#don't mind how different i look also these were from 2016 and 2017

[huntedvideo]

okay since i'm once again obsessing over jody mills, here are my photo ops with kim rhodes from when i was going to spn cons lmao

[creepylittlelady]

wait, I don't understand why fanon Masky is so hated?? /genq (I was never really that interested in him tbh so I only know shit about him.)

OKAY, I can answer this one!

I'm happy that the whole fandom turned around on Fanon Masky recently (at least, I believe it must have been recently considering Cheesecake Masky was a thing before I 'left' the fandom), since that version of him is a bit problematic lol

If you've watched Marble Hornets, then you'll know that Masky and Hoody are REALLY scary (seriously, I had nightmares about Masky for absolute weeks), and work against the Operator. However 'fanon' Masky is a loyal employee of Slenderman/The Operator (I'm gonna make a post addressing the differences one day), and isn't really all that scary?? From what I remember, he was mainly joked about as being the 'Sensible one' of the Proxy trio (Him, Hoody and Toby), who was basically the dude always tired of their bullshit. Not only is this the complete opposite of how Masky is, as he would NEVER work FOR his enemy, who literally ruined his life from childhood, but it also sort of flanderised him and no longer made him scary, which is something the Creepypasta fandom tends to do a lot lmao

Another thing is his sudden change of character design. A lot of old Creepypasta fanart depicting him from 2013-2017 show him with lighter brown hair and a yellow jacket, which isn't what he looks like at all?? Actual Masky has much darker hair and I don't think he's ever seen with that ugly ass highlighter coloured jacket.

There's also the complete change in his body type, definitely one of the most controversial things about Fanon Masky. Let me first say that I do not believe that Tim Sutton (Masky's original actor) is fat, I'm not sure WHERE the old Creepypasta fandom got that idea from. Fandom in general, especially the Creepypasta fandom, is quite 'fatphobic' from my experience. What this basically means is that if you're not a skinny twink you will be body shamed in every way possible. The Creepypasta character market has always been oversaturated with men who basically were twinks, with slim and pale bodies, such as Jeff the Killer.

I believe that making Masky so thin came from the fact that when the Creepypasta fandom really took off around 2013-ish, a lot of Creepypasta fans looked for content and eventually I believe that a lot of them must have stumbled across Marble Hornets. Upon seeing Masky and Hoody, two characters that could have passed off as Creepypasta characters (as most of the other characters in Marble Hornets looked like ordinary people), the fandom probably adopted them and adapted them to 'their tastes', no matter how good they were or not. It might have also been a game of telephone too, as maybe a Creepypasta fan's friend of a friend told them some info about Masky and they misunderstood and instead of who Masky actually was, saw him more as the silly goofy masked guy. And to be honest, I don't think the Creepypasta fandom has ever really been known for actually doing their research, so that misconstrued version of him just became canon in everyones minds.

Not that it was always that innocent though...

One titular thing about fanon Masky was his strange love of Cheesecake. I myself saw a lot of it in 2016 sewed into every bit of content for his character, and was confused on where it came from. Then, I found out that it was meant to be a joke SHAMING him for 'being fat'. I originally stumbled across this for the first time in a satire comic, where one of the panels is Hoody chastising Masky for eating cheesecake, stating that Masky will become fat. The cheesecake joke is one I've seen in some fandoms before, albeit in different ways and with different foods. For the life of me I cannot figure out why everyone decided to associate him with Cheesecake, but everyone just did.

Fanon Masky is a perfect example on how fandoms can flanderise characters to the point where they're unrecognisable; pull up a picture of Masky in the Marble Hornets and then a Masky fanart from 2015. The difference is STAGGERING. The Creepypasta fandom is very much infamous for flanderising characters, such as making Jeff a misunderstood bad boy, Toby a waffles-obsessed manchild, and Masky a Slenderman-loving, Crayons and Paper-having, Toby-hating, Cheesecake-eating twink.

TL;DR: Fanon Masky was made as a shitty misconstrued fat joke.

[myonmukyuu]

Art Summary: 2022

It's that time of year again! This makes my 9th year of art summaries... Kind of insane to think about.

It's been a very eventful year and I have a lot to say. Extended art performance review under the cut 👌 (3k words lmao)

Previous: 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021

ABOUT THE COMIC:

So! What happened this year? Well, my book happened. I'm not sure if anything else happened ahfhasjkdkasf

See, I actually cheated this art summary a tiny bit. Usually I use the upload date of the art to place it in the summary. But if I did that for this year, there would be at least 4 blank spots. That's why February, April and May all feature different pages of the same comic (CH 9).

I really did spend the first half of the year finishing my comic. I only released 2 chapters too (the finale and the epilogue). In March I took a week and a half off to work on a short for Ayumu's birthday, but otherwise slaved all the way until June for the webcomic.

Then I spent July and August doing all of the redrawing and edits required for a physical release. Those who have a copy of my book might already know but the first two chapters have been redrawn. I also had to go through the entire comic, fixing it so that it could actually be printed (because the webcomic version definitely can't be printed as it is.) It was super time-consuming. Like, I can't even begin to describe. Moving forward I'll try to draw every comic so that it's printable from the beginning so I don't have to deal with reformatting ever again...

I'm pretty sure it was in August that I had the first copy of the book done. Then the preordering period opened in Septemeber... and now we're here! People are just now starting to receive their books. Sorry it took so long guys ;w;

I'm very happy though... Depending on who you ask, 100 sales might not be a lot, but it's a lot to me. To think that so many people would spend the money to buy this kind of product is just so surprising to me... It's expensive and all of the content is already available to read for free!!! So it's really surprising and I'm so incredibly grateful. That's why I went through the trouble of creating that golden special print for everyone! It was quite a bit of money out of my pocket, but I really wanted to show my appreciation.

As a side note, the 100 sales were really exhausting to pack. My body was sore in November because of it LMAO

So I'd say this year was great for my comic! Both its webcomic finale and its physical release. But this summary isn't meant to be about my comic, it's supposed to be about my art and me as an artist.

ABOUT MY ART:

So how did my art go this year?

Looking back I feel nothing but exhaustion. I know I'm happy to have my comic released but, my body and mind is still very very tired. I feel like I took at least 2-3 weeks off or more from work throughout the year to keep the comic on track. It's just a huge undertaking.

What I'm getting at is I feel a tired and... a little disappointed. But don't get me wrong, I don't feel regret! It's just that... well every artist draws for their own reasons. For me, I love getting my ideas and stories out there. So I guess I felt creatively-starved spending about half a year polishing and releasing an already-complete product. Also technically starved - you don't really see much improvement if all you're doing is cleaning up art. I didn't really have a lot of time to draw because of the physical release so I often felt like I wasn't doing enough.

And honestly that's my main sentiment. While I feel happy and satisfied with releasing the book, another part of me feels like she didn't do enough.

In terms of technical skill, I definitely saw improvement this year. It's like something clicked in me and I had a better understanding of atmospheric lighting. CH 9 and the epilogue are probably some of my favourite bits of colouring I've ever done. I just love how it turned out. In CH 9, the gradual setting of the sun to create this orange/pink/purple colour palette was so fun to implement. And in the Epilogue, this blue/green/yellow rainy day came out perfectly. It was a rainy day, but unlike CH 7, it wasn't a dreary downpour but something more hopeful instead. I have a love for creating atmosphere and especially through colour. And I think I did well there.

In the realm of black/white, I also feel lots of improvement! I'm becoming more confident with monochrome and am starting to push it further. I'm not satisfied with my skill level, but I think it's promising. I may be more confident with creating tone through colour, but I'm sure I can do the same without it!

This year I also did quite a bit of painting. I really love how the October and November artworks came out. Honestly it was around this point in the year, I had the most time to output works as the only comic work I had to do was purely admin (until I started packaging things in November). I could go into technical depth, but this post is long enough. Just know that I'm happy with the little leaps my colouring skills made.

GOALS FOR 2022:

For my art summaries, I've been doing a performance review styled thing where I create goals for the upcoming year. Let's take a look at what goals I wrote for 2022 and how I went with them.

“I want to finish my comic series”

Passed with flying colours! I think the comic release was a success. This goal is a little cheap of a goal though, since I don't think I'd let myself live it down if I gave up.

“I also want to continue to try things that are outside of my comfort zone. I want to see myself try things like different angles/perspectives and more complex backgrounds.”

Now this goal... I think I made progress here. I'm not sure if people noticed but I did definitely try to slip in different angles here and there. I'm particularly good at them... but I'm trying! And I think that's the least I can do. You won't get good at something if you don't try after all. That being said, I should push backgrounds more... I rarely do them 😅

"I want to do more illustrations/quick drawings on top of my comic work."

My comic work was suffocating a lot of the time. But I did try to draw on top of it. I haven't really talked about it, nor shown anyone, but I started learning copic markers this year (borrowed my friend's set!). So in the background I've been doing 30-60 minute traditional art exercises. I'm not terribly diligent, but diligent enough that I already think it's made an impact on my art. See, I'm only doing monochrome copic markers (I'm not confident enough to do colour just yet). I'm pretty sure doing monochrome markers has helped me with my manga skills 😂. I have a better understanding of tones and values because of it! Isn't that kind of amazing? Come to think of it, it's linked to the next goals.

"I want to learn to paint."

"I want to learn to draw faster."

While I still have a long way to go, somehow my marker exercises have helped me with these too. The understanding of tones/values has made an impact on coloured work and painting as well. And because I'm doing shorter pieces, my speed has increased a tiny bit. I'm sure if I keep at it, I can continue to develop better habits!

"I want to draft more quickly and be smarter about it."

Now this goal is something I have just been trying to mentally direct myself to. It's working... a little bit. I still need to try harder.

See, I think my drafting process is really slow and inefficient. This results in me spending too much time drawing a comic because I've drafted like 5 extraneous pages. If I wanna increase my output and lower my workload, I have to learn to be more clever with how I compose each page. I think I got a tiny bit better. Need to work harder on that for sure (it's quite hard to just "learn" though...)

MOVING FORWARD:

With the past year in mind, how do I want 2023 to go? To be honest, I still feel so exhausted because of 2022, I definitely need some time to recover, so let's not go too crazy next year.

But before I create my next goals, I wanted to talk about where I want to go in general - the grand scheme of things. Like I mentioned, I feel a lot of disappointment, like I wasn't doing enough. Which is contradictory because I also feel like I did too much with how exhausted I am... But the source of that disappointment is really tied in with how I feel about my art skill on a technical level.

I'm nearing a whole decade of hobby artist experience. And I don't feel like my art shows it. While there are things that I am better at, there's so much that I struggle with.

I want to become better. I want to improve.

It's hard to explain but I feel like I'm not doing the best I can for the stories I want to tell if I don't keep pushing and learning. And I love what I make, so I want to do those stories justice.

So it's really important to me that I keep trying to improve.

In the long term, I think my dream is to be like a pro-manga artist. Please don't make fun of me LMFAO. But there's more to it. See, I don't actually want to be a pro artist. I never want to compromise my creative vision for the sake of pandering to an audience. I sincerely think I wouldn't be able to succeed without doing that so I'm content with drawing as a hobby. A programmer as my day job and a manga artist by night...

I want to be as skilled as a pro some day though.

To be honest, I think the distance is so great that it's basically impossible. So my true goal is a little lower than that.

My true long-term goal is to be... a little comparable to a pro.

And I don't think I'm at that point. And I don't want to use "being a hobbyist" as an excuse to allow myself to remain like this.

I think it's terrifying actually. Where I'm at with my art.

I'm really happy people enjoy it, and don't get me wrong - I love my own work. I love drawing. But I think it's important to be critical of it - if I want to be able to reach my goals.

I think if people read this far, they might be thinking something like "but you're already so good!" or something to that effect. But I don't think it's true.

I think it's terrifying because there's so much I'm not good at. Comics are scary because they're an amalgamation of so many different skillsets. I possess some of these skills but there's just so many different ways that I feel that I'm lacking.

For instance, my art itself has such stiff lines. I'm not great at perspective. My art isn't dynamic. And this is just a few examples of stuff related to my illustration skills.

But comics are more than that.

There's the individual panel compositions that come together to create a unifying page composition. The visual flow - controlling how the reader scans the page. The storytelling skills - pacing, dialogue, story beats. The dialogue writing skills. The typesetting.

I think there's so many places I'm weak with and it's scary because it's difficult to just pick something to improve at when it feels like everything is wrong at once. It's so easy for me to pick up some manga from a shelf, flick through and think "this artist does x better than me, how can I learn from them?" but learning is hard and I'm not good at it so I'm just stuck with this awareness that I could be better.

But at the end of the day, I just have to pick a direction and go, right? I think that's all I can do and that's okay. It's just hard to shake the feeling of drowning in my own mediocrity.

Sorry I didn't mean to bring down the mood of this art summary.

I promise that at the end of the day that I love drawing. This is just my overly-critical side shining through. I don't have too much natural talent, just a very stubborn mind. I kind of need to be critical so I can push myself in the right direction. And I'm fairly happy with the way I've been pushing myself through these past years.

I'm not particularly fussed if my works receive a lot of traction or not because what's most important to me is the way I see my own work. My personal satisfaction.

And that's just tied with doing the best I can!

So with that in mind...

GOALS FOR 2023:

"Improve at atmospheric lighting"

This isn't particularly ambitious because it's something I'm already working on, but I know I can push lighting even further. So expect to see me experimenting more and more!

"Participate in a paid online course"

Now this is linked to my wall of text just now. I feel very overwhelmed so I think having an unbiased and experienced teacher's guidance could be valuable. I'm eyeing ones that include personalised feedback. The only concern is that it's hard to find the time for things like this when I work full-time.

Also it's a bit scary having a professional roast me, but I think it'd be good for me.

"Continue to practise traditionally"

This is linked to all of my technical art gripes. I think continuing to do traditional art exercises will help me with a lot of my weak points.

"Continue to be ambitious with art"

I don't mean ambition on a work-load level, but I want to continue to push out of my comfort-zone. Keep trying those weird angles and backgrounds, be more experimental!

"Start planning that next story"

I always have a billion different story ideas in my back pocket that I am itching to tell. I also don't wanna die of overwork though. So lets keep the bar low.

I have many great ideas, so I want to start outlining the next one! This is just a vague goal to remind myself to keep thinking ahead.

"Rest up."

I think this is the most important goal. Like I said I feel completely and utterly exhausted this year.

So I want Myon in 2023 to have more time for herself. Improve her health, catch up with her relationships, spend more time watching movies and playing video games.

Don't work too hard next year.

EXTRA REFLECTION:

I seriously don't know if anyone actually reads these reflections. I wonder what kind of person I come off across... (probably a try-hard 😂)

I wanted to talk about one more thing. It's not really linked to goals, just the future in general.

So I've been drawing for Nijigasaki for 2 years now. I think a lot of people are moving on from it though.

To be honest, I think that's okay. I'm kind of used to the people around me shifting into new interests. I think I'll still be with Niji for a long time to come. I just have a lot of large scale ideas and will probably stick with them unless something sweeps me off my feet.

I mean, even if my ideas take too long to actualise while I'm interested in Niji, I'm also open to converting things into original content. There are just so many stories to tell...

It makes me wonder why my readers enjoy my work and how they interact with it? Are people a fan of me? The ship/characters/fandom? Or the stories?

Probably some mix of the above. It's not terribly important why though.

I'm sorry that I'm not very good at keeping up with everyone's interests. I think the world moves too quickly and I draw too slow and I can barely keep up. But I'm a bit too stubborn with my own desires so I keep working on my own things without another thought. So maybe that apology is a bit empty eheh

But I hope people will continue to enjoy the stories that I make.

I should be less harsh on myself though. 9 years of art isn't something to just shrug off.

Anyways, before I keep rambling. Happy new year everyone. Let's keep working hard in 2023!

[ggulmul]

https://www.tumblr.com/ggulmul/718566366164238336/hello-can-i-ask-you-what-do-you-think-about-the?source=share

In addition to your perfect answer, I would like to add the information that an army sent a dm to one of Mijoo's close friends at the time, warning her that ppl were talking about Mijoo, and her friend said that no, Mijoo was not married (at the time, I don't know now), but she did have a boyfriend, and Jungkook was just a friend.

The picture of them drinking was purposefully cropped to fuel the rumors, too!

The whole thing was debunked in the link below, you can see the screenshot of the conversation with Mijoo's friend and the full picture of the restaurant, showing that there were other people with them.

https://www.koreaboo.com/news/bts-jungkook-tied-dating-rumors-cctv-picture-gets-leaked/

And, like both you and anon said, there's another picture of her being backhugged by another guy, but since it's not that common in Korea, people tend to overreact. There's also the issue of matching tattoos? I don't know what matching tattoos they have except for the plus sign on their knuckles and I think the snake? But Jungkook got the snake to cover the Korean flag and he did it with Polyc, so I don't think it was anything to do with hers.

Also, tattoos aren't always that deep. I'm gonna get matching tattoos with my best friend, and I already have one with my other friend. Doesn't really mean anything we just think it's cool and cute and we share the same style, so I don't exclude the possibility of them being besties and into the same things, so they got like, one or two.

I, frankly, find the possibility of Jungkook and Jimin just being friends very, very low. I don't think they got together in 2016, like most people think. I think they started to slowly become something at the end of 2017, start of 2018. But even before that, their behavior with each other had and has always been very different from how they behave with the other members, and I'm not even talking about the loud moments, because those moments they don't really mind us seeing. I'm talking about the little ones. Like when Jungkook got hurt/had to get stitches and Jimin was the only one allowed to stay with him.

Like all the times they unconsciously reached out for each other and then abruptly moved away because they forgot they were on camera. Like the fond looks that they sometimes just can't control, and so much more.

I think they're in a really good, mature phase of their relationship now, the kind of where they're both certain of each other and trust each other a lot. Jungkook's live about Jimin was so, so cute, and he seemed really happy in his last live.

A lot of taekookers are very upset and desperate for Jungkook to also be straight, just so they can get their revenge on Jikookers. They don't really see Jungkook as a human being, but just a puppet to fit whatever narrative they want: taehyung's hidden, forbidden love, but since that one didn't work out, now he's a very hetero fuckboy. What's next?

Anyway. I think Mijoo and Jungkook were really cool friends and things got blown out of proportion. Someone in the reply said she's married now? And I saw something about her getting matching tattoos with her actual boyfriend, too.

Hi, anon! Thank you for your helpful addition to my post about Mijoo. And I very much agree with everything, maybe aside from the timeline of when Jikook got together.

[elizabethplaid]

a few more knitting notes for the night

Well, I didn't clean off the whole couch like I planned, but I at least sifted through the in-progress yarn bin.

I counted my deflated (not-yet-stuffed) pumpkins: 2 large and 7 mini. That's all the stuff I've knit since the last "stuffing spree", back in August. So 9 back then, 9 now = 18 pumpkins.

Next step is to tidy the yarn I've worked with over the summer. Some already went back in the big bin. A couple skeins need to be rewound. I need to separate a two-ply novelty yarn, to separate the eyelashes from the pom-poms. (It looks like clown pox, I stg.)

The leftover yarn bits from the Pantone hat were also loose in my bin. I don't want to start the 2nd hat yet, because Caron (the yarn company) really made the hanks look amazing. I'd like to display that next to the hat I made, so people can see why the colors are like that.

------------ I showed my dad the "harvest" of deflated pumpkins, along with the stuffed ones I've stashed away. (Also showed him the group photo from August.) He asked about pricing, and I said $10-15 for the smaller ones and $20-25 on the larger ones. He made a face and implied the prices were too high. I said Neighbor-G would fuss at me if I priced them too low, and I'm going to offer a discount for people buying multiple items.

If anyone wants to do a trade or partial trade, I would absolutely love that. Craft fair aside, K (from the library) and I have already discussed trading work between us. I plan to knit her a hooded scarf, and she will help me out with some quilting things. LL-J has destashed a bunch of yarn on me, so I don't mind giving her discounts or gifts. (I gave her 2 or 3 pumpkins last year.)

I know I won't sell everything, especially the pumpkins. I didn't make many cowls for that exact reason. It's 3 cowls (I decided to sell the dark green one), 2 scarves, the pumpkins, the cat-toy mice, and anything else will be display. (eg the Pantone hat, Harmony's sweaters, my leaf and mermaid shawls, etc)

Ugh, semi-irrationally, I'm pissed. Like, of COURSE I know pricing is tough. Appropriate for time-effort-materials versus what "sells", without alienating potential customers. I'm not trying to make a living, but I also know that whatever's left might make me feel discouraged.

Thank god for Neighbor-G being so supportive of me. She's the one that got me to attend (just displaying stuff for fun) in 2019. She's already jokingly warned me about pricing myself too low. She feels like the encouraging female role model that I really need, especially because she knows crafts and pricing and such. And dad trusts her, after working together in the community for many years.

2020 and 2021 were really rough for me, after a few years of decline. (I think I was really out of it by the end of 2017, but 2016 was still really good for me.) I still haven't taken doll pics in ages, but I'm so happy to be crafting again. Volunteering at the library and befriending LL-J made a huge difference. I'm so incredibly proud of my progress - stuff that's easy to show off to other people, rather than just my own personal victories.

With rejection-sensitive-dysphoria, a little stumble or set-back can throw me off for quite a while. Example: The Pantone hat ended up being too small. I got pumpkins stuffed within a week or so, but I think it took another month before I really got back into knitting. (That was also when I was getting into the cell phone games, oops.)

My point is that bringing up the pricing issue is another RSD trigger to me. It feels discouraging to think of how much -won't- sell. And if it's not selling solely because of my pricing, that'd be a big pain. Again, I want to bargain and trade with folks. I'd rather stuff gets taken home by other people, rather than ensuring I make a big profit. And it might not even be for other craft fair items. Like, "hey, run to the store and fetch me a snack" or something.

I think K and my counselor would say that's good for networking and building a presence in the community.

-----------

HOLY FUCK, I just remembered I had a biscornu (embroidered pin cushion) I was supposed to sell! I set that aside, because I have to sew the panels together and stuff it. Holy fuck, holy fuck, that's hilarious. Like, I started that thing last October!

*sigh* I have 2 weeks. It doesn't have to be done all at once. I could probably stuff pumpkins while I man the table, and people would love it.

[mybrainproblems]

I doubt this is going to gain any traction but it's highly likely that the CW choosing to hitch their star to Walker is what fucked them over and while what happened with Supernatural is really shitty, the schadenfreude is so good.

Wild speculation below; not 100% sure how coherent it is because it is A Lot.

Say you're the CW; you have old IP (cash cow that it is, it's aging and you want something fresh to maybe get your finances into the black) and decide that you're going to end it after a lengthy run and use it as a springboard for your new show. Because that new show is gonna star one of the actors from your older IP show and it's based off of a piece of nostalgia IP that is already owned by one of the joint owners of the CW (CBS owns W,TR). So there's no real acquiring any rights or paying for it, it's just sitting there ready to get a nostalgia reboot. You get the younger fans of spn and the older nostalgia fans. Instant hit, right?

Given that CW seems to be a poorly run shitshow I'm going to go out on a limb and say that their decision to go forward with Walker might have been partially based on the results of the destiel market research. This would be incredibly stupid because it's comparing apples to oranges but it sounds like they aren't the sharpest light bulbs in the drawer to begin with. I could see it happening pretty easily if the first discussions about a new show came close on the heels of the market research results.

So let's say you're the CW. You have spn creatives who want to have destiel greenlit. You (tbh sensibly) decide to do some market research knowing that you have very diverse AND divided audience demographics; you want to know how many viewers you might lose if you go forward with destiel. Results end up coming back that show it's likely going to impact your metrics poorly and so you kill the potential for canon destiel. At the same time, you're going to be looking for new shows (as you do).

We know the one fan's market research interview happened in Dec 2016, which means results of the research were likely presented to execs in early 2017. Walker was announced in late 2019. I would love to know when Walker was initially pitched and when it was decided that Jared would come onboard because that is heavily intertwined with the decision to cancel spn. (I don't believe Jared pitched Walker as a vehicle for himself, I think it must have already been on the network's radar given the nostalgia IP component. His interest might have reinvigorated the network's interest and pushed it in a certain direction.)

A new show is usually in development for 2 years from pitch to air, Walker was probably a bit less. The fact that CBS already owned the IP for the show would be a factor in that and since it was going to star Jared, it's probably why it was ordered direct to series without a pilot. He's already bankable and a proven draw, no need to hedge your bets. So while it's unlikely they made any solid decisions on Walker until 2018, they probably had the 2017 market research results in the back of their mind.

To go further out on the limb; if they have the results of the market research in the back of their mind as they're discussing a new show, maybe they decide to play it safe with a nostalgia reboot that then carries over a lead from spn who has a devoted following. They make sure the spn finale doesn't scare off the fan demographic they want to carry over to the new show and that it also definitively ends the old show. If they'd intended to have even an ambiguous destiel ending they would have been pushing a very different type of show as their follow-on. Since it takes years to go from pitch to air, this is a decision that was made before s15 was even being written.

And then they decided to give the queerbaiting one last hurrah. They use destiel to get eyes on the finale and therefore all the Walker promo marketing. But they also wildly underestimate how huge of a cultural impact Cas' confession is going to have. They have drastically miscalculated. They've now Icarused way too close to the queerbaiting sun and they have to double down on Walker... which gets crappy numbers and the CW continues to not turn a profit.

I actually don't think reciprocated destiel would have meant much for them in terms of a financial win (at best it would have been a net zero bc they'd have hemorrhaged one demographic while having to court a new one that they'd been tolerating but largely ignoring), but I do think hitching themselves to Walker was the final nail in the coffin. It's hilarious that going forward with Walker was such a risk averse decision that it ended up tanking spectacularly.

The hubris is truly delicious.

[dramaruni]

@bpdaf so this answer opened a can of worms (that I can call procrastination) and I wanted to address it, but with the limited characters in the reply function, I decided to answer it with a new post. Also sorry if this come as an attack, I promise it's not. I just became really curious if I had the wrong idea about the live-shooting system as I was ready to refute your points, but realized I didn't have enough knowledge to do so.

*also tagging @jahe, @yasmini24, @le-amarant as they also replied to my post and I figured maybe you were also interested in this (although it's really long and rambly, so I don't blame you for ignoring the post entirely). So yeah warning, this post is really long.

So I'm well aware of kdrama's live shoot system. But I did wonder if it was normal to start shooting 6 months before the first airing episode, as I was under the impression 6 months of shooting exceeded the standard duration of filming. But I couldn't actually refute it without some data to back that up. So I went to find data.

According to Wikipedia's page on Korean Dramas, they write: “As producing a series involves high expenses, production companies seek to shoot the episodes in the shortest time possible. In contrast to practices elsewhere, the first four episodes of Korean series are usually shot in advance, but the rest are shot continuously as the series is being aired.”

This fits in line with what I believed about Korean dramas live shooting system. They film a couple of episode ahead of time and then rest comes while it's still airing to fit with the audience response to it. Even preproduced dramas are sometimes reshot and re-edited while it's airing. But it didn't really say anything about the average filming duration for a drama or what shortest time possible was defined as. Probably because all dramas will aim for different things and given the content it can vary a lot how long it takes to film.

But I highly doubt it took Vincenzo 6 months to shoot something around 4 episodes and then crammed the rest into the 2 remaining months, as they knew from the start they had 20 episodes to fill.

So let's go through some other drama's shooting schedule to compare with Vincenzo.

I chose to limit the list to 2020 dramas (as they were likely affected by the pandemic) and tvN dramas, so it's the same broadcasting company as these dramas will likely share the same practices. Obviously with the amount I have included, I can't make any definite conclusions, but it does show a pattern.

*disclaimer I tried my best to accurately determine the shooting duration from when filming started to when it ended, but not all of these dramas had that information readily available, so I made do with the information I had at hand. This means some of these are just estimations.

So without further ado, here's the list:

Vincenzo:

May 2020, Director Kim Hee Won and writer Park Jae Bum teamed up.

July 2020, Song Joong Ki and Jeon Yeo Bin were considering the drama, while Ok Taecyeon had confirmed

September 2020, filming started

February 20th, 2021 first episode aired

No episodes April 17thand18th

April 17th, last episode script delivered

April 23rd, filming wrapped

May 2nd, 2021 last episode aired

Shooting time: 8 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 6 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 8 days

1. Crash Landing on You

*not affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic * includes overseas filming

July 31st, 2019 – first script reading

End of august 2019, filming overseas begin

December 14th, first episode airs

January 12th, filming wrapped

February 16th, 2020 last episode airs

Shooting time: 5 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 4 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 1 month + 4 days

2. It’s okay not to be okay

I couldn’t find the exact time shooting started, so these numbers are based between March and May, as I assume they didn’t shoot without Oh Jung Se being casted and while the table read photos were released in May, it could very well be they had started shooting before this.

February 2020 Kim Soo Hyun and Seo Ye Ji casted

March 2020 Oh Jung Se casted

May 8th 2020, first script reading photos released

June 20th 2020, first episode aired

July 31st 2020, filming wrapped

August 9th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: 3-5 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 1-3 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 9 days

3. Start-up

August 4th, all the leads are confirmed for casting

September 2020, promotional starts to come out

October 17th 2020, First episode aired

November 21st 2020, Bae Suzy wraps up filming (assuming filming wraps up around the same time as her as she is the lead)

December 6th, last episode aired

Shooting time: 2-4 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 1-2 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: around 15 days

4. Hospital playlist season 1

*only aired 1 episode pr. week

October 2019, principal photography took place

March 12th, first episode aired

Late April 2020, filming wrapped

May 28th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: 7 months (couldn’t find when they actually started shooting, so let’s just pretend they also filmed around October)

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 6 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 1 month

5. A piece of your mind

February 7th 2020, article of the first script reading

February 13th, first photos from drama unveiled

March 23rd, first episode aired

April 8th 2020, tvN announces that 4 episodes are cut due to low ratings

April 28th, last episode aired

Shooting time: 2-4 months

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 1-2 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: N/A (couldn’t find the exact time but they also axed four episodes and I don't know how much that affected filming)

6. Psychopath diary

*not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

August 2019, first script reading

November 20th, first episode aired

January 9th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: n/a

Shooting duration before first aired episode: 3-4 months (assuming they started shooting shortly after the first table read)

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: n/a

7. Stranger /Secret Forest season 2

* preproduced based on the information I found

January 2020, first script reading

June 20th, 2020 lead actors wrapped filming (But I only found this article that says this)

August 15th 2020, first episode aired

October 4th 2020, last episode aired

Shooting time: 6 months

Shooting duration before first episode aired: 6 months

Filming wrapped before last airing episode: 4-5 months

What does this mean?

So the drama that comes closest to Vincenzo's filming duration is Hospital Playlist, but they also did things a bit differently. According to their Wikipedia, they only aired 1 episode a week to comply with 52-hour week system and to avoid overnight filming for the cast's and crews' health. So that would extend their shooting time. They also had the same amount of shooting time as Vincenzo before the first episode aired, i.e. 6 months, but Hospital playlist was only 12 episode drama so they also had less content to fill.

The rest of these dramas has a shooting time with 6 months or less. I will say though a lot of these dramas are not action-packed (also I haven't checked the budget for any of these), so comparatively they probably have different needs when filming. The drama that comes closest in terms of action is Stranger/Secret Forest, and it's also pretty close in shooting time with only 2 month different (that's counting from the first table read though). This was however pre-produced so they wrapped up filming before the first episode even aired (if my information is correct). Also this was a season two so they were operating under a little different circumstances.

But with the exception of Stranger/Secret Forest (preproduced) and Hospital Playlist(tried to work with humane working hours), none of this drama has a 6-month filming duration before the first episode aired. In fact some of these dramas don't even exceed 6 months of filming. Meaning they had less time to shoot before the first episode aired. Their production was probably also lower and none them did CGI (although I haven't watched all of them so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) as that should also be accounted for.

So 8 months of filming is a lot to allocate to a drama, at least it's not the norm. There are other dramas that exceed that filming time that didn't make the list (Mr. Sunshine sorry too much research for at this point), but obviously that is not the standard.

Obviously I don't know how the filming was divided, how many of the episodes they had filmed before the first one aired. I don't know how many of the episode scripts were written before it aired. But I can see that even with the live-shooting, Vincenzo has some very uneven scheduling that doesn't align with how the rest of these dramas did their scheduling and airing. None of the mentioned dramas had any delays (in airing, I can't be sure about filming as some of them are probably affected by the pandemic), and yet Vincenzo did, even though they had spent more time filming before the first episode aired.

Also, most of these dramas wrapped up filming with more than a week to spare before the final airing, with It's Okay Not To Be Okay coming the closest to the airing date (with the ones where I know the date when they finished shooting), but they also only had 1-3 months of filming before the drama actually started airing so much less time than Vincenzo. And although they didn't have CGI, they did have the animations for each of the fairytales which I don't know how long it took but I can imagine it took some time.

So then I looked up another drama not by tvN but by Park Jae Bum:

Good Manager/Chief Kim

December 15, 2016 first script reading

January 25, 2017 First episode aired

March 30, 2017 Last episode aired

I couldn't find the date they finished filming, but given they only started a month before airing (honestly I felt super sorry for the cast and crew when I saw these dates), I am assuming the hit the last airing date pretty closely with filming, and that would give them 3 months of filming roughly. And they also had 20 episodes like Vincenzo.

I haven't seen this drama myself, so I can't say anything about the writing quality, but here Park Jae Bum was working under even more time pressure and was able to deliver the ending on time and as I hear, it was pretty a pretty good ending (but I haven't seen it, so feel free to refute me). And yet he couldn't do it for Vincenzo. So I do think something happened with ending, whether it was Park Jae Bum just took a long time writing it for whatever reasons, or someone/thing (be it something personal, writer's block, execs not liking the ending etc.) actually interfered and that prolonged the writing or entirely changed the ending.

Anyway this became too long, so let me just end it here.

I wish I had time to make a more comprehensive list so I could be more definite in the conclusion because obviously I can't base everything of the schedule of 8 dramas that also vastly different in production quality, genre and content.

So yeah I might have just wasted the last three-four hours making something that doesn't even make sense. But hey, at least I'm less prepared for the exams now, good use of time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[adamfoolcry]

of coffees and holidays (d.sc)

pairings: Ballerina!Sicheng x CafeOwner!FemReader

rating: 13+

warnings: swearing

genre: angst and fluff

synopsis: Your and Sicheng's love story in five coffees with varying degrees of sweetness spanning five Christmases.

word count: 3k+

a/n: for @127-mile, I hope I did justice for your prompt. Hope you enjoy reading it. Happy Holidays! 🎅 Thank you to @neoculturechristmas for organizing such fun event. It can be read in chronological order if y'all wanted to. I promise it's a happy ending. Not proofread so please excuse the mistakes, I am so dumb. Please reach out to me if you would like to do so. - xo aria

Christmas 2019 - Espresso

Outside as flakes of snow fell from the sky, like a light shower of glitter from the heavens, the elusive holiday spirit seemingly present in the air; you watched a young couple huddled together to share warmth, fingers intertwined, cheeks glowing red partnered with coy smiles on their faces, and a family of three in admiration of their son as he showed off his Christmas gift. The streetlights emitting an orange glow providing an aura of softness, making everything come together to form a picturesque scene.

Heartwarming as these scenes were, they failed to evoke any emotion out of you; if anything you feel excluded from it entirely. To you the world behind the cafe's glass windows is just a film you're screening in the cinemas, and you were nothing but a mere spectator. You continue to stare listlessly at the throngs of people passing by until they all mesh into a blur of colors your eyes couldn't catch fast enough. That's better.

Inside the cafe although decorated with trinkets for the holidays there was an air of sadness permeating every corner and seated itself onto the furnishings. Lately it seems like sadness is following you around everywhere - like a shadow - and instead of trailing behind you it looms over you shrouding your every thought until it completely consumes you.

No one stepped foot inside the cafe and with no one to entertain your mind drifts to him. Sicheng.

How many days has it been? Since you last saw him. You've lost count, a lie you tell yourself to make the dull ache in your chest bearable. 

It's a torture how you could recall that day - the day you lost him - so vividly as if you are forced to relive it every time the silence eats away at your resolve; to tuck the moment into the deep recesses of your mind, where it can't hurt you. When every little thing reminds you of him, his favorite spot at the cafe, black turtlenecks and that undeleted grainy picture of his sitting in your gallery. 

You could never forget the look on his face, resignation etched into every crevice of his features, a forlorn smile on his lips. 

"I see," he said in a bittersweet tone before he turned his back at you. 

The slam of the door is the nail that hits the coffin. Sicheng is gone. He has already walked out of your life. That was the last you saw of him for he never visited the cafe again.

A month passed by when Sicheng called you. Your heart leaped as his name flashed on your screen and your thumb shakily pressed the answer button; afterwards lifting it near your ear.

There was no greeting as he uttered in his low voice that you have missed so much, "My flight to Russia is this Saturday." 

Your heart sank.

"I want you to see me off, ______." 

Don't go please stay with me but there are certain thoughts that weren't meant to be put into words so instead, "I'll be there." You reassured him.

But you never showed up at the airport that Saturday. Instead, you were at the cafe staring at the screen of your phone blinking on and off as a wave of notifications with his name flooded your phone. Why make things harder? As if him leaving wasn't hard enough. You pressed the power button long enough to shut down your phone.

The following days passed away into months that's a haze in your mind. You can't recall anything worth remembering. You quickly filled up your schedule with mundane tasks just to have something to do filling every gap of your vacant time. 

At night you fell straight to bed, your body collapsing from the physical strain you have subjected it with. Establishing a packed routine without idle time so you don't have time to linger on the dull ache in your chest - always there like a festering wound. This works until you find your list of chores unexpectedly accomplished earlier than you planned, the cafe shrouded in still quietness. 

Alone with nothing else to do the dull ache amplified to a crippling one and it bites you right back in your face, forcing you to acknowledge the hollow feeling that seems to reside in your chest permanently. Your eyes would be heavier, your vision blurry, trying to blink away the tears but ultimately failing as it trails down your cheeks; you clutch at your chest because it hurts and you regret that the last you'll see of Sicheng is that face of hurt he wore.

Christmas 2016 - Vanilla Latte

You placed the cup of vanilla latte sitting on a saucer on the table daintily, pushing the saucer across the wooden table towards the customer, avoiding to make any noise. The customer seemed so engrossed with the novel he is reading - nose almost touching the pages - that you don't want to disturb him. 

The said customer is a regular, there was not a month that he hasn't visited the cafe. Showing up five minutes after you flip the signage to open, with no fail not even a minute late. 

Wearing all black from head to toe, a tall lithe figure, and an androgynous facial structure, your guess is that he works as a model. Even now without trying he is captivating; he makes the cafe look like a set for a magazine spread just by lounging in the matching cherry wood table and chair, and you can't help but stand there and shamelessly stare at him. god really has his favorites.

His work must require him to travel to different countries and have photoshoots in scenic spots, oh how you wish you could also jetset to other countries. Packed schedule for the day that he doesn't have time to think about what he is going to do next. That is a luxury you don't have especially in the ber months for there is a decline in customers and with no one to entertain, your mind goes on an overdrive pondering on uncharted waters of how you have nothing else going for you but run this cafe.

Aside from his penchant to wear all black, read a novel while drinking his choice of beverage - choice of beverage you ask? - you see the other peculiar thing about this man is that he doesn't have a 'regular drink'. Most if not all people who go to a cafe know what they are going to order before they have set foot inside. This man doesn't, his eyes would flit on the menu, scanning from left to right and back again. It is almost ritual like, this would go on for a good minute or two as you drum your fingers on the counter waiting for his order. 

The snow is falling outside covering the otherwise grey pavement white, decorations for the festivities hung around the four corners of your quaint cafe. Yet here he is, nursing a cup of coffee instead of being somewhere else. Doesn't he have a family? to celebrate Christmas with?

"Can I help you?" The man said, turning his face slightly in your direction not quite yet abandoning the book in his hand.

"Ohh uhmm-" you were jolted out of your trance, startled you took a sidestep only to collide with the chair where a large unzipped duffel bag was placed. The contents of the bag spilled over. 

"Shit! I am sorry." You quickly knelt to the ground to pick up the scattered items on the floor, the man joined you. Charger, earphones, epsom salt, bandage, and tiger balm ointment as you picked up the items you also increasingly grew baffled. What a weird assortment of things. You reached for the item that somehow managed to get under the table and as your fingers came in contact with the rough material of the cloth you learned that your assumption of his job was wrong. A man's canvas ballet shoes.

I thought he was a model.

"What?" The man questioned. You wince to yourself you just didn't say that out loud. You emerge from under the table to find that the man was looking at you too intently for your liking. His eyes sought out yours waiting for an explanation and as if you owe him one you started explaining yourself. 

"Well, you are tall and extremely handsome so .." Cringing as the words flew out of your mouth. The man chuckled at your confession, a tell tale sign of a smile on the corner of his lips.

"I am flattered really but as you can deduct by now I actually do ballet." He rose to his feet and offered you his hand to help you stand up. 

Unlike other days where he will leave the cafe after an hour or two, this time he stayed and unlike other days where you find yourself alone in the cafe; you find yourself enjoying the company of this mysterious man. 

Where you quickly learned that all your presumptions about him have little truth in it. You learned that his name is Sicheng, and he is a principal dancer for the Korean National Ballet company not a model although with his looks he might as well be one. Yes, he travels but mostly for tours and performances. He practices an average of eight hours a day. 

Your fascination for his life spurred the conversation as if you were friends catching up with each other. With the book set aside and the contents of the cup long empty you two didn't notice how much time had passed. He bid you goodbye with a promise to visit you again tomorrow. As you watch his retreating figure getting smaller, the snow piling on top of each other over the glass windows of the cafe there was a smile on your lips - the warmth of a newfound friendship is akin to a good cup of coffee - making you warm from the inside out.

Christmas 2017 - Cappuccino

"Surprise me," Sicheng said leaning on his hip at the counter, arms crossed on his chest, when you asked him what he would like to drink. Standing there he looked like the culmination of your dreams.

Maybe it's the iridescent lights from the numerous christmas lights that flickered on his face making him look more exquisite or the grin he gave you after. You did surprise him but not in the way he was expecting and to be honest you are also shocked by your sudden brazenness as you lean in to kiss his plush lips. The kiss didn't last long, a little more than a peck but long enough for you to regret it.

"I .. I am sorry," you stammered burying your heating up face in your hands, embarrassed. You didn't even see Sicheng's reaction, was he appalled? You peeked through your fingers to find out, when Sicheng started laughing, tipping his head back a little, eyes crinkled in mirth, his right hand covering the half of his handsome face. 

You want nothing more than to shrivel up in one corner. He started tugging at your wrists, pulling your hands away from your burning face.

"Mind giving me more of that surprise?" The corner of his lips curved upwards, nose slightly crinkled, and you wished to etch his face to memory.

Christmas 2018 - Americano

He was late, you glanced at the clock hanging on the wall, it is now 11 P.M. and soon Christmas will be over. 

The americano you have prepared already cold, his untouched while yours halfway finished. It's fine though because you know that this will be the first of the many Christmases you have to spend without Sicheng. You must get used to spending it alone again. 

Musing to yourself your mind quickly took a trip down the memory lane of his last visit to the cafe before he got on tour with the company for one of the holiday stage productions. 

--------

You have only heard the thud of the door as it closed on its hinges. You are currently cleaning the countertop back bowed and eyebrows furrowed in concentration as you meticulously scrubbed at the stubborn grease that won’t budge, lifting your head to do the customary greeting, when something or rather someone barreled straight to where you are, engulfing you in a tight hug that shoved you headfirst into that someone’s chest your nose burrowed deeply into the black cloth. 

Recognizing the intoxicating scent of light musk and citrus, relief flooded you as you hugged Sicheng back. You don't know how long the two of you stayed in that position basking yourself with his warmth just a little longer.

He's real, he's here a safe and solid presence by your side. You can count by one hand the things that have endured with you throughout the years, other than the cafe which you have run since your mother got sick, dropping out of college to keep it going. And one of those is Sicheng you've found in him stability and comfort your past partners can't give you.

Sicheng pulled away putting some distance between the two of you, his arms naturally falling at his sides. He was wearing one of his brightest smiles, the apple of his cheeks high and pronounced on his face.

"_______, I've been offered the position of principal dancer at Bolshoi Ballet in Russia," He can't help but smile again clearly enthusiastic with the prospect of joining one of the most prestigious ballet companies.

It took you a moment to answer settling with an unconvincing, "Wow." You don't know how to react with his news, but you feel dread in the pit of your stomach. You don't like the idea of him leaving. You try not to let it show in your face.

"I know. I was also surprised." As if sensing the change in your demeanor he asked concerned, "Is something wrong, ______?" 

"Nothing let me whip you a drink I found from the net," you brushed him off with a wave of your hand. 

----------

"Hey _______, I am sorry there was some minor traffic that held us back," Sicheng announced his entrance that broke your reverie. Setting his duffel bag on the floor to sit on the opposite chair facing you.

His hair tousled, cheeks rosy and nose red but despite his healthy complexion you can also see the pronounced bags under his eyes with a tinge of violet. He looks tired and in dire need of rest. Yet he headed straight to the cafe instead of his apartment. 

"Sicheng I've wanted to tell you something," perching your arms on the table to fiddle with the ear of the cup.

"Yeah?" Sicheng asked, staring right at you.

"I think," you cast your eyes down on the table, and with a small voice continued, "we should break up." 

"You think?" 

"I mean we should"

"Why?"

"I ... it's just that it will be easier for you." Your hands started gesticulating in the air.

"Don't give me that bull shit. You are not the judge of that," Sicheng replied in a cold manner.

"It's just you have this life before me and you'll also have a life after me." Your voice cracked, and you gathered your strength to look at him. "I am grateful that you have been a part of my life. You are crazy talented and right now the world opens up in front you and you deserve better. I can't give you that I ..-," clutching at your chest, "I am just me."

"It's nice to know that you think of me as some temporary phase in your life and here I am fool enough to think that maybe you'll want to come with me to Russia," a cruel laugh slipped from his lips, "christ, I can't even choose what coffee I'll be having and finally for once in my life I've never been so sure of anything," voice trailing, "but us.

"So I'll still ask because I know I will regret it, if I don't. Do you want to come with me?" Sicheng pierced you with his eyes, wearing his heart out on a sleeve. Leaving himself unguarded and hoping you'll come through.

But you have never been brave. "I'll stay and you go."

"I see," he said in a bittersweet tone before he turned his back at you. 

Christmas 2020 - White Chocolate Mocha

"I told you Renjun you don't have to do your shift at Christmas." You look up to reprimand Renjun, and instead are met with familiar feline eyes that seem to see right through you. There stood Sicheng looking like an intricate piece of art displayed in the museums. It is more painful to look at him than anybody warned it would be. It hurts how familiar you are with him still dressed in black - turtleneck and slacks, his trusty duffel bag hanging on one shoulder, he's still the same but now you are nothing more than a past fling to him.

"Hey," Sicheng walked towards the counter greeting you.

"Hey," you shake your head from the trance that took over you, "Oh I'll make you something."

"I'll have a white chocolate mocha." Slightly surprised by his request it took you a second to start preparing it.

"When did you come back?" You inquired as you moved about to prepare his drink.

"Yesterday night" 

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you have fetched me?" He asked nonchalantly.

You momentarily stiffen evading to answer the question you throw another at him, "How are you? Is Russia treating you well?"

"Can we cut the crap out? As much as I love dancing, I don't like dancing around in circles. I've come back for one reason only." 

"Will you come with me to London?"

Looking at Sicheng standing there - after how much you have hurt him - you thought you will never see him again and you have long accepted that punishment. You are not brave and you will never be but

"Yes, I'd love to go with you."

what you have with him is worth it.

a/n: Read more of my works for NCT here:masterlist

[bettsfic]

hello!! i hope you're doing well~ i'm at the point where i have writing that i'm satisfied with enough to send out to try for publishing, but i'm afraid i have no idea where to start with that process. where does one look for things to get short stories published in? how does one juggle acceptances? or does that not happen? do i always get to keep ownership of my writing? is there anything to expect/look out for? you don't have to touch on all of these! thank you in advance!

congrats on finishing a story! the good news is, you now have a writing sample that is hopefully representative of your best work, and a good writing sample can open a lot of doors for you in terms of workshops, residencies, and potential funding opportunities.

the bad news is, publication is a long-con. expect it to take 2+ years to place your story. of my 3 publications, the timelines were:

“lien” -- written fall 2016, 16 rejections, published spring 2018

“an informed purchase” -- written summer 2017, 5 rejections, published summer 2018 (this was unimaginably fast)

“the ashtray” -- written spring 2017, 17 rejections, published winter 2019

if your story is genre (sci fi, fantasy, horror, etc), i’m afraid expectations are a bit different than what i’m about to tell you. so i’m going to answer your question assuming you’ll be submitting to literary journals/magazines.

the first thing you need to do is read as many short stories as you possibly can that have been published in the past 10 years. here’s how to do that:

pick up the most recent copy of america’s best short stories (this year’s was edited by anthony doerr, one of my favorite writers)

read it and find the stories that are most similar to your work

research the authors who wrote those stories and figure out what journals have published them; read as much of their work as you can

(short story collections will have acknowledgments listing where their stories have appeared. you can also find this info on an author’s website, assuming they have one)

find the journals that have published the authors you like and read their most recent handful of issues

if their aesthetic jives with your work, look into their submission guidelines to see if your story fits with their requirements in terms of word length, etc.

if so, submit! if not, keep them in mind for when you have a story they might want

you can also click through entropy mag’s where to submit round-up

there’s also duotrope, which is a lit mag submission base, but it costs money and that’s shitty of them

note there are thousands of lit mags out there, all of varying quality. you don’t want to waste your time submitting to shitty mags or ones that don’t fit with your work. the more research you do on the front end, the easier it’ll become later

it takes a long time to become familiar with the world of literary publishing. it’s a lot like a fandom in that way. you have to read what’s out there and engage in order to figure out what’s going on. 

some general tips about finding places to submit:

don’t pay submission fees. some magazines will ask you to pay $3-$5 to submit. later in your writing career maybe that’ll be a worthwhile thing, but for your first pub i wouldn’t bother. stick with free submissions.

look around on the publication’s website to see if they nominate their writers for the pushcart, best of the net, or pen awards. also see if they promote their writers’ successes elsewhere, like when they get a book deal.

check to see how many followers they have on twitter and/or instagram. figure out what their reach is. 

check to see if they’re affiliated with a university. if they are, keep in mind that their editorial staff will rotate every semester or year, and so will their aesthetic interests. find out of it’s run by the english department or if it’s an undergrad journal. if it’s an undergrad journal they may only accept undergrad writing. most of the time journals are run by grad students

if they’re not affiliated with a university, check to see how many issues they’ve published. fewer issues, bigger risk they’re not a journal that will keep afloat and they maybe don’t have their shit together yet. lit mags are like podcasts: everyone wants to start one; very few people make it into anything meaningful. (conversely, the bigger the risk, the bigger the potential reward. a newer mag could skyrocket, and you along with it)

see who else a magazine has published. look for names you recognize. my first publication once published mary ruefle, and i’m fucken feral for mary ruefle. my ego lifted into space after being published somewhere that she had also been published. 

lastly, publication is about finding the right fit and forming relationships. a smaller mag that will value you and support you for your entire career, that is thrilled to have your work, is far more important than getting into a bigger mag that has no personal engagement or investment in you. my first publication, the editor sent me a hand-written letter about how much he loved my story. he nominated me for an award. my third publication was similar. the editor based the cover art on my story and also nominated my work for an award. 

to answer your other questions: you will never have to juggle acceptances. when you receive an acceptance, you have to withdraw your outstanding submissions. when you publish, you usually sign a publication agreement for what’s called first serial rights, which means that the publication owns the rights to your story for 1 year, after which you can publish your work wherever else you want. most publications don’t accept work that’s been previously published, though. 

you will need a cover letter. here is what your cover letter should look like:

Dear [Editor (yes you have to look up the editor’s name)],

Enclosed is my fiction submission, “Story Title.” Thank you for considering it for publication in [Journal]. [put your author bio here. here’s mine, and you can drag and drop your info: I received my MFA from Miami University in Ohio, where I am currently a creative writing and composition instructor. My fiction has appeared in Quarter After Eight, Midwestern Gothic, and Rivet Journal. I am a recipient of the 2018 Jordan-Goodman Prize in Fiction, and I was nominated for the 2019 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and 2020 Pushcart Prize. My work has been supported by the Sundress Academy for the Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Hambidge Center residences, as well as the Tin House Workshop and New York State Summer Writers Institute.]

This is a simultaneous submission. I will withdraw the piece immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. I look forward to hearing from you. Best, [Your name]

i don’t know why they say they want a cover letter when 1) nobody reads them, and 2) they don’t actually say anything. i’m assuming it’s just to see that you know how to submit to journals? anyway, unless explicitly asked, don’t talk about your submission at all. the work should speak for itself.

here are some other things:

journals take around 3 to 6 months to reply to you, sometimes upward a year or more. do not follow up with them asking about your submission until it’s far past the window they say they’ll reply, and even then, i don’t recommend it

you will be rejected. repeatedly. i know writers who submit a piece upwards a hundred times before giving up on it. i give up/do major revisions after 20 rejections for a given story

submit in batches of 10 at a time and keep a detailed tracking sheet

the longer you’re waiting to hear back, the further you get in the process. if a journal rejects you after a year, it probably means an editor fought for your story and lost

treat any personal note/correspondence from an editor, even critical, as a gift. editors do not often give their attention. be sure to reply to personal correspondence

if a journal rejects you but welcomes you to submit again, submit a different piece and do it quickly, with a note that says they liked something else you sent them

if you get accepted to a journal that wants you to make major revisions that you don’t want to make, don’t be afraid to pull the piece. i’ve been in this situation twice: once where i refused to make the revisions because i felt they altered the heart of the story, and once where i made them because i could understand where the editor was coming from, even if i didn’t like it as well. that said, usually journals won’t be willing to work with you on a story that needs major edits; they’ll just reject the story, even if they see promise in it

okay that’s all i’ve got. i hope this helps, and happy submitting!

[dojae-huh]

I'm an NCT fan from 2016, right after their debut with 7thsense and Without you. They peaked my interest but I wasnt a fan until DY's first Without you focus fancam, his energy while performing this song was just amazing and his voice really suit my taste, I believe a lot of his fans since that time start off just like me. It was really random that I saw JaeDo dancing mirrorly in 7thsense and thought "these 2 looks like they might be a nice couple". Then I started my researched phased by watching SMR videos with DY in it and Showchampion, of course, and the random thought I had before like a small seed planted in my mind just grow into a whole big tree in a few days lol, their flirting game was too strong for my expectation. The materials to shipping them was just plenty, all the fanaccs from SMR shows sounds unreal, NCT on Air, NCTLife was also a big help. But I was just shipping them for fun and had this impression that they were doing all these as fanservice (but not like they were forced to do it) like typical SM idols (with how SM used to produce movies based on fanfiction and made their idols act out scenes in it this is pretty beginners level), they wasn't hiding anything, a bit show off even, stick together almost all the time on or of screen, describe their date with romantic implied, and some of the moments like the "ah gay ah" or the couple clothes stylists had for them on NCTLife in BK were pretty too in-your-face, made me only think that they were the chosen ship, and looked nice together. Now looking back at it I realize it was really more than just fanservice, since they don't behave like that with anyone else. In 2017 I thought they had a fall out, not being close like attact to the hip as before anymore, rarely interacted. Many people thought they had enough of each other since they said they argued a lot, funny how this and their competitiveness might be also a factor that made "enemy to lovers" a popular trope during shippers back then. Eventually I lost hope and started to shift my attention to DoTae for a while. But still I was really confused at that time, bc DY was clearly avoiding JH but JH still obviously fond of him, like knowing every little things about DY, trying to touch him sometimes , constantly teasing him (the star blossom reaction vid was top notch), it didn't take me to read body language and behaviours to notice. Still I didn't know what was all that about lol. 2018 was truly a bless since they stop that ignoring each other's existence thing and start openly interact again, but I could tell they're not the same as 2015-6. I stumble on your post on AO3 in 2018 and after reading it I had to agree with almost everything. My confusion about Jaehyun's attitude now made perfect sense, there's no doubt about his feelings for DY anymore. I was a bit skeptical on DY's part though, maybe because the scenario they're dating and everyone around them being accepting easily sound too good to be true, but as 2018 progress and new developments in 2019 the picture come clear more and more and I was so happy. What makes JaeDo appealling to me are those little but very telling moments that you need to pay attention to them a bit more to notice. Also I feel like they're meant for each other, a perfect match, they can help each other grow better in both their career and personality. What still left me confused is how up and down they are with the showing/hiding and SM's attitude towards them, but it's not really a big deal, any new moments from them erase my doubt completely.

As someone who has watching them since debut me and all my friends was very surprised when we saw people make DoWoo a big thing. To me the way he treats JW is no different from other dongsaengs. Jaehyun is the only dongsaeng he treats almost like his equal, and people often not notice that since Jaehyun seems more mature than his age I guess. 

[mxbitters]

hey so i think i might be trans (ftm) and since ur genderqueer and stuff i wanna ask, did you feel dysphoria when you were really young? i don't remember getting it when i was younger that six maybe, but it got a lot worse once i turned around seven or eight. idk. do u have any advice?

hey!!!  it’s great to hear you’re exploring this stuff, and i’m honored that you reached out.  i kinda consider myself both genderqueer and transmasc so i get you there.  

that being said, there’s no one standard dysphoria experience.  i’m gonna talk about my experience with dysphoria and finding out i’m trans as this was the approach that helped me, i’ll give you the long answer first and then the short answer.

long answer:

when i was younger, around third grade or something, i think i may have dealt with some sort of social dysphoria, and definitely found myself separate from girls and always wanted to like, prove myself worthy of attention from other guys (i really craved that kind of friendship, i felt like i fit in with some of the more “nerdy” guys around age eight) but i can’t recall any sort of body dysphoria.  of course that was all way before puberty so there’s that too.

i think my first possible experiences with more physical dysphoria and the notion of “passing” that i can name were in middle school.  it may have been when i was getting more into anime and bands and stuff, i saw these somewhat gender nonconforming men and started trying to replicate those looks and i think what really got me was when i was either in eighth grade or freshman year when i was first dying my hair.  i would look up to all these musicians, the only female musician i was like looking up to was hayley williams and i thought i had to perform that kind of femininity and when i tried to it felt even worse.  

it took experimentation with my expression, communication with some people older than me in a sort of mentor position, etc. for me to really realize i was trans, i think.  i was in a relationship at the time, one in which that partner had told me she was trans.  i don’t remember what set me off, but one night i just lost it and realized that something about femininity just wasn’t working, nothing felt right.  i remember specifically someone suggesting that maybe i could try the label “genderfluid,” see what works.  and that honestly just blew my mind.  as soon as that door was opened, i immediately gravitated towards masculinity, he/him pronouns, etc.  

of course, the way i view my gender as opposed to back then is very different, i don’t focus so much on “passing” and filling any specific gender role.  it takes a lot of time to actually realize what works and again, it’s all about experimentation and giving it time.  my gender as i view it right now will not be viewed the same way in a few years, i can guarantee it, and you know what?  that’s okay.  that’s healthy and it’s good.  i’ve changed and grown a lot, i know people who seem to stay with a similar expression for a while, i know people who explored their gender and turned out to be cis all along and honestly?  all of these are valid experiences.  

short answer:

first of all i think “nothing feels right” was the way i experienced dysphoria back then, it was almost synonymous with my depression, and differentiating the two took a long damn time.  my experience with dysphoria was initially social, but at some point around 14-15 i realized i would look myself in the mirror and not recognize myself.  it took experimentation and talking to other people i trusted to actually get started.

second, advice:  

- experiment!  try going by the name/pronouns you prefer on your blog, or if you don’t want to use them right now on your current blog, make a sideblog or use the pronoun dressing room!!!  there, you can try out the pronouns/name you’re considering and also learn more about other pronouns too :) there are also a lot of blogs on here that do a very similar thing, writing little sentences and such referring to you by your preferred name/pronouns, based off interests, etc.  that’s how i realized i like he and they pronouns!  and if you’re nervous to send that to somebody else, you could also send them in an ask to me if you want :’)

- talk to people!  you do NOT have to go through this alone, you can talk to a friend, a therapist, a trusted family member, hell you can message me if you want, etc. but in general just know this journey isn’t one you have to do on your own.

- don’t give up.  i couldn’t have imagined the spot i’m in right now as opposed to where i was in 2016 or 2017, and i’m glad i kept going.  hell, i’m still going through it but i know in the future i’ll be grateful i pushed through it.  being trans is a beautiful thing, and in my opinion, it’s a gift.  it may seem hard, but keep going.  i promise, it’s worth it.

---

i sincerely hope that this helped, i’m sorry this was such a long post!  let me know if you need anything else, you got this dude!!! :D

[chickpeamcb]

I love the way you draw people- your character designs look so clean and distinct but also so stylistically cohesive, it's amazing. I'm a bit of a beginner, and if you don't mind me asking, how did you practice drawing people when you were first starting out? What specific strategies did you use to study? What do you do now? Thank you, keep rockin 😄

Thank you! As with the comics ask, I’ve never actually taken a character design class or studied it properly, so please take what I say with a grain of salt!

I was kind of a frantic late bloomer when it came to art, I was not born with a pencil in my hand, and I only really seriously started in my last two years of high school- as I made a whimsical decision to apply to art school. Most of the art that I had access to at that time was… popular artists on the internet? So really, when I started, I wasn’t doing anything that I SHOULD have been doing like figure drawing or portrait studies- I was kind of just trying to shove my work into one of the cohesive styles that I saw on the internet. Which is… only good advice if you want to know what NOT to do.

The one thing that I think started to make a difference was going to art school, and suddenly getting the time to draw constantly. Because half the battle with characters isn’t getting them right on the first try, it’s getting them right over and over and over again after the first time you draw them. And drawing a character a bajillion and one times makes a hell of a difference, because the more you draw them, the closer they’ll be to looking exactly how you’re picturing them in your head.

(I will use my own original character as an example, since I’ve been drawing him for a while now- left drawings are from like 2016/2017, the right are 2019/2020.)

The best advice I can give you as far as specific strategies is just… draw your characters a lot! Like all the time! The only thing I do differently now is pay a lot closer attention to diversity, and try hard to make characters whose looks are varied but not over-exaggerated. 

(Also study anatomy. EVEN if you want to do very stylized shape based characters, study anatomy. It’s something I still struggle with, but it makes a big difference when you put in the work.)

[yuzhousky]

[YUZHOU] Trans a meaningful post from a Chinese cpf - @东皇南帝的正宫

Please take out with full credit!

"Everything about them.

At the age of sixteen, you left your hometown, traveled alone, and did a lot of jobs. At the age of sixteen, he created a band, worked as a guitarist, and wrote songs.

In 2013, you were twenty years old and started appearing on TV. He was 18 years old and was admitted to the university because he went to the North for the arts test.

The fate is wonderful. You two are all in Shanghai, but you got to know each other in Beijing. Or maybe you once went through a corner in Shanghai and passed by each other several times.

2015.11.6, when you two first saw the other. He finally saw the person he had seen in the photo. He said that he was very satisfied.

The opening filming press conference was also your birthday. He sang a birthday song to you and blew the candles with you.

On your birthday in 2016, you said, thank you my friends who had accompanied me on my birthday last year.

Your feelings were heating up quickly, you were cold then gentle to him, infinitely petting, and caring about him. He was enthusiastic, he was overbearing to you, 'arrogant and arrogant', and provocative.

You two treated each other in a special way. You didn't like to be close to others, but it was different for him. He had always seem careless, but always paid attention to your emotions.

Don't know since when, your feelings had changed. He was brave and calm, tempted you again and again, but you had scruple about the future, and couldn't admit your feelings. You wanted to keep the distance deliberately, but you couldn't control yourself from coming close to him.

"Silence, because I love you", you understood, and your expression was awkward...

 When you saw someone close to him, you finally realized that all that scruple was superfluous. You said you were more afraid of regretting true feelings.

Then you made up your mind, your love, and anyone can see your sweetness.

The first time filming Happy Camp, your eyes couldn't keep off him... you were afraid that he would fall... you followed him... you two waited for each other. Among all members of the team, you only paid attention to him and he always walked by your side.

You two also won the first prize in your life together, but you couldn't be next to him. However, all your actions were towards him, and his face was so sweet.

Unexpectedly, good times were so short...

In the wind and sand, you two were publicly separated. He said, "I love my love", you said "Your smile".

Perhaps this was also good, no longer anxiousness, you two can have private happiness.

Then he held a concert, announced that he was no longer single, did not mention your name, but the sentence was secretly about you. He shaked his head and smiled so brightly. (VID)

Once, you were recording a program, you seemed very worried, but when hearing his name, you smiled myteriously.

On his birthday, you shared a happy birthday song in the circle of friends, and you had found the version with a meow sound in the end.

On his lunar birthday, you wore a couple shirt in the off-season temperature. As he used to mention a movie in which the red and blue plaid shirts had a special meaning.

The letter you read to the fan, but the words were about him. You two met each other in the winter, warmed each other and were tolerant of each other. You said that "If you are the one who accompany me til the end, it doesn't matter if there are winds and rains along the way."

During your live broadcast, you whispered "Did not say goodbye to him", the assistant said "Xu Weizhou is finding you, he is hungry" you smiled then immediately changed the talking topic.

In 2017, you two gained more and less, concentrated on the future, and began learning to hide.

You said that you called your girlfriend baby, and 'she' liked to call you big brother.

 You wore graffiti shoes painted with Linkin Park's song lyrics. He has mentioned Linkin Park some times.

Your activities were at the same venue. When going past his booth, you turned around and looked at it.

When filming in Thailand, you collected a lot of stuffs about him every day, all kinds of photos, magazines, letters...

At his concert, the first time he sang If Hai Has Yin in the country, the background was the universe lights.

In 2018, the wind and the waves were also a year of big sugar.

The number of your fans reached 5.20 million on the same day.

Dior gave you the newest bee outfit. You let him wear it to Thailand before the official announcement.

On 4.28, you updated (Wechat) - "It's summer - Summer day" which was full of high energy and sweet love.

At his concert, 23 green lights, 25 yellow lights were equivalent to your age. He wore the outfit of the role you played, did OK confession gestures with roses, fish, and hands-holding in the background.

On the 999th day anniversary of your acquaintance, you shared 15 Weibo posts, indicated that the future had come.

He was hurt and his name was on hot search, you immediately rushed to see him.

During his birthday party, your Weibo was on and off all the time, seemed to be pretty eager. On the stage, he said "Thank you who are watching online."

Your birthday party, you wore a couple necklace with him, there were clips of yours, and cats.

You attended the award ceremony, when hearing his film winning, you happily applaused.

His songs are said to be written to fans every time, but you are all related, because you are the number one for him.

All your enthusiasm seems to have been given to him, he is always filled with the atmosphere of being pampered.

He is adored by you, he still does not know how to fold his trouser legs or tie the shoes laces. He still bangs his head, goes the wrong way, trips and falls.

You are still the same as the past, calm and restrained, free and easy. But it is different now, you are more low-key, more and more matured. He becomes dedicated, more and more adorable.

There is still no change, as long as his photos are on the phone case, it will attract your attention. His expression will be out of control whenever the old days were mentioned.

 You are used to being silent and don't want to be disturbed. He has always been calm and shows off his goodness towards you. Perhaps love is afraid of others knowing, and afraid that others do not know.

Your relationship has never been confirmed. For more than two years, you have never been on the same stage, never met, and there is only praise for interaction.

But you two have so many connections, hundreds of the same things, from clothes to daily Weibo.

Maybe in order to protect the other, you can only pretend that there is no contact. Even use rumours to protect each other's future.

You are more and more outstanding. As an actor, your movie has a super high box office. As a singer, he is recognized by the Communist Youth League. You two are the kings, and will definitely meet each other at the top.

You will eventually open up again, just like he has never been separated from you!"

(Everything mentioned in the post is facts and hints about YuZhou, not self-delulu ^^ And sorry for my poor translation cuz English and Chinese aren't my native languages)

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - The Shorts!

Finally, I decided to talk about these.

PPG 2016 isn't the only reboot to have net-exclusive shorts, as Disney's YouTube channel had several DuckTales shorts across its first season.

Welcome to Duckberg!

A few months before the premiere of DuckTales 2017, Disney released these shorts to introduce everyone to the citizens of Duckberg. Namely, it focuses on the inhabits of the McDuck Manor. Most of these are just one joke premises, which is fitting because they aren't even a minute long.

For example, here's one where Webby is sneaking around in a dark place, aiming for some sort of ancient artifact with her various gadgets. This was online before the very first episode, so this is actually our first look at the new Webby. No longer is she just the "little girl" of the group; she seems to be a spy in training with her night vision goggles, her glowstick, and her grappling hook!

This ancient artifact turns out to be a cookie jar, and the only cookie left is one of the common yuck cookies: oatmeal raisin. Hey, I'd eat it. Dewey shows up specifically to tell Webby that he's eating the last chocolate chip. That's kind of mean.

Then this happens. Yeah, that doesn't look like anger, it looks more like demonic possession. There's a similar short with the new Mrs. Beakley, where she easily takes care of a ghost that the boys were struggling with. It makes sense, as these characters have huge changes from the classic DuckTales. They might as well show them off.

There's a Huey short, featuring a character that looks a lot like the Tenderfeet. Thankfully, he doesn't talk or do any "devil in plain sight" gags, he's just here to show off that Huey is the one that reads that Junior Woodchuck Guidebook the most. Definitely his best performance, but that isn't saying a lot.

There's no real Dewey-focused short beyond his appearance in the Webby short. There is kind of a Louie short, involving a "time machine" that, oddly enough, works exactly like the time machine in that one episode of the other reboot. Thankfully, this reboot only made it a minute long short, and it works okay.

The biggest highlight is this short with Launchpad McQuack, and it's completely fitting of his character. I don't even want to talk about it; it would ruin the magic of watching the actual short.

There's also one for Donald Duck's years-not-shown birthday, which oddly wasn't included in the compilation. This is a shame, because it's a decent joke. Again, it's just the one, and it's not as good as the Launchpad one. Then again, very few things are.

The next series of shorts is a lot more interesting, as they all fit together into one short, released in minute-long chunks throughout a month. Fittingly enough, it happens to be called...

The World’s Longest Deathtrap!

The episode begins with Webby landing in the titular deathtrap, with Dewey. I guess they felt sorry that he didn't get a short of his own, since we get a lot more Dewey here.

Unfortunately, due to Dewey not being too bright, he presses a button that causes the deathtrap to activate, causing the walls to very slowly close in on them. Webby theorizes that this deathtrap has aged very poorly over the centuries it existed.

When I saw these pop up on YouTube, I was thinking this was just a joke video with nothing really happening. This couldn't be further from the truth. One part is pretty much entirely "Launchpad doesn't know how to rescue people from a hole", and it's absolutely hilarious.

Eventually, everyone except for Scrooge, who is absent entirely from these series of shorts, ends up in the deathtrap. They keep unintentionally activating even more traps, before Huey drops in and tries to use his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook to help out. In a way, it worked. How? Watch to find out.

I would not be surprised if this short started out as either a scene in an episode or a whole episode in itself, but they either felt it was too throwaway, or that they ran out of ideas. It's a good watch.

Dewey Dew-Night!

Aw, yeah. The talk show introduced in Day of the Only Child gets its first big expansion here. The main plot is that Dewey wants his talk show to become popular on the internet, so he tries his best to get the best guests, the best sketches, and the best Dewey he can muster to get those sweet sweet thumbs ups. It's just as funny as it was in Day of the Only Child, though I do wish those cardboard cutouts returned.

The first short focuses on Webby. It's sort of funny in that everything is just awkward, as if he's making this all up as he goes along. Fitting!

They're still trying to make Manny the Headless Horse a thing. Maybe there's some people who really like him, but I found him more of an "eh" character. Dewey doesn't seem to like him either; his original guest was supposed to be Scrooge McDuck. Unfortunately, he decided Dewey Dew-Night was well below him, much to Dewey's derision. Whether it was unfortunate for Dewey or Scrooge is pretty obvious.

He even tries to do segments, like "Will It Crash?", an parody of "Will It Blend?" Dewey apparently never realized that ship has sailed almost a decade ago, even if Launchpad is the highlight of all of these shorts. That is an accomplishment, actually, this series and the deathtrap one could work as B-plots.

Unfortunately, none of this seems to get him the audience he so desperately craves. He even keeps pointing towards his likes and dislikes, which eventually skews slightly towards the latter. He seems to blame his audience for this, but he understands. He decides to try to go on a unicycle and jump over a cat. A real cat, by the way; I can’t help but notice when they use non-anthropomorphic animals.

Unfortunately, any attempt to actually finish this stunt was ruined because the rest of the boys were tired. There is a hidden joke here, where Dewey thinks that because it's a late night talk show, it's supposed to be filmed at night, too. If only he knew.

Oh, and there's this really good running gag with Glomgold throughout this entire series of shorts.

Dewey: Apologies to Flintheart Glomgold, who had to be bumped.

Glomgold: (off-screen) WHAT?!

I like how it is implied that Glomgold successfully infiltrated the McDuck Mansion, but just can't wait to be on this completely legitimate talk show. Best of all, it has an actual payoff. All in all, a great way to use the format.

There are a few other shorts, but there's not much to say about them. There's Webby Reacts, a series where Webby Vanderquack does an in-character reaction to various Disney Channel programs. It did remind me of the very short lived revival of Beavis and Butt-Head, where they had segments where they talked over MTV's other programming.

The other is DuckFAILS, which is just the nephews, the honorary niece, and Launchpad failing to do things in glorious stop motion. I guess Scrooge McDuck had a "no failing" clause. I can't insult the amount of time it would take to make these, and this seems like something that would be fun to see between shows.

I'm sad that they didn't do anything like this to tide us over during this current hiatus...but I guess that's what I'm doing, at least.

← What Ever Happened To Della Duck?! 🦆 Treasure of the Found Lamp! →

[kingofthewilderwest]

Don't worry, I take over my sleep time to read and write fanfictions. I wouldn't have time otherwise! I have an entire Word page with only links to fanfictions I still have to read! And it's all right to not read fanfictions if you don't want to. It's just an hobby among others. Anyway, you wrote fanfictions?? Now I'm curious, could I have a link, if you don't mind? Have a good night too and sorry for my grammar mistakes, english isn't my first language (btw, thank you for the likes

From this. Sorry I’m slow replying!! thanks for your wonderful messages! :)

No worries about grammar! Your English is great, and even if it weren’t, that’s no bother to me either. :) The fact that you’re communicating in a language that isn’t your first… just means you have extra skills and are even more awesome! :) 

I love how dedicated you are to looking at others’ fanfictions, even creating a Word document page to make sure you remember them. That’s beautiful and cool. And I’m getting curious about what you’ve written, too! 

Thanks so much for asking about my fics - this touches me! Sure, I’m happy to share! I tend to post all fics on tumblr and FFN, with FFN being my primary hub. On tumblr I use the tag #my fanfiction and tag all stories by their title. My FFN profile is kingofthewilderwest.

I’m so so so so so SO touched when anyone reads or interacts with my fics (though since I write casually, I ask no constructive criticism

THE VIGILANTE’S WAR

HTTYD. YEAR: 2014. LENGTH: 57,110 WORDS. A mysterious, antagonistic dragon rider dubbed “the Vigilante” crosses paths with Hiccup, and her increasingly violent actions appear to be leading to war against Berk. 

He tightened his hands, loosened them again. Breathed in, breathed out. He could feel himself stooped in the dirt, his shoulders hunched over his head, his knees buried in the ground and tucked underneath his torso. His neck was bent low close to the earth, providing him a good view of his hands and the ground and nothing else.

Well, and the blood.

That can’t possibly be all mine.

- PROLOGUE: FROM OUT OF THE HAZE

HTTYD 2′s original drafts had Valka as the main antagonist. I found this so interesting that I decided to rewrite HTTYD 2 - with a few of my own spins - on this concept. One of my most well-known fics, “The Vigilante’s War” is where I’ve gotten the most thorough reviews and most emotional reactions.

THE VIGILANTE’S LEGACY 

HTTYD. YEARS: 2014-2016. LENGTH: 20,546 WORDS. There’s been four years of war between three factions. Drago’s army. The Vigilante and her dragons. Berk and their allies. But now, Chief Hiccup believes there’s a way to end the conflict. Sequel to “The Vigilante’s War.”

Hiccup spoke up. Cleared his voice. Tapped his pointer finger apprehensively on the cell’s iron door. “You said we were making a mistake.” Might as well speak straight to the point of his visit. “Something about ‘you and every one of your warriors are making a mistake’ or – or something like that.”

For a moment Hiccup wondered if Valka actually would reply. The calculating gaze she gave him from the corner of her prison certainly did not seem a positive sign. However, then, with a steady, lilting cadence to her voice, she succinctly affirmed, “I did.” Just those two words. Nothing more.

- VIII. THE MISTAKES OF WAR

It’s unfinished; I haven’t updated because I ran out of steam and didn’t receive enough reader feedback encouraging me to continue. Though I did have a very vivid final chapter in mind… that I still love… which I never got to…?

MEMOIRS

HTTYD. YEARS: 2015-2016. LENGTH: 44,289 WORDS. My ongoing collection of drabbles for HTTYD. Angst, pain, comfort, humor, crossovers, crack, it’s all there. Favorites include “Family Portrait,” “Stubble,” “Buffcup the Brawny,” and “Remember When.”

He held her hand softly, one wrinkled hand laid gently on top of another. It was just her and him now in the house all alone – for their children had left on a voyage with the grandkids, and would not be back for a week yet, if even two. It evoked the quietness of the old days, back before they were old, back during the times when they were newlyweds and younger even than their grandchildren were today. Oh, but the smell of her hair was just as refreshing now as when it was blonde.

- REMEMBER WHEN

DINNER AT DRAGON’S EDGE 

HTTYD. YEAR: 2015. LENGTH: 5,452 WORDS. The gang’s settling in at Dragon’s Edge. To make sure everything operates smoothly, Hiccup suggests a chore rotation system. That means everyone has to do their fair share of the cooking… but it doesn’t mean everyone is a fair cook.

“Oh my gods, is this dinner or what the rats threw away?” Snotlout exclaimed, terrified at the Unidentified Edible Object before him.

Tuffnut picked it up with one experimental hand and held it out before him at a safe distance. People would have held poisonous snakes or bloodied torture devices more cheerily. Squinting his eyes and peering carefully at the peculiar specimen pinched between his fingers, rubbing under his chin with his other, free hand, Tuffnut remarked, “Looks something like what Barf and Belch poop out after they get sick and…”

- 1. ASSIGNING JOBS

This humorous fic I think is where I do best capturing HTTYD character personalities and interactions.

[SUPER]HERO THE HARD WAY 

HTTYD. YEARS: 2014-2017. LENGTH: 86,566 WORDS. In a modern world where Berk is full of superheroes battling the League of Outcasts, power-less Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third struggles to receive appreciation for who he is. Through his crime-fighting journey, Hiccup learns that, while he might not have powers, he can become a Hero the Hard Way.

“I wasn’t born with anything. Don’t have anything. I’m the son of Chief Stoick “Skullcrusher” and I don’t have anything. Not even a superpower to turn objects purple. Which frankly would be completely pointless but at least it would have been something.“

He realized he was babbling and promptly shut his mouth. He looked over at Fishlegs, who appeared to be wordlessly processing the information. The teenager appeared baffled moreso than anything else, which at least meant he was not outright rejecting him.

“So you’re going to train to be a superhero… and you don’t have any powers? I got that right?”

“You got that right.”

“Wow.” Fishlegs said.

Hiccup waited for more.

“That’s actually really cool.”

- CHAPTER THREE: SIDEKICKED

This started as me intending to write one crack chapter. It turned into me envisioning a ROB / DOB modern AU where all characters were superheroes. The final product became a retelling of HTTYD 1′s basic concept: Hiccup gaining his peers’ approval despite being different. Somehow, despite me 70% adlibbing by the seat of my pants (should I be admitting this?), I had great fun. And it brought in the most reviews, follows, and favorites of any of my posted stories! Thanks for the reads and support, everyone!!!

RESET OR RESUME 

UT. YEAR: 2016-2017. LENGTH: 85,841 WORDS. Gaster’s research unlocks the secret of time travel. After the Royal Scientist’s untimely end, one of Gaster’s colleagues - Sans - finds himself with the power to Reset. Confronted with unpleasant timelines and dangerous choices, Sans must decide how to navigate through time… if it’s worth resetting for a better future, continuing with hope for the present, or simply giving up.

No longer timid and silent, the human happily babbled all sorts of nonsense to Sans, everything from how to bake snow pies to how weird Sans’ skull looked to how beautiful the ribbon in their hair was to their opinions of Papyrus’ ‘battle body’ to how their mom didn’t like the color black to their personal opinion of ferrets to a long narrative of their encounter with a snail-loving old lady they met on the other side of the Ruins door. Everything could be the topic of a conversation. There was no filter and even less sense of restraint for this child.

“How are you a SKELETON?” their happy little high-pitched voice squeaked. They flew gallantly over a twig that rested, flat, on the surface of the snow. Powder flew everywhere as they landed heavily into the snowbank. “That means – that means you should be DEAD, you know!”

“who says i’m not dead?” Sans trolled with a wink.

With a shrieking giggle, they exclaimed, “Don’t be silly! Only ghosts are dead!”

“i could be a skeleton ghost.”

“No you – no you can’t.” The human seemed to be quite confident about their knowledge in paranormal metaphysics. “You can be a skeleton. You can be a ghost. But nobody – NOBODY – can be a skeleton ghost.”

“is that so?”

“YES so! You CAN’T be both. That would be wrong.” Maybe the human mentally categorized skeletons and ghosts as separate Halloween creatures, ensuring they were mutually exclusive concepts. It was always challenging to comprehend a child’s train of logic. “Except…” and now the child paused, leaning down and tugging at the sleeve of their sweater. Something thoughtful – at least as much as one so young could be thoughtful – passed over their eyes. They cocked their head to the side and stared at Sans. In the same sort of innocence with which they had talked about ferrets, the human inquired, “…can ghosts also be dust?”

- 5. KNOCKS [[File 5.2 IH-20150701-3-3]]

I have particular fondness for this fic. I spent more energy and care with this than any other I’ve posted. Drenched it through with UT lore. Edited and revised thoroughly. Had two beta readers examine my ASL for accurate representation. I wrote extensive outlines that were several page long color-coded charts, had all this meticulous structuring going on…

The problem was, this was an impossibly ambitious project. Life got in the way, too. The 85,841 words here aren’t close to the end of Part 1. The final two Parts were going to explain the weirdness within Part 1 (the story doesn’t begin in chronological order - it gets pieced together like a puzzle). What I planned to write would have included a complex characterization arc for Sans, every human child that’s visited the underground, and multiple resets containing main character deaths… until the story would end with Sans confronting Frisk in the Genocide Route.

Hopefully, despite the incompleteness, this is enjoyable from its comedy to its angst! I would at least encourage people to read the first few chapters! Or “Socks” - an entire chapter devoted to Sans and Gaster pulling sock pranks on each other.

SOMEHOW THEY’RE STILL OFFICERS

FMAB. YEAR: 2018-2019. LENGTH: 6,036 WORDS. Ahhhhhh yes. Team Mustang. The hand-selected, elite group of military officers who effectively spend their time… doing nonsense. 

Everyone was scrambling at once. Mustang rushed forward to greet their guest, perfect composure only broken by the fast pace at which he moved. In fact the colonel’s posture was almost a proud enough display to make his lack of shirt go unnoticed. But Falman chucked his cards away at the same time he tried to salute; Breda was ducking from Falman’s sudden card shower; Fuery was launching pants and underwear in Havoc’s face; and Lieutenant Hawkeye, obviously abashed to be in this room at all, was covering her eyes with her hand in what was either her life’s longest sigh, or a pathetic attempt to hide her face and identity.

- WE WERE JUST PLAYING CARDS

My collection of FMA drabbles, particularly stories of Team Mustang shenanigans. Prompts / requests welcome for more adventures!

I have a few other drabbles posted, too. I also have unfinished chapters of Voltron fanfictions on my computer that I could share, too? Maybe I should? I’m currently working on several Royai fanfictions, other FMA drabbles, and a longer Deponia fanfiction.

Thank you again for being so nice and connecting with me over fanfiction and fandom and FMA and more. You’re a really wonderful and cool person and you made my day.

[batwomanandmotherpanic]

(Updated January 1, 2020)

I've mentioned a few times across various posts here that I strongly believe Kate Kane was officially involved in boxing at West Point, but I haven't really explained the reasons for that, at least not all in one place (apart from a few fanfics). So that's what I'll attempt to do now.

But there's a larger point here, too. This is a specific example, but it works to illustrate how a lot of information about a character can be gleaned from reasonable extrapolation and a bit of research, even if that information may not have been intended by the authors. It's a window into how I tend to read characters, and I think the principles described here can be applied in many different cases. I certainly don't claim to have invented it (especially since it's strongly related to Watsonian textual interpretation), but I do think it's a valuable exercise.

So first, let's look at the scene where this all spiraled out from, in Batwoman: Rebirth #1:

I try to research as many avenues as I can about Kate and the things she has probably done or experienced, but this was particularly interesting to me because it overlapped with a sport I love.

The first order of business was to establish a timeline. We know that Kate left the Academy early into her final fall semester, that DADT was repealed in September 2011, that Kate was 20 when she left, that Kate is 27 as of her 2017 series, and that there needed to be at least a year between her dismissal and the repealing of DADT, or else she would easily just have re-enrolled.

I really don't like that Kate was de-aged in Rebirth, but it does still work out; this scene with Sophie has to take place in fall 2010.

The next question then became: could women participate in boxing at the Academy at that time? After all, on the surface this scene says nothing about that one way or another. Maybe Kate and Sophie were just renting out some of the Academy's trunks and shoes for some private, unofficial sparring.

The answer to this question proved to be more complicated than one might think.

Through various articles, I found that female cadets were not required to box until fall 2016... but prior to that, if they completed all PE requirements in their plebe year, boxing was available to them as an elective, provided that they were each paired with another female cadet of similar weight (co-ed sparring was strictly prohibited).

I also found that West Point's women's boxing club started up in mid-to-late 2009, and that early 2010 was when some of their members competed for the first time, before they officially achieved club status. So that worked out as well. There was also, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, quite a bit of sexism from Academy officials regarding the formation of the club; this potentially serves as a valuable subtextual parallel to the homophobia already present in Kate's time there. Like her potential military service, it is yet another thing that became officially integrated and accepted after her time. Thematically speaking, this seemed like a right thing to include in her story.

With all this in mind, other things about that initial scene started to click into place and confirm that I was on the right track. And the beauty of it was that, like so many such things in comics, I don't know if any of it was intended to stack up this way. But it did.

There's Sophie's first line to Kate, which implies that Jacob helped her in a similar situation:

That is to say: a previous fight. Looked at from an internal perspective, why else would Sophie be saying this? What else could it be about in this context? It can't be a reference to Kate's kidnapping and rescue, because A) wow that would be a super inappropriate thing to be talking about in this situation, especially so flippantly, and B) Sophie says "help," not "save."

So, if Jacob helped Kate in a previous fight, it had to have been at a public event, which, based on the established timeline, would have been the 54th Brigade Open. And given the context of the line, since Kate is losing to Sophie here, it means Kate won in part due to Jacob's help. He gave her ringside coaching, in other words.

There's also the matter of the clothes each woman is wearing, if we circle back to the possibility that the gear was rented. Not so, it seems. None of it looks like West Point's own boxing gear (whether circa-2010 or present-day), meaning that it's almost certainly Kate and Sophie's personal attire. And why would they bother with that if they weren't involved in the sport somehow? Those articles I referenced earlier even speak of this very thing; due to budgetary constraints, many members of the fledgling club purchased their own gear.

And there are smaller, prior bits of evidence that also fit. Kate mentioning in her New 52 #0 issue that even before her Batwoman training she felt confident in her fighting ability, implying she had fought often:

(Bonus: Note where Kate describes getting beaten up.)

There's Simone's Batgirl #12, where Kate is shown jabbing as Barbara narrates that Kate is testing her reach, which is indeed one use for a jab:

Barbara's first line here also strongly ties into this discipline: boxing is at least as mental as it is physical (when done well, that is), so it's fitting that Kate would have that as a foundation for her future combat skills to rest on.

But most importantly, this participation falls in line with a few aspects of Kate's character.

Her sense of service: participating in boxing this way, at this specific time, would mean Kate was part of something that helped open up new opportunities for future female cadets at the Academy (a sentiment that a few of the real members of the club have expressed in interviews). The service aspect also ties into Kate's intended future as a leader of soldiers. A big reason boxing is required at all the service academies is not just for its obvious physical benefits, but also that it helps instill all sorts of disciplines into future troops. If you read or listen to interviews with the head coaches of the academies, they mention things like strategic thinking under stress, the ability to adapt to physical fear, perseverance in the face of hostility, etc. These are all things that would clearly translate to a battlefield situation and any good leader on that battlefield. I think Kate would have been savvy enough to seek out extra benefit in this way, and the fact that she would have had to go out of her way to do so sounds like her to me.

Dovetailing with that a bit, it also reflects her ambition: this would have presented Kate with the opportunity to be one of the first champions in a new and permanent athletic landscape at the Academy (though not the absolute first). Given the way she excelled in all other areas up to that time in her life, I imagine that this would have been another attractive point for her.

To sum this all up, the logical conclusion from all this evidence is that Kate was a member of the newly-formed women's boxing club at West Point, and won a match at the 54th BBO.

So. That was all very long-winded and thorough. Why is it important?

Well, in particular, it offers a new (if not totally revelatory) facet to Kate, and any information about a character has value.

But in a larger sense, this exercise demonstrates what I mentioned earlier: that researching a detail about a character, no matter how small, can yield a wealth of new info, even if that info was unintended or remains subtextual. To use another example for Kate: we can know a great deal about her academic skillset just from the medals she earned. Not because we're shown or even told any of that information, but because the qualifications for each of those medals can be looked up.

And this ties into a final, even more important point: this concept is a great strength of comics and other collaborative fiction. It allows for the sum to be greater than all the parts.

Even in this relatively minor case, the individual pieces built on each other and interlocked to such an extent that what they point to is pretty airtight, it seems, even though that endpoint may not have been considered by anyone involved.

Does this always happen? No, of course not, and often the exact opposite can occur, resulting in little more than a pile of narrative rubble. But when it does work, it’s incredibly cool. And if it can work for something like this… imagine the potential it can have when applied to weightier character details.

 What all is still out there waiting to be uncovered like this?