It's my birthday today! :D

I'm 27 years old now. I feel old. |D I don't have anything planned for today since I work, but my family did celebrate yesterday.

CharacterHub is now open to the public, so I made an account there! https://characterhub.com/profile/SoftenStar

I haven't posted much yet, but it has a ton of features and things. Posting all 374 of my finished character bios there will take awhile...but maybe I'll slowly work on that. I think it wouldn't hurt to have a backup to Toyhouse though, so putting in the time and effort to put everything there might be worth it.

There's a ton of sections and stuff you can add to your OCs profiles though, and you can create sections for story worlds which is honestly pretty cool. idk what the limit is on things but hopefully they allow accounts to have hundreds of characters...because I have hundreds of characters.

I finally managed to make a Sheezyart account! :3 Add me here: https://sheezy.art/softenstar

Getting in was a bit of a struggle. They only open up 10 new accounts like every 7 hours, and you have to be quick or they fill up. You can make an account by subscribing (aka by spending money) but I don't like to spend money on websites until I've used them a bit.

So yeah, add me there if you have an account! It looks like a fun art site.

Anyone wanna add me on Switch? :3 I mostly play single-player RPGs, but I do play Animal Crossing and Pokemon so there's some multiplayer stuff we could do. The 3DS and Wii U servers shut down yesterday and I just realized there's a lot of people I don't have added on the Switch, so I'd like to change that!

I was revisiting old 3DS games yesterday and felt rather nostalgic about some stuff (see this journal: https://www.deviantart.com/thecreatorofsoften/journal/Memories-of-New-Leaf-1040176975 ). I have some fond memories of doing multiplayer stuff on the 3DS, so maybe if there's ever time in our busy adult lives we can play together sometime.

also the friend safaris in Pokemon X/Y were cool and now that I've remembered them I'm kinda sad that they weren't brought back. I think mine was poison type?

also sorry for posting so many random bulletins lately. My brain likes to ramble late at night. |D

So...I just realized the "Design Terms of Use" section on Toyhouse shows up on every character that has me registered as the creator of, not just my characters. |D

Currently mine says: "Not for sale or trade. All characters are okay to draw. No NSFW of any characters please."

welp guys I did not know this applied to characters I've designed on other people's accounts. I thought it was just a general thing for my own account. I've been on Toyhouse for three years now and I'm still learning new things.

I'll have to make a new thing for that section that's just a general terms of service thing or something. idk what it will say at the moment but it would just be something like "you're free to to whatever with this character". Nothing super deep or complex. I don't really mind if my designs get traded/sold unless you somehow sell it for like a million dollars in which then I'd be like "REALLY? THAT MUCH????" but that's unlikely lol. I mostly just care about being credited for the design.

So yeah....I'll try to work on that. XD also sorry for posting so many bulletins

So I've gotten in the habit again of randomly browsing art fight and adding random OCs to my bookmarks. I need to bookmark lots of characters so that I have lots to draw when the event starts again in July!

However, I recently realized I have 53 pages of characters bookmarked...

oh no...I think I have a problem... XD

I kinda want to redo my page here since it's a mess, but so many of the nice profile features are locked behind having a premium account. idk if I want to spend money just for a nicer profile, especially since this site is somehow still in invite beta after ten years, but it is tempting just to have a nicer looking profile. My page looks like it was written by a complete weirdo (it was. I'm the weirdo).

I've also been debating about rearranging my folders a bit, but I can't decide on how. My main idea would be to put stories that are closely related into a hub folder (like Animals and Spritetasia being in one and Galactic Sugar Rush and Sweeper being in another) but I feel like that would get too complicated. Plus, all of my stories are supposed to connect even vaguely, so idk if it works. |D Sorry guys but all my dumb stories/series are a part of the Audrey Cinematic Universe. 

If anything, I could do some folder icons though...I like the old ones I made for my Deviantart galleries back in the day. I would make new ones for Toyhouse of course though. I really should get a new icon for this site too since it's technically a drawing from 2013 looool. But idk what character I would use for that (probably either Soften, Sketches, or Pocky).

Anyways, I'm probably going to post some adopts on my Deviantart tomorrow afternoon...if I can convince myself to part with them. |D (more info on that here: https://www.deviantart.com/thecreatorofsoften/journal/Update-on-Adopts-and-Things-1035220325 ) There's a few that I'm getting attached to as usual. How do some of you guys post adopts without getting attached? I always feel like I'm giving away a child lol

I'm also debating whether or not to make them draw-to-adopts or point adopts. My last ones were point adopts, so I'm tempted to change it up this time. :U

I'm working on some random color palette adopts but I'm struggling with deciding which one to use for this design: https://www.deviantart.com/stash/0soqbgc0mky

Help me out guys. XD I'm indecisive.

After being on Toyhouse for three years I have finally discovered the links page. |D I am very dumb okay

I've been slowly filling them out over the past few days. They're mostly a simplified version of the relationships section I already have in my character bios, but they're still there if you'd rather look at those. Plus some of the links I've done haven't been added to the actual character bios yet since I'm lazy (I'd have to update it on both here and DA and I'm lazy okay). I originally was trying to do them in order of "most important character relationships" to "least important" but some of them are all over the place.

I already have 26 pages of links and I'm not done. I'm mostly done with the ones I have uploaded, but there will be many more once I finally get more story bios done. I'm glad you guys don't get notifications for those because you'd probably have hundreds of them by now. |D

So I have one more adopted Spore character bio to do. I definitely have more characters I made on Spore that need bios, but that's a story for another day. XD As far as I know I only have one adopted character left (in general, not just on Spore) but I could be wrong. I really haven't adopted very many characters over the years surprisingly. I sometimes have considered adopting some random OCs just to have for fun so maybe one day I will.

However, I'm having some trouble coming up with what to do with the last one. The characters in question is the healer bug on the bottom right of this picture: https://www.deviantart.com/thecreatorofsoften/art/Spore-Characters-I-Need-to-Rework-937303332

Spore version: https://www.deviantart.com/stash/05juh5miyyu

From my understanding, the Healer Bugs were some species someone on Spore made up and people made OCs of. As the name implies, they heal your other OCs. 

I guess I can use that for an OC, but I feel like I should do more with it? XD I'm not good at drawing bugs either (and I'm not looking up any refs looool) so I'm just not sure.

What do you guys think? What should I do with the bug? (poll included)

1. Keep it a bug
2. Make it an insect demon
3. Make it a furry
4. Use a fly swatter

Any feedback is welcome. XD

I also now have a tag for characters I've gotten from other people. It's "adopted OCs" https://toyhou.se/SoftenStar/characters/tagged:adopted%20OCs Currently only 9 of my 373 characters have the tag (10 if you count the bug). idk just a fun thing I wanted to share. XD

also I had this entire bulletin ready to post and then I accidentally closed this tab. |D Toyhouse didn't even ask if I wanted to close it...welp so I had to make it again, To be fair, most of this is copied from a Deviantart journal but it's still annoying.