Thank you to everyone who enjoyed and commented on our battle! We worked really hard and it means a lot to us that you liked it! Gray's rank went up a lot for this battle so I guess I've set a new bar for myself haha! Alouisse, thank you for battling me! Adwell is such a fantastic character and he just worked SO WELL for Gray's story! We're gonna have to collab sometime, we can't build up all this chemistry and do nothing with it~ Thanks for the crits you guys! I'll keep pushing to do better! (and yarn, the demon can heal! check his bio!)

I dunno if i could add anything critique-wise that hasn't already been said. Alouisse! I really like the gray scale w/ each character having signifying color. I look forward to more of the troubled priest. Shen! Damn Shen. i don't know if it gets better than this.

Shen: OH GOSH BACKGROUND INFO so they knew each other?? Damn, Hunter better watches out for demon-possessed priests. The SINS in this comic are warranted for exorcism express ^^ Alouisse: Father Adwell was a bit tame when possessed, but the duality in his personnality had more character in this one. For a first fight, you absolutly killed it !!

Weellllll what a great battle this is *v*! You two both put out some stellar works and the quality is stunning for the number of pages in a month, huge congrats to both of you! Shen: This is beautiful your colouring has come such a long way over the last couple of years, watching you develop it has been a pleasure and I feel like you've created so beautiful atmospheric scenes using everything you've learned in this one. Keeping in mind everything I've said to you bout this before, the ending between the greyscale flashback and colour 'present day' felt powerful and not at all cheesy, which can be a huge challenge when doing something like this. Your comic started off slow and peaceful, gave us a good hook with a couple of laughs and built up to a huge emotional crescendo. Thank you for a great read! If I were to offer any advice for future, it would only be to work a little on observational drawings of characters and faces as they at times felt oddly cartoonish, which is probably more a symptom of the time you had to put this out rather than anything lazy on your part! Well done! :D Alouisse: Cripes Adwell is a great character to write with! You've delivered in this battle so much! *u* Your draughtsmanship is beautiful at it's best it really shines. I know you had wanted to colour this one but i don't think your finished product suffered for not being coloured. While you're learning it's good to get to grips with shorter stories that give you a chance to polish how you'd like, which would be my only 'do differently' for next time. It was an interesting tale, and seeing Adwell going half-and-half is very promising for future tales! :3c Once again- insanely great battle to both of you, this one was a heck of a ride!

Both of these are so good that i only really have personal preference comments: @shen HOW DID HE GET THE SIDE OF HIS FACE BACK!? I NEED TO KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWw. (also i really loved this omg.) your writing this time was spot on and i loved it. Especially the interaction where it's like "fantasy come true" but in all the wrong ways. @alouisse OMG that's amazing. i like how your style is more realistic, but i kept feeling like gray came off as really masculine. The panel where she's standing up from the ground is also a little awkward anatomy-wise, but your stuff is just so pretty i can't even complain about it.

You guys both have such nice art, and yeah it's clear you both provided really high quality comics. But yeah, Shen you really are good at coloring, I feel your colors really stole the show in this comic! On the other hand, Alouisse, your linework is really nice, and your minimal colors provides a perfect pop to highlight your comic. Can't wait to see more comics from both of you in the future! ^^ Also, that cameo Alouisse! Omg, I freaked when I saw it! Thanks for cameo-ing Fawn!

I can't believe I forgot to comment on this one! Shen: Amazing work on this one, especially when it comes to connecting the two characters story. The trope is familiar, girl falls in love with older guy and sin happens, but it works pretty well here considering who the characters are. Things getting violent is what I wasn't expecting though, but then again: this is Gray we're talking about. Not much I could say what needs to be improved, but I can see others are doing so in the comments below me. Alouisse Ver: I really like the direction you took with your story; diving both into your character and Gray's past. As well as giving the conflict of believing you can help someone versus someone who knows they've gone too far to be saved. I really enjoyed the comic, as well as getting to know your character inner demon. What I would want to see is probably having those moments of patterned backgrounds have a bit of combination with what's going on in the background, since most of the time they're talking out loud it makes sense to keep them in the plane of reality. I usually think of people having an inner monologue or intense emotions when seeing stuff like this, but it doesn't bother me too much here. Well done on this one.

Alouisse: I really liked this, but I felt like the significance of everything went above my head! I'm not sure who's testing who's abilities to what, and if they actually failed or not, and how many tests there were, and what God has to do with any of them. The dynamic here is incredibly confusing. But it certainly looks very nice, and I'm very apt to trust that it DOES mean something! Shen: JEEEEEZE this was ACTUALLY INCREDIBLE. The way you intertwined the past and the present bits was like. Literally perfect. I can't imagine someone physically doing this better. It's all so masterfully composed!!!! I loved everything!!!

Apologies: Wall of text to follow: Alouisse: These are both really great comics. In particular, your character details are really fantastic, especially visually. That said, I feel like, broadly, the two seem to talk at each other more than they talk with each other. Beyond the “game” portion there seems to be a lot of referencing but very little direct address. That is, the stakes are unclear. For example, the crux of the “game” is Adwell trying to get Gray to leave, and Gray threatening to stay, but at the conclusion he seems rather dismissive about her staying and she expresses some disgust at the idea. Clearly, she was just their to provoke the conflict, but I’m not entirely sure what Gray’s motivation is. She says it’s because God has abandoned her, so I suppose it could simply be a round-about revenge? Still, I don’t really get her end-game. I really like, in contrast, Adwell’s “I can save you” motivation, especially while ignoring the part where he has to save himself first. “Bad things for the greater good.” is such an investing suggestion. It definitely makes one wonder if he’s come out on the up side of that deal or not. Despite that, his struggle is a little awkward in presentation. Later, his self control is used as a stand in for his Faith, which seems… odd? That is, her challenge is him, personally, but they both seem to accept it as a challenge of faith. In the conclusion, he even laments having failed. If the challenge was simply overcoming the demon’s control, then I’m not sure what her roll in it was. I think this might have been cleared up with a line or two being more specific about both what the stakes were, and what the nature of the challenge was. I’ll echo some of the sentiments on the backgrounds being over-simple, and I think this is sin part because the characters are so much the opposite. Still, I think the ones like Panel 1 on page 5, or panel 4 on page 7, that are mostly fills, but with little bits of detail like the windows, go a long way. They still maintain the sense of space, while letting the background fade somewhat to keep focus on the characters themselves. A few more little details like that here and there would be great. Page 8 and 9 are where the writing breaks a little for me. Visually the transition is pretty great, and I like the blended Adwell/Demon portion, but again I didn’t really understand the significance of the power play going on. One final critique would be… Though as I write this I realize it may be intentional… There is very little difference in voice between the characters. Their sentence structure and vocabulary don’t seem to vary, so they end up sounding sort of interchangeable. All of Gray’s dialogue on page 11 could just as easily be Adwell demon, or even his own words. I realize that its really difficult to distinguish character voices in comics, particularly considering the brevity of the written portion, but I think there could have been a bit more here. Even if just something as simple as Gray using more contractions, or Adwell quoting some bible verse, or something to give them a splash of different style. Overall really well put together and showing a ton of potential for where both of these characters can go in the future. Shen I had some hand in editing this, so take my critique with a grain of salt. That said, the first thing that jumps out at me with this comic is the color. Really fantastic color pallet, the warm interior and the cool exteriors. I even liked the stark contrast of the flashbacks. I thought it was really fantastic how much character you were able to fit into this comic. From Adwell’s hopefulness, and the Demons constant prodding, to Gray’s innocence/lost. The love story/seductions are delightfully tragic. As per usual, you’re expressions and poses tell as much of the story as the actual dialogue. That said, your paneling is a little simple. For the most part everything is in blocks, stacked and sorted. It’s very clean but a little dry. On page 10 you start breaking the shape and overlap, and it gives the page a ton more energy and flow. A bit more of that, just here and there, would go a long way toward breaking it up. The visual markers to show who’s speaking help, but the individual character voices are still a bit muddy. That said, I think that generally you do a very good job of keeping each one to a tone. In particular, Adwel and his Demon are clearly different voices, with Adwel speaking very directly and the demon using more colloquial speech. (“Tag me in!”) On the writing, I have to say there is one couplet that’s downright haunting. The demons “Tell me how you imagine it.” followed by Gray’s “It’s raining.” the specificity of that is almost jarring. It suggests that she has really been going over this particular fantasy over and over again. An excellent moment for both of them. The fight is intense, and grotesque, in both the visuals and the way the demon forces Adwell back at the last minute. The paralleling is done really well, culminating in Gray’s turn. That said, despite all of this excellent dance, they seem to end up mostly right back where they belonged. I get the impression that Gray got what she wanted out of the encounter, but other than reminding Adwell about their past, and twisting the knife a bit, I’m not sure what exactly she gained. This all, in turn, seems somewhat disconnected from her initial seeking for answers. There are hints here of a lot of depth, but I am left wondering what direction either character is going to continue from here. There are some quibbles with the pacing and dialogue that I’ve already shared in private and don’t need to rehash hear too much, so in short, I think the “he thinks she’s dead” assumption could still be made more clear, to give the demons revelation that she lives a bit more impact. Gray continues to confound me slightly with her insistence that she is a ghost. She seems to be seeking help, but also ignoring any contradiction… Overall this is one of my favorites, when it comes to comics that you’ve posted here. A note on Adwell and his Demon (With shades of Gray) I’m really loving this character, and the stories he insinuates, and this background romance in particular, sets a fantastic stage for what’s to come. As a Catholic, having grown up in the church and known a number of priests, some of whom I would still call friend, this whole conflict really appeals to me. There is not a single Man of God that I have known, who wasn’t a Man first. This conflict, externalized into an actual demon, as both a test of faith and humanity, is fascinating. Little details like “he did it for a greater good” or the question of who is getting more out of the deal, all create some very interesting play spaces for future stories. Even just, what does the demon get? Is this just time out of hell? Is it sewing chaos? Or, as a former angel, does he simply see a kindred soul and want to either bring him into the fold, or warn him away? Having Gray, this intense, if flighty, character as a touchstone for him in Void also sets a really good example. The desire to save her, while ignoring or lamenting their history, but never really apologizing for his actions (only the ramifications of them) also go a long way towards showing how he may have rationalized the unnamed deeds of his past… Short version: I can’t wait to see where this all goes!

A very rare Sabu Crit coming up bc I promised Shen I'd do one. ALOUISSE: Off the bat, I can see what you were trying to achieve but didn't quite get that home run. The lack of backgrounds super hurt the score I gave for you but I love the anatomy, expressions, body language, the whole shebang! I'd suggest you do some more extreme closeups, like focusing on the character's hands or particular twitches when they speak. It can liven up the dialogue between two people and not make it too boring. Your inks are also super good and I LOVE THEM A LOT. SOme more differentiations between Adwell and his Demon is also advised beyond making the eyes black; I suggest continuing to keep the speechbubbles black even when Demon!Adwell is in control but some other physical changes are also good (see Matt Engarde from the Ace Attorney franchise) The dialogue did need some trimming but overall, Im a sucker for stuff like this; conversations about faith or lack thereof are interesting to me especially when it comes to a priest whose whole THING is faith in the Lord. I would love to see more ways on how Adwell confronts the topics of faith (either his own or others) again. I highly suggest you check out this webcomic https://sparklermonthly.com/series/heart-of-gold/ bc a)its LGBT+ and just all around good and b)it also tackles issues of faith from the perspective of the priest. Overall tho GREAT JOB! This is a very good first comic and I can't wait for more Adwell! SHEN: I have to echo what everyone else is saying: these colours are BALLER and this is by far one of the best comics you've put out. What I have to say in terms of your art is fairly nitpicky and could probably be fixed by just not making a monster of a comic in such a limited time lol. The linework could use a bit more tightening up; a few of your backgrounds have some wonky lines and some botched perspective, but both are easily fixed with Clip Studio's perspective tool (if you need help setting that up Im happy to help). Sometimes, the characters lack a forehead as well; the easiest fix for that is to shorten the length of the nose just a tad. I also think the colours when the fight moves outside should have been a bit colder, more blues n greys, bc they felt a bit too local coloured to me. BUT THE MOVEMENT, FLUIDITY, EXPRESSIONS A+++++++++++++++++++++++++ I fucking loved it so much. Ima be the contrary person in this comment section and say that I wish the last panel was in colour. To me, having it in the style of the flashbacks had me confused and thought this was set in the past until i reread the last page. THE STORYYYYYY!!!! I loved it. I loved it a lot. It was a very good mix of going back into the past to see how it all boiled down and the effects it had on the present. While the story didn't make me uncomfortable, I was eager to see how you wrote Adwell giving in to sin. It was a different story than Alouise's where Adwell's faith was in question; here its showing how human he is and how good people can fuck up real bad to the point where the actions are problematic (fucking in the confession booth? Buy her dinner first at least), Adwell is nowhere near strong enough to resist the demon within him. There is an element of will he/won't he and it works SUPER well. When will you fite me, mother

Shen: There honestly isn't much I can say except you're getting better and better with your storytelling. The expressions and action is crystal clear, and I can see how you're playing with the lighting to convey the mood of each scene. I can see you're experimenting with your textures and it shows! I can also tell that things just get worse and worse the more I learn about Gray, but at this point I feel it's par for the course. Alouisse: A great showing for your first battle! You've got a great sense of inking and I like how your touches of color to break up the straight black and white. And while I can tell you've got a strong sense of draftsmanship with your characters, I feel that you're struggling with consistent proportions and bigger expressions. You're style is off to a great start, now build on it with consistency and acting!

Shen! Really strong storytelling from you, I love how you separated the flashback scenes through colours, I think you paced the escalation of the fight really well with convincing motivation to happen too. I feel you really nailed the dark mood and atmosphere you were aiming for! Nice dramatic touch by switching the last panel to black and white to conclude. Ahh sorry I don't have much to add crit-wise, I just wanna say great job on this comic! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Alouisse Ver! I love the inks, they feel solid and well-structured. I liked the details you added on the hair and face, nice small touch of colour worked well to bring out the characters too! I just wish there was more emphasis on when Adwell gets possessed and un-possessed though, since only the eyes are an indication AND both their hair were coloured I feel missed a few moments when it happened and got a little lost reading this based on the camera angles, so I kinda echo Pyras with his crit on this, also cutting or condensing some of the dialogue would have given more drawing time to your pages too! Still, this is a solid and complete entry, Good first battle from you!

Shen: This is your best comic so far IMO, you should be proud of it! It's extremely uncomfortable, challenging us with what looks good vs what is good, especially with the new backstory developed, it brought to my mind shades of Preacher. I would have wanted more for the ending though, some real conclusion/aftermath to the encounter to show what it had done to them. Alouise: I had to read this comic twice to fully understand what was going on <_> because there's alot of literal back and forth that happens with Adwell and Gray's decisions and thoughts that I sort of got lost on where they stood from time to time. A part of it felt like Adwell may have set himself up a bit for failure, trying to change Gray + fight the demon at once like that. I think overall the comic was a bit too talky, not that it needed action, but that the conversation ended up very roundabout for 14 pages before finally reaching some conclusions. The screentones I think were used a bit too much, you've got great character drawings but need more work on backgrounds

I don't generally give ultra high votes, but fucking christ, both these comix definitely warrant them. The art in both entries are absolutely gorgeous, the story Shen put out here hit all the right strides, and the dialogue that Alouisse wrote was absolutely brilliant. When I get some coffee in me and a chance to sit down I will definitely write up a better comment/crit. I just wanna say both of you should be proud of your work and please keep giving us this type of content!

My opinion on this battle is going to come with a different shade of perspective than what's been presented so far in the discussion. I am Catholic. My mom works for the private school and church in our parish, my dad as a child went to church in New Orleans. I was baptized and confirmed at 15 and did volunteer work at the private school that eventually helped me land the job I have today. There are problems in the church that do need to be discussed--the all-male clergy, the vow of celibacy and how it effects both priests and nuns, the exclusion of minorities. I've avoided going to church for years because of the stance the church had on LGBT individuals. There is a dialog to be had here. So now that y'all know this, I'm gonna go ahead and talk about these entries. SHEN: This is your best visual work by far. The contrast between the colored panels of the present and the black and white panels of the past make the transitions easy to read. The lighting in the church is so GOOD and the final fight is intense and incredible and the dialog parallels are a nice tie between the two stories you're telling. ALOUISSE: You got some strong lines going here, and I like the choice of exclusively coloring Adwell's hair and Grey's tats to visually tell us of the contrast between these two individuals. There's a Biblical allusion somewhere in here of a woman tempting a man to fall from God, and that's pretty fitting given the religious atmosphere. But there's a part in Shen's entry that elicited such a powerful reaction from me, and it's everything that happened in the past between Charlotte and Adwell. I want to believe that the passion scenes in the graveyard and the confessional are not meant to be titillating, but the way it's presented I think that maybe it is? And it disturbed me a great deal. I won't go into deep detail about it, but I will say there's been a history of sex scandals involving priests and younger members of their parish. The Pulitzer Prize winning Boston Globe Spotlight investigation of this subject matter was published 15 years ago, and it is still something to be sore about. And I don't know if the comic is intended to make me uncomfortable, but it did and I am.

Aw yesssssss, it's finally up! I've been so hyped for this battle, and oh man was I not disappointed. Priests and best waifu, what's not to love? Shen, your colors and shading are getting better and better, I swear. I love the difference between the rosy warmth of the interior versus the cools of the exterior scenes (though I would have liked a sepia tone for the flashbacks, the abrupt shift to b/w lines from such rich color was a little jarring). Even though I know it was due to time constraints, I wish you could have kept the pages you ended up cutting! It was a shame missing out on the really sweet interaction previously had between Charlotte and Adwell, but I know you had to trim for efficiency's sake and it would have been a pretty intimidating length if you'd kept it at its initial size (maybe a special director's cut version for tumblr? :P). I'd say for next one take a little more time with the linework, since I think some of it felt a little rushed, but considering how much you wanted to fit into this story that's sort of the inevitable consequence of only getting to lining/coloring about halfway through the time. Needless to say, I still love it all regardless. I shouldn't be nearly so excited at poor Hunter (almost) getting cucked, haha, but now I'm all hyped to go draw SIN. Ami, this was awesome! I agree with prior comments about putting some more love into your backgrounds; your linework is very fine and detailed which means that without some more values or color to reinforce it the big blank spaces of minimal background feel even more minimal. I like how you handled switching between Adwell and his demon (though I think there were one or two places where it wasn't 100% clear which one was speaking, maybe stick to a very strict black-on-white/white-on-black guide for that dialogue), and man, Adwell looks like he may be a little more ruthless than previously thought! He'd definitely a priest with a dark side, and I can't wait to see more. Really nice first battle! I know it's a very different arena from what you're used to doing, especially working with a comic as long as you did, so great job and I hope we'll be seeing more of Adwell soon-- I really wish I wasn't in thesis, I would still REALLY like to fight you with Hunter! Great job guys, now I want to draw even MORE thinly disguised Adwell/Gray, haha.

Shen: my favorite comic by you I am fairly sure. From the start to the finish, the writing flowed well and the buildup was extremely enjoyable. But those last few pages? That was the best work on a writer level I've read from you. The paralells between past and present ran smoothly and that is something I feel many get wrong with flashback stories. Artwise, I got nitpicks mostly about when he is tossed trough the window. It felt a bit static somehow. Alouisse: Your first battle is a pretty strong showing! You were up against some really tough competetion and held your own pretty damn well. I would say that my main grip is with your backgrounds, or lack thereoff. Personally I feel Rasters aren't a good enough on their own to replace several panels worth. I know how hard it is to work consistent and nondistracting backgrounds in there, but I defiently feel it is sometihng you should commit to in your next comic. As it were, it felt they were standing a void half the time. Keep up the good work! I love to see more of Adwell.

GodDAAMN. Let me just say that I have learned so, so, SO much while doing this that I cannot WAIT to take into my next battle. Especially when it comes to just faster ways to line. But... despite my own nervousness, I'm also goddamn proud with the progress. This comic is brought to you by: Screw you CSP for having problems on me during the last days. With special guests: The hero who was there for me when I needed... Photoshop. And I know I said this before... but, Thank you Shen for the amazing battle and what I KNOW will be an amazing comic. I couldn't have had a better person for my first battle. <3

I'm pretty nervous about this one, I hope you all like it~ me, Alouisse, and Stormcrow put together a soundtrack to this battle on Spotify for those interested! (Crow named it, I will totally throw you under the bus on that one) https://open.spotify.com/user/animeshen/playlist/5yElpkfsHhgDGb64h9kjIS

Heretics!

Sweet sweet corruption

This can only go so many ways. I'm excited and worried at the same time.... good luck to both of you!

Consider me HYPED. I'm so excited to see more of both of these characters. Good luck to both of you!

reach out and touch faith

My body... is ready *Jojo flexing*

Not sure if this is gonna be scary or sexy or both -firmly clutches rosary-

YAAAAAASSSS! Can't WAIT ~