#like everyone should be able to have housing obvs and the obvious solution to this is a universal basic income

[the-voice-of-night-vale]

u know what i've been thinking about. how the economy expects you to be, right now, at a job you've been at and consistently getting raises in for like, ten years. it's almost like the implication is "well yeah, you'll be able to live off this job in three, five, ten years if you stick with it and grow in the company" which is all fine and dandy, but i kind of need to live right now

[tfw-no-tennis]

the animorphs continues, david trilogy style

here we are...we finally arrived....the david triology

I did remember a good amount of these books from when I read these when I was like 11. but I also forgot a lot an hooooly shit 

WHERE TF DO I EVEN START. so that shit slapped obvs. it really felt like the series has been leading up to this - all the characters have had to make really difficult no-correct-answers decisions, and it leads up to this - the ultimate shitty situation with absolutely no good, clear solutions, and everyone gets to contribute to the awful conclusion! 

one thing that really stood out to me is that with David's inclusion as this kind of ‘outsider’ within the group, even though none of it was from his POV, we still get a huge sense of the animorphs being an extremely well-oiled team, who all know and trust each other very well - especially w/Jake as the leader - Jake has to make a lot of decisions in these books but the other animorphs always listen to him 

this all probably didn’t help David, who was already thrown into a completely crazy situation, and who now has to deal w/this group of kid superheroes who work very well together. it also doesn't help that David doesn't really try to find his place on the team 

anyways I love how much wild shit happens in animorphs always. like they try to steal the blue box as birds and then David chases them off w/a bb gun? and then they end up in this huge alien showdown with visser 3 and his troops in David's house? batshit

also the hilariously 90s part w/the email...lmao. like its the 90s so there's no way to shut off the automatic email remotely, they HAVE to go to David's computer, and they also can just unplug it...lmao they should've just taken out the phone lines tbh

also I completely forgot about the whole plot w/the world leaders meeting and the yeerks and stuff. that really served to ramp up the tension and also make it obvious that David was an outsider as he consistently fucked things up then played it off

also KAA did a masterful job of making David juuuust a little sympathetic in book 20, but still Off enough that you're like ehhhh I don't know about this guy...then he goes full awful creep and it becomes obvious that there’s no way they’ll be able to let him stick around in any capacity 

the bit where David kills the crow for no reason is the first Real indication that this is gonna go seriously wrong. but even before all that, his conversations w/Marco gave me like, school shooter vibes 

these books are full of some REALLY good tension. the whole end of book 21 was so tense - they've been gearing up for this mission for days now, and they’ve had to do some crazy stuff to get where they are, so the realization that it’s all a trap is completely chilling 

and then when David tried to betray them to visser three...the gravity of that decision is unmistakable, because then the yeerks would find out that the animorphs are (mostly) human children, and they’d even know who they are, and that would be the end

I loved the part where David tries to act like he was just setting up an ambush w/his betrayal to the visser, and Jake immediately has everyone play along - and they do. earlier in the series someone - probably Rachel or Marco - likely would have ignored Jake bc of how slimy David was acting, but they've basically become a highly efficient military squad at this point, and it was a perfect slow slide into that over the last 20 books, and now is the time when the reader kinda realizes this (at least for me)

even if they don’t agree w/Jake and think they should just address the David problem right then and there, they all trust Jake as their leader to make that decision 

also the fact that these are the first books to do the ‘to be continued’ thing rather than wrapping the plot up...it really made it feel all the more tense 

in other books I normally look at the page count and go ‘ok so this conflict will be solved in this scene cause there are only 15 pages left’ (which is st I do a lot I now realize lmaooo I can pretty much gauge what’ll happen based on how many pages are left - and I do this when I read fanfic too, by looking at where the scroll bar is...anyways)

BUT w/these books its totally up in the air cause they can end anytime and just get continued next book, which makes it so much more tense imo

also I fucking loooove the part in book 21 where they’re hiding out with that little pool of yeerks - and I actually bookmarked some pages for these liveblogs, so I have quotes, this one from Jake - 

‘There was something wrong about killing defenseless slugs. I was pretty sure about that.’

Oh, Jake, that opinion is gonna change someday....

it is a little ironic considering he jacuzzi’d those yeerks in like book 7 or w/e. but alas its still a fantastic line that serves to show in the end how much things have changed 

also I love that the decision not to kill those defenseless yeerks end up helping them later - the yeerks check the pool bc they’re so certain that if the andalite bandits HAD snuck in, they surely would have killed the helpless yeerks. but they didn’t, so that means the andalite bandits didn't sneak in....

I like when the characters do a morally good thing and are then rewarded by the narrative for it - it’s pretty rare in this series, where there are usually NO morally correct choices (such is life) or they’re actively punished for making a ‘good’ decision (one could argue that the decision to make David an animorph instead of letting him become a controller was a morally good decision, but it had dire consequences). 

Ok and the part I have to talk about w/these books of course - everything w/Rachel. bc damn Rachel really goes through it in this trilogy. I absolutely LOVE the character development she gets, and I especially enjoyed the way her and Jake's relationship was developed

anyways, one of the best and most fucked up quotes of the series, from Jake’s POV in book 21  - 

<Ax? I think Tobias is dead,> I said. <I think David killed him.> <That would be a most terrible thing,> Ax said.  <Yeah. Get Rachel. If David’s killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.>

AUGHHHHH fucking chills I swear. also eternal love for them saying dead/killed/etc and never shying away from it. it really wouldn't have the same impact if they used the normal kid-safe PG words 

but yeah Jake asking for Rachel when he thinks that they may have to hunt down and kill David? phewwww. 

and the significance of this is never downplayed. this essentially confirms that Jake sees Rachel as the one who is willing and able to do the dirty work - and specifically in this case, it’s also likely bc it was Tobias who was ‘killed’ and he knows how Rachel feels about Tobias

but like, that’s so fucked up, I love it. they give this situation the exact amount of weight it requires - ch1 of book 22 has this part from Rachel - 

‘If David had hurt Tobias, I would... But what was the point in making threats? I didn't need to make threats. I knew what I would do. So did Jake. That’s why he’d sent Ax for me.’

at first, it seems like Rachel is on the same page as Jake, but when it becomes clearer later that Jake sent Ax specifically to get Rachel bc she could do the terrible thing that had to be done - instead of just bc they needed reinforcements and she was closest - then things change 

but even when Rachel gets rightfully upset later over this, you get the sense she still never really sees any option other than to kill David. it’s not even the ‘killing David’ part that upsets her, it’s that Jake, her cousin, immediately thinks of her as the person to do the deed 

so, another fantastic quote from Rachel - 

‘Tobias was dead. Jake might still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down.  I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.  No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.’

fucking WOW. like really. that bit right there is just perfect quintessential dark animorphs. it just subverts the classic kid-friendly phrasing, using words like ‘hunt down’ and ‘destroy’ instead of kill. But Rachel says it like it is. she’s not going to destroy David, she’s going to kill him. 

But then a few pages later, after Ax tells her the quote where Jake asks for her specifically - 

‘It definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do.  Like I say, I’m not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.’

I say it a lot but wow do these kids need So Much Therapy. these are like...8th graders. jesus christ. when I was in 8th grade I was busy planning sims-playing get-togethers w/my fellow 13 year old friends. christ animorphs 

and fuck, the part where Rachel threatens David’s family, and shoves a fork in his ear? jesus. and the fact that Jake knew that Rachel was going to threaten David and let her go do it...

and then afterwards, Rachel says - 

‘I felt...not exactly ashamed. But I knew I never wanted to talk to Cassie about what I’d just told David. Or Tobias. Or even Marco.’

I'm gonna make some leaps here but I think it’s really interesting that Rachel even mentions Marco here, and says ‘or even Marco.’ like, the ‘even’ seems to imply that Marco would otherwise be somebody she WOULD talk to about something like this.

which...kinda tracks, tbh. Marco is Mr Ruthless, he’s a cold, pragmatic strategist when he isn’t cracking jokes as a coping mechanism. it makes sense that Rachel would talk to him about things like this - he would make jokes, but he’d also understand 

I'm just so interested in all the highly varying dynamics that exist within the group okay 

and then right after Rachel says - 

‘But I swear at that moment I hated Jake far more than I did David.  I should have told them all what had happened. But Jake already knew, didn’t he? Jake, the smart, determined leader, already knew all about me.’

that's fucking daaark okay. It paints this picture of Jake having become this master manipulator who knows all about Rachel’s violent tendencies and is using them to his full strategic advantage

Oh my god okay and then all the stuff w/Saddler, christ. I had completely forgotten about that plotline but there was so much fucked up stuff there, too

and the scene where Rachel gives some good life advice to her little sister, and it’s a good bit to remind the reader and characters of the world outside of animorphs conflict...and then David speaks up. 

that was such brutal mood whiplash, when you realize that David is morphed and hidden in Rachels room somewhere...fucking chilling 

that whole scene just oozes disgusting creepiness. David’s fixation on Rachel specifically, and his rage at being ‘bested’ by her, really feels like misogyny to me. while David butted heads w/Marco, you never got the same sense of anger and disgust that he displays towards Rachel.

and the line where he says ‘hey, enjoy your shower’ made me shudder in disgust. christ. there are a lot of revolting, dark implications there.

also, book 22 obviously does a ton of fantastic character work for Rachel, but it does the same for Jake, too. and Cassie, but ill get to that later

we get to see so much of Jake as a leader and a strategist here, and pitting him and Rachel against each other (so to speak) makes for some excellent characterization, like when Rachel starts questioning why he asked for her - 

“I thought David had killed Tobias. I thought he might kill me. I wanted...firepower.”  “I see. You wanted me for my morphs.” It was a good answer. It could have almost been true. 

and then we get a brief pit stop at the children's hospital where the fucked up parade continues - David morphed Saddler, Rachel and Jake’s injured/dying young cousin, and is pretending to be him, miraculously recovered from his accident

and meanwhile he DUMPED THE REAL SADDLER’S BODY DOWN AN ELEVATOR SHAFT. I literally cant, what the FUCK. 

and they never really follow up on it but the whole family and all the Drs think its this miraculous recovery against all odds, but then obviously David disappears and therefore so does Saddler - do they ever find his real body? how completely fucked up that must have been - so much worse than if saddler had just died from his injuries - the miraculous recovery completely overturned by a bunch of stuff that doesn’t even make sense to anybody except Jake and Rachel....

anyways, after all that completely fucked up bullshit, we have the Jake and Rachel confrontation, Jake’s whole speech about Rachel is amazing, but here are my highlights - 

“I think you’re the bravest member of the group. I think in a bad fight I’d rather have you with me than anyone else. But yeah, Rachel, I think there’s something pretty dark down inside you. I think you’re the only one of us who would be disappointed if all this ended tomorrow.”

I mean, christ. imagine your fellow 13 year old cousin saying this to you. oh MAN. and I love so much that Jake isn’t wrong, but he also is? he understands what Rachel will do, but not why she’s doing it. and I talked abt it before but Rachel has found herself in this box of ‘the brave/reckless blood knight,’ and feels pressure to live up to that reputation. 

so how much of it is a façade that she puts on bc she’s expected to, and how much of it is how she really feels? well, she got that reputation initially for a reason, but she gets pushed more and more in that direction as the series progresses, both bc of the unintentional pressure to live up to her role as the Xena of the group, and bc it’s really, really useful to have somebody like Rachel on your side

Then Rachel says -

‘I tried to look at myself the way Jake saw me. Was it true? Did I love this war?’

I'm gonna lose it, these poor fucking middle schoolers. Rachel, listen, you’re 13, you’re a child soldier, of course you don't love the war you’re fighting...I need every child therapist on the block to come here right now

like jesus being 13 is hard enough without all this nonsense. it’s such a tenuous time in development, and add something like this - someone like Rachel, who is somewhat pigeonholed by society as ‘vapid, pretty blonde who loves to shop’ would of course flourish in an environment where she gets to show how much of a 3-dimensional Person she is - she can love shopping and also kick ass! nice! but also, like, trauma. 

So then Rachel says this about Jake - 

“Jake, you’re a leader now. You make life-and-death decisions. All the time. You’ve learned to do that. And,” I added bitterly, “you’ve learned to use people. You use them for their strengths and their weaknesses.” 

Fucking read, wow. I feel like Rachel is absolutely correct here, if not simplifying things a lot. like, yes, Jake does make these unfathomable decisions on the regular, but he’s got tons of conflict over every single thing he does, and there was a lot of uncertainty and trial-and-error leading up to this. but she is correct that he’s learned, and is clearly a lot more comfortable in his role as a military leader now. 

I just love the contrast these two have. Rachel, with the burden she carries as the bravest - the fighter of the team, who must be relied on in battle and to do the things that nobody else will do - and Jake, the leader, who has to make decisions knowing that he could get his friends killed at any time, and still trust that they’ll listen. 

And then Jake says - 

“But everyone draws their own line[...] For example, see, I used to think my line was drawn at using my friend, my cousin, to do my dirty work. Guess that turned out not to be true. Sorry, Rachel.” 

And then they hug and vow to murder David together, as a team. Heartwarming cousin bonding! Again, so much therapy. 

So yeah I love that scene. especially when you take into consideration Rachel’s ultimate fate, and Jake’s part in it. excuse me while I go weep. 

Anyways, to the end. THE ENDING....it gets me every time. I’ll never be over it. I don’t remember much about animorphs from when I read it at age 11 but I really really remember the ending to book 22. The way they masterfully set David up, the rat morph, the pipes, THE LEGO, the reveal that they planned the entire thing, the moment when David realizes what’s going to happen to him....oof. It’s not something I could forget, even w/my notoriously horrible memory when it comes to media 

Also I feel like there was more subtle misogyny when David insists on humiliating/subjugating Rachel, just because she proved earlier that she was stronger and smarter and better than him...eugh David is just such a disgusting creep that you don’t even end up feeling bad for him even though he’s a middle schooler being handed a fate worse than death. I mean, he tossed a dead/dying kid’s body down an elevator shaft in a children's hospital. I’m pretty sure he deserves this. 

And here’s the part where I talk about Cassie. because even though she didn’t get a POV book in the David trilogy, she still got some brutally fantastic character development. here we see David starting to realize what’s happening - 

‘Cassie was crying.  David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was. Who it was who had so accurately appraised his emotions, his need to build his ego, the fact that he would choose me to be his “companion.” Cassie, of course. Cassie had worked it out, step by step, after Jake and I had failed to come up with anything.  For Cassie, it was an improvement over the alternatives. See, no one was going to have to die.  But David’s life would end, just the same.’

CASSIE. The dark horse, except not really, bc this is perfectly in line with what we know about her, especially coming off book 19, her last POV book before this. in that book she makes some absolutely awful decisions, all to avoid having to kill somebody. 

After all of Jake and Rachel’s badass vows to take David down, it’s Cassie who finds the solution. 

To a lot of people, David’s fate could be considered worse than death. To Cassie, it’s a better alternative. That speaks volumes about her, and I love it. 

Also, the MANIPULATION. Cassie in the David trilogy really gets to flex her interpersonal manipulation skills, which I love to see. It’s such a fascinating aspect of her character; a really interesting use of empathy

Like the scene in book 20 where David freaks out as a roach and she manipulates him into not giving them away by pitting him against Marco, someone who David doesn’t get along with, by saying ‘if Marco can do it, can’t you?’ because she knows he’ll fall for it. And he DOES. 

And then the part in the cafeteria where she basically plays the ‘good cop’ to everyone else in the group’s ‘bad cop.’ Not ONLY does she manage to get David to shut up and listen to her, she also posits her theory that he wants to blue box to trade it for his parents - which his reactions to her questions confirms as true. and nobody else in the group suspected this. 

She lures him into a sense of security by talking kindly and quietly about how she understands how he feels, then hits him with what she knows and gets him to confirm it, which then allows Rachel to accurately threaten him. 

And then Cassie, offscreen, comes up with the entire plan on how to trap David as a rat, because from the beginning she had him figured out. David didn’t pay much attention to Cassie - more misogyny tbh, as Cassie is the girl on the team who isn’t an aggressive, feminine blonde - and that ended up being a huge reason for his downfall. 

David also didn’t pay much attention to Tobias, and clearly didn’t see him as human at all, and that made Tobias very valuable after David assumed he had killed Tobias. 

Ok, back to the ending - the fact that it was Rachel and Ax who stayed there to wait the two hours for David to become a nothlit....

Rachel says - 

‘Jake’s a good leader. He knows when to use us. He knows when to protect us. He knew he had to protect as many of his people as he could from what was going to happen.’ 

fucking brutal. TWO HOURS of listening to this awful kid beg and threaten and barter. I can’t even imagine. 

And Ax too! He gets overlooked a lot as an alien, and it’s probably true that all of this impacts him differently than the other human animorphs, it can’t be in any way pleasant to have to sit there for two hours and act as a living timer to count down this kid’s life. Ax is a kid, too, and an isolated one at that, being the only Andalite on the team. 

So yeah that scene is awful. Rachel even says - 

‘Two hours. But that two hours of horror will last forever in my mind. If I live a hundred years, I will still hear his cries, his threats, his pleading, each night before sleep takes me. And beyond sleep, in my dreams.’

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but jesus christ, THEY NEED SO MUCH THERAPY. The fact that one of the constants in all of the POVs is the nightmares that all the animorphs consistently have....geez

Okay so I know in my last two liveblogs I ended them by comparing animorphs to another series - hxh and mtmte - but I honestly am drawing a blank for this...

I guess the only thing I can think of is to compare it to mob psycho 100, which is another very good, very subtly subversive series 

In mp100, the entire Point is that the very powerful psychic middle schoolers DON’T end up using their powers to fight life-or-death battles against adult enemies in order to save the world and whatnot. the Point is that that’s fucked up, and these kids shouldn’t be responsible for something like that, no matter how powerful they are 

and basically the character who says all that is Reigen, an adult who actively prevents the middle schoolers from joining what would be some very traumatizing fights 

basically my point here is less to compare the two shows and more to say - the poor animorphs could really use a Reigen huh. like, they seriously need an adult who’ll step in and say ‘wait a second, these kids are doing WHAT? hold the fucking phone, no way, get some actual adults in here to solve this shit. not today!’

the closest they could've come to an adult figure in their lives is Elfangor and he dies like 5 minutes after giving them superpowers, soooo....

man mp100 slaps I should rewatch it. anyways yeah the theme of this post is ‘the animorphs need therapy and also a stable adult figure in their lives to help them not get traumatized all the time’ thank you for coming to my ted talk

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 32

Spoilers, obv.

While I've done this in my Tumblr asks, I forget if I've put this in the actual notes or not. I would presume I haven't, because if I'd put the following caveat in the Writer’s Notes and I'm still being asked when the Writer Notes are coming when they're later than usual by people who presumably read the Writer Notes it would be more than a little rude.

(I write the following, and then bounce back here to put a caveat on my caveat. Don't worry if you've done the following. It's not the end of the world, it's really only a minor annoyance in the larger scale of things, and you didn't know.)

I've done Writer Notes for every single issue of WicDiv. That's 34 (with the Specials), including this one. They appear before the next issue drops. I've gone as late as the day before the issue is released. I don't believe I've ever gone any later. That's how it's always happened.

“Before the next issue.” That is when to expect my Writer Notes. It is not “late” until the next issue drops.

I write them as soon as I have time. If I haven't done it earlier in the month, you may safely assume that I've got other commitments that have to be prioritised above writing something which is, in a very real way, not part of my job.

If you're worried whether you've missed them, the Writer Notes are always tagged on my tumblr. You can click this link and see if they're there or not. There is no need to ask me.

I do not appreciate anyone asking where they are and when I'm going to do it. Please, don't do it. It stresses me out, both in the frustration at the entitlement in believing I should be writing it instead of many of the other things I should be doing, and in the simultaneous and entirely contradictory response of I SHOULD BE DOING THEM WHY THE HELL AM I NOT DOING THEM I AM LETTING EVERYONE DOWN!!!!

There is only so much a creative can give.

Er... and that appears to have segued into this issue's theme, hasn’t it?

Jamie/Matt's Cover

We finally reach full bleed on the Imperial Phase covers. By this point, I suspect pretty much everyone has seen what we're doing with the covers, and the implicit question of “how can you follow something that's doing this to full bleed”.

This is one of my favourite WicDiv covers. Jamie and Matt have excelled themselves here. The nonchalance of Dionysus, a return of the Acid House badge and so on. It's completely different to all the other gods – as is the nature of Dio – but is also the most visually magnificent. I love this.

Noelle Stephenson

Is a force of nature, and doesn't really need me hailing her here. Suffice to say, BUY NIMONA IF YOU HAVEN'T. She jumped at Baal/Minerva, and we just sat and let her do her thing. Clearly with this issue's content it rubs up unusually.

Walking Dead Cover

Homaging their issue 150 cover. We did it with 32, which makes it kinda funny. Persephone in her issue 22 costume.

IFC

With the double-length of Imperial Phase, we're very much reaching the recap page's breaking point in terms of working out what information to include. I smile that I managed to fit “He is such a shit” in there though.

Page 1

Return to the three panel of the start of last time. Immobility remains the point. I had a slightly more writer-y line for Sakhmet in the second panel, but I generally find it's best to strip her back to Just The Facts. There's no need to fence with Sakhmet.

Jamie's addition of a bloody-handed yawn is a perfect way to add a secondary reveal to the scene.

Reading people's commentary. I find it interesting that people seem to have Persephone's expression in the last panel to be bored. It reads pretty clearly as a wince to me. It's a very small response – which is, of course, the point – but it's definitely not ambivalent. One of the things in comics is how much for characters to verbalise, and how much you can just leave to the art. This is not a thing which has any one solution.

Pages 2-4

There's a craft thing here of note – we only explicitly introduce the idea that there is a sexual consent issue at this point in the Woden scene. We don't think leaving that sort of threat across a month is either ethical or useful. In a serialised narrative, we try to weigh these things up.

(It's still relatively quiet. There's twelve Valkyries. The thirteenth Asian girl is Cassandra.)

The page transition of Dionysus kicking in is the sort of thing I love as a storyteller. Repeats with a tiny difference.

The dialogue was moved a little after drawing, so as to leave the final panel on page 3 silent. Jamie's expression was perfect and didn't need disruption – more so when Matt pops the reds.

The glo-stick nunchaku first appeared in Rising Action, and make a return here. They were inspired by Christian Ward and Catherine Rooney's wedding, when they distributed a bunch of glo-sticks during the 90s rave set the DJ dropped. I was spinning them around, and it got me thinking.

Page 4 is obviously the key image, capturing Dio's hamartia in the same way as Amaterasu's final panel in 31 captures her. I get upset to even think of this panel. Futile acts of bravery when all hope is lost is something which almost always makes me cry.

Anyway – just wonderful. Jamie and Matt nail it. The oppressiveness of the mass of green, the crowd against Dio, the soar of his body. Perfect. Nice work.

Page 5

The Red Shoes being the Hans Christian Andersen story about a girl who gets a pair of ballet shoes and can't stop dancing. It doesn't end well for her either.

It's been used all over culture – Kate Bush is an obvious one, but I tend to think of the 1948 movie.

Pages 6-7

We basically keep the rhythm of the last issue going. As in, hard cuts between multiple scenes when the drama is highest. I'll be interested to see how this works in the trade – page 1's refocusing of the action here is the stepping stone back to this location, but it's quite the jump.

Anyway – Sakhmet and Persephone's final conversation. I needed something like this.

Standard-y me structure of a two-page scene with the first row of the first page merged as is the last row of the second page.

Lots of great expression work here, especially in how tight Jamie is choosing to cut things. It's not just as simple as a slow zoom to the character's features, but there is a gradual increase. I like how Sakhmet starts in a neutral position... and then when she laughs at the first answer, she gets a little further away... and when she gets the response to the second question, she's very close. That also means we also get a great pull away.

Expressions again. Sakhmet's three close-ups are my everything, in how much she's saying – the downcast eyes in the third! Especially compared to the deadness of Persephone.

“I think we only get to hurt ourselves and maybe people who want to be hurt” is just :(

Pages 8-11

Reprising of issue 8, which was Dio at his most iconic. These four pages “count” as two pages in terms of page budget, in that only 4 panels are drawn on each page. That we spread it out over a larger space means it's much more emotionally impactful.

My brain is failing, but I believe Dio and Woden are the only two characters other than Laura who've ever had internal dialogue captions. That strikes me as interesting.

Cutting the dialogue short enough to make it vaguely keep to the beat was obviously important. It ticks along, relentlessly.

Matt's colouring here is, like Dio's first one, a story in and of itself – the fading colour as Dio is dragged down in the first page, the glitch on page 10, the third panel of page 11.

The “One more time” came to me as writing it, and I was genuinely horrified at myself. I can make any cultural allusion depressing. It's a gift.While at this year's Thought Bubble dancefloor, this issue was at the printers. Various friends had read it, and were there. When I dropped ‘One More Time’, I glanced at them, and thought about the unique awfulness of WicDiv, in that they knew and no one else did.

Pages 12-13

I wish I had a page or two more in the budget here. There's a couple of beats I wish I'd been able to linger on.

The drop of Dio in the first panel brought to mind the fall of 455 Lucifer.

Woden's line is harsh as fuck here, but also not entirely wrong. As we see, Cass was unaffected by Woden's power. He didn't need to do anything.

The last panel on page 12 originally had much more dialogue, and it was bullshit. I moved that to the next panel, and keep it sharper. WicDiv isn't a comic where people can shout speeches as they do stuff.

I'M A FUCKING CRITIC is much better anyway. Jamie and Matt did great stuff with the multiple levels.

“One More” makes me feel bitter too. Brunhilde's excitement is also telling. More anon on this, I suspect.

More exposition than I'd like in the last panel with Cass, but I suspect we lose you if you don't know why she's phoning Persephone.

Page 14

Yes, Persephone hasn't changed her ringtone.

We don't have space to go far into the fight here, but we have to give the two big beats. Baal's burst of power, and the specifics of the terrible speed of Sakhmet. The colour choices are what scream to me here. Each of those two central panels are so much about the individual god who is dominating them. There’s just such direct choices here.

We start on the phone, and end on Minerva's owl, to try and get a transition to...

Page 15

...Minerva. Clearly for where the story goes, we have to see Minerva in the nearby area. We wanted to show the emotional journey towards going there – that's a great conflicted last panel by Jamie. We discussed what method to use in terms of communication – specifically, we needed Minerva to have ‘READ’ notes on her phone so she knows Morrigan has seen the messages and is ignoring them. Which sets up Minerva to make her decision.

After the colours of the previous page, the low light of this one is also really striking.

Pages 16-17

The fight scenes in the Underground were all written Marvel Method, with more ideas than would fit in the space. As such, it was a question of choosing where to edit, both in terms of Jamie's choices on the page and my choices at lettering. There was certainly more possible lettering in the script... but, as I say above, I don't like fight scenes to talk too much. When this is all happening as quickly as it is, it seems to undercut it.

Boiling the exchange to the “Predator or Prey” call back seemed to be the right call to make. Boil it down.

(The other options were a reprise of Persephone's “We only get to hurt ourselves and people who want to be hurt” in the last two panels, which I felt would be too much. I'd hope it would be subtextual in it anyway.)

Page 18

We leaned into implication here – choosing the moments. The slump of the hands in the second panel is the key one for me. That's just horrible, as is Persephone's distress in the third one.

Pages 19-21

Yeah, this scene is hard, with the characters' frustrations and anger at themselves crossing back and forth. It's telling that we go to eight panel grid structure for the first two pages, which is my standard one for this kind of more emotionally grounded scene.

Worth noting the other Norns aren't there. I suspect Cass hasn't been exactly gentle with them either. Still – Cass echoes a significant proportion of the readership regarding Persephone, I suspect.

Explicitly closing off the “No Person” line from back in Imperial Phase.

Eventually Persephone reaches a point and pushes back. For both of them, it's not the lies that hurt. It's the truths. And... yeah, that argument is totally not over.

I kind of wish I had the machine go BLEEP! Rather than BEEP!

Pages 22-24

Yes, it is very much our beeping device on the mantelpiece.

Odd hitting the last page, in that it's one of the end-of-episode beats I've known seemingly forever. It is a particularly frustrating one, clearly.

We did have a bunch of chat over exactly what should that final line be. It was as mild as “Oh my” at one point, but I like the last one.

Beep Test being a fitness thing.

And that's it. A few more weeks and issue 33, the end of Imperial Phase and moving onto Year Four of the book. Just re-reading all of WicDiv so far in preparation for scripting of that year, and it's a strange thing to look at how far we've come. If you have never done a WicDiv re-read, I suspect this is a perfect time to do one.

Thanks for reading.

[dr-reid]

Writers Block

A/N: I know I’ve been super MIA on my writing but this has been sitting in my inbox and hopefully it will get me back into it. OBV will be doing a part two, to keep me accountable for writing more. Any comments and feedback will be much appreciated. Love you guys!

It was about that time of night where it was very clear sleep would not be happening any time soon. Suddenly you we're grateful for 24 hour coffee shops. After getting a hot cup of coffee you sat in the small table in the corner staring at your computer screen trying to make some kind of magic happen. 

By magic you meant a story. Writing had been your passion since you we’re a child, unfortunately you grew up and realized it wasn’t the kind of career people survived off of. Both of your parents had made that very clear, they expected you to go to school, have an education, a career, not be some writer who was working three jobs living paycheck to paycheck. 

Which is how you ended up working at the BAU, your parents we’re incredibly proud, “Our daughter works for the FBI” just hearing your mom say that made you want to roll your eyes. Not many people knew you even wrote as often as you did, it had become your thing, a secret you left tucked away in-between the many layers of who you actually were. 

Writing meant being vulnerable, exposed, visible, all things you actually didn't want to be in your every day life. But still you wrote, mostly for you but it helped you get through your days. Sometimes if you we’re lucky you’d find that one thing that inspired you to write effortlessly for hours. Lately that thing had actually been a person. 

Spencer Reid. Dr. Spencer Reid as he was known around the BAU was the genius in the office, he was smarter than any one else no doubt about that. But there was something about him that made him incredibly dreamy. It became frustrating working with someone every single day and feeling the same thing, over and over again. 

So your solution had become to simply write about it. So far it was working letting all your frustrations out into stories that would never happen. It almost felt wrong to be constantly dabbling in-between what was reality and what it would never be. But usually writing things out helped you get over things so the hope was that any day now you'd stop having a crush on Dr. Reid. 

That day was not coming any time soon. The more you worked together the more frustrating it was to constantly look into his eyes and watch as he licked his lips whenever was incredibly concentrated. You had learned all his little quirks by now and had learned to love each and every one of them. 

Every now and again you’d catch your self smiling like an idiot as you started into space, how much more obvious could it be. You liked Spencer and there was no getting over it.

There was one person in particular who had caught on quicker than the rest of the team, Penelope. After a while there was no hiding it, she knew everything. Form your house crush on Spencer to the ways you had been trying so desperately to get over them. 

“Y/N, Y/N” you heard JJ’s voice calling you back from whatever distant world you were stuck in. “Mmmm looks like you were thinking about someone, he must be handsome since you’ve got that silly grin on your face again” JJ said with a devious smile on his face. 

“Yeah are you going to fess up and tell us his name any time soon?” Derek said taking a seat next to JJ. Everyone was a flight back to the BAU and apparently al decided it was time to gang up on you. “It’s nothing” You said trying to brush it off and continue reading. 

“Oh come on, it’s been like this for weeks just tell us. What’s he like?” JJ said trying to get at least a small detail out of you. 

“Yeah what does he do?” Emily said across on the other side. 

“And most importantly does he know your head over heels into him?” Derek said unable to keep his laugh to him self. 

It was impossible to stop your cheeks from turning bright red, what? No this couldn't be happening. “It’s no one, its nothing” you said trying to act natural. 

“Well, any guy would be lucky to have you” You heard Rossi say. 

Any guy? No way that could include Spencer. No never, you shook your head and pretended to continue to read the book in your hand. There was only one thing you could think about getting back home to write. 

After everyone teasing you on the plane you tried to look as alert as possible was you walked through the glass door and quickly ran for your desk to grab the rest of your belongings. Hoping to make it to the door before anyone else to could stop you Penelope snuck up behind you. 

“Hey you!” She said with a cheerful smile as she tapped on your shoulder. As soon you turned around to see her you sighed in relief, finally someone you could let your guard down around. “Hey P,” She could tell how relived you were to see her. “Has your writing been keeping you occupied?” She said with a sly smile on her face. 

“Oh yeah, it definitely has” You said rolling your eyes. “Any progress on the story” Penelope asked. 

Which was basically code for, “Hey have you made a move on Spencer or are you still trying to get over him” 

“I don't think I’ve made any progress, none at all in any direction this is heading no where. I don’t see the point in writing it any more, I mean is there anything even going on it’s so frustrating all this work for what?” 

From the other end of the hall way Spencer could hear you as you continued to ramble on about your frustrations which all seemed to centered around your writing. 

“Did you need help with it, maybe I could look it over?” Spencer said walking up to the both of you. But as soon as you saw him you froze, and Penelope completely changed her posture and neither one of you were able to look at him in the eyes. 

“Or not? I was just trying to help you sounded really frustrated and I could give you some pointers but if you don’t want too its fine” Spencer instantly regretted offering any assistance after watching how you had reacted. 

“You should totally have him help, Spencer here knows a ton about writing and book, with that memory of his I'm sure hell be able to think of something to help. I can send over the last file you sent me if you’d like?” Penelope said with a devilish look on her face. 

“Well I don’t want to inconvenience you I’m sure you're super busy, I mean we all have stuff going on and I wouldn’t want to get i the way of that.” 

“I really wouldn’t mind, I’d love too actually” Spencer said with a smile on his face. “Okay, yeah, sure sounds good.” 

There were a million red alarms going on in your head mostly you were screaming ‘!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ cause I mean what else were you suppose to feel. It’s not every day you get to turn in a work of writing to the person you’ve been writing about for them to read it, no biggie. 

Wrong. After getting home you were trying anything to stay busy. It couldn’t possible take Spencer that long to read everything, and what if he figured out it was about him. Nervously you paced back and forth in your living room trying to think positive thoughts like ‘He won’t get to it today’. 

Or, ‘He will never get to it, and never realize it’s about him.’ 

That was the most positive thing you could think and honestly the one thing you were hoping for. But was that going to happen? It was torturous and the only thing helping you at the point was alcohol. Ah yes, wine. It was almost midnight when you heard your phone ringing, you sat up straight with your eyes wide open when you saw Spencer’s name flashing on your phone. Moment of truth. 

“Hello?” You said trying to sound as put together as possible. “Hey, it’s Spencer.”