#of the story or character writing of the comic

[anam-mana]

I’ve seen that around, but that not the phenomenon I’m talking about. Obviously I’m not going to point at particular works but it’s not hard at all to find fics, and comics in the fandom that depict Alistair as a devout Andrastian, and having difficulty shaking religious dogma despite him in canon being suspicious of any “chantry version” of history.

It’s even more common to find fan works where Zevran in particular is held beside Alistair as non-religious contrast to Alistair.

And what I find curious about this is not the fact that this interpretation exists. Like I said in the post, the writing actively encourages this first impression in order to deconstruct it throughout the story.

What’s very interesting to me, and what I’m theorizing on the reasons as to why, is that these interpretations I see are most often in Alistair centred shipping fan content. Alistair/Warden stuff. The people who, in theory, I would have otherwise guessed liked Alistaor BECAUSE he deconstructs a trope, actually see to be buying into the facade and it’s that facade which they’re attached to.

I’m just a little bit fascinated with that cause I haven’t really seen such cases before where the fans are the one perpetuating and arguably less complex well-rounded fanon of the character, especially not those analytical enough to be creators themselves. Usually I’d expect that more from those who did only do surface level Alistair interaction.

I’m just curious as to why and theorizing about some possible reasons.

It fascinates me that Alistair gets lumped in with the “Chantry Boys” in discussions about Dragon Age Archetypes because it’s just. Very untrue. But it’s an idea the text actually pushes you to connect with in a way I think is purposeful.

This guy introduces us to the lore of the Blight by asking if we want “the chantry version or the truth.” If we ask if they’re not the same thing he smirks and says with some attitude “they rarely are.”

He sums up his religious beliefs saying he’s “not especially” Andrastian, and that “believes in the Maker well enough.”

He’s actually LESS religious than Zevran, who describes himself as fully Andrastian with a regular prayer routine in optional conversation branches.

The things that people use to categorize Alistair’s supposed “Chantry Boy” boy status all have non-religious motivations.

For example, the big one, his virginity, is because 1. He’s nervous around women, which is the gender he finds most attractive 2. He’s actually the youngest Party Member, being freshly 20 years old. 3. And most importantly, he correlates sex with love and was brought up to see them as requiring the other and so feels uncomfortable having sex without what he sees as “true love.” And he just hasn’t been in love yet.

Another example would be his reaction to the Urn of Sacred Ashes. He reacts with wonder akin to Leliana where many others react with a contrasting blasee attitude. Even the Andrastian Zevran.

But you gotta read between the lines here. Zevran doesn’t hold remains as sacred. He’s an assassin. So his prophet’s body is in that urn. It’s a body. The least remarkable and most mundane, perhaps even the hardest to swallow, thing she could ever be to Zevran is a corpse. Kinda takes the wonder out of faith for an assassin if she dies and rests just like any one else.

But Alistair is fascinated, in awe. 1, probably because the Chantry he doubts so much now has some kinda proof that something they said was true, unlike what he previously believed. 2, Alistair is WAY more patriotic than he is religious and we gotta remember that the Fereldans pride themselves on Alamari heritage, and Andraste was probably the most powerful and influential Alamari person to ever live. 3, he’s actually a giant history buff. He info dumps history on you often, with the memorized readings of whatever question you ask. If asked about the King and Loghain before the betrayal at Ostagar, he shows respect for Loghain’s service in the War for Independance, and knowledge of his tactics. And when speaking about his time in training with the chantry as a child, he says the education was actually what he liked most. And a lot of his gifts are things like replica soldiers, Fereldan historical things, maps, (along with his interest in magical artifacts but that’s for another day.) etc. Given his patriotism and love of learning history, yeah, the Urn is a big deal to him.

I have more things I could say, but really, I just find Alistair to be one of the most misrepresented by fandom characters. His character has a TON of subtext that challenges you to look beyond what others represent him as and the low opinion he holds of himself.

The perception of him as Andrastian and devout is one pushed on him by people like Morrigan (and others to some degree) who fights Alistair more like a straw man representing society than she engages with him as himself. She sees him as a Templar even though he left the order specifically because they abused him And he fundamentally disagreed with their practices, The Harrowing specifically being what pushed him to fight to leave.

There are, textually, two ways to interpret Alistair. Through face value aesthetics and symbolism pointing to association with the Chantry and by observing other’s opinion of him. Or through actually listening to what he says and watching what he does.

And it’s just interesting to me that a lot of people get caught in the trap of what he represents aesthetically rather than who he is.

[ryannorth]

i love your fantastic four so much!!!!!! ive only read the kirby/lee ff before and your series feels like it’s so much in the spirit of that. alicia is my favorite member of the ff and i’m wondering if there are any specific ff stories or runs that guide the way you write her? or, are there any stories or characters external to comics that have been an influence on how you write her? she’s soooooo lovely im giving her 1 million smooches

Alicia IS the best, but there haven't been a ton of stories with her as the lead - she kinda faded into the background a ton. Which is crazy, because she's great! When I started thinking about the book, I asked some comic friends to describe her personality - and before they answered I reminded them that "blind" is not a personality, and "nice" doesn't count either. The way that took away what they were going to say led me to believe that of all the members of the FF, she was the one who has the most unexplored territory.

I see her as the artist as the group - and she's inspired by a lot of the artists I know. She's fearless, she's imaginative, she's sexy (to be fair, all of the FF are sexy), and she's chaotic. The secret to making her work is that she's absolutely unimpressed by the FF - most everyone else sees them as world-saving super heroes and to her they're just her friends Reed, Sue, Johnny, and her husband Ben. The FF are a bunch of scientists and gearheads and Alicia brings a nice counterbalance to that, I think! Also, you are correct: she is the best.

[glitter-stained]

On villains with tragic backstories

Sometimes I'm like "is it really psychophobic, maybe i'm reaching, the character did say that they're not actually crazy they just like killing people" and then the narrative will hit me with "some terrible, dark horrors have happened in your past and this is why you are killing people but it's not too late to get admitted in a psych ward" and I wanna throw the comic through the window and myself with it.

The "mentally ill villain" trope isn't just saying that the villain is crazy or giving them hallucinations. If you're giving a villain a tragic backstory, and that backstory has caused them severe suffering the memory of which is still painful to the day, and the story expects you to believe that the villain's horrible behaviour is explained by the fact that this suffering broke something in them... It's worth examining if you're not just vilifying or demonizing mental illness on accident.

The issue isn't that your villain can't have a tragic backstory, or that the tragic backstory can't explain their actions: the issue is when the suffering itself is treated as a sufficient cause for the behaviour. Say a character was raised and abused by a cult that taught them killing puppies is good and then they kill puppies: not psychophobic. Say a character who used to love puppies was kidnapped and tortured by some guy just for the fun of hurting someone, no brainwashing or anything just pain, and then they get out and kill puppies because of the torture: psychophobic. There's a missing link in the reasoning here, a question of "what about this event taught/brought the person to the conclusion that it was a good idea to kill puppies or gave them a desire to?" The psychophobia is insidious, hiding in the implication that the trauma (because this is what it's really all about) is what made them kill puppies. Sometimes, people with trauma kill puppies. But killing puppies (or exploding buildings with children in it, or shooting someone in the spine, or severing heads and putting them in a duffle bag, or, or, or) is not and has never been a symptom of ASD*, PTSD, CPTSD, BPD, DID, DDD or any other trauma-induced disorder. It's a good idea to verbalise the logic, emotions, needs and desire that motivate your villain and where they stem from, to avoid falling into the trap that thinking their trauma, because of the magnitude of the empathy it's meant to generate for the character, is enough of an explanation for their behaviour. A villain being sympathetic because of their backstory doesn't mean that their actions are necessarily coherent.

On top of that, it's important to take in account other factors such as the original background of the character, their vulnerabilities, their age (super important when writing childhood/teenage trauma/young villains!), but also their ethnicity, gender etc etc. This is important for realism and accuracy, because trauma is neither a magical button that creates heroes nor sociopaths, but also because psychophobia interacts so easily with other forms of discrimination slipping through the cracks. Now that you've identified that your woc character becoming a manipulative, sociopathic "crazy ex" because of her trauma was not just a consequence of her trauma but the interaction between the trauma and personal factors, what are those implicit factors that contribute to make her manipulative, obsessed with her ex, etc.? And now that you've extracted them explicitly, like a zip file, can you examine them to see how many of these personal characteristics have to do with her being a woman of colour?

I hope it's clear that I'm not telling you what to write- I think imposing the idea that villains can't be poc, or queer, or working class, or disabled, or mentally ill, etc. is harmful, because it reduces potential representation, it's based on the assumption that I know what you're gonna write and it's gonna be fundamentally ableist, and it puts this pressure on fictional characters to be perfect icons of representation rather than actual characters with depth and personality (kinda like thinking you can't write a female character who cries because it implies women are weak). This is just to encourage you to be mindful about what you're doing when writing that tragic backstory, because it's not necessarily what we think about when we talk about mental illness, and it's important to analyse what you're writing with a measure of introspection: why am I writing this? What does this imply about the character? What's my reasoning for this character's reasoning?

I have zero issue with a mentally ill character kicking a puppy as long as the narrative isn't trying to tell me that it's a symptom of mental illness to kick puppies. But of course, perhaps the story could also be a critique of those stories about mentally ill people kicking puppies, and the satyre is flying way over my head; or perhaps there will be a secret plot-twist that happens after I stopped reading that explained why the character was kicking puppies, perhaps the book was an attempt at guiding and manipulating the reader into realising the flaws in that reasoning on their own, or perhaps it was a metaphor for something else entirely, etc, etc. I don't know. The point is, write whatever you want; but write it self-aware.

*in this context, ASD meaning Acute Stress Disorder

Two examples of comics I think do it pretty well:

> Arkham Knight Genesis: for all its flaws (i didn't really like this one), I think it does a pretty decent job of getting us to understand how Jason got where he is, that it wasn't just "tortured until evil", all the reasons for his resentment, all the brainwashing and manipulation are pretty explicit. Kind of an "easy mode" because the plot revolves around brainwashing, but solid on that front.

> Red Hood Lost Days: this one I'm more mitigated because there's this whole "pit madness/the pit made him a psychopath" thing Winick introduced to limit the damage of previous runs (and rightfully so imo, Pit Madness is a much better explanation for some of Jason's most batshit ooc runs than just trauma), but there are some pretty solid elements, especially when you know earlier comics. I'm thinking specifically about when Jason says something around the lines of "you murder people; i put down a lizard", as a direct echo to Judy's "I put down a mad dog", that's one of my favourite comic lines ever, I cheered seeing that parallel like yes, I can see the reasoning, I understand where you learned the lesson and what the thought process is and I support it.

[idioticstar]

I'm partially glad that Obey Me is ending because the writing is not great. With the many plot holes and unanswered questions, the story can be hard to navigate. Mammon's character as a whole, being the comic relief as a whole and visibly a poc, that the writers use as a personal punching bag despite having so much to him. Mammon has familiars of crows, based off how much he likes a person, they find themselves with riches or plain on broke, and oversees all types of Greed. Any human with a pact with him has amazing luck. AND THEY NEVER MENTIONED IT AGAIN??? Lesson 16 as a whole and how its never mentioned again??? And MC isn't traumatized from literally dying??? Belphegor can literally trap people in their dreams, create a literal dimensioned for dreams that he can control and send others there??? NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. The fact that Diavolo's skin color is so inconsistent that it's treated as a fandom joke (He gets darker when he's in his demon form???) and not a product of colorism like where's his color palate??? Also the fact that Diavolo is insanely overpowered and his abilities and rarely mentioned (Being able to stop time???). He is considered an anomaly to demons because of his minor healing magic, which demons cannot do. We still have a few lessons of Nightbringer left and I still have a few questions about other characters such as Micheal, Lilith, the Demon King and Diavolo's mother. I don't know how they are going to fit all this.

[velgrauder]

Part of me believes that they simply wrote themselves into sort of a corner and they couldn't really find anywhere to go. Hell, the ending itself either retcons or ignores previously established stuff (Zepheniah's ghost haunting Harvest during Halloween, the Administrator testifying in front of congress in a hidden page in the TF2 website, and the torn-in-half picture that actually makes an appearance in the final issue. With Soldier hiding the missing part with his thumb).

Personally, the ending having stuck the emotional landing was the most important part. And maybe that's what it was trying to say. People don't really care about the plot. They care about the characters and are actively rooting for them at every step--they were what made the game have such an impact and long life. The comic was simply a way to loosely connect years of TF2 updates, but how do you put an end to a live service multiplayer game with no real story? Easy. You don't. You simply write our heroes walking into the sunset, giving the reader that wink and nod that everything's going to be OK for them.

Given the length of the hiatus between issues 6 and 7, I have to wonder whether "actually, there was never a secret plan, the violence was pointless from start to finish and you never get to find out why" was the plan all along, or whether they literally just couldn't think of anything that would live up to the hype.

[plaguedpriest]

wish i could be like one of those ultrakill fans that write insane comics and fanfiction abt their own interpretations of the story and characters but actually writing any of my thoughts down makes me feel like i'm applying clown makeup and actually posting them publicly is equivalent to stepping into the circus

[ririabeam]

𝗕𝗶𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

—

I drew this to cope with my birthday depression.

Took 5 months. I also wanted to beat my old manhwa from 5 years ago.

-- Long post ahead! It's my WIPS and thought process. --

Junko is my comfort character as she's the only character I know who hates her birthday.

(Screenshot from Ultimate Talent Development Plan)

I know she’s a villain who has done a lot of bad things, but finding comfort and liking her doesn’t mean I excuse her actions.

A lot of painful feelings went into this, even in Mukuro's perspective so please respect it 🙏🏻

—

- WIPS & Thought Process -

—

Story Script Writing:

A lot of thoughts and feelings went into my script.

-I removed sentences like “For giving me cake!” as I wanted to do more showing than telling.

-“Why do you seem so happy Mukuro?” is changed to “Why are you smiling like that, Mukuro?” as I wanted the sentence to focus more on the thing Ryoko noticed. Mukuro would definitely be happy celebrating Ryoko’s birthday, and the new sentence would help to understand how Ryoko interpreted that Mukuro was more happy than usual.

-“good day” is changed to “great day” for greater emphasis of Ryoko’s happiness.

-A pun is done on “live”, I wanted this sentence to convey the complicated feelings of Junko. She doesn’t want to “live” a “fabricated happy lie” as it goes against her honesty moral. But there’s also a part of her that doesn’t want to kill Ryoko, as she doesn’t want to “leave” this “fabricated happy lie”. She wants to be happy as Ryoko, even if it’s a lie.

This part is a big reference and a reply to Danganronpa Zero.

The background texts are quotes from Danganronpa Zero.

Junko saying “What the hell? Hope?” is a reference to Danganronpa Zero’s ending:

Reading Danganronpa Zero feels like it’s saying something to me: “We are trapped in a loop of despair and hope.” and I’m replying with this part as a “Yes, I agree.”

Junko being confined in her mind is another thing I like about her too. 

I feel the moment we are born, we are trapped, that’s why I ended this comic with “I wish I wasn’t born.”

The moment I’m born, I’m unwanted and worthless, a monster.

I’m trapped in my mind, in other people’s judgements and expectations, and there’s no way out.

I can’t just turn invisible and there’s always something for people to judge and hate. And that hurts when it’s something important to you or you can’t change about yourself.

But even with all the pain, I think of hope to carry on and it’s a loop to fight to live.

I think I make progress with healing but then I’d think wth I’m made to work on this. Cause my life is already scripted from the moment I was born— I’m scripted to have this trauma, this story made my personality and character so in the end I’m still trapped.

So that’s another reason why I find Junko a comforting character and why I feel birthday depression.

I thought of the story first before I thought of the characters who would play it, so I had to make sure it’s in character. 

Things like if Mukuro would say “AU” or “Alternate Universe”. I felt since she spent a lot of time with Junko who knows a lot about these things, she would have heard of this and know the short form term for it. Especially since she had to be Junko at some point.

Since it’s a story about Birthday Depression, my thoughts instantly went to Junko then to Mukuro. It was the perfect story theme to write for them especially cause they are the despair sisters. 

Plus, they are two characters I can feel their struggles and feelings deeply for, so I can write and draw deeply for this story.

Birthdays tend to be happy, and I felt the only kinda right time I can talk about my birthday depression would be on their day.

I felt suffocated and lost myself over the past few years, as I felt I needed to be happy no matter what. When I opened up about sadness and my struggles, people would hate and invalidate me for it. I feel my art reflects that, I don’t like looking back at my old art. It lacked my true feelings, but I feel I’m finding myself again in my Mirai Nikki and Danganronpa art.

For the past few years I tried to celebrate my birthday to try to make myself happy about it but in the long run it didn’t work. I appreciate everyone who celebrated with me all these years still, but now I’m trying to overcome it in another way— facing despair instead of trying to cover it with hope.

I think I’ve learnt a lot about myself and understood myself better through this comic’s process.

Layout Plan:

You can see that things were changed in the final from my layout plan X’D haha

In page 2, Mukuro’s 1st panel is changed so composition is better.

In page 3, after seeing Ryoko as Junko, Mukuro is reaching out her hand instead of placing it on her chest. I wanted it to feel like Mukuro wants to reach out to Ryoko at that moment, like trying to get a wish she knows isn’t real.

In page 5, binary code is replaced with texts from Danganronpa Zero’s story so it reinforces the idea of “a life already fully planned out”.

Lining Process:

I struggled with this part the most as anatomy and poses is not my strong point.

I asked my friend, Setsuya, for help with my poses and redrew the same pose many times for this comic. I really wanted to convey the feelings for this comic right especially since it’s very personal to me. Big thanks to her for helping me so much, I feel I improved a lot from this! 🥺 <3

1st panel of 1st page is the hardest to draw, I’m laughing at my first try of Mukuro who looks like she’s forced to be there 😂:

With suggestions from my friend of how to improve, I tried to improve everyone’s poses:

^ 

Mukuro’s pose was changed to look more fondly at Ryoko, happy to be there and relaxed haha.

Ryoko’s pose was changed to look more delighted and happy about the cake (Which helps to convey the line I removed from my script, “For giving me cake!”)

Matsuda’s pose was changed to look a bit more annoyed about still cares for Ryoko (shown by him still looking at her from the corner of his eyes even though his head is turned away)

And haha I forgot Ryoko’s legs can be seen due to the table frills being transparent, so I had to go back and draw her legs X’D

For this panel, a lot of thoughts went into what things I should place, how they are placed, and what kind of items it should be e.g.

I wanted it to tell the story of what happened before all the characters gathered here, what their feelings are towards each other, and how they are like as individual characters :3

I was thinking Mukuro and Matsuda love Ryoko so much they spoil her by buying a giant cake haha X’D So that’s why there’s a plastic knife instead of a real knife— to show that the cake was bought.

I think they decided not to cook as they would fight about it… (idk if they know how to cook tbh)

I chose strawberry shortcake cause white = purity and red strawberries = blood X’D Kinda like Ryoko-

I was about to draw neatly cut and placed cakes but I think... Ryoko is bad at cutting… X’D so the cakes are lying flat with the cream a bit splattered on their plates.

The table cloth, spoons and plates are all elegant and neat cause Mukuro prepared it for Ryoko :3 I don’t think Matsuda would be able to do that since he seems to not be a tidy person X’D but I do think he probably decided these items and arrangement with Mukuro :3

Here’s a random joke Matsuda + My roughly drawn Promised Neverland manga cover before I squeezed it on to his book haha:

I was going to make Matsuda read Megaman at first like in canon, but I felt making him read “Promised Neverland” was fitting as it helped me bring some foreboding to my happy setting. Like the promise never landed cause I’m going to break my happy promise/premise X’D 

I felt it was fitting too as Matsuda wasn’t met with a good fate like the Promised Neverland children.

Plus I feel Matsuda would like a genre like that, or perhaps he wouldn’t mind anything as he is a laid back character.

This pose was changed so Ryoko would look more reserved and have less of a romantic vibe? Cause the intertwined fingers felt a bit more romantic and off to me, as it wasn’t the vibe I was going for.

Feat. The paper sketch is my friend helping me with anatomy X’)

While writing sentences and drawing for Mukuro’s scenes, I was thinking of experiences I’ve gone through before and the feelings I felt then. 

The way I wished things could be different. I kept having dreams of happy endings I wanted to happen but then I would wake up to the tragic reality and cry.

The way I was suffering on the inside but still held on to this thing I perceived as “Hope” even though it was killing me and could be seen as “Despair” in another POV/or I already knew it was bad for me but it was also my only hope.

Symbolisms for this panel:

Carrying a candle-> holding on to hope/a wish.

Candle not blown out -> Mukuro's wish didn't come true (blowing out a candle means bringing your wish on smoke to the good spirits above to grant your wish) , her hoping leading to despair.

My pose was changed here as it is more natural for the hands to be like that, plus the other hand holding on to the arm greater empathise how Mukuro is holding on strongly to this candle.

The candle is melting and the wax is getting on her hand, burning her. Still, she refuses to let go which empathises how much she needs to hold on to this. Even as she grabs her own hand causing more pain from bleeding, she still needs this “hope.” 

Some colour tests for this panel:

I was considering blue fire because blue fire is stronger than red.... but then if it is a wish of hope, I was considering yellow too... but maybe it would be too happy? 

Mukuro is feeling sad and wishful in this panel. 

I ended up going for blue fire which gives off yellow light for a purposeful contradictory colouring— to show that what is perceived as despair can also be perceived as hope.

^ Some exploration for the poses here so I can figure out which conveys what I wanted to convey the best. I like the poses where Mukuro is reserved happy, Ryoko is more playful(?), Matsuda is more relaxed.

^ Exploration for the Junko slash pose. Ended up just going back to the original pose I had planned for the layout.

I found this super hard to draw as I’m not good at anatomy, drew it quite a few times and deleted as I couldn’t draw it right. In the end, my friend drew that pose reference which helped me get it right in final!

Reasons why I chose the original layout pose in the end:

Strangle pose-> I don't want to strangle Ryoko, not because it’s too violent or graphic or that she's 🥺uwu and I can’t kill her-

I just feel Junko doesn’t completely hate Ryoko... a part of her wants to live a happy life after all

But she can’t, that's why the words "A fabricated happy lie, I don’t want to live this!"

It's a lie and it's against her value (honesty).

Sword slashing pose-> Junko is directly jumping towards and has no hesitation slashing Ryoko. This feels off cause it’s too violent which doesn’t convey the message I want.

Sword is also stronger than knife, which would hurt more.

When I see the knife and how the body is twisted a bit away in the original layout pose, it works better as I can see some control to the slash so it's not full on hatred and anger towards Ryoko.

Random full drawing of this Junko before I cut it off for composition.

I find it easier to get the anatomy right if I draw the full thing and draw through everything.

^ I’m super sad at my failure for this :,) I didn’t intend it to be like that 😭 

It’s too hard for me to draw, so my friend helped me again and I chose a pose and studied her pose and drew the whole pose again:

I chose the 1st pose because the angle of the faces there best shows both character’s facial expressions and the emotions are the most important for this scene.

Plus 3/4 angle is better than the flat side view one as it helps make this scene more dramatic!

My friend helped me with the position of Junko’s tie:

reached max images for this post so,

WIPS continued in another post

[dirthamen-enjoyer]

please remember that this is all my personal thoughts and i might be wrong about some of the things. it is critical. this started off as one specific topic about solas and then ended up turning into more of a ramble. i guess? anyways spoilers for veilguard under the keep reading line.

i wish my brain worked properly sometimes because i really want to know why i feel like they didn't write solas cohesively enough. to me, he is the best part of datv. and no, it's not because i romanced him in inquisition. actually, i could never finish his romance because he was such a know-it-all and it would annoy me lol. (it's because i'm a know-it-all and know-it-alls tend to clash. i plan on forcing myself through it one day though.) despite him annoying me, i liked him as a character. i liked his reveal, the moral greyness of him.

i think mainly my problem is how they presented his morals and why he wants to tear down the veil. it feels like they couldn't decide how to focus him. so originally he's tearing down the veil because it was a mistake and wants the world to go back to the way it was so the days of the ancient elves - specifically after the evanuris are gone - could return, at least that's what i got from it.

then at the beginning of veilguard, it suddenly it feels like tearing the veil down is just a byproduct of him needing to move the last of the evanuris to a better prison. huh? in my head i always thought that solas was ready to fight the evanuris when the veil is brought down because he's willing to take the risk of dealing with them just to bring the old world back. maybe that's too headcanon-y? also i never got around to reading the books or comics fully so i might have missed some details.

then at the end it's "i must do this for mythal or her sacrifice would be for nothing" or whatever he said. huh? i don't get why it's suddenly about mythal, even with the regret murals showing how close they were. it should be about him and all he sacrificed, only for it to not go the way he wanted. without even talking about what was revealed in the regrets murals, he sacrificed the world he knew to lock the evanuris (and forgotten ones) away to try and make life better for the common elves, the slaves.

i don't know how well that last paragraph comes off. i'm just saying that it felt like it didn't belong. his whole story is about regrets, yes. makes sense. he regrets the events that happened because of the veil mistakenly happening. he regrets what's in the murals (which i might talk about in another post because :/) but the game acts like him tearing down the veil is just selfish. there's no other nuance there, it's just selfish. huh? there is so much nuance to this position, in my opinion, that i can't even figure out how to write it.

okay so i've officially lost my train of thought about this original topic, which means i don't know what else to put. i'll just say that i feel dumb that i don't understand it while it feels like everyone else does. also i don't understand why i dislike how everything ended for him. it was like someone punched me when lost elf started playing because this ending didn't feel right. and i don't know why. (that one ending... "i am a god!" bffr he would NAWT FUCKING say that.)

also let me just quickly state that i do not think they should have made the evanuris, and elves, originally spirits. it takes away the fantasy in a the fantasy story, is the best way to say it. i know it sounds weird, but... mysteries are good. not everything needs an explanation. we could have had the mystery of "what were the evanuris?" if they kept them as just gods instead of explaining them. just have the reveal be that the gods weren't good to their subjects and are all-powerful. no need to explain all the time.

this has nothing to do with how much i wanted to fight actual gods (i did. i wanted to go up against actual gods other than the archdemons. and we know that reveal :/ ) or even how much more impactful it would have made solas's history.

[the-depths-au]

Thank you guys so much!! It’s been a little under a year since I started writing the depths and I am forever grateful and touched by the response to this story. I wanted to do a follower milestone that celebrated the origins of this story—the mini comic for linktober 2023. Music is a big part of my creative process and I have an entire Spotify playlist for this story, so I thought it might be cool to do art featuring lyrics from a song I’ve linked to a part of the story or a character’s arc…and you guys get to pick! Choose wisely… you might get a sneak peak at things to come!

I’ve included the lyrics I would focus on under the cut for reference!

Featured lyrics under cut!

Where is my home?/ I don't recognize the faces anymore, no/ Where is my friend?/ The one I've known since I was only just a kid/ I think it's time to say goodbye/ Goodbye, goodbye

“Goodbye”–Ramsey

You got a lonesome road to walk/ And it ain't along the railroad track/ And it ain't along the blacktop tar/ You've walked a hundred times before/ I'll tell you where the real road lies/ Between your ears, behind your eyes/ That is the path to Paradise/ Likewise, the road to ruin

“Wait for Me (Reprise)” – Hadestown

You and I burned out our steam/ Chasing someone else's dream/ How can something be so much heavier/ But so much less than what it seems?/ Darling, we sacrificed/ We gave our time to something undefined/ This phantom life/ Sharpens like an image/ But it sharpens like a knife

“Who We Are” – Hozier

This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow / I used to have strength, but I ran out of hope / I know it's my fault that I'm here all alone / This world is a wasteland / Please let me go

“Wasteland”–Royal and the Serpent

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

a pretty ambitious ask, but let's go:

suppose, you are now in charge of writing a dual story for stephanie brown and helena bertinelli. it can be a mini, a standalone, a comic series, or an entire run. you can use any version of them (as in, any alias or any particular storyline) and it doesn't have to align with the current dc storyline — simply, the floor is all yours. it can have connections to blunt trauma but it's not necessary. you can also revisit any past storylines and rewrite them newly for this dual story.

how would you go about this? what ideas and themes would you like to explore? or would you like to aim for more of a buddy vigilante adventure action thing?

(this is meant to be lighthearted and a roundabout way of me asking what sort of purple power comics you'd like to see more of, heh 💜💜)

Ooooo. It'd be a miniseries (4-6 issues), sort of a sequel to Blunt Trauma. I'm calling it Huntress/Batgirl: Blunt Instruments.

Dustin Nguyen is on pencils. It's set in the Batman: Reborn era. The Birds of Prey are broken up and Bruce is "dead". Stephanie is still established herself as the new, wild-card Batgirl and Helena has been vigilante-style globetrotting with bestie Renee Montoya. They're both feeling a little out of place and little lonely but won't admit it. They're both actually struggling with their complicated feelings over Bruce's death but won't admit it. They're both struggling with the open question of who they will become after this hard reset. Sky's the limit now right? So why doesn't it feel like that?

"Blunt instruments" is gonna be a phrase they've both heard Bruce use to describe them; undisciplined, heavy-handed loose cannons, ill-fit for vigilante work.

I wanna get to the bottom of what kind of heroes Helena and Steph are. What can they do just as well as Batman? (combat, crime-busting know how...) What can they do that Batman can't? (being more human than idea; approachability/intuition with people, viewing Gotham from a socially-concerned lens, lives/work outside batman-ing, faith/spirit, unpredictability...) What really drives them? (Helena as a teacher & Steph as a nurse) What's Gotham mean to them? (as people who live there and breathe the same air, instead of living in an ivory tower) To do this, they're gonna have to reckon with something close to home that raises old sins and old demons.

It's gonna be a mob story, drawn in the style of film noir but more playful. No super-powered threats. The antagonists are the Gotham Mafia, specifically the Inzerillo Crime Family who are primarily involved in racketeering and headed by an old-fashioned, "Mustache Pete" called Boss Enrico. The Inzerillo's secret weapon will be a young woman, Steph's age, who is the Boss's adopted daughter. She's an incredibly gifted assassin with a point to prove. She's desperate to "make her bones" and establish herself in a tyrannical, male-dominated space which ostracises her.

While they'll mostly be beating up male mafioso no-names, I also want Huntress and Batgirl dealing with youths and female spouses getting involved in the rackets; criminal receivers, runners for drugs, racketeering vandals and arsons, or even murders of those who dishonour the Family. I want these "complicit innocents" to have agency, and I want Helena and Steph get that (and get them).

I want them to deal more with the social ramifications of organised crime which Batman stories neglect. Lost kids, broken families, debts, addiction, incarceration, sexual exploitation, over-policing, police brutality... Things you can't just slap "Wayne Foundation" onto as a fix. I wanna show how better equipped these characters are with reckoning with more socially-concerned themes.

I also wanna really draw out their shared antiauthoritarian bent. The authorities, cops, and even Batman (Dick) and Robin will be barriers as they fight, dirty if they have to, to bring down a despot don with far reaching tentacles. What have authority figures ever done for them? They're used to flipping-off authority.

In a sense Batman, as an idea, that gave birth to Huntress and Batgirl/Spoiler and also represented to them a distant, disproving, unpleasable patriarch. Who are Helena and Steph in a world without God Batman? I want the story to be an answer. Batman will always influence who they are but who says they can't be independent and distinct in their own right.

Supporting cast. Their "mothers" will both show up to stir the pot, and by "mothers" I mean Catwoman and Dr. Thompkins. Oracle, and to a smaller degree, Misfit will help out on the case. I want them to come off as part of a (complicated) community, however alone they may feel.

Also, they're both only going to use their signature piercing weapons (crossbow and trick-batarangs) in the final issue, as a kind of we're not blunt instruments after all huh?

We're not getting a happy ending, but they'll come out with a hell of a lot of respect for one another (and hopefully themselves).

[tomahachi12]

Meet the Doormans!

see I'm working on AU stuff lol

still no name for it though, but I'll figure that out eventually

Info about them down belooooow

Cyn "Cynthia" Swapped with - Uzi Age - 18 She was 6 years old when her mom died and the trauma from the event caused her to shut down and stop talking. She learned sign language from Noah so she could communicate. For anyone else that doesn't understand her, she'll either use text on her visor or a projected text box. She doesn't interact with anyone and prefers to keep to herself, the only one she really opens up to is her brother. He's the only one who can call her by her actual name, she'll ignore everyone else. Inherited her solver from her mom, which activated after her mom's passing. She's scared of Khan.

Noah Swapped with - No one! Rewritten for story Age 25 7 years older than Cyn. He was 13 when his mom died. No one knows why he's so tall. He took care of Cyn after their mother died. He learned sign language and taught it to Cyn. He's a member of the Worker Defense Force. Loves doing anything! boi stop hiding your pain and get help He wants his dad's approval, not only for himself, but for his sister as well. Does not have the Solver at least not yet

Khan Swapped with - No one! Rewritten for story. Leader of the Worker Defense Force and Outpost 3. Very stoic and closed off, especially after Alice died. After his wife died, he completely threw himself into his work, neglecting nearly everything else (including his kids ): ) Because of Cyn's strong resemblance to Alice, he can't bear to even look at her. He killed his wife.

Alice Swapped with - Nori Huge fukin nerd. Western movies were her favorite. Her pet-name for Khan was "Sheriff" She loved to play "dress up" especially with her kids. She was still part of the Solver Experiments, but did not cause the implosion, that was still Nori's doing. She had pretty bad Solver Moment when it took her over and she slaughtered an entire apartment block. She couldn't stop herself and begged Khan to kill her. She was 33 when she died.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Call that a Cave Story.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[karaspal]

i lied. put your clothes back on. we’re going to talk about how if dc didn’t kill off kara back in the 80s and made it a point to keep her dead for 18 years because of their misogyny, she would’ve been one of dc’s most prominent characters (like dick grayson is right now) with a 100+ issues run during the 90’s, a great supporting cast and a variety of villains. instead, for the last 20 years, she’s been deaged to a teen three times, each time more detrimental than the last. she’s in the best position she’s been ever since she came back because now she’s an adult again, yet dc keeps giving her stories to be written by people who don’t understand her.

[2-dsimp]

speaking for the rivius girlies when i say this: CAN WE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEE GET SOME CONTENT OF HIM?? SPARE US SOME CRUMBS PLEASE KIND SIRE🙏🙏 (any content will do at this point since we've been starving for AGES.... when will we see our beautiful babygirl rivius💔💔)

Featuring Rivius the Archdevil and his fem! darling Attendant going on a date only to end up with some collected kneecaps in the process.

[waddles-ex-machina]

some more comic panels I liked :>

[oifaaa]

Imagine thinking cheers is a good Jason story imagine thinking a story that pretends Jason isn't fully aware that his actions had consequences from the beginning and that includes him murdering people is a good portrayal of Jason