#also small bonus

[tiredgremlintime]

OH YOURE SO RIGHT ABOUT THIS??

I did have a headcanon that Byron at least came over to stay a few times and Yuma just. Has this fleeting memory of him from when he was a little kid. Would be cute if Yuma and Trey met then!!

Trey would be a shy kid and would only feel safe around her brothers but Yuma just came up to her one day and is like “omg omg hiii!!! I’m Yuma!! Wanna duel?? Wanna share my juice box? Wanna go on the slide?” And treys literally never interacted with anyone beforehand, she’s apprehensive but why not. GAHHH THIS IS SO CUTE

(my original responds got deleted tumblr I’m gonna kill you)

GAH!!! THATS SO CUTEEEEEEE

OHHH THATS BYRON HEADCANON I can imagine him bringing up that his daughter is around the same age as Yuma and that they would be friends :)

THE YUMA AND TREY GAHHHHHHHHH I LOVE THAT IT’S YUMA THAT BEFRIENDS HER!!! I can imagine that they do things like look at Kazuma’s artifacts and have their own little expenditions in the backyard :) Yuma probably teaches her about the kattobingu spirit. Trey probably brings history books

I have a personal headcanon that Quattro sometimes hangs out with them since he doesn’t want to be with the big kids (Quinton and Kite) since all they do is work

SPEAKING OFF imagine Kite and Quinton teaching them all how to duel? That be cute :)

[asukachii]

"Why don't YOU drive for once?! Ya idiot!"

"BECAAAAUUSE! I... can't.. drive these things!"

[bonus]

(I don’t like putting watermarks so, PLEASE, if you want to post these gifs somewhere GIVE CREDITS! Also, don’t use them in edits/videos. Thanks~)

[theminecraftbee]

okay i can't figure out how to write the bit and be funny about it, but, concept borne of the fact it's may and therefore mermay and also i can't stop thinking about the stupid swedishbeans bit: iskall is a selkie. joel is like, a normal person who lives in a fishing village. iskall decides joel is madly in love with him and starts trying to sneak his seal skin into joel's possession, and then do a Complain about "oh no the terrible fisherman has stolen his skin. guess he has to marry him now." meanwhile joel is confused, kind of scared, and keeps on trying to give the stupid thing back WHY DO YOU KEEP ACCUSING HIM OF STEALING IT PLEASE,

meanwhile, the b-plot is iskall getting in trouble with the local mob boss, but since beef knows that iskall is a supernatural being, it is Bad Luck to get on a selkie's bad side and beef can't get away with just making the problem vanish. somehow they have both devolved into bizarre proxy wars, with beef trying to figure out how to get rid of the most annoying man alive without either losing face with his subordinates (for seemingly being unable to get rid of this one weirdo) or being cursed for eternity (no mob boss worth his salt gets involved with the supernatural in a way that leads to them cursing them), while iskall continuously sees how much more he can get away with before making this guy snap.

meanwhile meanwhile, in JOEL'S b-plot, mysterious stranger from the woods (and secretly a shapeshifting fox), etho, owes joel five dollars, and he WILL get those five dollars back, dammit. in truth etho, despite being a trickster spirit, was actually originally going to pay those five dollars, but both of them have descended so far into the bit at this point that it'd be weird to stop harassing each other and they'd kind of miss it. meanwhile, everyone in the village has wildly different opinions on what on earth is ACTUALLY happening between them.

all of these plots eventually collide to become something increasingly stupid, probably, it would just need to be the world's silliest situational comedy/sitcom type fic where things get more convoluted before they resolve. do you all see the vision,

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Damian: *comes home*

The batfam: *has been turned into literal bats and birds*

Damian:

The batfam: >:(

Damian: *starts taking really good care of them and is nicer to them than ever before*

The batfam: :O

The one white bat that Damian can't identify and assumes is behind this: >:3

[imfromthemiddlekingdom]

Me patiently waiting for the small folks to storm the dragon pit and killing those creatures of mass destruction thus allowing those inbreed cunts to lose their only claim to superiority.

[zo-lost-and-confused]

I am finally finished! I didn't go with ships and instead more of their personalities, so don't look too deep into how they are paired up. All six of them got in trouble together anyway, I would imagine.

Also went with their default looks, because I didn't feel like figuring out something new lol

[sillyabtmusic]

(220607) Fragile - Seoho

+ bonus

[vidapon]

doodles of my favourite series ash bc it's real comfort character hours..!!

[genericpuff]

on the closure of MochaJump, and why we're our own worst enemies in this industry.

"MochaJump? What was that?" is probably your first question, and I'm gonna simply respond with, "Exactly."

MochaJump was a small startup platform made by /u/nunojay2 and a second site engineer (whose name I am not informed of) on reddit. It wasn't anything extraordinary, just a startup site that aimed to offer a more viable alternative to Webtoons and Tapas, with a focus on offering equal visibility to creators, focused recommendation algorithms, loosened restrictions on NSFW content, and bigger cuts for creators on their generated revenue.

Of course, such promises are a tall order, but the creator did their best to host regular discussions with creators in art and webtoon communities to get feedback on what creators really wanted out of their platforms, and they researched what they would need to make in order to keep the site afloat (it came out pretty low at $2 per user per month). Hopes were high and the site launched with a small but eager userbase.

It stayed small. The site shut down in November 2022, just 6 months after launching in May 2022.

Now, I'm not gonna sit here on some soapbox and blame anyone for the site closing down. I unfortunately didn't get much chance to use the site myself so there's surely more I could have done on my own part to help it gain traction. But this is a regular occurrence for start-ups like this, especially in an industry that's as notoriously unprofitable as webcomics. We've seen titans such as SmackJeeves and Inkblazers fall, and MochaJump was merely an infant by comparison.

But it makes me think of how we view and treat these startups as a whole. How we as readers and creators alike have become so trained to exclusively use corporate platforms like Webtoons and Tapas on the promise of "bigger gains". Unlike these bigger companies, platforms like MochaJump depend on building a strong userbase as quickly as possible, and need to find ways to generate revenue to keep things running, otherwise it's only a matter of time before they close down. They don't have a massive conglomerate like Naver or Kakao to pad their pockets through their failures. They don't have the money or reach to inject themselves into society through bus terminal ads and convention sponsorships. They don't have the investors to sink money into their platform until it becomes profitable in return.

So we don't use them. Readers don't use them because we don't see the point in using a platform that has no content... and thus creators don't use them because we don't see the point in publishing our content on a platform with no userbase. Creators seek a place that's "tight knit" and "easy to get seen", but will only post to places that come pre-loaded with massive audiences; because it's not enough anymore to have a couple hundred followers, we're in 2023 now, in the year of consumer bloat, where we expect to now pull in thousands if not millions to be considered a "success". And readers seek a place that offers high-quality high-amount content at the tip of their fingertips, but don't want to pay for the access to these works, and in the case of apps like WT, have given up in trying to support these creators through the platforms themselves because they know that those artists they want to support will likely never see a dime.

The fact of this problem is simple, yet many people seem to ignore it - we cannot expect to have a platform that is tight knit, profitable, and sustainable. These places do not exist, not so long as we continue to raise the bar on what makes a "successful" subscriber count, not so long as we continue to patronize platforms that exploit their artists and writers, and not so long as we keep chasing the dragon of "what these websites used to be". These platforms never used to 'be' anything, they merely existed in one point of time that is now long gone, when owning a smartphone was a luxury and not a need, when online video content wasn't being tethered together by ads, and when the Internet wasn't owned and entirely managed by the same three corporations, the likes of which we haven't seen since cable TV.

Platforms like Tapas and Webtoons are - besides unsustainable - unable to exist and profit in the way they do without undercutting someone along the way. Whether it's underpaying their creators, undercutting their communities, or underexposing the works that have been buried, someone will get the shit hand in the deal and that someone is usually ALWAYS someone who will rarely ever stand to gain anything in the long run from using these platforms despite their issues. The 1% got theirs, and the 10% are barely getting by, while the remaining 89% are pushing onwards, because they have faith in the systemic online enshittification that demands conformity to a single formula for "success".

We are our own worst enemies in this industry. Webcomics are one of the few online mediums that still truly belong to the people - anyone can make them, anyone can find joy in them, but we're letting platforms like Webtoons and Tapas and all the other massive corporate apps rob us of that joy and accessibility in the pursuit of "success" and profiting. Webtoons was never the sole way to profit off this medium and yet I still see people every day who underestimate the existence of legitimate publishing houses and self-publishing, who think that publishing on Webtoons and landing an Originals deal is the only way to find success in this industry. This is meant to be the era of creators, of self-starting and self-actualization, and yet we're still handing all of that control over to corporations that only seek to exploit our art, bodies, and labor, while convincing ourselves that this will somehow all be worth it. We stick with Webtoons, despite the numerous controversies it's been involved in and the lack of support it's given even its own hired creators. We stick with Tapas, despite the undercutting of its most core components such as its community and the outlier genres it used to be known for hosting. We find new ways to justify using platforms that are steadily going downhill - Patreon, Twitter/X, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook - because we've been convinced that these are the routes to success, so if we acknowledge their failures, then "success" can no longer exist.

Because we need to pay rent. Because we need to eat. Because we need to survive. Because it's a lot more complicated than just "stepping away". Because the startups just don't have any of the surface level potential for us to immediately identify and get on board with, so we don't give them a chance.

I realize this post got very existential and depressing. I've been creating comics for well over a decade now, largely unnoticed, and I've fallen victim to these same limiting mindsets that we have to stick to one way, one "formula" for success - a formula that changes with the wind and only works for those who get in on the ground floor. It's been slowly killing me from the very beginning, robbing me of my joy to create, of my reason to even do this in the first place - to tell and share stories with others, to express myself creatively, to live my life surrounded by art and stories and creations made by and for others. It's made me tired and miserable, and I can tell it's done the same to those who have shared that boat with me.

But there's one silver lining I can always be sure of, and it's one I was reminded of after realizing I was still in the MochaJump Discord, with one announcement post that I hadn't yet read.

Webcomics are one of the few online mediums that still truly belong to the people. Corporations are trying their hardest to take that power away. Let's not continue to let them.

If you want to help sustain, patronize, and contribute to the growth of sites that are still being operated by small teams (or even one man armies), please, consider checking out the following websites, some of which serve as platforms or publishers, others which operate as link directories for independent sites run by creators.

ComicFury GlobalComix TopWebcomics The Webcomic List The Webcomic Library Hiveworks SpiderForest SmackJeeves Archive Inkblot.art And whoever wants to use the GitHub source code used for MochaJump (RIP)

Let's do our part to decentralize webcomics again. We may not be able to leave the platforms that weakly sustain us, but we can still support those that strengthen and support us.

[jen-seallover]

I spawn in again to post a silly wxs image and leave. Polysho supremacy. Farewell.

[iguessitsjustme]

I made Only Friends bingo cards. Take your pick. I can also generate more if you want to add anything or don't like any of these options.

[wormshirt]

The Doctor needs one of those classes they give to expecting/hopeful parents but for humans. Get their ass enrolled in a parenting course. And everytime they get a new companion he has to retake the course.

[hyperpsychomaniac]

I need this as a B plot right now.

[pachkko]

"He was trained as a Jedi. You I trained to be something more."

Coming back from my hiatus to post my love shin hati 🥰.

She's my joan of arc and I'm really enjoying ashoka! I'm hoping to get back to posting a lot more, but nursing school is killing me so well see!

I appreciate all the continued support from everyone even when i'm not active thank ya'll!

[evilkaeya]

meursault girlies but it's a modern au and they're paranormal investigators

[writingonleaves]

au masterlist

posted august 15, 2024

jackhughes

liked by ninahischier, colecaufield and others

jackhughes: best one yet 🌅🧚🏼‍♂️🌊

view all 402 comments

_quinnhughes: 🔥

user00: hot girl summer (jack's version)

user1198: Can't wait to see you at The Rock! LGD!

trevorzegras: ketchup on ketchup

user88: who's the girl in the last slide??

user1278: Jack's finally learning how to photo dump!

brendan.brisson: See ya next year

user667: Stanley cup coming to Jersey 🔜