#a comic is a huge undertaking

[sticksandsharks]

congratulations to the newly wed couple

thank you to everyone who has not only purchased the comic, but also had kind words to say in tags and through asks!! I am away for holiday for most of this month, and I have been/will be largely offline on account of this*-- but please know that my heart is incredibly full to know people like this story!!

(*any posts that go up here have been scheduled before I left)

A few recurring questions I'll answer here real quick:

Will Sacred Bodies have a physical print? Yes! I would like to self-publish this book after the fair is concluded and sell it at conventions and through my online store.

What are the Ba'It based off of? Their body/limb plan is based on pteradons!! with some bat and bird anatomy thrown in. Garaang are semi-bipedal so that makes the silhouette even weirder, but you see some quadrupedal stances in the comic and it might make more sense then. I don't want to post or talk too much about some of the minutae of their design, as it is part of the story itself. :}

What medium did you use for the comic? It's all digital; I used Clip Studio Paint to draw the entire thing. I use the base watercolour and design pencil brushes that come with the programme. How long did it take you to make the comic? It's a little hard to estimate-- initial ideas, visdev and writing drafts were intermitent at the start of the year; once I landed on the story, finalising the script would've taken no longer than a week of recurring writing and editing. It's the actual drawing that takes forever, unfortunately. I started thumbnailing around April, and pencilling, colours and painting were a 10-11 hour work-day commitment for most of June and July. (I lost a lot of work-time in May cause I fell ill, womp womp). I'd probably say it was 4 - 5 months of labour. Are you going to write more stories in this world? I would really like to! I have a lot of ideas rattling in my head for the Valley of the World-- the place that the folk of the Spire have escaped. That being said, I have a whole graphic novel to finish first! It has been pushed back on account (but not exclusively because) of me working on my SBCF entries the last couple years, and I don't want to neglect it any further!! (it's 350+ full colour pages though so it was always going to be a huge undertaking)

Thank you again for the outpouring of enthusiasm and support; it means the world!

[goldpilot22]

added alt text to the first 5 pages of memory wipe round!

[morningnoodles]

@bagginshieldweek24: June 30 - Sky

“Hush, beloved. It doesn't matter to me how many summers I live to return: this one summer we have entered eternity.”

— Louise Glück, The White Lilies

day: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 // ao3

thank you so much for reading this little self-indulgent comic of mine (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) big thanks to @bagginshieldweek24 for this wonderful event! i'm going to take a quick break before my next little project but it's definitely not as huge an undertaking as this one haha

also i lied there's going to be one last little strip set in this world (an omake/extra/epilogue if you may) before i officially call it complete. i'll have it out before the end of the week. ☆

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Really hope I don't come off as critical but is there a reason why you post the comic on Tapas (and sorta Tumblr) exclusively? Maybe it's just my experience I feel like Webtoon gets more traffic? Is there a notable difference in environments (I have noticed that Webtoon is a lot more unforgiving towards fan projects) or is it a kinda "if it ain't broke situation. (which would then lead me to ask why you originally started in tapas)"

Sorry if it's a loaded ask, I'm just genuinely curious. Also, I'm surprised by how fast the new season came out! Maybe it's just me but it didn't feel like that long of a wait between seasons. Love it though <3

I'll be honest, I don't remember the SPECIFIC reason.... but I think that, back when I started to post the comic, I tried both Webtoons and Tapas and found the Webtoons uploading UI much more troublesome. Tapas allowed me to upload episodes with relatively little trouble - meaning in full batches. It would auto-organize them into the correct order so long as I had the files numbered properly. It also streamlined the thumbnail process, etc.

Later on, I stuck with Tapas because... they were actually quite kind to me! They offered help if I had bugs or issues, and they had a reward program to encourage consistent posting. I've never personally had anything bad to say about them. And yes, I'd heard that at the time, Webtoons was getting a bit weird with fan made transformative content.

Webtoons may get more traffic but re-uploading over 200 comics onto ANOTHER website felt like a huge undertaking that I just never wanted to bother with. I understand that reasonably... it would have been good to do both... but... I don't really feel the need to? Tapas doesn't require login to read and that's good enough for me.

[smudgeandfrank]

When I tell you this cancelation has made me want to draw a comic of what I imagined OFMD S3 could be more than ever before, I'm so dead serious. 😂🖤

Not sure if I could ever find the time, as it would be a huge undertaking... But man, it's tempting. 🖤

[blueberry-lemon]

An introductory guide to getting into Sonic the Hedgehog...

…if you're a grown-ass adult who is busy and doesn't want to play a bunch of video games but thinks the characters look sorta cool.

If you've ever been curious about Sonic as a series but haven't known where to start, I have some recommendations! I think Sonic is a cool and still somewhat unique thing because it takes cartoony characters (like a Mickey Mouse or Felix the Cat) and lets them jump around in cool action sequences through the lens of a shonen anime. It's colorful and usually pretty light-hearted, and I think the character designs are pretty iconic.

There's two handy places you can start without prior context, to see if it's something you'd be into...

Getting Started: If You Wanna Read Something

The IDW Sonic Comics

There were years of different Sonic comics back in the '90s and early 2000's, but the franchise got a complete reboot and fresh start with IDW Publishing in 2018. If you're looking for the most straight-forward way to get into this world of characters, I think this is a great start. You don't need any prior knowledge whatsoever to crack open issue 1 and get started. All you need to know is "Sonic and his friends protect the world by fighting against an evil scientist named Dr. Eggman, who they just recently defeated after he briefly took over the world."

I love these comics and I feel that the writers and artists who work on it have a really good sense for this series. Reading issues 1 through 12 will get you the first major story arc. If you like it so far, I highly suggest reading up through issue 32, when another major story arc concludes. After that, the world's your oyster! Unlike the tangled web of Marvel or DC comics, IDW Sonic has a very simple and linear reading order. You pretty much just read the issues in order, and occasionally there are spinoff stories that are optional to read.

Getting Started: If You Wanna Watch Something

Sonic Mania Adventures

Maybe comics aren't your thing and you want something even quicker. These are a series of animated shorts that are lovely. Conveniently, they've been compiled together by Sega into one little video right here.

It's a great intro to some of the main characters, and combines cartoon slapstick with some amazing action sequences.

There's also a nice little epilogue short.

Sonic CD's intro cutscene

If I had to pick a single 1-and-a-half minute clip to embody what I like about this series, it would be this very simple intro movie that plays before Sonic CD. Check it out!

Sonic Origins/Sonic Origins Plus Cutscenes

In 2022, Sega released a compilation of the classic Genesis games on modern consoles. In it, they added a few animated cutscenes. You can watch those cutscenes, plus the Sonic CD intro and the Sonic Mania Adventures episodes, all compiled into one handy Youtube video.

Taking The Next Step: If You Wanna Read Something

The Archie Sonic Comics

You might have heard that Sonic had a comic series published by Archie Comics from 1992 to 2016. This was a vast, overarching series that wrote an original story by weaving together ideas from the different Sonic cartoons and games. It went through several different writers, many different artists, and obviously spanned over multiple eras of pop culture.

It's pretty cool! The fact that it was so long-running, and the fact that Sega wasn't very strict with what the writers could do, led to a lot of buckwild lore, new characters, and plot developments. That said, it's also pretty bizarre, complicated, corny, and cringey at times. There is a stretch in the middle that is pretty infamous among fans.

You have a few options for jumping in.

Option A: You can start at the very beginning and read all of it. If you do this, it is going to be like a One Piece / Homestuck / etc. kind of undertaking, and you're going to be pushing through the good and the bad of huge genre and tone shifts. That's your call!

Option B: You can brush up on the main characters on a wiki and then start at Issue 160, when Ian Flynn (who now does a lot of work on IDW Sonic) became the lead writer. More specifically, you can jump in at the start of a new story arc by starting at Issue 175.

Option C: You can start at Issue 252, when there is a universe-altering event that essentially retcons all of the characters and plot threads from the previous writers and starts completely fresh. Easier to keep track of and you won't have to worry about all the previous plot and lore.

If you want something you can read in a single sitting, you should instead read Sonic: Mega Drive, a short-lived miniseries published by Archie that follows "Classic Sonic" characters (aka, the same vibe and art style of Sonic Origins, Sonic Mania Adventures, etc.) It's really great!

Taking The Next Step: If You Wanna Watch Something

Sonic the Hedgehog (OVA) aka "Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie" (1996)

This is, essentially, a 1-hour Sonic anime movie. You can watch it in Japanese or in English. I adore it. It makes up its own lore and continuity so you don't need to know anything before going in, besides generally knowing a one-sentence synopsis of who Sonic, Tails, and Dr. Robotnik are. It's action-packed, well-animated, and has great music. Enjoy! Sonic X If you're enjoying what you've seen so far, and you want something much, much longer...there's an official 78-episode anime adaptation of Sonic called Sonic X. It's an original story that loosely pulls together some ideas from a few of the games. It's mostly intended for a younger audience, but I hear if you watch it in the original uncut Japanese, it feels a little less "for kids."

Other Ways To Get Into Sonic

There's some great video essays on Youtube about the series!

Professional animator Dan Floyd did an in-depth video looking at the highs and lows of Sonic character animation in the games starting from Sonic 1 up through Sonic Forces.

Super Bunnyhop plays through the first level of a bunch of Sonic games to compare how the mechanics, physics, and level design feel throughout the games' history.

Liam Triforce has a great deep dive on the franchise's music.

You can play The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, a murder-mystery-party themed visual novel put out by Sega. It's nice and short, so you can finish it in an afternoon.

If you haven't seen them already, you can check out the live-action/animated hybrid films Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 featuring Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey, they're pretty good. That Sonic Prime cartoon that's currently on Netflix is pretty good too.

This may sound strange, but honestly you might enjoy poring over the sprite sheets from the old games. In particular, I really like the sprite animations from the GBA games, like Sonic Advance and Sonic Battle.

Sega is pretty lax about allowing noncommercial fan games, so there's at least a hundred different Sonic fan games out there by hobbyist developers. Check out the Sonic Amateur Games Expo and the Sonic Fan Games HQ.

You can watch LPs or cutscene compilations of the games on Youtube! If you watch Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Heroes, you'll get a crash course on most of the characters.

And finally, of course...you can play the games if you want to! There's a number of them that are available on Steam, Switch, Xbox, and Playstation if you don't have access to older consoles.

There's a lot of different angles to come at Sonic as a franchise, and lots of different entry points. Have fun!

[snailstep-and-her-clan]

So how did Tuliptail die and how did her parents react? Also do they have anymore kids?

This has been in my inbox for a while because I needed to figure out how to approach it.

I know the people who follow blogs like mine are mainly here for the pretty pictures, but a comic seemed like such a difficult undertaking for this particular part of the story.

And even though I am a writer, I haven't had a lot of energy to write these days even though I know exactly how this would play out...

So lets try a very bare bones script like how I would format the dialogue in my comics !

Here goes:

The Carrion Place

*Snail and Tulip are on a hunt together as new warriors. they pause at the top of a steep hill overlooking the carrion place (dump/scrapyard)*

Snailstep: Do you remember the scary stories Magpieleap would tell during leafbare when we were little?

Tuliptail: You mean about the rat king?

Snailstep: That's the one. Do you think it's real?

*the two of them stare down in silence for a moment before Tuliptail starts to climb her way down the hill.

Tuliptail: Well, only one way to find out!

Snailstep: Huh? wait- what are you doing?! We've been told to never go in there!

Tuliptail: Yeah, when we were apprentices! but we're warriors now.

Snailstep: So what? not even the senior warriors go in there! you can get cut up by twoleg rubbish and you can't even hunt the rats because they just make everyone sick, remember?

Tuliptail: who said anything about hunting them? I just want to have a look around. You don't have to come if you're going to be a mouseheart. *passes the threshold of the wide open chain link gate*

*snailstep hesitates, looking anxious and frustrated, before following after her sister, ears flat and tail bristling*

*as the two girlies vanish into the junkyard, the ghost of Firebright follows after them*

*Tuliptail is curiously sniffing and messing around with random scrapped items, meanwhile Snail is looking tense and glancing around*

*A rat skitters past, knocking several things down a huge pile of junk and Snail jumps back, arching her back*

Snail: That rat was the size of an apprentice!

Tuliptail: really? I must have missed it.

Snailstep: Look, we've had a look, can we go now? this place stinks of rats and twoleg filth, and it's giving me the creeps!

Tuliptail: The creeps? come on, its smells but it's not like there's anything to really be scared of so far.

Snailstep: It just feels like we're being watched, and I don't-

*more twoleg junk crashes and clatters, making both cats jump. there is a dark hollow in the rubbish, and Tuliptail slowly approaches it. Snailstep hesitates, but takes a few steps forward*

*the ghost of Firebright suddenly appears beside her (Nelly's ghost in the car in haunting of hill house style), screaming* RUN!!!

*the rat kind emerges, a great swarming pile of rats that descends upon the two cats, overwhelming them*

*fighting off any rats that attack them, the two she-cats flee blindly into the dump, pursued by a mod of large rats, Firebrights ghost running alongside Snailstep*

*as snailstep runs, she passes a dog house, and the junkyard dog lunges from the darkness, snapping at her. Tuliptail launches herself onto the dogs face before it can do anything. a two leg sitting on the porch drinking a can of beer stands up, shouting as the two cats keep running. The dog is chained and cannot follow, straining at its chain and snapping. The two leg grabs a shotgun and aims at the fleeing cats*

*there's a loud explosion sound, and Snailstep keeps running and running until she's far into shadowclan territory unable to run anymore. she looks around and realizes that Tuliptail is no where to be seen. Snailstep yells for her, frantically searching (think Bambi when his mom died)*

*back at the carrion place, the twoleg grabs the lifeless body of a cat and throws it into the piles of filth. when he's gone, the rats begin to creep out from hiding to inspect it*

How did the parents react?

Something like this:

But also have some actual writing:

Duskheart sat at the gnarled roots of the great oak, his stiff shape blocking the entrance to Cherrystar's den like a heavy stone. He greeted her approach with one terse sentence.

"Cherrystar doesn't wish to see anybody."

Not even me? The words died in Snailstep's throat. Duskheart's hard, unreadable face told her the answer.

"Oh. Ok." As Snailstep turned away in defeat, tail dragging in the dust, she felt Duskheart's cold blue eyes fixed on her back.

He wishes it had been me instead. The thought pricked her like thorns, and she flinched. Duskheart may not be a demonstrative mate or father, but Tuliptail had been his kit. He must resent Cherryspeckle's adopted kit for surviving when his own blood had not.

***

"Have you eaten?" Duskheart's voice pulled Snailstep from the deep dark hole that had been steadily swallowing her up. Her former mentor stood over her, glaring down at her.

"I- I'm not hungry."

"I didn't ask if you were hungry, I asked if you'd eaten."

"no." Snailstep scored her claws into the dark soil, looking away.

Duskheart turned and padded away without another word. Snailstep curled back into a tight ball and closed her eyes.

The feel of fur pressed against her back and the scent of sparrow made her look up. Duskheart was laying beside her, shoving the bird under her nose with a paw. "Eat."

She shoved it away irritably. what was his problem? "I said I wasn't hungry."

"Mousefang told me you've not had a meal in almost two days. Eat."

Why does anyone care?

"Just give it to the queens or something." Snailstep turned her back on him, rolling back into a ball like a pillbug.

"Are you ill?" Duskheart asked curtly. "Do you need Mousefang to check on you?" She could hear the vaguest hint of sarcasm in his mew.

"Leave me alone Duskheart." She growled. "You're not my mentor anymore."

"But I'm your father."

His words made her sit up and stare at him. To her even further confusion and amazement, Duskheart leaned forward, awkwardly licking her between the ears.

"Cherryspeckle and I have already lost one daughter." He murmured in his low, cold voice. "I have no intention to sit idly by while our other one starves herself to death."

Snailstep tried to choke back a sob but failed. Duskheart continued to silently groom her as the tears welled up and spilled out onto her paws.

[its-malarkey]

Currently thinking about IDW Megatron. I haven’t read all of the comics but I’ve heard that the end of his arc is a trial that doesn’t tell you what his sentence is— prison or execution— but his arc is beyond amazing. They take this criminal, this violent warlord, and they make him face his crimes and make him a person to you. Everything he did to harm the universe gets kinda shunted to the side in your head because look, he’s got such a fun relationship with the other characters on the Lost Light. It’s funny to watch him interact with idiots and to get involved in their shenanigans. He’s become such a good guy!

Then they hit you with everything he’s done. Transformers lore is beyond complicated and difficult to explain but there’s a planet where the Cybertronian grim reaper lives and there’s a statue for every Cybertronian who has ever lived. Around each statue, there are flowers made of residual spark energy— I believe each flower takes ten or so sparks to make. These flowers represent every life that has ended by the hand or order of that Cybertronian. The crew of the Lost Light visit this planet.

This is Megatron’s statue.

You’re faced dramatically with the full impact of what he’s done, how many Cybertronians he’s killed— I don’t know for sure if this includes other beings in the kill count, but this alone… is daunting. He feels remorse, but is that enough? Can any one person make that decision? Do you, the reader, have any right to decide that someone this covered in the blood of his victims can live or die?

They heal him and what hurts most of all is that you can’t decide even after everything he’s done and everything he’s done to redeem himself. He proves over and over again that he’s changed, but where is the point where your sins are beyond true redemption? Is there such a point? Does he have the right to live and enjoy being the better person he’s become after so many have died at his hand?

You don’t want him to die, but you can’t justify him living once he finally faces judgment. You can’t be the hand that either deals justice or withholds it, and evidently the writers decided they can’t be either, because this is the end of his arc

IDW Megatron is such a wonderfully complex character, and even though it was a huge undertaking to read up to where I did (my ass did NOT finish those comics lmao), it’s been four years and I’m still shaken over how he was written. God

[ponett]

Is the TKP revival and accompanying video essay still in the cards for this year?

They are. They're just not my focus right now, because they'll be a huge undertaking. I'm probably going to have to reread not only the entire TKP archive but also all of Ken's actual Sonic comics as a refresher before I can make any real progress on the video or resume regular updates. It's been anywhere between five and ten years since I last read any of Ken's Sonic comics, and I don't want to just recycle things I said on the blog in my 20s in the video. There are things I missed, and things I would articulate differently at age 30 than I did at age 20. All this will take some time. But, I mean, the year's not even halfway over

In the meantime, I'm working on a long piece about both the original FF7 and Rebirth, which is taking longer than I'd hoped because I'm making very slow progress with Rebirth. And for TKP, I know I'll have to write something about the Knuckles show this week, and after that I still have a half-finished review of Sonic Dream Team, and I might post something about the Fang miniseries as well

[ebirdwatching]

update

hi. i know i don't post as much as i used to, and part of that has to do with my wrist. it hasn't gotten worse, but even after last year's surgery, i'm pretty much permanently limited in how much art i can make -- one big project at a time is as much as i can handle. for the past year, my one big project has been my undergrad thesis.

and it's now complete!

my thesis is an original 19-page comic in full color. it's called VITA and you can read it if you'd like. go to https://vitacomic.com/ and hit "first" or click the link below the cover here for page 1.

VITA is about a space probe that discovers something alien on a remote world. it's my second completed comic, uh, ever. i think it's cool. this blog is supposed to be for fanart but since i don't have a dedicated account for original work yet, i'm sharing the product of my huge undertaking here lol.

i just finished my degree, so i'm in a transition period now. i'd like to make art for a living, and set up some stuff online to do that. i need to figure out a way to make a sustainable living as an artist with what i guess is a disability. that means passive income, probably.

i fully intend to make more comics, which ideally would be part of that. that includes the strange journey fan project -- which, because of scope and now ability, may not be feasible to finish; i plan to at least make the introductory sequence, and i'm kicking around the idea of maybe making the rest of the story as a (free) VN. if i can do that without getting c&d'd. i'm also thinking about some other things -- i have some short-ish fancomic ideas that have been rattling around in my head. i'm also working on some other original stuff with a friend. when i have more material to share, i'll start posting it on a separate account for original art and link that here.

thanks for reading. i started this art account around when i began college and it's been cool to share my work in a space that's not fine art school, lol. i hope to post more soon :)

[a2zillustration]

Do you think you'll chronicle any further runs after you finish with Croissant? I'd be interested to see your take on things that they didn't encounter, like the Dark Urge and Companion Minthara

Probably not! I've loved making the Croissant comics, but it's been a huge undertaking and it's been basically the only thing I've drawn for months now. I don't know if I'd be ready to document an entire run a second time, BUT there's definitely the opportunity for some drawings/one-offs for any future runs I might do.

[ikimaru]

Not everyone in comics does the webtoons thing where it's just one person doing everything lol It's extremely common in the comic industry to have an art director, writer, artist, letterer, flatter, colorist, etc each given their own part. Usually they have strict deadlines so makes sense to split it up, but it's totally normal to feel like you couldn't make a comic on your own. Feel like that's a big ask of u. That's a freakin lot of work lol But it'd be cool to see your style in a full comic!!

oh yeah I know! webtoon originals does that too btw, providing assistants

but I was thinking more in terms of "how would one put together a team like that and we make our own deadlines" rather than that or a publisher lool but would be really hard to manage even in terms of payments etc so eh

honestly doing 1-2 pages a week solo is not TOO bad, ik some comic ppl do it, but in the end it all comes down to how motivated you are to working on it in the long run/if you have a drawing process fast enough to pull it off, long term comics are a huge undertaking regardless, it's why so many get dropped (and thank u, I hope I can do it someday!)

[venomcasserolecomic]

"Across the dead sea where slain gods lay, a beacon of souls marks the way. If you can live through the perilous journey and pass the fields of god-slain poison, there lives The Keeper. Slay them and be granted a wish." Everyone knows the legend but only one man dares to chase it down. Follow Rider on his perilous journey to meet the Keeper, a mysterious being who lives deep within the dried ocean bed.

Hey friends, the 17th is here and that means viewing (and voting) in the 2024 Global Comic Awards is now FINALLY open to the public! (until Dec 1st) This was a huge undertaking for me and I'm really proud of the result despite having a limit on how many pages we were allowed. To get to my little mini comic you can either click the picture above or go here-- https://en.mangadraft.com/comics/the-last-wish

And a big thank you to my friends and spouse who kept up the encouragement while I was creating it. I really couldn't have finished all of it without y'all's hype.

If you'd prefer to simply look at the various comics of the contest you can click ->here<- to see all comic submissions.

(As for Venom Casserole, semi-regular updates should resume soon. I've been having a bit of a depression issue after the events of earlier Nov. but I'm trying to get back on my feet. Thanks yall. )

[imsailorpluto]

So I've finally finished Bloodhounds (+ ahjussi collection)

...and I have no idea where to start and what to say and how to feel.

No, wait, please hear me out.

It was b l o o d y and at parts a very difficult watch, as it has lots of explicit fighting scenes, which look extremely realistic and cruel. So cruel that I had to close my eyes and not watch, I even skipped many & i'm not sorry. However, there are also parts so heartwarming that it makes you forget about all the crimes and gore for a moment. So, it's up to you to decide if it's worth the struggle. Since the violence could be a bit too much for many, let's just say I do and don't recommend this one at the same time. Personally, one of things I greatly enjoyed is the subtle comic tone of Gun-woo's and Woo-jin's interactions with each other and their characters which represent people doing sports professionally so well, the purity of their hearts and lack of malice in everything they do, since they truly do live for the sports. Then there are two absolutely powerful and skillful young women, Hyeong-ju and Da-min, playing such important roles in the entire series, each of them individually contributing so much to the entire plan of bringing the bad guys down and saving what could still be saved. And also, one of the most enjoyable parts were definitely the bonds that came out of these newly formed friendships. Younger acting crew did an amazing job. In comparison to the older and experienced ahjussi crew (I'll get to them in a bit), they've got some serious talent. It must have been a huge undertake for both Woo Do-hwan and Lee Sang-yi to live up to the expectations of the entire team behind this drama. And they did it. They absolutelly slayed.

If you still haven't watched this drama, trust me when I say these two cinnamon rolls will instantly win your heart right at the beginning of the first episode. They're like the most perfect two besties you'd want to be besties with too. And yeah, you'll suffer thru all the horrors just to see them win the biggest battle of their lives. Gosh, every time I tried typing something coherent about them it just ended up being lots of crying shaking throwing up. They're the best, ok? And this is best I can do. ╥﹏╥

And while our marine boys scratched so many itches around this platform, I have to mention the absolute gentlemen that starred in this series and swept me off my feet *deepest sigh ever*

So many great actors took part in Bloodhounds, it's hard to believe my own eyes at times. Whoever was in charge of the casting did a killer job. I couldn't even take the bad guys seriously because they're freakishly handsome. Well, at least not until Kim Myung-gil brutally ended my favourite ahjussi trio damn you ep 6

What started as an obsession over two young marine guys and their bromance ended up as a hole in my heart over downfall of three middle aged criminals men and a will to trade all the money and gold bars for their lives. And more importantly, a huge appreciation for Korean actors over the age of 40.

No, let's be real. They're handsome and talented and great at their job and deserve all the love and support. With that in mind... here's a tiny screenshot dump because it would be a shame not to post it:

And I want to be normal about them and move on in peace but *internal screams* I've already mentioned Lee Hae-young in one of my earlier posts, addressing my obsession with the character he portrays, the sushi restaurant owner Hwang Yang-jung. And I know many people are obsessed with him too. But no one is speaking up. Which is silly. And tbh I really thought there would be more gifs of him and other men but...there's close to none? Can we talk about how fine this man is? How fine this whole ahjussi crew is? Can we... can we just acknowledge they sliced us all in tiniest pieces possible and burned us all till we turned into charcoal? Can we make a mess of kdrama side of tumblr by excessively posting about them? Pretty please?

It's true, I came for the boys, but stayed for these men. I'm not even joking when I say kdrama has me in a chokehold again, but this time for a whole new reason. Dropping everything just to watch series and movies these guys took part in sounds like the best idea at the moment. I even forgot about the new releases I started watching, which makes me laugh at myself, but... it is what it is. At some point, a girl just has to obsess over her favourite ahjussi, and that's okay.

[aur0raaura]

Sygna Suit...Chibis!! ✨

I haven't done a chibi style in a hot minute- so why not practice with the twins and the dragons!

It's been a while since I've drawn these clothing designs eh? To think I designed these...almost a year ago?! I drew these basically cuz of an idea I had in mind for a while... but I'll be placing that little side project on hold while I work on other illustrations and the next AU comic! (Look forward to that, my fellow followers! It's slowly coming together.) While the twins were relatively easy to figure out how to draw em, the challenge was making both reshiram and zekrom chibi sized- to which i based it off their poke doll designs! thank god there was actual images of the tags used for those plushies...

I hope you all enjoy this! I'll soon start tackling a piece relating to the comic...which will certainly be one huge undertaking- but hopefully I won't take TOO long. All I ask is for your patience as always!

[ezrazone]

making this non-rebloggable and may delete it, but i do want to talk about my first experience as a literary critic because i think it matters despite my wanting nothing to do with the subject of the piece for as long as i live. this is not a callout or a call to action. please be advised to leave this guy alone. i can forgive them now that their behavior towards me has stopped.

this past winter, ahead of my first article as a comics critic, i very naively hoped to have a conversation with another cartoonist about the philosophical ideas their latest book is wrestling with. i ended up having a tense but respectful discussion with the author, which they then chose to lie about to both their twitter audience for sympathy and then in outrage via emails to my editor at the online journal in hopes of having me blacklisted or getting the review censored or scrubbed. it went nowhere (except a small handful of petty comments on the article itself, parroting the version of events that the author invented for twitter) and an internal investigation at the journal, which yielded the obvious (that the claims were completely fabricated, as evidenced by our written correspondences on either side of an uncomfortable phone-call and the actual review which is critical but not malicious or personal).

i think it’s very easy to get wrapped up in the indignity of the experience and the horror-magnet of this individual personality. i think i got off pretty easy; this is not someone with a great deal of power or influence (i am far from the first person to trigger their tar-pit behavior on twitter), it never followed me to other social media, and i got to keep my article up because it was fair and professional. i still have my job as a freelancer with the journal.

but i think something matters from my experience, beyond the interpersonal confusion - i cannot possibly understand why they behaved the way they did and will lose my mind if i try. but what i do have is new insight into the way that people are prone to covet acceptance via professional work, how the myth of creating something genius in isolation promises to resolve all of your personal and spiritual issues - and how ��bad reception” (or merely insightful reception, or reception you personally disagree with as a creative worker) appears to threaten your safety and your sanity.

being begged by someone who has published multiple substantial graphic novels - achievements i am nowhere close to undertaking myself at this point in my creative development - not to “cancel them” by writing a completely warranted review of their hugely ambitious comics project was like having a bucket of ice water dumped on my own delusions of grandeur. this awful social interaction has begun a chain reaction of ego deaths in me that only seem to accelerate as i wrangle pieces of my health from the jaws of my long covid crash last year.

i cannot possibly care about being Da King of Comics anymore. it’s just fucking comics.

anyways you can read my review on SOLRAD. and you are obviously advised to leave the artist alone. i think it’s very cool, actually, that i was able to walk away from an encounter like that knowing that 1) i treated this person during our actual encounters with respect, compassion, curiosity and consideration and 2) that i would write a fair review no matter how much they thrashed and cursed me and begged me to become a part of their annihilation fantasies. i have never felt more clear on who i am or what my work is capable of.

i hope by sharing about my experience that i do not re-provoke this person, since writing the review at all sent them into a blackout rage of self-pity and entitlement for several weeks. i have never described them publicly as they actually treated me, but i don’t think i’ve become a better person by sitting on it. maybe this can be part of me letting them go.

i still find the book interesting. i could have written an article that was 5x the length of the one on SOLRAD and not even scratched the surface of how meaningful the book is to me. isn’t that kind of sad, that these characters could have lived on through me or through anybody? i could have made comics about it, new drawings and illustrations to heighten the things that worked while acknowledging the things that cannot work.

we are so culturally petrified of subjective audience experiences and transformative work. we are so wedded to our own egos, to being regarded as individually pure and infallible. it’s a huge disservice to the work we actually make, which is so much bigger than this individual’s emotional response to embarrassing themselves in front of a colleague.

they admitted to me over the phone that they had not read any single philosopher name-checked in their book. they had only listened to breadtube playlists. i had not pressed very hard; just listened, just observed them openly. the next four months would be colored by their own horror at this admission of their own incuriosity and what they feared i might do with it. they’d call me an “adult bully” in their twitter takedown, hreatening to “kick their corpse” by calling them “a bigot” and by “refusing to explain why”. i had only accepted them as they were and promised to treat their work with respect and dignity.

i declined, over the phone, to give this person experiencing severe emotional distress a new reading list. they reacted as if, because they perceived me as “knowing better”, i was doing violence to them by not immediately teaching them all that i know. instead, i outright rejected the framing that there was something wrong with their book because they had not “read enough” and instead tended to their emotional well-being, reassuring them that i cared for their future as an artist and took the review seriously. they were able to calm down as we spoke and they thanked me for being a safe person. they seem to have changed their mind later, after the story underwent several escalating permutations.

we’re all doing enough. we can do more, when we accept that our work is already in other people’s hands. my plea to the proto anne rices of the world. rice said she obliterated all of that fan work and fan discussion from the internet with her massive legal financial and social power because she was worried that reading something about her work might cause her writer’s block.

you can make something exceptionally wonderful and it will matter very little if you cannot share it. allow it to be witnessed. allow somebody to disagree with it. make work with the expectation that most people will not understand it. world peace my final message etc