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antiloreolympus · 3 years ago

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10 Anti LO Asks

1. even ignoring how silly the AOW is and how the nymphs are just fodder for persephone's "story", imagine how insulting it would be to likely end up hades' "eternal free labor" only to find out your "sister" had been living and working down in the underworld for weeks & 1) never mentioned or tried to see you and 2) made a bigger point to try and resurrect/pay for the people who KILLED YOU?? like persephone just ends up looking like she cares more about her reputation than her supposed "sisters"???

2. even ignoring the fact theyre the /same exact color/, why are we supposed to buy "the twins are zeus' kids" as some twist? rachel this is greek mythology even the most amateur fan would know it's more of a surprise if someone /isnt/ his kid. then again she wants us to buy "persephone is a fertility goddess" is a shocking twist as if she's not literally a spring and vegetation goddess?? like yeah no shit she's a fertility goddess. hades is one too as well as most deities.

3. we have panels of daphne that went through rachel's sketches (which if they were as fully rendered as she claims on instagram this wouldnt be an issue), inks, flats, colors, rachel putting in the dialogue, AND an editor looking at them and they cant keep the colors correct and straight up don't have her pointy ears and blue splotches gone. say what you will on more traditional comic and graphic novel publication, but at least you know youre getting a well produced product over this rushed mess.

4. that's honestly the thing tho? LO really is the most lazy trope-d, uninspired story if we really break it down. No tropes are subverted or shown in a creative way, plots are random and undeveloped if not dropped completely, they talk so much (!!) yet still remain so flat with little to no progression, and there is really no themes or messages beyond ... I'm not sure, poor people are bad? "Feminism" is when your world revolves around a man and female relationships are abusive? Classism is good?

5. Why does every single Eris redesign have her with long locks of feather hair? Can't a woman have a shaved head? A buzzcut? Or is that not 'feminine' enough for her fans 🙄

6. Nyx, to hades: “I had half a mind to steal you myself from your mother”

Also Nyx: *throws her actual child away to a piece of shit tyrant who is not good at all with kids*

Thank you Rachel for this great character consistency 😩

7. I'm not inherently against the idea of Hera knowing about Persephone's assault (though I'm not sure why she'd know just off touch?) however I do not understand why we're supposed to root for her going behind Persephone's back and telling it to others without her consent? Even making Hephaestus see the actual act, which is a huge breach of consent. I get it's supposed to be her helping, but it just seems like even Persephone's trauma isn't her own, it's for others to do as they please with it.

8. I hate how so many people excuse LO's poor writing and art as "that's how Webtoons are" as if they don't have countless beautifully written and drawn comics on there that get critic praise and awards without WT's massive marketing campaign behind them like they do for LO. There is a ton of talent and wonderful products on there that don't deserve to be dragged down because of LO's lacking quality having more focus. LO is the cheap fast food kiddie meal in a sea of high quality, gourmet options.

9. It honestly feels like the writing in LO is just Rachel going off overused tropes with nothing new added to it, fans comments, and thinking she's more clever than she is by doing random ideas and thinking it's "subversive". like ma'am, just listen to your editor and actually write something decent over trying to overcomplicate the story even more to make it seem more "serious" and thinking you're reinventing the wheel.

10. IDK why some of yall say Eris couldn't be a kid of Hera and Zeus (in myth) as they are the definition of a discord full relationship. Like they had the God of War and the Goddess of Bloodshed, how would discord be out of the question? Though, regardless, the only reason she's their kid in LO isn't Rachel thinking she's being "accurate" but rather needing a scapegoat for Persephone (reverse character development! RS is such a visionary) and to be like "see? all of Zeus' kids are bad!"

From OP: I wouldn’t say it’s a “all his kids are bad” thing since Hephaestus and Hebe are good. LO is just framing Zeus a a bad father in general, Eris being an exception since he had good reason to kick her out.

(I didn’t including Artemis and Apollo since he never had the chance to be their dad/involved in their lives until now.)

#anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical #anti lo #lo critical

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noteofnaught · 3 years ago

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Dante's memory of his mother

Fiddled with what I had written earlier.

The translation was done for me by deepl (translator).

Please let me know if you think it's strange or if there are any mistakes.

The above is purely a personal opinion

Feel free to discuss and exchange.

Dante's memory of his mother

Dante's memory of his mother, or rather that night, seems to have been formally depicted once in DMC5 since DMC1.

So let's start with the DMC1.

In the DMC1 novel, there is a scene depicting Dante recalling the events of his mother's death.

「母さん、母さん……ねぇ、母さん！」

幼子が、地に倒れ伏した母親の身体を揺さぶり続けている。母親の息がすでに絶えていることは、誰の目にも明らかだ。

だが幼子は──すでに自分でもそうとわかっているのだろうが──無

駄な努力を止める気配はない。

「兄さんもいなくなっちゃったんだ！母さん！ねぇ、母さん！」

亡骸からは未だ、温かな血が地面へと広がり続けている。

幼子は半狂乱だった。

We can see in the description that Dante tries to wake his mother up next to her dead body, even though he realises that she is dead but he is still trying to wake her up. This is a reluctance to accept his mother's death, a normal emotion and attitude for a small child to have.

And the second half of his sentence [兄さんもいなくなっちゃったんだ!] It is as if he had searched for his brother, but his tone is one of powerlessness, of helplessness, of feeling negative about the outcome. So here I want to convey not so much that he has searched for his brother to no avail, but a sense of powerlessness about the situation. He tries to wake up his mother in this way.

It's close to one: Mom, wake up. My brother is not here/is gone and I don't know what to do/I'm scared, please get up Come on.

And then in the scene of Neal's death, Dante recalls this as Neal's sacrifice to protect him, just as his mother did that day.

After that he heard the voice of his father's sword, and out of fear and insecurity he was completely drawn to it, thus obeying its words and changing his name until he gained the power to fight against it.

Then, in the battle with Gilvi, when Gilvi stabbed Dante and was covered by the necklace, Dante's internal activity was as follows.

He credits his mother with protecting him (again) as a child.

Where the mother sacrifices herself to save/protect Dante this is consistent with the DMC1 in-game scene. In DMC1 Dante has a similar line after Trish sacrifices herself to save him. This is the diagram from Precious Tears, with Japanese and English, but both Japanese and English convey that Trish sacrificed herself to save him, as did her own (Dante's) mother.

This is in line with the content of the DMC3 comic.

In the DMC3 comic, Dante has a nightmare at the office after his encounter with Vergil, a dream that is not in fully recreated form but like a fragmentary form.

Here the mother has more dialogue than in DMC1, and it is obvious from the comic's footage that there are huge hands behind her that are about to crush her, and Dante reaches towards her as if to retain his mother, who is feeling very scared, while her mother shouts for him to hurry up and hide/hide and not come out no matter what happens. She is then crushed by the huge hand. In the next panel we can see that the demon looks like a bird and says the terrible words "all die". like it is glowing, and on the next page you can also see the huge three foot shadow on the ground, which also looks like the claws of a bird, and the door behind it is the image of burning, while a long shadow is drawn under his feet.

Of course, we know from the comic that Arkham says there was a fire that day, and Vergil's fearful recollection of the house being on fire makes DMC5 even more certain that it was indeed on fire. The glowing eyes, the long, thin shadows and the subsequent bloodstained house in the comic give the impression that something ominous, unsettling and alien is about to happen.

The cartoon after that also shows us Dante waking up with a jolt, his face covered in water, looking at his hand but with only a drop on his end finger, giving the illusion that he has pulled a hook with someone. There is no sweat on his body, however, and of course there are problems of expression in the painting, so it is not painted.

But it is also true that these same fragmentary memories and dreams give Dante unease and fear.

Well, the memory, the feeling of his mother in Dante's vision so far is the following: his mother told himself to hide and not come out, and sacrificed himself to save himself. It is the great selfless motherly love that belongs to Dante.

Although it was a great mother's love, the memory of that day still makes Dante feel uneasy and afraid. The last memory his mother leaves Dante with is the one that tells Dante to hide, and implicitly the will to let him live. If we add the DMC1 novel to the mix here, it is at this very moment that he is drawn to his father's sword.

Again within these memories and fragments, the mother is rendered unknowable to Vergil, meaning that we do not or cannot see in Dante's recollections that the mother ever went looking for Vergil, if not for the presence of the phrase [兄さんもいなくなっちゃったんだ!] we would not even know in this recollection of Dante that he knew that he had a brother. What we can see or what Dante perceives in his vision is that his mother loved him so much that she died in the process of protecting/saving him.

However, it is also a writing device that can be lifted off as suspense.

But again, this doesn't do any damage to the image of Eva as a great mother, because based on what happened that day, the great mother had to choose to save/protect (potentially the closest to her or that she could find) one child and had to give up the other in the face of force majeure. Dante also never said before DMC5 whether his mother loved Vergil or not, whether she ever sought him out or whether she cared for his brother as well.

What we see in Dante's vision is basically what Dante can know, but it doesn't mean all of it. After all, comics or game scenes have an obligation to show us the scenes, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the characters actually see all the textures. We, as players/readers, are a kind of God's eye and we can notice things that are not right or different (also a storytelling technique) but as protagonists we are not necessarily fully aware or in the same position as us.

I think if you have seen suspense films, you will also often see that kind of bridge, we all know that this bomb is going to explode this person to kill that person, although there is that kind of explicitly shown in the footage, but the protagonist is still unaware of the appearance, many viewers are in order to pinch a cold sweat, for this reason anxious hope that the protagonist quickly realize.

And DMC5 gives us a formal depiction of that day, not through snippets like a nightmare, you can see in the game's overstory description that it says Dante dreamed of what happened before, which means this time you are shown real memories.

After all, a nightmare is not necessarily a real memory, it is a condensation of a certain memory. Sometimes we have a nightmare like dreaming of a giant cockroach because we are afraid, so we reproduce and amplify this fear in our nightmares, so that a small cockroach we see in the house becomes enormous in our nightmares, the giant cockroach is not necessarily real but the fear is real. Of course, we are not talking about the formation of nightmares here, but only about the fact that nightmares and some fragments of our memories with fear and anxiety may be a recreation of what we felt and what existed at the time, but not necessarily a completely real recreation.

In the DMC5 Eva process screen.

There is a slight difference between Japanese subtitles and English subtitles, or even Japanese dubbing.

The overall meaning is actually similar to the DMC3 manga, Eva is all over Dante not moving and telling him to hide/hide, the only difference is that she says more words to make Dante forget his past and forget his name and start a new life from scratch/not being Dante but another person to start over. All also contain the mother's wish for him to live well.

The difference is that in the Japanese subtitles, Eva clearly expresses the possibility that she may not return and so tells Dante to listen well to what she says next, whereas in English it is expressed as I promise you will return.

In the English context, although the mother says she will come back, she immediately reverses the 'come back' in the next sentence, saying that she knows it will be difficult, but you're old enough so you'll have to do this if I don't come back. They both mean the same thing, a mother who knows she might not come back and tells her child what she will do if she doesn't come back, as if making a pact with her child: we agreed that if I don't come back, you will remember to do this, I know you can do it.

If you look closely at the animation of the process, you can even see Dante's hand trembling on the cupboard door, he is very scared.

And the BGM here also happens to be called: More Fear

And of course it is here that we first see Eva looking for Vergil, and it turns out that Eva has looked for Vergil! This doesn't exactly match the information we got on Dante's side earlier.

But are you saying that the DMC1 message contradicts the current message? The DMC1 novel only mentions that he cried next to his mother's body, not that she said anything to him before she died, after which he became obsessed with his father's sword out of fear and terror. And his father's sword statement is the same as his mother's deathbed statement but in a very different series.

The meaning of the mother's words is very clear, the words are all about the desire for her child to live well and to stay away from these things that will hurt him, a good expectation and blessing for her child and the expectation and belief that her child will be able to do so.

「今はその名を隠し、目を眩ませ、逃げ延びよ」

“Now go incognito, confuse the enemy and flee far away!”

The overall meaning of the phrase is that it is dangerous to hide the name, confuse the enemy and run away, and the phrase even takes the form of a command that the child must do what he says.

It's a phrase you'd put in the context of a superior to a subordinate, a captain to his teammates, and in the context of a tense battlefield man telling you to run fast is perfectly fine and appropriate. But Eva's words could only be said by a mother to her child.

When all the memories are linked together, our facts about Eva become a little more complete, and at the same time what effect does it have on Dante?

If his mother only died saving him and he hated his father for her revenge which is quite reasonable, this has to be a blowback from his father's enemies. What is necessary to mention here is what Dante's mindset was regarding DMC1 killing the Black Angel.

In the official publication of the 3124 collection, Dante is said to have killed the Black Angel with "no thought", a word synonymous with "remnant", which is generally translated into Chinese as: regret.

And the DMC1 how-to book has a direct description of his ideas.

Dante is talking here about Mundus killing his mother and brother.

This is not the same as what we generally think of as objective perception. In the game we see over the course of the game, the Black Angel looks as if he still has a heart, so naturally we think there is still salvation, after all, he is still alive.

But here Dante does not think that it was his own hand that killed the Black Angel, but that Mundus killed Vergil.

Of course we can parse this to mean that killing the man who was Vergil means, but even so within this passage of Dante he is not one of the reasons for Vergil's death, he has no responsibility in Vergil's death and is not responsible for any act occurring in the process, but rather Mundus should need to take full responsibility.

In other words, it means that even if it was he who killed the Black Angel in the course of the battle, then he is not responsible for it, but Mundus is responsible for it, because it was Mundus who arranged it, and how could he have killed it if he had not arranged it there, it was not his problem, it was Mundus' problem.

than what we generally think of as objective factual rational logic going into the judgement: although Mundus turned Vergil into a black angel like that, he himself didn't recognise the killing, more or less he was responsible for it or felt particularly guilty that he didn't recognise it.

Dante's logic leans more towards total emotional logic: It's all Mundus' fault!

And in DMC5 just as Vergil used to think it was a matter of not having enough power, now it's a matter of having too much power, and now that Mundus is gone, not recognizing Vergil (V) for killing Vergil can only be his active choice, not a passive one, and it can only be that his responsibility has nothing to do with Mundus.

Returning to the mother, what arises is in fact the same question. If before it was his mother's great love for him, which was selfless and exclusive to him, now, at this moment, her love is equal, not just his but also his brother's. The "he" whose mother sacrificed herself to save him in the flashback (DMC5) is not really a "he". His mother's did not hesitate to rush out to save her brother, knowing the danger.

Of course we must also mention nell, arguably the designer of Dante's double shot.

In the novel, Thor wants Neal to commission and pay a deposit for a double gun for himself, one of which is a secret-made gun he stole from a robbery, and the other is the same type of medieval gun that Neal himself received.

nell is so good to Tony, as is clearly described in the DMC1 novel, because Tony looks so much like her child, and her love for her child is projected onto Tony, and she holds on to her job before she eventually dies, not only because of her love for Tony but also her love for her own child, and more so for the work ethic she has taken on this job and should complete.

But all the same, the person she missed most on her deathbed was her own child, something Tony could never replace, nor could he if he wanted to, which of course didn't mean that nell's love for Tony was false, nell's love for Tony was also real, indeed it was love, it was precisely because of the person of her own child that nell loved so deeply that Tony was loved by her.

Whether it is nell or the mother Eva, their love for their child is not solely Dante's alone and only his, or why they love Dante/Tony, it is because they both love their child, and if they were not such, then Dante would naturally not be loved by them.

His mother's protection and sacrifice is something he feels and desires, something that is personal and emotional for him. It also explains Dante's statement to Trish in DMC1 that "his mother died to protect herself", because Trish, like his mother in his feelings and understanding, has what he calls a "heart".

Of course, because DMC1 is entirely Dante's vision of storytelling (DMC1 is Dante's story), his mother is human in Dante's eyes, and Trish acts like his mother to protect him, or even Dante's ideal mother, so Trish is also a person with a "heart", as to how Trish feels or if that is the case. We will not discuss this issue here.

Surely the mother did not save Dante? This is necessarily a negative, but was it to save him that his mother died, or to hold back the demon who tried to kill him so that he could escape? Again, that is a negative. Wouldn't his mother have done that in that situation? That too is a negative. Wouldn't Dante have wanted his mother? No. Must Dante have never been afraid of not wanting his mother to stay by his side to give him security and protection? Did Dante only want to protect his mother and never wanted her to stay by his side to protect him? All the information above seems to be in the negative.

DMC5 is simply a reinterpretation and addition of information from the past, the only thing overturned is Dante's belief that his mother died to save himself.

This message provides us with an explanation of the origin of Dante's hatred for his brother, as is often the case in many films and novels, in which he blames the child for the death of his beloved wife, even though it was not the child's fault, and believes that if it had not been for him, his wife would not have died. He stubbornly believes that his mother died to save him, not to save his brother, and not because of this he is unable to love his brother; he acts as if he wishes he could have the mother's love all to himself.

For if we are to acknowledge the fact that his mother died to save his brother, we also have to acknowledge something else, and that is that he equally did not want to be left/abandoned by his mother.

Of course, this is not a contradiction or a conflict; it is only natural that a child should be afraid and want to protect his mother, and it is equally natural that he should want to protect her.

The above is purely a personal opinion

#devil may cry

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oosteven-universe · 3 years ago

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Djinn Hunter #4

Djinn Hunter #4 Blackbox Comics 2021 Written by Jay Sandlin Illustrated & Lettered by Fabrizio Cosentino Zara faces Abyss, learning quickly the Elder Djinn is far too powerful. Having no other alternative, Zara turns to the one person in the realms she hoped never to face again: the Sorceress Samira, her lost love. But after ghosting her centuries ago, will Samira be thrilled to see her ex again? I’m so glad there is one more issue of this left! I thought at the end of last issue this was surely going to be the finale, so glad that I was mistaken. I’m also thrilled beyond belief with the amount of story being told and how much action we see to go with it. The balance really is superb and how each serves to work with and strengthen the other elements is some darn fine storytelling. I’m also incredibly impressed with the way we see the backstory between Zara and Abyss and this pertains to her current predicament. There is a lot of storytelling going on here that is so involved and deep that it really makes you stop and think, you become so engaged in the story and it takes you off script and into your own mind beautifully. I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continues to spotlight their ever evolving and changing personalities. A great example is Zara’s growing affection and friendship with Bennu. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story the more we want to see how the past played out more fully. I’m serious because all the machinations and naivete that we see from Zara and her trust in a council elder well that’s the stuff that shapes who someone becomes. I’m enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. The layers open up new avenues we so want to see explored and while some are and others aren't they all add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. The way that everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably rendered. I love, love, love the interiors here. Just the way we see the imagery is sensational and it shows how far we’ve come in terms of computer generated art. If this isn’t computer generated then I’m even more impressed. The linework is gorgeous and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail within the work that we see is bloody sensational. That we see backgrounds, either in space or the pocket dimension, is fabulous as this enhances and expands the moments. They also work within the composition of the panels bringing out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a phenomenal understanding of how colour works. If you aren’t reading this I highly recommend that you do. It is a much more honest take on Djinn and the idea of having them grant your wishes. There is a price for everything and unless you spell something out down to the most minutiae detail you will be sorry you got your wish granted. This is extremely well written with some spectacular characterisation and some bloody impressive interiors.

#Comic Books #Comics Reviews #Blackbox Comics

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autumnblogs · 4 years ago

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Day 2: Symphony Impossible to Play

Picking up from yesterday, we just met Rose.

https://homestuck.com/story/220

Right out of the gate, here’s something interesting - another one where a character interacts directly with her medium! I wonder whose eyes she feels on her. Are Rose’s Seer powers allowing her to detect us watching her? Later on, it turns out that Kanaya was watching her all along during her intro. Maybe that’s who she senses? I think it’s possibly both of those, and a third option - Rose is a paranoid girl who doesn’t feel very secure in her own home, or comfortable in her own skin.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/223

John does a lot of roleplaying, and this is one of the earliest spots in the comic where he does this. Specifically, John performs a lot of his favorite scenes from different movies, and no surprise to anyone, almost all of the times he does, he’s performing either the role of a lover, or of a father. Malo, who I respect a lot, talks a little about John’s appreciation for signifiers here, along with some of their chums. I was going to say something about other points where John’s inner voice comments on the necessity of signifiers to make a thing itself (OR ELSE IT’S A PRETTY PISS POOR EXCUSE FOR THE THING) yesterday, but I didn’t have the thoughts fully formed at the time. Luckily, Malo will call attention to it for me.

This is another one of those weird things about the way that reality works, and it might all retroactively work that way because John expects it to work that way. Homestuck is full to bursting with symbols - everything in Homestuck is extremely abstracted as part of the art style, and also as part of the storytelling, often rendered down to some basic elements that make it recognizable. An example of something Homestuck uses as a symbol would be like, Mustaches - a symbol associated with Grandpa. Swords, symbols associated with Striders. The symbol doesn’t have to have any kind of literal logical association with the thing it represents, but we associate the two things with each other because of cultural context.

https://homestuck.com/story/225

I always liked Rose’s house best out of the group. There’s something deeply romantic to me about the premise of a wooded retreat far away from civilization. I’m pretty sure the Lalonde residence is based on Falling Water but I could be mistaken. As long as I’m thinking about Symbols, by the way, Cats are a Lalonde Symbol. Their presence in the story always evokes Lalondes even when they’re not in the room (which is not very often, as it turns out!) and by association, witches. Both of the Lalondes are witches in the sense of being powerful women who attain to that power by consorting with dubious and transgressive sources.

Rose is up front and melodramatic about her not so great relationship with her Mom, and it’s pretty much literally always on her mind. (Rose’s Mom is an alcoholic, and I should be clear that her relationship has lots of reasons to be not great, but Mom Lalonde deliberately being spiteful to Rose is not one of the reasons). I like to think there are a lot of these misunderstandings between parents and children and if that we were just a little more open with each other, we’d find that we didn’t have as much to be afraid of in each other as we think. But I might never know. Another one of my favorite series that has the inability of Parents and Children to communicate with each other as a central theme is Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion and if you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend you go do so.

https://homestuck.com/story/231

The presentation of the Guardians is so unsettling that in my first readthrough, I thought they must be some kind of monsters artificially imposed into these characters’ obviously artificial lives to create difficulty for them. Clearly, I thought the story was going in a completely different direction than it actually ended up going.

https://homestuck.com/story/236

Rose does not always think her cunning plans all the way through, something she has in common with her biological father.

https://homestuck.com/story/271

I probably could have mentioned this funny little guy earlier than I did, but Wayward Vagabond is in the story now. I’m not totally clear on whether the Carapacians have any greater meaning, but they sure are charming, and like just about everything that isn’t specifically John and his friends, they exist on a layer of the story that is just a little further away from just the text, and a little closer to the audience - they can enter narrative prompts, much like you or I would have if we were involved in Homestuck’s earliest pages. As a rule in Homestuck, the more influence you personally have over the narratives which change the material conditions of the characters’ lives, the more sinister and ambiguous you become. Luckily, WV turns out to be a pretty benign guy, but if you’re the sort of person to be reading this, you are no doubt aware of the fact that most of Homestuck’s narrators don’t turn out to be nearly so friendly. The Carapacians introduce us to the idea that characters in the story are allowed to be audience members and narrators too. So I guess, really, that’s the greater meaning of the Carapacians.

https://homestuck.com/story/272

Always enjoy Rose’s long, outlandish metaphors. Any chance to read more of them is a good chance to. (Although the main one on this page is a holdover from some of the cringy stuff in MSPA’s early days - some of it slightly racist, some of it slightly homophobic.)

https://homestuck.com/story/287

Andrew’s insistence on having characters like Dave rap at us, the audience, actually reminds me a lot of JRR Tolkien’s tendency to pepper his stuff with songs that he wrote for his in universe stuff. And while both are legitimately talented at their craft, as one of my friends put it, “I’m not a rapper... so stop rappin’ at me!”

https://homestuck.com/story/293

Jade is another character whose first post I forgot to mention, but here she is having a bit more to say than before! I think I remember my initial impression of Jade being pretty favorable, and then gradually declining until she got a bit more exposition. Perky people bother me.

https://homestuck.com/story/307

Another one of Andrew’s cool prose poems. I don’t mind these as much as the rapping, clearly. Rain and Strings are another pair of symbols pretty strongly associated with Rose, although I hardly need to tell you that. This obviously alludes to Rose’s mythological quest. I think it also foreshadows a lot of her worst decisions. Rose overthinks and overthinks and overthinks, and then by the time she should have acted, it’s too late, and she overreacts instead, usually in catastrophic ways.

https://homestuck.com/story/312

Dave’s room isn’t nearly as messy as Rose’s, but his bed isn’t made, same as every other Derse Dreamer. This is also probably the first place that we get hints of Dave’s fascination with death (he collects dead things). He’s specifically fascinated with his own death, and fantasizing about self-sacrifice, something that he ends up doing twice over the course of the comic, is one of the ways that Dave experiences masculinity. Thanks for that, Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/320

Dave almost immediately fails to uphold his irony schtick within just seconds of our getting to know him. For all that he pretends to the same extreme aloofness as his brother, I don’t think there’s an insincere bone in Dave’s body. Then again, maybe he’s just getting distracted by food, of which there is a significant dearth in his household. Thanks for that, Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/326

I will never get back the time I spent reading Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Was it worth it?

Yeah probably.

https://homestuck.com/story/332

I think this is the very first time I’ve noticed that Dave has a nifty gaming computer with the transparent glass pane and the interior lights and everything. Like, this readthrough, this panel. I’m sure I mentioned somewhere that I get more out of this webcomic every time I read it.

https://homestuck.com/story/333

Dave and Rose are another character relationship I just enjoy tremendously. Their verbal sparring is one of the highlights of the webcomic.

https://homestuck.com/story/344

Bro’s puppet fascination tells us pretty early on that this is a hands-off, manipulative kind of guy. While Bro isn’t in a metanarrative layer the way that the Carapacians are, positioning him as a puppetmaster, controlling things from behind the scenes, still gives him the same kind of sinister ambiguity as one of the comic’s actual narrators.

https://homestuck.com/story/357

Far from being the kind of chill cooldude who kills with a straight face and doesn’t look at explosions, Dave kills a random bird and immediately feels remorseful about it. Poor kid.

https://homestuck.com/story/360

There is almost nothing worse than having someone perform interest in something you enjoy to try and influence you. Unfortunately, that is not what is taking place here. Rose is quick to assume malicious intent as she does a bit earlier when she tucks her journals under her bed because she feels like she’s being watched.

https://homestuck.com/story/369

Mom, sadly, giving your daughter oodles of presents and showering everything she does in ostentatious displays of affection is sadly not a substitute for earnest communication with her and your emotional presence. These two need to learn each other’s love languages. (Note to self. Not everybody enjoys lavish presents as much as I do.)

Roxy is a giver. That’s something that shows up time and again, especially when we meet her in person much later.

https://homestuck.com/story/377

Mom Lalonde performs femininity.

https://homestuck.com/story/382

Jade sees right through Dave.

In other notes, I think most of these kids would be way happier if their Guardians were more emotionally available, and less badass.

I’m going to come back to that and write more on it at some point instead of just alluding to it repeatedly. Maybe after Dave Strifes with his bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/389

Is Mom’s compulsive gift-giving because that’s her love language? Is she performing capitalism by giving her daughter extremely expensive gifts as a show of affection? Is it both things? (Roxy is never exposed to Capitalism except by the awesome powers of Dirk’s cached wikipedia archives, and her gift-giving tends to be significantly less ostentatious than Mom’s.)

https://homestuck.com/story/404

John roleplays some more.

https://homestuck.com/story/414

Here’s where I’ll say one of the things that I think is like a big deal, because I guess now’s as good a time as any. A lot of the roleplaying that John does, and the one-upsmanship that he and Dave do with each other, and Dave and Bro do with each other, and Mom’s ironic housewife routine, and the burial of Jasper in a mausoleum are rituals. Like symbols, they’re cultural touchstones that are ultimately empty when they no longer point to the thing that they signify. Funerals are grieving rituals. When a funeral doesn’t functionally serve the purpose of helping with grief, it becomes an empty signifier. Maybe this is how Mom grieved for Jaspers - I’ll have to check and see what Roxy thinks about it when I get that far, because I forgot.

We do a lot of stupid things in a monkey see monkey do fashion because we’ve just always done them that way, even when they were built for a completely different society, and no longer serve the same function that they used to serve. Big ostentatious funerals are like that, I think. Ideally, they’d give big families an opportunity to come together in mutual support, celebrate the joy brought to them by the deceased, demonstrate compassion to the grieving, and so on and so forth. I’m not prescriptively saying “don’t have a funeral” here, my point is just that funerals are one of those cultural narratives that I mentioned in the first post.

This funeral does not serve the function of helping Rose to grieve. It’s just kind of fucked up.

https://homestuck.com/story/415

Oh hey, Rose has more fish language attached to her - she earlier makes reference to her knitting-needle tech by saying that she thinks she could probably filet a fish with them. Here, she talks about having bigger fish to fry. Rose is associated with Water through her planet, the Land of Light and Rain, and with fish through Cetus. She’s also attached to other deep sea creatures in the form of the horrorterrors.

https://homestuck.com/story/420

I’m going to pause for now and post this since I’ve read through another roughly 200 pages of Homestuck this evening on the fortuitous page of 420. It probably helps that I started earlier than I did yesterday. Nanna’s about to give some exposition, and I already wrote my big brain take for the day so for now;

Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

#homestuck #neon genesis evangelion #symbols #commentary #liveblogging

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Utopia Review (Spoiler-Free)

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Utopia review contains no spoilers.

Utopia subverts what we know about geek culture and uses it against its characters in a dangerous game that changes the world. The suspense drama shepherded by Gillian Flynn, the author best known for Gone Girl and Sharp Objects, will arrive on Amazon Prime on Sept. 25 to wage a bloody path through the viewers psyches.

Based on a 2013 British black comedy of the same name, the American version of Utopia tells the story of a group of nerds who believe that the comic, also named Utopia, is based in fact. Wilson Wilson (Desmin Borges) is more paranoid than most when it comes to the comic and plays well against Samantha’s (Jessica Rothe) utter conviction in the comic they’re obsessed over. Ian (Dan Byrd) and Becky (Ashleigh LaThrop) believe in Utopia but are more interested in each other. And Grant (Javon Walton) is trying to find a home among people way older than him. This belief that Utopia is real separates them from other fans who think it’s just a comic book but unites them as family when the boogeyman of the comic starts killing everyone who’s seen its pages. Sasha Lane turns up as key figure Jessica Hyde and John Cusack lends his talent as Dr. Kevin Christie.

The addition of Rainn Wilson, best known for his role as The Office’s Dwight Schrute, as biologist Michael Stearns is the icing on the mysterious cake. Particularly because there’s a life lesson Dwight taught that should help with the mysteries of Utopia. It’s not about who you most suspect or least expect; it’s about who you medium suspect.

One hesitation when it comes to Utopia is how close to home it hits. TV can be an escape for many, where the realities of the world take a backseat for a couple hours or days, depending on how fast you consume a show. The series is largely centered around a pandemic taking the U.S. by storm and its connection to the comic of the same name that everyone is after. The comic’s pages foretold viruses, biowarfare, and man-made diseases. Initially that would make anyone hesitate when taking on the show. But ultimately the show is worth the investment.

Every page of Utopia is twisted, creepy nightmare fuel – both the comic and the series. And it’s easy to fall into a rabbit hole where you’re right there analyzing the comic among the characters. The experience of feeling just as conspiratorial and crazy as the characters is part of the show’s appeal. There are hidden meanings even in the simplest of panels and as the story moves along and everything falls into place, you see the show’s brilliance.

In fact, any genre fan probably wouldn’t mind getting their hands on the comic book. It would be an amazing collection many could sit down and analyze for hours on end. And hopefully, Utopia catches on with new viewers so Amazon can publish these comic book pages themselves! A geek can dream, can’t they? Plus, imagine the clues its pages would hold for season 2.

Utopia is also a constant “hold my beer” kind of show where the last moment is nothing in comparison to what happens next. The person you trusted? You shouldn’t have. The villain you thought was the actual bad guy? Think again! And the person you thought would make it til the end? Keep dreaming! And as cheesy as this sounds, it makes it so you’re on the edge of your seat for the entirety of the show.

If this were any other series, this constant “edge of your seat” nature would be exhausting. But Utopia thrives where it shouldn’t. It makes you care for characters that would usually be seen as “bad guys.” It makes you wonder about your place and purpose in this world. And it makes you think about who you are and the lengths you would go if you were in Jessica Hyde’s shoes.

Jessica Hyde, and the actress who plays her, fully embodies the true meaning of BDE. Living in a world with Dwayne Johnson and Milla Jovovich makes it easy to believe BDE is a real phenomenon. And according to Urban Dictionary, the experts in all things crude, as long as you have bravado and balls you are part of the BDE collective. But the experts at Urban Dictionary were wrong. BDE starts with Sasha Lane and ends with her.

Jessica Hyde is a survivor. This young woman had to take on the world alone and has flourished because of her one-track mind to find her father. No matter the cost or the body count coming her way, she’s ready and willing to do what must be done. She’s dangerously calculating, seeing each person around her as a chess piece she has to be in control of. Despite all these control issues and her instinct to survive, Jessica isn’t an emotionless robot. She feels intensely, I’d say more than anyone on this show, and has to live with that pain daily.

What’s left behind is a young woman trying to piece her life back together with only shadows as puzzle pieces. And her only companions are the nerds who have fallen in love with the world created in Utopia, a twisted version of Jessica’s actual life. With them by her side, Jessica starts to ground herself for the first time in her life. That further complicates who she is and leaves viewers with a female protagonist like never seen before but desperately have been in need of.

In the end, Utopia is both a satirization and celebration of geek culture. The nerdy characters use all that time obsessing over a certain show, book, movie, or comic and put it to practical use. This is done without the show making fun or treating them like outsiders. The nerd is front and center. And it’s easy to feel like you’re along for the ride because you are (most likely) the nerd.

So, be aware of and beware Utopia. It’s a page-turner but only because you’ll be afraid that the world will look like the show when you close the book or that you’ve been Jessica Hyde all along. Come to know its mysteries and fall in love with Sasha Lane’s BDE while acknowledging that Rainn Wilson is an actor who deserves to be seen as more than an assistant to the regional manager.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Utopia premieres on September 25, 2020 on Amazon Prime.

The post Utopia Review (Spoiler-Free) appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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comicteaparty · 4 years ago

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July 13th-July 19th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from July 13th, 2020 to July 19th, 2020. The chat focused on Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R by snuffysam.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R by snuffysam~! (http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/comics/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until July 19th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

carcarchu

I'm only 5 pages in so far, but this comic has a great sense of humour i've already laughed out loud at some of the jokes

Deo101 [Millennium]

god yes the jokes all hit so well

carcarchu

i noticed an error on tapas, page 42 and page 45 are identical

Deo101 [Millennium]

oh no

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

@carcarchu fixed, thank you for pointing that out!

carcarchu

i'm 63 pages in now and i'm really enjoying this comic so far. it's solidly paced with an interesting cast of characters. the banter is really fun to read and i'm loving how the world building expands with each new character introduced

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

glad to hear it!!!

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Damn I feel bad for only reading this now

I love the comedic pauses in between the jokes, and it makes the situation more awkward and hilarious for me!

Also fourth wall breaking and lampshades

Feather J. Fern

I really like the line "I can't hear you from over there." Lampshading why people monologue but they are stepping away from the listener

I really enjoy these types of jokes, this comic has really good comedic timing.

Also It is long, but easy to digest, so I'm speeding through quite easily.

Also Sir Pokes a Lot!! My favourite character, and you killed them! (I love the animated parts of the comic too)

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

thank u!!!

and yeah, sorry about sir pokes-a-lot

Deo101 [Millennium]

Can not wait for y'all to meet my fave

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Wait WHAT SIR POKES A LOT DIES WHAT THE HELL

Oh yes, the animated parts always get me by surprise and I love them too

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

imo, there's an even sadder death in book 2...

RebelVampire

I like that the beginning just has a lot of comedy even while establishing the exposition parts. So you don't really even notice you're learning about characters, the world, and so forth, because the jokes just really make the entire experience vastly entertaining. My favorite moment in the comic is probably now when all the governors show up and Electric Zebra to fight the demon. Cause it was like a party of badasses, had lots of great comedy, lots of great fighting, and just all around it was nice to see everyone else embrace Mizuki's strengths too. My favorite character is a tie between Electric Zebra and Sword Warrior/Taci. Electric Zebra because I love that he works for the gov but also hates the gov while also moonlighting as a musician. He just all around is a fun character for me who could do no wrong. Taci I like because he's simultaneously arrogant, smart, caring, and selfish. I also like that he just blatantly announces his plans to become dictator. As for the art, I really love the colors. The entire comic is just a really colorful experience without being over-saturated, and I really think that makes it stand out, regardless of the other 3D aspects and such that make it stand out as well, of course. I like in the current book it explores the nature of making friends. Since Mizuki is trying hard to make friends with Stella, and Stella isn't having that. So I enjoy this exploration in terms of kind of what do you even do in those situations and how can you peacefully co-exist and overcome that grump gap.

As for the overall related content and the comic's strength, these are one in the same for me: the comedy. This is by far one of the few comic's that clicks for me in terms of comedy. Not only does it have fantastic timing, but a lot of it is really smart with lots of callbacks to things that happened - and damn do I love that sort of continuity. It's not even just the one-liner jokes though. Sometimes it's just the stories overall way of solving problems in comedic ways that is the best, so all in all, just a great entertaining comic.

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

The dialogue is so funny to go through, I love the way Snuffy characterises and just has fun!

also the cell shaded rendering is so cool! I love the aesthetic and design !

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

@RebelVampire regarding continuity stuff, this is basically the ending of book 2 lmao(edited)

mathtans

Hm, so this is somehow a trickier one for me to analyze since I've been reading it since the first CTP. Admittedly I fell behind after Book2 (busy months) but I just got caught back up (SpaceMySpace...) so I guess I'll do some further pondering and check back in later. ^^

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

ok so i finished re-reading my comic the only joke that made me legit laugh out loud this re-read was the dancing in panel 3 of this page: http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/comics/255 just because i completely forgot i put that gag in there lol

tbh my favorite character in the comic is taci. like, before his introduction, the comic was incomplete, in a sense. but with him in the picture, all the writing just fits together. (even past the fact that books 3-5 wouldn't happen without taci being a total weirdo who mailed hundreds of letters to the galaxy knights under fake names, lol)

Deo101 [Millennium]

taci is also my favorite,,, as you know, aha

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Given the comic’s emphasis on comedy, what was your favorite joke insofar? What made it stand out to you compared to the others? In what ways does the comic’s comedy stand apart from other comics?

10. What do you think of Mizuki’s tactics for using magic? Is she crazy as many characters imply, or do you think she’ll continue to make it work far into the future? How will this decision affect her skills as a strategist?

11. What do you think King Zebugu is doing participating in Galaxy Knights trials? Do you think he’s finally changed his ways, or is he up to something? Also, will this help Taci achieve his own goals?

12. Do you think Mizuki will be able to become a Galaxy Knight? If so, what other trials will she have to work through? Additionally, what will become of some of the other characters such as Stella, Taci, and Pejiba in the trials?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Deo101 [Millennium]

Okay my favorite joke so far was DEFINITELY this one, it's the first one I think that really made me like, fully laugh out loud. I dont know why it got to me so much. Also it made me love cahe very much as well.

SPOILER

Also I think Mizuki's magic probably IS something to do with her abillity to copy other's magic really easily, and probably more efficiently.

and kinda combo of 11 and 12 but I hope they all become galaxy knights and be friends :)

(including king zebugu)

back about the magic thing I KNOW weve been told anyone can do any magic, it's just very draining and hard, so they use their own magics always... but People have also commented on her ability to actually utilize other's magics SO i feel like theres more to it than just her being incredibly stubborn.

RebelVampire

I'm sorry Cahe. You used to be my #2 fave character, but then Taci.

Deo101 [Millennium]

LITERALLY SAME

RebelVampire

My favorite joke changes each reading, but right now I'm gonna go with Book 2 when Mizuki is remarking about forgetting something important and then we see Enetoro still stalling for the talent show. It was such great timing since it was long enough most readers probably forgot about it in the front of their mind but still recent enough you're like oh yeah. And I just like that long ass joke setup for the entire book. As for how the comic's comedy in general stands apart, just superior timing. A lot of comedy is about timing, and this comic is just spot on everytime. As for how Mizuki uses magic, it's probably a bit of both. She is crazy, but she will probably make it work for a long time to come just out of sheer force of will and stubbornness. But I think her having to learn so many abilities and find ways to utilize them together can only increase her skills as a strategist, since it allows her to assess the full potential of every ability and command others to reach that potential. King Zebugu is probably up to something again. I don't think he's as evil in the first books, but I def think there's something going on that he isn't telling anyone that he'll reveal towards the end and say, "Well good luck Mizuki peace out." I don't think it'll help Taci though. I think Taci will just wind up getting roped in and never get even one step closer to becoming the dictator he always wants to be. I do think Mizuki will become a Galaxy Knight. As for other trials, I'm not entirely sure. I imagine there's gonna be some sort of tournament arc though cause otherwise how is Stella supposed to say something about how this is a true contest for warriors. I think Stella will befriend Mizuki, and Taci will at least win something he can brag about. I think Pejiba won't win though, but I also think Pejiba would be content to try again and just go back to skipping around with Cahe.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

There's... somewhat of a tournament arc coming up? The structure is gonna be weird compared to other tournament arcs, but it's definitely one of the more interesting chapters I've written lol. So... have fun speculating on that for the next three years lmao

Regarding some of the other questions - there's currently enough information in the comic to figure out all the 11th-hour plot twists for Book 3. I won't say there's enough information to easily figure the plot out, lol, but you could figure it out. Though - there is absolutely something going on that King Zebugu isn't telling anyone about (it's kind of a habit at this point, lol).

mathtans

1. You know something I like about the beginning? The links to the original artwork. It's just a subtle thing down at the bottom, but it simultaneously shows the progress made by the artist, and allows anyone thinking 'wow I could never do anything like that' to realize that it didn't happen overnight.

Also the gradual world building is really well done. You don't get too much at once.

2. I think my favourite moment remains how Mizuki defeated Zebugu near the end of Book 1. It was just really clever in terms of reincorporating something subtle (the comic's good at that in general) to turn the tables, and played off his personality more than his magic, which was also clever. There's lots of other great moments too, but that one stands out over time, I think because we were looking at a climax there.

3. Favorite character is probably Zaxaty. Yeah, yeah, mathtans going for the major lesbian, big surprise, but hear me out. She's connected to the King, a major antagonist, but has her own personality and I don't think she's afraid to slap him down if needed. She might even end up connected to the major protagonist (because of reader ships). She's into art, there's that whole bizarre roller skating thing just to point out she's not normal. I possibly enjoy hairstyles like hers. And she sustained major injuries in the big Book 2 battle but sucked it up and still did what she could. So there.

(Before Zaxaty it was probably Pejiba. She seemed smart and capable.)

4. Character interaction... possibly Mizuki and Taci, simply because I tend to enjoy their interactions with everyone else in the cast. So when they get together, whew... possibly related, Mizuki has a tendency to be oblivious due to inexperience or failing her perception checks, while Taci can be oblivious because he's so full of himself. Their battle and the Sword Warrior revelation was another good moment overall.

5. Again, I'm hardly a person to be commenting on art. But the rendering effects and the occasional animated panels kind of blow me away.

(Not the first person to remark on that, admittedly.)

6. I'm not great with themes either. Perseverance is probably one, based on what/who Mizuki has to put up with. Also friendship, which Rebel referenced, and can even be seen in the earlier bits with the group coming together (Cahe and Pejiba taking it to the next level). And how those in power aren't necessarily the best at decision making (is that a theme)?

Then there's mystery, like what are peoples' goals. Is that a theme? I don't know what I'm talking about, let's face it.

7. Something about the story and content is how much development's gone into it. I don't know if the side stories were started in part due to StArt Faire, or if it provided some perpetual motion, but for example Gynu and Suzigu have this entire childhood backstory in there, and we never saw that much of them in Book 1. (Maybe that one was to highlight more Galaxy Knight stuff? But there's others that expand on otherwise minor characters.)

Then there's the cast page, which seems to be constantly updating, and includes extra random trivia and even what seem like really really minor characters (like the Ferryman).

I have no clue how snuffysam manages to do all that stuff and yet continue to update multiple times in a week. With, as Rebel pointed out, very good comedy too, both situational and connected to character personalities.

8. Comic strength is I think at times doing the unexpected. Like throwing in animation, or referencing someone new or something that adds new pieces to the magic dynamic. Like you want to keep reading to know what comes next because even if it's what you think it might be, there's probably some new aspect you didn't expect that will be there too.

Anyway, there's some thoughts, and for all I know it's similar to stuff I already said in a previous chat. If so, whoops. More tomorrow. I type slow.

(Incidentally, related to the stories, the "wingwomanicon" story won't load for me... it's a blank pdf. And the link in the story proper for when it first went up seems to link to the wrong story.)

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

@mathtans I really should test my links lol... the story should be fixed now

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

mathtans

9. I'm not sure I could pick a favourite joke. Mizuki's habit of breaking the fourth wall tends to be cleverly done. Coruby's wit matches well with his character. I'll echo what Rebel said about the timing too; there's effective use of beat panels and the like too.

10. Mizuki's probably crazy, or perhaps it's more her obliviousness, but she's very good at working with what she has to minimize the drain. She also must have a really good memory. I think the main problem with her ability to strategize is she's not great at long term planning, everything seems to be more "in the moment".

(I figure you've got a lot going on as is there. ) Sorry, must scamper again, back later. Should we comment on ships too here, or is that mostly covered by the comic itself?

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Hey, you can comment on ships as much as you want!

mathtans

Zebugu and Taci might be a ship. Can't be that much animosity without deeper feelings somewhere, right?

RebelVampire

I can't decide how I feel about Zebugu/Taci. That is a ship that makes sense as much as it doesn't make sense. I am stuck in a loop.

I am looking forward to more Taci because Taci. There can never be enough Taci in the comic, and I think I just really enjoy how he works off Mizuki because it offers lots of beautiful comedic potential. My final words are just amazing comedy comic that everyone should check out.

mathtans

11. I think King Zebugu is in the trials in part because he doesn't like that his wizard and his accountant were former Galaxy Knights. Maybe it's the ace they play to get him under control at times, maybe they don't need to, but I think he's trying to gain more power over his underlings, and by extension the planet. He's always got an angle. As to Taci, for him it's probably more ego driven, but he does have two abilities so maybe he wants to see how he compares off planet. I don't see either of them winning, I see them potentially cancelling each other out so the other guy doesn't win.

12. I think Mizuki could become a Galaxy Knight, but I don't think it'll happen in Book 3. In particular Bily is being set up as an antagonist against her (she has a similar ability to duplicate the spells of someone else, though she does need to touch them AND she has a beef with Mizuki over being the one to knock her brother out of contention). Other trials, I'm not sure... there might be one where they have to team up with someone else. Mizuki and Stella would be an interesting situation, as would Taci and anybody. I don't think Motorcycle Man or Willpower-Copy Lady will get far since the cast page only gives them minor character status. But then that could be part of the joke in the end.

Rebel's analysis regarding the others looks pretty good, actually. I'm not sure how hammer guy fits in, is one thing.

Fun that Stella's officially out now, incidentally. I don't see her going for shorter women though. Also, I wonder what constellations she might have that are in no way tied to the stars as we know them? And for that matter, she made a "Frozen" reference, which is usually Mizuki's domain. Perhaps she's also aware of the 4th wall (or "Frozen" went international there on 'SpaceMySpace' or something). Anyway.

13. Well, that last Starstuff Story is only one page long, so potentially looking forward to reading the rest of that. Seeing how the tournament plays out will be interesting... I'm more hyped about it than the gatherings plot of Book 2, maybe it's the extra title drop, dunno. Also vaguely curious about what's happening with everyone back on the planet during this time... like, if the King's away, who's running the place? (Zaxaty?)

Incidentally, the Galaxy Knights must be pretty well off financially. They set up housing and roommates for EVERYONE, then almost right away had a challenge and eliminated most of the people. Like, a lot of those rooms they didn't need.

Random question too, how DID the Starstuff stories get their start?

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

@mathtans I dunno how I keep screwing this up... anyway, I checked, and the newest story is now 100% fixed.

The original reason for Starstuff Stories was to flesh out characters' move pools for potential video game adaptations. Like, that's why Green Archer uses explosive arrows and chain arrows in her story, and why Chill Bro has ice armor in his. Though it evolved over time to just being interesting stories that I wanted to tell that wouldn't necessarily focus on Mizuki.

mathtans

Sorry, was needed elsewhere. Then read the story. I didn't expect ears to be a thing, and that poor woman is cursed. ^.^ That's a neat origin idea, I hadn't thought along those lines. Looks like the story has evolved too, there's been some scenes without Mizuki too (though I guess they were in some way related).

14. For final words, just keep at it I guess, you've got a very interesting world set up and do well at engaging your audience too, from what I can tell.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Zebugu/taci huh...? I can see them being exes or something

mathtans

Maybe that's the real reason Taci wants to kill Zebugu.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Zebugu forgot to tell taci they broke up, and stood him up!

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

That does sound like something Zebugu would do...

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

also, regarding something @mathtans said - Looks like the story has evolved too, there's been some scenes without Mizuki too (though I guess they were in some way related). yeah i had to rewrite book 3 like two times before I realized the story worked better if it didn't focus on mizuki all the time. like, book 3 introduces the most new characters out of any book so far, and i was completely neutering it by forcing all their arcs to relate to mizuki in some way. thanks to breaking that mentality, i'm able to include stuff like characters having rivalries with each other in ways that mizuki wouldn't even find out about, which helps keep the book from getting bogged down imo.

mathtans

It's cool that you draft everything out to that extent. And it's not out of the blue, she wasn't there for some of the big battle ending Book 2 either.

(Or at the talent show for most of the story. )

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R this week! Please also give a special thank you to snuffysam for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

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rebelsofshield · 5 years ago

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Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 10/3/19

It’s October which means it’s time to return to Mustafar for another series of creepy shenanigans! Also, Doctor Aphra tries her best to survive as an official employee of the Empire and Greg Pak’s sprint towards the end of this volume of Star Wars continues.

Star Wars #72 written by Greg Pak and art by Phil Noto

Look. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me say it, but Rock People. I never would have guessed that a story where C-3PO and Chewbacca team up with sentient stone men to thwart the plans of Darth Vader would be one of my favorite stories in the seventy five issue run of Star Wars, but here we are. If this whole arc was simply this storyline, I would be throwing out “A” grades every issue. Between the humor, brilliant art, playful action, and one of the best character beats for C-3PO in years, each installment of this story twists what came before while also just being damn fun.

The same, unfortunately, can’t be said about the other two stories. Han and Leia’s noir love triangle has a fun character moment for Han, but we’ve been stuck in the same ballroom set piece for three issues now. There’s a lot going on in this particular narrative, but the pacing over these last several installments has all but halted. Hopefully things pick up next chapter.

Luke suffers the most though. While the idea of Luke meeting up with a young thief who learned the Force from the Guardians of the Whills is an interesting one and has the potential for all manner of character and hijinks, writer Greg Pak’s handling of Luke here can’t help but feel poor and misguided. It is unclear at this point why Luke has any trust for Warba, who has repeatedly used and lied to him while offered little in return. Young Skywalker is still in his good natured farmboy phase of his character development, but after over seventy issues one would think that his naiveté would have worn off just a little. It’s a disappointingly simple character turn that hopefully will improve in future issues.

Score: B

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #37 written by Simon Spurrier and art by Caspar Wijngaard

It all ends where it began. With just four issues left in her long winding journey, Doctor Aphra once again finds herself working for the Empire and just under the shadow of Darth Vader himself.

Bringing Aphra and Vader together again after all this time is a logical jump for the final story arc of this comic. Aphra’s scheming and leverage over Darth Vader always made her the perfect foil for the galaxy’s most iconic villain and seeing Simon Spurrier get to fully dig into this dynamic makes for some fun storytelling opportunities. The rapidly approaching end to this long strange voyage is likely to spell nothing but doom and sadness for our good doctor, but the journey still proves fun and filled with humor.

Spurrier has a particular knack for finding creative spins on existing Star Wars concepts and twisting them to fit into the bizarre corner of the galaxy that he has carved out for Doctor Aphra. Having a full Imperial task force focused on weeding out old temples that may serve as rebel bases is the perfect blending of this particular story’s concepts and such an obvious fit for Aphra, even if it goes awry incredibly quickly. It leads to a twist that is sure to personalize the upcoming issues in unexpected ways. It may feel a little convenient, but the emotional fallout is sure to make it worth it.

Caspar Wijngaard is a welcome addition to this book. I did not make my frustrations with Wilton Santos’s pencils subtle, and I’m glad to see that Spurrier’s frequent collaborator has taken his place and is back on board for another story. Wijngaard’s pencil style lends itself well to motion and character design and while this issue is light on action, it does offer ample opportunity to show off his creativity. Wijngaard’s work still looks best when he handles his own colors and it’s hard not to be a little disappointed that Lee Loughridge has stepped in. Loughride’s work is serviceable and does a great job at capturing mood and environment, but Wijngaard’s faces lack definition and it does a disservice to some of the weightier moments

Score: B+

Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader’s Castle #1 written by Cavan Scott and art by Francesco Francavilla and Megan Levens

The original Tales from Vader’s Castle remains my favorite project put out by IDW’s tenure on Star Wars. Cavan Scott, Derek Charm, and a host of other artists were able to churn out a series of fun Star Wars set horror stories without ever sacrificing the book’s decided audience of younger readers. Giving the anthology stories of Adventures a solid frame narrative to work with added a fun level of consequence and continuity and it built to a finale that contained some of the best visual storytelling in a Star Wars comic of the last year.

When IDW announced that we would be returning to Mustafar for another round of macabre tales from the Dark Side, I could not have been more excited. Even with Derek Charm sitting this anthology out, Return to Vader’s Castle still looks to be a delightfully creepy continuation of what is hopefully a holiday tradition.

Scott switches up the framework this year and has the different stories being told by Darth Vader’s mysterious servant, Vanee, to an unfortunate listener. Vanee is an underdeveloped but suitably unnerving character so his place as our Crypt Keeper for this anthology works well. While I won’t spoil the reveal of who Vanee’s audience is, it comes as a fun piece of continuity to last year’s event, but it may be lost on many of the comics younger readers who may not have been keeping up.

Francesco Francavilla nails these framed sections, with shadowy pencils and sinister character designs. Each frame is colored in dark blues, reds, and greens and it gives all the segments in Vader’s castle an air of dark magic and playful scares.

As for the actual tale, the decision to make the mysterious monster at its center Spider-Maul is an inspired one. This insane, monstrous version of the fallen Sith Lord makes for the perfect haunted house villain and Scott sets up a fun plot that sees young scavengers happening upon his trap. The art for this segment disappoints however. While Megan Levens draws a suitably creepy Maul and the scenes concerning the young scavengers function fine, Charlie Kirchoff’s pencils prove misplaced. The comic is rendered too bright and colorful and it robs the story of its eerie atmosphere. The result feels divorced from what is a surprisingly dark tale on the page.

All in all, I am happy to be back in the walls of Fortress Vader. I’m a sucker for Halloween and fun seasonal scary stories set in the galaxy far, far away could not be more my jam. I look forward to future weeks.

Score: B

#Star Wars #Star Wars comics #review #reviews #Marvel #IDW Publishing #Doctor Aphra #Simon Spurrier #Caspar Wijngaard #Cavan Scott #Return to Vader's Castle #Star Wars Adventures #Greg Pak #Phil Noto #Francesco Francavilla #Megan Levens

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maiji · 6 years ago

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4) Favorite female character(s)?

Yu Yu Hakusho has a very strong female cast, and I love so many of them for so many different reasons. Even Togashi's most stereotypical ladies have nuances to them that make them that much more atypical, that much more multi-dimensional, that much more real, than a cookie cutter trope. In 30 days of yu yu I talked at length about Genkai. And I still agree with pretty much everything I wrote before. So I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about a really badass female character who is rarely discussed.

Yusuke’s human ancestor/Raizen's lover the kudakusushi is only really ever identified as "onna" (woman), and Raizen never reveals her name - if he ever even knew it, since he seemed so impressed and cowed by her. She only appears in one scene, a flashback, but what a presence and figure she cuts. And what an awesome (in the truest sense of the word) ripple effect her existence has made all the way through 700 years.

I really like both the idea of the character and also the execution of the character. In a number of ways she tips both the manic pixie dream girl and the Japanese yamato nadeshiko tropes on their heads. Raizen is carefree and high on doing whatever the hell he wants to do, which is basically just eating humans for fun and fighting and causing trouble, then he meets the woman of his dreams that he never could have imagined: a corpse-eating Buddhist shaman whose body is a complete wasteland of poison and disease so that she can make antidotes to save others. And she's like "Who the hell are you? You're garbage. You wanna eat me? Go ahead. You'll die and you'll still be garbage." and Raizen is like, "Whoa. Holy shit. You are totally right. I am complete garbage and a waste of existence." And is motivated into ascetic reform for the rest of his life to try to become worthy of her.

We know Raizen was completely in love. But there's little to no indication of how tied she was to him - her story completely separates from his after their one meeting, and there's a strong sense that her character is very much independent from him, which is something pretty amazingly hard to pull off considering she only appears in the narrative because of that single night he has with her. But it's made very clear that Raizen was the one who chases her, that he begs her for that one night, that they never speak of a future nor meet again. Raizen dreams of a reunion in reincarnation before he dies, but this never happens. There is absolutely no sign that on her side, she was nostalgic about him at all; the story hints at the opposite, in fact: that she may have fully severed attachments to the material world.

Also another thing that I found very compelling is that in the manga, in the Taiwanese edition in any case, Raizen describes her as (paraphrased): "A physically weak, pale, gaunt, ugly woman with the scent of a sorcerer, but I loved the look in her eyes. She was the first person to ever stare at me with such a glare of contempt." LMAO. (I don’t have the original Japanese to compare it to, but IIRC the official English manga translation is extremely watered down on Raizen’s description of her.) But that’s why the first time I ever saw her appear in the anime, where her design is a very conventional Japanese beauty, I was like, "...HUH??" (In the manga, she's not really drawn that ugly either, but it's harder to tell. Her face is usually partly obscured in shadow.)

In summary, a very, very badass lady. I like her lots.

16) Favorite member of the Sensui 7?

Mitarai Kiyoshi! Again, I still agree with pretty much everything I said in 30 days from a story perspective, so let’s talk about his character design lol. I really like his design! I personally find it so freaking hard to come up with interesting short hairstyles for male characters, and his is a really good one of a style that I have never really seen much anywhere else. I like the colour palette the anime gave him too, lots of yellows with a splash of blue. Also his seiyuu is MATSUMOTO RICAAAAAA

His territory power is pretty cool too, although it’s a good thing he’s not anemic. His first appearance, the rainy night battle with Kuwabara, is a really fantastic one. It’s one of those fights I don’t mention very often BUT I SHOULD because it’s SO WELL-DONE. It opens with this little sequence of Kuwabara and his friends walking in the rain after having their time of their life at a concert and talking about heading out for some karaoke - when Sawamura suddenly disappears. The setup reminds me of rainy night ghost stories, and has a great mood to it. The comic panels for the entire fight have this very memorable, overriding sense of a constant background of rain and night, like a deluge, and the water effects are all rendered so well. There’s a lot of great texture and layering going on too, and the bulk and sense of volume/density of water of Mitarai’s creatures really come through. Whoops, this turned into a comics drawing ramble. BUT YES, MITARAI! I LIKE HIM! lol

20) When was the first time you ever seen this series?

I touch on this a little in 30 days of yu yu - it would've been elementary school, around when the series first came out. We followed along overseas, and my dad would pick up stuff for my sister and me whenever he happened to be travelling around Asia. My sister read me the volumes, we'd get CDs and anime artbooks and things like that. Growing up, my impression of the series was the manga first and foremost, then the Japanese seiyuu because of the image songs and audio dramas. I knew the anime and the movies primarily through screencaps from magazines and the anime compilation books, and Eizou Hakusho on VHS.

It was only in late high school or university that we picked up a bootleg copy of the entire series and I watched it end to end in Japanese for the very first time. Well, almost end to end. We had to take breaks because it was too much. As mentioned in 30 days, the English subtitles were hilariously awful, and "Rei gun" was rendered as "Magic Ball". I was busting a gut and have no idea how my sister and I made it through an episode (or maybe even several) before we gave up and switched to Chinese subtitles. I was never so grateful in my life that Yusuke only has four shots available lmao

@cjjoughin Thank you so much for asking!! :D!

#cjjoughin #yu yu hakusho #meme #replies #reply #kudakusushi #raizen #mitarai kiyoshi #manga #anime #21 questions yyh style

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narwhallove · 6 years ago

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X-uniforms: Nightcrawler edition

See here for X-uniforms: Gambit edition See here for X-fights: Nightcrawler, Maker of Panels

Any penciler worth their salt can make this mutant look good. A Nightcrawler who doesn’t appear agile, slinky, and easy-to-identify means someone’s asleep at the drawing desk. And any blogger writing about dynamism in X-art has to spend time with Kurt Wagner.

@mister-wagner has written a must-read post on Kurt’s portrayal over years, and it’s fabulous.

This post is a multi-parter—the first in which I discuss Nightcrawler’s uniform, the graphic wonder it is; why Kurt’s often in the very, very foreground of a group shot; and I compare his uniform to the Wolverines’—Logan’s and Laura’s. Parts 2 and 3 will discuss how Kurt makes and breaks a conventional comic panel.

Credit must be given to Nightcrawler’s creator, the great David Cockrum, who designed a body and costume that make a graphic artist’s dream come true. Nightcrawler’s pointy red shoulder pads, which terminate in a V at the navel, both streamline his shape and create an eye-catching red triangle.

Wanna find Kurt? Upside down or sideways, there’s the red triangle. Serving lemonade, falling out of trees, or falling into fire, there’s the red triangle!

Wanna know what Kurt’s doing? Thank those big white hands and feet. The largeness and simplicity of his three-fingered hands and feet emphasize his animal grace and call out to the reader, even when Nightcrawler’s just an itty-bitty detail in the corner.

All this against the black of his arms and legs, which, more than any of the other X-men’s uniforms, makes him appear more like an alphanumeric character than a fully rendered figure. In toto, this makes Kurt like a traffic sign, the most easily readable of all the X-men.

Above, Byrne communicates so much about Nightcrawler’s dire escape. His left foot is sharply angled to make a perfect parallel to his left hand, which bends to protect his face. The long curve of his back and tail create a dome that emphasizes how, turtle-like, he shields himself from the fire. That hardworking left foot also runs into his outstretched right arm, creating a sense of single-minded propulsion.

I’ve never seen anyone fall out of a tree so gracefully. Notice how his six fingers and toes point in the same direction—up!—as his face turns—oh shit!—down. Again, notice that red triangle, like a traffic sign.

His body is gorgeously foreshortened—if you squint and view this image as 2-D on a flat surface (rather than imagining depth), you’ll notice he makes a beautiful, near-symmetrical Greek key. Unfortunately, this shape has been co-opted by Nazis, but this is a shape a) important to many cultures, and b) really important for visual artists, as it conveys powerful forward motion.

Even half in shadows, Nightcrawler is absurdly easy for the reader to spot.

Did you really need the bubble to tell you “Don’t shoot! It’s me, Nightcrawler!”? Of course not. Anyone who shoots him actually wanted to. No one wears shoulder pads like Nightcrawler.

This is why Kurt is often portrayed way in the foreground of a group shot or a book cover. Your eye doesn’t go to the near foreground first—or even second. It’s just not valuable visual real estate. Instead, the artist trusts that Kurt’s design is so striking you’ll see him no matter where he is.

In counterpoint, Storm is often found deep in the picture plane for the same reason; her cape identifies her easily. The practical reason she’s in the back is that she’s a flier, so she can be seen high up. Kurt, being someone who crawls or glides, would naturally be low to the ground, and therefore in the very near foreground. Neither of these places are focal points; Cyclops usually occupies that space, and it’s of note that his uniform is nowhere near so graphically iconic.

OK, I was too lazy to find a cover with both Nightcrawler and Storm from the Byrne run of Uncanny X-men, but this recent group shot from X-men Red proves the case. Crouching on the floor, Nightcrawler looms so close that if this were a camera, he’d be out of focus. His red triangle has been revised but is unambiguously his.

Storm stands way in the back, in her usual “flier” position. Jean must occupy the middle of the picture plane, where your eye goes first, because she wears the most unmemorable of her unmemorable non-Phoenix uniforms (bleh). In the busy-ness of this image, you almost overlook Nightcrawler—in fact, after you spot Jean, your eye automatically goes to Laura’s shining claws and descends to Gabby, who’s dressed in the same yellow as Laura.

It’s no surprise that Laura is the second figure you spot in this image. Besides Nightcrawler, whose uniforms are as easily identifiable? Of course, the Wolverines’. They feature the same exaggerated shoulders, upside-down triangle shape, which one sees repeated in the masks, shoulders, and boots. (For Logan, the main triangle is on his chest, for Laura, her legs.)

But as unified as these costumes are, they aren’t nearly as graphically “fast” as Kurt’s—mainly because there are lots of little triangles, instead of a single red giant. Also, Wolverine’s mask is by far the most iconic pair of triangles—when Wolverine occupies the near foreground of an image, it’s usually because the artist is relying on the mask—and claws—to do work. On the other hand, it’s Nightcrawler’s whole body that identifies him.

Kurt and Logan have such iconic uniforms, it’s no surprise they’ve varied minimally over the years. This isn’t true of other heroes, like Laura or Rogue or Storm. Maybe it’s a gender thing? Angel has transformed wildly, but if anyone can point out male characters who have major wardrobe changes over the years, or female characters who have had minimal, please drop me a comment.

In the second post, I’ll highlight the opportunities Nightcrawler’s powers present within a single panel or between many, during the John Byrne run of Uncanny X-men. Please tune in!

CREDITS Uncanny X-men (1977–81), various, from issues #108–143. Pencils: John Byrne

Uncanny X-men (1981) #144 (image of Logan) Pencils: Brent Anderson

X-men Red (2018) #4 Pencils: Mahmud Asrar

All-New Wolverine (2016) #1 Pencils: David Lopez

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kosmicdream · 7 years ago

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Hi I’m Kosmic. I draw webcomics and my webcomics are really long sprawling huge cast ones that will go on for years and they’re non linear and all this stuff that makes ppls heads spin when they try to explain wtf they’re about. I ask myself this question a lot: How the fuck do I maintain this motivation for continuing projects that are honestly, probably bigger than i can possibly feasibly create??? How do i avoid swallowed up by anxiety of my own creations???? is that energy going to run out at any time? should i be worried?? Well! For some reason I... don’t? like i get winded sometimes but in the end, I actually quite like what i do and I don’t care that it takes literally years to make my stories. but when I step back and look at it objectively it does make me scratch my head and wonder how i came to be in this situation. So, sometimes i try and write a few things that help me with understanding my own process, for whatever reason. Or at least I’ll TRY to articulate some of the things i seem to tell myself again and again that help me feel very comfortable with my writing/creating process. So if you want an insight into tips that i give myself.. this is that!

TIP #1 - Everything you Plan will take longer than you planned, but you can make it easier by unexpectedly including information you might have otherwise withheld.

Secrets are cool in your stories. I have so many of them, but I also understand that they’re much more fun to share than to always keep locked up and out of knowledge. I often overshare to the point where ‘info dumping’ happens which is often considered an unattractive quality in comics. But IDM it so much because my comics just need to be drawn and you can’t glorify and hold every flaw over your shoulders when in the end its not going to be that big of a deal. I think its better to give out more information than finding reasons to bend around a story to avoid revealing things. I feel it might even be more obvious if you attempt to do that.

Also, I feel that everything planned in a story can happen quite quickly, and feel much shorter than actually drawing it. Even with the experience ive gained, i still am surprised just by how much i must throw out to make my long scenes shorter and snappier. even then, they are still really long scenes. I don’t mind doing this, I like to make my stories this way- but ive also designed my comic to serve this pace by making my pages less intensive physically to make. I’m not going to go in depth about this as ive already discussed this many times before, but I do think its important to understand that generally, a commitment to a comic is going to be bigger and longer than it appears in your mind or even on paper as a script or thumbnails.

(my comic eggshells, for example, was originally going to be 340ish pages long. but back then, my pacing was much different-- and my pages were generally twice as wide with around 15 panels per page..sometimes more. but i would over-render and make them hard to read, and now i draw very few panels per page and my comics are much ‘longer’ in page count.)

TIP #2

-Accept that your ideas are bigger than what you can draw and enjoy the private context and history of your work without feeling like its less accomplished for not being all out there. Validate yourself but also understand that your readers are not going to understand the depth from your perspective and they will be engaging with the view they’ve been exposed to.

This is kind of a complicated one but I think that its both humbling to accept your work as this multi layered experiences of contradicting perspectives.. theres the planning and your engagement with the goals, the work of translating your creation to others and the vulnerable exposure of these ideas to the audience. As the creator, you get to see things in a very unique way that no one else can but... the one feeling you will never get to see is the audience who has no idea what will happen next. You can anticipate it, but in the end its so vast and unpredictable that it will be impossible to judge what they ALL will FEEL and sometimes? their perceptions can alter your own enjoyment of your work. I guarantee it will change it in SOME way.. that’s part of the sacrifice.

TIP #3

-Allowing change, flexibility and growth into your series- and letting go of control over all facets of it.

As time goes on things just change. Its hard to accommodate or prepare for that kind of investment in your work when you feel like you havent even gotten through the starting gates of your story. Comics are particularly difficult for that because once you draw a thing, it takes time to edit and you cant really undo and go back. Each panel informs and builds on the next. You have to use what’s there and figure out how it can be a structure for the future.

Accepting the past that has helped create the situation and platform of your comic in the present, which will lead into the future. Personally, i’m not a fan of retconing* certain decisions that have been already made into the canon-- however, i think if a new conclusion or idea is discovered in the process of writing and it works to include because it creates a new and alive energy in the work that will help push it to the next stage.. i think that’s very helpful and useful for sustaining the growth and motivation in a story. Making choices like this can be tricky, however, but even small ones can give a lot of natural growth and flexibility in the comic. The problem can often come with letting go of that unseen, unrealized version we had intended. I know for myself, i can get very nostalgically attached to old ideas but-- if i think of something better that works or makes more sense, I’m always thankful to let go and let my stories grow into a better thing. I try to remember where it came from, however. Because that helps inform me where to go.

(*generally my definition for this is altering events of the past, certain core plans of the comic, character motivations, or facts that are connected to the worldbuilding. im kind of a hoarder so once its in the story aka on a specific page-- its not going anywhere. until then things can be up in the air. for example, the characters knife and spoon were not originally intended to be mutually in love and it was more of a one sided idol worship, but as i fleshed their characters out i realized that it was mutual and it changed and altered the story because of that. now it cannot/will not be “undone” for whatever reason bc this is.. an established fact in the story. but at one point, it was not! i hope that makes sense.)

SO TO SUMMARIZE... plans will always be “”bigger”” in the ever expansive space of your mind so also dont be afraid to get to the point sometimes even if it feels a little, like. less exciting than you thought? accept your story is going to be different for YOU vrs your audience and make peace with that disconnect even tho its disorienting + upsetting sometimes & accommodate the ~natural personal and artistic growth~ you will experience and let go of things that might be holding you or your work back from improving with you. but also dont try to cut out too much of the past because.. it is what helped you get to where you are right now? focus on the present & allow growth for the future, dont try to alter the past and pretend it didnt happen. bc that will be confusing as fuck for everyone involved and also probably hurt the story more than help it. esp if its a long one. ur building a tower dont pull out too many foundational blocks and try to make it too much of something else unless its growing there on its own.. u kno?

When I try to write these tips these are just things I find myself doing in a cycle as i create that seem to keep re igniting my passion for my story again and again. It makes me curious because it also is a very instinctual thing so I thought I might try and write it out!!!!!!!!!! ENJOY.

ALSO some bonus thoughts!!!!!!!!!! I will say that I’ve never completed a long format comic series, so take it w/ a grain of salt imo. HOWEVER...I probably will, eventually. Even if I don’t, I do enjoy writing really big ones and I feel very happy with the work i do on them! and still feel no inclination to move onto other things. Or even when I work on other things, I don’t have a feeling of dropping a story entirely. (for example, i still intend to work on my older series eggshells and don’t really feel a desire to ‘quit’ that story even when i have matured as an author/artist since starting it.)

When I read really long comic series I wonder a lot of internal decisions that happen out of sight, since the timeline of a comic that you read is so much different than the timeline it takes actually creating the thing. its so easy to write/plan/form ideas for lifetimes of work that will never be realized, so what is it that we actually get in the pages? What aspects of this author are we actually seeing? how much have they grown since beginning and what about the story we will never know? I know I’ll never know, because, I am only the reader! And as the creator, I will never know what the feeling of my work as the reader. or the cool and interesting things they predict will happen based on their perseptions, which are so different from mine. Yet!! we are all engaged in the same story unfolding, never fully discovering what its like on the other side but only getting little glimpses and thats fascinating how a story is almost this vast illusion of experiences maintained by so many different minds.

Long format comics captivate me because they are just, really time consuming to make and the pacing of them are so different and less consumable than other stories. They like become.. this place you live in! Why are they my favorite to enjoy even when its natural that, when a story becomes longer, its going to end up attracting more & more issues? Why do i Not care about resolutions to long stories sometimes bc my expectations for them are different?? (also lets face it, experience writing long stories is going to be different than writing short ones because it takes time to write longer things & we are not going to have as much experienc having more than one completed super long multi-act-multi-characterplot story vrs a bunch of smaller ones. it doesnt mean its EASIER to write shorter ones, if anything id argue its probably much harder to write good short things + isolate a story down to that focused vision than making tons of long ones that avoid endings) but..yet!! here i am...

why am i constantly drawn to trying to understand long format stories when I probably could improve faster by writing shorter things??! i dont really know! but i follow my heart and my heart likes to do things this way......

anyway, this entire post is mostly inspired by the fact that many of my favorite stories started before i was even born or have been going on for decades and i wonder if we’ll ever read the endings to many of them.... would it.. matter? they’ve already inspired me so much even without a resolution because i can imagine my own endings to things.. but in the end that is not what happened in the actual story. it was only in my mind.. and yet it never happened, and was an illusion unknown to anyone but myself.....and sometimes my favorite stories are my favorites because of the things i imagined them to be, rather than what they actually were or how they actually turned out.. i dont know how this happens..... but i wonder about what this means with my OWN comics, and how my perceptions of what they could be vrs what they are is like, this weird illusion that also exists only in my mind and no one else can see it. yet we are both looking at the same thing. and i want to know what others see and i never will get to??? ....stories are......... so fucking spooky!!!!!!!!!! AHHH!! ok thats all. thx for reading

#personal #comic writing #ffak faq

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nehswritesstuffs · 3 years ago

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Clara gets super strength and carries 12 around! 12 is into it!😉

I feel like this is related either to Encanto or to That One Comic Panel and frankly whatever floats your boat, my dude. And honestly, my initial reaction to this was “which lesbian saw Encanto” and that’s not a bad thing.

1459words; kinda just ends, but that’s because I had a different ending which I wasn’t feeling, but I also didn’t want to go full-on bow-chicka-bow-bow on this; rated T for a slightly intense scene and then a brief exchange

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It wasn’t entirely their smoothest adventure, if the Doctor was honest. They had crashed on the planet in the middle of a war, to start, and were mistaken for enemy spies. After having been stripped and redressed in prisonwear, the pair were kept in separate cells, given separate guards, and denied most basic necessities. They were paid just enough attention to know they were being kept alive… though for what they had not a clue.

It had been roughly a week before they saw one another again. Clara and the Doctor were brought out of their cells at the same time and marched down the corridors together.

‘I can’t get a good grip on them,’ he projected into her mind. There was a ringlet around his head and it looked too fancy to be anything but a psychic dampener. ‘They know their stuff.’

‘No wonder I hadn’t heard a peep from you,’ she replied in thought. ‘I know we had been getting better at this telepathic stuff, but I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten in your panic.’

‘Panic? I never panic.’

‘Stop lying to me Doctor and tell me what we’re going to do.’

The Time Lord glanced around as they were being led into a large room, filled with dozens upon dozens of medical stations, all unused. There were large machines, smaller devices, and sometimes merely hand-held tools with which to cause pain and agony. They were laid down on tables, their electric shackles separating in order for them to be fastened to the slabs.

‘Doctor… I’d really appreciate a plan right about now…’

‘Yeah, so would I,’ he groused. He struggled against the cuffs, only for one of the waiting physicians to chuckle.

“Don’t worry—you’ll be treated no worse than your mate here,” she said. The physician snapped her fingers and two of her colleagues produced syringes. One was emptied into the Doctor’s thigh, and the other into Clara’s; within moments, the Time Lord was rendered unconscious, slipping into a fuzzy, groggy darkness that was only aware of one thing outside of his own being:

Clara was angry.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

When the Doctor woke up, he realized that he was in a completely different sort of room than before. In fact, as he sat up, he realized that he was in Clara’s bedroom on the TARDIS, having been changed into pajamas and tucked into the bedding. At his stirring, she jolted awake from her chair, having fallen asleep during her watch.

“How’d we get here?!” he wondered. “What about the…?!” He was cut off by Clara raising a hand.

“We’re here now, and that what matters,” she stated. He watched her curiously as she shook her head. “Just don’t ask.”

“...but what about the sonic—” He stopped as she placed the sonic shades in his lap and stood. “Clara…?”

“Make sure you’re fully and free of the toxin before coming out—I don’t need to have you dragging me down.” She gave him a playful wink before leaving the room, all but daring him to follow.

His mind immediately put aside wondering how they got there for the one thing that superseded all: Clara. His Clara.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Things were, again, not looking good.

Another planet in another war, though this time things seemed off. Clara wasn’t entirely together either, seemingly distant as the guard captain of the group that caught them gloated about their imminent torture in the holding cells, located just within sight of the TARDIS on the far end of the corridor.

“...and if you ever break free—by some miracle—you will have to choose who lives and who dies,” the captain said. The Doctor folded his arms across his chest, as their detail was no longer holding them in place.

“Now why would you say that?” he posed. The captain grinned wickedly.

“We put up a barrier around your ship,” she said. “It’s set up biologically; my troops and I can pass through as many times as we please, yet off-worlders? Only one set of feet may walk across the barrier and live.”

“Only one set of feet?” Clara asked. “So it’s pressure-sensitive?”

“Very good—the first one of you will make it through, while the second would be swallowed up the moment you touch the barrier floor.”

“That sounds… inconvenient,” she mused. “It could be worse, though.”

The captain looked miffed. She snapped her fingers and a guard grabbed Clara’s arm. “How worse do you want it to be?”

“Can’t get worse when you have a plan.”

Clara pushed the guard away, which led to him toppling violently into his comrades behind him. The Doctor and the captain stood there, stunned, and Clara groaned in irritation.

“Come on!” she urged. “Let’s go!” The Doctor pointed at the pile of guards being helped up by their captain and opened his mouth to question what was going on when Clara pulled him along. It felt so effortless on her part that he was surprised—what was going on?

“Clara, only one person can cross the platform! You go and have the TARDIS jump here to get me!”

“There’s no time,” Clara grimaced. She hefted the Doctor up on her shoulder and ran across, shielding both of them from their attackers. In the ship and door closed, she only set the Doctor down when they were over by the console and she was throwing the TARDIS into gear.

“You…” he began, yet trailed off. “…how…?”

“Don’t ask,” she frowned.

“…but, that was incredible!” he marveled. “How did you do that with such ease? Not even the best human body builders can do that!”

“I just can, alright?”

“Since when…?”

“Since they tried to experiment on us!” she snapped. The two let silence settle in around them, it ending with a heavy sigh out of Clara. “Whatever it was that was in those syringes were the same thing, but it made you unconscious, while it somehow gave me super-strength like a cartoon character.”

“You didn’t think to tell me?” he asked. “Clara, this is huge!”

“No, it’s annoying,” she replied. “I’m ruining door handles, broken multiple jars, and I think if I wanted to, I could toss my motorbike clear across the Thames and have it land on pavement. I could go to the top of the Gherkin and throw a baseball and it land south of Croydon! What the bloody hell happened to me?!”

“Well, I can’t figure it out if you don’t tell me,” he chided. She gave him a flat look, at which he raised his hands in surrender. “All I’m saying is that this is a technological and biological event that needs to be studied. Nothing else about you has changed?”

“My urine’s blue… and no, that’s not normal.”

“No aches, bloating, changes in muscle density, hormone fluctuations, increased sharpness of vision or hearing, unusual secretions of the varying orifices…?”

“Doctor, this has obviously been a bad set of adventures, where we can’t seem to kick anything off correctly,” she claimed. “Before you start running a bunch of tests, can we just lay down for a bit? Relax? I’m not exactly in the mood for anything else now thanks to that pisspot of a planet.”

“Are you experiencing unusual amounts of fatigue?” he wondered. She scowled at him and picked him up in order to make him stop talking. It worked, with him clung to her neck as she held him in a bridal carry.

“Now don’t be a moron and I might let you walk of your own volition to bed,” she said.

“Why would I want that?” he asked.

“Are you testing me?”

“I’m saying that it’s not often that I find myself in this position. It’s a bit novel, to be honest.” He attempted to shrug, but Clara pretended to let go, catching him as he gasped and held onto her firmer. “It’s a compliment!”

“Are you sure…?” she asked, eyebrow raised. “You’re not pulling my leg.”

“Why would I pull your leg on this? On anything? Unless pulling it meant it was part of a grander scheme to get us out of a place alive?”

She nodded at that—made enough sense as any other excuse he could have given at that very moment. Clara then began to walk through the console room, carrying the Doctor up the steps and over to his wingback chair, which she set him down in before settling on his lap.

“We will talk about this,” she said, cuddling into his side. “But later.”

“...after a… erm… proper lie-down…?” he hinted. She nodded again in agreement.

“If you mean a more active sort of one to clear our heads? Then yeah. Only after this nap.”

Oh, he could barely wait.

#Clara Oswald #Twelfth Doctor #Whouffaldi #Whouffle #Doctor Who #fan fiction #replies #Greyface replies #there is a whole story in here that's not rated E and it won't show itself #so instead you get this

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