#and i might be missing some things

[voiice-of-the-soul]

It irritates me alot when people say that making medic more compassionate is ''missing the point of his character'' when he is literally shown to be in the comics.... did you miss the part where he showed concern for both sniper and miss pauling's well being in comic 5 and 6.

His actions are a combination of genuine attachment + clinical interest and these things do not cancel out one another. He is always pushing boundaries and going against the grain and i think this is what led to him losing his license in the first place. He felt stifled by the rules imposed on him.

He is shown to be extremely passionate so it makes sense that he would use his endless fascination with medicine as a way to show his affection. He loves his friends so he will find a way to make them borderline indestructible. Malpractice is his love language.

[lloyd-the-green-gremlin]

My beautyful daughter who came back wrong :)

[frenchphobe]

griddlehark modern pen pal au where they don’t know each other but are assigned as pen pals for those pen pal projects you get in middle school and it just turns into them sending each other hate mail and somehow they just keep going for several years, even though they dont rly have to

[canisalbus]

✦ 2023 summary of art ✦

[avelera]

Can we hear your thoughts on Jayce’s and Viktor’s intelligence? I can’t help but feel like Jayce is often…dumbed down. Which feels insulting to the both of them.

Rarrrr.... I should be doing other things... but this is a rage button issue for me... so....

Jayce is just as smart as Viktor.

The reason he doesn't come across as just as smart has multiple elements:

1 ) Arcane S1 in particular does a lot of sleight of hand to set up Jayce as facing down a corruption arc where he's tempted by fame and power. They achieve this in multiple ways. On an emotional level, they often zoom out for his more tender lines and zoom in when he says something dumb or unfortunate.

Intellectually, they tend to show things like his chalkboard after the fact, when he's not at it, but they show things like Viktor actively working in the lab quite a lot. Basically, we see Viktor doing a lot more active science stuff while he's doing it, but with Jayce we tend to see the effects of the science stuff he's already done, like presenting prototypes that are already made, him holding hexgems that are already created, showing equations and notes of his that are already complete instead of showing him making them.

Overall, this creates a visual impression that Jayce is the dumber of the two, because we see him doing less actively, but if you pay attention he's doing at least as much science as Viktor regularly, it's just more off-screen.

2 ) Viktor wouldn't partner with someone who's not as smart as him.

Viktor reroutes his entire life to work with Jayce after reading his notes on Hextech. It's insulting to Viktor's intelligence to think he would "lower himself" to working with Jayce. Jayce is his equal, his partner, they compliment each other and both accomplish things the other couldn't.

For my money, Viktor is the more out-of-the-box thinker, Jayce comes from a family of tool makers and he tends to think in straight lines, most of his innovations are direct results of the spells he saw his Mage do, like weightlessness and transportation, while Viktor tends to come up with things like the Hexclaw and the Hexcore.

But both are also craftsmen and tinkerers, and it was Jayce's idea originally to do magic with technology, Viktor is working with him to innovate on that vision.

3 ) Jayce is a better public speaker and he's physically attractive and muscular, in a way that makes people underestimate his intelligence. It is very common for people who are good at speaking, people who are of above average attractiveness and, god forbid, people who keep an exercise routine to be seen as less smart even though those things have nothing to do with one another. Because Jayce is seen as the "face" of Hextech it's assumed that he's the lesser intellectual partner, when the truth is, it's just a division of labor. Viktor is terrible at public speaking and doesn't like doing it, Jayce is charismatic so he does it.

He's not a gym jock, his muscles come from the forge where he makes absolutely mind-bogglingly advanced items like Caitlyn's sniper rifle and his own hammer, the guy is basically making Hadron Colliders over an anvil. But because people tend to judge based on appearances, people tend to think he's dumb.

4 ) Jayce thinks in straight lines. He's incredibly direct. The reason he agrees to raid the Shimmer Factory with Vi is because he's sick of politics and he's sick of the corruption, and he wants to just deal with a problem directly. That's why he and Vi bring out the worst in each other, because they both think like that, and straight lines aren't always the best way to tackle a difficult problem, but Jayce is a scientist, he's used to seeing a problem and just fucking solving it.

The problem is, that doesn't work for all problems. He's incredibly smart as an engineer, literally Ambessa can't even find a scientist in Piltover as good as him and Viktor, but he's not widely read. He's not a politician or a diplomat or a social scientist. This also lends to the perception that he's dumb but you'll notice, Viktor is never put in a position to make decisions like that, Mel is never put in lab to solve a scientific equation, and in general, most characters aren't put in a position where they have to perform at the top of more than one field in the way Jayce is, so yeah, Jayce ends up looking dumb because he has to handle being the leader of a city when he spent his life working on Hextech and promoting Hextech. Of course he's not going to be perfect.

But that's also another case of sleight of hand, we see Jayce failing at more things because we see him thrown in a position to impact more things. A lot of characters maintain their image of being smarter or more skilled than him because they're not asked to work outside their range of skills nearly so often.

[theflashjaygarrick]

People have spent so much time fleshing out random background male characters and so for feminism I am going to give one of DC's under appreciated female characters this treatment . I am absolutely fascinated by Joan Garrick as a character. DC is not. But who am I to let that stop me.

So what are some things we know about Joan Garrick (née Williams). One is that she met Jay Garrick when they were both students at college. More potential context was given by Millar and Morrison in the iconic Jay focused Flash (vol 2) #134. Here we learn that at the present time she is teaching microbiology and based on the fact that in my experience a specific microbiology subject is more common in university and she's heading in for specific classes not the school day I can infer she is a lecturer/professor. These few facts paint a picture of an awesome and boundary breaking woman in her own right.

We can assume she was in college in the 1930s. This makes sense. After all the 30s was the first generation where (almost entirely white and middle class) women attended colleges in greater numbers and with more social acceptance then before. They became symbols of newfound female independence and education. But at the same time they faced a lot of obstacles , particularly in co-ed institutions like Midwestern University. She still had to navigate her way through a very male dominated institution that did not take her seriously if they wanted her to be there at all. Along with the change in female education came cultural backlash both within and outside the academy. Misogynistic (and racist) detractors viewed female higher education as frivolous, unsuitable for women's 'fragile physiology' and even saw it as the 'suicide' of the middle-class white American family. Yeah these people were the fucking worst. Anyway, being a female student at a university in that era meant dealing with and overcoming all kinds of bullshit from exclusion to outright harassment (even more than it does now).

And then there is the fact that she apparently studied biology (or microbiology more specially) in a time where most women pursued degrees in teaching or nursing (if they planned to use it vocationally) or liberal arts (if they did not). Women were actively discouraged from taking science courses and Joan would have been trying to enter an even more hostile boys club whilst fighting against even greater social pressure. But despite it all she seemingly did succeed and presumably help break barriers for women in science which is awesome.

And we can see this refusal to back down in her personality. Joan's kindness is matched by her tenacity and her 'do first, ask for permission later' personality, which whether forged through her experiences in academic or before-hand helped her persevere overcome the many obstacles she would have faced. She's an absolute badass.

Now this is not strictly relevant but she also knew Jay was the flash the whole time which is really sweet. I personally like to think she figured it out because he kept asking her really specific questions about human metabolism and the like (biology seemingly is Jay's scientific blindspot) and she put two and two together. Also he just innately trusts her with his secret which is cute considering how much secret identity drama silver age couples went through.

[deoidesign]

Return date for my webcomic, Time and Time Again!

It's been set for a while but sometimes they change the date without warning, so I'll keep you updated if anything changes!

I'm extremely proud of the work I've been doing on it, I can't wait to share everything!

See you then!

[mellohiizz]

@saiintvalentiine hello. the npc fic left me absolutely in shambles i needed to draw them.

[snazzydwarf]

Dp x DC: Mind Traveller

Okay do y'all remember the old trope in DP fics of "Danny get's hurt by a ghost/machine and is now in a coma like state, the only way of getting him to wake up is to go inside his mind and meet different aspects of Danny's personality (sometimes it's looking through his memories)"

Okay yeah that but! Make it Dp x DC!

Maybe a war has broken out between the GZ and the GIW, conflicting information is being given to the JL from both sides, and so far their stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On one hand there's a whole species and town throwing allegations towards a Government organization about kidnapping, torture and experimentation.

Then there's the Ghost Investigation Ward saying they've been working withing legal limits, and haven't done anything wrong. It's not breaking the Meta Protection acts due to none of the "affected" having the Meta gene, and therefore not counting as a Meta.

Most GIW subjects had not survived when it had came to light, those who had "lived" could not come out of the Ghost Zone because of how fragile their cores had become, and everything was still too risky to send someone over on uncharted territories to get their statement.

The one option they had was a young boy they had found, although he was in a coma and hadn't woken up in weeks. The situation was getting more and more dire as the public and ghosts grew restless with every day that passed.

Martian Manhunter spoke to Danny while he was in his coma, however he was only able to access surface entry due to unknown reasons. This was enough to talk to the boy however, and gain permission to enter his mind and find out more about the situation they had all landed themselves into.

With written consent from both of Danny's parent's a small group of 3 JL members along with Jazz, Sam and Tucker ( who came along to clean up any confusion or questions they might have) journeyed into the mind of the young boy, not realising they are about to witness the rise and fall of a hero who was born to young.

[nocreativityfornames]

Everything we know about Michael so far, lore wise.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ALL SEASONS

➤ He's an high-ranking angel from the Celestial Realm, more specifically a Seraph. (nb: 18-2 and nb card: Luke - "I can do it too!")

➤ His love for sweets is the reason Luke took interest in baking. (swd: 5-12 and 23-5)

➤ He and Lucifer were equals in the Celestial Realm and no other angel shared the same status as them. Simeon referred to them back then as "the two great leaders of the Celestial Realm's legion of angels." (swd: 23-7) But currently Michael carries that position alone. (swd: 23-5)

➤ He was supposed to meet MC when they visited the Celestial Realm with Solomon but couldn't because a secret spring suddenly started drying and Michael had to go there to investigate the situation. (swd: 23-7)

➤ He used to be Mammon's mentor and tried his best to train the white-haired brother while in charge of him but wasn't able to figure out how to handle him and eventually went to Lucifer asking for help. And since Lucifer was somehow able to get Mammon to listen to him, he ended up taking over Michael's role and became his mentor instead. (swd: 27-19)

➤ He was originally the one in possession of the Ring of Wisdom but gave the ring to Solomon at a time when the human was feeling "lost" and Michael wanted to help him. (swd: 29-5)

➤ During MC's 2° stay in the Devildom when Diavolo was keeping secret from everyone that their powers had become a threat to the three realms, Michael sent the prince a message through Simeon, warning him that if whatever he was keeping a secret affected the Celestial Realm, angels wouldn't hesitate to intervene. (swd: 31-16 Hard Mode)

➤ He's the one who found the Ring of Light, counterpart to the Ring of Wisdom that Lucifer had lost during the Great Celestial War (swd: 37-9), and quickly noticed it was missing when Simeon stole it to give it to MC ( since it was the only other way to control their powers ), shooting the other angel a text stating that they needed to have a "good, long talk" and that he wanted to see him as soon as possible. (swd chat: M, "untitled")

➤ When MC was given the Ring of Light and fell unconscious because of it, Michael appeared to speak with them. And during their talk, the seraph told MC that he had pictured them to be truly wicked person due to being so well-liked by the brothers, but that he had been proven wrong after meeting them. (swd: 38-17)

➤ In that same conversation, Michael confessed to being jealous of MC. He told them: "I must admit that I'm jealous of you, MC. I wish I could have been more like you. Because I loved Lucifer and his brothers, and I lost them. Perhaps things could have been different..." (swd: 38-17)

➤ When asked, Satan explained to MC that Michael was the opposite of Lucifer appearance-wise but that they felt like twins at the same time. And when Mammon brought up Michael's adoration for Lucifer, Satan chimed in saying that in his opinion the reason Michael liked Lucifer so much was because he was the embodiment of everything he wanted to be but couldn't. (swd: 43-19)

➤ He would be the one having meetings with Diavolo when the prince took over the kingdom if he hadn't thrown the responsibility onto Lucifer in the last minute, making Michael in a way the stepping stone that led Lucifer to question his faith and start having doubts about God and the Celestial Realm in general. (swd: 44-15)

➤ When MC ended up in the past Celestial Realm through a dream Solomon sent them to accidentally by feeding them his food, Michael was the one to bring them back home. The angel told MC that they and the brothers would likely forget what happened in the dream but that it would still have an effect on all of them and he would keep an eye on them to make sure that said effect didn't have negative consequences in the future. (swd: 44-18)

➤ Luke told MC that he often found Michael in the hall where the brothers' portraits used to hang staring at the empty space, lost in thought. According to the small angel, Michael to this day still deeply misses the brothers and has regrets about the war. (swd: 49-15)

➤ He was the one to cast out the brothers from the Celestial Realm and send them to the Devildom. (swd: 50-7)

➤ According to Mammon, Michael and Simeon must've pulled some strings behind the scenes to get Luke to participate in the exchange program and be able to visit the Human World with Simeon because, with his low ranking, he'd never be the one chosen for those sorts of things and the Avatar of Greed is convinced that they're doing this because they want Luke to experience life outside the Celestial Realm, see that there's more out there than heaven, and stop thinking that angels are perfect beings who can do no wrong. (swd: 50-10)

➤ He's knowledgeable on constellations and likes them so much he had Raphael rebuilt a whole room so Human World constellations could be seen even from the Celestial Realm. (swd: 52-7) He also taught Mammon about them when he was still in his care, and later on taught Luke as well. (swd: 50-12)

➤ It was actually he who went into the Devildom and told the brothers that they had been forgiven by God and had to choose between staying in the demonic kingdom ( and making an enemy out of heaven ) or coming back to the Celestial Realm and leaving Satan behind. And in a conversation with Raphael, Michael said the reason for his disguise was that he was worried about what could happen if he showed up as himself. But Raphael quickly rebutted that by saying that the true reason Michael didn't go as himself was because he wouldn't know how to act around the brothers. (nb: 20-14 Hard Mode)

➤ Still disguised as Raphael before going back to the Celestial Realm, Michael told Luke that he wasn't surprised that the brothers didn't accept his offer to go back to heaven and actually knew that would be the outcome of it. He was also surprised not too long after when Luke, not knowing it wasn't Raphael who he was talking to, pointed out that Michael seemed sad and lonely whenever he was staring at the wall where the brothers' portraits used to be. Michael's exact response to the younger angel's words was: "...I didn't realize that's what people thought.” (nb: 20-A)

➤ When asked by Raphael if he planned to attend RAD in the future, Michael avoided giving an direct answer and left. (nb: 20-14 Hard Mode)

[raiiny-bay]

some WIPs from the 80s AU i never finished

[nebuladreamz]

He's just a little angry I think

[oceanwithouthermoon]

yk when i think about it, especially when im watching the anime with people who havent read the manga, the reason a lot of people who only watch the anime and didnt read the manga misinterpreted saikis character so badly is definitely in part because of how damn fast paced the anime is 😭

like that little smile and eye shine frame is there for not even half a second in the anime, so its easier to miss it and assume that he really did only finish those workbooks to get coffee jelly ☠️ its much more clear if you get a good look at how he reacts here that hes just a silly little tsundere and a fucking liar

[suspensefulpen]

Not Again

TW: Kidnapping, Captive Whumpee, Chain Restraints

Whumpee pulled at the chain locked over their ankle. They’ve been trying since they woke up. They woke up in a basement alone. They weren’t sure where but something about it looked familiar — they couldn’t put their finger on it.

Obviously, someone kidnapped them and decided to throw them in a basement. But the question is, who would do that and why?

Even more so, why weren’t they dead yet?

Whumpee glanced around to find something sharp but came up empty handed. They sighed and went back to attempting to pull the chain from its base in the wall.

They instantly froze at the sound of footsteps over their head. Gently, they placed down the chain and listened. It wasn’t long before the steps stopped at a door that was far from Whumpee’s grasp. The locks moving filled the short silence before the door creaked open, revealing—

“Whumper?” They exhaled. A smile slowly appeared on their face. “I’m so glad you’re here! You can get me out of this. I’ve been trying for forever now. If you can just—”

They were silenced when he began to laugh.

Did they miss something? Or was this just an elaborate joke to scare Whumpee?

“No, no Whumpee.” He shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. “I am the reason you’re here.”

“What?” They rolled their eyes, a smile on their face. “Oh I get it. You’re mad about that— listen, it was a bad idea and I—”

“Oh I’m mad alright.” He descended down the stairs, coming closer. “But the reason is not what you think.”

Whumpee raised a brow. Whumper stopped in front of them, kneeling down to their level. He gently lifted their chin.

“You got away from me Whumpee.” His voice was low and gentle yet pained. “And you almost got hurt. I’m not letting that happen again. Because I’m never gonna let you go.”

[off-mozzarella]

A lil something for Whumptober day 10: blow to the head

[autumnhortsnort]

Hello coauthor! A Residuum reader here. One thing I really like about your comic is how the consequences of the characters' actions feel so plausible, but what stands out to me the most is the pacing in how they're presented throughout the story. Do you have any tips for structuring a plot? Every time I try to outline mine, it feels a bit incoherent, and the scenes don’t seem to flow well together. I’d appreciate any advice 🐢

best advice? Write the whole outline down as much and as far as you can, doesn't matter if it makes sense, that's for editing you to figure out. Then edit the ever-loving daylights out of it, add in connecting actions, and take out things that don't work. Residuum has had Five different drafts, with major tweaking as we go. The outline is not set in stone.

Also don’t share it outside of friends, that can make you feel pressured to stick to (the previous plot) even when it doesn’t work for how your story has progressed. There’s a reason we didn’t share any of the potential endings when we were still trying to figure out where the story was going. When the first arc was being posted we had an idea of the plot til about halfway through arc 4, but we didn’t actually have a concrete ending.

how we structure a plot (and do pacing)

Write out your main plot points and then write what the characters need to do to make that event happen. We basically do the plot mountain structure, but for each arc (there are 4 of them) we tend to make the climax of each arc into turning points or decisions that the main characters have to make that they cannot undo. here's a good article to read about structuring plots. (Note! This is for the broad spanning major plot beats, each update actually gets written as needed, they aren't written into the outline.)

When it comes to character decisions it’s more about, “what would make the character do this?” rather than, “would the character do this?” You can make characters do things they normally wouldn’t if you give them the right incentive.

For the pacing with residuum, because it’s serialized, we try to have something progress with each update. Either you learn something new, the plot has progressed (aka the status quo has changed), or there's set up/foreshadowing for later, most updates actually have all three. When writing in a serialized format (each chapter getting its own release) it’s a good idea to treat each update as a complete chunk. Try asking yourself: what is the goal for this part? are you using this update for anything actually important? are you conveying anything new and/or important to the plot? Is this something you want to focus on? Are you writing this to meet audience expectations or because you want to? There are parts where residuum gets almost no interaction but, importantly, those parts still meet our individual update rules. If you're writing for audience engagement you are going to get discouraged from writing long spanning plots very quickly. The audience doesn’t know whats coming, so they won’t interact with anything that doesn’t have their current blorbo™, even if it’s plot important.

for how we make the consequences make sense

Make things make logical sense? honestly i don't what to tell you.

We read. a. lot. I used to read 400 books over a school year, beaze has read about 13.6K fanfics on Ao3 over the course of 4 years. plus a ton of manhwa and manga, and that doesn’t include nonfiction, stuff from sites outside of Ao3, course assigned books, reddit fiction, royal road. Most of how we understand and structure plots is instinctual because we fire hosed our brains with them for years.

I'd recommend watching watching Overly Sarcastic Production’s Trope Talks, and reading stuff that's not rise related, as well as researching nonfiction stuff that's relevant to what you want to write we are at a place where we aren’t writing the outline anymore, just editing it if needed. We use the outline structure to make each update because it gives us a objective for the update, and gives us a road map for when to place the set up for future updates. But if you struggle to use outlines you can just… not use them. Garden writing is a valid writing strategy, I use it for one shot AU’s of residuum.

For long spanning stories written garden style the first draft can be your outline. Just edit and flesh it out once you’ve written it.