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[eddathegreat]

Man, remember when Danny and Ethan both came out to each other and admitted they both found each other attractive and then ended that strip lamenting that they could never get together because it would be weird for Amber and would make them the bad guys? I for one am delighted that we have moved past the therapy-speak era of Dumbing of Age where characters turn to the camera and go "we couldn't possibly do this plotline because morals" to the Chaos Era where a conversation takes a realistic amount of time (i.e. like one minute) to get to the point of "we should tell our boyfriends". And not just because it means more realistically messy relationships.

I REMEMBER

on the other hand, fewer people were mad at me then

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I gave Kaiju No. 8 the three episode test and was immensely disappointed by it.

We start off with a brief kaiju attack in a world where those happen on the regular, and then we have our protagonist, who is on the kaiju cleanup crew. The drudgery of this was done so lovingly, and I loved the shots of them sticking pitons into the carapace to get the work site in order. Just guys doing routine work, having strategies for how to take the monster apart and cart it away, machines to wash down the copious amounts of blood ... I was all about it.

And our schlubby loser protagonist keeps trying to become a part of the kaiju defense force, and keeps failing. He watches his childhood friend on TV, who is like the best kaiju hunter in the whole world. She's a cold and distant figure, doing the thing they both promised they'd do together, and it's inevitable that they'll meet each other.

Then in episode two, our protagonist gets turned into a human-sized kaiju, which really just means a monster, and he's super powerful and overpowered, and also he can transform back, and then they're stealing most of the plot beats from My Hero Academia not just in the "trying out in scenarios to become kaiju hunters" thing, but also in how our protagonist is an underdog whose utility comes from being an expert in kaiju from his clean up crew days. And there's an annoying girl with pigtails who is the best recruit ever and the daughter of a major company's president, and I just ... I don't know man.

There's a thing that's common in anime and less common in Western television where the first episode is in a bit of a different genre than the rest of the series, which I generally appreciate. Here ... I would so much have loved to stick with the loser on kaiju clean up, guy who didn't achieve his dreams. What's that like? How does meeting your childhood friend who made it look? How do you accept that you're never going to be "special" in a world where special is splashed up on the screens?

But no, he's super ultra special, he's got power for days, he's an typical "overdog", underestimated by everyone but also the strongest there ever was.

Yawn.

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I have been experimenting with how to draw The Girlfriends

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Taylor/Rachel?

Ship It

What made you ship it?

I don't actively ship it so much as nod with mild agreement when it is mentioned, I'm not very ship-prone. But Rachel is one of the characters with the strongest bond to Taylor, with a lot of subtext supporting there being something more than friendship between the two. I generally prefer to read the Undersiders as queerplatonic (besides Needlepoints, tbc), but if you had to put a ship in the middle of it this is the one I'd pick.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

They bring out some of the best in each other. Taylor gets to be compassionate and understanding in that way she is with misfits, and it's through Taylor that Rachel takes on more of a caretaker role. They're so heartbreakingly loyal to one another.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Idk, honestly. I'm not up-to-date with most shipping discourse, and I don't have all that many opinions.

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Taylor/Lisa

Don’t Ship It

Why don’t you ship it?

I'm in the small minority of queer folk who read Taylor as straight, for one thing. (This might change at some point, it's been close to a decade since I read Worm as a confused teenager, but don't count on it). I'm not unopposed to just ignoring my reading of a character's straightness for the sake of an idea, but also Lisa's ace, and I lean towards reading her as aromantic. And even if she's allo, a lot of the two's canonical relationship is characterized by Lisa manipulating Taylor out of a desire to save her while Taylor is too busy heroically self-destructing. This is as adjacent to healthy as two teenaged traumatized supervillainesses may come as a friendship, there's a degree of equilibrium there, there's a give-and-take, push-and-pull. But in a romantic relationship? That's going to very rapidly be a disaster that feels likely to drive them apart. Basically, I find them compelling as friends, in a fucked-up way and a wholesome way, that I don't think really survives them as a couple.

2. What would have made you like it?

I feel like post-GM Taylor and Lisa would almost maybe work, but it's sort of intrinsic to their development into those maybe-compatible people that they lose the other and live in wildly different circumstances. If someone could effectively reconcile that, I think you could play off the sense of loss and longing each feel towards one another to build more of a romantic sense between the two.

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

Cackling goofy supervillainess who is extremely mean paired up with the stoic violent supervillainess with a heroic streak is a fun dynamic, two girlbosses out to be gay & do crimes. The Undersiders were like step 1 of me eventually stumbling onto my understanding queerplatonic relationships, and so I will say that the relationship between the two in canon is at the very least queer. So I can certainly see the appeal. If shipping were to include queerplatonic relationships I might say that yes I do ship it, but I'm not up to date on whatever discourse there is on that.

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So I was at SDCC this year, and I passed a stall in the ladies' and heard someone sobbing inside. Just bawling, fully melting down. My-dog-just-died levels of crying. And I've spent a lot of time in therapy trying to learn better boundaries around helping people, but I'm not made of stone, so I stopped outside the stall door and asked, "Are you okay?"

The woman's breath caught, and she said, "Yeah, I'm fine," in the least fine voice I have ever heard.

So I walked away. Made it all the way to the sinks. Washed my hands. And turned around and went back because nope, not fine, not okay.

"Look, I don't want to be a dick, and you don't have to tell me what's going on, but is there anything that would help? I've got water, ibuprofen, and safety pins, and I could find other stuff."

"No, no, it's fine. I have those too."

"...okay."

I made it to the sinks again. She went back to sobbing like her heart was being torn out one strand of muscle at a time.

An older woman sidled up to me. "Did she tell you anything?"

"Nope. I offered her water and ibuprofen, too."

"Oh! I've got snacks. Maybe that'll help."

"Worth a shot. Oh, hey, I think I have some of my business cards for my Etsy shop in here—I could write my number on one if she needs help later."

"I've got a pen!"

We hurried back to the stall, offered the snacks, and were rebuffed. Finally we slid the card and the pen under the stall door, explained that we were both mom friends/teachers/etc. and trying to help-not-creep, and reluctantly fucked off. I personally felt like shit about it, but I had places to be and I felt like I was close to overstepping the crying woman's boundaries if I hadn't already done so. And if I'd made her feel unsafe, well, she could toss the card.

The following morning, I got a text from an unknown number.

She identified herself as "Rose from the bathroom" and explained that she'd had a hell of a day, with multiple people being cruel to her, seemingly for no good reason. She'd hit her breaking point and fled to the bathroom to cry it out ... at which point two strangers had rocked up, checked on her multiple times, and generally done the dance of most social mammals when a member of their group is in unexplained distress. The two of us had, more or less accidentally, restored her faith in humanity by being worried apes at her. 18 hours later, she was having a much better time, and a lot of it was due to the two of us shoving things under her door.

Anyway, turns out we live about 20 minutes apart, and we're going to meet up for tea after we've recovered from con exhaustion.

So if you ever feel like humans in general and/or fandom humans in particular are irredeemable shits, remember that sometimes the same species who'll ruin your con day will try to slide trail mix and ibuprofen under your stall door in case it helps.

I still don't know what Rose looks like, btw (although apparently she knows what I look like—I mentioned I was in cosplay and she said she'd seen me around). I don't know whether she's cis or trans. So next time you hear someone bitching about trans women in the ladies', feel free to tell them that it never once crossed anybody's mind to ask. If you're crying in the bathroom, you're my sister.

Maybe take the trail mix, though. We apes worry about one another.

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let's put Scooby and the gang in a genuine horror movie situation, i wanna see what these freaks are truly capable of

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The day has come! The book is out!

A huge thank-you to everyone who's followed along and supported this bonkers endeavor of mine. No question that, without you guys as an audience, the process of publication would've been far more lengthy and complicated. Publishers love to know that the thing they're taking a chance on has good odds of doing well, and there's no better indicator than people already liking it. I'm incredibly lucky to have been so supported in this, and I thank you all for convincing them to take the chance!

Until now, the comic's audience has been comparatively self-contained, in orbit around the site and its comment section. Now the first volume is traveling down new, physical avenues of discovery - bookstores, libraries, shelves at home; the way I found my favorite stories as a kid. I have no idea where it's gonna go from here, but the one thing I know is that it's out of my hands and largely out of my sight.

I've always wanted to put stories out into the world. This is the first time I've watched one leave the nest to take on a life of its own. It's scary not to know what its future holds, except for the part of it that I get to write myself. I can't wait to see where we go.

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Ruby and Penny in a photo booth, but silver eyes are super reactive to flash photography, so Penny increases the brightness in her eyes to match

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I had no idea how Candy had even got it, but it was surveillance footage from the Warden’s HQ.  Kenzie stricken.  Kenzie pushing things off of the desk she’d set up at.  A faltering attempt at smiling had given way to tears, sobbing.  She’d started shouting and pushing more things to the ground when her teammates had tried to reassure her.  In the end, it had been Tattletale who had caught her in a hug, pinning her arms at her sides, and held her there.  Tattletale who, despite the video not having audio, had apparently told Chicken Little, Darlene, and Candy to go. When Kenzie had been released from the hug, she’d gone back to her computer.  To keep updating us.

— From Within 16.1

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"She took a message of hope to the stars, and she saw the world through better eyes"

Eggh happy with how the face turned out not so much about the rest.... but don't want to try and fix it now its the best that i can do...

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Remembrance, a Hellblazer pride story (featuring Xanthe Zhou) by us and @pdmarshall-comics. With authenticity consultant help from @manggageprek.

A fancomic about memories, grief, and generational queer tension.

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People on twitter have been saying this website is extremely white and tbh its making me very curious what the demographics of this site are (of my own reach anyway) so

DISCLAIMER: Race is a non scientific concept with no exact definitions. It is a social construct primarily characterized by how society treats you and thus this is an imperfect poll. If you feel none of the options here reflect you and your experience I implore you to reblog this with your experience as I am curious about that and want to hear about it.

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Durocher / Ambessa

Okay here’s an ask game

Send me a ship and I’ll answer three questions based on if I ship it or not.

Ship It

What made you ship it?

What are your favorite things about the ship?

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Don’t Ship It

Why don’t you ship it?

What would have made you like it?

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

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Team RWBY Atlas redesigns.

I had already made Atlas era outfits for the girls, but I wanted to reproach them because I wasn't that happy with them.