i just finished pursuit of jade and adored it to bits BUT☝🏽 i think li huai'an should've become changyu's second live-in husband. he gets a new surname and they get a third. everyone wins ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
i wish i could enjoy "my derelict favorite" like i used to but ever since i thought about how much more interesting everything would be if hestia and helios were siblings i cannot truly care about the plot anymore. give me doomed siblings over romance every time.
and i know for a fact they're gonna make helios fall in love with hestia and it's gonna be hell on earth for me OTL
if you've ever wondered why there are so many light novels and anime where either the main character or love interest is the "villainess" from an Otome game and said Otome game has basically the same set-up every time, it's because the originator of the Otome game genre is this game called Angelique and in Angelique the player character has a female rival named Rosalia de Cartegena and fans of the game liked Rosalia so much that it became extremely common to write Angelique fanfiction where Rosalia gets some kind of happy ending but then one day one of the biggest fanfiction archives in Japan decided they only wanted to host original fiction from now on so a lot of fanfiction writers started writing what is basically fanfic with the serial numbers filed off where a self insert character gets magically transported to or reincarnated in a copyright safe version of their favorite video game and the Rosalia fans did this so much it essentially sprung out into its own genre which now gets like one anime per season minimum.
in fact many of the complaints have about alfonso are completely void once you take into account that he's literally sixteen.
"he's not hot-" he's 16
"he's too childish-" he's 16
"he's too jealous-" he's 16
"he's too immature-" he's literally 16!! he's still growing up!! what do you want from him!!
he's a teenager!! he's going through his first love!! he's being forced to marry someone he doesn't love for his country's sake!!! he's been molded into being the perfect little prince his entire life because it's his mother's wellbeing if he's not!!!!
not to mention that people complain about him being "too bland" but the moment he shows any jealousy they start saying he's a red flag and definitely going to become evil. like!! make up your mind!! it's not even him lashing out against ariadne or being a prick about it, he's just pouting and playfully nipping at her fingers so she'll pay attention to him! it's literally the most non-threatening way to show jealousy there could be!
i swear there's no middle ground with people when it comes to my little guy! they either act like he's never going to get some character development or they act like they can already tell he's going to become an abusive piece of shit by a couple of throwaway scenes. this is a long-ass webnovel/webcomic and people are already throwing the towel this early on. it's infuriating and they will never survive the winter.
"alfonso looked hotter when he was dead than he does now-" YEAH AND THAT'S A GOOD THING. HE'S 16. HE'S A TEENAGER. GIVE HIM A COUPLE MORE ARCS AND I PROMISE HE'LL HAVE A GLOW UP JUST LET HIM FINISH GROW UP DAMMIT
People don't like to admit it bcs cringe or w/e but Homestuck really did revolutionize the webcomic as a storytelling medium and I am endlessly frustrated that before webcomic artists could really stretch our legs fucking webtoonz swooped in, set a new, more restrictive standard, and then monetized and monopolized the ever living fuck out of the concept of The Webcomic until it drove away anyone who couldn't be a professional quality manga artist for free, and now the only webcomics that actually feel like spiritual successors to Homestuck are so obscure they're basically cult classics that you have to beg people to read.
Like it's just so wild to be in high school and see Homestuck be like "we're using like fifteen different artistic mediums to tell this story bcs we can" and be really fucking inspired by that, only to grow up and see basically every webcomic ever have to conform to One Single Standard or fucking perish.
Actually, I realized my real point here: we all need to make our art weirder. Please make weird art. I want more stuff like Prequel Adventure and 17776 and MyHouse.wad and I want it now. Capitalism thrives on conformity. We must be weird at all costs.
it's depressing to see people eulogizing webcomics in the notes because amazing and cool and weird webcomics still exist on the internet, you just have to Visit Web Sites
and i don't have any sources to cite to back myself up here but i feel that younger folks experiencing The Internet through phones & tablets rather than PCs forces them to live on apps, like webtoon, so that's where they're going to go to read webcomics
as webcomic creators, we kind of have to go where the audience is. god i know a lot of comic folks right now with amazing comics on websites starting to mirror their comics to webtoon/tapas because audiences *expect* you to be there
anyway. stop saying webcomics are dead. go to websites & look at them. thank u
But *where do I find them* you ask?
I've got some neat answers for you.
->Comic Fury Is a great place to find webcomics(and host your comic there with a lot of custom options)
->Spider Forest is a collective of webcomics- which means members were accepted to be in a group that support each other! They've been around since 2003, how cool!
-> Hiveworks comics are curated comics who were accepted into their collection as well. The hub links to many cool and unique webcomics
-> Topwebcomics is a place to find comics to read and vote for your faves
-> The Webcomic Library is a place dedicated to tagging webcomics, so you can browse and select a comic that suits your fancy with the organisation all done for ya!
-> Comic Rocket is a good tool to use if you'd like to bookmark your readthrough and search for new comics to read as well
(feel free to add to the list for more webcomic places too!)
There are SO MANY incredible webcomics out there and I would LOVE for folks to explore the net and find them again. This is the best way to keep ideas unique, weird, and most of all, loved.
So go check out some comics!
All these sites are great resources! I have found some absolute gems by just scrolling through Topwebcomics & clicking anything that seemed remotely interesting (it also has a movies-style rating system on each entry if that's something you'd find useful)
Once you find some you like, look at the sidebars or about pages; a lot of people -especially the old school comics people- link their other comics, their friends' comics, or comics they just like there; it's a great sort of 'if you liked this, you might like that' resource!
Also, try scrolling @haveyoureadthiswebcomic They have links to the comics on the polls
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If you'd like some specific comics recs to get you started, here's some of my favorites (under a cut because my curated list of faves is 20+ entries long):
(links are to homepages which often host the latest page so warning for spoilers)
Aurora by Red @comicaurora
Ava's Demon by Michelle Fus @avasdemon (multimedia; contains some pages with animation &/or audio)
Cassiopeia Quinn by Gunwild & Psu @psuedofolio
Castoff by Star Prichard @castoff-comic
Check Please by Ngozi Ukazu @ngoziu COMPLETE
Daughter of the Lilies by Meg Syverud @bludragongal OH HIATUS until May
Digger by Ursula Vernon COMPLETE winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Novel
Harbourmaster by Melissa DeHaan (while this comic is mostly chill, it does have a few storylines that touch on things like trauma & abuse; there are chapter summaries & trigger warnings in the archive but not on the comic pages themselves)
Harpy Gee by Brianne Drouhard @harpygee
Hinges by Meredith McClaren COMPLETE
Ingress Adventuring Company by Kay (pronglesart on X, BlueSky, & Insta)
Kochab by @erysium COMPLETE
Namesake by @secondlina & @savvyliterate
Never Satisfied by Taylor Robin @ohcorny ON HIATUS
The Property of Hate by @modmad
Raruurien by Ann Maulina
Sleepless Domain by Mary Cagle @cubewatermelon
Snarlbear by Natalie Riess COMPLETE
The Thief of Tales by Guillaume Bonnet @zazb & Eve Bolt
Thistil Mistil Kistil by Sarah Schanze @depleti
Tigress Queen by Allison Shaw @allidrawscomics
Widdershins by Kate Ashwin @katedrawscomics ON HIATUS
Val & Issac @val-and-isaac
anything by Evan Dahl at rice-boy.com (three complete comics & one ongoing; Rice Boy is my favorite, but all four are great)
If anything, the centralization of the internet into mega-sites like Tumblr and Twitter rather than a million independent and unconnected blogs and sites means it's never been simpler to get eyes on a niche webcomic. Back in the day you just had to hope people found your website URL through word of mouth or something. Discoverability is way higher now - hell, I learned about 17776 through Tumblr in the first place. Webcomics are not being quality-gated; nobody will stop you from posting it on free platforms like this one. There has never been a better time to get a million strangers to see your art.
That's not to say the standards by which webcomics are judged hasn't changed. Professional-quality webcomics have always existed - one of the first was Girl Genius, a comic that was literally being traditionally published before its creator Phil Foglio decided to give this funky internet thing a try instead - but the number of gorgeously drawn ready-to-print webcomics has increased, and I think that makes a lot of people feel like their webcomic must live up to that standard before it "deserves" to be seen.
But that's not a webcomic-specific issue. Artists of all stripes have a tendency to unfavorably compare themselves to the Good Art they see around them, and the more Good Art they're exposed to, the more they typically worry about measuring up.
Webcomics haven't been gentrified, we're just seeing and hearing more about ones that have unbelievably impressive print-ready art, and that can make it feel Not Okay for us to draw our own goofy, sketchy, bizarre vision. The most important thing I've learned about art is that no artist should ever wait to be given permission.
i'm sorry can we talk about sable's reaction to seeing his very beautiful wife being kissed by an absolutely gorgeous mermaid. he did not give one single crap except for the fact that That's His Wife how dare she steal bibi's first kiss this is Outrageous (σ｀д′)σ
and like?? i just really love?? how very non fanservice-ish the moment was played as??? like it could've so easily turned into a 'oohh girl-on-girl action' or 'haha nadia is in love with abigail but they're both girls lol' but no!! the comedy of it comes from the misunderstanding of who nadia is in love with, at no point is it presented as something sexual or perverted, sable is bothered not because they're both of the same gender but because that's his wife and he wanted to be the one to kiss her and it's just!! it's such a low bar and yet!! so many other manhwas wouldn't have handled this as perfectly as this one did. i really love this manhwa you guys 〒▽〒
abigail is a stronger woman than i am because i would've folded. so quickly. like. a gorgeous mermaid tells me she's in love with me and she thinks our relationship can be the thing that unites our people and that she will become king just so i can remain her queen???? i would suffer cardiac arrest right on the spot on god
there's no way those rumors about blanche not being sable's daughter are still going around they couldn't be more similar if they tried just look at them. they're equally clingy and jealous for bibi's attention 😭
I love villainesses isekais because they always open to some shit like "I've reincarnated as Evilla Von Lily, the empire's only princess and I'm destined to die after becoming affianced to Prince Rytius de Citrus?!?!?" and you think ok so just not marry him, right. Cant be that hard? But then chapter 1 in kicks in like " Evilla, sweetie your father and I are sooo glad you're marrying your Highness prince Rytius otherwise all these 56 orphans we tend to would spontaneously combust. Like, immediately. don't ask, we dont know how either. anyways proud of you" and youre like oh shit evilla
If I can break the curse during this one year contract, I can quietly step down from Goodette Goodheart's place .. really looking forward to that peaceful life away from all these good looking men and influence once all this is over wish me luck you guys👍
please i'm crying he literally only heard bibi say the word 'kiss' and went "YES ABSOLUTELY LET'S DO IT RN". when you're so in love you literally cannot imagine any other reason your wife would be talking about kissing except for the fact that you really really really wanna kiss her even when it had nothing to do with the topic they were talking about 😭😭
