#wanted to do a height comparison for brain picture reference

[dangoarts]

man that's one fucked up looking dog

[aemiron-main]

Brenner’s Changing Bloodstains and The Moving Bodies During NINA: Is There A Version of the Massacre that El Did Commit?

I’ve posted about it Brenner’s changing bloodstains during NINA before here and here, but I wanted to talk today about how his bloodstains AND the moving/changing bodies in the rainbow room change, and how those two things are linked.

And I also talked about the moving bodies during NINA here, here and here (and here’s the full post list), incase you’re not sure what I’m talking about

So, we see this brenner, who has blood across both sides of his face:

And he’s shown with this dead body (who is now an adult with his eyes not gouged out, just closed and bleeding, see this post for the comparison of how his body changes throughout the massacre):

Like, here’s what the fully gouged out eyes look like in comparison:

But then we get this Brenner, who only has blood on one side of his face (see how there’s no blood on his screen right cheek?):

We get a closeup & we don’t get to see the room or what bodies are around this Brenner at ALL during this scene, but we DO see them in another scene, which I’ll come back to later.

And what’s interesting to me is that as I mentioned, the dead body that we see when the first Brenner comes in the room just has his eyes closed & bleeding, just like how Connie and the other agents died in S1:

Connie and the other agents still had their eyes- El was just telekinetically squeezing their brains so hard that their eyes started to bleed. Unlike Vecna, who gouges out the eyes/explodes the eyes. It’s two different styles of killing. Which is interesting, because Owens specifically draws attention to 001’s style of killing- and also, interestingly enough, the implies that the version of the bodies/massacre that Owens may have seen back in 1979 would’ve had Vecna-style gouged out eyes. But we don’t know if he really saw the bodies or just saw some pictures or if he saw Virginia’s body or what point of reference for the eyes made him realize that the killings were done by 001:

And part of me wonders if that version of the massacre with the first brenner/the brenner who only has blood on one side of his face/the one where the eyes arent gouged out is a version of the massacre that El did commit. After all, the style of killing is exactly the same as El’s, with the bleeding but not gouged out eyes and the lack of broken bones on that body.

And again, the Brenner who asks “what have you done,” is not the same Brenner, and the camera angle that we get is a.) very closeup but also b.) very tall. Taller than El for sure. But the perfect height to be Henry… Especially considering that NINA is supposed to be based on memories and camera footage, and this definitely isn’t camera footage, so then whose memory is it?

But also, remember how I said that we DO see the bodies with the second Brenner during another scene? Yeah, it’s during a non-NINA scene, it’s during the S4 EP1 sequence of Brenner on the day of the massacre.

Brenner looks down and sees this body:

Which is not the same as this one:

But bizarrely enough, IS exactly the same shot as what El supposedly saw during NINA (which is what the shot below is, that's from El's nina sequence) (and I’m working on a full analysis of all those closeup body shots)- why the hell was El seeing Brenner’s memories?

And this Brenner, from NINA? The scene of a Brenner, with blood on both sides of his face? walking into the room like this? It doesn’t happen at all during that S4 EP1 sequence.

And where this gets even MORE interesting is when we look at the bodies.

See 002 here during Brenner’s S4 EP1 sequence? And how he’s posed?

Okay, so then why is his pose AND his body shape/size COMPLETELY different during the NINA massacre scenes? Even the little red blocks im front of him disappear, and his legs are much smaller and less bruised during Brenner’s S4 EP1 sequence, and his arm completely changes positions AND there’s NO BLOOD on the chair in Brenner’s S4 EP1 memories.

And see the other kid laying on the ground and how they’re posed?

Yeah, they’re ALSO different in El’s NINA memories vs Brenner’s S4 EP1 memories- the position of the body stays the same this time (even though it does move around/change during other shots/memories), but EL’S position relative to the body changes & the position of furniture changes:

What the hell is going ON???

[elizabeethan]

Now Belongs To You

The final installment of It’s About Bloody Time

Find the rest of the series on Ao3 or Tumblr

Summary: Emma liked being pregnant in the winter. She often finds herself boiling, so she welcomed the cold Maine air to cool her down. Now that it’s late-April and she’s almost 35-weeks pregnant, though, she’s a bit miserable. 

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has given this monster a chance! I so didn’t anticipate a quick smutty one shot to grow into a 52k word beast. Keep an eye out for additions; I have about 4 or 5 extras that I want to include in this universe and I’m not opposed to prompts

Emma liked being pregnant in the winter. She often finds herself boiling, so she welcomed the cold Maine air to cool her down. Now that it’s late-April and she’s almost 35-weeks pregnant, though, she’s a bit miserable.

April in Maine shouldn’t be this hot. In fact, it isn’t very hot. There was still snow on the ground a week ago. Killian still wears his long leather pants, button downs, and leather jackets every day and never complains of the heat. Her mother is still wearing sweaters and thick tights. She hasn’t seen her dad in short sleeves since last August. But here Emma lies in their living room—no, in Killian’s living room—in a black maternity cami and workout shorts with a tower fan pointed directly at her.

She isn’t sure how she’ll survive the next 5 weeks if the temperature keeps rising. Someone should do something about that.

She told Killian that she would finally pick out an accent color for the baby’s room today while he was out with David picking up the crib, but she can’t seem to get herself off the couch. She barely sleeps more than two hours at a time each night, her little bambino taking any and every opportunity to practice their gymnastics routine on her bladder, ribs, and lungs, so she takes any chance she can to nap. Killian keeps referring to his many apps to try and give her advice on how to combat her insomnia, but she thinks if she hears, “maybe some warm milk, darling,” one more time, she’ll snap, and her baby will be tragically born without a father.

Once she’s fully out of her sleep-induced brain fog, she hoists herself into a seated position, somehow, and reaches towards the coffee table where Killian left the paint swatches for her to peel over. It’s difficult to decide on a color when they still don’t know what they're having. The little yellow envelop still sits on the kitchen table, although it’s been shoved to the side in favor of mail and ultrasound pictures. For a while, she was tempted to open it up and find out who their little baby is, but Killian finally whispered into her neck one night that he thinks he wants to be surprised. The concept is nice, and far be it for her to ruin this for him, so she’s been going along with it.

Although, if she were to somehow find out, she wouldn’t be upset. It would probably make this whole nursery decoration thing a lot easier.

They decided together that they wanted the nursery to be nautical-themed. She figured it would be a cute and relatively gender-neutral way to decorate their baby’s first bedroom, and when she suggested it to Killian, his blue eyes lit up brighter than she’s ever seen them. The walls are still white, but she can’t decide if she wants to paint the wall with the window sky blue or a warm shade of gray.

“Hello, my darling,” her doting baby daddy greets gleefully as he enters through the front door, holding it open for David, who’s holding up a large and seemingly heavy box. Once the door is propped, he pulls the box while David pushes the other end, scraping it loudly against the textured tile floor until it’s inside.

“Hi.” The grin he wears is adorable as he rounds the coffee table and bends down to plant a kiss on her forehead.

“Good nap?”

She shrugs, laughing internally at the fact that he just knew she was napping despite the fact that she was doing dishes when he left. She watches him make his way back over to the box and quietly count to three before he and David hoist it and start walking towards the baby’s room. “This thing kept whacking me,” she says, gesturing towards her enlarged belly, “so I wasn’t able to sleep for long.” She finally stands from the couch and follows them into the nursery.

“Blasted child,” he grunts out, finally dropping the box to the floor with a slightly-too-loud crash as Emma winces.

“I think I want gray,” she tells him, hugging her dad with one arm once he’s catches his breath and stands up. “On the wall.”

“That’s a good idea,” David says in agreement. “Where are your scissors?”

“Next to the stove. It’s a nice gender-neutral color, don’t you think? I thought blue would be good but what if it’s a girl?”

“I believe that in this realm, girls can also like the color blue, but gray is a lovely choice as well, Swan. We can run out for the paint and start it tonight while your father’s still here.”

She smiles at him, striding over as best she can with her crampy calves protesting, and wraps her arms around the back of his neck. “Sounds like a good plan.”

He hums and smiles down at her, swooping in to press a gentle, chaste kiss to her lips. “I hope you at least got a bit of sleep. Little pineapple needs you well rested.”

She laughs lightly at his remark. Each week, he checks his pregnancy apps to see how big the baby is, and he then spends the week referring to it by whatever comparison he likes best. This week, it’s a pineapple. Killian had never tried one before, so they picked up a can during their weekly grocery haul, and he loved it. She can’t wait until they're able to get some fresh. “They're gonna have to cool it with the hip hop, then. I don’t even know how there’s any space left in there.”

“Aye, well, you now have more baby than amniotic fluid, so their movements are feeling sharper. Less of a— what was the word they used? — less of a cushion.”

“Is that why I saw a hand earlier, doctor Jones?”

“Did you?” he laughs excitedly, kissing the tip of her nose as he often does.

She nods, taking his hand off her hip and pressing it softly into the bottom of the left side of her bump. She often found that giving a few light taps encouraged the baby to tap back. Sure enough, the little turd gives his or her dad an enthusiastic high five. “This kid will not stop moving. We’re gonna have to enroll them in all the sports.”

“Hmm,” he hums. “Perhaps some rum on the pacifier will calm him down once he’s here.” He raises his brows in quick succession.

“Killian!” she swats at his chest.

“No one is giving my grandchild rum until they’re at least 35.” She spins back to the door, smiling still as her dad enters and starts to cut away at the excessive packaging. “Killian, I was thinking you could go grab the paint while Emma and I work on the crib, what do you say? Mom will be here soon so we can start painting once you're back.”

“Sounds reasonable, mate.”

“Ugh, forgot my drill in the truck. I’ll be right back.”

Killian walks around Emma so that he’s facing her again, brushing away a strand of hair that fell out of her top knot. “Which swatch was it, love?”

“It’s called Dolphin Fin.”

His face twists. “Nasty buggers, if you ask me.”

“But they do make a nice wall color.”

He chuckles and presses a soft kiss to her mouth, barely slinking his tongue along her bottom lip. “I’ll be back.”

“Okay, thanks. Love you.”

He freezes. Emma freezes.

What the hell? Did she seriously just say that?

He said it weeks ago. Months ago. She still hasn’t found it in herself to say it back, no matter how many times she’s thought it. Archie says she’s scared that if she admits it aloud, it makes it real, and it means that she risks losing him.

Too late to consider that now, she supposes.

Her heart is racing and her palms are sweating; the baby even stills it’s wiggles in her stomach, as if to say mom, what the hell are you doing?

He squeezes her shoulder after a moment of silence, and it’s as if he needed the time to take in what she said before he can respond. “Aye,” he says softly, more quietly than ever. “I love you, too, Emma.”

She already knew this, but that knowledge doesn’t stop the doubts as she asks, “really?”

“I thought it was rather obvious,” he laughs, “considering I’ve already told you.”

She laughs now too, tipping forward slightly (and not gracefully—she’s so front-heavy that once she starts going, she is physically incapable of stopping), pressing her forehead into his collarbone and breathing in the soothing scent of leather and new cologne. “I haven’t really said it to anyone since… well, it’s been a long time.”

“Aye,” he replies, running a hand down her back and pulling her as close to him as the bump will allow. “For me, too. It’s alright, darling. I love you, and I’m not going anywhere. Not even if you try and force me away.”

“I won’t,” she says against his skin. “And I… I love you, too.” It comes out in a whisper, and she’s never felt so scared and excited in her life—with perhaps the exception of learning that she was pregnant. With a man whom she loves.

She hears the squealing buzz of the drill coming from down the hall and lets Killian gently press on her shoulders to help her to an upright position.

“I’ll be back, Swan.”

She smiles as David enters the room and makes his way back towards the crib. “Oh, Killian!” Emma calls. He turns at the door and hums, raising a brow at her. “We’re out of Cheez-Its.”

“Bloody hell,” he mumbles as he makes his way into the hall. “How?”

“Thank you!”

~~~~

“This is a nice one,” David says once the crib is finished. Emma’s been wrestling with getting the fitted sheet over the little mattress for at least five minutes now, and it’s honestly ridiculous for her to be struggling this much. “You can adjust the height of the mattress as the baby gets bigger.”

She nods, finally succeeding over the damn thing and passing it towards her dad so that he can plop it into the crib.

“I do have good taste, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “About that…”

“Uh oh,” she retorts awkwardly, “am I in trouble?”

He chuckles, walking over to her once the mattress is in place to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Quite the opposite, actually. It seems like you two are in a really good place.”

She nods, smiling as she leaves the nursery and makes her way to the kitchen for some water. All she can hear in the back of her mind is, “must stay hydrated, Swan.”

“We are.”

“I must say, it took a bit for me to get over my reservations about the pirate.”

“Oh, I remember how long it took,” she says, thinking back to her birthday and how much her father distained the idea of her inviting him.

“It may have taken a bit,” he continues pointedly, “but you two are going to be fantastic parents.”

She won’t cry, honest. “Thanks. We… well, we’re really excited. Everything happened kind of out of order, but we’re happy where we are, I think.”

“I can see that. And I'm sorry I ever pushed you towards Neal.” She nods. “If I had known last year what I know now…”

Before she can argue with him that they’ve already had this conversation, the door opens and Mary Margaret steps inside, carrying grocery bags filled with dinner ingredients.

Emma’s violent aversion to meatballs has subsided, and now she can’t get enough. They have at least a dozen in the freezer, but she still requested them for dinner tonight.

“Hi honeys!” Mary Margaret calls as David takes a bag out of her hand and guides her into the kitchen area.

“Hey,” Emma responds before making her way to the table just outside of the kitchen and taking a seat. She picks up the closest ultrasound printout and smiles at the baby’s strong profile.

Killian and David are wrapping things up in the nursery, almost finished painting with the door shut so that she wasn’t exposed to the fumes, and Mary Margaret closes the oven once the tray of meatballs are formed and placed on the rack.

“Oh, Emma, I just can’t wait to meet this little one,” her mother says over her shoulder, placing a gentle hand on the top of her belly.

“Me too,” she says with a grin. Her mother takes a seat next to Emma and pours herself a glass of wine.

“I have had a heck of a week. It’s like all of the kids pooled money for an espresso machine.”

“You're still liking being back at school though?”

“Oh, I’m loving it. It’s like being back where I belong.” Emma smiles and nods, waving in front of her at a fly that decided to make an appearance. “The nursery is going to be so cute, sweetie. Killian must love the theme.”

“Yeah, he does. I was mostly his idea. He wanted,” she swats at the air again, “damn fly. He wanted to raise the kid on the Jolly Roger without actually endangering them at sea.”

“So thoughtful. He’s gonna be a great dad.” Mary Margaret brushes her hand through the air too as the fly invades her space.

“He already is.”

“I know we’ve sort of had this discussion already, but—”

“Mary Margaret—”

“Just hear me out. Please?” Emma nods, giving her consent to continue. “Neal is a great father to Henry; I can’t doubt that. Ever since he came into his life, I’ve seen nothing love and care towards his son.”

“I know.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that what he did to you 12 years ago is unforgiveable.” Emma nods in agreement. “And your father and I, mainly me, trying to push you towards him before we knew why you were so hesitant about him being back is unforgiveable.”

“Mary Margaret…”

“I’m not saying this because I want your pity or your forgiveness. I want you to know that I’m sorry. That I see the fault in my behavior, and I want to make up for it. I’ll never stop trying to be the best person that I can for you, Emma. I hope that Neal does the same for Henry. And I know that you and Killian will do the same for your child.” She pauses for a breath and a sip of wine, swatting at the fly again before continuing. “It’s something that doesn’t always come naturally to some parents, and I was honestly worried about Killian at first, but I can see now that it is coming naturally to him, and I’m so happy that the two of you are getting the opportunity to raise a child together. I wish I had accepted these feelings months ago.”

Emma isn’t really sure what to say. They’ve talked briefly about her past with Neal over the last few months, mostly about how Emma’s working on getting past it. Emma even brought Mary Margaret to a session with Archie once. But she’s never really heard the depth of emotions that her mother was experiencing.

“Thank you… that means—”

Mary Margaret swats a bit too animatedly and bumps her hand into her glass of wine, causing it to topple over and spill onto the table. “Oh shoot!” she jumps, reaching for the soiled mail as Emma heaves herself up for some paper towel. “I’m sorry, honey, let me get this.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Oh, this is soaking through the paper. I’m so sorry. Can I take this stuff out of their envelopes? I don’t want whatever’s inside to get ruined.”

Emma nods as she rips a few pieces of paper from the roll.

Maybe she should’ve said no, though.

“Just a few bills and ads and other junk,” she says as she quickly discards of the wine-soaked envelopes. It’s all well and good until Emma’s making her way back to the table, rounding the kitchen island, and sees Mary Margaret tearing open that small yellow envelope.

“Wait!” she shouts, holding up a hand and hurrying over to the table, but it’s too late. Or, she’s incapable of moving any faster.

Mary Margaret gasps. So does Emma.

Written on the small piece of paper that her mother pulls out is the four-letter word Emma’s been thinking about for months.

GIRL, it says, with a bold line drawn underneath, as if the technician was excited to write it down.

“Oh my.” Her mother’s eyes blow wide.

“Oh my god,” Emma whispers, placing her hands over her mouth before thinking better of it and sliding them over her bump. Over her baby girl. “Oh my god.”

“Emma…” Mary Margaret starts, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know it was in here!”

“Mom,” Emma laughs, tears pricking her eyes, and whispers, “it’s alright.”

“You’ve…” she walks over to Emma, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve never called me that before, not really.” Mary Margaret’s eyes are glossy, too.

She laughs out a soft sob, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “It’s a girl.”

Mary Margaret nods, pulling her daughter in for a hug as tight as the two of them can manage. “Do you have any names?”

“No!” Emma laughs out again, sniffling. “Killian didn’t want to know, and I haven’t been thinking about it much. You won’t tell him, right?”

“No! It’s—”

“All set, Swan, you're allowed in the room in a week!” Killian calls from down the hall, making his way into the kitchen. She crumples up the paper she’s holding and shoves it between her boobs. Ouch.

She sniffles once again and spins around, too quickly so that she gets a little uneasy on her feet, smiling at him. “Thank you.” Mary Margaret takes the paper towels from her grip and brushes it over her own cheeks before she starts to blot up the wine.

“No worries, Swan, you don’t need to cry over spilt wine,” he says, walking to her and kissing her forehead before taking the reddened towels from her mother.

~~~~

She hit 36 weeks of pregnancy on Tuesday, and when wakes up from her nap the following Sunday, it’s to round ligament pain, cramps in her legs, her esophagus essentially on fire, and gas… oh god, the gas. Poor Killian.

“It’s really just the most contemptable thing, my love. Peter Pan was perhaps the most treacherous foe your daddy has ever faced. Well, aside from your mother on that damn bean stock.”

“You better not be soiling my baby’s image of her mother,” she says groggily with her eyes still shut. Her breath catches as she inadvertently discloses the sex of the baby, but Killian thinks nothing of it.

“Could be a boy,” he responds, and damn him for stealing her line.

She smirks, because no she couldn’t, but looks down at him. When she opens her eyes, she sees that he’s holding the copy of Peter Pan that she gave him for Christmas, his head resting on the pregnancy pillow that replaced him weeks ago next to her thigh, and he’s reading to her again.

He’ll be the best dad.

“You should be getting up soon, love. Regina still wants to take you to lunch.”

“I can’t believe that. When has she ever shown any interest in spending time with me?”

He shrugs, his shoulder bumping into her leg, and presses a gentle kiss to the bottom of her belly, close to where the baby’s head is resting.

A thought dawns on her then, fueled by his refusal to answer her. “It’s not a shower is it? It better not be a shower.”

“You could take a shower, I guess. But I think you smell nice.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s a Sunday afternoon three weeks before my due date, Killian. If it’s a shower, I’ll kill you.”

“Please don’t threaten me with physical violence in front of my son,” he says seriously, and she laughs.

“Could be a girl.”

“Could be.”

~~~~

It was a shower.

Regina picked her up at 1:30 and drove her straight to town hall. She didn’t even try to disguise it.

“This was your mother’s idea,” she tells her apathetically as she parks in her front spot. Emma is glad to have such a short distance to walk, or should she say, waddle.

The hall is decorated similarly to how the nursery is, ornamental ropes and netting and shells scattered along the tables and blue and pink streamers cascading from the ceiling.

Everyone she’s ever known is there, and while she thought she would hate the attention, she’s actually happy to see all of the friends she’s made since arriving in Storybrooke. Even Anna and Elsa made their way over via portal from Arendelle.

Her mother also provided snacks and desserts, and Emma couldn’t be happier to have a big bowl of Cheez-Its sat in front of her for the entire party. There are also onesie decoration stations, polls for guessing the due date and gender, and plenty of games to keep everyone busy before cake and gifts. The cake was beautiful; Granny somehow created one in the shape of a ship’s wheel. Emma doesn’t cry, she doesn’t.

The guests for most of the shower are women, but at the end, David, Henry, and Killian arrive to say hello to everyone and help to pack up. She received so many things that she didn’t think she would need, but her parents also gave her the things she had planned on buying herself, like the stroller and car seat she’s been looking at.

She doesn’t cry. Really.

“Hi baby,” Killian says, bending to kiss the top of her belly, and then, “hi baby mama,” as he stands straight and kisses her chastely.

She laughs, taking his face between her two hands and kissing him back with a bit more heat, slipping her tongue against his and pulling his hair. There were a few weeks there when she didn’t really feel like sex, but for some reason that she isn’t questioning, her drive is back. Her doctor says it’s healthy, so she’s taking that knowledge and running with it.

“Easy tiger,” he says, “we’ve got company.”

She hums out a laugh, leaning her forehead against his. “Just hoping to induce labor. I don’t know how I’ll survive another three weeks and two days.”

He snorts and ignores her statement in favor of asking, “where would you like us to bring the gifts, my love?”

She grins at his addition of the word my and shrugs. “Home, I guess,” she teases.

“Your home or mine?”

Did she seriously forget that they don’t actually live together? Seriously?

“Oh, um…” she starts, taking a moment to consider her answer. There are so many things she could say. She could tell him to send the things to his house. To the baby’s house, because honestly, she knows that’s where the baby is living. But instead of being blasé about the situation, she thinks about what Archie would say. About how she could start putting herself and her needs first, without worrying about the consequences that she makes up in her own head. So, she softly says, “ours,” and looks at him timidly.

“Ours,” he repeats, breathing out a laugh and shaking his head lightly. “Really?”

She nods. “I think… well, I want to live with you. Officially. I know everything in life is uncertain, but I know for sure that I want to live with you and the baby. Full time. That is… if you—if you want that.”

There could have been a more romantic time or place to have this conversation. Her family and friends are running around trying to pack, she’s eaten more cake in the last hour than she cares to disclose, and she’s trying really hard to hold in a fart. But something about this feels right, and when she sees the grin that splits his face in two, she knows that she made the right call.

“Well, when you put it like that, I would love to live with you,” he says, leaning in towards her and kissing her so gently and passionately that she can feel it in her toes. He tries to pull her in closer, but the child between them makes it pretty difficult, so he laughs into their kiss and rubs his hand along the side of her bump. “Shall I tell Dave to move your things into your new abode, my darling?”

She laughs and swats at his chest before leaning in to kiss him once more. “That sounds perfect, baby daddy.”

~~~~

Emma’s been in labor before. She knows the difference between Braxton Hicks and actual contractions, but each time she stops where she stands and rubs her belly, breathing deeply, Killian rushes over and asks if it’s time. She knows he’s excited, and he seems pretty calm, but it for some reason, that agitates her.

“No, god dammit,” she would hiss, gritting her teeth through it, trying to shake it off. She knows that if it goes away when she moves, she’s in the clear. He doesn’t ever seem to know how to respond to her outbursts, so he just kisses her temple and goes back to what he’s doing. Usually, he’s getting her a snack.

At a few days shy of 39 weeks, she supposes she could be in a much worse mood.

She’s moved past the nesting stage and straight into obsessive planning and cleaning. She’s made Killian rearrange the nursery at least four times, moved the position of the bassinet in their bedroom twice, and has yet to decide what side she wants the car seat installed. At least he’s now had plenty of practice on how to properly install it.

The worst part is how anxious she is. She wants this baby to come out more than anything—revels in the idea of finally meeting the tiny life they’ve created. She wants to meet her daughter. But she also wants to keep her safe. How is she supposed to keep her baby safe if she isn’t inside her? She’s built a lovely home for this kid over the last 9 months, thank you very much.

So, every time she has a Braxton Hicks contraction, she panics a bit. Because as much as she wants to give birth and not be 9 months pregnant anymore, she’s absolutely terrified of the idea.

Sometimes, though, the late-term pregnancy symptoms are worse than the thought of staying pregnant forever. She could do without lightening crotch and weird discharge for the rest of her life and be perfectly content.

It’s her turn to consult the apps, searching for ways to encourage labor when the heartburn and pelvic pain become too much to bear, and while walks and exercise balls are nice ideas, her favorite suggestion is sex.

Killian was nervous when she started coming on to him, but he seems to enjoy himself based on the way he runs his hand along her body, presses his mouth against her heated skin, and tucks his throbbing erection tightly into her from behind and comes with a long, deep moan.

When they're finished and she’s panting with her knees and face pressed into the mattress and her ass in the air, she sighs. “Still nothing.”

“It’s not time yet, love,” he says soothingly to her left, running his hand along her arched back and landing it on her ass. “You can’t be comfortable like this.”

With her belly hanging down and resting against the mattress, she’s surprisingly comfortable, the pressure finally releasing from her hips, but she’s going to have lines pressed into her face if she doesn’t move soon.

“It’s almost time, though. I’m literally going insane over here. I can barely breathe from the heartburn and these huge feet shoving into my lungs. Can’t she just pop out a little early?”

“While I would love to be able to prove you wrong sooner rather than later, I think that he is enjoying his time in the safety of your womb, my love.”  

She snorts at his insistence and flops over onto her side so that her back is pressed to his front, his hand sliding around her to hold her huge belly.

“I’ll be full term on Tuesday. They can come out any time they want.”

“That’s still three days away, and then you’ll only be 39 weeks.”

“I can deliver at 39 weeks. I was 37 with Henry.”

His small strokes slow when he asks, “were you?”

She nods against his chest, feeling her eyes getting heavy and her breathing finally evening out a bit. “Can you get my pillow? I think I might actually fall asleep tonight.”

“It’s only 7:30.” She shrugs. “Of course, Swan.” He chuckles lightly, kissing the back of her neck and pulling away, replacing his missing body heat with a blanket and tucking her pillow between her knees.

When she wakes to a professional dance routine just before eleven, it’s to their empty bed, the soft glow of a light down the hall illuminating her path as she gets up. As she makes her way to the bathroom, she feels a warm trickle starting down her legs and suspects that her water must be breaking, and she nearly squeals in excitement.

Then she panics, because labor and delivery is no walk in the park, but she tries to focus on the fact that her baby is on her way.

In a few hours, she’ll get to meet her daughter. Their daughter.

How is she going to raise a kid from day one? Henry was easy, all the hard work was done for her and she was left with an awesome 10-year-old. This one is all on her, though.

Well, on them. Archie would ask her why she feels the need to burden solely herself.

Shit, they should’ve discussed names more seriously.

No way is she naming her child Gertrude.

Once she’s cleaned up both herself and the floor (as best she can by rubbing a towel against it with her foot), she knows she should be heading to the hospital soon to ward off infection or illness, but she also knows that she has a long road ahead of her, so she first heads out to the living room and grabs her phone from where she left it on the couch and shoots a text first to her mother, and then to Ruby.

“Swan?” she hears from the nursery. She starts to smile, but then she feels what she assumes is the start of a contraction and she stops in her place. The pressure and pain on her back and belly are strong, starting from the top of her bump and rolling down in a wave, but it’s over pretty quickly, so she isn’t too worried. Of course, Killian is worried, though. “Swan!”

“It’s—”

“Is it time? It’s too early! The baby isn’t done cooking yet, there’s still a week to go!”

“No,” she breathes out as she sits down on the couch, bringing him with her. “It’s okay, the baby is almost full term. If they're ready, they're ready.”

“it’s too soon, Swan. I thought we would have another week.”

“What difference is a week going to make?” she snaps, calming her voice as she continues. “It’ll just be more baby for me to push out. I’m perfectly okay with delivering now.”

This was new. Usually Killian was the cool and collected one of the two of them, but it appears he’s currently losing his mind over this. “I can’t…” he starts, his eyes darting in every direction and his brows practically hidden under his thick hair. “What if I can’t do it?”

“Killian…”

“I was… I didn’t have a father. Not really. How the bloody hell am I supposed to know how to be one myself? I’m no role model for a young lad.”

“You already are a father, Killian. You’ve been the most amazing dad to this baby since the minute you found out about them,” she sooths, taking his hand in hers and drawing it to her lips to kiss his knuckles.

“What if it is a boy, and I raise him to be like me?

“That wouldn’t be so bad, but—”

“Like the worst version of me?”

“No, baby, that’s not—”

“Swan, I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this. I can’t raise a child— I can’t raise a son.” He’s practically in tears, and she can feel his hand shaking in her grasp as his breath catches in his throat.

“Killian,” she says more firmly because, let’s face it, she doesn’t have much time for breakdowns here, and she grabs his cheeks between her hands. “There is not a doubt in my mind that you are, and will continue to be, the most amazing father that this baby could ever dream of having. You and me… we understand each other, remember? Neither of us know what it’s like to be raised by loving parents. But it’s a challenge that we’re going to face together. We get a chance to love this kid the way we wish we had been.”

He can’t seem to meet her eyes with his, either because he doesn’t want to, or because he worries that if he moves them the tears that are threatening to fall will begin to cascade down his cheeks. Something dawns on her then, though, and she realizes that the thought of having a son is weighing heavily on him. Before she can consider whether it’s a good idea or not, she opens her mouth. “I know you don’t think you're capable of being a father, but… well, that ship has sailed, Hook, and your daughter’s on it and waiting for you to jump on.”

He freezes, finally looking her in the eyes as the tears roll down. “My what?”

Emma smiles, running her hand gently along his cheek before leaning in to kiss his lips tenderly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, but I thought it might be helpful for you to know.”

He shakes his head and lets out a breath, saying, “it’s a girl?”

“I found out by accident a few weeks ago,” she nods, her nose rubbing along his. “Are you mad at me?”

He laughs breathily and kisses her, shaking his head. “How could I ever be mad at you?”

“I know, right?” she jokes, but this conversation has gone on for too long, and she feels the wave of another contraction starting. She forgot to check the time after the last one, so she isn’t able to tell how close together they are, but she knows more will come for her to track. “Ugh,” she says, breathing as deeply as she can. “What time is it?”

“11:16.”

“Count,” she demands. She continues to breathe deeply through circled lips as he sits by her quietly and rubs her knuckles with his thumb. “Okay,” she breathes out finally.

“That was about 26 seconds.”

“From when I told you to start counting?”

“Aye.”

She figures it’s safe to add 10 seconds and takes out her phone to mark it down. “We should go. I could still talk through that one, but my water broke, so I have to go to the hospital.”

“Your water broke? When?”

“When I woke up. Don’t worry, I cleaned it. Can you get the baby’s bag from the nursery, and mine from the closet? And don’t forget yours, too.”

~~~~

Her parents meet them at the hospital once they arrive, only after she shouted at Killian from the car about all of the things she thought she forgot. When they arrived, she realized she forgot deodorant, and it took a lot of convincing on Killian’s part to get her inside rather than turning the car around.

That doesn’t mean she didn’t send him to the gift shop to get her deodorant.  

“How am I going to change a diaper with a hook for a hand?” Killian asks in another panic during one of her fiercer contractions, and she squeezed his good hand so hard she thinks she might break it.

“Fuck!” she shouts through it, then glares at him once it subsides. “I’ll magic your fucking hand back on if it’ll make you happy, okay? Fuck.”

She’s panting and sweaty, but she wanted to wait a bit before she got the epidural. She isn’t sure why the hell she would do that.

“Do you think that’s an option?” he asks as he rests the cool, damp cloth on her forehead, and she sighs.

“I don’t know, Killian, maybe. Maybe we can ask Regina.”

“Maybe Gold would know,” her father pipes in, and Emma rolls her eyes.

“You're not going anywhere near Gold, got it? He’ll probably just manipulate you until he gets what he wan—ahh, fuck.”

Another wave starts and she reaches for Killian’s hand again, drawing a grimace from him. The poor thing. He would probably have an easier time with this process if he could switch hands between contractions.

“The doctor will be in soon, my love,” he says once it passes as he kisses her temple. “She’ll check you again and then you can get your epi— your epi—epinephrin.”

She breathes out a laugh as she drops her head back to the pillow, panting and closing her eyes. “It’s an epidural. Fuck, you're so cute. I love you so much.”

He laughs now, kissing her cheek and running his crushed hand through her matted, sweaty hair. “I know you're just saying that because of all the hormones, but I love you too.”

“Sorry I keep yelling at you.”

“It’s alright, Emma, I still quite fancy you.”

“Sweetheart, do you need more ice chips?” She had honestly forgotten that her parents were in the room. She wasn’t planning on having them with her the whole time, but she thought she might want the extra moral support.

“No, I’m fine, but can you guys do something for me?” she asks, now fixated on the idea.

“Of course, anything.”

“Can you go ask Regina about Hook’s hand?”

~~~~

A beautiful baby girl is born at 7:22 on the morning of June seventh. She weighs eight pounds and four ounces, and she’s 19 inches long.

She’s absolutely perfect.

She comes out screaming and crying, but relatively easily otherwise, and the second that Emma hears her cries, she breaks down into sobs herself and reaches for her daughter. She’s placed on her bare chest shortly after her birth, with Killian resting his head against Emma’s and crying softly into her hair as he looks down at their baby.

Emma has never felt such bliss and joy in her entire life.

The last time she was in this position, she was broken. She had been heartbroken by the person she loved, whom she thought loved her. She had been betrayed by the system that was supposed to protect her.

Now, she has her family, a man she loves by her side, and her chubby, beautiful, flawless daughter in her arms.

She has almost no hair, just a few light whisps at the top of her head, and Emma suspects that she may inherit her blonde locks. She hasn’t been able to see much of her eyes yet, but she suspects that she has Killian’s.

Killian takes the baby from the nurses once she’s been weighed and measured and cleaned, and Emma notices that he’s removed his hook. The way he cradles her like she’s more impeccable than the most precious piece of treasure he’s ever pilfered makes her heart skip a beat.

She’s floating on a cloud, or perhaps on a ship, and she couldn’t be calmer and happier than she is now. Although, perhaps that’s also thanks to the hormones her body is emitting.

Her parents appear after a while and coo over the new bundle of joy as Emma rests her eyes. She’s soothed by the sounds of her mother and father doting over their grandchild and praising her parents for how beautiful and perfect she is.

A few moments later, Henry arrives and immediately give Emma a hug, making her tear up. He sits on the bed with her as Killian places the baby in his arms, encouraging him to support her neck the same way that he learned to. (“This YouTube is a wonderful thing, Swan.”)

Henry brings Emma flowers, and says that his dad helped him pick them out from the gift shop. It doesn’t bother her as much as she thinks it could have, knowing that he’s here, or at least dropped off their son. She sees the effort that he’s making and appreciates that he hasn’t been around to bother her in several months. Henry is their kid, like it or not, and if Neal continues to put him first and leave everything else out of their coparenting relationship, then maybe they can bury the hatchet one day. Again, though, perhaps that’s the oxytocin talking.

She was thrilled to see her family and to discuss the new light of her life, but when Ruby and Granny walk in with a greasy paper bag, she almost jumps from the bed and launches herself towards them. She thinks better of it, of course, and once her hands are clean, she trades Granny the baby for the grilled cheese and onion rings. She even feels generous and shares a few with Henry.

Granny hugs Killian tighter than she’s seen her hug anyone. She looks down at the sleeping baby and back up at Killian and has tears in her eyes. It’s genuinely the most unexpected, beautiful relationship Emma may have seen in Storybrooke.

Regina makes a brief appearance when she comes to pick Henry up later and takes a quick look at their baby girl with a smile on her face. She wishes them congratulations and tells them that she’s beautiful, as if they didn’t know already.

In the late afternoon, when everyone has blessedly left and Emma starts to breastfeed their daughter again, Killian speaks from the chair next to her bed for what feels like the first time in hours.

“What are we going to call her, Swan?” He’s nearly whispering, the quietness of the room setting a soft and placid mood.

“I don’t know. She’s so beautiful and perfect, we need to find the perfect name.”

“So, Gertrude.”

“No!” If she was thinking clearly, she would know that he was joking.

He stands from the recliner and makes his way to sit at the side of her bed with her. He couldn’t stay away from the two of them, and she didn’t mind. “We’ll think of something, love,” he says with a kiss to her temple, then another to the tip of her nose, and then a final kiss to the top of the baby’s fuzzy head. “She looks like my mother.”

“Does she?”

He nods. “Just a bit. I think she may have my eyes.”

“I was hoping for that,” Emma says with a grin. The baby finishes eating and spits the nipple out, impatiently wiggling around until Emma can readjust her in her arms. Her behaviors in the womb seem to match those she’s displaying outside.

He kisses Emma’s head again, lingering his lips against her hair and breathing in deeply. “Did you just smell me?”

“Not intentionally, although you do smell delicious.”

“I’m sweaty!”

“Only because you just gave birth to the most beautiful being in all the realms. That makes you smell nice.”

“Shut up,” she laughs. “Don’t make me curse at you in front of my daughter.”

“Corrine,” he blurts out suddenly and with no preamble.

“Corrine?”

“Aye, Corrine.”

“It’s…” she looks down at the baby again, at her soft cheeks and sloped nose and her closed, puffy eyes, and smiles. “It’s perfect. How did you come up with it?”

He shrugs, dropping a kiss to her shoulder this time. “You just kept saying ‘we have to think about names, Killian’, so I thought about names. Didn’t you?” He’s smirking at her, the cheeky bast—so and so.

“Not really,” she laughs. “I just knew I kind of wanted the middle name to be Ruth, after my dad’s mother.”

“Corrine Ruth. It’s rather fetching.”

“Corrine Ruth Jones,” she nods with a smile, looking down at her and running a finger along her fair brow.

Killian stills, his jaw stiffening against her head. “Jones?” he asks tightly.

“What, now you’re questioning her paternity?” The baby, Corrine, opens her eyes and looks up to Emma as if to confirm that she is most definitely a Jones. Or perhaps to tell her to be quiet, she’s trying to nap.

“No,” he says softly, touching a finger to the silky skin of Corrine’s cheek and nose. “No, look at these eyes,” he laughs. “I just didn’t realize… I know that in your realm, it’s customary to give a child it’s father’s surname, but I also know that tradition is fading in popularity…”

She sighs contentedly, leaning her forehead against his and kissing his cheek. “I always wanted her to have your name. Jones is a little more dignified than the name I gave myself when I was ten, anyway.”

“I am a rather dignified fellow.” He laughs, and she nods. “Are you sure, love?” he asks with less confidence.

“Positive.”

~~~~

“Are you ready?”

“Aye.”

“Are you sure about this? You can still change your mind.”

“I’m sure, Swan.”

Corrine tuts happily in response from her rocker in the living room. At five weeks old, Emma and Killian have found that she’s happiest when she’s moving; she settles down almost immediately when being rocked or gently bounced, but as soon as the motion stops, she’s squirming and fussing just as she was in Emma’s stomach. They purchased a rather expensive rocker a few days after she was born and found it to be life changing.

“Is your daddy ready, angel? Is he?” Emma makes her way over to Corrine from the kitchen and coos at her. “Is he ready to have his hand back, baby girl? Hmm?” She responds in kind with a kick and a contented blubber, and Emma can’t resist unstrapping and picking her up to smack a succession of kisses to her chubby cheeks and still bald head. She was born with some extra fat around the edges, and after just over a month, she’s put on plenty more. She’s a very, very good eater.

“I’m ready, love. Think about how much easier your life would be if I could change a poopy diaper on my own.” Never in her life did Emma think she would hear Captain Hook utter the phrase poopy diaper, never mind want to change one himself.

“Okay, I just don’t want you to feel like you have to do this, you know? This has been a part of you for years.”

“Aye, I know, darling, but… Captain Hook is no more. He’s retired, if you will. I want to move on with my life; from that time in my life.”

She nods, understanding what he means. When they discovered from Regina that Emma should have the ability to return his lost limb, they thought long and hard about it. Killian was quiet for the last few weeks as he seemed to consider his options, but after not too long, he told her that this is what he wants. “I want to hold my daughter with both hands, love.” Emma was the one to put it off, nervous to mess it up.

Now, though, they have the disturbing jar from Gold’s shop, courtesy of Belle, sitting on their kitchen table, and she’d like to get the ominous Halloween decoration away from their baby sooner rather than later. “Ugh,” she says. “I can’t believe he kept it.”

She places Corrine back in her rocker and straps her in safely before making her way back to the kitchen, hesitant to look at the floating hand for too long. She thinks back to what Regina told her, delving into her magic as deeply as she can before it feels right. She waves her hand in Killian’s direction, feeling the magic flowing from her core in a string towards him.

Before she knows it, he’s raising his arm and wiggling the fingers of his left hand between them. “You did it, love, thank you,” he says with a smile. He walks to her and touches her cheek with his newly returned hand, grinning at her brightly as he lets it travel into her hair. “I’ve been wanting to do this since the moment I met you.”

She leans into his touch before pressing a kiss to his palm, trying to ignore the fact that it was just in a jar of Rumpelstiltskin’s creepy magic water. “I love you,” she says, taking his hand in hers and leaning in to kiss his lips. “Now go pick up your daughter with that thing. I think it’ll change your life.”

“You're just saying that because, if my nose is correct, she needs a change,” he says, although his tone is far from annoyed.

She nods back at him, kissing him one more time before turning him around and pushing him towards her. “Maybe, but it’s your right as her father. One that you’ve been sorely missing out on over the last few weeks. I’m just looking out for you.”

“You always are, aren’t you, my love?” he asks, and once he’s undone her buckles, he wraps his hands around her middle, supporting her head with his left hand. He breathes out meaningfully once he pulls her from her seat and lifts her towards his face, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead. “I never thought I’d be here,” he says softly, rocking her gently as he keeps his lips close to her cheek, his eyes closed.

“I know,” Emma says, making her way towards the two of them and rubbing one hand up his back and reaching the other around him to stroke a finger along her fuzzy bald head. “Me either.”

“You’ve given me so much, love. Everything I never knew I needed.” His voice is thick with emotion, and Emma can feel her own throat tightening. “There was a time centuries ago when I thought I wanted to be a father, but after everything… I just never thought it would happen. I never thought I’d be in a place where I was actually in love with the mother of my child.” She blushes at his evocative words, reaching her arms around his waist from behind him and pressing a kiss to his back between his shoulder blades. “I love you,” he says, turning in her arms. “Thank you.”

With Corrine starting to wiggle between them due to his stillness, he laughs lightly and begins to sway back and forth within Emma’s arms, and she reaches up onto her toes and kisses him softly.

Before she knows it, he’s leading her, somehow, in a gentle dance through the living room, softly humming some song she’s never heard before. Her eyes meet Corrine’s— they still match Killian’s— and she leans her forehead against his chest so that her face is just above their daughter’s. Even with the unfortunate smell suspended between the two of them, everything is perfect.

~~~~

~~~~

Tagging: @courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @profdanglaisstuff @elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo

[myfriendsarerealidiots]

Comparing Adaptations

‘Kay so I went on one of my whims again and did something stupid. Couple weeks or so ago, I wasn’t really in the mood to watch anime so I opened up Netflix and watched a Cdrama that I wanted to watch for a while now.

That Cdrama was ‘The Untamed’ which, prior to me watching it and doing said whim, I thought was just your typical historic Cdrama. Oh boy I was wrong. As I was watching it, I was thinking to myself, “This show’s really selling itself off as BL.” Which, I found out after finishing it was because it is BL. Hah...and that was just the start of it.

As I was doing my ‘Post-show research,’ I found out that it was based of a novel, called ‘Mo Dao Zu Shi’or as translated by the people on the internet as ‘Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.’ Said novel had 2 more adaptations along with ‘The Untamed’ which were a manhua and a donghua. So me being me, I decided to watch the donghua adaptation and read both the og novel and manhua.

So how I went through this was...

The Untamed (2019)

The Donghua aka Anime I guess

The Manhua which I read while having class (such a responsible student aren’t I)

The original novel

All hail this person who has too much free time on her hands.

Anyways, as it says on the tin, I’ll be comparing the 4 adaptations/versions of the story and see what changes between them as well as the pros and cons. (Wow I sound so professional)

Some background of myself just to avoid confusion

I am not a mega hardcore Fujoshi. I don’t really enjoy reading smut, nor am I old enough to do so bear that in mind

I have 7 years worth of Chinese lessons under my belt which means I barely understand a thing and that I can get some of the jokes like how Wei Ying’s sword is called ‘Sui Bien’ and it’s funnier to hear in Chinese. In other words, compared to like actual Chinese people who live in China, I pretty much have the knowledge of a 10 year old.

The versions of the Manhua and Novel that I read were translated in English so somethings might have been lost in translation.

I have a bit of a goldfish brain so forgive me if I wrote something wrong or forgot the name of a certain character, most likely I will look it up to correct it but if I don’t...well sorry.

I am writing my opinions on each version as I finish them, so if they don’t link up to the original that’s the reasoning behind it.

All of these are my opinions and thoughts on the story. You are not entitled to follow them if you disagree. I personally believe that everyone has a voice of their own and they should use it. (Even though I don’t half of the time.)

Slight Spoiler Warning

I will be breaking down some of the scenes and characters for my comparisons so please keep that in mind.

The Untamed (2019)

As this was my first exposure to the story, I didn’t know what to expect. I loved everything about it except for the fact that literally half of the show was spent in the past, building context for what was happening in the present.

The characters were lovable and all had distict personalities, especially Wei Ying and Lan Zhan which I guess makes sense since they’re the main characters (their actors are also cute and have good chemistry.) Speaking of characters, Yanli has a more forward role in the story here compared to the other versions. The way certain characters were introduced was different too. Since it’s live action, it’s also harder to show things like extreme blushing and such so it makes Lan Zhan look very stoic and way more unexpressive here than in the other versions.

The soundtrack is nice to listen to, especially with the 2 mains singing the theme song together it’s so cute and gives it another meaning in itself. Although, I do wonder how that poor bamboo flute Wei Ying made in like 2 mins plays decent sounding music. Chen Qing(is this the name of it?), the flute he uses after his trip to the Burial Grounds has the same sound quality as that bamboo flute which is just, “how???”

They took out most of the extreme BL!!! I feel like that is the biggest difference between this version and all the rest. I know they did that to appeal to more people but it does remove some of the context to things. That doesn’t mean the moments that were kept in weren’t cute though. It did make the pair look more plantonic than romantic.

As for the story itself, as a story on its own, it’s nice, as an adaptation that’s where the line gets blurry but it leans more towards the good side. They did indeed change some things, made them work better with the medium than if they didn’t.

An example I can place is the mask. Where the other versions used white make up with oddly placed red circles around the eyes, this one used a mask instead. I agree with the choice they made, seeing as they removed the fact that Mo Xuanyu was homosexual and so the make up wouldn’t make sense. It also looks nicer than what I imagined what could’ve happened with they kept with the make up. They do make a reference to this in the show when Jin Ling and Wei Ying have a conversation in Carp Tower. “You’ve seen my face right?” “How do I know? Your face is always caked in make up or covered by that mask.”

Another issue I had which I’ll touch on later was the first episode—I had no idea what was going on for those 40 minutes of screentime.

Donghua

As of writing this post, season 3 of this has yet to come out.

My first reaction to this was “Man, the animation’s pretty, and they made Wei Ying look scarier.” Watching stuff at 12 in the morning isn’t the best thing but that’s what I do.

Anywho, this version made Wei Ying really attracted to going down the path of ‘evil’ compared to the other versions. I don’t really understand why they made this change...but they did so we have to deal with that. And his eyes glow red!! It makes him look scary and cool at the same time. I love it!!

The transitions between certain events were a bit weird to say the least. For example, at the end of episode 2/3 Wei Ying gets forcibly dragged into the Cloud Recesses and the episode ends there. By the next episode, we’re 16/23/13 however many years in the past. This makes it really confusing for someone who hasn’t watched or read any other version of the story. It definitely made me confused and I already finished one.

While ‘The Untamed’ told us everything in one long flashback, the donghua broke it up into small chunks placed whenever information was needed. I don’t think that was a good idea, but then I also think it was a better decision than what they did for the Cdrama. As I watched this adaptation, I found myself confused from time to time because what happened in the prior episode didn’t always match what happened in the current episode like I mentioned earlier.

As for the artstyle, personally, I think some of the characters look similar minus the hair. However, I do like the little ways they made Lan Zhan express his feelings towards Wei Ying.

Speaking of which, when I first saw them together in this version in the forest near the Goddess Temple, I had to do a bit of a double take because of the height difference which wasn’t so evident in ‘The Untamed’. I soon found out that Lan Zhan was taller than Wei Ying before and after he gets reincarnated(?) Prior, it was just a small gap of 2cm which later turned to 6cm after possessing Mo Xuanyu.

I didn’t notice their height gaps while watching ‘The Untamed’ because Wei Ying’s actor, Xiao Zhan, is taller than Lan Zhan’s actor, Wang Yi Bo by about 2 inches which is like 5 cm? and so they had to do some weird thing with platforms to make Xiao Zhan look shorter in comparison.

Soundtrack wise, I personally think that ‘The Untamed’ was better in that sense. Where it had an amazing souding flute, this one had minor earrape in a nutshell.

This version made itself, in my eyes look more like a historical fighting anime as opposed to the BL vibes I was getting from ‘The Untamed’ and the other versions. They added a lot of action scenes and made the mystery more interesting for me. Along with this, the overall look and feel of this made it seem like it came from a completely different source material.

Manhua

Small FYI, as of writing this post the Manhua is at 147 Chapters.

(I should’ve kept up the trend and got a screenshot from that scene in the Manhua but I didn’t so here we are with gay rabbits.)

As your local internet friend who reads more manga than normal books nowadays, I enjoyed reading the manhua and finished it in a couple days.

Compared to the first 2 versions here, these last 2 are both things that you have to read to get through, albeit one has pictures and one doesn’t.

While normally, one would read silently, I like listening to music while I do. And seeing as the OST of ‘The Untamed’ sounds really nice, I listened to it while reading both the manhua and novel when I could.

This one brought out the BL elements that were missing from the first 2. They gave Wei Ying and Lan Zhan a lot of kissing or just straight up affectionate scenes which I think ties in with the general theming of the original novel more.

As this one is probably the closest of the adaptations to the original, it’s the least confusing to read, although that might’ve been influenced by my experiencing the story for the third time at this point. I say that, however, there were many story elements that weren’t present in either one prior to this.

Examples this can be seen with their collecting of body parts that belonged to the former Nie Sect Leader. In ‘The Untamed’ they find the sword spirit which guides them through the rest of the story. In the Donghua adaptation, they get the arm, but also get the head of the the Jin with the hundred holes curse which was an original addition. Here, they get the arm from Mo Manor, find the other one then find the torso and so on before finding the head in Jin GuangYao’s possession.

The flashbacks in this version were also executed really well, in my opinion, as it doesn’t feel super confusing while reading it and it gives just enough information to help the events unfold. It also gives us a chance to see how much of an ass(sorry) Wei Ying was when he was the Yiling Patriach from his own perspective as well as give us a moment of WangXian in the middle of all that chaos.

Novel

Here’s a picture of gay rabbits for everyone.

At this point, I was switching between the novel and the Manhua to read whichever one I wanted at any given time which might have blurred my sense of what belonged in each one so I’ll try my best to make sure.

Since this one is the original source material, it was clear from the get go that this will be the one with the least confusing version of events and the most amount of detail.

I was surprised on how close the manhua and ‘The Untamed’ was to the novel. Although, the former condensed the mystery to fit within the timeframe while the latter hasn’t finished just yet.

Personally, I like this author, and will probably read more of her works further down the line. Even though the version I read was in english, I still could feel the meaning behind certain aspects which I think shows her skill as an author.

The novel clearly shows the mischief that goes through Wei Ying’s head and their gradual (I say gradual but I think Lan Zhan just snapped) change of attitudes towards each other.

Arc One- Mo Manor

Past here I’ll break down the first arc of each one because I think all of them did it in relatively different ways. Be warned for spoilers if you haven’t watched or read all of them.

The Untamed (2019)

Out of all of these versions, this one definitely had me scratching my head in confusion the most even after watching it a second time once I finished the entire show.

As the only version that had the curse issued at the start as a moving factor of the story as well as the Yin Iron which was specifically made for this version, it didn’t explain enough at the start.

There were many things I could say were wrong about this beginning, from starting at a flashback to not properly introducing us to our characters but the biggest problem in my mind was the lack of explanation at the present.

Like I mentioned, starting at a flashback is a terrible idea as it gives the viewer high expectations only for it to be crushed the second it ends. Here, it shows a small portion of the battle at the Nightless City without much context then it quickly changes to 16 years later with a seemingly random group of people.

Another issue is the amount of useless characters who were introduced. In the other versions, there were only 2 Lan disciples who were given names and were introduced properly while here there were more than I want to count. Add to that the one telling stories about the YiLing Patriarch and the weird guy walking around with a flag, and you got yourself total confusion.

Donghua

This one was slightly less confusing to watch. As it starts with a clip of Wei Ying commanding corpses which matches the overall feel of the donghua. The rumors that he died stretched over the time skip and we meet this version of Mo Xuanyu who is caked with make up, whether or not he was a cut-sleeve (gay) in this version, I forgot.

It fully explains the curse and instead of having a couple of Lan disciples just standing there watching, we get to focus on the 2 important ones, Lan Sizhui and Lan JiYing. It gives us a slightly deeper insight into Wei Ying’s mind, as he states ‘you got the wrong one,’ just after being reincarnated, indicating that he isn’t as vicious as painted by the first few minutes of the show. Like the other versions, they also show how he considers the cons of using his demonic abilities and that Sizhui would probably tell on him to Lan Zhan, meaning that Sizhui was a keen, observant young man.

Manhua and the Novel

As for the introductions, these two were very similar. Both have the rumors of the Yiling Patriarch across the screen as we get further down the story and meet our main character.

It gets the details from the Donghua adaptation and mixes it with more information to create a more detailed account of what was happening, also making this Wei Ying seem smarter compared to his counterparts in other versions. He also hesitates more on showing his abilities, knowing that he’s going to be caught if he does.

Final Thoughts

As of writing this, I’m only halfway through the novel but it covers the portion until where the manhua is currently at. I would finish reading it before posting this but it would take too long and probably make this post even longer than it currently is, which isn’t such a good idea. If I had much more patience and effort I would really like to break down each arc and their differences from one another but I can’t be bothered right now. (Sorry)

I can safely say that in terms of adaptations, ‘The Untamed’ is relatively close to the novel, albeit a very condensed version. As flashback filled as it is, it wasn’t very confusing to watch past the first two episodes.

The Donghua adaptation takes several liberties, going more of an action oriented route instead of the calmer more, I wouldn’t say love but character oriented novel.

The manhua is definitely the closest to the novel, so if you really don’t want to read a lot of words, and I mean a lot of words, then go ahead and read it.

What else do I have to say...if you’re new to the story, welcome, if you’re a veteran who’s been here longer than me, sorry for taking up space on your feed. And congrats for making it to the end.

[sonofsallyjackson]

A World Not Quite Her Own (pt 1/3) - The Estelle Fic

So here it is, my first foray into the Percy Jackson fandom despite being obsessed with the books when I was in elementary/middle school.  This started as my take on Estelle’s childhood, but morphed into something more with a Percabeth wedding scene in chapter 2.  AO3 Link Here.

Estelle Blofis had never lived in a world without monsters.  Many people in this world would have been driven mad by this knowledge. But for Estelle, it was a simple fact of the universe like humans need air to survive, or blue chocolate chip cookies are the best dessert.  Maybe knowing about monsters should have made her scared, but all it did was show her the heroes who would always come in and save the day.

Many of those heroes made the best babysitters.  

Sally always let out a sigh of relief when Grover was in town.  The Lord of the Wild didn’t even grumble good-naturedly as he took on his excitable charge for the day.  Grover didn’t need the promise of Sally’s seven-layer bean dip or the collection of recycling curated for maximum crunch to make it through their outings.  He had always wanted to teach humans to appreciate the wild, treasure it, and protect it.  Grover might not be able to teach all humans, but he certainly could teach Estelle.   They sat in an isolated corner of Central Park together, occasionally bothered by druids, but mostly it was just the two of them.  They would sit directly in the grass, Estelle’s orange tutu and rainboots regardless of the weather stretched out next to hairy legs that Grover mostly didn’t bother to cover anymore.  While Estelle likely fidgeted just as much as she listened (spinning breaks were deemed a necessity after a single outing), she did listen to him.  Grover was the best at answering questions and like any small child, Estelle had a lot of questions.  So as she grew,  Estelle sang hi to the individual trees on walks with her parents and proclaimed solemnly in pre-school that “Pan was dead”  (a reference that thankfully her teacher didn’t understand but had resulted in a headache-inducing conversation for Paul).   

In comparison, babysitting with Rachel was essentially one long arts and crafts session.  Finger paintings completely covered the fridge by the time Estelle was three.  They’d repainted the mural on Estelle’s bedroom wall about four times by the time she was ten, with each rendition more fantastical than the last.  Occasionally Sally regretted the afternoons spent writing with Rachel over once she discovered the paint covered mess that once had been her daughter, but overall with the sound of laughter echoing through the house (and only one minor prophecy), she supposed things could be a lot worse.  

On days where snow piled up outside their window, but Estelle adamantly refused to wear anything but a swimsuit and a feather boa,  Paul frantically phoned Piper.   She was at the top of a very short list of people who could make Estelle dress appropriately for the weather.  No one was sure if it was a form of diluted charmspeak or just Piper’s knack for finding outfits that technically could be worn in public but still fit the (unfashionable) vibe Estelle was going for.  

Tyson was never allowed to babysit Estelle by himself, but he made up for his clumsiness and general lack of knowledge of human safety measures with an excess of enthusiasm.  He took to having a baby sister so well that no one really bothered to explain that technically the two of them weren’t related.  Still Tyson’s one eye seemed just as normal to Estelle as his hugs or extremely calloused hands.  

Nico really wasn’t her babysitter.  He would stop by the apartment looking for Percy or Sally, but would end up staying because Estelle had him wrapped around her finger.  The first time they’d met Nico had come over with bad news regarding Apollo’s quest.  Estelle couldn’t actually remember what had happened since she was so young, but Sally liked telling the story, complete with pictures, so Estelle knew it by heart anyway.  Percy hadn’t been home yet and since he was with mortals working on a group project, Iris messages would have been a no-go even if the cosmos weren’t trying to prevent demi-god communication.  So Nico had sat on the couch in the living room occasionally pestered by Sally’s “Are you sure I can’t get you anything to eat?” and “You look tired, sweetheart.  You have time for a nap if you want one.”  

In the end, Nico hadn’t gotten that nap because he’d been greeted by tiny hands pulling themselves upright on the couch cushion next to him.  Estelle’s face had been alight with mischief that Nico would have previously sworn was only possible from a child of Hermes.  Her black curls swung wildly around her as she wiggled her way onto the couch and into Nico’s lap.  Estelle made herself comfortable while Nico looked ready to throw up.  At fourteen, he’d fought in two different wars, but one crawling 10-month-old seemed to be enough to break him.  As Estelle grew older, her little chants of “Nico! Nico! Nico!” had so much power over the boy who wanted a family more than anything else in the world.

Annabeth was one of her most frequent babysitters.  She practically lived at their apartment when she wasn’t at school, or helping her cousins or the camp.   She did keep Percy from giving into Estelle’s every whim which wasn’t ideal, but Estelle could deal with eating a full plate of vegetables if it meant hanging out with Annabeth.  Unfortunately,  Annabeth did not share Estelle’s undying love for all things Little Mermaid and often muttered “Seaweed Brain, I don’t know how but this is your fault.  If I have to hear Under the Sea one more time, I’ll-“ under her breath whenever just watching Disney movies was suggested.  So spending time with Annabeth often meant playing with Legos, creating a disjointed collection of buildings. Mini replicas of New York landmarks would be dwarfed by uneven towers because Estelle cared more about height than stability, aesthetics or really any other architectural principle.  When Annabeth entered school, she was less inclined to spend any bit of free time still thinking about architecture.  So she gave Estelle a little potholder loom and taught her the basics of weaving.  Sally had ended up with more neon-colored monstrosities than she knew what to do with, but the girls could spend hours in relative quiet, so it seemed a small price to pay.  

And then there was Percy, the biggest hero in Estelle’s eyes.  Her love wasn’t like the hero-worship of new demigods, who idolized him for defeating the Titans, surviving Tartarus, or going on countless quests.  Estelle believed more than anything else in the world that her brother would be there to catch her whenever she fell and there was no monster he couldn’t beat.  

Even before she could walk, Estelle had seen her brother’s powers.  Some things were easy to miss, like the way Percy could wash the dishes without getting wet at all, but others stood out to her. The waves at Montauk had calmed so he could teach her how to swim but were quick to come back to life if anyone stared too openly at Annabeth or his mom.   While Annabeth built elaborate sandcastles, Percy added fantastical moats and laughed as Estelle roared like a minotaur to tear it down.   He could hold his breath forever, which seemed awfully unfair the first time Estelle had tried to swim underwater and ended up with a mouthful of saltwater.  Percy was always willing to translate for the fish at the aquarium, although Estelle was pretty sure he did the funny voices for her benefit.  When Percy had landed Blackjack on their apartment’s roof after being called back to camp for an emergency, he had translated for his old friend too. Estelle loved those translations the most, even if they weren’t entirely accurate.  

“Seriously, Blackjack, can you cool the language around my little sister?”  

By age five, her older brother had bought wooden swords for the two of them to practice in the living room.  Percy kept the moves simple, demonstrating before lightly wrapping his fingers around her tiny wrists and guiding her through the movements.  Estelle would copy them intently with her nose scrunched up and her tongue stuck slightly to the side in concentration.   They focused primarily on defensive strategies, but still had practice fights where Percy pretended to die dramatically.  

“I don’t think this is a good idea Percy,” Sally had said after they broke their second lamp.

“Mom she can see them. And as long as I’m around Stella will always be a target.”  

There was an unspoken promise in his words.  I’m always going to be here Mom.  I’m still alive, but I can’t lose anyone else, especially not my baby sister.  

Estelle hugged her mother’s leg tightly, looking up with pleading eyes.   “Please Mom I’ll be careful.”    

Eventually, Paul signed Estelle up for fencing lessons because there had to be a better way to teach her to fight that didn’t involve the two of them wrecking the living room every time Percy visited.  And if the way, allowed Paul to share his old fencing passion with his daughter, all the better.  The living room still ended up with the furniture pushed to the side on a regular basis though because Estelle needed to demonstrate everything she’d learned for her big brother.  

When Tyson had come to her sixth birthday party, his present had been a small bronze sword that transformed into a charm bracelet so Estelle could always be prepared.  He’d look so proud and Estelle kept touching it reverently, but Sally had not been amused.  She had wanted her daughter to grow up safe from this madness, even if she knew that wasn’t entirely a possibility.   It was bad enough to have one child constantly in mortal peril and disappearing on dangerous quests.  

“It can’t even hurt her; it’s celestial bronze.  The first time I met Rachel I ran her through with Riptide and she’s still fine.”  

Rachel flicked her red curls over her shoulder.  “Worried for your sanity, but physically fine.”  

Neither of them was as reassuring as they thought, but Estelle did get to keep the sword for emergency use only.  This was after all a world full of monsters as well as heroes.

[evakuality]

Even and David comparison, season three, episode five.  You can find the other comparisons in this series starting over here, and the Isak and Matteo versions starting here.

I’ve been procrastinating on this one a bit simply because these next few episodes are so difficult emotionally.  They were hard when it was Isak and Matteo and they’re even harder with Even and David.  These boys really take a dive at this point, from some giddy heights to some very hard lows.  There is a lot to be said about their own internal thought processes here, and I’ll try to do a bit with them, but I will try to limit myself to things that are likely based on other things we know about both characters.

The most interesting thing about the start of these episodes, of course, is the difference in how Even and David deal with discussing their issues.  Even is so jaded about it, which makes sense given his experiences.  To him, becoming fatalistic is just part of growing up (“I forgot how young you are”) rather than actually understanding that it’s a reaction to the trauma that he’s experienced.  To Even, Isak doesn’t have the dark swirling thoughts, the fear of being alone with his brain etc the way Even does not because that’s actually a perfectly reasonable and healthy mindset, but because he’s too young to have got there yet.  There’s an assumption that it will come eventually.  Even’s protective method for himself is to live life to the fullest while you can, grabbing every opportunity when it arises and deal with the consequences later.  Life is short, the only way out is death and therefore he goes after beauty and love when he can.  He’s going to get what he can out of his life.  He only runs away when something hits too close.  

David, on the other hand, has a firm plan worked out.  He’s not going to put down any sort of tie if he can help it and if anything happens that threatens him again he’s going to run.  He’s very explicit about this.  “I run.  Hide.  Then I wait.”  And he’s explicit about doing it alone.  His definition of ‘alone’ is interesting, though.  To him, being alone is being away from your family.  Therefore his ‘hiding’ was always likely to happen with another person, just one that he sees as his family (and we will get there, but his suggestion that Matteo come with him when he runs in episode 9 reflects this: by that time, Matteo is his family).  He believes that Matteo, living in a shared apartment, is actually living alone.  It’s quite different to how Even reacts to Eskild, who he does see as sort of Isak’s family (after he clarifies that it’s not sexual).  We don’t know much about David’s family except Laura, but we can already see that those bonds are very important to him.  Even’s family remains a mystery, so it’s safe to assume he doesn’t have the same sense of need around them.  Which makes sense; the things both boys are struggling with are different.

These two boys are both desperate for control of their own lives, but it comes out in such different ways.  Even wants to grasp everything, do everything, and chooses to retreat only when his secret is threatened.  In some ways, David feels this too, but his secret is threatened much more often and is more easily exposed.  That’s probably why his need to be in control of his own life and story is so much more rigid.  Or rigid in a different way.  Even masterminds an image and projects it, but even here where he’s letting his guard down a little he still has the need to be in control.  It’s just that his control is to minimise his experiences and what they mean, and suggest that everyone will feel this way when they grow up a bit.  David’s rigidity is around the way he lives day to day, and his ability to remain aloof from everyone to enable a swift departure when he needs to again, the need for ‘free will’.  He stays small, hopes to be unnoticed.  This conversation with Matteo is probably more threatening to him than Even’s is with Isak.  Because David is opening up, being seen and known.  He’s laying down a connection, one he desperately wants and needs, but one that drags his secret much closer to the light.

What’s really interesting is that in this first cuddle clip we never see Even ‘alone with his thoughts’ because Isak is awake for the entire thing, whereas David is shown in his own head for quite a while at the beginning with Matteo cuddled up into him.  This puts both of them into different headspaces and makes a lot of sense of the reasons why Even, who is so obsessed with how difficult being alone in your own head is, doesn’t actually get sucked in too deeply in this bit.  David, who doesn’t have those hangups, is however put in a place where he has to think about everything this might mean for him.  Even so, the tone of the Skam clip is very different to the Druck one.  While both deep conversations are serious and both Even and David are very open about their issues there, the surrounding stuff is different and shows up the differences in their personalities.  Even and Isak, when they aren’t talking about serious stuff are either kissing or just as seriously talking about random entertainment stuff (Nicholas Cage or making movies about boys with drops of water in their throats).  David and Matteo, on the other hand, are wrestling, biting, shoving, being total idiots as well as some kissing etc.  There’s a lightness there that isn’t the same as with Even and Isak.  This all makes sense for our boys.  Even has wanted this for such a long time that he’s revelling in being able to touch and hold Isak and keeps him close to enjoy that, whereas David has fallen into this thing the same way Matteo has.  They’re both young and silly and overwhelmed and so this stuff is natural to them (and also, this characterised their time the day before even though we didn’t see that yet; they mess around and do stupid stuff together and that’s part of who they are).  The connections they built over the previous weeks helps here, too.  They’ve had a lot more one on one time than Even and Isak have and so David is more used to being like this with Matteo.

The ending of the clips shows the differences too.  Isak and Even are interrupted by Eskild which shows Isak’s ‘fears’ of being caught, but it’s over quickly without the secret being exposed, but then the intrusion from Sonja is bigger because the threat to their togetherness that she represents is more real.  David and Matteo are interrupted by both Sara and Leonie (presumably they have been together and decide to contact the boys together), and so there’s much more of a sense of ‘we’re in this together’ as the moment is more secure for both. ��Isak has reason to believe still that Even is messing around with him because of Sonja, but Matteo isn’t in the same boat, despite his own connection to Sara.  Even’s ‘I’m so fucked’ becomes David’s ‘we’re so fucked’ and his ‘can I stay in here with you?’ becomes ‘we’re staying here’ and so there’s a much surer sense of togetherness.  Obviously, David needs this at this point.  He’s been the one who’s more reticent about it all and so he needs that reassurance that Matteo is part of it the same way he is.  Even wasn’t likely to back off at this point, having finally managed to get what he wants.  David still has some big decisions to make about how, when or if to tell Matteo he’s trans.  If this is to work for him, he needs that closer sense of togetherness and companionship.

Both Even and David leave a picture behind for their boy when they leave the next day, but Even’s is much less specific than David’s.  Even’s suggests connection and refers to the parallel universe.  It’s a little melancholy, but displays a desire to be together if the universes align.  David’s again makes it clear that he would leave Matteo behind, but he would take with him something that reminds him of Matteo.  It’s a start, but it reinforces (in a way that Even’s talk and picture don’t) that David still plans to be alone.  If ‘disaster’ strikes, he still isn’t sure enough of what’s happening to really let Matteo in, and this becomes very important at the end of the episode.  While Even tries to draw Isak closer with this picture, David is still keeping Matteo at arm’s length.

Having said that, Even then goes mia for a while and Isak has to try to hunt him down.  David sends coordinates and is the one to make a connection with Matteo.  I get the feeling that he was considering what to say to Matteo here, and whether to tell him, but things got a bit too real for him when Matteo told him he finished things with Sara for him.  When they were in Matteo’s bedroom it was still a fantasy and sara was still there as a buffer.  Even pulls back here at a moment when Isak makes a comment that cuts him to his core when he had been all-in, whereas David is suddenly confronted with a Matteo who is clearly all-in himself and who wants a real relationship.  For Even, the knowledge that Isak doesn’t want people like him in his life is devastating but he holds it together and gets out of the situation as gracefully as he can.  David doesn’t hear anything like that, in fact what he gets is the opposite but it’s just as terrifying for him.  He has to decide whether to open up or whether to try to hide again.  We see effectively the moment that he decides he has to hide and pushes Matteo away but like Isak, Matteo doesn’t realise this is what’s happening because like Even, David hides the way he’s feeling.  It’s easy to tell that something is up, but Matteo doesn’t really pick up on how serious it is.  

That’s partly because Matteo is so head over heels, and so deeply into the way he feels, that he can’t really see the different places the two of them are at.  But it’s also at least partly because The last two times he’s spent with David have been characterised by a lot of fun and silliness and a lot of bonding behaviour.  They’ve spent literal hours together over this week and David has definitely made it seem like he’s as into this as Matteo is.  Of course, that’s actually true.  David is into this, but the problem is that those moments that seemed like a growing budding connection to Matteo are filled with one major road block for David.  The closer they get to each other, the less secure that secret becomes and the more likely he is to feel like he needs to run.  By now they’re very close, Matteo is making it very obvious how open he wants to be and David feels backed into a decision.  His picture was a major clue that he’s not ready to be that open, but everything he’s done is opaque enough that there’s no reason for Matteo to pick up on it.  

Even, too, makes something of a snap decision and in a closer look we can also see with him when that decision happens.  His reasons are very different, but the effect is just as devastating (for him and for Isak).  They both feel a need to protect themselves and they both indulge their own tendency to pull back.  For Even, this must be worse tbh.  After the weekend, he would have been giddy.  The boy he’s been into for so long kissed him and spent a lot of time with him.  It felt like they were at the start of something big and exciting.  He then speaks to Sonja, tells her about Isak and then goes to him.  It seems like things are really about to start, there’s so much promise.  And then Isak says he’s better without the mentally ill in his life and Even’s world crashes around him.  To David, the promise of a new start is the terrifying thing, but to Even, the terrifying thing is the knowledge that he is or could be unwelcome in Isak’s life.  The boy he’s been so connected with, the boy he broke up with his girlfriend for, will reject him once he knows the truth.  While David runs because everything becomes too real and too likely and too much, Even runs because everything he finally thought he was getting was smashed to pieces and what had seemed to be real and promising turned to dust.

That affects how they each deal with Isak and Matteo as the episode comes to an end.  Even sends a text that things are going ‘too fast’ and then goes back to Sonja.  As much as he doesn’t want to be with her anymore, she knows about his mental illness and she hasn’t pushed him away.  He obviously leaves things open with Isak by saying he needs time, which suggests he hasn’t entirely closed the door.  Even so, he goes back to Sonja and the soft comfort of her understanding.  It’s not what he wants but it’s safe.  David sends effectively the same text with the addition of ‘don’t be angry’ but instead of being the nice final thing it was for Isak, Matteo comes to his home.  There’s no girlfriend for David to shield his feelings behind, and Matteo is once again making it very plain that he’s going to do what it takes to be with David.  He’s made his decision, sent his text, but Matteo isn’t sticking to the script so he sends another message in a panic.  This one is as harsh as David can make it because he needs to push Matteo away.  Again, he’s left in no doubt as to Matteo’s intentions, and again it’s too close for comfort.  So he does what he needs to in order to be safe, even though it’s not what he wants.  They both leave the door open, but Isak doesn’t step through yet.  Matteo does and it’s so scary for David how fast that happens that he immediately lashes out.

So there we have it.  By the time the episode comes to an end both Even and David have retreated into a safe space.  Their reasons may be different, the things that drove them there are different, but they are in the same space.  David’s is entirely self imposed.  Matteo has made it clear what he wants and it’s too scary.  Instead of allowing himself to trust in Matteo, which is completely understandable given his experiences before, David has chosen to hide.  Even feels like he’s going to be rejected if he takes things further with Isak, so to him this feels like it’s coming from the outside.  It’s not really; it’s his own hangups but they are exacerbated by Isak’s words.  So again, he retreats and hides from having to be vulnerable.  Both boys are too scared of the reactions they might get so they pull back into a space they perceive as safe (Even with Sonja, and David with his family) instead of having to deal with what they each fear.  In both cases, it’s totally understandable but in both cases it’s not necessarily the most satisfying or healthy option for them.  They do it not because they think it’s good, but because they’re scared.  What’s interesting is that from here on out, the way they deal with that fear is even more different than the ways they’ve dealt with other things, so that’s going to be good to look at over the next few episodes.

episodes six and seven can be found in this post

[jamiekturner]

Optical Effects in User Interfaces (for True Nerds)

How to make optically balanced icons, correct shapes alignment, and perfect corner rounding. An illustrated guide.

Our eyes are weird organs that often tell lies to us. But if you know the peculiarities of human vision, you can construct more approachable and clean designs. Not only do type designers utilize optical tricks for creating readable and well-balanced fonts, but it’s also helpful for interface designers, who build user-computer interaction.

In the 1920s the Gestalt theory of visual perception was developed. It explains how our eyes process different images and how our brain interprets them. You might have already heard about such things as the principle of proximity or the common fate rule. This article refers to some points of the Gestalt theory and highlights practical aspects rather than scientific research. There is a list of recommended materials on the topic at the bottom.

1. Measured and optical size

What is bigger: a 400-pixel square or a 400-pixel circle? Geometrically speaking, their width and height are equal. But look at the picture below. Our eyes immediately detect that the square outweighs the circle.

Here is the version with guides.

Let’s take a look at one more picture with a square and a circle. In terms of visual weight, are they equal to you?

At least it’s hard to tell immediately, which one outweighs the other. Not surprising because I increased the diameter of the circle.

I overlapped the shapes from the first and the second examples. On the left, the 400-pixel square has bigger area than the 400-pixel circle. That’s why we see it visually larger. On the right, the circle and the square are balanced. Basically, they have similar area while their width and height are different.

We can witness the same effect with diamonds or triangles. To be balanced visually with squares, they should be wider and higher, so that their areas are similar. Area-based approach works perfect with the simplest shapes.

How can one use this feature in interfaces? For instance, when you are creating a set of icons, it’s important to make them all well-balanced, so that no icon stands out too much or looks too tiny. If we directly inscribe icons into square areas, the more square-like icons will look larger.

I recommend compensating the weight of differently shaped icons by allowing visually smaller icons to hang beyond the icon area and by leaving some space between visually heavier icons and the icon area.

And now some real icons balanced optically.

Now it’s clear why an icon area is always larger than an icon body — just to allow non-square icons fit it and look not smaller than square icons.

The easiest test to check visual balance is blurring the items. If your icons turn into more or less similar blobs, they have the same optical weight.

But sometimes we work with already existing graphics, for instance, social network logos used as sharing and liking buttons. Facebook and Instagram icons are square, whereas Twitter is represented by a bird silhouette and Pinterest by an encircled “P”. That’s why Twitter and Pinterest icons are a bit larger, so that they look balanced with Facebook and Instagram icons.

Another example of an optical balance issue is a textbox placed together with a round button. If the button diameter equals the textbox height, the button will seem smaller to our eyes. When you enlarge it a little bit, the whole construction will become better balanced.

But if you change the style of the button, enlargement won’t be needed. On the picture below, the button and the textbox are 80 pixels high, but the button on the right doesn’t look “lost” owing to the strong black fill.

Things to remember

Optical weight is how human eyes perceive the size and significance of an object, and it doesn’t necessarily equal its pixel size or area.

Circles, diamonds, triangles, and other non-square shapes need to be higher and wider to be optically balanced with squarish shapes.

Areas for icons should have some space reserved for optical balancing. It’s crucial for sets of icons, which should look consistently.

2. Alignment of different shapes

Optical alignment is a logical continuation of the optical balance topic. Take a look at the stripes below. Do they look as if they are of the same length?

Pixelwise, the answer is a firm “yes”. However, at first sight, the lower stripe looks shorter than the upper one.

One more picture of the two stripes. Has anything changed?

I applied optical compensation for the lower stripe. Allowing the spikes to go 20 pixels beyond the length of the upper stripe is the way to compensate a gap between the spikes and make both shapes optically equal.

And now some more sophisticated examples of differently shaped stripes.

So, if you are creating a poster with folded stripes and text on them or you are putting a bright “discount” stripe on a product card of an online store, mind making them optically balanced. Sharp edges should go a bit beyond the rest of the shape, especially if it’s a rectangle.

And what about aligning plain text and paragraphs that have a background? It depends on the visual density of the background. If it’s light, you can align the highlighted paragraph with the rest of text.

Since the background is light, it doesn’t interrupt the usual text flow.

A different approach can be utilized for a dense background. On the picture, the black background is aligned with the rest of text while the white text inside of it is placed with indents.

Unlike the case with the light background, the black one has substantial optical weight, and if the goal is to insert a paragraph seamlessly, it’s better to align it the way shown below.

The same principle will work with buttons and input fields. Of course, it’s not a dogma, just a recommendation based on human visual perception.

The light background of input fields on the left can go beyond input labels and user’s input. The right edge of “Send” button is not fully aligned with the right edge of input backgrounds since the button is darker and looks heavier from visual perspective.

On the right, inputs have solid borders, and I aligned them with the labels while user’s input has indents inside of the boxes. “Send” button has a triangular side. The button is moved a bit rightwards to look balanced with the rectangular input fields above.

And here we are approaching to one more aspect of alignment — the alignment of text and icon buttons. Look at the buttons below. The text looks centered, doesn’t it?

The trick is that on the right button I moved the word a bit to the left, since the right edge is triangular. Moreover, the arrow-like button is 40 pixels wider to look optically equal to the rectangular one.

Not only do text buttons have horizontal alignment, but also they have vertical alignment of a word and a background. The first approach I’d like to tell about is used in the interfaces of various operating systems, sites, and applications. It’s the alignment based on the height of an uppercase letter of a font (so-called cap height). It equals the height of either “H” or “I”.

Basically, the space above and below an uppercase letter and the edge of a button is equal. It makes sense because command names usually are written in title case and English letters have more ascenders, upper sticking out parts (l, t, d, b, k, h), than descenders, lower hanging parts (y, j, g, p).

Another approach is to align a name and a background using the height of a lowercase letter of a font (so-called x-height). In sans and sans serif interface fonts, it equals the height of — not surprisingly—the letter “x”.

This approach also makes sense because the main optical weight of a text is concentrated in the area where lowercase letters are placed.

Is there any difference between these approaches? Yep, there is a difference. And it’s not that big.

More examples for comparison below. The cap-height approach represented by the left column is definitely better for “Cancel” and “OK” — so widely used buttons — because “Cancel” has no descenders and “OK” is all capitals. The x-height approach shown in the right column is better only for “Sync” button, the name of which has both an upper and a lower sticking out elements; “Cancel” and “OK” words seem to be placed too high.

The situation with icon buttons is slightly different from text buttons. Let’s put a popular “Send” icon on a round button background. Which variant looks more visually balanced?

Hope you’ve noticed that something is wrong with the left one. It happens because of different alignment methods. The first option treats the icon if it was a rectangle. To a certain extent that’s right because when you send an SVG or PNG file to a developer it’s a rectangular sheet with a paper plane art on it. The right variant shows the icon placed the way all its sharp edges have equal distance to the circular button background.

If you prepare a file for a developer, you need to reserve some area, so that they can center the icon on the background optically right.

The same story with “Play” buttons. If you directly align these shapes — a rounded rectangle and a triangle — they’ll look odd.

If you want to position the triangle optically better, encircle it and align this circle with the button background.

Things to remember

Shapes with sharp edges should be larger or longer to look balanced with the neighboring rectangular objects.

Cap-height alignment is an effective method of positioning button names on button backgrounds.

One of the effective ways to correctly position a triangular icon on a button is to encircle it and align the circle with the background.

3. Optical corner rounding

What can be more circular than a circle? I used to think that nothing, but as I said at the beginning of this article, our eyes are weird and sometimes perceive things not as we expect. So, which circle on the picture below looks the most smoothly circular?

People who I asked before were choosing between numbers 3 and 4. Numbers 1 and 2 are definitely too skinny, 5 is too plump. If we overlap the third and the fourth variants — a geometric circle and a modified circle — we’ll find out that the latter is a trifle heavier than the first one and, consequently, more smooth to our eyes.

To show what I mean I took letters “o” from three famous geometric fonts — Futura, Circe, and Geometria. Given that high-quality fonts are built based on human visual perception and use a sophisticated system of optical construction, I suppose their circular shapes look more circular than geometric ones. Aren’t these letters pleasant to your eyes?

Let’s overlap them with geometric circles. Even the most geometric Futura’s “o” has four sticking out parts. Circe’s and Geometria’s letters are, in addition, wider than circles, but even if they had equal height and width, we could see these four “bellies” as if they were hungry and overate.

So, optically speaking, a modified circle (on the right) can look even more “circular” than a geometric one (on the left).

How can we use this phenomenon? For corner rounding, of course! If you utilize the embedded rounding feature in popular graphics editors, the result will be not optically good.

Human eyes immediately detect the point where a straight line suddenly turns into a curve. And this rounding doesn’t look natural.

I fixed this issue taking into account our visual perception.

This kind of rounding has an extra area beyond the geometric circle making the point where a line meets a curve unnoticeable.

Just try to feel the difference between these rounding methods.

Now we can apply this approach to rounded buttons.

You might have noticed that the buttons on the right have more smooth corner rounding and it is more pleasant to your eyes.

The same story with app icons. One doesn’t simply use standard corner rounding to reach a perfect result. But before we dive into this topic let’s take a look at two differently rounded shapes.

The first one is a rounded rectangle, which I created in Sketch. The second shape is a superellipse, also known as Lamé curve. It was discovered by a French mathematician Gabriel Lamé and depending on the formula can vary from something like a four-pointed star to the shape looking practically as a rounded square.

Marc Edwards proposed the formula of Lamé curve that resulted a smooth and optically perfect shape. Icons starting from iOS 7 are based on it.

Later this shape was modified by adding golden ratio proportions and a grid for guiding the designers of new icons but that’s a different story.

The main benefit of using shapes like superellipse is their smooth appearance. On the other hand, these non-standard shapes are difficult to insert into a real interface. One should either combine multiple SVGs, include special formulas or scripts into the code or use PNG masks like Apple does for its app icons.

As for design process itself, there is a simple fix for rounded corners. You need to convert revertible rounding effects into an outline, enter the shape editing mode and manually move curve handles closer to each other.

The difference is even more vivid with acute angle rounding, which is important for drawing road or metro schemes.

Things to remember

Geometrically rounded corners look artificial because you can easily see the points where a straight line suddenly turns into a curve.

Optically correct corner rounding needs special formulas or manual adjustment of a shape.

Bonus

Sometimes a not ideally geometrical square looks more squarish. You might think, “What a ridiculous nonsense?” So, what do you think about the squares below? Which shape looks more squarish?

If you’ve chosen the left shape, you’ve managed to hear the voice of your unbiased visual perception.

I personally was surprised when learned that our eyes are more sensitive to the height of an object than to its width. It explains why even in geometric fonts, letters “o” are always wider than geometric circles, and the vertical stems of letters “H” are always thicker than the horizontal ones.

Recommended reading

This essay provides a limited understanding of the topic, so I encourage you to keep on exploring it. Here is a list of articles and books about the origins of Gestalt psychology and its initial ideas.

Barry Smith, “Gestalt Theory: an Essay in Philosophy”, 1988. A profound study on the Gestalt theory origin and the philosophical and psychological aspects of human perception.

Steven Lehar, “The World in Your Head: A Gestalt View of the Mechanism of Conscious Experience”, 2002. This book explains how people perceive reality. It turns out that we see not the real world but its reflection in the brain. (Chapter 1 is available online.)

James J. Gibson, “The Perception of the Visual World”, 1950 (a scanned copy, some images are low-quality). The book shows how the physical processes in our brain affect the way we see the world.

James J. Gibson, “The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception”, 1979. (A same-titled article with key ideas is available online.)

George Boeree, “Gestalt Psychology”. A brief history of Gestalt ideas.

Biographies of the founders of Gestalt psychology: Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler.

The post Optical Effects in User Interfaces (for True Nerds) appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing https://www.designyourway.net/blog/user-interface-design/optical-effects-in-user-interfaces-for-true-nerds/

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notes for vivien during her whatever of whatever v3

hey pee brain

writing here makes me feel less bitter, and it helps me maintain some level aloofness i think. moreso than calling you twice a day and pining away like a ghost wife that passed away out on the cliffs, the moors or whatever, waiting for her sailor soldier husband to return. i know you're a sweetheart but sometimes you're a real pain in the butt too. a real heck and a half. and i'm not like, dumb. i know what busy is and i know phone calls can still be squeezed in even then, but business and time are never really the problem when this stuff happens. i know i don't make myself very easy to talk to, being a sassy emotional sack of old balls and all that, so i wouldn't expect you to either. just enjoy being where you are and living a big life again and i'll watch your cute butt as you leave the room.

that's like a real mad men thing to think and say huh? "boy oh boy i sure do love to see her leave a room!" even when you dress it up and disguise it, it still sounds piggish. something joan would narrow her eyes at, or at the very least give like that phony 1960s "i'll take that as a compliment, you dumb pig man" smile.

i don't know why i feel bitter. god why do i have my ceiling fan on? i'm freezing, it's been in the 50s here. anyway, i don't know why i feel bitter. it's a gross feeling, it really does make me feel like a ghost wife, like just haunting you from the past and trying to drag you back into the deep black water. very selkie actually. it's loneliness doing its evil things and whispering in ears and gnawing on hearts and making me reach out my ugly haunted hand and trying to either have you pull me out of the afterlife or pull you back in. i just spelt gnawing as "knawing," and it doesn't say that it's a typo, is this some secret alt word i've discovered? some special 4am word?

knaw

Verb

(third-person singular simple present knaws, present participle knawing, simple past and past participle knawed)

Archaic spelling of gnaw.

Verb

(third-person singular simple present knaws, present participle knawing, simple past knawed, past participle knawn)

Eye dialect spelling of know.

what the hell is eye dialect? it sounds like when people talk with their eyes "her mouth says no, but her eyes say YES"

"her mouth says no, but her eyes say KNAW"

or basil's wife perhaps, "oh i knaaawr." you gotta slap an r at the end there because they're british. anyway

writing gets real out of hand real fast at 4am y'know. and i'm writing this on my phone too, what kind of sick fuck writes his autobiography on his phone? that sounds like the kind of thing b would do, but i don't have any business knowing the kinds of things b would do

is there anything i actually wanted to say? i've been buying and drinking wines like a madman. i drank half a bottle in an afternoon when i was trying a new wine and my mom goes "that's a LOT of trying!" like not really tho. wine is a trap cuz you gotta drink it freshly corked or else you're fucked. you gotta share wine, i'm always trying to coax my mom into a glass or two so i don't feel stupid drinking it all by myself. i feel like how my mom used to describe my grandma (on my dad's side), taking her wine medicine every day because "it's healthy" or whatever. i really don't drink like that. i actually forget that there's alcohol in there because it never occurs to me. i've still never been drunk. i was possibly tipsy when we had two bottles in miami and we were sitting out on the smoking bench together, but even then i was just slightly louder and happy.

i've tried merlot, pinot noir, pinot grig, rose, sauvignon blanc, "laurel blanc," chardonnay and i've got a riesling on the way, stashed someplace. i feel such like a stereotypical college early 20s girl when i drink wine, like hmmm like the thing where they order fancy tasty alcoholic drinks at bars and stuff? where they can't taste the alcohol at all and get wasted really easily? not that i'm over here getting wasted, but i mean that i'm picky about flavors, like sometimes wine to me is just bad-tasting grape juice that burns a little and makes you want to burp. i popped open a chardonnay yesterday and the intense oaky "full-bodied" flavor kind of offends me. at the end of the day, i'm still just a real soda jerk at heart, like i wanna drink things that taste good. sugary snacks and orange juice and stuff. sarsparilla. wine tastes bad in comparison to most other beverages (like, let's just be real here for a second, all alcohol tastes worse than a sprite), but makes me feel more sophisticated is all, and i already drink bitter black teas to fill that niche in my life.

i'm more just drinking all these different wines to take a peek into a life i don't live, i think. try to understand people i know that drink wine a little better. i wrote about this before, getting to know you through the back door? watching abfab and fawlty towers and reading swamplandia, following in your footsteps, inching my way through the path you hacked through the jungle. like that scarjo alien movie (another example), living in your skin. why is it so impossible for me to talk about getting to know you without diving into some creepy stalker persona? i don't get it. i must be naive to my own creepiness. i have been called "a creeper," but only once in middle school, and i don't think i was doing anything creepy at the time. just standing somewhere looking sad and emo probably. people just called each other creepers back then left and right. it really is a hurtful term, considering i still vaguely remember it

anyway, i have no idea what you're doing in new york, why you're doing foot stuff with strangers, who you're hanging out with, how long you'll be there, why you can't ever think about me or call me or have any space in your life or in your thoughts for me and i have no idea why everything is so difficult and i have no idea about divorce or wine or new york in general really. and i'm just always over here baking 50 loaves of bread and 600 chocolate bavarians and dumping rainbow sprinkles and maraschino cherries into bowls and putting 350, 850, 1100 pieces of flourless chocolate cake on plates over and over again and checking instagram every time i walk through the halls because it's the only way i know you're not dead. and i know you're awake at 4am when i'm walking into work and i miss you and think of you then, when we're the only souls up at that hour, but then you get like 7 likes on your 4am instagram post and i realize that's actually bullshit and yeah. i'm a dumb jealous bitch, but only like, a little bit, and every person that comments on your instastuff i just imagine that it's somebody that lives in new york and is in your entourage and is more important to you and more interesting than i ever was and i should really just keep dumb mouth shut about everything.

i warned you i was a boring boy, and i warned myself too. you're out there living big again, cool people dragging you into cool big city cocaine club experiences, swapping stick and pokes and fur jackets and call girl stories, writing novels and shooting music videos and hosting parties where you get to avoid your guests and be in the vip back room... (my imagination is endless you see!)

and i'm like a dumb ducking small town country hick boy pining and sending senpai-notice-me pictures of rice krispy treats as if it's anything to sneeze at (it isn't), pretending like my baking or my pictures of clouds or cats is worth anything in your life, because i'm just fumbling and grasping at straws and presenting them to you, like hey look at these straws eh? pretty neat eh? wanna go out with me? i feel like that picture of that kid holding a bunch of roses out to rihanna. a reference which is apparently too dated to show up on google images, grumble

speaking of baking, i went to this japanese bakery the other day to inquire about a job opening and the girl there, well first of all it's really cute because all the girls there wear brown berets and brown overalls, but anyway the girl there said they have TWENTY bakers working there. TWENTY. i keep telling people this hoping for a reaction because apparently only a baker understands how bonkers this is. a small mom and pop bakery with TWENTY bakers. i mean, their stuff is pretty nice, and they do a wide variety of things, but i work at a place with three bakers and we make food for hundreds of people every day.

what else do i have to say, hmmm... i feel like i dropped the ball on the whole self-loathing thing really early, like those couple of paragraphs up there are really more of a finisher but whatever. i'm just rambling, just ranting, just stream of conscious jack kerouac jacking myself off and it's honestly just fine, i don't gotta organize this any particular way do i? nah

but like, don't take any of this stuff too seriously (but do if it makes you like feel really bad for me and miss me or whatever heh), everything is a fleeting thought or feeling nowadays, some times are better than others. some days i text you simply because i wanna share something with you and i'm thinking of you, real simple, and i don't even think about how dumb and bitter i can get, but other days i just want to give up on you and crawl back into my haunted lake and stop trying and kill myself or hurt myself or at the very least make desperate phone calls to people i used to talk to and make myself feel relevant again. but eh. what a soap opera. i like how you think YOU'RE crazy when i'm like just a pile of flesh filled with howling, howling winds, like i'm a real fucking whirlwind in here, a real wuthering heights crazy animal sex energy in here. haunting away from my creaky old miasma mansion. i'm just full of sludge, i'm the swamp and trump never drained me, turns out.

anyway, like i said don't take it too seriously, i'm ok. i'm only flexing muscles, really, but i do miss you, and probably will forever, because i don't think we'll ever be Together Like That. which is fine but it also sucks. "don't you forget about me"

hey also if you happen to read this prior to halloween, or at all, send me some songs for a playlist i'm putting together for no particular reason. i listen to it at work. i've been in a real halloweeny mood even though i never have time or any reason to dress up. but i do all the other stuff, i carve pumpkins and wear candy corn socks and do generally love the season. nobody ever sees it, but i do love the season, i just never share my love with anybody the way i wish i could. just don't send like, the marilyn manson version of i put a spell on you or whatever, unless it's really good, i didn't actually look into it.

sincerely,

from out here on the moors,

the other brian

p.s. just in case new york actually really sucks for you right now and is really not fun or exciting and you are actually feeling very rotten and lonely, i do aplogize profusely! my imagination runs too fast for me to catch up sometimes. just always missing you and always beating myself up. i hope i don't ever rub you the wrong way. https://youtu.be/UDhmnoBVYlQ

p.p.s. 11am now, just wanna say i stand by this big black chunk of coal letter, except i didn't want it to be quite so angry and bitter. your business is your business and i'm silly for assuming i need to be included, as per, i'm really not as desperately invested as i come off. i feel stripped of a friend maybe, but not helpless hopeless careening into a black hole or anything. stay warm stay safe, i'm here when you need my brand of friend again, but i'm gonna make a concerted effort to stop prying. xo

[tammylowsoponkul]

CDS III Week03: On Web Typography review

Chapter 1: How we Read

The most interesting thing about typography is a chain reaction of time and place with you as the catalyst. To present something is always depends on the intention of the text and need to give it meaning through reading. The type and typography are existed because of our need to express and record information. The way of reading is mainly complex but one we know how it is a kind of muscle memory that we will think about it. Because reading is so intrinsic to every other thing about typography, it’s the best place for another new designer to begin and improve it. One of design’s functions is to delight and entice. The designers have to consider the reader and make them convince to keep reading their information.

Legibility means that text can be interpreted as tree bark is edible. Readability combines the emotional impact of a design with the amount of effort it presumably takes to read. If it’s too long, no one is going to read. The designer can’t just assume everyone to read the same way as they did. Reading is not only informed by what’s going on at that moment but also governed by how our eyes and brains work to process information of what they see and what they are experiencing as they read these words.

As our eyes move across the text, our minds gobble up the type’s texture. The sum of the positive and negative spaces inside and around letters and words. People don’t linger on those spaces and details; people’s brains do the heavy lifting of parsing the text and assembling a mental picture of what we are reading. Our eyes perform a series of back forth movement called saccades. The best solution for typography is to make it perform as well as it can in all situation. The experience of reading and the activeness of the message are determined by both what we say and how we say it. Typography is the primary tool we use to communicate.

Chapter 2: How Type Works

Whether online, typography is the primary vehicle we use as designers to communicate our message. Most of the communicative heavy-lifting in our designs hinges on text because we’re inundated with things asking for our attention, our typography needs to put its best foot forward. The majority of typefaces were created for traditional printing processes. Type designers took factors into account like the thickness and texture of paper, how ink gets absorbed and dries, and the speed and physics with which printing happens.

In the mid-1990s, Microsoft approached Carter to design typefaces for screen use. The font of Verdana and Georgia are the most notable and lasting results of Carter’s work. We are just on the other side of a transitional state in typography. Until recently, if you wanted to get type onto a web page, you were limited to a few options. Such as System fonts; you could take the easiest route and tell a browser to use fonts installed on nearly every computer, for example, Times, Verdana, Arial, and Georgia. Images; you could load your typeface as an image, which freed you to use any typeface you had on your computer. The text replacement; you could also programmatically hide text on a page with combinations of images, CSS, Flash, and others. Any hidden text was then replaced with an image.

Half of the battle in understanding typography for the web or any other context is becoming familiar enough to talk about it. To know how to point out a serif or lowercase numeral. To develop your gut instinct for typography, start by learning the language of type.  

Chapter 3: Evaluating Type work

Two common terms you will see thrown around when talking about typography are typeface and font. A typeface is the name for the design in full, whether it’s a style or family of styles. Such as Helvetica is a typeface. Font refers to the format or storage mechanism for that design. All typefaces fall into some sort of class action. However, there has been little consensus on one scheme to rule them all. We struggle with these systems because typefaces are thoroughly dynamic works diverse in visual structure and historical context. You are probably familiar with these class cations in a casual capacity. Groupings like serif, sans serif and script, are well known. When thinking about typefaces for use in my designs, I mentally sort them into a few common groups: serif, sans-serif or others which is mostly made up of anything that doesn’t into those other categories.

To understand the most basic class cations helps you the vast number of typefaces out there and can be handy for searching on the web when you have a rough idea of the look or feel you are after. Two given typefaces may belong to the same class but spark very different responses, be depending on their intended use or when they were made. Look to the typefaces themselves to support a feeling or mood in your design.

Typefaces are specialized tools, but they’re also the expressive creation of a typeface designer. Some of the choices those designers make when creating a typeface may be based on a personal preference or technical reason. All letterforms are made up of a variety of strokes, a general term for most parts of a letter. Typefaces whose strokes vary in width to several degrees, from hairline thin to very broad, are known as high-contrast. 

The contrast of a typeface refers to the divergences in the thick and thin strokes of its characters. A monocline typeface has the absolute least amount of contrast. A typeface with low contrast has some, but relatively little, variation in the thickness of its strokes. Weights and styles; Many typeface families have at least four basic styles: regular (sometimes called Roman or book), italic, bold, and bold italic. A style’s weight refers to the thickness of its strokes or their boldness. On the web, we commonly employ numerical CSS font-weight values. These currently range from 100 to 900 nine in total, each on the whole hundred values with the lightest weight at 100 and the heaviest at 900.

Chapter 4: Choosing and Pairing Typefaces

Choosing typefaces relies on weighing the context of what you’re designing against your technical requirements, typographic knowledge, and gut instinct. Just as the best co ee machine won’t necessarily make you the best cup of co ee. Good typography depends on the ingredients you choose, the particular combination of those ingredients, and the ways you combine them. Your typeface choices must t the circumstances you need them for and so must your design. And we’re back to that old chestnut about rules: there are many right answers, and no answers are really wrong; there are just different degrees of good.

Know your context, as with any creative process, there are many approaches to choosing a type, and it’s a personal pursuit of what works best for you and what feels most productive. But you have quant able considerations too, like the conditions under which you’re going to use a typeface.

Type to live with is the text we spend a lot more time with, usually long-form text like an article or book. The typefaces you use here can mean the difference between someone reading or not. If a typeface is a too loud, too high contrast, or otherwise disruptive, we might lose the reader. And we can’t blame them either. The texture of owing text is the sum of the typeface’s color (the general combinations of lights and darks in and around letters), the actual color of the text and its contrast with the background, and the size of the setting.

Choosing type for extended reading

Scient x-height

Low or medium contrast

Recognizable and distinct letterforms

Methods for choosing typefaces

Word association

Comparisons of real text

Appropriateness

Avoid ready-mades

Be careful with free fonts

Narrowing the end

Methods for pairing

Look for distinction

Look for harmony

Start with one and build outward

To sum up, you have many avenues for choosing and pairing typefaces. It pays to be a design sponge in the world, so take note of what works and keep reining your visual palette.

Chapter 5: Typographic Systems

Typography is an art of finding and shaping the relationship between elements, from largest to smallest and smallest to largest. A typographic system establishes hierarchy; it helps us prioritize content based on individual elements and relationship between them. It also helps our readers easily scan chunks of information and understand what they are looking at. When done right, a typographic system feels intuitive, like an unspoken set of instructions. Hierarchy and contrast: size is one way to achieve hierarchy, but you could also do so with color or placement; the real heavy lifting happens when you combine two or more of these properties. Contrast is in my humble opinion, the most crucial tenet of graphic design. It instantly forges connections and distinctions between elements and when used in concert with other tools like a grid, it helps our viewers discern what’s vital, what’s related and what’s not.

Paragraphs are where we spend the most time when we read, so we need to be certain we’re using a typeface that is comfortable for a long stay. It’s more a matter of not making something uncomfortable to read.

Type size is the best way to approach sizing is to consider the reader and the reading distance. Most people sit about 18-24 inches away from their screen when it comes to a desktop.

Measure and line-height; awareness of line-height are especially important when dealing with responsive websites. As blocks of content expand and contract, you may need to adjust line-height values along with the font-size to ensure the type remains in a comfortable measure.

Headlines are the attention grabbers. People skim them to decide whether or not to keep reading. Headlines come in a variety of forms, from straightforward article headings and subheadings to big marketing taglines and everything in between.

Big type is best considered in the same way you might a photograph: a picture of a type that anchors a layout or creates the sort of mood you might spot on a movie poster or book cover.

Small type is comprised of an unassuming variety of supporting elements. Interface. Which we’ll cover shortly, is a common kind of small type, but article-special categories like captions, footnotes and asides are also important to distinguish.

Chapter 6: Composition

A grid helps you organize your content and reinforce your typographic hierarchy. While hierarchy lets you plan your typography at a micro level, a grid allows you to arrange the type and everything else it interacts with on the page at a macro level. It helps readers traverse content and exposes an informational system to them. Grids have gotten a bad rap because, on the surface, they appear too restrictive a tool for layout. Many folks are still under the impression that grids limit and force a designer to simply out prearranged buckets with content and images, like a design paint by number kit. A grid allows you to frame your layout with the purpose to align page elements and build hierarchical relationships. Put plainly, a grid is an essential building block for intentional design. 

A hierarchical grid slats horizontal module vertically one after another, moving down the page. This linear procession, like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, gently leads a viewer down a path. The vertical ow from top to bottom focuses the design on one message, in this case, the article—and reinforces a natural hierarchy. As a bonus, a hierarchical grid easily lends itself to the stacked, one-column layouts common in responsive web design’s smaller breakpoints.

A baseline grid is a series of rows spun out of the spacing between baselines in the text, or the invisible line that letters sit on. It’s a means to horizontally align all the type on the page, including captions, headlines, and running text.

Alignment and hyphenation; Most magazine and book text are justice and makes ample use of hyphenation. Until recently, this has been very di cult to do on the web. Hyphenation wasn’t readily available, and—depending on factors like font selection and size.

Every typeface has color, and when set, it gives the overall page a color too. I’m not referring to an actual hue; I mean the gray value. To see what it looks like, squint your eyes at the bits of text in

Fonts with less color may need a tighter line-height to carry more weight, and fonts with more color can usually do with a bit more line-height to temper their heaviness

Whitespace frames the content in the center, which provides a focus for the eye. It also imbues the text with space to breathe, which in turn gives the reader comfort to enjoy reading. These small touches go a long way, and like most of the niceties of design, they aren’t usually apparent unless they’re missing. Whitespace is our design’s picture frame and a watchful guardian against the ever-advancing forces of clutter.

Devising a system for sizing and spacing your typography has many advantages. It standardizes a method to your typographic madness in a reproducible way, enables consistency across a team of designers, and can make a lone designer’s job easier by creating a framework.

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Brenner’s Changing Bloodstains and The Moving Bodies During NINA: Is There A Version of the Massacre that El Did Commit?

I’ve posted about it Brenner’s changing bloodstains during NINA before here and here, but I wanted to talk today about how his bloodstains AND the moving/changing bodies in the rainbow room change, and how those two things are linked.

And I also talked about the moving bodies during NINA here, here and here, incase you’re not sure what I’m talking about

So, we see this brenner, who has blood across both sides of his face:

And he’s shown with this dead body (who is now an adult with his eyes not gouged out, just closed and bleeding, see this post for the comparison of how his body changes throughout the massacre):

Like, here’s what the fully gouged out eyes look like in comparison:

But then we get this Brenner, who only has blood on one side of his face (see how there’s no blood on his screen right cheek?):

We get a closeup & we don’t get to see the room or what bodies are around this Brenner at ALL during this scene, but we DO see them in another scene, which I’ll come back to later. Keep reading

And what’s interesting to me is that as I mentioned, the dead body that we see when the first Brenner comes in the room just has his eyes closed & bleeding, just like how Connie and the other agents died in S1:

Connie and the other agents still had their eyes- El was just telekinetically squeezing their brains so hard that their eyes started to bleed. Unlike Vecna, who gouges out the eyes/explodes the eyes. It’s two different styles of killing. Which is interesting, because Owens specifically draws attention to 001’s style of killing- and also, interestingly enough, the implies that the version of the bodies/massacre that Owens may have seen back in 1979 would’ve had Vecna-style gouged out eyes. But we don’t know if he really saw the bodies or just saw some pictures or if he saw Virginia’s body or what point of reference for the eyes made him realize that the killings were done by 001:

And part of me wonders if that version of the massacre with the first brenner/the brenner who only has blood on one side of his face/the one where the eyes arent gouged out is a version of the massacre that El did commit. After all, the style of killing is exactly the same as El’s, with the bleeding but not gouged out eyes and the lack of broken bones on that body.

And again, the Brenner who asks “what have you done,” is not the same Brenner, and the camera angle that we get is a.) very closeup but also b.) very tall. Taller than El for sure. But the perfect height to be Henry… Especially considering that NINA is supposed to be based on memories and camera footage, and this definitely isn’t camera footage, so then whose memory is it?

But also, remember how I said that we DO see the bodies with the second Brenner during another scene? Yeah, it’s during a non-NINA scene, it’s during the S4 EP1 sequence of Brenner on the day of the massacre.

Brenner looks down and sees this body:

Which is not the same as this one:

But bizarrely enough, IS exactly the same shot as what El supposedly saw during NINA (which is what the shot below is, that's from El's nina sequence) (and I’m working on a full analysis of all those closeup body shots)- why the hell was El seeing Brenner’s memories?

And this Brenner, from NINA? The scene of a Brenner, with blood on both sides of his face? walking into the room like this? It doesn’t happen at all during that S4 EP1 sequence.

And where this gets even MORE interesting is when we look at the bodies.

See 002 here during Brenner’s S4 EP1 sequence? And how he’s posed?

Okay, so then why is his pose AND his body shape/size COMPLETELY different during the NINA massacre scenes? Even the little red blocks im front of him disappear, and his legs are much smaller and less bruised during Brenner’s S4 EP1 sequence, and his arm completely changes positions AND there’s NO BLOOD on the chair in Brenner’s S4 EP1 memories.

And see the other kid laying on the ground and how they’re posed?

Yeah, they’re ALSO different in El’s NINA memories vs Brenner’s S4 EP1 memories- the position of the body stays the same this time (even though it does move around/change during other shots/memories), but EL’S position relative to the body changes & the position of furniture changes:

What the hell is going ON???

Brenner’s Changing Bloodstains and The Moving Bodies During NINA: Is There A Version of the Massacre that El Did Commit?

I’ve posted about it Brenner’s changing bloodstains during NINA before here and here, but I wanted to talk today about how his bloodstains AND the moving/changing bodies in the rainbow room change, and how those two things are linked.

And I also talked about the moving bodies during NINA here, here and here (and here’s the full post list), incase you’re not sure what I’m talking about

So, we see this brenner, who has blood across both sides of his face:

And he’s shown with this dead body (who is now an adult with his eyes not gouged out, just closed and bleeding, see this post for the comparison of how his body changes throughout the massacre):

Like, here’s what the fully gouged out eyes look like in comparison:

But then we get this Brenner, who only has blood on one side of his face (see how there’s no blood on his screen right cheek?):

We get a closeup & we don’t get to see the room or what bodies are around this Brenner at ALL during this scene, but we DO see them in another scene, which I’ll come back to later.

And what’s interesting to me is that as I mentioned, the dead body that we see when the first Brenner comes in the room just has his eyes closed & bleeding, just like how Connie and the other agents died in S1:

Connie and the other agents still had their eyes- El was just telekinetically squeezing their brains so hard that their eyes started to bleed. Unlike Vecna, who gouges out the eyes/explodes the eyes. It’s two different styles of killing. Which is interesting, because Owens specifically draws attention to 001’s style of killing- and also, interestingly enough, the implies that the version of the bodies/massacre that Owens may have seen back in 1979 would’ve had Vecna-style gouged out eyes. But we don’t know if he really saw the bodies or just saw some pictures or if he saw Virginia’s body or what point of reference for the eyes made him realize that the killings were done by 001:

And part of me wonders if that version of the massacre with the first brenner/the brenner who only has blood on one side of his face/the one where the eyes arent gouged out is a version of the massacre that El did commit. After all, the style of killing is exactly the same as El’s, with the bleeding but not gouged out eyes and the lack of broken bones on that body.

And again, the Brenner who asks “what have you done,” is not the same Brenner, and the camera angle that we get is a.) very closeup but also b.) very tall. Taller than El for sure. But the perfect height to be Henry… Especially considering that NINA is supposed to be based on memories and camera footage, and this definitely isn’t camera footage, so then whose memory is it?

But also, remember how I said that we DO see the bodies with the second Brenner during another scene? Yeah, it’s during a non-NINA scene, it’s during the S4 EP1 sequence of Brenner on the day of the massacre.

Brenner looks down and sees this body:

Which is not the same as this one:

But bizarrely enough, IS exactly the same shot as what El supposedly saw during NINA (which is what the shot below is, that's from El's nina sequence) (and I’m working on a full analysis of all those closeup body shots)- why the hell was El seeing Brenner’s memories?

And this Brenner, from NINA? The scene of a Brenner, with blood on both sides of his face? walking into the room like this? It doesn’t happen at all during that S4 EP1 sequence.

And where this gets even MORE interesting is when we look at the bodies.

See 002 here during Brenner’s S4 EP1 sequence? And how he’s posed?

Okay, so then why is his pose AND his body shape/size COMPLETELY different during the NINA massacre scenes? Even the little red blocks im front of him disappear, and his legs are much smaller and less bruised during Brenner’s S4 EP1 sequence, and his arm completely changes positions AND there’s NO BLOOD on the chair in Brenner’s S4 EP1 memories.

And see the other kid laying on the ground and how they’re posed?

Yeah, they’re ALSO different in El’s NINA memories vs Brenner’s S4 EP1 memories- the position of the body stays the same this time (even though it does move around/change during other shots/memories), but EL’S position relative to the body changes & the position of furniture changes:

What the hell is going ON???