#oh ive also started reading the old comics

[s-escapist]

So I've started reading the book (translation by Anthony C. Yu) and I'm only on the early chapters cuz life stuff holding my butt back but, like, I couldn't resist to scribble on the pages like the menace I am;

I've only watched the 2009 series so being exposed to a lot of the other variations they have rn is very intriguing and fun. Alas, I still use lmk wukong's look since I'm more familiar to that. (But like the old comics of jttw and mkr do be looking good dayum)

My fave so far is when the monkeys get a surname and tiny suns Is a thing IDK ITS SO CUTE???? WHY DO NOT MUCH PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THIS AND WUKONG'S MONKEY FAMILY???

[frankmillerturnonyourlocation]

related to last post: finally reading all star. my vendetta against frank miller has been reignited.

[jevilowo]

Not sure if ive already done this. But.

Predictions for COMIC 7

CHARLES DARLING WILL BE THE FINAL ENEMY besides Helen. Trust me on this one I swear they wouldn't have brought him in if they didn't have plans. ALSO the mother of the Mann triplets (Bette Mann neé Darling) was RELATED TO HIM HE'S RELEVANT. I'm so convinced he's the one Helen made a deal with and he's going to make a grab for Mann Co.

We'll get to see Bilious Hale in a flashback and find out what happened to him. Bilious Hale, oh guy who punched coal out of mines and sat on John Wilkes Booth while other people shot at him, my beloved. I hope they don't reveal he was a bad father or anything.

A woman is nice to Ms Pauling for once and she gets a smooch. She deserves it. Hopefully it won't be a smooch from Helen (DAMN YOU 4CHAN LEAKS), the old lady's had her hired since Pauling was in her mid teens.

WE GET HORSEMANN LORE! this is just wishful thinking on my part the Horsemann makes me insane. Shout out to Silas Mann fr. If he doesn't show up, I hope they at least acknowledge or reference him. I swear they had plans for him back in 2010. Which they then immediately abandoned in favour of developing Mann vs Machine.

Spydad reveal. Pretty much a given. No need to elaborate. I hope Scout’s mother shows up I love her.

Demo gets something important to do! He's only been there for comedic bits so far really, so I think he deserves some Serious Plot Stuff.

Build up to and cop out on Pyro face reveal. The whole thing of Pyro's character is the mystery, so I think the funniest way to go about a face reveal would be for us to only see the team's reactions and have them all react very differently e.g. Scout vomits, Demo gives them the thumbs up, Spy starts taking horrified notes, Engie looks vaguely lovestruck, Saxton Hale expresses annoyance that they aren't actually *insert obsucure species of something here* like he thought.

CONAGHER LORE!! By which I mean Engie shows up and has a chat with Fred about Radigan and immortality and whatnot. Fred has to have been spared from the bloodshed for a reason, right?

Classic Medic shows up! Or they confirm he is dead. Or they confirm he is Pyro which is a funny theory I read once but sincerely doubt. Maybe they'll pull a Bea and have him have been a girl the whole time.

I have a crackpot theory that Helen/Elizabeth is actually Bette Mann (again, mother of the Mann triplets), and while it's unlikely to be true, it would genuinely be so funny if I'm right so WATCH THIS SPACE. My main reasoning is Helen started her Australium search the year the triplets were born, aka the year Bette DIED, and also Bette is a nickname for Elizabeth. Also also it adds to my theory that she will team up with Charles Darling, who is, as I've already said, related to Bette.

Olivia gets to do something important also. Saying this bc she's mostly been a prop so far. I'm manifesting a sideplot where she summons the Horsemann to beat up Charles Darling for her.

Merasmus returns! Last we saw he was arrested, but Jay Pinkerton really likes his Soldier/Merasmus interactions so chances of him coming back are high.

There will be a joke like "geez it feels like it's been seven years since we beat grey mann" and a panel where everyone just lets that process before going back to plot stuff

Chances are, a new comic after so many years means there will be new writers, and the fandom has changed quite a bit since the last one. There will be SUBLIMINAL SPEEDING BULLET SHIPPING. There will be MORE FOCUS THAN IS REALLY NECESSARY on Scout. SOMEONE WILL THEY/THEM PYRO which sounds great actually you know what I forgot where I was going with this godspeed.

ZHANNASOLDIER WEDDING FINALE!!!

[yellowocaballero]

SHAZAM SHAZAM SHAZAM pls tell us about billy batson. ive only ever seen the movies o great comic knower

Very very very VERY far from comic expert (that's brawltogethernow) but I have read a lot of Shazam. His history is actually really, really fascinating and involves more than one lawsuit that really defined very early comics. I'll focus on one thing, though.

There are two Captain Marvels: One from the 1940s to around 2013, and one from 2013 til now. The Captain Marvel you're familiar with (who is named Shazam) is from 2013. He's a more realistic, grounded character. He was created to be pretty much the polar opposite of his original version. The best summary is to say that the Wizard chose Billy Batman 1940 because he had the purest heart, and the Wizard chose Billy Batson ~2013 because he was there. My personal 'best' Shazam story is the "Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil" graphic novel by the guy who made Bone. It's good because it's for elementary schoolers yet acknowledges this small child as homeless. Which, don't get me wrong, you shouldn't always do. My personal favorite is the 1970s ones.

As some background: Otto Binder was the creator/main writer of the very early Captain Marvel comics. He was by far and away the best writer of the early Superman Silver Age comics, because all of his comics were batshit insane. Shazam has a complicated and legal history with Superman, so the 1970 run was a super fun high camp tongue in cheek reinvention of the best Silver Age stories.

So the 1970 Captain Marvel comics are insane.

I can't even summarize them without sounding crazy. Basically the conceit is that Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr, and Mary Marvel (Billy, Freddy, and Mary) are having 1940s Golden Age Adventures when they get somehow in suspended animation and are basically time travelled to the 1970s. This don't bother them too much. Why would it bother them. Nothing bothers these people. Nothing. I don't think anybody experiences a negative emotion in these comics. Not bc they were twee. Bc they were insane.

Many of the comics basically had three shorter comics inside it: one Billy story, one Mary story, one Freddy story. Interestingly, they all had different art styles, artists, types of story, genre, etc. Billy's stories had a cartoony art style with very over-the-top and silly plotlines that involved supervillain bad dudes. Freddy's art was slightly more realistic and was slighty more grounded, but still had some classic Marvel indescribable scifi that can best be summarized as that one meme panel people have seen where Sivana recites a science equation that lets him walk through walls. Mary's stories were much more realistically drawn and featured the most banal shit, like her starting a club with her friends. Somehow Mary Marvel gets involved in those.

Sometimes they worked together and did superhero things and fought bad guys. The average fight looked like this:

Billy was a twelve year old who lived by himself, in his own apartment, had his own radio show, a full-ass job, a whole thing as Captain Marvel. He paid fucking taxes. Everybody knew this and nobody cared. He's the most affable, good natured kid on the face of the planet. Nothing bothers him. Nothing. Nothing bothers any of these people. Sivana shows up and he's BIG MAD so he's creating another death ray and Captain Marvel shows up like "Oh you rascal! Time to punch this and go back to helping my friend eat his infinite Jello."

He has a friend named Talky Tawny, who is a talking tiger wearing a suit. He also has a friend named Sunny Smiles, a person of indeterminate gender who everybody falls in love with, for unexplained and unknown reasons. Not to be confused with Freddy's friend Gregory Gosharootie, the "World's Dullest Mortal", who is so boring that nobody notices him and he keeps accidentally comitting crime. There is also an old guy named Uncle Marvel who pretends he has superpowers, which they all find funny so they just roll with it. Freddy is a disabled orphan who has to sell papers on the street corner to make a living. Mary lives in a middle class suburban home with loving foster parents. It never once seems to occur to Mary's parents to adopt Billy, for Freddy to live with Billy. Everybody is happiest this way.

I do think this is partly why a good Shazam comic has to be aimed at the 6-12yo demographics. They have to be for small children, because Billy is living a complete and utter power fantasy that only a ten year old would think is a good idea. He's a kid, and he doesn't have drag parents or a lame family, but he can turn into Superman, and he can also do magic, and everybody loves him and thinks he's the nicest person, and his supervillains are Dr. Doofenschmirtz and a worm, and his supporting cast is like okay my sister if she HAS to be involved, but also my best friend who is a paperboy! but cool because he's disabled, and….

Look, you could engage with that seriously. You could go "holy shit this is a homeless child". That's fine. That's what they do these days, and that's what they did in the movies. Nothing wrong with that. Take the story more seriously.

But also they don't give a worm the electric chair in those stories, so.

To actually give some commentary on these comics: these comics really love people. I've never seen comics that were so entrenched in their community. The kids just know everybody they meet on the street. Freddy delivers paper up and down every block, so an average story for him is just talking to a butcher or baker or old man or grumpy housewife and helping them out with some batshit problem. Mary's a sweet girl who's always starting clubs with her friends and taking on neighborhood projects. Many Billy stories involve one of his many friends falling into some trouble and Captain Marvel helping them out - or just exploring some fun with Billy hanging out with Sunny Smiles, who is a person of indeterminate gender who for some reason has magic love brainwashing powers -

This isn't the biggest #Shazam take, but I think a good Shazam story stays grounded in that. These are poor street kids who love Fawcett City so damn much. They love fighting their supervillains, but they love helping out the random guy off the street with their problems even more. Way more so than Spider-Man or a lot of other guys, I think of the Marvel family as the friendly neighborhood superheroes. They're both larger than life and street level. They're Superman level powers but they just use the powers for wrapping up their hijinks. Isn't that nice? Aren't you tired of going apeshit? Don't you just want to be nice?

[bipirate]

favourite things: 2023 edition

last year i made one of these and i thought it'd be fun to make another one. i have a notion spreadsheet with all the media i watch/read/play throughout the year (not just things that came out this year!) and i give them ratings. these are the highs (and some of the lows) of 2023 (not in order).

Games

Tunic - such a great and beautiful game that i do not want to spoil. seriously, play it. if you like zelda, exploration, solving puzzles, and cute little foxes, then it's a must

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - what can i say, i love a zelda

Portal 2 - just an even more excellent sequel to an excellent game

TV

Alice in Borderland - i didn't know what to expect at first but it was excellent and highly addictive

Not Me - my introduction to thai BL (for better and also definitely for worse lol). anyway this show changed my brain chemistry. it has everything: gays, a twin switch situation, leftism, arson, rooftop kiss... you know

Bad Buddy - speaking of rooftop kisses...... if you know you know. anyway this is also a thai BL and it's still rotating in my brain. i rewatched it almost immediately, that's how good it was

The King's Affection - cheesy historical kdrama about a crown prince who is secretly a woman, with a swoon-worthy romance and political intrigue. this one's for the bisexuals (after all, the male love interest falls in love with the prince before he finds out it's a woman)

Vinland Saga - this anime fucking wrecked me. season 2 had me crying every single episode. thorfinn is my new child and i WILL name my future cat after him

The Devil Judge - a kdrama about a dystopian south korea with a fucked up justice system. anyway kang yohan character of all time. oh and also toxic homosexuality (affectionate)

Books

The Poppy War trilogy by R. F. Kuang - what an excellent series to get me back into fantasy series. it was not without faults, but i was hooked anyway

Babel by R. F. Kuang - i read this brick in 5 days straight. it's beautifully written and has such interesting things to say about language and colonialism. again, it has flaws but i wasn't bothered, i was obsessed with this book

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - i didn't realise how much i missed high fantasy until i read this. it has lesbians, dragons, a bitter old homosexual, magic, and did i mention dragons and lesbians?

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker Chan - the sequel to She Who Became the Sun, my favourite book of last year. this sequel fucking DELIVERED. i went insane about it multiple times. it's a must read

Graphic novels/manga

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama - i started this manga 2 years ago, but since it's still ongoing and I've read new chapters this year, it counts for this year as well

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run by Hirohiko Araki - not finished with it yet but it is truly as good as everyone says it is

The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour by the McElroys and Carey Pietsch - i know not everyone likes the taz comics, but i do, i think theyre great adaptations, and this one looked incredible

Movies

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse - not as good as the first one, but still really good. beautifully animated and extremely entertaining

Bonus: the lowest of the low, titles that earned my 'sucked shit' rating

Theory of Love - amazing that out of the 3 thai BLs ive watched, 2 managed to make it on my favourites list, and one of them was some of the worst television i've ever seen

Where the Crawdads Sing - read the book for book club last year, we all hated it, and now we decided to watch the movie for a laugh. it also sucked

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

batman recommendation anon!

i've been looking to get back into comics lately so i'd be up for a bigger series

i prefer a more serious tone but typically try to avoid gore simply for the sake of it

i don't know if this is canon to the comic books, but i like the kind of partnership between catwoman and batman in some of the movies

oh, ideal! this is such helpful information, thank you!

bearing in mind that these are some personal preferences, my taste is what it is, more recs are welcome but nobody give me shit about my shit:

Batman: Year One (Frank Miller and Mazzuchelli, 1987) - this is a short, 4-part series that locked down the new official origin story for Batman after Crisis on Infinite Earths. it's pretty serious but not gory, following Bruce and Gordon as joint protagonists as they each struggle through their first year protecting Gotham. Selina is also present whooping Bruce's ass before they ever become Batman or Catwoman, and if you want to see more of her side of things there's a Catwoman mini-series (Mindy Newell, J.J. Birch, and Michael Blair, 1989) that takes place alongside the events of Year One (warning for that one dealing much more heavily with the violence Selina was facing as a sex worker!). also I don't know how important the art is to you but I LOVE the art in year one, it's so moody and evocative and really makes the most of an extremely minimalist palette.

for serious, self-contained stories you really can't do better that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's triptych of the Long Halloween (1996), Dark Victory (2000), and When in Rome (2004). the Long Halloween is iconic for a reason, taking you on a tour through Gotham's rogues gallery early in Batman's career when costumed villains are just starting to overtake the old mob families with a newer, much more unpredictable breed of crime. the story is fairly simple - an unknown killer strikes each month on a holiday, and Batman, Gordon, and Harvey Dent are on the case - but sweeping and atmospheric. the sequel, Dark Victory, sees young Dick Grayson added to the Bat-family, and When in Rome follows Selina on a solo adventure to Italy seeking out information about Carmine Falcone. you only need a broad strokes understanding of Batman lore to follow along with the plots here, and Bruce and Selina's relationship in here is interesting and tense because they only know each other as Bruce and Selina, while Batman and Catwoman are still unsure how much they're on the same side. also I just really like how Loeb writes Selina, especially when she gets to be the star in When in Rome.

for a story that is part of the larger Batman narrative at the time but can be read as a standalone, I like Heat (Doug Moench and Russ Heath, 1993)! It's a 4-part story from Legends of the Dark Knight, a series whose rotating cast of writers and artists could introduce a brand new Batman story every few months. Heat is a pretty grounded crime story, featuring Batman, Catwoman, and Gordon all chasing a cat-themed serial killer while Gotham is in the grip of a crushing heatwave. aside from the costumed vigilantism of it all it's a relatively grounded story, with Catwoman dealing with the fallout of being a suspected murderer and Gordon having to quell racial tensions that arise in the city when the serial killer is suspected of being a Black man.

skipping WAY ahead in time, can I tell you about Their Dark Designs (James Tynion IV, Tony S. Daniel, Danny Miki, and Tomeu Morey, 2020). TDD runs from Batman vol. 3 issue #86-94 and is SUCH a fun story, centering on old plans that the Batman's fab four - Catwoman, Joker, Riddler, and Penguin - made in the early days of their crime careers coming back to bite everyone in the ass and rock Gotham to its fucking core. Bruce and Selina's relationship is very central, as she's officially made the leap to be more hero than anti-hero as she works alongside him, and it's very grounded in well-known characters while still serving up just a heap of premium bananagrams comic book bullshit. the plot is convoluted but a lot of fun, I had a great time with it and I infamously don't care for modern comics. this is important: you will be tempted to read what comes immediately after this. it's Joker War, and it's very bad. do not say you weren't warned.

lastly, if you want to get Catwoman-heavy I cannot recommend Catwoman: Lonely City (Cliff Chiang, 2022) nearly enough. although it takes place in a Gotham 20 years after Batman's death, Selina is still heavily influenced by her relationship with him and spends much of the series trying to puzzle out the legacy he left behind. it follows her fresh out of prison in a Gotham where Mayor Harvey Dent has outlawed costumed vigilantes and criminals alike, and you get to see Selina fighting to rebuild her life when the entire world around her has changed. you get middle-aged versions of classic characters - Selina, Dent, Barbara Gordon, Killer Croc, the Riddler - and some sparkling original characters - Edie Nygma, my beloved!!! - taking on a world after Batman, once again requiring very minimal knowledge on behalf of the reader to just sit back and enjoy the world. also, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Cliff Chiang's art if fucking gorgeous.

[lordsalissoon]

Two questions (aside from my past one) first is are all nokori takena dn changed when there kids? I remember silver saying in a q and a that they havent aged much

And second (could be me being dumb) who is dorje? Ive seen evelyne mention him a couple of times but cant find someone with that name

Not all nokori were kids. Silver was 35 years old when she was kidnapped. The majority of the adults of the comic where taken when they were adults already. I know I didn't said the ages of all characters, but the experiments started six years ago. If you feel a character is mentally older than 24 now, they were probably mentally older than 18 when they were kidnapped.

I'm saying mentally because of the fact that Stephan is 200 years old and is still mentally a child because he was a dragon. And Evelyn is 50+, but she's mentally 14, because she was an elf before.

I'll show later in the comic what the nokori are doing to keep track of how mentally old each nokori is. They also are doing this melhor to determine how they age. They confirmed their body age slower than human body, hence Silver saying they haven't changed much, but how much slower is still something they're trying to confirm.

And oh no!!! Dorje was a character made by someone else I had to take out of the comic for personal reasons. I thought I had edited every dialogue mentioning him! I'll have to read the whole comic again so I can edit his name out for real this time!

[lazaruspiss]

the batman page is all snippets from i think old forums (1992-2007), which is interesting! but not really a source. i remember seeing a comic page once possibly years ago where bruce says that hes a catholic turned atheist but cant for the life of me figure out where that would be from.

screenshotting any comic names i find bc uh. sunken cost fallacy or something. nothing to do with any lapsed catholic angst. totally.

also when was batman scottish. like this is an absolute first im hearing about this.

and this is an interesting bit. unrelated to religion but interesting nonetheless.

this one i just think is funny. also i know jewish bruce is popular bc smth smth his mom may have technically been jewish. only provable via maternal cousin but like. right. you could technically argue for it technically being accidentally canon. i have 2 things to say on it (but i will preface with im not jewish myself, so like. dont take me as a source or anything)

1) the amount of random moments and quotes that allude to christianity and/or atheism are both more present and go back further

2) catholicism (and the rest of america) is patriarchal. catholic dad means those kids are raised at least some kind of christian in most cases

(and a bonus third point. really? i get wanting rep, but bruce? why would you want him of all people.)

(wait. wait bonus forth point. what is with the people bringing up kate being jewish, not so that they can talk about her being jewish, but instead so that they can talk about bruce potentially being jewish. like whats up with that.)

oh and as far as i know both catholics and jews do circumcision. so the one thing we do know is that hes cut lol

holy shit is it fun reading a bunch of comic book nerds arguing with each other about religion. ive just barely hit the halfway point.

i feel like ive seen similar conversations happen throughout bruces comic appearances. cant really die on any hill until i actually read the books though.

"the majority of people from [place] are [religion]" is NOT a source forum user "commish"

the sites notes correcting the forum users are so funny

not posting screenshots but oh my god the debate about whether theres more gay rep than christian rep in DC in 2006.

oh and theres the explicit antisemitism. im almost surprised it took until 2006 for people to start talking about how they hate minorities.

they added a note just to bring up this guys icon i know it

wait no that sounds adorable. wheres my angel bat daughter helping the homeless and pounding down on bad guys. auhg. i finally find a batgirl story i might be interested in and its just a scrapped concept. sob. "a little bit old testament" why is that cute...... everyone shut up im caring about cass for the first time rn

[magicwithineleteo]

thinking about how much better the gaang deserved.

like it truly breaks my heart thinking about it. they were left to fight, end, and pick up the pieces of a war that they weren't responsible for. it was never their faults. they fought, harder than many. they literally ended the destruction the fire nation had started. and they were left to clean up the mess of the world.

the gaang's ages ranging from 12-16 makes me so sad. like theyre just kids, and they had the entire world on their shoulders. even the other characters, who are controversial, they are not to be blamed. none of this was their fault. it was all of the adults. (i primarily think of azula in that.)

that's why i feel like any sort of jabs at characters, specifically the younger ones are invalid, because they're just kids.

it's why the hate against katara is so infuriating. she's just a 14 year old girl, who grew up and matured faster than she should have, essentially acting as the mother over her friends, and even her older brother. because she saw her mom in her last moments, then realized her mom died for her. that's the way she coped. she fulfilled the role her mom left behind. she doesn't bring up her mom every 3 seconds, and if she did, it would be completely valid.

all of the different kids' traumas and the way it manifests in their personality is so heartbreaking man

and i hate thinking about the gaang after the war, specifically zuko, because i just feel so bad for them.

they are all left to faciliate peace for the entire world. to pick up the pieces. they don't get a chance to breathe, because there is so much that needs their attention, and no one else who has the criteria or maturity to handle it.

they're all so young. but they're the only ones who have the empathy and understanding to properly rebuild.

i have not read any comics but i've read a bunch of fanfics and the common hcs i see regarding post war is the following:

zuko is STRESSSSSEDDDDDDDDDDDDD this boy cannot BREATHE (i saw in a comic he goes to see ozai for guidance which can u imagine? zuko would've have to been strugging so much to go to OZAI for help) also it makes sense bc he literally had no experience nor training to be the firelord. he wasn't the original heir (rip lu ten) so he never got the training , then he was banished and presumably, azula got firelord training. this boy has nothing to go off of

also, he's sooo targeted, ozai supporters coming for his head every 2 seconds. assassination attempts are everywhere oh my god

ozai shooters in his council, and so he gets rid of them. but he can't remove certain ppl on his council, like ppl w power and influence, but these ppl don't believe it was right to end the war bc they are fully enthralled in fire nation propaganda

which leads to zuko and whomever else from the gaang is in the council to constantly be undermined and spoken down to, simply bc of their age and lack of experience in political setting

but these kids literally did more for the people and were more involved in the war than all of these mean ppl ever were

suki (and ty lee and the rest of the kyoshi warriors) are zuko's bodyguards which i think is cute but must be a very difficult job considering zuko's got a lot of haters on him

w katara and sokka, i either see one of them rebuilding the southern water tribe or one of them is on the zuko council thing , in which they are spoken down to, as a water tribe peasant

ive also seen katara be a healer for ppl in the fire nation

ive also seen suki and sokka go back to kyoshi island as well as go to southern water tribe

aang literally has to be everywhere bc hes the avatar and needs to be present for all peace talks

toph either stays w zuko in the fire nation bc theyre bffs and she can also be very good security or she tries to make amends w her parents and goes back to the earth kingdom

that's the general consensus i would say

but it just makes me so sad bc theyre so young and they have to bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. my babies.

i like to hc that zuko specifically sometimes deep down misses when he was w the gaang during the war. he feels really guilty for that, but he misses them a lot. he misses having a geniuine family.

speaking of zuko's family, azula is a whole other story and frankly it breaks my heart too. maybe i'll make a post ab it but i just. it's devastating.

oh yeah and uncle iroh ruled until zuko healed and was ready and now is in ba sing se w his jasmine dragon tea shop. which i love but i also have mixed feelings about.

in conclusion, they deserved to just be kids. they deserved to just breathe. not be responsible for the world.

some songs that make me sad as i think about all this:

once in a lifetime by one direction (it's literally so them, like zuko reminicising ab when he was w them everyday)

are you with me by nilu but specifically this version.

it just makes me want to throw up with so many various emotions i love them so much and i feel so bad for them

thank u for listening

[plumbus-central]

How did you develop your art style? Like how did you find your own voice in your art?

Oh what an interesting question, I never expected to asked abt my art!

Honestly i took a while to think abt this question, and I think a lot i've done about developing my own art style came from seeing things i liked in other people's art and copying it lol.

For instance when i was in the [REDACTED] fandom when i was a young teen there was a very popular artist who used gradients in their work to add depth and color and i liked it a lot, so i started doing it in my work too.

A few years ago i started following an artist and really liked their work bc they had such a strong grasp of color, shape, gesture, and line. And they used these strong, thick lines to fill out the form of their work, but i noticed that the lines often didn't touch and that it didn't matter bc you could still understand and make out the form of whatever they drew just fine. So i decided to stop worrying abt MY lines touching either lol. which is how i ended up with those sort of ghost constructions of figures and shapes i do sometimes.

I can vividly remember seeing a comic on tumblr ONCE where i saw a character have just a line for a mouth that went off their face and i just stared at that panel for a while trying to figure out why i liked it so much lol until i realized it was their expression that i liked. So i kept that in my head, and a few years later i realized that i had started using it in my art too.

Another aspect that has influenced my art is exploring other media and being challenged by my own interests. Like when i was a teen i was very into steven universe and my own ocs. which was fine but didn't challenge me too much artistically. Then in college i got into bojack horseman, and specifically my favorite character was herb kazzaz, a short, fat man with a beard. Completely out of my comfort zone to draw, but i wanted to draw him so bad! so i figured it out!

(some of u might actually be familiar w/ my boajck horseman sideblog @hambone-fakenameington , it hasnt been updated in a while cause im on that rick and morty shit right now lol). But now i have to skills to draw these things by way of my interests in the character.

My fixation with rick and morty was actually so strong at first that i was drawing like crazy, which eventually taught me to focus on and hone my skills with gesture, thumbnailing, and composition bc i wanted to draw so many ideas at once that i couldn't spend too long on each one. (and it also gave me lots of practice). Thanks to my interest in R&M ive also developed skills in drawing very skinny bodies lol, but also on pushing expressions and gestures to extremes that i never used to!

Hell even just trying to figure out how to take features and details from characters in something and translate them into YOUR style can be a big learning and growing experience. (u can see in my old art it took me a while to get rick to look right)

So i guess the overall is that seeking out and consuming media is always important bc you can take a lot of inspiration from something without even realizing it. (honestly if ur feeling stagnant in ur art watching/reading something new can be a good way to jog ur brain). And taking a good look at the art you enjoy and trying to figure out WHY u like it, and what elements are stick out to u. Then seeing if you can bring those elements into ur own art and see if it's successful to u to explore it.

as far as voice goes um.... i guess what's become important to me is that u gotta know when to cut corners lol. like a hand doesn't ALWAYS need to be perfectly formed, like it can be a squiggle and it might even look better for it. sometimes loose and sloppy looks good for what ur doing and sometimes heavily defined and carefully lined work is necessary but i gotta remember that the clean art is built on the back of the sloppy studies. and stray lines, warped perspective, and unaligned facial elements can give a lot of character to a work that might otherwise seem bland and stiff.

thank you so much for the question it was fun to take a look at my work and reflect on how i got to what i have as a style now! R&M has honestly done A TON for my art style and drawing abilities that i didn't realize till now.

Also worth mentioning bc i forget how much of my life i share w/ you guys but i also have BFA in Illustration with a focus in Animation Arts and Sequential Art.

[seefasters]

Regina spektor anon again (hi!!!) Getting through mash at an unbelievable pace cus ive been putting it on while i ink a 20-something page comic. Im at the end of s7. Margaret being part of hawkeye and bjs little crew is amazing. Her lightening up a bit and also getting more, like, consciously written as sad and hardened by her experiences is soo good. Also i think by s7 theyve finally (correctly) landed on the idea that she does not need to be paired off with hawk or charles or any main cast male in order to justify her presence. Thank god for that cus her Platonic Chemistry with ppl, esp hawkeye, is off the charts. Shes my favorite character i think (her and hawkeye anyhow)- shes just so compelling. Shes also getting a little more masculine sometimes. You see her in fatigues and shit like that which yknow👀. Sapphic hotlips agenda (i know what was up when that old childhood friend came to visit). Btw I love Charles. Hes awful and elitist and a chauvinist but hes definitely a far better foil than frank cus he's capable of holding his own against bj and hawk and he's not a warguy rlly. (I say this with great affection for larry linville and for frank as a character, cus he was great too!! Its just that i like charles more) and watching charles warm up very slowly is great. I tend to not be on charles's side but its very satisfying to watch hawkeye get put in his place sometimes and it also makes it a lot more satisfying to see ppl get one over on charles because its actually a challenge. Speaking of which, i loved in love and war and inga Very Much. What stellar episodes. I demand More slamming hawk into the ground about his misconceptions and fuckups (affectionate) especially regarding women. Also the show made me cry again- when hawkeye tells radar off and makes him cry, margaret's little dog monologue, and especially especially when mulcahy punches that wounded man during the xmas ep??? :,>( the shame he felt was so relatable and touching. again thanks for introducing me to this series, its such a joyful experience to get to know this piece of art and experience it. Ooh oh also, i wanted to weigh in on the Where To Start Debate. While im not a purist and i think any way a person comes to a piece of art is valid, imo the best way to do MASH is to start from the start. The sexism and racism was genuinely very disheartening, and the cornier, sitcom-ier writing does make it feel a little less essential than subsequent episodes and seasons but honestly if you're in for the longhaul it ultimately deepens the experience cus so much of subsequent MASH is invested in interrogating its past, generally thru giving margaret more of a voice and by complicating Hawkeye's role as the guy we the audience are meant to agree with and identify with. The satisfaction that comes with deepening Margarets characterization and taking her problems more seriously is partially predicated on, for example, the early shows casually dismissive attitude regarding instances wherein she was sexually assaulted or harrassed or demeaned. I hope they continue doing that. I know that that isnt an experience everyone wants, but it feels rlly cool to watch the show learn empathy and grow from its crueler, fratbro-ish perspective to something more holistically empathetic. Sorry thats soooo many words dont feel obligated to respond if its too much. I just have thoughts. Thanks.

aaaaaaa hi anon!!!!!! i love reading your thoughts dw <3

margaret's character arc is definitely one of the best things in mash. everyone say thank you to loretta swit for fighting for her character

and yes wlw margaret is so real!!! some ppl hc her as a lesbian, i personally prefer to think of her as bisexual bc her relationships with men on the show are too important to her character to consider them comphet. 2 me. all headcanons are beautiful though love is love

i'm so happy you like charles! he's definitely a more fitting antagonist for the kind of show mash became by season 6. the way his character is explored does add a lot more depth to the show (and at some point i feel you'll find yourself rooting for charles too lol. maybe! maybe not) and dont worry there will be more slamming hawkeye into the ground. maybe too much even

and i think you're right about starting mash from the pilot! part of my enjoyment of mash is about seeing how it changes, evolves and confronts its own shortcomings. for some people that might not be the case though, so i generally think if someone's not vibing with season 1's pacing or jokes but still wants to check out the show, s2 is a solid place to start. it has a soft pilot AND it's one of the best seasons of television ever like literally win win

youre always welcome in my inbox!!! i'm v jealous of you experiencing mash for the first time tbh so i'm living vicariously through you lol

[lemon-sugarcoats-nothing]

14. 🍋 and 🐝

Question 14 of the artist asks (Im sorry ive been sitting on this one for so long aaa): How has your art changed over the years?

My art hasnt changed much honestly! i've gotten better at watercolor painting, and acrylic paints, and i'm getting the hang of digital too! - 🍋

🐝 - ...Oh boy, another long history lesson today, Strap in. To keep things a little easier on me to keep condensed, I'm only going over my traditional pony art and NOT digital art. (Im not sure how much of the digital art i could even recover anymore)

TL;DR I've gone through many phases in my art, both pony and otherwise. I started out drawing ponies in 3rd of 4th grade in a very cartoon style, then trying to copy the show style, then with anime eyes to varying success, and finally to where i am now.

Alright so long ass history lesson:

This is my earliest attempt at making my own ponysona; i was really into applejack and wanted my pony to be in the apple family! This oc didnt really go anywhere though, and i dont think i drew her again. This was also early on, before i started following tutorials for drawing ponies.

A bit later, after drawing ponies while following tutorials for a while, I started trying to draw them in my own style. At the time, I was mostly trying to draw in an anime style with my humanoid drawings, and so the big eyes transferred over. During this time, most of my drawings were in blue ballpoint pen on notebook paper or printer paper. I was drawing a lot during my (online) classes and I would fill out pages and pages like this.

While i wasnt using tutorials as often anymore, i still watched a LOT of pony drawing content. At some point, i discovered some videos that inspired me to expand how i drew even more, and i started adding more graphite and colored pencil into final drawings.

Videos in question:

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSmSN3VtdD0

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTyMx2H-nuI

A bit later, i also got into creepypasta drawings for mlp and some of the songs (specifically for rainbow factory), but i didnt ever read or listen to MLP creepypastas on their own until much much later. I did however, write my own two page creepypasta comic for pinkie that i never kept up. I think i intended to but after 24 hrs i forgot and dropped the project. Ironically, I tried to redraw it a few years ago as a humanoid comic, stretching it out into i think...10 pages? until my hand got tired and I never actually got to the creepypasta part of the original first comic page. (If you'd like to see, let me know! I still have them, but there would be too many images to post in this already really long post)

Oddly enough, i noticed that around this time i was also mostly drawing either creepypasta, psychotic ponies, or drawing ponies sad and crying. Just a weird little note.

I had a short phase where i drew ponies with more boxy muzzles too, but most notable here is that i finally remade a ponysona! I would keep this sona until I would stop engaging with MLP content and go through my "Ew, mlp weird" phase.

This was also from my time of boxy nosed ponies, and I think the first image was inspired off of a drawing that came up on a google search but i dont remember. I redrew it a while later, after practicing with colored pencils more. The redraw happened sometime during my "Ew mlp" phase.

And now we enter more current stuff. all these drawings are still old but are more in line with what i draw now, and were while i was starting to come out of my "Ew mlp" phase.

First image, you can see this is one of the first times I drew Lucious as a pony. At the time, in the main rp he's from he was still just straight up a demon. And in the second image is a sketch dump of the mlp characters, where i was jut getting more comfortable drawing them again. Still held onto those boxy noses though.

No style change here, but there was a time in my humanoid art where i would draw my and Mocha's characters as royalty. Then i went and drew them as ponies in those outfits! the first image you can see Cinna as an alicorn, and an early version of Lemon was just a unicorn. In the second image, was one of my first attempts to draw Jaysir! I guess its not too far off.

Last is just this pencil drawing of Lemon when their name was still Lemon Sugar-Moon! After this point, i think i took another break from drawing ponies until we come to current day where my style of drawing ponies has less boxy noses, and more pointy, less realistic and just a bit more fun for me personally :D

Who knows where my pony art will go next! Thank you for your ask and I'm sorry again that this has taken so long for me to finally just sit down and type out lol

[blessedshortcake]

FISH ILY i had to start a new chain bc this was So long it made my phone lag and i couldnt type for the life of me qwq <3 people go check fish's post @amphibifish

Ty for the tag also cndnf

1. Three (3) ships: Soap x Ghost (COD) , Heavy x Medic (TF2) , Vampire x Rockstar (CRK/CROB)

2. First ship: Probably Robin x Starfire from Teen Titans. That or Dick and Babs from the old comics but it was definitely a Grayson x Redhead (Wally includee) ship just cabt remember which 💀

3. Last song: Red Wine by Follies & Vices

4. Last movie: I have movies/videos/serieses in the bg for noise a lot so technically Venom but the last move I watched because I was interested has to be Nimona as well

5. Currently reading: Howls Moving Castle! I havent touched it in weeks but it counts

6. Currently watching: Im about to finish season 5 of Adventure Time! I will start Fiona and Cake after because I wanna be caught up with lore first >:D

7. Currently consuming: like.. eating? Im not eating anything but i last had some fried camambert cheese with blueberry jam and some salted fries. Been craving cheese all damn week + ive been too sick to stomach anything heavier so its been fries for the most part

8. Currently craving: sleep. Its 6am someone send some melotonin. Or like a good back rub actually i have this weird stuck feeling in my spine and i cant for the LIFE of me stretch to make it go away and its making me feral

9. People to Tag oh No my weakness /lhj

@cursedhue @bittersweetstargazer @zaniwee @slooshee @lemon-slushie @marblessoda @yuuzeart @loneliestmuffin + my dearest mutuals I cannot for the life of me find. Yes @ you all (/nf this is entirely optional)

9 people you would like to get to know better

[tacobellabeanburrito]

ive been posting a lot of rants on here lately about just random stuff and heres another one ive been thinking about.

so ive been obsessed with ace attorney recently yeah? so as per usual when i get obsessed with something i scour the internet in search of good fanfictions, comics and art. as a normal person does. and then i find all the new stuff written and drawn about it and im like "oh man this is good" then i finish it and im like "ok what now?" well usually i try to scour older tumblr blogs and go to the very end of a3o pages to find new (but old) stuff to read and see (this mostly has to do with fanfiction to be honest, but ive been getting more into doujinshi recently and the themes im about to get into are common there too)

anyway, as im reading this stuff i start to realize that these fanfics are old to a capital T. not just because they're from the early 2000s and 2010s, no. it's because of how they treat their gay characters.

so ive become obsessed with wrightworth/narumitsu too and im just like, man, they treat their gay characters so differently way back in the day. even if you don't know the exact year it was written, sometimes you can really just feel when it was written by the language they use. of course, queer people weren't as out in the open as they are today but it's still super strange to read. there's a lot of just, making fun of gay people? mostly of like, two men liking each other? and a lot of the times people (mostly larry i guess in this case) are grossed out whenever it's talked about. it's weird, and at times really uncomfy to read. a lot of the times you can also see what type of dynamics were plaguing the fandom at the time as well. like people thinking that miles was gay and had a lot of experience with guys while phoenix had absolutely none. or that phoenix was just ready to try anything with edgeworth regardless of if he'd been with a guy or not. it's just, weird to read and think about. and theres also like, no talk of bisexuality at all either. both characters are either just plain gay (characters as in miles and phoenix) (also nothing wrong with being plain gay but come on, phoenix is the most loser bisexual on the planet) or phoenix is in deep denial. there's others too but that's just the stuff i saw most often.

i really just wanted to rant about it. i know that's how it was in the olden days but it's just, like, really weird to think about.

[abcdosaka]

media time

im soo excited for the jjk anime. the manga is really good rn too the fight is so interesting. when gojo dies >>

ive also been reading hiroyuki nishimori manga lately. i started w i'm doshiro bc i was high and i read the description and it sounded funny and i read like 25 chapters and it was actually a knee slapper especially high it was really really good. it started getting a little serious after that so reading it sober i was like ._. but it was still fun. i might reread the beginning bc i really forgot

then i read all of cheeky angel and now i'm watching the anime. im kinda obsessed with it like idk its really really good and same thing happened where it was funny but then shit got really serious toward the end but i think it worked better here. its interesting bc its kinda dated (obviously since its 20 years old) but also very progressive in its view of gender roles.

like since the audience thinks that megumi is a boy and has the mind of a boy she is right to think the way she thinks/behaves, i.e. her want to be cool and reliable and strong is taken seriously but even given the spoiler that doesn't change she's still a serious character which i really appreciate. obviously bro did not have trans people in mind when creating this manga but it’s interesting to see the idea of changing genders taken seriously when normally genderbending is like a fetish thing in manga. and literally every character is bisexual as a result thats crazy. even keiko. i love keiko she's so much funnier in the anime idk who they got doing her voice but she's a star. anyway point is its nice that in the end, even though her identity is important to her, equal importance is given to her as a person

oh also abt the manga. the viz translation is really... like idk who was translating it but anime fans in the early 00s were not real bro nobody talked like that not even in american comics or whatever they were trying to emulate to make them appeal to western audiences. they were doing way too much esp in the early chapters. it got better later on but overall the anime delivers the comedy way better

ig the one thing thats like ermm is that the gender roles are sooo enforced in the society depicted in the manga like ik its how it is/was but damn. my parents go easy on me like i haven't done anything feminine (that was forced on me and wasn't out of my own desire to act feminine) basically ever. and i was never really all that feminine anyway. maybe its bc i was pretty passive too so they let it slide

the early art style was so pretty im kinda sad it changed but ig its nice how stylized it became toward the end. also the 2nd ending is SO good

anyway i will be reading kyo kara ore wa after. reading these made me realize i love delinquent manga. oh i might finally continue reading slam dunk too i'm in the mood for some old shit

what else. i watched paul high. that shit was ASS truly terrible idk wtf letterboxd reviewers are on there was maybe 2 funny lines and im surprised bc some really good comic actors are in that like they couldn't have spoke up and been like hey maybe we should stop embarassing ourselves. points for the lesbian tho i forget her name but its sue sylvester. but anyway i was high and that movie had me completely stone faced like WHAT

last thing. im looking forward to hwasa cb. she released some of her greatest hits when she had auburn hair so i am ready for her to serve

[drawnaghht]

Gotta post about this b4 I forget about it but basically;

went on TVtropes yesterday, found the SRTUC page again, started adding to trivia and though, hmm, I've been getting "earlier anthro action cartoon" vibes from this show for a while now.... wonder why that is?

and guys, adding some of the art peeps there no the TVtropes trivia, I noticed that supervising producer ben jones actually worked on SWAT KATS as a character designer for 3 eps! what a connection to make!

my brain at that moment:

edit 1(27.06.2023) - ok, turns out I just mixed the actual show up with this show.... but it's sorta nice for me bc I like reminiscing about Swat Kats haha xD

on with the old post!!

actually, swat kats is a cartoon I was obsessed with for a while as a kid after we got access to cartoon network and they started airing it here. i think it'd seen a dubbed version of it before but it was exciting to see the english original, . it was fun and rompy as I remember, but also I loved the music and action elements after bikermice ended and I missed it so much, seeing something with similar musical cues felt like a consolation almost, like "oh there's more cartoons like this". now admittedly, i don't really remember that much abt swat kats anymore. it aired alongside other H-B cartoons and there was a lot to watch and pay attention to, so i kinda haven't retained more of it than memories of memories of loving the intro, memorizing the music and feeling cool while watching it. I remember the shift to more "serious" storytelilng (if I remember it right at all lol) and both feeling a bit critical/apprehensive at Callie (bc I'd thought, "why is she the only one who gets a more human-like appearance) and loving her design/fawning over her ("oh no, girl hot") but also it was just interesting to see a girl character given a mayoral role which made her seem more important than I'd seen from other action cartoons directed at boys so far.

like, i need to rewatch this series now that I've seen the cast/crew list, and just see also what it was about this show that I loved so much it left some kind of artistic impression on me.

lol idk what other connection with SRTUC it has, but when I'd read that Ben Jones was on it, I suddenly also thought, "well, not it makes sense why the antrho designs in samurai rabbit actually makes sense" There are so many shows, comics and so on before which have made different kinds of attempts at anthro/furry designs, and they all might make sense within the context of their show/media piece, but what I liked about Samurai Rabbit was how it didn't "humanize" the animal designs *too much*. Resulting in awkward designs where women look much more human than their male counterparts. which might not bother a kid much, but will bother an artist like me concerned with consistency lol. like in the og usagi yojimbo it makes sense how the animals look a little more human depending on their role or function in the story/scene, Stan Sakai is very good at making his cartoony style work with these ideas of "basically human, but represented by animals" but also literally animals. And I like that the show takes this same idea and runs with it in it's own way.

All this to say - Experience builds on experience.

so Ben Jones and many other veteran animators/artists/writers in the field working on it, but also the numerous visdev artists, animators and other visual folk with similar vested interest in a UY adaptation, give this show such an unique flair among other furry/anthro shows.

sdfsdf ill continue writing this later, I am soooo exhausted after work today, but, this was cool to think abt yesterday and ive been mullting it over in my head during quiet hours. so cool to have a brain that keeps noticing all these names and all these similar things and then running with it. like the animated things you like are so connected thru their staff knowing each other or having worked on same/similar things before, you wouldn't believe it if you didn't see it all the time.