YOU ONLY KEEP ONE BULL 

Since joining Tumblr, I’ve met a lot of young queer people. Look, I’m a bisexual man in a gay relationship, and I’m approaching 30. I was still a kid when Matthew Shepard’s story was being covered on the news. I remember thinking, “I better keep my mouth shut about these feelings I’m having.”

And then I met Dominic when I was 12, and people could see how in love we were. And we got the shit beat out of us. The year I met him, some kids in the grade above me held me down against the bleachers in our gym and stomped on my hand until my fingers broke. Instead of sending me to the nurse, the teacher sent me to the assistant principal to explain the situation. She asked why the kids had beat me up. I said, “They were calling me gay.”

Her response was, “Well, are you?”

My, “I don’t know,” earned a call to my parents, and I was outed. Efforts were made to keep me from seeing Dom. Throughout high school, Dom’s stepmother intensified these efforts. He slept in the basement of the house. Although he was an incredibly talented student, he was prohibited from participating in any extracurriculars. He suffered a lot of physical abuse during those years.

The day he turned 18, he packed up everything he had and walked to my house, and we’ve lived together ever since. Things are better, but they’re not perfect. I’ve had trucks pull up next to me at stoplights and, seeing the pride sticker on my car, through old drinks and garbage into my window. I no longer speak to my dad’s side of the family. I haven’t been to see them for Christmas or Thanksgiving in years. One of my uncles had cornered me at Thanksgiving when I was 17 and said, “I’m not going to judge you, but I’d be happy to break your neck so God can do the judging a little sooner.”

I joined a support group for trans and intersex people. When I joined, 40 people attended regularly. Within the year, the group was half the size it had been. Some couldn’t make it anymore, because they were staying at the shelter, where their stay hinged on them agreeing to instead to attend homophobic sermons. Some were put in correctional therapy. Five of them died. Three of those, I didn’t know, but I knew Alex, the 19 year old who was fag-dragged in Kentucky and died a day later in the hospital, and I knew Stephanie, who went home to Alabama to care for her mom in hospice and was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her mom’s boyfriend.

Tumblr is not reality. The dynamic here does not reflect the dynamic out there. Here’s the part where I finally make a point, and it might be extremely unpopular - but guys, value your allies. Value each other. We are met with enough hate in our daily lives to enter an online safe-space and meet more hate from our own, over petty things. Don’t go after one another over every little thing you find problematic.

Learn to see nuance. Maybe the word “queer” bothers you, and you see a gay man using it as an umbrella term. Maybe someone called a trans man a trans woman because they’re confused about terminology, but the post where they did it was voicing support for the trans community. Maybe someone is just asking a question, wanting to learn more. Stop. Attacking. These. People.

Allies are being driven away. Members of our own community are being ostracized. Others are feeling nervous and estranged, and it’s largely because of places like Tumblr, where the social justice movement is quickly becoming violent and radical. I am begging you, stop nitpicking “problematic” things and start directing your efforts to create real change. When it comes to comes to your allies, forget the “social justice warrior” mentality and put down your torch. Educate calmly. Be respectful. Be understanding. Be forgiving. And I’m certainly not saying that your anger doesn’t have a good place - when you are met with bigots on the street, congress members who want to pass hateful laws, violent protesters, abusive parents, prejudiced teachers, that is when you need to be a warrior. That’s when it counts. In the real world. When you have the opportunity to protect people from real harm. Attacking your would-be allies via anonymous asks is just going to lose us ground in the long run. And we don’t have time for that, not when trans women of color are being murdered every day, not when states are still fighting against marriage equality, not when there are politicians in office who believe that trans people are possessed by demons, not when we’ve just lost 50 brothers and sisters to one gunman, not when the media won’t even admit that the attack was homophobic.

Please step back. Look at the big picture. Look at where we are, globally. Don’t just log on to your safe space and attack your allies over small missteps. That’s like washing the dishes in a house that’s on fire, kids. Let’s fight on the battlefield, and when we come home to each other, let’s just focus on bandaging up our wounds so we can go out and win the war.

BakuDeku “You haven’t laughed in a long time, and I guess I was staring ‘cause I forgot how that looked like.” If you have the time of course. ❤️

Izuku loves U.A. He has since his first year, and he probably will after he graduates March. It’s where he’s met so many of his good friends, where he learned so many new things, where he was finally able to chase his dream. 

But as much as he loves U.A., he also looks forward to every weekend when he gets to go home. Third years have free reign to come and go as they please as long as they’re back by Monday for classes. Its a freedom they weren’t permitted in their first year, and with everything that happened in their second… Well, it’s just nice to feel a little independent.

And, it helps that every weekend, he gets to meet Katsuki at the front of the dorms, and they ride the train back to their neighborhood. There hadn’t been any plan, and neither had said anything to the other, but instead had found them falling naturally together after Saturday classes as they headed for home. It wasn’t awkward, even if Katsuki’s quiet as Izuku babbles like he is now. Their feet lead them away towards the train station as Izuku rants about his dorm neighbor. 

“What’s got you in such a sour mood, nerd?” Katsuki says as soon as he sees him.

His face screwed up in disgust, Izuku glares at him. “You don’t want to know.”

Katsuki snorts, raises one brow. “Oh, yeah? Try me.”

Izuku internally smiles. He likes this with Katsuki. A lot.

“He’s doing on purpose, of course,” Izuku scowls. “Yuuga-kun makes a habit of knowing my most embarrassing secrets.” Like my crush on you, he doesn’t say. “Once, I found him putting cheese into my tea. My tea, Kacchan!”

“What the fuck was he doing that for?” 

Lowering his voice, Izuku’s nose crinkles in disgust. “He said it was an aphrodisiac to help me with my problem.”

With a huge guffaw, Katsuki throws his head back and bursts into laughter, his shoulders shaking and his eyes squeezed closed. Izuku’s completely taken aback, gaping as Katsuki’s laughter echoes down the empty street, loud and ringing. It peters off into snorting little chuckles, and Katsuki turns to him, his eyes still turned up and sparkling. His face slackens when he meets Izuku’s stare.

“What?” he says, glaring.

“O-Oh, sorry!” Izuku squeaks, coming back to himself. His eyes drop to the ground, sheepish. “You haven’t laughed in a long time, and I guess I was staring ‘cause I forgot how that looked like.”

“Oh,” Katsuki says, and goes silent for a long moment. Izuku glances up, and Katsuki’s eyes are fixed ahead, down the road, and his face is just the slightest hint of pink as he shrugs. “Guess you’re just not that funny.”

“You say I’m funny looking all the time!”

“Yeah, but not like funny ha-ha!” Katsuki snaps.

“Is that a compliment?” Izuku asks, half-way laughing in disbelief. 

Katsuki glares at him. “You’d be dead if it was.” And Izuku breaks into a peal of laughter, completely missing the satisfied look on Katsuki’s face as they continue on their way home.

The village you call your home, is surrounded by harpies. The harpies are revered, feared, adored, and hated in equal measures by those that live there. Their fearsome visage and reputation, keeps the village safe from attacks, none foolish enough to lay siege to a place where so many harpies call their home, and the few that had tried, having been dealt with swiftly. However they are also mischievous creatures, and care little for human laws, often stealing things from people in passing, or stores showing their wares. They have a particular love for stealing anything shiny. 

The harpies are strange creatures. There’s no denying that they are terrifyingly alien in appearance, but there’s also no denying that they are still incredibly beautiful in a way that cant quite be verbalised. They don’t tend to interact with the people all that much, other than the few who fall under their favour, or interest them. Mostly, they simply watch people go about their days, tittering at their actions, or occasionally swooping in to cause some mischief. 

You’ve only lived a few months in the village, but the harpies seem to have already taken an interest in you. There seems to be at least one watching you at any given time, tittering and making sly comments that leave you blushing or smiling. To the harpies, it seems, you are something of a precious jewel. 

Things start to escalate as it nears spring, and the harpies start getting bolder, trying to lure you over to them constantly, or commenting on how you would look so good in some of the trinkets they own. Finding yourself just as interested, you willingly spend time with them, finding them to be strikingly intelligent creatures, with sharp tongues and wit. One of them, sticks out to you the most, the two of you seeming to click instantly, in a way you haven’t been able to with anyone before.

This harpy soon becomes a close friend to you, and at first, due to your lack of knowledge, you think that’s all she wants. Its not until you start to listen to other peoples curious comments or observations, that you realise it may be something more. All the delicate beads and pretty things, so lovingly woven into your hair, the jewels she insists you wear, and the way she primps and preens for you every time you look her way, her sisters tittering and teasing her for her actions. Its not until some bull headed boy keeps insisting on a date, and grasps your hand, that you understand.

“Don’t touch my treasure!” she snaps at the boy, swooping in out of nowhere and spreading her wings wide in a threat display. 

She wraps her wings around you, surrounding you in silky feathers as she clutches you close, hissing insults at his hastily retreating back, and you cant help but smile and relax into her. Apparently you’re being courted by a harpy. And honestly, you’re cant say that the concept displeases you in the slightest.

When you start to stir this morning, you cant help but wonder if you’re having a particularly odd dream, the stats hovering behind your eyelids, making that the only real conclusion. Opening your eyes and blinking a few times, you frown in confusion. Hanging before you in the air, are the same set of stats you could see with your eyes closed. They seem to be gaming stats of some sort, something that confuses you since, whilst you enjoy them, you rarely get the time to play them anymore, so you generally don’t dream about them. Sitting up in bed, you find the stats following you easily, somehow not obscuring your vision. You’re still convinced this might be some kind of weird dream, despite the cold slowly seeping into your feet, now that they are touching the floor. With a sigh, you try to pay attention to the stats again, deciding that you may as well fuck around with them, since its just a dream. 

Over the course of the morning, you mess with all of your stats, finding you can move them around with a brief thought. To your surprise, and delight, they seem to work, but as the day wears on, you start to realise that this might not be a dream after all. 

As you sit there, absently using your increased strength to open that jar you’ve been trying to crack into all week, you contemplate what this might mean for you. Is it permanent? How far reaching can you make this? What will you do with this kind of power? Already you’ve used your charisma to convince the crabby old landlord to give you a few more days to pay rent, a usually impossible task. You’ve used your luck and found a hundred dollars stuck in a hedge outside, and you used your intelligence stats to finish the essay that you had been stuck on all week, because you forgot all the subject matter. Luckily, no one else seems to see the small window of stats. You even figured out how to make the little window fold away to one side, almost invisible, if you weren’t already aware it was there.

A soft hiss of air interrupts your thoughts, the jar opening with surprising ease. Suddenly, your stats glow brightly the numbers increasing on each and the small letters above the stats finally draw your eyes up,something you hadn’t really paid attention to until now. You watch as the simple “Level: 1″ slowly shifts to “Level: 2″, and it dawns on you that this might just be the beginning. 

Drew these last year for a cooking zine that fell through. Probably give them some updates/redraws at some point but I’ll post them here anyways. Had a lot of fun making these! There’s (assuming I can still count properly) 100 chars between the 3 pics

He was the type who could do anything he tried his hand at, a rascal who led the group of neighborhood kids. Good or bad aside, Kacchan was full of confidence and I thought he was so cool. 

Little Kacchan & Izuku for @redhairedanne ☆

kacchan realising he doesn’t just think of deku as a rival and a friend. it confuses him, because it’s deku, someone who’s constantly getting under his skin.

it’s nothing like the flowery descriptions he’s always seen and heard of, but he’s not so stupid not to notice that it isn’t normal to suddenly catch yourself with a strong urge to kiss someone who supposedly have platonic feelings for

many people would call him an idiot for not noticing sooner, but the way romance or crushes are normally described just isn’t enough to encompass the gravity of how kacchan feels

it’s hard to notice something that’s been there for a long time

their relationship just isn’t the innocent first love that gives you butterflies. no, the thought of deku doesn’t make him break out into a cold, nervous sweat. it lights him aflame, encourages him to do better than the previous day, to keep those eyes on him

he’s seen the way others behave around the ones they’re attracted to, how they get so tongue tied and flustered, behaving so differently from themselves, and kacchan feels the opposite with deku. with him, kacchan feels the most like himself; in his rawest and most unfiltered form

a lot of what they have is long standing, already established, but deku continues to surprise him. keeps him on his toes, keeps him challenged.

it’s nothing like cherry blossom confessions and puppy love. and because he never had a proper form of comparison, he’s never been able to put a proper word to it.

How Animals Eat Their Food

*deku panicking*

Creds to bakuqou for the ideaaaa!!

Webcomic tips

In the conclusion for now, some things I’d really recommend doing if you’re seriously considering making a webcomic (or really a comic in general). Some of these don’t really apply to strips or gag-a-day type of comics, but I’m not talking about those here.

1. Write down ideas\sketch stuff, LEGIBLY. “I’m gonna remember it later” NEVER works. And if you scribble it somewhere on a piece of paper, you’d better scan it or retype in one doc later, because tiny notes always get lost among other doodles in my skethbooks.

(i know it’s hard to keep everything clean and organized, but this mess is just not productive)

If your project is a collaboration, save your conversations. If you’re working alone, make a blog for your ramblings. You have no clue what tears of relief I cry when I open that blog and rememeber I don’t have to painstakingly look through my heaps of sketchbooks and folders for a tiny idea I’m not even sure I wrote down a few months ago.

2. Inspiration folders, or even better, inspo blog with tags also help with collecting and remembering ideas. Color schemes, landscapes, style inspirations, atmospheric stuff, maybe some photo references, all those neat things.

3. Basic tier: character design sheets. Top tier: common poses, expressions. God tier: outfits they wear throughout the comic. Holy cow tier: turnaround sheets for all those outfits.

(I’d die trying to find good pages for references without these)

4. If you haven’t finished detailing the plot, don’t even think about moving on to drawing the comic. You’re gonna regret it when you come up with a really cool plot element that can’t be incorporated anymore because you’ve already drawn all the parts you could’ve tweaked.

5. Don’t just define the plot, make a script. Writing down the lines and the brief description of the actions serves me fine:

(notice that I approximately divided the pages & the text that’d go to each panel on a page)

6. Hard mode: make thumbnails for all the pages, if possible. At least whenever a new chapter starts. 

7. If your story involves some convoluted chronology shenanigans, you’d better write down the events of your timeline in the chronological order.

8. Backgrounds. You can’t avoid them, bro. Like half of the comics are backgrounds, especially if your story involves a lot of adventuring and looking around. I know it hurts, but you’ll have to become friends with them. Read some tutorials, practice on photos, go out and sketch some streets, use 3d programs (like Google Sketch) to understand the perspective, use sites like houseplans to visualize your buildings better, I don’t know. Just be prepared for their imminent evil.  

9. If you’re drawing digitally, pick a brush size for the lines and stick with it. You don’t want your lines and detail levels to look all wonky and inconsistent in different panels. And I don’t mean the cool stylistic varying lines, I mean this:

Also, things on the background should have thinner and/or lighter lines to avoid distraction. Usually less details too, unless you’re making a busy background with a simple foreground to help it pop out. Or wanna draw the attention to an object on the bg.

10. Readable fonts. Even if you chose to ignore people with poor sight or dyslexia, the majority of your readers aren’t gonna be excited about struggling to decypher this:

Also, as much as I love my black speech bubbles, colorful text on black still kinda hurts the eyes. I wouldn’t recommend doing that for all the characters. Black speech bubbles are usually used for creepy, inhuman voices. And yes, having a colorful outline in this case helps.

11. Probably newsflash, but did you know that panels have their place, order and functions? They do! My favourite thing ever is how I used panels when I was like 12:

(comics ain’t rocket science, but this one is)

The composition of the panels and word balloons always serve for a better reading experience. They guide your eyes over the page, so that you never feel lost or confused. The images in the comic equal frames in a movie, so it’s pretty damn important in what order you look at things and how quickly you can understand what’s going on!

(Eric Shanower & Scottie Young’s Wizard of Oz)

12. One update a week is fine for testing waters. Don’t overestimate yourself, especially if you have a pretty busy life outside it. A stable comic that updates slowly, but regularly is better than an unpredictable erratic one. You can always pick up the pace later, if you feel confident enough.

13. Try to always have a buffer - a couple of pages in reserve. If you’re making the pages much faster than you’re updating, this shouldn’t be a problem. But if those paces are equally the same, it’s goddamn HARD. But on the other hand, if something happens and you skip an update, those come in handy.

If you’re looking at this list and thinking “wow that’s a LOT of work”, you’re totally right. And it’s okay to be intimidated at first! But that’s why it’s important to start with something small. Once you get the formula down, these things will be natural to you.