Those with amagicism have a very warm undertone to their skin (what with being alive) which makes them a more saturated shade of brown rather than being so gray-ish as the dead are - Saratoans are extremely observant to color details like that so it's not an immediate connection.

Sometimes things like that are said to them and others with partially more neutral skin tones with brighter markings (like Atlas) but it's never coming from an honest place, no one actually thinks that when they see another it's just a thing to say to be mean, often just teasing (like Atlas calling Hyssop "carrot" when they first met)

Those with amagicism deal with some stigma for their appearance but it's more that their ears are considered unattractive. The majority of Saratoans don't experience sexual desire or attraction but they can still evaluate someone's appearance and these things factor into whether someone is considered pretty. Some might notice the world was just a tiny bit colder to them in a way that'd be difficult to pin down - unless they tried to participate in the dating world, which would be painfully blunt about it.

But the worst stigma they deal with is having the wrong teeth for their age. They don't ever develop the longer fangs since they rarely get more than two sets of teeth and never live beyond 100 anyway.

While others can tell because of their body development they are not sub-adults, they are often dismissed and treated in a patronizing manner in the way sub-adults are.

Most of the time, items around the body are things that were collected by friends and family during their loved one's life, just things they held onto because it reminded them of someone they like. So sometimes it's just color but other times it's color plus some other feature ("look at this mug, it's happy and yellow just like you")

Some believe it's a part of the process to let go of these things along with letting go of the deceased - though others retrieve their keepsakes at the end of the funeral.

The house leader and those who are less close tend toward items humans would find more traditional, like flowers and plush toys, but also candy and food is common. The thought there is to give them things they'd have liked in life but still themed to their color.

Professional funeral directors keep collections of random items of various colors to help fill out the spread and make it look better/fuller without rearranging where mourners placed things - they tend to prefer items that won't draw attention away from the odd, sometimes funny, items mourners brought which will serve as much needed conversation starters. They aim for their offerings to be small, unobtrusive and easy to overlook. They are generally the source of things like loose buttons, beads, and ribbons.

Not generally - it's considered an inappropriate color for say, a saratoan dolly, since that makes it look like a corpse, but shades of gray and taupe are popular for clothes where it's just judged to be a nice neutral tone that their bright skin colors pop against.

It takes a bit more effort to choose accessories that read as symbolic of death to them. Their funeral rites are themed around the color the deceased was in life, mourners bring items of the same color to place by the body, creating a cluttered collection of items of the same color

The symbolism of death is a little more individualized as a result. The color of "goth" for Saratoans is just whatever color they are + excessive clutter

Dressing like this is ironically considered off putting by younger adults and is accepted more warmly by elders rather than being a way to shock and rebel against elder generations.

Elders generally read an outfit like this as "funeral director" which is a role not considered totally necessary to the management of rites, but are a welcome relief to overworked household leaders to have someone experienced available to support them.

Good morning!

Boop boop boop boop

I haven't been able to draw lately because of an unfortunate combination of pain and eyesight issues (I am going to get a new table to hopefully make things easier - any help toward that goal is greatly appreciated) but in the mean time, a random little worldbuilding thought without art:

While the Saratoan teeth situation is staying largely the same I think the final set of teeth, the set with the tusks, doesn't grow in until they take on the dominant role within a house. Having someone in their life who they view as hierarchically above them suppresses tusk development, so 1. it's possible for a dragon to die of old age while never growing tusks 2. it's possible to develop the tusks precociously if there is no more dominant or more elder person in their life (within a limit)

I have been laying awake nights thinking about PenWell, you see...

Wax is 13 actually =3c

It's fursona o'clock again

He finds cleaning intrinsically pleasurable and rewarding and when he was younger, it was just about the only thing that gave him that feeling of intrinsic reward, so yeah that's why he did that, it's the only way he knew how to "play" - it can take on some compulsive shades sometimes since it's also how he self-soothes

He still enjoys cleaning though his feelings about it can be more complicated now that he's had more time to think about it.

He was originally constructed by a spellwriter as a magic washcloth to clean dishes, one of many (not as efficient as an actual machine dishwasher, which exists in the setting - these were made more as a novelty)

Things happened and he gained consciousness and got a LOT bigger.

His gloves are made of leather but the part he controls is the lining, which is silk

He can technically control anything that he can saturate with blood and allow to grow his magic structures embedded in and around it - denser or somewhat more waterproof materials like living skin are a bit too resistant to the process

Sorry, no holiday appropriate reveal of eldritch powers on his part, beyond the blood thing

The little people are pretty sturdy and not squishy or sensitive so it doesn't bother him to have them lay on a hard surface or other uncomfortable looking scenarios - but he does have a bed for them actually

There's another room in his chest that's more like a bedroom (with a staircase going down his neck, that's where the little door leads to, besides the storage space) - the problem is, because the little people are his eyes, putting them there means he has a delay (how long it takes them to run back up to his head) before he can see again.

He's an anxious person, it takes special circumstances to feel safe to make himself that vulnerable.

There's storage space behind the back wall in his head (and another especially for the teapot and cups next to the chimney) and if he's being especially fastidious he puts the table and chairs in the storage space at night before he sleeps (although as you'll note from how many times I've drawn him sleeping with the furniture in a jumble in the corner, he is not always that meticulous)

Do You Know What to Do Now?

Yeah I privated just because twitter is doing... not so great lmao

I have sort of quietly stopped using it but I accept new followers whenever I remember to check for follow requests. Fair warning chances of seeing new tweets from me are extremely low.

Nothing has happened to me personally but the site has become a cognitohazard to try and actually browse so I'm letting it go.

My little nothing sentences about my chihuahuas and out of context conversations with my mom are going to bsky now. And any art I make will continue to be posted here whenever it's finished of course.

Level one: filling a shape with random noodling (sketch is on a separate layer and set to overlay - you can use any layer setting you like to make the sketch lighter)

Level two: creating more complex shapes by drawing and erasing

Level three: using "flow guides" in the sketch and use the line to fill in one section at a time. Go back to empty sections and "greeble" them (add details to fill space)

I add an arrow pointing to the "tail" any time I move away from the section where the tail is - I used to spend way too long hunting that bastard down, it's easier just to draw an arrow pointing at it.

I don't plan ahead for what will fill spaces, I usually make it up as I go, and will add the same patterns to areas that I think ought to share patterns in common (like how I made all the fox's feet match in "Silhouette" - the first was just on the fly, but from then on every time I got to a foot I repeated the same motif)

The rest is just having the desire and patience to do this for about a week.