#webcomics ruins me too badly

[aria0fgold]

I’m... I’m alive... Urgh... This is the very reason why I didn’t want to catch up to any webcomic I was reading cuz I knew I’d end up getting sucked into the rabbit hole again oomph...

I spent my entire day binge reading 3 series yesterday from morning till past midnight I nearly lost my mind and now when I was so determined to write decided to check out a couple more and got hooked by another manwha and I can never emotionally recover now.

Bro the story destroyed me, it’s like it gets better before it gets worse before it gets better again and like are you serious right now. My head hurts cuz I like cried bro, it aint even particularly sad but like the story got everything that I like and I can’t believe this. Two fairytale retelling-like concepts, cute innocent moments, family bonding, sibling bonding, love, the TRUEST form of true love like legit I can’t yall, I’m weak... I’m too weak to stories of love surviving no matter how many reincarnations and struggles the lovers have. Bro I can’t do this yall. He... he recognized her first glance I can’t pls.

[sukisukidaysook]

Okay, I have thought of more pairings for you for the bingo game:

• Lanamia;

• Krisnix;

• Wrightworth;

• Solkat;

• Vrisrezi;

• Zosan.

I'm sorry if it's too much. If you don't want to do a bingo for all of these, it's fine.

I’m putting in depth thoughts under a readmore bc it’s gonna get LONG BABY!!!

LANAMIA:

OUGHHHH THEY WOUND ME!!!! Intellectually attracted. Lana fumbled Mia soooo badly and honestly I ship them as an OT3 including Diego <333 Lana had to become corrupt to save her sister while Mia fought corruption and died because of it… Lana the chief being called by Mia’s killer and informed through that (which I get was a translation error BUT MY GOD THE IMPLICATIONS!!!)… Imagine Godot trying to contact Lana to discuss Mia after he wakes up or them meeting in prison after TT…. UGH. Lanamia.

KRISNIX:

I’m fuckding crazy. They are toxic. They match each other’s freak. They pretended to be friends but they knew they were lying to each other (but what if those feelings got too real? What if it wasn’t an act? but you can’t let your guard down, no, not now, not after everything you’ve worked for). THEY SPIED ON EACH OTHER. for seven years. Kristoph made Phoenix more corrupt but Phoenix made Kristoph more human but they damaged each other and spiraled into madness. Kristoph ruined Phoenix’s like and Phoenix returned the favor. They are the same polar of a magnet, the same in every sense but always five steps away from each other, never able to get too close.

WRIGHTWORTH/NARUMITSU:

What is there to say that hasn’t already been said? I went through the pipeline. I hated Edgeworth and then instantly understood why the pairing is so popular. Childhood friends, to strangers, to enemies, to friends, to enemies again (one sided), to friends, and then lovers. They have long periods where they don’t talk or see each other and yet their bond only gets stronger each time. I don’t believe in soulmates and I hate the concept but if soulmates did exist, Narumitsu has that going.

SOLKAT:

Homestuck is fucked for separating them but at least they were put back together RECENTLY. They are so DOOMED in the main webcomic. They are best fucking friends and the closest each other has (outside, maybe, Sollux and Aradia). “kk dont u2e the computer explo2iion code iit wiill explode your computer” “FUCK YOU” and then the computer exploded. Sollux is Karkat’s IT guy (romantic). I think they could easily vacillate flushed and pitch and pale and. Yeah they are soo multi quadranted (with flush as the main). Goddd I miss them. When Sollux left it BROKE me. Davekat could never have what they have.

VRISREZI:

EVERYBODY GIVE IT UP FOR TOXIC DOOMED YURI!!!! WOOOO!!! They find each other in every universe. They are perfectly pitched (but also a little flushed). They have a POWERFUL rivalry like nobody else and are always evenly matched, bouncing one step ahead of each other. They act like they hate (platonic) each other at times but it’s sooo clear how much they care about each other. They would do anything to stop the other (cuz they are pitched rivals) but they would do anything FOR each other too. They make my head hurt and I mean this positively.

ZOSAN:

The fandom has them so wrong they are NOT CUTE YAOI they are MEAN and they FIGHT and that is their love language. They are a great example of Homestuck pitched. Sanji cooks Zoro’s favorite food because he has it memorized and Zoro eggs him on and threatens him but he’s eating the food and so clearly enjoying it and they keep up their bickering which escalates to a fight but they are fully in sync every step. They are a POWERFUL duo in fighting and they cover each other’s weaknesses FLAWLESSLY. They CARE about each other and their “love to hate” was clearly shown early on through Dorry and Broggy’s parallel, which is the same arc where this dynamic started. I don’t want them canon because I do like the friend dynamic the crew canonically has, but they are WONDERFUL in fanon.

[theomnicode]

Burden of prophetic sight

I'm checking out our national hymns and shit because it's our national day in 3 days and all of a fucking sudden, I'm punched in the gut about the knowledge of what could have scared Psykos so fucking badly that she refused to talk about and she wanted to stop remembering it and she looked like death warmed over in webcomic.

What would be the worst thing you could see in the future? To you personally and not distantly enough to just ignore if it's too impersonal and wanting to forget it?

What would evoke your survival instincts down to the core in effort to prevent it from happening?

Your own inevitable death and your worst fears.

That is the burden of possessing the ability to see to the future. To see not just your own death, but also the death of everyone else and your loved ones.

She probably saw her own death at Tatsumaki's hands here or Fubuki's death. Or both.

And in the manga...I wonder if it's the same but this time, false memory that were implanted to her head. Or she saw her own demise in the hands of the Tsukuyomi group.

Lady shibabawa died after she had looked into the crystal ball and predicted Earth was in danger, because she took on a cough drop after that and then choked on it, but was still able to write down the prophecy.

Somehow. Not likely.

I think...she made her own prophecy to come true. Or that she wanted to avoid a far worse fate because the prophecy scared her so and she wanted to go out on her own terms because she was already old. She even had assistants around who would've made sure that she'd get help upon seeing she was choking. But that did not apparently happen and they just...let her choke and write her message.

So what is the timeline when she made that prophecy again?

The moment when Saitama realized that he had started caring about potential casualties again. That he would do anything in his power to prevent it from happening.

(haha ominous moon haha)

When the sky was still dark with clouds during daytime.

(Saitama does not consciously even remember Satoru, because he never sees his full face I bet. And Satoru does not remember Saitama back from school because Saitama does not have hair. But the subconscious does.)

(Inb4 Saitama and Satoru used to date too, like Psykos and Fubuki have implied relationship.)

(Purple colour scheme is often used to depict evil in japanese anime, like sasuke's curse mark had evil purple aura on it, but also: "As in the West, purple stands for royalty in Japanese culture. It is also considered the color of warriors, symbolizing strength. Purple flowers are very popular too" So you could say that Saitama gets strenght to protect in that scene from his conviction to care.)

--

I thought of this because my SO shared with me his thoughts about:

Michael Hartnett's poem of Sibelius in Silence.

Irish drunk and disorderly writer writes from Finland and about himself and sibelius at the same time hartnett is Irish but grew up in England, speaks English and never felt welcome among the Irish irish was not his mother tongue Sibelius was a Finn but grew up in Sweden, spoke Swedish, never felt welcome among Finns… both were alcoholics who drank themselves to death and hartnett foresaw his own death and equated it with the death of Sibelius in that poem there's nothing left but hands shaking with drunkenness, no swans of hell, no sketches (luonnotar, virgin of air, this is a wordplay), no compositions

(The black swan of tuonela reference and Saivo-lake, tuonela as concept meaning both heaven/hell, the afterlife)

"vodka ebbs in tremors from my hand" is fucking brilliant that part of yourself that hasn't disappeared yet, no matter how ethereal, you still feel it when it's still there despite everything. OR ether (aether) no matter how puffed up you are, yeah, I'm still there, yeah, hic wakes up at night at odd hours because genius is a burden and inspiration comes at any moment and voila, finlandian magic is just out of thin air OR can't sleep because drunken insanity ruins your sleep completely and solves the problem by pulling out a bottle of Finlandia

Me: or did he get his strength from the concept of finlandia that hasn't left him yet? SO: or the fact that it listens to finlandia, if you think from hartnet's point of view yeah me: what did he want the anthem to represent SO: you can think of it that way but that whole last verse is a double-meaning at the same time that it hasn't lost itself and is still creating art which was true for both of them. and at the same time that he has completely lost himself to alcoholism and is nothing more than that which was also true for both of them fucking brilliant and rough as fuck ;_;

SO: I suppose that being undead there's not much to life, a soul is needed for loving, feeling

Funnily enough, my SO also pointed out that Saitama's dream being a forewarning of Saitama losing himself, things that are important to him and his being when I said that he prolly foresaw the loss of his self and people who were important to him like Genos, is akin to conspiracy theory and ahaha...this personality type has a tendency to get caught up in conspiracy theories.

I mean, I can pull out outrageous meta which sound like conspiracy theories (like this one) out of thin air. Woosh.

Because cognitive bias is seeking out patterns even when there is none. xd

(I swear I'm just doing this for fun and not seeking out if there is a hidden conspiracy theory. I am making up shit though)

--

Unfortunately, how does this relates to Saitama?

Chances are, he has already intuitively foreseen his own death, at some subconscious level. Because he started to care again. Since he knows himself well enough that he would know that if he started to care about people again to the degree that he now cares for Genos, he would sacrifice himself for them, because of his caring nature and not having any self-worth.

(Thanks Murata-sensei, I can now see the tired, dark bottom eyelids that are only more pronounced in versus Garou.)

(Ugh now I'm crying again)

(The wounded healer archetype is to be self-sacrificial.)

Or that he will come to consciously see his own demise/fears at some point, when his third eye that is referenced to exist in the Orochi fight opens.

(I bet we will revisit the demise of Orochi as well....thanks Murata-sensei for the hint...)

Saitama is willfull. But what he is susceptible to doing is chasing dopamine highs and addictions. Adrenaline. Gambling. Spontaneously buying some weird shit. Indulging himself with his favourite foods. Because depressed people often are susceptible to doing that stuff because of dopamine deficiency to get dopamine fix.

Including binge drinking alchohol.

Fate can be changed though, due to intervention. Just like Saitama is intervening on Psykos' fate.

But yea, turning to alchoholism would probably be the way for Saitama to try and forget if say, he somehow accidentally managed to kill Genos, if Genos happened to be say, not in complete control of his faculties. Saitama is motivated to forget all sorts of bad stuff even at the cognitive level.

Or hell, feeling guilt over pushing Genos into being a bloody hero, like how Genos decided to confront Awakened Garou while only being a torso. Or worse, compelling him to be self-sacrificial and heroic because of his divine power.

--

One thing for sure though, Saitama seems to be a person who has the capacity of changing the fate of people around him.

Because conveniently, prophecies can't be trusted. But they sure can become self-fulfilling.

[the-mountain-flower]

Set after the events of Chapter 22: Daybreak.

Finished writing between 1.22.35 and 1.22.36 releases, so if this contradicts what ends up being canon then sorry.

(Let me know if you catch the Legend of Zelda reference (p.s. you can pry amputee Link from my cold, dead hands))

Dainix and Falst are safely out of the caves, and finally have time to rest. Falst needs sleep, and Dainix needs to process what happened to his arm.

Sitting in the ruin his new friends had set up camp in, back against a stone boulder, Dainix stared at the fire in the center of the camp.

He and Falst probably hadn’t spent long in that underground bunker. Still, after that experience it felt good to sit in front of a campfire without the worry of burning up all their oxygen, hitting a gas pocket, or completely burning himself out. He could just, sit here. He could appreciate the warmth and light of a small fire. When was the last time he could do that? It probably would’ve been when talking with Erin earlier, but he was still pretty wound up from their encounter with Tynan back then. Before that, it must’ve been back in the Rauan Desert, before he’d destroyed so much with an entirely different kind of fire.

Dainix shook the thought from his head, trying to dislodge the remaining guilt and homesickness he still struggled with. If Erin’s lead was correct, he could soon discover exactly what he was. From there, he could learn exactly what he was, how to use his abilities safely, and hopefully, return home.

Deep in thought, Dainix rubbed at his left arm, where he'd temporarily taken off his glove and vambrace. In that cave, it had completely burned out. He’d tried to get it back by regrowing his flame arm, hoping to transfigure it back to its original form. He'd succeeded, but the minute he felt the limb return and saw what it looked like, Dainix knew it hadn't quite worked.

To his surprise, it seemed to function just fine. On the surface it looked like a complete regrowth, minus the gray, soot-like color of his hand that didn't fade until near the elbow.

That didn't mean it felt like it was just fine. It ached viciously in a way different than any other muscle, and it felt like he'd permanently dislocated his shoulder. Looking at the darkened limb, it looked fine, but felt like someone else's arm had been stitched in its place. He knew amputees back home who'd spoken of "phantom pain," when it felt like there was a sensation in the limb that was no longer there. He supposed this was sort of similar to that, though he had no personal experience to go on.

When he and Falst were safely back at camp with the others, Alinua and Erin finally got a chance to look at their injuries (mostly Falst's, the ferin was in really bad shape). When they'd asked what happened to his arm, they were both surprised when he said it had completely burned out. Both of them told him that there wasn't any physical indication they could find that it had been gone, even though it had. They came to the conclusion that Dainix, as a Crucible, ran by different rules in this situation than any other ignan.

Losing the arm didn't sting too much. Hell, he'd somehow managed to regrow it, which he didn't really think would work when he tried.

What really stung was why. His arm looked and felt the way it did because he'd burned it out. After hours of being as careful as he could to not create fire in those caves. The anger he felt, and the desperation to save Falst, had caused him to transform into something volatile he still didn't understand.

"How're you feeling?" Falst's voice yanked Dainix from his thoughts.

Dainix looked at the ferin in surprise. Why was he asking how Dainix was feeling, when Falst himself had been so badly hurt? He was still bruised in several places, and had bandages swathed around his midsection where he'd been injured multiple times. One of his arms was bound to his shoulder with a makeshift cast that Dainix and Erin had made from the first aid materials they had. Alinua could only do so much, since it had already been broken in the fight in Zuurith several hours ago; and thanks to ferins' natural fast healing, it was more difficult to safely help with life magic.

Falst still didn't want to admit how badly he was hurting, especially since they were out of danger now. Dainix had convinced him to open up about it earlier, but that was solely for tactical reasons.

"I'm doing okay." Dainix responded as Falst sat down beside him on his right, and decided to leave out that his arm still felt awful. "What about you?"

Falst shrugged nonchalantly, but held back a wince that came from the movement, hoping Dainix didn't notice.

He did notice, but didn't say anything.

"I finally got the others to stop fussing, they really need sleep." So did the two of them, but clearly that wasn't happening right now.

"That's not what I asked." Dainix insisted. "How are you feeling?"

Falst paused for a moment, then pursed his lips. "Honestly, I feel like shit. Not as bad as before, though. I'll be fine."

"Really? Because you look like you're gonna pass out any minute now."

Falst glared at him, but there was no malice behind the expression. He just looked tired. "Don't go thinking that all the near-death stuff means we're friends or anything."

"Uh-huh," Dainix responded cynically. He hesitated before deciding to say what he was thinking. "For what it's worth, I do think of you as a friend."

Falst didn't know how to respond to that. Eventually he settled on a casual "whatever," and looked away to hide a smile that, once again, Dainix still noticed.

"You should probably sleep, you just went through a lot and you need rest." Dainix suggested.

Falst's smile dropped. "I don't need your advice." He turned back toward Dainix with a sharp look. "And you went through a lot too." He gestures towards the blackened arm. "That looks like it hurts."

Dainix winced at the bluntness of Falst's statement. After a moment of thought, he almost didn't give a full answer, but it felt wrong to encourage openness while closing himself off.

"It doesn't feel great, I'm not going to lie. Apparently there isn't anything that's physically wrong, and it works just as well as before but… it still aches and, it does hurt a bit to move."

"I'm sorry, that sounds rough." Falst said.

"Don't worry. Having a dangerous job means I knew disability was likely, even before losing my eye. Either my arm will heal or it won't, and if not I'll just have to get used to it."

"You're weirdly chill about that. Is it easier the second time or something?"

Dainix gave a small laugh, which surprised Falst. "I doubt that's it. I think I just haven't fully processed it yet after, well, everything that just happened. I'll probably have to come to terms with it again later."

"Do you think you'll come to the same conclusion then?"

"Probably. That's part of how I coped with this," he pointed to his eyepatch, "and that was amidst a lot of life upheaval." Dainix felt the now-familiar sinking in his chest that indicated homesickness return, and took a deep breath to try and calm himself down before spiraling.

"Heh. Nothing like past trauma to inform the next one, right?" Falst joked.

"Hardly."

The two laughed at the sheer absurdness of their situation. Gods, they were really tired.

Both of them fell into a comfortable silence. Whether minutes or hours passed, they didn't really care. It felt good to be able to really take a breath for as long as they needed.

Dainix felt something heavy fall onto his shoulder, and looked over to see Falst there, with his head resting on it and eyes closed.

Dainix was a little surprised, Falst didn't seem like he'd willingly do that. He must be too tired to notice.

Dainix smiled, and with his still-aching hand, grabbed a blanket from the nearby pile. (He still needed to ask how Erin fit so much in that bag.) He draped the blanket over Falst. Then gently, so as to not nudge him off or awake, he wrapped his right arm around the sleepy ferin's shoulders, and moved closer to try and make him more comfortable.

Warm, mostly asleep Falst thought. He moved closer into the comfortable warmth as he drifted off into sleep.

Soon, Dainix fell asleep too.

The two of them slept through the rest of the night and most of the next morning. No one who was conscious (which were few at any given time,) was willing to wake either of them up. They'd all had a very difficult day, and Falst and Dainix had endured an extra adventure, they needed their rest.

Plus, while Dainix cuddling was no surprise, no one had known Falst was one to cuddle too.

[senatorblitz]

when i was a kid i had the power to read any book. i call this a power because back then i was not handicapped by so-called taste. i read anything i could get my hands on because a story was a story and i needed to know the ending. i didn’t have likes or dislikes or preferences because i was young and id just started. in the beginning everything is good.

of course i aged and it got harder to read for the sake of reading. i became picky preferring tales of a certain author or a certain style or in a certain tongue. it honestly ruined reading for a long time. i stayed in a small square of book types because that is all my rigid preferences would allow. i enjoyed reading but the work to find something to read was exhausting

recently i’ve gotten into reading webtoons and webcomics and i’ve regained that ability to just read anything? do not get me wrong - this is not saying the stories are badly written at all, but i think because it’s a new medium my brain has reset so every story no matter how it’s told is an amazing story that i need to get to the end of. i have no genre preference, no author preference, no theme…it’s all new and it’s all good?

i think when we get caught up in arbitrary standards we forget how to just enjoy things. i’m so excited to have found this niche of just enjoying. i’m going to apply it back to word books too - reading is about enjoyment.

[sophia-sol]

Here's an incomplete roundup of books I DNFed over the course of 2021. I didn't bother to make note of every book I started without finishing, but I wanted to keep track of the ones that were either notable for some reason or ones that I'm likely to run across again and might not remember that I've already given it a try. The Gilded Ones, by Namina Forna - bad ya fantasy that badly needs an editor. Someone else confirmed for me that it does not improve. Gave up 20% in. Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History, by James Carroll - it is just such a very Christian approach to the history of the relationship between the Christian church and Jewish people. It starts by taking a long time to explain why having a cross at Auschwitz is bad, and does so in a way where you're not actually sure which conclusion the author is going to come to! (He does eventually say unequivocally that it's bad, but it feels touch and go for too long.) And then moving on from that it still felt very much like the author is using Jewish suffering to help him understand his own (Christian) faith better. The cross at Auschwitz helps him truly understand the cross! Yikes. I gave up partway into chapter 2. It's possible the book improves from here? But I did not feel moved to give the author more of a chance. Axiom's End, by Lindsay Ellis - I got bored and stayed bored. After about 50 pages of that I started skimming forward, didn't see anything worth slowing down for, and gave up The Unspoken Name, by AK Larkwood - I was bored Riot Baby, by Tochi Onyebuchi - confusing and hard to follow, and I couldn't make myself focus on it Middlemarch, by George Eliot - https://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/388930.html well written but the author doesn't seem to like people. Six Crimson Cranes, by Elizabeth Lim - special princess with special magic and an evil stepmother, and she haaates embroidery, and there's lots of awkward infodumping via dialogue, I gave up 15% in. The Ruin of Kings, by Jenn Lyons - started out promising but just got so confusing and I had no motivation to try to figure things out. Bailed at page 64 of 559. A Psalm for the Wild Built, by Becky Chambers -  what chestnut-pod said: https://chestnut-pod.dreamwidth.org/117657.html. I gave it 60 or so pages, which is more than a third, but just found it irritating. The Last Human, by Zack Jordan - I love the webcomic, but the book didn't work for me nearly as well. It came across as a teen coming of age story where the comic is a kid's story, and I'm just more interested in the story of the bond between mother and daughter than I am in the story of a teenager's individualistic search for identity; and the point where the mother died (about 100 pages in) I abruptly lost interest in continuing to read. I heard from R who did finish the book that it gets really really dark, and in a way that's more an adult novel than a YA novel, but that also didn't sound interesting to me, tbh, so it didn't inspire me to try again. The Black Panther: The Young Prince, by Ronald L Smith - a middle grade novel about preteen T'Challa and M'Baku of the Black Panther being best friends seems promising, but then it turns out the main premise is "what if we send them to the USA" and I'm just not that interested in the USA, lol. can't they be preteen besties in Wakanda? I read a little bit of their introduction to Chicago and just gave up. Riding Rockets, by Mike Mullane - Read the first chapter, found the author obnoxious, and I've heard that how you feel about the first chapter is a good indication of how you'll feel about the book, so no thanks. Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson - googled the book for spoilers when I was still in the first chapter, discovered it does not have a happy ending, decided to abandon ship before I got invested

[spicy-ryls]

Ranty TROS stuff below. I wrote this on and off days so it might sound disconnected but yeah. Sorry it’s kinda long and my spelling and grammar might not be the best but I just wanted to let my feelings out.

I’m still trying to accept this movie. I watched it on the night of 19 December, the premier date for Malaysia, and I still remember my visceral feeling towards this movie. I remember feeling so empty, baffled, sad and shocked, almost like I just lost a relative or one of my cats, and I’ve experienced that multiple times in my life and it sucks.

Sometimes I think, how could I be so attached to this trilogy? I’ve literally spent so much energy defending TLJ and the ST from the backlash in the local fandom to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore and I removed myself from the local fanbase as much as I could. But I’ve never felt so betrayed and almost embarassed that I was so invested into it.

I never grew up with Star Wars. Instead, I started watching TFA while I was in that age period between 19-20. I was a little shit and I was still adjsuting to adulthood, so it pretty much was almost like in the process of being born again as an adult. At the time I was making a series of webcomics under the title ‘Gods Among Men’ and I was pretty much drawing almost exclusively Hades/Persephone stuff and I was drawing Hades as this typical tall, dark & handsome guy. At some point, my friends and I just joked at how much I loved that trope that’s it’s like my type in fictional guys, and yes I still love it.

So my friends just said to me “hey, watch the new Star Wars, you’ll love it!”

And I was HOOKED.

I got so into it. I watched all of the other movies, even the Christmas Special. And I loved the character of Kylo Ren so much. Initially I wasn’t instantly into Reylo. But after some fanart or fanfic or two I fell down the rabbit hole of this ship that I loved so much and the two characters of Rey and Kylo/Ben whom I had such a strong connection to.

Q4 of 2017 was the best year for me as a fan of this franchise. I was so excited for TLJ. I was super involved in a lot of local Star Wars related stuff and at that point people just knew me as “That Rey (cosplayer) who liked Reylo and Kylo Ren a lot”. I had made many friends and acquaintances over the year. And then TLJ came.

And the community was divided.

A lot of male fans I knew were so enraged by the movie. “TLJ ruined my childhood!!” they shouted on their facebook wall. “RJ and KK ruined Star Wars” they yelled. It just cemented the Star Wars Fanboy trope so badly that it was laughable that grown men 3 times my age with family AND KIDS were yelling about it for TWO WHOLE YEARS and because I was the one publicly championing the ST, all they talked about to me was about how much they hated it, and it’s still brought on in passing conversation to this day. I hated having to meet these people at events because my encounters are always unpleasant.

Time passed. The Reylo community was prosperous and it really was a golden age of content. We were excited to see how the ending of a saga was going to be, with a definitive Ben Solo redemption and Reylo being canon. And then came the announcement of JJ returning to direct Episode IX. I instantly had a gut feeling that it was not gonna be good, but I will hold my trust to him since he directed TFA. BOY I WAS WRONG.

The TROS panel at SWCC ended in a somewhat hopeful note. Later in the year, interviews were being published, and in the beginning it was all fine and dandy. I can’t remember when the news of reshoots started popping out, but even then I gave them the benefit of the doubt that because this movie was going to tie in all of the other 8 movies and surely they had to do something right about it. Then came in a lot of red flags in merchandising, marketing, cast interviews, etc. Daisy’s and John’s infamous interview felt so OOC for me that I couldn’t believe what I was reading. And at this point, my hopes were very low. I felt something was very off in everything and I was almost inactive of soc med or any TROS news because I wanted to watch the movie with no outside influences. I didn’t even read any leaks and only heard about it in passing.

Then came the week of the premier. I was putting my expectations super low. I just thought of all the bad things that could happen like Rey Palpatine or Kylo/Ben dying and I went into it with that thought. Before the movie, I had to sort of minggle with the crowd of a private screening event as Rey. But I just had so much anxiety before I could even get in costume to the point where I did cry. And it didn’t help that some of the other cosplayers and minders had already seen the movie the previous day and were having borderline spoilery conversations, which did upset me further. Eventually I calmed down enough, but I was still feeling a little down. It sort of helped that the attendees who are usually normal people are usually the kind to take pictures with the more masked or sith-looking guys or my friend who was masked Kylo so I could usually be left alone.

And finally, it was time to watch the movie and I can still remember how dumb I was for thinking this movie was going to be smart. There was just too much going on and I was so in shock of how poorly written, edited and directed it was. There was hardly any cheer or gasps in my cinema throughout the whole thing, although there were one or two who tried to whoop at the Lucasfilm logo but they kept quiet for the rest of it too. It was such a different experience from the one I had of my first TLJ screening. 80% of the time I just had a blank expression on my face and the only time I sort of got excited for were the Rey and Kylo/Ben scenes, except that ending. I really did not like this movie. I did not feel hopeful at all and the ending the just felt so off. I was relieved to see that I was not the only one who thought of it that way.

This movie effected me so much that I had trouble sleeping, loss of apetite, loss of focus and random bouts of crying in my car for how hollow I felt for about a week+. There was a huge convention on the same weekend and everyone who knew me pretty much came up to me and ask how I was and what I thought about the movie, and a simple glance and head shake was enough to convey how much I felt, and I just did not want to talk about it on a busy con day. But after a busy con weekend, I went in full force on venting it out on Twitter and finding myself in discord support groups and I’m glad I was not alone.

Now it’s been 11 days since I’ve watched TROS and I’ve sort of clamed down from being mad about it. But I don’t think I could accept an ending to a saga for how botched it was which stemmed from fan pandering and corporate greed. But I have never been so proud to be in the Reylo community, who are tirelessly finding concrete evidence on how badly edited it was and just how messy things were behind the scenes. I’m glad to have met all of you and even befriend some thanks to this ship and our love for Rey and Ben Solo and every character in the saga. I am very saddened at how badly treated every character was from Rey to Leia and everyone in between, but it’s not going to stop us from creating good fan content and what we’ve had so far is incredible.

Stay strong and save what we love. ❤

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 1: The Note Dawdling Tension Plays (Part 1)

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

CHEL: Here we see the first page, and are introduced to our protagonist, ZOOSMELL POOPLORD! Sorry, I mean John Egbert. The joke names used as a running gag, and also the actual names which end up applied to the characters, were the suggestions of the players of the original forum game.

BRIGHT: Homestuck does start out strongly in several ways. It immediately establishes the protagonist and location. It sets the tone it will use, one based heavily on a text adventure computer game. It introduces the reader to the inventory system...

And here the first feature of Homestuck becomes apparent: although a hugely popular and widely known webcomic, it is very slow to get going. The new reader who arrives on the recommendation of others ends up scratching their head and wondering if they’re in the right place.

TIER: In ancient times (so somewhere in 2014/15) I actually attempted to read Homestuck to see what the occasional weird noises the name caused were going on about. I'm very certain that I didn't even make it to meeting any of the other kids I was so bored.

CHEL: Same here. It took me two or three attempts to get to that point. The problem is that the intro is left over from its days as a forum game, in which no one was expecting it to lead into the epic story it became. It worked great for that format, but less well now. And here we start on our first counts.

GET ON WITH IT!: 1 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 2

How Not to Write a Novel lists multiple errors which could be said to apply here:

The Waiting Room - wherein the story is too long delayed Here the writer churns out endless scenes establishing background information with no main story in sight. On chapter 3, the reader still has no idea why it’s important to know about [the background info, in this case how badly John fails at using technology]. By chapter 7, the reader would be having strong suspicions that it isn’t important, were a reader ever to make it as far as chapter 7. Zeno’s Manuscript - in which irrelevant detail delays narrative momentum Any scene can be killed by description of every meaningless component of whatever action the character undertakes. As in Zeno’s Paradox, in which an arrow never reaches its target because it must always travel half the remaining distance, the reader begins to feel as if the end is further and further away.

A comic about a kid failing to master a video game inventory system is mildly amusing once, but not when it drags on this long, and it’s not particularly fitting for an epic adventure involving the fate of universes. Well, that’s not quite fair; introduction to mundane life and slow revelation of the magical goings-on works fine for books like the Harry Potter series. But, to take Philosopher’s Stone as an example, multiple different odd things happen over the course of Uncle Vernon’s regular boring day, increasing in scale until it’s very clear something strange is going on, and establishing multiple aspects of the wizarding world, e.g. owls, their fashion, the existence and disappearance of a mysterious villain, the fact that the wizarding world is supposed to be secret.

John fucking about with his sylladex and putting up movie posters for page after page doesn’t tell us anything new. Failing to use the sylladex once would be enough to get the point that magical video game inventories are a thing in this world and John’s not very good at using them across, and then we really ought to move on, and we can already see the posters on his walls so we don’t need to see him hanging more. Possibly we could have needed the latter in a purely text format where we couldn’t see the walls, or in a comic without text description at the bottom where attention would need to be drawn to them on-panel. Admittedly, it does establish him picking up the hammer, which becomes relevant, but we don’t need a full page each for both the action of him picking up the hammer and the action of him hanging the poster.

… Who hangs a poster with nails, anyway? His walls must be in a hell of a state.

For that matter, that’s another HNTWAN entry or two:

The Second Argument in the Laundromat - a scene which occurs twice NEVER use two scenes to establish the same thing. We do not, under any circumstances, want a series of scenes in which the hero goes to job interviews but fails to get the job, or has a series of unsuccessful dates to illustrate bad luck in love. This works in the movies, where three scenes can pass in thirty seconds, but not in a novel. The Redundant Tautology - wherein the author repeats himself If you have made a point in one way, resist the temptation to reinforce it by making it again. Do not reexpress it in more flowery terms, and do not have the character reaffirm it in dialogue […] This point is worth repeating; don’t reiterate. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 4

Additionally, people with a lower tolerance for “lovable clumsy dork” characters are going to come to hate John before the comic’s even started, though it’s probably best that people who are going to hate the main character learn that quickly so they can leave. I can understand not wanting to lose the forum game which originally spawned the comic, the other people involved would probably not be pleased, but perhaps it would be better saved as a side story and trimmed down when the comic proper was released. At least they could be compressed down by showing multiple failures and multiple poster-hanging actions on single pages.

One other minor gripe might be the neologisms, such as “sylladex” meaning inventory. I found it fairly easy to pick up and it does make the tone and narration nicely distinctive, but it’s a level of extra complication. How Not to Write a Novel has a couple points on excessively baroque wordplay - do you guys think it’s worth giving it a point for that?

BRIGHT: Possibly not in this case - wordplay is a feature of HS and this one is at least made fairly clear. There are plenty of offenders later on as I recall though...

CHEL: Okay, seems fair. In this case it is more of a feature than a bug. It does establish the narrative voice and add to the video game theme. However, the movie posters also bring up an addition to our third count.

Plus, a black president? Now you’ve seen everything! WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 1

A reference to the song “White Suburb Impressionism”, by IAMX…

"IAMX - 'White Suburb Impressionism" (Watch on YouTube)

… this count goes up whenever characters behave in a way which suggests they’re, well, white and suburban (or wealthier), despite any attempts to present them otherwise. This would have passed without comment, but Hussie later tried to claim he’d always intended the kids to be “aracial”, so any reader could project themselves or their preferred headcanons onto the kids. As we’ll show you, we don’t believe him, or at least don’t believe he succeeded. That would probably be difficult to pull off, anyway. Race affects a lot more than features on a stylised sprite.

FAILURE ARTIST: Now, I can’t quite put my finger on it but John’s and Dave’s opinion on black presidents in movies (that it’s a gimmick ruined by Obama’s election) feels like something that would only come out of a white mouth i.e. Andrew Hussie’s. Not the most egregious case of implied whiteness but still worth noting.

CHEL: The point of the joke here is not 100% clear, and that’ll be a thing which comes up later as well. See, I agree that’s Dave’s opinion, but I thought the point was that John genuinely didn’t know there was a black president at the time of writing because he’s already been established to be not exactly a genius and so far he’s been focused on movies and video games instead of real life. Maybe I’m underestimating him, though, since admittedly not very much of him has been shown at this point and it’s been a while since I read the whole thing. I’m not going to start using the ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY count here, though, because here Hussie clearly was trying to be funny. It just isn’t clear to me what about it was supposed to be funny. That’s probably my autism talking, though. Jokes are hard. I agree that it sounds like a white kid’s opinion either way - even the dimmest black American kid would know Obama existed, and so most likely would non-black people of colour.

Anyway! Things pick up a bit when John, under the username ectoBiologist, starts chatting to the second character to be introduced, currently known as turntechGodhead, though the second topic of conversation is a reference to a 1989 movie which, as time goes on, will be familiar to fewer and fewer readers. Luckily, the writer realises this, and the content of the conversation makes the reference sufficiently clear without falling into As You Know dialogue.

FAILURE ARTIST: Namely, their conversation is about a scene where - pardon me for being gross but it’s in the comic - a character accidentally ingests urine instead of apple juice. John and TG are surprised the character knew it was urine but I find it weird that someone with working smell would not know what it is. Urine has a distinct odor.

CHEL: Well, be fair. According to the drawings, the characters in question don’t have noses!

FAILURE ARTIST: On a more pertinent note, this conversation is an edited version of one Hussie and a friend had. Perhaps Hussie was TG? TG is practically an Author Avatar for Hussie. Sure, Hussie literally appears in the comic later, but TG seems to fit his true personality better. We’ll see how that affects things for better or for worse.

BRIGHT: This is also the reader’s introduction to the Pesterlog. This is one of those things that seems like it should be out of place in a webcomic - it’s just a page of two people talking to each other in chatlog format, with no other information - but the Pesterlogs actually work surprisingly well.

FAILURE ARTIST: When I first read Homestuck, I didn’t know you had to click on the Pesterlog to open it. I just sat around wondering what amazing conversations they were having. I’m not the only one I think who made that mistake.

CHEL: Yeah, I think I briefly had the same problem, but I don’t remember for sure. Possibly more attention could be drawn to the button.

TIER: I would've probably ended up in the same boat if the friends that recommended I read Homestuck didn't specifically tell me not to accidentally overlook them!

CHEL: That’s not exactly a writing error, so I’m not sure it falls under our jurisdiction, but it’s a point that ought to be brought up. The Pesterlogs do work well once the reader actually sees them, anyway. It’s actually pretty interesting to see how much information can be conveyed in a conversation without falling into As You Know Bob. Let’s check what points are introduced in this first one, for example:

- John really loves what he got for his birthday, a Little Monsters poster. From this we know he’s not spoiled (this is how you do it, Meyer) and easily entertained, and likely has a good home life, as he’s so happy and grateful about a gift from his dad.

-turntechGodhead has apple juice in his closet. This establishes his odd home life, and gets explained in more detail later.

- Some things about the personalities of both kids. John is enthusiastic and a joker, TG is mellower, sarcastic, rambles a bit, and at least plays at being cool.

- John really wants to play the SBURB Beta, a game mentioned earlier which is late being released. TG is less keen, again trying to be cool about it.

- Said game got “slammed” by critics, despite the fact that we learned earlier from John’s SBURB-logo calendar that this game has been hyped to hell and back and must be popular, with merchandise and reviews being released before even the beta version of the game is out. Something weird is going on; someone really wants a lot of people to play this game.

Not bad considering a total lack of body language reference or narration. Das Sporking’s seen authors using traditional narration do worse!

FAILURE ARTIST: The (adult) critics of Game Bro get into shenanigans that prevent them from playing the game they reviewed. Perhaps there’s something in the game that prevents itself from being played by adults, just like how adults can’t pilot Evangelions in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.

CHEL: Not sure. Doesn’t one of Dad’s online friends play it, or at least get caught up in it, later on? Though that part’s obviously supposed to be a joke… Maybe instead it’s a built-in way to stop anyone who might be listened to warning others what it does?

As established earlier, said beta is late; this is a reference to the originally planned launch date of the comic, three days before it actually ended up being released. Also, there’s a pun you may have missed in the background. The programming files on John’s desktop include the phrase “^CAKE”. The ^ symbol is called a carot. Get used to noticing those. It’s pretty amazing how many references, self-references, puns, and recurring themes are worked in, and people such as revolutionaryduelist have made semi-careers picking them all out. We won’t bother with all of them or we’ll be here all century, but we’ll pick up on any obvious ones.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie majored in computer science so there’s lot of computer science in-jokes in the beginning.

BRIGHT: Something I just noticed: One of the other files on John’s desktop is ‘TYPHEUS’. It even has a Denizen icon! Probably something that has been brought up plenty of times before, but still nifty on a reread.

CHEL: Typheus and Denizens will come up later in the comic.

TIER: When he feels like it, Hussie is immensely good at foreshadowing later events in pretty subtle but solid ways. It's stuff like this that makes times when he does fumble look worse than they probably are in comparison.

[self-loving-vampire]

Politics in Fiction

Often, I see various arguments about politics in fiction (this most often happens specifically around video games for some reason). These arguments are rarely satisfying to me because I feel like I both agree and disagree with both sides at once.

One side says that some fiction has always been political, which is true but also not really what the other side is complaining about.

The other side is also prone to making many claims I do not agree with, like that including minority characters is always political pandering.

So there are actually many points I want to address on this topic and I hope I can separate them into readable chunks properly.

It is fine for fiction to be political

I do not dispute that many fictional works have political messages and themes. I also don’t think that this is inherently a bad thing.

The better Fallout games are political, for example. They often focus on the affairs of various societies and how they are (or should be) managed or governed, and their world is richer and more interesting for it. 

The central choice in Fallout New Vegas is basically about which faction should control the city and its nearby dam, which results in various different policies and consequences.

Political fiction can be good, it can help develop a setting or provide meaningful and memorable decisions.

However, as with all fiction, it has to be smart and nuanced about it. I will explain more below.

Sometimes things are not actually that political

One claim I have heard is that Star Wars is about “resisting fascism”. I don’t entirely see that in the movies as I remember them (though it might be more apparent in expanded universe stuff).

The bad guys in Star Wars are an authoritarian empire, yes, but at least in the movies themselves there doesn’t seem to be anything uniquely fascist about them, and not much is said about their ideology or policies in the movies either. They feel like a generic evil empire.

I know it has been long since I watched the movies, but I never really understood what the emperor’s motivations were beyond just personal power. Why did he want personal power? I don’t know. He barely feels like a real character.

And on top of that, Star Wars does not actually discuss or criticize fascism or even authoritarianism as an idea all that much. It’s just bad guys to fight in a way that feels superficial to me.

While on this topic, not all deep themes are political in nature. I know some people believe the personal is political, I don’t (for reasons I may explain in a different post). Sometimes I see works that deal with personal issues but that are treated as dealing with political ones, they are not the same thing to me.

I feel like people on both sides do this, too.

For example, there was a recent controversy about how Bloodlines 2 will let players choose their pronouns and how this was "too political” or “pandering to SJWs”.

Some people seem to just treat the very existence of LGBT characters in fiction as a political move, but to me they are just characters. 

Everyone in my Dungeons and Dragons settings (except the player characters, if they wish) is either bisexual or asexual, not because I am trying to make any kind of statement but because those are the states that are easiest for me to imagine and work with.

Sometimes the politics are not what you think they are

Because everyone has different views and experiences, people can look at the same story from a different perspective and take an entirely different message from it.

It is fine if your interpretation is uncommon, it is even fine if your interpretation is different from what the author intended.

But you should keep in mind that your reading is not the only valid one.

I most often see people on the left do this. They will claim that a piece of media is leftist, and often there may be some valid argument for why it may be, but then treat their interpretation as fact and try to shame and attack others for thinking differently without ever considering why they might have read the story differently.

For example, during the backlash to the backlash surrounding Bloodlines 2, I saw people asserting as fact that vampires are an allegory for the upper classes being parasites and therefore the people complaining are not welcome.

That did not seem right to me. All kinds of people write vampire stories and intend different meanings for them, there isn’t a universal to work with (not even when it comes to the physical powers and traits the vampires have).

Sometimes vampires are meant to represent corrupting yet irresistible sexual predators.

Sometimes they are meant to represent disease.

Sometimes they are just hot but troubled supernatural boyfriends.

Bram Stoker himself was a monarchist, and the vampires in the VTM setting are not all wealthy either. Some of them even live in the sewers and look too monstrous to be around humans. Not everyone is a Ventrue and not all Ventrue are bad, especially by the standards of the setting.

It is possible to do politics so badly that it ruins everything

I think there may be another reason why certain people may not notice that their favorite media deals with social issues and politics: That sort of thing is much more noticeable when it is done very poorly, which further convinces those people that adding politics to media is bad.

At some point social issues can stop being interesting worldbuilding or philosophical dilemmas and just become a ham-fisted allegory for a current real world issue that just hits one side on the face with an opinion they may not agree with.

For example, remember when Deus Ex: Mankind Divided pissed absolutely everyone off with that “Augs Live Matters” sign?

This has been said before, but good political stuff is vague and timeless: It deals with general principles that can be applied in multiple contexts. For example, 1984 was about extreme authoritarianism but not any one authoritarian group.

When fiction follows current issues/movements/political labels too closely, it risks being reduced to being about that specific issue instead of the things that lie underneath it.

On top of this, a lot of fiction that is deliberately aimed at being political is just badly written in that it tries to tell you how to think instead of letting you think. It is like those political cartoons that label everything and that have messages that can be summarized as “my side is correct and my enemies are dumb and evil” but do not actually tell you why that is.

I don’t like political cartoons even when I agree with them. They do not inspire deep consideration or persuade people, they just give the groups that already agreed with the message some short-term pleasure at how much better than their opponents they are.

People want interesting fiction that allows them to explore issues and come to their own conclusions. They don’t want propaganda that treats them with contempt and won’t change their minds.

If you want to see what extremely bad political fiction looks like, just check out that dying TERF webcomic known as Sinfest. In the webcomic, transgender people are portrayed as literal misogyny zombies and children are sent to “gender camps” to be forced to take hormones and re-educated.

The social metaphors in Sinfest are detached from reality yet so heavy-handed that they probably need cranes to lift their hands high enough to masturbate, and masturbate is all the author does in the comic.

If your primary aim is to make propaganda rather than to make interesting, thoughtful, and heartfelt stories then you will most likely make very bad fiction. We can see that happening here.

In my opinion, the best stories are personal or deal with timeless questions or core principles rather than just repeating current talking points or moralizing.

[cafffeinatedhealer]

It’s been over five years...

And I still love you. We knew each other for  almost a third of my entire life and you’re still with me in so many ways. I know I ruined everything. I know you were strong and patient and tried. I just wish I had gotten over my problems soon enough to show you how much I truly loved you. Cleaning out my house today, I found it, the first thing you ever gave me. I still have it, even though that was over ten years ago now. I still remember everything: 

Our first conversation, the first piece of art I saw you working on, every one of our trips, the smell of your body wash, how you looked in the morning light as you brushed your hair and did your makeup, the sound of your laugh, the tears in your eyes when you would watch certain movies, the effort you would put into your dinner parties, the ride to visit your family, the feel of your warmth against me, how your hair would react to being combed, the layout of your bedroom and how cramped it was with all your art supplies, when you asked me to guess your favorite record and I came close, how I later saw that record many years later in a movie, and then again in a record store, your love and affection for all living things, when I tried to make your cough medicine taste better because I knew you hated the taste, going grocery shopping and cooking at your side even though you were much better at me and I felt like I was in the way, visiting you and looking at the stars together, walking around the mall and going into Lush, trying to make you special meals and decorating my room for your birthday, going with you to meet your pet for the first time, sharing webcomics with you, making cute little cartoon pictures or photoshop banners about us, when I wrote something for your blog and felt like you were letting me take part in something personal of yours, Steven Universe, drawing us as partner players in TWEWY or as a Fusion Gem, the exact sound of your voice saying “punkin”, and how you smiled when I’d call you “Fluff” back, the first time we kissed near the train...

Before I moved, I used to go back to the spot where I first fell in love with you a few times each year. I know you remember that place, too. You used to ask... when did I know for sure that I loved you? And I always told you the same moment... I used to go to the breezeway and lean against the pillars, and to playback everything in my mind.

You were the first person I ever truly loved more than life itself. Yes, I had loved people before, and have loved people since, but no one ever so much as you. I know you’ve moved on from me by now, in great strides. You’re engaged, you have a house, you have new pets, and even a family... All of your hard work and effort paid off, all those hours and years spent saving and working, and you have what you always wanted. I’m happy for you, genuinely I am, but I still can’t fully put aside the pain knowing that it could have been me by your side. 

If only I had learned to stop hating myself sooner, maybe I could have properly expressed all the love I had for you, instead of convincing myself you were “just being nice to me”. Now that I’ve gotten better and don’t convince myself that everyone secretly hates me, now that I have enough self respect and appreciation to realize I have genuine value, I know that love would shine through in a healthy way that would make you feel secure and proud.

But it’s too late for that now, and nothing can change the past. I keep moving forward, and sometimes I can go for a few weeks without your memory surfacing. More often, though, I find you in my dreams. I see you there, just like the days when we were together, and I can hear your voice, and I can hold your hand, and I just want it to be real. It never is, and I always wake up in tears, convincing myself that I have to keep going, regardless of how badly I want to just go back to sleep and find you again.

Find you... I found you... you found me...

I loved you, I really, genuinely, honestly did, and I’m sorry I never acted like it. I was an emotional wreck and was never taught how to deal with the scars my parents left. I thought I could just push them aside and focus on us, but they would always crop up and ruin everything again. I never spoke to anyone about it because I wanted to believe I was strong enough to get over my problems alone, but I should have sought out some form of assistance out of respect and love for you. I’m sorry I didn’t do that until it was too late. I’m sorry I broke down into a disgusting mess and begged you to stay in front of him. I’m sorry that I kept my livejournal going for so long, using it as a covert way of talking to you. I know that you were aware, since you vaguely reached out to me on occasion... but it felt like... if you were still willing to communicate with me, even if it was distant and through viewing my journal... that maybe there was still hope. Maybe we could still work things out. I would’ve done anything, literally anything, just to fix things and grow from them and become stronger together... but that’s not what you wanted. So... I stopped.

I know you’ll never see this, but I’m sorry. I feel guilty because I still love you, even though I’ve desperately tried to stop. I know you probably still hate me or, at the very least, want to pretend I don’t exist anymore, so I try my hardest to just... leave you alone. It kills me and twists me up inside, but I already hurt you enough in the past. Even though it would make me worlds happier to just be able to hold you again, I know that’s not what you want and you never will. So I try to do right by you and respect where your life is now by not trying to be a part of it anymore. 

I saw you on the day before I moved away. I went for a walk along the river, and I saw someone in a black tank top walking a pair of dogs. I was wearing a jacket and a hat, so it’s possible that you didn’t realize it was me, but I swear that we locked eyes for a moment as I walked past you. I went to our old “place”, the place where we snuck out and ate together, even after our relationship ended. It’s just a literal pile of rubble now, but I climbed the pile and laid there, staring up at the sky. My stomach was in knots and I could feel my heart racing. You were still so beautiful, even though you were struggling to keep your pets in order. I wanted to say something, anything, but I didn’t want you to hate me for trying to reach out to you. I laid there for hours, in utter disbelief that in nearly five years I didn’t so much as exist in the same zip code as you, and then during my last few hours in my old hometown... there you were, mere inches away from me. I went home as the sun went down, and apparently I had been crying. My roommate asked why my eyes were red, and I explained. We talked for a bit, they comforted me, I appreciated it, and eventually I went to sleep... the next morning, I left. But even here... several years and miles away, I can’t stop loving you.

I need to stop writing this now because I’ve started crying again and it’s almost three in the morning. My life is so much different now, and yours is as well. I can’t help but feel like... we would be amazing together in our current state, but that’s just my overly romantic and wishful heart desperately trying to revivify old dreams. The truth is that we’re “strangers again”, right? As much as it hurts, I can still hear those words in your voice. It still kills me whenever I do. 

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop loving you, not completely. I’ve come a very long way in forgiving myself for how I acted and accepting the consequences, but that doesn’t stop the longing or desire to be a part of your life once more. It’s all I can do to simply talk myself through those feelings when they arise, and remind myself that it isn’t an option any longer. So I continue with my life, moving forward as best I can, trying to find happiness where I can, and try to remind myself that at least I was lucky enough to experience someone loving me as beautifully and powerfully as you once did.

[shanalikeanna]

Otakon Artist Alley Review & Merch Haul!

Hello! This is a little late, but I wanted to get my review of the Otakon artist alley out there!! Hopefully this is helpful to some people who are thinking of signing up for the upcoming year.  Let’s start off with the obvious: it’s expensive. Depending on what table you purchase, you don’t get any badges with them. And badges are about $80 per person, sooo....there’s that. I was prepared for the cost though, this was my dream con and I was going to to pay anything to get there!! (except for the $1000 table, that’s insane).  Now this was Otakon’s first big move from Baltimore to DC, and there were definitely some moving pains. Right from  the beginning you could tell it was going to be a bit disorganized, especially when we were hit with the $150 loading dock fee or hand-carry everything on 1-2 trips the week of the con. (I don’t think that hand-carry rule was strictly enforced from what I saw, though). 

We got there Thursday to set up, which was pretty painless. We had a hotel very close to the con though, so it wasn’t too hard to get our stuff there. Long hours to set up. Picking up our badges and artist flags were pretty easy too. The downside is we discovered a cockroach roaming about while setting up so that was gross.... :P

Friday started out okay. I was still hopeful then! The first thing I noticed was that the room seemed smaller to me. I was told by others that it was DEFINITELY bigger, but maybe it was just the layout that made the room seem smaller, I also hadn’t been to Ota for a few years so that could also be a factor. But while I was told it was bigger, the amount of guests coming through just didn’t seem to match. I remember the artist alley being PACKED when I went in previous years, so to see it being so...thinned out made me worry a bit. But it was Friday, and I was doing well for a typical Friday so Saturday would be the real test. Boy oh boy was it a test.  Then came Saturday. I was prepared for a TON of people. And to be very tired. It was a long day, 9/10am-11pm. But...it was the same thing. It just seemed crazy slow, with not as many people as I was expecting to see. There were pops of course here and there, but overall...it was definitely not what I was anticipating. Perhaps it was our placement, we were way in the back after all. Not complaining, table placement is random, but it could be a reason. I don’t know what the artists with the Pro-Row tables got. Hopefully a lot for what they paid. So then it happened. It was around 8pm, I was tired and kind of in a crappy mood because I was doing so poorly, when all of the sudden staff started yelling for attendees to exit the artist alley. I, among other artists, were really confused because we still had 3 hours to go. This is where the really poor staff to artist communication started. It seemed like the staff were only a communicating to parts of the alley, we could barely hear them saying anything in the back. But apparently it was storming really badly outside, and  a water pipe had burst above an artist “island” of tables, and all of the attendees had to be evacuated from the alley. People call it “Flood Con” but it honestly wasn’t THAT much water, haha. Still a shame though, at least one table was ruined which sucks. (Luckily they were compensated). The artists could stay of course, but everyone was confused. Nobody knew what was happening.  Crazy rumors went running about, someone said an artist slipped and cracked her head open (it wasn’t THAT serious but still not good).Then we were told to cover or take down items that could be water damaged if another pipe happened to burst, so people were tearing down displays, no one was sure if we were going to re-open or not. It was a mess. It was nice in a way, though, because we all got a break and got to talk to other confused artists. But it seemed that even up in the front of the alley word wasn’t spreading around because one of the artists didn’t even realize that the attendees were even being evacuated, she was just wondering why it seemed so slow! Then there was more yelling from staff in the middle of the room and people were yelling to gather in the middle. Turns out that after an hour of confusion and telling guests to leave, we were going to re-open for the rest of the hours. Right after people started tearing down displays, and some artists leaving all-together for the night. It wasn’t really worth it though, I had barely any business in those last two hours. It was a bust for me, and stressful on top of it.  Sunday was the worst, and I could have honestly just gone home. I made a little extra money, but not any to make me really satisfied with the weekend. I don’t really know if I want to go next year, I think I’ll apply because it’s free and a lotto, so I’m not guaranteed a spot anyway, but if I do get in I might reconsider before accepting the spot. It all depends on how I’m feeling then. If you are considering going, at least apply, because like I said, it’s a Lotto. Just know that it will be expensive, long hours, and they still might experience some moving pains during their second year in DC, but I really hope it smooths out.  HERE’S FOR THE FUN PART THOUGH. I didn’t have much money to spend, but I did get to buy a few fun things from amazing artists!

When going there, I was most excited to buy some merch from @mayakern. She does a webcomic called Monster Pop!, and while I’ve only read some of it, it looks really good. Her art style is so cute and inspirational to me. I bought her book Confetti (EXTREMELY WORTH IT, it has such good content and I could stare at it for hours.) I also bought a Milk print skirt (not pictured), and I received the Eevee print as part of an art trade :) I highly recommend supporting this artist and her wife, they’re amazing. Website/Store: http://store.mayakern.com/  (Currently there’s a 25% off sale!) Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mayakern

Ahhh then during the crazy flood fiasco, my friend @lousysharkbutt told me about one of their favorite artists being there so I stopped on over to visit @pembroke (Alexa Bosy) and boy I’m really glad I did! Her work is so so nice. SHE IS ALSO SO SO NICE. She has a really cute styple and does a lot of Harry Potter fan art ;0 Which is also A+. But she was an absolute JOY to talk to. I bought these sailor moon bookmarks (holographic too!), and something else but it is a present so I can’t show it! Please definitely consider supporting this artist as well SPREAD THE LOVE Store: http://alexabosy.tictail.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexabosy  But that’s all folks! Make sure to show these artists some love, and if you have any other questions about my Otakon experience, send me a message~! :) 

[journeysintowebcomics]

Homestuck Liveblog #177

UPDATE 177: [S] Collide

Last time everything was set for the fights. Now Lord English was arriving to the dream bubble were the ghost army was, the Condesce had already been sighted in Derse, and all the varied Jacks are facing their respective foes. All in all, the stage is set, all that remains is for it all to start. So let’s get going into this!

Yeah, Lord English arrived and is already furious. Should I expect him to blast everything with lasers to kingdom come in ten seconds flat? That’d be anticlimactic but fitting for his power. It’s all a contrast for how his younger self is right now entering Yaldabaoth’s lair, having completed his game. There’s something in his hand but I’m not sure yet what it is.

Well it’s a foregone conclusion that Caliborn is going to win. Chances the fight will be shown? Zero. Hussie has a track record of not showing any conversations or fight with the denizens. Oh well. At least the art is nice.

After three years of constant flying, Bec Noir and the Mendicant have arrived to the other session, landing in the ruined remains of Prospit. Good location for a fight, given the Mendicant’s former home many years ago. The place is shattered even further because of their considerable power. And that’s when Collide arrives! It’s time. Flash file.

I’m already aware it’s a long show, so I’m prepared. I have also been told that it’s crammed to the brim with fights, and to be frank it’s very difficult to talk about fights when they’re happening onscreen instead of being written. There’ll surely be moments for me to react to, so of course screenshots and all will come. All in all, here’s [S] Collide, after all this build-up. Here we go!

That’s a simple way to summarize everything so far in terms of length. Look at how much content there is. Act 6 has been a very, very long act, hasn’t it?

I have said it before and I have said it again, I like this artist’s style. It’s rather smooth-looking, it’s nice.

...welp. Karkat sure didn’t last long. I guess the danger of being the very first charge is that you’re pretty much an easy target. On the bright side at least Karkat is awake now.

Fight 1 starts. It has been so long since anything like the fraymotifs was used. When was the last time? It’s rather creative and quick-paced. Kanaya seems to be holding her own rather well, despite not having any god-tier powers – even though she stands back while the most powerful moves are in action. Don’t think I didn’t see you hanging back and reading a book while that stone wizard is battering the witch, Kanaya.

It sure is lucky that the Condesce’s eye lasers aren’t vaporizing anyone now unlike last time someone got hit by them.

Roxy is taking this more seriously than the others, it seems!

Okay, Jake isn’t alone against the Felt, ARquius is there too, hitting with the fridge that still has Gamzee inside. Guess that guy is going to be kept there for the rest of Homestuck. I had completely forgotten he still existed. Ever since the big retcon Gamzee is pretty much a nonentity in this story.

Karkat, having been robbed of the big target, sees the fight and focuses on Clover. It goes as well as you may expect – Clover simply doesn’t get hit no matter what. That’s not going to make Karkat happy at all, is it?

...I can’t believe Jake kicked the bucket already. Welp. Thanks for saving him, Jane.

Everything over here is going like one expected it to go. I still remember the very first intermission; it was a mess too. That’s just how things go when the Felt is involved.

Damn the music is good.

It doesn’t seem like things are going too badly over the fight in Dirk’s planet, leaving aside that Dirk also got shot to death. At least Terezi and Dave’s fraymotifs seem to fix that, somehow. The exact details of how this happened are a tad too quick for me to wonder about.

After a while looks like the Condesce has nothing to worry about, she has her four foes floating with pretty much no effort, watching ARquius dodge Cans’ punches like there’s nothing better to do. Hah! Well yeah, it’d have been disappointing if it had been so easy their fight was over by now, of course the Condesce was going to get the advantage over them at some point!

I had missed this man’s strength. Hey there, Mr. Crocker, nice time to get out of the prison! Guess he had enough of watching things happen and just had to help ARquius. That’s bound to go well!

...Jade’s not having much success about calming Bec Noir and the Mendicant, apparently. Not that she’s trying too hard, anyways, her powers are more focused on keeping space in order – so to say.

I almost can’t believe Hussie really gave a moment to Caliborn fighting his denizen. After all this long, something like that is finally seen? About time! Not that there’s much time to watch, there are like...what, six different strifes going on right now? And there are three that receive more attention than the rest, the others aren’t that important.

Make that seven. Hussie himself is still hassling Vriska. Congratulations, Vriska, your big fight is against Hussie. Not the shining moment of bravery and fight against great foes you had expected, eh?

Oh, stop flaunting your control over everyone’s life-and-death status, Hussie, you jerk.

Caliborn defeated his denizen, as expected. The little guy is feeling damn proud of that, and the treasure he came to receive is right there – the house juju. There’s also his clock, the one that kept track of his resurrection – or lack of one – depending on what type of death it was. Right, even though he has the powers of the Green Sun and all, that clock still should be in effect, shouldn’t it? And by now there’s pretty much no doubt any death would classify as Just. The problem is how to actually cause his death.

The music has changed while that firefly flies around. I remember a similar tune like this one before in Homestuck, but I don’t remember where exactly.  Maybe I’ll remember later.

Karkat really isn’t taking well that Clover is pretty much defeating him without even taking this too seriously. Welp.

Looks like the fight with Lord English has its own music. That’s fitting!

Meenah and Tavros have survived more than five seconds, that’s promising! Not the same can be said about many among the ghost army – who are pretty much just standing around and being canon fodder while Meenah and the others do all the job. Why were they getting a ghost army, again?

About time they did something!

Davepetasprite isn’t doing too badly, maybe they were right and they really were going to be specially damaging against him. Then again, it’s two characters that are used to fighting – even if Davesprite didn’t indulge in fighting since Bro’s death, if I remember right.

Well that sure is something! I suppose that was to be expected, I think I once heard the creator of that game worked on Homestuck. Still, that was a reference I can’t really say I expected.

...well that’s one down. Without healing this is only bound to get harder over here. Mr. Crocker isn’t doing too well either.

There’s something meaningful in seeing short snippets of moments from acts ago, coupled with the Wonderkids’ symbols in the Homestucl house. Makes one look back at such moments fondly.

Nobody is doing well at all, damn it!

Nevermind, things suddenly started looking up! Congratulations, Jake, you defeated many mobsters pretty much by yourself. Mr. Crocker and Karkat finished their own fights too, that makes four finished. And right after that, Jade’s finally starting to do something more proactive in stopping the dogs from fighting further.

Nnnnnnevermind that too, she has been knocked out. The Mendicant must be very determined to fight, if she went against the princess of her moon and against the dog instincts part. Bec Noir is screwed.

Everything’s happening so fast. One moment I’m typing, the next moment—

Yeah, that. This is like the third time Dirk is decapitated during this webcomic. Knowing Dave, it can’t have been easy to go ahead and cut Dirk’s head off, but it’s over, Union Jack and Spades Slick are gone. So is Dirk’s planet – not a good omen, I remember the destroyed planets in the Game Over timeline all belonged to the kids that died. Well darn it.

It took three years in-story but this plot point is over. Must be satisfying to be done after so long.

...and this one is over too! Turns out that katana really did come handy, after all! There’s something very fitting in it being Roxy who managed to give the final blow here, not only she had to live in a world that was destroyed after everything the Condesce did, she also was the only survivor besides John from what happened in the Game Over timeline, where many deaths were a consequence of the Condesce’s actions. Great! I’m happy for her!

So this means the only antagonist left is Lord English. Hussie pretty much eliminated everyone else in an eighteen-minute long video. That was fast! And fun. I’m really impressed with the quality of this work. Also, the track here in the last six minutes or so is excellent. Homestuck always had great music. It’s laudable.

Okay, Collide is over. I think I’m going to put these two here...

It has been a long while since I had such completely positive thoughts about Homestuck. I’m glad I can finally increase points here. All in all, this was a great thing to watch! And I’m sorry it took me three days to do it, I have been rather busy over here. But it’s done! And I think Collide may be my favorite flash video in Homestuck. It’s simply so good. Hard to talk about it without gushing praise.

Next update: next time

[dragimalsdaydreams]

here it is, the payoff of a year’s worth of work! or an on-off year, at least– this was hardly a constant project. also, sorry this is so big! I’d recommend right click>view image to see this better

also this desc is super freakin long, so for anyone interested, the rest of my commentary is under the cut

it kills me that I wasn’t able to finish this for last year’s 4/13– I wanted so badly to dedicate this to Homestuck’s finale, but I grossly underestimated how much time I needed (just a couple weeks before the anniversary, Ashley? really??). despite this, I’m glad I was able to finish this piece without having to worry abt a time crunch

I’ve EASILY devoted more time and effort into this piece than ANY other piece of art in my life (and that includes full muscle/skeletal diagrams I’ve drawn for past Eclypse refs). it’s funny, I actually “started” this piece in 2012, when I first drew the rough sketch of my idea (obviously Alpha kids and Beforan trolls didn’t exist then, so I was planning to do a kinda “pre-game/post-game” symmetry haha LITTLE DID I KNOW). even at that time, I wanted to contribute something special to the HS fandom– something I’d never attempted for any other fandom then or since. however, I could tell my skill wasn’t developed enough to produce a decent piece (nor did I have the motivation to start a monster like this..), so I tucked that sketch away, hoping I’d return to it someday. I still don’t think I’m at a high enough skill level to give this tribute what it truly deserves (colors... are my death...), but I admit I’m oddly proud of this final product? it’s more than I could have accomplished in the past, that’s for sure (it’s so weird to see how much I’ve improved even comparing the basal sketch stages)

(and, as is tradition for me apparently, here are the other tributes I’ve done for past anniversaries: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016)

sorry for sounding a lil’ sappy here (tho I’m sappy every 4/13 lmao), but Homestuck is so incredibly important to me. no other fandom has come CLOSE to what Homestuck has given me in terms of absurd (often sometimes embarrassing) shenanigans, close-knit fan communities, incredible fanworks, and countless other fandom elements. not to say that other media/fandoms haven’t contributed to my life in significant ways, or that other fandoms aren’t as good, but the HS fandom experience was (and is) so…. unique. there are certain events and situations that could only be experienced within Homestuck’s format, and would be difficult– if not impossible– to replicate in other types of media (or even other webcomics). and beyond that, I’ve dedicated such a significant amount of love and attention to this comic that no other fandoms in my life can rly compare

most fandoms fade over time and slip away from interest, but there are those golden few that clamp onto your heart and don’t let go. Homestuck is one of the few fandoms I can say with reasonable confidence I’ll always cherish, and I just want to thank Hussie and all the incredible artists, animators, musicians, programmers, etc. that have directly contributed to the experience. I think I speak for most when I say my feelings abt the end of HS were…. mixed, at best. but even the negative aspects do little to dampen my love for Homestuck as a whole– this story is just too MASSIVE to let one little ending ruin it! not to say the ending (or any of the comic) is beyond criticism, but the criticism doesn’t ruin the last several years of this fandom experience for me. if anything, that finale left me with a sense that this story isn’t truly over– that there are more loose ends to be tied and further plots unraveled. I’m not sure if that should be considered a good thing (once again, mixed feelings), but at least it works in the context of the upcoming game, haha. either way, reading-- and watching and playing-- Homestuck has been an incredible journey thus far, and I eagerly await the future Hiveswap will bring~

past all that SAPPY COMMENTARY, my main goal w/ this piece was to represent every single Homestuck character (as well as a few significant symbols/references in the comic). considering the nature of Homestuck’s ridiculous timeline, however, this is kind of impossible. thus, I gave myself a few rules for who was and wasn’t included:

- no duplicates. considering there are at least 8 versions of everyone, I absolutely needed this rule. there are obviously a few exceptions (such as Calliope/Callie Ohpeee, Caliborn/Lord English, etc.), though I felt I was justified in including their doubles. this rule honestly kills me a little because I REALLY wanted to include certain duplicates like Bro, Mom, and the Ancestors, but I couldn’t b/c of the next rule–

- if I include some of a group, I must include ALL of the group; IE- “symmetric” representation of all characters. if I were to include the Alternian Ancestors, I would feel obligated to include the Beforan Ancestors too, but there aren’t any canon designs for them, so that would be impossible. similarly, if I were to include the Beta (human, non-Dad) guardians, I’d feel the need to include the Alpha guardians too, who honestly felt less like “unique” characters to me than the Beta guardians did compared to their Alpha kid counterparts (though this could just be due to the fact that we were introduced to the Alphas as adults before the Alpha kids themselves). and even if I were to draw all the kid’s duplicate guardians, that would make me feel obligated to do all the troll’s Ancestors which, again, just wouldn’t work. this is also the reason why none of the Denizens were included, b/c we’ve only got a few of their canon designs (tho I’m considering including their underlings in the future, but I’m not 100% sold on the idea b/c, again, not all underlings are known)

- no “poly-characters”. essentially, no sprites. this prolly falls under “no duplicates”, though I personally consider characters like Davepetasprite^2, Jaspersprite, and even Davesprite unique characters in their own right. it’s just that sprites open up a whole new world of 100+ character possibilities, and I had to draw the line somewhere

- represent each character as their “essential” self. I tried to go for versions of each character that gave the "truest” impression of that character, if that makes sense? for example, I drew Terezi blind and Vriska w/ her robo-arm and blind eye b/c I feel these aspects are essential elements of their characters. Aradia, on the other hand, I drew pre-death, even though this doesn’t necessarily match the “timeline” for Terezi and Vriska’s injuries, b/c I feel that pre-death Aradia represents the “essential Aradia”

- keep overall “character themes” similar across the board. this could also be described by a few sub-points such as: “no god tiers,” “no dream selves,” and, “no alchemized outfits,” among others. I thought it would look oddly off-balance if, say, only some trolls were god-tier, or only one set of kids was wearing alchemized outfits rather than their original outfits. ~in general~ this resulted in drawing most characters as they first appeared in the comic, though there were obviously some exceptions. to return to Aradia’s example, I honestly think that godtier Aradia is the MOST “essential” Aradia of all of them, but the need to adhere to the “pre-game” theme of the rest of the beta trolls overrode that rule, so pre-death Aradia works just as well

[jcrowly]

alright here is a very long and unorganized pnat rant about ch 5 specifically (no art rants because that would be too long to write up since i’ll have to pull image comparisions), but please bear in mind i am open to other opinions too if anyone else wants to read this. with that said, i’m not going to ride or die for these opinions, so i’m hoping that anyone coming out of this will give me their input, thanks

alright so i did a reread of pnat and I’ll just say that the pacing from chapter 4-5 is not as bad when you read it archivally, but things really do take a slow turn when chapter 5 hits. My main criticism is that hitball took way too long, and was even more painful when I was reading it as a serial reader. But there were some funny and interesting moments to be had, and things move a lot better when you read it all in one go. “Planball” aside, the exit from the gym is still a really good scene and gives us a lot of insight on the supporting characters. After this though, I think zack transitions scenes too much. When I want to find out what Ed is doing, the scene transitions to max, which transitions to isaac, then 2 seconds later, to isabel. I personally wouldn’t have a problem if the scenes were longer in between transitions, but one scene that I thought took a little bit to long when reading serially was Day and Zarei’s date. However, after reading it archivally, it was actually better paced than most of the previous and next scenes in the chapter. Also this scene really highlighted both Day and Zarei’s characters really well, especially Day I think. Towards the end of the train arc in chapter 4, I could already tell she was going to be an interesting character, and this date with Zarei delivers what I was hoping she’d turn out to be, smart, cunning, and a bit mysterious to keep the readers still interested. Zarei was also one of my favorite characters introduced in chapter 4, but I think Zack shows her awkwardness a bit too much, if that makes sense. I think having her be this cold kind of “ice queen” when she’s in a business setting is really cool, honestly makes me love this character even more than most “ice queen” type of characters i’ve seen in the past, but like many that fit the archetype they tend to have softer sides to them. Zarei being awkward to her parents makes sense and reveals another side to her, but I think some of the stuff she says on her date with Day makes her too wooby and lame. I don’t think someone like her would drop her act so easily, but the parts where she was seriously talking to Day about consortium business is the best shit. Anyway, after this scene passes we go back to switching around the kids until we get to max again, where he meets alex, the background character character. Even though the chapter was already getting kind of bloated, I think this character’s introduction is one of the better ones in chapter 5. Dunno if it’s just me, but mystery really gets me excited in a story. So even if she doesn’t know about the real reason behind the activity club, I think zack put enough information there to let the readers know she might be doing something important later down the line and plus it was nice to see max interact with some plain jane in a town full of hams. After this we cut back to ed, who i forgot to mention has the best spirit. Literally, muse is a godsends and everything he says is pure gold. Anyway, this scene is still ongoing, and if any of you have been reading my liveblogging, you know that I wasn’t really all too happy with RJ’s “reveal” if that’s how we’re framing it. Back when zack first made the change to the cast page, he revealed that RJ goes by they/them, indisputably a non-binary character. I thought this was really cool of him to do, and it makes total sense given the nature of johnny’s gang and their rebelliousness towards authority figures. I do however, think that the newest page is a bit too on the nose though, since to me it comes off as a PSA from the 90s. Rereading the chapter makes this page sit a little better with me since the whole chapter is full of plot-stoppers for some reason, so it really isn’t all to different from what i’m already used to reading. Although i do think it kind of ruins the really awesome representation we got with RJ since they are the only nb character i’ve seen in media that doesn’t feel forced or badly represented. I mean, I used to recommend parantural to people for it’s great story, design, plot, and humor, but i’ve always had to keep in mind that not everyone i talk to is open minded about minorities. I think parnatural is a really great introduction though since most webcomics nowadays tend to drive people away for being too “preachy,” for lack of better words, about these issues. Pnat really does it all though; great characters like Isabel (awesome, awesome main cast char), zarei, and day actually feel like characters instead of tokens. RJ and Zarei kind of lose the subtlety in this chapter, which i’m afraid will drive people away, but I hope that zack really isn’t too in-your-face about it in the future since I do want to share this comic with more people in the future. Even then, the representation so far is still eons better than the things i’ve seen in the past ie. author has done poor research, fetishy, hamfisted for brownie points, or not at all. On that note, I had to unfollow zack on twitter for his hamfisted comments too, like how he said cody was gay through word of god, which isn’t even a bad thing in nature, but it was just worded like he suddenly came up with the idea to make him gay because someone asked, and also that one comment about “background gays.” That kind of left a bad taste in my mouth since this kind of felt like tokenism here. But other than those small issues, I hope that this clears both my and whoever’s is reading this’s minds. (sidenote, i could talk about the art too, but i feel like i’ve already beaten a dead horse here, so i guess i’ll save the rest of that rant for later)

[catzilladk-portfolio]

Letter of intention

Hello,

My name is Cathrina Jeppesen, and I am a young passionate artist.

I would like to apply to the bachelor degree course Graphic Storytelling. In my years of working with different creative media, I have found that comics are mainly where my heart is. It has been so for a few years now, and because of this, I also applied to the GS course back in 2015.

Through my life, I have played around with many different kinds of creative medias, but I have always returned to drawing both illustrations and entire comics. Maybe not the largest comics, but comics nonetheless. Much of the work I have done lately is commissions for some Danish YouTubers, as well as working on a larger comic as an experiment. I hope to release this one as a webcomic some day.

When I was a child, my sister started my drawing passion. She drew these realistic pictures of animals and people, and I wanted to be as awesome as her. As the years went by, my focus quickly shifted through different genres and styles of drawing as I watched TV and went on the internet. I started watching anime, reading manga and so on, but soon I shifted to the whole Justice League, X-men and the like.

At some point I realized that there were people out there making all these awesome drawings you found online, and I quickly fell for J. Scott Campbell, Mark Crilley, Chris Scalf and Andrew Jones. I wanted so badly to be part of the whole art community and my drawing “training” intensified. I then attended Visual HF from 2011 – 2014. Here the entire class was full of young and creative people, encouraging and helping each other reaching new artistic skills. It was amazing working with so many different talented people, both as fellow students or with some of the most encouraging teachers I have ever had. Iben Lindebjerg was our main teacher through the 3 years and she taught us so many different things, both about drawing but also about ourselves.

Before I entered Visual HF I had some experience with Photoshop, but attending Visual HF I got to know both Illustrator, Flash and Paint Tool Sai. Photoshop is still my go to program if I need to work with any kind of illustration though.

Since I knew I wanted to work with comics, I thought that the natural development of my skills would involve some kind of web development. As with many other things, comics are getting digitized and interactive to some extent and I it felt right at the time to get to know some basics about web standards and the like. This means that for past few years I have spend my time in Aalborg at UCN’s Multimediadesign AK, where I got more familiar with the programs I previously mentioned, but also learned about a few new ones, such as Dreamweaver, Unity, Premiere pro, After Effects and Visual Studio.

Since I started at Visual HF I started saving up for my education, because I knew that I wanted to work with comics of some kind. Many commissions and jobs later, I can say that the financing of my education will not be a problem so far.

Even though i save up money for my education, I try to travel at least once a year with my fiancé. It helps broaden my cultural horizon and I get to meet many interesting people. I have been in Croatia, Norway, Spain and Italy, and I plan to travel somewhere again this summer. Wherever I go, I bring my sketchbook with me, and try to capture the place and people living there.

 Because of my interest in many different creative media, I have lots and lots of different movies, games and comics that I love.

My favorite movie is Jurassic park, probably because it was the first “scary” movie I saw, but also because of the amazing special effects the first one had. Back when I first saw the movie I was completely in love with the dinosaurs, both the big and the small ones.

The game that I remember enjoying the most is Amnesia: The Dark Decent. When I played this game, it was with friends late at night at TAW on a big screen. Even though we were quite a few people, the ambience and gameplay utterly terrified me, and I loved every second of it. Never since have I played a game with the same scare factor that does not rely entirely on jump scares.

The comic I have read the most is Tintin. I really liked the nice coloring and the style of drawing when I was younger, so even before I was able to read and understand the comics, I enjoyed just looking at the pictures. As I grew older, I started reading Tintin again and it is something I can enjoy reading repeatedly without growing tired of it.

Of course there is a lot of works that I don’t like within the artforms but those are generally so bad that I find them hard to even list.

One of the biggest letdowns of my childhood, was back when The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2 came out. It had too big shoes to fill in, both artwise and characterwise. No effort was put into the story. No songs were recognizable. The villain was badly written and not very relatable at all.

Facebook games irks me in a way. Even game developers find them annoying and redundant, but truth is; they are cheap to make and with the right idea they haul in a lot of money. These games tend to have no skill requirement, free to play, pay to win. For me it ruins the fun of gaming to be honest.

The thing I hate most in comics, or webcomics to be specific, is how you get hooked on a story, follow it for years and then suddenly it goes on a hiatus. It happened to so many comics I have followed and the worst part about it is that you cannot do anything about it.

I try to learn from all of the works I find, both the good and bad.