#i've been trying to figure out how to format this comic for a good... couple days now lol

[keeps-ache]

found a scorpion walking down my arm the other day like nobody's business and now i'm scared of every brush of air on my neck fhvshfvh

[conscious-naivete]

hi!! I saw your post about the national library card from I think you said a library in Seattle?? I’m trying to get back into reading and this sounds super cool so I’m wondering how you did that and how it connects to libby! (I don’t have libby, so another question is do you like/recommend libby?) thanks!!

this is such an awesome ask to receive hihihi first of all i wanna say i'm also trying to get back into reading rn and libby is making it so much easier for me! listening to audiobooks at work i've already read more books in 3 months than all of last year. i'm not even sure which post you're coming from bc i've been making lots of excited posts about discovering new options lol

so the seattle thing i referenced is the books unbanned program the seattle public library is involved in and i recently reblogged a post listing several other libraries also involved, basically offering access to their digital library to anyone in the US (within a certain age group, but i'm hoping it's fudgeable?). i'm hoping you're in the US, idk how it works elsewhere

all i did was sign up for a card and i got an email with a card number which is good for a year! i'm still discovering this myself, so i haven't looked at any of the others or properly explored the options on the SPL website yet (on top of libby access they have their own online library!) i imagine the cards from the other libraries probably work the same way.

libby is an app for accessing ebooks and audiobooks through your public library. it's kind of the 2.0 version of overdrive, if you're familiar w that, from which it took over. you search up your library in the app and input your card number/account info and tada! access to whatever catalog your library has!

i would absolutely recommend libby, it's pretty easy to use, you can make custom lists of books with their 'tags' feature (i have a list i know i want to check out, one i want to take a second look at called "hmm," and one just called "whoa what" just for a collection of remastered old radio plays(?!))

i figured i'd try plugging the SPL card and was happily surprised to find it worked! i have two cards added rn, my local lib has a borrowing limit of 5 items at a time and SPL has limit of 10, and they both have a hold limit of 10. SPL has a way huger catalog than my local, and while the waitlists are longer, they have more copies(/digital lending licenses or whatever). it was so exciting to find all the new stuff that i hadn't had available before!

(i would check your library website to see what digital resources they offer and are connected with. i think libby is nearly universal? i've also used kanopy, which has tv and movies (my library had this one a couple years ago but i couldn't log back in recently i think they ended whatever subscription they had) and hoopla, which has books, audiobooks, comics, comics adapted into audio format, tv series, movies, music, sheet music,,,! and you get 10 borrows a month plus wvr bonuses they're currently offering. i love hoopla a LOT. i haven't had luck accessing those two using my SPL card, though. my library is also listing freegal for music and another couple services for specifically kids' books)

please feel free to ask me more questions if i didn't answer to your satisfaction, i got overexcited

[venacoeurva]

it's not a request or an attempt of shaking a free request out of you, so pls don't hit me with a stick good sir, but was this couple of doodles about wren trying on a mask and meeting dagoth ur in his dream just one-off for shits and giggles or a premise for a serious comic? looks intriguing ngl

It's a bit of both, I wanted to figure out a more concrete premise for how a quest in the mod would go down (which I've kind of abandoned for the time being for the sake of just a functional rounded out follower, quests and setting up the scenes the way I wanted to are kind of a bit too complex for me to handle atm) so it was more like structured storyboards. The quest in-game would go as such:

You finish Ashen Heart and pick up the mask.

The next time you sleep (with it in your inventory or you're wearing it) you have a dream in the text format similar to the werewolf one where you're in a cave similar to the Sixth House ones in MW or one of the strongholds, he wants his mask back and tells you as such. You can say yes or no, but you physically meet him later to actually give it to him (to trigger the follow conversation)

If you refuse to give him his mask, you suffer stat drain and can no longer get rest bonuses and have a drastically reduced disease resistance until you either take it to the temple or give it to him

If you give it to him, you get a prompt that leads to him assisting you, because he's bored and clearly those priests of his fucked up and he's annoyed about it (also he misses being so close and seeing the world, what with doing semi-godlike spirit stuff for the last 200 years and being in a volcano before that--thus kind of back to the original vacation idea lol (also also he could find someone to bestow the mask to again...but he won't tell you that))

...but also gave me the opportunity to expand on the GoTT quests and implications (if you wear the mask you hear the Song), which the quest would have been linked to, and was a neat concept to explore with Wren, specifically, given his prior experiences with everyone. The quest wouldn't have gone quite as smoothly with him because he would be more aggressive and awkward about...everything and would diverge from the questline for obvious reasons, but I think I might redo that as a 4 panel type thing with a bigger lean on it being comedic than the serious tone I was leaning into lmao

[syrupyy]

Cookie Comic Creator is getting an upgrade!

Hello, everyone! I'm syrupyy, the developer of Cookie Comic Creator. Thanks to your support, I've been able to make this silly little meme maker site my main focus, and with that time I've been working on a little something for the past few months in secret. I dropped a few teasers for it here and there, even accidentally leaking the URL on the site a couple months back (oops, LOL) but I think it's finally time I show it off to the public. I present to you all, the sequel to Cookie Comic Creator...

Cookie Run Comic Studio!

That's right baby, I'm making a second one!! It won't just be a visual redesign, however. New features abound: • Resize your panels and backgrounds to create more dynamic and realistic comics! • Format your text, use all kinds of textboxes, and try out other fonts • Post your comics to the website and use custom sprites made by the community

Now, I know what you're thinking. "syrupyy, that's all well and good, but why the name change? Isn't Cookie Comic Creator a fine name already?" Well, if you saw the April Fool's comic I made, I think you can guess where this is going.

It's not just gonna be Cookie Run anymore

I figured that since my site has brought so much happiness to the Cookie Run community, why not spread the love to everyone else? So, I'm changing the name to something more universal. Comic Studio is a brand that will someday extend to every fandom with enough character art to make comics, and anyone will be able to make their own comic creator using my tools, without needing to know any code. Here are just two of the studios I've made while testing that will be available at launch:

(As a note: Comic Studio is still under development, and a lot of things are expected to change and get better before launch. So take these comics as more of a sample than the final product!)

I would like to end this post by thanking all of you for the warm reception to the original Cookie Comic Creator. Honestly, I expected it to fail, and was originally just going to release it for my friends to use and then leave the fandom... But, the site became the most successful thing I've ever made, and seeing how many people have enjoyed my creation has made me a happier person. I promise I won't let any of you down during the move to the new site!!

That's all for now, ehe. Follow me either here or on Twitter, where I'll be posting screenshots and information about Comic Studio up until its planned release date, which should be in early-to-mid May! There will also be a closed beta soon, but I won't be giving out keys just yet. Keep an eye out for me though ^^

[watching-pictures-move]

Viddying the Nasties #37 | Possession (Zulawski, 1981)

This review contains spoilers.

Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is a movie I'd somewhat been dreading revisiting. When I'd seen it all those years back (on YouTube, split into two parts if I recall correctly, as the DVD had been hard to come by in those days), despite being greatly moved by the experience, I'd also found it an extremely exhausting film to sit through. It's a tortured divorce melodrama (among other things) that starts at 11 and only goes up from there. Lots of shouting and screaming, physical abuse, kicking around chairs and tables. The movie is not what I'd call an overtly pleasant experience. Watching it now (on a Blu-ray from Mondo Vision, a substantial upgrade from my original format), while I won't characterize my previous impressions as inaccurate, I was able to better appreciate how the movie modulates this tone, acclimatizing us to its fraught emotional space. The movie starts off in the realm of a normal, bitter breakup, with the husband having returned from a work trip only to learn that his wife is leaving him and struggling to make sense of it, his frustration and anger stemming as much from the fact of her dissolving their relationship as his inability to comprehend her motivations. It isn't really until the half hour mark that it asks us to dive off the deep end with it. The husband hits his wife in the middle of a fight, follows her onto the street as she tries to halfheartedly throw herself onto the path of a truck, which then drops its baggage in an almost comical bit of stuntwork, their squabble ended when the husband becomes surrounded by children playing soccer and joins in. Any one of these by itself is nothing out of the ordinary, but Zulawski assembles them into an off-kilter crescendo, and does away with any sense of normalcy for the rest of the runtime.

That this approach works as well as it does is largely thanks to Isabelle Adjani as Anna, the wife, who spends the aforementioned scene looking like a vampire in cat eye sunglasses and blood streaming down her grimacing mouth. She delivers perhaps the most bracingly physical performance I've seen in a movie, but again this is something I'd maybe underappreciated initially in terms of how finely tuned her choices are. An early scene where she fights with her husband has her manically cutting raw meat and shoving it into a grinder, as if to channel her frustrations into acceptable form of violence for women. When she takes an electric knife to her throat, she begins to spasm about like a farm animal during a botched slaughter, providing a further comment on her domestic situation. The film's most famous scene has her freak out in a subway tunnel, thrashing her limbs about chaotically but almost rhythmically, maybe like the contractions when goes into labour. Her character later describes this as a miscarriage, ejecting the side of her which is neat and orderly and "good". Adjani plays this other half as well, with a much more old fashioned hairdo (braided conservatively like a stereotypical schoolmarm), one which provides a much more tender maternal figure to the couple's son. Adjani is also well cast because of her emotive, saucer-like eyes, which she isn't afraid to point at the camera repeatedly, providing a genuine emotional grounding during both the quieter and more hysterical sections of the movie.

Her husband, Mark, is played by Sam Neill, who had been cast after the filmmakers had seen him in Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career. To understand why Neill works so well, it helps to know that Sam Waterston had previously expressed interest in the role. Waterston, while a good actor, would have come off too fogeyish as the husband. Neill brings the appropriate edge and even sex appeal necessary for the material. And like in Jurassic Park, his best known role, he brings an inquisitive quality that keeps him close enough to our vantage point to give the narrative arc some grounding. The other major human character here is Heinz Bennent as Heinrich, a new age guru who happens to be having an affair with the wife. One on hand, this character represents the counterculture from Zulawski's homeland, which he had left after trouble from the authorities when making his last movie. On the other hand, Zulawski was drawing heavily from the bitter divorce he had just gone through, and directs a sizable fraction of the movie's contempt at this character, leading me to believe that his wife in fact left him for some new age buffoon. In one of the movie's funnier scenes, he has Heinrich confront Mark over Anna's disappearance and then go into a dumbassed trance while spouting new age nonsense and basically calling Mark a Nazi. This is the guy his wife left him for? This jackass? Mark sets him up by sending him to Anna, knowing full well he could be killed, but the potency of Mark's rage (and Zulawski's, by extension), as well as the ludicrousness of the Heinrich character, keep us from sympathizing with the latter too much. Zulawski has Heinrich die with his head in a toilet, a final flush by Mark serving as one last hilariously mean-spirited gesture of contempt.

Zulawski originally conceived the movie as having another major character, Anna's ex-husband, to be played by veteran actor and director Bernard Wicki, but after the first day of shooting with Wicki, he decided to drop the character entirely. (I suppose it depends on the personalities, but I wonder how actors react to being let go early from a project. Is it worse if it's on the first day? How about if you lead the filmmakers to realize they should do away with the character altogether? I only hope Wicki got paid.) It's not hard to see what purpose this character would have served, particularly in the way that Anna "upgrades" her lovers, having traded a much older man for the younger, sexier Mark, and then trying to replace him with an evolving monstrous fuck-squid (more on this later) that she was trying to nurture and reshape into the ideal partner. The only remnants of this character in the finished film is his young wife, who appears in the climax and his goaded by the "new" Mark (the final form of the fuck-squid) to shoot into the corpses of the real Mark and Anna. The character's proposed thematic purpose might have spelled out this moment's significance more clearly, but I'm not always convinced thematic clarity is preferable to how things move and feel, and the end product does not feel incomplete or incoherent, or at least not detrimentally so. The emotions make sense, even if the events onscreen are outside the norm. (My condolences to those of you who've been dumped for a monstrous fuck-squid.)

Having been conceived after his last project was quashed by authorities in Poland, there's undeniably a political element here, enhanced by the noticeable presence of the Berlin Wall, near which much of the film is situated. (At one point the camera looks out the window and sees the police from East Berlin staring back.) The realities of the Cold War figure heavily in the characters' lives, as it's suggested that Helen (the other Adjani) is from behind the Iron Curtain (she speak of readily identifiable evil, which could be interpreted as the visible presence of an authoritarian regime) and that Mark's work is in the field of intelligence, maybe even espionage. But the movie is less interested in pointing out political specifics than in the accompanying sense of repression and division, which plays heavily into the visual style. The movie often divides its frames to separate the characters, but rarely with any sense of symmetry, suggesting a sense of emotional chaos enhanced by the bruising mixture of wide angle lenses and handheld camerawork. When we're with Mark, the movie looks overcast, bluish grey, appropriately repressed at first, although Anna's presence throws his neat, fluorescently-lit apartment into disarray. Anna's love nest, situated in the Turkish district right beside the Wall is dilapidated and unkempt, which may have reflected the squalid realities of a hastily rented apartment in what I assume is a poorer part of town, but after having excised the orderly part of herself, it seems like an accurately messy reflection of her headspace.

Now back to the fuck-squid. It's hard to go into Possession this day and age completely blind, and even back when I first saw it, it came on my radar as the movie where "Isabelle Adjani fucks a squid". I have a lot of respect for Zulawski for delivering the goods on this front and for Adjani for throwing herself into this material, not because I'm some kind of sexual deviant who gets off on this stuff (although if you are, I'm not here to judge, it's a free country, just clear your browsing history after), but because modern arthouse cinema often defaults to a mode of cold, downplayed and too afraid to raise the audience's pulse (because apparently it's undignified to force a reaction out of the audience) and it's nice to see a movie serve what it says on the tin (this is one I'd have loved to see with an unsuspecting audience back in the day). Producer Marie Laure-Reyre notes that Zulawski was very hands on with the conception of the monster, drawing inspiration from gargoyles in Polish architecture, as if to further imbue political context into the proceedings. When seeing the end product, I can only assume Zulawski broke up with his wife at a seafood restaurant (I would hope he didn't react like Mark and throw around all the tables and chairs). Of course, the design of the monster means that the movie leans heavily into body horror, and its inclusion on the Video Nasty list in the UK and its release in the US in a heavily-trimmed 81-minute version emphasizing these elements likely contributed to its psychotronic reputation early on. (I am still interested in seeking out this cut, as I can't imagine the loss of 40 whole minutes wouldn't substantially alter the film's character.) It flirts with other genres as well. Certain scenes have a clear slapstick quality. Some of these involve Heinrich, the ever-reliable target of the film's ridicule, but there is also Margit Cartensen, playing Anna's friend and Mark-hater Marge, falling on her ass like a Three Stooges bit. And there's the climax, parodying action movies with its woozy cocktail of car chase, shootout and explosions, which leads a headlong rush into the film's apocalyptic final moments.

[bakugouscentedcaramel]

Ah yes, the time has come.

It's time to get your pen and paper because class is in session!

There's plenty of things I could talk about and I pretty much covered the basics down below, but I'm more than willing to help y'all out with anything specific!

I have to preface that I'm not an English major by any means nor do I have any experience writing professionally, the things listed below are purely based on my opinions and submissions I have received.

Writing is forever a learning process, there really isn't a right way of writing but there are definitely some things that will hinder your readers. Here is a list that I compiled both with my own experiences as well as some user submitted issues when it comes to reading works:

•Big blocks of text

° Typos/wrong word usage

•Using the same words

°Too spaced out/not indented where needed

• Dialogue runs into normal sentences

° Speakers/POVs change without notice

• Inconsistencies, either in general or story inconsistencies

°Lack of description/Too much description

• Bland/Artificial actions/dialogue

° Misuse of punctuation/lack thereof

• Capitalization errors

° Long winded sentences

• Using italics for actions

° Confusing formating

• Changing in Tenses

° Using wrong tags/falsely advertising (ex. Reader x Blank should have Y/N, not an OC/Authors name)

• Author notes/comics/pictures in middle of fic

° "~This is a transition~"

• Forcing a character to be OOC for sake of story

° Filler characters

• Not sticking to a specific genre/jumpy moods

Now don't be intimidated by this list! Some of these are pretty self explanatory so I won't go into a few of them. There are plenty of ways to avoid these and in some cases it is perfectly fine to use any of the above. 

Let's start off with the basics!

Sentence structure is the backbone of writing, but it's a very flexible rule. Obviously you have your subject, verb, object and whatnot, but the true art lies in word choice and length.

When it comes to sentences, size does matter. If your sentences are too short they will seem choppy and unfinished, whereas if they are long they will seem winded and unnatural. The biggest tool you can use to find out if a sentence is too short/long is by reading it aloud! If you run out of breath it's too long but if you finish abruptly it's too short.

Word choice is my favorite weapon to work with, I could describe a blue jay as a normal bird or as a mythical animal just by picking the right words!

"The blue jay flew across the field while it sang it's melody."

Or

"A creature with wings made of clouds swooped across the field whilst roaring out a devilish tune."

Word choice can easily convey tone/feeling so it's definitely an important element to writing! If you ever have trouble finding that perfect word try googling for synonyms! Also this website might help you find that one word that you just can't think of!

Grammar is also a very important part of writing. Using the right words and punctuation can be difficult sometimes but there are some easy fixes!

Spelling is an easy fix, if you forgot/don't know how to spell a word consulting a dictionary or Google is a surefire way of solving your problem. You can even find synonyms if you feel like you've used a word too much. 

Punctuation on the other can be a big more difficult, however. 

Here's a couple of sentences that helped me learn basic punctuation:

A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink then leaves. Commas are a means of sewing two sentences together to form a compound sentence. These are mainly used to list out things and to add fluidity to your works so they don't sound as choppy.

A question mark walks into a bar? Question marks are pretty self explanatory. They either raise a question or form uncertainty.

Two quotation marks "walk" into a bar. Quotations are used for both dialogue and metaphors. I personally love using them for sarcasm!

A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink. This one is a tougher one that I personally never learned from any of my classes. A gerund is basically a word that can act as a verb or a noun which would be "drinking". An infinitive is the base of a verb, in this case it's "drink".

The bar was walked into by a passive voice. A passive voice is when you emphasize the action and object of a sentence rather than the subject. You can find that a passive voice tends to use past tense where as an active voice uses present/future tense.

Three intransitives walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave. An intransitive verb is an action verb, expressing a doable activity like arrive, go, lie, sneeze, sit, die, etc.

Some other things that I commonly see are the wrong usages of words. For example:

They: a group of individuals/pronoun "Yeah, they said he'd be here thirty minutes ago."

Their: a possessive pronoun "Leave their stuff alone!'

There: location "What's that over there?"

Then: event/action "Val went to the mall then skittered to the park."

Your: possessive "Your self esteem is lower than the Mariana's Trench!"

You're: a conjunctive "you are"

Affect: caused by actions "The fallen french fry really affected Val's mood."

Effect: caused by events "Climate change has a negative effect on my Cheerios."

Peaked: a summit "Val has peaked at 10:19pm"

Piqued: stimulate interest/curiosity "You have piqued Val's interest by mentioning food."

Do time: "Val is fixin' to do time if she keeps slacking."

Due time: "Val will come with hydration in due time."

Per say: not a thing

Per se: by/in itself "She didn't write this late at night, per se…"

There are different tools you can use to spice up your writings, from metaphors to innuendos, all the way to zeugmas! Let's go over the basic definitions of these bad boys.

Metaphor: a figure of speech that is not literally applicable. "The darkness surrounded us like a shroud." Obviously the darkness can't physically shroud anyone.

Innuendo: a sentence with a hidden meaning "Is that a gator in your pants or are you just happy to see me~" 

Zeugma: a sentence containing words that can be used literally and figuratively, like a love child of the two above. "Val and her coupon expired last week." This implies that not only did my Colgate coupon expire, but I died as well.

Paragraphs are a necessity when it comes to writing. Big blocks of text are an eyestrain to readers and it's easy to lose your place, even if it's only 150 words. It's always best to use Tab or at least 5 spaces when indenting. A paragraph should only be 5-7 sentences long, this is so it's not just multiple blocks of text

When to add a new paragraph:

° A new person comes in

• New idea/context

° Setting changes

• New person is speaking

° Time changes

• The "camera" moves

° Tone shifts

• 5-7 sentences has been reached

Paragraphs help you organize your work in a way and they make it easier for your readers' eyes!

POVs are also very important. First person and third person are by far the most common ones so I'll only touch on these two. It's very important to write a story in one strict POV as to not confuse the readers. You can however jump perspectives like Heroes of Olmpyus by Rick Rodian, as long as the ready can easily tell who is telling the story.

First person is a story that is told from first-hand experience. It's the same as if I told y'all the story on how I almost chopped off my thumb in woodshop class back in middle school. First person tends to use a lot of I's and my's

Third person is a story that is told from a narrators' point of view. Such as "Once upon a time" type of stories. I's and my's should only be used in dialogue

Dialogue is probably one of the most important features of any fic/story. Dialogue can push plots forward as well as add life to a character. Here's a simple exchanged:

"Hiya 'Splodey," Val chirped.

Katuski smirked, "M'dumbass."

Dialogue should always come with a pair of quotation marks. Commas and periods generally go inside the quotation marks whereas dashes, colons, and semicolons almost always go outside the quotation marks. Question marks and exclamation marks however can go either inside or outside, it goes by a case by case basis. Always indent whenever a different speaker is talking, running quotes into each other is a no-go because it causes confusion and eyestrain.

You have to be wary of using simple dialogue exchanges though, if they seem off try saying them out loud! Dialogue is one of my favorite things to write because you can weave personality into them, not to mention you can always hear people talking to get a better idea on how to write dialogue.

For example, I have a southern dialect, meaning I sound different than someone from the north! I use words like "y'all", "fixin'", "finna", "ain't" and have a different vocabulary than that of my northern friends. This means that the characters you're portraying should have their own way of speaking! This will not only add flavor to your dialogue but it also adds to their personalities/backgrounds.

Describing things can be just as valuable as dialogue, but it is a bit more complex. Sure we've all heard of the "show, don't tell" rule. Which is a good rule to follow, however too much showing is just as bad as telling. Again, reading out your work is a great way to tell if you're focusing too much on one thing. Another thing to keep in mind is importance, such as do we really need to know that the grass outside was bluegrass? Which in certain situations it would be! For example:

The grass around the disheveled house was brown and straw-like, with the exception of a ring of grass. Bluegrass. Which wasn't even native to this location.

This paints a pretty good spooky picture in the readers' mind and even adds the element suspense by the implied uncertainty.

I've only covered a small portion of writing so if y'all have any questions or need any help feel free to slide into my DMs or send in an ask! I love getting questions about writing and I'm always willing to help a fellow writer!

[welcometohellfilm]

(please bear with me) Okay, so, I'm a 15 year old freshman in highschool, and I've wanting to create some sort of series, whether it be a comic, or something else for a few years. I haven't too serious about it, but after one my of my friends showed me your video, for some reason, i was especially inspired. Now, I already have one character... but that's all i got. How did you come up with the things in your film? And did you ever experience "writer's block"? and if so, how did you deal with it?

No worries dude!  So okay, I’m gonna’ be honest, when I read this, I was hit with such a weird mix of, like, “god this is literally impossible to answer”, and “man I remember feeling that way when I was 15″.  So I guess the best thing I could do is elaborate.

I 100% absolutely know the feeling of “I want to create some sort of series.” Cause that’s the thing right? You don’t always know what you want it to be about, or what format you want (comic, animation, etc), you just know that you want to be known as an artist who is creating an on-going series.  But maybe you have some vague ideas about scenes that you want to happen.  Maybe you have an idea of the kind of relationships you want to portray.  Maybe you have some lines of dialogue or a couple jokes.  In this case, you even have a character!  Which is great!  Now you’re really eager to get started!

I had a bunch of vague ideas like that.  I had characters I wanted to use for a story, but didn’t know what their story was.  Sometimes I’d try and start a comic; I’d start to try and tell their story… but I would get a few pages in and give up, because I realized that I didn’t actually know where it was going, and so the characters would get kind of goofy and I’d try and pass it off as a lazy meta joke.  There’d be some Ambiguous Shadowy Figures™ running the Evil Science Laboratory™ that my Main Character Bishounen Boy With Wings For Some Reason™ had escaped from.  I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, I was just really excited to draw a pretty anime boy with angel wings.  

I jumped right in to making comics like this maybe… 4 or 5 times?  And every time went roughly the same.  Looking back now, I couldn’t tell you the characters’ names, or what half of them looked like.  I wasn’t even being facetious about the winged anime boy; that was a literal, actual comic I tried to draw in 6th grade, and I had completely forgotten about it until just now as I’m typing this.  You’re probably going to have a lot of ideas like that.  You might see characters come and go who never really get a story.  That’s going to be part of your journey as a storyteller.  Maybe your series won’t fizzle out after a few pages of bullshit like mine did (in fact I can already tell you’re more cautious than I ever was, because you’re aware of your situation and asking for advice… that’s another reason I’m so compelled to answer this ask; when I was your age the internet was different; social networking platforms weren’t a thing and I didn’t have a way to contact artists I looked up to and ask for advice, so the least I can do is try and fill that role now.  This is a whole ‘nother topic, but TO GET BACK TO IT) I’m here to tell you that, IF IT DOES, don’t sweat it.  You will get better at writing, you will get better at creating characters, and, god-willing, you will surely have better ideas than Pretty Anime Boy With Wings™.

Now, to move on to the part that’s (hopefully) actually helpful.

You used two phrases that I find interesting.  I already mentioned the first one, “some sort of series”, but the other one I’m zoning in on is “How did you come up with the things in your film?”  I want you to know that I’m by no means trying to talk down to you here, because this is actually a very straightforward way of asking something you might not have all of the right vocabulary for yet, but I take it what you’re asking is “how do you tell a story?”.  If the first few paragraphs I wrote correspond with “man I remember feeling that way when I was 15”, then these next ones are gonna’ be the “god this is literally impossible to answer” part, and I’m just gonna’ go ahead and apologize for that right up front, man!  Haha.

See, because that’s SUCH a huge question… that’s the part that I still struggle with.  That’s the part I said you’ll get better and better at over time—and you will—but I think it’s something you’ll always be learning to get better at.  I went to visit my family for the holidays and I borrowed a book to read on the plane: Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee.  I only got a couple chapters in before I remembered that I get motion-sick like a motherfucker and had to stop, but even in a few chapters I learned some new things.  You will constantly be learning and growing and bettering your skills, so don’t forget that!

There are lots of ways to tell stories, because there’s lots of different kinds of stories to tell.  Some methods work better than others.  I would suggest finding some things you like and making note of how they function… really dig in to them.  Maybe when you were a kid you took a clicky pen apart to see how it worked and then put it back together.  Try doing the same with the media you consume.  Not to turn into a cynic or anything, just out of curiosity to learn what makes it tick.  Think of it as STUDYING the comics and shows and movies you like.  

Since you’re asking me, I’ll use Welcome to Hell as an example to try and give you some things to think about.  I consider W2H to be character-driven; the character’s actions are what moves the story forward, the characters aren’t being forced to act because of the story.  There’s nothing wrong with either method, of course, it just depends on what you’d like to do.  Maybe since you already have a character, you can find a way for them to drive the story.  What do they want?  How will they get it?  What’s stopping them?  Is their conflict internal or external?  I think Sock has two wants: he wants to kill stuff, and he wants to be Jonathan’s friend.  What’s stopping him is that his two wants conflict with each other (an internal conflict), and also that his boss is the devil and there may be repercussions if he slips up (an external conflict).  Characters don’t have to have an internal and external conflict, and they don’t have to have two wants—in fact that’s actually a little convoluted—but I’m just using it as an example.  

Another useful thing to think about when telling a story is the structure.  From Wikipedia: “Narrative structure is about STORY and PLOT: the content of a story and the form used to tell the story. STORY refers to the dramatic action as it might be described in chronological order. PLOT refers to how the story is told. STORY is about trying to determine the key conflicts, main characters, setting and events. PLOT is about how, and at what stages, the key conflicts are set up and resolved”  

There are also different categories of narrative structure.  W2H is basically a linear narrative, for example.  It does technically start at the end and then explain how we got there, but the majority of the story is told in chronological order.  The reason it starts at the end is because I wanted to establish Sock and Jonathan’s relationship and the tone of the story right off the bat.  I thought it might be too confusing to start the story with Sock murdering his parents and then have it turn into a buddy-comedy half way through.  So I started it on a scene where they already know each other and have an established dynamic.  I also think starting it there creates a bit of intrigue:  “why is this kid phasing through a fridge?  What the fuck is happening?  What is his job?  What the FUCK is his job???  SHHH!!—The unreliable narrator is about to explain it!”.  

There are literally TONSSSSS of aspects to think about when writing a story, and it’d be impossible for me to go through all of them, but hopefully this will be helpful for you to get started.  If I were you, in addition to studying the stories you like, I would do some research and reading online.  You can always google terms like “storytelling 101”, “narrative structure”, “writing characters”, etc.  One of my favorite resources to read through was always (and still is) TVTROPES.  It’s like a wiki for the tips and tricks of telling stories… I used to spend HOURS just getting lost in that site, clicking on different articles and finally learning that there were TERMS for the kind of things I constantly think about.  Very invaluable resource.

And now, for the last part of your question, unfortunately, “writer’s block” is something that will never go away, haha.  There are ways to get through it, for sure.  Sometimes I’ll read TVtropes a bit if I’m really hellbent on figuring something out.  Other times I’ll just take a break to draw a little bit because I think my thoughts form more coherently and naturally when I’m drawing.  You might find different things that work for you!

IN CONCLUSION:  If you want to create some sort of series and tell some kind of story, just work towards getting good at it.  If you try to start a couple comics and they don’t pan out, it’s no big deal, because even making something unsuccessful is an act of learning how to get better at it.  You said you haven’t been too serious about it until recently, and that’s fine too, because being serious about it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go out and create a successful series right this moment, it can mean just striving for that goal and bettering your craft.  You have plenty of time to grow into an amazing artist and make all kinds of kick-ass stories, so always hang on to your drive to keep creating things!  

Oh!  And just a fun fact:  I think I first started having the vague ideas that would develop into W2H when I was, what, 17-18?  ish?  I tried making it into a comic when I was maybe 21… and I made the film when I was, I don’t know, 24?  I’m 28 right now.  So that’s something to keep in mind: good shit takes time!  You’ll probably have a lot of ideas come and go, but if something sticks with you for 10 years, there’s a good chance it’s worth bringing to fruition.  There’s definitely no rush to develop something you really care about.  

BONUS:

Here is a previous ask i’ve answered about storytelling tips!And here is another one!

You can also search my blog for “art advice”, “story”, “writing”, “character”, “animation”, etc., + “ask” to see if I might’ve answered anything else that would be helpful.  I don’t have specific tags, but I do try to tag everything.  You can also try “resources” or “important film stuff” to see things I’ve reblogged that aren’t my own advice.  

Hope you found some of this helpful!  Best of luck!