Hello my name is Jack and I am here to be a big gay autistic nerd about this whole thing. He/him, non-binary, disabled, extremely sexy - the classic quadruple threat.
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And, just to cover my ass: all original characters and art are the copyright of yours truly, do not steal, uwu, etc. (If you want to make fan art/fic though, I will love you forever!)
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AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackTheGiantKiller/pseuds/JackTheGiantKiller
FINALLY got around to fixing the resolution on these images! It took me a couple hours, and the change is BARELY noticeable, but whatever! The point is that the image quality is SLIGHTLY better now, and also I am a CHAMPION.
BEHOLD. BRUCE WAYNE THE DRAGON AND HIS MAJESTIC HOARD OF ORPHANS!!!!!
In order of appearance, we've got: Bruce alone with Alfred, Dick, the Lady Barbara, Jason, Prince Timothy, Stephanie, Damian (the baby dragon), raised-by-wargs Cass, warlock Duke, unidentified sleeping pointy-eared person (Dana from Batman Beyond, if you want! - or whoever else you deem missing. I'm sure there are more of them just off-page), and finally vampire brothers Matt and Terry McGinnis!
And a big thank you to tumblr user @sweetteaanddragons, whose fic More Precious Than Gold on AO3 was the direct inspiration for this project!!
Highly recommend for a lot of sweetness and further background on this image! I changed very little from the story tbh.
I used to think Destiel was the name of the main character in Supernatural, and I was RIGHT!!
Weβre the ones who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.
To the power of a group of people unapologetically loving something silly and taking control of the stories that matter to them.
To the power of saving your favorite characters as a form of saving yourself.
To positive and healthy expressions of queer love, shared art, and making something beautiful together.
To the realization that βcanonβ merely indicates the version of the story preferred by the copyright holders - often corporations - and the rest is just fan fiction fodder, baby!
To fan fiction as an outlet for majority queer and female creators, perpetually blowing paid male writers out of the water.
To better fucking representation on every front moving forward. Β
To blackout poetry, its own form of rebellion.
To family.
To family found.
To asserting that we, too, can live to see our own happy endings.
I used to think that Destiel was the name of the main character in Supernatural - and I was RIGHT!!!
Weβre the ones who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.
To the power of a group of people unapologetically loving something silly and taking control of the stories that matter to them.
To the power of saving your favorite characters as a form of saving yourself.
To positive and healthy expressions of queer love, shared art, and making something beautiful together.
To the realization that βcanonβ merely indicates the version of the story preferred by the copyright holders - often corporations - and the rest is just fan fiction fodder, baby!
To fan fiction as an outlet for majority queer and female creators, perpetually blowing paid male writers out of the water.
To better fucking representation on every front moving forward. Β
To blackout poetry, its own form of rebellion.
To family.
To family found.
To asserting that we, too, can live to see our own happy endings.
OMG I'M NOT CRAZY!!!! (Or, well, I still am, but not in this specific regard) - THANK YOU so much for telling me!! I was playing the version on the Switch, which is always like months behind the current version, so that tracks!!
Don't Starve is the only game I know that somehow senses my HUBRIS.
I was 2 MINUTES AWAY FROM THE FINAL PORTAL IN THE FINAL LEVEL OF ADVENTURE MODE WITHOUT CHEATING OR ANYTHING. I had spent DAYS working to win the game, 2 MINUTES away from the end! I had Chester! I had a billion pierogies! I had two activated touchstones! I had it all, baby!!!!
I even bragged to my wife that the game was almost easy now!
Big mistake. The Hubris Sensing Technology (TM) of the World's Most Unforgiving Game sensed my complacency and the next thing I knew I was barraged by more Clockwork Bishops than I have ever seen in a single place in my hundreds and hundreds of hours playing this evil evil game!!!
I got through more killer bees than I'd ever seen, and a huge dense forest of 1,000 spiders! All that I could handle!!
But I have NO IDEA what I was supposed to do about a bottleneck that involved 60 ranged attacks hitting me within 5 seconds and stun-locking me to death. I have never been so Humbled by a game, and I've been playing this game for so long!
I have made this art piece to commemorate the occasion.
DISCLAIMER/CREDIT:
To make this, I cut out sprites from the game and from other official art by Klei Games, and then I added all the lighting effects and arranged it all together.
The only other thing I actually drew for this is Wigfrid's hand holding the torch.
Normally, I illustrate every element of a piece I do; but for this, I just wanted to quickly communicate the High-Pitched Silly Screaming Horror of running into this monstrosity in the "all-darkness" level of Adventure Mode!!
Don't Starve is the only game I know that somehow senses my HUBRIS.
I was 2 MINUTES AWAY FROM THE FINAL PORTAL IN THE FINAL LEVEL OF ADVENTURE MODE WITHOUT CHEATING OR ANYTHING. I had spent DAYS working to win the game, 2 MINUTES away from the end! I had Chester! I had a billion pierogies! I had two activated touchstones! I had it all, baby!!!!
I even bragged to my wife that the game was almost easy now!
Big mistake. The Hubris Sensing Technology (TM) of the World's Most Unforgiving Game sensed my complacency and the next thing I knew I was barraged by more Clockwork Bishops than I have ever seen in a single place in my hundreds and hundreds of hours playing this evil evil game!!!
I got through more killer bees than I'd ever seen, and a huge dense forest of 1,000 spiders! All that I could handle!!
But I have NO IDEA what I was supposed to do about a bottleneck that involved 60 ranged attacks hitting me within 5 seconds and stun-locking me to death. I have never been so Humbled by a game, and I've been playing this game for so long!
I have made this art piece to commemorate the occasion.
DISCLAIMER/CREDIT:
To make this, I cut out sprites from the game and from other official art by Klei Games, and then I added all the lighting effects and arranged it all together.
The only other thing I actually drew for this is Wigfrid's hand holding the torch.
Normally, I illustrate every element of a piece I do; but for this, I just wanted to quickly communicate the High-Pitched Silly Screaming Horror of running into this monstrosity in the "all-darkness" level of Adventure Mode!!
I've made you all a "motivational" poster! π₯°π₯°π₯°
" Manifest your dream reality through sheer force of will! Anyone can do it! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps! Be a self-made king! Good things happen to good people! Get in that grindset! The only one standing in the way of your dreams is you! Anyone can do it! Nothing is impossible! Everything happens for a reason! Everything will be fine, so don't worry! You can do whatever you set your mind to! Never give up on anything! Every failure is just an opportunity in disguise! Have you tried yoga?? Have you tried supplements? Would you like to hear about an exciting new business opportunity? It's all part of God's plan! You just gotta stop fearing SUCCESS. Happiness is a choice! Delete negativity! Push every boundary! For winners, limits are merely suggestions! Lean in! Don't take no for an answer!! Anyone can do it!! "
[for those who deal with eyestrain, there's a plain-text version of the above pink and green paragraph of assorted toxic positivity slogans copied down at the bottom of the post.]
Anyway, it turns out the people who are willing to look you in the face and tell you that your oppressive burdens are in fact not that heavy at all... are people that either don't have that same burden, or people who are comfortable forcing someone else to carry it for them. - All while they proudly take the credit.
and also, he's HORRIBLE it's FANTASTIC I love him, 11/10, Evil Gay Bitch Gold Medalist, REALLY puts the MLM into mlm [the "Multi-Level-Marketing" into "man-loving-man"]
β β β
More context and thoughts, if you're a media analysis nerd:
I am, however, obviously a media analysis JOCK π
So, the actual toxic positivity quote that I used in the image was inspired by the commentary made in these two episodes of the excellent anti-fatphobia (and therefore anti-capitalist) podcast "Maintenance Phase".
It's a two-parter on this one piece-of-shit white lady wellness influencer, and the hosts are funny and awesome and the entire catalogue of the podcast matters a lot.
[Sidenote: the episode "Is Being Fat Bad For You?" is VITAL shit. - My main takeaway has been that it's ALWAYS better to be fat than to be fatphobic. Every time.]
But the main point that is relevant here is the way this podcast helps peel back the ugly truth of a broader phenenomen:
In other words, it is notable that the kind of people who say things like "We all have the same 24 hours in a day!" are generally also people who already have the money to pay someone else to clean their house, thus literally giving them more free hours in a day, than say, the people they are paying (or underpaying) to give them that time.
And what stuck with me most from these two episodes is the absolute open disrespect that toxically positive privileged people often have for the very individuals they are relying on for all those extra hours they seem to find in a day.
Because the thing is, most of them absolutely buy their own bullshit. They HAVE to.
In order to justify the way of the world to themselves and ease their guilt over their role in it (while still maintaining all their power), they end up so good at lying to themselves that they see no irony in funding their personal business ventures with money from their wealthy parents and spouses... and then calling themselves "self-made."
Anyone can do it, after all! (There are simply certain things that are best left unsaid! Best not to be rude!) And any kind of shake to this worldview means they might just-- crumble to dust!!
And in my personal experience as a Poor Cripple [TM], those folks are champions at shaming the poor and disabled.
Folks like that might very well might very well force someone else to bear the crushing madness of their golden crown, so that they are free to build a beautiful kingdom of ice and agreeability!
I. FUCKIN'. LOVE THIS SHIT, Y'ALL. GOOD WRITING. HELL YEAH.
[Not shown: the literal 6-page essay I wrote today while trying to explain FULLY and COMPLETELY why The Winter King episode matters so much to me.
Turns out, in order to do that, I had to talk about the way casual ableism and classism can easily become extreme ableism and classism--and THAT got dark REAL FAST.
I didn't even finish writing it! I was headed to 8 pages at LEAST (and that's not even including talking about the wonderful artistic craftsmanship of the episode!!) when I realized that people might not reblog this as much if it included AN IN-DEPTH PERSONAL MANIFESTO ABOUT THE GRIM REALITIES OF CAPITALISM AND ABLEISM. So like... maybe that's a separate post lol]
Plain-text version of the colorful paragraph:
Manifest your dream reality through sheer force of will! Anyone can do it! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps! Be a self-made king! Good things happen to good people! Get in that grindset! The only one standing in the way of your dreams is you! Anyone can do it! Nothing is impossible! Everything happens for a reason! Everything will always be fine! You can do anything you set your mind to! Never give up on anything! Every failure is just an opportunity in disguise! Have you tried yoga? You just gotta stop fearing SUCCESS. Happiness is a choice! Delete negativity! Push every boundary! Limits are merely suggestions! Lean in! Don't take no for an answer!! Anyone can do it!!
POV: you're a princess of Ooo, and your night is about to get a whole lot Worse and Stupider.
Either that or "POV: You're Marceline, and you haven't seen your dad since you were a kid and he remembered who you were, and you are about to have a Very Difficult First Reunion because, like, the good news is you found him; the bad news is he is now the Ice King.
"Grace" here is being used not in the Christian sense, but rather to broadly refer to the incredible power of human kindness, patience, and love. β€
High-res closeups:
high-res full image (Google Drive link)
Flower language (or at least the flower language I am using):
Forget-me-nots: these little blue flowers are symbols of memory and remembrance, as well as true love, devotion, and, occasionally, senility
Baby's breath: these tiny white flowers symbolize new beginnings, everlasting love, freedom from corruption, happiness, and thankfulness
Dandelions: A cursory google search says these flowers represent "hope, healing, and resilience," which is apt. But I've included them here as a reference to their symbolism in Fionna & Cake. In this illustration, the field of dandelion puffs that Simon wakes up in at the end of the show has become a field of yellow dandelion flowers.
More analysis, if you're into that kind of thing:
1. I'm never going to get over the fact that Simon saved Marceline for no other reason than to save a child who needed his help, and in doing so - in showing up for his adopted daughter not just once but constantly and for YEARS - he basically saved the world. I think it was a brilliant move to use the narrative to further validate his actions in "The Star" episode of Fionna & Cake.
Marceline is the narrative opposite of Dean and Sam Supernatural.
2. Kindness has a way of spreading and coming back to us in ways we could never predict, which is one reason why I'm ALSO never going to get over how Simon saving Marceline eventually led to Marceline convincing Finn and Jake (and BMO and even Bubblegum) to be more empathetic to the Ice King, who becomes way safer and happier once he is not isolated in his madness.
Finn's kindness towards Simon, both before and after being cured, is a huge deal to me. It's a vital part of his character growth, and I like that Fionna had a parallel moment of growth with the Candy Queen.
Like, yes, it is big and important that Betty saved Simon. But what she couldn't do is love him in his madness. She was unable to love him if it didn't also cure him, and this destroyed her.
And so it is beautiful to me that because of Marcy and her friends, Simon was not left to suffer alone in the darkest depths of his senility. And I really love all the ways the show demonstrates how this deeply affected him even if it didn't make him remember who he was.
I believe this kindness shown to Ice King led to him having the confidence to stand up for himself and accidentally save the world AGAIN when Betty tries to kill everyone to "save" Simon in the Elementals finale because GOD FORBID WOMEN DO ANYTHING.
(Betty is our problematic Queen, and I absolutely love how she's written. The CW could NEVER. The MCU would sooner DIE. 90% of all prestige dramas can only DREAM of having such a complex and dynamic female character.)
3. And finally, there is that most recent and possibly most vital instance of grace of all in Simon's story: the kindness, patience, and forgiveness that he finally learns to start showing to himself.
Simon's is a tale of people being kinder than they have to be and the way that changes everything. I am extremely grateful that his story culminates in him learning that kindness and self-sacrifice are NOT the same thing, and that he deserves his own kindness as much as if not more than everyone else.
If you liked this comic, please consider reblogging it and/or following my page! But also! It is okay if you don't feel like it! Either way, I hope you have a nice day because you deserve nice things! Happy Halloween, y'all!!!
More from this series:
Comic cover page with concept/character summaries
Episode 1
All content from "I Escaped My Genre..."
The head and tongue in this panel are a 3D model that I made in Nomad Sculpt and then imported into Clip Studio. Then, upon deciding that 3D modeling is hard actually, I discovered I could fake a 3D look for the rest of the body by modifying a metallic brush. I was going for "thing you see in an early 2000s video game as a kid that fucks you up forever"!
Context: that cake is the most detailed face I have ever drawn in 20 years of illustrating faces. I can't imagine what further context you would need to fully understand this image. XDDD
This is an excerpt from page 5 of 6 of this comic! (<- That's the tumblr link - the AO3 version has full image descriptions due to tumblr alt-text character limits.)
Please look at my beautiful darling Samo eating a delicious cake!~
It's Samo's first day at their new school today! And even though Samo may seem like they always effortlessly know all the right social moves, they are actually very shy!!
Samo [they/she] is very excited to start at the Oto May Community Cooking College, but starting at a new school is scary!! (Especially when your old school most likely gained sentience and started eating your friends - but mostly it's the social anxiety!)
But don't worry!! Big bro Simon is right! Folks WILL love Samo! - It's the whole premise of my non-existent hit isekai series "I Escaped My Genre & Now Everyone at This Cooking College Desires Me Carnally?!?"
And then after school, Simon will take his little sibling to go get ice cream - no matter if it's a good first day or a bad one!
But I've got a feeling that Samo is gonna make lots of new friends who don't mind that Samo is often shy and sometimes scared!! ^_^
Sidenote: Samo is super fun/easy for me to draw because anatomical inaccuracy is, if anything, encouraged. And then if I like the drawing enough to post it, I go to write the image descriptions... and I realize I have laid out a fucking CHALLENGE for myself. XD - That's also part of the fun though! And I'm not gonna lie, I nailed the alt-text for this one. B]
Jack, a cute fat transmasculine white person with short dark hair, talks animatedly at the camera. His face and neck are covered in spooky black-and-white face paint that makes him look like an off-brand-Junji-Ito version of Frankenstein's monster. He is also wearing opaque mirror Spirit Halloween Store mad scientist goggles on his head, which he puts on and off his eyes throughout the video.
---
Transcript:
So.
*clicks tongue*
Good news. It is Halloween. It might not look like Halloween, but it is because I'm writing a Harvest Festival Halloween chapter in my graphic novel, which means it's fucking Halloween, until I say it ain't! ... um unless you don't want to-but it's Halloween.
No, this is not a filter. I did all of this, and the edibles hit right in the middle - I got a little carried away!
But!
Uh...
Yeah, good news isz-Halloween.
Um... *clicks tongue*
Can't think of anything else to say...
*suddenly passionate* I still--! the amount of fucking white paint needed to make me- make the white face paint show up at ALL on my pale-ass-- on my pale, pale skin is insane!! I just--it's nonsense!
*Jack indicates where the white paint ends on his neck*
You can barely tell where it stops, right? There's-- it's showing through in a few places - I spent so long just trying to remember how to paint my face white!
Anyway, good news Hallowee--hapy-- Hap-- ... HAp-ny Halloweens.
*pause*
*cracks up, cackling loudly, a deep belly laugh that makes Jack look like a mad scientist in this outfit*
*stops and looks into the camera with an expression of delighted surprise. and then, in a distinctly fruity manner:*