#also i am really proud of the last two panels

[cutieclangen]

Moon 5

Hoooo boy, a busy moon! I have so many LORE THOUGHTS and KNOWLEDGE. What's going on, Sanddapple? 👀

But look at the BABIES. WEE BABS. I love them all so much, especially with their tragic backstory

STINKBUTT. STINK. BUTT. Yes, that's really her name, and yes, she really did choose to keep it. My grumpy old lady. I'd be grumpy too if my name were Stinkbutt, but I mean she chose to keep it so you go girl. She's the prettiest marked cat in the clan and her name is Stinkbutt. I love it here

Inkstripe and Crowheart drama?? I know most of you probably forgot about Inkstripe since he has been determined to be a Background Character but apparently he got pissy about that fact :]

After next Moon update I'll post Moon 6 Allegiances and open up character asks!! So get yer thinkin' caps on because you'll be able to ask any cat 3 moons or older questions in the next week or so c:

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[piccolos-bigtoe]

Posting this here cause it’s been a while since I last posted and I am actually pretty proud of this…. I am making a mock RED brochure for my graphic design class and this is the cover…. I need five more panels I literally spent all of Wednesday working on this because text is my enemy and I am never satisfied with it but like actually taking a break from working on it and looking again later i was like “huh actually that’s not bad.” Sitka banner font easily in my top ten….

I was so proud of it I set it as my phones Home Screen…. Legitimately want to transfer to graphic design but I am torn. I currently am in studio art and have my own personal studio (it is shared between me and three friends tho), if I switch to graphic I lose that, and I really value my space cause I’ve been using it for like,,, four years pretty much (two I would sneak in there before I was in college cause my sibling owned it before I did, these past two it’s been my spot). It has memories and art work (that would REAAALLLYY suck to transport because there are LARGE pieces like LARGE) okau I will be real I am posting and rambling because I am stalling on cleaning my room… I am lazy……. I also just like to talk…. Accidentally woke up at 12 instead of 9 oops…

Work is REALLY gonna pile up this month…. I have a quilt, a weaving, and four papers for one class, my brochure and a 12 month calendar (obvi also gonna be tf2 themed calendar because i am insane…) for graphics, a screen print, and a paper and performance piece for another class… but I will make it thru E Z, after this I’m home free baby, summer is here ‘,B)

[silkscreaming]

I made a volume 10 trimax vash cosplay for MAGfest and I am SO proud of how it came out :) Some process stuff below! Warning for image and text heavy.

Truthfully this cos is only about 85% complete—I’d purchased a bunch of hardware to really go in on a volume accurate version of his undersuit and belts, but simply ran out of time before the con. It was the first cosplay I’ve sewn since 2017 and the first wig styling I’ve done since 2020, so I’m not gonna beat myself up too much!

(This is all purse hardware off Etsy and some buttons from M&J trim)

This was my first time ever making a muslin mock-up, but I knew it was going to be necessary to get the coat to lay the way I wanted it to. I really wanted to try and create proportions that elongated the legs/torso and widened the shoulders by placing the coat tail splits appropriately and raising up the shoulders with some padding. And of course arm and leg details that I’ll get to someday lol.

I created two mock-ups. One of basic muslin that helped me go from an existing pre-bought pattern to something more Vash-shaped, then a second one on a slightly sturdier scrap fabric with my finalized torso proportions with padding so I could accurately pattern out the sleeves and collar.

I was tracing my pattern pieces onto newsprint and vellum as I went, so once all of those were finalized, it was time to cut my fabric! I used a heavy cotton twill from B&J fabrics and two kinds of fusible interfacing from Mood (I’m spoiled by being local to the fashion district these days). A smarter person would have bought a thinner fabric to line the inner torso with, but I did not feel like getting that complicated with my first ever muslin-drafted AND lined project, so I simply cut double of every pattern piece in order to create a lining.

Sleeves were done by interfacing and cutting into a top panel, carefully snipping at the cutout portions, ironing and fabritacking in place, and then top stitching the whole piece to the main sleeve. I later added some leather backing squares and interfacing behind the larger eyelets for aesthetic while keeping the ventilation in tact. Ideally in the future I'll also add a strip of fabric to the gun arm that creates a slight bunching effect since that sleeve is a little more ruffled over the cuff. Photos below also include three shoulder pads pinned together on each shoulder, but I ended up forgetting not using them on my final wear.

Unfortunately at this point I was approaching con time, so I started cutting some corners that I made easily replaceable for future upgrades. The coat tabs are just painted craft foam cut to the size of the buttons, tacked in place where the button pierces through the tab and where it wraps around the edge of the front panel. The straps that attach to the lapel and wrap under the arms also were just decorated with some silver trim instead of hardware, and I skipped the side button panels at his hips for pattern-making simplicity and time. They'll be added later! I'd also love to do some weathering, but don't think I can quite bring myself to riddle the coat tails with bullet holes as some people do haha.

Gun arm attachment was also a quick and dirty addition, just some vinyl trim on eva foam attached with contact cement and a decorative button. First time working with contact cement somehow, but I look forward to also being able to upgrade this at a later date to a more accurate shape with the full belt attachments!

I was also hoping to update the shoes a bit by making some boot covers for them and rub-n-buffing the soles to disguise the platform a bit, but I love my pick for the cleat-look that Vash has! Some good ol' Demonias in classic vash fashion :)

Last but not least: The Wig. My pride and joy.

I got lucky enough to nab an Arda sale, I think right before Halloween, and picked up the Morpheus lace front in black, along with some extra wefts in pale blonde. (I also bought a whole separate pale blonde Morpheus wig, boldly thinking I could swing a normal trimax vash wig lol. It made for a convenient Eriks wig in the mean time.)

Since I was aiming for the end of volume 10 post-Wolfwood death look, I started by trying on the wig, roughly tracing out my hairline, then gently unweaving that portion of black in order to re-ventilate it with blonde.

After I replaced that whole strip of plucked hair, I tried on again to finalize where I needed to ventilate to cover my own hairline, and completed my outline with both blonde and brown-black wefts (i had them on hand lol). All in all, I ventilated more than 4 square inches of blonde, and at least a solid centimeter extension of the black hairline across the whole front of the wig. Probably close to 30 hours of work in the ventilating alone, but I am a little slow since I haven't ventilated in a few years and didn't keep clear track of time.

If there's one thing I should be used to by now about Arda wigs, they are THICK. There is zero teasing in this wig. None. Just got2b, a blowdryer, and a prayer. And a good load of bobby pins. The wig was also sadly a last minute hotel room mad dash, and I do hope to restyle it under less duress, but I do think I successfully achieved the Trimax swoop and am very proud of it! It was unbelievably windy on the walk from our hotel room to MAGfest, so the photos in the start of this post show a bit more droop than my initial styling, but I think I'll be able to touch things up next wear.

And of course, shoutout to my partner for gifting me the official glasses for Christmas :) And thank you to my roommates who barely saw me for a month and a half except for when I needed help with a hem lol.

All in all, I am unbelievably proud of this cosplay, I can't wait to put some more love into it and wear it again!

[loupy-mongoose]

sorry I was just rereading the last part and I am CRYING laughing at mr fuji's expression after akoya switches to mew form when he looks at randall

it's like he's been hit with two of the biggest consecutive curve balls of his life and he just looks at randall like 'IS THERE A ROUND THREE ON THIS BITCH' but also 'if you're seriously just a human i actually have even more questions'

oh my god in a very serious flow of events with the biggest punch to the gut at the end, that panel just made me genuinely laugh out loud so hard

I'm really proud of that panel. X3

[fallenclan]

REALLY ADORE YOUR PANELLING AND PERSPECTIVES IN THE MOST RECENT UPDATE... (I am a cat, but were I a dog, I beg you'd imagine my tail wagging) Two portraits, a close-up, a shot from far above... VERY interested in those feathers, also. Actually the reason I'm writing an ask currently! (Though I do wish Feathersight the best in all things, romance included. It's really endearing, actually...)

This is all to say! Are those feathers, as they fall, iridescent?

(ALSO CONGRATULATIONS RAVENSHADE CHEERING AND APPLAUSE !!! VERY proud. I wonder how Littlepaw feels about it...)

(- 🐈‍⬛)

THANK YOU!!!! I was very proud of the last shot bc I NEVER do perspective without a good reference but I decided to give it a shot and it turned out pretty good! I'm trying to put a little more variety in my paneling, since I think I've become a little too comfortable doing the same 3 poses lmao

(wow those feathers DO look kinda iridescent, huh? weird.......)

and I think Littlepaw is probably very proud of his brother :) I read the two of them as very close, so I figure he and Cloudpaw are some of Raven's biggest cheerleaders

[spacey-xannabelle]

Fateful Encounter...

Last month, at around April 10th, I decided to revisit an old project I started months prior which was to polish up a test sketch of a comic page about Lucy encountering Lumi in the dreamspace. And after slowly making progress on this, I'm finally finished with this!

I'm gonna leave some artist notes under the read more, but overall I'm super proud of how this turned out!! This is pretty much my first serious attempt at making comics in general so this has been a very interesting learning experience!

Artist notes: So this is what the original sketch for this whole thing was. It was just me scribbling out a scene I had in my head for Startrails that I wanted to put on paper:

This I'd say was made around 2020-2021 ish. At the time, I didn't really do much with it. Until several months ago, I thought of trying to redraw this page and expand upon it.

But my first attempt at doing this didn't quite lead anywhere. I barely got through the thumbnailing process and just gave up bc I lost motivation (and life/work stuff was Happening so yea I had to put this aside as I figured stuff out). Here's the first draft of the thumbnails:

It was just two pages at the time and was pretty simple. I left this project sitting in my files for a while until I one day just, started binging videos from Thestarfishface on YouTube, primarily her webcomic guide videos. And I decided I'd give this project another go.

It was here where I began making a second draft of the thumbnails and this was what I had to work with:

I wanted to experiment with the panels and get funky with the compositions this time around. The 2 page draft expanded to a 3 page thing. But I thought it would've been better if I added one more page at the end with Lucy waking up as a conclusion to wrap this whole thing together.

And in the middle of working on page 3, my friend had suggested to do a an impact frame page, which I hadn't considered during the thumbnailing, so 4 pages became 5. And this was the result!

I posted the pages as I finished them onto my deviantart so that's where a lot of my thoughts were journaled as I went along dfjsdh. To summarize my ramblings there, this project was a very fun (and a bit frustrating) learning experience! I'm hoping to keep practicing and improving my workflow, and hopefully one day make Startrails a full fledged webcomic :')

Additional ramblings:

The structure that Lucy finds Lumi in is inspired by an orrery.

For page 5, I initially didn't plan for much dialogue but as I drew it, it felt just a liiiitle bit empty, so I kinda just threw in some dialogue for Mira. But bc I was already in the inking process (and I just wanted to have this project completed), I didn't redo the page to even include Mira in it. So Mira's just out of frame sdfjskdh. If I had more time and energy to keep this up, I'd have made a revision of the page so I could include her.

This experience has taught me that I could seriously work on my rendering process a bit more, and that my layer management is just atrocious sdkfjksdfh

This has also taught me that while Medibang has the tools needed for me to draw these pages just fine, it also lacks some stuff that I personally need if I were to do a longer project like this. So I'll be experimenting with CSP next!

The dialogue throughout this whole thing wasn't all that planned out- I really just stuck close to what the initial doodle had which probably wasn't the best idea bc I just have like, 2 pages of Lucy's awkward sounding dialogue aaaa. I might do something a bit more dialogue heavy to help improve this skill next time.

Anyway, thank you for reading through my 1 am ramblings on this little project of mine shdkjhks

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Asians are all the same, right? The racism of a company cock gurgling moron

Like herpes and unlike the Dobbear, I am back baby.

At this point, deepest apology for my long absence. Personal issues over the last two years prevented me from writing anything and also destroyed for the longest time any desire to really continue the blog.

However, I don’t want to let things unfinished and seeing how the hypocricyofandrewdobson still manages to get some rise out of old Dobson related stuff, I wanted to just return, in order to properly contribute a bit more critical thinking in regard to his old comics.

And while I will not immediately return to my retrospective of SYAC, here is at least (for a start) my opinion on one comic of his, that in my opinion just proved hilarious and controversial in hindsight, and rather racist even back then.

I admit, I don’t know anymore what the title of the comic here is. All I know is, that it came out around 2018, shortly after the release of his “Black Panther” comic, another malignant piece of Dobtrash that has made the rounds online ever since. However, unlike the Black Panther comic, which became the center of a lot of discussion regarding Dobson’s racist assumptions about comic book fans while ironically trying to present himself as woke, this one was weirdly drifting off into obscurity. Which is kinda weird, cause in my opinion, it is way more racist and actually kinda insulting to the very craft Dobson supposedly “dedicated” his life to.

Let me explain.

First, over the course of three panels, Dobson comes essentially off like he is considering the medium of comics as inferior to the medium of movies. Making it look as if comics are unsuccessful because they cannot rail in the same amount of money than certain flics and calling them at best nothing more but a pitching ground for corporations to create new shallow mass product.

Now I am a bit of a realist and I know that, especially in the world of mainstream American superhero comics, this is kinda the case. Most comic book characters, stories and franchises are owned by multibillion dollar corporations, who either have a direct hand in the creation of the product (via corporate mandate for example) and/or use the likeness of the product to make profit in additional, more valuable revenues than the printed medium. Such as cartoons, merchandise and movies. One example I can think of, to show that it isn’t just an American issue: Yugioh. The card game wouldn’t have come to be if there hadn’t been a manga starring a little boy putting together an ancient Egyptian puzzle, but while the original manga ended way back in March of 2004, the card game makes millions globally still after 25 years and counting.

But that doesn’t change the fact, that comics as a medium still have value. Without the stories told within their pages, we wouldn’t have characters such as Captain America, Superman, the Mask, the Ninja Turtles and so on to begin with. Don’t get me even started on stories that aren’t falling into the American mainstream comic trend, but still succeeded in the printed comic medium partly because of genuine artistic and profound value such as Maus, Barefoot Gen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, TinTin and a shitton of (other) stuff from Europe and Asia.

So when Dobson, who always acted like he is proud to be a cartoonist and that comics are a superior medium to others, suddenly reduces them to just being a “pitch ground for better stuff down the line” at best, I as a fan of the medium and just the art of creating stories in itself, get kinda pissed.

Additionally, the way how he compares movies to be better than comics, is severely flawed.

He brings up the fact, that “Captain America: Civil War” made over one billion dollars at the box office as an example, while pointing out the fact, that most single comic issues barely manage to sell 100.000 copies, while holding up a copypasted “Civil War” issue.

Already, Dobson essentially compares apples with bananas, while also giving both false and incomparable data, that also ignores many aspects to be considered.

For starters: He compares the earnings of both movies and comics with two different values. For movies, he goes by the monetary profit a superhero movie could possibly make, while for the comic issue, he goes by the total number of copies sold.

But here is the thing: Assuming the average selling price of a comic is at 4 dollars for a single 30 page issue, selling 100.000 copies would ring in like 400.000 dollars. And considering that producing one issue likely costs a company less than 20.000 dollars (obvious costs for mass production and distribution not withstanding) they can still make a decent profit this way from ONE issue alone. One issue. Not multiple issues of a long running, but sadly underperforming series. All of that by the way doesn’t even account for the fact, that most single issues at best tell only a quarter of a decent short story nowadays and ignores later “long term” factors, such as reprints of the issue, late term buying of the issue, tradepaperback sells of the issue, the longterm effect and cultural impact the issue may have on the actual series or plot continuity  (such as Amazing Spiderman 122, aka “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”). Don’t get me even started on the fact, that many of these issues get first sold in the US and only over the course of one year or longer may then additionally be sold in other parts of the world, therefore bringing in even more money for the publisher.

Example: The Duck comics by Don Rosa, which earn more than four times more in Europe, than they ever did in America, despite the guy being from California. Finally, a a little add addendum: that example Dobson gives indirectly via the “Civil War” issue? A quick google search revealed, that Civil War issue 1 sold over 300k copies in May of 2006 alone. Sure, not necessarily the best numbers ever for a single issue (as evident by the following list: https://bookriot.com/bestselling-comics-of-all-time/ )but still nothing to be ashamed of.

And yes, I know that we live currently in a time, where comic book sells have dropped significantly for a variety of reasons, one of them being an overall lack of decent stories. But as long as other stuff still manages to run freaking circles around American superheroes (*cough* One Piece *cough*) I wouldn’t say the medium itself is dead. Just a specific branch of it is suffering from a lack of quality and the customers are jumping ship.

A superhere movie meanwhile is a completely different beast. Ever since “The Avengers” came out in 2012, most superhero movies are 150-250 million dollar behemoths, that get overhyped by advertisement campaigns that are almost equally as expensive and try to trick the audience into believing, that they all are somehow the next big mindblowing thing on the big screen. Plus there hasn’t really been a superhero movie in the last 10+ years, that didn’t release simultaneously worldwide, instead of only coming out in the USA, and then a few months later, in other parts of the world.

So is it any wonder then, if a superhero movie that got advertised like the second coming of a saint, makes 1 billion, when there are already billions of potential customers worldwide all at once when the product launches?

That number btw becomes actually less impressive, once you start to think about how it came to be. Something our blue bear obviously didn’t.

See, on average every movie theater demands like what, 12-14 dollars per movie nowdays?

If we divide the box office of Civil war (1.152 billion btw) with 12 dollars, that makes on average 100 million people worldwide who watched the movie. A bit more than one or two percent of the worlds population. Not to forget, that of the box office success we have to substract such things as production cost of the movie, advertisement, the earnings of the theaters… so suddenly the movie may at best have had only earned one quarter of its box office for Disney as actual profit.

Not to forget, Dobson made that comic in 2018, when superhero movies on average did ring in so much money, because of the hype machine. But now we have 2023 and within the last five years (and especially 2023 itself) we have seen how superhero movies can also utterly fail to make money or even earn just enough to make back the production cost. Birds of Prey, Eternals, Ant Man 3, that Secret Invasion streaming show that still cost over 200 million… Do I need to get on?

Bottom line, Dobson’s indirect jab at comics as the less profitable revenue doesn’t hold that much water really in the real world, where once the hype dies down, comics may actually prove themselves as the more valuable longterm medium. Even if it may just be for the fact, that they end up staying longer relevant in the popcultural subconscious than the current movies, which tend to lose relevance with each new hastily produced and released installment in the franchise.

But where this comic really shines and shows Dobson’s ignorance on a cultural level, is in the last panel. When all off sudden it turns “racial” by claiming that Asian people, unlike “traditional” comic readers (aka white, in Dobbear s eyes therefore instantly racist people), would eat a Marvel character like Amadeus Cho up.

Question Dobson: Why do you assume, they would eat him up? You give no real argument based on anything the character does storywise, that the “target audience” may find admirable. So I can only think, that your reasoning is, because he is ever so slightly east asian coded.

Boy, do we have to unpack not just a can of worms, but a whole package of cans now.

First, the chosen language by saying “eat it up”. When being a writer, you should know that you need at times to choose your words wisely, because of the sheer implications they can carry. And the statement “eat it up” sounds way to close to a negative statement like “suck it up”. Making it come off as if Dobson considers Asian people to be mindless cattle that will consume the grub the House of Mouse will give them without question or any desire for actual quality to it.

Second, it recks of a certain mind set I hate within the American entertainment industry and some of its creators and consumers. That mind set being, that “non-traditional” American cultures supposedly don’t know better than Americans in what is okay for the sake of representation and entertainment or not. It’s a mindset that goes beyond the necessity of e.g. localizing a foreign product to the national market, by e.g. creating a sterilized, corporately mandated and rather unrealistic depiction of another culture within their product, that will fall apart as soon as the people who are supposed to be represented get a proper look at it and realize, how pandering and often times badly researched, if not outright offensive, it is.

Only recently did we see in the world of animation how that can backfire, when Disney released the trailer for “Primos” an upcoming animated show supposedly about a half Latina girl spending her summer vacation with her annoying cousins, people calling it based on the intro (and a leaked pilot) pandering towards a latino audience in a racist manner. And guess what: currently, Disney shelves it and tries to bury its existence like Dobson his old inflation art.

Dobson himself has actually indulged in that sort of shit kinda, back with his infamous Nintendo comic.

Essentially calling the “true”, Nintendo corporation approved depiction of his childhood Nintendo heroes disgraceful, for not falling in line with the late 80s depictions he saw in localized, made in America products such as the DiC cartoons. That and minor homophobia mixed with misogyny by calling Link “girly” for having longer blond hair since Ocarina of Time and blaming fangirls for it.

Third, and that is kinda related to my prior point, the reality of things is, that “Asians” actually did not eat up that sort of thing in the last couple of years. Sure, there is always that thing about a Chinese market. the big movie companies try to pander to and may succeed with some dumb action flics featuring big robots.

But the reality is, that not even people living in a dictatorship will eat up every trash you give to them, just because it comes from Hollywood or is supported by their glorious leadership. Disney tried to create two pandering messes of movies for Chinese people to watch, called Mulan (the live action adaptation) and that Shang Chi movie. And how did they do there? Oh right! The government did not even allow Shang Chi to be released and Mulan was released but supposedly didn’t do so well, considering (COVID not withstanding) it only made 70 million globally!

Don’t get me even started on every human right controversy in relation to the later, starting with filming in China near a concentration camp and ending with the main actress being essentially a Chinese propaganda puppet.

So, if those movies flopped, why would Chinese people for example flock for an Asian Hulk? A hulk that is not even Chinese but Korean.

See, this is another issue that fails with the example: The actual choice of character Dobson name dropped is actually kinda terrible.

For those unaware: Amadeus Cho is a supporting character in the Marvel comics, created in 2005 by American writer Greg Pak and artist Takeshi Miyazawa. The later, despite the name being very east Asian, sounding, actually being from Canada. Now both do have east Asian roots so to speak (Pak  e.g. is the son of an Korean-american man with a Caucasian woman), but they also have grown up within a society that taught them both western social values more so than we would see in east Asian countries. So with the creators already not necessarily having the most real life experience with the average mindset of a Korean citizen, can we really say that their actual creation helps “represent” those people of a foreign, non-american culture?

And that is not even covering stuff like the actual story of the character itself.

See, in the comics, Cho is supposed to be an American-Korean genius (wish fullfillment much, Greg?) and one of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe. His parents named him after Amadeus Mozart (a pretty white motherfucker as far as I remember) and he grew up under Methodist beliefs. So basically the “Korean heritage” of the character has already been thrown out of the window. Now I don’t expect the character to act stereotypical Korean, listen to K-pop, declare bulgogi to be his favorite dish or any of that shit. But when you want to sell me the character as being in some way or another connected to his ancestral culture, shouldn’t he engage at least in some “Korean coded” things?

I mean, the character of Anne Boonchuy in Amphibia is a Thai-American who acts more like a 13 year old girl that learns to be less selfish and impulsive over the course of the show and whose “heritage” isn’t thrown at us, the viewer, most of the time. In fact, Anne herself acknowledges that she e.g. can’t really speak thai, despite her own mother being fluent in it and a season 3 episode reveals, that Anne is “begrudgingly” a part of the L.A. thai community. And yet, in connection to the shows story and as part of Anne’s characterization, her heritage is acknowledged and plays a part of who she is. Even if it simply means she knows how to cook certain thai dishes, loves her parents and their customs, helps out in their restaurant, can speak a few words thai and knows the basics of Muay Thai, a form of martial arts (and fighting sport) from Thailand.

Amadeus doesn’t even have Korean parents anymore, because they were killed as part of his tragic hero backstory. Nor has he ever visited an Asian country. Oppps.

To build further up on it, Amadeus becomes for the longest time simply a major supporting character in the Marvel universe for the likes of Hulk and Hercules, two white coded characters. Sure, he plays a major role in the defeat of some cosmic horror level villains (such as Mikaboshi in the Chaos God storyline most people forgot even existed) but it takes a long time for him to become a “A-lister” so to speak.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t till after “Secret Wars” in 2016 (eleven years after the character was created), that Amadeus thanks to a chain of events eventually got his chance to Hulk out. And then they still had to kill Bruce Banner to make Amadeus “stand out” initially (don’t worry, Bruce came back. I mean, characters actually staying dead in comics, so that heroes can learn there are consequences? Preposterous) In fact, Amadeus hasn’t really proven himself as a decent “solo” act. Instead he became a member of the Champions (among Miles Morales, Mrs. Marvel, Vision’s daughter Viv. Nova and Cyclops), essentially creating yet another superhero team for teenaged vigilantes. Despite the fact, Cho himself should be by now in his mid 20s.

Now look, I do not want to shit talk the character. Partly because I haven’t read everything he was in myself and partly because in the few things I did see him in (both pre- and post Hulk) he was okay. He is a decent hero and person, who tries to do good, even if he screws up here and there. That is something I can admire in a character in general. But he is not a good “representation” of another culture, because his complexion and minor physical features aside, he is NOT embodying even minor values or traditions of that foreign culture. He is simply a Korean-American (or technically Canadian), who falls more on the American side of things.

So essentially, Dobson who virtue signaled on multiple occasions how bad it is when companies he didn’t like tried to speak on behalf of other cultures, would have no problem at all to ask for Asian people to swallow this obviously “Made in American” product. The “Made in America” line actually working both on a metaphorical and a storytelling level, cause trying to google what “east Asian coded” heroes in the Marvel Universe actually come from an Asian country instead of being simply born on American soil, is pretty damn small.

After 20 minutes I only found Shang Chi, as he was born in China, and that character was created as part of kung-fu exploitation in the 70s by white dudes.

Yaiks

However, none of that tops the next two points that really sell Dobson to me as an American centralistic racist. Or at least a twat who doesn’t understand how through bad wording he comes of as ignorant of other people’s cultures.

The way he generalizes Asian people in his statement, while also ignoring the actual accomplishments in the creation of entertainment in multiple Asian countries.

If you’ve read closely what I typed, you may have seen that I used the term Asian at times in tandem with the term “east Asian” to e.g. describe Amadeus Cho.

And that had a very deliberate reason. While I was not a fan of geography in school, even I know that Asia as a continent is not “nationally” as homogenous as let’s say Australia or North America. In fact, Asia is the biggest continent on the planet, hosts more than half of earth’s population and consists of at least 47 internationally acknowledged states.

States such as Turkey, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, North- and South Korea, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran and so on.

Now what all these states have in common, is that they have their own unique historical, social and “racial” culture and background. Heck, religiously speaking, Asia is the cradle of the world.

As such, Dobson stating that a “Korean coded” character such as Amadeus Cho (who is only Korean on the most surface level and would technically just be a legacy character of yet another white person) would be an immediate hulk smash hit with all these different people of different backgrounds…. Yeah, it sounds like condescending, colonization inspired shit, a smooth brain would come up with.

To Dobson “Asia”, at least based on that comic, is only defined as the “yellow skinned” people from the far east, who like rice, noodles, spicy food and give us anime, Godzilla, fireworks, buddhism and communism. It does not include anyone from the middle east or of more European ancestry. And if you are even remotely familiar about history, you would also know that Japanese, Koreans and Chinese all around do not e.g. like to be thrown into a pot with the others for a variety of reasons. Many of them political.

Or to sum it up even shorter: Dobson insinuated that a very shallow, “east Asian” coded American comic character would be an immediate hit with more than 47 different countries, ignoring that not all of them share the same background despite being part of the “same” landmass. And in doing so, he simultaneously generalized and denounced entire groups of people based on their racial and cultural background, which in as far as I am aware of, is considered racist.

But the “racism” is supposedly justified, because “representation” matters, it would be giving the middle finger to “traditional” comic fans and those nations and their culture are underrepresented globally.

Which is baloney.

Don’t get me wrong, I myself think that representation does matter. But the world does not necessarily rely on the good old US-Ayy only to give it to us.

Cause a lot of the Asian nations I brought up here? They have their own entertainment industry and stories, which again, get ignored by Dobson to make a dumb and false point.

I mean, manga is currently dominating the international comic market, all while Japan has also a booming animation industry and some of the most iconic heroes in modern popculture with the likes of Son Goku, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai etc.

China has a prominent -if propaganda driven- movie industry.

India has Bollywood and delivers some of the most ridiculous but awesome musical movies on the planet.

Russia had authors such as Tolstoy and movie directors, that redefined the “art” of filmmaking.

Korea had a few years ago one of the biggest streaming hits with Squid Game, while also earning an Oscar for a movie titled Dobs- I mean “Parasite”.

Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey… even nations that have not entertainment living up to “western standards” still produce stuff in some way or form to entertain the masses and their people. Just google up the character Kara Murat aka the avenger of Anatolia.

And don’t get me even started on the sheer ton of mythology, stories and history each of their cultures have provided the world with. Journey to the West? Baba Yaga, the entirety of the Gilgamesh epos...

And yet, there is this indirect assumption by Dobson, that all of them would be so deprived of “heroes” in their media and folklore, they would letch on second hand shop Hulk? Fuck off, Dobbear. I know you like to suck corporate cock as long as you think they are woke and you have childhood nostalgia for them, but this is pathetic. Take Amadeus before A Rama Raju comes around and roundhouse kicks him back to Canada. Then get the taste of mouse smegma of your Disney cock gobbling lips.

[pluckyredhead]

Green Arrow #1 (2023)

I promised to yell my feelings about this issue so here! Are! My feelings!!!

Spoilers beneath the cut, obviously. Also, I won’t be including scans since I want to encourage people to buy this comic. It’s already selling so well that it was expanded from a 6 issue miniseries to 12 issues before the first issue even came out - if sales stay strong, maybe we can get an ongoing!

First off, love Sean Izaakse’s art so so so much, I adore his designs for the characters and the way he makes them move. Roy and Connor’s new looks are a little busy but I forgive him because they have such lustrous hair. (Though I still long for a Connor with a curl pattern.)

Starting with Ollie hitting on Dinah while barely conscious? A+. Also, the bit where he realizes he’s on an island again and is like “HOW DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME???” made me laugh out loud.

I’m not going to lie, on the first double page spread, I’m...not sure why Doomsday is there? Or whose arm is sticking up out of the rubble? Does anyone know?

Why on earth would Dinah call Connor “Hawke?” That line felt really weird to me. Izaakse has been calling him that on Twitter so idk if they’re trying to rebrand him that way or what. Are they making it his new codename? I guess it’s slightly less dumb than “Drake.”

Also, I love the flashback panel of Roy and Connor with their arms around each other, but I am very tired of this thing DC has been doing lately where we see the aftermath of big moments and not the big moment itself. I suppose I shouldn’t complain considering that they nailed the most important reunion in this issue, but I really would have liked to see Connor’s reunions with Roy and Dinah, especially considering that Emiko and Dinah both had basically zero reaction to learning that Roy wasn’t dead. (And in that vein, I’d like to see an actual conversation with Ollie about Connor being ace and not just a flashback panel that’s like “I told my dad, and he was great about it! This will only be addressed annually in Pride issues from now on!” Bonus points for Ollie being very supportive but not 100% getting it and getting a chance to learn.)

JASON SAID THE VAN HAD FINGERPRINTS THAT MATCHED. ROY’S LEAD CAME FROM JASON. Jason and Roy are another set of characters where we were robbed of a good, satisfyingly emotional reunion, but in the single solitary panel we were given of the two of them together, Jason did say he would find Lian, AND HE KEPT HIS PROMISE. Can we please stop discoursing about whether or not he is a good friend to Roy now?

Ollie says that Roy is the greatest marksman in the world and my heart grew three sizes. The last time this came up was 2006ish and it was contested, with the heavy implication that Roy would soon surpass Ollie. I guess he finally made it! I’M SO PROUD. (Although... Shado is the greatest marksperson in the world. I choose to believe that Ollie is using a gendered term deliberately, especially considering what he says to the Manhunter at the end of the issue. Anyway lololol get fucked Merlyn, enjoy being #4.)

“I may have taught Roy and Connor” what did you teach Connor, Ollie? Stop lying.

The flashback panel of Ollie and Dinah fighting back to back is! So! Good! Very Doc Shaner, which is always a compliment.

WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED WHEN LIAN APPEARED

The first time I read this I wasn’t sure if they knew it was Lian, because obviously she’s a lot older than they would have expected. Rereading the panel where the family reacts hits different when you know: the dumbstruck look on Roy’s face! Dinah’s comforting hand on his shoulder! Connor saying “Good form” because he is a PROUD UNCLE! And his little smile on the next page as he wrangles the guy she shot HE THINKS SHE IS SO COOL.

I truly feared that they were going to let her go so Roy’s line, “You threw your first ninja star when you were two years old,” stopped my heart. And then Roy’s speech, besides being heartbreaking, is full of so many great details. I love that he has a sweet tooth and Lian doesn’t. I love the panel of them watching Point Break. I love that they remembered his missing arm in the flashback panel of him mourning Lian.

And on that note, the line “I don’t care how you’re here”...sometimes I get frustrated by DC’s refusal to try to logic their mangled continuity back together  because it feels lazy to me, but here I think it was handled really elegantly. Lian was five and dead and now she’s not; Roy was missing an arm and then he wasn’t and then he was dead and now he’s not. They don’t know why, they’ve accepted that their lives are weird, and they’ve moved on. What’s important to me is that this comic sets out very clearly what is canon and what the characters remember experiencing (short answer: everything, because Roy clearly remembers both pre-Flashpoint and the New 52), because that tells me how to understand their relationships and their choices. I don’t care how they got here either, I just want to know what they’ve lived through.

God, the way he just goes to his knees and gives her all the space in the world. Trusting that she will make the decision that’s right for her, even if it’s one that hurts him. Offering his love on her terms. It’s so perfectly Roy and exactly what Lian needs in that moment.

AND THEN THEY HUG AND I SOBBED FOR TEN MINUTES. Lol @ Izaakse signing this page like “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

AND THEN A FAMILY GROUP HUG. I appreciate the acknowledgement that Lian and Cheshire interacted in Catwoman, because I was so frustrated that nothing came of that.

“They’ll never let our family be together.” This is such a smart move! If you only have 6 (now 12!) issues to bring back Ollie AND Lian AND Connor AND Mia AND (I hope) bring Cissie into the fold for the first time, giving all of the various deaths/disappearances/continuity hiccups one unified source is a great way to fit them all into one story.

And then: DYSTOPIAN OLLIE!!! Dystopian Ollie is always a good move! Dystopian Ollie wants you to use gender neutral threats! Dystopian Ollie has a chainsaw arrow! I love Dystopian Ollie.

ANYWAY THAT WAS A GOOD COMIC AND I WANT THE NEXT ISSUE IMMEDIATELY, THE END.

[badartxd]

✨Feelings✨

Cullen, with a frustrated sigh and his arms crossed: “I mean, it’s not exactly wrong that the emotions of a mage can result in volatility - Yours don’t get in the way, and look how far you’ve gotten-“

Vasya, sitting on the floor with a book, after taking a quizzical look at him and the library, with two apprentices conversing in the distance: “Last time I checked, I was in the same place as everyone else.”

“Also, I feel things.”

(A close up of her looking to the side, thinking)

“For example, being spoken about like this makes me feel… “ “…” (a long pause)

(A zoom in on a stumped, deeply concerned expression with inner thought):

“WHAT AM I FEELING?”

So… Vasylysa Amell is… doing pretty great at the Circle. Really, she is on track to do the things she wants to, given she plays her cards right. She has been there since she was a small child, she knows the library and stockroom by heart, she got taken under the First Enchanter’s wing, she is on amicable terms with both the mages and templars even if they don’t stick around for whatever reason and some look at her weird… it’s nice.

Cullen is also nice. He is timid, and unsure, and reasonably open minded, and talkative enough. Inexperienced, too. She is quite lucky to be his charge. At times she does enjoy his company, although some of the things he says are just off. Indoctrination, and all that. It’s just Vasya’s luck that she happens to be something of a local argument in favour of Tranquility due to her rather limited expression, task choices, and strong focus on her interests. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the way you think of it), it is also something she’s not acutely aware of. When confronted with this perception of her, she also gets cornered by something of an existential crisis because, while she does experience feelings, she is not nearly as good at identifying or processing them in a timely manner. Alexithymia has entered the chat

Hello I’m doing one of those things where I’m attempting to let go of the reins a little and just doodle comic-adjacent stuff and this is the first product C:

Idk what happened with the line thickness on the lower panels but I’m kinda sorta proud of the upper ones.

Also I want to note that I actually like Cullen’s character XD I bastardize the dude here but hey, so did the Chantry. I tried to express his unsureness/defensiveness in terms of his expression/pose/sentence structures, but attempting to create nonverbal cues as an autistic is, quite frankly, a trap.

[tenaciouschronicler]

August 28 2024 2009

Time to loot the loot!

First up some books. The first we all saw, COLONEL SASSACRE'S DAUNTING TEXT OF MAGICAL FRIVOLITY AND PRACTICAL JAPERY, but way more worn and potentialy deadlier. Next is the FATHERLY GENT'S SHAVING ALMANAC, currently useless to John with his lack of need but very important to Dad if he locked it in the safe. But I want to bring attention to the newspaper clippings.

Very worn with the only visible date being Monday April 13, 199X. Apparently some years back meteors also rained down shortly after 4am. The ones in the paper were not the only occurrence and, suspiciously, were downplayed as 'not foreboding' or 'not really a big deal' despite creating casualties. A Crocker facility and a residential space have suffered damage. Not sure why Dad would have kept this but with the repeating 4/13 there has to be some importance. Probably a cake mix shortage knowing his love of baking.

But just to rip us back from thinking too hard on it John finds a note from Dad on the wall:

SON.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, IT MEANS YOU ARE NOW STRONG ENOUGH TO LIFT THE SAFE. YOU ARE NOW A MAN.

AS SUCH, YOU ARE ENTITLED TO WHAT IS INSIDE. I KNOW YOU WILL TAKE THIS RESPONSIBILITY SERIOUSLY.

I AM SO PROUD OF YOU.

Youll have to excuse me as I SOB MY HEART OUT!!

Behind the note is the safe code, 02-49-13.

A couple of things happen that made me lose it laughing so hard but it should be noted one of my many questions has been answered. A blank card has only a string of 0's while a card containing a card is a sting of 1's. Each code generated is probably some sort of fusion of binary and hex though Im not even gonna try to think of what the formula is.

Ok so, in normal John fashion he captchas the card but only having three means...

Instead of changing his modus and adding the card to the deck, John punches the 2xCaptchacard bringing him to a grand total two usable cards.

John: Throw hat down in disgust.

Goodbye, hat. (HOW EVEN?? The bounce in that hat is off the charts!)

Not learning his lesson, John captchas the punched card creating a 3xCaptchacard...

Sweet Catch, Rose! The panel below this with Roses cursor slowly bringing the PDA back to John just reeks of passive agression. Do you think before you act, John? Of course not you only do...

John: Take PDA.

The two card sylladex: inventory of dumbasses.

At this point I had to stop reading from how hard I was laughing. Even putting this together is making me giggle in delight.

Luckily the tome is too heavy to get much air and instead crushes the imp unware of its fate.

Under the cut is a bunch of stuff regarding Johns leveling.

Now the level up panel had me questioning some things. Last time we saw John level up he was only at PLUCKY TOT but now we are at PESKY URCHIN. Looking back he sucessfully killed two imps during the pogo ride, presumably the EXP for the other 3 levels

Looking at the panel where Rose is building she now has 80 grist she can work with when last it was only 50. John also gained a bunch of boondollars and now has MAN GRIT. So what info can we glean from all this.

My guess is one imp slaying gained two levels while the other gained one. The next level will either again be one imp or require two imps for enough EXP. Level ups may take climbing more rungs before giving rewards, my guess is it happened at ANKLEBITER.

Rewards are also not equal among levels. The new CACHE gain is at 40 and seeing as the other two were 10 and 20 respectively means ANKLEBITER increased the cache by 30. But GEL is only at 15. In this way GEL is harder to grind for, with longer spans between gains. We cant know for sure though without seeing the whole cache list. BOONDOLLARS dont seem to have a pattern. John gained a whopping 415 which is not a pretty number to split between three levels. This last kill saw a gain of 200, so who knows what the criteria is for this. Again MAN GRIT is new so its up in the air how this one will function. Overall it seems to me right now rewards are at every second level at minimum.

*Editing to add current proposed limits: GEL 30, GRIST 120, MAN GRIT 5

[hikennosabo]

trimax vol 13 random thoughts (ch 5-9)

part 1 here!

chapter 5:

okay, it took me way longer than it should have to figure out what happened in this scene, lol. razlo gets behind elendira and blocks her nail gun with the nail that's already in his body which jams her gun and pushes the nail further into his torso which takes them both by surprise.

"some dumbasses"?? do you mean wolfwood and vash?? LOL

come on, come on, come on!!! he's so cute, lol. he's like a dog who wants to play.

i love watching razlo fight!!! it's so fun seeing him fight a different way due to not having his punishers/third arm anymore. he's having so much fun too, it's infectious~

UNTIL ELENDIRA USES A PSYCHIC ATTACK ON HIM. JESUS CHRIST. THAT ONE ALMOST HAD ME.

chapter 6:

ma'am could you please stop serving cunt for a second i'm trying to read manga and you are distracting me

AAAAAGH AND THEN SHE BLASTS HIS LEG OFF. THAT ONE WASN'T FAKE THAT ONE WAS REAL. he'll be okay but :(

CHEKHOV'S VIAL?!

uuuueeee... wolfwood... just seeing the little panel of him... i miss him so much... and the reminder of wolfwood brings livio back out. ueee... waaahhhh...

i'm sitting here trying to articulate my feelings about livio and razlo and i can't, really... :') livio feeling so bad and apologizing that he has to rely on razlo so much, razlo doing his best to encourage livio... they really care about each other a lot. it's very sweet. i care them. :(((

oh this is so very much not how DID works but it's both cool and important to their character arcs so it's FINE!!!! it's fine

huuuhhhmmmmm something something symbolism in livio's guns being reversible and livio and razlo working together, two as one... is this anything? am i connecting any dots here?

they were able to bring elendira to her knees with their teamwork!!!!

chapter 7:

uwaaahhh! young livio flashback!! this is where his twinky stampede self came from i guess. i hope season 2 gives us a beefier version-

...wait. wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait. hold on. speaking of stampede. give me a second.

*returns 30 minutes later* HUH. INTERESTING. so stampede shows us livio working hard in EoM to catch up with wolfwood, but in the manga, it's all but outright stated that he's trying to catch up with razlo.

sorry i'm just fascinated by the tristamp/manga differences and seeing younger livio doing pushups reminded me (stamp!livio does pushups the same way!!)

we're not supposed to know that razlo exists yet in tristamp; i wonder if or how season 2 is going to reframe any of this. it's not like i dislike livio and wolfwood's relationship in stampede!! i think it's really sweet, introducing livio into ww's story earlier is a good move, and livio joining EoM to catch up with ww makes everything in the relevant episodes more emotional. but the relationship between livio and razlo is just as important!!

razlo encouraging livio is SO cute, uwaaaahhh...

WAAAHHHHH!!!! I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH!!!!!

babygirl, please, i am begging. why are you so sad. tell me who hurt you. i am on my hands and knees.

to him... while drinking wolfwood's last vial... i am going to fucking throw up i feel so normal about this

chapter 8:

elendira, killed by her own nail... oh girl... my beloved... i did not expect her to live but i'm still sad she's gone. what a fantastic fight though. might be my favorite fight in this manga.

also livio's gonna have an interesting time trying to get up and get her off of him once his limbs regenerate... uh... if they can regenerate? i'm assuming they can...

i am gonna fucking CRYYYY... calling him by name... wwwaaaaahhhhh...

he would be so proud of you, livio!!!! WAAAAHHH!!!

okay, time to cut back to my other faves having their own battle.

it's so funny that legato thinks this. dude, she hates your guts. if she knew she was gonna see you in the afterlife soon she WOULD worry.

huh? that's her name? like the painting?

also i've been wondering this whole time why she looks like that. like why is she designed to look like a woman. did legato design her himself?? is this his aesthetic sense??

haha ouch! thanks for spelling out the metaphor so plainly!

ahhhh, july flashback... this was uhhh... *checks* ten years ago. supposedly. i'm not sure how much i trust the timeline anymore.

actually i do wonder how measuring time works on this planet. like, everything seems to be measured the same way it is on earth, so does noman's land also have 365 days in a year and 24 hour days?

he's so cute, i am holding him gently in my hands.

knives is so mean... to be just a tiny little bit fair to him, i too would be low on patience if my brother just blasted me with a death beam and someone suddenly started handling my guts that were hanging out. but he's so mean!! i feel bad for legato!!

i AM surprised that knives is still conscious... and that he's still mostly intact. like his guts are hanging out but it looks like his legs and arms (or at least one arm) are still attached, and he's still got. y'know. most of his skin. certainly more intact than his stampede self, lmao.

vash, honey, what on earth makes you think he plans on living through this fight any more than you are. :')

i just like this spread.

chapter 9:

OH BOY, HE'S FERAL!!! truly, he is going out in a blaze of glory just like he wanted. i wouldn't expect anything else from him at this point.

ahhh... stampede!legato talks a lot about discarding emotion in favor of devotion. but emotion and devotion are intrinsically linked. legato is a pretty emotional person, he cries a lot and yells a lot... as long as he can express his devotion to knives, he feels like he's fulfilling his purpose, so he's happy... i'm glad he's having fun at least... :')

WAAAAHHH VASH IS REMEMBERING WOLFWOOD NOW... his face is not quite visible but... vash is remembering wolfwood's words because he's thinking he really is going to have to kill legato to end this fight... killing legato just like in the 98 anime...

i get caught up in the action, but every time they bring wolfwood up i realize how much i miss him...

this panel fucks.

i love watching legato go fucking crazy fighting. i wanna see this fight animated so bad :''')

when i read the top panel, i was like, "because of knives, right?" then i read the bottom panel... ahhh... not just knives... every plant... it's a good thing tristamp established this relatively early because we don't really see vash doing this in the story lol

i'm remembering "do you think we can become friends with them?" "yeah... it might take a lot of effort though..." :'''')

chronica, girl, i know you're very angry with knives, but as far as revenge goes, you need to get in line. you got here like five minutes ago, there are other people with much longer-lasting beef than you who deserve a shot at him before you.

the smallest meryl u can imagine...

WAAAAH this is so sweet, they love him so much :(

i said this already but i LOVE seeing legato go all-out, it's cool!! it gets me pumped up!!! this is just... such a good fight!!!

wait, is the earth ship falling because chronica used up so much energy firing the cannon multiple times?? GIRL...

THIS PAGE FUCKS!!!

THIS SPREAD ALSO FUCKS!! the way that the debris fades out above them, they're only focused on each other...!!!

final thoughts... i'm surprised legato survived this volume?! i really thought he would die in this one... he lasted longer than i thought he would, not that i'm complaining... UUAAAAAGHHH i am gnawing on my arm rn, i can't believe there's only one volume left?! i'll be finished *checks day* TOMORROW?!?!? if i don't procrastinate on reading... which i might do because i don't want it to be over... waaaah...

how will knives be defeated? can humanity survive? will livio's limbs regenerate? and most importantly, HOW WILL VASH GET HIS WILL TO LIVE BACK?!?!

[mimithealpaca]

DAILY PRIDE MONTH DOODLES #12 - meeting a "friend"

CW liminal horror, creepy vibes

stream of the process here! (link tbd)

also, this is a prequel to the fic MUSUTAFU BUS STOP!

i really love this entry. i, of course (but unsurprisingly) not expect that i would be drawing/streaming this for FIVE HOURS as opposed to 1.5, but for my first attempt at building up horror tension (that i can think of), i think i blew it out of the park!

i especially love the last 3 pages. i really love how the first part of this is all black-and-white (at first, because i was going to do the thing where everything is black-and-white save for pops of red, orange, and green) but then i decided to contrast it with a blast of GREEN at the end to indicate that everything prior to deku being alone in his VERY NORMAL, VERY NOT-OFF-PUTTING ROOM is a bit of a... façade.

i also am proud at how i used the orange as an accent in the last two pages. especially the moment where deku is, uh, really excited to UNZIP HIS VEST (but i am aware of/exploiting the implication/conclusion you will probably come to before you see what he actually unzipped for HORROR). for the record, no, the picture he has of kacchan was not obtained through legal or consented means. he also did not go to work. (he does have a job though. but more on that later.)

OKAY gushing on the last page--i love how i sorta drew the kissing panel like how i would draw deku if he was flustered in a more wholesome setting, but the immediately contrasted it with a VERY NOT OKAY DEKU FACE. again, and this is what i admire about certain kinds of horror (mundane horror?) and what i think liminal horror is all about--it's sort of following the intrusive thought your brain might find in the sea of thoughts, the one that twists something that is 99% innocuous and harmless into danger. and the more you focus on it, the more this small danger is actually a GREAT danger. and it's GROWING.

also, no, i did not plan anything out asdasdfs hence why some of the choices i made in panels and shots are not optimal. i DID do some exploratory doodles earlier that day, but i didn't use any of those concepts in here :')

yeah.

i will be following up on this in my day 13 entry! hope to see you there!

and... if you really enjoyed this and want more, tell me with your monies at my ko-fi! you can also vote with your monies for me to work on the spicy ghost!deku and wolf!kacchan one though!

[random-introverted-blog]

Introvert, Introvert, Introvert. Where are you?

Well, let's see. Do you have a day or two to kill?

First and foremost: none of the stories are dead. I'm back to actively writing HS-HQ. Flickers, I plan on fully involving my bestie on in all parts of the process. She is wonderful and working on her own story To Defy The God's and all you Shadowheart girlies should absolutely check it out. So damn good 😳😩.

I'm also building a new Shadowheart x OC story, which includes a Durge x Astarion. It's called Estranged and I can't wait to share more. This one has been my baby for the last 3-4 months and I'm stupid proud of how fleshed out the details and lore are for the OC, including their backstory and how it interacts with the main game.

That said; the last few months haven't been easy.

At the end of April, I was mentally preparing for June. June is the busiest month at my job. No days off, 11-13 hour days, super stressful workload, the whole nine yards and then some. I had about 2k words for Chapter 11 of HS-HQ but I wasn't really enjoying it, and I got stuck. And that combined with the impending stress, the blog took a backseat.

I can not stress to you how much I hate June at my work. Anything would be preferable to working that many hours. Overtime pay in my state is a legal requirement, so it's not like that's even a big deal. They have to pay me for it. But even with the pay, I miss so many family events, opportunities, life in general in June.

Trigger warning: self harm/Dark humor

And the lead up to June this year I was saying I would rather play in traffic, stab my hand with my box cutter, break my foot, jump off the roof, anything except work another June (this was my third June).

My (other) bestie even offered to run over my foot with her car and I considered it, honest to God.

Where am I going with this?

Ahem.

End of Trigger Warning

Ladies, gentleman, and gentlefolk.

'Twas the night before Monday, June 10th, about 11pm. I had just gotten a new A/C for my room. My old one had given up the ghost many moons ago and was just window dressing at this point. The new one I had was a portable, not a window one. But I needed one short notice for the heat wave we were suffering and, as I mentioned, June is a busy month. What sleep I could get, I didn't want to spend just trying to sleep in my hot, wooden panel bedroom.

How this situation came to be, I won't explain, but I wound up carrying my old A/C unit out of my bedroom and down the stairs to get it outside and in the front yard. The goal was to get it out of the house and deal with it later.

I'm a 5 foot, 3 inches lady and I'm not a twig. The A/C, although more bulky than heavy, was still manageable for me to lift. I couldn't see my feet, and that was the only significant problem.

And it was the only one that mattered 😌.

I'm on the last 4 of 15-ish steps and my foot decides it too, would like to give up the ghost.

Did I think I was closer to the bottom than I was? Probably. Did I think "fuck, I'm dead, this is how I die, this thing is going to crush me"? Also probably.

My mom was behind me. And apparently my head hit the dry wall too, but I don't remember that. My body slid down the rest of the stairs. I land at the bottom and my foot is sore. A/C landed on my stomach, but honestly, only a cut or two was visible on my legs. My foot was swollen something ugly and bruised, but eh, whatever.

Until I tried to stand up.

That's right, ladies, gentleman and gentlefolk.

Following an ER visit at 1 am and a doctor's appointment, my foot/ankle was undeniably shot. I couldn't put weight on it if my life depended on it.

I still can't fully walk right/normal on my foot, but I think that's because I've spent about 2-3 weeks wearing a boot and my foot isn't at full strength.

With that said, I am back; I am alive, and I will be sharing what I've been working on relatively soon. Such as the new story, Estranged...

And a little something called

Ahem.

His Star - His Queen Chapter 11 teaser?

This chapter is going to be shorter, just to get back in the saddle and reestablish myself. The first major blow to my writing schedule was writer's block. I knew what I wanted, but not how to get there, and it killed me. So Chapter 11 has been gutted more than once.

Normally, every two chapters we switch POVs, but for some reason, I got stuck on Astarion's. And in all honesty, I think you guys/gals/pals are more interested in seeing what's happened to yourselves [Tav] than the shenanigans Astarion and Jester have gotten themselves into. So we'll check in on how you guys are handling the maestros composition of his masterpiece...

P.s: I'll try and respond to my inbox, comments and DM's later tomorrow night, I've seen and heard all of you, including on AO3.

[withoutyouimsaskia]

A Dream Come True

29/10/2022

I went to MCM Comic Con London today to go to The Sandman panel with Tom Sturridge and Mason Alexander Park. I had not been planning to go to this con but then they were announced as guests last Friday and I made a snap decision. There was no way I could pass up an opportunity to be in the same room as two of my favourite actors from my favourite TV show.

So off I went, dressed as Morpheus in all black with my floor length black coat and lace up boots, to catch three different trains and be all alone in London for the day for the very first time.

I met some lovely people in the queue and we bonded over our love of The Sandman universe for an hour before going in. I also saw some out-of-this-world cosplayers who had come as Morpheus, Desire, Lucifer and The Corinthian. 

I was at the front of the queue so when we were let in, I got to sit close to the stage. So extremely close. And in the middle. I literally couldn't have asked for more.

My adrenaline and excitement was through the roof and when they came on stage; I lost all composure.

There were aww moments and funny moments and spiritual moments. Great questions and insightful answers. At one point they flashed up photos of things and asked Tom and Mason if they were dreams or nightmares. One of the options was a screen shot of a spreadsheet which is basically my day job! They both said nightmare and to be honest, I have to agree with them!

Just hearing them talk with such passion about the series and the source material, it was very emotional for me. They are so intelligent and articulate and inspiring and also naughty, especially with each other. And beautiful. Both of them were arrestingly beautiful.

It was a perfect day and I am so pleased that I dropped everything and went for it.

I also feel really proud of myself for doing something that I didn’t think I was capable of doing, especially since social anxiety has held me back a lot since I developed it as a child. I navigated all the trains, even with cancellations and extra connections being needed. I talked to strangers, made friends and came together with a massive group of very passionate people to celebrate my favourite TV show.

Plus, I got to be in the same room as the two people who brought Dream and Desire so perfectly to life.

And to top it off, I saw Mason after and they smiled and waved at me as they  recognised me from the panel. Actual eye contact was made. I could have cried.

P.S New chapter of Remember Me, Special Dreams coming tomorrow <3

All photos belong to me.

[dissvicious]

Tell me if this is a case of „It’s not that deep fam“ or if I’m reading too much into this but I just love the triplets handwriting on the last panel and it gave me thoughts.

First off:Not much to say about her except that her blocky handwriting is charming. Very kiddie. Very cute. Straight to the point

Second: Blaze or rather „BlaSe“ having the messiest handwriting, perfectly showing off that he’s not as book smart as his two siblings but also it’s so energetically written, like a kid who just writes really, REALLY hard, to the point of almost tearing the page. Certainly getting the feeling he held pencils in a fist for way longer than his brother and sister and that he may have had more issues learning to write. I am proud of him. (I also do wonder if he may at least be partly dyslexic because writing letters mirrored can be a sign of that. )

Third: Rory, the the only one to sign his name in cursive… but only on the goodbye note. The posters in his workshop aren’t written in cursive, which leads me to believe that A: he wrote those when he was young and that’s hysterical because it brings to mind of this preschooler writing down bomb notes, or B: He writes cursive exclusively when he writes stuff for other people but foregoes being fancy when he takes notes for himself. Also love the mental image of him being all „Gotta show the world I’m the smart one“ while relaxing more when he’s by himself. There are probably notes written in particularly powerful Eureka moments that make Blazes hyroglyphics look like calligraphy.

And that would be it thank you for coming to my ted talk about your ocs

You're 100% right and I'm really glad someone noticed what I attempted to do with the triplets handwriting! From Rory being a dandy poseur but manic genius in his personal notes to Blaze having dyslexia.

Thank you for showing me I didn't put all those details in for nothing 😭 I love working on characterization and I'm glad when people notice it !

[dedahblog]

Personal Retrospective on the final chapter mess and the never ending feeling of frustration

I just wanted to write how I found closure with all this mess. Even though it's adressed to IR fans, this post is mosty anti bleach ending coded. It's not an ichiruki meta.

Warning long post

I guess in order to follow my train of thoughts, I'll have to establish first that I'm certain that Kubo was lying about this being his intended ending. My proof is simply comparing both endings Bleach and his previous manga Zombie Powder.

Why is he lying ? Two reasons. First, he's still on contract with his bosses. Second, he's too proud, he would rather have us hate him than take pity for him.

If you're not convinced, I guess you'll waste your time reading my post because it's based on that general idea.

It's so easy to rant about the ending to the point that it becomes ridiculous

"Ichigo and Rukia are important to each other, but not as important as Orhime and Reji are to them ! They are the love of their life !!"

Meanwhile, during the arc that officialized those pairings, Ichigo doesn't consider the abduction of the said love of his life a moment where he felt despair ( not #1 place not #2 place not even in "the bunch of other moments from there to there" place )

and Rukia doesn't recall one single happy memory with the said love of her life whom she had known for +100 years. ( She had only one significant moment with Orhime where the latter expressed her vulnerability to her and by that scene alone, Orihme out-bested that jobber and people are comparing that shit pairing to ichiruki let's see at first if it can out pass rukihhime then we will talk)

"Ichiruki fans are so toxic. The reason Ichigo and Rukia's feeling aren't as explicit as Reji's and Orhime's is because Bleach is not a shojo !! Kubo was also short in time he couldn't solve all those plot holes, let alone romance. Anyway, he doesn't know how to write romance to begin with. It's not like he can sum up the feeling of love and devotion in like two panels"

Meanwhile Kubo :

If you're interested, here is my favorite anti ending meta o n e / t w o

Anyway, what I mean, you can state 1000 problems with this ending, and it's still never enough to the point that I asked myself : what am I really trying to prove ?

Do I have to prove that ending was intentionally bad ?

No. All the Bleach fans who had at least one brain cell either cried, got frustrated or tried to smash their computer/smart phone when reading the last chapter. You don't have to be Einstein to understand that even when a writer was short on time even if he was crawling himself because of his sickness, there are million alternative ways to end a manga than this panel.

If people can't comprehend the malice and the utter disrespect towards fans to end a 15 year running manga with this expression, then they should be go back to elementary school to learn basic comprehension skills

The point is, all the sane bleach fans ( yeah I’m shading myself) left this fandom months afterwards because they felt insulted and alienated by this end and swore to never speak about this manga again. They're a vast majority but they don't want to talk about it on social media. Why ? because why bother ? Even if they complain, what's going to change? Who are they trying to convince ? The only one whose opinion is crucial is Kubo and he showed them by that panel how blatantly he was aware he was writing cr0ap. So what’s the point anyway ?

Do I have to teach the new IR fans that they shouldn't accept this end easily and they have every reason to love ichiruki ?

No, simply because I'm not a preacher. Whether they accept it or not, it won't change my feelings for IR.

Do I have teach the new readers to not let the official end influence their reading experience ?

Well, putting my self in their shoes, it’s hard to fathom that a writer could do scorched earth policy on his life achievement out of pettiness. It's obvious for some of us since we have known him for years, read every one of his controversial statements. However, it will be miracle to convince new readers. Moreover, I can't understand how can people choose to read a 696 chapter manga that has no story resolution ...like...have some ... self-love ? 

(the +10 chapters are Turn Back the Pendulum arc btw)

Do I have to paint myself as the good and wise Ichiruki fan in front of people who "don't like ichiruki because of the shippers" ?

This is the most ridiculous argument to hate a pairing. Just say you don't dare to go against the wave and get out. As far as I'm concerned, the essence of shipping has always been egocentric people self inserting themselves in a fictional character and imposing feelings on them based on one’s mindset and reading comprehension. Whatever is the pairing, shipping fandom will never not be unhinged.

As a matter of fact, when I realized that ichiruki might be one of the aspects that interests to me the most in Bleach, I read some IR vs IH forums and I was disgusted by the offensive language from both sides : people insulting each other over lines on papers was beyond me.

However, I didn't think ill of the pairing itself because no one understands it better than Kubo. So all I did was re-reading their scenes comparing them to other relationships and Kawaichappy was a true blessing. She / he made me love Ichiruki more that I could ever imagine.

I refuse to be a pawn in this viscous circle that Kubo set us to. I think the best solution to cut this chain is not forgiving him or feeling pity for him but to stop holding a grudge against him (even though you have every right to) and just let it go. That's why, I chose to see the good side of things.

1)

When Bleach was getting cancelled, Kubo could have saved his ass by making ichiruki p0rk and throwing an IR baby at us. While the majority of fans won’t be happy with the plot holes like it's the case with the official end, a good portion could derive some satisfaction for this sort of conclusion thanks to Ichigo and Rukia's undeniable chemistry.

Moreover, more than half of merchandise were ichiruki coded at that time and even now btw . But he didn't do that, and for that reason alone, he has my respect and I never spoke ill of him. As far as I'm concerned, if he did make IR p0rk, I won't even send him "death threats", I will fly to Japan, strangle him and honeslty will never speak about IR or bleach ever again.

2)

The second reason why I don’t hold any grudge towards him is thanks to this

You guys can’t even understand how much this page made me happy.

As you know, the "All Stars" double page is drawn at the beginning of every volume and the pictures used above the name of the main characters of every volume are obviously panels featured in the same volume.

However, volume 74 was the exception. Orhime and Rukia's panels are not in this book. Oihime's innocent smile is from volume 73 and Rukia's defiant look from volume 59 (chapter 628) !!!

This can’t not be unintentional.

It basically means that Rukia and Orhime were not featured in this volume. The characters posing as them in volume 74 are imposters.

This is so ridiculously funny. Every time, I read 'xx married xxx', I respond smugly " you sure about that ? based on your precious final canon volume, the last time we saw Rukia is in volume 59 and Orhime in 73."

He's basically saying :" this is Rukia Kuchiki the brave and fierce woman you have always loved, don't let that cheap representation fools you. "

And " This is Orhime Inoue the innocent girl you knew all along, who is selfishly ignoring she is basically in a battlefield, beaming from happiness like a child because she is yearning from all her heart to feel loved and validated. Don't let that cheap representation fools you"

Honestly, Kubo didn't need to do that. The fact that he still cared about my favorite character Rukia to the point of explicitly dissociating her along with Orhime from this mess still makes me so happy to this day.

I love Ichiruki but I like Orhime more than Ichigo. So Kubo not bothering with Ichigo doesn't annoy me one bit. It's rather hilarious

3)

The third and final reason is the final volume cover, I made a meta about it years ago

IR fam, some of you may think you got the shortest end of the stick with this ending. But, believe me you have the greatest advantage of all. :

you don't have to associate yourself with anything about that ending.

You don't have to associate yourself with this :

The execution place that represents Soul Society corruption and rotten system became more menacing than it ever was

but you will always be linked to Ichigo being the hero who will" pass even through 100 billion blades" to save Rukia unshamedly defying million years of corruption.

You don't have to associate yourself with a pairing where the girl has known the guy for 100 years and he has never made her happy one micro second for all those years.

And you certainly don't have to associate yourself with a pairing that got canon in the same page as this abomination was written

and whose child is undoubtedly getting molested by his aunt probably explains why he's a creep btw

People doesn't even realize how insulting it is for Bleach that Yuzu, out of all the characters, was represented this way in the final conclusion

In the first chapter, Ichigo was hesitant to let Rukia stab him with her sword. He was scared shitless even though his family were literaly half dead and Rukia was injured because of him ... yep your hero ladies and gentlemen. It was Yuzu's bravery, selflessness and love for her brother that made him accept this life changing decision.

When the guy didn't have the courage to be the main character and to start off the manga in the first place but it was his little sisters' bravery that inspired him to take the first step then it was Rukia's ethics in the second chapter that shaped his idea of how an ideal hero should be.

Don't you love it when Bleach was supporting women supremacy ?

... Good old days indeed.

The second reason why you shouldn't feel petty about your otp not being canon in this fake ending is you know who should be frustated ? Kubo. 

He may act tough, shitposting himself and pulling cr*p from there to there but you can't convince me that seeing his manga torn and burned, getting insults from everywhere (even though he deserves it) didn't have any effect on him.

Obviously, we felt alienated reading the last chapter but imagine the guy who created those characters that had been living in his mind for 15 years, imagine feeling alienated by what you had created.

I remember reading somewhere that during Fade to Black writting process, he sat in a corner, was frustrated with himself because he couldn't figure out what kind of name Rukia would think is suitable for those siblings. He was determined to dive into Rukia's character and find out what kind of name SHE would like. He cared so much about staying true to her character.

Sure he was frustrated, angry at everyone. Sure he wanted to burn everything down before getting cancelled. But you can't convince me that the love he once had for his life achievement vanished completly

You can't convince me that he didn't hope that things were concluded in better circumstances.

In a way, you may feel sad for IR not having a decent closure. But bear in mind, no one is more petty than Kubo and his constant self sabotage since 2016 is the proof.

Final conclusion, ichiruki is one of the best fictional pairing ever written and it deserved the best and obviously not to be linked to that ending.

We have always been fans of the love, whether platonic or romantic, that Rukia and Ichigo have for each other. The love they shared together that made them have the desire to love themselves and the courage to hope.

I guess the best tribute for this kind of relationship is to express our love for them how much they meant to us and not to succumb to negativity

Because negativity is only reserved to the man who doomed his life achievement.