given my a brain worm. The only reason im not tying up a whole rant about which district each resident of Oakhurst is from rn is because im actually supposed to be asleep right now. Godspeed.
We mostly agree that Legundo is a victor in Apo's district, but what if he wasn't the only option, what if there was another.
Enter Owen. Owen is the complete opposite of Legs when it comes to his victory. Instead of winning for survival/ perceived method of mercy killing, he won cause of his down right anger.
Why? Cause he was reaped twice. The first time he was so sickly everyone knew he wouldn't survive, he was written off almost immediately. He was barely 13 , wire frame and recked by disease. Victors in their district was rare enough, wood was not a luxury for the capital so no one was paid as such, there was no money for training careers so reaping was often a death sentence, even if you weren't ill.
So it was a shock when the mayor's son raised his hand.
Louis loved Owen the way any teenager loves their first love, wholly and undeniably. It was the right thing to do in his eyes.
The capital was enraptured by this story of love and sacrifice. After all, romance makes for a good story, especially when it bridges divides of poverty and power. A prince and the pauper. Louis becomes a popular tribute within the capital, painted as a bleeding heart lover boy.
But love isn't enough, Louis is killed towards the end of his games. It causes a great disappointment in the capital viewers. Flowers are sent to his home, and somehow, someone funds Owen health care that he recovers. He becomes stronger than he ever has, turning his grief into rage which he funnels in his lumberjacking, as it is all he has left.
The months pass by and Owen finds himself once again in the district square/plaza and now 14 he hears his name called again.
He thinks it must be a cruel trick of fate. He screams and thrashes until he is restrained and pulled away. No one meets him to give him a memento.
While in the capital it becomes clear to the viewers who this is, this is the mayor's son's lover. And he is angry. He gets very few sponsors much to the annoyance of his mentor. At one point his mentor has to pull him aside to tell him if he keeps going the way he is that the capital will have him silenced.
Owen can't have that. He has to win. For Louis, to prove to everyone the mistake they made.
It was one of the shortest games in history.
With the use of his trapping and tracking knowledge from hunting, his brute strength from labour and a wicked sharp axe he finds, Owen carves a bloody path through the arena. He is not merciful as there was no mercy for Louis. The capital wants a monster so they are going to get one.
Of all the victors, Owen is seen the least. He is never chosen to mentor for fear of the ideals he will instil. At age 16 he watches Legs poison the water.
He views legs as naive at best and a cowardly monster at worse.
For a doodle request, something with Apo and Cherri? (I ADORE your designs for them)
Minor changes to Cherri's design to make the burn scars more accurate. Hopefully it worked. I know the other requests weren't colored but I liked how this one turned out so much I just went ahead and rendered it.
GoH AU progress update and clarification (long post) 🦇🎀
Heyo o/ I'm here with some pregress sketches for the prologue of Guest of Honor, as well as to clarify some things about the story!
I'm sorry I don't have a lot to show for it, even tho it's been months since I initally announced it. I really didn't think that the prologue (that's only 6 pages in lenght btw) would take me THIS long, but here we are. Between family matters, recording for my group's smp, collaborative art projects, merch work, setting up comms, I found it hard to actually work on the comic.
Some of these screenshots are cropped and have the text removed since I don't wanna give away everything quite yet.
As you can probably see, I put a LOT of effort into my backgrounds. I have a tendency to treat every page and panel like it's own illustration, with panel and speech bubble effects, scratches on the margins, blending and breaking of panels, bg details etc. If you've seen some of my previous vsmp comics, you know what I'm talking about. This perfectionist mindset about every detail is just one other reason why a fully rendered page would take me about 4-5 days. I am a slow worker… in everything I do.
But enough of my excuses! I wanna reveal the official logo as well! I've had this one done for a while. I was planing on having it apear for the first time in the Chapter 1 cover art, but I feel like showing it now.
Clarification
I would like to start off this section by thanking everyone that sent me asks, liked and rebloged my posts and was overall patient with me on this project! Your support is what gives me the motivation to make more art ❤
However I noticed something with both my asks and posts about GoH that made me feel a little… dishartned? i guess? There hasn't been a lot of interest for the main character of this project lol. This is partially my fault since I wasnt very clear in my inital announcement post so let me say it here:
This story is about Cherri and by extention, Apo.
I'm not using Cherri as just a narrative device/viewer pov protag to explore the Coven's dynamics in the Bad End scenario.
While their relationships and gripes with eachother play a part in the narrative and affect Apo and Cherri's lives segnificantly, they are not the sole focus of the plot. The Coven and it's new members are there to incite physical and moral conflict for Cherri to navigate in her quest to save Apo from Oakhurst's curse. Exploring that relationship as they are trying to find a sense of normalcy in an abnormal world is the whole point of the AU.
I'm sorry if I gave the impression that it's only gonna be about the main cast, but I hope you guys are still gonna give this project a chance. I have a few cameos form other pow and life series affiliated ccs planned that would hopefully spice things up later down the line, so I hope you are as excited as I am.
I really wanna stick to this project till the end and make it a worthwhile read.
Thank you for listening to my yap! Follow me if you're interested in what I have to offer or if you wanna stalk my socials for when I eventually announce commissions.
VSMP Poly Ship Tournament - Bracket 2 - Round 4 - right side
Mythicaltreebark (Sausage/Martyn/Ren) vs Sunnycryptidclues (Elle/Shelby/Drift)
Mythicaltreebark
Sunnycryptidclues
Voting ended onJun 15
v Propoganda v
Mythicaltreebark
They're literally doomed in every universe. No matter how many times they try to save each other. At least one of them is forced apart before the happy ending, most of the time all three. What else do I have to say.
Sunnycryptidclues
THEY'RE THE CUTEST EVER. I WRITE FIC OF THEM.
Nonbeaniewrites' fics. Ough Ough oughhhhh!! Also the Reincollege au
For a doodle request, something with Apo and Cherri? (I ADORE your designs for them)
Minor changes to Cherri's design to make the burn scars more accurate. Hopefully it worked. I know the other requests weren't colored but I liked how this one turned out so much I just went ahead and rendered it.
This is the first four pages of the next ask that would've been posted to Starter Swap. It's not gonna get finished, but I didn't want the hardwork I put in to go to waste. Also so I didn't spend forever writing this fuckass monologue for nothing. You can probably guess why I'm not sending out the last two.
Gaging interest for some possible projects- but would anyone be interest in seeing some art of original vampire characters I made based on the VSMP cast?
Gaging interest for some possible projects- but would anyone be interest in seeing some art of original vampire characters I made based on the VSMP cast?
So, I've been thinking about this situation for the past few days. The first and most evident point I'm going to make here - support the victims. They've been through enough already. As much as I'm going to talk about my work in regards to this, I am not someone who has been effected in the way that the various individuals coming forth about their experiences with Avid and Marm have. My ability to create and feel comfortable making fanworks does not compare to the emotional stress and loss of stability that has occured in lives of the people at the heart of this.
I say this both because it is obvious, and because the nature of this update is going to delve into how this effects my personal works. However, I don't want that to take away from anything stated previously.
This is going to be long, and I apologize for that. Update under the cut.
On Fanart
First things first - I am NOT going to take down and of my pre-existing works featuring v!Avid. They've already been made. Going back to erase history isn't going to change anything. Additionally, as I have say over and over again throughout my posts: Art takes time. I have spent anything from hours, to days, to months working on the pieces I've put out on Tumblr. And that's not counting any time I've spent working out these ideas outside of digital art, or writing out the storylines that even let me get to them in the first place.
However, I will not be making any more fanworks featuring them.***
This is not to shame anyone who has chosen another route for the future. I am simply not comfortable continuing to do so. It's a difficult decision to make, as v!Avid is so heavily involved in the overarching plots of several other VSMP characters. I don't want to abandon VSMP entirely. They are not all it had to offer, far from it. Frankly, I feel as though it would be giving them too much credit to even imply that such a thing is true. There was so much wonderful work that was put into the series by the other creators, and so many amazing fanworks made by my fellow fan creators before and after. None of that time and effort and love deserves to be washed down the drain because of the selfish and cruel actions of two people.
So, to put it simply, yes, there will be more VSMP content on this blog. There just won't be any more v!Avid content.***
On Trustbites AU (Fanfiction)***
The little addendum I've have to put in the previous section is because of my Trustbites Fic. While they were never the main focus of the story, with it being set after the events of the original series, their presence in the narrative exists through other characters. This is particularly in regards to v!Drift and v!Shelby, two characters who are already disregarded more often than others (for reasons you can probably guess). Their stories can exist without v!Avid to some extent, but to pretend like there was no real effect there would just be a flat out lie.
I could just throw out everyone but the Trustbites trio and call it a day. But I'm not gonna do that. There's already such a problem within fandom of dismissing female characters, as well as characters of marginilzed identity as a whole. I don't want to contribute to that. I don't want to get rid of them, and I don't want to flatten their arcs in a story meant to be a continuation of the original series. And I will acknowledge that this is what I am doing to v!Avid to some extent. I'd rather not do it to anyone else.
I may never get to the point where v!Drift and v!Shelby get explored. The same can be said for any other points that would've somehow involved v!Avid. Writing is hard for me. Especially with how unbelievable unmedicated my ADHD is. But I want to write Sever the Leg with the intent to get to the point, regardless of if life lets me get there in the future. Basically, the fic will continue as usual (release schedule affected by my personal life notwithstanding).
On Starter Swap
Here's the big one.
Even outside of what's gone on in the past few days; I have been feeling disatisfied with Starter Swap for some time now.
There's a lot of reasons as to why. Early on, I felt pressured to change parts of it I liked due to comments I had recieved. And as more and more "sireswaps" and "starter change" AUs arose, I began to feel like the one I had made was inadequate. That is, of course, no one's fault but my own, but that didn't stop it from weighing on me as I tried to write out the story or make new art.
Anyone who has sat through a call with me trying to draw will know I am a perfectionist to a fault. And unfortunately, this carried over to my work on this AU. It started with the old sketches, and how I couldn't look at them without hating them. Then, when I started to work on refs, I would nitpick my own designs endlessly, even if deep down I knew nothing was actually wrong with them. This was to the point that I look weeks to do singular characters.
As for the pages themselves, and I only completed four (though there is currently six unfinished ones I've been chipping away at over the past two months), but I think the way I approached them was flat out unsustainable for the long run. It drained me to work on them alone, even with the larger-than-average amount of freetime I have at my disposal. This was something I had somewhat fixed by the time of the second ask, but looking back, the way the story was meant to be revealed is not something I think that I, even with the two friends I managed to get help from, could have handled.
What came out about Avid was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I've thought about it a lot over the past few days, and I've talked about it with my team. There were ways I could have moved forward with the project. But when faced with what had happened, and the people that had been hurt, I had to sit down and ask myself a question. That being: did you even want to do this beforehand? And as much as I know the answer will disappoint some people, the answer was no. There is no point in me attempting to salvage a story that I do not want to keep making.
I'm sorry to anyone this upsets. To anyone who liked this AU: I'm not gonna take down any of the old Starter Swap work. You're free to enjoy it as it exists. It will not disappear. It just won't continue on.
I'm going to pivot to something else. Something more sustainable, and something focused on the creations of other people who worked hard on the Vampires SMP I still enjoy. There are two main options - one more original content focused, but I will make a separate post about that, since I don't want to detract from the circumstance more than I already have.
Thank you to anyone who read through all of this. I completely understand if people will not want to stick around afterward. It's a difficult time in this community, and I entirely get the desire to step away from it all.
Again, please remember to show your support for the people who have been most affected by this. Musithical, a music artist who collaborated Avid on their songs, is facing serious risk to their income due to cutting him off. She goes more indepth on this post, which also lists a variety of ways you can support her during this time. Additionally TheRandomBox and Peeporp are two others who are facing significant impact to their income in light cutting ties with AvidMC. If you know of anyone else under similiar circumstance, feel free to add on.
ALSO! If you have sent a drawing request from the poly-ship tournie poll, I will still be doing it. It would unfair of me to use you guys for votes and then go back on my end of the deal. I've already gone back and allowed people with Avid in their requests to send another one.
I tried to keep this short
Hi I'm gonna assume you all know at least a little bit about the situation going on, if you don't, I suggest doing some research and coming to your own conclusions. Most important thing: support the people that were most affected and take your time to process your emotions/ take a break from socials.
I'm writing this to give a quick explanation on how my art and current projects will be affected going forward.
At the current moment, I will not be depicting any character of AvidMC, or the cc themselves in fanart outside of brief appearances in my vsmp Guest of Honor comic.
There's a chance I might change my mind in the distant future and make fanart of v!Avid just for nostagia's sake, but other than that, I will relegate the character to minor background appearances in GoH.
Don't take this as a sign of me supporting their actions! Far from it.
As another user on here mentioned, the characters belong to the fandom now and every individual creator is free to decide what to do with them. Not to mention, Avid doesn't make any profit from any of our fanworks and we shouldn't stop making them altogether and throw out hours/months of hard work bc of the shit they're responsible for. That would just let them win.
Inclusion in Guest of Honor AU:
On my part, I choose to reclaim the character to some degree, since I unfortunately had a lot of fun drawing him (bc i can give him exaggerated expressions and movements). In the larger narrative of GoH he will have no significant influence, since the story isn't about him.
GoH!Avid didn't have a big role in the first place, the most relevant scenes that I had planned with him would've been in chapter 1 and little bit in 3. I'll be working on switching him out to a different chr without affecting the emotional impact of the scene.
I'll probably make a separate post about Guest of Honor, my progress and clarifying some things about the AU itself and how I've noticed that I might've given the wrong idea as to what the story is actually about. Rest assured, I'm not giving up on the project just yet, it's just taking some time since I'm not constantly working on it.
Apology:
One other thing for the ppl coming from twitter: I will like to apologise for the tweet I made a few hours after the statements started coming out. It was very late and I let my anger and frustrations get the better of me. In my hatred and disgust over Avid's actions I said something that was more directed at them then anyone else, but was also hurtful to nb-trans individuals as a whole. I never meant it to come across as hateful or invalidating towards any of my trans/nb friends and fellow artists and I apologise for my words.
From now on I'll be more careful of what thoughts I share on the internet during heightened emotions. I'll lean even more into the sterotype of artist that never comments on anything and just posts art.
I believe that's all I wanted to say for now. Thank you for reading.
Please if you are able to, go support Musithical, TheRandomBox and Peeporp who've been financially affected following Avid's departure from the space.
Be kind to each other, take your time and never let a shitty person's actions stifle your creativity and destroy the safe space you found in this community.
This isn't my first rodeo and it certainly wont be the last, but I'm choosing to see the silver lining in the fact that we are the ones who can make this community a better place than it was yesterday by standing our ground and supporting the people that truly need it. Hope that made sense. Thank you.
-Joy 🦉🧭
So, I've been thinking about this situation for the past few days. The first and most evident point I'm going to make here - support the victims. They've been through enough already. As much as I'm going to talk about my work in regards to this, I am not someone who has been effected in the way that the various individuals coming forth about their experiences with Avid and Marm have. My ability to create and feel comfortable making fanworks does not compare to the emotional stress and loss of stability that has occured in lives of the people at the heart of this.
I say this both because it is obvious, and because the nature of this update is going to delve into how this effects my personal works. However, I don't want that to take away from anything stated previously.
This is going to be long, and I apologize for that. Update under the cut.
On Fanart
First things first - I am NOT going to take down and of my pre-existing works featuring v!Avid. They've already been made. Going back to erase history isn't going to change anything. Additionally, as I have say over and over again throughout my posts: Art takes time. I have spent anything from hours, to days, to months working on the pieces I've put out on Tumblr. And that's not counting any time I've spent working out these ideas outside of digital art, or writing out the storylines that even let me get to them in the first place.
However, I will not be making any more fanworks featuring them.***
This is not to shame anyone who has chosen another route for the future. I am simply not comfortable continuing to do so. It's a difficult decision to make, as v!Avid is so heavily involved in the overarching plots of several other VSMP characters. I don't want to abandon VSMP entirely. They are not all it had to offer, far from it. Frankly, I feel as though it would be giving them too much credit to even imply that such a thing is true. There was so much wonderful work that was put into the series by the other creators, and so many amazing fanworks made by my fellow fan creators before and after. None of that time and effort and love deserves to be washed down the drain because of the selfish and cruel actions of two people.
So, to put it simply, yes, there will be more VSMP content on this blog. There just won't be any more v!Avid content.***
On Trustbites AU (Fanfiction)***
The little addendum I've have to put in the previous section is because of my Trustbites Fic. While they were never the main focus of the story, with it being set after the events of the original series, their presence in the narrative exists through other characters. This is particularly in regards to v!Drift and v!Shelby, two characters who are already disregarded more often than others (for reasons you can probably guess). Their stories can exist without v!Avid to some extent, but to pretend like there was no real effect there would just be a flat out lie.
I could just throw out everyone but the Trustbites trio and call it a day. But I'm not gonna do that. There's already such a problem within fandom of dismissing female characters, as well as characters of marginilzed identity as a whole. I don't want to contribute to that. I don't want to get rid of them, and I don't want to flatten their arcs in a story meant to be a continuation of the original series. And I will acknowledge that this is what I am doing to v!Avid to some extent. I'd rather not do it to anyone else.
I may never get to the point where v!Drift and v!Shelby get explored. The same can be said for any other points that would've somehow involved v!Avid. Writing is hard for me. Especially with how unbelievable unmedicated my ADHD is. But I want to write Sever the Leg with the intent to get to the point, regardless of if life lets me get there in the future. Basically, the fic will continue as usual (release schedule affected by my personal life notwithstanding).
On Starter Swap
Here's the big one.
Even outside of what's gone on in the past few days; I have been feeling disatisfied with Starter Swap for some time now.
There's a lot of reasons as to why. Early on, I felt pressured to change parts of it I liked due to comments I had recieved. And as more and more "sireswaps" and "starter change" AUs arose, I began to feel like the one I had made was inadequate. That is, of course, no one's fault but my own, but that didn't stop it from weighing on me as I tried to write out the story or make new art.
Anyone who has sat through a call with me trying to draw will know I am a perfectionist to a fault. And unfortunately, this carried over to my work on this AU. It started with the old sketches, and how I couldn't look at them without hating them. Then, when I started to work on refs, I would nitpick my own designs endlessly, even if deep down I knew nothing was actually wrong with them. This was to the point that I look weeks to do singular characters.
As for the pages themselves, and I only completed four (though there is currently six unfinished ones I've been chipping away at over the past two months), but I think the way I approached them was flat out unsustainable for the long run. It drained me to work on them alone, even with the larger-than-average amount of freetime I have at my disposal. This was something I had somewhat fixed by the time of the second ask, but looking back, the way the story was meant to be revealed is not something I think that I, even with the two friends I managed to get help from, could have handled.
What came out about Avid was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I've thought about it a lot over the past few days, and I've talked about it with my team. There were ways I could have moved forward with the project. But when faced with what had happened, and the people that had been hurt, I had to sit down and ask myself a question. That being: did you even want to do this beforehand? And as much as I know the answer will disappoint some people, the answer was no. There is no point in me attempting to salvage a story that I do not want to keep making.
I'm sorry to anyone this upsets. To anyone who liked this AU: I'm not gonna take down any of the old Starter Swap work. You're free to enjoy it as it exists. It will not disappear. It just won't continue on.
I'm going to pivot to something else. Something more sustainable, and something focused on the creations of other people who worked hard on the Vampires SMP I still enjoy. There are two main options - one more original content focused, but I will make a separate post about that, since I don't want to detract from the circumstance more than I already have.
Thank you to anyone who read through all of this. I completely understand if people will not want to stick around afterward. It's a difficult time in this community, and I entirely get the desire to step away from it all.
Again, please remember to show your support for the people who have been most affected by this. Musithical, a music artist who collaborated Avid on their songs, is facing serious risk to their income due to cutting him off. She goes more indepth on this post, which also lists a variety of ways you can support her during this time. Additionally TheRandomBox and Peeporp are two others who are facing significant impact to their income in light cutting ties with AvidMC. If you know of anyone else under similiar circumstance, feel free to add on.
Just in case anyone's wondering, I am aware of what's going on in the MCYT space right now. I'm currently thinking of how to go forward with this AU, if at all, as the character of the person at the forefront of all this a main focus of this comic. It's a difficult decision, as unlike other fan works regarding VSMP, I can't just get rid of them from the narrative easily, even if I would like to.
As much as I would like to separate the character from the actor, I don't particularly want to engage with this one anymore after reading through the information that has been presented. I mean, they literally share the same name. But to disregard literal months worth of work put into this shit would be pretty damn awful to say the least.
I will keep you guys updated on any decisions made.
It is me, that one guy who shows up every time someone does doodle requests/bribes specifically to request Batwen (Bat Owen). You'll never guess what I'm here to request.
You get two extra bats, just cause I felt like it. The Trustbats, if you will. This is sort of a redraw of some traditional art I posted here ages ago.
From biggest to smallest we have Legundo, Louis, and then itty bitty Owen.
