#but it's still a little weird tonally but somehow it almost works? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

platypanthewriter · 4 years ago

Text

The Tanning Rock

Harringrove April prompt 28, Tanning--Creatures!AU (This one grew to nearly 6k and I’m so sorry) @wasting-time-again HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, HAVE A MERMAN! XD

The lawyer who summoned Billy—about an inheritance, he said—was...weird. Straight out of a movie, with long incisors and a cravat, and he steepled his fingers as he talked.

Max said he was probably actually a vampire, and Billy agreed—which was weird, because as far as Billy knew, his mom’s family wasn’t exactly old money, and it was hard to imagine a vampire getting on a plane to fly clear to California and summoning him to a crypt full of file cabinets, all just to read a will about his mom’s collection of surfing stickers and pile of old National Geographics.

Billy knew his father had disowned him, so he bit his lips together, waiting to hear that his mother had died.

“I am here about the estate of your grandmother,” said the vampire lawyer, and Billy drew a shaky breath of relief. “Your mother was disowned—” he said, and Billy almost snorted a laugh—like mother, like son, he thought, “—and so her domicile has passed to you.”

“Wait, what,” Billy breathed, wide-eyed.

“It is an unusual case,” said the lawyer—Fangun and Stayk, est. 986, read his card, but Billy wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to Fangun or Stayk, or whether the whole thing was a joke yet, so he kept his mouth shut. “You will take ownership of the house and land, however, you may not live there—that is, not year-round, not unless you are given an invitation by a resident. It is a closed community.”

“...can I sell it?” Billy asked, and the deepset eyes of the lawyer stared back at him, bloodshot and dry.

“At well below market value,” he said, steepling his fingers again. They made a dryish noise. “As I said, they dislike outsiders. And a stranger will be even more of an outsider than you, in whom runs...the blood of the place.”

Billy wondered, dully, whether he’d inherited a haunted graveyard, or a den of werewolves, and groaned into his hands. Maybe he was part zombie somehow. Just his luck. “Where is it,” he sighed.

“It is not on commonly available maps,” said the vampire, and Billy nodded. It figured, he thought, though his ears perked up considerably when his grandmother’s lawyer laid out a map of Hawaii.

They got a ride from the shore on a fishing boat at four o’clock in the morning. “It’s barely tourist season yet,” said the fisherwoman, showing Max how to steer. “There will be a ferry, in a week or two, but I can give you two a ride out the day your visa’s up if the ferry quits sooner.”

“We want enough time to look around,” Max said, glancing at Billy. They’d let their lease run out, and sold most of their things, because a few orange crates of records were a small price to pay for never running into Neil Hargrove around town. “You could get a job on one of the normal islands,” Max had suggested, quietly, over and over. “If they don’t like us enough.”

Billy’d never suggested moving Max so far away, but she’d assumed they were going, and after a while he went along with it. It wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, getting a job in a hotel somewhere after the islanders threw him out. Max would probably love it, in Hawaii.

A fresh start, she had said, and it sounded good.

He and Max were greeted by a woman in a wheelchair, who stamped their passports. “Technically, we’re a different country,” she said, smiling. She had very brown skin, and looked contentedly half-asleep in the sun. “You’re the only visitors on the island, for a week or two,” she said, cocking her head. “We’re not always in a big hurry to scrub up the ferry for the summer. We love the money, but the tourists...” she laughed, shaking her head. “Three-month pleasure trip visa. Have a nice summer,” she said, waving them away.

Her benign lack of interest lessened Billy’s initial fears that he’d inherited membership in some rich, yoga-pants-wearing, white Human Superiority cult.

The house was traditional-ish, with a grass roof and walls, big open windows with no glass, only shutters, and a wide shaded veranda all the way around. It looked over a beach with rolling waves, and Billy couldn’t wait to get his board out there.

“I’m gonna look around the house,” Max said. “See if I can find any neighbors. Maybe I can bring them cookies.” She set her jaw, frowning around at their luggage, and the scattered pillows. “Maybe we can buy some furniture somewhere.”

“...we can always just come here for summers,” Billy told her, breathing it in.

“Yeah, you’re gonna have a great time getting a tourism job where you don’t work summers,” Max said, raising a sarcastic eyebrow, and Billy realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that she expected him to figure it out. Find someone who wanted him to stay, here, on the island, at his grandmother’s house.

“I’m no good at making friends, Max,” he reminded her, and she snorted.

“Better get out of my hair, then.” She folded her arms, taking another deep breath of the smell of grass in the sun. After a long moment, she looked back at him again. “...we’ve got a little over three months, Billy.”

He suspected it sounded longer to her.

When he wandered down to the beach, Billy could see someone’s tanned shoulders lying across a jutting rock about fifty feet out, and he paddled a ways towards it on his surfboard, getting the lay of the ocean. There was a rip tide, dark and eerily quiet, to his right, but the rest of the beach had shallow, warm, clear waves over white sand and coral until a dark dropoff about fifty feet out where the rolling waves began.

As he paddled closer to the rock, he could see the man on it—asleep, Billy thought, just lying in the sun as the waves lapped at his skin. As Billy drifted closer, paddling with his hands, he could see a long-fingered hand hanging in the water, and he paddled faster, suddenly wondering whether the man wanted to be out on a rock, or whether he was a Dude In Distress, his leg cramped, needing a ride to the beach on Billy’s surfboard and a trip around the boardwalk, and maybe some shaved ice.

As Billy approached, the guy opened his eyes, frowning over at Billy with wide, half-awake brown eyes. He pushed himself up on the rock with his arms like the goddamn Little Mermaid, Billy thought, amused. His throat went dry watching the flex of muscle, and the water droplets where the dude had lifted himself out of the bay.

Billy paddled at random, a little, unable to tear his eyes away. He cleared his throat. “Just, uh, making sure you didn’t need any help,” he said, staring at the tanned arms and swimmer’s chest in front of him, nearly triangular, like a superhero. “I, um. Guess you’re fine.”

The guy raised his eyebrows, starting to smirk, and then his eyes widened, and Billy realized in a flash of blue and foam that he’d drifted right into the fucking rip tide. Right in front of the gorgeous dude on the rock, Billy thought in the back of his mind, trying to hold onto his surfboard and let the rip tide take him wherever it would. Just his luck, he thought, dying because he was so damn gay he saw nice shoulders and his brain switched off. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to breathe before he got sucked down, and his lungs and sinuses were starting to ache worse than the rest of him, even as he was buffeted around against his board, when an arm slid around his waist.

He wanted to yell at the guy—and he did, in an explosion of bubbles—because what the hell good was it gonna do, swimming into a rip tide, but the muscles against his back and butt flexed, and they were moving sideways out of the rip tide, and then Billy’s head was above water. He gasped and choked, coughing up half the sea. The ocean moved soothingly around them, as this dude had no trouble holding Billy up, and Billy tried to clear his throat and eyes.

“Have you seriously never seen a tail before,” the guy groaned, hauling Billy along like he was no more effort to lift than a little kid at the pool. Billy felt rock against his thigh, suddenly, and scrambled onto it, coughing and wiping his eyes to see he was on the jutting rock the dude must have jumped off of, to save him.

“How-how fucking humiliating,” he gasped out loud. “Can’t believe. C-can’t believe I fucking p-paddled into a rip tide.”

“You drifted back into the...yeah,” his hot rescuer said, still in the water, with one hand on the rock to hold him steady as he frowned at Billy. His voice sounded a little odd—Billy was reminded of the Chinese grocery by his house, where their English was perfect, but they had a lilt as they tried to speak an atonal language with a tonal ear. Up close, he was even prettier, with moles Billy wanted to track down his neck and shoulders, and a doubtful, scrunched-up mouth Billy wanted to kiss.

“Sorry,” Billy wheezed, still coughing. “Sorry, I’m such a moron, sorry.” He tried to keep his eyes above the water level, but some part of his brain kept looking for tanned legs kicking under the surface, and he suddenly registered that the moving colors weren’t just fish and anemones. “Holy shit,” he coughed out. “You have a tail.”

His rescuer frowned harder, probably worried Billy had brain damage. “I figured that’s why you swam into the rip tide,” he said slowly, and Billy shook his head, groaning.

“No—fuck, I’m sorry, you—you’re just hot as fuck, I’m just a moron, I’m—damn it,” he sighed. “Sorry, jesus, I’m so fucking rude, sorry, I just didn’t notice, I was like ‘How the hell did he get me out of there? OH!’, sorry,” he muttered, sighing. “...drown me.”

“I am though, right,” the merman said, grinning, “—hotter than you,” and Billy realized he’d found the only person on the island more annoying than he was.

“Yeah, yeah, just laugh at the poor gay moron who nearly drowned staring at you, that’s nice,” he huffed, lying back against the warm rock to catch his breath.

“Was it love at first sight?” asked his rescuer, and Billy opened his eyes to glare.

“Shut up, asshole,” he grunted.

“Just asking,” his tormenter asked. “Are you gonna pine away, sighing over me? Hey, d’you think you’ll always do that? If I swim over in town, you think you’ll fall off the boardwalk?”

“Fuck you,” Billy told him, leaning his face in his arms and laughing. “Yeah, probably, you shithead. Are you gonna...follow me around? So I can look like more of an idiot?”

“Mmm, can you though…” the gorgeous merman asked thoughtfully, and Billy growled into his arms, feeling his whole body warm. He blamed it on the sun. “Why,” his rescuer asked, pulling himself up to laugh against Billy’s ear. “—you want me to follow you someplace?”

“Oh my god,” Billy groaned, laughing harder. “Are you afraid to leave me alone now? What if I try and eat my surfboard?”

“...are you gonna?”

“Maybe?!” Billy told him, then pushed himself up, frowning around to look for it.

“I’ve got it, it’s right here,” the smug asshole told him, waggling the surfboard in the water. “Want me to take you back to shore?”

“No!” Billy laughed, sighing. “I’m going surfing, just because I nearly died making an ass of myself doesn’t mean—”

“Hrm, maybe I should keep an eye on you.”

“Why,” Billy asked, then pitched his voice just a little lower. “You like what you see?”

“I could get used to it,” the merman said, and Billy started to preen, but the dickhead finished with “—kind of a comedy special, kind of thing,” and Billy reached over and smacked a big splash of water at him.

He laughed, his throat arching back, the gills along it thin dark lines that Billy fantasized kissing around.

Just as Billy was considering grabbing the surfboard and using it as a weapon of blunt force trauma, the merman leaned in close, his smirk widening around pointed teeth, and his cool, salty lips pressed firmly against Billy’s. Billy made a weird gulping noise in his throat, and the asshole started to pull away, but Billy leaned in, and fell clean off the rock. His weight dunked them both, and they rose sputtering and laughing, Billy held securely in his merman’s arms as his surfboard floated away. He couldn’t really bring himself to care.

“...my name’s Billy,” he panted.

“...Steve,” the mer-dickhead said, raising his eyebrows, like it was weird to want to know his name.

“...I inherited a house here,” Billy told him in a rush, drunk on kisses. “I’m from California. My mom used to talk about this place when I was a kid. Surfing here. With her mom.”

“...is she here?” Steve asked, steadying them with one hand on the rock, and glancing back at the beach.

Billy laughed, shaking his head. “Fuck, sorry, you don’t need to know my shit. We can make out. You’re short-circuiting my brain.”

“...I should probably get your surfboard,” Steve told him, grinning, but he leaned his head in again, gentle with his sharp teeth, and Billy inhaled shakily as the points grazed his lips and tongue.

“Jesus,” he whispered, once he could talk, and then he licked his lips and wrenched himself away to swim after his surfboard, just so his smug rescuer wouldn’t have to fetch it for him. The waves got bigger as he got out to where the trees weren’t acting as a windbreak, and he clambered up on his board, glaring back as Steve wolf-whistled.

When he let the tides pull him back towards the gorgeous merman on the rock, he lost his mind again, telling him his tail looked like a peacock butt, and Steve cracked up, grinning at him.

“...so, neighbor, you have to win someone over enough to invite you to stay,” he said, cocking his head.

“Yup,” Billy told him, pointing up at the house he’d inherited, built into the hill, the old grass vacation cottage blending in with the trees.

“And your method is to tell me I look like bird ass,” Steve continued, and Billy grimaced, waving his hands.

“No! No, I don’t—I know people have to get to know you. Here. I’ll…” he sighed. “I’ll try for a few months and see what happens. If nothing...clicks, maybe I’ll try again next summer,” he said, grimacing, and wondering what Max would do, if they weren’t allowed to stay. Leave, maybe, he thought—she was seventeen, and she could get a job herself.

He ended up teaching Steve to surf, after showing off his best efforts. When he swam back, panting, Steve looked properly impressed, and even more tanned. “Teach me,” he said, and Billy leaned in to kiss him again, nodding.

“That gonna get you to like me enough to let me stay?” Billy asked, and Steve frowned at him, but Billy laughed, and leaned in for another kiss.

“Tomorrow?” Steve had whispered against his lips, and Billy got no sleep at all that night, he just rolled over every couple hours to check the clock, and see that another two minutes had passed.

Steve was fascinating to watch on the board, his tail trailing as he controlled it with his hands around either side, his abs flexing as he held himself in a kind of plank pose with the support of his tail. Billy watched, and realized he was drooling.

“You like me enough to keep me?” he asked that night, teasing, and Steve laughed.

“Ask me again tomorrow.”

Merpeople—or at least, Steve, Billy corrected mentally, realizing he was dealing with a sample size of one—loved bread. Like a cat, Billy thought, watching Steve eye his croissant, or bagel. He started just bringing one every morning for Steve, and some coffee, and it was hilarious watching the fluffy flesh of a croissant dangling between Steve’s shark-like teeth. He waited every morning, and even though Billy wasn’t sure whether Steve was waiting for Billy or the bread he was carrying, he got heart palpitations every time he came down the ramp to the dock, and he could see the little lump of Steve’s head on his folded arms, the rest of him hanging off into the water.

“A few bagels aren’t enough to win me over,” Steve told him, and Billy’s stomach twisted, a little. He wished he hadn’t brought it up, kind of—the knowledge that he might have to leave hurt, like a sore tooth he couldn’t stop worrying at in his mouth. “Maybe more croissants,” Steve said, smiling, and Billy brought him more croissants.

When they’d arrived, they’d discovered the town was filled with mermaid stuff, and at first, Max and Billy had snickered at it, because surely even if there’d been a merperson or two living near a human town once, they’d died decades ago, or they just traded with fishing boats, far out at sea. They hadn’t considered the amount of people in wheelchairs, or the spray bottles close to hand.

When Billy suggested he bring lunch down from town, Steve swam over to haul himself up—his tail flashing in the light—through the bottom of one of the little sheds on the dock. Moments later, he banged the door open, wheeling out in an old rusty wheelchair. He spun it in a circle, waiting for Billy to climb out of the water, and then zipped ahead up the ramp to the path.

“Wait up, jesus,” Billy yelled after him, and Steve laughed, the muscles in his arms mesmerizing as they spun the wheels. He slowed down eventually, panting, enough for Billy to jog and catch up. “...lemme know if you want me to push,” Billy told him, and Steve snorted.

“Touch my chair and die,” he said.

“Fair enough,” Billy said, holding his hands up, and Steve laughed.

“It makes me…” he squinted, thinking. “...seasick…?” he offered, and Billy nodded, trotting along next to him.

“Motion-sick, probably,” he suggested, and Steve mouthed it as he rolled along.

The lady at the shaved ice stand leaned out and folded her arms on the edge of the little window, laughing at Steve. “You know they make those that work!” she called, and he flipped her off. “They don’t have to be electric! They make ‘em that just move smoothly.”

“It’ll just rust in my shed,” Steve told her, shrugging. “It’s fine.” As they waited for their tacos, Steve pulled up to a table, and his rusty, janky wheels kept rolling backwards, until Steve sighed and bent down to stuff some rocks under there.

“My friend Robin and I went in together on a nicer one,” he said, “—but I can’t park it in the shed. This one’s not so bad,” and Billy’s perception of it shifted a bit—maybe it was more like getting stuck with an old beater car occasionally, instead of something Steve needed help with. “...want to wander around, after?” Billy asked. “I haven’t got any souvenirs yet.”

Steve paused, then licked his lips. “Planning your trip home already?”

“...dunno yet,” Billy said, the invitation unspoken between them. It seemed ridiculous to want to stay so badly just because he’d met a pair of gorgeously tanned shoulders and a teasing smile, but it also wasn’t...hard to imagine, lingering on the island to go snorkeling with Steve, and learning about the reefs—he’d absorbed enough for a few semesters of marine biology, he was fairly sure, but told as stories, just off-handed things Steve had seen—and Billy was already wanting a drysuit, so he could go in the fall. Maybe Billy could get a job on a fishing boat, he thought vaguely, or help out in one of the shops.

If Steve would invite him.

Steve had slid his hands under Billy’s swimsuit a few times, pressing him back on their rock, or on the docks, rocking into him as Billy panted and gasped and fell apart under his hands—but he never said anything, after, and Billy hesitated to ask whether it was...anything, to Steve. Maybe he picks an idiot every summer, he thought, watching Steve smile at the depictions of mermaids on every surface of every shop on the main street.

“You all spend so much time keeping everything dry and dead,” he said, grinning over at Billy, who’d been anticipating a comment on the mermaid’s hourglass-like proportions, not her lack of water damage.

“...oh,” he said.

“I have a figurehead like that, but covered in anemones,” Steve said, cocking his head. “It’s beautiful.”

“I mean...you could...plant a vine on it, maybe?”

Steve nodded. “Put it outside in the rain, let it grow.” The lady behind the counter sighed, rolling her eyes, and Steve laughed.

“There’s a whole movement to ‘preserve’ our art,” he whispered to Billy. “Which mostly means they don’t let it become our art.”

“Huh,” Billy said, wondering whether human houses looked like museums, or mausoleums, to merpeople.

“Not to say that I’d pour water on your television set, or drop your mattress in the bay,” Steve said, grimacing a little, and watching Billy’s face. “I get that much.” He looked kind of uncomfortable with the lady behind the counter glaring at him, ducking his head.

Billy leaned to kiss him. He nearly steadied himself on the chair, and then remembering it would roll, and just held his hands away. Steve grinned up at him, particularly at his outstretched hands, and yanked Billy down on his not very much of a lap, hurriedly curling his tail up and around Billy’s waist as Billy threatened to slide down the smooth scales to the ground. Billy threw his arms around Steve’s neck, wide-eyed, as Steve held the wheels firmly, keeping the chair from rolling backwards under the weight of two grown men.

“Let’s go,” Steve whispered, and Billy nodded, breathing Steve’s sun-and-salt smell, and wondering whether it was okay to ask whether Steve would consider inviting him to stay—just until the next season, Billy thought, as the chair and Steve’s tail moved under him. Until the next summer, when he could ask whether Steve wanted him to stay again, or whether he wanted Billy gone.

After staying a whole year, Billy thought he might not have it in him to ask whether Steve was tired of him yet, but the thought of waking every morning to run down to the docks with coffee and banana bread was addictive, and he tried not to think about the end.

Billy ran into the lady who’d stamped his passport, and caught himself staring at her tanned legs propped up on the railing. “Oh, I’m human,” she said, laughing. “But I love it here. I can even shop in the little bookstore, imagine,” she said, and now that Billy thought about it, he realized it had an elevator in the back, and little lifts for the walkways along the higher shelves. “I’ve never had someone offer to lift me into their cafe, here,” she said, her nose wrinkled, and Billy nodded slowly.

“Shoot that thing!” she yelled, when she saw Steve’s awful old wheelchair, and he flipped her off.

“We can only invite a few people,” Steve told him, as they ate noodle bowls. “It’s for somebody you marry, you know, their family, maybe. Or if you leave the island, and have a kid.”

“Yeah,” Billy said softly, hearing the message clearly—invitations were not to be wasted, and Billy wasn’t special enough to keep. He finished his lunch, trying not to feel all butthurt about it. Max would probably understand.

Steve kissed him again, on the docks, and Billy leaned into it, feeling the familiar pressure of tears in his sinuses, and behind his eyes. He had three weeks left, he told himself. Three more weeks. Steve slid a hand up the back of Billy’s head, humming against his mouth, and Billy let himself go soft in his arms.

When they returned to the docks, Steve dug a big beach blanket out, and they spread it out on the sand, and Billy stayed out that night, losing himself in Steve’s warm hands and mouth, under stars like he’d never seen before.

Steve was watching his face the next morning, with a little frown, and Billy pulled away, sitting up.

“Better than croissants?” Billy asked, smirking a little, and Steve sighed.

“Was that what this was? Fucking me won’t make me give you an invitation,” he said. He didn’t look amused, the way he had over the bagels, and Billy wondered whether it had worked, a little. Billy’d always had a talented mouth.

“I won’t know if I don’t try, will I,” he said, laughing. “Maybe another round will help?”

“...I have to go,” Steve said, and he didn’t even fold up the blanket, just pushed himself off the edge and slid over the wet sand into the water, gone in a flip of tail. Billy watched for long minutes to see whether he’d come back—they’d been spending every day together, but probably Steve had stuff he needed to do, all the things he’d done before Billy had shown up at the island, easy with his body and his affections.

Billy folded up the blanket, and sat it in the shed, looking around. There really wasn’t much in there—it was the size of a small bathroom, with some knives for fishing, and a frayed net, and the beat-up wheelchair.

It smelled like Steve, and Billy stood and breathed, his eyes blurring with tears.

Steve didn’t come back, and after an hour or so Billy walked home, and ran into Max returning. “Billy!” she said, with a wide grin. “Nice night? I was out getting breakfast.” She told him about somebody named El, and somebody else named Lucas, and a Dustin.

Max was making friends too, he realized, which kind of made everything worse—she was doing her best, and Billy was just mooning over some guy who thought he was barely good enough for a fuck on the beach. She’d even met their families, he realized, listening, and registered that he hadn’t met any of Steve’s friends. He groaned into the pillows tossed around on the mat floor, and sighed.

“Should I stop seeing him?” he asked, mostly at the ceiling.

“I dunno why now,” Max said. “You’re not gonna find somebody else in a couple weeks.”

“Shit,” Billy groaned again.

“We can try again next summer,” Max said. “I like it here.”

The idea of returning the next summer, once Steve was bored, was enough to make Billy clench his jaw tight against the pillow he was hugging, squeezing his eyes shut against tears. “...yeah,” he said softly.

“God, you sound tragic,” she sighed, wandering over and dropping to sit on his butt. He grunted. “It’s fine, jesus. Worst case scenario we have a, like, vacation home. The vampire dude said we didn’t have to pay taxes on it.”

“Yeah, just pay for plane fare,” Billy sighed.

“He’s out there, y’know,” she said, “—tanning,” and Billy scrambled up so fast he dumped her with a drum noise on the taut mats.

When he swam out, Steve just stared out to sea, and Billy clung to the edge of the rock, biting his lips.

“I’m not giving you one of my invitations,” Steve said. “So stop trying to manipulate me into it.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, kind of wishing they’d never met. “Yeah, okay. Do—is that all, or are you sticking around?”

“I’ll stay,” Steve said, frowning at him, “—if you still wanna waste your time on somebody who’s not—how do you say it? Putting out?”

“...it’s not a waste of time,” Billy told him, swallowing hard. “I just wanted it to last longer, is all—” and Steve’s eyes narrowed intently. He grabbed Billy around the back of the neck, and yanked him into a kiss.

The remaining weeks, he took Billy snorkeling, and they had sex every night under the stars, Billy panting Steve’s name, and Steve holding him so tightly it almost hurt. Billy took him to meet Max, and she eyed him warily, but Billy fought and succeeded at securing Steve a plate of brownies, and he was vocally appreciative. She softened a little, at that.

Two days before they had to leave, Steve was lying next to Billy on the wet sand, the waves lapping up nearly to their waists. His shoulder was warm under Billy’s head, and smelled like the high ocean waves.

“...d’you think you’ll come back next summer,” Steve asked, and Billy snorted.

“Depends on whether I can afford airfare,” he said, sighing. “Depends on whether I can get a job somewhere that doesn’t need me in the summer.”

“...so I might just never see you again?” Steve asked flatly, and Billy laughed, shrugging.

“I don’t know,” he said, “—do you want to?”

“...fuck you,” Steve sighed, and Billy pushed himself up to frown at Steve’s face.

“I don’t know what you want,” he said, glaring back at Steve’s narrowed brown eyes. “You wanted me to shut up about staying. What am I supposed to say?”

Steve bit his lips together, and looked away. “...you know I’m gonna give you an invitation. You can just tell me.”

“What,” Billy whispered, scrambling to sit up, his heart pounding as Steve flopped over to scrabble around under his wheelchair, his tail flapping around a little in concentration, like a cat’s. He held an envelope out to Billy without even looking over.

“There,” he said. “All yours.”

“What,” Billy breathed, and then he half-crumpled it, opening it clumsily. “You—you’re giving me one?”

“Two,” Steve said, flatly, frowning down at the sand under his hands. “You and Max, right?”

“Holy shit,” Billy whispered, scrambling over to kiss him, once, then twice, relishing the little noise Steve made in the back of his throat when his lip slid between Billy’s teeth. “I have to go tell her,” he said, half laughing, his vision blurring with tears.

“Okay,” Steve said, quietly, and Billy hugged him before scrambling up and running back to the house.

Max stared at the two calligraphed invitations on the odd plasticky “paper” the merfolk used, written in Sharpie, and shook her head slowly. “You did it,” she said, and Billy laughed, nodding.

“He wanted me to stay enough,” he said, wiping his eyes, and desperately wanting Max to offer to handle the paperwork, so he could run back and kiss Steve.

There was a knock on the door. Max ran and opened it, and a short-haired woman wheeled in in a rainbow overall dress, and a small, fancy electric wheelchair, her tail the reds and oranges of a sunset. Billy never quite stopped being envious of how pretty the merpeople were.

“Steve gave you his invites, didn’t he,” she said, and Max slid them around her back, her eyes narrowing.

“...yeah,” Billy said, warily.

“Give them back to him,” she ordered, glaring between them. “He’s been saving those a long-ass time. He’s got plans for those, and he doesn’t need guilt-tripping by a pair of manipulative orphans, jesus.”

“I didn’t guilt-trip him,” Billy said, feeling guilty, suddenly, and remembering Steve’s stiffness as he handed them over. “I didn’t,” he said, less certainly. “...he...he just likes me, he wants me to stay—”

“He’s known you three months, and you told him you fucked him to get someplace nice for your sister to live,” she said crisply. “Give them back.”

“He’s not giving them back,” Max hissed, but she was staring at Billy in horror.

“I didn’t say that,” Billy said, waving his hands. “I didn’t! Not...exactly.”

“Fuck you,” the woman said, glaring. “You pressured him.”

“Fuck,” Billy agreed, his eyes tearing up again. “Lemme—lemme go talk to him. Max, give—give ‘em here.”

“No,” she said, sounding choked, but he walked over and grabbed them, and hugged her.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said under his breath, for her ears only, and ran back out.

Steve was perched up on his rock again, and Billy grabbed his surfboard and sat on it to glide out, paddling with his hands. The water was clear under him, his shadow passing over the anemones on the reef, and he watched the fish darting around, swallowing repeatedly.

“Hey,” he said, when he got close enough, and Steve’s head jerked around, glowering warily.

“...you came back,” he said.

“...you want me to stay, right,” Billy said, cutting straight to the chase. “You gave me these because you want me to stay.” Steve frowned back at him, and Billy’s heart sank. “Answer,” he said, his throat closing around the word.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it,” Steve said, reaching out, but he just grabbed Billy’s board before he could drift into the rip tide again. “You wanted to stay.” He was tense, and he wouldn’t meet Billy’s eyes.

“What do you want,” Billy asked again. “...because I think your friend Robin’s in my house, and she says I guilted you into it, talking about Max. Do you...if I didn’t need an invite. Would you want me to stay?”

“...I guess,” Steve sighed, and Billy swung his leg over the board, dumping himself straight down in the water, because he was definitely about to make some kind of awful noise, and the sea felt good on his hot, wet cheeks. Steve couldn’t see him crying underwater, he thought, grabbing a jut of rock to keep himself from floating back up.

He wished he could take a few slow breaths, he thought, closing his eyes, and then something brushed his arm. He opened his eyes on Steve’s wide-eyed face, his hair swirling in the water. Billy bit his lips together harder, his hands clenching on the rock, and Steve shook his head, pointing up.

“Up,” he mouthed. “Come on.”

Billy let himself be hauled upwards, and pushed up on the rock again, like when they’d first met.

“What are you doing,” Steve asked, hanging on to Billy’s surfboard.

“Nothing,” Billy said, keeping his voice level. “I thought you wanted me to stay. For me. You can have your invites back. I didn’t—” he took a deep breath, hearing Steve’s voice say stop trying to manipulate me, and Robin’s guilt-tripping. “I fucking know I’m pathetic, okay, you don’t have to pity me. Sorry I—sorry I fucking tried, jesus, I just—” he shut his eyes tightly again, laughing as he imagined Robin’s disgusted look knowing Billy’d gone out and cried.

“Wait, fuck,” Steve whispered, clambering up next to him, where Billy barely fit by himself, since it was high tide. He was warm from the sun, his tanned skin gleaming with water droplets, and Billy salivated, because his dick obviously hadn’t gotten the message it wasn’t wanted. “Wait,” Steve said, half on top of him, his weight grating Billy’s shoulder blades against the rock. Billy didn’t really mind. “You only want to stay if—if I want you, what—what does that mean—” His brown eyes were huge.

“...don’t really know how to be clearer,” Billy told him, unable to pull his eyes from Steve’s mouth.

“You don’t want to stay unless I’m happy about it,” Steve said, grabbing Billy’s hands.

“Yeah, that’s kinda how it gets, when you fall for somebody,” Billy told him, raising his eyebrows, and Steve took a shuddery breath and kissed him again. He didn’t stop, though, he just kissed Billy and kissed him, laughing shakily, his eyes welling up with tears.

“Don’t go,” he whispered, as Billy clung to him and the rock, trying to keep them from tumbling off. “I want you here, I want you. Stay with me.”

“I’m what you want?” Billy asked, startled, his brain hazy from warm kisses, and the scrape of pointed teeth. “‘M yours then,” he whispered. “All—all of me. S’yours.”

They laid there so long, whispering and giggling, that Billy had tan lines of Steve’s fingers on his shoulder for months.

Here are the other Harringrove April prompts I’ve done!

#Harringrove April #Mermay #Almost #Harringrove #Steve's got a tail #Billy's got a surfboard

51 notes · View notes

midground · 5 years ago

Text

I had some loose change jangling in my pocket, so here’s 2 cents from a Beaujester shipper (who’s been on board with this ship since the pirate arc) about why I don’t share the sentiment that the cast “forgot about” Beaujester. This got long, so I’m putting it behind a cut.

I don’t think it’s weird that Beau isn’t talking about/acknowledging her feelings for Jester. I don’t think it’s weird Beau has pivoted in her outward displays of attraction towards Yasha. I don’t think it’s a sign that the cast had a big discussion over the hiatus where they made some showrunning decisions about which relationships would become canon. Though to be clear, I am in full support of every D&D group having open, honest, out of character conversations about what sort of content they want to see in their games, especially romantic content. So if that is what happened, good. That’s healthy consent-based communication babes.

Since her confession in episode 85, the vibe I’ve gotten from Beau is that of someone who is struggling to bury her feelings for her unattainable friend. Someone who is so convinced that she doesn’t have a chance that she decides the best course of action is to ignore the feelings until they go away and quietly move on without ever telling her crush and risking jeopardizing the friendship.

This is Relatable Content to me! I’ve been there, I’ve been there several times over, for several different reasons. Sometimes that reason was the person I was crushing on was straight. Sometimes the reason was I assumed the person I was crushing on was straight. But I’ve been there.

I think Beau’s (subtextual, not explicitly stated) decision to try to move on from Jester was amplified by returning to her hometown so soon after her confession, and her subsequent crisis of self-worth. Think about the moments we got while Beau was spinning out, letting some feelings slip at the Stones, but only when she was drunk. Putting herself down. Making fun of Jester’s old name. Think about pre-Kamordah, in Rexxentrum, Beau trying to get her own room when she thought she had an excuse to get some distance from Jester (and caving immediately when Jester turned those big, sad eyes on her).

I’ve seen a few posts going around from other Beaujester shippers who are hurt and confused by what seems like a huge tonal shift between episodes before and after the hiatus. But I really, really do think that if you go back and watch from episode 85 on, you’ll see that Beau started pulling away from her feelings almost immediately after her confession. Hell, she tried downplaying her feelings DURING her confession. Telling Veth made it real, made it scary, made Beau want to try to put some distance between her and Jester so that the inevitable let-down was under her control (a CONSTANT self-destructive pattern we’ve seen with Beau!)

Similarly, Beau’s outward displays of attraction/affection to Yasha ALSO started resurfacing pre-hiatus! Think about the fish-market conversation at the live show. This seemed like evidence to me that Beau was trying to redirect her energy towards someone attainable. And let me just say, I am ALSO a Beauyasha shipper, and this is not being said to disrespect the ship or say that Beau’s feelings towards Yasha are somehow lesser.

But I have ALSO been in the position before of trying to get over an old crush with a new (or at least different) crush. Beau has always been very frank about her attraction to Yasha, and finally, with Ashley back for good, Yasha was in a position to flirt back.

Beau was looking for a “safe” way to get over her feelings for Jester, went to lean back on her old habits of flirting with Yasha (the “safer” move, something she’s done literally since the two of them met) and, to her great surprise, Yasha has been responding in earnest. There’s a separate post I could make about how many episodes Ashley has been back for, how long it takes her to get comfortable at the table (about 8-10 episodes), where Beau and Yasha’s heads been at for the past 20 episodes, and why we’re seeing a ton of Beauyasha interactions now. But from my perspective, Beauyasha coming to the forefront now makes perfect sense.

So with Yasha to focus on, someone who is openly queer and responding to her flirtations, and with no sign from Jester that she’s interested in Beau (at least from BEAU’S perspective, I do think there is a valid reading of the text where Jester is struggling with her sexuality) I don’t think Beau will confess to Jester as things currently stand. I think Marisha put the ball in Jester’s (Laura’s) court. And I think, unless something MAJOR happens, that Jester will need to be the one to make a move.

But I’m not done yet. Let’s talk about how the cast negotiates the spotlight when it comes to individual arcs. Because I think that’s another piece to this puzzle. When a character has an individual arc come up, the cast works to center that character to a larger degree within the narrative. Looking to them to make big decisions, taking cues from them when it comes to how they want to approach a situation/what content they want to deal with, making space for them to have big character-defining moments.

Travelercon is Jester’s arc. It is Laura’s time to decide what struggles Jester will be dealing with and what Jester-related subplots she wants to bring to the foreground. And I think, if we’re all being honest, we expected Travelcon to be Jester’s moment to make some decisions about what she wants romantically. Early Jester was very romance-focused, and I think many of us assumed that Travelercon would be her time to allow Jester’s romance subplot to shine.

But instead, what we’ve been getting so far is about a crisis of faith and the struggle to articulate and center your own needs within your friendships. With a little bit of “learning that you can let yourself be upset around people who care about you” for flavor. (And these are all very good themes, I’m totally digging the current arc!)

But the bottom line is, if you take my reading of Beau’s motivations and actions as even somewhat accurate, Marisha put the ball firmly in Laura’s court. Laura has chosen not to address it. Yet. And I do mean “yet”! Travelercon isn’t over. Technically, it hasn’t even begun. We don’t know what else Laura wants to do with Jester’s time in the spotlight. I’ve always theorized that Laura would wait for a Jester arc to make any big romance moves, and that may still be coming. The cast is taking their cues from Laura right now. Laura has chosen not to explore Jester’s romantic options (yet). A lot of the cast very obviously ship Beauyasha, so they’re happy to celebrate when the two of them have shippy moments together.

None of those things say to me that Beaujester is done, just that we’re focused on other things right now. I don’t know where the story is going, but I seriously doubt they’re just never going to address Beau’s feelings for Jester again. Maybe it’s because I ship both Beauyasha and Beaujester, but I’m happy to just sit back and let the story run its course for a bit.

#critical role #beaujester #beauyasha is talked about (respectfully) but is not the focus of this post

211 notes · View notes

elexica · 4 years ago

Text

Second Chance Christmas {{ December 22 }}

Holiday shopping, Christmas cookies, and a movie marathon... and maybe a touch of actual communication?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27832405/chapters/68577144#workskin

Full chapter under the read more.

Joey wandered downstairs at seven in the morning. He was surprised to see Kaiba inspecting the to-do list on his fridge in between long swigs from his KC branded mug.

“You haven’t finished holiday shopping?!” Kaiba’s panic-whisper sounded like he was really concerned about whether Christmas was ruined. His eye contact was almost frenetic.

“I thought I’d leave the kids with Serenity while I do the shopping, she’s supposed to be working the Christmas day shift at the hospital, so she was going to have a couple nights off… I mean it’s not…” Joey looked at the ceiling, as if he could avoid conflict if he didn’t meet the burning blue flames in his ex’s eyes. He steeled himself with a deep inhale. “It’s not as much of a production when you’re not here.”

The KC mug hit the kitchen island with not-insubstantial force. The fruit dish shook with the vibration, bananas swinging from the hook, and Joey tore his eyes from the ceiling to see the drops of black coffee that had hit the granite.

“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?” Kaiba asked, or rather hissed, without a questioning lilt in his voice.

Joey cracked his knuckles involuntarily. Instead of letting his fingers ball into fists, he jerked open the refrigerator door and yanked out the carton of orange juice.

“You’re a smart man. I’m sure you can guess.” Joey didn’t look away from the task at hand. He militantly focused on pouring orange juice into a tall clean glass.

And there was that sinister “Kaiba” gravel, every bit as menacing as it had ever been as he hissed over the kitchen counter, “Enlighten me.” He sounded like Yugi’s troubled teen nemesis again.

Joey flipped around, gripping the orange juice to keep himself from saying too much that he would regret. “Things are more mellow, now. It isn’t about going overboard to prove a point.”

Kaiba blinked, clearly expecting a harsher phrasing. “Is it now?”

“Yeah. When I was a kid I didn’t have much for Christmas and I came out just fine…” Here it comes, Joey thought, trying not to show the hesitation in his voice as he finished, “They don’t have to be spoiled rotten.”

Joey smirked as he said it. Commenting on their different parenting styles was a low blow, but it had been just too much fun. Joey thought regret would drop into his stomach, but it never hit. Instead, his heart jumped a little, the thrill of getting a rise out of Kaiba as seductive as ever.

“Spoiled?!” Kaiba’s voice lowered in volume and tone. Joey didn’t even try to suppress his mocking grin. Instead, he chugged the rest of his orange juice, slammed down the glass and bolted from the kitchen.

“Get back here!” Kaiba said. Tonally, it was a shout, but volume-wise? Neither of them wanted the kids to wake up quite yet, even though there were probably only minutes left on the clock in that regard.

Joey slid on his socks as he ran down the hallway, drifting as he took a sharp turn. Kaiba sprang to life, suddenly in hot pursuit.

Kaiba was fast, with those long, toned legs and that Terminator-like determination. But he hadn’t spent the last three years wrangling toddlers and chasing after Alexis, who just loved wandering off at the most inopportune times. Plus, while Kaiba had memorized the floor plan at one time, Joey was recently and intimately familiar with it.

The tie breaker was the stairs—with a carved bannister that had seen better days, days before Atticus had been allowed poster paint and before Alexis had taken a tap class. Finally, Joey’s socks gambit came to bite him in the ass as the smoothness of the glossy wooden stairs and the lack of traction from the socks caused him to slip. And that wave of tripping Joey collided into a scampering Kaiba, and the two of them tumbled down the stairs.

The resulting clatter woke the kids up.

. . .

The mall was a zoo—minus the organization. Children were everywhere, and somehow all screaming at once. Everyone looked stressed, perhaps the employees most of all. And Joey realized that he didn’t really have a strategy.

Leaving the kids home with Kaiba was a luxury, and he had sort of forgotten how nice it was to have back up childcare that wasn’t molded around Serenity’s shifts as an RN. It was sort of strange too, because it was one of the few things that was completely new.

Before they separated, Kaiba never watched the kids alone—they had a full staff for that.

Would they all have a miserable time? Joey smirked to himself as he strolled past another festive display—a family of mannequins in matching flannel pajamas. Being outnumbered by the kids could be quite a problem, and although Alexis had lone wolf tendencies, when they combined forces the two were quite powerful.

Joey idly imagined what sort of hell they might put Kaiba through as he shopped for some small things to put in their stockings. He was knocked out of his reverie by eyes fell upon a yo-yo display at the toy store.

After picking up a few small trinkets—and decidedly no yo-yo’s, Joey approached the cash register.

He was not pleased to find an unfamiliar credit card in his wallet. When did Kaiba even have the time to slip that in? Joey ran his thumb over the raised letters of his own name. Did Kaiba just have these lying around? In any case, Joey steadfastly refused to use it, tucking the heavy black card back into the recesses of his worn leather wallet.

He contemplated, momentarily, throwing it in one of the trash bins that he passed by, overflowing with spent holiday Starbucks cups and overly long receipts. But if someone did get ahold of it, they might ring up some charges that could look like Joey was actually using the card. It would ruin the integrity of the refutation.

But the little rectangular siren was hard to keep from his mind. Every time he made a purchase, there it was, tempting him to draw from an unlimited account. Snap shut the golden handcuffs again, the card whispered. Make everything easier.

But Joey Wheeler was a determined man. Detractors might use the phrase stubborn, but it didn’t matter which one was more accurate. When he had a plan, he stuck to it. To the bitter end. So even though he was pushing the admittedly fragile budget to it’s limits at the music store and on Cyber Angel card packs, it remained sealed away.

Until he passed a very sad looking fundraiser.

Joey considered, as he lingered past the charity drive seeking toys for a group home for teens in the Bronx, that he might put the card to use. He realized he seemed a little off, staring down the charity workers, who were dressed as unconvincing elves, with the big collection boxes.

Joey had a timetable. He had a not unimpressive list still remaining. But that fucking card was burning a hole in his pocket. It was practically radiating heat.

But he caved. He lost the battle with the black card when he emptied the local game shop’s entire stock of new model-duel disks and donated them. Joey was trembling as he signed them over, what the name of the donor would be.

He settled on anonymous and determined that he would cut the card into fifty pieces the second he got home and scatter the shards through the trash. The damn thing was too tempting.

By the time Joey pulled into the driveway and slammed open the front door, he was ready to fight about what had happened.

But his family wasn’t immediately in view. The lights in the kitchen were on, and Joey could hear soft classical covers of Christmas music and he thought he could make out the sound of Alexis laughing.

The wind was knocked out of him when he turned the corner to see Kaiba’s black turtleneck splattered with flour.

The whole kitchen had taken a beating. Flour hadn’t just tarnished Kaiba’s polished look—it had dusted the cabinets and part of the fridge Kaiba must not have realized how easily dry ingredients spray from the stand mixer if dropped in first.

The kitchen counters certainly were not spared from the ingredient massacre. The entire kitchen island was covered in flour, some spilled food dye—which Joey could already sense would never come out of the granite—and a surprising amount of raw egg.

Upon further inspection, Kaiba was actually the one least impacted by the ingredient apocalypse. There was sugar and frosting all over Alexis’s face—how, Joey might never know—and Atticus had managed to paint some of his hair blue with blue frosting.

“Alright. Cookies are decorated and prepared for Mr. Claus, fulfilling your contractual obligations,” Kaiba said resolutely, as if he had not turned their living space into a warzone. “What is next on the festive itinerary?”

“First rule of Christmas: you must get munk’d!” Atticus announced.

Joey knocked on the boundary wall of the kitchen to announce his arrival. He expected Kaiba to look much more surprised than he did. Instead, Kaiba’s affectionate attention merely pivoted between Atticus and Joey. It was warm and familial, and it sent a pang of heat and guilt and maybe something else down Joey’s spine.

“Next is getting this cleaned up, I think,” Joey said, finding himself in uncharted territory. It felt weird to be the responsible one out of him and Kaiba. He still wasn’t used to being the buzzkill parent, and he didn’t like it.

Kaiba could have said something mean—made some comment about would spoil the fun, but instead he nodded politely. “Yes,” Kaiba surveyed the room. “I think that would be the next step.”

While the kids groaned at the thought of helping with the chores component of the activity, Joey went to inspect the output.

Apparently, Kaiba had lead the kids through the process of making gingerbread men. Four were set aside and logically decorated to be their family: a stretched out one with blue blobs for eyes and a little black gel icing frown, a slightly more squished one with yellow on top in some sort of approximation of Joey’s hair, and two smaller ones representing each kid.

They really did look like a family.

“You can’t eat those ones,” Kaiba instructed from over Joey’s shoulder. Joey startled at the interruption. He hadn’t realized his ex had gotten so close, and was looming over him properly.

“I figured they might be a little special.”

“Frankly, I don’t know that I’m comfortable with Santa eating them. I’m a bit worried he’d just bite my head off, and leave him as an example to the others.”

Joey laughed.

“I don’t think Santa’s supposed to leave death threats to the cookies, Kaiba. But uh…” Joey reached for another plate which had not been as lovingly decorated. He tore the little head of a random gingerbread man with this teeth, and noted the nice flavor. Butter and molasses and a hint of cloves. He placed the decapitated body of the gingerbread man back down on the display plate. “This guy’ll scare the rest of ‘em straight.”

. . .

After everyone had gotten cleaned up and changed into pajamas (and Joey had discretely moved the gifts into the master bedroom closet), the family reconvened in the living room.

“Oto-san, are you ready for the greatest movies ever made?” Atticus announced. He seemed confident that his father wasn’t ready—and he was right. “Are you ready to get… ‘munk’d?”

Kaiba poked at his reading glasses and adjusted his laptop screen. He had been working on some spreadsheets or something, but his interest was obviously piqued.

Joey smiled. He knew exactly what Kaiba was in for, and he was going to savor it.

“Munk’d?” Kaiba repeated back carefully, as if he was worried it was a swear or a slur.

“Yeah!” Atticus grabbed the remote and deftly navigated the SmartTV through a few different apps before finding exactly what he was looking for. “It’s a quadrilogy.”

Kaiba slowly tiled his laptop screen down. “That’s not a word.”

“I have an inventive spirit, Oto-san!” Atticus’s smile beamed forward as he continued to queue the feature film. Without looking away from the screen, Atticus added, “Just like you.”

The soft smile that graced Kaiba’s features stung at Joey immediately. And it vanished at the first pitchy note of the CGI Alvin and the Chipmunks warbling through Daniel Powter’s 2005 hit, “Bad Day.”

“See, they’re kids, but they’re also rock stars!” Atticus enthused. Before Kaiba could get out any other response, Atticus cracked up at the vintage CGI creatures jumping into a muffin basket.

“It’s okay if you don’t like this one, Oto-san,” Alexis offered, hopping up on the couch on the other side. “They get better when they introduce the Chipettes in the Squeakquel.”

Joey wished he had photographed the resulting look of horror on Kaiba’s face.

Joey leaned back in his own arm chair, nursing a fresh mug of hot cocoa. “Quadrilogy, Kaiba. That means there are four of them.”

After the first movie, the kids we already starting to wear down a little. Kaiba had sat through the entire thing, undulating between puzzled and disturbed at the dated animation, the fact that the chipmunks had managed to get into and out of a dishwasher unharmed, and that the moral of the movie appeared to be that brothers should be very careful about who adopts them.

“This entire thing could have been prevented if the Chipmunks had just retained counsel before signing the relevant contracts,” Kaiba said dismissively.

Joey couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s about family, Kaiba.”

Any further discussion was cut off by the raucous opening music for the Squeakquel and ninety-ish minutes later, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.

It was a true Christmas miracle that the kids passed out on the couch before the start of Alvin and the Chipmunks 4: The Road Chip.

Joey met Kaiba’s slightly tired eyes. Admittedly, the ending of Chipwrecked was somewhat jarring. Frankly, the entire thing was more of a fever dream mixed with memes from 2011 than a sensible film. “Alright, I’ll take Alexis, if you can take Atticus?”

Kaiba nodded solemnly, accepting the delegation.

Alexis was usually pretty easy to get to sleep, though sometimes she was anxious from the day’s events, or too busy planning the next day to focus on getting to bed. Joey was not at all surprised that Kaiba was taking longer to get Atticus down for the night. He peered through the cracked door to see Atticus’s room illuminated by the little nightlight—shaped like a music note.

In the dim light, it was clear that Kaiba was sitting on the edge of Atticus’s bed. Atticus was all tucked in, holding his Red Eyes Black Dragon plushie, and gazing up at his father.

“And every night when you go to sleep…” Seto prompted, sounding almost like a strict teacher.

“I am loved,” Atticus replied.

“And every morning when you wake up?” Seto started the second part of the call and response.

“I am loved,” Atticus answered, “Oto-san, you don’t have to say it every night when you’re around! I know you love me.”

“It is important to me that you never doubt it, and never forget it. Even when I’m not around.” Joey’s heart could have melted in that second.

Atticus laughed. “You’re so sappy, Oto-san. I don’t know why Uncle Honda calls you a frozen bastard!”

Joey could barely muffle his reaction.

Kaiba’s face whipped around to the cracked open door. “Jounouchi?” He whispered harshly. But it was to no real effect. Joey was already lost to laughter, and dashed through the hallway. By the time Joey dared to retrace his steps back to Atticus’s door frame, Kaiba had vanished.

. . .

It was not hard to guess where Kaiba had retreated to. Joey pushed open the door of the study and was met with the increasingly familiar sight of his ex-husband in his oxblood leather chair, swirling a glass of expensive, aged, imported whiskey in his long fingers and staring at it like it held the secrets of the universe.

“I saw you with Atticus,” Joey offered, wandering into the study. He looked more at the full shelves of books than at his ex. Most of the volumes were in Japanese, but a select few were in English. Warren Buffet’s autobiography was open on his lap, but Joey was fairly sure he wasn’t actually reading it.

“Yes,” Kaiba answered, flipping the page. No, Joey was sure he hadn’t actually read it, his eyes never really left the swirling amber.

“And he musta overheard a call with Honda. It wasn’t on purpose or anything.”

Kaiba nodded wordlessly.

“You really do miss them, huh?” Joey asked, trying not to sound as nostalgic as he felt.

Kaiba’s face remained stoic, but he took a sip of the whiskey instead of answering. Only that asshole could make something so mundane utterly captivating. Joey hated that he would wait for a response as long as he needed to. Joey’s eyes searched the hand clasping the glass, and noted with a brutal sinking feeling, that the ring was off again.

“Why are you here, Jounouchi?” Kaiba asked finally.

“It’s my house, now. I can go anywhere I want,” Joey announced. Kaiba ignored this answer, and turned his head down to the book on his lap. He flipped another page.

Joey considered whether he should just leave, skip out on the argument, avoid it all and properly give up. Let his ex-husband drink his gross fancy liquor and read his boring book and luxuriate in the solitude as only Seto Kaiba could.

But it had been three years. Three years of not demanding answers. Three years with no clarity. So Joey broke the silence.

“Why didn’t you fight for me? For our family? Even for a second?” Joey felt the heat in his own voice, burning the back of his throat. That was how it was, fighting with Kaiba. A never ending battle of fire and ice.

Kaiba was silent, and took a long sip of the Japanese whiskey. He closed the book, which was more respect than Joey had anticipated.

“That’s what broke my heart, really.” Tears threatened to fall out of Joeys eyes as he said it. “That I told you that it was over, and you couldn’t spare one shred of anger, or sadness, or anything.” Joey hated the pleading tone in his own voice. “It felt like you had already dumped me.”

Kaiba raised his glance from the book cover, the amber glass, and instead looked him dead in the eye. Joey wondered if those blue eyes had always been so lifeless and hollow. “So, you wanted me to argue with you?”

“I don’t know,” Joey answered, running a hand through his messy blond hair. He hadn’t planned the whole argument out. Frankly, he hadf didn’t expect any response.

“Our children didn’t need to watch that,” Kaiba said.

“Watch what? A conversation? An argument? You think it would have been worse for them to hear their parents argue or yell once than… going through a whole fucking divorce?” Joey’s volume crept up and he was done controlling it.

Kaiba didn’t answer. He looked into the glass again, but didn’t lift it.

“Or what? What couldn’t they see? You actually respect my time? Respect me?” Joey wasn’t used to having the rhetorical upper hand, and he wasn’t going to waste it, gesticulating wildly. “I got no respect my whole life, I wasn’t gonna let my kids see me treated like that too.”

For all the theatrics, Kaiba scarcely responded.

“Watch it happen again,” Kaiba almost whispered. There was a ghostly quality to the statement, as if Kaiba neither meant to say it nor for Joey to hear it. Kaiba cleared his throat and started again. He brought his eyes back up to meet Joey’s.

“I learned that lesson a long time ago,” Kaiba’s jaw was clenched so tightly the words almost didn’t escape. “I’m not trying to be loved by someone who doesn’t love me.” Kaiba’s fingers twitched, as if he wanted to fiddle with something. But his control and focus wouldn’t let him give in.

For Joey’s part, he stood and tried to absorb these complete non-sequiturs.

“I can’t, and I won’t, try to force or trick you or anyone else into caring about me. I have paid dearly for that miscalculation before. I will not make the same mistake again.”

For all of the “slow” comments he had been subjected to over the years, Joey caught up quickly enough to what Kaiba was referring to. And he wasn’t going to let him play that card, get out of all responsibility because he had emotional constipation.

“You realize there’s a difference between someone asking you to be a better partner and… and not loving you anymore. Asking you to adjust some things instead of… never wanting to see you again. Things aren’t just black and white!” Joey answered.

“Divorce papers are black and white, Jounouchi.” Kaiba finally downed the rest of the glass, the lilt of his voice the same as a “check mate.”

Joey hated to be the first to raise his voice but that door had already been opened. He wasn’t going to be able to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

“Have you met you?! You wouldn’t listen to anything less! And I tried!” Joey shouted, hands raised defensively.

“I wasn’t going to stay where I wasn’t wanted, and you made it very clear that you didn’t want to be with me.” Kaiba didn’t answer with the same volume, but the intensity was raised and the harshness of his voice was jarring. His eyes narrowed like a hawk eying prey. “I didn’t change, for the record. I did not degrade or fail or alter in any way. No, I stayed exactly the same. You simply decided you did not want that anymore.”

“You’re damn right, I was sick of being disrespected. I spent a lot of time not wanting to feel that way anymore. And you really wouldn’t take my feelings into consideration. Was I supposed to tolerate that forever?” Joey’s volume increased with every clipped sentence.

Kaiba’s voice became more languid—as if he was more comfortable responding to the anger. He sounded somewhat like he was pondering his answer as he said it. Drunk on whiskey and a philosophical sense. “Isn’t that what you promised you would do? What unconditional love is supposed to be? Unconditional: without conditions. And yet, after years, suddenly you have conditions—"

“Excuse me?” Joey interrupted.

“You promised. That your love for me, for our family, was unconditional. And then, years later, you have a set of demands. That is the very essence of a condition.” Kaiba finished the glass with his scholarly speech, placing it next to the decanter. He shoved the book onto the side table as well.

“There’s a difference between not loving someone and wanting to be treated like your damn husband.” Kaiba’s tone rubbed off on him somewhat, as if it was a scholarly discussion about the terms of their marriage. Like if he could just explain it clearly enough, he could talk his husband back into their marriage.

Kaiba kept his hands busy pouring another glass. “Well you were right. You’re doing better now, aren’t you? Enjoying your work, the kids are fine. You proved it—you don’t need me at all. And you don’t want me. In three days, I’ll be gone, and you can go back to your better way of life.”

“It’s not—I’m not better now! I’m fine, things are fine, just different and—” Joey stuttered, hands defensively raised. “And, and having you here has been... It hasn’t made anything worse. It’s like you changed for the better.”

“I don’t change, Jounouchi. I am who I am.” Kaiba said, the cruel air of finality sounding as much like a business decision as anything else.

Joey’s eyes widened and he gestured wildly. “Fuck, Kaiba… Then what’s this?! You’ve made it for three days actually being… just, present. For once. Three years too late. Why? Why now and not then?”

Kaiba shrugged and looked away.

Joey closed the distance, looming over his ex-husband, perched in the chair. “I know why,” Joey said, menace in his voice. “It’s because you only respond to threats. Consequences. And now you know the consequences, so you’re getting your act together.”

Kaiba met his eyes, but looked brutally tired. “I am trying to give you what you want for a few days, Jounouchi. Call it a Christmas present to the father of my children.”

“You’re saying this is an act?”

He titled his head all the way back, eyes glued to the ceiling and thumb and forefinger pinching his nose bridge, just above the wire of his glasses. “I don’t know what this is, Jounouchi. Just be happy, or whatever, and leave me in peace.”

Joey really thought about leaving. He wanted to. But he wasn’t quite done, not really, and he’d been avoiding this fight for years. Joey never used to back down from a fight, and neither did Kaiba. It brought them to blows for years, and the avoidance of conflict had been more sickening than any gut-punch Joey had ever taken.

“I’m not gonna.” Joey said, simply. Hands on his hips, standing his ground.

Kaiba leaned up again, head snapping to attention, hand already on the crystal decanter. “What?”

“Leave. I’m not gonna do it. You can try to make me. I’m not done, alright?! You’re obviously not done,” Joey pushed forward, grabbing Kaiba’s wrist and pulling his hand off of the decanter. “Make it easy. Say you’ll be better, Kaiba.”

“I won’t do that. I don’t change, Jounouchi, because I can’t change.” Kaiba did nothing with his wrist, except allow it to go limp in Joey’s grasp. It was as if he was that confident in the strength of his words that he didn’t so much as care to tense a muscle. “I will ask you once more, nicely. Get out of my office.”

“No.” Joey dropped his wrist, and Kaiba retracted it into his lap. “You can change. You did. You just didn’t notice.” It felt good, Joey thought, being honest for once with this man that he used to love.

“I have work.”

“You don’t. They can’t fire you.” Joey got up in his face, so close he could smell Kaiba’s shampoo. Other than the soft sandalwood scent, it felt a bit like when he was riling up a rival high school bully back in Domino. “Fight me! Make me leave! You want me to go so bad? Then make me!”

Kaiba smirked, knowingly. Then he leaned his head back against the chair. His bangs fully eclipsed his eyes. “I won’t. I’ll just sleep here.” There it was again. The checkmate tenor.

“Fine!” Joey plopped down in the seat next to him, the velvet of his matching seat just soft enough. “Then I’ll sleep here too.”

If Kaiba shifted his eyes to check, Joey couldn’t tell under the thick brown bangs. In any case, the stubborn ass didn’t get up. He didn’t storm off or leave. He just stayed there, like a determined rock under Joey’s constant observation.

After about half an hour, Joey heard the even breathing pick up into a light snore.

In the morning, Kaiba awoke alone in the guest room, with no memory of how he got there.

#Violetshipping #puppyshipping #seto kaiba #Kaiba Seto #Jounouchi Katsuya #Joey Wheeler #fanfic #my fanfic #yugioh #ahhhhhhhhhhhh #i hope you like it this chapter is a lot #i was vibing though

10 notes · View notes

some-creep · 5 years ago

Text

Song of the Ancients SERIOUS REVIEW(s)

I was told to review every version of Song of the Ancients, so I did. I tried to stick to things that were released officially but I’m sure I’m missing some. I know there’s going to be a new version on the Orchestral Addendum that’s supposed to come out this month. Also I don’t know a fucking thing about music so this is literally 3 pages of straight rambling. Also they’re not really in any kind of order other than Nier Gestalt, Nier Automata, and Other.

Song of the Ancients: Devola - https://youtu.be/qCKEXPXtrEU

This is it, the first version of Song of the Ancient’s you’ll ever hear, and also the last. At least in Nier Gestalt. It’s a classic, and Devola has no idea what the words to it mean. And neither do we. But it perfectly sets the tone. It’s nostalgic, it’s sad, it’s mysterious, it’s sad but written a second time. I love Devola and would die for her. It isn’t my absolute favorite rendition of the song, but I can’t deny its importance. This is the one that gave us the rest. 9/10

Song of the Ancients: Popola - https://youtu.be/IZdnJLdmRlI

This song makes a showstopping appearance in Automata where it and the library meant nothing to me or anyone else because no one actually played Gestalt before Automata, let’s face it. The more subdued of the two character versions of the song, which, y’know, makes sense. Maybe a bit disorienting and trance like if you turn it up far enough and close your eyes. Sometimes I like this version a lot more than the Devola version, sometimes I don’t. It also gets a 9/10 for being a classic.

Song of the Ancients: Hollow Dreams - https://youtu.be/fxmP4eCFR4U

I fucking love this one. The Devola and Popola duet we all wanted with none of the… extreme angst. I also read a really good fan fiction once where [REDACTED] and it started with this performance so it ranks really high for me. It has a great sort of tavern energy to it (which, no shit, right?) and I don’t know. I don’t know I really love this one. The harmonization, the piano, the percussion, it all just works. 10/10

Song of the Ancients: Fate - https://youtu.be/ady--PNMsfI

My most unpopular opinion on this song is I don’t really like this version all that much. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I knew what happened already so it has no impact on me. It’s got a lot of drum. Maybe too much drum? I don’t know I’ve never totally vibed with this one. There’s an attempt but parts of it I just really don’t care for. That’s why it ranks so low. It’s not the worst, and I recognize that it’s like. Super iconic. But eh. 5/10.

Song of the Ancients: Lost Androids - https://youtu.be/CfCEueBER5g

I just. Super. Do not fucking like this song at all. There’s so much happening in it and none of it’s very good. Devola and Popola’s sick techno dance party dot mp3. Easily the worst of the official releases of this song. It doesn’t help that the Nier Gestalt DLC just isn’t good either. Why did I beat the entire thing? The world may never know. 3/10

Song of the Ancients: Piano version from 15 Nightmares & Arrange Tracks

- https://youtu.be/orEoq7KFdrM

I’m biased and love all piano remixes and this one is good. I don’t know why there are two official piano remixes that aren’t the same, but there are. This one feels really emotional, sorta soft, and a lotta sad, but the remix-y part in the middle kinda falls off for me. Most of it is really good, but it doesn’t reach goosebump status for me which is a shame because most of the pieces are there. Overall, it’s pretty good. 7/10

Song of the Ancients: from the actual Nier Piano collection mix which is a different version than the one above - https://youtu.be/K_4HGh7Hh7w

It’s weird to think that two officially released piano versions of the same exact song could be so different but they honestly kinda are. This one feels stronger than the other, but it still isn’t quite there for me either. I think overall I might like it more, but the emotional impact of it is somehow less? Once again, it’s overall pretty good, but the vibes don’t totally match with me. 7/10

The Legend of Nier 8-bit Heroes from 15 Nightmares & Arrange Trakcs - https://youtu.be/LgvF_xRPoxs

This is kind of a bonus mention because it isn’t strictly Song of the Ancients, it’s a mix of a few songs from Nier Gestalt, but it just happens to start with Song of the Ancients. It hits pretty much all the notes from it so I’m including it here. I like it more than the hacking track from Automata, but only a little bit. It’s sad but also chiptune. However because it is quite literally only 1/8th of the entire song and for the sake of this list I refuse to acknowledge the other 7 minutes of music, I give it 1/8 / 10.

Song of the Ancients: Atonement - https://youtu.be/wNWShKuopic

You know it, you love it, and you’re crying thinking about it, it’s the Atonement version from Automata. It’s everything Fate wanted to be, but now much, much better. All of the music in this game is just, so intense and full of meaning and it just feels. Important. It’s what movie music would be if it didn’t suck. I think this one works really well in capturing the emotions around the twins trying to make up for crimes they straight up just didn’t commit. Devola and Popola make me cry. I love this song. Crying Creep emoji/10

Sonc of the Ancients: Atonement: Hacking Track remix - https://youtu.be/QD1F-staPms

So there’s like, not really a chance you’d ever hear this entire thing played out in game because of the way the hacking mechanic works. I think it’s a pretty good chiptune rendition though. I don’t care to listen to most of the hacking tracks on their own though, but there’s nothing offensive about this one. It’s Atonement, and Atonement is still a really good song on it’s own, so it just gets more points by cheating. 7/10

Song of the Ancients: from Arranged & Unreleased Tracks - https://youtu.be/lDYc9Ov4Mr8

Kinda love this one. It’s played on an accordion. Everyone I send this one to thinks it’s weird because of that, but I love it. It sounds like a romantic date in Italy. This might be one of the only versions that doesn’t make me want to start crying which is weird because it’s a remix of the Atonement version specifically again. I have really weird taste in music though. 10/10 gay dates in Italy

Song the Ancients: Atonement: from the Nier Music Concert: The Memories of Puppets - https://youtu.be/4z3wr0xATJY

Once again, Atonement fucking slaps. I’m always impressed by these things being performed live because the words aren’t real and they sound like they’d be hard to say. This is basically just a clearer version of the one from the game. I don’t like it more, though. It has a part where it slows down completely which is sexy, on it’s own. My heart tells me to give this a 9/10 though for reasons I don’t know. Perhaps because I haven’t used that ranking yet. In a hard to explain way I don’t like this version as much as the one in the game. So, 9/10.

Song of the Ancients DoD3 remix - https://youtu.be/SAJi9Q-RRmQ

This one starts out kinda slow, but when it picks up I think it sounds way more like Atonement than Fate. And when it sounds like Atonement I really like it. However I have this DLC for DoD3 and it’s the only song I ever had playing and I’m still not completely sick of it so that has to count for something. It’s not horrible but it’s not great either. It sounds like it belongs in DoD3 and none of the music in that game is great. 6/10

Song of the Ancients the… Music Video? - https://youtu.be/_iXT9eWgaMw

This one isn’t bad, but it’s really, really weird that it exists. I’ve never been able to really remember what this one sounds like so it can’t rank very high for me. It gets bonus points simply because it exists… at all. I think wikipedia told me this was like, official, or supported, I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t count, maybe it does, but I wanted to mention it anyway even though it isn’t on one of the CDs. She does a good job at performing and it’s a unique remix that takes the aesthetic qualities of Fate and dials them back into something smooth and emotional. I definitely don’t hate it, but it’s not on my phone. 7/10

Song of the Ancients: Orchestral Arrangement - https://youtu.be/Ixk5zFXldCk

This was instantly and immediately my favorite rendition of the song and not much has changed since it first released. While it is without a doubt the most different of all the renditions, it has an almost magical quality to it. Tonally, it seems to follow the story of Devola and Popola as we know them in Nier Gestalt. Maybe I’m just projecting random shit onto this song, who knows, I’m not a music major. People have said it has kind of a Disney movie feel at the beginning, which is true, but as it goes on it loses that sort of innocent, lofty feeling, and becomes more intense, and I don’t know. I just really fucking love the way this song goes. Compare how it starts to how it ends and it’s just. Ugh. This one is so good. What the fuck. If you listen to nothing else on this list, please listen to this one. 11/10.

#nier #nier gestalt #nier replicant #nier automata #song of the ancients #long post #i cant do a readmore because you cant read shit on my blog sorry #creep ranks

46 notes · View notes

maxiekat · 5 years ago

Link

In a world full of rom-coms, when was the last time you cried over an onscreen breakup that actually stuck? No grand gestures to save the day, just pure, raw, lust and heartbreak. If you want to get so deep in your feels you forget if you’re actually heartbroken or just bleary-eyed over someone else’s love story, then you may need to subscribe to the church of Drake Doremus.

The director is known for his mostly improvised, chill-inducing romantic dramas (Like Crazy, Newness, Equals) and his latest is a tender-to-the-touch look at a modern love triangle in Endings, Beginnings, which premieres Sunday at Toronto Film Festival. Much like his previous work, Endings, Beginnings is clever and cutting, but also soft and quiet. Shailene Woodley is at the heart of the film playing Daphne, a thirty-something artist (her specialty is hand-painted tea pots, which she sells on Etsy) who recently and abruptly quit her job and ended her long-term relationship with her boyfriend (Matthew Gray Gubler, in his third Doremus film).

Looking for a hard reset on life, Daphne moves into the pool house of her much more together older half-sister. She also stops drinking, focuses on looking for a new job, and cuts men out of her life. Until, of course, she meets two men at a New Year’s Party. One’s brooding, asking her for a light of a cigarette in the most drunken and charming of ways. He’s wearing a shearling jacket, worn-in with adventures. The other’s in LA’s version of a suit — he’s put together, and looks at her with the steady intentness. Daphne should be avoiding both, but she quickly becomes enamored with bad boy Frank (Sebastian Stan), a nomad who drinks absinthe, and good boy Jack (Jamie Dornan), an academic who has a dog and dreams of moving to Europe. What starts as innocent text-flirting evolves into two full-blown relationships. Oh, and the guys are best friends.

When Stan first read for the film, he read for both Frank and Jack’s role, but what really attracted him to the heady rom-dram was Dormeus himself, of whom he’s been a huge fan. “I met him and I said, ‘I gotta tell you, I don’t know which one of these people you are seeing me as, but I really relate to both of them. I love both,’” he says over the phone to Refinery29. Stan’s in London where he’s filming the spy-thriller 355, a movie he says is “stylistically and tonally very different,” than Endings, Beginnings, but with “a couple of similarities here and there.”

“And we just got very deep. We got into relationships and being in our 30s and the world we are in right now, and all our experiences.” The vulnerability seen on-screen between Woodley, Stan, and Dornan is something special, and almost entirely improvised, based on just 30 pages of notes. Endings, Beginnings is a far cry from the big budget Marvel movies you’re used to seeing Stan in (he plays Captain America’s pal Bucky Barnes in seven Marvel movies and one upcoming spin-off series.) I was reading your Instagram post earlier gushing about working on this film with Drake. When did you become a fan of his, and why did you two think Frank was the role for you?

“I was aware of [Drake] for awhile. Like everyone else, I loved Like, Crazy, and then I also like his recent movie with Nicholas Hoult, Equals. I was also just really interested in doing a movie and improvising — because the entire movie is practically improvised. I never worked in that medium before. I got a call saying, Hey do you want to meet with Drake and talk about this movie [and] read the draft?, which was basically like 30 pages. There were two guy [parts] at the time. I met him and I said, ‘I gotta tell you, I don’t know which one of these people you are seeing me as, but I really relate to both of them. I love both.’ And we just got very deep. We got into relationships and being in our 30s and the world we are in right now, and all our experiences. Again, I didn’t really know that is where we were gonna go, but he was very honest with me and I was honest with him. We parted ways, and the next thing I knew he called me to have a session with somebody at the time that he was thinking of for the role as Daphne, and I went in and had a 3-hour improv session with him, then he called me and told me that he wants me to do the Frank role and I was fine with that.”

Only 30 pages. Everything else is improv? All the film’s dialogue?

“Yes, that is all literally on the day, in the moment, happening real-time. Basically, the script that he had was just the outline: Daphne comes out a recent relationship and moves in with her best friends. They’re having a New Years Party, and she runs into Frank who asks her for a cigarette. It was all outlines, but in terms of the dialogue and how we would get there, that was all improvised. That was an interesting experience because I had never worked that way and no take is ever the same. I walked away from that experience feeling very vulnerable. You’re not hiding behind any lines.”

The improvisation really added to the film. I left it feeling more emotional than I expected.

“We’ve all had relationships, and we know how tricky they are. They’re complex and there’s many layers. I don’t know — I have always loved romantic comedies. I grew up on When Harry Met Sally and all that, but I sometimes feel that relationships aren’t entirely depicted as messy and as raw and as painful as they are. That’s why I loved working with him because I feel like he gets to the core of situations. I’m happy to hear you related to it because that is what he wants. He wants you to go, 'I’ve had that conversation...been in that situation.’”

There’s been a resurgence in romantic comedies, but not so much romantic dramas like this. Do you think there’s a reason why?

“I love romantic comedies and there is a space for them, but [rom coms] are hopeful. Sometimes when I go to the movies, I don’t want to necessarily see what my life is. I want to be like, Hey! It’s nice to think that maybe that could be that way. If you want to be inspired, or laugh a little bit — there’s that element of it. And sometimes you want to see a movie that makes you feel less alone in your experience. A lot of European films are much closer to this, and I think Drake loves a lot of European films and is influenced by them and the personal quality. Structurally in romantic comedies, you have bigger things happening, right? Whereas [in this movie], there are big things happening, but there’s a much more subtle transition through everything.”

Frank is the “player” of the film, while Jack is the “good guy,” for lack of a better phrase. You’ve said before that you didn’t really know why you were often cast as the “bad boy.” Do you still not know why?

“I don’t know! [Groans] I don’t know. The truth is, the reason I was saying [I could play] Jack was that I talk a lot in my life. I philosophize a lot. I try to read things. Then I think about it, and then I wanna talk about it. I relate to that [aspect of Jack]. And actually, there was a lot to Frank and Daphne that we shot that was funny. They had a lot of their own back and forth, but what ended up being in the movie — I think Drake never forgot the vision that he had for Frank — [was him] being much darker than we shot. I am happy it ended up that way because there needed to be a contrast.

But I don’t know! I am glad they think I can do this. I am one of the most over-thinking, neurotic people I know. So I don’t know how it happens, but it keeps happening.”

I thought a big part of Frank also was his big shearling jacket. Since most of the movie was improvised, did you have anything to do with his outfits?

“Oh yeah, I kept that jacket, first of all. It’s a great jacket. What’s great about Drake is that he was like, ‘Hey, listen, people wear the same stuff all the time. If something works, let’s just it.’ I was like yeah, the guy probably kind of flies by the seat of his pants anyways so he just has a few things. I think I wore some of my own jeans. The boots I wore were mine. Drake definitely wanted us to wear our own stuff so we could feel comfortable in it.”

This was originally called No, No, No, Yes and ended as Endings, Beginnings. How did the title change shape the movie?

“It was always a working title. I saw that it was paired up with her experience — every no and every yes was paired to one of the relationships that she was going through. Endings, Beginnings is a little more specific. I know for awhile he was even contemplating a title that was even just made up of emojis which I thought would have been really fun.”

Oh yeah. I loved the texting aspect in this movie.

“There is an element of texting in the time period we are in, and there is this new language to it. They got it in the sense that both Jack and Frank have their very specific ways of texting. Jack probably uses punctuation, and Frank does not. [Laughs]”

You’ve worked with a few of the Big Little Lies women now. Do you have plans to work with the others like Zoe Kravitz, Reese Witherspoon, or Laura Dern?

“That has not hit me — that’s kinda funny. I don’t think I have ever met Reese Witherspoon and I’ve met Laura Dern. If the opportunity presents itself then great. I certainly wouldn’t have had a problem if there had been a role in the second season. I would have done it in a second. I loved the first season.”

I have one more that I have to ask about — obviously Gossip Girl is getting rebooted, and Chace [Crawford] said it made him feel “old,” but he’d be down. Have you thought about it at all?

“[Laughs] I don’t even… it’s so weird. Somehow a lot of people talk to me about Gossip Girl, and I always thought I was just a guest star. It was a very special show. It certainly defined those years, and we all got our start there in a way. It would be hilarious and weird and crazy. He’s right — we are old! I don’t know what business they’d have with me, but, Jesus. If there was some funny little witty thing and they called and we’re like, ‘We’re doing this thing and we have everybody….’ I’m not gonna be the asshole that says no. Maybe I’ll be in the background scooping some ice cream.”

#sebastian stan #endings beginnings #drake doremus #gossip girl #shailene woodley

372 notes · View notes

panharmonium · 5 years ago

Text

some disjointed thoughts about stranger things 2 under the cut (concealed to hide spoilers from my sister)

so, season 2!

i’ve gone into every season of this show knowing absolutely nothing about it. i’ve had no exposure to the fandom or to reviews or anything that would indicate what it was about or how good the seasons are in relation to each other, which i like, because i know my opinions are my own. season 1 i watched back in the winter, i think, and it was amazing. blew me away.

i just finished season 2 and i’m like...not as into it?

and i’m glad i had no preexposure to anything, because if i had, i’d worry that i was just being influenced by other people’s opinions, but i genuinely don’t know what people think of the various seasons. i’ve been stringently avoiding anything about this show, have it blocked on tumblr, etc, so i could watch it cold.

i’d have to watch it again to really pin down the places where my investment was flagging, and i’ll probably do that eventually, because i know my roommate will want to see it, but my general impression was this: they had me hooked in the beginning, and then they started to lose me.

- i feel like overall it was 9 episodes where very little substance actually happened. plotlines were stretched out over a reallllllly long period of time and became paper-thin. like nancy and jonathan? the only thing they really did over those entire nine episodes was make a tape recording and send it to the paper. that was their whole story, and it could have fit in one episode.

- and what did happen felt like it suffered from a lack of focus. can i explain this in more detail without watching the show again? not really. but i just mean that in S1, i could tell you what each of the main character’s arcs were, and i could lay out how those arcs had clear beginnings, middles, and endings. in S2, i can really only do that for El (and even that i feel like got messy by the last third).

- the horror vibe was different this season. it was LESS scary, to me. S1 was a CREEP factor that had my skin crawling - it wasn’t like...creature horror - it was the unsettlingness. the whole parallel world thing was so - well, the only word for it is unsettling, like. you felt like you could take a step and accidentally wind up somewhere no one should be - the idea that you can be trapped so close to somebody and yet so far away - you just felt like the world was inside out (or upside down, if you will). and so much of the fear in the first one came from how incomprehensible and uncertain the entire situation was - you didn’t know how things worked and nobody believed you when you tried to tell them what was happening. that scene where the christmas lights spell out R-U-N? scariest fucking thing i’ve ever seen. but S2 changed it to be like...it felt like more of a monster flick. like a zombie movie or something - lots of creatures running around that you can just shoot with a gun - that’s just not really the same vibe as the first season, and i didn’t find it quite as interesting.

- i don’t want to be That Person, because i liked maxine as a character in general, on her own terms, but from a writing perspective - what even was the purpose of her introduction? her and her brother both, honestly, the whole family. i feel almost bad for saying that, because i can guarantee that there were people out there complaining about her being introduced because “they just wanted to have another girl; it’s so stupid, blah blah,” cue more sexist stuff, etc, and that’s really not where i’m coming from, but for me, from a general storytelling perspective, i don’t understand why she or her family were introduced. they were superfluous to the story. they didn’t need to be there. and since i don’t even feel like the returning characters got enough development this season (see point #2), i don’t understand why we spent so much time on her/her family/her introduction to the Party. it felt like filler.

- stranger things S2 did that thing teen wolf does where 2/3 of the way through the season it drops a tonally-different expository/flashback episode that does a lot of the legwork tying other shit together while also being completely disconnected from the rest of the plot, which is basically an info dump and is my least favorite way of relaying plot/getting characters to the spot the writer wants them to go. i think kali was the most interesting new character we met this season; i was rapt every time she was onscreen, but i don’t love the “we’re going to shove all of the character development and background info into this one episode and at the end El has had her turnaround and goes back home.” it didn’t feel believable to me. are we ever going to see those people again, or were they just a plot convenience to serve the aforementioned purpose? (idk, i haven’t watched S3 yet, so...we’ll see.)

- some weird...minor tonal changes/dropped plots? in S1 one of the running undercurrents was how mike and nancy’s mom wanted them to talk to her and she really did care about what was going on but they couldn’t connect to her and that bothered her, whereas in S2 it’s like - that theme has been dropped; she’s not involved in their lives really at all, and her and ted’s spousal relationship is just being played for laughs, and there was that REALLY weird scene with her like...lusting after billy?????? that was so fucking bizarre.

and until one line in the very last episode, they dropped the whole thing about hopper’s daughter, too - the way they wove that into the first season was brilliantly done, and just - you don’t see a bit of it in S2, and that felt off, to me.

- killing bob was a bad call. it was gratuitous, AND it was contrived - who the hell is running for their life and then just stops dead in the lobby to smile at their girlfriend? ANY SENSIBLE PERSON WOULD KEEP RUNNING FOR THE DOOR. like - bob died, but the doctor survived???????? the doctor, who was attacked and immobilized and defenseless in a stairwell, somehow wasn’t killed?????? of course not, because he needed to survive, so he could get El her papers later....that entire thing irritated me. it made no sense. that was actually the point where i said to myself “uh-oh. first Bad-with-a-capital-B decision this show’s made.”

- lack of consistency in terms of how, exactly, Stuff Works. in S1 it was like - the Upside Down is everywhere. the demigorgon could come through anywhere, if you were unlucky. that was part of what made it so creepy - there’s this whole other world and it is RIGHT THERE with you, and sometimes the fabric separating the two universes gets scary thin, and bam, you’re somewhere no human has any business being. whereas in S2 it’s like - ok, things are coming through this one portal and spreading through tunnels underground, in our own dimension??? like at first i thought hopper had actually entered the Upside Down in the tunnels, but then it seemed like the tunnels were still on our plane, just gross-looking. so why in S1 could the demigorgon come through the ceiling of will’s house, or through that tree in the woods, or take barbara through the pool? why did the lab people think burning that little gate would help, when the first monster from last season was obviously popping into our dimension from all sorts of other places?

- this is a minor quibble, but it was driving me up the WALL in the last couple of episodes - what in god’s name were they injecting will with??? and HOW. mike just grabs that syringe off the counter like “we need to make will go to sleep” - there is NO reason that anyone in the room would know what was in the syringe or what the correct dosage was or HOW TO GIVE AN INJECTION IN THE FIRST PLACE. joyce gives it??????? by stabbing straight down???????? into will’s arm???????????? what the hell kind of injection technique is that?!?!?! that’s not....how that works. ever. and maxine does it to billy too, in his NECK - just straight in there. there is no....look, people in human medicine can weigh in better than me here; maybe things are different, but just from the veterinary perspective, you can’t just stab a creature any old place you want, and giving something via any route that isn’t intravenous isn’t going to drop an animal immediately, AND you do not have control over how long they’re going to be out. if you give a sedative, you can’t just wake an animal up by wafting ammonia under their nose. AND the animal is likely not going to be actually asleep until you also give an anaesthetic induction agent, and if you do give an anaesthetic induction agent, you’d better have some monitoring equipment and a breathing apparatus hooked up to your patient!

look, it just - the “go to sleep” injection was used to solve too many critical situations for me to just ignore it. it bothered me.

anyhow. overall, i didn’t hate it. but i thought it was way less cohesive than the first season, and therefore way less effective. i’m still curious to see what happens in S3, but my expectations are lower now.

[if you wanna talk to me about this, you have my permission, but ONLY if you’re able to do it without talking about S3 in any capacity, including your own personal evaluation of how good/bad it is in relation to the other seasons. i like to watch without knowing other people’s opinions of things, otherwise i feel like my viewing experience is colored by what i hear. thanks! :) ]

#interdimensional babysitters club

9 notes · View notes

breadknight-likes-things · 5 years ago

Text

Bread’s Game Journal 06/05/20: Wrath In The Frozen North: A Northrend Retrospective, Part 6: Sholazar Basin

Okay now Blizzard, on some level you knew that this one just felt downright weird! A huge steaming rain forest, localized entirely within a huge crater, directly bordering the harshest, most brutally cold zone in the entire game? Okay, so I’m making a bit of a show out of it! There’s more than enough lore precedent in WoW that Sholazar Basin makes total sense, hell, it even directly connects to the other “big rain forest inside a crater” zone that we all knew and loved at the time. There’s a lot to love in Sholazar though, and it’s one of the best zones in Northrend both from a design perspective and from how totally unexpected it is in the grand scheme of the expansions overall experience.

Taking the form of a large, dense rain forest, Sholazar basin shares a lot in common with other locations from Old WoW, places like Un’Goro Crater and Feralas. Uniquely from those two zones though, Blizzard really took the Titan connection and lore a lot further here, and to great effect. What was largely implied (and lightly at that) in Un’Goro crater is a lot more explicit here: Sholazar Basin is the direct result of Titan Experimentation. It explains quite a lot, why such a place can exist on a continent like Northrend, and how, despite having very few native peoples, it’s managed to stay relatively free of the scourge until recently.

”Recently” in this case meaning the large avalanche that’s dumped a bunch of scourge, almost accidentally, into the eastern edge of the zone!

Indeed, if you’re looking for a tonally light break in the action, especially right after you witnessed the slow, painful death of a Troll Kingdom, Sholazar is exactly what you need! The storylines here are all broad sci-fi or big game hunting. Yes, you read that last part right, Hemit Nessingwary is back, and ready to genocide more animal species than ever before! The Nessingwary Safari quest chains are always a lot of fun, despite how bare bones the content of the quests inevitably have to be. Still, if there’s one example of “kill an absurd amount of animals for me and i’ll give you a dollar and these shows” i’m glad that, to this day, it’s still framed through Nesingwary.

Rivers Heart is always a favorite part of Sholazar to me, despite being a sunken crater in the middle of the zone, it somehow provides excellent views.

Also notable are the two warring (at least on unfriendly terms) factions unique to this zone, The Gorlocs and Wolvar. I remember it being a big deal at the time choosing who you were going to throw in with. This, people argued, was the WotLK equivalent of Burning Crusade’s big Aldor and Scryer choice. Of course, in retrospect, that’s silly, because there’s really nothing to do with either of these factions post making the choice of commitment. Well, there is the egg you got to buy after hitting revered, which took three days to hatch and maybe had one of those proto drake mounts in it....but good luck on that, never worked for me! The hunt for a proto drake mount was....lets just leave that one in the past. I’ll always really love Sholazar basin, even as I give it shit for being so wildly random in this expansion overall, because it just isn’t something I think anybody really expected. When I originally thought of Northrend it was all snow, all high mountains and the hordes of zombies waiting to kill me. The last thing I expected when I got there in 2008 was this dense jungle canopy, practically begging me to live out my deep jungle adventure fantasies. All that said, I’m extremely thankful it was there, and look forward to every new expansions unexpected zone, always confident that they’ll work great because of the example set by Sholazar.

Bread’s Coveted “Best Town” Award: Nessingwary Expedition.

Good news everyone! Another default winner! But I do really love this dumb little camp, set up dangerously close to the wrecks of their own ships even!

Random Screenshot Of The Day:

Have I talked before about my weird fascination with inexplicable docks in video games? I’m sure I’ve posted about it with Jak and Daxter, but here it is in WoW!

Stray Notes:

- Look, you know I do my best to stay positive on things, but how is Star Wars Episode 2 so bad? Like, it’s just.....awful. I’ll defend quite a lot about the prequel Star Wars movies, but man, re-watching this one is....rough.

- More Scooby-Doo Night of 100 Frights! I forgot that this game has fully composed songs with lyrics and everything, for some of the boss fights! It’s delightful!

2 notes · View notes

adz · 5 years ago

Text

hi here is my albums of the year list for 2019. i will also put it below under the break. happy nu year friends

ALBUMS I LOVED

Big Thief - U.F.O.F. & Two Hands This band has something so special. It's almost as enjoyable to hear Lenker, the primary songwriter, talk about her philosophy and her connection to her bandmates as it is to listen to their consistently wonderful and gently boundary-pushing music. I've combined these two albums into one list item because they're flip sides of the same coin: spirit and earth, ethereal and corporeal, unknown and known. If you've heard their earlier two albums, you might be put off a little: there aren't any smash hits like Masterpiece on here, nor any doomed ballads like Shark Smile. These albums are a little blurrier, shadows and gleaming bits of light floating past. At times the songs sound less like early Big Thief than they do Adrianne's solo releases: lyric focused, strange sprawling structures, a bit rougher around the edges. At these records' cores, though, the soul is the same true soul. On U.F.O.F., there are sadness-tinged love songs like Orange and an ode to a dead relationship or dead loved one, Terminal Paradise, recut from Adrienne's solo discography. On Two Hands, rollicking rockers like Forgotten Eyes and the titular track nestle up against the tender and painful Wolf and a live staple for the band, Not, a song that builds momentum and tumbles towards its conclusion like a meteor. Whether you're a devoted fan (and I don't know anyone who listens to Big Thief but doesn't consider themselves one) or a newcomer, it's worthwhile to spend some time close to these records. Let them, and they'll grow on you.

Kim Petras - TURN OFF THE LIGHT Easily the best collection of club pop songs this year began as a Halloween-themed mixtape, which I think gives it a willingness to experiment that I sometimes miss in Petras's more standard stuff. The hooks on tracks like There Will Be Blood, Close Your Eyes, and Tell Me It's a Nightmare are as good as anything in her discography, and the most adventurous moments, like the interlude o m e n and the German verse in In the Next Life, not only pay off but fuck harder than basically anything I've ever heard. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Dr. Luke was one of this record's producers. The fact that he gets a cut of every stream and sale is a terrible blemish on what would otherwise be a huge favorite of mine.

Sufjan Stevens & Timo Andres - The Decalogue A forceful, sometimes opaque album. Delicate and opinionated piano music for ballet. One moment of particular transcendent beauty: the track V.

Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising A 10/10, perfect, totally wonderful album. A ton of variety and not a single bad song. By turns upbeat, dreamy, contemplative, creepy, explosive. One of the most beautiful and evocative album covers of the year to boot.

Andrew Bird - My Finest Work Yet I appreciate Andrew Bird's esoteric trips and darkly introspective weirdness, so it surprised me how much I enjoyed this: a bouncy, ascerbic, and delightful return to form packed with ironic turns of phrase and endlessly engrossing little musical details. Bloodless is a legit political statement, a State of the Union address that is somehow equal parts ominous and encouraging. Sisyphus is freewheeling and also political, a common thread here. My favorite is Manifest, a disco-inflected ode to fossil fuels. You could blast it and joyfully sing along without ever realizing how apocalyptic it is.

Nivhek - After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house Moody, spacious, and minimalist. Lovely and meditative.

M83 - DSVII A world all of its own. Cinematic, strange, and cheesy. I really appreciate M83's willingness to do absolutely whatever they want when they could easily have made a career pandering to fans of Midnight City and selling songs to car companies. DSVII is spacious and upbeat, steeped in the memory of 70s space western epics. Flutes, pianos, and shimmering picked guitars float over crashing post-rock drums and synths ranging from contemplative sweeps (Mirage) and buzzing pads (Colonies) to swelling vox (Taifun Glory) and precise, retro little bleeps (Oh Yes You're There, Everyday). It's wonderful background music, and the choice tracks (Temple of Sorrow, Mirage, Hell Riders) are great fun and even occasionally thrilling. This album is easy to love.

Thom Yorke - Anima Detuned synths lying motionless in a cold desert fading in and out of life

Foxes in Fiction - Trillium Killer A swirling dream-pop masterpiece. I had the privilege of seeing Warren perform some of these songs earlier this year, and I felt totally transported, like I was physically present in the green holographic world of his back-stage projections. These songs are complex and really special, crafted with care and an ear highly attuned to odd harmonies and little additive details. I love the way stories and thoughts weave together across the album. The catchy, gently swelling music is a brilliant compliment for the lyrics, which are often dark and intense, blurring the political and personal on songs like Say Yes to Violence and Antibody. Aesthetically, this album is a delight, but there's so much depth beneath its glimmering surface. What a wonderful addition to Foxes in Fiction's powerful and lovely discography.

Xiu Xiu - Girl with Basket of Fruit Xiu Xiu always makes me smile. This album is dense and abrasive and very lyrics-forward. Jamie Stewart sounds fucking pissed and I love it. The beats are quick and unrelenting: samples of Haitian drummers led by musician Daniel Brevil. I also can't get over the fact that Angela Seo published her favorite and least favorite lyrics from each song. Jamie wrote this about the record's title, which references Caravaggio's painting Boy with a Basket of Fruit: "When this title is a boy it is fey and lovely. When it is a girl is worrisome and rife with danger. Male martyrs are almost always surrounded by nurses, their mothers, adoring angels and other loving disciples wrapping their crushed and holy bodies in strips of herb soaked cloth and weeping rapturously. Female martyrs are almost always depicted having their skin flayed, breasts branded or ripped off with tongs or being stabbed and they are always, always alone save for her murderers. There is never anyone by their sides celebrating their spiritual life, only fiendishly reveling in their torture of her. It is perilous to be a 'girl.'"

Bats - Alter Nature I was shocked to find out these guys have been around for 10 years. This sounds like an album by a young band, which I mean as a compliment: it's energetic and rough and a little uneven in parts in ways that I enjoy. The sound is either especially intense but poppy post-punk or kind of gentle hardcore. I think there's a lot of crossover potential between those two fan bases here. Their attitude is what I love more than anything else. I don't know how to describe it exactly. It feels like the band are willing to go to weird, sarcastic places and then quickly snap back to sincerity and brutality, often multiple times in one song. I'm not much of a hardcore fan, but I almost wish they'd spent a little more time with that sound: my favorite parts on this record are the heavier bits like the end of Current Affairs.

Olivia Neutron-John - Olivia Neutron-John This album sounds like if you trapped a musique concrete artist in a timeless hell with a couple drum machines and synths for a millenium and then poked a hole in the wall and recorded what came out. Really fun and uncomfortable. I do still think the best format to experience ONJ is in her like 20-minute rambling dance tracks, like 2017's Injury Train.

Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q. A lot of people really despise Liturgy, and if that's the case for you, this album probably won't change your mind, but for what it's worth, it's a little more accessible than their synth-horn-heavy black metal midi extravaganza of a previous album The Ark Work. H.A.Q.Q. does contain weird, tonally distinct interludes (the EXACO trio of tracks) between its transcendental metal pillars, but they're the rare interludes that go beyond merely cleansing the palette and setting the mood for whatever follows. EXACT III especially is a bright and emotionally complete unit. What we're really here for is the metal, though, and this album delivers like nothing Liturgy has released before. Composer/singer/guitarist Hendrix's melodies are unique and beautiful, the riffs and blastbeats are tight, and the stuttering glitches that break up dense passages are welcome even when they're really surprising. HAJJ, PASAQALIA, GOD OF LOVE, and HAQQ are all monster tracks, but the whole album is well worth your time. The lead single, GOD OF LOVE, is a great place to start. This is definitely, easily my favorite black metal album of all time, and probably my favorite metal album full stop.

Blood Orange - Angel's Pulse Dev Hynes' mixtape is by turns propulsive and relaxing, softspoken and hardheaded. It's brilliant and beautiful and although it's not too long, each song is given ample room to breathe. I wish other artists were as effective at utilizing guest artists (some tracks here have three guests, and Hynes is able to manage their time well enough that there's no feeling of bloatedness or a lack of cohesion). I love this album. It might be my favorite thing Hynes has ever done. Listen to: Take It Back, Berlin, Dark & Handsome

Toro y Moi - Outer Peace Chaz's album Boo Boo was one of my favorite albums of 2017, but because it wasn't chillwave enough or whatever, people didn't seem to give it a fair shake. That seems to be the case with Outer Peace, too: it's less of a single unit than Boo Boo and contains more danceable content, but it's a little too moody and eccentric to win over fans of Anything In Return, Chaz's basically perfect 2013 opus. (As a side note, his mixtape Soul Trash, which also came out this year, is good fun too.) Anyway, Outer Peace feels kind of like a more accessible extension of Boo Boo. Parts of it still feel like a deranged early-morning exercise program on college radio, which I like. Try some of the lighter stuff first: Fading, Ordinary Pleasure, and Freelance.

Opium Lord - Vore No genre has better subgenre descriptors than metal. This is a black sludge album, and that's pretty much all you need to know.

Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling Okay so this album technically came out in 2018, but it had a wide release this year on Topshelf Records with like four different wax colors, and also I only found out about it early this year, and I need to spread the word about one of the most delightful, fun, and beautiful albums I've ever heard. On Crumbling, organic strums and synthetic trills form a deeply engaging tapestry. I love every second of it. Combining sounds in this way totally qualifies as left-field experimental shit just because It Seems Like Nobody Else Is Doing It For Some Reason (except I guess Floating Points, see SOTY), but the music itself is actually really accessible. This is what pop music should sound like! We have the technology!! Please listen to this album. Dirt and Gameun Deut are my favorites at the moment, but you honestly can't go wrong.

Angel Olsen - All Mirrors Olsen's gotten grander. Her ballads are longer and involve strings and synthesizers and beat machines. The soul feels the same to me, though. Songs like the title track are powerful and emotive and showcase not just her vocal range but a new range of sonic experimentation that I think complements her songwriting really well. For those who aren't on board with the 7-minute ballads, there are also more lighthearted tracks like Too Easy and Spring. I knew that Chance reminded me of a specific song, but I couldn’t think of the name until I read something by a person named Grimelords about how it’s like her version of Sinatra's My Way. That’s exactly what it’s like.

Girl Band - The Talkies Shoulderblades is an ugly, mammoth, multi-part story. Brilliant genreless repetition like in album opener Prolix and at the end of Couch Combover. Amygdela sounds like if early Preoccupations was fronted by someone undergoing torture whilst also muttering at their withdrawal hallucinations. The vibe here is complex. It's a very consistent album, but the collection of sounds and attitudes is really unusual. Caveat is a great example: a simple beat and twitching synth line turns into a lumbering mess of distortion-and back again, whenever it decides to-at will.

0 Stars - Blowing on a Marshmallow in Perpetuity Timid singing, odd titles, and every-instrument-in-the-room textures on this album belie depth and a very warm heart. "even though my dog barked at a baby, i won't tell her 'no' cause that's just the way she deals with being scared and sometimes i get scared too, and it's bad enough without the shame when i mess things up and you don't come over, i go to the kitchen and eat leftovers just because i'm sad doesn't mean it is fair to depend on you when you're sad too"

(Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar With Gretel—the best song of the year—as its lead single, House of Sugar set an impossibly high expectation. Although Gretel is certainly a high point on the album, there are many more: Hope is inconspicuous but beautiful, honest, and cathartic, SugarHouse is a devastating jam, and Southern Sky whirls comfortingly from a rose-tinted verse into a chorus supposedly inspired by a dream and tinged with sadness. All but one of these songs are under 4 minutes long, but they're packed with conflict between abstract and concrete lyrics, beauty and strangeness. It's Alex G, so don't be surprised by the unexpected and often outright weird electronic flourishes and transitions throughout the record, but if you can handle its irregularities, this is easily one of the most fresh-sounding and enjoyable albums of the year.

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It A bright, fun, and beautiful album full of bouyant vocals and strange twists and turns. Although I deeply love the poppy stuff here (like the anthemic single Strawberry), my faves are the slower, darker, vaguely occultish songs: Ghosting, Counterspell (a shimmering sequel to 2016's Spell, one of the best songs of the year), and In Theaters, which is one of those songs that builds and builds and then has the most satisfying payoff. It might be my favorite ending of any album this year. I hope you check this one out. Emily is the coolest and this album rocks.

Chromatics - Closer To Grey Of course this came out in October. Chromatics is the only band that is allowed to use canned vinyl hiss. The first song on this record is a Sound of Silence cover and it is amazing.

Mizmor - Cairn I try to approach new music without giving too much thought to the circumstances of its creation, but something about the idea of a mythical lone individual painstakingly crafting beautiful layered music appeals to me, whether it's Phil Elverum of Mt. Eerie, Sufjan Stevens, or this: Mizmor, some dude from Portland, OR making sick, dense black metal. Cairn is a slow, doomy, cinematic album, and maybe these qualities make it easier to notice the incredible attention to detail on individual riffs or little instrumental passages. My favorites were Cairn to God and The Narrowing Way

Laura Agnusdei - Laurisilva Lounge music from hell. Twin Peaks-y saxophone glides over squishy synthetic beats. Lungs Dance sounds like a block of jello having a nightmare. In all seriousness, this is an ingenious and very unique album and I enjoy it a lot. A lot of music I listened to this year attempted to merge organic and synthetic sound in a way that emphasises their similarities. Here, synthetic sounds and recognizable voices/samples/sax & flute riffs are juxtaposed, and the rift is never bridged. And it's weirdly comfortable. This is the most acidic of acid jazz. And honestly, I just really like how wet the synths sound.

~~~~~

SONGS I LOVED (singles for albums that i think outshone the album OR songs that were released not as part of an album OR just songs i heard and enjoyed. this will hopefully prevent me from including an album i don't actually love just because i really dug one song on it)

Arthur Russell - You Did It Yourself Iowa Dream is a great collection of Russell's more accessible unreleased work. You Did It Yourself in particular is such a perfectly weird, groovy almost-pop song, a reminder that Russell was as talented a writer of hooks as he was a mastermind of electroacoustic experimentation. To explore his other side, check out another of his posthumous releases from this year, Not Checking Up.

MGMT - In The Afternoon A gothic post-punk masterpiece that sort of follows from their excellent 2018 album Little Dark Age. This is MGMT's best era ever. My most-anticipated-2020 list is basically MGMT and Owen Pallett's Island. And probably one or two more Big Thief records.

Floating Points - Falaise Floating Points' 2019 album Crush consists mostly of Aphex-Twin-y glitch-beat tracks that occasionally push towards something really interesting and unique. It's a great album, but the organic instruments on opener Falaise set you up brilliantly for an organosynthetic payoff that never arrives.

Honey by Drugdealer/Weyes Blood okay, Lonely on the same album is fun, if a little silly. Lost In My Dream is also totally decent, and Fools is kind of a bop... actually, this whole album, while not totally my cup of tea, is great. If you like 70's-disco-inflected (like, Bee Gees) retro rock, sweet vocal harmonies and guitar licks, and a few indulgences (like saxophone), you'll totally dig this record. I'm gonna spend some more time with it. Honey fucks especially though imo

Everything All at Once - G Jones Something about this song just scratches an itch in my brain. The rest of this album is basically dubstep, and it all sandwiches this one beautiful little song. Better not to question life's gifts.

Perfume Genius - Eye in the Wall Sandunes & Landslands - Eleven Eleven James Blake - Barefoot In The Dark new grimes unfortunately Deafheaven - Black Brick

~~~~~

Honorable Mentions/stuff i like but other people would probably love

Kim Gordon - No Home Record An experimental (but comfortably modern) record by the 66-yr-old Gordon, best known as a multi-instrumentalist/vocalist in Sonic Youth, a band I occasionally appreciate but can't say I love. Parts of No Home Record are noise rock-y, like Murdered Out, and others totally defy comprehension: Paprika Pony seems to have the most buzz surrounding it, which makes sense since it features both a kalimba and a trap beat. Really not a resting-on-laurels type of album. I wish more iconic older musicians made shit like this.

Pharmakon - Devour The rare album that makes me forget about my tinnitus. A dense cloud of distortion and sharply biting microscopic needle creatures that settle around your shoulders and block out all light. Fucking awesome. Listen if you enjoy oppressive painfully pulsing sound textures of industrial noise blanketing completely incoherent screaming.

clipping. - There Existed an Addiction to Blood This is a tough one for me because there are things about this album I can't stand, but many more things I absolutely love. The inventiveness of the production on Run for Your Life, Daveed's absurdly skilled delivery on Blood of the Fang, the harsh noise and musique concrete combining delightfully with rap on songs like La Mala Ordina; all of this is extremely exciting. I really love the last track Piano Burning, an 18-minute recording of, yes, a piano burning. The thing is, clipping.'s lyrical content is more or less the same here as on 2013's Midcity mixtape. It's ultra-violent, filled with graphic descriptions of gang violence and torture, which is fine, but just not something I'm that interested in listening to more than once or twice. They've branched out elsewhere (on their previous album, Splendor & Misery, and on the recent EP The Deep), but to me, it's unfortunate that this super cool and thoughtful album is lyrically (at least, on the surface) just a collection of descriptions of people being murdered. I don't really have any interest in reading more into it than that, because I regret pretty much every time I try to pay close attention, either because it's gross and boring or because it's embarrassing (The Show, for example). I want to emphasize that as horrorcore goes, the writing here is mostly very good. The rhyme patterns like at the beginning of Story 7 are genius. It's just not for me, I guess. I'm gonna keep listening to a few songs, though: Nothing is Safe, La Mala Ordina, Run for Your Life, and Blood of the Fang are excellent.

Field Whispers - Fire-Toolz The Warm-Body is a great song. Hyphen- (and parenthesis-) heavy vapor/pc music/new age/ambient jazzy synth stuff. really nice.

Caroline Polachek - Pang every r/indieheads dude: i like slide guitar now probably the best vocal performance of any album I heard this year, Polachek is just ludicrously good. listen to Insomnia

Danny Brown - uknowhatimsayin¿ When most artists release an album of outsized acclaim, you can with some certainty expect them to mimic its acclaimed qualities later on in an attempt to reach the same level of success. Danny Brown is not most artists, though, and no one who knows him would count on a retreading of the ground covered in Atrocity Exhibition, Danny's nearly perfect 2016 album. uknowhatimsayin¿ is more lighthearted and, I think, a little less ambitious (it's 13 minutes shorter, with more consistent track lengths; there's no "Really Doe"), but not to its detriment. The features are less head-turning than AE (up-and-comers JPEGMAFIA and Obongjayer, the understated genius Blood Orange, and Run the Jewels, the most overrated act in hip hop), but they all fit in neatly. Tracks like Belly of The Beast and Negro Spiritual prove Danny could still rap over a washing machine or musique concrete or fucking whatever. The lyrics are less dense, the beats less experimental and strange, but the lighter energy is kind of nice. Atrocity Exhibition could've lost three or four tracks, but this album feels juuuust right.

HTRK - Over the Rainbow Soft, ambient, moody. Reminds me of William Basinski's Watermusic II, but this album is less repetitive and a little less weird. It's background music for people who hate background music. It's delightful and ignorable. Very nice.

Blarf - Cease & Desist Shockingly decent plunderphonics/noise album from Eric Andre, who it must be pointed out attended one of the most prestigious music colleges in the world.

Ryan Lott - Pentaptych Beautiful, prickly modernist string compositions.

Cereal Killer - The Beginning & End of Cereal Killer Empath - Active Listening: Night on Earth Ithaca - The Language of Injury Mannequin Pussy - Patience Swan's Chamber - Swan's Chamber Avey Tare - Cows on Hourglass Pond Men I Trust - Oncle Jazz Charli XCX - Charli Black Midi - Schlagenheim Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka Methyl Ethyl - Triage Bill Callahan - Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center Twin Peaks - Lookout Low Holly Herndon - Proto Laurel Halo - DJ-Kicks Earl Sweatshirt - Feet of Clay Nihiloxica - Biiri Wet Fruit - Wet Fruit

Best mix: Night Bus 4: Memory of Night Bus by CFCF When Hyperballad hits, you will understand. http://www.gorillavsbear.net/cfcf-drops-night-bus-4-memory-of-night-bus

Best album name:

Gross Net - Gross Net Means Gross Net.

Answers my foremost question immediately.~~~~~

A halfhearted AOTD list, in order this time

1-The Age of Adz

2-Heartland

3-Entrañas

4-The Money Store

5-Channel Orange

6-Planetarium

7-Ontario Gothic

8-Konoyo+Anoyo (this is cheating but whatever)

9-Carrie & Lowell + Greatest Gift (also cheating idc)

10-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

thanks for reading. the world is abundant.

#music

11 notes · View notes

wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years ago

Text

Psycho Analysis: Enchantress

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

I really feel bad for Enchantress. Like, she has such a cool design, she has such a cool concept, and Suicide Squad just does diddly squat with her. Part of it is obviously the jarring tonal clash of having a bunch of relatively normal criminals going up against a superpowered demon witch for their first mission, part of it is the awful writing for her holding her back, and all of it adds up to a disappointing mess that continued the proud DCEU trend of having dull, unengaging generic doomsday villains (a trend that wouldn’t truly be broken to any great extent until the release of Aquaman).

Actor: Cara Delevingne portrays the wicked witch of the DCEU, but sadly she doesn’t really get to showcase her acting chops here. Enchantress does nothing but writhe around like a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man, and June Moone is just a satellite character at best. She doesn’t bring anything to this role, but at the very least I can say the fault here much more squarely lays upon the shoulders of the writers, unlike with Jared Leto where it was clearly his suckiness that was ruining things.

Motivation/Goals: So, Enchantress discovers people don’t worship or even know who she is anymore, and instead worship machines. So, she decides to do the logical thing: build a giant magitek doomsday weapon to wipe out all technology, all while doing weird interpretive dance. Yeah, our villain is a demonic Luddite womanchild who hates that people aren’t paying attention to her and so throws an epic temper tantrum. Wonderful.

Personality: She’s crazy, selfish, and entitled, but really, the most we get from her is very surface-level observations, as she’s not really characterized all that well. There’s not much to even talk about here, becsue even what could normally be gleaned from watching a film like this is contradicted – she treats her brother like an expendable mook for the entire film (which he is, to be fair), but then when he dies she seems actually upset, and actually begs to be killed so she can be with him again. This comes so out of nowhere and flies in the face of how she’s been this whole movie that it feels like a flaccid attempt at pity for her than anything. It doesn’t help that Incubus isn’t exactly much of a character himself.

Final Fate: Flag kills her by crushing her heart, meaning she actually does get to go and be with her brother in the pile of dead, crappy villains.

Final Thoughts & Score: Enchantress just does not work in the confines of this film. Like, at all.

The whole entire concept of the movie is that the Suicide Squad is a black ops group of criminals roped by Amanda Waller to do the dirty work heroes can’t do. None of these criminals are so-called metahumans, save for Diablo. Most everyone here is just a regular person with really good skills in their respective fields, be that assassin (Deadshot), escape artist (Slipknot), boomerang-themed bank robber (Captain Boomerang), or clown (Harley). Now, when you look at this group, do they seem at all like the kind of group who, on their very first mission, one where they do not know each other and frankly can’t stand each other, should be going up against a magical, apocalyptic interdimensional witch demon and her army of zombies? Does that make any sort of sense?

Like I’m all for mashup movies but I really think something like this should have been saved for a sequel, perhaps after building up Enchantress more, giving her more of a character, and have her actively helping the Squad. As it stands, she comes off as a weak, generic, underwritten villain, and it’s a real shame, because her design and concept are top notch (at least until the final confrontation). On paper, she seems a really cool villain, but she’s just not a cool villain the Suicide Squad should be facing, and so she just comes off as an overwhelmingly large threat to a ridiculous degree. This movie is like what you’d get if you asked the Paw Patrol to take down SPECTRE; narratively, it could happen, but should it happen? Would it really be cool and satisfying? It hurts even more because the Joker is, like, right there, and I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say I would have loved to see Jared Leto get his face beat in.

As it stands, Enchantress is just an absolute tonal mess who does not fit the movie she’s in at all. She’s a ridculously powerful superhuman physical god in a movie about a bunch of jerks without superpowers being sent on a black ops government mission, and she just doesn’t gel with it at all. Ultimately she gets a 2/10, though I will say this: she doesn’t fill me with revulsion to the same degree Jared Leto’s Joker does, even if she has the same score. At least her design and the idea behind her are cool, and her actress seems like a nice person, which is more than can be said for Leto’s Joker and Leto himself, generally speaking. I really think Enchantress should have been saved for a sequel and been built up more, but I suppose nothing can be done about that now.

I really can’t stress enough though how much I love Enchantress’ design, though. It’s just so cool, and kinda hot in that evil stringy-haired ghost girl kind of way. Though the less said about that weird form she takes at the end, the better…

...Yeah. No. Maybe it doesn’t look so bad in a still screenshot, but in the film it is such awkward and terrible CGI it makes Delevingne look like a living bobblehead amd swan dives right into the uncanny valley. Give me the creepy witch demon, thank you very much.

That actually reminds me, there’s actually another villain related to Enchantress in Suicide Squad, though one who I really don’t think warrants his own review. So for the first time, we’re having a Two-For-One Analysis! This one’s gonna be quick because there’s not much to talk about, but still, get ready for...

Psycho Analysis: Incubus

Enchantress has a brother. I feel the need to say this because you probably forgot this guy even existed, which I think tells you almost all there is you need to know about him. Still, I decided I’m doing this, so I’m at least going to try and be fair here.

Actor: So the only reason I even bring up that he has an actor – Alain Chanoine is his name – is because I thought for the life of me this guy was just a big, ugly CGI creation. I didn’t even remember this guy speaking until I looked it up. That’s how little is brought to the table by his actor, but at the very least I don’t really blame him, because what exactly could he do with a character like this?

Motivation/Goals: He’s basically just assisting his sister. He really doesn’t have much more to him than that, he’s just the muscle.

Personality: So here’s his defining feature: His lack of personality. This guy hardly talks, hardly contributes to the plot, and just exists as an excuse for some fight scenes and to kill El Diablo, who dies heroically sacrificing himself. This guy is just so dull I forgot he was in this movie until I started writing the bit on his sister, and then decided maybe it would be good to just toss him in as a bonus.

Final Fate: El Diablo turns into a giant flaming Aztec skeleton (for… some reason) and fights him off, and then they blow him up with a bomb. Yeah, this ancient demon dies to a bomb, which is especially egregious since he takes worse in earlier scenes. Then again, a pathetic, stupid end to a pathetic, stupid villain is pretty much fitting for this guy.

Final Thoughts & Score: I already think that Enchantress was wasted in Suicide Squad, and if I think that, I feel it doubly for Incubus. This guy barely got to speak or do anything before unceremoniously being killed in an absolutely ridiculous way. Why was he even in the movie? It’s not like he’s a really famous villain to begin with. Why even bother using him if you’re just gonna dump all over him as a character like this? Like yeah, sure, he’s obscure and not a big name, but that’s the point of a movie like this: you should be taking these obscure villains and turning them into something memorable for the audience, so that they become household names. Look at villains like Ego or Thanos or Mysterio; they’re more villains that the comic book savvy would recognize on sight, and not what I would call household names like, say, Green Goblin or Joker or Magneto. But their movies helped elevate them to become truly iconic and well-known and well-regarded among even more casual fans. Here, though? They did the exact opposite somehow. They managed to make an obscure character so forgettable and pointless I forgot he was in the damn movie.

Incubus gets a 1/10, but obviously he’s not worse than Malekith. At the very least Incubus is just a crappy minor antagonist and not the main threat of the movie; his narrative function is basically as an elite mook serving his sister. He sucks, yes, but it’s hard to muster up the sheer revulsion I feel for a travesty like Malekith. There was just a lot less going for this guy in the first place, so when he failed to deliver, I wasn’t really surprised.

#Psycho Analysis #Enchantress #Incubus #Suicide Squad #cara delevingne

15 notes · View notes

ansu-gurleht · 6 years ago

Text

ok, breton time!

so at first glance, bretons seem pretty boring, yeah? pretty standard Boring White Fantasy Dudes, with Kings and Knights and Castles and Royal Squabbling, right? while they feature some of those aesthetic qualities, they are certainly much more interesting than that, even taking into consideration the little lore we actually have in canon. and, of course, i am feverishly willing to flip an entire aviary of birds towards the writers for the elder scrolls and make up some of my own shit, b/c sometimes there’s little gaps that need a little filling.

so let’s get down to basics by starting with square one: what are they and where’d they come from? i think it’s fairly well understood that they’re sort of the “half-elves” of the setting, despite looking nothing like elves, really. they’re the result of a bunch of nedes (a race of men probably from atmora who were especially populous in the deathlands, aka hammerfell) making their way into high rock and finding out some elves already lived there.

those elves were altmers who’d found the adamantine tower (where convention took place, establishing linear time and also shooting lorkhan’s heart across tamriel) and kinda decided to settle around there, while basically the rest of the elves decided to go and make their own towers elsewhere. this clan of elves who stayed in high rock were known as clan direnni. it seems that with little conflict the nedes kinda just fell into a subservient role to the direnni in a strict feudal system, with the elves at the top and the nedes at the bottom.

part of this seemingly accidental arrangement (i’m not sure how i feel about the supposed “ease” with which the nedes were enslaved - ahem, “integrated”) was a particular privilege the direnni enjoyed: the “perquisite of coitus”. this kinda gross rule/law made it that any mer could at any time “engage in recreational intercourse” with any man (i’m using this term gender-neutrally) they wanted.

apparently the direnni didn’t know how protection worked or just didn’t care. see, in the tes universe, when two races can interbreed, the offspring always follows the race of the mother, with some traits from the father inherited. so we start seeing a bunch of biracial children result from this “perquisite”; those with elvish mothers seem to have all been integrated into the direnni society, whereas the ones with nedeish mothers are rejected by their elvish fathers. buuuuut these elvish-fathered nedes, due to having elvish blood, begin to be considered higher-classed than the rest of the nedes. they’re still rejected by the direnni, and at some point it seems the perquisite is canceled, but at that point there’s already a lot of nedes with elvish blood.

so over time, since they can’t mate with the elves anymore, the beratu, which is ehlnofex for “half,” begin to mate with the other, pure-blooded nedes. eventually, the nedes go extinct simply through this integration (as well as through war elsewhere, esp. in hammerfell w/ the ra gada), in a similar way to how we likely made neanderthals go extinct by interbreeding with them.

a more complicated feudal system then arose, where bloodlines and legacy become extremely important to high rock society. the direnni were at the top, then there was a spectrum of power from bretons (the eventual corruption of the ehlnofex beratu) with the most elvish blood being dukes and counts, to those with hardly any at all being serfs. eventually, the overzealous expansion of territory by the direnni overcame them, and they fell back to the isle of balfiera in the iliac bay. a bunch of nords flooded into the northern territories the direnni couldn’t hold anymore.

but the bretons and their new feudal system went on just fine without them, and eventually they remained the dominant force in high rock, despite the nords from the north, the redguards from the south, and the orcs from orsinium. apparently, this wasn’t even done through war - it was done through trade, and also by further assimilating the nordic population.

okay, everything i’ve said so far is canon history stuff. you’re probably here for more interesting speculation, though. trust me, i just had to get this stuff out of the way for a bit of context.

so we know that the bretons are really magical b/c of their elvish heritage. we know they’re very sectarian, having had likely almost twenty (i couldn’t find an actual number, sorry) contesting kingdoms and city-states constantly squabbling over territory prior to the warp in the west, which brought us down to five. they’re also pretty big in the empire business, seeing as probably most of the emperors have been bretons, and high rock have always been avid supporters of the empire. (except maybe in the 4th era? i seem to remember them seceding, but i might’ve been thinking about hammerfell, b/c i can’t find anything about it.)

bretons worship basically the nine divines, but they also have a few other gods. they worship magnus, the guy who left mundus and didn’t bother to close the sun-shaped hole behind him; jephre, which is another name for y’ffre, which you can’t convince me isn’t pronounced “yiffer”; and phynaster, who uh, sounds important, but.....doesn’t seem important. (they also acknowledge sheor, aka “the bad man,” which was a way of the altmer demonizing the nords’ shor. there could possibly be breton cults devoted to him, but we just don’t know.)

magnus makes sense, seeing as he’s the god of magic and all. jephre though, he’s interesting. he/she was worshiped by the altmer and falmer as well, but he’s most notably worshiped by the bosmer. he’s the guy that started the green pact and all! BUT, even more notable than that: he’s not an aedra, or even just some ancestor spirit. he’s an earthbone! meaning that she completely sacrificed herself to create and stabilize nirn and the mundus.

but, you may ask, why’re the bretons so invested in him? they’re pretty distant from valenwood, and they were ruled by altmer, not bosmer! to which i say, well, the altmer worshiped him too! and you say oh. yeah, right. i forgot.

BUT that would be giving you the short answer. the better answer? they worship him b/c he’s right under their feet! the adamantine tower’s smack dab in the middle of high rock! that’s where convention happened, and the spirits who made nirn decided what to do about it! that’s where they got separated into aedra, daedra, magna-ge, ehlnofey, and earthbones.

so, depending on how you interpret earthbones, or how they work or whatever, you could say y’ffre either became an earthbone in high rock, or is the earthbone of high rock. i’d argue against the latter, tho’, b/c he’s obviously the earthbone of valenwood, which i think most people will agree with. but....her influence definitely lingered in the place where she made that choice. especially considering that place was literally the first freakin’ tower, one of the pins holding up reality on nirn.

and this definitely has an influence on a lot of the things we know about high rock and the bretons. we know there’s a lot of magical creatures not found many other places in high rock, and we know that there are witches covens there, and we have a hint that there is some kind of group called the druids of galen.

okay, what? druids of galen? what’s that? oh, it’s fine if you don’t know, they’ve been mentioned literally only once in the entire series. when you pick to be a breton in the first game, arena, it mentions them. literally just name drops them and doesn’t elaborate. that’s not a lot to go off of, but that’s never stopped me before.

first, let’s get this out of the way: the whole “beratu” etymology is obviously just a retroactive excuse for the fact that they’re called bretons after the real-life bretons of northern france. the bretons were/are a celtic culture, in the same vein as the irish and scottish and welsh. and if you know anything about celtic cultures, you’ll know that they traditionally had people called druids, who were sort of like clerics or wizards (as in “wise-men,” not dumbledore), and are associated with the various stone circles in the british isles, like stonehenge. and, nowadays, thanks to a lot of fantasy stories of the past century or so, druids have come to be heavily associated with nature and magic associated with protecting nature and stuff.

so it’s fair to say that the “druids of galen” were probably modeled after that more contemporary concept of druids. then who the heck is galen? i reckon he was an elf or half-elf nede who somehow discovered or invented a kind of nature magic akin to that of the bosmer. the way i reckon it to have worked was that the trees they worshiped were somehow “connected” to the earthbones, probably through the roots. and then he started an order of druids to continue the practice.

what’s really interesting is the fact that this magic likely somehow manipulated or used the power of the earthbones. we have other canon examples of this kind of magic: the thuum of the nords, the tonal architecture of the dwemer, and i think also the spinners of the bosmer. this earthbone-magic is extremely potent, b/c the earthbones are a huge part of what lays down the laws of reality. if you can make them do what you want, either by yelling really hard, banging metal together, or telling weird stories, you possess REALLY great power.

(and here’s something i just found out while writing this: apparently there’s another reference to the spinners in the eso crown store, which notes that “in high rock, [they’re called] the vicars of jephre”. which is just a really huge bonus for me!)

i think that the druids of galen were able to somehow tap into a similar power to the spinners through their nature worship. i once also suspected that this cult might’ve had political influence in getting rid of the direnni, but i’m not really sold on that anymore. it definitely seems, though, that by probably the 2nd era or so, the druids of galen were no more. (perhaps they or their remnants became the vicars of jephre, but i’m not sure if they hold the same power or recognition as they did as the druids. if they do, they likely are no longer able to tap into the power of the earth-bones, and are simply a religious cult to jephre.)

there’s also the witch wyrds, or covens, of high rock, which may also be descendants of galen’s traditions. there’s a few notable ones, such as the skeffington coven of phrygia (mentioned in the 2920 series), the beldama wyrd, who the book “the witch covens of northern high rock” outright claims to worship jephre as an ehlnofey and earthbone that established the laws of nature, and the glenmoril wyrd, most members of which having become hagravens.

i’m very tired and have written a lot, so i’m going to stop here. i might talk more about bretons at a later time, most notably their culture, which i kinda seemed to skip here. an accident, but one which gives me a bit of more solid topic for next time.

226 notes · View notes

comicteaparty · 5 years ago

Text

March 7th-March 13th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from March 7th, 2020 to March 13th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What is your overall marketing/promotion strategy for your webcomic?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I don't know if this counts as a strategy, but these are some of the things I do to promote my comic or my work in general. 1. Most important from what I've noticed (which I have been failing at due to stress and self-doubt lately) is to post updates to your comic frequently and consistently. It seems somewhat silly that simply putting your work out there is the best way to grow an audience, but it really is. Newly posted chapters frequently get shown on more pages and thus detected by the algorithms and potential readers. It also helps to establish trust with current and returning readers. 2. Participating in art/comic events, forums, and other comicking communities (such as this one). In a way, this isn't really marketing directly, but it is good to build connections with other creators! 3. Conventions! I actually have gotten a several new readers/followers from attending cons. It's also nice just to talk to people, get your name out there locally, and to make a little bit of money while at it. 4. Social media promotion. Tbh, this hasn't been super helpful to me, but more eyes is always a win in my book. I try to post almost every day, even if it isn't art or comic related. Having some kind of social media presence at all, even if it's small, shows people that you are working hard to connect to others. Also finding the right hashtags definitely helps with visibility.

kayotics

Overall, my strategy for marketing is to be authentic and just keep plugging my stuff. People will come if they like it. I work as a marketer for my day job, so I know what I COULD do, but I really don’t do that much since a whole marketing plan would take a lot more time than I have available to me. Some of the stuff I do otherwise: - regular updates. This ones pretty important for retaining viewers I already have. Any good marketing strategy is thinking about retaining people, not just getting new ones - self promo: this usually is on top webcomics or on social media. I get a LOT of traffic from top webcomics, and I get a good handful of people from social media. - conventions, like mentioned before, can be a great way to get people’s eyes on your stuff. I have a postcard that I hand out to people if they come by or they purchase something. - the thing I don’t do enough is post more art outside of the comic, or even just little previews. If I were dedicated to marketing, I’d be sharing sketches or illustrations on social media to grow my audience.

DanitheCarutor

Ah you know, I don't really have much of a strategy. At some point I promoted as much as I could on Twitter, adding my comic to those share/promo thread, getting in on relevant hashtag events, participating on WebComic Chat (whenever I remembered to). I've done a little promotion on forums, but there is really only so much you can do since only so many people hang out there and if your work is super niche like mine, they will pretty much avoid your promos at all cost. Lmao Other than those I don't really do much, at some point I attempted to use Instagram but the site/app is very stingy about offsite links. I also started a Facebook page, although if you don't have the money to boost your promos and don't usually have a lot going on with your comic outside of weekly updates, it won't get a whole lot of attention. I've also tried to be more active, but I'm not a good conversationalist, and I tend to be kind of a thread/conversation/mood killer so I try to avoid talking outside of Q&A prompts like this.

eli [a winged tale]

Same Dani, I used Instagram for a while too and I just don’t think the platform is a good fit for my vertical scroll comic (see exhibit 1) Twitter is a mixed bag as well and I think unless you have a solid following already, it’s hard to gain traction. What really helped was being on Webtoon’s staff pick for a couple days. I’m not sure how Tapas picked up but it’s reassuring that there’s a couple of followers gained every week when I posted regularly. So it really does sound like the first step is to have a steady update schedule (working on the buffer! Got a month’s work down today). It’s just challenging because while I could upload one page a week but on the vertical scroll sites it seems like a longer episode (6-7 pages) is valued more as a solid update. Love hearing everyone’s thoughts and hope to learn from y’all! (edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Consistency and con attendance were big ones for me, but something I learned worked well (and was really fun to do) was creating really fun, really dumb, non-canon bits of art every now and then. Following meme prompts or funny ideas from other people. If your comic can afford some humor being thrown its way, making people laugh is a great way to get some attention. No one needs to know the details of your story - they just need to relate to the characters/humor somehow. I had more than one person come across my dumb, meme-y ancillary art and go “Welp, I want to read your comic now.”

eli [a winged tale]

Memes to the rescue! What has been your favourite to do? And which one has surprised you in its relatability/popularity?

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Two shots of vodka.

Also that terrible sweater meme. Everyone is required to do the terrible sweater meme. People eat it up.

eli [a winged tale]

Too good

Ahh I can’t wait till I can actually write silly adult characters

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Now that you mention it, the nice thing about the terrible sweater meme is it works with a WIDE variety of comics.

eli [a winged tale]

I would love to do a meme with y’all

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

"Came for the story, staying for the sick memes"

Spring-heeled Jack

I try to post updates every friday when my new pages go up on Patreon. And then I make my big post when my tapas and website update at the end of the month. Between all that, I have little flyers that I carry with me and if I'm ever in a shop that has a little self promotion section, I plan on tacking up a flyer. I do conventions, and this will be my first convention season while actively making a comic, so flyers will be handed out then as well.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

My comic isnt very comedy-heavy, and even for the funny scenes, my sense of humor isn't compatible with most people's. So a lot of the memes out there just don't work. But terrible sweater meme doesn't have to be hilarious. It can be just cute, or even weird.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

For me, uh lmao. I sometimes make some funny strip panels and it was received well even though it's not polished for my liking lmao

Spring-heeled Jack

Keii, I feel you. I'm not good with comedy and my comic isn't meant to be funny, either, so I don't know how well a comedy meme will help me.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

overall, I try to be honest with just self promo and asking when I have a chance "Hey pls check out my comic lol"

eli [a winged tale]

Or maybe just something relatable? Seen a couple caption this on tumblr

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think instead of memes, what I'm gonna do is my characters cosplaying more well known characters from works that have some tonal similarities with my own. This isn't just for advertising purposes; it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time for myself. But I'm realizing it can serve some of the same purposes that memes do.

Spring-heeled Jack

That's extremely cute!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Keyword being "SOME" Tonal similarities... Some of them aren't very similar but have a couple of parallels, etc.

Spring-heeled Jack

Oh for sure. Even if you could find that 'perfect match', it might not be a great cosplay for them, and give too much away

Are "draw the squad" prompts still a thing? I love those

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The One White Dude and the Tiger Dude in my comic will definitely cosplay Calvin and Hobbes at some point.

Spring-heeled Jack

LOL

omg please, Keii

eli [a winged tale]

YES

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yeah, not every comic will have super memeable humor - but whatever you can do to break down that wall between you and a potential reader and go “Hey! Look at this. Is this relatable? Do you get the reference? Etc” Is a very good bet

Also yes squad memes are PERFECT

You can boil down your comic’s relationships so simply.

Spring-heeled Jack

I have four couples in my comic so those "ship dynamic" posts might be fun

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What are squad memes?

eli [a winged tale]

I also need to be educated about squad I mean all the memes

Spring-heeled Jack

OH MAN!! They are fun as heck. You can find templates and it's a very simple character design in the template, but the poses are super silly. And then you just draw your characters in place of those simple figures(edited)

If you google "Draw the squad" you will find a bunch

renieplayerone

Oh! Ill have to try that! These squad bases look fun!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I still have one of those I need to finish Back when I first started sharing my work, I was surprised and delighted at how quickly people shoved it through a meme filter.

Maybe that’s another thing! If marketing opportunities present themselves as a surprise, try running with them and see where they take you Within reason, of course. Never feel forced to follow anything that people respond to in a particular way. Just take it into account and see how you feel about it.

renieplayerone

(Im here to lurk on this week's question, i have no strategy and need ideas haha)

eli [a winged tale]

Omg draw the squad looks

too many to choose

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I love draw the squad poses so much TuT I wish I had more time to draw within more of them. I think I always get a little dishearten about making memes because I feel like I need to make my jokes full illustrations but I never have time for much extra content beyond ballpoint pen sketches :T

Mei

Honestly I don't have a marketing or promotion strategy for my webcomic. I make updates every week, and I post it on my twitter and kinda plug it there. I'm actually god awful at trying to make people read my comic because I'm a little bit nervous about it, to be honest. So I just sort of leave it there and see if people find it, half the time. That being said, I tried to promote it pretty hard at conventions last year. But that didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I'm hoping to make flyers with QR codes so that people can scan it, and it'll take them to the landing page/tapas for the comic. That might be a bit easier than getting them to just search the title, plus having a flyer is a nice bit of promotion if I get the opportunity?! Making memes and drawing characters in different clothes or in squad things sounds like super fun tho and I might look into that in the future

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's nice to hear everyone talk about this topic. TBH I had completely stopped promoting my comic because I got too scared of backlash, being a disappointment, etc. (Initially I'd attracted a number of people who weren't actually my target audience, and that led to some less than ideal results.) But some time last year, it occurred to me that 1) I'm making this comic for my reader self (or my "hypothetical taste twin" as I like to call it)... which means 2) I only have to appeal to people like me. So I started asking myself, "What would I have to say/do to get me to read this comic?" and that made it significantly less intimidating. I haven't actually started doing self promo (though I did start plugging my updates on Twitter at least). But most future self promo I do will be based on that ^ question.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(oh god, I was just checking out the latest update for one of the Korean webcomics I read, and the new episode is about a hikikomori... who says "I want to change, but I can't step outside because... maybe there isn't a single person out there who will understand me." THAT WAS ME but with comic promo. Well, I'm getting better and I also hope this character will, too, though knowing this comic his chances aren't so great lol...)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I hope that wasn't too awkward to share! Tl;dr I really think the "what would I have to say/do to get ME to check out my comic" is a good approach for anyone else feeling intimidated about doing self promos.

In the same vein, but on the opposite side of the coin: I'm curious to know, what were some things that got YOU to read someone else's comic?

Some of my own answers to that aren't very relevant to what we can do for our own comics: e.g. I'm Korean and when Naver has a new comic in their pro comic lineup, I may check it out. I'm also a member of SpiderForest and I check out the applicants' comics during the app season. Stuff like that aren't really good promo options that we can take. But things that may be relevant: - 'Evocative scenery shot that doesn't show the face/ doesn't focus on the face.' MY WEAKNESS. That kinda pictures feel subtle and kind of lonely to me, even if it's a group shot. And I like stories with those vibes. -Promo includes an evocative quote. Could be from the comic itself, or from something else like a classical literature or whatever. The creator of Ark (https://www.arkcomic.com/) does this sometimes and even though I'm already following Ark, those promos get my attention.

eli [a winged tale]

Definitely the art promo now that I think of it! Merch, posters, banners etc. If the art intrigues me, I definitely take a look at the site/blurb/first chapter

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I wonder if we can semi-workshop promo art at some point? Not really intensive like "change xyz" because that's not always feasible with art, but just impression feedback like, "this pictures gives me these vibes, and makes me expect this kinda story"

I would be curious to see everyone's even if we don't workshop

eli [a winged tale]

YES

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Yesssss

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Yes please. I don‘t promo besides update notices simply because I have no clue to start.

Mei

Sometimes I get really attracted by the style of the story? I immediately started reading Wolfsbane because the art was cool and different from a lot of whta I'd seen on Webtoon up until that point. And then the story was perfect for me. What keii said about writing for yourself is right. Patrick Ness once said you should write the stories your younger self would have loved to pick up on a shelf

and I think that's a pretty evocative thing. At the end of the day, you should be enjoying what you're writing (hopefully). And if you enjoy it and you're having fun making it, that can rub off on the people reading it, or you find the people who like that similar vein of story?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(It's also 100% legit to write stories for your current self )

Mei

(oh yes 100% that's what i'm doing HEHE)

Tolkein wrote LOTR because he was like

in love with worldbuilding

was there a market for such a strange type of novel at the time? No. Definitely not. Did he write it anyway? YEAH HE DID

Deo101 [Millennium]

I really wanna do an art workshop yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Aight, anyone who wants an impression feedback from me, post your promo art in #art_help

Warning, my impressions may be totally off lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Also I don't do much marketing. Mostly I try to get in with communities and learn about making comics, I just want to improve my craft. All I really do is make my updated every week, and share whatever art Ive made on my Twitter or whatever

Okay! I think I only have my cover on my phone, but on my computer I also have my banners and icon. So I'll share all those in a bit when I'm at my computer

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(off topic but I'm sick, and when I'm sick or very tired I constantly misread words. I read "my banners" as "my bananas" and I was very confused for a couple seconds.)

Deo101 [Millennium]

My bananers

Feather J. Fern

I am terrible at marketing my own work, but I am very good at marketing other people's work. I use the "you would like it for this reason" to grab people. Unfortunately I can't do it for my comic because I am bad at seeing the good in my own work oof. I am getting better at it though.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's a really good way to do it!

And I can relate. My own hangup is a little different, but it can be extremely difficult to be brave for sure, whether in front of other people, or just in front of your own brain that constantly judges you.

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I was talking about a friend's comic and then the person I was talking to was like "Don't you write comics" and I was like "ahfoofjw yeah but don't look at them"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I was thinking a lot about the whole "it's like [well known work] meets [another well known work]" approach that was discussed earlier. And I think that could be relevant here. Like, think of something that has either influenced your comic significantly, or just happens to have some core similarities. How would you market that thing? Could you market your own thing using a similar approach -- since there are similarities?

I'd thought of a really good example to compare HoK to. Then I got sad because the said example is extremely obscure outside of Korea. But now I'm like, hey, people don't have to KNOW that work. I can do this differently. I can talk about HoK the way I could talk about it.

('it' as in the other work that's obscure outside of Korea)

Feather J. Fern

I do think that's a good fast shortcut but I don't like using it becuase the shortcut sometimes makes people angry when they don't get what they like out of those two things

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's why I said to NOT actually bring up the comparison work

Don't name it

Just list the traits that are shared in common

Feather J. Fern

Oh sorry

I miss read

(And my name changed colours all the sudden?)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's a confusing topic, so no worries

It means you leveled up

Feather J. Fern

OWO!

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Say you want to compare your work to... I dunno, DBZ, because it's got super strong aliens duking it out barehanded, blasting ki-like energy attacks, etc. Don't name DBZ. Talk about your work the way you'd talk about your favorite aspects of DBZ. "My comic has super strong aliens duking it out hand-to-hand! YEEEAH!"

OH MY GOD I NEED TO DO THIS NOW.

Feather J. Fern

Yeah! That's what I would do. (But it also helps for me that my comic has no hard reference points) but for my new comic, people are gonna compare it to Zach Bell, and Angelic Layer i think

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm gonna write up some drafts that I will revise and tweet at a later time

Feather J. Fern

So I jsut got to you know, not promo it as such XD

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I want to do this too for a quick pitch

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Do it (shop talk or story help maybe?)

I'm writing a vomit draft for mine

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yee

Feather J. Fern

I think I will do it for Story help

(Also so I can help flesh out my new project lol lol)

eli [a winged tale]

Kei I might be suuuuper off since I read only the beginning but I sort of thought inuyasha but Korea and handsome boys

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Sometimes you don't even realize your story can be marketed as "blah meets blah" until much later down the line - I've only started realizing the number of existing properties I've absorbed unintentionally into my comic. It's not how I'd market it on a serious front, but to a friend for story help, heck yes.

But a lot of people on Twitter seem to do that strategy for PitMAD and it works great for them, so... shrug

I guess it still belongs in a "pitch arsenal," as it were

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, the one "blah" I just thought of is something I hadn't realized for all these years. But it makes so much sense now that I look at it.

eli [a winged tale]

See that’s where I got confused but I think this is what I’m gonna aim to do: - pitch to readers: inspiration but this awesome unique thing in the comic - pitch to other comic makers: the Logline - pitch to agents: comparison works if requested and longer pitch depending on their format - pitch to family: just read it plzthanksbye

renieplayerone

or alternative pitch to family: Please dear god never read this

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's me

Oof... Writing the 'promote your comic by talking about the traits it shares with Another Person's Work,' I made myself cry, and that is definitely a sign I'm on the right track.

eli [a winged tale]

Right track is good!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It took me years to even think of an 'other more popular work' comparison for Children of Shadow. XD But at the same time, it's really different from the works I compare it to, so it's hard to say 'Read this if you like X or X because it has a few similarities in theme and tone, but is still very much its own thing'.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah which is why I'm not even gonna namedrop my X.

I'm just straight up gonna talk about 'My comic has [this trait]' (and X shares that trait, but no one needs to know for the purpose of that pitch)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To answer the weekly question... I really don't have a marketing strategy. Marketing is my achilles heel, so I generally just throw pages up and hope someone sees them. I don't really understand social media nor do I have the energy to sink tonnes of time into it, which seems to be one of the biggest requirements for being picked up by algorithms. So my marketing strategy is just.., keep making comics and talking to other creators and hope for the best

eli [a winged tale]

I think that’s still solid Capn

Ultimately you need a product to promote

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's something that helps me, because while I can talk about my favorite works done by others, I feel stuck when trying to do the same with my own. So it's basically telling my brain, 'hey, you already know how to do it with other stories. Do the same thing with your own.'

eli [a winged tale]

So true Kei

renieplayerone

thats my strategy too. best case you market it great, worst case you've made a new friend so win win :3

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

My incredibly low numbers after 14 years of making webcomics beg to differ but... maybe someday I can hire someone to help me market.

eli [a winged tale]

I’m using the comic platforms rather than my own site so... sort of relying on their algorithms. I imagine it can be harder if you just post on your own website?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Sometimes the platforms don't help much if their audience isn't into the type of comics you make

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I post on both my own website and on platforms, but the algorithms for WT and Tapas don’t seem to like me, haha.(edited)

renieplayerone

yeah same

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One of my top favorite webcomics got a front page feature on Tapas once, but it wasn't the kind of a story that gets a lot of traction there, so it still didn't get very popular. And that was in no way a measure of its quality. It is an excellent comic, just not a good fit for that particular place.

renieplayerone

I get far more views on my site, but I get way more engagement on Tapas and WT

I actually treat those two mirrors AS marketing for the main site(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Exactly renie! Good perspective!

I never know what different platforms tailor to...

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, what Keiiii said. I make dark fantasy comics and both WT and Tapas favour romance, especially comics geared towards a female audience and drawn anime style. My comics aren’t particularly feminine and romance isn’t much of a focus, so they’re just not what that demographic is into.

eli [a winged tale]

I’ve been trying to remember how I came across my favourite comics and usually it’s through the art (interesting characters, unique dynamic style that I enjoy) and the first chapter holding promise (able to see what the character wants/will have to change into)

Romance has always been the best seller in the story world I think

Oh and most recently hiveworks and other web publishers have great recommendations too per genre

And comic conventions are always fun to meet creators. Sometimes If I feel I jive with someone I’m an instant fan

renieplayerone

I absolutely need to get better at having confidence enough to make friends at conventions x_x

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I have noticed my audience grow a bit since joining Spiderforest. They’ve helped me get a bit better at promotion, though marketing just isn’t my talent, lol.

renieplayerone

im always terrified haha

eli [a winged tale]

It’s a big step for sure renie! It took me like... three years going to VanCAF as an attendee before actually exhibiting and making friends(edited)

Mei

I know i'm late but i personally detest the 'this book is X meets Y!!', even though I get why people do it. I just wish they'd describe it to me like what if I'd never read either of those books......

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I would really love to get out to cons, they sound like a great opportunity for connecting with other creators. One of these years I’ll be able to get to one!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah im usually kinda like "okay, well are you doing anything new or are you just doing those things :/"

renieplayerone

I exhibit with the Boston Comics Roundtable and I still havent gotten the courage XD

Mei

yeah, cons are really fun even to attend or to make friends! I find it really tough though, I'm so intimidated;;

yeah Deo... same... it's like

sure, I could pitch a story as two things. Like I don't know "The Walking Dead meets Shaun of the Dead" which is semi redundant anyway

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I only use it to give people a framework for the kinds of tones and themes they can expect from my work when I have to keep my explanation short and sweet.

renieplayerone

they should have badges that say "Hi i want to make friends but you are all so awesome its intimidating be kind"

Mei

or you know... use those words to just describe the story? It may be a personal preference, some agents LOVE comparisons

Yes renie, yes!

i'd love a badge like that like

pls talk to me i'm scare

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Sometimes a few words can’t fully describe a story as well as saying: ‘It’s a little bit like X meets X but if you add [insert unique thing your story does]’

Mei

I personally find that it depends a bit too much on people having read those books or stories before. BUT if you're pitching to an agent, they've usually read those books

so then they get a sense or vibe of like, what the genre is

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It’s all down to preference, really. Your own and the person you’re pitching to. If you don’t want to use comparisons to describe your own work, that’s valid, but try not to dismiss people who do.

Mei

so I get it, I just don't like it personally xD I think a lot of the times it takes away from your own voice and story

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That too is part of the reason why I'm not namedropping the works

Just having my self-promo self learn from my 'promo other people's stuff' self

Mei

yeah for sure, it adds that level of excitement to your own work that you'd give to others?

eli [a winged tale]

I think a cool exercise might be to check out someone’s work here and see how you would promote it

It’s always good to see from someone else’s perspective

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

yessssss, all of my friends have been much better at promoting than I am

mostly because they have no shame regarding it but they also just... know what sounds cool

Mei

Oh i'm very good at promoting my friends' work

I sold his DnD book to a kpop stan who doesn't like DnD and doesn't play, and it was a crowning achievement

eli [a winged tale]

Like for yours I’d probably say... Manta Ray princess finds herself very much dead but is given a second chance to revive her friends and save her kingdom... just need to find someone very much living and very much not afraid of the seaghosts they have become

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

SOLID

though now I imagine Phaedra as a Manta Ray in a dress which is... not entirely untrue

eli [a winged tale]

LOL omg I haven’t even thought of that! Just thought manta Princess is a hook

Mei

Me, pointing at Cheth "I mean look at him, LOOK AT HIM and tell me you don't want to read this"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I guess for my work I market it from four potential angles: 1) The princess is cool and has a sword, 2) The villain is the best character, 3) The environments ain't bad, and 4) THERE'S A DOG

again, you gotta know who you're talking to and what they already like

eli [a winged tale]

In a world where a fallen god became trapped in the sea, a dead princess is given a second chance to fight for her life with a mysterious sea-bitten boy and undo the sea ghost curse that plagues the world.

Dammit I repeated world

Mei

hey... the environments are GREAT

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah Lady your environment shots are

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

ok I do try BUT BACK TO MARKETING

The number of times I see someone marketing their comic with very epic-sounding descriptors or broad generalizations... then that one day where they're finally like "oh, I have a character who turns into a hamster at nighttime" and people are like 'I'M SOLD'

And then they go ".... THAT'S WHAT YOU ALL WANTED???"

often it's those little weird details that get people interested

Deo101 [Millennium]

I wanna read about the were hamster please

Mei

sometimes I think the simplest and maybe slightly silly lines are what grabs people?

when things sound TOO epic i feel a bit intimidated

eli [a winged tale]

takes notes

Mei

but if someone were to sell me a big adventure epic as "it's hamsters and they fight the forces of evil" i'd read it

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

god yes

"Four small creatures band together to defeat a great darkness overwhelming their homeland."

No.

"Hamsters fight evil."

YES

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I.... I have no idea how to snappily describe my comics. XD

eli [a winged tale]

Same... I got to kids with wings for hair then my brain short circuits

Mei

i'd say it's the way you'd tell the story to a close friend

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

The best I came up with was 'Teenagers with supernatural powers team up with woodland critters to defeat monsters' but it sounds more adventure-y and doesn't really get at the fact that it's a dark story with horror elements and everyone's mentally ill.

Mei

like they come up to you and go "what's your comic about" "oh you know, my stupid comic's about mutant hamsters that take over the world" or something

(don't call your comics stupid none of your comics are stupid they are great)

Deo101 [Millennium]

"plant man and his goth boyfriend babysitting a ton of bozos" would probably be mine then

Mei

BEAUTIFUL

i'm sold

Deo101 [Millennium]

ghsakgjhgkhkgahgk my target audience...

Mei

i do think tho like this form of comedic one-lining may not work for something dark?

Unless you go "Spooky horror about cats that become humans at night!"

would need experimentation

eli [a winged tale]

It’s a balance I think.

Kids stranded on an island with weapons explore the darkness in human nature - Lord of the Flies

Mei

ooh yeah that's a good one!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

A space explorer stranded on a foreign planet must join forces with the indigenous population and save his ship before his life support runs out.

Alternately

Small man goes to war with small carrot people

Pikmin

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) I wonder if one could describe CoS the way how people might describe Evangelion, but with magical powers instead of mechs.

Teens, monsters, mental illnesses

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Probably. Though I've never seen Evangelion, but those three words work very well.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The relationship dynamics are way different, but yeah, those three things...

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Also add trauma and cute lil animals and you have Children of Shadow. XD

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Evangelion also has trauma (though I don't know if you'd like it; this isn't a rec, just a promo discussion!) and it was refreshing to see at the time

A teen trying to fight huge monsters, even if he was doing it inside an equally huge mech, could lead to traumatizing experiences, and it was the first time I saw that seriously explored

Hmm, so I guess "teens, talking animals, monsters, mental illnesses feat. trauma" ?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don't know if it's similar at all, but that description reminds me strongly of Eureka 7. Wow, was that series intense,

🌈ERROR404 🌈

I really liked how the end happened - it was a nice solution to the lack of budget issue and told the story of his psyche reall well

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Though Eureka 7 was intense in a good way. I found the ending kind of unsatisfying, but admittedly I find the endings of 90% of animes unsatisfying (probably a cultural clash). But I enjoy them for the journey more than the ending.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I haven't watched Eureka 7, but the storyboard artist (one of the storyboard artists maybe?) for that anime is one of my favorite artists.

DanitheCarutor

Ah, a little late, but regarding the snappy promos I'm in the same boat as Cap'n with not knowing how to make one. At least one that would be ridiculous and totally not fitting the darker themes. I agree with all the people who have a generally hard time coming up with a pitch for their work, while having an easier time promoting other people's comics. Honestly my comic can be super boring to people who don't like pretentious, non-fantastical, angsty, character study types of stories. So it's really hard to think of a way to make it sound interesting without spoiling anything. Man! That thing when people come up to you, asking what your comic is about! Me: "Oh! Ah, it's uh, kinda sad and it has uh mental illness" -trails off with uncomfortable laughter- Them: Oh cool. -has a look of complete disinterest- Someone was actually extremely enthusiastic about the vague description of my comic, which somehow made me a mix of uncomfortable and excited.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I saw the conversation about blurbs and I just thought of one for a comic I'm working on! "An ecologist and a bird have a conversation about ethics"

I haven't started the comic yet so please send your critiques(edited)

and first impressions

(of the blurb)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Angsty character study with a heavy dose of mental illness" <--- Could this descriptor work? @DanitheCarutor

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

kei said exactly what I was just typing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Great minds

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh, i just realized i've read dani's comic

I think your description is fine?

The artsy, angsty comics I follow all have kind of short, tongue in cheek descriptions

it's hard to capture the tone of an emotional comic in one sentence so they either joke about it or make it intentionally misleading

for example Drop Out's description is something like "two friends go on a road trip" and Fritz Fargo's description is "a human dumpster fire in the 90s"

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The dumpster fire one is insta-effective

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Dani, maybe make your description shorter if anything?

Something like, "An emotionally stunted alcoholic attempts to make amends"

and then follow it up with kei's line about it being an angsty character study

RebelVampire

Im not gonna stop the convo cause it is on topic. However, i do want to remind ppl these #creator_babble chats are permanently archived. So thats something to keep in mind if youre gonna workshop.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I asked before in this discord about making my own blurb better. The main critique I got was that I included too many things that I thought were interesting and unique that a new reader probably wouldn't care about. Like how the mc's powers work. But though it's unique and important to the story, it's not going to be a main reason someone reads the comic. I revised the blurb to remove extraneous info and make the tone of the comic more apparent, and I think now I didn't lose anything and made it more concise.

I think maybe agtahr could also be summarized a bit more succinctly

DanitheCarutor

Yup, you did once upon a time but said you stopped reading it a while ago. (which is totally fine, the reason is understandable.) The mix of yours and Keii's descriptions do sound a lot better than mine. Lol Thank you Fish and @keii’ii (Heart of Keol)! I've noticed people really like the word 'angst' when you describe heavy stuff. At least when I was a teenager everyone found it appealing. I'll tinker with it a bit and use Drop_Out and Fritz Fargo as a reference. Anyways, I'm going to stop talking now, don't want to bog down the main topic.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

That's a good point; 'the best things about this story' and 'things that should go in its blurb' have an overlap, but they aren't always the same.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah, I did but I'll probably pick it up again eventually. I remember enjoying it. If you do want to keep talking, we can move to shop talk?

mirandalorian

babbling I have the first three episodes of my webtoon ready to post tomorrow and I’m really excited and feel kinda proud that I made it this far...even though it’s not very far. It’s far for me without posting immediately end babbling

Feather J. Fern

I forgot to ask, but if people are tabling at cons, do you guys have promo stuff at your con tables for your comics?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Mostly a business card, but yes

carcarchu

i never did but my table partner one year had free postcards she gave out with purchase / to passerbys with her comic info and an illustration on it

kayotics

I always keep free postcards to advertise my comic on the table right next to my business cards.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yep, the free postcards did wonders for me last year. They disappeared quickly!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Buisness cards and postcards~

Feather J. Fern

Seems like Business and Postcards are the way to go.

Mei

business cards!!

i might be making flyers/postcards for my comic next time though! :D

sagaholmgaard

I haven't done much to promote my comic but I've gotten some good ideas reading through this, thanks! I currently plug my updates in twitter and instagram with a cool/fun panel from the new page. I do also share WIPS and try to engage through my instagram stories (Asking things like, 'what type of benders would the Reclaim squad be in an avatar au' and making doodles for the answers), but that only reaches those who follow my IG. its good fun tho. I've done memes with the characters a few times but I didn't get much attention, LOL. But it's fun so maybe worth trying again

Spring-heeled Jack

Today I went into a locally owned comic shop and went to the guy that owns it and said "I'm a local artist and I'm writing a comic. Could I give you some small flyers to let people take?" And he said yes, and then asked if I have any physical copies. I don't yet but told him I'll bring some by when I have them. He then let me know he carries other local artists! Something cool to think about if you have a local comic shop.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ooo that's good to know

I droped off my zines at my local comic shop but maybe I'll drop flyers of my webcomic too lmaooo

Spring-heeled Jack

I also just ordered a business card carrier so I can tote some around with ease. I carry my flyers in my sketchbook. You should totally ask, it never hurts! Carry a few extra just in case you find yourself in a new area and find another cafe or comic shop.

I ran mine off on my at home printer on some nice quality but regular weight paper. I might need to get some more professionally done.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I keep a handful of business cards in my wallet -- that way, any time someone says "hey, that looks cool, what are you drawing?" they get a card with the title and URL. Slowly but steadily burns through the supply.

DanitheCarutor

Seeing if my local book shops will carry copies of my comic when I print them eventually is something I'm kind of excited about! My town is hardcore into supporting local artists and writers, so that'll be something neat to try out. Although I'm a little nervous that the rating might be a little too mature for what the vendors want on their shelves.

I know of using postcards to advertise, but never heard of fliers. Maybe I'll give that a try.(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I use double sided business cards, so on one side, it showcases some of my art, and the other side has contact info, a link to my comic website, and a QR code. It's been pretty helpful so far at conventions.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

You guys have all these sophisticated answers to this and my answer is just "scream on every social media platform I can reach and every person I meet about my comic."

Though I may not scream at people irl,,,

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Let's see... I have a twitter where I repost my comic pages, and a couple mirrors that help reach different audiences. I've also carried around business cards that have my comic's URL on it. One fun strategy I've used is doing review-exchange things, in an I-critique-your-comic-if-you-critique-mine way (with the assumption that most people who read all the way through Super Galaxy Knights end up liking it). Though, that isn't really viable anymore now that the comic is 600+ pages, cuz nobody would ever agree to that trade lol. And... that's pretty much it? Though, I should note that my goal with Super Galaxy Knights isn't to make the most popular comic I can so that I can make a living off ads or patreon or print sales or whatever. If I ever do manage to make money off the comic, it'll be in "spinoff tech" (basically, video games or other media based off it). (it's the reason why a bunch of early Starstuff Stories fleshed out the abilities of the characters they focused on) I would like people to read the story because I think people would like the story, but it's not like my future depends on its popularity.

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

We (me and Q) are gonna (hopefully) tabeling at cons this year! I thought about doing free non permenant tattoos with our comic things. Also we have beautiful zines of the first chapter to sell. but a free postcard is also good

Desnik

promotional strategies...ah...the biggest thing I did for my first webcomic, RAWR! Dinosaur Friends, was simply update on a general platform (tumblr), using a consistent schedule and the same tags every time. That allowed some of the bigger biology/humor/critter blogs on tumblr to find me and I got a lot of people reading from their generous reblogs. I found some more niche crossover from sci-comm blog comments and dinosaur toy collector forums, because sometimes I'd have a comic that would coincide with paleontology news. It was mainly about finding my niche and bringing my stuff to that niche. To those struggling with finding readers, I would recommend distilling the contents of your comic and then reaching out to people who buy/read things like your comic. I've definitely made friends from general 'webcomic' forums and discords, but in terms of building a readership it's all about finding the niche and catering to it in a human way

In general I highly recommend shopping around for stuff like hobby blogs/forums/groups/discords that have some relation to the content of your webcomic. Those people DO want new content related to their hobby, but they don't really deal well with salesy pitches. Just be human and also a nerd for that hobby, too (nerdy enough to make webcomics about it)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it's like fan comic for an existing IP with an existing fandom, except it's a fan comic of a 'thing' rather than an IP (e.g. you make a pirate comic? Great! Nobody owns pirates, but there are lots of pirate fans out there!).

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The very first customer I had at the first con I tabled at, came over and said "I like ghosts! I like the ocean! I'll take it!" And wrote me later saying it was exactly what they were looking for.

And honestly it's all because I make sure every cover has something spooky and something watery, and the genres are in the title I make it very easy for people to understand what it might be like.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg the genres are in the title

that's genius

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Definitely not planned But it helps so much!

I think if authors have a rule on certain symbols/motifs they MUST make sure come across on covers/posters/etc, that can be a good marketing strategy. With some wiggle room, of course.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I... I feel like I can barely even describe what my comic is, which makes it so hard to market. 'Do you like comics with cute animals and eldritch horrors and angsty teens that have superpowers and hidden religious symbolism everywhere?!? Then my comic is for you!' What even is that demographic, because I sure don't know.(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) If you take away the cute animals part, that actually sounds like stuff a lot of teens are into/ a lot of people were into when they were teens. And most people love cute animals, so adding that to the mix, in theory, shouldn't reduce the accessibility too much. Buuuuut CoS has its unique flavor that's decidedly different from all the "angsty teens, eldritch horrors, religious symbolism" stuff I consumed when I was younger. I don't know how to describe that flavor, nor how to utilize it for marketing. But yeah, maybe some food for thought?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've used short phrases that are sort of representative to describe my comic. Examples include "consensual mind control" "a guy whose ideal life is not being entirely alive" "friendship" and "anticlimactic conversations"

I have no idea how effective any of those are

someone tell me pls

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

As someone who just started reading your comic last night I think consensual mind control is a really cool descriptor. I haven't heard that too much before.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

that makes me happy

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) Heh, I'm not sure what that unique flavour is, either, but it might have something to do with me avoiding the typical 'chosen one' structure that most teen fantasy literature has. The characters are all (except Fawna) a part of the hidden world already rather than discovering it, and everyone's pretty much running around like chickens with their heads cut off rather than having any power over their situation (which is kind of a huge part of the theme of the comic). It's definitely different than the typical urban fantasy, so it's been really hard to find which audience that appeals to. From what I've gathered based on the people who comment on my website, it's mostly academics in college or beyond, for whatever reason. XD

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Honestly I think for almost all comics their first pages were what convinced me to keep reading. Even with Phantomarine I was ambivalent about the description but then I saw the first page, and though, yeah, I'm into this.

Maybe my own comic can be the same way

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Exactly the same with me and your comic - I was also all about that first page It's a powerful thing! I think for anyone about to delve into a comic - which is, by nature, a very visual thing - it's going to be that visual that ultimately pushes them over the edge.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

maybe my description should just be ascii art of my main character O-O | -(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

^ It's why I tinkered with the first page of HoK soooo many times even after it went live. But it wasn't enough; it still gave off the wrong impression as to what kind of a story one should expect. Finally, more than a year after I started posting it, I redid like 1/4 to 1/3 of chapter one from scratch. Even though it will never be perfect, I can live with it now. chapter 2 on the other hand... It's an imperfect intro to the right story, rather than an intro (good or not) to the wrong story.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To be honest, my intro probably doesn't hit the right notes to explain what my comic is about, which may be part of my problem. It starts out seeming more like an anthropomorphic fantasy than a dark urban fantasy / horror story. That's just something I think I'm going to have to live with, because I'm tired of reworking old pages (I already do it far too much). I think my best solution is drawing a new cover that showcases the tone and subject matter better than the one I'm using now.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh god, you reminded me of the 3 cover pages I spent hours on only to later scrap. Then my current cover page I did in one hour after it came to me at 4am(edited)

and it was perfect

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

and my page redoings were after the reboot.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Cap, I don't know how representative it is of the story but I looked up the Ashes cover page and it's very impressive

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, I already redrew my intro once.... and this is the third iteration of this comic. And I'm currently redrawing the first two chapters of my other comic. I'm so sick to death of starting over. -_-

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) Oh, thank you!! I like to go all-out on covers, heh.

Kabocha

Promotion... ... is that a thing you can eat? ... A few things I've tried is business cards -- tweeting about it -- posting about it on dA... I try to stay away from services like Tapas and Webtoon because I'm not formatted for those sorts of things, and I fear I'll probably just frustrate myself. It's a delicate balance right now between remaining happy with my work and getting it seen, but overall, I guess I'm not too stressed about it since it's not a source of income for me... I just... like making comics. I've also done conventions -- Conventions are fun, don't get me wrong, but nowadays they're a really low return on interest for many shows for original stuff (except slice of life and "oh no I did a bad" types of zines -- people seem to really enjoy things like that since it's often pretty easy to relate to). They feel like they used to be easier for selling original work, but the market's gotten rougher because there's so much competition and only so many dollars. if I ever print, I'm probably going to have to lean on some marketing-savvy friends for help... Hopefully things haven't changed too much by then. I think the tool that's worked best for me in the past few years has been doing guest comics here and there, as well as using topwebcomics, oddly enough. TWC was pretty good for referrals when I started doing comics way back in 2006~2007...

sagaholmgaard

Since the topic is about promotion... Do yall know if there are any twitter hashtag events for webcomic creators? My friends in the indie game industry have certain hashtags that people can post in during specific times every week - do we have anything similar?

Kabocha

#Webcomicchat!

https://webcomicchat.com/for-creators You may also find this page helpful

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

#webcomicchat is great because you get to talk shop while talking about your own work! It's not just "look at my comic"

sagaholmgaard

Ahh!! Thank you!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I know some people do #WebcomicWednesday - not sure how official it is, but it gets some attention!

sagaholmgaard

I'll check that one out as well!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

There's also #comicartistsunite too

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

webcomicchat always looked like fun, but I definitively am on the wrong side of the globe for the times it's going on

mirandalorian

Promotion is difficult. I always feel like I'm being too pushy, even for something that's free. I also feel like I built up a following that had nothing to do with comics or art and so when I switched directions to head that way, i don't get the response I would like. Reading all the thoughts here has been really helpful tho. Just got to put them into practice

Feather J. Fern

I think my current attempt for promotion is at least being more willing to promote. I have to force my fear of "I shouldn't tell people because it's not as good as (blank)" and just shove my comic into a spotlight

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

If anyone is worried about bothering people, putting variety into your promotions will make things more palatable for people for sure. I have one person on my timeline spamming the same exact post over and over again, almost daily, and it doesn't seem to be doing them any favors There's no need for a promotion every day. The people I see that do a more-obvious promotion tweet, like, weekly, or every two weeks, seem to get good results from that Sometimes less is more

mirandalorian

I need to get to that point Feathery. And ya, daily is a bit extreme imo. But I have to figure out the good balance

Feather J. Fern

Even weekly I don't do it because I feel like I am spamming and I feel awkward

Oh! Speaking of promotions, one way I found I got my comic promoted was by doing guest comics for other people! I got lots of viewers after each guest comic I did

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, for social media promo, e.g. on Twitter, you want to make your actual tweets have value -- not just things being linked off the tweets. (This is where gag-a-day kinda comics have an advantage, because each strip has entertainment value and you can just post the whole strip in a tweet.) Obviously this doesn't apply to every promo tweet; so like, weekly promo tweet that's solely about the links, as mentioned by others, is fine. But yeah, aside from those, you wanna make your promo tweets fun to read.

Feather J. Fern

Also cameos! Cameos are a great promo

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Not gonna lie, I am lowkey paranoid about doing cameos. Someone I know had to remove their cameo of someone else's character, because that other person objected to their character being in the print version of the comic.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Uff

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh rip

Feather J. Fern

Oh man, that's rough.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'll never even print HoK but I can still imagine someone being all "NOPE, I CHANGED MY MIND" at a later time

Feather J. Fern

I am planning to do some cameos for other people, not that Go Figure will ever be in print but I can see that problem. I think what I would say is that if you want a cameo you have to be 100% certain

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Might be a good idea to have a very simple agreement thing you can have them sign

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I was going to have a written consent form

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"I agree to let you do a cameo of my character, and to not be a jerk about it at a later time. Signed"

Feather J. Fern

Signed and dated by both parties XD

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

There's also the broad hashtags like #webcomics and even things more geared to genres like #drama and #fantasy and so on. Doing art memes helps sometimes, too.

mirandalorian

What do you think the best hashtags to use are? Is webcomics too saturdated?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm not sure about the best hashtags, but my biggest thing about hashtags on Twitter : don't use a bunch of hashtags in a single tweet!

For broad hashtags like #webcomics or #fantasy, I gotta wonder if anyone's actually checking those out...

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, I usually tag my update posts with #webcomic and my comic's name, but honestly I have no idea if #webcomic has ever helped out my post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

mirandalorian

Ya, I typically keep it to two or less, but i always wonder if webcomic is actually useful lol

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

takes note to use something more specific than #webcomic in my next update tweet

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think it may potentially be useful as a label for someone who's just found you on that platform, and is not sure what you're promoting. But beyond that...

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

I usually use #historicalfiction and #webcomic. Not sure which one helps more, but well, there it is.

mirandalorian

Ya, I should use the genre tag too.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Do people even search genre tags for that matter lol (a bit pessimistic, but still a genuine question)

like, I'll be the first to admit, I don't hashtag search to look for new comics to read. I don't think I ever hashtag search ANYTHING, unless it's like..... a very active trend that I am interested in (e.g. an upcoming video game that I'm looking forward to)

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Well, the tags are popular enough to be suggested by twitter so I'd think some use them, probably likeminded folk.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Same keii. I mostly use hashtags to look for fan art, exclusively on Instagram.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

There's also a trend of "art sharing" tweets. I have found a couple of artists and webcomics through that kind of event, but again, the turnover isn't anything to write home about.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I wonder if readers make use of the search more than us creators do?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I doubt it, Lee

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I never use it as a reader, at any rate, though I don't know if others are like that.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Though, actually that's not true, I have used hashtags to look at more things being posted within art events. So inktober, mermay, hourly comic day, etc.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But art event hashtags are useful, because -- like I mentioned before -- those tweets provide entertainment value without anyone having to click on offsite links. e.g. the #StartToFinish tag that's hot right now.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I have followed new artists from those tags though and then checked out their off-site stuff. It's definitely a more round about way than someone specifically looking for comics to read via hashtag

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

From my limited observation, when people are looking for comics to read, they tend to ask for recs rather than do hashtag search?

"Anyone know of some good magical girl webcomics?" etc

which is a bit of a bummer for us creators, because that is completely outside of our control. Nothing we can do about it.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

here's the popularity for the #webcomics tag

So SOME people use it.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight) I'm gonna guess it's mostly creators using them to promote, rather than readers using them to search.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Also it seems to be peak in popularity in the USA

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) the graph implies interaction, really.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What counts as interaction?

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

tweeting it and searching it

what I'm saying is we can't know.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don’t so much in Twitter, but I personally DO search hashtags on Insta to find new art.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's true, we can't know. I just personally can't imagine anyone searching for #webcomics to find stuff to read

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Insta is definitely hashtag game city.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG is a different beast

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Comics don’t generally gel so well with Insta’s format, though, so I’m usually seeking art and not comics.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

just to be safe, occasionally use it

To be honest, I'm probably more likely to find and become a fan of webcomics here on this server than any social media

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, I wouldn't say "don't use #webcomics" -- use it if you have no other, more specific tags to put. But on Twitter, you don't want too many hashtags, so if you got more specific ones... use those instead!

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

I feel somewhat self conscious in getting an instagram. But I'll get one most likely.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It might be a good idea to switch up your tags regularly? Choose two or three from a relevant list each update and see if any of those tweets get a noticeable boost in engagement.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Yeah that sounds a good strategy

speaking of, any other creators into historical webcomics?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't seek them out, but there's some that I read.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

yours is touching upon the historical keii with the joseon-style elements.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's definitely not historical but yeah, got the aesthetics going for it!

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Yeah!

I must admit, I'm a bit starved for like-minded creators. I mean people that create historical webcomics. I know and follow a few but that's not nearly enough.

(if I'm babbling too much for creator babble please tell me!)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Babbling is fine! But this might be better for #general or possibly shop talk as it's not related to this week's topic?

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

oh sorry, there's a specific topic here too?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, all the channels under CTP Activities have a... topic thingie that changes weekly

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

okay got it. I'll take it there. Sorry :/

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't be sorry, be glad to chat about this stuff in another channel

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

With insta please be mindful that if you‘ll always post with the same hashtags, their algorythmn likely will assume you‘re a bot.

mirandalorian

Oh really?

I definitely did not know that.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Yup, it‘s a big annoyance. At least it was that way half a year ago, how is the algorythm now? Nobody knows.

I kinda hate insta, but it‘s the platform with the most interactions for me, although I don‘t know if it goes beyound liking my panel cutout.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Instagram does it‘s darnest to lock the user into theor own ecosystem.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Yeah, hard same. I definitely get the most likes there, but I get very few referrals from insta.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Funnily, the only social media where I KNOW I got at least one reader from is pillowfort and their teeny-tiny webcomic comunity!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I keep wanting to hop over there, but also starting a new social media sounds exhausting TuT one day.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I need to start using PF

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

It‘s pretty chill, reminds me of the hey-day of livejournal, with great filtering - more intended to create many small communities than one giant pot like twitter.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I don’t think any platform’s algorithms like me. I get very low engagement no matter where I post. I’m just not good at figuring out what these platforms pick up.(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I still have three invites left for this week.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Does cross promotion work for you guys at all?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

A little bit? But I think my comics are a hard sell, so I generally don’t get a lot of referrals when I cross-promote with other creators.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

It‘s how I found this community; but otherwise, nope.

Tantz Aerine (Without Moonlight)

Now I need to check out your comics Lee. I'm intrigued!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Haha, if you want to! If they’re not your cup of tea that’s a-okay.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I still have three invites left for this week.

@chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa] if you don't have plans for those invites, I would definitely take one and follow you first

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

About the hashtag thing on Twitter..... I have found the hashtags #webtoon #webtooncanvas and #celebrateCANVASday to be particularly useful for those of us publishing on Webtoon Canvas. I have gained a few new readers from this, and the official Webtoon Canvas page often retweets when these hashtags are used.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

That's good to know. I'm planning to start mirroring on Webtoon so I'll have to be sure to remember to use those tags.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I need to fix my series on WT first. But I'll give those hashtags a try once that's been done

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I tried using webtoon hashtags a few times, but their page never retweeted me. It seems either random, or there’s some hidden requirement for getting a rt.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i use the tag sometimes but I found it more responsive if you have a vertical scrolling format comic

then they're more likely to respond to you

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Oh, yeah.... I use a traditional page format.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

same rip

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I do combine all my pages into long episodes at the ends of chapters, so it’s kinda scrolling, but they’re just traditional pages stacked on top of each other, lol. WT definitely doesn’t like that, but I don’t have the time to reformat hundreds of pages.

Feather J. Fern

Also promo thought, I randomly joined people's streams before and then got hooked on their comics after seeing them draw on twitch or something like that

Pistashi

I struggle a bit with promo stuff, because I get too self-conscious about self-promoting and I'm the type of person that ends up doing too much of it or none of it

at the moment I'm working on making a press kit and sharing it with some blogs and networks about comics

but still, what I usually do is join groups and try to talk with people that works with art and comics

this is kind of more inclined to networking and meeting new people to talk about what we like than promoting my work to potential readers

nothing wrong with that, but looking with a more critical eye I still have a lot to learn about building an audience and reaching people who could become future readers

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I wonder HOW much a large social media following is worth. Insta‘s shown me that it isn‘t necessarily translating into readers.

carcarchu

in my experience followings on different platforms are non-transferable. same goes with having a large following on your comic itself, doesn't necessarily mean having a lot of followers on your art accounts. that's why they say "don't build your sandcastle in someone else's sandbox"

Pistashi

that makes a lot of sense

kayotics

If you’re building your following around your own content (original art, comic updates, etc) then the likelihood that the following is transferable is higher, but it’s still not 100%. You’re competing with everything else on their timeline too.

RebelVampire

i think a thing to consider with webcomics especially when it comes to social media is that a good portion of people who follow comic creators on social media are other comic creators, not people who are just readers. and the good majority of comic creators do not have a lot of time to read other webcomics. While there are certainly exceptions, I see those very few and far in between. So the conversion rates for social media right now are super low until the dynamic of the communities on the platforms changes.

kayotics

I’d agree with that, but also having a social media presence has definitely opened up some doors to being seen by other creators, many of whom are professionals. It’s good for networking, might not be the best for gaining and retaining readers.

RebelVampire

Oh yeah for sure. My point was about conversion factor

its factor in networking is a whole other matter entirely

and is indespensible

kayotics

One thing that I didn’t mention for myself is that networking has helped a LOT with getting new readers. Word of mouth, is always the best way to advertise, and other webcomic people giving you a plug can see some really strong results

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

1 note · View note