HI MILL!!!

I’ve been around your Twitter years ago and only within the last year or so made a tumble but Hiiiii!!

Glad to see you back and well! Your art is so delightful I need you to know this <3

what the hell you can't say this to me I'm crying in a puddle on the floor right now thank you?? I'm whimpering and quaking and such actions, you know the usual, at this ask

They were so silly in season 1 I hope they come back!!

Riddler and Miss Tuesday from Batman The Audio Adventures! sort of my own designs for them, but Tuesday’s appearance is still based off her design in the one AA special comic she showed up in

sorry for the really long ramble but can i just mention here how happy your turnabout sole fic and turning the cat in the pan fic have made me

like

i was beaming while reading them! your writing is so good and your art is really pretty! i love how you view the characters it works so well and it's just! really nice!

and in turnabout sole how phoenix just can't help but just be himself even though he's in edgeworth's body it's just like him! and edgeworth struggling to be casual and the agency members being really suspicious like i was actually kinda freaking out along with edgeworth khfjdshewq oh and the reveal at the end was just so funny cuz phoenix just lets it slip because of course he would and it was really just silly and then the love confession at the end got me actually squealing-

and in turning the cat in the pan how the little snippets of the story show edgeworth's growth from being really self-conscious and hateful towards himself to being more comfortable in his own skin and being more accepting of himself was really heartwarming! and phoenix being there to sometimes tease him but still treating him like a human being was so sweet and how he's just so nice to him and just!! i was smiling from ear to ear so much while reading! ill excitingly be waiting for more!

your art and lil comics are really nice!! i love how you portay and draw the characters, it suits them so well and i love your headcanons so much! i haven't played pmd yet, but your aa au of it is really cool! the pokemons fit the characters well, and the story is really cool! i also saw turnabout anachronism and the way both phoenixes reacted suited them really well! present/future phoenix of course just trying to help things from the past since he's just naturally someone who wants to help as much as possible but him also just wanting to go back to his time because he missed what he had! and past phoenix/feenie just freaking out and being happy over everything that happens in the future but also feeling like he didn't belong and was taking all of this away from the present/future phoenix and he just wanted to go back to his own time and he's again just a naturally kind person and it suits him so well!

this was originally just gonna be me talking about the fics but i got a bit carried away-

but yea in conclusion i love your writing and art and you're a very cool person!

MAN ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME CRY BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE ME CRY (IN A GOOD WAY) AAAAAAAAAAA

I'm really really glad to hear what you like about my works! It makes me so happy to know people still like them, even if they're mostly just dumb self indulgent works.

What The Fans Of (Almost) Every Scarecrow Design Are Like Just by Surveying Rogue Tumblr for Approx: 5 Months. (Not in any particular order. Also this is a meme.)

Year One: You probably needed a childhood to relate to/needed a justifiable reason to stan one of Gotham’s biggest criminals. (but if your childhood involves being half-eaten by crows i am VERY concerned)  BTAS: The gateway drug Scarecrow. You’re probably a gremlin, and also really like the Dork Squad(tm)  TNBA: He’s under-appreciated, and you know this very well, but you’re also thankful that you get some of the coolest artwork of your favorite spooky boy. (Also the voice. 11/10 you want him to read sleepy hollow to you.) TAOB: You are one of the only 3 living fans of Adventures Of Batman Scarecrow, but you give absolutely no shit. You love that uncanny valley, near on clown-like scarecrow, and i feel bad for you, because you’ll probably never get art of them. Super Friends: I...Wow. Y’all really do exist... Galactic Guardians: YOU GUYS ACTUALLY EXIST TOO??? BATB: JAZZY. You like his hat, and his voice. You also probably enjoy a lot of older scarecrow designs as well. You get sad because you wish there were more content.  The Batman (TV series): PFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (But seriously though, you poor, poor things...There, There...) Assault On Arkham: AA Scarecrow in an otherwise good movie. Basically, you’re sad he didn’t get more screen-time. At this point, just stan: Arkham Asylum: ABSOLUTE GOBLIN OF A HUMAN. One of the gateway drug Scarecrows that lead you to The Rogues fanbase in the first place. You either love the serious artwork of him, love him drawn/written as a gremlin, or are STILL offended by his lack of footwear. Either way, you adore him and will remind everyone of it. Arkham Knight: OH FUCKING BOY. This can go one of two ways. 1.You love his writing (or don’t, but still stan), his poetic dialogue and his voice, and you also love how much he hams up the fear factor. You probably adore every artwork of him you see, and you REALLY love reading any fan-written material of him. You have many headcanons, and probably have googled A LOT of stuff to make them more genuine.  Or 2. You are very, VERY horny... (But as a good friend once said, “these are not mutually exclusive.”) Nightwing And Robin: Aw, y’all are so cute! Here, have some tea with the SF AND GG Fans, I think they have Earl Grey over in the CORNER OF IRRELEVANCY. (But I feel bad for y’all too.) Unlimited: BEEF BOY. You’re either in the group of people that love Scarecrow designs that use scythes, or you like how strange, yet fun his appearance is. Most art of him is super colorful too. There aren’t very many of you, but the amount of you that I’ve seen seem like super cool people. You all probably also enjoy the next one: Batman/TMNT: You knew the movie was a wild ride from start to finish, but you love it. You probably also like birds (I know, really obvious.) There aren’t many of you, but you like the idea of a corvid-like Scarecrow, and you wish for more. Or...You may be a furry that also likes DC stuff, and that’s ok too! We too also oddly love that weird ass cobra joker anyways.  Salecrow: You love his rhyming (which is arguably the best thing about him), but are also annoyed by the fact that most content of him use the same 3 images every time. You’re probably in the same boat as all the other scarecrow fans that genuinely want a proper medieval themed version of him. If you write/draw him, you’ve googled endless nursery rhymes. Its like Dr.Seuss up in this bitch. Also, them hands. Blackest Night: Chances are you’re still amazed that your favorite bag-headed master of fear even HAS that thing. You REALLY want him to wear that damn ring again, and will probably pay an arm and a leg to see it happen in a form of animated media. You also have very interesting artwork/writings of him. And your head canons are outlandish, but in the most fun way. (Seriously though, Hatter with a ring, huh...) Injustice: You either love the concept of The ScareBeast, or you’re here for the fact that hes voice by FREAKING ROBERT ENGLUND. Admittedly, you probably aren’t all too good at fighting games, but you still insta-lock him despite that.  The Dark Knight: Cillian Murphy portrays the character rather well, but you either are unnerved by his strangely dreamboyish face, or would wish for a slightly older actor. But!!! Despite all that!!! You love him, and probably still quote “WaNnA sEe My MaSK???” (Although I see some of you get absolutely tired of that lol) I don’t see any loyal fans of him, but everyone seems to agree that he’s not too shabby (heheh... shabby...) Gotham (Tv Series): ...Hello? Where are you guys? I KNOW you exist! Show yourselves! Jokes aside, you either love him or hate him. Live action scarecrows seem to be a hit or miss for some.  Harley Quinn (Tv Series): Softies. You adore everything about him. His dialogue, his humor, his very surprising accent, and his, albeit a stretch, questionable sexuality implications. Most art of him is very wholesome and good, probably because you’re STILL not over...Well... Maybe its better if I not mention it (all fans of him are the “If I see anything happen to them I’ll kill everyone in this room and then myself” meme.). Detective Comics: Hroo Hraa, my friends. Hroo Hraa. Whether it’s his “Queer grasshopper leaps” or his strange laughter onomatopoeia, you can’t get enough of his antics. Nothing beats a classic, and the fact that there are still many of you that are fans of him makes me smile. New 52/Prime Earth: One of the few scarecrows that greatly changes his childhood, but you welcome the idea of it. He’s a very unsettling looking guy, but you’ll remind everyone that his writing makes up for it. He’s mostly treated like a semi-C tier villain in the continuity, but every time you see him you’re like “!!!!!!!”.You most likely have a list of every issue he appears in so you don’t have to suffer, and your heart still breaks when you read the scene with him and that one girl. (He said he was sorry, guys.) Batman:Hush: 2 and a half sweet and savory minutes of this guy, only for him to get kicked in the face? Nay, Nay, you say! A crime, you holler! You go to your keyboard to tell your friend about how good his character design is, and how well animated he was, but alas they say “that’s nice, bud.” Blast it all... The Lego Batman Movie/Lego in general: Our boy at his most gremlin. Sure, you know this is a 99% children’s medium, but that doesn’t stop you from smiling like a dummy every time you see him. He’s funny, he’s delightful, and he has... a weird obsession with planes? What is it with them and putting him in planes? Maybe he got a pilot’s license before he attended university? What a smart little block person!  Obviously, I left out quite a few here, but these seem to be the most popular. There are SO many comic renditions of him, so It’d take my forever. (My poor fingies already hurt!) But please enjoy this silly little thing :’] 

atissi

replied to your post

“it kinda makes me sad when artists giving out tutorials on character...”

oh could you talk more about this? :o

ABSOLUTELY thank u for enabling me to go off about designs i love this shit this may get a bit long so its going under a readmore (sorry if ur on mobile i hope it works)

gonna start this off with im no expert Nor have i taken any sort of official art class this is me just analyzing characters from what i found that makes them memorable to ppl (most of these examples are going to be from games sorry i got them on my mind)

ok so basically making a memorable revolves around personality and appearance now theres different ways to go about showing these things and i think from consuming media you like will help narrow down how you wanna go about it, basically thinking about your character inside and out!

SO shapes and hyperstylization is a good way to get a fun appearance across in a cartoon esp media and is often what a lot of artists stress on an example of using shapes and a good silhouette to make a memorable character is sonic!(specifically comic sonic)

(had to google idw sonic for a non...u know image)

but not only do they use lots of triangles for this hedgehog they also made him blue! you’d be more likely to remember a blue headgehog over a realistically colored one!(also almost all of the sonic characters have a combination of fun shape + unusual color to help you remember them! the designs werent afraid to use color to make a bold statement)(he’s also segas mascot so of course they put a lot of work in his design)

now sonics appearance is not the only reason why people like him or remember him so much he’s also got personality! he’s cocky, fast, always getting into trouble, “you’re too slow!”, accompanied by shitty butt rock and a cool guy persona ie he’s got personality! and they weren’t afraid to give him some weird interests(see the butt rock) and he’s not perfect( see arrogance) if youve ever played a sonic game you have almost always remembered the crush 40 theme that went with it

all in all to go with his unusual appearance he’s got some unusual traits! it helps make him believable! admittedly he’s not the most embarrassing of the sonic crew (see knuckles or shadow) but he’s definitely rounded and not boring from an objective standpoint(you can not like sonic or his games i dont care)

(another example of something that requires good shapes is pokemon altho they arent really like very depthy since there are 600+ and some only have like a pokedex entry worth of info but still they have good and memorable designs)

NOW something that doesnt have the most “good shapes” design off the top of my head is link

now in the most recent zelda game his most memoriable physical attribute is that he’s on the androgynous side w his longer hair and smaller build but in his older designs he looked something like this

(art for a loz:link to the past)

not really that much of a striking silhouette, but what do we look at and kinda leaves an impression on us? his hair and hat! its very silly to see someone in such a big green hat with that big of bangs/mullet, the hat at least became so ridiculous of a look that in botw nintendo didnt include his hat in links main outfit bc it was too hard to make look good, its silly! thats good! its fine to have a normal human looking characters because sometimes stories are about humans, but if you want us to remember them include something that will strike us as strange for them

also probably a good thing to note is the noises link makes when he swings his sword, jumps, pushes something, ie any action they have always been something that has stuck with me

(another example similar to this is in mgs solid snake in mgs is this cool super spy but is rocking a full on mullet which is considered a joke hairstyle. this leaves an impression on us. a spy with a mullet! how ridiculous! another example is raiden who was specifically made bc a woman wrote that she didnt want to play as an “old man” so the protagonist of the super spy game is a longer haired pretty boy (with a huge ass))

now ive explained a little on a character with good shapes and personality and a character with a more “boring” shape design that makes up for it with almost quirky design choices but i feel like theres another series thats what originally got me thinking about how even a memorable silhouette doesnt need hyperstylization

ace attorney! (which is out on switch now if u havent played it i would def recommend it)

if you dont know the protagonist is the guy in the blue suit(phoenix), which well he looks like just a guy...with ridiculously spikey hair enough so that in his silhouette you can recognize him but also his posture (the pointing) makes for a sticking recognizable image bc if you’ve played the games you can practically hear objection just from looking at phoenix’s silhouette

which is another thing id like to talk about! not only are a good shape a way to have a good silhouette but posture is also important! how the character holds themselves can say alot about them just from a glance! such as meekness, arrogance, confidence, sadness, anger, happiness its a very important too especially when you arent relying on stylization

now onto the characters of ace attorney ive gone over phoenix's design a bit but theres a few others id like to look at with some Weird style choices that make us remember them(just going to glance over them since this post is so long)

now, this woman, franziska von karma, she dresses kind of strange for a prosecutor but her outfit is not too out there and her silhouette is not striking

but you see that whip? remember how i said she was a prosecutor? yeah she will strike people in court for getting off topic and will even hit phoenix when he starts breaking down her witnesses testimonies, which what literally strikes up about her

another prosecutor, godot, now his hair could provide a somewhat memorable shape but what we first notice is the strange mask on his face which is weird, but not the Same weird as franziska bringing a whip to court thus having both of these prosecutors being Weirdly memorable for different things (another note is his liking of coffee that he does not give up even in court ha ha)

now onto the other protag for the aa games

apollo! who also has weirdly spikey hair, but even if you put a silhouette of him next to phoenix you could tell there some was a difference between the two! its showing a pattern with the protags while also keeping them distinct enough to be able to tell who is who! although you cant say the pointy haired guy from ace attorney and not get just One answer unlike saying the prosecutor who has a whip but still they are distinct to people who have little experience with the series

sorry i dont have any sort of conclusion on this this was just sort of me rambling on about character design, but my main point is if you are discouraged bc all your characters dont have wildly different silhouettes thats ok! there are other ways to establish a good memorable character! dont be afraid to make them a little weird! give your character pink hair in a medieval setting, have them be ridiculously in love with tigers they have a striped shirt and pants, let them love childrens tv shows and have them never miss an episode, give them wacky hair or an extreme love of gum, show us some personality!! but dont forget about how they act and their values and dont forget that posture can go a long way for establishing a first impression

there are also many other methods to making a good character! like colors and dress!

silly is the way to go! have fun with it!!

there isnt just one way to make a good character!! theres plenty of more series that have good character design that i didnt mention pay attention to why you like the characters you like! also watch this video bc its really good

ALTON ADVENTURES BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

So...because its Friday and I usually update AA on Fridays, I figured it was time to make my big announcement! 

And that is...that Alton Adventures is changing. A little bit. 

Am I rebooted the comic again? No haha! Once I get back to it it shall continue as normal but some characters may look a bit different going forward. 

Who may those characters be?

Sir Gareth Nemesis 

Why is he changing? 

Sir Nemesis’ change is actually less drastic than one may think. For starters, he needed a design rehaul. I wanted his armor to be more simple, easier to draw but with still details that could tie him to Nemesis (the green eye, the arms, the light pink details instead of inconsistent tentacles). I also had an issue where his hair was too close to his skin color, so to combat this I turned him into a ginger! His eye color also changed from gold to green, another thing to visually tie him more to Nemesis. 

So yes, I changed Sir Nem’s design because I was unhappy with it. His armor was never drawn consistently ever, I was constantly changing the tone of his hair and his skin so that was inconsistent. I want my designs to be more consistent and polished going forward.

What else is different? Well, you can probably tell he looks much more serious, like in older pictures I drew of him. Why is that? Well, I was kind of..honestly tired of his role as the “dad character tm” that he kind of turned out to be. It almost undermined his true characterization and turned him into a typical over the top exaggerated hero character. And I started to realize how much I missed his original concept. A battle hardened solider that was filled with regret and remorse, who heavily sympathizes with the plight of the alien he’s locked in combat with. He’s still much a father however, as he has a biological son and adopts an alien who mimics his likeness (hence another reason he’s a ginger now as his Nemesis daughter always was one). He’s just returned to his roots as a character. Because I felt that characterization was a unique one for the Nemesis ride. And it was an idea I really loved. Sir Nemesis actually WAS one of my favorite characters...I wanted his role to be much larger than it is in the comics. I don’t blame anyone for him becoming a joke, I did initially kind of fuel the fire for it, I’m just hoping that its not to late to get back to the Sir Nemesis I originally wanted to write. And of course, all my characters are still meme and joke worthy. I just want to tackle much more serious issues with my comic and show the more serious side of some of my characters and don’t want there entire existence to be a joke Mr.S can’t have too many folks 1 uping him in the laughs department!  I guess to note with this change that his original voice claim has also been solidified as well. It’s a more somber and serious tone that I feel fits him as a character. 

Final Notes 

Sir Nemesis is a character that I have a lot of thought put into. His backstory is tragic, emotional, and his character is complex and he’s not the perfect hero people might image him as. I plan for his Arc to follow the Fireworks arc in the comic, as well as I am planning to start some more text heavy short stories about how the Secret Weapons became Secret Weapons (which I will likely call Secret Weapon Short Stories hehe) and will be writing his first. Also a very important thing i must address. Yes, the eye on his chest moves. (I have a gif but it doesn’t want to work on this post Ill have it up later ><)

Erica Annabelle Cloud 

ooof okay this is a huge one. Confession time. Erica was always my least favorite character. Why? She just had...no character. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with her, her design felt phoned in and there because I needed an Air/Galatica character, (yes, she is changing as her Galatica stage too). She was just. not well thought out. She had a dual identity but I think a lot of people didn’t pick up on that? She felt like a Rita 2.0 as just a nice and friendly optimistic person and literally had 0 backstory. Originally she was supposed to have had some sort of accident that turned her into Galatica and she had memory loss and forgotten about when she was Air, yeah it was a mess. That eventually just turned into Nebula Corona being a character she made up (bc her one trait was that she was into space and wrote a lot) that she played as when her rides themeing changed. 

She was just..barely a character and her design was abysmal (Her Galatica suit was okay but her Air outfit was an afterthought) She needed a massive visual upgrade. A sleeker flight suit that makes more sense (I used a ref or two for this design!) A different face shape to help her stand out more, my signature they wear glasses they have dot eyes look. Long, wispy, flowing hair to resemble those trails planes make. A bit more lanky and tall. And let me tell you I LOVE her design now. It looks so much more unique and you can just SEE she has so much more character now!  As for her characterization im going full into her being a nerd. A very tech nerd at that! She designed her suit to help her fly at her best, and eventually will be the one that designs and builds all her Galatica tech! Her Galatica design hasn’t been done yet, mostly bc I wanted to focus on her current comic canon design, but not much would change I feel with her upgrade anyways! She is effectively the brains of the group, and the others often turn to her for plans of attack when dealing with a situation, or innovative solutions to problems! I have yet to get a voice claim for her, but im sure one will come to me soon enough! 

Final Notes

Erica/Nebula was a character I struggled to connect with. Everyone else had Airs that were either super plot important, or just much more cool and creative in general. I felt, that with my Air/Galatica she was just there, and I wanted her to be more. So a full character rehaul was done with her and it makes me so happy. She feels much more fleshed out, better designed, and I’m super excited to do more stuff with her, and hopefully you will all see her much more now that I’m a lot happier with her as a character! <3 

Welp that's the end of the updates....wait. Hold on. I have something written here. What could this be? Oh! I remember now! 

Black Hole, AkA Beatrix, will be joining the MAIN CAST of Alton Adventures! 

When I drew my Black Hole design, I knew she was something special. She stands out compared to a lot of my characters, and her design SCREAMS main character. While the biggest main roles will still be held by Mr. S and Rita, I wanted to add another non SW coaster to the main crew, and because Canonically Corkscrew is MIA, Black Hole seemed like a fitting addition to the main crew! As she isn’t human, a species literally only referred to as Black Holes, I thought making her a main character and giving her a big arc would help flesh out the reality of non humans in Alton Adventures! Her powers and design and character and personality are just too fun to shove her into the background. I feel that adding her to the main cast gives them not only another character to support them, but a closer friend! You will all see her much more in the future for certain! 

Well that's about it! In terms of comic updates themselves...its still going to be hiatus as long as I’m being swamped with school work. I hope you all understand. I’ll try to squeeze in updates over the breaks I have IF im not working on assignments for class. As I also said, I wanna do short stories as well, to expand the world and explain it better, as a comic will only develop the world so quickly and lots of you have tons of questions! I also wanna do something animated at some point, that’s my dream. I’ve ALSO mentioned to some people about merch, likely going for making stickers first since that's simple. I got an excited reaction for that so I’ll come up with designs for them soon! I just wanna do a lot with Alton Adventures, because I know how much it means to people, and of course it means so much. Goodness I really need to actually get to this park, I look quiet silly constantly gushing over a themepark I’ve never been to all the time XP  That all aside I thank you all for sticking by me. I promise that even if I don’t do comic updates as frequently during the school year, I’ll still work to push out as much AA content I can outside of that! I’m always open to suggestions to what you guys want to see! ALSO, working on a big google doc spreadsheet with info on all the characters I’ll be posting when its more completed! So be on the lookout for that! 

Again thank you to everyone who’s stuck with me through this, Your support makes me feel nothing but proud of what I’ve created. These characters may have been created out of something some may consider silly or odd, but the only thing that matters to me if that I can make at least someone happy with what I create. 

Patreon (note that patrons got to see all of this content as it was being worked on!) l Ko-fi

To my friend Aspen...

I almost never post to my blog anymore (should fix that) Aa lot of what I say I put over on VoxPopcast), but I do pretty frequently say shorter things on Twitter or Facebook. Today, I wrote this on Facebook… a eulogy for a friend. I decided that it was something I wanted to have a copy of here.

I’d like to tell you about my friend Aspen. This morning, my wife woke me up, clearly very sad and distraught, asking me to look at a Facebook post. The post was on Aspen’s wall, from a friend of hers I’ve never met, informing the world that she’d passed away a couple days ago. Details of the post were slight, but reading between the lines.. and mixed with things I know… It’s especially sad. But that’s not what I want to dwell on.

I won’t pretend we were “best friends” but we were definitely good friends. At least to me. Loving pen pals! Just looking at the people posting comments and condolences, I don’t know the vast majority of them. She was someone who modeled for me years ago, but we’ve always kept in touch. She struck up a friendship with both me and Stephanie and I can honestly say that Aspen was one of the kindest, sweetest, most adorable, most genuinely delightful people I’ve ever met.

I don’t know her mother or her sister, but I do know Aspen spoke of them QUITE frequently and loved them very much. So on the off chance that either of them ever see this… or really, anyone else whose life Aspen has ever touched (which, is actually probably way more than anyone knows as I’m about to detail)… I want to share a few thoughts about Aspen in the hopes that my words bring whatever solace to whoever reads them that they can.

The first is about my podcast… and the #BLM movement, which… I guess is now forevermore immortalized in Aspen’s FB profile avatar. The morning after George Floyd was murdered on national TV, Aspen texted me to talk. It was a … I guess weird… conversation in a way, but also completely natural in its own way. She was distraught, and angry, and sad… just like a lot of the rest of us. But she wanted to ask me if she had any right to be. I asked her what she meant. She explained the obvious. She found everything disturbing and awful… she was angry and upset… but she was white and she wanted to know how I was feeling as a black person.

She was concerned for me. It was very clearly from a place of love. Not from obligation. It wasn’t performative. I wasn’t her only black friend. She wasn’t getting advice from a meme to “check in on black people”. She had just been watching something horrific… and I was a person she felt like she could have an honest conversation about her feeelings with. She honestly wasn’t sure if she was even allowed to show concern as a white person because she (in her words) “didn’t want to take away from the hurt that black people had to be feeling”. And what she wanted most of all was to help. And then she felt like she might even be patronizing by showing concern. We had a very honest conversation about this that went on for like… three days.

So… there’s an episode of VoxPopcast… in fact, I think still one of the most popular shows we’ve ever done, which is just me and several other black friends of mine talking about the George Floyd murder and the aftermath. That was Aspen’s idea. She wanted to hear me talk about it. I thank her at the beginning (calling her Amanda, her name at the time) for giving me the idea. This delighted her… she didn’t even want credit. She thought it was silly to think of her. She just was happy to hear honest opinions from people on what happened. It was important to her. I value that integrity and honesty and genuineness. And, based on the feedback that I got from that episode… her idea… it meant a lot to a lot of other people. I told her that. She was proud of it… or happy about it… her feeling was that she didn’t do much. I disagree. She mattered here a lot. I will never forget it.

Second memory: Three years ago, her purse was stolen. Her response was to post a Facebook message the next morning wishing the anonymous person who robbed her the best of luck, saying “I hope the food and gas from the gas station bought with my card last night fed you and took you where you needed to go. I also hope that things turn around for you in life. I’m sure you’re just in a bad spot and need some help.” It almost sounds sarcastic; if you didn’t know Aspen you’d think it was. If you did know her, you’d know it was the absolute most sincere thing ever. The only thing she was sad about was that that purse contained a necklace given to her by her deceased fiancé. To Aspen, the biggest tragedy was that some poor person “had to rob her”

Final memory: The last real conversation we had (other than brief FB comments or happy birthdays). A few months ago, after Aspen wrote a post publicly coming out as: genderqueer, polyamorous, and pansexual… and ummm… as Aspen (instead of Amanda, her given name), I wrote her a private message to congratulate her. We’d talked about sexuality a bunch over the years, so I actually already knew all of those things. I think a lot of people in her life did… I don’t feel like she was ever trying to hide anything. But Aspen felt like taking the definitive step was important. I think more for other people than for herself. For normalization. She felt it was important because, in her words: “I’m a raging, feminist, poly, pan, nonbinary, spiritual atheist who’s sorry she showed up to the game a little late.” She wanted to help others.

In particular I asked about the pronouns she’d chosen: specifically she/he/they. I actually went back and forth on what I should use on this post. I decided to go with feminine because of what she said. I once asked if she had a preference. What should I use… Her answer was a predictable “oh no… I sometimes feel totally like ultrafemme or some days I feel more masculine or somedays neither and it changes so much. I’m genderqueer! I embrace the entire spectrum of pronouns. Just do whatever is easiest!” And that was that. Mostly, she told me, that she was just happy that there was so much love and support from people on what she said was a little scary and a very vulnerable day. She was glad she did it. She thought it was important to just be her.

And it was… Aspen was important. I wish she knew how important she was to other people. She was important to me. She was important to my wife. She was clearly important to so many people who knew and loved her… and from the three examples that I just shared, I wish she understood how important she was to people who had never met her.

So… to her mother and sister, and again, anyone else who loved her/him/them as Aspen or Amanda (or Mandie… which is what I actually mostly called her): My most sincere condolences to the loss of one the brightest lights in the world.

And to Mandie, I love you and miss you. I already miss talking to you… I miss your quirkly flirtiness… I miss your goofy tiktok videos… I miss your deep and sincere desire to help everyone that you’ve ever (and never) met… I miss your periodic checking in on me to make sure I was having a good day… I miss your writing me randomly to ask a question about race or to discuss gender or sexuality… I will miss you texting me to point me at some random asshole you want me to roast for being sexist or racist online…. and I miss you writing me out of the blue to say “hey, what comic books should I be reading?” I will miss not waking up to a private text next year that says “Happy motha fuckin birthday!!!”. And I will miss the wonderful person who had the courage to write me on a horrible day and say “I don’t know how to feel”.

You’re gone… today is a horrible day and I don’t know how to feel. But I know I miss you.

-Love Mav

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To my friend Aspen… was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom