Being A Lifeguard Has Made Me Lose Faith In Peoples Common Sense

ok, so I’m a lifeguard, trained and certified, all that pizazz.

And I just wanted to clarify something. CPR alone cannot bring someone back. CPR keeps oxygenated blood flowing through the body, prevented the body from shutting down and the person from going brain dead.

In order for your character to ‘jump’ back alive, there needs to be an electric shock, in a modern au that should normally be an AED and a lot of places have that somewhere in the facility somewhere, and in powered universes you can have an electrically powered person do it.

In fact, its almost more angst-filled to have character A doing CPR, knowing that as the time goes by, without an AED, without EMS getting there, the chances of character B coming back and making a full recovery are getting exponentially lower.

Not to mention CPR is VERY tiring, it’s why lifeguards rotate who is doing the compressions, so if its just character A there to do the CPR, describing the burn of their arms, their back, their muscles all while fighting tears is something that would be very compelling for some readers.

Reblog if you're asexual and tired

So you might be saying: Lion why a guide on drawing black people? Well young blood it’s because a lot of people cant…seem…to draw…black people..Amazing I know. 

Racist (caricatures) portrayals of black people have been around forever, and to this day people can’t seem to draw black people like they are human. If your artwork resembles any of the above even remotely your artwork is racist and offensive. If you try to excuse that as a stylistic choice you’re not only a terrible artist, but racist too!!! Congrats.

Whitewashing is also a problem. A lot of people refuse to draw black features on canonly black characters. While this example isn’t colored, lightening the skin-tone of a character is also considered whitewashing. So lets start with features!

Now all black people have different noses thats a no-brainer, but black noses tend to have flatter bridges, and wider nostrils. Please stay from triangular anime noses and small button noses. Your drawings should not depict black people with abnormally large noses. (Especially if you do not draw other characters this way)

If you feel like the way you draw lips on black characters is offensive or resembles a caricature,it probably does and you should change it. ABSOLUTELY AVOID PLACING LIPS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FACE. 

Hair is so diverse! Please get used to drawing braids, locs,kinks and coils! If you can learn to draw ringlets and long waves you can learn how to draw black hairstyles.

Add clips! Learn how to draw baby-hairs and never be afraid to add color Pinterest and Google are free my dudes! Also try using square brushes for blocking in coils.

OK THAT’S ALL YOU GUYS

Adobe is going to spy on your projects. This is insane.

happy Thursday the 20th

🇵🇸GAZA ESCAPE FUNDS🇵🇸

(Emoji description: two uses of the Palestinian flag emoji, end description)

This is a running list of users in Gaza who have reached out to me to ask to share their campaigns. They are all vetted campaigns, but not by me. That credit goes to users el-shab-hussein and nabulsi, and most of the verifications come from this spreadsheet that they compiled.

I will try to keep this list updated daily with any new users who reach out to me, as well as with the amounts raised. I’ll also try to keep the urls of each person up to date, as staff keeps banning Palestinian users and forcing them to remake.

Please follow all of these users and donate what you can to their campaigns!!

🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

(Emoji description: three Palestinian flag emojis, end description)

Laila Shaqoura: €17k/€45k

@lailashaqoura, number 152 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Wafaa Alnhal: €11k/€35k

@hebsnhel, number 171 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Ruba Shaban: €23k/€65k

@rubashabansblog, number 90 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Issam Aziz: €15k/€20k

@haifaaziz98, number 179 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Amneh Sharif: $6.7k/$90k USD

@amnehsharif10, number 140 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Nada Saftawi: €6.3k/€16k

@nadasaftawi, number 182 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Iyad Sobhe: £9.4k/£60k

@iyadsobhegaza, number 173 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Dr. Nasser Mohammed: £4.9k/£50k

(terminated, formerly nassermohamed9), Verified by nabulsi

Nahla & Amal: €2.5k/€80k

@jrk85, number 178 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Ahmed Iyd: £9.8k/£150k

(terminated, formerly ahmediyds), number 116 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Renad Magid: £14k/£25k

@renadmagidnew, number 128 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Amira Alanqar: €7.8k/€20k

@ameera-anq, Verified by nabulsi

Mohammed Hilles: €14k/€20k

@hmzamahamed3, number 176 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Rania Ibra: £13k/£35k

@ranibra71, number 154 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Malk Al Zaeem: $15k/$50k CAD

@malkzaeem, number 129 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Amal Abu Shammala: €54k/€60k

@amalisam, number 24 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

NOTE: Amal’s family has been evacuated to Egypt, but Amal is continuing to raise funds to support her displaced relatives and to recover from losing her job and being scammed out of $20k in the process of evacuating her family. Please keep on donating to her both the above campaign and this second campaign, which has raised $2.4k/$10k!

Nael Helles: $15k/$50k USD

@nael-helles, number 85 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Ahmed & Dina: €11k/€35k

@zinaeleenyamin, verified by nabulsi

Hani Al-Hajjar: €27k/€50k

@skatehani, number 75 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Mohammed Alanqer: €12k/€38k

@mohamedalanqer, number 174 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Salaah Bilaal: €40k/€70k

@bilal-salah0, number 132 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Shahed Muhammad: $4.3k/$50k USD

@shahednhall, verified by nabulsi

Nader Shoshaa: €5.6k/€120k

@nadersh0, number 153 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi (thank you to @rubashabansblog for sending me this campaign!)

Donate €5 to Nader to enter a digital art commission raffle run by rafflesforpalestine!

Iman Eyad: £6.1k/£60k

@imanblogs, number 150 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi (thank you to @rubashabansblog for sending me this campaign!)

Aya Maher: €2.9k/€25k

@ayamaher44, verified by 90-ghost

Hamsa Mohammad: €4.7k/€30k

@hamsamohammad, verified by nabulsi

Alaa Al Khateeb: £24k/£56k

@alaaalkhateeb, number 99 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Mohammed Hoboub: kr6k/kr300k SEK

@mohammedhaboub, verified by 90-ghost

Youssef Helles: €634/€23k

@omaryousef, vouched for by skatehani

Amani Hasan: $7.7k/$17,732 CAD

@amani93hasan, number 169 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Ahmad Turk: €6.5k/€70k

@ahmadturk00, number 96 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Ahmed Ziad: £1.4k/£30k

@ahmed-ziad, verified by nabulsi

Mahmoud Helles: €315/€50k

@mahmoud92hells, verified by nabulsi (thank you @magnus-rhymes-with-swagness for sending me the verification!)

Sujood Odeh: £50k/£70k

@sujoododeh, number 64 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Mohammad Al Manasra: €1.5k/€40k

@save-mohammad-family, verified by ibtisams

Mohammad Awni: €1.5k/€45k

@mohamedawnisblog, verified by nabulsi

Raghad Qanou: £1.1k/£55k

@rhq274, verified by nabulsi

Iyad Sami: CHF231/CHF20k

@eyadsami, vouched for by mohamedalanqer

Ahmed Al Ostaz: €10k/€70k

@ahmedalostaz, number 125 on this spreadsheet by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi

Yousef Hussein: $1k/$50k USD

@06679799, verified by 90-ghost

Nesma Ahmed: $61k/$80k USD

@nesmamo, verified by nabulsi

Abdelrahman: €693/€20k

@anqer, vetted by el-shab-hussein

Mahmoud Balousha: €12k/€50k

@mahmoud26, verified by blackpearlblast

resources

Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!

Tbh at this point you should just make your own webcomic app/website because it would probably be 100 times better than whatever going on with webtoon right now.

hahaha it wouldn't tho, sorry 💀

Here's the fundamental issue with webcomic platforms that a lot of people just don't realize (and why they're so difficult to run successfully):

Storage costs are incredibly expensive, it's why so many sites have limitations on file sizes / page sizes / etc. because all of those images and site info have to be stored somewhere, which costs $$$.

Maintenance costs are expensive and get more so as you grow, you need people who are capable of fixing bugs ASAP and managing the servers and site itself

Financially speaking, webcomics are in a state of high supply, low demand. Loads of artists are willing to create their passion projects, but getting people to read them and pay for them is a whole other issue. Demand is high in the general sense that once people get attached to a webtoon they'll demand more, but many people aren't actually willing to go looking for new stuff to read and depend more on what sites feed them (and what they already like). There are a lot of comics to go around and thus a lot of competition with a limited audience of people willing to actually pay for them.

Trying to build a new platform from the ground up is incredibly difficult and a majority of sites fail within their first year. Not only do you have to convince artists to take a chance on your platform, you have to convince readers to come. Readers won't come if there isn't work on the platform to read, but artists won't come if they don't think the site will be worth it due to low traffic numbers. This is why the artists with large followings who are willing to take chances on the smaller sites are crucial, but that's only if you can convince them to use the site in favor of (or alongside) whatever platform they're using already where the majority of their audience lies. For many creators it's just not worth the time, energy, or risk.

Even if you find short-term success, in the long-term there are always going to be profit margins to maintain. The more users you pull in, the more storage is used by incoming artists, the more you have to spend on storage and server maintenance costs, and that means either taking the risk at crowdfunding (ex. ComicFury) or having to resort to outsider investments (ex. Tapas). Look at SmackJeeves, it used to be a titan in the independent webcomic hosting community, until it folded over to a buyout by NHN and then was pretty much immediately shuttered due to NHN basically turning it into a manwha scanlation site and driving away its entire userbase. And if you don't get bought out and try your hand at crowdfunding, you may just wind up living on a lifeline that could cut out at any moment, like what happened to Inkblazers (fun fact, the death of Inkblazers was what kicked off the cultural shift in Tapas around 2015-16 when all of IB's users migrated over and brought their work with them which was more aimed towards the BL and romancee drama community, rather than the comedy / gag-a-day culture that Tapas had made itself known for... now you deadass can't tell Tapas apart from a lot of scanlation sites because it got bought out by Kakao and kept putting all of its eggs into the isekai/romance drama basket.)

Right now the mindset in which artists and readers are operating is that they're trying way, way too hard to find a "one size fits all" site. Readers want a place where they can find all their favorite webtoons without much effort, artists wants a place where they can post to an audience of thousands, and both sides want a community that will feel tight-knit. But the reality is that you can't really have all three of those things, not on one site. Something always winds up having to be sacrificed - if a site grows big enough, it'll have to start seeking more funding while also cutting costs which will result in features becoming paywall'd, intrusive ads, creators losing their freedom, and/or outsider support which often results in the platform losing its core identity and alienating its tight-knit community.

If I had to describe what I'm talking about in a "pick one" graphic, it would look something like this:

(*note: this is mostly based on my own observations from using all of these sites at some point or another, they're not necessarily entirely accurate to the statistical performance of each site, I can only glean so much from experience and traffic trackers LMAO that said I did ask some comic pals for input and they were very helpful in helping me adjust it with their own takes <3).

The homogenization of the Internet has really whipped people into submission for the "big sites" that offer "everything", but that's never been the Internet, it relies on being multi-faceted and offering different spaces for different purposes. And we're seeing that ideology falter through the enshittification of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where users are at odds with the platforms because the platforms are gutting features in an attempt to satisfy shareholders whom without the platforms would not exist. Like, most of us aren't paying money to use social media sites / comic platform sites, so where else are they gonna make the necessary funds to keep these sites running? Selling ad space and locking features behind paywalls.

And this is especially true for a lot of budding sites that don't have the audience to support them via crowdfunding but also don't have the leverage to ask for investments - so unless they get really REALLY lucky in EITHER of those departments, they're gonna be operating at a loss, and even once they do achieve either of those things there are gonna be issues in the site's longevity, whether it be dying from lack of growing crowdfunding support or dying from shareholder meddling.

So what can we do?

We can learn how to take our independence back. We don't have to stop using these big platforms altogether as they do have things to offer in their own way, particularly their large audience sizes and dipping into other demographics that might not be reachable from certain sites - but we gotta learn that no single site is going to satisfy every wish we have and we have to be willing to learn the skills necessary to running our own spaces again. Pick up HTML/CSS, get to know other people who know HTML/CSS if you can't grasp it (it's me, I can't grasp it LOL), be willing to take a chance on those "smaller sites" and don't write them off entirely as spaces that can be beneficial to you just because they don't have large numbers or because they don't offer rewards programs. And if you have a really polished piece of work in your hands, look into agencies and publishing houses that specialize in indie comics / graphic novels, don't settle for the first Originals contract that gets sent your way.

For the last decade corporations have been convincing us that our worth is tied to the eyes we can bring to them. Instead of serving ourselves, we've begun serving the big guys, insisting that it has to be worth something eventually and that it'll "payoff" simply by the virtue of gambler's fallacy. Ask yourself what site is right for you and your work rather than asking yourself if your work is good enough for them. Most of us are broke trying to make it work on these sites anyways, may as well be broke and fulfilled by posting in places that actually suit us and our work if we can. Don't define your success by what sites like Webtoons are enforcing - that definition only benefits them, not you.

the notes are broken 😂