#not the point of the post but might as well tag it

[threepiecechickendinner]

I was leaving this in the tags but it got away from me:

Not to distract from the post, but 40 hrs/wk * 52 wks/year = 2,080 hrs/yr.

2,080 hrs/yr ÷ 12 mo./yr = 173.33 hrs/mo.

So, $4,800/mo. ÷ 173.33 hrs/mo. = $27.69/hr. Not $30/hr.

Regardless, in my area companies seem to think they're "competitive" if pay for a full-time position starts at $18/hr. Roughly $37k/yr. Or, able to afford $936/mo. rent.

The average rent here is $1,400/mo. That's 50% higher!

"But," I hear you say, "averages can be misleading because of outliers!" Ok, well, would you like to know what percentage of rental listings in the area are below $1,000/mo.? 7 percent. Seven.

While we're at it, what percentage of household incomes here are below $40k/yr--that is, how many households rely on these "competitive wage" jobs? FUCKING 40%.

So you have a situation where forty goddamn percent of households somehow, magically, are expected to compete for seven percent of rentals. Or, you know, live somewhere they can't afford.

Pay HAS to go up, and/or rents HAVE to come down. Because as it is now, the "invisible hand of the free market" is straight up killing people:

Now, I'm not an economist, thank god, but if your business plan involves knowingly murdering the people you're trying to get money from (landlords) or value from (companies), I don't think that's a good plan. I think that's a pretty batshit plan, actually.

Which brings me back around to OP's point: capping rents at "around" $1,000/mo. is, in fact, entirely reasonable and justified. Which means there's not a chance in hell it'll happen in the next four years, at minimum. After all, El Presidente halting any scientific communications from government agencies to US citizens includes the FDA. You know, the agency responsible for issuing warnings about food-borne dangers and outbreaks. Like salmonella. Like bird flu.

Shitler is an utter failure of a human being in every way that matters. But he's pretty much what you might expect, given everything else going wrong.

time to bring the Truman housing caps back:

[velvetvexations]

Was going through the Playdoughs tag just to see what was up with the Homestuck vs Dykes To Watch Out For stuff and unfortunately saw that she apparently was also trying to paint Leslie Feinberg as a TERF and ngl might be a bit conspiracy brained but between that and the Bechdel stuff I'm wondering if she's just trying to shit on every single notable butch person out of a hatred for transmascs and "TMEs". Like no queer person has ever been perfect, but it's getting sus that transradfems never bring up any of the problems with Whipping Girl and decry anyone who does a transmisognist but they're allowed to shit all over Stone Butch Blues and Dykes To Watch Out For because the authors both have had some questionable takes.

It also especially pisses me the fuck off because Feinburg literally stopped medically transitioning to avoid the separation from the lesbian community(and expirience a bunch of butches say they shared on a post I found from r/ButchLesbians. Legit saw PD claiming the women in the book only exist to prop up tmascs and take care of their emotions which...idk in the context of that passage I legit can't help but feel like she genuinely thinks the isolation that came with transition was just and deserved. PD also compares Feinburg to a cis man writing misogynistic crap about cis women and truly, shut the fuck up. It's possible for anyone to be misogynistic, but Stone Butch Blues very clearly shows not only how much Feinburg valued the women around hir even as they abandoned hir for trying to become who ze wanted to be, but also how much violence and hatred butches and tmascs face, and honestly I think the latter might be her real problem with it. Can't let queer books about tmascs and butches exist, people might realize queer masculinity is actually NOT celebrated by cishet society! And ofc course asking any queer woman to stand in solidary with her butch community members is placing men's emotions over women's and implying women only exist to support and care for men. It would almost be funny if it wasn't so goddamn transphobic and cruel.

Anyway yeah, sorry to vent, that just bothered me so fucking much. I think it's perfectly fine to point out issues with well-known queer authors and activists but when you are specifically attacking masc queer people I start to get suspicious that combating transmisogny might not really be what's driving this. And again, it's awful that anyone could read that book(or just like Feinburg's wiki page) and come away with the belief that society and certain queer spaces never punish queer masculinity. It breaks my butch heart to see all of my fellow butches never making their body a home because they'd rather live a dysphoric life than end up alone with no community. I'd love for any transradfem to read those testimonies and tell me tmascs and butches aren't targeted for their masculinity, I dare them.

some trans women desperately need trans men to be cis men because cis men violently oppressing us isn't enough and they need a direct 1:1 equivalent to the relationship cis women have with cis men to feel validated

[ghouljams]

how do you rp with real people

literally the exact same way you would role play with a bot if that's what your starting point is.

But if you've never rp-ed in your life I'll break it down into the fundamentals for you under the cut.

Stage 1: Advertising

You have to start somewhere. Usually that's going to be finding a partner. This is going to read a little bit like a job posting but that's also sort of what it is. Here's an example, your ad should, vaguely, look like this:

Wanted: RP Partner I play: John "Soap" Mactavish You play: Simon "Ghost" Riley tags: apocalypse au, "came back wrong" Soap, gore, smut, angst What I'm looking for: responses once a week with a minimum of two paragraphs. Must be 18+. Potential kinks: stalking, objectphilia, blood, knifeplay, gunplay, whatever Starter: words words words

Give it a few tags and let people know you're open to discuss then you just gotta wait for someone to respond. This is an example of a character rp, VERY DIFFERENT from an OC rp. People will expect you to know the character well and be able to stay in character, that means there's a higher risk of people leaving the rp if they think you're not faithfully representing the character. I have left character rps because I thought my partner was butchering the character.

OC role playing is much more forgiving, but it's also unpredictable. You won't have any idea how your partner's character will respond to your actions, so this is where stage 2 comes in!

Stage 2: Getting to know you.

The first part of any good rp is going to be getting to know your rp partner. bare bones this means: getting a kink list with hard limits and "maybe" kinks(if it's an nsfw rp), getting character information, discussing schedules(when do you have time to rp), and what you want out of the rp(plot, au, reply length, activity, smut/fluff/angst/whump).

Kinks don't have to include every kink in the world, just the ones you know you're interested in and the ones you know you're not. This stage of the game is all about discussion. Sometimes you(or your partner) will be replying to a prompt and sometiems you'll be responding an open call for partners, either way you'll be talking about what sort of story you're looking for and workshopping the plot together.

I suggest making some sort of easy to supply bio of your character, plus any images you might have of them. And keep your kinks list somewhere that you can easily find it if prompted. You don't want to scramble trying to find kinks you think will fit an rp, just supply the list you have and discuss from there. Role playing requires a lot of vulnerability so be prepared for that.

Also important to discuss is what pov you're writing in, most rp will be either in third(most common) or first person. So get used to writing "name did this." This makes it easy to remember who is talking as you're building the story with your partner.

Stage 3: the plot, and the starter

Plotting an rp should be loose and fun. It can be as simple as "I want my character to accidentally curse yours and then they have to work together to break the curse" or as complex as a full book outline. I would try to avoid a full outline, because you'll have trouble sticking to it and you'll be too worried about satisfying specific beats.

let's say you've got your story vaguely plotted and your partner asks if you would write the starter. The starter is just the first response that prompts the rest of the rp. Your starter should include, roughly, these things at the length that you and your partner have agreed upon for replies:

A brief introduction to the world, this is a chance to flex your descriptive muscles and have fun:

The charred remains of a city smolder in the distance as the sun sets over a man-made desert. The sand is red beneath the man's worn boots. It's been a little over six months since the plague swept over the continent, turning friends and strangers into monsters. Three months since those monsters rotted to the point their muscles couldn't propel them forwards anymore. Three weeks since they sprouted and started releasing spores. The man adjusts his gas mask as he walks, hitching his pack higher on his shoulder.

A brief introduction to your character, if they're a known character in an au you should focus on how the world has changed them(within reason), if they're your oc give a brief description of notable physical features and a short background:

Known character:

The man can't even call this a desertion. Sgt. John "Soap" Mactavish, former SAS operator, left the service as quickly as it abandoned him. Too many people in too close an area, once the fevers started it swept through the barracks like wildfire. The higher ups left their dogs to die, and the smart ones ran. Soap wishes he could say he was one of the smart ones, but he was just lucky. Out on leave when the shooting started, his priority had been to his mother in Scotland, not to king and country. He felt like a coward leaving his brothers in arms, but what else could he do once lockdown went into effect?

OC:

The man can't even call this a desertion, more like a mercy killing. "Hush" had survived the fever, survived the horrific drug trials that had been pushed on the military first, and survived the open grave they'd shoved him in when he was deemed too far gone to save. But in the military too far gone only meant one thing: no longer following orders. When the virus had chewed up his brain he'd lost everything, except what his brothers in arms had called him: Hush. It's enough to keep the man moving forwards. He needs a shave, and a haircut. Six months have grown his hair shaggy, and his new diet has taken the softness from his cheeks. It's easier hunting when he doesn't have to cook his food.

And finally what the hook that starts your rp is. With an OC you can use this as another way to introduce character traits or another physical trait, with a known character this should be how they fit into the world. For this we're going to say that you and your partner want to do a "trying to get home" plot, and your character is going to meet their character by finding them passed out in the desert:

Known Character:

As Soap crests the next dune he stops to survey his surroundings. The desert is rough, and it'll only get worse at night. He squints at the blobby shadow that fades like a mirage in and out of his vision. He sucks in a breath. A shadow without an object to cast it can only mean one thing, it's not a shadow. He slides down the dune and races towards the blog, stopping short as it comes into focus. The huge body of a man left for dead out on the dunes. He picks up his pace and drops to his knees to grip the man's shoulder and shake. "You alive?" He asks, almost giddy at the thought of another human out here.

OC:

As Hush crests the next dune he stops and surveys his surroundings. 100 yards from him he spots a dark blob, a shadow that's been cast with no discernable source. He blinks and rubs at his eyes, since the fever they aren't as sharp as they used to be. A shadow without an object to cast it can only mean one thing, it's not a shadow. He slides down the dune and races towards the blog, stopping short as it comes into focus. The huge body of a man left for dead out on the dunes. He picks up his pace and drops to his knees to grip the man's shoulder and shake. "Hey," He moves his hand to check the man's throat for a pulse, "you alive?"

believe it or not that is actually shorter than my usual starters/replies lol, but that's the basics of a starter.

Stage 4: keeping up the rp!

No comes the fun part. Your partner will respond to your starter(hopefully) and then you'll be able to get going. But how do you respond? They just sent you this great response and you're not sure where to go from here, well there are two parts to a good response.

responding to their character's actions or words.

prompting them to respond.

This is why I like a 2 paragraph minimum for rps. You should always respond to their character, but you also need to give them something to respond to. Say their character is alive but they need water or food or medical care. Your character should:

respond to that need. "Thank god you're alive, hold on."

give them something to respond to as well. "Here, do you think you can hold a canteen? or- no let me hold it."

By giving your partner something to respond to you don't run into bumps of "what are you hoping for in my response." It's a lot like dating when you're starting out, you want to ask questions and prompt them to keep the conversation going so that you can both participate.

Dos and Don'ts

Do: write your partner's character doing something they did in a previous response

Don't: tell your partner what their character is doing.

This happens a lot if you're writing sex scenes between two characters. You can say "my character is fucking your character" but don't talk about how much their character is loving it and pushing back on your character if your partner didn't mention that in their response. This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I've dropped rps because my partner was saying "oh yeah your character loves that" and I went "don't tell me what they like."

Do: describe how your character sees your partner's

Don't: include details that are not in the character's description.

You can talk about how your character likes their character's eye color or hair or skin, but make sure you're getting their character descriptions correct. "my character thinks your character's eyes are like swimming pools, sparkling in the sun, it's going to make blue their favorite color" <- fine. "your character's (unmentioned in the description) tits are so big" <- not fine.

Do: respond in a timely manner, and apologize if you're going to take some time off from the rp

Don't: disappear for 9 months and then send 15k words without an apology or explanation only to disappear again right after, and only communicate with me through tiktoks.

.... self explanatory

Basically be respectful of your partner's character and give them the space to say "actually can we go a different direction with the story. It's their rp too and you want the both of you to have fun!

Happy rp-ing!

[magnetic-rose]

man as i'm rewatching all of a:tla i really want to make a post about what are (imo at least) common misconceptions about the show and characters.

like a very common one that i see parroted way too often is "katara is too mature/motherly and babies aang," with the implication that her romantic love for him makes no sense.

but i'm more than halfway done with s1 and i think the fandom forgets that katara is a 14 year old girl. she's not a young woman, she's a child. and often times she's mischievous and funny and childish. she's usually right there WITH aang participating in his shenanigans. she even creates her own shenanigans. the show spells it out for the audience in episode one where katara and aang are penguin sliding and she says "i haven't done this since i was a kid" and aang replies "but you are a kid." one of the reasons she was so mad at sokka and gran gran for kicking aang out of the village was because "he brought laughter back."

and that's why they work and that's why she falls for him. he brings levity back to her life. he allows her to be a goofy, silly kid. they often support each other's little games. she cheers on him when he's riding the giant koi fish (until she gets distracted). they play in the river. she wears the necklace he makes her. he wears the goofy hat she makes. he goes along with her fortune-telling obsession.

and if anything, sokka is usually the voice of reason between them, trying to reel aang and katara in. and yet sokka gets the fandom reputation as the chaotic fun guy and katara gets the reputation as the "mom" who's telling people off. she's aang's biggest partner in crime and yet fandom treats her like the exasperated mom friend.

[a-most-beloved-fool]

Kira has a nightmare, one night when she's staying at the O'Brien's. Miles and Keiko, sleeping in the other room, don't hear her get up - but Molly does.

And Molly, being clever and kind, knows exactly what to do when someone has a nightmare. (Or, at least, she knows what her parents always do for her.) So she sits Kira down and brings her a glass of warm milk, and sits by her side as she drinks it.

Then, she takes Kira by the hand and leads her - to her parents bedroom. "I always sleep with mommy and daddy after a nightmare," she explains, when Kira stops outside the door. "It helps! Mommy chases the scary things away. And Daddy is warm."

"Molly," Kira says quietly, a little embarrassed, "I don't think your parents want me in their bed. Even if I did have a nightmare."

"No, they won't mind!" Molly assures.

Then, of course, Miles wakes up.

"Molly?" he asks, voice rough with sleep. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"No, but Miss Kira did!"

And now Keiko's awake, too, sitting up and saying, "Nerys? Are you alright?"

Mortified, Kira says, "Yes, I'm fine, I was just - on my way back to bed. Molly brought me here. I'm - sorry for waking you. I'll just be-"

"You can stay, if you want," Miles offers.

Kira doesn't quite think she heard him right. "What?"

"You can sleep here, if you think it might help," Keiko says.

"Or even if you don't!" Miles adds.

Kira opens her mouth, then closes it again. "I, uh-"

Keiko gets up, and takes Kira, gently, by the hand. Her palm is soft, Kira can't help but notice.

"Brr, it's freezing out here!" Keiko says, tugging Kira along. "You'd better get in before you catch your death of cold. Miles is practically a furnace, so you'll be nice and warm with us."

"And, Molly, you'd best go back to bed, too. You've got school in the morning," Miles says, as Keiko bundles Kira into the bed between them.

As Molly makes her way out, Keiko swings a lazy arm over Kira's back. "Sleep," she hums. "We'll be here in the morning."

Kira, feeling warm and cared for and more than a little overwhelmed, does.

[journey-to-the-attic]

one thing about ik is that she will always reach out

[firestorm09890]

Y'ALL. Y'ALL so for a long time I've believed that "the sun" in Meursault's story is Carmen, and I went to check Hell's Chicken's dialogue to see exactly how he said that he'd dealt with distortions before, and... you know what else he said?

To my knowledge, it is a phenomenon where an individual morphs into a form often unfit to be considered “human”. It has no known causes, and the appearances were all different.

Unfit to be considered human.

Meursault, who, in his book, was judged by the court to be soulless.

Meursault, who has EGO for Cyborgs who have been so mutilated they barely act like people anymore; a murderer who was experimented on until ceasing to be human; a sheep named after Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a novel about the humanity of androids and the inhumanity of humans; and now a rose that can't help its bloodsucking nature, based on Carmilla, a vampire whose story emphasized the duality between her vampiric traits and her human ones.

Meursault, who answered Heathcliff's ironic question of if he had metal for brains like this:

I'm placing my bets now, that line from Hell's Chicken is foreshadowing for Meursault's canto even more than "I have witnessed a number of [distortion] cases in the past" was

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[half-a-life-left]

shadics

[a-loose-collection-of-ants]

A true and 100% historically accurate account of Hamilton's first meeting with Andre

+ Bonus Lafayette

[bezzygom]

nenekasa or something

[wisteriagoesvroom]

happy "breaching the top 10 f1 rpf pairings on ao3" day to landoscar nation 🎂 because it's all about.... two people that are so much the same yet so different. australia vs the uk. oscar's cool collected calm versus lando's ricocheting personality. twitch streams and side hustles and multiple endeavors vs singlemindedness of racing. purity of craft vs embracing everything life throws at you and trusting that it'll all work out. the rivalry that isn't (well it is, but not really). pushing each other to be better. making heart eyes in a taylor swift video, reaching out to your teammate in silverstone after surviving a media maelstrom and him being pleased and stepping closer because he's been given permission to. making fun of your resident weeb for reading the words "kit kat" but just in a japanese accent.

it's being so ridiculously competitive that you'll hide in a burning bin in the name of fun for a game with made up points and then squinting at your teammate ringed with the bright light of the sun and laughing at how stupid this all is. it's making fun of your teammate's music taste that you can hear through the thin walls of the drivers' rooms. trusting the journey. mimicking each other's body language. knowing it's for the marketing but winking at the camera together anyway, like we're all invited to be in on the joke. two parallel lives woven in two different garages with almost identical specs. being so comfortable you have this weird rapport that is kind of a cipher and unknowable to anyone outside of the immediate network or team, but it's so assured and quiet that for the first time the person who's been the person who was once the younger teammate steps up, acts older now, and becomes comfortable with the silence.

it's knowing your best friend was on their renault team and not saying anything about it in public but the motorsport world is so small and specific and the experience so surreal that surely some laylines are just strangely predestined. it's about growing up together. it's watching the brit upstart in a generation of two other brit upstarts chase his dream and give up everything to win and get velcroed to the seat because he's kind of small, just like you, but you dream bigger than anyone dares to dream and you identify with the other's self belief that says you, too, could stand on that top step one day. it's you following the little blue-suited guy racer on social media and liking sooo many of his posts over the years, and not even bothering to hide that fact when you've probably become that goalpost for someone else one day, too.

it's chapter 2, with 3 more to go. it's watching your teammate win his first sprint race and finding it in yourself to be happy for him even when you're sad that it wasn't you. it's publicly saying that the rookie is not a threat, he's a threat who makes you race better. it's making fun of newbie's first day at mclaren and finding him unknowable. and he arrives with all this hype and pressure so what can you do but focus on you and step up your game, but he's always in the background and the periphery, chasing and chasing with this hunger that is unbelievable and unfamiliar because it's always humming in a way that made you mistake stillness for idleness in the past. but now, you know: still waters run deep, so you swim harder, too. drop the dj-ing. become more disciplined. train more. do things that don't matter, less.

because the future is vast. the future is happening constantly if you're ready to meet it. and maybe destiny will be kind, and your names will be remembered. your name, inked on a trophy in the precious metal of kings, and dreamers. your name, inked in gold.

but today, you're 22. you're 24.

you're driving a car as fast as you can, and everything that's possible, feels like it could be possible, right now.

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

The Hitler and KKK jokes were never funny tbh

[ocelotlesbian]

genderswapped them for lesbian purposes. girl yaoi!!! (≧▽≦)

also if you look very closely at the pixels on her teeth you can see that i gave mitsugirl cute little green braces. i thought that was worth pointing out ^_^

[meamiki]

vtuber loop !!!

[reverse entry au? the reverse isekai part of it? tangentially related to this post here, and also the last part of this post too]

[alicenpai]

my shop is now open for a limited time! from today, nov 29 to dec 6 at 11:30 PM EST, get 15% off your order with code "BF24"! shop is subject to close earlier if i feel i need to cap orders. thank you so much for the support!! take care of yourselves and take care of one another 🫡🫶

🌠 alicenpai.bigcartel.com ✨

if there are any products that you've seen in older catalogues (from 2024) that you don't see here, chances are i might still have it or it's sold out, but i don't have the space to list it on my store, please contact me via email! alicenpai@gmail.com