#ah an ask!

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[slushy-sash]

very important research

[fashion-runways]

ROBERT WUN Couture Spring/Summer 2024 if you want to support this blog consider donating to:ko-fi.com/fashionrunways

[were-wolverine]

jason, coming back from the dead and seeing tim as robin: how could bruce replace me? how could he give robin to someone else?

dick, who created robin in honor of his dead parents and then had bruce take it away and give it to jason without even asking him:

[fernsnailz]

my comic from the @neverturnbackzine! truly one of my favorite zines i've been a part of :]

some extra insight/fun facts about the process of this piece below the cut 💥💥💥

posting pieces from collaborative zines is always something i struggle with because i look back and think of how i would do things differently now, but i learned a lot working on this comic and even developed some style techniques that i still use!

Fun Fact 1: the panel where shadow Fucking Disintegrates That Guy is technically traditionally drawn! i couldn't get it right in clip studio so i just started frantically scribbling in a notebook and got it eventually lol

highly highly recommend scribbling stuff out in a notebook, scanning it on your phone, and then dropping it into a canvas to edit later if you ever have trouble sketching something.

Fun Fact 2: a lot of the overlay/background effects were made in Kid Pix Deluxe 3D. i created a whole collection of various textures/abstract effects for this comic that i've been using in my art since last year. you can even find them scattered through my team dark zine lol. here's a few of them:

similarly, the background at the bottom of page 2 is actually a warped photo i took of a bunch of headphone wires. this is the original:

Fun Fact 3: i made this comic during a very busy and wild period of time last year so this is what the final panel looked like for a while before i fully finished it LMAO

ok yay thanks for reading bye

[ask-the-pioneer]

Oh hey, there's a poppy corn plant over there!

[spadillelicious]

WAIT WAIT WAIT-

So Sun is taking us home,right?

HOW DOES HE KNOW WHERE WE LIVE??😱

Oooor did he knew from the very beginning of their friendship and reader just told him where they lived in case of an emergency.

Oooooor I am just missing something.

Either way I am intrigued in whatever story you're going with.

But you know what? I'd be kinda funny if he didn't knew the location and then realized he has no fricking idea in hell where to go💀

I'm imagining it went more or less like this after Chapter 15:

He had no idea. (Luckily he managed to shake you awake for long enough to mumble your adress. You don't remember this happening though.)

[bamsara]

As a writer who doesn't often read other fics because of personal preferences, but also to focus on my own and spend a lot of time writing something completely to my own exact tastes instead I gotta ask

(This is specifically about long-fics, but short fics can work too)

Personally, I have specific preferences/squicks that make it hard for me to read certain things and prefer to write what I like instead of looking for it in other places (That's not to say that it can't be found! I just find writing it to be a lot more satisfying)

[yuviur]

Summer vacation, 4am.

Tons of easter eggs in this one! Click the image to find them (and for better quality ofc)

Close ups and process shots under the cut, description in alt text

[wyervan]

👁️ 👁️ hey. I love your creepy moon

hey. i think he likes you too.

[nibbelraz]

You don't understand how much I actually love you shang siblings au!

And it's funny that all it took for og!sqh to survive is a little sibling. Just, "you wouldn't kill a guy who's also a father, would you my king?"

If someone kidnapped airplane, how would og sqh react?

Ah I'm so glad you do!!! They're so cute like a wide eyed little airplane going around the world spouting the most nonsensical things known to man while also saying some things absolutely NO ONE knows but iy somehow is true??? All while the OG dots on his weird little brother, who he would do anything for, anything.

Of course he'll get you that double chocolate chip ice cream, once he can find it. Also Airplane talking about all the games he used to play so OG the master of lying is just guessing on what they are

"Playing Minecraft" is going outside to dig holes and chop some things

[technically-human]

The hug!!

This one was once again commissioned by our dear @i-am-as-normal-as-you-are and we actually talked about this scene quite a lot. Charles is still going through it, and he doesn't even feel like he should be getting the hugs he needs. Poor boy.

[originalartblog]

Tiny skk adventures!

not like they're also cranky and tired and touch-starved

[pokeberry5]

ignore this if you want

what if Tim with Cat paws

or a little paw print on his cheek

sorry I'm just still obsessed with the booping from yesterday

i remember seeing a batman design where his gauntlets had paw beans for grip, so >:3c

[comicaurora]

Do you have any advice for trying to avoid ripping off other people's works in original stories? I've been stuck in a weird writers block where anything I do to try and string plots together end up just being plots of other stuff I've read. Is that a problem you've come across before?

Honestly? This might be a hot take, but just get it out of your system. Write the story that's just your three favorite plots in a trenchcoat. Any writing will make you better at writing. To me, this is the storytelling equivalent of doing frame redraws or art style challenges. Art done for practice doesn't need to be free of all influence, and in fact pursuing that total originality is detrimental to the learning process because it forces you to continuously reinvent the wheel.

In my experience, through the process of just writing what you want to write how you want to write it, you'll find both that it's easier to find originality in the execution than you expected, and that originality has very little correlation with what makes a story good. When you go to write the plot you recognize as the plot of something else, you'll probably find yourself making changes. A different character moment to highlight an overlooked concept that spoke to you, a slightly more cruel twist of fate for a character to wrangle. Little original concepts will find their way in, because having ideas is the driving motivator behind creating art. It's always there, even if it's being sneaky or uncooperative.

Most of the time, inspiration is less "this story is good I think I'll replicate it in every detail" and more "I love parts A, B and C of this story, which tells me valuable information about the kinds of story elements I find compelling, which helps me guide my own writing towards things that involve the parts I like most about A, B and C." You'll always be able to recognize your own influences, but from the audience's external perspective, the you-ness that defines your art is much more obvious than it'll ever be to you.

[forgettable-au]

Wait! Isn't there a single person who understands how gaster speaks? Nobody? Really anyone?

Actually Sans can perfectly understand Wingdings and other skeletons could technically also understand him

It's just any other type of monster that wouldn't be able to understand him

Must be frustrating...

But he's got other ways to communicate

He can talk on the regular undertale font all the other characters use for certain amounts of time, if he puts some effort in it

(This is based on the fact that Sans can change font for short periods of time in undertale, so maybe other skeletons can too!

Also, in Deltarune, the voice we assume is Gaster is talking in the regular undertale font, not wingdings.)