#my post editor isn’t showing me my actual text so I can’t tell if I spelled things right sorry

[jankwritten]

Did the pens just actually fire their GM and assistant GM and president???? Wasn’t this what pens fans were hoping would happen?

[neverminditsnamjoon]

BTS Cuddling/Showing Affection (HCs)

In honor of Yoongi’s birthday, here is my first writing project for BTS! Massive thank you to @yoongisshadow​ for being my partner in crime, editor/proofreader, and providing some of the gifs!! Go follow her if you’re not already--she’s amazing!

Genre: Tooth-rotting fluff, rated PG

Word Count: ~1800

Jin

If he’s chilling on the couch, he likes when you put your head on his shoulder

That way he can rest his head against yours

Has definitely fallen asleep in this position (more than once)

He tends to sleep with his hands resting on his stomach

If you’re there, he’ll fold one of your hands under his, smiling serenely when you rub your fingers in circles over his tummy

If you’re laying in bed, he prefers to lay against your side, with a single arm thrown over your midsection

Will immediately wake up if you move

He enjoys other forms of cuddling as well

Like letting you rest with your head in his lap

“So you can look up and see my handsome face.”

He also loves hugs a ridiculous amount (have you seen those shoulders?? perfect for Hug!!)

Jin will find any excuse to hug you, and wraps his arms around you until he can literally feel you relax into him

Acts of service are his love language

So you best bet he’s gonna cook for you

If Jin doesn’t bring you food (and feed it to you himself) at least once a day, you get worried

You’re his go-to taste tester, and you get stupidly happy upon hearing Jin call to you from the kitchen, “Honey, come taste this for me.”

He owns a Kiss the Cook apron, and he will definitely enforce it

Yoongi

Yoongi shows affection by giving you nice gifts

Sometimes it’s a coffee, made just the way you like it

Sometimes it’s a $1300 Chanel necklace

There’s no telling lol

Whether it’s a four-dollar coffee or something extravagant, the gift is always presented with a shrug and a nonchalant expression

But when you kiss him and whisper your thanks, he’s all gums

“Bad Boy” doesn’t do PDA, at all. However-

He is known to fall asleep at random, and you usually happen to be sitting next to him when he does

Taehyung has an album on his phone just for pictures of Yoongi snoozing on your shoulder, his mouth open

Tae never posts them for fear of his own life, but he’s sent you a couple

One of them is your lockscreen

When it’s just the two of you, he relaxes a little more

It’s a subtle, quiet vulnerability, but you’ve learned to pick up on it

When he gives you a gummy smile after you’ve had a bad day, you know it means “I care about you”

When he brushes his fingers across your back, you know he’s saying “I love you”

When he asks, “are you cold?”, you know it’s an invitation to curl up into his side

His arm around your shoulder is enough to feel how much he enjoys your presence

You toss and turn in the night, but Yoongi is in the exact same place when you wake

“Of course he’ll be a rock in his next life,” you think to yourself. “He already sleeps like one.”

Hobi

Bangtan’s resident Aquarius isn’t always the best at showing his emotions via physical affection

So Hobi doesn’t do any mushy-gushy affection in public

Mostly, it’s just him always trying to make you laugh

Goofy dances, dumb jokes, and silly faces. Anything to see his girl smile :’)

Every once in a while, he’ll give you a colored drawing he made, giggling a cute amount when he sees you’re excited about it

When he’s really, really tired, Hobi gets cuddly

He loves laying on his back between your legs, with his arms resting on them

If he leans his head back against your chest, he can hear the soft thrum of your heartbeat

This sound lulls him to sleep without fail, and it’s the sole reason he gets enough rest sometimes

When you come home from a rough day at work, he holds his arms open to you and squeezes you tight

For a man who’s an actual wordsmith, he can get mighty tongue-tied around you

So he puts his most intimate confessions in his raps

No one will ever hear them, but he utters them quietly to you when he thinks you’re asleep

He goes beet red one night when you open your eyes and gaze up at him with more love than you thought you could ever feel

“You wrote that for me?”

He can only sputter and chuckle nervously in response, but you kiss him and say, “I love it.”

“I love you,” is his answer, accompanied by his brilliant smile

Namjoon

A very loving and sweet boyfriend, as we all can guess

Even being the leader of one of the biggest bands in the world, Joon manages to be a pillar of emotional support for you

He’s always sure to check in with you between practices and recording sessions, or when he’s away on tour

Has never forgotten a birthday or anniversary, treating you to a lovely dinner and flowers every time

He’s never afraid to show his affection for you wherever you happen to be

Sometimes it’s the weight of an arm slung over your shoulders, and a soft kiss pressed to the side of your head

The boys don’t even make fun of him for being affectionate, partly out of fear and partly out of respect because they can tell he loves you so much

When you’re out and about, it’s hand holding

One of your favorite memories is walking down the street downtown, window shopping and judging people together

You’re not sure how Joon makes hand-holding look and feel so cool, but he does

His love language is definitely words of affirmation, but he still likes getting you little gifts here and there, especially while he’s abroad

He knows better than to buy you anything breakable, for fear that it might not get to you in one piece lol

No matter what, they’re always thoughtful

Insists on being the big spoon all the time

So he can kiss the top of your head and wrap his arms around you to make you feel safe

Joon usually wakes up before you and makes breakfast, but on the rare occasion you get up first, he always comes looking for you

Just imagine a sleepy Namjoon waking up and calling out, “Baby?” when you get up before him :(

Jimin

This boy is constantly kissing you, holding your face with both hands and giggling

And he WILL pout if you’re not constantly kissing him too

Always has his arms around you, hugging you from the back with his chin resting on your shoulder

His favorite thing to do, to make you smile every time, is sweeping you along with him for a dance

Even if you’re not coordinated, he twirls you around the room, singing loudly until he sees you smile

“You’re doing great, baby!”

Jimin showers you with compliments every chance he gets

From your outfit to your hair, to your talents to your glowing personality, he’s got a smooth compliment for it

When you’re relaxing in the evenings together, and Jimin is extra snuggly, he’ll push you over onto the couch and lay on top of you

He thrives on skin-to-skin contact and doesn’t care who sees

Because Jimin is babie, and better yet, he’s YOUR baby

He can fall asleep in any position, as long as you’re snuggled up with him

Hands holding, arms around each other, whatever--it’s all good to Mochi

He prefers to be woken up by you, instead of any of the members, because he can get kisses from you with just a second of puppy dog eyes

Will shamelessly flirt with you regardless of setting, and has definitely made eyes at you while he’s on stage or interviewing

Lots of people have one or two love languages, but Park Jimin has all five

He brings you gifts after every trip, and at this point you have more stuffed animals than you can count

Taehyung

Also constantly kissing your face

Highkey loves it when you play with his hair (the man is basically a golden retriever)

He’s known to nuzzle his face into your neck, especially if he’s sleepy

Physical affection (giving and receiving) is the recipe for his happiness

Arms? Around you. Hands? Holding yours. Happy Tae? Check.

Tae is especially fond of giving you his clothes and accessories

If you look a bit chilly, Taehyung will immediately take off his coat and drape it around your shoulders

He’ll take off his hat or scarf and carefully place it on you, even sometimes giving you his necklaces and earrings

Loves doing activities together, whether it be cooking, video games, or being outside

As long as you’re nearby, Taehyung is having a blast

He’s particularly enthusiastic when it comes to supporting you in your career and passions

When you burst through the door yelling that you’ve gotten a promotion, Tae is all shrieking noises and throwing shoes

If you start a new hobby, Tae has pictures of whatever it is and has definitely shown them to everyone who will look

“Isn’t she great?”

When you’re alone together, he always serenades you

No matter the music you’re jamming to, Taehyung is dancing around you and singing it to you at full volume

When he’s sleepy or feeling down, Tae’s favorite way to snuggle is the two of you laying down facing each other

That way you can run your hands through his hair and he can whisper sweet nothings to you

Jungkook

Enjoys receiving affection more than giving, unless you’re completely alone

If it’s just the two of you, Koo will make grabby hands for you to come sit on his lap while he’s at his computer

He’ll pick up takeout and pat the seat next to him, asking you join him for dinner

His hands are literally always in your hair

Brushing, twirling, stroking

Sings to you ALL. THE. TIME.

Sometimes absentmindedly, but other times he’ll show you a song idea and sing it to you shyly

He laughs and blushes a little when you praise him for it

Koo loves drawing on your arms, if you’ll let him, because it reminds you of him

When you’re around others, he isn’t as lovey-dovey, but you notice a slight pout in his lips if you aren’t giving him enough attention

This can be quickly relieved by bumping your nose into his neck, or squeezing his arm gently

But the best part of Jungkook’s affection for you? The way you know he REALLY cares about you?

Homeboy actually responds to your texts.

I know, I can’t believe it either

Koo has been seen many times pulling his phone out during a break in practice and smiling to himself as he replies to your memes and check-ins

The rest of the guys clown the shit out of him for being so babie with you, but he takes it like a champ

Because you’re his girl, and he loves you so much

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 58 - [NSFW] The truth behind the DIR EN GERY misprint, and a mysterious voice...

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, with this week's episode of the Freedom of Expression. Joe, Tasai, welcome...Um..

T: Ah!

J: What is it?

T: No way!

K: Its 'Young Jump'

J: Ah, Young Jump.

K: I think you already know about this, but we put an ad on it like this *shows back page*.

J: Oh, looks great!

T: Yeah, it does. Very impactful.

K: Its good, isn't it?

T: Yeah, great impact.

K: There's something a bit odd about it.

J: Haha

T: Huh? Where?

J: Eh? Something odd?

K: Yeah, its a bit strange. There's a bit of a mistake.

J: Is the kanji for Oboro correct?

K: Yeh, and this is right, about the release on the 28th of April.

J: And Wenesday is correct, right?

K: Yeah, and the explosion screening schedule is ok.

T: Yeah, it is.

K: The ticket price info is also all fine.

J: Yep.

K: After that there's only this bottom section.

J:Yeah.

T: DIR EN...

T, J: GERY, haha.

J: Has a new band formed?

K: We screwed up.

J, T: Hahaha

K: Its hard to believe, right?

J: Incredible. I did not expect this..Dir en gery.

T: I thought it was like a trick or something.

J: Oh, to make it go viral or..?

T: Yeah, going with Dir en gery.

J: Kaoru, what was it?

T: We'll find out about it here.

K: It was a total mistake.

J, T: Hahaha

J: Seriously? Eh? Really?

K: Yeah.

T: Does that mean it was done on a hurry, if its a seroius mistake?

K: Yeah, I guess so.

J: Well, Tasai, you work for a newspaper, and I also work for Rolling Stone, so we understand this, but our work is handed in for checking, you know, proof-reading. And they do spot mistakes, but honestly, I have never seen mistake of this size before.

T: Yeh. This is at the level of 'accident'. However, there is a case for saying that we cannot attack this. What I mean by that is that we too make mistakes.

J: Yes, thats true. There is that. Well, this goes for magazines etc too, but if you do proof-reading within the organization, for example, if the writer writes an article, the editor will proof-read it, and they may intend to, but if everyone is really busy with loads of other work, they will run out of time. Then they will get it checked by an external proof-reader. Even then there are sometimes still typos left over.

T: Yeah, there are.

J: There are, right? Human error happens.

T: Yeah, like if I misspell a name or something, I can correct it on the digital version, but on paper it appears on every copy out there.

J: Yeah..

K: But like this?!

J: Yeah, we say this, but we've never seen a typo this bad. Like, I've mistaken small details in names and stuff before.

K: Yeah, like Young Jump becoming Young JumP, right?

J, T: Yeh, haha.

K: Not like this! *points to 'GERY'*

J: Haha, this is...

*Sound of strange voice occurs in background - On screen text: 'What was that voice?! One more time.. (Clip of strange voice re-plays) No-one during the filming heard this. Its a mystery voice'*

J: Tell us what happened?

T: Yeah, lets ask.

K: Um, we had the design made, and the designer made the regular logo and put it down here in this fixed spot, so it looked as if the logo was done, even though there was a mistake in it. At the time, I wasn't looking at the band name, I was looking at the overall design, and ths impact it had. Like this image of Kyo from RokumaykanGIG. My eyes were drawn to the best parts of the design. It wasn't really designed to emphasize the band name. Its designed to showcase this top part, so I, like, didn't see it. Die didn't even see it, and he normally checks these really carefully. Even if we miss something, he normally spots it straight away. 

J: Ah, even Die didn't notice it! ???*1

K: Yeah. We were too busy checking that there were no mistakes in the tour schedule.

J: Yeah.

K: But the information is all correct, so if its just the band name with a mistake, well, maybe its ok.

T: This could become a really rare item in time to come.

J: Yeah, cause there isn't gonna be a misspelling with Dir en grey again after this. That point will be strengthened.

K: Not for a while yeah. A long time ago, we had a single out called 'Filth', and there was a mistake in the title of the song on the cover jacket.

T: Eh? So this is the second time this has happened to you?

K: Well...yeh.

T: Hahaha

K: Well, we occasionally make small mistakes *2, but...

T: This is big.

J: Can I suggest something? Good things come in threes.

K: Ah, terrible.

J: So there will be a third time to come, imagine it, it could be both the title and the band name with a mistake.

T: Hahaha

K: Well, what can I do about it now? If you buy the single 'Filth' even now, its still like that. So filth is spelled f-i-l-h..huh? h-f...um, it's..

T: ..t-h

K: f-i-l-t-h, but the i became f, I mean h. So because there were two h's I realised the mistake. If there really is only one h, it could be that they just made the letters look in that style, but they look the same to me.

T: Ehh? I want to line Filth up next to this magazine.

J: Yeah

J, K: Hahaha

T: Don't you have it here? Filth?

K: We do.

T: Lets put them out together!

K: When I saw this (*Young Jump*) though, well, I thought it was quite rare*3, it could become a talking point. If you take a bad thing in a smooth way, someone will notice, so I thought we could just go with it.

J: Brilliant!

K: And then I posted on Twitter, like 'Ooops'. And that was a photo of the actual magazine, so it really was like 'ooops'.

T: As soon as I saw your Tweet, I was like 'Huh?!' and I went to the convenience store and bought it. haha

J: Well, in that sense it is a rare item

T: Can we decide on the correct reading for this? How would you say it?

K: Ge-ri?

J: Dir en gery (ge-ri).

K: jeri? geri?

J: geri? jeri?

T: gari?

J: Its geri, right? Well, jeri is like..

K: In the basic form its geri, right?

J: Yeah. jeri might have to be 'Gerry' with two r's.  Which is best Dir en jeri or Dir en geri?

T: Should we decide? Even though it doesn't really matter.

J: Yeah

J: Dir en geri sounds like a struggling country rock artist or something, haha. Dir en jeri has jellyfish vibes.

T: The official name: Dir en Gery (jeri). haha.

J: I want you guys to do a joke live show as Dir en gery. You could switch parts, like Kaoru, you could be on drums.

K: Ah, but we did kinda do that once, we changed parts on stage. I just made a load of noise.

J: Ahh, so you could do that as Dir en gery somewhere officially and play one song.

T: Ahh, thats a good idea.

J: Do a cover or something.

T: You could do ???*4

K: Er, no. haha.

J: Haha, this will getting bigger and bigger.

T: But I heard recently at the MeguroRokumaykanGIG screening, Kyo said  that Toshiya used to play guitar a long time ago.

K: He was playing guitar the first time we saw him playing in a band...well, I don't know if he was playing it, or just waving it around a lot.

T: Yeah, Kyo said the stage was going wild.

K: Yeah, he wasn't playing.

J: So, when you guys switched instruments on stage, what did you do Kaoru?

K: Drums.

J: Oh, drums?

K: Thats the one I wanna try out the most.

J: So if you guys played as Dir en gery, Kaoru, you would be..?

T: Drums?

K:...Nah....*imitates playing the castanets*

J: Tambourine? Oh, castanets? So, it doesn't necessarily have to be the same instruments you play at the moment?

K: Yeah. As long as we play as a proper band.

J: Yeah, so Kyo could play the recorder..

T: Someone could hit the ???*5

J: Yeah, yeah. Oh, that would be good.

*The single Filth gets passed over*

K: I'll just get it out.

*K shows cover jacket to J*

J: Oh, here, right?

K: Can you see, there are two h's.

J: Yes. I see.

*K shows it to T*

J: The first h is a typo?

K: Yeah.

T: Its a bit difficult to spot though.

K: We didn't even notice, we thought it was just the design.

J: Yeah. Put them together now.

*K puts magazine and CD together*

J, T: Hahaha

K: By the way, it was the same person who designed both of these.

J, T: Haha

K: When he saw it he was so pained.

T: Its ok, ???*6

J: Ahh, well, it can't be helped though.

*On screen note: Again? (weird voice appears)*

J: Even if there is a spelling mistake, its conveying the atmosphere that is the main thing.

K: Yeah, thats the emphasis.

J: But on the other hand, you could say that as soon as 'Dir' appears, people recognise it as Dir en grey, even with this kind of misspelling. The name is that well know.

T: Hmm, yeh

K: Hm, well, yeh, if you look at it up to here. But for us, its impossible.

J: Well, I guess yeah. It goes for Rolling Stones too. For example, if the last n in Rolling Stones became an m, you wouldn't immediately spot it. If it came up all of a sudden, you would just think 'Ah, the Stones'. It's that kind of name recognition. You could see it in that way. But I didn't know it was the same designer who did it both times.

K: Our boss was pretty mad about it.

J, T: Hahaha

J: Really? I see.

K: He couldn't believe it.

J: Well, yeah. Its also the most important part.

T: Well, yeah, and cause its already in circulation.

J: Yeah. Well, everyone can keep it as a treasure.

K: Where's Kami?

J: Yeah, isn't he here?

Kami: Oh, Im here, I was just listening the whole time. People make mistakes, right?

T: They do.

Kami: This is just a mistake. So its wrong to point blame.

T, J: Yes.

J: Kami, have you made a mistake recently or something?

Kami: Im always making mistakes, and always getting into trouble.

J, T: Haha

Kami: As soon as you've made a mistake, it hurts, right?

T: Yeah, I know that feeling.

Kami: Yeah.

J: Yeah, the person who made the mistake knows it, you don't have to tell them.

T: Yeah, that hurts the most.

Kami: I bet if you made a mistake like this though, you'd get into big trouble.

T, K: Haha

Kami: I think you really would.

T: Well, heh, yeah. But if even Die overlooked this..its like a demon interferred..

J: Yeah, unbelievable.

K: But, anyway, Im taking it in a good way. Well, I mean, it's not good to take just any old thing in a positive way, but....its a bit like those remarks by Mori that we discussed recently.

J: Oh yeah.

K: Like how to move on with it.

J: Yeah, we can learn from that.

K: Yeah.

*Sound cuts out. On screen note: Suddenly, we were unable to record to voices. Was it linked to that sound we heard earlier?*

K: Um, the sound..

J: It seems as if the sound went off.

T: I wonder whether its to do with what we just talked about?

K: What, like, 'Stop this conversation?'

J: Haha, like from ths designer's perspective...'Please stop it!'

T: Haha, yeah, 'Please!'

J: So, what about the Oboro single?

K: So, we're at the last stage, just the mastering, and a little more discussion, and we're about finished. And then the packaging. Well, there's just a little bit longer till the 28th, about another month.

J: Well, Im looking forward to it.

K: Ok, lets finish here for this week. Thank you.

*On screen note: The voice that no-one, including the staff, heard during recording was recorded into the mic data.*

*1,4,5,6 Couldn't catch

*2, 3 Not entirely sure

To top

[daughterofluthien]

“decisions were respected” Sorry but didn’t Scott violently throw Isaac against a wall more than once just because Isaac liked his ex girlfriend in canon? That’s the literal opposite of healthy...

Hey, anon!

This is in reference to this post about Scallison for the shipping meme, where I said that one of my favorite things about Scallison is that the show lets them have a healthy breakup, and even date other people while still remaining friends. The scenes you are referring to are a pair of scenes in 3x13 Anchors.

So lets’s take a look.

(under a cut bc it turns out that when you try to be comprehensive, things get v long v quickly 😅)

The Scenes

I’m actually gonna copy/paste the dialogue of both scenes (along with minimal action/inflection notation for context) so that we can really make sure we know what we’re talking about here, so bear with me:

The first of these scenes occurs as Scott and Isaac are getting ready to head to school in the morning. After some initial ‘hey, what’re you doing, are you heading to school’ dialogue—during which both boys seem a bit awkward—we get the following:

ISAAC: [anxiously] Can I ask you a question? SCOTT: Okay... ISAAC: Are you angry with me? SCOTT: No! ISAAC: Are you sure? SCOTT: ...No. ISAAC: [awkwardly] What's that mean? SCOTT: I guess I'm not really sure how I'm feeling... ISAAC: [nodding] Okay. ...Do you hate me? SCOTT: [sighing] No, of course not. ISAAC: Do you want to hit me? SCOTT: [taken aback] No. ISAAC: I think you should hit me. SCOTT: I don't want to hit you. ISAAC: Are you sure? SCOTT: Why would I want to hit you? You didn't do anything, did you? ISAAC: [stammering] No. I mean, um... What do you mean? SCOTT: I mean, like, you didn't kiss her or anything, right? ISAAC: No! Absolutely not. No. SCOTT: ...Did you want to? ISAAC: Oh, yeah. Totally. [scene cuts to hallway outside the room. Isaac flies through the doorway and hits the wall] MELISSA: Hey! You two teenage boys? Don't test my entirely un-supernatural level of patience! ISAAC: ...Feel better?

The scene then ends, and we cut to subsequent scenes of Stiles and then Allison also getting ready for school.

The second scene is much shorter and happens later in the episode, after Isaac saves Lydia from an arrow that Allison fired while hallucinating. He and Scott are in Scott’s room again, and he’s telling him about the incident:

SCOTT: Right at her head? ISAAC: Almost right through it. And she keeps saying the same thing-- that she keeps seeing her aunt. Whatever's happening to you guys is getting worse. If I hadn't been there, then Lydia would be dead. SCOTT: ...What were you doing there? ISAAC: Uh... [scene cuts to hallway outside the room. Isaac flies through the doorway and hits the wall] MELISSA: [groaning] Oh, you guys, come on! This house does not have a supernatural ability to heal! So, stop it!

But of course just the text of the scene isn’t enough to accurately convey everything in even a tiny portion of a larger narrative, because nothing happens in a vacuum. With that in mind, let’s look at...

The Context 

The first of these scenes occurs immediately after the opening credits, and is the first time we see either Scott or Isaac this season. (Assuming you consider 3B a separate season, of course, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms. This tv show we all choose to enjoy sure is Something.)

Often, the opening of a season is used to reintroduce the audience to the main characters—letting us know where their characters arcs are starting, and what they’ll be struggling with this season. Teen Wolf did this previously (and did it well, imo) in 3x01 Tattoo. Act 2 of that episode begins with a series of four scenes showing our main characters getting ready for school in the morning, highlighting where everyone currently is, and setting up where their arcs are going to go.

Scene order taken by itself would seem to indicate that they were trying to do something similar in this episode. It starts off with the hook of Stiles’ extended nightmare sequence. He can’t tell dreams apart from reality anymore, and wakes up screaming. Cut to black, cue opening credit sequence.

Immediately after the first ad break, we get a sequence of three scenes. The first is the longer of the two Scott and Isaac scenes (which, as previously mentioned, occurs as they’re getting ready to head out to school). The second is of Stiles. He’s packing for school, and the audience learns that he’s been struggling to read when he’s awake as well. Finally, we see Allison leaving her and her dad’s apartment. She seems like she’s doing fine, if a little over-focused. But then she gets into the elevator, and has an extended hallucination/flashback of Kate.

We learn soon after this that all three of them (Scott, Stiles, and Allison) are suffering from the aftereffects of their sacrifice in the previous season. According to the explanations we get both from Kira and, later, from Deaton, they’re slipping into bardo, or the space between life and death, and there’s a door open in their minds. 

Okay, problem established.

It stands to reason, then, that all three of those opening scenes are supposed to serve to set up this problem. We’re shown, in three successive scenes, that all three of our sacrificees are, as the kids say, Not Doing So Hot.

(yes I know the kids don’t say that, let me be an increasingly out-of-touch millennial in peace)

This is all well and good, and honestly makes sense! Under this paradigm, the Scott and Isaac scene should be highlighting that Scott is Losing Control. Bardo is affecting him, and it’s causing him to be more aggressive. Giving in to violence in a way that he generally holds himself back from. Heck, the scene even starts with Scott flexing his fingers, and we (and Scott) see the shadow of a clawed hand against the door.

In the context of the narrative, it makes sense.

Except.

eXCEPT—

The Framing

The thing about the medium of television is that, when we’re talking about a scene, we can’t just look at the narrative structure. We also have to look at the scene itself: how it’s shot and directed, how it’s edited, even what music is paired with the scenes.

In the Stiles and Allison sequences, the scenes are very clearly shot for tension and horror. Long lingering shots on the things that Just Aren’t Right. Music that heightens the tension. Stiles gets some nice lil scare chords over the shot of the book that he can’t read, and there’s a very quiet droning in the background of the Allison nightmare sequence that slowly grows into some classic horror soundtrack music.

Okay. So far that tracks with the narrative thesis.

Now let’s take look at the Scott and Isaac scene.

We start out with some of those lingering shots I was talking about, as Scott is halted in his tracks when he notices the shadow of the clawed hand. We see his own hand is human and unshifted. There’s quiet, percussion heavy music over this portion of the scene that increases in tension at this point. Shaken, Scott closes his hand into a fist, and when he opens it, both the shadow and his own hand are smooth and human. The tense music fades out to silence, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

Scott opens the door to reveal Isaac, which startles him. There’s a short musical sting to underline this moment, and then the background music cuts out completely, leaving us (and them) in the awkwardness of this moment. 

And OH BOY. IS IT AWKWARD. 😬

You can kinda see the Awkwardness Inherent in the System in the dialogue that I pasted up at the top—it’s a lot of back-and-forth, short statements, trailing off... And both Posey and Sharman are playing up the awkwardness as well. Neither boy looks like they really want to be there, and that includes Isaac, who initiated this entire conversation.

But here’s the thing.

The thing that really frustrates me about this scene.

It’s not the sort of awkwardness that exists to increase the tension. The sort that builds and builds until it reaches a fever pitch and you know something just has to give. You know, the sort of tension that you would want to build if you were showing how the protagonist of your show is no longer fully in control, and is on a knife’s edge of lashing out at his friend and beta.

Instead, it’s played for comedy.

And once again, a lot of this is down to the music.

Before the dialogue that I quoted at the top even begins, the music starts back up, and this time the tense percussion has been replaced by light, pizzicato strings. (That may not be the exact right term, fyi, I only really know enough about music theory to be dangerous.) But you know, the playful, plucked strings that often accompanies comedic or otherwise not-serious scenes.

Background music tells the viewer how they’re supposed to feel about the events in a particular scene, and the music here is saying that we’re not supposed to find this whole confrontation that dramatic. In fact, we’re supposed to find it funny.

But it’s not just the music that that frames this scene as comedic. It’s also the fact that we don’t actually see Scott shoving Isaac. Instead, the scene cuts to the hallway, and all we see is Isaac flying through the doorway.

Now, obviously I don’t have a direct line to the director and editors’ minds here. But I would bet money that those particular shots were chosen 1). because it’s so much easier to do a wire pull stunt when you don’t have to show what it’s in reaction to, and 2). because it’s kinda difficult to show your main character directly doing a violence and make it funny.

But show someone yeeted into frame, and that’s funny. Right?

(Spoiler alert: not in this context, it isn’t)

Now, I know I’ve been focusing on the first scene a lot—partially because it’s longer and partially because it’s really the only reason that the second scene exists—but I do want to take a look at the second scene really quickly as well. It’s much shorter and generally adopts a more serious tone than the first one, mostly due to fact that we’re smack dab in the middle of the action at this point. The weird visions that the sacrificees have been having all episode have started endangering lives, and they can’t just wait for it to resolve on its own.

But then the focused, intent exposition is broken by Scott’s question of “why were you there.” Then smash cut to a near identical shot of the hallway,and Isaac yeeting into frame.

The thing is, this scene is entirely dependent on the previous one. It only “works”—and I use this term loosely—as a call back to the scene at the beginning of the ep. Heck, both even have the stinger of a frustrated Melissa at the end of both scenes, frustrated at all the boys-will-be-boys roughhousing going on in her house.

Much like the first scene, this one is also set up and framed for Comedy.

Which is um. A Choice. 

But What Does It All Mean

What frustrates me about these scenes, at the end of the day, is that the narrative intention and the directing/editing seem to be fundamentally at odds.

On the one hand, it makes narrative sense to say that the purpose of the scenes is to show that Scott is losing control. That he’s being affected by bardo and the open door in his mind, and it’s putting the people close to him in danger. But then on the other, the way the scenes are actually used are as comic relief. As a way to release tension between very tense, dramatic scenes. 

I don’t think it works, as I don’t personally find it funny at all. But that really does seem to be the intention.

Once again, absolutely wILD choices were made on the part of tptb, and I really wish anyone had thought for two seconds about the implications of all of this, but nO

Ahem.

So now (literally 2K words later I’m so sorry 😅) what does this tell us about the characters? Certainly no one here is arguing that shoving someone is a good or defensible choice, whether it’s due to forces outside the character’s control or not. But even taking the influence of bardo in mind, is it even in character for Scott in the first place?

Because canon can also be written inconsistently/out of character, especially when we’re talking about a long-running show like tw.

One’s an Incident, Two is Coincidence...

Well, we all know the end of that saying.

So let’s end by looking at a few patterns.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this, once again, eXCEEDINGLY long post, this is reference to a post I made about scallison. I said the following in that post:

And I also really like that they [Scott and Allison] didn’t get back together. That they were allowed to be friends. That even though sometimes it hurt to watch someone you love loved love become romantically close to another person, decisions were respected, and no friendships were broken over it.

The first pattern we need to look at, then, is this:

What’s Scott’s pattern of behavior toward Allison and Isaac’s relationship?

And does Scott’s behavior toward Isaac in these two scenes match the pattern, or is it an outlier?

3x11 Alpha Pact: Sacrifice Prep The revelation that Allison and Isaac have grown close enough for him to act as emotional tether for her is very visibly a blow to Scott. He looks like the rug has been pulled out from under him, but he doesn’t look angry or upset, just.... sad. In fact, it looks like he’s swallowing back tears. But he nods towards the two of them and just says, “It’s okay.”

3x12 Lunar Ellipse: “I look for my friends” This is the epilogue of the season. Scott walks into the hallway at all of his friends in turn. Satisfied. Happy. First at Lydia and Aiden, then at Danny and Ethan. Then he turns and watches as Isaac and Allison walk down the stairs, and they’re laughing, and so obviously happy, and Scott’s small smile grows. He isn’t jealous here—he’s happy for them. 

3x14 Illuminated: Mutual Recognition Scott and Allison are both at Danny’s halloween party, but they’re not here together. He sees her from across a crowded room, just like he did at the winter formal, so many months ago. But so much has happened, and they’re different people now. Allison’s with Isaac, and he’s starting to having feelings for Kira, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, and that he doesn’t miss the relationship he and Allison had. For a moment, his fingers slip away from Kira’s, and he and Allison share a sad smile. 

Believe it or not, these are actually the only other examples I could find of Scott reacting to Isaac and Allison’s relationship. And uniformly across them, he’s sad, yes—after all, he loved her, and that relationship is very definitively over now. But he never seems jealous, and he isn’t angry.

So, if the Scott and Isaac scenes in Anchors don’t fit the pattern of Scott’s behavior towards the new couple, what pattern do they fit?

“Hit me.”

The teen wolf writers have a... really upsetting habit, honestly, of “resolving” interpersonal conflict between two characters by having the “wronged” party hit the other. Afterwards, the tension is almost completely broken between them, as if letting the person act aggressively in a way consensual to both parties has somehow solved the problem.

2x11 Battlefield: Derek and Peter After Peter comes back from the dead, he confronts the now pack-less Derek and offers to help him. Derek, likely remembering that Peter killed Laura and was responsible for most of the events of S1, attacks him instead. After taking a beating, Peter says the following:

PETER: Okay, go ahead! Come on, do it! Hit me. Hit me. I can see that it's cathartic for you! You're letting go of all the anger, self-loathing, and hatred that comes with total and complete failure. I may be the one taking the beating, Derek, but you've already been beaten. So, go ahead. Hit me if that will make you feel better. After all, I did say that I wanted to help.

3x13 Anchors: Scott and Isaac We’ve already discussed this scene in uh. Detail. So I don’t think we need to go into the specifics again. But just a reminder that this dialogue exists:

ISAAC: Do you want to hit me? SCOTT: No. ISAAC: I think you should hit me.

5x15 Amplification: Scott and Liam During the previous supermoon, Liam—swayed by grief, the full moon, and Theo’s manipulations—tried to kill Scott and take his power. They’ve since rediscovered an equilibrium in their relationship, and Liam’s back in Scott’s pack, but they’re both still dealing with the implications of that event. In this episode, they’re attempting to break Lydia out of Eichen, but they’re not as strong as they should be, due to the mountain ash laced through the building, and are having difficulty breaking down a door. Then, the following exchange occurs:

LIAM: Hit me. SCOTT: What? LIAM: Hit me! I'll get angry, then I'll get stronger. STILES: Hit him. Hit him! LIAM: I tried to take your powers. I tried to kill you. Hit me! STILES: He also left you for dead. LIAM: I wanted you dead!

6x16 Triggers: Liam and Theo No one actually directly says “hit me” in  this one, due to the circumstances, but the sentiment’s there. In this sequence, Liam and Theo are trying to convince Gerard and the hunters that the whole pack is hiding out in the zoo, so Theo goads Liam into hitting him, in order to stage a very audible fight.

THEO: Okay... Then they have to believe us.[shouts] Isn't that right? LIAM: [whispers] Why are you yelling? THEO: [shouts] You got a problem? Oh, that's right, you always have a problem! LIAM: [whispers] What the hell are you doing? THEO: [shouts] Shut up! [punches Liam] Yeah, you see that, Scott? Your little Beta can't even take a punch. And what do you think, Malia?

While there’s a variety of primary textual reasons here, all of them deal with personal issues between the pair, and all of them involve some level of catharsis for the person doing the punching. Taken all together, it’s honestly a pretty troubling pattern, especially given the inclusion of an actual canonical abuse victim initiating and receiving the violence.

TL;DR

This is a writer issue, not a character issue. The serious narrative context conflicts with the comedic framing in a way that is honestly baffling to me, and it doesn’t fit the established pattern of Scott’s character and actions. Moreover, it’s an example of the writers’ apparent belief that interpersonal conflict can and should be solved through consensual violence.

The pattern we do see, is that the Scott is saddened by the knowledge that Allison has moved on, but he’s glad that she and Isaac are happy. Similarly, Allison is saddened that Scott is moving on as well, because she does still care for him deeply. Despite their conflicted feelings, neither tries to disrupt the other’s new relationship.

On other shows, that would be a season-long, drama-filled plotline. Here, nothing.

And I legitimately love that so much.

[schleierkauz]

Some Highlights from the 03.05 Stream

As usual, here’s some interesting bits of the last Cornelia Funke Q&A. I tried to structure it all a bit better this time but these talks are pretty chaotic sooo... bear with me. There’s more interesting stuff under the read more, I just put it there because it was getting so long. Anything in (brackets) is my own commentary. I hope you enjoy! :)

Inkworld

Q: What's the deal with the death bond between Mo and Dustfinger and will it be relevant in the new book? A: Since Dustfinger is probably immortal now, he’s been operating on a different level than Mo who is very much still mortal. Other than that, Cornelia doesn't want to reveal too much about TCoR for now. She worked on it the day before the stream, and she shows us the notebook she uses for it.

She thought she had a pretty good idea of what the story was going to be but more and more things keep happening and the book is already looking to be a lot longer and more complex than she intended.

- She will focus on TCoR once the move to Italy is complete and she's very excited about that since the Inkworld is essentially Magical Italy. She can't wait to sit in Volterra and write about Ombra.

- The TCoR sketch book might just be published at some point as a sort of bonus making-of book since it's already full of illustrations and other fun stuff

(That looks like the witch character, doesn’t it? I wonder who the other woman is... And god, I wish I could actually read the text. :/)

- The Inkworld exists around 1360 by our understanding of time

- The Mystery Chapter I translated ages ago is still canon! More info on that in the Reckless section

Q: Will we ever get to read the "original" Inkheart by Fenoglio? A: No, never. Cornelia's writing style is too different from Fenoglio's and she wouldn't be able to pull it off. 

However! Cornelia still hopes for an Inkworld TV show that would begin long before the story of the first book. She already has a notebook all about Dustfinger's and the Black Prince's childhoods, how they met each other as well as other characters such as Roxane etc. Fenoglio didn't care much for their backstories so Cornelia feels like she can explore them without stepping on his toes.

- A long time ago, Cornelia had an editor who thought Dustfinger was a bad character (lmao. imagine being that wrong.)

Reckless

Q: Will one of the short stories Cornelia wants to write about the Mirrorworld be about Nerron's mother? A: Interesting idea! She will consider it.

Q: Will Cornelia include African and/or Indigenous stories in the Mirrorworld? A: Yes! She planned to do it in the sixth book but right now it looks like it might happen in the fifth, so she's trying to figure out how to include South-American fairytales alongside African and Indigenous ones. She wants to include those stories through characters we meet along the way, without necessarily taking the story to those places directly. Or maybe she'll write a separate book entirely to do those fairytales justice. 

- The Mirrorworld exists around 1860 by our time

- Cornelia feels like there will be a lot of Mirrorworld spin-offs because she keeps having ideas and loves writing in that world

Q: Did Spieler (Player(?)), when he was in the "real" world, know about Capricorn and Fenoglio's Inkheart book? A: The silver book that makes people into silvertongues was created by Spieler. For a while he found it very convenient to travel the worlds through books but eventually he realised that books tend to develop a will of their own, which is why he ultimately decided to travel via mirrors. He probably knows about Fenoglio but Cornelia doesn't think he'd care much about Capricorn since he's playing in an entirely different league of villainy.

- Cornelia just signed a contract for a Reckless TV show

Cornelias new Farm in Italy

Q: Will she have animals on the new farm as well? A: Probably not! Right now she's more interested in befriending wild animals. Her dogs will stay with her but otherwise she wants to focus on wild animals as well as wild flowers. She wants to share her garden with any animal that stops by - including, hopefully, the occasional feral cat.

- Cornelia is getting into animation! She will work with a friend of hers who is a teacher in that field to create a little stop motion/animation studio on the farm so artists can bring their characters to life in a new way and create short movies.

Q: How can artists apply to be invited to the farm? A: Cornelia doesn't want people to apply directly, she'd rather leave it up to chance and fate. Most of her artists were recommended to her by friends or former colleagues and this method is working very well. She encourages people to post their work on the internet or send it to her via her website or twitter or something, she just doesn't want to hold contests regularly because it would be overwhelming and she doesn't want to have to reject people. Also, it's aimed at young artists who are just starting out and it’s mainly for girls/women, although not exclusively.

Side note, she plans to have another farm in Germany (probably in Schleswig-Holstein) and there will be other projects that happen there.

Q: Will it be possible to visit the farms, will they sell tickets? A: Cornelia doesn't want to sell tickets and definitely doesn't want "Disneyland vibes". The Mirror Farm (in Germany) isn't supposed to make money but she rather wants it to be a gift to her readers. They'll have to somehow limit how many people show up at once but there will be "open days" where anyone can just show up. Cornelia also wants to offer workshops or something similar herself once or twice a year, where people would have the chance to meet her in person.

Bonus: Life Lessons with Cornelia

Q: Does Cornelia have any advice for people in their mid-twenties who are not quite sure what to do with their lives? A: Figure out what you want to do and follow your heart because being stuck doing something you don't care about at all will make you miserable. And then it comes down to discipline and hard work. You might never get rich doing what you love but someone in their 20s is still young enough to try all kinds of different things and find a path that works. The important thing is actually following through instead of just endlessly thinking about what could be. Travel the world, try different jobs. Don't be fooled into thinking you have to go to university/college, that's nonsense. Knowing how to build a sturdy table or plant a good herb garden makes someone an artist in Cornelia's eyes. Listen to advice but don't blindly follow it. Don't be afraid to change your dreams. Make mistakes and learn from them. You live in one of the richest countries in the world, you won't starve or die on the streets so be grateful and be brave.

Misc.

- The three of them spend the first eight minutes of the stream telling us to visit this website and check out the cool bridge their bookshop is built on and the blackbird that moved into the store

- Cornelia's daughter got married and it was beautiful :)

- Cornelia is looking forward to moving to Italy and being closer to "us" and European artists. She says she'll miss California but she is incredibly tired of all the wild fires.

- Cornelia is now fully vaccinated 

- Cornelia is working on a book about two girls. One used to live in Germany in the 40s-50s, was blind and collected plants from all over the world with her father. She would write letters about those plants to her sister, and those letters are found one day by a girl from Brooklyn. She starts to go looking for the plants the letters are about in the botanical garden. Cornelia has an assistant who keeps sending her pictures from that botanical garden and it's a very fun project because it's very rooted in the real world yet Cornelia still gets to tell a story about a friendship that takes place through letters. She hopes to have finished it by August

- The Wild Chicks movie might just actually happen and everyone's excited about it

- An animated Igraine Ohnefurcht movie is in the works

- So is an animated Geisterritter/Ghost Knight movie

- Cornelia keeps losing books and other important things in the mail and it is pretty infuriating

- Cornelia recommends the book "Sand Talk" and once again says white people should be careful about not speaking over marginalised groups in the name of protecting them

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Back at it again with my self-indulgent comic posts. This time! It’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #3, perhaps the most tonally-distinct entry yet, with shades of The Twilight Zone. 

Spoilers!

So, as mentioned, this issue is the most deliberate in terms of both its pacing and its tone, IMO.

What is that tone, you ask?

To quote Alex Danvers, from “Midvale”: Hello, darkness.

THE STORY:

Kara and Ruthye are still looking for Krem Clues in the alien town of Maypole.

(Which is actually just Small Town, USA, complete with vintage 50s aesthetics.)

But the locals are clearly hiding something! So Kara and Ruthye continue to investigate, and they eventually discover what it was that the residents of Maypole were so keen to keep hidden. 

Genocide, basically. 

As I said, this issue struck me as very Twilight Zone; a genre story involving the build-up to a dark twist, all set against the backdrop of an idyllic small town. (Think, like, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” but instead of focusing on the Red Scare, it’s classism and racism.)

The wealthier blue aliens kicked all of the purple aliens out of town, and when space pirates showed up to pillage and plunder, the blue aliens made a deal with them: the lives of the purple aliens in exchange for their safety.  

Which is where the episodic story connects to the larger mission; it was Krem who suggested the trade, and then joined up with the Brigands (space pirates) when he was freed by the blue aliens.

The issue ends with no tidy resolution to the terrible things Kara and Ruthye discovered, but they do have a lead on where to find Krem, now, as well as Barbond’s Brigands.

KARA-CTERIZATION:

Ironically, it’s here, in the darkest chapter yet, that we get the closest to what might be considered ‘classic’ Kara. 

Which I think comes down to that aforementioned deliberate pace--this issue is a little slower, a little quieter. It gives the characters some room to breathe.

That’s not to say Crusty Kara is gone. Oh no. She is still very much Crusty. XD 

But anyways. A list! Of Kara moments I loved!

I mentioned a few of these in a prior post when the preview pages came out: I like the moment where Kara blows down the guy’s house of cards, and I like that the action is echoed later in the issue when she grabs the mayor’s desk and tosses it aside. A nice visual representation of the escalation of Kara being, like. Done with these creeps. (Creeps is an understatement but you get the idea.)

Another one from the preview pages: Kara explains to Ruthye that her super hearing won’t necessarily help her detect a lie, especially if she’s dealing with an alien species she’s not familiar with.

It not only reveals her level of competence and understanding of her super powers, it also shows that, you know. She’s a thinker. She’s smart. 

Amazing! Showing, rather than telling us, that Kara is smart! Without mentioning the science guild at all wow hey wow.

(Sorry, pointed criticism of the SG show fandom.)

Anyways.

I dig the PJs! 

And Kara catching the bullet! Not only are the poses and character acting great, it’s also a neat bit of panel composition:

We start with Ruthye’s POV, and then move to the wide shot of the room. The panel where Kara actually catches the bullet is down and to the side of the wide shot panel--we move our eyes the way her body/arm would have to move to intercept the bullet. Physicality in static, 2D images!

Also, like. It’s a very tense moment, life-or-death, but. Ruthye’s wide-eyed surprise at the bullet in Kara’s hand? Kind of adorable. 

I was pretty much prepared for the page of Kara shielding Ruthye from the gunfire to be the highlight--it was one of the first pages King shared and I was like, ‘yeah, YEAH.’ But, shockingly? The TRUE highlight of the issue?

Where do I BEGIN?!?!

EVERYTHING. About this moment. Is lovely.

From Kara holding Ruthye above the bench to explaining the concept of a piggyback ride, to telling her:

“I’m going to hold my hands here, and these hands can turn coal into diamonds, so they’re not going to let go. I’m going to keep you safe.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG.

Ruthye’s narration--about how Kara had avoided flying as she was concerned it would freak Ruthye out--just adds a whole additional layer of YES, GOOD, YES, and her line on that splash page is great: “You see, all that time, she was worried about me.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG. AGAIN.

To say nothing of the STELLAR ARTWORK.

And SPEAKING of that stellar artwork, Evely and Lopes continue to knock it out of the park. Each issue is distinct and beautifully crafted, a true joy to look at.

Before I jump into more of the art, a few final notes of character stuff in general.

Ruthye is the one most affected by the experience in Maypole, as she can’t comprehend how a society of people that look so nice and gentle and peaceful could have been party to such a horrible act.

One of the big criticisms of the book thus far is that Supergirl is not the main character, and I guess I can agree with that observation. Typically, in Western media, the main character is the one who goes through the most change in the story. 

And, yeah. That’s Ruthye.

As I was reading the end, where Ruthye sits on the curb and Kara hugs her, I was imagining how the scene would’ve played, had King stuck with the original idea for the series: Kara as the one learning to be tough/experiencing all of this for the first time, and while I think that could certainly work...

I continue to appreciate that King literally flipped the script; that Kara, especially in this issue, is like, ‘I’ve seen this, I know this,’ as opposed to being the one going through a loss of innocence.

*Marge Simpson voice* I just think it’s neat!

Because Kara’s been a teen in DC comics for so long--ever since she was reintroduced to the main DCU continuity, actually--so this is all brand new territory, here. Having an older Kara who’s SEEN SOME STUFF.

(Alsoooooo, since Bendis made the destruction of Krypton not just inaction and climate disaster, but rather, genocide, and the subtext of a Kryptonian diaspora text, the waitress’ derogatory comment regarding the the destruction of Kryton, as well as Kara picking up the bad vibes the entire time, suggests not just a broad commentary on discrimination in all its forms, but specifically allegorical anti-Semitism. The purple aliens being forced out of their homes and into substandard living conditions, then the blue aliens--their neighbors and once-fellow residents--essentially allowing the space pirates to kill them, making them literal scapegoats, Kara discovering the remains of the purple aliens, and Ruthye’s horror at the ‘banality of evil’...yes. A case could be made, I think.) 

(Which would probably require a post unto itself and a lot more in-depth discussion, nuance, and cited sources.)

(Should mention that King has brought up that both he and Orlando--the other Supergirl writer he talked to--are Jewish, and for him personally, that shaped his views on Kara’s origin story.)

I guess my point is that this issue is perhaps not as out-of-left-field as some might think, and just because there isn’t as obvious an arc for Kara, doesn’t mean there isn’t some sharp character work at play. 

(I could be WAY OFF, of course, and I’m not suggesting it’s a clear 1:1 comparison. I’d actually really love to hear King talk about this issue in particular.)

Anyways.

Here’s the final page, which I think works, because as I mentioned before, there is no easy answer/quick wrap-up to the story of Maypole:

THE ART:

I mean. How many times can I just shout ‘ART! AAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTT!’ before it gets old?

I dunno, but I guess we’re gonna FIND OUT.

There are some panels in this issue that I just. Like ‘em! From a purely artistic standpoint! Because they’re so good!

Like, I just really love the way Kara is drawn in that top panel. Her troubled, confused expression, the colors of the fading light, the HAIR. 

Evely draws the best hair. I know I’ve said this before. I don’t care. I will continue to say it, because it continues to be true.

The issue I find myself running up against when I make these posts is that I really don’t want to post whole pages, as that’s generally frowned upon (re: pirating etc.) but with something like this, you just can’t appreciate it in panel-by-panel snippets.

(Guided View on digital reading platforms is a BANE and a POX I say!)

Anyways.

LOVE the implied movement of the cape settling as Kara speeds in and stops. 

And, obviously, Kara flicking the bullet away is just. A+. 

And the EYES, man. LOPES’ COLORS ON THE EYES???!?! BEAUTIFUL.

Also, should note the lettering! The more rounded letters for the ‘WOOSH’ of Kara’s speed (and, earlier, the super breath) work nicely, and contrast with the angular, violent BLAMS of the gunshots. 

And, I gotta say, the editor is doing a really great job of not cluttering up the artwork with all the caption boxes. Which is no small task.

(I assume the editor is placing them, as editors usually handle word balloon/caption box placement, but I suppose it could be Evely? Sometimes the artist handles it. Either way, whoever’s taking care of all the text, EXCELLENT WORK! BRAVO!)

Okay I think that’s everything.

Ah, nope, wait.

MISC.

Just a funny observation, more than anything else: Superman: Red and Blue dropped this week, and King had a story in there, “The Special” (which was very good, btw.) Both Lois and the waitress swear a lot so I’m beginning to think that this is just how King writes dialogue for any adult character who isn’t Clark. XD

This is absolutely a personal preference but when Kara was like, “And my name IS Supergirl,” I was like nooooo. I know King is trying to simplify all of the conflicting origin stories and lore but I LIKE KARA DANVERS, SIR. XD

It’s almost assuredly a cash-grab/an attempt for DC to get all the money it can out of a book they don’t have much confidence in, but I like the cardstock covers! Very classy, much Strange Adventures.

(OH my gosh, can you imagine that issue 1 cover with spot gloss???? Basically the only way you could possibly improve on it.) 

Okay NOW I’m done. For real. XD NEXT TIME: Kara and Ruthye go after Krem and the Brigands!

[fansplaining]

Any advice for writing summaries for Fics?

Hmmm! Well first to tag recent Fansplaining guest @bettsfic, who has written many more fic summaries than me (this is Elizabeth) and probably has great advice on the subject (or perhaps has already written tips and can link to them).

But I do have some thoughts as a two-decade-plus reader of fic, and many years as a professional writer and editor who’s written a lot of, as we say, display copy (things like deks, subtitles, summaries, etc). 

[Please take all of this advice with a grain of salt, because it’s fic, so people can do whatever they want!]

1) Fake it til you make it

If you’re having trouble writing a summary, the number one thing I suggest is DO NOT TELL US ABOUT IT. I may be a slightly choosier reader than some, but “lol I suck at summaries” in the summary (or the tags) is a huge turn-off for me as a reader. I know why people do it! It’s a bit of ironic cover, ~I’m worried this is bad so I’m just gonna beat you to the punch and say this is bad nothing matters ha ha ha.~ Many (all?) of us are guilty of this kind of thing somewhere in our lives, but you don’t need to do it! Just pretend you think you’re great at them, and plow ahead—and the reader will be more likely to go with you.

2) Quote yourself

The tried-and-true, most straightforward summary method is obviously a quote from the fic—an exchange of dialogue or maybe a short paragraph that really captures the essence of what happens in the story. Choosing a good exchange or passage is obviously easier said than done! A few things I’d recommend: 

a) Don’t pull, like, huge blocks of text. I’d suggest this no matter what summary route you’re going, but I find people tend to do this with quotes *a lot*. Especially in the past few years, as phone-reading has become so prevalent, being hit with a paragraph the length of your phone screen makes most readers slide past, just because of the way our brains process information.

b) Don’t be afraid to mix and match, or to play around with your own words. You can pull out a bit directly from your story, or you can modify it, you can pair it with a fresh sentence that isn’t a quote at all. It’s fic, there are no rules. 

c) Get another human to read it! Ideally a beta! Someone who’s read the story! A second opinion—someone who can say if they think the passage you quoted is misleading, or isn’t doing your story justice, or feels just right—is invaluable. 

3) Distill your story into a tweet

This is a tip from my journalist self, originally suggested by a wonderful editor that I worked with for years. If I found myself spinning my wheels 2/3rds of the way through a piece, she’d say, “What will we eventually tweet to promo the piece?” I actually recommend this for all kinds of writing if you’re stuck. What am I arguing or showing or exploring? How am I going to convince other humans that the thing I’ve written is something they’d want to read?

Fic is obviously different from reported features or whatever, but I can’t think of a single fic I’ve read that I couldn’t promo in a tweet. I’m not saying you need to summarize the entire plot in 280 characters. But in a sentence or two, can you tell me what it’s about? That might be wholly emotional description—lots of fic has very little plot, of course. But it’s still about something.

Once you have this distillation, you can expand on it. Is this the information you want to give your readers in advance? Do you want to hold some of it back and tease? Do you want to give them more? You’ll be surprised how much clarity you have on your own work—what you’re trying to put out in the world—when you can describe it succinctly. 

4) Situate the reader

So fic is different from other fiction because we already know who the characters are. But, importantly, we don’t know where you’ve placed them—where are they, in relation to the source material we probably already know? If they’re in an AU world, where will we find them at the start of the story? If it’s canon-divergent, tell us about that divergence—that’s the “what if” intrigue that will bring us in as readers. 

Think about who has the POV, and if it’s only one person, decide whether you want to limit the summary to the way the world looks from their perspective. I recently finished writing a fic, and in my haste to get ~all the fun details~ into the summary, I included information that the protagonist would not have access to until the very end of the story. I want the reader to be deep inside her head, only seeing her limited perspective—and I want the summary to reflect that. 

Even though you’ll get plenty of readers who don’t know the source (all our surveys show plenty of fic readers do this!), you can also send out signals to the people who do know the source/ship/etc. The protagonist doesn’t know the other half of the ship yet—can you use teasing language so *we* know who this stranger who comes into their life is before they do? Fic is full of this kind of pleasurable dramatic irony, and summaries are a great place to lean into it.

~~

I could go on and on, but I should probably cut myself off at some point lol. If anyone has any other resource/tip posts—summaries *are* hard, for all kinds of writing—please leave them in the replies! 

[pocketmouse18]

Thank you so much to @herosofmarvelanddc @cloudypaws and @mtab2260 for the tag! This was so much fun to think about :)

(fair warning, I wrote too much for many of these...)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Just 2 :)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

450,577 if I did my math right!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Officially? Just 1 - Agents of Shield (two, I guess, if you count MCU as separate, since I use characters from both...). Off the record, many more than that! I have lots of bits and bobs from other fandoms that I tinkered with when I was younger, still getting the hang of writing, not brave enough to post things, etc. etc. Some of those include X-Men, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, the Fosters, Star Wars, the Hunger Games, the 39 Clues, and a few others I can’t remember. None of those will likely see the light of day, mostly because they’re unfinished, not very good, and just not reflective of who I am as a writer anymore, but they were fun to play around with at the time :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I just have the two, but The Important Thing is to Try wins, hands down, with 1227. Shoulder to Shoulder has 95, though, which I’m also very proud of! Important Thing has a definite advantage, being as long as it is, so I don’t know if that’s really a fair comparison between them.

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes! Or at least, I always try to! I just can’t believe someone would be kind enough to take the time to tell me what they thought of my story, so I always want to take the time to thank them and return the favor :) Plus, as I’ve learned, it’s a fantastic way to get to know some really lovely people!

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Well... I technically only have one story that has an ending, at least on Ao3, and it’s not an especially angsty one, since it ends in Phil and Melinda getting married :) I have some angsty chapter endings in Important Thing, if that counts? I’m not even sure if any of my unpublished fiddlings have angsty endings (most don’t have endings at all lol)... I don’t mind writing angst, but I don’t know if I’m capable of making something without a happy (or at least hopeful) ending.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've ever written?

Not really, unless you count AoS/MCU crossovers (which I guess technically count, but also I would argue it’s not a true crossover since (and I will die on this hill) AoS is a part of MCU canon). When I was younger I was a fan of playing around with crossover AUs more so than the actual characters crossing paths (so like, what if these characters from XYZ were demigods or went to Hogwarts or what have you, and not so much what would happen if the X-Men met Luke, Leia, and Han on one of their space adventures). I started writing a crossover between AoS and the Marvel Rising cartoon once (which again, not sure if that’s a true crossover, since Daisy was in Marvel Rising, but I digress), where Coulson tasks Daisy to work with Kate Bishop and Rayshaun Lucas to collect and train a team of young Inhumans, starting with Kamala Khan, but I ran out of steam pretty quickly when it got too plot heavy.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t think so. I’ve had some people not understand some choices that I made, but they asked it in a way that I thought was perfectly nice, and I was happy to talk about it with them. Sometimes people get “mad” at me when I cause pain and suffering, but I know that’s all in good fun :)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope, not for me. I don’t read it or write it, personally. Writing a kiss is hard enough!

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge! Important Thing is probably too long and unwieldy to ever steal :P

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone once asked me on FFN if they could translate Important Thing to Russian, which was basically the coolest thing I’ve ever been asked!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A fic, no. I’d love to try sometime! I had a friend in college who I co-wrote with A LOT, though, so I know I enjoy that process, given the right partner. We wrote several short plays together (ranging from ~15-50 minutes in length, including one that we wrote in a single afternoon!), selected scenes from a larger (unfinished) play inspired by historical letters we found in an archive that were sent between a man from Massachusetts serving in the American Civil War, his wife, and his 8-year-old son, and several scripts for TV sitcoms (2 pilots for 2 different shows, plus additional eps for those pilots, and a couple of later eps for a different show that a classmate of ours wrote the pilot for - we were trying to practice what it would be like to be on a staff with a showrunner haha). The sitcom scripts in particular I’m very proud of, and could talk somebody’s ear off about if asked (one’s about ghost hunters and one’s about a DnD party!), but maybe that’s better saved for another post ;)

13. What's your all-time favorite ship?

That’s a very hard question for me! Mostly because shipping stuff is usually one of the last things to register for me when I’m thinking about shows/books/movies I like haha... I’m always a sucker for Philinda, and younger me was rather taken with Percabeth, I suppose.

14. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Hmm, several, really. The aforementioned AoS/Marvel Rising crossover I think could be really cool if I got it to work, but I don’t think that’ll ever happen. I also have a WIP that’s like an angstier version of a Hallmark Christmas movie AU where Daisy has to come home to her small town right before Christmas and figure out what she wants out of life, but I’m a little stalled out on that one, mostly because I’m waffling on who the charming love interest should be and because I don’t have enough of a plot, just lots of feelings about coming back home to a place you thought you had left behind lol.

I’d put Important Thing and it’s (as of yet) untitled sequel on here as things I want to finish, but I’m much more determined to see those through, so I don’t think they qualify for the “never will actually write” part of this question :)

15. What are your writing strengths?

I don’t know if other people agree with this, but I think I write pretty decent dialogue. My “training” (if you can call it that) is in, as you might have figured out by now, script and screenplay writing (those were the only creative writing classes I took in college). So having a sense of the rhythm a conversation needs to have and how to write dialogue that sounds mostly like how people really talk (but shined and tightened up enough so that it’s not actually like verbatim dialogue, which is far less interesting to read!) is something that I feel like comes pretty easily. I also think I do okay with similes and metaphors - my brain tends to work in that way. It’s easier for me to think of stuff (feelings, especially) in terms of comparing it to more familiar things than to just think of the thing directly, if that makes sense?

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

If I was being honest, this would be a very long section, but I know it’s not fun to read a big ol’ paragraph of someone self-criticizing, so I’ll keep it to one or two items ;) A big one for me is pacing, I think. I tend to write more than I need to and to over-explain things, so my chapters get very long and sometimes don’t really go anywhere? Until all of the sudden, they DO, because things need to HAPPEN! I’m a pretty rigorous self-editor, but I do have a really hard time cutting out sections (unless they’re really just not working), so even if it would help the pacing to leave out this conversation between character A and character B, I often can’t make myself cut it. I also think I struggle sometimes with balancing my ‘showing’ and my ‘telling,’ especially in the sense of me over-explaining certain things - like when it comes to feelings/facial expressions/etc, for example. I compensate for that in Important Thing by making it a part of a few people’s POV, but it’s not really a good habit to have in general. Also spelling! I’m really bad at spelling and run my stuff through robust spellchecks and text-to-speech before I post anything to make up for it :)

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I do it with some regularity, although I always get nervous about doing it wrong! It’s hard to avoid in AoS, where characters are spies and should (in theory, at least) have a working knowledge of multiple languages (”We’re spies, I thought we all learned languages?!”). Even in an AU, where characters aren’t spies, I like to try and pay homage to that, plus pay homage to certain characters’ native languages or just general multilingualism. I’ve spent a fair amount of time around people who speak more than one language, so I feel like it’s a natural part of groups of people to have more than one language spoken. I have a pretty good handle on written Spanish, a patchy idea of French, plus I know some Russian phrases from my dad and some German words from my grandfather, but I do rely on internet translation a lot. I usually run stuff through google, then run it backwards to see just how far off the initial translation was, then consult some actual, like, language learning sites to see if there’s particular idioms or common phrases that use different words than what google will give me, then run those words through backwards in the place of the original words to see if I can massage the whole thing to sound reasonably competent. Languages like Russian or Mandarin (which have their own alphabets/characters) are the hardest, since I have to also try and do a transliteration. I always try to put an apology/disclaimer in the notes any time I write in a language that isn’t English, because I’m sure I make lots of mistakes.

Also, I tend not to italicize words that are in other languages, because it looks weird on the page to me to set the other language apart like that (and because I italicize mainly for internal thoughts or emphasis, and usually what’s being said in another language isn’t internal or being emphasized). I put a rough translation at the end so we don’t have to pause the story for a parenthetical translation, but because the translation’s not right there, I try to either put in enough context clues that a person can still understand what’s going on, or I make sure that what’s written in another language isn’t critical to the overall understanding of the scene.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Officially, it’s AoS, since that’s the only fandom I’ve published for. I think the first true fandom I wrote fic for was probably either Harry Potter (entirely populated with OCs lol, I just liked using the world/setting), Percy Jackson (a mix of OCs and canon characters), or X-Men (all canon characters). I was a bit of a latecomer to fanfiction, though, like, I wrote a ton as a kid, but mostly original stuff, because I didn’t know that fanfiction in its current form was even allowed until I was in high school lol.

Oh! I almost forgot one! I’m not sure if this really counts as a fandom, but it’s definitely the earliest version of fanfic I wrote haha... I was like 12 and I wrote more than one story of an OC joining Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men, and then also one of that same OC becoming a knight of the Round Table, so like... do what you will with that information haha.

19. What's you're favorite fic you've written?

I can’t choose between my two darlings :( I mean, okay, technically it’s probably Important Thing. That story’s my baby. It’s huge and I’ve been working on it for almost 2 years, and I’ve poured a lot of my heart and soul into it. I’ve fallen in love with the universe I built in it, so much so that I wrote an entire prequel and have very concrete plans for a lengthy sequel. But I can’t not crow about Shoulder to Shoulder (the aforementioned prequel!), too... I’m just really proud of that one - it has a lot of firsts for me. First completed story. First romance-focused story. First foray into expanding the Important Thing universe. But yes, if I have to choose, then Important Thing wins. That’s a story that I started writing exclusively for myself - to give myself characters I could relate to and to explore a style of AoS fic that I loved reading - and that’s a story I will always and forever be proud of.

I think most people have probably answered this tag game at this point, so I don’t want to accidentally retag anyone! If you haven’t yet, and would like to join in, please do! This is your invitation <3

[kimamanitranslate]

Filled It With My Feelings Text Translation

Sorry it took so long, but I finished the text translation of Filled It With My Feelings, the Senyuu 10th anniversary book! I didn’t translate the Season 1 Episode 1 redraw though because I’m sure we can all recite what happens in there by heart at this point. 

As it’s an illustration book, the translation is meant to be read along with the pictures - you can purchase the digital PDF of the book at hiaruron.booth.pm/items/2329424. You should be able to purchase it through PayPal or some international credit cards.

I’ve included the text under the cut, but you can also read it on the Google Docs here. 

Please note I do not give permission to anyone to use this translation for scanlations. There’s a reason why I’m posting this as a text translation rather than as a scanlation - it reads perfectly fine along with the raw book.

However, feel free to use this for text-only translations to different languages, just send me a message about it.

Page 1

Title: Filled It With My Feelings 10th. senyu.

Page 2

<no text>

Page 3

[Panel 1] SFX (Slime): *squeak* SFX (sword): *slam*

[Text Paragraph]

The story of Senyu first arrived on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 12:39 PM. Naturally, at that point, the name “Senyu” didn’t yet exist - a email was sent to my inbox entitled “A discussion about a new project.”

It was a rather vague email with few details, but at the time, I  was working as a day labourer in a certain distribution centre in Tokyo’s Ota Ward. As I hauled around boxes, my days were filled with uneasy thoughts of my future- I gave up on becoming a mangaka, I started work at an anime company but I quit there too, what am I going to do from now on? So I pounced on that vague email- Maybe this will shine some clarity into my life!

Senyu. was the product borne out of that email, and to my great appreciation, it really did shine clarity into my life. My future, which had been dark and uneasy, was illuminated bright by the light of Senyu. I would like to say that was why I made the protagonist’s name “Alba” - which means dawn - but unfortunately, that isn’t the case. I only learned the meaning of Alba’s name later - it was a total coincidence. 

Anyways, a lot has happened, but it’s now Senyu’s tenth anniversary.

Thank you very much. I never thought that I could continue for this long. This is all thanks to all of you, for supporting me all this way. 

Senyu. is a part of my life at this point - I don’t plan to end it any time soon, so I will be counting on everyone for their continued support.

Haruhara Robinson.

Page 4

Alba

While this may be obvious, the character I’ve spent the most time with in this work no longer feels like a mere “character” to me. 

He had a beta design with bangs. But since I thought he might seem more cheerful with his forehead showing, I settled on his current design. I intended to give him a haircut that was similar to characters like Kirimaru, but my lack of artistic skills at the time ended up giving him a hairstyle with a bizarre composition. 

I struggle now with how to draw his hair well.

Hero Symbol

I’ve always liked the idea of accessories that had the symbol of a hero, so wanting to have the same concept in my own work, I did my best to think up a design. I was really happy when it came out as merch.

Page 5

Ros

His backstory is really something!

I feel like he carried the entirety of Senyu’s serious plotlines on his back. I thought of Senyu. as like a story that uses the protagonist Alba to give the completed story of Hero Sion a happy ending? 

There were times when I was drawing things out that I thought, He feels kinda pitiful? But then in the story, Ros says, “Don’t judge people as pitiful by your own standards,” so then I thought, I-I’m sorry.

His equipment at the start was supposed to be like a machine that let him whip around his heavy sword like it was nothing, but everything ended before I explained any of that.

Page 6

Rchi

At the start, I just thought of her as a cute little girl. But gradually, she grew darker and darker, and by now, the dark aspects of her personality are a part of what makes her unique as a character.

Her hair accessory often disappears. Near the start, there was the explanation that it was confiscated when they were arrested, but beyond that it’s just because I forgot to draw it.

There was an explanation for why she was naked under her cloak during her first appearance, but I’ve forgotten it. I believe it was because since she was camping outside, she washed herself outside as well but her clothes were blown away by the wind - so she wrapped an old cloth around herself…?

Page 7

Foyfoy

The name “Foyfoy” was decided by an audience poll. At first, I was planning to make him Chinese-inspired, but before I realized it that concept had disappeared. His mark is leftover from that original idea.

Foyfoy’s hairstyle is one I drew often when I was a student. I often gave rivals or secondary main characters this hairstyle. 

I’m glad I could draw a design like this in an official work.

Page 8

Alles

A character drawn specifically with boobs that a Haruhara who was too embarrassed to draw boobs drew because “I can’t run from boobs!” The reason why I stopped drawing her midway through isn’t because of my embarrassment, but because I wasn’t used to drawing them, so since I never practiced it, I forgot how to.

Princess-chan

TL: This is written with the kanji for “Princess” rather than the katakana for “Hime” as her name is usually written.

She was meant to be a cute, elegant girl, so it shocked me when she immediately ended up as a violent character from her first appearance.

Since I hadn’t decided on a name for her, in the anime her name was listed as ???. I caused trouble for the anime staff.

Page 9

Rudolf

I can’t help but feel that eldery soldiers are cool. When I was doodling for fun, I often drew eldery soldiers.

Himendam

I thought of a development where a cute girl pops out from a nice big suit of armour, so I created the Himendam.

At the time, I thought, “This is a pretty unusual development, it’s great!” but now that I think back on it, it’s actually pretty common.

Slime

The first monster to appear. The first monster you fight should be a slime! Slimes should be blue! I’ve been influenced by Dragon Quest in that way.

I had this child of mine show up as your standard old monster in order to increase the impact of the panda who would show up right after.

Page 10

Minister

While I honestly have no idea why the minister is always standing next to the king, usually that’s the case in RPGs, right? 

So I had him stand next to the king in the same way. I feel as though his overall image is influenced by Magical Circle Guru Guru’s Kaya. While I hadn’t realized it while designing him, Kaya’s design affected me unconsciously.

The King

His whole thing was “a super serious old man that makes a stupid face during funny scenes,” but before I realized it, his stupid face became his default expression.

He just may be the nastiest character in the series, considering he wrapped up the entire world in his schemes for his own personal desires.

Mob Characters

The mob characters in my work tend to have this face. I like how they tend to make cutting comments while having non-descript faces.

Page 11

Suit

When Ros’ design went from complicated equipment to this thing, I was shocked at how much easier it was to draw.

I think this thing was what triggered me striving for easiness in my work. Can I blame everything on this thing instead of me? 

Just kidding, it’s all my fault.

Fake Foyfoy

If you don’t make careful enough observations, you can’t make a perfect disguise, and you end up in an idiotic costumed-character-like disguise. I wanted to use this plot device a few times more after this, but I didn’t have any chance to use it at all.

Mii-chan

Haruhara happens to have had a stuffed animal for as long as he can remember, and he still has it since he’s never been able to throw it away. I feel as though that stuffed animal served as the model for Mii-chan. In terms of his colour and overall atmosphere.

But my stuffed animal isn’t a pervert like him!

Page 12

Samejima

A delinquent overflowing with manliness. What’s with his hairstyle, I wonder. It’s actually pretty easy to draw. 

He just might never lose against anyone so long as he thinks, “There’s no way I can lose.”

Januar

I stuffed in everything my little sister likes into his appearance. “Straight-cut bangs, black-haired, one-eyed, droopy eyes.” But it isn’t as though I went and got her feedback directly so she might just tell me, “He’s not my type at all.”

I chose his personality based on my tastes- “A kind idiot.”

Page 13

Teufel

I thought of a “butler who doesn’t obey orders” around the same time as a “soldier who doesn’t listen to what you say.”

I wanted to have him appear at some point in the future, but then I saw a book called The After-Dinner Mysteries in a book store, which made me think- “M-m-m-m-maybe this book has a butler who doesn’t obey orders as well?!” So I panicked, ran back home, and drew out the head butler’s story. 

That’s why the head butler’s story was shoved in out of nowhere.

I read The After-Dinner Mysteries after I wrote in all the butler plot devices I wanted to use, and it was interesting.

At the start, Ros had his three burrs hairstyle so his design was differentiated from Teufel’s, but from Season 2 forwards I struggled with differentiating them. 

So Teuf-kun has been going through some small design changes, a bit at a time.

Page 14

Nisepanda

Before Dwango reached out to me, there was a manga I thought up with the plot “a zoo with an easily deceived curator.”

I planned to have a nisepanda appear in that work. The plot device was, “They thought it was a panda, but they were given a mysterious lifeform instead.”

Death Hot Dog-kun

A character that was born during the enthusiastic atmosphere during a meeting with my editor.

We happened to be eating hot dogs during the meeting.

I barely ever have these meetings for my other works, but for Senyu, I’ve been having meetings like this for years. So through sheer enthusiasm and cheer, things like mysterious characters and plot devices end up being created during the meetings.

Page 15

<no text>

Page 16

Dezember

Mysterious characters in manga often show up with their face cast in shadows. Dezember was born because I thought, “Why not make those shadows real?” But he ended up as a cooler character than I expected, using his shadows to attack and such.

I wanted to base him off of a toy for future plot developments, but I’m really glad I decided to based him off of dice. He became a really good character.

August

I think he’s actually a really nice person.

My editor for Main Quest really liked August, so whenever they got the chance they tried to push for more August.

Avril

A character that’s rather rare for Senyuu - one that just genuinely does bad things for bad reasons. I planned to draw her as really evil so you could tell she was a bad person, but she ended up just casually munching on bread - it really surprised me.

Neun

Back when his only appearance was a silhouette, I just wanted to make people think of that character at first. But now that I really think about the design I thought up for him after - isn’t he pretty cute?

Juli

Just like Foyfoy, I often drew characters with this hairstyle back when I was a student. I usually gave it to trustworthy ally characters. I like his design and personality quite a bit - sorry I haven’t used you much…

Page 17

The Shadows

It’s super cool to be able to split your body for each die face. I also feel like it’s a great character setting that each split has his own personality. A thought just crossed my mind - couldn’t I draw a manga just based around the Dezembers’ home life? 

...I guess it would end up like Osomatsu-san...? 

Page 18

Zwei

I wanted to use the concept that she was old despite her looks because she was a demon, so I had her dentures fly out - but now that I think about it, there’s other old demon characters, including some characters older than Zwei. So that would make her dentures a result of her own problematic lifestyle, not because of her old age…

Wanna Stab~

A mob among mobs, who ranked high in a popularity poll. I shall now grant him a name - “Phoenix the Rich”.

Mortmome

The stuff on his shoulder does some mysterious things, preventing his body from turning as well when the drill turns.

Page 19

The Great Mage

The cape he wears is very warm. His research assistants gifted him the cape as a present for his birthday sometime in his later years of life, as they were worried about his health. That’s why Alba always wears the cape.

Elf

He’s meant to be someone who knows the secrets of the world - but I can’t count the number of times I considered whether it would be better to just make him a regular old funny character. Good on you for surviving through all that, Elf!

Alf

While I did want there to be a “Elf’s best friend” character, I hadn’t thought about his name at all. So when it came time for him to appear, I really struggled with it. I wanted to make his name like Alba and Ros (Albatross) or Salt and Lake (Salt Lake)…

I may have struggled the most with Alf’s name among all my characters, considering I usually just pick names on instinct. 

Page 20

Salt and Lake and Lym

The Hero Academy trio. At first, I planned for Salt to become the Demon Lord, but when I sat down to draw everything out, Lake ended up in that role - it really shocked me.

I had always planned for the story to shift from the adventure setting of Seasons 1 and 2 to the school setting of Season 3. Though the end result is completely different from what I imagined. 

Season 3 was really fun to draw since it defied my expectations at every turn.

Page 21

Lyman

I wanted to draw a pathetic older man. I also want his scar to be because of some pathetic reason like “He tripped at a bar.”

Elmer

I reused the soldier design I thought up prior to thinking up Alba and Ros. He’s a little older than Rchi.

Justice

Justice is her ally. In other words, I wanted to make a character where no matter what she does, “I’m doing it, so it’s just!”

But it was too difficult to figure out how to deal with a character like that, so I ended up just making a regular old hotheaded reckless character. 

In the end though, she ended up as a character I quite like.

Page 22

Grandpa

A character who loves money. Since I love characters who love money, he’s a character that’s fun to use. It doesn’t actually have to be money, I like characters true to their own desires in general.

Hasegawara-kun

He was originally meant to be a silent character, but I got the urge to make him talk right before I was going to send in the manuscript. Since I wouldn’t make it if I typesetted his speech, I wrote his lines myself. By writing his lines in a way that can only be expressed through handwriting, I made it seem like I planned that from the start.

I made his speech typesetted again after I did that plot where he speaks super eloquently. 

Rib Man

He requires no explanation! 

It was funny when he moved in the anime.

Page 23

Sochi and Co.

There’s a game called Medabots - in that game, a character called Samantha leads a three-person team called the Screws. I’ve always liked that team since I was a kid. And then, I learned that my editor for Senyu was close with people who were involved with creating the original Medabots. So I had my editor tell them, “I want to put in characters I respect! Please leave it be!” 

Please google the Screws that I respect, I respect them.

Lucop

I had vaguely thought up what was going to happen until the end of season 4 of Senyu. But since I’ve done everything I originally thought up, F5 - which I’m drawing now - is all based on plot developments I thought up in +. 

-I’ve been saying that for a while now. Lucop as well was just a throwaway joke at first. But as I started moving him around, amazing developments like “Huh? No way… you had a past like this…?” burst out of him, and so he became the current Lucop.

Page 24

Midnight

A travelling doctor. As he treats his patients, he’s also searching for a cure to Mom’s mysterious disease. He’s a completely normal person with no special powers. He wanted Alba to become strong through his own power, not through familial connections.

Cecily

A mother who adores her children. I think it’s pretty amazing that she managed to raise Lake up herself and send him off to school despite being blown off to a mysterious place out of nowhere.

Page 25

Rchimedes the Second and his wife

Rchimedes the Second and his wife. (T/N: Yes, it’s written twice.)

Daromeon-san, who’s currently illustrating Kengan Ashura, was the one to draw the ridiculously beautiful backgrounds in the flashback arc in Season 2 when the Second was imprisoned. When I complained that I couldn’t draw it, he drew me amazingly beautiful.backgrounds. 

The Second’s design is based off of a mysterious preconception I have that “Demon Lords should wear raggedy capes.” Mama’s design is based on those soothing, kind moms you often see in anime.

The Mana Maker that he holds in this picture isn’t any particular Mana Maker. I just wanted to let a Mana Maker show up in a group picture.

Page 26

Rchimedes

While he’s tremendously evil, he ended up being quite loved. The Senyu characters I designed near the start wear clothes that I would never design now - I really think it’s amazing. Why did I dress him up in a jumpsuit when I decided to draw a Demon Lord?

On a side note, I imagined that the white part of his clothes peels off smoothly like tape if you pull at it from his neck. 

Crea

Since he took back his body from Rchimedes, his height shouldn’t have changed, but for some reason he mysteriously shrunk. 

Page 27

<no text>

Page 28

Originia

In a way, the story of these three marks the start of Senyu. Originia comes from me messing around with the the word “Original”. 

Rchimedes' scariest era just might be when he was living alone with Sion in Originia. Even though at first glance, it seems like he was living a peaceful, cheerful life with Sion, though occasionally getting beat up by him. But in reality, just what was he thinking deep inside, as he lived out his life, watching Crea and Sion?

Since I’m the author, I can generally imagine what my characters think just by thinking about it. But when it comes to Rchimedes during this time, all that comes to mind is “Scary scary scary”, and I can’t really think any further in detail.

I’m often asked “What’s Rchimedes’ original eye colour?”, but I think it was probably blue. I feel like I drew his eyes as blue somewhere, but I can’t remember…

Crea’s clothes slung around his shoulders that don’t fall off for whatever reason are actually sewn on - that’s why they don’t fall off. Crea sewed it on himself. While his threadwork is rough, it’s very sturdy. I think it’s wild and cool.

I showed a bit of what Sion did in the main story, but he generally did things like hauling supplies for hunting, looking far in the distance since his eyes are good, and going shopping in far-off cities for the village. Things like that.

Page 29

The two from Season 4 Episode 0

The two from Elf and Alf’s universe. Since Rchimedes’ magic research hasn’t progressed that much, they mostly fight with brute force. Since Crea never had his body stolen, he’s doing well. (He’s not doing well at all.)

Page 30

Creasion

When I was a kid, I read in a manga, “‘Hero’ isn’t something you call yourself - it’s a title you’re granted by others.” I remember thinking, “I see, that certainly makes sense,” and agreeing with it. I also thought, “While you generally think of heroes as being brave and splendid, the person who’s actually adventuring might not be able to stand expectations like that sometimes.”

Creasion may be a character borne out of those feelings of mine.

Ros, please have tons of sweets and smile tons as well.

Page 31

<no text>

Page 32

Sleepiez

When I thought of the name “Sleepiez” in Senyu+, I didn’t think much of it except “There’s an anti-Alba organization”. I also planned for Boss to be a new character. But after I took the time to think about it properly, the Sleepiez in their current form were born.

Thanks to the current Sleepiez being created, F5 was able to start even though I thought before “I’ve already done everything I want to do with Senyu, I can’t make another proper season.”

If there was no Sleepiez, I feel like + would’ve lazily continued, then at some good cut-off point, I feel like I would’ve been told, “Do you think it’s about time to end it?”

A tenth anniversary for example… it would’ve been a good cut-off point… how scary!

Boss

I can’t write about most of the Sleepiez members just yet, so I’ll be talking about Boss as their representative. 

Boss is an alternate universe’s Alba, so despite being Boss, he’s still Alba, and so I want to make him feel like Alba still. But since he’s Boss he can’t retort or make jokes, since it would ruin his dignity. So at the very least, I gave him Alba’s fashion sense to keep his Alba feel. Since his heart stained black and he became evil, his fashion sense naturally became eviller as well, but he’s still Alba, the base is still Alba. He’s wearing clothes that kinda feel like a middle schooler who just discovered fashion for the first time, like he hasn’t managed to go full evil in terms of clothes just yet.

Now I can keep Boss as Boss while still giving him an Alba feel! ...is what I thought, but… does he actually still have that feel…?

Page 33

Alba with Mana 

It made me happy that my wish for my protagonist to become the strongest at the end was granted. I thought up a lot of reasons for why only one of his eyes is red, like how it’s because his awakening is still incomplete, etc., but the number one reason is “it’s cool.” 

A single red eye is cool, right?! It’s cool right?!

Now that he can use his mana to some extent, he controls his overwhelming mana to hold it back, so his eyes are both back to black now.

Page 34

<no text>

Page 35

SQ Senyuu.

I had this conversation once-

Y-san from Dwango told me, “I want to take Senyu to a magazine to have it serialized!” 

I thought it would be awesome if it actually happened, so I approved it. Then I was like, “If you do take it to a magazine, where would you take it?”

Then Y-san responded, “Well, if you say ‘magazine’, you think Jump.”

And I was like, “Nah nah, Jump would be impossible, ahahaha.”

I never thought that Y-san would actually bring me an offer for serialization in Jump - Y-san was way too capable. Since my personal experience with Jump all started from there, I’m really grateful!

Pages 36-43

<Season 1 Episode 1 redraw>

Page 44

Afterword

Since I’ve remade Senyu Episode 1 many times before, I thought that I would never remake it again. But then I thought- why don’t I remake Episode 1 at the exact time it was originally released ten years ago, as celebration! So I ended up remaking it again.

But I think it may be my first time remaking it without changing any of the jokes or content.

[ineffablefool]

How to center and nice-size an image in an AO3 fic using a work skin

Maybe someone can use this?  In my fic for the DIWS Good Omens Mini Bang, I embedded some images from my wonderful illustrator.  The centered images will never be wider than the text, no matter the screen size, but they also are never stretched larger than their native size (I resized ‘em to 800px wide in my trusty paint program for faster downloading). Here’s how one looks on my giant monitor and on my phone screen:

If you have never done AO3 skins before then I promise they are not actually scary!  You have the option of doing relatively complicated things with them, but this thing is simple.

Anyway this is how I center my images.

Step one: make a skin.

In your AO3 dashboard, click “Skins” in the menu (left or top of page, depending on if you’re on a big or small screen).  This takes you to the Site Skins page, which are for if you want to make all of AO3 look different to just you.  You want a Work Skin, though, which makes your fic look different to everyone, so click My Work Skins.

Click Create Work Skin in the top right and you’ll get an editor that’s similar to when you’re posting a fic!  You only need to set two things.  One, give it a title that makes sense to you (the title won’t be visible to people reading your fic).  Two, paste some stuff into the big “CSS” box.

This is the stuff to paste:

.centered {  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;  text-align: center; }

.centered img {  max-width: 100% !important; }

That was the stuff to paste!  Just toss both of those two blobs in the big editor and click Submit.  Now you have a skin!

Step two: use the skin in your work.

Open up the work you want to do this in.  Find the Select Work Skin box (just under the Choose A Language box) and select the skin you just made.  Yay!  Sorry, the Homestuck and Undertale ones are just there for everyone and that’s how it is.  (Nothing against Homestuck or Undertale.  I just don’t like unneeded entries in lists.)

Step three: center your image.

This is the most complicated bit, only because I can’t give you an exact thing to copy-paste.  But I can give you a basic template!  Don’t try to paste this into Word or a similar word processing program.  The quote marks could get turned into “smart quotes” (like the ones I typed there, just now -- see how the opening and closing quotes are different from each other?).  If you need to save it off for later, Notepad or another very simple plain-text editor will be perfect, because it will keep the quotes as not smart quotes.

Find the spot in your AO3 work where you want the centered image to be.  It would be between two blocks of text which are wrapped with <p> tags, so something like this...

Into that space, you’re gonna hit Enter a couple of times (which I’ve already done in the screenshot) and then paste this block:

<p class="centered">  <img src="BANANA" alt="ORANGE" /> </p>

That was the block to paste.  Before you’re done, you need to change two things!

BANANA goes away.  Inside the quote marks where BANANA used to be, you need to put the URL of your image.  This URL must start with http or https (preferably https), or else it won’t work.  I can’t give specific instructions on how to get this, because it depends on where the image is hosted!  If it’s only on your computer, or attached to an email, it can’t be embedded.  It has to have been put somewhere on the web, like Flickr, Photobucket, or Google Drive.  It will work to embed from Tumblr, but I don’t trust Tumblr not to change everything up and bork all the old image URLs, thus breaking your embedded images on an arbitrary date in the future.  (Any image host could theoretically do this, but -- well.  We’re all familiar with Tumblr, right?)

ORANGE also goes away.  Inside the quote marks where ORANGE used to be, you optionally can (I recommend you do!) put a brief (200 characters or fewer) description of the image.  This is text which is invisible when viewing your fic in a normal browser -- it’s there for screen reader technologies, used by people who are blind or otherwise have trouble seeing a screen.  Their screen reader software will literally read out to them, so that they can hear it with their human ears, the description you put here.  Don’t start it with “image of” or “picture of”, because the screen reader tells the human that it’s an image already.  Here is a pretty user-friendly guide on how to write alt text!  If you’re more technically-inclined, the W3C has more involved docs.  Remember, the screen reader is going to say out loud whatever you put here, so don’t make it super long, or else you’ll force people who are using screen readers to wait through the long description for your story to continue. 

A finished version of the banana/orange block might look like this:

<p class="centered">  <img src="https://www.my-nifty-example-website.com/prettypicture.jpg" alt="Two dogs having a tea party wearing fancy hats" /> </p>

Step four: do it again if needed.

If you have more images to center in the same work, just repeat step 3 for each!  Step 2 has to be done once per work.  Step 1 might be done once ever (and then you just keep pulling that same skin into many works), or you might do it multiple times (if you want other changes in the skin that are special to only this one work).  I do a different skin every time I have a fic that needs a skin, but that’s because I do extra fancy things that are different for each fic.

You never have to do either step 1 or step 2 more than once per work, even if it’s multi-chapter.  In future chapters of the same fic, just do step 3 again.

Step five: preview and/or temporary draft is your friend

I am an IT professional with a (technically expired but work with me here) Microsoft certification in HTML5/CSS and seven years of writing this stuff for pay under my belt.  Even I don’t post without previewing.  Preview and saving as a draft without publishing are both your friends.

Some fun(?) notes

What you are doing here is using cascading style sheets.  The AO3 skin is a very simple stylesheet, which is a series of rules that your readers’ browsers will use to apply to text in your story.  There are standards that all your normal sort of browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Edge, Opera...) are supposed to follow when they see these rules, so that no matter which browser someone uses, a webpage will look as similar as possible.

A skin created from the above steps defines a class named “centered” and tells the browser how “centered” should look.  Then, in your fic, if you apply the class named “centered” to something in the big editor -- like, say, the <p>aragraph tag that wraps around your image -- then the style from your skin will be applied. 

The magic of cascading style sheets is that you can define your class exactly once and then use it many times.  If you decide you want to change all the places you used it -- maybe you want every centered image in your 87-chapters-long heavily-illustrated fic to have a green border? -- you have to change exactly one place: your skin.  The change will bubble down to every single place you used it.

Skins do not allow all the features of true CSS (no media queries; I am sad), and you can’t put comments in your skin (the editor strips them out).  Browser-specific overrides also do not work (if you don’t know what this means, that’s okay, you have to go to extra work to try to use them in the first place).  But they’re still pretty cool.

A lot of people will just put <center> tags around their thing, and use width=“100%” or some other number, but that is technically not standard HTML, hasn’t been for a very long time, and sooner or later Chrome is going to get clever and stop respecting it.  (Google’s developers like to make Chrome very clever and change how it does things just because they feel like it.  It makes my day job rather more difficult.  Ask me about SameSite cookies!! Actually, don’t.  Never ask me about that thing.)

For portrait-oriented illustrations -- taller than they are wide -- I like to float the image to the right of the text and have it take up no more than 50% of the width of the screen (as seen near the end of this chapter).  But that is a more complicated thing than this one, and I am keeping it simple today.  Maybe I’ll show how to do the nice floaty at some point.

For any-oriented illustrations, you could have a small resized version which links out to a larger version as a click-to-zoom thing.  That is also a little more complicated, so it isn’t in this post.

Questions and clarifications welcome.

That is how to center and nice-size an image in an AO3 fic using a work skin!  I hope you are having a good day.

[rpschtuff]

Carrd.co

Hello roleplayers!! Are you looking for an easy, good-looking, and accessible place to host your blog info on outside of Tumblr? Is Google Docs just not cutting it for you? Then I have a solution for you. Consider checking out Carrd.co.

Carrd lets you create “simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything.” And I know what you’re thinking -- ‘One page? Surely I can’t put all my info on just one page!’ But I assure you, you can. Despite being technically one page, your content can be easily spread across multiple sections for clear organization, much like a blog with pop-ups or tabs here on Tumblr.

Check out this sample site I whipped up to see what I mean.

In this post, I will walk through how I made this sample Carrd site, to demonstrate how simple and customizable it is. But first, to answer what you’re already wondering -- what makes Carrd any better than Google Docs? And I have three answers for you:

There is no issue of privacy or security. Your account name and email is not accessible anywhere on your Carrd site, nor are any viewers visible.

Carrd is much more mobile friendly than Google Docs. I don’t even attempt to open Docs on my phone anymore, as they’re a bit of a nightmare and I can never do it anonymously. But I’ve never once struggled with a Carrd site. Everything is automatically put into a mobile friendly format, and if the automatic settings do mess up, you have the ability to go in and manually change how things will be displayed on mobile.

This may be a bit more personal opinion, but I found Carrd easier to customize as far as colors, images, backgrounds, etc. After about ten minutes, I was comfortably manipulating all of the elements on my site, and much happier with the end result than anything I’ve seen on Docs.

Join me under the cut for a walkthrough of creating the site linked above.

As a note, I’m not intending this to be a full guide to all of Carrd’s features, just a general overview to see how things are laid out. It’s fairly intuitive so once you see the basics, you should be able to play around with it more and get your site just the way you want it.

When you create a Carrd account, you will be given this screen. (If you’re on the main dashboard instead, click New Site.)

You can either explore premade templates below, or you can start from scratch by clicking the link in “blank canvas”. I prefer a blank slate myself, but I encourage you to check out the templates if they seem easier for you.

After clicking “blank canvas” you will arrive at this screen.

These are just Carrd’s instructions. I’ll hit ‘Okay, got it!’ to get rid of it.

The first thing I want to do is customize the background. It’s a good starting point. To do that, click on the three lines in the top right corner...

...and select Background.

Options will open on the left side of the screen, as seen here. Your customization options are fairly straightforward.

You can change the color...

Or change it to something else entirely. I’m going to use an image.

After uploading your image, you have the option to recrop it.

Now I hit accept, and this will be my site’s background.

There are other options as well, that can reposition the image, change its size, tile it, etc.

I can also add a gradient or a pattern to this image. I’m going to scroll down to Overlay and select Gradient.

And change those colors and the angle a bit.

Ahh, lovely. I’ll also add a pattern...

But that looks rather ugly. I think I’ll play with the color, size, and thickness a bit more.

I like that. Nice and subtle. Let’s call the background done.

Now let’s customize the page itself. This isn’t necessary, if you like the text directly on top of your background, but I like how neat it looks.

Go back to the three lines, and this time select Page.

Under Style, I’m going to change Default to Box.

You can change the position, padding, and other settings of the box in this sidebar. Personally, I want to round the corners...

...change the color...

...and change the opacity.

I’d also like to add a border...

...plus a customized drop shadow.

And we’ll call that done.

Now! Let’s see what this site looks like on mobile. In the top right menu, to the left of the save icon, is an icon that looks like a phone. Click that.

As you can see, your view resized to demonstrate how your site will appear to a mobile user. It’s a very good reference. I’m going to switch back to desktop now (the same button, which now looks like a computer monitor).

Let’s get some content on this site now! I’m going to start with the text that’s already present, that says ‘Nothing here yet! :)’. Click on that.

Options for this text will appear. First, I’m going to click the word Text itself. This will cycle through various options, such as default text, headings, subheadings, etc. I want this to be my site title, so I settle on that. (This step isn’t necessary at all, but I find it helps keep me a bit more organized.)

Now, for the content itself. The box is where I enter what I want this text to say. Markdown instructions for bold, italics, links, etc. are always below the box for easy reference.

I want to change how this text looks. Above Site Title, you’ll see an icon that looks like a paintbrush. Click it to reveal the next tab.

Here you can change color, font, size, weight, and anything else that strikes your fancy. There are a lot of options here and they’re pretty straightforward, so play around with it. Here’s what I settled on.

Remember you can check it on mobile, as well.

Time to add more text. Let’s start with a bio, maybe?

Hit the plus sign in the upper right menu to add new content, then select text.

By default, new text will match the formatting of the most recent text used. I’m going to the first tab, the one marked A, and making this text Paragraph.

Then I go back to the paintbrush tab to make some changes to the style.

Then back to the first tab to add some content. I’m just dropping in some lorem ipsum, since this is only a sample. Obviously you’d want something a bit more practical here.

Let’s say I want a link in there. I’ll follow the markdown format to get one (instructions are below the box, as always).

Now it’s in there, as the third sentence. You can see it underlined. But I want to customize that link. If I go back to the paintbrush tab, options for Link and Hover have appeared. I can change the color there.

And if I scroll all the way down, I can change the link style from Underlined to Plain.

That looks nice. I’ll call that done.

Let’s add a subheading to that section. I’ll add another text box.

Then click and drag it above the previous one.

On the first tab, I’m going to change this one to Main Heading.

Then customize it as before.

Now for the actual text itself.

Lovely.

Let’s add some rules! I want to add a new title, so for that, I’m going to select the text that says About. Then in the bottom left is a button that looks like two overlapping squares. This will copy the text, so we don’t need to reformat it identically.

Click and drag the new title where you want it, and change the text to what you want.

I’m going to add a list now. It’s one of. the other options under the plus sign.

As you can see, some bullet points have appeared. Markdown instructions are still under the box where you enter the content. I’m going to fill it with lorem ipsum again.

Under the paintbrush tab, you’ll see that there are multiple tabs. The first lets you change some style and formatting.

The second lets you change the bullets themselves. I’m going to play with that a bit.

The third lets you change the actual text formatting. (I don’t know why my purple bullet points disappeared, I must have hit an undo at some point without noticing. Pretend they’re still purple.)

And I’ll call that done.

Mobile check!

Not bad.

But the question of the hour, how do you make these separate pages? Let me show you. Under the plus sign, choose Control.

A blue dotted line will appear. Drag this to the top of what you would like to be a new section.

On the left tab, the type should read Section Break. Type in something simple and easy to remember under Name.

This has designated everything under the Control as a new section. We need to create a link to it in the very first section.

I prefer to use Buttons for this, but any link option on this site should work. I’m going to add a Button under the Sample Site title.

By clicking the small word Button (inside the box on the left tab), I can change its settings.

The Label is what the button will actually say. The URL is where the button will take me. I can enter any URL, but if I enter the name of the Control I made with a # in front of it, it will take me to that section.

There are options to. change colors of each button individually, but I prefer to go to the paintbrush tab and change their appearance altogether, so each new button in this group will look the same.

Unfortunately, you can’t properly preview the section breaks while you’re editing. So I’m going to publish this site now so I can view it. Go to the three lines in the top right and choose Publish. Fill out all the options there, then hit Publish. (You can also save as a draft here, if you want to keep your progress but aren’t ready to publish yet, but this doesn’t let you preview it properly.)

Now, if I hit view site, I will be able to see it properly. And as you can tell...

It only displays everything up until that first section break. And when I click the About button that I made...

...everything else appears.

So it’s working! Let’s go back to the editor and add another section break for the rules.

(As a note, you can also set something as a Scroll Point rather than a Section Break, so that any links will scroll down to that spot as opposed to hiding then revealing a new section. You may prefer that option, it’s in the dropdown under Type.)

Now I want to go back to my button...

...scroll down on the left options tab and choose Add.

This creates a second button within this group, that I can edit the same as the first.

Lovely. Let’s preview this in mobile quickly.

Notice how the buttons automatically resized for full width on mobile, and are displaying differently than they appeared on desktop? This is by default, but you can change this behavior if you wish. Select the buttons, and on the paintbrush tab, scroll all the way down until you see Mobile.

By default, it’s set to Auto, where it makes its best guess at what will work for mobile. If you switch to Manual, you can change its behavior.

If I change the dropdown under Layout from Stack to Default, it will display as it does on desktop.

For something as simple as buttons, this likely doesn’t matter, and full width buttons may actually be more mobile friendly. But it’s important to know where these options are, in case something is actually broken on mobile and requires fixing. Check everything on your site in mobile to make sure it actually works.

Let’s publish this again to preview it now.

Our new button looks good, and both redirect you to the appropriate place.

But wait!! Once you’re in one section... there’s no button to get back!! I’m trapped!! This is very important. Always provide a way to leave the current section, so your viewer doesn’t get stuck somewhere on your site.

The easiest way to do this is to add a new Control on your first section, called #home. Then, at the bottom of each section, add a button that will link back to it. (You could also add buttons for all the sections at the bottom of each, but I find that more tedious to set up. But it’s entirely down to your preference.)

Now if you republish the site, it should all be functional, and you can navigate it with ease.

Let’s check the actual site on mobile, too. I’m going to actually get out my phone and go to the URL.

It all looks good there, so I will call this one done.

And that’s a rough guide to using Carrd.co! Obviously this is geared more towards my style and preferences, but there are so many ways to customize this to suit your needs and tastes. I also didn’t cover things like images and videos, as I feel they’re pretty straightforward.

A few notes:

Carrd currently limits free users to only three sites per account. However, Gmail’s alias trick and SessionBox totally work. I run multiple Carrd accounts as easily as I run multiple Tumblrs.

A free Carrd site can only have up to 100 items on it. For my sites, I haven’t even come close to that limit, but I can see larger blogs or multimuses potentially struggling with that.

[captain-aralias]

Creators: give a “behind the scenes” look at one of your works. This could be things that got removed or changed, the origins of ideas/details, whatever you like!

oh hey - it’s trivia tuesday already (i guess it’s been a long two days back at work this week). i know everyone is still working their way through the remixes that are finished and posted - and i say, do this! some cracking stuff. i’m over half way through now, and i want to write up some thoughts about how these 26 stories approached remix - because it’s super inventive. i think people benefited from not being familiar with the format.

but i also wanted to share my thinking around why i picked the fic to remix that i did - and what else i was considering from @bazzybelle‘s ficlist, because i think the thought process around remix is interesting. AND i wanted to show you the 500 words i wrote almost immediately of a completely different remix that i definitely won’t finish. it would have been... a publishing AU, fake relationship with too-early-in-the-relationship sex. all good things in a fic, right?

so - read on for deleted scenes, and discussion of thought process. and don’t read on, if that’s not your jam. 

(in general remember - i’m keen to leave stuff in the original that’s good, rather than just thieve everything. so that’s my thought process here.) 

first idea: 

I Just Want Your Extra Time And Your .....

(texting, sex chat). i already really liked this fic, and i have IRL experience of working in publishing (which you’ll see to some extent in the fic - i worked very near people who worked on celebrity cookbooks, which is what baz works on in the fic) (the launch party is not revealed to be at the groucho club in the bit i wrote, but would have been - and i’ve been there/i know soho, so ... that was all appealing)

my idea was: the original is a text fic, mine isn’t, although they still only know each other through the sex chat set-up. so instead of simon and baz having text-sex (as in the fic), baz asks simon [who he's never met] to come and be his fake date at a publishing launch party where he sees lamb, his former boyfriend. 

the trigger for simon and baz progressing with their relationship/having sex (Because they were going to have sex but IRL) would be the same - baz seeing lamb and freaking out. and some of the texts would be literally copied and pasted in my fic as backstory. 

here were my original notes:

in the original fic there's a bit where baz sees lamb, his ex boyfriend, and then is like - hey, simon distract me and they have phone sex

my fic will essentially start there - baz is at a launch party for one of his books, lamb is there - dating the author. it is awful. baz wants to leave, but can't. also, it's time for the text slot with simon - he goes and hides in a cloakroom

and is texting simon, it's terrible - i am so drunk and it's still terrible. and i think simon offers (rather than baz asks) to come and pretend to be his boyfriend

for some sort of plausible denial reason like baz will text him a lot over hte next few days so he'll get a lot of extra money or some shit, but also because simon thinks lamb is a dick even through teh messages

simon shows up - they both drink a lot. they like each other, simon punches lamb (probably). baz asks if he can take simon to a restaurant, they talk more - they kiss. they go back to a hotel together. they discuss whether or not this means that simon is a prostitute (no). they have sex IRL

baz wakes up - and leaves immediately, obviously.

they text again the next day - it's awkward. simon thinks about how he could track baz down if he wanted to - but he feels like baz doesn't want him to, so he doesn't

simon gets out of his horrible job - baz probably tries to get in touch with him, but can't because he's gone. simon gets a message from baz ....... this is still to be determined

anyway - i will probably steal the meet cute in the elevator, it's nice.

why i stopped writing it: 

i knew it was going to take ages to write - i didn’t have the time or brainspace to write 20k of fic. i’d assumed going in that i could lean on the original fic to provide the meetcute, but realised that since it was an AU, i still needed to sell the relationship - particularly given that they were meeting in real life for the first time in my fic. 

also, it would have been my first mundane AU for the fandom, and my first thing where they weren’t enemies first. (so i was trying to think about how i could get them not to like each other a bit WHILE STILL doing fake dating - and it was throwing me off). it was all just too much.

everything i’ve written is pasted for you at the bottom.

other ideas: 

a month passed. i didn’t write any more on my original remix, but went back to greener grass instead. i sent out the month warning email to remixees and thought - i am not going to finish this fic. 

so, i went back to the list of bazzybelle’s fic and thought what can i write that i can definitely write in a month? 

1. You're F***in' Perfect to Me - daphne POV

i thought, i could write this from malcolm's POV.  in the fic daphne talks a lot about how she and malcolm are just friends, rather than true love, and it's baz she has real (motherly) feelings for, not malcolm. so i thought i could write 'the courtship of mrs grimm' where malcolm gets a wake-up call from this argument, and thinks, i actually do love daphne but she likes my son more than me. he's been hiding behind not wanting to sully natasha's memory, etc, etc. fiona would probably be in it. 

2. bat baz

i also had a bit of a naff idea where instead of baz turning into a bat, in bat baz, he would turn into bat man... 

(interestingly one of the remixes was about baz turning into a cat) 

3. If I Fell In Love With You - which i eventually chose

i took the dancing and the music, the set up, and the theme of communication - also some dialogue. pushed some of the focus onto baz’s relationship with niall, pushed the action back in time towards wayward son, added a truth spell (based on a spell in the original) to force communication.

i think this is one of the most interesting remixes i’ve ever done, btw. i’m really pleased with my take on it. 

i chose this to remix because i thought - it’s only a few scenes, rather than a whole get-together arc, and it felt achievable in the timespan. i also had a strong idea about what i could do that was different - the relationship with niall and the spell, and what i would leave for people to discover in the original (simon’s POV - including the warmth he feels when baz cooks for him, the two of the resolving the initial fight when simon comes home in a bad mood). 

the title is a combination of - another line from ‘if i fell’ but one that is about not talking to each other/not putting yourself out there... and ‘where words fail’ - which is the spell i used, and also picks up on what baz says to niall - that telling simon wasn’t enough. even if he’d had the right words, they wouldn’t have been believable. but - through the music/magic, they were able to communicate. 

i also considered using a line from ‘into my arms’ instead (I believe in some kind of path), since that was the song that the magic is cast on - but it didn’t work as well thematically. 

here’s the fic i wrote: Don’t Run and Hide (The ‘Where Words Fail’ Remix’)

and here’s the remix i didn’t write. i think i almost wanted to finish it just for the elvis gag. alas, alas.

I Just Want your Extra Time: remix, not written

BAZ

I don’t smoke as much as my father thinks I do. And I don’t drink – not usually. This evening, though, I’ve already had several glasses of champagne and I’m on my fourth cigarette, the second this smoke break. Because it’s that or go back inside. And I definitely don’t want to go back inside.

I should have known he’d be here.

Not that he was invited. Not that he’s on the guest list. Not that there’s any reason at all, in fact, for him to be here, except that my life is an absolute disaster. Today definitely not an exception.

If anything, it’s worse than usual. I thought I’d already hit bottom when Dev told me I had to ring our printers – in China – and get them to promise to ship one of our new titles three weeks early, as some idiot had sent the press release out with the wrong date. That was excruciating, but things seemed to be improving.

It’s a launch party night. I’m not sure why, but I always look forward to them, even though I hate crowds. (Niall would probably say, other people in general. And he wouldn’t be far wrong.)

But I get to wear a suit. (Tonight’s is Spencer Hart. Dark grey. Green tie.) And I know Snow is going to text after the first hour. And even though no one ever remembers to thank the editor – not unprompted, anyway – I do enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that I’m responsible for turning whatever dross we’ve been told to sell into something that could loosely be called a book.

This one is a cookbook by an actor (not a chef, in other words. I had to hire someone else to write the recipes and then we just photographed him next to the result.) It should be a triumph. It is – we’ve already sold several thousand copies. I should be enjoying myself. But then I heard a voice next to my ear.

“Baz.” And someone put a hand on my waist. “Don’t you look rosy?”

Not someone. Lambert. (I never called him Francois, even when we were intimate.) As irritatingly handsome as ever. And just as confident I’ll do whatever he wants.

I haven’t seen him for months. Not since he left me Las Vegas to go off with one of the better-looking Elvis impersonators. (And if that isn’t the most humiliating break-up story you’ve ever heard, then I really don’t want to know what is. Dumped. And for Elvis.) (Not even the real Elvis - not that it makes a difference.)

“I hoped I’d see you here,” he – Lambert – told me. “It’s been far too long.”

“Since you left me.”

He gave me a hurt look. “Baz. We said Auf Wiedersehen, not goodbye.”

“Who are you really here with?”

The author, of course. I watched their eyes meet across the room and Lambert smiling, before he told me it wasn’t serious. And that he’d be interested in taking me to dinner.

“Unless you’re seeing someone?”

I raised an eyebrow – even though I know Lambert knows I only do that when I can’t think of anything to say. Which means he probably knows the truth, which is that there isn’t anyone else. Not anyone else real, anyway.  

Which reminds me …

I check my watch – it’s later than I thought.

[eldritchsurveys]

929.

Do you ever actually enjoy going to "common" places like the supermarket, the post office, etc? If so, which of these "common" places do you typically enjoy visiting? >> I don’t think so. Most of these kinds of trips are predictable and tedious. I enjoy them more when I’m in an okay mood, but otherwise it’s just... work.

Have you ever made your own bumper sticker? If so, what did it say/portray? If you haven't made your own bumper sticker, what would you want it to say/portray if you did? >> I’ve never made a bumper sticker and I don’t want to make one.

How often do you "sort through" your Xanga subscriptions? Are you more of a person who often unsubscribes from people because you follow too many blogs or are you more of a person who does not often unsubscribe from people because you only follow certain blogs, usually only the ones that you really like? >> I don’t follow survey blogs on tumblr, typically, although I had to follow one recently because tumblr had stopped showing his posts in the tags (for me, anyway). Most everyone else I can find in the tags, so it’s fine.

Now often do you notice sexual references in songs that aren't necessarily direct, such as the emphasis that is put on "everybody knows I'm hung..." in Hot Chelle Ray's "Hung Up"? >> To be honest, it seems like most sexual references in songs nowadays are pretty goddamn overt. Like, WAP just came out...

If you do not smoke marijuana, how do you feel about the legalization of it? Maybe you are so sick of hearing about this that you do not even think about it enough to have an opinion? To guard against leaving anyone out, if you do smoke marijuana, how often do you smoke? >> The reason I don’t smoke it is because it causes adverse effects for me. I support its decriminalisation and I wish its legalisation didn’t immediately result in a fucking monopoly in this country but, you know, capitalism. Still, can you imagine telling someone from like 1980 that “Big Marijuana” was going to be a problem in 2020? It’d be like 12 Monkeys, immediate loony bin for you.

Do you currently live in one of the states that has legalized same-sex marriage? If so, which state are you in? Keep in mind, Delaware has recently joined this group! >> Well, it’s federally legal now.

In terms of the biggest news stories right now, how aware would you say that you are of what is going on in the world? You can judge this by your knowledge of the "Tebow Bill", the case of the Texas cheerleaders that were criticized for their religious banners, the guilty verdict that was handed to Jodi Arias on terms of the 1st degree murder of Travis Alexander, and the rescue of the missing girls in Cleveland who were held captive for a decade. >> (This survey is... uh, a few years old. In case you haven’t already noticed.) I’m relatively aware of the biggest news stories in the United States right now because they’re kind of everywhere (and also because I get daily emails from The Flip Side). Even people in other countries can’t avoid knowing about what’s going on in the US, unfortunately. Also, I should add that one of the biggest continuously-updating news points right now is a global pandemic, so, you know. Kind of hard not to know about that.

Obviously hypothetically speaking, your child is charged with a crime and could receive the death penalty punishment. Your child asks you not to testify for life in prison instead because he/she would rather die fairly soon rather than to live the rest of his/her life in prison. As a parent, do you think that you could obey their wishes in good conscience and not attempt to spare your child's life? >> If I couldn’t, I’d be really fucking disappointed in myself. I’m going to allow for the variable that I might feel differently about a child if I actually had one (since parents are always talking about how us childless people “just don’t get it”), but I really can’t see my values changing that much, and one of my values is respecting other people’s right to die.

Be honest, when you ask questions like "how are you?" do you actually expect a true, possibly elaborate, response or do you expect the typical "fine" or "okay" answer in which you are mostly just asking to be polite? Perhaps it depends on the situation? >> If I ask, it’s because I actually want to know what’s going on in the person’s life -- like, they’re a friend or something and we haven’t talked for a while. I don’t ask this out of obligation or weird social rules or anything.

Do you wash your hair every single day when you shower? Do you really believe that skipping a wash every now and then is better for the hair? >> First of all, I don’t shower every single day either. Also, I’m not white, so my hair texture demands more time between washing if I don’t want it to be dry and brittle.

Would you rather have long, damaged hair or short, healthy hair? In other words, which is more important to you, the length or the health of your hair? >> Who the fuck wants damaged hair? *thinks about all the white people with “dreadlocks”* Wait, never mind, don’t answer that.

Who was the last person in your life to have "car problems" and what happened? >> I mean, the only person really in my life is Sparrow and the last car problem she had was when she had that flat and tried to drive to Meijer on it and the whole fuckin thing just disintegrated, lmao. That was an Adventure.

When you text someone until you are about to go to sleep, do you usually send that person a goodnight/goodbye text, just reply to their message when you wake up, or does it vary? >> Depends on the nature of the conversation. If it’s really casual I’ll just let it taper off. If it’s more focused or serious, then I’ll warn them that it’s almost my bedtime so if they have anything pressing to add, add it now. Otherwise we can just pick it back up again in the morning (or let it end, whatever). ...This is also all hypothetical, since who the fuck am I texting.

What do you want the most right now? >> Nothing.

Are/were your parents/guardians more strict or easy going? >> Very strict.

How many items are currently in the recycling bin on your computer? >> Oh god. Like ~1100 files, because of that goddamn OneDrive fiasco a couple of months ago. I forgot to empty it, but I just emptied it now, so thanks for reminding me.

When was the last time you ate spaghetti? >> I don’t remember.

Does it bother you when surveys you've copied and pasted into an entry are formatted? For instance, the previous survey taker may have used Tahoma font in the entry or aligned the survey to the center. >> This isn’t a problem on tumblr. Usually the problem is that new!dashboard just jacks up formatting so when I copy from dash and paste into the editor, the spacing is all wrong. I solve that problem by copying from the permalink instead... which is an extra step and kind of annoying, but whatcha gonna do.

Do you actually find comedians with a style like Will Ferrell and Steve Carell funny or are they more annoying and moronic to you? >> Steve Carell can be funny sometimes, I guess. I don’t like most Will Ferrell movies. It’s just not my sense of humour, I’m not going to fucking insult it just because it’s not my thing.

[tlbodine]

How to Love Revision

A lot of you lovely folks are doing Nanowrimo right now. 

Which means that, in a few weeks, you will have a steaming pile of pages. A rough draft. A word-baby, if you will. And you might, at some point, want to turn that messy jumble into a real book, perhaps something to send to a publisher or publish yourself or just share with people. 

I see a lot of writing advice about finishing first drafts -- and a whole lot of it is in the vein of “Just write it! Fix it in post! Finished is better than perfect!” which is great advice for pushing through, but does tend to leave future-you -- the editor you-- with problems. 

Lucky for you, I happen to love editing (really! it’s my favorite part!) so I am here to give you some advice on how to turn those pages into a proper story without ripping all of your hair out or screaming into the void (but if you need to scream, it’s OK, I won’t judge you.) 

First Off: Credit Where It’s Due 

My current revision process draws heavily from Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Revision technique: https://hollylisle.com/one-pass-manuscript-revision-from-first-draft-to-last-in-one-cycle/

Her writing guides are golden, and I heartily recommend reading them all, starting with that one up there. 

I don’t do one-pass revisions, but her ethos really helped me. Before I found her advice, I would get caught in the endless revise/rewrite cycle. I was going through 9+ drafts of every story and it kept morphing into something new and sprouting new problems, hydra-style, every time I tried to redo it. So nothing was ever finished, nothing was ever satisfying, and I hated it. 

So I found a better way! And it freed me! I’ve written six books since then, four of them published (one Wattpad-exclusive) and I learned to look forward to the second draft. 

So how does this magic work? Let me show you! 

Step One: Put the Damn Thing Away 

Editing requires intellectual and emotional distance. So finish your story, and set it aside for a while. Stop thinking about it. Actively put it out of your mind. Work on something else for a while. Read a book. Catch up on all the TV you missed. Whatever. The point is -- you don’t want to come back to revise your story until you can look at it with fresh eyes. 

How long this will take depends on you, of course. It’s a very personal thing. It could be weeks. It could be months. For me, a good guideline is to wait until I can no longer quote whole passages from memory. 

Now then. Let’s do some triage. 

Before you can start editing, you need to know your goals. If you’re a planner, this might be easy because you have an outline you can compare against. If you’re a discovery writer like me, well, this is the time to figure out what exactly it is that you discovered. Grab a notebook (or a notepad file, if you’re a digital native) and follow this process: 

Write a one-sentence elevator pitch that roughly encapsulates the concept of the story. It doesn’t have to be pretty -- you’re not showing this to anyone but yourself -- but it does have to be honest. My one-sentence pitch for River of Souls was “Self-aware zombies struggle for equal rights, but the medication they rely on to retain their humanity doesn’t work as advertised.” My pitch for The Hound was “Lesbian thrift shop owners invite the devil into their home after buying a cursed taxidermied dog.” 

Write down your theme(s). In the draft, themes might take the form of questions. In this draft, you’ll want some answers. What do you want the reader to feel when they’re done? What is the message you’re trying to tell? When I wrote Nezumi’s Children, I knew it was a story about religion -- “What should we put our faith into?” In the end, I decided the answer was, “We should put our faith in each other.” That dictated the ending. (I also wanted to be careful not to inadvertently support abandoning your pets -- so I couldn’t let the rats be happily feral at the end. A happy ending for them meant being owned and cared for). 

Write a 250-word synopsis of the story. Again, it doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to introduce the characters, the world, and the general shape of the story arc -- the inciting incident, the escalating stakes, and how the character changed at the end. 

You may find that you struggle with this part, and that is totally find (and honestly to be expected). You may discover, for example, that your character doesn’t actually change, or that there isn’t a core conflict. That’s okay! That’s what you’re here to fix! I have absolutely, definitely written a book and then discovered 80,000 words later that it didn’t have a plot. It’s OK though, because you’ll fix that problem in the next step. 

If you do indeed have a plot and escalating stakes and characters who go through developmental arcs, you’re ahead of the game. Now you’ve got the skeleton of an elevator pitch and the makings of a query letter (or a jacket blurb). 

Next: Map Out Everything 

When I was in elementary school, I had to start writing my first essays. I was supposed to make an outline, then write the paper to follow the outline. I wasn’t very good at doing it that way, so instead I would write the paper, then hastily draw up the outline to match what I said. Oops. Nothing has changed, honestly. 

With your trusty notebook (or blank text document), compile the following: 

Write out a list of scenes. Just a couple words describing the events of what happens. Now - are all of those scenes necessary? Are any redundant? Do you need to add foreshadowing or establish something earlier in the story to make sense of it? Are the scenes in the wrong order? Does every scene do some work to advance the plot, deepen the character, flesh out the world? Does the ending resonate with the theme? Re-write the scene list in the correct order, with scenes added or removed as necessary to tell the proper story. Now your scene list is a handy dandy roadmap/outline for your revision! 

List out all of the characters in the story. Write down their role in the story. Does every major character have a goal? Do motivations make sense? Does each one change in some way during the story? Are all of your walk-on roles necessary? Are there characters who don’t really do much, and could you combine them?

Fixing plot holes on your scene list is a lot easier than fixing them in the manuscript itself. Keep tweaking your scenes until the story feels like it works. Make sure there’s a logical flow between events -- cause and effect, escalating stakes. Consult structure guides like the Hero’s Journey or the Three-Act Structure if you need some help with your plot. 

Here’s a part that’s really important so it’s going in all caps: THE SCENE LIST IS FINAL. Make all the adjustments you need to the plot while you do the scene list, but do not -- DO NOT -- deviate from the story once you move on to the next step. You don’t stop modifying your scene list until you’re happy with the story, and once you’re happy, THAT is the story you’re writing. Get new ideas for things that can happen? Great, save ‘em for the next book. 

Now Roll Your Sleeves Up And Get Dirty 

Some people like to print their manuscript off and do edits in pen, but I don’t have reliable printer access most of the time and hate wasting paper. So instead, I pull up the rough draft and adjust it so it takes up one half of my monitor. Then I pull up a fresh, empty file and put that on the other half of the screen. 

Now, using my scene list as a guide, I pull up the rough draft and rewrite it, scene by scene. Yes, that means re-typing every word. You’ll find that when you do this, you’ll fix a lot of language mistakes without even realizing it. I’m an under-writer, so my drafts usually double in length during this process because I spend more time lingering on sensory details, adding scenes, teasing out character dynamics, etc. etc. etc. Just let yourself go, get immersed into the scene. If you forget what you were doing, just refer back to your outline and original draft to get back on track. 

I find this process works best if you can do it quickly. Try not to let the story get cold. Ideally, work on this every single day, or even set aside a long weekend to just hammer it all out. 

Finally: Make a Second Pass 

Now that you’ve got a second draft under your belt, it’s time to celebrate! Set the book aside. If you have beta readers or an editor, now is the time to send this to them. Hang out for a bit. Figure out who you’re querying, if you’re doing that. Find a kick-ass cover, if you’re self-publishing. Build yourself a Lego mansion. Whatever. Just sit on your draft for a little bit. 

Now that a couple weeks have passed, it’s time to make a final pass. Gather all of the feedback you’ve gotten from beta readers and editors and decide what advice you should take and what you can ignore. Here’s a guideline: If someone says something and you think, “oh, yeah! that’s exactly it!” then you take the suggestion. If they say something and you think “uh, well, no, that’s not really the story I was trying to write....” or something similar, you can ignore the feedback. Good feedback will always feel true in the “duh, why didn’t I think of that” way. 

Open up your new draft and, starting at page one, just read the damn thing. Make adjustments to the writing as necessary: 

Correct any misspellings and typos you come across. 

Eliminate weak words and phrases and replace them with stronger ones. 

Add some variation to sentence structure if you notice that it’s become repetitive. 

Eliminate redundancy. Fix your metaphors. Fix your symbolism. Keep your poetic language on-theme. In The Hound, I replaced a ton of random metaphors with dog imagery. It’s subtle, but it lends thematic cohesion. 

Some people use things like Grammarly or Hemmingway App to help with this. I’ve never used them, so I can’t speak to their effectiveness. But if you find that they help, awesome! Use them! 

Here’s a really important point: This step can ONLY come AFTER the rewriting stage. There is no point at all in tweaking sentences and fixing up the language in a story that has no plot. Fix your structural issues FIRST, and be sure they are AIR TIGHT, before you start dicking around with the words. Ok? Ok. (Someone go back in time 15 years and tell this to young me please) 

And now...you are done! 

Spend some time tweaking your elevator pitch and query letter at this point, if necessary. But no matter what, you do not go back into this document and change ANYTHING unless an editor tells you to. The book is DONE. Maybe give it a final proofread before you self-publish it (but honestly, you’re better off hiring someone to do it at that point, you’re going to be too zorched to notice the typos you missed) but otherwise don’t touch it. Don’t think about it. Write the next book. 

And that’s it! That’s my mostly painless revision process! 

Obviously every person is different, your mileage may vary, etc. But I hope this serves as a helpful jumping off point. I am more than happy to answer any questions or provide clarification on things -- just drop me a line :) 

[wearyewe]

...The candidates were talking about health care. At first, Biden sounded strong, confident, presidential: “My plan makes a limit of co-pay to be One. Thousand. Dollars. Because we—”

He stopped. He pinched his eyes closed. He lifted his hands and thrust them forward, as if trying to pull the missing sound from his mouth. “We f-f-f-f-further support—” He opened his eyes. “The uh-uh-uh-uh—” His chin dipped toward his chest. “The-uh, the ability to buy into the Obamacare plan.” Biden also stumbled when trying to say immune system.

Fox News edited these moments into a mini montage. Stifling laughter, the host Steve Hilton narrated: “As the right words struggled to make that perilous journey from Joe Biden’s brain to Joe Biden’s mouth, half the time he just seemed to give up with this somewhat tragic and limp admission of defeat.”

Several days later, Biden’s team got back in touch with me. One of his aides gingerly asked whether I’d noticed the former vice president stutter during the debate. Of course I had—I stutter, far worse than Biden. The aide said he was ready to talk about it. In November, after Biden stumbled multiple times during a debate in Atlanta, the topic would become even more relevant.

...Stuttering is a neurological disorder that affects roughly 70 million people, about 3 million of whom live in the United States. It has a strong genetic component: Two-thirds of stutterers have a family member who actively stutters or used to. Biden’s uncle on his mother’s side—“Uncle Boo-Boo,” as he was called—stuttered his whole life.

In the most basic sense, a stutter is a repetition, prolongation, or block in producing a sound. It typically presents between the ages of 2 and 4, in up to twice as many boys as girls, who also have a higher recovery rate. During the develop­mental years, some children’s stutter will disappear completely without intervention or with speech therapy. The longer someone stutters, however, the lower the chances of a full recovery—­perhaps due to the decreasing plasticity of the brain. Research suggests that no more than a quarter of people who still stutter at 10 will completely rid themselves of the affliction as adults.

The cultural perception of stutterers is that they’re fearful, anxious people, or simply dumb, and that stuttering is the result. But it doesn’t work like that. Let’s say you’re in fourth grade and you have to stand up and recite state capitals. You know that Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but you also know that you almost always block on the j sound. You become intensely anxious not because you don’t know the answer, but because you do know the answer, and you know you’re going to stutter on it.

Stuttering can feel like a series of betrayals. Your body betrays you when it refuses to work in concert with your brain to produce smooth speech. Your brain betrays you when it fails to recall the solutions you practiced after school with a speech therapist, allegedly in private, later learning that your mom was on the other side of a mirror, watching in the dark like a detective. If you’re a lucky stutterer, you have friends and family who build you back up, but sometimes your protectors betray you too.

...The students are taking turns reading a book, one by one, up and down the rows. “I could count down how many paragraphs, and I’d memorize it, because I found it easier to memorize than look at the page and read the word. I’d pretend to be reading,” Biden says. “You learned early on who the hell the bullies were,” he tells me later. “You could tell by the look, couldn’t you?”

...“The paragraph I had to read was: ‘Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentleman. He laid his cloak upon the muddy road suh-suh-so the lady wouldn’t soil her shoes when she entered the carriage,’ ” Biden tells me, slightly and unintentionally tripping up on the word so. “And I said, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man who—’ and then the nun said, ‘Mr. Biden, what is that word?’ And it was gentleman that she wanted me to say, not gentle man. And she said, ‘Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what’s that word?’ ”

...Listening back to that part of the conversation after our interview made me feel dizzy. I can only speculate as to why Biden’s campaign agreed to this interview, but I assume the reasoning went something like this: If Biden disclosed to me, a person who stutters, that he himself still actively stutters, perhaps voters would cut him some slack when it comes to verbal misfires, as well as errors that seem more related to memory and cognition.

But whenever I asked Biden about what appeared to be his present-day stuttering, the notably verbose candidate became clipped, or said he didn’t remember, or spun off to somewhere new.

I wondered if I reminded Biden of his old self, a ghost from his youth, the stutterer he used to be. He and I are about the same height. We happened to be wearing the exact same outfit that day: navy suit, white shirt, no tie. We both went to all-male prep schools, the sort of place where displaying any weakness is a liability.

As I listened to the recording of our interview, I remembered how I used to respond when people asked me about my stutter. I’d shut down. I’d try to change the subject. I’d almost always look away.

...This evolution in treatment has been accompanied by a new movement to destigmatize the disorder, similar to the drive to view autism through a lens of “neuro­diversity” rather than as a pathology. The idea is to accept, even embrace, one’s stutter. There are practical reasons for this: Research shows, according to Donaher, that the simple disclosure “I stutter” benefits both the stutterer and the listener—the former gets to explain what’s happening and ease the awkward tension so the latter isn’t stuck wondering what’s “wrong” with this person. Saying those two words is harder than it seems. “I’m working with people who spend their whole lives and are never able to disclose it,” Donaher told me.

Eric S. Jackson, an assistant professor of communicative sciences and dis­orders at NYU, told me he believes that Biden’s eye movements—the blinks, the downward glances—are part of his ongoing efforts to manage his stutter. “As kids we figure out: Oh, if I move parts of my body not associated with the speech system, sometimes it helps me get through these blocks faster,” Jackson, a stutterer himself, explained. Jackson credits an intensive program at the American Institute for Stuttering, in Manhattan, with bringing him back from a “rock bottom” period in his mid-20s, when he says his stutter kept him from meeting women or speaking up enough to reach his professional goals. Afterward, Jackson went all in on disclosure: Every day for six months, he stood up during the subway ride to and from work and announced that he was a person who stutters. “I had this new relationship with my stuttering—I was like Hercules,” he told me. At 41, Jackson still stutters, but in conversation he confidently maintains eye contact and appears relaxed. He wishes Biden would be more transparent about his intermittent disfluency. “Running for president is essentially the biggest stage in the world. For him to come out and say ‘I still stutter and it’s fine’ would be an amazing, empowering message.”

Occasionally, Biden has used present-tense verbs when discussing his stutter. “I find myself, when I’m tired, cuh-cuh-­catching myself, like that,” he said during a 2016 American Institute for Stuttering speech. Biden has used the phrase we stutterers at times, but in most public appearances and interviews, Biden talks about how he overcame his speech problem, and how he believes others can too. You can watch videos posted by his campaign in which Biden meets young stutterers and encourages them to follow his lead. They’re sweet clips, even if the underlying message—­beat it or bust—is out of sync with the normalization movement.

Emma Alpern is a 32-year-old copy editor who co-leads the Brooklyn chapter of the National Stuttering Association and co-founded NYC Stutters, which puts on a day-long conference for stuttering de­stigmatization. Alpern told me that she’s on a group text with other stutterers who regularly discuss Biden, and that it’s been “frustrating” to watch the media portray Biden’s speech impediment as a sign of mental decline or dishonesty. “Biden allows that to happen by not naming it for what it is,” she said, though she’s not sure that his presidential candidacy would benefit if he were more forthcoming. “I think he’s dug himself into a hole of not saying that he still stutters for so long that it would strike people as a little weird.”

...As he watched The King’s Speech, Biden accurately guessed that the screenwriter, David Seidler, was a stutterer. “He showed me a copy of a speech they found in an attic that the king had actually used, where he marks his—it’s exactly what I do!” Biden tells me, his voice lifting. “My staff, when I have them put something on a prompter—I wish I had something to show you.”

He pulls out a legal pad and begins drawing diagonal lines a few inches apart, as if diagramming invisible sentences: x words, breath, y words, breath. “Because it’s just the way I have—the, the best way for me to read a, um, a speech. I mean, when I saw The King’s Speech, and the speech—I didn’t know anybody who did that!”

...A stutter does not get worse as a person ages, but trying to keep it at bay can take immense physical and mental energy. Biden talks all day to audiences both small and large. In addition to periodically stuttering or blocking on certain sounds, he appears to intentionally not stutter by switching to an alternative word—a technique called “circumlocution”—­which can yield mangled syntax. I’ve been following practically everything he’s said for months now, and sometimes what is quickly characterized as a memory lapse is indeed a stutter. As Eric Jackson, the speech pathologist, pointed out to me, during a town hall in August Biden briefly blocked on Obama, before quickly subbing in my boss. The headlines after the event? “Biden Forgets Obama’s Name.” Other times when Biden fudges a detail or loses his train of thought, it seems unrelated to stuttering, like he’s just making a mistake. The kind of mistake other candidates make too, though less frequently than he does.

During his 2016 address at the American Institute for Stuttering, Biden told the room that he’d turned down an invitation to speak at a dinner organized by the group years earlier. “I was afraid if people knew I stuttered,” he said, “they would have thought something was wrong with me.”

Yet even when sharing these old, hard stories, Biden regularly characterizes stuttering as “the best thing that ever happened” to him. “Stuttering gave me an insight I don’t think I ever would have had into other people’s pain,” he says. I admire his empathy, even if I disagree with his strict adherence to a tidy redemption narrative.

In Biden’s office, as my time is about to run out, I bring up the fact that Trump crudely mocked a disabled New York Times reporter during the 2016 campaign. “So far, he’s called you ‘Sleepy Joe.’ Is ‘St-St-St-Stuttering Joe’ next?”

“I don’t think so,” Biden says, “because if you ask the polls ‘Does Biden stutter? Has he ever stuttered?,’ you’d have 80 to 95 percent of people say no.” If Trump goes there, Biden adds, “it’ll just expose him for what he is.”

I ask Biden something else we’ve been circling: whether he worries that people would pity him if they thought he still stuttered.

He scratches his chin, his fingers trembling slightly. “Well, I guess, um, it’s kind of hard to pity a vice president. It’s kind of hard to pity a senator who’s gotten six zillion awards. It’s kind of hard to pity someone who has had, you know, a decent family. I-I-I-I don’t think if, now, if someone sits and says, ‘Well, you know, the kid, when he was a stutterer, he must have been really basically stupid,’ I-I-I don’t think it’s hard to—I’ve never thought of that. I mean, there’s nobody in the last, I don’t know, 55 years, has ever said anything like that to me.”

He slips back into politician mode, safe mode, Uncle Joe mode: “I hope what they see is: Be mindful of people who are in situations where their difficulties do not define their character, their intellect. Because that’s what I tell stutterers. You can’t let it define you.” He leans across the desk. “And you haven’t.” He’s in my face now. “You can’t let it define you. You’re a really bright guy.”

He’s telling me, in essence, that my stutter doesn’t matter, which is what I want to tell him right back. But here’s the thing: Most of the time, Biden speaks smoothly, and perhaps he sincerely does not believe that he still stutters at all. Or maybe Biden is simply telling me the story he’s told himself for several decades, the one he’s memorized, the one he can comfortably express. I don’t want to hear Biden say “I still stutter” to prove some grand point; I want to hear him say it because doing so as a presidential candidate would mean that stuttering truly doesn’t matter—for him, for me, or for our 10-year-old selves...

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Vote for whomever you think would be the best president. There are plenty of valid reasons to prefer one candidate over another. But stop spouting off bullshit conspiracy theories while pretending to be an expert in speech pathology, stuttering, AND senility. (And realize you’re also implicitly calling everyone with a stutter or any speech disorder mentally demented or mentally deficient).

[blazehedgehog]

Would you recommend Clickteam Fusion? I hear a lot of negative things about it, and by the way you speak of it, it doesn't sound like you think super highly of it, either

I feel like I’ve probably talked about this before but I’m too lazy to go looking for the post so I’ll just re-write it.

My feelings about Clickteam Fusion are complicated. And, in truth, if you ask anyone who’s spent a long time with an engine like this – Unity, GameMaker, whatever – they probably have their own gripes. No game creation tool is perfect. They all have frustrating quirks and weird limitations.

And it’s hard to unpack exactly how I feel about Clickteam Fusion. I’ve been using some variant of this software since 1998, back when I knew it as “Corel Click & Create.”

I like it because I know it inside and out, backwards and frontwards. 20+ years of experience will do that. If I can think of a sprite-based game I want to make, chances are, I can get it done in Clickteam Fusion one way or another.

I also like its editor, for the most part. Some ease-of-use features have been lost over the years, like it’s not quite as fast to plop down large amounts of tiles as it used to be, but in terms of coding in it I understand things very easily.

The best thing about Clickteam Fusion is just how easy it is to identify object relations. All of your variables are stored inside of objects, and you can just click on an object in the code editor to see exactly where any of its attached variables are referenced.

So in the above screenshot, from a Sonic codebase called “Not So Simple Sonic Worlds,” I can click on the Player_MovementValues object, which contains all the variables involved with Sonic’s movement,  and it’ll show me everywhere that information is referenced. Things like jump height, movement speed, gravity strength, all of it is attached to this object, and I can find it all quickly.

And it’s not just that, either, but the way it’s all laid out makes it feel more organized than normal code, too.

Each object is almost like a folder full of variables, and if you organize them as such, you’ll know exactly what’s being called in each line of code. Like I said, Player_MovementValues handles all of Sonic’s movement variables, so I know if that’s being referenced, it has something to do with that.

And one way or another, I find this much easier to read than “real” code. When dealing with older code I may have written months or even years ago, it makes it very easy to decipher what something does.

Some of that is due to just being extremely familiar with Clickteam Fusion. It’s comfortable.

But it also feels kind of like a trap, because code isn’t written like this in the real world. I’ve mentioned it a few times on this blog, but I did learn a little bit of BASIC back in the day, on my TI-82 calculator. I’ve written text-based games in mIRC scripting. And after two days of failing to get C++ to output a simple piece of text-based code reduced me to literal, actual tears, I retreated in to Clickteam Fusion and never looked back.

I “know” how to write real code and I could if I really wanted to, but the thing is that I don’t want to. So it’s a double edged sword: I can wield phenomenal power with Clickteam Fusion, but I feel kind of stuck to it.

And there are a lot of things Clickteam Fusion does wrong.

The top level problem is that it’s slow. The easiest example I can point to here is Freedom Planet. That game has the technical prowess of, say, a Playstation 1 or Sega Saturn game. And the original release on Steam had absolutely comical system requirements – you needed a modern, 3ghz+ processor to run it, and even then, levels would have framerate problems.

When it came time to do a console port of Freedom Planet, they hired the services of MP2, a guy who specializes in converting Clickteam Fusion projects over to C++. In doing so, the Steam version of Freedom Planet got something like a 500%-1000% performance boost. That game can practically run on a toaster nowadays. None of the game logic necessarily changed, it was just getting it out of Clickteam Fusion that helped speed things up so much.

Even mildly “complex” games are outrageous resource hogs. I’d heard that was because Clickteam Fusion rendered everything in software, meaning it was pegging your CPU even to draw graphics, but it had an update years and years ago for GPU-accelerated graphics and it’s still a problem. They’ve tried other things over the years to speed things up, but again, it’s still just embarrassingly slow if you plan on making a game that looks like it came out after 1994.

(And some things are slower than others, like they let you change palettes on sprites, but doing that is a sure-fire way to tank the framerate)

The second problem, and the one I find most frustrating, is object instancing. The example I always use is, like, Goombas in Mario, right. In most game coding, you’ll have a way to tell one Goomba apart from another Goomba, so you can make the game pay special attention to Goomba #3 in a group of ten.

Clickteam Fusion has trouble doing that. In practical terms, what this means is that if you have a group of ten Goombas, and three of them collide with a wall on the same frame, Clickteam Fusion has a hard time understanding which Goombas touched the wall and which ones aren’t touching a wall. It just knows “a Goomba somewhere touched the wall” and will report as such.

So if you’re writing, like, your own custom object physics, making Clickteam Fusion parse large groups of objects and see them as individuals is an uphill battle. Clickteam Fusion has tried to add more tools and features to help with this problem, but they feel more like temporary bandaids and most of them drag performance down even lower.

Which is tied to the third problem, which is that Clickteam Fusion largely still feels like the same software from 1998. Again, it’s very cozy and comfortable for me, but a lot of the fixes to the software’s longest standing problems feel more like temporary hacks and half-steps. The problems are still there, just reduced (or traded for other problems).

Like, Clickteam Fusion can’t do 3D. Over the years there have been several extensions that let you import polygonal graphics in to the engine, but they’ve always been slow and limited. Their best and latest effort is Firefly, but if you expect it to be competitive with Unity you’re fooling yourself.

All of this is leading up to the eventual release of Clickteam Fusion 3.0 at some point in the next few years, which will be a total top-to-bottom rewrite of everything. How it renders graphics will change, how you write code will change, everything will be different, and they claim every problem I just listed will be fixed.

Given that I like Clickteam Fusion for how cozy I am with it, the idea of everything changing like that is a bit scary to me. If it’s going to be so dramatically different, what’s stopping me from finally breaking it off and just learning Unity, you know? Or maybe I’ll just stick with Fusion 2.5.

Either way, it’s the sort of thing where I don’t think I’d recommend the current version of Clickteam Fusion to anyone else, but I won’t berate them for learning it, either. It is what it is. If you want to take on the curse, that’s up to you, but I’m not gonna suggest it.