#well these are webcomics that exist anyways

[deoidesign]

please please please please please please please let me tell you about this comic I want to make it so bad please I can not wait I am losing it

If I don't make the comic then I'm not going to make it... I need other people to see what is in my brain so I'm not the only one going feral over them

[magpiesbones]

On a sunbeam AU of witch hat would fuck tbh

olruggio maps pretty directly to Char, which makes Qifrey Alma (technically probably some sort of alma-el conglomerate? Alma’s story role but El’s backstory shit)

Tetia is Jules (ssssort of? There’s not really anyone with real Tetia vibes so I’m just giving her the extrovert instant best friend)

Richeh is El for their matching contempt of authority and general Quiet vibe

Coco is Mia for newbie main character reasons

which would mean that Agott is Grace and the Staircase is the great hall/ the library which actually now that I think about it fits really well down to the isolationism and weird hierarchy things.

[gommyworm]

:^l

[amimuu]

What if Narinder was a scum villain or smt…. (AU THING!?!)

You can you up, no can no bb. If you are so insistent on the story being terrible, okay, go on and change it! Let’s see how this story’s biggest hater does in the shoes of the main villain.

SVSSS x COTL?!?!!? More likely than you think!!!! (Doodles under the cut!!

‼️Slight blood warning‼️ )

Hey….

*crowd actually cheers for once*

That’s weird. Who are you people.

*crowd stares at me confused*

Uh…Bing bong so my brain once more decided to torture me with visions (mixing one of my fave books with one of my favorite games—) so now this exists—

These weeks have been a LOT. I went into a stress induced creative block and right after went to French summer camp?! Writing this as I’m supposed to be asleep LMAO (dw I’ll be okay) but ANYWAYS!! What is this?!

Crossover duh—but to those who don’t know the plot—okay. Just imagine ???? is this guy who reads a webcomic. (Which is cult of the lamb! Let’s forget the game exists. It’s a webcomic in this universe ) So he hates it because it’s bad. Like. Bad. The protagonist is too powerful, there are a bajillion plot holes, too many love interests—and god, what is that world-building?! He detests it, so as soon as it’s done he leaves one last hate comment—

As he chokes on his food.

That doesn’t end well.

Anyways, waking up, ???? realizes he has transmigrated into said story…as Narinder, the main villain, hated by all, and with the worst ending of all the antagonistic characters. The why of this? Well, the story is so bad, surely even someone like him could take matters into—quite literally—his own hands. Plus, he’s got a game-like system that rewards him or punishes him depending on how well he does in “fixing” the plot…while also not being able to break character, at least for the first story arc. Oh dear.

And so Narinder’s adventure starts. Survive, improve the outcome for everyone and—seduce the protagonist…? Wait—no—that wasn’t part of the plan-!!

Anyways. I’ll talk more about this silly thing later…when I’m not falling asleep at least dkfnkdjfjejfj. Hopefully you enjoyed the ramble and the doodles. Until next time

[darqx]

Snakes on a post

Another particularly long answer dump since i, once again, have a backlog of things to potentially answer |D

❗️For commonly asked qs please see my BTD FAQ

Got jumpscared with my own old art for a hot minute there LAUGHS.

(For those wondering, the naga doodle from here was attached to the ask)

That is every other Royal that exists in the Nether and also at least some of the demons that challenged him for his Royal title lol.

Believe me, no one was or is more surprised then me XD;

So, the thing about where Rire's ichor manifests is that it kinda exists and doesn't exist at the same time. Meaning that his upper back is where the manifestation point is anchored, BUT it can still manifest with a bit of space in between it and his back hence why it will manifest over his clothes and not through them.

So if you touch where the manifestation point is sans the ichor, than you are just straight up touching his back. With the ichor, he still gets sensory input from the tentacles to his back but it's a lot more soft and muted esp the further away it gets from him. As you've seen implied though, he would feel a very sharp pain if a great deal of damage was done to the ichor where it clusters at the manifestation point, since he'd DEF be feeling that straight in his back lol.

He is definitely a top and the only way he would bottom for anybody is if they somehow forced him to.

Ah i knew i'd answered this a long time ago [finally found it]! Holy crosses (those that have been blessed) can also burn him but they would need to be in contact with him the entire time. Being a Royal he also has more of a tolerance to these than normal demons.

Well, unless said person actually has the undeniable ability to make good on their words, Rire would just stand there rather genially with that little smile he sometimes has and let them finish.

And then he might use them as reverse suggestions for dealing with said person (why would you give him any ideas!!?)

both

In BTD canon it is quite possible that they actually haven't in person. But we are using creative license here haha.

Rire heals a lot faster than a human. Cain is not my character so I don't know how his stacks up.

I've grouped these asks cos they kind of have similar answers - 360° (jk sorry sorry to the second q that is just a very common spelling mistake and I couldn't resist XD; )

Now, even though we mashed all the characs together in BTD, they all actually come from different storylines and so their canons outside the "BTD canon" may differ. This tends to bleed in. With this in mind:

The rules of Rire's canon (eg the concept of Battle Royales and how to become a Royal) don't apply to Cain. Anyway, they don't live in the same place either.

Cain is canonically the oldest and most OP character in BTD lol so yes he is stronger than Rire - you might've noticed, but Rire is never in the same drawing as Cain voluntarily. I play with this along with the "natural weakness" aspect - which I've also referred to as scissors-paper-rock rules XD Basically; demons beat humans, angels beat demons (purely because demons have weakness against holiness).

It would (be insane) but I hope you are not looking at me to fulfil this :d

Not really

His coronation day is a public holiday in his sector so yes XD

Aww thank you very much for your interest! ≧(´▽｀)≦ It's really cool that some of you guys want to actually fund such a thing - I'd have thought you'd have enough of him killing you in BTD1 XD Unfortunately, I have no plans for a Rire game at the moment as I'm working on a webcomic which looks like it will take up all my free time (that being said, he will be in the webcomic at some point).

Nope! Although i can kinda see why you might think that lol.

Whatever that one is where he doesn't particularly care what someone else identifies as. It really makes no difference to him or how he will act.

There are viruses in the Nether that if contracted could potentially kill you, yes. Part of being a Royal is becoming a lot more robust than normal Demons though. As for if/when Rire dies, I dunno maybe either in a Battle Royale somewhere thousands of years down the line or by old age (which is rare for a Royal but not impossible if you play your cards right).

If you are asking if he has a heat/rut of some sort, he does not |D

[dedalvs]

Hi! Hope you're doing well. I was reading a fantasy webcomic with some Deaf characters and was wondering: what adjustments to the language creation processes would a conlanger have to make for creating a sign language? Thanks!

The short answer is relatively few. Sign languages are languages and do all the same things with a different phonology. So long as you understand the phonology of a sign language you can create a sign language.

The long answer is here. That's a thing I wrote up called SLIPA (Sign Language IPA). Due to the fact that the potential for iconicity with gesture is greater than with sound there's a lot more onomatopoeia in a sign language than in a spoken language. To explicate, onomatopoeia in spoken language is a word that imitates the sound of the referent (splash, crash, plunk, boing). In a sign language, it's a sign that imitates the look of the referent (ASL TREE, for example). Since it's possible to be more iconic, sign languages take advantage of that fact. Consequently, you don't find sign languages that DON'T take advantage of it and are purely abstract. There are also things that are hard or impractical in a spoken language that are simple in a sign language simply due to the medium (e.g. full number incorporation in the ASL words for WEEK and MONTH). Finally, there are a lot of "on the fly" verbs that are created that have no obvious analog in a spoken language. It's something like the sentential words of a polysynthetic language combined with imitative sounds in a spoken language to describe a body in motion.

In other words, because there are things you can do in a sign language simply due to the medium that you can't do in a spoken language, sign languages often do those things. It would be strange (i.e. non-human) if they didn't. If you're aiming to create a secret sign language, perhaps you intentionally don't take advantage of those things. It's possible to create a purely abstract sign language, but it would be a fairly obvious construct the way Ithkuil is very obviously not a plausible human language (i.e. it could never have evolved naturally to be the way it is). This might be a fun thing to do for a fictional setting—a totally non-iconic sign language created for secret communication. This is, essentially, what I did with the Atreides sign language in Dune (as opposed to the other sign language I created for the first film that wasn't used). Even that one, though, takes advantage of iconicity in a way that a truly abstract sign language need not. This is because part of the secrecy of the language is the way it's used. Others aren't even supposed to see it—and if they do, they're supposed to dismiss it as hand twitches. You could make an obvious sign language (i.e. it's obvious these characters are signing to each other) but with really, really weird associations—like pointing to your interlocutor means "sky", where eveyrone looking on will think it means "you".

Anyway, just some thoughts. This is an underexplored area of conlanging, but due to the simplicity of video creation and sharing nowadays, it's something that's worth exploring. Back in 2006 when I wrote up SLIPA it wasn't practical to take videos and upload them. It was possible, certainly—we had high speed internet and websites—but we didn't have smartphones, I don't think YouTube existed yet, most frontend UI didn't have video embedding as a feature of its platform, etc. We were lightyears ahead of the internet as we understood it in the 90s, so 2006 would be much more familiar to the people of 2024 than the people of 1994, but smartphones and social media (and its infrastructure) really changed the nature of capturing and sharing video. Conlangers have taken advantage of that in every way EXCEPT creating, documenting, and sharing CSLs (created sign languages).

Like (I don't want to go off on a tangent here) you can have an entire YouTube account that is just a dictionary. ASL already does this. Go on YouTube and type "ASL sign for [whatever]". There are tons of videos that are like 10-15 seconds long that are just demonstrations of a single sign from different angles, all made by Deaf signers. And the videos don't need sound! You don't have to worry about audio quality, microphones, etc. You can actually use YouTube to document an entire sign language. No one's done it yet. Why not?

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Hope this helps.

[doctorwhoisadhd]

i’ve been seeing ur blaseball posts for a while now and i have to say i have No earthly idea what it is. is it a webcomic? a band?? a sport??? pls give me a crash course on this seemingly cool thing

well shes dead forever unfortunately (riv) BUT blaseball was an absurdist baseball sim that u watched in ur browser, basically like if fantasy football was simultaneously massively multiplayer AND an ARG and also completely fucking insane. it was the best because it ran at all hours of the day and was so so fucking insane and spawned a LOT of memes and fanworks especially art and music! one of the best fan communities for fan music that has maybe ever existed if not The best. ur experience of it was largely filtered thru the team u followed (mine was the hawaiʻi fridays)

here are some blaseball sites for u

blaseball roundups from the youtube, i would recommend starting here itll give u the cliff notes And the vibe. these were done in character, the anchor is a guy who exists in the blaseball universe, also later on they started to be Plot

sibr faq <- this will probably be more helpful but do the roundups first because itll throw u into the lore (and while im at it heres sibr aka the society for internet blaseball research but most of that will. probably be unintelligible. when stuff makes no sense consult the wiki. or ask a fan)

the wiki, where u can read about history and the players and teams and such

BEFORE <- this is where you can still to this day watch old games!!! i love u so much before thank you sibr for allowing me to relive the beautiful game that we are all love (sobbing crying throwing up)

the garages bandcamp <- by far the largest of the fan bands (though there was also the park park rangers and the hades tigers and the los angeli juxebox) there is so much music on here. the majority of it was made in the span of like a year and a half. i got music on there! i recommend starting with away games or blattle of the blands or reunion tour or one of the world tours, they have the widest variety of vibes and will help u learn about most of the teams (im not biased <- guy who has a couple songs in there)

theres also sites like reblase and blaseball-reference and such but those are just catalogues of old data i wouldnt think youd want to trawl thru those as much. theyre probably accessible via sibr anyway

also frankly just ask fans to tell you stories, go in the tag on here and just go in random peoples inboxes. youll pull up some fantastic stuff that way. blaseball was so active and alive and changing and no two people had the exact same experience of it. and god there will always be stories. we will always be telling stories

rest in violence blaseball. i will always love you and i will always miss you and it will never stop

[mishacakes]

how do you connect to your character? like how do get to know them so well? how do you pick out their likes, dislikes, habits and those itty bitty bits about them? I've been struggling to do that for sooo many of my ocs, and i'm also at a lost of how to design them. like i once had a clear idea of what kind of character they are, but i wanted to change them a bit, make them a little better, and i feel like I've lost that character and that character i'm working on doesn't exists, no matter how much i loved them and enjoyed writing an drawing them. this has happened with every single character i made and it just makes me think that i may not be cut out for drawing or writing characters. i look up to you so i thought of asking you for help

sry for the long rant idk wat im doing

HELLO HELLO THANK YOU FOR ASKING!! So basically I took this question and turned it into a 1.6k word essay on writing characters and how I like to do it, so, uh, hope you enjoy!! and hope it helps!

OK!! character writing. How do you do it? or, well, how do I do it. I’ve got a few methods that help me out the most and are the most fun for me to think about. Here’s my big secret, if it’s not fun I don’t do it. I’m not here to do homework I’m waaayyyy out of school. I’m a legal adult. I pay my taxes. I’m not gonna do something that doesn’t give my brain the good fun juice. Anyways. My methods are: symbols, archetypes, and character inspiration. I use all these to figure out the CORE of a character, their very beating heart, and most importantly, what haunts them. Everything about a character, in my opinion, comes from this core and their ghost. Their habits, their fears, their joys, their coping mechanisms. So long as you have a clear grasp on their heart, you won’t go astray. Let’s dive into it! The characters I’m going to be using to describe how I use these methods are Alice and others characters from my webcomic—namely Edith, Hatter, and Rougina—and Tomiko (you know her you love her, catgirl supreme).

Symbols! I love using symbols, they’re something that can describe a character through metaphor, even without going into detail about their whole backstory and habits. Tomiko’s symbols are lanterns (specifically light), cats, ghosts/yokai, shapeshifting, and gold. They all work to further her character as a rough around the edges monster cat with a heart of gold, who uses shapeshifting as a method (both literally and metaphorically) to mold herself into what others need her to be. Alice’s symbols are hearts, eyes, and flesh in general. Try picking one general symbol (the ocean, the forest, the city), and see how specific you can get from there. Or pick a god or goddess that resonates with your character and see what symbols are used for them. Rougina (the antagonist in my webcomic) is a war goddess fallen from grace, and is symbolized with land and volcanoes, so I’ve used volcanic plants to evoke her. Personally I also love going through the tarot for symbols, assigning a tarot card to characters (of the major arcana) is a fun exercise. Which leads us nicely into our next method:

Archetypes! The tarot deck’s Major Arcana is pretty much only archetypes. The Empress as the Mother. The Magician as the Wise Mentor. The Tower as The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen Oh Jesus Shit. These can help a lot with who your character is. I’m extremely storytelling oriented, so it helps me knowing What Role a character serves in the story they inhabit. Another thing I love in archetypes in the Zodiac. Yes, I am an astrology bitch. The whole reason I love talking about my methods is my Sag rising, I love giving my wisdoms. But astrology can be used for writing, and not just for excusing and not reflecting on shit behavior (can’t help being a gemini!). The zodiac is FILLED WITH ARCHETYPES!!! From elements to how they function! The four elements (you A:TLA bitches know this), and three modalities. If you’re interested please watch Eugene’s Rank King video, it’s very informative on the signs. Also many symbols! For example, Alice is a Taurus—May 4, Alice Liddell’s birthday—so she’s pretty stubborn while also loving creature comforts. Tomiko’s birthday is August 23, making her a Virgo, so she likes being precise in her work. More archetypes you can look for are DnD classes! I love using that to design costumes. One of Edith’s recent costumes is very wizard inspired, since that’s the class I see her having as she’s very studious and driven. Heck, all of Alice and the Nightmare is derived from the character archetypes of the Alice in Wonderland characters! Rougina is specifically the Red Queen, NOT the Queen of Hearts!! The confusion started with the 1951 Disney animated movie when the two characters were merged!! Lewis Carroll himself said the two were different! The Queen of Hearts is an “embodiment of ungovernable passion” and the Red Queen is “the concentrated essence of all governesses”!! GOD!!! Tim Burton meet me in the fucking pit you’ll pay for your alice crimes. anyways.

Archetypes help a lot in costumes too, figuring out what kind of fashion they’d like to wear. You can start broad and get more specific with it (like going from a wizard type character to a wizard character with steampunk themes). Fashion is just an extent of character. What are they comfy in? Are they confident in their body? What colors do they like? Bright high fashion or simple dark sweaters? Ryoko Kui is a master of character design I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend checking out her work.

Another method I like using, specifically for Alice and the Nightmare characters, is what I call the “three trait method”. When I was in middle school we did a production of Alice in Wonderland (I was the White Knight), and too many girls auditioned for Alice. So the director’s solution was to split the character into three parts, and assigning each part to an actor. Her temper, her intelligence, and her innocence, all used in different scenes. Now I use that to think about my own Alice character, except with “polite, temper, and curious”. Edith’s keywords are “nervous, tactical, and intelligent”. Hatter’s are “kind, enthusiastic, and intuitive”. Using keywords can help figure out how they’d react in a situation, what side of them would shine the brightest. Hatter’s want to help everyone is his kindness, but overstepping his bounds can be attributed to his enthusiasm. Edith can know what path to take in a pinch, but her nervousness can freeze her in place. Reading the source material helps a lot with Alice characters too, which brings us to our final point:

Character inspiration!! The art of taking things you like and shoving them into your own characters and stories. DISCLAIMER THO!!! If you take things without really EXAMINING what about them you like, WHY you like them, and how you’d like to evoke that same love in the things you make, the interpretations can come off as shallow. (for more on this subject, watch HBomberguy’s RWBY video essay, specifically the section on “anime homework”)

Tomiko’s biggest inspirations are Izutsumi from Dungeon Meshi, April Ludgate from Parks and Rec, Power and Reze from Chainsawman, San from Princess Mononoke, and Mei from LMK. It’s a good cocktail of aloof, biting, vicious, weird, fierce, loving, and bright. Figuring out what I love about the characters and what I want to write in a character like that helps a lot in writing Tomiko. It’s also really fun in a sense for screenshot redraws and memes.

Music is also a HUUUUUUGE source of inspiration for me, I love making playlists. And even as playlists can change as characters grow and change, having a couple of core songs still helps me ground to that character’s center. For Tomiko it’s “Make Them Gold” by CHVRCHES, and “Nice Girl” by Ashnikko. Alice’s is “Headlock” by Imogen Heap and “Demons” by Hayley Kiyoko, Edith’s is “Warrior” by Kimbra, and Hatter’s is “Dementia” by Owl City.

Ok, we’ve gotten though symbols, archetypes, and made a couple of banger playlists. Next is something that can help write your character, the Big Lie. The thing that keeps them up at night. Their biggest fear, their ghost, what haunts them. What’s holding them back from their goals? What do they need to overcome? That can be as central to their theme as any symbolism. For Tomiko it’s the lie that her emotions don’t matter, only what she can do to be of service to her mother. Her arc is about overcoming her dismissing her own emotions and learning to not run away from the people who she truly cares for. Alice dismisses the literal ghost that is haunting her believing that that will let her have a normal life. Edith pushes down abilities that come naturally to her for fear that she’ll be exiled, not just from society, but the world. Rougina believes she must burden the world’s problems on her own shoulders with no one’s help. The outer character and the inner ghost can reflect, mirror, and inform each other.

Now, listen, sometimes characters are hard to get to know! Tomiko was lol. Quinn was for a looong time. And in times like this, I just, let them be. I listen to some music to get inspired, and let them tell me about themselves when they feel like it. And they will, it just take a little while. And a few dozen quick exploration drawings. But they come through. Also, try not to get bogged down with habits and little details of their character, keep their core in mind, what their heart is. Start broad and get specific. That way, if you feel like you’ve lost your way or the character feels different to you, recenter yourself at their heart and go from there. Or, if you find that their center no longer fits, don’t be afraid to change it! Characters are meant to be fun! First and foremost!! I make characters cause I like writing and storytelling, and drawing little comic for fun and me time. Sometimes characters stick around, sometimes they fall by the wayside. You really have to find what sparks joy, and chase your bliss!

So as long as you have your character’s essence in your hands, and you WANT to keep working on them and drawing them, there’s really no wrong way to go. This whole essay I’ve given is just a set of tools that works for ME, and I HIGHLY encourage you to find stuff that works for you! I really really hope that all this has made sense and isn’t just the ramblings of a madman. Good luck and happy charactering!!

[coquettedragoon]

could you expand a little on your writing and worldbuilding process for coquette? the way you write characters is really nice

my writing process is kind of informed by a sense of wanting every part of the thing i'm working on to be fun to work on, which sounds obvious... but well im one of those people who made webcomics excited to get to the big story payoffs 5 years down the track but didn't put any thought into what came before it and got burnt out. in the past i would've shown xios life before enlistment as a slow burn but instead i'm just opening right on it.

the overarching structure of coquette is informed by hxh... i really like how each arc of it is a drastically different setting and genre with a rotating primary cast, i don't intend for coquette to be as varied but it struck me as a really fun way of making longform work that feels consistently enjoyable to work on... ig as a brief example, the first section will focus on the zephyranthes, after this xio and co are sent to fight in sunset as part of the lilac occupation and then are left behind after the lilac force retreats (careful what you wish for ayane...) and Stuff Happens, ig what i mean is i dont want to linger on a status quo for too long.

as for the world, i mostly am drawing from legend of the galactic heroes/gundam 79 as a template. the duchy is the empire/zeon, the lilac is the FPA/earth federation, and sunset is fezzan/side six.

for the lilac in particular, i'm kind of drawing from like... how things felt being in school during the iraq war and the fervor among the students around me, i knew so many people who wanted to enlist after graduation etc and saw the army as like a winning ticket compared to the deadend town we were in, like girls wanting to join the army to get a degree as a lawyer or a pilot etc. the core of the lilac is its a society that exists to funnel people (especially like xio) into the army.

the duchy is a bit more vibes based, i just like when the baddies in scifi are anachronistic aristocrats. theres a section in the gundam origin manga about like... interpreting the zeon invasion of earth as a return to 'the sacred grounds of the soul' that carries a lot of weight. i think it sort of gave me an impression of the zeon as like... people living in the void of space and feeling spiritually/intellectually starved by it and driven mad by it, and i kind of used that as my basis for the duchy. they are obsessed with tradition and antiquity to feel like they have a sense of place in the world and aren't just drifting in space, the aesthetic sense is rooted in a sense of like.. older feeling things are more connected to earth and feel more 'human' to them. then ofc like the imperialism and arranged marriages and social stratification are all 'old' and can't be questioned so they are miserable anyway.

i guess it's all based on the thing in LOGH of how it opens on 'no human or society is immortal', and then depicts the slow collapse of the two nations founded on flimsy ideas. the lilac and the duchy are both dead end nations.

as for character writing... i think i kind of just take archetypes i like from moe anime etc and then try and dig into how their brains work living in the world of coquette. xio could be a happy little moeblob in most other worlds. ryukishis writing is probably what informs me better than anything else... i just want to try and depict what it's like to live inside these characters heads.

[megabondlocalfan]

God I hate it when people say that Magical Girls are too dark nowadays. Like, c'mon magical girls have been dark since the dawn of the genre.

You guys want an anime like Sailor Moon again and yet fail to realize that Sailor Moon itself is dark as fuck. Literally in the first finale of the show, all the Sailor guardians fucking die. Sure they're brought back to life but still.

Also, I get the hate towards the Madoka copycats. I get it. But most of these copycats aren't copycats. Daybreak Illusion, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, and Magical Girl Raising Project are all there stories. Except Magical Girl Site I guess.

Also Princess Tutu, Fresh Precure, and Heartcatch Precure are all pretty dark before Madoka Magica came to be. (Although Heartcatch was the inspiration for Madoka Magica)

You want more light hearted magical girls? Well, you won't get much because in every magical girl show you will get something dark. Even in western shows. For example, Lolirock, the main villian has probably killed multiple people during his reign. This includes Talia's and possibly Iris's parents.

Even the most light hearted of shows aren't safe from this. Except Magical Angel Creamy Mami. I haven't made it so far to the anime so it's probably a cute title.

Anyways, if you want a more cute magical girl story, then maybe make one your own. Do a webcomic, a small short series, or even just make OCs based on the ideas.

Why am I even ranting about this? Well, I remember seeing a post that says that Hirogaru Sky Precure was already (and I'm exaggerating a bit here) dead to them because of spoilers. Let's just say that the season was already getting into dark territory by that point.

I'm not going to name who that was (because I forgot) but dark Precure seasons already exist. The aforementioned Fresh and Heartcatch Pretty Cure are all considered the darkest seasons of Precure and they were successful. Especially Fresh, since that season basically saved the whole franchise.

Dark magical girl series are here to stay. They have been around for quite around now and they won't stop anytime soon. The only magical girl series that I want to see made fun of is Magical Girl Site. Anyways that's it. It's just a little rant I have about the magical girl fanbase.

I should do the same thing for the Vocaloid fanbase too because holy hell I hate the gatekeeping in that fandom.

[comicaurora]

Hey! So I have a trope question

Something I’ve noticed since I was little is a that a lot of media with a trio had the same make up of two boys and one girl, is this a trope or just some weird thing that just happens by random odds?

I think it's a little bit more broad and nebulous than a trope, although it does have a TVTropes page. It's not random odds, it's storytelling trends.

For a number of reasons, the majority of protagonist POV characters are guys. Starting from this premise, if you want to make sure your protagonist always has somebody to play off of so they aren't engaging with the story in complete isolation, you give them at least one character to hang out with. This minimum one character can have all kinds of traits (mentor, scoundrel, battle butler), but if you as a writer are taking the easy, normal approach, you will give this protagonist a friendly buddy/rival to team up and squabble with (and this buddy will also be a guy, because again, this theoretical writer is taking the easy approach to character dynamics), and as a second thought you will probably give our hero a theoretical love interest girl for him to pine after so you can (a) write/draw a Hot Lady as much as you want and (b) get Hero Boy to cover a broader range of emotional situations within the comfort of his friend group. Thus you have rederived the trope of Two Guys And A Girl, congratulations on your moderately successful mid-2000s gaming webcomic.

As the story continues you might realize Girl Who Exists So Protagonist Can Remember Girls Exist is not actually an appealing love interest for him, so you'll probably pair off Girl with Second Guy and leave Hero Boy to pursue other romantic avenues. Second Guy is liable to be rather more interesting anyway, since he's going to be a Lancer to the hero's Leader-ness and serve as his primary foil, meaning he has a little more personality and frankly a lot more romantic tension with the lead. In fact, if you want to be really lazy about it, you can take these three characters and snap them into a love triangle with absolutely no extra work on your part, and that's an infinite drama generator at no cost to you.

You might take a slightly different approach if you, the writer, are a lady writing a lady-centric romantic story, in which case Girl is liable to be the POV character while her buds Hero Boy and Rival Boy take turns having romantic subplot adventures with her. In these narrative structures you don't want to add another girl to the inner circle, because the presence of a Romantic Rival (which seems to be the only purpose Other Girls serve in these stories) would spoil the center-of-the-universe romantic fantasy, so your hands are tied and we're back to Two-Guys-And-A-Girl again. You might add a supportive girl best friend when it gets adapted for netflix though - she can pair off with whichever boy loses at no additional cost.

What we're seeing here is Easy Mode Storytelling. This is what happens when a writer takes the extremely well-traveled road and lets their wheels slide into the well-worn tracks and follow where they may. It's not good or bad, it's just easy. It's a story we can recite in our sleep. This particular character arrangement occurs with unusual frequency because there are a number of factors that make it easy, and when you take a broad approach, the easy approach will be statistically favored.

This triple arrangement can obviously be genderflipped - Hero Girl with her friends Rival Girl and Love Interest Boy - but this is less common just by the numbers, because in the space of fiction there are more Hero Boys than Hero Girls. All-boy and all-girl trios also happen, but because most people are straight, most writers will see this as depriving themselves of all the exciting romantic tension they could get from having One Token Character to be romantically viewed and pursued. Additional characters can be added to the group, leading to Four-Temperament Ensembles and Five-Man Bands, but broadly this three-person arrangement is the smallest possible Ensemble Cast unit a writer can easily construct.

[kosmicdream]

The FATE of FEAST FOR A KING

.. and Nasty Red Dogs… 

And some other miscellaneous thoughts about comics, writing, and time.... AND ENDINGS...

============= 

As I’m approaching 10 years on FFAK and NRD is currently 5, I’ve been reflecting a lot on How far this journey with comics has taken me and how far I still have yet to go. For those unaware, my first webcomic was actually Eggshells, which started in 2011, but i only started posting pages publicly in 2013. It too is unfinished, but its planned for 7 chapters. (I’m currently working on chapter 5, which probably will come out early next year.) I have 9 ongoing comics I’m working on. NINE!! 3 of those are FFAK related. (FFAK, After Dinner Treat, and the prequel series “Help.”) It is so many comics though. And beyond that! I have two other stories I’ve been working on for the past few years in secret, one being Nice Blue Cats, which I might still draw as a comic someday.. As well as a series of “one shots” that is meant to be its own collection. Slugmom and “The Teacher & The Fairy” are part of these one shot collections. Which, uh, it was designed to help me practice writing short stories. Which TT&TF is now going to be three parts long, and roughly 300 pages. So I guess that’s short enough…? Ha.. laughs… Anyway, as I was saying.. Sometimes I’m sure, readers might wonder. “Do you ever feel overwhelmed, with so many projects Kosmic?” Yeah dude. I sure fucking do. I got 9 of them! That’s more than a full pokemon team of projects that are potentially a decade + of work. A couple of them already are a decade old/older at this point. (Praeymoon is actually one of my oldest-lasting projects, even tho its first chapter only finally released in 2023.. I first attempted to draw ch1 back in 2016, but was unable to finish it and scrapped the “full color” angle i was trying then. ) All my current ongoing comic projects are as follows: Feast for a King, Nasty Red Dogs, Eggshells, The Teacher & the Fairy, Replacer, The Eyes of Miasma, FFAK: After Dinner Treat, FFAK: Help, are all written. The only one which isnt fully written is Praeymoon, which I don’t mind because the way that story is organized is almost more of a sandbox-fantasy world of mini stories. I’ll be honest, if you havent heard of Replacer or The Eyes of Miasma, I don’t blame you- its not that i don’t like those stories. They just kind of are the “most neglected” comics yet I’m also kind of amazed they exist at all, like I DONT know how I found the time to draw over 100 pages for both of them. They also have fully written outlines and all things considered, are probably only going to be under 400-500 pages in length. But that’s still a decent amount of work there. Its been ten years since I more or less started making webcomics… and as I plan, and try to calculate all my projects for the next 10 years, my main priority at the moment is well.. Finishing all of these fucking stories one way or another. Its hard! I don’t know if I can as I put way too much on my plate. But at the same time like.. Whatever. I could easily drop most of them, if I felt inclined to - but I don’t. They are my library of work, and I’ve sort of made an artist oath to myself that I will see as many of them to the end as I can. I’m excited that three are very close to its end. (Nasty Red Dogs, The Teacher & the Fairy, and Eggshells.) After that well.. I’ll see what I can cross off my list next once I get there.. That’s still going to take years to get those done. But hopefully not too many. 

[Spoilers for potential LENGTHS of FFAK/NRD.. And other things.. I speak very transparently about writing and working on comics here AND including my thoughts on ENDINGS.. You’ve been warned]

I’m comfortable enough sharing that the fairy comic is 3 parts, Eggshells is 7 chapters, but when it comes to FFAK/NRD.. Its much harder to give an estimate, or if sharing those things will only be disappointing or annoying to hear about.. If you have ever been around me for more than 10 minutes, i am constantly talk about the “length left” on these projects a lot anyway. At night, i count them in my head. In the day, I write little lists as if I’ve forgotten the names of them.. They are MY LIST.

 But for those who do not know and wish to, NRD is likely going to end with 10 chapters. I have extended this in the past, so it could still change.. but it only really has gotten “longer” due to pacing of scenes rather than the actual content. And Honestly, it was paced out specifically to avoid this next chapter. Not that I didn’t want to draw it, its because i was Scared to do it.. Why? Because there’s cars I have to draw in it. And dogs. I have drawn those things before, at least once or twice. But I do not enjoy drawing cars or dogs. Dogs are okay now, but i hate that they have legs. Dont give me references, i have those. Its just how my brain is, with those fuckign legs and how there’s four of them. I know practice makes perfect. Or do-able. I have drawn amost 1000 pages of NRD, i dont remember how they bend and i’ve forgiven myself for knowing there’s just some things god cannot do, which is to give kosmic the ability to look at a dog leg and understand. Anyway. Because of this reason, somehow, finishing NRD with it only possibly being 4 more chapters, still feels harder than finishing ALL of FFAK - which (drumroll) might be .. only around 10 or 12 chapters left. Yes, you heard me- for the second AND third arc. 10 or 12 more. Will that also change? Probably!!!!!! Like, yes… its been 9 years and I’ve completed a lot more than just 10 chapters of comics in that time.. But wrapping up a story is way harder and I dont know what that’s like..yet! But i feel still confident that i will. I mean, i don’t really have any other choice than to experience it. I used to recoil and fall apart just emotionally contemplating finishing FFAK. my FUCKING baby. My joy. You mean that has to end?? NEVER. My attachment to it and the characters was incomparable to anything else I had done, and in my mind ever WILL make… (and that is still true.) But.. I’m okay with that now and I actually look forward to seeing how it could end up. Even if its bad! 

Its kind of weird to say, I just don’t really think it will be.. super good? Like.. it could be? I don’t know how readers will react. I dont even know how I feel about the whole thing.. I have felt so many feelings about this comic already, now I’m kind of.. Past it in a new stage. Zen like peace almost. There’s just.. so much that I wanted to PUT in FFAK and so much i could STILL put in. But I kind of just am okay with what i wrote, does that even make sense? The whole comic has felt like such a fluke to me, from the very start. And I managed to accidentally make so many great things in it I don’t actually understand sometimes. And my dreams for the comic has been nearly limitless. I couldn’t possibly contain all the feelings I’ve had over this story over the many years I have been making it, and all the incredible narrative outcomes I could see the characters going in.. the possibilities, the parallels.. The anime music videos..  I would NOT compare my writing style to GRRM, I haven’t read his books. but I can’t help but feel a bit like a weird baby version of him with the amount of cast members I have to push around and draw.. And I want to be clear. If FFAK was written as a book, it wouldn’t happen. I cannot write books. I do not think writing books is easier/faster than making comics, but sometimes it is hard to have to draw everyone. Point is, I understand the reality of a long-term comic project now, I have numbers and logs to prove it  and my range. And I’m fairly consistent, even in my low days. So.. in recent years my writing style has.. has changed to accommodate.. Those.. General Realities i’ve observed in myself. 

That’s why the second arc excites me. It has a lot of uhh, urgency that underlies it. You might have already noticed a change in the tone in chapter 16, which I’ve been working on for almost a year now. (I mean, I’ve been working on the written version for.. LOL.. much longer.) Maybe you haven’t! It could all just be from my own POV with how differently i feel that I delegate time to characters now. I did not start “writing” FFAK until chapter 10, and then i did not really start WRITING writing ffak until about.. Honestly, i want to say as late as 2019. It TOOK SO LONG you guys. I dont even know how many fucking thousands of pages of madness word documents I’ve got, with revision after revision and trying to list, contain, every possibly plotline… character backstory.. Blah blah blah.. Ive cut it down so much its impressive only to me. I don’t remember my lore anymore , and i love it. My readers probably know my lore better, and I don’t love it. Except when it benefits me. Then Its good. I would not describe myself as a RUTHLESS cut THROAT author, im actually too way sentimental to really let go of anyone. That’s why it took me so long to kill off Rock, but also because I wanted spoon to look really sexy and evil and that’s hard to do sometimes when I cant remember what half side he is. And when he was flipping around, I had to actually make a paper doll for him so i could TRY .. TRY to draw his arm on the correct side. Sometimes I didn’t. I just let it go if the drawing is good enough and i let it be a fun game for the readers to catch. But anyway, That’s why characters like Aeschylus are still around. Now that time has passed, I kind of regret it. Rome was right.. I dont need Aeschylus here and I’m mad he brought his friend Randall too. That being said, they’re some of my favorite characters in this arc even if they’re totally useless. In general, i have tried my best to not repeat all my writing sins and all my regrets of arc 1. I would not have been able to do this without the help of NRD to help get me to see that I can get attached and motivated to write new stories. When I hit my writing block in 2016/2017, it almost broke FFAK. FFAK still continued, but it also didn’t. But i was patient, and i worked through it.. And now I look forward to the ends of my comics, not because I want them to end but I’m very deeply excited for all the new opportunities my imagination to go to. I don’t know what that will be like. I don’t know how long it will still take me to get there, but I have it on [digital] paper and it does feel good to see that. Its affirming. I feel like i have a clear mission and I feel strong enough to really do it and commit to it. The second arc has barely started but in my heart I’ve made peace with the ending, whatever it might actually result as. 

Plus if I finish it and its so bad, I’m sure that will be inspiring in itself! People might actually write fanfics!! I think a lot of readers are NOT going to enjoy the ships, for one. The MEAN greedy part of me hopes they don’t. That’s the most ruthless part of my writing to me is the ship choices. Oh! My evil mind. I mean theres no possible way to please everyone, or even myself, but there is a possible way to displease a lot of people. Including myself. So that’s kind of the route I find myself drawn to. Why? Because it gets me out of the hole of like.. I dunno, being stuck. 

I used to write out a lot of big posts but over the years, I’ve kinda stopped. Mostly bc they were honestly really repetitive..or about lore that didn’t truly matter too much… That hasn’t really changed. This post is more or less “im still working on it, everyone! Just hang tight! Wow it’ll be a crazy wild ride” but it also is something I wanted to write to myself as words of encouragement. This has been a tough year. Like so tough that its hard to think about. But its very nice to feel like, i guess, my drive for my stories hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, i really feel like i’ve gone through the mourning and ego death of “not being able to write a thing how you want” and now I’ve made total peace with it. Its just gonna be what it is, and I like that actually. When my life is tough, my comics at the moment serve as a place of hope for me - and assurance that I can survive through tough years. That’s the message they have ultimately given me, finished or not. And… I honestly don’t think of FFAK or NRD as my masterpieces or anything, but i know they might very well be the only stories people will know of when they think of me. If they think of me! So I wanna do a complete job with those. Rest assured, it’ll get there. I cant make big promises about all the comics I work on… even the bonus comics for FFAK, but at least those main two are my main priorities. That has not changed. THE FIRE is still in me. Even if FFAK took a like.. Mental.. 5 year hiatus its back baby. 

I’m about 30 pages in to my 50 page script for chapter 16, so I guess it’ll be around 300-400 pages more before its done. Things are picking up speed! So it could be less. I am also preparing for the monster that is the 7th nasty red dogs chapter. I cannot stress ENOUGH that this next chapter, I have put off since chapter 4. Yes, I’ve actually buffed the story out to be longer than it intended, just to avoid drawing it. I even put a horse guy in there, I never draw horses because those ALSO have legs but they’re worse than dog legs. And, its not that i didn’t want to draw this part of the comic! But I didn’t think i could do it. It intimidated me. It still does, but, I’m gonna do it already. I know chapters 8-10 will be hard too but like…eh… I know in my heart its gonna really be about 7 for me. It always has been about 7 to me.. 2024 will be a big year for my comics for sure, just because of that alone I think. Not only will I have chapter 16 done, as the first step of the 2nd arc and a new adventure of my apocalyptic wormy drama, I’ll be facing my fears of the dog variety. Its TIME. 

I’m so happy people have stuck around for my work, or shared it with others, even if they’re a strange mess. Its interesting to see, who comes and goes. I still enjoy refreshing my comments every morning when I wake up, and right before I go to bed. Its comforting.

My closing thoughts on this. I don’t HATE the ending of FFAK. I… like it! Its an ending. But I LOVE the ending to NRD. i think that ones legit good, i hope. With FFAK, part of me kinda hopes that turning up the pressure on myself of proceeding anyway will help the story. I don’t really know, or expect the ending to change though LOL…. Maybe i’ll come up with something better, but it will be too late so I cant do it or something, and then we can ALL write fanfics together of something else. Then sometimes I think about GUNNM and how the first ending was retconned but then last order was like? Basically the first ending again? I dont know actually, its hard to remember. THATS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN BTW. Also the ending is not everyone dies, even though that ending is fun and tempting. I didn’t do it, because end of evangelion already exists and its got a great song to go along with it too. YES it is also tempting to have someone go “WELL That was A FEAST.. For a KING” as the like final line, but I.. it wont wont. I prommy i take the ending seriously.

The reason I wanted to write all this, with webcomics, I think in general too people are so scared about writing their big comics that take 328523895235 years and the ending being bad. I see so many webcomics just, kinda die before the finale.. Which I totally understand, But I just.. Wanna show everyone that its much better and much more satisfying to just write the ending even if its a fucking disaster LOL. Because ultimately, its a webcomic. I don’t even know how to spell but people read mine! And so.. If theres anything I feel like i can promise and deliver to the world of the internet/my readers, is this big fucking disaster mess.. But it will end someday! And I’ll miss it. I hope readers will too, when that day comes (?) in probably another… 10 years…. idk.... BUT UNTIL THEN.. I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of chapter 16!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Kosmic Dream

[mechazushi]

Long story short on the video, it's just a breakdown about mummies in history as it correlates to the history of its media as well. It's still a good and informative break down (Definitely check it out and support the channel), but as it got to the point of breaking down the tropes seen in movies about mummies and how many of them were seen in previous novelizations, I got to thinking about a story idea of my own.

It kinda revolves around the whole distinction between mummies that are powerful sorcerers that get the benefit of looking like a human and less powerful mummies that are forced to shamble around and be stuck in their bandages. It also dips into the "The mummy is looking to brink back their dead lover who just so happens to be reincarnated." trope as well as "bandage mummies only exist as servants/violent body guards".

So it takes place in the height of England's Egypt Craze where tomb "Unboxing" was still a thing and some British f*cks as well as their ✨gorgeous female assistant✨start poking around in a tomb. It's a lesser known tomb and everyone makes it clear that this was dedicated to some high ranking guard that made a noble sacrifice or something so they decided to make the guy's funeral a little more special. The British guys write it off and go see if there's a bigger tomb to plunder investigate (I feel like I should also mention one of these guys is supposed to be the female's betrothed love interest that immediately gets ntr'ed once the actual green flag walks, or should I say shambles, into the picture.)

Female Assistant sticks around to explore the first chamber more deeply and shenanigans happen. She reads some passages on the wall that has foreshadowing bits into it, maybe translates a scroll or two by candle light because she can't sleep due to the ✨visions✨ or some shit, and ends up accidentally resurrecting the noble guard from earlier. It's initially the lower tier type of mummy, the type that's somewhat mindless and still wrapped in bandages. Shit goes down, maybe it tries to kill the other tomb raiders explorers but it doesn't pan out (personally, I see it as a loony-toons type moment with the Mummy trying to kill them, the Assistant foiling every attempt, and the British guys none-the-wiser) Eventually it's discovered that the mummy seems to recognize the Assistant as someone he once knew and now only obeys her commands.

The Assistant uses that to her advantage and manages to drag it/him back to their lodgings. I have nothing specific for this part, other than that the next third and over of the movie (I see this as a movie. Or a webcomic if you wanna torture yourself.) is just Tarzan and Jane antics where they fall in love with each other. It's also happening alongside a side plot where the mummy is slowly gaining memories/intelligence/the ability to speak as it/he slowly sheds his bandages in the process. (I don't picture him losing all of the bandages. I still like a little bit of monster left to f*ck with. And yes, it's handsome.) Basically he slowly starts reverting back to the noble guard he once was as he remembers why he sacrificed himself in the first place and why the Female Assistant looks so familiar to him.

The last third cuts back to the British guys and them getting to meet the monkey's paw consequence of their hubris. They do the same thing that the Assistant did, only they end up resurrecting an ancient and powerful sorcerer that was sealed away for humanity's greater good. Maybe they strike a deal with the guy, maybe they run like the little b*tches that they are, who knows. Anyway, the mummy guard's spider sense pings and he realizes who ended up getting reawakened. Come to find out, the sorcerer also thinks the Female Assistant looks pretty familiar and does some wibbly-wobbly magic to confirm that, yes, she is some reincarnation of a long dead princess(/competing sorcerer maybe? It would be a nice double twist if you're into that sh*t)

Big fight ensues, the good guys win, and the Female assistant rides off into the sunset on an Excelsior Model 19 with the Mummy boyfriend.

The End.

[m0r1bund]

"Lore, where have you been?"

In hell, probably. I remade M0R1BUND.com.

“For the love of god, why?”

Short answer: to save time and money.

Long answer: Sharing art was getting burdensome. Neocities hosts static websites built with html, css, and javascript—which is awesome for its mission, to encourage people to create future-proof websites. But this also means that every page is created and maintained by hand. I handle every little link and file and bit of code, and if I want to do site-wide changes, I have to push those by hand, too. This takes time, and so does writing image descriptions and cross-posting art to other websites. It became normal for sharing art to eat up an entire day.

I later created Basedt.net in WordPress, so that I didn’t have to worry about managing link hierarchies, which was a big timewaster on my old webcomic. I liked working in WordPress well enough, and I knew I would benefit from being able to use PHP to manage the sheer amount of stuff that’s on M0R1BUND.com. I was also paying double for webhosting through two different services, when I really didn’t need to…. So… I knew it was inevitable that I would consolidate the two at some point. It was time.

I do really love Neocities and I’m sorry to let it go. I encourage anyone who wants to learn web design and create their own website to start there.

Anyway, that’s how I ended up in hell for 6 months.

“What’s changed?”

Most things. I’m most excited about the quality-of-life stuff, like being able to sort art by character/location/world, or being able to move between individual pieces instead of having to return to the gallery landing page. There are lots of things I want to add, but my soft deadline for this was the new year, so I focused on recreating M0R1BUND.com as it existed before… well… this.

I’ve also edited most of my writing. This site is old, and the art is even older, it felt good to give it some TLC.

There are still a few things missing from the new site:

The Woods and RANSOM. They aren’t really representative of Basedt or Mercasor anymore, and I was not a competent writer in 2018. If I re-share them, it will be in the distant future.  

Some of my Those Who Went Missing stuff. I haven’t been playing TWWM publicly, so this is lower priority right now. It will happen when it happens.  

Some twines. They haven’t adjusted to the new filepath format yet. Killswitch is here, though :)

If you need them urgently for some reason, I can share them with you? but that seems doubtful haha.

Links to pages on the old M0R1BUND.com are broken and will remain broken until I set up redirections to the new M0R1BUND.com. I have no idea how long that will take! … Hopefully not long, given the new semester is here.

And of course... If you see anything weird, tell me! I test as much as I can, but I only have access to so many devices. Break this website within an inch of its miserable life so that I can fix it.

“How’s Basedt going?”

It’s going. Recreating my website took precedence for the above reasons, but I’ve been working concurrently on it in my spare time. We move like a glacier into the new year. ETA: ???

[genericpuff]

someone responded to me on reddit with their own theory as to what's going on with the eisners so i'm gonna share it here because it's worth reading 🍵

like there's definitely the aspect of it being a Webtoons Originals at play as well, I obviously can't feasibly prove that WT's is paying out the Eisners for their wins and that's not an accusation I wanna be throwing around willy-nilly, but the brand affiliation alone almost definitely factors into it all (and it definitely doesn't help the Eisners seem legit when they keep awarding the same comic 3 years in a row).

There was also a comment I found in the /r/comicbooks sub from the perspective of a former judge-

Considering how much work it would take to properly read the entirety of the nominees - as most webcomics are long-form and will require starting from scratch - I wouldn't be shocked at all if the win came down to "well we know this one won last year, and it has 6 million subscribers, so yeah, that one". Again, I don't want to accuse the judges or the organization of anything, but I do think at best the results of the judging are going to be affected if not outright stunted by the process itself.

All that said, it doesn't take a genius to look at how LO has fared over the last three years and understand that even from a purely objective point of view, nothing about the comic stacks up against the other nominees. It's dumb af because I'm seeing some people arguing "well there were only FOUR other nominees, which one do YOU think should win? you don't read those other four comics?? well then OBVIOUSLY LO deserves the win!" because... no? That's not how that works? It's such a strawman argument to justify defaulting the win to LO just because people on IG might not have ever read a comic like Matchmaker or Asturias before. Just because the people complaining about the LO win might not be familiar with the other nominees doesn't mean those nominees aren't bringing more to the table than LO. Which a lot of them very much are. Shit, Evan Dahm alone has been creating comics online since like the mid 2000's (??) he's an incredibly prolific creator with a lot of successful works under his belt, but apparently LO should get the win anyways... because LO's readers have never read 3rd Voice before? Come on. This is like that time when TOOL beat out Taylor Swift in their album release sales and a bunch of Swifties were upset because they had no idea who TOOL was, meanwhile all the dedicated middle aged dads were over the moon to finally see some recognition for a classic band that absolutely 100% deserved the spotlight after going so long without a new album. Swift has more than enough victories under her belt, she'll live lmao

At best this was definitely the "retired athlete on their way out" win, as a pal so gracefully put it-

And really, that last sentence really does get across the essence of LO in a nutshell - it's celebrated for being a story that never really existed to anyone who never actually looked closer. A lot of the things that the comic is praised for is often made up by an audience of people projecting their headcanon into what they were reading, because without it the comic had nothing to say. LO has to be good, because that's what they were told from day one, because if it wasn't good it certainly wouldn't be advertised this much or winning all these awards or getting all these merch opportunities or getting all this 'jealous' hate... right?

[gengarghast]

I liked sparklecare until the author did this odd thing where villainous or morally questionable characters are always strictly cishet and even said it was their hard-line rule? Like LGBT characters can never be antagonists or abusive which just felt weird to me, maybe they relaxed on that though I dunno? I am def never offended if a villain shares my gender in a series where good guys can be like me anyway I mean

TLDR: Yeah, there's some weird gender bias with the characters sometimes. Anyways, *starts talking about Awful Hospital again*

Also, spoilers for both Sparklecare Hospital and Awful Hospital. (up to page 41 of SH and various plot point/character reveals for Awful Hospital)

I haven't read too far into the comic myself to confirm, and the genders of the characters were kind of vague anyways thanks to Nurse Mood's shitty notetaking (EDIT: I learned about the existence of the 'Cast' page, my bad), but yeah I've definitely seen a pattern where the LGBT characters are all 'good', regardless of whether they're a patient or employed by the hospital.

For example, Mood and Ms. Dies are in a lesbian relationship. They're also both employed by the hospital, and despite this are portrayed sympathetically, in opposition to Dr. Cuddles' being genuinely malicious and cruel, as seen below:

...Even though it's also shown that Mood doesn't give half a shit about the patients, either.

Now, if you want some equal, well-handled representation, look no further than seriously one of the worst best webcomics of all time...

Awful Hospital, despite the majority of its cast not even being remotely human, has some great LGBTQ representation in both it's heroes and its villains! Well, 'villains'. The only real villain is the Big Bad(s) of the series, everyone else is just doing what they gotta do in order to survive.

Speaking of which, this is E.M. Balmer. He's a villain of a whole arc, and has a sort of "kid's cartoon villain" vibe. Goofy, incredibly self-absorbed, and affably evil. He's also implied to have some sort of interest in another male character, Dr. Phage.

Also, just tell me this beefcake isn't some sort of a Gay. Just look at him.

...AAAANYWAYS, in terms of heroic queer characters, you've got your choice between the Lesbians and the Trans.

Celia and Staph are this really sweet fungal/bacterial couple who have like a trillion kids and are also besties with the person who's corpse they live in.

Miss is cleverly implied to be trans with this line here:

Which, personally, I think is really cool!!!!

ALSO I JUST REMEMBERED, THERE ARE ALSO SCISSORS WHO ARE LESBIANS! AND ALSO THESE STAIN MOMS

Also, I realize I didn't really talk much about how cool and epic Awful Hospital's LGBTQ+ characters are very much, buuuut that's because I'm tired and need to sleep so whatever

Anyways, goodnight tumblr people, and...

Read Awful Hospital for fuck's sake!!!