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[isfjmel-phleg]

The courier brought by today's delivery of interlibrary loans, including one particularly large, heavy bag.

"Must be a medical book in there," he said.

"Probably," I replied, half-jokingly.

...it was not.

It was an omnibus of comics that I had requested. Which happens to be a freaking brick, even more than I anticipated. My apologies for making someone lug that around.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Toward the end of Young Justice 1998, Anita Fite sets out to avenge her father's murder and for complicated reasons ends up coming home with both her formerly deceased parents in tow. Which sounds great, but...they're now babies. Babies whom she, at age fifteen, has to look after. Her final stories involved her being overwhelmed by this task and working with YJ less because of this new development in her personal life, then the series ended and she just...sort of mostly disappeared.

Sometimes this is responded to as the narrative of YJ 1998 itself choosing to kick her off the team and saddle her with raising her own parents. Which, if that were the case, is pretty harsh, especially for a character who chose heroism for herself and values it.

But I think there's some more nuance to this. Did Anita really quit the team to raise her parents?

After the babies come into her life, she is seen at her home with Cissie looking after them, but there is never any indication that she has formally left the team. In YJ 1998, whenever a team member leaves, there's always a formal declaration, an emphasis on the reactions of the others, and some far-reaching consequences. Cissie's leaving was the dramatic conclusion of an issue. Bart and Tim's exit was a whole prolonged and emotional conversation.

But Anita never announces to the team that she is leaving, nor does anyone react as if she had. She is merely more busy with her personal life now. The fact that no one is lamenting losing her (as they did with Cissie, Bart, and Tim) suggests that the general understanding is that her absence is believed to be a temporary situation.

She is present, as Empress, with the rest of the team at the start of the reality TV show that Young Justice is starring in, implying that she plans to be around for the show at least sometimes and still is considered part of the team.

When Cassie intends to call her on the phone one day during the filming, she refers to her as Empress, not Anita. If Anita had formally quit, no one would be using her code name anymore, as they stopped doing with Cissie.

Young Justice 1998 ends with her as Empress, leaving her parents to be babysat by Cissie and her mother while Anita herself joins the team to deal with Secret's rampage. This is not the behavior of someone who has quit the team. (Compare with the now-retired Cissie, who is featured in the issue but does not show up as Arrowette even to take part in restraining Secret)

In Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day, the miniseries that transitioned between Young Justice 1998 and Teen Titans 2003 (the comic, not the TV show, obviously), she is still part of the team, unlike Greta and Ray, who were present at the end of Young Justice 1998 but absent henceforth. Anita is absent by the end of the miniseries because of an injury, but she never declares an intention to quit.

Young Justice is implied to have disbanded after this event, and Anita apparently chooses not to join the Titans along with Tim, Kon, Bart, and Cassie. She doesn't join the new team, but there's still no clear indication that she has retired.

She is referred to as an ex-member of Young Justice during her final appearance, a guest-starring role in Supergirl 2005 #33, but again, this is because that team disbanded, not that she specifically quit. There is no indication that she has retired in her role as Empress; she is very much acting as Empress in this story.

This appearance also confirms that she is not caring for her parents full-time; they have a nanny now. Anita is fifteen by the end of Young Justice 1998 and presumably still in school. She is referrred to as her parents' primary caregiver at that point, and she is overwhelmed by it. But apparently this must not have been the permanent situation. Perhaps Ishido Maad, Anita's godfather who is implied to be her guardian after her father's death, stepped up and did something about this teenage girl's having to take on such an adult responsibility alone. I wouldn't be surprised if Bonnie King-Jones, who has been protective of Anita in the past, had gotten on his case about it.

Did Anita really quit the team in-universe, or did the writers just stop bothering much with her after the end of Young Justice 1998? That's the actual issue. No one except her creators wanted to feature her, which is a shame, so she gradually all but disappeared from the narrative. It's the writers'/editorial's fault, not the narrative's.

If Young Justice 1998 had been allowed to continue, I think it's possible that Anita would have stayed on and that her parents might eventually have been aged up back to adulthood; a precedent is established for Agua Sin Gaaz's clones that they rapidly age (see Young Justice 1998 #48). Which would have introduced other concerns (would they rapidly age indefinitely, or would that taper off at some point?), but whatever the case, there could have been room in the narrative for something to happen that would allow Anita to keep her family and her career as a hero, both of which mean so much to her.

But that didn't get to happen, and she's been left in limbo since the late 2000s.

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Of course it could just be a Czarnian physiology thing for all we know (I tried to look this up, couldn't find anything), but the fact that Slo-bo doesn't cry even once in his entire brief and tragic life says a lot.

It's not like he's never had a reason to. I mean...

(Young Justice 1998 #38, 48, 54, 55)

Not even once.

He comforts a weeping Anita multiple times. But he's quick to angrily reject any attempts to give him a shoulder to cry on.

Everything he deals with, he deals with alone and sealed up inside him.

And the last we hear of him, he's trapped inside stone.

Free him, somebody, please.

[isfjmel-phleg]

#OH.........#i never thought of that.. ouch... #greta hayes #slo-bo #young justice #they have such a weird kind of understanding. secret is so cute and feminine no one expects it of her but she sees herself as a monster #and slo-bo Presents himself as a monster #and Secret is drawn to that!! she empathizes with him—maybe identifies with his monstrosity even! #what's she angry at young justice for? both for treating her like a monster and NOT treating her like a monster. #she's angry at them for failing to recognize that she was suffering and that she had darkness in her #meanwhile everyone knows that slo-bo has darkness in him #because he's male and goth and edgy. #secret is edgy too it's just that she isn't taken very seriously #AOUGH eats this #ANYWAY. I GOT OFF-TRACK SORRY (via @brown-little-robin)

Yes! Slo-bo presents himself as everything that Secret fears/knows deep-down that she really is, and no one ever seems too bothered by that because that's just how he's supposed to be, so he has the freedom to be as horrifying and edgy and off-putting as he chooses. He's not worried about alienating anyone. And I think Secret admires that. She doesn't have that option, she's already been bracketed into the role of sweet and shy damsel in distress at the beginning of her friendship with the team, and that's the only side of her that everyone else will fully accept--and since her friends are all she has, exposing them to her other, darker side isn't something she feels she can do without being abandoned. But the dissonance of the two sides of her that she can't reconcile and her friends can't bring themselves to confront is overwhelming, which of course leads to her going astray.

Slo-bo, however, is in a position to accept her--all of her--on her own terms, just as she could accept Lobo without judgment and bring him onto the team when the others were disturbed by him--and of course Slo-bo remembers that. They have a unique connection. They share a secret--a closeness to death--that sets them apart from the rest of the team, who are still struggling to deal with the concept of mortality.

Secret had to have been aware that Slo-bo was dying.

Because of the nature of her powers, she has a connection to death that she can't escape. It's repeatedly established that she can detect its presence, whether someone is dying, or already gone, or if Death is coming and he's on skis.

There's no way she could have not noticed that her teammate, who lives in the same building as her and with whom she's working constantly, is rapidly deteriorating over a period of what can't be more than a few months.

And normally she'll just blurt it out whenever she detects death. But she never mentions anything about what's happening to Slo-bo. The only times we hear about his condition is whenever he chooses to tell someone himself.

Of course she has a lot of concerns of her own distracting her during the time she knows Slo-bo, but...

She probably knows. And she keeps his secret.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Something that stuck out to me on my reread of YJ 1998: Can we give Ray at least some credit for how he handles things during the approximately five seconds he was part of Young Justice? He has his share of ignoble moments along with the others (mostly picking on Bart and shameless self-promotion during the election), but there are times when he demonstrates his capacity for maturity and heroism, which really stands out if you've ever read his solo, in which he's usually a pathetic mess.

He doesn't seem to be weirded out by Secret. When the two of them are alone at headquarters, he plays tennis with her (this doesn't seem like a big deal on the surface, but consider that the rest of the team doesn't often casually hang out with and do activities specifically with her like that).

He helps out significantly in getting the team a sophisticated new monitor system and putting it together, utilizing his civilian background as a computer programmer/systems analyst.

He tends to step in to put a stop to fights whenever Kon's belligerance runs away with him around Cassie. With...varying degrees of success. But still.

He saves Anita's and Tim's lives by reacting instantly and flying in to grab them up and bring them to safety whenever the hut they're investigating explodes. Even Tim, who has previously been dismissive of Ray, is quite impressed.

He's the first to follow Anita into the abyss. He seemed unfazed by it because of his light powers, so he's the one taking charge and looking after the others.

He listens and sympathizes with his teammates when they're talking about their troubles (the scene about the canceled comics is a gag, of course, but he's come a long way from dismissing Grant's problems and calling him a whiner while acting like he himself is the only one who is truly struggling).

He accepts Cassie's leadership and can take direction, even if he's sometimes reluctant, and steps in with quick thinking when she calls for help.

When Kon and Bart are proposing overly ambitious plans, he's the voice of reason about the unlikelihood of being able to fund such a project.

When Greta brings an unidentified man to headquarters, Ray keeps his head quite well. He asks her some cautious questions, makes sure the other teammates with him stay in sight, answers the phone, and, without missing a beat, covers for the warning message Cissie is giving him. He doesn't go on the offensive until Greta gets worked up.

Most of the time, it's pretty clear that he's older and more experienced than the rest of the team. He's a lot less emotionally volatile and reckless. He's confident in using his powers (and he is very powerful), with little evidence of self-doubt. There seems to be hardly anything left in him of the angry, self-pitying, naive, insecure boy that he was during much of his solos. (For instance, he is annoyed when YJ tries to fire him very shortly after bringing him on, but he doesn't seem to take the rejection as personally as he might have once.)

To be fair, he doesn't get a lot of characterization in this series, and we're never in on his thoughts as we are in his solo series, so it's entirely possible that he does all this with an internal monologue that doesn't match what he's projecting, but what little we do see from him demonstrates some growth.

He does not fit well on this team of unhinged children, bless his heart, but he is doing his best.

[isfjmel-phleg]

(Young Justice 1998 #45 / Impulse #77 / Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4 / Crisis on Infinite Earths #8)

[isfjmel-phleg]

Secret had to have been aware that Slo-bo was dying.

Because of the nature of her powers, she has a connection to death that she can't escape. It's repeatedly established that she can detect its presence, whether someone is dying, or already gone, or if Death is coming and he's on skis.

There's no way she could have not noticed that her teammate, who lives in the same building as her and with whom she's working constantly, is rapidly deteriorating over a period of what can't be more than a few months.

And normally she'll just blurt it out whenever she detects death. But she never mentions anything about what's happening to Slo-bo. The only times we hear about his condition is whenever he chooses to tell someone himself.

Of course she has a lot of concerns of her own distracting her during the time she knows Slo-bo, but...

She probably knows. And she keeps his secret.

[isfjmel-phleg]

waiting for sunrise

image description: an anthropomorphic canine figurine, kneeling with its eyes closed. Black semicircles trace the line of its spine.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Brought one of the big umbrellas because it was raining hard this morning but forgot to take the smaller one out of my bag so now I have TWO umbrellas with me at work like SOME KIND OF FANATIC

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It is fancy suit time, the new university president is getting inaugurated today

[isfjmel-phleg]

Time to shut this operation down, it's gotten to where people are starting to refer to me as OP

[isfjmel-phleg]

I bought a book from a seller online recently and never got it and the seller didn't reply to my communication, so I reported it as never received and fully expected to eventually be issued a refund and then try to find the item at a decent price elsewhere.

...the seller just messaged to say that he was sorry he didn't contact me earlier and he's now able to because he got arrested and his girlfriend broke up with him and he got his property back from her today and can now ship the book by Monday and he'll refund my shipping.

...I just wanted to buy a collection of a Very Sad Comics Arc, I was not expecting to step into the middle of a real-life Drama. Yikes.

[isfjmel-phleg]

So you want to describe a room? I'm not claiming to be any kind of expert, and of course everybody has to find out what works for them, but here are some things that I personally have found helpful when writing descriptions for interiors. You may or may not find it useful, but I thought I'd share in case it could help.

The key question to ask is: What do you want the room to say about something?

Is it a character's personal space? Is it a room that serves a particular purpose? Do you need the setting to convey a particular mood or feeling? Rooms aren't just backdrop; they're an opportunity to build your world, set your scene, and/or develop your characters.

My OC who is an enthusiastic, scattered, impulsive fifteen-year-old girl who lives in a poorly-upkept country castle is going to have a dramatically different bedroom from, say, the OC who is a serious, driven, artistic twelve-year-old girl who lives in a middle-class townhouse in the city. The cluttered antique shop that's the setting of one of my weird short stories needs to convey a very different impression from the hospital waiting room in another such story. Even if your setting isn't anything visually impressive, even if it's the blandest office, that still says something about your world and characters.

Every room is saying something.

For practice, observe rooms in the real world and think about them.

What do these rooms contain? What does the design of a room and its contents say about the people who live there or who use it? How are public spaces different in appearance from private ones? How would a person whose room this is see it? What about a friend of that person? Or a stranger? How does perception of it change at different times of the day or in different states of upkeep?

Take my living room. Most of the mismatched furniture is secondhand, except for a few pieces, like the umbrella stand shaped like an umbrella, or the coffee table that resembles a trunk edged in metal and rivets. The coffee table is piled with papers and books and miscellaneous objects (including a never-used crossword puzzle mug, a turtle hand puppet, and a stray block). More piles of books and papers and comics crowd any flat surfaces. There are three tall bookshelves, crowded with books, sorted by genre and author, and a cabinet of DVDs, sorted by title. Throw blankets lie wadded on the couch until I bother to neatly fold them over the back of the armchair. Displays of decorative objects appear on top of the desk, the cabinet, and a side table. The walls are covered in art prints, mostly of my OCs, but also botanical designs, a poster of the entire text of a Shakespeare play, a couple of wreaths featuring berries, and a Bouguereau painting. The area rug badly needs vacuuming. Sometimes I let boxes pile up by the door instead of taking them out to the trash. There's a good-sized window, but not much natural light. The walls are painted a green-gray color that darkens the space--I didn't choose it. What could you infer about this room? My impression would be home and comfort, but you, who have (probably) never been there, might come to some other conclusions about the person who lives there and her tastes and habits.

The rooms that you write about may be nothing like ones you see in real life in terms of design and detail, but you can bring principles you've observed into just about any kind of setting.

Once you know what you want to convey through the description of the room, the next question is: How can you use imagery to craft this impression?

Sure, you can tell your readers that a room is messy or fancy or boring, but for a description that will pack a punch and stick out in your readers' minds, using imagery is helpful.

So try things like playing with color symbolism. Conside the condition of the room and the objects in it: old, new, tidy, messy, well-kept, neglected, etc. Notice the distinctive objects in it--or even lack of distinctive objects--and call attention to this. Things like the size of the space or the lighting (or lack thereof) can also be striking.

Make the details sensory for a stronger impression. Textures, smells, sounds, etc. But don't feel like you have to go overboard. Zero in on a few specific, impactful images and details. You don't need to describe everything in the room. Just what gets your point across and anything in the room that your characters will interact with or that will serve a purpose in the story. Keep your description proportionate to the room's significance in the story. You should aim for quality over quantity.

This is a description that I'm fairly satisfied with. It's the study of a king, as seen for the first time by a boy who is there because he is in trouble. I wanted to give an impression of wealth and splendor but also of coldness, distance, power, obsession with an appearance of flawlessness. I wanted the room to feel a bit off, a bit ominous. So I chose imagery that suggested the lifeness of a museum, with some classical influences. "White marble" is repeated for emphasis on uniformity. The textures are cold and hard, with an absence of the warmth and softness of textiles. And the final chess image positions the protagonist as a seemingly powerless player in a game he doesn't know the rules of.

It's a lengthier description because I needed to establish just how terrifying the room and the man in it are for the protagonist so that the reader, who is just meeting him, understands what kind of world he lives in and whom he's up against as he's about to have a difficult conversation.

He stood in a room of white marble beneath a high domed ceiling. Bookcases lined the walls, displaying books all the same size, bound identically in the deep blue and silver of the Liennese flag. White marble busts on Ionic pedestals peeked out from corners with pupilless stares. Tamett shuddered, half expecting them to quiz him in Greek with the voice of HRH’s tutor. A forest of blindingly white columns stretched toward the far end of the room. There, before a white marble fireplace, were chairs upholstered in studded navy leather, their unsociable slipperiness unrelieved by any cushion or rug. And beside the chairs, behind a fortress of a desk, awaited exactly the sort of man who would own such a room. The king glanced up from his papers and said, “Come in,” in a low voice that seemed to shake the very dome. Tamett inched across the rugless floor, studying its checkered pattern and wondering if the king had ever considered acquiring giant chessmen to match it.

A further way to describe a room is to let your characters interact with the space. What effect does it have on them? How do they move within it? Are they comfortable there or reluctant to engage and why? How do the contents of the room inform what the characters are doing and thinking about? If there's a couch and an armchair at a distance from it, and there are three people present, who gets the couch and who gets to be physically distanced from the others? How does a character deal with a room that's set up for someone else's convenience but doesn't work for them? If there's a mirror in the room, how does a character respond to it?--can't keep their eyes off it? ignores it? punches it? Etc. etc.

I don't know if this makes any sense, but these are the kinds of things I try to keep in mind for room descriptions. If I ever actually write.

[isfjmel-phleg]

This is a personal post.

I feel like I've gotten a good grade in Humor when I can make my mom (who was the person giving me actual grades when I was a kid) laugh.

[isfjmel-phleg]

This is a personal post.

...guys, I actually like describing rooms when I'm writing? You can reveal so much about the characters and world by going into detail about indoor spaces, which means it's Fun Analysis Time, and there's no action involved (which is the actual painful part of writing). But then I'm the sort of person who has often thought it might be fun to be a set decorator, so that's probably why.

[isfjmel-phleg]

One of my neighbors is moving out, and I found out about it this morning when I tried to open my door and nearly ran into a man outside it who was walking from the truck and trailer that are currently parked in my driveway. No one told me about this. No one asked me for the use of my driveway. Since I don't have a car to park in my carport, which connects to the porch space that my neighbor's front door and mine open onto (we live in a weird L-shaped triplex--her in the upper part of the L, me in the corner), apparently my carport and driveway are free real estate?

Lucky for her I wasn't expecting any visitors today. I know my driveway is a convenient place for the moving-out, and if she had asked me or let me know in some way, I would have said it was okay! But I wasn't asked. And...I don't know, I think that's kind of rude? and presumptuous?

[isfjmel-phleg]

Close-ups on eyes in Young Justice 1998: a collection

(Young Justice 1998 #36, 20 / JLA: World Without Grown-Ups #2 / Young Justice 1998 #22, 55, 33, 22, 38, 54 / The Ray 1994 #28)