23/04/25 all of my stories have been rewritten, overhauled, or redone, with bits and pieces changed, added, or taken away, since they were first conceived. but are we still friends? has stayed relatively the same since it was first written in 2022, which is 3 years ago now - i think that this is a mistake.
it definitely has the hallmarks of my early writing, and the biggest problem i have with it is the pacing and execution of the concept. i don't want to change the characters or concept, but i need to rethink the entire story from there. i realized this while i was drawing the characters in hypothetical situations, and i realized that the story as it is, isn't the artistic direction that i want it to go in.
so, i've been trying to brainstorm for the past week or so for ideas on how i can better execute the story. i know that in its current stage, aster is far too absent for my liking, and the pacing of going to each world feels to monster-of-the-week-ish; they go to a world for a day, solve its problems, learn a lesson, and come back home again to implement that lesson in their world. this isn't necessarily a bad way to format your show - i mean, it's how hundreds of children's shows work, but that's the problem. it feels too much like a moral children's show, and that's not really the direction i want it to go in. i think this element was heavily inspired by deltarune and its dark worlds, and it works extremely well there; the dark worlds feel like they have more of a justification for being there, and are more intrinsically tied to the overarching plot at large. but the worlds in awsf?, on the other hand, feel too random and disconnected. while yes, the worlds are connected to the characters, their feelings, and their issues, they don't feel connected to the world, and they feel too "ham-fisted", for lack of a better word.
recently i've been watching nowhere boys - the original inspiration for awsf?, before the story was even a concept - which also deals with a cast of four characters tied to a fifth character going to another world and becoming closer friends while dealing with high school teenager issues, who later develop powers in their own world. you may be able to see just how deeply this show inspired me when i first watched it eleven years ago, even though i could hardly remember it at the time of writing awsf?; inspirations work in strange ways like that. while the show isn't without its own writing flaws, i think it's the sort of direction that i would want awsf? to go in. i've also finished disco elysium: the final cut two days ago, and the concept of the pale has really stuck with me, so i might also want to implement something like that as more of a dimensional device. "after life, death - after death, life again. after the world, the pale - after the pale, the world again." it really resonates with me as something that could tie into aster's story.
other inspirations for awsf? also use this "travelling between this world and the other" narrative. omori has headspace, the persona games have the collective subconscious worlds, and arguably infinity train just has the dimension where the train continually runs, and the cars contain sub-dimensions within that train-dimension. and homestuck... is homestuck.
so, i know i promised that after i get some drawing practice, i would be getting started on the awsf? comic right away, since it was "done". unfortunately, things do not seem to have worked out that way. but i hope that this will prove to be worth it.

awsf?, update, inspo

19/03/25 i watched the last couple of episodes of invincible season 3 lately. invincible reminds me a lot of how i treat ryan; the constant angst and torture, mark being subjected to so much guilt and trauma from all angles, the rage that builds up inside him, his father's crimes and responsibilities that are placed on him, how the odds seem stacked against him... he even has his own self to fear. at least, selves from other universes. and their apathy can't help but make him wonder what was stopping him from turning out like that, and if he's still capable of being that monster, somewhere deep inside him. season 3 particularly is about how mark hates himself, and pushes himself so hard to make up for simply existing.
or something like that, i'm not actually great at media literacy, how ironic lmao. but all that is to say that it got me thinking a lot about ryan, and how people treat the characters that they love. specifically, how people torture the characters they love. i don't doubt that the creator of invincible loves him. (granted, i have never read the comics; all of this is based off of the show.) so much devotion has clearly been poured into his character. as many times as mark is kicked down and ripped apart, how the universe threatens to take everything he loves away from him, he builds himself up again. i think maybe invincible resonates with me because mark isn't strong because of the abuse and pain he suffers - he remains strong and kind in spite of it. the show is gorey and raw, but it doesn't feel like it does that just for shock value like the boys. the show makes a point that all of the bodies in this carnage were people once, who meant something to other people, who had lives, who had stories of their own. invincible is as much a story about the lives of the people, as it is about the lives of the superheroes who protect them.
i keep rambling haha, but i guess that's what this blog is for. anyway, what i mean is, maybe that's why we torture our characters. it's cathartic, in a way. we vent our frustrations and woes and raw emotions by taking it all out on a fictional character. and we can do it again, and again, and again, and again. it's a good way to ask yourself, "why am i feeling like this? why does this evoke this particular reaction from me?" that's exactly what i do with ryan. that's what he is to me. because ryan isn't just the protagonist of ryan: sins of the father, he's an essential part of me. he's the subject of my tortures, my pain, my agony, my hate, my love, my sorrow, my thoughts. i play with him in my mind, like a piece of clay that i mold to suit different hypothetical scenarios. i don't share these scenarios with anyone else, i don't even write them down; i just go through them experimentally, and i learn things from them.
funnily enough, mark grayson is not on ryan's kin list, despite the fact that he ticks more of the boxes than most. anger issues, insane amount of guilt, blames himself for everything that goes wrong, self-sacrificing, protective of his loved ones, shitty dad, frequently questioning his romantic relationships, on the verge of snapping, "invincible", and despite all of the torture they endure, they persevere. and their similarities, both in their character and their story arcs, are especially funny to me personally because i started making ryan's story long before i knew anything about invincible. yet here we are, two stories that centre around a boy's relationship with his father, which use multiverses as a narrative device, and at some point have alternate versions of the main character encounter him and fuck stuff up. granted, my story is explicitly multi-fandom, and the alternate versions of ryan aren't necessarily evil - rather, they serve more of a purpose like the clones in mickey 17, to show aspects of ryan's self and how he perceives them - but it nonetheless inspired me to see another story with a similar essence.
it's sad to see that cringe culture is still so pervasive to this day. people - kids - can't create original content without being meticulously judged and ridiculed for any deviation from an arbitrary rule. it's really damaging to how we communicate through art. a very large, integral part of that is communication through our art with ourselves, as art is definitively introspective. that's why shows like invincible make me happy, because it's something so critically acclaimed with such a story that reminds me of so many angsty, edgy original characters that would be posted on deviantart or livejournal or whatnot. mark grayson is just an ultra powerful oc who goes through an incredibly angsty, edgy story. if he was made by just some kid, he would probably be called a mary sue or something. hell, all of the indulgent gore in the show is comparable to creepypastas. i hope that people see the show like i do, and feel less pressured to make something "perfect". make ocs like mark grayson. torture ocs like invincible.

ramble, ryan, rsotf

16/03/25 the thoughts page is done! well, it's set up, so i can put posts in it. i decided to do it all manually, maybe i'll do something fancy like an iframe someday...
this site is still a huge wip. you may have noticed that most of the other pages are empty, with only the backgrounds done. well, don't fret! i will hopefully be able to code them soon, i've already planned their layouts. i'll be working on the awsf? and guardian glitterbeasts pages first, since they're the most developed stories.
however, it's not very far up on my list of priorities. i mean, i say "most developed stories", but all of my stories are still very undeveloped. i'd rather get more art done for them before i code their pages. besides, the pages will look better with actual art! so it may be a long while before you see anything. i might end up coding the skeletons of the page, but that's a maybe.
i should probably talk about that. awsf? and guardian glitterbeasts are the main stories i'm focusing on right now, with r:sotf on the sidelines somewhat. totog, virtuous sins, and dacos are all on the backburner - as in, i'm not really developing them unless i think it's really necessary. i have a general idea of them, but they won't be a priority until much, much further down the line. awsf? and guardian glitterbeasts have basically had all of the writing done, at least before i head into making their comics, so i want to cross the finish line with them first.
in preparation for working on webcomics, i'm going to be focusing on improving my art, and drawing my ocs more. if i'm being honest, i'm not really used to drawing for a purpose that isn't either for a reference or a commission. so i'll be doing a lot more of that. if i can sort out all of the youtube and pngtuber stuff, i'll probably stream it, too.
i'll try to update this page frequently with more insight into my stories. stuff like concept designs, inspirations, playlists, etc. so uh, look forward to that!

update, stories