Ask a question to the user above you!

Posted 5 years, 10 months ago (Edited 4 months, 10 days ago) by hedgemaze

We have lots of threads to ask questions to or about characters, but what about the users? In the vein of the Say something to the TH user above you! thread and the I want to see a TH user who... thread (and serving basically as a non-anonymous CuriousCat), this is a thread to help you get to know your fellow TH users better by asking the person above you a question. In return, the person below you will pose a question to you. After you're asked a question, edit your post with your answer! 

If you're uncomfortable or don't want to answer the question you were given for any reason, just say so and leave a fun fact about yourself so the game still serves its purpose. If a question is truly problematic, message me with any concerns.

Rules:

  • Don't ask questions that are very personal or could be uncomfortable, and bear in mind that many TH users are minors, so while I encourage you to look at the profile of the user above you and ask about something mentioned if you like (like their pets, their hobbies, or their current project), please don't ask very personal questions like exactly where someone lives.
  • Try to ask something fun or interesting, but it's fine if you don't know the person above you at all-- getting to know each other better is the point of this thread! It's fine to ask something general like what their hobbies are, who their favorite fictional character is, how they came up with their username, which of their own characters is their favorite, or how they found ToyHouse.
  • Of course, it's great if you ask something more specific, too! If you know they have a lot of fandom characters, you might ask how they got into that fandom, or if they have a unique art style, you might ask how they developed it!
  • There's another thread for specific questions about characters, and another for worlds, but you can ask general/broader questions about a person's creations here, like how long they've been working on their story, or what inspires or influences them. I'm not going to keep writing examples, but you get the idea. Just use common sense and try to get to know your fellow TH users better!
  • You can ask multiple questions in your comment if you want to, but only one is fine, too. This can be as in-depth or as casual as you like.
  • Please ping the person above you so you make sure that they see your question! If you're not sure how to do this, you simply type @THEIRUSERNAME, and they will be notified! This will not work if you edit the ping into your comment later (like if you wanted to claim and then edit your question in); you must put it in when you first submit the comment.
  • You are NOT ALLOWED to skip anyone in this thread. If you cannot see the post above you because the poster or you have blocked each other, wait for another person to comment before replying to the thread. Feel free to bump the thread to encourage others to participate!
  • Wait at least a couple of posts before going again.
  • Edit your original comment with your answer to keep this clear; please DO NOT add new comments to the thread just to answer someone's question. This gets confusing. Take it to private messages if you want to have an ongoing conversation.
  • You can bump the thread as often as you like; I don't mind.
  • Be nice and have fun!   Please don't be rude if someone asks you a question you've already answered before! If that happens, you may link your previous response if you don't want to go over it again, but I recommend adding something new to say about the topic, if you can!
  • Want to play the game in reverse? Answer a question from the user above!

The first person can either ask me something or just claim a spot!


Edit: my answer

"Hedgemaze Expo" is the name of the main characters' band in my comic! I've been using either HedgemazeExpo or Hedgemaze as a username ever since, which is to say since 2003! Most people just call me Hej for short now.

The name itself doesn't mean much of anything, other than that I liked both words and liked the sort of paradoxical nature of an exposition dedicated to huge structures that can't be moved (what do they exhibit, photos? bush samples? tiny mazes?). In terms of the comic, it's just supposed to be a unique, kind of awkward, and silly band name, because in-story, it's an inside joke between my characters Jill and Amber.

All my forum games and threads

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PicklePantry

circlejourney

I'm incredibly intrigued by Revolving Door! I like this idea of all these people from different spaces and times coming. Something like that feels like it's had a LOT of love, time, and changes put into it, right? How long have you been working on Revolving Door's series? What are some huge changes you made to it? 

And do all these characters ever meet each other? Like people from different times end up meeting?


Bless these good questions ;w;

No, I've never thought Smiley's stolen the spotlight! I've actually met people who, when they saw me, they would instantly think of Alcott or Dragon or someone else instead of Smiley. I know people know him and connect him to me, but I know they also know my other bois!
And there are times when I'm concerned about how people interpret Smiley. A lot of his stuff isn't written, so I leave problems he may have open for interpretation. I also sometimes stress that Smiley's not meant to be a realistic, psychological kind of character; he's simply a creepypasta-esque horror antagonist with parallels to Resident Evil's Jack Baker - he's not meant to be relateable in any way.

I... love villains. I love making villains so much. You can probably see it just by looking at the icons between Villains and Wholesomes, there's a clear difference with who I spoil ;w;

Let's see... Nicolas I have some trouble with time-to-time purely because he knows way more anime than I do, so I can't properly write how nerdy he is due to my sheer lack of weebness KEKEKEK.
I also, surprisingly, have difficulty with Reed. As soon as I brought him to Toyhouse his voice completely changed, so I'm trying to find the right tone for him. Same with Armageddon (Sr)- I'm worried he's sounding a lot like Taka in terms of talking.
Gustav and Archaeus have both had troubles from day one. Gustav simply didn't have much of an interesting voice, I felt, and Archaeus I'm more worried people wouldn't understand that if he's spouting their character's backstory, it's because of his own character of NOT having a backstory; I'm worried they won't understand the joke of this parody of a mess and would think he's fully copying rather than using info for just one post.
A lot of my OCs that you don't see around the games are usually because I can't find a satisfying tone/voice to write for them, that's the most trouble I have with any of them.

Caine

PicklePantry Since Smiley is such an iconic character & widely recognized on TH, do you ever feel like he is "taking" attention from your other OCs, or has his popularity ever troubled you in any other way? Similarly, have you ever been like scared people will misinterpret him or make false assumptions about you based on him? 

Also since you have your OC folders divided on villains and wholesome characters, do you have a personal preference or do you like both equally? OH and also, who would you consider to be the hardest character for you to write/portray, or who is the most difficult / requires a lot of tact and/or knowledge about something? 


Thank you!! Truth to be told I created vetehi before I even knew of closed species, and only when I did learn about the concept I went like "oh hey I could do this for vetehi"(although back then I think I just called them jewel dragons, haha).

I have always loved the concept of tonttu in Finnish folklore, which apparently translates to nisse in English. They're usually described to look like traditional garden gnomes but sometimes they have animal-like features like one hooved foot. Honestly though it's the way the work that fascinates me rather than what they look like. They're really small creatures who especially in Finnish tradition live in various places like saunas and barns, and they are like the protectors of whatever place they decide to inhabit. In exchange of good luck and protection of the place people give various sort of offerings to them, often food like milk and porridge. Despite their size they're mad strong and there are a lot of stories of people who have tried to fight them but lost and usually ended up being thrown really far away from the fighting place, because they're just that strong. They also often take care of the animals, as Finland in the past relied heavily on animal husbandry. 

We also have creatures referred to as menninkäinen who are generally nice to people and live in dark places with often aversion to sunlight! They're these leprechaun-like spirits with various descriptions and roles, often similar to fairies or tonttus or even devils! Generally though they're often thought to be hairy, and I remember my fave illustrations about them have made them look like these strange crosses between like humans and animals, often cats or weasels or other small, mammalian predators. 

I think especially the concept of tonttu would make a really fun and flexible cs and I have honestly been playing with the idea, but vetehi are already plenty of work so I want to play with the idea more to see if it's fun enough for me to get invested in it. I'd definitely love to make characters out of both species or at least the concepts of them though since I have a super soft spot for creatures who vaguely resemble humans and often live in the presence of them but are still considered this sort of mysterious "other". Also, it'd be a fun art practice to have a super small character interacting with like human items that are way bigger than they are. 

Ledokol

          Caine

          Though I'm not really involved with adoptable and CS, I think your CS Veheti is quite fascinating. It seems to be an effective way to teach people about lesser known creatures from mythology/folklore. I'm curious if you have to choose, there is any other Finnish folklorish/mythological creature you think would make an interesting CS? Or maybe that you'd love to make a character based on?



          About the Slavic culture, it's mainly from the fact that until after the year 2000, general knowledge about Slavic countries in the place I live was very limited. Due to government in the past went crazy and censored anything that was from countries behind the Iron Curtain (which, unfortunately meant all Slavic countries and even countries like Hungary, and the three Baltic States). So for some years earlier, these countries were deemed as 'something yet to be discovered' for people here. Hence I guess it's only natural that I found anything related to Slavic countries extremely interesting. There's also another fact that I'm drawn to Slavic language names, and studying about the root and variations between several Slavic languages is highly enjoyable. :)


          As for my interest for folk culture in general...I guess it could be traced back to when one of my friends in high school told me he took an informal class to learn drawing Thai traditional art. It wasn't a proper class, just some teacher decided to teach a few students in his free time, which was why I wasn't aware of it. A few years later I bought a couple of books about how to draw mythical creatures in traditional Thai art style. And from there for a years I learned to draw Thai traditional art by myself, but I'm not really any good to be honest. Eventually I decided to discontinue trying to incorporate traditional Thai art style with my usual anime style for various reasons; one is that traditional Thai drawing style is strictly 2-D and didn't work well with my 2.5-D(?? failed 3-D LOL) shading style. XD

          After that, I started paying more attention to folk art and folk cultures of other countries. Oh, and I forgot to mention I studied Art History major in college so that's another reason I guess! It was truly fascinating to realize how much influence the ancient cultures of neighboring countries assisted the development of Thai culture.


          Now, return to the Slavic folk culture again. It was in 2013 when in the Axis Power Hetalia theme role play group I participated gave an 'event' to draw my OCs in the national costume of their respective countries (Russia and Serbia). Of course I needed to do a lot of research for that and that led me to watching several Russian and Serbian folk dance clips in Youtube to try to figure out which costume I should draw. Since then I've become a Slavic folk dance addict because they often serve as my references when I want to draw folk costumes from a certain Slavic country. :'D I'd really love to learn about folk cultures of every country in the world but unfortunately my brain has a limited memory, thus I put priority on Slavic culture first. Who knows one day I'll move along to others? 

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AlleycatIrony

Lup since ur into art history, is there any particular historical artist that inspires u or that u look up to and why? also what is ur favourite time period for art (like what time period produced the best artworks/most of ur faves ect, or if u rly liked the painting style from then)?

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my friend did! well, two of my best friends specifically were pretty into it and i thought 'i wanna know what this is too'
it took me like... three years to actually bother reading it properly tho, bc it's so long-winded and not exactly my cup of tea (if i'm being completely honest i've forgotten like 90% of what happened)

i've since actually disconnected myself from homestuck awhile ago but i do still really like fantrolls or just OCs from it a lot! but tbh if i had to pick something i liked it would be the characters as a whole (i can't say i really hate any of them), and the humour! 

dead-oof

AlleycatIrony

it seems like a lot of ur character or character bios are homestuck inspired? what got u into homestuck and what are some things u enjoy about it?


my favorite pokemon is definitely shinx!! it's just really cute, and i've always had a soft spot for electric types. i also like eevee a lot, it's also cute (im noticing a pattern) and i really enjoy its ability to evolve into lots of different pokemon

bonus question: asdfg thank u!!! i think ive been doing art for my entire life, but i remember getting really aware of it and getting more serious about it when i was 7 or 8. i found the uh wonderful world of warrior cats ocs and animation and decided it was my life's calling to make neon blue and green demon cat OCs

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Caine

123penguin64 Aw yes I can finally have the opportunity to sen you back questions!! 

What initially got you into animal crossing, and how old were you when you discovered it for the first time? Do you have any other video games you like to play (and if yes, which ones are your faves)?

Are writing and drawing "equal" sort of activities to you or do you define yourself more through one activity (like how some people do both but prefer to be called an artist/writer whereas some don't like to be called either or want to be called both - that sort of deal)?

Also, what would you consider to be your main fandoms? And do you have a series you love a lot but it doesn't really have an active fandom around it at all? 


What's your endgame with Sinfonia, as in where do you want to see that story/visual novel end up? Are you making something tangible with your OCs for yourself and friends to enjoy, or do you hope to get it published and renowned in some way or make money off of it? 

I just want to finish the game & have a good time, I don't have any real plans to like get it published or anything, because I don't think it's really good or professional enough for that? I mean, it's my first game ever so even the idea feels silly to me! Other people have asked me to make the final of it a pay-what-you-want kind of deal though and I'll probably do that (since it's been multiple people who have told me this and not just one or two or even three) but I don't have any ambitious goals! It's a miracle if I as much as finish it & since the moment I decided to take it seriously the only real plan has been for me to prove myself I can finish SOMETHING. 

What gave you the idea at first to format the story as a visual novel? 

I'm a very simple man, I know I suck at RPGmaker and knew I wanted to make it a game and not a comic/novel so visual novel was the only solution I really had haha. 

How do your literature studies and interests interact with your own writings, OCs, and worldbuilding? 

I actually applied to literature kind of as a joke / to prove this one Mean Lady I can get in (and I got, but she didn't) because spite is the only thing that fuels me and I felt hurt by the implication she thought I was too dumb and not "cultured" enough to get into it. And then I saw studying literature as a way to give myself more free time to work on my stories & use it as a way to combine writing research and studies so yeah it was sort of a way for me to focus better on my creative stuff! 

As for interests, I tend to take very direct inspiration from concepts and genres and conventions of things because that's what I'm interested in! Or like rather than single works in particular I usually enjoy more general things like the aesthetic and general conventions of 70s shoujo or the dynamics present in middle grade fiction, because I love to explore them and see what I could come up with these kind of frames. 

What do you consider to be your greatest inspirations and driving forces behind your work and style?

I was always the "creative" kid like most kids are like let's be honest here, but I had an overactive imagination and issues in focusing on stuff so I initially started creating stories and stuff as a way to like calm down my brain? Like it was a constant noisy hell up there so coming up with concrete stories and characters helped me to organize my head better, if that makes sense. 

Later on the main driving force became acting, and how creating OCs became a way for me to fill in that void left by the lack of school plays or acting clubs. I have always been really into acting and performing and getting up close and personal with the characters I had to play so I turned to OCs to experience a similar thing! That's also why a lot of my OCs are created with the idea of stage performing in mind, as in I tend to think about their speaking style and gestures in particular, because my main mode of charcter creation is to imagine they're stage roles I need to play. 

My biggest inspirations are a mix of many things, but to mention some artists I greatly appreciate Keiko Takemiya, Moto Hagio, Riyoko Ikeda, Yoshimi Uchida and Jun Mochizuki! Especially Mochizoki's Pandora Hearts influenced my art and general aesthetics a lot since I was 15 when I got into it! Also classic literature works, The Chronicles of Narnia (I read them when I was 9 and remember them influencing me a lot), Neverending Story, Rayman, Umineko and Fate are some others to name a few! 

ElithianFox

Caine Gonna fire lots of questions that come to mind, some not all too well linked!

What's your endgame with Sinfonia, as in where do you want to see that story/visual novel end up? Are you making something tangible with your OCs for yourself and friends to enjoy, or do you hope to get it published and renowned in some way or make money off of it? What gave you the idea at first to format the story as a visual novel? How do your literature studies and interests interact with your own writings, OCs, and worldbuilding? What do you consider to be your greatest inspirations and driving forces behind your work and style?


Thank you for the question!

Currently I'm in my second year, but from the classes I've had I definitely gotta say that the ones focusing purely on purely animals and plants are my favourites. In my first year, that'd be my general Botany and general Zoology classes, which mostly talk about various structures that define both, and this year that's my Diversity of Animals and Diversity of Plants and Algae, which go in on the evolutionary changes that led to the vast diversity of living creatures we have now, and how we can see links between them. Who woulda thunk learning tons of taxonomy was fun? Classes like Genetics and Integrated Field Work are also a blast, and anything that has to do with ecology and evolution tends to catch my attention pretty well ;v;

What I find frustrating is the amount of pressure on us. Biology means learning a lot of stuff in little time, and being able to apply it to relevant situations. Sometimes we're not sufficiently supported in this, and they're even considering shortening the school year and pasting retakes to the second final period next year. Sucks, man! I'm also a bit weak for practicals since manipulating study objects with one hand can be rather tricky, but on the other hand seeing so many bugs under a microscope and having smelled, touched, and probably inadvertently tasted really disgusting creatures and whichever horrors their open gut holds helps kill any phobias and disgust! And as any biologist, I hate the statistics part lmao

My current education is just broad biology, so it's not specified yet. In the past, bio students had the choice between botany and zoology but botany was so unpopular that they just standardised the studies to include both (I would've chosen botany after how fun my first year's experience with plants was!), and after my three years of bachelor I get to choose two years of masters in which I can specialise. Though we do get the choice for a minor in biology, and I ended up choosing Environment and Ecology for that as it seemed most relevant :D

AlleycatIrony

ElithianFox since ur doing biology in uni, what do u enjoy most abt the subject and is there anything u find difficult or frustrating? what kind of biology do u do (like animal specific, human, marine, ect)? 

(coming from someone who loves biology but didn't get good enough grades to pursue it rip 😅)

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honestly i mostly just have them for fun! i do have RP sprites for some of them (harrison, silene, w/ others in the works) but i've honestly not had the chance to RP w/ them as of yet bc everyone only RPs fantrolls in my circle rip, hopefully i'll get the chance to eventually!
but yeah overall they're just for fun! i have all their stories and characters kind of just... in my head? and i regularly discuss OCs w/ my bf so we've kinda got heaps of stories we could tell about our characters but none of it is in words, just memory - stored in the back of my mind somewhere
i'd like to write stories about my characters eventually, especially since some have such extensive stories (not necessarily the OCs u asked about, but the werewolf AU for some of my fantrolls is a good example as it's plotted out from start to finish and wouldn't be too difficult to turn into a novel if i had the attention span and skills for that)

as for what inspires me, i'm gonna be honest and say my old english teacher from school! it might sound silly, but the last thing she told me before i left my last class w/ her just before i graduated was 'keep up w/ ur creative writing - u'll go far w/ that' and i've kept that close to me for the last couple of years :0 while i have trouble putting sentences together and working w/ words, i do plan on writing and illustrating children's books one day even if they don't have anything to do w/ my OCs bc i think it'd be a nice start into a writing business c:
the kind of stories that i'm inspired by too is honestly anything that piques my interest within the first page (as i mentioned above, i have a terribly short attention span and have started to find reading difficult as i've been out of school, so something that interests me immediately is perfect bc that means i won't get bored and will keep reading) - and i say anything bc i don't particularly have a favourite genre of book as i love fantasy, slice of life, and even murder mysteries (i unfortunately find sci-fi difficult to follow despite liking it a lot so i tend to avoid it)
there is one book that inspires me a lot, and that's 'a dog's life: an autobiography of a stray' by ann m martin as it's been my favourite story since i was like... 9 or 10 and i never get tired of reading it and i hope to be able to write stories like that in the future :D

as for stories/characters i like writing... it's vague ;w; i can't pick off the top of my head what i like most, but i can definitely say that i like characters w/ layers that aren't all two-dimensional - i like characters who aren't cookie-cutter and have different reactions to different things, talk and act differently depending on the person, are affected by certain things or like... u know? i'm not good at explaining it but i guess i'm trying to say i like realistic characters - even if they're fantasy ones, i still like them to be realistic in their behaviour, ideals, ect
and since i like a wide range of genres, i'm happy writing any kinds of stories ^^

hedgemaze

AlleycatIrony

I'm curious about your original characters (your fandomless folder and your bettamaids): do you have plans to tell any of their stories in some form, or are they just for fun/roleplay? 

What inspires you, in terms of writing? Are there particular kinds of stories/characters you're drawn to, or most enjoy writing?


Cookie will be 19 in July! He's doing well: it's sort of funny, he's had strange medical problems throughout all his life (he's friends with everyone at the vet at this point), but he's still going strong and he even still looks and acts like a baby. He's diabetic now, after he had to be on steroids for a while last year when he was very sick, but he's very good about letting me give his insulin injections, and he's doing well on insulin. It's mostly just a struggle making sure he eats regularly, but he's still my happy little weirdo who has decided that some garden gnomes are his kittens and who gets upset if I don't go to bed at a reasonable time.

My main goal with the Catband reboot is to fix problems with, or things I didn't like about, the story-- there are some very obvious changes, like how the main character from the old version has now been written out completely. The general story is the same, though, and I might even keep some of the early comic pages pretty much as is (in terms of script, not art), but it'll be plotted much tighter in advance this time so I don't write myself into any corners. Of course, the art will be quite different too. : p Thank you for asking!

Maddi-Lion

hedgemaze

I saw ur cat is 18, woah!!! I had two cats growing up that got to be around that age, how's ur boy holding up?

Also for Catband, what are your goals for the reboot? Will it change the story much from the original run or is it more about updating the art and showing improvement in that way?


ahah oh gosh I think I've had Grimora for like,,,  6 years now?? That's so crazy to say but yea I thought of the original idea wayy back in middle school and have kept it since. It's super different now though, going from a children's fantasy novel to something more adult and thriller-esque. It's essentially grown up with me, so I hold it very close to my heart lol

I'd say now the biggest inspirations for modern Grimora are: 

My amazing GF Monochrome-Melody and close friend Vilisee

John C. McCrae web serial Worm for it's amazing world building, (best world building I've EVER seen imo) complex characters, and smart, creative writing. 

Austin Jorgensen's Lisa RPG trilogy for how it handles trauma and how trauma affects our perceptions and morality. (I discovered the game through this brilliant video essay on it, it's a bit long but worth it if you're curious. TW for mentions of sexual and physical abuse, suicide, and drug abuse.)

Yoshihiro Togashi's Yu Yu Hakusho for its charming, wonderful characters and creative settings. The world building isn't as good as Worm's but it's enough to stick out in your mind and feel real enough. Also Yusuke is the biggest Sabrina inspo EVER like oml. The series is very nostalgic for me cause it's my first anime. The English dub fits the character's perfectly and I still go back and rewatch parts of it to this day. I don't have a site to link to for Yoshihiro so have a very well articulated video on why you should consider watching YYH lmao

Other inspirations would be H.P Lovecraft, Stephen King, music, andd a lot of horror media lol

I think the need for deities arose from a want of worldbuilding a few years ago. Gods were supposed to just be to buff out the world of Grimora but have sensed evolved and are now integral parts of the story. The demons were always there from the beginning so I think it was just 13 yr old me thinking they'd be cool (and they are lol) and angels I think were a middle ground of lore and cool shit. I think alot of this mythology now play into themes that have begun to appear in Grimora, like toxic family settings (Pantheon of those gods) and how grey morality is (I.E Demons like Unity arguably having good goals but going about it in a damaging way. As well as the fact that Lieliel is more of a monster then an angel (Both externally and internally)) 

The goal for Grimora to be four novels that'll get published sometime within my life lmao. I hope you enjoyed reading my ramblings <3