#another fun update is that i've now blocked ******* and ********* on twitter

[the-physicality]

i really tried to not care so ottawa would pull out a w

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

01/23/2024 Daily Recap

Hey all! It's been another long day, but we've got lots of new resources on how to help and things have been very busy!

=Renew As A Crew Updates=

Sources: Tumblr / Twitter / Instagram

So it sounds like some of the silence going on is related to RaaC adhering to the Global Strike with Social Media going on for Palestine this week. Please visit the sources above for more information, they also go over how to interact with each platform we're trying to woo (I didn't include that here because it's already in the Daily Renewal List)

=Cast & Crew Sightings=

As every day has been lately, the star of today was chaos dad himself, David Jenkins with that article that was mentioned last night from popverse.

Also for that matter, he's excited about being close to 80K

Dad wasn't the only one trolling max today, the Crew got deep into it to the point that caseybloys blocked quite a few of them and then they got the hashtag "#OhBloysHeMad" trending. Here are some highlights because I feel like all the tumblr folk need to know how hard twitter went today.

=== How to Help ===

As usual, please refer to the Renewal Task List for daily updates, but great news, we now have a Renewal Task List for our friends outside the US as well. Apparently there are different effort in different countries, so we split them up. Please let me know if there's anything additional / more countries you'd like to see!

Renewal Daily Task List - US

Renewal Daily Task List - Outside US

The Crew also got super creative and put up some awesome new resources for folks to use. I've added quite a few to the Renewal Daily Checklists, but if I missed any please let me know! Here's some examples:

UK Our Flag Means Death Updates

News from the UK Thank you to @lamentus1 and @libbyroseitm for the updates!

Here’s our report from the UK News from the UK As you probably know the second season of OFMD is yet to air in the UK. Today we had an email saying that an announcement about when it will be on TV and iPlayer here will happen “Incredibly soon”. We love the use of the word incredibly! In response to how helpful our contact has been with replies we sent a single email with lots of names on it thanking them. Our best predictions for when OFMD2 might air in the UK is late February or early March. Once Season 2 starts to air in the UK we think we will see a significant increase in interest in Our Flag Means Death. We are currently looking into ways to harness this energy! (Obviously we hope that we’ll be adopted before season 2 aires here, but if not…) One idea is to hold another watch party to coincide with the arrival of season 2 here. Another idea is to hold a flash mob. Possibly at the Cutty Sark in London. TBC. We’re working on ideas and would love to hear people’s thoughts! Please reach out to @lamentus1 with ideas!

= Pirate Omens Watch =

Pirate Omens Watch happened today on Twitter and will continue tomorrow through friday. For more details please reference below - I caught the second half and was a lot of fun! Lot's of parallels and great opportunities to tweet at @pricevideo about them!

== Articles ==

Max Delivered the Final Blow to the Horny, Quirky Comedy

Hungarian News: Ritkán látott összefogás egy elkaszált sorozatért

== COOL ANALYTICS ==

So something else that I found super cool was this post on twitter by @havethisonelife

Anyway, I just love that kinda thing, and seeing that come from articles about OFMD is just super cool.

===================================

Okay I think that's everything. As usual, if I missed anything drastic please let me know! There wasn't a whole lot going on on IG today, seemed like twitter was the show horse.

===================================

Evening Message of LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE

You thought you were rid of me sending love-- but you were wrong!

Did you know you're fucking phenomenal? Like seriously. I read through all these tumblr threads, twitter, instagram, and all I fucking see is amazing people being fucking awesome to each other (and politely shitty to max which is also amazing).

People are posting in various places and saying they had a rough day, or they're sick (that was me!) and you kind buggers are reaching out and giving support and love and I'm so damn proud to be a part of this amazing crew. You are legit the best people I've ever met! (IRL or Internet).

Everyday you continue to impress me and every one of us with your creativity, kindness, ambition, and wonder. You make me laugh, I've cried a bit from some of the posts too (not a bad thing!) and in general just fucking make the world a better place. I can't wait to see all of you continue to shine, which reminds me of this quote:

"Nothing can dim the light that shines from within" - Maya Angelou

==================================

Alright, enough of the mushy stuff-- onto the Rhys and Taika eye-porn. (Is Rhys getting some head from Taika? Badummmshhhh, ok I'll leave now). Gnight!

[silurisanguine]

Tracing and copying another's fan art and claiming as your own is a major DO NOT FUCKING DO.

I take no pleasure in doing this, but it is important. First and foremost - Tracing images to learn how to draw properly or to get a rough outline of an object or to do quick studies for fun is a known and understood technique in art. Some of the biggest fine artists did it - Picasso, Degas, Andy Warhol, even Leonardo Davinci did it.

When doing an outline trace from say a screenshot, it's always a good idea to say it's a study of one as I've done in the past and then those studies have been from virtual photography shots I've taken and edited myself. But

Tracing someone else's fan art and then claiming it as your own - that's a big mistake. Being that the art is from a fandom I'm part of and I follow the original artist I need to call this out as I recognised the original art straight away. TLDR - The user @kindakaikura produced a Vampyr art trade that was a direct trace over and copy of katrina_g46 artwork on Insta - that Katrina did back in 2021. The first drawing was drawn up and posted on a Discord where it was pointed out it was an exact copy of someone else's art to which Kai claimed there were 'similarities'.... That drawing was posted on various socials including here but soon deleted, though I have screenshots. Since then she's uploaded a 'changed' version on Twitter , here on Tumblr - and even Insta where Katrina is based! (Update - the post has come down here, but is still up on the other links).

But it's pretty obvious what's been done to this changed version. (flipped, badly change an arm position..squashed the face). First let's see the original artwork by Katrina g46 done in 2021-

Now let's compare the original with Kai's traced copies (her first version- quickly deleted and the altered ie flipped version that's now posted)-

Comparisons -

It's pretty obvious it's a trace and copy of someone else's fan art.

Be inspired by other people's fan art by all means, but straight out tracing and then badly trying to alter it and claim as your own is just not on. I cannot respond directly to Kai or the one who commissioned them as strangely 🤔 🙄 they have blocked me here so I must make my own post calling out this behavior in the hopes they will learn from it and develop their own artistic style. I have also let Katrina know on Instagram.

[oubliettecomic]

Launch!

Today I am launching my webcomic, OUBLIETTE. I've been thinking about this story for at least a decade and actually doing something about it since 2022, so fair to say it's been a while coming! I've been wanting to do my own webcomic ever since I first stumbled across them in the old dialup days, when nobody used their real name online, most webcomic could draw and pages would take actual minutes to load. But I hadn't seen much of life then and didn't have much to say, whereas now I've got all sorts of fun ideas (that I'm more comfortable talking about dressed up in fiction.)

I've never been much cop at drawing, so when I first really got excited about the project I originally planned to pay an artist, but that sadly fell through. I had enough momentum (and scripts) to want to still make a go of it, I bought myself a cheap drawing tablet and a copy of Clip Studio Paint and tried various teach-yourself courses online for most of 2023. I am far from an accomplished (or even competent) artist, but I can get the comic to look how I want it and that will do for now. The best way to improve is to practice and the best way to motivate myself to practice is to have a project.

One big inspiration for the comic has been watching the Internet change; thinking about how people relate to data and truth. Another is wandering around post-socialist places like VDNKh, Pripyat and Chiatura, seeing the entropy-haunted bones of yesterday's utopias gradually crumbling. Much is about cities and tunnels and hot wide open spaces. I hope it's interesting enough that other people like it. I know how the story begins, and how it ends, and I have a lot of ideas for the middle that will be realised depending on how much fun I have writing and drawing. It's probably going to be at least a five-year project, which is quite a commitment.

The first chapter is now online and free to read at https://oubliettecomic.com. New pages will come out every Monday. I'm also creating update sites here on Tumblr, and on Bluesky (Twitter may take some time. I created a new account, and on logging on ti it the first thing I saw was an inane tweet from Musk. I don't want that in my life, so I blocked him, and found my account *immediately* suspended. Draw your own conclusions.)

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

Engagement 101: The basics

Sp's resources for Content Creators Materialist

Not to beat a dead horse but this has been brewing in my brain for months and I can't hold it in any longer, considering there are now people here for Twitter I feel the need to reiterate what has been said a million times. Content creators need engagement if you want them to post on a regular basis.

A few points first.

Hearts are good but they mostly just let someone know you stopped by.

Comments are wonderful and can make someone day. They don't need to be long or make sense, I like a string on letters or emojis just as much as I like long comments. It's just that I will return to long comments when I'm feeling down about my writing or need some motivation.

Reblogs are what get people's work out there, if you're going to reblog, do it with tags. One or two is fine.

Here are some general guidelines, these are based on my own feelings but any writer/content creators that see this are welcome to add to it.

First and foremost, we are not robots that churn out content for you. Asking when something will be updated but not engaging otherwise is a good way to make someone like you don't value them. This is the same with requests, the bare minimum is a please and a thank you. Sending the character with a prompt or scenario and nothing else feels like a demand.

Spam liking is great but if someone goes through all my stuff and never says anything, it's kinda strange because I have no idea why you're here. Did you read it? Are you saving it?

Follow the rules of someone's prompt/request list. It feels pretty shitty when I put in the rules "you must comment and/or reblog", and the person uses the loophole of doing a blank reblog and nothing else. I shouldn't have to explain every single thing, it should be assumed that if I'm doing something for you, you let me know you liked it.

There is a difference between giving constructive feedback and just being an ass. @withmyteeth gave me some advice in a DM and @darklydeliciousdesires gave me some advice when she reblog the request I made for her, this greatly helped me, and I'm now going through and fixing my mistakes. If you want to give feedback, remember that most people do this do it for fun, and some of them have different brains from you. Don't ick someone's yum by being a dick about it.

Similarly, be nice. We are people and if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all.

Respect when someone says their requests are closed, most people make it pretty clear.

Don't steal shit, if fucking sucks and I've seen content creators leave because of theft.

Similarly, don't read or talk about anything on another platform without asking first. if I found out someone was reading my stuff on TikTok, I would have a heart attack.

This might be the most important one. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN MEDIA CONSUMPTION AND YOUR TIME ONLINE, BLOCK PEOPLE YOU DON'T LIKE AND MOVE ON.

[unohanabbygirl]

So from what i gathered litathesissy called corviids out over plagiarism in fanart (one of luke holding his oc kid) and a fic (a one shot of hers included a scene similar to another where Lucemond son goes into a rut and Aemond pulls him away from Lucerys who says "I'm his mother" to which he replies "And I'm your uncle"). Corviids responded by saying they remember reading the fic but it wasn't intentional though they could add it as inspiration if the authors reaches out (the author being grimsoul) and that not mentioning the original work the Luke art was based on was a mistake but that it was a forgotten piece that she posted randomly.

In the middle of this the acid rain author came out to say "now that lita is exposed as a bully, she said I'm a groomer but I've never given the minor smut scenes to beta and I didn't know they were a minor + lita says i write anon comments on her works except she blocked me on ao3 and i have her on mute" got flamed by many on twitter bc of saying that the grooming allegations are false and that it's "over a mistake of 2 days", others are saying the author knew and ignored warnings.

Also gybtm author apparently replied to the lita tweet to say "yeah corviids should've said it's inspired by grimsoul" and got OUTED then stepped back and said they haven't read the works of either sides after privating the fic for a bit (+ lita seemed to have other twt accs for drama and said to someone who told her you bullied people "and I'd do it again!") Lita and middle_c also deleted their entire accounts.

Anyways monkkeyslut posted an update on "All I had to give" saying she won't write anymore and is very much done with the fandom. The chapter has comments about the drama flaming corviids for how they're not exempt from dragging and it's all just??? Chill?

Ntbiutb author has an ask also summarising what happened and seems vindicated over lita but is very much mocking the "protecting the children" narrative against the acid rain author considering Elliot's face is often dragged into inappropriate conversations by Lucemonders.

Twitter is a dumpster fire, people are deactivating left and right, the fandom is imploding for the 8295th time this month, hope you're okay.

Oh my… that’s a lot.

I have to say that I’ve never been more happy with the decision to remain in my own little bubble. It also helps that i’m way lesser known among all the lucemond authors so there’s no pressure on my shoulders 😭

I just hope everything can come to a resolve soon. I’m not new to fandom so fighting amongst everyone isn’t new, but it never fails to make me a bit sad. This should be a fun/safe space for us, you know? But we’re all people with different views and personalities behind the screens so it makes sense for drama to go down sooner or later

Anyways, I’m more than fine anon! Thankfully no mean comments have been directed at me so I’m incredibly thankful to everyone here for being such sweethearts 🩷

[northwest-cryptid]

Since people seem to have a want for OC and Sona stuff, I shall drop it below the cut for anyone who wants that stuff.

I think the big thing I gotta start off with is saying that for me, Sona and OC are two different things; every Sona is of course an OC, but not every OC is a Sona.

So for the sake of explanation I personally define it as such (and if you define it differently, that's perfectly fine I'm just saying this is how I personally define it for the sake of explanation). An OC is simply an Original Character/Creation, it's a work that comes from myself and not an outside influence such as a video game, tv show, or other media. While a Sona is a "Personification" or a "Persona" of a thing, typically representative of myself, but sometimes it could be of an aesthetic, a concept, or a genre. An example of this would be that I used to have various Sonas for the different styles of music I made (which was a trend back in the day god I feel old saying that).

Okay now to actually get into the stuff people actually came here for. Kicking things off with Sonas I use to represent myself in various media we have first on the list:

Velvet/VelvetSoul

Velvet has been and continues to be one of my main Sonas and a representation of myself that I use for things like VRC, while the outfits are generally in need of a lot of work (they're pretty basic with a very simple pixelation effect thrown on to give off that dreamcast vibe) the more defining features of their hair/eyes and such are based heavily on my OCs from various media and D&D games. Note that yes these are both intended to be the same character, I'm genderfluid as hell and appreciate being able to outwardly present as a more masculine or feminine design at times. The beanie that masculine Velvet wears is a sort of callback to a beanie I wear a lot IRL because it gives me a place to display my collection of pins, I will eventually update it accordingly however for the time being it works just fine.

For the spooky season I gave Velvet a silly ghost appearance where I decided to take some inspiration from the Jet Set Radio aesthetic of big ol' feet and slightly larger hands, I've always enjoyed the concept of playing around with anatomy in a stylized fashion, I however once again didn't go too hard on the outfit since I'm honestly still working on these characters and have a ways to go before I'm going to be happy with them. I however dropped the pixel look here that we see on the original Velvet design:

While some may argue that this isn't recognizably the same character, I would argue that variety is the spice of life and I am fucking SPICY.

I did do a little work on facial expressions to make sure they didn't horribly disfigure the face which was fun

Another Sona often used to represent myself, and one that I hold dear to me is Akito/Aki, probably the one I'm best known for:

I really did my best to throw more Native inspiration at this lad, and honestly I still have a long ways to go on them. They as well have a feminine design that looks wildly different I don't know why I'm like this but I enjoy it:

and as per usual I'm not 100% happy with how they came out so I'm gonna keep working on them because I love my dumb blorbos but I can never stop "improving" the designs lol.

I think my main issue with the current design for Akito is that the artist who drew the VERY FIRST ever commissioned piece of art for Akito did such a good job and no one has been able to capture the same vibe this sketch has this dude did it for like $5 and I gave him such a big tip because I was so annoyed that he was underselling his work because HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS and you want to know the worst part? I got blocked out of my twitter account recently and as I'm unable to access my twitter account I literally do not know what the artist changed his handle to though I remember him changing it before I got locked out, so I literally have no idea what the hell he's going by and I really want to give him a proper shoutout so I'm absolutely going to figure it out because he deserves credit for this piece to the point I'm salty he didn't like, sign it or anything.

This is art that never gets seen and it kills me because for those who don't know, the original design concept for Akito was a sort of mix of 3 things, Kallian (Xenoblade), Sandalphon (Granblue Fantasy), and general Space/Owl motifs given that the general concept design philosophy behind Akito was the idea that, Hihankaga The Owl Maker, a Lakota deity who judged Nagi on their way to the afterlife; was essentially retiring and had placed Akito in her place as the new Owl Maker. My main idea behind that was that people would come to the Owl Maker and tell her their life story the same way I was doing challenge runs in games that would typically follow a character (such as Chester from my Kenshi playthrough) and thematically it would be a sort of "retelling of their life" I was originally, and might still do this mind you; going to have a website dedicated to a sort of "Hall of Fame" where I would write a short bio for each character who's major arc has been completed on the streams and determine if they had lived a life fit for being worthy of an afterlife or whether I'd deemed them unworthy and cast them into the abyss. So basically Akito was meant to be this sort of cosmic owl spirit with wings and stars and the whole nine yards, but still be a more comfortable/easy going sort of individual. The key concept behind Akito as The Owl Maker was simply that Akito never wanted to cast spirits into the abyss so they specifically did everything they could to help people live a fulfilling life just so they could rightfully deem them worthy of their afterlife. Hence why I love the idea of them just wearing really casual clothes and like, a comfy scarf, also I like scarves. The red on the scarf is not just a gentle nod to the color of the four directions but also to the fact Native people are often referred to as "red skins" and generally when it comes to Native imagery such as the symbol for MMIW it's done in red. As a quick aside, if you don't know MMIW is for "Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women" and if you ever seen Akito wearing a red hand-print over their mouth, it's because of this:

(I believe the design on the right was created by Despertar1111 but don't quote me on that seeing as the only place I could find a credit for the image was fucking redbubble but I digress)

The thing no one talks about when it comes to doing Vtuber stuff is the fact that if you're poorer and you save up like $400+ for a model and rigging you'll still get artists who ignore half your design and riggers who generally speaking can't rig full motion so do your research and don't settle on a design/rig that's sub par, I know this now and going forward I'm likely going to make sure the artists and riggers I work with are quality, I already know my next model will be rigged by none other than Neapolitanrime and as for my artist of choice I have no idea because I don't even have the money to consider that sort of thing yet but SOME DAY!

MOVING ON!

One of my OCs and an old OLD Sona for my sort of Grunge Punk music days was such an edgy lad, I'm very like; closet edgelord but you know I mostly keep it to myself; that being said this dude is named Xploit and I love him to death:

General design philosophy here was very grungey street punk vibes, I did in fact slap the same exact beanie that Velvet wears on him but like again clothing is very placeholder with these and basically meant to give a general vibe. Xploit was originally made after my old band and I went downtown and saw some graffiti that was talking about the exploitation of lower class workers where the bottom of the letters were shaped like knives all pointed at a singular entity, likely the laborer in question. I ran with that design to create the logo for Xploit that mirrors his 3 fangs (middle tooth and side fangs) with the X, the L and I, and the T in his name.

Also because I'm 3edgy5u I made his eyes X's (I just thought it looked neat)

I still have a lot of work to do on the shading since I'm working with very simplified 3D model making software instead of making models from scratch in something like Blender like I should be doing to have as much control over it as I want to. That being said it's meant to give an illusion that he has no facial features such as nose/mouth until otherwise speaking, at which point his fangs are meant to be prominent. Everything about his outline from his eyes to his hair is intended to be extremely sketchy and rough.

and because I have a soft spot for making even my edgier characters silly little guys, I made it so when he gets surprised his eyes bubble up.

Since I know there's some controversy regarding characters with bandages and the like I'd like to quickly make mention that none of the bandages worn by my characters are ever intended to suggest self harm.

Admittedly this is far from the complete roster, but we're eliminating anyone/anything that sprung up from games (I do consider them OCs to a degree but I understand they are influenced by the media they were created from/in and I don't feel like that should be necessarily included on a list of original characters that I specifically defined as "not being from media") and these are the ones I've been working on most recently so they're more in the forefront of my mind; I have plenty more for things ranging from music Sonas to just various OCs I've used for D&D and the like. That being said I'll likely throw together another one of these for the other OCs when I have more time/I'm not as busy.

You can have these drawings though:

Akito and Nazo who is @the-sum-of-ones-parts' sona. They are also the one who drew this. They also drew this of Nazo and Velvet

They also drew Akito in a dress (they are giving Melia vibes and I'm all for it.)

and they ALSO drew Akito and Nazo for the Outlast 2 stream we did.

Note that Nazo is a shapeshifter.

Big shout out to @the-sum-of-ones-parts for drawing so many of my dumb OCs/Sonas (like you guys don't understand there is more but I'm trying to not make this post 10 miles long)

THAT BEING SAID I HAVE A BUNCH OF DUMB MEMES OF AKITO YOU CAN HAVE (if you can't tell Akito is my most public OC)

If you have any questions I probably have answers (hopefully) so ask away my friend.

[choochooboss]

Sketch dump! Vol. 3 August 2022

Literally dumping all the presentable works here as promised, whether I’m proud of them or not!

The first image was inspired by a color palette of a random YT playlist thumbnail! I really loved it and wanted to turn it into a cosy travel & rain scene with colorful city lights smeared like dripping wet watercolors. The second one is a KH3 reference! Do you recognise this scene? I don't know how he would possibly end up there in the first place, but he sure is determined to find his dear brother by breaking through the edge of the world!

How to make Ingo smile, step 1: Make him spell "Emmet"! And a goofy cartoon collision moment ahah!

They are very satisfied after a challenging match, win or lose, and they want you to come back for another ride! I love the twins as they appear in Pokémas the most and try to capture the personalities their English VAs give in my art. They are adorable, excitable, cool and very much admirable!

Emmet always wants to look cool, and Ingo surely gives the most heartfelt handshakes! This piece was to celebrate 1K followers on Twitter! The first three months were wild as so many people found my works!! I fondly reminisce that time, not only I was doing well with my first fanart account, I also felt very happy in general! I was so in the zone with art, being super creative free of worries. It's awesome to see most of the people who commented this back then are still posting/in contact with me!! Thank you so much for sticking with me and my little shenanigans!

I still really like these sketches here, love to see this trio having a blast together! The clips are from a movie classic "Singing in the Rain", and below is the final piece:

Doodles~

Early Breakmas AU sketch (Team Break Submas); going full speed after trainers to collect their pokémon... What would you do if these two giant traffic cones approached you at high velocities?

Excadrill & Archeops, the soft & fluffy guys! Some of my first sketches of the submas mons. Excadrill has become my no. 1 submas mon, I adore that tough little missile knight! Archeops is definitely one of the most appealing ones! I love how he kinda has 4 wings he glides with. However I cannot unsee the snake in a parrot suit ahahah, pardon me! Also I pity the poor guy's in-battle idle animation where he has to flap SO HARD just to stay afloat!

Also Durant & Galvantula! I never was a fan of Durant but I've found ways to have fun drawing this little mischievous creature. They're after your ankles nyehehehe~ Galvantula also wasn't appealing to me until submas fever hit but now I think it's a pretty cute beast! I really like how I drew that fur, which is funny because it was that bristly blue fur that didn't strike my fancy back then!

Still enjoying this sketch! Took me some time to read the lines though ahah, the sketch so loose. He's leading a complete opposite life now...

Surprise!!! I held an art raffle on my Twitter account once but I never finished the piece for no good explanation other than getting stuck with the depot agent designs. I wanted to finish this so badly but just couldn't get over that mental block. It still bothers me I couldn't do it!

More KH inspired attempts, this time the stained glass!

Some expressions! Those snouts I draw for them are so silly ahah

Oh yikes, mood shift! The situation is looking dire, is his brother okay?? I like how the pose & water turned out!

Another intense situation, what could this Team Break guy possibly want from him..?! Man, this piece feels so old now but I still like the movie like vibe! That's all just from August!! I was extremely productive back then ahah, it's cool to see how creative and varied stuff I could do!

More and more sketches & WIPs are waiting in the queue! Hope you had fun checking these out!

UPDATE: I had accidentally uploaded some sketches I had already shared in the July 2022 sketchdump so I replaced them with other sketches I had actually forgot I made in August!

Sketch dump Vol. 1: April-June 2022 Sketch dump Vol. 2: July 2022

[davidmariottecomics]

100 Blogs (Give or Take): FIGHT!

Hello! 

Welcome to my 100th* blog! 

*Or, rather, blog week 101 over on my website. In terms of actual blogs, I'm probably more in the 70s-80s? I try to update as much as possible, of course, but some weeks things've not uploaded properly. Occasionally, I've had just too much life stuff or I haven't really had much to write about. And sometimes, on the extreme ends, I've had way too much to write about and have been overwhelmed at trying to parse out everything I needed to. Last week, when I missed the actual week 100, was somewhere inbetween those: feeling uninspired because I was so tired from both stuff in my personal life and the many many many things happening in the world at large. 

I've, unsurprisingly, still got a lot on my mind. Like 200 organizations have pledged their support for KOSA and sounds like they might not all understand exactly what they're supporting (but you can still make your voice heard on why not to let it pass, namely the continued safety and security of LGBTQ+ folks online who might otherwise get explicitly banned from the most public online spaces, or at least implicitly banned through shadowbanning--as well as all the kids that could be harmed from the inability to access information that they might actually need.).

The U.S. blocked a U.N. call for ceasefire singlehandedly, despite the rest of the security council (minus abstaining U.K. and... that was noticed, guv) being in favor and, of course the overwhelming national and international support for a ceasefire (one progressive thinktank's polling suggested around a 60% US support for ceasefire, to whatever extent those kinds of polls can be trusted, however, the feet on the ground at protests, making calls, sending emails, trying to get into Senatorial offices with ladders, etc show a pretty vocal support for one).

The website formerly known as Twitter gave me just another reason to leave with their new AI. I don't want to see anything about it because I, y'know, get that it's like dunking on the people who wanted to use it for evil and that's funny or whatever, but it's also another AI system that's almost certainly just regurgitating things actually people said and thought and made and ought to be given credit and/or money for the use of. We shouldn't be letting our guard down around an AI just because it's telling transphobes to go fuck themselves--this is still the same shit that is stealing from artists or denying people their medical coverage!

And, also mostly on Twitter because it's a bad place (and I'll remind ya now, I'm leaving by the year's end. I'll be here on the blog and you can find me on Bluesky and I have a couple spare invites if you might need one, but my Twitter's coming to an end soon and I think my Facebook/Insta aren't too far behind...) multiple dirtbag comics guys decided to make the rounds again. They've had their airtime and I have no interest in giving them a platform, but boy, they sure were around. 

Plus, y'know, all the other stuff that has just been continuing, from the continued assault on Ukraine to Covid hospitalizations and deaths going up again.

It's the end of the year and cha'boy is tired. It has been a long, long year and I'm very much looking forward to it ending for whatever that is worth and the time of relaxation I get to have around that end. And so, I wasn't really feeling like writing... but then, I saw a post on Bluesky from Marcus Jimenez asking all comics folks about crafting fight scenes. And so I wanna talk about that this week because I don't often get a chance to talk about the mechanics of comics within comics, and that can be really fun! 

Squaring Up

As someone who has written and edited a lot of fight scenes, there are a lot of different ways to go about it. As I think I've said before, in my own writing, I tend toward a little more description and full dialogue so the artist has those space considerations in mind when working from my scripts. As an editor, I've worked the "Marvel" way where pages are more plotted with with less dialogue and specific action. I've worked with folks who do more of a rough pass where they focus on the concrete smaller moments and then leave a lot of the action up to the artist. I've worked with folks who're even more prescriptive than me. And there's something to finding the right balance on all sides with all these folks--from the writer and artist meshing in terms of what sort of detail they want from each other to having complimentary colors and letters. 

But for myself, and something I have sometimes talked to creators about, one of the first things I focus on when it comes to an action or fight scene is the specific things the character(s) can do. When I think about some of my bigger fight sequences in say Transformers vs. the Terminator or Transformers Wreckers: Tread & Circuits (both available from my webstore, *hint hint*), one of the most apparent things is that I loaded them with a lot of characters doing a lot of things, so... sorry to my artists (no, I know Alex and Jack loved working on them--again, if you can, write to the artist's strengths and I happened to work with guys I knew were excited about these sorts of big scenes). But in that, there are a lot of characters with specific abilities. Generally speaking, right, in TF/Term, we've got three different types of combatants: Sarah Conner is a human, the T-800 is a Terminator, and the Transformers are Transformers. So the skills Sarah has are different from all the robots and, obviously, the Transformers have the ability to convert modes which is something unique to them as characters that can make for really exciting sequences. And even within the Transformers, there are different combat capabilities: Skywarp can teleport. Soundwave has sonic attacks. Megatron has a huge arm cannon. Optimus has an energon axe. The Seekers can fly. And characters like Velocity are medics, who she doesn't really shoot to kill, she can hold her own after millenia at war, but she's not a fighter first and doesn't wanna do terrible damage to anyone. 

To me, it's the same thing as a fight with Spider-Man. You know he's got the proportional speed, strength, and agility of a spider. You know he has web-fluid (unless he doesn't and that sort of circumstance is interesting in a fight). He can stick to things and sense danger and all the standard Spidey tricks. And if you want a scene to be engaging, you wanna know what your characters can do in it that is unique--either to other characters and stories, or within this specific scenario. Seeing Spidey use his webs or his wall-crawling or his spider-sense is more interesting on a page than him just swinging his fists (generally). These are all sort of tools in the toolbox that determine what they can do in a fight. I also think that when you combine them with the circumstances of the fight, you start to see how they'll act in a fight. Why they make the decisions they do. 

So, to use TF again, in TF/Terminator, let's talk about the set-up to the big fight that runs through issues #3 & #4. It starts out with Bumblebee and Sarah scouting out the Decepticons who are up to no good. And the instigating question is, if Bumblebee's a good scout, how does someone sneak up on him? Well, Skywarp is a teleporter. So he just appears! But he's also maybe a little dumb, so he announces himself. Bumblebee's first priority is protecting Sarah, so the best way to do that is for him to shift modes around her as a running shield. They'll go faster. If he gets hit, it'll reduce the impact on her. Etcetera. He could do other things--he could stay and fight and blast at Skywarp, but because the option is open to him to change modes and to drive away, he's going to because that's fun and it makes sense with his character. Then he tries to do some fancy driving to trick Skywarp into ramming into Megatron, but because Skywarp can teleport, hey, he gets away in perfect position to take another run at Bumblebee. But because he teleported higher to get a better position, it also left him more open to get shot by Optimus in the heroic arrival of the rest of the Autobots. The characters' abilities made a really clear picture of the sort of action that could occur with the setting and are reflective of why they act the way they do. 

Throw a Punch A lot of the action is going to flow pretty naturally, from a writing standpoint, once you've got it started. If I know who my characters are, what they can do, and the basic scenario they find themselves in, as long as I've got that in my head, I can just sort of play them off each other and see how the action goes. But there ar some other practicalities I try to take into account as I go. 

1. How many characters do I have to keep track of? Like I said, a lot of my fight scenes have been bigger. I've got groups fighting each other, with civilians to worry about. And while you don't need to show every beat of every action, you do have to keep roughly in mind how everyone is reacting and to what extent you do want to switch between POVs and protagonists. I tend to measure my beats to either pages or page turns, rather than doing too much action switching on a single page unless I'm trying to convey just how hectic things are and just how simultaneous actions are occuring. 

2. How fast is your action moving? Two things I think about a lot when I'm writing action are that a round of combat in Dungeons & Dragons is supposed to be 6 seconds, and that the coolest fight I've ever seen on film is the almost 6 minute fight scene in They Live. (6 minutes later...) I'm back! Okay, so either way, I think what both of those are very representative of are how quickly action occurs in a fight and how much of the time in a fight is the other stuff. It's the non-combat movement. It's catching your breath or setting a trap or focusing on another problem or putting sunglasses on a guy. And in comics, you have the ability to dialate time as you'd like, so each panel can be a second or a matter of seconds, with the gutters allowing time to pass out of frame. You want your action to be logical and continous, but it's okay to have other things happening in the flow, and maybe more importantly, to chose which moments have the most impact.  In D&D, 6 seconds can take like 6 minutes. And on film, you're getting so many constant frames. Comics lets you be a lot chosier in how you expand and contract the time around those moments. 

3. How text heavy is the fight? Here's the other side of things. I know that I tend to be a talker. I mean... look how long it's taken to get to this point! I like dialogue in my comics and often have characters trading verbal jabs during the action. And that takes time and space. As do sound effects. So, I try to balance my fight scenes to the essentials. Much the same as the issue of time, I'm trying to select the moments of greatest impact with what we're "hearing". The more that's being asked of an action panel, the less text I try to give it. Let the art take over. But if I can use the action as a punctuation: If Optimus or Thunderclash or whoever is giving his hero speech and can toss a punch at a baddie to make his point, I'm going to use it. And if action is the visual punctuation to dialogue in this way, SFX are the visual punctuation to the action. They're an exclamation point on what sound is important. A lot of the time, it'll be no sound. But if it'll clarify the action or if it'll enhance the mood, go for it! 

Most important to a fight scene is that *generally* they're supposed to be fun. They're moments of fantasy where a side that's in some sort of right and a side that's in some sort of wrong clash and there's a victor and we all cheer because it's entertaining to see Rowdy Roddy Piper get his ass handed to him up until the end, but when he finally gets one over on Keith David, you know it's because he was right. So while you're thinking of all this stuff, if you give in to the fun, it'll propel you through a lot of it. Now, there're obviously also moments when the fighting is supposed to be building tension or showing the horrors of violence, but I think that goes to a lot of the same mentality as we've already got. It's about making the characters respond to the situation of the fight and if their responses fall in line with that, it'll still be smooth sailing because it'll be what makes sense.

I think that's it for me for this week, but maybe in a coming week, I can do something like a mini-version of something I did on my Patreon when I did an annotated version of the Wreckers #1 script and  do sort of a practical walk-through of a new original fight scene. 

Until next time. Happy Hanukkah to those that celebrate! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Lego Masters (TV show), Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (Short story collection), Factory Summers by Guy Delisle (Comic), It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood (Comic), Slaughterhouse-Five (the Comic adaptation by Ryan North & Albert Monteys), being almost done with all gift shopping and wrapping 2 weeks early, Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Dandadan (Manga), our little mall Model Train Museum, Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville (Comic), Blue Beetle (Comic), Birds of Prey (Comic), Christmas lights, finding a good deal on a present for myself (I found the G.I. Joe Bishoujo Scarlett statue for a mere $40 at a local secondhand store and I think she's really pretty), not getting sick even tho Becca was, and I guess The Killer (Movie). Not my favorite Fincher by a lot. We're tentatively gonna see Godzilla: Minus One tomorrow, so looking forward to that and will try to figure out seeing Boy and the Heron, Eileen, Dream Scenario, and maybe The Marvels (tho it being a Disney film makes it a tougher sell) before they're out of theaters... and maybe Priscilla... and maybe FNAF on the big screen since Becca's really into FNAF right now. Too many movies! And I love movies! 

New Releases this week (12/6/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog #67 (Editor)

New Releases next week (12/13/2023):  Sonic the Hedgehog: Winter Jam (Editor)

Announcements: Look for a kind fun thing I contributed to this week! I'll share it when it's live! 

The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. You can also give more directly. If you don't have money, and I get it, you can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives. There are a ton of demonstrations happening this weekend and you can see if you can put your actions in on one of those!

If you aren't a Patreon backer yet, remember, it's a great gift for someone or yourself. At my $10 tier, last month, I got Becca to record an Adults-Only podcast called "Abandoning the Premise" with me. You should be able to hear a short sample at the link. And if that seems cool to you, you can get the whole episode, but a bunch of other weird stuff on my Patreon! This month's "Something Weird"s are going to be a root beer review (I bought 6 different root beers and Becca suggested I talk about what I thought of them and there'll be a little more to it that that) and hopefully posting next weekend, a Holiday Gift Guide written, chosen, and designed by me (be careful if you're a person who might get a gift from me... you might see your present in there)! 

And keep an eye out for more news soon. Really hoping to have some cool news in the new year if not before! 

Pic of the Week: So, last Wednesday, I made a trip up to the IDW Los Angeles office. Because we have a lot of people spread out, we have a couple office locations. But the LA office happened to host some friends from SEGA and, specifically, some visitors from Sonic Team! We gave them the tour, talked about the comics, gave them some to take home, all the good usual visiting stuff. But Karasuno-san, Kanemoto-san, and Hoshino-san very generously did some sketches for us before they left. So, should you get a chance to tour the IDW offices in the future, you might see this sketch page hanging on the wall. 

[finsterhund]

The boredom gets to me.

Lake trip got cancelled, then postponed to today, except ex roommate didn't want to go to the safe lake and me and my friend only wanted to go to the safe lake so we didn't end up going at all but that was okay because Will and Paula did a Paper Beast stream and it was fun.

Other than that things have been extremely boring and I've been getting sick from the heatwave.

It's too hot to play Paper Beast because of the headset, it's too hot to play Minecraft because ice pack laptop gets hot way quicker now.

It really becomes apparent that without spending money there's not much to do during the quarrentine. I've drawn a bit, I keep trying to write but never get anywhere, and mostly I'm just feeling lonely and wishing I had a dog. I have to be careful not to think too much about that late at night otherwise I'll miss my bedtime and then cry myself to sleep at 4AM. I joke about how I am explicitly forbidden from listening to "Tiny's Song" after 7PM, because that's a surefire way to make it worse.

I have another psychiatrist phone call in a couple weeks and I'm hoping to talk about trauma and misery loops, or whatever it's called when your brain keeps dwelling on loss.

Computer quest seems to be going well, but of course I've put as much money as I can into it for this month. Frustrated that I can't do anything more until I get paid again.

Got to go to the thrift store a few days ago. Impulsively got Lady because she was 5 dollars and we all know she's a spaniel so obviously I was weak of will, soft of heart, dumb of ass. You know the drill. This boy does not simply see a cosmically significant stuffed dog just sitting there and not do something about it.

I also picked up a seemingly brand-new collar with several tags attached. I collect used and discarded dog tags (I will go into this in more detail in another post) and I intend to start bringing as many back as I can whenever I get to go to thrift stores.

I'm frustrated that I keep making plans that I'll only be able to follow through on once all this is over. My computer is the only big thing in the works that isn't held back by the virus.

I wish the other one in town would open again. Stupid virus.

I keep phoning my mom to talk to her puppy. I was going to visit to see the puppy and also bring my childhood toys back home and also develop the Spot negatives. But no. Ruined. Stupid virus says "Andy likes Spot, and his old toys, and puppies. Let's make sure he doesn't get to see them" stupid virus.

I have a TON of important things planned where traveling or going to high risk stores/places that are definitely closed is required.

The last Spot I ordered online before I put my foot down and said "no more buying comfort items online until you get your new computer" seems to almost be arriving. Should around the same time I have my phone appointment. I'm also waiting on the lost DHL puppy (still, it's been so long) and another that I think also is lost, and a rare copy of Heart of Darkness that's taken forever to ship and is presumably in Alaska now (why I don't know)

I intend to spoil that Spot to an extreme amount to make up for the eBay stuffed dog drought that will presumably go on for three months. Although the fact that I do no longer have to hold onto all the money to use at once and have now switched over to giving it in installments to my friend who's doing my custom build does mean I have a better understanding on how much money I have available each month. It's their responsibility to count and keep track of the big unintelligible numbers now. I'm free!

Although I do still intend to keep the paper with all the "100"s written on it in use. Using a visual aid to help with my dyscalcula has actually felt super good. Wish teachers would have been more open to helping me do this during school.

I do wish I had more inspiration to draw and write. Not getting too much interaction with what I'm doing online so it doesn't feel like a way to socialize and I'm actually desperate for more socialization during this time.

The quest for an extremely large floppy stuffed dog that looks like Spot has been postponed due to the computer quest. Similarly I am barred from buying anything else from Awwful Adopts, Lil Sprout Care, and Blvucci. Will showed me a browser extension that blocks certain website access from your browser. I use it to bar me from aimlessly searching stuffed dogs on eBay for four hours.

Hold me to this promise. No Awwful Adopts, No LilSproutCare, and no Blvucci. If I brag about getting the Blvucci glow in the dark hoodie and it wasn't because I won a free one, you are all encouraged to spam mean names into my message inbox and hit me with things.

I have materials to make custom sized collars and bandannas for my stuffed dogs but I just don't feel up to learning to sew. I know how to do 1. A ladder stitch and 2. Several types of knots. So all I can technically do is fix small holes in stuffed animals.

It's technically my bedtime but I don't feel able to sleep right now so I'm just writing this update.

My friend made art of Spot for me and it is very nice so I'll share it tomorrow.

Keeping my mind active talking about my day and my plans stops me from thinking about sad things, but it also prevents me from sleeping. I just wish that there was something to look forward to tomorrow. It's gonna be another hot do nothing stay home day.

Maybe soon we will get to go to the lake.

Anyways, I'll try updating you all more. Maybe post more memes and things that have mostly been going on over at twitter dot com. I keep forgetting to post things here because of how broken Tumblr is on desktop now.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

The Problem with MSM

So I honestly don't have many followers. I'm also prone to going on tangents. And most of my posts are rooted in politics. Not by choice mind you. I was not the one that decided literally everything in existence is political. I'm also not the one that created the view points that want everything to be political. TL;DR At the bottom.

To start off however, I need you to understand the process of radicalization.

Find someone who feels discontent with how a situation is, or how their life is

Tell this person that what's happening to them is not their fault

Place the blame for this person's problems on a certain group (political group, racial group, religious group, etc.)

Talk to the person like you know how they feel, "drop your guard" and tell them "problems you've had that were not your fault" blaming that same group

Show them that they are either a victim or oppressed in some way, shape, or form.

Slowly start swaying their views further to the extreme, by showing them other instances of "others who are being attacked or are victims" of said group.

Promptly but softly oppose any "differing views" with warped information or flat out lies

Get them to start going to events and taking to others that have already been radicalized

Have you and another radicalized individual, keep track of this person and say you support them and their issues

Sit back and watch

Now this is a rough lost but more or less the bare bones basics of radicalizing other people. Though in some cases it takes more steps and in some others it takes less. So what does this have to do with MSM (Mainstream Media)? Quite a few things in modern day actually.

The job of MSM is to get you information, as fast as humanly possible. This however was not the first goal priority in the past. In the past, the first priority was to cover a story as factually as the could, and look for more information keeping people constantly updated. Here we get to our first real problem for Media today. Technology. The Advent of modern technology has been both a blessing and a curse in this regard. And of course I'm talking about the internet in its current form. The internet being the very center of information distribution in 2019. And it has been for almost 12 years now.

So what did this change? Basically everything we know today. "Old wives tales" are now a Google search away. Feeling sick? WebMD says you have Cancer. Looking for the next hour story? Check CNN's Twitter account. The Internet brought us a great, many things. But it has taken away just as many. MSM has had to slowly move operations into social media in order to try and stay relevant. This because many people have unplugged, and have gone full digital. The only real exceptions being places of business. And with the world at your finger tips at the clock of a button, being factual has lost its relevance. Not to mention that as far back as 2013-2014 activists started working for MSM companies. Most notably progressive activists. This causes many problems we currently see today. Below is an example of what a headline used to look like, and what most headlines look like now:

Normal headline: Shooting in Birmingham leaves 3 dead and several injured during city wide festival.

Headline now: White, Trump supporter, Nazi, KKK, skin head, punches 2 people in hate crime.

See the difference? The first headline shows the basic facts and dives into known details during the article. Often they'd avoid opinions all together. The second one one the other hand, blatantly discloses anything that could generate clicks. Why? Because true or not, outrage sells. So over the past several years, MSM has been slowly radicalizing us. But they do this on a bipartisan level.

Are you black? The cops will kill you, and the white man is evil. Can't find a job? Racism. Are you a woman? Then you're unhappy because "rape culture". Do you regret having sex with that guy? Well guess what? He actually raped you without you realizing. Are you white? You're evil. Are you strait? You're a monster and should give all your money to gay people. Are you a man? You are responsible for every rape ever committed. You're also a pedophile and violent. Are you a strait white man? Oh boy you won the jackpot because you're basically Hitler.

See my point here? MSM spends most of it's time trying to rage bait you into clicking their articles. And in doing so we've gotten so lazy as a country that half the time, we don't even read past the headlines. And MSM knows this. They don't care if you read what they write. They are just radicalizing you so they can keep feeding you outrage. Because the more often they do it, the more often you will click it, skim all of 3 lines and then hop on Twitter and talk about how outraged you are. Sure, we are just as to blame for letting it happen to us, but most of us used to have at least some trust in the media. But after SEVERAL severely awfully false hit pieces that were headline news for almost months, many of us have started staying away from MSM.

What incidents might I be talking about?

Covington Catholic controversy (Almost every media outlet took a 7 second clip and ran with it. Turns out, there was a full 2hr video out there, and the Native American man, whom CNN interviewed, lied his ass off. Most media also chose to ignore the VERY beginning of the video which showcased a group called The Black Hebrew Israelites. These individuals, called Trump a homosexual, called the Native Americans there "Uncle Tomahawk", and said Gay people should not have rights. THESE CATHOLIC STUDENTS, were appalled by this statement. But what did we see in the media? "Racist Maga hat kid threatens and blocks the path of a Poor innocent Native American man."

Duke Lacrosse. Years after these kids were crucified by the Media and many others, the girl actually came out saying it never happened. You know who reported on this? Next to no one.

Ferguson. Now as controversial as this one is, the media took and RAN with it. What followed after the skewed coverage was a cult like gathering that led to phrases like, "hands up don't shoot" and "oink oink, bang bang". But Obama had the issue federally investigated. Both witnesses and the coroner report said basically the same thing. That he was aggressively wrestling with the cop trying to take his gun. But, it's too late. Now all cops are evil, and Democrat politicians are quoting it like it happened yesterday, and claiming the cop guilty. Why? Because MSM already got what they needed. They radicalized the individuals they wanted, people who will come back to them for, "facts".

And what does all of this boil down to? A video that made me write this out.

2 things need to be said here. 1. The "manifesto" as it were, was actually debunked to have been uploaded by the shooter, by the site admin himself. As well as several other sources. 2. If, by some chance the manifesto was real, and he had someone upload it for him, he mentions several liberal talking points, like universal basic income, saving the environment, among other left policies.

But this brings me back to both the beginning and to this story. Assuming for a moment, the manifesto was his. How did this happen? Most of you might just jump and say, "RACIST NAZIS", or something slightly more colorful. But here is the thing. MSM is partly responsible for all of this. Assuming the conspiracy that the CIA or FBI is responsible is false, I agree with the YouTuber in the picture. I believe that if you belittle and berate someone enough over time, you can cause them to do extreme things. I mean look at this site. Look at Twitter. Look at MSM. "White people bad", "white people are evil" "K*LL all whites" "white privilege", "fuck men", "male tears", "man spreading", "mansplaining", "Yes all men". All of this. This is popular. This is a trend. And it's unacceptable. Because frankly, it's basically bullying someone into a corner. Personally? I've been told by a few companies that are scared of social justice warriors and the online hate mob, that their company is actively not hiring white individuals. And I wish, REALLY WISH, I was making that up.

Is it any wonder, that people who go to the internet as an escape end up in a low point in their lives and then decide to do something awful? And it's the same with school shootings too. The news puts out, the name, ethnicity, how tall they are, and their entire life story, for weeks at a time. And now for much longer, because they support the desire to ban guns. So they need these things to happen more often. So the glorify the shooter, and keep talking about him/them for months. But here is where the story gets fun.

Columbine's shooting, was actually supposed to be a bombing. The kids who did it? Not the "school losers" the media talked about. The trench coat club? They were not even apart of it. More info on that here. As well as other places on Google.

More or less This video covers what the media got wrong in their rush to cover everything. What they did not intend on, was making these two boys heros to those bullied in school. Mostly boys, who are torn down and told they aren't enough, that they don't matter, they are isolated, bullied, harassed. So they look for someone who stood up to their bullies. What they were given, was a sociopath who manipulated a suicidal boy into helping him commit mass murder. Almost all of MSM were quick to say they were bullied into it. What's worse however, is Parkland. The Parkland 5, (the students whom MSM propped up for months) one of them came out admitting, that she bullied the guy who shot up the school. Said he was weird and that she needed to do it. This is one of the teens the media has PROPPED UP, saying we should listen to their infinite wisdom. A girl who is probably half responsible for the shooting.

Start paying attention. Start doing research. And for the love of all that is holy, STOP BULLYING PEOPLE! I don't care what your narrative is, or what it means. IE:

White people are human

Black people are human

Hispanic people are human

Gay people are human

Strait people are human

Women are human

Men are human

Stop normalizing anything to the contrary. Because when you do, you become part of the problem.

TL;DR The media only cares about themselves and clicks. They don't care who they radicalize, so long as you keep giving them traffic. Which for them is money. Do your research, look into things, and don't bully people. I'm looking at you progressives.