#first six images are each two panel comics

[this-isnt-oish]

mikurin mikurin mikurin mikurin

[lamaery]

It's alright Dalinar, babe, he got this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- image description: A loosely scribbled and coloured comic page with several panels in four rows of the scene in Words of Radiance in which Kaladin joins the duel in the arena. The background in the panels is painetd very patchily implying the seats of the arena with half roofs offering shadow from the sun above. The first row has two panels, on the left we see an agitaed Dalinar, in his blue uniform with gold and white trimmings, as he leans forward, hands on the wall of the dueling pit in front of him, calling out "What happened to us?", "Where is our honor?". A smaller speechbubble to the side contains the words "Honor is dead". The panel to the right depicts Dalinar looking to the side to see who gave that cynical commentary. Kaladin stands there not far behind him, also in captain's uniform holding his spear and looking very grim. The next row has two smaller and on medium sized panel, they all show Kaladin from the side in profile – as Dalinar would see him. He inhales like he is fortifying himself for what comes next. On the exhale he looks down into the arena with mix of resignation and determination and utters the words "But I'll see what I can do." The speechbubble for it is already in the next panel, in which Kaladin is gazing towards us with a mournful expression as he says "If this goes poorly, take care of my men."

The third and fourth row are both each one long horizontal panel. The third row shows Kaladin as he vaults himself over the wall in the foreground. Dalinar stares at him seeming very shocked. The panel in the last row is a top down view into the arena. Kaladin stands in front of six people, four of them Shardbearers in full plate all now turning towards him. On the far left is Relis in his black plate holding a big shardblade. Adolin kneels next to him in the sand of the arena holding his broken shoulder. To his right stand Elis with a shardhammer in a grey plate, then Adrobar in a orange one with a blade. Further to the right is Jakamav in his green plate and the king's blade, Renarin standing blade- and plateless next to him.

[zarvasace]

Whumptober day 18: possession. Image description under cut!

Edit: next>>

This comic is done in tall pages with a gray background. All the lines have a pencil-like texture to them, and it is not colored. Most lines and text are in black, with white and red being used symbolically and sparingly.

Page One

Panel one: A sketched landscape that evokes the Dueling Peaks of Wild’s world, lit in bright red by a full and bloody moon.

Panel two: A line of silhouettes, lit slightly in red light for some detail. They are walking toward the right side of the page. From right to left: Wolfie, facing forward. Time. Warriors, looking backward. Wild, looking up with his slate in his hands. Legend looking around. Hyrule, jogging to catch up. Wind, shading his eyes and looking up. Sky, glancing backward. Four, fully stopped and looking back down at his shadow on the ground. The text reads, in quotes as if recalling something from a memory: “Monsters stalk the shadows here, once they’re dead. Blood moons bring them back.”

Panel three: We see Four’s head and hand, reaching out toward something slightly below him. His expression is concerned. He’s lit in red light, including two little reflected red blood moons in his eyes. The text is not in any quotes or speech bubbles, as if they are Four’s thoughts: “...bring them [underlined] back. Could it?”

Panels four and five: Four, still in silhouette, kneels next to a puddle of bubbling shadow, lit in red light. First he reaches down toward it, and in the next panel, his hand pulls back suddenly as the shadow begins to extend upward. Flecks of red evoke the Malice in the air, and become more intense in the fifth panel. The fifth panel is interrupted by a large (loud) exclamation from an unknown source, with a dash before to indicate that the speaker interrupted themself: [all caps] “—FOUR!”

Page Two

Panel one: Four glances over his shoulder, still lit in red light with flecks of red flying around him. There are tiny tears in the corners of his eyes, and he’s smiling. He says: “Calm down, its [underlined] okay!”

Panel two: A copy of the previous panel, except for a few differences. Four’s tears are gathering a little bigger. The red flecks in the air have turned to flaming shapes. Four says: “It’s just my S—” but is cut off by the next panel.

Panel three: Four is still looking back, but a bright flash of red interrupts what he’s saying. His eyes go round, his tears fall, and he stops speaking. The red lights in his eyes are bigger. 

Panel four: Four kneels down in the middle of the panel, while shapes that suggest the other Heroes gather around him, indistinguishable from each other. Red flecks fly around them all. Text fills the background, as if from the Heroes muttering, but there is now way to tell who is saying what: “FOUR! That doesn’t look good. What happened? He doesn’t usually linger behind. Give him some space. He said to calm down? That��s the opposite of what we should be— Who has the Ma— [cut off by shapes] He has a moon pearl, right? He never touches the thing.”

Panels five, six, and seven: These panels are a sequence left to right, separated by dotted lines instead of solid ones. In them, we see Four, but not any of his facial features. In panel five, he stands up (there’s a word to make it clear: “RISE”.) In the next, he raises his hands to look at them, and lines indicate that he’s wobbling. His feet are turned in ever so slightly. In the last panel of this sequence, he is still looking at his hands, but there is less wobbling and he’s standing more firmly. All through these panels, he doesn’t say anything, and red wiggly lines surround him. 

Panel eight: A shot of Hyrule, looking grim with a shield already out, Legend, looking a bit worried with a hand on the hilt of his sword at his back, and Wild, who’s definitely worried. They’re all outlined in red light, but don’t have any red shining in their eyes. Wild, in a wobbly speech bubble, says: “...Four?”

Page Three

Panel one: This panel takes up most of this page, and shows Four looking up, with one hand on his head and a huge, maniacal smile on his face. His eyes are fully red, and he’s still lit in red light. Flecks of red fly around him, and the panel is shaded and has more detail than the others have had. A series of “AHAHAHA” laughing is repeated behind him. He says, in all-caps with a red speech bubble: “I KNEW THE LITTLEST WOULD BE EASIEST TO TAKE!!”

Panel two: This isn’t Four, but it is his body. Not-Four laughs, one hand up by his face, and keeps speaking with red speech bubbles: “The idiot let me right in! Me, his dead friend?”

Panel three: All eight of the other Links with swords and some shields out, making angry eyes as they stand in a line. The sky is red behind them. We see the top silhouette of Not-Four’s head, and he says: “oh… uh…”

Panel four: A copy of the last panel, except now each of the other Links looks either surprised or even angrier. They all shout: “STOP!” but the silhouette of Four’s head is now dissolving into red light. He says, “catch you suckers later!”

Page Four

There is only one panel on this page, and it is quite spread out to illustrate a lull in the action.

At the top, we see the moon outlined in red, but now with white on the inside and around it, as if the blood moon is disappearing. 

Text, without speech bubbles but staggered so that each sentence seems to come from someone else, without any hints as to who says what: “Does anyone have any idea what that was? …nobody? Where’s Four? What was that? He’s possessed?!” And at the bottom of this block, there is more text: “Guys… Who’s that?”

At the bottom of this page, we see a Four-like figure lying slumped on the ground, a few sparkles of white around him. He looks to be asleep. The end of his hood is curled above him without a charm, as if floating with a mind of its own.

The very bottom has text in white, the artist’s signature: “mina @ zarvasace”

[conartisthaiji]

[image description: 9 slides from a slideshow. The slideshow has a white background with black text in comic sans. Each slide is as follows.

Slide One: Witch Hat Atelier, by a little witch academia fan (sorry in advance)

Slide Two: Basic Overview

NOT to be confused with Little Witch Academia 

yes, they both have a cheerful bad-at-magic lesbian who is in love with a grumpy magic prodigy lesbian (...i think) and yes, the uniform features cute little hats and robes and yes they are at a magic school and yes the two main teachers have homoerotic tension and…huh.

Just don’t call it witch hat academia (<-has done that)

Next to the words is the cover for the first volume of Witch Hat Atelier, which shows a blonde girl, Coco, cheerfully jumping down.

Slide Three: Blonde Akko Kagari

She’s blonde 

Her name is Coco 

Very sweet looking like i bet she’s just the nicest 

Probably had something tragic happen to her i bet it’s qifrey’s fault

Oh my god maybe this IS little witch academia 

Next to the text is the cover for the first volume of Witch Hat Atelier.

Slide Four: Not Olruggio

Lesbian (my mutuals told me so) (okay actually one of them had Agott over a lesbian flag as their profile but that’s basically the same thing) 

I did confuse her with Olruggio wha but no, she is a lesbian and her name is Agott. 

Rhymes with fa-i am forcibly removed from the room.

I just know she’s emo as hell like she looks like everything thirteen year old me would LOVE. unfortunately I am in my twenties. 

See next slide for blorbo.

Next to the text is the cover for the second volume of Witch Hat Atelier, which shows Agott sitting in a chair and staring out with a bored expression on her face.

Slide Five: Richeh!!!!!!!!

Blorbo-in-law 

I mean, she’s gonna be my blorbo now.

Look at her i love her she can do no wrong.

Her eyebrows are my fave thing about her like they are so expressive

Next to the text are two manga panels of Richeh, one showing her eating noodles from a bowl, and one showing her cheering with her arms raised. Text behind her says, "Riche is sold out!" Next to these panels is the cover for the fourth volume of Witch Hat Atelier, which shows Richeh sitting on the side of a cliff.

Slide Six: The little pink one

She’s…pink 

I hate to say it but i do not know anything about her 

Not even her name

Sorry to all fans of the little pink one 

I bet she’s the energetic/upbeat one of the group though

Next to the text is the cover for the fifth volume of Witch Hat Atelier, which shows a pink-haired girl leaping gleefully into the air.

Slide Seven: Qifrey without a U

It’s QI-FREY. No u. 

Now why is he wearing a one-lens sunglasses. Sun monocle. 

It’s probably just the cover art sorry Shirahama

Gay and sad i just know it 

Honestly i got nothing on this man

Next to the text is the cover for the third volume of Witch Hat Atelier, which shows Qifrey holding a book in one hand. One of the lenses on his glasses has been darkened.

Slide Eight: Not a teenage lesbian

So Olruggio is actually a teacher.

Upon closer inspection i see that his hair is not curly. I truly thought it was. Sorry Agott.

Qifrey may be gay and sad but Olruggio is gay sad and tortured about it 

Whatever is wrong with him has nothing on whatever the fuck is wrong with Qifrey i bet

Why is this picture so fucking pixelated.

Next to the text is the cover for the sixth volume of Witch Hat Atelier, which shows Olruggio jumping with his cloak flowing behind him. The picture is far more pixelated than the other images in this slideshow.

Slide Nine: Ok the end because i don’t know who else is part of witch hat! But go read witch hat atelier! Or just wait for the anime but i’m gonna go read the manga (and maybe i’ll rewatch little witch academia too teehee) /end id]

so sorry wha mutuals i didn't pay enough attention to your wha lectures 🙇🙇🙇

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomics at Day 100 #9: Dinosaur Comics

Pages read: 2/1/2003 – 12/31/2003 & 4/14/2009 – 12/24/2009 (about 400 pages), plus Ryanquest in the Unofficial Homestuck Collection (15 pages).

Reason for selection: Ryan North and Andrew Hussie were friends as of 2010, and both their websites link and make references to the other’s. In addition, Dinosaur Comics is probably the most famous text-only webcomic – Qwantz isn’t an artist, and uses the same images for every strip, with different dialog.

Current status: Ongoing since 2003 with no major hiatuses. New comics posted three times a week. North has a Patreon, but all new and archived comics are available for free, and North allows their free use for nonprofit purposes.

Content warnings: jokes about gender and other cultures in the context of “post-feminism” and “post-racism”

Overall thoughts:

T-Rexes having tiny arms is one of the most staple jokes of the internet to me, and by making comics with this punchline in 2003, Ryan North was probably a pioneer in this area. That’s my biggest takeaway from Dinosaur Comics – it’s a microcosm of jokes, debates and discourses that came from and spread all over the Internet. Its format is simple: panels one and two feature a T-rex making a statement. In panel three, he stomps on a house as a Dromiceiomimus looks on, and sometimes comments. In panels four and five, the T-rex stomps on a human woman and has dialog with a Utahraptor, and in panel six, the T-rex is once again alone to deliver the punchline. North has repeated this format over four thousand times across more than two decades, and against all odds, it’s still paying dividends.

North plays with the form starting very early on. Comic 12 (2/14/2003) allows readers to choose between two punchlines where ‘the first is for fans of character development and quiet moments of self-awareness’ and ‘the second is for fans of kickin' it post-modern style’. Comic 29 is a ‘choose your own adventure’ where the reader takes a different route through the panels based on their choices, and comic 30 is an infinitely looping subversion of the previous. Comics 35, 38 and 39 are set in a ‘mirror universe’ where the art is flipped, comic 42 riffs on adventure games (though is sadly not playable), comic 54 is styled as a fake history textbook, comic 119 is designed to be printed out for readers to write in their own final line, and comic 168 is designed to be read twice, with different intonation (and therefore meaning) each time.

Some early comics also feature ‘compressed’ retellings of other media – for example, comic 16 retells Jurassic Park, comic 199 retells Superman’s origin story, and comic 232 retells the Bible as though it were in Seventeen magazine. In many cases it’s made clear what’s being retold, but comic 1493 retells the movie WarGames without attribution, so there are likely other allusions I missed. North later went on to write choose-your-own-adventure and graphic novel adaptations of several famous literary works, in an expansion of this format.

But possibly the quintessential Dinosaur Comic is the one that tries to teach the reader something. The main character, T-Rex, is characterized as (essentially) a freshman philosophy student – a guy who wants to understand the world on a deeper level, but is new to it and typically comes to the wrong conclusion, struggling to think past his self-absorption, lowbrow humor, and base desire to stomp on things. The stomping is part of the clipart, which makes the whole characterization static like a sitcom character – T-Rex can’t ever do any self reflection or become a better person, because the images can’t change to match. But T-Rex is also a mouthpiece for North to convey information, giving lessons on discrete math (comic 43), genetics (67), computational linguistics (170), logical fallacies (184), a recipe for chickpeas in coconut milk (196), flatworm biology (1497), the infinite hotel paradox (1575), and various literary techniques (1466, 1558, 1622). As such, while T-Rex and his friends the Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus do have some recognizable, consistent traits, they are more of a framework for North to convey jokes and information than actual characters.

Due to the identical art, panel size and formatting of almost all his comics, North can use overlays in a way that few webcomic artists can, and has made the most of this. I found this list of twenty-four possible overlays where the URL can be edited to apply to any comic. These include one that gives the characters pirate gear, one where every character is T-Rex, one where T-Rex wears various T-shirts, one where the dinosaurs are more scientifically accurate, one that replaces the final panel with the meteor impact that kills all dinosaurs on Earth, and quite a few that replace the dinosaurs with characters from other comics such as Achewood, Penny Arcade, Problem Sleuth, and Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

North employs hover text in every comic, which can be an additional joke, a personal anecdote, or a repeat of a line in the comic that he especially liked. The archive page, listing every comic posted to the site, contains a second, different comment for each strip – both of these read like how Tumblr tags are used. This combined with the wordiness of the comics themselves suggest that North has a lot to say, and struggles to fit it all within the format.

Although some fans mention finding the early Dinosaur Comics weaker, I didn’t notice a dramatic difference in writing quality between the 2003 and 2009 strips. The biggest change are the newsposts that now appear under most comics, which are revealing about how popular and widely read DC has become over six years. North shouts out other webcomics and fan projects (such as comic randomizers and transformative versions) which are phrased like ‘hey, this other person is doing something cool with the internet, go check it out’ and don’t mention any official sponsorship or reciprocity. North’s relationship with other creators can be humorously antagonistic, as in comic 1502.

In other cases, the commentary discusses interesting facts, articles about crows, upcoming talks North is doing at conventions and universities, reader responses and corrections, book recommendations, fanart, guerilla gardening projects, and warnings about octopods using tools. North is extremely willing to correct factual inaccuracies in his joke comics and ensure that he also spreads the correct information – in comic 1591 he states ‘I even got some emails from researchers working on this very problem, which was kind of crazy, because I hadn't expected that!’ In comic 1508, he mentions emailing with a professor of linguistics over a recent comic. North’s work isn’t just read by terminally online young men who like his Batman references (the stereotypical 2000s webcomic reader), it’s read by academics and scientists, and publicly stating this gives him more intellectual credibility.

Like with most online personalities, I’m sure part of this is North curating an image and wanting to be seen as intelligent and cultured. But in his case, I think it’s earned – North has a master’s degree in computational linguistics and several published academic papers (all available in open access on his website) and appears to live the academic ideals of experimentation, rigor, peer review, and free access to information. Dinosaur Comics was first created when North was given a random URL and a school assignment to ‘do something interesting with the Internet’. He wanted to make comics but couldn’t draw, so used clipart. Impressively, this original ethos has carried through to today – the DC website doesn’t use ads besides some unobtrusive ones for North’s other work, the comics are crossposted to Tumblr (formerly also Twitter and LiveJournal), and all comics are searchable and include transcripts (though these were originally user sourced).

Looking at his personal website, North has taken many interesting opportunities that have come his way, and talks about them on equal terms – he’s written for Adventure Time and Fantastic Four, but also took the photograph for Wikipedia’s ‘Toast sandwich’ article and reviewed the Back to the Future novelization page by page, writing more words than are in the book itself (shit, this is sounding familiar) and is equally proud of these achievements.

North’s only paywalled projects are physical books and comics he’s written for major publishers such as Marvel, and he encourages fans to print Dinosaur Comics in nonprofit publications – the University of New Mexico has featured DC in its campus newspaper, and others have likely taken the opportunity too. North said in 2023 that he likes being known as ‘the Dinosaur Comics guy’ and being defined by that work, and that if the younger version of him could hear about his life now, he’d want to be that guy.

Between 2003 and 2010, North held fairly regular ‘guest weeks’, where he’d invite other webcomic artists to produce a Dinosaur Comic with no limitations on art or themes. Some guests play it straight and use the clipart, while some draw the standard six panels in different art styles (84, 658, 1324), some poke at the fourth wall and the T-Rex’s awareness or otherwise of the comic’s format (73-77, 1326), and some go meta and make comics about North himself (655, 1484).

The first guest weeks, in May 2003, may have come about because of North’s college finals – and as it’s before the comic takes off, it features North’s personal friends, brother and dad as guests. Later guest comics feature big internet names such as KC Green (Gunshow; origin of ‘this is fine’ meme), Zach Weiner (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal), Randall Munroe (xkcd), and of course-

Relevance to Homestuck: [one minor spoiler for Act 6]

-Andrew Hussie.

On June 12, 2009 (yes, that date), Hussie posted an official Dinosaur Comic where each of the six panels rotates between two to five possible options. The whole comic loops every 84 seconds, and functions as a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure where the path of the story is dictated by how fast you read’. Hussie is also listed as a coauthor on comic 2546 according to the archives page, which also reveals that North and Hussie’s conversations inspired a couple other comics in the early 2010s. Following Homestuck’s end of act 2, North shouts out the comic in his commentary to 1571, claiming that ‘Dinosaur Comics and MS Paint Adventures take place in the same universe’ and that the dinosaur seen in ‘WV: Ascend’ is the same dinosaur then featured in Dinosaur Comics’ header image. (The alt text of this comic reads exactly like a Serious Business message). Several days later, in comic 1574, the Utahraptor drops a ‘We’re doing this, man. We’re making this happen,’ a rare grammatically correct Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

It goes further. Comic 1810 features a message directly to Hussie, calling them out for not moving to Toronto. Despite being busy with moving (elsewhere), going to conventions, and updating Homestuck at over ten pages per day at that point, Hussie immediately responded with the fifteen-page adventure Ryanquest (/ryanquest/000001 in the Collection), written in the typical second-person MSPA style. North is drawn wearing a ‘Batman is For Silly Little Boys’ shirt, referencing North’s Batman fandom (and possibly comic 1543), and Hussie is drawn wearing a shirt available in the Dinosaur Comics merch store. If there are other inside jokes, they went over my head – but Ryanquest is absurd, ridiculous, and plays into the same kind of unintelligible internet irony and one-upmanship that Dave and his bro have.

It seems that North and Hussie have similar senses of humor (as well as a shared computer science background), and North clearly likes interacting with other creators, so Dinosaur Comics might be the webcomic with the most explicit links to Homestuck. Besides the obvious references, comic 1505, published July 8th, 2009, features T-Rex rapping terribly. This comes only a couple weeks after Dave’s first bad rap in Homestuck (p.287, 6/22/2009). There may be other parallels and unintentional references like this, as (at this point) the pair actively read each other’s work and talk to each other. So it’s not surprising that themes like time travel, autoresponders, and the tension between science and religion crop up in both – they’re just shared interests. Finally, Dinosaur Comics and Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff are also the only two franchises I’ve ever seen official word magnet sets for.

Continue reading? I enjoyed reading what I did, and I have a lot of respect for North’s work, but Dinosaur Comics is a very dense archive due to the wordiness of many comics and lack of new visuals. I think it works best as something to read as it updates, one comic at a time – so I will be keeping the website bookmarked, but I doubt I’ll ever read the full history.

[head-of-sea-foam-the-system]

Happy Disability Pride Month! Sorry for being five months late. We promise we started it on time and planned to release it on time. There has been a LOT going on, but I’m happy to report that it’s mostly been good. We haven’t had the spoons to finish this comic, but now it’s finally done! As always, we hope you all enjoy this one! Image description at the bottom.

[Image Description:

Panel 1: The words “HAPPY DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH” are written over the disability pride flag.

Panel 2: The top of the panel says, “Whether affected by other disabilities or acting on its own, DID is a strange disability.” There are three boxes. In the first, a person with light skin and reddish almost-shoulder-length hair is standing with eir hands over eir face. The words “Please don’t let me split an introject of them” are written several times. In the second box, a guy with light skin and short light brown curls is standing with a thought bubble above his head. The bubble says, “*Thoughts that I can’t put into words*” He is saying, “I have dissociative identity disorder. I’m not Ao. My name is Holden, and I use he/him pronouns.” The third box is made to look like a screen. There are three smaller boxes inside of it. They read, “My Simply Plural”/“Is so complex”/“And I organize it for fun.”

Panel 3: In the top left corner, there is a shape resembling a dark gray cloud. Inside of it, at the top, the text reads, “So much splitting…” Beneath it, there are six different messy outlines of a person’s head and shoulders. Beneath that are the words, “And we latch onto media, so… introjects.” In the top right corner, there is a black rhombus with white cracks. There is a box toward the top that reads, “And, of course…” At the bottom of the rhombus, there is another box, which reads, “…things happened that made me this way. And DID isn’t the only disability I got from those things.” At the bottom of the panel, a person with medium brown skin, brown eyes, black hair, and black glasses stares slightly downward. The words above them read, “Try interacting with your source IRL. Makes us feel guilty, even if we get along with them.” There is a thought bubble next to them that reads, “He doesn’t know who I am, or even that I have this disorder.” A box next to them shows an arrow pointing to him that reads “Leon (they/he).”

Panel 4: In the top left corner, there is a a round shape with a double helix outline. Inside, there is a somewhat unclear gray outline of a person’s head and shoulders with the words, “WHO AM I???” written at the top. In the top right corner, there is a pair of blue eyes, a nose, and an expressionless mouth. It is duplicated many times in the surrounding area, overlapping it. The duplications are all somewhat transparent. Above that, the text reads, “(Hopefully, I’ll make a full comic about dissociation someday- that’s what this represents)”. At the bottom are a pair of light hands. The outline of the hands is not properly connected to the fill color. On the hands are the words, “My hands… …are so weird.”

Panel 5: There are two boxes. In the top one, the words, “The guilt…” are written at the top. Under that, there is a person with light skin, brown eyes, and dark brown hair with one hand over her face, covering their eye. She is saying, “WHY was I like that back in middle school???” Next to them, there is text with an arrow that reads, “Elizabeth, she/they (not exactly what she goes by… it’s complicated).” In the second box, there is text at the top that reads, “The realizations…” Under that, Elizabeth is there, with both hands over her eyes, saying, “Wait… my source *was* involved in all that messed up stuff back in middle school. Why couldn’t I accept that she hurt me?” On the right side of the panels, written in big letters and running vertically, are the words, “AND SO MUCH MORE”.

Panel 6: The outline of this panel is a double helix on each side, each a different color of the system flag (dark gray, light blue, light green, yellow). The panel reads, “I know we don’t usually talk about the bad stuff on here, but since this is for disability pride month, we wanted to talk about the disabling aspects of DID. This isn’t everything, of course. Perhaps I’ll talk about more of it in the future. I didn’t go into a lot of detail. Perhaps I will in the future. We hope everyone had a good disability pride month, and we apologize again for being so late.”

End image description.]

[savannahthefangirl]

MY BUNDLE HAS ARRIVED EARLIER THIS WEEK

Oh boy, am I glad to announce that after SIX AND A HALF YEARS OF WAITING, I finally got my hands on some DA Merch, that being the lovely Rotom Royal Flush Bundle

WARNING: A COUPLE OF IMAGES BELOW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE COMIC, SO FOR THOSE STILL WAITING ON THEIR BUNDLES WHO DON’T WANNA BE SPOILED, I RECOMMEND SCROLLING PAST THIS POST!

So for starters, we have everything that was in the package

Now for each independent item, starting off with the comic book, as well as a few of my favourite panels in it along with the front and the back pages, which the latter is completely blank, so if anyone is going to any conventions that have either Will, the development team, and/or the VAs going there, I recommend that you take that as an opportunity to get your comic books autographed (The lovely illustrations being done by @aspennightray, who I recommend you checking out if you haven’t already)

Next we have the cards, which were designed by Aeroartwork (I don’t know about their socials, so if anyone who does know can reply with them, let me know cause I really wanna follow them), starting off with the DACrew and their guests (My favourites from them being Will, Chrissy, Chris and the card shared by SaltyDKDan and Chi-Chi)

And now we’re at the cards that feature the Rotom Family, where it’s REALLY hard for me to pick favourites, as all their cards look amazing, tho I will admit that the first card I took a picture of (as in the moment I opened the box on Tuesday night) was Bolvadeer, given that he’s my favourite out of all of them

And last, but not least for the cards, we have the Rotom Corp. logo as the ace card. Nothing more to say on this one

Like the comic book, there are a few blank cards at the end of the deck for unknown reason, so once again, I encourage any con-goers to use these to gain signatures from anyone involved in the making of Solitude.

And lastly, in terms of items that are part of the bundle, and probably the most hyped part of it as far as I’m aware, we have the Xavier Rotom figure, who just looks very polite, tho my mom said, her words, not mine, “I don’t know, he looks pretty scary to me, but you just seem to love him.” The one thing that looks a bit off to me is the angle he’s positioned in, which I could only guess is due to them using the same pose in the first ever 2D render of him that came out back in 2021 (Second image by TheAbbeyRoadie on Twitter)

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

When the bundle was delivered to me, as well as many other people who ordered it, it came along with either two plushies or a DAGames enamel pin, tho it was mostly the former people were getting. Now as of me posting this, there isn’t a concrete reason as to why these were being shipped with the bundles if aren’t part of it in the first place, with some speculations being

Option A) An apology gift on the side for how long the shipping process has been for everyone

Option B) A way for Ownaj to clear up storage, as a lot of these plushies are repetitively seen

Option C) A method to have the box that the Xavier figure was in kept in place

Option D) All of the above

Regardless, everyone was humble enough to keep these little trinkets as their own, so I’ll post pictures of the ones I’ve gotten as well

So yeah, if there’s one good thing to come out of this year, it’s that I’ve finally made my longtime dream come true. Don’t know how my mom’s gonna feel about me when Christmas rolls around tho, as she’s spent a hundred and ten Canadian dollars for this bundle ^^’ But yeah, I might make a video going into better detail of the bundle, as well as Solitude in general 🖤❤️🩵💜💛

[dp-marvel94]

Face to Face - Epilogue

Summary: When Danny went through the ghost catcher, he expected to be cured of the ghostliness that had haunted him since the accident, not to wake up on the lab floor with his parents saying he’d been overshadowed but everything’s back to normal now. But why does Danny Fenton cry himself to sleep to then dream of flying? Why does Phantom, the ghost who was supposedly possessing Danny remember a life that wasn’t his? Most of all, why do both the human and the ghost feel that something vital is missing, in their very soul? Or: Trying to cure himself of his powers one month after the accident, Danny accidentally splits himself but neither his ghost nor his human half know that that is what they did

First -> Last

Word Count: 5,791

Also on AO3 and Fanfiction.net

Note: Hi friends! It's been a while. Honestly, I was putting off posting this, the last chapter of Face to Face, because it intimidated me. 😅 But I really wanted to wrap this up by the end of the year. So we're finally here! I'm so excited to share the ending with you guys.

Also in honor of finishing this fic, I wanted to share this loving art made by @lilianade-comics on Tumblr. Check out this lovely scene from chapter 51 here!

Happy Reading!

Six months later.

“I must have been here a dozen times at least. And your lair still surprises me every time.” Sidney said, eyes surveying the room.

Danny leaned back on his couch, giving a chuckle. “Hey, I’m just working with what I have. I think the Hobbit vibes are pretty cool.”

“I figured you would want something more modern and sci fi.” His friend shrugged.

The halfa raised a brow. “Like an underground bunker? Nah.” He shook his head. “As cool as quarters on the Enterprise would be, or the inside of the TARDIS…. It just didn’t feel right. Plus,” He shrugged. “I like to be comfy.”

“It is definitely that.”

True to what Danny had imagined all those months ago, the underground house was cozy, warm, and homey. Wooden floors and paneling. Circular rooms and round doorways. The furniture was simple, warm, reddish maple-wood beds, chairs, and sofas accenting each room. Multiple rugs covered the floors and carefully selected books filled one book shelf. Other decorative objects and nick-nacks covered the walls, end tables, and other surfaces. 

Some were brought from the material realm. One of his model rockets. A blob ghost plush that had been made by his dad. A Black orchid, a gift from Sam, sat in one corner, a Femalien Poster from Tucker on the wall above it. A shadow box with tickets and a glossy photo of the siblings, smiling in their bowties and fezzes with a certain actor; for Christmas his sister had bought him tickets to Comic Con and a Meet and Greet with Doctor Who actor Matt Smith.

Some objects were picked up from various trips through the Realms. There was a black and white lamp from Sidney’s lair that gave off gray light. A drum head on the wall sported an animated image of blue fire; he’d gotten that when Johnny and Kitty had taken him to see their friend Ember perform.

And some were manifested by the lair itself. A painting of a The Library with swirling spectral clouds in the background. Snow globes from different places he’d visited: Sid’s lair, The Library, Dora’s kingdom, Ember’s concert hall venue. And…. the halfa smiled softly at this last object… photo of his family and two best friends, Danny grinning in the middle in ghost form.

“Jeepers! What is this?!” Sidney’s voice interrupted the half ghost’s musing. 

Danny’s gaze flickered to the object of his friend’s attention. “Oh. That? It was a Christmas present from Mom.” He jabbed a thumb at the kitchen counter where a ceramic cookie jar sported half a dozen eyes and pointy teeth around the lid, threatening approaching hands. He grinned. “It’s a Mimic.”

“A Mimic…” For just a moment, Sidney’s black and white brow wrinkled. Then… “Like from that Dungeon and Dragons game Tucker told me about?!” 

“Yep.” Danny nodded.

“Fighting a monster like that… that must be the bee’s knees!” The half ghost could practically see the stars in his friend’s eyes.

“You’re still invited to our games any time you want to join.” Danny raised a brow.

“This section of the Realms needs its own group.” Sidney crossed his arms, pouting slightly.

“Dora might like it… and Ember.” The half ghost grinned toothily. “She’s already literally a bard.” He tapped his chin. “Maybe we can get Ghost Writer to let us use a room in his lair.”

“The Library is not the most convenient location though; it’s far away from everyone but me.” 

“Hum.” Danny’s brow furrowed, considering. “That’s fair.” Sidney’s lair was the closest to the Library by far. But the other’s…. Ember’s lair was about the same distance from the portal as Sidney’s, except in the exact opposite direction. And Dora’s lair was vaguely below his, a leisurely forty-five minute flight down. If anything…. Danny blinked. “I’m in the middle.”

“You sure are, buster.” Sidney raised a brow, looking at him as if it was obvious.

The half ghost took a second to process and then laughed. “It’s always like that, huh?” 

Getting in between the Lunch Lady and his friends. Helping Dora and other ghosts get back to the portal. Making friends with people in this part of the Zone. He rolled his eyes at the irony. The literal half ghost always stuck in the middle. Or rather… maybe he’d chosen to place himself there.

“So I guess we’d meet here. Or…” An idea had been swimming around in his head. A place for the ghosts on this side of the portal to gather, to bond, to help each other and…. “So I’d been thinking-”

Just then, the black rectangular device clipped to the belt of Danny’s suit chimed. “Oh. That’s probably my parents.” He detached the communicator– made by his parents, with Tucker’s help, to work across dimensions and designed to look like the ones from Star Trek–  and flipped it open.

His brow furrowed. “I’m not late for dinner, am I? Didn’t think I’d been gone that long.”

“No sweetie.” His mom’s voice sounded from the other end. “I’m sorry to interrupt your hang-out with Sidney. But Mr. Jenkins called from the Salvage Yard about a ghost problem.”

The boy sighed, head rolling back on the couch to look up at the ceiling. “Is it Technus again?”

“It sounded like it.” The wince was almost audible in her voice. “Your father and I would go but Mr. Jenkins asked for Phantom… very insistently.” 

Another sigh. “I’ll be right there.” Danny hung up, putting the communicator back on his belt before burying his head in his hand.

“Technus again?” Sidney rose a brow.

The halfa looked up, fixing an eye on his friend. “ I mean, I’m fine with him hanging out in the material world and tinkering with stuff. But…” The halfa groaned. “He keeps trying to blow things up the salvage yard.”

The ghostly nerd chuckled. “All that new fangled modern technology…. That beatnik must think he died and gone to heaven.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “He will if I have to tell him to stop stealing other people’s stuff one more time.”

Sidney shook his head. “You know it’s hard to keep a ghost from his obsession.” Then tapping his chin, he mused. “But maybe if he had his own place to experiment…”

“Hum…” Danny furrowed his brow, considering. He floated up. “Gotta go.” He pointed at the black and white ghost. “I’m serious, you should come to our D&D games next Saturday. Think about it?”

“I will.” The other ghost nodded, also rising. “See you later.”

The two exited through the lair’s door, Sidney flying into the green atmosphere of the Zone. Danny flew up, towards the portal. The clear dome around the structure parted with his presence and he entered. 

The boy drifted over the carefully cultivated plants, a particularly energetic snap-dragon snapping at his heel. “Hey! I don’t have time to play right now.” He bent down, patting the petly approximation of a draconic head. 

Danny stood again and continued, passing the beds of black lettuce. A ghostly blue lizard darted between the squash vines. In the flowering tiger shrub, a tiny green bird cooed. Other plants were scattered over the area, glowing insects, some as large as his fist, buzzing over them. The boy couldn’t help but smile. Only six months and there was already so much after-life here on his little island. 

The half ghost arrived in the middle, the frame of the portal surprisingly at home among the vegetation. Though… green no longer swirled in the frame; instead, black and yellow painted doors blocked the entrance. His parents had installed a set on either side to keep out unwanted visitors. 

But Danny, of course, wasn’t an unwanted visitor. With a quick scan of his palm on the panel beside the door, they parted. He flew through, just as the doors on the human-world side opened too.

At the sound, both parents looked up from their work. “Danny-boy!” His dad smiled with a wave. “You want one of us to come with you?”

“Nah. I’m just gonna try and talk to Technus again.” The halfa waved off the concern. He floated up, towards the ceiling. 

His dad looked almost disappointed at the decline; trust Jack Fenton to always be ready and eager to soak an annoyance in ectoplasmic goo, whether they were ghost or human. Still both adults accepted the statement.

“Knock his socks off, son! And be careful!” “We’ll do great, sweetie! Call us if you need anything!” 

With his parents’ words of encouragement rising in his ears, Danny phased through the ceiling and zoomed off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Banging, clanging, and shouting rang through Mr. Jenkins’ Salvage Yard. 

“It’s finished!” Maniacal laughing sounded “Finally finished! I-”

“Finished?! What in tarnation even is-.” A sudden crash. “Woah!’” 

“Ah. A few more finishing touches and…” A sparking, sizzling hiss…

“Where did you get a welding gun? Wait! Is that my coffee maker?!”

The ghost scoffed. “It’s not like you were using it.”

“I used it this mornin’, you-” 

Danny arrived just as Technus flipped up his face shield. “Tada! My greatest creation!” The ghost spread his arms, grinning proudly.

“You stole my French Press!” Mr. Jenkins yelled.

“Ghost Child!” The adult ghost ignored him, eyes lighting up at Phantom’s arrival. “You arrived just in time to watch!”

Danny fixed Technus with a skeptical look. “What’s going on here?”

“As I was saying, I Technus! Master of all things electronic and beeping have finished my greatest creation yet!” The ghost motioned again, to a tracker-trailer sized collection of mismatched metal parts. 

Well, that wasn’t here the last time. “Technus… where did you get all this stuff?”

Just then, a frantic woman came running out of the square building sitting among all the old cars. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Jenkins. I don’t understand how, but the office phone is gone. So are the fax machine and the microwave. And all the computers and-” Her eyes widened, voice squeaking as she spotted Technus. “Not you again!”

“That’s my computer?!” Jenkin’s eyes bulged, his face turning red. “I already told you, this ain’t a junkyard. You can’t take whatever you want!”

“These machines are just sitting here, wasting away! I had to do something with all this beautiful technology.” 

“What’s it even supposed to be!?” 

“An ingenious invention! And greatly needed!” The green skinned ghost held a finger up. “What kind of junk yard doesn’t have a car-crusher?”

“You’re nuttier than a fruitcake.” Jenkins pointed accusingly at Technus. “This ain’t no junk yard! We’re a salvage yard. We sell used parts!”

“Salvage yard.” Technus rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. You’re just jealous of my brilliance, old man!”

“At least I made it past half a century!” The older man spat.

“I, Technus! Made it to 52, thank you very much! 52 years and then felled by my own unstable experiment! Oh, to die in the pursuit of science! What a glorious send-off! And don’t you know about that, Halfa child! Still wearing that hip and sweet hazmat suit-”

“We are not talking about my death.” Danny interrupted pointedly. “Now-”

“Of course! Enough of this. You came to see my genius!” The mad scientist darted around the metal monstrosity, lab coat flapping behind him.

“Phantom! Stop him!” Mr. Jenkins cried.

“You heard him, Technus.” The ghost boy crossed his arms. “Don’t make me get out the thermos.”

The older ghost ignored the reprimanded, eagerly grabbing at the machine’s controls. “First! The claw will shoot out and snag the car we want. Now which one…” His brow furrowed, then turning and pointing at a red, old-looking convertible. “Ah! That sad sorry hunk of junk will do.”

“Technus! We talked about this!” Danny drove forward, arms out to pull the other ghost away from the controls.

At the same time… “ No! That’s-” Mr. Jenkins sounded panicked. 

Danny surged forward but faster than he could process, the mad scientist blinked out of the way. He missed, tumbling in the air and barely missing the side of the car-crushed machine. 

The clawed arm lashed out, clamping around the truck. The metal fingers snapped closed with an agonizing crunch of metal and glass. 

“Must be out of practice.” Danny mumbled. Then, he lit his hands with ecto-energy, “Technus, I’m warning you!” 

“And now! My hyper-efficient car-crusher will reduce this rust bucket to scrap in seconds!” The other ghost laughed maniacally, jamming one of the lever’s down.

“No! No! No!” Mr. Jenkins sounded near… tears?

The arm pulled the car forward, the headlights meeting the jaws of the crusher with a stomach-turning crunch.

“Look! My funky fresh creation is working perfectly!” 

The ghost boy let his shot lose, the ecto-energy knocking the other ghost away.

“No! That’s my car!!” Mr. Jenkins fell to his knees.

Danny darted in front of the control panel. His eyes widened. So many buttons, nobs, and levers…. Lights blinked in front of him. Frantic, the boy jabbed at different controls. 

“My Oldsmobile!” Beside him, Mr. Jenkins was definitely crying. “That was Pa’s. Me and Pa fixed it up before he passed. No!”

The halfa’s eyes flashed. “How do you turn this thing off?” He turned to the other ghost, demanding.

Technus floated there for a moment, eyes wide and startled. He stared, the previous mad joy completely evaporated, even as he took in his invention. After a blink, his gaze moved from the machine to the devastated human man. The ghost’s face scrunched up, brow wrinkling. Then…

He flew back to the controls. Wordlessly, the mad scientist pushed a series of buttons, metal crunching uglily all the while. He pulled a final lever and the sound of gears and breaking glass stopped.

Quiet fell and Danny sighed, shoulders untensing. Still, he nervously fingered at the thermo’s lid. “Technus, you know I don’t have any problem with you hanging around Amity Park. Tinkering by itself is fine. But when you start taking other people’s things and destroying property…. I can’t let that stand.”

“But it’s just an old car…” The older ghost fixed his head down, voice oddly subdued.

“It’s Mr. Jenkins’ car.” Danny pointed. “It belongs to him.” His tone sharpened. “I wouldn’t come in your lair and mess with your laboratory. Take your inventions without asking. You can’t do that to Mr. Jenkins.”

A long, tense pause fell over the yard. The sound of gravel shifting at the human man stood, as his assistant nervously shuffled. Danny could feel both adult’s eyes on him but his own gaze was fixed on the ghost and his tight, unreadable expression. Technus had stopped the crusher but… why? Did he understand? The boy’s stomach turned, anxiously hoping. That the ghost had listened, that he could find a peaceful resolution. 

Technus’s grip on the control panel’s levers tightened. “It seems, I, Technus, made an error. The first tenant of the scientific method…. I failed to gather all the important background information.”

Mr. Jenkins looked up, angrily whipping his face. “You don’t say.”

“I got so excited, I forgot to ask for permission to use the junk…”

“Hey! It’s not-” The human started objecting.

“Or to think about whether the invention would be useful here. I mean, who ever heard of a junkyard without a car-crusher? But apparently, you don’t need one. Which does not make any sense to me. Still, I should not have taken your things and-”

“That’s all fine and good. But my car’s still trashed.” Jenkins interrupted, scowling at the crushed vehicle.

“An honest mistake.” Technus winced. “And…” He held up a finger. “Give me a second.” He darted over to the wreckage. “Here, let me…” 

The mad scientist ghost waved his hands over the debris. His aura sparked, spreading out and enveloping the twisted metal and shards of glass. The pieces trembled slightly, rising with a jerk. Technus’ fingers moved as if he was counting, typing, or playing an instrument. The wreckage floated and flowed, swirling in the air and coming together. It coalesced into…

“Well I’ll be damned.” Mr. Jenkins said breathily.

Danny’s eyes widened, just as amazed. “How? You… you-”

“Fixed it!” Technus swung around, arms spread. “I fixed it!”

Sure enough, the car sat in front of them, whole and intact.

The on-lookers just blinked for a long moment. Then…

“My car!” Mr. Jenkins practically ran forward. “Bessie! You’re alright!” He flopped onto the hood, arms spreading wide as if hugging the vehicle. “Better than alright!” Eyes wide and gleeful, he wiped at a spot over the headlights. “That blasted scratch is gone!” 

The human man kept cooing over his car and Danny laughed. “He’s worse than my dad with the GEV.” The boy rolled his eyes. Then… “Seriously though. Putting it back together like that…. that was incredible, Technus. Thank you for fixing this.” 

“Pst.” The ghost shrugged off the thanks. “It was child’s play!” He laughed almost maniacally.

“Can you uh… put back the rest of the office?” The assistant asked meekly.

Technus’ eyes flickered to her, briefly looking disappointed, before he scoffed. “Can I put the rest of the office back?” He waved his arms, green light again spreading and enveloping the metal pieces. “Easier than differential calculus. Can I, Technus, master of all things mechanical, put it back? Please.”

The different pieces separated, flying off in seemingly random directions, while the mad scientist mumbled to himself.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jenkins looked up from his car. “I didn’t know you could fix things like this, Technus. Incredible!” He popped open the trunk, gaze flickering over the various parts. “She’s as good as new.” He reached inside, tapping something. “Say. One of the new tow-trucks is acting squirrely. Some kind of malfunction with that fancy new, space-age onboard computers. Can’t make head ‘r tails of it. Take a look and maybe I can find some spare parts for you to tinker with.”

Parts continued to swirl away, the car-crusher growing smaller and smaller. Technus tapped his chin. “Is this a problem worthy of I! Technus’ vast expertise!?”

For a moment, both Mr. Jenkins and his assistant looked worried, concerned eyes searching Danny. 

The ghost boy nodded sagely. “Of course! Computer technology is so advanced now. Especially in cars! They definitely need someone as genius as you to fix it. Plus free parts!” The half ghost spread his arms. “You can’t pass up a deal like that!”

“You’re right, Ghost Child!” With a final flourish, the last remnants of the disastrous car crusher vanished, the components returning to their proper places. “Come Jenkins!” The mad scientist quickly floated away. “Show me this tow-truck!”

“Not so fast! We mere humans can’t fly!” The human man jogged after. 

Danny gave another chuckle at the pair. He flew after them. 

“Here it is.” Mr. Jenkins panted, motioning to the car. He unlocked the door and slid into the seat. “The problem is, anytime I start up the car…” He pressed the ignition. “See?”

The ghost nodded from where he leaned over, observing. “Ah! That is confounding! First, let me try…”

The half ghost watched two for several minutes. His eyes slowly widened, anxious core lossening. The two talked and hypothesized, bouncing ideas off of each other.

“Try it again.” Technus instructed.

Mr. Jenkins pressed the start button again. A pause. “Well, I’ll be.”

The mad scientist laughed. “I told you, old geezer. No electronical problem can overcome my genius!”

The human rolled his eyes, good naturedly. “Old geezer? Ya didn’t know what a computer was until last month.”

They were… getting along? “This is great! See.” Danny gave an encouraging smile and spread his arms. “Technus can help you out with stuff like this and you can give him some spare parts to work with. How does that sound, Mr Jenkins? Technus?”

The human tapped his chin. “You know, my brother’s got an auto shop. He’s always needin’ help. Maybe we can work something out.”

“I’m listening…” The green-skinned ghost nodded, face serious. Even as his aura flickered excitedly.

“I’ll give Perry a call and…”

The two talked for a few more minutes. Hope bloomed in Danny’s heart, a smile slowly parting his lips. They had this. Coming up with a compromise together. Without him. In fact…

The ghost boy turned to leave. “I’m going to go check on your assistant and everything in the office. Shout if you need me.”

The two barely acknowledged him, simply waving as they both chuckled over something. 

Danny flew away, shaking his head. Moments later, he knocked at the office door. “It’s Phantom.”

There was a shout to enter and the boy did so. His eyes flickered over the room. Slightly disarrayed but… there was the microwave, the phone, the computer.

The assistant looked up from the desk. “Mr. Jenkins is okay, right? I haven’t heard any screaming recently.”

Danny laughed. “Yeah, he’s fine. Him and Technus are working out tech-help for spare parts.”

The woman blanched. “Is that wise?”

The boy nodded. “Giving the guy something to focus on will be good for him. And I’m sure Mr. Jenkins could use the help.”

The assistant’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “I guess you have a point.” Her face smoothed out, smiling gratefully at him. “Thank you, by the way, for coming and helping with all this.” 

“It’s just what I do.” Danny shrugged. “No big deal.”

 “Seriously. This all wouldn’t still be standing without you.” She motioned around her vaguely. “We’d be in a mess without you, Phantom.”

“Well then…” The boy blushed at the praise. “You’re welcome… uh, I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Nancy.” She smiled.

“Nancy.” Danny gave a nod. “Everything’s good here so I’m going to head out. Give FentonWorks a call if you need anything.”

“I will.” 

With a wave, the half ghost drifted up and phased through the ceiling. He flew over the salvage yard, catching a glimpse of the two men, one human and one ghost. Mr. Jenkins leaned against the vehicle, arms crossed casually. Technus floated, head lifted to the sky. His unique brand of laughter carried on the wind, the human’s hearty chuckle just as real and vibrant below it.

Danny beamed down at the scene. “Yeah. They’re going to be fine.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny returned home to his ghost researcher parents, both proudly congratulating him on peacefully dealing with Technus. After which of course, both had to blather on about their latest inventions. The boy fondly rolled his eyes.

He tried to invisibly sneak up on his big sister, the super-powered little brother’s prerogative. To his chagrin, he was unsuccessful though; before he could even think of turning her chair intangible, she turned the spray bottle on him like he was a misbehaving cat. 

He logged onto Doom and played with his best friends. The boss of the current level decimated their party three times before they gave up for now and started on a new side quest. All the while, they talked about new movies, rumors and gossip at school, Ember’s upcoming concert, and convincing Sidney to join them for D&D.

Family and friends. Ghosts and humans and the two somehow, miraculously existing together. All this and more, in a day in the life of a half ghost. 

And now, during the darkest part of the night, that eerie time between the late night and early morning, the Haunting Hour. Now, Danny Fenton-Phantom floated on his back, suspended in the air above the Ops Center.

Blobby snuggled against him, tiny paws kneading biscuits into his side. The smaller ghost purred loudly, now firmly settled into something between a very cat-like blob and a blob-like cat. The boy gently stroked his pet, idly scrolling through his phone. 

A text notification pinged and Danny laughed, typing back.

Danny: that’s the most cursed meme i’ve ever seen

Another cursed follow up. And another. Danny snorted, sending his own.

Tucker: 😵 ☠️ Deed. Y u stil up thoigh?

Danny: Dude it’s spooky hour. Getting my haunt on.

Tucker: U lucky basterd. Ony need 4 hrs of skeep

Danny: 😜 Y r u still up?

Tucker: Doom. newd new armor. 

Tucker: 😵 stupd skelton killed me😭

Danny: Go to sleep!

Tucker: Neverrttt5454er66wreeqwsd

Danny: ?

Tucker: dropped phome on my face

Tucker: maybe i shoud slep

Danny: You think? 🤨

Tucker: One more meme!

Tucker: Phantomceiling.mov

Tucker: wrong file. 😴🥱😫 Sry. Gd night Danny

Danny laughed softly, shaking his head at his sleepy friend. He could imagine it, Tucker half-way across town, drifting off at his computer, gaming with one hand and texting with the other. No wonder the skeletons, the freaking easiest monster in the game, managed to kill him. 

And he sent a random video? Danny tilted his head at the file name, pressing play.

“Woah!” Tucker’s excited voice cheered. 

The camera shifted wildly, a blurry tan surface covering the screen. The crispness of the image wavered, in and out until…. tiny, glow-in-the-dark stars shifted into focus. On the… ceiling? Why did Tucker have a video of his bedroom ceiling?

“I can’t even believe this, I’m floating!” This friend’s voice cheered. 

The half ghost’s eyes widened, suddenly remembering. This video, the one Tucker made while swinging from the ceiling. Meaning….

The image titled, pointed directly above and…  Black suit, white hair, sparkling green eyes paned into view. Danny felt his heart squeeze.

“Say hi, Danny.” Tucker laughed. 

“Hi Danny.” The ghost stuck out his tongue, giving a wave.

“Hi Phantom.” The boy smiled softly, waving back.

This video… he’d forgotten about it completely. Hadn’t even realized they had any video from when he was split, all those months ago. And now…

On the screen, Tucker grunted in effort, Phantom’s face deceptively even, eyes twinkling with suppressed mirth.

And now, Danny could remember it like it was yesterday. His feet planted firmly on the ceiling, one hand in Tucker’s, his familiar weightlessness spread through the contact. That was him, trying to hold back his laughter. And yet… 

“Come… on.” His friend shouted in frustration. “Come on!” Two voices burst out in laughter, one higher pitched- obviously Sam. And the other….

The camera panned. Black hair, blue eyes pinched closed, mouth open with his laughter.

“Hi, Fenton.” His eyes crinkled, a fond mirth.

Danny remembered this too. Busting a gut at a constipated-looking Tucker, bent over with his chortles, Sam rolling her eyes at his comment. That was him. And yet…

After re-fusing, it had felt like he’d been asleep for a long time. Like he hadn’t really been present; it was all a dream. And yet, he had been right there. He remembered everything. It was like he told Jazz, all those months ago. He was Phantom and Fenton. Fenton and Phantom had been him. And yet he, the Danny thinking this thought, hadn’t really been there. But now….

The video continued, the camera passed around as Tucker cheered, swinging like a pendulum. As Sam had her turn, laughing hysterically the entire time. As Jazz screamed to be put down, before admitting that it wasn’t so bad. All the while, Danny chuckled at the scene. His smile grew, something soft and precious and fond.

“Wait… how?” Tucker wrinkled his brow. “I don’t get it.”

“He’s tapping into our powers.” Phantom righted himself in the air. “I mean, I’m the ghost so I’m technically the one with the powers right now. But we’re still the same person.”

“So I can kinda use them if we’re touching.” Fenton explained. “I uhh… actually turned myself intangible last night, when Phantom did it and I was touching him.”

The video ended there, Fenton and Phantom side by side. The human’s brow wrinkled in thought. The ghost mid-nod, agreeing. 

And Danny’s heart squeezed, something nostalgic. “Guys. We made it.” A finger brushed the screen. As if he could reach back to then and reassure both halves of himself. “We made it.” 

Danny remembered that day where it started. Sitting with his friends, his burger falling through his hands. That was the final straw, the moment that changed everything. It led to his fateful decision to go through the ghost catcher. A bad decision but it had left him all the better. It had taught him many hard won lessons, changing the way he saw his friends, his parents, and most importantly himself.

And those lessons…. Danny remembered, his dream the night he re-merged.

“I’m going to be okay.” A soft, swirling gratitude. “I won’t forget what I learned when I was you guys. I’ll remember.” 

Danny hadn’t forgotten. He’d come back to himself, like finally coming home. And he’d found that he was more. More than just Phantom plus Fenton. More than just human plus ghost. 

Letting out a sigh, the ghost boy lowered himself in the air, down to the roof of the Ops Center. To the camping chair left out here for his nightly star gazing. Blobby curled into his lap, the halfa giving gentle pets. His head drifted up, towards the sky.

And he let himself remember his last night as two halves of himself. 

Danny closed his eyes and he was back there. Sitting side by side. Pointing out constellations and telling stories, one arm around his other half. And at the same time, drifting off to sleep to the echoing voice, his body comfortably leaned against the familiar chilly presence.

“Hey, I’m very witty. You just happen to share my brain.” The ghost grinned, roughly ruffling his counterpart’s hair. “Can’t get one over on you, can I?”

“I’m the pun master.” Fenton chuckled, leaning into the touch.

“You’re annoying, that’s what you are.” Phantom teased.

A chuckle at the memory. Seeing this from both sides really shouldn’t make sense. Yet it couldn’t be more clear…

“I love you too.” The human muttered, rolling his eyes.

The ghost stilled, his free hand dropping out of the black hair. His core squeezed, jovial teasing giving way to a soft and quiet joy. The tiredness radiated off of his other self, heavy enough that he was starting to get silly. But those words…. Every syllable was real. 

Phantom breathed. Teasing and joking was familiar, comfortable even. He was even used to transparency, tender honesty. But this…. The arm still around his human half tightened, his free arm circling around Fenton’s front. He had said earlier, if they had anything else to say to each other while they were still split, they should say it.

Ghost Danny completed the hug. “I do love you.”

Back on the roof, Danny’s hand tenderly rested over his heart-core. Maybe if anyone else had seen that moment, he’d feel embarrassed, ashamed. But that moment was just for him. That same soft and quiet joy rose, quivering in his chest. Splitting himself had let Danny see himself in new ways. He’d learned so much. He’d grown to know, accept, appreciate, and, yes, love both halves of himself. As strange as it was to say, Fenton and Phantom had loved each other. 

An overbearing gratitude washed over him at that. Gratitude that they (that he) had been brave enough to voice that, to give him this memory. This proof, this reminder of how far he’d come. Of all he’d learned. 

He had suffered and struggled and agonized. He had fought with his own self-hatred and doubt, his shame and fear, with the painful reminders of his death. But with the love and support of his parents, sister, and friends, he had overcome. He had learned and grown and changed. The transformation itself hurt and terrified him. But he had risen above it. And now. Now Danny loved who he had become.

And who had he become? What did loving himself mean now, with his heart and core nestled together, where they belonged? It meant taking care of himself. Letting his friends and family know him and love him. Loving other people. It meant eating enough– both ecto and regular food-, sleeping well, watching the stars during his Haunting Hour. Spending time with his loved ones and letting them share his burdens. Helping others as Danny Phantom.

He saved humans in the town with his powers when ghost animals appeared or over-enthusiastic ghosts wouldn’t listen. He helped lost ghosts find their way back to the portal. He worked to find ways for humans and ghosts to exist together.

The idea from when he’d been talking to Sidney earlier flickered in his mind. A shared place for the ghosts on this side of the portal to gather, to bond, to help each other. A kind of Sanctuary, that was his dream.

That first time he’d almost fused, before telling his parents about Phantom, he’d dreamed of the human in the ghostly, ghostly in the human. He’d imagined truly being both. And now Danny found he was. The life he wanted was here, in the life he was building.

Danny unlocked his phone again, taking the image of Fenton and Phantom side by side. “We’ve come so far.” His eyes softened, full of awe and gratitude. “I said it before, in that dream. I’m happy I was both of you. And thank you for working to grow into who I am now.” 

In his lab, Blobby mewed, head jerking up at something in the sky. The half ghost looked, eyes widening. A shooting star, streaming across the vibrantly deep sky. 

His core fluttered in time with his heart, swelling with hope. Danny smiled. “Here’s to whatever comes next.”

Note: Thank you all for reading! Whether you joined me at the beginning back in 2019, you started following only recently, or you're binging at some point in the future, I appreciate you! I would never have written this story, let alone finished it, without all the kind comments on here and fanfiction.net, Tumblr reblogs and rambles in the tags, and DMs on Tumblr and Discord. If you ever talked to me about this story, offered your support and encouragement, I am so thankful to you. I am so thankful for the friendships I've found through this fic and for how much I've grown as a writer.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter and the story as a whole. I love and appreciate you all!

[ferronickel]

@stainedglassthreads asked about my inspirations when it comes to comics creation, which I am always excited to talk about! (You have unwittingly activated my trap card, so be prepared for a long ramble!)

My comics are primarily a product of the 2014 Image boom and the 2000s webcomic scene....

...and the main sources of my comics craft knowledge are the works of writer Kieron Gillen, artist Jamie McKelvie, and colorist Matt Wilson. They're an incredible team and everything they've done together is worth checking out, but I'm going to talk about two of their comics here. Young Avengers (2012) is a good place to start. Tons of formalism and interesting panel layouts. It's the first place I looked for inspiration when I was planning the design for Looking Glasses. Definitely worth checking out if you like cape comics, but also worth it if you don't, it's pretty stand alone. (Plus it introduces a lot of ideas and characters that Marvel is currently pillaging for the MCU, so it's always nice to see those ideas in their original context before my employers ruin it)

I can't talk about comics without bringing up The Wicked + The Divine (2014, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matt Wilson, lettering by Clayton Cowles). It's an incredible comic and a formalist masterpiece. 12 young people are reincarnated as gods, they have two years to live, and also they're pop stars. Issues frequently challenge the way you read comics, or break into completely other mediums (One issue was written almost entirely by real world magazine writers interviewing the in-universe characters). You can see my influences here pretty clearly: the interstitials, the style shifting, my recent (incredibly blatant) reference to Lucifer's transformation. Also the fashion, Jamie McKelvie is a fantastic designer! This comic is a must read for anyone interested in the medium of comics, especially Kieron's writers notes (all available here on tumblr at @ kierongillen), where he breaks each issue down panel by panel. The writer's notes are essentially a free masterclass in comics craft. (and when you've read that, check out the zine I organized with @gen-is-gone and 37 other artists here on tumblr at @iconic-zine) I cannot overstate that this comic is the reason I make comics.

I feel like I can't not mention DIE (2018, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, lettering by Clayton Cowles). Six kids disappeared into their d&d world and returned two years later, now they're adults and their past is coming back to haunt them. It's a fascinating exploration of portal fantasies, and has definitely influenced how I approach the dark world/darkners. (also, if you read DIE and want a good breakdown of the historical stuff, be sure to check out the podcast DIE-Compressed)

Honorable mentions: The visual stylings of Caspar Wijngaard in Home Sick Pilots (2021, Watters, Wijngaard, Bidikar, Muller) The colors of colorist Jordie Bellaire, in this case Injection (2015, Ellis, Shalvey, Bellaire) The work of Emily Carroll Everything from Pretty Deadly (2015, Deconnick, Rios, Bellaire, Cowles) A lot of stuff from Sex Criminals (2014, Fraction, Zdarsky), it's an incredible comic that goes way beyond it's (fairly nsfw) concept. There's a ton of formalist stuff here, and it tackles all sorts of concepts with a level of depth you wouldn't expect from such a silly setup.

In terms of webcomics influence, I am, unfortunately, a bit of a Homestuck. There's a lot to be said about this comic and I'm trying to keep my word count down here, so let's just say that it's arguably one of the most influential webcomics, and while many of it's ideas aren't necessarily unique or are derivative of other works it is singular in it's scope and presence. I find it mainly affects my own work in the way I think about the website design. (Plus, you know, Toby Fox)

Other notable webcomics that have influenced my work:

The works of Evan Dahm Barbarous Stand Still Stay Silent Lackadaisy (and a bunch more, but this has gone on long enough)

[rcbirdy]

So yesterday was Hourly Comic Day and I actually remembered to do it this year! I posted these on Bluesky as I drew them (because I have a Bluesky now), but here they are all together for Tumblr.

[ID: Six images showing the life of the artist. Individual image descriptions follow.

A two-panel comic showing the hours from 12:00 to 7:00. First panel shows the artist in bed with very wild hair, looking determined. She thinks, "I forget every year. Well not this time!" Second panel narration says "Recently started playing Wordle and comparing results with family. Got it in 5 today!" The image shows a text conversation between Aunt, who guessed the word in 3 tries, and Me, who guessed the word in 5 tries.

Three-panel comic showing the hours from 7:00 to 10:00. First panel narration reads "Breakfast," with a side note reading "(cranberry-orange muffin)." The art shows the muffin surrounded by glitter. Second panel narration reads "Shower," the art shows the artist behind a shower curtain washing her hair. Third panel narration reads "Social Media," and the art shows the artist sitting at a desk with her hair wrapped in a towel, eating the muffin. A thought bubble reads "oh yeah I should post these." A splash in the lower right corner reads "RIVETING!"

A two-panel comic showing the hours from 10:00 to 3:00. First panel narration reads "I did a few Productive Adult Things TM…", art shows the artist folding laundry, framing a poster, and cleaning a fountain pen. Second panel narration reads "…and got a treat." Art shows the artist sitting at a table wearing a jacket, drinking a boba tea. Dialogue on the side of the image reads "boober <3".

A one-panel comic showing the hours of 3:00 to 6:00. Narration text reads "Comic drawing and podcast listening." The art shows an over-the-shoulder view of the artist sitting at a computer, drawing a comic about some sort of wormy creature. Off-screen the podcast is playing, and speech bubbles read "Perhaps so we do not get lost, we should hold onto each others' tails."

A two-panel comic showing the hours from 6:00 to 9:00. First panel narration reads "Lunchbossed too close to the sun and now I have a tummyache." The art shows the artist leaning back in her chair with a tired look on her face, her stomach is grumbling and she is weakly saying "nooooo." Second panel shows the artist reaching towards a bowl, saying "Save me, ice cream!"

A two-panel comic showing the hours from 9:00 to 12:00. First panel narration text reads "Finishing off the day with some BG3!" The art shows the artist sitting at her computer and playing the game. Second panel narration text reads "It's my second playthrough so I'm going after Gale this time. (I still think he's a dipshit but now it's /affectionate)." The art shows Gale eating a magical cloak while the halfling player character looks on, thinking "ohhh I can't NOT fuck him."

End ID.]

[brockitty-goober]

do u guys want me to finish this comic? I got it all written out but I kinda lost motivation after this part

sorry for saying “greystripe” but I’m Canadian and it’s pronounced ZED >:(

also sorry for saying “how much budget” I know not enough about money 😭

I don’t really wanna type alt text in image desc. cus.

way too long.

so I’ll write it under the cut!!

an aqua/turquoise(?) banner at the top of the picture reads “StarClan and Frostpaw in a nutshell”. Panel one: Riverstar holding his paw out, paw pads facing the sky, pointing at the Moonpool in StarClan. He has an annoyed expression on his face. Windstar sits behind him, a little confused. Riverstar is saying “MOUSE DUNG! Reedwhisker just died too!” and a cartoonish, dead Reedwhisker can be seen in the pool.

Panel two: Riverstar is holding his paws out in frustration and exasperation. He is saying “All we have is an undertrained medicine apprentice!” and a silly-looking Frostpaw can be seen in the pool. Behind him Windstar looks even more confused, stating “Or you could just.. yknow.. send a vision? To a different cat? Because it doesn’t have to be.. a medicine cat..”

Panel three: The back of Riverstar’s head can be seen and Windstar nor the Moonpool is in the shot. He is looking over to Greystripe who is loafing beside some trees. Riverstar is saying “Hey Greystripe, how much budget do we have for visions right now?”

Panel four: Riverstar and Greystripe stand beside each other. Greystripe now has little reading glasses and is writing on a clipboard. Here is their exchange, with Greystripe speaking first:

“Medicine cat or no?”

“Medicine apprentice.”

“RiverClan, correct?”

“Yep.”

Panel five: Greystripe is hidden behind his big clipboard which he is displaying to Riverstar. It only has unintelligible scribbles all over it to represent writing. Riverstar says “THREE MILLION DOLLARS?! We could just BUY a leader with this!”

Panel six: Ditto, but this time the clipboard is on a different page and can be read. It reads, each in different slots, with the expenses beside them: “we go to waffle house (w/ out fire star), -$125”

“another wig for ashfur, -$300”

“dawn of the clans cats want more money for their retirement (why won’t they just fade already), -$25,000”

“Warrior code rule change, -$60”

“Silverstream sues me, -$30,000”

“Millie sues me, -$50,000”

“Mistystar and Reedwhisker, -$90.75”

“Ashfur sues us for not giving him a Dark Forest visa, -$9000”

“TOTAL: $2”

Panel seven: Riverstar looks mortified, saying “‘$2.00’?”

Panel eight: Greystripe is nudging Ravenpaw, who seems to be interrupted from a cat bath. Greystripe has a big smile on his face while Ravenpaw looks really irritated. Greystripe says “I betcha we could get Ravenpaw to lend us a buck.” SFX: *wink wink nudge nudge*

[leenfiend]

I thought the Two Slow Dancers comic would be a fun opportunity to break down my process a lil bit cause this was a lot of undoing and redoing and adding so for any ppl curious it will be under the cut!!

So to start off I actually only thumbnailed what is now page five and six, the original image in my mind was them reaching out to each other in different seasons clothing, I considered just making an animated version of that but then I connected it to the two slow dancers scene I had imagined in my head a month or so back and wanted to make it part of a small narrative:

(I actually did page six first - u can tell by the way my writing is nearly incomprehensible that this idea came to me like a vision in the night)

But then looking at that i said - well surely that doesn’t tell the story enough. I need more. And then I played two slow dancers on repeat for probably an hour while I thumbnailed a surrounding narrative for those two pages and ended up with this mess:

And from there I actually started working on the lineart two pages at a time - I like working on freakishly large two page spreads because to me it helps the flow feel more cohesive, I don’t look at them as isolated pages until I get to the shading part of the process.

But once I sent it to some ppl for feedback and reread it myself a million times I felt like the story still wasn’t reading the way I wanted it to - two out of six pages were “flashbacks/memories” pages and that ratio didn’t really allow for the other four pages to read as a cohesive story in my opinion so I kept trying to workshop two more pages for the front and I went through a few iterations:

I thought at first I would show the outside of the garrison, give the audience more of a setting, and then show the flyer so we know Keith is getting ready for this celebration. But it was too literal for me (even though what I ended up doing was still pretty literal lmao). So then I started with the phone/text messages as a story telling device:

Also this is an example of how I almost always draw the comic panels before I decide what goes in them haha, unless I’m really sure what images I plan on focusing in on the panels almost always end up informing what goes inside if that makes sense. But I finally ended up here when I decided “that’s good enough”

I even did most of the lineart for this composition before I decided the imagery of the jacket was just too repetitive, like we don’t need THREE PAGES of keith putting on a jacket.

So i kind of just moved the left page over to the right, and left the right page blank for most of the rest of the comic process. I finished most of the lineart on the rest of it before I finally circled back and decided to go with a tweak of what I originally thought was a lame idea (I had this image in my head of the lions silhouette against the glow of the Earth for the first page, but with the lyrics “the ground has been slowly pulling us back down” I thought it was just too cheesy, especially because that’s not what the lyrics mean either in the song or in the context of this comic and I didn’t want them to be perceived as so literal)

So this is the thumbnail I landed on for that which eventually turned into the actual final page.

Once I had all of the thumbnailing done the rest was pretty fun work! Just lots of going back in and detailing out the scribbles I had first put down. Now in terms of color, I actually have a secret. Most times I don’t color much at all? It depends on the piece but for most of my comics what I do is this -

I flat greyscale color everything and then use a color curve adjuster inside of procreate to pick a color pallet:

color adjusters are ur friend for picking color pallets i'm TELLING YOU!! I used to have a lot of trouble with cohesive color comps but it's a lot easier for me even without using this method now. Anyway I usually leave it here, in my other comics I don't have any shading or background elements outside of the panels but I figured since I was working so much on this comic anyway, I might as well light it a bit. So I basically just scribbled over the whole composition with a purple marker set on a multiply layer and then erased out the places I wanted light to hit, and then added a soft light layer with colored lights to give it more of a party look:

The only hang up I had during the coloring process of all this was how to color the "memory" pages. I originally just wanted them to be more pastel/blue, I thought that would make them look distinct enough. So I painted/shaded this whole page before looking at it within the rest of the composition and deciding it didn't read well at all and ended up sliding the saturation down to zero and calling it a day:

But I'm happy with that decision because it allowed for the "coming into color" moment with the other memory page and I think it connects better to the rest of the comic visually that way. And that was the whole process! There were tons of other little adjustments I made along the way and other composition things I tried out but I do tend to erase instead of iterate in layers so this is the process I have to show you! As a little bonus behind the scenes, here's the time lapse replay of that initial thumbnail for all eight pages! (it is sideways just because it's so large so if you're on a phone/tablet/laptop just turn ur screen sideways otherwise I'm so sorry lmao)

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Mosaic - Fragments David Ellis

wada sez: Gather 'round, gather 'round, I have two more lost scripts to show ye. These were shared by David Ellis, who wrote just a single Mosaic to be released: "War Story". Not for lack of trying, though! It's shocking to me that nobody picked up either of these scripts, as they're both remarkably good.

"Hobby Time" (Bumblebee) [2010-09-21]

Panel One Iconic image of Bumblebee's robot mode as seen in the "--ation" trilogy. He's projecting a holomatter image of his holo-driver, the nameless hippy-chick female (and be sure to have her image flicker a bit so make it clear she's a hologram and not an actual human). The look on her face is inert; his is full of concentration.

(Also, leave room for the story's title and credits.)

CAPTION (Bumblebee's narrative): Holograms. CAPTION: For Autobots and Decepticons alike, it's functional.

Panel Two Cut to a view of Bumblebee's vehicle mode driving down the highway with the same holo-female at the wheel. Maybe show another car passing by, to get a sense of the Autobots being seen by others on a regular basis. In fact, would it work for the POV of this panel to be from inside some motorist's car?

CAPTION: It allows us to hide in plain sight on various worlds, without the natives wondering why we "vehicles" are moving around without drivers. CAPTION: Find a native, scan it, make a holo, and take care of business.

Panel Three Ideally, this panel should cover the width of the page. It's several versions of the same holo-female, each with a different outfit and hairstyle. The first could be her hippy-chick outfit as seen in the comics; another could be a Goth look; another could be a businesswoman, and so on. Heck, one could be wildly improbable like an heiress with a classy ballroom gown, or something from a Victoria's Secret store window (if that's not too risque), to show that while Bumblebee is aware of the idea of different looks on the same human, he's still experimenting and doesn't yet grasp the subtleties of fashion.

CAPTION: For me, it's something different. CAPTION: A fascination, for lack of a better word. CAPTION: The others don't notice, but I see so many different humans wearing so many different things. CAPTION: There's a point behind it; I know there is, and I want my holo-driver to blend in.

Panel Four We see Ironhide and Jazz watching Bumblebee as he crouches in a corner of their base, projecting his holo and looking for all the world like a boy caught playing with a doll. They look amused; he looks annoyed that they're teasing him.

CAPTION: The others are on my case about it. CAPTION: Prowl tells me not to waste energy on holomatter unless I'm on a mission. Jazz and Ironhide think it's funny. CAPTION: But they don't get it.

Panel Five Tight closeup of Bumblebee modifying the holo-girl's hairstyle. His face has the concentration of an artist's, as if this practice is fulfilling some inner creative need.

CAPTION: This war with the Decepticons leaves so much destruction and chaos, that it's a nice change of pace just to... CAPTION: ...create. CAPTION: And I find myself wondering...

Panel Six Cut to a police mugshot -- front view and side view, holding a nameplate in each one -- of a woman looking very much like Bumblebee's holo-girl, but she doesn't look much like the happy, idealized image Bumblebee carries around. She has a very weathered expression on her face, as she's not happy with the whole arrest-and-booking procedure; she looks like she's been through some hard living. The name and serial number can be whatever you want to put on there, just make it look like a convincing mugshot.

CAPTION: ...whatever happened to that human I scanned once? CAPTION: What's her life like? Is she anything like the way I imagine her? CAPTION: Maybe I'll find out one day.

END

wada sez: I'll be perfectly honest, David Ellis is clearly a cut above the vast majority of Mosaic writers. There's a few things here which make me roll my eyes—the rubbish title, the way it zeroes in on this one woman from Infiltration, and the twist of "aha, she was a criminal all along!"—but it's technically competent stuff that feels like it's engaging with actual human emotions through a uniquely Transformers lens. It's the idea of an image of a person as a proxy for the person themself; of idealising someone until the image becomes entirely divorced from the truth of that person. This is made more complex by the fact that this is also a form of self-actualization for Bumblebee; the woman he's fixating on forms the basis of an identity he is constructing for himself on Earth. The sentence "boy caught playing with a doll" evokes gender non-conformity to me—but on a much more direct level, I imagine many online Transformers fans would relate to this in the sense that we're all too old to be playing with toys, from a typical perspective. It's a story that invites interpretation and should resonate with people for different reasons, meaningfully building upon a minor beat from the official comics. For me, it's the final panel that really lets the script down—I think the dramatic irony of knowing the truth about the woman takes us out of Bumblebee's perspective without adding much to the story. Surely the tragedy here is that Bumblebee's life is so completely removed from human experience that he will likely never see this person again, and certainly never understand her! This next script is also thoughtful in its own way...

"Last of the Line" (Optimus Prime) [2010-09-21]

NOTE TO ARTIST AND COLORIST: This story takes place in the "Transformers: War for Cybertron" video game continuity. As such, all character designs and backgrounds should be noticeably in keeping with that game's aesthetic, with the exception of the last panel, which is '80s-era Generation One.

Also, except for the last panel, all characters should be in colors other than those we've come to associate with the canon characters. We're dealing with player-controlled character models from Team Deathmatch, explained here as other 'bots who walked off the same assembly lines as the characters we know.

Panel One Splashy panel of War for Cybertron's multiplayer Autobots charging into battle on the "Molten" map. We see a dark blue SPEEDSTER SCOUT (Sideswipe's body), a red INTERCEPTOR JET SCIENTIST (Silverbolt's body), a green DEFENDER SOLDIER (Warpath's body), and – most notably – a gold HEAVY RIG LEADER (Optimus' body).

The Leader is bolstering his teammates with a War Cry ability, so it'd be cool to see the glowing effect around the Autobots (likely via computer coloring).

(Also, leave room for the story's title and credits.)

CAPTION (Optimus Prime's narrative): This war has consumed our entire race. CAPTION: Not just as a collective…

Panel Two Reverse-angle shot of four Decepticons, toward whom the Autobots are charging. Bringing up the read is a CRUSHER SOLDIER (Brawl's body); leaping skyward is a STALKER SCIENTIST (Slipstream's body). Charging out in front are two ENFORCER SCOUTS (Barricade's body), distinguishable only by their differing color schemes. Most of the focus should be on the Enforcer Scouts.

CAPTION: …but as individuals as well. CAPTION: We are born on assembly lines, batches of us, numbering in the hundreds.

Panel Three One Enforcer Scout (#1) transforms into his car mode, while the other (#2), continues firing his EMP shotgun.

CAPTION: Hundreds of the same model… CAPTION: …but each one is distinct. ENFORCER SCOUT #2: Flank 'em if you want, but I like the direct approach!

Panel Four The Heavy Rig Leader cleaves #2 in the face with his Energon Axe, causing #2 to drop his shotgun. #1 can be seen in car mode behind Heavy Rig, peppering him with machine-gun fire.

ENFORCER SCOUT #2: Agk! ENFORCER SCOUT #1: Serves you right! CAPTION: Each one has become a fighter in this war…

Panel Five Splashy panel of the CRUSHER SOLDIER in the Autobots' midst, clubbing Heavy Rig and Speedster Scout with his Energon Hammer while using his Whirlwind ability.

CAPTION: …but some are better soldiers than others.

Panel Six Heavy Rig lies on the craggy magma ground, his armor shredded by Crusher's hammer. It's the instant before the Autobot explodes. Maybe include Crusher's foot in the panel as he walks over Heavy Rig's body.

CAPTION: Very few of us from ANY model line have survived to the present day.

Panel Seven Cut to OPTIMUS PRIME (the real one, not just a Heavy Rig), G1-style, set against an Earth backdrop, perhaps a forest of trees in the Pacific Northwest – as far away from Cybertron's Molten map as one could get.

His posture is contemplative, as if it bothers him how few of his kind have survived.

CAPTION: Hundreds of thousands of lives lost. CAPTION: Individual sparks extinguished. CAPTION: Leaving precious few to carry on the model line, and the Cybertronian race itself. CAPTION: I fear this war will lead to our extinction.

END

David sez: This one is based on the "Transformers: Warfor Cybertron" video game. It occurred to me that in a way all those multiplayer matches with player-created Transformers could actually be in continuity, since they're products of assembly lines. The multiplayer matches represent early skirmishes in the Autobot/Decepticon war, and that's why we haven't seen the countless iterations of the model lines that must have existed. They were blown to smithereenies.

[ifwebefriends]

Happy Solar Eclipse day to the seven years woman and ONLY the seven years woman

Source

Content ID under cut

[Content ID: a 20-panel comic. It’s drawn in a simplistic stick-figure art style. The first 8 panels are more faded than the final 12

Panel 1: a woman and her boyfriend are sitting on a bed while the woman gets a call from a doctor. The boyfriend has one hand on her shoulder and another holding her unoccupied hand. She says “oh god”

Panel 2: the woman is sitting in a large chair, she has lost her hair and is receiving an IV infusion. The machine goes “…beeep…beeep…beeep” her boyfriend is sitting next to her. They’re both working on laptops.

Panel 3: the woman and boyfriend are canoeing on a lake. The woman is wearing a beanie. There’s lilypads in the lake and mountains in the background.

Panel 4: The woman and her boyfriend are sitting at a table. The woman is still bald. There’s a phone on the table and a clock on the wall. The woman says “how long can it take to read a scan!?”

Panel 5: the woman is receiving another IV infusion. Her boyfriend is with her and they’re playing scrabble. The boyfriend says “‘zarg’ isn’t a word.” The woman responds “but caaaancer.” The boyfriend relents “…ok, fine”

Panel 6: the woman and her boyfriend are talking to someone else. The woman is wearing a hat. The other person says “so next year you should come visit us up in the mountains and” the rest of his text is obscured. The woman and the boyfriend are both thinking “next year”

Panel 7: the woman and the boyfriend are getting married. The man is wearing a bow tie and the woman is wearing a white dress and veil. Her hair is short and a bit frizzy. There’s lots of other people there.

Panel 8: a caption at the top says “two years” the woman and her husband are at a coast watching a large bird swoop in and take a fish with a “fwoosh.” the girl is wearing a hat. This panel is the last of the faded ones.

Panel 9: the woman and her husband are walking through a forest full of tall trees. The woman seems to have grown back some of her hair.

Panel 10: the woman is sitting on the ground, her hair is down to the nape of her neck. Her husband is standing behind her. The woman says “my toe hurts. And I found a report of a case in which toe pain was an early sign of cancer spreading.” The husband responds “wait—didn’t you stub your toe yesterday?” The woman responds “yes, but what if this is unrelated?”

Panel 11: the woman and her husband are climbing into a dark cave while someone else guides them. The woman’s hair is down to her shoulders.

Panel 12: the woman is on a large rock taking a picture of a crocodile with a large camera. Her husband stands behind her on a platform with rails, he says “when they estimated your survival odds, I think they made some optimistic assumptions about your hobbies”

Panel 13: the woman is at a doctor’s appointment. Her hair is a little past her shoulders. The doctor says “this is probably nothing, but given your history, we should do a full scan. We’ll call with the results in a few days. Try not to worry about it until then!”

Panel 14: the woman and her husband are at a lake, their image is distorted by the water due to the angle of the picture. The woman is controlling a small submersible camera, she is looking at the lake floor.

Panel 15: the woman and her husband are standing next to each other. The woman’s hair has grown a bit past her shoulders. The woman says “hard to believe—six years ago, I was bald. But today, after a long struggle, I finally look like the little girl from The Ring.” Her husband responds “that’s, uhh…good?” The woman responds “hissssss”

Panel 16: the woman, her husband, and two other women and two other men are looking at a solar eclipse. The landscape is dark and you can see the corona behind the dark moon.

Panel 17: after the eclipse has passed, the world is bright again and everyone looks at each other. another blonde woman says “wow.” The woman says “yeah.”

Panel 18: the woman and her husband walk away hand in hand. The woman says “that was incredible. When’s the next one?” The husband responds “in seven years. Wanna go see it?”

Panel 19: the woman and her husband, still walking hand in hand, are both thinking of a timeline. The timeline has the years 2010, 2017, and 2024 marked with points. Before 2017, the timeline is a solid line, but after 2017, it’s a dashed line. There’s three question marks under the 2024 bullet point.

Panel 20: the woman says “yeah. I’ll do my best.” Her husband responds “it’s a date!”

End ID]

[zeroducks-2]

has anyone asked abt batjokes for the ship game

you're the first anon! And DAMN YES

I ship it!

What made you ship it? Reading The Killing Joke at the ripe old age of eight. My mother thought comics were for kids and bought me a big ass "essential Batman stories" book, which started out with The Killing Joke and it rewired my brain I guess (my Batman experience up to that point had been random episodes of Batman Beyond).

What are your favorite things about the ship? I reckon I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here. Sorry Anon I don't suppose this was the answer you were hoping for, but I am unable to contain myself :> So being that this is my first DC ship (and it might even be my first ship PERIOD), I'm more of a "I nostalgically ship it from afar" than an active, fanfiction-reader/writer kind of fan, but surely my enjoyment has always been rooted in the fact that it's a villain/hero situation where they're two sides of the same coin, at the point where they can't exist without one another. I ship Batman with 50% of his rogue gallery tbh, and unless it's just 'cause it looks hot, it tends to be about how Bruce tries to see the human side of these people (sometimes because he's known them since before they were rogues), how he extends a helping hand when he can, how he refuses to kill them because there has to be a way to rehabilitate them (and sometimes there is, and it's just the tragic nature of these stories which prevents the "rogues" from getting their own form of happy ending). This happens with the Joker too, and the most memorable occasion in which this happens is after Joker tortured and crippled Barbara (someone Bruce is supposed to love and care for), beside what he also does to Jim Gordon (also someone Bruce is supposed to be friends with). Joker himself tells Batman more or less "I hurt a defenseless girl, I terrorized an old man, what are you waiting for just beat the shit out of me" to which BRUCE SAYS NO. He says no because "you're just like me except you had one bad day too many, and I know you can get better, and I want to help you". We all know how The Killing Joke ends, with the proverbial joke and them laughing like maniacs about it (I have the panels always around so yall can experience them with me)

And the image of them laughing together is forever seared into my brain, especially because even if this guy did whatever the hell he did (and will keep doing it), Bruce replied with empathy and compassion. A monster, the irredeemable one who's never going to stop before anything because he's not even human, at this point he's the embodiment of everything wrong there can be in a person - he just got smothered with compassion and it almost worked. The "joke" (two madmen escape the loony bin, etc) is Joker's way to say "I'm sorry I really want to take your hand but I can't, I just can't do it", and Bruce understands this and for a brief moment of six panels it's just two friends laughing together. And that part of me which will always see itself in the ugly, irredeemable, rejected monster was and will always be so profoundly fulfilled by this.

Of course I am also not immune to the whole "you need me, you love me and you can't live without me" thing to which Batman reacts by kicking and screaming that it's not true, but which is indeed true and in every story in which Joker actually dies, Bruce cannot for the love of him cope one single day without him. This post puts it briefly but beautifully, go give it a look if you're rabid a fan of the dynamic such as I am.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? Liking this ship (and Joker in general) is unpopular in and of itself lol, but I guess I can say that my unpopular preference is that as much as I ship them, I don't see sex involved in any part of their relationship which is more based off of beating the shit out of each other (or laughing about a dumbass joke in a stormy night in an abandoned amusement park), and being unable to let the other go when the chance presents itself. I see sex as essentially unnecessary in their dynamic, but it's also true that I don't really peruse Batjokes content beside the occasional fanart, so the sex part might have just not clicked with me yet.

[lightningfilledsaber]

quick lil comic of Vira (she/it) and Czajka (he/she) being fucking cute

left -> right ... image description under cut

A six panel comic of my ocs Vira and Czajka. Vira is a shorter, thin person with split-dyed hair styled in a buzzcut. In this comic she is simply colored green, with some monochrome shading. Czajka is a taller, fat person with a large nose and curly hair who dresses modestly and covers his hair to varying degrees. In this comic she is simply colored blue. each panel has a simple, grey-splashed background.

In the first panel, Czajka and Vira sit across from each other at a small, round table. Czajka wears a bandanna over the top of her head, a light short sleeved shirt over a darker long sleeve. Vira wears a dark, cropped tank-top. Czajka is asking: “Do you like nicknames or any general terms of affection, Vira?”

The second and third panels are similar shots of Vira from the waist-up. in the second panel, she is saying: “Eeeh... I dunno... I’m more of a “show” than “tell” kind of guy so...” in the third panel she continues: “Don’t feel obligated to use any, it doesn’t matter I guess.” She is waving dismissively as she looks away with a slight blush on her face.

“LATER--” reads before going into the next panel, which has Czajka and Vira standing across from each other at an angle dressed in pyjamas. Czajka is in a shoulder-less nightgown, his hair covered by a bonnet, and Vira in a simple tank top. Vira has calico ears and a tail, and Czajka has a dark, speckled tail. Vira is shown shoulders up from behind, and Czajka is forward facing from the waist-up, standing with his body angled away from Vira, but looking in her direction. His eyes are closed and he has a pleased expression, saying to Vira: “Oh! Thank you, Darling ♡” The word “Darling” is written in cursive for emphasis.

The last two panels are similar shots of Vira from the shoulders-up. In the fifth panel, she has a simple, blank expression. In the last panel, many hearts spring up behind her as her expression changes to a large, closed-mouth grin and she blushes greatly.