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SpeedBoostTorchic — (PMD) MD - Prologue (74)
#battle #charmander #cubone #dungeon #mystery #pichu #pokemon
Published: 2014-10-06 04:11:09 +0000 UTC; Views: 6083; Favourites: 40; Downloads: 5
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WOOT! Finally had some free time to work on this! AND I GOT THE NEW SUPER SMASH BROTHERS!
It's awesome, but Smash Run is such BS...Anyway, as I'm sure a few of you have noticed, Charmander # 18's accent seems to turn on and off and occasionally completely change. That's because I've never really had a firm grasp on just what the hell she's supposed to sound like. It started as normal, then valley girl, then southern-ish, then back to normal again. I've decided that from now on, I'll just write her dialogue to convey a southern accent (I know this page isn't the best example of that, given I've changed exactly one word, but from now on I mean).
Speaking of Charmander, I know a lot of people are confused about the various character's genders. In the last panel I tried to make her look more feminine, but all it really ended up doing was screwing up her proportions.
The gender confusion thing is a serious problem. I can't tell you how many questions I've gotten about the characters, given that none of these pokemon have built-in gender differences. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make their genders more clear, I'd love to hear it.
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Also, THE COMIC HAS IT'S OWN SUB-FORUM ON POKEMON CROSSROADS! All you need is a PXR account to post there, so please come on over and say hi!
www.pokemoncrossroads.com/foru…
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Prologue (75): (PMD) MD - Prologue (75)
Prologue (73): (PMD) MD - Prologue (73) [Uncolored]
(PMD) MD on SJ: mysteriousdungeons.smackjeeves…
PXR Forums: www.pokemoncrossroads.com/foru…
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Comments: 53
Don't worry, we all make mistakes.
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right~ are you a fan of this comic?
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i thin its fab right~ perfectly planned out and nicely put
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Aww... Coming back to see how the story had progressed, thought it is still going pretty slowly. The wait is worth it.
Five contestants left now, all are the ones I really wish to not see them go. So Cubone, Charmander, and Pichu all have a name? Will we learn of them before they pass away?
This is just simply bone-chilling. The concept of 'Data' fighting each other until a 'perfect' soldier is 'born' is already horrifying enough, putting character and emotion so deep into each of them... makes me simply wish that the ones behind this would burn painfully and slowly.
And I thought Totodile's monologue before he was deleted was just tragedy. Seeing Vulpix's... It actually sent spikes of fear into my heart when I read it. You've asked what do we readers think about the forget effects you used and illustrated on the panels of Vulpix's passing, my answer is: Couldn't have been done better.
The static effect was almost like watching a movie, flashing and fizzing out as Vulpix faded away, like a data being erased.
I can't bear to think what will the next failure be like, judging from Vulpix's flashback. I can't.
Good work! ^ ^
-crazeguy
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o.0 Woah, thanks for the detailed response!
I'm glad to hear you like it, especially the death scenes. Those take the longest to script, yet get comparatively fewer views, so often I wonder if they're worth doing at all. It's good to hear they've had such an impact on the comic for you!
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You're welcome.
Oh. They ARE worth doing it. It probably did not get much views because people can't bear to have a second heart break after the first. XD
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I knew charmander was a girl and cubones a guy I j forgot pichu said he liked charmander so I thought he was gay
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Eh, you're half-right.
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Good enough for me.
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Yeah, I'm fond of them too.
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YAY IT'S CHARMANDER :'D
agh goodness i'm so hAPPYYY
AHHHH
okay -composes self- so gender things?
I think everyone else's comments about covers it! Sorry you've gotten so many questions, haha. I'm sure it's mostly from Pichu's confession a few pages ago! That, and I suppose it's hard to remember every detail that happens throughout the comic. Pronouns tend to pass over my head pretty easy whenever I'm reading something.
The eyelashes seemed to help, though, if that's one thing I can say!
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Haha, well, I'm glad you like!
I know a lot of people got confused specifically because of his confession, but come on, is it really so odd that he's bi?
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Bahaha, I guess it's just not so common, y'know? So I guess you could say it is odd to society's standards.
So due to that they'd double take like, "hey wait. is pichu bi? what's their genders again?"
I presume most people would end up being chill with it, though! It's almost starting to become taboo to hate queer people, at least on the Internet, haha. And if not they could always just.. y'know.. leave. Like they should.
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carmander looks mad and ill try to think of a way to tell genders apart
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Yeah, she be pissed.
And thanks! Let me know if you think of anything.
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Pichu still looks cute even with a scar on is eye
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He's so adorbs.
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Looking good!
"If anyone has any suggestions on how to make their genders more clear, I'd love to hear it". Don't worry about it - it's not a big deal, and it's not as if Pokemon act differently based on gender.
I'm looking forward to getting SSB too!
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Well, maybe not, but I'm really getting tired of people asking if Cubone or Pichu are girls, or if Charmander's a guy.
And maybe they wouldn't act differently by gender, but reader reactions wold be different, and this comic is going to be pretty heavy on the romantic subplots, especially when the prologue eventually ends and the main story gets going.
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Fair enough. Other than the usual generic comic genders (girls=eyelashes, boys=tousled/spiky hair) I wouldn't know what else to put (especially with Charmander). I guess you could always use the male/female symbols after number-names like (Charmander #42 ♀) although that looks a little odd.
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With most animal species, females are generally lither, smaller, and/or more slender than the males. I believe hyenas are one of the exceptions to this. A lot of people (myself included) add lashes to female characters' eyes (for reptilians it's weird though) to denote the difference, but another simple trick is to just darken the upper line of the eye. That can convey thicker eyelashes without having to draw thin, scraggly lines sticking out from the eyeball.
Another way to go about it would be don't change anything, but just reference their genders through dialogue with other characters. The method stated above works for a solid gender binary, so to encompass more of the spectrum it'd be better to let your characters talk with each other and have that reveal their gender.
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Ah, thank you so much for the detailed response!
1. The slender bodies thing is something I've decided to try recently, but it's really awkward to do on quadrupeds (like vulpix) without looking weird. Even on bipeds (like charmander above), when I tried to draw her slender in the last panel, it really ended up screwing with her proportions. Do you have any tips for doing that?
(Another thing, I always kinda envisioned Charmander as a rather stocky, muscular lady, given that her fighting style is very physical. A more slender body would change that, right?)
2. I've been doing the eyelashes thing, but the confusion persists. I've considered that maybe people haven't been noticing the eyelashes, but drawing them thicker just looks very out of place. Additionally, as a cartoon trope, it only sometimes shows up on females (while never showing up on males) the end result being that a lot of people still ask if my guys are girls. Any thoughts for this?
3. Lastly, dialogue is also something I've been working with, but even that didn't clear things up much. (The "boys" line uttered by both vulpix and charmander were intended on clearing up questions about cubone and Pichu) But ultimately, my biggest hurdle here is just that many times it doesn't seem natural to throw in pronouns. A lot of the time there just wouldn't be a reason to use pronouns given the dialogue and situation.
Again, thank you so much for the tips!
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oh man no I totally understand, heck, it's something I have trouble with too! And like you said, it's also not a good universal difference if your character expresses a different body type related to their personality. I mean I just sketch sometimes to try and work out those proportions and try a bunch of different poses with them.
not really man, at that point it's out of your control. You can only do so much to convince your fans, and after a certain point they just don't listen. I've had plenty of confusion in the earlier stages of STLE and it's just something that tends to happen. Someone on this thread mentioned making a cast page listing their genders, and while you did say there'll be a completely new cast when the prologue's over, it might be a nice idea to have even just a list without pictures (or small ones cropped from comic pages) just as a reference for new readers.
Have characters refer to someone off-screen, then, or something in the past. Like, "I think Charmander went over there, but she looked like she was in a hurry" or "Pichu once told me that he was a bad fighter". Just tossing in pronouns makes no sense in real dialogue, but if you have your characters interact or reference one another, there should be opportunities that arise through their interactions. Groups of people, especially friends or those that see one another a lot, tend to talk about one another or share stories.
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I would have posted this reply sooner, but DA kept going down for me...
I well I could but together a character page, but it would take time, and given the already inconsistent nature
of my updates, I'm wondering if anybody would really appreciate it more than me working on the next page. But
it's not as if I'll have a completely different cast, so I guess you're right in saying it's worth investing in.
And yeah, that's actually really good dialogue advice! 
Ah, thanks so much for responding again! I really appreciate your feedback.
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AWESOME ENTRY!!! And am I the only one to notice that all the dream Pokemon are in their first form, even the ones in Vulpix's memories?
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Nope! In the dream time passes very slowly compared to the real world (I mean, when you dream at night it's always over so quick, eh?) and the fatality rate is high, so none get the chance to evolve.
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I guessed as much. And the gender confusion is only because Pichu said that he liked Charmander and Cubone
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Yeah, I know that's probably a contributing factor (given that gender questions like, quintupled after that page). Is it really so odd that he swings both ways?
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Not really, it was just a little confusing.
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Wait, so I'm confused, you got a deleted account and a changed username? How...? o.0
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I'm too tired to talk just go here thedragon-empress.deviantart.c…
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Indeed, the only confusion I had was pichu as well. Maybe it'll help to make a character reference sheet for the main-er characters
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I've been working on something like that, but it takes a while, and I'm worried that once the prologue's over, the character sheet would then need to be updated for all the new characters or else stick out like a sore thumb.
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The only character I got slightly confused with the gender of was Pichu due to lack of referencing it. I thought the rest were obvious really. owo
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Yeah, everyone seems to think that Pichu's a girl, but a lot of people also keep asking if Cubone's a girl or if Charmander's a guy. It seems these three just can't catch any slack.
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I find that pretty odd really because you did reference most of the genders pretty early on I think - *rereads from first page* - yeah, you referenced the gender of every character at least once by the end of page 36 except for Pichu. Then his gender was first referenced in page 68.
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Yeah I know, I think people are mainly confused because of Pichu's confession. He's supposed to be bi, but everyone just assumes along the way they got someone's gender wrong instead. >.<
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Most likely - his gender wasn't mentioned before the confession so that likely contributed to the idea he was female when added to his shyness and friendliness. I don't think it is common for guys to be represented as bisexual either - I can't actually think of many characters in comics or books or shows that are male and bisexual off the top of my head.
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Well I sure can! (from comic books anyways)
There's Daken, who's evil, Loki, who's evil, Deadpool, who's crazy, Shinobi Shaw, who's evil AND crazy, and depending on the author, possibly the Joker, who's, well, the joker.
...Not the greatest representation I admit...
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All I could think of was Danny from the webcomic Dumbing of Age and Blaze from James's comic and Danny denies it and is one of the least liked characters from that comic and the Blaze majorly leans towards females.
Bisexual guys really don't get a great representation at all. XD
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Blaze is bi? 0.0
I must have missed that part.
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He is but it was only mentioned in some of the Q&A answers. XD
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