#most dialog is on page anyway so I figured i'd focus on what was happening behind the scenes

[emmatriarchy]

Scene from canon from Emma's perspective: tricking Cassandra Nova into Stuff's body.

The situation was dire - to say the least. Present at Westchester despite her better judgment, Emma watched from a safe distance the situation with Cassandra unfold. Her only concern were the girls. Her girls. Made from her ova without her knowledge, the five girls stirred something inside of the cold White Queen.

An instinct even the Hellions didn't manage to fully awaken in her. The seeds of her caring for the children was there from the moment she started teaching her dear Hellions, however they had been students and not her actual children. She felt similarly towards the students Sean and herself taught together.

The Cuckoos. She missed years of the girls' lives, and she intended to not miss another minute. The growing threat to the school was a headache she could do without.

When she was presented with Stuff - and scanned its primitive, wired for learning brain - a plan started to form in the darkest, deepest recesses of her mind. Could not risk the Mummudrai occupying the brain of Charles catching a stray thought from the highly guarded White Queen, so she locked the plan in the mental safe with her most protected memories.

A few stern words of warning to the girls (stay out of trouble, if I don't come back, do not come for me or any of the other teachers) and she set off to present Stuff to Cassandra's genetic material so it could take her shape, mimic her cells perfectly.

The safe of her mind got reinforced when she turned into her diamond form. She couldn't feel emotions but she should not be vulnerable to psychic attacks in this form. Furthermore, her diamond form was stronger than her flesh-and-bones form, and she could argue, if asked, that carrying a grown woman was easier without muscle fatigue. A likely excuse for her use of her secondary mutation.

Arguing with Cassandra, presenting her with honeyed lies that the parasite wanted to believe, and ultimately tricking her was easier than Emma anticipated.

People saw Emma through the lens of the past - even though she had started her uphill battle against her own selfish instincts years before right after the Hellions were annihilated by Fitzroy - and not through her actions of the present.

She expected that and played with it. Pretending to betray her new associates was easy when they already expected her to. It stung her ego and spat in the face of all her efforts, but she focused on the usefulness of Hank's reaction in selling her lies to the bald cunt.

Hopefully what came next would help the X-Men see beyond their own prejudices and biases. It would be the least they could do as people actively fighting against the prejudices mutantkind faced every day.

Cassandra's essence slipped into the body in her arm, and she sighed a breath of relief. A split second of vertigo, which Emma dismissed as a sign of the pressure and anxiety easing up (little did she know that Cassandra used that split second to implant fake memories of Genosha into her brain, the conniving cur) and she set the body of Stuff, now trapping Cassandra, down onto the first available surface.

Charles stepped on his own two legs - and Emma lost all interest in the situation. Her girls were safe. She protected the children. Diamond turned to flesh, and high, expensive heels clicked on the hard floors as she walked away. Let Jean and Charles deal with the aftermath, she did what she set out to do.

She didn't care if anyone called out after her. She was going to see her girls, and reassure them that the coast was now clear. The ghost of a smile floated on her lips - she may be mother material after all. If only she could find someone (Scott?) who would let her in, and make her want to settle. But those were idle thoughts better explored at a later time.

[asuraaa]

Do you feel like doing a comic has motivated you too draw more?? I'm thinking about doing one but I'm so scared too. How do you handle writing dialog for the comic and making it sound good????

DON'T BE SCARED!! you've probably heard people say this 100 times, but you just have to start. it took me until my 30s to figure that out and actually start making comics… and i wish i had convinced myself way earlier LOL. DON'T BE LIKE ME!!

but really, what are you scared of? that it wont be good? that's FINE! it's the curse of the artist that we're always too hard on ourselves, you gotta fight that voice in your head and just go for it. jump in blindly, with passion, and keep running forward.

i go on forever, so here's a cut LOL--

it's also the beauty of webcomics specifically as an art form-- you start off rocky, you learn, and you get to watch yourself improve. how many times have you checked out a webcomic that's been going on for years and looked at the first page, and then looked at the most recent page, and saw how much the artist improved?? I DUNNO ABOUT YOU, but i love to see that! AND THAT COULD BE YOU SOMEDAY! you can have some SOLID, LINEAR PROOF of your improvement if you just start doing it. and then the next comic you make will be even better.

anyway... i wouldn't say the comic has motivated me to draw more outside of the comic itself, but it's definitely helped give me a focus on what to draw. also if you're the type that sees deadlines as law (like me) it definitely forces you to get shit done LOL.

as for dialog, a handful of it was written with my friend, which i think helps keep the character voices as unique as possible! i was really lucky that i had a friend invested who had characters that i could play off of-- if you happen to have someone like that, i'd highly suggest having them take on a character and roleplay out a back-and-forth. it's helpful for character voice as well as more natural conversation, and it's a lot of fun!

though if you are working alone, i'd suggest sort of the same approach, just with yourself-- try typing out a conversation with the two characters in mind, perhaps even saying it out-loud if you can do so with your living situation. don't worry about the goal of the conversation narratively so much as simply how the characters would converse when confronted with the situation before them! once you get a conversational flow going, you can come back and cut things out a bit for the sake of the story, but it'll help you achieve something a bit more natural i think. anyway sorry i talked forever... good luck to you!! draw the comic!!