I’m still moving up in the world on Top Web Comics, but if you could vote for me, that’d be awesome! One day, I’ll make a button so I can stop bothering you guys :). But hey, I made it to 58! That’s super cool!
Okay, so there’s a lot to unpack on this page! First off, some of the bilingual people I know switch languages back and forth when talking to family/friends, and some don’t, so I have no idea. I like the idea that Malaya and Vincent speak Tagalog and English to each other as needed, though. With a white dad and living in the US (and Michigan, which has like, almost no Filipino population), they don’t really need to speak a second language, but I still think their mom would have made it a priority that they learn. She travels back to the Philippines to visit family pretty frequently, so that would make it easier to drag the whole family eventually. Vincent went to public school, but was additionally home schooled alongside Malaya, so they would have learned at the same time, I think.
Anyway, I also liked the idea that they watch TV together. I don’t know why I picked Scandal, other than that I can see Vincent being obsessed with it, but totally in secret. And he’d be super sad to miss an episode. This is what DVR is for, friends. Or just watch it on Hulu the next day, I don’t know. (Disclaimer: I have not watched enough Scandal to have an opinion about it, though I have a few friends who are obsessed with it. I would have gone with How to Get Away With Murder, but that wouldn’t fit in the word bubble.)
Also, Malaya knits! She’s pretty good at it. (I am not.) It’s good for anxiety, it’s productive, it keeps her from mauling her family close to a full moon, etc. All around a good hobby. Plus, it’s one you don’t really have to leave the house for, and that’s her jam. She can order yarn and patterns online and doesn’t have to worry about killing someone in the knitting section of Michael’s.
I probably didn’t have to put so much damn time into drawing this page, buuuut I did. I put the inks up on Patreon if you’re a $5 or more supporter and want to see more details. Then, I just covered it all up with darkness! Oops. Still, it’s good practice. Even if no one sees most of the effort, at some point I’ll end up repeating this scene in the daylight and bam! Already got a background ready. In fact, I did actually have the same scene in the top frame in chapter 2, but I ended up redrawing most of it. Because hey, I have improved since then! And this looks better! Plus now it’s vector, so I can resize it as much as I want and that makes my heart smile.
Various life updates! Bowling with friends went well yesterday, and I suck at bowling :D. I’m not bad if I concentrate, but I’ve got an easily agitated stress injury to my right wrist since high school, and after a few games, my arm just can’t do it anymore. Sooooo, not gonna be joining any bowling leagues anytime soon, but it was fun.
The weather in the Midwest is weird as hell lately. I’m over it, honestly. We’ve had a few actually really nice days, some regular spring rain, and then last Friday, it snowed, hailed, and rained the same day. Early this morning, it rained and hailed like a motherfucker. Today is pretty gross. It’s supposed to warm up a bit, and then it’s going to be gross this weekend…then we’ll see. I have a lot of yard work to do and this is not helping! How are people going to see my cute plants if I can’t get all the leaves off of them? Also, I am tired of being cold. It’s the worst.
Okay, I’m off to eat breakfast and rejoin humanity.
Hm – ever try learning to bowl as a lefty? It would take some time, but it isn’t as if your game will be hurt tooo badly by switching, from the sound of it. XD And you wouldn’t be exacerbating the injury. We like you less injured!
*pours Shawn some hot chocolate, wraps them in a blanket*
I am suddenly immensely nervous that Vincent’s safety is not firmly established. *BUNDLE OF NERVES*
I like the idea of them flipping languages as needed. It seems both super-handy, and a fun sibling bonding thing.
It might be worth a try! I’m a bit sore today, but not that bad. If I don’t play more than a few games, I’m usually fine, and that’s about as long as my attention span for bowling lasts as it is lol.
I can guarantee no one’s safety :D. And I too like them flipping languages! I think it would come in handy to talk about people when you don’t want them to understand you!
Well, at least keep yourself safe! I can appreciate a story where anyone can die…but lords is that first death traumatic XD
Hahaha, I hate to say that death is not really the worry here, but you know, I’ll make sure whatever happens is as emotionally devastating as I possibly can anyway :D. I’m not a fan of writing people dying just for dramatic effect. I think it’s kind of cheap.
You know, knitting sounds like an excellent habit/hobby for me to get into when I’m watching TV! I have this weird thing where I need to do something with my hands, so most of the time when I’m watching TV I’m *also* playing Marvel Puzzle Quest on my phone or skin-picking (it’s totally a thing called dermatillomania) and it drives my husband crazy! I even have a friend who knits, so I might be able to pick up some sort of starter set or something.
Anyway, the more I learn about Vincent and Malaya’s relationship the more I love him. <3 He's one of those people who take a while to warm up to you, but once he does he's really warm and surprising. Also, fuzzy Elias!! BEST ELIAS…. O.O
I really keep meaning to pick it up as a hobby! A lot of my friends knit while watching tv, and I have the same problem as you! If I’m not playing on my phone, I tend to pick at my face…so I usually just play with my phone lol. It’s not an issue when I’m in a movie theater, but it is when watching tv, and I have no idea why. And if knitting doesn’t work out, there’s always crochet! One hook instead of two needles lol.
Yeah, Vincent kind of hates everyone, but he’s very attached to people he’s attached to! I can’t write anyone as a pure asshole, honestly, but I wanted someone broody to balance out all the happy sunshine puppy characters I keep making lol. And yes! I haven’t had a chance to make Elias fuzzy in awhile, but it’s gonna happen soon, so I wanted to make an incentive drawing to tide everyone over in the meanwhile!
I tend to knit while I’m watching stuff (or the other way around– “I can watch this so long as I knit the whole time so I can make progress on this project!”) and it honestly IS soothing; the only problem is that your yarn stash tends to become a living thing after a while, overflowing any bins or baskets you try to confine it to. Don’t believe me? Ask any knitter. I swear mine breeds while I’m not looking. 😛
Yes! That sounds like the friends I have who knit. The issue is you start out with shittier yarn when you’re learning, then graduate to good yarn when you realize hey, I can spend money on this! And then it’s like, what do you do with all the shitty yarn you started out with? And the stuff you bought because it’s pretty but has no purpose? It’s like my fabric stash lol.
I know that feeling – I tend to be doing a Second Thing while watching tv, too – though, for me, it’s something on the computer, or reading. I also do things when I’m on the phone – most notably, on a cell phone, I walk. If the phone is tethered, I play with the cord or something, but if it’s an unbound phone, I walk circuits around rooms, go up and down stairs, and otherwise move.
I honestly have to thank you, Shawn Lenore. Because of this comic (and me) I have had a continuously growing obsession with werewolves, and now I’m watching a series called Bitten because it seems interesting! This comic isn’t exactly like it tho, because there’s only one female werewolf in Bitten. Could you imagine how it would feel if this comic was like that, Malaya being the only girl? Talk about boy-trapped… (I also can’t tell who my favorite character is, in your comic, Vincent or Elias ;D)
I totally replied to your comment in my head, and then didn’t actually do it in real life! Very sorry!
But yeah, I’ve heard of Bitten, but I had the same issue as you. I like that there’s a female werewolf lead, but it’s way too focused on her getting with dudes! Like, romance would be fairly low priority for me if I turned into a wolf person as needed. (Everyone’s favorite is Elias so far, though I am partial towards…all of them lol.)
While it’s not usually a good idea to feed an obsession, check out Patricia Briggs’ novels in her Mercy Thompson series & the related Alpha & Omega series (her other work is good, too; patriciabriggs.com). Another good werewolf series is Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series. Both deal with coping with both changes in one’s own life as a werewolf & broadening understanding of the world after exposure to the supernatural. Which Shawn’s story is doing quite well. Different perspectives & assumptions, but that just makes it stand on its own merits.
Something comes to mind here: Shawn, do you have a setting bible (a record of all of the assumptions & “rules” of the story setting)? It’s not so important for us as readers, as to keep yourself reminded of what you’ve decided & planned (or already shown us).
Yep! Not written down, but in my brain it’s pretty straightforward. I admit that a lot of stuff I make up on the fly and work in to a greater extent as I go along, but I try to be careful that things don’t conflict. I’m kind of a stickler for plot holes, so when I find one, I fill it in whatever logical way I can! Overall, though, to me the story isn’t all that complicated. I know what everyone’s motivations are, and the basics of magic (werewolves get their magic from within, witches get their magic from outside, you can’t be both at the same time, etc.), and where the settings are in relation to each other. As long as I know those things, it’s mostly a game of figuring out what pieces you guys need and at what pace :).
Writing something this long is pretty new to me, but the basic planning is kind of my wheelhouse, so it’s working out!
She’s curiously absent from this scene?
SHE’S A VAMPI– eh, okay, I got nothin’. Joke’s dead.
Connie got her two pages! And that’s all she gets and she better like it.
Vote initiative made me smirk.
Hmm… Ether he gets kidnapped or Elias gives him a scare. Or nether, so many options.
Hahaha, I enjoyed drawing it!
And I can confirm nor deny either of those scenarios :D.
what if he is kidnaped by Elias? That’s an option too.
hmmm, dark parking lot while on the phone after werewolf shenanigans all day, spidy senses tingling!
Right? Hangin’ out, not a care in the world, sad about missing a new episode of Scandal…
Incidentally, language is most easily learned in childhood & best learned from a native speaker. A bilingual household (particularly where each parent speaks to the children exclusively in their own native tongue) usually results in children who are perfectly fluent in their parents’ languages, with no mix ups.
Her mom being in academics would mean that she’d be pretty hardcore into making sure her kids were fluently bilingual. Most people in the Philippines speak Tagalog and English as their main languages, and then there’s dialectical variations and a bunch of auxiliary languages on top of that. So if she ever planned to take her kids to visit her family, or have a regular relationship with her home country, having them speak Tagalog fluently would be a definite plus.
Well, pretty much all of my Filipino friends use Tagalog and English together like “hey bro kamusta ka na?” And such, so I think you’re gone 🙂
That’s what I figured! But all the Filipino friends I’ve ever had only ever spoke English around me lol. And I had one white friend who spoke Tagalog fluently, but she lived in the Philippines for quite awhile with her parents.
As a Norwegian/Internettian, i’ve gotten into the habit of switching language mid-sentence all the time ;p
No seriously I regularly swap into english mid-convo with fellow Norwegians. I don’t doubt for a moment that people who actually grew up bilingual might do that all the time.
Lol, I think it helps when the people you’re talking to also understand the other language! I learned Japanese in school, and now I’m trying to learn Spanish (I’m very lazy at it though), and sometimes there are words that just express things much better, but no one would know what I was saying :p. I’m glad that my English to Tagalog switching for the Walters family rings true to other bilinguals, though XD.