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longitudinalwaveme · 1 year ago

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My Thoughts On Each Long-Term Writer of the Flash, Part 1

Over the years, the Flash comics have been written by a huge number of writers, with their own strengths and weaknesses. In this post, I am going to give a rundown of all the major Flash writers and talk about the high points and the low points of their runs. In order to qualify as a major Flash writer, the writer has to have written at least four or five issues of the Flash (so fill-in writers don't count).

Keep in mind that much of this is subjective and based solely on my personal opinions. Also keep in mind that I will be harder on the more recent writers than the Gold/Silver/Bronze Age writers, since the older writers were writing during a time when there was much less editing and continuity than there is today. As such, I don't expect as much from their stories as I do from more modern writers.

I'll begin with the original writer for the Golden Age Flash, Gardner Fox, and move forward chronologically from there.

Gardner Fox

Positives

First, and most obviously, Gardner Fox was responsible for creating the Thinker, the Shade, the Ragdoll, the Rival, Jay Garrick, Joan Garrick, and the Flash identity itself. Without Gardner Fox (and artists Harry Lampert and E.E. Hibbard), there's no Flash. This pretty much makes him Flash's most important writer by default.

Introducing the Multiverse. When Gardner Fox started writing the Silver Age Flash, one of the first things he did was introduce the new Flash, Barry Allen, to the original Flash, Jay Garrick. He did this, of course, by establishing the concept of the multiverse. Earth-1 and Earth-2 existed in the same place in space, but vibrated on different frequencies, and each world had its own Flash. It was a brilliantly ridiculous sci-fi way to have both Flashes coexist, and it enabled Jay Garrick, and the rest of the JSA, to return to the DCU.

Writing female characters. For a Golden/Silver Age comic book writer, Gardner Fox generally handled female characters really well. Notably, during his run on the Golden Age Flash, he had Joan Garrick in on Jay's secret from the start, and he was also the writer responsible for ensuring that Barry Allen would, in turn, tell his wife Iris about his secret identity (by having Jay and Joan come visit Barry and tell him to stop keeping important secrets from his wife). He's also Iris' best Silver Age writer, insofar as he made her the most supportive and least nasty. So thank you, Gardner Fox, for being better at writing female characters than most of your contemporaries. (If you want to see the worst example of female characters in the Silver Age, check out Robert Kanigher's Wonder Woman. It's something else.)

Utilizing humor. This was especially noticeable during the Golden Age, where the Flash's adventures often resembled slapstick comedies, but Gardner Fox was also good at using lighthearted humor in the Silver Age (as highlighted by his particular affinity for the Trickster, whom he wrote four separate stories for).

Writing plots. Golden and Silver Age comics have a somewhat justified reputation for being wild, random, slapdash affairs, but, in spite of their light-hearted humor, Fox was actually good at writing solid plots. "The Flash of Two Worlds" is an all-time classic, and I've never read any story of his where it didn't feel like he was putting in effort to create an entertaining, internally consistent story.

Negatives

Honestly, besides being bound by the comic conventions of his time, Gardner Fox doesn't really have any noticeable weaknesses as a writer. The only thing I can think of that isn't something that basically applies to all Golden/Silver Age comic writers is the fact that he might have been a little too reliant on slapstick humor sometimes. That's how we got "The Real Origin of the Flash" (the story that attempted to give the Flash his own Mr. Mxyzptlk style character, but failed miserably) and some of the more tiresome Three Dimwits plots. But still, all in all, Fox did a really solid job on the title.

Robert Kanigher

Positives

Kanigher wrote Barry Allen's origin story, and created him, Iris, and I guess the Turtle Man (not the Turtle---he was created by Gardner Fox) as well. The lightning bot/chemicals origin is absolutely iconic, and may in fact be the best superhero story Kanigher ever wrote.

Before that, during the Golden Age, Kanigher also created Jay Garrick's foe the Fiddler.

Kanigher is....well...he's definitely got some original ideas. Totally nuts ideas, but original ones nevertheless. If you want the perfect example of Silver Age insanity, Kanigher is your man.

During the early Bronze Age, he managed to put out some well-meaning, if very awkward, stories that addressed social issues. They haven't aged well, but at least he tried. And to be fair, his female character do get slightly better in this time period as well.

Negatives

His female characters are painful to read. It's not as though this was something unique to him, but even by the standards of other Golden and Silver Age writers, he was pretty bad. Again, see his run on Wonder Woman for proof. More specifically as far as the Flash is concerned, he's the one who got the ball rolling on Mean Silver Age Iris.

With the exception of the origin story, where he seemed to catch lightning in a bottle, all of his Silver Age Flash storylines fall into one of two categories---they're either boring and generic, or they are completely bonkers, off-the-wall insane. Silver Age Flash is actually one of the more restrained Silver Age comics, so Kanigher's off-the-wall stories stick out like a sore thumb. For the best example of this, check out the first story in Flash #161, "The Case of the Curious Costume". And then, to maintain what's left of your sanity, check out the much better second story in the same issue, Gardner Fox's "The Mirror With 20/20 Vision". (I bet you can't guess who the villain in that story is.)

"Iris Allen is FROM THE FUTURE!!!!" Admittedly, there are several stories that came out of this reveal that I do like....but this revelation would end up tying the Flash Family tree in knots later on down the line. And it's also just an insane revelation in general, especially for the early Bronze Age.

John Broome

Positives

95% of the Flash's main villains. Captain Cold? Mr. Element/Dr. Alchemy? Mirror Master? Gorilla Grodd? Pied Piper? Weather Wizard? The Trickster? Captain Boomerang? The Top? Abra Kadabra? Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash? Heat Wave? All of them were created by John Broome (alongside artist Carmine Infantino). All of them. And all between 1957 and 1963!

The Rogues. John Broome was also the first writer to have more than two of the Flash villains team up into an organized group. (Gardner Fox had had Captain Cold and Trickster team up in an earlier story, but Broome was the first writer to bring together the team that would eventually become the Rogues we know today). He was also the man who created the Rogues' tailor, Paul Gambi.

Developing Barry's supporting cast. Broome introduced Wally West as Kid Flash (and wrote his hilariously lackluster origin), his parents, Nora and Henry Allen, his childhood sweetheart and current movie star, Daphne Dean, Iris' absent-minded father, Ira West, and Dexter Myles, the ex-Shakespearean actor who would become the curator of the Flash Museum. He also introduced Ralph "The Elongated Man" Dibney and Ralph's wife Sue, who would go on to to get their own stories but who would remain long-time friends with Barry and Iris, and Rita, another friend of the couple's, who would marry a reformed Dr. Alchemy/Albert Desmond. (Broome wrote Albert's reformation story, and also introduced his friendship with Barry.)

Solid plotting. While Broome's stories are still full of wacky "science" and questionable character decisions, as all Silver Age stories tend to be, he was quite restrained by the standards of his era (compare Silver Age Superman comics to Silver Age Flash comics and the difference will be apparent immediately.) He actually writes very solid and entertaining stories most of the time, and "The Doorway to the Unknown" is one of the best Silver Age stories I've read, period.

Negatives:

The whole "Should I Tell My Wife I'm the Flash?" thing. The relationship between Barry and Iris is easily the weakest link in Broome's lengthy run on the Flash. Iris is often excessively mean to Barry (up until around the time when they get married and Broome thankfully has her mellow out), and Barry refuses to tell Iris that he's the Flash---even after he marries her! Granted, she finds out on their wedding night because he talks into his sleep....but still! He doesn't consciously tell her that he's the Flash until they've been married for a year! It's not always terrible---there are some comics where Broome writes them well together (especially after 1964 or so), but on the whole he kind of dropped the ball on their relationship. I would be harder on Broome for this if it wasn't for the fact that I know what was going on with Superman and Lois Lane in the Superman books (which Broome was not writing, so far as I know) at the same time. That relationship makes even the worst moments of Silver Age Barry and Iris' interactions look healthy.

Too many alien invasion plots. I know it was the Silver Age, and everybody was fighting aliens, but hoo boy did John Broome write a lot of stories where the Flash fought off generic, interchangeable aliens. They're not all terrible stories---a few are even pretty good---but having the Flash fight such generic foes gets quite tiresome when it happens about once ever six or seven issues.

Frank Robbins

Positives:

Uh...Flash #184, "Executioner of Central City", is an interesting enough story with some fun time-travel stuff.

Without "The Threat of the High-Rise Buildings", we never would have gotten the amazing lying Silver Age cover that is hippies beating up the Flash:

Negatives:

Flash #180-181. The Flash visits Japan. Incredibly painful stereotypes abound. And, on a less painful but still cringeworthy note, so does bad slang. Just skip it. You'll be much happier for it.

Flash #184 is his only good story for the Flash. Admittedly, he didn't write that many...but still.

Mike Friedrich

Fleshed out Barry's personality a little more. Namely, he established that Barry is afraid of roller coasters, and wrote a hilarious story where Barry plays every role in Hamlet at once after the rest of the cast gets sick (I'm partial to this one because I love Shakespeare).

Wrote a really solid Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash story called "Time Times Three Equals----?", in which Sargon the Sorcerer tricks Eobard into thinking the Flash is dead for convoluted mystical reasons, and Eobard promptly takes off on a round-the-world and through-time crime spree. It's actually kind of awesome.

Negatives:

I can't think of anything off of the top of my head, other than the fact that his stories don't really stand out to me. With the exception of the Professor Zoom story, he didn't really get the chance to use any of the major Flash villains. So he's not bad, he just didn't write enough to really make an impact on me as a Flash writer.

Cary Bates

Positives:

Arguably the first true fan-writer. He grew up reading the Silver Age Flash, and he clearly loved and knew a lot about the characters. Fanboy writers don't always work out, but in this case, Bates' knowledge of the characters helped him write them really well, and flesh out most of the character well beyond what personalities they had had up to that point.

Wrote a very solid Barry/Iris marriage. They felt like a real couple, with real arguments and disagreements, but they also clearly loved each other and relied upon each other to get things done.

Used the supporting cast well. In addition to ensuring that Dexter Myles, Paul Gambi, Daphne Dean, and Barry's parents continued to make appearances, he also added many new supporting cast members, including Stacy Conwell, a college student who boarded with Barry and Iris for awhile, Barney Sands, Barry's 12-year-old neighbor who was just as big a fan of comics as Barry himself, Patty Spivot, Barry's fellow police scientist, Frank Curtis, an undercover detective who became friends with Barry, and, after Iris' death, Barry's neighbors Mack and Troy Nathan (Mack was a scientist at S.T.A.R. labs), Police Chief Darryl Frye, and Barry's almost-second wife, Fiona Webb. Bates did a really good job a creating a full supporting cast for Barry and Iris, and it helped make the world seem more inhabited.

Bringing back the Rogues. As Broome and Fox had retired, the Rogues had started being pushed to the wayside before Cary Bates brought them back into the spotlight---and then gave them some of their best stories ever. For a few of the Rogues, he's still the best writer they've ever had. Also, while the Rogues had technically become a team under Broome's pen, it was Bates who really solidified them as friends, rather than just the Flash's Secret Six. He had them have conventions together, attend funerals for each other, bail each other out of trouble, and fight the Flash together. They still operated independently sometimes (a fact most modern writers neglect to have them do), but they were now inextricably linked with one another in a way no other team of comic villains ever would be. I also really like the dynamic Bates' Barry has with the Rogues. It's this sort of bemused, mildly impressed frustration that's just great.

Introducing the Golden Glider. Cary Bates created what was, for the time, a downright terrifying villain in the Golden Glider, and, in doing so, subverted (probably inadvertently) a lot of the tropes that tend to accrue to female villains. She was meaner, smarter, and more ruthless than all of the male Rogues, and it's a bit of a refreshing change of pace to see a woman seeking revenge for the death of her boyfriend rather than the other way around. She was also one of the first Flash villains, and the very first Rogue, to uncover the Flash's secret identity. In spite of this, however, she was still quite feminine in a lot of ways, being very beautiful, quite flirtatious, and fond of jewelry. It's a unique combination of traits that you don't often see even today, and it's a bit sad that Cary Bates remains the best writer the character has ever had.

Creating other new villains. Besides the Golden Glider, Bates also created Rainbow Raider, whom I adore, the Clown, Colonel Computron, Clive Yorkin, and the Eradicator, the last two of whom are actually very effective and scary in their respective story arcs.

The Top is alive and well in Henry Allen! It's the best Top story ever written, and I love it.

Able to write both very serious and very humorous stories. Cary Bates was totally nuts sometimes, but he definitely had range in terms of tone, and could write humorous stories and very dark stories with equal effectiveness.

Negatives:

I'm honestly not sure whether this is really a negative or not, since I find the story to be kind of hilarious, but there is this one issue early in Cary Bates' run where he literally writes himself into the comic and has himself help the Flash defeat the Trickster. (We also learn from this issue that in the Bronze Age, Central City was located where Athens, Ohio is in the real world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Cary Bates is an alumni from Ohio University in Athens.)

"Joe Scudder and Roscoe Neyle". Cary Bates was awful at remembering characters' names. He called Mirror Master both "Sam Scudder" and "Joe Scudder" in multiple separate issues, called the Top "Roscoe Neyle" once, called Patty Spivot "Pam Spivot" a few times, changed Albert Desmond's father's first name from Peter to either Herbert or Herman, called the Pied Piper's mom, Mrs. Rathaway, both "Rachel Rathaway" and "Hazel Rathaway" (within the span of like three panels!), combined the Pied Piper's real name (Hartley Rathaway) with his alias name (Henry Darrow) a few times, gave Barry's dad Henry a new first name at least once, and called the Reverse Flash "Eobard Thayne", "Eobard Thawnye", and "Professor Adrian Zoom". And there are probably more examples I can't remember. This is really only a minor gripe, and it is fun to play the "let's see whose name Bates messes up in this issue" game, but still...Bates forgot a ton of names.

A few too many supernatural shenanigans. Cary Bates was really interested in the paranormal when he was writing his run on the Flash, and while it often led to good stories (like the Top ghost story and the story that introduced Alvin Desmond), I feel like he still fell back on the paranormal a few too many times. The best example of this is the psychic girl, Melanie, who was in the "Death of Iris Allen" arc and just felt out-of-place in it, but it popped up a few other places as well.

Fiona Webb. Fiona Webb was introduced as the Flash's new love interest after Iris' death, and her story was basically one giant trauma conga line. She wasn't a terrible character (she wasn't annoying and seemed nice enough), but her relationship with Barry didn't get enough time to develop organically, and it felt like they got engaged far too quickly. Maybe it would have been better if they had continued dating for awhile, first, even if it meant delaying Eobard's dramatic attempt to murder Fiona at her wedding. I am, however, at least relieved that she ended the first Flash run fully recovered from her mental breakdown. It would've been pretty unpleasant if he'd just had her have a breakdown and then never spoken of her again.

Big Sir: While I'm glad the story goes out of its way to establish that he's a good person whose disability and mental problems don't make him evil (he has to be manipulated by the Rogues into fighting the Flash), this character was handled very poorly for the most part. He was also part of the broader...

Trial of the Flash Arc: There are a lot of good individual stories during this arc (the last four issues in particular are great), but as a whole, it just drags on for way too long. It's not entirely Cary Bates' fault, since he was in the middle of the arc when he found out that the book was getting cancelled, and his only two options were to end the arc as he had planned and try to wrap up the entire series with a truncated new storyline, or to drag out the trial plotline until the series ended. However, that doesn't change the fact that the trial quickly becomes the least interesting part of the actual Trial storyline, or the fact that this story lasted for something like a year and a half in real-world time---which I guess does make it the most accurate fictional representation of a trial in terms of the length of time it took to get to the trial. Aside from its length, however, the courtroom drama is both unrealistic and not especially exciting (the looming threat of the Flash going to prison for murder is exciting, but the legal drama is not, in part because the prosecution lawyer isn't very interesting). Also not helping things is the fact that by the time the Trial arc began, Cary Bates was editing himself. Thus, there was no one around to help steer him and the story in a less drawn-out direction. It's just a big, padded, drawn-out mess of a storyline---though I am thankful that it at least had a really solid, satisfying ending.

Mike Baron

Positives:

His first issue, where Wally runs a heart across the country to a patient who needs it for an operation, is excellent.

Baron writes a good Vandal Savage.

Wally is instantly memorable as a character. He's not necessarily likeable for most of Baron's run (more on that later), but he does at least stand out in your mind.

Introducing the Chunk (a living black hole who became Wally's friend) and Kilg%re (a living computer program). Both of them were fun characters.

Negatives:

Baron's Wally is a real jerk most of the time. He's overbearing, he's arrogant. he's obnoxious, and he's frankly kind of sexist at points. It makes him a little hard to read sometimes.

Wally's parents are humongous jerks. I actually don't mind the Wests being abusive parents (especially since we really didn't see that much of them Pre-Crisis, and we know that Wally has a lot of problems with Impostor Syndrome and depression), but they were very prominent in this run, and neither of them were likable---or scary/intimidating/cool---enough for you to want them to get as much page time as they did.

In fact, almost no one in Baron's run is particularly likable most of the time. It makes for an unpleasant read.

Wally having an affair with a married woman who's got to be at least ten years his senior is...uncomfortable. Mainly because I'm not sure that Baron thought this was a bad thing or not. Messner-Loebs writes it as a mistake on both characters' parts, but I don't know if Baron thought it was, too.

William Messner-Loebs:

Positives

Messner-Loebs made it clear that the reason Wally was acting like a jerk was because he was suffering from depression and impostor syndrome, not because he was shallow or selfish. He also dialed the sexism waaaay back (thankfully) and had Wally develop out of his jerk tendencies over time and learn to become a better hero.

Messner-Loebs also introduced a bunch of great supporting cast members for Wally. He brought back Joan Garrick, made frequent use of Chunk, reintroduced the Pied Piper as a reformed champion of the downtrodden, had Tina McGee and her husband reunite with one another and become friends with Wally, and introduced Mason Tollbridge, an old jack-of-all-trades who helped Wally out from time to time, and Connie Noleski, whom Wally dated for awhile. An at-the-time-reformed Captain Cold, Golden Glider, and Heat Wave rounded out the cast. Most importantly, though, he introduced Linda Park, a no-nonsense TV reporter who would help Wally grow up and who would eventually become his wife.

Flash #19. The whole thing. Wally partying with the Rogues (after the Trickster invites him to their party as a gag) is one of the best comics ever written. It's hilarious from start to end.

"No One Dies" is one of the greatest Flash stories ever. It's so good.

Tackling social issues well. Messner-Loebs' run is one of the few comics I've seen handle mental illness with any grace (his story about postpartum psychosis is really good, and Wally actually goes to therapy!), and his handling of homelessness and the importance of helping people in need is very well done. Messner-Loebs seems to have a lot of compassion, and it's very cool to see it represented in his stories.

Hope. In Loebs' run, people---and situations---get better.

Negatives:

Mary West makes a few too many appearances. I get that she's supposed to be obnoxious, but....she's really obnoxious. Also, the plot where she falls in love with and marries a secret agent was confusing.

After her first appearance in Flash #19, Messner-Loebs begins to write the Golden Glider as though she's bordering on "comic book crazy" (i.e., erratically violent and somewhat unstable). It's at least somewhat restrained under his pen, but it's setting the groundwork for later writers to write her very poorly.

This one isn't really Messner-Loebs' fault, but his run does get interrupted by unnecessary crossovers several times, which have a tendency to disrupt his storylines and are generally not particularly well-written (likely because he didn't really want to write them in the first place). It's especially notable because most of his run is relative quiet and domestic.

Mark Waid:

Positives

Mark Waid knows his stuff. He is a fanboy writer, and it shows in his delightful references to older Flash stories (The Life Story of the Flash is a particularly good showcase of this fact).

Waid writes an excellent Wally. Wally goes through a ton of character growth and development over the course of his run, and I love the snarky sense of humor he has.

Linda Park and Pied Piper are both handled very well by Waid---especially Linda.

Waid writes a very solid relationship between Wally and Linda. Like Iris and Barry under Bates' pen, they have realistic arguments and disagreements, but also clearly love and support one another.

Waid's use of the Speedsters as a team works very well. Wally, Jay, Max, Bart, Johnny Quick, and Jesse Quick all play off of one another well, and all of them are likable. The idea of a Speedster lineage that spreads across all of time is also cool.

The Speedforce. It's so important to the mythos that I can't not include it, even if a lot of later writers misused it.

Waid properly introduced the second Mirror Master, Evan McCulloch into the Flash comics, and in Flash vol. 2 #105, no less!

I appreciate that Waid brought Iris back to the present from the future, since that made it easier to use her in stories and let Wally talk to his aunt more regularly.

Many of the stories have very high stakes, so there's usually a lot of excitement during Waid's run.

"The Return of Barry Allen" storyline is excellent. I think it's one of the three best Wally stories (the other two being Flash vol. 2 #19 and "No One Dies", the story where Wally throws himself out of a plane to save a falling stewardess).

Waid writes my favorite Trickster (James Jesse). I love the reformation arc he gives him, and his mischievous nature is a delight. He also introduced Mindy Hong and James' son, Billy Hong, both of whom sadly only appeared once.

Waid's Kadabra is effective, cool, and scary----most of the time (more on this later).

Even though he was never properly utilized---and I'm not sure he ever could be, given how overpowered he is--I liked Tony Gambi (aka Replicant) a whole lot. The idea of Paul Gambi having a nephew whom the Rogues treat as a surrogate son is adorable.

Savitar was a very threatening villain, and the idea of a speedster cult leader was interesting. His design was ugly as sin, but he was Waid's best original villain.

Negatives:

Too much Kadabra. I like Waid's Kadabra, but he shows up as the main antagonist of big story arcs on at least three separate occasions.

Wally and Linda got separated from one another a lot. It was impressive when Wally escaped the Speed Force to save Linda the first time, but after the third or fourth time he escaped something similarly unescapable to save her, it did get a little repetitive.

Many lackluster antagonists. It really says something that both the soulless Zombie Rogues and the stupid brown-haired Chillblaines were more interesting as characters than a lot of the villains Wally fought during Mark Waid's run. Like Razer. Or the Alchemist. Or those alien guys. Or those other alien guys.

Having Kobra be the main antagonists for the storyline that included vol. 2's 100th issue also seemed a bit strange. Why not have Grodd or some other pre-established Flash villain be the antagonist for such an important milestone? Admittedly, this one is a bit of nitpick.

Waid doesn't seem to know how to write McCulloch. In Flash vol. 2 #105, he writes him as being very violent and grim, and in all his other stories, he writes him like he's Sam with an accent.

"Barry Allen had a SECRET EVIL TWIN!!!!" I would've loved this plot if it had been established in the Silver Age, and tolerated it if it was from the Bronze Age. But this plot twist was written in 1999, and it's accompanied with this weird sense of grimdark gravitas that just makes the whole thing impossible to take seriously. It also doesn't help that "Cobalt Blue" is a terrible villain name, or that Cobalt Blue's biggest achievement is being the ancestor of two guys---Eobard Thawne and Inertia---who are way better villains than he is.

Everything about how he handled Lisa. Waid really seemed to have no idea how to write the Golden Glider. First, he leaned hard into Messner-Loebs' take on her and made her completely comic-book crazy, and then he pointlessly killed her off to make the blonde-haired Chillblaine look scary for an issue before killing him off too. It was such a pointless waste of her character.

The Top. Weirdly enough, "Top possesses the body of a senator, becomes the running mate of a popular presidential candidate, and plots to use his position to eventually eliminate his running mate and become the President himself" sounds like an amazing Top story on paper....but in practice, Roscoe just feels off for the entire storyline. He doesn't really act like himself, and, as if that wasn't annoying enough, Wally and James both act like there's no way Roscoe could come back to life or be a threat. Even though he tried to blow up half the world, tried to blow up all of Central City, and once came back to life by possessing the body of Barry's dad. Why are they acting like he was a harmless joke?! Trickster worked with Top on a regular basis and was there when the Top posthumously revealed his "I'm going to blow up Central City" plan! They should not be so casual about this!

In fact, except for Trickster and Pied Piper, Waid didn't seem to know what to do with any of the Rogues. He killed them off in Underworld Unleashed, and, while he had the good grace to admit that was a bad idea and bring them back to life a year or so later, he still didn't seem to know what to do with them. For some reason, he was convinced that there was no way to write them seriously (even though he didn't have the same problem with Trickster or Kadabra).

I wasn't a fan of the way Waid discarded so much of Messner-Loebs' supporting cast. A lot of those characters were interesting, and it's a bit sad to just see most of them discarded in favor of the new cast of mostly speedsters (even though, as mentioned, I do like the speedsters).

Grant Morrison and Mark Millar---Obviously, they're two separate writers, but their year-long run was a team effort, so I'm talking about them together.

Positives:

Grant Morrison's "The Suit" and "The Human Race" are both totally bonkers, but in the best possible way. I'm particularly fond of how much "The Suit" feels like a Silver Age issue.

Similarly, the story about Jay Garrick is heartwarming and sweet. Morrison does a really good job writing Jay.

Morrison gets to write Evan McCulloch, which is always a delight. No other writer ever quite manages to capture the magic of Morrison's McCulloch and his perfect Glasgee burr.

The Black Flash is a really cool concept.

Negatives:

The Black Flash storyline, unfortunately, is kind of a confusing, disjointed mess. It's really hard to follow what's supposed to be happening.

The "Three of a Kind" storyline, which features Heat Wave, the Green Lantern villain Sonar, and some guy I've never heard of named Hatchet sinking a cruise ship and killing a bunch of people in an attempt to revive Dr. Polaris for some reason, is terrible. Mick is very out-of-character here. He's usually not nearly so violent. Even setting that aside....how and why did he start working with Sonar and Hatchet? He's never worked with them before. And why did they want to revive Dr. Polaris? I know they said they needed a leader, but why did it need to be him? Why not just go find Lex Luthor or somebody? I'm sure Lex Luthor wouldn't turn down three guys with high-tech guns. And joining him wouldn't have required them to sneak Dr. Polaris' comatose body onto a cruise ship and then forcibly take said ship to the Arctic Circle. Ugh, so many questions...

Geoff Johns

Positive:

Geoff Johns does a really good job of making the Twin Cities feel distinct from the rest of the DCU.

Geoff Johns also does a really good job writing the Rogues. He fleshes them out and gives several of them detailed backstories; he's also the one who created Captain Cold's Rules and the one who really brought the team back to prominence. He also really amped up Weather Wizard's powers.

Johns introduced a lot of cool new villains, including the new Trickster (Axel Walker), Captain Boomerang Jr. (Owen Mercer), Peek-a-Boo, Fallout, Double Down, Murmur, Girder, Plunder, Blacksmith, Tar Pit, and Cicada. I like some of these characters more than others, but all of them have a definite narrative purpose, none of them are completely boring, and they expand the Flash's villainous roster in a good way.

Officer Chyre and Detective Morillo are great supporting characters for Wally. I love their odd couple partnership.

It's cool to see Cyborg in the Twin Cities and helping Wally in the first half of the run.

Warden Wolfe and Iron Heights Penitentiary are good additions to the mythos. Wolfe is a great antagonist in that you really want to see him taken down a peg.

Wally and Linda's relationship continues to be solidly written.

I liked the way Geoff Johns established Hunter Zolomon as a supporting character, then gradually turned him into Zoom through a series of tragedies, mental problems, and bad choices. It made for a very effective---and scary ---antagonist.

Wally's twins are born (after an initial miscarriage). Jai and Irey are adorable and I love them.

The idea of Iris Allen raising Weather Wizard's baby son is adorable. In fact, Weather Wizard having a baby in general is a hilarious idea that a more comedically-inclined writer could have used to great effect. But instead....well...more on that later.

Wally continues his character development.

Negatives:

While I actually enjoy Johns' "Wonderland" arc, I also think it's weird and confusing in a lot of places, and it's doubly weird that he later retcons about a quarter of what he establishes here.

Johns' Magenta felt slightly off. Not so much so that she was totally out of character, but I've never felt like Johns quite had a grasp on what she's supposed to be like.

Pied Piper's trauma conga line was....a bit much. Granted, not all of his suffering was Johns' fault (Flash: the Fastest Man Alive and Countdown, I am looking at you), but it was still a lot, and it seemed almost like Johns wanted to break up his friendship with Wally by putting Piper through said conga line.

James Jesse...FBI agent. Another concept that sounds amazing on paper, but was executed very clumsily. The issue with FBI James isn't that he's with the FBI...it's that he suddenly starts acting like a self-serious bureaucrat for no apparent reason. And that he's dumb (and cold) enough to think that making a zombie Captain Boomerang via corpse desecration is a good way to defeat the Rogues. It just doesn't seem to mesh with what we know of James...and that's not even going into the retcons....

Backstory Retcons. Geoff Johns likes retcons. He really, really likes retcons. And he especially seems to like retcons that involve adding murder into the Rogues' early history for some reason. Like how Mark killed his brother (albeit by accident). And how Digger killed his stepdad at his mom's funeral. And how Sam Scudder apparently killed some random person during a burglary before he became the Mirror Master. And how the Top apparently killed more than eleven police officers during the Bronze Age. And how Mick Rory burned his family, another kid's family, and everyone in the circus he worked in alive in fires (this one's not technically a retcon, since strictly speaking it doesn't contradict anything that we already know, but it definitely doesn't mesh smoothly with Mick's origin as it was presented in the Bronze Age). And how Evan McCulloch shot his father (without realizing that it was his father), which caused his mother to commit suicide (again, not really a retcon, but included for completion's sake). Sometimes I worry about Johns....

Roscoe's Mind Control. And then there was the Mother of All Grimdark Retcons, in which we learned that Barry Allen had had the Top brainwashed into being a good guy, that the process had driven him insane, and that he had then attacked the other Rogues and tried to brainwash them into becoming good guys too. Wally has Zatanna lift Roscoe's brainwashing, which makes him sane again, and shortly thereafter he lifts his own brainwashing on James, Mick, and Piper (though Piper manages to stay good through Wally's help). All that character development Mick, Piper, and James have had? Forget that, it was all just Roscoe's mind control! Even though Roscoe never had mind-controlling powers before this story. And even though the way this timeline works, Roscoe would had to have been brainwashed, go crazy, brainwash his friends, commit ghost suicide by exiting his host body, somehow become sane and escape the influence of Zatanna's mind control, return to life by possessing the body of Senator Thomas O'Neil, almost become the president, get attacked by the soulless zombie Rogues, go crazy again, and then somehow fall back under the influence of Zatanna's mind control (because she can't have removed it if it was no longer there). That makes no sense. And that's not even going into the fact that, while you're looking at the timeline of events, only Mick actually reformed around the time that Roscoe possessed Barry's dad. All the other Rogues didn't even start flirting with reformation until after Barry was dead. It's one of those retcons that kind of makes sense on the surface, but makes less and less sense the more you think about it.

Posthumously Fridging the Golden Glider. I really love Captain Cold's spotlight issue. It's a great story for him. The problem is that Lisa's function in the story (the dead little sister he's sad about) is the only role Johns seems interested in having Lisa play. He thinks she's more important to be dead so Len can angst than alive to actually---y'know---be a character. Also, he seriously downplays her romance with the Top, as well as how fiery and mean she could be.

Everybody hates Roscoe, apparently. Johns doesn't much care for Roscoe. That's fine. Everyone has characters they don't like. The problem is that Johns deliberately writes the character to justify his dislike of him, and then has him killed off. Now, to be fair to Johns, Roscoe is indeed a jerk. The problem with Johns' Roscoe isn't that he's a villainous jerk----it's the fact that he's treated as uniquely separate from, and worse than, all the other Rogues. It's also implied that the Rogues never much liked him, but they all seemed to get along with him fine back in the Silver and Bronze Ages (with the apparent exception of Len, who was probably already bitter about Roscoe dating his sister---and even Len didn't hate him in the way that he does under Johns). Also, Roscoe really isn't that much nastier than Evan, or even Mark, and both of them are Rogues in apparent good standing. And, while I actually like the idea that Roscoe is something of an elitist and likes literature and classical music and fine wine, it's a bit odd for Johns to add that to the character, treat it like it was always a part of his character, and then have Len kill him for it. Basically, the issue isn't that he's a jerk....it's the fact that he's at odds with the other Rogues in a way that he never was shown to be before (the only exception was when he died and tried to blow up the city out of revenge/spite, and even then we saw them remembering him with some fondness after his death---toasting him, naming a anti-Flash device after him, etc.).

Needless grimdark deaths of important supporting characters. There are many examples, but the worst ones were, roughly in order of increasing horribleness, Blacksmith shoving a painting into Rainbow Raider's chest and killing him, the whole Captain Boomerang subplot of Blackest Night: the Flash, and having Inertia kill Weather Wizard's infant son.

In speaking of the horrible Blackest Night Captain Boomerang subplot....having Owen suddenly decide that he's A-OK with killing women and small children and feeding them to his zombie dad (I just realized that Johns wrote two different plots featuring a zombie Digger. That's a bit weird). Prior to this point, he had pretty much become one of the good guys, so this sudden shift into horrible evil just came out of nowhere and made no sense.

Captain Cold: Spotlight Thief. So, Geoff Johns really, really, really likes Len, and he writes him well (for the most part). The problem is, this means that he has a bad habit of focusing on Cold at the expense of the other Rogues, and that he sometimes writes Cold as though he's the only Rogue capable of being intelligent or competent (Flash: Blackest Night is probably the worst in this regard, but it shows up elsewhere in his comics too). It gets a little frustrating after awhile, no matter how great Johns' Len is. Worse, this habit of Johns of writing Len as the most important Rogue would eventually lead to other writers focusing on Len even more, and to them treating the other Rogues like they're Len's henchmen instead of his teammates. It's all very frustrating.

#flash comics #flash rogues #long post

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theundeadgospel · 5 months ago

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doing it for both versions bc I love them. based off canon timeline.

—

BASICS

Full Name: Bethanne Vladislava Drozdov.

Known Alias(es): The Gospel (of Myrkul), The Herald of Myrkul, The Knight of Bones.

Age: 400+.

Gender: Female.

Birthday: March 14th.

Heritage: Vistani.

Religion: Spiritual theism.

Sexual & Romantic Orientation: Pansexual.

Status: Undead, active. Nosferatu spawn.

Residencies: Currently located in Thorncrest.

Highest Education Level: None, was taught by her late family.

Occupation(s): The champion of Myrkul. (Kassandra) Strahd Von Zarovich’s black knight. Myrkulite temple owner and trainer.

PHYSICAL EXAM

Facial Features: Grey-lichen flesh. War paint. Black painted lips. Long, pointed ears. Calloused and war ridden.

Faceclaim:

Voice: Thick Slavic accent, deeper octave, smooth and quiet at default but can use her general voice to project threats.

Voiceclaim: My own take. (Used in Curse of Strahd and LARP.)

Eyes: Strict, necrotic eyes and midnight black scleras.

Hair: Long side shave in blood red.

Body Type:

Distinguishable Marks: War paint used almost at all times. A deep, never healing scar on her belly from being disemboweled. Plethora of scars all over her body from combat. Many tattoos.

Weight: 180 lbs without armor.

Height: 5’7.

MENTAL EVALUATION

Mental Illnesses: Depression. PTSD.

Psychological Profile: The severe fear of failure. The severe fear of her loved ones dying because of her inability to tank. Undying determination to unite her undead brethren with the living.

Positive Traits: Loyal, determined, empathetic, warrior.

Negative Traits: Can be toxic, stubborn, violent, impulsive.

Alignment Type: Lawful evil. (Portrayed as a morally grey character.)

Personality Type: INFP.

Phobias: Literally immune to fear and disease.

Mannerisms: Grinding fangs when stressed, claws at things (or herself), makes bat noises.

Hobbies & Interests: Journaling and poetry, collecting bones, dusking rituals, paying respects to the dead, cleaning graveyards and resting places, tending to the dying in their last moments, training.

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

Combat Style: Zealot barbarian + Oathbreaker.

Weapon of Choice: Spinemangler (Battle axe), Myrkulite Scourge.

Hand-to-Hand Combat Proficiency: Elongated claws and gauntlet strikes.

Tactical Strengths: Natural born leader. War general. Gives orders and can follow orders as well. Front lining tank.

Tactical Weaknesses: Divine hits deal extra damage. Psychological warfare.

Signature Techniques: Rage. Decapitation + dismemberment. Torture. Rip and tear. Animalistic.

Pain Tolerance: Will fight until death arrives. Undying prowess.

Defensive Skills: Meat shield for her party. Soaks up hits and hits back harder than the perpetrator.

AFFILIATIONS & RELATIONSHIPS

Family: Mama Andreá (Mother, deceased.) Catalina Drozdov. (Sister, deceased.) Florin Drozdov. (Brother, deceased.)

Yona Glamourhoof. (Adopted daughter. Alive.) Nova Espiritu. (Adopted son. Alive.) Oren. (Adopted daughter. Alive.)

Allies & Associates:

Her party. (Yona, Morian, Nova, Oren, Elias, Aphrodite, Ingrim. All alive.)

(Kassandra) Strahd Von Zarovich. (Boss. Active.) Lord Myrkul. (Faith. Active.) Sir Strange. (Ally. Active.)

Ireena and Izek Kolyana. (Former allies. Deceased.)

Rivalries: N/A.

Enemies: Vashka Von Zarovich. (Main antagonist. Active.) Lodewyn Lyresong. (Second antagonist. Active.) Noctus. (Beth’s vampire lord. Active.) Merwin. (Arch Devil. Active.)

Romantic History: Sir Laurent (Martin Clémentoi Vasile Le Meilleur) de Baptiste. (Leading love interest.)

Notable Friends: Her party.

HABITS & LIFESTYLE

Daily Routine: Runs based off of schedule. Usually.

Diet & Nutrition: Nonexistent. Meats. Blood.

Exercise Habits: Excessive training.

Grooming Habits: Meh.

Substance Use: None.

Sleep Patterns: Barely. Always on guard.

Personal Aesthetic: Doesn’t care much for fashion. Viking aesthetic. Lots of furs, war paint, heavy armor. Old gothic.

Favorite Books: Anything based on eldritch horror and necromancy. Secretly loves romance.

Favorite Music Genres: War drums.

Favorite Art/Architecture: Romance.

— — —

BASICS

Full Name: Bethanne (Betty) Vladislava Drozdov.

Known Alias(es): The Eldritch Beast. The Rat Keeper.

Age: 400+.

Gender: Female.

Birthday: March 14th.

Heritage: Shavali.

Religion: Spiritual.

Sexual & Romantic Orientation: Pansexual.

Status: Undead, active. Vampire.

Residencies: Currently located in Castle Drachenfels.

Highest Education Level: None, was taught.

Occupation(s): Grey Seer Rasknitt’s war lord (Formerly. Status unknown.). Clan Moulder’s experimentalist. (Formerly.) Clan Vishus’ lieutenant. (Works alongside Warlord Skreech. Active.)

PHYSICAL EXAM

Facial Features: Youthful, pale with freckles, bottle-cap glasses.

Faceclaim:

Voice: Smooth Slavic accent, almost purrs when talking.

Voiceclaim: My own take. (Used in Warhammer DnD.)

Eyes: Dull grey.

Hair: Messy, medium length locks in blood red.

Body Type: Athletic. Slender.

Distinguishable Marks: Clan Fester branding on her right arm. Clan Moulder branding on her left arm. Many tattoos.

Weight: 150 lbs.

Height: 5’7.

MENTAL EVALUATION

Mental Illnesses: Depression. Anxiety. PTSD. Psychotic. OCD. Minor bouts of schizophrenia.

Psychological Profile: Undying determination. Intense and inconsolable hatred toward humanity. Obsessed with violence and structure. Wants to ‘perfect’ Ubersreik by wiping out all of humanity.

Positive Traits: Perfectionism, intelligent, flexible, adaptable.

Negative Traits: Disloyal, extremely hostile at times, unpredictable, apathetic to a fault.

Alignment Type: Chaotic evil.

Personality Type: ESTP.

Phobias: Also immune to fear and disease.

Mannerisms: Nervous twitches. Rambling. Speaks to self a lot. Must always be occupied with something. Constantly experimenting or journaling.

Hobbies & Interests: Skaven ethologist. Journaling. Scholar. Self experimentation + experimentation on others. Blood magic. Studying warp magic.

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

Combat Style: Blood sorceress. Fighter. Can transform into the eldritch beast while in a rage.

Weapon of Choice: Spinemangler (Battle axe.)

Hand-to-Hand Combat Proficiency: Elongated claws. The eldritch beast.

Tactical Strengths: Natural born leader. Brute force. Strategic. Coordination.

Tactical Weaknesses: Usually doesn’t engage in close combat. Divine hits for extra.

Signature Techniques: Eldritch beast going into a rage (Unadulterated slaughtering.). Boiling blood in the body. Pulling blood strands like puppeteering. Rip and tear at the eyes and throat first. Purposely prolonged. Will heal 1 HP then continue her methods and consistently revive them.

Pain Tolerance: Fair.

Defensive Skills: Has her Stormvermin front line. Middle to back liner. Range attacks.

AFFILIATIONS & RELATIONSHIPS

Family: Dimitrius Kolamanakova. (Brother. Deceased.) Gideon Gold. (Brother. Deceased.) Ezra. (Brother. Deceased.) Dimitri. (Mentor. Deceased.)

Tarba. (Mentor. Deceased.) L’Neauch. (Adoptive father. Deceased.)

Allies & Associates: Clan Fester. Clan Moulder. Clan Vishus.

Rivalries: N/A.

Enemies: Ubersreik Five. Humanity.

Romantic History: Blackacre. (Former love interest when she was human. Deceased.) Grey Seer Rasknitt. (One sided love interest. Unknown status.) Throt the Unclean (One sided love interest. Active.)

Warlord Skreech. (Partner. Active. Has an adopted whelp.)

Notable Friends: Lyss. (Close friends. Active.)

HABITS & LIFESTYLE

Daily Routine: Wake up, drown in wine, all according to schedule.

Diet & Nutrition: Wine.

Exercise Habits: Basic workout routine.

Grooming Habits: Meticulous. Very big on fashion. Neat and tidy.

Substance Use: Excessive drinking.

Sleep Patterns: Lazes around often.

Personal Aesthetic: Victorian vampiric gothic. Jewelry. Shawls and cloaks. Heels.

Favorite Books: Any information on skaven. Practices Queekish.

Favorite Music Genres: Instrumentals. Opera.

Favorite Art/Architecture: Gothic architecture. Sculptures.

— — —

Tagged by: No one, I’m bored lmao.

Tagging: @infernalapparatus @thanatologie @stories-from-the-warp @serpentofslaanesh @vampsyred @shadow-cleric

#🦇 𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐀. [ 𝐃𝐀𝐒𝐇 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 ] 🦇#🐀 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀. [ 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 ] 🐀

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headmates-from-the-pillow-fort · 1 month ago

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Template (you’re allowed to opt out of any options you want)

How to request: pick a tier and whatever add-ons you want. tell us details about your new headmate (what you want them to be based on is a good start! for fictional introjects, please include the full name of the source.) the more details you include, the easier time we’ll have making your request

Please know the the higher the tier + the more add-ons you request, the longer the pack will take! If we are unable to complete a request, we will tell you by answering your ask or making a post about it.

Tier 1 - Pillow Pack

- Name(s) - Nicknames - Pronouns | (will include neopronouns unless you opt out) - Species - Gender(s) - Sexuality - Age range - Source (if applicable)

Tier 2 - Blanket Pack

- Likes | (general likes and dislikes) - Dislikes - Personality - Emoji signoff

Tier 3 - Stuffie Pack

- Interests | (specific interests and/or medias) - Typing style/habits | (formal, semi-formal, casual, emoji use, paragraphs, message spammer, etc.) - About me | (a little blurb written to describe them, usually one or two short paragraphs) - Basic appearance description

Tier 4 - Nightlight Pack

- Triggers (will only do positive triggers unless you ask for neutral and/or negative) - Front tells - Fun Facts | (little fun facts about them)

Add-ons - Extra Cushions

- Role(s) | (all roles will come from pluralpedia, unless you give another source for a specific role you want) - Faceclaim | (specify picrew, fanart, official source (if applicable), or general [will look on pinterest/the internet to see what best matches. no ai.]) - Typing quirk | (specific way to type) - Theriotypes/kintypes | (therian/otherkin) - Hobbies - Aesthetics | (will default to names of aesthetics unless you ask for pictures) - Speech quirks - Comfort food | (need to know allergies, sensory issues, and any other medical information. this option will set your request back by quite a bit due to research.)

You can request siblings & family (max of 3 people at a time. the more people you request, the longer the request will take. make sure you include the tier level you want for all of them!) What this entails: up to 3 packs of people who are related to one another. this adds a relation category, and there’ll also be a little blurb about their relationships with each other. If requested, they’ll be posted separately, but have links to the other related posts.

#: info post!

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kmtrkai · 2 months ago

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alien oc.

basics full name: unknown, currently identifies as “park joohyun” known alias(es): none verified age: appears late-30s, actual age unknown gender: cis male birthday: none assigned, legally documented as january 12, 1984 heritage: non-terran origin, passes as ethnic korean religion: non-practicing, occasional references to systems of balance or cosmic order sexual & romantic orientation: homosexual status: alive, presence on earth unconfirmed in official records residencies: apartment in seoul (university-subsidized), former temporary units in cambridge, houston, cologne, moscow, tsukuba highest education level: phd in aerospace engineering and physics, caltech occupation(s): university lecturer, aerospace researcher, military consultant, former nasa contractor (redacted missions)

physical exam facial features: angular bone structure, hollow cheeks, visibly fatigued under most lighting. expression neutral by default, but rarely empty. most assume he’s older than he is. the face of someone built to hold silence. faceclaim: gong yoo (the silent sea) voice: low and steady, rarely raises it. speech is slow, structured, slightly off-tempo, like he’s used to needing translation. voiceclaim: (tbd) eyes: dark brown with slight ash tint under sterile light. unfocused when processing internally. hair: black, cropped close, slightly tousled, and always styled body type: lean and tall, lightly muscled but efficient—built for containment, not strength distinguishable marks: surgical scarring along left scapula, mostly faded. light freckling across forearms. weight: 68 kg height: 177 cm

mental evaluation mental illnesses: undiagnosed. earth-based diagnostics are insufficient. isolation indicators present. behavioral files note flat affect and compulsive order-maintenance. psychological profile: detached, observation-oriented, prioritizes structure over sentiment. memory inconsistencies exist around key life events. grieves in private. does not form new attachments easily. still catalogues data from old ones. positive traits: intelligent, patient, highly observant, self-sustaining negative traits: emotionally avoidant, secretive, disconnected from human empathy, sometimes manipulative under pressure alignment type: neutral, preservationist personality type (mbti): intj phobias: memory degradation, vacuum drift, forced grounding mannerisms: rarely touches objects with full hand contact, carries gloves even in summer, tilts head when analyzing speech, prefers standing to sitting hobbies & interests: building quiet machines, stargazing through low-res lenses, decoding abandoned tech, old space telemetry

strategic analysis combat style: precise, non-emotive, escape-priority unless cornered weapon of choice: energy rifles, gravitational anchors hand-to-hand combat proficiency: enough to escape or incapacitate. lacks stamina. doesn't improvise. tactical strengths: high-level problem solving, long-range forecasting, total control under pressure tactical weaknesses: poor team coordination, low verbal transparency, can’t parse emotional manipulation signature techniques: atmosphere destabilization via energy field deployment, silent movement through narrow environments pain tolerance: extremely high. likely compartmentalizes sensation. defensive skills: high evasion, excellent escape mapping, mild shielding ability under unknown tech

affiliations & relationships family: all records list a mother, father, and older sister—living in incheon. public photos exist. holiday calls are made. but emotional data is absent. he knows when to send gifts, what stories to reference. nothing slips. the original park joohyun has not been seen since 2012. allies & associates: korean military contractors, ghosted nasa files, unnamed data engineer (civilian) rivalries: none confirmed enemies: unknown. possibility of surveillance by non-earth entities romantic history: former long-term relationship with a u.s. air force pilot. deceased. no documented partners since. notable friends: university assistant referred to as “bae yoonseo” proximity inconsistent, but noted.

habits & lifestyle daily routine: rigid. begins at 4:00 a.m. includes private research, public lectures, transit walks, and evening silence diet & nutrition: plain, clean, repetitive. favors root vegetables, bland proteins, and mineral water. avoids stimulants. exercise habits: solo running, light resistance work, stretches meant to simulate microgravity conditions grooming habits: minimal. short nails, unscented soap, dresses clean but without effort. substance use: does not drink socially. one bottle of liquor kept in drawer—only used once a year. sleep patterns: rarely exceeds four hours per cycle. sometimes naps sitting upright. personal aesthetic: all-black or grey clothing. outerwear with hidden pockets. one jacket lined with hand-stitched star maps. favorite books: cold war space archives, declassified star missions, speculative cosmic philosophy favorite music genres: neo-soul and r&b played late and low—likely inherited from the real joohyun, but the taste remains. favorite art/architecture: brutalism, orbital linework, structured decay

#character profile.

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locrianisabrokenmode · 2 months ago

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muse page - V

Basics

Name: Vii aka V aka Seven Species: ??? Age: ancient Gender: none, she/her pronouns as deemed by the rest of the group

Character

Moral Alignment: none Personality Type: INTP-T positive traits: exciteable, generally well-meaning, spontaneous, helpful if asked, default-mode is usually peaceful until disturbed negative traits: doesn't understand emotions, brooding, violent, impulsive, no concept of human morals/amoral

Powers and Abilities

Telepathy: Vii is is generally not very talkative since she lacks most words for the things she wants to communicate. She will place abstract thoughts and feelings in your head via telepathy to communicate with you. Therefore, she's able to communicate with anyone and anything regardless of language barriers Telekinesis: not a very sophisticated form. She's only able to create a weak force field/gust of wind to push things away from her as a means of defense Rewind: Able to rewind time limited to a small scene/time frame and location. That's generally her "undo" button. Doesn't affect living beings and generally only rewinds up to a few minutes. Shapeshift: Is able to shapeshift between her humanoid form and the original nightmare form in which she roams the desolate landscape of Trench

Appearance

Height: 1,76 m Hair: pinkish red, back-length, messy, most of the time covering her face Eye Color: light orange/pink/brown, peachy Body: tall, skinny. Sharp teeth and claws. Skin: very light, almost grey-ish Face Claim: Lucy Elfen Lied and Power CSM Clothing style: whatever the group has to offer, she prefers loose, comfy clothes Nightmare form: Seven grows 2 meters tall, her hair becoming longer and tangled. In her original form, she sprouts multiple arms with claw-like hands, unusually human legs, sometimes adordned with a canine tail. Her face becomes a distorted, glitchy mess, most of the time hidden underneath the multitude of fox heads that grow out of her skull instead.

Backstory:

Vii doesn't remember a lot before the group. Days seemed to blend into years seemed to blend into centuries and nothing ever really changed. All of it feels just like one big dream. She doesn't remember the beginnings of Trench and how it came to be the wasteland it is nowadays, so it's fair to say she's one of the younger "monsters" out there.

Gogo and her scouts found V at the bottom of a mountain, ready to fight her but V seemed strangely peaceful, only ever pushing the group away if they got too far and then resorting to trying to take a nap inside of a hollowed out tree. In the end, curiosity got the best of V and she followed the group up the mountain, placing her thoughts and desires into the minds of the group. The arcane researcher of the group was happy to have her tag along and Gogo also didn't see a problem in having a "local" with the group, so that's when V joined them.

#about v #about vii #muse page

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jcmarchi · 3 months ago

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Styling Counters in CSS

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/styling-counters-in-css/

Styling Counters in CSS

Yes, you are reading that correctly: This is indeed a guide to styling counters with CSS. Some of you are cheering, “Finally!”, but I understand that the vast majority of you are thinking, “Um, it’s just styling lists.” If you are part of the second group, I get it. Before learning and writing more and more about counters, I thought the same thing. Now I am part of the first group, and by the end of this guide, I hope you join me there.

There are many ways to create and style counters, which is why I wanted to write this guide and also how I plan to organize it: going from the most basic styling to the top-notch level of customization, sprinkling in between some sections about spacing and accessibility. It isn’t necessary to read the guide in order — each section should stand by itself, so feel free to jump to any part and start reading.

Customizing Counters in HTML

Lists elements were among the first 18 tags that made up HTML. Their representation wasn’t defined yet but deemed fitting a bulleted list for unordered lists, and a sequence of numbered paragraphs for an ordered list.

Cool but not enough; soon people needed more from HTML alone and new list attributes were added throughout the years to fill in the gaps.

start

The start attribute takes an integer and sets from where the list should start:

<ol start="2"> <li>Bread</li> <li>Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol>

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

Although, it isn’t limited to positive values; zero and negative integers are allowed as well:

<ol start="0"> <li>Bread</li> <li>Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol> <ol start="-2"> <li>Bread</li> <li>Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol>

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

type

We can use the type attribute to change the counter’s representation. It’s similar to CSS’s list-style-type, but it has its own limited uses and shouldn’t be used interchangeably*. Its possible values are:

1 for decimal numbers (default)

a for lowercase alphabetic

A for uppercase alphabetic

i for lowercase Roman numbers

I for uppercase Roman numbers

<ol type="a"> <li>Bread</li> <li>Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol> <ol type="i"> <li>Bread</li> <li>Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol>

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

It’s weird enough to use type on ol elements, but it still has some use cases*. However, usage with the ul element is downright deprecated.

value

The value attribute sets the value for a specific li element. This also affects the values of the li elements after it.

<ol> <li>Bread</li> <li value="4">Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol>

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

reversed

The reversed attribute will start counting elements in reverse order, so from highest to lowest.

<ol reversed> <li>Bread</li> <li>Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol>

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

All can be combined

If you ever feel the need, all list attributes can be combined in one (ordered) list.

<ol reversed start="2" type="i"> <li>Bread</li> <li value="4">Milk</li> <li>Butter</li> <li>Apples</li> </ol>

Bread

Milk

Butter

Apples

* Do we need them if we now have CSS?

Funny enough, the first CSS specification already included list-style-type and other properties to style lists, and it was released before HTML 3.2 — the first HTML spec that included some of the previous list attributes. This means that at least on paper, we had CSS list styling before HTML list attributes, so the answer isn’t as simple as “they were there before CSS.”

Without CSS, a static page (such as this guide) won’t be pretty, but at the very least, it should be readable. For example, the type attribute ensures that styled ordered lists won’t lose their meaning if CSS is missing, which is especially useful in legal or technical documents. Some attributes wouldn’t have a CSS equivalent until years later, including reversed, start and value.

Styling Simple Counters in CSS

For most use cases, styling lists in CSS doesn’t take more than a couple of rules, but even in that brevity, we can find different ways to style the same list.

::marker or ::before?

The ::marker pseudo-element represents the counter part of a list item. As a pseudo-element, we can set its content property to any string to change its counter representation:

li::marker content: "💜 ";

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The content in pseudo-elements also accepts images, which allows us to create custom markers:

li::marker content: url("./logo.svg") " ";

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By default, only li elements have a ::marker but we can give it to any element by setting its display property to list-item:

h4 display: list-item; h4::marker content: "◦ ";

This will give each h4 a ::marker which we can change to any string:

List Title

However, ::marker is an odd case: it was described in the CSS spec more than 20 years ago, but only gained somewhat reliable support in 2020 and still isn’t fully supported in Safari. What’s worst, only font-related properties (such as font-size or color) are allowed, so we can’t change its margin or background-color.

This has led many to use ::before instead of ::marker, so you’ll see a lot of CSS in which the author got rid of the ::marker using list-style-type: none and used ::before instead:

li /* removes ::marker */ list-style-type: none; li::before /* mimics ::marker */ content: "▸ ";

list-style-type

The list-style-type property can be used to replace the ::marker‘s string. Unlike ::marker, list-style-type has been around forever and is most people’s go-to option for styling lists. It can take a lot of different counter styles that are built-in in browsers, but you will probably use one of the following:

For unordered lists:

disc

circle

square

ul list-style-type: square; ul list-style-type: circle;

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For ordered lists:

decimal

decimal-leading-zero

lower-roman

upper-roman

lower-alpha

upper-alpha

ol list-style-type: upper-roman; ol list-style-type: lower-alpha;

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You can find a full list of valid counter styles here.

It can also take none to remove the marker altogether, and since not long ago, it can also take a <string> for ul elements.

ul list-style-type: none; ul list-style-type: "➡️ ";

Creating Custom Counters

For a long time, there wasn’t a CSS-equivalent to the HTML reverse, start or value attributes. So if we wanted to reverse or change the start of multiple lists, instead of a CSS class to rule them all, we had to change their HTML one by one. You can imagine how repetitive that would get.

Besides, list attributes simply had their limitations: we can’t change how they increment with each item and there isn’t an easy way to attach a prefix or suffix to the counter. And maybe the biggest reason of all is that there wasn’t a way to number things that weren’t lists!

Custom counters let us number any collection of elements with a whole new level of customization. The workflow is to:

Initiate the counter with the counter-reset property.

Increment the counter with the counter-increment property.

Individually set the counters with the counter-set property.

Output the counters with either the counter() and counters() functions.

As I mentioned, we can make a list out of any collection of elements, and while this has its accessibility concerns, just for demonstration’s sake, let’s try to turn a collection of headings like this…

<div class="index"> <h2>The Old Buccaneer</h2> <h2>The Sea Cook</h2> <h2>My Shore Adventure</h2> <h2>The Log Cabin</h2> <h2>My Sea Adventure</h2> <h2>Captain Silver</h2> </div>

…into something that looks list-like. But just because we can make an element look like a list doesn’t always mean we should do it. Be sure to consider how the list will be announced by assistive technologies, like screen readers, and see the Accessibility section for more information.

Initiate counters: counter-reset

The counter-reset property takes two things: the name of the counter as a custom ident and the initial count as an integer. If the initial count isn’t given, then it will start at 0 by default:

.index counter-reset: index; /* The same as */ counter-reset: index 0;

You can initiate several counters at once with a space-separated list and set a specific value for each one:

.index counter-reset: index another-counter 2;

This will start our index counter at 0 (the default) and another-counter at 2.

Set counters: counter-set

The counter-set works similar to counter-reset: it takes the counter’s name followed by an integer, but this time it will set the count for that element onwards. If the integer is omitted, it will set the counter to 0 by default.

h2:nth-child(2) counter-set: index; /* same as */ counter-set: index 0;

And we can set several counters at once, as well:

h2:nth-child(3) counter-set: index 5 another-counter 10;

This will set the third h2 element’s index count to 5 and another-counter to 10.

If there isn’t an active counter with that name, counter-set will initiate it at 0.

Increment counters: counter-increment

Right now, we have our counter, but it will stagnate at 0 since we haven’t set which elements should increment it. We can use the counter-increment property for that, which takes the name of the counter and how much it should be incremented by. If we only write the counter’s name, it will increment it by 1.

In this case, we want each h2 title to increment the counter by one, and that should be as easy as setting counter-increment to the counter’s name:

h2 counter-increment: index; /* same as */ counter-increment: index 1;

Just like with counter-reset, we can increment several counters at once in a space-separated list:

h2 counter-increment: index another-counter 2;

This will increment index by one and another-counter by two on each h2 element.

If there isn’t an active counter with that name, counter-increment will initiate it at 0.

Output simple lists: counter()

So far, we won’t see any change in the counter representation. The counters are counting but not showing, so to output the counter’s result we use the counter() and counters() functions. Yes, those are two functions with similar names but important differences.

The counter() function takes the name of a counter and outputs its content as a string. If many active counters have the same name, it will select the one that is defined closest to the element, so we can only output one counter at a time.

As mentioned earlier, we can set an element’s display to list-item to work with its ::marker pseudo-element:

h2 display: list-item;

Then, we can use counter() in its content property to output the current count. This allows us to prefix and suffix the counter by writing a string before or after the counter() function:

h2::marker content: "Part " counter(index) ": ";

Alternatively, we can use the everyday ::before pseudo-element to the same effect:

h2::before content: "Part " counter(index) ": ";

Output nested lists: counters()

counter() works great for most situations, but what if we wanted to do a nested list like this:

1. Paradise Beaches 1.1. Hawaiian Islands 1.2. Caribbean Getaway 1.2.1. Aruba 1.2.2. Barbados 2. Outdoor Escapades 2.1 National Park Hike 2.2. Mountain Skiing Trip

We would need to initiate individual counters and write different counter() functions for each level of nesting, and that’s only possible if we know how deep the nesting goes, which we simply don’t at times.

In this case, we use the counters() function, which also takes the name of a counter as an argument but instead of just outputting its content, it will join all active counters with that name into a single string and output it. To do so, it takes a string as a second argument, usually something like a dot (".") or dash ("-") that will be used between counters to join them.

We can use counter-reset and counter-increment to initiate a counter for each ol element, while each li will increment its closest counter by 1:

ol counter-reset: item; li counter-increment: item;

But this time, instead of using counter() (which would only display one counter per item), we will use counters() to join all active counters by a string (e.g. ".“) and output them at once:

li::marker content: counters(item, ".") ". ";

Styling Counters

Both the counter() and counters() functions accept one additional, yet optional, last argument representing the counter style, the same ones we use in the list-style-type property. So in our last two examples, we could change the counter styles to Roman numbers and alphabetic letters, respectively:

h2::marker content: "Part " counter(index, upper-roman) ": ";

li::marker content: counters(item, ".", lower-alpha) ". ";

Reverse Counters

It’s possible to count backward using custom counters, but we need to know beforehand the number of elements we’ll count. So for example, if we want to make a Top Five list in reversed order:

<h1>Best rated animation movies</h1> <ol> <li>Toy Story 2</li> <li>Toy Story 1</li> <li>Finding Nemo</li> <li>How to Train your Dragon</li> <li>Inside Out</li> </ol>

We have to initiate our counter at the total number of elements plus one (so it doesn’t end at 0):

ol counter-reset: movies 6;

And then set the increment to a negative integer:

li counter-increment: movies -1;

To output the count we use counter() as we did before:

li::marker content: counter(movies) ". ";

There is also a way to write reversed counters supported in Firefox, but it hasn’t shipped to any other browser. Using the reversed() functional notation, we can wrap the counter name while initiating it to say it should be reversed.

ol counter-reset: reversed(movies); li counter-increment: movies; li::marker content: counter(movies) " .";

Styling Custom Counters

The last section was all about custom counters: we changed from where they started and how they increased, but at the end of the day, their output was styled in one of the browser’s built-in counter styles, usually decimal. Now using @counter-style, we’ll build our own counter styles to style any list.

The @counter-style at-rule, as its name implies, lets you create custom counter styles. After writing the at-rule it takes a custom ident as a name:

@counter-style my-counter-style /* etc. */

That name can be used inside the properties and functions that take a counter style, such as list-style-type or the last argument in counter() and counters():

ul list-style-type: my-counter-style; li::marker content: counter(my-counter, my-counter-style) ". ";

What do we write inside @counter-style? Descriptors! How many descriptors? Honestly, a lot. Just look at this quick review of all of them:

system: specifies which algorithm will be used to construct the counter’s string representation. (Obligatory)

negative: specifies the counter representation if the counter value is negative. (Optional)

prefix: specifies a character that will be attached before the marker representation and any negative sign. (Optional)

suffix: specifies a character that will be attached after the marker representation and any negative sign. (Optional)

range: specifies the range in which the custom counter is used. Counter values outside the range will drop to their fallback counter style. (Optional)

pad: specifies a minimum width all representations have to reach. Representations shorter than the minimum are padded with a character. (Optional)

fallback: specifies a fallback counter used whenever a counter style can’t represent a counter value. (Optional)

symbols: specifies the symbols used by the construction system algorithm. It’s obligatory unless the system is set to additive or extends.

additive-symbols: specifies the symbols used by the construction algorithm when the system descriptor is set to additive.

speak-as: specifies how screen readers should read the counter style. (Optional)

However, I’ll focus on the required descriptors first: system, symbols and additive-symbols.

The system descriptor

The symbols or additive-symbols descriptors define the characters used for the counter style, while system says how to use them.

The valid system values are:

cyclic

alphabetic

symbolic

additive

fixed

extends

cyclic will go through the characters set on symbols and repeat them. We can use just one character in the symbols to mimic a bullet list:

@counter-style cyclic-example system: cyclic; symbols: "⏵"; suffix: " ";

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Or alternate between two or more characters:

@counter-style cyclic-example system: cyclic; symbols: "🔸" "🔹"; suffix: " ";

fixed will write the characters in symbols descriptor just one time. In the last example, only the first two items will have a custom counter if set to fixed, while the others will drop to their fallback, which is decimal by default.

@counter-style multiple-example system: fixed; symbols: "🔸" "🔹"; suffix: " ";

We can set when the custom counters start by appending an <integer> to the fixed value. For example, the following custom counter will start at the fourth item:

@counter-style fixed-example system: fixed 4; symbols: "💠"; suffix: " ";

numeric will numerate list items using a custom positional system (base-2, base-8, base-16, etc.). Positional systems start at 0, so the first character at symbols will be used as 0, the next as 1, and so on. Knowing this, we can make an ordered list using non-decimal numerical systems like hexadecimal:

@counter-style numeric-example system: numeric; symbols: "0" "1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9" "A" "B" "C" "D" "E" "F"; suffix: ". ";

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alphabetic will enumerate the list items using a custom alphabetical system. It’s similar to the numeric system but with the key difference that it doesn’t have a character for 0, so the next digits are just repeated. For example, if our symbols are "A" "B" "C" they will wrap to "AA", "AB", "AC", then BA, BB, BC and so on.

Since there is no equivalent for 0 and negative values, they will drop down to their fallback.

@counter-style alphabetic-example system: alphabetic; symbols: "A" "B" "C"; suffix: ". ";

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symbolic will go through the characters in symbols repeating them one more time each iteration. So for example, if our symbols are "A", "B", "C", it will go “A”, “B”, and “C”, double them in the next iteration as “AA”, “BB”, and “CC”, then triple them as “AAA”, “BBB”, “CCC” and so on.

Since there is no equivalent for 0 and negative values, they will drop down to their fallback.

@counter-style symbolic-example system: symbolic; symbols: "A" "B" "C"; suffix: ". ";

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additive will give characters a numerical value and add them together to get the counter representation. You can think of it as the way we usually count bills: if we have only $5, $2, and $1 bills, we will add them together to get the desired quantity, trying to keep the number of bills used at a minimum. So to represent 10, we will use two $5 bills instead of ten $1 bills.

Since there is no equivalent for negative values, they will drop down to their fallback.

@counter-style additive -example system: additive; additive-symbols: 5 "5️⃣", 2 "2️⃣", 1 "1️⃣"; suffix: " ";

Notice how we use additive-symbols when the system is additive, while we use just symbols for the previous systems.

extends will create a custom style from another one but with modifications. To do so, it takes a <counter-style-name> after the extends value. For example, we could change the decimal counter style default’s suffix to a closing parenthesis (")")`:

@counter-style extends-example system: extends decimal; suffix: ") ";

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Per spec, “If a @counter-style uses the extends system, it must not contain a symbols or additive-symbols descriptor, or else the @counter-style rule is invalid.”

The other descriptors

The negative descriptor allows us to create a custom representation for a list’s negative values. It can take one or two characters: The first one is prepended to the counter, and by default it’s the hyphen-minus ("-"). The second one is appended to the symbol. For example, we could enclose negative representations into parenthesis (2), (1), 0, 1, 2:

@counter-style negative-example system: extends decimal; negative: "(" ")";

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The prefix and suffix descriptors allow us to prepend and append, respectively, a character to the counter representation. We can use it to add a character at the beginning of each counter using prefix:

@counter-style prefix-suffix-example system: extends decimal; prefix: "("; suffix: ") ";

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The range descriptor defines an inclusive range in which the counter style is used. We can define a bounded range by writing one <integer> next to another. For example, a range of 2 4 will affect elements 2, 3, and 4:

@counter-style range-example system: cyclic; symbols: "‣"; suffix: " "; range: 2 4;

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On the other hand, using the infinite value we can unbound the range to one side. For example, we could write infinite 3 so all items up to 3 have a counter style:

@counter-style range-example system: alphabetic; symbols: "A" "B" "C"; suffix: ". "; range: infinite 3;

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The pad descriptor takes an <integer> that represents the minimum width for the counter and a character to pad it. For example, a zero-padded counter style would look like the following:

@counter-style pad-example system: extends decimal; pad: 3 "0";

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The fallback descriptor allows you to define which counter style should be used as a fallback whenever we can’t represent a specific count. For example, the following counter style is fixed and will fallback to lower-roman after the sixth item:

@counter-style fallback-example system: fixed; symbols: "⚀" "⚁" "⚂" "⚃"; fallback: lower-roman;

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Lastly, the speak-as descriptor hints to speech readers on how the counter style should be read. It can be:

auto Uses the system default.

bullets reads an unordered list. By default, cyclic systems are read as bullets

numbers reads the counter’s numeric value in the content language. By default, additive, fixed, numeric, and, symbolic are read as numbers.

words reads the counter representation as words.

spell-out reads the counter representation letter by letter. By default, alphabetic is read as spell-out.

<counter-style-name> It will use that counter’s speak-as value.

@counter-style speak-as-example system: extends decimal; prefix: "Item "; suffix: " is "; speak-as: words;

symbols()

The symbols() function defines an only-use counter style without the need to do a whole @counter-style, but at the cost of missing some features. It can be used inside the list-style-type property and the counter() and counters() functions.

ol list-style-type: symbols(cyclic "🥬");

However, its browser support is appalling since it’s only supported in Firefox.

Images in Counters

In theory, there are four ways to add images to lists:

list-style-image property

content property

symbols descriptor in @counter-style

symbols() function.

In practice, the only supported ways are using list-style-image and content, since support for images in @counter-style and support in general for symbols() isn’t the best (it’s pretty bad).

list-style-image

The list-style-image can take an image or a gradient. In this case, we want to focus on images but gradients can also be used to create custom square bullets:

li list-style-image: conic-gradient(red, yellow, lime, aqua, blue, magenta, red);

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Sadly, changing the shape would require styling more the ::marker and this isn’t currently possible.

To use an image, we pass its url(), make sure is small enough to work as a counter:

li list-style-image: url("./logo.svg");

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content

The content property works similar to list-style-image: we pass the image’s url() and provide a little padding on the left as an empty string:

li::marker content: url("./logo.svg") " ";

Spacing Things Out

You may notice in the last part how the image — depending on its size — isn’t completely centered on the text, and also that we provide an empty string on content properties for spacing instead of giving things either a padding or margin. Well, there’s an explanation for all of this, as since spacing is one of the biggest pain points when it comes to styling lists.

Margins and paddings are wacky

Spacing the ::marker from the list item should be as easy as increasing the marker’s or list margin, but in reality, it takes a lot more work.

First, the padding and margin properties aren’t allowed in ::marker. While lists have two types of elements: the list wrapper (usually ol or ul) and the list item (li), each with a default padding and margin. Which should we use?

You can test each property in this demo by Šime Vidas in his article dedicated to the gap after the list marker:

You’ll notice how the only property that affects the spacing within ::marker and the text is the li item’s padding property, while the rest of the spacing properties will move the entire list item. Another thing to note is even when the padding is set to 0px, there is a space after the ::marker. This is set by browsers and will vary depending on which browser you’re using.

list-style-position

One last thing you may notice in the demo is a checkbox for the list-style-position property, and how once you set it to inside, the ::marker will move to the inside of the box, at the cost of removing any spacing given by the list item’s padding.

By default, markers are rendered outside the ul element’s box. A lot of times, this isn’t the best behavior: markers sneak out of elements, text-align won’t align the marker, and paradoxically, centered lists with flex or grid won’t look completely centered since the markers are outside the box.

To change this we can use the list-style-position property, it can be either outside (default) and inside to define where to position the list marker: either outside or the outside of the ul box.

ul border: solid 2px red; .inside list-style-position: inside; .outside list-style-position: outside;

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content with empty strings

In the same article, Šime says:

Appending a space to content feels more like a workaround than the optimal solution.

And I completely agree that’s true, but just using ::marker there isn’t a correct way to add spacing between the ::marker and the list text, especially since most people prefer to set list-style-position to inside. So, as much as it pains me to say it, the simplest way to increase the gap after the marker is to suffix the content property with an empty string:

li::marker content: "• ";

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BUT! This is only if we want to be purists and stick with the ::marker pseudo-element because, in reality, there is a much better way to position that marker: not using it at all.

Just use ::before

There is a reason people love using the ::before more than ::marker. First, we can’t use something like CSS Grid or Flexbox since changing the display of li to something other than list-item will remove the ::marker, and we can set the ::marker‘s height or width properties to better align it.

Let’s be real, ::marker works fine when we just want simple styling. But we are not here for simple styling! Once we want something more involved, ::marker will fall short and we’ll have to use the ::before pseudo-element.

Using ::before means we can use Flexbox, which allows for two things we couldn’t do before:

Vertically center the marker with the text

Easily increase the gap after the marker

Both can be achieved with Flexbox:

li display: flex; align-items: center; /* Vertically center the marker */ gap: 20px; /* Increases the gap */ list-style-type: none;

The original ::marker is removed by changing the display.

Accesibility

In a previous section we turned things that weren’t lists into seemingly looking lists, so the question arises: should we actually do that? Doesn’t it hurt accessibility to make something look like a list when it isn’t one? As always, it depends. For a visual user, all the examples in this entry look all right, but for assistive technology users, some examples lack the necessary markup for accessible navigation.

Take for example our initial demo. Here, listing titles serves as decoration since the markup structure is given by the titles themselves. It’s the same deal for the counting siblings demo from earlier, as assistive technology users can read the document through the title structure.

However, this is the exception rather than the norm. That means a couple of the examples we looked at would fail if we need the list to be announced as a list in assistive technology, like screen readers. For example this list we looked at earlier:

<div class="index"> <h2>The Old Buccaneer</h2> <h2>The Sea Cook</h2> <h2>My Shore Adventure</h2> <h2>The Log Cabin</h2> <h2>My Sea Adventure</h2> <h2>Captain Silver</h2> </div>

…should be written as a list instead:

<ul class="index"> <li>The Old Buccaneer</li> <li>The Sea Cook</li> <li>My Shore Adventure</li> <li>The Log Cabin</li> <li>My Sea Adventure</li> <li>Captain Silver</li> </ul>

Listing elements is rarely used just as decoration, so as a rule of thumb, use lists in the markup even if you are planning to change them with CSS.

Almanac References

List Properties

Counters

Custom Counter Styles

Pseudo-Elements

More Tutorials & Tricks!

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iojg · 2 months ago

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Alright, let us get to work! I both dread these chains of long winded posts and love them, and this one is more so in particular -- I really enjoy what we are talking about, but I see here a great potential for talking past one each other. I sincerely hope we will be able to bypass that threat. To that end, I will do the "quoting a part of message and then answering" thing, but I will try not to split our conversation into several different topics we pursue in parallel. To achieve that, I will not quote you chronotopically, instead using quotes to sorta subtitle the parts of my whole argument. I also want to assure you that despite me not quoting large swaths of your post, I've read it in full multiple times before starting to write this, and I'll likely reread it after writing this sentence still. Without further delay,

It's What My Character Would Do

Firstly, I'd like to say that, as far as I understand, you don't hold any animosity towards the hypothetical quoted player here, despite the stated infamy. Rather I believe we both agree that it is a matter of mismanaged expectation between the player and the GM: the first wants to advocate for her character, the second wants to tell her story, which she prepped. I want then to *go on the record* and state that I will from this point speak mainly about games in which "saying what your character does" is the crux of the game -- in my preferred style of game this is THE fun part. Now, I will say something that I believe will underscore the whole matter of our disagreement, and which will be, essentially, my thesis: I believe that there is a kind of prep damaging to this play, and a kind of prep conductive to it, all while there is a kind of improv that is damaging and a kind that is conductive too. I don't believe that the important line lies between prep or no prep here at all.

When that decision was made - right now, or in last night's prep - doesn't matter. What matters is when it's spoken into reality in front of the other players.

Now, I think you are missing something rather important right here. I think the missed part is the most important thing about SIS (I would myself just say "fiction", but I enjoy your partiality to that anachronism, so let's stick to it!) and that it is *how it is managed*. That is, who, how and when gets to decide what is part of SIS and what isn't. I think this social situation surrounding SIS is the most important and meaningful because it is way more uncontroversially real than its interior. Whether GM gets to make up that there is a village in a middle of play is a matter social relations between real people, just as in general who gets to speak when and about what exactly.

The work of a really well-prepared GM who's really good at running a pre-planned game will be largely indistinguishable from the work of a really good 0-prep GM who has instead learned to build the game on the fly. ... However, the accepted default is an extremely high-prep approach, and that high-prep approach often leads to negative outcomes... That's what I'm pushing back against, right?

For my money, actually, there is nearly zero distinction between the two in practice, as far the social situation is concerned, because what is happening there in both cases is that GM assumes a role of some sort of entertaining storyteller by taking control of the story, and making it go wherever she likes. In the first case, she predetermines the matter before play. In the second case, she decides where the story goes on the fly. But the sitch is basically the same if you squint a bit: the important part is that *she decides*.

The kind of play I enjoy, the story does not go where GM wants, the story follows established fiction (contains of SIS). Counter-intuitively, I think GM deciding what's the most fun thing to happen would be is the most ruinous thing to fun here, because it is completely unsupportive of my favourite "It's What My Character Would Do!" style of play, because it relies upon there being emergent consequences for character action. Otherwise, what is happening is quantum ogre sans prep: whatever the characters do, GM makes *whatever is fun* happen. The fact that she doesn't know before the game isn't what's important, what's important is that she *decides*. And to clarify, the problem is not that she doesn't take into account what is fun for the players or not, that's besides the point. The story made up by GM on the fly for the players' tastes is still a story made up by GM. No *finding out* is happening.

Just as you, I imagine here the most extreme scenario possible. You can obviously, for example, establish the situation in full during the first 20 minutes of play, agreeing that what will be collectively made up there is what the game is about. Or, more radically, you can improv it during the first few sessions of play, and then gradually shift to explore it, the way Apocalypse World plays out when done close to text. But if your desired style of play is not GM's story, the shift must occur at some point, and it might just occur between prep and first session.

Now, another important thing is that spreading the GM role around doesn't really help. I will not elaborate at this time, because the whole reply is starting to tire me out, but such measure just basically shifts the problem to game being shared by several storytellers. Still not playing to find out by my definition.

At this moment, I have my attention span killing my ability to write further. I hope it's not too insulting how I practically ignored your second part of the post, but I hope you can see that if I do so at that time the conversation will get really unwieldy. If it's not too much to ask, please tell me if I really need to address some concern of yours before you can honestly reply to me, and I will do so. Again, sorry for not being thorough, and for not ending my response properly!

writing intricate backstories is the playerside equivallent of the gm prep burden

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blackknight95857669 · 2 years ago

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Kena: Bridge Of Spirits Review (mild end game spoiler)

Just rolled credits on Kena after 35 hours so it's time to get my thoughts down. Kena is a 3D platformer that sees you take control of the titular Kena, a young spirit guide who has arrived at an abandoned village near The Mountain Shrine she's been searching for. In order to access the Shrine, she uncovers the secrets of the village, helping the spirits who in turn will aid her in her quest.

So for starters, this is a very pretty game, and it only gets prettier as you restore the corrupted lands. I quite like the art style which is very reminiscent of Pixar animation. This is reinforced by the story telling cinematics, which could easily be fleshed out into a full length feature.

Speaking of the story, it's very good. Well acted all around. In a nutshell I'd say it's basically Spiritfarer 3D, just without the extended conversations with the spirits you help, and in this game it's obviously leading to a final confrontation with... something. There's a decent amount to see and do in the game, and honestly none of it felt like "make work". There were solid rewards for going the extra mile and exploring everything.

The controls are good, nice and tight. No floaty jumping, or slide-ish running. The control scheme is set up well, also. I only had a few moments of "whoops that's not what I meant to do" mis-inputs. There are a bunch of accessibility options as well, which is still always nice to see, even as it gets more prevalent in the industry. Hey, I'm old, I remember when inverting Y-Axis was a pipe dream for most games.

Ok, so now the negatives. Mostly I have some nitpicks with the combat. So I noticed that taking a knockdown hit near structures more often than not would put you into a slow motion fall as you would get hung up on the environment. This led to a couple "cheap deaths", as the enemies would gang up on your defenseless protagonist. Another minor issue I had with a couple enemies in the last 3rd of the game: they didn't do a good enough (for me) job telegraphing what move I needed to use to break their "shield" to then damage and defeat them. I figured it out, obviously, but yeah for a bit there I was confused as to how I was supposed to get by em, lol.

**********Spoiler warning*********

The final confrontation was a disappointment to me. I haven't been a big fan of "multiple waves of enemies" final bosses for a long time, especially when it doesn't really make sense to the game's story or style. Kena has one of those types of end bosses. I tried a few times on the default difficulty level, but it was just too much stuff for this old man. I had to turn down the difficulty level in order to beat it. I'm glad that was an option for me so I could see the ending, but it still disappoints me a little.

**************End Spoiler***************

Overall, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a really good game, with a great story, acting, controls, etc. I absolutely enjoyed 99% of my time with it, and would heartily recommend it to anyone that's a fan of 3D platformers especially, but all gamers should at least give it a try. Especially if you own a PS5 and have PSN Extra, as it's in the game catalog right now so it's "free" to play.

#Kena: Bridge of Spirits #Video Games #Gaming #Game Review #PS5 #Steam

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biceratops7 · 2 years ago

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Victor nikiforov and empathy:

Following my fifth (?) rewatch I found yet another reason to be completely in love with Yuri on Ice, and that is Victor being a wonderfully accurate and non-demonized example of someone with low empathy. Seriously as someone who’s autistic and can’t relate to the influx of “actually we’re all super in tune to other’s feelings and have the MOST empathy!”, watch these scenes because this is what it’s like.

This line at first seems to be Yakov thinking that Victor is arrogant, but Yakov knows him extremely well. He knows that Victor has a hard time viscerally placing himself in another’s shoes, and that’s a major obstacle as a coach.

Victor has trouble understanding what to do in situations that are highly emotional for Yuuri. Instead of being able to directly consider things through Yuuri’s perspective, we see him rely pretty often on environment cues, behavioral cause and affect, or straightforward commands.

He gets his habit of scolding yuri after a routine from Yakov because that’s what he’s familiar with. It’s not something Yuuri responds to particularly well, but it’s only when Victor pays attention to how others react when Yuuri finishes skating that he changes tactic. Victor sees how the crowd is going wild at the (Japan nationals) and it’s only then it occurs to him that Yuuri’s confidence may be jeopardized if he chooses that moment to criticize his performance. This is something he likely would’ve realized much sooner if he could share Yuuri’s stress easier instead of merely observing that it’s happening.

Then later on in episode 7, we get to the scene that actually inspired this post.

At first Victor approached the situation almost like an experiment, trying out cause and effect to disastrous results. When you have a much lower threshold for being able to experience another’s feelings second hand, it’s difficult not to think of other’s negative emotions simply as problems that need to be solved. Problem: Yuuri won’t perform well because he’s too anxious, he will only be MORE upset if he loses, and Victor has already tried to reduce his anxiety to no avail. Idea for solution: raise the stakes and see if increased pressure can replace his nerves with resolve, causing a good performance. Afterward, Yuuri will be proud of himself and happy again. Execute plan, observe results, adjust accordingly. When comfort doesn’t come naturally, this tends to be kind of the default. From experience it comes from a genuine place of caring even when it backfires (and it actually doesn’t at times), basically trying to actually fix the thing upsetting your loved one instead of play acting feelings you don’t get.

… however Yuuri was COMPLETELY within his rights yelling at Victor because regardless of intent he picked the worst thing on planet earth to say in that exact moment. I mean I’ve had my fair share of “oh crap someone is upset and it’s my responsibility” fails but my fuck-

He’s shown to be pretty shit at comforting Yuri/ detached emotionally from the situation, but he is neither coldly unbothered nor strategically hiding it. It may appear callous to bluntly say “I don’t know how to help you” to a loved one who’s crying, but as someone who’s been there, that’s an insanely vulnerable thing to admit. “I don’t feel your pain, I don’t get it. But I love you, and just because I’m not feeling it myself doesn’t mean I don’t care that you’re hurting.”

When Yuri finally just straight up tells Victor what to do, he is relieved and simply does it. Things are different between them after this episode because Yuuri finds the power to communicate his needs clearly and effectively. Victor doesn’t speak “subtlety” well. Yakov and Yurio both speak their mind to him directly regardless of if it’s polite, Which is quite telling because they’re the two characters he has the longest history with. It shows us the kind of communication style Victor is accustomed to and needs to navigate interpersonal relationships.

I’m not making a statement that Victor is autistic or even disordered per say. I feel his unusual circumstances provide enough explanation, but I really do see that he consistently struggles with empathy in the same way I do. He’s probably the only character I’ve been able to see that aspect of myself in with scenes that aren’t played for jokes.

#yuri on ice #yoi #victor nikiforov #yuri katsuki #victuri #biceratops #meta #analysis #empathy #low empathy #affective empathy

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three--rings · 3 years ago

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Final Kinnporsche Review

So in trying to figure out how to approach writing an actual Kinnporsche review, I ended up having to make a list of positives and negatives because I couldn’t figure out how else to approach it. I’m also keeping this as non-spoilery as possible.

It’s not a show I can praise wholeheartedly without also tempering it with some criticism. It’s not a show I recommend without caveats. It is, however, a show I really have enjoyed watching and which I love in many respects. I’m going to pretty immediately watch it again, and I watched most episodes twice while it was airing. Plus I’m planning to read the novel on which it was based.

So obviously, I like it.

But let’s run through my pros and cons. Gonna start with the cons and then linger on the pros. These are all, of course, my opinion and I know some people don’t have the same experience of this show as me which is totally valid. It really depends where your threshold/attitude is towards certain things in your media and everyone is different.

Negatives:

I spoke about this in my initial post about the show, but early on and occasionally throughout, the show has some cringey and embarrassment-based humor. Especially in episode 2, which is basically ENTIRELY that. There are a number of scenes in this show I have watched mostly through my hands because I can’t handle second hand embarrassment.

The setting/premise of the show is not very believable. The mafia family with a skyscraper full of young, hot bodyguards and James Bond style tech requires a good amount of suspension of disbelief to buy into. In general the plot and action scenes require you watch with a lot of suspension of disbelief. This isn’t realistic drama TV, it’s fanfic level mafia AU that runs entirely on Rule of Cool.

The way the plot is handled/shot/edited/written is uneven and has some very sloppy moments. Some episodes are perfect and tight and others are a hot mess IMO. There’s a lot of them cutting and you going “wait, what? what happened, where are we, did I miss something?” Most of the time, the scene you find yourself in is fun and sometimes delightful and therefore you don’t actually care how you got to it. But it still...rankles, and shows the inexperience of much of the team behind the show.

I can’t speak very well to how this compares to other BL dramas or Thai dramas, but there’s a good amount of cheesy fan service that shows off the bodies of the actors. I’m not talking about specifically sex scenes or romance scenes, but everyone having their shirts unbuttoned practically to their waists, removing clothes for little reason, etc. You get used to it as like...background levels of fan services and certainly the eye candy is very nice but...it could turn some people off (and others on I’m sure).

This is almost a World Without Women, as tends to be a problem with BL content. This really feels like a world where women somehow don’t exist and most men are just queer by default. There are a couple of mother figures, literal and figurative, but they are rarely on screen. It would feel a little less weird if, like, IDK any of the men of the family had a female significant other who wasn’t dead.

There are elements of dubious consent in both the kinnporsche and vegaspete (and actually almost kimchay) ships. There’s one scene of basically sexual assault that IMO is well-handled in the aftermath, but it IS between two people who go on to be in a relationship/fall in love. There’s also a lot of violence, on-screen torture, and one ship where one of them tortures the other and keeps him as a prisoner before falling for him. So...there are elements you could say are problematic and/or toxic. If you are sensitive to these things/themes you should stay away. BUT I do think the way all of them is handled is SUPER INTERESTING and appealing to me personally. I love some redemption narratives and complicated characters and relationships.

Which brings me to the Positives.

One of my general complaints about a lot of BL dramas is that they involve young characters in high school or university. Kinnporsche is lovely in that regard because the characters/actors are mid-late 20s and the plot is way more interesting that just school drama.

The acting level of this show is EXCELLENT pretty much across the board. Every once in a while a side character has bad line delivery or a particular scene twigs my bad acting nerve, but overall I’m INCREDIBLY IMPRESSED with the cast. Especially since this is the first job for some of them. (I have a Real Problem with bad acting that ties into my embarrassment squick so this is a concern with small productions.)

But really Mile, Apo, Bible, Build...they all fucking killed it and conveyed such a range of content. But especially the super emotional scenes were so fucking good. (I’m especially impressed with Apo and Bible...damn.)

The filming is very aesthetic, pleasant, and fun to watch. Despite the obvious low budget which occasionally shows in things like the rare CGI, the cinematography is impressive. The show loves to show it off, too, with the colored lighting and camera angles, but it never feels too much and makes it a LOT more visually interesting than pretty much any other BL I’ve seen images of. (And a lot of regular TV, especially romance-focused shows.)

I started talking above about the complicated characters, and this is where the show SHINES. The characters feel complex and realistic, and have believable development across the series, which of course the acting level shows off. But also the relationships have ARCS, really huge amounts of development.

Kinnporsche especially, since that’s the focus of the show. It’s really a sorta enemies to lovers situation and there’s a lot of stops along the way, although they really sort themselves out by a little over halfway through the show.

Vegaspete is the secondary ship and it doesn’t get started until close to the end of the season but they do SO MUCH with a few episodes. I wish it had had a little more time, but I get why it happened that way. This is even MORE of enemies to lovers with one of them being a main antagonist to boot. I was expecting to HATE this ship and they...ended up being possibly my faves.

The third ship is Kim/Chay and it’s a really side story kind of thing. It doesn’t really get the development of the others but it has cute moments and is more of hints for the future/possibly S2.

But all the pairs have SUPER good chemistry. Like, wow, okay. That intimacy coaching worked I guess.

Speaking of which, let’s talk Sex Scenes. This is going to sound a certain way, but my very favorite thing about this show is the sex scenes. Because I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen better sex on screen. Most sex scenes on film are cringey and awkward or uncomfortable looking. But Kinnporsche manages to make them hot, sexy, beautiful, and also to have a lot of relevance to the characters and the relationships. The sex scenes are meaningful and tell a story. They have significance in the overall story. The emotions on the characters faces is just as important as their bodies or even more so. These sex scenes feel ACTUALLY INTIMATE and that’s VERY RARE.

And they are super explicit. The extended version of the show is 21+ and yeah...this is definitely adults only content. But mostly because they don’t shy away from the realities of what is happening. Like, yeah, you know what sex act is occurring and it’s not all penetration. I’m going to stop talking about the sex now because I’m probably going to do a post all about that. I have a lot of feelings about it, as someone very concerned with the portrayal of sex and sex positivity. But finally the last thing I’ll say is that if you’ve ever wanted to see good fanfic sex scenes on screen, this is the closest thing I’ve ever seen.

The show is very queer. As I mentioned above, pretty much everyone in the show is casually queer as if that’s just the default. Now that’s sorta because it’s in weird BL land, but also...something about the representation feels like there have been queer hands on it. Now, I can’t obviously speak to the sexual or gender identities of anyone involved with the show. I’m not pointing to anyone in particular with this. But the way that there’s no homophobia onscreen, the way everyone just accepts “you love who you love”, the way there’s no gay panic, the way there’s a variation of the way gender is presented, with men of a wide range of feminine traits on display, the gnc characters... it’s a thing.

I was originally VERY on guard about the representation in this show, especially when it came to stereotypes, but then the show just sorta kept not doing the stereotypical thing and exceeding my expectations.

Finally, the show is fun. The tone bounces all over the damn place enough to give you emotional whiplash, but it’s almost always a fun ride if you just relax and shrug and go along with it. The entire ensemble will win your heart and make you fond of them and ultimately you just have to root for this crazy, bizarre, unique little show that could.

Where to watch: As far as I know, right now the only way to watch the show legally is with iQiyi VIP. There may be some episodes up on YouTube but I think they are only the edited versions? You want the extended ones, trust me.

However if you cannot access it through official channels for some reason, a quick search will find it elsewhere. (I include this because usually I get a crapton of comments about how to watch a series. So please...search engine folks.)

#kinnporsche #threerings watches kinnporsche #long post #threerings' recs #kinnporsche meta #threerings recs TV shows

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