#its a project... i wanna illustrate all the scenes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ryuusjacket · 2 years

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okay so i wanted to share this post that i made a while back from my personal nsfw blog but i feel kinda embarrassed just reblogging it here and showing off the url to that blog publicly (i. literally have like 2 maybe 3 followers on this blog so far lmao) even tho like. i Do share the url w ppl who i trust and who Want to read long ass posts that go into indepth descriptions of my sexual identity, my sexual health, my desires/feelings with regards to sex, and my experiences w sex (w myself bc idk how to initiate a sexual encounter w another human being). you're welcome to dm me for the url if ur Really interested in reading turbo tmi content (it is all text btw. idk how to take nudes so those don't exist sorry)

ANYWAY i sometimes do thought dumps on there that involve nsfw topics like smut fanfic n stuff, so i've tried to brainstorm for my planned sskk fic on there before and well i actually found a wordy one i did where i rlly tried to explain in detail just exactly i Want to create and accomplish w this fic idea of mine. and even just re-reading the post myself, i found it to be very concise and illustrative of my goal for the fic's overall mood and tone. it was a very well-needed reminder for me to read my thought process from a month or so back when i was a bit more hyped to begin this project.

so yeah! anyway im just gonna copy and paste the whole damn post here bc i think it's an interesting read and good presentation of my inner thoughts wrt to what i'm hoping to write (hopefully) someday soon. and really... this fic idea is still barely in its infancy like there's still SO MUCH left to brainstorm and plan out like fuck!!! it's still too early to even start an outline doc (and that's like one of my fave parts of the fic writing process)

oh and some background context: a few months ago there was an event on twitter/ao3 (not sure if here on tumblr? i unfortunately don't follow many or any bsd/sskk blogs at ALL yet) for bottom akutagawa week which was HEAVEN for me 🥰🥰🥰 literally could not have been a better event to appeal to my interests in this fandom i s2g. and i got my hopes up that maybe i could write a lil fic in time to share during the week but that unfortunately didn't happen. anyway here's the post:

so i might not be able to write the bsd smut fic i was initially hoping to publish during the bottom aku fan week this week... but that doesn't mean i have to give up on this fic project completely! if anything now i don't have to worry about meeting an irrefutable deadline and i can technically do anything i want. so yeah i still wanna write this fic.

but first. i have to figure out What The Fuck i'm gonna write lmao cause i still don't fucking know. i was Intending to do a < 4k word one-shot fluffy getting together that somehow... transitions into a sex scene. and i still wanna do that... but i just. don't rlly have any specific detail or image or moment or dialogue line in mind to start building a story from. AND LIKE yeaH i know that sounds dumb cause it's like. if i don't have ANYTHING fantasized yet then WHY AM I EVEN BOTHERING to start this fic at all!?

.......im not really sure tbh lmao

nah it's cause i love these dudes and i wanna write something for them and interact w the sskk fan community.

i literally just. need to figure out the BARE BONES premise to this dang fic. like where tf is it gonna take place? is it mid/post-mission? is it at one of their flats? also WHERE are they gonna HAVE SEX???? im actually a big fan of sex scenes happening in non-conventional places (e.g. some dusty ass room in an abandoned building they were investigating or in a public restroom oR FUckinG in an airplane holy shit i haven't seen that one done yet lmao MILE HIGH CLUB ONE-SHOT LETS GOO) but yea idk maybe i should just. keep it simple and do what every other fic does and let them get down at ryuu's place in his luxuriously huge bed (that hasn't canonically been shown, let alone wherever he lives)

i should AT LEAST settle on how fast this fic is gonna be paced. tbh i kinda Always prefer sskk's first time being a bit... feverish and rushed. it just suits them best. maybe there’s a little angst or miscommunication of feelings/intentions thrown in before they Eventually get their shit/feelings together. but anyway i don’t wanna write that lmao that’s too complicated (but like. yeah. these are two Very complicated (i.e. traumatized) guys with a VERY complicated relationship so. yeah it’s actually kinda rare/weird to imagine things working out Too smoothly for them tbh).

while objectively that complicated/messy/aggressive type shit is their Brand, i would still like to keep things soft and gentle and Nice. that stuff is Not Impossible w these two ofc. it’s... tricky, but def possible. and i wanna achieve That. a getting together that is soft, hesitant, shy, and puts a heavy emphasis on Both of these men’s inexperience wrt romance and sex (that. is. my. Shit. they are both virgins and absolutely clueless and i Refuse to accept anything other than that. ......okay no... that’s not rlly true... basically all of my fave fics have a somewhat experienced atsushi and that’s okay bc like. how else is he gonna be able to Take Care of ryuu if he doesn’t already have an idea of how to take care of someone during sex? anyway ryuu is the most virginal virgin of all virgins to exist THAT IS INDISPUTABLE!!!!!)

so. i guess what i’m wondering is... how fast can i manage to pace the flow of the story while still keeping it soft overall. cause i don’t feel like writing a super super hot n filthy sex scene that’s charged and exhilarating and just a fucking blur of fucking. i wanna write feely, emotional sex. an aching intimate exchange of trust between them, still laced w hesitance and anxiety and sheer disbelief that this is really happening and that they can have this. both of them express unwavering consideration for each other’s comfort, constantly asking for consent and reassuring the other that “yes, i want this. yes, that feels good. yes yes yes.” they’re both taking careful, yet still enthusiastic, steps together. TENDERNESS is my ultimate goal here.

so yeah anyway i’ll try to keep thinking about this and hopefully i can actually come up w some ideas that i wanna implement into whatever this fic eventually becomes. just haven’t had enough time.... or horniess.... to get down to some real brainstorming yet lmao

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flexigreys · 2 years

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Jars by dani

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d-criss-news · 3 years

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Actor And Producer Darren Criss Reveals His Creative Process

The producer, singer and actor talks his approach to songwriting, discovering his sound and how he’s ready for the next chapter.

We don’t know about you, but we’re currently experiencing the Bank Holiday blues. With the realisation that our days of summer maybe coming to an end were in need of uplifting sounds and singer-songwriter Darren Criss is keeping the energy going with his fun-filled EP “Masquerade”. Between the slick alt-pop productions and high-octane energy, the artist puts his theatrical abilities and prowess at the forefront of the EP. Laced with serene dance floor-ready melodies, the actor and musician instantly gets the party going on the project, kicking it off with “f*kn around”.

“The dirty secret is that every song is character-driven,” the artist revealed when discussing the project. “I just chose wording that could perhaps aid people into understanding this exploration of genre, this self-aware exploration of genre a little more. For those people that only know me as an actor, I’m trying to guide them into this notion of music and songs being a form of acting.”

No newcomer to the scene, the artist has spent the past decade gracing our screens in the cult favourite Glee and the thrilling Assassination of Versace: American Crime Story. Wanting to continue his musical journey in the form of producing and writing, we caught up with the multi-faceted artist talking his growth over the years, staying creative in a pandemic and how he’s ready for the next chapter.

Check out the interview below now…

Hey Darren, how are you? How has this past year been for you? It’s a strange question to answer because everybody’s answer is so much more complicated than what you can say in a quick easy tight polite answer. You know, I’m well, as well as one could be given the situation. I feel, you know, luckier than most. Even with the music that I just put out there’s still more that I’d like to do, but I got to do even more than I thought I’d be able to. So that tends to be kind of the theme of the past year and a half. I feel like I’ve been so consumed by working on so many things for so long, that not a lot of people outside of my inner circle know about that. You know, it’s been a lot of high output but seemingly low visibility. So now finally getting to put out some of these things and talk about them… tipped scale of visibility versus output is hopefully having a chance to even out for a bit, to where the amount of work I’ve put in can somehow match that people you know may or may not know about what I’m doing. You know, I’ve been really busy. I’m the kind of guy where if you give me a white canvas it’s a more…I wouldn’t say stressful, but I’m more likely to fill up a blank canvas immediately with as much shit as possible – I guess that is more stressful than having only a few places to fit things in, and I usually keep pretty busy. Ironically when I’m really busy, that’s when I can get stuff done. Like you know that phrase ‘if you want something done ask the busiest person in the room’, and I think there’s a degree of truth to that because you know, the chaos kind of begets chaos, and productivity begets productivity, and in a lack of anything else to do it was like ‘I wanna do all these things!’ and then it gets really crammed, so it’s nice to be kind of simmering down from this overwhelming call to arms to get as many things done as I could with this new unprecedented free time that I had. So, in short, I guess, am well if you wanna use that! I feel, I’m just relieved that a lot of this stuff can exist somewhere outside of my head but it’s a complicated answer, I’ve been able to do a lot more than I thought I’d be able to.

With everything that happened last year, was your creativity affected? The time that it yielded is the kind of time that a lot of creative people fantasise about. Of course, we would have all preferred it in a very different way when you say ‘if only I had time to sit down and work on this’. I think we all have; I say creative people but we all say, ‘if only I had time to paint the kitchen, learn a language, get in shape’, you know do something different that requires a bit of time and focus. We were all given that golden ticket, of course take that with a massive grain of salt, I’m fully aware of the price with which that came, of course if we had the choice, I don’t think any of us would have wanted it to happen the way it did. But none the less, for those of us who did take the time to focus, to hopefully be productive and proactive with the situation we were thrown into, it was creatively beneficial to finally get to address things that had been sitting kind of on deck and dormant in my mind, and it was just a matter of having the time to give them any attention. One of the joys of jumping between acting and music is there is a battle of time commitment, because neither one is a thing you can do casually. If you’re acting in something, there’s a great degree of scheduling that really eats up a large chunk of your day. While I’m in an acting project, I’m writing stuff and playing music but the actual logistics of producing music is as time consuming as the acting. I am envious of people that can kind of just show up, sing a song and leave. I, unfortunately, am not that kind of person. Writing a song is only a small piece of putting music out. Production really does take a large part of my emotional and intellectual efforts, and I really dive in head on. And that’s not even mentioning the promotional side of it. So, it really does take a lot of time to dive into those things, and I was finally given that. If anything, it was hard to decide what part of my musical menu that I wanted to serve up. It just came to a matter of what felt right at the time, what seemed fun. I kind of wanted to put out something that was positive and fun, and unapologetically so. And something that really showed up for a side of me that I felt like hadn’t been represented in the past. The musician side, and unfortunately, we haven’t been able to perform these very much. We’ve done little videos here and there. Stuff that really showed my roots as a musician, a garage rock guy, a guy that really likes getting in the weeds of production. In the past I’ve put up things that are a little more analogue, singer-songwritey, and this is more me as a producer and a musician.

How did you first get into music, what sparked the interest? Well, I’ve been playing music my whole life, and not casually either. It’s such a massive part of my identity, and that’s one of the main driving forces of me wanting to put out as much music as I possibly can. These five songs on this EP are a small part of a much larger body of work that I’m dying to get out whenever I can. When you’re a songwriter, or just in general a creative person, you have more ideas back logged than your body can execute. This is only a small part of a much larger puzzle, and a lot of these songs, the ones that I’ve put out and the ones I’m still trying to put out, are ghosts that have been haunting me however many years., some more than a decade, some more than two decades. The reason I mention this is because I’m trying to illustrate how pivotal music and making music has been throughout my life. I started playing violin when I was 5, and that was a big part of my cultural education, learning how to play an instrument that is so dynamic and requires a pretty specific ear and technical ability. Now I’m not saying I was fantastic at the violin, but I think the training that I had on it from 5 until my late teens really shaped the way that I would create music and think about music, certainly as a writer and a producer, but with just how I would jump between other instruments as well, because the violin was such a great touchstone for me to end up taking up the piano or guitar, or drums, or other instruments that would really formulate how I create music. Between being the orchestra nerd kid that played a lot of music throughout my young life, and also being the guy that would play in bands, its just been such a huge part of my life. As I’ve gotten older and gotten to understand this other version of myself that exists in more of a public view, that has little to do with that I know, I have started to notice that person, that avatar of myself, isn’t necessarily associated with music. And that was troubling to me, so I wanted to rectify that.”

And now you’ve just dropped your EP, talk us through your mindset going into the project? If I was just a recording artist, and that’s all I did, I’d like to think that I’d have a much larger body of work to show for. I feel like a lot of songwriters feel this way. There is just simply too much music…now I’m not gonna say it’s all fantastic, there’s a reason you have to triage the ones that you think are the best at the time, and there are many songs that I feel would be outdated, they feel very of the time 10 years ago. But you’re always trying to put your best foot forward with the pile you have lurking behind you. So, it is a hard thing to decide which thing you want to put out. Killing your darlings is always a hard thing, figuring out which ones to really focus on is difficult and it usually comes down to who you decide to collaborate with – right before the pandemic was one of the most tumultuous times of my career where I was producing and acting in a show for Netflix, and I was also kind of show running, acting, writing music for, editing, doing everything for this other show I created called ‘Royalties’ on another platform. I was doing both at the same time, and one of the things that made this possible was the people that I would collaborate with. A young man by the name of CJ Baron who I produced and wrote this EP with, he’s sort of the midwife that I chose out of working on Royalties because we had a lot of great songs together. I keep referring to myself as a producer, but I do it from a much more cerebral space, whereas he is a much better technical producer than I am. We really shared a lot in common, so by the time I realised that I wanted to make a piece of music you have to decide ‘who do I want to go down this yellow brick road with?’ And when I decide with CJ, that kind of already hinted at the kind of music that I would put out because he has his own fingerprint, and so I thought there’s something that I have that might mesh well with that fingerprint, so that kind of helps the decision process along of what songs am I gonna put out. But in another world CJ wasn’t interested, so then I think ‘Okay let me try and produce an album with this person’, and that person would reveal a different selection of songs. I’m very open to seeing what the universe is allowing and pushing towards, and I kind of follow that northern star to figure out what songs I’m gonna put out. But the mindset was always ‘put something out’, on a completely pragmatic level. What did I want to have to show for if whenever we got out of this crazy, new age of ‘what does this pandemic mean? We have time to do stuff, when it’s over what do I want to sit there and say that I accomplished?’ And at the very least I needed to put out a few songs, so that was really my mindset – no excuses, this is the time that you used to hope for, and so what are you gonna do if you’ve got the golden ticket, you’ve won the time lottery – so don’t fuck it up Darren! That was my mindset.

You describe them as character-driven singles, why is this? The dirty secret is that every song is character-driven, I just chose wording that could perhaps aid people into understanding this exploration of genre, this self-aware exploration of genre a little more. For those people that only know me as an actor, I’m trying to guide them into this notion of music and songs being a form of acting. The number one question I always get it ‘which one do you prefer?’ and I always say they are the same to me. When I’m an actor I treat characters, characterisation of my voice and body, characterisation of how I deliver words like a piece of music. You’re scoring it the same way, there’s cadence, dynamics, volume, nuance, all kind of things that can make ‘a piece of music’ unique to a person. And that’s how I treat dialogue and characterisation. The other side of that coin is I treat music like I’m acting, like each song has its own character when you’re playing live or recording in a booth. You are donning the proverbial mask of that character and what it requires. I really wanted to keep people into this idea that at the end of the day, it’s all performative and all part of a narrative that don’t necessarily have to do with each other and the way that if you ask Alexa to play a ‘Jack Nicholson playlist’ it would be very disjointed. It would be like okay The Shining, that’s a vibe, and then it would go to As Good As It Gets, and that’s a completely different vibe. They wouldn’t necessarily be on the same playlist, but they are distinctly and undeniably Jack Nicholson. So I always thought that it was a bit of a double standard that actors can do this but in music, you know, I’m proud of this but it’s also very annoying – a lot of my songs would probably not playlist together on the same genres because you have more jazz songs, like a trip hop chill tune that might end up in the back of a Starbucks, but that wouldn’t necessarily go on the same playlist as a tune like ‘I Can’t Dance’, which is a crazy song because it doesn’t even sound like me, I’m literally putting on a different voice, I’m singing like two different people putting on an affectation. There’s a lot of things that are very different but uniquely and distinctly me. The word masquerade is a celebration of a lot of different masks, and in theatre we talk about ‘The Masque’, and how each Masque has it’s own style, history and culture, and I really love the genre, and I love Masques, and I love things that make them interesting, and celebrating things that make them unique, and really trying to maximise their effectiveness as a genre with whatever tools I have as an artist, so that’s really what I’m trying to go for, this whole character driven idea is – it’s all a masquerade.

It very much has a fun-filled vibe to it, was this your intention and why? I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I sat in a studio saying ‘Hey lets not have fun!’, especially during a time that was as fraught with a lot of troubled times. This EP was recorded during very troubling times, so I think I’d be delusional to think that whatever joy is in this EP was not some kind of reaction to that, trying to offer something positive is definitely my MO in life in general, so that’s always gonna bleed its way onto my records. Like it or not. The intention is to record things that can be effective. If the vibe you feel is fun, great. If you feel any vibe at all, whatever the fuck that means, that’s a win for me. If that happens to be the word ‘fun’ then awesome, there’s a lot shittier adjectives that can be derived from this body of work so I will absolutely take it. My intentions are again to try and honour the songs. When you write something it has its own magnetic pull, it has it’s own gravitational pull that you have to kind of follow. If a song sounds a certain way, you want the lyrics to feel the same way that it sounds, and you want the production to feel the way that it vibes for lack of a better word. All songs have different body types and dressing it up and knowing how to tailor it to accentuate the things that make it fun or sexy is really sort of a strange alchemy. It’s not up to me how people experience it, but that’s what makes it fun. Once you put something out into the world it’s up to other people to use their own adjectives of the suit you tailor. I’m always excited when it leaves my head and becomes somebody else’s experience. So hey, if it’s fun – great!

What do you want people to take away from the project? Obviously, I hope people enjoy themselves. Any musician or artist would hope that there’s some kind of memorable experience to be had from it. If I was talking about what I hope people take away from it, that doesn’t have to do with the music itself, I hope that every time I put out music it’s me broadcasting this notion that this is something that I do, and that this is a big part of my identity. I think the songs themselves and what they’re about and how they feel are less of an insight into my identity as the notion of me putting out music is, because I feel like for any artist your journey is a constant negotiation between how you see yourself and how you would like to be seen, and how audiences are willing to see you. And you know, sometimes that balance is not always even. Sometimes the way they see you isn’t the way you see yourself, and sometimes the way you see yourself isn’t the same as the way they see you, so you want to be somewhere in the middle. And ‘Masquerade’ is a huge step forward for me to try and represent who I am and what I’m about to folks who might not see that. So that’s the biggest goal I think with any release but particularly this one.

Who would you cite as your inspirations? I’m one of those people that, when I say that everything inspires me, I’m not trying to be cute. It’s a problem. It’s an actual scourge on my life, where I find everything interesting. I find everything inspirational. It’s such a core belief that I have that there is inspiration to be derived from every walk of life. Stuff like from a lawn chair to a Bach cantata, there are so many things that can be interesting and incorporated into some creative output. It’s just all about how you look at it and how you can perceive and understand where it comes from. There are so many things that are inspiring to me. Of course, this is the massive macro answer that you weren’t looking for, you’re probably looking for ‘what artist are you inspired by?’ I think I’m just inspired by people who are really genuine to themselves, and this is an ironic answer considering that I actually try to be as many different people as possible. It’s a strange thing that actors are celebrated for not being anything like themselves professionally. And musical artists are separated for being as close to themselves and putting their souls as close to the chopping block as possible. I think I’ve really found my niche as a storyteller. I’m envious of some of the great troubadours of history, that can put their souls out on the record for us and put their own personal experience into things. Leonard Cohen and Joanie Mitchell, and Carole King, more modern people like Taylor Swift who really can just bare their souls for us. I really admire them because that’s not a muscle I have. And when you’re an artist I think ‘Okay so what muscle do I have?’, and I think ‘Okay I’m like a playwright, I can make each story for these songs and try and bring them to life with as much accessible ability and reality, and as much truth as I can convey, that’s not to say they’re disingenuine, they’re born from a genuine idea but they’re supported by my background as an actor. Baring myself isn’t something that comes as naturally for me, I really admire those people and I try and perhaps emulate a lot of their song writing in whatever limited way that I can. Genres are inspiring to me, lets talk about song writing, and then there’s producing which are two different things to me, because when I hear music I hear chords, I hear melody, I don’t listen to the snare sample, but I always hear the bare bones and then I think about production. So as far as producing is concerned I think it’s really important to know all genres and to listen to what makes each one interesting and respecting those genres, and then when you are producing something yourself, and then taking from each thing by knowing why and how they work within that genre, so again to use a song like ‘I Can’t Dance’ which is a nod to late 70s/early 80s, somewhere between disco and new wave, I’m employing the things that make those genres fun, to me at least, and trying to smoosh them together in a way that sounds cohesive. So…everything is inspiring to me, it’s hard. But each song has a different source of inspiration, but they don’t transfer between all songs.

You’ve also wrote for animated series and for Glee, is the process different for producing? “This is actually a very good question. I think this ties into what I was saying before about writing for narrative is something of a calling that I think I’ve realised more recently is kind of where I can plant my feet more easily than any other type of song writing. I was mentioning the people that can bare their souls, some people have a really good ability of putting themselves out there but also writing as a satirist of character that he creates. The person that is a master of this is Randy Newman, he’s one of the greatest American songwriters of the 20th century. He has an amazing ability to create these scenarios or create first person accounts of people that aren’t actually him, but he can contextualise with his literal voice, his song writing voice, and make those their own sort of satirical version of himself. There’s a lot of layers going on there, but I’ve always thought of him as really excellent. He’s like a playwright with music, he’s writing musicals, I mean he’s won Oscars for writing music for narrative! That’s something that I’d really like to do – from a technical standpoint it’s actually very liberating because when you’re writing music with your name on it, you’re the artist, then there’s this sort of weird expectation that you’re trying to service which is why I like this idea of putting the mask on and separating the songs from my own personal experience, because I need to separate myself from my own experience of the music you’re hearing, at least on the surface. My big break was A Very Potter Musical, that I feel to this day are my biggest hits because I don’t really have hits, but as far as the songs that people know that strangers know of songs that I’ve written, they were songs that were written for characters. It’s a bit like painting by numbers. If you just write a song from scratch about anything, it’s like the canvas I’m talking about again. You can do anything, or go anywhere, and that’s overwhelming. Having parameters, knowing where the gates are, is extremely helpful, knowing when the deadline is, knowing how long your party can go for. It means you can maximise the space you know you have. When you write for narrative you go ‘this is the character’, ‘this is how they speak’ – so you already have your lyrical information there – ‘this is how they talk’, ‘this is the singer, the singer has a great range that goes from this note to this note’, ‘in this scene we need the character to go from point A to point B, and we want it to be a song that sounds like X’, so you create all these amazing little ingredients, and I look at artists like a service industry, I really enjoy servicing what the person or the experience requires. When I have a menu of ‘we want this, this, this’, it’s like okay great I’ve got you! A three-and-a-half-minute song that sounds like this song, but has to be in this key and has to be a duet, I really thrive on that. And it’s probably one of my more favourite versions of song writing. And usually there’s a deadline, so I can get it done! Because I need to get it done for production. I really enjoy coming back to writing for narrative, because I did that for Royalties with CJ, and when I realised how much I enjoyed doing that and how productive I was when I was writing for a narrative, that’s when I got into the idea of ‘I need to stop trying to bare my own soul in music’. I think if I treat it like I’m writing for a character, not only can I get it done faster but I feel like I can make things stronger. So that’s when I decided that’s what I’m gonna do for this next EP. Writing for other shows and characters is what helped me realise my strengths as a songwriter.”

What is next for you? What are you most excited for? “As I mentioned I think productivity begets productivity, and that’s exactly what happened with this EP. Even if the pandemic hadn’t happened and I didn’t have the time, I think I would have been just as emboldened from working on Royalties with CJ and it got me very excited about working on music and how much joy that gives me. Any artist will say the same answer, but I think by the time stuff comes out artists are already over it because they’ve been living with it for a year and a half, and in my case over a decade with these songs, so I’m always ready to move on and go to the next thing. Everything is a stepping stone, so I’m very happy that this EP is out, I think it’s a great representation of a lot of stuff that’s been unaddressed for far too long. I just wanna get going, it gets me excited about keeping the ball rolling as a songwriter or as a producer, I just don’t want this to be like ‘This is the thing I did during the pandemic’, I want to keep it going and be more proactive about keeping time aside for it, because that’s the name of the game. When you’re acting or doing music, you have to balance it with time, and this pandemic has shown me how much I enjoy spending time on music, so I’m gonna carry that on. But of course, as soon as I say that, that’s when something unexpected and something too juicy that I can’t keep my hands off it happens on the acting side. One learns to be pretty flexible, because as soon as I say one thing something else will happen, and that’s been the narrative for the past decade of my life. I hope to just keep going. I’ve been this lucky for this long so I’m not gonna pretend like I’m going to keep being this lucky. If I get to act great, if I get to do music great. I can’t believe I’m in a position where its like ‘oh if the acting thing doesn’t work out, I’ll just do music!’ or the other way around, it’s a highly privileged list of options, and I’m fully aware of that. So as long as I can have one or the other to fall back on, I will always be excited about option. It’s not always up to me, so we’ll see. Everything that I’ve put out is just a way for me to renew my lease with my ability to show up for myself as well as people that I don’t knows ability to be interested in what I have to do next. But I won’t flatter myself, I’m not gonna say that lease is forever, so I’m just trying to put in the time and work to keep it at the very least somewhat interesting.”

Photography - Amanda Demme

#darren criss #wonderland magazine #masquerade ep #press #sept 2021

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the-bejeesus · 3 years

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To Those Who Say “I’m not gonna catch up on One Piece until it’s finished. Why would I watch/read 1000+ episodes/chapters when I don’t even get to know how the story ends?”

Now for the past few years, when I came across somebody who said this, my rebute would be something like “Well the series is great already. It doesn’t really matter if I don’t know how it ends, because the journey itself is enjoyable.” or “Man if that’s your excuse, who you gonna explain why you read/watch stuff like Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and My Hero Academia? Newsflash, they aren’t done yet.” But it came across my mind that I can now apply a completely different approach:

“If you start watching/reading at this pace right now, it will be over by the time you catch up.”

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll know that for awhile now Oda has been saying that he plans to end the series in just 5-4 years. Now he’s made lots of claims in the past that turned out to be ridiculous. However, many One Piece researchers have compiled his claims and found out that they only get more accurate as time goes on, with the most ridiculous claims being found to be myths. And with the most recent claims of ending the series in less than 5 years, even his editors who are usually skeptical have started to trust that he can do this. After all, he has officially set there to be only one more saga (which isn’t necessarily one arc, but it’s either going to be 1-2 major arcs or an anthology of 5-6 shorter arcs). And now that we can trust this claim, we can essentially extrapolate how many chapters/episodes are left and what pace we have to binge to catch up at just the right time.

If you plan to read the manga (black and white):

The manga in black in white is a perfectly fine way to enjoy One Piece. It’s what Oda draws, it’s how he intends it to be viewed, and best of all, it will be the first version of publication to finish.

Out of the 1223 weeks since the first chapter published in July 19, 1997, 1000 chapters have published, meaning on average he publishes 42 chapters per year, or in other words, there are only 10 hiatuses per year (including holidays where WSJ does not publish). Now if I wanted to be more accurate, I’d only look at the chapters published this year, to exclude outliers like how he had no hiatuses for the first 200 chapters, or how he had a 4-week hiatus during the timeskip, but 2020 has been a bit crazy, so we’re not doing that for this or any of the others.

Going off of this, the final chapter would be chapter 1212 in December 28, 2025 (yes, the 28th would be a Sunday again.) So here’s how you’d calculate the pace in which you need to read One Piece, and really this is how we’ll calculate it for every version)

Now I know math is boring, but the reason I’m showing this to you is because the amount of weeks until One Piece ends will vary based on when you start this binge. Chances are you aren’t going to start the day you see this post, and there’s an even greater chance you won’t see this post the day it’s posted. For every example I’m going to assume you started binging on December 28, 2020. Now let’s try to use it for this example.

And there’s your answer, just read 4-5 chapters per week. By the end, One Piece should be nearly over or have very recently ended. To put that into a different perspective, you could purchase and read just two volumes per month and you’ll be at prime pace. Or you could read one chapter every day, but only on weekdays. If you want to, you can see this calculation in action in graph form.

While this is a very rudimentary graph, it’s a basic visualization of what we’re calculating here. We’re calculating what speed we need to binge to catch up at exactly the right moment. I say exact, but ultimately no one can predict how many chapters there will be exactly, nor how many hiatuses Oda will go on during it. It will be important, as you’re nearing the end, to find a spoiler-free way to keep up on how close One Piece is to ending. To know whether you ought to speed up or slow down.

If you plan to watch the anime (subtitled):

For years now people have hated on the anime “terrible animation!” “terrible pacing” but at the end of the day, it’s the more popular version. Or the more viewed version I should say. And personally, I think that once you acknowledge its problems and learn how to deal with them, it’s a perfectly fine experience. There’s enough good voice acting and enough good storytelling that you’re easily able to ignore the problems. Plus, the animation has substantially improved since Wano.

Now for this we’re going to have to change a lot of variables to get this right. We’re going to have to adjust when publication started, and recalculate when One Piece will end by looking at how slowly the anime adapts the manga, and how behind it is. The anime aired on October 20, 1999, and has aired 956 episodes since then. This means on average they air 44.9 episodes per year, meaning there is pretty much only 7 breaks the entire year. With these 956 episodes, they have adapted 955 chapters, making the pace almost exactly one chapter per episode. However this is really inaccurate, considering all the better-paced arcs earlier on in the story. Looking solely at episodes 2012 and onwards, the anime adapts at a pace of 0.65 chapters/episode.

Knowing that there are roughly 212 chapters left, and Toei adapts at 0.65 chapters per episode, we can assume that there are going to be roughly 324 episodes left. That sounds like too many, but keep in mind that there will be several, several instances where the manga will be on hiatus whereas the anime will keep on airing. Knowing there are approximately 324 episodes left, and that the anime only takes about 7 breaks a year, we can assume that it will take 7 years, or 374.49 weeks before the anime will end. So now we have the information we need to do the math again.

x = 1280/374.49

x = 3.417 episodes/week.

It may seem like a more relaxed binge, since you get a whole 2 extra years to binge, and you only have to do 3-4 episodes per week, compared to the 4-5 chapters. But keep in mind that these episodes are 24 minutes each. Still not at all bad, but you will be spending more time on it overall.

If you plan to watch One Pace:

One Pace is a fan project that edits the anime so that filler and padding is cut, other edits will be made to make the anime more manga-accurate, such as reorganizing scenes, or adding title cards where absent. Originally only used by a niche number of One Piece fans, One Pace has grown in popularity, and has tried to improve its quality to accommodate more fans, such as making their episodes Dual Audio (meaning you can switch between the dub and original Japanese audio tracks), and including Spanish subtitles.

You’d think we’d have to adjust for when One Pace began, how slowly One Pace catches up, and the works, but there’s not much to calculate. Fortunately for us, no matter how far behind One Pace is on editing the current arc, they always like to wrap things up just a few weeks within when an arc ended, if not the very same week. So really all we have to calculate is how many One Pace episodes there will be by the end of all this, so that we know how many you’ll need to watch per week.

Looking solely at what they’ve covered so far, One Pace has taken 573 episodes and condensed it down to 259 episodes. That’s a pace of 2.21 anime episodes/ paced episode. Earlier we calculated that there would be 324 episodes of the anime left, making for 1280 episodes total. This would mean that there would be around 578 One Pace episodes by the end. And One Pace would probably wrap up in, let’s say 376 weeks, because as I said, they’ll probably finish editing the final arc a week or two after the last episode airs.

x = 578/376

x = 1.53 episodes per week

Now that’s a relaxed pace. 1-2 episodes per week? That’s so slow, I’m not even sure if I’ll remember what I watched last week next time I watch some episodes. The only problem is some of the pre-timeskip still haven’t been edited. They’ll probably be done by the time they finish the final arc, but that’s not gonna work out fast enough. You’ll hit your first roadblock about 7 weeks in when you need to watch the Baratie arc and it’s not done. And don’t even get me started on how many arcs aren’t done in dub or Spanish sub yet. Hopefully you could just switch to the anime or manga when you hit these arcs, readjusting how many episodes/chapters you need to watch/read when you do. But that’s a bit of an excessive amount of math for something that’s supposed to be fun. So yeah, if you’re still convinced you shouldn’t get into One Piece until it’s ended, maybe this is the option for you.

If you plan to read the manga (Colored):

Since 2012, Shueisha has made a colorization of One Piece. It’s not a fan coloring, it’s as official as it gets. Many consider the color schemes portrayed in this version as the most canon, as the majority are pulled straight from whatever colored illustrations of Oda’s they can find. And quite frankly it makes the manga at least 10 times more beautiful. It’s especially great if you have trouble interpreting dense, small black and white panels.

This one is a doozy. You’d think all I gotta do is calculate how far behind the colored manga usually and just adjust from there, right? Wrong. Because how far behind the colored manga is, or how frequently they release volumes in full color, is one of the most inconsistent things I have ever seen. You wanna see what I’m talking about? This is how they’ve chosen to release each volume since 2012:

Volume 1-12: July 15, 2012

Volume 13-23: September 28, 2012

Volume 24-63: December 4, 2012

Volume 64-65: April 4, 2013

Volume 66-68: December 20, 2013

Volume 69-70: August 25, 2014

Volume 71-72: September 16, 2015

Volume 73-75: October 4, 2016

Volume 76: December 2, 2016

Volume 77: March 3, 2017

Volume 78: July 2, 2017

Volume 79: September 4, 2017

Volume 80: December 4, 2017

Volume 81-82: March 3, 2018

Volume 83: October 4, 2018

Volume 84-86: August 2, 2019

Volume 87-92: September 16, 2020

How I am supposed to find out how long it will take for Shueisha to colorize the final volume of One Piece is beyond me. I guess the first step would be to look at how far behind the manga each release was on average, but I’m going to ignore all the ones before 2013, because those were clearly just Shueisha catching up really fast cause they just started and didn’t want to be dozens of volumes behind forever. So of the 14 publications between 2013 and now, on average the last chapter of the last volume they colored was 97.78 weeks after that chapter had published in Weekly Shonen Jump. This means that if the final chapter of One Piece is chapter 1212 on December 28, 2025, then you can expect the final colored volume to publish November 14, 2027.

x = 1212/359

x = 3.37 chapters/week

So if you prefer the manga but don’t want to read 5 chapters every week for 5 years, this might be a better option for ya. But yea, I have no doubt my prediction is at least a little off for this one.

If you plan to watch the anime (dubbed):

Unlike the 4KidsTV and Odex dubs of One Piece, the FUNimation dub is a perfect way to enjoy One Piece. The DVDs come with enjoyable commentary and a marathon mode, great for binging.

FUNimation’s releases of the dub are inconsistent, although not nearly as erratic as the colored manga release. However, there was recently a 2-year hiatus we only just got out of. Since Episode 1′s dub in May 27, 2008, the dub has gotten as far as Episode 614. But that’s only looking at the DVD releases. If you’re willing to stream on FUNimationnow, the dub is as far as 641, and if you’re willing to digitally purchase it from an e-shop such as the Microsoft store, it goes all the way to Episode 654. With that being said, that would mean that on average, FUNimation dubs 1.004 episodes per week. Although if we go back to before the two-year hiatus so as to exclude it from the average, it’s actually 1.10 episodes per week. Not a huge difference, actually. And then if we look solely after the two-year hiatus, it’s actually 2.25 episodes per week, which is insanely faster. It’s hard to tell what the future of the dub will be. I can’t assume they’ll go this fast forever, so I’m just going to take the average of all 3 and say it’s 1.45 episodes per week. Don’t know if that’s the best mathematical approach, but the number seems about right.

So knowing that the dub is at Episode 654 and looking at our previous guesstimation that the anime will be 1280 episodes long, we can predict that it will take 431 weeks before the dub catches up and ends. That would be in 2029! Sounds quick at first until you notice it’s 4 years behind!

x = 1280/431

x = 2.96 episodes per week

Looks like it’s almost exactly 3 episodes per week. Not as much less of a workload as I expected, compared to catching up to the sub. You know, I figured those 4 extra years would make you binge a lot slower.

Final Thoughts:

There’s a lot of my math that was estimation, approximations, extrapolations. Feel free to correct me or fact check me, especially if you plan on using this. I figured this would be a fun thought excercise. There’s also a lot of smaller variables I simply didn’t want to take into account because of how long this is already. For example, reading the black and white manga. The calculation can vary slightly depending on if you read it the day it’s published (which I assume would have to be a fanscan unless you can read Japanese), reading the weekly publication legally on Viz.com, waiting for the physical volume release. The dub can also vary depending on whether you buy from Microsoft, wait for the FUNimationnow release, wait for the DVDs, or wait for the Collection sets. So feel free to take this into account.

#One Piece #OP #ワンピース #Wan Pīsu #anime #manga #FUNimation #dub #One Pace

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davidmann95 · 3 years

Note

Got a 2020 Superman State of the Union assessment?

Not the most overtly monumental of years for big blue - a lot of the biggest news for Superman this year was about stuff we’ll see next year, which I’ll get into further below - but on the whole definitely a net positive!

Really, the only things I’d say counted ‘against’ this year were the back half of Rucka and Perkins’ Lois Lane and how badly that went off the rails - which for my money was more than counterbalanced by the conclusion to Fraction and Lieber’s Jimmy Olsen - and Romita Jr. turning in shoddy work on Action Comics. Otherwise? Bendis played out the consequences of Truth in fun ways and closed out his tenure on the main titles with a pair of artful final issues, we got Waid’s return to the character alongside Francis Manapul for a great short story, the last issue of the instantly iconic Superman Smashes The Klan, and several excellent installments in DC’s digital Man of Tomorrow series, while Commanders in Crisis introduced the Superman analogue to beat for the 2020s in Prizefighter. And in mass-media Routh’s Superman got a nice fly-by sendoff at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, there were two animated features in Red Son and Man of Tomorrow (the former of which I haven’t seen but the latter of which is probably the best official Superman movie, even if that says more about other Superman movies than anything else), and we naaaaarowly avoided the Superman logo being codified as fascist iconography for a generation. Oh and the comics industry did not in fact end due to Covid. So all-in-all a win.

Anonymous said: It’s almost New Year’s, what’s your predictions for Superman in 2021? (I guess you can do Batman too if you want)

So here’s what we do know officially for Superman in 2021:

* Superman & Lois will debut on the CW, the first Superman TV show (without substantial qualifiers) in 20+ years.

* Future State will feature Jon Kent taking on the mantle in Superman of Metropolis, Justice League, and Superman/Wonder Woman, while a now spacefaring Clark is in Worlds of War, Imperious Lex, Batman/Superman, and House of El. Meanwhile Kara graduates from Supergirl to Superwoman in her own two-parter as well as featuring in Superman of Metropolis, and Conner Kent appears to be acting as some kind of Superman in Suicide Squad.

* Phillip Kennedy Johnson takes over Action Comics and Superman in March, beginning with a two-part crossover The Golden Age illustrated by Phil Hester. After that Action Comics will be drawn by Daniel Sampere through around September, at which point Mikel Janin will be illustrating an event-scale arc for the book. Meanwhile Scott Godlewski will be the artist on Superman, but around the time of Janin’s arc on Action an entirely new, as yet unknown creative team will take over Superman while PKJ remains on Action. Both books will also have backup features spotlighting various Superman/Metropolis-adjacent characters as there’s little space for them in the cosmic direction the main story will be tilting towards for the time being.

* Superman: Red & Blue will debut in March as a counterpart to the various Batman: Black & White series over the years.

* Outside the main Superman books, Clark will star in Brian Bendis and David Marquez’s Justice League, as well as Gene Yang and Ivan Reis’s incredibly rad-looking dimension-hopping new take on Batman/Superman. Bendis is indicating we’ll be seeing the long-delayed Event Leviathan: Checkmate this year as well, which features Lois as one of the main characters.

* Not strictly Superman news, but apparently we’ll be seeing Netflix’s adaptation of Mark Millar and Frank Quitely’s Jupiter’s Legacy next year, which centers around the multi-generational drama of the family of Superman analogue Utopian.

* Zack Snyder’s Justice League, its hour come round at last, slouches towards HBO Max to be born.

As for predictions? Well for starters, pretty much everyone takes as a given that Mark Waid is putting together some long-form Superman project now that he’s working with DC again, and I expect to see something come of that next year; Tom King has also soft-announced he’s working on a Superman project since he’s done with scripting his three current DC minis, but I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing directly came of that until 2022. I’d also speculate that Scott Snyder has something in mind: he’s repeatedly said he’s planning on a major out-of-continuity project, and he’s made clear he’s done with Batman for the time being, I imagine he’s done whatever he wanted to for Wonder Woman with Death Metal, and anything he did with the JSA right now would be extremely in-continuity; I doubt he’s playing with anything less than the icons anytime soon and he definitely seems more engaged with Superman now than he was when he wrote Unchained (hell, the end of Last Knight on Earth can basically only be read as ‘I wanna write Superman now’). Again though, dunno that I’d put money on that being next year.

Outside the theoretical prestige stuff, everything we’re hearing about Future State, Infinite Frontier, and PKJ’s barely-veiled discussion of his run seems to suggest Jon will end up sharing the Superman name in the present and probably taking over that book alongside the new creative team. If Batman: Urban Legends takes off then I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a Superman anthology given DC’s apparent current priorities of consolidating, testing a new publishing model, and putting the biggest names first. And maybe something will finally come of the back-and-forth over whether or not Cavill’s sticking around in the movies - if he is my first guess would be an appearance in DuVernay and King’s New Gods (which is still in progress per DuVernay as of this month) - but we can all I think be pretty sure he’s still not getting a video game anytime soon.

As for what we know for certain of Batman’s 2021:

* Future State has a whole slate of Batman-related books, but Tim Fox takes over the cape and cowl to fight the police state that’s taken over Gotham in John Ridley and Nick Derington/Laura Braga’s The Next Batman, while a resourceless Bruce on the run stars in Mariko Takaki and Dan Mora’s Dark Detective.

* James Tynion and Jorge Jimenez are solidified as the creative team on the now-monthly Batman, while Tamaki and Mora take Detective Comics, with a Damian backup by Joshua Williamson and Gleb Melnikov running through the first issues of each and apparently leading to something, probably a Robin book. Elsewhere Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo take over Nightwing, Chip Zdarsky and Eddy Barrows spearhead the new anthology title Batman: Urban Legends, and Tynion and Gullem March launch a Joker ongoing, while Bruce also stars in the aforementioned Justice League and Batman/Superman.

* The Gotham Knights game is scheduled to drop next year.

Aside from the Infinite Frontier cover suggesting Tim Fox will take on a role in the present before long as (a) Batman same as Jon Kent as Superman, hopefully with Ridley and Derington coming back, it doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of big Batman stuff to speculate on? Aside from the inevitable unannounced Black Label stuff - including probably Scott Snyder’s Nightwing book - we know the basic shape of things. The Batman is inching closer, Tynion/Jimenez are probably on Batman through at least the end of the year, Mora I don’t think stays on Detective because he’s committed to Once & Future but Tamaki presumably does, Taylor/Redondo Nightwing is immediately going to be a fandom favorite, and Gotham Knights is probably gonna suck because boy that doesn’t look very good. We know the broad strokes of where he’s headed for the time being across all media. If I had to take a whack at a big guess, I’d say I’m a touch skeptical about that HBO GCPD show or the Batmobile cartoon reaching fruition, the former because that’s an incredibly charged premise that has to act perfectly in sync with another mass-media project in another medium AND we know there’s already been behind-the-scenes drama, and the latter because that sounds incredibly stupid.

EDIT: Forgot, Bendis said in 2019 he was working on a Black Label Batman book, so wouldn’t be surprised to see that too this year.

#Superman #Batman #Opinion

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 3 years

Text

Chapter 52: Adoption

Becoming The Mask

Bold italics are trollish. Although honestly, I'm thinking about doing away with them? At least in scenes where it's just trolls talking to each other and nobody is present who doesn't already understand trollish. And in scenes where multiple languages are in use, I could just indicate them with dialogue tags.

+=+

"Blinky," said AAARRRGGHH, "I want to talk. About Jim."

"Certainly. What about him?"

"Jim needs help. Support."

"… Do we not already support him as his trainers?"

"Not that kind, not for fighting and strategy. For … feelings. For belonging here."

"Support of a familial or parental nature, then."

"Yes. I think …" AAARRRGGHH trailed off, then started again. "Jim has a human family, but he is not human. Or, not only human?" Changelings were oddly in-between and AAARRRGGHH didn't know how exactly Jim thought of himself, species-wise. "Jim is a troll, too. So he needs a troll family, too. And deserves one."

"AAARRRGGHH." Blinky put his hands on AAARRRGGHH's forearm. "Are you absolutely sure you're not projecting? Thinking of things you wish you'd had when you joined us? Master Jim seems largely content with his relationships as they stand –"

"He's scared." No matter what exactly Jim was afraid of – Gunmar specifically or failure in general – he was definitely scared. "He needs support."

Maybe AAARRRGGHH was projecting, but – but he and Jim had both deserted the Gumm-Gumms, so AAARRRGGHH should have some idea how Jim was feeling about that, right? What the boy expected and feared for his future?

I can't afford to mess this up, Jim had said.

AAARRRGGHH wanted Jim to feel safe and welcome on Trollmarket's side, not convinced that rejection was looming if Jim didn't immediately and perfectly do everything asked of him.

"What did you have in mind, beyond what we're already doing?" Blinky asked.

+=+

"Master Jim." Blinky steepled his upper hands together and folded his lower arms behind his back. "AAARRRGGHH and I have been discussing your … place, within troll society. Namely, that you don't officially have one, outside your duties as Trollhunter."

Behind Blinky, AAARRRGGHH winced. Jim carefully did not.

"That isn't going to be acceptable in the long term."

Now AAARRRGGHH covered his face with his hand. "Blinky," he groaned.

"So, to that end … How would you feel about being adopted?"

Jim's jaw dropped. That was not the direction it had sounded like Blinky was going with this.

"By … you guys?"

"Yes," said AAARRRGGHH.

"It would present the widest range of options," said Blinky, "although it could be just one of us if you'd prefer."

Jim looked back and forth between them. AAARRRGGHH nodded.

"What exactly would this mean?" Jim asked.

"Well, first of all, you are not required to renounce any family you have already," Blinky assured him. "You would remain 'Jim Lake Junior, son of Barbara'. You would simply also have the options of introducing yourself as 'Jim, son of Aarghaumont' or 'Jim Galadrigal, son of Blinkous'."

Jim covered his mouth to hold in a laugh. Not only did he have access to Dictatious' library, now he was being offered use of Dictatious' family name? If the Dark Underlord's Counsel ever found out about this, there would be steam shooting out of his ears!

"You'd also be welcome to share our dwelling, should you choose to live in Trollmarket at some point, though of course you had a standing invitation to our dwell before this so that wouldn't change much," Blinky continued.

That was news to Jim, actually. He'd only ever been in their home with one of them there with him.

"Perhaps the most direct benefit is that, as members of your family, AAARRRGGHH or I would then have the right to intercede on your behalf in legal matters, such as if you were accused of a crime or offered some sort of contract."

"Like an adoption contract?" said Jim. Blinky chuckled.

"I suppose, yes."

"And what would my obligations be to you?" Where did they stand to benefit, other than potential 'legal intercession' if Jim tried to broker a business deal with someone? This deal sounded heavily slanted in Jim's favour.

"… You'd be expected to acknowledge us as your fathers, I suppose," said Blinky. "Adoptions are forged by mutual agreement unless the whelp is still too young at the time to understand what's going on."

"Family is … mew-chew-all care," AAARRRGGHH said. "You tell us, if hurt, or scared, or sad, and let us help."

Jim narrowed his eyes at AAARRRGGHH. Being vulnerable like that would be a heck of a concession.

Although, it wasn't like they were as good as Toby yet, at telling whether Jim was lying …

"I accept," Jim decided. "How do we, ah, seal the deal?"

+=+

Apparently trolls didn't have adoption papers. Jim was instead loudly reintroduced to various trolls around the marketplace – Bagdwella, Rot and Gut, Shmorkrarg, Tagaw, Neorbin, Plagsnork – as Blinky and AAARRRGGHH's son. The newly forged family was given many "congratulations" and one "whatever".

Krax seemed to be the only one concerned.

"You … do know humans don't tend to live more than a century?" he asked Blinky gently. "If that."

Blinky huffed and neatly sidestepped Jim's actual lifespan. "I assure you AAARRRGGHH and I discussed all possible concerns before approaching Jim."

Krax shook his head. "You're both braver trolls than I."

"Vendel!" cried Blinky, spotting the Elder across the pub. "AAARRRGGHH and I have exciting news!"

"You're finally getting married?" Vendel guessed dryly.

"Close!"

AAARRRGGHH nudged Jim forward. "Meet our son, Jim."

Vendel dropped his mug and coughed. He pounded on his chest a few times and cleared his throat. "I see."

"We've adopted him," said Blinky boastfully.

"Yes, I inferred as much," Vendel said. "Well, congratulations, I suppose." He gave Jim a little nod. "Welcome to Trollmarket, Jim Galadrigal."

"Thank you, Vendel."

+=+

The Soothscryer rumbled into position the moment Jim set foot in the Hero's Forge.

"Oh, sure, now you guys wanna talk to me."

He climbed the statue and put his hand in its mouth, which still unsettled him. The room around him went dark and blue, stars lighting the ceiling.

"Jim!"

Even if he'd heard that voice before, the happy tone would've made it hard to recognize. The Ghost Council was not usually pleased with him.

A spectral troll faded into existence and held out four arms as though for a hug.

"Welcome to the family, youngling!"

"What?"

"Blinkous hasn't gotten around to teaching you about me yet, and I'm sure Dictatious had the sense not to endanger himself mentioning a Trollhunter ancestor," the ghost said casually. "I'm your great-great-grandfather, Araknak Galadrigal. More famously known as Araknak the Agile. I was the Trollhunter after Maddrux the Many, I know you've heard of them."

"Uh, maybe?" The name sounded familiar but Jim couldn't place it.

"The Battle of Doomscavern," said another ghost, who didn't bother manifesting beyond a flicker of floating light.

"Oh, right." Jim had read that one out loud, months ago, for Blinky to test his trollish literacy (and deliberately messed part of it up so Blinky wouldn't realize how literate Jim was).

"I've been keeping an eye on my descendants as best I can, though the Amulet," said Araknak. "Very happy Blinkous decided to adopt you! If my parents' ghosts were in here, they'd be so excited. With that scholastic mind of yours, you were obviously meant to be a Galadrigal."

"Says the troll who became a warrior because he didn't think he was fit for academics," sneered another ghost light.

"I could outwit you any day, Spar!" Araknak snapped. To Jim, he added, "I was, in the human terms, an odd duck. My parents were proud of me anyway. They used to follow me around to watch me fight things. I suppose you should expect that from Blinkous twice over, now."

"I guess."

Jim climbed down from the Soothscryer but didn't take Araknak up on that hug he still had his arms open for. The ghost shrugged his upper shoulders and let his arms fall.

"So, since I'm here," said Jim, "do you have any advice about the Triumbric Stones?"

Deya the Deliverer manifested beside Araknak. Jim recognized her from her displayed body, and a few illustrations.

"If you ever meet Merlin, punch him in the face," she ordered Jim. "This could've ended a lot sooner if he'd just given the stones to the Trollhunter instead of hiding them."

"In fairness, that might've been Tellad-Urr the Terrible," said Araknak.

"No," said a different Trollhunter, Jim wasn't sure which one, "if one of the stones is Gunmar's Eye, it would've been Deya, because that happened when he usurped Orlagk."

Deya growled and punched her palm. "I should've hit the wizard harder, then."

"So aside from punching Merlin," Jim said.

Deya cut him off. "The Eye is Gunmar's blind spot. Your armour got dimmer when your dad was carrying you back to the library the other day, so you weren't as easy to spot. See if you can go full invisible."

"It wouldn't have activated in the Forge because you weren't trying to hide from anyone there," added Araknak. "Maybe in a sparring match, but not with just the equipment."

Deya chuckled. "Unless you, what's the term, Epic Failed and were so embarrassed the invisibility kicked in."

Jim's heart sped up with excitement. "I have a stealth mode now? That's perfect! I mean, not super useful against Gunmar unless I'm back in the Darklands, but, for other things!"

"Yeah, I would've loved a stealth mode at your age," Deya agreed.

"… I'm in my four-hundreds," said Jim, suspecting Deya was misreading him as an adolescent or younger child rather than a young adult.

"I know. My four-hundreds sucked."

Araknak folded three of his arms together and tapped his chin with his upper hand. "That's right, you were Jim's age when you started trying to re-enter troll society, weren't you?"

Deya kicked him. Araknak shrunk down to a wisp of light before her foot could connect. Deya smacked him in the back of the head when he reformed.

"I deserved that," Araknak admitted easily.

Jim was confused. He'd heard and read a few stories about Deya, but all of them were about her time as a Trollhunter.

"Were you … temporarily banished, or something?"

"I was raised by humans," said Deya. "Kinda like you were, except they knew I was a troll."

"You're a Changeling too?!" asked Jim eagerly. No wonder her pre-Trollhunter life was undocumented –

"Nah. It's just a thing that happened sometimes. Fleshbags can't exactly tell Gumm-Gumms and any other trolls apart, so they'd attack our villages in, what'd they call it, 'pre-emptive self-defence'. Sometimes they'd keep a whelp or two alive as an exotic pet."

"Oh." Well, that was sickening. Not shocking, considering everything Jim knew about human history, but sickening.

"That's probably how Morgana got troll whelps to experiment on in the first place before she allied with the Gumm-Gumms," Deya continued.

Jim growled reflexively at Deya's insulting tone when speaking of the Pale Lady, but her hypothesis did seem likely. Although Morgana hadn't successfully developed the Changelings until after making her alliance with Orlagk the Oppressor, she had been experimenting with transmuting living stone into flesh and back again for centuries prior to that.

"Anyway, I escaped after a couple hundred years, and met trolls again when I was about your age, but obviously I didn't really fit in anymore, and I didn't luck into an adoption. I didn't even know my real name until the Amulet called me a few centuries later."

Jim cringed in sympathy.

"Then I soundly thrashed anyone who doubted me, killed a bunch of monsters, punched a wizard, saved the world, and became one of the most revered Trollhunters ever, the end."

"You forgot leading the migration to this Heartstone and founding a new Trollmarket," said Araknak.

"That part was honestly super tedious."

"True."

"Hey!"

"We were all watching, remember? The peace was refreshing at first, but the squabbles you were called to resolve …"

Araknak and Deya both shuddered.

"Worst part of being the Trollhunter."

"And how."

Jim was only half-listening now, trying to visualize himself translucent like the ghosts. Hide me, hide me …

He watched his hands. They weren't fading away. The fingertips of his gauntlets might have gotten a little darker?

The memory-replay-cloud, or vision-window, or whatever it was, appeared, showing Jim on AAARRRGGHH's back. Jim studied the image.

The silver parts of his armour had a greenish tinge, which might have just been a reflection of AAARRRGGHH's fur colour, and the blue light from the plates' etchings had faded out.

The black scale mail, visible here and there at the joints and gaps where armour plates met, was maybe a little closer to gray than black? The image was a bit washed-out, though. But it would make sense in a stealth mode, because gray blended into the shadows better than a true black.

"So that's another benefit to stealth," said Deya brightly. "People can't find you to ask you to deal with petty stuff."

+=+

While walking home, Jim considered who to tell, and how to tell them, about his new relatives.

His human friends should know, of course, because they spoke to Blinky and AAARRRGGHH regularly. They'd all be happy for him.

Enrique might get jealous, but if Claire knew, then he was likely to find out, so Jim should probably take the initiative of telling him.

Nomura, he probably should not tell. Jim's experiences with Trollmarket were basically the opposite of hers – or so the gossip chain implied; it wasn't like she ever confided in him about it personally – so she'd probably get bitter. A bitter Nomura was a violent Nomura.

Stricklander would probably find it hilarious. Jim's infiltration of Trollmarket had exceeded expectations in all regards.

(Hopefully he'd find it funny … Jim had some time to work out exactly how to tell him, at least.)

Jim was so concerned with how his fellow Changelings might react, it did not occur to him to worry about how his mother would feel.

+=+

"What were you doing in Trollmarket today?" Barbara asked, cutting up her steak.

"AAARRRGGHH and Blinky adopted me," said Jim brightly. Barbara dropped her cutlery. "It's mostly a bureaucratic thing, to give me a place in Trollmarket besides of my job. Jim Galadrigal might have a say in discussions that Jim Lake Junior wouldn't even be allowed to listen in on."

If Barbara had taken a bite already she might've choked on it. Jim had gotten adopted? He'd changed his name? What next, was he going to move into Trollmarket full-time?

She blinked quickly to avoid tearing up. Jim reached over but stopped before touching her hand.

"How could you make a decision that big without telling me?" she demanded. "I know, I know, you're technically an adult and don't need permission, but – this is a big deal, Jim! You could've at least told me before you said yes."

Oh, my God, I've become my mother. That was nearly what her mom had said when Barbara called to say she was spending a semester in Rome.

"Do you …" Oh, no, the tears were coming. "Do you not see me as a mom anymore?"

Jim gasped.

"This doesn't – Blinky said, troll adoption doesn't mean cutting any ties you had before," he said. "And, I, I didn't want to push it, but, I don't really know how you feel about me. Now that you know what I am."

AAARRRGGHH and Blinky know what I am, and offered me a place in their home, and you found out what I was and kicked me out, was unspoken, but Barbara heard it loud and clear.

She grabbed her son's hand, still on the table so close to hers.

"You've been my son for sixteen years – I'm sorry I took the truth as badly as I did but I swear I didn't just stop caring about you. And I should've told you that sooner, but I didn't know how you felt about me, either. Did – did you ever see me as a mom? Or just some human you were playing house with to keep your cover?"

"What?!" Both Jim's hands were on Barbara's now. They had a crushing grip on each other and were staring straight into each other's eyes. Jim's eyes glowed red. He was tearing up, too. "Mom – Mom, I got so, so attached. I'm not, I wasn't, supposed to be, but – it's an open secret for Changelings, we always get attached to our host families. You mean the world to me."

Almost as quickly as it exploded, the tension in the room started to drain away.

"I guess we should've talked about that sooner," Barbara admitted. "In … in the interests of full disclosure, I've been scared to bring it up. As long as I didn't ask, I wouldn't have to hear … an answer I didn't want to hear."

"Same," said Jim. He looked like he was trying to smile; with his red eyes and the tear-tracks on his upper cheeks it came across rather like a grimace. "So … we're still a family?"

"We're still a family."

"Finally!" barked Draal from the basement. "Now you can stop shying away from each other."

Barbara jumped as their lodger reminded her of his existence. Jim blinked and his eyes turned blue again. They both laughed.

Barbara made a mental note to check out some of those family therapy books at the library again. She doubted anything had been written about her specific situation – "I recently found out I had adopted my child, who has now also been adopted by someone else, and I don't know what to feel about that second part" – but at least there should be some advice on 'communication with your teenager'. And maybe 'co-parenting'.

+=+

Previous Chapter (Jim fights Blango for the Killstone)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Claire and Not Enrique debate his name)

Jim and Barbara's talk was supposed to drag out a lot longer and have more tension, for the first part since neither of them really wanted to be the one to bring this up and for the second part because there was a lot of emotional ground to cover, but then feelings got intense and they both blabbed quickly.

I've got some new ideas, based on Wizards – some of them are here in Deya's backstory – but I think I'll wait until the movie comes out before fully updating the fic's outline again. As I believe I've said before, I am not keeping all of it; I've gotten a few comments asking if I'll be incorporating aspects of Wizards into this story, and my answer remains "some but not all". (For example, this timeline continues to have Trollhunters prior to Deya.)

Some elements from the spinoff novels and comics appear in this chapter: Araknak the Agile being an ancestor of Blinky's (though the exact generations were not spelled out in that comic), Barbara spending a semester studying in Rome, and Shmorkrarg being a common trollish name.

#Becoming The Mask chapters #Changeling Jim #Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #My Fanfiction #Monday is fanfic day!#family #adoption #AAARRRGGHH #Blinkous Galadrigal #Araknak the Agile #Deya the Deliverer #Dr Barbara Lake #TOA novels and comics #toaWizards #except not really

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hoekaashi · 4 years

Text

Rubber Ducks and Demons

Summary: Kuroo felt like pranking his roommate, Bokuto, starting a prank war. Was he taking it too far by trying to make Bokuto go insane? Word Count: 1.5k Read on Ao3

This started off as a simple joke. Kuroo replaced the shaving cream with whipped cream just to see if Bokuto would notice. He got his answer when Bokuto came running out of the shower with the can in one hand and his other holding up the towel wrapped around his hips. It wasn’t the best time for his roommate to have discovered the prank seeing as he had a small study group over, getting ready for midterms. Kuroo’s mouth was slightly agape as he processed what was happening. Bokuto, on the other hand, didn’t care because all he wanted to do was shave, but now he was sticky. It was awkward for the group after that and no matter how many times he apologized to his group, he knew they would never come to his place to study again.

Now, a month later, it had turned into a full on prank war. The pranks didn’t stop once they left the apartment either. There was not a safe place for either of them. Bokuto put a red sock in Kuroo’s whites while doing the laundry and all of his white shirts - including his lab coat - had turned various shades of pink. So Kuroo bought a Sports Illustrated magazine and placed it in Bokuto’s bag instead of his notebook. The sight of Bokuto turning various shades of red had Kuroo clutching his stomach from laughter. It was hard for him to explain to his female project partner why he had the magazine in the first place and not his notes. She was unimpressed and from there, he decided to up his game.

When Kuroo was showering, Bokuto changed his ringtone and turned the volume up all the way. Kuroo was in a lecture, falling asleep listening to his professor talk about glycolysis and the Krebb’s cycle which was easy to do in a class of three hundred students. He woke up a bit when someone’s phone started ringing, the sounds of a female orgasming filling the lecture hall. Kuroo immediately sat up when he realized it was his phone. He had a quick debate whether he should let it ring since it was in his bag, or if he should turn it off. Choosing to do the former, since there weren’t many students around him and the lecture hall was now filled with laughter, he waited until it stopped ringing. Making sure no one was looking at him, he took out his phone and put it on silent, not missing the {1 missed call from Bokuto}.

The plan was simple. Drive Bokuto insane. But slowly. Kuroo ordered some rubber ducks from Amazon. He took out all of their stuff from both of their toiletry baskets in the bathroom and filled it with the ducks. He noticed Bokuto staring at it one day as he walked past the open bathroom door, but neither of them said anything. When he got bored, Kuroo decided to rearrange them. One day, they were stacked in a pyramid on the floor next to the door. Another day, he set up a chase scene around the tub. He also had them get married and start a cult.

“Bro, can you stop with the ducks? I had a girl over last night and she left when she saw them,” Bokuto said with a pout.

Kuroo raised an eyebrow. “The rubber ducks? I thought those were yours…”

“Why would I buy a shitload of rubber ducks?” he asked, confused.

“I thought you wanted them as company when you took baths.” Kuroo shrugged.

Bokuto stared at his roommate in confusion. That was when Bokuto started bugging out. He thought the apartment was haunted since neither of them bought the ducks.

Kuroo decided to do even more by having the ducks reenact famous movie scenes. His favorite was when he filled up the water and had the ducks act out the scene of Rose on the wooden door and Jack in the water from the Titanic with dead ducks upside down in the water.

That one almost got Bokuto. He came running out of the bathroom saying that the ghost was increasing their water bill and killing the ducks. It took everything in Kuroo not to burst out laughing.

He wanted Bokuto to cry. Remembering a scary story he heard for his youth, Kuroo positioned the ducks as if they were coming out of the shower drain. Bokuto was close to the point of showering at the gym locker room. Kuroo needed something to push him over the edge. Placing another order for ducks (unfortunately for Bokuto, you could buy them wholesale), Kuroo patiently waited for them. Once he got them, he began with his new plan. Over the next few days, he had the ducks traveling out of the tub, into the rest of the bathroom. Bokuto became more jumpy and kept talking about figuring out what the ghost wanted. It got to the point where he was talking to his classmates and friends about it. He even brought it up during his professor’s office hours, which didn’t end well for either of them.

As he was scrolling on a clothing website, Kuroo saw an ad for a larger rubber duck with a king’s crown, scepter, and cape. He immediately clicked on it and placed an order. Oh how he loved Prime’s two-day delivery.

When Bokuto was out of their apartment for class, Kuroo set up the king duck on top of a thick body sponge with a few regular sized rubber ducks around the king as its guard. Then he proceeded to line up all the other ducks in the tub in small groups.

“Kuroo bro I think the ghost wants to take over this apartment as a king!” Bokuto shouted, running out of the bathroom. He had come back from his class and extra study session exhausted. It was well-known that he didn’t have the biggest attention span and learning and studying for four hours straight was too much for his little brain.

“What are we gonna do?” Kuroo asked. He had perfected his acting since this had been going on for about two and a half months now.

“We need to call like a ghost buster or priest or something.”

Kuroo was not expecting that response. “Bro, isn’t that a bit too much for one ghost?”

“No. It’s in the bathroom for now, but I’ve been reading about this and the way it’s moving things around…” He sat down on the couch next to Kuroo. “It could be a demon,” he whispered.

Another response he wasn’t expecting. “A demon?”

“Yeah. If it is, it could be trying to attach it’s soul to the ducks and make one us its host. I don’t wanna be demon food bro.”

Kuroo figured out the next step in his plan. He found even larger rubber ducks, one that took up all the space in the sink and ordered several of those. He placed one in the sink, one in the toilet, one in the bath, one in the kitchen sink and one in the oven. Kuroo had hidden all the small rubber ducks under his bed in his room.

Bokuto’s reaction was even better than he imagined. His roommate was almost in tears because he thought the demon was growing more powerful and merged the small ducks in bigger ones. Kuroo did his best to convince Bokuto to not contact the Pope. He had to admit, he was enjoying this far more than he thought.

Kuroo came back from his first final exam knowing he didn’t do as well as he could’ve. The damn prank ended up wasting a lot of his time that he could’ve used to study. But what was done was done. He headed into the bathroom after dropping his stuff in his room and did a double take. Bokuto heard Kuroo’s “SHIT” from his room and came over to inspect what had happened. Both of them stared at the giant inflatable rubber duck in the middle of their bathroom. Kuroo didn’t buy this…

“The demon is getting stronger, bro! I think we’re gonna die!” Bokuto started freaking out.

“What the fuck is going on?” Kuroo’s mind was reeling. He had no idea where the inflatable duck came from. The ducks he had placed around the bathroom and kitchen were missing as well. He hadn’t touched them. Was there really a demon?

“Bro.” He looked at Bokuto who was wearing a huge grin on his face.

Kuroo’s look of shock changed to confusion. “What?”

“You just got punked,” Bokuto said.

“What?”

“I got you.” Bokuto burst into laughter.

“Huh?”

Once Bokuto finished laughing, he explained. “I told Akaashi about everything and he eventually told me you were behind it. He saw you picking up packages the same day or the day before a new change took place. So he told me to prank you back. I came up with the demon part, cool huh?”

Kuroo stood there dumbstruck as he processed the information. “Did you just… use my own prank to prank me?”

Bokuto broke out in laughter once again.

“Dude… you really got me.”

Bokuto held out his hand. “Truce?”

“Truce,” Kuroo said as he shook his roommate's hand. “My grades suffered because of this.”

“Wow, Mr. A plus now has regular A’s,” Bokuto mocked.

“If I wanna go to med school, I need the best grades.” Kuroo crossed his arms across his chest. “And I got B’s, not A’s.”

#haikyuu!!#kuroo tetsurou #bokuto kotaro #kuroo #bokuto #hq #haikyuu fic #hq fic #hq imagines #haikyuu imagines

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clevercatchphrase · 4 years

Text

2019 year in review

So… The 2010’s are almost over. Huh. What a decade it’s been. Hard to comprehend how much has changed in 10 years. I can barely believe that I was in high school at the beginning of this decade, and now I’m a college graduate with 2 degrees who’s been working at the same job for the last 3 years. But trying to summarize the past 10 years in a single post is a good way to give myself an existential crisis, so let’s not do that! Instead, let’s just focus on 2019 because there has been more than enough shit that’s happened to me in this year to talk about.

PART 1 OF 2: 2019 AND 2020 GOALS AND RESOLUTIONS

Huh, looking back through my archives, I apparently didn’t make a tumblr post about my goals this year. I definitely had some, though. Lemme list ‘em off real quick, and then we’ll go through them point by point.

1) Pay off all my student loans 2) Finish some song comics 3) Make art for my Redbubble account 4) Finish the first rough draft/script of a game I wanted to make 5) Practice ASL 6) Sew some stuffed animals 7) Finish some fan fictions 8) Work on Ghost Switch 9) AMVs 10) Do some original writing 11) Make illustrations for my fan fictions

Okay, first off, the student loans. I was actually SO CLOSE to successfully completing this one bUT THEN MY CAR HAD TO BE A WHINEY PISS BABY AND HAVE ITS ALTERNATOR DIE ON ME WHILE I WAS ON THE HIGHWAY AND THEN A BLOW OUT THREE WEEKS LATER.

GOD, if I had to summarize this year in two words, for me it would be “Car troubles”. I swear I spent more on auto repair in the first third of this year than I ever have just freakin’ OWNING a car. All four of my tires had to be replaced, my alternator failed and my car literally just SHUT OFF while I was driving, and I was barely able to coast into a gas station. Both my front breaks and rear breaks were worn down the metal and I only learned this when my car was barely able to stop after I had to slam the petal down full force! I went in for an oil change, and they found some problems and then I didn’t get my car back for three days! I don’t even like owning a car! I hate driving! I hate my country’s refusal to provide universal, free public transportation! I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS!

Oh-kay… number 2. Finish some song comics. I didn’t finish any. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t work on them. I have made tiny progress, but that’s certainly better than no progress. One of these song comics I hope to be realizes is going to be a collab with one of my friends. It’ll be a long-time coming as it’s pretty low priority for the both of us, but if anyone else out there was disappointed with KH3’s ending, we’re gonna have ya’ covered… With SONG!

3. Make some redbubble art. I actually did this one! Not in the way I expected, but I added (technically) 3 new designs to my redbubble in the middle of the year. If you like butterflies and dragons, I got some product for you~!

Number 4, finish a script for a game I want to make. I… thought about this. I thought about this a lot, but I never put pen to paper, so… oops. It almost happened! I debated making this my main writing project for NaNoWriMo this year, but ended up having more inspiration for another story. Maybe next year? (god, I hope not. I don’t want to wait a full year just to write something)

Number 5, practice ASL. I just straight up didn’t do this and I only have myself to blame. Still keepin’ up that Danish Duolingo streak, though. 4 years going strong and not a day missed yet.

Number 6, sew some stuffed animals. Again, another one I just straight up didn’t do, but I have an excuse of trying to save money while my car crashed and burned in every other sense except literal this year. Hopefully 2020 will be different. I’ll definitely be able to pay off this last loan within the first half of 2020, and then I can start saving for whatever I want to buy.

Finish some fan fictions was number 7, and I did this! Well, I only finished, 1, but it was a story I’ve been working on for over 3 years, and it came out to over 200 THOUSAND words long, which is the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I’m quite proud of myself. Now that the big story is out of the way, and I’ve gotten into a good rhythm of working on Ghost Switch, maybe I can squeeze in some short writing sessions more frequently. (either that, or just wait for my car to break down again and then go on a writing spree in a pepboys. The lord and the fan fic discord know that’s solely why I finished my other fic this year)

Speaking of Ghost Switch, working on it was a goal this year too, and I did that! I kept it up all year and took a vacation in November and it was wonderful. While the major plot points have been in place since before I started drawing, I still need to script each arc beyond Snowdin, but hey, by the time we get there, it’ll be 2022 so I got time. (Note, don’t do this, kids. Script your stories and comics thoroughly before publishing. The road I’m on is paved with misery and pain and it will only end in tears unless I change lanes soon)

Number 9, amvs. Do people make AMVs anymore? Idk… the last one I made was... Jesus, 5 years ago? (it was a gravity falls/fall out boy crossover, if you were curious) I’ve been wanting to do 2 more for just as long, but in order for me to do that, I’d have to spend time re-watching the shows to find the footage, and then actually edit them together, and I just don’t…. feel like it. Maybe someday, but not any day soon.

10; do some original writing. I did this! For nanowrimo! I wrote the first draft of some original fiction I’ve been planning for a year or two now and it completely sucks! But it’s on paper now and I’m happy. Will I revise and edit it? Sure, but not for a while. I want to let it sit and forget about it and look at it with new eyes months from now so I can be sure I can make it better when time comes to rewrite.

11, make illustrations for my fan fics. Now that You Monster is done, I want to go back and add pictures to it. I didn’t do any this year, but I did keep a list of scenes I wanted to draw, so I have plenty of ideas to do as warm up sketches next year~ I kinda want to stream them~

So, that was 11 goals, and I successfully fulfilled 4 of them! That’s! Not a very good ratio… QmQ So, goals for 2020. Some I’m gonna keep from this year, some I’m gonna drop and some I’m gonna add. In short I would like to,

1) Finish paying off that last student loan 2) Put more stuff on my redbubble 3) Illustrate my own fan fics 4) Sew at least one stuffed animal 5) Make an enamel pin 6) Read one new book a month 7) Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic 8) Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make 9) Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch 10) Boost my patreon

Most of these I think are pretty self-explanitory, but I’ll go into detail just a bit because I’m on a roll and typing my thoughts helps me feel less alone in the middle of the night when you’re super tired and you know you should probably go to sleep, but the toddler in you is throwing a tantrum and doesn’t wanna go to sleep just yet, but you can’t fight the progression of time either way.

Number 1- I should be able to reach this goal by the end of March. End of June at the absolute latest. Once that goal is met, my secret new year’s resolution will be unlocked as well!

Number 2- I want to put more art of my OCs on redbubble. These OCs are tied to the game I want to make. There’s already some art of them up there, but I want at least one piece for each character.

Number 3- Mostly for You Monster. Embrace the cardinal rule of fan fic and apply it to fan art. If you want to read about see art about certain ideas, scenarios, or what-ifs, you gotta make it yourself.

Number 4- I have 3 potential ideas to sew. One is definitely leagues easier than the other two and will probably be chosen if/when I have the time and materials.

Number 5- This year I got really, REALLY into the idea of making enamel pins. Unfortunately it’s a pretty big investment (like, $350 to make 100 pins you might not even sell). If this happens, it’ll probably be towards the end of the year, and if I get enough interest. I’m currently torn between making an original enamel pin and one based off Undertale. We’ll just have to see where this goes.

Number 6- Back in 2018 when I paid off one of my many student loans, I rewarded myself by spending over 200 dollars in used books. All these books had a theme; they were focused on dragons because I have a problem. I have not yet read a single one of these books I have bought, and I would like to fix that. I have, like, 20 unread dragon books, and even if I only read 12 out of 20, I would consider that an amazing accomplishment and money well spent.

Number 7- I currently have about 8 different WIPs I could work on. (well, I don’t know if I can even call them wips. More like, a general idea and a title written down.) I want to build good writing habits, and if I can write just 200 words a day, hell, even 200 words a week and just one of my 8 stories done, I would consider this goal met.

Number 8- I’m torn between making my game in unity or ren’py. I know jack shit about both. Ren’py is more user friendly, but unity will allow me more customization. (Lol, can you guess what kind of game I want to make yet?)

Number 9- I really just want the full story to be done and written incase anything goes horribly terribly wrong in my life and I find myself unable to continue making ghost switch in comic form. Then at least I can finish the story by other means, you know?

Number 10- It always surprises me every month when I get that patreon email saying I got paid. Sure, I don’t even make double digits on it, but it still awes me enough to know that people out there like my work enough to throw me a tip. I can’t thank my patrons enough for supporting me and I hope to one day be in such a good place I can update my comic/song comics/writing frequently enough without need for goals or milestones. But until that magical day arrives, money is always a great incentive for anything, I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ALRIGHT. PART 2 OF 2: SHIT THAT HAPPENED TO ME IN 2019

Cheesus crust what a year. This year started off great! Back in late January Kingdom Hearts 3 FINALLY released, and let me tell you a little story. Back in the summer of 2006 I was a 13 year old middle schooler with no way of making money other than by doing house hold chores at a rate of 25 cents a task. A few weeks ago, I had a sleep over at a friend’s house and they let me play this weird game called “Kingdom Hearts” and god, I was instantly hooked on it. That summer, I did over 800 chores, enough to earn myself 200$ and buy myself a playstation 2 (just in time for the ps3 to come out, gg me) The only games I had for the ps2 were KH1, 2, Re:CoM and Okami, and I beat them all… except Okami. Miffed that the PS3 wouldn’t allow for backwards compatibility, little 13-year-old me made a promise. I looked myself in the mirror and said “I will not buy the next playstation console until KH3 comes out, AND BOY that was probably a good choice for me to make with my level of gaming. I’m even less of a casual gamer than the average casual gamer, but I have been waiting 13 years for this piece of closure, and I even told my friends and family that “the day Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out is the day I will buy a playstation 4”. My dad apparently thought this was the funniest shit, because he literally took the day off from work that Friday to drive me on base to get the game and console (he thought it would be less crowded than a regular walmart, I suppose). I paid $400 on a ps4 pro while he bought me the game. Again, I have an impecible sense of timing seeing as the PS5 is now right on the horrizion, but just like before, I’m not buying a new console until the next KH game is released. See you in 2045, sony~. While I was at the gamestop on base, I also picked up Okami HD and The Last Guardian. For all of February and even early March, I took my time playing through KH3. And…! It was the best disappointment I’ve ever played. After a month away from gaming, I started The Last Guardian and finished it in a couple weeks. I love trico and would die for him, but trying to get 100% completion on that game is udder insanity. Okami, HD, however… again after a month break after finishing TLG, I started replaying Okami. I think I had only managed to get about halfway through the game before I just… stopped playing it on my ps2 version. I am currently SO CLOSE to getting a 100% on the ps4 version. In fact, I’ve beaten the game. I only (techinically) need 2 more trophies to be done; 1st, escape the water dragon without being eaten, 2nd, I need to beat that dumb stupid race with Kai, in order to get the last bead on my rosary, as well as the top dog trophy. I hate her so much. I hate this race so much. It’s awful and bad.

Flash forward to December! Earlier this month I was at Barnes and Noble, buying myself a planner for 2020. I exit the store and notice that there’s a gamestop across the street. For shits and giggles I go inside to look at their game selection, and I find KH 1.5 and 2.5. Now, my PS2 died a few years back (it just won’t read my discs anymore, I don’t know why) and I haven’t been able to replay any of my other kingdom hearts games since. If you had seen me the day I finished kingdom hearts 3, after the ending credits rolled, you would have heard me say “Man…. I wish I could play kingdom hearts 2 again”. AND NOW I CAN, ALONG WITH BBS which I had never even played yet, but knew the story of. I’ve restarted playing kh1, and I was so happy to hear that familiar music when I booted the game up for the first time. While at the game stop, I also picked up Rime and Tearaway, two games that had looked interesting to me. At the time of writing, I’ve finished Rime and am 25% done with tearaway. Rime was…. An interesting experience. I learned about it through Jacksepticeye’s channel a couple years back and thought the art style was enticing. For a super casual gamer like me, I found the puzzles just the right level of challenging and exploring was a blast! The music gave me VERY strong Princes Mononoke vibes, but the overall story left something to be desired. Overall I had fun, and enjoyed completing this game to 100%. Now for tearaway. Can I just say this game is super fucking adorable? I know the original was on the ps vita and the gameplay there was arguably more diverse and imaginative, but this game is just so fucking cute I don’t care?? ALSO, this game’s sound track is ABSOLUTELY incredible and I’ve only heard the first fourth of it! Listen to The Orchards, Pig Riding, and Gibbet Hill Pilgrimage for a taste of their wonderful beats and fantastic use of string and woodwinds! God, I’m so excited to get some more games in 2020. I’m proud to say I currently own more ps4 games than I ever did with my ps2 (and now the majority AREN’T Kingdom Hearts titles!), and I’m still hoping to play Journey, The Witness, and Abzu before everything becomes ps5.

What else happened to me this year. Oh, I went to a doctor for, like, the first time in seven years. I also had my blood drawn for the first time ever, and the nurse said the most disturbing thing to me while she did it. Now, whenever I get shots, I refuse to look. I did that here. So she thought it would be appropriate to say to me “Can you feel your blood leaving your body?” Lady… You can clearly see I am uncomfortable with what is happening here. Why, of all the things you could say, did you choose to say that. Unfortunately, while my doctor is nice, she keeps wanting to run tests on me, that I just cannot afford with my current salary, and my monthly insurance is about to go up to 200$ a month, so I’ve cancelled my next appointment with them, and don’t plan to go back until it’s absolutely necessary. Capitalism is fun, guys. Preventative healthcare is for wusses.

I started going to a chiropractor on a monthly basis. Story time- I don’t know when it started, but sometime late last November I began to notice that I had a headache that just... wasn’t... going away? And each day it was starting to get a little worse. It made it hard for me to find a comfortable position to sleep, it made it hard for me to be in bright areas or move fast. So I said to myself “Okay, if this headache persist through the month of december, then something is proooobably wrong and I should go see someone about it. And hoo-boy were thing wrong with me. By the time this January rolled around, I couldn’t even stay on my feet for more than a few hours without it physically hurting to just BREATHE. So I started going to this chain called The Joint (A+ name, I know). THey aksed me “How are you doing?” I said “I’m in pain” and they said “We can help fix that!”. I’ve only been to a chiropractor once before in my life a few years back after my freshmen year of college because I began to notice my hips weren’t able to support me? LIke, I would lie on my back, and I couldn’t push my hips up when my feet were flat on the floor. I also couldn’t climb anything steep, because my legs just couldn’t push me up if my knee had to bend more than 90 degrees when I lifted my leg up. (Turned out both my hips were apparently out of place). This time only one of my hips were out of place (which they fixed. they said one of my legs was an inch “longer” than the other because I had been leaning all my weight on one leg when I stand). But two of my ribs were apparently “Stuck” which was why it was hurting for me to just breathe, and one of my shoulders was missaligned too, causing one of my trap muscles to constantly be streched, which was pulling on my skull, and causing the headache. Anyway, after they popped all my bones back into place, I still felt terrible, but by god, that night was the first time in weeks I was able to sleep without a migrane. A chiropractor can’t magically heal your arthritis, or fibro, but I definately think they have merit to keeping your posture good and helping your body with things like circulation. 10 outa 10, would recomend. It’s all the fun of getting your neck snapped without the dying!

Earlier this month I got together with two of my friends and we baked Christmas cookies. It was a lot of fun, as well as a great learning experience. A member of my family has a gluten allergy, so we used rice flour for most of the cookies. We learned this is a bad idea! The cookies will just fall apart! A few member’s in one of the friend’s family have nut allergies. Other friend and I knew this and were careful to avoid cookie recipes with nuts, bUT THEN COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT ALMOND MILK AND ALMOND EXTRACT COUNT AS NUT. IN FACT, ALMOND EXTRACT IS PURE CONCENTRATED NUT JUICE AND WE FELT SO BAD FOR ALMOST ACCIDENTALLY POISONING THE FAMILY.

Earlier this year me and these same friends took a field trip to Hobby Lobby and just dicked around the store for a couple of hours. It was super fun, 11 outa 10, would recommend, a great date idea for your artsy S.O.

Back in May I went to a wedding for the first time in my life. (well, not true, but the first one I could remember) we left at 5am, drove 5 hours to get there, hung out at a zoo and spent the night in a la quinta before the wedding day. I slept on the bathroom floor because my mom was snoring too loud in the main room and keeping me awake, and the rest of the day was just spent me trying to keep myself together because I was pissed off and tired.

Other than all of that, nothing really major happened to me this year. I guess one more thing I’ve tried to do this year is started the process of breaking certain internet addictions so I can use my free time for more personal projects. Seriously, I found myself watching way too much youtube and following blogs that didn’t even make me happy. I had a personal intervention with myself where I sat down and asked myself, “why do you watch these videos and youtubers? Why do you follow these blogs? Do you really enjoy their content? Do you really care? If you stopped watching/following them, would you even notice?” After critically thinking it over, I’ve found myself unfollowing several channels and blogs and suddenly I feel so much happier. I thought I would miss it, but I realized I didn’t really care if I saw their content or not. I wasn’t missing much. And now I feel like I have more time to draw, read and write. If you think you spend too much time consuming and not enough time creating, I suggest you try and de-clutter your internet habits as well. It’s done wonders to un-fuck my headspace.

And… well, that about sums up my year. How are your holidays going? Anything fun, exciting, dramatic happen to you this year? I hope your new year is warm and safe! Good night, everybody!

#new year's resolutions #year in review #long post #(seriiously this think is like 3k words)

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sanguinarius-archive · 4 years

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Hey! Could I get to know some of your headcanons about dickfigures/your designs for them? :D

ya ya sure!!!!

i already have my designs for them up if you havent seen, here they are!

as for headcanons idk how long this post will be so ill just add a read more for anyone who might not wanna scroll thru it all lol

red!!!!!

his real name is rowan bc i thought it was cute, also it means “little red one” which is eVEN BETTER

he’s nonbinary masc and bisexual! the self projection is REAL

he has adhd

most of my headcanons kinda flow into my own version of dick figures because i’m not very Satisfied with canon NJSJDNSKM so like. for example red doesn’t just kill people or whatever. he gets into fights and has scars and wears bandaids a lot bc of them

he graduated college with blue, he got a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (honestly idk how college works bc im a grade 10 baby so if thats like totally wrong just let me know also im. canadian so idk how american school system works LOL)

red got suspended a lot in high school but never expelled. mostly bc he got in fights that were mainly him protecting stacey from shitty people (he sees her as his sister so he was rlly protective) and the school wasnt really sure what else to do so they just. you know. suspended him a bunch of times hoping itd do something but it didnt

he hates his dad! reason being is bc when he was born, his dad was actually an alien able to disguise himself as human, so he wanted to take red back to his home planet cuz red turned out to be more powerful than anything his dad had ever seen. but red’s mom was like Nope, so she snuck out with him and his plush cat (kitty amazing) and they were never found. red is very close with his mom and is scared of his dad coming back someday

we know he canonically likes rlly loud music so im just gonna project here and say he’s a metalhead. at least, some form of it. he likes the alt scene music and industrial rock. examples being deftones, nine inch nails, skinny puppy, rage against the machine, kittie and others. it keeps him focused and calm

bLUE!!!

we know blue was bullied as a kid but i dont wanna say red also bullied him bc i feel like thats just wrong to me? MAYBE ITS NOT ACTUALLY but it just makes me sad so like. lets say red, being as protective as he is, stood up for blue a lot cuz he was like “oh this kid cant fight” so he knew what to do

blue dated pink for awhile but they mutually agreed to break up after blue realized this wasnt what he wanted (he came to the conclusion that he was gay, well, he knew for awhile but it was Internalized Homophobia)

he grew up in a very conservative family so to see the world completely differently by meeting red, ems (lt), pink and stacey was a very good thing for him. unfortunately even tho his family did love him, it was conditional so they stopped talking to him after he came out. thankfully he’d already graduated high school by that point

despite being emotional blue isn’t very good at understanding how he’s an emotional person. he’s able to distinct one feeling from another and analyze them, but it’s just... hard for him to kind of. process WHY he feels a certain way? which is what’s led to a lot of his struggles in getting closer with ppl

he loooves reading and writing we already know this but i mean come on. he also got a bachelor’s degree in english/ela. so he’s able to become a teacher ig but he doesn’t really want to? at least not for awhile yet

blue was ems’ first friend. at first he couldn’t understand why they had tics but decided he shouldn’t get into someone else’s business. he didn’t find it weird, just cool!

he and red would always pair up for projects if they had classes together!!!!!! blue would do the writing/research and red would do the illustrations. they always turned out really good even if it ended with red cramming it at the last minute

surprisingly hates broseph more than red. well i mean its not surprising, because broseph was always a huge DICK to him

blue’s real name is wyatt!!!!! i forget the meaning but i felt the sound of it and the meaning fit him well

piiiiink!!!!!!!!!!

she’s still in college, getting her doctorate to be an astrophysicist!

pink is very very smart and will help anyone who’s struggling with something in school. she was basically the genius who always got in the honor roll every year. but, she actually was really anxious especially with exams

pink encourages stacey to go back to school, and sometimes stacey does, but she always ends up leaving again. it’s a little stressful but pink has hope for her

she’s never drank one sip of alcohol in her entire life. she smoked weed once, but it felt weird so she didn’t do it again

ever since she and blue broke up she’s been very supportive of him bc she herself is bisexual!!! so she sees nothing weird about it. in fact, about almost a year later she started dating stacey

pink’s real name is lily. when she became friends with blue she met red through him and she was like “can i join your nickname thing” and they said “sure” so they called her pink. stacey sometimes calls her pinky or just pink but mostly lily

pink helped red with academics. even tho he was sometimes insufferable to work with (/j thats a Joke i promise she’s a very patient person) she didn’t give up on him!!!! in return he helped her out with some fitness stuff cuz pink was always insecure about gym, and later when she graduated she actually got into exercising bc of red!

she loves travelling and going for walks. she owns a lot of houseplants and she’s given them all names and takes very good care of them! she also owns an albino ball python named Velvet

STACEYYY!!!!!!!

stacey is nOT actually all about sex this time ok. i don’t like that. i mean she did have some personality in canon but it wasn’t much? anyways she just really likes to express herself thru tight/”risque” clothing like fishnets and leather and pleated skirts and thigh-highs and platform boots, all of that. basically she’s a goth girl but doesn’t really “act” like one

she’s really intelligent when it comes to animals and insects and will tell you anything you need to know. when she goes back to college she gets a degree in environmental science

stacey can play the electric and bass guitars!!!! she was in a band back in high school but it never really went anywhere beyond performances at parties in someone’s garage. not that she didn’t like it, looking back on it makes her feel happy, but she wished it continued. probably why she has a hard time going back to college bc she’s not sure what she really wants

stacey is a trans woman btw!!!!! unfortunately it was a little difficult in high school to be who she was bc some kids were jerks, but there were a lot of others who supported her which is good

she views red as her brother as well and they still hang out a lot

i haven’t really had time to focus on stacey and make headcanons and stuff for her so i don’t have a lot but... let’s say, secretly, she’s a scifi nerd. and for the sake of debate, let’s say she’s a marvel fan. if you count being a fan of deadpool as being a fan of marvel

LOVES GIRLS.... loves pink!!!

has very similar music taste to red’s!!!!!

emssss!!!!!!! (lt)

instead of being a stereotype of ppl with tourette’s syndrome, it’s just a normal thing that isn’t focused on a whole lot. it doesn’t make ems swear but if they get really really frustrated they’ll curse while doing one of their tics

ems is agender, i’d say they’re also ageless but i don’t really want to make them too “nonhuman” because i feel like that’s dehumanizing to people with tourette’s. so let’s just say most laws of existence don’t apply to them

they’re very friendly!

they’re an aspiring musician, just like in canon

ems is also big into horror movies believe it or not. they’re pretty critical of them though like most horror movie fans, and only like specific ones (i’m not a horror movie fan myself so i can’t say what Specific Ones they like ajsdhbjn just imagine they have good taste okay)

they r very artsy too and like doing crafts cause it gives them something to focus on. it’s just a hobby though it’s not something they’re Professional at

they love nature and flowers and trees and all kinds of plants and animals!!! they like to document what they see when they travel thru nature and stuff so they bring a camera with them (and their phone, but, you know whatever)

ems was never really affected by things people said to them regarding their syndrome. to them it was something they were born with, so they couldn’t bother to feel bad about themselves. in certain situations theyre able to control it but 90% of the time they don’t care about what ppl think

aaaand there u go!!! as for minor characters like raccoon, jason/trollz0r, broseph, dingleberry, they all exist (raccoon isnt a racist stereotype tho), i just dont focus on them a whole lot. most of my hcs for stacey and ems here were thought up on the spot since i havent had time to lay out all my ideas for them but i hope what i have here is good !!!!

also, red and blue ARE dating, and pink and stacey ARE ALSO dating. gay rights

#asks #dick figures #Anonymous

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comicteaparty · 5 years

Text

May 27th-June 2nd, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from May 27th, 2019 to June 2nd, 2019. The chat focused on SUPERPOSE by Joe (or Seosamh) and Anka.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on SUPERPOSE by Joe (or Seosamh) and Anka~! (https://superposecomic.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! You have until June 2nd to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. When it comes to the themes of feeling lost and finding your place in life, which character do you connect with the most? What moment of their internal struggle regarding this topic really captured your imagination and why?

ErinPtah (Leif & Thorn | BICP)

Only a couple scenes in at this point, but wow, I can't let the coloring technique go uncommented on. It's gorgeous. Changes for every environment and every time of day, presenting them with rich palettes and exquisite lighting.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. Do you think Kas will eventually adjust to life in Port City and get out more? If so, how might that change them? Overall, how do you think the nature of Port City will shape the characters as the story continues?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. How do you think Royal’s father will react to Royal’s plans with the company? How will this personally affect Royal? Further, will Royal’s father be as cool about who Rafael is related to? Also, how will Rafael’s relationship with his father affect the story?

RebelVampire

1) that scene where Royal is in the arcade teaching the kids the glitch in the game. this was the first time where i felt like we really got to see royal's soul. previously he just felt like kind of a smart air-head, but this scene made me see him in an entirely new light. there deep thoughts and grave ambition hidden under there, and the way he explained the glitch really just made me want to play glitchy games and marvel at them. plus, for comedic reasons i like the juxtaposition of the kids basically just not giving any damns about what royal is talking about. they just wanna win their game https://superpose.superposecomic.com/post/161303418270 2) its a tough choice between royal and rafael, but im gonna go with rafael. i think my favorite scenes with him in regards to being lost are when we see him in the ocean. to me those scenes are physical manifestations of what hes feeling internally, which is like a small speck alone in a vast ocean trying not to drown in everything. and honestly, what a great way to put feeling lost, because sometimes that is exactly what it feels like. plus, for me personally, i can connect with rafael's seeming lack of ambition a bit more than i connect with royal. since it's not like rafael doesn't have skills, rafael just doesnt seem to know what to do with those skills.

RebelVampire

3) Royal. I love how hyper excited Royal is about everything and just the sheer amount of ambition he has. Like, I can't not admire someone who is so sure of their own damn idea that they pursue it like their life is on the line. That being said, I also like that Royal can be a bit of a doofus and also that he still has internal struggles of his own. Like trying to find a place in the world with his dad being pretty stern and detached emotionally. 4) I do think Kas is gonna get out in Port City more, mostly probably cause Royal and Rafael will drag them around whether Kas likes it or not. Which I'm sure there will be an adjustment period, but I think eventually Kas will kind of get used to everything if only out of necessity. Plus, I think Rafael will show Kas the good spots where Kas doesn't have to be bothered by jerks. I do worry though that in the long run, the city is kind of going to continue to amplify all their internal struggles and will continue to bring those to the forefront of the story. Port City strikes me as sort of a backwater city. Like the sort of city that isn't cool enough to intense tourism but is large enough that it devours everyone into the crowd. And that's the exact sort of environment that can breed feeling lost. Plus, a lot of the random people we've seen have been kind of shitty, like drug dealers.

5) I've gotta give it to the beam https://superpose.superposecomic.com/post/183664963457 the lighting on this page takes my breath away, and the pacing leading up to the illustration is really perfect too. Especially, though, I like the little intense beam of blue at the top. Not only does it visually show off the intensity of the power, but it add that nice level of contrast that draws your eye to it. plus, great composition for this page in my opinion and a well-chosen angle. 6) Royal's father is gonna be super, duper pissed unless it makes him a lot of money. I assume he will find out before it reaches that point and immediately pull Royal out and fire everyone. Cause I do not believe Royal's father has enough faith in Royal. Which this would obviously damage their relationship, and I think Royal will have to confront the feelings of insecurity he has because of his dad and how his dad has a lot of faults. Thankfully for Rafael, I don't think the dad will care about his dad. At most, I think there will be snide remarks. As for Rafael and his dad, I think their relationship is gonna drive a wedge at some point in Rafael's plans and kind of make him have to take a step back from the project maybe. I think Rafael is taking on a lot of guilt for what his dad has done, and I think he'll need to work through that before he can truly be happy.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. What do you feel the comic has to say about family relationships and how they help define who we are? What moment in the comic stuck out to you where this theme was at the forefront?

varethane

Royal and Rafael's interactions are always engaging, though I find them also very tense most of the time haha-- they're both very intense people

RebelVampire

as much as i like Royal, I would probably be more like Kas when interacting with him. where im just kind of internally like "royal slow your roll dude"

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserves attention?

QUESTION 10. Given how different Rafael, Royal, and Kas are, what obstacles do you foresee in the three getting along? How will their personal lives affect their professional lives in this regard? Alternatively, what ways have their relationships improved that you liked?

RebelVampire

7) Probably Royal and Kas. They have such opposite personalities that I'm always interested to see how they make their relationship work, both professionally and personally. There's also just something deeply relateable I find in their struggles to communicate while both being immensely self aware that they are ill-matched in regards to their socialization styles. 8) I think the comic shows both the good and bad ways our parents morph who we are. Like Rafael is a great dude, but he clearly has some deep-seated issues that I think are largely tied into the crimes of his father and feeling like he cants escape them. But I think that is something else this comic is saying as well. That regardless of what our relationships with our families is, sometimes we need to escape and forge our own path in spite of them. For me the largest moment where this stuck out was when Royal was in the meeting in the beginning and voicing his opinion. Cause Royal seemed to understand he was in the shadow of his father, yet at the same time was desperate to break free

RebelVampire

9) I'm gonna second @ErinPtah (Leif & Thorn | BICP) and say the lighting for this question. there is just so much damn atmosphere is every scene. especially when its dark. i find a lot of comic's get really scared of making scenes too dark and worry if its not bright enough people wont see. but i feel this comic just boldly says nope and does it anyway, creating some really beautiful night scenes with dynamic light sources. <3 10) I think theres gonna be a lot more conflict with Royal in regards to Royal just being so energetic. I think Rafael and Kas will find him exhausting after a point. not to mention I get the impression Rafael and Kas are getting closer, and I think there's a point where Royal will feel like a third wheel. The largest conflict I see them having though is what to do with their project if they succeed and what to do with themselves after. Cause while at the moment they have a joint goal to focus on, once that goal is gone i think the feelings of lostness will return. As for relationship improvements, I really like Kas was able to tell Royal that Royal's friends were asshole and Royal apologized. I was sure Royal was gonna kind of try to write it off. But nope, the two came to a mutual understanding, and Royal got to grow as a person.

varethane

I love that the lighting approach is derived from film compositing and photography techniques, it gives it a richness of value and saturation that's very intense but still feels realistic

RebelVampire

thats a super eloquent way to put, @varethane

varethane

I, uhhhh, am very nervous about what's going to happen when Royal finds out that Raf stole his dog.

RebelVampire

oh good its not just me then

although im worried whats gonna happen to Royal when Raf finds out Royal's dad was responsible for why the dog was in such bad shape

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. Ultimately, do you think Royal, Rafael, and Kas will manage to bring Royal’s project to fruition? Whether success or failure, what do you think it will mean for the three of them, for the future of the company, and for the world?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. Do you think any of Rafael or Royal’s past actions seen throughout the comic before they officially meet will have future consequences? If so, how will they affect their working relationship, and how might the two find a way to work past them?

RebelVampire

11) Once again, definitely the lighting and also probably the composition. These aspects together give the comic this really unique, movie-like tone. And again, there's just so much atmosphere with these illustration techniques that it really works for what's going on with the story. 12) I think it's gonna be a partial success. I don't think they'll manage a true teleporter, but I think they'll manage something close enough that they can use it to revolutionize something? Cause what I forsee happening is that they'll run into a kink and Royal's dad will find out and say "no my dudes make this profitable." i think regardless of success or failure, the experience will still teach them all about themselves, and I think that's more important than any affect they might on a more global scale. 13) Seeing Royal and Rafael hang out more. We've seen Kas with both of them a lot, and I'd like to see those two together more. Cause I feel there's a lot of misconceptions both can work through and apologies to be had. And I think it'll be real interesting. Also, the issue of Royal's stolen doggo. 14) Yes. There is no way that doggo is not gonna be a thing. That's gonna be a hell of a confrontation. Not just cause it's understandable Royal would be mad, but I think Royal is gonna have to face some hard truths about how his dad might be an asshole. I think inevitably the two will work things out, but each is gonna have to accept that some of the people they know are assholes.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about SUPERPOSE this week! Please also give a special thank you to Joe (or Seosamh) and Anka for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked SUPERPOSE, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://superposecomic.com/

Joe and Anka’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/superpose

Joe and Anka’s Store: http://superpose.storenvy.com/

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