#*Q speech bubble*

[halfbaked00q]

imagine- Bond cheerfully insisting on doing meal prep on the weekend; Q, resentfully- going along with it

[lucabyte]

monologue

[indieyuugure]

Hey what tips do you have for speech bubbles in a comic

A few, let’s see what I can come up with.

Okay number 1: If you are doing any kind of comic, DO THE TEXT BEFORE THE BUBBLE! Do not ever draw a bubble and then try to cram three long sentences into it. It doesn’t look good and the text ends up being illegibly small. Example:

- Number 2: IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ONE BUBBLE! Sometimes when you’re character has a very long dialogue segment or you want there to be an audible pause, you can break their dialogue into pieces connected by tails.

This is a good tool for making sure people actually read the dialogue. A lot of people (myself included) have a subconscious reaction to big blobs of text that makes them want to skip it or just skim it. By breaking the long exposition into smaller chunks, people’s brains won’t see it as a ton of effort, and will remain focused on the story, even though it’s literally the exact same number of characters.

This works because of the way we perceive time in a story. Because I want this scene to feel like a slow tense moment, I split the dialogue so it takes longer for the reader to read the dialogue and thus, feel as though this moment is longer.

Number 3: PLAN FOR YOUR SPEECH BUBBLES! This is something I have had to learn the hard way! Do not draw the picture and add the speech bubbles later. The way you draw a picture without speech bubbles and with is very different. Example:

This is not good! The speech bubble is cutting out your picture! Now, everyone does their speech bubble differently, I do mine at 90% opacity, some don’t do any bubble and just draw the speaker’s tail, but many do 100% opaque speech bubbles and this is not good! How to fix it:

Plan where your speech bubbles will go and purposely leave empty space there or something that you don’t care about as much, like the tips of their hair, or their bandana tails, or the end of their scarf, etc. Just make sure that your image is small enough that you can still see it with the speech bubbles on top. If you can’t shrink the image enough to fit it and the speech bubbles, then you need to consult rule 2.

Alright, I think that’s it! As a recap: Do the text before the bubble, The text doesn’t have to be in one bubble, and plan for your speech bubbles!

Hopefully you found this helpful, if you have any further questions, I’d be happy to help!

Good question! :]

[a-gay-witch]

@hows-my-handwriting's suggestion: "Gwen with a tambourine and hobie with a uke. context: pav put them in time out for being too loud so they got cheap instruments and still annoy the shit out of him"

(i'm so sorry it took so long I was not kidding when I said school was kicking my ass sob)

[kyouka-supremacy]

Hot take but Higuchi is the new pm boss in Beast

[tonyglowheart]

Q <- did a lap in front of the subordinates (like that)

----

Special agents have many talents.

[Special agents can/know how to do many things.]

特工会做的事有很多。

[diamondnokouzai]

image: a comic panel of a brown-skinned bearded man wearing a turban. his speech bubble is written in a font stylized to "resemble" arabic, reading "fall back! fall back to the cave!". end description.

fuck the hell off

[shironezuninja]

Was. Not. Paying. Attention. To. Attack. On. Avengers. Crossover. Comic. Special. In. 2014.🤦🏻‍♀️

[beansprean]

introducing Katya Zamolodchikova as Nancy the Relentless!!! a concept @vampireshmampire and i braindumped about like a year ago lmao. far before the rumors about Trixie Mattel being in s6 came out owo!

My Familiar’s Ghost part 80

Masterpost Masterpost 2

See the latest pages on Patreon!

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1a. Small panel, waist up of Nandor and Guillermo on a vague grayish-blue background. Nandor has one hand on his hip and the other pointing upwards as he leans toward Guillermo sternly and says 'Now I will show you how to call long distance.' Guillermo looks up at him, rubbing his arm awkwardly, still flushed from the previous page, and responds 'Ok...' 1b. Chest up of Nandor on a brighter blue background with his eyes closed in concentration, palms held up and out. He clears his throat and says, in a wispy bright blue speech bubble, 'I, Nandor the Relentless, am calling out to the etherrrr to inquire about available familiarsssss...' 1c. Shoulders up of Nandor and Guillermo lurching to one side in shock, Nandor's hands flying up, shoulder crashing into Guillermo's, as a glowing blue bubble suddenly shoves into their panel. Inside the bubble is a thin white vampire in drag with long white-blonde hair styled half up in a high ponytail by a sparkly red scrunchie. She is wearing a thin red dress with a black leather corset, a red-violet leopard fur capelet with gold coins dangling from the hem, a red jabot at her neck with a bat shaped gold brooch decorated with rubies, and shoulder length red gloves with ruby-encrusted gold caps shaped like claws on each finger. She lurches into frame with a huge, devious grin, shouting, 'Nandor, babygirl! Is that you?!' 1d. Repeat of Nandor and Guillermo standing side by side, Guillermo now having moved to stand slightly behind. Nandor slumps and scowls, already looking exhausted by this encounter, and greets poisonously 'Hello, Nancy the Relentless.' Guillermo frowns up at Nancy but stays quiet. From offscreen, Nancy coos, 'Heyy, mama! Still shopping in Turkish Cryptkeeper Kohls? I love that for you.' Nandor replies, irritated, 'This kaftan is not coal, it is made of wool from the sheeps of Al Q-' Nancy interrupts and asks, 'So, you're looking for a familiar?'

2a. Waist up of Nancy in her ether bubble, right arm crossed over her chest to rest on her left bicep, left hand reaching up to tap a jaunty claw on her cheek. She raises a brow and grins, tongue curling around one fang, and asks teasingly, 'Does that mean your scrumptious little slayer-boy is finally availableeee? 2b. Chest up of Nandor and Guillermo side by side. Glare fixed on Nancy, Nandor throws an arm out in front of Guillermo and shouts, 'No!! I have told you before, he is mine!' Guillermo startles, a green glow beginning to creep up behind him as goosebumps skitter up and down his shoulders. Nancy replies to Nandor, 'And your title is mine, Nandor the Plagiarist!' Nandor snaps back, 'I have been called Relentless since before you were born, Nancy the- the Pretender!' 2c. Repeat. Guillermo blushes and looks away, lips pursing as if attempting to whistle nonchalantly as his hand reaches up to grip the arm Nandor is holding in front of him and move it away from his body. Nandor's eyes flit over to him curiously, color rising to his cheeks. Nancy continues, 'Ooh, baby, you know how I feel about older men yelling at me. You should call more often.' 2d. Close up of Nandor in profile in the foreground, Nancy's bubble beyond. He glares at her and asks sharply, 'Do you know of any familiars looking for work or not?' Nancy, full body visible now as she perches on the edge of a table and leans back on one arm, legs crossed at the knee to reveal the high slit in her dress, fishnets, and thigh high black leather boots. She closes her eyes haughtily and stretches her free arm outward in a clearly rehearsed pose, replying, 'Well, gorgeous, effortless, beloved vampires usually receive applications directly...' 2e. Repeat. Nandor arches his eyebrows and turns his head away from Nancy toward the viewer, muttering, 'Then you must alert me if you find such a vampire.' Nancy wheezes with shocked laughter, kicking her legs wildly and flapping her arms, delighted rather than offended by the dig. Through her laughs, she declares, 'Read!!' 2f. Chest up of Nandor and Guillermo, the latter standing just behind and gripping the edge of Nandor's sleeve. Offscreen, Nancy recovers from her fit and says, 'Well, since I'm nice, I'll forward you a few. But- hello! Is that the slayer behind you? Did you turn him?! You bitch!! Guillermo, call m-!' Nandor scowls and interrupts, saying quickly, 'YesthankyouNancygoodbye.' He then flaps his hand in the air, dispersing Nancy's bubble and ending the call. Behind him, Guillermo frowns, flustered and blushing. 2g. Repeat. Nandor lowers his hand and glares where Nancy once appeared, sneering, 'Yeesh, why could you not have slain her?' Guillermo aims an unimpressed glance toward him, still purple in the cheeks. /end ID

[halfbaked00q]

the whole discussion around the cuff adjusting thing has me thinking on it more

it really is this, like, simple ritual he partakes in that is a self-soothing kind of gesture. it's the bird of prey preening to self-soothe. it's a gesture that fits in with the persona and can be passed off as like macho peacocking.. but also it IS very much a Ritual he seems to partake in a lot and it probably does help to like keep him grounded and etc

it's such a small thing to find endearing, that he has a self-soothing ritual, but something about it is very much that, and also a bit heartbreaking too, that he has to have so minute and dismissable of a gesture to give himself the smallest bit of normalcy and peace in his constantly high-stakes surroundings

[yourbuerokrat2]

Qs confession comes in the form of Fall out Boys 'The Mighy Fall' (most of the Bridge crew actually has to f´force themselves not to laugh when Q gets to the 'They say I got screws missing, well hell, only when I'm missing youAnd hell yeah, I'm a dick, girl, addicted to you' part even though the whole 'lock you up and swallow the key' part was concerning. Well Picard is not concerned he is just hoping that this will end soon).

Picard can't stop himself from muttering 'you can say that again' when Q gets to 'Hold me like a Grudge' and sings 'part-time-soulmate, full-time problem' and Q chooses to make of Picards comment a confession that he agrees that Q is his soulmate.

Also definitly goes for 'Immortals' at last every now and again in the hopes that Picard says 'yes'.

After continously getting told by Picard to just leave him alone, Q goes to the Continuum and the other Qs are forced to heart 'Heartbreak feels so good' throughout the Continuum. On repeat. Until they collectively decide to either have a litttle talk with Picard or to convince Q that his human is just 'playing hard to get' in order for Q to leave and once again become Picards problem.

Q definitely loves Fall Out Boy

Q floating around Picard is such a cute idea to me, thank you Daily Q for giving me the inspiration for this

[tulliolamonster]

I had some free time and tried to figure out a bit more about Old Cybertronian.

First, the alphabet is just a cypher for the English alphabet. Very fun for finding cute hidden messages, but not useful for finding the sounds each letter makes (unless you assume they’re pronounced like their English alphabet counterparts, which I do not).

Most of the examples of spoken Old Cybertronian in the comics is spoken by fluent speakers (like Vos and Cyclonus). As a result, their dialogue isn’t much help for phonetics either. However, we do get a bit of an insight when Cyclonus attempts to teach Tailgate a song. Mispronunciations in the dialogue of new speakers can give an understanding of which sounds a new speaker familiar with the descendant language might not be able to distinguish. These mistakes might mean the sounds of those letters are similar.

The song fragment we see Cyclonus teach can be deciphered as “I’VE GOT MY OWN” (Old Cybertronian doesn’t seem to have an upper and lower case). Tailgate’s first attempt is deciphered as “I’VE GOQMY RWN” (spacing is true to speech bubble). From this, we can see two things: 1) the “T” and “Q” sounds are easily conflated by new speakers, and 2) the “O” and “R” sounds are as well.

The “T” and “Q” conflation doesn’t seem to be that odd to me. In English, they’re both unvoiced aspirates made by blocking the flow of air through the mouth; the main difference is the location of that block (front of the mouth/teeth for “T,” back of the mouth/soft palate for “Q” and “K”). Though we don’t know what it would sound like, from this we can assume Old Cybertronian has at minimum one, likely more, distinct unvoiced aspirates.

“O” and “R” is different. It seems a little unusual for a vowel to be understood as a consonant… UNLESS that vowel is actually the result of a language that places greater emphasis on the voicing (movement of the vocal chords during pronunciation) of the consonant instead of viewing the consonant and vowel as distinct sounds. Perhaps, then, what readers might understand as an “oh” sound (like in “own”) is actually an “rrh” sound with voicing before it.

I think this focus on consonant sounds, their placement in the mouth/throat, and their voiced/unvoiced qualities makes sense for Old Cybertronian. Other examples of the language in the comics that don’t use the Old Cybertronian alphabet are almost always a string of consonants. On top of that, these sounds might be more easily replicated across Cybertronians with significantly different facial structures (lacking lips, animal heads, hollow cheeks, etc) by replacing them with more metallic sounds. Unvoiced, unaspirated stops could be made by tapping parts of the faceplate together. Aspirates are the same with a short burst of ventilation. Certain kinds of voicing could be made by rumbling engines, etc. We know there’s some kind of screeching and groaning involved, we just don’t know where or by what means

I couldn’t easily find more examples of characters learning Old Cybertronian, but if there are more, I’d love to see them! I’d like a larger sample pool to more accurately guess what it might sound like in real life.

Please feel free to share your thoughts!

[dropitdoeeyes]

theyre in love your honor and so t4t about it

[ID: A comic 6 panel comic depicting Raphaella La Cognizi and Marius von Raum from The Mechanisms in the meme format originally by Cutbu.

Panel 1: A drawing of Raphaella and Marius stand straight that cuts off at their mid-thighs. Raphaella has a blank expression while Marius looks significantly nervous. A shaky speech bubble above him reads: “I..”

Panel 2: A closeup of Marius’ face. He’s significantly more distressed here, with an even shakier speech bubble reading “I.. I..!”

Panel 3: A shot from over Raphaella’s shoulder. She’s saying: “..J, K, L, M, N, O, P…” Marius, looking suprised, has a spiked speech bubble over him: “…!!”

Panel 4: A bust shot of Raphaella with a dead-eyed look on her face. She says: “Q, R, S, T, U, V…”

Panel 5: A bust shot of Marius. His eyes are watering, he’s blushing and has broken out into a big smile. There are hearts around him as he says: “…W, X, Y, and Z.”

Panel 6: A fullbody of both Marius and Raphaella. They’re spinning in the air while holding hands with one another. There are sparkles and flower petals surrounding them.

[wombywoo]

i NEED more conversations between Q & V, like how you do with ghoap, like sometimes they have texts/speech bubbles in their arts, yes!!! need that with QV what stupid shit they'd say or what toothrottingly sweet romantic things they'd say or their arguments

oh my gosh yesss, I've actually been thinking about this myself 😌 I just need to think about how I could incorporate it...

tbh, I don't really see them as a couple that texts a lot--if anything, Vincent would be a formal texter, all grammatically correct, very much like a perfunctory message you'd receive from a grandparent lmaoo. And Quinn is generally not social in general, so you can see how they make a winning combo~ The idea of them exchanging lewd images is, frankly, hilarious 🤣

But as for conversing regularly, I do have several thoughts about their dynamic--in fact, I often daydream about imaginary convos they'd have, trying to develop their unique voices in my head....so perhaps I should start interweaving that more into my pieces of them...🤔

[physalian]

On Writing Characters That Don't Or Can't Speak English

This such a fun dynamic, honestly and more fantasy and sci-fi should implement it. You don’t even have to design a fantasy language, although writing that character’s un-written dialogue constantly as narration might get old.

I haven’t done this with any real-world languages or cultures but a tiny advisory: Take care in how you describe the cadence, tonality, and gesticulations of characters meant to represent real world cultures speaking in their languages. You can get unintentionally discriminatory very quickly, so do your research and hire sensitivity readers.

With that said!

There’s a few points I want to cover here.

1. How your characters communicate without dialogue

This also concerns characters that cannot learn the dominant language, whether they’re a fantasy character that just can’t make those sounds, or they’re deaf or mute or have another disability that makes verbal communication difficult.

You have so many options and you can have so much fun with it. You can make your own version of a sign language or a code language that only your core characters or a group they belong to can communicate in. Create your own pidgin or medium of communication, like a soundboard of different tonalities or a thought-to-speech translator like a Speak n’ Spell, or an Etch A Sketch, or have a magic hologram subtitle display before them. Or like the Q*Bert dialogue bubbles in Wreck it Wralph where the translation is never given, only the detailed response so you can fill in the blanks.

One of my favorite cartoons is Transformers Prime. It’s based off the character designs from the Bay live action movies, not the original cartoons, so the machines they transform into are modern and updated and there’s a few references to the Bay movies’ lore sprinkled about, but not a required watch for appreciating the show.

In it, Bumblebee carries over his inability to speak due to a damaged voice box. I imagine he now communicates in a series of beeps and bleeps because the cartoon didn’t want to pay the licensing fees for Movie Bee’s jukebox dialogue, but it works way better here. Why? Because, I think, and I do not suffer from any speech impediments, that it better conveys the struggles of a disability.

Bee never speaks and his dialogue is never subtitled. The audience is only clued into what he’s saying when other characters respond to him in an unambiguous way so, like Q*Bert, you can fill in the blanks. He isn’t universally understood, either, only one human and the other transformers can understand him, so when he’s with other humans in a dangerous situation, their inability to bridge the language gap becomes a very real problem (that no one ever blames Bee for).

Also, Bee is never once insulted, belittled, demeaned, or mocked for his speech impediment and he’s a badass character in his own right. He’s not “the robot with the speech impediment” he’s “the badass sportscar scout with a heart of gold, and who also has a speech impediment”. The only time it’s talked about negatively is by the main villain, who’s trying to be an asshole about it, but even then, Megatron never thinks Bee is less capable for it, he just thinks everyone is lesser than himself across the board (Megatron is also responsible for his disability ‘cause Bee was captured and his interrogation went poorly, if you needed another exhibit of the Big M’s sadism).

Bee’s damaged voice box is almost never central to his arc, either. He gets one two-parter where he loses his ability to transform and takes it super hard, since he’s already damaged and sees himself as less useful than the rest of the team without this critical ability.

Again, I don’t have this disability so I can’t comment on how respectful it actually is to those who do, but from an outsider’s perspective, I think Bee is a fantastic example of empowering disabled characters and giving them substance beyond their disability—cannot comment on how they ended his arc and resolved the impediment, or that it was resolved at all.

2. How you describe those unwritten words

Doubling down here: Do your research so you aren’t stereotypical and insensitive, please.

Still going off the assumption that you aren’t just writing this dialogue in the other language for now, like a character who only speaks in Spanish and you have the dialogue there in Spanish that I may have to translate separately, like in Spiderverse, or the Gaelic in Outlander, neither of which were subtitled for non-native speakers.

Since you don’t have the dialogue there, you are relying entirely on tone of voice, gesture, volume, and facial expressions, so dial your descriptions of those up to eleven—especially if this is a character who over-gesticulates to better get their point across.

You can also have the characters they’re closest to pick up on a few of their common or significant phrases to convey the connection and friendship they share.

In Outlander, at least the first season when they’re actually in Scotland (easily the best season), there’s entire scenes in Gaelic and all you have as an audience member is their tone of voice and gesticulations, and sometimes you just have to presume the gist of the scene because an English speaker isn’t present and they only give the gist a few scenes later. One in particular comes at the end of the season after an extremely traumatic event that happened to Character A, arguing over why he wants to end his life to Character B. One would think that this gut wrenching dialogue would be critical to understanding the scene but the two actors go above and beyond conveying the critical emotions behind what they’re saying, so the words don’t even matter. If you were deaf, you’d understand the scene as effectively as someone who doesn’t speak Gaelic.

Can’t confirm but I think they did this very much on purpose because Gaelic isn’t getting any more commonly spoken and you’re meant to feel a little alienated by it and only those who know Gaelic can get the full scene, like it's just for them. Can’t confirm the accuracy of the dictation or translation of the language, either, but the ‘alienating’ effect always leaves me utterly fascinated by the language. You cannot ignore the Gaelic to just drone through the subtitles, you have to pay attention.

3. How that character bumbles through the dominant language

This one is for non-disabled bi or multilingual characters or those who could learn the dominant language but haven’t had the time or opportunity. Depending on the character’s skill with the language, they can Spanglish their way through with awkward parsing still using their native languages grammar rules.

I can’t speak to this, I only know very clunky Spanish. I can say my efforts to speak in Spanish are always done in excitement as I get the chance to practice this language, and then the pressure to translate on the spot has me forgetting words I definitely know how. I get by, even if my conjugations are botched, and me, looking as I do, definitely catch people off guard when I respond to them in Spanish, generally followed by smiles at my attempts.

Just recently I had to perform tech support for a family in my apartment complex. They needed to print a thing and the printer wasn’t connecting. We gestured and pointed our way through getting their files onto my USB drive and plugging that direct into the printer, and doing one copy at a time, it was a whole thing with me bumbling through printer tech support in basic Spanish because they didn’t know a single word of English. But by god, we did it.

4. The conflicts that arise from mismatched dialogue

On a more big picture level, miscommunication through to a mistranslation can range from comedic to critically life-threatening, and it can be a recurring hurdle for the character or team to consider and plan for.

Comedy wise, mistranslations can be hilarious. Characters blanking on the word they need and being entertainingly frustrated, or taking a roundabout way to get to the word they need by piecing it together. Characters who don’t get a joke that only native speakers would know, or translating a joke in their language that isn’t as funny in another language without the other parlance.

Or just two characters who have to cooperate to survive and who don't have a common language to make that cooperation easier. I *love* gratuitously violent action movies and just the action genre in general, even if the story is cheesy or dumb. One of those movies is Alien vs Predator. In it, eventually, Protagonist 'enemy of my enemy's her way into an alliance with one of the Predators, against the much larger Xenomorph threat.

He doesn't speak anything other than growls and she only speaks English and though the movie overexplains many things (probably because the producers didn't trust the audience like the writers did), they have several moments together where he has to give her critical survival information, like "I have a failsafe bomb with a very short delay we need to run right now" and "Use this meat shield to protect yourself against their acid blood" and "You're an honorary Predator warrior now I must do this ritual for you" and can only mime his way through it, and through the power of gesture and charades, they make it work.

Drama wise, I live for big problems coming unexpectedly from small, human mistakes. One translation error can snowball into some horrible consequences.

—

Big picture, though, you do your fantasy or sci-fi world a disservice by not considering multiple languages, even if you don’t write them, or multilingual characters and the problems and world biases that arise from these different groups. Dead languages, rare languages, languages associated with the villain group or minorities. Languages that only one character is fighting to keep alive, or a language that, when spoken, comes with some sinister side effects (like Parseltongue or the Black Speech, the language of Mordor).

It really adds to the immersion when you have an expansive story that doesn’t just assume English/Common is the law of the land, or that all your fantasy/alien species can or want to speak it.

[em0tionl0rd]

What if William found immortality through different means?

Write-up snippet below from Q & A.

/ / / - - -

Ideally, Swamp Dave is this bog creature that reeks and swims in mud. He finds immortality by embracing the swamp, befriends the flora and fauna, and stinks like a dead hog. You either smell or hear him approaching, take your pick.

His way of escaping responsibility was by becoming a swamp creature, never to be found again. He’s one with the mud, so likes to jump out and grab large prey, like trespassers, and drag them under. He spends most of his time talking to frogs, hanging out with fish, and petting turtles.

The swamp isn't too far from town and the location he was working at before he disappeared. It started out of curiosity, and then over time, he found that it was easier to work with the life force of nature than to take it from others..

I want to say that the transition would have been gradual, seen as an escape that slowly overtook him the more he indulged in it. Kind of like how LSD psychonauts claim that they can see machine elves and understand the inter-connectivity of the universe.. This Dave believes he understands nature and everything connecting it. If someone can catch him on a more human level, to actually sit and talk with him (and not be eaten), he’d probably sound like a stoner, philosophizing about life, and peace, and love (of delicious bugs).

You would need a respirator for the smell, and chainmail in order to protect you from being bitten, as this is his way of testing and tasting you, to get to know you better. And don't forget the floaty wings so he can’t drown you.

He's a happy colony of deadly bacteria, so don’t come with open wounds, unless you want salmonella.

His speech is barely intelligible. Very peanut butter gums.

He makes noises (talks to himself) when stalking prey, which comes out as gurgles and bubbles. And when he says “gotcha!!”, while grabbing the ankles of his next victim, it just sounds like “AhgjkSdf!!”.

I want to see someone try and befriend him, but it’ll probably take catching and/or bringing food offerings. And finding a nonverbal way for him to communicate at first. Like mud drawings.

/ / / - - -

Questions courtesy of @thoundcarriers and @cookieface678.