#just working on some really hard panels rn

[untoldsoup]

Something scary about drawing fan comics is when you're faced with a pose, or a background, or a color scheme that is needed to move the plot forward but you *know* is beyond your skill.

Or even just a character that's hard to draw (looking at you, early versions of bowser lol).

You know it's not turning out and it's not going to be perfect. And it won't be perfect for a while as you figure things out slowly, and the fear everyone else can see you struggled with that one panel, or that one page. Just feeling like everyone can *tell* this is where you faultered and the scope of your story was bigger than what you could do but you pushed forward anyway.

And then I read other artists comics and I wonder if they are having the same struggles. And they *must*, I can't be alone in this, but I don't see those struggles in their work. So surely If I'm reading their comic and I can't see where they faltered or struggled or feel that 'this is the worst page I've ever drawn' then no one else can see it in mine, and we truly are our own worst critic. We judge our own work on a scale we wouldn't judge others by.

You got to remind yourself the viewer most likely won't see those mistakes. And if they do they are already reading the next panel and moving on. They didn't stop to analyze and judge that one mistake that you agonized over yet couldn't properly resolve.

Sometimes when I'm struggling, when a panel is just...not how I want and I realize I've spent so much time trying to fix small things no one will give a shit about I hear that meme in my head, the one that says "fuck it, we'll do it live!" And I move on. It's just gunna be like that. I gotta keep the momentum going. I can't be hung up on one thing.

And the momentum is crucial with comics. You gotta keep moving. Every panel or page you finish helps the next one be better, because soon things you once struggled with are second nature. You gotta use the tools in your toolbox. References are not cheating and every person who ever said that to an artist held that person back from improving. You're never going to fully know how to draw that angle if you don't *look at it*. It wont become second nature to draw if you just hope you can guess right through sheer force of will.

And coloring is fucking hard. It's tedious. Its boring but god when you finally get it right it's so rewarding. When you learn a new thing that makes your work pop.

And you gotta just accept your art will not look the same from page one to page 50 if you're learning as you go. You got to stop being embarrassed. Because it shows you were *learning*. It shows you improved and yes the early pages wont look as good but look!! Look at what you can draw now. It's a visual representation of every new skill, every new technique you learned on the way and we gotta stop cringing at our old work and instead thank it for getting us to where we are now.

[icallhimjoey]

Are you still taking requests?

If yes, I’d love to read about pure domestic bliss. Peak Soft!Joey! Things he does for us that make us go all speechless and love him even more. Little things like running us a bath when he senses we had a shit day, takes care of us when we’re home with a cold…things LIKE THAT!

I could really use that rn. <3

um, so, hyper independent reader not used to someone wanting to take care of us in the smallest of ways???? goooooooot it got it got it Wordcount: 3.3K

---

For You

You rarely asked for help.

Didn't need any.

Joe thought hard, but couldn't remember you ever asking him for anything. Or anyone else for that matter. You didn't ask for help in big ways, but also didn't ask for help in any of the small, little ways.

You did things yourself. Didn't bother people and, even though things took time and effort, and were sometimes a real bitch to figure out by yourself, you always did. Eventually.

Sorted through whatever on your own, because that's how you'd always done it. How your childhood had shaped you. What you'd gotten used to. Who you'd become as a person.

You took care of, well, everything. Were organised in ways Joe couldn't even really phantom a person being organised.

"What do you mean you just fixed my washing machine yourself?"

"Was just the little motor inside, I opened it up and it needed a little part replaced."

"What the..."

"Was easy. I watched some tutorial on how to–" you stopped, had to laugh at the face of shocked disbelief and somehow sheer annoyance he made and finished, "There's tutorials for fucking everything online, it really wasn't that hard."

Yea, Joe wasn't so sure.

"All right then, I guess I'll go and cancel the order I placed for a new one."

Because he would have never even thought of opening whatever panel on the back of whatever machine to have a look inside. To look up what he'd be looking at, and to get a screwdriver out to fiddle around inside.

It was out with the old in the the new far to easily with Joe.

Didn't go like that with you.

You took care of shit yourself. Were the person that people would come to for help. Because that's what you did. Took care of your own shit and helped others with theirs.

It took some actual getting used to for Joe.

Girls had never been like that before with him.

They'd ask for shit, would whine at him in a soft baby voice until he'd do whatever they'd asked. Sometimes it'd be cute, but it could be annoying as fuck too. He'd always cave, however, and it would somehow genuinely increase his well-being. To make someone else happy by doing a small task they asked of him. Fed his ego a bit. Upped the self-esteem a little.

And it wasn't that you didn't accept help when it was offered to you.

Not at all.

You just never asked.

It took weeks for Joe to learn that he'd have to figure out for himself what he could do to help. To take care of you sometimes.

It was why sometimes, when you'd be sat doing whatever paperwork needed doing, or answering whatever e-mails needed answering, Joe would silently wander around your flat.

Looking for things maybe he could do.

Things that maybe you'd left for a bit.

Joe wasn't big on cleaning.

Or organising.

But he could pick up clothes that were left discarded on the bedroom floor. And he could shove whatever products were left out in the bathroom into a drawer. Could open the dishwasher, dishes still dirty, but stacked all wrong, not leaving enough room for the rest that were left on the counter still. He could sort that out for you, no problem.

You always thanked him with a squeeze in his side, or soft kisses to smiley cheeks. Made Joe blush a little, knowing he'd found a thing he could do to help, to ease your load and make you happy.

Until one sort of weird Friday afternoon. It had just gone noon, and Joe received a weird text.

"quick q, did you say you had work today?"

Just things he had to read.

"they wont let me leave on my own"

What the fuck?

"Hey, what's going on? What do you mean they won't let you leave on your own?" Joe decided he needed immediate answers, and called in response to your texts.

"I'm fine," was the first thing out of your mouth, quickly followed by, "Don't worry. If you don't have the time, I can see if–"

"Answer my question, please." Joe cut you off.

"I... I don't know, I keep feeling– I'm dizzy. I lost my balance and fell when my foot got stuck on a threshold– I'm not hurt," you were quick to assure, not wanting to worry Joe.

"Did you faint?" Joe was already on his way out the door.

"No, I'm not lightheaded or anything. Just feel like I'm gonna be sick, and like, my eyes won't stay still. It's more annoying than anything else. Mary says I probably haven't slept enough, or something."

You sounded like it too. All annoyed. Frustrated by the way your body was letting you down in the middle of a work day and now had to ask someone to do something for you.

Had to ask your boyfriend to come pick you up.

Like that was the end of the world, somehow.

"All right, I'm out the door." Joe said, coat billowing behind him as his legs rushed him down the street. "Do one thing for me, yea? Don't fucking move."

Not like you could. Moving your head made you want to throw up. Maybe you just hadn't had enough water and were a bit dehydrated. Or a lot hydrated. You didn't know, but thought having water would be a good idea anyway.

You had little sips in the reception area of the office until Joe arrived.

"Hey," 

"You all right?" Joe crouched down in front of you, one hand on your shoulder, then on your cheek. He ducked his head to look you in the eye.

“Yea fine. Just dizzy when I stand. Or move. That’s all.” 

“She hurt her wrist,” Mary said loudly as she walked over.

You did a quick Joe, Mary - Mary, Joe, introducing them to each other. Joe stood up straight and they shook hands, exchanged polite smiles, and then turned their worried gazes back onto you.

“It’s fine, nothing serious,” you gave your hand a twist and turn to showcase how fine you were. When you’d suddenly lost balance, you’d braced yourself with your one free hand. It would maybe take a day or two for it to feel normal again, it had just taken a blow. 

"It'll sort itself out."

"Are you accompanying her the whole way home?"

"Yea, took the tube here, but," Joe looked at you whilst he fished his phone from his pocket. Unlocked it with his face and swiped to find the Uber app.

"We're getting an Uber back." 

Good. Yes.

You were glad.

You would probably feel just as sick in a car, but the hassle of escalators, tunnels, stairs, more tunnels, more stairs, the hot air but the cold winds, and just, other people... even just thinking of the whole process, of public transport, made black and white spots creep up behind your eyes.

Mary seemed glad too, told you to get some actual rest, to take it easy and to feel better soon as Joe helped you onto your feet and guided you out of the building.

You had to lean into him heavily, nausea gripping you by the throat as you walked down to where Joe said you'd be picked up in a minute.

Focussing strongly on putting one foot in front of the other and not moving your head around too much, your mind echoed left, right, left, right, left, right. You felt Joe's grip strengthen around your waist as the world kept pulling you to the side.

"Jesus, do we need to go to A&E?"

This wasn't the time for jokes. You were busy trying to generally survive. The lack of balance, the world spinning and tilting, was disorienting and didn't leave room for humour.

"Have someone look you over?"

Joe wasn't joking, though.

"No," you swallowed. A mistake. "I just need to lie down and be still."

Joe helped you slide into the car, then used his fingers on your jaw to tip your head back against the headrest. Held a palm over your forehead a second, making sure it stayed in place before he carefully got you into your seatbelt and shut the door as softly as he could.

Sitting still like this, it was okay. Head back, sat up right, no weird smells.

This was fine.

You told the driver not to worry. Lied and promised him you didn't feel sick, just dizzy, and prayed you wouldn't actually throw up.

Joe rounded to the other side and slid down the seat to be right beside you. Sat in the middle seat, and after doing up his own seatbelt, attention was back with you.

An arm pushed through behind your neck, curled around your shoulder as you got pulled in.

Resting your head on Joe's shoulder wasn't any better than having it upright and tipped back, but Joe used a large palm that covered most of your scalp and then softly scratched fingers into your hair.

That was better.

You closed your eyes when the car pulled onto the road.

Having the actual world move fucked you up way more than you thought it might do.

The light that moved as you drove still filtered through enough, so you turned your head and hid your face against Joe's arm. Found darkness and peace there, and took measured breaths. Tried to ignore how your brain felt like a carousel. Could still taste the coffee you had about an hour earlier.

"Just crossed the river," Joe softly spoke near your ear.

He was taking you home.

"Five more minutes."

When you arrived, Joe wouldn't let you get out of the car by yourself. Said, "Hang on, wait here," and rushed out to jog around where he opened your door. Then he turned, and crouched down. Got down on one knee, and held out his arms behind him to guide.

"Joe, I can walk,"

You'd never ask to be carried.

"This feels safer. Come on."

But Joe insisted, and so you slid from the backseat right onto Joe's back. Slung arms around his neck and rested your head on his shoulder. Closed your eyes again, which didn't really help the nausea, but it felt nice to pretend you weren't really there.

Joe walked with bent legs, never fully straightening his knees, and you got the smoothest piggyback ride you'd ever had, right into your flat.

Right into your bedroom, where...

"Oh, fuck,"

You looked up, peeked over Joe's shoulder and, you remembered as you saw it.

You'd stripped your bed that morning, threw all sheets and covers into the wash and had planned to make the bed later, when you'd get back after work. Would use the other set that you didn't like the feel of as much, but which looked nicer.

"Okay, sofa." Joe turned on his heel, spun too quick, and made you groan with discomfort.

"Sorry, sorry," Joe stilled completely. Waited a couple seconds. Said sorry again and then walked you over into your living room where he carefully lowered himself and let you slide onto your sofa.

"How are we doing?" Joe checked in, went to close the curtains to get the place as dark as it possibly could in the middle of the day.

"Just need to sleep it off, I think," you said, trying to control your breathing as you bent over slowly to take off your shoes.

Your hands got moved aside by Joe, who moved to sit down in front of you on his knees.

"Sit back,"

And so you did. Inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. Accepted that the room was just going to be spinning for a while, nothing you could do to make it stop.

Joe took off your shoes and gave both socked feet a rub before coaxing you to lay back.

Throw pillows got moved into place, a blanket got draped over you, and Joe felt something pang inside of his chest at the sight of you laying flat on your back like this.

You were a side sleeper.

Would always curl up into a ball, would pull your knees up all high that would get Joe in the back some nights. Most nights. Joe always had to turn around and move one of your legs to hook over his hip to omit the uncomfortable press of boney knees into his spine.

Joe had never seen you try to fall asleep on your back before.

"Need anything else?" Joe whispered, still hovering over you, now toeing off his own shoes.

Not like you were going to ask, were you?

If Joe wanted to take care, he'd have to ask you for what you needed.

You hummed, said, "Nothing," slung an arm over your eyes and then followed up with, "Quiet.".

All right.

Joe could be quiet.

It didn't take you long to fall asleep at all, thank fuck.

For a second, Joe thought of going back home. Leaving you to get some rest, ensure your place would actually be quiet. But then he thought of your bed, and decided, might as well make it.

Joe found a set of sheets, but knew it was the one you found a little scratchy. Then he found your washing, transferred it all into the dryer as silently as he could and then thought, yea might as well, when he saw you'd left the bathroom messy.

Joe tidied up.

Decided halfway through he could also cook later. Take on dinner.

What else would he appreciate someone doing if he couldn't move without holding onto a wall?

Lots of things.

He was going to do them all.

Joe moved around with intention, shuffled on his socks, did everything as quietly as he could. Still closed cupboards too loudly, and made himself wince several times. He would freeze and would listen if he could hear you stir, if he'd disturbed you.

Not a peep from you. Not once.

Good.

Joe found the fridge empty, then grabbed your reusable shopping bag and your keys. Would only be a minute.

Downstairs, he checked your mail, opened your little metal post box and found a slip for a delivery that you'd missed, for a parcel that needed picking up. Decided to do that too, because, why not.

When Joe got back and carefully went to check if you were asleep still, he saw that you'd curled up with both your knees pressed into the back of the sofa. Couldn't help but smile to himself.

Nearly three hours later, you jolted awake. Took a look around the room, frowning, squinty eyes, and tried to figure out what woke you up. Why you were on the sofa again. What day it was.

You could hear the oven close in the kitchen, and let your head drop back down onto the soft pillows from the sofa.

You remembered.

And you felt... better. Sort of... just fine. You noticed gravity was pulling at you just right again. Huge difference compared to before, when it got you from all different sorts of angles.

Shaking your head side to side, everything felt solid. Steady. And you were really fucking hungry.

"Joe?" you called, and had to cough right after.

"You're up!" Joe stepped into view, drying his hands on a tea towel and he... Joe looked windswept. Untamed. Disheveled and tousled, face all flushed. All smiley and excited looking.

"How are you feeling?"

The opposite of how Joe looked, but, fine none the less.

"Better," you smiled through squinty eyes.

"Yea? No longer dizzy?"

"I don't think so," you shook your head once more, to check. Felt fine.

"Feel sick?"

"No... I'm hungry."

"Yea?"

"Yea." you looked around, still a little dazed and, what was that smell?

"Good, dinner's in the oven." Joe made his way over, and took a moment to grin at you. Leant down and just grinned at you. You didn't know what was so funny, but Joe made you laugh anyway.

You still felt a little shaky when Joe kissed you. Small pecks. Then a long one. Another grin, followed by a suspicious frown from you, and then, more kisses.

"What?" you asked when Joe wouldn't stop smiling.

"Nothing. Just glad that you're okay. How's your wrist?"

You rotated it. Gave it a little shake.

"Bit sore, but not bad, thanks. And thank you for coming to get me from work, I really couldn't have– I don't know what happened, do people get their balance affected from lack of sleep, do you know?"

"Yea, I googled, and apparently, you can. So that could be it, but it also could be a million other things." Joe shrugged.

Hmm. All right. Well, at least you felt better now. Nausea gone. Vision no longer swimming.

"Want to take a bath?" Joe suggested, and you groaned at the suggestion.

"Yes,"

"Okay, be careful, the water was practically boiling when I filled it fifteen minutes ago,"

You gasped softly, immediately pouted.

"You... you already filled the tub?"

Joe's eyes twinkled.

"Babe, I did so much," he exclaimed all proud, and started going down the list.

Joe had done a massive food shop, picked up a parcel from the post office, cleared out the dishwasher, tidied the bathroom, folded the laundry and put it all of it away, made dinner, made the bed–

Joe had to stop when he saw your eyes blinking rapidly, eyelashes wet. You seemed overwhelmed, a bit.

"Are you..."

A sob wrecked from your throat and you immediately laughed, because you were well aware you were being silly.

"You're crying?" Joe asked, smiling, already pulling you in so you could hide your face into his chest.

"You didn't have to–"

"Stop, I know I don't have to. I wanted to. Believe it or not, sometimes people enjoy doing things for you."

People usually loved it when you did things for them, but, you loved doing things for other people, so you understood.

"You made the bed?"

You knew Joe fucking hated making the bed.

"Yea, used the nice sheets,"

"I put the others in the wash this morning–"

"No," Joe corrected. "I put those in the dryer and used those," Joe pulled back, tilted his head down enough to catch your expression. "The other ones are– they don't feel great, right?"

Joe saw your face scrunch up again and quickly tucked you back under his chin.

"Maybe just get rid of those all together,"

"They were an expensive–"

"I'll get rid of them." Joe said, knowing you probably never would yourself.

Unbelievable.

You didn't deserve Joe.

Joe would disagree and fight you on that, so you didn't say that shit out loud.

Joe held you for a bit longer, his affection pouring over you until it was dripping down the sofa and leaving puddles on the floor.

"Bath's getting cold," Joe eventually murmured into your hair.

"Thank you," you managed to croak out as you accepted the kisses Joe pressed to your forehead before he helped you up from the sofa.

He held wary arms out, ready to catch you if it turned out that standing up was still a task too tricky, but you seemed steady enough. Could walk towards the door without going sideways.

"You know what?" he said, hand on the small of your back, guiding you across the room.

"Get in the bath, I'll join you in a sec,"

You caught his little smirk as he looked at you over his shoulder, stepping closer towards the kitchen.

"With dinner." Joe finished, and, fuck off. That sounded like the best fucking idea you'd ever heard.

"Hey," you said, making Joe stop, and for some reason, you caught a flicker of worry in his eyes before they softened as you smiled.

"Thank you," you said again, this time more earnest than you'd done before.

Joe needed to know you were grateful.

"Anything," Joe started, squeezed his eyes shut tightly to bring his point across properly.

"Anything for you."

the end

---

The Taglisted

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taglist currently full, sorry

[cloudabserk]

hii i love your iwtv fanart i think it's so cute but i think you're coloring louis and armand's skin too light which makes it hard to enjoy as a poc

first of all thank you for this feedback! i genuinely appreciate when people tell me these things cuz i worry a lot about drawing characters accurately and want to get it right. here i’m gonna go over my own drawings and point out what i think looks right and what doesn’t in my own work

i feel like my armand drawings look fairly accurate ? here is (i’m pretty sure) every time i’ve drawn armand:

obviously a persons skin tone looks different in different lighting, but just by eye rn, i feel like the colors i’ve used have been a pretty good overall estimate for the actor:

with louis i feel like i see what you’re saying (my drawings vs references of actor):

i think it matches a few of the reference photos, but others look very different, so i need to find a better all around match.

another issue i’ve noticed in my work is that since i use a watercolor texture for all my coloring, i can end up with the same color looking completely different within one drawing. see these comics:

in the first comic armand’s skin tone changes from panel to panel or even face vs. hand (his jacket and hair change color too, but skin tone is the most important imo since the viewers eye goes right to a characters face) and in the second comic i think louis’s skin tone changes completely between the first and second panels to a degree that’s very noticeable, i really should have caught that.

lately i’ve been trying to be more careful about double checking the watercolor layers to see that all the coloring matches better between panels, so that should help some.

finally, are there any specific drawings you think stand out as either colored accurately or inaccurately? you don’t have to respond, but since you reached out, feel free to tell me what you think works and what doesn’t (this goes for other people than anon too)

again thank you for the feedback, as it is very valuable to hear!

[kind-of-a-shitty-wizard]

(i couldnt find the original post but this ^^^^) im slamming my fists on the table YOU SEE ITT im coming back to this thread because ive literally been referencing this ask for ages trying to get jenkins' characterization down for the fic... i think this is exactly it. "He's good... but he's not great" <- YES he is SEETHING and malding at this he wants to be more than a train attendant but he will never be !!

one thing i wanted to add on (because i think it adds another layer to him) is that, because of everything above, i'd expect him to be kind of bitter all the time... but he's not. he even seems to have moments where he's kidding around with other people??

okok i always think back to the pleasure chamber bit:

this ^ reads to me like he's poking fun at the others' expense.... like there was no reason for him to call it a pleasure chamber, why would he call it that instead of a teleport room? especially in THAT voice ?? ᵗʰᶦ�� ᵐᵒᵐᵉⁿᵗ ᶦˢ ᵃˡˢᵒ ʰᵒᵗ ᵃᶠ ᵇᵘᵗ ᵗʰᵃᵗ'ˢ ᵇᵉˢᶦᵈᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ᵖᵒᶦⁿᵗ

plus its one of the only times he actually smiles in the comic. it makes me wonder what he was thinking. does he do this to all the passengers? or just to the tres horny boys? and why does he even do it at all!!

it makes me headcanon that he's actually very disarming when he's not being mercilessly made fun of. and it makes me wonder if, because he's got a bit of an inferiority complex like u mentioned, he tries to tease people to feel superior, or try to gain the upper hand, or put them at ease so he can kill them ᵃⁿᵈ ⁿᵒᵗ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ᶦ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ ᶦᵗˢ ʰᵒᵗ

like, this poor man is so good at so many things, like holding good conversation and being kind of suave and gardening and cooking and magic and he almost got away with a whole-ass murder, AND YET.... he's still not good enough.

hes the saddest angriest guy fr. i bet he gets splashed at the intersection when passing cars drive through the puddles <3

I've been thinking about him for some time already (YOU KNOW WHO...) and I think. he's just Like That ™. the gentleman killer. Haskillcore boring old man stuff enjoyer that spends weekends reading newspapers and philosophy books. looks down on people that lack manners. DOES want to serve for the best of his abilities and be appreciated. But ALSO I get the vibes... that he's the way he is because he's a shitty wizard.

HEAR ME OUT... It was just a joke at first but his fiasco with messing the most basic spell and being thrown out of the train..... I feel like he, in fact, can be incompetent wizard and that can fuck him up SO BADLY... like inferiority complex... I can imagine him being young & dreaming of becoming a great wizard & failing painfully. So now he compensates it with self-taught magic and dark arts (his necromancy interest). “dark magic is just misunderstood, not evil"...

I also get vibes from him of being bullied? I would take away his lunch yk. And now he allows people to walk over him and it's not just a job thing he's just like that. Until the moment he snaps. And murder may be the way for him to feel being in-control, which he usually lacks. Feel like he hass power. He doesn't feel nor act like purple guy jeff the killer (he's too old for that) but. Sometimes he thinks “It would be nice to kill someone right now. I also need cash. Hmm.” and that's now it happens. Maybe he feels alive when he does that, but it's only in-moment feeling that doesn't stay. I feel like he's pretty sensitive and can say when he feels bad(offended) or good(proud), but doesn't really have emotional intelligence? The feelings are there, what to do with them? who knows. not him. he goes out on the streets at night. depreesion)

I think he knows a lot about magic and artifacts (found out about the relic by private investigation or smth) but he can't use that intformation himself! what a shame! I get the vibes that he can be almost . cursed . to be a bad wizard. he's probably not but it just feels that way. so many potential in such cringefail loser (/affectionate). and he knows that and mourns that! what does he do with his life!

I rotate him in my mind he's so interesting what is wrong with him . . .

NODS VIGOROUSLY ALONG WITH YOUR POINTS im sitting here taking notes for my fic fr!! i actually hit on a lot of the same conclusions you did which makes me so happy, but one of the main differences was i thought he might actually be a good wizard, BUT i think your reading that he's ACTUALLY just a shitty wizard is more interesting character-wise....

like you said "he knows a lot about magic and artifacts but he can't use that intformation himself" <- YESSS. i think the exact way that he's shitty is that he definitely has the theoretical knowledge, but he can't apply it for shit. <3 like at the end of rockport limited he clearly knew the flame spell he was going to use, he just... fucking misses by a country mile LMFAO, even the meat monsters seem a little cobbled-together, like he knows the the theory but there's little finesse in the execution.

"he's the way he is because he's a shitty wizard." <- OK BC THIS BASIS IS SO GOOD. hes got so much ambition but no talent, and that informs everything about him!! - it's my headcanon that he grew up lower-middle class, and i think combining that with being bullied and being bad at magic contributed to an inferiority complex. and he likes refined things precisely because he likes the image of himself as this powerful refined (rich) person when he's really just grasping at it desperately :)))

aaand i think the dark arts provide shortcuts to power for the price of sacrificing another living thing, SO FOR JENKINS, who was a shitty wizard and an asshole who's totally willing to sacrifice people for power, it suited him perfectly :)))))))

not to mention all the points u brought up abt why he kills are so good. i think it's firstly a practicality thing (he needs the money, like u said), but then secondarily an outlet for his anger (he's a bit emotionally unintelligent like u also said lol). i think he learned how to deal with this simmering hatred in the exact wrong way, where he bottles it up during the day when ppl push him around and then lets it out during his murders. instead of yknow... learning to not let ppl push him around, and manage his anger and deal with it less destructively SDFLSDFKJ. and it became a cycle. so now he's a serial murderer cos he's into this repress-release pattern, someone get this man into therapy or get him a boyfriend who can fix him !!

AND... okok final point bc its getting a bit long. "so many potential in such cringefail loser (/affectionate). and he knows that and mourns that! what does he do with his life!" <- YES. perhaps even. he is not cut out to be a wizard..... he clearly has ambition, and good taste, and a flair for the dramatic, and mental problems, which means. of course. he is perfectly suited for the theater--//SHOT

[peachesofteal]

Hi. Phew no anon I'm sweating rn (pardon the typos btw)

I just read SM in one sitting, (on a long car ride) and I just wanted to expressive the love I have for your writings and the characters you've so meticulously crafted.

The pacing of the story is absolutely perfect. Fast enough to keep readers engaged, and slow enough to create tension and highlight the big steps in the development of the relationship

If it's alright, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the story and the characters? If not, feel free to stop reading and delete this ask. But if you want to read, I've written some of my thought below.

First off, Bun.

You've created such a well rounded character with Bun. She has so many qualities that may seem the contradict each other, but they really just make her a foil for everyone around her. She emphasizes the traits of those around her by constantly adapting to constrast her present company, as a safety measure. If she's different, she never fits in. If she never fits in, people can't get close to her.

They won't know her if they're not close, and therefore she can't be hurt by them. So, whether subconsciously or not, she becomes the opposing force to each and every person she meets, as a way of maintaining distance.

She is the reality to Philips delusion, the sanity, to his psychoticism. She's gives the hard work to cover her coworkers slacking, she's the determination to their apathy. She's the paranoia in the places where everyone else feels safe. She's lonely in the face of such overpowering unity, in the face of family and love. She's the flushed cheeks that are the result of Johnny's blunt flirting. She's the cowering child in the arms of a battle-hardened man, and she's torn herself apart trying to rationalize her own existence after everything she's been through.

I kind of imagine she's like the mirror she thinks so much about. She's was once a stunning piece of beautiful craftsmanship, a big panel of glass with perfectly straight edges, an intricate gold-gilded frame, a shimmering silver surface, the centerpiece of every room she's in. Her smarts, her wit, her charm always reflecting rays of light onto the world around her. She was incredible, until she wasn't. Someone broke the nails that held her up, and she shattered into a million pieces.

Everyone she meets gets a piece, but no one has the whole picture. Everyone has a different piece, which means she's not the same to any two people. She's a spitfire to Phillip, a soft and sweet bunny to the boys, a motivated worker to her colleagues, and to herself? A collection of jagged shards, and she cuts up her hands trying to rid herself of the pieces she can't afford to keep. Pieces of her past life and her past self.

Moving on,

I really appreciate the more intricate characterization of all your characters, but especially Simon. It's a lovely change to see a perspective of Simon from the other side of the tunnel, so to speak. Not only is it refreshing to see him able to process his emotions so healthily, but it's quite thought provoking as well. It's engaging to see him as a someone who coexists with his trauma, rather than railing against it. Allowing himself to finally accept that it's part of who he is, but not all of him. Seeing him turn something that was once a crippling weakness, into strength, is so cool. I think it's an interesting reflection of his physical prowess, onto his mental state. Showing that his strength is not exclusive to his body, but that it extends to his mind as well.

Also, the way he utilizes the knowledge he gained from past hardships to help Bun?? Such a stark difference from his usual actions in fics, but somehow still perfectly in character for him. Very "Simon-esque" if you will.

I also just read your personal update, the one about the Winter-to-Spring transition. I really hope this doesn't sound patronizing, but I want you to know how strong and talented you are. You seem steadfast in your self identity and I really admire that. Not to mention how incredible of a storyteller you are. Your work gives me motivation and inspiration to keep writing, so that hopefully mine can be as beautiful as yours someday :)

I also wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your work and appreciate you sharing your experiences. I am not (don't have?) bipolar, but I do struggle with other mental illnesses, and your post really made me feel better about the stability of my own future.

Which made me wonder, do you think you drew inspiration from your own experiences in order to create your Simon? I just saw some similarities in the way you both have begun to use your knowledge of hardship to assist others. Maybe it was subconscious? Or maybe it was purely coincidental? Either way, I think both you and your Simon are amazing for doing so.

Thank you for writing and sharing and just being a positive presence on here. I'm so so glad I found your account, and I'm excited to read any future works you release :)

Also, care of yourself and remember that you don't owe anyone on Tumblr anything. It's your writing and you should write and post only when you feel up to it <3

I’ve spent a few days trying to figure out how to answer this and haven’t come up with an super effective strategies so I’m just going to:

First thanks so much for taking the time to type this out and send it to me. I really appreciate it and you, and I’m thrilled you’re enjoying Simple Math!

I think your mirror synopsis is pretty on point, Bunny is a million different pieces of a shattered mirror, all trying to reflect different parts. She’s complicated. She’s not herself, and that’s still something she’s trying to learn. She’s also very traumatized which explains the reasoning behind why she has done and may do some things.

I’ve talked about this before but Simon in Simple Math is really my dream for his character. He’s emotionally regulated and mature, he’s patient, he’s kind, he’s been through years and years of therapy. He recognizes his trauma but he doesn’t let it hold such a grip anymore. Of course, the situation with Bun brings up painful memory and feelings, but he’s stable and secure enough to recognize and process those feelings. He’s a family man. I love him, but I don’t think I draw anything from my personal life as I write him.

As a note to your comment about the stability of your future: I’m glad you could find some comfort in that post and I know everything feels really difficult sometimes, especially when you’re struggling, but things can even out and get better. When I was younger I didn’t believe I’d have a future, and if you had told me “it gets better!” I would have laughed in your face and launched into some long spiel trying to shut you down. But… it does. Things can get better and become stable. It takes time.

Thank you so much for reading!

[moongothic]

imagine s-crocodile shows up and they’re protective of luffy

I imagined it and I loved it (the post gets to S-Croc speculation towards the end, I swear)

I really can't wait to see S-Croc in general though, because while we haven't seen the other Seraphim like, just casually hang around, the little glimpses we have gotten at them have been really interesting, because of both the similarities and differences between the Seraphim and the OG Shichibukai

Like, as of chapter 1103, from what we've seen S-Bear has seemed Quite Stoic and quiet, very similar to Kuma as we first met him in Thriller Bark/Sabaody. S-Shark seemed very serious and quiet too but it's hard to compare him to Jinbei proper. Meanwhile, the way S-Snake got flustered and shy was quite similar to how Hancock behaves around Luffy, although in a much more child-like, cutesy manner. And S-Hawk seemed a bit more child-like as well, seemingly being a bit more open with his emotions? (Like for example he seemed quite annoyed about getting captured)

So it's kind of hard to say right now, but it does kind of seem like while the Seraphim ARE clones of the Shichibukai and they DO share the mannerisms of their "parents", they are also children. Like, while part of their stoicism could be chalked up to how they are Pacifistas, they are still like a step "above" the basic Pacifistas (pure robots). Like they're somewhere between the Pacifistas and pre-lobotomy Kuma. They don't have full free will, they are (fleshy) robots who can be programmed and ordered to do tasks, but also they do have that partial free will and mind. And that's all so incredibly interesting to me. Especiall because the remaining missing three Seraphim should be like the rest; they have the personalities of the OGs, but maybe lack their maturity in some ways because the Seraphim are still kids. They may be more open and/or less filtered with their emotions and thoughts. Maybe. Again, kinda hard to tell rn because we've seen so little of the brats.

Based on that though, we can kinda make some guesses on what the remaining Seraphim might be like though. S-Mingo especially because we have the benefit of knowing what Doflamingo was like as a kid to begin with, and I doubt S-Gecko will have any surprises in store for us.

But S-Croc is so interesting. Because he could go either way. Like he could be stoic and serious much like S-Bear and S-Shark, as lowkey suggested by his calm expression in that one panel we saw. That would match how Crocodile has been On Average post-Alabasta too. But what if he was more like Alabasta!Croc? When he was much happier and like, openly jovial? But in a child-like way? Or a mix of both because people are complicated and stuff sdjfhsf

The reason I'm bringing that up at all is that like. Okay so I don't think S-Croc would be protective of Luffy by default. Like Crocodile himself wasn't protective of Luffy when they first met by a long shot, and arguably still isn't canonically (his actions in Marineford are, rn, canonically just petty revenge at the World Government), so it'd make no sense for S-Croc to take one look at Luffy and be like "nobody hurts this one" right away, right?

But. Could S-Croc BECOME protective of Luffy?

...Unless S-Croc did turn out to be a Crocodile Zoan with that Weird Zoan Instinct and Crocodad Real, in which case S-Croc being randomly protective of Luffy right from the get-go would work just fine. But this remains to be seen ((To be fair, it did take Hancock time to get her crush on Luffy while S-Snake went 0 to 100 with Luffy, so maybe there could be a chance for S-Croc to be protective by default. ...Unless Luffy just happened to be Hancock's type to begin with and it was just her trauma that kept her from immidiately crushing on the idiot at first glance, while S-Snake doesn't share Hancock's emotional trauma so she was able to jump straight into crushing on him))

And this is where we get to the Absolutely Wild, Off-The-Rails, Borderline Fanfiction Speculation. Because we're here to have fun, and it's fun to think about hypotheticals like this.

But as we know, Crocodile. Bit of a sad loner. He has trust issues. He has been hurt A Lot. Happily spends decades of his life by himself. Very tragic. This probably contributes to his stand off-ish demeanor. S-Croc could have that same demeanor. But he shouldn't have the same trauma, the same root cause to being a sour puss. And most importantly, because he's a child, he might be more emotionally "open". Like he could become more obviously upset about stuff, and he might be more receptive to people if they're nice to him. Maybe. Big big big maybe.

Another fun thing to note; S-Croc seems to have been dispatched away with S-Mingo and S-Gecko (wherever the fuck they're going (probs Emptee Bluffs but if they go there then we can't have him interacting with Luffy so we need to pretend that's not where they're going arrite)). This is important, because as we all know. Crocodile and Doflamingo Do Not Get Along. And if the real ones can't get along, I could not imagine their Seraphim being much better.

The thing is, it could be kind of worse with the Seraphim, actually;

Based on the single panel of him that we've seen so far, S-Mingo seems to just ooze Middle School Bully Energy (and even if he isn't one, Doflamingo had a thing for annoying the shit out of Crocodile, his Seraphim would probs be the exact same in that regard, right)

S-Croc could be pre-T

If so, and especially if Crocodile being trans isn't public knowledge (as then it'd be possible Vegapunk could've labeled S-Croc "a failed Seraphim")

-> S-Croc being "the wrong sex" (compared to the OG) could easily become a painful sore spot for S-Croc

Especially because if Crocodile's trans, then S-Croc would also probably be trans, and insist on being a boy

And boy fucking howdy, would that become an easy ass fucking way for S-Mingo to bully the shit out of S-Croc, in a way that could really get under S-Croc's skin in a really horrible way

So. You know.

I could totally imagine S-Mingo being an asshole and annoying the fuck out of S-Croc in a way that would lead into a straight up fight. Because they're kids, and may not have the maturity to not escalate shit, especially if one got openly upset (god knows Crocodile can't handle being humiliated as a grown ass man) and another was having the time of their life mocking the other. But of course, these are Seraphim we're talking about, they could just keep on fighting forever and absolutely wreck everything in sight if someone doesn't stop them/give them the orders to stop.

I'm not saying Luffy would like step in or anything (dude doesn't have the authority to boss the Seraphim around either, it'd have to be Vegapunk), like I don't think he'd care enough to try to stop the two from fighting (as long as they aren't putting anyone else and/or the Sunny in danger). But between Luffy defeating Doflamingo being a more recent event in his mind, and him kind of owing one to Crocodile, I could kind of imagine Luffy feeling slightly more inclined to take S-Croc's side. Like considdering Luffy loves and respects trans people, I could imagine him feeling a little bad for S-Croc. Just a little though.

But I think that could kind of become key here. 'Cause like, Luffy wouldn't have to do anything big to defend S-Croc or anything (he's a man, he can defend himself, if anything Luffy defending S-Croc would hurt his honor (shounen logic)). Just, calling S-Mingo an asshole casually, or choosing to hang out (or at least try to) with S-Croc, or something like that. Just Luffy showing the tiniest amounts of compassion and care, to make S-Croc feel a little less alone.

I think that could make S-Croc become a little protective of Luffy in turn.

[transbeamrooikat]

Shyfade is finally here! I've been working on this one for a while, and I hope you guys like it! This is only pg. 1 and 2 of what I hope is going to be quite a long comic :3

Some spoiler free infodumping under the cut :D

AAAAAAAAAA shy is so sillay I love him <3333

Although - before i say anything else, I will clarify that the reason the clan is called "Successionclan" is because this was originally supposed to be a Lifegen run with Roman Roy from Succession, which kinda got outta hand (she's gonna show up later i prommy <33) and I've stuck to the name cause i find it funny :3

Also, warrior scerimonies are really weird when you think about it - the whole head kiss/shoulder lick thing just comes off as weird to me, because like - dude thats a kid?? also it very much gives off cult vibes. It was kinda hard to portray here, this is my first comic so I'm definitely still figuring things out, but the motion :(( had to scrap two panels that i really loved for this to make it flow better. Killing my darlings :(. But Shy's dicomfort with it was sooooo fun to explore!! It's almost theraputic? exploring my own religeous trauma through him lmao

I also have an irrational hatred for Sandstar (the brown cat) for some reason - me and Shy are united on that front lmao. Mskeing me a homophobic dog fr fr lmao.

Also shoutout to @chaotickitchenware ! If she didn't suggest I make this months ago it probably would never have happened, lmao, and she and @black-mass-things have massively helped me to make decisions with it, so big credits to them <3333

I ran out of space on the alt for the first page, hopefully its still legible tho 👍 let me know if there's anything I can improve on, cause I'm quite inexperienced with writing alts.

Clip Studio currently won't let me back into the actual file for the first page (I think it git corrupted ????) so I can't fix the spelling mistake that I just noticed in the fifth panel 😔😔😔 I also normally put progress vids here but i can't for the first page atm, I'll see if I can for the second page tho. (although I'll probably only add it later, I'm in a bit of a rush cause I gotta get ready to go somewhere and I dont have access to my puter at all rn 😔😔)

[siriuslysatorusimping]

HAVE U READ THE NEW JJK LEAKS

"(ง'̀-'́)ง

MY SWEET FIGHTING ANON, HOW ARE YOU??

I’ve seen a few lil snippets but I’d stopped really keeping up with the leaks. I will say I LOVE that some of you immediately messaged me upon seeing the leaks 🥹😂 it made my morning to see messages in my inbox 💕 (this is my not subtle nudge to everyone that I love hearing from you guys, even if it’s just life updates or random shit. Pls, I get lonely 🥺)

Side note for the other sweet anon who messaged, I can’t answer that ask rn bc of obvious reasons, but I SEE YOU AND THINK OF THIS AS MY RESPONSE TO YOU AS WELL!!! IT MADE ME SO HAPPY INSIDE THAT YOU CALLED ME 'LOVE,' BTW. MY HEART DID A LIL JUMPY. 🥹💕

As for the leaks?

Me @ everyone losing their shit:

Spoilers for JJK 260 and a huge fucking Kiko rant below the cut.

I’ll believe it when it’s really confirmed. From what I saw, it was the last panel and there’s speculation on whether it’s really him or if Sukuna is seeing shit as he dies or any of the crazy possibilities.

That being said, if Gojo really is back, WELCOME BACK, YOU WONDERFUL, TRAUMATIZED BLUE-EYED BEAN OF A MAN. WE MISSED YOU SO MUCH.

And now my rant begins…

I’m on the fence. In all honesty, I think I’d finally accepted his death tbh. Because I remembered something that’s actually really interesting: some of the very best stories have stakes. They have death because it’s unfortunately a part of life. Gojo isn’t the MC of JJK, even though he’s an incredible character and I adore him and I still hate how he went out.

But while I still hate how that played out, I was actually thinking recently about how much credit we really don’t give Akutami. Writing is hard. World-building is hard. And he’s created a universe that’s truly incredible. The countless number of cursed techniques he’s written into the story, the number of characters he’s given depth possible without even meaning to? Genuinely incredible. He’s done something amazing. I had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment of realization that he’s actually an incredible story-teller. The story he’s built in his mind is amazing and I’m so glad he’s decided to share it with us. We’ve questioned him because we didn’t have all the pieces he has, but he’s said time and time again that he has things planned and he’s had things planned since the beginning. The medium he’s using to tell the story necessitates it being a bit choppy because he can’t explain every little thing every single time. There will be holes and gaps and things he reveals over time for the sake of the story he’s planned, and I know I forgot that fact when I was angry and grieving. (I’ve also been just losing my shit lately at how stupid some people are saying Akutami hates anime fans just because he killed Choso off. The number of comments I’ve seen about ‘hot characters aren’t allowed to die’ is just… these characters are more than eye candy. They have a purpose and emotional value in the story, specifically Choso as a big brother figure for Yuuji.) okay, fun lil side rant over lol

I think we forget that this is a shonen manga. Shonen are notorious for killing characters. I think of Hunter x Hunter, which Akutami has said is a big inspiration for him, the Chimera Ant Arc seemingly killed over half the cast. I’ve also seen a lot of anger at Akutami for him saying that he doesn’t care how many characters die as long as it’s a good story, and I think people missed the point because they were angry their favorite character died. But the thing is, he has a point. If the character deaths push the story forward, then it works. Yuuji has clearly had a power up that wouldn’t have happened if Gojo hadn’t died. On top of that, we criticized the month-long time skip, but these big reveals couldn’t have happened without it. So while it felt jarring, and it still doesn’t sit quite right with me, I understand why Akutami’s logic now. Again, I think of Hunter x Hunter’s chimera arc and how Gon had to watch Kite die and then fight his puppet corpse. Talk about traumatizing a fucking twelve year old. And adding to that, Akutami has literally said that this is meant for adults. He’s writing with an adult, predominantly male, audience in mind because that’s been the primary demographic for shonen for decades. So no, he isn’t writing with the female audience, or the young female audience, in mind because that’s not the genre he’s targeting. It just so happens that there’s been a huge surge in American teenagers obsessively consuming Asian media in the past few years and now it’s wildly popular among that demographic.

Basically what I’m saying is that gen z has developed the female counterpart for the fedora-wearing weirdos with waifu pillows in the obsession with hot guys in manga/anime. The difference is that they’re raging about a story following its chosen genre. But this is me generalizing things a lot and it obviously doesn’t apply to the majority of fans. I’m pretty sure a large part of our lil corner here is on the older end of gen z or younger millennial, but I could be wrong. Actually, I’d love to know what that split is 🤔 maybe I’ll do a poll.

ANYWAY, SORRY FOR THE RANT. IT WAS ME WORD-VOMITING TO START THE DAY. I HOPE YOU HAVE A LOVELY DAY OR AFTERNOON OR NIGHT!

[needle-noggins]

Playing catch-up on Vol. 8 so I can be fully immersed in The Pain(tm) next week. Nothing terribly deep rn but I have some plant twins thoughts.

I can't help but think about how Knives and Vash are both being pushed beyond their limits, to growing black hair, by each other. It's the thing that Knives hates and blames humans for, but he's doing it to himself in the end. And his followers, explicitly Elendira and Dr. Conrad, are waiting it out while toeing the line.

And I think this conversation is a bit of a turning point for Vash, as he sticks up to Knives a bit more than we've seen, stands his ground, and doesn't crumble into a heap of self-pity quite as much. He's trying so hard, especially now that he has people who genuinely and deeply love him (Wolfwood, Meryl) who inspire him to fight harder. He's had some time to reflect on Knives' abuse and he's trying to call him out on it. Of course, our favorite hypocrite won't listen (do they ever?), but it's important that Vash tries.

I've said it before but this panel of Vash standing up to Knives really struck me, even on my first read-through several months ago at breakneck speed. Vash is trying SO HARD to talk some sense into Knives. He's assuming Knives might have some empathy for his brother, that he might listen.

It doesn't work, and it's heartbreaking to realize that it never will. Been there, Vash. You tried, and so valiantly.

When you boil it down to just Knives and Vash, Trigun really is a tragedy.

Oh yeah, and this is in parallel to Wolfwood's conversation with Chapel. (Is it weird that I see Chapel as a fucked-up father figure for Wolfwood? Is that valid?) Obviously Wolfwood is exercising some of Vash's empathy, trying to avoid killing innocent people (which sucks because Chapel goes and kills them right after, trying to show him there's no point to it, the people will die anyway). Chapel is trying to show Wolfwood that he will always be an agent of the Eye of Michael, it's something he can't change, can't escape - he was made to kill.

Wolfwood doesn't argue back. He can't. He's still struggling with his past.

This same volume shows us Wolfwood as a child in the orphanage, caring for a baby. He knows he wasn't always a monster. He knows the Eye made him that way, and of course Chapel is using some good ol' cult tactics to try to keep him reeled in.

Free will vs Determinism.

Blank Ticket vs Made for Murder. Vash vs. Knives. Hope vs. Despair.

That's it, that's the whole manga.

[marshymoss]

HELLO EVERYONE!! IT'S BEEN A SECOND BUT I'M BACK BECAUSE BSD JUST DROPPED A BOMB OF CONTENT (AND ITS STILL COMING. TMMRW IS CHATPER 108) The convention in LA with Asagiri sounds SO SO SO FUN. And Asagiri sounds so kind!! Here's some things that people on Twitter have told us that he said/did + some other info ya'll might find interesting (I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS STUFF): 1) He said he loves Sigma!!! This is great except for the fact that he also loved Oda ahahhaha (im scared)!! When asked about who to pay attention to in the next season he said "SIGMA!... and the rivalry between Dazai and Fyodor." (He loves the Meursault girlies!!) 2) He repeatedly showed how he loves the side characters of BSD, he's a king. exhibit A: “I really like writing characters who are not strong, like Sigma Mushitaro and Pushkin. I don’t think these characters don’t have any special qualities are interesting.” Specifically, he said “I love Sigma” exhibit B: It seems like you like writing rivalries. Which one do you like writing the most? "I think the one I thought the most thoroughly through is the relationship between Dazai and Chuya Personally, I’d pick Yokomizu and Mushitaro"

3) Read this Twitter thread about other things he said, some of them are pretty funny and I don't want to just rip off this persons hard work because they worked hard to document all of this for BSDtwt!!!: (2) Kalai Chik on Twitter: "Bungou Stray Dogs panel presented by Yen Press #AnimeExpo2023 https://t.co/PEdQdg468j" / Twitter OK. now some things that weren't in the thread I just linked... BSD S5 WAS PREVIEWED AT THE EXPO AND IT DOES NOT START WITH STORMBRINGER!!! IT'S JUST A CONTINUTATION OF THE MANGA WE HAVE WON. (This means that there will probably be a Stormbringer movie ANNNDDD not as many things will be cut off due to it beign shoved into the main series LOL) AND. Asagiri said that he wanted to work on a movie soon. Somebody supposedly called out "Stormbringer?!" and he RAISED HIS FIST!! HE'S ONE OF US. MY FAV AUTHOR EVER. (source: (2) silence ✦ AX2023 bsd fans followme im twt limited on Twitter: "someone shouted "stormbringer movie?!" and asagiri gave a fist in the air so i think its over for us" / Twitter ) He said he's sorry about the half chapters and that he's trying his best!!!!!! DON'T STRESS THE MAN!!!!!! (source: (2) jo | AX on Twitter: "HES SORRY ABOUT THE HALF CHAOTERS BUT LIKE HE SAYS HES TRYING HIS BEST😭😭😭" / Twitter ) OK. A lot of other things were said but those are probably the things I'm thinking about the most rn..... Now enjoy this silly sketch I did of Dazai relating to a donut. This also has something to do with a thing Asagiri said LOL (READ THE THREAD!!!!!!!!) PS: Chapter 108 is coming, tomorrow. I have no idea what it will contain but I'm excited!!!

[beannary]

Ahhh, your new update looks so wonderful! The dots-thingy we talked about looks amazing here -- having a lower opacity and/or keeping it for the background really does the trick, as well as adding some spacing between the dots and the characters to make them stand out. And using shades of grey to differentiate elements? Perfect.

"the nitty-gritty details"?? I love Donnie talking like Big Mama. If this is something you've done before, I still wanna point it out lol

My favourite panels:

I am sooo reblogging it on my new TMNT sideblog lol

Also, what program/app do you use for making the comic? Do you draw on a tablet or do you use a PC and a graphic tablet? And how do you do your lineart? It looks so beautiful and so clean. I looooove it.

Keep going <3

aw wow thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!! and yeah i was really trying to sort of take what i attempted in the previous update but make it look a bit better, so i just did a lot of looking at what other tmnt artists have done and also looking at some like tutorials for greyscale comics and i ended up with this!!!

and yeah those panels were actually some of my favorites to draw ksldjhfalkjdshf specifically the first one you attached to the ask i had such a blast with that one

i am trying to like make donnie speak a bit more like big mama but a lot of the time i just forget salkdfjhlkasjdhf or i have a hard time incorporating her speech patterns into his way of talking but im working on making my dialogue better so hopefully i can incorporate that some more!

and i use clip studio paint! for lineart i just have my stabilization on suuuuuuuuperr high or maybe its not super high? idk my stabilitzation is at 20 rn for my lineart brush and i thought it was a lot higher but i also have no reference for how much people use stabilization for their lineart so idk oh and yeah i draw on my laptop! i have a wacom tablet that i hook up to it and i draw that way!

[montydrawsstuff]

How long does it take for you to make a part of your comic? (I've been reading it.. And I absolutely LOVED IT)

hahahaha……. Usually it takes me a month and a half to thumbnail, panel, sketch, line, colour and sfx a chapter.. rn I’ve dealt with some burnout so I’m much slower…

of course I did an outline and scripting in advance for the whole comic which took about a year to finish, but I gave myself no deadline then.

I will be back in that stage once season 1 is over and I start season 2. I also won’t put a timeline on that getting done just so I can put all energy into it and make it as good as possible

thankyou so much for enjoying! Lmk your fave parts and such if you like! I worked really hard on it hehehe

[lord-shitbox]

part 2 of this ask

📝Process for hurt mezu drawing 

here are the steps i dug out of an art server's wips channel lol

1. initial sketch

2. refine sketch. thats lines now babey. (omitted "the sleeves are KILLING ME WAHHH" stage that led to this)

3. grayscale, to use with gradient map (this is a more polished grayscale than I started with, i dug the working file out to get better images)

4. find nice gradient map (ended up being the same one I'd used for the piece i made right before. the goal is to make what's essentially an underpainting, not to color the whole thing with one map)

5. tweak and add colors that arent in the map with hard light layers & also sneak in a layer for special effect and atmospheric/ scenic perspective while you're at it

6. shading & more finishing effects. pretty much all of the shading was done with hard light layers! the only non-hard light layers I used for the shading were the particle effect layers & like one faint glow layer to fix some values. blood was done with linear burn

✨Inspiration for hurt mezu drawing 

the coloring method (grayscale -> saturated gradient map underpainting -> additive color adjustments) is something I tried out with the piece i'd made right before (the one where gozu is holding mezu from behind) & turned out really well, so I wanted to keep going with it

I also wanted to draw them angstily again because it'd been a very long time. like half a year at least. angsting them is very enriching for my soul so I try to do it regularly, this one was overdue

subconsciously referenced the poses in the initial sketch from this old thing (feb 2021). i love doing this. all my for-fun works recycle old elements in some way. my favorite game is "what old art reminds me of what im doing rn" im so good at digging stuff out of my archives for it. everyone loves when i do this

the gangi-kozou panel also

i went through a "shade in bold red-orange & dark blue with hard light layers" phase in like..april/may of 2021. i still like that stuff a lot so I wanted to revisit it

💚Things you like about hurt mezu drawing

repasting the link there but the sixth image in the process is essentially the final so you can just look at that

the colors are nice!! I'm real happy with using more saturated colors n I think the warm vs cool balance works really well

the sleeves (man being dramatic on the sand meme)

no like fr look at the 2021 piece's kimono sleeves vs the one I just did 2.5 years later. so satisfying

Gozu's expression came out nice

i think the claws and flash lines successfully added Emphasis to Gozu's expression & the piece overall

the poses … the drama …. the brush textures are also good

⏳Things you’d do differently with hurt mezu drawing

add in a liiitle more contrast...aka use a wider range of values. Some lighter lights and darker darks. I miss my 2021 hard neon lighting

a bit more distinction between the characters and the background also

the composition isn't bad but it could be better. Should've thought more about the way the eye would flow around the image in the drafting stage (solid b&w color block thumbnails are good for this)

Moar Sparkles. (I put a solid amount of large & low opacity light bubbles in there & some finer brighter dots especially around the claw stems, but I think more clusters of tiny bright lights on the characters themselves would've gone hard)

💌Some favourite feedback on art

as the wise man Austin Kleon once said: keep a "praise file" of all the positive feedback you get (if you've never read "Steal Like an Artist," you must). so. i am prepared for this question hold on

tastes like sugar glass

multiple people have told me my art is soft & dreamlike

jayce you reblogged my touchstarved art with nice tags on april 10th ive got that saved love uou

umm theres a lot...anytime someone keysmashes or feels emotional because of my art i get happy ,,, lys messaged me about the hurt mezu piece that made me happy also,,,,,there is so much joy in the world

[azumasoroshi]

shizaya fights are cool

forever thinking about how fun shizuo and izaya's chase scenes are because they're always based on the environment <333 like fighting in a giant empty arena has always been meh to me i LOVE when fights incorporate the setting like the train/construction zone fights in shang-chi and any of gray's fights from weak hero and stuff like that

and the nature of shizaya's fights is literally them using every object in ikebukuro to try to kill each other with (including trucks) so of course there's a TON of environment interaction and even if it's not practical at all (shizuo probably could have killed izaya a million times over if he just punched him instead of...pressing his forehead against his???? or throwing the truck at him instead of backwards????) it's SO fun to watch

if i ever learn to animate properly id really wanna make another one of their chase scenes because explosions and fire laser beams are cool but vaulting off of sign posts stuck in the sides of buildings is even cooler

OR write about it in fanfiction, tbh shizaya fics skip over the fights too much or just have them running and cut to them being exhausted like MAN show your work give me the good shit or ill write it myself (that sounds like SO much more fun compared to writing 'he slashed the other's clothes with his sword, missing by a hare's breadth and scowling as the other rushed forward to compensate for his wavering balance" or something. maybe i tried too hard on that one but IDK I DONT LIKE WRITING FIGHT SCENES

they're generally really hard to not get repetitive for me but there'd be so much less repetition in a shizaya fight becase you're always moving and you can always throw new stuff into the equation so it's not just the same old movements over and over. and you can change locations too like what if they're fighting in an aquarium?? fucking uh oh dude

or like. them "trading weapons" would be fun, where shizuo starts throwing the knives he's acquired from izaya over the years/the ones he catches in his teeth and izaya like. im not sure what he would do but maybe shizuo launches a bunch of things at some ceiling panelling and they get stuck in it and izaya cuts them down and all the stuff falls on shizuo like stalectites and he has to run to get out from under it. that kind of stuff

i cant focus on anything else rn because i just watched this for like the seventh time this week and just hhHHHHH (it's mirrored but apparently it's from an ova so you can probably watch the whole unmirrored episode somewhere)

i love how ovas are usually for fanservice stuff and durarara fans' fanservice is full shizaya fight. they knew what we wanted and by god they delivered

[mdzsartreblogs]

hey! i'm so glad i found your blog, its like a blessing to me! not exaggerating! i wanted to ask, do you have all official art from mdzs in your collection in your blog? like from the donghua, novel, game, and novel and all? i'm looking to make my own private mdzs art collection, so a reply would help!

also what would you suggest as the best sources for collecting mdzs official art? any twitter acc or zerochan?

Hi! Thanks for getting in touch!

I don't have all the official art, because there's just so darn MUCH of it, and because it's actually much more complicated to curate than most other art.

See, I try not to post duplicates, and usually I can easily ensure that by just searching for the artist and checking what of theirs I've posted, and/or by looking at the notes and just seeing if mdzsartreblogs is already in the "reblogged with tags" part of the notes.

But official art mucks that system all up because multiple people post it! I might have reblogged that piece, but not from that OP, and not in that post version. So if something isn't brand new, I'll often toss it in my likes for a later date when I can check if I've reblogged a different version of it, but I've been so busy recently that said later date really hasn't been coming, oops.

I also haven't been super consistent about reblogging art that's only on merchandise - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, without much rhyme or reason. *sweatdrop*

There's also the complication, from the curation point of view, of where to draw the line on what counts as "art." So like...the donghua is composed of cels of drawn art, so should I count every screen cap I see of it as "official art" and reblog it? Or what about the manhua, the entire manhua is "official art," so should I try to collect every single panel? I've decided to draw the line on "no" for treating donghua screen caps as art for this blog, and I don't (usually) count comic pages from the manhua (though I've definitely made exceptions) but I'll reblog more "arty" stuff, like promo posters for the donghua, or chapter lead-ins for the manhua (or the incredibly sexy stuff that the manhua artist has been posting on Twitter of late, coughcough). But you may choose to draw the line in a different place, so what I have may not include whole categories that you'd want to collect.

That said, I've reblogged approximately 500 posts with official art over the almost three years I've run this account (three years this September!). And I can probably help a little with your question!

Resources from Me:

#official art on mdzsartreblogs: https://mdzsartreblogs.tumblr.com/tagged/official%20art

My (six months out of date) organization spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nrSuFDL12MZ4O9_LFcbm7Tq47z_aiOl6I-xj8BNHs-c/edit?usp=sharing

This is the sheet I've used to organize these blogs and to keep the tags organized, though during 2023 I've had no time to maintain it. The reason I'm sharing it now is because the last sheet is a list of official artists (now a couple years out of date) with examples of their work and select links for finding them, so that might help.

Other Resources:

I don't really use twitter and have only vaguely heard of Zerochan, so I'm no help with those. Tumblr is my primary social media account, though I did recently make a Lofter account and I'm gonna try to find some official accounts there to follow directly. I can report back on that if people want, my Chinese isn't great tho so it's slow going and, as I've mentioned, I'm stupidly busy rn so it's hard to find the time.

For other Tumblr blogs that have a lot of official art, here's a few I know of that post it often:

@hanguangjunn - especially active recently, has done a lot of compilation posts that I don't always reblog because I often have some or all of the pieces as solo posts already

@t110n - posts a decent amount of MDZS, and posts official art for a huge range of danmei fandoms. One of my favorite blogs for that kind of thing; I super appreciate how much work they've put into sharing manhua art from a huge range of danmei fandoms.

@fluff-crt - also doesn't post everything, but is still active and has been active since before I joined the fandom; they also have posted some scanalations/translations and reposts with permission, though not as much recently.

@shandian-go - this is a Group Order account (the one I use personally, in fact, highly recommend) but from an art standpoint they're also a great resource for finding official merchandise art, as Mel always posts about the new merch with pictures and doesn't delete the posts advertising closed GOs.

@mdzs-equine-archive - posts official art that includes any equine (Apple, Lan Wangji's horse, etc.)

@minmoyu - in general, Minmoyu is one of the most incredible, helpful people I've found running a danmei account, and I've used resources they've written to help me buy print books, to find new danmei to read, and more. They also fairly regularly post official art, and have done so since the early days of danmei fandoms on Tumblr.

@p-h03n1-x - not active anymore, but used to post a lot of official art.

@zam81 - not super active, but basically all their posts are official art and/or photos for MXTX fandoms.

Those are the ones that spring to mind; if you scroll back through the tag on mdzsartreblogs and see who I've reblogged from, you'll spot some more; if you go back to waaaay in the beginning you'd probably be able to spot some folks who were more active once upon a time and are less around now (@aliceindanmeiland springs to mind, they haven't posted official MDZS art in a long time as far as I know, but were very active in the period when MDZS first hit Tumblr as a fandom, around the summer of 2018. Note that I personally joined the fandom in the fall of 2019.)

Hope this helps! Happy collection building!

-unforth

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

NBD just crying over Action Comics 1060 (in a good way but also a sad way because DC is being VERY DUMB and ending PKJ’s run in favor of a Jason Aaron Bizarro filler arc ohhhhhh how I weep bitter tears of frustration)

…Anyways, spoilers!

So 1060 is the penultimate installment of PKJ’s (stellar, spectacular, phenomenal, brilliant, top-tier) run on Action Comics and I just want to applaud him—for a lot of things, really, but in *this* specific case, I wanna stand and cheer because he’s making it EXTREMELY CLEAR that the twins (who are not actually twins) are in fact, Clark’s kids. No question, no ambiguity; Otho calls him papa, Clark refers to her as his daughter, and he’s willing to travel through LITERAL HELL to get her back.

It’s entirely possible that future writers will try to get rid of these kids, but I appreciate that PKJ has made it *very* difficult for them. XD Any retcon they’d come up with would be so messy. (Of course, saying this, I realize that the more depressingly realistic outcome here isn’t that writers actively try to erase them, but rather, will probably sideline/ignore them, trot them out for generic precocious kids stuff every now and then, and wait for the next line-wide reboot to ‘streamline’ Clark aka toss out anything mildly interesting and/or additive to Clark’s corner of the DCU.)

Right. Sorry. Salty tangent. XD

So anyways here’s some panels that tugged on my ‘Aunt Kara’ heartstrings.

‘I know sweetie. I know. It’s so hard, not knowing.’ HOW VERY DARE.

There’s also a really great page wherein Kara gets Osul to calm down by reminding him of a…I think Phaelosian legend? Or possibly Kryptonian, I know she was trying to find stuff for them in a previous issue.

(Went back and it’s actually the House of Ra fable; the House of El’s is ‘Nightwing and Flamebird’, Ra’s is ‘Red Son and Starchild’.)

I love that Lois lets Kara and Osul have that moment, that space; I maintain that while Clark has a better handle on getting what the kids went through on Warworld given that he was there, and Lois obviously has more experience with raising kids that have unique needs thanks to Jon being half alien, but *Kara* is more readily equipped to sympathize with Otho and Osul’s struggles with transitioning to Earth life, based on her current, canon characterization. (Which is, uhhhh…Woman of Tomorrow and alsoooooo…Rebirth? Maybe? WoT is def canon, the recent SG one shot visually referenced Kara’s departure from Argo.) But I digress!

Speaking of the kids’ struggles…Otho is Going Through It. The stuff with Sister Shadow (AKA Norah Stone AKA evil daughter of an alt universe Bruce and Talia) trying to tempt her to the dark side by preying on her trauma/difficulty adapting to her new home and revealing a future, tyrannical version of herself is some wonderfully juicy character work, both from the perspective of fleshing out Otho AND being additive to Superman’s roster of villains; that’s something I love about PKJ’s approach to world building overall. Yes, he’s revamped some of Superman’s established bad guys (Metallo, Mongul) but he’s also added awesome new foes, like Norah Stone, and Pyrrhos.

I really hope DC lets him do like. A mini series on his original Kryptonian/House of El characters. I would honestly love to read about all these cool new, additive elements, than deal with the Luthor cameo fest over in Superman rn. XD

In conclusion: DC once again shying away from anything interesting and new with Superman in favor of the safe status quo. -_- I mean, I hope I’m wrong. I hope the new ‘Superman Superstars’ opt to build on the solid foundation PKJ has set up. But given what happened with Bendis? Creators’ absolute refusal to incorporate any of the canon he built, because they knew DC would walk it back ASAP? (And the Superman group editor openly admitting that was his number one priority as soon as he GOT THE JOB???) Just shows a complete lack of faith in your creators, and doesn’t really give me too much hope for one of the few remaining titles I look forward to each month.

…but hey, hopefully Marilyn Moonlight will be neat??? XD

(Also LET A WOMAN WRITE A MAIN SUPERMAN BOOK YOU COWARDS.)