#because I think the idea of free college is cool but unrealistic

[dearcorteo]

A Way to Fixing the Rising Tuition Problem

The fact that college is overly expensive is something that most, if not all, people unanimously agree on. After tuition costs, fees, and the expense of living, students are already looking at some form of debt that will take longer to pay off than the amount of time they spent in school alone. Why can’t college be free? This is a question that has been thrown around a lot as end all be all solution to the rising costs of college. Personally I've often pondered this question too, and as a college student I agree, yeah, let's make college free. However upon further investigation I have come to the realization that college may never be free. In order to completely dismiss the costs of college taxes would have to skyrocket, and that is something that the American people can not get behind. So, what is another way to help out students while also ensuring that taxes don’t reach an all time high? Redistributing funds that are already in circulation. Fully understanding where our taxes go, what colleges do with the money they make off of their students, and by looking at programs that are overly funded by the nation, there may be a way to significantly lower the cost of tuition without any drastic back lash making the cost of college more affordable for students without having to rely heavily on a raise in taxes. 

Let's start small. Where do you think the money that colleges earn from tuition goes? American Economist Ronald Ehrenberg(1) states in his article Tuition Rising: Why college costs so much, “The  objective  of  selective  academic  institutions is to be the best they can in every aspect [, and] they seek out all possible resources… to look better than their competitors”. It is as simple as that. From a College’s perspective in order to be the best, you have to look the best which requires money thus colleges raise their prices to pay for aesthetics. This means that colleges spend their funds on things like newer buildings, landscaping, technology, etc, but what if we were to reallocate that money towards lowering the cost of tuition. Sure having newer stuff is fantastic, but was it ever put into consider that not everything has to be upgraded on some sort of timed schedule? It is hard to say that having updated technology is not convenient especially when it comes to college level education, but it is beneficial to stop and ask ourselves “does this really need to be updated on yearly schedule?”. Essentially every technological update is just a remake of another existing technological invention, therefore constant spending on slightly better versions of the same thing aren’t really necessary as far as technology goes. 

Now let's think a little bit bigger. Where do our tax dollars go? I mean everyone who lives in the U.S. has to pay taxes in some shape or form, and, yet I still gotta ask, where does it all go? Because despite all the taxes that must be paid by each American citizen, there never seems to be enough money still for things that could definitely use the funding.According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget website(2), by 2010 the U.S. spent $80,000 on prison systems alone . Looking at just California the public schooling system only receives about 9% of federal funding, 32% of funding comes from taxes, and 58% comes from the state(3). Yet, literal criminals receive more federal funding, and upgraded facilities, than our actual youth. There is no reason why the budget can’t be cut, and some of the money be moved towards lowering the cost of schooling. One of the reasons why prison systems are overly funded is because of the fact that prisons are over crowded (which is completely understandable if you look at today's social, and political climate), and to accommodate for the over crowding more money is being put into the programs to expand facilities.  By making college more accessible to everyone there is a better chance for an individual to get a good job allowing them to participate in the economy, lowering their chances at committing crimes, and giving them a chance to become proper, functioning members of society. However things are still completely opposite. The prison system receives a good chunk of funding, while college is at it peak of expense, and it’s still continuing to rise. 

Besides talking about individually funded programs let's also talk about the oh so powerful 1%. Of course taxing the rich has been an idea that has been tossed around for quite some time, yet I find it to be a brilliant idea. See, most of the opposition that comes from the 1% disagreeing with a tax specific to them is solely based on the idea that they will be taxed too excessively. However I think it’s fair to say that we don’t want all of their money we only want some of their money. If we are just looking at ten riches people in the world, collectively they are already sitting on about $739.3 billion(4) (if my math is correct). Even if we could get just a measly 25% ($184.83 billion) of their fortunes, and reallocate it to colleges that could help lower tuition costs. Out of that deal, they still get to make off with 75% of their funds. I know someone, somewhere, will claim that it is a violation of one’s rights because we would be taxing a specific demographic of people, however, some people in the top 1% have enough money to last them at least three lifetimes. Why is it that they get to own most of the nation's money, but not use it to help the same nation that they both live, and collect funds from? In a way, from both perspectives, it is not fair, but in the long term funding education can allow more people to become functioning members of society. With more functioning members comes opportunities such as creating new markets, which ultimately creates more jobs thus creating more chances at making money, and helping the economy go around. 

Before going any further it is only fair that I address those who may disagree with me, and that is good. You should disagree with me because just like you I can see where my argument is flawed. Taxing the top one percent is by far the biggest no-no, cutting funding for the prison systems could also be a problem being as they are, in fact, over crowded, and underfunded at the moment, and going on and on about the importance of college without addressing the “why should we care?” question. Well, being as the idea of “free college” has been a huge topic at the table for quite some years now the real question is “why don’t you care enough?”. College is supposed to be a place where students can learn, and work towards getting their dream jobs. I don’t see why it has to cost an arm, and a leg to get there. The amount of debt that one can accumulate just from student loans alone is absolutely ridiculous. No one wants to in so much debt that they can’t even pay it back in their own lifetime, and if they were to pass that debt would be passed on to another family member, all because this individual tried to get a bachelor’s degree in order to better themselves in the working world. So, yes, perhaps my proposal is disagreeable, but forcing people to pay outrageous amounts of money for college while also having to pay the costs of living is something that I find to be completely disagreeable as well. So let’s just agree to disagree on this one. 

College is tough. College can really test students in their ability to actually be good students, and maintain decent grades in order to reach their goals, but above all things, college is expensive. Really expensive. As I’ve said before college may never truly be free, and even if we can make tuition costs go away completely it still won’t make college free. So at the very least we could do our best at trying to lower the cost as much as humanly possible in a way that is most agreeable: collecting, and redistributing funds that are already in circulation. We can’t make new money appear, but with the money that does exist, it doesn’t hurt to try making better choices when it comes to where the money is spent, how it is spent, who gets to spend it, and why it is spent. By understanding, and being able to answer those four questions figuring out ways to redistribute money becomes increasingly easier. Of course you could look at ways of lowering tuition via raising taxes, and cutting out financial aid programs, however that brings up entirely new issues with just as complicated, and unfair solutions as any proposal to solving the tuition problem does. However, I encourage all of you to go out, do some research, and look at ways to lower tuition costs, or maybe even make college free. I can guarantee it won’t be easy, but at the very least it will be informative which at this point being informed, and aware of the issue is a lot better than not understanding the situation at all. 

[rainbowchewynuggets]

Okay, change of plans.

Despite my best laid plans, my intentions to produce that Hellboy comic through October are turning out to be more unrealistic than they were before I moved. Unforeseen circumstances are going to reduce the amount of free time I have in the near future (thanks, Ian), and I straight up overestimated how quickly I’d be able to draw each page. Which happens a lot.

See, there’s kind of a bigger problem here. I routinely find myself getting excited about making a comic project, writing it all out, and then burning out repeatedly as I draw it. For the longest time, I thought that was just what it took to draw that many cool pictures on one page. It wasn’t until I started living with a friend from college that I realized there was a problem. Or, he realized it first. He’s astonishingly good at clocking me through my stubborn bullshit lol. He said that maybe I constantly burn out because I’m using 100% of my artistic capacity 100% of the time. Which sounds ideal on paper. I’m making the very best art that I can. But it’s completely unsustainable because, uh… I’m a human with limits, as I constantly forget. And comics take a lot of stamina.

Because I don’t understand comics. I read comics all the time growing up, but I didn’t draw like them. I learned to draw from making fine art pieces in school. I drew with realism and life drawing as the core of my practice because that’s what my dad had been taught back when he aspired to be an animator at Disney, and that’s what he taught me. The only thing that ever impressed art teachers and classmates was how accurately I could draw a face or a vase or a landscape. So I did that as well as I could.

Now, I should be clear here. Realism absolutely has a place in comics. Some of the most beautiful and intelligent pieces of work I’ve ever read had clear roots in realism. Life drawing is a sensible basis for any kind of representational art, in my opinion. Sequential art that’s just a series of fully-rendered paintings astound and enchant me.

It’s just that I think that level of detail and accuracy just isn’t right for me. Partly because my writing style is also super extra. I have big spiraling ideas that take a lot of time and pages to execute. My writing is actually just now reaching a point where I can whittle it down to reasonable finished scripts that I can draw with (which might be why I never realized this art problem before). And sooner or later, my brain wanders off onto something else. So being stuck with these big projects that are so exhausting to execute leads to a kaleidoscopic labyrinth of “break” projects that are supposed to be easier. They never are. Because my brain doesn’t know how to do “easier”. Like anything, I think “easier” will take practice. Study.

My plan, therefore, is to study an easier style to keep in my toolbox. Something fun and shape-based that lets me lean on the forms of abstraction and simplification that I already use in my current dominant style. Mostly, I’m looking at Scott Campbell (lead art director of Psychonauts 1) right now. And I’m gonna try working with some brushes that won’t leave me agonizing over line weight. If this works, it might give me more time to think about color dynamics, lighting, staging, and expression (since you guys seem to love that so much in TMA Encore; I love it too).

What does this mean for Hellboy and Encore, then? I think the best thing to do for Hellboy is post the pages I finished before I moved and release the remaining script in text form through October. It’s not as good as having the whole thing drawn, but I think having initial pages will at least help readers visualize the rest. (And I’d really like people to be able to experience the whole thing because I feel like it’s some of the best writing I’ve ever done.) Then, starting in November, I want to get Encore wrapped up. This will take the form of a kind of… hybrid media presentation. Encore has no complete script, but I can write a dramatic summary of what happens chapter by chapter, accompanied by drawn panels and sequences of important moments. Like a picture book. That kinda fits the dark academia vibe.

Following that, I’m going to use that Psychonauts fanfic I mentioned months ago as a study tool. I have a whole side blog for that (link), but I might crosspost them here when the time comes. And from there, hopefully, I’ll have a sustainable work ethic and can start on my own original projects. With videos. And patreon!

It’s a big weird shift all of a sudden, I know. This may just be another art blog on tumblr, but it’s important for me to try to be consistent and accountable when I make projects. And if I can’t do that, I at least want to be transparent. (Who knows–talking about this might help someone else who’s struggling, too.) I have kind of a rare opportunity in my life to sit and focus on art right now, and I don’t know when another will come again, if ever. So I want to use the limited time I have to improve and position myself for success (and wellness) going forward.

I hope you understand. But I have a feeling you will. You guys are real nice. :)

Thanks for reading.

[theggning]

I Hate the Alternate Ending of Blind Betrayal, and Here's Why!

DISCLAIMER THE FIRST: Massive spoilers for Fallout 4 abound. This post discusses Blind Betrayal, a quest with suicide as a heavy theme. Content warning applies.

DISCLAIMER THE SECOND: This post discusses cut OFFICIAL content from Fallout 4 that has since been repurposed into multiple mods. I am not criticizing any modders or their implementations of this content. Mods are fun and people can enjoy whatever the hell kind of game experience they want with whatever mods they want.

I am ONLY interested in discussing the original cut content as Bethesda had written it, and how it would have impacted the story and lore of Fallout 4.

So, yeah, it seems there was originally going to be another way to conclude Blind Betrayal (BB).

As described in this Kotaku article (citing this post by Tumblr user tentacle-explosion,) there are unused audio files of Danse’s dialogue that show an alternate ending to his pivotal quest. These lines are the only evidence we have of this ending (suggesting that it was cut fairly early on, as no other actors/characters seem to have recorded for it.)

From what we can tell, in this alternate ending of BB, Danse comes up with a possible way out of the sticky situation re: his identity as a synth. According to the Brotherhood Litany, he is able to challenge Maxson’s authority as Elder via combat. If you agree to this idea, you go with Danse to challenge Maxson. The Paladin and the Elder duel one another, Danse wins, and Maxson dies. Then Danse names the Sole Survivor the new Elder-- or with a hard charisma check, you’re able to convince Danse to take the job himself. It is unknown how the main plot would have progressed beyond this point, as there is no other evidence of what being (or influencing) the Elder would have been like or what choices it would have given you.

There is understandable disappointment in learning that this ending was cut. Choices in games are great, and it could have been fun to have multiple different options for how to resolve the quest. In many gaming circles, people complain that this theoretical ending is superior to the one we got and shouldn’t have been axed. The Kotaku article calls it a “way better” ending, and you’ll see many players lamenting that it wasn’t implemented, saying Bethesda was bad at writing for cutting it, etc.

So why did Bethesda get rid of the Elder ending of BB?

In December 2020, after the Fallout 4 Cast Reunion, Danse’s voice actor Peter Jessop answered questions in a private signing session on his Instagram. Peter Jessop is an extremely kind and gracious man, an avid gamer, and a huge fan of Fallout. During the stream, he reflected on the alternate ending and remembered recording the lines, but stated the content was ultimately cut because Bethesda decided it was lore-breaking.

Peter Jessop is right. Bethesda was right. The Elder ending of BB is a bunch of dumb nonsense. It sucks, I hate it, and I’m glad they got rid of it. And now I’m going to tell you why!

SIDENOTE: King Shit of Fuck Mountain

There is no wrong way to play a single-player video game. If you are having fun, then you are accomplishing the task for which the game was made. Good for you! Play it on easy. Play it on hard. Mod it. Speedrun it. Make up an intricate roleplaying scenario. Perform “challenge” runs. Kill everybody you see. Ignore the story and run around collecting wheels of cheese. Games are meant to be fun and there is nothing wrong with enjoying a game however you damn well please. This is especially true for RPGs like Fallout, which are designed with player freedom in mind.

There is an RPG playstyle I like to call King Shit of Fuck Mountain: a naked power fantasy in which your protagonist is the most powerful person ever, even beyond normal RPG plot significance. Through brute strength, incredible charisma, or having completed tons of quests for world-breaking artifacts and weapons, your character wields godlike influence, able to control people, factions, and the fabric of the world itself. A game enables KSoFM gameplay when it allows the player limitless freedom to gain as much power as they like with zero consequences to plot or storytelling.

A great example of this is the Dragonborn in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. If the player chooses to pursue every questline in the game, one single person can become Harbinger of the Companions, Archmage of the College of Winterhold, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Nightingale and Guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild, hero of the Imperial/Stormcloak army, the chosen one of like, 11 different Daedric princes, a bard, a Blade, and otherwise just, absurdly goddamn powerful in completely unrealistic ways. And that’s not counting DLCs. A fully-kitted-out Dragonborn is King Shit of Fuck Mountain.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing KSoFM if you like to. But I’m not a big fan of this style, personally. Sure, my first Skyrim character became KSoFM while I was figuring out the game, but after my first playthrough I preferred my characters become coherent figures in the story of the world. I pick one or two character traits and things that my Dragonborn is good at, focus on them, and make them part of some overall story. My honorable Imperial paladin werewolf is in the Companions, and hunts vampires on principle. My Argonian sneaky archer is a gleeful thief, but would never jive with the College or the Dark Brotherhood. I like creating protagonists who fit into these settings immersively. I don’t care about power fantasies or being in charge. I don’t WANT my character to be all-powerful, because that ruins my immersion and my little story.

Additionally, in a plot-driven story-focused game like Fallout, KSoFM tears the narrative apart. Skyrim is fairly light on story, so the Dragonborn can be the leader of the Companions and the Dark Brotherhood and whatever other factions without any of them noticing or caring. But FO4’s themes, faction drama, and the main thrust of the plot don’t work at all if the Sole Survivor is able to become too powerful or too influential. The Sole Survivor cannot become the leader of every faction, solve every problem, or eliminate every inconvenient bend of the conflict because it makes the lore of the entire setting implode. Thus, the game forces you to choose between factions. You cannot be with the Minutemen and the Nuka-World Raiders. You cannot be with the Railroad and the Institute. And you cannot become Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel.

So if you’re the kind of person who loves playing KSoFM, if you like plots that your character can “solve” with relative ease, or if you just think it would be super cool for your Sole to become Elder regardless of surrounding storytelling, then you might think the Elder ending sounds super cool. You are absolutely allowed to disagree with me here. Install all the mods and write all the fic and have all the headcanons you like. I respect that. There is no wrong way to enjoy a single-player video game. Have fun!

But if you’re a big nitpicky pedantic lore nerd like me, a fan of cohesive storytelling, or if you just want to hear how the Elder ending of BB absolutely fucking ruins Maxson, Danse, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the entire plot of FO4 from a narrative perspective, read on!

1. The Synth Thing

The Elder ending requires the stupid plot contrivance of the BoS forgetting about Danse’s synthhood.

One of the biggest problems with the BoS as an institution is their strict and dogmatic beliefs, which include a widespread dislike of non-human species. Perhaps more than any other non-humans, the BoS hates synths. Synths are, in their eyes, machines given free will, a violation of the sanctity of human life and the ultimate example of technology run amok. To them, synths are not sympathetic, they are not slaves, and they are not victims of circumstance. They are weapons that left unchecked will destroy all of humanity for a second time. Synths are anathema to everything the BoS stands for, and finding out that one of their most beloved and trusted Paladins is one is an earth-shattering blow to their integrity and sense of security.

It is completely absurd that the BoS would allow a synth within their ranks, particularly as they are waging war against the Institute, who created synths in the first place. It is even MORE absurd that they’d allow one to influence their Elder, or even worse, to become Elder. It completely undermines their mission in the Commonwealth, and the core tenets of their extremely rigid beliefs. No matter the Elder, no matter the Litany or obscure BoS law, no matter how valuable the Sole Survivor is as a soldier or how much influence they wield. Danse is a synth. He’s the enemy. He is physically the embodiment of everything they hate.

Not only wouldn’t they trust a synth in general, but the BoS specifically believes that Danse is an infiltrator for the Institute. Even Danse believes that he is a danger, that the Institute may be able to take control of him and use him as a weapon. Sure, we know none of this is actually true, or possible, but the BoS don’t know that. And given how quick they are to order Danse dead without even the possibility of surrender, I don’t think there’s any charisma in the world that’s going to convince them otherwise.

According to Peter Jessop, this, ultimately, is the reason why the Elder ending was cut. He talks about it around the 11:30 timestamp in his Instagram stream, linked above:

“We recorded an ending where you keep Danse alive and you take over the Brotherhood. But there was a question of content… there’s no way the Brotherhood, once they knew he was a synth, would let him be even the right hand of the person in charge.”

Bethesda correctly recognized the incredible narrative contrivance for the BoS to shrug off the reason they’re trying to execute Danse in the first place. Whatever other beefs I have with this ending conceptually, they all come in second to just what a big dumb leap it is to get beyond this first and most important problem.

2. The Complete Death of Conflict

The Elder ending of BB destroys the conflict of the quest, and potentially the conflict of the entire game.

Greed is a poison. There is no such thing as a perfect ideal or a perfect organization. Power corrupts. Humanity has the choice to build back better. War never changes. The Fallout games are full of themes, depicted by the characters and quests and factions we play out.

Blind Betrayal is rightfully praised as one of the most powerful quests in FO4. Not only is it well-acted, but it puts the player in a very difficult position. The BoS has given you clout and glory and free power armor and lots of firepower, but now you see the price: unquestioning obedience. You are ordered to execute your friend and mentor Danse for the mere fact he is a synth. Are you going to follow that unjust order? Are you willing to give up your principles on command? Or is this where you can no longer stay quiet and stay in line?

To be honest, I’ve always thought the fact you can talk Maxson out of killing Danse but still remain with the BoS in good standing was a cop-out. BB goes 90% of the way to forcing you to choose between a companion and a faction, and then chickens out at the last second to let you have both, if your charisma is high enough.

(I believe this has the fingerprints of Skyrim’s development on it-- Bethesda’s writers got nervous about doing another Paarthurnax choice involving the fan favorite Brotherhood of Steel. That’s right. Danse is the Paarthurnax of Fallout. Frankly, I understand why they chose not to go there, but damn, wouldn’t it have been wild? You want to run with the BoS? Then kill your friend and feel the burn. THIS is what it means to follow orders without question.

As for me, I’d pick Danse every time and sleep soundly without the company of shitty bootlicking dieselpunk LARPers- but I digress.)

Anyway, you know what would have REALLY been a copout? If the game asked you to make a difficult thematic storyline choice, and you solved the problem by just not choosing at all.

You are supposed to feel uncomfortable when Maxson orders you to kill Danse, because the game is telling a story about how it is maybe a bad thing to thoughtlessly follow orders without question. It is asking you to think about what the BoS is, what they are doing, and how they are going to run things, if you choose to let them “win” the Commonwealth. It is pointing out that there is no room for gray in the BoS’ black and white. That a good, loyal man may die because of the way he was made, through no action of his own. That soon, you’ll be killing other people on command. The Railroad. Fleeing Institute synths and scientists. Others, down the line. It all depends on who’s giving the orders. Are you going to follow those orders?

Eesh, that sounds thought-provoking and unpleasant and difficult! Let’s just skip it by killing Maxson and making ourselves the boss. Now we get to tell everybody else what to do!

It’s unknown what powers the Elder ending would have granted the player, or how it would have interacted with the other factions. There is speculation that you’d have been able to ease back on the BoS’ dogmatism, or change some of the later events of the game. For instance, perhaps you could talk the BoS down from attacking the Railroad, sparing popular characters like Glory and Deacon who must die in the normal BoS storyline. Perhaps you could have made the BoS a kinder, gentler faction and directed them to run the way you want them to.

If this was indeed the case, then the Elder ending would not only suck the gravitas out of BB, but torpedo the entire main plot.

If you can get rid of any and all downsides to siding with the BoS, why in the hell would players side with anybody else? With the player given total power, the BoS becomes a perfect faction with no drawbacks, no weaknesses, no tough decisions to be made. Screw slumming it with the Railroad or the Minutemen, let’s take over the BoS. Free power armor and a giant robot! Forget the whole intolerance thing, I hereby proclaim the BoS No Longer Problematic! Now to force all the factions to get along, completely removing all conflict and nuance from the plot!

That’s some real anticlimactic “tell Legate Lanius to go home and then he does it” bullshit right there. King Shit of Fuck Mountain!

Look, it might be nice if there was a perfect path like that to take through the game. It would be cool if our characters could be that powerful and the game was that tailored to our individual choices. On the other hand, “I change all the factions to suit my exact liking” might be a fun idea for a fanfic, but it’s an incredibly boring plot for a video game. “I get to make everything in the world exactly how I want it” is Minecraft, not a story-driven RPG with a complex and intricate plot.

It would be great if complex conflicts could really be solved that easily and effortlessly, but hey, you know what? War never changes.

3. The Assassination of Arthur Maxson (Literal)

Arthur Maxson’s death is too significant and fundamentally disastrous for the Elder ending to make any sense at all.

Hero, villain, leader, monster, tortured soul, brutal dictator, immature twerp, bearded sex hunk. However you personally interpret Arthur Maxson, there is no denying that he is a venerated, popular, beloved figure in the BoS. He is the blood heir of the organization’s founder, a powerful warrior, a brilliant tactician, and a charismatic negotiator. He is responsible for reuniting the East Coast BoS with the Outcasts, leading the new, stronger BoS with a sense of shared purpose. There is a damn good reason his name is Arthur and he named his ship The Prydwen, echoes of King Arthur and the legends of his glorious kingdom of Camelot. Arthur Maxson is so beloved that many view him as a demigod, a messiah sent to lead the BoS into a mighty and prosperous future.

So I’m sure nobody’s going to be upset when some wasteland jackass recruited a month ago stumbles in with a synth, kills him, and takes over his job. Right?

It doesn’t matter that it’s “honorable.” It doesn’t matter that it’s done “by the book” via obscure BoS rules. There is no codex or litany or rule so binding that it’s going to overcome the cult of personality around Maxson. There is no way that the BoS is going to accept the death of Arthur Maxson, a man whose reverence borders on worship, especially not when he is immediately replaced by a wastelander, or a synth.

The death of Arthur Maxson removes the unifying glue that’s been holding the BoS together since mending the rift with the Outcasts. Maxson’s death eliminates the one person that both sides of that conflict agreed could steer the organization in the right direction. Some level heads may try to keep the focus on the mission and the Brotherhood tenets, but Maxson loyalists will never forgive the new Elder for his death, and that amount of passionate righteous anger will not be quelled by appeals to the rules. The new Elder’s war on the Institute is basically over before it begins, when the forces splinter and start infighting over the change in leadership.

And this is if the new Elder lives long enough to actually give any orders. I give them around 24 hours after the duel before some angry Maxson loyalist “accidentally” pulls the trigger and “tragically” empties a clip into their back.

24 seconds, if it’s Elder Danse, the dirty synth abomination.

4. The Assassination of Arthur Maxson (Figurative)

The Elder ending of BB falsely pretends that Arthur Maxson is the biggest and only problem with the BoS.

In the Elder ending, as written, the conflict of BB is considered completely and totally solved by the death of Arthur Maxson. The core problem, that Danse is a synth and considered an enemy by the BoS, has not gone away. But by getting rid of Maxson, this apparently no longer matters. Nobody else is going to take offense to Danse’s nature or protest his presence. Nobody else is going to attack him or try to follow through with Maxson’s prior orders. Nope, that meanybutt guy who gave the order is gone, and everybody else is going to welcome Danse back into the fold like nothing ever happened.

I touched on this a little bit on an ask about Maxson a few weeks back, but a lot of people seem to believe that the FO4 Brotherhood of Steel is the way they are purely because of him. That he is the one making them treat non-humans as second class citizens at best, and enemies to be slaughtered at worst. That it’s his fault the BoS is so vehemently against synths and the Institute. That he is the one influencing their imperialistic tendencies, and treating the Commonwealth like territory to be conquered and people to be ruled over by their betters.

He’s not. That’s the Brotherhood of Steel, guys.

The charitable, altruistic, virtuous BoS that many of us met for the first time in FO3 were outliers. Lyons’ group was literally disowned by the rest of the faction because their kindness to wastelanders had gone so far astray from the “core” tenets. The BoS as a whole has always been exclusive, isolated, and seen themselves as “superior” to the average wastelander. They have long disliked or outright hated non-humans (and even Lyons’ BoS in FO3 use ghouls, feral or not, for “target practice” if they get too close!) The rigid dogmatism of the BoS is not something that Arthur Maxson started, but has always been part of their fabric.

Now, it’s true that Maxson is absolutely going hard on the BoS tenets, and extremely dedicated to upholding them. His BoS are the way they are and act the way they act because he believes that this is the way it should be. Is it possible that a different leader may be a little more flexible? Absolutely. Could a skilled Elder eventually show them the benefits of a softer approach and a more generous worldview? Totally. Is getting rid of Maxson and replacing him going to make that happen overnight, or going to make the rest of the BoS who supported him shrug and follow suit?

Nope.

Blaming Arthur Maxson for everything unsavory about the Brotherhood is unfair to him and also foolishly ignoring the deep, massive problems that are far older than he is-- problems that plenty of its members wholeheartedly believe are not problems at all. Getting rid of Maxson does not make the BoS kinder or gentler. Even pretending Maxson isn’t as personally beloved as he is, any new Elder who steps in and starts trying to fundamentally alter the way the BoS operates and what they believe in is going to face some major, immediate pushback.

Like, a full clip of bullets in the back type of pushback.

In the face if it’s Elder Danse, the godless freak of nature.

5. The Un-Redemption of Paladin Danse

Last, and my personal least favorite!

At first glance, Paladin Danse is a steely jackboot, a die-hard Brotherhood loyalist who fully and firmly believes in their cause. Many immediately dismiss him as a humorless brute, or completely ignore him because they think that’s all there is. But if you spend any time with Danse at all, you’ll notice a sort of weariness in him. He is tired, overworked, and his years of service are starting to weigh on him. He has watched friends, comrades, and mentors die in horrible and gruesome ways, and he suffers from PTSD. Though he has always been told that his own sacrifices, the sacrifices of his brothers and sisters have been” worth it,” he’s starting to question if that’s true.

After telling of the incident where he personally executed his best friend Cutler, who’d been turned into a super mutant, the Sole Survivor is able to console him:

Player Default: You did the right thing. Danse: {Somber} It's what I was taught. I don't know if it was right.

This line is an excellent summary of Danse’s entire character arc. He learns to question whether to believe what the Brotherhood has taught him, or to believe in himself. His gut feelings. His sense of justice and his own ideas of what’s right and wrong.

(In the interest of not turning this into an essay about Danse’s character, I won’t even get into how this also applies to his beliefs about his worth as a person. But keep in mind, that dimension is there, Danse just covers it up by making everything about the Brotherhood.)

During Blind Betrayal, after getting the orders to execute him and hearing Haylen’s plea for mercy, we may expect Danse to be ready to fight back or flee. But when you confront him in the bunker at Listening Post Bravo, he’s compliant and suicidal. Danse is so deeply poisoned by the BoS’ rhetoric that his own feelings or will to live don’t factor into the conversation. He demands that you follow your orders and execute him, because he believes, as the BoS does, that all synths are dangerous and must be destroyed.

Danse: {Stern} Synths can't be trusted. Machines were never meant to make their own decisions, they need to be controlled. Technology that's run amok is what brought the entire world to its knees and humanity to the brink of extinction.

{Confident} I need to be the example, not the exception.

Through various dialogue options, if your charisma is high enough, you are able to talk Danse off the ledge. He is able to consider, at least, that the BoS’ merciless judgment of him is wrong and that what he was taught isn’t right. He is a thinking, feeling, self-aware synth, and that makes him as much a person as any human. Danse is no danger to humanity-- and maybe, most synths aren’t either.

Danse is an example, not an exception.

Later on, if you manage to get him out of BB alive, Danse shows further acceptance of his nature. His approvals about synths begin to soften slightly (or many of them do, at least… it’s not perfect.) He is still struggling with his identity and reconciling it with his former hatred, but his dialogue suggests that he’s on the road to being more open-minded and understanding. Along with this, Danse learns that he has value as a person beyond the Brotherhood. He no longer needs to define himself with BoS beliefs or judge himself by how useful he is to them. He learns that he is worth caring about, worth being friends with or being loved because of who he is-- not what he is, in any regard.

[SIDENOTE: Many players, myself included, are frustrated that Danse’s arc leaves off sort of midstream there. Due to the open-ended nature of the game, we don’t get a real conclusion to his arc-- even though much of his idle dialogue doesn’t change and he still espouses pro-BoS sentiments ( an unfortunate by-product of writing for a video game) there is every indication that he’s started down the right path, but understandably has a ways to go.

Also, Peter Jessop agrees with us.]

Meanwhile, in the Elder ending, Danse doesn’t get a redemption. His entire character arc, actually, hits the skids and does a total 180.

He never leaves the BoS. So scratch the need for Danse to ever think about himself as separate from them. He never needs to question what they’ve taught him or whether they’re right or wrong. He never needs to find any worth in himself beyond his use to the BoS. Why would he? He might be the Elder. The BoS is all he needs to care about anymore. The BoS is all he ever needs to be, ever again.

And I think, most horrifying of all, this Danse never needs to change his mind about synths. On the contrary, one of the surviving dialogue files includes Danse’s speech to reassure the rest of the BoS of his stance:

Danse: I want to make one thing clear to everyone. This body might be synth, but my heart and mind belong to the Brotherhood. The Institute is still a tremendous threat to the Commonwealth. They possess technologies that need to be confiscated or destroyed. And even if that means I have to pull the trigger on my own kind, I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

Elder ending Danse doesn’t grow more understanding on the nature of synths. He doesn’t accept that synths are people, or anything more than technology run amok. He won’t even accept that for himself. Elder Maxson wasn’t wrong about synths-- they’re the enemy and they need to be destroyed.

But, see, he was wrong about Danse. It’s okay for Danse to exist in spite of his nature. It’s okay for him to never fully accept his own personhood, and to outright deny it to his kind. Because his body is a machine, but he’s different from the rest because his heart and mind belong to the Brotherhood.

He’s the exception, not the example.

CONCLUSION:

The Elder ending of Blind Betrayal is dumb, contrived, stakeless, character-derailing powergaming crap at its finest and I’ll happily dance on its grave.

People give Bethesda a lot a shit for their writing-- whether it be stuff they left out, stuff they left in, or stuff that they never, ever could have made work due to the limitations of writing for a video game. Plenty of it is well-deserved, or at least worth a discussion. But from the minute I found out about its existence, I have always wanted to extend a congratulations to Bethesda for cutting the alternate Elder ending of Blind Betrayal. It was a good choice. A very good choice to cut a very dumb plot that would have fundamentally altered the story they were telling, and characters that I’ve grown to love. I think the writers deserve some credit and a hearty handshake for the wisdom of this decision.

Now as for why Nick Valentine isn’t romanceable--

[alittlextrathatway]

Fluff prompt 17 & Brettsey ❤️

“I’m pretty sure (you’re/she’s/he’s/they’re) my soulmate”

******

Monthly dinner with his sister and his niece is proving itself to be interesting. Honestly, this month he feared he wouldn’t be in the mood for it given the self-loathing hole he’s fallen into. It started with self reflection in an effort to answer Sylvie’s question and then spiraled from there.

It became a nightmarish clipshow of all the arguments and fights he’d had with Gabby. Deep in the archives of his memory he found a dusty padlocked trunk full of their relationship’s flaws and weaknesses. When she left he hadn’t let himself dwell on them but not unpacking those hurt feelings had in turn caused him to hurt Sylvie.

And that could never be allowed to happen again.

He needed to process it all but it left him feeling rather cynical. He had horrible luck with relationships. Why should Sylvie be any different?

Except, she is. She’s very different. He doesn’t know how he knows she’s different. He simply...does.

He has no idea what to do with that certainty so lately he’s been ignoring it in favor of his more instinctual wallowing.

Which is part of the reason dinner is interesting.

It seems his niece, now in her freshman year of college, has fallen in love. The young kind. The kind you believe to be invincible despite it having never been tested. Even if he’s in a cynical mood, he still finds it...sweet.

“I’m pretty sure he’s my soulmate,” Violet explains, spearing a bit of salad onto her fork.

Christie shakes her head with a fond grin.

But Matt is curious. “What makes you say that?”

She smiles broadly at the question, happy to have her feelings acknowledged by an adult. “Well, we want all the same things — right now anyway. He never judges my decisions, he just listens to me as I make them. He never tries to solve my problems for me. He doesn’t act like I have to be his entire world or that he has a right to know all my secrets. I don’t know, I guess he makes me feel free. Like I’m not having to meet any unrealistic expectations and I can relax, you know? I can genuinely be me and not the person people think I am. I mean I get that we’re young and I’ve got a lot of the world I still need to see but...when you find someone like that shouldn’t you hold on to it? Whether you're eighteen or, well, as old as you are, Uncle Matt.”

The last part is said with a teasing twinkle in her eye and he chuckles at her, tossing a piece of his dinner roll at her.

“I take the time to actually ask you about this guy and then you turn around and call me old? You’ve grown up to be a real brat. You know that?”

She laughs, shrugs, and sticks her tongue out at him the way she used to do when she was a lot younger. It reminds him of how quickly time has passed.

Of how much of it he’s wasted.

But it’s more than that because Violet’s words nestle into his brain like the overly catchy chorus of a pop song. They repeat in his head over and over as his 48 hours off ticks away — like a song on replay.

“He makes me feel free.”

“I can genuinely be me and not the person people think I am.”

“When you find someone like that shouldn’t you hold on to it?”

He may be older than Violet but her youthful optimism is taking him to school. His niece has always been precocious but these words are wise beyond her years.

Because she’s right. When you find someone who allows you to safely be your true self you should hold on to them. That may very well be the definition of a soulmate for all he knows…

So, why is he letting his go?

He walks into Molly’s, a man on a mission. He’s been energized by Violet’s hope and idealism. He can do this. He can talk to Sylvie and tell her how he feels and what he wants. They can work. They can be happy. He knows they can and that, he suddenly realizes, is what makes her different. He has no doubt he could make her happy. In fact, he’s confident they could make each other the happiest they’ve ever been...if only she’ll take the leap.

He spots Sylvie in the back, at a table with Mackey and Kidd. He ignores Herrmann’s hello and marches straight to them.

“I’ve reconsidered,” Matt declares to the table.

Sylvie’s brow furrows in confusion, head tilting slightly. “Reconsidered what?”

“A lot of things,” he says honestly, holding her stare and blocking out Kidd and Mackey’s wide eyed expressions. “But mostly your question and my answer and then your resulting request for space.”

He’s powering through his fears and his nerves and apparently that means using his commanding captain voice. Not exactly the tone he imagined he’d use but he’s getting the words out. The words he intends to say, the words he’s been thinking for weeks, are actually leaving his lips. If it works, he’s not changing it now.

“Um, okay,” Sylvie replies, cheeks turning pink as her teeth pull at her bottom lip.

He can tell he’s surprised her and she’s not sure how to respond so he continues. “I don’t want to give you space. In fact, I don’t want any distance between us at all. Ever.”

Her eyes water but a tear never falls and she doesn’t look away. She swallows thickly and shakes her head. “We talked about this. I told you it can’t happen again—“

“Because there is no regardless of Gabby, I know. I’m still unpacking that baggage,” he tells her honestly. “And you’re right there is no regardless of Gabby, but that doesn’t mean I still want her. Do I want her to be happy? Yes. Will I always feel some sort of love for her? Yes. But I’m not in love with her anymore and I don’t want to be. I want you. The truth is, I was never able to really be the person I wanted to be with Gabby. I didn’t feel as if I could be but with you—with you—I have no other choice to be authentically me. You bring that out in me and, now that I see that, I have no intention of letting you go.”

The trepidation he saw in her expression earlier melts away, leaving a blinding smile in its place. Her eyes are glistening and her face is flushing. Their eyes never move from each other. His smile shifts to match hers.

Sylvie stands from her chair, slips her arms in her coat, and without looking away from him says, “Stella, Gianna, I’ll see you both on shift tomorrow.”

“I’ll make sure Severide knows not to worry when Casey doesn’t make it home,” Kidd says with a wry grin.

Mackey turns to Kidd with an elated expression. “I knew it! I knew I saw something!”

Sylvie ignores them both and slips her hand into his, pulling him toward the exit. “Come with me.”

The rest of the bar is still hazy. All he sees is Sylvie’s blonde hair and sunny smile. He knows there’s other people in the room but they feel very far away.

They step out of the stuffy bar and into the cool night air. She drags him down the street until she finds his truck in it’s usual parking spot and then stops, turning to face him, looking overjoyed and yet still shy.

“So, I make you feel like yourself, huh?” She asks as her smile turns coy.

“You think I let just anyone hear my Australian accent?” He asks, with a secretive grin.

A short burst of laughter escapes her. “That’s good to know. It’s truly terrible.”

He takes her other hand and tugs her closer until they’re nearly standing chest to chest. Their amused expressions sober at the tension that crackles between them.

“Sylvie, I really believe we could work,” he confesses. “I think we could be great and I want a chance to prove it.”

She squeezes his hands and lifts herself up onto her toes until their noses are touching. “You make me feel like myself too, Matt. You don’t want me to be more than I am or expect me to change any part of myself for you. That’s what pulled me in, even if I didn’t want it to. You wanted to be there for me, exactly as I am. It’s hard to resist.”

“Then don’t,” he pleads. “Don’t resist. Take a leap with me. Please.”

“If we do this—“

He smiles eagerly, suddenly hopeful this might go his way.

“—we both have to be all in, Matt. That means talking about the tough topics and really putting in the work to make sure we understand each other.”

He nods, nose bumping hers. “I’m all in. We’re already discussing the tough topics and we haven’t even been on a date,” he reminds her. “I am more than willing to keep talking. I’ll talk all night if you want. I’m an open book. Anytime you want.”

“You also have to promise me that you’ll tell me if I ever make you feel as if you can’t be yourself with me,” Sylvie says, hands slipping into his hair. “I want you, Matt. Whoever you choose to be and whatever dreams you choose to have, you’re the one I want. I don’t want you to ever hide any of that from me.”

“I won’t,” he promises. “You’re getting every bit of me from here on out. I swear.”

“Good,” she says, beaming at him with happy tears gathering in her lashes. “That’s all I’ve been wanting for entirely too long.”

“Then what’s the final verdict, Brett?” He asks as his arms slowly encircle her waist. “Are we doing this?”

She sighs happily and nods. “Yeah, we’re doing this.”

That’s all he needs to hear. He yanks her forward until she’s pressed flush against him and then swoops in, sealing his mouth to hers. With every sip he takes from her lips his cynicism washes away. She’s a fountain of truth and light and he feels fortunate to be near her. The sheer amount of happiness he feels, as he continues to kiss her on the sidewalk outside of Molly’s, is a shock to his system.

And, he thinks, he has Violet to thank for it.

If soulmates do exist then she helped him see that his has been right in front of him all along.

[palmett-hoes]

Nora apparently has said that Andrew has a 3.0 at Palmetto, which is interesting considering fanon depiction is either of him being the type to get straight A’s without trying (which is somewhat problematic/unrealistic) or him not doing any work but testing well and barely passing. Going by that context + dyslexic! Andrew who was neglected by educators as a child what do you think his relationship to college is? (ofc not saying anyone has to take that as canon just in context of the idea)

well given that you clearly read my post about andrew being dyslexic, you can imagine that i don't exactly like the idea of andrew having perfect grades. i think it’s out of character, even if he’s not dyslexic, becuase i really just don’t think he’d care enough to prioritize his grades enough to get perfect ones

and also bc i like him being dyslexic, and struggling in school, and honestly disliking school because it’s not tailored to someone who works the way he does. andrew doesn’t like being rushed, he likes to take his time thinking things through. i bet he’s a shit test taker. he definitely doesn’t engage in class either. plus his dyslexia makes his readings and essays harder for him. i do think andrew has to work in school, but i also don’t think it’s a super high priority for him, so while he doesn’t like it he also doesn’t let it stress him out

i would guess in high school he was a Cs and Ds student primarily, some fails in classes he really hated and ditched all the time and a few Bs here and there in classes he really liked

college is kind of a different ball game though, especially as a D1 athlete. a 3.0 makes sense to me. solid B, 85%. the thing is that as a D1 athlete the NCAA requires that andrew maintain a gpa around a 2.0 to be eligible to play, so i think that if andrew knows he might struggle in certain classes in the future he would be more invested in keeping his grades higher in the classes he knows he can, so if he ever gets a class that really kicks his ass he’ll have a buffer zone

also college offers a lot of classes and opportunities that stray away from traditional classroom learning out of textbooks and standardized tests (though there are also a lot of classes where you basically have to teach yourself everything out of the textbook), so i imagine that andrew also takes as many easy, hands-on, reading-lite classes as he can outside of the requirements for his major. hopefully he has some leeway in what he can pick to fill his distribution requirements and he can take like,, film classes and applied science classes bc i think he would enjoy those. you can take some really cool classes in college, and i think because he’s mostly along for the ride instead of planning on going to grad school or anything he definitely takes as many easy and fun classes as he can, so in all honesty he doesn’t hate it

how he feels about college as a whole though? i think he probably considers it a bit of a waste of time and has no intentions of doing anything with his degree. i really don’t think he was planning on going to college at all before wymack offered aaron a free ride

if he hadn’t ended up on the foxes i think andrew would have attended technical school. i can see him getting into automotives or construction or something to that affect. i definitely see andrew as a hands-on type, who likes puzzles and taking things apart and putting them back together. i think he’d make a good mechanic and i think he’d like it too, a lot more than he would anything he could do with a bachelor’s degree

[messagefromtheveins]

Curious Vibes [Part 14]

A/N: I already wanted to say this last time, but I forgot about it. You guys have probably read once or twice before that I want to keep this series as realistic as possible. Well... I'm a liar. Kinda. I know it's so unrealistic that two people just magically get accepted into their preferred college and that instead of dorms they live in their own little apartment. But I just need them to be in their own private little space to explore their sexualities more. So, that's it. This is the kind of perfect world you'll have to accept for this series now. Sexual experiences will stay hopefully near realistic though! I just can't deal with putting them into some dorms with roommates. 

Words: 3.6k

Pairing: Shawn/reader

Warning: smut. use of a toy. 

You were running late. Your lecture had lasted a few minutes longer than expected and you knew Shawn was probably waiting for you- you had decided that morning to grab lunch together in the cafeteria instead of home or some diner. Rushing out of your lecture, you contemplated sending him a quick text that you were on the way, but decided against it. He knew that sometimes lectures lasted longer and therefore wouldn't be worried yet. You weren't that late.

When you arrived at the cafeteria he was standing near the front of the line, talking to a guy who was a bit shorter than him. They interacted for a few more seconds before they parted ways with a cool little handshake. That was when Shawn caught your gaze, a warm smile spreading over his face that made you relax instantly. He pointed to his left, a silent sign for you that he'd get a table somewhere over there. Nodding, you playfully stuck your tongue out at him and watched him throw his head back laughing.

"Hi, hon'," he smiled as you took a seat across from him just a couple of minutes later, leaning over the table to give you a kiss.

"Hey, bub," you sighed and leaned back against the chair with a deep breath, making him frown in worry.

"Everything okay?" he murmured and placed his hand on top of yours, his thumb slowly brushing over your skin.

"Yeah," you nodded and ran a hand through your hair, "it's just been a bit stressful morning. Who was that guy you talked to?"

"Oh! That was Connor. He didn't have enough money for his coffee so I paid it for him," he explained, blushing a bit as you reached across the table to cup the side of his face in your hand.

"You're a good guy," you told him, his teeth lightly digging into his bottom lip before he shook his head.

"Don't make me seem like a hero. It was nothing."

–—–—–—–—–—–

You absolutely loved moments like these- your body protectively tucked into his side, his arm below you keeping you close against him and letting his fingers caress over your back where your T-shirt had ridden up. His free hand held one of yours, his thumb slowly brushing back and forth while yours circled around his knuckle. His laptop was placed on his stomach, the show you had started on Netflix playing on it.

A smile spread over your lips as he turned his head, placing a lingering kiss at your hairline. "We should move the TV in here," he murmured, your eyebrows raising before you tilted your head to look at him, "we always watch movies here on our laptops and rarely ever in the living room."

"And what if we have friends over sometime for a movie night?"

"You mean the friends we haven't made yet?" he teased and let to of your hand to close his laptop and place it aside.

You gasped in offense. "Hey, I have made friends!" you exclaimed while he turned to lay on his side, facing you and wrapping his arms around you.

"People from work don't count," he told you, grinning as you immediately pouted. You and Shawn had recently managed to get jobs- you had started working in a little diner around the corner while he had gotten a job at the nearest movie theater.

You went willingly as he turned on his back and pulled you along with him, your body stretched out on top of him before you sat up, straddling his lap and looking down on him with thoughtful eyes. "What about that Connor guy you've talked about the other week? Didn't you meet him again at the soccer field?"

"I talked to him like, twice. Definitely not a friend yet."

"Ha!" you exclaimed almost victoriously and pointed a finger at him, his eyebrows raising in surprise, "you said 'yet'!"

He playfully rolled his eyes and squeezed your sides, a low squeak escaping your lips as he tickled you for a quick moment. "Yeah, so? He's a cool guy. But that doesn't mean that he thinks I'm also a cool guy."

"Oh, please" you sighed and braced your hands on his chest as you leaned down, finding his lips in a soft kiss. "You're the coolest guy," you murmured, his lips curving into a quick grin before he kissed you again.

"That's only because I have a badass girlfriend who makes me look way cooler than I really am."

It was your turn to roll your eyes, his low chuckle briefly filling the room before your lips were pressed against his again. His hands rubbed over your back, tender touches until you lightly shifted your hips on top of him. Gently biting your bottom lip, he let his hands trace down to grab your butt, squeezing almost roughly.

Smirking, you sat up straight again, starting to roll your hips against his length that was starting to get hard against your thigh. He sighed softly and grabbed your hips, his gaze hungrily trailing all over your body. "You know what I really don't miss?" he murmured as you pushed your hands under his T-shirt, nails scratching his chest in a way that made him shiver and shift his hips beneath you.

"What?" you whispered.

"Having to sneak around," he mumbled and bit his bottom lip as you moved your hips just right, "I like that we can do stuff like this whenever and wherever in the apartment without worrying that someone walks in on us."

"And yet we haven't done it outside of the bedroom so far," you grinned and pushed your hands up his chest, helping him take his T-shirt off.

You giggled as he grabbed you around the hips and flipped you over, the way you joyfully grinned up to him making his heart melt a little. "Where do you want to do it?" he murmured.

The way your teeth almost teasingly tugged on your bottom lip while your hands caressed his bare chest and played with the necklace that dangled from his neck drove him crazy. "Everywhere," you breathed, his eyes darkening and a smirk spreading over his lips.

"How about," he murmured and dipped his head to your neck, his lips leaving soft kisses behind on your skin, "next time I'll bend you over the kitchen counter and have my way with you there?"

He felt the way your toes curled against the outside of his calves, noticed the way your chest arched a bit, heard the way your breath hitched in your throat followed by a very quiet moan. "Why not now?" you whispered, one of your hands tangling into his hair and tugging on the curls as he sucked on the sensitive spot below your ear.

He didn't stop until he was sure that he had left a decent hickey behind, slowly pulling back and admiring the red mark on your neck before he looked into your eyes again. The needy and begging expression they held was enough to have him achingly hard. "Because I'd like to try something," he admitted, his voice less sultry and more hesitant, "and I think I'll feel most comfortable here for now."

Understanding and comfort had filled your eyes, your hands slowly brushing through his hair as you looked up to him. "What is it?" you asked, the way you soothingly caressed the back of his neck breaking his last wall down.

"Do you still have that vibrator?" he whispered.

A grin spread over your lips almost instantly, the memory of the time he had used it on you still so fresh in your mind like it had only been yesterday. "Of course," you nodded, an expression filling his features that you couldn't quite define, "do you want to use it?"

Licking over his bottom lip, he hesitated for a moment before he nodded. "Yeah, but..." he trailed off, his gaze casting down like he was trying to avoid looking at you.

Tucking some of his curls behind his ear like he always did with your hair, you lightly traced the shell of his ear and saw how he smiled softly. By now you had a faint idea of what he wanted to do and tried to coax it out of him with gentle touches. "But what?" you whispered, your hand rubbing up and down his back as he lifted his gaze again.

"I was wondering if… you could use it on me," he mumbled, his cheeks flushing as he waited for your reaction.

Cupping the back of his head, you lifted your head off the pillow and found his lips in a tender and loving kiss, his tense muscles slowly relaxing under your hand that rested on his back. "Take your clothes off and lay back for me, baby," you whispered and smiled as he placed another quick kiss on your lips before he moved.

He wrestled his way out of his sweatpants and boxers without getting up while you rolled on your stomach and reached over to the nightstand, quickly locating the little toy and the bottle of lube and placing both of them on the mattress before you turned back to him. He was laying flat on his back beside you, hands running through his hair and a smile spreading over his lips as you moved to straddle his thighs.

"Talk to me," you breathed and placed your hands in a light touch on his stomach, "what do you want?"

His head turned towards the two items, gaze lingering for a moment before he turned to look at you again. "I just want to know what it feels like," he responded in a quiet voice.

"Where?"

His eyes widened and you had to stop yourself from laughing. "... on my dick," he said slowly and raised an eyebrow. "Where did you want to put that thing?"

A slow smirk spread over your face that made him swallow heavily, his eyes closely watching you as you leaned down and cupped a hand around his jaw, the other braced beside his head. "You and I both know that there are other places where that thing could make you see stars," you whispered and playfully nipped at his lip before you sat up straight again.

"No offense," he started and watched how you reached for the lube and easily flipped the cap open, "but I think it might be too small to reach that place."

He jerked in surprise as you dribbled a bit of lube over his flushed cock that rested against his lower stomach, your eyes watching it slowly trickle down his shaft while he squirmed under the rather cold liquid. "Are you sure I don't have a toy that might be long enough for that?" you teased, his lips parting as he stared at you.

"Do you?" he breathed, barely reacting as you slowly traced a single finger along his length, sloppily spreading the lube over his skin.

"Not yet," you grinned and gave him a wink before you reached for the vibrator. Thumbing at the switch at the bottom, it came to life in your hand, the vibrations against your palm sending a rush of excitement through your body. Reminding yourself that this was all about him, you lifted your gaze to meet his anticipating one, his teeth digging into his bottom lip and hands clenched into fists at his sides, holding on to the sheets.

Placing your free hand on his hip, you placed the tip of the toy against the skin below his belly button, his jaw clenching and eyes briefly falling threatening to close. Stopping yourself from grinning, you slowly traced it down along his happy trail, his chest moving faster the closer you got to his flushed tip. His thighs tensed as you moved the vibrating tip back and forth over the sensitive skin on the inside of them. "Please," he begged breathlessly as you looked into his eyes. His cheeks were beautifully flushed and you could see the desire in his blown eyes, a soft smile tugging at the corner of your lips before you moved your hand up.

He released a choked sound as you placed the toy against his base, his eyes closing and head tilting back while he roughly tugged on the sheets. "How does it feel?" you whispered, his lips parting without a word coming out for a moment as you moved it up along the thick vein.

"So good," he moaned, his toes curling as you got closer and closer to his sensitive tip. His length throbbed in anticipation and a drop of precum dribbled from his slit. He forgot all words as you finally touched the toy against the head of his cock. The reaction you got out of him was so rewarding that you wondered why you hadn't done this sooner- his back lifted off the bed, chest arching so far that you were momentarily worried about his spine. His eyes squeezed shut and a high-pitched and loud whimper fell from his throat, his hands quickly reaching for you- one hand firmly gripping your thigh, the other curling around your wrist. "Stop, stop, stop," he rushed out in one big breath, barely noticing that you had pulled your hand back before he had even finished the first word.

You turned the toy off and placed it aside, both of your hands rubbing over his chest in a comforting way. "Breathe," you whispered and leaned over him to place a few chaste kisses over his jaw, his chest rising as he took a deep breath.

"Fuck, that was intense," he mumbled, his dazed eyes meeting yours as you pulled back just enough to look at him. His head tilted to the side where you had placed the vibrator, eyebrows furrowed as he looked at you again. "Why did you stop?"

Raising an amused eyebrow, you giggled and placed a soft kiss on the tip of his nose. "Because you told me to stop three times, bub," you reminded him with a grin.

"Yeah, but..." he trailed off for a moment, suddenly looking almost shy again, "I didn't want you to actually stop."

You smirked and sat up straight again. "Do we need a safe word?"

He helplessly shrugged his shoulders. "Can't hurt, I'd say?" he responded and watched as you reached for the toy.

"So what's it gonna be?" you asked and turned it on again, immediately seeing the excitement that filled his features.

"How about we just go with the green, yellow, red for now until we-" his sentence got interrupted by a deep groan as you lightly moved the vibrator back and forth over his balls. "Until we think of something better?" he finished his sentence once he had regained his composure. You only nodded in agreement and grinned as he squeezed your hips when you traced the toy along his length again, avoiding the head- for now. "Baby?" he spoke up, your gaze meeting his. "Could you..."

"What? What is it?" you asked as he didn't continue.

"Could you like, hold me? Sit behind me?" he asked quietly, his cheeks flushed a bit. You couldn't believe that this was the same guy who loved to watch you choke on his dick while praising you in the dirtiest ways. It made you smile.

You didn't hesitate to move, his torso lifting off the pillows so you could crawl in behind him, waiting until you were comfortably settled against the headboard before he carefully leaned back against your chest. "Like this?" you whispered, his hands briefly tracing over your thighs on either side of him before he simply rested his hands on your sweatpants-clad legs.

It bothered him a bit that you were still wearing pants and your T-shirt, but he couldn't bring himself to say something. He was craving the vibrations against his dick too much to wait any longer until you would be undressed. "Perfect," he responded and relaxed back against you, taking a deep breath as you rubbed a hand over his chest. From this perspective you first fully realized that his nipples were rock hard- not like that was something new- and it gave you an idea.

"Close your eyes," you whispered, waiting until you saw his eyelids fluttering shut out of the corner of your eye before you brought the toy up to his left nipple. He jerked and gasped in surprise, his eyes immediately opening again as his hands tightly gripped your thighs.

"Fuck, honey," he breathed and squirmed as you slowly circled the hardened bud. His head titled forward and you could see how he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, a strangled moan rumbling in his chest as you moved to the other side. Cursing under his breath, he dug his blunt nails into the fabric of your sweatpants and smiled a bit weakly as you placed a kiss on the side of his head, his curly hair tickling you.

He exhaled shakily as you stopped, instead teasingly traced the toy down his torso. Your free hand rested on his chest, one of his coming up to cover the back of your hand- just loosely holding on. Both of your gazes cast down as you got dangerously close to the head of his cock, his thighs tensing in anticipation. But you completely skipped it and instead circled the base. "Never thought it would feel this good," he mumbled under his breath and tilted his head back against your shoulder.

You started to leave tender kisses over the side of his face while you teased along his length again, greedily taking in the way his cock twitched and throbbed under the unfamiliar stimulation while he kept releasing little moans and whimpers. He was leaking heavily against his stomach, a lot more than you had ever seen before. You felt hot all over as he tilted his head to look at you and you were sure that your panties were ruined by now, the fucked out and begging look in his eyes making your stomach flip in the best way. "Remember the word?" you whispered, his teeth sharply digging into his lip as he nodded.

"Yes," he mumbled and barely reacted to the quick peck you placed on his lips, too caught up in the pleasure that was rushing through his veins. His grip on your hand tightened as you traced the vibrator up his length, this time going further than before. "Fuck, please," he panted, his eyes squeezing shut and lips parting with a shaky exhale as you lightly touched it against his tip. "Baby-" he choked out, legs spreading a bit more and hips jerking up, chasing the feeling as you pulled the toy away again.

What he hadn't expected though, was that you would push it against his tip again without giving him a moment to catch his breath this time. Releasing a broken moan, he squirmed in your arms and tightly gripped your thigh. He was breathing heavily and his whimpers were surprisingly quiet, your arm draped over his chest tightening to keep him from moving around too much. You could see how his chest and cheeks flushed the way they always did when he was close, sweat beginning to glisten on his forehead as he seemingly fought back his impending high.

But just seconds later he came with a cry of your name. His chest arched and his knees pulled up, squirming and trembling so much that you had to tightly hold on to him while he released all over his stomach. His head was pushing against your shoulder and his eyes were squeezed shut, eyebrows furrowed in complete pleasure and breathless whimpers and moans falling from his lips as you held the vibrator against his tip. You didn't ease up until he tensed up from the overstimulation, one last quiet whimper leaving his throat as you pulled the toy away and turned it off, carelessly placing it aside.

He was fighting to catch his breath as you reached over to the bedside table where you quickly snatched a couple of tissues from the box before you started to clean his stomach as much as possible. "I'm dying," he gasped quite dramatically once you were finished. Brushing his messy curls back where they were clinging to his forehead, you lightly scratched your nails over his head while placing a lingering kiss on his temple.

"You're fine, bub," you whispered and rubbed your hand in soothing circles over his chest, his eyes slowly fluttering open and tilting his head to look at you.

"Can you do something for me?" he asked.

"Anything," you smiled and nodded, noticing how he pushed his head into your hand that played with his hair.

"Can you make sure that on my tombstone it says something like, cause of death was my girlfriend giving me the most mind blowing orgasm a human has ever experienced?"

Giggling, you shook your head and gave his chest a playful pat, an almost proud grin spreading over his lips. "You're the worst."

Humming, he shifted and twisted in your arms until his chest was pressed against yours, his head tucking into the crook of your neck and arms pushing under your back. "But you love me," he mumbled, completely relaxing against you as you rubbed your hands up and down his back.

"I do," you whispered, "a lot."

He smiled against your neck. "I love you, too."

S.Mendes+Team Taglist: @justanotherfangurl272 @alone-in-madness @waitonmedarling @shawnase @rechema @mendesromano @stradivariusbitch @desire-to-live @alinashawn @lifeoftheparty74 @particularstrings @liliane106 @herbeautifuldarkness @havethetimeeofyourlifee @pastelshawns @delightfullyspeedyearthquake @aargyy @adelaidebaby @mchutchmendes @as-she-pleases @my-elevenoutof10 @fluffsshawn @bensbuttercup @i-play-video-games @narrystoran4eva @learning-howto-be-myselfx3 @hugefangirl-22 @september-lace @shawnsmusical @shawnsparticulargirl @goldenmndes

Curious Taglist: @vintageroses1014516 @hannahlouiseee @nervousyouths @marveloushawn @messy-cassy @iloveshawnieboi @yellowlimelight @rockstarshawnmendes @virgen-idealista @patron-saintof-sluts @peterbrokenparker @artemissravenclaw @kmainegirl @tnhmblive @stokedmendes @mendesilicious @cottoncandyshawn @enchantingbrowneyedgirl @feliciaceciliamariajacobsson @lillysaundersss @shutupgrayy @scandinavian-girl @bodaciousbonzi1996 @unsolvedhearts @rbforsmileycal @elizabeth5wolf @wildflowernightmere @fallininjapan

(feel free to message me if you want to be moved/removed)

[bffsoobin]

extra long tag game (a guide to all unnecessary knowledge of me)

tagged by: @txtdiaries (ily lana)

tagging: @pxppinstars @txtdream @lavenderlattaes @soobindipity (feel free to ignore if you’ve already done this or just can’t be bothered)

ONE

tell me the first song that made you stan your current fave group and why did your faves attract you so much?

Um okay so I’ll go with explaining BTS and TXT I guess, haha. For BTS it was DNA! That was the first mv I ever saw by them and I was instantly obsessed with everything about it. For TXT, it was obviously Crown since I was keeping an eye on them as soon as BH announced a new group haha. But I initially loved the super bright and happy concept from Crown and they totally got me hooked by their personalities and other music!!

—

TWO

rule: answer the ten questions and write your own!

what’s your unrealistic goal for life?

married by 23, kids by 25...I’m 19 and I’ve never even had a boyfriend so I would be shocked if I actually got this lmao

if you had known that we would be in a global pandemic, what’s one thing that you would’ve done before things shut down (if they have for you)?

Honestly, I can’t think of anything other than spending more time with my roommate who I miss so so much. 

what’s an unconventional thing that you carry around with you when you go out?

I wouldn’t usually call this unconventional but right now I’d say my student ID since it’s useless as I’m not going back to campus

favourite type of plushies and why?

I love teddy bears. I have two that I sleep with every night! One is a gift I got for preschool graduation (eloquently named Teddy) and the other is my iron man build a bear that my uncle bought me to cope with Endgame. 

favourite song right now?

I am notoriously bad at answering this question so I’ll just say that at the moment I’ve been listening to Red Desert by 5sos a lot.

something that you’ve always wanted to learn?

I’ve always wanted to learn how to play drums and any language other than English haha

tell a funny story about yourself (or just something that you’ve witnessed)

This took way more digging in my mind than I would like to admit but when I saw 5sos live in 2016 my best friend and I had soundcheck, so we got to sit in the venue early and ask them questions and hear a few extra songs. At the time I had beef with Luke Hemmings (because the girl he was dating at the time was one of the most toxic people on earth) and he wouldn’t break up with her. So the girl sitting next to me at soundcheck raised her hand to ask Luke a question so of course he was looking basically right at me. We were like maybe 8 rows back from the stage and at this point in my life I had bright pink hair, so there was no missing me. So this girl is asking her innocent question, and naturally Luke looks around a bit and we make eye contact and instead of fangirling like a normal person, my anger at him boiled over and I ended up flipping him off. The whole band noticed and had to pretend they weren’t laughing at the oddly aggressive 9th grader who flipped off their lead singer. I still feel bad about it to this day lmao but all my friends think it’s hilarious and it’s definitely my go to party story.

headphones or speakers? why?

headphones all the way. Speakers only if I’m showering.

craving any food right now? what are you craving?

Surprisingly I’m not craving anything but that’s because I just ate dinner 10 minutes ago

which music streaming platform do you prefer? why?

Spotify all the way

ten questions (by lana, answered)

1. what is your favorite movie of all time?

This is such a hard question for me. I’m so bad at picking favorites. But I’d have to say it’s sort of a tie between Heathers, Brave and Iron Man 2

2. describe your childhood in three words

Disney, animals, comforting

3. Favorite holiday?

Halloween forever and always

4. Favorite vacation spot?

Disney World! 5.What do you think of the education system? Are you a fellow slave to the GPA?

The US education system has massive holes. I was lucky enough to attend a pretty good highschool and take good classes so I don’t feel like I was as robbed as other people, but there are curriculum gaps and misinformation everywhere you go. As far as college goes, I think it is wayyyy too expensive. Despite that, I still signed myself up for 8 years of debt so yes, I am a slave to the GPA. Gotta go hard for the dream job. 

6. What is your hair color? Very light blonde now, normally dirty blonde

7. What talent do you wish you had?

I wish I could draw or paint well so bad. I am so envious of artists.

8. What is your major and why? (If you’re in highschool, what do you plan on majoring in?)

I’m a biology major because I want to become a veterinarian! 

9.Do you like kids or do you merely tolerate them? I love most kids. There will always be some awful ones but as a general rule I love being around kids and I definitely want some of my own!

10. Any pets?

Yep, I have five cats!

ten questions from me to you:

who is your favorite non kpop artist?

do you prefer to be warm or cool?

dream job, if you have one?

favorite TV show?

top three celebrities you would sell your soul to meet?

do you believe in ghosts?

cookies or brownies?

do you like where you live?

do you know your personality type? If so, what is it?

do you prefer floral scents or neutral scents?

—

THREE

rule: bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations, then tag nine people.

AIR ༉⋆͙̈

i have small hands / i love the night sky / i watch animals and birds when i pass them by / i drink herbal tea / i wake to see the dawn / the smell of dust is comforting / i’m valued for being wise / i prefer books to music / i meditate / i find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE ༉⋆͙̈

i don’t have straight hair / i like to wear ripped jeans and overalls / i play an organized sport / i love dogs / i am not afraid of adventure / i love to talk to strangers / i always try new foods / i enjoy road trips / summer is my favorite season / my radio is always playing

WATER ༉⋆͙̈

i wear bracelets on my wrists / i love the bustle of the city / i have more than one set of piercings / i read poetry / i love the sound of a thunderstorm / i want to travel the world / i sleep past midday most days / i love simply lit dinners and fluorescent signs / i rewatch kids shows out of nostalgia / i see emotions in colors not words

EARTH ༉⋆͙̈

i wear glasses or contacts / i enjoy doing the laundry / i am a vegetarian or vegan / i have an excellent sense of time / my humor is very cheerful / i am a valued advisor to my friends / i believe in true love / i love this chill of mountain air / i’m always listening to music / i am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER ༉⋆͙̈

i go without makeup in my daily life / i make my own artwork / i keep on track of my tasks and time / i always know true north / i see beauty in everything / i can always smell flowers / i smile at everyone i pass by / i always fear history repeating itself / i have recovered from a mental disorder / i can love unconditionally

—

FOUR

PERSONAL

name: sara

nickname: sadams

birthday: April 16th, 2001

zodiac: Aries hehe

nationality: sadly, american

languages: only english 

gender: female

sexuality: straight

height: 5'2 or 3 I don’t know for sure

BLOG STUFF

inspiration for muse: obviously txt but I pull inspiration from my life, music, TV/movies and other stories!

meaning behind my url: I heavily believe in the idea of alternate universes and I think there’s one where Soobin and I are best friends so that’s what I made my url!

blog established: May of 2020

followers: 568 (how??)

FAVORITES

favourite animals: cats, snakes, raccoons

favourite books: Looking For Alaska by John Green

favourite colour: black, light purple, forest green, deep blue

favourite fictional characters: Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds), Andy Dwyer (Parks and Rec), Leslie Knope (Parks and Rec), Klaus and Ben (Umbrella Academy), Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes. For some reason I’m blanking on book characters so here are all of my movie/tv faves

favourite flower: Forget me nots

favourite scent: fresh laundry, anything tropical or ocean smelling, basil

favourite season: fall!

RANDOM

average hours of sleep: 7 or 8 usually 

cats or dogs: cats

coffee, tea or hot chocolate: hot chocolate 

current time: 6:41 pm

dream trip: Australia or SK

dream job: Veterinarian 

hobbies: writing, watching tv/movies, shopping, going for walks

hogwarts house: slytherin

last movie watched: 68 Kill (do not watch if you’re under 18 or sensitive, lmao)

last song listened to: Sarah Smiles by Panic! at the Disco

no. of blankets you sleep with: right now two

random fact(s): I love dinosaurs, I have low iron, I’m allergic to dogs even though I work at a doggy daycare

—

FIVE

10 things I can’t stop listening to 

stay gold- bts

20 cm- txt

catch fire- 5sos

self- khalid

f2020- avenue beat

nyla- blackbear

everywhere- niall horan

heather- conan gray 

red desert- 5sos

eight- iu, suga

[erinptah]

Super Drags review (tl;dr Show Good)

The post where I do my best to spread the Good News, that there exists a saucy gay drag-queen magical-girl animated comedy and everyone should watch it.

Okay, not everyone -- I'll give some caveats at the end -- but definitely a heck of a lot more people than Netflix has bothered to advertise it to.

Look at this! Why did nobody tell me about this??

What is Super Drags?

Fast facts:

It's a 1-season, 5-episode adult animated comedy series, released in November 2018

Here's the official page, with a free-to-view trailer

It packs more explicit, unashamed queerness into those 5 episodes than any other cartoon I can think of

The only possible competitor would be if you took the whole 5000-episode run of Steven Universe and pared it down to a supercut of Just The Gay Parts

This in spite of being produced in Brazil, which (in my broad understanding, as a total non-authority on the subject) is more oppressively, dangerously homophobic than the US

The original is in Portuguese

There is an English dub, fabulously voiced by contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race

It's wrapped in "for adults only!" warnings, not because the content is any less child-friendly than (say) your Bojacks Horsemen or your Ricks and Mortys, but because Brazilian authorities tried to get it shut down on the grounds of this much gay being Harmful For Children

It was (heartbreakingly) not renewed for a second season

Here's a promo video, in which the main characters (Portuguese, with subtitles) play Drag Race judges for Shangela, who ends up voicing Scarlet in English.

And here's a beautiful flashy music video of the big musical number! (Also Portuguese, no subtitles, but the melody and the visuals stand on their own.)

Plot and worldbuilding stuff!

The elevator pitch is "What if Charlie's Angels, but also drag queens, with superpowers, because magical-girl transformations?"

In this universe, all LGBTQ people have magical energy. The Big Bad is an evil magical-drag-queen nemesis who tries to drain our energy for her own purposes. It's like if Ursula from The Little Mermaid was a first-season Sailor Moon villain.

...sidenote, in case you were worried, the representation isn't "cis gay men and nobody else." There's a butch lesbian in the recurring cast, a genderfluid person (in that specific word!) as a one-off love interest, and all the ensemble scenes are wonderful collages of different races, body types, and gender presentations.

Our heroes also fight non-magical everyday homophobes, who get written with scathing realism.

The moment I knew the show wasn't pulling any punches was in the first episode, where a newscaster complains about being Silenced by the Law of Political Correctness, then chirps "however, we have a special guest who is thankfully above the law!"

According to the reviews I've found from Brazilian viewers, it's also pitch-perfect when it comes to local queer culture, community dynamics, slang and speech patterns, even memes. All of which flies right over my head, so here's a post (with no-context spoilers) about one viewer's favorite details.

The handful of reaction posts on Tumblr have a dramatic split between "Brazilian viewers fiercely defending the show as culturally-accurate, uplifting, and brave in a terrifying political moment" and "American viewers complaining that the show is problematic because it's a comedy about drag queens with no perfect role models and lots of sex jokes."

As the Super Drags tell their nemesis (and this is also in the first episode): "How dare you try to turn the LGBTQXYZ community against each other? We do enough of that on our own!"

In between missions, our girls work sitcom retail jobs and deal with other everyday problems. All of which are written in amazingly nuanced and thoughtful ways for a show that also features "defeating an orgy monster with a lip-sync battle."

Detailed character stuff!

Our heroes are Color Coded For Your Convenience!

The Super Drags themselves go by "she" in-uniform, and a lot of the time when out of it. Like the Sailor Starlights, only more so. I'll roll with that.

In blue: Safira Cyan, or Ralph by day, an excitable college-age kid who's built like a football player and squees like a fangirl. (She's an anime fan in the original, and for some reason all the otaku references were replaced in the dub, but you can see them in the subtitles.)

Ralph lives with her younger sister (they play video games together!) and their dad, comes out to them mid-series, and is very shippable with another young guy who starts out reciting the homophobic beliefs he was raised with but whose heart clearly isn't in it.

Safira's weapon is a classic magical-girl wand that casts protective force-fields. Which are shaped like condoms. Because of course.

In yellow: Lemon Chiffon, aka Patrick, the oldest of the group and generally the smartest/most strategic. In most cases, the other two treat her as the de facto team leader -- unless she pushes it too far.

By day she's a single guy with thick thighs and thinning hair, who has some body-image insecurities on the dating scene. And this show has Things To Say about unrealistic beauty standards within the community...not to mention, about masc guys who look down on anyone too flaming or femme because straight people disapprove.

Lemon's weapon is a fluffy boa that can be used as a whip or a lasso, especially when there's a bondage joke to be made.

In red: Scarlet Carmesim, also Donizete, the loudest and most aggressive teammate with the most cutting insults, who refuses to suppress that attitude in an attempt to appease racists. (But will give it a shot when trying not to get fired.)

Donny still lives in her religious/homophobic mom's apartment, and I'm pretty sure it's because neither of them can afford to move out. Her rock-solid sense of fierce self-confidence is the reason it doesn't bring her down.

Scarlet's weapon is a fan that she uses to throw shade. Yeah, you knew that was coming.

The Charlie to these angels is Champagne, who runs operations from a cool magitech compound and breaks the fourth wall at the end to petition for viewers' support in getting a second season.

...we let her down, folks :(

So here's a thing. The show never draws a sharp line between "people who become drag queens because it's a way they're driven to express themselves as gay men" and "people who become drag queens because they were trans women all along." That's consistent with how South American LGBT+ culture works. (Again: best of my knowledge, not personally an authority on this, etc etc.)

Many of the characters, including Champagne, never describe themselves in ways that translate to one of our sharply-defined Anglo-USian identity categories. And I'm not going to try to impose any English labels on them here.

But I can say (in contrast to Safira, Lemon, and Scarlet), Champagne never switches out of her "drag" name/voice/presentation, not even in the most candid off-duty scenes, and still has the same bustline when naked in the tub. Make of that what you will.

You Should Watch This Show

If you have a Netflix subscription, watch Super Drags!

If you ever do a Netflix free trial month in the future, make a note to yourself to watch Super Drags!

It's one of their original productions, so there's no risk of missing your chance because the license expired. But it's absolutely not getting the promotion it deserves. Which means potentially interested viewers won't find it, which means Netflix will think there's no interest, which means they'll keep not promoting it...etc etc etc.

No idea if there's any chance of getting it un-canceled, but maybe we can at least convince them to release it on DVD.

And the sheer gutsiness it took for a group of Brazilian creators to produce this show in the first place -- that deserves to be rewarded with your attention.

In spite of various anti-discrimination laws that sound good on paper, the country has serious problems with homophobia, transphobia, and anti-LGBT violence (warning, article has a violent image which is only partly blurred).

Maybe the creators could've gotten a second season if they made this one softer, less sexually-explicit, more restrained...but honestly? I bet that wouldn't have helped.

Consider Danger & Eggs, an Amazon original cartoon. It was made in the US, thoroughly child-friendly, and restricts its LGBT+ representation to things like "characters go to a Pride celebration...where nobody ever names or describes the quality they're proud of."

And it didn't get renewed past the first season either.

(Note: it had a trans woman showrunner and a queer-heavy creative staff, so I blame all that restraint on executive meddling, not the creators themselves. The showrunner even liked the tweet of my review that complains about it.)

So there's something very satisfying about how Super Drags went all-out, balls-to-the-wall (sometimes literally), all the rep explicit and unapologetic, packing every 25-minute episode with all kinds of queer content that would be censored or muted elsewhere -- but here it's exaggerated and celebrated and just keeps coming.

(...as do jokes like that, and I'm not sorry.)

Okay, there are a few legitimate reasons to not watch this show

Some caveats.

None of these things are Objectively Bad Problems that the show itself should be shamed for...but maybe they're genuinely not your cup of tea.

It does have actual Adult Content beyond "the existence of gay people." This show loves to swing barely-clothed cartoon genitalia in your face. There is, as mentioned, an orgy monster. If that kind of humor is going to bother you too much to appreciate the rest of the show, give it a pass.

I wasn't kidding about how realistic the homophobes are. Opening of the first episode has a guy trying to murder a busload of people while shouting slurs at them. If that level of hatred on-screen is gonna crush your soul, even in a show about sparkly queens flying to the rescue with dick-shaped magical weapons, don't push yourself.

Any fiction with this much crossdressing and gender-transgressing is going to hit some trans viewers in a bad way. Because trans people are such a broad group, with so many different experiences, that Every Possible Trope Involved pushes somebody's buttons. (See also: "some trans readers complain about a storyline that turns out to be drawn from a trans writer's actual life experience".) If this show goes does gender things that turn out to be personally distressing for you...or even just distressing for this specific time in your life...don't feel obligated to keep watching.

It has aggressively-sassy queer characters making jokes and calling each other things that are affectionate in-context, but would not be okay coming from straight/cis people. If you can't wrap your head around that, go watch something else.

Other Than That, Go Watch This Show

For all its big heart, big ambitions, and big gay energy, Super Drags is tiny enough that I've binged the whole show 2 times in the past 2 weeks. Thankfully, it's highly re-watchable -- lots of fun background gags and subtle foreshadowing that you don't catch on the first round.

(Pausing one last time to appreciate that a show with elements like "the high-tech robot assistant is called D.I.L.D.O." can be subtle at all, let alone be this good at it.)

I've also paged through all the fanart on Tumblr and Deviantart, looked up the single fanfic on the AO3, and started brainstorming plans to request it in Yuletide next year. Someone, please, come join me in (the English-language side of) the itty-bitty fandom for this ridiculous, glittery, over-the-top, fabulous series.

[oryu404]

Hopeless Valentine

[Link to AO3] Rogue swore on the name of every God he could think of that this was going to be the last time he’d ever take Yukino’s advice. She meant well, he’d never doubted that, but there were some things he was sure to be better off if he’d figure them out on his own. His love life was at the top of that list.

He supposed he should’ve seen it coming. All of their friends were either married, engaged, or expecting a baby. In short, they were all in serious relationships even though none of them had reached their thirties yet. He and Yukino had been the only ones left and they were fine with that. They even spent most Valentine's days together watching those sappy romance movies, armed with alcohol and snacks, laughing when the plot Rogue had predicted 5 minutes into the movie came true.

Silly, cliché, and totally unrealistic. Romance in real life was nothing like that.

He knew it was all going to change when he hung out with her one day. He could read it off her expression even before she had spoken the words. She had met someone. A young woman, tall, dark and gorgeous, who could perform magic in the kitchen, among other places. It was serious, and he’d been more than happy for her, of course he had, but now he had become that one friend.

The one with the dating history more tragic than the sinking of the Titanic. The only one who always showed up without a plus one, forever alone Rogue, and as he’d already feared his best friend was having none of it.

He tried to assure her that it was fine, joking that he’d just become the male equivalent of the crazy cat lady, but she shushed him and started a speech about how everyone deserved to find true love and that his was out there somewhere. He’d just have to find him, and the look on her face told him she’d made it her mission to make sure that he did.

He had reluctantly taken every single piece of advice from her so far, from letting her give him a makeover, to accompanying her and Minerva to the local gay bar and even getting a tinder profile. And every outcome had been a failure that exceeded the previous one.

After hours of shopping and trying out clothes that he didn’t feel comfortable in, he was finally able to convince her that his so-called “true love” would also accept him in a pair of nerdy glasses and a Star Wars hoodie. The obnoxious, loud pop music, the mixed scents of sweat, alcohol, and an overkill of body spray, and the lack of movement space caused by complete strangers brushing and grinding up against him were an instant reminder why he’d never been a fan of clubbing. And even Yukino had to admit that Tinder was a bad idea when he showed her the messages -and not to mention the pictures- he had received unsolicited.

Still, she had been able to talk him into what she’d sworn would be fun, and if it wasn’t there’d be no strings attached. The only reason he’d agreed on going speed-dating on Valentine’s Day was because she’d promised to get off his case after this. Besides, it wasn’t like he had something better to do anyway. He’d only have to spend about 10 minutes with each candidate, and he could just voice his opinion about them on the scorecard he was given. How bad could it be?

Bad was an understatement.

Out of all the guys that had taken place in the seat across him there hadn’t been a single one that made him lament the moment when the bell rang, signaling the encounter had ended. There��d been a man who must have been more than twice his age, one who was only interested in his cell phone, one who was so full of himself it surprised Rogue he still had room for the breadsticks, one who was actually in a relationship, just looking for “a playmate to spice things up a little,” and one who spent the full ten minutes undressing him with his eyes and wasn’t too subtle about his intentions during their conversation either.

Rogue was more than relieved when he was saved by the bell from that last one. He put on a forced and obviously faked smile when the guy got up and slipped him a piece of paper, winking as he mouthed the words “call me,” and moved on to the next table.

‘Don’t hold your breath.’

With a frown, Rogue turned to his scorecard, reviewing all the ranks he had assigned to his dates until now.

How interested would you be in a second date?

1: I can’t wait!

2: Willing to give it a chance

3: Maybe

4: Not my type

He added a fifth 4 to his list, scratching it into the paper as big and bold as he could without puncturing through it. He wanted to make sure there was no mistaking what his answer to this one was.

It dawned on him that there was only one more possible match left, and that made him both relieved and disappointed. Not that he’d had high expectations for tonight, he just thought it would be nice to have a click with someone again. His last relationship had ended years ago, and although he’d tried it a few times in college, one night stands weren’t really his cup of tea. Was he really that picky? Unlucky, perhaps? Or maybe this whole dating and romance thing just wasn’t meant for him?

“Hey, good evening!”

Rogue snapped out of his thoughts when his last date sat down, the number 8 was written on his tag. He looked…promising? At least he seemed to be well within an age range Rogue would say was acceptable. At first glance, he came off as friendly, and he wasn’t that hard on the eyes either. So far, so good.

“Hey, uhm…nice to meet you, I guess?”

I guess? Very smooth.

“Same! I gotta tell you, I’m not that good at small talk, but-“ the guy held up his finger to excuse himself and sneezed into a napkin, “sorry…”

“Bless you. And no problem.”

“So I’m not that good at small talk and I’m just going to be very unoriginal and ask you how you’d describe the perfect date?”

Very unoriginal indeed, Rogue had to agree, but it lent itself for a much more comfortable conversation than the ones he’d had prior to this. This was already going better than he had dared to hope for at this point.

“You’re going to get an unoriginal answer as well,” he admitted sheepishly, “I don’t really mind where I am or what I’m doing as long as I’m with someone I enjoy spending time with, but if I had to pick something I’d say dinner and a movie. Very basic, I know.”

“That’s fine, basic doesn’t automatically have to mean boring, right?” Mr. 8 waved to one of the waiters who was nearby, asking for two more glasses of wine after he’d noticed Rogue’s empty glass. He sneezed again.

“Right. Well since we’re already on a streak of being unoriginal, What do you like to do in your free time? ”

“Nothing special, just hanging out with friends, watch some movies, play some games. It looks like we’re both really good at being unoriginal,” he laughed, followed by yet another sneeze. He blinked a couple of times and then started rubbing at his eyes.

“Okay, so weird question, but do you happen to have a cat?”

“Yeah, I do,” Rogue nodded. “Would that be a problem?”

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid so. I’m extremely allergic to anything that has fur,” Mr. 8 got up, sneezing once more as he searched through his pockets. “I think I’d better take my allergy pills, be right back!”

He left for the men’s room, leaving Rogue to sigh deeply as he watched his departure.

“Sure,” he mumbled, filling in the final 4 on his scorecard right before the bell rang for the final time.

So that was it. He’d wasted a large part of his Saturday afternoon in a restaurant he’d normally never set foot in. At least the wine was good and drinks had already been included in the signup costs. And since he was now presented with two glasses of it, and doubted that Mr. 8 would be returning he’d resigned himself that he’d be wasting even more of his time here. He had gotten all dressed up anyway.

“Hi, mind if I joined you?”

Rogue was surprised, and more than confused when the seat at the other side of his table was suddenly taken. A spotless white button-up and a badge that had the restaurant’s logo and the name Sting on it told him it was one of the waiters who had been serving them. Dumbstruck, Rogue scanned his scorecard, hoping that it would give him any hint to what was going on, but all the blank spaces had been filled in by him already.

“…Now?” he questioned. He left the card for what it was and focused his attention back to his newly acquired company. “But…isn’t the event over already? And aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“The event is over and so is my shift, but there’s still half a Valentine’s Day left so I thought, since all of your dates have been kind of disastrous, I should make up for it. Something along the lines of…dinner and a movie?”

Rogue was speechless. “ Make up for it,” for him to state that with such conviction, as if he was going to be the redeeming factor of the train wreck that had been Rogue’s first- and decisively last- attempt at speed dating slash Valentine’s Day. Not that he’d even have to bring much to the table to improve the whole situation, as his -for lack of a better term- competition had set the bar pretty damn low, but the out-of-the-blue proposal was more than intriguing. There was a strangely irresistible charm to his cockiness, and good looks weren’t Rogue’s top requirement or anything, but fuck he was seriously cute.

“So… what do you say?”

Oh, right. He might want to answer.

“Uhm… sure?”

“Cool!” Sting chugged the whole glass of wine in front of him in one go, then started to untie the apron around his waist as he got up. “But not here though, my coworkers can be such a pain in the ass. Give me like five minutes to change and get my stuff, I’ll be right back!” he beamed, and just like that he was gone again.

Rogue stared off into space for what must have been a full minute, trying to process what had just happened. He pinched himself, and yes, he definitely felt that, so he hadn’t just made that all up and he was about to go on a real date for the first time in God knows how long. On Valentine’s Day. With someone he had just met minutes ago, without even a proper introduction.

On the one hand, he didn’t have much to lose, and it couldn’t get much worse from here. On the other, he found himself hoping he wouldn’t fuck this up, with no reason to explain this feeling that made any sense.

His wine met the same fate as Sting’s had, tossed back like a tequila shot at a frat party.

As he turned in his number tag and scorecard to the speed-dating event runners, panic and excitement were playing a game of tug-o-war with him, with no clear winner emerging from the battle until Sting came running through the staff door, dressed in plain dark jeans and a Star Wars hoodie.

“I hope you don’t mind that I’m horribly underdressed compared to you? If I’d known I would be going on a date after work I would’ve made a bigger effort.”

Rogue didn’t mind at all. He was thrilled to learn they seemed to have at least one common interest, and with a bright smile he replied what was supposed to be “You look fine, I wish I wasn’t wearing these clothes,” but because of his sudden excitement he tripped over the words and it came out as “It’s fine if you’re not wearing clothes.”

He felt his face heat up like a frying pan. How he’d managed a fuckup of this magnitude after just five fucking minutes was beyond him, but this would go down as one of those moments he’d still feel embarrassed about when it replayed in his head and kept him up at night.

It would be great if the earth could just open up and swallow him whole.

“Wait- NO, I didn’t mean-”

He tried to do some damage control but gave up when Sting burst into laughter, and against all Rogue’s expectations, he wasn’t the least bit deterred.

“Come on, let’s get out of here before the only place we can still get a table will be McDonald’s,” he grinned, linking their arms so he could lead a still rebounding Rogue towards the exit.

As he followed Sting out of the restaurant Rogue couldn’t help but be enthralled by this unforeseen development, and he wondered how Yukino was going to react to it.

Actually, no, that was a lie. He knew exactly how she was going to react to it. She was going to grill him, tease him, and pry as many details out of him as she could, and he had no idea if it was intuition or just wishful thinking, but he hoped he’d have a lot to tell her once he had fumbled himself through tonight.

[comicteaparty]

June 20th-June 26th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from June 20th, 2020 to June 26th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

What is something you’re just not very good at right now writing and/or drawing in general?

Deo101 [Millennium]

mysteries. 100% I can not write mysteries!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

ears

Deo101 [Millennium]

the connection between legs and torso. No not hips, I can draw hips fine, but like the movement aspect of it

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Action scenes. Orchestrating fights or big motions on the page... it doesn’t come naturally to me! I have to look at a lot of reference to see how other artists do it. Impact shapes, speed lines, anything to convey movement...

But I am slowly building a vocabulary of... fight shapes? I’m calling them fight shapes, haha

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I feel that

Your feeling I feel deeply

"visual library" is a term that comes to mind

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Composition. I just talked about this earlier today, but.... yup. Composition is my bane.

Mitzi (Trophallaxis)

I'd like to get better at writing in general. I have a lot of trouble verbalizing things I see in my head, and so I gotta rely on images and thumbnails to get any idea across, sometimes. otherwise im a windbag and use 5000 words to say 0-1 things, lmao

carcarchu

I have trouble writing simply. I always want to embellish, add extra details, more characters and make everything more complicated and i worry it ends up making things unnecessarily convoluted

Drawing-wise i hate drawing hands

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The legit thing I am worse at writing is fucking

Deo101 [Millennium]

omg

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

essays to convince people to hire me

Deo101 [Millennium]

OH OKAY

WAY TO CUT IT OFF

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

YEAH

Mitzi (Trophallaxis)

OH

carcarchu

let her finish deo

Mitzi (Trophallaxis)

comedic timing at its finest

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

omg

I was very confused for a sec(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

but seriously like speaking of filling gaps this is what I'm legit struggling most with right now so any help much appreciated

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

raises hand

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I need to write a personal statement and every time I sit down to edit I want to die

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I volunteer as tribute

writing is basically the only thing I'm really good at

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

It's not the writing I hate

It's the writing about me

carcarchu

is that the thing where you have to write in 3rd person? like those blurb things on people's websites?(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

It just feel so gross whoring out my deeply held passions and struggles for a spot in med school

No I'm talking about college essays lmao sorry for derailing

The blurb things are an interesting topic though!

Have you guys writtent those before and does anyone actually like writing them?

carcarchu

i had to write a blurb about myself for my university's website and yeah it was uncomfy

lemme see if i can find it

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I HATE writing those

because I just start like, "Crona J. is an artist and writer from Chicago......." And I have no idea how to continue

Deo101 [Millennium]

god yeah even just writing a profile or about me is hard enough!!!

I'm always like "deo - 22 - she/her - illustrator - webcomic author - student" and then i leave it

thats it thats all you get

depending on the platform i MIGHT put bi - disabled and thats it!!!!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yeah

half of the stuff I write doesn't even feel relevant to the audience either

who cares that I have been drawing since I was 12 lol?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Mate I don't even write those. My bio is like "UCSD" "Read my comic"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

hahaha

Deo101 [Millennium]

I also always feel like when I see "ive been drawing since I was 5!" I kinda think like... well everyone has been -_- like this doesnt tell me anything, how long have you been an aspiring pro, how long have you been studying art...? that tells me more

so I never put that kind of stuff in my biod either

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yeah, and also, I didn't go to prestigious school, so I don't even include my college

and I only have one comic project so far, just under a chapter

so what do I write?

Not that important an issue, but irksome nonetheless

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I don't include my school because it's prestigious, I include it because it's not an art college

Deo101 [Millennium]

owch

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I want fellow stem-y yet artsy people from my school to recognize me as one of them(edited)

DEO stop interupptung me at the worst points!!

Deo101 [Millennium]

i love jumping to conclusions. so no.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

If it's a bio where I can talk about the comics, I try to spotlight a few tropes/genres that'll catch the eye of potential readers. Not a full-fledged summary, just a quick hit of If You Like These Words, You'll Probably Like Reading It. ("Fantasy, comedy, shapeshifters, PTSD, time travel, cats")

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

And if it's gonna be personal, same deal with bits of personal info -- not trying to be a Comprehensive Biography, just pulling a few details that are relatable connection points

The problem with "I've always wanted to be a writer/artist/cartoonist" isn't just how generic it is, the problem is also the vibe of "here's my thing, your role in this is to support me"

Whereas if you say something like "I like drawing cute girls and writing fantasy," the response can be "oh hey, I like seeing cute girls and reading fantasy, tell me more!"

Or if you go with "Sailor Moon fan, will put extra cheese on everything," people can go "cool, that's relatable, we can like Sailor Moon and cheese together." It gets at your shared investment in a fun thing, it's not about expecting them to be personally invested in you

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think perhaps the most fundamental thing is "you can't please everyone." I've never liked the 'random food related weird tidbit tacked on' thing because it feels too try-hardish to me, but I understand for other people, it's not a matter of trying too hard and is genuinely how they just talk.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Oh definitely, you hold out for a bio that connects with everyone and you'll never get it done

AntiBunny

Personally I'm not great at drawing cars. It's why all my cars early on in the comic were side view only, and old blocky looking things. It was all I could do. I've been getting better by using references.

Every so often I buy a little hotweels or matchbox car when I'm buying groceries. I aim for realistic ones based on real vehicles, especially utility vehicles like ice cream trucks, ambulances, fire trucks, and whatnot you'd see every day in a city. I keep a little box of them on my desk, so if the scene calls for a car to be visible, I have a reference that can help me get all the curves and angles right.

Sure beats drawing from memory, but also practice time in the sketchbook with them is a necessity.

Now crowd scenes are beginning to be my bane. Not because they're hard to draw, just because they're time consuming.

Suddenly I realize why old episodes of Sailor Moon has cities with people free sidewalks and empty streets.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's a great idea, gathering the model cars! I should do that for a future comic.

kayotics

I also struggle with cars so, uh, my comic takes place in fantasy 1700-1800s

But also horses are bad too

Cars and horses! They suck

Deo101 [Millennium]

do what I did and make up an easier animal to draw than a horse ;)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Vehicles in general. Should just put everyone on roller blades and be done with it

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'd lov that tbh

kayotics

I’ve considered making something other than horses......

Deo101 [Millennium]

I highly encourage it, the people love it and also so does my brain

kayotics

Or else lean into them being ugly

Deo101 [Millennium]

heres the trick about horses though they look really weird and as small as you make their legs, when you think "this is way too thin..." youre wrong and their ankles are probably smaller than that

kayotics

The thing that gets me is their faces

Deo101 [Millennium]

... mask

kayotics

Hahaha

I should just make deer the normal mode of transport

Deo101 [Millennium]

that would be really cute tbh

kayotics

I love deer and they’re cute

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Just exaggerate them to the point where it looks like a style choice

Your people already have unrealistic proportions

Why not the horses too

kayotics

That’s how I draw buildings tbh because I hate buildings

Deo101 [Millennium]

I also gave horses dog mouths, maybe do something like that? someone can be like "horses dont look like that?" and as long as youre consistent you can say "they do in this world!!!"

kayotics

Oh god no that’s like a devil creature

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah they look horrible but its fun

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I legit remember saying that to you deo lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

ive had dog horse for years you didnt give me this

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Not the they look horrible part

kayotics

I’ve already got beasts, I don’t need horses to look WORSE than they did

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Bwah I remember

Time to archive dig(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I love dog horse

kayotics

Honestly it’s good but they scare me

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah... maybe instead give them cat mouths

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

https://discordapp.com/channels/472908933045026827/634081658018070549/688589449562423422

wait omg this is the message that led to your first dm to me lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

is it??? omg i think it is... historical moment

dog horse brings us together

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Another point to convince kay to draw uncanny animals!

Deo101 [Millennium]

what I do to make birds fun to draw is making them sparkly

maybe try that

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

god you're gonna ruin kay's carefully crafted aesthetic

is this your competitiveness showing its face again(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

they can make it work! why do you doubt their abilities

make this the main mode of transport

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

ah is that how it works in that case i have 10 shitty indie game ideas

make them pls

Deo101 [Millennium]

implying my ideas are shitty??? rude!

kayotics

I have an aesthetic?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Or if you want to be very efficient, everyone in universe can teleport

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

lmao you have an excellent aesthetic

crona

i do that already

kayotics

Crona.... that’s my comic already!! Haha

Deo101 [Millennium]

kay does also have teleporting to be clear

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

don't underestimate my laziness!

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAO

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

See

It must be great advice

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh crap you're right kay also does have teleporting

and unrealistic beasts, to be fair

kayotics

Sometimes on the same page

That’s the eyes I draw on the beasts

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Or be even lazier, and make it so that horses and beasts either don't exist or haven't been domesticated in that region. Everyone walks. Their feet hurt, but their calves are glorious.

Deo101 [Millennium]

you get it

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

wait crona and deo also have comics where teleportation could exist

will you join us?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol, yup

Deo101 [Millennium]

nope

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

(nah, I've already drawn horses. They're not so bad if you stare at photos)

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

drawing horses is fun!!

[multiple people are typing]

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

And there will also be hella walking, because the leg game must be strong, otherwise I'm not doing my job

Deo101 [Millennium]

ive decided that millennium is like really in the future but things like time travel, teleportation, warp speed... nope! You can go really fast in a spaceship but like nothin crazy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

man these planets real close together then

or maybe people just live a really long time ...?

Deo101 [Millennium]

I just do my version of teleporting which is "wow it'll take a week to get there" and then its a week later

dont worry about it

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

nice

Deo101 [Millennium]

its not realistic, but its consistent

🌈ERROR404 🌈

ahhhh horses are really nice to draw imo, if i can get it right lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

I like drawing horses a lot I just never do it tbh

🌈ERROR404 🌈

something needs to fuel my addiction to cowboy culture

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Consistency is key tbh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I just do my version of teleporting which is "wow it'll take a week to get there" and then its a week later

when my whole comic takes place in like a week lmao

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

if you decide that gravity doesn't exist in your world, as log as you're consistent with it, you're golden

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

in the unlikely event i get tired of drawing my comic i can adopt deo's strat "wow it'll take a week to get to the ending"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

My comic takes place in about a year (not counting flashbacks which span... uh... a very long time)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

"man sure seems like this conflict will take approximately a week to be resolved" "one week later"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

hahaha

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

"sure did get resolved"

the end

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

convenient

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i wonder if anyone's done that

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One Korean series I followed for years did it

and everyone was pissed, as you can imagine

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

better than cancellation?

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

what a way to go

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'd honestly have preferred cancellation/ abandonment

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Just have a fan finish it for you at that rate lmao

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

OH that's a good discussion topic. If you got tired of your comic, or life got in the the way of you working on it anymore, how would you end it as quickly as possible?

Deo101 [Millennium]

maybe rephrase that a little

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I would toss it at my little sis, and she would do it for me, no joke

Deo101 [Millennium]

My little sister also would probably take over it for me

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

let's move to general?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

eyyy!

Deo101 [Millennium]

but also I could just be like "They got an email that john died of old age its over now"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

MVP sisters!

lol

an email

what a way to end it

eliushi [Keyspace]

For me it’s panels. Past me thought that the four panel structure would make things easy. Nope. It’s limiting how I want to tell the story so... I’m trying to branch out now and looking for other inspirations for panel and layout

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Just change the shape of your panels. It forces you to be creative.

eliushi [Keyspace]

True true! I have those in upcoming updates

But my heart swoons for the page spreads

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

oh yes

They are so gorgeous, but difficult to plan

eliushi [Keyspace]

Initially I was planning on storyboards but now I’m more comfortable with comics I think I’ll be aiming for traditional layouts

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, storyboards are an entirely different beast

Desnik

I'm currently working on clearly portraying character motivation

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I think for me I don't draw animals often and rip have to draw a few for the upcoming pages so I'm just doing my best at this point lol

AntiBunny

Panel arrangement is the heart of comics as an art form. It takes practice, and study to learn how the eye flows from one thing to the next.

And once you have a thorough understanding of the rules you can learn how to carefully break them to produce something truly eye catching.

If I had to say the simplest rule to understanding flow is, if you need arrows to tell you which direction to read, then you're doing something wrong.

DanitheCarutor

This is candy for my self-deprecating mentality. Lol Honestly though. I'm not the best at writing in general, I don't like doing it physically, avoiding it at all cost (outside of dialogue and poorly done bullet points on scrap paper.) so I don't really know if/think I'm particularly good at it. I remember the last time I tried to physically write something was back in high school, I still have it saved on my computer, but it was something else. Too many dialogue scenes and overly detailed descriptions of things and characters. I only made it a little ways before giving up with "You know, this will be easier to just show than describe.". Story and character wise for my current comic, I'm not sure how well it's turning out or how good it will be in the end, my brain defaults my work to mediocre so I tend to be totally blind to what I'm doing right. I know my characters aren't the best for sure since they're all fleshy flaw bags with too many flaws, and I know I could have presented certain scene changes and such better, but that's all I can think of objectively. The art portion is something I at least know I can execute decently, but my color composition is the worst. I'm aware that I need to improve it, and I know what needs to be done, but it's something I can't really accomplish with my comic since I just want to focus on finishing pages. I'll have to make time to draw up some throw-away illustrations to experiment with, which I hope to have a little bit of now that I'm not on a regular update schedule. Also I can't draw vehicles and architecture for the life of me, I've referenced and studied but I still can't wrap my head around it. ALSO extreme angles and perspectives are still things I need work on, like 4-point circular perspective, ground level shots and over the head shots.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There's a lot of things I want to improve, but something I haven't seen mentioned yet: I would like to get better at deciphering feedback, how to glean useful things from multiple conflicting feedback.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Ooh that's a good one keii

I haven't really had to deal with that before though because all the negative feedback I've gotten is pretty consistent

Can I ask what the conflicting feedback you got is?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Oh gosh, I legit spent a long, long moment trying to figure out where to even start

eliushi [Keyspace]

I really like this approach to feedback

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yo Eli this is so good

eliushi [Keyspace]

Mary robinette is goals

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

this is spectacular already

wow

eliushi [Keyspace]

Pretty sure a wiser writer passed this onto me I have since used it a lot and it works for me

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

This is so so good Perfectly said about crits in creative fields

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One example I can think of isn't actually something that was criticized, but showed up a lot in various ways: "this is (supposed to be) an exciting adventure romp centering Danbi" vs "this is an emotional journey story centering Ethan" ... Not a criticism, but two very conflicting interpretations. People who have one interpretation are shocked and confused when I tell them about the other one.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Holy crap, Eli... This is one for the folder of absolute knowledge

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

woah, excellent advice

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

And yeah, that is a really good one. Symptoms are extremely useful, and diagnoses tend to be more useful in a conversation rather than a one-way "here is my diagnosis" thing

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I haven't heard it said before but the explaining eliminating a clean reaction rings so true to me

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Ahhh, this is literally the one document I have needed my entire life

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

also the helping someone tell the story they want

also the stream of consiousness, MAn

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I think I'll save that for my future high schoolers lol

some of the stuff said there is what I've noticed in the last few years critquing in academic settings but its nice to kno!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

People have given me stream of consciousness reactions before and they were the most helpful. Almost all the changes in the story from others' reactions were from stream of consciousness reactions, not intentional critiques

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, one of the most helpful "critique" I ever got was also completely unintentional

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

One of the most useful tips in this guide for me in particular is the "As a writer don't:" section. I struggle with it a lot.

On the note of things we are bad at in the comic-making process, I am very bad at taking critiques!(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

tbh for a long time, my biggest struggling point that's not in the "as a writer don't:" is "don't throw yourself into the void of self-hate." I'm better now, but boy, when it was bad, it was bad.

But perhaps that kinda thing better fits into "as a person don't:"

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I am pretty good at taking critiques, but pretty bad at giving critiques! Right now the point I'm at is I'm just gonna not give critiques until I'm more mature

But then after I decided that an amateur writer friend told me his story idea that I not only disliked but was sort of offended by

and I really wanted to tell him but I didn't know how to do it nicely...

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

ooof

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

oh no

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yeah, that's really tough

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip I tend to do kinda a sandwich method. I had to say some rough things few days ago on a practice pitch run and I pretty much said

Deo101 [Millennium]

Uh oh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

"Your idea is developing for sure, but I think you need to reconsider some of the world building choices you done. Have you thought of researching such and such."

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

That's basically what I said

But I think I had to say "research ffs" in increasing intensity like 3 times lol

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh, nice, the "let's give them compliments too so that they know I'm not just being mean" method

It's a good method tbh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Rip it's not that like

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Deo might have something to say about this but it was about schizophrenics in a mental institution being portrayed in a real weird way by someone who didn't know anything about it(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Ooof

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ah man

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

ewww

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'll always stand by "asking people who've lived what you're writing about is the best form of research and can't be replaced"

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Yeah I would said the to the person consider researching more on the topic and interview folks who have schizophrenia

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Dude I brought you up lmao

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and also like "is there a reason you want to depict it this way?"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

oooh

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I know I'm agreeing idk... Idk what else I'd have to say on the topic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's a very good question to ask someone

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and depending on their responses, I would just put my two scents in there that rip

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I always ask "what are your goals?" Before I ask anything else

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

critiques are kinda my strong point sinc eLMAO I do em all the time in my class

and teaching so yeah LOL

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Deo I mean I brought you up to this guy like saying "my friend messaged people online and they were super willing to talk to her you could do that"

Deo101 [Millennium]

OHHHHH gotcha

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I try my best to figure out what they want out of it and just deliever with some handful of suggestions

but I won't sugarcoat it unless you're a high school student or younger lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I'm often told I'm a lil too harsh but like idk

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I wouldn't say sugar coating it per say... More just telling them what their strengths are too, so that they have an idea of where they're at

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

telling someone their strengths is just as useful as telling them their flaws

that way they can highlight them

like just because you story has no flaws doesn't mean it's good right?

gotta have stuff that stands out in a good way as well

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Someone once phrased it as "Let's list everything that's wrong here, and find out how we can fix them" vs "How do we take this to the next level?" and that really resonated with me. It's not about sugarcoating; it's more about helping them get to the next level in the direction they wanna go.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

THIS

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I try to point out things that are going well, and I usually try to only point at things that ppl can work on immediately

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I should phrase my statement more clearly. But yeah Kei that's what I usually look for when critiquing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There's often no need to tell them "your writing is only at level 3, and that's bad because the max level is 99." Just tell them how to get to level 4.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I dont' see it like its something bad but something that is challenging to them at the time

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Unless they have extremely unrealistic expectations or whatever that are standing in their own way

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

just have to figure out how to get out of the hump

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yep. I see this phenomenon in animation a lot. A good animation director will help you boost your existing work to something stronger, but still yours. A bad one will tell you to do it their way, and chide you for doing it ‘wrong.’

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

rip I know a person like that and lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yessssss

That's why I always ask "what are your goals" to start

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yup

🌈ERROR404 🌈

I totally agree!!!! A LOT of the most important bits of great criticism is understanding exactly where the original creator was intending to go, and formatting your statements around helping them achieve that!!!!!!!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Critiques are impossible if you don't know what the person is trying to achieve

🌈ERROR404 🌈

Just stating things that you would change if you were making it may seem useful and relevant to you the critic, but unless the creator is headed the exact same direction as you, they have just as much reason to invalidate the entire statement as they do to nit pick out the things they care to agree with

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Sometimes a prospective critic is simply too far removed from the target audience of the work, like on a fundamental level, and it makes it impossible to give them useful feedback. I think it's important to acknowledge that this can happen. It happens to me a lot and I just decline to give crits when it does.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, like don't ask me to critique a comic about sports lmao

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I agree on that notion, esepcially when seeing professional aritsts giving crits to folks starting out but it doesn't go as er ideal as they thought it would be

Deo101 [Millennium]

That's why I usually only seek out criticsm (for more than just general direction/advice) from people who's work I like

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I remember reading advice on getting beta readers, and it’s really REALLY important that they’re excited for your stuff. They want to make it better. They care. They can give critique, but they absolutely must be jazzed about your subject matter in some way, or else it’ll be a slog for everyone.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

for me, I have my peers who I contact daily and we give each other advice, tips

despite having er difference interests in fields, but we experienced a lot in our program lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes... (Speaking of if anyone wanted to beta read my next comic uhhhh let me know id love to have u)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

very good point claire

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

100 percent agree Get people who are excited and know your vision

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I have a small group of writer friends who know all my goals and a lot of my stuff? So they make a very good little critique circle, and we all help eachother

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm always ready to beta read if it's a concept I enjoy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like people who critique comics they hate. I'm like, damn, tough work but also ?? why

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

(Be careful about people who are excited about what they think is your vision.............)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Fish is this a callout for me

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

slightly?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ahsjfkdjdkskdjdjdj

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Keii I experienced the oppisisite like rip

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

it's just mystifying to me, I don't think it's wrong or anything

Deo101 [Millennium]

Also crona I'll send u when I'm at my comp

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

sure

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

What do you mean Tuyetnhi?

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Ohh that would be oof to deal with Kei

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I had to let a person down to reality bc I know they're excited about their idea but uhhhh

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

(Is it the fish romance?)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it wasn't engaging to me

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes that one qjdjfkskdkk

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

nor my illustration friends

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I don’t have beta readers but I think that’s how it all goes lol

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

and we were like

"AAAAAAA"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Oh that's awkward

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Ooooooohhhhhhh... oof

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I have a couple friends I send pages to sometimes but they're always really positive about it

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

It was a rough critique

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Having creative friend circles is so essential for growth and screaming at eachothers works for motivation too

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yessss

Also just the ability to talk about your process without having to explain yourself

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

agreed lol

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I occasionally tap my fiance's shoulder and shove my sketches in his face with zero context, just to make sure he can figure out what's going on without me explaining. Super helpful

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I feel like I have a couple friends where, when I read their stuff, I know things that would amp their work up tenfold. But until they ask me... I’m screaming inside lol

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

my friend always makes me feel like i'm a better writer than i am because she thinks so much like me she gets everything i write perfectly lol. But then I post and the comments are like "wtf i'm confused"(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah feedback is most effective when both sides are open and invested

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Claire Senpai Wants To Help

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

also same crona(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

It’s not bad, I just go I THINK I CAN HELP YOU MAKE IT AWESOMER AHHHHHH

eliushi [Keyspace]

Claire senpaiiii

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

But until then I remain still and supportive

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

why don't you ask them "can i suggest things?"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I try and keep my mouth shut

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

or "do you want suggestions?"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol

eliushi [Keyspace]

I usually say what I like about it first and then. Are you looking for feedback?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Tbh hearing "can I suggest things?" Usually comes off kinda like "I see stuff wrong with this :)" which can hurt a little even then

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

YEeeeah

🌈ERROR404 🌈

At least for my comic, i have sent bits and pieces for critique from creators i am friends with , but i'm really hesitant promoting myself because I don't feel like I'm not at a place to even get a critique i'll be able to make anything of. O(--( i really don't know what I'd do if someone tried to seriously analyze my plot and break down the story right now

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

It's really hard, because a lot of people (myself included) get scared when someone else asks, "Do you need help?"

Deo101 [Millennium]

I usually trust ppl to say whether they're looking for feedback

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Its always so tricky to gague the reactions of that. Some people handle that better than others So i only offer when they open up

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Based on how people can get about even the offer of critique, yeah, I tend not to say anything. That’s their baby. If they want to open that door, then I’ll poke my head in

eliushi [Keyspace]

True too. I’m already in forums where feedback is wanted so I’m already in selection bias

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, I like to only offer crits if someone is asking for it for that reason

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

for the record i'm always open to critiques

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

kinda mutal agreement on don't chime in unless asked lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, at least in my groups we send things like "hey this and this are bothering me? Can you help?" And other than that it's just support

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, that's a good idea

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

for both parties. For me, If it's something that I need thoughts I ask but otherwise, lmao my social circles ask me for help for their art stuff

Deo101 [Millennium]

We never agreed on that btw it's just kinda how it goes

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

That's a nice group way to handle that AND make the space more breathable for others who are more nervous about crit work

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

exactly

eliushi [Keyspace]

There’s a time and place for everything and feedback is no different

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah! Like here we have seperate chats for help and sharing

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yuss

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

When someone asks me if I'm open to suggestions, my reaction is usually "nOOoooOo..." but not always. I think it helps a ton if there's an existing rapport, like if I already know this person gets, REALLY gets, my work.

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

And that's okay Keii!

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah I’m super thankful for my betas for that

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yee same

eliushi [Keyspace]

It’s very rewarding when people are also invested in your work to make it better within your means and style

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Honestly u gotta do whats best for u and ur mindset in the end.

Deo101 [Millennium]

It also is a little but awkward to say "no I'm not open to suggestions' cause it feels like you're saying "I don't care to improve" when in reality it's more like "no... I'm happy with this and I don't want it to be soured"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I love the fact that if I post in #creator_art_share, nobody will critique me unless I ask. And if I post in #art_help, I can get that help. So incredibly nice

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yes! Thats very respectful

eliushi [Keyspace]

So key

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Omg Deo.....such a mood LOL

Deo101 [Millennium]

I always feel so bad saying no thanks but it's like it looked good I thought

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

omg, I felt that in my soul

We beat ourselves up enough as it is

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Sometimes i know my work can be farty but... I dont also want perfection in every facet of my pieces too and thats okay! Some are learning pieces, others more indulgent

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I think I'd be very hesitant to accept ideas that will utterly break my core plot... unless someone comes out and outright tells me something about it is offensive or wrong or otherwise bad. But critique on the connective tissue between the bones, so to speak, heck yes. I've gotten some much better ideas from that.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

e.e even if i post in art share i would be honored to receive a critique from any of you

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Oh, if someone comes to me with suggestions that are that incompatible with my vision, I'm getting outta there.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

but i don't wanna post every single thing i do in art help hm

but maybe i should

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I am SO getting outta there.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I did had some suggestions that didn't... really help with my comic most of it are just comments and not pure criticism

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Just post it lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah it's probably best to leave crit in the crit section so as not to break that unspoken rule.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

To signal to the rest of us

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yea your vision is key, and i find that people who crit the work need a basic understanding of it for it to be a True Crit

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Yeah it's probably best to leave crit in the crit section so as not to break that unspoken rule.

good point

i wouldn't want people critiquing me to make others feel like it's okay to do that to everyone

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

A good attitude!!! Y'all are very respectable this is a wonderful topic

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeee

eliushi [Keyspace]

I think the best feedback is one where it makes your work become more effective within your vision. Sometimes it’s finding the betas who are invested but I also find betas who focus on different crafts also can offer a lot of wisdom. I find it comes down to being open and it’s never a bad thing to ask for clarification

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

[also writes this down for a potential lesson actvity for high schoolers] (edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, a critique is supposed to help the work become a better version of itself, not a better [something else]

Deo101 [Millennium]

Mostly with true beta reading I am looking for "how clear is my work coming off to someone who knows nothing of my lore and backstory etc?"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I like the idea of having at least one beta reader who's a writer, and at least one who's not. The writer can dissect things a bit more than a 'civilian' could while the civilian can look at surface-level things and react as the audience majority might.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

multiple beta readers are a blessing lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

Cause with my friends, they already know everything I'm planning, so i worry a lot that they are putting together things that a regular reader wouldn't

So yeah same thing as a "civilian" reader, sort of!

eliushi [Keyspace]

For sure. Within my critique group I have novelists, webcomic creators and artists. Those who read the complete script and those who haven’t. It’s important to have all sides I find

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Dang you people with your luxury of multiple beta readers... I don't even have one (but it's mostly my fault; my scripts are unreadable)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

omg lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i'm sure you could use many of us as beta readers if you wanted to!

varethane

that surface-level 'first gut reaction' crit can be SO useful

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I change dialogue too frequently for a beta reader to have a fair chance, lol

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I started early with one years ago, but now I have like 5-10ish but they can't help me at the same time lmao

varethane

I agree upthread with when it was said that some of the most helpful crit was given unintentionally lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

same. i asked some people, including deo and crona, for a beta read of a script a while back but then ended up changing most of it lol(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

Most of my betas I found in forums like these! I’m sure a lot of us want to help each other out!

Deo101 [Millennium]

I usually only share stuff once I have at least a solid sketch and dialogue is in

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

so much changes in the thumbnail/layout stage for me. SO MUCH. whole scenes get swapped/cut/extended

I never keep it the same way

Deo101 [Millennium]

I don't like to share scripts cause also I don't usually script much anyways lol

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) As a long-time reader of HoK, I would be more than happy to beta read if you ever wanted it. Just throwing that out there!

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

same Lazuli like

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I'd love to beta read for anyone too

varethane

I prefer sharing sketched pages because my scripts usually change SO much in between being written and going onto the page

like, sometimes they're outright unrecognizable

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

@Deo101 [Millennium] Same. The couple times I really wasn't unsure about a scene, I had to find someone and give them cleaned up thumbnails

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I don't share more than sketched pages with dialogue

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

SUPER cleaned up thumbnails

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

from thumbnail to final, like they aren't the same from before lmao

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Most helpful critique for me was just someone engaging with the story. "Man I love - and -, they're such good friends, but - pisses me the fuck off" and that was my intention, but i realized it was coming on a bit stronger than i liked and changed the next scene dramatically to make a future plot point where the last character needs to be trusted feel more earned(edited)

varethane

(anyone who seriously is down for beta reading, I have 3 finished chapters burning a hole in my buffer hhnnnnggggg)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah cause also like, 80% of the crit is usually "well this paneling is unclear" kind of stuff too

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

also i don't mind if anyone is asking me to beta read

Deo101 [Millennium]

Which you can't do from a script anyways

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

or (I don't usually do this often but)

I'm also a sensitivity beta reader too

so if you have questions about POC stuff, asian-american, er mixed-asian or mixed-black experiences

I'm willing to help lmao

but i'm just one perspective to the table

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

A lot of comments, not critiques, have influenced scenes I put later too. Things to clarify, expand, emphasize. I take every comment like that as an idea. I love knowing what the readers hope to learn.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I’m in the midst of a 180k plus word count novel beta and alphaing a couple works but once that’s all done, happy to take a look too

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

holy

Deo101 [Millennium]

Wowie

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Getting trustful beta readers i gotta say again is so important bc sometimes when asking for some, u run into betas that are there to just exploit that privilege too (tho rare) And!!!! Be respectful of ur betas on the other side of the spectrum

Deo101 [Millennium]

Exploit how?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like to read your work early?

eliushi [Keyspace]

Definitely pick your betas wisely

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Usually just the free ride of Knowing the Story or the opportunity to just Constantly Crit (non helpful) bc of personal reasons

Deo101 [Millennium]

Damn

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I'm imagining having someone sneak in as a beta and reveal they're a rabid toxic fan trying to influence the plot to their liking. As an absolute worst scenario

Deo101 [Millennium]

Spooky

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yea.... There's def ppl out there that would do that THOUGH RARE again. I think that's more of like Competition in the field or spite? But ive heard it happening and its not cool

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like people just looking for a free ticket to complain about your work?

i can see that

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Oh yeah, I had folks like that before

after that I'm just like "thank you for your time" and block them after LMAO

Deo101 [Millennium]

That sucks :(

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

hhhhhhh

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yea And u can always tell a sincere crit from a one that comes from a place of malice and ill intent pretty easy.

eliushi [Keyspace]

Exactly

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

oof

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Still!!! A horrible experience

Deo101 [Millennium]

:< yeah

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah.. I've never had anything like that happen, but wow... that's a terrifying notion

eliushi [Keyspace]

You tend to want to know your betas more than just them being a reader too. I like to think my betas are my friends and it’s a two way street where I help them too

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Some betas sign papers of confidentiality to avoid these instances of people running off with ur work too

eliushi [Keyspace]

There are paid betas but that’s business side and yeah Krispy

Deo101 [Millennium]

/stress

eliushi [Keyspace]

I don’t have them for mine

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Its scary bc we're all so small and our work is mainly for free U have to be wary of this

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I could easily see myself getting sucked into a bad situation like that I trust people too easily sometimes

but ugh... ya gotta learn

eliushi [Keyspace]

It’s good to know the risks. That being said, I think the rewards of having a good beta far exceed the bad apples. You have to set good boundaries

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Not that any of yall would do this omgjghg

Deo101 [Millennium]

Same Claire ajdjdnsdjjjdjdjdjddj

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

gonna steal all y'alls IDEAS

eliushi [Keyspace]

It’s also totally valid to say, hey something came up and I can’t beta anymore

Key is communication

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

lmao ya gotta kill me for my ideas

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Isossn Watch out for that Claire lady

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

https://tenor.com/view/laugh-giggle-mutley-dick-dastardly-snicker-gif-5552702

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Omg Eli yesssSSSSS that!!! Is important for both creator and beta to have that communication

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh no, my precious ideas!!!

Deo101 [Millennium]

Eh even if u steal my ideas you can never steal my characterizations!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

just steal everything and make a horrible hodgepodge of all of our webcomics, like some sick frankenstein's monster

Deo101 [Millennium]

I don't think my ideas are the best part of my stories anyways :P

Ahsjdjfjdjfjdjfjdififiididkfkdje Frankensteins webcomic

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

my ideas are relevant to my cultural background so I'm like lmao

eliushi [Keyspace]

I learned from my novel days that ideas are dime and dozen and it’s the execution that counts(edited)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I would actually love that tbh

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Oh no id read it tho XD

Deo101 [Millennium]

Massive crossover event

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

YES

PLEASE

eliushi [Keyspace]

Super smash bros when

varethane

lmao

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

hahaha

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I really want people going into healthcare to critique my personal statement, but I won't send it to anyone because I've legitimately heard of people stealing others' personal statements and getting both people rejected

Deo101 [Millennium]

Wow

eliushi [Keyspace]

That’s scary and unfortunate

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

ooof

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

it's almost worse than stealing a story idea because you're stealing like

someone's life story??

or their personality??

it's extremely strange to me

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah that's ??????

eliushi [Keyspace]

I would consider having a mentor look over your statement but that’s veering off creator babble territory

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh i am doing that and very very thankful to them

Deo101 [Millennium]

Good suggestion and good point

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

After recently seeing a whole comic style/theme completely and obviously lifted from another one... yeah, the things that make your comic yours? They can absolutely be stolen whole-cloth

It's scary

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

oh no

god what even is the fun in that??

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I don't know. I really don't.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

you know what i want to spend years doing? telling a story that's already been told, except worse!

varethane

D:

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've had someone steal designs before

varethane

dpsofasdj I am so curious about these cases now aaahhh

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ppl do steal stuff. But what sucks for them is I'm the one with a brain and I can make new things

eliushi [Keyspace]

I’ve seen similar styles but have not seen a purposeful recreation of another’s style whether as impersonation or plagiarism

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

i just read a webtoon that was "inspired" by an anime with many ideas from anime too

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

It was a case where I always thought the two looked surprisingly similar, but then... yeah, you learn more things and you go AW GOD OKAY

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

this, and offensive stuff, is a case where i think unsolicited critique is 100% okay

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, though then it's the line of "is it offensive just to me? Or overall?"

Though I guess saying "this offended me" isn't horrible or whatever

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i think of the trend of lgbt youtubers making videos making fun of anti-lgbt crap and that's a case where i'm like yeah! pile on!

You have a good point and there are cases where something is almost objectively offensive

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, and then there are other cases where ppl are offended by how I've decided to have no homophobia where it's like "okay sure but I'm not doing anything wrong"

But yeah there are definitely times where it's like "no that's bad for sure and I'm allowed to be critical of and mad about it"

I also think there's a difference between criticizing mass media and criticizing independent media

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Wait What what omg???? Thats???? So backwards

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

well, here's an anti-critique. it offends me when someone says that being lgbt must be hard and sad all the time!

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah! I'd agree with that LOL

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

can I just be happy

as a bi woman

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

"IT'S NOT LIKE MY LIFE THEREFORE IT'S INACCURATE"

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ahdjfjskfkdkckskfksdksk yeah

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

So true tho!!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

God, I hate that argument

Deo101 [Millennium]

Though I do think that its worth it to open yourself up to that kind of critique to potentially reach the people who do need your story

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

Yes def agree

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

True true

If there's a blind spot you're missing, then for sure

Deo101 [Millennium]

Well, I was meaning more like "you can't please everyone, but that shouldn't stop you from trying your best anyways!"

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Ah! also true

Deo101 [Millennium]

Like not necessarily blind spots, but more like. Some people will be mad no matter what sorta thing

Yee

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

so tru

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Yeah for sure. I've tried to cover my bases on certain things in my own work, but I'm sure if it ever gets bigger, someone will be unhappy about something.

I'm not ready for that day, but... maybe it'll come

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah. Like I said I had someone get mad at me for not having homophobia

Where it's like... Okay stop reading then cause this isn't the story for you

Actually my friends replied to then and they did kinda turn around on their thinking, I think, so that was nice!

There's something I'm bad at for the question, is replying to my comments

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oh? :0

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

okay sometimes i've said to my friends "yo weird ass comment, right?" and they've gone and defended me like way extra hard

i'm always grateful but also a little (edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah same. .

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

too mch man

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah it's like Thank you but

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I do have some weird comments but the ones that I just kinda trying to offend me

I don't look at it till after a few months and respond to them calmly lmao

no point for me to just get rilied up for someone trying to get on my nerves but rip that's probably just me and how I deal with that stuff in irl too

I don't let my friends go after bozos lmao

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah for me I just like. Try really hard to be diplomatic, I guess? But it takes a lot of energy

When what I WANT to say is "lol read another comic then" or something but I try to think of a way to be nice

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yee I understand on that. for me I'm just say it as it is if at's the moment but for more heated comments I address them after a few months lol

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I haven't gotten any weird randos yet apart from... one legendary one But things are always calmer on your own site far away from Tapas/Webtoons

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I agree on that but lmao

I did had one angry commenter going agro for few of my pages

and I looked at it and I was like "Oh worm man"

they were just reacting to my characters being shit LMAO

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

OH WORM MAN

very good

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I ignore it tbh. I recently had someone comment "All lives matter" at the end of my comic because I included "Black lives matter" at the end. And I honestly knew i didn't have the mental fortitude to explain to them why that was so rude and missing the point.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

lol my mom is saying that stuff and i'm just like :|

okay mother

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

I guess for writing for me, now thinking about it is that

on the prompt: I don't respond quick and I'm not really active much on interaction but I want to try more

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I haven't gotten any weird randos yet apart from... one legendary one But things are always calmer on your own site far away from Tapas/Webtoons

I really haven't either though! Just a few people saying mildly :| things, no hate or anything. Wt is not always as scary as its reputation

or maybe i'm in the eye of the hurricane idk

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

lol

I have had mostly good experiences too

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've had mostly good too!

I know I complain a lot but really I'm just salty and that's just a few bad things here and there

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

The comment I was thinking about earlier was just an innaccurate interpretation of characters' feelings. They thought some people had a romantic history. I wasn't going to respond but my friend went all "if you actually read the comic you would see th- " and I was thinking omg tone it down a bit

Deo101 [Millennium]

Bajsjdjekdjdkdjd

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

never underestimate the Friend Army

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I had a reader I didn't know defend me in the comments once. The original commenter was complaining about the length of my updates, and the other reader started railing on them. It was powerful lmao. I didn't even need to say anything

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Oh! same

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've had some ppl defend me or explain for me and it's like. Idk a special kind of magic ahahahah

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh for sure! It feels magical to know that some of your readers passionately love your work

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Update-length complainers are so cathartic to smack down. Not that I've done it, I just... like seeing it

You're getting a free comic. Made by a human with a life. Chill

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

All my comments are normal where are my weirdos

boogeymadam

someone take some of my weirdos, my comic attracts them

but not really because i accidentally gave claire one of my weirdos and i feel Sooooo bad

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

i feel im still a long way off from getting anyone with my comic

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

weirdos are contagious apparently

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

You don't have to be popular to get a weirdo

Sometimes like... you could have 1 regular commenter and that person is a weirdo

or not even a commenter, you show your work to a RL friend before posting it online, and the friend takes off their mask dramatically, and reveals their True Identity as a professional weirdo

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

for real, i was posting on SJ and had all of like a dozen followers and one guy went through and heavily critiqued a ton of my pages

Like technical stuff like paneling and flow of action?

Also said my female lead looks like a man and my animation was nauseating lol

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

heh well after i do this current update im working on, i'll be scraping how ive been doing updates and following some tutorials i finally found

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I like critique but even so that guy was :|

boogeymadam

omg noooo sorry that happened fish! D: unsolicited critics are some of the worst

DanitheCarutor

I guess that is the one thing I've been lucky with. I actually don't mind unsolicited critique, but I've never gotten any outside of one time someone corrected my character's grammar in the comments. Commentary like that is way more welcome than the occasional anonymous hate comment, and malicious article calling me a fetishist, which is all entertaining in its own way but not as easy to deal with. Now that critique is brought up I'm reminded that I need to work on how I respond to it. Like, I actually get kind of excited when someone takes the time to break down my stuff (even if it totally misses the mark with what I'm trying to accomplish), but I end up responding with a novel and sometimes it's worded in a way that sounds like I'm upset. I need to get better at keeping it short and sweet.

Feather J. Fern

I raise my hand to say I can't draw hands for the life of me still after praticing for a long time. I used all the techiques, tricks, and still my hands are just butts.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

make a universe where people have butts for hands

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

This is a really minor one and thankfully easy to correct after publishing, but: my ESL-ness shows sometimes, especially with prepositions and articles. My English isn't terrible; there's just some occasional "wait did they mean 'on' where they put 'in'..." That's on the surface level. I also can't do that 'just write the dialog and see how the characters bounce off each other' thing in English. I hadn't thought much about that until I started writing a story in Korean, and I was surprised how much easier it was to get flowin' with the dialog. I'm not toooo concerned about this one, as Get Flowin' is just one way of writing a scene. But it is a thing.

Feather J. Fern

Eightfish stop calling me out that I can draw butts better than hands okay(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

feather have fun drawing the gluteus maximus

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I see nothing wrong here

Moral_Gutpunch

I'm bettign most people here can draw hands better than me.(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

S’okay, my hand drawing is pretty bad

Feet is...also an issue

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

The best reference is the one attached to you, I always say

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

or make your so pose for you

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yes

That

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

looks back at comic and sees lots of guy characters with slender palms MHMMMM

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha

Lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

ahahha i have the same problem

some guys have thick ass fingers when i look at them closely omg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, everyone has pretty thin fingers in mine, because I have thin fingers(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Okay yeah not gonna lie I HAVE made my SO pose for me. Several times.

Oh yeah don’t forget

Guys can have hairy knuckles too

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I have had my SO pose his hands retroactively for me, imitating a panel I did And I was screaming inside LOL

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

this stuff makes me :00

Deo101 [Millennium]

I have hairy knucles and my hands are bigger than my dads

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Ughhhh, that's too much detail for me, Shadow

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Yoslslzlzrhlzxzzkhzhlztututs funnily enough my SO’s hands and mine are of similar length

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

For such a small person, I have really long fingers

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

reminded me of a convo i had with some friends

they sent a reference and said they thought it was unrealistic because of how much the tendons stick out

and i said, no, that's how mine look

and it was interesting seeing the differences

Deo101 [Millennium]

everyone share hands

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I mean, especially since your fingers are stretched, the tendons stick out lol(edited)

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Someone told me I have piano fingers

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

like i always think of my hands as the 'default,' because I see them the most but really there is much variation

deo has nice hands

look elegant

shadows hands look a lot like the rest of her :0

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Whhhhhhhhh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

tall librarian

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

GJOXJPSLZLJZDXKXYOF

Yeah true XD

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

My nails are super long rn

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Holy shit the manicures

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I did it myself

Deo101 [Millennium]

thank U i have lovely hands that are big as fuck, and I can use as a ruler

because my pinky and thumb can stretch out exactly 10 inches

this cup is 10 inches tall

youre welcome

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I have stubby baby hands as well as double jointed fingers, so I'm very aware my hands aren't "average" looking. Yet if I don't pay attention, I tend to draw hands kind of like mine

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahahaha, Deo!!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

wow so useful i should measure my hands

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Me too tbh

Deo101 [Millennium]

I atually suggest it it comes in handy (ha) more than youd think

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i found a joint that measures exactly 1 inch and i use it so much

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah!!!

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Whoooooa

Mine goes 8 inches

Deo101 [Millennium]

my hands are fookin hyuge bro

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Wait

8.5

YEAH YOURS ARE GIANT

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

exactly 8 inches

omg your hands are huge

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Mine stretch out to just under 7.5 inches

Deo101 [Millennium]

in yalls defense I also have ehlers danlos so theyre probably stretching more than yours too

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I have smol hands because I am smol

Deo101 [Millennium]

tiney

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yus

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

surprised shadow managed to find a way to measure in inches haha

Deo101 [Millennium]

she said it wrong its actually 8.5 cm

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

8.5 inches

I used a ruler

In cm it’s 21

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

she said it wrong its actually 8.5 cm

hm maybe that's why she thinks hands are hard to draw

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

LMHfhgzmzjKfhl

Deo101 [Millennium]

because she has tiny baby hands and can barely hold the pencil... yes

its all coming together

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

I will slap y’all with my tiny baby doll hands

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i'm learning so much about you all today

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Now you see my pain

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

o h wait do you play music crona?

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Uh... Not really. I've messed around on the piano, and failed at playing the French horn

Deo101 [Millennium]

LMAO

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Playing instruments is hard for smol hands

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

rip

Feather J. Fern

My tiny hands compared to my pen XD

Also I took the picture close up and at an angle so not cone cna make fun of my writsts which are narrower than my computer mouse

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

my wrists are also narrower than my mouse, and my mouse is pretty small

Deo101 [Millennium]

mine's about the same as my mouse

Feather J. Fern

Yeah I got a pretty small mouse too, I been told by people to eat more becuase of my wrists (It's an Asian thing apparently) and I'm like "First of all rude, second of all my health is not any of your concern random lady on the street"

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yup

Tiny wrist solidarity!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Solidarity!

varethane

I don't have especially thin wrists but my hands are lowkey shaped pretty oddly. I only posted a photo of my hand petting a cat to FB and got a lot of comments like 'cute cat but what's with that hand????'

(it did look pretty weird from that angle. Like a noodle with a couple of noodlefingers at the end)

spacerocketbunny

Oh no Vare ;;;;;3;;;;;;;;;

[sineala]

Do you mind I ask about your love life？ How are you met your wife？I really need some good examples before I give up on find someone.

Aww, anon, don’t give up! There’s someone out there for you!

I found love and not only was I not, at the time, actually looking -- I also identified as straight. Because, yes, my actual romantic life is exactly the kind of plot that people think is unrealistic when it shows up in fanfiction.

Anyway. Here is the story of How I Met My Wife, which I am sure I have told before but it’s always fun to tell it again. It is a very long story because it is also the story of How I Figured Out I Was A Lesbian.

Okay, so the year was 2001 and I was twenty and I was a college student. I was also of the opinion that I was heterosexual; I had a boyfriend once in high school and it was kind of confusing and weird and left me with the impression that something was probably wrong with me because I was pretty sure that other straight girls thought guys were attractive, and I did not. At this time it did not actually occur to me that I might not, y’know, be straight. I figured that most people were straight so I was probably straight and therefore everything I felt was something straight people felt. And also many straight girls liked to talk about how women were objectively prettier and therefore this was a thing straight people felt. I was... kind of confused and really repressed and when I think back on that time I wonder what the hell I was thinking because, man, I did a lot of weird things that made a lot more sense once I knew I was gay.

Also I spent a lot of my free time being in fandom. This was back in the heyday of LiveJournal, and at the time I was mostly in Due South fandom. And so was @carminapossunt. I don’t even remember how I found her -- it might have been through the Common Interests list, and it might have been because we had friends in common (it turned out that one of her fandom friends was one of my RL fandom friends who I went to school with). I’m pretty sure I friended her first, though. She seemed cool and we liked a lot of the same fandoms and pairings (mostly Fraser/Kowalski in Due South) and also we were and are both big language nerds.

So I friended her and she friended me back and we spent a few months leaving comments on each other’s posts, like you did. And then I remember one day, checking my friends list, and she’d just posted just that minute, and she’d left her AIM screen name (note to young people: this is what we used before Discord) and said that if anyone wanted to IM her she was online. And I was online, and she was online, and I IMed her. (Much later on she told me that she’d been deliberately hoping I would IM her.) This was probably fall 2001.

And then we... kept IMing. We IMed each other pretty much every day. Talking about school, fandom, our lives, whatever. I just thought she was the absolute coolest person I ever met and I wanted to talk to her ALL THE TIME and she seemed to want to keep talking to me all the time too! Win-win! She was so great! I’d never liked anyone as much as I liked her and I was pretty sure no one had ever liked me as much as she liked me! 

At the time I lived in California and she lived in New Jersey and being as we were 3,000 miles apart, there wasn’t much chance of us meeting any time soon. We’d sent each other mail and exchanged pictures (she was really pretty!) and I think maybe we’d talked on the phone a bit, but long-distance calls were expensive. So after we’d been talking for maybe a year (this was maybe mid-late 2002), we started making plans to meet. And because we were both in fandom, we decided we’d meet at a con, so we made plans to go to conneXions, a now-defunct slash con in Maryland, the next spring. We were going to see each other! In real life!

And that, my friends, was when my poor, confused, extremely repressed brain just stopped being able to lie to me anymore.

See, @carminapossunt was a lesbian. Is still a lesbian, yes, but was a lesbian when I met her. Definitely a lesbian. Went to a women’s college. Had been out and proud ever since I’d known her. And I was fine with that. I was totally fine with that. Pretty much all of my friends at college were queer. (In retrospect, maybe this ought to have clued me in.) So I was absolutely, totally fine with her being a lesbian... and then she started talking about dating women and, like, going on dates with them. Currently, right then, dating women. And I became Extremely Jealous. And I couldn’t figure out why, and this was really upsetting. She was my friend! I wanted her to be happy! Didn’t I want her to be happy? Why was I so happy when she told me that she wasn’t going on another date with some particular woman? It didn’t make any sense! This was all very confusing.

You’d think maybe at that point I would have figured out that I had a crush on her. But no.

No, it finally occurred to me that I had a crush on @carminapossunt when I was sitting around daydreaming about how I was going to be meeting her (a totally normal activity that all straight people engage in, I am sure) and suddenly I realized that I was thinking about what it would be like to kiss her. And it was a really good thought that made me feel all happy and warm inside! Nothing at all like thinking about kissing guys! This seemed like a super-amazing idea and oh my God I'm gay and oh my God I have a crush on my best friend who I’ve never met. It was kind of a lot to take in. Yeah.

So then I spent some time trying to sort everything out in my head and realizing that so many things made so much more sense now and trying to convince myself that my friends and family weren’t all going to hate me forever. That bit was kind of unfun and I don’t recommend it. But I got it all sorted out eventually.

And then, uh, I told @carminapossunt that, basically, I thought I was gay and I definitely had a crush on her. And it turned out that she had had a crush on me this entire time and she’d been trying to get over me and date other people because, well, we both thought I was straight. (I am not sure I recommend this coming-out approach to other people but it definitely worked for me.)

So this was December 2002 and we were both like “okay, how do we do this?” and also “how are we going to survive waiting several months until that con to finally meet?” because, you know, what if I wasn’t really gay and none of this worked out and we hated each other in person. It was extremely wonderful and also terrifying.

So, uh, what I did was, I told my mother I thought I might be gay, because being closeted was feeling kind of terrible already. And she told me that she had basically already guessed years ago and that she loved me. Which, y’know, is good to hear. And then I told her about @carminapossunt and then my mother asked me... if I would like plane tickets to go visit her for winter break in a couple weeks. Which I was definitely not expecting and which was definitely going above and beyond in being supportive. So, uh, thanks, mom!

I flew out and met @carminapossunt on December 27, 2002 and it was a great success and it turned out I was definitely gay and we were definitely dating. I eventually came out to the rest of my family and maybe I shouldn’t have come out to my dad while he was driving along a winding cliffside road but, whatever, it worked out fine and he loves me.

We were long-distance for a couple more years, which sucked, until I moved to the East Coast for grad school and we moved in together and we have stayed together ever since. It took us forever to actually decide to get married (I mean, it wasn’t even legal when we started dating) but when we did we planned it in about three months and we eventually got married fourteen years later on December 27, 2016, so that way we only have to remember one anniversary date ever.

And that’s my story! I’m less confused now. I love my wife. She’s the best.

[themjinterviews-blog]

48. Put your hands in the air and say hell yeah. Captain Jack! Johnny Depp!

What motivates you to do what you do? Sheer necessity, usually.

What was the weather like the last time you went out? Hot. It’s Arizona so it’s probably near 100 + sunny.

Do you go for walks often? I’m pretty lazy and try to avoid it. You sorta gotta trick me into walking, like take me to a big shopping mall or something so I inadvertently walk around it whilst shopping.

What color shirt are you wearing? Gray.

What is your favorite type of youtube video to watch? I don’t really watch any. I just use it to occasionally look up songs or to record snippets of stuff to remix songs.

Do you need any new clothes right now? I got plenty.

What’s the next project you are excited to start? I’m working on a nonsensical Adult Coloring Book featuring animals committing crimes.

Do you collect anything? If so, what? Used to collect rocks and Pokémon cards. I suppose in a sense I collect all sorts of art/office supplies.

^and if not, what would you like to collect? Nothing really.

What was the last disappointing thing that happened to you? I don’t know. Suppose work being closed for renovation for 2 weeks kinda sucks because I sort of need cash.

What is something God has healed you of? I don’t really do the whole God/Religion rigamarole... Chances are if we are healed of something, there is a psychological, sociological biological or generally rational explanation.

Have you ever experienced a miracle? Like, a phenomenal coincidence? I think as much as I hate to be a downer, there's probably a lot to do with our perceptions of events

What was the last thing you ate? Lucky Charms.

Do you ever eat food that’s intended for kids? Well, Lucky Charms. I also love pizza rolls and chicken nuggets. But I’m not eating Gerber Peas&Carrot baby foods or anything crazy like that.

What was the last stupid thing you did? Define “stupid”? Most things I do are probably stupid to others but perfectly acceptable to me.

Do you get embarrassed easily? Sometimes.

Are you wearing pants or shorts right now? I never wear shorts.

What are your top three names you like for a daughter? Elliot (this is also my pick for a boy name), Tara, Hazel.

Would you ever film a vlog of yourself giving birth? Ew. Fuck no. Honestly, adopting/fostering sounds way more my style anyway. To be totally frank, pregnancy sounds gross and being unable to take my adderall sounds awful. I’d gain like, a million pounds.

Do you like getting caught in the rain? It’s usually a refreshing break from the heat out here.

Do you think your hair looks best straight, wavy, or curly? Messy, or in a side-pony.

What was the last craft project you completed?: Coloring books for my friends’ kid.

Name 3 youtubers you would like to meet in person: I don’t know any.

Has anyone ever spread an untrue rumor about you? Sociopath ex. Not sure he actually said them aloud to people other than myself, but I was constantly being accused of weird stuff I absolutely did not do.

What’s one rumor you’ve heard about yourself, and is it true? N/A. No idea. Not aware of any relevant or applicable rumors. I literally just keep to myself and do crafts.

What color are your nails painted currently? Not painted.

Do you use a pill box? Jesus, I’m not 80.

List 3 people you know who were loving and then turned cold: it’s kind of generic to assume either of those things as permanent traits. But probably most flings or whatever. It always feels cold when one party loses interest.

Have you filmed a youtube video today? Never filmed one in my life.

Do you leave the house when you’re on your period? Um yes. Life doesn’t stop just because I have cramps.

^If not, why not? -

Have you ever felt threatened for your life? Yeah. Sociopath ex would get overtly paranoid and mistake harmless or unrelated things I did or said to be conspiracies against him. And occasionally my imaginary betrayals would lead to violent words or actions. Like, a bundle of index cards with Carrabba’s menu items and their ingredients, word for word, from the Carrabba’s menu, was somehow coded plots to who the fuck knows to have him killed. Irrational stuff like that.

What are you behind on? Student loans. And when I say behind, I really mean that I actively chose not to pay them.

Do you get enough sleep each night? No because night is my time to be productive, uninterrupted and without bothering anyone. I hate having to stop my thoughts just because other people are making noise or trying to converse with me.

Which did you like better: high school or college? Absolutely college.

Which year of your life stands out to you as the most significant so far? Probably last year or two.

…and why? Big personal transitions and revelations in my life philosophy.

What was the last store you shopped at? Walmart, most likely.

Do you have a favorite pharmacist? I used to back in NY. Her name was Evie. She wished a customer Happy Thanksgiving on Valentine’s Day accidentally once and it cracked me up and we had a running joke about it.

Do you have a favorite cashier at the grocery store? I don’t shop frequently enough and I switch up stores when I do.

What was the last thing you ordered at Starbucks? Probably a toffee nut Frappuccino.

What’s something you discovered recently?

What makes you more creative? Emotional turbulence, certain drugs.

What’s the last magical thing you experienced? Um…Magical? The herd of unicorns crossing the I-10.

What is the theme of your bedroom? None. We are staying in a spare room at a friend’s. But we're actually moving this week because being micromanaged and constantly scrutinized was getting old.

Have you ever lived in a dorm? Yes, for a few years

Who is someone whom you admire, and why? I guess the lady at work, Amanda. She’s like 64 and works open-close every day, and still has a great attitude.

When was the last time you stepped outside of your comfort zone? I don’t know. I test the waters every once in awhile.

Where would you like to travel to next? Nowhere crazy. Just back to New York for the Renaissance Faire.

If you could win three dream vacations to anywhere, where would you go? Portugal—New Zealand—Ireland.

Would you rather ride a camel or an elephant? Camel. They’re fuzzy.

Are you a free spirit? I don’t know what that even constitutes. I think outside the box and I question social conformity and other preset patterns of thought. But I don’t know that has much to do with my spirit.

Do you want to lose weight? I think I’m okay for now.

Which insects scare you, if any? They don’t scare me, they just creep me out …spiders, centipedes, millipedes, roaches…ugh.

Do you think it’s silly to be afraid of a tiny insect? It’s not like I think they’re going to murk me with a sawed off shot gun. I know they’re harmless and therefor not technically scary…but they’re still creepy and unsettling somehow.

Have you ever experienced paranoia? To some degree.

Have you ever hallucinated? Indeed.

Were you raised religious? We were raised Roman Catholic. Didn’t stick.

Have you ever been abused? Psychologically, emotionally, physically and sexually. #sociopathic ex.

Do you think the cops should do more about bullying? I think cops have enough shit to worry about as is and don’t know how effective extensive police interference would even be. I think the anti-bullying message is stronger when conveyed by people closer to kids like teachers, parents, siblings or a celebrity figure they idolize.

Is there a coffee shop you like better than Starbucks? I like them all about the same.

If you could afford to get your hair professionally done, what would you get? Probably dye and highlights. Definite trim of my bangs.

If you had a lot of money, do you think you would use it wisely? Absolutely not. I have little to no money now and I don’t even use *that* wisely.

Do you know any rich people who are very irresponsible? I don’t know many people to begin with.

List five careers that you’d like to have: Lawyer (like A.D.A. Barba!)...Graphic Designer...Psychologist...Self-Help writer...and oddly wouldn't mind being a waitress still.

List five far-out things that you’d like to do before you die: I genuinely do not have a bucket list. If I stumble upon something that seems cool, I do it. Making unrealistic lists won't help my quality of life very much.

Do you dream big? Quite the opposite. I sort of just fly by the seat of my pants. Weird expression. Can’t recall ever having very fixated dreams or visions for myself.

What was your first imaginary friend’s name? N/A

What was the name of the first pet that you loved? Comet. <3

What was the first work uniform that you had to wear? Waitress uniform of sorts. I wanna say it was white button down and black pants.

Do you like to go barefoot? Usually. On some surfaces it’s intolerable and I hate the texture, though.

Do you like the same colors now that you did as a kid? Pretty much.

Do you have a blog? You’re on it, buddy. This is a survey blog.

Do you have a youtube channel? What would I even post videos about?? I assure you, I do nothing that the general public would find entertaining.

[uwapurin]

I’ve been bouncing this idea around in my head (and a little on digital paper) for a while now. It’s not really inherently creative (in fact it’s pretty heavily inspired) but I think it’d be fun regardless, and I can still be creative in other ways for it.

It would basically just be free for all 2D TF2. 2D as in a platformer view, not top down... never got much enjoyment out of top-down shooters honestly. Unlike TF2, there probably wouldn’t be classes and the loadouts would be much more customizable as a result (think CoDMW).

I’ve had the general mechanics down for a while. It’d definitely be wacky and unrealistic like TF2, just much more focused on fragging and free for all instead. Honestly I always liked free for all more than team modes, but there are practically no shooters (besides the mainstream generic FPSs) that do it anymore. Regardless, I do like TF2′s customization a lot, so I wanna apply that to a FFA setting too. Even the inventory and shop system would take after TF2 a lot (sans microtransactions obviously). Like this game would probably reek of TF2 “inspiration”.

As far as customization goes though, both the weapons and cosmetic loadouts would kinda work differently. There’d be a primary and a secondary weapon slot; unlike TF2, there wouldn’t be a dedicated melee slot, and you could theoretically have 2 melee weapons (the primary would be bigger and more impactful than the secondary). There’d also be an equipment slot that enables some kind of ability that doesn’t require pulling a weapon out to use but will be put under some kind of limitation, most often a cooldown. This equipment could do something like let you fly in the air for a bit (only recharging while grounded) or make you charge forward. There’d also be some kind of armor slot, that at its most basic forms determines your health (like lower health for faster speed, or higher health for slower speed, etc). Those super basic examples would be available to everyone, but some ones that could be “bought” could do other things like offer (potentially higher, if I have it be a native ability) passive health regen at the cost of being weaker to certain kinds of weapons or something.

As for the cosmetics, rather than do TF2′s system of... not really being clear cut, I’d do something like that I did before (I’ll get to that) which was actually inspired by SMNC, in which you have a Head slot, a Torso slot, a Legs slot, and some kind of accessory slot (referred to as Flair in SMNC).

The secondary issue I’m having with this (the main issue being whether I’ll actually do it or not) is that I’m not sure on what the overall theme would be. My idea since I thought about wanting to do this again was to have it be Wild West themed since I’m always a sucker for shit like that, but my main fear is it being too limiting or it being “steampunk”. Another idea I’ve had for a long time but never really acted upon was something I called “Fragment Phantoms”, in which most of the stuff (if not everything) was made out of scrap and/or “trash”, and you basically just played as ghosts tethered to these scrap armors who just destroyed each others armors for the hell of it. The ghosts themselves are still ethereal. This idea really has no real drawbacks, because I can do just about anything and it would still fit and potentially be cool (yes, despite taking a lot of inspiration from TF2 I would like to keep shit thematically appropriate).

To close this out, I’m just kinda rambling on about this on here to see if the 2 or 3 people that actually read this would even be interested in such a thing. Yeah it’s not creative or new at all, but I think it’d be fun. I also made minimal progress on a project like this back in 2012 (I think I stopped because of college...?). The online wasn’t programmed yet but I made shitty bots, and even years later I would sometimes open the game back up to just dick around in it and kill time. I had actually even added a couple weapons well after I stopped working on it just for the hell of it haha.

As for the currency system, I’ve actually put various ones into practice in mods before... I found that rewarding currency for points earned is never really a good idea. It’s far too abusable. I think this time I could just simply award currency as the player keeps playing... and I mean actual playing. It would actually make sure you’re really playing, so idling wouldn’t be a thing. I could also do what I did before and retain the bonus currency upon winning a round. That could still be abused though, albeit not as much. I’d figure that out if I ever got to that point though.

[samuelfields]

How to Choose a Career that You’ll Love (even if you don’t know what you want to do)

How do most people choose a career?

Well…they don’t. They stumble into a job after college, take whatever they can get, then follow one of the few paths available from that random job.

No wonder most people are frustrated in their careers.

But there actually IS a way to narrow down your potential interests to choose a career that you will love.

Ramit Sethi, our founder and career-path guru, has put together a Dream Job system that helps you explore ALL the careers you’re interested in, test each to see if you’d really enjoy doing them, and move on to other jobs if they’re not a good fit. 

Here are some of our best tips on finding a career you love – even if you have no idea what you want to do.

1. Understand yourself and your personality

A good evaluation of your personality defines the kind of job you would fit into. And we’re not talking about taking a random career personality test and doing whatever it tells you to do – those tests are usually unrealistic, and can’t paint a clear picture of what really drives you.

Instead, ask yourself the following questions and let your responses guide your career search. 

Bonus: Want to fire your boss and start your dream business? Download our FREE Ultimate Guide to Business.

What motivates you?

The first step in assessing your personality is finding out what motivates you. If you can’t answer that question on your own, turn to friends, family, and colleagues to understand your driving force. When do they recognize your eyes lighting up? Maybe it’s after you’ve helped someone, or when you’ve solved a difficult problem. Understanding what gives you energy can help point you in the right career direction.

Evaluate your skills

Some jobs tap into soft skills, like communication and personality, while others demand a particular academic skill set. For instance, technical jobs automatically require you to possess an analytical mindset/background. You cannot apply for a scientific research position when your only training is in art history. If you do want to make a career switch, that’s ok, but understand that you’ll likely need additional training.

Understand your weaknesses and dislikes

Have some self-awareness and get clear on your major weaknesses and dislikes. You may realize that you have poor delegation skills or that you hate team collaboration. You’ll need to recognize where you have weaknesses or outright dislikes. For example, if you don’t like talking to people, you probably won’t want to consider a career in customer service.

2. Make a list of potential careers to explore

One of the most daunting parts of choosing a career is picking just ONE job…that you’re supposed to do for the rest of your life.

“What if I decide that I hate doing X? Can I ever do something else?”

“What if I want to change careers in a few years? What do I do then?”

“What if I like to do LOTS of things and can’t decide where to focus?”

Just start by listing ALL the careers and job titles you might be interested in.

Anything you want to explore, just write it down.

Think copywriting sounds fun? Add it to your list.

You can imagine yourself as a marketing director? List it out.

Know someone that does inside sales and what they do sounds cool? Put it on the page.

Have you toyed with the idea of being a baker? Nothing is too left field. Write it down.

Ramit call this the Cloud Technique because your options are as open as the sky.

This lets you say “Yes” to EVERYTHING you’re curious about instead of constantly saying “No, I can’t do that because…”

Where should your ideas come from? Here are a few career brainstorming tips:

List any careers or job titles that caught your attention in the past.

Go to LinkedIn or another job listing site and read job descriptions. If anything catches your eye or seems like it’d be fun to do, add that to your list of potential ideas.

Think about the skills you already have or the ones you’d like to develop. Then, search for jobs that involve those skills. For example, do you really like design and being creative? See what jobs require those skills by searching online. Put these options on your list of potential careers as well.

Think about people whose jobs you envy. Have you always been jealous of your aunt because she is a tour manager with your favorite band? Write that down.

Bonus: Want to finally start getting paid what you’re worth? We show you exactly how in our Ultimate Guide to Getting a Raise and Boosting Your Salary

3. Research your top choices

Once you’ve tentatively selected a few job titles, it’s time to do some deep research. This is where you go from “Hmm…sounds interesting” to truly understanding what the job is about.

Remember: You don’t have to become 100% knowledgeable about these roles… just yet. You just want to learn as much as you need to see if a job is right for you.

Let’s use the job title of “engineer” as an example of what you’ll want to look for.

The first thing, you’ll want to do is get a bird’s eye view of the job:

What do engineers actually do?

What are the different types of engineers out there (petroleum, electrical, civil…)?

What kinds of companies do they work for?

You can find this info with a quick search through Wikipedia or Googling “introduction to [INSERT JOB].”

As you tackle those broad and sweeping questions, you may start to eliminate some options you originally listed. And that’s okay. In fact, that’s expected. Just because something sounds interesting in theory, doesn’t always mean it will be.

You actually want to narrow things down in this stage. If at any point, you run out of job titles on your list, simply go back to step three (with your new insights on what you want from a job) and start again.

Once you have a basic high-level understanding of the positions, you can dive deeper into the nitty-gritty details:

What does this job pay?

What type of educational experience is required?

What’s the trajectory?

What does the job look like on a day-to-day basis?

How many hours per week do they work?

Is there travel involved?

What makes a great engineer vs. simply a good one? Is it a strategic vision? Creative ideas? Quantitative skills?

What blogs/books/websites do they read regularly in order to stay “in the know?”

Bonus: Want to work from home, control your schedule, and make more money? Download our FREE Ultimate Guide to Working from Home.

The whole time you’re going through this process, ask yourself “Could I see myself doing this?” and “Is this something that still interests me?”

This process helps you discover what it is you truly enjoy. Once you’ve narrowed your list down again, you’re ready to hear from people who actually work in these roles. That’s how you guarantee this is the right career choice.

4. Conduct informational interviews

An informational interview is an informal talk you have with a subject working in your desired profession. It is the last step you take when deciding your career path.

You may have heard about informational interviews before, but few people actually take this critical step. Two things you need to know:

An informational interview is an opportunity to meet someone you’re curious about and learn from them. So if you’re curious what a product manager or engineer really does and want inside tips about the job, this is how you find that out.

People want to meet with smart people who are curious in the same things. That means you, if you send a great email, have insightful questions, and are interesting. 

Here’s how to set up an informational interview:

Book their time

First, identify people who you’d like to speak to. Then, reach out with a friendly email asking if they’d be willing to meet with you. Here’s a sample email script you can modify and use.

Subject: Hello, Allen! 

I hope all is well and that this email finds you in good spirits. I’m thinking of catching up on a few things regarding my career choice. 

I read about quality control in large pharmaceutical companies and am passionate about it, but there is not much information on the ground experience. The job will have me on the production line, and I’m interested to know what that looks like and what should I be ready for? I know you are resourceful, given your over a decade-long career in the same line, which I admire greatly! 

Would you mind virtually connecting with me for a brief period where I can get your ideas on quality control as a line engineer? 

Please let me know a good time to connect. 

Kind Regards, 

Tommy

Keep it short. Go straight to the point and give a compelling reason.

Prepare talking points

You don’t want to show up to an informational interview with nothing to say. Prepare your questions ahead of time, and do a little research on the person you’ll be interviewing, too. This will help you connect with them while getting the most out of the interview. 

Speak about your challenges truthfully

An informational interview is the perfect place for you to share reservations about the job you’re learning about. After all, you haven’t chosen it as a career yet. It’s better to find out that it’s not a good fit for you now than in the future once you’ve started in that line of work.

Be a good listener

Be attentive and take notes during your informational interview. Ask questions during the conversation. If you don’t know what to ask, you can always ask an open-ended question like, “Is there more you can tell me more about XYZ?” 

Send a thank-you note

Sending a thank-you note is mission critical after an informational interview. Even if you don’t want to go into that line of work after the interview, you never want to burn a professional bridge by not following up. Drop the person you spoke with an email and let them know how their advice is helping you achieve your goals.

While a dream job falling into your lap is rare, you can systematically find one. We see many students struggle to get a job of their choice, and we step in to help. This is not to say that it is always easy. But it is possible.

Let us help set you up for success by guiding you on a career path you love. Let us help you in your quest to find your dream job.

Bonus: If you’re worried about your personal finances, you can improve them without even leaving your couch. Check out my Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance for tips you can implement TODAY.

Do you know your earning potential?

Take my earning potential quiz and get a custom report based on your unique strengths, and discover how to start making extra money — in as little as an hour.

Start The Quiz

How to Choose a Career that You’ll Love (even if you don’t know what you want to do) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-choose-a-career-that-youll-love/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[peggyfromtheblockk]

Get to Know the Blogger

Hey! So, I’ve realized aside from a few comments here and there, I haven’t really talked on here at all! This sad thought made me realize it was time to share a lot of unnecessary stuff so maybe you can get a basic--detailed--idea of who I am. So here’s a bunch of word vomit and feel free to come talk to me, I promise I’m a lot nicer than a lot of my answers make me seem lol

Name: You can call me E.

Age: 20

Zodiac sign: Aries

Height: 5’7

Languages spoken: English but I do remember a few random words of Spanish

Nationality & Location: American and Michigan

Work: Currently working in the infant room at a daycare

Favorite fruit: Blueberries

Favorite scent: Lavender, vanilla, or apple

Favorite animal: I really love otters and llamas

Favorite fictional character: Dana Scully of course (though, I do have a soft spot for Stella Gibson)

Favorite candy: KitKat’s but currently I’ll devour almost any chocolate given to me

Favorite holiday: Christmas and Halloween. But probably Halloween more because I love the prep and the actual day, whereas I just really love the prep for Christmas

Favorite season: I really like autumn because my hometown and college towns are so beautiful but I love spring because I love everything coming back to life

Favorite Social Media? Twitter, but like, stan twitter

Favorite thing about where you live? I just love that I have some of my favorite people within literal minutes of me. It’s a really comforting feeling. And we have a fair every year which is gross but entertaining at the same time

Favorite swear word? Probably shit, but fuck and damn do escape quite often

What are you listening to:  As of right now When I Kissed The Teacher from MM2

What Books Are You Reading? I have three books I haven’t finished and haven’t touched in like two months. We, Beaches, and Yes Please

What Time Do You Usually Go To Bed? Around 1 in the morning usually

What Makes You Happy? A lot of things, though I don’t always realize that. I’m usually an “It’s the little things” person too. BUT to answer, Gillian and msr never fail to make me happy

What Are You Craving Right Now? I could smash a plate of spaghetti right now

What Is Your Gender? Female (she/her pronouns)

What Is Your Sexuality? Bisexual but I’m definitely like 85% women, 15% men

What’s The Next Movie You Want To See In Theaters? MAMMA MIA 2 IM SO EXCITED

What Eye Colour Do You Find Sexiest? I’m a sucker for blue eyes

What Do You Wear To Bed? A tee and shorts usually but if I’m in The Mood I’ll wear just a tee (Yes, That Mood)

What Sounds Are Your Favourite? I love the sound of a campfire and babies laughing or babbling literally melts my heart

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Usually, their eyes but I’m drawn to those with a bright genuine smile

What’s something that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Being With My People. They never fail to make me feel warm and fuzzy. Also when I get a cute little note from my favorite professor on an assignment because she is like the light of my life  

What are your hobbies? When I’m not in school I like to read and I’m able to write some. During school, you can find me watching x files, sleeping, or enjoying movies or music

What’s your favorite book? I love anything by Laurie Halse Anderson and really anything in the YA genre

What inspires you? Gillian is really inspiring to me because of all the work she does to help others. Bette Midler too

What’s your favorite place in the whole world? well, ok. So, I love Mackinac Island because it’s so beautiful and peaceful (even with thousands of tourists covering the tiny location) but I also just love when I’m with my people. When I’m with one of My People wherever we are, that’s my favorite place because I’m really happy. Also, I really love my work because nothing exists outside those four walls except the babies I take care of

What do you typically have for breakfast? A big cup of coffee and the occasional bagel or bowl of cereal

What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? The first semester of my sophomore year I had this 60-70 page case study due for the end of the term for an education class. For at least a week I would stay up until about 5 am working on it, go to sleep, get up at 7:30 am and do it all over again. That’s been my most stressful and sleep deprived time of my life so far and just looking bad makes me shudder. At least I got a 99% on it

What makes you angry? A lot of things. Let’s not get into that.

What makes you nervous? Uh, everything. But thinking about the real part of my future (bills, working, adulting) really gets me going

Do you wear glasses: Yes and these specific frames fucking suck and my eyes keep getting worse (my doctor told me I’d need surgery before I turned 30, wtf thanks dude)

Do You Have Freckles? Yes and it used to bother me how many I have but thanks to fics that mention Scully’s, I’ve become fond of them

Do You Sing In The Shower? When my family or suitemates aren’t home, then yes I usually belt it all out but usually, I stick to humming

Do You Collect Anything? Postcards and shot glasses. And llama things now too apparently

Do You Prefer To Swim In A Pool Or The Ocean? Pool because it’s clean and I can see the bottom

Do You Study Better With Or Without Music? It depends on the subject or the task but I almost always need some type of constant sound

Do You Save Money Or Spend It? Save it usually but I also tend to spend it all on a big impulse purchase

Do You Have Any Obsessions Right Now? That’s why I’m here lmao

Do You Have Strange Dreams? Alright so I just started taking Zoloft and before it, my dreams would be weird but like unrealistic-weird, like having-a-bad-trip-weird. But since starting the med, my dreams have become realistically-weird, like sometimes I wake up and question if that all really happened

Do You Make Your Bed In The Morning? When I’m at school, yes, but when I’m home I usually just say fuck it because I’ll be back in it at least 8 more times

Do You Like To Read / Write? I love to read (fics, duh) but I do try my hand at writing but I struggle to finish anything and I’m terrified to post any of my work on here

Do You Have Any Homework Right Now? If So, What Is It About? YES and it’s just barely halfway into summer break and I’ve got a huge assignment due the first day back

Do You Get Homesick? Sometimes but I really do love my college life and wouldn’t change it

Do You Wear Jeans Or Sweats More? A mix but because of work, jeans most days

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Sarcasm is my middle name

Do you believe in miracles? Yeah I think so

Do you have any special talents? I don’t think so but I’m good at taking care of kids. Sometimes my supervisor calls me the baby whisperer lol

Do you have any pets? Three cats and a dog and some succulents

Do you have any siblings? A little (half) brother and then technically I have four other half-siblings but they don’t know I exist

Do you believe in the paranormal? Absolutely. A big secret of mine….I actually could, and sometimes still can interact with spirits...Just call me Mrs. Spooky

Do you play any instruments? Nope but somehow I have managed to have a guitar and a keyboard in my possession. I do sing though and was in choir for 7 years

Do you have any crushes? Do celebrities or fictional characters count? If no, then no

Do you have any bad and/or anxious habits? I just have panic attacks a lot lmao and I tend to get really bitchy and mean when I’m anxious which I feel bad about but I can’t stop it

Do you believe in anything enough to fight for it? My right to marry whoever I want and have kids with whoever I want and be in control of my body. There’s probably more but those have been on my mind today

Do you keep a journal? Yeah a few actually but I lose motivation after a little bit and it takes so much to start it over

Do you like your age? Yes and no. I’m an adult which is cool and all but like….most of my friends are old enough to drink and it really pisses me off that I’m 9 months short of legally doing that. I’m super responsible and mature for my age like what will 9 months do to change that? It’s just stupid that I can join the military and go thousands of dollars into debt but I can’t have a glass of wine with my mom at a block party. UGH. American laws  S U C K

Do you like your own name? Yes, I love my name. When I was a kid I hated it, I didn’t get the sentiment of being named after someone. I finally got the sentiment around the time my grandma started getting sick. Now that she’s gone, I know just how blessed I am to carry on the legacy of my full name and try to make her proud.

Do you have any scars? Oh plenty, I’m really clumsy. My most notable is the one on my thumb from a freak childhood accident that nearly cut my entire thumb pad off. What a wild time

Do you have a strong accent? I’m from Michigan so apparently, I have a strong Midwestern accent but I don’t hear it. But anytime I’m on the phone/skyping with my friend from Missouri, she always points it out and laughs

Do you talk to yourself? Probably too much but also not in the way that I think is expected. I’m just constantly talking in my head like a constant tv interview about whatever the fuck I’m thinking about which 99% of the time is msr lol

Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: All of the above

Beer or wine or neither: W I N E

When was your blog created: I knew this was the place to find the best gifs and fics and I wanted to be in the fandom more since I’m so new. Also, I wanted to try my hand at fic writing but I continue to lose the motivation or the courage to write/post

Last movie you’ve seen: Hotel Transylvania is pretty much on repeat in my house thanks to my little brother, so most likely it’s that

First job: My first job was customer service/field hand on a blueberry patch but my first legit legal job is/was at a daycare

Pet peeve: The first I can think of is slow walkers because I walk so fast because my legs are like a mile long

The color of your eyes: Green but they used to be giant sky-blue saucers

Night owl/day person: I don’t like getting up before 9 but past midnight I’m a grouch

Tattoos:  None yet, but I have two planned, it’s just a matter of money and timing

Like to cook: Not really but I can cook enough to survive which is typical for college

Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 20 Give the last two lines: “Action: Today I will be kind to myself. Affirmation: This is who I am, and I feel glad to be me” - We

Last Person You Cried In Front Of? I cried while holding a baby at work because my shift is changing so things will be different and also my hormones are really out of whack right now

If You Were A Crayon What Colour Would You Be? Any shade of purple

Name One Movie That Made You Cry: Beaches is my go-to crying movie, same goes for Steel Magnolias (what a typical answer, I know)

If I Handed You A Concert Ticket Right Now, Who Would You Want The Performer To Be? Cher, Reba, DD, Bette Midler or Straight No Chaser. Reba especially though because she’s going to be near me soon but it's a 21+ event and I’m nine months short of that so I’m really pissed I can’t go

Would You Rather Carve Pumpkins Or Wrap Presents? Carve pumpkins but I do a damn good job wrapping too

Did You Like Swinging As A Child? Do You Still Get Excited When You See A Swing Set? I loved it even though it made me sick. There’s a park down the street from my campus so if I’m really upset, I’ll go down there and blast my headphones and swing until I forget what’s happening. It’s really therapeutic

Name Something That Relaxes You: I have some relaxing instrumental playlists and I’ll put one of them on, turn on my lavender oil diffuser, and hop in a nice hot shower (and the hot water at college doesn’t run out so I can pretty much be in there for like ever really) or I’ll watch a fav movie that tends to soothe me

Scary movie or happy endings? Happy endings give me life. The fluffier the better

When was the last time you cried? I’m sure I’ve cried today and just don’t remember. There’s literally not a day that goes by that I don’t shed tears but I literally cry so easy (This video or this video will make me cry almost instantly)

Where would you like to visit? I’ve wanted to visit Barcelona and California since I was a kid but in the past 4 years I’ve really wanted to visit New York and Greece

Describe your favorite people in the whole world? I’ll just sum all five of them up with they literally make me feel so warm, happy, and validated. I love them so much I could cry just thinking about them. And don’t get me started with Gillian because I do often cry when I think  about her I just really love her a lot ok

Who would be your ideal partner? Gillian Anderson, Dana Scully, or Fox Mulder of course. No, but I want someone who’s like me morals/humor wise

Most used phrase? Right now I’m really into saying “Yikes” but “god fucking dammit” leaves my mouth A LOT

Most used word? Probably “like” as much as I hate to admit it

Extrovert or Introvert? Introvert 100% except when I’m with My People of course because I feel comfortable with them

Who was your first real crush? I had plenty of crushes during early school years but I think my first real one was on a school employee. Wowza I was head over heels for her and the very obvious knew-it-was-coming heartbreak hurt a lot

How many piercings do you have? Just my first holes in my ears but I’ve been thinking about getting my Helix pierced (upper portion of the ear)

How do you deal with stress? Uhhhh I panic first lol. I tend to listen to music—very specific songs that I know will drown out the anxiety/stress, or sometimes I’ll write what I’m feeling, go for a walk, read an absolute favorite fic in my list, watch x files, or I’ll just scroll through my thousands of pictures of GA lol

How many pillows do you sleep with? Three, sometimes four and then I have four accent pillows when I make my bed. Too many, as I’ve been told by everyone

Have you ever been to the hospital? Been to? Yes, plenty of times. Been in/admitted? No, thankfully

Have you ever met any celebrities? In 2016 I went to a rally for Hillary that Cher was speaking at so like…I was in the same room as her. AND THEN my friend shoved me up to her path as she was leaving and she touched my hand and I literally nearly passed out

Have you ever been in a position of authority? I am always deemed the mom friend so I’ll let you figure out that answer...

Have you ever drank underage? Yeah but nothing crazy. I just really like my wine. The craziest I’ve ever gotten was after I turned in that case study, I chugged half a bottle of wine (on an empty stomach), got bad heartburn, and then went to bed for like 14 hours

Are You Easily Influenced By Other People? Depends on the person, but I’d have to say no unless it’s Gillian/Scully/Stella

Are You A Picky Eater? I say yes, but compared to my brother and my uncle, no

Are You A Heavy Sleeper? Usually yes

Are Both Of Your Blood Parents Still In Your Life? Just my momma, but I do see my *gag* father around my hometown every now and again

Are you religious? Not really. I used to go to church a few years back, and then went to another church which ruined a lot of stuff for me and then I went through some tough stuff that made me question, idk

Are you a good liar? I like to think so (I say that as if lying is something I should be proud of), at least to everyone but my mom because I swear I can pull off the best lie ever and she always sees right through me

Are you a clean or messy person? My home life is messy. My room is trashed but the things that are put away are organized. But life at college is completely opposite, my dorm is very clean and organized and I clean it top to bottom every weekend

If you made it this far, thank you for putting up with my crazy long first post, and I’m sorry that I practically vomited my thoughts into a jumbled mess but I wanted to share myself with you! 

[hotgirlinahotcar]

* headcanon free-for-all

tagged by: several of you for other things (that are started but still in my drafts...). And with all of y’all already tagged in those too... instead of re-tagging the same people for the same stuff... new thing... tagging: @conviictus / @melioriisms​ | @cunninglinguistx​ | @governingmouse | @governinglion | @nicophaught | and everybody else who wants to | non-rp-blogs: just replace ‘your muse’ with one of your fav chars to write about notes: the following answers are heavily influenced by headcanons {d’oh} and whatnots and are subject to change if we ever actually find out more about Gidge...

♥ is there an article of clothing that means the most to your muse? Yep, several. Nope, not her jackets. All the special shirts and other garments that weren’t initially hers but somehow ended up in her possession for some reason or other... (except for stuff that was just discarded or forgotten at her place that ends up in her closet without having any special meaning to her).

❀ what does your muse’s daily routine look like? Most days Gidge gets up at the asscrack of dawn to go surfing - unless the weather won’t permit it (in which case she either goes back to sleep, wakes up her woman for a different kind of workout or catches up on chores and whatnot instead). After a quick shower she then shows up for work barely on time and spends her day there being her glorious sapphic psychologisty self... then after work there really isn’t much of a routine anymore, it’s more of a day to day thing... either back to the beach, or when stuff is piling up, it’s time for chores/errands/paperwork etc and she does the adulting thing. The nights that are all about her girl and spending time together doing whatever they feel like really are her favs though (especially when those also happen to include beachy-surfy and/or lesbionic stuffs). If she’s single though, she might turn her axe-effect up to 11 and hit some lezzie nests for starters... Just hanging out with friends in general is never a bad idea either. And of course the more or less sporadic lazy and quiet nights in are good for the soul too. Naturally, with a lifestyle like that, there also are the days when she’s just beyond exhausted because all that lack of sleep for various reasons caught up with her and she just goes to bed early to recharge properly.

◎ does your muse plan for the long-term or short-term? Both. Realistic goals and all that. Of course she’s only human though, so while she may have the sapphic psychologist skills professional knowledge beneficial to maintaining a healthy balance in general, advice is always easier given than taken. In consideration of that, in most matters, she not only encourages clients and friends alike but also tries to live by it herself. On the flip side of that, nothing wrong with indulging in occasional crazyass notions either. Even the wildest dreams come true for some people after all... In advice-mode she’d also insist on cautioning against actually expecting the more unrealistic stuff to happen though. Cause that kind of thinking has the potential of providing the ideal environment to the birth of delusions.

◆ what is one secret your muse has? Her girlfriend Franky is probably the biggest one... and the canon one... other than that, in verses where she did the pro-surfing circuit thing, it’s not so much of a secret as a part of her life that she just doesn’t share with people at work... with the long lost kid trope, there’d be that... then I have plenty of ideas about the reasons why she got into psychology in the first place... like being forced to go to a mental institution/straight camp when she was a teenager... as in shit was done to her there by the people who were supposed to help her and it becomes her calling to provide therapy done the right way and save people from suffering the likes of what she had to endure... lotsa stuff along those lines. And then there’s the ever classic infinite roulette game of insanity: ‘paid for college (or whatever) by being/got rich by being/gets off on being/leads a double life as/is undercover as/used to be/is mistaken for/pretends to be/wants to be/is forced to be/is being lured into becoming/is basically the same person {cause you’re playing the same muse - a stripper/porn star/lingerie & nude model/hooker/high class escort/assassin for hire/notorious thief/criminal in general/heir to a famous crime family/rockstar/other type of celebrity/is married to/divorced from/related to (somebody rich and famous)/vampire/mermaid/witch/werewolf/alien/ghost/superhero/immortal/time traveler/pirate/ninja/dinosaur/rocket ship/shark toast/swirly whirly junglepants/several or all of the above/is basically the same person {cause you’re playing the same muse - and somebody knows/finds out/stumbles over the intel/gets dragged into it/starts investigating by looking into something unrelated/gets an (anonymous) tip/comes from that world too (and is either keeping the same secret or the complete opposite, is well known for it/comes from another but equal/similar/conflicting/antagonistic situation/is basically the same person {cause you’re playing the same muse}’ {you get the point, these could all go on forever and range from slightly canon-divergent to the crackyassest bloody shit you could ever imagine... Now, I’m not saying I could imagine Gidge in any and all kinds of scenarios, but I’m never not up for at least spitballing, no matter how cracky and insane it might seem.} {Back to the serious side though, I love the whole secret thing so much, so there’s gazillions of headcanons/ideas that I have, but not too many that I’d just ascribe to Gidget in general, so it really depends on the thread.}

ϟ who means the most to your muse? why? Her girl. She’s the love of her life and the world wouldn’t make sense without her in it. And while Bridget had a life before her, since she met Franky/Lorraine/*insert your muse’s name if you wish*, she can’t imagine ever going back to that because she doesn’t even remember what she was living for before she experienced the love they have for each other. 

☛ what is your muse’s biggest regret? {I’m gonna leave this basically open for now because I think that would heavily depend on plot and thread and whatnot.} For example, if she did have a kid that she lost somehow, obvi it’d be that... but ‘kids are gross’ versions of her never even would’ve had said child and thus would have entirely different biggest regrets... ex pro-surfer Gidge might forever mourn the loss of that career and might not ever stop resenting whatever ended it... {so yeah, options, options, options... with variations... and alternatives... so just scroll back up to that roulette wheel and we’ll leave it at that until something specific comes along.}

❥ is your muse cool? She thinks she is anyway... XD Nah, she’s chill, but she def has that adorkable side too. Especially when she’s actively trying to be cool... like that ‘I’m not a screw’ scene... {Sorry babe, but your inner Elsa had her gloves on there...}

✯ which three traits define your muse? {Actually... lemme change this one a bit... you can do either version, whatever you prefer.} to be answered at some point in the not so distant future {So I just realized this is just gonna make this post a lot longer and doesn’t even quite fit in with the headcanon thing anymore anyway and can easily be a whole other tag thing by itself...}

♕ would your muse hug a monster? *smiles at @governinglion​ with wide open arms* {PS: Dude, we really should start talking about starting something... I even have a couple of ideas I’ve been meaning to shoot at ya but haven’t yet cause my ADD is playing fucking pinball with me atm...}

❣ is your muse a fighter or a lover? What’s with the ‘or’? It’s entirely possible to be both at the same time... Just sayin... So yeah, definitely both. Particularly so when the lover brings out the fighter. (That goes for kinkyass passion-motivated activities as well as the ‘my love for you will make me fight to the death and I ain’t letting nothing and no one get in my way’ thing.) 

✎ what does life mean to your muse? Biologically, she’s pro-choice. Philosophically... okay, yeah, nope... not gonna go there. To answer in some profound yet vague and still revealing way I’d have to write a fucking epos. So I’ll pass. Your call whether you wanna ponder the meaning of life or disregard this one too.

Disclaimer: Actually this was a meme before I misappropriated it for this. So all credit for the questions goes to whoever wrote them originally. @vhsmeme I think... I hope you don’t mind that I turned it into a tag thing instead. By the time I realized I should’ve fucking asked you first, I had already written most of the replies... so...

But yeah, not cool to just assume it’d be okay, and I acknowledge that. Sorry!-ish. In my defense tho... there’s a hugeass ‘free-for-all’ right there in the title... I just realized that... XD