#(technically not a story but) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

In February 2021, Tumblr had 518.6 million blog accounts.

#(technically not a story but)

nerdpoe · 1 month

Text

It's Danny's first time doing his taxes, and he's reaching out to an online friend to help him. This is how he discovers that as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Amity Park is a barely contained zombie outbreak.

He'd made an online friend, Bart, and they played video games a lot.

Danny's fulltime job is inventing alongside his parents, and as that makes him self-employed (he doesn't work for his parents just next to them), this makes his taxes a little...scary. And it's his first tax season.

He reaches out to Bart, and asks if he knows anyone who files as self employed and if they'd be able to give him some guidance.

He can't ask his parents because, apparently, they've just been throwing random numbers on the papers and have no interest in actually doing them. Danny would like to do this properly.

Also he would like to know how his parents haven't been arrested? Questions for later.

So he shoots a message to Bart, who's apparently in the middle of some sort of sleepover with all of his old friends. Bart assures him that it's fine, and they'll all pitch in to help.

They just need to know his city and state so that the nerd of the group, some guy named Tim, can look up local state and city tax law.

When he tells them he's from Amity Park, there's no response for a good ten minutes.

What follows is a barely legible request for a phone number to call, and a group of people on the other side shouting and asking how he's avoided dying in the hellscape zombie apocalypse that is Amity Park.

Danny has no idea what the other shit means, but he's not about to dodge a chance to make a dead joke when he has one.

"I mean. If you wanna get technical, I didn't. Is...that something that'll effect my taxes?"

OR: The GIW has been lying to keep the Justice League and Justice League Dark out of Amity Park by declaring it a Disaster Zone, stating that not only is there massive pollutants in the air and soil, but that the undead run rampant and are barely contained. The wording they use, however, is a little weird upon closer inspection. It never specifies zombie, and it never says what pollutants. Danny's not super interested about that, though; he just wants to pay his taxes so that the IRS doesn't kill him in his sleep.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #phanfic #story prompt #tim absolutely digs into whether or not being dead effects his taxes #kon starts questioning whether he should be paying them?#is he even a legal resident of the usa?#tim should he get naturalized?#bart wants to go to amity #because talking and sentient zombies are cool as fuck #cassie is not super on board with going to amity park #she has a few more questions before agreeing to a field trip to go there #and there will be a field trip to amity park #a city of technically undead due to ecto contamination functioning perfectly normal?#fuck yeah they wanna see this twilight zone bullshit

6K notes · View notes

tangledinink · 21 days

Note

Will Swannie miss his wings? He’s been like that for about a year now, he probably gotten use to the wings and the pain in his calves/legs…would Donnie get like….phantom pain or something because of the missing wings? Would he in some way try to get them back or have a reminder of them? Will Donnie even try or want to dance again?

donnie doesn't usually dance on pointe anymore-- it was a rare occasion pre-curse, and now post, the physical demand is typically too much for him to handle. but when your little brother knows levitation magic, anything is possible for a special occasion.

generally speaking, though?

there's no way he's ever gonna want to stop dancing.

[ swanatello ] [ prev ] [ fin! ]

and... that's it! that's the end!

... well, the end of the main storyline, anyway! the end of the story for swannie that i wanted to tell. the au will still be around! <3 swanatello has pretty much always been built on the asks i've received about it, and i still have more tucked away in my hoard that i intend to get to at some point or another as little bonus side stories, and my askbox is always open as well...! and on that note--

thank y'all so, so much for your support on this magickal girl journey. i NEVER expected to get the amount of love or attention that i did for my silly little donniesona that was based on a pun, but i had so much fun with this comic and am so grateful to y'all <3 like i said, this entire au was really powered by the amount of asks i received about him and his story, and it was really such a fantastic experience for me all around. not including any non-canon crossover content, this comic is approximately 965 pages long! definitely wasn't my plan when i doodled him for the first time as a goof, haha.

thanks, gang. <3 i hope you enjoyed the ride, too.

1K notes · View notes

darkeneddawning · 11 months

Text

Escaped clone au

You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.

Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.

Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?

So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.

Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.

More thoughts under the read more

Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:

After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.

But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?

That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.

Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.

Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)

#dpxdc #dpxdc prompts #dawningwrites #Danny: I'm too powerful help please accept this 10 step guide that MIGHT give you a prayer of defeating me #Bruce: and you're saying that on top of all your potentially apocalyptic abilities you're also the ruler of another dimension??#Danny: I know right?? they wouldn't listen to me when I said a teenager wasn't qualified. and technically I'm only 5 years old!#Danny's better adjusted than Damian bc he had Jazz to help him #and he didn't have to be anything other than a “normal” teen until his accident #whereas Damian had a bunch of traumatized and emotionally stunted vigilantes with a complicated family dynamic he walked into #Alfred did his best but there was only so much he could do without undermining Bruce or interfering with their vigilantism #Dan happened before Dani so she might not be in this (yet)#but if Danny's clones are still a thing I think he'd be even more traumatized by most of them melting #Dani: you don't know what it's like to be made by a rich supervillain to replace your original and then be discarded as a failure #Danny: ha ha so funny story #damian wayne #damian al ghul

3K notes · View notes

idkaguyorsomething · 7 months

Text

the convoluted doctor who lore gets extra funny when you realize that, at two separate points in the past, two different companions to two different doctors ended up running into rasputin but both came to the conclusion that he was a pretty nice and normal guy. which, depending on how you interpret the power of the doctor, is either a nice subversion of a lot of tropes of stories used in pre-soviet russia, or side-splittingly hilarious as you start imagining the master getting roped into various adventures with different versions of the doctor that he can’t fuck with yet or else he’ll destroy the timeline, forcing him to play nice with the humans as part of his 4D Time Chess Master Disguise Plan #3852

#doctor who #rasputin #in case you’re wondering the companions were #ian chesterton #liz shaw #and #jo grant #who kept explicitly making references to the master throughout the story #but wait it gets better #at one point it was proposed to make a story with this one time lord called the meddling monk #who just decides to start fucking around with the timeline and forces rasputin to listen to boney m #but apparently this actually drives rasputin to the brink on insanity and destroys the entire timeline #forcing the monk to regenerate into rasputin to take his place and live out his life #and that’s why he decided to go by the monk #it was never technically canonized but could you imagine the mindfuck #you have a time lord impersonating another time lord impersonating a normal guy who may or may not have actually existed in the whoniverse #who even knows at this point #the untempered schism didn’t drive the master mad it was a funky disco beat #grigori rasputin #dhawan!master

1K notes · View notes

nerdpoe · 7 months

Text

Danny was a stillborn, and Maddie made a deal with a Devil to give her baby a soul so he could live.

But the Devil couldn't really like, make a wholeass new soul for this. He could grab one of the ones he owned, but that'd just be putting an adult in an infants body, and that whole thought kind of weirded the Devil out.

So, he compromised.

He had a piece of the Laughing Magicians soul, and he just kinda.

Shoved that into the baby corpse.

And holy shit it worked, the kid took it.

Which, awesome! He gets the lady's soul and the kids when it's matured!

Except that was fifteen years ago, and now said Devil is desperately trying to get into contact with Constantine to cancel the deal they signed and agreed to.

Cuz that little baby?

Yeah he's the High King of the fucking Infinite Realms; a being that can not only cancel said contract, but do it and declare the Devil who made it guilty of Treason.

So he needs to find the Laughing Magician fucking yesterday, before the kid looks too closely at why his soul is so weird and figures it out.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #phanfic #story prompt #when danny does find out that said devil has a contraact on his mom #he pays the dude a visit #tbh he's bein real nice about #literally just dropped in to ask what needs to be done to nullify the contract #but this devil is SHITTING HIMSELF the entire time #oh yeah #baby corpse tw #death of a child #he gets better tho #wait shouldn't all danny phantom posts have “death of a child” in the tags #cuz i mean #if we're getting technical

3K notes · View notes

lazylittledragon · 2 months

Note

what do you mean youre technically a detransitioner cause of terf bullshit?

it's a v long story but i detransitioned for a couple of years when i was 16/17, for multiple reasons but mostly because i fell into the blaire white/kalvin garrah chamber of "you have to be This way to be trans otherwise you're not real".

i was already Deeply insecure about myself and my 'passing' and i was led to believe that i couldn't want to wear makeup or skirts, and i couldn't choose not to have bottom surgery, and i couldn't do anything but bind for 12+ hours a day to the point that my ribcage is still misshapen. basically i thought that if i wasn't suffering enough doing 'feminine' things, i couldn't really be trans, so i should just go back to being a girl and suck it up.

the terf bullshit is because i'd seen a lot of terfs/detransitioners talking about the 'dangers' of testosterone and how it would turn me into a horrible ugly evil monster and how there was nothing worse than wanting to be a man. which combined with 'you need to fully medically transition to be valid at all' creates some very dangerous and upsetting feelings to cope with.

it also came from trying really hard to put myself in a little box before i realised that my sexuality/gender are very fluid and it's FINE for me not to have a label and just do whatever i want. when i was 19 or so i went back to using they/them (and eventually he/him) and changed my name again because even though i like doing 'feminine' things, i don't want to be seen as a woman.

tldr: i was conditioned by transphobic/terf rhetorics to think that i was being trans the 'wrong' way so i couldn't be trans at all, so i believed i must actually be a girl if i still wanted to do 'feminine' things. nowadays i am a transmasc who does feminine things because i don't give two shits about what any transmed prick thinks of me anymore.

#ramble #ok to reblog btw i'm fine with this being shared #this was meant to be a short version but this is just the whole story whoops #sorry i realised the way i phrased it sounded like i'm the detrans you see in the news #i'm Technically a detransitioner because a lot of detrans stats are people who go on to RETRANSITION #because detransition is often because of social stigma and not because you realised you weren't trans #so anyway. terfs are cancer and if you don't think their bs is harming children you're wrong #i know it's easy to say 'you should've used your brain and realised those people were wrong'#but like. when you're 16 you're SO impressionable. even if you think you aren't #especially when you're watching people who have been transitioning longer than you and you assume they know everything #i was in my mid-late teens when 'transtrender' videos were MASSIVE and i believed it!!! and i was Not nice about those people #all they made me believe was that being trans couldn't be colourful and comfy and fun. it just had to be Pain #i hope everyone who contributed to the 'you need to be this way to be trans' mindset knows how much hurt they've caused #nowadays i don't care. go and be stargender. we have actual problems to deal with not debates about neopronouns #anyway this was long. that's the story

546 notes · View notes

backyardboytoy · 2 months

Note

Imagining that you walk into the woods in your local town, gently taking a stroll until when you take a small break you realise you weren’t leaning against a tree…it was a 10ft tall werewolf, and seemingly it was in heat as you could tell just by looking down.

It needs a womb to release in and it seems it’s chosen you…

Contents: Cumflation, Lactation, impregnation

"Oh boy, howdy -" is the stupid thing that ends up tumbling from my mouth. Because damn that's a big boy with a ridged rod between his legs. His heavy, audibly sloshing balls complement his whole horny monster look, fantastically.

The Wolfman huffs, the open air fogging from how hot his breath is. I couldn't really make out any pupils in the yellow of his eyes but his snout tilts down to where I am. A bit of drool is slinging down his jaws onto his own neck. He opens his mouth and i'm half expecting to be torn to shreads only for a deep guttural voice to ring out and say one thing.

"Help."

"Huh?" Is the response I come up with because, hello??? My eyes jolt back down to the throbbing monster cock already so pent up its leaking pre in sticky globs onto the ground with every pulse. And it clicks what he seems to be at least trying to ask for. I tilt my head up at the Wolfman. "Uh, do you wanna fuck me?"

His ears perk up, and the drool starts reaching his chest. An impaitent panting noise fills the air.

Without a second thought, I grin. "Yeah, that's fine!" I hooked my hands under my pants and boxer briefs and pulled them down. "I've been horny all day. Fuck me good alright?" He all but lundged for me when I said that. His clawed hands coming down and grabbed my sides. Hoisting me into the air dispite My yelp of surpise.

I feel the tip of his cock prod at my holes entrance. Looking down makes me swallow because his shaft is twice as large as a baseball bat. But I don't have any time to think further because he's already pushing it into me.

His cock manages to gape my hole open at a third of the way down his length on the first go. A grunt escaping me when I feel how much he's inside of me already.

A deep inhale from him is the only warning I get before an explosion of warmth fills me. "Fuck-" i grit my teeth when he immediately decided to cum on entry. It's a oozing sound when cum starts spilling out to paint the forest floor.

I pant and as soon as the sensation stops the hands on my sides pull me up and drop me back down on his monsterily thick cock. Turns out monster cum makes a great lubricant for getting a cock even deeper. A perverted squelch sound now pairs with each messy thrust.

I'm breathy, and look down to find out I'm almost halfway down his length when his cock tip nudges deep at my insides. Assuming he hit my cervix, made me huff. But surpisingly no pain had accompanied the prod just a nagging pleasure.

The Wolfman growled, his hands pulling me off his cock till only the tip was at my entrance again. All before slamming home into my hole. I yelled feeling the cock ram through my poor cervix and barrel into the wall of my womb. Why did that feel good? Holy shit? A churning sound hit my ears, and I looked down to see his heavy balls clentching.

Thick cum splattered into my waiting womb, with a purpose. Monster sperm violating and ready to impregnate any egg they could possibly hunt down. "Fuck fuck-" my stomach surged outwards this time. My cervix apparently not wanting to let the monsters cum let down. I looked four months pregnant with just cum.

With a huff, he fucked me back down his cock once more. Fuck, he was so big and there was so little room for my hole to accommodate, I could feel every pulsating vein decorating his shaft. He fucked me up and down, up and down. My belly sloshed every time me pulled me up and down.

I looked down once more to find I was nearly down to base but knew I wouldn't be taking his knot, unfortunately. His cock is so massive that even with his length fucking my cervix wide and his tip slamming into the wall of my womb his knot wasn't even reaching my ass.

He suddenly threw his head back and howled, cutting my thoughts short.

He stilted once more, his cock pressed against my womb. I felt his cock pulsating as each splash of cum shooting into my waiting womb. I groaned and watched my stomach grow further to accommodate my heavy womb. By the time he stopped coming I looked eight months pregnant.

My chest was wet, making my look down to see myself lactating through my shirt. I chuckled high off of monster cock and cum.

He got me pregnant. Fuck my body knew it was inevitable.

I could only groan when he fucked my down his length once more.

The joy of being a living condom for a monster in heat.

#monster nsft #monster lover #monster fucker #cf #monster smut #moocow #rapid pregnancy #technically i guess #mpreg #fantasy smut #werewolf nsft #jack rabbit text #jack rabbit asks #jack rabbit stories

541 notes · View notes

zvezdacito · 10 months

Text

Saw this tweet on Twitter and now I have to make it about them

Like, brother 1 based off Maleficent and brother 2 based off the sword that kills her it doesn't get any more toxic and doomed than that

#twst #malleus draconia #twst silver #twisted wonderland #i know that the story doesnt straight up look you in the face and word for word go “these are siblings” and malleus is still technically-#-under maleficia legally but tbh the fact that they cant actually become siblings and malleus cant actually become lilias son like silver-#-is just adds to the tragedy

2K notes · View notes

eyrieofsynapses · 5 months

Text

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

#aurora comic #aurora webcomic #comicaurora #art analysis #...I hope those are the right tags???#new fandom new tagging practices to learn ig #much thanks for something to read while I try to rest my wrists. carpal tunnel BAD. (ignore that I wrote this I've got braces ok it's fine)#anyway! I HAVE. MANY MORE THOUGHTS. ON THE STORY ITSELF. THIS LOVELY STORY #also a collection of reactions to a chunk of the comic before I hit the point where I was too busy reading to write anything down #idk how to format those tho #...yeet them into one post...???#eh I usually don't go off this much these days but this seems like a smaller tight-knit fandom so... might as well help build it?#and I have a little more time thanks to break so #oh yes also shoutout to my insanely awesome professor for teaching me all the technical stuff from this he is LOVELY #made an incredibly complex program into something comprehensible <3 #synapse talks

749 notes · View notes

electrozeistyking · 5 months

Text

Ghost Drone is an AU where the events of Murder Drones have been spread out some odd years and changed around (except for Episode 1, which remains the same as it does in the show). Alternate takes on Episodes 2, 3 and 5 have already occurred.

The first comic isn't canon to the AU anymore, but since it's the initial concept, I figured I'd include it. This entire post is basically my way of saying "Hey, this AU has been stewing in my brain since the 16th of November in 2023."

735 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

xxsugarxrushxx

XSugarXRushX

mykonossalome

Briefly Gorgeous

jeasicabraeden

t h e y...

animeloverr

"Lucy"💜

dame-chat-blanc

Fandoms...