So this is a practice comic thing I made for some of the main ocs like a month ago?👀👀
And since ya’ll were interested in more of them I thought I’d show an actual colored one I was proud of.👀👀👀
Note: I only recently started coloring digitally i used to always use markers so we be progressing!
Probably spoilers if I ever officially create it, but Agency head, Commander Towers, Vs. a Villain, Masterson. (Somewhat of a Mob Boss? I think that’s what I have him do kfndkdkdkdd).
Anyway fun idea of them battling it out!
Are they both assholes though? Yes. They’re both. Fun :)
Again, I want to either make a comic or a novel about them I still don’t know which. Maybe both? Kfndkdkdk. (It’s kinda a sci fi story with splashes of magic and mystery? Loads of plot twists you know how I am). But we will see what I do with them!
(And don’t ya worry I still got Some Helluva Boss things I wanna color too😏)
I return with another week of sub-par fiction. I was aiming for good, but I think I’ll aim lower and just try to hit enjoyable.
If you haven’t yet heard the memo, I’m writing a novel. It’s eleven chapters in and going “strong”. Soon, a major TV adaptation.
Siempre me gusto leer, pero... hace un tiempo que vengo pensando en que pasaria si algun dia tengo el coraje de escibir una historia propia, no sobre mi, sino que salga de mi imaginacion, algo que yo cree con mis propias ideas. Si alguien tiene algun comentario alentador lo apreciaria, creo que necesito un empujon para empezar.
She thought it more than a little eerie that no matter how things had changed, be it their society, the economy, their lifestyles, their behaviours and even the people themselves, that everything in her life still looked the same as it did before all the changes had happened. Though, if asked to pinpoint when those changes happened; and replied seriously, instead of some stupid meme or pun reference, she could not tell you.
Picking up the last dented can of tomatoes, she pondered, wandering down the aisle and avoiding the other shambling people around her. It hadn't been all that long, had it? Since things went so drastically bad? Well, not for her specifically. In general, for the entire world, everything had been flipped repeatedly on its head for quite a while.
Having gathered her groceries, she bagged them into the old squeaky trolley and left the supermarket. Slowly heads turned to the squeaking trolley.
“Hmm. Probably should have done something about that,” she said before shrugging carelessly. Not really a problem, the famine struck weren't really a challenge to out-walk.
“The more things change, they stay the same, right?”
She blamed human fallacy. Even provided with the information of the entire world at their fingertips, the ability to prove or disprove provided evidences, and the widespread nature of critical thinking, somehow people still managed to believe all sorts of crazy, misguided theories.
Or perhaps it was merely human hubris?
Pride?
No matter. She shook her head, dark curls flicking in and out of her view. It wasn't something she could change now. She refocussed on slowly making her way down the embankment to the long deserted railway tracks. Checking left, right and left again, keeping an unneeded ear out for the half-remembered sound of the rails vibrating, she heaved the trolley over the sleepers and rails alike before hauling the trolley up the opposing embankment.
Arriving at the cracked dusty road, she avoided looking at the, once full to overflowing with people, house on the corner; trash piled and children's toys scattered over the extremely overgrown lawn like there were still people living there, rather than the chilling remains of children she had seen in passing and had never spoken to.
She no longer held misgivings of the empty street, as she once did. She pulled the trolley to the front door of her home, not that far from the corner, but before the quiet desolate cul-de-sac that the now tiny community inhabited.
Four letters, three meanings, two syllables—one name. I wear it like a crown and a curse. My mother saw the name in an old book when she was pregnant with me, probably went through every encyclopedia in Papa’s store until she found its definitions. Hope, aspiration, expectation. As a child, I assumed my parents named me Amal with hope in mind. My name always rolled off their tongues with an upward intonation, I closed my eyes and thought they were smiling when they said it. Even when I was being scolded, a part of me loved hearing it and knowing what it represented.
“Amal, my girl,” my father told me, “When you were born, I looked up at the sky, and it was blue again.”
I never failed to laugh when he said that. I would be doing something mundane—organizing a bookshelf in the store, completing a math problem for school—and he’d pat my shoulder and talk to me about blue. I never paid much attention to his words, though, not at first. He said them so often that their weight began to fade. I was my father’s blue sky girl. I didn’t have a problem with my title for a long time.
My mother cried when I showed her the grade on my first exam. It was a spelling test, and I received a perfect score. “Look, Tarek!” she screamed, holding the flimsy piece of paper high in the air. “One hundred percent! Our daughter, our Amal, so smart!”
Papa put the down paper he was reading and ran to my mother, pulled the test from her hands gingerly, and held it over the flickering candlelight on the table. He didn’t say a word, traced the scarlet “A” written next to my name, and pressed his thumb to his lips. Mama gave me a cookie, one with raisins and chocolate and caramel bites, which I devoured with a smile, watching my father stare at that exam. I was licking melted chocolate off my fingers when his eyes finally found me. His hands were rose petals against my cheeks, his kiss a plant blooming on my forehead.
** *
My mother was angry with me the last time I saw her. She was screaming out words I’d never heard her use in my direction as I sat with my knees to my chest, curling into myself. Her voice broke as tears welled in her eyes, the same I eyes I have. She screamed even after her voice was gone. Papa wasn’t around to calm her down.
I had come to know my mother as a woman of beauty and grace, shoulders back, head held high. She wore rosy lipstick that brought out the pink in her butterscotch skin. She always had little flowers in her hair, usually white ones that shined against her thick black coils. I picked them for her as a little girl.
“Thank you, baby,” she said, even when I gave weeds as an offering. She somehow managed to make them look wonderful before my eyes. I was in awe of her, always fantasized about how my brown kinks would hold roses and lilies. When I got older, she taught me how to braid them into my hair before telling bedtime stories. I heard so many stories about princesses and towers—Mama sort of sang them to me. Sandwiched between the tales of princes and white horses were also stories of justice, of struggle. And she sang those stories just as loud.
“Never forget who you are, where you come from.” Her soft fingers massaged my curls. All the princesses in my bedtime stories had thick hair like mine, brown skin like mine. “The best princesses are strong and smart. They know how to stand up for themselves and others. They become queens when they grow up.”
I saw my mother as a queen. I imagined her walking through our village with a golden crown and scepter, teaching me to one day do the same. With age, that illusion deteriorated.
She said that she could no longer recognize me. Her eyes bore into me.
“Who are you?” she asked for the first of many times. I held myself closer, stared at the letters in her old, worn hands. She had spent hours reading them aloud, shocked at their content, but composed. Words I silently ingested like sweets before supper spoiled against my ears. I groaned watching her drop each note on the floor, one after the other, until only one remained. I heard her read the first two words, and then nothing at all. Her mouth snapped shut. I remember the feeling of her silence, the weight of it on my chest. The envelopes, all signed E. Clough, mocked me from the ground. Mama probably read over that last letter three times before rolling her eyes to mine. She asked me all her peaceful questions—those of confirmation, certainty, and decision—without saying a word. My answers came the same way. I saw the steam come out her ears, braced myself for the burns I’d surely get from her boiling overflow. Then the screaming started. And ended.
“He will ruin you.” She said very quietly, palms placed lightly on her forehead.
My body shook at the sound of her leaving, a shiver ran down my spine when the door clicked softly. I wanted it to slam. I wanted to feel anger, bitterness, but I sobbed. I sobbed that whole night.
***
I was afraid the thick layer of blood on his face belonged to him, and my heart dropped when I realized it didn’t. It was like he was wearing a mask, the only patches of visible skin being the pink under his eyes, as he slumped, hands shaking, in the old chair my father built one summer long ago. I remember trying, and failing, to weave daisies into a flower crown as Papa sanded the wood, sang songs he promised to teach me when he finished. I was humming one of those songs to distract myself from the violence I heard outside my home that night. There was screaming, yes, but the faint sounds of last prayers and calls for loved ones that crept in from the outside world were more terrifying.
And then the door knob slowly, painfully, twisted. The door whined against the weight of Eoin’s entrance, moaned as he stumbled in, mumbling something incoherent. I helped him into a chair with trembling arms, tried to ignore the sick smell of burnt skin I knew would be stuck in his hair.
I felt him look up at me with black eyes under the flickering light candles in the room’s corner. My fingers were stained red, wet from the worn rag I pressed against the rough skin above his eyebrow. Somehow, blood was stuck there, too. I avoided his gaze, using what was left of my energy to keep from vomiting. The pieces of grime I scrubbed off him settled under my fingernails. They had grown too long. I was proud of myself for resisting the urge to bite them for months, but in that moment, with blood and dirt and sweat caked under, I knew I’d have to cut them down to the quick. All that work, for nothing. . .
After wringing the rag over what was quickly becoming a bucket of murky water, I began to address the other half of Eoin’s face, paying careful attention to the little cuts that must have come from debris. I rested my free hand on his cheek for balance and, without thinking, didn’t remove it when he leaned in, lips brushing the center of my palm. I could’ve moved away when his trembling hands made their way to my waist, planting themselves on my dress finger by finger, waiting for my rejection. I heard his breath catch, allowed myself to look him in the eyes. My name tumbled out his mouth in a soft mumble, a tone that rang comfortable to my ears, much different than it had a week earlier.
***
We met on a Friday afternoon—the day before my eighteenth birthday. The sun was setting and I was walking back from school alone for the first time in months, neatly labelled textbooks pressed to my chest as I passed through Main Street. I kept my eyes down, just as my mother had told me, ignored the jeering of the imperial officers leaning against bar entrances. The sickly, beer-flavored promises of pleasure they threw at me stuck to my body, irreverent tattoos I’d received time and time again. I was disgusted, but too scared and too smart to say anything back. I felt my parents push me along in those moments, thought of seeing them at home and pretending the regular danger I faced didn’t actually exist. Catcalling, I would soon learn, was the least of my worries with these soldiers.
My eyes were pulled up by the murmurs of a gathering crowd two blocks from my home. A girl in my class, Zahra, had been found in the river. Her name meant radiant, full of life, and she was. She whistled on her way to school, leant me her notes when I was sick. Her body was soulless, naked, and bruised when they pulled her out. We all knew what happened. We all knew who did it. We all knew that there was nothing we could do.
They had the guns and the food and the power to make any one of us disappear. At least, that’s what I’d heard my father say at the meetings he held in our basement. That’s what he said that Friday night. Our history was dying, being stolen away by the thief in the night.
“We cannot even teach our children to tell our stories, to speak our language, to read our sacred texts.” Papa held an old book up in the air, waved it like a flag as the other people at the meeting cheered him in hushed praises. “These invaders, bringers of enlightenment and death, tell us that our ways are not good enough, our words are not good enough. But our resources are theirs for the taking. Our women are theirs for the raping. We mean nothing to any of them.”
I clapped at that meeting, ignoring the distant expression on my mother’s face as she did the same. I wondered how an entire group of people could be so despicable.
And my mind floated back to Zahra; the image of her brown skin sucked dry by the river. Gray and cold as the undertaker whispered our rites of the dead over her body. A priest came shortly after, cutting through the crowd of villagers surrounding her as they repeated the chants of the undertaker. He threw a sheet over her corpse, cursed our gods and prayed to his as she was lifted by soldiers with expressions I thought were too calm, and taken away. They hadn’t even waited for her mother to come, to say goodbye. She’d be buried away in their way, blessed for their gods, and distant from us for the rest of time. Her mother should have been able to say goodbye.
When Zahra’s mother finally arrived at the riverbank, I ran. Didn’t want to hear her wail as so many mothers before her had. I ran, pounding my loafers on the ground, ignoring the sweat that seeped through my uniform. I threw the door open, fell into my home, and unraveled. My eyes squeezed shut, mouth became a tightly covered jar of cries as my hands tried to stifle them. Papa was probably in the basement preparing for the meeting. Mama had no doubt gotten word of Zahra and was either praying about it, or finding a way to blame her for her own death. I could hear Mama asking if I’d seen her talking privately with any soldiers, putting herself in harm’s way. It made me sick.
Kicking off my shoes in between bouts of crying, I wondered when either of my parents would emerge from wherever they were. I’d have to be clean and calm by the time they did—a prim and proper representation of our family; my parents’ hopes and dreams finding solace weighing down on my shoulders. On days like that one, it was especially hard. It could have easily been me in that river, and all those expectations stuck in the depths of the water. . .
A brisk knock upon the door snatched me out of my thoughts. And there he was, maybe two years older than I, standing with three textbooks tucked under his arm. Pale pink skin, jaw clean shaven, kind eyes I didn’t expect from someone in a military uniform. But he was all business, perfectly erect in posture and straight faced. I froze, suddenly feeling so small.
“Good afternoon, would these happen to belong to you?” He tilted his head towards the books, brought his eyes to mine.
“Yes,” I said in a more hoarse voice than intended, opening my arms to receive. It must have taken him by surprise, quickly followed by a wave of realization that rippled through his face, kind eyes.
“You knew the girl in the river, didn’t you?” He placed the books in my hands gingerly, cupping his palms under mine for just a beat longer than necessary.
“She was a friend . . . but that doesn’t matter.” I whispered. “It’s not safe for any of us anymore.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.” He paused. “I. . .I don’t like the way things are being handled, the way my brothers are acting. It isn’t right. I’m very sorry.”
I took a step back, rested my hand on the doorknob, and settled into the silence between us. I knew he meant well, but his uniform meant more to me than his condolences.
“My name is, uh, Eoin Clough.” He pointed to the pin above his front pocket. “If you need anything or feel scared, you can come to me. I promise. And I’m a man of my word.”
I nodded, slowly closing the door with no intention taking him up on the offer.
***
He was pacing, arms tightly crossed above his chest, hands firm and steady. I watched him from my bed, perched on the edge.
“You have to leave.” He said with a firmness I’d never before heard. “It’s the best bet, the safest bet.”
I blinked, I think, digging my fingers into the flat mattress I tricked myself into believing wasn’t completely devoid of anything close to comfort. Safety was the last thing on my mind, especially in that moment. The sweet smell of burning coal and beeswax had been moving through my village for days; blacksmiths were busier than they had been in years. The spot where my father’s old gun stood was suddenly vacant. My mother started fasting, tuning out the sound of her rumbling stomach with high praises and worship songs. Villagers I’d barely seen crowded outside my house late at night to talk to Papa in low whispers about how to make provisions for their children. I lay in bed listening to them, tasting iron and bile as my thoughts betrayed me, brought me to him.
“I’m staying. I’m staying right here for whatever happens.”
“I won’t let you.”
Heat crept up my ears. I didn’t try to keep myself calm.
“My mother warned me about this. You’re all the same. Weak and strong and pathetic. God, I chose you. Over everyone. I have chosen you time and time again despite everything and I am stuck with you.”
“Fuck you.”
The words dripped out his mouth smooth as honey, sticking to my skin like thick molasses. We stared at each other.
“Everyone is dying and you’re upset with me for being honest with you? Unbelievable. People are dying—my people are dying because of you. Because you and your brothers stomp on our land and sling your guns in our faces and say that everything that is ours suddenly belongs to you.” I felt my voice cracking, took a breath.
“You won’t let me stay with those who are still alive? . . . I suppose you can force me to evacuate. That wouldn’t be uncommon for people in our situation, would it?”
He stalked away, twisting my door open, and closing it immediately after. A sharp pain split my head when I stood up. I clutched my torso, held back a gag.
He turned back, sighed against the wall.
“This is as easy for me as it is for you, Amal.” he tapped on the dusty green shell of his helmet absentmindedly. “I don’t want to put you in a bad position.”
“You might not have wanted to, but you did from the very beginning.” I dropped down onto my bed, spent, trying to remember where I’d put the bucket I’d been throwing up in all day.
“Eoin, I have never truly been safe with you. And that’s a fact we have both failed to acknowledge.”
