Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned is On Hiatus
This is the third time I've had the same Hiatus! Well, it's because this is the third migration of the comic, previously from FC2, and before that Webtoon/Tapas and before that Instagram. And in the time since, I have continued to update very, very, very, very slowly.
For the sake of Pretending To Be Productive, I will be adding all the illustrations I have made in the years since. That's right, all three of them, baby! For your perusal, if you are the type for perusaling, some questions I've received over the years have also been added..
Illustrations
These were some of the first drawings/designs of some of the characters.
You can see an unused character, Sister, here. Her original role was what the Curator's role is now. Unsure if she will ever be used.
The first drawing of the funny doll. She was changed to have the Powerpuff-esque eyes to make her look less like a human and more like a toy.
Something for a collaborative zine. I never ended up finishing it because somebody else did the lines and colours for the final version of the zine due to its collaborative theme, and so this sketch was all that was necessary to submit. It's obviously based on Chapter 7 but isn't really canon to it.
Joke-y human AU. Jacques looks like that critic from Ratatouille.
BreadAVOTA has an art style designed to look mostly cartoon-ish, although I have drawn in a more semirealistic style before. The art of Jacques and Media was some kind of attempt at fusing them together (?) although… in the end I don't really like it.
Younger Jacques. His fashion style used to be different. Mostly he liked snug and heavy clothes. Nowadays he wears a more Ouji/Lolita-adjacent style, though that's mostly because Media chooses his clothes for him.
More people have seen that third drawing from me using it as a cover for a textpost on schizoid personality disorder than they have from my presence as an 'artist'. The Tumblr 2022 Recap told me that was my most popular post (!)
Media always takes on the appearance of the previous High Judge, so here is a joke about Media adopting Jacques's appearance when Jacques dies, which is something that could never actually happen.
Some Media lore. This is more accurate to his personality around up until the end of Project Maldevaran.
When Bon was exiled and he and Jacques formally decided on a dyadic relationship, Media's personality shifted somewhat. [ Specifically, he became more preoccupied with 'himself'/his own personhood, especially regarding his thoughts on how Jacques perceives him. ]
This was an attempt at a more simplified style. I was thinking of changing the art style of the comic in the future to make it easier to draw but I can't really decide what to change it to. I am still ambivalent over this one. These are also tentative redesigns for some characters.
A minor character named Aadesh. I hope to elaborate on Angel society more someday…
Aadesh is a low-level Angel like Charlotte but she does not work as a celemarketer for Celes Inc. She is instead a recruiter for FILSID, which becomes relevant in Bien's backstory.
The protagonists as Keronians (from Mine Yoshizaki's Keroro Gunsou).
Some 'beta' doodles, before the current version of the story. These are no longer canon.
Jacques is shorter here because before the details of his species were decided, he was originally just going to be an 'evolved bird'. Now the current story has Living Birds merely related/having common ancestors with Non-living birds, similar to Humans and apes.
Here is a collection of Me/Ja drawings because um, I obviously have a favourite pairing here.
A lot of these are quite old so the art is janky [ I say this as if my current art isn't janky ].
This is at various points in their relationship so if they seem 'out of character', it's just because their personalities have changed over the years of knowing each other. They started out with Media being the more resistant one [ if that's believable ], had a very awkward phase at the time Bon was exiled, which was followed by a more honeymoon-esque phase, until they settled onto their current dynamic.
Despite their relationship not being romantic, and likely not even sexual [ but who knows, I'll leave that up in the air because it's funny ], in honour of Media made to spiritually be a tumblr sexyman and deviantARTist's first OC, they have to be as yaoi as possible.
On the topic of Me/Ja, here's a Valentine's-themed Bread Crumb. As a gift.
Miscellaneous old drawings, from 2020-2022.
New content! Relatively!
A mixture of old sketches that I abandoned and some stuff from 2023-2024 (not a lot: I wasn't kidding when I said I rarely ever draw these days).
A sort of 'style sheet' for the Media.
Some old doodles of Jacques demonstrating his Mentally Ill feelings.
Click here to view.
I am going to put the more 'disturbing' art here. There is graphic gore/violence in these works so please be mindful before viewing.
Questions and Answers
woah, cömic time! :] i really like the website and the little comments under each page!time to search for easter eggs hehehgejfgeh how do you code without feeling the urge to shatter your computer may i give bread and all the variations of the aforementioned a pat on the head to wish her "good luck in your journey to find a name that isn't long and horrible and terrible"?
Thank you!
Being restricted to a blog* instead of an actual website I own and pay for actually makes coding simple because I am restricted to only HTML and a limited amount of CSS but it also means I cannot do all the cool tricks I want to, alas… mfw when too poor to afford web hosting u_u
Unfortunately, any attempt to touch Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned always ends in tragedy.
* This response was written back when BreadAVOTA was on FC2, a blogging website, so it doesn't really apply anymore.
breadavota is relatable because changing your legal name is Like That
How does Jacques life work…exactly? He can't die from poison, nor can he die from being stabbed repeatedly in the neck by a certain someone. So how does death work with him…exactly? (BTW I love your art style and lore building! It's really alluring, keep it up!)
I don't think it's a significant “plot twisty” kind of spoiler, but this does get answered explicitly within the story itself so you'll just have to wait and see :)
Will the other High Judges show up in the comic? Do we need to remember them?
Anthony is quite important (though I feel like he has been referenced enough times for that to be kind of obvious). I have an idea of what the other dead HJs did but none of them had enough of a major impact on the current storyline for it to be particularly important to memorise each one. I might still reference them now and again but more in a passive way than anything absolutely necessary to understand the main plot line.
Further down the narrative the role of the Judges as a whole and their history (as the Judges used to have a different purpose for the Marginals) will be elaborated on and is far more important than the life of any particular Judge.
Media backstory when? Or, a more fair question - do the other Marginals have a backstory of their own?
Arguably, Media's backstory will get elaborated on relatively soon and very frequently, although I suppose it is important to note that Media like all Marginals are coagulations of Memories so technically what exists of his backstory is not the Reality of it but the way it is Remembered.
Either way, every major Marginal will have their backstory shown, or at the very least the events that lead to them becoming Marginals.
How much of the story is planned so far and do you already know how the story will end?
There is no formal script written in advance as the dialogue is written as I go. The general plot and how certain arcs will end were decided early on though, and the characters and character designs were created long before their actual roles in the story.
I have not decided on what the actual ending will be but there is a particular theme I am after. The ending will likely be bittersweet at worst, if it is not happy at least. I am unlikely to write a tragic ending.
Which character is your favorite?
Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned in terms of the actual comic, even though I know she is an oddly uncompelling protagonist [ which is half the point ].
Jacques, though my adoration for him is more as my general 'rotates you in my mind' character and not necessarily for his role in the comic itself. A lot of illustrations of him are self-indulgent and somewhat out of character. I changed the concept for Jacques very early on so the transition is fortunately not noticeable but one can really see the way I turned him into something more helpless and pathetic when looking at his character now and his character before he was turned into one of the main characters. I like his dependence on Media.
Media but only in relation to Jacques. Despite Media arguably having the most well-developed and compelling backstory of the entire cast, admittedly I only care for him in his role as Jacques's caretaker. This is kind of obvious.
In chapter 4, Charlotte poofs a loaf of bread. Is there a difference between how angels and marginals create things?
This is quite long, so I will put it under the cut.
Read more…
Angels have the power of Creation and Marginals have the power of Reconstruction, although both are complex skills that not every member of either species can do.
Creation is classified as supranatural but not magical, according to Marginalian epistemelogy at least. You know, I am confident that I am using 'epistemology' incorrectly here. Supranaturality is 'Real' but magic is 'Fake', or a manipulation of what is 'Real'. They are kind of obnoxious, vague and impossible to compromise with when it comes to the differences.
An Angel creates by manipulating a Wire's sound to bring into existence something that did not before. Well, to be more specific, all possibilities exist just as possibilities within the Infrastructure but only the possibility that gets 'played' becomes 'Real'. This means than an Angel can only create something that was possible to exist to begin with. That aside, while stronger Angels are able to make more complicated things, for the most part they make relatively simple items.
Some phenomenological descriptions in Marginalian books describe this process as the Angels 'solidifying' the intangible, metaphysical sounds of the Wires into a tangible item. 'Solidifying' in this sense is a metaphorical term and does not necessarily pertain to literal solids.
A Marginal reconstructs through the use of their own Memories, and a Marginal cannot reconstruct something that it does not Remember. The Marginal that one can perceive in the Living World [ the liquid forms, I mean ] are actually a 'Reconstruction' in itself because Marginals do not actually have physical forms.
Memories are translated into 'Objects' by tethering them to Reality using, well, a Tether [ this can be any Real object/s ]. While a reconstructed Object can interact with the Living World and may appear to 'exist' in the Living World, it is not actually 'part' of the Living World but is instead still part of/an extension of the Marginal it originates from. For this reason, reconstructed Objects do not follow the Infrastructure of the Living World but instead follow that of its own Marginal, meaning Marginals can reconstruct things that cannot naturally exist in the Living World.
The process of successfully 'tethering' is complicated though, as one has to reconcile the essentially 'fake' nature of Reconstruction with the Laws of Reality. In a way, 'magic' is kind of like trying to pass off something fake as real, and for a Reconstruction to exist, a Marginal has to reasonably 'convince' the Living World of an Object being Real. The moment the Living World 'catches on' to the fabrication, the Reconstruction will fall apart. This makes Reconstruction a generally difficult and unstable skill.
Although 'Creation' and 'Reconstruction' are the formal terms, it is common in informal contexts to use 'create' for either or to use other similar terms like 'spawn', 'conjure', 'poof', etc.
Do Jacques and Anthony know each other?
Anthony already knew Jacques through his visions and from Media talking about him, and sought him out to talk to him personally. Although Anthony was aware of his existence for a while, they did not formally start interacting until Anthony became the High Judge, of which they continued to interact until Anthony's Death.
Anthony hates Jacques. Jacques found Anthony to be reprehensible but did not consider him worth the more interpersonal evaluation of 'hatred'. Probably some other weird psychosexual thing going on. Jacques is not particularly attractive or fascinating to other Maldevarans, but he is to me, so I am going to keep putting him in weird psychosexual circumstances regardless of the plot.
Do you wish the story were more popular?
I do think it would make me happier to see more people commenting or asking stuff about the story. And if I were like, VERY popular I would be selling marketable plushies. There are definitely perks to popularity. But I also think being popular leads to people having a lot of expectations from you. And in this day and age there's a lot of harassment online.
And while this is not a Schizoid Representation comic, this is practically (so far) the only one out there that actually has the character be schizoid outright, with the whole 'a doctor diagnosed me with it' level of officiality to it. I put the DSM in a story where mental illness as a sociological category is an entirely different thing for the sheer purpose of giving characters personality disorders. I fear people will rip me apart for not having the right things to say about being schizoid, so they can go back to their other favoured media which never have anything wrong to say about being schizoid, by virtue of never saying anything about being schizoid at all.
Also, being schizoid, I think popularity will be difficult to manage in the long run. Attention scares me.
Are there other webcomics you like?
Homestuck by Andrew Hussie and Glitch: Jinn Devoidist by Woraya Chotikul.
… I have not read any other webcomics in a long time. I think I used to read webcomics around the early 2000s when the culture surrounding webcomics was very different. None of them really stand out to me now though, they were mostly generic daily comic strips with no specific plot. It did however contribute to an interest in webcomics in general.
Will you make more animations and have you decided what songs to use?
There are a number of songs I have already planned to make MVs for even if admittedly I haven't actually decided what the MVs themselves will look like. Ruler of Everything by Tally Hall has been sitting in my drafts forever.
If by 'animations' you mean videos then there's the answer. If you mean literal animations then no because I can't do traditional animation nor do I like doing so. I lack both patience and wrist strength to draw so many frames.
Do you ever copy-paste panels or do you draw everything from scratch?
Of all the comics uploaded so far, everything is drawn from scratch. However in the future I will copy-paste and adjust drawings more often. I also plan on trying out different formats like illustration + text combinations [ like Homestuck, ee-gad ] or visual novels so I can just recycle sprites over and over again.
I do feel it seems kind of lazy, but it is difficult for me to draw these days, if the fact it took me over a year to work on the next update does not prove that. That aside, the comic is also very dialogue/exposition heavy that it actually looks awkward to have characters just standing there as they talk on and on. The large amounts of talking by itself do not bother me but I need to think of ways to present it that are less awkward while being more efficient.
Will Anthony make a formal in-comic appearance or will he just be referenced by other characters?
He technically already has had an in-comic appearance, in the flashback where he gouges out his own eyes.
But he does show up. Quite soon, actually. Unfortunately.
These are some old responses to questions received on Instagram when BreadAVOTA was first uploaded. Instagram doesn't download the questions themselves when saving from the Archives so I no longer have the exact questions/senders, and can only paraphrase them. Also, due to the age of these responses, their canonicity is a bit dubious. It's safe to consider them 'canon' for the time being but don't be too surprised if anything invalidates them later.
Media sure used to be a favourite as a Tumblr Sexyman.
