#for both homestuck and neil reasons

[voradtras]

i've seen this character playlist challenge post resurfacing lately so i'd like to expand on the idea and create a more fully-fledged, more difficult challenge that'll hopefully expand your music horizons beyond the usual tumblrcore/fandom music taste

the challenge

create a character playlist of at least twenty (20+) songs without using the artists and genres listed below* in under an hour

("below" meaning below the readmore)

the restrictions

no artist can appear in the playlist twice

you must have at least three (3+) distinct genres in your playlist

you must include at least three (3+) artists with less than 100,000 listeners on spotify

you must include at least three (3+) songs that are primarily in a language other than english

you must include at least one (1+) hip hop/rap song from a non-white person (be creative with this! rap has a diverse range of sounds from doja cat to dr. dre to death grips)

you must include at least one (1+) song thats from a reasonably obscure and/or underground genre (this does not count to your 3+ distinct genres requirement)

some of these restrictions can be met simultaneously (e.g. a spanish rap song fulfills both the non-english language requirement and the hiphop/rap requirement)

feel free to reblog with your playlist in either the tags or the caption! i'd love to see what people come up with :)

restricted artists/genres are below the readmore

restricted genres/categories

video game osts

musical theatre/showtunes

steven universe songs

five nights at freddys songs

disney movie/tv songs

hazbin hotel/helluva boss songs

homestuck songs

anime ops/eds

anything made by lin manuel miranda

anything made by at least one of the beatles

anything produced by jack antonoff

all kpop groups and artists from SM, YG, JYP, and HYBE/big hit

restricted artists

when in doubt, use ctrl-f or a similar find/search function

mother mother

lemon demon/neil cicierega

my chemical romance

fall out boy

panic! at the disco

imagine dragons

bastille

linkin park

paramore

derivakat

billie eilish

mitski

marina

mountain goats

penelope scott

cavetown

florence and the machine

halsey

oh hellos

crane wives

sleeping at last

ajr

will wood

ricky montgomery

hozier

jack stauber

twenty one pilots

idk how but they found me

coldplay

lana del rey

taylor swift

harry styles

glass animals

conan grey

tally hall

cigarettes after sex

arctic monkeys

machine gun kelly

eminem

phoebe bridgers

bo burnham

olivia rodrigo

beebadoobee

mumford and sons

melanie martinez

lovejoy/wilbur soot

beach bunny

mac miller

joji

weezer

ac/dc

nine inch nails

ajj

the weeknd

david bowie

they might be giants

vampire weekend

the chainsmokers

car seat headrest

joy division

maneskin

cosmo sheldrake

led zeppelin

guns and roses

radiohead

the national

cage the elephant

tegan and sara

black country new road

mxmtoon

bill wurtz

muse

rob zombie

the white stripes

oingo boingo

major lazer

zedd

iron maiden

gorillaz

metallica

marshmello

mori calliope

corpse

tones and i

glaive

all time low

simon and garfunkel

lewis capaldi

arcade fire

slipknot

foo fighters

girl in red

death cab for cutie

of monsters and men

ghost

tramp stamps

sufjan stevens

depeche mode

chvrches

oasis

system of a down

rammstein

porter robinson

[solaredarisen]

I posted 7,411 times in 2022

258 posts created (3%)

7,153 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@hiveswap

@randomnightlord

@nureyev-steel-institute

@lesbiantherian

I tagged 1,311 of my posts in 2022

#reference - 97 posts

#cats - 81 posts

#judgement meme - 69 posts

#sky: children of the light - 57 posts

#shitpost - 57 posts

#technoblade - 54 posts

#homestuck - 53 posts

#goncharov - 33 posts

#fantroll - 32 posts

#fandomstuck - 32 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#this also count for southeast asia bc we have ghost markets on our mountains where people hear gamelan and they are never seen again alive

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Saw a Sky ad while getting free in-game currency in Kiki's Vacation and..

A PEACEFUL MMORPG YOU SAY :)

187 notes - Posted February 5, 2022

#4

214 notes - Posted May 19, 2022

#3

To all new Tumblrs who come here from the Twitter Muskapocalypse or Tiktok:

There is no honor here

Just say kill, shit, etc like normal, we don't do banned words here

We don't do word censorship unless you're a HS rpers or like use to the original l33t speek

DO NOT word censor the trigger warning and content warning tags because we have a tag blacklist system and censoring them is just making it harder for everyone else

There is no algorithm, you literally have follow blogs you like

No blank profile & default profile pic, we have pornbots problem so do the bare minimum

R E B L O G

Literally just reblog shits you like, it will make your blog looks less like pornbot blog

Likes doesn't do shit

The FYP is random so don't use the #fyp tag

Getting a lot of notes is not the same as ratio, it means your post have become infamous or popular for all the wrong/weird/both reason

There's no celebs, aside from Neil Gaiman who we are chill with

There's only a handful of people who become the popular blogs.... For a lot of specific reasons and not bc they're famous irl

For returning people:

259 notes - Posted April 28, 2022

#2

Tried to make a memorial for Techno

I had to add potatoes

343 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Looks like fate/destiny made the 4 of them meet as if they are destined to be friends from the beginning

1,242 notes - Posted July 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[beetle-freak]

i was today years old when i realized that homestuck day and neil banging out the tunes day were the same day

[canonicallyanxious]

2, 4 and 7 :)

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

Hoo boy this sure is a question and a half huh. i guess it mostly boils down to: i write fanfic bc i think it’s fun as hell! i love overanalyzing stories and characters, i love re-imagining stories and characters in different contexts, i love figuring out what would stay the same and what would change, so really fic is kind of the perfect playground for my overanalytical lit major brain to go apeshit. also i think writing fic, particularly since it’s not for any sort of monetary gain, is for me a really low-pressure way of doing something that i love. i’ve come to the realization that where i currently am in life i need writing to stay something enjoyable and entirely for me, and i can’t do that if i’m trying to monetize it. that might change later in life, but where i am rn that’s what works best for me. 

tl;dr fic is fun and i can write whatever the hell i want! it’s very nice.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

Absolutely! Non-exhaustive list of published writers:

Neil Gaiman

Hanya Yanagihara

James Baldwin

Benjamin Alire Saenz

Celeste Ng

Richard Siken

And non-exhaustive list of fic writers:

@boxesfullofthoughts​ [cynical_optimist on ao3] - my dearest and oldest friend, my drift-compatible brain partner, quite possibly the only person i will ever collaborate on any writing thing ever - no one inspires me more than you Bry!

@juilawicker​ [iriswests on ao3] - i swear to god ceecee is one of the most talented writers i have the privilege of knowing full stop. idk how she does any of the things that she does with words but i thank her gladly every day that she does them

paratactician and attentionmerrymakers on ao3 - homestuck writers who i consider as formative to my writing journey as the likes of Gaiman and Saenz [huge influences on my writing since I was a teenager]

[I’m definitely missing a ton of folks off both those lists but this is just off the top of my head]

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

i have a list for this question too!

Action scenes - there is very little i struggle with more than visualizing the physicality of my characters, particularly in the service of Plot, so action scenes that need to be dynamic and interesting and full of suspense are not my forte

Physical descriptions/settings - similar to with action scenes, i’m just not very good at visualizing the physicality of specific locations or objects. my strength lies more in a character’s emotions and internal world, you know? external world shit is hard as fuck. i’m honestly usually quite light on my world-building in more elaborate aus/settings for this reason rip

Humor/comedy writing - like i can do banter but my natural state of being is Incredibly Melodramatic and Serious at All Times okay i always marvel at witty writers who make me genuinely laugh out loud bc i don’T KNOW HOW TO DO THAT

Group scenes that involve more than maybe 3 characters - how do you write ensemble scenes where each character has an interesting and distinctive voice and an important non-throwaway role in the conversation at large?? how do you do that while also keeping track of what everyone’s limbs is doing?????? IDFK.

q’s for fanfiction writers!

[gucciorchid]

Catch Up Meme!

 Tagged by the Nihlus Kyrik Cult Leader, @expertmakodriver ​!  Thank you for the tag! I meant to do it sooner but I kept forgetting about it dkafha

Rules: tag however many people you want to know better/catch up with and then answer these questions.

Three Ships:

Shakarian: I’m in my Mass Effect hole right now and this ship is probably the reason why. It’s so well written and I just love how their relationship is built on mutual trust more than anything! You can see a progression of Garrus’s character through how he talks to Shepard. Their banter is pretty fun, too.

Shyrik: Nihlus.. Truly the one that got away..... There was potential here, and I can’t help but to look into it more!!!

Garrus X Shepard x Nihlus: Probably the most self-indulgent out of what’s listed, tbh. All’s I’m saying is... Shepard has Two Hands!!! She can absolutely have Both. 

Haha everything I’m into right now is Mass Effect related. Other ships I like are DirkJake (but not homestuck!! not anymore!!! i don’t like what they’re doing right now. i mostly just engage the fan content of dirkjake nowadays), Laurant and Damianos from Capitve Prince, and....... Meg, Zagerus, and Thantos from Hades.

Last Song(s) I listened to:

Bruno is Orange (by Hop Along, Queen Ansleis)

Urine Speaks Louder than Words (Wingnut Dishwashers Union)

Strawberry Blonde, Francis Forever, First Love/Late Spring, Me and My Husband, Washing Machine Heart (all by Mitski... I can list more but then this list will be just Mitski songs djfhadkjfha)

Saint Bernard (by Lincoln)

Soldier, Poet, King (by Oh Hellos)

Two Trucks, Trains, A Really Cool Wig (all by Lemon Demon aka Neil Ciceriga)

All this and Heaven Too (by Florence + the Machine)

I could go on.. I listen to a LOT of songs!! I listen to them while I make art so!! I usually listen hours at a time. My tastes could be narrowed down to: Gay, EMOTIONS, and shitposty. Anyway if anyone wants song recs,...... I gotchu....

Currently Watching:

Twin Peaks! The original one, not the reboot. I really like how the show works on dream logic. I just started on season 2 today with my friend, and I’m loving it!!!

Currently Reading:

A couple of fanfics, really. I’m taking a break from any heavy reading to rest my brain from my semester. I’m mostly reading Shakarian fics, rereading my favorites. hehe be on a lookout for my fic rec post soon

How’s it going?

Alright, mostly! I’m just taking a break. My work has been pretty kind to me! I’ve been taking my time listening to queer podcasts and music. I’ve also been drawing a lot more too! I On top of that, I started playing Hades, Animal Crossing New Horizons, and Fire Emblem Three Houses.

I kinda wish I can find more good Shakarian fics to read, tbh. I combed through first 30+ pages of ao3, and I kinda want to read new stuff than keep rereading my bookmarks? hmu if you have recs!

Tagging:

@helila @crescentbunny and maybe @garriante

(if any of yall were tagged already feel free to ignore this haha)

[yusukesmomjeans]

I posted 26,966 times in 2021

108 posts created (0%)

26858 posts reblogged (100%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 248.7 posts.

I added 254 tags in 2021

#0 - 31 posts

#q - 36 posts

#reblog - 30 posts

#gin speaks - 30 posts

#txt - 28 posts

#inuyasha - 23 posts

#february - 23 posts

#sally face - 21 posts

#homestuck - 16 posts

#art - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#does anyone know if this would also help with the insane allergies everyone’s been having? i don’t know much about plants so it would be coo

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Knock knock. It’s a digger, excavating under the bow.

21 notes • Posted 2021-03-26 22:42:44 GMT

#4

Edalyn Clawthorne is not just a milf but THE milf. Send tweet.

22 notes • Posted 2021-08-29 16:01:24 GMT

#3

Ok, so as a 90s kid, I have some headcanons on the music that Sal and co. listen to:

- Before Sal moved to Knockfell, he listed to radio alt primarily. Some grunge that got airplay, some angsty one hit wonders like Dustin Sheik, a lot of Green Day. If you look up a 90s alt playlist on Spotify, the ones that have all the songs everyone knew, that was what Sal listened to. Henry thought that music was too heavy and dark and depressing, and absolutely panicked when Sal started adding a ton of metal to the rotation. Henry is like weirdly into Jewel, so Sal knows her music and pretends he doesn't like it.

- Ash listens to everything, and I mean everything. It annoys the hell out of everyone else, because if she makes you a mixtape you're basically playing Russian roulette. Is the next track going to be Opeth or opera? Tonic or tonal dissonance? She definitely doesn't think any of the guys listen to enough women, and does her damnedest to broaden their horizons. She likes Skunk Anansie, Bikini Kill, Garbage, The Raincoats, Liz Phair, Meredith Brooks, and above all Courtney Love. She and Sal both love Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger, and sing it really loudly in the car, much to poor Larry's chagrin. (He secretly thinks it's cute and it makes him happy, but he has to put up a fuss because God, Harvey Danger? Really?)

- Todd likes Dream Theater entirely too much. He's also into math rock (stereotyping, sorry), particularly Ent. He also really enjoys a lot of radio alt like Sal. He doesn't have to like a song to memorize it, because his memory is excellent, so he generally chimes in on the Flagpole Sitta car jam just because he can and it's there. He knows a lot of older music because his parents like to put their dusty old records on and dance when they get high, which is why he adores David Bowie. Also unrelated but years down the road I can see Todd coding everyone's MySpaces and making them look incredible because he's the only one who actually knows how to code.

- Neil is a lot like Ash but he likes pretty much everything, which is a big difference that basically cuts out all the truly weird stuff and any country not written by Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, or Reba McEntire. He really likes listening to things Maple recommends because it's really emotional and he's a sweet feelings baby.

- Sweet angel baby Chug loves anything heavy. For being such a scaredy cat, he really does like bands with terrifying cover art and vaguely scary looking musicians. Ash thinks this is hilarious, but doesn't say anything because she doesn't want to hurt Chug's feelings. His favorite band is Sepultura.

- Maple thinks liking the Cocteau Twins is a personality trait. She also really likes Gene Loves Jezebel. She has a venomous hate for NIN and complains loudly any time anyone even brings them up.

- I feel like a poseur even trying to take a stab at what Larry listens to. Definitely Master's Hammer, because Ritual is super atmospheric and still suitably heavy. And everybody likes Mayhem, right? But mostly Sanity's Fall. He knows his shit but sticks to what he likes, and prefers smaller bands and local bands, very "support your local scene and punch your local nazi."

32 notes • Posted 2021-08-02 17:16:52 GMT

#2

The REAL reason Travis punched Sal is because every time he asks what "Sal" is short for he gets an increasingly ridiculous response. "Salivary gland" was the last straw.

37 notes • Posted 2021-02-08 22:32:54 GMT

#1

@natalieironside @sabertoothwalrus

Sometimes my dash just knows things

109 notes • Posted 2021-08-11 13:31:33 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[whatwillyoudodifferently]

Cold Sweats Were Made To Be Broken - How Emily Carroll Creates Effective Horror By Bending The Rules

I believe that, with enough time and resources, someone with a good eye for horror would be able to create a good horror story with just about any medium. With prose, you have the advantage of vivid description and getting to intimately know the character’s inner thoughts and fears, like in the works of Stephen King. With film, you get the advantage of visuals and audio along with the dread that comes with being a helpless audience member, such as the in the works of John Carpenter. And while the poor video game is often given a bad rep among other, older art forms, video games actually are one of the most ideal ways to experience horror stories, since the audience must become an active participant in the story to move it forward, not even allowed the escape of being a passive viewer.

It’s actually for very similar reasons that I find comics to be one of the ideal mediums for the horror genre. You get some of the benefits of prose, some of the visuals of movies, and even a bit of the forced participation of video games, in the fact that readers must choose to advance to each next page- a happy medium, if you will. There’s also one of my favorite features of sequential art as a whole- the fact that the artist has a tight amount of control over the pacing of the story. You can enhance the drop a world-shaking reveal on the reader by devoting a splash page to it, or pull out a scene with agonizing slowness with multiple, decompressed panels- storytelling devices that become lethal weapons in the hands of a good horror writer.

Keeping this in mind, it’s no surprise that horror comics have always been a huge part of comic history. In modern times, American comics are almost always associated with superhero stories, but there’s actually a rich history of horror comics- the rise of gruesome true crime stories and horror anthologies like Tales from the Crypt are why we have the infamous Comics Code, after all. Today we have titles like 30 Days of Night and The Walking Dead (though their more cinematic adaptations are typically more well-known). The huge world of European comics have given birth to a huge number of horror titles, like Italy’s Dylan Dog or Britain’s semi-tongue-in-cheek Scream! And of course, Japan has been the birthplace of great horror comics from the days of Mizuki Shigeru to the advent of modern horror with figures like Junji Ito and Masaaki Nakayama.

But of course, those figures and titles only exist in the world of print comics. In the age of the Internet, it would be remiss to ignore the staggeringly massive world of webcomics in any discussion of comics, let alone horror comics. This is due to any one of the many, many, many webcomics that exist online, but for this essay, I want to focus on an artist who doesn’t just happen to focus on horror comics while publishing them on the internet, but uses and utilizes both the medium of sequential art and the Internet to bring out the best in her comics.

Originally an animation student, Emily Carroll had only just begun to venture into the field of comics when she went hurdling to the attention of the webcomic community in 2010. His Face All Red was only her third comic, and its runaway success (helped by the recommendation of another name in horror comics, Neil Gaiman) was something she admits to be caught off-guard by. But she clearly has seemed to have taken it in stride, considering that her website now hosts almost 20 webcomics, many of them some sort of horror story. She’s also done print comics, including the original anthology Through the Woods and the upcoming graphic novel adaption of Laurie Halse Anderson’s powerful YA story Speak. As grandiose as it may be to say this, I believe Carroll’s style and approach to storytelling was made for the medium of comics, and I believe she deserves a spot up there along with Gaiman and Ito when it comes to naming masters of the horror comic.

But how does she do horror comics so well? It’s not just good writing, or good art, though she’s certainly talented on both those fronts. After spending an amount of time looking through her comics, I think I’ve come up with a solid answer, an answer that can be used to teach anyone interested in comics and in storytelling in general.

Emily Carroll is a master of breaking rules.

When I say rules, I don’t mean that there’s actual rules some God Of Comics has written down somewhere. Rather, the “rule-breaking” Carroll does refers to how she subverts expectations and goes against the conventions of storytelling that have become familiar over time. In doing this, Carroll’s comics have an air of unpredictability to them, and the reader must not only advance through the comic at their own pace, they must do it with the knowledge that the comic will surprise them in some way. In short, when a story breaks “the rules,” it creates the illusion of the audience’s safety being lost.

But how does Carroll break the rules? This is a bit of a nebulous thing to analyze- I mean, I don’t even think “breaking rules” is something Carroll consciously sets out to do. But over time, I’ve noticed recurring themes and storytelling methods in Carroll’s comics, and I think it’s worth analyzing them to gain a better understanding of sequential art and how sequential art can continue to evolve. 

Breaking “The Rules” of Each Comic

One thing I like about Carroll’s webcomics is that, since they’re all self-contained short stories, they each have their own unique visual “language.” This can apply to comic’s palette (like how The Hole The Fox Did Make is all grayscale), the format of panels (like how When The Darkness Presses is told through several 4-panel pages), or even the format of the writing (like how The Prince & The Sea is told as a poem). This gives all of Carroll’s comics a sense of cohesion, similar how to repetition is used in visual design to create a sense of rhythm and reason.

But, of course, what’s even more important than the “rules” Carroll establishes for each individual comic, is when Carroll chooses to break these rules.

The Hole The Fox Did Make is all grayscale- so when the colorless 4-panel strips are replaced with a mass of panels mostly rendered in an angry red, it comes as a shock. When The Darkness Presses is told through several 4 panel pages- so the reader knows that the long vertical segments that accompany each scene about the door are meant to be considered different than other scenes. And once the reader sees what is behind the door…

Suddenly changing the established visual language of a comic is easy shorthand to let the reader know that the scene is important in some way, but in a horror comic, it can also be a subtle way to catch the reader off-guard. Rebecca’s ghost story in All Along The Wall is told in a simple style and over-saturated colors to distinguish it from the “real” scenes, but the contrast in the story’s bright, colorful palette to the sketchy grayscale of the rest of the comic almost makes it feel more menacing in contrast. The fact that it’s explicitly a ghost story rendered in these almost cheerful hues make it even more uneasy- and ends up saying a lot about the kind of person Rebecca is. In short, it’s good, creative storytelling that also serves to scare.

These breaks in the established format work best when combined with one another. The Prince & The Sea takes part mostly on land- specifically, in single-panel illustrations that show only the meeting place of the prince and the mermaid- with a colorful palette that’s equal parts earthy and warm. When the story shifts under the sea, the palette shifts to eerie, cool colors that reflect both the dark atmosphere and the horrifying turn of the plot. But in addition to this, the story finally breaks the single-illustration format, going vertical to simulate the feeling of diving, and adding in “floaty” panels surrounded by black, giving a true feeling of being underwater. Carroll uses not only tone and format shifts but shifts in space- which, incidentally, brings us to one of the most notable and important features of Carroll’s work.

Breaking “The Rules” of Comics As A Whole 

In 2000, the comic book artist Scott McCloud published the book Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form, in which he made several predictions about the necessary changes that would need to occur in the field of comics in order for the medium to survive, with a major focus on the Internet and webcomics. One interesting idea McCloud proposed was the concept of “the infinite canvas,” the idea that a comic could have limitless storytelling potential thanks to the almost limitless size and space offered by a webpage.

In the year of 2000, the art of the webcomic was in its infancy, consisting mainly of typical comic strips like you’d see in newspapers, leading to a lot of skeptical response to these ideas-- but as it turns out, McCloud was basically completely correct. We’ve seen this from the long vertical formats typical of many Korean webtoons like The Sensual M and Chinese manhua like Tamen de Gushi to the textlogs, flash games, and fully animated segments of the ambitious multimedia-mishmash Homestuck.

Of these examples, however, I think Carroll’s techniques are closest to what McCloud had in mind when he proposed the infinite canvas. His Face All Red famously had the wonderful, wordless sequence of the protagonist descending deep into a hole, depicted by the downward scroll of the reader. When The Darkness Presses switched deftly between standard “real world” pages, long vertical dream sequences, and the dramatic horizontal reveal of what lay behind the door.

To this day, I think Carroll’s most impressive use of the infinite canvas is still Margot’s Room. Initially presented as a month-long event during October 2011, Margot’s Room starts with a grim poem over a grim image, with every important word in the poem relating to a part of the picture, which the reader would click to go to a new part of the story. Each week, a new line of the poem would be revealed alongside a new link, with the last part being released, of course, on Halloween. This creative use of hyperlinks is interesting enough, but the final, shocking scene is almost breathtaking- the events are violent, chaotic, and wild, heightened only by the wide spread of panels over a massive, empty blackness, linked only by words and furious splashes of blood. It’s something that couldn’t really exist in print comics (unless on a much smaller scale) and seeing how effective it is here, it almost make one wonder why it’s not more widespread among webcomic artists.

Without the limits of the printed page, Carroll has a better opportunity to break the typical conventions of sequential art. But she actually goes beyond that, using the medium of the Internet in even more creative ways than McCloud imagined. Besides her use of hyperlinks in Margot’s Room, links are also used to tell the non-linear “story” of Grave of The Lizard Queen, or show two sides to a tragic tale in The Three Snake Leaves. Carroll even employs animation in her work, to an extent. An animated GIF in Out Of Skin conveys the horror of seeing something terrible just out of the corner of your eye, and a certain “trick” panel in All Along The Wall may make you jump out of your skin if you don’t know what exactly it’s going to do. And that’s how it’s brilliant- comic panels aren’t supposed to change, after all. Carroll knows that, and knows just how to use the reader’s unconscious knowledge of the rule of well of course comic panels are always static against them. You don’t think twice about it... until the rule is broken.

Breaking “The Rules” of Storytelling

One of my favorite examples of Carroll’s unique take on the infinite canvas is in When The Darkness Presses. Despite being a short comic released all in one go, it’s presented as a recently completed longform webcomic, complete with animated ad banners. I don’t want to spoil what becomes of these ads later, but it’s very interesting to point out that one of them is for “Alo-Glo,” the skin product that features heavily in Some Other Animal’s Meat. This is especially interesting once you realize that Some Other Animal’s Meat is technically a sequel to When The Darkness Presses.

I say “technically,” because it’s actually entirely possible to read both comics and not know this, the way I first did. They’re two different self-contained stories that just happen to involve two characters at two points at their life.

There’s no real meaning to it- and in a way, this is perhaps Carroll’s favorite rule to break: the all-encompassing question of what does it all mean?

Ever since His Face All Red, Carroll has faced this question, or at least variants of it. How did the man’s brother come back? What was that thing in the hole? In a 2014 interview with Hazlitt, Carroll admits to feeling self-doubt when readers began clamoring for concrete answers:

“People were saying, ‘What’s the meaning of this? What’s the meaning of this?’ and … I felt very much like, I need to justify this somehow, otherwise they will see that I am a faker that has faked my way into some kind of Internet buzz, so there has to be a one-to-one meaning for everything.”

Thankfully, Carroll has been able to move past this initial doubt- I believe, very much for the better. Leaving unanswered questions is almost a trademark of Carroll’s now- from the tree in Out of Skin to the “mystery man” in The Groom to the door in When The Darkness Presses. The thing that plagues the main character of Some Other Animal’s Meat. The voice that calls Regan to the river in The Hole The Fox Did Make. The list goes on.

And it’s not just monsters. From early on in my love of Carroll’s works, I began to notice connecting threads through many of her comics. What did it mean that His Face All Red draws attention to “a tree with leaves that looked like ladies’ hands” (similar to the tree in Out Of Skin) and “a stream that sounded like dogs growling” (a sentence almost identical to how the stream in Margot’s Room is described)? What did it mean that The Hole The Fox Did Make and The Groom featured Regan, or that All Along The Wall is technically a prequel to a comic from Through The Woods? What did it mean that events of When The Darkness Presses are brought up by the main characters years later in Some Other Animal’s Meat?

The answer, of course, is that there is no answer- other than the answers and ideas that begin to form in our heads when we’re presented with an unsolved mystery. Ever since early humans looked up at the stars and put together shapes in the gaps, the nature instinct of human beings drives us to pick patterns out of randomness. Our brains try to find meanings or answers where there is none, whether we want to or not, or even if we are aware of our minds doing so or not. And of course, this almost whimsical trait of ours is also one of our most massive burdens- the horror of imagination. The infinite possibility of the conclusions each person reaches on their own will always be far, far more frightening than any single answer a writer can give.

In a way, Carroll’s most mundane “broken rule” may be her most powerful tool. In the age of endless theories and fiction analysis, in the light of humanity’s eternal, inescapable desire for the solutions for every puzzle, Carroll’s works are unanswerable. And because of this, I think the unexplained monsters of Carroll’s works are some of the scariest in fiction.

Funnily enough, despite basing this essay around the concept of breaking rules, I stated early on that I don’t think Carroll herself sees her approaches to sequential art like that. While researching for this essay, I came across an interview by The Comics Journal with Carroll from 2011, not too far after the runaway success of His Face All Red. It’s a great interview, but what probably stuck with me most is Carroll’s description of how she approaches comics:

“It stems more from just what I think will be most fun, really. And since—when I started doing comics—I’d never done comics for print, I wasn’t in the mindset of doing pages anyway, which maybe led to me not really adhering to that standard when I started in on my own attempts. I like the idea of scrolling just because it’s fun to play around with revealing images that way, but you can play around with the same thing using page turns too really.”

I wanted this essay to be a tribute to one of my favorite artists, but I also initially intended it to be a way to encourage artists to shake up typical comic conventions and try to create unique art. Upon reading this quote, however, I realized that I had one more thing to learn from Carroll, one thing I want artists to know as well. Carroll has carved out her own, unique approach to sequential art, and in the process has happened to buck several storytelling conventions. You too can learn from this and know that you have the freedom to break these same rules- but perhaps the most important thing to take away from this is that Carroll does this because she has fun doing this. Carroll’s comics work not just because they break the rules, but also because she enjoys creating them.

Your own unique style should be what is most enjoyable for you. Creating new and unique artwork is all well and good, but what will make or break your art are the feelings you have while creating it.

And if you have fun in breaking rules, then more power to you.

All of Emily Carroll’s online works can be found on her personal site (general NSFW warning for nudity and disturbing content). You can buy Carroll’s anthology Through The Woods here.

[lvtvr]

ftagged by @pining-keith and @kukinta (on my main but im gna put it here)!! thanks both of u i love u aaaa <3

Name: charlie Nicknames: char, my one friend calls me charleston dance, also “cholderton” don’t ask Zodiac Sign: pisces im an emotional gay fish Height: 167 cm (so like 5′6″???) Orientation: bi as FUCK Ethnicity: eating white bread feels like cannibalism Favourite Fruit: heck i love most fruit but not much beats a good tangerine or strawberry!!! Favourite Season: spring! Favourite Book: american gods by neil gaiman is my all time fav but i have Different Favs for Different Reasons i can talk abt books all day Favourite Flowers: i dont think about this a lot???? i prefer green plants to flowers honestly skjgsdg Favourite Scent: aaaa i’m not sure but i tend to like crisp scents like mint or citrus Favourite Animal: u know that really old video with the girl making her eharmony bio but then she starts crying and gets emotional when she thinks about cats? that girl is me Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate: hekc this is like the holy trinity but i’ve gotta say tea. i relate to uncle iroh a lot Cat or Dog Person: see above. (i mean i like dogs??? but i see a cat and i fucking LOSE IT) Favourite Fictional Character: lavi from dgm is my husband who will always have a place in my heart tbhhh. i also really love delirium from the sandman comics, cloud strife from ffvii and lately i’ve gotten super attached to the drifter from hyper light drifter dfsdgdsg Dream Trip: palios the dream has always been to live in tokyo and that’s happening in less than a month i am dying Blog Created: made this blog in october 2016 but i first joined tumb in 2011 bc of homestuck (SHUT UP I KNOW) and its been an on and off rlship ever since Number of Followers: less than 600 more than 500!! it’s like the comfy side of nobody where people still kinda interact w u but u dont get hate aw yiss What Do I Post About: voltron on here; anime, cats, aesthetics, bullet journal stuff and funny text posts over on my main @charmkvark which u should check out ;3 ;3 ;3 and i also run a cool cyberpunk blog @synthpulse Do I Get Asks on a Regular Basis: not like suuuper regularly but i get one or two occasionally and they always make my day!! im real approachable i promise <3 Aesthetic: i have like 98 different aesthetics omg... on the one hand i like bright colors, urban landscapes, trains, fruit, and soft animals!! but i also like witchy stuff and of course i would Die for cyberpunk and i also adore 20s-40s film noir style aaaaaaaa Favourite Band: mucc Fictional Character I’d Date: l  a  v  i listen u dont understan d Hogwarts House: confession time i never did the pottermore quiz bc i was real scared of Not getting ravenclaw sdkjsdgg i identified deeply as one when i was a kid

tagging: @konekat @sleapygazelle @wolfwisp @daretoweeb @ja-e-muffin-art-dump @parinite @kattkvitter @ace-pidge @floralkeith @undinelance GKSDLJDSG I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE I’VE MISSED PEOPLE WHEN I DO THESE BUT O WELL also no pressure just want u guys to know i appreciate yall~