Somewhere between waking and breakfast, I realized that pet character development is hard and we need to drag each other through it.

So, without adieu, I made us a place.

It’s not meant for critique. It’s for that raw, vulnerable state before criticism. It’s for bouncing ideas off another human being for the sake of not feeling futile and alone. It’s the stream of consciousness to get thoughts out of your head and onto paper before you assume them silly or uncool. It’s for new pets and completed pets, and those between: for fresh development and continued development, or for throwing up your hands and going completely back to the drawing board.

And, even if no one else joins, it’s a place to talk where I’ll be listening. Because I hate creating alone, and it’s not fair that many of us often do.

So let’s talk pets.

So my New Year resolution was to get my poor babies back into some sort of manageable state. It’s been five years since I’ve looked at them.

Five years.

Maybe six. It’s been really sad, honestly.

But I’ve been terrified to commune with them. I had too many people abandon me in my prime, so I detached for a while, and my characters sat on the other side of the chasm.

That is until Thaddée started yelling. He’s annoying like that, really. He wanted to know if he liked sunflowers or roses. Such a funny question. … And I don’t really know the answer to it. It’s a little too Tamaki-like to like roses, but he argues that his mother had a beautiful rose garden, so he surely would love roses. I asked him the color, and he said red. Then I proposed sunflowers, because they are cheerful, much like him, and they are yellow, much like his hair. He argued he doesn’t really like Helen Keller’s quote “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It's what the sunflowers do,” but I argue that’s his entire life philosophy. (If he hadn’t noticed, you know, that he’s been filling his life with frivolity to ignore his beloved brother’s untimely demise).

This made for an interesting impasse, after which he told me Alphonse couldn’t make bouquets. Now, I sort of got dumbfounded here. Weren’t we just talking about roses and sunflowers? I asked him who really puts sunflowers in bouquets, and he responded with, “Have you not seen Al’s bouquets?”

And so, defeated, I wrote this:

Which is more than I’ve written in one sitting in ages. And it made me happy. dies Simple pleasures.

So, because he’s by far the loudest, I’m going to start 2015 by working with Thaddée. We’re still at an impasse on the whole flower thing. I want sunflowers. He wants roses. And he really doesn’t like the idea of me changing his mother’s garden to sunflowers. He seems to think they’re crass. I haven’t the faintest where he got that idea from. I get the awful sensation that we’re going to have to settle on yellow roses, or that I’m going to have to cave.

How about you? Who is driving you crazy right now about the most absurd thing? Or who is just kind of driving you crazy in general? I find that I like to start with the hardest and work backwards 😩

What's wrong with liking roses AND sunflowers? Also, I get liking a flower because of his mother's preferences, but he's his own goddamn man, and he can like any flower he wants.

Anyway, this looks like it'll be a real help! I'm having this problem with far too many of my pets. flails around a bit I think the one I want to work on the most is Forrest, but he just won't speak up. At all. It's a big problem.

I died a little inside laughing. You got him all ruffled like a bird taking a cold bath.

I... may have something that can help! Ok, so it's very a long, hilarious story how I even found this site, but if you ignore it as a reputable source, it's brilliant for compassion between the character you already know and this: Forrest on Kabalarians

When's the last time you heard from him, Mary? Any kind of situation / gest you can throw at him that may get him to talk?

giggle I bet it's a sight. He doesn't seem like the type to get ruffled easily.

This is actually really helpful, thanks! "This name creates weaknesses in the fluids of the body, kidneys, or glandular system." I'm sorry, what? xD

I've never really heard from him. I'll try talking to him later, though. Gotta focus on one thing at a time, and this new girl I was telling you about still needs a name.

-laughh- I'ma definitely post more longwinded after work, but for now, god:

I've fallen completely out of sync over the course of 2014. Between the purchase of my house at the buttend of 2013, the transition to working downtown, the ordeal of going from contract to direct employee, it's been stressful and draining. moved down,too, (which has had growing pains but WILL HOPEFULLY SOON BE BETTER KNOCKING ON WOOD because reasons and because someonewhoshallrwmainnameless is starting to get over her food panicking) which kinda put a hold on musing/roleplaying-- in hindsight, maybe it would make great dinner conversation? "Oh this chicken turned out great, anyways who were we going to torture and murder now?"... very George RR Martin, right XD??

Ahh, but my biggest problems right now are definitely my pony needs which have left me with an orphan confection/bakery TC while gaining my elusive batpony-- and Spartacus. I really really want him to be a silver mahar (not only is he older but ARGH he's cohorts with Midas.... Gold... Silver?? Ahh ahh ifevijre) but fml he's got mechanical bits and I really like the steamwork mahar, too??? He's not helping, either (but why would he?).

Who is driving you crazy right now about the most absurd thing?

Oh gods. Right now it's Creator Destroyer. Why? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of things to put in her TC. Once in a while I get inspired, thanks mostly to the game she's based on giving me things, but otherwise, ugh. She wants more things.

Oh dude, I just got an idea for an item, the Censor Bar. lol Nudity is enforced throughout the nation so it's perfect for the "Think of the children" part of that issue.

Or who is just kind of driving you crazy in general? coughs Llyn. I changed his name to the actually OC's name. I want him a Storm Harvester. I zapped him and got my second favorite experiment. I'm trying to convince myself the 1550 works for him.

And to an extent, the pets I still haven't been able to get anything done on besides maybe an item or two in their TCs.

edit: I may have switched up the answers to the questions. XD That's how much my pets drive me crazy.

Who is driving you crazy right now about the most absurd thing? Doomsday. I kinda like to pair him up with Gloom, and they are one of my first few characters. But somehow, Doomsday's story just didn't feel right to me, and I can't even come down to fix his story. So I'm on the verge of scratching him off competely :(. But at the same time, I don't want to. pulls hair out

Who is just kind of driving you crazy in general? Viggo, because I don't want another gardener/florist, but I want him to use chopped up body parts as fertilizers so bad. Viggo wants to be baker himself, but then, I refused to make him a meat pie maker. So we are kinda in a tug of war race right now. Viggo's secret admirer/stalker, Sander, is kinda on my side. He's going to be a victim anyways, and he prefers to be buried in dirt rather than eaten.

Also Hatred and Havoc. All I know is they are brothers, and the rest is blank :mad:...

Ugh this is real. I'm going to cry. CRY.

Who is driving you crazy right now about the most absurd thing? UGH, everything. No but really, Failure used to be a fantastic Angelic Darkonite with a nice story (albeit not beta'd). I decided to start anew because I wasn't please with it at all. But then: oh blank page, my old friend. I crushed my love for the pet and changed both the specie and colour. And now, I DO have a nice idea. But I'm pretty sure I'll regret it someday .. for sure.

Who is just kind of driving you crazy in general? MY DAMN SELF. I cannot belive I used to have 5 pets 2 weeks ago x___x I just had the weird impulse to make more pets because I had a spurt of ideas and I needed to act to the desire, I'm weak. Something highly annoying: the MC waiting time to get MKBs and when you get an ugly 1 spot .. rage

I know what it's like to have pets with stories and profiles you're totally happy with, then one day... not being happy with it. xD I had a whole 19 pet storyline going, then one day was like "......ok bye" XD I regret it sometimes, but I got a lot of other cool storylines out of it. Keep at it, it'll work out!

I wonder if there's some sort of third option that both you and Viggo could agree on... like making victims fish bait or something. Or just doing fertilizer/compost, but not using it himself. Sell it off to the hippies. Raking in the dough from that.

I hate finding pet colors sometimes. Experiments are especially difficult... I feel like I'm kinda put into a box creatively with some of them. The 1550 being one of them. xD What does he think about being a 1550?

You also have a couple more options if you want more squid items for Creator Destroyer.

Who isn't driving me crazy at the moment?

Honestly, it's mostly my pets who have been with me the longest. Unfortunately it seems that I have a habit of working on my newest pets and straight up ignoring my older ones. My pet Purger , for example, is practically done, and I only got him about a month ago, which is absolutely ridiculous considering poor Voodoo here has been with me for years and I just felt as though I completed his TC. He has a small bit of story going on, sure, but I honestly can't figure out how to finish it, so its abrupt ending is always glaring at me.

The worst thing is I continue to get more pets and with those ideas constantly bouncing around my head, I get much more excited to work on them, and then BAM! They're almost done.Then I just pretend my other pets don't exist as I mope around trying to figure what to do next. :/

How about a fertilizer broker/salesman. "All natural, no harmful chemicals..." He could be a baker like he wants as a hobby. No meat pies, but pretty sugary confections as a break from chopping up bodies?

Who is driving me crazy? For me right now it's Fredrika.

Oh man, perfect topic!

Night is giving me nightmares, true story. Whatever I do, whatever I try I feel it's just not good enough and then I start hating on it and end up deleting. It's not because Night is a common real word either I believe, I have others and yeah, I just gave them their character and that was it. But Night? I don't know why but so far he successfully revolted against every single idea I had.

My latest idea was based on Star Trek tbh, sorry if you have no clue about it. ^^; Anyway, I wanted to make him a Starfleet officer who was lucky enough to survive an attack from the Borg but since then is mentally scarred with nightmares etc. Had his treasure chest and look (DM Torrey at that time) chosen, played around with a story in my head but then...not good enough, try again. sighs

Right now I'm at a point where I have no clue where to get new inspiration from as well so any help/tip would be appreciated. I'm open for everything so don't look at his species/color or whatever.

Oh, man, brilliant ideas! Fish bait is an interesting direction! Any he can totally just sell the fertilizers. Maybe he has some sort of organic product store for the health/environmental buffs, and hippies too :D! Thank you!

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I might just go in that direction. And using sweet treats to break from all the blood and gore is a really nice touch!

As for Fredrika, I really like your idea. It is indeed a bit hard to find dream related items, but I think the items in her TC are spot on. Maybe turn the dream theme into more of a fantasy theme, since in dreams there would be unicores, dragons, fairies, and whatnot?

Man, I feel your pain. The name really opens up many options, and I think sometimes it can be hard to pick one. I think Night can range from being a fantasy being related to the nighttime, to someone with insomnia, or someone working the graveyard shift, like a 911 call center operator, a crime reporter (like in the movie Nightcrawler), or a petty thief who smashed people's car windows (lol at that one, you know my ordeal, and I almost wanted to turn that into a pet story). Maybe he can even be someone trapped in the nighttime, and desperately wants to get out. Just some limited ideas of mine, hope it can help a bit. ❤

Oh dear. lmao Thinking this over has made me start wondering about Ah-Dol and the fact that the 1550 works for him when I go for the not as crazy creep side of him. :x Doesn't help that Llyn is somewhat Ah-Dol's nephew.

Let's see, Llyn doesn't really care that much about being a space time owl thing though he does lean more to hating it. That form he knows is in someways his true form. Though he's a clone the fact that his "mother" (my pet Sirah) used her powers and the powers of the place she lives (my pet Meander has somewhat of a description)to make the cloning process work sickens him. He knows he shouldn't be.

Gah, it also doesn't help that these OCs have stories that intertwine then part only to intertwine again. Though they all start with one person. I used to have that OC as Creator Destroyer. And it doesn't help that sometimes I'm not too picky over names and species/color because either nothing works or I don't like the one that does. (The OC I'm going to base Sakuya Kira on, the Reborn Devonti doesn't fit him. However, I chose the species and color because of the character I got the name from.)

Thank you for those squid items! I knew there was at least two other squids I remembered but not the names. The Squib and Squiddiebom (which I have in my hoard shop). I never really thought it would be hard to find items that were slightly "off" and weird enough that they seem normal. Then have those items fit.

Oh my gosh I love all the responses. ;_;

I'm slowly making my way through them. (God I got in late). I had to take a Benadryl on the drive hope home, (whoo boy), so it'll be tomorrow before I can hop back in.

Gosh Iloveyouguys thank you for doing this.

Ugh, I'm so sorry. I know that feeling. Before I sleep and forget the link. I love this site. Maybe it can help. And, I liked Night's old idea! It had foundation. And I agree with Horror: that's such a tough but amazing name to work with. It may almost be worth developing a character separate from the name and then feathering in the motif.

Those are great ideas, thank you! ;o; I actually had the idea of a 911 call operator before, however that was for another pet. But for Night it would be matching, too of course. And the petty thief made me chuckle, you know why. c;

And just let Viggo sell hippies to the hippies, they will for sure appreciate such a wonderful, organic fertilizer. :'P (Though, the fishing bait idea is great, too immediately reminded me of "Deadliest Catch"...what would be a nice header for a story as well, lol)

Thank you for the link, I saved it and will look at it more closely when I (hopefully) have my day off on Friday. With my old idea I'm sitting on a fence, in a way I still like it but on the other hand I hope to find something that inspires me enough to start working on it immediately. Developing an idea completely separate from the name might be a good idea for the future as well, that's what I did with Zeus, Poseidon and, in a way, also with Black even though for him I currently consider to change a couple of things about his character.

Oh, and I personally like the idea of yellow roses but that might be a biased opinion because I love yellow and orange flowers in real life. XD

I read through all posts now and should I be able to come up with more I'll let you know.

Aw yay postings ftw, I should have actually subscribed to this so I'd notice when I'm at work being a totally stellar member of the workforce by on/off working and subeta all day |D

Can I just say that I absolutely love Voodoo's overlay? That's just amazing in both art and design u

I kinda feel the opposite way about my pets, though. Like I fear the idea of actually finishing something because.. like, what if the character just fades to black/dies? I like the idea of them constantly growing and changing and today I need umbrellas and tomorrow it's glasses and I'm like "wait you need glasses?" "no but they look cool" ... okay then. I can definitely appreciate the idea of just beign done with something though, the feeling of accomplishment would almost be worth it.

I laughed, because the only thing I'm capable of doing with word names is making ponies out of them, and my first thought was legitmately "Night would make a great pony name". Hopefully the name gives way to something more creative sooner rather than later.

... if not, you could always threaten the name into making it a pony, see if that helps XD!

I might pull that one on Diesel soon, if he doesn't shape up (I was so excited to have that name, because it screamed make me a 'possum, and then I haven't gotten anywhere since then).

Speaking of ponies, I actually wrote for the first time in a million years, and it's the most ridiculous pony!vomit ever, but it made me happy because I have these ridiculous 80s story books from MLP and they're so bad they're amazing and this is about on par that's what I'm telling myself, that it's intentional.. and not that I'm this out of shape

Fun bonus fact I learned while looking into this: slugs eat fungi!

Blagh haaha, so silly. I babbled a bit today in a notebook, but I'm being too lazy to dig it out right now.

In other news, Thaddée is so whimsical, really -laugh- (I finally have the chance to sit and read that-- an hour in traffic yesterday coming home killed my groove blah) It makes sense that he'd like both flowers, because of reasons like... there's no Blue sunflowers so what would you favor on a bleak monday? Likewise, a red sunflower looks more autumny and burned... while nothing says passion like a red rose y'know?

Oh God I am so behind on everything pet related I feel like such a goddamn fool.... I get these ideas forming in my brain, I write down a blurb or two... and then that's IT, that's all... the pets rot, the ideas rot... and an DIE a little every time. Ideas then get scrapped and I wallow in sadness because I cannot seem to do anything right.

Maybe this year will be better. I hope so. I have adopted 3 new pets over the past few days, their names caught my eye and I've kinda given them basic titles... if I look at them long enough and kick my butt into gear I could get things done. If I slack off though can someone hurl a rock at me please ... ;-;?

Alright... I really need to stop dragging my heels through the mud, clean off my shiny new boots and get to work. Oh God I have so much to do!

No problem. I can't wait to see what you decide to do with Night. He's going to be badass eventually :D! And yep, Viggo should probably just sell fertilizers. I figure he's not really the dirt digging, plant growing type on the outside anyways. To tie the fish bait idea, maybe he sells both fertilizers and fish baits, and basically, he adds human flesh to whatever item he could. OMG, maybe this is it!

Awww...I know what you mean. It happens to me sometimes, and all the guilt... But getting new pets is a nice start :D. I wouldn't force myself too much, and usually just wait for the right inspiration and passion. It feels good once in a while when I can't stop typing stories. I'm not sure if that's your case, but if you need somebody to hurl a rock at you, I can totally do that :P. Good luck!

I dig it. :)