#I make decent edits I’ll draw the comic fuck it

[internetbanality]

Part 3 of my Fence/Skyward AU for @applesandbannas747 ′s birthday! Thank you so much for being an awesome friend, Jack, and I hope you have a wonderful 361 days until your next birthday!! 

Love you, you neurotic lil bean. (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3

Taken from pages 415-417 of Skyward by Brandon Sanderson

Seiji: Right. Don’t fix. Just listen.

Nick: Just listen.

Nick: I don’t know that I can trust my own senses, Seiji. There are... signs my father exhibited before he switched sides. Signs I see in myself.

Nick: Hearing sounds from the stars. Seeing thousands of spots of light that I could swear are eyes, watching me. I seem to be losing control of everything in my life--or maybe I’ve never had any control in the first place.

Nick: And... Seiji, that’s terrifying.

Seiji: You are amazing.

Seiji: Everything about my life is planned. Careful. It makes sense. I understand it. Then there’s you. You ignore my authority. You follow your feelings. I should hate you... And yet, when you fly, you’re amazing. You’re so determined, so skillful, so passionate. You’re fire, Zero.

Seiji: I don’t care about the past. I don’t care if there’s a risk. I want you do fly with us -- because I’m damn sure that we’re safer with you at our side than not.

Nick: I’ll try not to crash into you, except when strictly necessary. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nobody asked, but I took pictures of how I create my comics so I decided to include them. This is probably boring but I worked really fucking hard so here we go. First, of course, I researched the best scenes to draw and then, once I narrowed down the 3 scenes, I drew the thumbnails so I had an idea of how best to tell each part’s story. I didn’t include the thumbnails because I also used them to test my colors and you can’t see shit.

Drawing comes first...

Then the inking, which comes in two stages. The bottom half of the page is stage one, and it’s just a basic get-it-all-roughly-inked with no detail (which I recommend because things are going to lighten and fade when you go back to erase your pencil marks), but the second stage -- and my favorite stage -- is where you go over everything again and bolden the lines, smooth the edges, and add the detail, eg. the top half of the page.

After there’s the coloring, which I super dislike but it has to be done. I bought a colorless blender pencil and it is a gamechanger with using colored pencils and really makes the pictures look decent IRL.

Last is the digital editing and adding the dialogue which is where I clean up places I messed up and make things look pretty. It is a very long stage and I ultimately want to gouge my eyes out at the end of it from staring at my computer screen for so long.

Anyway! If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me!! Making comics takes a lot of work, but it’s cool seeing the results~ Love y’all!!

#Fence comic #Nichoji #Nicholas Cox #Seiji Katayama #my art #fanart #how I will top this bday present next year idk but that's future me's problem

[asleepinawell]

How has poi changed your life? Genuinely curious, I love this show

I got this ask in May '20 and am only now answering it. :')

part of the problem with answering it is that half of the answer would be to the question of 'how has fandom changed your life' where poi is the fandom I've been the most active in and where fandom made the most difference. and that's a long story

my first draft of this was over 2k words long, and went back much further in time explaining how i had and hadn’t fit into queer spaces and fandom throughout my life. I edited it way back but it’s still long-ish, so you can read it below the break

many years ago, when I got my first full time job in my chosen industry my senior year of college I was so busy that I couldn't function. massive unhealthy amounts of overtime and a toxic work environment. (don't work at tech start-ups, kids!!!) my social life vanished. strikethrough on livejournal happened right then too and fandom, which i’d only been a silent participant in at that point, kind of went quiet for a while and by the time it started regrouping I was so busy that I didn't know about it. several awful years later I quit my job, spent several months in my room in my parents' house trying to recover from massive burn out (see my comment about tech start-ups), and then got a job on the opposite coast and left behind my whole circle of friends some of whom made up my entire connection to the queer community at that time.

making friends after college is very hard when you're an introvert and just generally don't like socializing that much. making queer friends can be even harder since there's fewer places to meet them and there's often an underlying question of dating/sex that hovers around awkwardly when sometimes what you want is just an absolutely no romo/no sex friendship. so while I did make a few queer friends eventually, I didn't have that same sort of community I did before I'd moved and I missed it

(I would be remiss in not saying that the queer friends i made in this time are all amazing and wonderful and some are still my close friends and very important to me. The thing I’m highlighting here was the lack of feeling like I was part of a larger queer community).

fast forward a bit. I get sick. like really really sick. I'm in and out of the ER, I'm missing tons of work, I'm mostly bed-ridden. I think after the last few years people can more easily appreciate how intensely lonely and surreal being stuck at home by yourself non stop can be when you're not used to it. sometime right before that I'd joined tumblr for the sole purpose of looking at cat pictures on my phone during boring meetings. I wasn't really aware that this was where fandom had migrated to (it was in fact possible to use tumblr without intersecting with fandom). but stuck home alone with time to kill I started looking for art and gifs of the tv and games I was consuming and stumbled into fandom tumblr and specifically queer femslash fandom.

I kind of poked around the territory and eventually fell into the carmilla fandom which became the first fandom I actually created content for. a few of my fics had a decent audience and while I was never part of the central core of the fandom I made some good friends there. some of y'all probably followed me back then. I eventually drifted away from carmilla for a lot of reasons I won't get into and stumbled right into poi. this would have been between seasons 4 and 5, late 2015-early 2016.

my health problems get more exciting and I end up in the hospital. I have vague memories of watching poi on my laptop in my hospital bed (vague because I was on a lot of morphine). I actually posted some fic while I was in the hospital (would have been the end of my carmilla run still).

and I get out of the hospital (early 2016) and am somewhat better but it's pretty clear that I'm going to have chronic health issues probably for the rest of my life. my social life, such as it was, was mostly dead, a lot of stuff I used to do for fun was much harder to manage. I'm still spending a ton of time at home (not even counting covid) and I have bad days where I feel terrible and can't do much. but I'll come back to that

I think most of us remember 2016. the year tv show runners fully embraced the bury your gays trope (and sometimes the fridging trope at the same time as a bonus!) and, by autostraddle's tally, 30 queer female characters in tv shows died. and then on top of that we had the actual real world tragedy of the pulse nightclub shootings. it was a massively depressing time all around for queer people

s5 of poi aired that year. I know people have different opinions on s5 of poi, and that's valid. I hated it. and I really intensely hated how it treated root and shaw. there aren't enough words to express how fucking angry I was after s5. or rather, there are 319,678 words.

I wrote a fic many of you may have read called sliding towards chaos that rewrote the entirety of poi from mid-s3 onwards. it got pretty popular lol. I put so much into writing it, too. it was basically a second full time job for me and a great way to take my mind off the fact I was still having health problems and all the crazy shit going on in the world (we had a presidential election in the US in 2016 :)))) it did not go well!)

i'm very proud of writing stc, and even if I think it isn't my strongest writing (which is good! improving over time is good!), it was what really connected me to a lot of other people in the fandom. I felt part of the fandom community in a way I hadn't with carmilla and it was an intensely queer community built around shared interests

one of the problems with finding queer friend groups out in the 'real world' is you're often gathering to meet based on the uniting factor of being queer, and your interests may vary greatly. fandom is amazing because it lets you find queer people who you share all these interests with and who you can bond with over them and collaborate with and that's just so so important. does fandom have a ton of issues and toxicity and bigotry? yes, absolutely. but it also has so much good to offer

through stc and later fics I became close friends with some really really cool people in the fandom (including my favorite writer and my favorite artist). these are people I'm still very close friends with. some of them I've hung out with offline and the ones I haven't are mostly because they live too far away. after years of not having my own queer circle of friends I have found one again and one I can usually participate in even with my health problems and that is such an important thing to me

on a creative front, the fic writing and the gif making I've done have both taught me an enormous amount and been a very positive part of my life. working collaboratively on comics has been one of the coolest things I've done. there is just so much good that came out of me seeing one shoot gif on tumblr dot com years ago and being like hmm looks gay I'm in

and in terms of the actual content of the show, I think a lot of the reason I was drawn to it (other than my lingering crush on fred from angel) was that root and shaw felt so uniquely and wonderfully queer in a way few f/f ships I'd seen had before. shaw being bi and reading as aro to me (I've talked about that here) and root being a chaotic computer nerd just felt so relatable to me and their relationship with each other made sense to me in a way that few others had. and the specific draw that they had for some fans probably has a lot to do with why I found friends in this fandom who I really clicked with

so yeah. I don't know how to sum this up. fandom can be a great way to find your people and engage your creativity and I think that's very sexy

#mp #asks #I added the read more line on mobile so I hope it actually works #personal

[neutral-emerald]

SILVER THE COSMIC TIME-JANITOR (or: dude, what's with all the alternate futures)

silver the hedgehog has a very simple backstory. he's a kindhearted, sorta-naive but altogether very driven psychic hedgehog here to save the world by time-traveling to the past (also known as present-day) to prevent the apocalyptic future he was born into from coming to pass!

[ID: A screenshot of Silver from Sonic 06. He’s glowing with cyan energy as he flies over a dark, post-apocalyptic city.]

...wait, if he's time traveling 200 years into the past to completely change the shape of the timeline, how do the stars manage to align such that he manages to be born at the exact same point in the new timeline with the exact same genetics? how are his parents born? does silver have parents?? and how does he do this no less than THREE SEPARATE TIMES??!

hey everyone, i'm tumblr user neutral-emerald here to make good on the idea i vaguely gestured at yesterday and point out silver's wildly inconsistent backstory(s) and then explain to you how this isn't just sega playing hopscotch with the concept of time travel, but actually TOTALLY EXPLAINABLE if you don't mind a whole lot of conjecture and "fuck dude i just think it'd be cool."

LET'S GO.

before i get started, a few things to establish.

first, this is about… half serious, tops. it’s less of a theory and more of an observation of something that’s weird and then throwing some possible explanations at it because i am a massive sucker for time-based nonsense. if you wanna take my observations and build your own conclusions, go for it. i’m not your boss.

second, i'm basing my conclusions off of both the games and the idw comics. the conclusions i draw are applicable to either continuity, but the logic does rest a decent amount on the comics, so just a heads-up in case you were expecting pure game canon from this.

and third, i'm working off like half a brain and very intermittent checks of the wiki and cutscene compilations, so there's probably many things i'm missing! if you notice something i said was wildly off-base, go ahead and correct me in the replies and i'll either edit the post or explain to you just how that detail doesn't actually matter, depending on whether it. y'know. matters.

with that out of the way, let's get into the first topic of discussion!

part 1: the future is inconsistent, y'all

now, i'm not sure if you've heard, but in the year 2006 sonic team released this little indie game creatively entitled Sonic the Hedgehog. it was a smash hit, won countless awards, and for some reason went down in history as a messy, incomplete bugfest. but that's not what matters. what matters is that it introduced Silver the Hedgehog.

silver hails from 200 years in the future. the world is a bleak, fiery place, and has been since the monster iblis was unleashed after princess elise's death. silver was born into this world, which we know since it's literally the first thing he says in his story.

[ID: A cropped line from Silver's story in Sonic 06. "This world was devastated before I was born."]

i'm not going to drag you through a beat-by-beat summary of the entire plot of sonic 06, you should know it already. silver meets mephiles, gets lied to about who caused the apocalypse, mephiles yeets him and blaze into the past, he tries to murder Sonic the Hedgehog™, and so on. eventually he helps kill god, and then sonic and elise travel further back in time to kill god even deader so that none of the game ever happened, and the bad future into which silver was born never happened, thus thoroughly scrubbing silver's existence from the timeline!

...until.

sonic rivals.

i'm not going to speak much on sonic rivals, mostly because i'm not super familiar with it. but what matters is that silver is back! he's still from the future, he's still here to change the past, and most importantly he wasn't deleted from existence by the destruction of solaris, unlike everything else from sonic 06 including everyone's memories of it. and obviously, whatever state his future is in, it's not the same as it was in sonic 06.

now, i don't have a single clue what is going on in rivals 2, so do inform me if there's some big information i'm missing from that one. all i know is he's fixing yet another possible apocalyptic future, like always. correct me if i’m wrong, i don’t have the patience to trawl through it myself.

then we've got sonic colors, in which silver is again from the future. notably, he’s definitely not from an apocalypse!

[ID: Some screenshots from the DS version of Sonic Colors, again cropped to just the text. Tails and Silver are talking to each other.

Tails: What's the future you came from like, Silver? Silver: A lot brighter than this. Silver: The sky is blue, and everybody's got a smile.]

sonic generations doesn't add much. again, correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think we learn anything about what kind of future silver is from, and he's definitely not here to fix it this time. that's sonic's job! he's just hanging out like everyone else.

now, up until this point the future has been reasonably consistent, setting aside my somewhat abstract understanding of the rivals games. there's nothing to say that silver's not coming back in time from the same point in a single timeline, which is the one and only version of the future ever since the destruction of sonic 06.

UNTIL.

[ID: Two panels from the comic Sonic Forces: Stress Test. In the first panel, Silver looks worried as he lands in front of Knuckles, who looks skeptical.

Silver: We've got big trouble! Eggman— Knuckles: How can you be here? I thought you returned to the future?

In the second panel, Knuckles looks away with a self-assured grin, while Silver looks more panicked.

Knuckles: Oh wait— I must be dreaming! Silver: What? No! I've come back with a dire warning from the future!]

i have a lot of issues with sonic forces, especially with how its story is written. something i do NOT take issue with is the supplemental comics, mainly because they are WONDERFUL evidence for my crackpot time travel theory.

like i said, up until this point we don't really know whether silver has been experiencing separate instances of the future, or simply traveling back in time to prevent an also-time-traveling eggman nega from messing things up in the past. but here, we get some very juicy information:

[ID: Knuckles and Silver again. Knuckles has his arms crossed and is looking at Silver, who has a nervous look on his face as he slams a fist on the palm of his other hand.

Knuckles: Come again? Silver: Something happens that brings the world to ruin! But the historical records are sparse or make no sense. I came back to hopefully head off whatever's about to happen and save the future.]

silver travels back in time to prevent a terrible apocalypse. this is not the beautiful future silver came from in sonic colors— but this is the same silver. everyone recognizes him. he recognizes everyone. and yet, the future he came from is different.

part 2: silver is a walking paradox

allow me to remind you of what i pointed out when i was talking about sonic 06. silver was born into the iblis-apocalypse. considering no elaborate timeline nonsense happened to him before the events of the game (by his reckoning) i think we can safely assume he was born like a regular person with parents.

in the first post-06 timeline, silver was probably also born. let's be charitable, acknowledge that sonic team doesn't overthink the butterfly effect like i do, and say that silver was born to the same parents, because the universe likes to keep things nice and simple and contrive itself to make this particular character exist in this time period.

so, it's entirely fair that silver comes to exist in a post-06 timeline at the equivalent point in time, aka 200 years in the future. it's also fair that he travels back in time to prevent some kind of apocalypse, because that's his narrative role! it's what he does. when it's time for him to exist in the story, that's what he's there to do.

what isn't fair is the fact that it keeps happening.

[ID: A panel from the IDW comics. Sonic is stretching his legs while looking faintly exasperated at Silver, who is nervously holding his arm.

Silver: Er… No. I came back because defeating Eggman didn't save the future. Sonic: Couldn't even play along. Had to bring the mood down. Sonic: *sigh* Okay, what happened this time?]

[ID: The following panel, cropped to just Silver's text bubbles narrating over a starry sky.

Silver: When I left, my time had been conquered by the Eggman Empire. Everyone lived in fear, choking on polluted air. Silver: When I went back, the Eggman Empire was gone— but so was everyone else. Silver: There was nothing left. No people, no animals, no machinery. Only water and sparse, metallic plant life.]

allow me to summarize my understanding of all this: silver is from the future. normally, the future is good. sometimes it isn't. when it isn't good, he goes back in time and fixes things, then returns to the future to check if that fixed things.

the least conjecture-y interpretation i can come up with is that sometimes silver will go into the past, then go back to the future but end up in a Bad Timeline and thus go into the past again to fix things. there's no weird warping directly between bad timelines, he only gets there by way of the past.

but that's boring, so here's my PREFERRED interpretation.

silver hails from a good future, but sometimes it just changes. he's unstuck from time— if something weird happens in the past, he's the only one to know that the passage of fate was changed, because he went to bed in one timeline and woke up somewhere categorically worse, and the only way he can fix it is by figuring out just what caused this and going back in time to fix it.

or, to say it in a meme:

[ID: A picture of someone lying in a hospital bed with a nurse standing next to them, edited so that Silver is in the bed.

nurse: sir… you've been asleep for 2 hours silver: oh boy i can't wait to wake up in the same timeline i went to sleep in]

part 3: how did this happen?

it's one thing to point out that silver doesn't experience time like a normal hedgehog, and another thing to explain how and why this happens.

fyi, this is the part where i go wildly off the rails and start saying whatever i want. there's a ton of explanations one could come up with, most probably stemming back to sonic 06. i'm just going to go with my own, and probably not come up with a whole lot of concrete evidence because i'm just spitballing. this is me having a fun time. going "heeheehoohoo time traveling hedgehog go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

so. something i haven't touched upon is that in all games after sonic 06, silver can time travel. we never see him do it, it's never explained how he does it. all we know is that he's doing it under his own power.

which is kinda odd, don't you think? should he be able to do that?

in sonic 06, we see three mechanisms for time travel. first is the chaos emeralds. if two people perform Chaos Control with a chaos emerald apiece, they open up a swirling rift in the air which can send them to different points in time and space. silver can't be doing that, for obvious reasons— he's only one hedgehog, and he's not exactly running around with a chaos emerald at all times. that can't be how he does it.

second is a time machine eggman built. that obviously can't be it; the machine doesn't exist at all after the timeline gets wiped, and again, silver is doing this on his own. he's actively antagonistic towards eggman, even. absolutely not this one.

third and finally is mephiles, who can make big purple orbs to take himself and passengers to different points in time. this obviously can't be it either, for similar reasons to number 2, right? after all, mephiles is one half of solaris, who was destroyed before he could be split off. he doesn't exist to be silver's time-traveling uber driver.

...right?

well, obviously. i'm not going to try and tell you that mephiles is secretly alive and shepherding silver back and forth between timelines for no reason. that's ridiculous. no, i'm going to try and tell you that silver is mephiles.

or rather, he's solaris. or RATHER, he's the new solaris, sorta-ascended to the role of Time God after the old one got blown out like a birthday candle.

like i said, i'm going wildly off the rails and as such don't have any concrete evidence to explain why it's this instead of something else, but hear me out. after elise blew out the flame of hope, the universe was left in an interesting situation. someone needs to be in charge of the flow of time, but the previous time-god was just unceremoniously destroyed. but all the power and energy of a time-god has to go somewhere, in some form, in some time.

with nothing else to go off of, the role of time-god starts flipping through every notable being it had interacted with. they're all solidly accounted for in the timeline, except for one. silver the hedgehog was born into a timeline that cannot exist. silver the hedgehog does not, and cannot exist. silver the hedgehog interacted quite a bit with both sides of solaris— he spent a substantial amount of time fighting back iblis, and associated with mephiles, even being one of the few people to directly experience his time travel abilities. silver the hedgehog tried and failed to absorb iblis into himself.

here's my theory: after sonic 06, the universe reasserted itself such that silver was the new Solaris. silver is not consciously aware that this is what he is, but he knows that he can time travel. sometimes the timeline will rearrange itself around silver. he is unaffected by this because he is a higher being unaffected by such petty trifles as "an origin" or "paradoxes".

silver the hedgehog probably doesn't have parents. he sprang into existence one day and everyone just kind of went with it, himself included.

oh also something i thought was neat but couldn't think of where to put:

[ID: More cropped dialogue, this time from Team Sonic Racing.

Silver: I'm fine. It's just, something bad is gonna happen. I can't explain it. I just feel it. Blaze: Have your travels through time given you precognition? Silver: I don't know. Maybe they have. Or maybe I'm just thinking too much.]

silver might be becoming psychic in a future-vision kinda way. that, or he’s riddled with anxiety. possibly both.

TL;DR

silver hails from no less than three separate timelines, his existence is a tangled web of who-knows-how-many grandfather paradoxes, and i choose to believe that he's god.

if anyone who cares more about evidence wants to gather up like, little one-off clues that support or conflict with my conclusions, go right ahead. or just throw your own arbitrary headcanons for what's going on with this at me. or incorporate these ideas into an au or something! i just want more people thinking about what the Fuck is up with silver post-06, because by god there is a WHOLE lot of potential packed in there

anyway thanks for reading make sure to like comment and subscribe—

#hey guys check out how hard i can gesture at a corkboard #is it remotely coherent? not a clue! i cannot process my own writing #sonic theory #silver the hedgehog #text #dot txt

[ectonurites]

illustrator is one of those programs i hate and don't like them, but i have the utmost respect for people who have mastered it, cause yeah

also just because you use ae for amvs/edits doesn't make it it less impressive tbh i think the best way to "discover" a program is if you use it for fun or hobby and find all stuff yourself (+ youtube, of course)

Illustrator’s a weird one but once you get the hang of it and recognize like, there are certain things it’s good for and there are certain things it’s better to use other programs for, you can make it work. Like i often will end up on a single project bouncing back and forth between photoshop and illustrator a decent amount, because like i do not even try to draw or anything in illustrator like i know you theoretically can but that’s not the life i am trying to live, but illustrator is fantastic for doing stuff with text, and like importing assets drawn in photoshop into illustrator is usually what i’ll end up doing (and then sometimes playing around with them further in there with some of the tracing tools and whatnot) 

and YEAH definitely when you have a like passion project it gives a good motivation to learn like. i technically learned after effects at my internship a summer or so ago bc my friend there had just like, given me some pointers on how to get started but only for some really basic stuff. but then when i was like ‘fuck it i wanna make comic amv/edits for twitter...’ i just took the basics i knew and fucked around until i figured stuff out. in general im too impatient for tutorial videos or anything i just kinda... mess with stuff in a program until i make it work usually sgfdhgfj

#Anonymous

[hyunjilicious]

Happy Birthday (College AU)

A/n: This isn’t edited but i’m so so happy i got this done!!!!

Summary: Yn and Shawn broke up 2 months ago, but her when her birthday come around, things changed.

I hope you’ll like this, feedback makes my day! Enjoy! Love ya!

-

Your ears buzzed heavily as you stared into the bartenders eyes, your mind, for whatever reason, now completely blank. Despite realizing you had been asked a question and that people were waiting for an answer, you just found yourself at a loss for words. Something was surely going on inside your mind, but you still couldn’t quite put your finger on it. “Just plain vodka” Danielle yelled, leaning across the bar. Her loud voice and the way she pushed you aside to talk to the bartender in order to hear him over the loud music at the party, brought you back to reality. “Shit” you groaned, rubbing your forehead, “I’m sorry” “That’s ok” she laughed, talking to you over her shoulder as she waited for the shots she just ordered, “You alright?” “Yeah, I’m fine” you answered, shaking your head. You obviously weren’t, but it was your birthday party, everyone canceled at the last minute and now it was just you and your best friend, so you didn’t want to let anything ruin your night. That whole attitude changed after taking what was probably the 5th shot in the last 2 hours, and at this point, it was very unlikely for thoughts to cross your mind without you vocalizing them, “Shawn didn’t text me” you said, without looking at anyone in particular. “What?” Danielle yelled, leaning closer to you so she could hear what you had to say. “Shawn didn’t text me happy birthday” you repeated, this time not looking at her either.

Her whole expression changed, not displaying curiosity anymore, but just disappointment - in you for caring, not in Shawn for forgetting. “Hun, you two broke up two months ago” she said, placing a hand on your lower back, “He doesn’t really have to do that anymore, does he?” “Of course he doesn’t” you scoffed, “But that’s not the point” “Then what is it?” she asked, even if you could tell she wasn’t too excited about this topic. “We ended things on good terms, I thought he would send me-” you mumbled, before shaking your head and blinking a few times, “Screw this, I don’t know if he forgot or if he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. So I won’t let it bother me” “That’s my girl” Danielle yelled, throwing herself around you for an honest hug. “Let’s find some cute guys to dance with” You nodded in response, allowing her to take your hand and guide you through the sea of people. Eventually,  the two of you stumbled across a group of people your age, who turned out to be close to decent. While Danielle found in less than 10 minutes a guy to cling to, you were far from letting anyone even approach your personal space. There was this dude called Finn, who talked to you about how wasted his friends had gotten mere hours before, and then proceeded to explain to you in the most cringe and poetic way just how beautiful you were, and to be fair, he was starting to get to you. He seemed like a decent guy. Despite rocking what was probably considered the appearance of a greek god, his cuteness what was ended up drawing you to him. Or maybe the alcohol you ingested had something to do with how much you all of a sudden liked him, but we’ll fail to mention that. “Come on” Finn pleaded, holding a hand out to you as he kept his glass close to his chest with the other, “I embarrassed myself enough, save me from having to dance to Hips Don’t Lie by myself!” Leaning your head to the side, you smiled at him, ready to take his hand when your phone buzzed. “I’ll save you in a minute” you giggled, grabbing your phone, and unlocking it only to have the contents of the screen wipe your smile away. You looked at the time, it was 11:43pm and here it was - late, in typical Shawn Mendes style - the text you had been waiting for all night. When you saw his name in the notification box, you actually wondered what the hell went through your head when you were sad he hadn’t texted. Now that he did, you felt lost. He sent the birthday message on WhatsApp. His last seen was immediately after sending the text, but your heart was still pounding, even if he wasn’t in the conversation anymore. Without bothering to leave the dance floor, you started reading it. “Hey, Y/n, I hope you didn’t think for a second that I forgot about your birthday. I’m pretty sure you’re silently judging me for being late tho, and I’m also pretty sure you cracked a smile reading this part, because it’s true. It is late. I’m sorry about that. I’m just gonna go straight to the point and tell you that I’m typing this on a day that’s very special. It marks yet another year that has passed where you, out of the pure kindness of your heart, worked on making everybody’s day a bit better. That’s just you, it’s the way you wear you heart on your sleeve, it’s the way you put people first and it is, simply, you. You’re a beautiful soul, and the day where I won’t be thankful for knowing you, will never come. I look at myself and I like what I see. Despite trying so hard to move on, every time I look in the mirror, I see a little bit of you, because you helped me grow, and even if it’s hard, I love it, because again, it’s you. One of the things that I admire the most about you is how you stop and put yourself in other people’s shoes, take their pain away and form your sentences in a way that even their deepest, darkest wounds start to heal. And the best part? You have no idea you have this power. I spent months by your side, admiring your courage, but what made me fall madly in love with you was just how oblivious you were to all the good you were going. It’s simply who you are and that’s why my feelings will never truly go away. I am thankful for you, and for who you are as a person, so I want to wish you the happiest of birthdays, because god knows, you deserve it.” “Thank you. You almost made me cry” you typed, and hurried to lock your phone. With a deep ache in the middle of your chest, you wrapped your arms around your middle, and took a deep breath as this was not something you knew how to deal with. Even if the party was still going strong around you, Shawn and everything he meant to you, took over your mind, and you only realized what was going on when droplets of tears fell against the skin of your forearms. “Nvm, I’m actually crying” you texted, then stuffed your phone back in your pocket and covered your face with your palms. Looking through your fingers, you saw Danielle making out with some random guy a few meters away from you, while Finn, who moments before actually seemed interested in you, now had his tongue down some chicks throat. You actually considered leaving, but it was your party and there was only one guest. There wasn’t much you could do. So, you sucked it up and pretended nothing happened. You didn’t even bother to hide your tears and swollen eyes, everyone was too drunk to care. The night ended much, much later; the sun had risen and Danielle was still feeling the music. A disappointingly long while later, you two found yourselves in a taxi, headed over to your place. When you made the plans for the party, you invited her to sleep over, so you couldn’t back out now and send her home. The next day, you woke up at around 4pm, and after a healthy round of gossip to nurture your hangovers, she finally headed home. Despite the throbbing head ache that was torturing your brain and against your better judgement, you picked up your phone and checked the conversation with Shawn, only to see a few unopened texts from him. He had started by asking how you were celebrating your birthday, and ended by assuming you were in the middle of the best night of you life, hence the lack of replies. You giggled at how off he was. Even if you probably shouldn’t have, you responded to him. It took a few seconds for him to text back, and the way your conversation started flowing was truly painful. You really missed him. “Any chance you’re in Toronto?” you asked, and cursed yourself the second you sent the text. “Summer job” “I work at that comic book store just outside campus. Not leaving the city anytime soon” “I’m so bad at this, my boss is probably gonna fire if I look at her the wrong way. No chance in hell I’m taking any time off” You bit your lip as you typed your response, “Shit, I just remembered I didn’t get the July issue of the TWD comic, any chance you guys have it?” “Only two copies left. Hurry” There was no doubt in your mind that this was probably the worst idea you’ve had in months, but as you brushed your hair and applied your mascara, you didn’t bother to think of any possible repercussions. You took an Uber and 20 minutes later you found yourself in front of that comic book store, amused with how many times you said you’d check it out and with the circumstances that now brought you here. You thought about what you were going to say to him the when you saw each other, but now that you were mere moments away from actually doing it, you really wanted to back out. Your phone buzzed, “Y/n, the windows are tinted, not painted. I can see you standing there like a weirdo lol” said Shawn’s text. ’Fuck’, now you had to walk inside. Saving you from any further embarrassment, Shawn opened the door, and greeted you with his arms open, “Hey, stranger” “Nice hat” you laughed, hugging him for what was probably the most nerve wracking second of you life. “It’s ruining my curls” Shawn sighed, walking you inside. “Oh no” you mocked, “Shawn Mendes without his curls…”. You trailed off, taken aback by the looks of the inside of the store, “I can see why you’re bad at this” you laughed, “There are more books here than I’ve heard of in my entire life” “Wait till some dude comes in, and goes like ‘I’m looking for that comic, with the dude with an eye patch, that’s always dressed in blue and who’s looking for his long lost twin’” he shook his head, walking behind the counter. “God” you laughed, “Is that even a thing?” “Probably not” Shawn chuckled, “But I wouldn’t know anyway. I always call my colleague, Mike, he knows everything.” “You like working here?” you asked, walking over to him, and leaning on the other side of the counter with your elbows pressed against its glass surface. Shawn placed his hand on the side of his face, and mouthed a truthful, ‘I hate it’, “The money’s ok though” “Wouldn’t have seen you make such sacrifices last semester” you giggled. “I’m a changed man” he shrugged with a devilish smirk. “For the better?” “You tell me!” “Only you can know that, Shawn” you smiled. “Listen” he said, “My shift ends in 20 minutes, maybe we can go grab something to drink and talk?” “About?” you asked, your heart starting to pound. Shawn took a deep breath, and after shaking his head, he took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair, “Maybe about how I started drinking at noon on your birthday and went to sleep to sober up before texting you” “Shawn, I-” “Or maybe talk about why you’re here, because honestly?” he sighed, “It’s giving me hopes, and I thought I wanted you to come, but now I think I’m just playing myself” “Shawn, stop” you sighed, grabbing his hat, and starting to play with it in your hands only to stop them from shaking, “You’re not playing yourself, it was my idea to come here, ok?” “And why did you?” he asked cautiously. “Because-” you started but were interrupted by a group of kids storming inside the store. As most of them ran through the isles looking for god knows what, one girl walked over to Shawn, “Hi, sorry, can you help me” “I can try” he smiled, tapping his back pocket, probably getting ready to call his friend and ask for help. You couldn’t help but giggle to yourself. “What are you looking for?” Shawn asked the little girl. “My boyfriend broke his arm yesterday, and my mom is taking me to see him, and he likes Batman, so I thought I’d buy him a figurine or something” Hearing her words, your head snapped towards Shawn, who was already looking at you, pure awe in his eyes. He went to the back of the store and started rummaging through the shelves, as you and the girl made small talk. “I only have 3 dollars and 50 cents” she said, “I hope you guys have cheap stuff here” When Shawn came back, he laid on the counter about 15 different figurines, all nicely shaped and beautifully painted. Finally deciding which one to get, the little girl picked the toy up, and asked how much it was. Seeing the price tag read $19, you hurried to answer her before Shawn did, “It’s your lucky day, it’s 2.99” “Sweet” she exclaimed, handing Shawn the money, and then heading out of the store along with her friends. As you fished the remaining $16 dollars out of your pockets, which by the way were surely going to leave a whole in your budget, Shawn spoke up, “I’m so in love with you” “Shut up” you rolled your eyes and chuckled as you handed him the money. “I’m not taking it” he shrugged. “Don’t make me fight you!” you threatened, starting to walk around the counter. “I’m so scared right now” he mocked you, taking ridiculously small steps back. “Come on, Shawn” you belted, “Take the money” “Nope” “So be it” you rolled your eyes, still giggling. You walked past him, which was suspiciously easy as he didn’t put up any kind of fight, and tried to open the cash register. “Fuck” you sighed, realizing you didn’t have the key to open it outside of a purchase. “Clearly you haven’t worked a day in your life, princess” Shawn taunted, grabbing your waist and pulling you with your back against his chest. Still laughing at your antics, he bend down and allowed his breath to fan over the skin of your ear, “I love you” Remaining in his hold, you looked up. You could still see him out of the corner of your eye, as he was looking at you with a wide smile on his lips. “I love you too, Shawn” you said eventually. “Fuck, yes” he exclaimed, leaning down to kiss you. He went in lewdly, his tongue brushing against your bottom lip as he squeezed you tighter in his arms. Not surprisingly, you proved to be just as eager, spinning around in his hold to grab his cheeks, as you finally allowed his tongue to meet yours in a battle of dominance, which you proudly and most likely, for the first time, won. “Shit” he sighed, after pulling away, “I missed this” “Me too” you agreed, and changed your whole attitude in a second, determined to make sure that if you were going to get back together, this time things were going to be different, “Better time management, ok?” “I promise, baby” Shawn nodded without hesitation. “You don’t push me away when shit gets difficult and I won’t get jealous that easily anymore, ok?” “Babe” he said, shaking his head, “I promise to bother you with all of my problems everyday for the rest of my life. And you  can be as jealous as you want, you didn’t even cross any lines, but I was too blind to see that” “That’s ok” you mumbled, knowing very well you crossed many lines during your relationship, every time out of pure insecurity as he never actually gave you any reasons to get jealous. “We’ll both work on things” “Ok, so…” he whispered, leaning down towards your lips again, “Does this mean I got my girl back?” “Always” you smiled, reaching on your tip toes to kiss him.

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes imagines #Shawn Mendes Imagine #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes one shot #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes angst #shawn mendes x reader

[deltaengineering]

Fall Anime 2019 Part 4: also, he has a gun for a head

Beastars

So here’s the CG anime that everyone for some reason decided way in advance would be the best show of the season, more or less by default. I was very skeptical of this for a multitude of reasons. First of all, that is a bad name for a show and you can’t convince me otherwise. It’s actually even worse because you’re supposed to write it in all caps, but I refuse. Second, it has a terribly on the nose conceit in which all sorts of animals live together in a high school setting and it’s all metaphorical ‘n shit. The main character is a wolf but get this, he’s actually all sensitive and quiet! Yeah, this is definitely rated D for Deep. And finally it’s by Orange, the CG studio that got an inordinate amount of acclaim for making Houseki no Kuni, the show that everyone thinks looks great and finally made CG anime worthwhile (actual real fact: HnK does not look great most of the time and CG anime was worthwhile well before it). 

But enough about my preconceptions since Beastars is... pretty good, actually. If you ignore the setting, which is indeed terribly on the nose. And there’s not much else to say about the story so far besides it. However, it looks significantly better than Houseki no Kuni because it actually has really good character animation throughout instead of a one-minute action scene with flashy spinny camera tricks every other episode. The directing’s strong too, even if the show conspicuously mainly consists of obvious manga panels. I’m still not too hot on the animal stuff but the general writing seems to be sufficiently competent it would work simply on a character level. So I don’t love it, but it seems solid enough to see if it goes somewhere with its “Zootopia but also Beverly Hills 90210 but also they eat each other sometimes″ plot.

Rifle is Beautiful

Remember the whole “anime about some assorted anime girls joining a club doing an oddly specific activity” thing? This is another one of those, and now it’s about air rifle sports shooting. Except it’s not about air rifle sports shooting because that’s apparently way too violent, so they use rifles that look like exactly like air rifles but are actually based on lasers or really bright flashlights (they can’t keep their bullshit straight between scenes, sorry) instead. I just don’t think “girls doing activities” anime should blatantly misrepresent their subject matter like that, you know? With the possible exception of idol anime that is, ain’t nobody who wants to hear about that shit. Apart from that it’s nothing special, so if you are really into air rifles and wish to watch an anime that’s not about those, knock yourself out. It goes through a whole “club needs 5 members” arc in the first half of the first episode, so I really can’t say where it goes next. Nowhere much, I would guess.

Oh right, there’s one more thing: They frequently render the bodies in CG and the heads in traditional drawings, and they do it every time when they’d actually have to draw a rifle otherwise. It’s a weird effect that I think I haven’t seen anywhere else before, and it’s not great but also not terrible. And it’s the most interesting thing about the entire show.

Kabukicho Sherlock

“Let’s take a bunch of public domain characters and put them into a hip modern setting” seems to be its own genre at the moment, and not only because the BBC did that with S. Holmes, Esq. already. Obviously this show is influenced by that (besides other public domain namedroppers like Bungou Stray Dogs), mostly in Watson and his relationship with Sherlock, but Sherlock-san is rather different here; he’s neither the classic Victorian bohemian nor the abrasive sociopath of the BBC version, and tends more towards a bumbling 90s pop culture version of autism and/or general wackiness here. These two are surrounded by a bunch of campy transvestites for some reason, and I’m not quite sure whether I’m supposed to find this particular stereotype offensive or empowering this week, but it sure is annoying. And it has the same character designer as Joker Game, so if you like chiseled, angular anime men, you’re in for a treat here - even if they tend to wear a lot of makeup and dresses sometimes. I don’t know man, it seems sort of okay-ish for the most part but it’s neither as funny as they think, nor as weird as they think, nor is the murder of the week intriguing at all. Oh yeah, he’s hunting noted public domain character Jack the Ripper. Because of course he is.

 Shin Chuuka Ichiban!

I am told this is the sequel to episode 19 of a 52-episode anime TV show from 1997. Okay. I am also told to not dare watch this without the important setup therein, which makes me think I should pay less attention to what I’m told because understanding Shin Chuuka Ichiban and its backstory is not hard at all. Kid is superawesome cooking champion in ancient China and goes around clowning on lesser cooks, got it. It’s not a complicated setup and it’s not a complicated genre either: This seems to be mostly about sick shounen cooking duels. Besides the setting, the main difference between this and Shokugeki no Soma seems to be that SnS goes for ridiculous and Chuuka Ichiban goes for epic - which is to say that it fancies itself emotional as well. Apart from that it’s what you’d expect from a cooking shounen, big moves, big reactions, huge twists and so on. One notable thing is that this show looks really, really nice. Production I.G seems to be establishing a sideline in taking stuff from the 90s and updating it with smoother animation and shinier lighting, while keeping the overall look intact; They did it for Mahoujin Guru Guru, and this looks much the same. Still, I’m just fundamentally not really interested in what appears to be a very straightforward cooking shounen from the 90s.

Assassins Pride

Straight from the Department of Chuuni, we have this light novel masterpiece about a cool as fuck teenage assassin who teleports behind u and nothin personells fools all day. He then meets a princess he’s supposed to off but just kinda decides not to, probably because she seems to be smitten by his m’lady act. Now he has to use his sick skillz to keep them both alive. It’s awful and terrible and no good and also kind of adorable. This truly is the most 13 AND A HALF MOM years old anime in a while, and it’s not even isekai! The writing’s just so amateurish and corny you can’t help but smile when princesses exposit their backstory for no reason while being accosted by pumpkin monsters (without knowing that Awessassin McCooldude happens to be listening in, which is certainly convenient). Or when the episode ends with the man just reading the synopsis of the show out again, in case you were too fascinated by this plot to pay attention to what it’s about. Yeah I’m not going to watch this in a thousand years, but it sure made me chuckle. Your mileage may vary.

Mugen no Juunin - Immortal

Speaking of 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔡𝔤𝔢, another anime adaptation of Blade of the Immortal appeared! You know, the manga for the cultured and historically minded guro fan. The first episode of Blade of the Immortal runs with this and is an arthouse production that someone most definitely directed the shit out of. I don’t think I’ve seen this much directing since, well, Sarazanmai, but “Ikuhara amounts of directing” is pretty much the idea here. And most of the time it even works! The quickly edited, disorienting style gives episode 1 a feeling closer to horror than to a cool swordmen action show, and that really brings out the best in the material, which is grotesque splatter bordering on the comical - It’s somehow a better Junji Ito anime than the actual Junji Ito anime. I think it tries too hard in a few places, but at least it does try.

But then I watched the second episode and that one’s a fairly conventional splatter-comedy swordin’ anime. I am not at all pleased with this development. The third episode was better again and seemed to split the difference between 1 and 2, even if it mostly uses the tricky editing to save on effort in the action –  I would much prefer actually readable fights and the wacky mannerisms in the more psychological stuff, thank you very much. Based on episode 1 I thought we might have something special here, but as of episode 3 I’d already merely call it pretty decent. I guess I’ll still stick with it but man, that’s a real bummer.

No Guns Life

No Guns Life is a neo-noir thriller about a guy who has a gun for a head. That’s fuckin rad and exactly the kind of silliness I am totally down for. He also has a gun for a hand, and there’s also some battle nun’s who carry revolvers with two cylinders, so in short I think the title is false advertising. This sounds very wacky (and it is), but it also takes its noir very seriously, down to details more wannabe neo-noirs tend to neglect (like being set right after a big war). The look and feel is pretty excellent, with sharp design and high-contrast artwork, and the music goes all in on the moody saxophone as you’d expect. And there’s some really adorable “look mom, I’m writing” stuff about how Man With Gun For A Head really “needs someone to pull his trigger” and so on (which is, as the astute reader might remember, at the back of his head). It feels like a throwback but then I can’t really think of many 80s/90s shows like this, so it’s actually more like the sort of faux-retro idea Trigger/Imaishi would come up with on a lark. Trigger/Imaishi would, of course, make a far worse anime out of it, so it’s all good. Well, it has some pacing problems and as always it’s a fine line between amusingly camp and not so amusingly camp anymore, but No Guns Life seems to have enough real qualities that it can probably stand on its own even when its conceptual gimmick eventually doesn’t suffice anymore. I give it a two gun’s up.

Hoshiai no Sora / Stars Align

And finally, here’s an anime about middle schooler softboys playing a tennis just as soft as themselves, while being henpecked by the elites on the girl’s team. This is not an “actual” sports anime though: for starters, it’s not based on some shounen manga and is an anime original with quite some staff pedigree instead. It’s also more of a character drama that already goes to some surprisingly real places by the end of episode 1, reminiscent of the recent and quite good Run with the Wind. Furthermore, it looks delicious, with minimalist but distinctive and varied character designs and animation that’s both extremely detailed for a TV anime and also not trying to shove that fact into your face with flashy stunt cuts. In short, this show seems very simple at first glance but every aspect of it just oozes quality. If nothing else, it’s already worth watching just for the excellent ending sequence where the characters show off their “best” dance moves and the chunky student council president dunks on everyone. This one caught me by surprise and it’s an easy pick for most promising show of the season.

#anime #impressions #Beastars #Rifle is Beautiful #Kabukicho Sherlock #Shin Chuuka Ichiban! #Assassins Pride #Mugen no Juunin - Immortal #No Guns Life #Hoshiai no Sora #stars align

[purplesurveys]

575

Coffee mugs, teacups, or water bottles? I’m not crazy about liquid-holding stuff, but I’d go with water bottles if I had to pick. Bubblegum or cotton candy? As in, those two as flavors? Bubblegum. How did your elementary school teachers describe you? I wouldn’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised if they found me unremarkable. I never recited, got average grades at the first half of grade school, and never really made an effort for the teachers to recognize me. I didn’t start taking stuff seriously till the second half of elementary. Do you prefer to drink soda from cans, bottles or cups? I prefer to pass on the soda. Earbuds or headphones? Earphones.

Movies or TV? Movie, definitely. Favorite smell in the summer? THE BEACH!!!!!!!!! And seafood being grilled at beachside, yummmmm. Game you were best at in P.E./gym? Table tennis. What do you have for breakfast on an average day? On an average day, I skip breakfast. But when my dad is home, he always makes me eat something, and usually that’s fried eggs and hotdogs with white bread. Sometimes he’ll fry rice and pair it with leftovers from last night. Name of your favorite playlist? Right now, it’s a playlist I titled ‘things I wish I said’ and it’s dedicated to Nacho. Lanyard or key ring? My key ring is attached to my lanyard, so that I never forget both my ID and my keys when leaving for school. Favorite non-chocolate candy? Fruitella. Or anything that’s chewy and fruit-flavored (which is still weird to me, considering I hate fruits). Favorite book you had to read for school? Dekada ‘70 and Without Seeing the Dawn. Most comfortable position to sit in? Improperly.

Most frequently worn pair of shoes? I think it’s my pair of Onitsuka Tiger sneakers, but not sure. I don’t keep count. Ideal weather? This question is on like 1 out of 5 surveys, ugh. I like bleak and cold weather. Pencils or pens? Pens. Obsession from childhood? The TV shows Hi-5 and Spongebob. And pogs. Favorite crystal? I don’t think I have any. Favorite activity to do in warm weather? Sulk and complain. Unless I’m at the beach. Favorite activity to do in cold weather? Sleeeeeeeeeeep in, take surveys, and stay in bed wrapped in a blanket. Five songs to describe you? I’m not feeling like anything right now, so I don’t think any of them would be able to describe me. Best way for someone to bond with you? Have samgyupsal with me :) Top 5 favorite Vines? “Come to Del Taco! They have fre...free sh...FREE SHAVACADO” “There’s only one things worse than a rapist – boom” “A child!” “No–” “T-T-T-T-T-T-T-TARGET” “Has anyone ever told you you look like Beyonce?” “...No they usually tell me I look like Shalisa” “Who the fuck is that?” “ME” “Ahhhh, stop, I coulda dropped my croissant” Ads you have stuck in your head? None of them because fuck them all. Average time you fall asleep? 10-11 PM. Sometimes a little later than 11. What is the first meme you remember seeing? Oh man I hopped on that train pretty early. I reached the very first batch of meme comics that came from 9GAG, e.g. the Y U NO guy, the FFFFFFUUUUU– guy, Forever Alone, Bad Luck Brian, the original trollface etc. Suitcase, duffel bag, or backpack? Backpack. I don’t use the other two. Lemonade or tea? Lemonade. Last person you texted? Gabie, I think. I didn’t talk to anybody all day because depression hit bad today, so I can’t remember all that well. Jacket pockets or pants pockets? Jackets, they’re usually more spacious. Favorite type of jacket? Windbreakers or hoodies. Favorite scent for soap? I don’t have a preference, soap should just smell nice for me lmao. Sci-fi, fantasy, or superheroes? Honestly, none of these but if I had to go with one, I’d pick sci-fi. What clothes do you sleep in? Thin and short ones, because I like feeling more cold than warm. Favorite type of cheese? FETA!!!!!!!!!!! What saying or quote do you live by? I don’t like relying on quotes. What are you currently stressed about? Right now, nothing. I’m just feeling down in general. Favorite font? I use Proxima Nova for all my reviewers and school notes, because to me it looks pleasant. It’s actually the default font that my org uses to maintain our branding, and since I’ve worked on a lot of documents for the org, the habit of using Proxima just carried over to my irl files and I ended up liking it. What did you learn from your first job? Proofread every single goddamn thing you write 10, 15 times. From internship. I thought I was decent until my emails were bombarded with copy edits. Favorite fairy tale? None. Favorite tradition? Like, in general? My elementary/high school has a tradition of extending recess break and giving away either free ice cream or slices of our homemade tarts for the feast day of the Assumption of Mary. It’s always one of the most exciting times of the school year. Talent you're proud of having? Reading people. It’s more of a skill than talent, but still. If you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be? I hate questions like this that force me to be creative, so I’ll pass. If you were an anime character, what genre of anime would it be? No thanks. Character you relate to? Monica Geller. Favorite website from your childhood? Y8, probably. And YouTube. Any scars? [trigger warning: self harm] One on my eyebrow, another on one of my toes, and I still have my scars from when I cut myself a few weeks back. Favorite flower? I like any except anthurium. Any good luck charms? Not really. Least favorite flavor of food or drink? Rootbeer/cola and buko. Left or right handed? Right. Least favorite pattern? I dunno if I have a least favorite one... I don’t really pay attention. Worst subject in school? Like, my least favorite among the ones I’m currently taking? Probably layout class. Favorite weird flavor combo? This isn’t a flavor but I’m willing to have mayo with a bunch of other food. When did you lose your first tooth? I was either in Kinder 2 or in Prep, so I was 5-6. Favorite potato food? French fries. Gas station coffee or grocery store sushi? I’ll take the sushi. The gas stations here look so filthy. Earth tones or jewel tones? Earth tones. Do you call them fireflies or lightning bugs? Fireflies. PC or console gaming? Consoles. I’ve never played on PC before. Writing or drawing? Writing. Podcasts or talk radio? Barbie or Polly Pocket? Fairy tales or mythology? I hate both. Cookies or cupcakes? Your greatest fear? Being humiliated in front of a crowd and losing my loved ones are two big ones. Your greatest wish? To have a lot of money later on in life haha. Who would you put before everyone else? G. Lamps, overhead lights, fairy lights, or sunlight? Overhead. Nicknames? Robyn, Byn, Reben, Rolayn. Favorite season? The season where it rains all day and it generally gets slightly colder. We don’t really have a name for it other than the wet season. Favorite app on your phone? Twitter. What is your desktop background? It’s one of the default Apple backgrounds but I picked the landscape that has a pinkish hue. How many phone numbers do you have memorized? Four. Favorite historical era? I like all of them but in terms of social history, probably the Victorian era and the 1900s-1950s. There are some very interesting anecdotes about the way they used to live in terms of cuisine, sanitation, education, etc.

#survey #surveys

[tessatechaitea]

Teen Titans Spotlight #14: Nightwing

So that's why I finally dropped this series: they dropped the "on:".

You might have forgotten that the biggest gang in Gotham in 1987 were the Jewish Surrealists.

I don't even care how many people don't know what the fuck I'm on about. Did you know this world is on fire? Batman is busting a cocaine shipment into Gotham in the prologue of this comic book. According to the cover, he's about to be crucified. I guess the Jewish Surrealists are still micro-managed by Caesar's Hand. Speaking of unbelievable things in comics (this segue works because I believe I was speaking about it fifteen hundred commentaries ago when Nightwing drove a motorcycle up the wall of a building), how does Batman always wind up unconscious and in some form of complicated trap and yet, in all the time it takes to put him there, nobody ever takes the mask off. Not one henchman is curious? Not one henchman binding Batman to the cross ever thinks, "If I knew Batman's identity, I could quit this henchman gig, sell the information, and retire"? I don't believe it. My theory is that thousands of henchmen have tried this plan but Alfred intercepted all of the blackmail notices, hired Jason Bard to find who sent them, and then hired Tommy Monaghan to kill them. I would just like it on the record that I spelled Tommy's last name correctly before looking it up. The Jewish Surrealists capture Batman because they had a sniper with a tranquilizer gun on overwatch during the deal. Batman gets drugged, blackjacked, and spit upon before nobody thinks to take off his mask.

At least I hope that's spit.

I guess if that isn't spit, I now understand why nobody took his mask off.

"Are ya kiddin' me, Rudy?! Put yer fuckin' dick away and help me schlep this bastard into tha van! The boss can take tha fuckin' mask off. Ugh."

Alfred calls up Dick Grayson when Bruce doesn't show up for morning stitches. Dick sighs, hangs up the phone, and goes off to do a literally thankless job because Batman thinks expecting people to be there for him is the same thing as gratitude. I hate complaining about the art because I never complain about the art. So when I finally complain about the art, that means I really fucking think the art sucks. And, well, I'm complaining about the art now.

"Fuck dinosaur references! I got this!" -- Stan Woch

This is some of Woch's earliest work with DC so I shouldn't be too hard on him. Plus he's still alive and he might read this. Although wouldn't it be worse if I were criticizing the work of a dead man? Also, he draws a pretty decent studio apartment and jizz dribble. Nightwing heads off to save Batman even though he knows Batman doesn't need saving. If Batman seems to need saving, it's only because Batman misses Nightwing and this is the only way he can see him without admitting that he misses him. "Oh no!" says Batman as he tries to remember what it's like to feel sleepy from tranquilizers or to feel concussed from a blackjack to the back of the head. "My legs are all, um, wobbly? I'm, um, falling now, right? OH! I'm helpless! I just peed a little too!" Then he lets the bad guys kidnap him and waits for Alfred to worry way too soon and call for backup. And of course Batman would choose a night when Jason Todd is off in California and Superman is off on Oa and Wonder Woman has her anniversary dinner with Steve Trevor.

Oh, just because he's suddenly half-robot, I'm supposed to believe some high school football star can now design high tech contact lenses?! Fuck you, comic books.

Dick finds a vial of acid left behind as Batman as a clue to who murdered him. I mean kidnapped him, probably! Who would kill Batman when they had the chance? I mean if they actually had a chance and Batman wasn't completely faking and ready to start breaking kneecaps the second somebody tugs at his cowl or tries to put a bullet in his brain. Anyway, the acid vial reminds Dick of that one case which was the only one ever in which Batman used a vial of acid which leads him to Drakkar, a Gotham drug lord. This is less evidence that Batman was in trouble and realized Nightwing would come looking for him and more evidence that Batman wasn't in trouble at all and was expecting Nightwing to come looking for him because Batman misses him.

With all the Batman themed stuff in this picture, that marquee obviously says Debbie Does Batman.

Nightwing threatens to beat up some cowardly punk named Skates who Batman apparently beats up every time he needs information. And even though Skates always gives up the information, he somehow hasn't been killed by any other Gotham criminal. Skates tells Nightwing that Batman is going to be killed at midnight in the graveyard. It's going to be a huge party. But instead of thinking, "I'll go to the graveyard and stop this!", Dick wastes precious time tailing Skates hoping he'll lead him to Batman or Drakkar. When Nightwing loses him due to Nightwing's fandom crowding around him, Nightwing thinks, "Wait. What did Skates say? Oh yeah! He gave me everything I needed to know! But now it's so close to midnight, I might not make it in time! Shoot!" Drakkar's plan is to auction off the right to unmask Batman and put a bullet in his brain. So, you know, almost the plan I proposed when they first knocked him unconscious! Stupid greedy thugs! Now Drakkar won't be rid of Batman or rich because Nightwing has found him! And he saves Batman in the nick of time! Time for hugs and demonstrations of familial love and intimacy!

Oh Batman!

Nightwing should know Batman cares because he didn't disappear the instant Nightwing looked away. Batman does smile at the end but not until Dick leaves. Only the reader gets to know Batman is capable of the tiniest bit of joy! And that joy probably wasn't due to Nightwing telling Batman that he's proud to have been Robin. The joy was probably in getting away with not thanking somebody for saving him yet again. Teen Titans Spotlight #14: Nightwing Rating: C+. If I had written this issue, it would have been from Batman's point of view. And all along the way, Batman would be thinking things like, "I'll drop this acid vial which will remind Dick of the Great Dragon caper which will lead him to Drakkar and the subway graveyard where I'm certain Drakkar will take me to kill me!" Then Batman will think, "I bet Dick and Alfred are brainstorming how to find me right now!" And later, as the gun is being put to Batman's head, he'd be all, "The lights should go out just about now! Dick will save me in the nick of time which I'll totally razz him over. Should I say, 'Cutting it pretty close, Boy Wonder' or 'Jason would have been here five minutes sooner'?" Then the final panel of Batman's life will be a bullet passing through his head as he's unmasked. The final page would show Dick Grayson sitting in his apartment listening to Cat's in the Cradle with the phone off the hook.

#Teen Titans Spotlight #Nightwing #Batman #DC Comics #DC

[themyskira]

Wonder Woman: Earth One, Vol 2 - Part 1

I’m going to break this into a few parts, because it turned out I had a bit to say. I’ll start with my overall impressions, then dive into the spoilery recap.

General thoughts: Next verse, same as the first.

Grant Morrison purports to want to explore Marston’s ideas, but he’s more interested in the kooky, kinky trappings than the sentiment behind them.

Marston was radical and progressive in his time. Writing in the 1940s, he told his readers that women were men’s equals — and even superiors! — in every way. He told young girls there was no limit to what they could do. His stories promoted love over hatred, peace over violence, rehabilitation over retribution.

If Morrison had taken that bold sentiment and reimagined it through a lens of modern society and feminism in 2018, he might have had a compelling story to tell. Instead, he takes Marston’s ideas as he understands them and transplants them wholesale into a time in which they’re no longer radical and progressive, but rather backward and out-of-step with modern intersectional feminism, and then proceeds to ask such deep, incisive questions as “yes but realistically could we actually replace all world governments with a matriarchy?????”

He never truly deconstructs any of Marston’s ideas, just parrots phrases like “submission to loving authority” a lot and raises questions without ever making a decent attempt at answering them. To be fair, part of the problem is that he’s simply trying to do too much at once: juggling parallel stories in Themyscira and Man’s World, an interrogation of the Amazons’ philosophies and the introduction of three new antagonists and the tensions they cause, all within a limited page count, Morrison is unable to devote the necessary time to properly developing any of them. It’s no wonder the result is so half-baked.

But hey, just throw in a bunch of vagina planes and a dusting of kink and watch as everyone crows over how subversive he is.

Yannick Paquette’s artwork is still beautiful. His page layouts are still dynamic and expressive, and his character designs are still lovely. Diana in particular gets a variety of very cool outfits, including a beautiful modest costume for a trip to the Middle East.

But he still can’t shake his tendency towards drawing women’s bodies in weirdly-contorted poses with bizarre pornfaces. Wonder Woman shouldn’t look like she’s orgasming as she’s leaping into battle, ffs.

Oh, and the series is still being edited by noted serial sexual harasser Eddie Berganza. HASHTAG FEMINISM!

Let’s get into the recap.

Content warning for some skeevy mind control content and general discussion of the gender essentialist, body-shaming, TERFy attitudes of Morrison’s Amazons.

The story opens with a flashback to 1942, with Paula von Gunther leading a Nazi invasion of Themyscira, and god I’m already so tired.

idk, I mean, I get that Nazis were a major Golden Age antagonist, and Morrison is harking back to that. But there’s a broader historical and cultural context to consider. Cartoonish Nazi villains in patriotic WWII-era American comics carried very different associations than they do in 2018, in the midst of a presidency steeped in white supremacy and hate speech, on the eve of a midterm election in which a record number of neo-Nazis are standing for office, at a time when hate groups are surging, when migrant children are being separated from their families and held in detention camps— just. Not a time when I want to be reading about cartoonish super-Nazis, personally.

And I don’t really see why they necessarily need to be this story? The battle serves to illustrate how Amazons combat and… “rehabilitate”… their adversaries. Paula ultimately serves as a plot device. Couldn’t that maybe have been achieved without Nazis?

Anyway, Paula announces that she is claiming the island for the Third Reich, and Hippolyta is like “lol no”.

Okay, that part I like. Evil army storms the island, backed by guns and warships, surround a half-dozen barely-armed women… who all but roll their eyes. ‘Pfft, children. Fine, if you want to play this game…’ And the evil army can only gape in bewilderment as the women proceed to take them apart in minutes.

But this is where it gets weird.

The Amazons fire a purple ray at all of the Nazis, which… makes them all drop their weapons and start screaming “YES!” orgasmically?

Hippolyta tells Paula that the soldiers “will be taken to the Space Transformer. They will be transported to Aphrodite’s world where Queen Desira and her butterfly-winged Venus Girls wait to purge them of their need for conflict. They will be taught to submit to loving authority. They will learn to embrace peace and obedience. They will be as happy as men can be.”

Paula attacks Hippolyta, rips off her magic girdle and heaves a great boulder over her head— wait, were we supposed to know that Paula had superpowers? That seems like something that should have been flagged.

She effortlessly takes down the Amazons who rush to the queen’s defence and takes a moment to cackle villainously. “Behold the pride of Germany! The ultimate daughter of the thousand-year-empire of Adolf Hitler!” To which Hippolyta— okay, I like this part, too.

Hippolyta calmly gets to her feet and puts Paula in a stranglehold. “We are the Amazons of myth, my dear! I am Queen Hippolyta eternal.” She swiftly and efficiently brings Paula to her knees.

But, welp, never mind, it’s about to get fucking creepy again.

Hippolyta forces Paula into “the Venus Girdle”, a device that “charges every body cell with vitalising currents and harmonises the brain, encouraging obedience.”

Paula: Let me go! What is that? What are you doing? Hippolyta: The Venus Girdle? It charges every body cell with vitalising currents and harmonises the brain, encouraging obedience. A dainty thing, is it not? Paula: I won’t— I won’t— You can’t control me— you can’t— can’t make me— make me... oh… make me…

Paula: nmmuhhh… What’s happening? My Nazi ideals— slipping away— they— they don’t make any sense now… I— I thought— I thought— I was strong. What’s wrong with me? I’m so weak— I must be weak to wish to serve weak, cruel men— like— like Herr Hitler— I— I— Hippolyta: If you truly long to be a slave to the ideas of others, well… we can find a loving mistress to help you explore your desires in a healthier context. Paula: Yes. Yes! My queen— [sob] —how can you ever forgive me? How wise of you to know— to know this is all I ever wanted! Hippolyta: Devote yourself to me by following the Amazon Code. Go with out sweet Mala to Improvement Island. There you will come to know yourself until the Venus Girdle is no longer required.

Paula: But all I want is to serve you, my queen! I love you! Please don’t turn your back on me!

Basically, Hippolyta forcibly uses a mind-altering device on Paula that alters her brain chemistry to make her placid, compliant and suggestible, then immediately washes her hands of her.

So… let’s talk about this, because I think it strikes at the heart of the problems with Wonder Woman: Earth One.

Queen Desira, the Venus Girls, magnetic golden Venus Girdles that “harmonise the brain” — all these things are drawn from Golden Age Wondy comics cowritten by Marston and his collaborator Joye Kelly. Marston played with mind control a lot in his stories, and not all of it came from the bad guys.

Morrison’s bold, subversive approach to these story elements is to export them wholesale into the present day and force us to feel uncomfortable about them.

In other words, he’s taking some of the weirder and more fucked up story elements from a collection of comics that are widely agreed to be very weird, and then plonking it before your readers and asking, ‘hey guys, have you ever considered… that this might be weird and fucked up???’

There’s nothing clever or insightful about that. And there’s certainly nothing groundbreaking about a cis white male writer imagining a fictitious feminist dystopia where women strip away men’s free will.

Like, if you really want to be subversive with Marston’s Wonder Woman, how about you start by hiring a woman to write it? Why not see what this iconic feminist hero conceived by a cis white man in the 1940s and written almost exclusively by cis white men for over 75 years might look like if she were reimagined and reinterpreted by LGBTI women, by women of colour? By the women left out of those original comics?

That would be subversive. Morrison is just being a smartarse.

So yeah, Hippolyta turns her back on the helpless, brainwashed, lovesick Paula and walks over to Diana, who’s defied her mother’s orders and run down from the palace to get a glimpse of the action. She’s full of questions; Hippolyta brushes them off with the usual (for Morrison’s Amazons) ‘men are shit’ line.

There’s a moment where Paula and Diana meet eyes from across the beach, and each asks, “who is she?” Diana is simply curious; Paula is instantly lovestruck.

Paula: That girl… the image of my queen.

This looks like foreshadowing, but spoilers: it goes absolutely nowhere.

Sidenote: If the Amazons deal with invaders by brainwashing them, why did they want to kill Steve Trevor in Volume One?

Cut to present-day America, where a room of faceless men discuss the threat posed by the Amazons and their superior technology, which they assume extends to deadly weaponry. The only in they have with the Amazons is Wonder Woman, and to get through her defences they’ve called in “an expert in female psychology”, aka a misogynistic monster.

Doctor Psycho: Gentlemen. She may be strong and tough and smart and beautiful… but she’s just a woman. I never met one I couldn’t break.

Oh, goody.

Cut to a cute splash page of Diana playing baseball. She gets a lot of great outfits in this book.

She’s also clearly making an impact in Man’s World; her face is plastered across every magazine, and people flock to hear her speak.

A Q&A sessions serves as a thinly-veiled opportunity for Morrison to answer some of the criticisms of the first book. His response leaves something to be desired.

“Amazon training can make any of you into a Wonder Woman,” says Diana. We teach a system of physical and psychological health and vitality. The grace and beauty of Aphrodite, the skill and wisdom of Athena.”

Woman: What about Wonder trans women? Is there room for people like me in your utopia? Diana: There’s room for everyone. The Amazon Code was evolved by women over thousands of years and outlines a progressive, pacifist way of living and thinking that anyone can follow.

I’m sorry, but that’s a fucking bullshit answer. It’s a weak, superficial gesture towards inclusiveness that conspicuously fails to express any real support or solidarity.

And depressingly, this is 100% in-character for Earth One Diana, because Morrison’s Amazons? are absolutely TERFs. As with the mind control content, Morrison has exported Marston’s 1940s binaristic gender essentialism unchanged into the 21st century in order to ask searing questions like ‘hey but what if??? the idea that women are genetically more suited to ruling??? is simplistic and flawed?????’ But the most he’ll engage with the genuinely insidious implications around the exclusion of trans and nonbinary people is a smiling noncommittal, ‘Are trans people welcome? My friend, everyone is welcome! No further questions!’

Morrison’s Wonder Woman displays a profound disregard of context. He ignores not only the cultural, historical and individual contexts that shaped the original 1940s Wonder Woman, but also the contexts of the time in which he’s currently writing and the cultural space that Wondy has come to inhabit today as a feminist and LGBT icon.

Removed from context, Morrison is simply taking a hero who traditionally hails from an advanced utopian society, taking another look at the views that society actually espouses, and reframing her as a well-meaning but naive hero from an advanced but deeply flawed and unsettling society.

In context, he’s doing exactly what Brian Azzarello did in turning the Amazons into murderous man-hating monsters, just with more kink and vagina planes.

Woman 2: Umm, there’s a lot of stuff on social media about how you dress provocatively and promote an unrealistic body type, which is basically setting a bad example for women. I mean, the stuff you do is amazing and all, it’s just… does any of the criticism bother you? Diana: I don’t think there’s any such thing as an ‘unrealistic’ body shape. My own body is the result of diet, exercise and… um… sophisticated genetic engineering. Otherwise, I dress as I please.

Volume One made it clear that all Amazons have the physique of supermodels, and when they encounter the diverse body types of the women in our world, they are disgusted and respond with body-shaming insults. Here, Diana again avoids voicing any actual support (she doesn’t say that all women’s bodies are beautiful and valid, she suggests that her body type is not unrealistic), while also throwing out eugenics as a reason for the lack of body diversity among the Amazons. Oh good, I was hoping we’d get more Nazi parallels!

Finally, a militant white feminist stands up and observes that if the Amazons are capable of half of what Diana says they are, then they could dismantle the patriarchy overnight — so why is Diana wasting time giving philosophy lectures? “You can control people’s minds with that lasso of yours. Like you did with that dude on TV— so why can’t you put a lasso ‘round the whole world?”

Afterwards, talking to Beth Candy, Diana’s like, ‘gosh, Beth, I’ve never seriously thought about world domination before, but maybe it is time to consider stripping all mortals of their free will, dismantling all nations and compelling everybody on the planet to bow down before Amazonia.’

Then Diana gets on her mental radio and calls her mother, confessing her doubts about her mission.

It was around this point in the book that the Amazons’ dialogue began to grate on me. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was at first. Every line read like a ceremonious pronouncement. They used antiquated syntax and words, like “whole systems … must o’erturned be” and “she did, without due caution, this, her island home, depart!”. Even Diana would become infected with it whenever she was speaking to them. It felt like they weren’t so much conversing as they were reciting… 

...verse… 

oh my god, that motherfucker.

Surely he hadn’t.

I scanned the dialogue again. I double-checked it.

He had.

Grant Morrison, that obscenely pretentious wanker, wrote all of the Amazons’ dialogue in dactylic hexameter.

For fuck’s sake.

After finishing her call with Diana, Hippolyta learns that somebody has vandalised one of the temples with the symbol of “a backward-turning sun”, i.e. a swastika. Unseen by everybody, Paula breaks into Hippolyta’s palace.

#comics talk #wonder woman: earth one

[unproduciblesmackdown]

hey man your comic stuff?? fucking amazing do you have any tips for a novice child artist such as myself

hmm!!! thats a good question if i have any advice at all…i dont really draw things in comic form that often because of how slow i am…its a whole project for me lol

also natch im just an amateur at all of this vs people who like…pay attention to how to do things really well and/or draw comics on a regular schedule &/or get paid for it and all. so seeing this i was immediately trying to think of like, advice ive seen from random professionals on twitter & stuff & i’ve tried to moreso shake it down to the stuff I’M actually doing when i draw a comic. which is a bit tricky because of my small sample size & the fact that i dont have any kind of consistent process or technique unifying all the comic-type stuff i draw

like sometimes its just a few floating sequential drawings and other times is definitely more like, really thinking of it in terms of how i’m going to structure it in Comic Form & use the format to adjust my presentation of whatever idea i have

like i know ppl whose Job (officially or just by their own standards) to do a bunch of comics pages will do a script of scenes to decide what goes on what page and sort dialogue / action into panels & describe how things will look etc…and then do like maybe really rough layout pre-sketches, then the first rough sketch for a page, an optional more cleaned up sketch layer on top of that, and then the final lineart

i sorrrt of do a version of that, in that i am generally sitting on a Comic Idea for a while before i even start getting into the business of thinking through how it’ll actually work. i have to make sure that im “committed” enough to the idea to wanna make more than one drawing for it, and that i think i have at least a vague notion of how i could put it into a comic. sometimes i DO end up just putting the notion into a single drawing or condensing it into like, 2-3 lil floating drawings or w/e. coz a lot of the times the idea starts out really vague, often with one “moment” that serves as the whole inspiration & that i then try to build a scene/sequence around….a lot of the details beyond that can be really vague in my mind, like the setting or dialogue or who’s involved or what happens or the pacing or extra events or etc…basically Everything is real amorphous for a while

so yea step 1 is me having this one idea and trying to decide if building a scene around it would be a better way to present it vs just having one drawing, & if i think i can actually effectively carry it out….which is in reality even less fancy than it sounds…i just sit on an idea for a while & never get around to actually focusing on it / putting down any of the thoughts abt it that im formulating. but the upshot of me putting it off for forever is that i do end up with a kind of mental script / layout for a comic before i start it…..but even the extensiveness / format of these unwritten scripts varies a lot for me

like, a few times when i have made something that’s maybe longer than just one page &/or something ive been mulling over for an extra long amt of time (which tends to be stuff that is starting out w/ heavier than usual ideas) i’ll like, actually write down what happens page by page, even plan out specific panels, maybe even put down a few rough sketches of certain parts. i’ll have the Main Moment which is the idea that started the whole thing in the first place, but what tends to happen is i’ll come up w other moments that i think could lead up to / frame / follow the main moment, and i pretty much just decide how they all fit into one cohesive piece. so what my “rough drafts” look like for these more extensively planned ones—still really not that exhaustive, i only put things to paper when im basically done enough w my ideas to be just about ready to start actually making them—can vary in their actual formats (e.g. simple chronological bullet points of events, a few drawings, a rough sketch of how the whole thing might look), the core of it is basically just me finding a way to nail down how i’m going to arrange the Moments i have and how i’m going to lead one into the other…….like for things with enough pages / panels, i’ll tend to focus on which Moment will end each page &/or each line of panels, then have an idea of which other Moments i’ll need to put on which of those pages, and kinda figure out how to pace things

again that all sounds like maybe i have a real process…..I Do Not

im kinda lucky in that i think i have a decent sense for composition without having to struggle over it too much. so a lot of times i can leave a lot of that up to be felt out as im actually doing the rough lineart for the first time. i also often don’t nail down panel arrangement that carefully & also make it up as i go along a bit, which is probably not something anyone should emulate. someone was saying something about how some certain page layout of like, 3-something-something panel rows looks best, i dont know. i’m guessing, as with all things, nobody can say “always do this / never do that,” but i think staggering odd/even numbers of panels in each row is always a good guess. just makes it easier for them to read more distinctly at least, surely

sometimes i DO think about certain panels when i wanna frame a certain “shot” in a very specific way. but im just kind of doing whatever. i know vague rules like that wide shots / negative space slows down the pace, vs tightly cropped / small panels / packed w a lot of visual info tends to read as a faster pace, more chaotic. i dont quite go too wild about that sort of thing tho, because for me as a reader, a lot of times really tight shots that are like cutting between 5000 different angles rly fast all in a row, sometimes it is absolutely unreadable to me, as in i do not understand the visual info at all. it feels like the equivalent of how action movie editing keeps hanging on to the “incoherency = intensity” vs just me tuning out until the scene is over & missing details b/c i just am not getting anything out of it

thats not much of a factor for me coz i dont really ever do things with extended sequences of movement / action or whatever. i’ll keep things in one place. i’ll like to do smaller, “quicker” panels moreso to like, show simultaneousish details / to extend one moment…..occasionally i do Big Panels for a moment of higher intensity / impact too. btw putting a High Intensity moment in a super tiny panel is always really funny for the contrast of it all. i dont think ive ever done it, but it is

ummm…….also planning where your speech bubbles will go is good. i dont do that enough, but i should. most of the reason i dont have a more proper, organized process to anything i draw is that i just dont have the focus / patience to slow down for More Planning vs just going ahead and drawing it. jokes on me, since some quick vague planning can make it a lot easier on yourself vs just diving in and struggling w something for ages

uhhh also since im not that fantastic or mindful of panel layout? sometimes i’ll make a point of just having uniform rectangle panels of the same size/shape, so i only have to really worry about the layout within the frame. this is mostly good obv for things with not that much shift in pacing throughout it or action or whatever…you lose the advantage of how panel sizes can affect the tone of a shot or something & probably cant get that detailed in ur drawings but that is often Fine By Me

when i do use the uniform rectangle structure though, i kinda have to focus more on each individual panel, vs like, knowing ok, these three moments are going on this page, i have a vague idea of what’ll connect them, just make up the individual panels as you go along. this does mean that i have to kinda think more about what justifies each panel….how its different from the ones before & after it or how i might want it to be similar to “hold” a shot for a beat or w/e or draw focus to a small movement, what’s actually going into each panel, if i can/should condense two panels into one, etc. its still a lot of playing it by ear, i dont have solid rules of how i think i should do it each time

even when i do have a like whole plan for something im drawing i’ll often make more changes as im actually making it. sometimes its deciding something would be more effective, sometimes it’s just “hey this would work too & be easier,” and thats definitely fine. nobody knows the change you made, and Easier isn’t necessarily Worse anyways. convenience is good where you can get it

ive also definitely had specific comic artists formatting/framing styles in mind when i specifically wanted to use that while drawing my own stuff. like the way i’ll draw maybe a kind of horror vibe (more diagonal lines / “fractured” panels than i’d normally use, quick tiny shots of different smaller details, that kinda stuff) is gonna be different from when its a calm & quiet tone. where i dont really get too creative with the panels really & keep them pretty steady

and then that one time i did a largely nonsequential sort of panel collage b/c the marge simpson anime gave me great inspiration for how to combine & present a bunch of vague notions i had floating around all into one page. it was a good accomplishment & thats unsurprising because the inspiration i was using was That Good. thank god we can all benefit from each others good ideas and knowledge & work & all that. it does help to jump on a feeling of “wow what a cool comic i wish i could make something like that.” just go ahead and make something like that…

ummm this is all on the technical side-ish still but i dont really know what to say abt the kind of stuff that makes me wanna draw a comic in the first place vs just putting the idea into a regular single drawing…usually it Is kind of a more nuanced moment that i think would be better presented within some amount of context and buildup and all that. i basically exclusively draw emotions….and sometimes theyre better shown with some amount of action/dialogue, or at least a few different shots or something. i dont know if this area is helpful information or anything anyone would benefit from knowing about, or even if i have anything to say about it…is it all self evident maybe? idk! i do think i communicate emotions best through comics…not that each one is “here is my mood!” or talking about me at all, but i was for example trying to communicate about an abstract emotion, i think i can draw about it better than talk or write about it or anything. i DO sometimes draw more directly from my own specific feelings/experiences for things, but mostly when i think it can be relevant…i cant really do anything all that directly autobiographical, even casual diary comics or whatever. thats what my text posts are for… but i have been interested in how to convert these huge emotional issues that i’ve been v familiar with into a few pages or panels and how to present its impact in the simplest, straightforward ways i can manage…sometimes i think its worked for sure…..i feel like i gave a more Relatable sense to a certain experience by putting it in comic form than any of the times ive discussed it as a personal thing at length via text. like i said i communicate best via comics probably, despite not drawing them all that much coz im too damn slow lmao

speaking of, i’ve kind of been like “what a waste” abt the fact that i dont have like, a proper approach or regular strategy to thinking up comics before i draw them, but i think theres something actually okay to be taken from that lol……just that i know if i got too caught up in trying to plan it all out perfectly before getting into actually drawing it, i’d be making it into a bigger project and slowing myself down even more & i’d risk dropping it partway through or just never getting started at all. so if i have a less than perfect end result, at least i have an end result, and ive finally got that one idea out of my head in some way. and i feel like some of my comics do work out decently enough….a good handful of times ive been surprised w how well some ppl receive them

so i think it is good to just go ahead and dive in. i did that once w an idea i’d been sitting on for like half a year, and i think it turned out good enough. i just knew i could easily spend months and months more turning over all the details, which might make it Better, but would also mean that yknow, i’d never actually get around to making it b/c of feeling like it had to be ideal. so i simplified it a bit, used a uniform panel layout, did little drawings, and just got it drawn out in an afternoon or two. and now at least it exists lol. and ive sort of come back to the same idea in a way…if i feel like it turns out i wanna elaborate on something more, i can just make another pic/comic built on the same theme, who’s gonna care or stop me

i also try to focus on what lines are/aren’t necessary to avoid things being confusing or just pointlessly cluttery….this isnt a big issue b/c i dont often bother w bgs. dont emulate that either lol…….but im not doing any Serious art so its no big deal to me if im not “good” or not progressing as spectacularly as i might. i dont need my drawing abilities to be that amazing here. but bgs still serve a purpose beyond being a “skill” or whatever so im trying to include them more, aka occasionally, at all. still hardly ever. but sometimes you at least need like one halfassed establishing shot yknow. anyways

mmm this has all been kinda vague and i’m trying to think if there’s anything more specific i could/should talk about!! i dont know. i dont have a good perspective on what its like to look at my art while not being me lol & what ppl might think or what stands out to them or whatever. rip

sorry this is so long, i dont really have ppl wanting to know abt my Processes or drawing thoughts or whatever so i’m kinda jumping at the chance to talk about this sort of stuff after having been actually prompted to. but i dont know if i’ve said anything at all!! i dont know if any of it has been helpful

“tldr; i dont really know what im doing, but go ahead and jump into actually making them as opposed to feeling like youre ready / you know the best way to make a page, because nobodys ever ready or can say This Is The Best Possible Version so just go ahead and use whatever process feels like it makes your life easier, while still actually making the damn comic” is my whole thing, i guess

i dunno, if there was some specific thing you wanted to know abt that i didnt talk about / talk about well here, feel free to ask me to specify because i totally will, which is both an invitation and a warning obviously

sorry this is so long everybody…….writing an essay & by the end of it not being sure if ive given any info at all is part of my whole Thing

#long post // #jfc this is even longer than i thought #i dont know if theres anytning helpful about this at all #maybe its that ‘’if you think i’m good its good news for you b/c you probably know what youre doing just as much if not more than i know #what i’m doing’’

[ephemerational]

Direction (V)

Message to “headless herald of hexadecimal hackery”:

“Sup. What are we gonna do about that webcomic idea?”

“I would need you to write it, otherwise I don’t know what to draw. Also how do you intend to pay me?”

“Just wanted to check in if you’re still interested. What do you mean, we’ll get money from selling merch and s…

“Don’t even try claiming that it will finance itself, I know comic artists, it’s never profitable”

I delete the message

“Don’t worry, I’ve still got a bit of cash, and I can write some articles for a quick buck”

“Fair enough, but you’ll have to pay for each page in advance.”

“And write comprehensive, comprehensible scene descriptions, from the explanation, it really wasn’t clear what tone you’re going for”

“Picture some insane posturban clusterpunk bullshit with metasensical absurdo abstractivist elements”

“Hold it right there, that sound sick, and real aesthetic, but those descriptors don’t mean anything. Posturban doesn’t even sound like a word. Be concrete and this is gonna be dope.”

“Yeah, I’ll send you some shit later”

In a strange state of inspired panic, I open Word. Last edited-turns out to not be anything related to the comic. Barely even three lines of text.

“My brain is broken, my mind is melting, and my psyche splattered across an uncountable number of unfinished documents but it’s thankless thinking with this corpse of a cortex, this cracked cranium full of incoherent ideas”

Sort of ironic for that to be the message of an obviously directionless, unpolished and unfinished piece of writing from a me that was either very tired or very drunk. Doesn’t matter. Delete.

“Hey brother, care for a good time?” called the coarse voice of a man, whose lung had clearly come into contact with more THC than oxygen, from a dark alleyway, trying to sell either bitches or drugs. I didn’t look to check which, seeing how I couldn’t afford either. “dark alleyway” in these parts at least is only a contextually meaningful descriptor, seeing how someone from pretty much anywhere else would consider the street I was running through at that very moment a particularly dark specimen. It had however not the slightest chance of comparing to the sheer amount of unfiltered lumodeficiency and delinquency that radiated from the offshoot the dealer/pimp called his own.”

What? No! This is a comic and not a fucking novel. Also wasn’t the protagonist supposed to be a hoodrat himself, why would he think/talk like this then? Fuck this, tabularaza the shit out of that and start from scratch. Jesus!

“ya’ll n****s…”

Can I say “N****s”? It would be kind of immersion breaking if I didn’t, or rather the characters didn’t. Not me who’s talking after all. On the other hand I’m pretty sure that’s not something those who would get upset over it are likely to care about. I could just claim that I am black, which is arguably even more racist, but they leave me no choice. Sacrifices have to be made to preserve the believability of a story.

Words flow onto digital paper the way it has always been. Opening a document and reemerging from the trance once a substantial amount of words has come to fill it. The text rarely even correlates to the thing that had been thought up, if there even was earlier consideration of what the white space might hold. It’s fascinating. Getting up is hard, speaking is hard, remembering is hard, but thinking? Thinking is passive. Not thinking is impossible and writing is just thinking while sitting at a keyboard.

Paragraphs about a young man trading the keys to a run down apartment to some thugs in exchange for them pretending to pursue him through the neighborhood replace nothingness. The chase, accompanied by gunshots, leads down the complex’s stairwell, through busy streets, a woman’s kitchen window and some dimly lit alleyways, one of which contains a bar called “Exisle”. Only the letters E-s-l of the neon sign are illuminated in a slightly on the nose reference to the cult classic “Regilith- The king’s rubble”.

The so far and henceforth unnamed main character, a morally light grey scam artist, upon bursting through the door, meets his contact. The journalist pulls on his cap twice as a signal, though this isn’t remotely necessary, as his nervous demeanor and pretend-poor style of clothing make him stick out like a sore thumb. He is dressed the way I would if I were to attempt to fit in in the huts, something I would imagine to be entirely unconvincing.

As the outsider scrolls through a newsfeed, reporting on the commotion outside, he is approached by the main character, whereupon they engage in some banter about who blew their cover more. The scam artist’s chase outside was of course a farce to present the image of someone worth chasing. He trades a USB-drive of unknown content against a decent amount of cash before ordering two whiskeys, the joke being that the bar owner is an Indonesian refugee who does not speak English, every order therefore resulting in a mystery drink, something the reporter did not expect. The main character’s scheme of unknown purpose proves successful as the two men part ways amicably.

That’s a good start, keeping things unexplained, building mystery. Good shit. I should ask Jerald if the “Exisle” thing is too on the nose though. Explicitly mentioning that the owner is Cuban so quickly after establishing the establishment seems kinda cheap, as opposed to simply having him talk with an accent, or acknowledging his origin later in the comic, when the audience has gotten used to the bar’s name. Whatever, that stuff can be ironed out later, for now this is a pretty solid hook. A bit of Momchelo… ah shit, it’s empty… A swig of actual whisky to celebrate then!

Just as I lift the bottle to my lips and tilt my head backwards in a “strangely cartoonish” manner which was once described as “Clearly indicating that [I] value the aesthetic of excessive drinking almost as much as the act itself”, Lloyd enters the room, contorting his face in a combination of pity and disgust.

“You made it to the kitchen, I see”

“Prepare to be even more impressed, as I tell you that I sleepwalked there from Lo’s room”

“Apart from the fact that I somehow find that less impressive than you moving your waking ass self to the ground floor; why the fuck were you in Lo’s room? Is he actually here for a change?”

“Nah, I just ate his stuff. Also talked to him for a bit, wrote some scenes for a webcomic… Pretty productive day overall if you ask me. If that was all the same day.”

“Man, I haven’t seen the guy in months now. I see how this house isn’t particularly welcoming to socially functional people, but still. Does he have a new girlfriend?”

“Haven’t heard anything since space girl broke up with him”

“Catherine?”

“Yes. Who else could I possibly mean by that?”

“I don’t know? I just find it weird that she got a cool sounding nickname”

“Just going with what fits, there are no personal feelings involved, freeloader.”

“Good to know. Say hi to Lo if you talk to him again, he never responds to me.”

“Will do. After I empty this bottle that is.”

“You can’t be serious”

“I wasn’t, but after that challenge: Watch me!”

A two thirds full bottle of hard liquor doesn’t go down as easily as a few cans of Momchelob, but it has the interesting effect of numbing my throat after the first few gulps, making the sensation of the liquid flowing down into my stomach almost surreal.

Lloyd either hasn’t dropped his disgusted expression over the duration of our talk, or he has chosen to reuse it now.

“I’m going to bed, try not to throw up on the floor again.”

I enjoy a few more minutes of almost sobriety before my vison cuts out.

[czgoldedition]

You gotta meme a little meme

I was tagged by @bi-aloy​! ♥ Haven’t done something like this in agesss, so why not.

I tag: @noisefeather @petukocasual @shutupimcreating @writerlyonao3 @jadefyre ~

Were you named after anyone? An allasomorph from an episode of Star Trek! Anya appears to be a little old lady, but shapeshifts into a six-foot-tall hairy monster that defeats Worf in unarmed combat.  My mom just liked the name. I’m pleased. My middle name of Rose is after my Grandmother Rosemary, though. When was the last time you cried? Last night, playing Horizon ahhhh. THAT GAME. Do you like your handwriting? It’s alright, generally legible. I like the all caps handwriting I use for my comic lettering best. What’s your favourite lunch meal? “Time is an illusion - lunch time, doubly so.” (I forget to eat lunch so often.) Do you have kids? Fuzzy ones, I have three cats.  ♥  If you were a different person, would you be friends with you? I think so. Do you use sarcasm? My goodness, I would never. X) Do you still have your tonsils? Ye. Would you bungee jump? Ye! I’ve already tried similar free fall activities (ripcords). What’s your favourite cereal? Not too particular, I’ll eat whatever. Maybe Apple Jacks or Chex? Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Mmm I SHOULD because the slip off and on thing destroys the backs of ‘em. I’ve been better about untying lately. Do you think you are a strong person? Yes and no? I’m a pushover to a degree, because I just want to make people happy. The thought of fucking up someone’s day upsets me, so I tend to soften what I say. I’m a determined person though, and if I want something, I’ll generally find a way to attempt it, and I don’t compromise on what’s most important to me. What’s your favourite ice cream? No one preferred flavor here either - chocolate, coffee, banana, strawberry, caramel; so many good choices and combinations. What’s the first thing you notice about people? Depends on the context I meet them in - physically, face and hair. If I meet them online, how I feel talking to them, if that makes sense? If the conversations flow naturally and how excited their messages make me~ What’s your least favourite physical thing about yourself? My hair, probably? It is literally over 3 feet in length, thick, soft, and strong despite constantly assaulting it with chemicals to achieve bright plumage. What colour pants and shoes are you wearing right now? Plaid pajama pants, no shoes. What are you listening to right now? Adventure Time - Philter If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? #01579B Favorite smell? Wood smoke, old books, a freshly opened pack of Magic cards. Who was the last person you talked on the phone with? Uhh the delivery person telling me the food I ordered was outside, hah. I don’t do phone calls much. VOIP, sure - in that case I think either K or Lisa? Favorite sport to watch? Never was much into watching sports, though when we lived in NJ a friend invited us to see some roller derby and that wassss, uh, compellingggg. (Hi, are you ever just gay as hell.) Hair colour? At the moment, brown-faded teal-blonde. I really need to redye; I’m thinking a warm blue-blonde-orange-red gradient next. Eye colour? Blue gray. Do you wear contacts? Never have, I have an extremely difficult time using eyedrops or touching my eyes. Have worn glasses since the age of five, however. Favourite food? Cheese of most any variety. Scary movie or comedy? Comedy; the only horror movies I’ve wholeheartedly enjoyed were also comedic in some fashion. Last movie you watched? Thor: Ragnarok What colour shirt are you wearing? Purple Summer or winter? Winter. Beautiful, surreal transformation of familiar landscapes, layers of fuzzy blankets, hot beverages. Hugs or kisses? Depends on the person~ close friends and lovers, heck yeah both. Friends in general, hugs. I don’t know you, please don’t touch me. Book you’re currently reading? We Are Legion (We Are Bob) - Dennis E. Taylor Who do you miss right now? Friends from art school who live far away now and friends I’ve never even met in person but would love to. What’s on your mousepad? Artwork from Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm. What’s the last TV program you watched? Sense 8 What’s the best sound? Cats purring, friends laughing, thunderstorms. Rolling Stones or The Beatles? The Beatles What’s the furthest you ever traveled? Germany Do you have a special talent? It’s more of a purposefully developed skill than inherent talent, but I’m an artist by both trade and personal focus, and draw/paint daily. I’m decent at writing as well, costume building, debating, can play percussive instruments and edit sound, have an aptitude for deck builders and euro style boardgaming... “jack of all trades, master of none" type I guess? Where were you born? Cuyahoga Country, Ohio, United States.

#meme #chinny babbles on the internet

[twiststreet]

“This is the end of the Savage Critics.”

The great Brian Hibbs has shut down the site where I’d toss in little write-em-ups, a few times every year, for the last... huh, it turns out it was 10 years in July.  (Oh god, I’m ollllllld).  I’ve already sent him my thank you note, but should probably note the site’s passing further on here.  

It was a site I enjoyed reading before I wrote for it.  And... boy, I don’t know.  I just have a whole bunch of weird little memories tied up in it:  people who got angry; other people who ... also got angry;  people who got, like, repetitively angry at what I was doing and who I could probably have said a bunch of mean things back to but never did because I’m a better person than they are hahahahaha; comic creators who’d talk about how I “needed to get punched at bars” on twitter (but the scenario was never them punching me-- it was always me getting punched by random Bar People, that I’m for some reason being inexplicably rude to?? It was all very poorly plotted, but you know, comics writers);  I guess one time Felicia Day said something nice about a thing I wrote about the Batman, and I was like “oh that’s neat” because I liked her sitcom; Eddie Campbell recognized my name once and I think I reacted about as awkwardly as a person can react, and I’m a pretty awkward person so that’s ... that’s an embarrassing memory;  the time I said some truly offensive shit and was like “awww fuck, whoops” and then made it even worse (!) and blah blah blah I’m an idiot (that’s actually like more than once-- and there’s probably a lot of jokes that have not aged well or that I wouldn’t do now); the people I asked to do interviews who said yes (my favorite was Don Glut, who put up with some really dumb questions); the people I asked to do interviews who said yes but then came to their senses and said “my editors would get angry if I answered any of these questions about Ultimates 3” (I thought that dude was cool as hell about it, though-- it wasn’t one of the “big name guys,” on that book, but); the people I asked to do interviews who said yes, then ghosted, then years and years later wrote widely loathed crossovers about the Cosmic Cube, and I was like “ah yes, the guy who ghosted on me *strokes chin*”.  I did a bunch of “interviews” with my buddy and most honorable enemy Mark Sable, where we got to do some professional wrestling schtick-- I liked the WWF of that, though I probably should never have drug him into my crazy...

Mistakes were made. It was fun.  I never really knew how to write an essay or any of that-- but I liked reading them, so.  It was fun trying to do the thing, even if I was just doing fan fiction of real essays for most of that time... (I never got nearly good at capsule reviews, though.  I was the worst at those...).

I wrote less and less every year, given the stresses of everything else-- though, I still had a list of stuff I wanted to write.  I got like 60-80% of a thing done about a single page from Cinder & Ashe lying around here somewhere (awful book, though).  The only thing that was, like, “I want to write that someday” was a big elaborate thing about Dylan Dog comics, and all the middle-aged schlubs in detective fiction, and getting older, that would’ve probably been depressing to write so I never got around to it.  Maybe I’ll find some other place to write all that someday; maybe I won’t; eh.  I still read the site till the end though cause I always thought John Kane was fun times over there.  But.  I wasn’t holding up my end.  (I wish I’d ended on a better one than I did, but oh well...).  

Let me make a list of the favorite write-em-ups from the ... the Savage Critic decade.  Let’s see...

The Skippy write-em-up. That one was fun-- I think I got the tone right on that, or at least consistent, which is pretty rare for me... (I could never stick to a tone, especially before I had this tumblr and that was more of an outlet for me to write weird stuff.  There was one review that was pretty serious and wouldn’t have been so bad, that has this long digression about how moneyshots would work in Care Bear pornography that... I don’t know-- I could’ve done a better job editing some of these...)

This one about Metal Gear Solid 2, the Mazzucchelli City of Glass and Casanova #11-- this one’s a piece of shit, but I just remember  really enjoying the moment I figured out how that one should end.  When I remember the really early ones that I wrote, where I was super-clumsy and didn’t know what I was doing but was just like “wheeee look at me I wrote a hit play”, this is the one that pops in my head first.

Octopus Pie and Conan.  Another fond memory of the (probably shitty) early ones.  I was always happy I jammed those two things together.  That’s a dumb as hell thing to do.  I’d do that “jam two things together” move a couple times-- it’s a fun move.  I probably underestimated Octopus Pie back then, though.    

The one about Scott Pilgrim vol. 5.  I think images are broken there-- a lot of images broke from way back when I was using imageshack-- I’ll have to go back and fix a bunch of them, someday.  Anyways: I think I maybe did okay on that one...?  I think. It’s a blurry memory-- I don’t have it in me to reread any of these, but it’s a happy memory, at least.  I mean, there’s a certain kind of “confessional writing” on the internet I’m not really cut out to do-- so, that was as close to being any kind of personal I probably ever got...

Dark Reign: The List - X-Men #1.  This wasn’t a fun experience, for many different reasons-- this was one of those “golly, I think I got literally everybody angry at me” experiences, and maybe my first one that was that loud.  (A lot of fan-dudes assuming I was a woman and calling me a “psychotic coont.”  That was .... interesting).  But it was clarifying.  (Especially years later when suddenly everyone woke up and decided that being a hero to the oppressed was actually their brand all along.  Imagine the look on my face!).  I remember the people at the time who were the nicest about the situation-- that meant a lot to me at the time, and I guess it’s something what’s stuck with me.  Anyways: I’d write it again.  I’d cut out like 2 bits near the end, and throw in some solid gold dick pics.  But I’d write it again.  

Getting to write about Tim Hensley, on Wally Gropius and Sir Alfred.  That guy’s comics are a joy to write about-- I don’t know that I feel that unequivocally about anybody else.  It’s just fun to talk about those books.

The one about a World War 2 comic.  I liked that one.  Plus, I remember seeing one of the creators sub-tweet about how like “comic critics don’t know what they’re doing” after that one, which is always good sign.  You’re on the right track! (It was never about the comic-- it was about treating the comic as a stepping stone.  I didn’t always live up to that mission statement, but that was always the whole concept...

Getting to write about Tony Scott, during a review of some dumb comic.  Oh man, I remember that being fun as hell to write, once I got the comic out of the way and just got to babble incoherently about Man on Fire or whatever...

Ten Things: Saga.  I remember having gotten that one right, I think.  That was when I was picking out books and trying to write ten things about them.  I tried the ten thing schtick with a couple other books, but I don’t think I was ever as good as that first time out, with Saga.  

Lazarus-- the Worst, Just the Worst. This one has been a GIFT because years later, Lazarus fans googling the book will come across it and leave angry comments, like “FUCK YOU IT’S A GOOD COMIC YOU SUCK” or whatever.  After years!  Like, it’s this fresh wound to them.  I wish I had a half-dozen more like that in the ol’ portfolio, but...

The Beautiful Darkness one.  I remember being happy how that one came out.  I haven’t read it since though so maybe it’s terrible.  But I remember rushing to write about that book-- like, people never talk about how much fun it is to get to do the dance, you know?  But it’s fun!  When it’s good, it’s fun as hell... If you can entertain yourself, anyways...

Inquisition: Bitch Planet #1.  I wish I’d written like 3 times more of these.  But I also ... I wish this one were about half as long.  I just like that part where I got to sit and draw all over pages like John Madden.  That was goddamn fun as hell, and I remember the page-analysis bit came together exactly how I’d hoped on this one.  There’s just too much clutter around it... But oh well.

The Copra one.  I think that’s probably the best one I ever did, where it just came out the way I wanted it to come out.  It took me some years to get around to putting ass in seat to write it, but.  I felt pretty decent about that one.  

Anyways, the rest are not so great-- there’s some real “yeeeesh” ones in there.  But either way, that’s over now.  So.  Thanks again to Brian Hibbs, and everyone else who wrote for that site or said anything nice over there.  Or, heck, thanks to folks who said anything mean, too, since that was part of the fun, sometimes, well not all of them, I mean what the fuck, why would I even be at a violence bar, I’m sophisticated and know things about fanciness, the entire “I get hit in the jaw for being mean about Marvel comics at a bar” storyline just makes no fucking sense, but.  Anyways.  *waves hands confusedly towards ten years* So that happened.  

#Nerd Business.

[speckeh]

2017 Book List

BACK AT IT AGAIN. JUMP IN THE CAR!!! I’M STILL READING A SHIT TON OF BOOKS!!!!

1. How It Works: The Cat. 2.5/5 stars. I read this at a book store in Bergen because my brother laughed while he read it. I picked it up and it was ok?? I don’t understand why people who write about cats always, ALWAYS talk about how much of an asshole they are and how they don’t truly love you. And I just sit there like, have you ever owned a fucking cat??? Some parts of the book was super cute but I hate the trope that cats are “assholes.” yeah they’re dicks sometimes. But they’re not assholes 24/7 unless you’re an asshole to your cat.

2. The Greenest Island. 3.5/5 stars. This is another small book that I’ve been meaning to read for a couple of months now. It was pretty interesting and like Mrs. Dalloway I read last year, I’m not sure if I want to sell it or keep it. It’s beautifully written, the story is strong, but some of the characterization is just sort of annoying. Like I get that it’s a very real sensation and issue a young couple who get pregnant WAY TOO SOON without knowing each other. But only a man would think of something so drastic as the end in reference to raising a child. 

3. Letters for Lucardo: 5/5 stars. I saw this comic advertised early in 2016 and I’ve been watching the project closely. I help funding the gofundme and I bought a download and a signed copy of the physical book. The story about a 60 year old man falling in love with a Vampire stuck at the age of 36 was SO INTRIGUING plus the artist had a webcomic which I absolutely adored so I knew not only would the art be excellent but the storyline would be solid. This is one of four volumes and I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. The story line was so cute, the art was beautiful, the smut was *mwah* beautiful. But the best part was that it left me wanting for me and I can’t WAIT until the next three volumes are here. Support your local tumblr artist and enjoy some gay vampire storylines with well drawn wrinkly aging men. 10/10, 100/100 please read and enjoy.

4. A Special Study Set of Fine Art Reproductions. 4/5 stars. A little black spiral bound book of black and white copies of famous art works. It’s cute, it’s a good bite sized art book to get the gist of Western Art history. I knocked it down because the art pieces are in black and grey when I know for a FACT some art pieces are in color. So that was a bummer. But overall a nice rendition of some of the classics.

5. Alphonse Mucha: Masterworks. 5/5 stars. I bought this book probably 2 years ago? I’m in a reading funk right now and flipping through art books seems pretty doable. This book is chalked full of history of Mucha while I will read later. But the art quality is excellent, the sizes are big enough to view with pleasure. This is a excellent excellent book full of his art work. I love it. It makes me feel better for the fact I’ve only been drawing girls for the last year because I love drawing delicate features and strong women. If Mucha can just draws women for most of his career, I don’t have to feel guilty in only drawing women for a year.

6. Assassin’s Creed: A Visual History. 5/5 stars. Ok I’m going to repeat this over and over again. But I’m such a fan of the AC series, even if the latest editions have been a u t t e r let down. But I have to admit flipping through this book I got emotional. AC was such a fun series for me when I started and it helped me through a manic depression I had after a very serious illness almost 3 years ago. I don’t pretend the history is accurate or the plot lines are all there, but they means so much to me. As a history lover to the point I’m getting a Minor in college in history. I’ll always enjoy my AC games, no matter how cringe worthy and disappointing some of them end up becoming. Shout out to my boys (and girls) of the assassin creed order. <3 

7. The Art of Howl’s Moving Castle: 5/5 stars. I’ve had this book for a long time, when my childhood best friend and I would hang out nearly every day and sleep overs every weekend. She gave me this book a few months after I watched Howl’s Moving Castle because I was so enchanted by the movie. Howl’s Moving Castle is a favorite movie, book, and soundtrack. This art concept book is beautiful, it’s like a novelization of the movie without any dialogue. The back is the FULL script, there’s concept art, and fully fledged art story boards. If you’re a big fan of Howl’s Moving Castle, this is a great book to have in your library.

8. Tango! The Dance, The Song, The Story. 5/5 stars. My father lived in Argentina for awhile so he would make dishes growing up of delicious food. I love the tango, it’s so beautiful and down right seductive. So of course finding this book for 4 dollars I had to have it. It has photography, drawings, posters, female tango singers, the history of the tango. It’s chalked full of excellent information and it’s really enjoyable to flip through. 

9. Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics. 5/5 stars. I bought this book for my birthday last year because it was absolutely silly. It features “Cat Artists” and their aesthetics and their art pieces. Warning there are mummified cats in the beginning of the book which can be upsetting. This book is really goofy and the people who write it are serious but in a fun way? It’s a great book to read like today when I’m stuck in the house because of bad weather and having my own two cats it makes me curious to see if I could make my kiddos paint like those kitties in the book.

10. Life: The Classic Collection. 5/5 stars. A decent sized photography book of the most recognizable Life photographs. Not to forget there are 25 extra prints available for you in the book you can take out and frame. I love editorial photography and seeing the most iconic photos throughout the century. Idk man if you like photography and Life Magazine this is a great book to have.

11. Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th century. 5/5 stars. Beautiful book. Beautiful clothes. 

12. The Pharos Gate. 4.5/5 stars. I saw this book at Barnes and Noble early in 2016 and the intrigue had me thinking about it for awhile. I bought it for christmas, waiting to read it in right time. Early on this week I went to my favorite second hand book store and found out it had 3 books before this one. The Pharos Gate is the final book in a series but it can be read by itself. To be honest I think if I had to read the three books before this I would have become bored. That’s three books worth of people trying to find each other but keep missing connections, that’s infuriating. But this book was lovely and the letter writing kind of reminds me of the letters my best friend and I send to one another. She just went back to school and I think she would really enjoy this book so I’m going to send it to her with my own letter attached. I think she’ll like that. 

13. Pirateology. 4/5 stars. These series were my SHIT as a kid. Dragonolgy, Greek Myths, Pirateology. While Hastings went under and into ruins, I found this book for super super cheap. I have certain niches I love to learn/read/aesthetic. Regency, 1950s murder mystery (Looking at you 007), Westerns, weird vintage novels, and pirates. I love the history the book gives you, but as an adult the information is sort of lacking. This is a book definitely for kids, the plot line throughout the guide book is meh it’s ok but it doesn’t capture you, and the interactive bits are the best. I just wish there was more about specific pirates but other than those complaints this is a great book.

14. Viking Poetry: Of Love and War. 5/5 stars. I went to Norway for New Years and I didn’t buy a lot of souvenirs. I mostly bought key chains. I think I only bought two books, maybe even just the one. I bought this viking poetry at THE famous viking ship in Oslo. It was very very cool. I read this book today because I don’t feel well, I want to go to bed but I know I shouldn’t. I have too much homework to do but I’m not motivated to read. The viking poems are unique as they are pretty. I was sometimes disappointed they didn’t have great rhyming schemes but you have to remember these were written in various old languages and then translated into modern day English. If you want to read what the vikings considered poetry, this is a great introduction without reading the giant lores.

15. The Elements of Style: 5/5 stars. Oh my god it’s been so long I completely forgot what my book tag was. February has been crazy for me. I got a internship, I dropped a class because of stress, I’ve been stressed out like crazy, I’ve been doing a lot of school work. I felt like I’ve had no time to read for pleasure. I actually didn’t read this book for please (half pleasure) but for work. It was actually a lot of fun. We studied this book in AP Literature when I was a senior in highschool and I wanted to have it for myself as a writer, but also it’s excellent for my ambitions to become an editor. The writing is a little hard, sometimes I’d read a whole page without really absorbing what was on it. But it was interesting and you can read White’s frustration with writers with certain rules they ignored. I actually loved the add on V chapter by Strunk which said that English rules are extremely important but take in mind the language of your time and how you write. Your voice is important. Which I found very important and also felt like an eye opener with Editing for my job. I’ve been wary of making sure not to change anyone’s voice but also trying to keep with proper English rules. It’s been a lot of fun.

16. The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher: 5/5 stars. This book took me me almost 2 full months to read. I’ve been so busy. I first started reading this book before my trip to Norway, took it all the way across Europe, back and I finally finally finished it today. I don’t know why it took me so long? I absolutely loved it. I played Witcher 3 last semester and really really loved the story line and characters. My sister-in-law loves the books so I gave it a try! I would definitely recommend this book if you like spins on fairytales and medieval magical worlds. I had a lot of fun but I’m glad I can finally pick a new book.

17. Shackleton: Antartic Odyssey: 4/5 stars. Today has been a recovery day and I’m, emotionally dead/it comes in waves. So I spent like 5 hours in a bath today and read this comic. The art is really good, the story is super intriguing! I was in Norway this last December and we went to a arctic ship museum because Norway was the first to reach the South Pole. But the author even said himself the comic needs to be at least 300 pages but his hand would fall off. And I wish he did do 300 pages. The story was short and choppy. I know it’s selfish, but as a reader I wish he did do his main goal because he had the perfect art style for this comic. Either way, I did enjoy.

18. Creole Folktales: 5/5 stars. If you love mythology, this book is pretty great. If you love Louisiana, black folklore, this book is pretty great. It doesn’t have 5 stars on amazon or goodreads because I think people take issue with the writing or they’ve heard these stories before. This was my first introduction to Creole folktales and I have to say i loved it. The nostalgia of reading different myths is pretty great plus the storylines can be hilarious to kind of terrifying. The author says to read this story by night and I have to agree. I read it all in one sitting this evening and I wouldn’t change that experience. 

19. I Shall Not Be Moved: 5/5 Stars. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a poetry book. Since February I think. Sundays are usually my comic or poetry days and I was in the mood for some poetry. I was going to read this book for Black History Month for my book club (if you wanna join hit me UPP) but February was so crazy and stressful that I couldn’t read anything. So this time I did read a Black Poetress but just for National Poetry month. I loved this book, super powerful and moving. I’ll probably be thinking about this poetry book for a long long time. 

20. Artists and their cats: 3/5 stars. Being stressed out in my finals week means I want to do a lot of book things just so I can procrastinate. I bought this book as a Christmas present for myself. I'm slightly disappointed in it because the book is called Artists and their Cats, but it's really more like, A mini biography of artists and oh, some cat photos. I was expecting heart warming stories about their cats. But no. I loved the photos though which make this book conflicting for me.

21. The Monkees comic book: 5/5 stars. Super cute. I feel bad because Mickey was drawn pretty horrible. But I loved the art. The choppy scenes were kind of hard to get into and that 1960s humor can be kind of cringey but I really really enjoyed it.

22. The Art of Drowning: 5/5 stars. So I was thinking this would have completed my Billy Collin’s reading, but apparently I read this book in 2014! How crazy! Well I read it and enjoyed it. That’s all. 

23. A Queen’s Journey: 4/5 stars. I’ve been having a lot of heart ache for my birth state as of late. I visited Hawaii this time last year since moving when I was 2 and not remembering a single thing about it. Everything fit and I felt like I was home (when I was in the ocean) and it was such a strange feeling. I’ve been missing it hardcore this last month and so I decided if I can’t go to the Island I’d read a book about Hawaii or a Hawaiian. I’m also a book traveler, I bring books on trips and my favorite souvenirs are books. I’m a person who can remember times and feelings by looking at books. This is one of the books I bought while on the big island and haven’t read until now. For the story itself, I definitely give it a solid 4 stars like most people have. The book is unfinished as the author died while writing it. But I actually love how the book ended, the last chapter is perfect for a finale. But everything leading up is meh. Don’t get me wrong, I flew through this book and found it so much fun but it’s written from the perspective of a white entitled reporter who doesn’t really understand Hawaiians but “loves” them because of the Queen. I would have preferred to have a story told from Queen Lili’uokalani’s perspective but it was a nice read.  

24. Lights Out and Away We Go by @naum-e : 5/5 stars. I’ve been following Naume-e for at least a year now and they draw the absolutely cutest/breathtaking spirk doodles on tumblr. When I saw they put up their formula one au book up for sale, I had to get it. They even sent me a sheet of adorable spirk stickers. I love it. The art is so professional, the cover is beautiful! The storyline is short and I wish there was more background and developlement but that’s just me being greedy. Only criticism I would have is that one page would be crisp and saturated black and the next would have a grey tone to it so it wasn’t as sharp. I don’t know if that was due to printing costs or stylistic choice but sometimes it worked, other times it was kind of distracting. Either way I really enjoyed it and loved the art!

(I’ve actually read 44 books but 20 of those are yaoi mangas/I don’t have the energy to type up individual reviews) 

25. And Three Makes Tango. 5/5 stars. I’m doing a summer class and this is a book I picked for a 5-7 page project about censored books. And Three Makes Tango is the true story of two male penguins who fell in love at the New York Zoo. They made headlines when the zoo keepers gave them a fertilized egg which made them the first male couple to raise a baby penguin. It’s super cute and the art is adorable and I can’t wait to write this 5-7 page essay on it.

26. Goldfinger. 4.5/5 stars. I really enjoyed this book! Dr. No was kind of a hot mess with a huge octopus, guano, and the girl not being entirely likable. This book was definitely a treat! It may be kind of boring because the first 150 pages is a slow burn of James finding a guy cheating at cards and like 3 chapters dedicated to just him playing golf. But I really really loved this? The only reason why I don’t give this book 5 stars is because of Bond’s very sexist and homophobic views he suddenly stated out of no where. There were a TON of lesbians in this book, Pussy Galore, Tally, and he seemed ok with them except he was disappointed he couldn’t fuck them. And then said lesbians and gays were all sissies who he had no time for (even though Bond is like super, mega gay for James Bond. SUPER MEGA GAY.) and the ending they made the strictly lesbian badass gangster woman say, “Well I’ve never met a real man before.” and UGH. WHY. I would have given it 5 stars if they had just left Pussy Galore’s lesbian nature alone and not justify it with a “She just needs a strong man.” Also I apparently bought this book for me for Christmas 2015 ahah. 

27. The Mad Kings & Queens, History’s Most Famous Raving Royals: 4/5 stars. I enjoyed this book. It’s marketed as a reference book and it discussed the insane breeding of The Kings and Queens of Europe. This book should really be called, “Inbreeding fucked me up.” because most of the insane issues came from inbreeding lines and madness from parents and grandparents being passed down to their kiddos. But there were several monarchs where I didn’t believe they fit underneath the “mad” title. Like King Henry VIII was just a pissbaby. And there a handful of monarchs included who just had severe depression and anxiety which affected the way they ruled, it doesn’t mean they’re mad. Other than that, it’s a great little book for a quick overview of Europe’s fucked up royalty. 

28. Strike Through The Mask! 2/5 stars. It’s not my favorite poetry book, it had some poems I enjoyed! I bought this from the annual library book sale because it was signed by the author and was super cheap. Though after learning about Peter Viereck, I’m not really sure what I think about him? He’s super conservative and is VERY loud about people being extremist but is sort of seen as an extremist himself. Nothing wrong with that inherently but I’m still not super sure about these poems. A lot of them were about trees talking to humans or other trees. Debating on giving them poetry book to donations because it’s really not my favorite. 

29. For the King: 2/5 stars. The premise of the book is quite interesting! It follows the assassin attack on Napoleon in 1800 on Christmas at Midnight. It cause da wave of destruction, death, horror, and a huge police investigation which resulted in more death and conspiracy. The book did not live up the potential. It kept my interest and it had some great writing, but the characters were flat, the main character was whinny, and the plot was a little jumbled. It was also strange because it’s a historical fiction but also murder mystery but you know who did it by chapter 1 and you follow the policeman’s thoughts and instincts to capture the assassins. It’s weird, there were a lot of strangely written sentences, and it was over all a just ok read.

30. The Old Man and the Sea: 2.5/5 stars. There is a lot to enjoy about The Old Man and The Sea. The story is compelling, the relationship between the old man and the boy is pleasant, and Hemingway has a way of using metaphors and descriptions which are breathtakingly beautiful. But there is also a lot to be disappointed in. It’s a lot of rambling, several sentences could have been edited, and the old man was pretty much senile in the way that he fishes. I read it in one day and still processing it. I’m pretty sure there are a few pages that I didn’t really read, I fell asleep the first 60 pages, and the story doesn’t truly touch me in the way classics usually do. But there is also something oddly charming which makes rating this book more difficult than I thought.

31. The Lost Estate: 5/5 stars. This book has been on my shelf for awhile. I bought it because you can design your own cover once you finish the book, so I bought it not expecting the story to be great but at least I can art a book. This is one of the best reads I’ve read in several months! I loved the story! I loved the characters! It felt like a fantastical children’s story with romance, magic, and French school boys. The chapters were short and the main character has such a charm. The only downside is that the story has a weird time lapse where you’re not really sure how old the kids are or how many years have passed. All in all, I’m really thrilled with this book and it’s easily going on my favorite shelf after I draw the cover!

32. Lunch Poems: 4/5 stars. Frank O’Hara’s poetry isn’t like your classical poetry. He’s irreverant which makes reading his stanzas refreshing and different. There were some poems where they were too strange and convoluted for my taste, ones I wished I could be heard out loud, and there wasn’t anything that punched me in the chest with wowing words, but it did inspire me to write my own poem. And for me, that’s the highest compliment of a poetry book, to make you write poems. I really enjoyed 14 of the poems which is a pretty decent amount to like for me. Billy Collins has the highest likes of poetry for me, and Lang Leav having the least amount of poetry I liked in her book Love & Misadventure. Frank O’Hara was a decent medium for me and a nice introduction for anyone who doesn’t particularly care for “flowery” poetry. My favorites were: Cambridge, Poem (1959), How To Get There, Pistachio Tree At Chateau Noir, and Yesterday Down At The Canal. 

33. Howl And Other Poems: 6/5 stars. Very rarely do I hold a book to my chest after I finish reading it. The books I remember doing this were The Secret Garden, Shadow of the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, and Howl’s Moving Castle. I can add Howl to my list. I first heard of this revolutionary poetry book in one of my university classes about censorship and banned films and literature. We watched the James Franco movie about the whole trial over Howl, and I thought it was pretty, but I didn’t feel a great pull to the way he read the poems. I decided to pick it up for myself and I read it today all the way through. And reading it for myself was something magical and far more touching than the movie could ever produce. All of the poems were a punch to the gut, made me feel something, made me want to create art, and that’s what poetry is supposed to do for you. I may have found my second favorite poet in Allen Ginsberg. This is definitely on my favorite 2017 reads and also in my top 10 favorite books of all time. 

34. Monstress Vol 2: 4.5/5 stars. I agree with the main consensus that the second volume is way better than the first. I actually contemplated getting rid of and stop reading the series because the first volume was very bizarre. But now I’m super invested in it. The story line unfolded in an interesting and made more sense way. The art was gorgeous and dark. THERE WERE SO MANY BADASS WOMEN CHARACTERS. Plus I finally caught on that the cats are called Nekomancer and I’m in love. If you like dark, blood, gore, and creepy storylines, Monstress is a great comic to read. 

35. Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century. 5/5 stars. I picked this book up back in 2011. I was browsing Barnes and Noble, looking at their new arrival table. I was in 10th grade, newly in high school, and I had watched the movie Cleopatra in my western civilization class. I loved the writing, bought the book, I remember my mom saying “If I had known who the book was about, I wouldn’t have let you bought it.” and I was enjoying myself. Things happened shortly after that had me pausing from reading the book for 6 years. I decided to try to read it over the summer, had summer school, then my beginning of the semester was too crazy to read this book, and after I dropped from one of my classes, I found I had time to read it. I really loved this book. It’s heart wrenching, you feel the love they had for each other, but you also saw the abuse and tragedy that became their relationship. There are only two notes of importance I would say that is this book’s downfall: 1. The book has minor editorial flaws (commas outside of quotes, periods in parenthesis, Earth wasn’t capitalized). 2. The writers are very much infatuated with Richard and Elizabeth, coming to their defense about the scathing reviews. They did a great job, but it also brings into question just how accurate they can be when they’re so emotionally charged about Richard and Elizabeth. If you want to know more about Richard and Elizabeth, how they came to be, their marriage, and how the marriage fell, this is a great book. 

36 + 37: Maus I & II. 5/5 stars. I’ve been wanting to read this collection for years. It has everything I love, history, contrasting colors, and comics. But whenever I found the books, they were full priced and too much for my wallet. Well, a few weeks ago I found the boxset at my local second hand store for 22 bucks. I snatched it. I read the first book on the 29th and the second on the 30th. This, is a heavy story. It’s gut wrenching, it hurts, I nearly cried in book 2, and it’s a poignant story about surviving, the effects of surviving horrible situations, and how it affects your children. The art is beautiful, very symbolic, and doesn't hold back from showing the ugly of WWII. If you want a heavy read to make you think about history and humanity, 100% recommend this comic series.

38. Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit: 4/5 stars. A classic fairy tale book that I read because one of my friends had it on her shelf and I wanted to read it. It’s very cute, very Peter Rabbit esq. but with more danger and violence to it. It’s not my favorite collection, I didn’t get the warm fuzzies from it, but I did fly through the stories. Though my book is so old that it doesn’t have a publication date and I’m slightly terrified that if it’s from the victorian era that it’s laced with arsenic to make the blue color ahah! But it was cute. A very short fairytale that is chalked full of mythologies of forest creatures and how their distinctive features came to be. 

39. Sword of Destiny (Witcher 1, but technically 2) 5/5 stars.  I’ve been reading this book since the end of October. I don’t know why, but short story compilation books always take me months to read while James Bond takes me 3 days. I think it’s to do with the pacing and the fact the stories tend to be more condensed and I need to think about a book for at least a day before starting a new one. I really enjoyed this book! Having played the games and adored them, I love the character building and foundations in this book! Baby Ciri warms my heart and I fucking called who her parents were in the prologue which I just realized I actually read this year. Much better than “The Last Wish,” and the angsty Yennefer romance just makes the book with its angst and Geralt just hating everything about his life except for Ciri and Yen. 

40. Bing Love: 3/5 stars. I saw a GoFundMe post for this comic book earlier this year and the art is adorable, the plot line got me, and I was so excited to get my copy of this book! I’m torn because on one hand, I love representation and the love story between Hazel and Mari, and the fact the writer took an approach that people had to settle for a fake happiness and how families can be torn apart when you realize they were built on a facade. But there’s a huge pacing problem with this story. It jumps, it skips details, I know this story would have been so much more vibrant with even 20 more pages added to it. Limiting it to 97 pages really killed the vibe of the story. The character development was lackluster, their reactions became unbelievable, and the ending felt so rushed. I would honestly probably give this story 2 stars if it weren’t for the art work making up for where the story lacks. 

41. Call Me By Your Name: 5/5 stars. @haremshame for those who don’t know, was my very first, serious love. They’ve been loving Call Me By Your Name and essentially has become the spokesperson on tumblr for the book. They told me to give this book a listen to (which is something I do not do on the regular), gave me a link, and but I was in the middle of the semester. I think maybe more than a week ago I finally started listening to it, how could I not when your first love tells you the story reminds them of us??? And I have to whole heartedly agree. Call Me By Your Name reminds me very much of the excitement of a first love and the everlasting long heart ache that comes when that first love inevitably ends. I loved this story. I wish I picked up the book and read along with Armie Hammer so I could mark all the passages I loved because there were quotations that made me shiver and hum and felt a literal twist in the gut. I’m not entirely sure how this book will go as an experience for other people since I went in to this reading with heavy expectations and knowing it would remind me of Percy and the specialness of our fumbly, young and naive teenage relationship, makes me heavily biased. But the writing is breathtaking, Armie Hammer does a fantastic job, and the story will have you aching in some form or another. 

#2017 books #you guys should just get used to this #I'm probably in this for the long haul

[jivingcryingboy]

Valentine’s Day

13/1

Hello again. Sorry I've been away for a bit but I have been busy! As it's been horrific all week I've been in putting the hours in making the music vid for the dickhead song. Somehow it's finished and it actually looks really good. The premise of the song is a bout a guy who kind of messes around someone, sleeps with her mate, doing dicky things but his actions are rooted in a kind of loneliness, lack of purpose, self deprecating kind of thing. He does care about the girl, admires her qualities but rejects her love and advances and ends up stringing her along in the process. She is an a band and seems to have a direction in life that comes from a passion for living. He yearns for her creativity and passion in life as seems to grasp at thin air when trying to decipher life. The idea was to draw simple pictures depicting each line in the song through really basic stick people figure. I could imagine each scene in my head and it was just a question of replicating it on paper. As I started however the drawings became more complex and they ranged from just a basic stickman to proper images of lifelike humans. I realised I had to blend the two to accommodate both the tragic and comic factors together. The stick images were good for the funny bits and when it was more human looking it was good for the emotional bits. It ended up being like Fullmetal Alchemist in a way where the comedy would be in the form of abstract cartoon figures and the drama would come in the form of more detailed anime. I put it up online the other day and thought it would be something decent to promote the page for while before Tennessee.

Tonight I'm headed to the singing competition heats! Haha no idea whats gonna happen. It's funny I've never really judged myself on a voice. The music I listen to has never needed a straight up brilliant singer, just heart. I only kind of judged myself on the songwriting. But it'll interesting to see how it all goes. Gonna do a song called Lovely. Thought it would different than doing a pop song which is limited to a simple melody. It's a gamble though as this might be exactly what they're looking for. Lovely could be a bit loose. Buttt i thought doing your own song might look better instead of doing a cover or singing ove backing track. Will full you in later.

14/1

It’s funny I never thought myself solely as a singer and last night was weirdly the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been on stage. The audience was nice, the people I was singing with were nice, nothing bad happened but I felt really uneasy. For the first time I kind of got caught between focusing on my voice and on the song, and I think I usually concentrate more on the latter. Don’t get me wrong I do focus on how I use my voice but it is the song that always guides it. One person running said I should look up a lot at the judges all the x factor stuff and I felt really uncomfortable doing it. Usually if I think something is going bad I’ve never really questioned myself too much. I don’t really know how to describe it, I’m not really nervous when I get up on stage but that was the first time I can remember where I was nervous. My mouth was dry, i could have sung better, but I just felt weird. Even when I got there I didn’t feel right. 

I didn’t get through but it really kind of confirmed for me, even more than I originally thought, that singing competitions aren’t for me. Maybe a singer-songwriter thing would be cool as that’s just you doing you but vocal things, I almost didn’t know whether I should have been me or do something that people will take to more easily. Judge 1 didn’t get what I did, that’s not my opinion of what she said, that’s what she said about the song. Judge 2 & 3 were more interested in the lyrics, and Judge 4 thought the song went all over the place and kept stopping and starting in the wrong way. The girl who had the best voice, or was the best singer I think by a long shot, came 3rd so I didn’t really know what they were looking for.

Anyway after the whole thing, today I got a message from a The Voice scout and The X Factor scout, which is something I really didn’t expect. I think wholeheartedly, I would never do the X Factor. I don’t dislike it or dislike people going on it but for me the show is too focused on the judges and less on the performers and it feels like glorified karaoke. Just feels like you lose the essence of why you do it in the first place. The Voice is a little different I think, I think there’s more authenticity about the whole thing. Feels like they concentrate on people more as artists rather than puppets. Anyway as it’s yolo year I thought ring the scout up and at least see what he says. Before I think would have just ignored it all but you have to try shit you don’t know or understand sometimes. And he was pretty cool. I’m sure he’s pretty cool to everyone but he seemed very chilled about the whole thing. There’s some auditioning that goes on during the summer and there’s a few record label people there who might nab you even before the show. I’m really not sure about whether I should do it, I really don’t. A part of me says no because of just maybe pre conceived ideas of what these talent shows are. Covers, image, lack of focus on anything other than voice on a catchy song and how easy you are to market. If I were to do my own songs on it then that would be interesting. Anyway I told him to give me more info down the line when the auditions were. I rarely say no to things now so I didn’t want to cut off that. X Factor, I don’t mean this in a ill mannered way but I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I’m cut out for it. In my head I think I’d just be going nuts. I can’t do that whole camera thing where I sob about a dead cat or aunt and that’s the reason I’m singing. I can’t. I don’t even watch to much of The Voice but it does look better than X Factor.

This weekend I’m playing in Salisbury to play at The Lounge. I got family over there and a family friend got me in there to play. First night of my residency on Sunday at The Dalston bar too so that should be cool! Gonna learn a few more songs tomorrow as well which will be good for the busking. I’ve got my National Rail busking licence which is good! I’ve applied for some slots next week cos I need money! It’s been fucking horrible outside so I’ve been in working on tunes, the set, that dickhead song but looking forward to going out again. Now some of the stations are indoors so that should be great for this time of year. See how it goes. Gigs booked in for March and April including an acoustic night at The Half Moon a place which I bloody adore! I Love Putney and The Half Moon is a brilliant venue so I’m looking forward to playing there. Another bit of good news too. One of my mates has put me in touch with someone who works for BBC Introducing and she wants to play Tennessee for the show she’s running. All about who you know eh?

_

12.40am Valentine’s Eve and I’m listening to Valentine’s Day by Springsteen. Always been a favourite of mine. Although his earlier stuff is maybe the material that I admire the most his later stuff when he simplified his work still hits just as hard. The lyrics became shorter, the music was more focused but it was almost like his lack of lyrics in places contained power too, gave space for more imagery because of the unknown. Tunnel Of Love is a great album. Sounds dated I think but it doesn’t really matter to me. It stays with me.

Funny since the new year the last few days, since I released the dickhead song, I’ve felt slightly down, a bit melancholic, maybe even lonely. I don’t even mean in a relationship sense either. I tend to get like this from time to time though, I’ve just been getting better at realising when I am like it. I just need to move on and create something out of what I’m feeling. Always helps. Everything’s going well and yeah it can always go better, I think I need to do more. I need to start expanding the band slightly. Need to create more material, need to make start recording that song Ride and need to email more venues about another residencies. But 6 weeks in I can’t complain, I really can’t. I just need to keep positive and need to keep my head up and keep on keeping on. That’s half of it right there. Push on when you get rejected, keep faith in what you do. Don’t make excuses for yourself ever. Tomorrow: Tidy room, learn rest of the tunes you need to learn, lay down the piano for Ride, jam with josh in the eve. (Also need to take the word fag out of Tennessee as they need the radio edit. 

I’ve been struggling to go to sleep recently. Been thinking too much again, things I need to do, things I should do etc. It’s bad really cos it doesn’t help that I’m up. But if I am, it’s good to write stuff down, like I’m doing now. Writing down things can make things tangible. Your problems can become disembodied, intangible things which can become one hundred times worse then what they actually are. When you begin to break them down it becomes simpler. I think there’s a constant up and down slide really you are on. Every time you go down you fight to get back up, and once you’re up there you stare at the view for as long as you can before you go down. These moments you overcome things, achieve things, they are the meaning. Right now, I’m in a little funk but once I work harder do the things I’ve planned to do it will be better and I’ll keep going up. I just need to keep pushing. 

[firestormdiaries]

How I usually start my day lately. (WARNING graphic details)

First, I warned you, second, continue at your own risk, cursing and graphic if not descriptive details here. This is to get this off my chest and go into detail with whats physically wrong with me and in which I’m waiting on a dr. ALSO, links may or may not contain vivid info (From worst to least) - Umbilical Hernia tied with Gastritis (if not Adenomyosis even!) WARNING, cgi graphic vid! - Endometriosis (WARNING, also graphic images but decent explanation!) (funny but somewhat explaining link) - Sleep Apnea(not going to get into the fact that the cpap machine mask gives me waking nightmares so I use a breathe right strip - Bipolar Depression Disorder or in my own name, long term fuck with your head bipolar hormonal related depression (I KNOW i have thyroid issues that tie into this) - the left side of my body from the rib cage down to my ankle hurts. which i believe is a combination of the above and damage. (the rib cage and lower torso are from the hernia and endometriosis issues, and the hip socket and leg are from i dunno what it just hurts to walk) Wake up on the nice bed that helps so much with getting sleep. No really, it HELPS SO MUCH, i get sleep, I have dreams. For someone who has had sleep issues for SO LONG being able to get sleep and DREAM, to have dreams means SO MUCH. HOWEVER, swing my legs over to the edge of the bed and tap the left foot on the floor to get used to the pain on my heel. stand up and bob on my feet to work the pain in so when i take that first step its not like a huge dagger up the back of my leg. yeah, not walking well today again. OF COURSE the more I walk the less it hurts, but got damn that walk to the bathroom you’d think i stepped on glass shards. My hope is that if I get a pedicure or soak my feet and take the pedegg to my heel it will get enough dead skin off which MIGHT be why the sole of my heel hurts. And because its been going on for so long the back of the leg is stiff and sore up to the bend of the knee. so when I CAN I sit on the same bed and rest on a heating pad. ok onwards, walk to the bathroom like i’m on shards. go to the bathroom, the sitting helps stretch the muscles and take some of the pressure off.  Shake the grogginess off, wake up kiddo to do her morning routine, get school uniform out, figure out if she wants breakfast here or at school. Go from there. Get kiddo off to school, (this means seeing her out the door as hubs or grandpa take her to school) get morning instant coffee.(link is about foods I am supposed to not have) Groan inwardly as my brain starts playing all the “instant coffee? EUGH” voices. Yeah shut up cause its all I can take. Enjoy good tasting powder flavored water that i call my coffee and be content with it, Begin daily chores (dishes, clean a room of the house, laundry loads or whatever) then come to the computer to either draw, edit a video to post or work on a comic upload.....play catch up on stuff then leave comp on in case i need to update my grocery list. The rest of the day depends. Kiddo home from school, fix dinner. ALL THROUGH OUT THE DAY try not to cry when I get up to walk. The pain from the endometriosis (infoon how it hurts) before, during and after my period is one thing. THIS pain is like stabbing up my leg. I KNOW, its because I am heavyset. I wasn’t always. I was walking treadmill, with shoes on too. I have gained weight from the damn birth control before I had to stop that, I walk as much as I can because its a hard line, walk to get better and lose weight, or walk so much to the point until your leg screams at you. Its a catch 22 I know. I’m tired of doctors saying my problems are because I am fat. Yeah, no, the fact that my physical makeup and how my body works and reacts to any drug has nothing to do with it? whats that you say? lemme see, I can take aleve and i’m good all day, but take two aleves every day for two weeks straight and I will no longer get what I need from them. My body will react like its normal and still feel pain and all it does is work as an over the counter blood thinner. (IT is meant for headaches and muscle pain but it also is a blood thinner to an extent) just like most pain killers it stops working after a while. like most birth controls do, they do their job and slowly have the hormonal build up that makes me nuts (yeah fuck you loestrin these reviews spell your doom) or cause me to be psycho emotionally or the one time, work as it should and leave me alone. I’ll spare you the rest because if I haven’t lost you by now, I might soon. thanks for staying this long its almost over I promise. Most of my days are pain and me just muddling through it as best as I can and fieldingdumbass statements, dealing with disbelieving or invalidating doctors. Glad I don't have cancer based on that link but still...I'm so damn tired of the bullshit if all of my issues were because I am fat then yeah, i would be busting my ass at the gym. kinda hard to do so when even that hurts and taking pain meds doesn’t do much. Please fix the problem not medicate the symptoms. I want the cause stopped.....and apparently that’s unheard of.... anywho the rest is a story for another day. and yes I am aware that sleep apnea is often caused by being overweight....but not always. with me sleep apnea runs in the family as we have either deviated septums or something to do with the throat.

(I don't have nosebleeds, nothing severe, its a slight deviation that when I have allergies or am sick causes annoyances but its enough that it causes sleeping problems and muccus issues when allergy season comes around or I get sick.

#endometriosis #gastritis #bipolar depression #bipolar #andenomyosis #sleep apnea #umbilical hernia