YoinkTober 2024!

[Mirasol]

Hello there, and welcome to this year´s YoinkTober-thread!
I´m honored to be the one making it this time. (Going up bit later than usual, but still in time to prepare I hope...)

In which I shamelessly rip off Wave´s usual explanation: YoinkTober is this forum´s version of the Inktober-challange, allthough we do not limit ourselves to inked drawings here (unless you want to, of course). Throughout October, there will be daily prompts to create artworks/fanworks/writing/etc. to, whatever floats your boat, so long as it´s creative.
The goal is one finished piece per day. The size or length of it doesn´t matter, the point is to keep creating. But if you can´t reach that goal, no worries! No matter if it´s lack of time, or you just want to do the few prompts that interest you, join in whenever you like, or just read or comment along.

Here´s some of the last few year´s threads for inspiration: (feel free to look a bit through the events-board and archive, there´s many more)
YoinkTober 2023
YoinkTober 2022

To get to this year´s prompts. As suggested by Jitter, I looked around the interwebs to find something suitable, and here´s what I landed on. As we usually do some kind of theme here, I looked for something that´s following one while both matching the vibe of the setting of SSSS and still being open enough to allow for other things:

These prompts are from the user @lonelytofu from Twitter/X, originally posted under the title "build a world in 31 days" (original picture and link under the spoiler.)

Spoiler: show

(Please note, I don´t have a twitter-account, I found this via google image search. Clicking the link just gets me to the "create account"-page, as all twitter-links do since Elon took over, so feel free to correct me if it´s not the right link. )



link to the post!

Transcribing the promts for easier printing out/readability (cuz I know I´ll want to do that ):

Exploring the (Silent-)World for 31 days
 

•     Overgrown Ruins
•     Nature Untouched
•     Ancient Tree
•     Deep in the Woods
•     Cave Entrance
•     Rocky Ruins
•     Puzzled Platforms
•     Hall of Deities
•     Ancient Altar Room
•     Windmills and Grasslands
•     Abnormal Formations
•     Path Along the Water
•     Underwater Temple
•     Buried Statue(s)
•     Market Place
•     Merchant´s Store
•     Townsquare
•     Inn the Middle of Nowhere
•     Shanty Town
•     By the Docks
•     By the Beach
•     Exotic Flora
•     Cemetery
•     Desserted Drylands
•     Summoning Altar
•     Volcanic Terrain
•     Crystal Coves
•     Freezing Fjords
•     Eldritch Forest
•     Idle Portal
•     Astral Plains/Dreamland

I hope you find some prompts you like here, and as always, you may apply them to the Minnaverse or anything else you want.
Most importantly:

  Have Fun!

[dmeck7755]

Hey I wrote something for October 1!! It has been a very long while and I am so very rusty.  Hopefully it is not too bad..
https://archiveofourown.org/works/59340298/chapters/151342687

[thorny]

Nice, dmeck!

I like the use of that place of power; and I like that last line.

[Mirasol]

Dmeck, I enjoyed this story! An interesting view into a troll´s head!


Here´s my entry for the first day: the ruins of Pergamos (here´s the reference I used)
(As suggested by my mom, who heard the prompt and was reminded of ruins full of poppies she saw on vacation once upon a time. She saw them in Troy, but when I went looking for images online I liked the composition of one from Pergamos, so I drew that.)

I´m trying to practice drawing especially backgrounds and props this October, as I haven´t quite found a style for that to match the way I draw characters that also doesn´t take forever. And I generally just don´t have a lot of practice drawing things that are not people or animals, so those things always look wayyy worse than the characters around them...
This was painted with a wild mix of alcohol-markers, brushpens, Eddings and watercolors, as well as lots of different fineliners.

Uncolored version under the cut, I was at that point not sure if coloring it would make it better or ruin it haha.

Spoiler: No color • show

[thorny]

Hmmm. I think I actually like the no-color version better; it has a nicely creepy feel to it.

However, it's possible that creepy wasn't what you were after.

[Jitter]

Lovely! Thank you Mirasol for setting it up, and everyone for getting it started! I’m on busy busy business trip, but will join with more later. I promise. The prompt list looks intriguing, great choice!

Sorry gotta go sleep, will be back!

Have some more exclamatiin marks while I’m gone! !!!!!!!!

[thegreyarea]

Great! Fantastic! Thank you so much Mirasol !!!

I want to do them all! I love those prompts! 

Yet can't this week, 'cos I'm traveling, but next week...   

And I love your drawing, Mira! I can almost see several notoros on the base, around the flowers....

Also, that's one fine story, dmeck! I enjoyed that point of view and the internal conflict it allowed us to see.

Next week... 

[Mirasol]

However, it's possible that creepy wasn't what you were after.

Well, creepy wasn´t exactly what I was after, but I´ll take it haha. I do see what you mean. That´s part of the reason I did decide to color it after all. Thank You!

And thank you Grey and Jitter! I´m glad you like the prompts! Have fun travelling, both of you! (even if it´s for work)


2: Nature Untouched

Okay, I know this looks like the exact opposite of this prompt, but hear me out!
I got a bit to overthinking because technically, almost no place in the world is still nature untouched by people. The closest thing that I could come up with is forests, and considering the next few prompts, I just wasn´t feeling drawing trees for three days straight...

So I decided on a more post-apocalyptic reading of the prompt.
This is a location from the Splatoon 3 storymode, in which you explore an old fallout/flood-shelter built by (the now extinct) humans some 10.000 years ago.
This "nature", these plants that still grow in the facility´s greenhouses, still tended to by the AI the humans had automated this place with, no longer exist in the rest of the world. Neither does much memory of what humans even were, as they went extinct before the next intelligent life formed. This place is full of unknown machines, with descriptions in languages no one can still read, but there´s this little bit of life left that was completely untouched by the apocalypse that changed the world. And it remains so, because there is no way to enter the greenhouses.



I´ll actually also be travelling for the next few days, so depending on how the wifi is, I´ll possibly post the next few entries together. See you around!

[thorny]

One for the 3rd (when is it the 3rd? which time zone do we go by?)



Ancient Tree

   Water's coming through clean to the roots again. It had been a long time: first gradually becoming tainted. Root and branch and fungi and all the creatures moving through them had for so long yearned for the clean nutritious water and air from a dimly remembered youth; and then the foulness had abruptly become even worse, both in the water and in the air.  Mere survival had seemed uncertain, and full health not a thing to be even hoped for.

   Indeed many of the moving creatures and some of the rooted ones had not survived; some changing in themselves beyond possible survival; others killed by the changed ones; some starving for lack of clean food to eat. The evershifting intertangled community of the forest had shifted so far that even deeprooted trees and the fungal network were at risk. But some seasons back there had been a thread of clean water; and then another; and then a rain that came in season and carried little poison; and left the air behind it tasting almost as in those days of youth. And since then the rain and the air had for the most part stayed cleaner, and the water at the roots felt cleaner every year.

   The birds, who had never entirely left except to try to maintain their migrations, raised their beaks to that clean rain; and to the ones that followed. Every year there were more of them. The flocks of ancient years might never return all the missing species; but the numbers were nearly back to the times of youth. And there were new ones in the mix -- not new like the damaged new furred creatures, but new and in health.

   Four times a squirrel had come running, daring in the sun of the day to call for a mate. And this spring the caller had found one; and the old hole in the tree was full of healthy kits. This year perhaps the nuts would be spread through the woods and the near-barren gaps where humans had removed the trees, instead of all dropping too close to one trunk to survive. Two of the daughter trees being nursed were putting on strong new growth.

   The ancient tree was fading, fading; and knew the next major storm might be its last. But the forest -- ah, the forest would survive, and better than survive: it was growing into a new and joyful youth.

[dmeck7755]

Here is Oct 2's
https://archiveofourown.org/works/59340298/chapters/151543276
and
Oct 3
https://archiveofourown.org/works/59340298/chapters/151555294

Mirasol. Beautiful!!

I will read the others a bit later

[dmeck7755]

Thorny Awesome!!

[thegreyarea]

Those are all great, Mirasol, Thorny and dmeck! Lovely art, exciting stories! 

[Jitter]

Thorny, apparently there are onions growing in this forest of yours. Lovely!

Same with Mirasol and dmeck as well. It feels so good to be eventing again!

[wavewright62]

It brings me a lot of delight that you've taken up the challenge, Mirasol, with these excellent prompts!  I will try to do some.  (To answer thorny's question: yes.)(that is, the time zone that suits you, even if it doesn't actually happen on that particular day)

Much applause also for your drawings - really splendid.
Your story, thorny, is lovely in its hope and renewal.
dmeck, I am loving your stories too - you also went for hope (Merlin, what an inspired choice!), and Tuuri getting Onni to a lehto was a very badly needed missing scene!

[dmeck7755]

October 4th (i know i am late..)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/59340298/chapters/151772272