Found this little meme I drew some time ago XD

When you are a special agent but also allergic to new technology ^^;

Long Day -The Wayhaven Chronicles

-Detective Edric Graham  - 620 words -Comedy

Tina met Edric on the sidewalk. He had walked from Haley’s with coffee in hand after she called him for an urgent matter.

“So. What’s so urgent you couldn’t wait until I got to the office?” 

He sipped.

Tina grimaced. “Don’t get mad. It’s old Mrs. Calahan again.”

Edric groaned. “Don’t tell me.”

“Yup. Look.” Tina pointed up a tree.

There was a seriously chubby, ancient tabby cat hanging onto one of the lower branches.

Edric glared at her.

“Do I look like a fireman to you, Tina?”

She shrugged. “I mean, take off your clothes, grab a hose and I couldn’t tell you apart.”

He stared at her. “Hilarious.”

She laughed. “No, really. We could sneak you in their 2021 charity calendar and nobody would notice. You’d fit right in.”

Edric shrugged. “Nah. They’d notice. I have the bigger hose.”

Tina snorted and slapped his arm. “Just get the poor thing down.”

“Without a ladder?”

“What for? Just stretch, Bigfoot.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Hold this.” Then pushed his cup at her.

“Hag better keep this thing inside for more than a week this time.”

“Don’t call her that! You know you’re her hero. She asks for you specifically.”

Edric scoffed. He only had to place a foot on the tree trunk to stretch enough to grab the cat by the scruff. The thing meowed. It sounded like a 70 year old chain smoker imitating a cat.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not happy about this either, Senator.” 

“Who names a cat Senator?”

“People with issues. Where is she?”

“In the house. Broke her ankle last weekend.”

“Great. I have to go in.”

Tina giggled. “Go be dashing. I’m sure she’ll be grateful.”

“Ugh. Please don’t make me picture things like that.”

Edric left Tina on the sidewalk to hand in Mrs. Calahan’s cat. It wasn’t until 15 minutes later that she saw him walking back, he had a plate covered in foil in one hand and his phone to his ear.

“No, Felix. I’m just late. I’ll be by a little later than I said. What? Oh, some lady needed help.”

“He was rescuing a cat up a tree!” Tina shouted loud enough to be heard through the phone.

Felix paused on the other side. “Aww. Detective. You’re so helpful. A real pillar of the community!”

“What’s he saying?” Tina tried to listen but Edric shooed her.

“Felix. Tell Ava-”

Tina pulled his arm down to place her ear near his phone.

“Wha? Wait, Mason’s here.” The vampire’s voice was muffled. “Yeah. It’s Edric. Yup. He’s late. Oh, he said he’s helping some lady with her pussy cat.”

Edric heard Mason’s distant voice over the phone ask,

“Whose pussy?”

Tina laughed hard, and slapped her hand on her thigh.

“For fuck’s sake, Felix! You did that on purpose.”

Felix’s voice was trembling with laughter. “No, I didn’t!”

“Yes. You did. Guess Ava will find out who snapped her shades.”

“What? No!”

“See you later, runt.”

He ended the call.

“Tina, get off my arm!”

She laughed and gave him a mock salute.

“Yes, sir!”

He grabbed his cup back and froze. He shook it. 

“Did you drink my coffee!?”

“You were gone so long. It was gonna get cold anyway.”

She grinned.

“You buy next time. Now, let’s get to the office and actually work.”

“About that…the O’Brians called.”

He groaned. “Don’t tell me.”

Tina winced. “They say their house was broken into.”

“Let me guess. It was aliens. Again.” Edric ran a hand down his face.

Tina nodded then gasped. “Wait. Could it be?”

He sighed. “At this point, who knows? I’ll ask.”

She grinned. “I’ll go with you.”

It was going to be a long, long day.

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can ask be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

“This”, I added, “is also correct. It implies the sentence is unbroken.”

But I find it deeply weird! I always put the comma inside.

Actually, that is not correct in American English (I cannot speak for British English punctuation which can differ). In the US, always put the comma inside the quotation marks. Yes, even there it does still imply that the sentence is unbroken. That is signified by the use of two commas, one after the words and one after the attribution or speech tag, not the location of the comma in or out of the quotation marks.

"This," I swear, "is how you add an attribution in the middle of a sentence. You don't need to punctuate it incorrectly to demonstrate that fact."

A painstaking work !!

This went from "He's making a truck!" to "He's MAKING a TRUCK!!"

Afterglow

oh she…….

sO WAYHAVEN AMIRIGHT 

Art pet peeves:

This is a PERSONAL list of what bothers ME. You might share my opinions, you might not. Make your own list of what you dislike if you want.

-Drawing unnaturally red noses on every drawing. Especially when it’s semi realistic art and not cartoon. Why? >.<

-Whitewashing female characters. But JUST the female ones. Why so specific? You gonna be an ass, whitewash everyone, at least be consistent with your douchery.

-All modern versions of villain characters from other time periods must be drawn wearing leather jackets. Love leather jackets, but they all wear the same clothes? Lol.

-Original race! The men look like monsters and the women are an exotic green or blue but with horns and fangs. The rest of their body looks like a regular person. -__-

-This comic has POC representation! Oh but not mixed people, they’re not really POC, get outta here. (This really pisses me off because I am mixed and to some it apparently means your experiences are not important enough to show.) This is sadly what I’ve encountered.

-Powerpuff girl huge ass eyes on realistic, semi realistic art. Creeps me out.

-All girls, everywhere. They all look the same. Looks like the same one in different outfits. 

-Dogs or cats with wigs. Sparkledogs/cats. It’s hard to make them look good.

-Freaking art thieves. 

-Tracing is a tool, not a crutch. Tracing someone’s art is a no no, esp. if they didn’t allow it!

-Hands. Just hands. Gotta hate hands. Drawing them and looking at them. Because you know they cause insane amounts of suffering to most artists.

-Anime side mouths. What even…how does it work!?

-This is an evil female character. You can tell because she’s barely wearing any clothes OR she only wears business suits. We’re clever!

-This is my OC who looks exactly like this canon character but it’s not them okay!? (I do this too. I hate it, but I also love it. Fuck.)

-Can you tell I can use the PS grass brush?

-Gallery consists of busts with all characters facing left. (This is my gallery.)

Can everyone who reads this PLEASE reblog it?!?!?  Libraries literally saved my life as a child!

Being abused at home, bullied at school and lost in the world, the library and all the books I could escape to the most amazing worlds, kept me alive!

I would walk to the library, and spend all day, from 10 am to 9 pm reading there!! I got special awards for how many books I read, I wrote little blurbs on why i loved the books (probably why I love to BETA and do ARCs) 

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Just hit the green arrows and the reblog!!!

As a 50 year old woman, the library offers me so much. Digital art pads to borrow, 3D printing, book clubs that are face to face (yeah, the introvert likes face to face because a moderator will stomp on anyone getting snarky)

New books in LARGE PRINT! I’m visually challenged and as much as I love my kindle, The feel of a real book in my hands will always be a beloved feeling!

Our library also has quarterly books sales of almost free books!! For 5$USD we get in a day early and can buy as many as we want. Anyone else has to wait and there is a limit for the first 2 days.

Also many, many libraries have inter library loan(it may be called something different). This means if they don’t have the item you want, they can get it for you. This may include photocopy/pdf of articles. This can also include along with books and DVDs, microfilm/fiche which is also a huge resource. Check around for libraries that are listed as depositories if you want to look at government documents.

Remember that many colleges and universities have open stacks for the public. You will likely have to pay a membership fee but you will get to stuff.

I love the library ☺

The library was one of my favorite places to go as a kid and I still live to go and just. Sit and read. Or do homework. The university I’m at has a massive 8-story one I love to just wonder around in~ Great places

Libraries are amazing places, we need to protect them to ensure their continued existence.

masondenverr: Senator in Hell with Demon Receptionist!

Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness

Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol

How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?

Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.

*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed

So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.

And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:

Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:

Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.

CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.

You can see a video comparison for one episode here: https://youtu.be/ruPVTPCavdM

In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.

Just look at this beauty

You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC

Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.

made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space Odyssey

the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield

The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning. 

I want to talk fantasy.

This shot was achieved with splicing and green screen.

This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)

And this? This heartstopping shot?

This does appear to be from the version with CGI—

—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.

The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.

How about this?

You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.

A MODEL OF A HOUSE SHOT INSIDE A NYLON STOCKING ATTACHED TO A FAN.

MAN IN A COSTUME.

HORSES DUSTED WITH COLORED GELATIN.

And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.

You come into my house and insult practical effects?

I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.

That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.

You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.

#this is also a purely personal opinion but aged practical effects are charming #in a way that aged cgi is not (via @glorious-spoon)

#DAtober - “Home” | My young Adaar and her father

Reflection by Karina Pavlova

the gang explores Chateau d’Onterre

Fenris