A Couple Side Characters I Redesigned For A Story That Im Writing Jk. Its Been Festering In My Head Since

A couple side characters I redesigned for a “story” that I’m “””writing””” …Jk. It’s been festering in my head since 2019 and the most I’ve gotten out of it is a mediocre outline. I’m not built to be a writer, but I CAN draw the characters! Oh boy, can I draw them.

I plan on redesigning the actual main couple too, so they should be showing up eventuallyyyyy… Maybe.

I neglect my OCs too much, so I finally decided to sit down and actually design some characters for a story I’ve had in my head for 3 years🤪 Some of them I designed way back when I first got the idea, others I didn’t even draw until just last month…

I unfortunately did not have the foresight to draw a proper line-up, so characters are jumbled around kinda randomly, but they all eventually interact in some way or another.

More OCs 😗 Fun fact, Lumi was originally a self-insert character for Okegom fanfic way back when I was obsessed with Idate, and if you look hard enough, you’ll find artwork of her that friends have made for me in the past. Lol.

Eventually I decided I wanted her to be her own independent character, which resulted in… frankly the most boring thing one could possibly come up with, so I ditched that story years ago. I can’t abandon Lumi herself no matter how hard I try, however, so I’m taking a completely different approach now. What I came up with this time around ended up being eerily similar to the plot of Spice & Wolf, right down to the wolf-girl thing, but eh… 🤷🏻

This is a terrifying norm I’ve been seeing in fandom recently, with a lot of people asking for photo ID’s to enter a server or for 18+ commissions or to follow a private Twitter account. While I understand the sentiment and realize that there’s an issue of minors trying to get into adult spaces, this is an incredibly dangerous practice that needs to stop.

I have seen this popping up more and more in the past year and frankly, I’m sick of sitting back and watching it become a social norm. Not to mention, there is a huge difference between a company with a team of lawyers and legal statements with the intention to protect your information and giving this to a random person online.

Here is an article from IAPP discussing more in depth the current difficulties for age verification online.  Thanks to @murmurkins for digging around to find this!

Here is also some resources for Discord specifically on how to moderate and run a server that has 18+ channels and designating a server as 18+. Discord also notes that if you are locked out of 18+ channels, you can appeal this by sending a picture of yourself and either a photo ID or your Discord tag. Again, while not a perfect solution, this is their last resort, not the intial requirement. It’s dangerous to do, and Discord recognizes this, which is why they have a system to protect your information AND they require that all third-party individuals have a privacy policy telling individuals how they will protect others’ information. 

If anyone wants to respond to this post with more information on other websites, feel free! The biggest issue I have seen with this is on Discord, so that is where my information is focused.

TL;DR: Don’t give your ID out online to random people for your safety. Make sure who you are giving personal information to has a privacy policy. While it is an issue that minors are accessing 18+ content, this is not a safe solution to the problem.

oh how the turntables