Comment by Naava

Ooooooh you're back you're back! You really are back! (Just in case you didn't know. You're back!)

I started to read Runewriters two years ago, like two weeks before the hiatus. I went quite aijdfoiöasjdöfikjasdöflijasdöifj can't happen what is this when the hiatus started, because pretty much every comic I read back then announced a break or hiatus etc right after I found them! (Though you had a very good reason.) I waited for a year, and then there was ANOTHER hiatus. I mean oh god it felt like an eternity to think there's one more year to wait for this to come back... I thought you're going to forget the whole comic and get bored and start doing something else instead, but you're back and I'm so excited and aaaaaaaaaaah!

Ok I guess that's enough of that.

So, I guess I tried to tell you how much I like this comic! The colours are amazing. I don't really know how to describe it but it looks very calm. (Yes there's a sword and kinda-like-soldiers and a DRAGON in the page and I say "it looks very calm". Hmm. Well, it does.)

I will also admire you for drawing all those tiny little things over and over again, like the patterns in the mind of that water-healer-lady whose name I can't remember or all those people in the streets and all the layers of their clothing. I think it must be at least sometimes frustrating to repeat the same things (as in "yes finally the X looks perfect now I only have to do it 20 times again") but it really makes the comic look so cool. I can see you really care about Runewriters and try your best, and that's something that is very nice to read.

And the characters are so different! None of them look alike and everyone has their own personality. It's so great. During these two years, I had forgot their names but not their personalities. And I like them all. I mean I can't say any of them are less planned or somehow more boring than the others. They all seem so... real. Extra bonus points for having a deaf main character. And super extra bonus points for having a deaf main character whose deafness is not The Thing. Of course it has its own influence on the plot when Tarri can't hear, but you don't bring it up all the time.

I think the only thing you could improve is showing the age. This is just my opinion, but I think it's hard to tell the characters' ages by looking at them. Like I thought Quentin is maybe 30-40 when he's actually my age (??? no what he's the big boss of the Order what have I done with my life) and Esra is the one who's 30 -- even though I thought he's 20. But I do think Tarri and Iavin look as old (or young?) as they are.

I'm also a bit suspicious if anyone can really read the lips like Tarri does. I've read about it like 10000 years ago but I can't remember anything else than that some people tried to teach deaf children to speak and read the lips so that they'd be more "normal", but they failed because that's so difficult to learn. In the end, the kids were using their own sign language. Of course Tarri needs to communicate without teaching all of them the signs first, but doesn't she ever make mistakes? Also, don't people ever try to ARTICULATE VERY CLEARLY, thinking they're helpful when they find out she's deaf? (Once again, I've read that's not good at all because if you do that, you overdo all the sounds so that it's almost impossible to recognize them anymore. But that's something people usually do, just like they think you can make a foreigner understand your language if you just speak long enough.)

Um okay I think that's all I wanted to say. I kinda swore that I'll write a comment if you ever come back, and now you did, so here we are. I've had a great time reading your comic, and I'm really glad we'll get more pages again. :) Thank you so much!

(Aaand because everyone says so, I'll say it too: not a native speaker here~! I don't want to say I'm sorry for my English because I'm not, so let's say that if you spot a mistake, deal with it. :D Anything you see is 100% correct... in Finglish.)

Reply by Unambiguous

Nah, Tarri's lip reading is actually pretty accurate, I had hearing trouble as a kid and I used to lip read a lot. It does get annoying when people exaggerate their annunciation in an attempt to make it "easier", though.

Reply by Shazzbaa

Oh dude! This is really cool to know, thanks for sharing that!

Reply by Shazzbaa

OH MAN OH MAN thank you for such a detailed comment! ; u ; And thank you so much for all your kind words on the comic, I'm really super touched!! I'M DEFINITELY A SUCKER FOR DETAILS and I'm really glad you like what that brings to the comic ; u ; And remembering the characters over a 2-year hiatus is high praise indeed -- thank you so much!! ; u ;

Re: Age -- as someone who is nearly Esra's age but frequently gets mistaken for a teenager, whose younger brother frequently got mistaken for a 25-year-old in his teens, I'm actually pretty okay with ages being a surprise! xD Quentin is a great example of how context changes the perception of age. He's in a position with a lot of responsibility, he carries himself as if he's older, he's always in weird lighting, and his sleep-deprived eyes contribute, too; but even something as simple as a haircut reveals that he's actually kinda baby-faced. Other characters in Runewriters would probably be just as surprised to learn that Quentin's 23 as you were!

RE: Lipreading
It's definitely POSSIBLE for someone who is profoundly deaf to understand a conversation through lipreading, and there are definitely individuals who've learned the skill, but it is more difficult than signing. I know something similar to what you’re describing happened here in the US, where schools pushed deaf kids to lipread and speak rather than sign, without realising that not everyone was able to do that. I consider Tareth’s ability to read lips to be a thing that she is very good at, that sort of gets taken for granted by people around her.
She doesn’t have perfect comprehension, though. We've seen her miss bits of what people are saying, but we can’t see how often she's figuring things out through context, and there are times she's not following at all and just not saying so. There are places where the lipreading font is very clear because she understands what’s being said, but a some of that clarity is for readers — having to puzzle out fuzzy writing would be a pretty frustrating device!
Ultimately I can’t show the full experience of WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE DEAF — I’m not deaf, so that’d be pretty presumptuous! — but I do try to be as true to Tareth and her experiences as I possibly can. ;u;

RE: Over-articulating
I 100% guarantee that her mom did this when she started learning to read lips. xD Probably Sev too, until she told him to QUIT THAT.