#A start to something much bigger!

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[ph-cutie]

trustworthy interviewees

nonshiny version belowcut

[bookwyrminspiration]

It's fun to bemoan the odd lines and such, and I was gonna make a joke, but I do think it is genuinely sad how much of Unraveled's promo is leaning so heavily into shipping.

Not because I hate sokeefe or Keefe, but because this is such a massively popular story that has so much to offer outside of a single ship, and it's such a disservice to the years of work Shannon has put in to crafting these characters' stories and world. And to the countless fans who adore the story and characters outside of this single ship.

Both Sophie and Keefe are more than sokeefe, and the way this story about injustice, and rebellion, and loss of self, and grief is being overshadowed by a relationship? See the kiss scene! sokeefe art! foster-related quote! These things themselves aren't bad, but there's no balance; they should be part of more, not the whole thing. KOTLC deserves to retain its complexity in marketing! The readers, including young, deserve to have the story not watered down for them when it's being pushed!

There's also something about how publishers told Shannon KOTLC wouldn't sell because Sophie's a girl, and she pushed through that, only for Sophie to become almost an accessory to Keefe's story here? Making appearances that focus on what Keefe thinks of her instead of Sophie herself. I don't have this fully articulated, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at

Shannon's said for years she hates love triangles, didn't mean to write one, and tries to stay firmly Team Sophie. And I believe her, which makes it worse seeing how despite Shannon's efforts, her story about a brave, stubborn, reckless, passionate girl trying to find herself and do what she can to right the wrongs she sees in the world is getting pared down to a love story.

Now we do have six more weeks to go, so we could get some variety in the future. it's just frustrating so far, and as fun as it is to make silly little jokes about it, I do think there is a genuine critique here of publishing and marketing and treatment of female led stories (yes, unraveled is about keefe, but Keeper is about Sophie), and I wanted to say something

[tapakah0]

I'M SORRY I don't like to put something little mine with the great stories I love so much but *inhales* @somerandomdudelmao, @kathaynesart, are you okay with doing this???? *Puts you both in the "Bucket of suffering"*

[sloop-goop]

posting this on linnell's birthday

[sluckythewizard]

'I wont cry for you, I wont crucify the things you do. I wont cry for you, see, when you're gone, I'll still be BLOODY MARY'

[leclercskiesahead]

Maybe pobrecito really started when Carlos was asked on BTG who is his fastest teammate and he said everyone is fast and went on to list every one of his teammates ever EXCEPT Pierre

[seagull-scribbles]

I want you to tell ‘em that you love the way that they don’t stick out like sore middle fingers

[Continuation of this]

[httpiastri]

i'm supposed to be on my break but i couldn't not come on here and post at least something about osc's birthday so

pls have my possibly all time fave oscar pic 💗 happy birthday to the love of my life, so thankful to have him in my life (even though it's just through a screen) 🫶

[strawbebbiesart]

clean 🦆🛀🫧

(part 2)

[cherubytes]

if v1 really was designed to fight the earthmovers, then it being able to defeat oponents so much bigger than itself stops just being video game logic and starts looking more like its functioning exactly the way it was meant to

[rosenfey]

things that are hard to find: writing advice that isn't condescending.

[gatheringkeepsakes]

i love you indie art. i love you ocs. i love you web comics and graphic novels and one shots. i love you web series'. i love you animatics. i love you podcasts recorded with a microphone at someone's kitchen table. i love you original music recorded in someone's bedroom. i love you social media poems, whether they were intentional or accidental. i love you indie video games; from pixel isometric, to hand drawn animation, to visual novels. i love you short stories and novellas and novels. i love you self publishing. i love you stories with a lot of heart. i love you no matter if it's high art or folk art or serious or exciting or silly. i love you whether the work is finished, or never will be. i love when creation is earnest. i love you for making any of it and thank you for sharing it with us.

[mydetheturk]

your requested reminder to post knives going nuclear on zazie when you can :)

ok so im going to be reblogging this to the body horrors week later cause. uh. well. knives. quite literally goes nuclear?

all of these screenshots are from the overhaul project cause i haven't managed to catch the dark horse digital editions on sale yet, though i'll provide the dark horse translations where i can because i have physical copies, and the dark horse translations are imo clearer here.

there are ids in all the alt texts for the photos, it's why this took several days longer than i'd originally planned -finger guns- alt texts might look a little weird in the first set btw - tumblr started eating the photoset and i had to spend an extra half an hour fixing it -finger guns-

the pages are volume 11, pages 90-92, and 114-17, because a lot of the pages in between are leadup pages and also have the zazie control worm. thing.

pages 90-2 are the distant explosion (you can click on the first image and see it in the photo viewer, if for some reason it will not view in dashboard mode. But it does exist!)

(on page 90, dark horse is a lot more specific, with "the northeast sky is glowing" instead of "the whole sky is glowing". the other two boxes with text read "what is--?!" and "oh my..!" respectfully as if they were cut off mid sentence.)

so uh.

knives went uh.

literal "nuclear bomb exploded just above a town"

because he kind of did. Unlike a true nuclear bomb, he did not form a mushroom cloud, but the metaphor is still there. that is a nuclear metaphor

per pages 114-117 (pages are from left to right, read the pages right to left. sorry)

(legato's speech bubbles on page 114 in the dark horse edition read: Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. What is about to happen now is a just a logical extension of that. Be very afraid. You are in his presence. Did you not notice, Leader of the Sand Worms?

It reads very differently, imo, more like Zazie was caught up in their own plots and schemes to realize the control worm didn't work. Legato is also telling Zazie that Zazie should be afraid of Knives. Okay? Not asking if Zazie is afraid. Telling Zazie to be afraid. Like some sort of reverse "Be Not Afraid" from the bible.

Zazie's thought bubbles on page 115 are translated as "the dark hole is swallowing the poison" which reads more like knives made a black hole. given the visuals? that sounds more likely. Black holes, as a real life thing that we know about and have tried to study, are often referred to as swallowing things that pass too close. knives made a mini black hole to eat the poison from the sand worm venom. knives has consumed the dependent plants.)

the fact is, as a metatextual read, plants are nuclear reactors. independent plants are walking nuclear bombs. Nightow did this on purpose. We're meant to read them as something nuclear.

This is, as i was saying to @needle-noggins the other night when i was working on it in an attempt to get more of the alt texts written, a casual display of power. Knives is throwing a hissy fit! Knives is throwing a multi-megaton display of power because Zazie tried to take him over with the control worm. Page 91 had needle-noggins and i speechless because on the low end that tower of debris from the explosion is (if we did the very, very rough math right) THIRTY MILES TALL. Twice as tall as the tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons! or roughly five and a half times as tall as Mount Everest. On the outside, because we figured its anywhere from 25-30 times taller than the cloud cover, it could be up to thirty seven miles

Over halfway to space on earth.

like.

I know we love the independent plants and all. But Holy Shit. just.

holy shit

[toxooz]

I know the answer might be no but still!

Are you ever going to make or add your characters into character ai?

I think it'll be really cool to be able to talk to Ollie, or just talk to the whole gang!!

Also lots of love to your art and comic, I found this comic when I was at my lowest and it really helped me out when I was really sad in depressed! Thank you for making this comic and for doing all of this amazing work that you have put in to your characters and storyline!!!

look 🙏 i do see the possible appeal in that i aint gunna lie one bit and as the creator of these characters the idea of being able to seemingly talk to them sounds pretty cool! BUT i simply cant jump on the AI train to Any extent it just wouldn't sit right with me. I feel like it would unnerve me after a while plus the idea of my OCs being 'off' or having out of character dialogue that's out of my control kinda gives me the willies. It seems like one of those things that are simply too good to be true in a practical sense so any possibility of it happening just goes into uncanny valley like do i wish i could take my ocs out of my brain and talk to them HELL yes ( if i dont get killed first) but that should be an impossible thing to do unless im dreaming or hallucinating or some shit. It's like the AI images ie. i Could just type in a bunch of prompts and shit out like 30000 images of my ocs so that i could look at them but where would the yearning be after that??? The loving sculpting of them in my brain while im trying to capture their essence with my hands into a drawing??? One of the main reasons for my ocs to exist is so that its something for my brain to toy around with and wallow in like a cat in catnip, so the idea of being able to just 'lay everything out' so easily just ruins the whole ' i have mysterious little dudes in my head that i mold around everyday to try and figure them out' aspect if that makes any sense??? PLUS im pretty sure the chat ai basically takes paragraphs from writers so for me to be so abhorrently against ai images yet being on board with chat ai when its ~surprise~ stealing from real writers feels like the most hypocritical ass shit i could do sO long old head 'robots evil' rant short: its a no from me dawg

BUT THAT ASIDE im glad to hear u like wheel bitten!! That means so much to hear and may your life continue to improve and thrive!✨🌟

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

how did it take me so long to start calling myself aromantic/arospec. like now that ive actually started using the term for myself its so crazy to me that i wasnt using this term since the first time i heard about it. i literally remember like almost a year ago being like "i wish i could just call myself aromantic itd just be a way easier way to explain to people the sort of relationships i want since im interested in sex and really close friendships but not really interested in traditional romantic relationships right now" like my brother you CAN?? jesus fuck. like this thought came aftera series of relationships where i would tell my friends that i had a crush on someone, then the relationship progressed in someway, then i got the sense that the person i was interested in had romantic feelings for me and id get this weird horrible feeling and would run away. and i was literally like "what is this whats going on". i was like woah this must be like.... commitment issues or something. like i was going around telling people that. i was getting over commitment issues that were surely temporary. but they werent asking me to commit to anything they just had feelings for me that i couldnt reciprocate bcz i was just attracted to them and wanted to me friends with them and i thought thats what romantic attraction was. i literally remember telling someone abt someone i liked an they were like "why dont u ask them out?" an my answer was just that i was trying to find reasons not to and i couldnt. cuz i was attracted to them and liked spending time with them and liked being their friend but i was so so happy not being in a romantic relationship anymore and i couldnt shake the feeling that if i got into another one even with the perfect person it was literally gonna ruin my life and i would have to pretend to have feelings that i didnt have.

idk im frustrated that i hadnt considered it sooner but its also kinda exciting to discover something abt urself an ur sexuality. like this label brings me the same joy that other labels that ive discovered fit me do like i feel like how i felt when i came to terms w being trans an being bisexual. i feel like im 13 again finding trans and bisexual youtubers and being like "??? there are others?" like ppl dont talk abut it as much w being aro and ace bcz those are defined by the absence of a feeling rather than the presence of one but it really can be just as exciting to find out that you're aro or ace as it can be to discover that you're a lesbian or gay or transgender or something.

like not to be cheesy but discovering that i could just. have friends and also have sex made everything kinda click in my head for me. like literally i felt like a more complete person. experiencing that and realizing like. oh. this is amazing this is literally all i want like nothing is missing. i literally just dont have to do romance stuff like no ones making me do that why did i think i have to do that. like oh my god this is such a good feeling i really can do whatever i want forever.

this post doesnt rly have a point exactly i just kinda have a lot of feelings to get out. i love you aromantic ppl i love being aromantic it fucking rules actually. every aromantic person whos posted abt their experience an helped me get comfortable w the label i owe u a hundred billion dollars jesus christ i love you guys