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novantinuum · 5 months

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Pink Onyx AU- An Analysis and Theory Post, Part 1

[Part 1- You are here!] | [Part 2] | [Part 3] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]

Howdy! Those of you who have followed me for a while have probably been seeing my reblogs of the @pink-onyx-au comic made by @ceephorsshitshow. Well, today I wanna share with you something a little different than my usual SU meta… because today I’m gonna analyze this really cool fan work with the same level of seriousness as I do canon. (Like. Seriously. This first post alone is really, really long. I put most of it under a cut.)

This particular comic is a very special one for me to watch unfold, because it’s evident that a lot of deep care and attention to detail has been poured into its creation. There’s fascinating bits of expanded character development to chew into here, as well as plenty of mysteries and lingering questions for us readers to muse and theorize over. If you follow me for Steven Universe and haven’t read this AU yet I highly recommend you check it out. The most basic pitch is that it explores what a fusion between Steven and Jasper might look like, and does a LOT of deep-diving into the similarities and differences of both of those characters’ psyches.

Here’s the episode masterpost on tumblr.

And you can find it on Tapas, too!

(Note: For the purposes of these posts, I was given permission by the comic artist to post screenshots of various pages where relevant in this discussion. For each frame used I will list the episode and page number for easy reference. Additionally, this post and all future ones on the topic will contain full spoilers for the comic thus far.)

Now with all that introductory stuff out of the way, here we go!

So, on the final page of the most recent update, we get one hell of a visual plot bomb for Steven as ol’ Onyx unfuses:

(Episode 9: Page 22)

He’s now visually expressing remnants of his corruption, where before he was not.

And it’s this mysterious plot point in particular that got me wanting to analyze this comic more deeply in the first place. This is completely new for him in this story. Thus far, he’s never expressed any of these remnants when he’s just himself- not in the way Jasper does. So it made me wonder… how might this shift in his appearance play into the ultimate trajectory of the plot? How does Steven suddenly showcasing corruption scars integrate into the larger story that is being spun here about him and Jasper and how they relate to each other?

Well, there’s a lot of comic details and story lore we need to unpack first before I can take my best theorizer’s stab at this. Let’s dig right in.

Prelude: The analyst’s treasure is in the speech bubbles

Anyone who’s been a fan of this comic for a while has probably noticed these fun visual details already, but I’m going to take a moment to break down what I believe each speech bubble style signifies for folks who may not have context. It’ll make some of my analysis later a bit easier, too, ahah.

So. Speech bubbles. What kinds do we have here?

(Episode 1: Page 6)

Style number one: Solid with black text

This style is standard for non-fused characters, and is also utilized when a fused character is speaking whilst in a state of internal harmony.

Steven is pink and Jasper is orange, of course. Onyx’s speech bubbles are a distinct darker pink, and the main three Crystal Gems get their own colors as well. More minor characters get white bubbles.

(Episode 1: Page 10)

Style number two: Scribbly pink lettering overlaying black text

Whenever you see this type of speech bubble, it’s a sign that there is some level of internal discord going on within Steven or Onyx that is related to their diamond side. It usually shows up when one of the two is in pink mode, but from what I can tell this is not a solid rule.

(Episode 2: Page 12)

Style number three: Pink/orange mixed bubbles

This is how we see Onyx talking for a good portion of the early comic. Their speech bubbles are a clean mix of Steven’s pink and Jasper’s orange. And most vitally, the color on the top and the tail signifies which of them is “fronting” at that moment.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

Style number four: White bubble with solid pink text

So far, this style has only been used to represent dialogue that is being spoken by Steven’s gem half exclusively. Which makes things very interesting, as in Steven’s own remembrances of shattering Jasper on the very first page of the comic, the line “I have been holding back!” is shown in this specific style, instead of the scribbly pink lettering that signifies internal discord.

There is one additional sub-style here- and this is the one moment where we get Onyx’s mixed bubble but WITH the solid pink text.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

I believe these two styles pretty much mean the same thing… only, the white/pink text is either viewed within memory or a metaphoric fusion mindscape where we the viewer are actually “seeing” Steven’s instability, and thus can “see” his gem half as a separate entity there. While, in reality, this is an argument Onyx is having with the disparate pieces of themself.

(Episode 4: Page 9)

Style number five: Pink/orange tye-dye mixed bubbles

When you see that darker shade of pink start dappling into the standard mixed bubbles, this indicates that there are small whispers of Onyx’s true personality beginning to surface, instead of them constantly being wrested back and forth between Steven and Jasper’s conscious control.

(Episode 4: Page 16)

Style number six: Pink/orange mixed bubbles, but with a darker pink tail

From this page onwards, Onyx’s speech bubbles always have their darker pink shading the tail no matter who is fronting. Sometimes there are little lines of another color etched out of it, and sometimes the tail is solid dark pink. I like to believe that when it’s solid, it means that Onyx is just a little closer to reaching a fully harmonious state than when it’s not.

(Episode 9: Page 6)

Style number seven: Onyx speech/thought bubbles with a hint of pink/orange underlying

This style seems to signify moments where it’s still Onyx fully in control of themself and their actions/words/thoughts, but they’re taking subtle influence from their components or accessing their memory a bit.

These are all of the distinct styles I have caught so far, but quite honestly, it would not surprise me if I am missing something. All of this to say… pay close attention to the speech bubbles. They can tell you a lot about Onyx’s state of mind throughout the story.

Now with all this established, I’d like to finish off this first post with my first big discussion point.

Question One: What does Jasper actually know about Steven’s “meltdown,” if anything?

The AU author recently solidified this comic’s placement in the SUF timeline in an ask response, saying that the first episode takes place just a week after Steven’s corruption event.

I’m glad this point was clarified, because it was super vital information which deeply influenced the way I analyzed Steven’s actions and responses in my recent re-read… it means this experience is still super raw for him. This is VERY important and we’ll get back to this in more depth later in future posts. But first, let’s explore what Jasper knows of this event.

The full extent of her knowledge is unclear-

(Episode 1: Page 6)

In Episode 1, Steven briefly alludes to his corruption as seen above… referring to it as “[his] meltdown.” Notably, Jasper does not seem to ask any questions about this stray comment. This COULD suggest that she knows what happened to him a week prior via hearsay, but given the context of the rest of the scene and the fact that she’s as isolated as she is out here I genuinely wonder if she thinks Steven’s so-described “meltdown” is his shattering of her.

This idea would make a good deal of sense, as she doesn’t start to make any commentary on the topic of corruption at all until they’re actually fused- with Steven bringing it up first.

(Episode 2: Page 14)

On this page, Steven takes note of Onyx’s very visible spikes (which are Overtly in the same placement as his own when he was corrupted), and initiates the musing upon his own corruption himself.

With the way Jasper phrases her response, the vibe I get is that she somehow gleans a bit of ambient shared knowledge about what happened to him through their fusion.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

“That human form you wear must have been hiding your markings.” This quote is SUPER vital. We’ll come back to this later on in this post series, too.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

It’s clear that Jasper doesn’t REALLY understand what he went through or what caused it, since she then outright mistakes the casual woes and body pains of organic life as corruption. (As seen above.)

(Episode 8: Page 4)

But later on, she outright relates to him over their shared experience of past corruption, so she must at least know enough from mere ambient thought-sharing by this point to recognize it happened.

It’s obvious that she’s barely scratched the surface on fully understanding her fusion partner, though. Neither of them have. It’s gonna take a lot of fusion, comedic mishaps, and genuine conversation to get there. All in good time, I’m sure.

Please do join me tomorrow at 7am PST for the next post in this series! This has been a blast to write up and muse upon.

#su #su future #steven universe #jasper #pink onyx #su meta #pink onyx au #my post stuff

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retellingthehobbit · 1 year

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First chapter / Previous / Next

Webtoon/A03 /Instagram/Tumblr Sideblog

Chapter 13 of my comic adaptation of the Hobbit, "the Necromancer!" I put the title page at the end this time for Reasons, though I might change it back to the beginning later. Below the readmore are my "translator's notes' on why I made certain changes to the source material (ex why Thror is here instead of Thrain), if you're interested:

Gandalf’s art style is inspired by the work of Lotte Reiniger. I chose this for a variety of reasons: because it really captures the aesthetic of a 'classic fairy tale battle of light and dark,' because the smoky backgrounds remind me of the way Gandalf often does magic with smoke/fire, and because it's entirely monochromatic/'grey.' The only other note I have on this chapter is that, as I mentioned before, I’ve altered the timeline so that Thror is the ringbearer dwarf captured by the Necromancer (not Thrain.) The “in universe” explanation for the change is that Tolkien and I are both translating the Red Book of Westmarch & other ancient texts, but came to different conclusions. The history of the dwarves is especially different because Bilbo wasn’t as interested in political machinations, there was misinformation spread by the Elf-King of Mirkwood, and even the Council of the Wise may have spread misinformation to conceal the fate of the dwarven Ring of Power. There are two “out of universe” reasons I changed it: The first is that I wanted to explore a timeline where Thror vanished before the mountain fell, Thrain died during the fall of the Lonely Mountain, and Thorin became king while leading his people into exile. The second was to draw another link between Smaug and the Necromancer. Thror vanishes with the Ring….and it’s only then, after Erebor lost what strength the Ring gave them, that Smaug invades. The only question is, “why did Thror bring the map and key with him to Mirkwood in this version?” My joke answer is that it’s not relevant to Bilbo’s journey. My real answer is that none of the characters will ever know. Maybe they were so precious he always kept them on his person; maybe he was planning to strike some secret deal with the Elf-King; maybe the Necromancer used his influence over Thror’s Ring of Power to manipulate him into bringing him the map and key, for sinister reasons of his own. (It’s probably the last one.)

#the hobbit #lotr #lord of the rings #tolkien #middle earth #the hobbit comic #retelling the hobbits #chapters #chapter 13 #the necromancer #webcomic #art

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assumptionprime · 1 month

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I adore your take on DS2 and wanted to know what ur thoughts were on Elden Ring and/or DS 3!

(also I have been loving ur comics!!!)

First off: Thank you! Glad you like my comics! <3

I mentioned it briefly in the DS2 post, and it's been said by others, but Dark Souls 3 is about ending Dark Souls. And it does that very well. The "time and space is falling apart and that's why the geography is like that" that people sometimes say about DS2 is literally, textually true in 3. The Dreg Heap is a pile of other, older Dark Souls areas collapsing in on each other. This world has been going on and on, repeating and prolonging the Age of Fire that should have ended long ago, and it's just breaking down. You can't keep the same thing going forever, that's true in the universe of the story, and of a franchise of dark fantasy action RPGs.

It's kind of funny and also impressive that Miyazaki and the team hit that point, saying if they keep doing this it's going to fall apart, on game three of the franchise. There's so many series out there that will pump out game after game of the same stuff, to the point they stop numbering them and give them subtitles to hide the fact that they're on game 23 of this thing, and FromSoft said "three's our limit for this one" and gave us the greatest hits final bow before moving on to new different takes on their subgenre of games.

Enter Elden Ring! The game that got me into FromSoft games. Every time people talked about Dark Souls it was always about how hard they were, and the whole "git gud" mentality, which made them seem like they would 100% be not my kind of thing. But I am an absolute sucker for a fantasy open world, so I dipped my toes into Elden Ring, and really enjoyed it! Being able to just go exploring and do something else whenever I got stuck was a huge plus, as are spirit ash summons. The game is hard, for sure, but there's also a lot of ways to ease that difficulty (not eliminate it, but ease it (also there's no excuse to not have a pause button, that's stupid, don't @ me))

As far as lore and storytelling, Elden Ring has a lot of cool stuff (that's my wife Ranni, my cool witch wife Ranni) but I don't know that I have so definite a "take" on its story. It goes back to the Dark Souls 1 and 3 well of "some important shit happened, go kill this list of bosses about it" but I appreciate that you have a lot more choice in regards to your ending. It's not "link the fire or don't" it's "you're creating a new age, what do you want that age to be like?" with a few compelling choices and some evil bastard ones for fun.

Assorted side thoughts:

FP is better than spell uses. More convenient, more flexible, lets you focus on Mind to allow yourself to cast more spells.

All of my first playthroughs were sword and board, both because of caution going in and because I like the "knight with a sword and shield" aesthetic.

Related to the last point, Guard Counters are a great addition in ER, and the "Sekiro style block" crystal tear for the Physick in the DLC should have been a talisman or something permanent, to just make that a play style people can use.

The Alva Armor rules, 10/10 best fit in Dark Souls

I really like Shadow of the Erdtree, but it is the absolute limit on the current version of Souls-game mechanics. Not everyone is Let Me Solo Her, and between both the extremely punishing difficulty and the becoming more repetitive nature of a lot of the boss design, they need to change up the combat to keep things going. Sekiro seems to be a step in that direction from what I hear?

No boss fight in any video game has ever made me feel as cool as Slave Knight Gael in the DS3 DLC. It just worked for me on pretty much every level. The story, the music, the visuals, the difficulty. I can beat him, and it's hard but not a kind of hard that makes me angry at the game. Dodging in and out of his attacks, getting my own hits in, it felt like a kick ass dance of fantasy combat. It's peak.

#asks #dark souls #elden ring #I haven't played Bloodborne or Demon's Souls because I don't have a Playstation to play them on #and I haven't played Sekiro because I like building my own character and changing my fashions

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comicaurora · 1 year

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Lighting critique of a recent panel ! Dark ambient lighting is a favorite art subject of mine, so i figured this would be a good time to give some input ! ii say as if we havent been in the undergroound chapter for like a month in which it didnt occur to me to pay attention to lighting Oh well loool here it is nowwwwwwww hope you dont mind the input

Huh.

Okay, so first off, thanks - this is cool and your lighting looks very nice. I look forward to seeing what you make!

Second - I really hope sending this kind of ask isn't a habit of yours, because unsolicited artistic criticism comes across as remarkably rude.

Art criticism for the purposes of improvement is a social contract entered between two artists, typically in a scholastic environment. An artist presents their work to other artists whose opinions they trust and value, and those artists weigh in with their thoughts. Critical to the process is that the presenting artist is showing their art for the purpose of improvement, and they're prepared to receive that input because they're actively asking for it.

In contrast, I make this comic so people can read it, and while I certainly don't mind if they take it apart to analyze it or find ways the writing and art could be improved, I, the creator, am not asking for that and - more importantly - will not really benefit from it.

For instance, in this case, my style of background lighting and shading is optimized most specifically to accommodate for the fact that I need to make a lot of these pages quickly, and correspondingly cannot give everything 110%. Any individual panel could absolutely be more polished, but I often shade these backgrounds in batches of ten pages or more, each page with an average of six panels that need individual shading. So that's sixty individual backgrounds I need to shade in one go. It doesn't make your advice wrong, or even unhelpful for an artist setting out to learn this kind of technique - but it does make it unhelpful for me. This is something you realistically had no way of knowing, and I don't hold it against you! But this is why I have a short list of artists and writers whose input I actually ask for sometimes, and that list is composed of people who know me, my creative priorities, and how my process works. Because they know what I'm working with, their advice stands a much better chance of being actually helpful to me.

Criticism, like all art, has an audience it is designed for. In art school environments or artistic coworker situations, the audience for the criticism is the artist being critiqued and the other artists who are learning from the communal experience they are all agreeing to share. This is the exception and not the rule, however. Outside of this space, the audience for criticism of a work of art is typically the subset of the audience for that work of art that are trying to learn something from the experience or understand what did and didn't work for them. This group can discuss what they did and didn't like, what they would have changed, what parts worked for them that may not have worked for other members of the audience, etc. This space of critical analysis forms the backbone of most fandoms and can be incredibly interesting and rewarding to play around in.

The audience for that kind of criticism is not the creator of the art. In the same way a creator can never be fully immersed in their own fandom audience, this form of communal critique from the audience side of things does not work when directed at the creator. In the context of this work of art, we exist in very different spaces and operate under different parameters. If there's one thing I learned from back when I used to check in on the fan discord community, it's that most conversation in this space operates under the assumption that the creator will not see it or take it personally. I cannot be in the audience of my own audience.

All that to say, thanks for the thought, but please be careful doing this in the future - tumblr is the land of kneejerk hostility and poor reading comprehension, and I don't want to see you getting shredded for a kind intention. And I hope some people find this impromptu tutorial helpful!

#asks #aurora #art stuff

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solar-wing · 1 year

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⚣ Duke To The Rescue 💈

⚣💈A/N → Usually, I write my reader characters as general as possible in all manors of looks and traits so as many people as possible can relate (whether male or g/n). But, I wanted to give some special attention since I rarely see any content like this being an African-American writer and reader myself. Hope you all like it! Plus, this is triggering some dark memories of when I used to get my hair cut so enjoy my pain lol.

⚣💈 Summary → You're the newly adopted Wayne kid after your parents are caught in the crossfire of one of Batman's battles. Bruce, trying to prove himself a better father, attempts to do your hair but since he knows nothing about African-American haircare, you're in for a painful ride. Your poor hairline...

⚣💈 Words → 2.0k

REBLOGS and replies are greatly appreciated, please!💛

⚣ ENJOY 💈

“Okay, so how do I do this?” Your dear old dad asks.

“I don’t know! I’m just a kid! Aren’t you supposed to be the parent and know these things?” You asked with your hands waving around animatedly as you sat on a stool chair taken from the dining room into one of the many bathrooms.

Bruce gave you his signature frown while looking at the assortment of combs and hair products on the sink.

After your parents had gotten caught in the crossfire between Batman and one of his notable nemeses, the billionaire decided to take you in, making you an official Wayne kid.

For a 7-year-old, you were very knowledgeable. Something your new legal guardian immediately noticed after adopting you, and because of your age, you were now officially the youngest kid Bruce had taken in.

You were also the only other African-American kid Bruce decided to take in outside of Duke. And that didn’t even really technically count since Duke was already a teenager by the time Bruce officially adopted him.

So, your adopted father was at a loss for words while staring in the mirror at your hair while you played games on his phone. Your hair had grown to a considerable length, and you’d been asking your adoptive father for a while now to help you get this new style that was becoming more popular called ‘twists.’ Well, new to you since you hadn’t seen it before.

‘I thought that was a dance move.’ Bruce thought to himself.

When you showed him the video you saw, the Dark Knight persona immediately decided he was taking you to a professional barber who knew more about your hair texture and maintenance to give you what you needed.

At least until Jason ran his big mouth.

“Wow, old man. Can’t even take care of your own kid’s hair. Shameful.”

He was really just patronizing the older man, always enjoying the moments when he got a reaction from him now and then. But, he’d begun to regret that decision when he along with your other siblings saw Bruce carrying an armful of hair products and tools to the upstairs bathroom while holding your hand in his other hand leading you upstairs.

It was quite comical seeing the frightened look you threw at your second oldest brother as he along with your other siblings watched Bruce’s towering frame lead your tinier one up the grand staircase with you looking like you were heading for your doom.

In hindsight, you might have been, and Jason could only smile sheepishly at you as Bruce led you toward the bathroom.

Now, they all stood outside the bathroom watching their shared father struggle as he read over the ingredients from the different hair products.

“How bad do you think this is gonna go?” Steph asked.

“Oh, I’m betting on a full shit show within the first 10 minutes,” Dick said while munching on some popcorn.

“10? You’re too graceful dickhead. I’m betting 3 and half minutes tops.” Jason threw out while reaching to grab some popcorn before having his hand slapped by the acrobat. “Hey!” He yelled in offense before getting into a sorta-ish fight with Dick, trying to tug the bag of popcorn from him.

“Cut it out, you two! You act like wild children throwing tantrums.” Damian snapped at the two vigilantes.

“Says the actual child who throws ninja stars and daggers during a tantrum when daddy grounds him from patrol,” The Red Hood persona remarked, stuffing his mouth with a handful of buttery popcorn after nabbing the bag from his older brother who was now mean-muggin' the shit of him.

Damian growled at Jason, rolling up his sleeves before Steph grabbed him by the back of his shirt, pulling him back to his place. The second Robin laughed while taunting the young assassin, throwing kernels at his face.

While that was going on, you sat and watched Bruce read label after label on the various hair-care product bottles.

“Uh, Bruce, are you sure we can’t just go to a barber?” You asked, a fearful tone evident in your voice which did not do well for Bruce’s confidence. Even as a 7-year-old, you could tell when a situation was about to go left without the side comments from your adoptive siblings.

“No, no, Y/N! I got this. What kind of father would I be if I didn’t take care of my own child’s hair.” Bruce said while reading the red bottle. He was holding his phone in the other hand, reading a review online under his breath, “...mixed with a high amount of sulfates to help cleanse build-up of oils and other products in the hair.”

“You realize Jason was joking, right? Right?! Jason, tell him you were joking!” You frantically shouted, turning in your seat towards the vigilante who held a sheepish smile while his mouth was full of popcorn.

“I was joking.” He tried to say, words muffled by his chewing.

“Y/N, calm down. If Bruce can handle taking down crazy madmen and women at night as Batman, how hard could it be to do a simple hairstyle?” Tim spoke trying to reassure you.

And it almost worked…until you felt Bruce try to brush your hair with what you were sure was Stephanie’s hair brush.

“Is that my hairbrush?” Steph asked.

“It says I’m supposed to pick his hair out before washing? Is brushing not the same as picking?” Bruce asked, looking at his kids with the most confused face.

“I’ll pray for you at your funeral, Y/N.”

The desperate and confused face on Bruce's face was actually so adorable that if you weren’t terrified for your scalp (and life) at that moment, you would’ve hugged him just to help him feel better.

Cass had walked into the bathroom before grabbing a larger comb off the counter and switching it with the hairbrush in Bruce’s hands before returning the purple hair tool to its rightful owner.

“Thanks, Cass,” Steph said.

‘You’re welcome.’ She signed back.

“Alright, here we go,” Bruce uttered before grabbing your shoulder and placing the comb at the base of your scalp, pulling back to ‘pick’ through your hair.

“Ow, OW, OOOWWWWWW!” You shouted in pain while holding on to the counter for dear life, feeling like your face would tear in half.

“Bruce, you’re going to rip his head off!” Dick yelled, coming to your rescue, “You gotta comb from the sides.”

He pulled the comb to the side of your hair causing your head to yank in that direction.

“OW!”

“Whoops, okay, maybe that was wrong,” Dick said, smiling in apology at you.

“Alright, you idiots, get out of the way. Looks like another issue I have to take care of for you.” Jason stated, placing the popcorn down before cracking his knuckles which really did not help ease the nerves and fear you were feeling in your stomach. He pulled up his sleeves and licked the butter off his fingers, which, gross by the way, “You gotta pull with some strength.”

“OOOWWW!” You yelled, glaring hard at your older brother who once again just smiled sheepishly at you.

“You guys are hopeless,” Tim sighed, grabbing the comb only to make it worse by tangling more into your hair.

“TIM!” You screamed.

“Maybe I’m hopeless too.” He said, a confused expression taking over his face as he tried to figure out how to solve this.

“Okay, simpletons. Move over.” Damian said.

Your eyes went wide at that.

“UH UH, back away gremlin!” You grabbed the nearest thing that could be considered a weapon which turned out to be another hairbrush. Not even caring, you decided you would make it work.

Damian was not allowed anywhere near your hair.

“What the- I’m older than you!”

“So?!”

“Fair point, brother.”

Stephanie tried to help but only managed to get the comb fully lost in your hair. You could feel yourself getting dizzy and a headache coming on as your head had been yanked back and forth in different directions.

As your family was busy yelling back and forth at each other while playing tug-of-war with your scalp, none of them even noticed when Duke came up the stairs, confused by all the chaos.

“What’s going on?” The Signal persona asked Cassandra.

‘They’re trying to do Y/N’s hair,” She signed.

Duke’s eyes went wide as he heard your cries of pain before rushing into the bathroom.

The tears forming in your eyes were clear as day as your tiny hands gripped the counter with everything you had, feeling like if you’d let go at any moment, you’d be yanked out of the chair and swung back and forth like a yo-yo. Duke also saw Damian creeping through the mess to grab at the tangled comb in your hair, giving it a yank causing another cry of pain from you making him smirk in cruel enjoyment.

“Hey!” Duke screamed at the top of his lungs, effectively shutting everyone up and turning their attention toward him. “Everyone out!” He pointed his thumb behind him. They all quickly shuffled out of the bathroom, mumbling to themselves while Bruce remained behind, looking quite beside himself.

Duke picked up the bottle the older man was holding in his hand before turning it over, seeing the ingredients and what he had pulled up on his phone.

“Really, Bruce? Sulfate?” Duke said.

The billionaire only groaned before his forehead fell into this palm, “I should’ve just taken him to a barber.” He grumbled,

Duke looked towards you, seeing how tense you were and the fresh tears in your eyes from the amount of pain your scalp was in.

“Don’t worry, little bud, I got ya.”

~~~

A few hours later, everyone was waiting in the kitchen while Alfred served refreshments before hearing your happy feet skipping down the hallway, Duke right on your trail. Your hair was done, washed and conditioned, and twisted right into the style you wanted.

“Ta-da!” You yelled upon entering the kitchen, opening your arms as if you were giving a grand finale. A mix of delightful reactions and cheers filled the room from your family members, everyone smiling at how excited you looked. Even JDamian, despite how small it was.

“Wow! Look at you, Y/N,” Dick said, biting into an apple.

“Hold still! I’ve got to get pictures for my feed.” Steph said while coming to take some pics of you.

“You look quite charming if I do say so myself, Master Y/N,” Alfred said, before handing you a cookie.

“Thanks, Alfred!” You said, happily munching on the treat, before climbing into one of the stools without any assistance. Okay, you had a little help from Jason to make sure you didn’t slip, but since he didn’t mention it, neither would you.

Bruce walked up to Duke, who was still standing by the entrance to the kitchen leaning against the wall.

“Thank you, Duke.” He said, patting his shoulder, which was weird for Bruce, but he was learning how to show more affection to his kids now that he had you so everyone was slowly getting used to it.

They were also weirded out by it too.

“No problem. Just glad I got here when I did. By the way, why didn’t you just take him to a barber?” He asked.

Bruce looked reluctant to say, so the brown-skinned boy didn’t push it, “Don’t worry. I won’t ask. But, if you want me to teach you how to take care of it, just ask. I learned from watching my parents do my hair growing up. Then, when I kind of had to start taking care of myself in the foster system, I picked up some different tricks here and there.” He explained, answering Bruce’s questions before he could even ask.

“Thank you,” The older man said before their heads turned at the sound of you screaming.

They saw Damian next to you with another smirk as you rubbed the back of your still tender head with an irritated grimace at the youngest Robin.

“Damian!” Bruce shouted.

“What? That’s what he gets for calling me a gremlin.” Damian said before he felt a harsh tug on his own hair, looking back to see you with your own mischievous smile.

“Ow!”

“Now, we’re even, gremlin.”

☀️ | Bat Family | ☀️

☀️ | Masterlists | ☀️

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kiragecko · 6 months

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cherrystainedknuckles

I guess the only problem with being asked to take a “marie kondo approach” is that in order to find any fanfic that appears to be based in actual canon timeline and plot points and characterization (which does exist, and I’m not sure why fanon fans seem insistent that it doesn’t), I literally have to search for hours. I’m not joking, I consistently make fic rec lists, and I have to search for hours and hours for actual canonical basis. same thing with character tags on tumblr.

I’m not saying fanon fans have to stop enjoying fanon or making up their own content. I’m just saying that when the tags used for both fanon tim drake and canon tim drake are the same tag it just becomes incredibly annoying sometimes, and I understand why people who like to engage with canon (me, often) become frustrated

I have definitely had periods where I got incredibly frustrated with fanon! Around 2019, I was wondering if I needed to leave the Batfandom, because it had been so long since I read a new fic where the characters felt 'right'.

But, if you're willing to, I'd like you to consider what you mean when you divide 'fanon' from 'canon'. Because I struggle to find a hard line between the two, for several reasons:

1. Fandom is transformative. Every fanfic is going to have some interpretation of the source material. The line between what is too much interpretation and what is acceptable is different for every person. For me, I find it can even vary based on writing style or other odd things - lighthearted fic can have more noncanonical stuff in it than heavier fic, and still seem true to canon.

2. 'Canon' is subjective. I do not consider the movies or video games to be 'canon', and it annoys me when things from those creep into the fic I'm reading. (I'm okay with SOME Battinson.) Some aspects of the cartoons are okay. I consider precrisis Jason Todd to be an alternate reality version, but Donna's precrisis origins are more canonical than the dumb retcons. Wayne Family Adventures isn't my main version of the characters, but I'm not bothered if some elements show up in my stories. I'm ignoring most of the nu52, but I like Duke and I'm still watching this new Lian to see what happens. I doubt your divisions are identical to mine.

(Also, some things that I think of as 'fanon' have shown up in nu52 canon! I do not accept them as any more canon because of this.)

3. Most 'fanon' is based on canon. Canon Tim has weird sleep habits. 90s Dick is really lighthearted and joking around some characters in ways similar to fanon. Dick can canonically not be trusted to take care of himself if his mental health gets low enough. Jason likes classical literature. Etc.

These are exaggerated and/or twisted in a lot of fic, but where is the line where they stop being canon? I wouldn't bat an eye at a lot of this stuff, if it didn't show up SO OFTEN.

4. Most 'fanon fans' do know some canon. What line are you going to set where it will be 'enough'. And are they allowed to mention parts of the canon they haven't read yet? Is anyone allowed to talk about Dick's early Robin days, or only the tiny amount of people who have read the golden age stuff? A lot of the 'mistakes' I see are obviously made by people who have read ABOUT canon, but don't know quite how it fits together.

5. 'Canon' is FULL of contradictions. Yes, there are canon events. Yes, there is characterization that is consistent across 3/4s of comics. But. I'm still working on my sidekick timeline. I've devoted days to figuring out ages and passage of time. I've spent over a decade trying to figure out Jason Todd's motivations, and why Tim treats him the way he does. I've read all the 90s and early 2000s CANONICAL character assassination of Jason.

I spent years thinking that Donna's death was almost as foundational as Jason's, only to later discover that I had just happened to read the specific comics that focused on the fallout, and she only stayed dead for a short time. That happens to fans ALL THE TIME! We read a character summarizing an event we haven't directly read, and just accept it as what happened. But characters have biases, and not all writers care about accuracy.

I've read some Tim Drakes that I consider to be almost entirely 'fanon'. And quite a few that were so scarily 'canon' that I got chills. (Not all of which were similar to each other.) But the vast, vast majority have fallen somewhere in the middle.

I definitely do not want the responsibility of deciding which ones count as 'canon'! And I think I would strongly dislike anyone who tried to decide for me.

Being frustrated is logical, and I empathize. But the original post was about the impossible expectations some fans feel. The expectation to read thousands of comics, synthesize all the contradictions, and come to conclusions that match the 'true fans'. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to be complaining about.

If that's what some fans are experiencing, of course they're not going to want to engage with canon! There's no way for them to succeed, so why should they even try?

When you join THAT conversation to discuss your frustration about fanon, it strengthens that perception. When you call them 'fanon fans' it emphasizes their belief that you don't think they belong. And rather than trying to change, it's more likely that they'll double down. Canon is full of gatekeepers, so they'll avoid it.

#gatekeeping #fandom policing #fanon #canon vs fanon #usually don't do stuff like this anymore #I'm old and tired #but sometimes the words want to come out

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annah-kitathryne · 6 months

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I recently mentioned I liked some of the Alt covers for the Batgirls series. I thought I'd share some of my other favourites.

Batgirls #1

I just think it's kinda fun. A nice homage cover and I really like the simple highlights in Steph's hair.

Batgirls #3

The lines feel like a sketch. It's giving a bit of a Spiderverse feel to it if that makes sense. I love the yellow outlines on the foreground compared to the background. The overstuffed utility belts make a lot of sense.

Batgirls #6

I love the vibrant colours on this cover. Pink Yellow and Blue. Reminds me of printer ink. The yellow being a highlight, and the pink almost becoming a shadow or lowlight on Cass's suit.

Batgirls #7

Love how Cass's cap feels a bit like a wing. The ombre background reminds me of the ombre background sky from Huntress (1994 run). I like how a light blue is used as a highlight and a mid tone blue is used as Steph's undercape compared to the warm tones.

Batgirls #9

The outlines bring pink on Cass where the light hits compared to the solid Spoiler suit lines. Steph's hair is softly outlined compared to the harsh lines.

Batgirls #11

Cass's making up the left ear, and the way both capes make the logo go in different ways. Cass's makes the logo wings go down, and Steph's makes the logo wings go up. The grainy feel to the art reminds me of old comics. Feels a bit nestolgic

Batgirls #12

I own this one. Old Cass Batgirl logo! The art reminds me of a specific era of advertisements and the colors of older TV color. 80s or early 90s anime? IDK I don't remember the right name.

Batgirls #15

Pink sky, blur bag round, and green in the bottom left corner. Cass, who stands out against it, and Steph, who seems to make it her own. I like the idea of some more color to Cass's outfit. A bot of a mix between the Bat suit and the orphan suit. The blue building reminds me of building plans..

Batgirls #16

Paint splatter background. The bit of a white outline. The detailed drawing. It reminds me of the aesthetic background people put behind cut-out pictures. Like a mix of quick art and slow art if that makes sense? The blending of two styles together.

Batgirls #19

Gold outlines?! Yes! Steph has rays of sun behind her. Reminds me of the dead Steph carrying Cass panel from Batgirl 2000. Again, with the paint splatter. Love to see it. The white highlights on Cass's suit.

#dc #dc comics #batfam #batfamily #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #batgirl #batgirls #comic covers

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smilesatdawnmain · 10 months

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Hello ! I adore your LMK AU‘s and your writing style. The stories are so captivating and make me excited for the next chapter.

I wanted to ask what your favorite AUs are :) I know you have great taste and I would be grateful if you could share some LMK au/comic/fanfic recommendations with us :))))

Hello! Oh my gosh thank you so so much! That makes me so happy to hear ;-; Thank you!

I got a lot of favorites out there, let me tell you :3 Alright alright~

AU'S:

The King and his Cub By: @theweepingegg : This au is so cute and I love little MK with his Papa~ It's adorable and the humor just has me rolling! Plus the wholesome Father and Son moments + an uncle Macaque?? It's amazing! Literally just melts my heart with every new update.

Cursed Au By: @winterpower98: This Au consumed my life and continues to do so. The drama, the redemption, the growing bond between Wukong Macaque and MK?? I love it alll~ The whole universal set up of this growing Au is so full and wonderful.

Literally, ANY AU that is made by @journey-to-the-au ! This artist just- STEALS all of my attention. They got a lot of different Au's, and so many amazing ideas. There is action and romance and betrayal and platonic love that is so wholesome and sweet and AHHHHH. Taking a long tour through their entire tumblr page is 100% WORTH IT

Very similarly, anything by @rebeltigera! They also have so many different au's that are all AMAZING. Something about their style also- ahhhhh <3 It's so good. I definitely suggest taking a dive into their tumblr too. Their Macaque is honestly probably my favorite version of Macaque!

Forged Faith by @swagginmun Gosh the anxiety but also the pure adoration I have for this particular Au?? Definitely follows a more canon storyline but has one HECK OF A TWIST. The expressions that are done are amazing and I really really can't wait for this one to continue as its current chapter just ended on something INTENSE.

Fan Comics!

Eclipsed Apprentice by @journeytomonkiekid : I've been following this one for a while. I LOVE IT. There are so many talented people in the LMK community and this comic takes an interesting turn to the canon of LMK. Has some great Oc's and the storyline has me hooked! Lots of drama, and redemption, and so far the character growth is *Chef kiss*

Even Rainfall Has Shadows By @linklefr : Another fancomic that takes it's own path and turn from the LMK canon. Oc's are so cute and I just wanna squeeze them! It's really growing to be its own thing! It's got a lot of talk about self-worth and toxic habits and overall overcoming those that the characters need to grow from, and I can't wait to see where it goes!

FANFICS: (I have way too many. My gosh. And honestly if folks have more recommendations, please put them in the comments! Or if you have a story you wrote yourself I would love to read it!) I would mark their Tumblr creators if I knew them, but I don't know all of them ;-; So I'll put the link to the fanfic instead

SunBreak : First LMK fanfic I ever read. It is the rabbit hole that dropped me into loving Macaque and parent Macaque to be more precise~ Goes way off canon and I'm LOVING IT

There May be no such thing as eternity: Possed Wukong- I cannot explain how much possessed Wukong still reaching out to the Macaque and the gang just makes my brain flip~

A Garden Across Our Collar Bone: THIS. Ahhhh- Just bury me with this fanfic in my hand. MK X Red Son and ahhh- Also, ANYTHING this author (PittiedPeaches) writes is GOLD.

Of Blood and Bones: A big inspiration to me and their story is SO GOOD. The angst but also fluff that is slipped in? It's an amazingly sad but wonderful read. And I really love the world-building

Peach Blossoms: I'm a sucker for any Hanahaki disease kind of story and this is everything I wanted and more. This was soooo good and it flowed really well.

Love Team: Ooooh boy this story took me on a roller coaster ride. MY GOSH I never knew what to expect and it always had me on the edge of my seat~

Is this A Monkey-Thing or Dad-Thing?: Any Dad wukong focused fic will just catch my feet and trip me into the pit of the story. Every time. This one is so cute~

Kiss Your Knuckles: This oneshot is soo sooo good! And also horribly tragic. Gosh it just destroyed me! I definitely suggest it!

-Okay this thing is getting long and I'm not even close to saying all the fanfics and such I have read XD There are so many good fanfics out there my gosh. If you have more than you think are amazing please put them in the comments!

#lego monkie kid #lmk #shadowpeach #lmk mk #lmk shadowpeach #lmk wukong #lmk macaque #answer #lego monkie kid mk #lego monkie kid fanfic

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sabrinatvband · 2 months

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Notes on Comic Art #2: To Hatch or Not to Hatch, also some coloring stuff

One of the most influential things I've ever read on the subject of comic art is a piece Jesse Hamm wrote on Alex Toth where he talks about flatpacking.

[I discovered while writing this that Jesse Hamm passed away in 2021. He was a brilliant educator, one of the best in the history of the comics medium, and will be sorely missed.]

In the piece Hamm basically discusses how over-rendering objects usually makes them function worse as comic art. Many other people have discussed how using thicker lines for objects closer to the "camera" is good practice, how colors can seperate shapes and create depth, etc.

The question is, where does cross hatching fit into all of this? Or rather, various methods of adding more detailed rendering to artwork? I'm trying to figure this stuff out as I'm doing layouts for my comic, because I want to know the answers before I start inking the final artwork.

I try/want to have an uncluttered, clean, easily readable art style. I occasionally add hatching to my drawings, because hatching is fun, but I often feel like I've slightly ruined my artwork when I'm finished.

I've decided to look at some of the art that I feel like my own work is trying the hardest to emulate, at least philosophically, to see how other artists "weigh in" on this debate. It's important to remember that inkers embellish artwork [hence the alternate title "embellisher"], and so I'm going to try and find inkers most representative of a given penciller's intentions when applicable.

As I was working on this piece, I read Hamm Tips vol 1.1, and I discovered this diagram, which seems to relate with what I'm going to discuss later:

I think it's accurate to say that my desired approach is Uninflected/Deliberate; I think most people going for a clean and cartoonish look fall into that quadrant. Some people might describe Toth's work as being "clean", and so I should clarify that I'm talking about clean in the spirit of "lines meet neatly".

Some of the artists I'll discuss have lines that fall somewhere between being Inflected and Uninflected, and I think a lot of this comes down to inker approach. I feel like, in spirit, all of these pencillers are Uninflected, but some of the inkers use brushes, which creates a sort of middle ground. Brushes add different weights to a line, whereas crow quill nibs and pens have a uniform width. [The technical term for unweighted inked lines is "dumb line"; I believe this was coined by David Mazzucchelli.]

Let's first look at Adam Warren's work in the Dirty Pair volume Fatal But Not Serious. I'm a huge fan of how this comic looks; the flat, cel animation-style colors are very clean and easy to read. It's a very pleasant look, and I'm surprised more comics don't do this.

There is some hatching here, but it's not "serious" hatching. Just a few lines on cheeks, hands, etc. 98% of the artwork is shapes delinated entirely by a clean line and color. The convention floor panel is able to have a ton of detail without really changing the visual "rules" of the comic. An artist who does things in a more highly rendered way may've, for instance, reduced the crowd to a series of heavily shadowed figures, or colored in a single expressionistic wash to paper over things, etc.

Warren's Magical Drama Queen Roxy used a very similar approach to Fatal But Not Serious:

Let's now look at Rick Mays. I'm not a huge fan of Rick Mays, I've only actual read a single issue of a comic by him, but as I was reading Gen 13 he immediately stood out as being the best artist on that series, aside from Adam Warren himself [speaking only about issues Warren wrote]. It feels very telling that Rick Mays later did the final art for a graphic novel Warren laid out called Livewires.

These are from Gen 13 vol 2 #70:

The biggest difference between this piece has nothing to do with Warren or Mays, and everything to do with the coloring approach. I don't think the coloring here is bad, but the gradient-y colors do create a vastly different visual effect than the cel look I highlighted earlier.

The inking approach feels quite similar between the two artists; while Mays's art takes one or two steps towards realism relative to the Fatal But Not Serious stuff, texture is largely used to the same degree [with the grass and tornado being understandable exceptions]. What's interesting is that this issue has three different credited inkers; Karl Story, Rick Mays, and Jason Martin. I'm assuming this happened for deadline reasons.

I feel like I'm maybe starting to sound a little repetitive, and so I feel like I should share an issue of Gen 13 that I disliked, and then we can move to things that aren't Adam Warren-adjacent. These are from #43 and #44, with pencils by Lee Bermejo and inks by John Nyberg:

I'm not a big fan of this. The borderline chiaroscuro inking makes everything look heavily referenced, labored, and weird, and the "acting" in the comic suffers because of the over-rendered faces. It's a real shame the artwork is like this, because this two-part story is actually quite solid and would be a minor classic with better artwork.

I notice that many newer comic artists [which is to say, people who began their careers during the 90s onwards] put a lot of heavy shadows on figures in a way that feels too slavishly devoted to a certain kind of realism. I say a "certain kind" because the high contrast look of black spots being put onto a figure make the shadows way darker than they'd actually look in real life, so it almost makes the figures look dirty.

Look at comic art from the olden days and figures are largely defined by outlines/color. If a figure in an old comic has a lot of shadow on them, it's for reasons that are obvious and motivated; noir-y venetian blinds stuff, a mysterious villain being obscured, someone being underlit, or having half their face obscured, etc. There's a clear reason shadows are being used in these cases, rather than it being done to add usually unnecessary detail.

Anyways, let's look at Amanda Conner's work. Image on the left is from a Vampirella story called Fantasy Feast, and the image on the right is from Power Girl #12. Texture is used, like on the walls of the bathroom, but sparingly.

Looking at Conner's work in this context makes me realize, I don't think I've ever seen Amanda Conner's stuff colored flat [at least after she fully matured as an artist]. I don't think the more three-dimensional rendering used in any of these panels is bad, but I'm not going to be doing that kind of coloring in my book, and so it's not quite as instructive to me.

That being said, I really love Conner's style. I've noticed that Marvel and DC are increasingly using artists with styles that are broadly similar to Conner's; I've included an example below. Maybe it's because the artist below is too lazy to draw a proper background, but their work feels so much more flavorless than Conner's in comparison. I think it's because the "acting" is not as impressive, and Conner brings a fun-factor that feels completely absent in the page below.

I realize "fun" isn't always the order of the day, but this page doesn't really reflect . . . anything. It's completely bland.

Here's Kirby, who couldn't be bland if he tried. The left image is from the Young Romance collection Fantagraphics put out, and the right is from OMAC. The former is from the 40s, latter is from the 70s. [By the way, the Young Romance image is photographed from my own collection; there's no warping visible because Fantagraphics knows how to design a book].

Looking at these pieces side-by-side really challenges a lot of my assumptions about Kirby's artwork, because in some ways his artwork changed less than I previously thought it did without direct comparisons. There are some things that are more abstract about the OMAC page, like the wiggly shadows. Someone unfamiliar with Kirby might assume these were drawn by two different people, but only because 30-odd years of growth seperate these two pages.

Kirby's style, in my mind, is highly geometric and defined more so by abstract shorthand squiggles than hatching or other forms of rendering, but there actually is a fair amount of hatching on the OMAC page.

However, that OMAC page I believe was inked by Mike Royer, or at least someone using a brush. I noticed that, by sheer coincidence, almost all of the Kirby art from my first post in this series was inked by D. Bruce Barry, who didn't use a brush and also followed Kirby's pencils perhaps more literally than any other inker he ever had. In those images, it's clear that most of the hatching in Kirby's work was added by his inkers.

When Kirby did ink himself [using a brush], his style was oddly clean. He did add in hatching, but it was never particularly dense.

Anyways, I want to close this by including some Jesse Hamm quotes from his instructional PDFs:

-Simplicity is great, but often you need extra texture to seel weirdness.

-Another sign of experience is texture. The pro-level artist has learned to give different textures to grass, hair, tree bark, bushes, etc. Meanwhile, the amateur uses the same one or two shading techniques on EVERYTHING, giving it all a samey feel.

-Open spaces of black or white may be "activated" with a bit of texture. A few pebbles/ripples/etc will spur the mind to fill what's missing.

-We talk often about spotting blacks, but spotting greys (i.e., details/texture) is also crucial to clear compositions.

The lesson in the bit of Hamm writing I most often revisited, the flatpacking post, was that too much texture and rendering can make a comic exhausting to read. But reading more of his work, it turns out he had a more nuanced, texture-inclusive view of things.

What's the lesson here? Discretion.

#making comics #art #comics

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astrojulia · 1 year

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Hi!! I saw your blog and it's beautiful! I'd like to ask if you could share some tips about editing posts, specifically changing the font color and doing that cool effect where it has more than one color on the same font ☺ if you're not comfortable teaching that's okay too! Have a good night

Hello Siren,

Thank you for the compliment. Yes, I can teach you. Just follow a tip from Auntie here: do it because you genuinely like the aesthetic. The time you spend writing the post is sometimes the same as editing it, and in my experience, this won't necessarily translate into more likes or reblogs. So, do it because you think it's beautiful.

As comical as it sounds, I won't be using HTML in this post because using the codes could cause problems. I've seen some tutorials, but I just really learned when I searched on my own.. I also do all my editings on my notebook. So, here's everything I use:

Websites I use for editing:

HTML Code Editor: While you're creating your HTML, you can simultaneously see if it's working

BBcode & HTML Text Colorizer: This is where you'll create the gradient

Browserling: I use this site to make the gradient code compatible for Tumblr

Aesthetic Symbols: this is for that cute symbols

Piliapp: more copy/paste symbols

Fontes e Letras: copy/paste fonts

Canva: This is where I create some of my designs. I also use Photoshop

Deviantart: a lot of material for Photoshop like templates, PSDs and Renders (PNG image with a good resolution), you can see the ones I use the most in my sources

@animatedglittergraphics-n-more: dividers

@saradika: dividers

@engrampixel: cute material

Color Hunt: if you don't have a color pallete in mind, here you can find a lot of options

Adobe Color: if you want to create your own HTML color palette this site can help

DaFont: where I download my fonts, the ones I use the most are: Betterfly, Arcadepix, Starborn, Lemon Milk, Cursive Sans and BubbleGum

EmojiTerra: as I use tumblr on my notebook, this is where I get my emojis

HTML Text Editing

Important:

Go use the HTML Code Editor in this part and your life will be way easier.

Some things I do right here in the tumblr editor, like putting the images and different fonts like Lucille.

All HTML code starts with < > and ends with , that is, when you start a paragraph you will write <p> and when you finish you will write </p> (HTML Code Editor ends your coding automatically)

I'm teaching all this because if you want to make gradients in your entire text and not just in the title, you'll need to know about html

To start your HTML you will need to go to the gear that appears on the right side when you are writing your post, go to the bottom until you find the Text Editor and switch to HTML.

The Codes

<p> start a paragraph </p>

<br> to make a space between text less than a paragraph (good to use in indented text) you don't need to put </br>

<i> leave the text in italics</i>

<strike> leave the text crossed out </strike>

<small> make the text small like this </small>

<h1> make the text large like this </h1>

<h2> make the text large like this </h2>

<ul> Create unordered list (dotted) </ul>

<ol>Create lists with order (numeric) </ol>

*instead of making paragraphs you will create new items in the list using the code <li> </li>

<blockquote class="npf_indented"> make the text indented </blockquote>

<span style="color: #HTML"> Code to color your texts, pay attention that it uses (") instead of (') and doesn't use (;) </span>

Tutorial on creating invisible spaces, just like I use to do the navigation, if I put it here everything bugs. PT-BR

<a href="URL">Link Text</a>: Creates a hyperlink

Making your Gradient

Go to BBCode and HTML already with your HTML text and colors in hand. Write or copy your text in the box, choose the gradient type (I use middle) and select your colors (from one to three different colors)

Now copy the text in the "HTML code for this text: (To use on your website)" box and go to the Browseling, you will replace the (') to (") and the (;) for nothing

Copy and paste your new code direct in your tumblr post editor or in the HTML Code Editor. Success!!

I think that's all. Kisses from the Sea! 🐚

#astrojulia #others #astrojuliasks #html tutorial #gradient text #gradient text tutorial #html

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scribblemakes · 2 years

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I really love your Disconauts AU however, ever since I've gotten into it I've been haunted by the concept of Harry helping Kim out with learning some of his psychic powers and they're trying to learn/relearn clairvoyance using each other as practice and for a split second Kim catches the sight of the halo behind his own head from Harry's point of view.

I was very torn between him being scared of the devotion and pedestal-placement OR mr Respect Me I'm A Competitive Authority Figure liking it at least a little, so I went with the option that lets me make him blush a bit of course. Also a little bonus:

ALT in images, long text-only ID below the cut:

[ID: Seven panels of a comic about Kim and Harry from Disco Elysium done in a Psychonauts art style. The comic is done as a collection of coloured sketches.

The first panel shows Harry laying on the ground in front of Kim, who's sitting on a couch. Both of them are missing their jackets and are in their shirts and pants only. The dialogue reads: Kim: "So, we've tried levitation-" Harry: "Both got it." Kim: "Telekinesis-" Harry: "You're better." Kim: "Invisibility-" Harry: "I-" Kim: "Detective." Harry: "Barely, but you've got to admit I've got great marksmanship."

The second panel shows a close up of Kim's face and the wall behind him. Kim looks unimpressed, saying "Sure", while a burn mark on the wall is visible behind him. He also says: "Only one we haven't tried is clairvoyance."

The third panel returns to the first angle, with Harry on the ground, as Harry scratches his beard. The dialogue reads: Harry: "What's that one?" Kim: "It's the ability to see through a person's eyes (or a camera)"

The fourth panel shows Harry sitting up with an excited expression. The dialogue reads: Harry: "You can do that?! Kim we've got to try it!" Kim: "I don't know detective... It can reveal private thoughts."

The fifth panel changes to show Kim as he sits on the couch, over the shoulder of Harry. The dialogue reads: Harry: "You can try it on me! I tell you all my thoughts anyway." Kim: "Fine, fine. Just once, alright?" Harry: "Mhm!"

The sixth panel shows Kim using a psychic power on Harry, his appearance changing to show what Harry perceives him as. The only changes are that a Halo appears behind his head, he's in his usual plain-clothes work outfit, and he's smiling. The dialogue reads: Kim: "Khm. I'm not sure I'm doing it right." Harry: "Yeah?" Kim: "The only differences are that I'm smiling and wearing my jacket. I also have a hal-"

The seventh panel shows Kim dropping the clairvoyance and returning to his previous appearance. His glasses are completely white to hide his eyes and his ears are red. The dialogue reads: Kim: "I think that's enough for today." Harry: "Aw, okay."

The bonus panel shows the electrochemistry archetype looking up at Kim while he looks down at it with a curious expression. He then uses clairvoyance on it and looks surprised, but his appearance (as EC sees him) isn't shown.

/End ID]

#disco elysium #disconauts

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nocturnalazure · 5 months

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Not-a-tutorial - Dialogues: Part I

This part will be mostly about how I integrate dialogues into my graphic novel, and how I try to make them more visually interesting. Emphasis on "try". I don't think I have much to teach to anyone, I'm just explaining my process.

I use Comic Life for my graphic novel. I have no frigging idea how to do speech bubbles with Photoshop. Comic Life comes with a variety of pre-designed bubbles and layouts, I'm taking no credits here.

But first: speech bubbles and their shapes. Each shape has a meaning in itself and that's why I love them so much. Starting with an obvious one: the spiky, multi-edged bubble is used to indicate that a character is screaming, yelling or laughing out loud.

I use that shape for loud shouting exclusively. When a character is simply raising their voice, I put the text in bold+italics.

I do the same thing but on a single word when the character puts emphasis on it.

Voices over the phone get even spikier bubbles (and text in italics), to indicate that they come out of an electronic device.

Extraordinary circumstances require their very own speech bubbles. Like when Grimmy is talking. Or characters in a dream-like sequence.

I haven't been very consistent with my use of thought bubbles. I don't like showing too much of a character's inner thoughts, so I don't use them often. When I do, I prefer a "manga-style", rectangular caption that can be read as a voice-over.

I did use dashed-line bubbles for whispered convos for a time. But I like now to just use a slightly smaller font. Less traditional imho. And it works well for (funny) side comments.

The wavy bubble is used when a character is really distressed. I use it with parcimony for extreme situations, like when the character is crying or when their voice is breaking.

Extended speech bubbles are a godsend. I generally avoid having more than one sentence in the same bubble. The second sentence will very often be in an extended bubble.

...or on a different panel entirely. I like breaking down the lines of dialogue into several parts, to keep things dynamic and quick to read. The downside is that I need a shitload of pictures for every single scene.

A veeery important part is the order of speech bubbles. The eye must follow them seamlessly, from up to down and left to right. Characters' positions are obviously very important: ideally, a character who speaks first should be placed on the left side of the shot because that's where the eye will go first. That's not always possible though, and it's not always what I get after shooting. So I have to work around that using the tail to indicate who is speaking.

That tail is SO useful. I promise you: although you may not realize it, it helps you as a reader because you never have to stop and wonder who is saying what. It is just visible on the screen and you can focus on the important stuff: the text. That is particularly useful when there are 3 or more characters talking in the same picture.

I always pick quality of screenshots over space for my text. I can always move a bubble around and change the direction of the tail. It won't necessarily be pretty, but having the character's face (or whatever I want to put emphasis on) clearly visible is more important to me. My text goes wherever I can find some space. Now, maybe I unconsciously leave more space between my characters when I shoot? I'm not sure.

On to Part II!

#ts3 #sims 3 #sims 3 story #sims 3 storytelling tips #random #not-a-tutorial

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abyssleaves · 1 year

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Why I'll Be Remaining in the Lurking For Love Community

Ok.

Honestly, I really don't want to make this.

I'm way too old for fandom drama, and I don't need to be making myself a target. My gut is telling me that it's a bad idea to get involved, and I'm inviting trouble for myself by posting this.

But the most recent post against Tom is just ridiculous and I can't not speak my piece.

I'm not linking to it or reblogging it because I don't want to send hate anyone's way, and honestly because I'm going to block them as soon as this is posted. You can read mine and theirs for yourself and decide what you think.

As far as the “anti-Latino” posts that Tom liked, I can't speak to whether they do damage, or what Tom’s views actually are. I am not Latino, and I'm not Tom. It's not my place. But I will say I was aware of those posts long before I saw that “callout” post, and it's because multiple Latino artists I follow liked and retweeted them. At the time, I was given to understand that they were satirizing the fact that both were styles of stereotypes, but one was acceptable while the other was not, despite both being bad. I can't say, based on just those tweets, that I see any anti-Latino sentiment in Tom. I'm willing to admit that my knowledge on that front isn't bomb-proof.

The second point, well... I'm sorry to the friend that feels used. They're entitled to be hurt. And I will readily admit that I'm only able to respond to the info within that post. Maybe there IS more to it.

But I don't think that Tom ceasing contact over the hormones is surprising at all, from a mental health standpoint. Put yourself in his shoes: you're a trans person in US, which is its own struggle, and you've reached your mid/early 20s without being able to attain gender-affirming care. Now someone years younger than you just got the thing you want more than anything else. Sure, you might be happy for them. But that is also going to hurt, horribly. You really have three options:

1) stay friends and smother the bitterness/possible resentment. That will either end up ruining your mental health, or coming out and ruining the friendship anyway.

2) Ask your friend not to tell you/post about their transition. That makes it about you and also ruins something that should make them happy.

3) Distance yourself.

Maybe he should have spoken more directly with you about his feelings, granted. But, Tom has not been shy about the fact that he struggles with his mental health. None of us handle every situation well. As far as his occasional venting, I would think, if you WERE his friend, you might have some compassion, and either cease contact if the friendship is not fulfilling, or accept his sincere, well-written apology (Which are the ONLY words straight from Tom’s mouth on the entire fucking post).

Instead, you got the apology from him, and then shared a bunch of gossip between you and another friend, and outed your interpretations of his vent sessions to the world. That's not exactly classy, posting about how he sought people he felt safe with during a time when a big chunk of the community he built is telling him to do horrible things to himself.

I want to make it clear that I don't agree with all of Tom’s views as expressed on his initial explanation post. Again, many of them are issues that I don't feel are my place to get involved in, and therefore I stayed quiet at the time.

I'm aware that the justified and intense hurt felt by people in those communities can mean that even differing opinions feel like a slap in the face. You have every right to see Tom’s views as hurtful and choose to leave, and/or make a separate community for support. I don't blame people who are in those communities for doing so. This post is aimed at the obsessed minority that won't leave the tag/remaining fans/Tom alone.

All of the above being said, the reaction to Tom’s post is the most “touch grass” thing I have ever seen.

Tom liking one or two comics from a dark-humor comic artist so widespread on the internet that I didn't even know he had an actual page, or anything about him as a person (something Tom also stated) = Tom is a Nazi sympathizer.

Tom saying “I don't care for neopronouns, but I won't attack you for using them and will respect what everyone wants to be called” = Tom is a monstrous bigot.

The racism accusation has me especially 💀. All because he liked a post about help from an unexpected source and that we should be kinder to each other.

How on earth are you going to tell a POC that he doesn't know what racism is because he’s NOT THE RIGHT KIND OF POC? Do you hear yourself?

(FWIW, I also don't agree with kink at pride. Sorry. LGBTQ+ people are not "narsty little freaks"--yeah I SAW that post--they're people. They can be kinky, they can be vanilla, whatever. Kink has nothing to do with your orientation, and therefore it isn't part of Pride. Also, my guys, if you're having public sex/being nude at pride for kink reasons, then you're not part of the healthy kink community: safe, sane, and CONSENSUAL. Nobody around you consented to that. Similarly, while I feel that sex education for minors should be normalized in order to give them better tools to tell when they're being groomed, seeing strangers with no pants on is NOT education, that's involving minors in your fetish. And that's fucking gross. )

The LGBTQ+ community in the US is in a lot of trouble right now, and we have a very bad habit of eating our own. We divide and subdivide and allow ourselves to be carved up by a united conservative front.

We do not allow for differing levels of leftist beliefs, and we constantly accuse each other of being not POC/leftists/queer enough, or being the wrong kind, or using a term for ourselves that some other individuals don't like. A great deal of the bullying leveled against him is justified by others saying that he's choosing to support a party that will turn on him and cause him and others like him harm.

Well, to be honest, the only community I see doing that right now is this one.

The amount of disingenuous “OMG, just FYI everyone to everyone hurt by [situation], I’M not transphobic/a bigot, you're all welcome here 😌” posts from people, who did not read his post, did not link to or quote his post. Disgusting. You know very well that nothing in his explanation or in his actions throughout his time in the community pointed to any abuse ON HIS PART towards trans people, non-binary people, people of the Jewish faith, or POC. You're virtue signaling, you're putting lambs blood above your door to keep the baying mob away.

This is insane. When did differing opinions turn into this? You don't have to agree with Tom’s views on anything. You're welcome to not follow his accounts, not like his art, not buy his game. If you feel that his opinions are too severely different from yours, you should be allowed to leave the fandom without people telling you that you should do bad things to yourself because your opinions don't match theirs (sound familiar?).

But…please. Can we stop with this awful parasocial obsession with his personal page? You can't lie to yourself and call it anything other than literal stalking. It's creepy as hell, and it reflects more on you than on him, in the long run. People might agree with your outrage, but deep down, they're afraid of being the next target, and they stay quiet out of fear that you'll stalk them next and send a mob hurling abuse their way.

To Tom, I'm sorry that this happened to you. You didn't deserve anything even close to this level of vitriol and abuse. You started from scratch and created a character and story that I feel was something truly unique. You reached an incredible number of people's hearts with Lurking for Love and Jacob, and no matter what happens from here with both of them, you deserve to feel proud of that. I hope that you are ok. Being a public figure on the internet doesn't mean you don't have a right to private opinions or even just general privacy.

I'm not tagging any characters in this. I'm only tagging the game because I hope other fans get to see that they're not alone. I don't believe the tags should be polluted this way. If you have to discuss a creator, it should be in his tag and not in a fandom space.

I'm aware that there will be deliberate bad-faith readings of this, or nitpicking of things I didn't cover. Whoever wants to, go ahead and respond, but I've said what I came to say, and I have nothing more to add. My inbox is closed and I love the block button.

#lurking for love #lfl game #carnivorekitty

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insertyourselfhere · 1 year

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Body Swap Part 3

AN: Sorry for taking so damn long, there's a bit of a gap here in the story as it doesn't follow their whole journey, just because its almost filler like if I want to later ill do some in-between bits as one shots but I know we want to actually see Gwen and Y/N Interacting so I'm trying to get us to that point which I did! Also the timing in this fic from ITSV and ATSV are off but meh.

Description: It was starting to get tedious now, it had been a few months at least of you swapping with Gwen, being able to talk to her in your mind and nothing else developing. You and Gwen had tried on a number of occasions to work out what your existential crisis was that was stopping you both from moving on with your lives. Gwen had told you her tragic story and you had told her yours, about your parents, your uncle, even your Aunt was involved trying to help both of you out. It was hard to admit at first but you had grown some sort of feelings towards the girl, its hard not too when she’s in your head almost all the time. Thankfully you hadn’t thought that out loud to her just yet but there had been a couple times that you were almost caught slipping. You’ve had to lie a few times saying its about a girl in your dimension but played it off and changed the subject. Everything was continuing like normal, or so you thought.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the day before you guys swapped bodies on your usual rotation, you laid in bed ready for the next day to come when you swapped over with Gwen. You reflected a little about what you and Gwen had been talking about, what has happened over the last few months and there were no changes. You rolled onto your back staring at your ceiling.

‘Can’t sleep?’ You heard in the back of your mind, seems like you weren’t the only one.

‘Not really I’m just confused’

‘Same’ She said softly.

‘Okay well how about this, lets kill the time, I know all about the tragic backstory that is Gwen Stacy and I know I’ve lived as you as well but in your own words tell me about you. What makes you tick, what are your favorite things to do’

(A/N: This might get a little OC here cause Ive never read any of the Gwen Stacy comics so I don’t know much about actual Gwen so this will be just from what I think she would like)

‘Okay sure lets do that! At a super young age I did gymnastics, dad taught me and got me involved when I was 4, I also was heavily involved in ballet too. I always wanted to be a ballerina when I was growing up but who didn’t at such a young age’

‘I still want to be a ballerina those moves you can pull off are out of this world’ You said and you heard her chuckle.

‘I guess it goes with my fighting style though I would love to teach you one day’ She said, you smiled at those words hoping they would come true.

‘Please do, if that means I get to actually see you and not me you, you get me?’ She laughed again and you wouldn’t get sick of hearing that ever.

‘So because I started growing up, managed to get some teen angst going I wanted to do something different, my whole attitude on life changed, I got these powers, I didn’t know how to deal with all this added pressure so I joined a band’

‘Ah yes the Mary Janes! I was wondering how that came about, you just needed a distraction’ You asked knowing full well what that meant, that’s why you joined the football team, You needed a distraction yourself.

‘Yeah actually, I was struggling with who I was, being Spider-Woman and Gwen Stacy’

‘It is a lot of pressure but I can tell you with all my heart that you are killing it’

‘Thanks Y/N I needed to hear that’ The line went quiet and you could feel yourself slowing starting to fall asleep.

‘Hey I got a spider emergency! I gotta go but get some rest okay’

‘Be safe Gwen, Don’t rough them up too much’ She chuckled and it went dead silent.

You managed to stay awake for a couple minutes before Your eye lids grew heavy and you succumb to sleep.

The next morning you woke up only to notice you were still in your bed. You woke up startled throwing your legs off your bed and walking towards your bedroom door opening it and looking at your Aunt.

“Morning Gwen” She said so used to this charade you 2 had, you gulped knowing it was the next day, you saw the date on your phone and looked back at your Aunt.

“Not Gwen” You said and her head shot up. It has been more than 6 months at this point that you had started swapping with Gwen, nothing seemed to stop it, nothing seemed to hint towards it ever slowing down and then one day it just stopped.

“Not Gwen?” She asked walking towards you with her hand out, you grabbed it nodding saying it was you and you didn’t know how to feel.

“Amazing it’s finally stopped! Now you can go back to living your normal spidey life” She said with a little hooray and then a sip of her drink, Your Aunt turned around towards the kitchen table where you could see a 2nd coffee cup laid out.

She picked it up ready to pour out the drink and you could see her hand shaking, you quickly ran over to her to help with the cup and she let out a small sob.

“I am so happy for you that you don’t have to go through this anymore but she was around so often it’s like she was apart of our little family you know” You slowly shook your head and hugged your aunt.

“I’m not happy” You said quietly in your Aunts shoulder, you both pulled away and you had small tears in your eyes. “Neither am I” She finally admitted to you. You slumped in the chair in the kitchen and looked at your Aunt. You were devastated. “Have your little telepathic abilities stopped working too?” You shrugged your shoulders but focused on trying to reach out to her.

‘Gwen can you hear me?’ You asked, your face concentrating to push your sub consciousness out there hoping to get a response. After a few minutes of silence nothing came back. You stood up with a frustrating sigh and leaned over the kitchen counter.

“Nothing?” Your aunt asked rubbing your back, you shook your head. You didn’t know what else to do, you couldn’t even think straight, your alarm started going off symbolising you had to go to school but you just didn’t have the heart to get up. It’s almost like you had genuinely lost a part of yourself, it had felt very unfinished.

“We are taking the rest of the day off today, you and me I think we need this…”

“What if something happened?” You ask out loud cutting off your aunt. “What if something’s happened and she needs me?” You said looking at your aunt.

“There’s nothing you can….”

“Don’t finish that sentence, there’s something I can do I am a Spider, I have all these powers I have to be able to do something” Your aunt could see the hurt in your eyes, the panic, every emotion flashing through you all at once worried that the absolute worst thing happened.

“Y/N look, I don’t understand your situation at all, I honestly couldn’t think of anyone in the entire world could really to relate to your feelings but all I can tell you is that Gwen is one of the toughest girls I have ever met. She is fine, maybe you figured out whatever the universe was telling you or your no longer needed to heal her very broken heart.” You Aunt said smiling softly.

“But mines broken now…” You said quietly. Your aunt gave you a look and you shuffled your feet. “Okay she’s fine, we did what we needed to do, whatever that was and she’s safe in her dimension.” Your aunt nodded and you smiled a little.

“I’m gunna get ready and go to school. Just to distract myself a bit today” You said, your aunt nodded. “I will be mourning the loss of a daughter so I’ll be here quietly sobbing over the cup I bought her” You giggled a little knowing your aunt was joking but only a tiny bit, you could see she was just as hurt as well so you hugged her again.

“She’s fine, she doesn’t need us anymore we fixed her broken heart” You both smiled and walked away doing your own things. You headed to school getting ready for your first class pulling out the books you needed. You saw the drawings, pictures, difference in handwriting even in all your books and smiled. As you went through wondering from class to class you failed to notice an unwanted guest appear out of nowhere.

As you were heading towards gym you heard commotion coming from some other students. “quick everybody evacuate theres a guy in a rhino suit running rampant around the school!” As students began to pile out of the gym and into the hallways running towards safety you ran around a corner and did the opposite trying to find your stashed suit. You ran into the bathroom, lift up one of the tiles on the roof and promptly changed into your suit.

“A man in a Rhino suit? We don’t have that here we have a lady who’s half rhino half human.” You managed to find all the commotion and saw a couple of kids in the way.

“Quick get out of here!”

“Spidey thank you!” They all ran out, you could feel the building shaking and hear walls crumbling.

“Hello tiny spider” He said as he walked around the corner, and sure enough it was a big buff dude in a rhino suit.

“Look I don’t know what your doing here, but I need to get to gym and your in my way” You got into your signature pose.

“Get out of the way tiny spider, I need to go home!” You looked confused for a split second but immediately knew what the issue was. ‘He’s not from this dimension, Im gunna have to lock him up tight and stop him from hurting anyone’ You thought quietly to yourself. A tiny part of you was hoping you would hear Gwen voice in your head again but it was no where to be found. Rhino charged towards you, without missing a beat you punched him clean in the jaw and he was knocked out cold.

“Wow that was….NO don’t say that, it never works out well when you put things like that into the universe.” You webbed up Rhino and dragged him outside, as you got outside a hexagon shaped portal opened up in front of you, you let go of Rhino and folded your arms only to be met with a lady who had a motorbike and an afro.

“Oh hello! You must be the Spider of this dimension” You unfolded your arms feeling the tingle as soon as you saw her.

“I am! The names Y/N” She walked up and shook your hand. “Nice to meet you Im Jessica Drew, I see you caught the guy I’m here for, relatively easy it seems to” You gave a modest look but shrugged your shoulders.

“It was nothing” You said with a small smile under your mask.

“Look, Miguel is totally going to hate me but I think you should come with me” She said gesturing to the portal behind her, you looked in and saw nothing but a tube looking thing.

“In there? That looks like death?” You said pointing at the portal. “I promise it’s not, I’ll explain once we get there but I think you should come with me” She said, you shook your head knowing you shouldn’t follow strangers into very suspicious portals but all that was going through your head was Gwen.

“This might be my only chance to find her” You said out loud. “Find who?” She asked and you coughed and walked into the portal not realising you were talking out loud. As soon as you stepped in you were teleported to a new world.

Once you landed Jessica following behind you, your face dropped, you took your mask off staring at the Nueva York. It was so futuristic and chrome, very shiny, everything was shiny it was burning your retina’s.

“Come on I want you to come meet Miguel” You follow Jessica until you came to a high tech room in a dark looking alley. He even looked like a bad guy, his aura oozed “I am a villain” but even you were slightly jealous of his gym regime whatever it was cause dude looked good.

“Jessica what did you do?” You blocked out their argument taking in the sights and sounds around you. They started bickering and you felt a little awkward to be standing there, it was like you were a child getting scolded from your parents for ditching school.

“Look they’re here and I know Y/N will do a fantastic job, plus with the large amount of animalities running around thanks to 1610 we need all the help we can get”

“We have over 1500 different peters you think this other variant will help out”

“They’re a lot stronger than most of the others Peter’s surprisingly took down Rhino with a swift punch”

Your feet shuffled and you looked down taking in the compliments Jessica was throwing your way. Miguel looked at you and threw up his hands.

“Whatever, kid heres your watch go hang around I’ll call you if I need anything” Jessica smiled and you looked at the watch in your hand, you put it on and started walking out hearing Jessica and Miguel start up again.

You made your way out and went to sit at the top of the tower which seemed to be everyone’s favourite spot it seems. You met a couple of the other Spider, a few peter parkers…a lot of peter parkers actually, your favourite though had to be the T-rex running around.

Your world was 1405 as deemed by the I guess lords of the multi-verse, you weren’t too sure how it worked but you kinda just rolled with it, you wanted to make sure Gwen was okay but deep down you knew she was, for now you would go about your business and hopefully save some other worlds, who can put that on their resume.

“Alright Y/N ready for your first mission” You looked at your watch and saw Jessica on the other end of it.

“As ready as I’ll ever be” you said holding the watch up.

“Alright this one’s easy so I’ll be going with you but mostly to observe” She said with a small smile, you nodded your head and typed in the co-ordinates she sent you.

15 minutes later

You and Jessica were standing next to each other back in the Spider Society, you had your web wrapped around the prisoner and she stood next to you with the biggest surprise look on her face.

“Okay that was very quick, you are very efficient” She said and you just stood there nodding holding onto your villain. He started to groan and you knocked him out again with a swift punch.

“Alright well um go hang around, catch more sights and I’ll get back to you with another mission” You could tell she was still stunned, she didn’t really know what to do but walked away with your prisoner attached. You made your way back up to the top of the building again however instead of sitting you made the rounds, getting to know other people and know who all the different Spiders you could. After a couple hours of wondering around, getting lost and meeting MORE people you finally got another call but it wasn’t from Jessica. It was from Miguel’s Ai friend LYLA.

“Hey could you go help Miguel over on world 65 please” You were shocked at first to hear that you were going to help Miguel but You didn’t even hesitate you immediately input that number and jumped straight into the portal. As you exited the portal you went straight towards the parchment vulture in front of you and punched him square in the jaw.

“Nice!” You said, Miguel got up from his rubble and walked over to you, “Good punch rook alright lets take this guy down” You got your fist’s ready to fight with Miguel not taking in your surroundings fully (You should really work on this btw) when a quiet familiar voice hit your ears.

“Y/N” Your head whipped around so quickly but before you could say anything vulture had punched you right back sending you into a pillar.

“That wasn’t nice, okay rook new plan” Miguel said as he shot you with one of his webs and flung you towards vulture, you managed to clock him again but this time he was ready, he grabbed your arm and readied one of his wings, but before he sliced you with it you saw a web holding it back and Gwen had kicked him in the back of his head causing him to go crashing in the ground.

“Your moves are so much better when you do it” You said towards Gwen, she gave you a quick fist bump and you both propelled down.

“Do you 2 know each other” Miguel said pointing at both of you “It’s a long story we’ll explain later but right now he needs to go back” You said pointing at vulture.

“So whats this guys deal anyway” Gwen said asking you, you managed to talk while fighting and dodging all the vultures attacks.

“Well he’s made of parchment so you can assume he doesn’t belong here.” Gwen rolled her eyes “I gathered that much this isn’t my first run in with the multi-verse” She said kicking a few rocks towards the vulture who dodged all but 1.

“This isn’t your first run in?” You asked, she gave you a look and you nodded your head. “Oh right yes us” She webbed towards the vulture holding his wings down and punched him again, he broke free clambering up the pillar up into the night sky, Miguel went after him attacking him leaving you and Gwen alone.

“So crazy that we didn’t swap bodies right?” You said looking at her. “I actually have an excuse for that” She said and you looked at her intently.

“The night before we usually swap I was out fighting one of my villains when a portal opened up and sucked me in, I was blown into another dimension that had this really cool Spider-Man named Miles” You looked shocked, so because she wasn’t in her universe you couldn’t swap. Makes sense.

“I’ll tell you the rest of the story later” she said as she webbed away, you looked up to see a helicopter flying down towards you, both Miguel and Gwen had managed to get their webs under it to slow it down you jumped on a rock that was sticking up and stood waiting for the impact of the helicopter when its nose reached the palm of your hands you used your strength to push against it and put a stop to it. Everyone started cheering, Miguel grabbed vulture and you were both getting ready to leave, you wanted Gwen to come with so you asked Miguel to wait. When you looked up though you couldn’t see her anymore but you could hear shouting.

“She needs to come with us she’d be an asset to the team” You said to Miguel, he looked at you and grunted before jumping up there, you followed after him witnessing Miguel throwing one of his barriers on the ground and tying up George Stacy. You walked over to Gwen who looked frightened and grabbed her shoulders gently.

Miguel opened a portal and threw vulture in it, he turned around to you and Gwen and asked. “So what’s it going to be kid?” He said, she nodded, Miguel gave her a watch and jumped in the portal. You followed after him but looked back at Gwen and George, your heart breaking for both of them.

As soon as both you and Gwen got back to universe 928 she let out a big sigh of relief and her legs collapsed under her. She was on the verge of tears but you could see that she was fighting the urge to let them fall.

“Hey” You said.

“Hey yourself” She said wiping away her tears, you couldn’t believe that you had managed to find her. You were so relieved but you could see all the mending you guys had down over the last few months was slowly starting to break all because her dad found out who she was.

She pulled off her mask and you saw half her head was shaved.

“Whoa! That’s new!” You said looking at her new haircut, she looked at it and rolled her eyes.

“It’s a long story but I had to shave it”

“I like it, it suits you” You said looking at her hair, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked away, she coughed and turn back to you.

“Thank you, I think we owe each other an explanation” She said trying to change the subject, but you being dense didn’t notice.

“Y/N Show the newbie around Ill put our prisoner away, you owe me an explanation for how you 2 know each other by the way.” He started walking away and you looked back at Gwen.

“Come follow me Ill introduce you to everyone!” You grabbed Gwen’s hand and pulled her towards everyone.

“Hey Y/N!” You walked pass a group of Peters and waved towards them. “Hey Peter this is Gwen!” They all waved and went back into their groups.

“Wow there sure a lot of Peter’s”

“Yeah Peter seems to be the most common canon, there are a very rare amount of us that aren’t Peters but I guess there’s almost an infinite amount of universes so there’s infinite possibilities” you replied looking back at Gwen who was taking everything in

“This place is so big” she said in awe watching all the other spiders running around

“This is the lobby” You replied whispering in her ear.

“Your kidding” She said turning back to you with her eyes wide.

“Not even in the slightest, here Ill show you where I like to hang out!”

You took her to the tallest building and hung out at the top looking down at Nueva York. You didn’t know how you felt about the whole situation but was surprised about how the whole situation went down, you had a crazy 48 hours that’s for sure. Shoot you didn’t check in with your Aunt. You both sat down over the edge of the tower, she looked down at her watch and then looked back at you.

“I guess I owe you an explanation it seems” You looked back at her and then back to the view.

“Nah, you’re safe that’s all I care about” You said looking away, she smiled and hit your shoulder gently.

“I’m so happy I can finally do that as me and not looking at you in the mirror” She said looking out towards the skyline again, she tucked her leg up towards her face and leant on it.

“It’s weird, I’ve seen you so much the past few months but not like this, its nice” You replied smiling.

“I know you said I don’t owe you an explanation but I have to tell you what happened it was crazy!” You folded your legs and shuffled so you were looking at Gwen as she told you all about her trip to 1610. She told you about Miles, about how what happened to her hair, you couldn’t help but laugh at that part knowing full well how hard it was to control your powers when you first got them.

She told you about Peter B Parker, Penni, Spider-Ham and Spider-Noir, You could see how happy she was about her little band of misfits. Maybe you and your Aunt had managed to heal her enough that she let herself open to gain other friends.

She told you about the collider, how Miles came through and gained the ability to somewhat control his powers, she showed you a photo of him on her phone and she was smiling.

“Gwen that sounds like a long week you had” She giggled and then an idea formed.

“Hey can we take a photo” You looked shocked but you nodded. You got ready but she leaned into your side and smiled, you followed suit as she took the picture.

“Thank you” She said looking down at her phone “So what happened to you” You laughed and looked ack at her “Oh nothing, an anomaly came through while I was at school, I knocked him out, Jessica saw my potential and I got recruited. That’s about it” She laughed hearing how easy your time was compared to hers.

“Y/N, Gwen theres a couple of people I need you to come meet” Miguel said over the watch, you both got up and headed towards his Spider-Cave, his fortress off Spidertude, his lair? And were met with what seems like a familiar face to gwen but someone knew.

“Y/N This is Hobie Brown! You’ll be working with him in the upcoming missions. This Spider over here is Peter B Parker” You saw Gwen hugging the other Peter who was surprised to see him so soon.

“Gwen when did you get here!”

“Today actually Y/N came and helped me”

“Is this the famous Y/N I’ve heard so much about hey! The one you’ve been swapping bodies with” You looked shocked that Gwen told someone that and she was blushing furiously.

“Shut it Parker” He laughed and swung towards you.

“Nice to meet you buddy I’m Peter”

“Y/N” You said shaking his hand, You shook a little too hard and he winced.

“Strong grip I like it, you were right they are very…” Before Peter could finish what he was saying Gwen webbed his mouth and he glared at her.

“Anyway cute reunion, Gwen you’ll stay here and train with Jessica, Y/N you’ll head out with Hobie, theres a Kraven In the wrong universe I need you guys to go get” You nodded and started walking with Hobie, you looked back and saw Gwen, she gave you a small wave and you waved back. With an extra hop in your step you turned towards Hobie.

“Dude love your hair”

“Thanks its natural”

“How does that fit under your…”

“Hammer Space” He said and you shook it off, you both input the co-ordinates and were off to another dimension.

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