#It definitely worked! All the way around! I got lots of panels done in short order and got my warmups in for the day

[sysig]

Betty’s Wish (1/?) (Patreon)

It’s definitely weird that Betty, with all her Magical abilities, never met a Wishmaster, right? I think so

[First | Prev | Next]

[sirfrogsworth]

Meeting my longtime artist and good friend, Chris, IN REAL LIFE!

So, I hadn't been to a restaurant in over a decade. I can't even remember which restaurant since it was so long ago. But in the past few weeks I've now been to TWO restaurants.

I am becoming a social butterfly. 

And it is exhausting.

But also good.

First I reconnected with my high school best friend, John.

And that went great.

But then the opportunity to see my friend Chris (a.k.a @whosthewhatnow ) came up only a few days later. And this close proximity of social events scared me a bit, but I have been feeling much better since they figured out my heart thing, so I decided to try and do both things even though they were only a few days apart. 

The key to this was strategic resting. As soon as I got home from seeing John, I got in bed and I didn't get out of it until it was time to see Chris. And that was just enough recovery time to pull this off. Typically a short outing requires 2-3 days of rest after. 

I had never met Chris in real life. He has done nearly all of the artwork for my website and comics over the past decade. And he was a main character in my CRAPPRnauts series.

We know each other so well and it is crazy that we've never seen each other with our very own eyeballs.

He is such an amazing artist. He works fast and he adds so many cool extra details that you can stare at his comic panels multiple times and catch a new joke or easter egg each time. He is a dream to work with and my Corg Life series was only successful because he did such a wonderful job bringing Otis to life in comic form. 

So we decided to meet up at a restaurant with his friend Michael and then I was going to take a nice portrait of him after dinner. Chris had never had a professional photo taken of himself and I decided to fix that.

I told him I had a mobile photography setup. Which, in reality, is a trunk full of lights and stands and other various camera gear that I definitely won't need, but bring anyway. It's "mobile" in that it all fits in my car if you are good at Tetris (which I am).

The restaurant was downtown and I had visions of St. Louis's famous Gateway Arch in the background of Chris's portrait. I thought that would be such a cool shot. I could see it in my head and I even dreamed about it.

So I got in my car and headed downtown and my GPS told me to exit at 249B. But I kept looking and I couldn't see the sign for 249B.

This is how much road I had left when I finally was able to see the exit for 249B.

So I ended up taking 249A and going straight to East St. Louis.

Which, if you believe the headlines, is not a place you ever want to be.

Google Maps and I have been having issues lately. They also tried to get me to take the spooky way home that night, but thankfully I actually knew the non-spooky way back from when I used to go to Cardinal games with my parents as a kid.

My short term memory was trashed by shock therapy. And so was a lot of my long term memory. But it finally came through in a pinch and remembered something useful.

I only had to loop around and cross a bridge so I didn't really do anything but touch the edge of East St. Louis. I was mostly concerned about being late for dinner more than its scary reputation. Usually those news stories about a place being "dangerous" are actually just racist and hurtful to people stuck in poverty. I mean, technically my house is in a "dangerous" neighborhood, and we do have trouble with petty crime in some spots, but aside from a few dinged-up mailboxes, I've never felt unsafe in my home.

On the way back to regular St. Louis I could see the Arch on the horizon at sunset and it was kind of magical. And I wasn't able to get a good shot of it, but it sure looked pretty from my point of view. 

My photos kind of remind me of the beginning of movies like Training Day where they are trying to show you gritty, dutch angle shots of the city out of the car window to give you a sense of the location.

As I approached the restaurant I invented a new genre I call "stoplight photography." The sky was orange and the streets of St. Louis were just asking to be photographed. But I wasn't willing to die to get neat photos, so I just took them at every red light.

The big trick was trying to edit the dark area at the top of my windshield out of the photos to make it look like I didn't take these pictures from my car.

After a 15 minute detour through Illinois I arrived at my destination—a Mexican place called Rosalita's. It had a beautiful sign, so I took that literal sign as a metaphorical sign it was a nice place to get a quesadilla. 

Dinner was great. Both signs were right and their quesadilla was very tasty. Chris and I both got one, so we are quesadilla twins. The waitress was one of those "I can remember your order without writing anything down" types. And I am one of those, "I get anxiety when things aren't written down" types. And, to her credit, she did not forget our orders. But she did forget to give us silverware and napkins. So I still feel like my anxiety was valid. 

We told sad stories of the pups we lost. But we also had a lot of fun and laughed and I got to meet Michael who turned out to be an absolute mensch. I sometimes have trouble meeting new people with my social anxiety, but he was very affable and made me feel comfortable with his presence almost right away. He was a fan of Otis and mentioned he still has a Super Otis shirt. I always get choked up hearing that Otis is still loved. Hopefully we get to meet again. 

Dinner ended and it was picture time.

I asked Chris if he wanted the high effort photo or the low effort photo. Either we figure out how to get to the Arch or we find a spot near the restaurant and just take his portrait there. Chris and Michael had a driver because they were coming from a big conference and getting to the Arch would have been complicated. So we decided to go with the low effort option. 

I found a cool shop nearby that had an LED wall that changed to all sorts of different colors. And I thought that would make a neat background and give a colorful edge light on Chris's face. I pulled my car near that spot and started unloading my trunk full of photo gear.

I think Chris and Michael were a little overwhelmed when I started pulling camera gear out of my trunk like a clown pulling an endless handkerchief out of his mouth. But as far as photo setups go, it was actually pretty minimal. 

Light, giant battery, light stand, umbrella, tripod, camera, rolling walker with seat.

My dad's old rollator came in clutch because I wanted to shoot from a low angle and it is hard for me to bend down. In fact, I think I'm going to look into getting an all terrain version so I can do more outdoor photoshoots.

I started shooting in the middle of a downtown sidewalk. And I was super anxious. I could not focus (my brain, not my camera). I was very distracted with all of the people walking by and staring. I was not sure if any of the photos were turning out. I wasn't even sure if they were in focus (my camera, not my brain) because I had not yet had my lens calibrated. But down the street there was a guy with an old school boombox playing random music. His music helped to drown out the ambient noise and gave me some comfort.

I had no clue if the photos were any good, but when I got home and checked them on my computer, I realized I have 12 years of experience and muscle memory built up. I probably should have just trusted myself because the photos all turned out great.

I think Chris can now officially say he has had a professional portrait taken of himself.

This photo has been officially loved by Chris's girlfriend and mother.

There is no greater seal of approval and I am honored.

I was able to comp in any of the colors the wall displayed from other shots in case Chris is feeling a little more green in the future.

A literal rainbow of options.

I also liked this one, though it is a little more "environmental portrait" than regular portrait.

And I got some nice photos of our little group to help us remember the night. 

And I got a bunch of photos of Chris making silly faces like Calvin at his school photoshoot. 

I love this woman's reaction to our little impromptu sidewalk photo shenanigans.

After we said our goodbyes and I gave my friend a hug, I was a little bummed I didn't get to photograph him at the Arch like I had dreamed.

But then I realized I had my own car and it was capable of taking me places. (I actually haven't gotten used to that after not driving for nearly 15 years.)

So I decided to drive a few blocks over to Kiener Plaza—a park with a view of the Arch. 

TO BE CONTINUED...

[eliotlime]

November update post thing

Drawing of me watching short-form video content without sound vs one where I am lol

If you use short-form video platforms of any kind and would like to help me with my survey you can do so here! Though I'll probably be closing it sometime next week (2nd November 2024 ish) to collate the data for submission.

I've got a metric tonne of deadlines due next week but you know what it's blog update time!!

This is also not going to be scheduled to post because I usually write these on the 29th but I forgot! So it's getting posted now!!

💀 School..

Yeap as I've said I'm in school so that's still in progress, I have completely no idea what I'm doing everyday and as it turns out no time to worry about it either I got deadlines baby!!!

I mean in theory I understand but it's all a big question mark to me, like i need to be reassured like a nervous dog that I'm doing the right thing and what not

And because of that I'm real sorry about pushing the Abacelsus zine to the back burner, I actually got quite a lot of it done before I had to lock in for school of course.

And though I said I had a lot of sketches I didn't post well they were shittier than I liked them to be so I wanted to make it look nicer. Oh well dems the breaks.

Another screenie of my school work, they didn't really go into depth about how to specifically design stuff so it's basically me frankenstien-ing stuff I've seen existing and just trying my best lol

I mean.. overall it's funnnn... i guess... I do like projects but everyone in my class are adults with established jobs or goals. Even those who are around my age seem to know what they're aiming for too, feels like I'm an unemployed little sucker fumbling in the dark. Can be humiliating I won't lie, why is learning something new so embarrassing?

Aside from that I'm seeing people be so social online while studying too and it's almost mesmerizing, it's definitely survivor bias but those that can balance it are fascinating to me.

📖Anthology Update

Agh enough of that debbie downer bullshit, I'll tell you what I've also got due next week! That's right!! The drafts for my anthology!

Screenie of one of the panels I posted onto my ko-fi discord!

I'm not even half way done and it's due on the 6th of December. I'm beyond FUCKED. Anyway I can get it done by then but the school shit is sucking the life out of me through my ears.

☕ Ko-Fi Page

Deadlines aside I've also randomly launched my Ko-fi Membership page! I haven't quite had the time to properly promote it but it's there and I've been updating it every so often

I've got stuff up there already and comics of things that aren't polished (or sfw) enough for me to post. Especially if you're interested in my characters and would like to support me, here's a good hub to check all of it out!

The Ko-fi Discord updates the most frequently, basically every time I draw anything (Which is quite often!). The actual ko-fi gallery is only being updated every week to prevent spam.

Shout out to my one ko-fi member, wormfriend. Right now it's quite funny to have just the one but I definitely would like more so plz join!!! I promise I draw a lot!!!

🌯 Wrapping it up...

That's all I've got for you this month, real grind-y and uneventful but hey some moths are like that. I talked about opening my commissions again in December and I intend to keep that promise but as of yet the first week is not looking too hot haha. I'll consider it on the 7th but whuff it's real packed right now!

I don't have really anything else to say or add that isn't either

a) incredibly negative and self deprecating

or

b) cussing the shit out of disrespectful transphobic anonymous asks I've been getting

so I'm just going to end this hastily written blog update here and get back to work!

I leave you with this cool down drawing of a honda civic and my attempts at a motorcycle that can also hover in the air.

As always thank you so much for reading and I've been so busy I haven't even had time to work on my annual redraw that's been sitting in my folders gah! If you’d like to support me, here’s my ko-fi page again and my itchi.io & gumroad as well.

If you have any questions or just generally want to talk to me, my DMs and askbox is always open! Any professional enquires can be sent towards my email as well: eliotlime@gmail.com

XOXO, Stay weird!

-Eliot :)

[alpaca-clouds]

Can you help debunk what I have been told that solar panels are bad for the environment and cause more waste because they take a long time to decompose and wear out in a couple years?

Okay, let me try and answer this. Because yes, this is a more complicated issue, than a lot of people make it out to be.

So, let me start with the big thing that gets often overlooked: Without even looking into ressource use, big photovoltaic power plans have definitely a negative environmental impact. Not as a negative as anything fossil energy related, but negative never the less.

With power plants I mean those giant fields where we plaster photovoltaic panels over acres of land, to have a central power plant based around photovoltaic. And while we might not get around some of those big power plants, part of the energy revolution should be to move towards micro grids instead of current macro grids (so, decentralization), hence lowering the need of central powerplants.

Now, a lot of people who are anti-pv - mostly people who are from the fossil fuel lobby, but also some nuclear-lobby folks - tend to exaggerate those negative impacts... But they are still there. (Mostly having to do with depending on the type of pv panel used they can impact the ground temperature - and of course they just disrupt the environment.)

Sooo... Let's get to the raw materials. The important bit in photovoltaic is silicon. And this is one of the good old environmentalist "well actaully" things. Because when I was a kid I got told: "Oh, silicon is never a problem, because it is just sand! We have so much sand!" But of course I learned that it is not quite as easy. Because not all sand is created equal and not all can be used for stuff like concrete (which is shit either way), glass or photovoltaic.

Though still it is not as much of an issue as a lot of rare earth materials. Some of which are currently used in photovoltaic. But here is the other thing...

Photovoltaic is currently one of the fastest developing energy technologies. Basically anything I am gonna tell you here will be outdated next year. I guarantee.

But yes, in the creation of photovoltaic we currently use rare earth metals, that are at times sourced through bad means. Both in terms of it being mined through slave work and through the mining being done in a way that harms the environment. But... for one, we are currently working on reducing the need for rare earth metals in the creation of photovoltaic. And like with nuclear materials: We could mine the materials in a much more sustainable way - both on a social and ecological level. It is just that the current capitalist system has all the incentives to mine those materials wiht exploited workers or even slaves, and to not take care of the waste created in the mining operation.

And this gets us back to the recycling.

Short version: Yeah, we have ways to recycle about 65-80% of the materials in a photovoltaic panel. And like everything else: We are working on it and it will probably go up to 90%. But once again: Like with all recycling the issue is, that recycling materials is way more expensive than getting new materials. Which is why under capitalism all the things we could recycle often do not get recycled.

But it is possible.

tl;dr: Yes, there are drawbacks to photovoltaic, but it is not as bad as many make it seem. And a ton of the drawbacks are not inevitable but only exist because of capitalism.

[eponymous-rose]

A full day today, so I figured it might be fun to write up what a professor's day might look like when not lecturing!

6:30AM: Got up early to virtually attend a friend's wedding on the East Coast! <333

8:00AM: I have been very careful this quarter to shuffle lectures/meetings around so that I have a little time to myself in the mornings to sit at home and drink coffee and eat breakfast and pet a cat while I get the day's work started. No exception today! I pull up an application my PhD student has been putting together for a tech grant and use the proverbial red pen to make some (a lot of) comments. It looks good overall, though! I send him a note to encourage him to send it to our collaborator in the computer science department when he's done with edits. Monday's the deadline, we gotta get moving on this.

9:00AM: I load up a bag with books I keep putting off taking to my office, plus some extra Halloween candy I found to add to my office candy bowl, and head out to take the bus in to campus. Also, pet the cat goodbye (she is unconcerned).

9:45AM: At the office, books and candy put away! Time to prep for my first meeting, which is a committee meeting with someone else's PhD student. He struggled a bit with a recent exam (entirely his advisor's fault, but that's a different story), so we're reconvening as a group to see his progress and cheer him on. He sent an update document, so I run through that and take a few notes. Then it's responding to e-mails (setting up my participation in a federal review panel next year, responding to two prospective graduate students interested in working with me - the combo of a fun research topic and a beautiful campus means I'm now up to 20 inquiries so far this quarter, eep - and sending out an update to the department about the charitable giving opportunities I'm coordinating).

10:30AM: Great presentation by the PhD student about all the things he's done since our last meeting back in April-ish. He's made huge changes to his work, and we applaud (literally and figuratively) how much he's accomplished in such a short time. Also, amazing data visualization! Great work all around. He's set to defend his PhD by 2025 at this rate, definitely back on track.

11:30AM: Time to rush back to my office to meet with my own PhD student! We usually meet on Fridays, but we get tomorrow off for the holiday so we jumped the meeting back. He's a few minutes late due to a missed bus, so my next-door colleague and I talk about cats for a few minutes. As you do. When he does arrive, he's got some cool stuff to show me - we talk about the notes I made on his grant application, and I remind him (and myself) to book flights to a conference in December that is rapidly approaching somehow. (I guess this means I have to do some cool and innovative research before then that I can talk about. Go figure.) He also shows me some cool preliminary results from a project he's been doing with a friend out in Pennsylvania. He's late enough in his PhD that my role as advisor is primarily to get out of his way and make sure he has enough supercomputer core-hours to get his work done!

12:30PM: A break for me! I start in on e-mail again, sending a coordinator my bio and abstract for a talk I've been invited to give (virtually, thankfully) at a student conference in January. I also realize that, because of the break tomorrow, I should really put together a homework assignment and next week's lectures for the class I teach Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Hmmm. I dig through last year's lectures and assignments and realize they've gotten a little out of sync this year. The solution? I may just offer 5 instead of 6 assignments over these ten weeks and give them this one a week later. Class average has been extremely high on them, and I think the students will appreciate a bit of a break. Also means today's job is just to prepare a few lectures based on last year's material. I've got a big chunk of open time later this afternoon to deal with course stuff, so back to e-mail. Going to be joining a friend (who I can't help but think of as the undergrad who sat in during all my grad classes, but is now somehow a full research scientist) on a very cool project putting together a new thunderstorm dataset. Also reached out to another friend about setting up biweekly meetings to hopefully start a new research collaboration and... possibly some fieldwork! I also almost forgot to put a forecast together for our forecasting competition, but I got there in time. Phew.

1:30PM: Meeting with a colleague and the undergrad research intern we co-supervise who is sadly having to leave to go attend school closer to home. This meeting is mostly just us reinforcing to her that we're still here if she needs advice/reference letters or ever wants to work on a similar project with us remotely in the future, but we are going to continue with the research until the end of the quarter, at her request. After the meeting, I get an e-mail about another undergraduate looking for a research project! I present her with the options of a cool lightning project with my colleague next door (waiting to hear back about federal funding for that project, fingers crossed) and that other cool thunderstorm project led by my friend in Oklahoma.

2:30PM: Seminar time! A very cool freshly-minted PhD from California tells us all about her research, a complicated topic about which I knew very little going in and now know... slightly more. There was a very geeky moment in which she showed what happened to a particular part of the climate system when CO2 was added, then showed what happened when CO2 was removed, and the asymmetry of it made everyone in the room gasp and then self-consciously giggle.

4:00PM: Post-seminar snacks acquired (a big cookie and coffee are definitely a good late lunch, right? I kid, I kid, I had a big breakfast and have a big dinner waiting at home) and small-talk survived, I scramble back up to my office. Time to get those lectures ready for next week (pretty quick to do - rather than last year, where I'd show the code on the screen and we'd talk about it, I'm having us write the code together live and debug as we go; harder in the moment for me, but the students are learning so much better!). Get an e-mail back from the new undergrad research intern expressing interest in the lightning project, amazing! Time to get her registered so she gets credit for this starting in January. Also finally get a teensy bit more editing done on a draft of a review article that one of the top scientific journals in the world tapped me to write (???? still surreal beyond measure).

5:30PM: BAND PRACTICE. Our department is so nerdy that the faculty/staff/postdocs/grad students put together a giant band to perform popular songs but as covers so we can make the lyrics about our nerdy research. This tradition has been going on for 30+ years, and the big performance is for an hour at our holiday party every year. It's a riot, and this is my first year joining in the chaos (I'm on keys on three songs!). There are like 25 of us, we have a horn section, a professor plays the mandolin, the students create elaborate musical roasts of their professors, it's great. My parts go great, to the point where when there's some trouble with key drift during an a capella part they call me in to play chords under it and keep them grounded. I love playing music with other people!

7:00PM: Time to pack up and head home for dinner. Phew.

Long day, but also LONG WEEKEND BAYBEE. I don't actually have to do any substantial work this weekend, so that means BALDUR'S GATE WEEKEND BAYBEE.

[misakarose]

Voice acting 👀👀👀👀 can we get a story please?

jdfhglxdjfhgfdlxh I've touched on it before, but I'll go a bit further into it, sure!

back in 2012-2013, I was a part of an online fan animation studio that produced fan animations for my little pony: friendship is magic (yes, I was in that fandom back in the HAYDAY of bronies). originally, a casting call went out for a fan movie for the show, and on a whim I decided to audition for the role of twilight sparkle, since I thought I could do a pretty good impression of the character.

welp, I got the part and joined a group of other fans to produce this fan-made movie. SHIT HAPPENED. I won't go into details cuz it's legit insane, but long story short, the movie fell through (cuz yeah of course it wasn't gonna get finished lmao) and the main "director" guy dropped out of the group due to circumstances as well as a few other people. but the main core of the group, which included pretty much all the voice actors and some artists/animators, had all become super close friends and we decided to stick together as our own studio and put out smaller projects. we were actually really successful within the brony sphere, although we did put out a few videos that had nothing to do with mlp when we started growing out of the fandom.

I did a LOT of voice acting back within that time frame, both within our studio and in other little projects outside of it. nothing was ever on a professional level, I never made money, it was all hobby work, but I absolutely loved it and had so much fun. our studio got invited to a few different conventions and got to attend as guests, we hosted panels, got to meet professionals in the industry, it was seriously like living the dream (I was 17/18/19 around this time).

FUN FACT THAT I'VE DEFINITELY MENTIONED BEFORE: I dated the english VA for aki hayakawa from chainsaw man (reagan murdock) for a little over a year during all of this. he and I met when we both landed parts for that fan movie and joined this studio. of all the voice actors that were a part of it, I'm pretty sure he's the only one who moved on to doing it professionally, which isn't even a surprise cuz he's SUPER talented and there was no way he wasn't going into the professional space.

our little studio doesn't really put out content anymore, not as a group at least. a few of us do solo stuff nowadays. but we're still really close friends, we still have a discord chat that we talk in regularly, and they are legitimately some of the best/closest friends I've ever made. and it was all because of my little pony lmao

I tried putting together a demo reel once upon a time, but I never actually finished it or put it out there at all. not pursuing that line of work while I was still in my hayday and had several professional contacts is one of my biggest regrets tbh. I do still have very loose footholds in the industry, including successful contacts, but it's been so long since I've actually done anything that I don't even know where I'd start.

SO ANYWAY that's my history with voice acting lmao thanks for asking~

[tiredassmage]

“shielding the other one with their body “ for any ship who pipes up 👀

This one has been taunting me for ages and I finally put the idea I had about it down, but endings???? Who is she??? Can't figure out how to end this one because I had a single cute scene in my head and the technicalities of what they're doing is definitely above me, but it's also above Cee, so I guess it works? xD

[touch prompts]

x-x-x-x-x-x-

“Why the kriff did we agree to this?” Cee hissed shakily as she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Relax,” Oliver murmured against her hair, “We’re almost there, I promise.”

“Right,” she ground through her teeth. “'Just relax.' One bad step and we both go plummeting to our deaths. You sure got a lot of faith in me, spyboy.”

She was pressed up against him on a pitiful excuse for a walkway on the top of some hideout or another - the details from his debrief were escaping her at the moment. Thinking about anything that wasn’t the warmth of his chest against her back right now was liable to make her nauseous.

He chuckled lightly, but steadied a hand on her hip as she reached for the next ladder. “All you gotta do is jack me in to that panel, remember? The rest is all me.”

“Mmhhm,” Cee hummed. She wrapped her hands tighter around the polls as she pulled upwards. She could see it now. Just a little more. “If I fall, Oli-”

“I know, I know, you’ll haunt me for the rest of my life. You’re doing great, sweetheart,” he said. As promised, he was right behind her every step of the way.

She leaned back into his steadying hold for support as she started to finally haul herself up onto the narrow platform.

“Risha, we’re almost in position,” he reported.

“Delightful. Standing by. Try not to die.”

“Risha!” Cee hissed.

“Focus, baby,” Oli encouraged, “She’s just trying to lighten your nerves.”

“Real funny way of doin’ it,” Cee complained, carefully lowering herself to sit on the platform with her feet dangling free and her back against the panel wall. Nar Shadaa’s lights danced energetically in all directions and she felt her heart drop into her stomach.

Who the kriff thought it was alright to hide a security panel all the way up here? Probably hoping anyone plummeted to their deaths at some point. It’d keep all those Cartel secrets safe or… something.

“Hey,” Oliver said carefully, eyeing her as he set out a datapad beside her. “Stick with me, alright?”

She nodded, but her wide eyes didn’t move from the depths of the city.

“Help me with this wire, yea?” Cee finally blinked as Oliver braced carefully against the ladder. “I need you to hook us in. The data spike should be in-”

She scooted a bit closer to rustle through the inner pockets of his jacket. A mild frown of concentration flickered across his lips. “I think- Other side, sweetheart,” he murmured.

“Not what I would’ve planned for our honeymoon,” she muttered, noticing out of the corner of her eye the way his lips shifted into an amused smile doubtlessly due to the flush rising to her cheeks.

Sure enough, she located their data spike in his other pocket. “I’ll get you something nice, once we’re done with this job,” he said. Cee squinted at him, leaving him an opening to press a quick kiss against her nose that made her stick out her tongue. He merely smirked before he nodded to the panel. “Now, let’s crack open that panel and see what we’ve got.”

“You owe me so big for this, Oli. Tell that jackass back at command-”

“Into that top right spot there.” He shifted how he was braced to indicate a socket near a small, blinking light. “Alright.” He eyed the datapad set out beside her on the walkway. “Give me a minute to get into the network. Risha?”

“Starting to come through. Filter out the garbage and I’ll forward what they want.”

“Yup.”

“D’you… I dunno, want up here instead?”

Oliver quirked a brow without moving his eyes from the datapad. “Nah. Unless you want to-?”

“No, no, I’m. I’m good,” Cee shook her head and puffed out a sharp, short breath. “I’m not going back down there alone.”

He smiled faintly. “That’s what I thought. We’re almost done, I promise.”

“Right.” Cee gripped the edge of the platform until her knuckles were white. “Oli? Just keep talking to me.”

“Alright then,” he said with a light shrug. “Where did you want to go?”

“Huh?”

“Nar Shadaa’s obviously off your list,” he said with the flicker of an amused smile. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Uhm… Somewhere warm, for one,” Cee mused. “I have had enough of this snowy blizzard planet nonsense.”

“No romantic returns to Hoth then,” he teased. “Got it.” Cee stuck her tongue out briefly. “Hurry up, spyboy. They’re gonna start missin’ us up here and I am not going to try to run on all of these narrow little death traps.”

"I'd still be right behind you," Oli offered.

She finally eased into a smile. "I know."

[clay-cuttlefish]

Back to this. I got sidetracked jumping around the spreadsheet and adding some random stuff, but hopefully I should hit the first Renee appearances tomorrow. I also have to track down a version of Death in the Family that has the foreword - it's by Tot and mentions Vic, and was mentioned in the letter column for 28, so it should fit somewhere in this chunk of issues on the spreadsheet.

Question #18

Here he is! I love Ollie and Vic's dynamic. They are so fascinating and so annoying.

You know you've fucked up when Ollie's calling you a dumbass.

I like how much breathing room this issue has. They get a lot of space to talk and highlight each other, which is a great foundation for the later GA crossovers.

Of the unsubtle 80s anti-gun GA stuff I've read (which isn't a lot but it's more than 0) this is one of the less interesting bits. At least it's short.

The panel composition on this issue is really well done. Making two guys talking in a truck into a pair of pages that make me pause to take them in is impressive.

#19

Vic choosing to get the doll fixed is a really strong moment.

Overall, the way Augie is treated is surprisingly good? It's definitely played for creepiness at first, but he's just a guy living a surprisingly decent life for Hub City, Vic tries to actually help him and doesn't judge him for being delusional, and he ends up totally fine.

The parallel between Vic's mask and Myra's makeup, and her choice to discard it, is just. Waugh. She's just as dedicated to trying to figure out the right thing as he is, but she's not hiding any of it!

Myra kissing Maurice is still a very weird moment.

Detective Comics - Fables part 1

Spectacularly terrible opening, 0/10.

It's so weird to see the Penguin after this long of a stretch without supervillains. Yeah Talia shows up first but she's way less gimmicky and the page is pretty calm. He's here in full force with the monocle and bird jokes.

Shiva <333

I don't believe for a fucking second that asking Vic is the best way Shiva can think of to find Batman. I really like it, don't get me wrong. Vic's hacker exposition about making a post on the internet is hilarious, calling Batman Pointy-Ears is hilarious, "Matins" is such a Catholicism Moment, it's good stuff. I just think this is way less likely to work than going to Gotham and punching cops until Batman shows up.

Oh my god this is such a stupid villain plot. What do you mean it doesn't affect people with high testosterone. What do you mean Bruce already knows what it is. Why does Ra's have that. Why would that be the effect you choose for this story.

I'm sure this Bruce and Talia plot is better when read in context but it's still some excellent drama. Love them.

...gender?

Green Arrow - Fables part 2

The overarching plot of Fables isn't good, the O-Sensei is a boring Orientalist stereotype, but all of the subplots are very strong examples of why I care about each series. Scrap the whole O-Sensei thing in the first two issues and just have it be Shiva picking fights and finding people to help someone she knows and it'd be better.

Dinahollie <3

I love getting to see Shiva doing her thing. She's so chill, it's fun to see her in her element :)

Dinahshiva <3

Shiva loves to put some weird little freak in a situation and see if it makes them better or worse, and it sucks she doesn't get to do that anymore.

Question - Fables part 3

All of these issues have great looks for Shiva. Style icon.

Hey, Vic's terrible secret identity came back to bite him!

"Van der Waal's equation" isn't complete technobabble - the Van der Waal's force is a decent explanation for a multi-use adhesive, at least by comic book standards, and would explain why the mask never seems "sticky" and why the chemistry on getting it to stay is so finicky.

It's interesting that Vic doesn't even try to get Shiva to not kill people. He might be self-sacrificing, but he's not that dumb.

Oh my god Bruce you are such a dramatic bitch.

I kinda see what they were going for with the O-Sensei here, at least. Still think it'd be better if he wasn't a ridiculous legendary fighter.

Drowning motif! Shiva's perspective is so interesting - she's able to do anything she puts the effort into, and she expects that to be true of everyone else.

#20

The cover layout is unique this issue, which is a neat touch.

I always like that characters get to say stuff that's sort of dumb. Vic no-selling Myra's joke about boomerang rocks is a nice reminder that they do really like and feel comfortable around each other, even when things are rough.

Honestly not a ton to say about this issue. It makes its point well, I like it.

In the letter pages: the return of Hair Discourse.

#21

This plotline's back!

He just like me fr (misreading signals on a date, resisting the urge to deck his high school classmates)

Seriously though, it's nice to get a look into Vic's very normal problems. Not everything wrong with him is related to being the Question.

This is one of my favourite single issues. I can't quite put words on why - everything about it just works, and there's nothing about it that I want to pick at.

#22

Election Day is the best arc in the run.

The opening spread is full of excellent expressions - Wesley's really lean into the more distorted and exaggerated end of Cowan's art, while Myra's are all subtle, exhausted frustration. I appreciate that she's consistently drawn with sunken cheeks and eye bags.

Maurice getting to be serious is a strong moment. He's been a good source of banter for Myra before this, so having him get invested and take the consequences seriously is a good way to ground the stakes, and to give Myra someone who's genuinely on her side without having to rely on Vic.

It's interesting that Shiva pays close enough attention to what Vic's up to on a regular basis that she'd know who to send. Even when she's not around, she still gets to drive the story.

#23

This issue got me the first time I read it. The history flashback is a weird choice, but it sets the tone perfectly, and the time constantly being shown is a throwback to the first issue that makes it feel super tense. So much of the series has long time skips, waiting to heal or get phone calls or for anything to happen, but now every minute counts. The news reports punctuating it work so well.

Vic dropping everything when he reads Tot's name is so...

Myra goes off, and she damn well deserves it. The difference in how her expressions feel between this and the opening of #22 is a testament to Cowan's work.

The quoting of a line from five pages ago is maybe a little unnecessary. These panels would stand perfectly well on their own.

#24

It's hard to make a deus ex machina feel "earned", but if anything does, it's this.

Kind of a dumb thing but who tells this story with a beaver? I'm not losing it, right, it's the Scorpion and the Frog?

The historical flashback turning out in Myra's favor is a fantastic bit of subversion. When I first read this, I was certain that Wesley was going to shoot Myra during the blackout, and Dinsmore dying and Myra talking about how bad winning felt made me lower my guard and think he might kill himself publicly instead. Funny how that works.

I didn't catch what he meant until the next issue on my first read (in my defence, I'm not American) but wow Wesley's not subtle about his assassination plans to anyone. I mean, I caught that much, but he's really not subtle.

Myra and Vic's relationship makes me want to explode. I just want them to be happy together! Aaaaa!

#25

Everything happens so much. The pace just does not let up.

Vic falls into bad habits, again, but he does a better job staying focused and not letting the anger take over - it's good development.

Wesley's death is everything the shitty racist cop issue fails to be. He's a sad, awful little man with a broken moral compass and a lot of enablers, and he dies refusing to recognize it.

The letters column: a woman wrote in a while back about how male comic fans are creeps and Vic still has some personal growth to do when it comes to being less sexist, and some men are being freaks about it. These fuckers haven't changed in thirty years.

#26

If I ignore the part of my brain that hates this as a Riddler story and pretend he's an OC, it's a fine breather issue. Unfortunately I am bad at doing that.

Some very caricature-y guest art this issue. It's a neat look in some panels, and sometimes it's more subtle, but a lot of it is scrungled enough that I can't take what's happening seriously.

this is Vic and Tot in the car, to me

Love that Tot takes stopping Vic from self-destructing into his own hands, and that Vic bitches but doesn't do anything stupid to try and stop him.

The idea of Vic chewing out the Riddler with more difficult questions is an interesting idea, but I don't love the effect of him monologuing about a bunch of pretty standard ~deep~ questions and well known koans, and the Riddler just going "yeah i'm afraid of those" is dumb.

I dunno - it feels like a bit of a waste for the one time Vic faces an established villain to be so meh. I like Sphinx, at least, and the reappearance of the drowning motif is cool.

#27

The weirdest issue, I think.

I really like all the Vic sections, and I'm not opposed to meta shit, but this is pretty jarring. Tot's weird cousin and his racist magic is not helping the tone of the Ditko callback.

I like that Tot has a weird cousin who was a bad comic artist. He has connections outside of Vic, they're just also weird as hell.

The Ditko callback is great. "You gotta pull me up." "Why?", and then the slow drop before Vic grabs him? Mwah. Perfect. I'm a sucker for this shit. Even when he's falling into bad habits, he's still a better person than he used to be!

#28

Shiva :)

Vic responding to Tot telling him not to lie to himself by suddenly gaining sunglasses kills the mood a bit, but it's also very good. What is wrong with him.

Myra wakes up from a coma, ditches the hospital, and immediately makes a very risky plan. Good for her.

Everyone's in top form this issue, it's great.

[sunder-soul]

Sequel Snippet Spree: Seven Devils

Prompt: Congratulations on 2 K followers!! 🎉🎉🎉 Honestly I just want you to have fun with a little snippet from Seven Devils! Adventurous, domestic, smutty, whatever you'd like to share!

A/N: Thank you so much for this one @dravenwitchmusings! I got quite a few requests for Seven Devils in the 2k event, so here’s the first of the long-awaited one-shots!!

{GIF CREDIT for header below! That blog is incredible btw, their work is literally all stunning check it out}

ℙ𝕖𝕣𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕋𝕒𝕘𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥

𝔸 - 𝕄

@arana-alpha @cranberrypills @dear-fifi @dropssofjupitter @dravenwitchmusings @empath-bunny @expectoscamander @fish-eg @grimdevil @hueanhdang @itsjustfics @just-wordsandthoughts @lemirabitur @lucys-brain @mentally-in-northern-italy @mikariell95 @moatsnow

ℕ - ℤ

@niallwrld @nothinghcppens @obliviouspotter @oui-magnifique @pearlstiare @pink-kixxes @rededfoxy @seriouslyginnychase @silverdelirium @suicide-sweetheart636 @sunles @tallyovie @tm-mrvl-rddl @toasterking @valentinecarnage @voidmalfoy @weirdowithnobeardo @whoevenfrickenknows @whoreforgeorgeandfred @wizardcherryblossom

 ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.  

It was a blistering afternoon and Marina’s shoulders were feeling uncomfortably warm in that dry, papery way that told her she’d definitely find them a little burnt when they finally got back to the hotel – but still the Mediterranean sky remained relentlessly cloudless, and the crooked white walls of the buildings fringing the wizarding street were doing little to ward off the bright hot sunlight. She was definitely regretting wearing the summery yellow dress, wishing she’d chosen something that covered more of her skin.

“I’m sunburnt,” Marina said matter-of-factly.

“I offered you a Sun-ward Charm,” Tom replied, not looking concerned in the slightest as he continued to peer around the street. “And you refused.”

“I thought December was supposed to be cooler than this,” she grumbled.

“There,” said Tom, nodding at a little shop on his right. “That looks like what Angelos described, doesn’t it?”

Marina leaned forward to look around him and frowned at the sun-baked shopfront. The green paint was peeling off the door in long, shriveled strips that fluttered listlessly above the sweltering concrete, the wooden frames bleached and fissured like old driftwood, and the glass panels of the windows were so cracked and grimy that it was impossible to make out anything inside. “Huh,” she said humorously. “So that’s why he told us not to be dissuaded by its appearance.”

“I’ll go ask them about the bones,” Tom said quietly, folding up the little piece of parchment with Angelos’ looping script scrawled across it. “You better find us some place to eat.”

“On it,” she declared, rounding on the street and immediately spying a small café with white wrought-iron tables dotted around its paved veranda, each sheltered with a broad blue umbrella. “Okay done,” she said, glancing back at Tom expectantly.

He gave her a dry look as he slipped the parchment into his shirt pocket, and headed for the decrepit little store without another word.

Marina made short work of ordering rather a lot of gelato from the café (the fig and honey was her favourite, closely followed by gianduja which tasted exactly like Nutella), and she left a tall glass of cola fizzing beside to her for Tom who (much to her chagrin) seemed to love the stuff. He emerged from the store a good ten minutes later and Marina watched him approach from where she was lounging in her chair, a spoonful of blissfully cold gelato in her mouth. He collapsed into the seat beside her with a long breath and immediately picked up the cola.

“That shit’ll rot your teeth, you know,” said Marina as he took a long swig of it.

“Angelos was mistaken,” Tom said when he finally set the glass back on the table and squinted at the busy street around them. “Madam Myrmidon’s never even heard of Herpo.”

“Then where’s she getting her authentic basilisk bones from?”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Considering those bones were from a diamondback rattlesnake, I doubt she’s even a real Seer at all.”

It was bad news. Finding the supplier of Madam Myrmidon’s infamous basilisk scrying bones had been one of their most promising leads since arriving in Crete. “Damn,” Marina said quietly, staring at her melting gelato. “Where to next?”

Tom sighed softly, leaning back in his chair and taking his cola with him. “Myrmidon mentioned that there’s an old library east of here,” he said, but Marina’s attention was stolen by the way he tugged the collar of his shirt away from his throat, his skin more tanned than she’d ever seen and with a faint glow of sweat – “Apparently the locals don’t go there much,” he continued, glancing at her. She looked down at her dessert quickly, hoping he’d write off her warm cheeks to her sunburn. “It’s full of books on grey magic, taboo spells, creatures of ill repute, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds like your kind of gig,” Marina said wryly.

His gaze immediately shifted back to the same dry deprecation he reserved for her when she made such quips and Marina smirked back, spooning more fig-honey gelato into her mouth. “We should see what they have to offer,” Tom said smoothly, lifting his glass to his lips again. “Once you’re finished.”

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You said find us some place to eat.”

“And I just said I’m not hungry.”

“Have some of mine then,” said Marina, sliding the little cup of gelato towards him and handing him the spoon.

Tom’s eyes lingered on the spoon for a moment, and then flicked to up hers. “I’m not using that, it’s been in your mouth,” he said, looking uncomfortable.

“Do you want me to go get you a fresh one?” Marina asked teasingly.

“Or you could eat what you bought for yourself for once,” he shot back.

Marina snorted and seized her cup of gelato, stabbing her spoon into the scoop of gianduja and prying out a massive lump. “Eat this,” she commanded, handing him the spoon, “I swear to God you’ll like it.”

He gave her another very sceptical look.

“Go on,” she prompted, pushing the spoon closer.

Tom sighed as if very hard done by, set his cola on the table, and took the spoon. At the warm brush of his fingers on hers Marina dropped her hand as if burned, having to smooth out the skirt of her dress to hide the reaction. “If I eat this will you leave me alone?” Tom asked in deadpan.

“No,” she said brightly.

Tom’s expression somehow turned even more deprecating, but he lifted the spoon and Marina hastily averted her gaze to avoid watching him too closely, leaning back in her chair and stretching her arms above her head with laced fingers.

“Did you read through the translations of those old reports yet?” Tom asked.

Marina closed her eyes and sighed, letting her arms fall back over the chair. “Yeah, pretty useless, it was just a bunch of guys bragging about all the big scary animals they’d killed in the ring. Did you know they used to run an illegal giant-fighting pit here?”

“No, but that does rather sound like your kind of gig,” Tom smirked.

“Very funny.”

“Any basilisks in those rings?” he asked, leaning forward and picking up Marina’s cup of gelato from the table.

“Nah, just a bunch of chimaera and giant boars.”

“Then the library is our best bet,” he said, taking another spoonful of the gianduja.

“Yeah, off to your creepy evil library with its accursed halls and haunted books,” Marina grinned, “God, Tom, you never take me anywhere nice.”

“If you don’t want to come, you can go back to the hotel,” Tom replied, unperturbed.

“Can I have that back at some point or are you going to eat all of it?” she asked, nodding at the cup with amusement.

“You said I could have some,” he shrugged.

“Give it back, I’m hungry.”

Tom rolled his eyes and slid it back towards her and rested his forearms on the table. “Like that counts as food,” he said, nodding at the gelato.

“Says the guy drinking cola for lunch.”

“But I’m not pretending this is a meal, am I?” he smirked, picking up his glass again.

“Eat my dick, Riddle,” Marina declared simply, digging back into her gelato.

Tom choked on his cola and the door to the café swung open as the store owner emerged, an older woman with a golden tan and long, curly brown hair streaked with grey. “Everything is alright?” she asked them with a broad smile and a thick Greek accent, peering curiously at Tom who was now coughing violently and bent double in his chair.

“Yes,” Marina grinned, ignoring Tom completely, “everything’s fine, thanks.”

“I can bring you something else?” the server offered with visible concern. “Water, perhaps…?”

“No no, we’re all good,” Marina replied loudly over Tom’s chokes, “we’re about to get going, actually.”

The server’s dark eyes flicked nervously between Marina’s blithe smile and Tom’s crumpled form and watering eyes, finally managed to catch his breath.

“He’s fine,” Marina told her reassuringly with a casual wave of her hand Tom’s way. He shot her a dark look which she also ignored.

“Well,” the server said with a kind smile, turning to the table beside them and loading the empty glasses and discarded cups onto her tray, “if you’re sure – it would be a shame to cut your trip short!” she added with a good-natured laugh.

“Oh for sure, for sure,” Marina grinned, standing and nudging Tom’s arm with her knee. “Up and at ‘em Tom, don’t choke to death in an ice cream store – that would be such an embarrassing way to kark it.”

“Your concern is appreciated,” he managed to say very sarcastically, his voice a little raspy as he reached for his cola and downed the rest of it, clearing his throat with determination.

Marina hid a smirk and turned back to the server. “Thanks for the gelato, it’s insane,” she said sincerely, lifting her cup. “Even Tom likes it and he’s normally determined to be difficult and taciturn.”

Tom sighed stiffly and stood, seeming even more sick of her antics than usual. “Thank you,” he told the server politely as he slid his chair back into place.

“You are welcome,” the server said with a broad smile, picking up Tom’s glass and placing it on her tray. “Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon, yes?”

Marina froze with her spoon in her mouth, paralysed by the wave of heat tearing through her chest and staring at the server with wide eyes.

There was a suspended moment of silent stillness in which her brain failed to provide a single thing to say.

“We’re not on a honeymoon,” Tom said awkwardly from beside her.

She did not dare look at him.

“Oh,” said the server with surprise, glancing at her. “I – I’m sorry.”

Marina forced herself to laugh and stabbed her spoon back into her gelato. “No worries,” she said with artificial ease, throwing the server one last smile before turning away and weaving off between the tables. “Alright, let’s go find this evil library, then. I suppose there are worse ways to spend an afternoon…”

As she and Tom fell into step on the footpath, Marina preoccupied herself with meticulously drawing up a spoonful of gelato to save herself from having to acknowledge him, still feeling a little hot. She couldn’t help but notice that there were definitely a few more inches between them than there had been an hour earlier.

“If all you’re going to do is push it around, I’ll eat it,” Tom said a moment later, tone very wry.

Marina glanced up to find his eyes on where she was aimlessly twisting her spoon in what remained of her gelato. She breathed a laugh and handed it to him. “I told you you’d like it.”

“You did,” he agreed softly as he took it, returning his attention to the sights and sounds of the busy wizarding street and placing a generous amount of gelato in his mouth, the warm sun making him squint again.

Marina looked away to hide her smile.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.  

[anti-dazai-blog]

13- The importance of showing up to work (and other complaints)

Chapter 13 is Kenji-centric. Dazai had absolutely nothing to do with anything that happens in this side quest. However, there is a single panel featuring Dazai at the very end of the chapter. 

In this panel, Dazai seems to be in his apartment (or agency dorm?). He thinks to himself “I’ll inform them of my mafia escape tomorrow”, while the narrating text reads “meanwhile Dazai… was slacking off”. This is nothing new— Dazai ditches work all the time. But I haven’t had the chance to truly focus on the many problems caused by this common Dazai behavior, and now seems like a perfect opportunity to do a little deep-drive on the importance of showing up to work. Or, to be more specific, the importance of Dazai fulfilling his job requirements at the Armed Detective Agency.

So I present to you:

 A short list of reasons why Dazai should probably show up to work

One: Unless he could literally see the future, he has no way of knowing if there’s a new case that day that he would be needed to help with. 

Dazai’s intellect and ability are very useful to the ADA. Or they would be, if he bothered to help out with cases more often than once a month. Staying home for no reason when he could be helping people on the good side (which, need I remind you, is his whole goal in joining the agency in the first place) is counterproductive to the reason he joined the agency. Rather than helping people, he’s robbing the agency of an entire paycheck’s worth of money by not doing his job.

Two: If he’s not doing his work, it’ll have to be done by someone else.

The “someone else” in question is most likely Kunikida. After all, he’s Dazai’s partner. So chances are they share a workload, to some extent. Dazai has also, on occasion, pawned off some paperwork to Atsushi. But regardless of who ends up doing Dazai’s work, it has to be done by someone, and that “someone” isn’t Dazai. I doubt the agency has the funds to both pay Dazai and pay extra to whoever ends up doing his work, so someone out there is stuck with doing some unpaid labor. 

Three: Not passing on what he learned from the mafia’s files is detrimental to the agency.

Today of all days is an especially bad time for Dazai to ditch work, since he recently got his hands on vital information that’ll most likely be necessary for determining what the agency's necessary next steps are. Withholding information on the bounty (and the guild) while that’s the biggest problem the agency’s currently dealing with is nearly intentional sabotage of the agency and their goals. 

Four: …and withholding all of this from Atsushi is cruel.

Atsushi, of all people, has a right to know who was responsible for putting him through the torment he endured ever since he arrived in Yokohama. [or rather, who other than Dazai is responsible.] He has a right to know why he was hunted down. He has a right to know why the Weretiger is valuable. And he has a right to know all of that immediately. Atsushi has been through enough, and Dazai finally has the information necessary to answer all the questions Atsushi was inevitably asking himself. Yet he decides that it doesn’t really matter, and Atsushi can wait a couple more days before finding out the truth [or possibly longer— who knows when or if he ever got around to telling him.]

Five: Anyone who cares about him would be worried by his extended absence. 

If anyone at the agency actually spends time worrying about Dazai, chances are they’d be worried by now. He’s been missing for at least three days(?), probably longer. That may not sound like a lot, but at least from my own experience, if someone wouldn’t show up to work for even two days in a row without letting anyone know where they are, everyone else would be very worried about what happened to them.  Missing 3+ days without letting anyone know if you’re alive or dead is definitely the sort of behavior that causes people to start coming up with worst-case-scenarios. Considering Dazai’s alive and well, it’s pretty thoughtless of him to not bother to simply text one of his coworkers, just to let them know he’s alive. 

Six: Regardless of the prior five reasons, it’s simply unprofessional.

Disregard the first five reasons. If you work somewhere you have a responsibility to complete your job*. That’s more than enough of a reason to show up to work. And if you can’t, then you have a responsibility to let your employer know that you’ll be late or miss work that day. It’s called Being A Responsible Adult, something Dazai clearly never heard of.  

(*disregard this if you work for a big corporation or something. If you work for Amazon go ahead and burn down a warehouse or two)

Join me next week when I maybe post part 14. Or maybe not. I don’t know yet. I’ll be in a whole different country for part of the week and I’m not entirely sure if I’ll have time or a good enough WiFi connection to post.

[kmclaude]

Forgive me Father, I have no awful headcanons for you, only a general question on comic making. How do you do it, writing-wise/how do you decide what points go where, how do you plot it out (or do you have any resources on the writing aspect that you find useful?) Not to get too bogged down in details, but I attended a writer’s workshop and the author in residence suggested I transfer my wordy sci-fi WIP into graphic novel script, as it might work better. (I do draw, but I don’t know if I have it in me to draw a whole comic—characters in motion? Doing things? With backgrounds? How dare, why can’t everyone just stand around looking pretty)

I was interested but it quickly turned into a lot of internal screaming as I tried to figure out how to compress the hell out of it, since novels are free to do a lot more internal monologuing and such compared to a comic format (to say nothing of trying to write a script without seeing how the panels lay out—just for my own sake, I might have to do both concurrently.)

As an aside, to get a feel for graphic novels I was rereading 99RM and was reminded of how great it was—tightly plotted, intriguing, and anything to do with Ashmedai was just beautifully drawn. I need more Monsignor Tiefer and something something there are parallels between Jehan and Daniel in my head and I don’t know if they make sense but it works for me. (As an aside, I liked the emphasis on atonement being more than just the word sorry, but acknowledgment you did wrong and an attempt to remedy it—I don’t know why that spoke to me the way that it did.)

I thought Tumblr had a word count limit for asks but so far it has offered zero resistance, oh well. I don’t have much else to say but on the topic of 99RM, Adam getting under Monsignor’s skin is amazing, 10/10 (about the Pride picture earlier)

wow tumblr got rid of the markdown editor! or at least in asks which means the new editor probably has no markdown....god i hate this site! anyway...

Totally! So first, giant thank you for the compliments! Second, I have a few questions in turn for you before I dive into a sort of answer, since I can give some advice to your questions in general but it also sounds like you have a specific conundrum on your hands.

My questions to your specific situation are:

did the author give any reason for recommending a, in your words, "wordy" story be turned into a graphic novel?

is the story you're writing more, like you said, "internal monologuing"? action packed? where do the visuals come from?

do you WANT it to be a comic? furthermore, do you want it to be a comic you then must turn around and draw? or would you be interested in writing for comics as a comic writer to have your words turned into art?

With those questions in mind, let me jump into the questions you posed me!

Let me start with a confession...

I've said this before but let me say it again: Ninety-Nine Righteous Men was not originally a comic — it was a feature-length screenplay! And furthermore, it was written for a class so it got workshopped again and again to tighten the plot by a classroom of other nerds — so as kind as your compliments are, I'm giving credit where credit is due as that was not just a solo ship sailing on the sea. On top of that, it got adapted (by me) into a comic for my thesis, so my advisor also helped me make it translate or "read" well given I was director, actor, set designer, writer, editor, SFX guy, etc. all in one. And it was a huge help to have someone say "there is no way you can go blow by blow from script to comic: you need to make edits!" For instance, two scenes got compressed to simple dialogue overlaid on the splashpage of Ashmedai raping Caleb (with an insert panel of Adam and Daniel talking the next day.) What had been probably at least 5 pages became 1.

Additionally, I don't consider myself a strong plotter. That said, I found learning to write for film made the plotting process finally make some damn sense since the old plot diagram we all got taught in grammar school English never made sense as a reader and definitely made 0 sense as a writer — for me, for some reason, the breakdown of 25-50-25 (approx. 25 pages for act 1, 50 for act 2 split into 2 parts of 25 each, 25 pages for act 3) and the breaking down of the beats (the act turning points, the mid points, the low point) helped give me a structure that just "draw a mountain, rising action, climax is there, figure it out" never did. Maybe the plot diagram is visually too linear when stories have ebb and flow? I don't know. But it never clicked until screenwriting. So that's where I am coming from. YMMV.

I should also state that there's Official Ways To Write Comic Scripts to Be Drawn By An Artist (Especially If You Work For A Real Publisher As a Writer) and there's What Works For You/Your Team. I don't give a rat's ass about the former (and as an artist, I kind of hate panel by panel breakdowns like you see there) so I'm pretty much entirely writing on the latter here. I don't give a good god damn about official ways of doing anything: what works for you to get it done is what matters.

What Goes Where?

Like I said, 99RM was a screenplay so it follows, beat-wise, the 3-act screenplay structure (hell, it's probably more accurate to say it follows the act 1/act 2A/act 2B/act 3 structure.) So there was the story idea or concept that then got applied to those story beats associated with the structure, and from there came the Scene-by-scene Breakdown (or Expanded Scene Breakdown) which basically is an outline of beats broken down into individual scenes in short prose form so you get an overview of what happens, can see pacing, etc. In the resources at the end I put some links that give information on the whole story beat thing.

(As an aside: for all my short comics, I don't bother with all that, frankly. I usually have an image or a concept or a bit of writing — usually dialogue or monologue, sometimes a concrete scene — that I pick at and pick at in a little sketchbook, going back and forth between writing and thumbnail sketches of the page. Or I just go by the seat of my pants and bullshit my way through. Either or. Those in many ways are a bit more like poems, in my mind: they are images, they are snapshots, they are feelings that I'm capturing in a few panels. Think doing mental math rather than writing out geometric proofs, yanno?)

Personally, I tend to lean on dialogue as it comes easier for me (it's probably why I'm so drawn to screenwriting!) so for me, if I were to do another longform GN, I'd probably take my general "uhhhhhh I have an idea and some beats maybe so I guess this should happen this way?" outline and start breaking it down scene by scene (I tend to write down scenes or scene sketches in that "uhhhh?" outline anyway LOL) and then figure out basic dialogue and action beats — in short, I'd kind of do the work of writing a screenplay without necessarily going full screenplay format (though I did find the format gave me an idea of timing/pacing, as 1 page of formatted script is about equal to 1 minute of screentime, and gave me room to sketch thumbnails or make edits on the large margins!) If you're not a monologue/soliloque/dialogue/speech person and more an image and description person, you may lean more into visuals and scenes that cut to each other.

Either way this of course introduces the elephant in the panel: art! How do you choose what to draw?

The answer is, well, it depends! The freedom of comics is if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. You have the freedoms (and audio limitations) of a truly silent film with none of the physical limitations. Your words can move in real time with the images or they can be a narrative related to the scene or they could be nonsequitors entirely! The better question is how do you think? Do you need all the words and action written first before you break down the visuals? Do you need a panel by panel breakdown to be happy, or can you freewheel and translate from word and general outlines to thumbnails? What suits you? I really cannot answer this because I think when it comes to what goes where with regard to art, it's a bit of "how do you process visuals" and also a bit of "who's drawing this?" — effectively, who is the interpreter for the exact thing you are writing? Is it you or someone else? If it's you, would you benefit from a barebones script alongside thumbnailed paneling? Would you be served by a barebones script, then thumbnails, then a new script that includes panel and page breakdowns? What frees you up to do what you need to do to tell your story?

If I'm being honest, I don't necessarily worry about panels or what something will look like necessarily until I'm done writing. I may have an image that I clearly state needs to happen. I may even have a sequence of panels that I want to see and I do indeed sketch that out and make note of it in my script. But exactly how things will be laid out, paneled, situated? That could change up until I've sketched my final pencils in CSP (but I am writer and artist so admittedly I get that luxury.)

How do I compress from novel to comic?

Honest answer? You don't. Not really. You adapt from one to another. It's more a translation. Something that would take forever to write may take 1 page in a comic or may take a whole issue.

I'm going to pick on Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo spent a whole-ass book in Notre-Dame de Paris talking about a bird's eye view of Paris and other medieval architecture boring stuff, with I guess some foreshadowing with Montfaucon. Who cares. Not me. I like story. Anyway. When we translate that book to a movie any of the billion times someone's done that, we don't spend a billion years talking at length about medieval Paris. There's no great monologuing about the gibbet or whatever: you get to have some establishing shots, maybe a musical number, and then you move tf on. Because it's a movie, right? Your visuals are right there. We can see medieval Paris. We can see the cathedral. We can see the gibbet. We don't need a whole book: it's visually right there. Same with a comic: you may need many paragraphs to describe, say, a space station off of Sirius and one panel to show it.

On the flip side, you may take one line, maybe two, to say a character keyed in the special code to activate the holodeck; depending on the visual pacing, that could be a whole page of panels (are we trying to stretch time? slow it down? what are we emphasizing?) A character gives a sigh of relief — one line of text, yeah? That could be a frozen panel while a conversation continues on or that could be two (or more!) panels, similar to the direction [a beat] in screenwriting.

Sorry there's not a super easy answer there to the question of compression: it's a lot more of a tug, a push-pull, that depends on what you're conveying.

So Do I Have It In Me to Write & Draw a GN?

The only way you'll know is by doing. Scary, right? The thing is, you don't necessarily need to be an animation king or God's gift to background artists to draw a comic.

Hell, I hate backgrounds. I still remember sitting across from my friend who said "Claude you really need to draw an establishing exterior of the church at some point" and me being like "why do you hate me specifically" because drawing architecture? Again? I already drew the interior of the church altar ONCE, that should be enough, right? But I did draw an exterior of the church. Sorta. More like the top steeple. Enough to suggest what I needed to suggest to give the audience a better sense of place without me absolutely losing my gourd trying to render something out of my wheelhouse at the time.

And that's kinda the ticket, I think. Not everyone's a master draftsman. Not everyone has all the skills in every area. And regardless, from page one to page one hundred, your skills will improve. That's all part of it — and in the meantime, you should lean into your strengths and cheat where you can.

Do you need to lovingly render a background every single panel? Christ no! Does every little detail need to be drawn out? Sure if you want your hand to fall off. Cheat! Use Sketchup to build models! Use Blender to sculpt forms to paint over! Use CSP Assets for prebuilt models and brushes if you use CSP! Take photographs and manip them! Cheat! Do what you need to do to convey what you need to convey!

For instance, a tip/axiom/"rule" I've seen is one establishing shot per scene minimum and a corollary to that has been include a background once per page minimum as grounding (no we cannot all have eternal floating heads and characters in the void. Unless your comic is set in the void. In which case, you do you.) People ain't out here drawing hyper detailed backgrounds per each tiny panel. The people who DO do that are insane. Or stupid. Or both. Or have no deadline? Either way, someone's gonna have a repetitive stress injury... Save yourself the pain and the headache. Take shortcuts. Save your punches for the big K.O. moments.

Start small. Make an 8-page zine. Tell a beginning, a middle, an end in comic form. Bring a scene to life in a few pages. See what you're comfortable drawing and where you struggle. See where you can lean heavily into your comfort zones. Learn how to lean out of your comfort zone. Learn when it's worth it to do the latter.

Or start large. Technically my first finished comic (that wasn't "a dumb pencil thing I drew in elementary school" or "that 13 volume manga I outlined and only penciled, what, 7 pages of in sixth grade" or "random one page things I draw about my characters on throw up on the interwebz") was 99RM so what do I know. I'm just some guy on the internet.

(That's not self-deprecating, I literally am some guy on the internet talking about my path. A lot of this is gonna come down to you and what vibes with you.)

Resources on writing

Some of these are things that help me and some are things that I crowd-sourced from others. Some of these are going to be screenwriting based, some will be comic based.

Making Comics by Scott McCloud: I think everyone recommends this but I think it is a useful book if you're like "ahh!!! christ!! where do I start!!!???" It very much breaks down the elements of comics and the world they exist in and the principles involved, with the caveat that there are no rules! In fact, I need to re-read it.

Comic Book Design: I picked this up at B&N on a whim and in terms of just getting a bird's eye view of varied ways to tackle layout and paneling? It's such a great resource and reference! I personally recommend it as a way to really get a feel for what can be done.

the screenwriter's bible: this is a book that was used in my class. we also used another book that's escaping me but to be honest, I never read anything in school and that's why I'm so stupid. anyway, I'd say check it out if you want, especially if you start googling screenwriting stuff and it's like 20 billion pieces of advice that make 0 sense -- get the core advice from one place and then go from there.

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures: many people I know recommended this. I think I have it? It may be in storage. So frankly, I'd already read a bunch of books on comics before grabbing this that it kind of felt like a rehash. Which isn't shade on the authors — I personally was just a sort of "girl, I don't need comics 101!!!"

Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate: this has been recommended so many times to me. I cannot personally speak on it but I can say I do trust those who rec'd it to me so I am passing it along

the story circle: this is pretty much the hero's journey. a useful way to think of journeys! a homie pretty much swears by it

a primer on beats: quick google search got me this that outlines storybeats

save the cat!: what the above refers to, this gives a more genre-specific breakdown. also wants to sell you on the software but you don't need that.

I hope this helps and please feel free to touch base with more info about your specific situation and hopefully I'll have more applicable answers.

[itstheimpossibledream]

Only A Play-Part 2

Word Count:3053

Pairing :  AU Henry & FemBlack! Reader

Warning:Angst, soon to come Smut

Summary: Y/n and Henry still trying to navigate their mutual attraction but, their job is making it harder to deny.The next chapter is already written, there’s sex in it I swear.

"So today I want you guys to focus on working with Dana" Steve began 

"She's our resident intimacy coordinator, I've already gone over the scene with her and she's going to make sure it goes over as smooth as possible. We're going to get her assistance a couple times during this process but today we're going to empty out the studio so have fun, play and get to know eachother. Today is just a day for you two to find some comfortable physicality with eachother." Stephen winks at you and then begins ushering tech and the few ensemble members out of the room. Friend or not, anyone attracted to men could not deny that Mr. Cavill was absolutley gorgeous, as wasted as it may be. In all honesty you hadn't spoken much aside from that snowy day outside the studio. He did begin to bring coffee and Kal to rehearsals and you tended to find the snuggly, bear of a dog always next to you when you were waiting for a cue but, it wasn't as though the two of you had had a heart-to-heart and resolved any of these unspoken differences. And as far as the scene was concerned your heart was doing backflips unable to tell which action would come more naturally, to kiss him or to hit him.

"So I'm seeing a lot of passion here! O !Please remove your shoes for today's lesson." Dana cuts in breaking the silence. Both of you look down at the wood paneled floor. Now was the time where you really had to work, you think to yourself while slowly slipping out of your shoes. 

“Unfortunately Dana, “ Henry begins, immediately charming the brakes off of her. 

 “ At this point of the play I believe her character is quite conflicted, as a woman she obviously wants to give in to him but, at the same time she knows she'll be letting down her family and he will too, they'll live a life with no family outside of the one they create for themsevles. It's quite powerful.But, a tough emotional point to bring oneself to."

"That may be how Christopher sees it -" you snap referring to his character. You are suddenly aware that you sound way more upset then you had intended to. "She doesn't want have sex with him because if she does she's giving up more than him,she always has.That's the whole story of their relationship. " you say, allowing your words to be the dam between the flood of  frustration you want to direct his way.

"So as you said we both have a lot of emotions here, we need to work on honing them into something that could potentially work itself into this explosion of passion okay?" Dana jumped excitedly. She looks exactly like what you would have expected from an intimacy coordinator.She wore a long moo-moo like dress and chunky amber jewelry.She smelled of a ton of weed, not as though you were really complaining but, it all added to the aesthetic that had washed into the room on her heels as she had entered. 

"I want to begin with an exercise- Mr.Cavill I know you've done scenes like this before so please work with me if I touch on some things you've already heard." she says leaning over and squeezing his forearm while winking. Great even the sex scene coordinator thought he was hot.

" I'm going to give you the space to choose but I want you both to just slowly go through the scene and when you hit a line that feels acceptable you remove an item of clothing. On stage you've both agreed to full nudity but today I just want to push you to do what feels comfortable!" Quietly you both moved to the opposite ends of the room, hitting your marks to begin the scene. You said your first few lines focusing on washing the dishes, the studio didn't have running water so it ended up being more like mime washing dishes. You were so much more professional than you were proving to be in this moment but, the second Henry removed his shirt you couldn't help but feel embarrassed. On his first line?Really? That was so like him ,so pompous.  And even more upsetting how ridiculously attractive he was. God was his body sculpted from marble? Nothing but pure muscle rippling evenly, he seemed somehow tanned, despite the blistering New York winter. You focused hitting your next line perfectly ,completely unphased by his topless body.With the following delivery you shrug out of your jacket, revealing your tank top. Thank christ you had expected to have a hook-up with a bartender after today's rehearsal. You weren't in full lingerie but, you were definitely in a matching set. A matching set that happened to make your ass look great. You held that in your back pocket, knowing you had every right to parade about, naked in the same room as someone who was a shoe-in to be named 'World's Sexiest Man'. You went for it, pulling off your tank top with your next line. This is when your blocking got physical. You had run this scene before but, running it scantily clad was an entirely different matter. You were supposed to  straddle him. That seemed simple enough. You stood before him, gingerly sliding one knee up onto the couch and then swinging another to the other side of him. 

"Are you sure?" he whispered, low and slow. You hated how during the scenes he actually had moments of completely brilliant acting where you could see an amazing talent. Then, you felt his hand on your knee. It was absurdly large and warm, so warm. You froze. You didn't want to do it but, you froze.Your eyes flitted all over the room, desperately looking for a way out , to end the scene. You feel his hand move up your thigh, it's the blocking, he's just doing his job, you remind yourself. But, something in you makes you afraid of his touch. You look into his eyes and you can tell he's noticed you shrinking under his touch. He clears his throat and drops character.Changing his intention toward Dana.

"I'm sorry can we start over? I completely forgot my line." he smiled at her.

"Sure! That was really great I think just focus a bit more on your intention. It's funny I think you guys had more sexual tension at the start of the rehearsal than at the top of the scene!" she laughed to herself. "Okay, let's take a step back, relax , stand up !  Stand up!" she says, jumping to her feet. The two of you peeled yourself apart from each other and you found yourself looking down at your perfectly perky breasts feeling more insignificant than ever. You could feel your face heating up by his move to take the blame for the scene. It was much more gentlemanly than you were expecting from him. 

"How about we take a break and come back in twenty? She suggested after a few warm-ups of jumping around and saying self -assuring mantras out-loud. After half a bottle of water, redressing, boring stretches and pretending to avoid eye-contact with Henry your rehearsal was finally up.

“ Oookay guys good stuff. Goooood stuff ! So for the weekend tomorrow I know Stephen had you signed up for a few meet and greets and publicity shoots but, I actually think that if you guys could set aside the time that you do spend together to get physically comfortable it could do a lot for your onstage comfortability. Hand holding, general petting or stroking, you may even want to try a light sitting on the lap, just anything really to get you more used to one another. This relationship needs to seem as effortless and fluid as possible.” She smiled “ also note that my number is free for 24/7 communication so if something comes up for you emotionally in this work feel free to get in contact with me, even if it's just to chat my door is always open!" she beams,collecting her water bottle and other assorted scripts she was reading through at the beginning of the rehearsal. 

Stephen reenters and, he and Dana go to the corner of the room to talk. 

You work your back pack onto your shoulder and begin to head for the door.

"Wait up!" Henry calls out from behind you. You whirl around and almost bump into him. His sweatshirt is baggy but unzipped enough that you can see the small tufts of hair playing at the tops of his chest, his baseball cap pulled way down over his forehead. Those blue eyes shined bright from the shade under that baseball cap. 

"What are your plans for tonight ?" he asked, slightly exaggerating his breathing from the light jog across the room. You searched the room awkwardly,looking for an out. What is it with him? Why did he think, especially after the last time the two of you had spent alone together, that you would ever want to be included in his plans for the night.  

"Perfect Idea!" Stephen exclaims from across the room. "You guys use tonight to bond as much as possible before tomorrow afternoon's interview session yeah?" 

"Uhhhh sure ." You agree, not wanting to seem like the town buzz-kill. You turn shrugging towards Henry. He smiles, seeming almost relieved that you agreed without putting up a fight, as Steve moves to rejoin Dana in the back

"So uhhh my place or yours?" he asks in a half hearted joke. 

"Uhhh" you definitely don't want him at your place, where there is laundry strewn all over the apartment . 

"I mean I have to feed my dog and run some errands anyway so my apartment would be ideal."

"O great! Okay yeah , let's do that then." you pushed on the door and headed for the elevator, the ride down to the lobby of the rehearsal studios was entirely silent, filled with awkward shuffling and avoided eye contact. Only punctuated by a short uber black ride in silence to an apartment on the upper east side. Ofcourse he lived on the upper east side.The doorman was polite as you followed behind him, clearly him bringing strange women up to his apartment was not entirely unheard of. Once in the room, you asked where to sit your bag down, your afternoon ritual usually included a trip to the gym, that is what had become your me -time since college. He motioned you to his guest room, in which you were shocked,contained a shower, granted the entire tiny room was a shower but, being a guest in New York with your own bathroom was definitely not an everyday thing. Especially, for a little black girl from the south. 

"Is it okay if I shower before we grab dinner?" you ask.

"Oh! You wanted to grab dinner?I was just going to order chinese."

"That's fine! " you ungracefully exclaimed from the other room.Shit. Hopefully he didn't think you really meant grab dinner like on a date.

"Do you have a special order?"he asked, appearing in the doorway. You turned around slightly alarmed that his voice had gotten that much closer.

"I love everything!" you smile, he looked down at the floor nervously. "but shrimp lomein is my favorite." you say unzipping your jacket and placing it on the bed, your bra was working overtime holding you up and you made a mental note to order another one exactly like it. He cleared his throat and there was a second of silence. You could feel his eyes slowly darting around the room trying not to look at your chest. As actors, especially ones who have to do nude scenes together you didn't think it would be a big deal to him that you were getting ready to shower. You had mentioned on the elevator earlier that you had wanted a shower. Taking off your jacket just seemed like the right next step, nothing to feel weird over. 

"Sounds Good!" he exclaims, finally showing you his full smile, for the first time since the rehearsal process had started. God he was a sight, he had removed his hat and you noticed how perfectly his hair curled onto his forhead.It was adhered by sweat but, not the weird homecoming- football helmet sweat, you get from your highschool crush. This was a grown-man glistening infront of you. It sounded ridiculous, the situation itself was ridiculous,why was he even sweating ?

"Sorry-I uh- I didn't know you were showering right now. We can talk about it later if you-"

"It's fine" you say, stepping in and  laying a hand on his forearm.His eyes shot down to your hand then immediately back to your eyes, sure to avoid seeming like he was staring at your breasts. He clears his throat again and you can smell the faint cologne on him as you watch his adams apple bob. The air in the room changes and you feel him shift away from you. You mumble a thanks for the dinner as you hear  him close the door between you. 

Your shower was perfectly steamy and warm, much unlike your brooklyn apartment that had charm and character but, a much worse hot water heater. As you washed away the dirt from the day you tried not to think of Henry, of what he must think of you for absolutely chewing him out just a few short weeks ago. He seemed to have gotten over it but, at the same time perhaps he was just trying to be the better person. As much as you hated to admit it he had completely accepted your scathing critique and was now treating you like the highest paying guest at a five-star resort. You turned down the hot water, basking in the last bit of steam and enjoying the first true silence of your day. Reaching an arm up, you grab a towel, wrapping it around your body. You stretched out for another towel that you had laid across the sink, somehow your legs completely slipped from under you and you crashed to the floor,grabbing the sink for leverage. Really all you did was knock over some toiletries that you had put on the sink earlier and you could feel your cheeks heating up. It was weird to be embarrassed in a room by yourself but, you knew he must've heard something. You sat on the floor, allowing your chin to rest on the top of your knees. You desperately needed a moment to breathe. Life had been so stressful lately, and you possibly had let off a bit too much steam on him. He was actually a nice guy, sure the accessible information on him didn't make him look amazing but when it came down to it once you explained how you felt about him he had worked so hard to seem normal and accessible. For whatever reason  he seemed to respect your opinion as an artist. The knock at the door kept you from becoming completely lost in your thoughts. It knocked again and you could hear his feet shuffle on the hard wood outside of the door, the nails of the large dog clicking the floor next to him. 

"You okay in there?" It seemed earnest enough.

"Yeah!" you called back "My mind has really been somewhere else lately, I just umm lost my footing- that's all." 

"Okay well let me know if you need anything." It was cheery but helpful. Once you heard him close the door to your room you got up and got dressed as quickly as you could, fumbling to get sweatpants on without accident. Today was definitely not your most agile day. You finally let your hair down and put on just the smallest amount of mascara to make your eyes pop.It was an effortlessly hot look that had worked for you for years, especially in college. You closed the door behind you and gently padded your way to the kitchen. The apartment was cozy, Kal was curled up on a rug in the corner of the room while Henry portioned the food onto pristine white plates. You noticed the baseball cap was back on and at least thanked god for giving you that small assistance in removing the temptation to touch him by running your fingers through his hair.

"So you order takeout but refuse to eat it out of the container?"you asked jokingly as he whirled around from the counter.That smile appeared on his face again and you knew you were putty in his hands,The way he filled out his navy blue t-shirt was unbelievable.

"It's less calories this way." he winked. Thank god he had a sense of humor.You returned his smile now sitting in the chair closest to the kitchen. The conversation veered from workout routines, to body image stress as a performer and then back to work. You found yourself sucking a noodle wishing he'd bring up something else. You absolutely could not do a night of niceties and small talk at this point in your life but, you also weren't ballsy enough to walk right up to him and tell him you wanted him.

"Y/N?"he asked

"Yeah?" you jumped being pulled once again from you daydream

"Do you wanna run lines or watch tv or something?"he asked shyly

"Yeah I mean -we can run lines if you want I just thought we were supposed to bond by talking or something." you laughed trying to take the edge off the awkwardness of the scenario.

"Well what do you want to talk about ?' he asked, leaning back in his seat, baseball cap over his eyebrows.His jawline was so sharp it could cut ice, it dawned on you that he was actually much too goodlooking for his own good. 

You picked up a fortune cookie at the center of the table and tossed it to him.

"Read me your fortune."you smiled seductively. He raised his eyebrows at you but, something must have convinced him because he simply shook his head and said.

"Okay."

[itsclydebitches]

Not sure if you heard this already, but apparently at a RTX panel, they mentioned how the RWB sitting around and sipping tea wasn't originally in the script and they were supposed to go the whale, but production issues made this unfeasible for them and they had to find something else for Ruby's group to do in the mean time.

I hadn’t heard that and honestly it… kinda makes the scenes worse for me? Because if we take this claim at face value, it implies that the writers always knew and understood how important it was for 3/4ths of their main cast to be doing something significant during the heart of the volume. More than that, they understood the importance of having their title characters involved in not just any threat, but the threat they were currently facing: Salem and her whale attacking Atlas. They wanted the whole group dealing with this! It’s just pesky production that somehow got in the way.

Great, so… why didn’t we see any of that understanding in the revision?

See, having 3/4ths of Team RWBY sipping tea while the world ends is definitely a problem. That will remain a problem in the story regardless of what behind the scenes explanation we’re given. However, the other half of this problem is that Problem #1 is never explained. It’s never justified. Some fans are always going to be frustrated that most of the team didn’t do anything of importance during that stretch, but that frustration is a whole lot easier to swallow when the story has given a decent explanation for why the protagonists aren’t a part of the fight. If RT always intended to have all of Team RWBY there, if they understood the importance of having their main characters involved in the primary fight, then I’m astounded that they didn’t do more to justify them sitting around.

Fans are frustrated not just because they sat drinking tea, but because they sat drinking tea and they were fine with that. None of the group was trying desperately to get back into the battle, stopped only by unforeseen circumstances. No one argued about whether four of them really needed to sit by Nora’s bedside, especially when a hastily redeemed Willow, Whitley, and Klein were already there. There was no discussion of what they were going to do, either in the short term or against Salem more broadly. There was no discussion or explanation of why May was off looking for their teammates and friends—family, if the rest of the story is to be believed. There was no work done to convince us of all the explanations the fandom came up with to make this make sense: that they were too exhausted to keep going, that Nora needed to be protected, that they feared Ironwood’s arrest too much to go back outside, etc. Far from writing a story that says, “We wanted the group to be at the heart of this war, the group wanted to be at the heart of this war, but sadly events conspired against them to ensure that just wasn’t possible” we got a story where it was ABSOLUTELY possible for them to get back into the fight… and the group just didn’t go. Ruby stared out the window, commented on how bad it was, and then went about her business of drinking tea, crying on the staircase, and watching herself ask others to come save the day. There was no sense of urgency; a real attempt to get back into the game only to be stopped at the last moment, the reasoning for which is later revealed to be production issues. Yes, the Hound definitely waylaid them, but before that there was no reason for all of them to stand around when Klein was the only one capable of helping Penny and Nora. They needed to get the power back on? Great, they should have planned to do that and then immediately leave, chomping at the bit to save the people they were supposedly fighting for. Because that's the problem! That Team RWBY demanded that Ironwood help Mantle, but then didn't help Mantle themselves; that they demanded that Atlas not be allowed to escape, but now Atlas is under attack and they're not doing a thing to help them. This was the worst possible time for the group to sit back and cool their heels, not just because it's the biggest attack RWBY has seen to date, but because they're responsible for keeping so many of the civilians here for that attack. They NEEDED to do something and if production meant they couldn't be apart of the big fight, we needed a seriously good reason for why they were sitting out. Which we never got — and that there is the problem. Before the Hound they were literally just sitting around for no reason when they knew their friends were missing, knew Salem was attacking Atlas, knew an army was dying to keep the grimm out of where they were stationed with an injured teammate, knew something had gone wrong at Amity given that their message cut out… the story gives no excuse for why they ignored all that, which does a real number on the claim that these are our righteous, caring heroes.

I can’t imagine planning to put RWB into the fight and then failing so spectacularly to explain why they aren’t. If this was always the intent—if RT isn’t just saying this now as a way to brush off one of Volume 8’s bigger criticisms—then it shows a real lack of understanding of what you need to do to revise a story.

[unohanadaydreams]

Okay I’m mentally prepared to ramble about the Hell Arc. No panels, just words.

The first blurb is definitely Ukitake speaking and I’d like to think it’s hiding some bitterness and regret, since he’s in hell, but you know I’m not gonna hold on to hope that it’s anything deep.

Orihime being resigned to laundry as well as just NOT knowing where her son is??? I’m sorry the same Orihime that can sense Ichigo like it’s her fucking job? But y’know uwu it’s okay to be a housewife and this is definitely Kubo showing off his depth of feminist theory and not shoving Orihime in the background bc wife clean and cook and nothing else ooga booga.

Kon as a babysitter is horrifying. The implication that they’ve kept him as a teddy bear for all these years is even more so. Like damn you can’t ask Urahara for ONE gigai after you saved the world, Ichigo? Hope youre paying him a living wage for helping you navigate the terrible twos. Tbh I think it would’ve been better to have a new sidekick and for Kon to be working for Urahara now.

Okay I do think the kid sending souls to Hell on accident is pretty funny. But also it’s definitely Kubo forgetting that Orihime is in the picture and Kazui is not Ichigo. He has more than Isshin; he has Orihime as his mom. He has someone who cares very much that he’s still in his bed and is someone he would talk to about uuuuh sending ppl through a portal. I know women are a different species and are incredibly hard to grasp because of that so it’s okay Kubo.

Ichika being taught by Ikkaku and to a lesser extent Yumichika is very good. Love that enough to gloss over my disappointment at Rukia not teaching her. I just know Byakuya is probably a lil bitter about it too. Rukongai rats 1 Noble clan 0

Booooo Kubo, get off the stage. Pointing out Orihime is at home doing laundry does not fix that she’s there. If she’s not gonna stop Kazui from doing whatever the fuck she might as well be eating bad ramen too.

MAYURI MY BELOVED. You’re so right, king, Urahara is a tasteless capitalist unlike you, who fully commits to the too-organic technological horrors the Seireitei deserves.

Did Kubo forget how to draw Rangiku? Why the fuck is her face so moe. Some of the women look pretty off in the face over all but with Rangiku it’s jarring. I know her face got more moe somewhere in tybw arc but jfc it’s worse here.

I find it hard to believe that Shunsui would stick to a tradition that demands all lieutenants be away and in the human world all at once but maybe he just doesn’t give a shit about anything nowadays. Depression is leading the Gotei 13 now.

It’s not a Bleach surprise attack unless a woman is grievously injured right off the bat.

That being said, I do enjoy the two new lieutenants. The hakama shorts are a Choice but they work somehow. Also a zanpakuto being on nails is fun.

Kira and Akon ❤️ I’m glad Kubo retconned the novels so Kira could make his entrance in a hoodie and black tabi. Hope he gets more depressing and bitter moments tho. Also Akon having so much panel space…..I’ll never recover.

Hell Szayel is so fucking horny which is astounding considering like everything he did was a sex joke in Hueco Mundo arc. His sex appeal has aged like fine wine. Also pure comedy that Ichigo can only ask who he is. If only Uryu were there 😔

So did they have ceremonies for Gin and Kaname because if not then???? Like I understand it’s impossible to make this gel 100% bc its not based on anything other than wanting characters to come back as cool demons and is actively working against previous canon but c’mon. They would’ve noticed before this when no ceremony for Gin and Kaname was held and their reishi haunted everyone via molasses rain drops.

That being said, I love love love the concept of characters coming up from Hell with not holes within them but outside them. They do not need to consume others to feel completion, they are consumed to the point of wanting to fill others. Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you see what you’ve done? Don’t you long to fill that hole inside of you, too? All it takes is dying to reach that nirvana of knowing who you are and what you feel in swirling completion. Even fallen, the fruit of knowledge is divine.

I want Ukitake to say he’s glad Shunsui lived to his face while looking so heartbroken that he didn’t get to live too. I want these two to cry across from one another with a flashback to their idyllic youth. I want it *grabby hands*

Sosuke Aizen has disappeared as in dead? Or are they counting ‘out of Seireitei’ as disappeared. Honestly 50/50 whether he’ll have a form of cameo. On one hand he’s incredibly popular, on the other hand Kubo was floundering with him during tybw so I can’t imagine he gives a shit to bring him back.

As far as new lore for hell butterflies goes, I guess we’ll see how interesting it gets but I highly doubt it’s going to get a lot of thought.

With the way Kazui is smiling, it makes me wonder if someone taught him about the shrine and sending souls to hell. Does he recognize the door? Is Kubo implying that Ukitake has had contact with Kazui? I mean, it would make a LOT of sense considering the fish he was riding, the ritual he knows. It would also make sense why the soul reaper badge was highlighted; Ukitake has been around in some capacity before officially being stomped to hell???

Definitely me thinking too much about it but also there’s no way Kazui just knows this shit without someone from Hell telling him about it even covertly.

This entire arc set up definitely seems like it’ll bring some worthwhile angst and maybe some moments for the more unexplored characters if characters like Akon getting screen time is any education.

Overall not hoping for anything other than good Hell designs and seeing characters do things.

If I don’t see Kenpachi with his beefy titties out I will be disappointed. That’s my bare minimum.

[wisehq]

Mission Debrief: Chapter Forty-Six

...Holy shit McMahon’s a badass!

Alright alright! Another week, another chapter full of tension and suspense. If it felt like it was a short one, that’s because it was; there were about three pages less than usual, but that didn’t hold it back from being as entertaining as always. I’m sure Endo is focusing on the remaining arc, plus he has his hands full with the new novel that’s coming in a few weeks. In any case, this chapter was straightforward like the last one, so let’s just get into it shall we?

The girls are back! Not really my favorite characters, but I did like seeing them get some attention (beer and sausages after work sounds awesome btw). Also I like the bit about HR being in on Yor’s cover story, too. Tough to say if the whole department is in on things or is just select individuals like McMahon. Either way, the attention to detail is very on brand for Endo and always appreciated.

I was also intrigued by Yor’s relationship with her boss in the beginning. She is very much someone who listens to authority figures, but it did seem strange to me what a tight grip McMahon has on her. Clearly he’s perceptive and collected, and -as we find out later in the chapter- an extremely capable assassin in his own right. More on that in a sec, but first-

-KDSLJFR;AKWJ; LQK4RFGWJLVK ER!

DO I EVEN NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS??

Loid forger everyone! A total sap for his wife (as he should be!) The blush. The awkward stutter. I was not expecting Endo to dangle some sweet, sweet TwiYor in front of us like this, but I definitely ain’t complaining! It hasn’t even been one day since they split up, and already he’s commenting how lonely it is without Yor there. It reminds me of chapter 24 where she kept avoiding dinner, and Loid immediately took notice. Both he and Anya know where the Forger house stand; things just aren’t the same without mama around.

Also just pointing out that Yor in Thorn Princess mode is always impressively badass. The shift in her demeanor is always immediately apparent, and whenever she shows off her assassination prowess like here it instantly reminds you that she’s a legendary hitman who’s been taking lives since she was a child. It’s always surreal knowing that the Yor we know and love is only a recent development; Thorn Princess was very much her main ego before meeting Loid and Anya, hence why this arc will be so compelling for her character. What will happen Thorn Princess? (Probably still be around, but the drama is juicy regardless lol).

We already knew coming into this arc that Yor’s relationship with her family would be an important aspect of the story, and now that we know there’s going to be a possible family day at the end of it all really adds another layer of uncertainty to everything. I say uncertainty because Endo may go to the route he’s always gone before and end the arc on a lighthearted note, or he may further explore the underlying angst that’s slowly been creeping on the forgers since the events of the tennis arc. Personally, I would of course prefer the former, but the latter would also be a compelling way to further drive the conflict of the story.

Yor feeling detached from her “fake” family, or perhaps Loid being suspicious of her again? There’s a lot of different ways this boat trip could turn sour- I just really hope that it doesn’t!

Not while McMahon is on it, anyway! Goddamn, this guy surprised me! I should have expected someone working directly under Shopkeeper to be capable in combat, but McMahon looks like he could give Loid and Yor a run for their money! I’m obsessed with his calm demeanor and the casualness with which he carries himself while effortlessly cracking bones and limbs. And when he’s done interrogating him? *chef’s kiss* Cold blooded. Methodical. This dude is my new favorite side character, hands down. Can’t wait to see more of what he can do in the coming chapters!

Speaking of, forty-six ends on another cliffhanger. This time, we’re unsure of who’s on the other side of the door. There aren’t any interesting panels to dissect this week, so instead let’s do some theorizing and think about who could be knocking.

It’s McMahon, after having just bolted down the hall to warn the girls. A somewhat likely scenario.

It’s some assassins out to get the Gretchers. At first you might say absolutely not; what kind of an assassin knocks on a door before barging in? And to that I’d say; what if they wanted to draw attention to themselves? Perhaps they’re in disguise as ship personnel or room service, or are simply gauging the room to see if anyone’s inside before slipping away to return at a later time? I’d say this is the most likely scenario, though not my favorite (seems kinda cliche to me, but meh).

My actual favorite; it’s Loid and Anya! It could happen a couple different ways, most likely because Anya happened to hear her mama’s thoughts or perhaps they caught a glimpse of her walking down the hall with Olka. I’ll admit this would be a huge stretch, but it would be great giving Loid and Anya a chance to meet Olka and the baby before inevitably becoming entangled in all the assassination shenanigans. Also knowing Endo, he’s probably got something up his sleeve next chapter for both of them (really I just want the chaos!)

These are the scenarios that myself and others have tossed around, but I’m sure there are others. Do you have one that’s different? Feel free to share, and in the meantime we’ll sit (im)patiently for another two weeks to see what’s really behind that door!

Also, BONUS!

Never change, Anya-

[brawltogethernow]

So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start “””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.