We grin and support John Wick as he ploughs through dozens of people per minute in his revenge quest over his murdered dog and ruined car, but we gasp with shock when the Wicked Witch of the East pursues a single person to take revenge for killing her sister with ...

The Genre Defines the Lines
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, May 9, 2020Sexposition (Do NOT Google That)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Dec. 21, 2019
The word for ‘porn’ in Greek is unsurprisingly ‘porn’. But its vernacular synonym is a word that in reality means ‘tack-on’ or ‘added scrap’. It signifies the common (or at least until recently common) assumption that scenes with explicit sexual activity were there to pad the runtime for a movie ...
Sticking the Landing
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 14, 2019
As it has been seen very painfully lately in TV, the best story, with the most excellent buildup and most powerful cast of characters will just collapse if the ending isn't good enough.
A technically happy ending that isn't good enough is not going to cut it- again ...
The Weather as Prop
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Aug. 10, 2019
So the weather is very important. We all know that from our real life routine alone.
There is often a tendency, however, not to use it when it comes to the visual narrative that webcomics are. More often than not, the weather is basically perpetually clear. Daylight or moonlight are ...
The Oversimplification of a Child Hero's World
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, June 1, 2019
Happy June 1st everyone!
I have been youtube-crawling today around the cinema pop-culture side. And as I was watching assorted comments and commentary on a whole lot of YA (i.e. Young Adult) and children's books and TV/film/animation series, from Harry Potter to The Last Airbender to ...
Pure Evil
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 20, 2019
I've talked about villains before and how they can be very nuanced in their motivations (without those motivations being redeeming) but today, thanks to Emma Clare's Friday post, I became inspired to talk about abject, absolute, abominable villainy! The twirling mustache type, the one that is so pure ...
Handling Controversial Historical Characters
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 13, 2019
image by Ben Burgraff
When writing a historical fiction, it's very likely that you will need to include some actual historical personalities along with your historically-adept yet fictional cast.
Depicting a historical character is hard enough when there's a general consensus among historians and popular belief about who ...
Platonic Friendship (Part 1)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, March 2, 2019
Writing good romance is hard- it has so many pitfalls to avoid, so many tropes to grapple with and principles to keep in mind, that experience is necessary.
Writing actual platonic friendships between a male and female character is even harder.
The basic reason why it is harder is because ...
Look at all this progress!
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, Feb. 15, 2019Prepare for a long ass post cause we're here to celebrate all the progress our community of artists have made in 10 years! A couple of weeks back I wrote about the 10 year art challenge, asking for peeps to show off their progress from 2009 and then 2019 ...
Writing Mental Illness (Part 2)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 19, 2019
How to Pick, Research and Implement Mental Disorder in a Character
So last time I talked in general about some basic concepts and principles about what constitutes mental illness, or, more accurately, mental disorder. The important thing to remember and keep from all of that is this set of truths ...