#not hiding all this shit under a readmore. look at my advice

[abyssalzones]

What's your comic writing process like? I'm starting to get into making my own comics and I really admire your work!!! Any advice?

Ah, intrepid traveler, you've done well to journey to this secluded mountaintop spire, in search of the answers you seek. I indeed can provide such forbidden comicmancy knowledge... at the cost of your mortal soul...

coughs. anyway, I'm going to warn you immediately that what works for me does not work for everyone else, and in my experience the way I do things can prove very slow and discouraging for anyone who is more interested in the actual "drawing the damn comic" part of the process. I only do it this way because I enjoy weaving a narrative web that feels not only fully contained but re-readable, but my projects are often so long and my memory so shitty that I can't just keep all of it in my head! It would spill all over the place and make a really embarrassing mess of brain-juice. Not ideal.

but as for my own process, uhh... I suppose a comic would be fitting, right?

a little choppy but you get the idea.

as for turning words into art, I've been experimenting with figuring out the best way to do that for a little while now. Originally what I was doing for something like Ad Astra Per Aspera was to take my "script" and sketch it out on paper very loosely, before transposing that onto my canvas and working from there:

...but, I've found that can make it kind of difficult to space everything around on your standard page-size, and the thing I'm having the most problems with currently seems to be finding the sweet spot of panel-size proportions. So, I've taken to printing out standard thumbnail templates (you can just find these on google) and sketching very tiny panels in those, which seems to give me a slightly better sense of scale... (mild chapter 5 spoilers, sorry ad astra fans)

but I have yet to totally pull through on this, so who knows, maybe I'll try something else in the future!

As for advice, this is probably most applicable to me, but as a disabled artist I have a very hard time managing my workload without literally working myself into injury. I don't think I talked about this publicly but when I was working on that ten year anniversary comic I was literally drawing every single day for 3 solid months. Sometimes, in my case, I really can't bring myself to stop once I've latched onto an idea, and sometimes I find the most rewarding thing I can do with my time is to draw- but I seriously cannot overstate: Do not fucking do this.

You will fuck up your wrist, your back, your neck, your eyes, and probably your mental health. It's a well-known fact that mangaka have a lower life expectancy than the average japanese person due to the intense workload imposed on them by deadlines and personal expectations. Comics are a very demanding artform, and even though I'm not on any sort of mandated schedule there are times where I've toiled away at something when I likely should have been exercising or taking vision-breaks. Therefore the best advice I can give you is to chill the hell out.

Namely, find parts of the process you can be lazy about, and embrace the laziness! You don't like digitally sketching? Don't do it! Skip it, or maybe find a way to traditionally sketch things out in advance like I do. Hate lineart? Don't fucking do it. You really don't feel like wasting your time writing 72k words of comic scripts? ...then, don't be like me. skip that part. I'm a flawed human being and what works for me might not work for you.

The second most important piece of advice I could give is to read comics. Of all kinds. The reason for this is pretty self explanatory: In order to figure out your own comic-making style, you should first pick out bits and pieces from the artist's buffet to add to your plate. Manga, graphic novels, american comics, european comics, weird niche little webcomics, funny papers, anything and everything. This advice rings true of pretty much any art form, but I find it to be essential to honing comic-making skills because so many things you feel will just come intuitively often don't. and that's okay! nobody is born knowing how to leave space for speech bubbles or shape their panels in a way that imitates stretches of time. The best way to figure out stuff like this, in my experience, is to study the "masters", and then after becoming well accustomed to the basics, figure out what rules you want to bend or break to create your own style.

I consider myself to be in equal parts a writer and an artist, which lends itself well to making narrative comics, but maybe you're a bit more of an artist and want to focus on panel-by-panel visual storytelling. Or, conversely, maybe your talents lean closer towards writing, and the art itself is more of a secondary skill. Regardless of your unique blend of talents you can and should make a comic, you should just also be aware of your strengths and try to hone in on those- there will always be opportunities to build up skills you lack, but focusing on what you do best will always lead you in the right direction.

Anyway, that being said, here are some recommendations in no particular order:

Monster, Naoki Urasawa (!!)

Bone, Jeff Smith

Witch Hat Atelier, Kamome Shirahama

The first IDW run of Transformers comics (namely More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light)

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (!!)

Through the Woods, Emily Carroll (really any Emily Carroll comics)

Kill Six Billion Demons (webcomic) (!!)

Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo

The Third Person, Emma Grove

Tintin, Hergé (can be super racist please be wary)

Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson

Maus, Art Spiegelman

Cucumber Quest (webcomic)

Jellyfish Princess, Akiko Higashimura

Golden Kamuy, Satoru Noda (!!)

Note that I did not grow up with manga so I am seriously behind on a lot of extremely influential japanese comics such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, basically any of the original Shonen Jump comics, but they're widely considered building blocks of the genre so if you love the artform I think you should give them a try! Same goes for classic non-shonen manga genres like various Shoujo, Josei, Yuri, Gekiga, ETC.

same as above applies to a lot of classic DC and Marvel works, I unfortunately am just not a big fan of superhero comics... but I'm sure there's good stuff in there. a couple of my mutuals talk about booster gold and the blue beetle all the time so I'm assuming there has to be something worthwhile.

...and many, many, many more that I'm forgetting! I noticed as I made this list that, to my knowledge, hardly any of these are made by black or just non-japanese-mangaka BIPOC artists, which makes me sad about the gaps in my own comic collection. Therefore, anyone is welcome to add their own recommendations in the replies!

now go forth, and combine images with text!!!!!!!!!!!

[sovpologist]

hi, genuine question! I want to like Mara, but d2 lore shows her, in my eyes, as selfish and cruel, set on her own goal with no consideration for others. At least that's what I got from marasenna lorebook.

Why is she liked by so many in community? I feel like I'm overlooking something over things I mentioned above, but I would appreciate a perspective from someone who likes her character! If it's okay to ask!

its totally okay to ask!! this is going to be a long post so im going to put it under a readmore :)

i just want to stress first that mara is like.... widely disliked by many in the community. it used to be very unpopular to like her and if you even said anything remotely positive about her, people would reply to your posts and send you anons about how you were a terrible person for liking such a manipulative and toxic character. it was only recently that community opinion kind of started to shift, and people started to actually appreciate her character as nuanced and interesting. i definitely dont think this is because of me or anything crazy like that, but ive tried to correct misconceptions about her and cultivate a space on my blog at least where people can just openly like mara and not feel like they have to qualify it by constantly assuring people that they know mara's done bad things too (because literally every character in d2 has done bad things, and somehow people understand that liking the uldren doesnt mean you support him killing cayde but cant apply that same concept to mara for some reason). ok, im getting off my soapbox now and im going to just talk about why i like her.

mara is genuinely just such a fascinating character to me. reading the marasenna im really struck by how alone she is, even as a 19 year old human. her mom has essentially abandoned her and says that she's mara's friend but not her mother, and mara's father is never mentioned, so mara literally has no parental guidance or supervision or love. this puts a lot more of her pre-awoken actions into context, such as her not knowing how to interact with people and preferring to keep herself away from the rest of the crew. everyone mara loves leaves her. her mom stays in the distributary, uldren is distant in his efforts to impress and surprise her and then dies, and sjur dies too.

i also love mara's character arc, although it kind of makes me sad. mara is so painfully human in the earlier parts of the marasenna. she's awkward, she's lonely, she thinks her and uldren's secret language is "cool," she gets embarassed at her mom's embarrassing petnames, she hero-worships alis li and listens to her advice. watching her lose all of this and crystalize into a queen is so interesting. remember, mara didn't go out into the fight between the darkness and the traveler bc she knew she would gain power and create the awoken, its stated that she went out there to die. so a 19 year old just trying to die peacefully ends up witnessing firsthand the power of the dark and light and being tasked with essentially creating a new species, knowing that one day she wants to go back and fight the darkness. she becomes such a politician and has to scheme and plot and really loses her humanity while following ALIS' advice- alis was the one who told her that people need a mascot, not a friend. this also makes for a really interesting scene where alis grants mara one favor, and instead of asking for political power, even though mara is such an intensely political and scheming person, she tells alis the truth about the awoken and asks for forgiveness. alis, who mara looked up to, doesnt forgive her, and mara really internalizes this and starts to permantantly close herself off. mara made herself into a queen and lost her humanity in the process. there's a couple people who see the real her, like sjur, but even sjur doesnt really understand her. but her relationship with sjur is also so well written and interesting, sjur being the one person she lets herself drop her mask around and just act human. i made a post about this once, but even mara's speech patterns change around sjur, becoming much more casual and "normal." however, at the same time, mara's mask/persona is a part of her character, and one that i love. people hate her for being "mean," but i like characters like that. mara doesnt take any shit, even from the protagonist, and has her own plans and goals that she doesn't feel obligated to share or change for other people. she's ambitious, sticks to her guns, and doesn't allow other people to influence her.

you say she's selfish, and i think it is easy to brush her off as selfish and doing everything for her own gain, but there's a lot of subtext and outright text in the marasenna and other lore that shows mara genuinely believes that the only way to fight the darkness is to become a being on the same level as the darkness and the traveler. she doesn't let the awoken become immortal gods, which some people regard as a bad thing, but she did that for a reason. mara understands that a people who are eternal and ageless will never grow as people, and she knew that the darkness wanted them to just be complacently sitting aside in their little realm while it does whatever it wants. mara wasn't going to let that happen, and knew she had to find a way to encourage people to leave paradise. you can dislike the way she went about this, essentially encouraging conflict and war among her people, but she did not just do it for her own gain or amusement. mara has also been hated on for starting the reef war/firing a missile at the house of wolves, people act like she did that just for fun too, but the eliksni fleet was heading to conquer earth. instead of just hiding and building up her own resources, which wouldve been the logical thing to do in this situation, mara put her own fleet and power on the line to draw the eliksni's attention away and help earth. she doesn't do things solely bc they benefit her, but because she genuinely loves and wants to help earth. her uncaring persona is a mask, the thing that she feels she needs to be for people to have faith in her.

i have more to say but this is already so long and ive said a lot, so i'll end it here :) at the end of the day, some people are just not going to like mara and thats totally fine. she's not everyone's type, bc she IS ambitious and manipulative and sometimes cruel. i just wish she didnt get a disproportionate amount of hate for being like that when i know for a fact that if she was a male character she would not get this much hate, and i wish that people could just dislike her normally without lying about her or misinterpreting her character and motivations. but if you dont like her, you dont like her! sometimes we just dislike characters, sometimes for well thought out reasons snad sometimes just for no reason! thats completely fine, as long as you're respectful!!

[ellohcee]

Okay let’s try this again long AU (The Mad Ones) under the cut (not mine these were sent in by @jubilantscribbler / @jubilantwriter )

yeah samE i said that about hadestown too fkldsf anYWAY im sending this in multiple asks so that you can hide it under a readmore okayy here i GOO- SO. It starts with David driving away from the city and heading out to somewhere - maybe to see the ocean, maybe to go hiking in the mountains, maybe to take a trek in the great plains, maybe to venture out into the countryside - he's not sure yet, but he's hyping himself as he drives and drives, just watching the city fly by. (1)

BUT. He blinks and he's still in the city. Even worse, he's still in his mom's driveway, sitting in a car with the key still in his hand, and his foot is still firmly on the brake. He blinks and feels crushed under the fact that he's not going away to go hiking forever in nature, but instead, he's supposed to be getting ready for college because he just graduated, and just as he's about to start crying, he hears Jasper speak up like, "Damn, and here I thought you wouldn't choke." (2)

David turns and sees his best friend, his childhood friend, sitting in the passenger seat and grinning like he always does, and David nearly cracks and whispers, "What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here." And Jasper just shrugs and rolls his eyes like, "Sure, but I'm here anyways." And David's like, "You're not real, I'm sitting alone i-in a car-" and Jasper's like, "Yeah, my car. Alone. What are *you* doing?" (3)

GHHH what a cold open, David in his happy daydream and suddenly snapping back to a cold terrible reality. AHH I ALREADY LOVEHATE IT.

(4) And David's sputtering and trying to convince himself and Jasper that David's supposed to be getting ready for college, and he just needed a moment, he's stressed, he knows what he wants, stop questioning him, stop doubting him, this is what he's supposed to do, this is what he needs to do, so leave him alone like he's supposed to be, and suddenly there's too many thoughts, too many memories happening at once- and then Jasper snaps him out of it for just a minute.

(5) Jasper calms him down by reminding him of the one time he managed David to skip school, and it's enough for David to just relive the moment with Jasper vividly, and he remembers feeling that freedom, of being happy and alive and enjoying the moment with Jasper. It's all to calm David down and getting him to cheer up as David remembers that good time and reminding him of what he really wants, and David gets lost in the memory until reality breaks the memory and he's stuck in the present.

(6) Now with his "imaginary" Jasper, as Jasper calls himself, and him back in the car, David remembers that he lost something irreplaceable and can't get over it, and now he's sitting in Jasper's car without Jasper with his future looming over him. But Jasper gently nudges him and reminds him to remember why he's in the car in the first place, and why he has the keys in his hands in the first place. Because he had a plan, and maybe all it takes is a little bit of remembering.

This is already so awful, they had plans together AAHFHHD. But Jasp is always so good at calming David down, bringing him back. As much as I hate that Jasper’s dead this is one of my favorite kinds of setups. Like someone’s heartbroken and it’s kind of a “but how can I go on without you?” feeling and it’s like “You can, you HAVE to.”

(7) Jasper puts the key in the ignition for David and has David go through his memories of his senior year. David remembers Jasper, when he was still alive and bright and in the midst of his rebellious streak, and Jasper laughs as David chastises him for all those times he skipped class and nearly dragged David along with him. But David wanted to go with him. They had dreams - David had dreams that only Jasper knew, and as the end of the crept closer he grew more and more anxious.

(8) David isn't at odds with him mom, but his mom wants the best for him, even if it means pushing him towards a future he doesn't really want, but is stable and ensures he'll live an okay life. Gwen is the voice of reason in their friend group, always telling them off for having their delusions of grandeur, especially Jasper as he seems to lead David into living life based on impulses. He cares about them both tho, and wants to take their advice to heart... when it doesn't stress him out.

(9??) Jasper's the only one who really gets David, and he encourages David at every chance he gets which reveals David's deep seated love for nature, and how he yearns to get out of the city, and not be trapped by gray walls and mediocrity and studying a major he doesn't care for and living paycheck by paycheck, and also he really needs to get his license because he can't depend on everyone all the time or else he'll never truly be independent.

I love all this dynamic it’s so fitting, so perfect. Especially Gwen, she’s so down to earth and she has to be the one with her head on and thinking logically. So fitting. But David and Jasper just wanna be FREE AND IN LOVE DAMNIT FUCK

(10) Despite his internal conflicts, he still applies to colleges and even manages to get into the same one as Jasper, with mixed feelings. They end up touring the college together and partake in a party that leads to David exploding and saying that Jasper doesn't *do* college, Jasper is wild and free and exciting and takes them on roadtrips and is amazing and incredible and doesn't trap himself in the status quo and WOW he's drunk, no he's not, stop laughing, Jasper!

bWABAAHAHA FUCK YOU TUMBLR. (11) Jasper convinces David to recite one of David's favorite passages from his favorite book (because the book is important in the musical but let's pretend it's about the mystique of the wilderness and the freedom of exploration and freedom), and David recites and hypes them both up because of how excitedly he recites it with passion, and Jasper suggests that they do it, that they run off together and explore and Be the Mad Ones and Live Free and Wild.

(12) Jasper gets more and more excited by the aspect of just... going on the road, just the two of them, doing whatever the hell they want without anyone telling them what to do. And David's trying to be like, "Okay but we need to be prepared and stuff-!" but he's getting more and more hyped by it, and they both start getting excited- up until Jasper gets into his car and begs David to get in. And David freezes and panics and realizes he's... not ready to run yet.

Not crying bc they wanted to run off together NOT ME. BUT LIKE. YOU KINDA DO NEED TO GRAB SOME ShIT FOR THE ROAD JASP WHAT DO YOU HAVE WITH YOU??? AN EXTRA HOODIE AND SOME CRAP IN YOUR CAR? COME ON. Give him a little time you can take off in a few days just don’t tell people about your plans to elope???

(13) Jasper gets upset because they need to leave now before someone stops, but David feels unprepared and they argue and snap and- the memory breaks, and David's facing off imaginary?Jasper and blaming him and saying that Jasper never plans anything and it would have gotten them no where, and Jasper blames him back saying that David put the breaks on, and they keep blaming each other until Jasper yells that if they'd just left that night, he wouldn't be fucking DEAD!

nnoonOIFIDH wHy they figting WJHY ARE THEY FIGHTING I HATE IT. DON’T SAY THAT SHIT JASPER. What’s ten times worse is that this is David’s projection of Jasper therefore his own thoughts so he’s blaming himself through Jasper I hate it???

(14) David storms away from Jasper in tears as Jasper tries to call back to David and apologize, but David just runs to his room and locks himself in there and inevitably buries himself in more memories, but none with Jasper in it. He remembers that after their fight at the party, he went to his other best friend's house - Gwen. She asks about the college visit, and David, still running off his anger fumes, says that maybe college isn't for him, and he should do something else.

(15) Gwen tries to talk some sense into him, telling him that life isn't about always about having fun, that college is the way to go or else they'll NEVER achieve their dreams, and David snaps back that maybe he doesn't NEED college to achieve his dreams, and Gwen yells that real life isn't some fucking book, and if he thinks that's how life works, then he needs to get his head out of the fucking clouds and look around them.

(16) Life isn't like it was back then, it's labor and capitalism, and it's a fucking struggle, but that's the hand they were dealt, and they have to live with what they got. She gets upset and cries because she doesn't want to live like everyday sucks, but that's how it is, and she doesn't get to dream like David does, because she has to work harder to even begin to carve out a dream like David's. She implores him for once to stop trying to live ideally, but to live realistically.

WHY IS EVERYONE FIGHITNG STOP IT

(17) He ends up leaving and going back to his mom's, where his mom worries about her son and the state of his being, and tries to get him to open up to her, and it takes a while, but after some coaxing and cookies, and he opens and tells him about his argument with Jasper and Gwen. She's disappointed that David feels that way about college, but suggests that he finds a compromise - one that's realistic, but still gives him what he wants. He weakly agrees to her because he's tired of fighting.

(18) David goes to bed, only to wake to the sound of a phone ringing. His heart leaps, and David's stuck between the past and present, unsure of where he is. As he stares at his phone, Jasper sits down next to him and suggests he pick it up. It's then that David realizes that he's in the present, but still stuck in the past. Instead of living in the present, he suggests that he doesn't pick up the phone, because like, that'd mean like it never happened. Which means that Jasper... is alive.

David needs THERAPY it sounds like he’s having some serious issues with reality and stress and loss please he needs hterapy hahddha

(19) Jasper plays along and is like, "Okay, if I'm alive now, then we're doing senior year *my way*." So they craft an amazing, fun, incredible senior year filled with laughter and highs and love, and David gets to experience a year with Jasper by his side, and maybe he finally confesses, and maybe they go on a million roadtrips, and he's happy, he's so happy because Jasper's here, and he's alive, and- the phone rings. And the fantasy breaks, and he's in the past again. And he picks up.

FHDShHF THEY COULD’VE HAD IT ALL THEY COULD’VE BEEN SO STUPID IN LOVE TOGETHER

(20) Jasper's mom was the one who called him to tell him that Jasper had died. He'd been crossing the street to return a book - the book he read for David, because it was his favorite book - to the library, and didn't see the car in time. David's world collapses around him, and all he can remember is that night at the party, and why didn't he say yes, why did he say no, and it crushes him as he remembers it over and over again, and he realizes that he can't remember the rest of senior year.

SOBBING HE READ DAVID”S BOOK

(21:) For once, Jasper isn't there to snap him out of it. David has to snap himself out of it, and he digs through his memories of that horrible senior year and remembers the one thing that broke him out of his depressed stupor - Gwen. Gwen was dropping him off at the DMV to take his driving test (again). She's holding a familiar book, and she's trying to smile and talk to him while he's stuck in his head, and finally her voice gets through to him when she suggests something.

(22) While they're waiting for his turn, she says that she read the book he loves, and she kinda gets it now, wanting to explore and see the world, and she suggests that they take a roadtrip together before college, and they can go anywhere, and be anywhere, and it'll just be them two, and he won't have to worry about anything because she'll take care of things for him, and he can just... enjoy. And she smiles, desperate but hopeful, because she wants to see him smile again. But he doesn't.

(23) It breaks him out of his stupor, but only because her words make it sound like it's what he wants (what does he want?), but it's not what he wants, and he remembers Jasper's words of how someone's always gonna come along and try to assume they know what he wants, instead of letting him decide for himself. Gwen's doing it here, even if it's in good faith, he knows this isn't what he wants. He doesn't answer, and she looks heartbroken. Before he can get a word out, his # is called.

SOBBING SHE READ DAVID’S BOOK. SHE’s TRYING GOD SHE’s TRYING BUT THAT WAS THEIR THING THE ROADTRIP

(24) She tells him to go take his test and wishes him good luck. He gets in the car and starts his driving test, stressed out and mind a mess. Suddenly it's Jasper in the passenger seat pretending to be the DMV lady and telling him to listen to him, and that he can help David. He wants Jasper to go away, but suddenly it's his mom, telling him to be careful and slow down, and he needs to take less risks and stay in his lane, where he needs to be. Jasper's voice grows frantic and then it's Gwen.

(25??) Gwen is telling him to follow her instructions, and she can keep him on track and safe, so just keep going straight and drive. David argues that he doesn't want to be safe, and Jasper asks if he wants to take a risk instead. His mom says that risk is fine, if he prepares for it and plans for it. David says he doesn't want to plan for once, and Jasper gently tells him that he can take whatever path he wants as long as it feels right to him, before Gwen says that they need to move on.

Therapy therapy therapy please DAvid I’m beGGING YOU you have so much shit in your head babe please. Fighting to figure out what he wants vs what everyone else wants it’s too much

(26) She begs to him to go with her, even if it's hard, they need to make the right choice. David argues with himself, tries to figure out what he wants as everyone talks over his thoughts and words, his mom begging him to slow down, Jasper begging him to remember, and Gwen begging him to go, before David snaps and tells everyone to listen to him. Finally, he tells them what he wants. He never wanted to go to college, never wanted stay, never wanted to run away. But he wanted to go out and live.

(27) He wants to drive with no clear destination, drive to see and feel and live and nothing else, just by himself. Even if, even if he wishes... he wishes that Jasper was with him. But he knows that he's alone in Jasper's car, talking to himself and remembering, and he hears Jasper say to remember, his mom saying she'll let him go, and Gwen saying she'll step back. And David tells himself to look ahead, don't stop, and don't look back in the rearview mirror. He blinks, and it's just Jasper.

SOBBING

(28) It's just Jasper and David, sitting in Jasper's car in his mom's driveway. Jasper smiles, and reminds David that he passed. He's free. He can leave now. David cries and says that his mom will hate him, and Jasper shakes his head. He worries about Gwen, and Jasper says she'll understand. Jasper encourages him to be wild and free and mad and happy, and to NOT crash his car or he WILL haunt him, smiling through his tears as David reaches for him.

(30) David sobs. "I never got to say goodbye." Jasper takes a deep breath, looking away for a moment before turning back to David with a broken smile. "Sometimes you don't get to say goodbye." "...I miss you." "...I know. Total bummer, right?" David grabs onto Jasper and hugs him tight and begs, "Can't we stay like this?" And Jasper clings to him and says, "You know we can't." "Just for a little longer?" and after a moment of silence, Jasper asks with a soft cry, "What do you want, Davey?"

(FIN) David finally says that he wants to feel the wind in his hair with the windows down, the crunch of dirt under his boots, the smell of the pines, of living just to live. Jasper pulls away with a smile and reminds David that he'll live in David's wants and actions now that he's gone, and when David blinks, Jasper is finally gone. And he's finally moved on. And David finally puts the key into the ignition and starts the car. And he drives away.

NNNGNNDJ I HATE THIS BUT I LOVE IT. I hate every time you kill Jasper and make me love it. My poor boys I’m sO SAD FOR THEM> THEY HAD PLANS THEY WERE IN LOVE THEY WERE GOING TO DO ALL THE SHIT THEY WANTED. Jasper didn’t even get to see SENIOR YEAR IT’s NOT FAIRhFH And poor David just like BLANKED OUT that year of his life and WHO COULD BLAME HIM

When I do listen to this I’m going to have to prepare myself hardcore because I’m going to be a fucking wreck mess especially now that it’s firmly attached to Jaspvid in my head UHHHHH HTHANK YOU

[paint-pilot]

shit it’s been a second, guess it’s time to update again

edit: holy christ this is long, i’m gonna readmore it. tl:dr tyler has many badweird feelings but is getting through it. fun body changes, including hair growth and an unexpectedly nice voice. surgery and legal matters are Annoying. tw for menstruation

it is truly bizarre to think that i’ll have been five months on t in a little under two weeks. another month after that and it’s half a year. it’s uhh...weird. quarantine has just made this all feel weird. it’s like i fast-forwarded through this whole journey i was supposed to go on i guess? like i got randomly torn out of my life one day in march with no warning and then just as suddenly got spat out in august with a new life - new name, new face, new major, new identity - and no transitional period whatsoever. my classmates, my professors, my students, they all have only known me as tyler. and only ever will know me as tyler. and that’s great! it’s great, and i’m truly just blown away by how markedly easy it’s been and how weirdly good my timing was in transitioning. but it almost feels like i’m still a ways behind everyone else, i guess. i’ve spent so much of my life hiding, and lying through my teeth, and covering my ass every second of every day to protect myself, and i don’t have to do that anymore but the instinct is 100% still there and that honestly doesn’t feel good. of course i’m not making any of it up - i’m happier now than i’ve ever been, and i know i’m making the right choice - but it still persistently keeps feeling that way.

it’s just difficult, i think, to balance wanting to be read as male (and, to a large extent, wanting to keep my transness hidden both for safety reasons and so people don’t start treating me differently) and finding it difficult to hide this truly massive life change that, like, four people are really seeing anything of. and y’all, i guess, lol. it’s one thing to talk about all this in therapy, but it’s another entirely to just be able to share it with strangers and not worry about it being weird.

i was writing this with the intent of it being a mostly happy update but i guess there is some negativity boiling up so. gotta be honest, i guess? there’s a lot of fun trauma stuff i’ve been going through lately that i won’t get into but it’s culminated with this bullshit in this really fun way where my mom gets upset because i get kind of uncomfortable when she shows me childhood photos or tells stories about me as a little kid and then i just break down for reasons i really can’t discern. i’m going to try and articulate this, and who knows how messy it’s going to get, so i apologize if it gets kind of incoherent from here on out. as far as i can tell the root thing that she really gets upset about is that i’ve “thrown away” my whole previous identity. like, not a direct quote, but “you can’t just pretend [deadname] never existed. because she did, for a long time.” and...sure, i guess. i know this has been hard on my mom. i know she was raised in a conservative family, and while she has worked hard to adopt an accepting and open mindset she still doesn’t 100% grasp all of it and will make mistakes. i’ve made my peace with that. and yet. it’s not so much, really, that i was this other person and then became tyler, y’know? tyler did not appear suddenly two years ago where she once stood. tyler put on a mask, even before he knew he was tyler, because tyler was scared and ashamed but people seemed to like her and, for a time, she was an easy person to be. and i hated her. that is so fucking scary for me to say, and i’m not sure i’ve admitted that until literally right this second, but i did. not because she was a bad person. because she had a voice and a face and a body that i hated. because people saw her and assumed they knew me. because even she had many faces, because there was no real base or identity to her, just traits designed to paint a pretty picture and make people like her. because i knew, when i finally threw her away, people would miss her. compare me to her. expect me to be like her.

so i don’t know. i don’t have a satisfying way to wrap this up, because i honestly don’t know how to face this because i know it is absolutely not just the trans thing that created this situation. i’m kinda warring with myself, because i do kinda want to go back through this blog and delete photos of myself with long hair and whatever (because jesus, i’ve had this thing since i was like 14) but i genuinely don’t know if that’s healthy. i know i’m going back on my bullshit, fretting this way and that over whether something is “healthy” as though that’s an objective term without considering what’s going to make me happy, but honestly? i don’t know anymore. i keep sensing the mental block - the swathes of my childhood that i cannot recall, just vague, constant unease - and i don’t really know if i want to dig into all of that and learn what lies underneath because i’m sort of afraid of it. like i said, i’m happy now, happier than i’ve ever been, and i’d sort of like to just leave it like that. but i guess the length and tone of this post might argue otherwise.

anyways. anyways. enough mental health therapy, more actual hormone therapy updates since that’s what this goddamn thing is supposed to be i think? i’m finally starting to grow some noticeable hairs - my chin hair is coming back after my mom made me shave it before i left for school lol, as are a handful of mustache/lower lip/sideburn hairs. i keep feeling phantom bugs on my legs/feet and i’ve only just now recognized that that’s just leg hairs brushing against places i’m not used to. my appetite has picked up like absolute hell again, too, so i don’t know if i’m just having a metabolic spurt or what. also, i’ve started bruising more? idk what the hell that’s about - i fucking never bruise unless i’ve been hit Hard, and i kind of assumed testosterone would make you less likely to bruise, but then that’s probably just not related to the hormones at all. i was gonna put this in the tags but seeing as this post is already so long i might as well put a readmore and just put this here lol: my period is late, like, four days late, which is exceedingly unusual for me and might mean i’m finally done. or almost done. fingers crossed.

my voice has started to settle, it seems like. i popped out an e2 yesterday, which is Sick, but i’m not as focused on that anymore as i am on the actual quality of my tone. which is...good? i’m not just a baritone, i’m kind of a good one, at least it seems like. i’m really working right now on just getting familiar with my instrument - i’m second-guessing my pitch sensitivity a lot, but i think i really just need to drill and practice until everything starts feeling like second nature again. but since the musical didn’t happen for me, my coach wants to enter me in a classical solo competition next spring. so...no more retirement from competitive singing. i’m back! and thank god, because i’m starting to go crazy without being in musical work lol.

jesus fuck, i have a lot to say. i should probably split this into two posts but i don’t care. i am frustrated; i tried to get an appointment with a pro bono legal program for a name change, but it happened today and i wasn’t invited so apparently i’m on my own. and i’m frustrated. i’m trying to look at internships and shit for next summer, but i kind of can’t apply right now because my legal name and sex don’t line up with my presentation, and i don’t really know how easy it is to get away with that in this day and age and especially in my field. genuinely, if anyone has any advice, i’d appreciate it. i don’t know how long this will take, i don’t know what the requirements are, i don’t know if i’m better off just applying now and hoping they don’t eliminate me before ever getting me an interview. and, of course, i’m working on getting consultations for top surgery, but i keep catching myself procrastinating that. which seems weird, but listen. i’ve said it before but i have to emphasize, i am capital-t Terrified of getting this surgery. i know i need to, i know it will make things better for me, i know now is the time, i know i hate binding and can’t really get away with not doing so, but jesus fuck i am so frightened of anesthesia it’s not even funny. but i guess i’m mostly just calling myself out here and telling myself to quit being a big baby, schedule the thing, and give myself a few months to prepare.

anyway. that’s all i have to say. i’d apologize for ranting, but honestly...i dunno. i know at the start of all this a handful of you requested these updates, and i have to imagine it’s because at least some of you are transitioning, are thinking of doing so, or know someone who is or will be soon. and i just hope someone out there can at least relate, because there honestly just aren’t a lot of comparable life changes out there. or maybe this is just therapeutic for me, that’s fine too.

i have two midterms next week i should be studying for. i should do that.

[spearfeld]

2, 26

Putting 26 first because #2 is so long I’m gonna put it under a readmore

26. What identity advice would you give your younger self?

Just go for it man. Just be yourself, don’t give a shit what anybody else says. Don’t ever not do something because you’re afraid it’ll make you look gay. You ARE gay. That’s okay. Just fucking own it my dude!!

ask me some gay shit

2. How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story?

I really started to put it together when I was around 12 or 13. If I’m being honest, I knew before then, but was dealing with so much internalized homophobia but I kept trying to deny it. Even after I figured out I was into men, I claimed to be bi for years, clinging to some kind of false hope that I could still have a “normal” life. I recognize now that this is not a good thing to do and stigmatizes bisexual people as “just pretending to be straight until they go full gay,” but what’s done is done and I’ve since moved on and grown as a person.

I realized it because I started to get feelings for this one guy in my class. For a while I just aggressively told myself I just wanted to be his friend, and it wasn’t until in 8th grade when our class took a field trip to Chicago that I eventually finally came to terms with it. I didn’t tell anyone except maybe one of my online friends? I don’t remember actually, but then the summer before 9th grade, I told one of my fellow drumline members at band camp, and she was super supportive. She kept telling me stuff like it doesn’t make you a bad person, it’s okay, etc. etc. We don’t really talk much anymore but I really appreciate her and what she did for me. I think if I had come out to somebody else who hadn’t been as incredibly supportive as she was I would have wrestled with my sexuality for a lot longer.

And it just kind of spiraled from there. I told some more friends at band camp, a lot of whom also came out to me. I came out to my parents a few weeks later and they were supportive. Which is surprising because they’re republicans. I even remember asking my mom once back in like 8th grade when I was struggling with it myself what she thought about gay people, and how I had met so many people my age online who were gay. She said she understood it she said people my age are being forced to grow up so fast that maybe we just feel more comfortable with somebody more akin to ourselves (which is actually a really interesting way of looking at it tbh), and that she was okay with gay people, but then looked directly at me and said, “As long as it’s not my kid!!” (Like mom learn how to read a room lol) But they were cool with it and even though they started out being like “well :/ we wish you were straight but if you’re happy we’re happy” but eventually became a lot more supportive. My dad now makes dad-gay-jokes to me sometimes lmfaooo. I told him my plan was to “marry rich” and he said, “Who’s Rich? Do I get to meet him?” lol

I officially came out as bi near the end of my sophomore year of high school, and finally dropped that and came out as gay that summer. (It worked tbh because so many people heard through the grapevine about me coming out and immediately assumed I was gay so I didn’t even really have to “come out” again I just didn’t correct people when they came up and asked if I was gay lol.) I’ve periodically come out to members of my family since then, and recently I was outed by my mom’s friend to my grandparents (which I was and am a little mad at her for but she also genuinely did not know that my grandparents didn’t know so I can’t blame her all that much.) So now everybody in my life knows. At least, I just don’t hide it any more.

I do still occasionally pull myself back into the closet at work, but that’s because I work with kids in a town that’s decently conservative. I don’t want some angry parent to be like “that HOMOSEXUAL is spending 30 minutes in a closed room with my CHILD what could they be doing in there?” (Like uhhh, teaching drum lessons my dude. You know. My job?) But it’s not like I actively change part of who I am or anything I just don’t bring it up.

Wow this question ended up a lot longer than I was expecting lmfaoo

tl;dr figured it out in 8th grade, came out to one person that summer who helped me, came out to my parents later that year, and officially came out the summer of my junior year.

[kiissme]

Okay! Now that I’m showered and...inhaled my pot roast....which was so fucking good i’m contemplating seconds, but anyway.

So, I work at a bakery department in a grocery store, in a very privileged area, so are the customers. I’ve got soo many stories but let’s just stick with this one. I’m working and this woman comes, older, latina, and like seeing she wants something I go over, my usual spiel, “Hi, what can I help you with?” Seems fine enough, she asks for the La Brea Bakery bread which we have on the counter behind glass in baskets, baked every day, in the morning, what we don’t sell, we bag and put on the table that’s how we do and people still ask if it’s fresh and it’s like -- guys we’re not just gonna have three old day bread unwrapped on a table like come on but anyway, I ask which one is she interested and she goes, “The Pumpernickel.”

....we don’t sell that. Not from La Brea. I’m checking the site and La Brea doesn’t list pumpernickel on there. You see my predicament. So when I tell her that we don’t sell La Brea Pumpernickel and was like, “We do sell some pumpernickel from Beverlywood Bakery—”

And she cuts me off like, “NO, YOU SELL IT! Or you used to, there’s another brand now, but you used to sell it.”

Again. As far as I know it’s not even a thing by La Brea Bakery lmao but at the time all I knew is we never sold it. So I’m like, “No, we never did, now Beverlywood Bakery — or maybe Sunflower Bakery —” I’m listing our Kosher brands which are popular, especially for the rye and pumpernickel stuff, or challah.

“YES YOU DID!” she screams at me, “You used to have it over there!!” pointing toward the table at the distance. With our kosher bread. Which had. You know. BEVERYLY. WOOD. BAKERY.

“Yeah, we don’t put our La Brea stuff there at all,” I said, losing my patience. “Like our Beverlywood Bakery stuff--”

At this point, she gets super mad?? And is like, “I don’t know why you’re being like this, I bought it here before, so I know.”

Patience, a thin thread, “Well we’re the ones that stock these things so we have a better understanding of what we sell.” My boss wasn’t on the floor so I was just not caring about this woman.

“I’ll bring the ticket!! and I’ll show you!”

“OKAY. You do that. If you can find it, bring it over here and show me, that’s fine.” Seeing as she was that confident, bring it, pumpernickel woman. Last I saw of her was walking away and shaking her head, never did come back with the ticket / receipt :))))

Word of advice to customers that think they know better than the employees that work your favorite store five days out of the week — you don’t. I have people that have shopped for years still coming up to me and holding up a packaged muffin being like, “Is this bran? I can’t tell, there’s not labels.” Which like...... We have a total of two brown looking muffins, one with chocolate chips, one without, different shades. If you’re literally dealing with tough shit that you need bran muffins on the regular..... You should be able to tell them apart, without a label. Since y’all love using that, “I’ve been shopping here for ten years” schtick all the time.

So yeah that was my day lmao not even gonna hide this under a readmore you all get it in its entirety just smack dab on the dash.

Also when I get back maybe I’ll tell you all how I almost fought an old woman today lmao over bread of course bc WHAT ELSE.

[sparto-i]

Soul character analysis?

hoooo BOY you better buckle in because he is my favorite gotdam character and i have a lot of things to say about this boy

first off, let’s start out with a summary so ppl who don’t wanna read 4,000 words can still get something outta this: 

soul is a bit of an anomaly with his characterization in the beginning being VASTLY different from his characterization in the end: overall, he’s gone through the most change out of any character in the series. starting off, he was highly insecure and defensive, which likely could be the result of growing up under scrutiny: i have every reason to believe soul’s upbringing was not colorful or happy, but rather harsh and rigid. this is reflected in his desperation to scramble for an identity in the beginning (i have some theories about that). his turning point is when he’s infected with the black blood and begins to have more and more conversations with the Little Ogre- which made a few observations about him: he’s insecure. unsure. nothing like his partner. as the series progresses, he begins to gain confidence and lose that desperation to fit into a certain box and really starts to come into his own. he gains confidence in his abilities to think and analyze, as well as his abilities to support others. this shows his truly kind-hearted nature: a cool dude wouldn’t be a total jackass, right?

now for the REAL party (after the readmore)

just a warning, there will be a lot of mentions of mental illness (especially when it comes to his self-image) and unhealthy family relationships. if i need to add anything else to the warnings, please let me know!

let’s start off with soul’s past:

it’s a well-known fact that he comes from a rich, successful family of musicians- which is something he seems to be trying to forget. soul drops all of the aspects of his past life: he hides his skill and love for the piano, as well as redacting his last name entirely. again, this is common knowledge in the fandom by now. when he discovered he was a weapon, he took the chance to drop the Evans’s family tradition of producing musicians and started a new life.

but why? it’s never explicitly said that his home was a bad environment for him, only that he felt pressure to continue to uphold the esteemed family’s reputation. growing up under such a big shadow would produce that reaction in just about anyone. perhaps it’s soul’s running away that’s the most telling aspect of his life pre-DWMA. not only does he book it out of his home and into Nevada, but he completely tries to erase everything he was- the Wiki page on him states, “Memories of his past still affect him emotionally, so much so that he prefers to forget them entirely.” Pressure to be successful, while extremely stress-inducing, wouldn’t likely make him like this, unless his family was actively exerting this pressure on him. If his parents had reassured him that he didn’t have to fill in their shoes, he probably wouldn’t have run away, but would have rather gotten permission to enter the DWMA as per his request. But, that’s not what happened. 

parents who live vicariously through their children put them through a lot of stress and oftentimes, that results in the child feeling unable to live up to their expectations, which turns into a low self-esteem complex. the child will either try hard to live up to those expectations, or give up entirely: soul chose the latter. as for his self-esteem, you can see this just about anywhere: he often compares himself to other people. he compares himself to his brother when it comes to his music skill, and he compares his abilities as a weapon to that of Giriko and Justin, both of whom can fight proficiently without a meister.

so, soul evans left his home and his name behind, ready to re-invent himself into the total antithesis of what he was going to be raised to be. which leads us into…

the image of ‘coolness’

soul’s beginning personality and appearance is the most well-known- a laid back, chill dude that worshiped the idea of “coolness”. during this stage, he was impulsive like Maka was, but for entirely different reasons: where maka would often act on emotion, soul would try to take shortcuts to get things done a lot quicker- this is shown in the first chapter when he tries to full-on charge through blair’s window instead of coming up with some sort of battle tactic. this is also in-line with the typical cool guy archetype- the guy that doesn’t take any shit from anyone, and who doesn’t think before he acts because only un-cool nerdasses do that. when an event occurs that makes Soul seem anything other than detached and in-charge, he clearly notes how “uncool” the situation is in an attempt to save face. noting soul’s typical personality during combat situations (i.e. advising maka to keep her guard up, seeing situations about five steps ahead, stressing the importance of plans), the moments of impulsive behavior he does have seems rather forced.

his past easily explains why he does this: he doesn’t want to be like his family. he isn’t soul evans, he’s soul eater. his insecurity caused by a rigid upbringing turns him to over-compensate by building this “cool guy” image, which is also the epitome of ‘Western Masculinity’. 

here comes the speculation piece: while i don’t believe you need to justify trans headcanons with explanations to make them valid, soul’s narrative illustrates a very familiar one: a lot of trans kids who are first starting out often over-compensate to try to mold themselves into the cis-normative perceptions of gender in society. i definitely remember my first year of my transition, trying every which way to look and talk different, walk different, like different things, even changing the way i sat down: since i was trans, i felt that i had to over-compensate and make up for my transness. soul’s over-compensation when trying to be and act “cool” definitely parallels that.

as time goes on, Soul begins to come into his own, after the first Crona encounter gave him yet another pair of eyes to criticize him:

The Little Ogre

the circumstances in which he earned this pest serve as the catalyst for his change in personality. trying to protect Maka from Ragnarok after she’d refused to use soul to block the hits from the sword, he became gravely injured and infected with the Black Blood. it’s after this that his maturity begins to show, but isn’t quite as apparent until the Kishin Revival arc, and the Little Ogre is introduced. 

through the series, the Little Ogre serves as an internal conflict for Soul, harping on him through all of his decisions: he’s too patient, he plans too often, he’s too scared, he’s too anxious, he holds back too much. all of this are feelings that soul knew he had, but never had them pointed out (likely because he never confided in anyone about these issues). this causes Soul to try to prove the Little Ogre wrong by either doing the opposite of what he’s being criticized for, or carry on what he’s doing and try to be successful while doing it. considering soul’s past and his lack of motivation due to being pushed too hard, it’s strange to see the Ogre’s insults actually motivate him: but, perhaps since this conflict is internal, and the Ogre is a facet of his mind, he sees the end goal as less of an unattainable one and more of something to work towards. one of the criticisms that really got to him, though, was that he was lacking in something really big:

the courage his meister had

(yikes that was a really bad segue)

it’s easy to see that maka and soul were created to be two sides of the same coin- opposite. soul’s eyes are red, while maka’s are green- they’re contrasting colors. soul’s soul (i never wanna use that phrase again) is blue, while maka’s is orange, which are, again, contrasting colors. their approaches to battle are vastly different, as well. maka acts on emotion, on what seems like the best option at that very second, rather than detailed observation. soul, being the weapon, observes the situation from every angle, keeping calm in most situations so that he can think a way out of any predicament: a great way to balance out his impulsive technician.

however, it’s his tendency to overthink that holds him back. the Ogre had commented that he makes decisions by way of elimination, not daring to act until the only logical path is an option. there aren’t many examples in which this messes up maka’s or his ability to fight: after all, maka is a very smart girl. but, soul’s inability to act affects him personally. he’s shown to have no direction in his life or conviction of his own, which is probably left-over effects from his life as an Evans. after all, if every moment of his life was planned, how was he ever to learn that he had a will of his own?

it was the courage maka had that motivated Soul to take some direction in his life. in fact, she’s the reason he does a lot of things. albeit indirectly and in no way to blame, maka was the reason he was infected with the Black Blood- he’d acted impulsively and out of emotion in order to fulfill his duty as a weapon: to protect. soul was a source of sage advice for maka, someone who would see the plan out to ensure their safety at all times. maka, in turn, was a source of courage and motivation for soul.

it’s this dynamic that pushes both of them forward, up until they finally achieve the goal of creating a death scythe:

while i could go on and talk about all of the facets of his character, from his strong friendship with blackstar, to his struggles in the book of eibon , this analysis is already mcfucking essay length lmao

if anyone requests a part two tho, i’ll most definitely do it