#and since i don't just like posting walls of text I needed the visuals and colour coding to split everything up for easier reading

[manasurge]

Your custom fanspec... tell me about it 👀

:BLUSHYSMILEYCATEMOJI: hehehe well, it is mostly done, it just needs the polishing up for proper posting display with the accompanied drawn diagrams and colour coding (also it's quite old at this point, started working on it a year ago and wanted to work on lore stuff so I put it on hold, so the doodles look kinda bad but oh well alsjdfsdfj). The one main thing I just have to make her Reformed Mordrem minions to display the rest with the little visual diagrams, but I can post what I have done here so far <3 (this is actually the first time I've posted the updated state of this WIP since I last talked about it last year lskjfs. So sorry in advance if some of this seems janky as I haven't gone over it in a hot minute) Note: I also wanna redo the icon thing to be more of an eye instead of the lotus since it makes more sense literally and thematically and to just try to make it look better in general. For context my OC Mourynn/Vallotash (same person kinda) is Mordremoth's (parasitic) Scion in a weird imposter (syndrome) situation (leaving that bit out for now), and her whole thing was inspired by the ??? area in Jahai bluffs with the one quote that inspired her existence "Are you a dragon dreaming that it's a hero? If you were, how would you know?", where the area also matches her colours thematically too, and why her Mesmer abilities all revolve around hallucinations and tapping into the "Dragon of mind/plant, roots/madness, etc." where the spec also evolves slowly over time as she develops, but it does get amped up during LS1 with Scarlet being responsible for kickstarting it (as she brainwashed Mourynn to help cultivate the Dreamthistle into the Toxic Offshoots, and from there with HoT and so on as things got worse and this just evolved into it's own thing, haha). Super abridging explanations (and badly lol) since I feel that part with the Toxic Alliance and those spores were an important step towards this becoming what it is. Also I still need to decide on names for some things, but oh well ;w; ANYWAYS! Mourynn's custom Mesmer elite spec (WIP):

[bi-panicatthedisco]

The Game That Is Life.

Prologue.

[Hey quick authors note, this is my first fic lolol. Hopefully it worked out well, and I already have a few other chapters mostly done in my notes app. So... Yay! I've always loved self aware au's, but been a bit too nervous to post my own. Hopefully it read right, and please enjoy the fic! And of course remember to drink some water and get some rest!!! Btw, this can work as a stand-alone fic. It just ties in a little bit in the last/fourth chapter]

--------------------------------------------------

Ramshackle is the same as always, not metaphorically, it's completely static. Same cobwebs, same torn curtains, same everything.

By now, you'd think Yuu would be used to it. They stay here most of the time the player isn't controlling them. But even "blank slates" get tired every now and again.

They've tried going to see their friends, but it's really not worth going out of their way anymore. It's not like the others even consider them as a real friend.

"Friends" constantly looking beyond them, constantly wishing it was the player that was here, and not them. It gets under your skin after awhile.

At least Grim seems to care, even if it's through bribes of tuna. It's better than the others. But even Grim has gotten entranced by this... "Player" person.

Yuu is here now! Why can't any of them see that!? But no. It's constantly player this and player that! "Oh the player cares so much, even though they think we're only game characters!" Absolutely pathetic, all of them!

Maybe they just need to get the player out of the picture...

::.

.:.

..

::

Grim was lounging in ramshackle, also bored out of his mind. Yuu has been acting weirdly recently, they haven't given him any tuna for a week!!! Geez, talk about selfish. It's not like he's worried about them!

But... Eh, he should probably go and visit them. They are his henchhuman after all! What kinda boss would he be if he didn't check up on them once in awhile? They're probably in their room again. ...it's been lonely since they switched to a different room than his...

Huh?! Why'd the human lock the door!? No one locks the great grim out! Hmph.

"HENCHHUMAN! OPEN THE DOOR!!"

...

Fine then, he'll just have to show off his amazing climbing skills!

...

(Forty six minutes later...)

GAHHH!! WHY'S THE WINDOW SO HIGH UP!? Ah... He'll have to ask his henchhuman to get a first floor room later... Ahhhhhh...

(Another twelve and a half minutes later. The ghosts finally managed to stop laughing long enough to remind him about the ladder in the storage room.)

Finally! Now too see why they weren't opening the door! ...huh? What in the world are they doing??? Is that a cutout of the players home screen character? ...geez Yuu, sometimes he's embarrassed to be your boss...

Wait a second, don't get sidetracked! Why's his henchhuman ignoring him! What?! Are they seriously ignoring him to write a note or somethin'?! Hmph! If that's how it's gonna be, then he'll just ignore them then! See how they like it! Now how to get... Down... HUH?!!? Did they tape the players screen to the wall behind that cut out!? Oh no... That ain't good...! MraaaahhhhhHHHHHH!!!!!

Yuu looks over just in time to notice the tail end of... Well, a tail. Plummeting to the ground in ramshackle garden. But honestly they've had too many energy drinks and too little sleep to care, they'll deal with that in the morning...

.::.

.:..

.:

:.::

.

.:.

You're logging into twisted wonderland for the first time today, the login bonus flashing on your screen. With a little visual glitch? No character there, and an empty text box. But hey, it's a cool screenshot, so why would you care? Lol.

Speaking of glitches though, there's another one on your home screen. The character doesn't talk, doesn't move, doesn't do anything. A lot like a paper doll. And the background is a ramshackle bedroom.

You're unable to click anything even if you tried, only for a pop up to appear on the screen. But it appears more like a handwritten note than a regular update notice. And... Is that tape on the edges?

"Dear player, I'm afraid you cannot come back. It's very personal honestly. Not sorry, you can just delete it :) Thanks -Yuu"

...what in the world...?

[first part!]

[quinndominion]

Thought I was going to make another rant-y ramble about scene staging, but I figured it out before I finished typing.

Anyway...Terrific fun seeing your scenes come to life exactly the way you envisioned them. Terribly frustrating when it feels like you've forgotten how to do basic stuff, elicit some very basic poses - like, hold your hand out, sir! No, more. Out thataway. Please?

Look, see, like this, Sylvia Marie did it, why can't you? (which, of course, means why can't I...remember how to do such a little thing?)

But this is why I always like to keep SimPE open while playing. (Standard warning, you know what your computer can and can't handle, blah, blah, blah. And if you don't load it first, obviously, and fully load in the game files, you won't be able to do a damn thing with it while the game is using them and you, of course, can't edit cc files that are in use. But if, like me, you've got multiple cc setups and test hoods and wip stuff it comes in handy when you're too lazy to quit the game just to check something.) I double-checked my 'undies ad' posebox and turns out I did, actually, make that overlay. Oops. But, frustration allayed!

Wrong hand, anyway. But that wasn't the point.

Serviceable as is, I guess.

But it looks even more awkward from this angle and that's the one where you can see what he can't see yet as he's looking for his daughter.

Ooh, maybe Adele's prop box, sans prop? I'll check! Too many newer poseboxes, I'm forgetting the virtues of the golden oldies! Otherwise, I have found something that should work but it means exiting and reloading the game. And she may or may not hold her pose on reload.

The positioning itself I can recreate easily enough, but she is well off her lot (get it..."well" *snerk*) and therein lies the hassle. I'd have to learn new tricks (all over again) to make that a simpler process. And, uh, no. I need, literally, 3-5 more pics. Then all I've got to do is finish the write-up and wrestle with the html formatting. So, tomorrow maybe, or more likely the day after since it's Christmas.

Apparently, some things have changed in the past few years, but not DW's post editor - which I hate, love everything else, no plans to shop around for a new home, but hate the tiny post creation window that you can't expand in visual edit mode - you know, the one you need to see, it's in the name - but can drag out in html mode, like being able to see the alphanumeric wall-o-text in a bigger window is at all useful to me! They render all visual line breaks exclusively with code now so even if you space it out to be able to see what you're doing with the html, if you click over to visual mode to see that it looks right and click back, they've smushed it back into one big block of text. Why...oh, why? That's not really the new hassle, but I'm tired of rambling. Suffice it to say that my workaround no longer works straight copy-paste. Even when I remember to add all the extra <br /> breaks. Still have to fiddle with it in their tiny post window where they nevertheless render the pictures full-size so I can only see half of what I'm doing without side-scrolling back and forth. Okay, now rant really over.

How do I know this? Well, I celebrated my bday last Monday by actually posting a chapter. No linky, I'll get to that...eventually, but it's there on my Dreamwidth if you wanna read it. Or you can wait til I'm finished wrangling with the rest of Act One and feel like making proper posts with links and stuff. Doubt anyone's read this far into a ramble post to warrant adding links anyway. 😃😃😃

[singular-yike]

So what's the deal with everybody's favorite spoopy mirror Mitsumo?

It's been a while since my last post, hasn't it? I'm glad to be back doing another one

I've been busy with my Len'en Tweet Collection project recently, a thorough translation of all tweets related to JynX and Len'en! Check it out if you'd like, but it is mainly just for archival purposes, any info will be logged on the Len'en wiki eventually.

Now! Back to our topic of the day. One might think that there won't be much going for this stage 1 boss, especially since they don't even contribute to the world-building much, unlike Souko.

I thought that would be the case as well, but as I did my research, I found that there's actually still quite a bit to go through with them. So, let us take a dive into this silly-looking mirror and their tagalong!

Visualized Mental Scars — Mitsumo (and Terumi!)

Name: Mitsumo

The name Mitsumo (照雲) is a simple one, comprised of two kanji meaning "illuminate" (照) and "cloud" (雲) respectively.

These are likely taken from the first kanji in shouyoukou (照妖鏡) and ungaikyou (雲外鏡) respectively, the type of object Mitsumo is/inhabits, and the youkai Mitsumo is based on. More on them later.

Name: Terumi

Terumi (輝美), Mitsumo's little tagalong, also has a simple name, the two kanji meaning "shine" (輝) and "beauty" (美) respectively. This name is also a pun on the Japanese word for "mirror", kagami (鏡), as the two kanji can be read as kaga and mi respectively.

Background: Evil-illuminating Mirror

The only concrete piece of information we have about Mitsumo, is that they are a "evil-illuminating mirror" youkai.

An "evil-illuminating mirror" (照妖鏡 CN: zhàoyāojìng JP: shoumakyou) refers to enchanted mirrors originating from Chinese legends that are able to reveal a youkai's true form or magic.

In Japanese tales, they're more often known as "demon-illuminating mirrors" (照魔鏡 shoumakyou) or "youkai-felling mirrors" (降妖鏡 gouyoukyou).

And that's all we know about Mitsumo. Notably, it's not even clear whether they are the mirror itself or a spirit inhabiting the mirror.

Abilities

Project Trauma

Mitsumo is known to have two major abilities, chief amongst them is their ability to "project trauma".

The verb used in the original Japanese is utsusu (映す), which refers to the action of a mirror capturing a reflection and showing its image upon its surface. But also to project something, like onto a TV screen or onto a wall.

So we can surmise that Mitsumo is able to show whoever looks into them their greatest trauma, destroying their minds and taking them over as a vessel.

When this happens, that headband with the tiny mirror apparently manifests on their victims head, and Mitsumo gains total control over them. This is needed because, being a mirror, Mitsumo cannot move by themself much, and thus requires assistance.

Producing Clouds

As we can see in BPoHC though, Mitsumo and Terumi ride on a tower of clouds to fly about and fight the protagonists.

This is revealed in a Kanae stream to be an ability they employ when they're getting ready to fight, as it allows them quick escape should their vessel get struck down in battle.

However, this apparently consumes much youkai energy, so Mitsumo prefers to avoid using it if they can.

Mythological Basis: Ungaikyou

Mitsumo is likely based on the ungaikyou (雲外鏡 mirror beyond the clouds), a youkai first seen in the 18th century artist Toriyama Sekien's Illustrated Bag of One Hundred Housewares (百器徒然袋).

Above: Toriyama Sekien's illustration of the ungaikyou

Not much is known about the original ungaikyou, not even what it can do, simply that it exists, at least according to Toriyama.

However, as you can see from the illustration, the mirror rests on a tower of clouds (or mirror stand that is designed to look like clouds), and has a rather silly face in the mirror.

This design is quite heavily reflected in Mitsumo, with the clouds they produce and the many eyes on the mirror.

Origins

The accompanying text for this entry reads:

In my dreams, I thought to myself, "The so called 'evil-illuminating mirror' is able to capture upon its surface the forms of various bizarre things, so when I think about what happens when its shadow is captured, what came to me was this youkai."

It is frankly unclear what Toriyama means by this, though what is agreed on is that this likely suggests:

This youkai is likely invented by Toriyama, if inspired by a dream.

This youkai is likely based on the evil-illuminating mirror.

Not much can be gleaned from this, so we could try turning to its name instead. Ungaikyou, the "mirror beyond the clouds".

It's been suggested that perhaps the name is a reference to the Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海經), read sengaikyou in Japanese. It's a classical Chinese text that notably features a great number of descriptions of Chinese youkai, over 350 of them.

Additionally, it's been suggested that the "beyond the clouds" bit of its name refers to the "clear skies", which is further a metaphor for how the evil-illuminating mirror is able to reveal the true form of things, unobstructed by illusions.

Abilities

While Toriyama does not give any description to what the ungaikyou actually does, later writers have expanded upon the youkai and gave it a variety of somewhat similar abilities.

In the 1997 Dictionary of the Monster (幻想動物事典) by Takumi Kusano (草野巧), he gives the ungaikyou the ability to "show humans the image of a youkai they could become".

In the Illustrated Compendium of Youkai (図説　妖怪辞典) by "Youkai dot com" (妖怪ドットコム), the ungaikyou is given the ability to "control other youkai whose form has been reflected in the mirror".

These two abilities can be seen to combine into Mitsumo's ability, showing whoever peers into them a horrifying sight and then taking over their body.

Nature

As mentioned, there's not much we can tell from Toriyama's original depiction, but many later interpretations group it, and in fact every youkai in this book, into a group of youkai known as tsukumogami.

The word tsukumogami (付喪神 gods/spirits that posses [things that are] ruin[ed]) has been applied to applied to many different things, so what it specifically refers to isn't exactly 100% clear-cut.

In general though, the modern understanding is that they are objects that have existed for 100 years and thus become alive, gaining a spirit of its own.

For the most part, modern interpretation of the ungaikyou considers it a tsukumogami, often of an evil-illuminating mirror.

While there are 2 major examples that differ from this, they clearly do not relate to Mitsumo, so I've elected to omit them.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing that directly indicates that Mitsumo is actually an ungaikyou, let alone a tsukumogami, so there's nowhere we can really go with this, unfortunately.

Mini Theory: What is Mitsumo?

I have a small, not very substantiated theory about Mitsumo that I thought I might as well share anyways.

This theory is based on 2 major facts:

Mitsumo seemingly has a torii shrine gate with them, though warped in a malicious direction, judging by the horns.

Mirrors have long been objects of worship in Japan, popular as shintai, an object in which the gods' spirits dwell, at Shinto shrines.

My little theory goes, that Mitsumo was once worshiped as some sort of god, likely thanks to them being an evil-illuminating mirror, helpful in combating youkai and dispelling evil.

Mitsumo could have been a god that dwelled in the mirror, or they could simply be the mirror's own consciousness once it got old enough and gained a spirit.

Nevertheless, when worship of Mitsumo eventually faded away, they felt betrayed by his followers. These negative feelings eventually boiled over, corrupting them and transforming them into a youkai.

It is, after all, often said that youkai and gods are two sides of the same coin, the difference being only in whether they're worshipped by humans or not. Sometimes, one being can even be both at the same time.

That's all this theory is, that Mitsumo was a god whose worship faded, their resentment towards this transforming them into the malicious youkai that we know today.

Ending

And that's all I've got on Mitsumo, not a lot, but not little either.

They're a rather straight-forward character, all things considered, and yet they still have an air of mystery about them, it's the wonderful charm of Len'en, really. Let's hope that we'll get to learn more about them in the future~!

As usual, I hope you enjoyed~! :)

[january-summers]

pausing is out.

paragraph breaking for dramatic effect is in!

but also I wish kids these days would learn about "New speaker? New line!" I can't keep reading things in the wrong voice, it's ruining the flow! It's okay to paragraph break after a single sentence if there's a new speaker, or even just because you want to.

larger paragraphs make it hard to track lines... actual, hijacking your post, sorry.

If you pick up a physical paper book, you'll notice the start of each paragraph is indented. Like this!

This is done to create breaks in the text line that runs down the side of the writing, where the letters hit the page margin, it helps the eye track the start of the paragraphs.

When we started writing on computers, this changed because one thing the indent did was save space. One the computer, in digital media, paragraph breaks more often look like an empty text line, if physical books did the same thing, they would be dozens of pages longer, which makes them thicker, not just harder to hold but more expensive to make and thus buy.

Digital mediums don't have that same page restriction problem, writing was allowed to have more room to breathe.

So paragraph breaks got wider, and since they were more visible, indents weren't as needed. But there's one more difference between digital and physical written mediums that makes the wider paragraph breaks preferable (imo) to the indents or flat-to-margin-text.

Digital words move.

The lines of text themselves are moving.

On a physical page it's easy enough to track where you were reading by location and find the line you were on if you have to look away or the book gets jostled, but on digital the entire text shifts and if you scroll to fast you can get lost easily because the text lines are no longer relative to the boarder of your page.

And if you use flat-to-margin especially, your paragraphs will have no shape to help sort through them easier, readers won't be able to check the first line of each paragraph to find something familiar and zero in, because any line could be the first line.

When people read, they recognise the shapes words make as much as they recognise the letter combinations (this is how skim reading works btw), the same is true of paragraph shapes whether people realise they're noticing it or not.

-

Actually, empty line paragraph breaks do show up in physical books, but they're actually serving the purpose of a line break. Sometimes they'll have a little centered asterisk to mark them.

If you're writing on AO3 or Fanfiction.net, please use the provided line break functions or a single punctuation mark instead of lines of punctuation or repeating letters. Some authors will use the fandom's initials or the initials of the ship they're writing about several times to make a visually interesting line.

Please don't do that.

This one is less about visuals and more about screen reader accessibility.

-

Sorry for the ramble, and the post hijack, I just. I have some very strong feelings about this apparently.

...I actually know one author, who still uses indents in digital works, but only for spoken lines, never narrative ones. It is the weirdest thing, and it bothers me, but I would rather read that for the rest of my life than slog through another flat-to-margin wall of goddamned text!

i don’t understand why some fanfiction writers will put all of their work in one giant paragraph. i am constantly abusing a paragraph break. i use it every five seconds. new subject? new paragraph. slightly different angle? new paragraph. any sentence that holds any amount of weight? boom new paragraph. i will use one word then do another paragraph break. you can’t stop me.

[blye-flower]

✨ Meme for Fic Writers: 4, 7, 15, 29, 38

Alkjsadkjs if Hershey's gonna do anything, it's make me think about my writing. I'm gonna put this under a read more and also color the questions so it's not just a huge wall of text (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Ohhh, there are so many that I don't even really have a solid number for them?? Like I have stuff I already talked about, like GG and O Sol, and then there are things I've only talked about in passing with friends that don't have a storyline or an actual idea name. I think the one that I wanna work on most that I haven't talked about before is another O Sol installment that kinda gives insight to apritello's relationship through the other characters POV? I'm having a lot of fun working backwards in terms of how the plot line goes before moving it forwards past,,, that lol

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

The softness that Donatello invoked from her, the way she wanted to stay by his side and wanted him to stay by hers. The need to protect him, to keep him safe and happy, and being able to cause that happiness. She felt so seen yet felt the need to hide when his eyes found hers, desired to be wanted by him and for his eyes to seek her out. 

She found her place with him, craving out a piece of herself so he fit perfectly in her. And she hoped that he did the same for her. 

-I Put a Spell on You (Accidentally But If Anyone Asks it Was On Purpose)

I'm just, it's hard to talk about why I'm so proud of this one cause I feel like the reason is kinda unnecessarily sappy ajshjf. But the way that I think about love really drives how I write about characters falling in love or experiencing that love. For me, love (whether platonic or romantic) is about creating a safe place for someone, not only about wanting to be with them, but also in the sense that when you think about somewhere you belong, the other person is not too far from the thought, you know? So, by being able to write about a character experiencing the "mainstream" romantic expressions of love (ie. feeling shy around them, wanting to be near them, feeling protective of them, etc.), I was also able to add that little bit of characters creating places for each other. In that last line, I essentially wrote April not only admitting that she loves Donnie, but also hoping that Donnie loves her back without having to say that.

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Ohhh, if I could guarantee that the CGI was clean and the studio makes the color scheme pop like I'd want it, it'd be I Put a Spell on You (Accidentally But If Anyone Asks it Was On Purpose). There's a couple of scenes in it that I think would be really interesting with a visual!

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Omg, look at me mentally blank on every fanfic I've ever read aljdsalkdj. Tbh, if it's anyone, I think it would either be a sequel to your The Missing Element fic, ooorr a prequel to Sheep's The One Where The Orange One Knows.

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

Hmm, all of the reviews I get make my day lol, but I still remember this comment I got on a fic I've since deleted, from my KH days. It was only one chapter posted, but it ended up being 10-13k, and the comment basically said it was literally the easiest read they'd had in a while. They complimented my dialogue, my characterization, how I wrote the characters interacting, and just my prose all together.

There are also one or two comments someone is recently leaving on SnoCon that's honestly bringing a smile to my face lol.

(Honestly, any comment that compliments my characterization or prose is immediately gonna make my day for YEARS.)

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 99-101 Subbed (Finalized) - Fixes/Edits Breakdown (Part 2)

Since it’s 2023 and Tumblr still has a dumb link limit in posts, I had to break up my Fixes/Edits Breakdown post supplementing my 99-101 Release Post with my usual animation fix/edit breakdown into two parts, since I wanted to still link to the images to give the interested a visual element.  Details for 101's fixes below the cut! (Part 1 for 99 and 100 here.)

Fixes/Edits! (101) phew

After Ed Special-Summons Diskguy from his Cemetery, he draws two cards from his effect, but as we get a peek at the cards, they're actually just blank cards. Fixed this in AfterEffects by applying a Devilguy and Doctor D proxy, as he plays both shortly after this (though we don't get a shot earlier confirming whether he had Doctor D in his hand or not, but Devilguy's in front so just the Magic Card border's visible).

As Saiou bemusedly says that "Ed can't hope to leave even a mere scratch on the firm wall of destiny," we see Ed's field in front of him, with Defense-Mode Devilguy's card under him positioned in Attack Mode. Fixed this in AfterEffects by applying a proxy correctly in Defense Mode under him for a frame, masking in his legs and coat around it, then using Sony Vegas to re-keyframe it panning across the screen.

On his next turn, as Saiou explains the effect of the Necro Sacrifice card he activated, the shot in #2 is reused and slightly zoomed in, with Saiou slightly redrawn and holding onto the same error with Devilguy. Fixed in Vegas by just zooming in my fix in #2 and recreating the pan across the screen.

A few shots later, after Saiou summons The Empress and Emperor to Ed's field through Necro Sacrifice, he tells Ed he can choose their Battle Modes--but the shot of him moves to the right a frame before Ed starts sliding into a split-screen to declare Defense Mode. I fixed this in Vegas by masking out Ed's full split and redoing his slide-in to happen simultaneously with Saiou moving, using some of the background to hide his original slide-in.

A bit later, as he explains how The Devil's upright effect destroyed Devilguy, Saiou adds that the destroyed Monster's controller takes damage, but as he does so, we see the card he has face-down on his Disk looking like a blank orange card. Fixed this in AfterEffects to The Material Road card he'd drawn and set previously in 100.

After the eyecatch, good Saiou and Ed have a mental conversation as rain pours around them (Saiou holding up an umbrella for Ed), and as Ed reminds a resigned Saiou that he chose him as someone who could alter his fate of destruction, Saiou dejectedly turns away saying that it's too late for him--and while he turns away, his uniform's shoulder and the outer rim to the shoulder strap/flap suddenly vanish, leaving the trees behind him visible, though they return as he moves to look up. As detailed here, fixed this by redrawing both for the 36 total frames this issue was around for in Photoshop, applying redrawn rain lines as needed, then inserting the fixed frames into the video in Photoshop.

Some time later, Ed's summoned Bloo-D onto his field; as he explains to Light Saiou that he can absorb an opposing Monster, he's shocked as their split-screen splits apart to show Bloo-D poised to do just that--but you'll notice that their splits are a bit uneven as they split out. Fixed this in Vegas by redoing Ed's split's slide-out to be more timed with Saiou's.

[split due to Tumblr's dumb text-characters-per-block limit]

(8) After Bloo-D absorbs The World and has his first attack against Saiou rendered damageless, he activates the effect of his D-Burst in his Cemetery--as he explains that it lets Bloo-D attack twice this turn, Saiou slides into a split-screen in shock before they split out to show Bloo-D behind them as his ATK's halved to do just that, but a few things happen: 1) a repeat of #4 happens but in reverse, as the shot of Ed moves to the left a frame before Saiou's split starts to slide in, 2) after their splits meet, Ed's side starts to move a frame before they start to split, with 3) a black screen behind them as they properly split before Bloo-D appears. Fixed these each in Vegas by 1) redoing Saiou's slide-in to be timed with Ed moving, 2) adding a border to Ed's side and masking in Bloo-D between them to start the proper slide-out right as Ed moves, and 3) using Bloo-D to cover up the black screen.

(9) After Saiou narrowly survives, he starts his last turn and activates his face-down The Material Road before then activating The Spiritual Road, but a couple things happen: 1) the shot of The Material Road flipped up zooms out slightly a frame before The Spiritual Road clicks into a split-screen as it activates, and 2) after both are glowing, the split-screen splits apart to show the pillars of light forming near Saiou, but Spiritual Road's split moves a frame before Material Road's does to start showing Saiou. Fixed these in Vegas by 1) holding the frame just before the slight zoom-out over the zoom-out frame so it happens right as of the split-screen happening, and 2) holding the split-screen a frame longer over Spiritual Road's early moving so the split-out starts on the next frame with Saiou showing.

(10) During the 102 preview, we see the shot of Saiou activating Light Barrier, which shows the field as the screen zooms out and the barrier's formed, but Bubbleman on Judai's field has his Defense-Mode card under him facing to the left; should be facing to the right with its effect box visible to Bubbleman's left. Fixed this first for 102 before applying the fix here, using a proxy in AfterEffects to place a correctly facing card under Bubbleman and masking him on top of it for a frame, then using that frame in Vegas and redoing the zoomout for it, using a quick layer of solid white that I masked in per the bit of light from Light Barrier's forming that floats over Bubbleman to recreate it.

[juliasgoodusername]

Sometimes a girl has to go a little crazy. Sometimes a girl has to make a book-accurate floorplan for 300 Fox Way. These things just happen, sometimes.

Obsessive annotations under the cut ✨ but be warned, there's a LOT

Exterior

Okay first of all, I'm no architect, and my only knowledge comes from work experience in the real estate industry + a lot of Sims. The style is sort of neo-rural French colonial. I didn't set out to adhere to that standard so much as I made an amalgamation of homes in Blue Ridge Mountains-adjacent towns in Virginia. Specifically, my headcanon Henrietta template is Orange, VA (I'll save that explanation for another post) so I took inspiration from real estate listings from there.

Alright alright I know there is supposed to be one bathroom, but I simply can't tolerate that in a house with 6+ residents. I can't. There was a possible contradiction in the descriptions of "the single shared bathroom" that I used as an excuse to add a 3/4 bath, and I threw in a powder room for free. Because technically there is still only one full bathroom! But seriously with that many women over 30 most of them probably have IBS or chronic constipation and I'm not making them all share a toilet.

Officially we only have 4 bedrooms listed in text: Blue's, Persephone's, Maura's, and Calla and Jimi's shared one. Everyone else gets rooms that don't qualify as bedrooms via Virginia residential building codes (such as the attic, obviously, which falls below the combined ceiling height and square footage requirements). That really just leaves Orla unaccounted for but I'll get to that later. Other aunts and friends seem to visit during the day and live somewhere else, because in The Raven King only Jimi and Orla were described as needing to move out of the house during the demon stuff.

I designed the entire interior floorplan before I even touched the exterior, so there's a few issues, like how I'm totally missing shutters on the windows that functionally need them most. 🫶 I didn't feel like making the windows smaller to fit them, and I could have added faux-shutters but I think those are stupid. 😘

First floor

"This house is lovely. So many walls. So, so many walls," Malory said as Blue entered the living room a little later.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Chapter 30

Right off the bat, we have an insane number of doors and walls. Old colonial houses are pretty much the opposite of open concept. Functionally I believe that's because it's easier to control heat with closed off rooms, but Virginia is not particularly cold so idk. As for the number of doors, I mean....😤😤😤 I prefer archways/doorless frames in small high-traffic spaces, but every time I thought I could get away with it Maggie would specifically describe doors opening and closing (For example BL,LB Ch 41 gives the reading room double doors, and even the living room gets one in Ch 11. What kind of living room needs a door???). I'm actually missing one of the doorways described in canon, but if you know which one I'm talking about I DARE you to find a place to put that thing!! But I digress.

“Mom," she said as she jumped down the crooked stairs.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

I'm liberally using "crooked" to establish the corner turn stairs. Blue steadies herself on the stair railing when she identifies Gansey for the first time (TRB Ch 15), so I wanted the stairs to have good visual access to visitors. It also sort of has a feng shui-ish effect of separating the public and private energy zones in the house. If that statement made zero sense, I think one of us doesn't know enough about feng shui 👀 and it might be me.

I'm also using that quote to establish Maura's room downstairs, if Blue generally expects to find her mother there, but mostly because everything else was upstairs and it was getting hard to fit. Granted, at one point Blue leads the boys "up the stairs to Maura's bedroom" (TDT Epilogue) but since they were just arriving at 300 Fox Way those stairs could easily be the outdoor ones. There's a handful of little things to support me here, such as Adam grabbing a scrying bowl from Maura's room to use in the reading room (BL,LB Ch 41) implying that her room was the closest place to find one. And speaking of Maura's room-

Calla was overwhelmed by how much shit Maura had in her room at 300 Fox Way, and she told Blue this.

... The mess was taking years from her life. ... Maura liked chaos.

... The psychic hotline rang in the room next door. Calla's concentration fluttered away.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Prologue

Maura is my favorite hypocrite. She claims to detest clutter (TRB Ch 34) and yet her room is literally described as chaos. She probably treats her room like a college student and moves the furniture every time she gets bored/stressed. Thus, I gave her the most insane furniture configuration I could think of while still matching all the contents described.

The phone ringing next door might imply that she neighbors the phone/sewing/cat room, but that area is pretty well described and Maura's room is never mentioned there in any other instance. That leaves us with the kitchen phone (TRB Ch 27) which I put in the hallway with kitchen access as a compromise so it would technically still be in a room next to Maura's.

In the reading room, the man looked around with clinical interest. His gaze passed over the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally landed on a framed photograph of Steve Martin.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 13

There are so many quotes about the reading room that I just don't feel like citing them, but other details include the mismatched chairs, the shelves, doors etc. It's also described specifically as Maura's "front room" (TRB Prologue) so it's one of the cornerstones that I designed the rest of the layout around. Because of the plants, it makes sense that this room would be south-facing too. (Although idk how much light they get with the wraparound porch awning in the way. Oops lol!)

The outside suddenly seemed vivid in comparison to the dim kitchen. The April-bright trees pressed against the windows of the breakfast area, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue Stormed into 300 Fox Way's kitchen and began a one-sided interrogation with Artemus, who was still hidden behind the closed storage closet door.

- The Raven King, Chapter 9

Likewise, I'm using the particularly dim kitchen to place it on the north side, where we also know there's trees in the backyard.

I'll say the kitchen layout is weirder than it strictly needed to be because in the Virginia homes I referenced I adored all the strange kitchens, especially with old timey 'servants area' vibes where laundry kitchen and pantry are all connected. Instead of a kitchen island, they get one of those rolling kitchen carts which I doubled as a bar cart for the drinks they have in the living room.

The kitchen has a doorway to the hall (TRB Ch 13) and the living room is within view when Blue's on the kitchen phone (Ch 27).

Speaking of chapter 27, that's when we get the description "The morning light through the windows turned the drinks a brilliant, translucent yellow." So I put the living room on the east side of the house, where the rising sun would cast really strong light like that.

Second Floor

When she woke up, her normally morning-bright room had the breath-held dimness of afternoon. In the next room over, Orla was talking to either her boyfriend or to one of the psychic hotline callers.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue headed toward the red-painted door at the end of the hall. On her way, she had to pass the frenzy of activity in the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and the furious battle for the bathroom. The room behind the red door belonged to Persephone, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 11

Blue's room and the Phone/Sewing/Cat room are our cornerstones for this floor. In several examples we know that the Phone/Sewing/Cat room faces the street and has a window (TRB Ch 15, BL,LB Ch 4). While Blue's room is "morning-bright," we also get descriptions of guests at the front door "backlit by the evening sun," (TRB Ch 15) so once again we're probably talking about south windows if it's sunlit at both times of day.

Adam sat awkwardly on the edge of Blue's bed. It felt strange to have so easily gained access to a girl's bed- room. If you knew Blue at all, the room was unsurprising - canvas silhouettes of trees stuck to the walls, leaves hanging in chains from the ceiling fan, a bird with a talk bubble reading WORMS FOR ALL painted above a shelf cluttered with buttons and about nine different pairs of scissors. Against the wall, Blue self-consciously taped up the drooping branch on one of the trees.

- The Dream Thieves, Chapter 49

We get some great descriptions of Blue's room (especially TRB Ch 43), although the above one is my favorite (#wormsforall). Every piece of furniture is accounted for exactly as described except the desk which I added because it seemed practical, and Blue is nothing if not practical™.

Persephone's room is also very well-described, all the way down to the furniture and lighting placement (BL,LB Ch 4 and TRB Ch 11) and it's surprisingly similar to Blue's room, if not a bit smaller. Her room gets strong afternoon sunlight, so I put it on the south too (BL,LB Ch 43).

Calla and Jimi share a room that's also upstairs (TRK Ch 16). Because they are the only two who have to share a room, I have justified that it must be the "master bedroom" (sorry for using that term) and is far bigger than the other bedrooms. I managed to fit two queen beds in there, but some scholars [me] would argue that Jimi and Calla might also share a bed because they are in love. Can you prove me wrong? No, you can't.

As for the bathroom, remember when I mentioned a possible contradiction? Famously, Maura draws the ley line symbol in the steamed up shower door (TRB Ch 1). However, much later we get Maura, Orla, Calla and Jimi all sitting in the bathtub for some kind of ritual (TRK Ch 9). No matter how I picture it, I can't put 4 full grown women in a bathtub together without someone partially sitting on/spilling over the side. But that would be impossible in a combo bath/shower enclosed by glass doors!! Thus, I gave The Bathroom a nice tub and put a small shower in the en suite of Jimi and Calla's room. I know this is a stretch but I don't really care.

Attic

Blue had never been a big fan of the attic, even before Neeve moved in. Numerous slanting roof lines provided dozens of opportunities to hit your head on a sloping ceiling. Unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with prickly plywood were unfriendly to bare feet. Summer turned the attic into an inferno.

... In one of the narrow dormers, two full-length, footed mirrors faced each other, reflecting mirrored images back and forth at each other in perpetuum.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 34

Trying to fit the attic access in after everything in the second floor was my biggest challenge, because stairs normally take up a lot of space and you have to be careful about head room. I'm the end, I decided it was one of those fold out attic doors that you have to reach from the ceiling of the hallway. We might get a lot of instances of the attic door being opened (😤 seriously, Maggie... 😤) but technically a trap door in the ceiling is still a door!

Dormers pretty much cemented the French colonial style for me. And you know the drill by now: a hot room probably means a lot of sun, which means I give it a south facing window!

Mud Room/Cellar/Basement

This cellar has absolutely zero mention in the text, but my justification is based in the architecture. So far we've got a funky old colonial house, built without a garage, lots of walls etc. Especially in a low-income/semi-rural area, it's not crazy to assume that 300 Fox Way was built before most residents had refrigerators (1930s-40s). Besides iceboxes, a major way to keep food fresh was root cellars. Modern renovations for old homes convert these to concrete basements, but that's why the basement is so small and connects to the kitchen.

My headcanon is that Orla originally shared a room. Pick whoever you want: Maura, Blue or Persephone, any of them would easily be such a chaotic roommate that Orla snapped and in a fit of teen girl rage moved herself down to the crummy dark basement. Over time, she made efforts to glamorize it, such as a vintage dressing screen to hide the flood drainage pump. The privacy also allows her to bring boyfriends over, even sneaking them through the mud room.

This is really just my artistic license, but I swear it makes a surprising amount of sense in context. There's cases of Orla sneaking into the kitchen (easier if she has a back entrance) and she's almost always using the phone upstairs or in the kitchen (because a basement would get bad reception) even though her calls get kinda ~intimate.

Aaaaaand I think that's everything. Sorry it doesn't look like the photo from the wiki at all, but I couldn't find a source for it and Victorian style wasn't super common in the areas I researched. Let me know if I missed anything major! I'll probably cry myself to sleep if so.

[dr-gaytorius]

also he sent out an email at 4pm yesterday (shortly before the course closed, but 24 hrs before we were all told it was expected to) telling people that they had incomplete or missing work. He told me I had 4 missing submissions that I KNOW are not missing because I "scrubbed" my gradebook and the assignments page repeatedly the entire last two weeks… lol. They are in my computer files completed exactly as they should be and, well, that's not even the half of it.

He wanted one thing submitted under an assignment page which it is not indicated to be submitted under. Another assignment he claimed to be missing I know is not because and I recently uploaded it - I got jumpscared two weeks ago by an assignment alert from midterms I had never seen, which my classmate I work with actually came to me unprompted just a few days ago to say that the same exact thing happened to her. I really think he forgot to upload the paperwork to be filled out for it and only realized when the due date reminder was sent out - nonetheless I completed it as soon as I got this notification, during which I had to go to a page I'd been on multiple times and never seen the paperwork download link, which is what my co-classmate said as well. I distinctly remember uploading it because it caused me such a panic. The only thing he pointed out that I know is not total bullshit is an excel sheet logging our total hours and cases - because it had its own submission page, and there was another separate page for the month-to-month time sheets (logging specific hours and days per month but without cases, essentially a zoomed-in look at the excel log sheet), and I did not include it in the "master file" for the time sheets because it was not indicated or even mentioned in the assignment instructions - only the month-to-month time sheets. If it had either not had it's own assignment page or been mentioned in these instructions, I would have included it.

Everything about this course has been completely different than any class I've ever been in since I began college in 2021, it's organized horribly and chaotically, it's literally just a bunch of massive walls of text with important things sandwiched in between snide and passive aggressive remarks. Things that are important are not visually distinct from things that don't matter whatsoever and are insulting to read. It is actively unpleasant, discouraging, and grinding to read any and all instructions, because most if not all are passive aggressive. Not all assignments were posted in the beginning, and even then, not all of them were posted to the calendar, where many students (including myself and my co-classmate) go to record due dates in planners etc - which is how I've always done things and has always worked perfectly well for me. He even opened the course an entire week late, and we all had to do roughly 20 pages of paperwork (all of which required extra activities like video tours and scanning other documents and getting signatures from other people, things that take time due to OTHER peoples' schedules) in FOUR DAYS. He has consistently completely fumbled the fuck out of so many aspects of this course (and frankly, it's kind of understandable) and pointedly blamed all of it on us with no grace at any point.

During midterms when I told him the visual structure of the course was chaotic and difficult to parse and filter through due to being entirely just walls of text with paperwork links and instructions practically hidden like diamonds in the rough throughout, he told me I needed to contact the ADA for accommodations for the course (meaning he was saying I had a learning disability instead of this simply being a result of poor course design - at which I LAUGHED because what are they going to do? redesigned the absolute shit course he alone is responsible for - something which has NEVER before been an issue for me, which he should know, because he's been my instructor for pathology and microbiology which I fucking aced like they were nothing, despite being infamously difficult classes that my other co-classmates have actually failed before). The funniest part of this comment is that I DO have ADHD, but this has NEVER been an issue whatsoever. I have NEVER struggled in a course like this before. Not even close - this is all entirely unprecedented. In fact I've never struggled in my courses before! I may turn things in a couple hours late sometimes because yeah I could have better time management, but all things considered I think that's not a particularly meaningful issue - the quality of my work is superb, and I have records and remarks throughout the last 4 years to prove it.

I honestly and DIRELY wish someone could have warned me about this school and that I had just gone literally ANYWHERE else.

my instructor just sent out an email saying that he was wrong about the day and time the course was closing and that literally 50% of the class got a grade of "incomplete" because he didn't get to finish grading. and that it's all our faults. lmfao

[blookmallow]

today's walten files theorizing: on showbear and pete the hippo

i was close-watching through bunnyfarm again and i have A Theory forming

i think pete the hippo represents felix, and showbear may also be connected to felix somehow

- firstly, I was trying to work out who is speaking in "lucky you"

the voice encourages Sophie to take her pills, and calls this all “a story of broken people, beautiful people” - so my first thought was that it's felix speaking, but then it says, “he is so sorry about what he did to them, but there’s nothing he can do”

(the “I MADE THEM BEAUTIFUL” text appears over the image of Bon’s broken body, so i think the text is bon but the voiceover is not)

so it seems to be someone speaking about felix, possibly on his behalf, justifying his actions or at least attempting to make him seem sympathetic in some way

showbear is seen in this video too

so it appears to be showbear speaking (the voice also sounds pretty close, i think its just more distorted in bunnyfarm?) - but then, if showbear is on felix's side (justifying what he's done, encouraging sophie to take the pills, etc), or maybe even IS felix... why does he later help sophie to regain her memories (specifically her memories of the accident, which would be probably the LAST thing felix would want her to remember?)

there's also some visual similarities in showbear's bunnyfarm appearance with that one fucked up felix figure

i cant tell if this is significant enough to Mean Something, but the posing is almost the same, they both have three buttons, the colors are almost inverted, there's the same long arms and same torso/head shape. if you really look at it, it looks like showbear could have been drawn from a distortion of that image of felix (or that they were both drawn from the same base image?)

then pete the hippo appears in bunnyfarm as the nice, friendly, helpful guy who has just what you need to save the party out in his barn

who else do we know of who has a storage building full of something bon's burgers needs, and has the giant heart and giant brain to come up with a plan to save the day?

then i was analyzing the banny level, which ill get into a little more in another post later, but basically, if we think of banny as representing susan (since susan was shoved into the banny animatronic)

- banny lets the pigs out, and they get into the hippo house // susan unwittingly exposed felix's crime, and forced him to confront his actions

- when the player enters the hippo house, there are two children: a boy and a girl. pete is asleep on the couch. // felix went to the drinking area during the school party and left the walten children alone.

- to get the key, you need to distract pete what looks like a bucket of chicken i think? // felix became distracted with alcohol

when you return to the room, pete is gone and the children are no longer moving, and have no eyes. // felix abandoned the dead children.

and the most telling piece of evidence?

the portrait of pete on the wall turned into a picture of felix.

this also leaves the pretty horse girl as the Only character who doesn't seem to be associated with anyone else, and I'd assume she's just an npc for the in-game story, but if she's the ONLY character with no connection to anyone else, that stands out, so I don't know what to do with that, either. her hair does look like jenny's, but i dont know what that would mean

i dont think felix is dead or speaking through pete exactly, it's possible maybe pete is his own character design (since pete was never mentioned any time jack walten was working with felix) or just narratively represents him

[notguiltynovel]

Ok, so let's talk about making people appear and talk. Ren'Py is build precisely for that, so getting that much done is pretty easy.

First, one needs to get the images to be used into the images folder in the game folder. I normally trim my captures, but today I have a slow render cooking in PS that doesn't allow me to use it, so accept my apologies for the unwanted view of my messy tabs.

Here you can see that I added the two characters speaking and the background. In this case is an animated background so you see the carpark movie in a .webm format. Ren@Py accepts a couple other formats, buy my free Movavi converter does this one ok, so I'm used to it. The normal formats like mp4 or mov are not happening so you'll probably need to get a converter too. Not ideal, but one doesn't need so many movies anyway.

Next step, in my Demo script file I'll declare the charters and the movie. Look at the first three line in the script:

First, you declare the variable which is like a shorthand for the name of the characters. Since one is going to be typing those names a million times, one tends you use just one letter, but you can also use the full name if that seems easier for you. Then you add some parameters, first one refers to how the person will be called in the name box (I use full capitals for all our names) and in the second parameter you state the tag which Ren'Py will use to find the images in the folder, That's why my guys are called "adrian neutral" and marjorie angry".

In a visual novel you'll be using lots of portraits of each character to depict their moods and reactions, they all start with that name you used for the tag and then whatever descriptive word makes some sense at the moment to use it. For example "marjorie angry".

Then you define the background, in this case a movie and at this point I'm using only two parameters, size which I don't really need if it's same as the movie I'm showing. The next parameter tells the video player to play which file and where to find it. Sometimes I need masks, for example if the borders of the movies are irregulars, but that happens seldom, so I apply it as needed.

And that's that!

Then you put start label, so Ren@Py knows where the game begins.

show is a command you will be using all the time, then you tell what is to be shown and where. By default the sprite will be center vertically and horizontally, but because I wanted to place them both on screen for a conversation I specified where the guys had to be shown.

Next thing to do is even more compact. You write the variable that represents the character and then the string which contains whatever he wants to say. Notice the quotation marks, you need to wrap the lines of your dialogues in quotation marks and you'll forget it (of course) and Ren'Py will not move a finger until you fix it. Eventually it becomes mechanical.

a "Hello"

If you created a project, this is the time to fill the image folder and get your script working. Mine works and it's not too elegant in execution, but to make it more interesting is not as bad as you could imagine at this point.

If you compare the video which I showed above, with whatever you get, you'll notice that things are a lot more abrupt in the demo version. I normally slide the characters in and have a typewriter effect for the text, I feel it helps with that horrible feeling of getting a wall of text every time you click.

You'll also notice that my characters get lit when they are speaking and a bit darker when they are quiet, that's to help with the legibility.

Next post will deal with positioning and transitions and if I have the energy with the highlight effect, which in my opinion is helpful and pretty easy to do,

Now time for some online cards.

[hislittleraincloud]

Jesus Christ, where to start with this mess.

@hislittleraincloud there is a LOT wrong with shipping platonic friends.

Newsflash: In the cases of Potter and Wednesday, we're all "shipping platonic friends", even after they've paired up in canon (Harry/Cho, Ron/Lavender, Romione, Hinny; Weyler, Enjax, and presumably Bianca/Lucas). The same could be said of any fandom on Earth that does not necessarily take place in wizarding/outcast schools. That's what fandom is about. We explore all ships, big, small, fluffy, and degenerate...because it's fiction. Fiction offering escapism, and offering deeper perspectives than the cursory character images we're gifted onscreen.

But go on.

I can make a long post about it later. But for the time being: don't forget that children at the ages of 6 to 10 are watching Wednesday.

I haven't forgotten, but I can tell you that 6 to 10 year olds aren't participating in this chronicaly online fandom bullshit (and if some of them are, they need to GTFO fr, because fandom is not for children). I know most of the young fandom here are being fed adolescents are children, but they're not. Adolescents are going through a rough hormonal change that will affect the entire rest of their lives; some do it early, some are late bloomers like Enid. They are very much different from kindergarten and elementary school children, brain-wise.

But lemme tell you what the average child sees when they watch Wednesday: They see two friends/best friends. Kids at that age are still adjusting to our colorful world, and socially (in America at least) are still clueless about things like The Cramps' version of "The Goo Goo Muck" being about oral sex and the whole visual 'joke' of a blowjob regarding Enid and Lucas; they just hear a funny, creepy-ish song with a danceable beat and see a girl who accidentally spilled something on her date. (Adults have been putting Adult Jokes in children's fare since the dawn of animation. See: OG Warner Brothers cartoons, Animaniacs, the Muppets, etc.) They're hardly thinking in subtexts or double entendres because their brains are still grappling with reality, they're still trying to learn how to read and comprehend what they're reading. Subtext is usually taught when children start maturing into young adults when they can start to question and understand the complexities of language and communication, and for me it was in 9th and 10th grade.

Is Wednesday then inappropriate for kids that young? I wouldn't say so, since they're ignorant of the subtext that the older adolescents are taking from it. Kids are resilient, more resilient than we give them credit for, and some kids adore dark n' creepy (because they ARE dark n' creepy 🫠). But it is rated TV-14, and it's always up to the parents to parent their kids as they deem appropriate. If they think that their kid can handle the gore and the teen love stuff, then that's on them.

But no parent should ever let their elementary-aged child participate in online fandom. Even if it's just uploading stories to AO3 under supervision. There's a good reason why a lot of sites say you must be at least 13 to join. And I'm talking this kind of fandom shit right here *gestures all around me*, not like...an official Star Wars website for young fans. I've seen so many cute little kids at cons with their parents who are all involved with fandom in one way or another, but this here is a cesspool of twisted ideas that they can't fully understand and aren't meant to fully understand.

These kids are exposed to daily se*ualizition of two girls( all over social media), who are portrayed as an embodiment of a sibling-like friendship.

Once again, kids aren't supposed to be here in fandom. "All over social media" is part of fandom. The kids you're worried about aren't here, and if they are, they're not supposed to be.

(ETA: Now realize that was a huge wall of text and added the cut.)

You may be queer, but you grew up in an era where platonic friendships were celebrated in TV and films, and everyone respected them. Children were allowed to be just kids and just friends for long years before they started thinking about romantic and sexual relationships.

Don't tell me what I am or what I grew up in. I've got 20 years on your ass, and the reason I can tell YOU what era you, your peers, and your generational subordinates (Z) are living in is because I'm living it too, and am capable of the comparison.

I grew up in an era where social media didn't exist, and none of us had a camera/video camera with us wherever we went. You know what we did as kids, though? We played doctor with each other (a lot like how it was depicted in Afterburn between young Wednesday and young Xavier). With each other and our plushies and other dolls. (And in my case, it was also playing gynecologist with the life-sized blonde doll my grandma sent me one year. I was the same damn age that you saw in the previous Face Reveal post.) Our parents didn't freak out over it, either, because none of it was sexual; going to the doctor was never sexual or sexualized for us kids. It was common and healthy curiosity. That was our "kids being kids" in terms of transactional discovery, but today someone somewhere would scream about how their children were sexually assaulting each other when the worst thing that even happened most of the time was a pants drop.

We had more freedom to act like little assholes, we got punished for it when we were way out of line/someone got hurt or traumatized, but I can't even pretend that we were completely shielded from 🏳️‍🌈 in the media. I was 6½ years old when I watched the first gay character on primetime TV (Steven Carrington of Dynasty; my mother liked Dynasty, Dallas, and Falcon Crest, so that's what we watched). I thought both actors who portrayed him were cute but then was educated on what gay men were by my mother. But instead of immediately feeling disgust, I was a kid who just understood that men can be with other men the way they were with women. It was no big deal to me, even as young and lacking in social connectivity as I was.

The internet, social media, and irresponsible parenting are making people so fucked in the head. Sometimes people are too suggestible, and when one person says something that is patently false, it will just be accepted regardless because they fear losing that shred of connectivity.

And then under that huge hive mind they're unable to recognize what the rest of the world outside of that mind sees. Millar & Gough and their writing crew set out to tell Wednesday's story of how she went from hating people and having no friends to tolerating people and having friends.

But lemme address this "you grew up in an era where platonic friendships were celebrated in TV and films, and everyone respected them" assertion of yours directly:

Like I just said, we didn't have social media. But we had print, and the first Captain James T. Kirk/Spock slash fan fiction was published fifty years ago this month. It was called "A Fragment Out of Time" by Diane Marchant. So for at least as long as I've been alive, NOT "everyone" has respected the celebrated platonic friendships in TV and films. "Fans" have always been freaky like that, and that's fine (I mean, I've mentioned it before, but I wrote my own fucking Purple Rain fan fic sequel 40 years ago, but it's lost to time/my parents probably tossing it...imagine how many others like me wrote fan fic that was just never published or shared anywhere). The only difference is now, we can communicate with others in ways that we only dreamed of before, and we can go out and find our peoples to commiserate, create, and share.

You are my peoples when it comes to a het ship like Wavier, but you are certainly not my fucking peoples when you keep doing things like saying "there is a LOT wrong with shipping platonic friends" while using ONLY slash/LGBT ships as your examples.

That's homophobic behavior.

I don't necessarily ship Wenclair, but I can appreciate the less obnoxious people who do, i.e. the reasonable people who know when they've got their ship goggles on. I support peoples' right to ship who/what they want, but shipping does not come without criticism. I get the criticism all the time, I'm an easy target because Wenovan is That Ship that only few will publicly sail. You get the crit because Wavier/Wenvier involves White. It's time that the Wenclairs also faced some crit, but you're fucking doing it wrong and it is heavily laced with homophobic intimation, so I'mma tell you one last goddamn time: KNOCK IT OFF.

This generation, however, doesn't have that option 🫤. Since every friendship in every show and film gets se*ualized. How is this OK?

This generation that's as strong on shipping as the Wenclairs also had their schooling and social development absolutely fucked by COVID, as well as being influenced by so. Much. Confusing. Shit. Online (which is also fucking with their social development).

None of y'all understand the separation of actors and characters because identity politics is suddenly taking a front seat in everything we do. And a lot of it revolves around gender and sexuality. People/humans have had their hangups about sexuality, but right now it's worse since the kids are objectifying the actors by meddling in their personal lives and aggressively dictating who they're permitted by fandom to be friends with (that much we can agree upon). It's a Mean Girl mentality to get cliquey and tell someone, "We don't like him, you need to stop hanging out with him!" As a former girl, I've seen girls do this to people for little to no reason at all. Anyway.

You feel like you're being inundated with gay ships and disrespect for 'platonic' friendships, but it's nothing new and has always been present in modern fandom. Don't use "because of the kids!" as an excuse to call a ship disgusting or wrong. That's not and has never been how it works in fandom. I was most active in Potter when Ortega was born (💀), and when you were in grade school. I think I can recognize when someone is couching (though not very well) their own homophobia behind the veil of concern, and if you can't see that you're being homophobic, then cycle back up to the beginning where it's about Ron and Harry.

You don't know the consequences of this phenomenon on young minds who unfortunately, never understood the value of building human friendships before they move on to more intimate relationships.

I do know because we're seeing it right now, however: I will agree that it's a massive, massive leap for someone like [Millar & Gough's and Ortega's canon] Wednesday to go from having zero friends to having a girlfriend. THAT'S not how THAT works, either. But at the same time, that would mean that we can't ship Wavier or Wyler either. If you want to respect real Wednesday canon, then by the end of Season 1, Wednesday still isn't looking like she will be partnered with anyone, let alone the werewolf who left her to deal with Xavier while she went to go make out with her boyfriend (canon Wednesday can't even bring herself to apologize to Xavier for fucking up his life because she doesn't ever apologize like a socially adjusted human would).

But fandom's fan works aren't absolutely required to respect canon (unless it's something like an official screen-to-page novelization of a show with a robustly nihilistic narcissist as its main character), you know that. Everybody should know that. We make shit up all the time about the characters, properly objectifying them as the fictional objects that they are. Sometimes studios can be irresponsible and try to play into fandom like they have with the queerbaiting in Wednesday promos/merch like Mejia's book, forgetting that online fandom is fractured and separate from the more casual (and youngest) public, non-chronically online fans.

Stop worrying about the kids who aren't a part of our fandom and start worrying about how the fuck you're coming across in your arguments. Sincerely ask yourself whether you hate the ship because of a fat chunk of its fandom fans and their delusional behavior around it, or if you just hate the ship because you find LGBT shipping distasteful.

Because from where my fat ass is sitting with your additional Harry/Ron comments, you're sounding increasingly like the same moralists* we've been fighting for decades, and I don't wanna fucking fight you. But I will.

@hislittleraincloud there is a LOT wrong with shipping platonic friends. I can make a long post about it later. But for the time being: don't forget that children at the ages of 6 to 10 are watching Wednesday. These kids are exposed to daily se*ualizition of two girls( all over social media), who are portrayed as an embodiment of a sibling-like friendship.

You may be queer, but you grew up in an era where platonic friendships were celebrated in TV and films, and everyone respected them. Children were allowed to be just kids and just friends for long years before they started thinking about romantic and sexual relationships.

This generation, however, doesn't have that option 🫤. Since every friendship in every show and film gets se*ualized. How is this OK?

You don't know the consequences of this phenomenon on young minds who unfortunately, never understood the value of building human friendships before they move on to more intimate relationships.

[casually-inlove]

Hello. In one of your responses, you wrote: "I also have things that I don't necessarily agree with." Can you tell us about it? I am very interested in your representation of this manhua. What do you think is written well in the story, and what is not? What would you add or remove? What is missing and what is too much in history? I would very much like to know your TianShan headcanon. I have too many "wants". I'm sorry if I was rude.

Dear anon, this was not rude at all. Indeed, you have many questions, so much as I try to be concise in my posts, this one is going to be very lengthy. Let me start with a little disclaimer. Everything below is entirely subjective. It is in no way meant to undermine anyone's enjoyment of the series, nor is it supposed to be an attack against the author. I value the comic's episodic nature and light-heartedness myself, otherwise, I would not have stuck around. It is also true that for the past half a year my interest in it waxes and wanes. Besides, I am well aware that certain groups of fans grow dissatisfied with the manhua direction. That said, I must state once again, OX has every right to write the story as they please, while the fans, no matter how displeased they may be, do not have the room to make demands of the author. So then, without further ado, some of my quibblings follow below. Beware of the wall-of-text.

1) The plot and characters get stagnant at times — these two go hand in hand. I suppose it is a prevalent gripe with 19 Days, and I am sure everyone has experienced it at least once. Some of it stems from the very way the story is told: the manhua timeline moves slowly in comparison with the readers' timeline. It works for depicting slow-burn relationships and subtle changes in the characters' outlooks. The problem is, more often than not, the latest chapters are inconsequential to either plot or character growth. They do not have the substance or the conflict to them. When OX had introduced the characters, while undoubtedly charming and loveable, they were practically walking tropes. Jian Yi, the bubbly airhead. ZZX, the stoic childhood friend. HT, Mr Popular. As time passed, OX did the clever (and the right) thing — they have subverted these stereotypes, by showing us that the characters are not who they appear to be. Thus, we learned that Jian Yi is a lonesome, affection deprived kid who on occasion dreads going back home because it's empty; his bright grin is there to hide his sadness.  We also learned that HT had a dysfunctional family and had been exposed to violence since a tender age; we also learned that he used to lead an empty life devoid of close interpersonal connections and passions, etc. I am not going to write about Mo because it is obvious and self-explanatory.

That sudden change in the perspective is what made those characters fascinating. A few of these developments co-occur with the addition of the “darker” mafia/gangster subplot. Indeed, the introduction of the criminal legacy theme (which is true for Jian Yi, He Tian, and Mo to an extent) allowed to show the wounds and troubles these characters had to face. It also dangled the prospect of an intriguing plot direction — a mafia-related story that is disguised as a school-themed slice-of-life. It was the underlying gangster plot-line that hooked me up; I kept asking myself: Are they connected (the Jian family, the He family)? Were they responsible for what happened with the Mo family restaurant? Will their backgrounds converge at some point? How does Jia Yi's kidnapping fit into all this? That sort of stuff. Alas, right now that subplot seems to be put on a backburner, which is a shame because this is the plot-line that leads to future events, such as Jian Yi's disappearance. The kidnapping is still going to happen and the threat looming over Jian Yi is still real, yet OX does very little to explain anything about it. Naturally, revealing everything at once is out of the question, but if it were me, I would have opted for unveiling bits and pieces now and then. To start with, it would have propelled the plot forward. Apart from that, it would have given the readers some food for thought and kept the intrigue fresh — they would have been cracking their heads to piece the puzzle. Finally, the characters' darker backgrounds provide the opportunity to give them development. For instance, how would Mo's view of He Tian change, if he learned that the latter had to face his warped father to save Mo (ch. 245 and further on)? Or how would Mo react, if he learned that He Tian lost his mother (presumably) due to his family shady dealings? Would it make him understand the other boy, relate to him on some level? Etc. 

The comedy and fun, light moments are precious, but I miss those moments when the manhua challenged my impression of the characters. Right now, the plot stagnates in the sense that we know that someone is threatening Jian Yi, but we aren't being given any clues or updates on the matter, as if the whole thing wasn't important. So, in response to your question “what would I have removed”, I would say that I would probably drop quite a few school-centric chapters in favour of “criminal” subplot. Just a bit: maybe show Mr Jian's messages, or Jian Yi's mother discussing the situation with him, or He Cheng receiving some reports on the situation.  

The character recent portrayal also disappoints me on occasion. They started as stereotypical manga characters, then they were given some depth, and now they are close to becoming yet another set of stereotypes. Yeah, I get that Mo is a tsundere and enamoured He Tian is an idiot in love — OX has been depicting them as such for the past year. It would be cool to take a look at other facets of their personalities now and then too. While it’s understandable that only a few weeks have passed since the beginning of the story, OX should remember that years have passed for the readers; keeping the audience engaged should be among their priorities.

I suppose I do have a bias here because as an adult I have little interest in all things school-related, and in general, I am not too fond of slice-of-life (I typically avoid reading it).19 Days attracted me because it had some universal themes, like dealing with past and legacy, finding your path, healing from the old scars, learning to handle difficult relationships within a family, and of course its low-key “mafia” subplot. It could be that OX truly doesn't have a meticulously chapter-to-chapter thought-out plot, hence why the manhua meanders at times, or it could have something to do with Mosspaca's internal agenda. Perhaps, it is the latter and the company somehow insists its artists stick with simplistic plots for the sake of keeping their target audience. Even so, there's a catch here, which was brought to the attention by @agapaic: the original reader audience has aged up already so to keep them hooked it would be wise of OX to “mature up” the comic as well. Not in the sense of 18+ content, but in the sense of introducing more mature subjects alongside the comedy and slice of life. Perhaps, they are not looking to keep the fans but to attract the new, younger ones. Who knows.

2) Drama and comedy imbalance. It is a pet peeve of mine which I consider to be one of the prominent manhua flaws: there is lots of slapstick comedy which ends up being out of place on occasion. I do realize the comic is humorous, however, there is no denying that OX introduced themes and topics that are no laughing matters. Jian Yi's and He Tian's loneliness, bullying and ostracizing, extortion racket, absentee parents, youth gangs and violence — just to name a few. There is a lot more, but you get the picture.

It is also obvious that three out of four main characters carry the remnants of childhood trauma with them, which directly affects their present selves. All the same, these topics practically fizzle out as soon as they get introduced, or get swept under the rug with comedy. Considering the humorous nature of the comic, it is given that dispersing some grimmer topics with playfulness will be used now and then. To my mind, however, OX relies on that abrupt drama-to-comedy switch too heavily, which makes the transition steep and often out of place. At times, it creates an impression that the author does not take these issues seriously. There have been numerous episodes when emotional moments were subverted and then dropped, without gaining climax and closure. For instance, the moment that sticks out to me the most is when He Tian attempted to tell Mo why he liked him. The visuals made it clear that it wasn't easy for He Tian to say out loud, yet OX never gave the intense moment the needed closure.

Mo brushed He Tian off and the latter just rolled with it, as if it never took him any courage to say those words, and then everything was swiftly engulfed by slapstick humour (the ball-slapping scene). A panel showing a glimpse of He Tian's face sinking to indicate he was somewhat let down by Mo's nonchalant response would have been appropriate — in fact, it would be natural for someone to get hurt when their confession is taken lightly. Likewise, I half-expected OX to show a bit more of He Tian's reaction towards Mo's story about his meeting with She Li. We got to see his expression darkening when he learned that She Li gave Mo the ear piercings, yet this time — mind you, when Mo suggested that She Li might have murdered someone — we never see He Tian react much. For the record, it was He Tian who asked She Li a rhetorical question about being able to take responsibility for taking a life.

Furthermore, I believe that someone romantically invested in another human being would have naturally shown more inquisitiveness upon hearing a story like that. Sure enough, some would say that Mo would not have liked talking about a traumatizing event, and that is fine as well — just show it. A single panel of He Tian being concerned and trying to inquire further and Mo refusing to talk would have been a very neat detail that could have potentially smoothed the transition into humour, while keeping our heroes in character.

3) Sometimes there is too much focus on the couples. The manhua has introduced several reoccurring supporting characters which are directly linked to our main quartet. For example, Mo had bonds before meeting our boys: his henchmen, the Buzzcut. Likewise, He Cheng was the one to raise He Tian; he shaped the boy's outlook on life.  These characters all played important roles in making our boys the people they are today, and yet we know so little of their bonds. Maybe the Buzzcut is unimportant in the larger scheme of things, He Cheng, however, is not only linked to He Tian, but he also plays a part in the underlying mafia/gangster subplot. It would have made sense if he was the one to shed some light on the situation with Jian Yi and He Tian's traumatic past. I would have loved to see our boys interact with other people as well — it would have served to show the variety of relationships out there: friendships, familial bonds, mutual respect between the leader and underlings, etc.

Anyway, I am going to stop now. I could name a few more, but this text is already more than 2000 words long. I have made some posts with my nitpicking before, so if you wish you can read them here.  

link & link 

Once again, this is all entirely subjective and it is not meant to be perceived as me saying that the manhua is poorly written and no one should enjoy it. Writing and creating compelling plots is a tough job, especially when it comes to long pieces. It also goes without saying that the author should keep their target audience and marketing goals in mind. 19 Days appeals to a great number of people of all ages and that means that OX succeeded in creating something compelling. Their writing is indeed flawed at times, but there is no way around it. It is impossible to excel both at being a great artist and a good writer. While there may be things that each of us would want to change (when comes to characters or the plot), it is still important to remember that it is not our creation. We can only decide whether to keep reading and enjoy what we get or move along. There is no point in attacking the author or generating constant pessimism.

[marisakage]

Hi there, Abby! @yunsoh I think this is my first time ever talking to you. Technically, this is a recommendation-turned-into-an-analysis post (I hope you don't mind).

So the other day, I came across a vocaloid music video called Bitter Chocolate Decoration.

Now that came outta nowhere, right? It has been ages since I've last listened to a vocaloid song but surprisingly enough this one resonated with me to a big extent.

You'd wonder why would this particular video hits real close to home. Well, that's simply because I regard this as Yuki's perspective towards society and his toxic relationship with his mother/Akito.

When you look into the lyrics, it clearly visualizes impossible-to-express emotions and emphasizes the arduousness of fitting into the world.

The kid in the MV was basically taught by his mother/caretaker to be a flawless person despite him not being comfortable with it.

He tried so hard to be what society always expects us to be, humble, altruistic, social, and selfless.

But being perfect made him unable to express himself which pushed him into shutting down his emotions, bottling up his feelings and suppressing his own thoughts. He ended up imprisoning himself and as time passed by he grew to accept the collar that has been choking him as a reality of his life resulting in him losing his identity.

There are instances in the MV where you can spot the kid wearing a VR headset and wires basically scattered everywhere. It's my own interpretation but I think they might signify the fact he has always borne the thought his whole life seemed real but in fact it was fake all along. The wires are what keeps the VR functioning and metaphorically speaking that might represent our society.

The visuals reminded me of how abusive Akito was towards Yuki. This might be not subtle at all but it's almost as if the caretaker in the MV is stuffing food into his mouth against his own will. Food represents what society expects us to be, in other words idealism. The kid was reluctant at first but later he felt so hopeless and gave up.

He followed everything meticulously in order to become an 'adult' while trying to the best of his abilities to maintain his sanity. Because being an impostor drives one insane and being someone else other than yourself is suffocating. This has turned him into a controlled puppet, a marionette or for a better choice of words a slave.

I'm not trying to imply that Yuki is like the kid from the MV but rather the noxious relationship both parties share.

Yuki has been abused by Akito all his childhood. The stuffed food you see in the MV represents that kind of sick and ill treatment Akito has been displaying.

Being ostracized, having to endure harsh and discouraging words on a daily basis, getting rejected by your mother and your brother when you especially seeked help from them. All of this has caused Yuki to have a very low self-esteem. No matter what he does, he remains convinced that he's a good-for-nothing person.

So faking his own personality while suppressing his needs and keeping a distance from others is what he resolved to do.

The only authentic and real feeling he's been expressing so far is his jealousy towards Kyo. He probably didn't want to end up being a shell devoid of emotions so the only thing he wanted to hold onto is what he feels towards Kyo. Kyo has always been a scapegoat after all (I feel so bad for him). But besides the point, Yuki's been trying so hard to please everyone in fear of getting rejected the way he did by his mother and his brother. Just the thought makes him feel nauseated. He's been not only bound by the curse but also by society and how it regards him.

The scars and the wounds made by Akito and his actual mother prohibited him from moving on. Almost getting an anxiety attack in a closed space is proof that he's always been haunted by them which shows how nasty and agonizing their kinship is.

It's been obvious how he tries to escape from the shackles; Akito; by picking his highschool and later deciding his future career. Normally, everyone would want to fit in but in his case it drastically went for the worst aggravating his self-deprecating. That's why being a perfect version of yourself can drive you insane and having to shoulder expectations coming from every corner is torture to say the least.

He didn't snap or anything because he thinks he has no rights to express himself, after all he's a pathetic and a worthless person who doesn't deserve people's attention and empathy let alone the affection everyone craves for.

Yet witnessing before his eyes the way Kyo and Tohru interact with each others made him realize how superficial and fake his life is (throwback to VR and the wires) and how his efforts will never bear fruit.

He struggles to please everyone but at the same time he thinks he's undeserving of feeling loved. It really is lonely but what makes things worse for him is that he; a despicable being; strives to have that kind of connection. That goes to show the depth of his wounds and how emotionally scarred he is. To belittle himself to that extent really proves how traumatizing his experience with Akito is.

And frankly speaking if it wasn't for Tohru, he would have ended up like the kid from the MV a lifeless "puppet" dominated by both society and Akito. He attempted everything in order to break free from their grasping fangs but his efforts were futile leaving him in a rather exasperated state.

But you know what, that's one of the many things that I appreciate about Yuki's character and that's because he didn't want to lose hope. He struggled in his own way to find meaning in his existence even when he knows that he's not worth it, he's human and having such a humane feeling is absolutely normal.

Everyone seeks to find their own purpose and so does he hence he projected a subconscious image that prompts him to do so: "hatred".

He doesn't care so long it serves him as a purpose because he's scared of living meaninglessly but it turned out that what he's been missing out all this time was "love"

Love as in supporting someone else who's as flawed as you. He's been the only one receiving love and he's thankful for it but now that he grew accustomed to this foreign feeling, he started to strive to be the kind of person Tohru is. A person who gives meaning to someone else's life cuz definitely that act in itself will give a meaning to yours.

The act of repairing the other's broken pieces will definitely repair yours in return. That's what love is, it's staying by your most important person's side and helping them chin up regardless of how low they think of themselves while at the same time coming to terms with your tragic past and healing your scars. Loving someone else equals loving your own self, it's an indirect way of pampering your injured soul. An endless cycle.

Sharing that sacred feeling is what gives people a purpose in life and this is what Yuki has realized after receiving it from Tohru. He wants to become that person even if he's scarred and flawed. He wants to support whoever's in dire need and prevent them from falling in the depths of darkness so they don't end up like him, and that person happened to be Machi. Both of them saved one another, Machi gave purpose to Yuki's life and Yuki helped Machi open up and accept the fact that nobody is perfect and that having flaws is what makes us humans.

I don't even know how I ended up deviating so much from the main point but simply put that MV reminds me a lot of Yuki from when he was a child and how sickening and revolting his bond is with Akito and society in general. I apologize for this wall of text but I really couldn't help sharing my thoughts with you especially when you're one of my favorite bloggers.

[sol1056]

This is a writing question, and you always have good insight. I struggle with writing fight scenes and have read through some of the posts you have reblogged on the subject. As an exercise I'm curious, how would you write the VLD S6/E5 Black Paladins/Winter Soldier fight sequence as a narrative? There's so much action and movement, and the setting is so complicated. Or maybe the answer is you don't? There's a limit to transforming visual media into prose? But probably I'm just unskilled. : /

There are certainly things that are easier to do with visual, but it’s also a rather stifling medium, too. In visual media, you’re controlling everything. If you try to do that on the page, you’re going to fail, especially if you have this idea you should be able to quiz readers after, and know they all agree immediately on the setting, the events, the characters. And truth is… they won’t. They never will. 

So, throw those details over your shoulder, let the reader’s own imagination fill in a lot of the blanks, and carry on into the fight. 

Because here’s the other thing: in visual media, viewer is observer, separated by that fourth wall. In textual media, the reader is the character. In the character’s head, with the immediacy of emotions and physical sensation. That’s where the powerful stuff happens – in the five senses + the heart – not in the technical details of who parried and punched. 

In this post, I’ll break the entire fight scene into its parts, using this edit as a guide for an unbroken version. This is even longer than usual since I did go ahead and write a few segments examples of how I might tackle some parts. 

In the next post I’ll talk about how the internal decision points built on each other, each one leading to Keith’s final decision, at the end of the scene. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a fight, but even when you’re strong enough to hold your own… there’s something just overwhelming about emotion. If the average fight scene means the character’s dealing with someone who wants to hurt them, maybe even wants them dead, that’s one thing. Fights like VLD:BP or CA:WS are on another level: your opponent wants to kill you. Erase you, destroy you. Personal is one thing. Personal from someone you once thought close? There is little more brutally devastating than that. 

If you have to cut back on a fight’s length, cut down on the technical particulars. But do not skimp on the emotional, because without that, the fight won’t hurt. In any other fight, the character’s pain is the cost of victory. In a personal fight, the character’s victory is the source of emotional pain. No one’s gonna truly win this one.  

The other thing to remember about a fight is that it’s a scene like any other.

goal

conflict

disaster

reaction

dilemma

decision (new goal)

Same structure, with a twist. For truly intense scenes, cycle through spiraling inward until you get to the innermost heart of the conflict. You want a progression towards the final decision: goal, conflict, reaction, decision, next stage of conflict. It’s the emotional counterpoint of “I punched, you blocked, you knocked me down, I swept your legs out from under you.” Over and over, action and reaction. 

Alright, let’s break down the VLD fight. I’ve included the onscreen length for each section, to give you a concrete sense of the pacing. 

intro: 44 seconds

First, we get a long intro as Keith follows Shiro’s tracks. This gives us a rough idea of his environment, and like the visuals, the text should stay pretty tight on what’s immediately around Keith. It’s also working up to the first emotional punch of the scene: realizing where he is (all the clones in their little purple cylinders). That emotional reaction sets the tone, putting Keith on his back foot before Shiro’s even appeared. 

first cycle: 42 seconds

Keith states his goal right up front: that he wants it to be okay, and they’ll leave together. Shiro refuses, ergo conflict. Keith’s half of this stage is pure defense, including using his shield. His POV would be trying to dodge Shiro’s blows, get his feet under him, evade. It matches what he’s trying to do emotionally at this point, which is to de-escalate. When Keith is forced backwards, it’s a physical representation of how he’s losing ground in this first iteration of the conflict. 

Keith is forced to draw his sword at this point, but he’s using it only to parry. He’s still on this first conflict of go-vs-not-go. Shiro’s punch becomes the disaster; Shiro’s position has overpowered Keith’s. When Keith is thrown right off the platform, it’s making the metaphor literal of Keith’s reaction – losing his footing, foundation, certainty. 

His reaction is maybe a heartbeat – really short, concrete but simple, sentences here, to relay a lot of information fast. As Shiro follows, we enter the dilemma stage – Shiro’s not giving way. Keith’s now got only a few choices: he can let himself get killed, or he can somehow escape and leave Shiro, but getting them both out is looking less likely by the second. 

second cycle: 36 seconds

When Shiro throws Keith down the stairs and Keith draws his sword again, that’s another decision point, which is simultaneously Keith’s new goal. My guess is that Keith has re-affirmed that third choice (get both out safely) but he’s changing tactics. He’s no longer pure defense; he’s holding his own, but he’s not truly on the offense, either. 

It’s still a losing argument for Keith, illustrated by how Shiro keeps shoving him back. There’s no need for dialogue, at this point. The fight itself is a metaphor for the emotional conflict: it’s no longer only ‘get Shiro out of here’ but ‘keep Shiro from killing me and get him out of here’ – and Keith is losing ground on that, now, too. 

This is where the damage adds to the metaphor. That’s not just a punch, that’s a move that pins Keith for a second, long enough for Shiro to tear away at Keith’s defenses (the helmet). Shiro goes full-body contact at that point, throwing them both off the platform. Again, Shiro’s unmoving as the obstacle, and that fall is the outcome. 

Here’s the point where visual media leaves it to us to fill in the blanks, but text lets you see flickers of Keith’s mental processes. His reaction (to the off-the-platform disaster in the cycle) is to grab the wire, and again, dilemma of whether to keep defending, run, or attack. 

third cycle: 29 seconds

That’s why the camera follows Shiro, to create the surprise of Keith’s decision point. (This kind of rapid but seamless POV shift – and then back again – is one thing that’s much harder to do in text.) This is the first point in the fight where Keith’s not just fighting back, he’s outright attacking. 

Keith’s actions show his emotions (in text version); his goal has gone from ‘de-escalate’ to more like ‘if I have to beat his head in and drag him out of here so help me I will’. Visually, we get flickers of Keith being Galra/animalistic, which in text I’d show by making the narration be Keith’s own internal orders, possibly down to one- or two-word sentences. Keith’s on the verge of achieving this goal when he backs Shiro up, to the point of pinning Shiro down. 

Turning the narration into a telegraphic choppiness conveys Keith’s no longer thinking, only acting/attacking. He’s non-verbal, so Shiro’s counterattack is verbal, instead: “That’s the Keith I remember.” (I’ll come back in a bit to why this line is important.) That breaks the stalemate and now Keith’s on the defensive again. 

fourth cycle: 27 seconds

At this point, Keith’s defended and lost, he’s attacked, and lost. His reaction to having the support beams cut away a split-second after he moves is to recognize that dilemma (he can neither beat Shiro, nor let himself be beaten). When he starts talking, that signals his new goal: talk Shiro down. 

This is the mid-point breather. This is where Keith can see a little more of what’s around him. But his dialogue also follows directly from Shiro’s last line; since Shiro brought up remembering Keith, Keith wants to get Shiro to remember even more (and come ‘back’ that way). Keith states his next objective: he’s not leaving without Shiro. His goal is narrowing down to a finer point each time. 

Shiro’s half of the conflict – “neither of us are leaving” – is followed by this section’s disaster: the station’s power overloading, a signal it’s about to blow. 

interlude/exposition: 16 seconds

It might seem odd to have this pocket in the middle, where the camera pulls away to show the bigger picture of the station. In text, it’d be about a paragraph, maybe two, and it’s a chance for the reader to breathe. This is the last chance for enough description of what’s around. This is where you’d pull back enough for the character to realize they’re hanging out over a steep drop, or the train’s coming down the track, or some other external threat that raises the stakes even higher. 

It’s also where Shiro has some kind of power backlash, and we get Keith’s reaction – that despite everything, he still calls out Shiro’s name. With that, we’re back into this mini-scene in the fight. 

fifth cycle: 88 seconds

This is where the pacing gets really truncated, because the conflict’s at a stalemate. Shiro’s not going along, full stop. Now the only conflict that remains is the dilemma created by Keith’s reaction – that is, that he still sees Shiro as Shiro, yet saving Shiro has become secondary to not getting killed by Shiro. 

This emotional dilemma is represented by the next set of maneuvers. Keith is going through reaction-dilemma-decision at split-second timing, and each one ends in literal disaster. In text, Keith’s internal dialogue would be narrowed down to perhaps a short choice/order, with immediate outcome. Ahhh, something like: 

Keith landed hard on his knees, gasping as he scrambled to his feet. The ramp ended up ahead. Stairs led up. Away. He ran for it.   

The ramp’s supports exploded, sliced apart by the white-purple beam. The ramp tilted, dropping out from under Keith. He slid, grabbing frantically, unable to get purchase. The metal had sheared up at the end, creating a small ledge. Keith landed on it, hard, and the ramp shuddered under him. 

Far above, Shiro took aim and fired again. 

The platform swayed, metal groaning. Canisters tumbled down. 

Keith leapt out into the air, arms flailing. Another platform lay below, at a diagonal. His jetpacks fired, sparked, and went out. He could see the arc of his fall. He wasn’t going to make it. 

Keith lunged, stretching. His fingers caught the platform’s edge, jolting his body violently. Agony lanced through him and Keith screamed, suspended over an endless drop. 

The metal cut into his gloves, scoring his palms. Keith kicked his legs, once, and hauled himself upwards. He squinted, pain blurring his vision. His sword waited about twenty feet away. 

Keith rolled over, pushing himself up onto his elbows.  

(Go easy on me, it was a long day and I can’t do fight scenes impromptu very well.) 

If you look at the duration of each section, the parts were getting shorter and shorter – until this last one. It consists entirely of Keith dodging, fleeing, running. He’s not fighting back anymore, he’s just trying to survive. 

Think about the pacing. If every second visually is about 10 words of text, then the introductory exposition was about a page and a quarter of a paperback book. The first section was roughly the same. The third, a page. The fourth, about three-quarters of a page. That interlude to show the wider destruction was a half-page at most. 

And the readers would need that breather, because it’s followed by two and a half pages of Keith basically at a dead run. By the time Keith collapses onto the platform, this works, because the reader would be just as out of breath.   

sixth cycle: 45 seconds

In this new stage, Shiro absolutely has the upper hand. His goal (as shown by his actions) is on the verge of winning; Keith’s last-minute reaction of self-defense is Keith’s turn to be the obstacle. The energy-sword against the Marmora blade is the physical counterpart to the emotional weight of that exchange: Keith trying to reach Shiro, Shiro telling Keith to let go. 

The key in this part is the tension. The sentences would get slightly longer; keep the focus extremely tight, but incorporate all the senses. Everything is else is stripped away, narrowed down to only the essential – but those extra details prolong the tension. It’s sort of the textual version of that one big punch in visual media getting taken down to slow-motion. It’s not just bringing everything into sharp focus; it also makes the outcome feel like an inevitability.   

Keith’s final decisive act, if you wanted to be extra-dramatic, would get its own line. There’s nothing wrong with letting white space around the words double the strength of the words. (Note also that this is where the overly flashy foreshadowing of Keith’s ambidextrous use of the black bayard back in S3 finally gets a payoff; we don’t need to see anything but the bayard extend into a sword and we can figure out the rest.)

uhhhh maybe something like:

The agony cut into his jaw, skin sizzling as Shiro pushed the edge closer. Keith howled, twisting his head away. Sweat dripped into his eyes, nostrils full with the reek of burning flesh. Shiro’s full weight bore down on him, energy-blade sparking against Keith’s sword. Keith tasted blood, braced himself, and called forth the black bayard. 

It snapped into life and Keith swung. 

One stroke upwards, slicing through Shiro’s upper arm. Enough to throw Shiro off-balance and backwards. Keith climbed to his feet, bayard in one hand, sword in the other.       

Where the previous section was a reaction-decision-reaction cycle, this section gives the conflict, and uses Keith’s actions to demonstrate his reaction, dilemma, and decision, all in one movement. That visual of Keith standing – or, in text, the last line above – implies Keith’s final act, wrapped up in a decision. He will strike back, but it will not be lethal. 

Like the other decision points in this scene, there’s a close-up of Keith’s face, of about 6 seconds (or a paragraph). In a way, this is Keith’s own reaction to the disaster he just delivered. In text, this moment would depend on the characterization. Either they’d acknowledge what they’ve done, or they’d simply observe; in the latter, you’d need to find words whose connotations reflect the character’s state of mind.

seventh cycle: 120+ seconds

The sixth cycle ends the conflict between Keith and Shiro. Now the conflict turns external: human-vs-environment. The big-picture view of the station collapsing is almost thirty seconds (little over three-quarters of a page), and it’s both a breather (Shiro is defeated) and a huge escalation of the stakes (everything is on the verge of coming down). The question is whether Keith can get himself and an unconscious Shiro to safety. The failing station has won the conflict of ‘how to get out of here’, and the outcome is: ‘you aren’t’. 

Here, in text, I would do a kind of blurred jump-cut that echoes what you get in visual media. Short, incomplete sentences – no more than a paragraph’s worth – that don’t resolve into a visual until the white space. 

The central control unit smashed into the suspension wires. The circular platform under Keith’s feet pitched up with a metallic shudder. 

Keith fell, catching Shiro’s wrist. A quick thrust of his blade into the platform, anchoring them. Metal groaned, a guywire snapped. The platform tipped onto its side. Keith clung to the knife’s hilt, grip tight on Shiro’s wrist. 

They hung, suspended over the lower atmosphere. 

The Marmora blade sliced the metal sheeting. They slid another foot and stopped. Above, the station’s collapsing sections crashed together and exploded. Nothing below them except the planet’s waiting surface, too far down.     

Another dilemma; we get a test of each option. They can’t stay there, and Keith’s attempt to pull Shiro upwards only forces them to slide down further. If Keith were alone – if he let go of Shiro – he probably could pull himself up, and somehow maneuver through the falling wreckage to safety. (We’ve seen him do it in S4E1, when the rigged ship exploded.) When his knife starts to give way, it’s escalating the stakes, because holding onto Shiro will drag Keith down.  

That’s Keith’s final dilemma: he cannot save both Shiro and himself. 

As the most important dilemma of this entire multi-section scene, it gets more time than any other, almost 30 seconds (another three or four paragraphs). I’d take my time with this section, because the more Keith struggles against his final decision, the more power the final moment will have: at least a page and a half, maybe a bit more. (And with consistent reminders of what’s above and below, to keep the stakes high.) 

That’s when we get the flashback. In text, I’d do it as Keith’s internal narration to remind Shiro, and himself, how they met. The nuance I’d be trying to achieve is that at the very ending, Keith thinks back to the beginning. 

It doesn’t need to be a great deal, only a sentence for each snapshot image; a paragraph at most. Maybe a series of single incomplete lines. The key is layering emotions on these descriptions, which in text do the work that visual media does with a close-up on Keith’s eyes halfway through the series of images. 

We then get the last pieces of the station giving way; Keith and Shiro free-fall together. But Keith still hasn’t made a choice, and that decision is what’s required for him to move forward. Emotionally, he’s still at the point of dilemma. 

There’s a moment when he sees Shiro’s face and he looks startled; that’s the emotional pivot that text would need to call out, because that’s when Keith closes his eyes and intentionally remembers. Let the reader do the work of realizing what’s going on here. I’m not sure this example really gets it, but it’s enough that I hope you get the idea.  

Keith’s hair whipped in his face, obscuring his vision, but he wouldn’t let go. They fell, arcing downwards and out of the satellite’s shadow. The nearby white dwarf cast silver-white beams, sweeping up Shiro’s upturned face. The light reached Keith, blinding him. Unbidden, another memory came. 

Keith closed his eyes, remembering. 

Another schoolyard fight, cooling his heels again outside the commander’s office. Shiro’s footsteps approach. Keith braces for the sting of Shiro’s disapproval. 

“Look, I know I messed up.” No point fighting it. “Just send me back to the home already. This place isn’t for me.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, gentle, firm. “You can do this. I will never give up on you.”

The thin air whistled past Keith’s ears. His lungs ached, starved of oxygen. And still Shiro’s voice reverberated across the years, as loud as a heartbeat. 

More importantly, you can’t give up on yourself. 

Keith opened his eyes. 

Don’t just end the scene there; end the chapter. This last bit would probably get a lot of revision to get it just right, but this would be my aim: let the turning of the page give space for the reader to interpret for themselves Keith’s final decision. 

The only unambiguous fact is that Keith’s decided with his eyes open. 

next post: digging into what really got decided in this fight.  

[miainbetween]

4TH DAY UPDATE — success (I should probably stop writing this, it’s obvious at this point)

Okay, so today happened a lot of stuff and I'm writing this right before I go to sleep so I feel like I've forgotten a lot of the things that happened but I'm going to try my best to list everything here.

So today was about attracting FAST. Again I started setting intention the night before. And at first, I tried to visualize something, to get just an idea of what I wanted. And I was like, okay, when I go to pick up my sister from school, there will be a free spot for me. And when I go to get us something to eat for lunch, there will also be a free spot to park in front of the shop, and things like that. Those two happened.

And not only when I parked in front of school, was there a place for me, but the whole side of the road where I usually park was free. AND there was shade to hide my car from the sun. And I'm just like, wow. And in front of that shop, where it's usually PACKED…. there were three free spots. THREE. And it was easy to park!

Also, today I decided to continue just parallelly saying the affirmation from day 3 — everyone treats me as if I'm someone they already decided to love, I think this was the affirmation, I'm quoting it from memory. Please don’t hate me if I didn’t quote it right! Yesterday, as I said in my previous update, I kind of didn't have that much contact with people, and today I was I had work to do, and people to interact with so I thought, okay, I'll just keep saying it today just to see what happens.

I saw my German teacher, and she hugged me, she's usually affectionate, but she's like the scariest teacher, one of the scariest teachers that we have at school, she hugged me and congratulated me on my scores from my graduation exams, (that's what I'm calling them, I don't know what to call them exactly) and I was just so taken aback, and I said a small thanks.

Also, the school security guy, he's more of an old dude, but he's really sweet. We're kind of friends, because I always smiled at him when I was at school, and when I was late for class. And now he not only smiled at me a lot when I walked into school, but he also asked me questions, like why was I there, blah blah blah, wished me good luck on my uni applications three times, which I'm so grateful for.

And with all of this happening, I was like, okay, I'm done for the day. No need to do anything more.

Then I made the post about my Love Island DR, and I was just like, okay, I hope this gets a little bit recognition or something, because I like talking about my DRs, but, you know, sometimes it feels like you're talking to a wall, and it just feels bad. I was hoping someone sees and likes it. And people did🥹. I feel like so many people were supportive and extremely kind, and it just warmed my heart so much.

And so many people texted me! I have been dying to make friends on here ever since I joined Tumblr, aka three weeks ago. And so many people texted me today - three. But for me that is a big number in one day. I am a socially awkward kind of girl, and this is a lot for me, and I'm just yeek-ing over that, so don't mind me

And the highlight of my day, (I'm kind of joking, just being dramatic but also genuine) Emma reposting my post, the Emma that I've been fangirling over ever since I came on Tumblr.

And I'm just, like, best day ever, and it's also thanks to Emma. <3

Mia’s Emma’s 14 day manifestation challenge thread