#I was going to add him in the background on the last panel saying like

[ruthytwoshakes]

I find it very funny that people ship spy with the tf2s,, he’s such a dapper little meow meow and the others are very much not !,,

No hate at all!! I get it, it’s cute ,opposite attract and stuff. ,,,but still very silly to me heheeeehghhehehhh

[sophrosynesworld]

The Delicate Balance

Imagine being a lawyer helping the LOV.

Come Now.

I’m with a client, is this an emergency?

Don’t test my patience.

Don’t threaten the person who keeps you out of prison. Is this important?

Yes.

I’m on my way. Don’t do anything stupid.

I roll my eyes and stuff my phone back into my purse, standing up from the table. The tension in the conference room thickens as I interrupt the meeting.

“I am so sorry, gentlemen. I have another emergency to attend to. I’m sure you can finish this up without me, right?” I adjust my pencil skirt, ensuring it sits perfectly, as I gather my paperwork.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll leave the final draft on your desk before I leave for the evening,” one of the junior associates chimes in eagerly, his eyes wide with ambition. He’s desperate to prove himself useful, and I nod curtly, acknowledging his enthusiasm. 

I turn to my client, a middle-aged man with worry lines etched into his forehead. "You’re in good hands," I assure him, shaking his hand firmly. "I’ll review everything first thing tomorrow."

As I exit the sleek office building, I slip into the bustling crowd, my heels clicking with purpose against the pavement. I make my way to the subway station, weaving through the crowd of commuters.

Once I’m a few blocks away, I duck into a narrow alleyway, the noise of the city fading into the background. I continue towards an inconspicuous door, blending seamlessly into the brick wall. Glancing around to ensure I’m not being followed; I tap a code into a hidden panel on the ground. The door clicks open, and I slip inside, descending into the dimly lit corridor of the League of Villain's headquarters.

Inside, the atmosphere shifts dramatically. The air is heavy with the scent of metal and booze. The dimly lit bar isn't my typical client's office, but I don't mind as long as the check clears. As I move further in, the eyes of the League of Villains members flicker towards me, curiosity mingling with their usual wariness.

The first thing I notice is surprising. In the center of the room, tied to a chair, is none other than Katsuki Bakugo, a student from U.A. High. His usually fierce eyes are now filled with a mix of rage and fear, and his mouth is gagged, stifling any potential explosions of his infamous temper.

“Why do you have a child tied to that chair?” My voice is flat, deliberately controlled to mask my shock. The last thing I need is to show any weakness.

Toga, lounging casually nearby, looks up with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Can you report this to the police?”

“No,” I reply, keeping my tone professional. “I’m only required to report you if you haven’t committed the crime yet, but have just informed me that you plan to do so. But again, why is he here?”

Toga tilts her head, her expression turning mischievous. “He’s our newest member. He's just a little upset right now." She laughs, "Don’t worry, we won’t hurt him... much.”

Suppressing a sigh, I remind myself of my role here. I’m not just their lawyer; I’m their strategist, their advisor. I step closer to Bakugo, his fiery gaze boring into mine despite his predicament.

“I need you to understand,” I say, turning to address the room, “that actions like these complicate your operations. Kidnapping a high-profile U.A. student draws significant attention, and attention is the last thing we need right now.”

Spinner, leaning against the bar, nods in agreement. “She’s right. We can’t afford to have the heroes sniffing around.”

Shigaraki, sitting in the shadows, finally speaks. His voice is calm but carries an edge of menace. “We’re aware of the risks. But desperate times call for desperate measures.”

I kneel down to Bakugo’s level, offering a reassuring smile despite the situation. “We’re going to sort this out, okay? You’ll be fine.” Turning back to the group, I add, “We need to handle this delicately. I’ll draft a plan that ensures our security and minimizes the fallout.”

As I straighten up, I catch Dabi’s smirk from across the room. “You always know how to handle things, don’t you?”

“It’s my job,” I reply coolly. “But we can’t just release him. He’ll come back, and he won’t be alone. We need a solution that neutralizes the threat without escalating our exposure.”

Shigaraki leans forward, eyes narrowing. “What do you suggest?”

I think for a moment, weighing our options. “We need to relocate him somewhere secure, where he can’t easily escape or be found. Somewhere remote. And we need to ensure his containment is discreet.”

Toga perks up. “I know a place. An old warehouse outside the city. Hardly anyone goes there anymore.”

“That could work,” I nod. “But we also need to consider his friends will be looking for him. We need to leave false leads, misdirections to keep them off our trail.”

Dabi’s smirk widens. “Now you’re talking.”

I glance at Bakugo again, his eyes burning with silent fury. “We’ll move him tonight. Spinner, Toga, you handle the transport. Dabi, you’re on diversion duty. Create enough chaos to distract the heroes. Shigaraki, I’ll need your approval to mobilize the resources for this.”

Shigaraki gives a slow nod. “Do it. And make sure it’s done right.”

The tension in the room shifts to a focused determination. As the League members move to their tasks, I take a deep breath, ready to dive into the next challenge.

[succikko-draws]

My gift for the hilarious @ladytyburn for the Nagato Birthday gift exchange! Expanding again on her office AU (this is why Kisame has been un-fished a bit YES it felt wrong but I'm strong)

[Image ID: A three page digital comic about Nagato's birthday.

On the first panel, Konan seems to be thinking hard, a cup of coffee in her hand, Itachi stands next to her and asks: "What's wrong Konan?" She explains: "It's Nagato's birthday on Tuesday... And I don't know what to get him..." Itachi innocently answers, thinking about old Madara: "Oh I know the struggle, I never know what to get my grandpa. Old people haha." She put a hand on his shoulder, and tell him through gritted teeth: "Itachi... Nagato is 35." Itachi is very embarrassed and apologizes. Before he can add anything he's interrupted by Deidara who put his hand on Itachi's shoulder, saying to Konan: "You could buy me art!" She asks: "Can you guarantee it won't explode?" to which he answers: "Nope!" so she dismiss the idea. Hidan includes himself in the conversation, suggesting: "Easy! Buy yourself lingerie and surprise him!" Deidara and Itachi are mortified, scolding him: "Hidan! That's so inappropriate! And you can't theorize about the boss' private life!" Konan dismiss the idea, unphased: "Nah I already have enough and picked one already for that night." Itachi is even more mortified, feeling like this is Too Much Info. Sasori chimes in holding a doll still in her box, suggesting it for the present, but Konan dismiss it as well. She says: "I want something truly special. More personal-" Sasori attempt to chime in again, saying: "A you shaped doll-" but she angrily dismiss him again, pushing him down with her hand. Kisame tells her wisely: "You know him the best, Konan. Trust yourself. Pick something that will make you think of him."

On the next page, Konan is out of the office, wearing casual clothes with a small green backpack and wanders what seems to be a mall, still upset and thinking: "... Something that will make me think of him..." Her attention is caught by something and she smiles at last, saying: "Oh! This is!..." On the next panel she holds a book over her head triumphantly, exclaiming: "Our old teach's new book!! Yes! This is perfect!! He loved the first one!" She is standing next to a book display with a poster of Jiraiya in a funny pose and goofy expression, the poster reads: "New! By 'best seller' '''author''' Jiraiya." On the next panel, time has past and it is now Nagato's birthday. He is late at work, just closing his laptop, appearing tired and saying: "-Sigh- It's already 7 pm. I didn't see time pass by... Again... Time to go home." But as he comes out of his office on his wheelchair (wearing his coat and froggie slippers), he is surprised by loud exclamations and the pop of multiple party horns and confetti thrower. His employees yells: "Happy birthday boss!!" While he looks horrified and genuinely scared.

On the next panel, the office is all prepped for a party, a tablet is set up with Zetsu the plant (wearing a bowtie), a cake and a bottle of champagne. Hidan is holding balloons and is yelling, pointing at the table: "We even got you a cake!" A banner hanging on the wall reads: "Happy 635th birthday!" Deidara is screaming: "I got fireworks!" holding one up in the air. On the side, Kakuzu is sleeping on an office chair next to a table with a cup on it. A caption reads: "was drugged to avoid a money tantrum." Nagato is all confused, hair disheveled by the shock. Konan is standing in the middle, holding her present, looking all embarrassed, she tells him: "I'm so sorry, I didn't know they'd do this..." She then give him the present, watching him unwrap it with a soft smile, reminiscing a dear memory of their teacher putting his hands on their head when they were kids, Nagato holding his book preciously. She says: "I took Kisame's advice and picked something that made me think of us... I think you'll love it." The background behind her is made of grey and pinkish roses. But when Nagato unwraps the book he totally misses the author name and is instead shocked to read the big warning in the corner: "R18, this is porn." He turns red and sit shocked and confused with the book in his hands. The background behind him is a collage of ahegaos (I'm sorry). Konan put her hands next to her face, smiling wide and asking: "So... Do you like it?" Next to her is a caption pointing at her: "Genuinely did not check." She looks so happy but Nagato is still red and confused, he doesn't want to offend her and ruin her happiness so he answers: "Y-yes thank you." Everyone in the room (even the plant) looks at him with a knowing naughty smile as he gets even more embarrassed, Nagato frowns wondering: "Why in front of everyone!" /.End ID]

[ritornello]

since i can't answer myself so well, what would you say are asada nemui's distinctive storytelling traits and on a personal matter if you'd like what makes you like her stories? not so much tropes but running themes, art and such. i hope it's not too heavy of a question and thanks ^_^

Hi, this is a great question. For anyone with the patience to read all this I think it might help explain what makes Asada Nemui such an intriguing manga artist. (especially without the "it's because X reminded me of Y! - type analysis that occurs very frequently in english fandom communities)

There's a lot of images in this post, but it's not too spoiler-ish.

Comments about art

The first aspect of Asada's art I would want to praise endlessly are the page layouts. Dear, My God was one of the first stories I read by her and the flow of the panels is what really stuck out to me. I like using this sequence of pages as an example - can you guess what's going on?

I removed all of the dialogue and SFX, and it's so well laid out that the sight-to-panel direction, background design and expressions of the characters are enough to understand what's happening. It almost feels like you're looking at a scene from a movie or storyboard.

Text version:

While reading The Sound of the Waves, a page describing the plot of a writer's story more or less summarizes Asada's layout style. It generally begins with an establishing shot before laying out the rest of the scene, which with a longer story may take a few more pages to conclude.

The divisions of pages seems to average around four to seven panels, and pages with three or fewer panels show up very sparingly - likely saved for more impactful scenes.

(I'll just take a second here to add how much I love that she generally sticks to one shade of screentone. Limiting the palette to just three values is a great way to create shadows and dramatic lighting effects!)

Asada's direction is very focused on telling a story - there is always some type of visual cue that the scene is actively present and happening in front of us, the readers. I like this continuity compared to a series that might have excessive headshots or pages of flashbacks during a scene with a lot of action.

One of my favorite scenes in Sleeping Dead is in the second volume, when Mamiya is out in his van and attempting to construct a conversation. It fills an entire page, but his entire monologue could have been condensed into one "thinking" panel.

It doesn't necessarily look bad like if it were like this, but Asada intentionally uses the entire page to emphasize Mamiya's expressions, his awkwardness as he slowly loses confidence in himself. (Plus he's actively driving and looking at the road.) I like that this is a very private scene that reveals the inner character he tries to hide during the majority of the first volume.

I also like that she understands the importance of a readable layout enough to redraw areas that might be confusing to look at, like this one from the magazine version of Sleeping Dead (left side) :

In the last panel it's difficult to tell who's talking, because there are four detached bubbles and you can't see Sada or Mamiya. I wasn't sure if Sada was talking in the first bubble since it's directly below him, but the second seemed like Mamiya since it's drawn so awkwardly. For the paperback release she added a line to connect the two bubbles - obviously it's Mamiya saying both and becoming nervous as he brings up the possibility of having more sexual activities with Sada.

If you noticed the changes in the other panels of that page it also goes into her tendency to do redraws. Some of them look quite different after they've been changed - from the series I've read I noticed major redrawing for Dear, My God, the older short stories republished in Ai, Sei, and even Takatora and the Omegas (though Asada credited changes in that one to the fact that she's now working 100% digitally).

My opinion for these is kind of mixed, sometimes they do look better and sometimes I prefer her original style. This one from Dean My Love that appears in Ai, Sei is a crime lol.

There was a two-volume manga called Mangaka Gohan Nishi (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Comic Artists) published in 2015, and it has one page comics by mangaka discussing food they eat. Asada appears in the second volume and her page mentions watching movies.

(basically it's about being bad at / injured by stovetop cooking so she prefers the safety of the microwave. But in the unidentified movie the characters make an explosive device with a microwave…)

I would undoubtedly say films are a large influence to her, and I've caught some parallels/references in her work, but it's kind of a disservice to only point out similarities in characters or genre tropes rather than her skill as an artist and storyteller.

During the last couple years Asada's also been fairly active on Twitter where she shares concept art and extra comics that add more to what she was limited to write in the published works.

For Takatora she's even been live-streamed the planning and inking of its (as of now) upcoming chapter on Pixiv Sketch. The series already has over two dozen pages of extra content judging by a numbered page she shared on Twitter.

Overall I appreciate that on top of having a high output she seems to care a lot about the quality of content her readers are getting. Not every artist makes redraws for their series on top of doing multiple serializations and lots of fanart/doujin content.

(And she has made a lot of fanart and doujinshi. For 10+ years.)

Comments about storytelling

I'm probably going to sound more rambly here, because I'm not a writer or a critic. Regardless of which series I enjoyed or disliked, I think most of them have an element of pushing boundaries in BL manga.

As one Japanese reviewer said when commenting about Sleeping Dead - Asada's manga are the type you want to recommend anyone to read...except you can't.

I think it goes without saying that the focus of sex in her manga can be a barrier, but there is enough range in her work that a reader (with some help) would be able to find a story with an amount of sexual content they'd be comfortable with. I could definitely see Asada working on more non-BL titles like The Swerve, Yoi and A Friend's Funeral, but to be blunt...she seems to really enjoy drawing men having sex.

Boundary-pushing can be apparent in most of her manga, especially when it starts as early as the first chapter. In the least extreme variation, her titles like Sleeping Dead and Call feature somewhat jarring love interests - middle-aged, sexually awkward men that are unconventionally designed compared to other BL love interests.

When the second volume of Sleeping Dead was nominated a Chil-Chil award for its story, Asada shared this illustration of Mamiya in a boxing ring. I love to imagine it as him squaring off with the much more handsome and less follicly-challenged ukes of the other nominated series.

If you check out her earlier series there are a few subjects considered taboo to look at. Sexual violence occurs pretty frequently. Surprisingly (or not, if you've been around long enough), it's not even rape that's considered risky subject matter in BL magazines.

According to a recent interview with Chil-Chil, Asada originally planned to publish Takatora and the Omegas with a different publisher (my guess is Shodensha, since they serialized My Little Inferno in OnBlue), but its inclusion of sexual health topics was considered too extreme:

[Interview translation credit goes to Ikari of Bottom of the Sea Scans, which currently scanlates Takatora and the Omegas.]

Thanks to Canna being willing to publish her more explicit story ideas, we might be able to see how far she planned to go with Takatora. The published chapters have already broached subjects including hysterectomies, abortion and sexual autonomy. I think this situation with Takatora has parallels to the struggles female shoujo mangaka faced in the early decades of manga publishing for girls.

The magazine Canna tends to serialize BL stories that include elements of science fiction and fantasy, which I think has made it a place where artists like Asada can have less restriction in their storytelling.

But...I don't want to praise Asada just for tackling difficult topics. Going back to the comments about page design, there's a huge focus on dialogue. Characters are frequently conversing and making eye contact with each other. She's amazing at writing characters with unlikable traits that are still enjoyable to read about, or are paired with a partner that helps balance out, or even tolerates their faults.

I think it can be easy to drop a series if it has unlikable characters, but she tends to put them in situations that question their ideologies, and we get to see how they change over the course of the story. Even Asada commented that she's not a huge fan of how the protagonist of Takatora and the Omegas acts:

Takatora could wind up being one of the most extreme examples of an unlikable protagonist, but we'll get to see if his bigoted views are changed as he's challenged by his peers, and as he offers his own support to solve their troubles.

At this point I totally got lost in the Takatora sauce, but other little aspects I love about her manga are the humorous moments, the sometimes getting too over-her-head writing, and endings that can be unexpectedly gut-punching yet written in a way that's the most grounded in reality. And in Sleeping Dead's case, immediately followed by a whiplash of silly extras.

I hope that with Takatora and Yoi - which seemed to have planned out for a while - Asada can continue to do her own thing, because I think it's a much better creative output to make whatever the hell you want instead of conforming to the preferences of the publishers.

In conclusion:

[wisyhana]

These are some pages that I made as fanart for a fanfic i Really Love. It's something rare that I look back and actually kinda liking the result- 😂 I've been trying to improve my panels flow(?)/pacing And the Lettering- adding words in comics is pretty hard 🥺 if you had some insights, pls let me know ❤ or just give me what you think... Thank you so much!!

Hi! Thank you for waiting this long hahaha

First of all I love your Yugi, is so freaking adorable, big fan over here aaaaaa.

And okay we're gonna talk about comics. Oh boy. It's not a topic I dont like talking but it's something I get way too.... intense, even if I feel I don't have much to defend with. Anyway I'll try to not be so detailed and serious about it so I can bring a decent commentary!

Disclaimer that I have a lot of issues with the use of thought bubbles, but that's a me thing. Myself I try to avoid them so I can focus on a "show more, talk less" type of flow. So if I start talking about them it's because of that, not that you'r doing a bad thing or anything.

I like how you use the panels, by themselves and ignoring the dialogues, they work perfectly fine! I think my thing with the pacing is that I'd draw a 3-4 pages comics instead of 2 for this scene alone. It's a pain I know, but I think for this type of scenario adding a little more of time could help to appreciate some details, like Kaiba being notoriously angry, the moment he touches Yugi's forehead, etc. But this is also a very personal opinion because I'm a sucker for very sloooow interactions, so all this I'm saying is for the sake of a slower pacing. Sadly you gotta draw more or write less if you want to get that effect, also you can get in a situation where things end up vague and ugh, what a pain hjdfhjhds.

I have a serious problem with dialogue bubbles, I never know where to put them Dx. I always feel they're on the way or that they hinder the reading or that they look straight up ugly hahahaha. I think you use a good space for them! they're not in the way of the faces or important scenes, but I can see you needed to add arrows for the conversation to work. In my opinion the dialogue works perfectly without the arrows. We all know there are two people talking so having only the faces on the bubbles was enough to understand who was talking and what order follow.

Now, if you want to work on bubbles without using the faces to show who's talking and don't lose the order in the way, I could recommend something like this:

Sorry if it looks way too clumsy! But a thing we artist have to deal is how the order of the bubbles affects on the flow of the dialogue. Specially when we don't have a specific way to show how the person talks (for example japaneses have many ways to show character's expression so it's easier for them to identify it.) So we need to focus on the flow.

A wonderful person who talks TONS of this matter is the motherfucker Scott McCoud!

This is just an example of how dialogues can contribute to the time and spaces and how the order affects the reading. This is not the exact example for what I mean but Scott is a badass of the comic and the complexity of it.

Understanding Comics The invisible Art is a masterpiece, I blame him for making me doubt is I'm doing a good job or not.

Okay before I go way too into this, one last thing and this is personal opinion. I love white background but you gotta be very careful to not make it look like lazyness. You don't need to draw a full background but maybe adding some shading can help to make the illusion of space rather than having a blank space. Of course this is just my opinion.

Anyway, I really like how you work! my huge recommendation would be to simply take your time on it, I feel it shows a bit of impatience or nerviousness, but that's just my idea. So far you're going a good way on creating comics and I'd love to see more of them :3

Hope this helped you in some way! And as always don't forget to have fun drawing your beautiful bois!

this is me everytime I draw comic and find a inconsistency.

[zahri-melitor]

Newish Comics:

Batman & Robin #10: What...what if I got the Langstroms back as a family at some point? Bruce is right. What happened to you, [Kirk] Langstrom?

Anyway campaign Damian stay in school 2024 please for my own sanity keep him in education he is 14 years old this is the most consistent education he has had in comics EVER and it has lasted 10 issues so far.

Blue Beetle #10: Awwww this is pure Jaime goodness. Victoria did not look impressed with what Ted said to her. Look out when you go to sleep, Ted.

Outsiders #8: I'm...not thrilled with where they're going with Century Babies in this title, and I just want Jenny Q back. But, that aside.

So Cameron Kim and Jinny Hex are obvious to me, but I can't pick "the big guy under the waves, singing the prayers of his dead parents", probably because I am NOT across current Aqua titles (such as they are).

Also, I am extremely confused over whether when Kate says to Jinny they 'have a mutual friend' she means Tim, which is accurate, but I think she might mean Jenny Crisis, which...Kate, Jinny was literally on a team with your cousin's kid, probably a better thing to lead with rather than Century Baby confusion.

The Warlord #56: this week in the Lost Land of Skartaris we FINALLY get to meet Joshua as a character! Not just a background detail! Anyway Joshua runs into Fagin-I-mean-Darvin the Expy Artful Dodger who wants to add Joshua to his pack of street rat thieves in Shamballah.

For Travis, he gets his first taste of ruling Shamballah and he doesn't like it. Here he is after a council meeting:

And then a palace conspiracy against Travis starts up and knocks him out on the last panel of the issue! Exciting!

In terms of Arion, I am bemused by it, but there is a character called 'Wyynde' in it. Which. Uh. Is certainly a name.

[samobservessonic]

In the last issue, both of our on-going multi-parters wrapped up, meaning that we’ve got new stories this time around and both of them were written by Kitching (he also wrote and drew the Decap Attack story in this issue. Busy guy!). This main story is a oneshot, while the later Knuckles story is a multi-parter

After being spoiled by Elson doing the lead stories for Knuckles’s whole introduction arc, it is noticeable when they switch back to a different art style here. But Rodriguez’s art in this story has some great expressions that I’m looking forward to sharing later on in this post. Elson hasn’t gone too far either, as he’s drawing the Knuckles story I’ll be covering next

But for now, we get Robotnik and Grimer, who seem to be taking a direct approach after successfully destroying Sonic’s base and forcing the Freedom Fighter on the run last time

I think we know where they’re going with this

It’s the return of regular brown hedgehog Sonic! Y’know, this is one of those things that I just forget isn’t considered canon across the rest of the brand now, so I didn’t bat an eyelid while skimming through this story. But for those of you who aren’t familiar, StC follows an older Western Sonic backstory, where he was originally a regular hedgehog who gained his speed via an experiment with chaos energy gone wrong in the lab of one Dr. Kintobor, who was also affected and became Dr. Robotnik. That’s a quick version of the story, but StC has covered this backstory quite extensively by this point, so I don’t think it’s worth going into too much detail

The next question is, what happened to Robotnik?

…Oh. Okay then

Wait, what do they mean back at Sonic’s secret base? He doesn’t have a secret base any more, they went on the run last time. I can only assume that maybe this was an older inventory story that wasn’t run until now. It’s a bit of a shame, especially since they could’ve edited it to say that they’re in the caravan, since the background isn’t too detailed, but I’m not going to nitpick about that

Elsewhere, Robotnik is having a great day and Sonic is having a terrible one

Sonic makes it back and at first the Freedom Fighters are alarmed to see that the location of their hidden base has been exposed to a stranger

…Which brings us to the two best expressions in the issue! Johnny’s surprised pose on the left panel and Porker’s CONCERNED face on the right panel

This might be my new favourite MacGuffin drop - some guy made it, but he’s dead now and we’re never going to mention him again, so it doesn’t matter. That’s the kind of British snarky humour that I feel would’ve been at home in a Discworld novel and it works here as well

I can’t remember if we had a “countdown to things that make Grimer quit his job” count going, but I think we can add this moment to it

The badniks are either programmed to pick up on the chaos energy specifically, programmed just to go after targets that are blue and fast, or genuinely believe Robotnik looks like Sonic now. Whatever the answer, Sonic has mixed feelings about this mix-up working out in his favour

It’s up to Grimer to fix this one, so he decides to go ahead and take Sonic’s powers back away from Robotnik again

The swap has definitely worked in Sonic’s favour as well

Now that he’s got his super speed back, Sonic wastes no time in grabbing and destroying the device, so that this can never happen again. On account of the guy who made it being too dead to make another one

Y’know, if this was just the image with no further context, it’d accidentally seem like Sonic is threatening a gay couple :( 

And that’s the end of this story! It was a nice oneshot with a good premise, acting as something of a cooldown story after finishing up a longer arc. My only two nitpicks with this story are small - the first being what I already mentioned about how this story feels like it should’ve been set before the last arc. I was looking forward to seeing stories about the Freedom Fighters on the run, so it was a bit of a let-down to not get that right away. And the second being that the location it was set in feels very generic. I know that as StC carries on they’ll move more away from the game locations and into more comic-exclusive locations, but it still feels like a bit of a shame to go from the actual game locations to a nondescript canyon background that I assume was supposed to be set in or around Emerald Hill? Like I said, nothing major and I still enjoyed the story, but I hope we can get to them being on the run next time

[muerteporfavor]

Vacation Update:

I wanted to talk about where I went on vacation (now that I am safely home and am not doxxing myself by doing so)

I went to the Silver Scream Convention created by the band Ice Nine Kills. It was truly magical. I did not have the privilege of going to the first year's convention last year however I have a lot of thoughts on this year's convention from an analysis point of view I guess?

Let me start by talking about a panel that will put everything I am about to say about the convention in context. The Spooktacular panel. There is a documentary style movie coming out (I believe the Los Angeles premiere is happening with all the cast on the 28th of September and then there is a Texas premiere with some of the cast at some point but I don't know when or where in Texas. They are also hoping for a theatrical release but I don't know when or if that will actually happen as it is only in talks.)

Spooktacular is a documentary film for the first ever haunted house to ever grace the country. It's title was Spooky World and was first unveiled in 1991. (Random tidbit: I got a free signed movie poster by the ex-owner/mastermind behind Spooky World plus the director and some guy who had a big hand in the filming process.) Prior to this Halloween themepark (think Disney World but for horror is a common comparison) there were only haunted hayrides. There were also celebrities of Horror/Halloween (including Elvira or Alice Copper, the latter who called spooky world to be there) who made appearances. To wrap this background up let's just say the owner had a 130,000$ loan (I swear he said 150,000$ at the panel but a source online who interviewed him claims 110,000 plus $20,000 in interest so its ballpark somewhere in there.) he had to pay back in like 5 years. And he paid it back in either (I can't remember which) a week and a half or two and a half weeks. Both of which is insanely impressive. (If you want to learn more about the former spooky world search up spooky world Berlin MA on youtube, the owner sold the attraction in 2005 and now it is in New Hampshire.)

Now. With all that being said, I think the Silver Scream Con is going to be the new Spooky World.

The Con just did their second year and it was confirmed by Ryan J. Downey, the host of all panels and Q&As, that the attendance number doubled last year's count. The first panel of the Con (Assault and Batteries with Alex Vincent and Christine Elise) had to add three rows of chairs more before the panel began because there were more guests than they anticipated. The line to see Dead Meat and get a picture/autograph was so long that it spanned the small vendor room from front to back at times. For the other booths in the vendor room it was a lot easier to wait in line so Dead Meat would be an outlier. I also heard from another guest that for the signings in the additional area (labelled Living Room in the schematic) that you'd wait about two hours to meet either Ulrich, Charnas (and company depending on the day), Todd, and Jericho. Personally, I only passed through the room but it was definitely very crowded and busy. (I also heard from another guest that the panel room for Dead Meat's panel was so crowded and hot that they ended up leaving because it caused them to struggle with breathing. This is not a sleight or even a universal experience it is a comment I mention to illustrate how massive this con is. I don't want anyone to think this Con was a Tanacon blunder or something. It wasn't they had plenty of space to do what they needed to do but it was clear that they might soon out grow the venue if their growth continues on the same trajectory.)

Pictured below is the schematic Silver Scream Con posted to their instagram so you can get a rough idea of the space (although I would not say it is necessarily true to size at all, it is a good idea of how things were set up)

Not only that, it taps into a previously untapped market just like Spooky World. The world of horror and alternative music (metal, punk, etc) has always been intrinsically intertwined. Most alternative people love horror whether its for the way the genre speaks to the fears of the time or the way the genre is constantly evolving. Previously, if you wanted to gather as an alternative music lover you'd go to a festival or a concert or any number of underground shows. Meanwhile if you are a horror lover you have, in recent history, always had conventions to go to. Spencer Charnas/ Ice Nine Kills artfully bring both worlds together in a clash that really tears the line between fantasy and reality (in regards to their two recent albums: Silver Scream and then Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood where Charnas is the lead protagonist of the album concepts as a killer out for blood and does it through the killers we all know and love.) As far as I know this has never been done before, and if it has, it is nothing in comparison to what Ice Nine Kills and team is doing now. Right now they are making history in a big way.

For a moment I would like to pivot to their concert. At Silver Scream Con they always have a concert where they bring special guests to perform with them plus a couple of opener bands. (This year, I can't speak for last year, Dead Meat James played the Sax during IT is The End and Leah Voysey (actress, from Terrifer, Clown Cafe Host) performed during Grave Mistake. The lines for the concert spanned blocks even when it was divvied up in threes (General Admit being the longest multiple blocks, then you had Psychos Only Access [special subscription for Ice Nine Kills] and their RIP vip line.) The line for general admit was so long I showed up 45 minutes early and missed the first opening act in its entirety while I waited to be let into the City Hall Lynn Auditorium building. (Which actually was disappointing because it was Funeral Portrait.) The line was so massive a guy coming through in a taxi rolled down his window and asked the line who we were seeing because he was so impressed by the line and immediately decided to look them up.

Anyway,

All this to say, I can't wait to see how Ice Nine Kills and staff deal with how explosive they are becoming and I will not be surprised if looking into a new venue for the Convention is in their future.

Cheers for now!

Muerte Por Favor.

[lovelessbachelor]

ok so i haven't posted art at all TuT I forgor

anyways so i made a font of the alphabet/language that all my OCs speak, because I felt like it and it's easier then having to draw the letters every time.

and i made a lil comic thing as soon as I was done with it cus I was excited at my silly little language that I made up during a free english language lesson circa yr10 becoming a font!! that I made obv and I can't distribute it I think but whatever. I'm fluent in it by the way I taught myself it I use it as code. I'm actually writing a smut scene in my physical notebook rn and it's all in eureyic cus I don't want ppl looking over and reading depraved skeleton fucker behaviour. is that TMI.

So i should probably say what they're saying? who they are? yea probably...

i'm only giving u direct translations for the first panel so... I'm so mysterious....

for context the merch on the left is called Luna Claw Fowler-Fields. she has like 4 last names so she just uses whatever one she's feeling,her sister does the same who is the lil one on the left in the background btw. She is the eldest (adopted) daughter of one Eryl Fields and Loretta Fowler, a ghost and a vampire, Loretta is also the one she is talking too btw. i think thats all the context.

so the first panel goes as follows :

'MAM!! HEY MAM!!!!'

'Whatever is it?'

yeah. mundane huh. anyway i like to add Welsh into the Eureyic too so some words are just welsh words in eureyic and its so normal and important and special to me. speaking of actually i have a sketch page of a

Character. that is sooo welsh he's very welsh and in the context of my OCs universe Eureyic and the country it originates (Eureya ik such a creative name) are basically just Wales. bcus i'm so cool.

I love him he's so cool his name is Annwyll Ambrose and he has a younger sister called Elwynn (the merch he's with on the bottom left) and his dad is called Ffion (guy he's hugging in the middle) and he's aroace and the kids are his lil science alchemy magic babies. A keen eye will notice that Annwyll and Ffion are (apart from being welsh asf) feminine names and Elwynn is a masculine name. there is no big reason for this. i'll be honest he's a redesign of a character i overhauled basically everything about except key traits and when i renamed him i was going all symbolic and chose Annwyll under the assumption it was gender neutral like Morgan is or something. it is not lol.

when i realised i was already attached to the name and was in the process of giving his sister a name so i was like ' y'know what? gimmick. in the Ambrose family girls are given boys names and boys are given girls names. its so silly and cool ' and thats how that is now.

Don't ask about the girl kissing Annys forehead at the bottom. i fear that if i speak anymore i'll just give u a plot synopsis.

so her name is Pho- OK i'll stop. she's actually rlly interesting. not that you'd care. her sister too. almost everyone has a sister i just realised..

[zippy-reacts]

Sonic the Comic Liveblog: Issue 34

Right back to where we left off last time, with the introduction of Knuckles!

Lmao “vile creature”. Funny considering this panel is the absolute cutest Sonic has ever been drawn in StC.

Mobians aren’t typically drawn with shoulders or necks so this is probably difficult to get correct but hmm… I feel like that head placement is anatomically implausible.  

I can’t get over how adorable this artist draws Sonic

I feel like I should go back and count up all the times running in a circle has been the solution just so I can keep a proper tally.

As mature as Knuckles can seem due to his role as guardian, it’s not often that we see acknowledgement that Knuckles is technically still a child.

Gorgeous background artwork

I feel like StC, or at least this issue, is good at portraying Sonic and Knuckles’ rival dynamic. Looking forward to seeing how it evolves when they eventually become friends.

Robotnik is surprisingly piss-easy to catch

Smol Sonk

I like the indication here that StC Sonic doesn’t always mean what he says when he’s boastful like this. It adds a little bit of extra depth to him.

Interesting, I had no idea StC had been translated officially into other languages!

Probably should’ve pointed this out earlier but Cam and Bert are fucking ripped.

It’s so funny seeing someone with near-human proportions run through one of those.

Shit, I kinda forgot about badniks having organic batteries. Did Porker’s plan to turn badniks nice even factor that in? Or were they just gonna keep people trapped in there?

I’m imagining this young child being so shocked at the prospect of doing something dangerous like that, that he continuously badgered his parents until they helped him write and send a letter in.

[erik-the-creator-mainblog]

This is quite possibly now my favorite comic of all time! HOLY SHIT THE PROGRESSION!!!! YOU CAPTURE THE EMOTION OF THE AUDIO PERFECTLY!!!! AND THE WAY YOU GO FROM GREY SCALE TO RED, THEN RED AND BLUE! AND THE SPACE LOOK! AND SHERLOCK GETTING FURTHER AWAY!!!!

Okay, I'm putting the rest under a "read more" because I go on for A While

AAAAAAAAAAA DUDE IT ROCKS!!!!

Okay, now for more coherent thoughts. First of all, your use of the panels is flawless. It perfectly creates the pacing, the emphasis. It's so seamless that I hardly noticed it, if that makes sense. My eyes glided across the pages (in a good way!) because each panel did exactly what it needed to do. It kept the pace of how long I looked at a thing really well, I love the little super close up panels. Those add little pauses, to take in the moment. Even when you can only see a little of the face, the emotion still comes through. Like the close up on John at the bottom of page one, or the one of Sherlock in the top of page three.

AND THE COLORS! I love love LOVE how you introduce the idea of the colors on the second page. With squares that are colored red, coloring Sherlock underneath. In the page where he feels so detached from the world and to himself! That is genius! Establishing the color coding in the same panel where he talks about that, so it hits harder when you use it when really diving into thing a few pages later!!!!

And page three! So cool how you now have the world still in Grey scale, BUT NOW ITS SHERLOCK'S SPEECH BUBBLES THAT ARE RED! BUT JOHN'S ARE STILL GREY! So freaking cool!

Oh my gosh, and I'm only just now noticing that on the fourth page where we're looking down at sherlock, and John's back is turned away from us, the background has become black. Like the environment is falling away.

OMG AND WHEN JOHN REACHES FOR SHERLOCK'S HAND! AND HIS HAND IS SLIGHTLY RED, AND JOHN'S IS BECOMING BLUE. WHILE HIS SPEECH BUBBLE TURNS BLUE!! AND WHEN THEY CONNECT THE COLORS BECOME VIBRANT!!!

AND THE NEXT PAGE HAS THEM HOLDING HANDS, BUT YOU CAN SEE ALL OF THEM!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAA

And I am absolutely losing my shit about this next part. Ooooooh man strap in my dude. I am about to go nuts.

So the flashback!!! I love how you can tell so much without even showing the principal! Like, how on earth did you pull that off so perfectly?! That is so incredible! The door and the light it casts is so simple, and that's why it works. You imply it with such simple shapes. So cool!

Sherlock let go of John's hand! 🥺 and the door is between them! And the way! That he sits on the ground! With his back to John! When he talks about how the principal came into his room and cried! AND THE STRING FROM HIS SPEECH BUBBLE GOES AROUND HIM LIKE THAT! MAKING HIM FEEL EVEN MORE ISOLATED!!!! 🥺😭😭😭

And the fact that in that one single panel, we get to see the young Sherlock of back then, half illuminated by the light of the door opening. Still in bed, but sat up. Somehow, that makes him look so much more vulnerable. The one wide eye. Holy crap. It's incredible how much you express even with so little as a half of a face.

Oh my gosh! And when John says that he was just a kid, and that swirling nebula of space and stars and dark matter is creeping up his arm.

And that in the next one, it almost looks like it's trying to pull him back. Away from how he's holding John's hand and shoulder!!! And the fact that the pose reminds me of slow dancing 🥺 AND THE SPEECH BUBBLES! Once again, the line connecting two is swirled around Sherlock, and the first one is the spiky kind for exclamations! And the way the last one is also spiky, but now the background is dark and the words are red! Which makes, "I ruined one man's life, and now I must ruin another," HIT SO MUCH HARDER!

And the colors for that page! Sherlock is illuminated in red, John in blue, but the red is so bright that it is overshadowing John.

And in the next page, it's purposefully segmented via the panels. The swirling colors overtake the background.

Every detail and design choice is deliberate and I can feel the care put into every single one. And the punch of the final panel of that page being Grey scale again after all that color. Holy crap. AND THE FACT THAT NOW THEIR OUTLINES ARE RED AND BLUE!!!! OMG!!!! I even looked back again the first page to make sure, and yep! That's new! I love how John ended up laying down next to Sherlock

And I love how in the next page, you cut off their faces from sight with the speech bubbles at the top, so the focus is on their arms and hands. It's such a cool choice. Sherlock sort of clutching at his chest as he talks about the scar, and how John is holding one of his arms. Noticeably, it's his left hand holding his right arm, so its going towards Sherlock, rather than away.

And the way they both hold one end of the page is great! And Sherlock turns towards John to ask about his dad.

AND THE FINAL PAGE! OMG THE FINAL PAGE

Once again, the background is dark and full of stars. They're still in bed, but now they're both turned towards each other! "The Gloria Scott," they both say. But the speech bubbles are colored outline in color text! Inverse of what you've done for most of the comic! So once again, it hits even harder!!!!

THIS IS EXPERT CRAFTSMANSHIP!!!!!!! The use of color and formatting is amazing. Perfect pacing, you communicate everything you need to. So much nuance you added to the audio with the addition of visuals. You elevated the emotion! It's truly beautiful. A work of art. I am so honored that I get to bare witness to this. Holy crap it's amazing. I've done a little research into making comics. I know a little of the basic concepts, so seeing you nail every detail was mind-blowing. Even the speech bubbles help guide the eye to the next part. It's a smooth read. Incredible work. You should be so proud of yourself. You did amazing

THE GLORIA SCOTT - part 2, and a follow up to my comic for the first half of this scene! thanks sm to @crashingmeteorz for allowing me to source validation for my whimsical cosmic approach to this moment <3

[mynameismad]

Please can I have some advice about making comics, specifically figuring out panel/page layout? Robber/Robert was beautiful and flowed so nicely

(Sorry, I know that’s a big ask, especially busy as you are! I would be grateful for even the smallest nugget of wisdom!)

Hey! I know you're specifically referencing Robber/Robert, but all of the tips I gave in my How To Draw Sakana series still mostly apply to the way I make comics!

I plot out important story beats first (and the ending) and fill in little jokes between those mostly on the fly.

Even though RR is mostly digital (unlike Sakana, which is totally traditional), I still thumbnail RR traditionally because it's easier for me to see the whole page that way, and really get a sense of how big each panel and each element within the panel needs to be. All other details are basically omitted at this point, it's really just figuring out page composition. I also write out the dialogue traditionally. Even if I have a good idea of what I want the characters to say in every panel, trying to come up with exact dialogue later in the process always spells disaster for me. So I try to figure out dialogue and thumbnails at the same time.

The 5 in 5 rule is still what governs my panel/page layouts! I feel like the last [5] rule is worded a little poorly: what I mean is that hands can also add a lot to character acting and should be present as often as possible to avoid having too many "talking heads" panels. Even if a page is dialogue heavy, at least having the character gesture with hands or even do a small task (like make coffee or something) during a conversation or monologue will be more satisfying to read. ALSO, BACKGROUNDS ARE GOOD. I know I'm in the minority of people who LOVE drawing very complicated backgrounds, but even a few little lines or shapes or colors here and there behind a character can keep them present in the environment. I always try to Avoid The Void, but it really depends on how important the setting is to your story. I only draw comics with very specific important settings for some reason lol.

RR is in an American comics format (so roughly 10"x15", which is a 2x3 ratio and can scale down to 6x9 for print.) Again, I think it's important to get as much of a sense of how the page will look in the thumbnail stage as possible, without bogging yourself down with too many details. Often characters will just be pegs with circles for heads (and in Rob's case, two little antenna lines that make him look like a cricket), but where they are and how big they are are most crucial. I'd even suggest thumbnailing two consecutive pages right next to each other so you can really see the flow from one to the next.

The rest of the pages only really apply if you're thinking about doing your comic completely traditional. Penciling, inking, and lettering DON'T need to happen on the same page/paper, but I'm used to that workflow so that's how I do it!

LETTERING IS STILL VERY IMPORTANT THOUGH. I'm sorry to be harsh, but there's nothing worse than bad letters on a great looking comic. If you're not feeling great about your lettering capabilities, I'd suggest taking some time with tutorials and practice to get something that really fits your comic style.

FINALLY, it's important to go out there and find comics that you LIKE and really study what they're doing, how they're doing it, and why it speaks to you. Currently I'm looking at a lot of Franco-Belgian comics, which are bigger than american or manga sizes, and CHOCK FULL of backgrounds usually. Some day I'd like to make something that looks similar, so I'm using every comic project I make as practice to get closer and closer to that style.

Anyways, I know that's a lot of images and text, so thank you if you got all the way through it, and I hope it's helpful! If there's something specific you're still confused about, I can always try to explain a little more. Thanks!

[xddaengx]

Play Along : The series ⎜ pt 2

✧ Pairings: Seventeen x Reader ⎜ Woozi x Reader ⎜ Mingyu x Reader

✧ Genre: Poly AU! ⎜ Idol AU ⎜ Established Relationship ⎜ Romance ⎜

✧ Warnings: Protected Sex⎜ Female Oral ⎜ Insecure Partners ⎜ Poly AU ⎜ Soft Dom!Woozi⎜ Soft Sex ⎜Slight Overstimulation ⎜

✧ Word Count: 3.3 k

✧ Summary: Your boyfriend proposes the idea, that he shares you with his 12 best friends.

✧ Author’s Note: This is inspired by my kinktober post "Play Along" I decided to turn it into a series with all 13 members, each member will get one chapter. Let me know who should I post next?

(UNEDITED)

“Well if he’s producing, I don’t want to interrupt him.” You say quietly into the phone, bowing slightly at the waist to the people you past on the way to the studio.

“You won’t be interrupting him, he knows you’re coming, he said he’s excited. And besides he works so hard, I’m sure a beautiful interruption like yourself won’t bother him too much.” Mingyu replies his voice crackling over the phone, loud music playing in the background as his members shout their hellos through the phone.

“As long as you warned him, last time Hoshi tried to interrupt his work and sneak up on him, Hoshi almost had his eyebrows shaved off.” You whisper into the phone, the frosted glass door coming into view, “universe factory” printed in large black letters.

“Don’t worry he won’t shave your eyebrows while you sleep, he’s only tried to do it with me, so far.” Hoshi speaks into the phone, chuckling at the memory. You roll your eyes stopping in front of the door.

“Alright, I’m here. I’ll hang up now.” You say softly, Mingyu agreeing.

“Remember to relax, I think you’re the only person Woozi actually likes, so just take it easy. He said to just put in the code when you get there cause he might have his headphones on and he can’t hear with them on.” Mingyu says before giving the phone a large smooch sound, promising to see you tomorrow when he gets home. You hang up the phone, tucking it back into the handbag at your side, reaching out to put the code into the key panel beside the studio door.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” A voice says softly, the door being pulled open before you can even press the first button, Woozi giving you a shy smile.

“Oh, Mingyu said you might’ve been working so I was going to let myself in.” You mumble, toeing off your shoes and following Woozi inside the studio, the size of it taking you by surprise.

“Wow, this place is looking good, you really have a knack for decorating.” You smile, looking at the various art works on the walls, and the large neon sign hung up on the wall.

“Yeah, it took a while but it’s finally looking how I wanted it. Did you want a drink or anything?” Woozi asks, moving to take your bag from you and place it on the rack besides the door. You shake your head softly, taking a seat on the white couch in the corner of the room, your eyes still trailing around the room taking in all the decorations.

“I heard you and Hoshi has some fun the other night. I’ve never actually seen him so relaxed before, said it was the best he’s slept in months.” Woozi says, quietly taking a seat on the other end of the couch, sipping on a bottle of cold water in his hand.

“Yeah, I guess. I’m still not entirely sure how this is supposed to work, it’s feels a little unreal at the moment.” You chuckle, avoiding Woozi’s gaze, his eyes fixed on you as you fidget in your seat.

“I mean I can hardly believe that you're here, I don’t think we’ve ever actually been alone in the same room before.” He adds, giving you a soft smile, before taking another sip of his water, finally redirecting his gaze. You watch as woozi looks around the room before refocusing back on you, placing the water on the table beside the couch, standing and moving his way in front of you.

“Look, I’m going to be really honest with you, since Mingyu told me you’d be swinging by today, I couldn’t help but think about how it was going to work. We rarely ever spend time together alone, I think we’ve only ever had four conversations sober and you can barely even look at me. I’m not going to be offended if you decide you don’t want to do anything with me, it wouldn’t be the first time someone has preferred the others over me.” Woozi begins, his hand clenched by his side, his body tense as he looks down at where you sit on the couch, his voice low.

“Woozi, it’s not that I do—“

“I understand we aren’t close, and that your taste is probably a little different, I mean Mingyu is the tallest in the group and I’m the shortest— Anyway I know that I’m not always peoples taste, or first option, and that maybe you’d rather just skip me and go to the next person… I really wouldn’t be offended.” He finishes, you mouth falling open as you watch him spiel, standing from the couch hovering tense in front of him.

“I think you’re misunderstanding the situation Woozi. I do want to do this, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t and frankly I don’t know what height has to do with anything, but this whole thing is still really new to me and I’m just not sure what people like and whether they like me or what they would even like to d—“ Woozi doesn’t waste another minute taking a large step forwards his hands reaching out to hold your cheeks as he pulls your face towards his own.

You lips find each other quickly, one of Woozi’s hands dropping from your face, sitting tightly on your waist as he pulls your bodies closer together. The two of you pull apart for a few seconds taking in deep breaths before reconnecting. Woozi walks you back towards the couch, keeping the two of your as close as possible as he guides you to lie down on the soft cushions.

“Thank you.” He whispers, pulling his lips away from your own for a few moments before reconnecting them to the skin of your neck.

“What are you talking about?” You question, your head automatically tilting back to give woozi better access to your bare skin. “Wait, no marking. Mingyu’s one rule.” You manage to hiss out as you feel Woozi begin to suck lightly on the skin. He nods gently going back to placing open mouth kisses to your neck and back up your jaw.

“For what you said.” He says between kisses. “For the reassurance.” He adds, his lips lining back up with yours, hovering just over the swollen skin. Woozi sit up a little further your legs rested against the lounge, bent at the knees on either side of his legs. “If you're comfortable with continuing I would really like if you took your shirt off.” He says gently tugging the hem of your shirt up slowly.

“Only if you take yours off too.” You laugh, smiling as Woozi rips his shirt off at the speed of light, his pale skin illuminated with the purple neon lights, you sit up pulling your own t-shirt over your head before laying yourself back down on the cushions, welcoming Woozi as he dives back towards your lips.

His hand are quick to find your thighs, pulling them further up till they sit comfortably around his waist, you can’t help but smile as your give his body a small squeeze with your legs, the man letting out a throaty groan, one hand bracing himself above you, as the other trails up your side slowly, tugging on the strap of your bra, baring the skin of your shoulder to him.

His kisses trail again, before he pauses pulling his head away from your neck.

“Is that a bite mark?” He questions looking down at the bruise on your neck, the indents of teeth still obvious. You nod slowly, a sheepish expression growing on your face. “Hoshi?” He questions and you nod again, biting your lip and he runs his thumb gently over the marking.

“I guess this is why Mingyu said no marking?” He asks again and you just grin. “Fair call to be honest. I’d be pissed if someone blemished such a piece of art.” Woozi coos, his hand moving your hair behind your ear as he looks down your body, his eyes lighting up as he takes in your red lace bra, the matching red thong riding up your ass.

“Is this for me? Or do you usually wear something this fancy?” Woozi asks, his hand brushing along the swell of your breast.

“For you. Mingyu said you’d like it, he brought twelve new sets the other day, one for each of you. Though this has to be the worst bra I’ve ever owned” You respond watching as Woozi continue to stroke your skin gently. He smiles, moving his hand to the back of the bra, unclasping it quickly before pulling it away from your body, you arms raising so he’s able to pull the bra completely off.

“Well, I appreciate the effort.” He mumbles, before diving towards your chest, taking one breast into his mouth quickly, giving a strong suck before rounding the nipple with his tongue, continuing his rotations a few times before moving his attention to your other breast.

Woozi releases your breast the cold air hitting your wet nipples, the tender skin stiffening to hard peaks, his kisses trailing further down your stomach until his reaches the button on your skirt.

“Does mingyu go down on you?” Woozi asks, the bluntness of his question surprising you. You nod, raising to your elbows to watch to man move around the couch, pushing his own body further down the couch till his face comes level with your pelvis. “Does he give you everything you deserve? Does he make your feel like you’re being worshipped?” Woozi continues both hand fiddling with the button and zipper at the top of your skirt, popping the metal open before shuffling the skirt and underwear down your legs until it's able to be discarded to the side.

Woozi raises your legs, your thighs placed on either side of his head, your calfs strung over his shoulder. “Breathe for me.” He adds, before diving into your folds. Woozi starts with long licks, the rhythm starting to build up, as you watch the man move his tongue up and down along your folds.

His hands latch onto your thighs, keeping your legs spread as his motions become more aggressive, his licking becoming faster, his teeth grazing over your clit every time he adjusts his position. You let out a small whine as Woozi sucks hard, his lips suctioning around your clit, as he sucks a few more times, your teeth grabbing onto your lip as you try to suppress the rising moans.

“Don’t be so mean, let me hear you.” Woozi mumbles, his face still pressed against your pussy, a cheeky grin spread along his face, as he uses his fingers to lightly spread your lips, maintaining eye contact as he presses his tongue hard against you, dragging it upwards.

“Shit.” You hiss, closing your eyes, letting yourself fall back against the couch enjoying the long strokes. You can’t help the loud whine that escapes you as you feel Woozi’s tongue enter you, the feeling of his lips spreading in a smile as he continues to move his tongue in and out of you, his tongue flicking against your folds every time he pulls his tongue out of you.

“Woozi, I need more.” You coo, reaching out to grip his hair, pulling his face away from your cunt, bringing it up towards your own face.

“What do you mean? It’s polite to use your words.” He says, his left hand finding its way to your entrance, two fingers slowly sinking inside of you, pumping slow and soft, the frustration bubbling inside of you.

“I need you inside of me… I want you inside of me.” You begin, the slight speed up of his fingers making you gasp, the two fingers curling gently when they bottom out inside of you. “Jihoon, please.” You whine, Woozi’s fingers stilling inside of you, his eyebrows raising as he looks down on you.

“Say that again.”

“What?”

“My name. Say my name again.” He groans his fingers pumping into you hard pulling the word out of you, much to his delight.

“Jihoon.” You coo, your hands raking up his back, leaving a trail of red along his back, as his fingers pump harder and faster, his lips capturing yours, the taste of yourself stinging your tongue.

“Cum for me… Cum for me, my precious ruby.” Woozi coos into your ear, his lips peppering kisses along the soft skin, adding a third finger, his hard motions yanking the orgasm from you.

“Good girl, such a precious jewel for me.” Woozi continues, his praises making your thighs clench as your try to close your thighs around his arm, his finger still pumping in and out of you, slowly. “Do you still want more?” He questions, your head nodding quickly as Woozi stands from the couch, reaching into his back pocket, before stripping himself of his pants and underwear, his cock standing hard and stiff in front of you.

You take deep breaths as you pull your thighs closed, watching the producer roll the condom on roughly, his eyes closing as his hand fists his own cock, clambering back onto the couch, his body stopping in front of your closed legs.

“Open up for me.” He says, his hand soft on your knees as he pries them open, his body quickly filling the gap. He strokes himself a few more times before pushing in gently, the feeling of him inside of you dragging a gasp out of you, your eyes squeezing shut. You feel his motions stop, his cock buried inside of you, his hand slowly moving up your body, pulling your arms up above your head, his hands lacing with yours keeping them above you. “Open your eyes, I want your full attention while I make you cum.” You manage to pry open, you watch as he leans forwards capturing your lips in a chaste kiss.

“You know I wrote a song about you.” He says quietly, his hips slowly beginning to rock, his cock sliding in and out with ease, your mind using complete focus to keep your eyes open watching Woozi move.

“What are you talking about?”

“This first time we met, at the Christmas party, you wore that fitted satin red dress, with the matching heels and lipstick - I thought you were the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” Woozi explains, his hips speeding up, his rocking getting more forceful as his hand keep a tight grip on your, keeping you in place.

“Fuck.” You swear, your legs raising to wrap around Woozi’s waist, keeping the two of you connected as much as possible.

“And then I saw Mingyu walk up behind you and I knew there was no way anything would happen. It took me two and a half years before I started the song, but all I could think of whenever I saw you, was that stupid red dress.” Woozi continues, letting out a grunt as he takes both your wrists in one hand, his other reaching to the pillow on the back of the lounge, lifting your hips with his own tucking the pillow under your back, the angle pulling him deeper, before continuing his hard, fast pumps.

“Shit, I’m never going to forget this.” He grunts, his eyes raking over your body as he pumps harder, the force of his strokes jolting your body upwards.

“Jihoon, faster.” Woozi obliges quickly, letting go of your wrists so both hands can hold onto your hips, his own slamming into you at a speed you didn’t know the producer possessed. You arms fall over Woozi’s shoulders, his head dropping to your chest, kissing and sucking the skin, soft grunts falling from his lips.

“I hope you're close, cause I’m going to burst.” Woozi groans, his mouth taking in a nipple, suckling on it as you feel the second orgasm rain down, the heat from Woozi's body making your thighs clench around his waist, slowing down his thrusts but not able to stop them.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He cusses, his forehead leaning against your bare skin as his motions stop, his breathing heavy as you both fade back into the world.

“I can’t believe you just told me you wrote a song about me.” You chuckle, your chest heaving as you try to catch your breath, Woozi laying on top of you, his head pressed against your breastbone, his own chest mirroring your effort. “Was it a title track? Or a B side?” You question, trying to lighten the mood, Woozi grins placing a soft kiss to your collarbone.

“Ruby…Ruby was the song that was about you.”

+

+

“Honey, I’m home.” Mingyu’s voice rings through the apartment, the loud closing of the door making you drop the paperback on the bed besides you, page face down to keep your spot.

“In the bedroom.” You call back, adjusting your position on the bed, to sit up against the pillows pulling the glasses off your face. You smile as Mingyu rounds the corner, his smile bright as his eyes find you. He’s quick to drop his duffle bag, pulling off his shirt diving for the bed. He had always liked skin to skin contact.

“Welcome home.” You chuckle as he crawls his way up the bed, his head falling heavily on your chest as your arms wrap around him, placing a kiss to the top of his head. “Did you guys have fun? You look a little bloated did you all eat ramen for every meal?” You coo, your hand stoking down his bare back, drawing little patterns on the skin.

“We may have eaten ramen a few times, not every meal though, and josh also cut us up some pineapple, so it was a balanced diet.” Mingyu defends, his head raising to look up at you his lips pouting. You lean down pressing a kiss to his lips before settling back against the pillows. “How was your time with Woozi? I see you still have eyebrows.” Mingyu jokes, his body melting as you continue the small pictures on his skin, the warmth lighting a fondness inside of you.

“It was good…He told me something strange though.” You begin watching your boyfriend as he hums for you to continue. “He said he wrote a song about me, said Ruby his mixtape song was supposed to be about me.” You laugh a little the absurdness hitting you as you say it out loud.

“Oh, yeah he mentioned something about that when he was writing it. He asked whether it was okay. I think the song suits you so it never bothered me.” Mingyu responds, his body seeming to get flatter against you with every stroke of your fingers.

“You don’t think it’s weird one of your best friends is writing a song about your girlfriend?”

“No, not really. I’m pretty sure they’ve all participated in at least one song about you. I mean good to me is about you, so is boom boom, actually there’s probably a lot of songs about you.” Mingyu admits, your jaw dropping as your hands stop their movements, Mingyu’s head shooting up to see what stopped his massage.

“Why have you never told me this?”

“I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“Well you thought wrong, I have songs written about me? I need to call my mum.” You whine, trying to slip away from the large puppy who chuckles at you, as you rummage around for your phone.

“By the way, we have a party to go to tomorrow night, it’s Seungkwan's belated birthday.” Mingyu adds once your phone is in your hand, you nod quickly, before slipping off the bed, hitting the dial button on your phone.

“Mum, you’ll never believe what mingyu just told me.”

[purplepixel]

HEHEHE I'm glad you like it! I really put my heart and soul into this. So many choices I made to try to capture the words you put on paper. I can write a whole essay on how I used color on this comic. Which is funny bc again. This was supposed to be a quick thing. I WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO GO FULL COLOR. But typical pixel brain is taking a project and elevating it and before I knew it COLOR is very much a storytelling element in this as much as what you see the characters doing. Every color choice was made with intent.

For the ninpo, I had to rewatch parts of the rise movie for this since I didn't realize mikey's is...lava lamp esque??? Which honestly makes so much sense since he's circle. I really thought he was also fire. Raph and leo's ninpo already looks pretty similar, but raph's is more electric inspired.

YES CASEY CAMEO. Casey squared moment. I'm imagining them playing good cop bad cop. One minor thing on my list of things to do is design a post season2 casey outfit. She has one screenshot in the movie that has her old foot clan outfit and I think that was just so we could easily tell its her. Hamato clan outfit casey? But sleeveless bc she's just like that.

Draxum 100% texts like an old person who doesn't understand text speak. Of course he's gonna add a period not knowing the tonal implication of his message. I also think he's just direct and to the point. I wanted to add in splinter's message, but I couldn't come up with something and realized mikey and raph would prob break the news that they're missing instead of asking where they are since splinter's kind of a homebody.

Shoutout to @cottoncandywoof who I sent these panels to before uploading. Everyone needs a second pair of eyes. One of his comments was "make him angrier" and he definitely helped with some speech bubble stuff and the last panel on page 7. Which I was struggling with.

I'm not a comic artist, my background is animation so this was a good challenge. "animator tries translating written words into comic panels". I had to break my mindset on some things that make sense in animation, but not so much in comic pages. But I also always knew that this particular moment from swsa NEEDED to be told in comic format which is why I chose that instead of say, an animatic. I also really wanted to test out comic making and this was the excuse. Comics are a completely different medium from animation despite the similarities from an initial glance.

The last panel is my favorite ngl. That whole last page. Which technically I took creative liberties on. Raph is there when mikey comes to that conclusion after they have the family meeting in chapter 6, but I didn't want to break the flow of the comic AND I didn't want it to be too long. I wanted it to be focused on mikey and his thoughts and feelings towards this. I really thought I could do that in 4 pages sdlkfjsdlk.

Wow long message. I'm just extremely passionate about the creation of this since I put so much forethought and care into it. I tried my best to translate the feel of what you wrote into a visual format. It was a great challenge :]

Happy SWSAnniversary!

This one's for you @psychologicalwarclaire! Finally can give a proper thank you for writing my favorite rise fic of all time. Here's to a Spider's Web with Strings Attached's one year anniversary! What better way to commemorate this with a little comic featuring the very beginning?

For those who are just stumbling on this comic, please go read the fic its based on! I cannot praise and recommend it enough!!

[mokutone]

okay bc the last post was a art post without naruto this is a naruto post without art ive been sitting on this topic for MONTHS so im just gonna share it, lets get ready to do a mild dive into The Yamato Pays For Lunch Scene!!!

this scene is funny and yamato being flattered and flustered is endearing, and kakashi is funny in this but a lot of the time this scene is used to characterize the bulk of kakashi and yamato's interactions in a way which kinda reduces yamato largely to just...kakashi's fool, Just A Moron Who Does What Kakashi Says Because He's Starstruck Stupid/ In Love/ A Sucker

and I'm not gonna lie, while that's a...possible...reading of the source material and all, it's not my favorite since it's. really entirely at the expense of Yamato's character, so I'm gonna try and provide a counter reading based on things I notice in the scene from the manga: warning. this is a very long post bc i am NOT good at being succinct

first i'd like to point this little bit out:

u can notice here that in that first panel in the top right, Kishimoto makes a point of including yamato in the shot in the background, not just eating his own noodles and minding his business but clearly paying attention to what Kakashi and Naruto are talking about, and Kakashi, in dialogue, pretty clearly states his intention to sweet talk Somebody. Additionally, In the anime if I remember correctly, Kakashi adds in something after the sweet talk line like "I promise, it'll be interesting," which clearly designates Naruto as Not being the one who is going to get the sweet-talk, since he will be Observing the Interesting Thing. This is important because Naruto, at first, thinks that Kakashi is referring to more Ninja Training, but this line makes it clear that he's Not talking about that. Anyway, put a pin in this whole thing.

then the funny little incident itself:

goofy and endearing. that's all i have to say. ANYWAY.

the most interesting part of this interaction is what happens afterward in my opinion; they go back to the training ground and kakashi gives naruto a little pep talk about how if Anyone can master this jutsu it is GOING to be naruto, because naruto has what it takes and will surpass the fourth hokage etc etc etc, which leads to this interaction,

this is really interesting to me because the "you really Are a sweet talker," first of all indicates that he heard and understood that kakashi intended to sweet-talk him, but it ALSO implies that there was doubt about kakashis ability to sweet talk at all by emphasizing the "are," which could lead to some interesting interpretations!

Scenario One: Yamato was Generally Aware of what Kakashi was doing, and actively and intentionally decided to play along.

This is the one I play with the most—I think Yamato is probably pretty good at reading Kakashi, and is aware that Kakashi is goading him into paying for the meal, especially since afterwards he turns Kakashi's words right back at him, essentially saying that he suspects the pep talk he gave Naruto is just as calculated (and possibly untrue) as the one Kakashi gave him at the ramen place, but a much better performance.

This also kind of accounts for the funny look he gives Kakashi right after Kakashi denies the accusation in the bottom right of the image above. The last time they worked together closely, Kakashi was trying to deaden himself emotionally, so seeing genuine and open expressions of pride and belief in other people's abilities probably represents a huge change from the Kakashi he knew, to the Kakashi he stands beside now. At once very much the same, and also a stranger, and I think that's a fun texture to play with in their relationship as they try to figure each other out again after a multi-year-gap of not interacting.

I like this reading the most for a couple reasons; I like that it shows a very cynical and suspicious side of Yamato's character, one which he has no reason to display around the kids. Making a crack at your teammate for being Very Fake to his wide eyed and genuine students is NOT a productive or useful behavior that you want to pass on, but a couple side comments to the Other dark and cynical dude who u went thru anbu with about how fake he is is surely fine TWO: Since it implies Kakashi was insincere and being performative, it also implies Yamato himself was doing the same in the ramen bar—essentially that Kakashi suggested a little game that would amuse their student, and Yamato didn't mind playing along—the only hitch in this reading is, why would either of them play this game? What Kakashi would get out of it is easy; a free meal and to show off a bit. What Yamato would get out of this is a little more opaque, however—

Obviously there's the reading that, being cynicism + misery poisoned repressed people, the only way they can express a feeling is thru at least 3 layers of insincere/sincere performance but. we'll get to that eventually. not what im interested in rn bc I'd personally lean more towards the idea that this is an opportunity for him to soften his image a little bit in general (Yamato is, after all, the disguise of a Just Some Guy Jōnin) but also, specifically in front of Naruto, to seem a little goofier and a little more fallible and affectionate, after all, Team Kakashi has only really seen him in Captain Mode, where he has said shit like "Kakashi might promise he'd never let you come to harm, but I can't, and I won't." and "Coddling is not compassion," etc etc, he's often got a very serious demeanor and this whole situation puts a funny little hitch in it. Why yes Captain Yamato is a Very serious man who is Very upfront about the possibility and in some ways the inevitability of death, but will let his dear friend goad him into paying the bill with a couple kind words.

and. also kind of a callback to him paying for the meal and inn, where team seven was like "wow this rocks! can you actually just replace kakashi??" but in a scenario where he's not just trying to put a tracker on sai—a performance to indicate there's truth within another performance, good god the complicated lives these ex-anbu lead.

Scenario Two: Yamato Does Not Generally Believe Kakashi Is So Honey-Tongued, But Has A Soft Spot For Him Anyway.

Pretty straight forward! The majority of the above analysis applies, but rather than Kakashi and Yamato seeing this as a game they are both playing, Kakashi and Yamato both know that Yamato's got a soft spot for some kind words from his senpai, even though he knows Kakashi is teasing him. In this reading the "Man, Kakashi. You really Are a sweet-talker," is still critical of Kakashi's ability to affect others, but with the admission that Yamato is a lost cause here, he's just self aware about it.

I think people who are going into readings of their relationship with a shipping angle generally prefer takes more along this line, because the idea of people having "exceptions" or "the only person i do this with" is generally considered romantic in a fashion.

This reading is fine and valid, as all readings of this scenario are, but it still plays into the kind of "I'm a fool, but just for you" trope which I worry kinda disrespects Yamato's character a bit! like, again, it's fine! just not the flavor of reading that i enjoy

That said, this all focuses mostly on Yamato's experience and point of view because he's my favorite and I love him, but there's also interesting stuff to be observed here about Kakashi—the whole chapter is called "Honey Tongued" or sweet-talking, so the two instances of Kakashi complimenting Yamato and Naruto are meant to be the focus, and meant to be compared!

Kakashi is very clear and very firm that the delivery and the sentiment behind the pep talk he gave Naruto was genuine.

Naruto does not enjoy nor does he have an easy time with Kakashi playing mind-games around him, and having taught Naruto at his greenest genin phase, Kakashi would know this. Hypothetically here if we wanna talk Kakashi character growth, for him this scene is more about settling into the role of teacher genuinely, how he's changed and adapted in the three years of missing his "adorable" students, and that he's willing to open up more and express more heartfelt and therefore more vulnerable feelings to the kids. That said, because of the chapter title and content, as well as because Yamato directly asks us to compare the scenarios, this point is in contrast with his complimenting Yamato, and there's two ways I can think of to read that:

1) Unlike the scene with Naruto, his complimenting was manipulative, either wholly or partially unmeant. I don't think many people would agree with this one! U can see based on their interactions in combat or other serious scenarios that Kakashi trusts and respects Yamato, and relies on his skill and intuition frequently, and even after years apart, they're very much still in sync with each other, which Kishimoto makes a point to show us (them saying words at the same time, communicating non-verbally or with a minimum of words).

2) The delivery was ironic, but much like the pep talk for Naruto, the sentiment was genuine. I typed up a whole thing about like, how repressed people who are scared of being vulnerable sarcastically express love for their friends, and how this situation could be considered in that vein, but essentially:

What I mean is; Kakashi is famous for his inability to open up. When he first meets the kids, he says he has no interests, no goals, and doesn't like to talk about himself. This whole scenario with the pep talk shows that he's making strides in being direct and complimentary (this feels like the wrong word. what i mean is that he's like...he's engaging with the people around him in a more genuine way, interacting with his students as people, letting them know that he sees how they've grown because he seems to better understand he can also have a positive impact on them, not just a neutral or negative impact) since then—but Yamato doesn't necessarily know that, and to Kakashi, Yamato could represent a kind of bridge between the person he was back in anbu, and the person he is now, delivering a cheesy description of their previous relationship to each other in a way that Yamato was meant to understand as fake or putting-him-on, while actually being more or less a direct and genuine acknowledgement of the importance of their previous friendship + working relationship...it's a way to ease the two very different versions of himself together.

god i think this post might be incomprehensible actually. when they call it brain rot theyre not kidding around.

[ilikeyoubetterthisway]

The Illuminati Arc - Ryuuji's feelings (A Ryuumo Analysis)

I wanna talk about Ryuuji's feelings during the Illuminati Arc (or as I prefer to call it, the Izumo arc), and the relevance and focus given to his feelings regarding Izumo just for all of it to come to a culmination and a new beginning at the end of the arc in the hospital hallway.

Warning: This will be kind of a long analysis, so beware of the length.

It starts with Izumo being kidnapped, and Shima being revealed as a spy, he confronts them and then leaves. The gang only saw the last part of the whole ordeal, and they didn't see Shima's big role in Izumo's kidnapping.

We saw how deeply affected Ryuuji was with Shima's betrayal, being all silent and moody during the first half of the trip but got kicked out of it by Rin. With that his issues with Shima got dealt with and settled down in an individual manner, as he came back to his usual self after that. Now the only thing left unresolved was his personal feelings regarding Izumo.

Now, we know that this is a shonen manga, where the romance has to be shown in a very straightforward and concise way, so that the average reader can take a quick look at it and go, "ah yeah, he likes her/she likes him/they like each other, whatever ok" so that they can continue with the battles and action (although I have noticed throughout the entire manga, that Kato sensei likes to add a large amount of romantic and teenage stuff, which just gives me more content to analyze juejue). So with all this, is clear that the romantic hints will be a lot less detailed and elaborated and more like in your face stuff.

Anyways, going back to Ryuumo.

They were then given a specific moment to sit down and listen to Izumo's backstory told by a summoned Mike. We can see their reactions in relation to Izumo.

First we got this, on ch. 51.

And then this on ch. 52.

Imean, just look at dat face.

He looks sad af, he is the only one with an expression like that. Compared to the rest of the gang, that are more of in a "business/mission" mode like Yukio and Takara, or in a "we gotta save our nakama!!" mode like Shiemi and Rin. Koneko is in the middle ground, still worrying about Shima and the mission but not specifically thinking about Izumo.

But then we got this on ch. 53:

This panel is very short but tells so much, here Ryuuji is the only one having an actual reaction, the amount of focus and details on this panel is impressive: from the shape of the speech bubble, the black background looming over Ryuuji's head, symbolizing the dread, horror and fear he's thinking and feeling for Izumo's situation, his expression of pure angst, shock and worry, with those lines under his eyes, the words of concern he spoke, which look and sound more deep and angsty in the Japanese version. Even Konekomaru turns to look at him for a moment. Ryuuji is showing serious and deep concern for her.

But again, this is a short lived panel that gets interrupted by Shiemi's exclamation of "then let's hurry!" and then Rin saying that he barely listened to what Mike was saying, my poor Rin with his short attention span, but with this panel is established the specific and distinct amount of care Ryuuji has over Izumo compared to the rest of the gang.

Then, when they are infiltrating, Mike is summoned back by Izumo, alerting the gang of her situation inside the facility. Once they are inside and get separated, is Ryuuji's moment to battle against the chimera zombie.

Now, I want to state that Ryuuji is going through so much internal turmoil during this arc, to the point that he is unable to process what he is feeling and why he is reacting this way for Izumo:

He's going through an existential crisis, of

losing his ambition and purpose.

Dealing with the stress of having to fight for his life and his friends.

Seeing the kind of shit the Illuminati do.

Worried af for Izumo: her being kidnapped, being used as a subject experiment, seeing her getting posessed, necrotized, suffering, crying, her mother dying, mourning, witnessing her changing and asking for help right in front of him.

All of this while dealing with the fact that Shima is still a traitor in his eyes.

During his battle against the chimera he's having this internal struggle and monologue that settled deep inside him since the Kyoto Arc, he's remembering about those moments in his childhood when he felt that his life had a purpose (being the pivot of Myooda), but after the defeat of the Impure King, he realizes that everything has changed, everyone has moved on with their lives, and feels like he is no longer needed, that his ambition has no purpose anymore since everyone in Myooda is already doing their own thing and going on separated paths, just like Shima and Konekomaru.

During this moment, he thinks of his dad, Shima and Konekomaru (u know, the closest and most important people in his life), and he also thinks of Izumo and the words she told him during their first altercation.

Her words resonate in his head as they highlight the reality he's facing: he realizes that he can't go back to the way things were before, that his goal of defeating Satan is unrealistic, he's not going to magically glue and fix the entirety of Myooda back together, everyone already has their own personal goals and purposes, they are taking their own decisions and keep moving forward despite what happened in the past, they find their personal ambitions and interests and pursue them, and now he finds himself alone.

This is one of the main things I think Kato sensei is trying to show us with her work: (aside from showing us the importance and different ways of parental love), she is also teaching us about growing up, maturity and the process of becoming an adult, all this tied to the fear of change, of the unknown, and uncertainty that it entails. (I would also like to add that with the process of growing up, it also comes with the development of romantic feelings and attraction in certain cases).

Ryuuji is realizing all of this and coming to terms with the fact that the ambition he set when he was little and lived with his family is no longer necessary, nor his goal of defeating Satan realistic. He wants to find a new reason, a new ambition to become an exorcist.

Anyways, going back to Ryuumo again jaja.

They all reunite together and we then hear Gedoin boasting about his horrible experiments on humans. We get Yukio summarizing the reason why they kidnapped Izumo and we get these reactions.

Yukio seems slightly worked up, Rin seems shocked and astonished, Shiemi seems mad and shocked as well and then we have Ryuuji, with a face of barely being able to process the information that is being said to him. He looks like he can't even begin to imagine what they did to Izumo.

On the next pages we have each person reacting to the stuff Gedoin did to all the people he used for his experiments, causing each member of the gang to react differently, Ryuuji looks mad af, Koneko looks nervous but determined, Shiemi and Rin are still in shock, Yukio is still in worked up but in mission mode and Takara looks like he got lost lmao I can't.

Then Izumo appears in the distance as she is being taken to the main lab, Shiemi notices and shouts her name, Rin inmediately jumps to rescue her and we get a glimpse of each person seeing Izumo for the first time since the kidnapping.

Now, the next panels are one of the most important ones. Izumo is being offered Rin's hand but as we know, she hesitates and ends up refusing it angrily.

(1) Now, look at the way Ryuuji is the most vocal of the group regarding Izumo's rejection, the speech bubble with the little "???" is only directed towards him, it doesn't have more arrows pointing at the rest of the gang.

(2) He's the one openly reacting to her actions in an unbelieving and angry way, shouting "What the hell is she doing?!" He can't understand why she wouldn't just take Rin's hand and escape with them.

(3) When they go down with Kuro towards the lab center, Ryuuji protects her, Rin and Tamamo from a group of zombies and when she rejects their help with the exorcism of the Nine Tails, Ryuuji snaps at her angrily (even Koneko seems surprised).

Now the translation of this panel is a bit confusing, since the English (and most likely official translation), says "Kamiki!! Cut the attitude!!" but I went to check the Japanese version and the literal translation would be something like "What are (were) you doing earlier?".

(Now, I'm not that proficient with Japanese, I'm learning it on my own but still, I'm doing this with the rest of Ryuumo moments jaja, to practice and getting more feels).

So, if we follow the literal Japanese translation, he was snapping at her for what she did back on the bridge, when she refused to go back with them. He was still hung up on her previous actions and was questioning her about it. He felt and made that thing personal. Compared to Rin and Shiemi who gave almost no importance to her refusal, they didn't take it personally and kept pushing and trying to offer their hand while Ryuuji is trying to understand why she's behaving like that.

Then they see her get posessed and Ryuuji inmediately asks Yukio if there's a way to exorcise the Nine Tails, he was going to do the exorcism without thinking twice. Izumo's mom wakes up and starts performing the ritual, Yukio tells everyone to protect them and Ryuuji tells Izumo to "Hang in there, Kamiki! The exorcist certification exam is in three months!!" That topic being the last thing he heard and agreed with her before she was kidnapped, the last moment he had a bond with her.

Izumo gets exorcized and her mom is now laying down as she tells Izumo her last words.

I'm glad that Tamamo could get a glimpse of Izumo being surrounded by friends before passing away, and just how her words were that of "you will be all right... you have many friends... and Tsukumo, Uke and Mike... so you will be all..."

(Excuse me while I go cry in a corner)

So, I just wanted to add the fact that Ryuuji was right behind her and he was the first one shown mourning with the biggest panel (happening after Rin's panel and Yukio's giving the veredict).

Then everyone is back to fighting against the zombies, Izumo recovers Uke and Mike and she proceeds to ask the gang for help, as Ryuuji stands there looking and waiting, with an arched brow, for her to finish her sentence.

Here, he is finally getting one of the things he was always searching for with Izumo since the beginning, which was to form a bond, for them to work together and letting him help her. Shiemi and Rin answer her first, as the main nakamas and next is Ryuuji being a whole tsundere telling her it was "Needless to say, idiot." (In the direct Japanese translation).

Then everyone is fighting against Gedoin and Ryuuji is the one that lands the final protective blow that allows Izumo to finish her aria chant and use her Mitamashizume no Harai or Repose Spirit ritual.

Finally they are all done with the big heated battle, Shima appears and Ryuuji gets more closure to his personal issue with him.

Then on the hospital is when things finally wrap up regarding Ryuuji's feelings. We see that he's the first one to wake up, leaving Rin and Konekomaru sleeping back in their room and is shown walking towards the girl's room to "check up on them". Check up on Izumo you mean Ryuuji.

Then occurs the whole thing with Tsukumo and Izumo starts telling Shiemi (and Takara as well, being that he's still in the room), about her little sister and her reason to become an exorcist.

Now I want to highlight the fact that at this point when she closed the door and started talking, Ryuuji was already on the other side of the door and listened to her entire revelation, evidenced by the next page.

The best part was that even though Izumo is telling Shiemi, Kato sensei made it so that Ryuuji also listened to it, since he was the first one to ask her about her reason to become an exorcist. He asked for it and finally got his answer: Izumo was doing everything for her little sister's safety. She was putting her family first. The very same reason Ryuuji wanted to become an exorcist, for his family, the very same life motto Lightning reminds Ryuuji to go attend to, some chapters later.

And Ryuuji blushes at this.

We see him stare at nothing with a look of realization and acceptance as he blushes silently. *screams internally* (What does this mean?! Is this what I think it is?? I don't want to assume stuff but seriously is all THERE!!! Is so painfully obvious UGH!)

(ALSO, please remember the shirt he's wearing during this scene, it will be relevant for another post I will make.)

Then we see Rin and Koneko approaching Ryuuji and him instantly becoming all nervous, sweating, averting his eyes, (since he almost got caught blushing), trying to shoo them away in a quiet voice to not alert the girls inside but fails to do so as Izumo opens the door angrily embarrassed and proceeds to "exorcise" Ryuuji, and only Ryuuji. This being because it was evident with him telling the guys to "go back", and that "this is not a good time", was obvious enough for Izumo to realize that he had heard everything she had said, including her crying. And thus it was payback for listening to private stuff.

Also I want to add that they are the only ones making eye contact on the last panel. UGH so cuTe <3.

Also, the heck he was shooing them away but he wasn't actually going to leave with them?!?! He didn't seem like it, his a$$ looked dead set on staying there, dis dude, seriously, the dedication.

But, bueno, continuing with the analysis.

If anything, Ryuuji could be blushing because of many things:

Learning about her reason.

Both of them sharing the same goal and purpose (reunite their families).

Izumo crying and shouting her heart out.

Izumo finally being honest with herself.

Whatever the reason, the truth we know is that Ryuuji is blushing because of her.

After all that drama, battles, stress, danger, suffering, high tension and confusing feelings, he's now in the right state of mind to understand and process why he reacted the way he did during this entire arc and before.

Because he likes her.

Imean, NoThInG iS cOnFiRmEd in canon yet but we still got a whole a$$ love declaration seven chapters later with both characters blushing at each other for two panels straight. So ._. think whatever you want.

Anyways, that was my analysis on Ryuuji's feelings during the Illuminati Arc regarding Izumo.

(Sorry if I made a misspelling or grammar mistake somewhere, I spent the whole day writing this thing and my eyes and brain can no longer process English nor words correctly.)

Thanks for reading this far! See ya next time~!! <3