The Different World's Magic Is Too Far Behind

🖤🩶🤍💜

[rsushiii]

Imidietly fell in love with this itteration of Reaper

Design by @superyoumna

[sketchtoons]

TW: Death as an escape

(not in a suicidal way tho)

Yeah, I don’t know how to finish this in a way that I’m happy with.

I still like the idea and the paneling, but instead of torturing myself over it for another month, I might as well just leave it unfinished as it is.

Think of it as a forever work-in-progress, since that’s what Killer is in my eyes (not in a bad or demeaning way, we all are, in a sense, forever WIPs AHSDAHS).

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Aro

It's June, motherfuckers, and you know what that means! Apart from firing a few rent-lowering shots to filter out the chuds from my following, it's probably also a good time to post a reminder that there are many strange ways to be queer, and this is one of them.

video transcript below the cut, may be slightly inaccurate, I tend to ad-lib when reading my scripts into voiceover

It's Pride Month, so if you'll forgive me I'm taking a two minute break from the One Piece, League of Legends, Marvel Rivals, Final Fantasy and Pokémon shorts to tell you… Sylveon is trans, Taliyah is trans, everyone on the Straw Hats is queer, there are no words to describe how queer superheroes are as a concept let alone how queer they all are individually, and here's a fun fact for you: Cloud Strife's story gets ten times better when you understand it as an allegory for a trans coming out experience.

As for me, well, I'm not trans, but I do occupy my own little space in the rainbow flags which looks like this. I am aromantic.

We are generally not as visible as many of our queer siblings, probably at least partly because it's kind of a difficult identity to even discover in yourself, you basically have to prove a negative.

But what is this thing, "aromantic"? Well… okay, let's say you're a straight guy, right. You know the way you feel romantically about other men? I feel exactly the same way, and then I also feel that way about women, and then also the same way about all of the other genders.

Now, aromantic often goes along with asexual, there's a lot of co-occurrence of the two, but not always, and that is my situation. Yes to sex, no to romance, which being a man, yes, I know, that just makes me the same as 90% of the men you match on Hinge. "Ha ha ha didn't realize "fuccboi" was an orientation now," I know. I get it. I understand. I have had all the same thoughts myself, especially when I was questioning.

Which is the difficulty with being aromantic, because in order to figure out that that's what you are, you have to prove a negative. I have never been in love, and I have no reason to think I ever will be… but what if someday I meet The One??? What if there's a special divinely designated perfect soulmate out there, just waiting for me, and one day our eyes will meet across the room and it will be love at first sight forever?

And like. I can't prove that won't happen, anymore than I can prove that there isn't a flowery pink teapot currently hiding somewhere in the orbit of Saturn. And frankly, if it did happen, I wouldn't be mad. Why would I be? I would have a soulmate! That's a pretty big W, I think.

But… I've had over thirty years to encounter someone—anyone—who can spark my romantic interest, and thus far, every challenger of every gender has failed. So either I am aromantic, or else you people have a skill issue.

Anyway, like anything to do with queerness, aromantic is a sprawling and diverse spectrum. You got your aroaces, aroallos, aroflux, arospikes, demiromantics, frayromantics, grayromantics, cupioromantics, there's a whole world of different experiences present under this umbrella. For me, though, just "aromantic" is fine. That's the broad label, that's the one I fall under, that's the identity I take pride in. Happy June!

[goth-queen]

[hamletpolny]

sir, that’s my emotional support imaginary world

[dreamcore-posts]

[whiskome]

now lets talk about how to train your dragon

[provornyi]

Hello! I found your story on ao3 the other day when chapter 6 came out and finally have gotten around to catching up with it! It’s been an absolute treat and finding out there was a blog about it was even more so! (You do such good art!!)

In another post, you mentioned Fahrenheit 451 as one of your recent inspirations for the fic and I was wondering if there were any other dystopian stories you were inspired/influenced by?

I just can’t help but be reminded of watching the Pianist and other documentaries of WWII or the Cold War in history class anytime we get into the details of Chalk and Graphite’s world. A documentary with Graphite’s first hand accounts on the war and the early days of the ceasefire would be awesome. Not to mention all of Chalk’s secret escapades! It would absolutely stress me the hell out to watch but it would be beautiful. Though I can’t imagine either would be very willing to talk about it, especially Graphite…

Hey there, thanks for stopping by!

Some of the other dystopian stories I have been inspired by for this story is Fahrenheit 451 which you noticed, and also 1984 by George Orwell which I have also mentioned before too. Another that I haven't talked about before is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. That book in particular left such an impact on me that has inspired basically all of my writing since I first read it. Stranger in a Strange land by Heinlein is another favorite of mine, though I barely remember much of it anymore because I read it when I was very very young. Now that I look at my reading list, I surprisingly don't actually don't read much dystopian genre but I like classic literature which has a sort of similar vibe sometimes.

Also ooh, I don't think I've ever watched the Pianist, I for sure want to check it out now. I enjoy historical films a lot, they are some of my favorites to watch. The documentary idea is wonderful. I do sort of visualize the first two chapters of UMSFD as one when I wrote it.

[angl-0fdeath]

SILLY PIERROT X MC!!

ALSO, HE GIVES SAD CAT ENERGY HERE. I CAN'T BE THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THIS RIGHT?

Also I find this pic rlly funny HELP 💀😭🥹

[pixlokita]

Pierrotter …

[teenyagent]

And then MC jumps off the cliff and Sans ends up in the Classic universe lmao

I LOVE reluctant childhood friends to lovers!!!

Can you imagine if Sans has the same story arc as Kakashi? A serious guy that turned into a funny character after experiencing extreme trauma? Would be hilarious

Anyway, now that I de-anoned my work, here’s my concept of an undertale x naruto crossover, which takes place in a modern society that’s under utilitarian dictatorship. Neighboring countries are essentially in a cold war. Monsters are secondary citizens and all monster families are required to enroll one member to be a shinobi (ninja soldier), mages from poor families are lowkey encouraged to be a shinobi for the chance to gain privileges, and rich mage families serve as teachers/tutors/mentors who never get to see the frontlines.

Sans is actually talented in his youth, because he can actually replicate mage magic (which is different from monster magic). His attempts just look poor because it’s not natural for his magic. MC can see his potential as a fellow prodigy tho! Yall,,, my world building for their magic system— hold me back shdjdjdk

[teenyagent]

I FORGOT ABOUT APRIL FOOLS ABDHSJA

Anyway, here's my take if MC and their Sans switched places, where Sans woke up in MC's body. The soul transfer immediately healed all lethal wounds, but the blood remains lol

The year is 201X and Sans has no idea if he's still in the same universe he died from. In my headcanon, the monsters call the mountain they're trapped in a different name. I doubt the name Mt. Ebott is the same name they've called it centuries ago. So, Sans has no clue where the Underground is, not to mention the date is years back in the past.

MC!Sans is semi-immortal where his lifespan in MC's body has extended. It came to a point where he has to fake his death/go missing and build a new identity just to throw off suspicions on his immortality.

When Sans was at a loss on what to do in a new universe and in a new body, he endeavored to study whatever he wanted to study. Of course, to pay tribute to his other half, he studied human medicine as MC initially wanted to heal/save people. Bro is a genius doctor in the making, until he has to disappear and move to a new city lol

Time skip, the year is 2XXX and there's news of monsters emerging from the mountain.

Naturally, Sans has to go check it out.

Some notes:

- Sans lets the hair grow, and refuses to cut it anywhere near the neck level because he's uncomfortable with a blade near a vital part.

- He's forced to do chores, but only the bare minimum. But when it comes to food, he puts in more effort as a tribute to his brother, and due to human taste buds.

- He still likes the taste of ketchup. He just doesn't chug it down. The texture burns the throat a little because of its acidity. It wasn't a problem when he was a skeleton.

- MC is quiet, but not exactly unresponsive. They're at a resting phase where their soul has to heal from their near-death experience. The soul was cracking and was a few seconds away from breaking, until Sans' soul came and held it together.

[fireflysummers]

How do you get the Hollow Knight dialogue so beautifully perfect? I am imagining Team Cherry themselves writing the fic

Thank you for the compliment! The dialogue takes at least as long to write as the pages do to draw, so I'm glad that it's working for people!

In truth, I don't think I've quite nailed the writing style yet. The game's dialogue is very... economical? Where some characters you maybe get five lines of conversation, and yet you walk away feeling like you have a good grasp of who they are, what they want, and why. It leans heavily on its environmental art direction and character design to convey these things. There's also this rhythm to the writing that makes it feel poetic, without coming across as Fake Shakespeare.

There's lots of little tricks for this (i.e. avoiding anachronisms like "hours" or "days" as measurements of time; limiting the number of contractions; using words precisely; and monitoring the use of passive vs active voice); however, the basic technique is to communicate as much information with as few words as possible.

The writing process for this comic specifically essentially has three steps:

Blocking

I come up with a very high-level overview of the dialogue for the entire chapter, identifying who is talking to whom, what the emotional tone is, and what needs to be communicated to the audience. That last point is very important, because what needs to be communicated is oftentimes very different from what characters end up saying.

For example, the start of Chapter 6 was blocked something like this:

Lace is upset about how Hollow revealed their identity, and bullies them into trying to speak to her without realizing the strain this puts them under. Hollow attempts to talk, even though it is physically painful to do so. Lace stops them, feeling genuinely guilty for pushing them.

Scripting

This is the phase where I start hashing out the actual words that are spoken. One of the major goals of this stage is to establish an overall flow to the conversation, and the script is often accompanied with stage directions or descriptors (i.e. indicating a character is startled, or using sign language). One of the most important things to emulate from the game's writing is communicating things without explicitly stating them.

For example, when Lace shuts down Hollow's attempts to talk, she states: Stop! Just... stop. If harm befalls you, the spider will unstitch me thread by thread.

This single segment is designed to communicate several things at once:

Hollow's attempts to talk are causing them significant distress that Lace believes might escalate into genuine harm to their person, if allowed to continue

Lace can tell when to end a conversation, and is willing to let the topic drop despite her earlier determination to get answers (demonstrating a degree of empathy or maturity we haven't seen from her before)

Lace does not apologize, framing worry for Hollow and guilt over causing them upset as a hyperbolic threat to herself (she's shutting down the conversation for selfish reasons, see?)

Lace is not afraid of Hollow; she doesn't worry that they're going to lash out at her for causing them distress, despite how powerful they are in comparison

Lace is not particularly afraid of Hornet, but understands that Hornet is protective of her sibling, and that Hornet would take Hollow's side over her own

Lace refers to her own hyperbolic death as "unstitching," a term we usually associate with inanimate textiles, showing once again that she doesn't see herself as a real person

Lettering

This is where I integrate the dialogue into the comic pages. This comic is hand lettered, so I have to physically write out every word, and plan out how they will be integrated into a page's overall composition--including the "font" and speech bubbles. This is a very, very slow process (not efficient at all lmao), but it gives me plenty of time to refine the dialogue.

For example, the scripted version of the Green Prince's Dialogue was:

I have already once witnessed the encroachment of beings pale, how their appetites leeched the vitality of my home caves 'til they were naught but bile and bone.

Versus the finalized version:

I have witnessed before how the ceaseless appetites of beings pale leave naught but bile and bone.

When combined with visuals of Sinner's Road and Greymoor, it communicates the same amount of information in half the number of words.

Hollow Knight Fanart Masterpost

[themainspoon]

There's so many horror games about having to try to weed out and deal with inhuman imposters, but I want one where the script is flipped. You are something inhuman, you are an imposter, and if you want to survive you have to blend into a world that is trying to hunt you down and destroy you. You aren't human, but you must masquerade as one and infiltrate their world, or you will die.

[themainspoon]

I actually think we need to start inverting more Horror premises/tropes.

Like "You have to venture into the scary insane asylum!" VS "You're a patient who was admitted by force to an asylum, and you are very clearly in real danger, but everyone is pretending that you're just deluded, and are essentially leaving you to die because they don't really see you as a person."

I feel like there's a lot of Horror tropes built off of the fear of the other, when in reality it's actually often the other who is in danger. Maybe we could start recognising that more.

[themainspoon]

Interesting how the first half of the post has picked up popularity while the second part, which perhaps clarifies the idea of the original post, hasn't.

It's been interesting to see what media people are recommending based on the first post alone. A lot of recommendations for games/franchises like World of Darkness, Carrion, Kill All Humans, Among Us, etc. It's interesting because these are games that put you into the shoes of the violent other that has to infiltrate, without actually challenging the idea that the other is a threat. They actually parrot the ideas of the other as violent.

Funnily enough, the people recommending the comedy game Octodad understand the post much better than most of the people recommending horror media. A few mentions of Am I Nima, which isn't finished yet but does look like it could be what I am describing, so brownie points to the people recommending that.

But everyone saying stuff like "This is just being Trans/Autistic/Etc" really gets it, like really really gets it. Horror always communicates the fears and anxieties of the people who create it, this post was basically: "What if instead of communicating the fear of the other, we communicated the fears of the others, which are actually vastly more legitimate than the dominant groups fear of the other. We should recognise that it is overwhelmingly the others who are the ones who actually suffer and die, all for the perceived "saftey" and "comfort" of the dominant group."

This idea is about transphobia, it is about ableism, about anti-imigrant rhetoric and white supremacy, about queerphobia, it's about all of it. It is horror from the perspective of minority groups. It is the twisting of a trope built upon reactionary fears and narratives in order to critique them, it is a direct allegory for all those experiences you are describing.

Overall, it's just interesting to see who gets it and who doesn't.

[jayalaw]

This is being marginalized, hands down

[benditlikekorra]

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. [x][x]

[free-my-mindd]

[diedoffscreen]

[asmuchasidliketo]

Source

[knitmeapony]