Ramblings nobody wants to read, Secret Santa wishlists, unexplained herd of Waluigis, and anything else that won't fit in my more organized worlds. Enjoy! Or don't. :P ;)

Random personal info:

I'm 25, married, and expecting my first little person this fall (2023)! Yay! This also means I'll probably stop being so active online this fall, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for smol bebes. Still love you all!

I've also joined Tumblr now! But TheOtaku will always be my home base.

Have fun wandering the wonderful world of a weirdo.

Possibly the most bizarre pregnancy announcement you've ever seen

Vellatra Jr. is coming this fall! Lumber Jack and I are super hyped!

Thank you. That is all.

P.S. I'm terribly sorry about the poor quality; TheO is being a pain as far as shape and size restrictions....

Art Challenge - Life as a Harvest Moon character

I'm doing an informal art challenge! Informal, as in, I'm doing it at whatever pace I feel like doing it, not necessarily doing a drawing a day or anything. Been wanting to do it for awhile, and now I've got the time so here we go! Follow along if you want, or don't and just leave me to do my little silliness alone. Either way I think it will be fun!

1. Introduce Yourself!
Are you the farmer, or one of the villagers? What do you look like? Likes and dislikes? Give us a few details about yourself!

2. Your Loyal Companion
Many of these games have you starting off with a pet – or adopting one later. What kind of critter is following you everywhere? A dog? A squirrel? A monster?

3. Daily Life
What are some of the things you do every day? Do you garden? Tend animals? Run a little shop? Do your “normal things” change with the seasons?

4. True Love
Are you married? Have your eye on one of those attractive neighbors? Show us your love interest, and a little bit about them!

5. At Home
Who do you live with? Your parents and siblings? That true love of yours? Some wild and crazy children? Or nobody at all? Show a scene from inside your farmhouse! (Or your townhouse.)

6. Friends and Neighbors
Who are some of your favorite NPCs to interact with, or ones you deal with most frequently? [If you have a lot of these to draw – extended family, coworkers, neighbors, etc. – split this prompt up and take all the time you like! A week, if you must. ;) ]

7. Festival
Every one of these games has fun contests, races, and festivals at various times of the year. What is one of your favorites?

8. Cutscenes From Your Past
What are some significant cutscenes that you've already triggered? They can be happy or sad – but ones that are memorable, and probably changed the course of your game forever.

9. Cutscenes From Your Future
What's a significant cutscene that you're trying to trigger, or hope to someday, but you haven't quite gotten there yet? (Time to pull up the walkthroughs and figure out how to do it....)

10. In Your Pocket
What can usually be found in your rucksack? Berries? Watering can? Fishing pole? Flowers? Your imagination is the limit!

11. Time to Explore!
What's an interesting location to check out in your game? What makes it special? What do you do there?

12. An Important Lesson
As a wee squirt playing Harvest Moon 64, I learned never to throw rocks down the well. You can't ever get them back, and they're much sturdier fencing than the wooden posts! What's something you've learned since you started your game?

13. Magic
Even if it's in the background, every one of these games has an element of magic to it – water sprites, enchanted tools and weapons, goddesses.... What's the magic like in your game?

14. Wild card!
Last picture! Thanks for doing my silly art challenge. Draw whatever fun thing from your game that you'd like! :D

BlueVanguard Concept Sketches

I had a REALLY hard time deciding which of BlueVanguard's wishlist requests to draw.... Here is some quick sketching I did while trying to figure it out. I think the runner-up to my final choice was Hojo and Izuka, but I feared that my art style wouldn't do their evil wrinkled faces justice. X) Enjoy!

Secret Santa Wishlist 2022

Hey-hey! I'm so excited to see what you, Mr./Mrs. Secret Santa, do with my wishlist! You can draw just one thing, or combine items into one picture, too. Artistic license, y'all!

I've tried to make the list fairly fandom-diverse, so you're (hopefully) not stuck drawing a character you don't know anything about.

~Avatar: The Last Airbender~
Prince Zuko
Uncle Iroh
Sokka
Toph Beifong being her beautiful sassy self

~Fire Emblem~
Rajaion (with or without other Goldoans) (he and Soren would also be super cute probably) (Path of Radiance, aka FE9)
Tibarn, Janaff, Ulki, and Reyson being bros (from FE9 and also Radiant Dawn, aka FE10)
Any one of, or any combination of, the Heron Laguz from FE9 and FE10 (Sephiran counts!)
Naesala (can be x Leanne but can also be standalone because Naesala is glorious) (FE9 & FE10)

~Legend of Zelda~
Link (All Links are fun, but Twilight Princess Link is my fave. )
Imp Midna (Twilight Princess)
Link x Midna (either form)
Ghirahim being his fabulous self (Skyward Sword)

~Lord of the Rings~
Tom Bombadil and Goldberry (Aww.)
Treebeard interacting with his forest

~Miscellaneous~
- Literally anything from my original story, Silen Fah, will make me squeal in delight! (There are lots of characters I've posted on here; just look up "silen fah" under fanart.)
- The seven main playables from Xenoblade Chronicles doing something fun or cool together
- Aisling and Pangur from Secret of Kells
- Characters from Harvest Moon 64, Rune Factory: Frontier or Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny doing slice-of-life type stuff (farming, celebrating Christmas, fishing, playing with their animals or kids, whatever)
- Silliness involving characters or situations from the computer game FTL: Faster Than Light
- For anybody who doesn't mind supreme levels of AU weirdness, Waluigi from the Super Mario series, x Edelgard from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. They are betrothed and Waluigi is slated to be the new ruler of both the Black Eagles AND the Blue Lions (being, naturally, Dimitri's older brother). It's basically a convoluted inside joke that has never been put on paper (or screen), and might be a funny project to do!

~Super Mario~
Waluigi
Rosalina
Luigi

...Okay, better not get carried away. Happy drawing!

Everything is Happening at the Same Time!

Where to begin...? I guess it all started to get crazy at the beginning of the month. My husband got sick - he thought it was COVID but couldn't get a positive test - and only got worse and worse for a good two weeks. Four ER visits and like seven doctors appointments later, we're thinking it was some kind of bug and then a lack of sleep and a stress overload really knocked him down, but it's still unclear. At least he's doing slowly but steadily better now.

While he was sick, his dad went missing and was found dead in the woods. (No foul play, and he was old, but still a shock.) We had a bunch of extended family in town for the funeral, and my sister-in-law is still here. Nice gal; I haven't gotten much chance to get to know her before now and it's been nice hanging out with her.

With my father-in-law gone, my aging mother-in-law has asked me and my husband to move in with her. She doesn't think she can run the household alone, plus she's super lonesome, so we're working on moving all our stuff up to her house. Our dog and her dog are having a blast running around together! And we're all enjoying being together more. But clearing out all my father-in-law's things and bringing in all of ours has been pretty hectic.

Also, we had a hard frost and most of the garden died, and we're scrambling to get all the produce out. I've got like a hundred pounds of green tomatoes... that's not even an exaggeration. It's ridiculous! If anybody has ideas for what to do with them, I'm all ears.

Also also, my computer just died tonight. It will be interesting figuring out how to post OCtober pictures... but I do intend to post them, even if they're late.

Thanks for bearing with my ranting and raving!