#human characters

Hey... there's a ghost, among those memories...

Started (more or less) as a Danny Phantom fanfiction, now being re-skinned and expanded as an original, before publication... finally, here's the black and white version (drawn with black ballpoint pen) of the "Ghost of Love" cover.

Vestigial Tale Episode 1

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Vestigial Tale is the story of Nastursa, a soldier bred to subjugate her own species, and her efforts to protect an ailing refugee with mystical powers. Together, they evade the Io Empire and discover the truth behind the vanished land god—a gigantic being that once maintained the ecological balance of Lappukaliy.

Scroll-thru version is available on my website.

After a year and some change of drafting, concept arting, sketching, lining, coloring, lettering, and editing, Vestigial Tale is finally ready to share! This webcomic represents a pivotal moment for me: a turn towards the visual storytelling I’ve always hoped I’d create. A divorce from the notion of art as a final polished product, and a welcoming of art as a creative process—something that affects change within the artist and the audience. VT is inspired by Indigenous resistance, queer found families, and my Filipino heritage.

more human!max and Bradley!!

If they are semi perfect, have the normal reaction to their trauma and they still get destroyed or called boring if they aren't complex or human and even can get called Mary sue character if you don't give them enough depth or edge.It's like you are damned either way, fuck that.

Write female characters how you like. You want them to be a piece of shit? Do it! You want them to be a piece of shit but humanizing them? Do it! You want them to be self righteous and try to do the right thing even if they had to act judgmental and annoying about it? Do it. You want them to be the villian? Do it! You want them to be a victim? Do it.

And let's also start writing more teenage male characters who cry openly, who express their masculinity in however way they want whether is through outwardly or inwardly. You want to make them crybabies? Do it. You want to write them in ways that female characters get shamed for? Do it. You want them to be comforted? Do it. There is never one way to write human characters.

We need to break this stereotypes and just write human characters. Human characters who sometimes cry, sometimes doesn't, who can be stoic or sensitive or even both since it doesn't need to be one over the other, fighter or peacemaker or even both or neither. Male characters can be just as soft as female characters can be and female characters can be as tough as male characters can be.

Let teenage characters be as messy as they can be and let's not judge them with the same standards that you would if they were adult since no teenagers deserved that treatment even if they are that annoying or bratty.

sonadow humanized!