#Which Sparklecare character are you | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

star-daughter · 27 days

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Whooh boy. Hi everyone! Sorry, It's been a while. But I have quite the post for you all today, because we'll be talking about a webcomic I just finished! ... I will warn you all though, that I do not have the kindest of words to say about it.

You may be aware of this comic, as it has a considerable following, especially here on tumblr, the comic is called Sparklecare. It currently has 4 volumes and is on a short hiatus so the website can finish it's redesign, but the plot summary of the comic from the last available snapshot of the website is as follows:

The comic follows the story of a cat named Barry Ill and his experience of being admitted to the Sparklecare hospital. Despite its glamorous reputation, the hospital is actually a prison that tortures and kills its patients and drains their families of insurance by the corrupt hospital's owner, Dr. Cuddles. Cuddles is a greedy Capitalist scumbag who cares about nothing but money, and so far, everything is working out for him. Any patients who escape or try to speak out against the hospital aren't believed and are written off as crazy. The story follows Barry's journey into uncovering the truth about why this place really is the way it is, and why nobody's talking about it.

From the outside, the comic is very striking and intriguing! From it's prominent art style and art direction, to the concept itself, it sounds like a fun time! ...Right? Well that's where the comic gets you; see just like the in-universe hospital, Sparklecare isn't as inviting and pleasant once you really sink your teeth in. And I'm here to talk about why I think that is.

Before we begin, I'd like to clarify since I've become aware of the community's um... Questionable attitude towards critique, that if you enjoy Sparklecare, that's totally fine! I'm not gonna tell you what you can and can't read, I'm here to express my own thoughts on it.

Now, I won't torture you with this post if it ends up on your dash, so the full post will be under the cut! Please check the reblogs, I may add more there if I run out of space.

Also, CW for bright colours, blood and a whole heaping o' medical mispractice.

Before I get into some of the more serious issues with the comic, I wanna first start off with the thing you're going to first see trying to read it: The art. Here I would say the website, but since it's getting a redesign, I don't feel confident speaking on it. I'll leave one note on it though: it needs serious optimization...

Onto the art: I will say, I found the art quite charming, especially the art in the first 2 volumes. I think the comic has a way with setting mood and tone using it's palette, specifically in the dramatic "blue/red" scenes - I think those look gorgeous!

The style in volume 1 & 2 is also very pleasing to the eye, although it can look off at points. I think the style succeeds extremely well with it's tendency to give characters large, exaggerated expressions - it's very cartoony and I love it. The lineweight is also used very well in my opinion!

However... There's a few big elephants in the room that they are The designs, lettering & panel work.

I'll begin with how the series handles it's lettering, as it's one of the most important parts of a comic. Although it's unique, that does not mean it's good.

In volume 1, it starts off fine enough, it's a simple speech bubble with white/black text.

It sort of flip-flops between having a shadow/glow and not having one, which although confusing and hurts my eyes sometimes, not a deal breaker! The bubbles are all colour coded also so no matter the scene, you understand who is talking. That is very good! I like that! I wish the colours weren't as bright as the backgrounds, but I understand why they are.

Volume 2 introduces what I consider my favorite of the lettering styles, big bold outlines with bubbles that better surround the text!

It's easily the most recognizable lettering style of all the volumes, and it's very readable. It's simple, but lettering is at it's best when it's simple and understandable.

This volume's lettering also introduces colour coded words & different fonts.

Which, I think looks lovely! It adds personality, and since fonts carry different tones with them, it helps with emphasis and how people read the dialogue. However, this isn't to say I think this lettering is perfect.. I'm not a huge fan of the random dots & spots, I think they clutter up the page when there too many characters on screen speaking, which distracted me from focusing on the actual words they were saying.

It also changes mid-way through volume 2! Suddenly, we get character-coded dots & spots... Which, cool in theory, but in practice, as I mentioned, it clutters the page if there's too many characters speaking at once.

Plus, they're used on background characters who do not appear again after their introduction, which is such a waste... If you're going to introduce these character-specific details, they should be used on characters who are important, not character we'll never see again.

When we get to volume 3 & 4, the lettering style almost completely solidifies, the same big bold outlining from volume 2... But now instead of just having personalized dots, we get fully personalized speech bubbles. Which, again, cool in theory! But in practice it's just... So hard to read.

On lettering, I will applaud the use of a custom hand-written font. It looks great! It's fairly clear and adds a nice touch to the comic's overall appearance... But how they use the font is, in my opinion, awful. Characters talk way too much for how much page space there is, which means that there isn't enough space for the bubble to encompass the text, which means text needs to get smaller.

These pages are over 2000 pixels wide and tall, but there's no consideration for how the images & text will look when shrunk down to fit into a normal browser page, which means the text gets tiny and barely readable if there's too much of it - which there often is. I'll get into how I feel about the writing in a moment.

On the panel work, it's fine, it's not super jaw-dropping but it's serviceable. Where the panel work starts to fail though, is it's pacing. See, in comics, pacing is extremely important, good pacing means a better and clearer reading experience, bad pacing can leave the reader confused and force them to reread repeatedly to understand what's going on.

Sparklecare suffers from this heavily, I feel. Take a look to this page below, while not the worst example of it, I think demonstrates a bit what I mean.

There's a lot of text, similar looking shots, and... Very little background to help, well, ground where we are, which made me feel dizzy while reading. There's not a lot of proper flow, because speech bubbles float all over the place, often times out of order in which you are supposed to read them. You tend to dart your eyes all over the page to "properly" read it, which makes for a bad reading experience - the clearer the order is, the better the flow.

On backgrounds, I do not like the near-complete lack of them. Sparklecare gets around backgrounds by filling the colour voids of the panels with dots, specks, lines and patterns - but they don't do the job! It makes the pages feel more cluttered and difficult to look at and read.

Even when they do have backgrounds, they're also filled to the brim with patterning to take your mind off how often strange they look.

Being unable to see what's going on is a reoccurring issue with the comic, and it doesn't just end at the panel work or backgrounds...

The character designs in Sparklecare also contribute to the visual clutter, what with many of them having many small details or otherwise being unpleasant to look at due to their colour palette.

Here's a few examples of characters I think have too much going on or are just eyesores. And see, I get it, they're supposed to be sparkleanimals - designed like a kid on DeviantArt was making them in 2011, but you can get that look without making the designs hurt to look at. Sparklecare both tries to work within a limited palette and tries to have every colour possible on a character and it pulls neither off well. Not to mention, the multitude of small dots & details, adding more to the pile of small dots in the comic.

When a ton of characters are on screen, it tends to make things more confusing to look at - due in part also to the comic's continuity issue. Things or characters that are in one panel or page, will disappear the next, or swap places. Overall, small art issues pile up onto a mess of bright colours and rainbow.

Now here's where we get to the fun point, The writing. Oh boy! For the most part, or at least in volumes 1 & 2, the writing is completely fine. Complicated, a bit odd, but nothing to scream about... Until volumes 3 & 4, because that's when the issues in the writing really starts to show it's rainbow-speckled face.

I'll be direct, I don't like the writing in Sparklecare. The characters are typically unlikable or annoying, and when they do have something interesting going for them, it gets walked back on for plot reasons. Characters also seem to be unable to do wrong, unless they're deliberately out to be the bad one. Characters will do something bad, but get reassured that everything is fine and it isn't their fault even though they did something bad - which is weird the first time, but awful the next 40.

The writing does have it's good points (I liked most of the writing in volume 2, I thought Hemera's struggles with wanting to keep her friends safe was really interesting and I liked the chunklings), but there's prominent issues I can't shove aside.

I namely have issues with the humor, specifically it's uh... Sexual humor. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good penis joke every now and then, but volume 4 has about 5x the sex jokes of any volume. It was genuinely horrible to sit through because I knew every serious moment would get a joke about stroking it a page or two afterwards.

(One note on that first image there, it happens right after Barry [the green guy] completely belittles and insults Uni [the purple one]...)

The meta humor also felt very, very forced.

It always came out of nowhere, and completely out of place every time it was used. I like meta humor also, but this is supposed to be a more serious comic, yes? I mean, it should be considering the topics at hand, so suddenly throwing in references to this being a comic feels weird to read.

I will say, I do like some of the jokes, specifically these ones:

Let me circle back to the character writing really quick, because there was characters I enjoyed! ... Just not the main ones.

I think, out of everyone, my favorite characters were:

Several background characters with no lines

Dr. Party

Cyn

Jean

Rem

I also really enjoyed how Cuddles was written in volume 1 & 2, he felt very threatening to me.

Outside of these characters though, I found little interest in the main cast and even found myself rooting for the downfall of a few of them due to their poor writing.

Specifically on Barry, there's a small arc in volume 2 where he realizes he needs to stop violently denying that Uni has magic (Which is a stupid plot in my opinion, by the way, considering the worldbuilding has a lot of magic in it. You'd think the smart guy character would know that?) after Uni's magic helps them in the dump. However, right afterwards, in volume 3 & 4, Barry goes right back to verbally assaulting Uni about how magic isn't real! It's not enjoyable to read, and makes no sense to me after what happened in volume 2.

One note, since I don't know where to put this but, I don't like doom. I really don't ... I think I'm supposed to feel bad for him? But I can't! I saw him in volume 1 take glee in having power over the patients, and as the site states:

Doom is not a normal nurse, because he takes on the role of a doctor by harming people alongside regular nurse duties.

He literally tortures people! I'm sorry, I cannot forgive that! No matter how bad he feels about it.

Some more notes on writing before I end this because it's getting too long.. The disability rep in Sparklecare is, questionable sometimes. For the most part I think it's perfectly fine, buuut there are moments I don't think of fondly.. Specifically this moment in volume 2:

Barry starts having a paranoid and panicky moment due to his contamination OCD (Because they're in a literal trash heap) and Uni decides to...

Call it cute??? Genuinely what the hell, who thought this was a good thing to put in here? I haven't read the spin-off AU comic, but I hear it treats it's character with OCD even weirder. Yuck!

On a related note, I hate the cutesy names for disorders. They don't even come up often in-universe, there's little purpose in having them, especially if most of them are just real life, actual disorders. I know it's about an abusive hospital but come on man! You don't have to use baby names for everything! You don't even follow the weird naming pattern for everything! Things like autism don't get a weird cutesy name, but OCD and depression get one? Have some consistency if you're gonna make a weird universe decision.

Alrighty.. This should be the end of it, I'm not sure how to end it because there's still more I want to talk about! I'm super-duper open to talking about anything I've said here or elaborating on why I feel certain ways. This is in no way meant to be a hit-piece of the creator of Sparklecare, I think there's a lot of protentional, and I simply adore some aspects of the comic (Specifically visually). I really do hope this comic will improve over time and that it sees a long life of success.

If you come to this post to disagree, I ask you read through what I say carefully and come at me respectfully, I have no interest in fighting with people over a webcomic about furries.

-Mod Star

#mod star #sparklecriticism #sparklecarecriticism #sparklecare criticism #sparklecrit #I was considering posting this in main tags until I realized I'd get my ass destroyed. Oh well!#Apologies if anything is worded odd or has typos #I was distracted often while writing this and it is quite long so I proofread as I went.

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rye-in-a-coat · 9 months

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MY SPARKLECARE THEORY

The Number.

Y'all remember when the ZCP told us to not call the phone number Rem gives to Bright? You should not, I'm not sure if it's an actual number in real life; but if it happens to be, no one who's on the other side of the line will be happy.

To avoid curious viewers to obliterate someone's phone, what usually is done in media ever since in the 1960's in the U.S. and Canada is to have the phone number's central office code to be 555 as it's almost* guaranteed no civilian person will have such number for personal use or will link to any business. This only applies in the North American Numbering Plan of course.

Why didn't the ZCP use a 555 number then? They actually used one in the same volume, the phone number Lo dials to call the Citycountrytown Casting Agency is 555-2737.

What I get from this is that, if they didn't use a 555 number for the number at the end, it is because the numbers in it themselves carry some kind of information.

Cross on blue and yellow background.

Such symbol has appeared before in Volume 1, where we see a escaped patient having it on a sign, and in Volume 2, where it is held by a protestor. As Eve mentioned once in this ask, such symbol which also appears in the blog, website and other stuff is NOT the hospital's logo. Then of what or who?

An anti-Sparklecare group?

It is clear that this symbol as shown in these examples, represents a statement against Sparklecare. What I supose is that, because Kittycorn doesn't want to reveal any further information of the protestors seen in volume 2, they will be relevant in a future volume or series. If we link these clues together, perhaps this symbol doesn't just represent the movement in general, but a specific organized group against Sparklecare, making it their logo. Then this would make Rem part of it too, and so Rem then becomes a very important piece in the story, because she's the infiltrated secret agent in the hospital. Knowing how heavily implied Doctor Party is to be an ESPer, he surely knows about Rem's undercover identity and about this organized group. Perhaps he's part of it too, if so, then they have another great important character against Cuddles.

A cipher?

Going back to the phone number, if the numbers in it are important and relevant, perhaps a piece of code is ciphered in it. My first thought was A1Z26 cipher, a simple sustitution code in which each letter gets a number assigned, so A is 1, B is 2; and so on.

The first six digits of the phone number, if you read them as 1-14-20-9 and decipher them using A1Z26, you get the word ANTI; which I really doubt this is just a coincidence knowing how it is implied this phone number belongs to an ANTI Sparklecare group.

The other four tho: 2425, are not that obvious. The possible combinations readable in A1Z26 are 2-4-2-5 (BDBE), 2-4-25 (BDY), 24-2-5 (XBE), and 24-25 (XY).

The only idea that comes to my mind is A-N-T-I-B-D-Y which is one letter off from "antibody". An antibody is protein belonging to the inmune system which will find, target and neutralize foreign and so-possibly harming bodies such as harmful bacteria and viruses.

An antibody's job is to protect the human body from what will harm it, and these anthries's hope seems to be to protect the patients from receiving any more harm from such heartless medical industry.

But Imma be honest, the four last digits are quite an stretch to analyze and I'm starting to doubt if the ANTI is a coincidence.

*A footnote.

If you want to use a 555 number in your media, DO NOT put as area codes 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844 or 833 before them. These area codes are reserved for toll-free dial numbers, to which the 555 office code is valid; so you may actually write a real phone number that who knows where that will link to.

#handful of grains #sparklecare #tell-o-phone

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sparklecarehospital · 5 months

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If you could take one character from canon sparklecare, cometcare, and darkermatters, and put them in a singular room with nothing else together for a few hours, which characters would you choose and do you think they'd befriend eachother, fight, or something else?

Just wanted to ask a fun little question

inspired by the ask i just answered, i would pick brigh, sly, and strike so they can bond over being ferries/furries together and excitedly share their art and talk about their ocs. i think they'd get along well. peace and love on planet spinch <3

also tbf brigh and sly actually already know each other in cometcare universe! i dont think theyre exactly close but brigh has been around in their lives since before sly hatched. i dont know if they know that about each other necessarily though

#answers #brigh being a ferrie is so good. amazing development to his character in my opinion

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askcometcare · 8 months

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I just wanted to thank you for making this amazing series. Cometcare/Sparklecare have genuinely helped change my life for the better. I always hated myself for being a furry, and all the stuff you’ve made helped me realize that feeling that way about what I like is silly! I went from always feeling like trash from looking at some cute drawings, to making a tumblr account just to express my gratitude to you! Keep doing what you’re doing! Can’t wait to see where it goes next!

OOC: thank you so much! there's nothing wrong with being a furry. i tried to represent that message in arc 3 actually even if i personally don't consider my art to be "furry art" since they're just kinda animal people and not drawn in a furry style (i do have a fursona though!) sly's entire experience about being insecure sharing her art is actually directly based on how i feel sharing my art with people IRL or with my family because of how people "view" furries and such, it's an experience that's very real to me.

i guess i just wanted to show a positive depiction of the fact furries aren't always what everyone interprets them to be. and quite frankly, there's nothing wrong with them being "that way" either. sly's speech at the end of arc 3 is actually meant to show how she copes with her dysphoria by having that idealized "ferrie" version of herself, which is also something i connect with and i know a lot of other people do too. it's a bit easier to have an escape from the world around you especially if you have general self-image issues or something like gender dysphoria or dysmorphia. and sometimes it's just fun! it can be fun! drawing animals is fun!!!

cometcare is really different from the main comic because there's so many more aspects of my life and experiences and the experiences of others that i can depict and represent that just isn't possible in the limits of the main comic. it's really important to me to be able to see myself and my life and teen and child years in these characters and hearing others say that they connect with them for similar reasons is just really special to me.

thank you for this message, it's really sweet and means a lot to know it's had such a positive impact on you. i hope you enjoy the rest of the AU (and main comic)!

#ooc #sorry for the ramble!

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hemeruni · 5 months

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When I usually state my opinion about something, I don’t really say it with the intention of having others lean towards it one way or another, I simply state it to get something off my chest.

Hemera is, without a shadow of a doubt, my favorite Sparklecare character. I never would’ve imagined that this would be the case, but nonetheless I strive to make content revolving her whenever I can.

But, just like rolling a rock up a hill, it’s seemingly becoming more and more common for this fox to have… something of sort happen, which inevitably leads to out roar and hate and whatever the fuck people come up with. I used to be apart of that crowd, I will admit, and I can see where these people are coming from.

If you were to show me dialog from V1 and V4 spoken by Hemera, I would’ve assumed that they were two different people. Hemera doesn’t feel like a main lead anymore, rather a side character that gets outshined by the other leads. It makes you think that this whole ordeal is necessary, when it really just causes more confusion and mistreatment of the fox by the community.

And the fact that this hatred only got worse around the time V3 came out, with it hinting in multiple pieces of teaser material that she was going to DIE, only for KC to be like "You all REALLY thought I was going to kill off Hemera" YEAH??? What the fuck does this shit mean then????

Reminder that the volume before this revealed that Hemera suffers from the trauma of having THE LIMBS OF SOMEONE SHE CARED ABOUT STITCHED TO HER BODY

YEAH! WOULDNT IT BE FUNNY TO TEASE A POTENTIAL DEATH OF A TRAUMA SURVIVOR AFTER GOING THROUGH A EVENT THAT PROBABLY FUCKED UP HER TIES WITH HER FRIENDS PERMANENTLY????? I SURE THINK SO /SARC

I hate that im making this, but im genuinely upset that this fox is treated like this both in and outside the comic, you’re telling ME that the traumatized fox who already has problems with losing people is IN THE WRONG for wanting her friends back safe??? Is it wrong to just lie to the health inspector because you know damn well that they wouldn’t have believed you anyways??? Hemera was RIGHT in doing that in V3 btw argue with a fucking wall

And then V4 came around and honest to god this is probably the worst portrayal of Hemera yet, and probably the worst TREATMENT she’s been given.

You’re telling me that when Hemera got honest to god mad with Uni over this SHE was the one in the wrong??? TELL ME, WHO IS THE ONE WHO MADE THE SENTIENT LIFE, WHO LEFT IT TO ROAM FREELY, AND WHO PROCEEDED TO GET 0 REPERCUSSIONS FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

KNEEVIL GOT A BETTER ENDING IN V4 THEN HEMERA DID, AND HE DIDN’T DESERVE IT

Yeahhhh Uniiii give her a fucking puppet, see what good that does for you

Don’t get me started on the V2 "nope, still aroace" joke or whatever the fuck excuse that you can possibly have for hating this fox.

It sucks having a favorite character who is seen as nothing but pure evil among a crowd of apparent "saints" when those said saints have done things equal to or worse then what Hemera has done. I’m not going to assume things, but the bias shows.

I’m not tagging this, this doesn’t deserve to be tagged. I’m going to bed.

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arachnidcakery · 6 months

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Dancing despite The Horrors <3

(Me rambling utc ♡) (ALSO IK IT LOOKS LIKE THEYRE JUST POSING & NOT DANCING BUT JUST TRUST ME ON THIS <//3 /lh)

(they/he/it/pup/she prns for this OC btw)

OKOK so remember when I mentioned I made a Sparklecare self-insert awhile back?

Well, this is their new design now! <33 The other one was just too pink I suppose, so I changed their design a bit, which I'm now quite more happy w/! :3 (I may tweak this one a bit later on, but this is just the closest to what they look like now ₍ᐢ. ̫.ᐢ₎) (They also still don't have a concrete name yet tho pfhdvshvq- but I'm considering the name Sofi Hart Ette !)

I won't go too much into their character/story just yet since I wanna ramble abt them mostly under their ref sheet post (which I'm still workin' on), but I will tell you that they're a ⅓ cake anthry, ⅓ dog, and ⅓ cat!♡ (Hence why they have 1 cat ear & 1 dog ear, and only 2 whiskers <3)

They also did previously work at Sparklecare as a nurse before eventually becoming a patient due to getting diagnosed w/ glows-a-lot, and (maybe) thinks-a-lot! :3 (Their part as a former nurse also may or may not be a relatively big part of their story later on,, , (said mysteriously))

#my art #my ocs #digital art #sparklecare #sparklecare hospital #sparklecare oc #self insert #Sofi Hart Ette #<- just in case I make that their name <3 #cw blood #I think?#let me know if I need to tag this as eye strain also /gen #Nea Pollie Tann

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sickknotdoom · 8 months

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sparklecare fans on twitter whining about the post nut clarity joke uni made is so funny because they refuse to talk about the many other blatant issues such as

barruni being a poorly written ship; barry is practically verbally abusive towards uni, uni lovebombs him regardless, and the reader is basically forced to enjoy the ship

the nurses that murder and torture patients being infantilized and treated like theyre innocent just because theyre queer, implied to be neurodivergent, or because cuddles is portrayed as the only "real" villain in the entire story; apparently the whole reason the comic even got rebooted was because they thought making the staff evil was "bad representation", but in all honesty queer people can be just as shitty as cishets, like have you seen dahmer?

pollys disability (which was poorly written to begin with, being constantly cold is nowhere near being unable to fucking walk) being erased in the au's

literally everyone having the same skinny body type except for the ones that are meant to be hated (cuddles, that one social worker from v3) with very few exceptions (side characters that are irrelevant 99% of the time)

an alarming disregard towards gay male rep; barruni and carlsly being initially advertised as mlm ships only for the clowns to abruptly make uni and sly closeted transhets (which by the way, heavily leans into the homophobic and transphobic stereotype that "gay guys are all just secretly trans"/vice versa), and the very few actually mlm characters (mel cyn and orange) being almost nonexistant until the writers run out of ideas and decide to slap them into the page like subway surfers gameplay

aroace erasure; uni, despite being aegosexual, is constantly shoved into sexual scenarios as a "joke", and hemera, the only aromantic character in the entire comic so far, is paired with at least four other characters in the cometcare au

but i guess we just dont question anything since the comic was originally based on kittycorns medical trauma, and criticizing it would be "disrespectful" to what kit went through, which seems fair. but if thats the case, why are we defending all of the hospital staff? wouldnt they be based on the real life medical abusers that hurt kit? that sounds hypocritical in my honest opinion.

do not harass the creators of the comic, obviously. sparklecare hospital actually means a lot to me as it helped me during a rough spot which im still in at the moment. and thats why i feel the need to bring these issues to light, im seeing a lot of wasted energy and poor creative decisions that are tainting what i believe has potential to be one of the best webcomics ever.

#.txt #sparklecriticism #sparklebitching #(mostly)#meaningful discussion #(somewhat)

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gengarghast · 1 year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyways, goodnight tumblr people, and...

Read Awful Hospital for fuck's sake!!!

#gengarghast #awful hospital #bogleech #sparklecare #sparklecarp #EM balmer #miss awful hospital #celia awful hospital #staph awful hospital #there sure are a lot of lesbian couples #nurse mood

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smiling-party · 2 months

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I dunno if this is stupid but i don’t really like the trans rep in SparkleCare/CometCare. Like, theres no transphobia (or sexism, i dont think gender roles as we know them exist either) and a lack of internal sex organs. At least the uterus. Which, for me personally, are pretty important parts of being trans. Obviously a character could be trans without that stuff, but no human on earth is.

We don’t really see any characters transitioning either? Like, we see Uni before she transitions and after, but not really the in between. This goes for most trans characters i think? You don’t have time transition at all to be trans, I don’t want to come across as if thats what im saying, but for a lot of people its pretty important.

It leaves trans rep feeling detached from this world, and it feels more of an accessory- and thats fine! I’m sure a lot of people could enjoy and take comfort in the universe Kc has created, but its so dissimilar to what we on Earth experience that it doesn’t feel very relatable. Its fine for what it is, but its not a very good representation of transness, i guess, and i think almost any other depiction of it rings closer home.

Yeah i dont know if this makes sense or if im just a selfcentered asshole but hey🤗

- 🃏 (Joker Anon >:3)

Hello! Welcome to the blog!

You aren't a self-centered asshole, because this is an issue not just in SC and/or CC, but everywhere in media where there are trans characters.

We always see the before and after, but what about the middle? Never, at least I haven't seen any so far, and I wish we could see the actual representation of transitioning of an character becoming this gender to this gender, you know?

Also, I agree, I wish in the future we see Uni's starting to transition, and seeing the slow progress of her becoming feminine.

Not just Uni, but any other character as well who transition!

However! I'm glad KC is adding characters with neopronouns now, and giving them xenogenders as well! I think that's really cool.

Oh and making some characters trans in different ways, like how Barry doesn't take testosterone but he got top surgery, or how Marco takes T but didn't get top surgery because he doesn't have body dysphoria!

However I wish we could see nondysphoric transfems/trans women in SC/CC :/ I haven't noticed one yet (unless I'm blind lol).

#sparklecriticism #party ramblings #🃏 anon

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ieatratsforlunch · 4 months

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Hi, that which SparkleCare character are you thing your doing sounds fun, can you do me?

Honestly, your whole vibe reminds me of Polaris Klepsky!!

Polly is known to genuinely be a "colder" kind of person, both literally and figuratively. It has trouble connecting with others or expressing their emotions in ways others will understand, but she still feels affection for those around her in other ways.

Generally speaking, he's more quiet than others are, and is more the kind of person to enjoy sitting around quietly spending time with those it knows instead of getting into energetic activities.

Here's a picture of her in-comic! (Kittycorns art)

#sparklecare #sparklecare hospital #answer #polaris klepsky #Which Sparklecare character are you

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star-daughter · 18 days

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how would you redesign jay? i've always not really liked their design - they're a red short cat with horns and that's it. apparently the horns are a genetic mutation (if i remember correctly!), but aside from the rats' multiple limbs, no other character is shown to have a difference like that, so it's strange to me. also they're an ex-crew member's self insert, so that doesn't help the boring-ness in my opinion

Oh boy! I actually quite like Jay's original design. I love the simplicity, but I do think they don't really stand out from the BG characters sometimes. My goal with this one was to give more interest to their design, so I had a bit of talk with Mod Paimon about it.

First issue we took note of, was Jay's colour palette. It's very 2-toned, in my opinion, as Jay has only 3 colours. This causes issues, because, with such a limited palette, if you aren't precise with colour placement, you get Jay.. Who has green in two places that are directly touching, causing confusion at first glance.

Mod Paimon suggested this as a possible fix:

Which I took heavy inspiration for the added colours in my redesign. Thank you, Paimon!

On the horns, I did always find them cute, but they didn't exactly mesh with the design super well because they're small and blend into the green, so I would sometimes forget they were even there...

And, a minor note before I show my redesign, due to the Sparklecare artstyle, both me and Mod Paimon both mistook Jay as a child when we were first looking at the comic. This stems from the creator not really distinguishing from children and adults in their art, combined with Jay having dwarfism, it wasn't explicitly clear what their age was haha.

Here's what I ended up with! I made the horns more involved with the design by making Jay a cat/goat hybrid, not only giving me a reason to add the darker colour to the design, but also because I think it looks more interesting. Their tail is shorter than a normal cat's both due to their drawfism and due to being part goat, it is also fluffier. I think goat was the best pick because of their reputation IRL for being spontaneous & silly.

On colours, I really only added 2, but I think they definitely helped with clarity and making the design less boring. Paimon actually suggested the blue glasses, and I loved them so much I just had to use them.

In terms of making Jay look less like a child (Because people IRL with dwarfism don't look like small children), I added things like smile lines - indicating that Jay has lived a life of smiling, and because they usually only develop as you get older.

This one was also very simple, but I'm pretty proud of it too. Let me know what you think!

-Mod Star

#mod star #sparklecrit #sparklecarecriticism #sparklecriticism #sparklecare criticism

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ribboncare · 6 months

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i do not care for nurse doom

to start this blog off right, im going to immediately launch into my many issues with doom and how he is both delivered and perceived

with that said, here are my main and most thought on qualms

doom being paired with patients

whilst i believe pairing any patient with a staff member is creepy and gross, doom in particular is not only shipped with a plethora of them, but also finds his way into the main polyamorous quadruplet that makes up cometcare. this is troublesome for many, many reasons, but the main one that always springs to mind is this: the egregious power imbalance

think about it. would you really go out with your medical nurse? wouldnt that be odd? not to mention doom has hurt and tortured several of the patients he is currently in a relationship with in cometcare. i dont know about anyone else, but it would personally make me extremely uncomfortable to have anyone insinuate me and a person who abused me would make a great couple

dooms gender being changed for the express purpose of shipping

doom used to be a cis man. while there is nothing wrong with him being changed to agender, kc has gone on record saying that it was specifically so his gender could be compatible with caroline being a lesbian

from a perspective of "these are just kc's ocs!", this is ultimately something to shrug and maybe make a face over. however, from the perspective of sparklecare as a piece of media (which is very much is, regardless of what kc thinks) and as a story, it is upsetting. why make a man agender just to ship with a lesbian? a lesbian that he has hurt repeatedly, no less? its not a very fun situation

dooms extremely sudden character "development"

i say "development" in quotations because truly, there was none. one day kc decided squeak liked doom, and thus his deterioration began. squeak started drawing him much more friendly looking and decided that any of the things he had done in the past volumes (such as being toxicly masculine and (even unwillingly) misogynistic towards uni when taking away beary) suddenly didnt happen. doom is forced to do things like this yes, but he had no reason to act maliciously as he does in many of these situations before the sudden change. now he has been sanded down to his barest bones, leaving a sad and pathetic little guy who you Have to feel sorry for :( he has no say in the matter of what he does :( he would never hurt a fly :( yes he tortures people for a living BUT DONT LOOK AT THAT! look at how sad and lonely he is!! :(!!!

overall, i would not say doom is my favorite character. in fact, because of these issues, hes probably one of my least favorite ones. its extremely frustrating seeing kc course correct so hard to make characters squeak likes into "good guys" that they lose all sense of themselves along the way. if you ask me, doom should have stayed morally ambiguous. it is not only much more interesting, it is actually true to what his original role as a character was. i do unfortunately believe that because of cometcares existence, this role is forever lost and will never be found again, which is a shame

doom had the chance to be such a captivating and compelling character, but will forever be stifled for the sake of shipping and making sure any character kc likes is unmistakably "redeemable", no matter what the cost

#ribtalks #sparklecare criticism #sparklecriticism #doom tag

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