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Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on people headcanoning characters as certain genders, so long as it still matches their sexualities? For example, headcanoning Storm as a gnc transfem, which would still respect her and Hope being lesbians. Or Fade as transmasc or demiboy. I love making trans headcanons but I wanted to make sure I'm not crossing any boundaries lol

People can headcanon any of our characters as trans, we just didn't want people doing it based on harmful stereotypes or un-transing our trans characters. We appreciate you asking! - Cat

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I just realized that you were shadowbanned today so this might be a really inconvenient time to be stuck by inspiration for a IHS inspired Wolf comic. (Never beating the Furry allegations). Just one question: aside from your MC’s name, how did you come up with your comic name?

Hey we love a good wolf comic over here.

I wanted something google-able, first and foremost. Nothing so generalized there's a bajillion things similarly titled. And none of this one-word-title crap. (Those kinds of titles should be used sparingly, and I feel like a lot of one-word-titled things would benefit from a more unique title, like a commonly used phrase within the thing.)

I also wanted something that reflects the general mood of the story. We just ended up looking for short phrases that included the word "Hope" cuz it helped narrow down the search, plus its fun when a title can include the main character's name. - Cat

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Idk who's to blame for yall being shadowbanned but I think we need to send 500 hours of cramps to Jasper for it

Capitalism is to blame. Its just tumblr being tumblr, it wasn't any specific who. But Jasper still deserves about 500 hours of cramps anyway. - Cat

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used to be ihopeso anti then I (at the time hate)watched the MP review and realized this was better

hope you guys get unshadowbanned, proud to be on the good side now lmao

Thank you so much, anon! And oof we hope so too. All we can do is wait, I'm afraid.

And we're so happy to hear you gave the comic a chance. We've always said we don't mind people enjoying both IHS and MP as long as folks don't make out we've set their house on fire by criticising the latter lol - but credit is where credit is due: we've come across a lot of MP fans who have stated they still enjoy the show but they respect our opinions on it. And we're chill with that. Glad to have you on board regardless! c: - RJ

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ever since one of you said cub!storm would eat a lot of things she shouldn't, I've been headcanoning her as having pica lol. I imagine she'd have mostly grown out of it but still reverts back during periods of high stress

no I'm not projecting what do you mean

We weren't thinking of pica when we came up with that idea but thank you for reminding us of this condition. It certainly has ties to a few neurodivergent conditions (i.e. autism, schizophrenia) so it's not beyond the pale that it's an early indicator of Storm's ADHD.

I knew a kid growing up who would eat rocks from the schoolyard, for example. His poor mother was always mortified because she thought the school would call in social services. Turns out he was autistic and him sucking/chewing on the rocks seemed to be a kind of stimming behaviour. He was able to just switch to gum after some play therapy, thankfully. I remember he was obsessed with spearmint while the rest of us 8-year-olds didn't want anything to do with anything that remotely reminded us of toothpaste. Good for him because spearmint smells amazing, I just don't like the taste. lol But yeah no, project and headcanon onto our characters all you want. We love hearing about stuff like this. c: - RJ

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RJ responding to that last ask with Zircon certainly has me side-eyeing him now! xDD

He's been naughty. - Cat

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Is there any character(who's appeared so far) that you both absolutely hate? I'm not talking design-wise, I mean concept-wise.

My answer is Zircon and, as for reasons why: y'all will have to wait and see, I'm afraid. oof - RJ

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HELLOOOO! I actually wanted to send this ask a week before but ig tumblr decided it was the best time to shadowban the blog :( Anyways before I say something I love love LOVE your comic and the character writing, it actually helped a lot on writing my characters too! I’m currently trying to put up a webcomic script that also tackles ableism and abuse with those characters, but I was worried about something you guys pointed out in the MP analysis video. Specifically, the idea that the way Nothing is literally rigged against the narrative and gets tossed at in every direction is not at all empowerment for disabled characters, and is what can be most likely summarized into “trauma/suffering pxrn for plot”. The fact that you guys are VERY RIGHT makes me kinda worried because I also have a disabled character who is abused by their family in their childhood, but is shown to be perfectly capable and does overcome the influence of their abusive family eventually. The REAL problem would be that after all that character development, I’m…killing them. Yeah. I can’t even remove it bc this will act as a point of an “everything goes downhill from here” moment and is CRUCIAL to the plot. I’d been thinking about it ever since I saw your analysis and if this event will just, quote on quote, “…a message that - regardless of your limitations - you can achieve just as much as anyone else and, for the majority of its run, it repeatedly rams the counterargument down your throat.” Not repeatedly, I suppose, since you can’t kill someone twice, but still, I do think killing a character after all that development might not be good. The fact that I AM partially doing this for the plot does not make it better, and now I’m wondering if this will end up conveying a message that is Not Very Good like how MP did. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and it would be a honor for me to get your points of view about this. Sorry for the long-ass question, and I wish both of you the best of luck. Love you two!

Oh hey, I remember your ask and yes, Tumblr did indeed eat it. That's another symptom of the shadowban, I'm afraid. Tumblr shall render any asks in your inbox invisible and therefore you cannot answer them. We sincerely apologise for that. oof First of all, thank you so so much for your kind words concerning the comic and our characters. That's super sweet to hear. Now to your question. An important thing to point out - and what we shall keep pointing out until we're blue in the face - is that My Pride was sold as an inspirational, empowering story to the disabled and promised a story where the disabled main rises above her oppressive society.

Which... never happens.

The narrative kinda tries to do that with story beats such as Nothing fighting Quickmane despite only being a kid, her 'chosen one' subplot and - more infamously - Feather's speech.

But it very much feels like it's going through the motions that all "pro-disability" media that has been criticised in the past goes through. Whatever progress Nothing makes always has to be undone by the plot kicking her in the groin. Her final battle against Fire is a major example of this: not only does the plot demand she lose her brother - one of the few characters that truly cared for her - but it also demands she get her ass kicked, even though there was no reason for her to have lost the fight aside from her being disabled.

And that's one of my major issues with My Pride: it reels you in with its seemingly empowering plot and some choice quotes that do not reflect the full script and then it ultimately offers nothing but a depressing ride. Now, to the secondary issue of 'is it bad to depict ableism in your story'? Despite what people of a certain online persuasion might try and say, our issues with My Pride is NOT because the show has ableism in it and no, Tribble is not automatically an ableist because she has ableism in her story. She is an ableist because she put on a front of being an ally to physically disabled individuals and then presumed to know better than us whenever criticism was given while writing ableist tripe and presenting it as empowering.

That's literally it.

So, no, having ableism by itself in your story is not a bad thing on its own. It's how you ultimately handle the topic and present it that plays a part. I'd have a lot to say if you were presenting this story as a form of escapism for disabled readers, but that doesn't appear to be the case. As for the subject of your disabled character being killed off: I think you really need to stop and ask yourself what kind of story you wish to tell.

Naturally, this also depends on the type of story you wish to tell. For example, is it a tragedy where everybody in the cast is treated the same and they all encounter hardship or is this just specific to your disabled character? You need to be straightforward with your genre.

Why does this disabled character have to overcome all obstacles just to die in the end? You mentioned it's 'for the sake of the plot' and acknowledge that this on its own isn't really a good reason for making such a decision.

I agree with you. It just sounds like a bit of a letdown and actually very soap opera-esque to do this purely for plot reasons. And I don't mean 'soap opera-esque' in the essence that it's cheap or lowbrow. I mean that this is the kind of thing that soap operas do when an actor doesn't renew their contract, has no intention of returning and they therefore have to kill off their character.

It's just very obvious and on-the-nose, if that makes sense? And it's something that disabled people have seen many times in media.

And what's more, it's done because there's often no choice outside of replacing the actor. Whereas you do have the opportunity to explore other options and ways to tweak your plot, especially when you already sound uncomfortable with this development anyway. Not just because of what we say but because you personally see a point in what we say. I don't know the ins and outs of your story and you shouldn't have to share it for me to get it but, from what little you've told me, I'd personally be rooting for this character to not have their struggles be all for nothing as an audience member. And this actually reminds me of a trick that Richard Adams pulled when it came to the ending of The Plague Dogs. Snitter and Rowf were destined to die. However, because we as the reader naturally willed them to live as we followed their journey and bonded with them: Adams decided to have the dogs fished out of the water and have their happy ending. Because we as the audience willed that into existence without us even realising because of how real Adams made these characters.

What I'm saying is that - sometimes - going for the most obvious and 'cliche' ending can often be the most creative choice, depending on the type of audience you're trying to appeal to and the type of characters you write and how exactly you write them. You're already writing about real issues that affect real people, so your writing shall evoke a deep connection from your audience. Take advantage of that but also reward your audience for their perseverance rather than trying to make your audience feel a certain way through cheap means (i.e. through shocking moments that seemingly come out of nowhere). You don't need to fall back on a shocking twist to make your plot interesting. You're already there with the abuse storyline, in my honest opinion. I appreciate that the depiction of abuse has been watered down by media but - trust me - it is still a topic that - if handled correctly - can evoke certain emotions that a character death often cannot. Anyway, I'm very sorry this got extremely long. I really hope my rambling was helpful to you, anon, and I wish you the best of luck with your story! c: - RJ

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The new Hopeful’s pfp looks magnificent

Thank you anon, I'm happy that the new icon is a hit with y'all! Not gonna lie, it kinda encouraged me to just bit the bullet and set up an alt blog in the first place. lolol - RJ

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do u love me

This is a complete misuse of the comic's new ask blog, Ani! Enjoy your block. >8C - RJ

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I JUST NOTICED THE NEW BLOG ICON HELP LOL

Nothing screams 'welcome to the new ask blog' like Hopeful's customer service representative face! lol - RJ

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Lol love the slight icon change for the temp ask account

lol thank you, I'm glad y'all approve. <33

It was actually a tiny April Fool's thing we did with the server icon and I felt it was super appropriate for this situation too. lmao - RJ

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Real sorry to hear that your main got shadowbanned! I had to end up reaching out to Tumblr through Twitter when it happened to my own blog but we're talking several years ago now and it seems like they no longer maintain that account. Let's hope they get in touch with you soon if you've already sent them a ticket!

Reactivate our Twitter account or wait on the support ticket? Decisions, decisions.

lol sorry - we kid.

But thank you for the advice, anon. I did look into the Twitter account you mentioned (and Reddit too - as somebody else suggested) but like you say: the Twitter account is no longer active and Reddit seems to be filled with people who are having the same issues we are and are also waiting on support tickets. oof This is just one of those things that seems to happen whenever Tumblr does an update. Their flagging system is a quick-fix to abide by Google and Apple TOS after years of not moderating the site at all so it's naturally buggy as all hell and their recent update post (from the 15th) is just filled with strictly sfw blogs complaining that they also got flagged.

So, it's not an issue strictly limited to us and I doubt the recent layoffs are helping matters too. We have sent several tickets but we're not willing to press the issue due to people advising that sending more than a couple is just gonna get your issue flagged as spam. All we can do for now is wait, unfortunately. - RJ

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Please Read Before Sending an Ask

Welcome to the temporary ask blog for the webcomic, I Hope So. This blog exists as an alt in the event that we become unable to answer asks and interact with y'all on the main blog.

Please refer to the links below before sending us an ask: CHAPTERS - the individual chapters of the comic that are hosted on here. CAST - takes you to the official Toyhouse where all of the character profiles are stored. LORE AND GLOSSARY - info on the universe of the comic. COMIC MAP - map of the general area and information on locations. ABOUT US - info about us and our socials outside of the comic. FAQ - Frequently asked questions. We shall NOT be answering any that are listed here. EXTRAS - Bonus content, including our free-to-use lion base and character generators. OFFSITE LINKS: where else you can find the comic. THE FOLLOWING ASKS WILL NOT BE ANSWERED/PUBLISHED:

- ANY ASKS THAT ARE ASKING WHEN FULL CHAPTERS ARE RELEASING/WHEN WE UPDATE IN GENERAL. This will just earn you an automatic block. We do not update by chapters, we update page-by-page every Friday. There is early access to pages on our Patreon. Please stop asking. - ANY ASKS NOT RELATED TO THE COMIC. Any unrelated questions can be directed via the Discord server below.  - CROSSOVER QUESTIONS (i.e. how our characters would fit into franchises outside of the comic), as these also fall under non-comic related questions. - ANY ROLEPLAYING/ANON INTERACTIONS WITH CHARACTERS(i.e. “plays with adamant’s hair” etc.) - ART REQUESTS OR SUGGESTIONS. We don’t have time to honour these. We do art of whatever we feel like.

DISCORD SERVER INVITE LINK: https://discord.gg/kVpBHPFSkT

Our Discord is a growing, welcoming community where you can interact with us and other readers of the comic. You can share art, ask questions - whether they be related to the comic or not - or just talk about just anything you like in the designated channels. Hope to see you there!

Thank you for visiting and for reading the comic, your support means a lot to us.

– Cat and RJ