#Rain by Jocelyn Samara

[washipink]

The Rain Review (Finale)

If you’ve been with my blog for the past week or so, You’ll know I’ve been reading a childhood favorite webcomic of mine, Rain by Jocelyn Samara. And you’d probably be wondering what happened to my review of the comic Year-by-Year. The answer? I went on a road trip for a few days and couldn’t help but read the whole rest of the comic. So today I’m here to talk about my overall thoughts.

For the uninitiated, Rain is a slice-of-life webcomic that started in 2010. It’s about a transgender teenage girl of the same name navigating her senior year at a Catholic high school. There’s a LOT of romantic and gender-related drama. Friends are made and lost. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll see yourself in the characters somewhere along the line.

My experience with Rain prior to this project only goes up to about 2014. I started reading it in middle school on Smackjeeves.com. Y’all remember Smackjeeves? I miss it every day. Apparently it redirects to a shitty webtoon clone now. IDK where I’m gonna find peoples’ sprite comics produced in 2013 now.

Anyway, I bring this up to say that I had stopped keeping up with Rain even though she was a major part of me accepting who I was. When I found out that her story had come to a close, I had a real need to find out how.

This time, there won’t be a plot summary because this comic ran for 11 years and it takes me long enough to do just 1. That and, if I may spoil my final opinion, I really want you to give it a read for yourself.

ART

I want to get this one out of the way because it’s a very common critique that even I hold to some extent. The art in Rain is a clear indicator of the era its artist hails from. In 2010, anime and manga had just hit the American mainstream. Everyone was reading those “How to Draw Anime” books and took a lot of notes from them. To showcase, here’s a page from Chapter 1, the first color page in fact.

This page is actually one of the busier pages in terms of art. Jocelyn doesn’t usually do background details much, if at all. Usually, backgrounds are depicted as solid colors that are associated with specific locations. Grey for the apartment, sky blue for outside, light green for school, etc. But the way Rain is drawn here bears a striking resemblance to the styles a LOT of people were using at the time.

While Jocelyn’s style stays rooted in, shall we say, American who got really into anime, her techniques evolve over time. Especially in terms of displaying what’s going on with limited background detail.

As an example, I really enjoy this scene. Rain and Emily are, in universe, speaking over the phone right now. But neither of them are holding their phones to their ears. They’re looking at each other as if they’re in the same room. Jocelyn uses a gradient background to signify that the two of them are NOT in the same room, but as they get closer during their conversation, they get physically closer in the panel as well.

This page is taken from 2014, about 4 years into the comic’s run. You can see that Jocelyn’s brush choices have changed. Everything is far smoother than it was toward the start. While the overall style is as simplistic as year 1, her technique has changed a lot.

That comfort with her work only continues to grow. Below is a panel from a bonus page that released after the comic’s conclusion. The line work is the cleanest its ever been.

STORY AND CHARACTERS

Now this right here is the REAL meat of the comic. Regardless of any feelings I had on the art, the characters really endeared me. And this being a slice-of-life teen drama, they had plenty of time to learn, grow, and clash against one another.

The majority of the conflict in Rain comes from people being set in their ways. Rain’s whole gaggle of queer friends is hiding from the school’s principal, who refuses to acknowledge that maybe there’s nothing wrong with being a little gay. One of the most compelling ongoing threads in the comic centers around Rain’s brother and sister trying to understand and accept her. These personal stakes were a really enjoyable break from the kind of thing I usually read. In Rain, there is no world to be saved or villain to defeat, but there IS a prom to go to. Sometimes, that’s all you need to tell a good story.

The comic has this small-town vibe I care for a lot. Sometimes, a character will exit another’s life and you’ll never expect to see them again. Then they’ll end up dating Rain’s aunt or something. Word spreads fast in Centerville. People are gossipy. Sometimes, you tell someone something and it reaches ears you didn’t want to hear it. That gossip is what makes things so dangerous for Rain. If the wrong person finds her out, then EVERYONE finds her out. The same goes for all her friends.

There’s all kinds of flavor of queer in this comic in a way that mirrors real life friend groups. We have a tendency to find each other like that.

With all kinds of queers being hormonal teens, things get messy FAST. There’s a lot of things that happen in this comic that I feel like baby gays need to see. There’s a point where a gay boy and a trans girl start going out because... this just happens sometimes. Nobody is “the villain” in this scenario. They both just tried to explore themselves and found mixed results.

That’s one of the big themes of Rain. Self-exploration. Every chapter, we’re learning more about these characters as they learn more about themselves. Nobody stays in the same headspace for too long. They’re constantly evolving.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Rain is ABSOLUTELY worth the read. It’s actually a really easy read. I was able to finish it in about 2 weeks, so I’m sure it won’t take up too much of your time. But, it’s a really heartwarming story that I’m sure a lot of us can relate to. Thanks for going on this journey with me. And be safe, Rain Beaus.

[momofmysquad]

Close enough, welcome back Rain by Jocelyn Samara

Also this part too

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Rain by Jocelyn Samara D.

webcomic page | Lulu

Rain is a slice-of-life/comedy/drama that follows the life of a teenage trans girl named Rain, attempting to go through her senior year in high school identifying only as a woman. It's intended to be a comedy, but it will also touch on some heavy subjects including acceptance from family and peers, blind hatred, and many of the other difficulties faced by members of the LGBT community. Nevertheless, it is a largely positive story, with humor and tearjerking moments and lots and lots of love triangles.

Mod opinion: I haven't heard of this webcomic before, but it sounds like an interesting look into 2010 teen trans experience.

[tigergirltail]

Halloween Rain

Fanart of Rain (webcomic by Jocelyn Samara D.)

The instant I saw this costume in the story I knew I had to do a fanart of it. It's exactly the sort of thing that would have given me SO MUCH gender euphoria when I was Rain's age.

The more I read this comic, the more it feels like looking into a magic mirror, and seeing what life would have been like if I'd awakened 20 years sooner, when the first signs showed themselves.

I look at Rain, and I see… myself.

(I agonized over the pose for a long time, eventually settling on the lean-against-wall pose because it's one I'm not used to doing, but it's also not THAT complex, so it was a nice exercise. Also babby's first background!)

[tresenellaart]

The Big Life Update!

Um, hi everyone! Long time no see huh? In fact, it’s been a very, very long time. 5 years ago I nearly dropped off the face of the internet, and while some of you might have caught a glimpse of my work here and there, I've been almost completely offline and I've kept away from all social sites ever since.

Around 2017-2018, I found myself very lost artistically. I hit a hard wall where I wouldn’t know where to go next, what project to embark on. I had many ideas, but all of them seemed to evaporate into nothing the moment I sat down to flesh them out. I felt extremely apathetic creatively, eventually stopped uploading any art, and sank most of my time into gaming or mindlessly watching videos and streams. My partner at the time helped me gather the strength to look for a job, but without any formal education or previous jobs I could refer to, I tried my luck on Fiverr.

My experience on Fiverr was… mostly terrible. Being paid very little for a lot of hard work, and having to deal with some problematic clients and tight deadlines, really took a toll on me. My time there did send me on a path that I wouldn’t have expected though. I was contacted by a game dev to do a character design for a little wizard character. This person was quite pleased with my work, and continued to ask me for art for a second character, then some test animations… And soon I found myself handling all the art and music for the game, in what’s been my job for 5 years. The game is called Enchanted Portals, and it’ll be releasing later this year!

It’s been… a wild ride. The game’s very heavily inspired by Cuphead, with very similar art-style and gameplay. My boss, being an avid fan of the original, was very passionate about creating his own take on the genre, but maybe not surprisingly, the initial reaction to unveiling the first trailer was one of mass rejection and hate towards it. A useless ripoff! An inferior clone! I hope they get sued for this! Instead of the love letter from a fan that it actually is, it was mostly seen as a ploy from some greedy studio to make a quick buck. Didn’t help that the trailer reached a lot more people than we could’ve ever anticipated.

I can’t really call the game mine in any way, as I’ve mostly just been hired to make art and music assets for it, but the wave of hate was still quite overwhelming and soul-crushing for me. Is this all I’m gonna be known for now? Is this hate going to follow me forever? That creative black hole I had found myself in before, grew even bigger. I didn’t want to be public online again. I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t work on anything creative outside of my job anymore. I was burnt out, scared of the world, feeling completely defeated.

I was very fortunate to be contacted by a long time friend from my early DeviantArt days, someone that, despite my lengthy online disappearances, would make an effort to send me a message from time to time to catch up. We started talking very regularly, and she got me interested in a project she was part of, a fandub of the webcomic Rain by Jocelyn Samara D. (that I’m sure a lot of you know already). We toyed with the idea of upgrading the project into a full animated series, a pretty ambitious task since I’d be the only one animating, but my creative spark was immediately reignited. Working on Rain was such a joy, and a rekindling of everything I love about creating art. The project hit some serious bumps along the road, but it’s still going strong now, and while it’s been really slow working on it on top of my job, it’s been the best artistic experience I’ve had in a very long time. If you want to check it out, here’s the Rain: TAS Youtube channel! We just released a new short!

This long time friend has since become my girlfriend, and we’ve embarked on other wonderful projects together. If you want to check out some of our other stuff, we have a wonderful world of gay fae bugs in the making too!

Despite all of these exciting new personal projects I’ve embarked on recently, coming out of my bubble has still been a huge struggle. Posting on my own accounts, drawing new strips for my webcomic, uploading anything that's more personal, still fills me with fear and anxiety. I really want to get out of my comfort zone and start posting again, being more active online, reaching out to new people, sharing my art with others once more. I miss it all dearly. And I know people have been missing my art too, and some have even been seriously worried about my well-being. I sincerely apologize if I made any of you worry too much! ^^;

I hope this post is the first step in a long new creative journey for me. I’ll do my best to leave my shell, and to build myself and my art back up again. There’s so much wonderful stuff I want to do, and to show to the world! Stay tuned!

[lifeofalesbiangirl]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand we are back! Sorry for going inactive again, life just..got in the way and I wasn't able to make more comics because of that. ^^; Although, as an apology gift, here's (potential) redesigns of the three main girls! Fun fact, Mocha is supposed to be the tallest while Blondie is supposed to be the shortest. Another fun fact, Rin's dress is inspired (or is a direct reference, what's the right word?-) by the one Rain Flaherty wears in Chapter 22 of Rain (by Jocelyn Samara D), please check it out, it's very good ^^ But anyways, sorry for rambling, I promise to post a comic soon!

[effortlessly-emily]

hello mutuals. please read Jocelyn Samara's perfect webcomic, Rain. Thank you and have a good day

CW for transphobia and homophobia (VERY ROUGH transphobia and homophobia at some points) + some other stuff that's spoilery to mention so i'll put it in the read more

but i swear that it's hilarious + cute + wholesome maybe 90% of the time. Mostly just a slice-of-life about a stealth trans girl attending a Catholic school and the real main character, Fara Bryer.

also if you want to talk about rain it has wormed me thoroughly. so.

additional CWs: offscreen sexual assault of a minor, teenage pregnancy resulting from said assault.

[snakajaja]

Rain by Jocelyn Samara D.

rain.thecomicseries.com

[crystalseadragon44]

Therian HRT from Behind the Veil!

A while back, in my quiet little corner of social media (before coming here), talk about otherkin and alterhuman identities exploded as several artists started creating stories about characters using a form of HRT to become new kinds of beings, following @ayviedoesthings's Dragon HRT story. This included Jocelyn Samara's Dragon Rain "canon adjacent" chapter, which is how I learned about all of this from my small corner of Discord! I took in a lot of the information I was reading on the subject and from there, crafted my own tale in Behind the Veil I called Earth's Kitsune!

(I also found things out about myself too: that girl with the pointy ears in the pfp is a depiction of myself! More on that in another post.)

Earth's Kitsune follows Molly Peterson, trans girl and college student at the quiet, reclusive Citadel Harbor University, a place that (in this world) hides an advanced research facility run by the magical community. When Molly can no longer hide her desire to become a fox girl, she's pointed to a first of its kind treatment that can give her the body she's truly wanted... But she'll be the first to take it, and it comes with a number of strange effects no one is prepared for!

Molly's profile, showcasing both her original human (and later, illusion) form and the endgame "Earth kitsune" state, and 8 novel chapters of her story (with a 9th in progress) are finished already! I'll post the profile here, but I'll direct you to Scribble Hub for the story - it'd be a tall order to post 8 chapters of a story from this WORDY girl! XD

(Oh yes, she has orange fur on the cover, but her profile has bluish gray - that's one of the strange things that happens to her along the way!)

[lariumbreon]

Yes, that's Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick! *The* Author of Rain! Can vouch, I'm the official voice of Rain~

Attempting to Tumbl

In response to recent Twitter nonsense, I've decided to try Tumblr again. Still kinda figuring this all out, so please be patient with me for now, I'll try to post here as I would anywhere else. If you don't know me, I'm the author of two queer/trans positive webcomics. Rain is a slice-of-life about a trans girl and her friends. It ran for 11 years, and is now done. (Although there is technically new content in the form of Dragon Rain!) My current one, My Impossible Soulmate, is a romantic isekai about an otaku girl who can't confess to her childhood friend because she's stuck in another world. I'll post here whenever there's new pages of either. I also do little doodles of myself as a rat. Mostly funny or venting stuff. All kinds of good stuff. ^_^ Please look forward to it!

[washipink]

Rain by Jocelyn Samara D Year 1: 2010-2011

erSo I recently found out that 1 year ago, a comic that was INCREDIBLY important to me as a trans middle schooler who went to catholic school had wrapped up. This year, I’ve decided I’m going to read through and review Rain by Jocelyn Samara, 1 year of the comic’s run at a time. First up: Year 1, which covers Chapter 1 (The New Girl) through Chapter 6 (Fallen Angel). I’ll be summarizing the story and characters for those unfamiliar, so feel free to follow along.

There’s a LONG-ASS post under that read more. If you have any experience with the comic or enjoy the post, please talk about it with me. It’ll be a good time.

Year 1 Summary

The star of the show is Rain, a transgender 17 year old girl who moved in with her Aunt Fara after her mother’s death. It starts on the first day of her senior year of high school, the first time she’s ever tried to pass as female in front of... anyone???

Based on some of the language used in the character bios, I should be very clear that this comic is from 2010 and written by a trans woman who is most likely older than most of my followers. There may be language used that you personally don’t agree with. I’m not a fan of being called transsexual myself, but there’s nothing wrong with saying it.

Anyway, the basic gist is that Rain passes EXCELLENTLY and attracts a lot of attention from her male classmates, much to her dismay.

But the men aren’t the only people with their eyes on Rain. Lesbian classmate, Maria and her fake boyfriend, Gavin make a bet of 5 United States Dollars out of who can talk to Rain first.

Here’s the rub: During Role, Gavin seems to recognize Rain’s last name. It’s the same as his childhood best friend, Ryan. Gavin and Maria then banter a little bit, jokingly saying “what if that IS Ryan? could ya believe that?”

Little do they know...

One thing about Rain is that its cast of characters is by no means infallible. Even characters that I came to love, like Maria, are kind of insensitive. Just about no one in this cast has ever MET a trans person in their lives prior to Rain. It’s very true to life in that way. You meet a lot of people that are ignorant or accidentally insensitive. And sometimes, they learn to stick up for you.

The realistic portrayal of how trans teens can be treated by other teens is one of my FAVORITE things about Rain.

Anyway, Gavin brings up Ryan Falherty to Rain, which causes her to panic and run away.

And Crash Directly into the fifth member of our main cast, RUDY!!!!

A rather gossipy gay boy that sees up Rain’s skirt and thinks she’s just a REALLY brave gay dude. He tells Gavin and Maria pretty much right away and Gavin does not take it well. The majority of Year 1 is spent on Gavin and Rain repairing their strained friendship after years apart from one another. That begins here, with Gavin confronting Rain about her identity.

Gavin’s super upset about the whole deal, but Maria and Rudy are some of Rain’s biggest shooters going forward. Even if they can ask a LOT of invasive questions.

If I’m being completely honest, there’s no MAJOR developments in Chapter 2. Fara gets a call from Rain’s older Sister about how their older Brother hasn’t talked to either of them in forever. This lays a few seeds for later events, but it is PRETTY unimportant for a while. There’s some really good emotional dialogue in it though.

In Chapter 3, Rudy’s meddling directly causes Rain and Gavin to reconcile. They have a discussion about how the reason she never told him was just that she was scared to lose her only friend.

MEANWHILE, in an attempt to make some actual friends, Fara reaches out to her neighbors and meets Ky(lie) and Heather Coven, a Gender Ambiguous Teen who goes to a different high school and her less approving older sister.

Kylie, also known as Ky, swaps gender presentations incredibly frequently, not really showing any bias for one or the other. So do not expect me to be consistent with their pronouns. Their gender is kinda messy. Almost like he’s some kind of... real person with a real life gender. Crazy.

Anyway, Fara invites them over and she and Heather get drunk, which means she can’t pick up Rain from the mall. Rain needs a place to sleep that night and Gavin invites her to stay with him.

This begins Chapter 4, in which Gavin and Rain realize that things may be different from when they were kids... but there’s a lot that hasn’t changed. Gavin remarks about how much more feminine Rain is than when she was a kid and how that’s WEIRD for him... but they end up playing a game from their childhood pretty much all night. It reminds them of all the good times and ignites within them the hope that they can have MORE good times going forward.

As an adult with friends I’ve had on-and-off relationships to, this speaks to me way more powerfully than ever before. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The next day, during her hangover, Fara sees Rain’s older brother on an ad for a dating website with his new fiance.

And on the way back to her apartment, Rain meets Ky for the first time. Neither one of them is aware that the other one has ANY kind of Gender going on and they won’t be for quite some time.

The chapter ends with Aunt Fara telling Rain about what happened with Aiken.

Chapter 5 is a simple one, Popular prep girl, Emily is giving out invitations to a Halloween party for her “perfect senior year”

Everyone but Rudy gets one, which causes Maria to give Emily a talking to. She assures Maria that he wasn’t intentionally excluded and it definitely wasn’t because he’s the only openly gay student in the whole school.

Oh, also a dude beats Rudy up for that exact reason, earning Maria’s fury later on. Rain invites Ky to come with the rest of them to the party.

Like I said, pretty simple chapter.

The last chapter of year 1 is Chapter 6: Fallen Angel.

Everyone is showing off their Halloween costumes before they leave for the party. Rudy’s reads as a bit insensitive to rain, as he goes as.... a high school girl.

We’ve all heard this one, right? young queer person that wants to toy with their gender expression uses a Halloween costume as an excuse? It can hit different watching your friend do this when you’re a stealth trans person and especially when you’re one as self-conscious as Rain.

When they reach the address for the party, they find out that Emily... has an older Boyfriend. Like, a WAY older boyfriend. Who lets all these literal teenaged children drink at a party in HIS HOUSE.

also he’s dressed as the devil in case you needed any more signals he was BAD NEWS.

This sounds like a good time for an aside: Fara is on a date with someone she met online. He works at a manga translator and offers to get Rain a meeting with her favorite mangaka.

Meanwhile, at the party, Chase seems to recognize Rain from somewhere. What could this mean?

Anyway, remember how I mentioned the underage drinking? Yeah, Rudy is HELLA drunk. And the results are not pretty.

The whole school sees this and is... BAFFLED. Because of course, Rudy is gay. how could he kiss a girl? Did he do it because he was dressed as a girl? Was it the alcohol? was RAIN Gay? Who knows?

The chapter ends on Rain riding home in tears.

Thus ends the first year of Rain.

Art

Ok, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. This art is... not too impressive. Every character looks like they jumped out of a How to Draw Manga book and Rain’s design is VERY 2010. Backgrounds are infrequent and many panels feature just 2 characters next to each other against a flat color.

But I think that’s okay. While the visual design of Rain is not immaculate, it’s certainly passable. Samara had a story to tell and she didn’t let her art hold her back. She just took pen to paper and let it go. As the comic goes along, you can tell she’s trying different things and experimenting with drawing a variety of poses. That said, the art style never really changes at all during the comic’s run.

Pure Unfiltered Story Opinions

Rain was one of the first real queer stories I’d gotten a chance to read. At the ripe, young age of 12, every word of it was unreal to me. A girl like me made REAL friends in spite of it all and got to be who she was. And now, reading it again, it really holds up.

Rain has a depiction of queer friendships that’s very true to a lot of peoples’ lived experience. Not everyone GETS each other, but they try. Sometimes, they ask a stupid-ass question. Sometimes, you get into fights. 

Also, sometimes people in your high school get prayed upon by creepy weirdos in their late 20s who think they can get easy tail from CHILDREN. (Trust, people. This gets addressed. This is NOT a fucking glorification and if anyone in the notes says it is, they’re blocked.)

I look forward to seeing where the comic goes from here and I hope you’re ready to take that journey with me.

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

I’d like to submit a few if you don’t mind.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills (YA coming of age)

Jilted by Lilah Suzanne (adult romance)

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall (YA fantasy)

Rain graphic novels by Jocelyn Samara (also available online at rain. thecomicseries. com) (YA slice of life)

Thank you for these submissions, I added the books to the list :)

[historyhermann]

The Indie Animation Boom Continues in 2022 [part 3]

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs, my History Hermann WordPress blog on Jan. 21, 2023, and Wayback Machine. This was the ninth article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on January 27, 2022.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Notes

[1] Of note are animated series in development like Re: Quest, The Alyssian, Don’t Touch the Props, Bloop and Friends, Gadzooks and the Cryptoid Kids, Project: Tideaway, Please Stay Tuned, Finding Alyx, Bleating Heart, Marabelli: A Scoundrel’s Tale!, Accidental Gehenna!, Hockey, Love, and Guts, The Crystal Eden, Dragon Falls, The Incredible Adventures of Detective Cat, Blackwater Creek, Defender Squad, Framed, Violet, Revamped, Destination Unknown (to be re-imagined), Broken Hearts Club, Alfred the Alien, Zeyka, The Cosmos in Your Eyes, Captain Zero, The Fantastic Warriors (tentative title), Sorein (working title), Royal Pain, Atomic Horseman, Swift Spark and the Defense Five, Space Landers, Crescent Fire, Dark Pages, Crash in the System, The Crystal Eden, and Aleph Stars. 

Additionally, Final Frontier, a sci-fi/dark satire webtoon may be turned into animation if there is enough support. While I would include Fruition of the Damned, the creator of that series, JrRMack, strongly supports NFTs, a morally corrupt cryptocurrency scheme which is harmful to the environment and the livelihood of artists. So, I cannot, in good conscience, support him or his series. The same applies to Roads to Rome, which is also funded by an NFT. Compare this to Whitman, who has said publicly that “NFTs are garbage as is, and you wont find my work involved in them,” as did the official account of Wild Card and the account of Faeduck Studios, which is producing Howdy Cloudboy.

[2] Century Park is said to include Indigenous characters. Christopher Wade noted his film, in development, The Will of Monsters. Jenn noted their indie animation studio, Sunflower Club, and their animatic pilot for The Figments. It is not known the progress of Dark Harvest, with the official account saying that the episode is 45% done, and the show’s creator calls himself an “expert procrastinator.”

The same can be said about Aisle99 which has an inactive YouTube channel, but semi-active Twitter, or CriTORA. The social media accounts for animated series like Harri’s World, Dirt: The Series, Romancing Roslyn Cherry, Phantom Hollow, Deranged, Zoolaplex, Cabiria Intermezzo, Here We Are, and Demonic Crepes (created by Bubblegum Cartoons, and has a pilot in 2019) are inactive.

While there is a listing of those working on the show Mayhem by Magpie V. Raven’s website, she is stepping back to pursue her own projects, like the Kina’s Adventure series while Sir Mayhem / Paul may continue the series after the animated film Mayhem Zombie Oblivion premieres. Raven is also an artist for Lackadaisy, Mystery Skulls, Ollie & Scoops, and more.

The pilot episode of Stars Align has been written, and it will “premiere when completed on YouTube,” with characters redrawn, people cast for roles, in a series with The Owl House and Infinity Train vibes. It is possible that Sara Eissa’s Astur’s Rebellion might be pitched somewhere again, as that animation is now under a company named Toon Cave, according to the updated website.

[4] The author of the webcomic based on the series, Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick, said that there was a number of reasons for the series ending, but said that “the very short answer…is that things just kinda weren’t working out” and called it “a bummer,” but is trying to look at the positive here.

[5] Cirque Du Monstro (CDM) is an additional series which fell apart, but for different reasons than Rain. The CDM Twitter account was deleted. The YouTube channel is empty. The creator, Krisis, seems to have scammed those who wanted to work with them, and sexually assaulted (and harassed) people, according to animators and storyboarders. For information on the latter, see Céline Heijnen’s thread beginning here, Bakakoujin’s tweet (and tweet thread), Antonia Pinnola’s Facebook post, and other tweets. Even a month before the tweets in December 2021, various animators promoted the show. According to a private tweet of Krisis‘s account, M0nsterParent, on December 8, 2021, the “CDM crew has been officially disbanded” and the animation is no longer being made. This is unfortunate because I felt that the project had some promise. Animators like Shou Tuzi (creating Tallyho!) stepped away from any affiliation with the show or the company producing it, 3M Productions, as did voice actor Mark Allen Jr.

[anameistoohard]

Do you remember the first time you saw good trans representation in a piece of media? I don't mean good if you squint hard enough rep, I don't mean headcanon "rep", or character had to cross-dress because of Antics™ rep. I mean a story where you could say "Not only is this character definitively, canonically trans, but when I engage with this story I feel like it's speaking to me directly even though I know that it isn't." A story that makes you feel heard. A story that makes you feel, well, represented.

I had seen some things that were good trans stories, but they didn't really resonate with me in that way. The first story to hit me like that was Rain by Jocelyn Samara. Even though, at the time, we had shared very few experiences with Rain, it still spoke to us.

We were having a hard time putting into words why IitS was making us so emotional and I think I figured it out. It's the system rep equivalent of Rain for us. The first story to make us say "Even though our experiences aren't the same, I still feel seen."

Thank you for making this, Fae 💜

Intruder in the System, the final page ^^ tommrow I'll upload the whole thing in one big upload for y'all 💜💗

[momofmysquad]

Rain by Jocelyn Samara 

[qasian-tech-support]

Hi.

Please read the webcomic Rain.

That is all for now.