#i started another comic but didn't like it so I just use some the panels

[colleendoran]

Neil Gaiman's CHIVALRY: From Illuminated Manuscripts to Comics

One of the many reasons I wanted to adapt Neil Gaiman's Chivalry into graphic novel form was to create a comic as a bridge and commentary re: comics and illuminated manuscripts.

We're often told that the first comic book was Action Comics #1 featuring Superman, a collection of Superman comic strips that morphed into comic books as an art form.

Sequential art predates Action Comics #1.

Action Comics popularized sequential art book storytelling that had already appeared in other forms in fits and starts throughout history. Comic books didn't take off as a popular medium for several reasons, not least of which was the necessary printing process hadn't been invented yet and it's hard to popularize - and commercialize - something most people can never see. 

You find sequential art in cave paintings and in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I've read that comics (manga) were invented by the Japanese in 12th century scrolls.

And sequential art appears over and over again in Western art going back well over 1000 years, and in book form at least 1100 years ago.

The most obvious example of early sequential art in Western art - as a complete narrative in sequence - is the Bayeux Tapestry. 

At 230 feet long, this embroidered length of cloth was likely commissioned around the year 1070 by Bishop Odo, brother of William the Conqueror. It depicts the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the invasion of England by the Normans. (The tapestry was made in England, not in France, but it is called the Bayeux tapestry because that's where it is now.)

Imagine what a task it was to embroider this thing. Whew. And you thought it was hard learning Photoshop.

This work of art is important in the history of sequential narrative, but the Norman invasion is also important to the legend of King Arthur - and another important English legend - for reasons we'll get into later. 

It's complicated.

All this is why you see this art in the background of this page of Chivalry.

Using the Romanesque art style of the tapestry in panel 1, I've added the Latin phrase "Rex Quondom, Rexque Futurus" - "The Once and Future King", the final words of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur as inscribed on King Arthur's tomb, and the title of T.H. White's famous Arthurian novel.  (EDIT) and it has been kindly pointed out to me that QUONDOM should be QUONDAM, which is hilarious and annoying and this is how history gets rewritten by accident.

My original intention was to draw this Bayeux Tapestry scene out and juxtapose it with shots of Galaad interacting with the children, but the two page sequence I imagined didn't really work as well in reality as it did in my head. 

Foremost among my concerns was that the tapestry reference might be too obscure for most readers. I wanted to weave the visual meta-text of Chivalry into the story (For further reading on this project and my use of visual meta-text, symbolism, and history in Neil Gaiman's Chivalry, go HERE. And HERE. And HERE. And Yet again HERE.) in such a way as it would enhance the experience for people who "got" the visual meaning, while not dragging things down for people who didn't. So I cut this scene down to one panel.

The tapestry is a complete, long form comic strip created over 1100 years before some people claim comics were invented. So, I loved being able to reference it here.

But even more interesting to me are the sequential art sequences that appear in illuminated manuscripts - comics in book form.

I once got into a rather vicious argument with an academic who insisted illuminated manuscripts were comics. I said no. She said yes. Then she insulted the lowly comic artist and blocked me on Facebook.

Whatever.

My point was not that you can't find sequential art in illuminated manuscripts. My point is that an illustrated book isn't de facto a comic. Most illuminated manuscripts are illustrated books. Some illuminated manuscripts contain sequential art.

Just because opera is music, that doesn't mean all music is opera.

Just because comics books are books that doesn't mean all books are comic books.

And just because some illuminated manuscripts contain sequential art, that doesn't mean all illuminated manuscripts are sequential art.

But one is.

Let me show you it.

One of the earliest examples of an illuminated manuscript with comic art is The Bible d'Etienne Harding which you can see in this really bad jpg here, sorry, best I could find.

Created around the year 1109, property of a French Cistercian monk, it combines sequences like this with pages of text and illustration.

Not a comic book IMHO, but an illuminated manuscript with sequences of text, illustration and sequential narrative.

It's no more a "comic book" than a newspaper is for having text, illustration, and comic strips in it.

IMHO, academic lady.

And here's a look at the Old English Hexateuch (hexateuch refers to the first 6 books of the Bible) which I think is far more visually complex and interesting work, and comes much closer to the illuminated manuscript as comic, but still intersperses large sequences of text and illustration with sequential storytelling sequences. So I don't consider it a comic, but a book with sequential work in it.

Now this work below is a different matter. This is from the Holkham Bible Picture Book, circa about 1330.

This thing is genius. It measures a little larger than a modern comic, around 8"x11", and almost every page of it is like this spread here. 231 pages of beautifully rendered art, with repeated use of banderoles - "speech scrolls"  (basically word balloons) -  and captions, and (mostly) real sequential art. I've never seen anything else that comes even close to it, and by all accounts, neither has anyone else. 

It may not be a modern comic book - but it's a comic book as far as I can tell. I don't think there's any other illuminated manuscript that is as complete, sophisticated, and innovative a sequential storytelling work.

If this were printed and seen by more people, the comic book medium would have taken off centuries earlier, IMHO. But it wasn't. It was tucked away in a monastery somewhere and few people ever saw it. It ended up being forgotten for centuries until it popped up again around 1816 when a banker sold it to an avid book collector, Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, who inherited Holkham Hall and its library and set about restoring and expanding it. 

The banker wrote, “a very curious MS. just brought here from the Continent. . . which I think one of the greatest curiosities I ever saw”.

Sequential art got invented over and over and over by one artist after another until one day centuries later, some teenaged boys found their newspaper strips gathered together in a cheap format, and suddenly comic books were popular and like new.

And then a lot of people who didn't seem to realize that books had had pictures in them for centuries got all up in arms about the harms of books with pictures in them.

I think it's funny that it is called the Holkham Bible Picture Book. There really was no "comic" art language when this work was created or when academics began to catalogue this sort of thing. Will they change the name now?

Who can say.

Anyway, another Holkham Bible Picture Book reference for you.

Look familiar?

I referenced it in this scene in Chivalry.

One of the fun things about the Holkham is that it opens with a discussion between a friar who has commissioned the work and the artist. The friar admonishes the artist to do a good job on the project because it will be shown to important people. And the artist responds, "Indeed, I certainly will and, if God lets me live, never will you see another such book."

He wasn't kidding.

You can see the entire manuscript HERE. 

Sponsored by my Patreon. Thank you.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

05/10/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Vico, Con, and Kristian at Basingstoke; Jes Tom; Madeleine Sami's Birthday; New Watch Parties; Fan Spotlight; MerMay; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika

== Rhys Darby ==

Rhys is on his way to Basingstoke for the con! Also, just recently announced, he'll be joining To_29_And_Beyond on June 7 and 8 in 29 Palms California! You can get tickets here: To29AndBeyond.com

Img Sources: Rhys Darby's Instagram / To_29_And_Beyond Instagram

== Taika Waititi ==

Taika in his cat era <3

Source: Rita Ora's Instagram

== Vico, Con, and Kristian ==

Basingstoke Comic Con is starting off strong! The first day we got to see lots of sightings of Vico, Con, and Kristian from their panels! Rhys is joining tomorrow!

Source: Vico Ortiz' Instagram Stories

== Madeleine Sami ==

Happy Birthday to our wonderful Archie! Hopefully she didn't have to crawl out of snake for this one! Getting some chill time with her Double Parked co-star: Antonia Prebble!

Source: Antonia Prebble's Instagram

= Jes Tom =

Jes Tom was out performing at Netflix Is A Joke Fest!

== Watch Party Reminders ==

Palm Royale WP May 16 via @LCWebsXOXO with the lovely @ dominicburgess approx. 4pm EDT/9pm BST/1pm PST! Available on Apple TV.

Wrecked S3 WP May 13-May 17 - 3:30pm PT / 6:30pm ET / 11:30pm BST! If you need access feel free to dm me here at @gentlebeardsbarngrill or @aspirantabby42 on twitter.

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Cast Cards =

Tonight, @melvisik's Cast Card's from the last two days were Jenna Carley (aka Eugenia "who I hear had a child with Sebastian...") and Mawie D Lewis, aka one of the Piano Workers that helped make Stede's Fuckery complete!

== OFMD Colouring Pages ==

Our darling crewmate @patchworkpiratebear has more colouring pages for us! 31 days of pages! Wow!

Source: PatchworkPirateBear's Tumblr

== Mer May ==

The daily prompts from @saveofmdcrewmates have been:

Day 9: "Revenge" Day 10 is "Where's the fucking loot?!"

= Snejpowa =

@snejpowa Has really be hitting it hard this May! Check out these gorgeous colors for the last couple days of prompts!

@snejpowa's Tumblr

== Blueberreads ==

More MerMay prompts from our dear friend @blueberreads! I love all the detail in the Revenge pics!

View this post on Instagram

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A post shared by blueberreads (@blueberreads_)

Source: @blueberreads Instagram

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies! Happy Friday! I hope you've started your weekend off having fun and are getting some rest!

It seems like spirits are up today! I don't know if it's just from the polite menacing yesterday, or all the excitement and sightings with the convention happening-- but I'm really loving seeing people in good spirits. I know we've all had a bit of a rough time of it lately, and we deserve to enjoy life a bit for a change!

This life has so many wonders to offer-- if you happen to be in Europe, the Northern Lights are going on right now and all the pictures everyone has shared have been absolutely stunning. I've never gotten to see them in person before-- but the photos are radiant, I can't imagine what it'd be like IRL-- please if you haven't seen them and they're still around tomorrow go out and take a peek!

Something else I've noticed the last couple days crew, is a lot of you are feeling more comfortable talking about your insecurities and fears with each other. This is really wonderful, because so many people are coming out and are trying to support one another in them-- and that's what crew is all about. Seeing people build their confidence bit by bit with every interaction, it makes me feel so incredibly fuzzy inside. Every day you continue to grow into these wonderful little remarkable beings, and getting to see that blossoming in you all over the past few months has been a serious privilege. You aren't your insecurities lovelies, and while those feelings are absolutely valid, I hope you can get to a point (if you aren't already there) where you can hold them in your heart, feel them, give them love, and let them go so they too can heal the parts of you that caused them in the first place.

We're all on your side crew, I hope you know that. You are an etherial soul in a delightfully beautiful little shell, remember to love yourself too so you can keep blooming into that exceptional gleam of wonder that you are. Happy Weekend Crew, I hope your next few days are filled with good times and laughter <3

Art by @thelatestkate

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Tonight's theme is Gifs I don't think I've seen before!

Gifs Courtesy of @ fandomsmeantheworldtome and @ neverswungonswingingstars!

[atthebell-moved]

i think it's also super unfortunate bc for a lot of people this is their first con, and it's hard to convey just how poorly run it was.

they had one of the biggest convention centers in the country at their disposal, that has for the last ~5 years hosted 130,000+ people, and still fucked up space logistics.

they had the stats and feedback from their OWN PRIOR CONVENTION in amsterdam and still railroaded dsmp events and fucked up meet n greets along with fucking up security for huge ccs.

they (should) have enough staff who know how to run a convention of this size, including everything from queue mechanics to accessibility concerns.

they should have the basic pr understanding that it looks bad to have disabled people getting crushed against walls bc of crowding and under-staffed line management.

they should understand how bad it looks to place the one, singular panel about female streamers in a ballroom that max fits 200 people, misgender and use the wrong pronouns for several of the ccs, then mistake one of the streamers for another in an instagram post and only correct that mistake ~4 hours after posting it.

gonna put the rest of this below a cut bc its just rambling and everything i personally saw as an attendee. this post is LONG viewers beware you're in for a scare

huge thing off the bat: they should be poaching staff from vidcon, comic con, etc. i'm confident that in the next 5-10 years sdcc is going to be bleeding attendees and experienced con staff will want to go somewhere new. steal those employees. offer them better pay. get their experience instead of having random twitch employees plan an event for like 40k people (can't find the numbers rn, it's prbably closer to 50k).

another thing: they should be poaching from or at least learning from theme parks. queueing mechanics are no joke-- disneyland has spent decades figuring out the best way to set up lines & maintain a good experience for park attendees. defunctland has some great videos on this, but suffice to say, nothing twitchcon did this time worked.

i think a lot of it's been obfuscated by people who weren't at the con or folks who didn't see each separate meet n greet, but here's how those were set up & why exactly they went horribly.

first thing: all meet n greet lines started as one big line. you walked into the second floor area, you got into a huge line, and then at the start of the actual meet n greet area they directed you to each line. for the first two days this entailed just. letting people through whenever there was space in people's lines. so rather than setting up long queues for each streamer, there was one huge line. this fucking sucked for people trying to see smaller ccs, because they were stuck in this huge line full of people trying to get into already-full lines. at one point we saw michael mcchill's line with like three people in it and there were probably three hundred people in the one huge line. there were probably michael mcchill viewers in there! but they were getting shafted by the giant fucking line.

lumen and i went to the first meet n greet at 9:30 on friday, which worked differently than all the others (and saturday's were spectacularly worse for other reasons). we figured karl, sapnap, gnf, and ranboo would fill up before we got there, so we were ready to hop in smajor's line. i'll note that con staff at this point clearly had no fucking idea what they were getting into, and there was not nearly enough of them.

the way they were doing lines at that session was that they had already filled up the aforementioned four ccs' lines, so they were opening the front of the ropes to just corral people into the other ccs' lines. someone opened it for us to hop in scott's line and that's what we did, but other folks thought they could still get into the other lines and got stuck waiting in front. we found out later that what they did was take a bunch of people into overflow queues to the side of the meet n greet area, where they were left to rot, because staff forgot about them or there wasn't enough time. later they (kind of) fixed this problem, but not the larger problem that the meet n greet lines were not big enough and were set up poorly from the start.

here is the entire second floor; i've circled the meet n greet area

i would estimate that the entire area for the meet n greets took up the size of like. a small soccer field. like max 1500 sq ft. probably smaller honestly but everythings becoming a blur.

this is the meet n greets including the entire room they were in, bc they shared space with the food court and artist alley (which was, btw, way too fucking small also)

meet n greets should have had their entire own floor. even for non-mcyt folks there were enormous lines and probably really frustrated people.

to add to this, for every meet n greet they didnt have enough lines. not joking. they were combining streamers lines. so sneeg & boomer shared one line (insane, bc they were the two biggest mcyt guys at that meet n greet session and it was while everyone who didnt make it to the dsmp panel was gunning for something else to do), hannah & tapl shared a line, and im pretty sure karl, gnf, and sapnap shared a line. i dont remember what their deal actually was, and im positive this was partially by ccs' request (i think karlnap + gnf wanted to be together for meet n greets, and same with hannah & tapl, though i doubt boomer and sneeg have talked enough to have requested that).

to add to this, i have no doubt that part of the accessibility issues with the meet n greets was because of the lack of space. there was no clear exit at the start of the con, and even later it was unclear which direction to go.

the other unfortunate thing (that twitchcon staff should be planning for) is that ccs want to take their time with each person and chat, but if they do so they meet less people. this is how you get ranboo meeting ~1200 people for 4 hours at vidcon. not to say he sucks for that, but its not feasible for anyone to do that, and im sure he was completely dead on his feet from that.

lumen and i also went to hannah's meet n greet on saturday, which went marginally better in general bc we arrived an hour and ten minutes early. we still waited a long time, but we got to see her & tapl and it was cool. however they had the same problem as friday of way too many people and instead of letting people into specific lines they just. kept the huge line. towards the end of the line they started putting people in overflow, which again, is where they waited to rot.

today we went to eret's meet n greet as our final hoo-rah (lmao) of the event. we showed up probably an hour and twenty minutes early. we got to the front of eret's line maybe five minutes before the end of the session. they had put us in overflow, and at this point actually were asking who people were there to see and were keeping count to send people away, but some of those people had already waited in line for probably 30min or more. sunday was by far the best they managed but still not good at all.

other HUGE problem with the lines: they did not anticipate mcyt fans showing up in droves. apparently con staff thought people would disperse to various events rather than congregating at particular events and this is part of why they didn't place dsmp events in larger venues. second part of this issue of anticipation is that they didn't plan for how many people would wait in line, despite how big a space was. well over 2k people waited in line for the dsmp panel. twitchcon did not even account for any kind of line (friday was a complete shitshow, you dont even understand) and were left floundering.

something else to note is all twitch communications said lines were to start 30min before events. on friday people were lined up 3 hours before the dsmp panel. these two things do not compute, and they mean staff were not watching the lines and directing them properly from the start, which helps explain why they lost control entirely.

so yes the mobbing that happened on friday is quite honestly unsurprising.

for sat and sunday, they realized they needed to get their shit together, so first thing is that they made a little area for disabled & priority people to sit to get into the glitch theater before everyone else, and there were way more staff present alongside security. they also had signs and staff throughout the line making sure people understood where things started and ended, how far into the hallway they were allowed to be, and when they had no hope of getting into the event. some level of improvement, but there was also some ridiculous shit they were pulling.

during several events yesterday they had like ten staff members holding pieces of rope together, like kindergartners, and were using them to bodily block line movement and crossing. so for a bit they would open a path into the theater for people waiting in line, then they would stop that line and allow cross traffic, because again, this was a full fucking hallway where people needed to walk. this was by far the stupidest thing ive ever seen and ive worked for colleges where organizers didnt remember students need to eat food.

not about lines anymore, but to address the foam pit, im gonna clarify a few things because people seem confused.

firstly, there were actually two foam pits on the con floor (and a ball pit by the entrance, but its irrelevant here). one was at the wendys booth, where people were hitting each other with foam french toast sticks over a foam pit. this pit was higher than the lenovo one but still a little iffy. they did not shut it down after adriana was injured at the other booth.

the booth that was a genuine problem was the lenovo booth, where they had a foam pit that i would say reached maybe 3/4 up my calf. i would generously call it a foot and a half high including the foam bits. people were similarly handed sticks to hit each other with and loud announcers said a bunch of shit into microphones. anyway. i took a photo of the foam pit today when it was not being used (although the booth was still open! people were still using the lenovo products to play little games three feet from where adriana broke her back!)

it's hard to see but it is not deep at all, and whats underneath is just the con floor, which is concrete and maybe a single layer of carpet. at most some of those foam bits reach a foot and a half, maybe two feet.

according to some folks the safe depth for foam pits without soft landing pads is like 6-8 feet deep (possibly meant to include the soft landing pads, im not a gymnastics person) which means it was a fraction of how safe it should have been. also i cannot get over the fact that they kept the booth open after someone BROKE THEIR FUCKING BACK and that wendys kept their pit running what the fuck is wrong with these people.

anyway the big thing i want to stress is that twitchcon is absolutely liable, at least morally, for this, but lenovo is absolutely on the hook for it as well. im not sure exactly how convention safety works for this, but i would guess its mostly on the exhibitors to provide proper safety. would not be shocked if the convention center is also liable, but again, im not a lawyer. i havent seen many people talking about lenovo being at fault so i want people to know thats part of it as well.

i also wanna address some of the more stupid/baseless rumors i've seen. the stuff about drink spiking seems to be because of advice some folks were giving out about not taking drinks from strangers because of the possibility of having your drink spiked, not the reality, but people took that out of hand and spread it like it had happened, and other folks used tweets from 2019 twitchcon where that did actually happen and it became a huge rumor. i have not heard a single cc or attendee from this year say their drinks were spiked.

second thing: sykkuno was not kicked out of twitchcon, he was asked to leave artist alley bc there was a huge crowd forming around him. this is a small thing but its bugging me that its being spread. it sucks that he couldnt hang out there but he's way too big of a streamer to be wandering the con without security, this is why they're supposed to let ccs on the con floor & into artist alley before/after everyone else is gone. that's what they did at vidcon at least.

third thing that's REALLY been bugging me: there is absolutely no confirmation that that person stole gnf's water bottle. they took a pic touching it on the table and then a pic of them holding an aquafina water bottle, which is the water they were selling throughout the con. if they actually stole it i suspect there would be a video. regardless, even if they did, they definitely did it as a reference to the smplive confession (which is itself a reference to a kpop stan copypasta. no one stole cooper's water bottle.) and not to be creepy, and they doubled down to get twitter clout. the smplive situation is also just entirely different, i know y'all think the serious stream jokes are funny but mcyt stans were just starting to exist and thats why that stream happened. all these streamers now think stans are fine so that would never happen. go watch lumenvale's video essay for the love of g-d.

another thing: most people were wearing their masks. i don't know where the idea came from that people weren't but i guarantee you 99% of mcyt fans were wearing masks the entire time, and most other people were as well. they made you verify your vaccination status or turn in covid tests also; i keep seeing straight up lies that they weren't checking for this but they absolutely were.

"unaccompanied minors" is also a meaningless thing to say; 14+ minors did not need to have an adult, and teenagers are perfectly capable of going to a con by themselves. sometimes they will be annoying or weird but that does not mean they need to be followed everywhere by a parent. i can also guarantee that a solid number of the freaks stalking ccs outside hotels and outside the partner lounge (no one's talking about that but i saw that personally and it was def happening, fucking creepy!) were fully grown adults.

also this is just a little thing but they had an affiliate kiosk with a little gift bag (that included shoelaces lmao) and they also had a pronouns bin at it that had literally like three she/her pins. lumen and i dug through it for several minutes to find a single one and i saw women digging all three days bc they apparently just. didnt buy enough she/her pins. which is a bad look already and then combined with the issues with one block at a time is just heinous.

random note at the end bc i just remembered it but they also had a huge line outside to get into the convention center and then a huge line for badge pickup and a huge line to get onto the floor, which only opened at 9 despite the building opening at 8. anyone who wanted to get to morning meet n greets early got kind of fucked by this and i dont understand why they had so many lines outside and then sucked at the lines inside. fucking nuts.

[hiso03]

what makes you ship halbarry, mine is the amount of symbolism and moments they manifest about them being compatible with each other and even the main lore knows theybare one😭😭

sometimes I wonder why these two aren't together yet since they are basically soulmates 😭😭

This is probably the question I have been waiting for the most and for which I have to have the longest possible answer. I will try not to go too far, but I will also try not to miss any points that I consider important.

I think I can start by saying that I love their dynamic, I've always liked it. To start Barry is a more serious guy, shy and introverted, always thinking about some situation and planning. And Hal is more outgoing, noisy and confident, he NEVER plans and is too impulsive.

They are opposing poles, not radically opposed as with other characters in the league, but they remain opposing enough to provide contrast to the relationship. There's also the fact that the two of them are fully aware of those differences, and even though they don't like some at all, they've never tried to change anything between them. Even when people constantly point out how different they are and how no one understands how they are friends. (Even they can't understand how they're so close if they don't resemble each other at all)

(Personally this panel is one of my favorites, as I love how Hal immediately jumps up to Barry's tastes, making it clear that while he doesn't like to do the same things Barry does, he doesn't find it as bad or boring as some might think.)

In general, the series of “The brave and the bold” I like because it allows you to take a close look at their relationship and give us lots of interactions of them, allows us to see a little more of their real character and their friendship.

There is also the fact that in that series they constantly show how well they know each other Hal and Barry manage to combine their skills to help each other. They always take advantage of each other's ability to resolve conflicts, and even when they fight or argue, they resolve them quickly. Another of my favorite numbers is the last volume of the series, when Barry falls into a terrible and painful depression and Hal is the only one who supports him.

Literally Hal tries to have some stability in his life to let Barry stay with him, helps him like Barry has always helped him and says one of the phrases I love the most.

“The poor man needs something to hold on to, so he will stay with me, maybe our friendship will be a comfort to him, he will always be able to count on that until the day we die.”

In this same comic is where Barry tries to sacrifice himself and Hal stops him, to that I add that in a previous issue we also show that one of Hal's biggest fears is losing Barry. The thought of seeing him die or get hurt is something that scares him.

Hal's not afraid to die, he's afraid that Barry will die and it's his fault, that I can't save him. And that point added to everything that's going on with Parallax and Crisis on Infinite Earths feels like a stab for both of them.

It's fucking tragic.

Generally in many moments of Hal as Parallax or The Wraith, Hal talks about Barry, continues to talk about how amazing he was as a person and a hero, talks about how he remains his best friend even though Barry is still dead. (That reminds me a lot of when I'm with my friends and some of them start talking about their boyfriends even though they're not there and we didn't talk about them originally)

And when they both revive, Barry constantly lets him know that everything that happened with Parallax wasn't him and tries to support him, try to be there for him for as long as he couldn't help him when his friend needed him the most.

We also have the fact that Barry has canonically been a blue lantern, and well, hope and willpower isn't exactly two opposing poles, on the contrary, it's likely that both entities are reciprocal forces. That they stick together and support each other, just like Hal and Barry do.

I also like to think that they had a somewhat similar childhood.

Both lost a father or mother, and that led to the loss of the rest of their family and childhood, they had to grow up faster than the other children, became more independent, and soon discovered that the world was cruel and unjust.

Although we also have other universes like:

The universe of Injustice where the two of them continue to support each other and remain together despite the mess that is around them, and there is even a panel where Hal as a yellow lantern is going to rescue Barry after Constantine abducted him.

Or we also have the fact that red and green in the chromatic circle are two opposite or complementary colors that are usually used when you want to create a harmony on a visual level. That is, from the choice of colors we can know perfectly well that they are opposite poles, but they complement each other so well that it creates a visual harmony when you see them together. (For some reason Christmas usually uses these two colors as its main ones).

There's also the fact that Hal and Barry met before the league was formed, and even when they met Batman and Superman, Hal wanted him and Barry to work it out on their own. (Barry refused because someone has to put prudence on their duo)

And we have the fact that in the story of how they met, Hal calls it his “first date”. (Let's pretend he didn't say that when he and Barry weren't literally on what looked like a date, where they went to dinner at a restaurant where there was live jazz music and Hal actually had a good time sitting on Barry's cell phone).

(Hal hates jazz, but he's still there with Barry at a dinner party while putting up with music he doesn't really like. That's pretty.)

I think it was also in this comic where Hal lets Barry use his ring to get you both out of there.

There's also universe 36 where we have two variants of Green Lantern and Flash that canonically speaking are couple. It is worth remembering that the two of them did not stay together, since in an event they participated in, the Flash of their universe dies. (It seems there can't be a crisis without a sprinter dying) Luckily at DC Pride they made the green lantern of their land look for their Flash, and they revived and were happy.

(They're supposed to be neither Hal nor Barry, but the truth, their designs and even their names feel like very inspired by them, so I scored it as a little extra point although I don't know if you can consider it).

We have DC vampires that although in that universe, Hal kills Barry because they won't let him turn him into a vampire because he would end up killing everybody. Hal finally gives us that line where he admits that he REALLY wanted to conquer the world with Barry, which kind of fuels his tragic gay romance.

Anyway, I would like to go longer, but I can't find some panels that I was looking for to explain me more, plus I feel that this is already long enough and meaningless to make it clear that I love them both. I just want to add that I think probably the thing I like most about them is that they both admire each other. Both their heroic parts and their civilian parts, and I think that's very sweet and nice, added to the fact that they're always there trying to support each other or show off parts of their personality that you can't appreciate with all their friends to the same extent. I like that they always have symbolism and like many times in the comics it refers to some moments that they have lived together. This makes me have the theory in my head that maybe some cartoonists and writers also like them in a sense beyond friendship, but since NOBODY dares to take the leap of faith and make them canon, they let us drop some crumbs so as not to lose faith.

(If anyone got here, thank you so much for reading all this even though it doesn't make much sense in some parts, I apologize for that and make up for it with some panels of them two)

[roboneco]

Something I noticed about the difference between the writing of boys and girls in lookism is that with boys

WE. GOT. DEPTH.

The "main" side characters to me are Zack, Vasco, Eli, Vin, Jay, Zoe, Mira, Mary, and Crystal. They are the ones who for the first 200 chapters or so I thought the story will revolve around (till god dog arc of course) I'll only talk about two boys and two girls to not bore you.

We got introduced to Zack as an arrogant bully and to Vasco as a kind hero but a biased one. PTJ could have just gave them character development and all would have been well but NO he decided to give them backstories. Vasco got a full one and Zack got a few panels talking about how he was always praised as the best and how that inflated his ego (remember a backstory is reasoning not an excuse for anyone's actions) till we got a bigger picture during Johan's own backstory that explained why he stopped boxing and turned from a kid who picks fights to an outright bully.

Now listen of course that was the right choice (to give them backstories I mean) but when you do that to every male character, I expect of you to treat the female characters the same way! But no.

Mira first is introduced as Zack's "girlfriend" later we discover she isn't and all we know of her is that she's sweet, courageous and hates fighting......wow she's perfect! No flaws to trace the origin of or to think of how to fix them! Ok PTJ I am now waiting for her backstory where we learn what gave her all these amazing traits and how she managed to be such a good person!

Oh.... apparently she's always been like that... because we didn't get shit. Like even the cult arc which was mainly Johan's anyways didn't give us anything about her. Sure stuff happened to her and she did a cool thing but there was no lasting effects on her that showed in the story. No trauma. No bitterness. No nothing. She is the same before and after the arc except.....of course her relationship with the boys got strained.....

UGHH! Ok ok ok cool cool cool COOL! What about Zoe! Zoe is a queen and her character actually developed and changed! She started as a mean girl who only cared about looks and now she is so understanding and sweet! She even sacrificed herself for Daniel!

Look all this is great. I have some problems with her arc (not all of it!!) but this isn't what I am talking about now. What I am talking about is her behavior is never explained.

"What is there to explain? She has bias like everyone in society. That's literally the theme of the comic. That doesn't need explaining" ok the same applies to Zack! He was shown as the stereotypical bully who then changes their ways and befriends the protagonist type of character. Yet PTJ chose to flesh him out with a backstory and introduced another important character through him (Johan my darling boy) and didn't find it important to do the same for Zoe.....

Like for real not even like one chapter that talks about anything in her life other than boys. Her backstory didn't have to be impactful or anything. I still remember Vasco's with fondness even tho it has nothing to do with the plot now what so ever.

I picked these 4 to talk about because arguably at that point of the story they were all of the same importance but the same applies to the others up there I didn't mention. Except Jay because no hate I feel like PTJ made him as fan service and doesn't actually know what to do with him.

[kay-then-i-guess]

So, I had this idea as I'm getting close to finishing the Election arc of my Roleshuffle AU to go through my previous comic pages and point out everything I did wrong :) This is all for funsies, and I feel like my art has gotten a lot better with the Election arc. Plus, I think it's very important to go back and critique yourself to 1: see how far you've come and 2: to better understand where you tend to make mistakes. So, let's get critiquing!

Soooo starting off, I really didn't know how to make a comic. I had only done very brief, minor comic making before, so this was a completely new field of art that I wasn't used to. You can immediately see that problem in the first and second panel, since they. They aren't a panel. Nothing about them (minus the speech bubbles) indicates that this is a comic. I think the first would have benefited from each item being properly separated, and the other would have benefited from an actual image behind it; not a gradient. Speaking of the items, that's supposed to be Sam's hand at the top, and it is freckle-less (no clue why I forgot to add those lol). Some other consistency things that are weird is that L'manberg has no tower entrance, and there aren't any trees surrounding it in any other drawing. On notes of consistency, the sword there is supposed to be Techno's, but the design changed later to have a gold hilt. I guess that change never reached this panel, so now that just looks like a random sword stuck in the ground. Nobody's sword in the comic looks like that haha. Similar deal with Techno's crown: the spacing of jewels is not consistent with how I draw it in the rest of the comic.

Moving on! The next two panels of Connor aren't bad, per se, they just aren't good. (I'm mainly bothered by the fact that he doesn't have teeth in the first one.) Also, because I didn't want to draw hands and cut his arms off, it just looks like the framing of the panel is all wrong. Plus, I don't think I've seen anyone pose like that in real life. He looks like he's about to hug you, which is not the vibe I was going for. In both of these panels, we have what will become a reoccurring problem throughout: loooooong neck because I didn't draw a base figure before drawing the clothes. Connor's face should either be longer in these panels, or his shoulders should be higher. Either way, the neck does not look right. Another reoccurring problem you'll see is dull coloring/shading. I'm still working on this, to be frank, but these images all look rather dull. There's nothing unique about the lighting/colors, so it doesn't really pop like it should. Either I needed to add more dynamic lighting or be better at highlights.

Yet another case of long neck. Oh, and weird positioning on the facial features. The eyes feel stretched across his face instead of, well, where they should be. I also think in these opening panels I really fail to encapsulate Connor's personality. I was really banking on the fact that he's a silly little comic relief character in the canon dsmp, but his delivery is very dry/flat whenever I watch old clips of him. Therefore, in the early bits, he just seems a bit off because of the high energy I gave him. Next up we have a bad case of something that looked good in the sketch but did not come across after coloring. What I wanted to happen was his face to gain some anime-type shading that screams "oh no", but it just wasn't strong enough, so the end result just seems like I copied and pasted the same panel for no reason. Also, in the lower image, Connor's face does not look right. I can't really put my finger on why, but it's either because his eyes are uneven or that the facial features, once again, kind of stretch across the face.

aaaaand I originally wanted to go through the whole first part of my comic, but this is turning out to be very long. So that's a tomorrow project. Hope you enjoyed my critique!

[balanceoflightanddark]

I would be curious to hear your full thoughts on Azula in the Spirit Temple

...oh boy...my full thoughts on Azula in the Spirit Temple...

Needless to say, there has been a LOT of discourse on the release of the Azula one-shot these past few days. I know cause...well, I made a post saying my fic was on hiatus till I got my head straight. So needless to say, I've been in the middle of it myself.

The thing about the one-shot though is that it's not just the comic itself but all the baggage and expectations that comes with something that we've been waiting 15 years for. This is the first time Azula has EVER gotten the focus for once. For many of us, this has sort of been a make-or-break situation. I'll get to why in a moment but needless to say, it's been a stressful week.

But having read the comic, I'm ready to give my opinions on it. Spoilers. Obviously.

By now you should know the synopsis: after a raid on a granary, Azula's Fire Warriors make a rescue attempt for one of their comrades, leaving Azula behind. After trying to track them down for their "betrayal", Azula stumbles across a temple deep within the wood home to a monk. Of course, not all is as it seems, as it becomes apparent that something dark resides within, pitting the Princess against her very own psyche.

As I mentioned before, this is Azula's first time in the spotlight. The whole comic is written from her point of view, and she is effectively the protagonist. Going in, I was both excited...and terrified. See, this is her first appearance since the Yang comics and...

...yeah. Needless to say, there's a LOT of bad blood for me going into this comic. So much so that I nearly lost it when I heard some of the spoilers going in.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

To begin, this comic does the most critical thing right: Azula is NOT portrayed as being an irredeemable monster. While she's still a villain and makes a lot of questionable choices (her treatment of the Fire Warriors is reminiscent of how she treated Mai and Ty Lee after all), she's also given a great deal of sympathy. Probably the most we've seen out of the franchise so far.

If Azula was some kind of monster, there's no way panels like this should even exist. What's more, I actually think it does something that I think wasn't handled well in the series and treated little!Azula as...well, a kid. Not a monster or "sick" as Zuko called her in "Zuko Alone". Just a talented kid who unfortunately caught the eye of Ozai for being good at firebending. Hell, that teaser image of her burning the turtleduck was actually a toy and not the real deal.

It's stuff like this that got me excited for the comic initially. This was what we've been waiting for years now. Writers actually acknowledging that Azula was a victim and not some monster.

...which is why I blew up when the previews turned out to be misleading.

See, Azula doesn't get her redemption here. She's offered one (we'll get to that in a minute), but she rejects it and ends the story as a bad guy. Granted there are hints that she's starting to change, but she's still going after the throne and is still opposed to Zuko. Which...kind of got me upset. Mainly cause I thought it was another bait-and-switch like with Yang hinting at Azula changing at the end of The Search, then going around with her crappy portrayal in Smoke and Shadows.

Course there's only so much you can do within a single one-shot, so admittedly...my hopes were too high. Like, there was a lot I wanted. I wanted the heroes to finally get called out on their bull crap. I wanted Azula to get a break. I wanted...I guess I wanted to feel validated that somebody was listening to us.

And granted there is a little bit here and there. The asylum is NOT looked on kindly by Azula or any of the Fire Warriors, with her even trying to reassure herself she's not being held there anymore.

She even calls out Ursa on abandoning her, saying that Ozai effectively conditioned her into being a weapon when she didn't have any choice in the matter. Hell, there's a heavy implication she's genuinely hurt by what Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee pulled in the past (which considering what they did in the comics, is a lot) and wants some kind of apology from them.

Again, while she's not entirely a saint here, I don't think they'd have this panels if she was entirely in the wrong.

Which then we get to the redemption offer. Basically, the Spirit offers to give her a chance to change...which she rejects.

The problem is, said chance involves her apologizing to THEM first. And I don't think that's portrayed as a good thing since the hallucination of Zuko looks eerily reminiscent of Ozai and downright monstrous. As others have pointed out, it's clear that the Spirit doesn't know Azula and the "redemption" sounds more like groveling for forgiveness. So of COURSE it's not going to work for somebody like Azula since that won't solve anything for her.

So...we come to the ending.

The Spirit calls Azula a monster, says she's squandered a chance for redemption, and she looks upon the Fire Warriors having fun together and...she leaves...

...alone...

...look. I understand that @prying-pandora666 said this was essentially a reset. Getting Azula to a post-Sozin's Comet state with a fresh start. And I get that. Particularly if the animated stuff is gonna feature her.

...but she's alone...again...

I'm okay with her not getting a redemption since I don't think she was mentally ready for one. But...

sighs

Listen, remember how I said I wanted a lot from this comic? Too much in fact? Yeah. I was so focused on what I needed as opposed to what Azula needed. A fresh slate might be what she needs. And in a vacuum, I think this comic is pretty solid.

It's just everything else is where I have problems.

15 years waiting. 15 years of Bryke/Yang's comics, ableism, and lack of empathy. 15 years of stress, of being seen as an outcast by the fandom. It's...it's a lot to hold. And there's no way a single good comic is gonna be able to rebuild those burned-down bridges. I understand that there's talk of a potential follow-up and stuff for her from Avatar Studios.

It's just...you know. You're always afraid of this being the end. Which...doesn't sit well with me. I'm just afraid they're gonna use Azula as a marketing tool to sell future comics. That they're gonna drag this out. That they're gonna keep playing this centrist field instead of committing (it's fine here, and I do think Faith does lean in towards Azula being sympathetic after all), it's just...

I'm sorry. I want to love this comic and be excited for more stuff with Azula but...15 years is a long time. And it's going to take more than a single good comic to get me back on board fully.

[starrvlight]

should i make a web toon??

chat should I make a webtoon?? I already have some story written out, it's kinda lie sbg?? It's not like taken from SBG I promise 😭 but it's the same genre??and I have not ppl to edit my art / anyone to help out with the comic CONSIDERING IM A MINOR (13-15)??I also don't consider myself good a drawing:p But I'll tell u about it and lmk if I should try to make it a comic??:D

it's about these kids (12-13) I KNOW IT'S YOUNG BUT WHATS A LIL TRAUMA GONNA DO?? And like (I'm still figuring this out 😔(ok nvm I'm just going to copy and paste I have a 2 starts so far starts so far))

starter one: (2nd one I made + still working on)

They use walkie talkies the communicate *FIFI RUNNING THRU THE HALLS OF HER SCHOOL* Hey- I'm Fiona or fifi- whatever u wanna call me. For the past few months I've been having this recurring dream, or simalar to that.. Cut to fifi panting, crying and bleeding a lot from the side of she stomach, running in a hellish realm from a multiple runners going to some massive treehouse and she climbs a ladder and axel rolls up the ladder, and fifi pressing a button and collapse shaking

Cut back to Fifi, running into her class "your late miss Weech." Fifi looks up "sorry Mr mordini" she mumbles

starter 2: (og one)

Fifi was looking thru her dad's stuff and saw some "fun" looking horror game that was shoved way way way in the back1-2 (axel and fifi) people are playing a game, then the game glitches and the game like sucks them in.they were playing some horror game where you had necklaces/ bracelets/earrings rings that they found then they had some type of power (but didn't know||powers:, water,fire,air,earth,flying, manipulate gravity,super speed, instant healing, able to shield Able to manipulate blood, shrink/grow is size, teleport abe to see into the future by a.little bit, lightning yk?) and so they kinda just walked around for a bit and then saw something glowing..it was a crimson shade of red..like blood.. axel grabbed it and looked at it then hesitantly but it on, then continued walking it was really dare,, they came across this neighborhood/ghost town and a whole bunch of houses were like decaying and they walked in, hoping to find stuff,they ended up finding some water, a backpack and a couple flashlights +batteries.. and a ring that had a dark green gem..then l of a sudden they hear EXTREMELY loud screeching and they remember it from the game they the began to run out the house but screeching got louder and louder to they ran the opposite way, but there was no way out so they had to kill the creature (it's a black creature that's completely black and has like a really open mouth andna head that's tilted back, a massive eye on their chest and in the same pllace on their back, really tall massive claws, they r called runners/screechers, then there are other ones that can fly at really high speeds r called flyers) they didn't know how so they just ran and ran, until axel fel...Fifi pulled axel and help him up..but it was too late and the monster lunged at them then the crouchd and covered themselves, then hears some running and then a loud screach,. They looks up and say a trio, one has black, really curly hair, one has a bit with bleached hair and one with browns hair and some hair dye, the one with h dyed hair has black goop on her hand she shirt, then the one with curly blkack hair ran to them

And I drew both comics a bit both have I think 3 panels :p

AND SORRY FOR RANDOM NAMES IN IT I CAN POST THE CHARACTER INTRODUCTION STUFF IF U WANT MORE INFO

ANDDD ANOTHING THINK IM WITTEWLIWLY DRAWING IN IBISPAINT 🤨 LIKE??

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

aha,,, I had this really in-depth thing I wrote about how much I like your art,,, and the first half, maybe even first 2/3 got deleted,,, I was so excited writing it, I have no idea what it all even contained anymore,,,

So... the first paragraph after this here is rewritten from what I could remember writing the first time. I know it's not as in-depth as it originally was. Hopefully it still gets the depth of what I want to say across... The second paragraph is what DIDN'T get deleted. Aaaa

I only just recently found you and started following you, but I have to say, your art and comics and writing for the ASL brothers is just. So unbelievably good. You're up there in my favorites. Top three. Top two even. The way you write them is like watching a group of close friends interacting in real life, down to the silliness and shenanigans and inside jokes and abrupt changes in topic or mood in a conversation, including superficial changes (one that comes to mind is when Ace goes something like "I'll bet ONE MILLION DOLLARS" or some incredibly large number, really intensely suddenly, in response to Luffy's saying he'd be $20 or something, and then there's a beat, and then Luffy is like "$20 is fine :)" and Ace is just like "Alright :)". That kind of thing is something Ive had happen, something I've seen happen to others... but I've never seen it written/drawn so well.) Everything about their interactions is so incredibly natural, so full of life. Every time I read one of your comics I'm in constantly in awe and taking mental notes. Well. Okay, no, that's a lie. I WISH I were taking mental notes, but I get so caught up reading because it flows SO smoothly that I forget to.

And that's another thing!! How the way you do paneling and story beats in your comics makes reading while also visualizing movement and transitions so seamless. It's like, the visual-narrative equivalent of a hot knife through butter. I've read plenty of comics-- from novice to professional-- that have really clunky paneling and/or pacing. And similarly, I've read as many that let you read everything easily, but it's like, TOO easy, and there's no weight drawing your eyes to the actual art or keeping them there. And I've seen comics that are somewhere between these two, but still don't feel like they have a good flow. (All this as passive observation, I'm not one to actively look to critique something.) Anyway, what I'm saying is, the way you set up your comics-- the art, the paneling, the pacing, the speech bubbles, the shots, EVERYTHING-- makes them just. MM!! An absolute frickin delight to read. And it's combined with some of the best, most natural-feeling writing I've ever had the pleasure of reading. You balance everything so well. In this age of being desensitized to humor online, I must say, the silliness in parts of the Water Is Thicker Than Blood comic make me genuinely grin and even laugh to myself alone in my room. It feels so real, so genuine, so... I'm running out of words. I'm sorry. I just... REALLY love how you make stuff. I want you to know that I'm a big fan, and, even though I'm older than you I'm learning a lot, and your stuff is so well-done. I hope this isn't too strange, aha... if it is, I apologize. I got a little intense

Oh woweewowee!!!!!!

Thank you for enjoying how i depict them! I really enjoy drawing them as realistic as i can. I really want people to understand them how i do in my head, and im glad it comes off perfectly because i love these little gremlins! And it really is surprisingly easy to think up situations of them being little dumbasses together :) just put them in situations, think about the ways any normal person could possibly react to the information thats given, scrap all that, use the outlier, and bam! That’s a bonafide ASL dynamic right there!

Thats really nice of you to say how you like how i panel my comics because thats one of the things im a bit self conscious of, truthfully. My formatting isnt as neat or polished as other comics are, and i really dont care to change that, but its nice to know that there is still charm and interest in my style of comics.

I get what you mean with the being desensitized to humor online nowadays. Idk what about it but its kinda hard to get me to full on laugh at memes like i used to. But i really enjoy putting in gags that i think and I chuckle to myself about for a while after i thought of it. The “that doesnt taste anything like ass” gag got me chuckling for so long to myself while i was at work. Just like,,, the shock and awe that Sabo is in from having witnessed that is so funny to me, i dont think that gag will ever get old in my head.

That’s really cool that me just goofing around can be a learning opportunity to people :0 ive never even considered that could be the case

Not at all! Thanks so much for your thoughts and opinions! This is very heartwarming and im very happy i could produce something thats so meaningful to others :)

Thanks for the ask, too :D

[alfredsolos]

hey, you know how you did a review (basically) of colin’s character and kinda outlined or corrected any misinformation ppl make ab him (like that he’s Jon kent 2.0?) (idk how to explain- character study??? u just explained him rly well with good textual evidence)

anyways~

do you think u could do something like that for Maya Ducard? like, clear up any misconceptions ppl have ab her character and such? i want to write her but i don’t have the ability to read the comics/don’t rlly want to anyways.

Alright! Before going into a character analysis, let's talk about Maya's story. Who is Maya Ducard?

Maya Ducard is a vigilante/hero called Nobody. She is the second person to take up that mantle. The first Nobody aka Morgan Ducard aka Maya's father, was killed by Damian Wayne in Batman and Robin.

Maya finds the remains of her father's corpse beneath the sea and watches the clip of Damian killing her father. So to take revenge, she goes after Damian to kill him.

But during that time, Damian goes into a redemption trip where he tries to undo the damage he did when he was an assassin.

During on of those missions, Maya and Damian cross paths and she tries to kill him. But when she finds out that he was on a redemption trip, she decides to go with him and ensure that he is doing what he's supposed to. And she tells him that in the end she'd kill him.

Damian let's her tag along and they go on adventures together, growing closer and closer. And in the end, Maya forgives Damian.

Now, going back to the topic. Coming across Maya fics are harder because there are too few. So I don't really know how the fanon portrayes her.

I do know that most of the time she is portrayed as a supportive big sister, which is true but she is also so much more. So in this post I'll give out some facts about her and explain her character using canon panels.

****

1. Maya does not like the idea of innocents dying:

Even when she was trying to kill Damian, she interrups her plans to save the innocent people. This tells us that she indeed has a pure heart. Along with her potential to be a hero.

2. She knows how to get inside someone's skin:

During the times where they have a temporary ceasefire, Maya does not hold back from hurting Damian with her words and trying to get under his skin. This tells us that whoever her target is, she will do proper research on them and make sure to know them on a personal level. Which makes her dangerous.

She has a sharp tongue, so don't forget to apply this trait of hers on your fics!

3. Abilities?

Maya does not have any super powers. But she does have a super suit with numerous abilities. The most prominent ones being: Invisibility, sonic boom devices that are built into her hands, a device that distorts people's eyesight. She is also a very skilled fighter.

Another very important thing to note is that, her father wasn't the one who taught her how to fight:

She learned how to fight by herself, watching her dad from the shadows. Which indicates amazing strategic and martial ability. Not to mention how she tracked down Damian and manage to hold her own against him.

4. At first these two did not get along:

And by that I mean, they did not get along.

They did not fight due to the ceasefire. But the things they said to each other? Ouch.

5. Maya loves Goliath:

Before and after trying to kill Damian, Maya always loved Goliath. She even tried to take him away from Damian at one point.

Goliath also loves Maya very much, risking his life for her countless times.

6. Along with her hate for Damian, she was also jelaous of him:

One, he had a family that gave everything to him. Two; while her father never taught her anything, he took in Damian and taught him special moves and trained him. And due to this she naturally had a bit of envy of him.

7. Maya was still adament to kill Damian when they started to get along:

This didn't last that much, but in her mind it was some kind of divine justice.

8. Damian saved Maya from Deathstroke:

After Maya quit trying to become an assassin and killing Damian, Deathstroke came after her. But Damian basically pays her off and gives Slade 5 million dolars to stop trying to kill her. Surprisingly it works.

But Maya doesn't understand why he did this. She calls herself worthless and with this, we can get that she has very low self esteem and self-deprecating thoughts.

9. She is more laxed, compared to Damian:

As you can see, she does not shy away from resting unlike other assassins who do not stop until they complete their plans.

10. She has never killed anyone:

Even before or after Damian, she has 0 body count. She never killed or kills anyone in the future. This fact is the reason why Damian let Maya come with him after she tried to take him on. He knew that she wouldn't be able to do it.

11. Damian has a habit of calling her 'chica':

It's obvious that he does this to annoy her. But we can use this in the fanon as Damian annoying Maya by calling her chica

12. Damian gives Goliath to Maya:

After the redemption trip and Maya forgiving Damian, he tells her to take Golaith with him. Maya refuses and tells him that Goliath belongs to him. But Damian answers with:

Goliath ends up staying with her.

13. Damian shies away from asking Maya for help:

After the redemption arc, Maya settles in and is actually happy. Damian sees this and hesitates to ask for her help.

As you can see, this happens multiple times. Which is cute, to see Damian being shy. Maya could be the only person who makes Damian feel like that.

14. Maya gains a brother:

After forgiving Damian for killing her father, she tells him that he has gained a new sister. Which means a lot because this shows that blood isn't what matters, but love. Seeing Damian accept and love her, destroyes the 'blood son' argument.

15. Maya hates the al Ghul's:

She tells Talia that she hates all the al Ghuls, besides Damian. She also goes on to tell her that she is a horrible mother. And by that, she really goes all out.

16. She kidnaps Jon Kent:

We all know that Damian met Jon by kidnapping him. But the thing is, he wasn't alone! Maya also helped him to kidnap Jon.

****

Anyways, these were my intrepretation of Maya Ducard's character from her canon interactions. If anyone wants to add onto these, please feel free and thank you for the ask!

[fernsnailz]

please i have to know the turbo tails lore

bitcoin i can assure you there’s no fucking way you’re ready for what’s about to unfold in this lore post

i’m willing to talk about the turbo tails lore because it gives me the chance to explain my favorite panel from ALL of archie sonic:

below is over 2,000 words worth of turbo tails lore. don't say i didn't warn you lol

TL;DR: a convoluted prophecy, a cryptic grandpa, and a single lost backpack make turbo tails one of the strangest things to come out of archie sonic

THE TURBO TAILS LORE.

note: any time i say “it’s actually really simple!” in this explanation please know i’m saying it with the thickest tone of sarcasm and bitterness known to man

we gotta start wayyyy back in early archie sonic - specifically, at the tails miniseries. these issues follow tails as he travels alone to a place called “downunda” (aka the archie sonic equivalent of australia), where he helps the freedom fighters there defeat some badniks terrorizing their home.

tails’ journey is sparked by his own desire to become a hero and the frustration he feels when the rest of the freedom fighters treat him like a little kid. in the first part of the miniseries, we see a comic that tails makes about him becoming a superhero called “captain super foX-MAN” (the writers did a lot of comic references in early archie sonic).

when tails gets to downunda, however, he becomes injured and finds himself in the bottom of a crater. here, he meets an oldass echidna named athair. this dude is one of knuckles’ (many) relatives, and hopefully the only one i ever have to talk about

athair’s main character trait is that he’s cryptic as hell. nothing he says makes any fucking sense, but is treated as all-important because… he says it is. he’s gonna be relatively important through all of this, so we gotta keep peepaw around.

athair takes tails further into the comet and introduces him to some guys called the ancient walkers. you might think, “hey, are those just dinosaurs wearing masks?” and. yeah that’s exactly what they are

the ancient walkers are pagan dinosaurs that discovered the chaos emeralds and developed some sort of immortality and futuristic vision because of them. or. something like that

so what the hell does this have to do with tails? well, the ancient walkers speak of a prophecy: a chosen one who will realign the chaos emeralds for a “higher purpose,” and cause something called the great harmony.

we won’t be getting to THAT for a WHILE tho

after his adventure in downunda, the next important thing to cover is sonic, tails, and knuckles’ battle against a dude called mammoth mogul.

for simplicity’s sake, the main things you need to know about mogul is that:

he’s immortal and really old

he wants to take over the universe

he has a chaos emerald embedded in his chest

he’s ALSO going to be very important

i don't like him he’s really boring

at this point, mammoth mogul has stolen a bunch of power from another villain called enerjak (LONG story), and has used it to transform into his own sort of “super” form called master mogul.

mogul really wants to fight the sonic gang so he can use the three of them to take over the world, and this is what his vision of that looks like LMAO

sonic and knuckles go into their super and hyper forms respectively, but even the two of them can’t take down mogul. however, a mysterious caped hero shows up to help - TURBO TAILS.

turbo tails's design is in reference to the superhero tails was drawing at the beginning of his miniseries, captain fox-man. this is turbo tails' first official appearance, and he’s able to fight off mogul where BOTH super sonic and hyper knuckles couldn’t. kid’s strong.

once they defeat mogul, they trap his ass in the master emerald. however, note this all takes place before the comic’s adaptation of sonic adventure 1. and if you know SA1, you know that stuff inside the master emerald gets OUT of it eventually. and oh boy you’ll never guess who gets out of the emerald when eggman eventually destroys it

however, we’re not worrying about that right now. in the next bit we’re covering, tails is at SCHOOL! however, he’s lost his backpack and needs to find it. oh no!!!

but before he can find it -

athair teleports into the school, says tails is needed for something (but doesn’t say what), then teleports tails away.

BRO DIDN’T EVEN FIND HIS BACKPACK HE HAS GEOMETRY CLASS IN FIVE MINUTES

this specific teleportation will be really important later.

athair takes tails to angel island where he wants tails to… fight knuckles. i guess. currently, knuckles is stuck in a state called “chaos knuckles,” where he’s green, confused all the time, and really strong. homeboy’s going through it

before tails can really do a lot, he gets knocked out by some falling rubble, and ghost athair does nothing to help. have i mentioned that athair kinda sucks?

athair then takes tails to our favorite guy - tails’ uncle, merlin prower! merlin is a wizard and that’s all you need to know right now. athair wants merlin to wake up tails so he can go and fight knuckles, but merlin is FUCKING PISSED!! and reasonably so.

imagine. some oldass dude teleports into your house, hands your unconscious nephew to you, and then goes “hey can you fix him? i need him to fight the hulk.” like?? HE’S BUT A MERE LAD!

merlin is kinda right - tails has been dragged into echidna family drama for no reason other than athair seems to be out of ideas. and since tails' parents are gone, merlin's nephew is the only family he seems to have left.

unfortunately, merlin can’t find a way to argue with athair’s “we gotta do it for reasons i can’t explain” argument, and brings back our boy turbo tails.

however, turbo tails gets his ass kicked.

(side note: from here on out, turbo tails' cape is red. i don't know why that's just how it is)

when merlin goes back to his unconscious nephew (again), athair searches turbo tails’ mind to figure out why he got his ass kicked so bad. and the explanation is actually really simple!

this turbo tails is actually a duplicate of tails and the original tails is just. somewhere we don’t know.

so. yeah what the fuck

neither of them know how tails was duplicated or where this one came from. athair’s solution to this is just “let’s not tell anybody.” great job peepaw you really solved that one

after this, tails 2 just kinda keeps living his life without knowing he’s a duplicate of the original. however, he starts having nightmares about a weird, mysterious cave. when he and sonic eventually find this cave, they find the original turbo tails, trapped in a stasis.

and then, guess who shows up in the cave!! oh boy it’s everyone’s favorite character mammoth fucking mogul!!!!!

mogul explains the tails duplicate thing, and it’s actually really simple!

you know that one time athair teleported into tails’ school and kidnapped him while he was trying to find his backpack? yeah, so mogul basically kidnapped tails while he was being teleported, replaced him with a duplicate he created that was identical to the real tails, then placed the real turbo tails into stasis so he could harvest his power, thus regaining his original power before he was trapped in the master emerald.

do you see why i was dreading talking about turbo tails?

sonic fights mogul off, but tails 2 is kinda going through it. i don’t know how, but mogul made a duplicate that was near PERFECT, and tails 2 still has all of the original tails’ memories, emotions, and bonds. so when tails 2 disappears… it’s strangely tragic?

and then they just kinda move on lol

the original tails is released and returns to living his life, but unfortunately his life is kinda not so great at the moment. he just learned that his parents are alive on an alien planet (read THIS lore dump for more context), he’s part of this weird confusing prophecy he doesn’t understand, and he’s frustrated that he isn’t allowed to know about this great prophecy that directly affects HIS life.

and when tails confronts peepaw athair about this, athair does this.

good riddance

in the next issue, sonic and tails are visited by an alternate universe version of sonic called zonic, who serves as a sorta time cop that watches over the multiverse to make sure no one is messing with the space time continuum.

that’s obviously a bit to unpack, so here’s the main stuff you need to know:

the multiverse exists and is very important in archie sonic

all of the alternate universes and dimensions are called “zones”

the sonic and tails of the main story are called the “prime” versions, basically meaning they’re the true canon of the entire multiverse.

i don’t want to explain the existence of zonic rn. just know that he stands on things sideways

zonic is freaking out a little bit because someone’s in the process of destroying the entire multiverse, but he can’t figure out who. however, he heard about this weird “chosen one” prophecy thing, and he thinks that tails might be able to help.

while with zonic, tails and prime sonic realize that the person destroying the universe is our favorite guy mammoth fucking mogul, who collected enough power from the turbo tails he had in stasis and chaos knuckles (who he fought at a different time) to become all powerful enough to destroy the universe. plus, weird spacetime shenanigans are happening because knuckles died and was then resurrected (don’t ask), which kinda threw off the balance of the multiverse.

the prime bros and zonic are starting to run out of time, but zonic has a plan (sorta). see, he hoped that tails could help somehow, but he didn’t know WHICH tails across the multiverse would be the chosen one.

so he recruited ALL of them.

tails, knowing that he’s the chosen one and all that jazz, tries to fight the universe destroying god form mammoth mogul alone. this obviously does not work, so the rest of the tails and sonic come to his aid.

however, when sonic is injured in the fight, tails is convinced that he died. in his anger, he’s able to fulfill his destiny and converge with every single version of himself across the multiverse, becoming…

TITAN TAILS.

"YOU WILL NOT" is one of my favorite reaction images

titan tails might be one of the most powerful characters in all of sonic canon, as he’s able to defeat a universe-destroying mammoth mogul in a matter of seconds.

me when my energies are pulled away lol

with mammoth mogul defeated (again), titan tails uses his power to return the world back to the status quo and imprison mogul in yet another emerald.

so that’s the end of the prophecy, right? that’s all the chosen one jazz, and titan tails was a result of the great harmony?

well, no.

if you look back at that prophecy from the original tails miniseries, it never mentions anything about the multiverse. instead, it only mentions the chaos emeralds realigning for a higher purpose, brought about by the chosen one. so what’s all that about?

this brings us back to tommy turtle.

after the events of titan tails, an eggman AI named A.D.A.M. learns of the chosen one prophecy and the great harmony of chaos emeralds. A.D.A.M. has been working behind the scenes of a LOT of various plots as a figure named Anonymous, where he was working on a greater master plan to become an all powerful being. and man, that chosen one prophecy that speaks of realigning EVERY chaos emerald in the universe? that sounds promising.

i talked about A.D.A.M.’s plan a little more in my tommy turtle lore dump, but the basics of it is that he kidnaps both shadow and tails in order to use their super forms to cause the great harmony mentioned in the prophecy. through using super shadow’s chaos control, he can open up doorways through spacetime to summon them all. however, the emeralds won’t arrive unless he has the chosen one - turbo tails.

using both of them, A.D.A.M. summons every emerald in the universe, of which there are a LOT. in archie sonic, the chaos emerald lore is that each planet has a bunch of chaos emeralds, but only of one color. for example, the emeralds on mobius (sonic’s world) are all green, while the rest of the colors all originate from different alien planets.

so, with every emerald summoned, thus begins the great harmony and the end of the prophecy from the classic tails miniseries.

once super shadow and turbo tails are freed, they work together to finally complete the prophecy: realigning all of the chaos emeralds by placing them in the zone of silence, which is kinda like the distortion world of sonic lore. basically, they’re putting them in storage and out of reach because the writers didn't want to deal with a bajillion chaos emeralds anymore.

after the great harmony, the archie sonic chaos emeralds return to a form that are similar to that of the games - there are only seven, one of each color. thus ends the prophecy, the chosen one’s purpose, and the turbo tails lore.

and that's it! turbo tails never shows up in archie sonic again, and will likely never appear in any piece of sonic canon ever again. and really, there’s only one question i have after revisiting all of this again.

where the FUCK is tails’ backpack??????

[love-bianca-world]

I have seen so much Dick Grayson at the Olympics. So much. And it would be amazing. But! As per analysis, would the quadruple somersault actually be able to be performed at the Olympics?

There are 6 events in Men's gymnastics: Pommel horse, High Bar, Rings, Parallel bars, Floor and Vault.

Now, the Bats are extra and I have absolutely no doubt that Dick would Excell at all of them. Because they're like that. And Dick certainly has the strength for it. Given that he held up a motorcycle with his thighs while doing essentially the high bar.

But the quadruple somersault specifically here. Only 2 of the events would qualify. Vault because it would give him the height required. And Rings because that's the event that's closest to trapeze. Maybe high bar? If he gets enough air.

Now, there are historical examples of trapeze artists catching the quadruple somersault, though the articles do make it put to be a big deal (Which it is cause I don't think I could even catch the rings, you know. Ever). There's a digitized article from 1982 congratulating FLYING MIGUEL VAZQUEZ for landing the quadruple somersault. So we know it's a real-world thing. Thus, Dick Grayson, with how skilled he would be, could possibly use it as a dismount from the rings.

The other option that I found was vault. Now, the quadruple somersault isn't something I found to have been done on vault. But! There is a video of Austin Nacey landing 2 quadruple flips in a row on Reddit from the 2017 Trampoline and Tumbling World Championship. Given, this is on a trampoline. But, Dick Grayson

We see Dick complete the quadruple on 2 occasions that I could easily find online. Once on a trapeze, and the other from a standing position. Now, because Nightwing Lands the quad lower than he started from a standing position, I don't think the quad would be possible on floor. But give the man some hight and he could possibly use it as a dismount fron high bar, Rings and vault.

Not that I think he'd need it on high bar. I found at least one panel showing how good Dick would be for those and they didn't have the quad. Now comics make it hard to distinguish one flip from another and I will say that I am not a gymnast but it seems that he does a couple of flips fron quite high up and doesn't seem to strain, which means he's very strong and has some shoulder flexibility.

I have no idea where this thought process was going. I have the flu and I just couldn't sleep before going an analysis of Dick Grayson, the quadruple somersault and actual gymnastic precedent.

TLDR: Dick Grayson would be a menace of a gymnast and we would absolutely love him for it. Unfortunately, he is not real.

[thecomicsnexus]

SUPERMAN #21-22 / THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #444

September/October 1988

By John Byrne, Jerry Ordway John Beatty, Dennis Janke, Petra Scotese, John Costanza, and Albert De Guzman.

Superman meets the new Supergirl and quickly realizes she comes from the Time Trapper's pocket universe. After arriving there, he discovers their version of Lex Luthor freed three kryptonian criminals from the Phantom Zone (not knowing they were criminals) and this pretty much doomed the entire planet.

Faced with the reality that these three criminals could make their way into the new Earth, Superman will be faced with a tough decision that will change his life forever.

SCORE: 10

This is the final story from Byrne's run. Why? Unclear.

Some sources say that Byrne wasn't happy with the lack of control he had over Superman's status. Others say that he didn't like the dark direction the books were taking... but whatever the case was... writers continued working on his plots for years (with almost everything closing between 1990 and 1991, and influencing the "Reign of the Supermen" saga).

This final story is really dark, with Superman being forces to execute the Phantom Zone criminals. You can tell that the saga probably influenced the "Man of Steel" movie in more ways than just the death of Zod at Superman's hands (although technically, Zod ended up being killed by Quex-Ul).

Now, when it comes to format, this feels like a cinematic experience... now. But it was a bit of a pain to read in physical form. It's like this story was created in a way that couldn't be fully enjoyed until digital comics arrived. All three issues use two pages for panel layouts, resulting in panoramic views that make everything way bigger and more beautiful.

There is something about the idea that Byrne wasn't happy with the darkness of the book that makes sense in the context of a story that ultimately reintroduced Supergirl (although that would take a few years to be fulfilled). This Supergirl was created by Luthor, and it is made of Protomatter. This interesting plot device would return with a vengeance a year later.

It's unclear if the Kryptonians were resourceful enough to escape this dimension. Leaving them powerless in a barren Earth could have been a life sentence. Then again, they were going to die anyway without an atmosphere. So yes, taking to New Earth could have been very risky. Of course, Zod and co would much later make their debut into the new DC multiverse, but for a very long time, this was the only version of them that existed.

I am not sure how to feel about Luthor not using the Gold Kryptonite earlier, nor how he kept it away from them. I feel like, with many other things in these three issues, that was a last minute creative decision. This story should have lasted at least one more issue. As it is, many characters were introduced that died off panel or barely did anything.

Still, the story works well enough for me, and the artistic choices makes it a classic.

So... without Byrne... will the Superbooks survive?

Yes, in fact, another classic saga is starting right away that will lead to yet another classic saga known as the "exile in space."

Very interesting times for Superman.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

PARAMOUNT PLUS KNUCKLES WOOOOOOOOO

Spoilers obviously!

Episode 1 thoughts: writing is kind of annoying, and I don't think I like this version of Knuckles that much - his proper arc in the movie was good but divorced from that context this is basically just idiot meathead Knuckles pushed in another direction entirely. Wade isn't funny or entertaining. Sonic's model looks worse than it did before, the forehead wrinkles are so offputting. I feel like they fucked their own lore weirdly - the second movie showed the literal founding of G.U.N. in this continuity and yet their headquarters are based in London and they're apparently already big enough to have double-agents within them working to support criminals. G.U.N. just didn't feel like such a big thing in the second movie is all, but now they are with no fanfare. Also they've acquired both warp rings and Knuckles' quills from ???? so hmmm. I'm definitely approaching this too much as an adult out to nitpick rather than remembering that this is for kids and it doesn't matter when G.U.N. became so prominent or how and when they got their hands on X macguffin, but idk I feel like the first 2 movies were paying some degree of attention to stuff like that so this just sticks out to me.

Episode 2 thoughts: actually not just Wade but I think nobody is funny or really all that entertaining to watch. I don't think the Sonic movies are great or anything but this feels aggressively like we're just going through the motions. I need a hero scene was kind of torture. I appreciate Knuckles gliding anyway since that's one of those things that's acknowledged surprisingly little despite being a core part of his gameplay in every playable appearance he's had.

Episode 3 thoughts: my favourite so far on the sheer absurdity of a lonely Jewish mother whose husband left the family and whose kids hate each other finding solace and comfort in Knuckles the Echidna and teaching him about Judaism

Episode 4 thoughts: absolutely indescribable experience. felt like a high budget fan parody. I was juggling so many feelings through my head while watching, reaching each end of the quality spectrum - this is both incredibly kino and also one of the worst things to ever grace the Sonic franchise. one must actively sever any interest in pretending this is something that should be taken seriously in order to enjoy it, although in doing so one must also acknowledge that the Knuckles show on paramount plus is now but a joke. the same Sonic movie franchise that rejuvenated public interest in the franchise has also birthed unto us a mockery of everything the series has ever stood for. Wade Whipple stole a kid's bicycle and chopped off a man's ponytail with a katana before then forcing that man to undress.

Episode 5 thoughts: this is straight up more enjoyable when consumed as a bizarre and surreal anthology but with a continual plot wherein the anthology part of it is just what is gonna be the directorial fetish of the episode. in this case it's several instances of shots being split across comic-style panelling or the same frame repeated in grid-patterns across the screen, things like that. that type of shot for bowling for 10 minutes and then a heartwarming emotional reunion with an estranged father turned heartwrenching as Jewish mother recounts the fact that he hurt us before and he's going to do it again. I almost forgot I was watching a Sonic the Hedgehog show until the bad guys showed up and reminded us that Knuckles the Echidna does actually exist in the show named after him. I'm starting to think this show is seriously worth watching entirely because it's so ludicrously detached from its source material and absurd in everything else it chooses to depict. The dialogue is so unnatural it's hilarious. Everybody has a certain voice they're doing for the camera and it's all super exaggerated. Wade actually betrays Knuckles in the end and I'm about to watch the last episode to see what happens.

Episode 6 thoughts: I think this show is incredible

Overall thoughts!

I don't even know how to succintly put into words how much fun I was having with this by the end. And I do mean by the end - you can see the progression of my enjoyment after each episode in this post itself - but it really is kind of slow and annoying to start until it eventually reaches such a level of absurdity that I turned off Sonic fan brain and turned on "I want to laugh at batshit insane media" brain. Once it got to that point though I was so fucking invested that I was feeling everything. I wanted Wade to start throwing bowling balls at the buyer so fucking bad and he did. The electric guitar kicking in when Knuckles powered back up and became the flames of disaster or whatever was the most excited I've been watching anything in a while. The juxtaposition between a serious emotional tale about broken families and standing up against those who have hurt you versus Wade Whipple in a Knuckles costume having a musical performed at him about the strength of the heart or whatever is immaculate.

I feel like this show was greenlit and allocated a budget before they actually decided anything they wanted to do with it so they just wrote some vague story outline and handed each episode off to a different director to see what they could come up with. The few who played it a little more safe, kid's action show type thing, didn't really offer much. But the ones who decided to have fun with it and just not even care about the source material, those are the ones that turned out really fun.

I will acknowledge right now obviously that none of that is exactly praise from the lens of a Sonic fan. This isn't good at being Sonic in any way, it's not even good at being part of the separate and standalone Sonic movie continuity either. Calling it disrespectful to the source material is an understatement and even the times where it decides to pull from what it's adapting you get absolutely bizarre errors like the Flames of Disaster being singularly attributed to Knuckles just for the hell of it. This should not be thought of as a serious attempt at telling a story within any Sonic the Hedgehog setting. This is a high budget parody that, through circumstances we'll never quite know, is also an officially licensed and endorsed Sonic the Hedgehog product. It's the worst Sonic adaptation ever. It's also so fucking entertaining and I would honestly recommend it to just about anyone. I'm literally already lining up a rewatch with some friends. It's so fucking fun. Like there's an element of irony and there's an element of so bad it's good and perhaps all of this is birthed by that and me being in a state of "I just finished something absurd and need to process it so I'm just yelling" but as a lifelong diehard Sonic fan who yearns for nothing more than good quality Sonic content I had more actual fun with this than almost any other Sonic adaptation period. This shit, my friends, is kino. And Wade Whipple is my new favourite Sonic character.

[jezmmart]

#AMaY Commentary

Wanted to give a little commentary on the #AMaY project but needed a couple days breather haha. This mostly focuses on how I created each day with the full hidden final image in mind, but I also talk a bit about like "Why Amy???" on a personal level at the bottom.

So firstly, worth revisiting this old popular music video if you have the time, it was pretty viral back when it came out. This will become relevant shortly - not a huge deal if you don't want to watch it, but the reason I'm bringing it up will spoil said music video a bit so yeah, mentioning it and encouraging a watch now without context.

So yeah, #AMaY! It really came down to the wire on finishing it due to work, and I had to eat into my 2-week comic buffer that I'm now due to rebuild to keep up in the end.

It was basically the result of just REALLY enjoying drawing Amy and joking with friends and such to the point of being like "do I really enjoy drawing her that much that I could do a whole month of it? I think I could". Wasn't wrong!

I didn't have any set prompt list in mind, my idea was just to draw what idea grabbed me on the day. Then, inspired by various things I've seen do this but particularly that aforementioned music video which does the same reveal at the end, I had the idea of "what if I make it so they all make a picture of Amy when connected up". I had already sketched out this idea for the first day:

But started over after having this moment of inspiration.

What I didn't factor in is how this sort of effect is MUCH easier with simpler, larger pictures. I really should have just done her head or something, then most of my backgrounds could just be vague geometric shapes but didn't realise the practicality of it until it was too late, which is why we ended up with so many backgrounds of strange patterns and twisty pipes and such that I would try to mask by putting in additional patterns and pipes and whatnot as red herrings that were lower contrast than the ones making up the Amy picture.

I drew out what the final secret picture was going to be across a grid representing the days in the month, then each day I would start with a canvas of one square and figure out "now what sort of background can I turn this into, and what kind of Amy would belong in that background".

Naturally I had some ideas I was already leaning towards - goth Amy was one of them. When I looked at this portion of the image, the only sort of background thing I could see was some kind of cartooney medieval tower with a rim at the top. From there I realised the skirt could be bushes or walls around some dramatic graveyard hills, the creases in the skirt could be a path as long as Amy is positioned to hide the fact that they aren't actually connecting in the context of the hidden image. In some cases where it wouldn't make sense for a background element to suddenly stop, I instead used foreground scenery, such as the gravestone directly behind Amy here, to turn the element into the shape I wanted. These pipes that are going behind metal panels in the Chemical Plant background in order to turn them into eyelash shapes are another example:

Then when I got the idea to turn the lineart of of hidden Amy's skirt rim and chest into long wispy spirits escaping from the earth or something, it was just a case of adding a bunch more random ones of those to the rest of the background with lower contrast so they don't stand out as much as the important ones do. The one in the foreground also does the job of cutting off the path that makes up the tiny bit of Amy's leg lineart. Within the context of the graveyard background, the path continues, but at the zoomed out view, it can't be distinguished at a glance.

This was the kind of thought process that went into the more elaborate backgrounds. Naturally there were some where the Amy idea COULD come first, because what was required of the background was so simple I was kind of free to turn it into anything - or just take a day off and do simple geometric backgrounds.

(Again though, you can see here that I did all the circles as red herrings to imply that the little blob in the corner is another one - but the corner one is a deeper colour than the others).

And of course there were some days where I just COULD NOT think of anything that wouldn't be completely conspicious, so I just made Amy take up as much space as possible so I only had a few background lines to deal with, trusting that the grand context of the final hidden image would solve it in the end.

The final note is that I didn't JUST draw from these segments - I was steadily building up the full collage as I went, so I'd always have a "bleed" area I'd draw into with the existing surrounding days to make sure that the final result DID all connect up.

So yeah, that's the broad strokes of it!

To end on something more philosophical, I did sort of end thinking to myself as I spent all these hours drawing her - "Hey though, what is it about Amy? WHY do I love drawing her so much? Why is this one my blorbo?"

Humour me as I get all deep about cartoon pink hedgehog but I think it comes down to a few factors.

Let's address the elephant in the room first - unless I'm specifically looking to evoke her canon-self, I draw her with a more anthropomorphic sexy figure compared to the blobby, noodle-limbed body she has in the actual series, don't I. You see, in Sonic Adventure 2 there was this one promotional 3D render of her where they gave her one heck of a rack and also once I was on the internet as a teenager and partaking in the fandom, I saw other fanartists do the same with thighs to match. This was all during a vulnerable time in my development and it all made me a little unwell about Amy permanently, I think. Like, that cute haircut, the knee-high boots, the shiny short-skirted dress, this is all stuff that looks really attractive when you slap it on a human body!

Sonic himself is like... peak character design. There's a reason he's lasted so long and holds such mass appeal as a cartoon character. The only way to improve on that perfection is to make a girl version, and that's pretty much what Amy is. So no wonder she's so fun to draw!

And tailing off that - as an aspiring femme NB person who has not always been so, I do think I've always had a particular interest in the hyper-feminine aesthetic, which Amy has in spades. I think that's also a big part of her allure to me as a character. Much like how I live a lot of my feminine interest vicariously through my pin-up art, dressing up my OCs in cute clothes and such, I think that extends to Amy as well; a kind of obsession with the youthful hyper-feminine aesthetic that I just never got to openly enjoy in any real way earlier in life because I hadn't figured all this NB stuff out yet. I just love cute girly pink stuff!!!

That'll do it I think. I could probably waffle on about each individual day's art if I really wanted to but this is long enough as is. Check out the alt text if you like as I often mention easter eggs and costume details in those to try and make sure those with eyesight issues are getting the same experience as those without.

Thank you again one and all for enjoying or at least putting up with the month!

[More: #AMaY | Art Insight]

[paragonrobits]

I'm exploring a few different ideas for a fic that ultimately focuses around the idea of damaged people from ruined worlds or little left to go back to coming together in the form of Farmworld Finn surviving his battle with the Scarab and traveling to Vampire World to continue the good fight in a way that matters to him while his kids get to grow up somewhere safe; there, he meets up with Vampire World Bonnibel, and they team up to fix things as best as possible, possibly even following their worlds merging as a result of cosmic auditors noting that their worlds are otherwise untidy enough and better suited mashed together

But its not enough to just have Princess Bubblegum, Finn the human and Jake the dog together again; there is a FOURTH member of that found family. It's not complete without Marceline, adopted Petrikov. But the Marceline of that world is... perhaps, too far gone. A corruption of the Marcy we know and love. Redemption is for her, perhaps not IMPOSSIBLE, but certainly something outside the scope of what I want to do. But you know one possibility?

The unknown fate of the original Marceline of Winter King's world. And one potential vibe I have for why she might be angry at Winter King even after his death and the source of some complex feelings, and what Ice Marceline actually was, can all be summed up by a relevant panel of Protoman from the Mega Man comics:

Winter King Marceline raises a LOT of questions and open ideas.

We don't have anything to go on, besides the fact that an Ice Marceline acting as a play replica implies that she is either gone or Winter King THINKS she's gone. Betty is also dead, or that Winter King believes she is. So here's my idea; the Marceline of that world IS still alive, but quite different from mainline Adventure Time world; I propose that she actually occupies a similar role to Magic Woman Betty, as a magically powerful wizard who has done complicated things and even acted as an antagonist in her desperate attempts to save Winter King from himself, but in the end it was too late, and she couldn't save him.

The idea I have is that for various reasons, she is not connected to the Finn of her world or Princess Bubblegum; its likely that if they ever knew each other, the circumstances behind her Simon's death and his crimes against that PB left her with a very severe conflict of loyalties and was ultimately too distanced from either; its not impossible that at some point she MIGHT return to them, but I'm thinking that the mode her is that these are people who were meant on some level to unite in the Finn/PB/Marceline family triangle, but due to accidents of fate or bad circumstances, it didn't turn out that way.

In this case, that particular part of the eternal recurrance did NOT work out for them, but through the actions of Fionna and Simon bringing other worlds together, they have a chance to start anew; Magic Marceline comes to vampire world and meets up with them, deciding that she can at least fix SOMETHING even if she can't save the man that used to be her father.

This take on her draws much more on her demonic nature; her soul sucking powers have been honed so that she's stolen magical power from others with the intent of ultimately trying to find a way to do the same with the Ice Crown without harming Simon in the process, and she's garnered a bunch of different wizard powers that let her do the sort of things Marceline can otherwise do. This version of her most likely looks more human, similar to Marshall Lee in Fionna's world; not sure why yet but maybe she has actively altered her appearance to distance herself further from her father, or she simply looked more like her mother here.

As another detail on how warped and tragic the dynamic of Winter King was, I'm also thinking that her relationship with him was full of conflicts leaving her feeling tremendously messed up; she loved him but she hated what he'd become, she known for a while there was not coming back from what he'd done but she still tried so hard, and in the end he deliberately forgot her in favor of an illusion of the child she once was.