#it’s still kinda hell

[teenageukulelescreamo]

also hi I am alive I promise??? Work and life have been a ton but I’d very much like to get back to drawing and making fun stuff soon!!! I’m just dealing with stress, seasonal depression, juggling work things, etc- but I am okay don’t worry!!!

[keferon]

......So originally I wanted to make just a sketch of the hug scene but mhmgkhllgkh here we are haha

Based on Mistakes on mistakes until

+ close ups of their eyes because I sprinkled them with the tiny extra details

[doffies]

i imagine family photos are a nightmare for them

[gemgdynamight0]

"thank you senpai.... for letting me live" THIS LINE ALWAYS MAKES ME WANNA SCREAM AND CRY STOP THIS

[verflares]

romance in the air ☁️💘 + some closeups under the cut!

[linrinkuarts]

Caught me by surprise.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[artkaninchenbau]

Thief! (Don't stop! 💙) [Shop]

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[dailyhmsw]

loop 152

[lylethewaterguy]

Slides my crack ship across the table for your approval

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 4 - Nuthin' but Boothill Edition

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[technically-human]

I don't know the rules for art requests so I'm hoping if I do this wrong you'll just ignore this message. I really, really like your Dead Boy Detectives art and I've been following it since the first comic with the soul orbs. I also like your different AUs and crossovers.

Could you write/draw a comic where Doom Patrol Charles meets Reverse Verse Charles? I think that could be interesting because those are the two versions of Charles who admit they're in love with Edwin, but also those two are on opposite ends of the emotional stability scale. That's probably not a good word for it-- what I mean is that DP-Charles seems comfortable with himself while RV-Charles thinks he's an absolutely terrible person, and RV-Charles is kind of manipulative at times while DP-Charles seems to be aware of others' feelings and gives them space.

Also, I think RV-Edwin and DP-Edwin might enjoy sassing each other too much.

No rules, just a lot of patience! Reading your comments always makes me happy, so I made this little thing very quickly :) I'm sure there's a lot of fun interactions for them to have, but it might take me a while to come up with more stuff.

I don't think DP!Charles has advice for RV!Charles... after all, they're kind of in the same boat. But maybe he can teach him a thing or two about giving Edwin time and space? I would love the see everyone's thoughts, because this seems like it could be a fun dynamic.

Thank you for the request, and to everyone else who sent me one: I live in shame. I will get to them.

ko-fi

[gotham-snark]

I watched Grave of the Fireflies and I'm still not recovered from that movie 😭✌️ ref under the cut

[deoidesign]

"what do hands mean about a character?"

Their hands mean they love eachother

(webcomic)

[satsuha]

personally i really like nahyuta and ema's relationship because i feel like it shows just how unused to having any kind of normal relationship nahyuta is. like everyone he loves is either out of reach or dangerous for him to approach or literally impossible for him to act normally around because of secrets that haven't been revealed. the only other significant relationship he has is with his tyrannical aunt .

ema is perfect because she's an outsider but she's also already on his side (legally speaking) so there's far less danger in him spending more time with her. at the same time he's probably acutely aware that he can't get too friendly; it's bad enough that his sister and mother are in ga'ran's clutches and he does not need her catching wind of another person to leverage against him. with her nahyuta can always fall back on the reasoning that she's useful to his prosecutorial duties in a way that he couldn't with apollo and especially not datz and dhurke

on top of all that the nahyuta and lana parallels are Not Subtle at all and while ema has no idea about it for the majority of the game's runtime i can be a bit delusional and say with nahyuta's tendency to do such extensive background research before his cases he probably does the same with people he works with. nahyuta reading about the sl-9 incident and feeling a kind of kinship to her even if she isn't made aware of any of it... maybe it's even the thing that makes him realize that he still holds out for the idea of dhurke saving him one day

i don't think nahyuta and ema would've discussed lana at all during the events of the game but as soon as everything's out in the open i feel like she would scold him soo badly. saying how he's lucky everything turned out how it did and that he'd better not waste any time bonding with rayfa from now on...