#but can acknowledge that you’re strong in other ways like for instance your mind etc

[cheesecakethots]

I was reading your blurb about Uvogin deciding to spare reader at the last minute in the night club. He tells himself it's just because he wants to sleep with her....but what happens after that? Surely he's not going to just let her go? Does he catch actual feelings?

I would imagine Uvogin would keep a darling for a while, telling himself and them that eventually he’ll just let them go (kill them, probably), but only after he’s had his fun with them. It won’t take long for him to decide against eventually killing them, but it’ll take longer for him to realise he isn’t planning on letting them leave him, ever.

Maybe he’ll come home to them in his shirt, one that is way too big and just falls off of their shoulders. Maybe he’ll catch himself gently caressing the length of their hair while they’re asleep, instead of tearing at their clothes. Maybe he’ll hear them giggle for the first time, probably at some shitty movie he stole for them to watch, and he’ll find his eyes locking in on their face and his chest feeling warm.

It’ll take a while for Uvogin to realise that he wants you for much more than being some toy for him to take his frustrations out on, but when he does it’ll only make you all the more trapped to him.

He’d never thought he’d do something as ridiculous as fall in love with someone, but he’d imagined if he ever did it would be with someone strong, someone not like you. It takes him some time to see you as something other than a little pet that he can at most teach tricks to and stroke when he’s bored.

You make him feel things he has never felt before. He’s not sure if he likes it, the feeling of being vulnerable for the first time in his life - the knowledge that he actually has something to lose.

[idontblushsrry]

Sesshomaru||NSFW Alphabet

A/N: That’s right, I wrote an NSFW alphabet for him as well. How could I not, he’s a hottie. Also somehow, I managed to keep this w a gender neutral reader, so all my Sesshomaru fans may enjoy (unless u ship s*ssrin, then leave)

Word Count: 1911

Warnings: Obviously nsfw

A - Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

After sex, Sesshomaru returns to his initial composure almost immediately. Like he’ll pant for a few seconds, wipe his dick off and then immediately, boom, like nothing ever happened. Of course, you, are thoroughly wrecked, needing Sesshomaru’s help, help which he is more than happy to give.

B - Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His favorite body part on himself has to be his arm/arms (depending). He loves his arms for a reason completely separate from you, he just enjoys the fact that he finally has two arms, like he thinks back to all the times he didn’t properly appreciate his left arm, and vows to never make that same mistake.

C - Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

As much as he loves cumming on your body, nothing compares to the feeling of cumming inside you. He loves to watch you slowly lose all coherency as he just fucks you full of his cum. If you let this man cum inside you, you will unleash a whole new beast, that you’re gonna have to be prepared to deal with. 

D - Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Sometimes, when Sesshomaru knows he’s going to be away from you for a long time, he tries to fuck you as much as possible. He knows that he’ll miss you and gets a little more lovey dovey, but above all, he’s trying to remember the feeling of you so he can better mimic it with his had.

E - Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Sesshomaru is extremely experienced, on account of both his rank and his power. Demons are attracted to power and rank and, being so noble, Sesshomaru has never had any trouble with finding a partner to warm his bed. He’s not versed in everything but he has a strong sense of intuition and a deep connection with his own desires.

F - Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

A bit cliché, but, his favorites are doggy style and mating press. Any position where he has the leverage to press you down and fuck into you also ranks pretty high on his list.

G - Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Sesshomaru is so serious in the moment. He gets so laser focused on pleasing you that he finds any distractions to be a bit...grating. That being said, you’re the exception, if he happens to make you laugh during sex, he’ll just roll his eyes affectionately before shutting you up with a kiss.

H - Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

He’s about as well groomed as any man of his station at the time would be. He’s not exactly shaving down there but his hair is so fine that it isn’t unbearable. Also the carpet definitely matches the drapes, his hair is extremely light and it’s hard to see sometimes.

I - Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Sesshomaru is very intimate in subtle ways. He shows you hat he cares by doing little things to ensure your comfort. Whether it’s brushing sweat off your head, setting pillows under your hips, or retracting his nails when he holds you, Sesshomaru is the king of unspoken intimacy. He loves you and he’s going to show it in the most obvious way.

J - Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

As stated earlier, Sesshomaru really only jacks off out of necessity. He had no problem with getting someone to fuck, ad now that he has you, he doesn’t see the need to masturbate. The only time he’ll do so is if you’re gonna be away from him for a while and he’s really horny.

K - Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Sesshomaru has a breeding kink, sorry not sorry. Even if you can’t get pregnant, something in him just tells him to keep filling you with his cum until it spills out. At which point, he just repeats the process. He also has a thing for marking, whether it be by scent, hickies, or with his cum, he loves the reminder/proclamation that you’re his.

L - Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Sesshomaru’s not picky about location. He’s of the opinion that, as long as you’re comfy, he’s ok with it. He does enjoy having his fill of you in your shared bedroom, but yall aren’t really home often enough for him to be that particular about it.

M - Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

The only thing that turns Sesshomaru on is the sight/thought of you naked and waiting for him. 

N - NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Sesshomaru does not care all that much for sharing, and in a similar vein, voyeurism. With voyeurism, he doesn’t mind fucking out in the open, as long as no one else is around. The second he gets whiff of anyone, he’s pulling out of you faster than you can even realize what’s going on. With sharing, just don’t ask. He won’t show it but, the thought of someone else even seeing you that vulnerable enrages him and sets off his baser instincts. If you suggest it, he’s going to be very hurt for some time.

O - Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Sesshomaru probably didn’t even know about oral until you went down on him for the first time. While he isn’t exactly the most experienced in it, he more than makes up for it with his sheer voracity. If you ask him to give you head, he’s getting on his knees, laying you back like, “say less”.

P - Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Sesshomaru can be both but he tends to lean on the more fast and rough side. Sure, your hips and legs hurt, but who can really complain when there’s a powerful demon pounding into you like a jackhammer.

Q - Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

When you first told Sesshomaru what a quickie entailed, he was intrigued. Admittedly, he didn’t like the concept at first, but the more he thought about it the more it grew on him. He likes the thought of you being so needy for him that you’d rather jump him as soon as possible than wait to get home.

R - Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

In terms of experimentation, Sesshomaru’s not all that open to it. He’ll try if you insist but he’s definitely not one to suggest any experimentation. As for risks in terms of location, as long as he’s far enough from others, he doesn’t really care where y’all fuck or how loud you are. 

S - Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

He can go as long as you can. He does like to build your endurance more and more each time, but sex in general with him is a serious time commitment.  He’s more than willing to space it throughout the day if that would suit you better.

T - Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

No toys, Sesshomaru doesn’t see the point in them. It also goes back to his thing about sharing, while he won’t be as angry as he would be with another person there, the thought infuriates him. Just thinking about an object getting to feel you in the same way he does make him see red.

U - Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Sesshomaru prefers not to tease, but he will if he feels the need to. He prefers to get straight to the point, letting you cum as many times as he sees fit to, honestly, prep you to take him in. But if he’s feeling particularly slighted, (whether by you or some demon he can’t quite murder) he’ll take it all out on you. While he won’t tease you in public, in private, he’ll work you up, get you right on the edge of cumming, and then pull it away. The more you whimper and whine, the more tempted he is to draw out your torture.

V - Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Sesshomaru is pretty quiet... usually. While he prides himself on his control, of which extends even to the bedroom, letting out a few grunts once he’s about to cum, his rut is a different story. Sesshomaru refuses to talk about or even acknowledge how unihinged he acts during his rut but honestly, the moment he gets a whiff of your arousal, he sounds like a wild animal. Every repressed emotion and sound comes bubbling back up to the surface and he just goes around growling and panting until he can stick his dick in you.

W - Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Sesshomaru tries his best to be gentle/hold back with you. It’s not obvious and you haven’t noticed because most of it happens in the heat of the moment when you’re distracted by...other things. But, he knows he tends to lose himself inside of you so in preparation, he’ll remove his hands from your body and let his claws rip into the surface under/behind you, whether it be a tree, bed, or just the floor. One of these times, his poison accidently activated and he shielded your body by leaning down and making out with you. That day, he discovered his affinity for kissing you while pounding into you.

X - X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Mans got a third leg, I just know. The baggy pants hide it pretty well but when you manage to pull it out, he’s easily 8 inches (10-12 when fully hard depending on circumstances), uncut, and really pretty. Like other parts of him, Sesshomaru’s dick is beautiful, a small patch of silver hair near his base. Speaking of, Sesshomaru does have a knot, if he cums inside of you, he tries to do so without getting it stuck just because of the fact that it’s kind of a hassle waiting it out. But if you let him knot you and the situation allows it, he might go a little feral whoops.

Y - Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Sesshomaru has a pretty high sex drive and before you, he could control it pretty well in all instances besides his rut. He still maintains his impeccable control but he finds himself ready to go a lot more often than he used to be. Like if you ask him, he’s immediately down regardless of what he’s doing. The only time that he gets supernaturally and uncontrollably horny is when he goes into rut. At which point...good luck getting his dick out of you.

Z - ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

While Sesshomaru doesn’t really get tired after sex in the same way you do, he does understand when you’re kind of tapped out for the night/day/moment and is more than content to watch you sleep. After a while though, the sounds of your heartbeat and the quiet sounds of your breathing will set him at ease and put him to sleep.

[volkswagonblues]

a lil guide to the Fire Nation for the ATLA fic writers out there

(aka. a no means exhaustive primer on east asia by an asian person)

This is a guide for fic writers want to write a canon-era story set in the Fire Nation, or featuring Fire Nation characters. A quick little primer on the tiny details of everyday life that you might not think about, but certainly stuff that would make me, an asian person, wince if I were to encounter it. BRUSHES, not quills. CHOPSTICKS, not forks. 

(note #1: this was partly inspired by a chat with @elilim​) 

(note: #2:  I originally intended it for zukka fic writers before realizing that other writers might find it useful. so apologies for a slight Zuko-bias for that reason)

(note #3: this is all stuff i was thinking about when writing firebender’s guide, in case anyone was wondering)

1. CLOTHING

Okay, I think the most straightforward way to describe what everyone’s wearing most of the time is “tunic”. They’re all just...tunics of different colours and varieties. Later when Zuko’s the Fire Lord he wears robes. The show provides a better visual guide than I could, here are a few notes to keep in mind:

a) Japanese people wear their collars LEFT crossed over RIGHT

I don’t think this would come up in writing as much as it would in art, but it’s considered bad luck to do it the wrong way because that’s only for dead people. Let my boy Zuko demonstrate:

b) There are no buttons

This is picky, but Wikipedia says “Functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared first in Germany in the 13th century.[6] They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting garments in 13th- and 14th-century Europe.” I kinda believe it. If you look closely, characters’ clothes are always tied together or wrapped in some way with a belt. If there are fasteners, they’re braided frog closures that go into a little loop, like the qipao-style dresses women wear in Ba Sing Se, or Zuko’s casual prince’s clothes in the topmost image. Anyways, I don’t think Zuko or Azula or the Gaang would technically button or unbutton anything when they’re changing clothes. Clothing is designed to be tied, not buttoned.

[so much more under cut]

c) This isn’t a real rule, but there’s something called koromogae, or the seasonal changing of clothing in Japan.

This is something I learned when I was writing firebender’s guide, and I just liked the fun detail about there being a strict calendar for when to wear something. I liked the idea of someone like Zuko, who actually spent most of his formative years outside of the Fire Nation, coming home and just suffering mutely through the summer heat because upper class etiquette says no changing into cooler clothes until August 15. 

From My Asakusa: 

And this website:

Generally, people change from thick, heavy, dark-coloured clothes for winter to thin, lighter, bright-coloured clothes for spring and summer. In traditional Japanese culture, particularly in formal settings such as tea ceremony, it is important to acknowledge the changes of seasons—in such circumstances, not only the patterns and colours of the kimono that are worn but also the utensils and furniture that are used are required to change. By changing their clothing, people notice and appreciate the change of seasons. [Japan Foundation]

Here are some visual guides from the official creators for clothes: (notice how it’s pretty much always left over right)

2.FOOD AND EATING

a) Traditional cuisine

It seems like the most common foods in canon are Fire Flakes and meat, to the point where poor Aang had to eat lettuce out of the garbage at some point.

HOWEVER, the Fire Nation seems to basically a big subtropical archipelago, so I would guess that seafood and rice are common. If you want to write about characters eating, a. quick google for “traditional japanese cuisine” would help you come up with a menu really quickly.

Wikipedia says:

The traditional cuisine of Japan, washoku (和食), lit. "Japanese eating" (or kappō (ja:割烹)), is based on rice with miso soup and other dishes; there is an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. Side dishes often consist of fish, pickled vegetables, and vegetables cooked in broth. Seafood is common, often grilled, but also served raw as sashimi or in sushi.

But before we get too serious, at one point the Gaang eats a “smoked sea slug” (Sokka’s Master) 

Oh ATLA, never stop being you.

b) Utensils

One thing to keep in mind is chopstick etiquette. Someone like Zuko or Toph, for instance, would have completely internalized all of these.

Another thing is that there are no glasses. Cups and bowls are made of ceramic or clay. Let the Gaang show you:

And another note: characters won’t eat “bread” in the European sense, ie. a baked lump of dough. Steamed buns, yes. Fried pancakes made from batter, yes. Flatbreads, okay I’ll give it a pass. Rice or noodles should be the most common carbs of choice.

3.ETIQUETTE

“In the homeland, we bow to our elders” - angry schoolmistress in The Headband.

Japan Guide has a list of etiquette rules for visiting Japan, which is interesting but not too necessary to read. In general, based on what The Headband tells us, Fire Nation characters would have been raised with a strong nationalist curriculum that values communal contribution over individualist expression. Even someone like Zuko, who openly rebels against that, probably couldn’t help but be affected by it. In general the Fire Nation seems to have an East Asian-ish set of values. It’s patriarchal, all the positions of authority are filled by men; there seems to be a strong emphasis on patriotism; there’s a sense of diffidence and respect towards one’s elders; and finally, there’s an emphasis on “knowing” one’s place in society and fitting into what’s expected of oneself.

I don’t really know how to describe it, but in China and Japan I sometimes feel like there’s rules for everything, and even people born and raised there acknowledge it could be stifling at times. You could go down a rabbit hole researching points of etiquette (for instance, rules on who has to sit where in group dinners...), but to me the most important thing is acknowledging that Fire Nation has a rigid system of etiquette, and also, they’re an imperialist power who’s pretty prejudiced against foreigners. Poor Aang/Kuzon gets called “mannerless colony slob” just for being slow on the bowing action (!!!)

(in firebender’s guide I had a lot of fun imagining the stupid microaggressions Ambassador Sokka has to face in the Fire Nation, so obviously I’m just biased)

4.WRITING AND DESKS

Characters would probably write on paper, with a calligraphy brush. Not quills or pens -- a brush. Technically, old Japanese and Chinese texts should be written top to bottom, right to left, but the show itself doesn’t do this, so I think you’re fine. 

One fun thing about traditional calligraphy is that you don’t use bottled ink. You have something called an ink stone, and then you grind your ink yourself by rubbing the ink stone in a special little dish with a bit of water. In my (very few) encounters with this stuff in the calligraphy lessons of my youth, the ink stones can be plain or have beautiful designs on the side. It looks something like this: 

ATLA is an East Asian-ish universe, so characters are likely to be kneeling at a table, not sitting. To demonstrate, here’s my boy Sokka doing his famous rainbow at Piandao’s:

and here’s the war chamber meeting when Zuko speaks out against a general’s plans to sacrifice some soldiers:

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS: This is Zuko’s cute little setup when he’s writing his goodbye letter to Mai. In this case he’s writing in a chair and table. It’s possible that some furniture items, like a sitting desk and a bed in a bedframe (not a bedroll or futon) are special royal palace features. Normally in a private setting we see characters sitting on the ground or on a slightly elevated platform with a low table. Maybe Caldera is just different? Or rich people are just different: the Bei Fongs also have a sit-down dining table + chair setup.

(That little rectangular box is his ink dish!!)

5.A NOTE ON GENERAL CULTURE

It’s worth talking about a few general points of East Asian culture. I can’t claim to speak for ALL of Asia, and I don’t think I should. But I do think ATLA fic writers who want to set something in the Fire Nation should take a few moments to at least skim the wiki pages for filial piety and Nihonjinron (literally, "theories/discussions about the Japanese"). There’s a certain...vibe to...asianness... that I’m not sure I can explain without like, a doctorate degree in sociology. 

It’s a bit like gender, I guess. There’s no definitive checklist to what is a woman and what is a man, and we can argue that gender is performative, that it’s a construct, but at the end of the day gender is still (tragically) real in the sense that it still shapes people and affects how we walk and talk and dress and think. Nationality is the same. Obviously, the Fire Nation is a made up place in a made up show, but out of respect to the cultures that inspired it, I do think it’s worth familiarizing yourself with some of these cultures’ codes and values.

Also, ahem, if I can direct you to war crimes in the Japan’s colonial empire. Again, worth remembering that the Fire Nation was an imperalist colonizer too.

I might do a continuation of this post and talk through my more abstract takes about Fire Nation culture - Is Zuko an example of filial piety gone right or filial piety gone wrong? Why I think Zuko’s flashbacks are like, at least part teenage melodrama bullshit (the reason is son preference), how someone like Sokka might be treated once he’s openly Water Tribe in the Fire Nation (probably with racism...), specific aspects of asian homophobia and racism, etc. We’ll see.

This is not a definitive guide. Comments and critique welcome.

If you think there’s a factual mistake, PLEASE hop in my asks and let me know. I also think there’s a huge blind spot in ATLA for South and Southeast Asian representation, so I acknowledge that I can’t speak for all Asians, and there is no such thing as a “pan-asian” identity.

If there’s something else you’re curious about, I’m not a historian or anything, but I like research. Ask me and I’ll try to answer the best I can.

And oh, one last thing, this is how I do research when I wrote firebender’s guide, in case anyone’s interested in learning more (LINK)

[kmclaude]

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

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

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

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

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

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

My questions to your specific situation are:

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

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

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

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

Let me start with a confession...

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

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

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

What Goes Where?

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do I compress from novel to comic?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resources on writing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[baddieromanova]

so you falice shippers still ship that mess who fucked once, even after alice willingly took him back after what he said to her and won't even talk to his new son? and are happy about it? lol sucks to be tasteless

This message has been sitting in my inbox for roughly 2 days and I’ve been going back and forth on whether to dignify it with a response or not. While I tend to ignore and delete hateful messages such as this and not give the coward behind them any form of the attention they crave, after careful consideration, I decided to abandon that belief because answering this question gives me a great opportunity to tell you about yourself and how wrong you are, sit back and get comfortable.

First of all, I’ll never understand how people who have 99% of a fandom blocked and filtered tags pertaining to what that fandom makes posts about and produces content for, still manage to make posts about what said fandom is doing, saying etc. Why do y’all make so much assumptions about a group of people you’ve sworn off all contact and interaction with for well over a year? How would you know what goes on in the Falice section of the fandom? So my main question here is, what’s the point of even using the block button against us if you’re still going to come to our blogs and goes through the tags to seek out what we’re up to? If these blocks weren’t in effect we could all have mature discussions instead of resorting to this, so I have to wonder, is it because the block button on your end prevents us from shutting down your bullshit so you can happily enjoy your idealistic totally pulled out of your ass version of Riverdale and it’s ships/characters? Hmm

Second of all, I can assure you no Falice fan is happy or even satisfied about their sudden reunion with no reconciliation or acknowledgement over what happened in 3x15, which we knew was bound to happen, hence why a lot of fics were produced back in the SUMMER containing the content we knew we were not going to get. Would we have loved to actually see FP apologise? Alice to punch him in the face? His reaction to Charles? A touching moment between all three after being reunited for the first time in 25 years? FP to practically grovel to Alice till he was on the brink of tears? Alice acting cold towards him? Heck yeah, we all at least wanted her to spit at him, I don’t know anyone who didn’t want her to act physically towards him, he deserved it, which is why we took our dreams to Wattpad and AO3. Personally I wanted a resentful anadonned child plot to play out where Charles initially hates Alice and we see that play out while they try to build a relationship. We have ranted, we have rambled, we have argued and we have moved on. We don’t watch this show with rose colored glasses and an idealistic perspective. We know it’s a joke and the writers are incapable of decent and realistic execution of development for friendships, relationships, break ups and reconciliations and use time jumps to avoid doing so, we’ve accepted that. We’ve made our peace with that, which is why we can still watch and find some enjoyment while you and others literally complain every single day over the most minor instances.

Thirdly, I admire your attempt to use the writers incompetence when it comes to writing relationships to push your “Falice is a mess who fucked once” arguement and even throwing in the 4x04 time jump matched with FP and Alice suddenly being together and little mention of Charles to put emphasis onto it. You’re trying to twist it into a Falice problem when it’s actually a Riverdale problem sweetheart, their problem with accurate story development and execution and just being lazy with any character and ship outside of Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead. If we want to go by that logic then I suppose by default Tom is a bad parent for being conveniently absent during his sons participation in a farm cult and not noticing his missing kidney despite being a cop thus immediately being able to pick up on that. I guess Sweet pea is a shit friend for “not saving” his bff from said cult and I guess Polly’s a bad mother for putting the same twins she was willing to run away from her family from to keep safe, up for adoption, and not even acknowledging their presence now or even having a say in who has custody of them. Of course none of these things are actually true, they’ve just unfortunately happened because of either plot convenience for the core four characters or just complete lack of care from the writers. Just the fact that they still seem to be in their newborn phase despite being nearly three years old according to the shows timeline says it all. They don’t care. As for “mess of a ship who only fucked once”, as much as you people love to clutch onto season one canon or what was established back then for dear life and disclaim 3x04, you sure do love to ignore certain parts of that season and keep 3x04 in your mouths when it comes to Falice. Seasons one and two always implied much more happened between Falice as teens than what 3x04 presented. You don’t go from telling someone you’d still sleep with them if they weren’t so stuck up, impulsively telling them to leave their spouse, doing a parole violating act to protect them, writing an apology letter despite being unable to strong two sentences together, talking about your kids making said mistakes you and your ex did and then snapping back with they weren’t all mistakes and having your heart broken upon seeing the woman you love return to her husband to “Yeah we just fucked once”. Falice were more than a one time thump, and that’s the canon I’m choosing to stick with, the same way you choose to believe Hal fathered Charles despite there NEVER being any implication through dialogue, backstory or characters that he was and there being a higher chance of the father being Tom or Fred before FP being a viable candidate. I’m not going to suspend belief of that just because the writers were more concerned with the sensationalism and “fun” aspect of the teen actors playing their parents, and essentially just doing dress up because none of their portrayals of their parents were accurate or even done to a high standard, Lili’s acting was decent but her acting is decent in general, Cole’s mannerisms were superb and KJ looked like Luke’s twin but outside of that, I didn’t see any of them as young versions of the parents and I promise nobody else did, and doing a storyline revolving around a bootleg Dungeons and Dragons game and making it borderline supernatural rather than just giving us a simple episode about the parents as teens based on the stories that have told on the show already.

You’re most likely a Halice or crackship that will never happen stan, you’ve got bigger priorities than FP and Alice and their relationship love which I’m sure has no impact on you or your faves whatsoever , maybe if you spent the time you did crying over Falice actually minding your business and shipping your ship you wouldn’t be so bitter.

[linsteinmac-blog]

i hate my wife

Love and detest are convincing sentiments. It will in general be difficult to tell one from the other. Love and hate are indisputable rather than repudiated experiences; they are practically identical in explicit points of view and unique in others. Loathe isn't something in spite of love; lack of concern is. This detest continues revealing a very extraordinary and energetic association. Exactly when you worshiped your significant other, you saw and got a handle on the entirety of her incredible attributes. You favored the way wherein she snickered. You making the most of her lack of caution. You valued her very own drive to succeed and how she would exploit each new godsend and research it. Since you severely dislike your significant other, her snickering sounds tumultuous and delicate. Her thoughtlessness has caused a bigger number of difficulties than compensations. As a pioneer, she has gotten boisterous and real.

Startlingly, countless the exact attributes which once pulled in us to our accessories can become wellsprings of bothering later on. This is much of the time considering the way that we can be pulled in to those characteristics which we deny, or don't allow, in ourselves. For instance, someone who is frugal may be very pulled in, from the outset, to i hate my wife someone who is significantly increasingly freed in their methods for overseeing cash. There is an inclination of experience, putting it all out there, living at the time, getting a handle on the opportunity. In any case, when you are in a genuine relationship, you will as a rule come back to what is progressively pleasing, and agreeable, to you. In this model, would be cash related frugality.

A man may cherish and severely dislike his significant other all the while. It makes a discord in the relationship considering the way that the two feelings seem, by all accounts, to be conflicting with each other. They are logically a lot of equivalent to flip sides of a comparable coin.

In reality love is both a tendency and an action. Associations are either creating or self-destructing. Without deliberate thought, care, and effort, in every way that really matters any marriage will definitely end up being less satisfying, and may end due to dismiss.

Consider the Consequences of Cheating

You may be feeling that curbed imperativeness needs to take off to some place or that you merit some satisfaction. Since you are hitched doesn't suggest that you don't have sexual needs. Comprehend that you will continue to see and be pulled in to different women. This isn't generally a sign that you should end your marriage or choose to cheat. Seeing different women is correct. Nor is being pulled in to someone other than your significant other. The issue is choosing to catch up on those considerations, inclinations, and allurements.

There are various issues related with cheating. Submitting disloyalty reliably adds more weight and battle to a marriage. Selling out has one of the most hurting impacts on close associations of any stressors in light of it being so amazingly near and dear. It is amazingly difficult to have a sound relationship in which there is no trust. By a wide margin the vast majority of us should be trusted and need to have a suspicion that all is well and good with our assistants, especially when we have inspiration to acknowledge we are in a submitted course of action. In case you realize early that you're pondering wandering outside the points of confinement of your marriage, this prescribes you get the opportunity to take an increasingly beneficial and even more ordinarily mindful action, rather than selling out your loved one's trust in your devotion.

In case you have any desire for remaining adequately or cheerfully married, bamboozling isn't the best methodology. While it without a doubt is functional for association with recover from unfaithfulness, it is a long and problematic road, requiring strong obligation and effort from both a couple. If your marriage is starting at now doing combating (it doubtlessly is if you feel scorn for your life partner), being unfaithful will simply add to the issues among you. Toward the day's end, your choice to cheat could be your indirect choice for independent, paying little respect to whether you get it or not.

It is off the mark for any association with be stood out from an endeavor. In another relationship, you experience the genuine emotions and vitality of any new wistful relationship, close by the energetic intensity of fault, fear of getting caught, etc. Think about how all of these sentiments and experiences feels, genuinely. You experience them exactly the same, isn't that so? A running heart, sways in your stomach, sweat-doused palms, perhaps some strain or helplessness, just to give a few models. So an endeavor feels more uncommon than an above-board new dating relationship. In what limit can any marriage nicely battle with that?

Past the damage done to your marriage, cheating in like manner incorporates describing another relationship. One-night extravagances can be extraordinarily hazardous. It is very far-fetched of knowing the degree of the new woman's constancy, sexual history, points, or wants. In case you empower an individual association with make with another woman, by and by both your emotions and body are incorporated. This fair makes additional complexities in your viably anguishing marriage. If the other woman acknowledges you're hitched, you can reasonably consider about her own one of a kind character, and on the off chance that she justifies the catch.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Jésus fucking christ i am so sorry about those antis harassing you, I legit don’t get how they send you awful shit and then stay /convinced/ they are the goodest purest most benevolent people on earth. Ew

thank you for your concern - I’m okay!pretty sure in this instance it was just one anti who was bored out of their mind on a Friday afternoon between college classes or something, lmao.

but I wanted to answer your question because it’s one of the most mind-bending phenomena to witness and yet one of the easiest to commit - and the frequency of it increases dramatically when authoritarian regimes rise. 

a lot of what I’m about to talk about is derived from my thoughts after reading The Authoritarians by Professor Bob Altemeyer, which is available for free as a PDF at that link.

so:

how does a person send another human being awful shit and stay convinced that they (and the friends that condone their behavior) are the goodest, purest, most benevolent people on Earth?

the answer seems to be the powerful reaction of two components that, when mixed, encourage some of the worst behaviors that come out of humanity.

A) a powerful sense of self-righteousness/having a righteous cause: that is, a strong certainty of their own moral superiority and absolute correctness, or the moral superiority/correctness of their ideology

B) aggressive feelings towards nonconformists: in other words, a readiness to confront & attack people who do not think as they think, do as they do, or conform to their ideological beliefs.

together, though …

A+B=C) that sense of righteousness + the desire to attack anyone who doesn’t acknowledge their superiority = self-justification of abusive ‘punishment’ via victim-blaming and dehumanization of dissenters

it’s all too natural when you break it down. 

if you/your ideas are morally superior, than everyone else/other ideas are - by default - morally inferior. and if you lack a desire to attack anyone who thinks otherwise, than you might be content to let your moral superiority speak for itself.

otoh, if you do want to attack anyone who pisses you off you might experience cognitive dissonance. sending nasty comments, death threats, and spam to another human (much less doxxing, bullying, dogpiling, assaulting, slandering, etc them) isn’t the actions of a morally superior person.

… or is it?

[tw for justification of harm&humiliation, death & suicide, dehumanization.]

If a person refuses to condemn morally questionable content, don’t they kind of deserve whatever bad things happen to them? 

and as a morally superior person, are you really in the wrong if you punish someone for sharing morally inferior content? 

isn’t it actually good to publicly mock, shame, and chase out nasties who spread immoral ideologies and content? there’s no reason to waste reason on these abuse apologists. they know what they’re doing is wrong and they don’t care; they only care about their nasty fetishes, so don’t waste your compassion on barely human wastes of space.

tbh, when you get right down to it these monsters are dangerous; they’re making the world an actively worse place. public humiliation is the least they should experience.

frankly everyone would be better off without them. there’s nothing you could say or do, no matter how cruel, that they wouldn’t deserve. if your actions lead to a death, it’s one less predator in the world. nothing to mourn about, really. in fact, you’re doing the world a service. Don’t you think?

[/tw]

this thought process is obviously just an example, but it’s intended to illustrate the kind of self-righteousness & aggression towards others that are aspects of key traits that define authoritarian thinking, such as extreme hostility towards outsiders/outside points of view or the belief that they & their cronies are the last Good People on this earth. However, even people who are way more self-righteous and aggressive than most other people need one more push - a push that’s so important I added it to my rewording of your question.

the catalyst that allows people who combine self-righteousness and aggression to justify abuse of dehumanized outsiders is the certainty that their aggressive behavior is condoned and approved by like-minded friends and/or leaders.

in other words: 

what lets some people be legitimately terrible to other people while believing they’re Just and Good is social permission to be the asshole they secretly want to be, but couldn’t quite justify being on their own.

there’s a group of people that are uniquely suited to be that catalyst. people who combine the traits of self-righteousness & aggressiveness don’t need to go through a self-justification process like the above because they don’t see other humans as their equals/worthy of respect under any circumstances. These are the natural, remorseless bullies of the world who tend to assume leadership positions in authoritarian communities - and they get there partially by encouraging and nursing self-justification of dehumanizing and hating and destroying other people like the above.

 take careless following of a bully like that to its natural extremes and you get the enthusiastic followers of genocidal demagogues, who together dehumanize socially disadvantaged groups to the point that they can justify mass incarceration or killings of the members of those groups. (do I need to name names here, really?) 

this kind of thinking & behavior is presently (November 2018) on the rise in many parts of the English-speaking world. fandom is, as usual, a mere microcosm reflecting that rise in the form of policing what people can and cannot put in their fanworks. 

so no, i’m not saying that fandom anti-shippers (or any other fandom policers) are putting us on a path to genocide. I am, however, saying that their brand of discouraging dissent & demanding conformity is the preferred brand of authoritarian aggressors everywhere.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I've seen people compare and contrast Dean's pearl wish with his djinn dream in s2, but what are your thoughts on Amara giving him what he wants most and the pearl his heart's desire? Given one is his mom and the other his dad. And one needing to be reversed.

Dean’s heart… an enigma for the ages :’D We should throw in from the pile of other smaller instances, the largest plain text one, which is 4x14 and the siren telling Dean that he wanted a brother-figure most in another episode which dealt with manifesting desires… Though that one’s been argued to shreds and has terrible context even taking a straightforward read of it as what it says on the tin, because it’s to force discord between Sam and Dean in the run up to their worst falling out, and so it’s a replacement in a very sinister way rather than the cleanest comparison you make of Amara giving Mary - actual Mary - back and the pearl granting John - actual John - back, compared to every other instance of wish fulfilment along the way. 

Anyway I think it is clear Amara had the better instinct… I feel like we all know about Dean and his issues with John, and I think it’s very much that the pearl picked up on a desire to resolve these things, and especially maybe exactly what the episode ended up being for them with John - just the chance to see the family unit together, and in a way see off the dream of what was missing there. That Mary being back begged a question of why not John as well - why hadn’t Amara restored BOTH parents, and why wasn’t Dean’s desire that SHE read in him to have this completed family with John AND Mary. 

I think the episode dealt with it really interestingly because I keep laughing in disbelief that what I never thought would happen even subtextually but totally had been joking to myself would, was Dean “coming out” to John in some way that set up normative family values against family don’t end in blood aka the weird ass family that he’s collected for himself through the years. 

Even as far back as that quote’s original use in 3x16, Bobby’s supplanted John and steps in as father and a strong subplot of season 3 is Bobby taking on that role, with 3x10 having a lot of this between him and Dean specifically… The show then goes on to not only build this up over the years to the point that Bobby’s the better dad, but in 7x10 goes so far as to suggest that he had been historically, retconning their history just one shade further from the way in 1x22 Bobby comes across almost like a vaguely known family friend to the one who wanted to play catch with Dean and defended their right to be kids with John over the phone, almost to the implication that the reason in 1x22 they’re worried about going to Bobby because last time they saw him he threatened to shoot John… was over their parenting of the boys. 

Like, John not only missed out and has some serious trauma with his boys, but in the family unit the show holds up as better than blood family, Bobby has historically and firmly supplanted John over a long arc through most of the core part of the show and final iconic death episode, so even though Bobby is also dead, we have AUBobby back if we WANT to step-dad him back into the family via Mary, and regardless, it’s clear that from childhood to way beyond John’s life, Bobby set down a challenge and the motto of the show and WON, and John doesn’t actually have a place in Dean’s family unit; he has the place in the NORMATIVE blood family, the white picket fence nuclear family from 1x01 that we see for all of a few seconds before it’s destroyed. But the family that means the most to Dean by all accounts of the show from season 3 onwards is not one that actually includes John and the more people Dean adopts, the less John factors into this, until by season 13 and 14 he’s shuddering out of the last of it by getting to raise a son of his own from tentative horror about inflicting a childhood on him like what John did to them, to actually bonding with Jack and being a better father than John was - thankfully with much lower stakes and 2 other dads to pick up the slack for the hard stuff when he’s emotionally incapable of reaching out at first.

And then we have how in season 1, the entire arc is about finding John, and in 1x16 we get that conversation between Sam and Dean which shatters my heart every time I go through: 

DEAN: Yes, that, but it’s more than that, man. (He returns to the dresser and is silent again, then once more turns to Sam.) You and me and Dad—I mean, I want us….I want us to be together again. I want us to be a family again.

SAM: Dean, we are a family. I’d do anything for you. But things will never be the way they were before. (DEAN looks heartbroken.)

DEAN: (sadly) Could be.

SAM: I don’t want them to be. I’m not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you’re gonna have to let me go my own way. (He and DEAN share a look.)

And then in 1x20:

SAM (Grumpily) That’s probably what Dad’s thinking. Course it would be nice if he just told us what he thinks.

DEAN So it is starting.

SAM What?

DEAN Sam, we’ve been looking for Dad all year. Now we’re not with him for more than a couple of hours and there’s static already?

There’s obviously like, a whole season of material on this but these moments stand out to me about what they want and how compatible the Sam Dean John team really is (without factoring in Mary being alive so there’s some more happiness to it all in what we saw).

In 1x16 Sam has John’s 14x13 idea of a happy end - of getting out of the life and being able to do normal human things and settle down and all that jazz, and John’s really sad that Dean never found it, and just sees a lack in Dean’s life. And then there’s the issue of having John around where obviously there’s a lot of reasons in the 14x13 set up that if it had been permanent it would have been better, but still what we saw was the very rosy honeymoon period of having John back. Like, they weren’t working a case together so we got no leadership conflict, but while Sam and John had the most heartbreaking chat to resolve everything between them, they also had one of those in the iconic “spent it on ammo” scene, which was, you know, wonderful and all, but then somehow John still ends up dying within the week after his last 3 conversations with Sam were all blow out arguments. And John in this episode was snatched from technically the middle of his falling out with Sam about Stanford, when he was coming from whiplash of disowning to wow damn the kid got big and competent and, er, hunter-y. Nullifying that argument from John’s POV just as Sam has lived just too much life to be mad about it when faced with a John of that era. Conveniently for their development in the episode, ya know. John was very cannily picked out of time for the perfect balance of emotions. Multiple time periods of John could be used for what he and Dean went through, but only Standford-era John could be chill and easy for Sam to handle like that.

So. We’ve got John nullified from being part of the core family and we’ve got him being potentially dangerous to keep around for a long time, even if we can assume the cheerful period would be longer. We still had, like, AUBobby. And whatever would have happened getting John up to speed on their lives and putting him to work. Sam is HUNTER BOSS now. Chief. King of Hell by default because the demons are all too scared of him to elect a new one. How’s John going to fit into a dynamic where even AUBobby’s acknowledged Sam’s the alpha? Sam’s issues in season 1 were largely being the kid still, helpless with being only 22 and relatively inexperienced at least compared to John and Dean even though he’s NEVER portrayed as incapable, he’s just struggling with being young and not being the natural leader his personality has always been and he’s always had trouble with. (the 1x10 fury about the kids thinking Dean is his boss is the best microcosm :P The actual argument of 1x10-11 in full explains it all though if you rewatch those 2 with this in mind.) 

And then why does Mary get to stay? First of all, just because they don’t have ANY experience of her, not as hunter!mom, barely as mom, and she’s a sainted concept with no personality so they don’t have a CLUE about who Mary actually IS and all the ways she can be flawed and weird and messy and like them and unlike them. In some ways a problem with John was always too MUCH John became a thing very quickly, while they’ve been thirsty sponges for anything about Mary. Dean remembers the tiniest specs of info about her and Sam is arguably in a worst place of not knowing at ALL. 

She also never got to fuck them up with trauma and getting a chance to fuck up and upset them as adults is wonderful because they get to go through Dramas and Struggles about having mom around and her doing crap things like sleeping with Ketch or whatever and like… that’s still delightful filling in gaps compared to them carrying enormous burdens from how John raised them… Even knowing Mary was a hunter and made the deal etc is a retroactive pain they only carry from season 4, so all their formative years she was a blank slate and John was causing all the damage. Even if we break John and Mary down to how they address Sam and Dean’s trauma, John shows up to make up for/free them from what already happened to them, while Mary arrives to fill in blank spaces and give them an experience they never had before. 12x22′s speech addresses all this in one way or another, about both the history retcon Dean’s had time to absorb since season 4, but also that the trauma came from John, and even the very setting of the childhood kitchen and Mary’s inability to see past her tiny children mirroring their inability to see past Mother Mary at times giving us how much they’re building their emotional landscape over this frozen-in-time leap of 33 years. 

Amara gave Dean forward development he needed most in a way that was ongoing development of a relationship over time, while the pearl resolves something that can be done in an afternoon, and free Dean to move on to a world beyond John and to embracing and understanding his own family values without the spectre of what John wanted for him… Better for them to all get a resolution about John, a good final memory, but then to accept that he came from the past, and to put him back there. While Mary is a scrappy disaster person just like them, and very much a living person with her own crap… John emerged like a ghost, and ~moved on~ like a ghost. But the unfinished business was on the living winchesters, rather than on him. 

… It was fantastically well done, I probably don’t need to say about how I feel on it :’) 

[mfackenthal]

You seem like a happy person who has her shit together or is at least happy in her life. Tell me how to be happy? I'm yearning to feel that emotion but have not experienced true happiness in a long time. Now I've reached a point where my usual "drugs" don't work anymore. Idk what to do anymore.... Please give me some tips on how to be happy?

Well hello Nonny,

Alright, ya’ll.  I’m on my computer and that means I can’t tag this a long post.  It’s going to be long because happiness is one of those topics that makes me get all philosophical and psychological ... it’s one of my favorite topics.  

So that I don’t ignore it and I acknowledge it appropriately, I want to say thank you for the compliment.  It’s good to know that I can come off as someone who has her shit together ... I certainly go through phases where I hope that’s true and phases where I know it ain’t.  As for happiness in my life, I went through a season last year where I really wasn’t happy, but I didn’t really notice.  I would say I was fairly numb to any strong emotion ... but it took my head clearing from a fog and some deeper conversations with my husband for me to realize it.  I would say I was borderline clinically depressed and when that was brought to my attention I was able to start seeing how my brain was telling me shit that was just simply a lie.  It’s the strangest thing to realize that my brain cannot be trusted to tell me the truth and treat me with the love and kindness I deserve.   

The fact that you are asking for and seeking happiness is a good thing.  That is healthy.  That means that you’re on a path of adventure. 

The truth is that everyone’s adventure to, through, and with happiness is different.  Therefore, I’m going to give you the start of some ideas and I encourage you to start with the ones that you find yourself gravitating to but then to try the other ways and see what works well for you. Sometimes we find happiness in the place we were sure we would not.

If you think that you are bordering on or already in a state of clinical depression, then psychiatric drugs are a good starting point.  It’s very hard to find happiness when our brain cannot access the happy hormones and other goodness that your body and the world are trying to produce.  Just making the ability to feel happiness as an option is key. 

But drugs alone won’t be the answer.  If you’re someone who likes to ask why (as I am), here’s the quick and dirty answer:  humanity does not know why depression medication works.  The best of science indicates that these drugs are better than placebos.  Science has found some measurable effects that these drugs have on different parts of the body and people tell us that these effects lead to a happier, healthier feeling.  We do not know why. At least not yet.

This means that you may have to play with the dosage of a drug.  You may also need to find a diet that works well for you on and/or off the drug.  And I don’t mean find a diet that starves you.  I mean find a diet that allows you to eat the foods you want but surrounded by a lot of vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats.  If you can, try being vegetarian or vegan.  If meat is something you like eating, then don’t do that.  LOL  Just limit the amount of meat you have with each meal.  If you love chocolate and you can eat just one square, then allow yourself one square. 

If your “drugs” are less prescription and more “recreational” ... as long as they’re not dangerous (IE cocaine, ecstasy, etc), then I encourage you to change up the dosage, try not to become reliant, or if they’re cigarettes to stop entirely.  For example, if it’s marijuana, try baked goods or gummies.  Sometimes the same thing in a different form gives a very different reaction. I personally suggest taking pot in ways other than smoking - but that’s because I believe that the inhaling of any smoke is less than healthy for you.  Back to my point though ... play around with dosage but please do so carefully - high driving is no better than drunk driving.  

Quick recap so far cause y’know, long post ... 1)  Use drugs and manage the dosage. 2) Find a diet that makes you feel healthier. 

Going on ... For many, happiness is found in the idea of nothing.  Meditation, the clearing of the mind.  Release, the clearing of long held guilt/responsibilities over things you can’t change.  Nirvana, becoming one with the idea that the things you think are important probably aren’t and yet you are an integral part of the grandest thing: life.  Minimalism or camping - the idea of taking a break from our “things”/our “technology”. Many people find happiness in having less.

For others, happiness is found in having things. Sometimes it’s in the having the “right” thing at the right time.  Sometimes it’s in getting a hug from a friend.  I fell in love with the color “mint green” a few years ago and now any time I can get something I want/need in that color, I am pumped!  I will pay a few dollars more for something to be my color.  I know it’s silly, but it makes me happy and more likely to use the item.

There are a lot of personality quizzes that can help you determine what it is that will make you happy.  For instance, are you introverted or extroverted?  I highly suggest reading “Better Than Before” by Gretchen Rubin.  This book has all these different ways to get to know yourself better.  By knowing yourself better, you can find more ways to make yourself happy.  Gretchen Rubin also has a podcast called, “Happier.”  I highly suggest it. 

Now to get a bit more philosophical ... The truth is that happiness is a strange thing.  For example, sometimes when the writing in this fandom is beautifully sad or tragic, I still feel such happiness.  The beauty of words, the release that tears bring, just the feeling of such a strong emotion can also be a part of my happiness.  Of course, sometimes I find my happiness in the bad guy getting their comeuppance, or I always feel happy when the main couple finds a way to subvert all expectations and life difficulties and find each other.  The love making that often follows tends to make me happy too ;)

Well, Nonny, I hope you’ve found something in this post that gets you wanting to try something (or nothing ;) ).  Research shows that (baring extreme circumstances) almost any change will make us happy.  This means you could try going to a different coffee shop or going to a library instead of a coffee shop.  Or you could try a different flavor of ice cream.  Even if you try something yucky, learning that you don’t like something can bring a feeling of happiness. 

I wish you only the best, Nonny.  If you try something and it works, let me know what it is. I hope you can find ways to embrace the adventure.  It’s often in the adventure and not the destination where true happiness is found.  Happiness is not the destination or iit’s not the end at least.  No matter how you look at it though - I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Sending so much love,

~Megs~

[brokenedgeben]

Remember when I said I had more to say? You’re getting it.

A.k.a. my Sion/Exile vs. Reylo meta that I’ve been sitting on for quite a while now. Fair warning, this may start a rumble, but I have to get this out of my system.

Call it one of those moments when I realized that I am not against hero/villain pairings by default. I mean, my Darkpilot shipping aside, one of my favorite pairings when I was in the Knights of the Old Republic fandom was Darth Sion and the Jedi Exile (unfortunately only available if you play the female path. I’m guessing Chris Avellone didn’t want any Unfortunate Implications, to quote TV Tropes...?). Why does Sion/Exile work for me, and Reylo does not (besides my love of FinnRey and Darkpilot)?

Let’s look at the evidence.

For a bit of backstory, Knights of the Old Republic II follows a General of a fallen Jedi-turned-good-again (or bad again, depending on your choices), named simply the Jedi Exile (there’s one book that calls her Meetra Surik, but IMHO, she’s really the Exile in name only from what I heard), who has (SPOILERS) cut herself off from the Force after a traumatic event at the Battle of Malachor V. When she returns to Republic space, she, among other things, finds herself tracked by two Sith Lords intent on exterminating all Jedi everywhere. One’s a Sith Lord who feeds off the Force (it’s a long story). One’s Sion, who relies on his physical and mental anguish in order to survive things that would kill a normal person (including the explosion of a starship). As a result...well, he basically looks like this:

Yeah, that guy. This is when he’s confronting the Exile on Korriban (I know it’s Moraband in the new canon, but this is old canon). We’ll be going into that soon enough.

So, on the surface, SionExile and Reylo have similarities. Sion and Kylo even look somewhat alike.

Seriously, I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that they went to the same clothing designer. Difference is that Kylo’s not as seriously scarred, but I digress.

But in the end, there are definite differences in terms of how they’re executed. To begin with, Sion actually seems to care for the Exile, in a very twisted sense of the word. Kylo...if there’s any love in him for Rey, it would be a miracle. 

First meetings

For Sion and the Exile, they actually have two first meetings. One is on the Republic ship the Harbinger, when the Exile (along with her two party members, Atton and Kreia -- Kreia being who Sion has a very complex relationship with. He hates her, yet also yearns for her approval, even though it’s clear that she loathes him. And at the same time, he wants to save the Exile -- at least the female Exile -- from suffering the same fate he did, whatever happened to him pre-game) is trying to get off the mining colony Peragus. Sion makes his entrance to the Exile at the end of a long dark hall on the ship (unfortunately, I can’t find a good screencap of it), while saying (at least in the Restored Content mod), “I came to warn you, Jedi; you know not the path you walk.”

Their second first meeting comes on Korriban. Sion’s treatment of the female Exile is quite a contrast to how Kylo treats Rey. While he is rather creepy in terms of describing himself as having studied the Exile extensively (up to knowing where she walked when she was in Exile, her battles in the Mandalorian Wars, and more), he’s surprisingly gentle with her. 

For starters, in a video game, the voice acting is essential (along with animation, etc.) to convey emotions. In contrast to his angry Evil Cannot Comprehend Good treatment of a male Exile (Sion doesn’t understand why someone would turn away from power instead of embrace it), Sion is generally tender towards a female Exile in terms of how he speaks. His voice softens, and while there are instances where he seems genuinely confused as to why Kreia would sacrifice herself for the Exile either way, he shows sympathy for what she’s gone through (“You know what it means to be broken.”) and tries to warn her, again, about Kreia and what she’s capable of (”The one who travels with you will destroy you, as she did me. I can end it before it begins.”).

Now Sion, obviously, is not a destined partnership sort. Sion’s not even the character I mainly ship my female Exiles with (that would be Atton, God bless him). But it is noteworthy that even his facial expression seems to be softer in that screencap -- at least as soft as one can get considering the animation. Pretty decent animation for 2004, really. It’s also noteworthy that Sion’s voice goes a lot more tender when he says that line, almost like the Exile’s valuable to him. (We’ll get into that more later)

In addition, he has qualms about harming the Exile. After the Exile (temporarily) beats him in battle, he actually spares her, even ordering his assassins not to harm her. “She,” he says, “Has earned this. She and I will meet again.”

Even that shows more respect towards the Exile than Kylo shows towards Rey. The Exile may be his enemy, but he respects her for what she’s been able to accomplish (especially since, in both paths, he underestimates the Exile. The difference is that with a male Exile, Sion despises him, while with a female Exile, Sion begrudgingly respects what she’s capable of).

In contrast, Kylo’s meeting with Rey is much different. In her initial vision, Rey’s frightened of him:

He terrifies her in the forest of Takodana, blatantly:

There was quite a ruckus made over the fact that he carried her bridal style (and even that you would have to stretch quite a bit, considering that it reminded me more of how Michael Myers would carry a victim), but even then, the difference between bridal style and that is that you have to have consent from the carried (carry-ee? Who knows). Kylo didn’t have Rey’s consent when he carried her. He actively knocked her unconscious with the Force (it’s rather unclear, but he does wave his hand a little) in order to get what he wanted:

And lest we forget, he tortured her. “But brokenedgeben!” you may say. “You ship Darkpilot, and that’s way worse than Reylo!” 

Yes, I ship Darkpilot. The difference is that Darkpilot shippers never try to romanticize Poe’s torture or minimize it like Reylos do with Rey (some have said that Kylo didn’t really torture her). We acknowledge that what Kylo did is a terrible thing and actually try to work with it. Sion obviously never tortured the Exile (ergo, not much to go on), so the best we can do is get into Kylo’s torture of Rey. I remember reading multiple fics that tried to excuse and rationalize Rey’s torture, including saying it was okay because he didn’t use a torture droid on her like he (apparently) did to Poe. But does it really make it better? Let’s really look at the evidence here. Aside from taking off his mask for Rey and trying to explain to her why she’s here, he isn’t really any better towards her than he was towards Poe. In fact, the only difference is that Rey beats him in the end. When he’s interrogating her, and getting into her personal space, she’s crying, closing her eyes, and turning her face away:

She doesn’t want it. It’s easy to understand why JJ Abrams would compare this scene to a sexual assault -- Kylo refuses to get out of her head and she has to force him out, and then there’s the gratuitous closeness of the two (again, without Rey’s consent, so even if Reylo did exist, it would be one-sided at most) during the torture scene. 

Attitudes towards enemies

With Sion, it’s made abundantly clear that he does have compassion and respect towards the Exile, twisted as it is. That only becomes stronger as we get to Malachor V. Nihilus has been vanquished, but Sion and Kreia are still standing, and Sion is relegated to being Kreia’s servant again (after Kreia makes a point of Force Choking him). Now, Kylo had no qualms about bringing Rey to Snoke, and even watches idly as Rey’s tortured by Snoke:

When Rey’s tortured by Snoke, there’s no emotion on Kylo’s face. There’s very little emotion, actually. He does nothing to intervene until the last minute when he kills Snoke (and even Rian Johnson’s comments don’t necessarily suggest that he killed Snoke for Rey). Not to mention that he’s tortured Rey in the past, complete with very creepily getting into her space:

When Kreia and Sion discuss the Exile on Malachor, however, Sion immediately shows concern for her. He explicitly asks Kreia what she will do to the Exile, which Kreia mocks him for, even asking if he has feelings within that shell. (In contrast, aside from Snoke bringing up the idea of Kylo having compassion for Rey in the novelization -- very different from romantic love -- Kylo’s feelings for Rey are never acknowledged onscreen) Even when Kreia explains what she’ll do (which may have been a bluff, but Sion didn’t know that), Sion actually is furious -- he doesn’t show it explicitly, but the gesture he makes of helplessly clenching his fists says volumes, really. 

When Rey tries to sway Kylo away from the path he’s going down (and keep in mind she’s crying all the while), Kylo shouts at her, and then, to twist the knife further, forces her to say that her parents were basically nobody and then says, “You have no place in this story. You come from nothing -- you’re nothing. But not to me.” Even the last part could arguably be called a form of emotional manipulation. 

And keep in mind, Rey crying above? Kylo did this to her. All because she wanted to help him.

How does Sion handle the duel with the Exile? He explicitly says that he respects the Exile’s abilities -- twice, actually. “I cannot see as [Kreia] does, but I know that in time, you will surpass her power. But not here. Not [at Malachor].” And “You are strong. As strong as I had believed. But you cannot beat me. [Kreia] knows this.” Part of the last one is sheer denial of the fact that Kreia’s using him as a pawn in a very complicated game of dejarik, part of it is a belief that he’s saving the Exile by either having her leave the Academy or killing her himself. When the Exile tries to help him (albeit in a twisted way, considering that it actually does result in Sion’s death at the end), Sion doesn’t ridicule her. He doesn’t rub in the fact that she’s nothing. If anything, Sion’s words seem to be more of unhealthy twisted coping mechanisms literally trying to keep himself alive. His words are fundamentally turned against himself, while Kylo actively wants to (emotionally) break Rey into joining him.

Think about it. If Kylo really loved Rey, he would have appealed to her joining him by confessing he loved her. Not implying, but confessing. It still would have gotten the point across that Kylo is manipulative, but it would have been a major step up from basically humiliating her and putting her down to make himself feel better about the fact that Luke “chose” her over him (don’t believe me? The novelization explicitly says that Kylo’s jealous of Rey. So was Sion with the Exile, of course, but the waters do get muddied by the fact that he genuinely seems to care for her and worry for her in a twisted way). 

First, Do No Harm

During their duel in the forest on Starkiller Base before Rey gets the upper hand, Kylo has no qualms about knocking Rey unconscious to focus on Finn first (it’s only after he severely burns Finn that Rey actually reenters the fight). Does he suggest her joining him? Yes, and in an arguably less derogatory way than he does in TLJ, as he doesn’t focus on her origins as much as her power and potential. That’s actually the catalyst for Rey being able to defeat him, and keep in mind, during her duel, she’s absolutely furious with him (and justifiably so):

(This was the best GIF I got of angry Rey, BTW)

After Rey fundamentally rejects him on the Supremacy, Kylo has no qualms about harming her. He even orders the Falcon blown out of the sky (though he doesn’t succeed or Rey would be dead) by his TIE fighters when Rey shows up to the battle. In contrast, while Sion doesn’t hold back in his duel against the Exile, he repeatedly urges her to surrender and leave Malachor because he sees it as better than what Kreia will inevitably do to her (in his eyes). Johnson could have chosen to have Kylo hesitate in firing on Rey for whatever reason (after all, he had it in the beginning with Kylo refusing to fire on his mother), but he didn’t. He chose to have Kylo treat Rey as any other opponent he hated. 

The Confession

While Kylo never really confesses his feelings to Rey explicitly, some Reylo shippers have interpreted the “you have no place in this story” speech as a love confession simply because of Kylo’s “but not to me” at the end. The problem is that it doesn’t do anything to tie into Kylo’s character; it’s just awful. In contrast, Sion’s confession is...probably not going to win any awards for best confession ever, but it ties into his character organically and is unexpectedly poignant because it is basically Sion trying to comprehend feelings that aren’t simply the hate and anger that’s keeping him alive -- feelings that may literally kill him. Even the script directions for the dialogue (shown on this Wookieepedia page if you scroll to the bottom and look for the eleventh footnote) describe it as him trying to describe what love feels like to him. It’s part of his character and makes sense. It illuminates a part of his character. With Kylo, the “you come from nothing” speech could have been intended to serve a similar purpose, but what does it really reveal about him? Nothing, except him being a manipulative bastard. And Sion/Exile was never intended to be a destined partnership (those would fall to Atton/Exile and Disciple/Exile, respectively, for a female Exile. And possibly Visas/Exile and Handmaiden/Exile if you’re using a mod). It was all part of Sion’s character, not knowing what to do with his emotions that aren’t hate. 

Even while he’s dying, he doesn’t lose his affection for the Exile. He even, while warning her about Kreia a final time, says, “Her weakness is you. As you were mine.” Coming from the literal embodiment of the Dark Side, that’s actually touching in a way. 

A tale of two heroines

What also makes Sion and the Exile work is purely in a character-driven way -- Sion is a look into what the Exile could have become if she depended too much on the Force/fell to the Dark Side. (Nihilus is a more blatant parallel, but Sion definitely has his parallels too) The Exile keeps her character arc; she isn’t sacrificed identity-wise in order to try and save Sion. All throughout her encounters with Sion, she keeps her identity intact. And keep in mind, this was written in 2004. 

In contrast, everything about Rey’s character in The Last Jedi is sacrificed to serve Kylo. She’s willing to put herself in danger on the off chance (and a really forced -- if you pardon the pun -- off chance that there may be good in him). Luke had a more familial version of it with Vader, but he kept his character arc of becoming a Jedi intact. Rey is sacrificed to serve another, her story of becoming a Jedi ultimately consumed by Kylo’s story. And this was in 2017. And called a “feminist” film. Calling it feminist is a genuine insult to feminism. 

Does Rey get a chance to resolve her own conflicts? No. She’s relegated to resolving another’s conflict. When she confronts Snoke, it’s all about “Ben”, not resisting the Dark Side herself. Rey rarely gets a chance to have an identity of her own in TLJ until towards the end; it’s all about Kylo. But hey, what do I know? Obviously I hate things directed at women, despite being a woman myself. 

Conclusion

When a hero/villain relationship keeps the heroine’s agency more in a game written in 2004 than a movie in 2017, we’ve got problems on our hands. Even saying that KOTOR II was a deconstruction is no excuse, as The Last Jedi was a deconstruction as well. (I’m probably going to stir up some controversy considering that apparently KOTOR II and TLJ are Friendly Fandoms, but TLJ doesn’t even hold a candle to KOTOR II) The difference is that one got it right, and the other got it wrong. One defied sexist tropes, one succumbed to it. One made the villain sympathetic and even redeemable through the relationship, the other did not. 

So how would I have written Reylo? I wouldn’t have copied Sion/Exile word for word, but I’d take these lessons to heart:

-Emphasize the nature of Rey and Kylo as foils. Using Kylo as a foil for Rey would have arguably saved Rey’s character from becoming just a tool for Kylo, as she would have faced him in a way that was relevant to her becoming a Jedi in her own right. Even if you didn’t have her lose in the forest on Starkiller Base, she could be learning to resist the Dark Side, or at least struggling with it. You could even have her struggle with Luke’s teachings, at least in terms of what she’s learned. 

-Cut the whole matter of Kylo ragging on Rey’s origins. It really does nothing except make him look like a pointless jerk.

-Have Kylo actually show he cares for Rey. There were countless opportunities. He could have hesitated to blow her out of the sky on Crait. He could have expressed sympathy towards her parentage (even though he has no idea what she’s gone through, at least he’d be trying). He could have openly used his caring for her in order to get her to join his side. (Think Bastila with Revan) He could have warned her what Snoke would do to her and that she shouldn’t have come (though that would have gotten in the way of his plan to turn her, so there is that. Mostly suggesting, of course). 

-Build up to Rey actually caring for Kylo and wanting to save him. There was no transition to her sudden change of mind, not even a bit of foreshadowing. It makes me wonder if a scene got cut that never even made it into the deleted scenes. 

-Completely change the “You come from nothing” scene. Instead of having Kylo use Rey’s parentage against her, have him promise her a future -- a better future, in his eyes, than what she’s got. 

-Have Kylo try and warn her about Luke. It would have been a nice bit of foreshadowing for the fact that Luke’s not entirely the good guy. 

-Make it unique to their characters. Make it part of their individual arcs (as I would argue that Sion got an arc despite not being a party member). Make it unique and striking, and you can likely get some gems from there.

In the end, Reylo could have been a lot more. Rey could have been a lot more. The fact that a game made in 2004 had better writing, character development, feminism, and emotion than a movie made in 2017 really does say volumes about how Star Wars has evolved -- and how it may go in the future.

[drsheffieldmd]

HERE’S WHAT THESE SEVEN WRINKLE TYPES REVEAL ABOUT WHO YOU ARE

FIND OUT WHAT YOUR WRINKLE TYPE REVEALS ABOUT YOUR PERSONALITY.

While wrinkles are usually considered undesirable, they have their benefits and tell the story of what wrinkles reveal about you.

We purchase creams and serums to make sure our creases cannot be seen. But no matter what we do, we’re all going to have a few wrinkles in the end.

But that’s fine – it can be considered as a bonus.

Fine lines are often just as attractive as rosy-cheeked looks. Eye crinkles and laugh lines can often make a person seem more endearing.

In this article, we’ll look at different kinds of wrinkles, the factors that cause them, what you can do to slow their progression, and why you shouldn’t think of them as imperfections.  But also what wrinkles reveal about you.

OUR WRINKLE LINES

Most of us are bound to develop ‘the elevens’ at some point in our lives – these are the vertical lines on our forehead that usually pop up when you’re thinking hard about something. Others may develop crow’s feet, which gives them a look of constant joy and emotion.

Here are the most common creases:

Marionette lines: They are vertical lines on the chin. Droopy cheeks lead to the formation of jowl wrinkles

Lip lines: These are vertical hatches located around the lips

Laugh lines: These are also known as nasolabial folds and form a parenthesis-like structure around your upper lip

Crow’s feet: They radiate from your eyes’ outer corners

Worry lines: They come in the form of an ‘eleven’ shape between the eyebrows

Forehead lines: They form horizontal lines across the T-zone’s top.

The furrows or folds bedecking our faces are generally classified into the following categories: static and dynamic.

Static wrinkles: They occur due to the effects of gravity and cause the skin to lose its elastic nature. Wrinkles associated with jowls tend to be static in nature.

Dynamic wrinkles: They occur due to repetitive facial movements. For instance, puckering the lips frequently around a drinking straw can cause these lines.

Over time, dynamic wrinkles transform into regular static wrinkles. The smile lines will morph into nasolabial folds once your cheeks start losing their plumpness with a gentle plummet during your middle age.

WHAT DO YOUR WRINKLES INDICATE ABOUT YOUR PERSONALITY

While the appearance of wrinkles has already been researched multiple times, we’re going to deal with another little-known aspect. Did you know that your wrinkles have a message for the world? Instead of rushing to erase them, how about thinking about the revelations they have in store?

Many studies have tried to analyze how people react to a person with facial creases. Some wrinkles can ruin your poker games forever while others can give you God-like bluffing abilities. If you’re a person who wears their emotions on their sleeve and what wrinkles reveal about you, fine lines can amplify the emotions you feel.

They reflect our general disposition

Our faces reflect our emotions even when we’re neutral or resting – wrinkles are actually responsible for this to a great extent, as per the latest research studies.

People with a positive disposition will find it especially true. People who are constantly beaming may develop facial laugh lines/crow’s feet due to smiles that spread to their eyes. It can build their impression as joyful or happy individuals.

THEY MIMIC RBF OR CONTEMPT FOR OTHERS

While some people have a cheerful face by default, others may have default expressions that come off as angry. In fact, ‘Resting Bitch Face’ or RBF is a colorful little phrase to describe the phenomenon of wearing an angry or contemptuous expression by default.

Researchers have looked into this phenomenon closely using a software tool that analyzed hundreds of different facial points for the determination of emotional expressions. This tech revealed that some individuals had an unusually intense look of contempt in their images, even when they were being neutral.

Some wrinkles, such as marionette lines, may accentuate your RBF by making it seem like you have a downturned mouth. Lip lines, worry, and forehead lines generally indicate displeasure with the people or environment around you. This test was devised by the researchers to help you understand if you suffer from RBF.

If the answer comes back as true, it’s time to accept and own it. Remember that you’re not obligated to keep smiling for others all the time. Plenty of celebs have a steely, cold look. But most of them acknowledge that it has helped them many times in their career.

But if you’re in a situation where RBF is of no particular use, slide your mouth’s corners back by a little, evoking a completely neutral face that’s neither a grin nor a scowl. A micro-eye squint can also help you out.

SINCERITY

If you have crow’s feet, don’t be worried – they show people that you’re a genuine person, as per a recent research study.

Duchenne markers are eye crinkles that we occasionally make when we’re expressing strong negative or positive emotions. The mind uses it to determine the strength of your emotions.

As wrinkles are generally a product of repeat facial expressions, having crow’s feet may seem more authentic to others. Bunnies also have a similar effect since our noses are often wrinkled when we wince in agony or make a wide smile.

Wrinkles can actually reveal:

Your sincerity and authenticity

Your resting face

Your default mood

PROTECTING YOUR FACE FROM FOLDS

What wrinkles reveal about you eventually be etched with lines whose severity is dependent on many factors such as lifestyle and genes. While fighting against gravity’s effects or our genetic makeup is a futile task, it is possible to protect ourselves against skin damage, which may cause wrinkles to pop up earlier than expected.

Here are 4 ways to ward off those pesky wrinkles:

Eliminate crease-causing habits

Select products based on your skin quality

Make healthy skincare and lifestyle choices

Repair and protect your skin

Repair and Protect

Did you know that the sun is responsible for an overwhelming percentage of all skin damage-related issues? To protect your skin against the sun, apply sunscreen that has an SPF rating of 35 or higher. Wear UV-resistant sunglasses, hats, and appropriate sporting gear wherever possible to minimize the chances of sun-related skin damage.

Your exposure to the sun adds up over time. It’s best to take no chances and have sunscreen on every time you step outside the house.

Free radicals, UV radiation, and air pollution can cause severe oxidative damage to the body, resulting in premature wrinkle development. Skin damage can be prevented and minimized by using antioxidant-rich serums such as Vitamin C, etc.

Leading a Healthy Lifestyle Can Help Immensely

Don’t worry, we’re not going to ask you to sleep for 12 hours every day with cucumber slices on your eyelids or cut alcohol out of your lives completely! However, it’s a known fact that people leading a healthy lifestyle often look years younger compared to their peers.

Go wild whenever possible, but always be careful of your limits.

Here’s how you can lead a healthier lifestyle to prevent skin damage:

Reduce your stress levels

Sleep well

Exercise regularly

Avoid cigarettes

Lower your alcohol consumption

Make sure you’re always hydrated

Reduce your sugar intake

Eat a healthy diet

While what you eat has a major impact on your skin, the occasional nachos treat is fine.

Making small changes, such as adding a few anti-aging antioxidant foods to meals and snacks will go a long way. Consume booze and sugar moderately since they can accelerate the body’s aging processes.

Smoking is a hazardous activity that makes you look much older due to all the puckering your lips have to do while smoking, not to mention the toxic chemicals.

Stress reduction, ample rest, and exercise can go a long way in reducing and reversing aging processes in the body. It’s worth it.

Select products after considering the quality of your skin

Our hectic modern lifestyles mean that reducing stress and sleeping 8 hours a day is often a pipe dream for most of us. Chronic illnesses and other factors may hinder you from exercising regularly.

And yes, superfoods aren’t always that pocket-friendly either. Here’s where skincare products can help you out:

If you don’t have any wrinkles yet, keep it simple. Rosehip oil is a powerful multipurpose skincare product that serves as a collagen booster, antioxidant, brightener, and moisturizer simultaneously.

If dry skin is turning out to be an issue, hyaluronic acid-based products can moisturize your skin and boost its elasticity. This will ensure your skin has a plump and pampered appearance.

If your skin has been sagging too much lately, Vitamin C-based serums and retinoids can fight off those creases. They can prevent wrinkles from popping up and reduce your under-eye circles and fine lines. Go for products that use a combination of these two ingredients.

Moisturizing your skin can work wonders. Go for shea butter products that can smooth and soothe your skin to repair damage caused by oxidative stress, thus preventing further creasing issues. It’s also capable of smoothing and softening existing lines on your skin.

Eliminate crease-making habits

Eliminating wrinkle-making habits and making some changes to your behavior can go a long way in helping you retain smoother skin.

Here’s a bunch of stuff you can do:

Stop furrowing your brow or squinting excessively.

Stop rubbing both your eyes.

Don’t rest your forehead, cheeks, or chin in your palms.

Stop squishing your face on your pillow when you sleep.

Sleeping on the back can prevent creases from popping up on your skin. You should also avoid resting your chin and face in your palms when you lie down on your stomach or lean forward while sitting at the table. These positions are known to cause skin creases.

Relax both your brow and forehead while working, reading, or studying. Releasing these two muscles can ease your headaches as well.

If you suffer from allergy-related itchy eyes and other issues, consult a doctor to resolve your issues immediately, so that you stop clawing your face all the time. Wear shades if it’s a bright day. If you find yourself squinting all the time, go for an eye checkup to see whether you need new contacts or glasses, find out what wrinkles reveal about you.

PREVENTATIVE BOTOX

These are botox or botulinum toxin injections that can be used to prevent creases and wrinkles. They have been used for over 20 years now to prevent aging signs from popping up on your face. These procedures are generally done before fine lines and wrinkles start appearing on the skin. Botox happens to be the most widely requested cosmetic procedure carried out in the US.

Injecting Botox before your fine lines get worse can help you nip the problem in the bud. The best candidate for a Botox procedure is a young person who has started seeing faint lines on your skin. Those lines are soon going to evolve into a wrinkle if you don’t deal with them on time.

If you’re in your late 20’s or 30’s, you should consider going for a preventative Botox procedure. People with lines or expressive faces should consider this procedure after the age of 25.

Preventative Botox procedures involve injections made into your face, which prevent wrinkles from popping up.

Botox works well for most patients, provided it’s done by a competent, trained professional. The most commonly reported side effects are bruising, swelling, and pain at the injection site. In some rare instances, Botox may have toxic effects and cause muscle weakness or other complications.

Botox procedures cost between $400 – $700 and aren’t covered by most insurance policies.

The effectiveness of preventative Botox procedures may vary widely. While it won’t eliminate your wrinkles permanently, they’ll be faint enough not to bother you.

WRINKLES ARE ONLY NATURAL

Fine lines are a perfect representation of the best moments of your life that were spent laughing and grinning with joy. Each one of them has a story to tell. Embrace your wrinkles and live with pride – do not be ashamed of who you are and find out what wrinkles reveal about you !

[themian]

What is the biggest tell tale sign that a man is truly in love with you but is emotionally guarded?

It sounds to me like you are with a man whom you perceive as being withholding (of affection, commitment, etc.) He may even profess words of love, but you sense he is holding back. You are trying to decide if he is just not that into you or if he is just a little emotionally guarded.

If I am interpreting your question correctly, then my answer depends on a few factors.

If you have only been together a short while, then it can take a little longer for some people to develop trusting intimacy. He could be falling in love with you, might have even used words of love, but he just isn’t ready to be “all in” yet. He might just be an emotionally reserved person. If so, you will see this temperament in other areas of his life. He might just need more time to feel emotionally secure.

If you have been together for a while and are sexually intimate, there is a good chance that your man is suffering from “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free” syndrome. I think you will know in your heart if this is the case.

If you two have been together for a while and you are on a good path together, I think you should assume that a man who presents himself to you as emotionally guarded will remain emotionally guarded. That is likely his temperament. And it sounds like that is not the temperament YOU PREFER. I STRONGLY encourage you to acknowledge your preference for a more emotionally forthcoming man. Some people just desire more emotional intimacy than others. You might need to break up with him in order for you to find someone that desires the same level of intimacy that you desire. Plus, HE deserves to be with someone who is more compatible with him. It isn’t fair to him if you find yourself continually pushing for more than he is capable of giving.

Be honest. If you need someone who is more emotionally open and connected with you, it sounds like he may not be your guy. You can give “more time” to see if his reluctance is time related, but I suggest that you mentally set a time limit. I have watched women let a situation like this drag on for years. Their emotional needs were never met. If after a year, two years at the most, you are still perceiving him to be guarded, it is time to let him go.

He will give you mixed messages. It's infuriating, and will eat away at you. You need to find out one way or another, or he could have you hanging on a string for as long as he wants. He maybe be unsure or inexperienced on how you feel. So give him a sign you are interested without appearing too desperate. And see what happens. If things remain as they are, forget it because he could be just toying with your feelings and that's cruel on his part.

He Doesn't Open up To You

One of the most common signs that someone is emotionally unavailable is that they doesn't reveal or show their actual feelings around you. And while you may encourage them to open up and be able to express their emotions, they never let their guard down around you to say what's really on their mind. For example, rather than confiding in you and talking about a bad day at the office or a disappointing night out with friends, they chooses to keep their feelings bottled up inside and not express to you what's they're actually thinking. And if your partner is this complicated and hard to read, it's actually not hard to see that there may be an issue with emotional unavailability and detachment.

He's Not Comfortable With Your Emotions

An emotionally unavailable person is also not receptive or supportive when you express your feelings. If your partner becomes uncomfortable, put off, frustrated, or withdrawn when you choose to open up and be vulnerable, this is an indicator that they're not good at handling emotions—both their own as well as yours. In a deep, meaningful, and long-lasting relationship, you and your partner should lend an ear, a shoulder to cry on, and a helping hand, but if your beau isn't willing or able to be there for you when you need them the most, this is a sign that you're with someone who's emotionally unavailable.

His Past Remains a Mystery To You

This type of man is also hardly ever open, honest, and forthright with you about the happenings in his past. And while he certainly doesn't need to divulge every single detail about his relationship history and life story, it's important to keep in mind that having a strong relationship means that you and your partner openly share with one another and get to know each other on a deeper level. However, if he chooses to keep you completely in the dark about key details of his past, this can be a sign that he's emotionally cut off since he's refusing to let you know more about his life. When a man chooses to be a closed book, it's a major warning sign.

Further, if he does open up but you find out he's never been in a serious or committed relationship, take that as a warning sign. "They're scared of intimacy," says licensed couples therapist Brooke Sprowl.

He Often Resorts To Sarcasm

Have you noticed that he brushes everything off with a joke or sarcastic comment? Rather than expressing anger, fear, sadness, or disappointment, an emotionally unavailable man turns things into a joke in order to avoid dealing with raw emotions and to remain strong and unfazed in your eyes. "Making a joke or telling a partner not to feel emotional about a topic is a common mechanism for the emotionally unavailable to try to control the discussion," says Sherry Gaba, licensed psychotherapist.

For instance, even if your man is upset and hurt that he was passed over for a promotion, he'll somehow turn it into a joke and laugh it off in front of you so as to not actually have to process, deal with, and talk about what he's really feeling inside. When he uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism and resorts to laughter over honesty, it's clear that he's cutting himself off emotionally from you.

He's Slow To Commit To You

An emotionally unavailable man is typically not willing or able to truly commit to you and be loyal to you. This type of man will often want to keep things casual and undefined so as to not deal with any of the emotional components that go into a long-term relationship. Men who are emotionally unavailable will often jump from fling to fling because they don't have to fully invest more than what they're willing to or comfortable with. If you'd like to take your relationship with a man to the next level but he wants to remain unattached, friends with benefits, or keep his options open, this can be a clear sign that he's emotionally unavailable.

[kvlt-ov-romance-blog]

Love is the Law

I was recently massaged by someone who asked why I only seem to apparently follow half of Crowley's statement: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the, love under will."

Essentially, this is actually a pretty valid concern that applies to a lot of Thelemites in general. In order to maximize your chances of achieving true will, it is fair and logical to make sure you do not take only one or the other of these ideas while ignoring the rest of them. To do so, is to be imbalanced in the realms of spirituality, philosophy, and so forth from a purely traditional Thelemite perspective, arguably.

In my case, I think on the surface it would be easy to assume I only believe in the first part of Crowley's law, because as an artist, it is easier for me to convey esoteric symbolism and darker aesthetics such as my pieces on the Goetia, than it is to convey love. But nevertheless, keep in mind the name of this blog: Kvlt ov Romance (cult of Romance). I often make art dedicated to personal heroes, people that I love in their own unique ways -- hence the title of the blog is a reflection of my admiration for people such as musicians who strive to meet their own true will, and it is even perhaps sometimes a bit more "fanboy-ish" at times for that reason admittedly.

The blog was initially called Nihilistic Thelemite, but it just didn't sound as good and didn't seem as fitting, especially since like I mentioned, I do a lot of tribute based art that reflects a love for concepts, people, symbols, faith, etc. But in any case, Thelema is paired inherently with the concept of agape, perhaps the highest form of love. The two are inseparable in my opinion. I may occasionally make art or poems that appear hedonistic, nihilistic, or otherwise devoid of love and lightness but this is art, a medium for channeling my emotions and darker sides. It doesn't mean I am ignoring "love is the law."

I am not a Wiccan so the Wiccan rede does not mean as much to me, nor I am not hugely concerned with concepts such as Karma, and so forth. I believe in the importance of individual autonomy above all else, but having myself been a former anarcho-communist and a student of sociological discourse when I was at university, I'm very aware of the need for collective unity and the importance of groups, cooperatives, etc.

"Do what thou wilt" is not meant to be taken as pure debauchery and infantile anarchism, it is far more nuanced than that and it also certainly does not mean to go out and harm others. The love and agape aspects of Thelema are overshadowed by this first line and by Crowley being "the wickedest man in the world," but this is out of ignorance for what Thelema entails.

Crowley was born October 12th, making him a Libra. Interestingly, I am also a Libra myself, but one more closely like Crowley in that I am very airy (my thoughts are always blowing around) and that for as much as balance and justice are important to me, so too is tipping the scales and experimenting with extremism. There are different types of Libras, I for instance am one day away from being a Scorpio, but no matter what we almost universally all tend to acknowledge the need for balance and fairness, for the scales to be lined up evenly. Perhaps if you are practicing left hand or right hand path magic, one may outweigh the other but it all eventually comes back to how well you can center yourself, and if you're truly taking all of Thelema to heart this means acknowledging "love is the law."

And for further clarification on what this statement means, I think the beauty of Thelema is that we are free to define it for ourselves in a large way. For me personally, it means that we should strive to treat each other with respect and be aware that all of us have a will that we are attempting to follow or awaken to. We all deserve fairness, it's literally an elementary concept ("the golden rule") that extends far beyond the occult. It also means that we should try our best to love ourselves, and this one can be especially difficult. Part of me wonders if Crowley included this line to forever remind himself to take care of himself and not let go completely of this life, as a man who so often struggled with fitting in, substance abuse, being blamed and misunderstood, and the like. Of course he was strong enough and had a good sense of humor of everything to not let his issues ruin him, but every little bit of support helps, especially when it seems in his case, it was coming from his own holy guardian angel.

Ultimately, I am not the type to turn the other cheek. I do not believe in non-violence either. But I am not particularly concerned with grudges, revenge, or anything like that. Satanism for instance can be a little more "unforgiving" for example, and that's one of the reasons I don't adhere to it. But love is something special, perhaps the very force that keeps the universe together for all we know. So if I ever appear to be ignoring this construct, just know that I am very much aware of it in actuality and think that more Thelemites should be as well.

P.S. I rarely am political here, but I will say this much; anybody whose interpretation of Thelema leads them to justify Nazism really needs to re evaluate their principles and understanding of the occult. And that's the nicest way I'll phrase that...

[pacegerld1989]

I Need To Save My Relationship Wonderful Useful Tips

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How To Save Your Relationship Reddit

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How To Save A Broken Marriage Relationship

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