#also let's say the first three options also include the novelizations graphic novels and comic adaptations

[alienahellsparkle]

❦ List fandoms of my heart: №3 (the last).

✯ Kuroshitsuji (Dark Butler)

This anime is my guide to the world of anime, my first of all, and the first that I liked. In addition, I have been watching it since I was 13 (omg, how old I am..).

I can say, from it I learned what anime is. It is one of my favorites and one of those that I can revisit (P.S .: And I'm still waiting for the new season or new full-length films, although no one said anything or promised anything about it).

The advantages of this anime are - interesting plots, 19th century setting mixed with the supernatural, soundtracks and a huge number of different characters for every taste. As I can tell, everyone will find their ideal 2D kun or chan here.

I could single out a lot of cool characters, but I'm afraid they could be spoilers too, so I'll just mention a few of my personal favorites.

Sebastian is a demon butler and another protagonist besides Ciel. A jack of all trades, a cool killer and one of the most real handsome men who stole many hearts from the female audience, who is in many similar tops and sometimes even has leading positions. I can say that he was my very first anime - love.

Prince Soma is an Indian prince. I don't know how many fans he has, but I think not as many as Sebastian and Ciel. Actually, Soma is the one who attracted me much more and my love for Sebastian did not last forever. This is because Soma, in addition to being beautiful and Indian (which was important to me as a lover of Bollywood films and music, and also interested in Indian culture), has a sweet and good personality. Three combos!

Madame Red is a bright woman with a difficult fate. I guess there isn't much more to say here (spoilers, spoilers, damn it).

Pluto is a devilish dog. Cutie, charming, with one cool ability and mine another anime-love (those who know this character and his unusual ability - yes - yes, I know it's weird to fall in love with characters like him).

As I said, the soundtracks are wonderful - some of the tunes have some classic notes in them, and also, the opening can be recognized from a thousand and it is easy to remember which anime it belongs to.

Also, there are elements of detective and crime, which also adds its own special shades and makes this anime even more interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

I look forward to continuing with it and begin to show interest in anime of a similar genre and setting in one (I found something similar, for example, as "House of Shadows").

✯ Dame x Prince 

Another anime that became my find and I can watch it many times. I liked it so much that after I found it (in 2018 it was a spring novelty), I watched almost all the episodes in one gulp and only later realized that it ends too quickly, because I could not stop in time.

This anime contains everything that I love about the reverse - harems - beautiful drawing, bright colors, romance, elements of comedy and fantasy, attractive male characters and not a stupid main character who can be respected.

We can say that Ani is one of the few normal owners of a harem, but she can be considered a diamond among them. She is encouraged by her courage and the fact that she is not embarrassed when guys compliment her or try to flirt (I could say more about her, but these will be spoilers).

Despite the fact that here the male characters are clichéd, for example - a kind cutie, handsome womanizer, narcissistic rude and so on, they look cool and interesting to watch, it's a pity that we will never know which of them Ani chose in the end.

In addition, there is one more plus in the form of a good plot, after which it helps some characters to reveal themselves.

Even if many people do not always take girly harem animes well and consider them worthless and empty, just to please teenage girls with cute romance in a colorful wrapper, this anime genre also deserves a place to be. Who knows, maybe soon the reverse - harems will evolve even more, at least there are already some anime-worthy options. Everything has its fans..

In general, this is a good and positive anime that can bring more colors to life. And I still hope for season 2.. 

✯ Nanbaka

When you watch a video on the topic: "Guess the gender of anime characters", you will not think that in this way you will be able to discover a new anime. That's how I found out about Nanbaka, after which I watched the first season in a couple of days.

I associate this anime with the beginning of July 2018 and the dairy drinks Twix, Milky Way and Snickers, which at that time I was finally able to taste.

Nanbaka has several advantages - a cool variety of characters, an element of comedy, and an equally vibrant color scheme. Also, I noticed that all characters have their own special difference - they all have nails painted in a different color and have small fangs.

Despite the fact that there is no romance here and the plot is built around a prison theme, Nanbaka is quite interesting to watch, and in some episodes there are elements of drama and seriousness. However, if the first season is more comical situations, then the second season is a little more serious, at least there are more problems that the heroes solve.

Of the characters, there are not only bisonens and heroes with simple qualities including kindness, cuteness, foolishness, signs of a womanizer, hot temper and severity, but there are also unexpected specimens, such as several LGBTQ characters and even antagonists.

Unfortunately, Nanbaka is not a very popular fandom and most likely there will never be a third season... But this is another solid anime that can be endlessly watched and is one of those that drags on from the first episodes.

✯ Romance Club

This visual novel often came across to me in YouTube recommendations, in the form of walkthroughs and analysis of Easter eggs from it.

At first, I was not very interested in this, and from the video, my first impression was that this is just an incomprehensible game with characters similar to cardboard figures, but for some reason it became very popular and discussed on social networks.

After some time, I still began to watch the walkthroughs and more or less began to understand what the whole highlight of the game is, and after that, I began to play myself, though at the beginning, then, I had only a plan to while away the rest of summer time until autumn, but I didn’t notice how I began to be drawn into the RC and it became not just a game for one time, it became a habit that is difficult to get rid of.

Now, it's not just a bunch of pretty cardboard character figurines and a joke that RC is a mix of films like "50 Shades of Gray" and "Twilight", made for teenage girls.

Romance Club is - characters for every taste, from whites and Europeans, to Hispanics and Asians, both boys and girls. LGBTQ relationships have not been forgotten here either.

Various stories with any setting - vampires + werewolves, pirates, aliens, 19th-18th century, royal setting, movie stars and fame, Scandinavian mythology, ancient Greek mythology, sea and beach setting, detectives and crime, ancient Japan (geisha and samurai) , angels and demons, everyday life and much more, but the creators continue to delight us with new stories to this day, and I think we still have a lot to see.

Beautiful graphics and drawing of characters, cool design of clothes, and also, here you can learn how to beautifully compose texts and sentences (let's say this can be useful for the writing sphere), since some stories contain wonderful descriptions of some scenes and comparisons of concepts (example. "Stars as luminous points," and the like).

But besides romance, other important topics can be revealed here, such as the concept of friendship, a hard life due to many problems, courage and self-confidence, and sometimes even 18+ topics can be touched upon. In addition, some stories have instructive facts, for example, something about the history of Turkey during the Ottoman Empire. 

Romance Club is scientifically enlightening!

Despite the fact that I refused to play games, since they take a lot of time, during which you can do a bunch of other useful things, RC is the only game (besides the Sims) on which I do not regret wasting my time and it is always interesting to watch new stories and how the old ones will end.

(P.S.: 

here is part 1 https://lenahellsparkle.tumblr.com/post/650656683336548352/list-fandoms-of-my-heart-1

part 2 https://lenahellsparkle.tumblr.com/post/655103141583470593/list-fandoms-of-my-heart-2)

[zoocross0vers]

HERE WE…GOOO!!!!🦔💨

Sorry for not posting this sooner, I had some problems with scanning and lighting but I’m glad that is finally done. Here are some doodles of Sonic/Zootopia crossover from my 2 favourite movies. Those two movies are complimenting each other. Remember when I told you how Tom👦 and Maddie👩🏾 (these are names of those characters from Sonic movie) remind me a lot of Nick🦊 and Judy🐰? Well, after I watched the movie (10 times in cinema, 15 times at home after pandemy, don’t judge me!), it turns out that they have lot in common indeed that I thought. Those are my favourite moments from movie with Nick and Judy as Tom and Maddie and so does other characters from Zootopia (I really enjoy also that scene akward conversation about shooting Sonic with tranq-gun, that is hilarious for me). Wish I could include more but unfortunately after I drew I realized that my paper is not big enough, dang it! Thankfully I was able for example including at least 3 important moments like Sonic looking at happy couple behind window wishing been part of company, because of fear of him all alone forever, which it saddening him (😢 „sniff“ can someone please give that kid a hug?!😭), Ozzy licking Sonic’s face (awwwwww :3) and of course “THE FINAL BATTLE WITH ROBOTNIK” (at least the confrontation). The only thing I didn’t include was Longclaw and echidna tribe, since they had small screen and I small space (dang it!). Which is bummer because I really like Longclaw, she is really interesting character and wish we could see more. There were only two scenes of her, the one from begging of the movie and the deleted where she end up in earth with Sonic for some time but died from s-sicknes-ss “sniff”😢 (I’m sorry for that but this moment always makes cry every-time I watching it😭, it’s just really personal for me for certain reasons.). I guess you questioning the Ozzy licking Sonic’s face scene considering there are no domestic animal, including dogs and Zootopia is world of anthromorphic mammals, so I thought I would use Yoshi as Ozzy as a cameo from Mario (you know because of friendly rivalry between Sonic and Mario) and also as a gift for Yoshifan, especially after seen many pictures of Nick and Yoshi who’s calling him “Mama Nick” and I found it pretty funny. After I started drawing I realized there are some obstacles that would be problem like (aside from Ozzy) raccoons, bear-head from Piston Pit, chilli-dogs (considering what meat they put on these things if, IF it is a meat), the Sonic’s shoes (the old and new ones) and of course Robotnik himself considering I don’t want to change him into some mammal. Like I said before Robotnik works better as human and he doesn’t need to change to an animal considering he put animals from Sonic’s world, anthromorphic and normal, always in danger or abuse (like making them into badniks, or robotized them). So, how are gonna fix it you ask? Well I have some idea. Like I said before for Ozzy I choose Yoshi for that role (and honestly I don’t have any other options, heheh. BUT you must admit that it is adorable 🥰), raccoons were a challenge so I came multiple ideas for example:

Instead of raccoons we use gerbil jerks from Zistopia concept art

Raccoons will be anthromorphic teens who like mess with Nick while eating from trashcans (like Mr. Big said, evolved but deep down still animals)

Since mammals are sentient how about use non-mammal “trash pandas”(lol, I like that nickname) like birds as ravens, crows or pigeons (pigeons are also known as “flying rats” – thank you Spies in Disguise)

Those are mine options, if you have other in mind I’m listening.

Then there’s taxidermy bear-head. Considering that pouching would classified as not just illegal but also as psycho (still not get over that taxidermy Moose-head from Sly 2. Yeah I know that was part of mission to blend in to not rise a suspicion but seriously, WHY those Moose have that head, did they just-…you know what let’s not think about it😖) I came up with idea instead of taxidermy bear-head how about some mask of unusual mascot like the manticore from Onward, eh eehh? (Or it can some dino but I rather prefer manticore). As for those motorbike gang at first I want to suggest those Ranger Scouts. That would be delightful punishing them that way (evil chuckle😈). But then I remembered the trash gang from Zootopia comic “A hard day’s work” and to be honest those characters are ideal for those roles: wildebeest could the black cowboy, elephant as the belly guy (oh come on, like you didn’t think same nickname after seen Sonic sprung out of his belly) and hyena with green Mohawk as of course the Bear-head jerk. But if you want combine them be my guest.😁

As for chilli-dogs since are Sonic’s favourite we cannot left them behind. Thankfully I was watching on YouTube where there mentioned Tails been vegetarian and one comment that said “Chilli-dog: Am I joke to you?” that made conversation about mobians been vegetarians. So in that case since Zootopia is filled birds (and sometimes bugs), and synthetic meat, proteins, probably tofu, we can assume that there are Chilli-dogs made especially in Zootopia universe (and honestly we do not really know, what exactly hot-dogs are truly made of).🌭

👟The shoes were honestly a very hard obstacle for me considering mammals don’t wear shoes since they are still animals, like our directors said, BUT that doesn’t mean they don’t exist in Zootopia.

Evidence 1: Gazelle – she’s wearing high heels from Preyda

Evidence 2: Poster of (parody) movie Cinderellephant, with elephant-size glass slipper

Evidence 3: Judy Hopps – she wears half-sockets in her police uniform (that still does count as a foot-wear)

So I came with headcanon that only celebrities and patients with sensitive feet wear shoes as a luxury or medical protection (I mean we have a lot of animals that can’t live on different area with their conditions, come on have someone of you seen a polar bear live in Sahara Square?) and in this case it’s the latter (plus there is in this story a human character that needs his own footwear) since Sonic is wearing his running shoes considering that his speed is high enough to burn his feet (ouch🤕).

And finally with Robotnik, we use that orphan idea and certain headcanon from Sonic X about planets that once were one until they divided and made their own time and space alterations, prof. Gerald Robotnik (Eggman’s grand-father) could study Mobius for finding cure for Maria, creating Shadow, G.U.N. etc. It could be three worlds (Sonic’s world/Mobius, Robotnik’s world/our world, and Zootopian’s world) or just two (Mobius and Zootopia), what works better.

As you can see there are some characters I included in in certain scene (aside from Yoshi), I present to you Judy’s niece named Cotton and one of Judy’s (many) sisters Violet Hopps. No, those are not an OC from any fandom, those are official characters from Zootopia universe. You already actually know Cotton but for those who don’t know who is Violet, she was introduced in Zootopia Graphic Novel in comic named “Brothers & Sisters” and considering how she is very overprotective of Judy (like any other Hopps) I thought she would fit perfectly for Rachel role (I don’t think she’s Cotton’s mother so don’t ask), and also she’s the only official Hopps sibling with name we know. I wanted also include another characters into this doodles but I like I said before I didn’t have enough space on one paper. So here are my character ideas: Clawhauser as Wade, Bogo as Major Bennington, Mayor Lionheart as Commander Walters (no surprise). For others like Crazy Carl and Agent Stone I had some problems.

For Crazy Carl I first thought about who would fit perfectly and I came up with a lot of ideas: first I thought about Duke Weaselton, since he has face for that crazyness but then I declined since he doesn’t fit on the character, then I thought about Pop-Pop Hopps but that was questionable considering in movie he had a huge aversion of foxes (red as devil) and comic he’s not biased but then I thought who could describe Crazy Carl better than well-known concept crazy theorist Honey Badger am I right?

As for agent Stone I had no idea what to do with him. I could let him stay as but that would make questions of humans and I didn’t want to put Bellwether into this position. If she was unhappy of been unappreciated and humiliated by predators then I don’t think she would really want to work with someone who is full of himself more than her and only see humanity as an excuse of stupidity and “herd of useless sheep (get it?)” and only relay on machines. And characters from Zootopia Crimes was not an option and Jack Savage was out of question no in my point. Not saying that Jack Savage could be a great option but I don’t think fans would appreciate another bad guy role for Jack and I already have something different for him in my mind. Then it came another that would fit for Stone and that is a certain platypus Dr. Starline from Sonic The Hedgehog IDW comics. He admires Eggman and his evil genius (questionable) and in comics he’s working as partner/assistant for him. But since he is mobian as Sonic we could use idea that government knows about it (partially) but does not tell and he thinks that he is an unusual zootopian platypus (after all he does wear clothes and looks “more” normal unlike Sonic) and we could do the same with Robotnik considering his past about grand-father and project Shadow if Jeff Fowler would follow some headcanons (I wouldn’t surprised if some government keeping some secrets even from employers). But then again we could use also Tony, a bunny from Zootopia Crime Files since he is shady and bland at once and already wear a suit, like agent Stone (great, now I don’t know which one to choose again).

You know what, I’ll give you an option who would fit for role of Agent Stone:

1. Dr. Starline, a platypus from Sonic The Hedgehog IDW comics

2. Tony, a bunny from Zootopia Crime Files

3. Jack Savage, a jackrabbit from Zootopia concept art/Savage Seas (you don’t have to take that third one too seriously, but just in case)

DONE (pass out from exhaustion). Haahhh so much work, editing fixing hands, oohh boyyy. You have no idea how hard this was for me to finally made it. I wish I could do more. But for now I’m so glad that I was able to draw at least some of my favourite moments because I feel they’re important for storytelling: first the introduction of main characters, their struggles, interactions and how they greatly compliment to each other (both Sonic and Zootopia). I mean you can’t just see Judy call Nick and Sonic cute and not imagine that, or there was also moment where Sonic dry like dog so his fur and quills(?) go puffy and Nick would look mesmerized by fluffiness. Come to think of it Sonic has lot in common with Nick and Judy that he would actually fit for the role as their son. You’re not believe? Well here are some examples.

Similarities between Sonic and-

-Judy🐰:

1. heroes in blue (get it?)🌀

2. pretty fast (Sonic more faster than Judy but still…)

3. impatient😤

4. first act then think (always put themselves into danger)

5. thing for get into trouble

6. sense for justice

7. never give up

8. preys but not rodents (that’s right hedgehogs are not rodents)

9. became a friend with fox (their natural predator, that was bullied in past, huh strange, just as strange as hedgehog be taken care of by owl that is also his natural predator)

-Nick🦊:

1. sly smile😏

2. mischievous trickster

3. green eyes

4. omnivores (hedgehogs eat melons, watermelons(what’s the difference?), berries (blueberries headcanon!) and insects, snails, frogs snakes🤢- uhhh I think chilli-dogs works better thank you)

5. cringy sense of humor😒

6. thing for nicknames (by Nick: Carrots, Buffalo Butt, Yakity yak, Flash Hundred Yard Dash, by Sonic: Donut Lord, Pretzel Lady, Eggman, Knucklehead, Super Observant Carl)

7. loyalty (they never left their friends behind)

8. never let them see they get to you (despite suffering a lot of emotional damage, thanks a lot SEGA)

9. smooth talker with heart of gold

-both🐰 🦊:

1. traumatic past

2. sacrifices for others

3. fight for what is right

See they had a lot in common. Anyway I am still glad I was finally able to finish this. It wasn’t easy but it was worth it.

But I guess, that I made it hard for you with those moments so how about this we use the final moments like in your fanfic Carcass Bride: FINAL BOSS BATTLE SONIC VS. ROBOTNIK because honestly this moment is epic (wish I could make it bigger), it would start Sonic running from Robotnik, like we’ve seen in beginning of the movie, get shot retelling in short whole story, like in movie only less detailed and faster the confrontation between Nick and Robotnik (Sonic would unconscious but still hear them and had a self-doubt like Naruto in first chapter/episode if you what mean until he hear the important words that’ll give him boost), the final battle and then epilogue (Sonic with his new family) with open ending (you know the Eggman in Mushroom planet and then Tails’s introuction). As for what kind of universe all of them would be I have another suggestions:

1. Sonic movie universe in Zootopia (but still happening in Green Hills only Zootopia would be San Francisco and Transamerica could be Palm Hotel like in Zistopia storyboard) and Night Howler Case never happened.

2. Night Howler case happened Nick and Judy are still cops, but later decided to live in Green Hills

3. Night Howler case happened but was solved instead of Judy and Nick by Jack and Skye who later became agents and don’t like Robotnik for his ego:

a) Nick come from Green Hills (Wachowskis live as police in GH for 50 years), but suffered from Ranger Scouts move to Zootopia became “shifty fox” until he’s saved by childhood friend Judy from Bunnyburrow (from wrong decision and targeting to become savage) and the return to Green Hills become sheriff along with his new wife.

b) Both Nick and Judy just heard about it in Green Hills.

I guess the first and third are more interesting.

Okaayy now I realized that this became more ambitious that I planned but I guess that happens when you try balancing two franchises so it can make sense (enough for headcanons). But I’m not saying that I’m proud of myself. So I’ll leave you the rest (the options and writing) so I can’t wait for one-shot fanfic good luck. And also (even though it’s late but still better than never) Happy birthday Sonic, this is for you! GOTTA GO FAST!🐰🦊🦔💨

#GottaGoFast🦔💨

#LongLiveWildeHopps🦊🐰

#StaySafe😷

#AlwaysRemember (this is for late actreesses that they will alway be remembered and in our hearts❤️)

....

Oh wow! This is really great! You put a lot of scenes from the film, this is awesome!I also see that you gave Yoshi a cameo, lol! @yoshifan30​ will definitely love that, lol! I like the collage look you gave the whole thing. Also, I just realized, is that supposed to be Cotton? Judy’s niece? Thank you so much for this! I will reblog this soon so I can read it more thoroughly and discuss anything I may have missed :) And once again, this...is...INCREDIBLE!!! <3 Fantastic Job Guest! You’re really talented! :D

[amwritingmeta]

MCM Comic Con London

Heyyyy, my loves!

I went to my first ever Comic Con on Sunday. I know! First ever?? How could this be? What did you make of it? Did you hug a Storm Trooper? Did you get lost in this huge enormous vast building with huge enormous vast rooms filled with huge enormous vast groups of people? Did you pet the TARDIS? Did you meet RAPUNZEL? DID YOU SEE DEADPOOL?? DARTH VADER?? Did you make a friend? Did you dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?? Do tell!!

Alrighty, then! (I’m afraid I’m going to prove a huuuuuge disappointment) (but there’s Misha panel commentary further down m’kay?)

So, here’s what I learned about myself from visiting Comic Con: I like small, intimate spaces with assigned seating.

Yeah. I know. Told you that you’d be disappointed. 

It’s basically why I haven’t been to Comic Con before tbh. I knew I’d enjoy milling about and looking at merchandise and graphic novels and oh the fan art and seeing the TARDIS (I did see her but I did not pet her) and R2D2 (he moved around and talked to people and everything) *feelings* and passing Darth Vader in the hallway (true story) and just being in a space filled with people nerding out together like YES. My heart was very full. 

But.

(oh here it comes)

My nerdy heart is pretty much sequestered by SPN. While I enjoy the original Star Wars very, very much because epic (obviously) and have enjoyed Doctor Who (on and off) and while I’m a big GoT fan (yes I shall remain so thanks to the books never mind what they did on those final two episodes of the show but also do not get me starts on what they fucking even DID) and I fucking love Disney and anime and animation of any kind, and have a huge respect and interest for the artistry of graphic noveling, that’s just not my world. 

(I do want to start reading graphic novels though and I’ve been so close to ordering the BtVS ones but... anyone have solid suggestions or advice on where to start, hit me up in DM) (I’ve read a few where the art has been unspeakably gorgeous and just mh!)

But because I’m not deep in anything even approaching a multi-fandom attitude, they just don’t grab at me, you know?

So though I’m so fucking happy that I went - truly am (and nope I did not dress up and though I know I’d enjoy it because who wouldn’t enjoy dressing up as Kahlan from Legend of the Seeker? End of the day, the dressing up is more fun when going with a group of people...) (anyway) - it’s not quite my cuppa. That being said, if Misha comes again next year *dirty* then I’m there. I mean, it’s one tube ride from my place. How the fuck could I not? 

Okay, before those three sentences make me say things I’ll regret in the morning, let’s talk about The Panel!

I’m actually going to open with something that Misha kind of threw out there in the middle of the panel because it made me so excited: he may direct in S15! Ahahahah yes please! I really hope he gets to!

Now, what else?

Highlights for me were:

Him talking about the fandom in his warmest tones, which is something he does on the regular, but he spoke of the positivity of the intensity of our community and how he thinks it’s been really cool to be a part of it and to do charitable work together (hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours and millions of dollars into worthy causes over the years, so kudos, guys, kudos) It’s a wonderful, surreal phenomenon. *his words* *and so very true* (and we all know this is how he feels, but it’s always lovely for him to restate it)

Ruth sending a video message and prompting Misha to talk about when Amara carved the I Am Coming message into Cas’ chest (and Misha thinking Lucifer carved the message and promptly dismissing us correcting him) *snortlaugh* Has everyone heard this story? Because I actually hadn’t. That Misha was making corresponding noises and facial expression to really convey the message and the only thing was that the top brass at the CW were conducting their yearly set visit and were, in fact, standing at the monitor watching him. *MCM audience laugh track* *aw Misha*

Talking about how close the cast is and how much they enjoy JiB, and how they laugh themselves into shape in the Green Room every year. Admittedly the six pack is a lie, but the aching stomach muscles are a truth. *not jealous because the rest of us are having Just As Much Fun In Our Corner* >.>

When asked what he’ll miss most about the show: the fun they have on set and the people, including the crew, since they all know each other so well and have grown up together. But also he’ll miss the Supernatural community. He knows it won’t go away immediately, but, as these things go, it will dwindle. He’ll miss the fire and intensity that is there when the show is on the air. 

Which is fair, because there will be a dropping off, there will be a slowing down, it’s inevitable, but I honestly can’t see this family ever just dispersing entirely. And I almost wanted to get up there and suggest to him that they consider keeping the JiB torch burning, because giving this community of ours a few set points of warmth each year where people (if they so choose) get to interact with them while also getting to reunite with people we don’t otherwise get to see often and to have those points of warmth to aim for and gather around is a sure-fire way to keep the flame alive. Right? I’m not expecting them to continue doing the con circuit because omfg no, but to have one or two points a year...

Anyway.

Misha trying to do a Scottish accent makes him sound like a leprechaun with a lisp. *ehehe*

Misha telling us that the writers gave them the option to draw out the story for another two-three seasons, or land it in one kick-ass final season, and they all chose one kick-ass final season, which makes me so happy for them, that they get to finish strong and on their terms. It’s so well-deserved.

(I think I’m just going through the panel moment-by-moment at this point) (the panel was apparently the highlight)

Him talking about The Adventurous Eaters Club - the cookbook he’s writing with Vicki that I cannot wait to read, tbh, because I do believe kids often say no at the dinner table because they’re trying to stay in control of the situation, rather than them not really wanting to eat, and as a grown-up, recognising this and relenting control and allowing them free reign to be a part of building their dinner from the ground up and getting them excited about food and understanding the process of actually creating a meal is so damn healthy. Well, if that’s the objective of the cookbook! Just what I’m taking from the premise, but, hands against heart, I adore them both.

Talking about his favourite vehicles for Cas and saying that he’d love for Cas to get a smart car and squeeze Sam into the passenger seat and omfg PLEASE yes. *the imagery is so  e n t i c i n g*

Going full-meta and talking about Cas’ travails going to get the fruit of life without his wings in S13, looking up a flight on Expedia, sitting squished into the middle seat, saying no thank you to food, getting through customs with that bag of fruit, probably getting held up. (quite impressive actually because this happened more than a season ago and clearly he’s given the story gap some thought) (and he remembers) (astonishing) 

*^^^ sarcasm, guys* *sarcasm* :)

If Cas gets to be happy, he will die (my addition: unless he’s, you know, human) :P

Cas’ wings are rainbow (and I’m immediately thinking of them almost like peacock *shhhh don’t even start* feathers that shift tone in the light so that they shimmer rather than are divided up into single colour feathers in a rainbow pattern) (wow I took that seriously af) (but mh gorgeous wings!)

Maison is a goddamn rockstar. *not literally but internally* :)

Okay, so that’s the panel done. And dusted. *sparkly*

And then I met up with a friend of a friend who I’d actually met briefly at JiB - her name is Katie - and I stood in line with her as she waited for Misha autos and I met the loveliest Scottish bloke named Oliver, mostly because I desperately needed to charge my mobile and just said out loud “Does anyone have a mobile charger” and the blessed man turned around and said “Yes, I have one”, so he lent me his mobile charger and was gushing over his photo-op with Misha (it really is the most adorable photo ever) and Oliver was entirely flustered with happiness and just *my heart strings* and then he fucked off and didn’t come back for his charger! 

He just disappeared! Without as much as a by-your-leave!

So we waited. And waited. It was terrible. Having to stand there. Not knowing. Okay, kidding, but we did wait and wait and tried to look for him, but he just didn’t come back.

But just now, ten minutes ago, he followed me on Twitter!! I just accosted him going OMG IT IS YOU IS IT NOT! Do I have your charger?? And it is he and now I don’t have to have a guilty conscience anymore, though I did ease it by thinking that he was the one who literally effed the fuck off and didn’t return. Anyway. What drama, huh? Guess that’s Comic Con, for you. And I got to add the resolution! *sweet*

It was a grand old indoor day and then we went down to the river for food and lots of alcoholic really-really-tasty beverages and good company. 

The End.

[callmeblake]

Kerrang Issue #1761

Magazine Release Date: February 20th, 2019

Issue Label: February 23rd, 2019

Photo Credit:  Jen Rosenstein

Illustrations: Brian Ewing

Partial Transcription (from pressreader.com) below:

Kerrang! (UK)

20 Feb 2019

words: emily carter illustrations: brian ewing

“MAKING MUSIC IS MORE FUN THESE DAYS…”

BREAKS HIS SILENCE

Since he was a kid, GERARD WAY has sought solitude in the world of graphic novels – first as a reader, and later, with the weight of the rock world on his shoulders, as a creator. But now, he explains exclusively to Kerrang!, working on the Netflix adaptation of his THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY series helped him reconnect with his love for making music, too…

Gerard Way keeps track of his personal goals using what he calls “the grown-up list”. One at a time, the 41-year-old will tick off these life objectives by means of self-care – a concept he’ll admit he hasn’t kept on top of lately.

“On the grown-up list are all these things that I have to do to start participating in life again,” he explains in a gentle, endearing New Jersey accent, dissecting a mysteriously methodical approach to his return to the public eye – though, it has to be said, still sounding very much like a big kid at heart.

For the past “two, three” years, Gerard feels as though he hasn’t been looking after himself while under the strain of his demanding career as a comic-book writer. And while his workload certainly isn’t slowing down any time soon – if anything, it’s on the increase with the reintroduction of music now, too – he is at least making his own positive changes little by little, “piece by piece”.

“Enough time goes by and you’re tired of feeling tired, and tired of feeling unhealthy, and tired of doing unhealthy things to yourself,” he admits. “I hit a point where I was like, ‘Enough’s enough. I gotta move my body and find a doctor.’ I hadn’t had a physical in I can’t remember how long. It was just time, you know?”

Undertaking this new journey, Gerard first started off by giving up smoking. He afforded himself just two weeks to ditch the cigarettes, before moving on to the next task. “You can’t do it all at once,” he explains thoughtfully. “I quit smoking before doing anything else – like change diet or going to see a doctor. I just take these things in steps. Even if I did have all the time in the world to attack the grown-up list, you have to take any major life change slowly and gradually.”

Had Gerard felt so inclined as to keep a similar grown-up list for professional targets when he first emerged as My Chemical Romance’s awe-inspiring leader in 2001, its trajectory would have accelerated significantly. Darting into the spotlight in 2004 with their astounding second record Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, the frontman quickly became uncomfortable with the intrusive – and borderline paralysing – nature of their fame. It’s no wonder that, between 2006’s triple-platinum The Black Parade, and the festival-headlining status that came with fourth and final studio album Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, Gerard recently labelled the group’s journey as “uncontrollable”. The band’s explosion was just as dramatic as their eventual breakup almost six years ago, and it took Gerard just over a year to then return into view. An excellent Britpop-inflected solo LP, Hesitant Alien, followed in September 2014, and even landed at spot number four in Kerrang!’s top 50 records of that year. No grown-up list – no matter how fool-proof – could accurately record or predict those kind of whirlwind peaks and troughs.

In his life as a comic-book writer, though, Gerard’s accomplishments have kept up a steadier, but no less impressive, incline. As a graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts and a former intern at Cartoon Network, his imagination and visual creativity was harnessed long before his audio talents came to light. While his comic-book debut in 1993, On Raven’s Wings, was cancelled after just two issues, Gerard’s near 100 (and counting) writing credits have just about surpassed his contributions in music; he even ran his own imprint under the legendary DC Comics banner for two years, Young Animal. And while its status is currently listed as ‘inactive’, Gerard has emphasised that it’s “not the end” of that venture. Now, his prominence as a fullyfledged award-winning comic-book writer is a marvel (no, not that kind).

“The thing about doing comics is nobody asks you about your personal life, they don’t ask you about the drugs you used to take, they don’t ask you if you’re breaking up,” he told Kerrang! while still with My Chemical Romance in 2010, openly battling with the allure of a life buried in books. “They talk about the work. I wish people would talk about the work in music. In music, people want to know what makes you tick – in comics, people don’t care.”

Given the appeal of a more serene existence, it’s clear Gerard’s current primary occupation perfectly suits him. Just as he helped change the face of rock 15 years ago, however, he’s beginning to make similar strides in comics. Once again, he’s got the big guns knocking on his artistic doorstep.

“If anybody ever asks me for advice about being creative, it’s always just to make the things you want to see,” he shrugs, either oblivious to his skills or just strikingly modest. “Make something that doesn’t exist, that you wish existed – that you wanna read, or see, or listen to. That’s the one thing that I’ve applied to everything I’ve done: all the art I’ve made and the music I’ve made.”

Following this surprisingly simple mantra, Gerard now has a tremendous feat on his hands: his apocalyptic comic-book series, The Umbrella Academy, has snowballed into a 10-episode live-action show of the same name, and hit Netflix last Friday. By now, you’ll probably have already watched the lot. For the programme’s main brain, though, while he may have spent release day just ticking off another box on the grown-up list (“I had a physical that day with a doctor, so…”), this marks the beginning of his “participation” in life again. Gerard Way is back.

Gerard Way is obsessed with comics. Across the span of our interview with the author-turned-musicianturned-author again, he says the word “comic” no fewer than 28 times – each utterance more passionate than the last. Yet it wasn’t until 2008, while still active with My Chemical Romance, that he began to feel the effects of his written works’ potential. And not just in the field of comics, either; he was suddenly struck with the realisation that he could make this his full-time work instead. When he and illustrator Gabriel Bá – a man Gerard credits constantly and with great

“I’VE ALWAYS AIMED TO MAKE SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T EXIST, THAT I WISH EXISTED” GERARD WAY

respect when discussing the project – were awarded a prestigious Eisner Award for The Umbrella Academy’s first mini-series, it shook him to the core.

“It was scary at the time,” he mentioned in a Kerrang! cover feature at a later date, “because it was another thing that said to me, ‘Hey, you could go and do this. You won’t have a huge career, but you could make a living. There was a part of me thinking, ‘I don’t have to be a singer anymore.’”

Just days after receiving their Eisner, Gerard and Gabriel’s graphic novel was optioned by Universal Pictures. Plans for a potential movie were in development “for quite a while”, until it eventually fizzled out and came back to Umbrella Academy’s publisher, Dark Horse Comics. Then, the idea for a TV show was conceived – and Gerard was instantly sold. Not that it was ever something he’d ever considered when first penning his comics all those years prior.

“You know, I tend to be a visual thinker,” he begins. “When I was first starting out, I was told to embrace the medium of comics: just make a great comic. I think that that’s a common mistake that people make – they see a comic as a film, and they’ll just present it as a film. And there’s a lot of things you can do in comics, and it would almost short-change that. You need to embrace what a comic can do, and then you’ll make a really fantastic one. If you’re just trying to present it as a film, it doesn’t work as well, in my opinion. I still follow that advice to this day.”

Gerard loved the idea of giving his painstaking and deeply intricate world a new long-form narrative, and a way of going deeper into the story’s characters (all of whom are either a reflection of people he knows, or himself). Before taking various meetings – including with Netflix – both he and Gabriel sat down with Universal Cable Productions executive vice president of development, Dawn Olmstead, and discussed their aims.

“My goal was to give those guys the material to make a really great show,” Gerard explains. “That way, if they made a show and it’s successful, they always have material to go back to. That’s always been my goal: to tell a really good story that I have control over.”

Nine years later after its original plans fell through, it was eventually settled that Netflix would be the way to go. Joining forces with a company that had both “the highest production value” and that was also “artist-friendly” made the most sense to all involved. “We knew they would let the show be what it needed to be,” Gerard nods.

By this point, the series’ creator had slipped away from the limelight to create a 20-page blueprint for show-runner Steve Blackman. The Umbrella Academy thus far has three volumes – Apocalypse Suite, Dallas and Hotel Oblivion – but Gerard will eventually complete the story through eight graphic novels in total, many of which are still to be finished (“I have it all planned out, and I’ve just got to kind of write it now…”). In advance of the show’s development stages, though, he needed to let his new colleagues know the whole plot.

“There were talks early on about how much of my involvement there would be – if I wanted to be a co-show-runner, if I wanted to write scripts,” remembers Gerard. “And I really put the emphasis on making the source material and making the comics, so I had to let go of certain things. I weighed in on a lot of them, but ultimately it was Steve’s call to make. I liked letting go, though, because it allowed me to keep moving forward in the ways that I wanted to, which is with the comics or anything else I want to do.”

Working with Netflix became a daily job. From set pieces to wardrobe choices, both Gerard and Gabriel would give extensive notes in the 18 months it took to produce The Umbrella Academy, ensuring a happy climate was reached between their individual artistic palettes. It’s not a giant leap to compare the birth of Gerard’s latest project to My Chemical Romance’s studio swansong, Danger Days. While still in the throes of The Black Parade’s overwhelming success, the frontman had moved to LA from New Jersey in 2008 and was focused on comics – not just The Umbrella Academy, but also a bold, bright new sci-fi spectacular: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, a story of the aftermath of a battle against a tyrannical corporation. Having written and subsequently scrapped The Black Parade’s original follow-up, the frontman was then struck with inspiration on a family retreat in the wilderness, wracking his brains with what to do next.

“I had an epiphany, I had a vision,” he told Kerrang! back in October 2010, of how this new comic informed what would become My Chem’s fourth full-length. “I was writing all these crazy lyrics and they were fearless and fucking reckless. I had this vision in my head, and everything I had been working on in the comic – the masks, the laser guns, the cars, everything – started to swirl around in my head.”

So how does the creation of a comicinspired album measure up against bringing The Umbrella Academy to life on TV?

“You know, they’re both intense and stressful in their own ways,” Gerard smiles. “But one of the things I’ve learned as I get older is that being in the studio and making music isn’t nearly as stressful – it’s a lot more fun these days. Having said that, although things are a little more high-stakes on a film set, we had a lot of fun with that, too.”

Early last year, The Umbrella Academy’s primary architects headed to Toronto to oversee the first week of filming. They were there to “answer any questions and give a little direction”. Though their focus was undeniably on creating the best comic-to-screen transition

“AS I GET OLDER, MAKING MUSIC ISN’T NEARLY AS STRESSFUL – IT’S A LOT MORE FUN THESE DAYS” GERARD WAY

“I DON’T LIKE TO DWELL ON THINGS. I LIKE TO MOVE FORWARD” GERARD WAY

possible, Gerard also remembers the weather; it was snowing, a sight he hadn’t seen since touring Hesitant Alien three and a half years prior. Once more, his two worlds briefly reacquainted themselves.

While in Canada, he and Gabriel reviewed “dailies”. “It hit a point where it was like, ‘Alright, this train is going, they know what they’re doing,’ and I could divert my attention back to the comic,” Gerard says. “Then I was able to work on it remotely – most of the work from my end was done through email or phone conversations, so I could be anywhere in the world and I was still able to watch the footage on my laptop, or whatever computer I was at.”

Once that week was over, Gerard kept a distant watchful eye over filming, which carried on until July. Elsewhere, his time was split between writing more comics, drinking copious amounts of coffee, collecting vintage T-shirts and miniature painted figures, and watching his wife of 11 years, Lindsey – bassist of Mindless Self Indulgence – feed birds and squirrels at their family home.

Rather ironically, his days weren’t spent watching a great deal of television. Even now, he’ll partake in an episode or two of a binge-worthy programme if Lindsey wants him to check it out – but he’ll never consume the lot in one go. “I think that makes my opinion on what we’re making with Umbrella Academy, in a way, even more valid,” he suggests, “because I don’t watch all this stuff. I read a lot of books.”

Most exciting of all, though, is that almost every Friday, Gerard Way began to create music again.

Around 54 minutes into The Umbrella Academy’s fifth episode, there’s a mind-bending shoot-out featuring, among others, Mary J. Blige. While the action unfolds, a familiar voice quietly hits the eardrums. ‘ Imagine me and you, I do / I think about you day and night, it’s only right…’ croons Gerard Way alongside former My Chemical Romance bandmate and guitarist extraordinaire Ray Toro, in a cover of The Turtles’ hit Happy Together – both rich in personality, but also similarly honouring the original. It’s not the first time Gerard and Ray have teamed up in such a manner: last month, they unveiled another joint effort in the form of Hazy Shade Of Winter, originally by Simon & Garfunkel, for The Umbrella Academy’s official trailer. But this is arguably Gerard’s most epic comics-meets-music crossover yet.

Steve Blackman, says Gerard, “thought it would be really nice for the fans – both for fans of my work as a musician, and my work as a comic writer. He thought it would be really cool, and I thought it would be cool, too. It would be silly to not do a song for the show! We ended up doing a couple, which was really great. And I’m sure there will be more in the future.”

The music Gerard made each week last year wasn’t just for The Umbrella Academy – it was also for himself. Possibly over-ambitiously, the musician hoped to release these new sounds once a month, though his workload soon put paid to that. He does, however, now boast “quite the collection of demos”.

“Right now it’s just a stand-alone thing,” Gerard says, “but I think at some point – maybe for a vinyl or something – it would be nice to collect all these songs, just as a body of work for something that I did. With all the work and the show coming, it has been harder to try and do a song a month. And I knew that that would kind of happen back when I first mentioned the goal of trying to do that, just because of all the extra work that was coming. But we’re still making music every week.”

Gerard has enjoyed the process of juggling his own music and songs for Netflix enormously. His recent solo tracks – Baby You’re A Haunted House, Getting Down The Germs and a touching Christmas number featuring Lydia Night of The Regrettes called Dasher – have deliberately not been “overthought”, though music for The Umbrella Academy can be a little more laborious.

“It’s a bit more work, because it’s for something cinematic,” he explains. “It’s not that it has to reach a higher level, it’s just that it’s a different level. The solo stuff is just kind of up to me, and what I want that to convey, or what nature it has. Whereas with the show, everybody has to really be blown away by it. So maybe, in a way, it’s more a little bit of what Ray [Toro] and I and the guys in My Chem used to do; we apply a little bit more of that to what we do in these cover songs for Umbrella Academy.”

Is it a strange feeling to revisit that kind of creative process?

“It makes it really fresh and exciting,” Gerard grins. “It’s actually really nice to go back and do something like you once did it, because you have more experience and wisdom and knowledge. As you get older you bring all these things the way you used to do. It’s refreshing at times – especially if you’re doing a bunch of experimental things. It’s refreshing to go back to your core, and your roots, of what you used to do, and apply your new knowledge to that.”

Gerard Way’s musical future for now, then, will remain both blissfully free and totally spontaneous – a far-cry from his MCR days. But he couldn’t be happier about it.

“I like to move forward a lot,” he enthuses. “I don’t like to dwell on things very much. I don’t usually like to revisit them, either. I like to keep moving forward and putting out new things. I like to try new things and experiment.” Gerard repeats himself once more. “I really like doing that.” K!

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY IS AVAILABLE TO WATCH NOW ON NETFLIX

[aion-rsa]

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: A Tale of Immortality A Decade in the Making

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article is sponsored by

The first time I ever interviewed V.E. Schwab, she told me about The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It was July 2018 and we were sitting in the lobby of the Hilton Bayfront Hotel during San Diego Comic Con. Schwab was in the midst of a promotional tour for Vengeful, the second book in her Villains series, with the launch of her middle grade fantasy series City of Ghosts just around the corner, but she couldn’t help but also mention then work-in-progress Addie.

“I never shut the fuck up about this book before I wrote it,” Schwab says, with a laugh, when I interview her again in 2020 and mention the conversation two years prior. “Everyone in my life was like, ‘Please stop talking about the damn book you haven’t written.'”

By those rules, Schwab can now talk about Addie LaRue as much as she damn well pleases. The book is not only written, but poised to hit bookshelves in less than a week, on October 6th. It’s a long time coming for the author, who first imagined up the idea of Addie LaRue almost a decade ago, in 2011. At the time, she was living in someone’s Liverpudlian shed and, in an effort to get away for the day, took up a housemate on her offer of a ride to the U.K.’s picturesque Lake District.

“She dropped me in this tiny little village called Ambleside and, for eight hours, I just wandered these fairy-like woods,” Schwab recalled, back in 2018. “And I was thinking about Peter Pan, because I had just reread the original Peter Pan, and thought about how sad it is because it ends with him already forgetting Wendy. And I started thinking, ‘That’s really sad… but it’s not sad for him, because he forgets. What would it be like if everybody else forgot?’ And so Addie LaRue stemmed from this moment, just wandering…”

Addie LaRue is an 18th-century French woman who makes a deal with the devil to live forever and, in the process, is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. The pact’s fine print is put in place by the god-like creature Addie calls Luc as a tactic for convincing Addie to more quickly give up her immortal life and surrender her soul. Three hundred years later, in 2014 New York City, Addie is still defiantly living, but it hasn’t been easy. The curse keeps her from being unable to hold property, unable to keep a regular job, and unable to have any kind of sustained relationship. She is impossibly lonely and then, one day, she meets a man named Henry and he does something impossible too: he remembers her.

A narrative about a girl cursed to be forgotten is perhaps an ironic story for Schwab to tell. At the age of 33, Schwab has already published 21 books (if you count graphic novels, which we do). From her books and short stories to her social media presence and this speech, Schwab has already left her mark on recorded history. But anxieties are not always rational—it is so very human to be conscious of the passing of time, and it is so very millennial to be anxious about not finishing what feels important before the next tragedy strikes.

“[The passage of time is] something I was aware of when I was 10 and 16 and 22,” says Schwab, “but I didn’t know that was going to be the central theme of the book. In fact, I didn’t really know until my fear of writing the book wrong became replaced by fear of dying without writing the book at all. When I was 29 and I realized, ‘Oh my God, I have to get it down on paper. I’m running out of time.’ And that concept of running out of time, which then trickled through Henry and trickled through Addie. And I started to realize, oh my God, this is not a book about a deal with the devil. It’s a book about the loneliness of feeling like life is passing too fast.”

It’s also a book about the realities of moving through the world as a (white) woman. The rules of Addie’s curse to be forgotten are exaggerated depictions of the realities of being a woman and/or a part of other marginalized communities for much of history: barred from most paid work, unable to hold property, and erased from recorded history.

“I wanted to examine autonomy,” says Schwab when I ask her about this metaphorical quality of the curse’s depiction. “There was so little autonomy for women, even Addie who had chosen to be independent.”

Addie first makes the deal with Luc because she is desperate to avoid being married, what she understandably sees as a curse of its own kind. Addie longs to be free and independent, though, at 23, she does not yet know what that might look like—after all, she has lived almost her entire life in one, small village. In her state of distress, Luc comes up with a twisted definition of independence for her: a curse that keeps Addie from being remembered, from even being able to say her name. It is far from the dream of being “left alone to grow” that Addie wants for herself, even if it technically fits the description.

Credit: Rengin Tumer

“She’s thrust into the world, ostensibly autonomous, but with none of the benefits of autonomy,” explains Schwab. “No money, no status, no stability, no identity. And so I absolutely wanted to explore what happens when you’re then given physical autonomy and nothing else. How do you support yourself? How do you survive? And it’s not as easy. We tell these immortality tales of men where all of a sudden they’re immortal and it’s just like, go get rich, go have fun, go have 100 mistresses and just sleep your way through eternity. But women would never have that option.”

While The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue doesn’t languish in the most desperate parts of Addie’s long life, it doesn’t avoid them either. We are with Addie when she first realizes her parents can’t remember her, when she realizes she must steal to eat, and when she turns to the only profession accessible to woman for much of human history.

“[The exploration of woman’s autonomy is] one of the reasons that I created a path of movement for Addie the way that I did instead of just letting it be a travelogue of Addie through the ages, through all of the world,” says Schwab. “I still had to be keenly aware of the fact that she was a woman and she couldn’t die, but she could be made to suffer. She could struggle. And so she wasn’t seeking world travel. She was seeking safety and there was never any safety for her. There was never anything lasting.”

But this story doesn’t solely take place in the “then”; it also takes place in the “now,” or close enough to call it so. And, by 2014, Addie has figured some things out. She knows how to find a place to stay and all the best spots in New York City. She knows how to steal new clothes and what to say when she wakes up in somebody’s bed and they can’t remember their night together. She does not know quite what to do, however, when she stumbles upon Henry, the first person in 300 years who has remembered her. In many ways, neither did Schwab. The author calls Henry’s initial sections “the hardest part of the book to write,” as we move from a story told solely the perspective of an immortal girl desperate to defy the devil by living forever to a dual-perspective narrative that includes the insights of a contemporary boy having a rough time of it in New York City.

“I was very scared of writing Henry,” says Schwab, “because, if I had written him wrong, he could have come off as just whiny, millennial white boy who has everything and can’t seem to get his shit together. I was really afraid of him being the weakest link in the story.” Henry earns his role in the story, and the relative smallness of his life grounds a tale of gods and souls and immortality in something more recognizable, especially for millennials living with mental illness.

“Essentially, what I did, is I gave him me,” says Schwab of her tactic for keeping Henry from becoming an ineffective character. “Really in this triptych, of these three characters, he is the only human. I gave him every one of my fears and every one of my insecurities and every one of my suicidal thoughts. I made him exactly who I would be if I hadn’t found writing when I did. Which is to say, I was the kid who went through college thinking, ‘How am I supposed to pick? Because saying yes to one thing is saying no to a hundred others. How am I supposed to know what’s right? And is what’s right for me now, what’s right for me in 10 years? How am I even going to survive 10 years?’ I gave him all of that panic that leads to all of that paralysis that some of us feel, as everyone else looks at us and says, ‘You should understand what you’re doing by now.'”

While Henry may be a necessary and welcome point-of-view character for us contemporary readers, his name isn’t on the book’s cover. This story belongs to Addie LaRue, and Schwab never forgets it. “I wanted to give [Henry] a moment,” says Schwab, “but he could never take up the space that Addie takes up. It’s not his story.” This is Addie’s story, and it is Schwab’s—one she’s carried with her for a long while, since that fateful amble in Ambleside almost a decade ago. After so long, Schwab says she’s not quite ready to let go of the story.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready,” says Schwab. “This part never gets easier, but it was the first book I’ve ever written where, when I finished writing it, I thought to myself, ‘If I never write another book, I’ll be okay.'”

Does Schwab have another Addie, a long-fermenting story she is carrying with her that will one day be something others can carry too? That’s not how these kinds of stories work, says Schwab.

“There was not enough space in my head and my heart to carry two,” she continues. “Right now, I’m very scared of the fact that I don’t have my next Addie, but I think you don’t necessarily always know. When I started thinking about Addie, did I think it was going to take 10 years to write? God no. I never would have done it. So maybe I do have the next Addie in my head and I just don’t know it yet.”

Schwab hopefully has many more stories left to tell—from an outside perspective, the author seems to be very much in the middle of a long and prolific speculative fiction career. Even so, Addie LaRue is special to the author. As she puts it: “There will never be another story for me like this one.”

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue will be available wherever books are sold on October 6th. Find out more about the book and how to purchase it here.

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[wendynerdwrites]

@jonxsansaremix

Jon x Sansa Remix: Day Two - Comics/Graphic Novel Couples: Fables - Bigby Wolf x Snow White

(Reposting my fic from last year since I did this couple. But the photo edit is new and I’m actually pretty proud of it)

“Then she gets even more frustrated, meaning I turn back even further, and There’s too much to hide, so I can’t go to work, then she gets even more upset, and it’s just this whole cycle!”

Jon quietly swears under his breath as he enters the main office. Of course Beauty and Beast are the first visitors of the day. He and Sansa clearly don’t have enough headaches to deal with.

Rarely does the Deputy Mayor of Fabletown have an easy time receiving petitions— Ichabod Crane, her loathsome predecessor, left a mess with his departure. And even if he’d been a model civil servant, there is never enough money, time, or magic to solve all the problems the citizens of Fabletown have.

Sometimes, Jon wishes he hadn’t taken Sansa and King Cole up on their offer all those years ago and let them turn him back into a man. It’s true that as Sheriff, he has fewer bureaucratic nightmares to handle than Sansa, but she had so little support that Jon is compelled to assist her whenever possible.

Not that he is great at the whole diplomacy thing. Even without his past as The Big Bad Wolf and the whole “brought back from the dead” baggage, Jon isn’t much of a people person. Being stabbed by one’s brothers didn’t inspire much of an inclination towards trust, and though it’s been years since he was a full-time wolf, many of his more base, animalistic instincts remain.

Still… he couldn’t ignore Sansa’s problems even if he wanted to.

It’s been both better and worse since The Farm. Better for Arya’s sake. Most Fables, whether they were from Planetos or some other homeland, had trouble adjusting to life in the Mundy World. Planetos was one of the more brutal of the homelands even before the adversary came and ran them out. But Arya had a particularly hard time adjusting. Decades spent causing trouble, partying, messing around with that idiot, Jack. Sansa and Arya never got along well, but that didn’t stop the older sister from worrying about her constantly.

Arya found her element in the Farm, though. The sisters even found a way to communicate. And with that part of her life stable for the first time in centuries, Sansa is in a better place mentally.

But then there are the physical injuries. Sansa still needs her cane sometimes. Even now, it is propped up against the side of her desk, an oddly modern-looking thing amidst the scores of medieval-style magical artifacts the littered the cavernous main office.

The sounds of Beauty and Beast’s complaints echo off the enchanted, ever expanding walls. It is hard to believe that a woman as small as Beauty can make so much noise. But then, she always does.

Sansa sits as perfectly prim as she always does, but Jon can smell her the tension on her. He could smell it from his cigarette-filled apartment three floors up. She’d been in a decent mood this morning, too.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything other than what I always tell you when this matter arises,” the Deputy Mayor says in her most neutral tone. Jon can tell she’s longing to rest her head in her hands the way she always does when frustrated, but she stays firm and tall now. “Either you resolve your issues so that the curse no longer makes Beast change back, buy a glamour from the 13th floor, or go up to the Farm.”

This has happened a thousand times. The nature of Beast’s curse, contrary to the Mundy version of their story, mean that his appearance depended on the feelings of his wife. When Beauty was happy, Beast looked like the handsome prince of Happily Ever After. When Beauty wasn’t, he began to regain his more beastly features: eyes turning red, teeth becoming fangs, horns protruding out of his temple. At the moment he was still man-shaped, but fairly demonic in appearance nonetheless.

The couple are utterly devoted to one another. But they also had a bad habit of living outside their means. Their elegant Woodlands apartment does not reflect the piles of bills they hid within their 18th century french cabinets.

“You cannot possibly expect us to live amongst those…. Animals!” Beauty cries out, as she always does.

“It’s not so bad, Beauty,” Jon says, walking towards the desk. They all turn to see him. He gives a sardonic smile. “Most of them up there are a fair sight tamer than I am.”

Sansa’s lip twitches for half a second. Beauty scoffs at Jon and turns back to the Deputy Mayor.

“The cost of glamours these days is absurd, and it is only climbing. We couldn’t possibly afford one. And I’m a lady! I can’t just sleep amongst the the pigs and toads and badgers! That might be well enough for that vulgar sister of yours, but—”

Sansa gets to her feet at once, eyes flashing. Even Jon steps back a couple of feet. He hasn’t seen her this furious since Beauty mentioned the dwarves.

“My sister is leading the Farm and contributing to this community. Which is more than I can say for you. I’ve given you your options. Now get out.”

The couple get to their feet. Beast keeps his red eyes fixed firmly on the ground as Beauty drags him out. Once they’re gone, Jon pulls out a cigarette and lights up. Sansa’s emotions are overpowering his senses. There are a few moments of silence before he gingerly approaches her desk.

Sansa’s face is in her hands. “How many are in line outside?”

“Only a half dozen,” Jon says, as gently as he can, “Boy Blue said you wanted to see me?”

Sansa glances up at him. “I just wanted to know if you have any news on Goldilocks.”

Jon cringes. Their favorite terrorist. It was thanks to Goldilocks that Sansa had that cane. “Nothing new, I’m afraid. I just… I don’t get it. You’d think I’d be able to sniff her out. But she’s just… Disappeared.”

“Do you think she may have gotten her hands on any magical artifacts?”

Jon groans. “I didn’t want to admit it, but it seems more and more likely each day. What I don’t understand is—”

“—How she got it. But we have to find out. If there’s some unauthorized enchantments out there again…”

Jon nods. “I’m making Goldi my first priority, before anything else.”

“—I may just have a lead for you on that!”

Jon groans. Wonderful. He turns and Sansa rises to greet the Fabletown government’s primary financial benefactor, Bluebeard.

Of all the Fables that had fortunes in the homelands, Bluebeard somehow managed to be one of the few that retained his. He supposedly had endless treasure rooms in his Woodlands penthouse, and as such, he was the source for much of the government’s funding. Meaning they had to keep him happy. As with most Fables, that was easier said than done.

The former pirate strides in, as he always does, as if he owned the place. His head shines so brightly that it makes Jon wonder, not for the first time, if he shined it with the same polish that went on his italian loafers. The pirate’s hand is planted firmly atop the pocket of his brocade vest. Jon tensed up. He could smell the magic.

“I think you may want to look into that criminal, Greenleaf,” Bluebeard says smugly, coming close to the desk.

Jon rolls his eyes. “We’ve told you before, Bluebeard, Greenleaf is now a legitimate enchanter and part of the 13th Floor, under the employ of Fabletown. She is not—”

“—Once a criminal, always a criminal!” Bluebeard insists, reaching into his pocket.

“Is that so?” Sansa says, brushing a lock of her red hair back and giving Bluebeard a pointed look. The pirate has the decency to blush.

“That was before the amnesty! But she… She’s been dealing black market enchantments for years, and I don’t believe she’s stopped!” Bluebeard pulls something from his pocket— a carved wooden trinket, like a wine cork, but with a stopper— and plants it on Sansa’s desk.

Sansa and Jon both lean over to look at it.

“It certainly looks like one of Greenleaf’s…” Sansa glances at Bluebeard. “Any idea what it is?”

“A glamour, of course. Just like last time.”

That would make sense. Glamours could mask scent. Jon tentatively reaches for it and opens it.

Blackness.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Jon feels amazing, in his element. He isn’t in his wolf form, but he is definitely closer to nature.

Swimming, in fact. In a proper river rather than one of those chlorinated monstrosities the humanoids prefer. Languidly, Jon reaches out and grabs one of the salmon swimming by him. It’s only when he feels the satisfaction of the fish squirming in his hands that he realizes something is amiss.

He’s not supposed to be here. Wherever this is. He guesses the wilderness of Washington State or Oregon, judging by the smell of the trees. It’s evening, just the beginning of sundown. And for a lost wolf, he feels amazing. More amazing than he’s felt in… He’s not sure how long.

And he can smell her. Sansa. Gods can he smell her. He can smell more of her than ever. Jon braces himself and bursts towards the surface. Her scent— lemons, roses, sunlight, vanilla, oak, ink, alcohol and amber gris from that perfume she always wears— almost knocks him out. There’s something else there, too. And Jon immediately knows why he feels so good.

Uh-oh.

Jon calms himself and processes the situation. Sansa will probably be waking as well, or soon. He’s not sure if whatever enchantment that brought them here affects full humans differently than wolves.

Whatever reason they’re here, it can’t be good. He curses. Finally, after years and years of waiting and hoping and dreaming… And he can’t even remember the act!

Then there’s Sansa herself. Gods, this isn’t good. She’ll be horrified. After everything she’s been through, mating under magical influence… She can’t know. Not yet. Not until Jon knows they’re safe.

He bursts out of the water and follows her scent back to the camp they apparently made. Jon is a bit shocked. They have everything— brand new camping equipment, including one large tent and what appear to be all new hiking clothes— strewn all over the ground of their camp site. Khaki cargo shorts, t-shirts, new boots, thick white socks, a sports bra…

Jon glances down and realizes he’s naked as his Name Day. He thanks whatever gods might exist that no one saw him walking back. He grabs his shorts off the ground and pulls them on before gingerly venturing into the hub of that smell, the tent.

He almost faints again. There she is, lying amidst a collection of water-resistant sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows, in all of her glory. If Jon couldn’t smell it on her before, he’d know for certain now that the two of them had slept together. She lies on her back, legs spread, dried fluid clinging to her inner thighs.

Jon stops moving for a short while and just stares at everything he’s dreamt of for the last four centuries. Her pink-tipped breasts, the thatch of auburn curls between her legs, the swell of her hips, the whiteness of her skin. It takes every ounce of self control he has not to pounce on her.

He can’t let her know, not yet. The hair on the back of his neck prickles, and he can smell it. Danger.

Jon works fast and carefully. With every ounce of grace he has, he manages to slip her shorts and t-shirt on. He even does the socks, but doesn’t dare to try with the bra or panties. Thankfully, she stays asleep, but begins to stir when Jon gets her second sock on. Jon tries to play it off, purposely jostling her and whispering her name. “Sansa… Sansa, wake up.”

Her eyes flutter open, and Jon recalls the Mundy tale about her being woken by a prince’s kiss. He wishes he could wake her that way now. But no. Whatever they did under that spell, it was only magic. She’s not his.

Sansa sits up suddenly, her face a mask of panic. “J-Jon? What is going on?! Where am I? Why are we—?”

“I’m not sure,” he confesses, “But you can bet there’s some kind of magical element to it.” He rubs his normally clean-shaven chin, estimating the growth there. “I say we’ve been gone for about three days. We’re in Washington State.”

“Washington—” the blood drains from her face, “Oh gods.” She looks around. “Goldilocks?!”

Jon lifts his nose and inhales deeply. He can smell it. Amidst steel and motor oil and paint. “Yes. She’s behind this. And if she has even half the ballistic power I’m catching off of her, then we need to move. And quickly.”

“Where’s my cane?!” Sansa asks, looking around.

Jon sighs. “Sansa, I don’t think we can afford to have you moving like that. You’re going to have to ride me.”

She blanches. “I—”

Jon shakes his head. “No, I mean literally.” He grabs her hand. “Come on.”

He drags her out of the tent, closes his eyes, and concentrates. He thinks of darting through the woods, the smell of blood on his muzzle, the wind at his fur. He feels himself expand and rise.

When he opens his eyes, he’s no longer a man. He’s gigantic, covered in white fur, mounted on four legs. Sansa stands a few yards off, hand over her mouth. Jon crouches down, lowering his massive neck.

“Get on,” he growls. He can smell her fear, but she grits her teeth and mounts him, straddling his neck and fisting his fur.

He bolts, traversing the woods and climbing the mountain ahead. Sansa clutches him as tightly as she can, but still bounces. Jon keeps going and going, feeling his muscles strain themselves. He can’t possibly escape. Not yet.

He finds a remote ledge surrounded by trees and stops short.

“What are you doing?” Sansa asks.

“Resting. We’re not going to outrun her entirely. We need her to catch us so we can get rid of her once and for all.” Jon sighs. “But before she does, I need to get a few hours sleep while it’s still dark enough to conceal us. And so do you.”

He gets on his belly and closes his eyes. Sansa slides off of him, nodding, and settles herself against his side. “…Jon.”

“What?”

“I couldn’t help but notice… There was only one tent and sleeping bag. And I’m not wearing a bra.”

Jon groans internally and opens his eyes. “You want to talk about that now?!”

Sansa scowls at him. “Don’t give me that. You’re the one who made that absurd overture.”

Jon rests his left forward paw over his muzzle and tries to look away. Right. The night he made a complete arse of himself at the Remembrance Day Ball. When he’d used her sister’s disappearance to trick Sansa into being his date. Not one of his brightest moments. Even now, she’s looking at him with the same expression as when she told him that if he really wanted to get the girl, he should be honest with her and not use a potential tragedy to mislead her.

It had been months since, but he is still reeling from it. “And you’re the one who rejected me. What’s your point?”

“There was one sleeping bag, one tent, and no bra. So answer me. You and that nose of yours would know. Did we or did we not—?”

“No,” Jon lies, not loving himself for it. He can tell her later if he needs to. But now he needs her rested and clear-headed. That’s not happening if she knows. “If I had to guess from the amount of tracks I spotted, I’ve spent this entire trip in wolf form, sleeping under the stars.

The look of relief on her face stings a little. “Good. But Jon…”

“What?!” He asks impatiently. He’s exhausted.

She bristles at his tone. “You can’t blame me for worrying. And wondering about this attraction you suddenly have for me.”

Sudden. That’s hilarious. “Sansa, I’m exhausted…”

“I can’t sleep, Jon. I’m too wired by everything. I need to know, though. We’ve known each other our entire lives. We’ve been reunited for centuries. Why, after all this time, are you interested in me?”

“It’s not ‘all of a sudden’, Sansa.”

“What do you mean?”

Jon decides to change back. This was better expressed in his human form. Once back, he grabs her hand. “Come on, if we’re going to be awake, we might as well be moving.”

She stumbles behind him, “Come on now, you’re stalling.”

Jon sighs. “You know I spent a long time as Ghost, right?”

“Everyone knows that.”

“Well, I spent enough time as the wolf to adopt more than just the physical form before Melisandre brought me back. And while I was a wolf, I sort of…. Became part of the community.”

“The direwolf community?” She giggles.

“Don’t laugh, it’s real. Wolves have their own intelligence, their own customs, and their own legends. And while I was with them, I learned of one of them. It was about mating. And how we find our mate in the person or wolf who just… Smells right. And after we find that person, we’re attached to them. When we found one another again, I caught your scent and after that you became… the woman I can’t ignore.”

She almost trips. “That’s flattering.”

“It’s the truth. I can always smell you. Not just your presence, but everything about you and what state you’re in. It’s part of the reason I smoke so much— to block out the smell. And why I went rogue for so long. I knew you’d never be interested, so I tried to stay away. But I couldn’t. I could still smell you.”

He feels her tense up, smells her trepidation. “Jon, I—”

“I never wanted to force anything on you, Sansa. Even after you all came looking for me, I didn’t come to Fabletown expecting anything. But I decided that if I couldn’t ignore you, I could try to satisfy my feelings by protecting you.”

“Still, though, you can’t expect me to react well to you stalking me all these years.”

“I can’t help it!” He scowls. “And it’s not just— I mean, yes, I know where you are every second of every day. Not because I want to. I just do. I’d stop if I could. But it’s not just that. I know your mood, your health. The rare times those smiles you fix for the community are genuine. The periods where you feel so overwhelmed you’re almost ready to give up, but never do. I know when you’re thinking about the time you went to Cersei back in the homelands and when you blame yourself for Father’s death, which is all too often. I know when you’re blaming yourself for Arya’s troubles. I know when you’re in your bathtub crying, which happens at least twice a week. I know when you’re wondering if it’s somehow your fault your marriage to Harry ended the way it did. I know when you’re afraid, like now. But I also know that you’re starting to understand.”

She takes a deep breath. “Jon… I’m tired.”

“Just a little longer, Sansa,” Jon says, picking up the scent. “She’s getting closer.”

~_~_~_~_~_~

They’re at the John F. Kennedy airport, exiting the gate, when Sansa speaks to him for the first time in hours. There’s been a lot of silence. Jon likes to tell himself that it’s over the ax Sansa drove into Goldilocks’s head, but he knows better.

“Jon…”

“—Look, if you want me to move out, I can.” He says quickly. “Whatever you need.”

She shakes her head. “No. Jon… Look. At this point in my life, I’m not interested in tricks or grand gestures or whatever you thought you were doing with that stunt at the Remembrance Day Ball. That being said, I’ve been thinking about it. And… If you’re willing to give me some time and then ask me out nicely, in an honest, straightforward manner, to go out with you… Well, I might not say no.”

Jon feels his heart leap in his chest. “Really?”

She nods. “Really. But I mean it. Honesty and time. I need both.”

Jon pauses and takes a deep breath. “Well, then, Sansa… There’s something you should probably know…”

[prixmiumarchive]

Do you ever wish for a place to talk to other fanfiction writers? Do you get frustrated with the lack of commentary and text in a commentary-and-text-based medium of expression? Do your plot bunnies look like this fellow in the above, not-so-great banner? Do you miss the days when we called them plot bunnies? Has disenchantment with the state of the discussion of transformative works made you long for the days of dial-up, yahoo groups, and tiny fic archives run on GeoCities? Then this Discord server may be the solution for you!

Now, you might have questions. What is Discord? Isn’t it full of hentai? Do I have to install another application on my duct-taped-together computer? Can I do this on mobile? What, exactly, would make this have the potential for being anything better than the oft-abandoned, crickets-chirping concept of tumblr networks from a couple of years ago?

Those answers and more will be below the read-more. This is a living document which can be reblogged but whose content under the read-more may change. You can find this information and any other important updates to it in a static location at http://metamorprose.dreamwidth.org

Contents

Who this server is for.

How is it set up? 

What is Discord? 

What are Roles?

How do I set a Role or Roles for myself? 

What/why Metamorprose?

Rules for Metamorprose.

Punishments on Metamorprose. 

Disclaimers.

Who this server is for.

This server is intended for those who write fanfiction. If you have written 1,000 words or more of fanfiction, then you can assume this includes you, if you want it to. This is an all ages server with a few important exceptions. At present, there are three text-channels that are marked NSFW, meaning you will need to verify that you are of age to view them. Those text-channels are: nsfw-warren, nsfw-celebritiesrpf, and nsfw-musicbands. They are marked that way for these reasons: #nsfw-warren is a place to talk about writing fic that is rated M or E, #nsfw-celebritiesrpf and #nsfw-musicbands are marked that way because they are under increased moderation and discretion because they may deal with real persons who are living.

This server is open to individuals 13+ with the nsfw channels being restricted to those 18+. Any user found to enter an nsfw channel under the age of 18 will be subject to disciplinary action. Your curiosity and maturity is not wroth getting someone else in trouble.

Metamorprose is intended as a place for people who have a current or frequent interest in writing fanfiction. This does not mean that you must be writing at a certain pace or publishing a specific amount. Writer’s Block happens and so does real life. What this does mean is that if you are just a casual fanfiction reader who rarely writes that this might not be the most fun place for you. If you are an avid reader who has a lot of recs, even if you don’t write, you are welcome to join and see what happens. Any specific entry requirements or rules will be implemented and updated on an as-needed basis. For now, it is up to your discretion whether or not you would be a good fit.

How is it set up?

Metamorprose is vaguely rabbit themed in honor of ‘plot bunnies’ and their legacy. You do not have to care about or like rabbits. It was just the first naming scheme that came to mind.

At the time of invitation launch, the following are the text-channels on the Metamorprose Discord server:

#foxden - off-topic and social chat #rabbithole - where you go to role yourself #thewarren - fanfiction writing/process discussion #nsfw-warren - same as above for M/E-rated material #recs - rec fics by others #selfpromo - rec/promote fics by yourself #beta - seek/offer beta services #ficexchanges - yuletide? uh... anything else? promote and discuss here #catnip - PG13 very off-topic thread, stuff you just had to share that isn’t conducive to regular conversation #inspiration - aesthetics, music, etc. you want to share and chat about what it makes you feel or reminds you of #groupwatching - a place to set up sharing your favorite shows and movies and whatever else, through rabb.it or another service (not affiliated with this vague bunny theme) And text-channels for which you must have the appropriate role assigned to enter where you can discuss fanfiction writing and ideas and related topics for a given genre/medium. These subdivisions are based on Archive Of Our Own’s division of the same with some alteration.

#animemanga #booksliterature #cartoonscomicsgn #nsfw-celebritiesrpf #movies #nsfw-musicbands #theatre #tvshows #videogames #webseries These may change an the adminabun (me) is always looking for constructive suggestions on just about any aspect of my life.

What is Discord?

Discord advertises itself as “Free Voice and Text Chat for Gamers.” In addition to self-proclaimed gamers, it is also a place where one might find those who are interested in “memes” as a way of life and anime/manga fans with some overlap with tech-savviness. These are all generalizations, though.

Discord, in my personal experience, is very similar to Skype but with many more options. It is also, at present, ad-free, and to my knowledge plans to stay that way. If you are interested, the Discord team has provided a comparison chart of their features: https://discordapp.com/features

If you do game, do voice chat, or anything else, then it is my understanding that it really is a great application to use for that. For simple, text-based creatures like myself who rarely play games, however, it is a perfectly serviceable place to keep organized chats and PMs, all under one roof.

Another great thing about Discord is that you have several options to use it. You can use it in your browser simply by pressing “Open Discord” on the app’s homepage. You can use it in a desktop program/application, available for download on the app’s homepage. You may also use their mobile app, which to my knowledge is available for both iOS and Android. (I use Android, so if you have iOS issues with it, not my area.)

The application’s website is here: https://discordapp.com/

What are Roles?

A “Role” is a discord feature and term that determines aspects of a user’s status, permissions, and abilities within a server and its individual channels. For the purposes of Metamorprose, you should choose the one or two most-relevant genre/media roles and the posting medium (where you put your fic most-often) for yourself. The genre/media role will determine your username color, and if anyone hates their genre’s color I would be open to putting it to a poll. If you have more than one genre, you will inherit the color of the genre that comes first in the alphabet. AO3/Fanfiction.net/tumblr roles do not impact your name color.

The currently-available self-assignable roles are:

genre/media: - Anime & Manga - Books & Literature - Cartoons & Comics & Graphic Novels - Celebrities & Real People - Movies - Music & Bands - Theatre - TV Shows - Video Games - Web Series

posting medium: - AO3 - Fanfiction.Net - tumblr

How do I set a Role or Roles for myself? 

First, you need to be in the text-channel #rabbithole. I am just learning about bot usage for this venture, but at present I use a bot called Nadeko. She is a bot who sits there on the channel at all times and will, unless she is having server downtime, respond to your commands. The commands you need to know for self-assigning roles are:

you: .lsar

Sending the message ‘.lsar’ will show you a list of self-assignable roles.

you: .iam ROLE

Sending the message ‘.iam ROLE’ will assign the role typed in place of ROLE to you. For example, if I want to assign myself the Anime & Manga role, I type this exactly: ‘.iam Anime & Manga’. Nadeko will message you back when the deed is done. If It doesn’t work immediately, try again in a few minutes.

you: .iamnot ROLE

Sending the message ‘.iamnot ROLE’ will unassign the role typed in place of ROLE to you. For example, let’s say I am finished with my current Anime & Manga fic project or am moving on to another fic for now. I can type exactly this: ‘.iamnot Anime & Manga’ and Nadeko will tell me when she has unassigned the role from me.

Please note that using these roles most effectively is not assigning yourself every single one of the genre/media roles that you sort of like. Having one or two genre/media roles active at once will make it easy for people to see what you are currently interested in writing, are writing, etc. There are plenty of places you can ping-pong from liked-topic to liked-topic at the speed of your fingertips, tumblr included. This server will be the greatest resource to you if you use roles and the genre-specific text-channels judiciously. You can alter your roles as much as you want, within reason, so you are not stuck just because you have an interest shift. (Trust me, I am the queen of multifandom lack of focus.) Just don’t abuse Nadeko. She is a free service who does not belong to me.

What/why Metamorprose? 

I just wanted a name for the server that was kind-of unique and meant something.

“Metamorphose” is a verb meaning to change the form or nature of;  transform.

“Prose” is what most of us write in, striving for the middle ground between purple and beige.

In the age-old fandom tradition, therefore, it is a portmanteau for the process of creative transformative works: metamorprose.

Rules for Metamorprose. 

1. Treat others with courtesy and respect. Do not insult a person, disagree respectfully, and only offer constructive criticism.

2. Do not bait or otherwise goad another user into misbehavior. This will be considered misbehavior as well. If you are having an issue with a user, please come to the adminabun or any assigned mods to deal with it.

3. Do not post NSFW material in non nsfw channels. This does NOT include posting clearly marked M/E-rated fics in fic rec channels.

4. Keep on-topic within reason in the text channels that are not the #foxden. Reasonable and brief rabbit trails are fine, but don't turn them into niche off-topic channels.

5. Use good sense. Use discord's features appropriately. If you don't know how to or if you can do something, Google it first. If you can't figure it out from the first page of Google results, ask someone you trust. The adminabun is willing to take your questions about discord operation, within reason, after you have tried googling it yourself.

6. Non NSFW-channels should be kept at a PG-13 tone. There are no nsfw or profanity filters set up on the non-nsfw channels, so this is based on the honor system and abuse of this WILL get you warned.

7. Theft or plagiarism will merit a warning or an immediate ban, depending on context and severity, at admin/mod discretion. 8. Do not direct people directly to your patreon or ko-fi page. What you do in PMs with friends is up to you but do not otherwise promote monetary gain for yourself on this channel.

9. Do not offer financially-compensated commissions on this channel for fic or for art.

10. More rules may be added and will be announced, but ignorance of a rule is not an excuse to not follow it.

On Dreamwidth: http://metamorprose.dreamwidth.org/334.html

Punishments on Metamorprose. 

Egregious and flagrant violation of any of the above rules or other abusive behavior may be cause for immediate ban. However, the general rule is that 3 warnings result in a softban. This will ban you but will allow you to rejoin the channel again after you’ve had a cool-down. 5 warnings will result in a permanent ban.

Disclaimers. 

This Discord server is not affiliate with any of the following: Archive Of Our Own, the Organization for Transformative Works, Fanfiction.net, tumblr, rabb.it, dreamwidth, yuletide, or any other unnoted, official organization. It is a project by the fan and fanfiction writer whose Discord tag is Prix#9110.

By clicking the following link, you agree to be subject to the aforementioned rules and policies, whether you read them or not: https://discord.gg/z3FHEYQ

[mathematicianadda]

More Great Ways to Annoy a Mathematician

Which Ratio is Truly Golden?

I find it troubling that the golden ratio has so little in common with the golden rule.

Like, if you did unto others 1.618 times what you’d have them do unto you, then we’d all wind up exhausted.

And if you’re only doing 1/1.618 times unto them, then isn’t that a bit lazy?

  A Puzzle About Rates

I’ve always enjoyed those puzzles like, “If 3 chickens can lay 3 eggs in 3 days, then how long will it take 100 chickens to lay 100 eggs?” They’re counter-intuitive (e.g., in my example, each chicken lays 1 egg per 3 days, so the answer is also 3 days), yet deal only with simple constant rates.

So what if the rates weren’t constant? Like in, say, a bureaucracy, where 20 times more people will accomplish only 1/20th as much?

(Sorry for putting the answer upside down. It reads: “Please complete the attached form (Z302: Aggregate Task Completion Rate Information Request) and we’ll process your inquiry in 4-6 weeks.”)

  In this case, “a mathematician” refers specifically to Matt Parker, whose excellent book Humble Pi discusses the first two of these mistakes.

  The Asymptote of Happiness

Lots of poets have found asymptotes a convenient literary symbol – the idea of eternal striving is a resonant one (even beyond the eternal striving of the struggling algebra student).

  I love me some Raymond Smullyan.

Sorry again for putting the answer upside down. I dunno why I thought that was a clever idea. Mostly just forces you to turn off the auto-rotate setting on your phone.

Anyway, it reads: “Ask anything. You should already know not to buy lowfat yogurt.”)

  Proving a New Theorem

Not that I’ve ever felt this myself. I’m just speculating.

  P-R-E-N-A-T-A-L

What is parenting, if not a neat LARP?

(LARP = Live-Action Role-Playing Game, for those of you with less geeky acumen than I anticipate my audience to have.)

By the way, my friend Rayleen once described to me a brilliant comic, where one person asks, “When’s the baby due?” and the other person is drawn with a small horizontal stick figure emerging from their stick torso. (See? It’s such a good comic, I can just describe it.)

  The Sales Pitch for Math

I think a lot about the different arguments for math, and the ways that they support or contradict each other. Is it a beautiful art? An urgent set of universal civic skills? Key preparation for technical professions?

The answer is yes to all three. But not for all math, and not all at once – and attempting to blend the purposes can lead to a muddle.

  The Meaning of “Let”

It’s always tickled me that the mathematician’s verb “let,” which sounds so chill and laissez-faire, is actually a binding command.

  “All Happy Families Are Alike; Every Unhappy Family is Unhappy In Its Own Way”

I wrote a bunch of these a few years ago. This one has the benefit of being true: all circles are geometrically similar, but not all ellipses are.

(The same is true, by the way, of parabolas and hyperbolas. The former are all the same basic shape, just zoomed in or zoomed out, whereas the latter constitute a whole family of different shapes.)

(Chew on that, Tolstoy.)

  The Court-Appointed Translator

I wrote this little dialogue after listening to a great episode of The Allusionist, before it turned out that Game of Thrones would suffer the worst collapse in storytelling that I have ever experienced.

Oh well!

As my wife said, “At least this way we’ll never have to bargain with our daughter about when she’s old enough to watch Game of Thrones. The ending is so bad, in 10 or 15 years no one will be watching it anymore.”

  Identity Politics

This is a really dumb pun.

Also one of the more popular cartoons in this list.

Go figure.

  Another Dumb Pun

This one is inspired by that time Malcolm Gladwell referred to eigenvectors as “igon vectors,” and Steven Pinker blasted him for it, at which point Gladwell blasted Pinker for something else, and eventually we all lost the thread and just went about our days.

And if you want more godawful matrix puns, I’ve got ’em.

  I don’t know what day you’re reading this, but guess what? It’s also a bad approximation of pi! So go ahead and celebrate!

(Though if you want some very clever alternative pi days, check out Evelyn Lamb’s page-a-day calendar, which includes a Pi Day each month, and not where you’d expect!)

  Uncountably Many Wishes

After I posted this, there was a bunch of discussion on Twitter about whether I’d mischaracterized the Axiom of Choice, which is totally possible, in which case, oops.

Also, some folks pointed out that it’s pretty greedy to wish for uncountably many wishes, when you could just as easily wish for countably many.

To which I say: What’s the point of a magic lamp, if not to have greed be your undoing?

  Maximization vs. Minimization

For lots of optimization problems, maximizing makes sense, but minimizing doesn’t. (Or vice versa.) An example: What’s the largest rectangle you can make from 4 feet of wire?

It’s the 1-by-1 square, with an area of 1 square foot.

But what’s the smallest rectangle you can make (in terms of area)? Well, you could make the 1.9999 by 0.0001 rectangle, which has a very tiny area…

Or you could make the 1.999999 by 0.000001 rectangle, which has an even smaller area…

Or the 1.99999999999999 by 0.000000000000001 rectangle, whose area is microscopic…

…and so on.

I hope that was worth it! And I suspect it wasn’t! Anyway, moving on.

  More thoughts here.

  The Villainous Mathematician Explains His Plan

Clearly this villain should be assigning more group work.

Anyway, I for one am curious to know how a complex-valued currency might work. I’d pay a hefty fee for an accountant or tax attorney who can turn imaginary assets into real ones, or real debts into imaginary ones.

  The Cat on the Bed

I found it very hard to draw a decent space-filling curve.

Also, to draw a decent cat.

  Only Slept Four Hours

This is how I feel about anyone who sleeps less than 7 hours in a given night.

  Axioms of Life

This is my version of that xkcd about kitties.

Also pretty well summarizes parenthood. I still enjoy a cerebral geek-out, as I always have; but I also really enjoy holding my daughter in my arms and calling her the world’s best monkey over and over.

  How Many Stars?

I would totally read a graphic novel about the dating life of Georg Cantor.

The problem is that no one is going to write this graphic novel except for me.

Oh well. I’m under contract for two more books at the moment, but after that will come TRANSFINITE LOVE: THE ROMANTIC ESCAPADES OF A SET THEORIST.

  Quick-Draw Answers

Drawn from an actual experience, in my first week teaching 7th grade. I hadn’t really figured out how to tee up a problem-solving experience yet.

  Twenty Questions

Drew this one for a Jim Propp essay. Recommended as always!

  A New Proof

A teaching friend of mine had a whole list of proofs that 1 = 0, which he busted out at various developmentally appropriate points in grades 6 through 12.

I love that. Curious how far you could get writing a book of proofs that 1 = 0, each introducing a key idea in mathematics…

Maybe that’ll be my next project after the George Cantor romance novel.

  E = mc

Philosophical question: Is this a pun?

The case against: “A pun is a joke that plays on words that sound similar but mean different things. This isn’t doing that.”

The case for: “A pun is a joke that plays on linguistic expressions with similar surface features, but different deep meanings. This is doing exactly that: the premise of the joke is that an exponent and a footnote are both denoted with a superscript, yet mean very different things.”

So I guess this has a deep resemblance to puns, but lacks a surface resemblance… which is itself, not very pun-like.

Ruling: Not a pun!

  “The Exception Proves the Rule”

I guess you hear this inane phrase less often these days. But there was a time, kiddos, when people could hear a devastating counterexample to what they were arguing, and then blithely say “the exception proves the rule” with a straight face.

  The Math Sequence

I’m pretty agnostic on the math sequence. But I have strong intuitions that Star Wars should be screened in the order: IV, V, I, II, III, VI, and so on. (I view the sequels as pretty optional. Prequels too, for that matter, but if you limit yourself to the original trilogy, it’s a boring problem.)

  The “Same” Age

A lot of people on Facebook seemed to read this as though the right-hand character was creeping on Ariana Grande. Not my intention at all! I just wanted to pick a mid-20s celebrity. Could’ve just as easily been Bieber.

(My primary association with Ariana Grande, by the way, is her performance in the short-lived bar mitzvah-themed Broadway musical Thirteen.)

  Lemniskate

I’m not sure there’s a joke here.

I’m fond of this drawing anyway.

  Linear Child

Michael Pershan, the internet’s most relentlessly analytical math educator, inexplicably loved this joke, so I call it a win.

Someone on social media speculated about the position by which this linear combination had been “conceived,” which I found quite vulgar and upsetting (but which I also sort of invited by drawing a comic about procreating vectors).

  If P, then Q

Where do we draw the line between logical succession, and outright stalking? I leave that to the courts.

  Loons and Lunes

Sometimes I just want to do a cute drawing that has no joke in it, okay?

  The Vertical Line Test

I’m actually skeptical that the phrase “vertical line test” has any value. To me it feels like a fancy name for a fact that doesn’t need a fancy name. And, as in the two-column-proof version of geometry, giving fancy names to facts that students should be reasoning out for themselves can become obfuscatory rather than clarifying.

  Whose Fractal is Whose?

Please join me in making “Patricia gasket” a thing! E.g., “Did you know Copley Square in Boston is the approximate shape of the mathematical figure known as a Patricia Gasket?”

from Math with Bad Drawings https://ift.tt/2RlT021 from Blogger https://ift.tt/2wnolKj

[braskasfinalginger-blog]

Survey Results [Research]

Over the Easter Holidays, I created a survey about my plans for this upcoming project to get a better idea as to how I should continue and whether there is anything I should prioritise when creating my Interactive Graphic Novel. As of writing this blog, I have received 22 responses and I shall be reviewing the answers that were given to me.

Question 1: “What age range do you fit into?”

For this question, I put in seven different age groups:  5 - 8  /  9 - 12  /  13 - 16  /  17 - 20  /  21 - 30  / 31 - 45  / 46+

This was so that, wherever I shared my survey, I could make sure that I had all bases covered. I shared my survey with my college friends on a Discord server that we share and I also posted it on Facebook so that more of my friends could see it. My sister was kind enough to share my post with her friends which meant that I had received a lot more responses than I was expecting. Because of this, the largest age range answering my survey was 21 - 30, followed by 13 -16 and 17 - 20, and then the two oldest age groups. I received no responses from the two youngest age groups. Knowing that I was having my survey answered by an older group of people meant that I would be receiving more responsible and reasonable answers.

Question 2: “What first comes to your mind when you think of Pirates?”

I left this as an open question so that people could write their own opinions rather than giving them options that I believe they would think, giving me biased views as to the way I want it to go.

Common themes in these responses were to do with features of a typical pirate, for example “Eye patches”, “Ships”, “Rum” and “Black sails” which is good as it confirms the ideas I had planned for my character designs and allows me to continue them with confidence. Another common theme in the answers was “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Johnny Depp” which was part of my planned research (to watch Pirates of the Caribbean). Another answer that cropped up was “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” which is a children’s T.V. show. I’m not entirely sure on what goes on in this show but I will make sure to research into it to help me get a better understanding of what children like and what they associate with pirates. 

There was one answer that came up that I wasn’t sure what it was: “pirates of penzance”. After a quick Google search, I found out that The Pirates of Penzance is a comic opera from the late 19th Century. The story follows a man named Frederic who has been released from an apprenticeship and has joined a band of tender-hearted pirates. While there he meets a woman named Mabel and the two instantly fall in love. However, because he was born on the 29th of February, logic would dictate that he could only have a birthday every leap year and he was only allowed to leave his apprenticeship at the age of 21. This meant that he must serve for another 63 years before being allowed to leave his apprenticeship, with his only solace being that Mabel said she would wait faithfully for him. This is an interesting take on pirates that I have not seen before, where the focus is on love and not the violence and pilfering that is usually associated with them. Once again, this has given me more material to research to help with the story of my own interactive graphic novel.

Question 3: “In your opinion, which age range (target audience) do you believe is most suitable for a story about pirates?” (In general, no specific plot)

This question featured the same age groups that were given in Question 1. This time around, 50% of the answers said that 8 - 12 was the most suitable age range for a pirate story. This surprised me slightly as I had typically seen pirates as suited around an older audience, due to the nature of how they acted. However, the second most given answer was 13 - 16, followed by 17 - 20 and 4 - 7, with the least voted answer being the 21+ age range. This gives me a good idea as to what age I should be targeting for this graphic novel and what sort of humour I should be having my characters use.

Question 4: “In your opinion, what is most important in an Interactive Graphic Novel?”

In this question, I wanted to find out what other people thought was most important when it came to reading an interactive graphic novel. Instead of leaving this one as an open question, I instead listed off features that I found from my other research and allowed the people answering to tick multiple boxes. The options I gave are as follows: 

Art Style / Positioning of panels / Various panel sizes / How the story is told / Animated panels / Interactivity / Other (please specify)

The two most ticked answers were “How the story is told” and “Interactivity”. I was expecting interactivity to be ticked as that is what is at the core of an interactive graphic novel, however I was not expecting the way the story is told to be as high up on the list as it was. I am aware that story is highly important but now I also know that I need to be careful about how I am conveying my story to my audience so as not to allow for any confusions. As my story idea is simple, I don’t believe this will be too much of an issue to look out for but I will still do it as a precaution just in case. The next most popular answer was “Art Style” which shows me that the imagery used needs to be of a good/legible quality that it is enjoyable to look at while going along with the story. What was surprising to me was that the two least popular answers were “Positioning of panels” and “Animated panels”. While I understand that panel positioning doesn’t come across as important when the story is fantastic, I still believe it can be used to emphasise how important some scenes are compared to others. Initially, the lack of importance in animated panels was surprising to me because I initially believed that animation was in all interactive graphic novels, however, thinking back to examples that I have seen, there has been little to no animation in them, with the only exception being NAWLZ. Although this isn’t considered an important feature by others, I still believe it will be fun and interesting to include in my own one as it will make it somewhat unique and stand out from others that are out there.

I also received responses that ticked the “Other” box. Two examples of ideas given were “User friendly” and “Exciting Content”. “Exciting content” would likely fall into the category of “How the story is told” as it is how the story comes across that can either keep people reading or make them stop. “User friendly” was an interesting response as it could fall under “Interactivity”, although I will admit it was something I hadn’t put into consideration. It will need to be made clear before my graphic novel begins that there is a way to navigate/activate the panels as the story progresses in order to prevent any confusion as to how it works.

Question 5: In this question I gave a brief synopsis of my story idea, followed by the question “On this scale, how do you rate my idea?”

The scale that I gave for this answer ranged from 0 to 100, with 0 meaning terrible and 100 meaning great. While I cannot view each individual response to this question, there was an average score of 79 meaning that my idea was generally well received by everyone that responded to my survey. This was good to see as it meant that I could still work with what I had and that, if I did follow through with it, then the end product would also be (hopefully) well received by the people that read it.

Question 6: “Having now heard the plot for the story, does your option for the age range of the target audience remain the same, or has it changed?”

+ Question 7: “What is your reasoning for your answer to the previous question?”

For the first half of the question, I gave three options for the respondents to choose:  Yes, my initial age range stays the same No, my initial age range has now changed to an older audience No, my initial age range has now changed to a younger audience

The majority of the responses to this were that the age range they chose had stayed the same, while the rest of the responses were exactly split as to whether their initial age range was now younger or older, so there was quite a mixed bag of responses, however based on the responses given in the second half of the question it seems that the majority of people changed to say their target audience is between 8 and 16 with the occasional people stating that the story should be for an older audience as they might not fully understand the plight of the pirates.

Question 8: “If you could make any changes/adaptations to this idea, what would they be? Why?”

For the most part, people did not have anything to say in response to this question. However, there were a few responses that did give some ideas as to how my story could be improved. For example, one of the responses was that the pirates interact with the the technology that they find that they thought was “useless” and try to figure out how it works. If it was something like a T.V. screen, do they they smash out the screen it’s self and make a finger puppet show behind it, or will they come back for more stuff?

Another idea was that they see “Windows” written on something and mistakenly believe it for actually being some kind of window so they try to climb through it, or smash and then try to fit through it, only to fail, just adding some more varied humour to the ending of the story.

Overall, this survey proved to be very useful to me as it let me know what I was doing right, where I needed to improve and most importantly whether or not I was targeting the right audience, and whether or not other people believe I am heading in the right track with the target audience. I can now confidently move forward with the rest of my research and the actual production of my project.

[beauty-from-pain123]

Yay!  It is time for my review of the December box from Paper Street Books and Comics!

December’s theme was Ladies of Sci-Fi 

(Which I am super excited about!)

For those who don’t know, Paper Street Books and Comics is a bi-monthly book box that has three different options, the Book Addict ($27+shipping – includes only books and accessories), the Comic Addict ($27 + shipping – includes only comics/graphic novels and accessories), or the Book Warrior ($43 + shipping – includes both books and comics/graphic novels plus accessories).

My review is for the Book Warrior December box.  Since this box does ship bi – monthly (every two months) this box counts for December and January.  This breaks down to about $22 a month if you order the Book Warrior box, so it is very cost effective!

Order Your Box Here

The book warrior comes in a paper box with a logo sticker on it.  I love how simplistic the design is, and the pink with the white is just adorable and edgy all at once.

The contents of the box are wrapped in tissue paper, and once opened you are presented with this brochure for the box.  It explains the theme of the month through a letter from the creators, Jenn and Marty, and it also includes a small bio of one of the authors featured this month (who happens to be an indie author!).  There are also item lists for the different subscriptions to let you know what you have received, and where the items came from.  I love the design of the brochure because it is artistic and flashy.  It also helps to know what is included in the box.

The first item included is a soap bar made by Milk + Jelly, a brand that Jenn and Marty also own!  They created this bar themselves to be based on the character Leeloo from The Fifth Element.  It smells delicious, and the key scents are very vanilla, dragon’s blood, and orange.  The soap bar is also made with goat’s milk, which makes it extremely luxurious.  This soap is also box exclusive, so it cannot be bought anywhere else.

The next item is a small tin of tea based on Amy Pond from Doctor Who!  The tea is a fandom blend from Adagio Teas, and these teas are seen often in book boxes and fandom boxes simply because they are adorable and curated after different characters.

This particular tea was created by Cara McGee, and it is blended with: black tea, rooibos tea, cinnamon bark, ginger root, orange peels, cloves, cardamom, raspberry leaves, natural cranberry flavor, natural vanilla flavor, cranberries, natural orange flavor.  The caffeine level is also moderate.

I am a huge tea buff, so I am super excited to add this one to my collection.  There is nothing better than a hot mug of tea to go along with reading!

Purchase Adagio Teas Here

The next item is an exclusive soft enamel pin designed and created by Paper Street Books and Comics inspired by Izabel of Saga.  This pin is a limited edition of only 100 and I adore it!  I already put it on my book bag with my other pins, and it just looks so cute.  The pin is box exclusive and cannot be bought anywhere else!

And now for the main attraction!  This month’s book and graphic novel were wrapped up carefully in brown paper and twine, along with author letters and promotional material.  I love the care that goes into wrapping the books, and they are always a joy to open because of this!

The graphic novel included this month was Astrid: Cult of the Volcanic Moon by Kim. W. Andersson.  The synopsis is as follows:

She was the Galactic Coalition’s top recruit until an incident on her final exam had her drummed out of the service. Now, down and out and looking for another shot at her dream, Astrid receives a special mission from her former commander. Alongside her old classmate Ulf, Astrid will have to survive giant insecs, brutal sects, and the ancient evil of an uncharted volcanic moon if she wants to prove herself worthy of another chance at becoming a Galactic Peacekeeper!

Swedish comics creator Kim W. Andersson (The Complete Love Hurts, Alena) weaves a comedic sci-fi epic for fans of Firefly and Mass Effect! Hold on to your butts!

  I had not heard of this graphic novel before, but after starting it I am already in love!  The female is edgy and fun, and the art is gorgeous.  The author letter was also a joy to read, and I am so excited to find a graphic novel I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.  Paper Street tries to stray away from the classic Marvel and DC graphic novels to bring us other works, and since I am someone who is not always up to date on the graphic novel world, I find this box to be an invaluable resource.

The book included this month was Husks by Randal P. Fitzgerald, which happens to be an indie novel!  The synopsis is as follows:

Puck’s a scavenger in the husk of what used to be Los Angeles.

There’s work there. Not much of it honest. She’s been there long enough to know what trouble looks like and how to avoid it. And she knows better than to trust any evergreen who comes making stupid promises. Living comes first.

She’s pragmatic, but that has its own sort of problems. Especially when money outweighs the reasons to say no.

This book sounds great, and even though I haven’t started it yet, I will be reviewing it here on the blog in the near future!  I always love a strong heroine, and this book looks like it won’t disappoint.

The book also came with a promotional art print and a couple of bookmarks.  I love the artwork, so I will definitely be hanging up the art print in my room!  These are nice little additions that you can’t get elsewhere, so it was nice to receive them in the box.

Overall, this box was a winner for me.  It was well worth the price and the curation was spot on!  Each item seemed to connect to one another, and I adored how much thought went into packing the box.  It also amazes me that Jenn and Marty make most of the items for the box themselves, meaning you wouldn’t be able to buy the items elsewhere.  I highly suggest Paper Street Books and Comics for those who are looking for new graphic novels or books under the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres!  You will not be disappointed!

FOR BOOK REVIEW REQUESTS FILL OUT FORM: Book Review Request Form

FOR BOX REVIEWS EMAIL: peachykeenreviews@gmail.com

Box Review: Paper Street Books and Comics – December Box Yay!  It is time for my review of the December box from Paper Street Books and Comics!

[aion-rsa]

INTERVIEW: IDW CEO on What Made 2016 the ‘Best Year’ in Company History

Comic book fans are well-acquainted with IDW Publishing, the company known for licensed comics including “Transformers” and “Star Trek,” original stories like “Locke & Key” and “30 Days of Night” and high-end collected editions like the “Artist’s Edition” series of oversized hardcovers reprinting classic comic book runs scanned from the original art. But IDW is a multi-faceted entity called IDW Media Holdings, also encompassing IDW Entertainment (movies and TV shows), IDW Games and the CTM Media Group, which distributes brochures in display stands.

As CEO of IDW Media Holdings, company co-founder and publisher Ted Adams is at the head of all of that. And he had a big 2016, ranging from two IDW Entertainment TV series having their first season on air — “Wynonna Earp” and “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency,” both of which are coming back for second seasons — and “March: Book Three,” by Rep. John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, winning the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

RELATED: IDW CEO Makes Creator-Owned Debut with New Horror Anthology

CBR spoke in-depth with Adams, who in 2017 will add to his slate by releasing his first creator-owned comic titled “Diablo House,” about the big year IDW had, ranging from the success of “March” and some overlooked gems from its EuroComics line, to the new shared universe of its licensed characters brought about by “Revolution” and the challenge of introducing creator-owned comics in the current environment of the direct market.

CBR: Ted, at the start of this conversation you remarked that 2016 was the “best year” IDW has ever had, so that seems like a good place to start. From your perspective, why was that the case?

Ted Adams: We’ve been a public company for quite some time, but this was the first year where I decided to start attending investor conferences, and put some energy into that side of the business. Our market valuation is $280 million, so we’ve had pretty phenomenal success there. The stock is up a huge amount this year, there’s definitely a lot of interest in what we’re doing. That’s directly the result of the success we’ve had in those different divisions.

If you look at the divisions, specifically with publishing, this has really been a breakout year for us. We won the National Book Award, which is the first time a graphic novel publisher has ever accomplished that. Our lines across the board really seem to be working for us. That side of the business has really done well. Our games business is also up this year, pretty significantly. We had a couple of big things — we had a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” miniatures game that we started via Kickstarter, and also had great success with retail. That single product is the biggest single revenue-generating project in the 18-year history of IDW, which is pretty phenomenal, at least from our preorder standpoint. So that’s pretty exciting.

The big driver for our growth this year is our entertainment division. We had two shows on this year — “Wynonna Earp” for 13 episodes on SyFy, then “Dirk Gently” with eight episodes on BBC America — both those shows have been renewed for second seasons; in fact, “Wynonna Earp” [has started] shooting in Calgary.

What the public markets are responding to is, these are not option deals. We’re not going to studios and saying, “Do you want to option our content and pay us a small amount of money, and give us some kind of nebulous back-end?” These are shows where we’re either fully financing or co-financing the creative development and the production of those shows, and in exchange we get the worldwide distribution rights for those shows. So it’s a completely different approach to TV than what any of our peers are doing,

Given IDW’s many divisions, how is your time divided these days? Do you get to spend much time on publishing?

These are my jobs: I’m CEO of the public company, which requires a lot of attention; investor conferences, shareholders, quarterly reports, annual reports, all those kinds of things. I’m also the operational CEO of our three divisions — publishing, games and entertainment. Very much a hands-on CEO with those businesses. I’m a producer on our TV shows as well. If you had to split that up, it’s probably, at this point, 25 percent CEO of the public company, 50 percent operational businesses, and 25 percent producer. I literally just don’t have enough hours in the TV to accomplish everything I need to do. I’m extremely fortunate I’m surrounded by an extraordinary group of people in all of our divisions. Pretty much everybody I work with is an A-plus performer.

Let’s talk about the newly announced imprint Woodworks, which will be headed by IDW’s VP of Marketing Dirk Wood and based in Portland. IDW Publishing is a pretty diverse operation as it is — what’s it looking to do with Woodworks, and what IDW can accomplish in Portland that it can’t in San Diego?

The whole Woodworks imprint is very much a work in process, and came out of many conversations with Dirk. IDW is based in San Diego, and Dirk has been commuting here from Portland, because his family’s up in Portland, for six or seven years. [Laughs] How he’s done that for that long I don’t know. This was a good opportunity for him to stop that crazy commute, and also put together what I think is going to be a pretty interesting line of books.

I don’t want to give too much away, because we want to figure out how we’re going to roll out the announcement, but it came from a conversation where he and I were both — I think like much of the world — pretty discouraged by this political year. Whether you’re happy with the presidential results or not, it was a pretty ugly process to get there. The world feels like it’s full of fear and anger.

He and I both have a long-lasting love of print, of physical products. What we want to do is curate a magazine for people who are interested in entertainment, but do it in a way — I don’t want to say “intellectual approach,” because that would turn people off — but in a deeper way than you would get from web news or on Facebook or whatever. It’s very much a work in process, but it’ll be a combination of original comic content, interviews with interesting people, in-depth looks at pop culture and things that interest us.

We’re not doing a promotional tool for IDW. This is not the equivalent of what Image is doing what their magazine [“Image+”]. This doesn’t have anything to do with IDW’s content. This is going to be a standalone magazine that we hope will be of interest to people who want to take a deeper dive into what entertainment is all about. If there were an example I could point to, it would be what The Comics Journal was back in the heyday, when they were doing those big substantive interviews with comics creators, really in-depth reviews. That’s a bit of a model for us, but the magazine’s not going to focus just on comics, it’s going to be broader than that. This is an opportunity for us to do something that you can spend an afternoon with, and hopefully enjoy and have that nice, physical product.

For the past few years, IDW has a consistent place in direct market charts — the No. 4 spot, behind Marvel, DC Comics and Image Comics.

I think we’re going on five years now pretty consistently in that spot. Our friends in Portland [Dark Horse Comics] often try to convince people that there’s some reason that we’re not, but if you go back, we’ve been in that spot for at least five years. Before “The Walking Dead” took off like crazy, we were actually pretty often swapping back and forth between the third spot with Image, but they’ve taken that as a dominant position.

As publisher, is it an active goal to move that spot up further? Or given that IDW does so many different things, is the direct market not as much of a priority to you as it may seem to comics fans? What’s your philosophy on that position?

My philosophy is this: The direct market is without any question important to us. Those charts everybody obsesses on are just purely direct market numbers. It’s very much just a portion of where we sell product. I think this year, and this is just purely an estimate, our total revenue from direct market for IDW Media Holdings is probably going to be in the 15 to 20 percent range. Super-important, no question, but it’s only 15 to 20 percent of our revenue.

My thinking has always been, I want to be an extremely diverse publisher, and I want to sell my products in as many marketplaces as I possibly can. We’ve very much accomplished that.

Of course, shared universes” are very popular in the direct market, and IDW has one now, as a result of last year’s “Revolution” crossover between Hasbro properties like “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe.”

The Hasbro “Revolution” event was really a longtime in the works. We’ve been working with Hasbro for 11 years, so we have a really long-term relationship with them. Our editorial team came up with this idea — as you’d expect, these things are complex to execute creatively, and making sure that our goals are aligned with Hasbro’s goals. A lot of work goes into these kinds of projects. I was really proud of the editorial execution, also really proud of the marketing and promotion that our marketing teams put together, specifically for the direct market. I really couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out.

What our hope is, we can have that shared universe where now those characters — while we don’t want it to be forced — it wouldn’t be out of the question that other Hasbro characters could pop up in an issue of “Transformers,” or vice versa with any of the other brands. We’ve set the ball rolling with “Revolution,” then you’re going to see that really continue on as we continue our publishing program with Hasbro in ’17.

Given the sheer amount of licensed properties IDW currently publishes as is, how aggressively does IDW pursue new licenses on an ongoing basis?

I kind of look at it this way: We have “Transformers”, we have “Star Trek,” we have “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Those are arguably three of the top four brands, the only other one that really comes to mind as potentially bigger is “Star Wars.” If we already have the A-properties, we don’t need to be in the C-property business, if you will. With that said, we’re opportunistic, and always looking for new licenses, and new interesting things. I can assure you at any given time, we probably have as many as 10 deals swirling, things that we think are going to be good.

But really, with with “Transformers,” “Star Trek” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and honestly, with “My Little Pony,” which is going to be big in ’17 — the movie’s going to be out — we’re really fortunate that we already control what I consider the premier brands.

Speaking of brands, in recent years IDW has had several crossovers with DC, including two between “Batman” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Intercompany crossovers were once commonplace, but now not a lot of people are doing it, and it feels more novel. How important have these been to IDW?

Certainly those are important to us. We have a very long relationship with DC. One of my first jobs in comics was working for [DC Co-Publisher] Jim Lee at WildStorm, I consider him a good friend, and everybody here has relationships with folks at DC and vice versa. While, yes, we compete for direct market dollars, we are as friendly as competitors can be. Certainly there’s no question that the fan response to those crossovers has just been phenomenal. The Batman/Turtles book [by James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II] that DC published [last] year, and the one that we’re now in the midst of publishing [by Matthew K. Manning and Jon Sommariva], people just absolutely love what we’re doing.

I think that goes back to creative execution. We’re not just smooshing these properties together and throwing them out there. There’s a lot of thought going into the creative; making sure that the stories make sense, that we have the best writers we possibly can, the best artists, and really try to make great comics. I think we’re definitely seeing the results of that, from fandom.

IDW is in an interesting position, because more than any other single publisher, IDW works with other publishers. DC, as noted, but also publishing Artist’s Editions of both Marvel and DC works, collaborating with Archie on some collected editions — it feels like that all makes IDW a bit of a different entity than other comics publishers.

It goes back to my desire for us to be a diverse publisher. Clearly our Artist’s Edition line is as far away as you can get from our Micro Comic Fun Packs, as you can imagine. One is mass market and cheap; one is a much bigger, more expensive line for the hardcore collector. I think because we’ve proven our ability to execute against those products at a very high level that our peers are very comfortable with allowing us to do that. In the Artist’s Edition line, we’ve done lots of both Marvel and DC books. Also, through our Library of American Comics line, we’ve also done both Marvel and DC; Spider-Man comic strips, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman. Through our Micro Comic Fun Packs, we haven’t done DC, but we’ve done a number of Marvel properties.

It all starts with relationships, like all business does, and also the trust that we’re going to do a good job for them. We also represent Archie’s foreign language releases, so in our international division we represent their catalogue; we also represent Oni Press’ catalogue.

Original concepts have always been a part of IDW, but creator-owned comics are a harder market to crack — both because it’s new properties by nature, and because Image has such a corner on the market. Still, 2016 saw IDW publish titles like the William Gibson-written “Archangel” — how important is creator-owned comics to the overall IDW picture?

It’s in our roots. It goes all the way back to “30 Days of Night,” which was first comic we published. We’ve published creator-owned comics for 17 years, and always will. But as you referenced, it’s a lot easier for us to get a lot of attention for a Hasbro crossover than for something new. The William Gibson “Archangel” book, direct market retailers were a little more comfortable with a project like that, because Gibson’s attached to it, so it’s less of a risk for them. but I do think it’s a challenge, and not just for IDW. If you look at creator-owned books, outside of a very small handful, it’s a tough sell to the direct market.

There’s a very obvious reason for that, and that’s because the system is set up so retailers are taking the risk. If they order wrong, in almost all cases, they’re the ones stuck with the inventory. Retailers have to be risk-averse, and go with the sure thing. It’s just the way the system is set up. We have some interesting creator-owned books that are coming out in ’17, and we’re trying to think about the best ways to sell those products to direct market retailers, and the best way to market and promote those books, but there’s no question it is always a challenge. Part of what we want to do with creator-owned books will also tie-in to what we’re doing with Dirk and Woodworks as well.

A big source of original material for IDW has been via Top Shelf Productions. We’re at the two-year anniversary of IDW’s acquisition of Top Shelf? What has that meant to the company? Obviously it’s meant a National Book Award, for one.

Obviously the success of “March” has exceeded everybody’s expectations. It’s been very rewarding to see the response to that book. I was at the National Book Awards [ceremony], and Congressman Lewis, when he accepted the award, told a story about how when he was a young man, he loved to read, and he went to the public library, and was refused a library card because of the color of his skin. It’s a pretty powerful thing to hear. One of the reasons that I love that book beyond the financial success and the critical acclaim is that it tells that story in a way that’s very accessible for a large audience. I think that if we aren’t very careful, we will continue to repeat the mistakes from our past. My hope is that book will help people look into a moment in our own history which was not very long ago, and realize how sad it was, so we won’t make those mistakes going forward. That is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of book, as far as I’m concerned as a publisher.

Beyond that, being able to work with [Top Shelf Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief] Chris Staros and [Top Shelf Publicist & Marketing Director] Leigh Walton, two of the smartest folks in comics — great editorial taste, really unbelievable ability to market and promote books — I’m very proud to call them colleagues at IDW. A couple of books they did this year that I really liked — “Fun Family,” which just got nominated for the Angoulême award, is a really, really interesting book that’s worth everybody checking out. Then we have the sequel to “God Is Disappointed with You” called “Apocrypha Now,” which is also a lot of fun.

It’s a notable acquisition, because two years into it, it seems from an observer perspective, to be run how it was before it was acquired.

Well, it is. They were good at what they were doing. What Chris himself would tell you that he didn’t like doing and maybe wasn’t great at was the back office stuff. Dealing with the contracts, doing the royalties, all those parts of publishing that get in the way of a small shop being able to focus on editorial and marketing. Those are the functions that we’ve taken over. I wouldn’t have bought Top Shelf if I wanted to go to Chris and say, “Now we’re going to completely change Top Shelf.”

We have a long history of working with outside editors. Chris isn’t an outside editor because he’s an employee of IDW, but if you look at our longtime relationship with Dean Mullaney or Craig Yoe, those guys both have published hundreds of books with IDW. What we don’t do is interfere with them editorially. What we do is handle all of that back office publishing stuff that they don’t want to do.

To wrap up, where do you want to see IDW go in 2017, and what releases are you looking forward to in the new year?

My mantra is always diverse products and diverse distribution of those products, so that’s not going to change in 2017.

I’d almost rather focus on some things in ’16 that I think got overlooked. We did a couple of books — Dean Mullaney has a line with us called EuroComics, it’s been known at this point because we’ve been republishing “Corto Maltese” in English. Those books are phenomenal. We did two books with Dean this year that I think were just amazing, and they’re a little more obscure, so I’m always looking for an opportunity to talk about them.

One is “Dieter Lumpen” [by Jorge Zentner and Rubén Pellejero], which is sort of an accidental mercenary adventure. The stories are great, but the art is just truly some of the best art I’ve ever seen. Anybody who loves fun stories with phenomenal art, “The Adventures of Dieter Lumpen” is absolutely worth your time.

Another book that we did through EuroComics was called “Paracuellos” [by Carlos Giménez]. This is the story of an orphanage after the Spanish Civil War. Kind of in the spirit of “March,” you see some of the things in the not-so-recent past that human beings do to each other — it’s pretty astonishing; these kids that went through these horrible experiences and were able to survive them. It’s a really powerful work that people would like.

We also published a couple of Disney hardcovers that we licensed from a French publisher, Glenat, with some extraordinary international creators, Lewis Trondheim being one of them. If you’re interested in really smart, well-drawn, fun Disney comics, those are really great books.

We of course had a lot of Artist’s Editions come out this year. I was really interested, personally, in some of the Kirby Artist’s Editions we did, particularly the “Thor” Artist’s Edition where it really gave this opportunity to see Kirby’s art in a way that you never had before, and you also get to see some of the editorial process. You see the notes that are hidden there, written on the margins of the pages. You start to see the communication that Stan [Lee] or somebody in the production office was having with Jack. You can actually see Jack’s hand-written notes of what he thought the dialogue should be. Beyond his amazing art, it’s a fascinating look at the editorial process in the early days of Marvel.

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