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lollytea · 5 years

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can you tell us more about the snufmin kids, if thats okay?

Oh of course, of course!! i love those children so much dude!!!

[Original OC post]

Beginnings

-Torben’s origins are kinda a downer but basically his mom was a witch on the outskirts of a little village (real far away from moominvalley) who was killed after a lot of fearmongering. they raided her cottage afterwards and found baby torben and assumed him to be a child she stole.

- They couldnt find the “real mother” and he ended up in the care of a childrens’ home. He actually bounced around a few of them until he ended up in the home where he met with his future siblings. according to those working there, he had a rather unnerving stare and a lot of them felt there was something not quite right about him. (the rumor going around was it was something the witch had “done to him” and that “the poor child might never be the same”) he was a lot more sullen as a baby who didnt have much of an interest in toys and had a hard time connecting with the other children. He brightened up considerably when he found Birch and Essi

- Birch was an oddity from the start. (Species headcanon from here) Its natural for woodies grow in groups, usually from trees and bushes, so theyre biologically social creatures who are hardly ever seen alone. But Birch may have been a spectacle of his species, as he was formed in a moss patch and born all on his own.

- Another thing that was considered strange about him was his lack of imprinting. Woodies tend to latch on to the first “safe” person they meet, who then forcibly becomes their “parent”. (Woodies are produced asexually and have no “real parents” so finding a person of protection is often done as a survival tactic. It’s recommended that one stay away from woodies if one is not ready for children.) Baby Birch was discovered by a farmer and surprisingly did not take to him right away, like any woodie does. Actually he was rather standoffish and even bit if the old man touched him. He was sent to the home not long after.

- Space was tight and there werent a lot of cribs/beds to go around, so Birch didn’t have one to himself. Instead they just squeezed him into 2 year old torben’s crib for the two children to share. Here they became inseparable, with Birch, maybe not imprinting but forming a close bond with somebody and finally finding a source of comfort. He bit a little less after this. Likewise with Torben, who gained a caring gleam in his eye once he had a little one to care for. Even when Torben was old enough for a proper bed, he insisted Birch sleep with him and would not budge on the matter. The home gave in and allowed it.

- Essi’s origin was a simple one, of just being born at the wrong time. In a house packed with mumrik children, one more simply could not be accommodated. I dont want to say her birth parents were terrible people but with the amount of kids they had, they were rather jaded to a fresh baby face and werent too emotional in deciding they need to be rid of her.

- She was never an angry or intentionally misbehaved baby when under the care of the home. She just needed a lot of stimulation that she wasnt getting and tended to tear up her clothes, curtains and bedsheets. It was also concerning that she never cried, or babbled or made any sound at all. It had falsely interpreted as some fort of defect child. They didnt know if it was right to mix her with the other babies, seeing as with the damage her claws had already done, they felt she could be dangerous. She was left on her own a lot.

- The other two met Essi when they were caught stealing food from the kitchen and locked away on their own to think about how sorry they were. But being tight on space, the only isolated room was the one where Essi was kept. They had heard about her being “the baby who didnt cry” and were very intrigued. but upon further inspection of the wriggling little girl in the cot, Torben observed that she looked lonely. They wondered if she simply wasnt capable of crying, which would be awful if one wanted to express their sadness. After entertaining her throughout their isolation period, the two decided that she was now their baby. And they would be her siblings. They would all belong to each other. As a family.

Miscellaneous HCs:

-Torben sleeps like he’s fucking comatose. There is no waking him. Even when living with Moomintroll and Snufkin, he and Birch still share a bed and Torben kicks and Birch (a light sleeper) hates it. But no matter how much arguments and late night brawls this causes, they still refuse to get separate beds.

- Essi has a crib in Moomintroll’s room and sleeps there until she’s like 4. (She always magically ends up from her crib to her papa’s stomach by morning.) They tried to get her a “big girl room” when she was bigger but she didnt adapt very well as she couldnt sleep when she was alone. They had to move her into her siblings’ room. She slept soundly after that.

- Moomintroll and Snufkin often tell the kids stories from their youth, sometimes using anonymous names to work as “fictional stories” lest they frighten them (or for the sake of their own dignity). Essi is very disturbed by the story of the the hobgoblin’s hat, while Birch can only scoff and wonder aloud what sort of idiot was that moomin who went and put the thing on his head. Moomintroll stares dead ahead and refuses to meet eyes with a highly amused Snufkin.

- Early on in his training, Alicia gifts Torben with his own witch hat. With much excitement, he immediately plops the thing on only for his whole head to disappear under it. Alicia laughs, informing him only a fully trained witch can wear it properly and the hat will adjust accordingly once he’s ready. (The hat freaks Moomin the fuck out. He does not care for magical hats anymore.)

- Essi has a little stuffed yellow bird that Mymble got her, which she carries around (often in her mouth) everywhere. She named him Comet, based on the story of when her papas first met.

- Speaking of Mymble (the younger), she loves doing Essi’s hair, although it took her a while to get accustomed to the little mumrik’s big mop of curls and couldnt understand why brushing it was so hard at first. She’s familiar with it now and often weaves in little flowers and ribbons.

- Birch is very close with Snorkmaiden who thinks his flowering skin is very pretty and encourages his writing and curiosity. (Being a huge fan of the written word herself, mostly fairytales.)

- Moominpapa is also supportive of his eloquent grandchild (Splendid! Another writer in the family, eh?) but he’s a little more pushy and it takes a bit of chiding from moominmama to get him to stop saying “have you considered writing about Me??”

- Torben loves Snork. Snork.....hates Torben really. Well, its not that they hate him, its just that Snork has spent their entire life on this flying machine project and torben+flying broomstick= a mockery of it all. Not to mention Torben is annoying as fuck and spends way too much time pestering Snork about god knows what.

- Essi and Little My hunt bugs together. Lov the cronch

- Birch is afraid of thunderstorms. The whole family usually piles into his bed on thundery nights to make him feel safe.

- Once Torben is at an adequate stage of witching training, he’s allowed a familiar. Of all creatures, he chooses Essi, the closest thing to a black cat he has. She happily obliges and spends most of her late childhood, mid teens operating under this duty.

- Snufkin has composed a tune for each of his children that he plays when alone and thinking about them, or by their bedside and playing them to sleep. Torben’s tune is called ‘Bonfire in the Rain’ Birch’s is ‘Baring Shards of One’s Looking Glass’ and Essi’s is ‘She Who Stirs the Stars’

- To help with Birch’s collecting hobby, Torben enchants a little velveteen pouch an gifts it to him. It never overflows and Birch can fit the whole forest in there if he wishes. It’s very handy to carry around when Birch is vagabond. Extremely light luggage.

- Torben also gifts Essi with a locket encapsulated with the essence of a star. Just enough heat and light to illuminate her way and keep her warm at night. It’s her prized possession.

- Birch is ace and a he/him nonbinary. He’s not entirely sure if he’s aro as he feels pretty picky about close friends too. but romance has never appealed to him much.

- Essi is bi. She’s only briefly been involved with like 3 people before meeting the love of her life, Sislaf.

- Torben is as fluid as can be. He doesnt really have a way to describe his sexuality, he just knows that he loves and loves and loves a lot. He’s a bit like Mymble in the sense that he dates a lot and is always very naive and devoted right away, only to get himself hurt later. He’s quite sensitive about all that.

Futures

- Once the kids are grown, they do end up going their separate ways in life but remain close and visit eachother frequently. They keep in contact by letters. Birch is eternally pissed about his messy handwriting compared to Essi’s beautiful scrawl and Torben’s neat yet flashy one.

- Torben becomes the Moominvalley Witch, now that Alicia’s family have moved on to other places. He builds himself a small cottage on the outskirts so he can have time alone to think and brew. He’s still a walking distance from his parents home though. Flying distance if he’s feeling lazy.

- Birch’s travels become longer and in time and through word of mouth, the tale he tells become quite well known. He’s a famous storyteller now, whether he wants to be or not. Luckily, he’s begrudgingly embraced it (better than Snufkin did with his fame) and spends a lot of time in taverns, entertaining the regulars.

- Essi was the one who found it the hardest to grow up. Shes a family oriented person so she didnt want to be alone but she also dreamed of adventure and couldnt just drag her whole family along with her (especially her papas who were at the point where they just wanted to rest and settle down) But she found her calling. Criminal. Leader of a pack of criminals actually. Some were old friends from moominvalley, some she met along the way but Essi was lucky enough to find herself a group that became like a family to her. They traveled land and sea, doing all the righteous work and righting the injustices that Snufkin used to do. Only this time, its not just one little man. Its one little woman and her gang.

- The siblings meet up a lot, usually around a campfire where they share a pipe and laugh about nostalgia. Torben’s particularly good at animating the smoke into moving images, while Birch tells a story to accompany it and Essi claps along. And even when shes grown and tough, during moments like this Essi still feels the comforting warmth of being a baby sister

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bmpmp3 · 5 years

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rainyluneblogs replied to your photoset “I’m lowkey weirdly drawn to Star-Crossed Myth despite only playing...”

@shadowfairyy this loooks sick as hell?????? how did you do that effect please teach me your ways

adjsjsj thank u for asking i spent way longer than needed on those effects and I am ITCHING to TELL MY TALE OF TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

okay to preface this: there is Absolutely a better, more efficient way to do this, maybe with something like after effects? i don’t have that ‘cause its a trillion dollars but there’s probably alternatives but also I was Too Lazy to learn something new but not too lazy to spend 2 hours tryna fudge it with my trusty drawing program clip studio paint and also a copy of photoshop

so like..,, i drew the drawing right? the bishounen freaking out in the foreground, the space-y background in the..background (i used some default pastel type brushes just really big and some constellation brush i got off clip studio assets and just went ham qwq i have no restraint with fun brushes im like an 8 year old with kid pix) i used one of my many, many glittery effect brushes to make slap some on a layer between the background and foreground and also on a layer on top of it all, this brush was like, glowing shards? random glowing shapes, i thought it looked neat, i got it off clip studio assets but if you use another program you can probably find similar brushes or resources for other programs~ or if you really wanted you could draw it all in yerself lol I gave a little buffer space all around the drawing, so like theres this blank space surrounding it where the shards keep going, this was so when they move they dont get cut off lol

what i did was i opened it in photoshop to make an animation (still havent learned the clip studio animation features lol, i think fire alpaca has some pretty good animation stuff tho so thats an alternative!) and like so each frame i just shifted the glowing shard layers up or down (i made the two layers go in different directions ‘cause i thought it looked cool) by one single arrow key press each frame i did it manually sobs 15 frames each colour so it wasnt too bad here’s what the timeline looks like!

so yeah theres definitely better ways to do that but this...is what i did

for the transition frams between colours i just used a motion blur effect, i think both clip studio and photoshop have it, sai probably has it too? i remember gimp having it, not sure about fire alpaca its been a minute since i used that one but yeah just a motion blur lol

he must go.... his planet needs him

the framerate was consistent throughout, i think it might be like 12fps? 30fps? i chose no delay for the timing on photoshop I don’t know what that is in real person words and then i just cropped out that buffer space i added earlier~ and BAM it was done

the actual full sized gif file was wayyy bigger than the one i uploaded to tumblr so i made it like a quarter of the size but if you wanna watch yer internet Beg For Mercy as it attempts to load a 25mb gif here’s the link to it on my dA~

OH i almost forgot, in the background glowing shard layer, I went at some of the shards with an airbrush shaped eraser tool with the opacity real low so I could make some of the shards look like theyre fading into the distance atmospheric perspective babey

if you wanna try something similar I’d recommend not being like me and instead learning some kinda aftereffects type program or something BUT if yer determined all you need is yer draiwng program of choice and access to a copy of photoshop OR oorRR this might be even more tedious but you could use just firealpaca and alpacadouga ‘cause its free and really good in my opinion (i used to use it before i got csp), or if you wanna use a different drawing program that doesnt have an export each layer as a separate image button theres this little free tool i like called grimace for exporting a bunch of images from one psd that i adore, its supposed to be for visual novel assets but I use it for all kinds of things now lol

i guess the moral here is you can do all kinds of professional looking stuff with just what you got on hand or maybe some little freeware things (and a few hours) if yer determined enough qwq the other moral is that im crazy

#rainyluneblogs #reply #also thank u im very proud of that drawing qwq #i dont draw cool stuff enough but its so much fun ahghHH

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