Some of y’all may have noticed my account was terminated for a bit there. But luckily the mistake was corrected and I’m back now!
Apologies to everyone who is about to be spammed by me just reblogging everything from my back up account so I have everything on one account.*
classicallystrained-blog is my back up account now, and you’re welcome to follow me over there just in case this happens again for some reasons (I never made sideblogs over there though so all the posts I currently have over there is just a smorgasbord of Important Shit, Fandom Nonsense, and Personal Stuff. Just a heads up).
And if you’re coming over from my backup account- Welcome to my main! This is where I put most things, but if you’re interested in miscellaneous fandom content that’ll be at tell-me-your-vision. If you’re here specifically for the batfam/DC stuff that’ll be at fandom-hoard.
*Edit: I give up 😭 there’s too much. I can’t reblog all that. I’ll reblog some and the rest can just exist over there for all eternity.
For people who donāt know what it is. Bc I think some of you might find itās right up your alley. Well this is an updated one anyway. I do actually have a volume of this out in print right now, but the low def, basic version is online and complete, and tbh, I just want people to read it. I took almost two years to complete this and quite literally poured every waking moment (after work and when I wasnāt fixing stuff in my house) into this to try and finish it.
And now here is a more detailed break down if you need more info than thatā¦
*Jonathan Frakes asks you things meme voice* have you ever wondered what youād find if you REALLY lived forever?
Well, meet Eyan, an immortal vampire.
Heās slowly finding out the answer to that questionā¦
ā¦And it appears to be unbearable isolation.
Eons into the distant future, when most stars have faded in the night sky and the cosmic event horizon has confined any remaining beings to an isolated pocket of the universe, Eyan roams interstellar space in a repurposed generation ship in search of anything that could be considered alive/sentient in the way he is.
So far, heās out of luck.
That is until he runs into an unexpected former rival on a remote planet - Zero, a sentient android he never expected to be the only other person left alive.
Well. That is, if either of them can really be consideredĀ āaliveā. What does that mean anyway, when the humans who defined what it means to be alive are all gone?
This is something theyāll have to explore and define for themselves as they attempt to set aside their myriad of differences and try to work together on one of the few ways left to escape the dark fate of ultimate isolation - The Grand Encoder, a machine that can upload minds to a special medium - if it even works for them anyway. In the process, they slowly come to accept that maybe theyād had each other all wrong and werenāt seeing the bigger picture.
You may not find any action-packed Star Wars like escapades here in this sci fi drama. You also wonāt find ponderings about the origins of vampires or what gave rise to robot sentience - Itās integral to the plot that these things just ARE. But you will find a thoughtful exploration of identity and how it can cause us to define ourselves and relate to (or abandon) each other depending on the framework within which we are doing that exploration and within which we are compelled to exist. It asks the question, what if the frameworks within which we defined our existence and purpose no LONGER existedā¦Where would we go from there?
And as two immortal guys who are the only folks left in the universe (as far as they know), Eyan and Zero are just the right people to mull over that.
There is both textual and allegorical queerness in this story - both main characters should be considered gay men, even if itās The Future TM and terms/exact scopes of identities may not be EXACTLY 1-1 with todayāsā¦But I want to be perfectly clear that it was my intent to make them gay because I wanted to see more gay guys in sci fi and I donāt want anyone erasing that. As for the allegorical stuff - I myself am a trans gay man in my late 30s, so this act of re-exploring and re-framing myself and evaluating how and why queer folks interact with each other the way we do is something Iām very familiar with, and I feel like other folks might relate. (I also peppered in some neurodivergent-person-in-a-neurotypical-world moods tbh.)
Of course itās not all serious. I do have a bit of fun with some old school vampire tropes, tossing Eyan around and putting him in Situations.
Anyway if this all sounds interesting to you, take a look at my tag and site (above)! Iād appreciate it! I also like to hear from people and see if thereās anything about it you related to! :)
I also do everything. Every last monotonous step (well, aside from literally loading up a printing press to churn out volumes lol - BUT REST ASSURED IF I HAD $10K TO PISS INTO THE WIND I WOULD DO THAT TOO). So if thereās ANYTHING you want to know about my process, Iām happy to tell you so please ask, especially if youāre like trying to get started on your own comic or trying to go to print :)Ā
Edit before I go ahead and blaze this: I want to say, to be honest, the creation of comic was initially motivated almost entirely by the isolation/loneliness Iāve felt in my life. Itās not as bad as some folksā and I know that, but it is a really prevalent thread throughout my life and sometimes is almost unbearable, and my comic began as an exploration of that loneliness, as well as a narrative exercise to try and express the depth of it at its worst point. Iām putting this out here because ultimately I donāt knowā¦maybe someone will catch my drift and understand the feeling Iām trying to illustrate, and maybe theyāll want to see the plot that came of those feelings. I am not above the need to feel seen lol, especially if other people out there feel like they can resonate with this experience as well.
i mean this completely seriously but… a cup of coffee can save your life a little, a shower can save your life a little, making your favorite meal can save your life a little…….little things actually add up to really big things in the long run if you let them, the secret to surviving everyday is infusing a little bit of magic into the mundane i truly believe that
i always forget my grandma used to be a clown so it caught me the fuck off guard when she saw this
and no hesitation saying āoh itās that creepy clown- oh heās drinking thatās against clown codeā
1. ARE YOU NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN YOUR GRANDMAāS PAST CLOWN CAREER? 2. WHATāS CLOWN CODE??????????????
Clown code.
I call a lot of y'all clowns but it turns out thatās too good for you since even they live by a code.
My grandmother didnāt allow her clowns to participate in a PSA back in the 80s because it would have violated The Code. They got actors to scab the roles anyway. My father long resented to loss of Ad revenue and publicity, but my grandmother was the sort of lady who would not sacrifice the dignity of the Clown for any price. Remarkable woman. Itās an open question as to how much the whole debacle contributed to the closure of her Clown College, but I suspect she wanted out of the game by then regardless.
Just wondering but have you read “the big road home” by crumpetz? I’m rereading it now (and taking extreme levels of emotional damage from doing so) and it seems like something you’d really enjoy
āTim does excitement a little differently than most people, a little quieter and with less movement, but itās really obvious once you know him. Heās not saying much or screaming or anything, but Tim looks like a human sunbeam. Like heās glowing under his skin.ā
This works as an answer to the metaphorical problem because the key is for the hedgehogs and prcupines to be a bit flexible about how they position themselves and keep thier spines pointed in such a fashion to minimize poking, just like how in human relationships you have to be a bit flexible and concious of your position relative to others, and to manage your sharp bits to minimize the harm you do to others.
If the weekend comes and you canāt stand the thought of not having your time filled with survival requirements and/or the idea of socializing un-anesthetized scares/freaks/weirds the fuck out of you? Go see a therapist and tell them that. Tell them that you canāt stand the thought of doing nothing. Or doing something for no reason other than enjoying it. Tell them you canāt relax without chemical help, be it socially or just in general.Ā
It is not normal. Everyone doesnāt live that way. Even all the people you go drinking with on the weekend? Not all of them need it. But you? You canāt have time off without it.
Thatās not normal.
Look. Iām not hating on social drinking. Before the pandemic, my favorite thing to do with my friends was go to a local brewery and try all the weirdest beer I could find. But when that wasnāt an option, I wasnāt destitute. Boy howdy though there were some people I knew who were.
And more importantly, Iāve known people who got help. Some of them got therapy and some got on medication, and it was a world of difference. Some of them even can still drink and often do! But they arenāt driven to it by any need other than wondering what a beer thatās calledĀ āGirl From IPA-nenaā tastes like.