Everything in Between

“I’m a therapist and keep this poster in my waiting room, apparently it’s saved a few lives.”

I don’t like the phrase “a cry for help.” I just don’t like how it sounds. When somebody says to me, “I’m thinking about suicide. I have a plan: I just need a reason not to do it,” the last thing I see is helplessness.

I think your depression has been beating you up for years. It’s called you ugly, and stupid, and pathetic, and a failure, for so long that you’ve forgotten that it’s wrong. You don’t see any good in yourself, and you don’t have any hope.

But still here you are: you’ve come over to me, banged on my door and said, “HEY! Staying alive is REALLY HARD right now! Just give me something to fight with! I don’t care if it’s a stick! Give me a stick and I can stay alive!”

How is that helpless? I think that’s incredible. You’re like a marine: trapped for years behind enemy lines. Your gun has been taken away, you’re out of ammo, you’re malnourished, and you’ve probably caught some kind of jungle virus that’s making you hallucinate giant spiders.

And you’re still just going, “GIVE ME A STICK. I’M NOT DYING OUT HERE.” “A cry for help” makes it sound like I’m supposed to take pity on you, but you don’t need my pity. This isn’t pathetic. This is the will to survive. This is how humans lived long enough to become the dominant species.

With NO hope, running on NOTHING, you’re ready to cut through a hundred miles of hostile jungle with nothing but a stick, if that’s what it takes to get to safety.

All I’m doing is handing out sticks.

‘WHY ARE YOU SO LAZY?’

But you’re not lazy. Lazy is when you shrug things off because you can’t summon up the give-a-damn. When you’re curled up tight in your chair at your desk, alone and grey and desperately wishing that you had your life in order, that you did all those things you had to do, that it didn’t feel like breaking rocks just to feed and clothe yourself and get some sleep, that’s not lazy.

People don’t understand. You tell them “It’s hard.” They tell you “No it isn’t, you’re just lazy.”

You start to wonder if they’re right.

is breaking those rocks easy for everyone else? Are they that much stronger than you?

They don’t look like they’re struggling.

“Just try harder,” they say. But you’re trying. It’s not working.

Breaking boulders in your path until you’re spent isn’t lazy. And you do it day after day after day.

You’re not lazy. Most people don’t have those rocks to break. They don’t even know what it’s like to have to break rocks to get things done. They don’t understand how hard you have to work, and how hopeless you can feel, when you try and fail to do what they do so easily. Things are harder for you. They really are. And if those people had to deal with your problems, they wouldn’t be doing any better.

How do you write "serialized" media in comparison to traditional writing? Like, people often say that "your first draft will be bad, so you have to get back to it and revise at some point", but, like, for media released periodically, like webcomics, it's much harder to do, unless you write down the entire story beforehand in a lot of detail, and revise *that* instead, and only start drawing after like third or fourth edition of the script.

But, like, I assume that, beyond basic outline, some cool scenes in the middle, and the ending, there is only so much planning you can viably do. How do you handle it? Do you sometimes have to draw a page without knowing yet what will happen five pages later? How do you balance between leaving yourself the freedom to alter things (and also free time not spent on writing a novel before transforming it into a comic) and having a good written story, with themes and foreshadowing and stuff?

It's certainly different than traditional writing, because progress becomes a rolling, iterative thing rather than full draft passes.

What I have is a many-pronged approach that gets more detailed the farther in it goes:

The toolbox. This is a big pile of characters, subplot concepts and plothooks I add to whenever I think of something new and fun. When I'm building out a new arc from scratch, this is what I draw on.

The roadmap. This is a rough plan for the overall shape of the story - I know where the characters start and where they end, and I have a rough idea of waypoints they'll hit along the way. I have one of these for the story as a whole, with each "waypoint" basically being a rough-draft concept for the premise of a single arc. To give an idea of the level of specificity, the "waypoint" for this first arc was literally just "getting the gang together." It was the one thing I needed to have happen. On a smaller scale, individual sub-arcs have more detailed roadmaps of their own, but they mostly fit the format of "characters arrive in location A -> characters fight bossfight B" with the rest fleshed out in between.

The checklist. This is the specific list of "things I need to happen in this specific substory," aka the waypoints on the smaller-scale roadmaps. It gets fleshed out as the actual story gets closer to it and specific character arcs take turns I might not have been able to anticipate. This is close to a timeline, but it's more flexible, as at this stage it's okay to shuffle around the order of things - in fact I almost never make solid linear timelines of events, because sometimes I split the party and things happen at their own pace. In these cases I just set waypoints for when different sub-timelines will intersect - at what point in the conversation will the large flashy thing interrupt, at what stage in the fight will the cavalry arrive, etc. I just need to be sure to hit all the important parts. I'll know a story is ready to turn into a storyboard once I have every important detail nailed down - what specific sticking points will come up in the character conflict, what hidden threat is going to be in the environment they enter so I can set it up correctly, what conclusion will a character come to and how will they want to proceed, etc.

The solid storyboard. This is what I turn into finalized pages, and I work several chapters ahead to make sure I have the rhythm of the story. Once it's down on paper it generally doesn't change much, though specifics of dialogue can be reworked right up to the export. This is linear progress, and it usually happens in very discrete bursts. I don't storyboard something until I know exactly what is happening in this specific scene, where they're going, where it'll end and what it's setting up for later. Sometimes I get stuck on a single panel because I'm not sure which choice a character will make, and then when I come back to it I set down that panel and like five more pages flow out afterwards. Sometimes I'll just reread all my storyboards up to the current endpoint, take a nap, then wake up knowing exactly what to put on the next panel. Sometimes I'll do a reread and tweak the dialogue at several points because the first draft I wrote doesn't sound good to me anymore. This is where I do the bulk of the work that traditional media would do in the second draft.

In order to avoid rewrites - because in serialized media, rewrites are very bad - I frontload as much of that work as I can. I don't start the storyboard until I know all the relevant details of the scene's setup, so I don't end up retconning anything important. If there's a specific hidden enemy in the environment, I want to foreshadow it accurately, so before I draw the area it's in I want to know exactly what it looks like and where it could be hiding. If they're in a facility designed for a specific thing, I want to know exactly what that thing is so the clues and details line up. If I've reached the start of an argument, I want to know what is going to end it before I draw the first panel.

there are two types of writing that webcomic creators use from what ive seen and heard, those being script-based and thumbnail-based. script-based means they write a script, which is not to be confused with prose, and its what i do because thats how i like to write my comic! (also insert rant here about how i have more experience as a playwright than anything else)

a script is not material thats meant to be its own product, its a blueprint for how to MAKE the final product and what its going to be, so its sort of like an outline but very very specific and long (and need their own outline). (i have a post about scripts in more detail here)

what i like about scripts is how easy they are to edit; scripts are very easy to cut material from, retroactively add material to, or move around (for instance, if i find that pacing requires i move the latter half of one scene into a scene-break in the middle of the next scene, i can do that really fast). one of the downsides of using a script for a comic, however, is that it doesnt specifically serve the medium, so you cant anticipate where the page breaks will be or what it will look like on the page, which might make the reading process a bit more awkward if you dont know how to arrange it on the page properly (but ive found that this generally isnt a problem for me)

thumbnail-based writing is when you write the story as you arrange the comic page, which follows the same principle as reds writing method. this is the opposite of script-based writing, because the story is shaped around how it looks in comic form and thus serves the medium better, but its also (i imagine) more difficult to edit beyond the scale of single panels/pages, which is why outlines are so important for this method of writing

originally i wrote chapters without any outline at all (or, at most, a basic description of the A and B plot) because i was still getting a feel for the story and the characters and improvising helped me get a grip on everything. luckily, because the scripts were so easy to edit, i had a lot of time to revise the messiness that resulted in until i was happy with it (i have done a LOT of editing for the earlier chapters on the scale of entire scenes or even plots, mainly bc i write so far ahead of what i draw and ive gotten a lot better at writing since those first drafts). i use scene-by-scene outlines now that i have a better understanding of what im writing and find that im doing a lot less editing. to be clear, in hindsight i definitely shouldve used outlines because i work better with them, i just didnt because i started writing my comic when i was in a state of "so mind-numbingly bored, could not care less about writing technique, just need something to do" and i didnt start drawing it for like a year anyway

Image Description:

Hand clasping in solidarity meme. One side it reads "SW". One side it reads "Artists". And in the middle where the hands are clasping it reads "Making sure no one steals their pictures".

End Description

Also you don't have to use "Accountant" on Tumblr. You can say "Sex Workers". General rule of thumb though is to state that your blog is 18+ if you do post mature content and you don't follow minors.

the headcanon 

indian samosas? brilliant

chinese bao? incredible

austrian knoedel? amazing

polish pierogi? showstopping

korean mandu? spectacular

italian ravioli? iconic

tibetan momo? outstanding 

american fritters? killer

I figured something out about myself a long time ago– it’s only just now occurred to me that I was in fact solving a problem caused by executive dysfunction, and I haven’t been implementing this solution lately because my brain went “that’s a relatively new term to me and therefore a Different problem that requires a Different solution”. thanks a lot, brain.

anyway, long long ago, before I knew these fancy schmancy Official words, the problem, as I phrased it to myself, was such: 

sometimes I get Stuck. I was doing something, or on my way to doing something, and then… I just. got stuck.

“Stuck” looks like refreshing my feed or dashboard repeatedly. or it looks like staring at a spot on the wall. or chewing my fingernails. or picking at a stubborn sticker. all the while, my brain drifts through various unrelated topics I wouldn’t be able to recall if asked. sometimes I can get Stuck for hours before realizing I am Stuck. sometimes I get so Stuck that I go to bed that way (feeling especially bad for being unproductive) and I have to just reset everything by sleeping.

one day I asked myself, “why is this happening? why am I stuck, right now, at this moment in time?” the answer, as it turns out, was pretty simple: I was trying to make a decision, and I got distracted. I haven’t moved forward because I haven’t answered that one question or made up my mind.

let me rephrase this in terms of executive dysfunction: many people have expressed that it feels like knowing you need to do a thing but not feeling “ready” to do it. many with ADHD may also be familiar with the feeling of needing things to be “just so” before you embark on a task- you need your setup to look a certain way, or you need to set a timer, or have the right music playing, etc.

when I get Stuck it’s often because I got lost somewhere in that setting-up process, and my brain took the opportunity to nyoom off into Distraction Town.

getting myself Unstuck is solved, 95% of the time, by tracing my steps back to the original decision I was trying to make- often something small and inane- and then troubleshooting from there. (out loud! verbal processing is totally punk.) 

“what was I trying to do?” 

“was I trying to decide between two things?” 

(the answer’s usually yes.) 

“what were they?” 

“okay, let’s decide. 

“okay, that’s settled. let’s move on.”

and then I am free as a bird to nyoom in the direction of The Thing I Wanted To Do All Along, in the amazingly disorganized, scattered, yet rapid-fire way that I do many things.

so!!! in the case of my first post, where I hadn’t showered for 2 hours? turns out I had been trying to decide what music to listen to in the shower. (another hack: my chances of getting Stuck while showering decrease by 75% if I have music playing to help me keep track of time.) I couldn’t immediately make up my mind, got lost in thought, got distracted, and drifted. once I stopped and asked- “why am I stuck?”-  then I remembered- “oh yeah! I wanted to listen to music”-  and then decided- “I want to listen to Daft Punk’s Discovery album”- I was finally heckin able to shower. and also eat, and also throw my clothes in the dryer.

and may I add I only zoned out once, during the slow part of “One More Time.” :P

no idea

what you’re

talking about

apart form sebastian though he goes from this to this

Dat Hero Aesthetic

Okay so I followed this video about foreshortening and…

GUYS

SHIT

It works!!!

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS

IT WORKS AND I SPENT SO MUCH TIME TRYING TO PULL THIS SHIT OFF BEFORE BUT THEN THERS THIS EASY SHIT I COULD HAVE DONE

-me (except the people who gave spoiler alerts)

From Wikipedia:

Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death), often shortened to Santa Muerte, is a female deity or folk saint in Mexican and Mexican-American folk Catholicism. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, her cult has become increasingly prominent since the 2000s.

The worship of Santa Muerte is condemned by the Catholic Church in Mexico as invalid, but it is increasingly firmly entrenched in Mexican culture.

Santa Muerte is also seen as a protector of homosexual, bisexual, and transgender communities in Mexico, since many are considered to be outcast from society. Many LGBT people ask her for protection from violence, hatred, disease, and to help them in their search for love.

Her intercession is commonly invoked in same-sex marriage ceremonies performed in Mexico. The Iglesia Católica Tradicional México-Estados Unidos, also known as the Church of Santa Muerte, recognizes gay marriage and performs religious wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples.