#like a strength and a weakness of the comic medium is that it can be cherry picked IMMENSELY

[neil-gaiman]

Hello, Mr Gaiman. Big fan of your work

Had a question for you about book-to-screen adaptations, in the midst of the Percy Jackson Disney Plus series and the upcoming season of Good Omens.

Why is it that adaptations like these tend to only be about 70-90 percent book-accurate, even with so much author involvement? Do you guys not stand by your work, or think things can be improved upon while the adaptation is in development? Or do creative teams recommend taking certain things in a different direction and cutting things out? Given how a series release allows for less of a time constraint to fit the content in, I just wonder if there is some other limiting factor here that's preventing what I guess I'd call a "true adaptation," you know what I mean?

Not really. A book is not a film or a TV series, just as a TV episode is not a novel or a stage play or a comic. Different media have different strengths and weaknesses: you do your best in adaptation to play to the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of each medium.

[comicaurora]

im pretty sure you've answered smth like this before, but i looked around for a hot second and couldn't find it. so, sorry if this is a repeat question, but how do you get dynamic comic panels? because i've been playing around with my own comic idea for a while but all i can come up with is just,,,,3x3 square panels. and i doubt that's very interesting to look at. is figuring out panels just something that comes with more dynamic posing/environments and whatnot, or is it a skill all on its own? and if so, how can i improve?

(btw i just wanna say thanks for everything you do, i've been watching osp's videos for years and i'm pretty sure yall have shaped part of my personality. so,,,thanks for that.)

Ahh, dynamic comic panels. It's definitely a skill of its own. The way I like to think about it, comic panel layouts are similar to a translation of the camera movement in film and animation. In the same way a movie wouldn't be shot entirely in shot-reverse-shot camera-A-camera-B medium shots, a comic probably won't be entirely framed in equilateral uniform panels.

Comic panels have one weakness and one strength in contrast with camera shots: the weakness is that comics are static and can't actually move the camera to follow the action, but the strength is that comics are not bound to a specific aspect ratio like cameras are. If a camera wants a close-in shot on a character's reaction, it'll by necessity have a decent chunk of empty space on either side. If a camera wants an establishing shot of something really tall or big, it'll need to pan across it rather than capturing the whole thing in one shot. In comics, in contrast, we can do a close-in shot on a character's reaction that's narrow enough that they're basically the only thing in frame, and if we want to show a really tall thing we can just put it in a really tall panel.

Of course, the baseline mechanical consideration for panel construction is that panels of different sizes can frame things differently. If you want a wide, establishing shot of a location, you probably don't want to try and squeeze that into the same kind of half-width panel you'd use for basic dialogue.

Smaller panels can put focus on smaller details, while larger panels imply a pulling-back of focus. Every panel basically implies a single beat of time passing - the size, shape, and arrangement of that panel helps indicate exactly how much time and what rhythm it carries in the story overall. In this one, three short stacked panels imply a miniature montage of "what we're doing to get ready to go into the spooky cave."

Panels used for character conversation can be relatively small, only large enough to accommodate the speech bubbles and the relevant character's expression, but that can be played with too. If a character's saying a lot at once, you might want to put all that in a wide panel rather than having to space the dialogue across panels unnecessarily.

Wide panels are also good for showing more motion, or highlighting a character's position relative to their environment. Its visual equivalent in film would be a medium-shot, but it can fill a similar role as a film wide-shot, situating a character in their environment and allowing for more close-in shots later.

Wide panels that show a character in their environment are also good for showing how other characters are reacting to that character, so I often use them to follow smaller panels of close-shot dialogue - like cutting to a medium-shot to show the characters moving after a conversation.

I personally tend to be a lot more willing to play with panel width than panel height - tall panels are usually restricted to establishing shots or narrow reaction-shot inserts. This is because tall panels really eat into how much you can fit on any given page. In my early chapters, like the sentinel fight, I used a lot of very tall panels, and that meant the fight felt a lot slower.

I don't hate how it looks, but I could've arranged it more efficiently.

More funky panel arrangements can be used to split the difference - smaller insert panels over larger backgrounds can let you sort of get the best of both worlds, producing a large panel with the impact of a splash page while also allowing you to insert more standard character reactions and dialogue.

Tall panels are good for adding depth and a sense of scale, but wide panels flow more readily with the way we naturally read comics - in general, we read horizontally, not vertically.

You also can play around with panel arrangements to imply things about the mindset or state of a character. In this one, I used the narrowing panels and the reduced skew of the border to highlight a character falling unconscious.

And in this one, I used a rare case of identically-shaped panels to indicate a character slowly waking up. Since he wasn't yet aware of what his situation was, using identically-shaped panels helped communicate that he's feeling about the same across all three panels, despite the change in status quo.

Fight scenes make things more complicated, of course. A lot more is happening, which means I usually make the panels on average somewhat bigger to avoid losing detail. I often board dialogue-heavy pages with four lines of panels, but for fight scenes I almost always use three to allow for more verticality in each individual panel. I also tend to skew the top and bottom panel borders more, and might skew the side borders to more extreme angles, because this (a) produces an unbalancing effect that makes the scene feel more hectic, and (b) can draw the eye in helpful directions to follow the movement. In this scene, the top and bottom borders are skewed to narrow as they move to the right, which, combined with the middle border also skewing down and to the right, draws the eye to naturally follow that movement - we slide down from the first panel to the second, and then across to the third panel of the taller, wider reaction shot.

In this case, I skew the panels one way on the first line during the gradual push-in from a wide shot to a close-up, and then on the second line I skew the panel border the opposite way, because the vibe of the fight has very suddenly changed. It also draws the eye up and to the right to see the character’s initial moment of realization before we cut wider for their more dramatic reaction shot.

I don’t really have this down to a science or anything. I can explain in hindsight why I did a lot of these things, but during the storyboarding process when I’m laying it out I really mostly make these decisions based on ✨vibes✨. My general suggestion for getting a feel for it is, as always, play around with it and read a fuckton of comic books.

#asks #aurora #art stuff

[hexhomos]

I'm sorry if you've been asked this before but what are your thoughts about Arcane potentially being canon? I do not like it.

And if you don't mind answering another question, how do you feel about the way people sort of interpret Jayce and Viktor?

I don't think it's a good idea and it strips away many of the interesting things about these characters and the *universe's story as a whole* to exclusively represent the simplified, time-limited version of events that could fit the runtime of a TV show.

I've been asked this before and I always say this: Arcane is the MCU version of league lore; with the same strengths (improved visuals, the fast pacing of a cinematographic adaptation) and same biggest weaknesses (flimsy story summarizations that sacrifice a lot of the compelling narrative and kill entire characters)

I've been a comic fan for nearly as long as the MCU has been viral and I can tell you every attempt to retcon MCU events into the estabilished comic universe has not worked. It has the opposite effect of interrupting character arcs and stories people actually like and undoing pre-estabilished facts about the magic of the universe, driving away fans of the original medium while failing to attract the new movie/tv-show audience to check out the original, because those are completely different demographics.

It's even worse with Arcane, as we already KNOW one big joke in the fanbase is "even if you like the show, dont play the game. It's stupid bigoted redditor shit and it sucks" - there's an entire genre of arcane fan accounts who are militant about not playing the game and encourage others to never play the game. I don't think league's execs understand this, though, which is why we are seeing this current trend of a DRASTIC pullback in any and all lore-related content for league coming from higher-ups, and some of the old estabilished writers leaving the company while CEOs promise they're trying to find "an unified version of the narrative experience."

To stay on topic here and also answer your second question; ive rambled at length about jayce viktor interpretations in my meta tag. I reccomend you to look there! You'll notice i havent gone into specifics about what in arcane's narrative is weaker since its included on those.

I'd like to finish this post in another way though. In the long run, I don't think it matters that execs are trying to force narrative retcons despite the internal and external negative response to it. Fans will always like the specific thing they like, and in this scenario, start to define what versions of the universe/character they're talking about by release year or authorship, which is already happening in league. This is why the vikjayce codex exists and will not change, and this is why you see people using "2011/2016 lore" and "jayce giopara", etc.

Remember all these MCU retcons I mentioned? Whenever a movie is past its expiration date and the story element they tried to fit into original canon is considered a fad, it's just rewritten back to what it used to be. The newest marvel news this month is that CEOs decided to kill kamala khan ahead of her upcoming movie, as the MCU couldn't fit her signature elastigirl powers and they want to swap those out for the dumb purple magic the movies gave her instead. This will not last, as these never do. In 4 years she'll be back to normal, and in the meantime, elastigirl kamala will continue to exist in all her source books and videogames. The same way league's original bios are preserved and spin-off game content like the LOR comics or Convergence will continue to exist; I can't change any shortsighted decision from the CEOs, but fans as a whole have systems to define different universes and pick the version they like best.

Arcane has been called an AU by people who've worked in LoL's narrative, and is just the newest shiny thing. It is not "canon", as it never fit any part of the current game universe, and any future attempt to "make it canon" is just another permutation of an AU. I would encourage anyone who's nervous or anxious about retcons to not give a shit and disregard it altogether. If it doesn't work, you can always change it back.

#hextxt #meta tag

[stvlti]

Fic writer tag

@silenthillmutual tagged me in this challenge. Cheers! Here are my answers:

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Not counting orphaned / anonymous works, I have 48 fics across both accounts

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

168,810 (sum total of both accounts)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

DC comics & related media; Death Note; Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (way way back); Noragami (also way way back).

I used to write RPF too (I was a teenager, of course I did) but I've scrubbed all that from my ao3 profiles.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

top 5 fics not including anonymous ones:

Old aches become new again (DCU | Jason & Dick shenanigans, background Jay/Roy/Kori)

Imposter Syndrome (DCU | JayRoy)

Growing Pains (DCU × The Lego Batman Movie | Dick & Batdad gen fic)

if you can't summon your own tentacles, store-bought is fine (DCU | JayRoy)

the hands that worship you (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch | Colin/Stefan)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Always! It might take days weeks or months depending on what I have going on in my life but yeah :) unless it's a hate comment or bad faith criticisms. Oh and comments asking questions that I've already answered in the author's notes or in other comments or in the text itself (which yes, has happened before. I guess it was good for ""engagement "" but it's not stuff I want to explain again and again like a broken record. I'm not paid to do that - unlike at my day job.......)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

🤡 I've written my fair share of dark fics so it's definitely one of those ones. You can DM me if you wanna know but I am not telling on myself here

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Growing Pains, no contest, because it ends with trans acceptance 💚

But I also think happy endings at the end of a high stakes fic are even more rewarding? In which case it would have to be This Mirror Ain't Big Enough For the Two of Us

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have, once, on a genderbend fic. Some guy was outraged I made Jason a girl lol. But hate comments are few and far between for me because I'm not a bnf by any means

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

Yeah. I write a lot of pwps because they're easy. From there I either go into pwp with feelings territory, crack territory or, well, if it's a dark fic...........one of my longest nsfw fics is a Jason Todd/Scarecrow fic. You get the picture. (That one isn't without plot though.)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

Man. I actually once wrote a YouTube RPF x Death Note crossover. iykyk. But out of my surviving fics the only crossover that I still have posted online is a Death Note x DC fic.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've translated other people's fics, but I don't think I've had mine translated by others

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes but that's from before my ao3 days

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Rem x Misa (Death Note). I go through phases of shipping different pairings but Rem x Misa is the one that I can always come back to and write stuff for / look at art about.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My Teen Titans Dark Academia au. And on that note: I don't even know if I'll have the time to come back to writing long fics period. It's been 8 months since I last worked on my Jaime (Blue Beetle)/Eddie (Kid Devil)/Rose Wilson/Traci 13 road trip & interdimensional travel fic...........

16. What are your writing strengths?

My prose when I'm in the mood to write well. Poetry is my main medium these days so I'm very good at throwing in lots of one liners into my prose too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Trying to pace my story beats and juggle multiple subplots once my projects get into 10K+ / long fic territory.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

As long as the author actually knows what they're doing. The language has to be authentic and not Google Translate gibberish. And then for accessibility's sake they should include the translation either in-text or in the end notes.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

YouTube RPF 😑

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It's a tie between:

And the encore lasts forever (DCU x Titans TV | trans!Jason/Rose)

Exit Strategy (DCU | Rose Wilson character study)

Tagging @kiseiakhun @thenaphorism @shhhenanigans @smagata @reaperlight @mihaelkeehl or any mutuals who post fics!

#tag game #writing tag

[scalamore]

Ch 111 - Rupert realizing his feelings

To be honest, as much as I'm disappointed that the manhwa skipped over the part of Rupert's POV in chapter 110 where he realizes his feelings for her as [like], I think I have to agree with the decision of the manhwa team to omit it, simply because it would have interrupted the flow of such a dramatic, impactful, climatic scene. It's great to have all that background information, but is it really needed, when it's pretty obvious from the art and dialogue that he's loved her so much this time? I think this is just an example to show the limitations of a written novel medium, and one that is both written and with drawings in a comic medium. Both have their own strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately are best enjoyed together kinda thing.

In Ch 111, they included a summarized version of his feelings, with a culmination of "she stole my heart". But the manhwa version still doesn't understand that what he feels is 'love', just that she's someone utterly irreplaceable to him. In the novel version, more than half the content of his POV is him thinking about how he feels about Lari, realizing "she stole my heart", and he [likes] her, but that's it. He still needed her to tell him that he actually loves her, and in both manhwa and novel, she shuts him down after realizing it.

I guess to keep it from being R-15, they omitted the novel part where Rupert tells her that he wants to strip her, wants to kiss and sleep with her to prove his feelings for her are real. ^^; Btw I hope to provide the novel exerpts of those scenes soon so readers can understand what I'm talking about and make a judgement for yourself. But I'm of the opinion the best way to enjoy the series is with both the comic and the novel for max enjoyment :)

#your majesty please spare me this time #rupelali #manhwa #rofan #otome isekai

[linkspooky]

In your opinion what is the main difference between superhero comics and battle shonen manga? Not saying both are identical in every way, but I find interesting that when you think about it Battle Shonen is essentially Japan’s version of superhero comics, so what do you think is the main difference between the two?

Hello, this is a very interesting topic you've posed me, and I would say a lot of differences spring from the medium of storytelling that these stories come from.

Manga is written by at most one author and one artist, but usually author and artist in the same, published in one magazine on a weekly basis. Creatively, it comes from one or two people at the most, whereas superhero comics as a whole are a collaborative medium, the characters are owned by one company, are passed around by multiple authors and an editing staff that tries to manage the takes of multiple authors into one shared universe.

Before I begin I think people tend to dismiss one medium of storytelling over the other, without realizing there are strengths and weaknesses to both storytelling formats. For example, there are people who are like "Comic book continuity is super confusing and impossible, manga is so much better because it's straightforward" but like without reading a single comic.

Which is silly, because comic book continuity isn't that hard to untangle unless you are an insane completionist, you can usually just pick a series, or an author's run on a series for a more famous comic or a story arc and read from there. At no point is the comic going to quiz you like "You won't understand what's going on here unless you've read batman's #156 from 1955. I mean comics is good because as a collaboraitve medium, authors tend to build on each other's work, but for the most part when an author is handed the series a good author will try to make their work stand on its own.

There are also people who will be like "Shonen manga is worthless and immature, and every single shonen manga ever punished is just a battler about FIGHTS and battle shonen manga are just FIGHTING with no THEMES."

Anyway, the point I am making is it's reductive when talking about these mediums comics/shoen as a whole and dismiss them for their perceived flaws without really looking at them as storytelling formats that have strengths and weaknesses.

One of the strengths of comic books is that as a collaborative medium, there is always a wealth of material you can draw from. I think this is something that shonen manga, and in particular superhero shonen manga fails to do. Because it is from multiple authors over the course of years, a lot of material has been built up for the many, many characters in a comic book's library.

Comic books tend to do ensemble casts well, because they can rely on the characters having appearances in other material outside of their book and therefore because they are working with characters who have pre-developed personalities that everyone reading the book probably already knows about, they can better share screentime amongst those characters because they don't have to waste time establishing them. It's sort of like how in fan fiction, the fan fiction author doesn't really need to introduce whatever characters or world they are writing in... because whosever is reading has probably read the main source material. You've read it here, comic books are basically just fan fiction.

In comparison you have these very large shonen casts that are done by one author, instead of a collaboration by many different authors, and they are all fighting to share screentime within the same story. Here's a quick example for comparison here is a shot of what is essentially the main cast of MHA.

And here is a shot of the main cast of X-Men Evolution. Which is a cartoon adaptation of the X-Men comics.

They are both ensemble casts of characters in an academy setting meant to train up these children as superheroes while also preparing them for conflicts in the world outside their school. However, I can name every single character: Beast, Kitty Pryde, Storm, Nightcrawler, Jean Gray, Scott, Wolverine, Rogue, Quill, Professor X. You could not pay me to name every hero kid in that picture above. I don't think the problem is that MHA is necessarily bad at character writing, but rather it's not using its storytelling format to tell its story well.

Number one, X-Men Evolution is an adaptation of the X-men comics, so they have a huge comic library to draw on, and also people kind of already know who Cyclops, Jean Gray, Wolverine and Professor X are. The showmakers are working with characters that have lots of material to draw from, and so the focus is more on highlighting these characters and making them work together in a cast because they don't really need that extreme individual focus. Whereas, there is only one author making the MHA characters, there are about a hundred of them and they need to split screentime all in one manga, and Hori's focus is not on the interactions of the whole cast but rather individual character arcs for a select few of the more important kids.

The thing is you can't tell a superhero story with one author, the same as the many authors working together in the DCU. You just can't. And yet, manga imitating superhero comics will just create casts stuffed with superhero characters who are just a name, and a superpower and that's it. This is a problem for both One Punch Man, and My Hero Academia which are the two biggest hero manga I can think of (Tiger and Bunny actually does its character development well if you want a more positive example, because the cast is very limited) rather than trying to adjust for the medium and tell a more focused story they just invent loads and loads of characters to imitate the sheer volume of characters that exist in western comics.

But the thing is if I'm reading Teen Titans and I think that Beast Boy is a really interesting character, I can look up other comics that Beast Boy is in that give him more screentime and eventually find out his origin as a doom patrol character.

The strength of battle shonen then is this singular focus they have in their narratives. Everyone says continuity is easier, but on top of that a series created by one author is always going to have a clearer vision of what it wants to tell than stuff that is bouncing in between multiple authors and an editing staff.

I think a lot of battle shonen tend to fail to take advantage of that ability they do have, to hone in and focus on their narrative because they're not really thinking of how to use the tools of their medium effectively. Good shonen and good works of literature in general tend to be... concise. Comics with their long sprawling continuities and huge open worlds are not concise, but with a manga you have a chance to tell a direct and hard hitting story by choosing how and where to focus. Jujustu Kaisen I think is a story that uses its assets for storytelling much better than MHA, because instead of having a lot of excess fat like way too many characters who hog screentime but are never going to get develoment, Akutami Gege at least seems to have an idea of what he wants to use these characters for and the way he gets those points across tends to be hard hitting. He's clear, concise, and precise, no messy bits, no flab.

I think another thing shonen manga have over western comics in general is better worldbuilding. Dc for example is interesting because of how wide and varied the world is, but everyone knows the rules and logic in comic books don't make sense. It's very inconsistent in general. As someone who's read like every single Zatanna comic and like a thousand john Constantine ones the magic in DC makes no sense, it's basically whatever the author at the time feels like the rules should be.

You could say that worldbuilding isn't really necessary for a story. That a story can function without it. You could also say characters aren't necessary for a story. You can say words aren't necessary for a story. Maybe, the real story all along was just a blank sheet of paper. I think worldbuilding like everything else, if you decide to build a world for your story, and then just half-ass it, it's noticeable.

Which is why I bring up Jujutsu Kaisen again as a well told shonen story, the rules for how the world operates, and the details for both the super power system and the various parties in control of the world jujutsu high, where curses come from, why only certain characters can use jujutsu techniques are all clearly established. In fact, Gege devotes a non-insignificant amount of time to trying to explain the rules of individual cursed technique so that they make sense to the audience. Because it is just one author making the rules for these worlds, we have a very clear and non-contradictory idea for how the world operates.

However, and this is probably going to surprise everyone I think what comics does a lot better than shonen manga ever will is character development. I have heard a lot of people's belief that comic book characters stay stagnant forever, and do not go through arcs because as they are marketable characters they're not allowed to change that much from their original blueprint. This is wildly incorrect. If you've ever read a comic it's like a soap opera. Things happen in comics, in fact, there are so many things happening it is often hard to keep track of.

There is a clear character progression in good comics, for instance in DC the sidekicks of the heroes grow up eventually and we have been through many generations of younger heroes growing up. The first Robin is now nightwing, the second one Red Hood, the mantle passes on and the young kids grow up out of their identities and into new ones.

I think characters in shonen manga tend to remain stagnant, and that has less to do with the authors ability to write characters and more just how the manga itself is sold and marketed. Basically, most manga especially the ones in shonen jump have to keep up a regular audience from week to week and mangas that aren't like gangbusters popular are often in danger of getting cancelled. The thing is with DC, yes authors and new series often get cancelled earlier but the characters will still be there. If NIghtwing's solo series ends, he will still exist in the grander DC universe until someone decides to pick him up again. Whereas, if MHA were to end tomorrow we would get like a really rushed three chapter ending and epilogue and that would be it. So, existing with this permanent threat of cancellation every week I think alot of manga tend to play it safe or write chapters in a way that will always keep readers waiting for next week.

So, a lot of manga end up being written with like the promise of character development that is coming eventually once they have gotten these characters established and marketable, but for the most part we don't see a lot of progression towards them because these stories are being told week to week in a very compettitive environment where if a decision on the authors part causes the numbers to fall then they won't even get the chance to tell their story. So like, comics are insane, near constant drama, things are always happening whereas after shonen manga estalbish a certain status quo a lot of them coast. Which I think is once again, not having to do with the individual quality of the writers, but instead writers for manga failing to adapt to tell stories that suit this medium well, like stories with smaller casts, and a greater sense of focus and purpose for what the author wants.

Battle shonens have much stronger fight scene choreography though. I mean, this only matters to me, but like every comic book fight is just the characters posing in dramatic positions while they use their powers. There are very few extended fight scenes in comic book like there are for shonen manga. "The fights are cool" sounds like a meathead opinion but listen, if I am here to see dudes with super powers fighting and the superpowers aren't interesting and the fight is not compelling to watch then that's an element of a story that's not working properly. Once again to use Jujutsu Kaisen as a positive example, it has thrilling and tense fight scenes with realistic choreography that makes these fight scenes compelling for the viewer instead of just a chore to watch. Once again this is where I'm talking about using the singular focus of the meidum well, comic book fightscenes are often confusing because they have to draw in like five hundred characters at once in huge splash pages. Shonen manga are more focused, so you can devote time to a long drawn out fight between say Yuji and Mahito and make the readers feel the ups and downs of that particular fight, make it matter to the story.

And that's what it comes down to, tropes and conventions within a genre are just tools. They are completely neutral tools to be used effectively and used poorly. If you see a piece of genre fiction that is bad, that doesn't speak to the quality of all the fiction in tha genre, but rather how the author has failed to use the troops and the tools fo their medium to tell an effective story.

#askspookies #i have a huge bias for western comics #forgive me #but i think its clear i also like manga #i only talk about it on this blog 99% of the time

[gilbirda]

20 questions for writers, tagged by @gremlin-bot

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

83!!! But a lot are crossposted from FFN, and not ALL of my FFN stuff is there.

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

753,449

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment dpxdc, but I have projects for DP in progress. I have some really old Inuyasha stuff, and Twilight, and a Gravity Falls fic that I def will continue? but mostly dpxdc :D

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Clown around and find out (Kudos: 8,524)

Mondays, am I right? (Kudos: 8,080)

Employee of the month (Kudos: 7,865)

Can't have shit in Gotham (Kudos: 7,343)

How to confuse a Bat (Kudos: 6,749)

Unsurprising xd

5. Do you respond to comments? why/why not?

I usually do the week when I post a fic, but i stop after that period of time. I don't respond mostly because I dont know what to say... I love each and every comment!!! I just get nervous.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmmm, I'd say What could have been. It's a DP fic from Phic Phight 2022 and the prompts I used weren't necessarily angst material, but I tied them together in a story meant to leave you empty.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I don't do "happy" endings? I think I do "realistic" endings - main quest is conquered but we lost and gained things in the way.

I do write a lot of fluff and unapologetic one shots, so I would consider all of those "happy" endings.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes.

Fortunately is not a normal event in my fics, but now that I have dipped my toes in comic book fanfiction I've gotten my fair share of purists and know-it-alls that come to my comments to educate me on what it's "canon" and explain to me how my interpretation is wrong.

That aside, I'm not afraid to portray "problematic" ships and delicate situations ,mainly mental health stuff. I'm not the first or the last person that pour themselves in their writing and use fictional characters as a medium to work on some personal things. Of course that's gotten me enough comments telling me how disgusting I am and how I'm writing XYZ wrong.

9. Do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Yes. I don't have a lot posted, but I have WIPs.

Mostly BDSM and how important it is to trust your partner.

10. Do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one?

Mostly DPxDC!

I did have an insane crossover between Twilight and a book not a lot of people know. TBH im keeping that information to myself xd.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes.

There's a russian website that reposts fics.

And also people reposting my stuff in wattpad with a "credits to the author [name]" but they never asked me for permission.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! To Russian!!!! Made me so happy ヾ(≧▽≦*)o

13. have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! I'm co-writing a fic with some close friends and my girlfriend. And another fic with just my girlfriend, but I'm so slow with it lmao

14. what's your all-time fave ship?

I'm a multishipper but usually I have 1 OTP that im Very Normal about in every fandom and then I'm just okay with everything else.

Some examples are:

KogKag, SessKag (Inuyasha)

Hardcover (JazzxJason)(DPxDC)

PrussiaxHungary (Hetalia)

Mabill (Gravity Falls)

HikaHaruKao (Ouran HSHC)

Deckerstar (Lucifer TV)

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

I don't want to jinx myself.

But probably the DP longfic. It's just. So long.

16. what are your writing strengths?

I've been told that my characters feel very real and that I write dynamics in a very organic way. In romance, I think I'm very good at portraying falling in love.

In general I've also been told I describe things in a way you can feel it, like you really are there.

17. writing weaknesses?

English is not my native language and I make a lot of mistakes, grammar wise. Or I let my weird miss matched speech patterns bleed into my characters and make them sound not quite right.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

Again, I'm native Spanish speaker, so I do write in English regularly xd

Other languages, I'd need someone that speaks that language to help me.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

Inuyasha. I was about 11 years old. Those fics were written in Microsoft Word 2003, in script format (aka "theater" format), and every character had an assigned color and I would switch colors every dialogue line.

20. fave fic you've ever written?

Difficult to choose.

I love a lot of my fics, even older ones.

If I have to pick just one, I'm picking Friendly neighborhood vigilante

Tagging!

Not feeling like tagging today, and grem kinda stole the people I was thinking I could tag.

So, if anyone wants to do this, go ahead!

#tag game

[blackbutlerfandomnerddomain]

Zora Midyoria:

Full name: Zora Toshi Midyoria

Pronunciation: zO-rah TOW-SHiy mid-or-ia

Meaning of Name: Zora means "sky" or "dawn" while Toshi means "talented"

Hero/Villain Name: Empty Sky

Nicknames: Toshi, Ra-Ra, Sky

History of Nicknames: All from close fiends and friends who simply gave him the nicknames

Aliases: None

Nationality: Japanese

Quirk: Gravity Poll - It's like a mix of his mother's Quirk and his grandmother's Quirk though he can use telepathy to bring stuff to him, but he can also make someone limbs or body grow heavier or lighter when controlling their magnetic poll after touching them.

Birthday and Astrology Sign: November 4th, 21XX, Scorpio

Age: 15

How old do they look: 13-14

Gender: Male (he/him)

Orientation/Sexuality Preference: Gay

Birth date: November 4th 21XX

Birth place: Musutafu, Japan

Appearance: Eye color: Dark brown

Eye shape: Round

Do they wear contacts or glasses?: Used to have glasses when he was a child but grew out the need to Hair: Curly dark green hair

Height: 5'3

Weight: 89 lbs

Body build: Lean yet semi built

Body shape: A small rectangle

Complexion: Beige

Blood Type: B

Handedness: Right-handed

Hand type: Delicate

Nails: Short and clean

Movement: Slightly slouched but head held up high

How do they walk: A bit fast walking with his arms to his side

Posture: Slightly slouched in the back but his head held high more aiming in his head

Flexibility: Pretty decent

Speech Mannerisms: Calm but does have a issue with a stutter and saying "um" when nervous

Scars: None

Birthmarks: One medium-sized pink scar on the lower slightly off centered to the right smudge on his back that some people who've seen it say it looks like a cloud

Piercings: One ear piercing on his left ear

Tattoos: None

General face structure:  Looks a lot like his father which both knew well

Defining physical traits: His birthmark, his freckles, and the small pink dots on his finger tips

Clothing: Uniform: He wears the typical UA uniform with bright pink-purple sneakers

Casual outfit: A black band tee and washed blue jeans

Preferred outfit: Same above

Hero/Villain costume: A dark green body suit with black and white patterns and some white and black harnesses on his legs, arms, and chest and torso, a white mouth mask and black boots

Equipment / Support Items: Like father-like-son he has simple equipment to help him move easier and not caused too much harm like leg and torso support

Characteristics:

Personality: He's very much like his father, timid and sweet but very loyal to the bone.

Big Five personality traits: Loyal, "geeky", sweet, brave, honest

Most prominent personality trait: Loyal

Best traits: Loyal, smart, nice, sweet, honest

Worst traits: Can't really say no openly and suffer as a doormat but is growing

Likes: Comics, Star Wars, lab days, his family and friends, Tsuki Bakugo Dislikes: Being put on the spot, when someone attempts to try and be rude or creepy to his sister, when his things go missing

Quirks:  (not the superpower but little silly things they do) He chews on his pencils. He did it with pens too for a while until it broke and he had to rush to the hospital in fear of ink poison Fear: Not being good enough, needles

Hobbies: Researching, jogging, cooking

Skills/Talents: He's very good at cooking Strengths: He can run pretty fast and has some pretty fast movements in fighting Weaknesses: His sister, his notebook

Reason to keep on living: His family

What is their self-image like: Pretty low on self-esteem

Coping mechanisms: Vanilla scented candles or lavender scented oils, his dad's old hoodie

Favorite things: Sunflowers, amusement parks, astrology

Health:

Physical: Pretty decent

Mental: Low self-esteem

Emotional Stability: Low self-esteem, truama

If faced with crisis, what is their go-to: Fight

Nutrition: Pretty healthy

Habits: Twirling marbles between his fingers

History, Background, and Future:

0-4: He was born at the Fall from No.1 Pro-Hero Deku and his wife Pro-Hero Uravity and has living very happy and calm as any other child would with his sister being born a year later

5-8: At five his "step-mom" and sister's mama Himiko Toga was released from her "hospital stay" and gets happily taken cared by her. By age 7 he starts worrying about how his classmates got their Quirks but not him and even suffered a breakdown after a doctor said there's a chance he'd be Quirkless

9-11: He still hasn't fully gotten his Quirk but has felt something different about himself over time, doing research on Quirks much like his dad did, dreaming of going to UA too. When he was 11 years old he made these "friends" who belittled and picked on him for grades and their enjoyment of seeing him upset and was too scared to speak up on any of this to his family or teachers.

12-14: At 12 one of his bullies/"friends" confessed he found his sister attractive and was demanding he introduced him. He said no since that's a line he draws and proceed to get beaten up and heavily bullied for three days straight until he used his Quirk to scare them away from his sister when she went to help after accidentally seeing one of the beatings. He proceed to finish his middle school years online and suffered with trauma of the incident

15-Present: With all his hard worked and good words of teachers about his grade he got in to UA without a issue, made friends pretty face with childhood faces or understanding

Did they like their upbringing: Yes

How has their upbringing shape them: Pretty open minded though has slight issues

What did they enjoy most about their childhood?: The amusement park visits with his family

What did they hate most about their childhood?: The middle school years and anxiety that he'll never have a Quirk

Current Dream: Make her family proud, become a hero of any form

Long-term goals for Future: Become a hero and get married

Home: Lives in a two story home near campus though he sometimes stay at the dorms half the week when he's not at home

Home Life as a Kid: Supportive and full of love

Home Life Now: Supportive and full of love

Quick Family background: Any Friends: Kohaku Usagiyama, Rose Takami, Mitsuri Ashido-Sero, Tsuki Bakugo, Hoshiko Bakugo, Arashi Jiro-Yaoyorozu, Chiharu Jiro-Yaoyorozu, Hachi Kaminari, Gou Iida, Sakura Todoroki Any Family: Izuku Midoriya (father), Ochako Uraraka (mother) Himiko Toga (step-mother) Yuzuriha Midoriya (sister)

Full name: Yuzuriha Nori Midoriya

Pronunciation: You-zu-ri-HA No-Ri mid-or-ia

Meaning of Name: Yuzuriha means "to be humble" and "leaf" while Nori means "peaceful"

Hero/Villain Name: Heroine Peace

Nicknames: Yuzu, Yu-Chan, Nori

History of Nicknames: Yuzu and Yu-Chan were given by Zora when they were very little

Nationality: Japanese

Quirk: Free and Borrow: With Free it's like Uravity's Quirk where she can make herself and others she touch with all her fingers float in a certain distance, but with Borrow if she touches someone using their Quirk she can use said Quirk instead for a certain amount of time give or take how powerful it is, a much more tame version of her mother's Himiko Toga's Quirk. Down side if she lifts things too heavy with Free or having too much Quirks using Borrow

Birthday and Astrology Sign: May 5th 21XX, Taurus

Age: 14

How old do they look:13-14

Gender: Female (she/her)

Orientation/Sexuality Preference: Bi-Sexual

Birth date: May 5th

Birth place: Musutafu, Japan

Appearance: Eye color: Yellow

Eye shape: Narrow around

Do they wear contacts or glasses?: No Hair: Brown and short with two streaks of color, one blonde (left) and the other green (right)

Height: 5'2

Weight: 89 lbs

Body build: Slim and muscular

Body shape: Hourglass-fit

Complexion: Beige

Cup size: A-B Cup

Blood Type: A

Handedness: Both hands

Hand type: Small and gentle

Nails: Short and always painted

Movement: Pretty strong and dense jointed but calm

How do they walk: Fast walking and sometimes has her arms swing

Posture: Straight and as some say "intimidating"

Flexibility: Pretty flexible

Speech Mannerisms: Has a tough tongue

Scars: None

Birthmarks: None

Piercings: Three piecing on her left ear and four on her right ear

Tattoos: None

General face structure: Is told to look a lot like her father but with certain traights perfect of her mothers, is told to be very pretty

Defining physical traits: Her eyes and the two streaks of color in her hair Clothing: Uniform: Wears the UA girl uniform

Casual outfit: A pink purple tee-shirt with a black jean skirt with grey leggings

Preferred outfit: NA

Hero/Villain costume: A white turtle neck body suit that cuts her sleeves, leaving her arms bare, a black shirt tailed skin tight black jacket that reaches her hands in finger holes that is held in four silver buttons, black gloves with transparent white bubble dots on her finger tip's inside, a green harness on her torso and silver leg support harnesses, a green and white mask that covers her eyes with pink eye goggles over, and a green mouth mask that resembles a bubble over her mouth

Equipment / Support Items: She has leg supprot

Characteristics:

Personality: Very loyal and distance as well as kind and considerate, curious, geeky, tough, and has a sharp tongue

Big Five personality traits: Tough, loyal, curious, sweet, doesn't take shit from anyone

Most prominent personality trait: Strong

Best traits: Loyal, smart, kind, brave

Worst traits: Hot-headed, too tough, distance

Likes: Very spicy wings, her mama's cooking, spa trips, the amusement park, training, her friends, her family, her "uncle Kaachan", her "uncle Shiggy" Dislikes: Any old papers of her mama or her "uncle Shiggy", losing over cheating or something small

Quirks:  (not the superpower but little silly things they do) She gently pulls the longer parts of her bands when she's angry and needs to calm down before she blows up Fear: Being left behind, accused of being evil or mean

Hobbies: Training, singing, writing

Skills/Talents: Singing, writing Strengths: She's a good runner without Borrowing a Quirk, despite her "distance" nature she's able to have a lot on her side Weaknesses: Zora, her moms and dad, when she uses either Quirk too much

Reason to keep on living: Her family

What is their self-image like: She doesn't care what others say much but does get bugged when someone "jokes" she could be a villain

Coping mechanisms: Her stuffed animal or spending time with her family

Favorite things: Manga, video games, red peony, volcanoes

Health:

Physical: Pretty healthy

Mental: Decent, maybe

Emotional Stability: A bit bellow average

If faced with crisis, what is their go-to: Fights

Nutrition: Pretty healthy though she forgets to eat sometimes

Habits: She MUST eat along side or in distance of her family members, she always wants to join Zora's teams or projects as she "protects" him a lot, she hides her manga collection

Family History: She adores the grandparents she have

History, Background, and Future:

0-4: Yuzuriha was born a year after Zora using a special science practice Himiko and Izuku agreed on where they take Himiko's egg and Izuku's sperm and Ochaco will carry the baby full term, something happened which resulted some psychical and Quirk DNA mixed with her code. She was always a very happy and bubbly girl who loves and adores her family

5-8: She grew very attached to "Uncle Shiggy" and "Uncle Kaachan" over the course of her being in kindergarten and elementary school as they help her work out and feed her geeky interests She got her Quirk during one summer when she was about to turn nine.

9-11: She slowly began to notice things different with Zora over the course of being one grade behind him and would often try and cheer him up not knowing what else to do, during this time she was told by a mean classmate about the crimes of her "Uncle Shiggy" and Himiko Toga with said classmate not knowing she's her mom.

12-14: She finally gets informed of her brother's bullying and starting training her Quirks strong until she was warned by her entire family that she'll pass out and get so sick in a coma if she over does it. Since then she vowed to protect Zora and her family no matter what, and if that means being a hero than so be it

15-Present: She practiced both Free and Borrow easy over the year of breaks as she also got her grades up a lot with many research until she gets accepted to UA along side Zora, working hard to get in the same class as him even!

Did they like their upbringing: She's happy with it

How has their upbringing shape them: Loyal and protective

What did they enjoy most about their childhood?: All the summers with her family happy together free from the world's bad stuff and mean eyes and words of strangers

What did they hate most about their childhood?: The bullies of her 4th year of elementary and Zora's bullies

Current Dream: Work hard and become a pro-hero to protect Zora and her family

Long-term goals for Future: Become a pro-hero and protect her family, if she gets married and have kids than sure

Home: She lives in the dorms half the week and at a two story home near campus with her family

Home Life as a Kid: Full of love and care and supportive

Home Life Currently: Supportive and full of love and care

Any Friends: Kohaku Usagiyama, Rose Takami, Mitsuri Ashido-Sero, Tsuki Bakugo, Hoshiko Bakugo, Arashi Jiro-Yaoyorozu, Chiharu Jiro-Yaoyorozu, Hachi Kaminari, Gou Iida, Sakura Todoroki Any Family: Izuku Midoriya (father), Ochako Uraraka (mother) Himiko Toga (mother) Zora Midoriya (brother)

#my hero academia #mha oc #mha next gen

[arwainian]

My Reading This Week

This week I 'read less than I would have liked' (honestly i still read a good chunk) as in. I was super busy writing a paper I'm super proud of for school, so I didn't have time to read a bunch. Also as you shall see, i struggled to find something to read in the first place

Abandoned:

Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

The Bachelor's Valet by Arden Powell

both of these I've been meaning to read for a while. unfortunately i just did not connect with/like the POV character and they weren't interesting enough to me to push through despite. you'll remember me saying I started Dead Dead Girls last week and that if i didn't hook me by 25% I'd drop it. well I got to 30% and it still wasn't right for me so i moved on.

bachelor's valet i didn't even give to 25%, i gave it two chapters, and the pov character was too much of a privileged child of a man for me to tolerate watching his valet be stoically in love with him. onward and upward to better reads

Started and Finished:

"Anything That Can't Go On Forever Will Eventually Stop: Ticketmaster and Ideas Lying Around" by Cory Doctorow on Medium

congrats to this thing being the first like, article/essay not read for school that I have recorded here! again. reading log, rather than book log. Honestly, because I want to record articles I read, I'm gonna try and make a habit of clicking through and reading articles I see quoted and passed around on tumblr and this was one of these

Chapter 8 of the void, through your body by zerodignity on ao3

(i think ao3 fics, or anything else published that i read in a serialized manner, shall be logged by chapter) I've been really loving this fic, and I actually read the second half out loud to myself bc I was really feeling my voice at the time

The Bride Was a Boy by Chii, translated by Beni Axia Conrad

Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition by Julia Kaye

My Life in Transition: A Super Late Bloomer Collection by Julia Kaye

the three above are collected volumes of shorts comics written and drawn by trans women about their transition journeys! The Bride Was a Boy is from a woman in Japan and it's mostly about her love story with her husband, and what the law surrounding trans people in Japan is which was cool to read, and the story is so sweet

Julia Kaye's super late bloomer stuff is more slice of life-y with each comic being a vignette from a single day, which cover a huge swath of her experiences over a long period of time, and is a really cool read

Against Queer Presentism | How the Book World Neglects the Archive by Colton Valentine

another article/essay! reading this has put like... 20 books on my tbr, bc i made a list of all of the historical writers mentioned and all of the scholars preserving their work and writing about them, so that I could come back to them. if you're interested in queer history and queer art from the past, check this out

Started and Ongoing:

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

honestly this and all the comics mentioned above i read in like the past 2 days bc I was sad I hadn't read more, and wanted to read something quick and easy. however Bechdel is not a quick and easy cartoonist. I'm gonna take my time going through this bc again, i've been meaning to read this for a while

Things skimmed after reading thoroughly a while ago so I can properly cite them in the 20 page essay I'm writing (yes I'm going to keep bragging about that)[yes this counts as reading this weak goddammit]:

"Blurring the Lines: Reinforcing Rape Myths in Comic Books" by Tammy S. Garland, Kathryn A. Branch, and Mackenzie Grimes

"Performing the Female Superhero: an Analysis of Identity Acquisition, Violence, and Hypersexuality in DC Comics" by Matthew Nicosia

various issues of The New Teen Titans, Tales of the Teen Titans, and The New Titans in order to collect images for the appendix, and to double check my recollection of events

#arwainian princessoid decrees #bookblr #cal reading log #cal reads comics

[clairaworlds]

Every single medium has its pros and cons, when creating something it's so important to take medium into account. Every time something is shifted from one form to another something is lost. A book has a diffrent impact than a comic is different from live action is diffrent than animated is diffrent than music is diffrent than video games and so on and so forth forever. I've heard claims that one style is more immersive than another but that's just not true. I've never been more immersed in anything then when I was reading house of leaves. It plays to the strengths of its medium its a physical book, you need to interact with it physically. It's like reading Junji ito, part of the storytelling is the act of turning the page. You cannot get that heart racing feeling of turning a page from a movie. You can, however, physically see things, and you can make an amazing sense of reality by showing little things by moving the camera angle, by doing so meny little things. It's why cronenberg films are so good they play to their medium. It's also condensed, you have a short amount of time to tell the story so you have to make it all fit, and sometimes you don't get the downtime you'd get in other styles. In a TV show you have more time, and you can flesh out charecters more, add down time, but this too has limitations. Animation allows for more fluidity than live action, live action can be more real bc it's real people. Video games can get the player involved in a way that's very difficult for other mediums. Music and poetry are their own thing and stories that are created there are always impressive to me. A single image can tell you so much.

Everything, EVERYTHING has strengths and weaknesses. Understanding what those are is so important. It's why a good adaptation is often hard to make, you cannot just translate the events from one thing to another. Something is always lost, unless you play to your mediums strengths.

#rant post #seriously go read house of leaves #if uh... you're into that sort of thing

[dhampiravidi]

MCU/marvel comics - Oraia

template inspired by this one!

---- BASIC INFO Full Name: Oraia Levantinis

Alias(es): several throughout history; the Grey Queen

DOB: May 9, 3521 BCE in the Nile Delta (5544 yrs as of 2023)

Sex: Female

Gender: like most of her father's people (the Olympians), Oraia doesn't view gender the same way humans do because she can shapeshift. They are what we would consider agender in that they do not think about their own gender, but their personal pronouns are taken from their biological sex/the form they typically return to when they have no need for a disguise. So Oraia’s male form is basically her trying to make her sexual partners comfortable–if they don’t mind, she can also give herself traditionally male genitalia while maintaining her usual physical appearance elsewhere.

Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Pansexual & Panromantic

Species: Theos (Hellenic Pantheon)/Netjer (Kemetic Pantheon)

Occupation: several throughout history; currently a socialite/art dealer (exorcist/medium for private clients); Grey Queen of the Hellfire Club

---- Physical Appearance (FC: Hannah John-Kamen)

Oraia appears as a typical female in her thirties, standing at approximately 5'5" (1.65 m) with a toned physique and tanned light brown skin. Her dark brown hair is naturally tousled with bouncy, tight waves. As the decades pass, she tries different hairstyles, but she tends to wear her hair loose with just a couple of strands sectioned off. Her eyes are a literal sea green, the exact same color of the Levantine Sea she was born in. Nowadays, she tends to dress in the bohemian chic style, wearing short, lacy tops and high-waisted pants with open blazers, or plain-yet-modern breezy dresses. The only makeup she wears is eyeliner and subtle lipstick. When she shapeshifts into a male form (FC: Daryl Mccormack), Oraia retains her biological features for the most part--she simply adapts them to a traditionally male figure.

---- Personality

For the first few centuries of her life, Oraia was a quiet, obedient girl with a big heart. She did exactly as her father and her stepmother asked, because in her mind, they'd earned her love. Later, when she spent much of her time alone on the island Polyaigos, she began to lose her childlike innocence. The sea nymphs taught her about the Olympians and the humans, explaining that both could be dangerous and cruel, but the humans tended to be more silly and intriguing. This implanted a curiosity for human culture and a fear of the Olympians within Oraia at a fairly young age. She also became more jaded, not to mention despondent when she failed to rescue sailors caught in sea storms. This led her to become a hedonist with a terrible temper and a strong independent streak, who decided to wander the world alone, on her own terms. By the present day, though, her heart somewhat healed. Overall, Oraia is a compassionate, loyal, and positive person. She has a special place in her heart for those who were forced to leave their homes, whether it was because of their sexuality, mutant/X-gene, shitty parents, etc. Few things make her angry–but if you do make her angry, she’ll quickly resolve the issue, then go back to drinking or partying or whatever it was she was doing moments ago.

---- ABILITIES

Powers

Godly Physiology: superhuman physiology with godly levels of longevity, invulnerability, strength, stamina, et cetera.

Hydrokinesis: includes vapor, ice, and bodily fluid manipulation.

Atmokinesis: calming or creating storms (with great effort).

Shapeshifting: into her parents’ sacred animals or other humans.

Aquatic & Equine Communication: (even without shapeshifting).

Portal Creation: enabled by her connection to the Duat (the Kemetic underworld/afterlife) through her mother.

Mediumship: summoning/banishing/exorcising spirits.

Advanced Recall: can recall past memories through meditation.

Supernatural Detection: sense/classify supernaturals.

Weaknesses

At one point in her life (a few centuries ago), Oraia had a horrible temper. This led her to fight many in public, without care for her identity being discovered. Those cleverer than her could also defeat her in a fight by virtue of being more clear-headed. Attacks from divine weapons (Mjolnir, Zeus's lightning, Hela's spikes), strong telepathic creatures (Jean Grey, Professor Xavier, Psylocke), and/or skilled magic users (Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, comics!Loki) can significantly incapacitate and harm her. She can tell where a supernatural being is and sense how strong it is, but she won't know what kind of being it is until she gets more info. The uncertainty makes her increasingly anxious when it's a powerful being, as she avoids the Hellenic gods even as an adult. Lastly, like Hellenic gods, she occasionally imbibes nectar and ambrosia for the same reason that humans take in water and food.

---- Skills

Swordsmanship: was trained by Artemis to use a knife and sword. Oraia uses a magic knife given by her mother (Nebet-Het aka Nephthys) that can kill most beings, including demons and things that render themselves otherwise intangible

Advanced First Aid: between her stint as a war nurse in WWI and her having to patch up supernatural friends in bad circumstances, Oraia knows how to treat serious injuries (though she cannot do surgery)

Persuasion: wandering around looking for shelter, plus the times she'd started various businesses has forced her to learn how to make deals. Oraia's not above using her sexuality, money, or words to get what she needs if it's for a good/important cause.

Art History: through her reading and travels, she's learned a lot about different cultures, enough to pass as one of the top art dealers in the world.

---- BACKGROUND

Oraia's mother came from a pantheon that frowned heavily upon extramarital affairs, so once her daughter was born, the goddess gave her to Poseidon, the man she'd lain with. The girl of the sea and the dark was so happy at first. She had lots of half-siblings, and all the fish, sea nymphs, and whales were nice to talk to. But after a few centuries, her stepmother couldn't bear to look at her anymore, because she would always be someone else's. Poseidon took Oraia to an island, and told her that he was trusting her with the most important job he'd ever given to one of his children. She was to calm the storms that endangered sailors. He said it was a noble thing to do, so she was proud to work as hard as she did. Again, time made the truth come to light--after what seemed like forever, she realized she hadn't seen her dad in a very long time. She couldn't look for him, because then no one would be protecting the sailors. So she stayed on her island, with just the sea nymphs for company. They taught her lots of things, including what gods were like, and how they tended to treat everyone else. After meeting Artemis, who told Oraia all about men and independence and the amazing sights inland...Oraia left. She traveled all around, out of both defiance and curiosity. By the 1700s, she had experienced a lot, and her anger led her to kill as much as it did to save. By the modern era, she calmed down enough to realize that you are only free once you let go of what's kept you weak. So she dances, fucks, and travels as much as she wants. She helps people, because there's always someone deserving. And she tells herself that one day, she'll have some kids with someone who won't abandon them or her.

#oraia: headcanon #marvel oc #mcu oc

[joesanimationblog]

Academic Blog Post #8

Transmedia and Bionicle

When I was growing up in the early 2000s I remember seeing the first run of Bionicle being advertised on television, they were known as the Toa. See the video below...

Lego was very popular at the time but the Toa were a craze, it seemed like everyone was interested, but what is it about these toys that captured our imaginations?

Transmedia is where different forms of media converge to tell one story, and I think this is why Bionicles was so successful. Bionicle Lore was spread across a range of different mediums and this information was released slowly to keep a sense of discovery to each new release. As seen in the advert the Toa were first, they were clunky looking but able to capture the imagination of fans, perhaps their relation to the elements gave fans an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses as Pokémon had already been an established product and maybe the success of similar looking figures such as Transformers and the Megazord of Power Rangers made the toys easier for kids to love, but whatever the case the early Bionicles were a success. As well as the adverts lore and the toy its self, there was a story in the toys box detailing more lore and a game which could be played if you had more than one Bionicle. Before long people were buying multiple different models and combining them to create their own stories with different elemental combinations and eventually Bionicles became so successful that McDonalds ran a promotion with little disk throwing Bionicles called Tohunga. The Tohunga gave kids masks which they could use to alter the persona of their Bionicle and expanded the lore more as they were the "civilians" of the Bionicle story. In 2003 there was a Bionicle movie called Bionicle: Mask of Light and this gave a deep dive into the lore of Bionicles. Comics also had success and it was clear that Bionicle was saturating every medium it could. As toys continued to sell they kept making more and more products and lore but I remember seeing an advert for a Bionicle browser based video game called Mata Nui Online and this shocked me at the time. Browser based games were uncommon, and this game offered an opportunity to explore the land of the Bionicles, it gave hints about more lore and allowed me to further immerse myself in the imaginary world of BIonicles.

I think its interesting that something can be made as a toy but target markets outside of where it starts, Bionicle transcended the medium of figurines and branched into comic books, video games, books and a film. The key component is the story because that is how all the products within the Bionicle line-up were connected, the aura of mystery the toys created due to their backstory made fans want more, and then the story would unfold across a range of mediums coordinated to help tell the story playing to the strength of the chosen medium, for longer stories there were comics, for world building there was the game, for relationships and dynamics between characters there was the film, and for short open statements designed to inspire the audience there were adverts on television and stories written on paper inside of the Bionicle canister.

Henry Jenkins describes transmedia as...

“a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience.”

and that is exactly what Bionicle was.

Its hard to separate the story from the media used to tell it, but I do think the mix of media made the Bionicle lore seem a lot more impressive and convincing for its young audience, I think Bionicle existing in all those forms meant it was competing for attention in every field and this was a large part of why it was so successful. The amount of scattered information gave the audience a sense of community, I remember discussing lore with a friend of mine who had a different model to me and trying to piece the narrative together from the fragments we would see.

The Bionicle line launched in 2001 and in 2022 and 2023 there have been new Bionicle's being sold by Lego. 22 years later there is still a community of people who enjoy this story and I think this is a testiment to the success of Bionicle and its transmedia approach to storytelling.

Adapting these ideas to my own work

I find the use of transmedia really inspiring. I had not heard of the term before but my research on the topic has lead me to think about in the context of my own work.

Lore, world building and believability are key parts of my craft and so considering the success of examples of transmedia storytelling like Bionicle gives me insight of ways I can communicate lore to my audience more effectively.

In the future when the right project comes up I plan to produce an animated world with a book of stories and myths set in the same universe. Years ago I found this video essay which coins the term Quasi Lore in the context of the popular game Minecraft.

The term is used to describe the way the games lore is very open, and is left open to enable viewers to produce their own stories from it. This is what I would like my animated world to do. The way Bionical and Minecraft encourage their audiences creativity through lore is really inspiring to me. I think the medium of 2D animation has the potential to create a world of infinite possibilities and along with books and artwork could produce a large body of interconnected stories and works which all build as one large overarching narrative. This will be deliberately open to inspire curiosity in my audience and slowly released to encourage theory crafting.

all I've got to do is come up with something that has an audience...

Bibliography

Bionicle (2022) Brickipedia. Available at: https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/BIONICLE#Gallery (Accessed: January 12, 2023).

Bionicle 2001 to 2008 / nickelodeon (2009) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU3NXZC2ZCQ (Accessed: January 12, 2023).

Henry Jenkins on Walt Disney and Marvel (2015) Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7WRDT43T_Q (Accessed: January 12, 2023).

Hills, M. (2002) “Fan cultures between 'knowledge' and 'justification',” in Fan cultures. London, London: Routledge, pp. 37–60.

Jenkins, H. (2011) “Transmedia 202: Further Reflection,” Henry Jenkins Pop Junction, 31 July. Available at: http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html (Accessed: January 12, 2023).

Minecraft's Quasi-Lore and How to Build on it (2020) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KDybLytYtk (Accessed: January 17, 2023).

#Sources & Significance

[synthezcid]

Okay but like

There is no 'definitive' comic version of a character. Everyone is constantly retconned and rewritten. We all create our own ideal comic version of the character from their decades of runs and bits and pieces of panels and quotes.

'comics version is better' which comic version. which specific issue. There's no consistency. There's no Santa Claus.

#;ooc tag #there is no single character who is CONSISTENTLY well written #oh they might have great runs under a specific author but I guarantee more often than not that run is followed by a garbage one #and comparing 616 to mcu in that specific regard is so STUPID because you're comparing THOUSANDS of issues #to what is essentially a 25 issue run #like a strength and a weakness of the comic medium is that it can be cherry picked IMMENSELY #some characters with thousands of comic appearances have only appeared in the mcu once so far #'oh this character's one appearance sucked in the mcu' so did their dozens of shitty comic runs whats the POINT #also this is a different argument but #comics can afford to be stagnant in its status quo and just Sit in specific dynamics for years if not decades without change #movies CANNOT do that. actors age and get old. so that's why steve is hanging up the shield after essentially 10 'issues' #movies by very nature have to be snappy and quick and overly dramatic #while we can devote a two year comic run to just howard the duck doing fuck all #god this rant came out of nowhere lmfao

[ellesliterarycorner]

What My Followers Want to See More of in Female Characters

My favorite thing in my WIP is all the badass female characters I have. I love writing about the bonds, friendships, relationships, and rivalries between them. It makes my little heart so happy! And, I will be the first person to admit that I hadn’t even thought of some of the things you guys suggested on our little instagram poll, but I cannot wait to add some of them to my story! Even though we’ve made so many leaps and bounds with the way female characters are portrayed, I still think we’ve got a long way to go, and if you guys include half of the stuff you suggested in your stories, then I think we’re gonna be okay. Once again, I didn’t change anything that you guys wrote, so there are gonna be some repeats on the list, but this time just because the list was getting so long, I did take out a few things if I saw that several other people had suggested it!

“Nerdy” or sporty girl who gets a love interest without a makeover or changing herself 

super girly femme characters shown as a complex person

making her own decisions, if good or bad

a strong female character without a tragic backstory 

gender non conformity!! 

Being openly children and not changing her mind about it

chubby and flaws and not having a crush with every cute boy they see 

girlie girls who are still really powerful 

self reliance but still having emotion, not being ice cold but not needing a a man 

lesbians who’s entire character arc isn’t about them being a lesbian 

having body insecurities eg wanting to be flat-chested

women in politics and women that have classic “man” as well as “woman” characteristics 

independence 

be less oblivious lol and more like real people who pick up hints 

not dead caring moms.

comic relief female characters

not minding about liking “girly” things/ having a bunch of friends who are boys but there is no romance between them 

being a mother doesn’t mean giving up ur dreams and settling for less,

having mcs that actually make smart decisions 

a bad ass character that loves kids and wants to have them in the future

not taking abuse cause they think it’s love 

ball gowns and pretty stuff for themselves and not for a mission or anything 

more bold female characters since many females are shown as shy 

having a big appetite 

female characters who can be cool without having to wield swords 

willingness to do domestic work with a cheerful heart 

women whose strength is their intelligence 

women who are not afraid to be feminine or strong 

strong mother figures 

girls that are the lead in their relationship over the boy 

more actual girly interests 

the women you least expect to sing the best 

strong women who like feminine stuff 

being happy without a romantic relationship 

black females being protected or vulnerable for once 

ending up single 

hanging out with male friends with no romantic subtext 

females who aren’t super pretty

ultra femininity (pink, dresses, glitter, makeup) that isn’t seen as bad/evil/weak 

allow them to look up to/admire male peers rather than feel inferior or as if they have something to prove 

traditional “femininity” isn’t regarded as weak! Can cook/sew/clean and it’s normal : )

Female characters who are funny and make quips 

soft, kind women, who are still powerful. I don’t like the mean strong girl stereotype : (

Not forced strong women. Just relatable and human ones. We all have strengths and weaknesses 

less insecurities. Yes, we all have those, but it’s becoming stereotypical, mostly in YA 

I want them to be strong without being upright bossy 

strong women who also embrace their feminine side 

a girl with menstruation

ego actions- I feel like only male characters can throw ego actions while fem characters are classified selfish 

nonbinary female characters 

has a twin 

sarcasm and general impoliteness without making them the bady guy 

them being warriors or soldiers and that’s normal, nobody questions it 

villains and manipulating 

autistic female characters 

being single throughout the story. Some people like being single, thank you very much 

not being the perfect pretty little thing. Having an interesting personality and thoughts, dreams outside of relationships and being a badass 

a morally grey female character like y r those only men 

girls and women in healthy relationships with personalities aside from their S/O

girls who can be strong and confident while still being emotionally vulnerable 

also, girls who own huge “aggressive” dog breeds

groups of girls doing really impulsive things together like all guy friend groups do 

strong, but not jerks about it and not looking down on things like sewing/cooking/etc 

shyness that doesn’t need to be “fixed” or overcome 

well written romances- straight and gay (ie not ones that objectify one partner or the other) 

“strong female characters” who are gentle and caring! Tough doesn’t mean heatless! 

women who care more about the plot than their inconvenient love life 

girls who empower other girls and don’t play into internalized misogyny 

i’d love to see women putting forward their ideas and having their voices heard more : )

Strong in their own way, not just hands on fighting stuff. Like mentally strong 

less who are arrogant and rude to the male protagonists who they fall in love with anyway 

More LGBTQ+ women! 

Oh and more female protagonists who stay single 

being average looking, not a hot model and being okay with it 

Not falling for “bad boys” 

saving herself or another character from a dangerous situation 

not wanting marriage or children and people being okay with it 

not obsessed with  looks 

being good at math and sciences 

not being sexualized constantly (or at all) 

being just friends with straight male characters 

being like other girls 

having a life outside of romance 

to not need a man, but also not to be a stereotypical “bad girl, I don’t need man” authors need to find a medium between the two 

drinking, swearing, anything deemed “masculine” 

confident women who embrace both their femininity and masculinity

empowering other women

somebody with variety of interests and skills that are shown to be important to her badass female characters who are genuinely kind/even loving 

strong women who don’t discredit the model of the ideal woman of the time in historical fiction 

older women protagonists! I’d love to read about middle aged female heroes

females that aren’t afraid to be themselves 

strength without being a “baddie” or at the expense of others 

emotional sensitivity that isn’t linked to mental illness, men, or a weakness in character 

a chaotic neutral female protagonist 

physically strong/skilled female characters that remain feminine and aren’t femme fatales 

female characters that don’t particularly fit into a trope as that’s not really realistic

#writing women #writing female characters #creating characters #characters #writing characters #writing resources #writing ref #writing reference #writing references #writing tips #writing tip #writing advice #writing #writers on tumblr #writblr #writersofig #writers of ig #writersofinstagram #writers of instagram

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting "Take It Back"

This week on my podcast, I read “Take It Back,” my Medium essay, “Take it back: Copyright reversion, bargaining power, and authors’ rights,” all about the obscure, but increasingly exciting realm of copyright termination at reversion.

https://doctorow.medium.com/take-it-back-e3689628f4f0

What’s copyright termination? Under US law, creators can file paperwork after 35 years and get their copyrights back, no matter what kinds of contracts they’ve signed. That’s vital, because creators generally negotiate from a position of weakness.

Take Superman creators Siegel and Schuster. They were just two of a vast cohort of would-be comic book contributors. DC had a buyers’ market for their creation. They signed away their rights to Superman for $130, and died in poverty.

Normally, the way this works is that an investor (publisher, label, studio, etc) who strikes a bargain with a creator whose work makes it big gets to make out like a bandit, and the creator’s consolation prize is that they can shop their next project around for top dollar.

For example, The Beatles’ early record contract paid the Fab Four one penny per record sold. They split that penny four ways, but only after the label took out fifteen percent for “promotions.”

Sure, those mega-platinum top sellers meant The Beatles could negotiate better deals for their later deals, but for those early money-spinners, fractional pennies were all they could hope for.

That’s where reversion kicks in. Only a tiny minority of works have any commercial life after 35 years, but those are also the works that generate the lion’s share of the income for the investor orgs, and not all of those creators have a second act.

Many of them are like Superman’s Siegel and Schuster — creative teams with one big score that makes billions for their investors, who themselves languish in poverty and die in misery and obscurity. That’s one place where termination can make a difference.

If Siegel and Schuster had been able to revert their rights — or even credibly threaten to do so — DC/Warner would have coughed up enough money to see the pair through to a comfortable dotage and a fair share in the returns from their labor.

It wasn’t to be. When Marc Toberoff went to court on behalf of Siegel and Schuster’s heirs to get their rights back, Warners went scorched earth in retaliation, suing Toberoff for having the audacity to challenge their perpetual billion-dollar right to their $130 Superman.

Toberoff lost, but today he’s representing the heirs of the most prolific Marvel creators, including Stan Lee himself, in a bid to claw back the Marvel pantheon from Disney. Disney has hired Toberoff’s Superman nemesis, Dan Petrocelli, to represent it.

Toberoff’s 2014 suit on behalf of the Superman creators was before its time. Today, the currents are shifting. Antitrust has emerged from a 40-year, Reagan-inspired doldrums, and become a muscular, relentless force for labor rights.

Victor Miller, creator of the Friday the 13th franchise, just won a bid to terminate his copyright transfer to the films’ producers, in a surprise upset with far-reaching implications.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/friday-the-13th-copyright-termination-appeal-1235023236/

Termination is fascinating, because it’s a counter-monopolistic right, unlike copyright itself. Copyright is “alienable,” and can be signed away. In monopolized entertainment markets, that means that copyright is almost always transferred from creators to investors.

In a monopolized market, giving creators more copyright is like giving your bullied kid more lunch money. The bullies who control the school-gates aren’t gonna let junior hang onto the extra money you slipped him — they’re going to take that, too.

So when we give creators more copyright — longer terms, the right to control new uses like sampling — all we’re really doing is giving labels and studios and publishers more rights, which they non-negotiably acquire as a condition of permitting access to artistic markets.

Termination and reversion are fundamentally different — they’re a way to let (some) creators negotiate from a position of strength: now that their work is a commercial success, they can demand compensation, on pain of clawing their rights back.

My colleague Rebecca Giblin and her collaborators recently published a groundbreaking study documenting the use of termination in US copyrights, and the incredibly bureaucratic hurdles that stand in the way of creators getting their due.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3880708

They show how creators from George RR Martin to Stephen King to David Eddings have taken their rights back — and how prolific writers like Francine Pascal (Sweet Valley High) and Ann Martin (Babysitters Club) have taken back their rights on an industrial scale.

Most successful was George Clinton, who terminated the copyright transfers to 1,413 songs, which had been stolen from him by a scamming ex-manager — obviating years of expensive litigation.

Termination is a way to turn copyright into a labor right. Shortening the termination right — say, to 20 years, or even 14, the original term of US copyright — would let creators, rather than their descendants, make extensive use of it.

And while nonprofits like the Authors Alliance have done excellent work in automating termination, the fact remains that the process is too onerous and needs reform.

https://www.authorsalliance.org/resources/rights-reversion-portal/

But as I say in my podcast introduction, any reform to copyright termination needs to take account of what Yochai Benkler calls “commons-based peer production” — free/open source software and Creative Common content.

It’s one thing to rebalance the lopsided negotiating leverage between creators and investors — and another to let some rando who contributed 7 out of 1,000,000 lines of code terminate their free software license and create legal liability for billions of users.

That’s not an insurmountable hurdle — but failing to deal with it could create yet another senseless division between free culture advocates and people who advocate for fair creative livelihoods — when in reality, their interests are aligned.

Here’s the notes for this episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2021/10/03/take-it-back/

Here’s a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive, they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_403/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_403_-_Take_It_Back.mp3

And here’s the RSS for my podcast:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

#pluralistic

[13eyond13]

☕ Film adaptations of books

I normally prefer books to movies for things like famous literary classics, and that's mostly because I like the way books more easily let you sink into actually being a character for a while and exploring their inner life so much. I also like that I can have my own mental image of the characters and everything else, and sometimes I get frustrated by the fact that a film adaptation of a story I liked will so easily replace my own original mental image of a character with the actor instead. I specifically remember this happening to me with the Harry Potter series, and no matter how hard I tried to recall my own original imagined versions of the characters I couldn't stop seeing Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson and such instead.

HOWEVER I also do like that there are so many movies based on books out there, because a lot of times I find a good book through a movie or vice versa. And it can be very interesting from a writing or artistic point of view to compare the book to its movie adaptations as well. I've started doing that in an analytical way more recently, and it has been really educational at times to see how one thing can translate to another between a page and a screen. Up until the past few years the vast majority of storytelling I'd studied was movies and comics, so broadening my intake to include a lot of books and shows and even video games has definitely been super beneficial for learning more about the art of telling a good story as well.

I think that it's not really accurate to say that one medium is superior to the other when it comes to books and films, but I think that they both have their limitations and strengths and weaknesses when it comes to best telling the story that you want to tell. I've seen thousands of movies and read hundreds of books and comics and such by now, because storytelling is a huge passion for me and is basically the only thing I think about all day long, hahaha. For me movies are an excellent means to learning about visual storytelling and dialogue and plot and pacing. Also for taking in an entire story from beginning to end in a relatively short period of time, or for taking in a story in a somewhat more passively participating way. Books are often better for getting more in-depth with the characters and the world and for telling stories that can't just be easily conveyed visually or condensed into 1-3 hours of time. And books are also great for studying a type of storytelling that is done through only words on a page alone, which is definitely different than studying something like a comic. Or studying a screenplay for movies or television, which is intentionally written to not be seen as a finished product, but rather to be turned into a visual and auditory product for the screen. Books often just have a much more intimate feeling to them that I like as as well. It doesn't require nearly as much artistic collaboration to create a book as it does to create a movie, so to me it just feels more like the author is talking to you personally one-on-one.

I do get annoyed that people can very easily be elitist about being somebody who reads books, because not everybody has as easy a time reading as others, and I also think there are tons of really badly written and overhyped and boring and shallow books out there too. Lot of other types of stories in other types of mediums can often be deeper or more clever and complex and better told than something I've read in a book. But actually checking the things out for myself to see what I think instead of just believing what I hear has probably been one of the most interesting and most rewarding things in my pursuit of understanding and appreciating storytelling as a whole.

#thanks! #longagoitwastuesday #ask #p