#tips also!

[domi091]

The Struggle of Parting Ways

Tails knew Sonic never cried, it just wasn't him, even if Tails had the chance to witness him tearing up once or twice in his short life, but never cried, his eyes shined sometimes, with emotions more than tears, but they never spell, they well up his eyes and steadily stay there until he blinks them away or they dry of sheer will and stubbornness, that was just his brother, that's how he handled his feelings.

Sonic never cries, and he didn't cry when they sat in silence on the floor in Tails's room, packing up the yellow bag that used to carry their whole life and everything to Sonic's name before they settled in the workshop, tails wasn't going to take it at first, he wanted to grow, he wanted to be his own person, he was taking the cyclone instead of the tornado, he wanted to feel like himself and grow into his full potential without any influence, even Sonic's, especially Sonic's

But the rational part of his brain told him that if anything was going to hold him back it certainly wouldn't be their bag, a piece of worn-out fabric, holding more memories than any other item they have now,

and maybe, just maybe a tiny part of his brain wanted it, wanted to have something of theirs, of sonics, to keep with him for reassurance, it was a childish part, a traitorous one, but his fight over it was weak.

When Sonic showed up at his door holding the bag in his hand and offering to help him pack up before his trip, tails couldn't say no, sonic smiled at him, one of his signature grins almost too natural for the situation,

He didn't cry when he stood in the hangar with a less wide smile but a smile nonetheless still planted in his face, quietly watching tails do the last of many checks on the cyclone and putting away all the things he needed.

There weren't many words to be said, they already had that talk, and soon, the quietness became too much to bear. He was too familiar with Sonic's behavior by now, and could always sense the unsaid words that Sonic struggled to voice or refused to say out loud. However, this time, he felt the weight of the unspoken words in the air around them, and for the first time in a while, he couldn't fill the gaps. He could feel Sonic's gaze on him, and he tried his best not to fidget under the intense scrutiny. When he finally mustered the courage to look up at him again, he found Sonic's arms open and his expression soft. too soft tails almost looked away, He hesitated for a few seconds but soon gave in when Sonic gestured for him to come closer.

Sonic didn't cry as he pulled Tails into the hug, not even when his arms tightened around him too much it was almost painful. He cradled the back of Tails' head with his palm, just like he used to do years ago. sonic remained silent as Tails buried his wet nose in his shoulder and cried, despite his best efforts.

He didn't cry sending him off, tails turned on the engine and nodded when Sonic gave him a thumbs up after checking the way in front of him, all clear.

Tails soared into the sky, he blamed the tears welling up in his eyes on the crisp morning air hitting his face too fast, the fact that his eyes got used to it long ago to tear up went ignored, and the fact that he was wearing his goggles completely forgotten, tails didn't want to look back, not now, not at the start of his own journey, not when he probably looked miserable and childish right now, not when that was exactly what he was trying to grow out of, but he couldn't fight the strong feeling that washed over him, forming a lump in his throat, a tiny voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like his younger self, told him that one last look at his brother won't hurt, one last glance for the road, for good luck, for extra comfort, for the cold nights, he turned.

And he saw him, still standing at the hanger door almost too far to see but Tail's trained eyes didn't miss the small shake in his shoulders, sonic was covering his eyes with his palm and his face was looking down, whether Sonic thought tails was too far away to see him anymore or if he just couldn't hold it any longer tails didn't know, but it was too much to witness.

so he looked back ahead trying and failing to swallow the lump away, he pretended that he didn't see anything and that his eyes were clear and not too blurry to see through, years of practice and the way ahead of him memorized like the back of his paw was the only thing keeping the plane airborne.

[obsob]

i am a being capable of immeasurable love and whimsy

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[liones-s]

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing References: Character Development

50 Questions ⚜ Backstory ⚜ Character-driven Story

Basics: How to Write a Character ⚜ A Story-Worthy Hero

Basics: Character-Building ⚜ Character Creation

Types of Characters: Key Characters ⚜ Literary Characters ⚜ Flat & Round Characters ⚜ Morally Grey ⚜ Narrators ⚜ Allegorical Characters ⚜ Archetypes ⚜ Stereotypical Characters

Worksheets: Backstory ⚜ Character ⚜ Kill your Characters ⚜ Antagonist; Villain; Fighting ⚜ Change; Adding Action; Conflict ⚜ Character Sketch & Bible ⚜ Protagonist & Antagonist ⚜ Name; Quirks; Flaws; Motivation ⚜ "Interviewing" your Characters ⚜ "Well-Rounded" Character

Personality Traits

5 Personality Traits (OCEAN) ⚜ 16 Personality Traits (16PF)

600+ Personality Traits ⚜ 170 Quirks

East vs. West Personalities ⚜ Trait Theories

Tips/Editing

Character Issues ⚜ Character Tropes for Inspiration

"Strong" Characters ⚜ Unlikable to Likable

Tips from Rick Riordan

Writing Notes

Binge ED ⚜ Hate ⚜ Love ⚜ Identifying Character Descriptions

Childhood Bilingualism ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ On Children

Culture ⚜ Culture: Two Views ⚜ Culture Shock

Dangerousness ⚜ Flaws ⚜ Fantasy Creatures

Emotional Intelligence ⚜ Genius (Giftedness)

Emotions (1) (2) ⚜ Anger ⚜ Fear ⚜ Happiness ⚜ Sadness

Emotional Universals ⚜ External & Internal Journey

Goals & Motivations ⚜ Grammar Development ⚜ Habits

Facial Expressions ⚜ Jargon ⚜ Swearing & Taboo Expressions

Happy/Excited Body Language ⚜ Laughter & Humor

Health ⚜ Frameworks of Health ⚜ Memory

Mutism ⚜ Shyness ⚜ Parenting Styles ⚜ Generations

Psychological Reactions to Unfair Behavior

Rhetoric ⚜ The Rhetorical Triangle ⚜ Logical Fallacies

Thinking ⚜ Thinking Styles ⚜ Thought Distortions

Uncommon Words: Body ⚜ Emotions

Villains ⚜ Voice & Accent

More References: Plot ⚜ World-building ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[saphushia]

btw. i made this quick guide of some of the natural size and proportion reference points in the human body. of course this all varies even irl, and you can stylize however you want, so ymmv but thought it might be helpful for some folks.

[nidbaesenpai]

Happy one year anniversary ISAT! To celebrate I wanted to share the lil strips I made for my friends when they reached the end of the game! They're all meant to be snippets of life post game and a glimpse into the world I'm making for Loop.

[wuntrum]

what if a femme robot liked it when her butch creator performed routine maintenance tasks on her (in a sexual way) (and they were both girls)? i guess you'll have to read my new (free) comic to find out!!

[itstweeds]

Reminiscing (Louis look was 100% inspired by Jacob's look as Scipio in Timestalker)

[korralone]

Vi taking a moment to just hug Caitlyn in the middle of this scene makes my heart clench painfully in my chest

[genericpuff]

Tbh at this point you should just make your own webcomic app/website because it would probably be 100 times better than whatever going on with webtoon right now.

hahaha it wouldn't tho, sorry 💀

Here's the fundamental issue with webcomic platforms that a lot of people just don't realize (and why they're so difficult to run successfully):

Storage costs are incredibly expensive, it's why so many sites have limitations on file sizes / page sizes / etc. because all of those images and site info have to be stored somewhere, which costs $$$.

Maintenance costs are expensive and get more so as you grow, you need people who are capable of fixing bugs ASAP and managing the servers and site itself

Financially speaking, webcomics are in a state of high supply, low demand. Loads of artists are willing to create their passion projects, but getting people to read them and pay for them is a whole other issue. Demand is high in the general sense that once people get attached to a webtoon they'll demand more, but many people aren't actually willing to go looking for new stuff to read and depend more on what sites feed them (and what they already like). There are a lot of comics to go around and thus a lot of competition with a limited audience of people willing to actually pay for them.

Trying to build a new platform from the ground up is incredibly difficult and a majority of sites fail within their first year. Not only do you have to convince artists to take a chance on your platform, you have to convince readers to come. Readers won't come if there isn't work on the platform to read, but artists won't come if they don't think the site will be worth it due to low traffic numbers. This is why the artists with large followings who are willing to take chances on the smaller sites are crucial, but that's only if you can convince them to use the site in favor of (or alongside) whatever platform they're using already where the majority of their audience lies. For many creators it's just not worth the time, energy, or risk.

Even if you find short-term success, in the long-term there are always going to be profit margins to maintain. The more users you pull in, the more storage is used by incoming artists, the more you have to spend on storage and server maintenance costs, and that means either taking the risk at crowdfunding (ex. ComicFury) or having to resort to outsider investments (ex. Tapas). Look at SmackJeeves, it used to be a titan in the independent webcomic hosting community, until it folded over to a buyout by NHN and then was pretty much immediately shuttered due to NHN basically turning it into a manwha scanlation site and driving away its entire userbase. And if you don't get bought out and try your hand at crowdfunding, you may just wind up living on a lifeline that could cut out at any moment, like what happened to Inkblazers (fun fact, the death of Inkblazers was what kicked off the cultural shift in Tapas around 2015-16 when all of IB's users migrated over and brought their work with them which was more aimed towards the BL and romancee drama community, rather than the comedy / gag-a-day culture that Tapas had made itself known for... now you deadass can't tell Tapas apart from a lot of scanlation sites because it got bought out by Kakao and kept putting all of its eggs into the isekai/romance drama basket.)

Right now the mindset in which artists and readers are operating is that they're trying way, way too hard to find a "one size fits all" site. Readers want a place where they can find all their favorite webtoons without much effort, artists wants a place where they can post to an audience of thousands, and both sides want a community that will feel tight-knit. But the reality is that you can't really have all three of those things, not on one site. Something always winds up having to be sacrificed - if a site grows big enough, it'll have to start seeking more funding while also cutting costs which will result in features becoming paywall'd, intrusive ads, creators losing their freedom, and/or outsider support which often results in the platform losing its core identity and alienating its tight-knit community.

If I had to describe what I'm talking about in a "pick one" graphic, it would look something like this:

(*note: this is mostly based on my own observations from using all of these sites at some point or another, they're not necessarily entirely accurate to the statistical performance of each site, I can only glean so much from experience and traffic trackers LMAO that said I did ask some comic pals for input and they were very helpful in helping me adjust it with their own takes <3).

The homogenization of the Internet has really whipped people into submission for the "big sites" that offer "everything", but that's never been the Internet, it relies on being multi-faceted and offering different spaces for different purposes. And we're seeing that ideology falter through the enshittification of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where users are at odds with the platforms because the platforms are gutting features in an attempt to satisfy shareholders whom without the platforms would not exist. Like, most of us aren't paying money to use social media sites / comic platform sites, so where else are they gonna make the necessary funds to keep these sites running? Selling ad space and locking features behind paywalls.

And this is especially true for a lot of budding sites that don't have the audience to support them via crowdfunding but also don't have the leverage to ask for investments - so unless they get really REALLY lucky in EITHER of those departments, they're gonna be operating at a loss, and even once they do achieve either of those things there are gonna be issues in the site's longevity, whether it be dying from lack of growing crowdfunding support or dying from shareholder meddling.

So what can we do?

We can learn how to take our independence back. We don't have to stop using these big platforms altogether as they do have things to offer in their own way, particularly their large audience sizes and dipping into other demographics that might not be reachable from certain sites - but we gotta learn that no single site is going to satisfy every wish we have and we have to be willing to learn the skills necessary to running our own spaces again. Pick up HTML/CSS, get to know other people who know HTML/CSS if you can't grasp it (it's me, I can't grasp it LOL), be willing to take a chance on those "smaller sites" and don't write them off entirely as spaces that can be beneficial to you just because they don't have large numbers or because they don't offer rewards programs. And if you have a really polished piece of work in your hands, look into agencies and publishing houses that specialize in indie comics / graphic novels, don't settle for the first Originals contract that gets sent your way.

For the last decade corporations have been convincing us that our worth is tied to the eyes we can bring to them. Instead of serving ourselves, we've begun serving the big guys, insisting that it has to be worth something eventually and that it'll "payoff" simply by the virtue of gambler's fallacy. Ask yourself what site is right for you and your work rather than asking yourself if your work is good enough for them. Most of us are broke trying to make it work on these sites anyways, may as well be broke and fulfilled by posting in places that actually suit us and our work if we can. Don't define your success by what sites like Webtoons are enforcing - that definition only benefits them, not you.

[domi091]

Tails's tongue felt heavy, unable to word the feelings that were too big for him to even understand, how does one begin to lay their heart out all over again? How do you declare your love for the person who taught you how to feel it in the first place? Who showed you more kindness than anyone ever did,

How do you find the words to give back the kindness you’ve received?

“Thank you.”

He didn’t mean the way Sonic was tending to him now. That too but also for everything else. He is thanking Sonic for the light he’s been made to see, for the days they shared and the nights they huddled together for warmth, for seeing him, giving him a Chance.

He wanted to say more but the lump in his throat felt too big for the words to come out.

His feelings must've reached sonic still, if the way he wrapped his arms around him was anything to go by, he pulled him into a tight hug.

...........

[wanderingibon]

" I noticed that you've been smiling more, Lucanis. "

" ...Have I? ...Si, I suppose I have been. "

[mebis-art-dump]

She is so cool

[liones-s]

a big lesson for me was learning that most things are not as fragile as I’d believed. missing a class, or turning in a bad assignment, won’t instantly destroy your professor’s opinion of you. accidentally saying something harsh won’t make your friend want to end the friendship. it takes work to repair these things - it takes effort and research and sometimes a sincere apology - but you can do that because they’re not irreparably broken. what you’ve worked to build, in academia and in relationships and in life, is stronger and more enduring that your mind may teach you to believe. don’t let imagined fragility lead you to giving up