#this is just one of many many many many many gripes i have

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's the most fucking frustrating for me about arguing with climate change deniers is the sheer fucking scope of how much it matters. sweating in my father's car, thinking about how it's the "hottest summer so far," every summer. and there's this deep, roiling rage that comes over me, every time.

the stakes are wrong, is the thing. that's part of what makes it not an actual debate: the other side isn't coming to the table with anything to fucking lose.

like okay. i am obviously pro gun control. but there is a basic human part of me that can understand and empathize with someone who says, "i'm worried that would lead to the law-abiding citizens being punished while criminals now essentially have a superpower." i don't agree, but i can tell the stakes for them are also very high.

but let's say the science is wrong and i'm wrong and the visible reality is wrong and every climate disaster refugee is wrong. let's say you're right, humans aren't causing it or it's not happening or whatever else. let's just say that, for fun.

so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the earth cleaner, and then it turns out we didn't need to do that. oops! we cleaned the earth. our children grow up with skies full of more butterflies and bees. lawns are taken over with rich local biodiversity. we don't cry over our electric bills anymore. and, if you're staunchly capitalist and i need to speak ROI with you - we've created so many jobs in developing sectors and we have exciting new investment opportunities.

i am reminded of kodak, and how they did not make "the switch" to digital photography; how within 20 years kodak was no longer a household brand. do we, as a nation, feel comfortable watching as the world makes "the switch" while we ride the laurels of oil? this boggles me. i have heard so much propaganda about how america cannot "fall behind" other countries, but in this crucial sector - the one that could actually influence our own monopolies - suddenly we turn the other cheek. but maybe you're right! maybe it will collapse like just another silicone valley dream. but isn't that the crux of capitalism? that some economies will peter out eventually?

but let's say you're right, and i'm wrong, and we stopped fracking for no good reason. that they re-seed quarries. that we tear down unused corporate-owned buildings or at least repurpose them for communities. that we make an effort, and that effort doesn't really help. what happens then? what are the stakes. what have we lost, and what have we gained?

sometimes we take our cars through a car wash and then later, it rains. "oh," we laugh to ourselves. we gripe about it over coffee with our coworkers. what a shame! but we are also aware: the car is cleaner. is that what you are worried about? that you'll make the effort but things will resolve naturally? that it will just be "a waste"?

and what i'm right. what if we're already seeing people lose their houses and their lives. what if it is happening everywhere, not just in coastal towns or equatorial countries you don't care about. what if i'm right and you're wrong but you're yelling and rich and powerful. so we ignore all of the bellwethers and all of the indicators and all of the sirens. what if we say - well, if it happens, it's fate.

nevermind. you wouldn't even wear a mask, anyway. i know what happens when you see disaster. you think the disaster will flinch if you just shout louder. that you can toss enough lives into the storm for the storm to recognize your sacrifice and balk. you argue because it feels good to stand up against "the liberals" even when the situation should not be political. you are busy crying for jesus with a bullhorn while i am trying to usher people into a shelter. you've already locked the doors, even on the church.

the stakes are skewed. you think this is some intellectual "debate" to win, some funny banter. you fuel up your huge unmuddied truck and say suck it to every citizen of that shitbird state california. serves them right for voting blue!

and the rest of us are terrified of the entire fucking environment collapsing.

[bob-artist]

Just found you via your funny dream comic. Good stuff 😆. Definitely gonna read the rest, and I was surprised you had your own website. Looks good on mobile too. I’ve got a comic that some friends keep trying to build me a site for but I’ve been telling them no because it seems like between webtoon and social media nobody is interested in personal sites anymore.

Have you noticed an uptick in engagement from your site? Would you recommend going that route? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I’m also interested in how you decided to build/host it, if that question isn’t too lame.

Anyway, glad I found your comics!

Ah thank you for checking out Into the Smoke's website!!

Oh, I have SO many thoughts about independent webcomic sites and why people should have them. I have so many thoughts, and I'm so so sorry.

Why did I decide to have my own webcomic site?

First of all, this is not a lame question and I wish we could all have this conversation more often, so I could maybe write just a paragraph instead of this whole dissertation!

1. Because I lived through webcomics history.

I launched my first webcomic in 2011. I watched the webcomics scene shift over the years from self-hosted sites to third party sites, and I saw what it meant for independent creators. We lost vital infrastructure, relationships, habits, and control over our own work. I think self-hosted sites are an important backbone for creators, even if/when their largest *numbers* come from a third party site.

We’re all supposed to be helping each other, not fighting each other to satisfy the algorithm. Our early tools (webrings, link trades, comic databases, sharing each other’s posts) were small but meaningful, and they also helped us maintain a community mindset in a long and sometimes lonely line of work. When we started leaning on hosting sites, we let a lot of those tools and relationships decay. And now a lot of people are locked into imbalanced relationships with hosting sites that leave them with very little agency and control over their work and how it’s shared (or isn’t shared).

Hosting sites are great for removing barriers to entry (cost/time to build a site). And a lot of them have large built-in audiences. But the big ones aren’t run by people who care about creators. They’re designed to extract the maximum value from your work while giving you the least they can get away with. Use them if you want (I do), but don't be dependent on them.

2. Comics are the main thing I do for a living, and a website gives me the tools to promote my work and build relationships with my readers.

Most apps and third party sites actively prevent or suppress these things. On your own site, you can share all the info you want about your upcoming Kickstarter, your tradpub book release, your merch, etc. You can collect email addresses for your newsletter. You can literally just talk about your weekend, and you’re not gonna have a 150-character limit.

Yeah, not everyone wants to read a wall of text (ha ha...), but acting like a person reminds readers to treat you like a person. This is one of my main gripes with the apps and social media - they suppress human connection and present you like a cog in their machine that only exists to churn out free content.

3. I have a consistent home base and full control over how my work is displayed.

I don’t have to fight against an app that’s trying to direct my readers toward whichever content is most profitable for them. On an app, the readers “belong” to them, not you. (Who has their email addresses?) So if I'm putting effort into promoting my comic, I'm promoting my own site. (oh look, I just did it.)

Hosting sites/apps aren't designed to showcase your work. They showcase the app’s collection, and they're designed to keep readers on the app, jumping from creator to creator. This can help readers find you, but it also devalues your work and dilutes its impact.

And the app might not show your work to anyone anyway. Tapas is a great example; they recently redesigned their site to prioritize their Originals, and independent creators are hidden away in a “community” tab with barely any discoverability anymore. This is always the struggle on a third party site.

4. I hate censorship.

Into the Smoke is Teen 16/17+ and Demon of the Underground is R/18+. My comics aren’t even explicit, but I still can’t post my true, uncensored vision for either story on third party apps governed by Apple’s App Store and Visa/Mastercard’s tight content restrictions.

If webcomics exist exclusively on apps with heavy censorship, we’ll never have the diversity of storytelling and freedom of expression that’s necessary for groundbreaking or subversive art to happen. And that’s bad for everyone.

Adult brains need to engage with adult concepts. Difficult and triggering topics need to be explored in creative spaces. Artists need freedom to stretch their creative muscles without falling into the damaging patterns of self-censorship that come from having to tiptoe around arbitrary platform rules.

We can’t let the rules of like 3 American companies dictate what every webcomic reader around the world is allowed to read.

5. An independent website can’t easily be taken away from you.

Just make regular backups! You can always move to a new web host and redirect URLs if needed, and you won't lose your readers. On the other hand, you can easily lose the bulk of your audience on a third party site based on circumstances outside your control.

Let’s talk about Smack Jeeves, a formerly popular webcomic hosting site that was bought out and then shut down, leaving lots of cartoonists homeless. Or we can talk about the Tumblr NSFW purge of 2018, where I lost a huge chunk of my first webcomic’s following and most of my webcomic mutuals, even though my own account stayed within the rules. Or Musk buying Twitter, the platform where I once found my literary agent through a publishing event but now get no traction at all.

Have I noticed an uptick in engagement from my site?

I don’t have analytics on my site yet. But, up until a few days ago, that's where people were reading, thanks to my own efforts and the support of my comics friends and all of y’all who shared my ITS posts. (THANK YOU ALL!) I didn't have any discoverability on Webtoon or Tapas yet.

I got 10-15 new patrons between May 25 and June 5. Up until a few days ago, I even had more ITS newsletter subscribers than Webtoon subscribers.

What happened a few days ago is my Webtoon mirror suddenly blew up with 100+ new subs a day. I don’t know where I’m being featured, but I know I’m only getting those readers because Webtoon suddenly chose to grant me visibility. That can end just as instantly with an algorithm tweak or them deciding not to show my comic anymore. (When my first webcomic was in one of their pay programs in 2018, I went from $300 or $400/month to $0 overnight due to a policy change.) So I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, but I won't de-prioritize my website.

The new Webtoon readers are awesome and supportive, and I’m 100% thrilled to have them. But the Webtoon influx isn't resulting in a Patreon influx like my website launch did. I wouldn't expect it to, this early in the story. But it's consistent with my past experience polling my patrons: even when 50% of my readers came from the apps, 90% of patrons read on my website. (Your audience may vary.) And since I depend on crowdfunding for my comic, that's important to me.

Would I recommend going the route of having your own site?

For anyone who’s just testing the waters with webcomics, it might be overkill.

But for anyone who’s committed to their webcomic, I recommend having your own site AND mirroring on every third party site you can, provided you’re cool with their terms of service. It's important to meet readers where they are. Let those hosting sites lend you their readers. Some readers will even want to visit your home site where they can read ahead, read the uncensored version of your comic, get more info, or sign up for your newsletter.

Just remember, no one will discover your independent website all on their own. They’ll only find it through the work you put into promotion. But the reader that cares enough to come to your home site is a special type of reader.

So how do you get readers to visit an independent webcomic site?

Find your allies

These are people who work in similar areas as you who want to help you succeed, and whom you want to help succeed. Chat with each other, help each other, promote each other, boost each other, link to each other (psst, my links page just went live!), be there for each other - behind the scenes and in public.

God, I am SO bad at approaching people, but this is important, and not just for comics.

Be part of a community

Really, this is an extension of the above point. It's easier to find your allies if you're part of a community.

I’m a member of the Cartoonist Cooperative, and they’re a GREAT group of talented people all across the comics industry. The mission of @cartoonistcoop is to help create better conditions for comic workers through cooperation and collective action, and I’ve found so much help from them with Into the Smoke and comics as a whole. (JOIN! They're great!!)

The goal of the co-op isn't to drive traffic to your website. But being part of it has helped me at every level of crafting my comic, including promoting it and making it good enough that I can take pride in promoting it. And it's helped me ground myself as part of a community after I lost so much of mine in past years of burnout and platform enshittification.

Another option: @spiderforestcomics is a great webcomic collective full of supportive creators, and I believe they’re open to submissions till the end of June! They also have an awesome collaborative community mindset, and I've known some of their members for years.

Direct readers to your RSS feed and newsletter

Getting readers to your website is great, but they need to keep coming back for future updates, and it’s hard to remind them without an app notification. You may need to teach younger readers what RSS feeds are. Inoreader is a great RSS reader for the 2024 era.

The dreaded SEO

That’s Search Engine Optimization - optimizing your website so that people can easily find your comic via search engines. That’s a topic for another day, but feel free to research it!

Paid promo

This can be tricky, and I really only recommend spending promo money if you’re making a comic on a professional basis, because then it’s an investment you'll make back.

That said, Comicad.net is a great independent site where you can buy banner slots on other creators’ sites. I just ran small campaign myself. (And no, I won’t ever be offended if you outbid me!)

I haven’t bought any Tumblr Blaze slots, but I got BOPPed (blaze other people’s posts; apparently that’s what it’s called, lol) once on this account and once on a side blog, and both were highly impactful. (Thanks, friend!!) So I consider it a solid option, and it looks really cheap compared to other social media sites. (Never trust Meta.)

And where can you learn more about building a webcomic site?

I know you didn't ask, but if I'm gonna share all this, I might as well give folks a starting place to actually do the thing.

Now, I’m *bad* at offering cheap and easy web solutions. My specialty is hard and expensive. But my one piece of advice: PLEASE make your webcomic site mobile friendly for the current generation of readers! When we talk about barriers to entry, remember that more people have phones than computers, and many can't afford computers.

Anyway, here's some webcomic website resources from OTHER people!

The Cartoonist Co-op has LOTS of great resources on building webcomic sites! Several of them! Check them all out!

@screentonescast has a podcast episode on webcomic web design and one on RSS feeds!

@jeypawlik also has a great comic about how RSS feeds work.

So, congrats if you made it this far. Go make a website, y'all! And if you read any indie comics, go visit the creator's website!

[ladywaterfall]

One of the other ways clothing is steadily getting worse: pants of all kinds are getting thinner and show underwear lines almost as a standard now, even when the lines of the underwear are thin and masked with lace. This wasn´t a problem years back, but now I have to check every pair of dress pants I try on, and even some jeans - JEANS - for underwear lines.

"Just wear seamless underwear-" they're all made of plastic fabrics which aren't good for the bacterial enviroment of the coochie bc they don't breathe. The solution to all fabrics getting thinner and thinner should NOT be "buy bad plastic underwear instead".

[softbutchthatlovesyou]

First things first: I am not deactivating. Just. Taking a break.

Mututals: You can get my discord if I don't ask for yours before I leave in a couple days. You can also give me a snap though I may be worse at responding to that.

This is my reasons for leaving so no one thinks I do anything crazy, or if anyone has their own gripe they can take this as a sign to take a mental health break of your own.

.

The Racism on this site remains unchecked, and the agression against black user who call it out should absolutely NOT be that high. You adore recreating the racist systems that got us here in the first place. You think your lense on how we experience opression, even the theories we wrote, are better and clearly so much superior.

Exorsexism is disgustingly rampant. We are a jokes to people. We are fakes to other. We are a convenient argument about people passing. We are "dangerous" to a preciously protected set of binaries that do nothing to help any of us.

Lesbophobia across the site has no reason to be so high on a site with so many Lesbians and yet!! We treat labels like they're more important than lives. People act like a personal interpretation of the idenity is an attack. We go "Being a Lesbian is so complex. It's intricate and special" And then when a butch takes t, or a femmes uses he and maybe even gets top surgery, or someones attraction isnt the simply wlw Lesbianism they're told they're doing it wrong and that it's not fair to try and over complicate being a lesbian.

Transandrophobia and Transmisogyny against me and other trans people on this site is out of control. People are infighting and people are lashing out laterally and comparing it 1:1 to the opression the system holds against all of us.

Intersexism continues to be like, so easy for you guys to commit no matter how many voices speak up about how best to be aware of intersex issues.

You guys adore ableism just as you have for years and years. You're obsessed with degrading people who do mental illness or disability "wrong." You see someone stuggling with illness and you don't wait to tell them your personal opinion on their experience. Adding ocd triggering guilt tripping to post. Refusing to hear out people about adding image ids/alt images and how screen readers work.

The Antisemitism I was seeing well before 10/7 was gross. It only increased as people scrambled not to be associated with "the bad jew." People had mutuals and friends for years that abandoned them at the first chance. They spread lies or twisted truths in order to chose Jewish bloggers off the site. I DO notice that when people make post on antisemitism there is often more Jewish people than goy in the notes acknowledging it. I don't think I've seen one without horrid Antisemitism in it's own notes in months. Multiple people have told me to leave my heritage out of pride in their attempts to keep out Jewish people.

Voices from Palstine are only used when they support certain ideas. You all turned supporting people into a fucking witch hunt against profiles on the Internet. You reblog a post of Palastine joy and then reblog an unsourced tweet about something Palstinians have said isn't true, that slanders Jewish people unprompted. For a long time some of you weren't even sharing the right sources for helping them bc you couldn't fact check before sharing?

-

And then there's fucking STAFF. They couldn't stop themselves from banning trans blogs if you paid them. They couldn't keep harassment campaigns at bay if it killed someone.

They used us to coax queer people here for years by sharing that they support queer identities and even at one point let our porn exist here! And then it was all fucking wiped off the map. Now one mass reporting of an untrue claim can get an minorties blog permanently removed.

They say "We need money!" but when people gave it to them this site got w o r se. They use distractions and try and make stuff around the fun shit we came up with to keep us from fussing.

They mute and remove users who make a loud enough point to sway people. They mute and removes uses that are so quiet no one would notice.

Minorties inboxes are a headache.

.

So I'm out. I'll probably be back at some point because I have things I DO enjoy here.

But for mental health I just gotta catch my breath.

This will be my pinned until I get back I guess im case anyone wonders where I went.

I'll have a queue going of a few last minute things i want on my blog but when it runs out thats it for a while until I return.

Thats all

[worldblight]

I wish Erin Hunter would hire me not because I particularly care about Warrior Cats anymore but because I know a lot about cat behavior and it makes me really really irritated seeing people draw cat body language so incorrectly

[cdelphiki]

I have officially FINISHED my first class of this stupid graduate certificate I agreed to get six months ago. I’ve been regretting it immensely but know I’ll thank myself in 2 years when I have a better job. When work offers to get you a piece of paper from a university on their dime it’s hard and almost stupid to say no.

My professor this semester told me he’s never had an online graduate student finish all the required work within the semester. Obviously I took that as a challenge and got my work submitted at 9:30pm tonight. I am 2.5 hours ahead of the deadline so that counts as early right?

[xhanisai]

I can’t believe I have to say this again.

But like.

Do not leave comments that bash on the actual show whilst ‘complimenting’ my fanworks. It does not make me happy at all IN FACT I really HATE it when people do that. 

I create stuff for this fandom because I adore the show with all its flaws and everything. I grew up with the show and I adore the characters so much. So when I receive comments or tags saying stuff like “Ugh if only the writers knew how to write like that” or “You should be in charge of canon cos canon is shit lol”, it just fucks up my mood and it makes me feel grossed out. 

There are millions of things out there to write or say to other people about their work without having to bring down canon and what the actual professionals have worked on.

Keep your gripes about the show off my work.

[skitskatdacat63]

2009 Japanese Grand Prix - Sebastian Vettel

[ozcarma]

Trying to watch 999 let’s plays is such hell to me - NO ONE PLAYS THE GAME RIGHT just shutupshutupshutupshutup and play the game!! Stop trying to make jokes!!!!

I’m too autistic for this, I cannot bear hearing let’s players doing their own voice acting when I adore the game’s VAs too much. Everyone always fucks up Santa’s and Lotus’s voices especially.

I understand the draw of Let’s Plays are largely the people playing them who have gained their own following, but as someone who just loves the game I don’t wanna hear ur stupid banter 💥💥💥 play the game and be intrigued but not TOO intrigued because give it a fuckin minute it’ll explain what’s going on 🙄‼️

[corellianhounds]

And we didn’t even get to see Boba and Mando kvetch over ships like a couple of old men

[whiskeyswifty]

.

[yamishika]

At this point I’m just hate reading 100 YQ to see in how many more ways it will disappoint me

[childofaura]

Ok... I swore to myself I wasn't gonna make another negative MAWS post, that I was just gonna leave it at the Twink Slade disappointment post.

But apparently there's this trend that's been happening on Twitter, where people are trying to bring up the 2004 "The Batman" designs to try and defend the designs of the MAWS rogue gallery. And that was the territory I CANNOT let go, as someone who is a fan of Jeff Matsuda and his character designs.

SO FIRST, LET ME CLARIFY: I'm simply making ONE post about ONE factor of MAWS that irritates me. I'm not here to just sit and constantly bash on the show. I wouldn't do that, I have a personal close friend of mine who enjoys the show and I'm happy for her and I want her to enjoy the show. I have SO many gripes and reservations but I recognize those are personal.

I'll be putting this under a Read More and tagging it as Anti-MAWS so MAWS fans don't have to read/deal with this post. Probably just don't read my tags as well.

So if there's one thing that has irked me the most about MAWS, it's the redesigns and rewrites of Supes' rogue galleries. Mostly the redesigns though. MAWS took a bunch of colorful, diverse, and fantastical designs and made them monotonous, bland, and simply not fun at all. And yes, while the in-universe explanation (Being that they're all mechanically enhanced rather than freak accidents or born that way) makes sense, it still makes the villains incredibly un-appealing. EVERYONE is in boring black, white, and gray armor (aside from Parasite and while I think his physical design is neat I have issues with his character rewrite too, I'm just not here to discuss that). Everyone who had incredibly fun or creative designs was horribly washed out. Silver Banshee went from being a literal ghostly wraith to a boring motorcycle-looking chick. Livewire went from a vibrant blue lightning motif (that SHE herself created) to boring merc armor. And yes, I have issues with Slade's armor, the head was promising but the overall design has color-balancing issues.

Now let's look at the redesigns of the rogue gallery for the 2004 "The Batman" show. These are mostly drastically different from their original design counterparts, just like MAWS. But the massive difference is that most of these designs are still colorful (where it applies, obviously not to Penguin), recognizable, and push the borders of imagination; They're so ludicrous and exaggerated in their design and their physical features. Even if I was disappointed in some of the character rewrites (Like Mr. Freeze having only a small cameo to Nora in the flashback, but mainly being another selfish thug), the designs are still great. You can look at The Batman villain designs and easily recognize them because they follow the basic structure of their original designs.

Joker:

Is still in his green, purple, and orange color palette, with his trademark freakish grin. The design takes creative liberties with the spiked hair, the more athletic physique, and the actual clothing style of his outfit, but this is clearly meant to be Joker.

Mr. Freeze:

Is now essentially a cryomancer thanks to his mutation, but this is still obviously Mr. Freeze. Some kind of helmet (in this case encased in his own ice) wearing a thermal freeze suit, and his red eyes invoking the red goggles he wore in his original iteration.

Catwoman:

The design exaggerates a lot of features of the OG outfit, like the ears and the goggles (though the OG design really just has eye spaces), and uses shades of crimson and purple, but you look at the black bodysuit and the whip around her waist and she can clearly be identified.

The main argument I'm making with the 2004 Batman designs is that they're A) recognizable to their original counterparts by invoking the same color scheme and basic design points, B) Colorful and pushing the lunacy of a world full of supervillains, and C) Completely stand out from each other, no two villains look as though they're of similar origins (besides obvious pairs like Joker/Harley Quinn and the two Clayfaces, the latter which was a guy who took concentrated serum made from Ethan Bennett's Clayface DNA). The Batman designs are good because while they ARE drastically different from their original counterparts, they honor the original designs.

Whereas in the MAWS redesigns, none of the redesigns are reminiscent of their original counterparts (besides the obvious Brain and Monsieur Mallah, kind of hard to fuck that up), and lack the fantastical element that The Batman redesigns (And the original Superman show, where it applies) had.

Livewire:

Looks nothing like her original counterpart. The armored clothes, the lack of lightning motif, lack of color to her outfit (I'm not here to talk about the race-swapping), none of it is supposed to tip you off to being Livewire, especially when her character is written so drastically different. You should be able to tell who Livewire is BEFORE you see her powers.

When OG Livewire looks like this:

Silver Banshee:

Is just a regular human in drab clothing. There's some kind of attempt to give her the hint of a ghost motif with the bone legs, but then that disappears in her later costume design. Same later costume that tries to half-ass a skull motif on the helmet but it doesn't work with the helmet's angles.

When this is Silver Banshee's original design (going with a still from Batman Unlimited)

And if they wanted to stray from the whole "supernatural" aspect, they could have compromised like they did in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay:

Which I mean I still don't like that redesign as much as Silver Banshee's OG design, but it's still recognizable and it's still cool.

The bottom line is basically this: You don't have to justify liking this new Superman show and its take on new characters. But to try and say the character designs on MAWS are like the 2004 "The Batman" cartoon redesigns is such an unequal and imbalanced comparison. The thought process for the character designs in these shows are so drastically different from each other, and the execution of said character designs aren't comparable.

[orcelito]

I love....... community 🥺

[stewyhosseini-bf]

one thing I will say that I kind of miss about the previous seasons is how the episodes used to feel a bit more self-contained, like their own little movies, which I'm kind of missing a bit in s4. lucy prebble at one point in the succession podcast described it as them having a sitcom-like feel to them, because each episode is built around one specific event; and while that's definitely still there in season 4, the way each episode does truly pick up almost exactly where the previous one left off time-wise, and the way that Logan's death and the children's grief is the red-thread that closely connects the episodes, kind of makes it feel like one long movie rather then 10 separate episodes. which is interesting and makes sense considering the focus of the season is supposed to be the children dealing with logan's death and consequent absence, and it's puts a slight spin on the formula they've used for 3 seasons and I think they've done that really well - so it isn't even a critique on my part, but I personally still really loved and kinda miss the way the episodes each felt more like their own thing, previously, ig

[zkretchy]

my first actual thought about “cat who happens to possess you and is now a ghost(?)” was Gwent Not like Geralt is too happy about the accidental cheating happening but hey-can’t really block out the noise of someone inside your head now can you