#and I wanna see if I can develop this to make comics at some point. without giving up halfway through bc each drawing takes too long yk

[ineed-to-sleep]

The style evolution tho. Who am I

#I'm leaning more and more into using lines for everything and I'm loving the look so much tho #rendering is fun but lines is my beautiful wife.......... #2023 and 2024 don't have that big of a difference but I can see the anatomy improvement #and the lines 👁👁 more linesss #I rlly wanna lean more into anatomy & expressions this year and developing a style that's quick to execute #I love a comic book style w a lot of lines + cel shading #and I wanna see if I can develop this to make comics at some point. without giving up halfway through bc each drawing takes too long yk #so hmmm 🤔 aiming for that this year we'll see if I can get there #sleep.txt

[bro-atz]

a virgin's dream

in which: jinsik has even more to learn (wink wonk)

pair: idol!jinsik/afab!reader

word count: 2.3k

content: smut, first time sex, sofa sex, unprotected sex (remember to wrap it up irl!), slight cockwarming?, completely consensual!

author's note: as promised, here's the second part to virgin!jinsik because we definitely developed further than just the bj @eyeryis

tag list: @eyeryis @sinnarols apply for the permanent taglist here! part one | part two

“Baby,” you told Jinsik as you wiped your mouth and stood up. “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move.”

“Huh?!”

And with that, you disappeared, leaving Jinsik all sorts of flustered— there he was, naked from the waist down and covered in his own cum. He was panicking internally for about two minutes before you returned. You saw tears prick his eyes and immediately cupped his face, your thumbs wiping the corners of his eyes.

“Where’d you go?” he said, his voice cracking.

“I just wanted to clean my mouth because I wanna kiss you, but I didn’t wanna gross you out since I just gave you a blowjob,” you explained calmly.

Jinsik blinked at you. He never thought about something like that, and he was honesty kind of grateful you did because, you were right, it would have grossed him out a little. You smiled at his adorable face and placed a light kiss on his lips. Jinsik closed his eyes and kissed you back, his nose rubbing against yours slightly as your kisses intensified.

The kisses were nice and all, but to be honest, Jinsik desperately wanted to keep going. He wanted to make you feel good now.

“Y-Y/N, um,” Jinsik stuttered as he leaned away from you slightly. “Please, can we, uh… Can we go further? Can I…?”

“Are you sure? We don’t have protection…”

Jinsik’s eyes trembled as they went wide. He didn’t even think about that. You could see all of the emotions in the world cross his face as he tried to gauge the limited options you had, and you couldn’t help but smile at him. You kissed him lightly and whispered, “Baby, it’s okay if you want to do it. We can do it without protection.”

“A-are you sure? We don’t have to if it’s—”

“I’m sure. I want this as much as you do… I don’t think I’ll be able to curb my lust otherwise. I’m on the pill, so it should be okay.”

Jinsik hiccuped as he replied, “Oh-okay.”

“Only this one time though, okay? We should be safer the next time.”

Hearing you say that there was going to be a next time lit a fire within him. He got so excited that he felt like he was about to jump over the moon or something at that point. Then, his brain died— you started stripping.

You stripped right in front of him, and you stripped so slowly, giving him a tiny little show in the process. This was his first time, after all, so you wanted to do his first time justice.

Jinsik had never seen you naked before, and while you did look somewhat like what he had imagined at some point, he was still not prepared for what you had coming for him. His eyes couldn’t help but lock onto the matching bra and panty set that you (thankfully) wore that day, and he was about to drool just looking at you, just staring at you.

You noticed his dick slowly harden the longer he stared at you, prompting you to tell him softly, “Baby, do you wanna kick your pants off for me?”

It was almost comical the way Jinsik listened to you so fast. His pants went flying into a corner of the room, and his eyes glinted eagerly at you. You straddled him and sat gently on his lap, his rock hard cock pressing against you. It was when you placed your hands lightly on his shoulders did his jaw completely drop.

“You’re so beautiful, Y/N, my love…” he murmured, making your face flush pink.

Jinsik’s hands rested on your waist as you brought your lips to his to place a light kiss. Your kisses deepened, and Jinsik’s hands rubbed along your waist, his fingers aching to feel the softness of your skin, making you moan slightly into his mouth. Jinsik felt his dick throb painfully the more you turned him on, and it took everything in him to keep it together just so that he wouldn’t fully obliterate you.

When you stopped kissing him, he let out the most adorable whine that made you, too, want to fuck him fast and hard. But, the reason you kissed him, was so that you could pull his shirt off, revealing his toned torso— and that’s when you realized you actually had never seen your boyfriend naked before until that moment. You were honestly very surprised to see how toned he was, but then again, he was constantly practicing, and his arm muscles were already insane as it is, so why would you expect any less from the rest of his body?

“Oh, God, Jinsik,” you inhaled sharply. “You’re so hot… I don’t think I can control myself.”

“Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,” Jinsik responded softly. “Have your way with me, and teach me, please.”

“Okay, then… Take my bra off for me.”

Jinsik promptly did as you asked— well, it took him a second because he was confused by how hooks on a bra worked, but when he figured it out, he pulled at the center of your bra and immediately pulled it off you before tossing it aside haphazardly. The second he got one look at your bare breasts, he nearly drooled and his eyes nearly bore a hole through them. His hands, which were frozen on your waist, moved to your chest with your guidance, and immediately, the boy knew exactly what you wanted him to do.

At first, Jinsik squeezed and kneaded your breasts delicately, but after a few seconds of that, he brought his lips to your nipple and left a light kiss before fully planting on it and sucking painfully on it. Your back arched and pushed you further into him the harder he sucked. Jinsik, as unexperienced as he was, knew how to suck your tits and he knew how to suck them so fucking well because you were steadily losing more and more of your mind. You clung to his shoulders and let out light, raspy moans while trying to make sure you didn’t dig your nails into his skin— you didn’t want to hurt him just yet since it was his first time.

“Baby,” you whispered in between sweet moans. “I want you inside me.”

Blood rushed to several places in Jinsik’s body when he heard you utter those words. He looked up at you, his eyes blurry and dazed as he gave you a slight nod. Sitting up, you moved your panties to the side, positioned him at your entrance, and slowly sat down.

Jinsik wasn’t absurdly large or anything, but he still stretched you out, and he was long enough for his cock to go deep inside you. You gasped and bit your lower lip, leaning your head back as you remained seated and fully savored the feeling of your boyfriend’s cock filling you up.

Meanwhile, Jinsik was seeing stars. He felt like your pussy was molded just for his cock, and was obsessed. His thoughts were getting dirtier by the second, and he desperately wanted to speak his mind.

Your pussy is so hot that I feel like it’s going to melt my fucking dick off.

But, Jinsik couldn’t bring himself to say that. Those kind of words were not in his gentleman’s dictionary. So, instead, he said softly, “You’re so warm, baby. Oh God… I’m melting.”

You brought your head down and looked at him, his eyes half-lidded, and a woozy smile on his face. You felt his hand move from your waist to the back of your head before he guided your head down, his lips meeting yours gently. He kissed you softly, his other hand gripping your waist with a sense of urgency.

Jinsik wanted to be patient. He wanted to take things at your pace, but fuck, he wanted to fuck you. He wanted to see the way your body moved as you bounced up and down on his lap. And, again, he wanted to vocalize these thoughts to you, but his mind was all over the place.

Luckily, you read his mind and said, “I’m going to start moving, okay?”

He gave you a slight nod and moved his hand back down so that both of them rested on your waist. You clung to his shoulders as began to raise and lower yourself at a slower, steady pace, immediately making him moan. He held onto your waist tightly, unintentionally making you clench, causing him to groan in pure bliss.

It wasn’t until you sped up did Jinsik realize that he was not going to be able to hold out the same way he did when you were giving him the blow job. He was already breathless and letting out breathy signs and moans the more you bounced.

You moved your hands to grip onto the back of the sofa, allowing you to bounce your ass rapidly on his lap, his length nearly hitting your cervix in the process. You couldn’t help but let out little cries every time your waist hit his lap, and your cries turned into loud moans when you felt Jinsik thrust up, his waist slamming into yours as he met you halfway.

“Fuck, baby, you feel so good— I can’t hold out much longer,” Jinsik said through gritted teeth as he leaned his head back and pressed it against the sofa cushion.

“Cum inside,” you said while panting.

Jinsik responded with a meek nod, his eyes squeezed shut as he did his best to hold out. It was when you held his face and kissed him passionately did his entire body tremble. He pushed your waist down and kept you there as his cock twitched and shuddered, his cum spurting and filling you up entirely. The two of you were breathless as you remained seated, his cum slowly starting to dribble down onto his thighs.

Just as you were about to get off his lap, Jinsik moved you so that he was pinning you down on the sofa, his cock still deep inside you. You stared at him with wide eyes, his eyes dark and lustful gazing right back at you.

“We’re not done just yet, Y/N,” Jinsik said, his voice low.

You felt your fingers and toes tingle with excitement upon hearing him say that. You wordlessly wrapped your arms around his neck and ran your fingers through the hair on the back of his head as he gripped your waist again, preparing to move.

“How are you still so tight?” Jinsik gasped as he slid his dick back and forth inside you.

The sound of his waist hitting yours echoed in the room as he moved slowly but powerfully. You grasped his hair tightly in your fists, moans and gasps leaking out of you like anything. You bit your lower lip to try and keep your noises to yourself, but Jinsik didn’t like the fact that you were biting on your lip so hard that you might’ve actually started bleeding, so he pressed his hands against the sofa right above your shoulders and lowered his head to kiss you, his lips enveloping your lower lip.

Jinsik’s gyrations got stronger, causing you to moan against his lips. Jinsik felt his orgasm approaching once again. He pressed his lips against yours even harder, his cock pushing further and further into you with each thrust. You saw stars flood your vision when he went so far deep and tapped your cervix with the tip, and you moved your head away from him and cried out as you came, your knees and thighs shaking as the wave of pleasure overtook you.

Seeing you on cloud nine because of how well he fucked you made him elated, but it also made him unable to hold his own load yet again. Groaning, he slammed his waist against your buttocks and came in you again, his hot load warming you up.

Moments later, Jinsik collapsed on top of you, his face buried in the nook of your neck. He was still inside you as the two of you shifted and laid on your side, his arms wrapped around your waist as you rested one on his shoulder and the other on the back of his head. His face moved from your neck to your breasts, his nose pressed in between them.

“Mmm, baby, that was amazing,” Jinsik mumbled into your skin.

“You liked it that much, huh?” you asked with a tiny giggle.

“It was perfect. Perfect, just like you.”

You felt your face heat up with his compliment. He looked up at you with the most precious, content smile on his face, his arms hugging you closer to him. You pressed a light kiss against his forehead.

“Baby, I think we should get cleaned up before the guys get home,” you said softly.

“They’ll be out for another hour, Y/N. Let’s just stay here for a bit…”

“No, they’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

“…We fucked for that long?”

Jinsik looked at you with wide eyes, making you do your best to stifle a laugh. You nodded in response, the boy immediately pulling out and sitting up. He grabbed tissues from the tissue box on the coffee table and cleaned you up first before cleaning himself, his hands moving quickly and hurriedly.

“Let’s take a shower, Jinsik,” you told him.

“T-together?” Jinsik’s face started turning red.

“Yes, together. We don’t have that much time left before they get here.”

“How was it?” was the first thing Minjae said to you and your boyfriend upon returning to the dorms.

“How’d you know?!” Jinsik exclaimed, mortified as he thought Minjae was talking about the fact that the two of you had sex.

“…You told us you were going to watch a movie with Y/N?”

Jinsik’s face went bright red. You cackled and responded, “We ended up watching a drama instead. It was good.”

You felt Jinsik’s eyes land on you and smiled as you gazed into his eyes.

“Really good.”

#bro <3 dave #broatz #xikers #xikers jinsik #ham jinsik #jinsik smut #jinsik x reader #ham jinsik xikers #jinsik xikers #jinsik xikers smut #xikers jinsik smut #ham jinsik smut

[genericpuff]

The LO TV show isn't happening, and here's why.

Now, before I begin, courtesy to /u/Princess_Space_Goose because they're one of the driving forces behind these observations concerning stuff in the entertainment sector and they were the first ones to make a comprehensive post about it over on reddit shortly after we got into it in the Discord and compiled everything we knew. But I also REALLY wanna talk about this and I'm surprised to see I haven't yet. They've covered reddit, so I'm covering Tumblr LMAO

Disclaimer: Long post ahead. Much of what I say below is speculation but there's a lot of damning evidence to support it. Take it with grains of salt.

Rachel has vague-posted about the show a couple times over the past few years, but very sparingly so, always stating that it's "in the works" without anything to actually show for it. This would have been fine back in 2020 or even 2021 (the pandemic did bring a lot of television/movie development to a crawl) but we're over halfway through 2023 now.

So where's the show? Who's running it? What is it gonna look like? Which streaming service is it going to be hosted on?

We literally do not know any definitive answers to these questions because nothing has been revealed and at this point in the game, that's basically a death sentence. LO has been on a noticeable decline in stats over the past year, while we obviously can't access the backend numbers (and neither can Rachel as far as I know because WT guards them with an iron fist which is a whole other topic for discussion) it's still very clear by the comic's rating slowly but surely dropping and the like count average lowering (obv the like count isn't indicative of view count but if the ratio has remained the same, that means if the like count lowers, the viewership is likely lowering too). There's also been certain behavior from WT over the past year that hints at the comic not doing well, such as its VERY aggressive ad campaigning which often undercuts other series on the platform that are far better than LO and deserve the spotlight, but lose it anyways because WT just wants to keep its golden goose on life support even after its heart has stopped beating.

So the fact that we don't know the answers to these questions still after 4 years is NOT good. We don't know anything and while that was excusable 3 years ago, at this point, it's more indicative of the project being at a standstill or dropped completely, and what we dug up and discussed in the ULO Discord (and what was later posted to reddit) proves it with some very telling information dissected from LinkedIn and other sources.

So far, the only people we know connected to this project are Rachel Smythe (the creator of LO) and Stephanie K Smith (the appointed showrunner). Showrunners are the lifeblood of television series, remember this. Here's a little bit about her:

Lore Olympus still doesn't have a network, this means it has no definitive spot to air, which is not good at this point, because the network is what primarily funds these projects. Think of "Netflix shows" - they're not necessarily made by Netflix, they're made by studios that Netflix funds and as such they're given the Netflix branding because Netflix is their proprietary distribution network and benefactor. So LO has no network or streaming service funding its production. All of her other credited works have affiliated networks/distributors, but LO doesn't.

"But what about Jim Henson Company?" Jim Henson Company bought the rights to LO in 2019 to produce it, that doesn't necessarily mean they were onboard to fund the entire project. Again, these studios need networks to back them, not just for monetary purposes, but with the promise that their project will have a place to go when it's finished, whether it's Netflix, HBO, etc. Think of it like a movie theater - the movie theaters aren't the ones making the movies, but they have deals with the studios to air those movies with the agreement that both sides will be making money.

Jim Henson Company is a production studio, not a network. Not only that, but they're primarily for-hire for puppetry/animatronic projects, they're not the same kind of studio as, say, Laika, or Disney, or Warner Bros. Much of their work is done on the backend, creating animatronics and puppets for kids' productions, monster movies, etc. Currently they're working as the animatronic designers for Five Nights at Freddy's, but that movie isn't a JHC movie, it's a Blumhouse production, which has hired JHC to create animatronics for them.

So, the fact that they were the ones to buy out LO for production rights is... very odd. Because for starters, they don't tend to buy out production rights like major studios, they're typically for hire, but they're also not an animation studio. Any animation projects they've worked on were for concept art and design, such as Word Party, but the folks at JHC primarily specialize in conceptualization and practical effects. That's their whole shtick, it's what they're selling, it's what they get hired for.

That's all early stuff though, stuff we've been speculating on for ages. What came to light recently that spurred on this whole essay was discovering this one section on Stephanie K's LinkedIn:

There are a couple things we can glean from this. First, we know this has to be LO even if it isn't being named, because LO is the only one that was bought by JHC.

This also confirms that LO did end up with a distribution network, specifically HBO Max.

But it also confirms that Stephanie K Smith, the showrunner, is no longer on the project, either due to willingly quitting or being removed. According to the time stamps, she left in April of this year.

This is especially not good because without a showrunner, there's no leader. Showrunners are essential to these projects. So without a showrunner, and without any sort of announcement of a replacement, LO's television show is a ship without a captain, a car without a driver, a Hell's Kitchen without a Gordon Ramsay.

There's mention of an "animated presentation" but as mentioned in that reddit post above, that's not necessarily a pilot, it's more likely it was this. Which can't even really be called "animation", it's just video editing, rigging and tweening, but I digress.

There's a lot more in that reddit thread that dives into some of the details of Stephanie K's stuff, including the HBO Max affiliation and how that potentially connects to the Sydney Sweeney trailer, but ultimately, all of these breadcrumbs add up to one of two things:

LO's television show is in severe development hell which it likely will not come out of for quite some time, especially right now with both the writer's strike and streaming services gutting their animation connections.

LO's show isn't happening at all but with LO's numbers declining and its audience growing more fed up with the series (look no further than the comments on Instagram about LO's recent Eisner win, people are PISSED) Rachel and WT are trying to do as much damage control as possible by dangling a carrot in front of the audience they have left in the hopes that they'll stick around long enough on the promise of a TV show happening to keep siphoning cash and views. After all, there are two things many readers are still sticking around for - the SA plotline, and the TV show, and both of those things are being unnecessarily dragged out in the vaguest way possible with no real resolution in sight.

Neither of these are good, but I think what's even more telling is that, since that post was made on reddit, Rachel has attended SDCC and taken part in a new interview from Girl Wonder Podcast, and when asked about the show, all she had to say was this:

"Um, it’s been really interesting. It’s been educational for me. So, what I—what has been done so far is beautiful. Like, if I could share it, I would. But I can’t. Because it’s very naughty."

IDK if the "naughty" bit is referring to the show or just her revealing info about it, but the fact that NOTHING was shown at SDCC is just. Y'all, I'm sorry, but the show is not happening. If you're gonna show off previews for television ANYWHERE, it's SDCC. It's like the E3 of comics and entertainment media. So the fact that she's STILL VAGUE-POSTING ABOUT IT EVEN AT A MAJOR EVENT WHERE IT'S COMMONPLACE TO REVEAL TRAILERS AND PREVIEWS OF NEW PROJECTS, like... it's just not happening. Jim Henson Company bought the rights to produce LO as a TV show in the summer of 2019. Since then, we haven't seen a SHRED of news, if you google "Lore Olympus TV show" it'll still be the same 2-3 articles from 2019 talking about JHC buying the rights and that's it. If you do further sleuthing, all you'll find is Rachel saying "yeah it's still happening but I can't say anything!" which means fucking nothing at this point. The only 'hope' I have left is that they'll announce it at NYCC which has Rachel in a top billing spot in its advertising, but I'm really not holding my breath at this point.

Animated productions take a while, sure, but LO wasn't the only comic bought for TV production in that late 2010's/early 2020's era. Heartstopper was bought in 2019, and it made it to Netflix by April 2022. And it was live action, a medium SEVERELY affected by the pandemic, unlike animation, which wasn't affected as much because a lot of animation development can be done from home. What did affect the animation sector was streaming services like Netflix gutting their connections to animation studios and putting animated projects on the chopping block... which also doesn't bode well for LO.

It's 2023 now and we still don't even have anything beyond those initial announcement articles and Rachel making empty promises. It's not happening. Don't fall for the "it's coming soon but I can't say anything" nonsense. It's far less genuine now than it was 3 years ago and it has nothing to support those claims that it's actually in development, and ironically far more to support mere speculation that she's lying or doing damage control.

And, if it actually is happening, on a shred of belief in that being a possibility, then it sure as shit isn't being marketed well. Knowing how to build hype in a product is an entire course of knowledge. Marvel is practically the king of building hype, they're why people sit until the very end of the credits now in the hopes of seeing an after-credit scene, even in movies that aren't made by them. LO's numbers are bleeding right now, so to not show anything at even the major events like SDCC is a blatant misfire. Almost like there isn't anything to show in the first place.

You can take all of this evidence as you will. Some of it you may dismiss as "overthinking" or whatever have you. And a lot of it is speculation based on the crumbs we've picked up along the way.

But let me pose you this as a final thought: how can it be a good sign when everything being asked about the show, by fans and critics alike, comes down to "Is the show still happening?"

The best time to reveal proof of the LO television show was 3 years ago. The second best time is now.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus #long post #analysis post #essay post

[sparklingsora]

For the Vee-Swap AU, how does the Vee polycule develop? The polyvee shippers (me) need to know!!

HEHE OK OK SO putting it under cut bc it ended up longer than i anticipated LOL

as you already know, velvox is the established relationship in this au. and as i believe i mentioned before, velvette and val are sinstagram mutuals, it's how val finds out about the hotel. on val's part, falling for velvette isn't really a surprise to him - back when they just knew each other through social media, he already found her attractive, admired her work and they got along well, so all that turning into a full-on crush when he gets to know her better isn't very shocking. his relationship with vox is where it gets interesting, because it starts out rocky. i mentioned before that vox can tell that val's putting on an act. but because vox obv can't relate to val's situation, val just sees it as vox pitying him and refuses his help. a turning point comes in ep 4 - in the swap au, it actually starts raining during loser baby, which results in val getting sick. vox helps him out and they have a tender moment, maybe a little heart-to-heart (its hard to just describe, i will make a comic/ficlet of it at one point so you'll see :3). their relationship starts getting better from that point on, and soon enough val finds himself falling for vox. (it's funny, really - ep 4 in the swap au leads to the bettering of a grand total of 3 relationships: al & val's, vox & val's and indirectly al & vox's. load bearing episode LOL) on vox and velvette's part, well. val is a douche at the start of the story, much like canon!angel, but vox and velvette can both tell that there's a heart of gold in there somewhere. vox because of the aformentioned seeing through val's facade, and velvette because she, in fact, wasn't mutuals with val's official account, but with his art account, where he keeps his identity hidden. he shows his softer side a lot more on there, and so that's mainly the side of him that velvette knew (so now imagine the whiplash when she actually meets him in person and he's an obnoxious jerk LOL) (i dont know if valentino being an artist is actually canon - i read it on the fandom wiki and fandom wikis cant rly be trusted LOL but in any case if its not canon then its a neat hc that i incorporated into swap!val's character) but anyway yeah, vox and velvette both start falling for val as he slowly becomes more true to himself and starts showing that soft side more. eventually the two of them talk about it um. somewhere around ep 6 i think? maybe? somewhere between eps 6 and 7? something like that. anyway. there we get some juicy conflict - they agree that theyre both in love with val and wanna give the whole polyamory thing a try if he's up for it, but while velvette wants to confess as soon as possible (she's scared that one of them might die in the battle), vox wants to wait until after the battle, because the stress levels are high in the hotel right now, and he doesn't want val to feel pressured. during the last night before the battle, in a scene vaguely equivalent to more than anything (reprise), they make up, velvette admits that vox is right, and they decide to confess to val after the extermination. and then yeah they do that (it's one of the 2 things that i'm sure i want to happen at the beginning of season 2), val is like "HELL YEAH I WANNA BE IN A POLYCULE WITH YOU GUYS" and they're a polycule and its awesome :3

#askbox #veeswap au #tysm for the ask! #polyvees

[meanbossart]

A long over-due ask compilation (Art & Music)

It's vaguely based on a short story from the book "The Consumer" by Michael Gira, specifically "The Boss". I think it came up in conversation with a friend or something when I was picking a new username, so that's how we arrived at it - this was almost a decade ago so, my memory on it is a little hazy!

{MORE UNDER THE CUT]

HAHA thank you so much!!! Glad you enjoy what I do 😎🍻

I BELIEVE this little guide I put together over here might be helpful to you, also! I touched on pretty much everything you brought up.

As for reference material when it comes to facial expressions, I have a mirror next to my desk which I glance at often and make weird faces at LOL and for consistency, it's really a matter of learning to dissect and remember facial structure. It's just something you end up developing an eye for when you've done it for long enough! Naturally, if we're talking about drawing existing characters, it's always helpful to just look at some pictures of their mugs and take a minute to define what features about them make their faces recognizable - I touch on this at the link above as well!

I do plan on making a "drowstarion" (love that, by the way LOL) playlist eventually, life's just been kicking my ass and I hardly have the time 😭and when I do, I just wanna draw.

Otherwise I don't have any other playlists floating around at the moment, BUT the one my boyfriend made for his Vellioth comic can be found here, and it might scratch a similar itch!

Thank you! I believe this was in reference to this post. Something like that takes me about... An hour??? If we're talking just the colors, at least. Though that's a really rough estimate because I take a lot of breaks, so my sense of time when I work ends up pretty skewed. Even if the application of the colors themselves took less than 20 minutes I probably spent 2 hours just staring at it LOL.

My friend, I have no idea. I'm in a constant battle between "I want to draw more realistically" and "I want to simplify my art so I can draw more/faster". What you see is the result of that ongoing brain-tug-of-war.

Also, just the way I assume everyone else develops theirs - they see stuff they like and emulate it until their art is Frankensteinish enough to be it's own unique thing!

I'm far from a Type O Negative buff, BUT I'm happy to share some of my favorites with you! They're quite scattered across a couple of their albums so I'm not sure I have a favorite, but I would say October Rust is a good starting point.

In no particular order, these are my most listened tracks of theirs: -Love You to Death -Black N.01 -Haunted -She Burned Me Down -Can't Lose You -I Don't Wanna Be Me -Be My Druidess -September Sun -Tripping A Blind Man

Alas, I was one of those people who was already drawing in kindergarten 😅 though I would say I only started taking it seriously when I was around 15-16 years old. As someone who has tried their hand at several other hobbies since reaching adulthood, I get what you're saying that it can kinda feel like... You missed the wagon? I've felt that way about all kind of things lol

That said, I've seen adults managing to develop their art skills extremely fast and effectively before. Understanding where and how you need to improve, and how to follow lessons/guides best is something that is vastly improved by maturity and knowing how to best hone your time, attention, and resources - and those are skills we completely lack as children. So, I sincerely believe that as long as you commit yourself, you can definitely get to a point that you're happy with in a couple of years if not less.

JUST DO IT BUDDY we are all just people looking through a screen and you won't ever see, talk, or meet 99% of the folks who ever clap eyes on what you post. Whenever you start getting nervous about sharing something, take a minute to ask yourself why you're nervous, and if none of the reasons have any genuine substance besides being afraid of what people "might think", just go ahead and post it. You're no mind-reader after all, and if you are, I doubt you can hear what a guy from Argentina or wherever is thinking about the art you made.

Point is, nobody online can touch you 🤷and if someone doesn't like what you do, they can simply choose to not interact with it, and if they do you can block and move on. There are zero reasons for you to feel "bad" about putting up a doodle when our experiences on the web are so easily curated nowadays.

#ask compilation

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Man-sized Part 2/9 After Dark

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!OC

Tags: Explicit content, +18 audiences only. Smut, romantic angst, fluff. An unapologetic LOVE STORY. Sexual tension, mutual pining, banter, flirting, developing relationship, strangers to lovers. Simon Riley has a dark past (partly inspired by Modern Warfare 2: Ghost comics).

CW/TW: References to PTSD, depression, past torture and abuse in later chapters.

Summary: A uni student who pole dances at a strip club to pay her rent encounters a mysterious giant of a soldier seemingly incapable of falling in love.

A/N: Can be read as a Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Civilian!reader. Little to nil description, the OC has a name.

She didn't usually do this.

Bring guys to her apartment after a few giggles. She especially did not bring guys like Simon "I kill people" back home to fuck.

It was her night time self. Her show belonged into a different realm. And that was okay. Everybody had a dark side, and she just... worked with hers in this way.

When people asked about her job, she told them she was a dancer. If they asked more, she told them she taught pole dance lessons. Only a handful of her most trusted friends knew that she danced at a strip club. Danced: she was a dancer, not a stripper. Pole dancing required minimal amount of clothing so that tricks could be performed safely and efficiently. She viewed her job as an opportunity to hone her skills and have a workout after her studies. And it paid the bills. She called it a win-win situation.

Simon belonged to the nighttime world too.

And what happened after dark just had to happen at some point, she figured.

But it turned out that Simon wasn't just a tall, dark stranger who fucked women and killed people.

He was also a lover.

She supposed that he was good at fucking, too, but he seemed to hold back from that this night, with her, at least. She didn't really know what to think of it. She thought he had brought her here – to her apartment – to be fucked. Because that's how it was; he called the shots, not she.

Her clothes were gone as soon as they entered the darkness that was her bedroom. Not a single garment had left his body, other than those big, black shoes that were now in her hallway, somewhere amidst all the girl shoes. Huge hands ran down her back and cupped her ass before she could turn on the lights, they raised her to his lap as he carried her to the bed.

He was a good kisser, and he kissed her all over. She was left with her panties and an icy terror in her stomach as he continued to explore her body with his mouth. She was still not over the fact that he was a cocky stranger who had gotten her into this situation just by pouring honeyed rum in her ear.

In other words, she had fallen for bullshit.

"What's wrong, dove?"

He wasn't stupid, though. He noticed that she was a bit tense, a tad uncomfortable. As much as she wanted to let him do whatever he wanted with her, the prospect of seeing him leave after he was done was a turn-off. In horror, she realized that she wanted to get to know him, wanted to get to know Simon.

"You afraid of me?"

She supposed he would probably get kicks out of it if she said yes.

"Should I be?"

"No. Just here to make ya feel good."

He continued to kiss her, took her breast inside one of those huge palms. She wasn't a small woman, the muscles in her back, shoulders, forearms and stomach might've been a bit too much for some guys. But they weren't for Simon. She felt like a delicate, feminine flower with him, and it was scary: how her breast nearly disappeared inside that warm and calloused hand – of course it was calloused, so much so that the callouses scratched her skin – and when he licked her, she tried to hold on to her sanity for a little while longer.

"What's your last name?"

He huffed a short laugh on her stomach, and her muscles contracted at the hot air suddenly hitting her skin.

"Is that what you wanna know right now?"

When she wouldn't answer, he continued kissing her, went down, even further down…

"Riley."

The name was whispered, short and sweet, against her soaked panties.

"What do we have here…"

She could only swallow and let him take that last bit of shielding fabric away. She hadn't expected this at all: that he would come to her apartment to adore her. That he would go down on her. At this very moment, it felt too intimate, too much from a guy whose name she barely knew. She had come to know him for months and months through his stare only, but now he was here, in her bedroom, between her thighs… he was real.

"I…"

"Yes, love?"

Calling her love already… It was a bit too tacky. But then again, she guessed she did kind of like it because it made her even more wet.

"Could you take your clothes off too?"

This time, he laughed like someone who found the situation greatly entertaining, and her… adorable?

"You never cease to amuse me."

What will happen when I cease to amuse you?

"You always fuck with your clothes on?"

That did something to him. He almost froze, then proceeded to take those goddamn clothes off.

She had ruined the soft, sensual mood, but it was okay, or so she told herself. She wanted to tear down this setting, the scenes that only rubbed it in her face that this was a one time only occasion before Simon would find another girl to obsess about. If he didn't have a girl in every town already...

"No nonsense with you, is that it?" He commented - the mood had definitely changed. "I like it."

The silk gloves were off with the rest of his actual clothes, and this time, when he positioned himself between her legs, it was to guide his erection in.

It was dark in the room, but she could see enough — after all, there was never a complete darkness to be had in the city. The blue-colored light filled the night and showed her that Simon was big.

No, that's not gonna…

He pushed just the tip in, and a needy groan escaped her lips.

"Yeah… I think you like me too."

He was so fucking cocky… Even and especially when his actual cock was inside her, with more and more pushing in by the minute.

She brushed her fingers along the lines of all that muscle, first his shoulder, then the forearm… the skulls and bombs and death. And she was wet, alright. Didn't know if she had ever been this wet for anyone. It was fucking frightening.

"That's a good girl…"

No, not the good girl talk, Jesus…

But she couldn't deny it: it worked. Everything he did, worked like a charm.

His balls touched her as he slid fully in... and stayed there.

The intimacy was unbearable, the stranger was inside her, and she could feel every inch of him. He was hovering above her, looking at her like "Ya feel that? Ya feel it too?"

But she must only be imagining; this wasn't real — a man like him couldn't hold such a sea of emotion in him. He was… a what, a soldier? A killer? There was nothing romantic here. They had met at a strip club.

And what was she to a killer… an exotic dancer, a uni student who barely had her life together, who paid her bills days after the due date.

"Don't flee from it."

She raised her eyes back to his and found that he was examining her. Those eyes now revealed much more than just dark, melting chocolate; they looked like they had seen too much. She briefly thought about whether the man was skilled in torture; if he was skilled at breaking his enemies and if he could hear their thoughts as he broke them. Could hear her thoughts...

"Sarah.. Come back."

Her inner muscles tightened around him, and he reacted instantly. "That's it...- good girl."

No one had ever talked to her like that... And she didn't even want to slap him for it. She followed his voice and was courageous enough to wrap her legs around him, that narrow waist that still managed to be bulky and broad, like everything in him was. He finally started the rodeo, which turned out to be the most sensual fuck she had ever had the privilege to receive.

It was like he fucked her soul or something.

Her lips were quivering, the moans he pulled out from her could've made Nicki Minaj blush. He was thorough, precise, and attentive — traits of a good soldier, she presumed. And he must've been some kind of a leader, the way he cheered her on like a highly ranked officer, a widely respected superior.

"Looking gorgeous," the rough voice washed all over her as she was approaching her orgasm. No one had ever made her come with cock alone. She assumed it was just the months and months of tension that was at work here, but some part of her knew that it was just pure, undiluted Simon Riley who she had to blame for it.

"Eyes up here," he commanded when she was only seconds away from a breakdown. Eyes up here... He talked to her like she was a soldier about to die, and he wouldn't let it happen, not on his watch. But it was a small death and a coming back to life as well: she broke for him so hard that he hissed as she dug her nails into his arms. An invisible string lifted her from her sternum, made her arch her back as she came, screaming, and the eyes held her, beheld her: amused, pleased... He was performing an exorcism on her, waking her from a year-long coma, restarting her heart with electric shocks.

She half expected him to praise her with that sultry good girl stuff again when she was in that vulnerable state, but he bent towards her and went for her mouth. He drank the rest of the orgasm from her lips, almost suffocated her with his kiss as she convulsed beneath him, and he wouldn't stop… he made love to her as she moaned on his tongue, and the thickness continued to fill her slowly as she came down from that life-saving orgasm. By the time he left her mouth, she was panting and squeezing the grinding hips with her hands, sinking her nails in there as well.

"I knew you were a wild one," he whispered against her lips. "That was almost as good as that little slap..."

She couldn't speak, could only catch for air at what Simon had said before he dived for her mouth again. The bed was moaning too under the heavy weight of her mercenary lover, especially when he upped the pace.

"I'm close too," he broke another kiss, slightly panting. "Where do ya want me?"

"Don't pull out..."

He gathered her thighs, lifted them to his shoulders like they weighed nothing, drove deep, so deep that his pelvis touched her and his whole upper body rubbed against her, and all she could feel was muscle. All she could smell was tobacco and hints of scotch and something which she reluctantly labeled as primal. It was his sweat and pheromones and all the tension that came undone as he came inside her. She heard an abrupt grunt that turned into a hoarse, shaky moan... and that earlier, unemotional declaration "I kill people" still echoed in her head.

---

She saw the scars in the morning when he got up and went to the shower. She had thought he was a torturer, but it looked like he was the one who had been tortured sometime in the past.

The white protrusions on his skin were evenly inflicted and in places that were not supposed to end a man but simply give him pain. She didn't know why exactly had she refused to believe him, to believe that his work was something highly unusual. The scars finally rubbed it in her face: this was not a regular, normal dude she was dealing with. He did not work as a desk officer in the military or even as a pro fighter in the combat sports business.

She was both fascinated and disturbed at the thought that Simon likely had invisible injuries too, a collection of scars on his psyche.

"You want a towel?"

It somehow grieved her that he wanted to wash her scent – their scent – away so soon, even if it was a simple, natural thing to do… to shower in the morning. He didn't answer, but when she went to give it to him nevertheless, it suffered the same fate as those flowers as he pulled her under the descending water with him.

The second round was more of a sloppy, dazed fuck. He took her against the wall, and she briefly thought that she would get a huge water bill next month. But it was worth every cent. She didn't come, but enjoyed watching him, now in a fully lit room with half-lidded eyes and a slightly open mouth. He even had a scar on his jaw...

"You're… tight, did'ya know that?"

She was still not over the fact that he talked like this during sex. He was almost chatty when at the bar he had barely spoken full sentences. She never knew dirty talk could be so stimulating.

Or perhaps it was just the magic of Simon Riley again.

"Why so serious?"

She laughed a little — Simon made her laugh. If anything, it was he who could be called serious, even with that dry, dark sense of humour.

"Don't know what to make of you."

"You're not the most open book yourself," he muttered, and she barely detected the hint of sorrow – yearning, in his voice.

He eventually came with an agonized, tired grunt. He seemed to be in a hurry, and when he pulled out and reached his hand to satisfy her as well, she grabbed him by the wrist and gently pushed it away. Simon sighed, and dropped his head against hers while the bulky shoulders closed in on her like walls. The water was running, and he was clearly having a moment, even though it was just supposed to be a quick fuck.

Hesitating, she reached to give him a hug, then started to slowly caress his back as he leaned his head on the wall and against her. His breathing only deepened. He sounded like someone who was taking a cold bath while trying to maintain a controlled breath. At some point, it almost sounded like he was in pain.

"Am I your pet?" He asked rather gruffly, and her hand stopped midway down his back.

"You don't like being touched?"

He nuzzled closer to her neck, placed a kiss behind her ear.

"Perhaps a little too much."

He then surprised her by giving her a wash. Like she was his pet. Perhaps it was his reaction to having shown vulnerable parts of himself to someone, even if what they had shared was just simple human connection. She relaxed a little too much under his touch, which was again deliciously attentive.

"The things I'd do to you if we had more time.."

He was crouching and the soap on her legs eased his caresses, but when he stopped for a while to give her a kiss there, she recoiled from him. It was simply out of surprise, because his hands and the warm water had left her drowsy and melting, but he rose and gave her another look. Simon clearly wasn't used to women refusing him, not to talk of shrinking from his touch.

When they came from the shower, she went straight to the kitchen. While searching for something to offer him as breakfast, she noticed that Simon was examining the course material on her desk.

Art history major and a professional killer — what a hilarious pair.

But he seemed more than interested, almost intrigued. He skimmed through a certain book about studies on the influence of natural philosophy on the Renaissance. The man might surprise her yet, but still, she couldn't see them chatting about Erwin Panofsky over a cup of coffee.

"You want some?"

She was standing there with only a towel on, holding a coffee pan in her hand: far too domestic a setting, and far too soon.

"Nah, gotta go."

Heaven came down in just three words.

Yeah… of course you do.

She abandoned her mission with the coffee and went to get her clothes, to have some kind of protection against the cold Simon would leave her with.

"Will I be seeing you again?"

"If you want to."

Polite, reserved... A gentleman instead of a no-nonsense soldier who would say it like it was. She could see now that he was definitely in a hurry.

"Can I call you?" She tried to flesh out a future for them and not think about the fact that she would, very likely, only have a ghost of him as a memory.

"I'd rather call you."

Right. I'm not seeing this guy again.

"Sure, whatever."

She gave him her number and watched how he walked out of the door and out of her life.

---

You wanted to know what I do for a living.

Holy Mother of…

Not only did he contact her, he sent her a picture of himself looking like… like war. The tired eyes stared at her from inside what looked like the top of a human skull attached to a black balaclava. He wasn't a foot soldier, or a mercenary, he wasn't even working for the UK version of a SWAT team. He was something else. She didn't even have a name for all the gear he was loaded with.

Still want to see me?

Fucking d.e.f.i.n.i.t.e.l.y.

She hadn't expected to see him ever again. She was sure he had asked her number just out of common courtesy. The chemistry was there, but the eventual sex had been awkward — satisyfying, and life saving, but awkward. She didn't really do one night stands, and Simon had flown into that category as soon as he had shut that door.

But now it seemed that she had to find him a new category. Everybody always said to give the guy three days. That the guy would show up if he wanted to.

It had barely been two days since he had been inside her and checked out what it was that she was studying.

I don't know. Doesn't look like James Bond to me.

I can put on a suit if that's more to your liking.

Hah, yeah… She would masturbate on that picture of him wearing a fucking human skull to work at least a hundred times.

No need.

Are you going to return the favor?

She sent him a picture — a rather naughty one. It wasn't the same kind of naughty she did at the club, no. She was wearing barely a touch of makeup, she was a little sleepy, her walls were down... and the only thing she wore was an oversized t-shirt she lifted just enough for him to see a little bit of something.

A smile rose to her face when he answered immediately.

Shouldn't have asked.

Not Bond girl enough for you?

Just the right amount, Sarah. It's your fault if I get killed.

Part 3:

#ghost x oc #simon riley x oc #simon ghost riley x f!reader #simon riley smut #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost fanfiction #simon riley fanfic #mw2 smut #cod smut #mw2 x reader #my fics

[petricorah]

i wanna start making comics but like. i dont really know how??? are there any tips that you could give me perhaps?

hi!

i've been working on trying to compile a list of resources for people (@aangsfrogs--i didn't forget!) who want to make comics for a long time. It would consist of some of my personal tips and a lot of links to other people's PDFs and youtubes. But that's...a hefty project, so if you had any specific questions for the meantime, my askbox is open!

But, for just beginning, here would be my tips:

Read comics. Read manga and webcomics and cartoons and medical comics. There is so much out there, and reading is such a big way to learn. If you see something you like, take a moment to think about why you like it. Are the expressions or colors appealing? Did it make you feel a certain emotion? Analyze what the artist may have done to get across what they did. (Is it the camera angle? the style they chose to draw in? the paneling? the pacing? the color? etc.) Doing this over time will help you recognize the tools available for telling stories through this medium, and you'll be able to put them in your own work.

Try to think about what you want to make comics about. What moves you? What topics interest you? What ideas or tropes do you love in media or think about often? What do you hate and wish was done better? What characters are you drawn to, or what characters do you want to create? (What about them compels you?) I find it's hard to create an idea out of thin air, but if you start writing down random ideas you have, you'll start thinking about them, and over time, you'll have a bank of things to pull from when you want to create.

Lastly, anatomical skill or knowledge of color does not a comic make! You don't have to know much to begin, and there aren't rules. Just start drawing what is meaningful to you!

This is just cursory and doesn't get into super specifics like paneling or scripts or plotting or colors or thumbnailing or....etc, but I'll try to expand my list of resources and get that out! And, hmu if you have any specific questions on topics!

happy drawing~

Book list under readmore:

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and his Making Comics. These books are taught in like, every comic class ever. While not my complete favorite, they do a good job of showing some history and fundamentals, and how easy it is to make comics even if you don't have a lot of drawing experience.

99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden: Really good if you don't know how to start analyzing comics. (Also it's just a fun visual exercise.) It shows the same short story done in 99 different styles with different emphasis on different moods and points of view.

The PreHistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit by Gary Larson and The Calvin and Hobbes: Tenth Anniversary Book by Bill Watterson: Two great books with work from my two favorite cartoonists. They both have writings from the author about getting ideas, developing stories, and being a comic artist.

Uncanny Bodies: Superhero Comics and Disability, edited by Scott T. Smith and José Alaniz and Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation, edited by Sheena C. Howard and Ronald L. Jackson II: These two aren't really about making comics, but they are great collections of analysis about old and new comics alike.

By no means a complete list, but some good ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

There's also the book Webtoon School: Everything you need to know about webtoon creation and story writing. To be honest, I didn't read this completely through because it was a bit more fundamental than I was expecting, but it gives a good cursory look of how to write comics if you're just starting out! It covers some history, how to write stories and arcs, etc.

Also, look to your favorite writers! A lot of webtoon/webcomic artists do tutorials or youtube videos. for instance, velnxi has this great tutorial up I really suggest looking at here.

#how to make comics #mytutorials #comics tutorials #asks #i also want to do a post on how to analyze comics #because analysis is often talked about in english or writing classes #but most dont talk about how to analyze a comic which i think can be a bit different #if people would be interested in that lmk #can yall tell i almost went to school to teach comics lmao. i love talking about this stuff

[thestargayzingetherian]

She-Ra In He-Man Revelations/Revolution

So it's been a few days and I wanted to put this post out there to basically publicly give my thoughts on some... recent developments concerning He-Man Revolution. Before I go into this, MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING FOR THE SHOW!

And also, and this is probably MORE important than the spoiler warning. Do not, and I repeat, do not take whatever speculation I put in this post as gospel or something that is GOING to happen. I may be a bit more knowledgeable than a lot of people about this stuff, but I don't wanna consider myself an expert. This is just me speculating and giving my thoughts and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up because there's a good chance, that what I'm saying turns out to be completely wrong and I don't wanna be responsible for that, so please, take all of this with the smallest grain of salt possible.

With that out of the way...

So the new season of He-Man ends with the reveal of this lady, Despara. For those who don't know... she is Adora. As in She-Ra Adora. In the DC He-man comics, Despara was the name Adora was known as when she was raised as Hordak's daughter. Her name is often used by Catradora fan artists and fic writers who really wanna just make Adora a hot evil lesbian, usually with a hot butch hairdo. It is likely that if/when another season of this show comes, Despara will be the main focus.

Now this raises the obvious question... how are they going to handle the She-Ra stuff. As I have made posts about before, the She-Ra rights and He-Man rights have been separate for a very long time and apparently, the last thing I heard, Mattel themselves can't use any of the She-Ra characters in animated form due to Dreamworks owning them now.

So naturally, you might be thinking that Despara here is just a placeholder because they can't use She-Ra. Except... there are a LOT of She-Ra references in this season that are way too numerous to be just references.

For example:

They recreate the exact scene from the 80s She-Ra movie where Adora is taken as a baby by Hordak in a flashback scene. They also mention Horde Prime existing as well and they EVEN imply that Shadow Weaver exists in this universe as well and Hordak's new robot second-in-command, Motherboard is a replacement for her.

So yeah, all signs SEEMINGLY point to some sort of She-Ra-inspired adaption being the next part of this show. Now, considering the very complex rights issues... I can see this going one of two ways.

Mattel and Dreamworks did a deal like the one Sony and Marvel did with Spiderman to temporarily get the She-Ra rights back for JUST this next season. Despara is revealed to be Adora and her arc will be her learning her true family AND eventually becoming She-Ra to fight Horde Prime with her brother and possibly all the other She-Ra cast are there too. This I feel like it would be the ideal solution to all of this.

2. Despara is revealed to be someone else OTHER than Adora under her helmet because her face is obviously not seen in her brief scene when she takes her helmet off. Technically, Mattel would own Despara outright and not Dreamworks and they could easily make Despara her own character. This was also how they planned to include her in the second season of CGI He-Man. HOWEVER, considering all the foreshadowing and knowing how many people working on these shows loved SPOP... I feel like it'd be really unsatisfying if it wasn't Adora under the mask, both as a fan and from a creative standpoint.

As for my personal theory of what Despara's whole deal is, I think she's ruling Etheria on the other side of the galaxy with Catra and serving personally under Horde Prime. Basically SPOP but a bad ending. The plot will be He-Man and his friends finding out about Etheria and going there to free the planet and Despara will redeem herself and she and Catra and whoever will join team good guy.

But that's just my personal theory. I really don't know what the hell is going to happen here or even IF more episodes will even be coming and I don't want to get people's hopes up. There's a reason I myself have been working on my own She-Ra and He-Man crossover extended universe stuff for the last while so, at the very least, there'd be a fanfic that would satisfy my hopes. I am prepared to be very wrong here.

But even if none of this speculation pans out, I still highly recommend this show to She-Ra fans. The second season definitely fixed the few issues I had with the first one and I hope more comes out of this version of He-Man... then again, it wouldn't be the first time a He-Man series was cancelled.

Hope you find this post informative!

#Catradora #She-Ra #He-Man #motu #motu revolution #Despara #Adora #anaylsis #spoilers

[archandshri]

9th feb '24 - [arch] characters, interactions and emotion - making a mini webcomic

Gahhhh Shri this has been an absolutely crazy couple of weeks!!!! Hope you are doing well :)) First of all, WOW! You have a lot of goals, and I’m sure you’ll get them done! I’ve worked a lot on my graphic design during the process of making Winter Wellbeing. If you wanna see a blog post dedicated just to that, I can do so! It would be cool to compare notes on the approaches we take for graphic layouts. If you wanna share your knowledge of camera skills when you build that up that would be awesome 😭😭

It’s been a tough few weeks, art wise. I have been reflecting on my process, motivations to create, the ego and all the baggage that’s lumped into the creative process for me. It turns out there’s a lot. I took some space from my illustration practise (literally for a weekend!) and began to realise how dysfunctional it is. I’ve been writing a lot about that so there may be a larger piece of writing coming about that at some point (no promises!!)

But for now, let's talk about little successes!

I’ve been playing with some characters for a while but I’d hit a bit of a block with the plot. I realised the expectation of having a finished project of high quality soon is unrealistic, and an unhealthy expectation to put on myself. I rarely give myself time to play with concepts for a long time and let the characters, plot and interactions evolve naturally. Maybe this in part came from sticking to the short university module turnaround. I noticed that that short turnaround was causing a lot of block, so I have decided to bench it as a comic for now and focus on using it as a playground - falling in love with the characters, creating stories and drawing them for fun. Maybe years down the line I’ll make them into a comic - we shall see! 

I *tried* to do hourly comics day this year and it didn’t quite work for me. I think I made 3 comics? And then got distracted with a bigger project that ended up taking a week or so to complete. Let’s have a look at it, shall we?

[you can find the full version here]

First of all, it’s based on an unfinished fanfiction I started a couple of months ago, which was mostly bad, but there was one nice scene that I liked and wanted to expand on. I started by having a look at the script I wrote and thumbnailing on the iPad. I’m away from home at the mo and usually would prefer to do most of my artwork traditionally, but because I don’t have access to a scanner, the whole process was digital this time. A lot of the pages got scrapped because the dialogue wasn’t necessary, and I’m not drawing pages that aren’t necessary.

some more development screenshots

I thought a lot about posing during the process, acting the scenes out in my mind and sometimes physically, really understanding the emotions of the characters, why they’re saying what they’re saying, their tone and how to convey that though their body language and expression (i find grian really annoying normally [affectionate] but I want this grian to step on me).

Pearl was hard with this because she’s quite erratic and unpredictable in this series, so I wanted her to switch from raw explodey anger to playful jabs at Grian. I’m hoping this comes across as somewhat insane, rather than tonally off and inconsistent. I did super enjoy drawing her and her explosive nature though, especially in comparison to Grian’s coldness.

I played with levels and monotone colour too - I’m not working with multiple colours much at the moment so I’m able to focus on things like values composition, characters and backgrounds. My skills limit the kind of stories I can tell currently, so I’m working to improve those foundations. Maybe when I’m back in the riso studio I can play with colours a little more.

Colours - despite the simple pallete it gets a bit nerdy here.I stuck to specific flat percentages for most of it - Pearl’s hair and Grians jumper are 60%, Grian’s hair and Pearl’s cloak are 20%. Then I added a 14% layer for shadows, using a ahrd blend eraser tool for highlights, making the images quite dark. I fill a layer with texture from Forystr’s riso brush for procreate, and turn it into a 40% opacity colour dodge layer. This gives it some much needed texture and makes the lighting feel low and nighttimecore. It also pushes the values to look really nice - I tend to be too scared to push them by myself.

I tried a few different colour layers to get a *vibe* but settled on a low percentage riso blue in a colour layer. All layers besides the riso blue are in a riso black, colour picked from a riso colour pallete. I learnt these tools - using percentages to get good values - from working with risograph. I really recommend having a look at these techniques and doing some monotone work. It's really improved by character designs, page layouts and compositions.

That's all from me today, though I have had MANY other thoughts over the past two weeks about creating, but perhaps we'll dive into them another time. If you (or anyone else) has any questions, hit me up with a reblog or an ask and I will get right to it. Lovely to hear from you! Hope your art is going great too :)) Arch :)

#archillustrates #arch is learning #project development #art #art process #art resource #process #artists on tumblr #illustration #comic #picture book #small art blog #art blog #illustration blog #female artists on tumblr #queer artists on tumblr #illustrator #book illustrator #female illustrator #queer illustrator #comic artist #comic art #female artists on instagram #artists on instagram #procreate #digital artwork #digital artist #artist blog #artist on tumblr #web comics

[blackstarchanx3new]

I'm gonna rant about shit I love from my own comic like the cringelord I am:

Mr. "I want a hug" but not from Red. X'D (I ship them too Blue's just a tsundere)

Yes he is more than fine Green, he found a new home in titty's ville.

Green learned shit from Vio lmfao, I love Vaati so much I wanna beat him senseless. (I swear Vaati also comes back through this comic)

Blue's entire existence brings me joy he's so fucking stupid.

Vio's so offended to the point of blushing but just shuts the hell up because he knows it's 100% true- X'D

Shadow link is fun, I referenced Dark Link from Twilight Princess for this expression lol. (He's got some WEIRD faces. X'D) Making him smile like that after was so funny. Like, such a bitch vibes. Dude has no chill. (Referenced Power from Chainsaw man for him sometimes too.)

Continuity from the OG manga: He laughs at them fighting because he's a sadistic creature of darkness and it's genuinely hilarious to him. (I really want Shadow Link to come off as "Still himself" While keeping his character development from the manga. The others haven't gotten a chance to show that they still have theirs cause they're all so frazzled rn.)

Vio's "Wtf are you on" face too.

Shadow Link flexing on the other 3 by just, passing through the door instead of opening it is so funny to me and idk if it's even funny to anyone else. He's such a childish asshole.

I promise Red does stuff later lmao there's this ONE scene I'm so excited about. But he's got ~DEPRESSION~

Before he cracked in pages 45-48 and cried Shadow Link almost broke a few times lmao. My boy's so overwhelmed.

I wanted them to have fun on their date before I slammed them with the reality of their situation lmao. The smashing pots idea was from that old Zelda joke about Link smashing pots but ALSO those rooms you smash shit in to get out anger. (They're venting~)

Cause Vio has a LOT of hair in FSR I like to have Shadow Link mess with it, specifically brushing it out of Vio's face so he can see it.

Mans was crying off and on this entire night. X'D

Lmao. Yes Vio. He's hurt. But not physically. X'D

This is one of my fave panels because he's just THINKING about everything.

Haha was there RELIEF to knowing you wouldn't see him again Vio?~ BECAUSE OF YOUR CRUSHING GUILT!?

This AU has a lot of love. I wish I could make it faster MGHHGhgh TTuTT

#four swords adventures #four swords manga #four swords #loz fsr au #fsr au #loz fsr #zelda four swords #vio link #shadow link #four swords returns #green link #vaati #loz vaati #vaati the wind mage

[spotsupstuff]

where should i start reading your Rain World stuff about your OCs and such?

i don't really have any order in it so just jumpin into the oc tag n readin thru it would do, i guess?? though yeah,, tumblr isn't nice with the tags i won't lie, so i'mma compile some stuff for ya

there Are something of intro posts for the characters, though they've evolved a lot over time (originally the Anemoi Iterators were just not a thing, the only one i was meant to have was Fish with Zephyr serving only as a little neat backstory for one of the scugs connected to Fish. so Zeph especially has had a lot of evolution done to her character)

here are the posts: • Intro for Fish Inside a Birdcage, the Seafarer, the Tinkerer and the rest of their little family (x) (out of this Fish and Tinktink are most important n developed, with Seafarer bein a char i wanna work on a bit at some point) • Intro for Murder of Crows (she's a bg character for Moon's group, I rarely actually do stuff with her), Abet Zephyr, the Pan Wielder and few of the Scavs living in Fish's facilities (x) (this is also where The Children of Eo group is first mentioned) • Intro for the rest of Anemoi Iterators of The Children of Eo group, voice claims (Zephyr's is outdated) and the first look at world map, which i'm updating for myself as i'm workin on this stuff and will repost at some point so y'all can see the updates too (x) • List of Iterator City names (x) • Voice claim for Three Sparrows and updated one for Zephyr (x) • Spotto™ Ancients design reference post (x) • -sigh- "Who's Beppi?" (x) (here's him as a baby) • quick off the string in Ancient times AU designs for Euros 'n Boreas (x) • Sparrows' quickly put together art ref (proper one pending) (x)

Three Sparrows' lore is scattered basically all over over the place n she doesn't have a proper intro post yet

Some direct links for the convenience: • How the Great Cycle works in the Serotonin Take (a little add-on to it)

• Iterator anatomy lesson (mostly about the puppets) • Iterator anatomy lesson: detailing of the Hivemind that makes them up • Iterator anatomy lesson: personality development • Rambling about worldbuilding, mostly the Folk Gods (quite disorganized, explains The Saint though) • Ancients' hand mutilation in the name of the Global Religion • Ancients' mask culture • Ancients and their feeding face tentacles • Ancients' "hair" • Ancients and water habitats • Ancients, their venom and Also The Cleaning Slugs • Ancients' gills and some stuff with breathing • Three Sparrows character notes • Little drabble thing for Three Sparrows, though some things might not hold up • "Has Sparrows made any connections while in school?" • Three Sparrows and her slugcat reincarnation (lil continuations of it x, x) • "The Eo Iterators get off the string, who dies who thrives?" (not canon, except the Haboob comic at the beginning) • Zephyr and Moon swap as a characterization exercise that got a lil outta hand (not canon, but neat either way) • A continuation of the above, with Looks to the Moon in the Eo group + some talking about Abet Zephyr as a person • Fooling around with the concept of Zephyr knowing Pebbles, but then big explanation of Mission Self-preservation aka the biggest thing happening in the OC lore • "Can Euros run Doom?" • How did Caper of Euros and Three Sparrows get together romantically • Caper of Euros' priorities the lil comic • "What is Euros like during a Hivemind unsync?" + Three Sparrows the treasured component • Euros and Sparrows married?? • Caper of Euros' first case of the Rot • post 1st Rot reconcilation between the lovebirds • "Did Euros' entire Lab have to be rebuilt after the eradication of the 1st Rot?" • Sparrows' deathbed • Sparrows' Memory Crypt beef (x)• "Who's older? Notos or Haboob?" + Euros 'n Haboob's relationship • Gushing about the ending of the playlist for the group (link to the playlist itself here) • some Tinkerer and the Scavs fooling around content • tiny Seafarer post • what happened between Seafarer and Artificer? why were they separated?

(new text block cuz apparently tumblr has a character limit for that) • Iterator anatomy lesson: the antennas • Iterator anatomy lesson: sexuality and desire for pleasure • Ancients' blood • Ancients' skin texture • "How are Ancient's born?" • "Did Ancients' ancestors have even bigger teeth?" • Farmer Ancients weaponry and tools + Sparrows' encounter with a Red Centipede • "How'd Zephyr end up like that?" • "What are some of Zephyr's happiest memories?" • "Did any other continent have a bootleg Iterator situation like Zephyr?" • What was young Boreas like • Boreas, his batflies and what Desaevio was like • "Very beautiful, very powerful." Boreas animatic made by me sister • Angry Boreas? Let's try to fix him with a controlled shock • Filler Iterators stuff, especially introduction of Orion's Pathway • designing filler stuff a lil: NAE, Gem, high circle Sparrows outfit, first look at the Preacher, Expiation and Spore • Orion's helmet and RW constellations • some lore stuff for Orion • Orion's General • more on the Polar War • Fish and Pigeon Drones • Fish Inside a Birdcage Daycare for scav kits • "What is stored on Caper of Euros' puppet chamber pearls?" • How Boreas and Zephyr took Euros' romantic relationship with Sparrows the comic • Sparrows' daily routine • "Has Sparrows ever seen Euros without his faceplate?" • Iterator baby photos and first appearance of Sparrows' mom, Inkling of an Inbound Daybreak • "Does Sparrows hide her tail in her high circle outfit?" • Movement within an Iterator • "How does it feel like to respawn?"/Sparrows' first death described a little • How did that wedding of Euros n Sparrows' looked • "Does the Rot smell bad?" • "How did Boreas bail Sparrows out of getting fired after the 1st Rot case?" • Grandmama Sparrows • some stuff on Euros' 3rd Mechanic • Euros and his relationship to his memories of Sparrows • "Why do Biting Notos' colony worships teeth and the mouth?" • "Did Notos know something was wrong with its puppet?" • "What does Orion think about Notos' puppet design?" • Biting Notos' sins against its own kind • Inhale in Haboob colony (and herself) notes and ideas • some things on the relationship between Euros 'n Haboob • the Anemoi + Fish as slugcats • Fate of Boreas' Blessing in Saint Time • Ascending Biting Notos comic

#Spot says stuff #rw #oc tag #honestly n actually imma use this post as a sort of navigator thingy #this is mostly specifically the oc stuff. things that are mostly or only with the canon iterators i haven't put in here. for that browsing- #-my rain world tag should be more than enough

[dark-nimbus]

A Rant on Representation in Media (mostly comics)

CW: ableism, disability erasure, mentions of fat phobia, mentions of fetishization, lmk if there’s anything I missed

I can’t believe that here in 2023 we still have to say this, but fuck it this year has already been hell enough so why not add another thing

Representation, whether it be for disabilities or culture, race or religion, any marginalized group— ALWAYS MATTERS

I spent the majority of the other night dealing with people trying to downplay the impact of Barbara Gordon’s paralysis being retconned. Wanna see how that went?

“Oh, but it’s okay if Barbara Gordon still has some mobility because there’s paralyzed people that regain their ability to walk”

Her spinal cord was completely severed, she was left fully paralyzed from the waist down

“There’s a 60yo fighting in a Kevlar bat suit and shifting clay people, but Barbara getting her legs back again is a problem?”

Okay, can clay people restore a spinal injury? Can Batman punch a nervous system into fully functioning? What relation does that have?

Aside from the fact there’s zero connection between the two, paralysis actually fucking exists. Batman and clay shifters, believe it or not, don’t. Lemme know if you find an irl Batman or Clayface that needs representation. Go on, I’ll wait

“Barbara being able to walk again isn’t disability erasure, there’s other paralyzed characters”

The definition of disability erasure is literally terminating someone’s disability under the belief it makes a person less than. The fuck you mean it’s not?

And how many paralyzed comic characters can you name? I’m willing to bet it doesn’t come to 50. Every character belonging to an underrepresented group matters. Whether their representation is taken away completely with that one character’s erasure or not isn’t the fucking point. You’re still fueling the already negative stigma around disabilities and sweeping disabled people further under the rug

“Her disability erasure doesn’t matter, DC will just paralyze her again in later issues”

I’m sorry, are you completely paralyzed from the waist down? Do you embody each and every paralyzed person and their experiences? No? What makes you think that you get to determine whether the erasure of something you don’t even have matters?

As for DC re-paralyzing Barbara, it’s been retconned since 2011. Even if they do plan on undoing whatever whack job microchip magic they’ve got going, they sure as hell are taking their sweet-ass time

I can’t believe people were actually arguing in favor of Barbara’s disability erasure, but here we are. Representation has always mattered and always will, and yet media loves grossly misrepresenting everything. Barbara was such a strong character as Batgirl, and flourished in her character development even more as Oracle. Her struggles, overcoming them, and learning to love herself and value her abilities beyond the mantle made her a well-loved inspiration for many. To have all of that stripped away and undone with a microchip was just as insulting as it was a destroyed opportunity for character growth

And unfortunately that’s not the first conversation I’ve had regarding the representation of characters

Oh, you thought I was done? Ha! I wish. How about Spiderverse?

“Oh but Sun-Spider can’t be a superhero, she’s wheelchair-bound!”

Professor X. The Chief. Oracle.

And just to cover all my bases: Bucky Barnes, Daredevil, Hawkeye, Doctor Mid-Nite, Hornet, Jericho, Cyborg. And that’s not even going into characters with much more hidden disabilities. Disabilities never stopped anyone from being able to achieve anything, nor should it ever

“Fat spider-people? Really? That’s just unrealistic”

Yes, really. What’s the problem with that? Surely it’s not the webbing, which have been proven to be durable enough to support buildings. No way it’s how they’re shaped when there’s a car, a horse, and a whole ass T-Rex spider variant

Some people really forgot the whole concept behind the first Spiderverse movie. How Stan Lee made it clear that “anyone can wear the mask.” It doesn’t matter your body type, whatever disorders or disabilities you have, your ethnicity or your upbringing. Being a hero is so much more than that, and the diversity of each spider-variant only reinforces how Spider-Man represents everyone

But let’s go even further with voice acting

“So what if Sunspot is being voiced by a white person instead of an Afro-Brazilian voice actor? It’s animated”

Oh wow I wasn’t aware that representation stops at the sound machine. Yes, Sunspot’s newest voice actor is Brazilian, but with a character whose ethnicity plays an integral part in his story, you’d think Marvel would figure casting an Afro-Brazilian VA would be more authentic for the role than the fourth white dude in a row, but no. Of course not

And with each VA they cast, Marvel pushes Afro-Brazilian VAs out of this role they’d intimately understand and be passionate in representing. VAs that Sunspot fans would love to see knowing that their favorite character (or even themselves) would be understood, rather than being hollowly voiced with characteristics that don’t match the person

“If Sunspot should be voiced by an Afro-Brazilian voice actor does that mean Magneto should be voiced by exclusively German Jewish voice actors? It’s not a monolith”

And neither are Brazilians. Hell, neither is any religion or race. That’s why we want an Afro-Brazilian VA. There’s so many nuances that can only be breathed into the character by someone who understands because they themselves have lived that life. It may be small but those nuances are what make the character feel alive to their audience, and the closer a VA is to the experiences of their character, the more genuine the character feels

Portraying animated characters doesn’t fall completely on the writers and artists. Artists may take control visually, and writers may be responsible for plot and voice lines, but it’s the VAs that are in the spotlight. VAs are the ones that gives these characters character. And those characters can’t be fully and properly represented for viewers if it’s not all there

Representation always matters. Its significance doesn’t go away with erasure, and it definitely isn’t less important because other people who aren’t among that marginalized group refuse understand. Disabilities don’t define who someone can be, nor does body type, or culture, or religion or any other background. It doesn’t stop at the sound machine. Anyone who says otherwise are just adding to the ignorance most media uses to excuse the already shit representation of the entertainment industry

Every marginalized group is valid. Every minority deserves to be portrayed as they are and not feel like they’re being fetishized, infantilized, or inaccurately represented for the sake of plot

Little me, the queer adopted Asian kid with raging ADHD, severe anxiety, and shit communication skills deserved more than the fetishization from anime characters and shouldn’t have needed to wait until they discovered Cassandra Cain, the first character to show that superheroes could look like them too

And people that never struggled to find themselves represented in media sure as hell don’t have an excuse to encourage lacking representation and feign ignorance when common decency and basic human empathy is free

#nerd shit #cassandra cain #barbara gordon #disability #marginalized communities #comics are for everyone #comics #dc comics #marvel #marvel comics #representation matters #disability representation #sunspot #batgirl #across the spiderverse #sun spider #black representation #voice acting #batman comics #detective comics #oracle #orphan #star scrivening

[icantthinkofgoodnameoranything]

so like, what if we got a comic about Scrooge’s teen years with Pothole?

like it could be a comic series (because I don’t think anyone will let it be animated) and it would be a monster of the week thing (kinda like Ducktales) with a small overarching plot.

We’d see Scrooge grow up and experience his first adventures!!! Like there would probably be a mini arc about him learning to sail Pothole’s steamboat and by the end of it he’d be sailing them places. I also want him to start trying to make money (helping advertise Ratchet’s inventions, looking into market trends, etc.). Out of all the characters I’ll probably give him the most design changes through the series considering he’s still a growing teen figuring himself out.

There’d also be a lot of relationship development, like seeing him and Pothole get closer and him and Ratchet form a Brother relationship.

Speaking of Ratchet…I honestly don’t know what to do with him. I can kinda see a negative character arc for him, where he starts underpricing himself because he feels as if that’s the only way people would buy his inventions (hence why he let Scrooge buy his C.A.R for only two dollars) but…1. I feel like I should do more than that with his character considering his one of the three main characters, 2. I don’t know much about him so I didn’t think I can make big decisions on what he’ll be like until I lean more about him.

and for Pothole he’d be the one finding the group gigs/adventures (hunting for an animal killing a farmers sheep, finding a sea monster, looking for treasure, etc.) and be the unreliable audience guide to the places, because he hasn’t visited them in so long. For his character arc I want him to have a slow ego boost from all the praise he has from his adventures (there needs to be a built up to where he’s confident to write those dime novels.) I also want to explore why he never talks to his brothers to the point they consider him long lost.

for the villains I can see the Beagle Boys breaking out of jail and trying to get revenge on the gang. Same with Porker Hogg, considering Pothole ruined him. Porker would probably gamble himself back a small river boat and come hunting for Pothole.

I also wanna have Scrooge’s immediate family + Jake have some minor cameos at the end of every chapter reading Scrooge’s letters. I’d use this as a tool to see there opinions on Pothole, Ratchet and the general shenanigans that happen.

Remember!!! This is only a concept so things WILL change if I use this. This is mostly my deranged hyperfixation rant.

#Master Of The Mississippi #Angus Mcduck #scrooge mcduck #duckverse #pothole mcduck #Ratchet Gearloose #Don Rosa #The Life and Times of Scrooge Mcduck #duck comics #ducktales #Porker Hogg #the beagle boys #fergus mcduck #rant post #angus ‘Pothole’ mcduck #mcduck family #Duckverse concept story #story concept #Duckverse rambles #Duckverse rant

[genericpuff]

I WANNA TALK ABOUT THE FUCKING EISNERS-

i've been finding lately that there are so many topics i still wanna talk about concerning LO and its development and they just don't happen because i get distracted or busy and my brain is like "ok we're just gonna pretend we've already talked about it even though we haven't" JFKDLSAJFDASKLFJSLKA

Let's talk about the Eisners and LO's recent 'win'.

I've already briefly mentioned in previous posts that LO has had a lot of its awards and accolades bought for it. This is especially true for both the NYT Bestseller label (seriously, none of those labels are ever earned, it's not some top 100 list that you compete on, it goes to whoever is willing to pay for it or whoever an editorial column wants to highlight) and, of course, the Eisner Award, which is not exactly an award judged by the industry's finest (the judges this year were made up of largely comic book shop owners and librarians).

But we're not here to talk about that. I wanna talk about what happened after LO won its second Eisner.

First off, the fact that it can be nominated at all when it doesn't even really fit the criteria for their submissions is sketchy at best:

see: "new, professionally produced long-form original comics work posted online in 2022." LO is not 'new'. Sure, it has new episodes, but I don't think that really follows the spirit of what they meant by 'new'. The Eisner doesn't seem like an award that should be granted to the same series twice, is my point, and that's one of the many complaints brought up in the absolute dressing down that LO got in its announcement post on the Webtoons Official IG page.

Of course, you can see for yourself right here.

But for the sake of fun, let's share some of the excerpts here.

(and yes I'm sharing a LOT of these because frankly I don't trust WT to not delete them in an attempt to hide all the shit that's being thrown at their precious "baby")

While names have been censored to protect the users involve, I will say one thing - this isn't some attempt from antiLO/ULO members to brigade the series' win, there are other comic creators in this discussion as well from the Canvas section who aren't pleased with seeing LO win another Eisner when there are multiple new series from this past year alone which deserve more attention than they're getting. Again, see for yourself if you click on the link above, the vast majority of comments on this post are expressing their disappointment and you can tell from how they've been sitting at the top while all the positive comments are being 'pushed' to the bottom - the like counts say it all.

All of this, paired with the fact that LO didn't win a SINGLE user-voted award during the Webtoonies, goes to show that the Webtoons audience is over LO. They're done with it. It's not relevant anymore, the only ones who still keep up with it are the stans and those holding on in the hopes that the story gets around to resolving the SA plotline and gets its TV show (which I've also mentioned has a real possibility of not happening, at least not now when it would count the most LMAO)

It still gets more likes than any other series on the platform (for now) but you can tell during its current hiatus that when LO is out of sight, it's out of people's minds - despite many of these episodes now being weeks old, their like counts aren't going up, no new readers are being pulled in. And the fact that a series with over 6 million subscribers can barely scratch 100k likes nowadays is... really something.

And that's on its free to read episodes, it's FP episodes - where views count the most because it's where LO makes its money and initial views - aren't even a fraction of what the free episodes often take well over a week to gain at this point.

Episode 252:

And the midseason finale, 253:

Compare it to Down to Earth which gets 70k likes on average on its free episodes (though its current new FP is sitting at the 1k mark), is LO still bringing in higher numbers than other series? Yes. But it's clearly falling to a point where it's going to be on par with every other comic on the platform in no time. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like after it comes back from this poorly-timed hiatus, when all of its official fan groups have also been shuttered preventing people from staying in touch within their own fandom.

Awards like the Webtoonies are, while largely just for street cred, still audience-based, and I really hope the fact that the people have spoken not once, but twice through their engagement with the platform - both through the comment section on LO's Eisner win and the votes in favor of other series in the Webtoonies - will be a major wake-up call to WT that they can't keep trying the same things over and over again expecting different results. They can't keep stuffing money into LO as if advertising or awards are the reason LO isn't pulling in the numbers it used to. They can't keep pretending that LO still has the merit and credibility that it once had 5 years ago.

It's like that comparison from Super Eyepatch Wolf talking about why you shouldn't take advice on how to be "successful" from Youtubers who got famous 5+ years ago:

"Say you decide you want to become a carpenter, and particularly, how to build a nice chair. Think about the kind of person you'd want to learn that skill from. Would it be from someone who has built nice chairs every day for 20 years? Or would it be the guy who built one nice chair five years ago out of a special kind of wood that doesn't exist anymore, who has no experience with the kind of wood available to you now?"

LO is a byproduct of a version of Webtoons that no longer exists. It was fortunate enough to join the Canvas section when the Canvas section was still only lightly populated, before WT started trying to sell the idea that anyone could become "rich" on their platform (an idea largely perpetuated by creators LIKE RACHEL who only became big because WT threw all of their money at them), before Greek myth comics became commonplace (again, something that's a consequence of Rachel/Lore Olympus) and before the romance genre became largely filled with problematic "dark" romances (again, see Lore Olympus).

Do you see the pattern of what I'm talking about here? A lot of what Webtoons became known for was a byproduct of Lore Olympus and series like it, because those series did phenomenally well, due to being in the right place at the right time, so WT went "hey, cool, this makes us lots of money! Let's do more of that!" Obviously this isn't to say that Lore Olympus is the root of all evil here OR that it didn't have its own merit back in the day, but if you make a series that blows every other series out of the water in stats, it's only natural for a company to want to pursue more series and story tropes like it in the hopes that it'll replicate exactly what comics like LO did, completely misunderstanding why LO did well in the first place. At the time, LO's art was unique for the platform, and it was tackling a story that was extremely popular on platforms like Tumblr so it naturally gained a crowd.

But that was five years ago. Since then, the WT audience climate has changed dramatically, as it always does every few years; and LO and WT haven't kept up. We went through a phase of BL, isekai, and now WT seems to be in an odd limbo because it's still clinging to a series from three whole lifetimes ago, especially now with so many of its other signature series either finally ending (True Beauty) or walking away from the platform entirely (Let's Play).

At this point, Lore Olympus is a chair that was nice five years ago, but has since started to fall apart - its paint is chipping, and its legs don't stand up so well anymore - and WT is still trying to sell it you as the exact same chair - with cheap new paint and a few bits and bobs attached to try and convince you that the chair is new - but it's long past its prime. This isn't to say that the chair itself doesn't deserve to exist, just that it shouldn't be given so much proprietary advertising and attention when there are so many other works on the platform that deserve to be uplifted and seen.

LO was good for its era, it was successful for a reason, but we're halfway through 2023 and it's painfully obvious that the comic and the platform's audience is ready to move on to new territories. Webtoons just needs to learn to let go.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus #essay post

[jojo-schmo]

Hello! I just discovered your roleswap comic and I'm eating it up, it's so gooooooood. I don't really ship MetaDede personally, but good gods the way you write them bickering and bantering and the near sync when shit gets serious makes me wanna scream in excitement ekdvsiehrhr

AND PRIMAL BANDANA DEE THO

Absolutely my favorite part of the swap. It just makes me crave for an actual Bandana Dee boss fight that actually does him justice. (also the Prince of Dreams/Beasts title itches something in my heart really well)

I'm not sure if it was intentional or if you even know who I'm talking about, but giving Bandana Dee a Scythe at some point (plus some wind abilities) really reminds me of General Gong the Hawkeye from Patapon, what with the whole high-ranking, scythe wielding, wind-adjacent thing. Probably just a coincidence tho, but I personally love it!

Hope to see the next update! :D

(P.S. while I was reading the comic, some of the links are broken or straight up missing. I'm reading from the Tumblr app so it's a bit of a hassle. Just thought I'd let u know :D)

Hello there!! Oh my goodness, what a wonderful ask, thank you so much for telling me all of this! As a person who thrives on Words of Affirmation, these types of comments mean absolutely everything to me. <3

If I may go on a tangent about the shipping thing because I'm glad you brought that up. It's a huge complement to hear you say that because-

The Roleswap comic is not a story about romance. But it is about love.

While I am a personal lover of metadede and it fueled my initial creation of this story, I want to take the Roleswap AU in a different direction from a story that's focuses on a ship where "the main characters act the way they do because they are in love or a couple." A "partnership" like theirs can possibly be interpreted as a build up to a romance. But it doesn't have to be! So there's no blatantly romantic interactions anywhere in this story like what may be found in my non-Roleswap, specifically metadede labeled content (Like kisses, confessions of love, etc.).

Dedede and Meta do love each other, like the other protagonists of Kirby love each other. Kirby, Bandana Dee, all the other Waddle Dees, the Meta-Knights, and the friends they've made over the years. The love between many of them has developed over the entire series! They've all come a long way from fighting each other to trusting one another and even having fun together!

I see the love between the Kirby protagonists as one where they care about and want the best for each other. They may not always understand the other's thoughts and motivations. But they respect them and learn to complement each other's differences. They protect each other in battle. They grow together and learn to bring out the best in each other.

So how could two very different and powerful authority figures like Dedede and Meta come together to save their friends and family, and navigate a huge world and an unknown conflict together? That's the main question I want to present in this story.

Whatever the interpretation of the King and Knight's relationship a reader may have, I'm most happy about the fact that this comic has readers!!!

Anyway!! Back to your ask! :D

Primal Bandana Dee means a lot to me too! The only reason this comic exists is because I also wanted a cool boss fight for him, and I had just finished playing Forgotten Land for the first time. It all just branched out from there. I wish I could just spill everything I have planned for him, but alas! I have a story with a set order to tell! I will say that if anyone is worried about not seeing him until the Winter Horns area, that he will make appearances before that. Just stay tuned!

And hey. This is an AU of an existing story. We know how the canon ending went already. To keep things interesting I have to include some surprises in my version down the line somewhere, right? ;)

I also haven't heard of Patapon so the resemblance between General Gong and Bandee is a coincidence! I did look it up and General Gong looks cool!! I respect scythe wielders, haha. Thanks for telling me! If this is a game I have the ability to play it could be fun to check it out!

New Roleswap update is coming soon! I feel bad that it's been about a month and I left it on a bit of a cliffhanger. But my personal and work life is slowing down enough for me to make more progress on the next pages! Our heroes will get out of the underground tunnel soon! :O

Maybe I can offer this behind-the-scenes peek of Dedede's internal monologue in the dark tunnel as a thank you for the patience?

Finally, big thanks for letting me know about the broken links! I'll sit down on my computer soon and clean up all the links. I sometimes post on mobile and sometimes on web so maybe that messed some things up.

But if anyone needs a non-tumblr reading experience, I've also hosted the story on Comic Fury for a simpler navigation! Link is in the pinned masterpost on this blog, but also here: https://forgottenlandroleswap.the-comic.org/

Thanks for reading this director's commentary! Toodle-oo!

#roleswap ask #forgotten land roleswap #king dedede #meta knight #metadede related content #kirby and the forgotten land

[nights-at-crystarium]

Okay, the recent surge of new followers thanks to the twitter exodus, and now your boy Vivien Fucksalot Rell on the tumblr radar, has me wanting to make some kinda welcome post.

The face of a man who made it to the tumblr radar for the first time C:

Who’s this guy you just saw? Yeah, first and foremost, it’s a cis male, he’s just full of gay and Gender (tm) \o/

Vivi is my WoL who I ship with G’raha Tia and I like to make it everyone’s problem. He’s the main character of the fancomic Fragments that I started this summer. I love ShB so much that I’ve decided to dedicate the next few years of my life to drawing and writing about it. And I believe I’ve got what it takes to tell a story that, in equal amounts, will entertain and break you 🖤

Vivi was tailor-made to interact with G’raha. I’m an experienced oc maker and, how to put it, character chemist? Give me two characters with some fun traits, like the base ingredients for a cocktail, I’ll toss them in a blender, shake it real good, and make the magical chemistry happen. My wolgraha ship is almost 1 year old at this point, I’m still spending every day thinking about them and writing down A LOT of things, random art ideas, fics, and, of course, the comic script, so.. Yeah it’s a good cocktail.

I’m keeping most of the Vivi things close to my heart since you’re yet to learn about him in Fragments. That’s the whole point. But the non-spoilery material is already fun enough imo. You take a look at him and you see: edge, intensity, duality, gremlin, idiot.

He was made in December 2021, got decently developed as a character by April 2022, kept getting more polished since then. I wanna make another post talking about him in a month or so, on his first birthday. For now please perceive him being the fun lil guy he is C:

What about the person behind it all though? My artist username is NextLVL, my own name is Aho or Vel, nb, he/they, a 32 years old self-taught artist who has a bit too much to deal with irl, and I’m holding on to my wolgraha obsession as the only means to stay sane. These guys are my everything. Seriously. Fragments is my first big project that so far has been incredibly validating for me as an artist, and that has given me hope to work on it fulltime thanks to my Patreon. Yes, plugging it because I’ve gotta eat. I’m earning for my living with my art, recent events in the social media sphere have thrown my livelihood into an even greater risk territory. I literally don’t know if I still can earn for my living tomorrow. So, I’ve been pushing my Patreon which looks like the safest and most stable option atm.

Here’s a “nutshell” for how I feel as an artist. Look, I didn’t say it, others did.

I’m working hard to bring something beautiful to the world that’s just an unceasing dumpster fire nowadays. I’m under a METRIC TON of mental pressure, yet I still manage to isolate from it and keep arting, for you and for myself. So yeah.. Thanks for looking, hope you like what I create. If you like it so much that you wanna support me, it’d mean literally everything to me. Thank you 🖤

#ffxiv #vivien rell #g'raha tia #crystal exarch #wol x g'raha tia #wolgraha #own: next lvl