"life is worth a little hurting".

Hello and welcome! Thanks for checking out Phototaxis of a Fighter. It's a project really dear to my heart and soul. But first thing's first:

Phototaxis of a Fighter is a story about a homeless young woman struggling to stay connected to reality around her and her own body. There's one thing that she finds helpful: pain. Of a punching kind. She routinely goes out looking for trouble just to feel something, until one day she finds something much more than that: an illegal fighting ring and a team in need of a new member. Luckily for them, she might just be a fighter like nothing the Arena has ever seen before...

JUMP TO READING

You will probably enjoy if you like: Arcane, I Am Not Okay With This, any shonen anime sans misogyny and focus on boys, Kate, mayhaps Queen's Gambit, mayhaps A League Of Their Own (the Amazon series). This is not a list of my inspirations, this is my theoretical assesment.

The actual inspiration: Nu-metal music by female-fronted bands and various rock songs. No joke.

Sounds cool so far? Here are some things and tropes you can expect:

A queer found family.
A growing cast of characters. Each one of them is screwed up in their own way, of course.
~Catharsis~
Unmedicated horror.
Neurodivergent and disabled characters.
LGBTQ+ characters, almost all of them, in fact
Sports tournament structure.
----
Themes of spite and anger as healing powers!
Themes of community and joy in life as healing powers!
Confronting your own self-destruction!
Various queer relationships, with big emphasis on lesbians and sapphics.
Which includes ace and aro relationships!
A SHIT TON OF FIGHTING IN VARIOUS FORMS AND MEANINGS OF THE WORD.
and much more!

TRIGGER WARNINGS go thusly:

Physical violence.
Strong language.
Themes of bigotry and social inequality (mentioned, depicted).
Themes of abuse and sexual assault (mentioned, implied, no graphic depictions).
Unreality.
Body horror (unreal)
Self-harm (punching, scratching).

Some of the things mentioned have not yet occurred in published pages, but I want you to be warned.

Updates monthly except for when on chapter breaks and such.<

READ HERE

the hand behind it all.

Hello again, I'm Tarr. I'm an adult genderfucked lesbian who loved stories about brutal and unabashed types of women fighting with all that they got a little bit too much. So, when I was once again frustrated about all the content being gone or cancelled or riuned way too soon, (not to mention not having any content about sufficiently messy queer folk) I suddenly realized that I could just make my own and make it as long and full of stuff I like as I wanted. Hence, PoF was born.

And yes, I'm aware that I ommit an 'a' from that abbreviation. I like it better this way. Sue me.

Main character's mental struggles are largely (I would say, fully) based on my own experiences. They are hyperbolized a bit out of proportion for engaging story purposes, yes, in reality it's not that bad, but still. If you consider the way her issues are represented weird, then blame me being unmedicated for it. You're, however, more than encouraged to contact me if you feel I'm ignorantly misrepresenting one of my characters of color or physically disabled characters, although I assure you, I try to do all the possible research.

But also: this is not supposed to be a story about a happy or just world. It's a story about people healing regardless. And spitting that world in the face while they are at it.

I write, draw and color this comic completely on my own.

I hope you enjoy it.