hello :’)

GIRLHOOD: a starfire and raven fancomic, pt. 2

PART ONE

PART TWO

don't ask me why i felt compelled to dissect raven's room today but here goes (stream of consciousness style):

firstly that's a big ass room, does she have the biggest room of all the titans? (terra actually had the biggest room, why did they make their biggest space the guest room?) maybe starfire's is around the same size as rae's but i think i remember the boys' all being smaller

i think the colour palette is perfect. i've seen some takes that lean towards her having a more whimsigoth interior style, and whilst i can definitely buy her injecting hints of it, i don't think she'd vibe with the aesthetic as a whole. i think it's too busy and colourful and eclectic for her (again PERSONALLY, just an opinion)

i do have issue with how tidy it is. that's not to say i think she's a messy person, but i would've loved to see more of a "witch's apothecary" element at play, with far more shelves housing curious items that are gathering dust, and one or two piles of books on the floor because she's physically run out of space on her bookcase, and more levels going on with things draping down

speaking of the bookcase, it's far too small. you think she was given a room that spacious and said to cyborg "can you make that one corner into a bookcase?" that bitch wants a library, the entire left wall should be a bookcase with a little nook built into it for her vanity. it should span the length of the room and still not be enough

i wanna talk about light. the pendant lights seem to be on in this pic, and it's still a very dark environment (the bulbs themselves are probably quite dim but the colour scheme doesn't allow for much light to be bounced around anyway). we know there is a large window to the right of her bed, hidden behind that part that juts out; i think when those curtains are open during the daytime is when her room is the lightest, because her ceiling lights aren't doing anything. when the sun goes down, we're just living in the shadows. there will be candlelight too, but we don't see many candles here. that's probably another thing i think is missing.

i wanna know more about the comedy and tragedy masks. since this is raven, something tells me they're not just for decoration. i assume most things in her room have a secondary purpose (like her mirror). of course we could just say "she's a fan of theatre" (and i like to think that's true in any case), but they're the same masks that make an appearance in nevermore. there's definitely more to them, even if we didn't see what in the show.

big ass archaic chest. yes. (she put malchior in here for the drama of the scene but i feel he was surely moved very swiftly into the evidence room. why would she wanna continue sleeping a few feet away from that???)

confirmed that is a globe in the foreground. i have this cute headcanon that (because she's a knowledge whore) she wanted to learn everything once she reached earth. having been raised in a place that was so isolated and singular--literally a pocket dimension--she probably devoured so many books about the world's geography and the globe was a big help to visualise it. love my educated queen

i do note the path leading to the bed and the creepy vines surrounding it. definitely taken from her mindscape (nevermore) as it looks very reminiscent. so the drama

there's a door on the right, but our POV here is from the main door, so headcanoning this is an en suite. i know the joke in-universe is that they share one bathroom but realistically that's soooo dumb, look at the size of this building. scrapping canon there and deciding they all have en suites in their rooms

-ik this is a crazy simple observation but i’ve always loved the overhang above her bed, and how it resembles her hood.

-that’s such a good point about the comedy/tragedy masks. i agree with the fact that she would enjoy theatre and it could be as simple as that, but i also feel like it could have something to do with her personification of emotions. maybe it’s not as simple as a decoration, but maybe a physical reminder of her own struggles with emotions and how she compartmentalizes them. will now be thinking about this more bc i have always found that interesting

-i think the aesthetic overall fits her really well too. i envision candles lit whenever she’s in there, and that being her main source of light a lot of the time. but i don’t think she dislikes light or sunlight. she just tends to lean towards darker environments a lot of the time. she 100% has her curtains open throughout most days.

-there’s no way our girl does not have at least a few piles of books in that room. i would say “the prophecy” vibes, where she’s surrounded by those piles of books researching, but less extreme in a day to day obviously. she’s still a tidy person, but there’s no way she doesn’t have a little more book related clutter in that room.

-cyborg should help raven build a library confirmed (maybe not a whole ass library but something at LEAST more shelves she could have in her room to house more books) ALSO they like doing tasks like that together (re: fixing the t car), and it would be good bonding.

-100% she’s learning EVERYTHING SHE CAN about different areas and cultures on Earth. i see her as very culture focused, and i think that’s expressed a few times throughout the show. i see her really enjoying learning about different cultures and how people interact in different paces throughout Earth

-there’s no way they don’t have en-suite bathrooms and i stand by that 100%. even if they don’t start out with them, i headcanon raven pushes them to be added.

UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT: I didn't like Trouble in Tokyo.

Don't get me wrong, I think it was a cute movie for RobStar, but I hated how the writers neglected the others. ESPECIALLY Raven. Because wft do you mean she hit Beast Boy twice for no reason and made a purposefully hurtful comment about his looks?

All of these moments

Are completely ooc for her, and I feel like this is where SO much BBRae hate comes from. When has she ever hit him or acted rude towards him outside the movie without a reason when it wasn't teasing? I genuinely can't connect her movie version to her series version.

Also since we're talking about the movie, girl, wtf is this?

That can't be comfortable to fly on, and also again, being needlessly rude to BB??

So, while this isn't the end of the world and there were Raven moments I liked, it's just extremely annoying how mistreated her character was and how much hate it brought for Raven and BBRae, it makes the movie hard to watch for me so let's just pretend it doesn't exist, okay guys?

Soooo, this is my first finished comic ever, and I'm a noob, so I’m not just posting this to share it, but also to ask artists to point out my mistakes because, holy hell, it's a disaster. Whether it's about how the comic is structured or the art itself, I'm open to feedback.

The mistakes I already know I made include the text bubbles, they're all wrong, but I'll fix that in my future drawings, and the facial expressions, which I just need more practice with. Also, my writing could use a lot of improvement, but since English isn't my first language, I used ChatGPT to correct it, so I’m not sorry for it. And let’s not even talk about the background at the end…

After just two pages, I realized I had bitten off more than I could chew. Being a beginner with CSP, still struggling a lot with anatomy, and trying to produce a high-quality comic just didn't work out. Working on it stopped being fun, and I lost sight of the point of trying

So for now, I've decided to abandon this project. I'm definitely coming back to it later because this comic is very close to my heart, but I need to be more confident in my skills first

Yes I used to use chatgpt for my grammar yes I'm ashamed of it

These are the first two pages I finished

Robin & Cyborg: Best friends, but also kinda rivals. They support each other and push the other to always improve

Robin & Starfire: Dating, but also they reassure the other when they feel alone. Reminding them that they are never alone

Robin & Raven: Inspiring hope in each other without realizing it

Robin & Beast Boy: Robin grounds Beast Boy, but weirdly, Beast Boy grounds Robin too

Cyborg & Starfire: Take turns as the other's confidante and comfort

Cyborg & Raven: Raven is often at her kindest when with Cyborg and Cyborg is often the most respectful about her boundaries

Cyborg & Beast Boy: Shares one brain cell

Starfire & Raven: Unironically the closest pair of friends. Not even in an opposites attract kind of way. They really bonded after the switching episode

Starfire & Beast Boy: Big sis and little bro energy. Also, youngest siblings in a family energy

I am SO mad about this penny, because it was such a sweet gesture of Beast Boy to give it to her, and it clearly had some amount of emotional value for her. She held onto it LITERALLY as long as she possibly could. It was with her until what she thought could be her last breath. And to add to this, this is one of the very few moments between them throughout her whole arc, and I think one of the best moments in the whole series.

And then we never see it again.

Ever.

It's like it got forgotten about.

So my comfort headcanon is, idk if that's a thing, but it is now, ever since that penny was lost, every time Beast Boy finds one, he always gives it to Raven, and she keeps them all.

So one thing about the phrase is that she uses it for everything. It doesn't have a specific application, it just feels like it lets her tap into her powers.

And another thing about it is that it's very long and easy to cut her off because of it. Dr. Light even makes fun of her by saying "next time, choose shorter magic words"

But that's the point. She probably picked a long phrase for herself as an additional safeguard. She's terrified of herself and her powers. By having a long trigger phrase, she knows that one, she has to always channel her intention, so she can't accidentally do something horrible, and two, even if she does begin to do something horrible, it gives everyone just those few seconds longer to stop her from following through.