#anyway the story continues

[naomistares]

mini comic about a kinda freaky terrible queen and the nonsensical takes she has about the times people have tried to kill her

(more thoughts in notes)

UP NEXT! ANOTHER short comic, (and then one more) this time taking place one month before the kings death, in which we will have: one annoying prince! one lousy fight scene! rejoice's dismissive nature! and row reveals a secret.... tune in next time for all that

[egophiliac]

CROWLEY SSR THOUGHTS

there is zero basis for this, but I can't get this thought of my head

I don't know why I decided to draw it this way

[secretmellowblog]

The thing is, Jean Valjean’s “nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread” from Les Mis isn’t actually unusual….not even today! I see people talking about it as if it’s strange or unimaginable when it happens every day.

In modern America — often as a result of pointlessly cruel (and racist) habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws— people are routinely sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes like shoplifting or possession of drugs.

The ACLU did a report in 2013 detailing the lives of various people who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonviolent property crimes like:

•attempting to cash a stolen check

•a junk-dealer’s possession of stolen junk

metal (10 valves and one elbow pipe)

•possession of stolen wrenches

•siphoning gasoline from a truck

•stealing tools from a tool shed and a welding machine from a yard

•shoplifting three belts from a department store

•shoplifting several digital cameras

•shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

• taking a television, circular saw, and a power converter from a vacant house

• breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night

And of course, so so so many people sentenced to life without parole for the possession of a few grams of drugs.

And we could go on and on!

Gregory Taylor was a homeless man in Los Angeles who, in 1997, was sentenced to “25 years to life” for attempting to steal food from a food kitchen. He was released after 13 years. The lawyers helping to release him even cited Les Miserables in their appeal, comparing Taylor’s sentence to Jean Valjean’s.

And there’s another specific bit of social commentary Hugo was making about Valjean’s trial that’s still depressingly relevant. He writes that Valjean was sentenced for the theft of loaf of bread, but also that the court managed to make that sentence stick by bringing up some of his past misdemeanors. For example, Valjean owned a gun and was known to occasionally poach wildlife (presumably for his starving family to eat.) . So the court exaggerates how harmful the bread theft was—he had to smash a windowpane to get the bread, which is basically Violence— then insist the fact that he owns a gun and occasionally poaches is proof that he is habitually and innately violent. Then when Valjean obviously becomes distressed traumatized and furious as a result of his nakedly unjust sentence and begins making desperate (and very unsuccessful/impulsive/ poorly thought through) attempts to escape…. the government indifferently tacks more years onto his sentence, labels him a “dangerous” felon, and insists that its initial read of him as an innately violent person was correct.

And it’s sad how a lot of the real life stories linked earlier are similar to the commentary Hugo wrote in 1863? Someone will commit a nonviolent property crime, and then the court insists that a bunch of other miscellaneous things they’ve done in the past (whether it’s other minor thefts or being addicted to drugs or w/e) are Proof they’re inherently violent and incapable of being around other people.

A small very petty fandom side note: This is also why I dislike all those common jokes you see everywhere along the lines of “lol it’s so unrealistic for the police to want to arrest Valjean over a loaf of bread, there must have been some other reason the police were pursuing him. Because the state would never punish someone that harshly and irrationally for no reason. so maybe javert was just gay haha”. (Ex: this tiktok— please don’t harass the creator or poster though, I don’t think they were intending to mean anything like that and its just a silly common type of joke you see made about Les mis all the time so it’s not unique in any way.) because like.

As much as I don’t think Les Mis is a flawless book or that its political messaging is perfect….the only way that insanely long unjust sentences for minor crimes is “unrealistic” is if you’re operating on the assumption that prisons are here to Keep You Safe by always only punishing bad criminals who do serious crimes. And that’s just, not true at all. Like I get that these are just goofy silly shallow jokes, and I’m not angry or going to harass anyone who makes them. but it feels like there’s an assumption underlying all those goofy jokes that “this is just not how prison works!” “Prisons don’t routinely sentence people to absurd laughably unjust pointless sentences!” “Prisons give people fair sentences for logical reasons!” When like…no

Valjean being relentlessly hounded and tortured for a minor crime in a way that is utterly ridiculous and arbitrary in its cruelty is not actually a plot hole in Les mis. It’s a plot hole in …..society ajsjkdkdkf. And the only way to fix that is to fight for prison abolition or at least reform, and (in America) stand up against the vicious naked cruelty of habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws.

But yeah :(. I hate how Les Mis opens with a prologue saying the novel will be obsolete the moment the social issues it describes have been resolved— but two hundred years later, the book is still more relevant than ever because we’re dealing with so many of the exact same injustices.

[skunkes]

[bixels]

I just saw one of your fave games is What remains of Edith Finch and I’m so happy! I feel like its a lesser known game but i loved playing through it. I’m so happy to know more than just my small friend group know about this game!

Sorry this isn’t a question. Also want to say that you’re art is amazing and the development of the designs is so interesting to see. Also the way you draw intimate scenes have so much emotion to them. I love the Aj and rarity kissing comic so much, you can just feel their love for each other ;w;

Thank you so much!

I highly, highly, highly recommend What Remains of Edith Finch to anyone interested in narrative game experiences/"walking simulators." It's one of those games that was handcrafted with nothing but love. Every room you explore is just... real. The way the light flows in and makes the colors of the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms glow. Playing the game is like walking through your childhood home as an adult and seeing how the dust clings to everything you once touched. Also genius-level gameplay mechanics, ones that can make you completely empathetic with the character you're embodying or feel completely complacent in their tragedy. It's really not fair to call it a walking simulator because it's so much more and so much smarter than that.Everyone talks about the fish one.

The theme of death and memory and storytelling and the burden of invisible trauma and self-fulfilling prophecies is so affecting too. The ending made me cry.

[codgod]

something wicked this way comes

[this is a redraw, here’s the original :p]

[marypsue]

Man, it's cool and all if you see a metaphor for marginalisation in the monstrous, and if you want the power fantasy of 'what if you could just eat anybody who threatened you/pissed you off'. Me too.

However, as soon as you start saying 'no, these monsters are a 1:1 on Specific Marginalised Group, and you have to treat them in the fiction like they are directly representative of real human members of the marginalised group', BUT you also, in the fiction, make them hurt/kill/eat humans? And then try to shame me, your audience, for noticing or engaging with the bit where they kill people, because you made them directly representative of a real-world marginalised group? You have lost me, and also, I think, the plot.

[waddles-ex-machina]

some more comic panels I liked :>

[fictionadventurer]

Maybe Jane Austen's real genius was that, unlike other authors at the time, she didn't have long sections where characters share their backstory. Or rather, when she did it, she set it up like a mystery so we'd want to know the backstory.

Instead of having a character be like, "Here's three chapters about my life," soon after showing up in the novel, she'd sprinkle little clues through the story that make us wonder, "What's Colonel Brandon's deal?" and then closer to the end of the story, Colonel Brandon would tell us what his deal was. We'd wonder "Why does Mr. Darcy do all those horrible things?" and then he'd give an explanation that includes a lot of backstory.

And these infodumps always come in response to significant moments of the story. She'd engage our minds and our emotions and then give us the infodump at a point when we care about the information it contains. Compared to some other authors (even some that came long after) it seems like a significant innovation.

[ratgirlexe]

It feels almost weird to me that I really struggle to compute HDG as a horror-adjacent setting like so many others do. I know that there is an inherent power imbalance in the vast majority of relationships within the setting, and that can easily lend itself to a feeling of dawning horror when the protagonist realizes that they are inherently powerless against whatever is about to happen to them, but ultimately the setting just... isn't very scary to me in the way that it seems to be for so many others.

Maybe it's because I haven't read as many of the more extreme horror-adjacent entries, or maybe its because the other settings in which I write are so much more bleak, but its just not why I come to HDG to write. Ultimately when I'm writing in HDG, there's an inherent positive slant to what I'm writing, because there's this idea that ultimately by the end of the story the characters will be in a better place than where they started. It might take forced drugging or brainwashing or any number of potentially horrific things to get them there, but at least in my estimation its ultimately going to be for their own benefit?

And again, maybe I just need to read some of the darker things folks have written, I know there's a handful of works by certain writers that are apparently much more extreme in how the dynamics between characters work, but ultimately HDG as a setting is one of wish fulfillment, both for submissives, dominants, and those in between. I can't see it as anything but hopeful, even if sometimes the big plants are quite scary.

[dykealloy]

ripple effect legacy // my tears are becoming a sea, M83

[squea]

ah yes. the _reads hand_ divorced would have been partners in crime.

[unlimitedhearts]

RIP Tumblr you would have loved Psych 😭

[ghost-proofbaby]

thinking about how eddie munson probably has a ridiculous collection of guitar picks. little jars of them. some collected at shows, some he picked up for a nickel at the only local music shop he's ever trusted to do work on his Sweetheart, some he was gifted for free at his local record shop that he's been frequenting for years now. the little old man running the record shop even gets excited when new vinyls are sent out with promotional merch, and he knows it's a band or musician eddie is into. probably even called eddie in at times and handed him a handful of metallica themed pics, hardly worth much, but solely because "i knew you like them and will find a good use for these, son".

my point is, he's got a pick for every occasion. shitty plastic thin ones for just fucking around with. thicker, nicer ones that might have been proper holiday gifts to him. the kind that are meant to hook on his fingers like rings (he tried using them a few times, especially for rifts, but ended up saying he played better when he felt the strings against his skin instead while picking away). novelty ones, ones that just looked plain cool. so on and so forth.

and he's got his collection just sitting in little jars across his room. he used to keep them in other things, like old ash trays or tin cans he'd cut and mold to be good containers. but then he started dating you, and you insisted on lending him any empty jars you weren't using. you had your own collections in yours: pretty stones found down by the creek, bottle caps of the sodas you and eddie get every time you stop at the gas station right on the edge of town by lover's lake - you even had one of every single crumpled up note eddie had ever given you over your time of dating. a few jars of those, actually. so what was lending him a few spares? at this point, the jars were a collection in themselves, and... well... it was prettier to see his vast collection in those glass jars anyways. being able to pick out the vibrant tones of the guitar pick you'd been with him as he'd purchased two weeks prior, or the pick from the show you'd gotten him tickets to last christmas. it was nice. a cute reminder of time spent, of what made eddie munson tick.

the important thing is, eddie munson isn't blind. he sees the way you look at that collection, especially after he fills the jars with it.

how some days, he'll be strumming away on his guitar, softly humming, and you'll just grab a jar to pick through. interrupting his nonsensical playing to ask him where he got one you didn't recognize, sometimes asking for the stories behind ones he knew you already knew. he'd caught on to the way you just liked hearing him talk, especially about the things he cared most about.

you also really, really liked the pick he wore as a necklace. it was probably your favorite in his collection, and you knew it was his favorite too. giving it as a gift to you was never an option, because it had been given as a gift to him originally by his mom.

so he does the next best thing.

he figures out your favorite pick in his collection. the one you always go back to, the one you ask for the story behind on a nearly weekly basis. one similar to the one always resting against his collarbones. pearly sheen, marbled tones, a slow indent the shape of his thumb being worn into the old tortoiseshell. it's a little less red, a little bit brighter, and he can't even strum it against his strings anymore without thinking of you. it's somehow become his lucky pick - the pick he cherishes most aside the one from his mom.

and the one he chooses to turn into a necklace, for you.

does it all himself. carefully piercing a hole through the top just like his own, picks out a nice chain that costs two paychecks of his, takes an old pocket knife to it and spends weeks carving your initials into the shiny material. he's gentle as hell with it, finishing it off with some gold paint to fill in the carving that matches the chain and swirling tones of the picks.

a week before christmas he nearly backs out of the gift idea, and almost begs wayne to help him go to the mall and pick out some other basic but safe gift for you. a perfume/cologne, a nice sweater, anything. wayne refuses to let him, and the only thing the gentle old man will offer is a nice box for eddie to place that necklace born of love into.

the look on your face on christmas morning, sitting in the center of the munson's living room, on the verge of happy tears as you lift the homemade necklace so gently, soothes away every single doubt ever had about it all.

and the look on wayne's face is a simple, caring, stern vision of i told you so.

[itsmyfandomandilikeit]

Dawn of the final week. 6 days remain.

[deoidesign]

Btw just want to be clear that Time and Time Again is set to, and will if I don't pause, conclude in May 2025!

Webtoon didn't want to renew or give me any extra episodes so I'm trying to work with what I have. I'm sorry it's ending sooner than I'd like, it's been difficult to come to terms with and challenging to condense my plans.

You deserve a solid conclusion, and I've spent months writing to try and reach that. If there's anything you'd really like to see before it ends, do let me know in case I can (and want to) fit it in.

I'd rather not work with them again, and I hope I won't have to! But coming off of years being overworked and underpaid does not make that easy, to say the least...

I'm doing my best, and I hope you like what I have coming up.