ALuckyArtist
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Quick note
🕑 Added 2024-01-02 21:52:34 +0000 UTCToday’s page is taking a while. I have some anxiety over some comments I received yesterday that I’d like to address.
I know there’s a level of quality to be expected from a Patreon you pay your hard earned money on, and I try to do my best to make sure all of my weekly updates cover each base, but at the end of the day, I can only complete so much and I hope that if there’s a genuine lack of satisfaction with the content of the updates, and how I advertise what‘s being posted on this account currently, you can feel free to contact me for refunds! I don’t want to let anyone down, but I also feel there are certain boundaries I need to establish here in regards to certain projects and how people might be critical of the afab characters I use - most of which belong to my friends, primarily my co-writer, Mags.
I would like to respectfully ask that we be mindful about rude, critical comments. I am never above genuine criticism, especially if I’m making art that is seriously harmful to others, but as a fat, HAIRY, nonbinary person who’s spent over a decade trying to gradually incorporate more and more different characters/body types in my stories and projects - only for the majority of those stories/projects to get overlooked and pushed aside - it’s never fun to get poked at for not being inclusive enough in the most recent projects that only focus on 1-2 main characters. Dagkota and LucEzra have become poll crushers this past year, but these two ships don’t make up the entirety of my works. It’s simply what you see the most because this is the first time I’ve been able to work on comics full time and all throughout the year, I polled to see what ships/comics you guys wanted to have for each new Oneshot. And I encourage you all to keep voting in those polls when I release them because I have, and I always will, include characters of different sexualities + body types. Dagkota is obviously the most popular here, and I’m glad for it, but at the end of the day, I want to respect the majority vote, and stick to the polls. If you want to see more of something, don’t be afraid to engage in my poll or suggestion posts! They’re not very frequent, because I only post them after each Oneshot is finished, but if you want more of a say in what comics I make, that’s the best place to do it.
BUT since it’s almost exclusively the girl characters that get picked out in these comments, I would like to politely remind people that most of my patron picked comics are collabs between my friends and I, and I do my best to respect the designs that my friends have created for their women OC’s. Please be kind in the comments because I’m not the only person who might be affected by your words. And due to a long history of people I don’t really know feeling way too comfortable trashing my close friend’s characters, I have a zero tolerance for that even now. Most of the women you see in haunting dagger right now belong to trans/queer women, I will defend them and their creators with my life! If I’m allowed to have a 6ft fantasy projection cis man character with Dagger, I will honor and defend my friend’s characters whilst they breast boobily down the stairs! (And read Lucky! for more flat chested babes, my resume is all right there)
I understand the need to feel seen and represented in the art and stories you consume, it just feels like a low blow when you direct it at someone who’s been working for nearly a decade to have a project of a more diverse cast get sidelined in terms of popularity and support.
Mags and I made our character ships with no real foresight of how big they would blow up, or how quickly they would overshadow my other series - due to popular demand. Dagger and Dakota were for a monster of the week game. She’s supposed to be a typical pretty girl-next-door design, with a dark past. Luciana and Ezra were also originally created for a dnd setting. Please understand that the original intent for the characters was to have something self indulgent to roleplay with between the two of us. It just so happened that I got the itch to make a couple of comics with those pairs and I was so incredibly lucky that you guys wanted to support that so I could do so much more!
Lastly, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with wanting to feel seen in someone else’s work, but please understand that I can only juggle a couple of projects at a time, and there are nicer ways to approach the topic. I just don’t appreciate when my friend’s women characters exclusively have to be thrown under the bus to get a well meaning, but entirely misguided point across. Lucky! has been here since 2015. I’ve tried gradually including different character/body/sexuality types in all of my work just for the sole purpose of feeling seen in my own projects, I can’t fully help that it’s the 2005 stereotypical bad boy + pretty girl next door rom-com that kickstarted the rest of my career, but I will guarantee that projects where queer/fat/gnc characters will always find their ways back into my catalogue, of my own choosing. (Well, with Patreon polls, of course. YOU GUYS are the ones who pick which ships I work with for comics, please keep that in mind.) My work will go through phases. My subjects will change with time. There was always a plan to have comics with different ships/body types in the lineup, specifically thinking of three potential plus-size candidates for 2024, if y’all vote for them in the polls lmao Allow me to be in 2005 and overindulge for a little while. I steal Mags’ pretty girls for ships because -I- like them. Making comics with them wasn’t the original plan, but we’re over the moon with the outcome. And as much as I like stereotypically pretty girls, I too like my fat, flat chested girls. I like my tall giant muscle girls. I like my gnc characters and trans guys/girls. I have them all here, waiting to be used again, we’re just going down the list and keeping HD up to date since like. That’s what we’re all here for! You haven’t even met Dagger’s band yet, what do you think chapter four is about?? -lines up the band and redesigns them to all look like 2010 Barbie dolls just to be petty /J /J)
I’m not perfect! But I try when I can, and I work hard to meet weekly quotas so sometimes, a rude comment can make or break my work flow completely. I really struggled getting through today’s page, the anxiety was a lot. Please just… bully me to draw clothes better, I beg of you. That’s something I haven’t actually put the work in for yet lmao
And as always, thank you all so much for the continued love and support. We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without y’all.
Comments
Althea
Dude…I love your work and style. We can all continue to improve but I wouldn’t rep your HD band t-shirt when I sing in my own band if I thought your art and the diversity were trash. Lucky! Was how I found you and it was pretty ground breaking to me. HD and the others are just cherry on top. Stay classy Caez, you’re doing great 😎
MissNoon
I never understand when people follow a creator and then try to bully them into creating something other than what you originally followed them for. Like… you paid for the product, if you don’t like it just stop paying for it and go away! (Edited to add: if seeing a character that doesn’t EXACTLY represent you makes you mad and lash out cruelly at the creator then that says a lot about you and the way you process your own emotions/insecurities. You shouldn’t have to see your carbon copy to appreciate the stories— although representation DOES MATTER— this is like when cishet white dudes say they won’t watch “women’s movies” cus they just can’t relate to the stories… don’t be like that. Thx.) That said, your work is beautiful and unique and it IS diverse (go check out Lucky, ppl!). As shitty as it feels when you get that unsolicited (and unhelpful) criticism, try to remember that having haters means you are doing something big and worthwhile. If you aren’t attracting some naysayers it means you’re invisible. And you’re NOT invisible. You SHINE!
