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The Sir David Attenborough That Lives In My Brain: Being smaller-than-average presents an added challenge to foraging ... but necessity is the mother of invention. A little creativity turns a baguette into a tool, and voilà--

(paper towel roll falls on my face)

The mirror replied "To whom?"

"The miller who made the flour for my bread," the queen would say, or "Whoever spun the thread my shawl was made of".

The second time, she says "To the King," and she is pleased to see herself once more.

The third time, she says "To the Royal Advisor," and is once more satisfied to see herself.

The fourth time, she says "To the scribe who takes the King's letters." She is shown the man's wife. And she seethes, but quiets herself, for it is only right that a man loves his wife.

The fifth time, she says "To the Court Wizard," and is shown the man's departed mother as he remembers her from his youth, radiant and smiling and warm and larger than life.

The tenth time, she says "To the Stable Master," and is shown the fastest horse in the stable, majestic and free as the wind even in captivity

"To the baker," she is shown the man's daughter, young and adorable and full of joy and laughter.

"To the artist who did my portrait," she is shown a painting of a woman done by the man's teacher, who he still looks up to now that he is well established himself.

"To the Royal Knight," she is surprised but not displeased to see the castle's entire guard force in the middle of doing drills.

The one hundredth time she asks the mirror, and it asks her "to whom?" she once again says, "To me." And she does the same the one hundred and second, and again and again and again.

Well

If nothing else I can learn the Flash’s secret identity”

(Unmasks)

“...........................................

“But Rue, where will these kids stay? Do you want them on the streets?”

of course not. In an ideal world, a kids would have multiple adults other than their parents they could look to for care, but I recognize that that will never be a reality for every single child. So: youth shelters, if they have nowhere else to go. There should be clean, warm shelters where anyone under 18 can stay for as long as they need, no questions asked. (And of course shelters that aren’t just for kids, but we’re talking about youth rights right now)

“But Rue,” I hear you say, “what if some moody teenager runs away after an argument?”

First of all, I’d rather a thousand moody teenagers run away than one abused child be trapped. Second, so what if one does? A kid needs time away from their parents, so they leave. The vast majority of them will get some time to cool down and then go back home, and if they don’t want to go back, period? Then nine times out of ten, they have a good reason. (Because yes, as hard as it is for you to believe, kids are humans who have common sense.)

“Okay, but what about the one time out of ten the kid doesn’t have a good reason?”

^ his wedding guest outfit. I gotta say the costume designers have been amazing

^ in the fantasy episode

bonus Lt. Nyota Uhura in the same episode bc her outfit rocks and I could also yap about her for a long time but I’m assuming you know about her (or at least her when played by Nichelle Nichols bc she’s pretty famous) v

You know, queries about this come in every now and then. So—because this response from last year is pretty detailed, and I think will answer all your questions—I'm just gonna paste it in here. 🙂

...About my work on Transformers G1: Developmentally speaking it’s kind of a complicated story, so bear with me here while I set the scene.

In 1985 I was a pretty busy gal. The Door Into Shadow had just published. Deep Wizardry had gone to press for publication in Delacorte’s fall-‘85 schedule. My first computer game, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative, launched (in the Rainbow Room on top of 30 Rock…) in the summer of '85. I was then scripting my first comics work for DC (the “Double Blind” two-parter and “The Last Word”). And after taking a brief breathing space from four or five years’ worth of animation work across a number of shows (scroll down here for details), I’d just turned in an episode of My Little Pony.

In memory all this work tends to get tangled together somewhat (which is probably no surprise). One thread that shows persistently through the tangle, though, is how much time I was spending in New York at a time when I was living in Philadelphia.

A surprising amount of that has to do with the research surrounding Deep Wizardry, which required specialized materials not readily available anywhere else. Because I had a contract for that book, in early 1984 I applied for (and was granted) access to the Frederick Lewis Allen Memorial Room at the main branch of the New York Public Library. As a result, for the guts of a year I was “up in town” at least every other week or so, sometimes for two or three days at a time—taking notes from the Woods Hole oceanographic resources there, drawing copies of them (like this one) when xerography wasn’t available or when otherwise necessary, and—when there was time—writing.

But on those stay-overs my evenings were my own, and fortunately there were some really nice people to meet up with, every so often. Back when 666 5th Avenue (now 660) was DC Comics’ home, a lot of the writing and editorial talent had a habit of heading down to street level and around the corner on Friday nights, to meet up and relax at the bar in a local steakhouse on the W. 52nd Street side (long gone now, alas). That’s almost certainly where I first met Len Wein—most likely introduced to him by my editor on the Trek comics at DC, Bob Greenberger—and we quickly got to be friends. Each of us was interested in the writing (and kinds of writing) the other was doing, so we had lots to chat about.

Now during this period I’d recently finished work on that My Little Pony script. A production company called Sunbow was then handling the screen side of the property, along with shows based on various other IPs. To this day I can’t remember who it was over there who said to me, “So listen, now that you’re done with that, we’ve got some slots unfilled on another show—would you be interested in doing a Transformers?” My answer was naturally “Sure, why not?”*

So shortly I was talking story, in a general way, with my new story editor over there, Steve Gerber. The thought of doing something a bit personal, and getting into some of the characters’ heads a bit, was as usual on my mind. The idea of getting Galvatron some psychiatric care had already crossed my mind at that point… though I had on first impulse pushed that (for the time being) onto the back burner due to possibly being a little too “on the nose.”

At some point pretty early on in this process, though, a different idea hit me. Len was plainly perfectly cut out for animation storytelling (as other comics writers have also been: but the fit had rarely seemed quite so perfect, to me at least). And he’d have a party with this, I thought. Why not invite him along for the ride and let him get a feel for how it’s done?

So I said to him (as Tom Swale had once said to me years back), "Hey, you wanna write a cartoon?" And to my great pleasure Len promptly said “Yes!” And having cleared this team-up with Steve Gerber, we dove in as co-writers.

Collaboration can sometimes be a rocky road, but I’ve always been lucky in mine, and that lucky streak held true with Len. I have rarely had a co-writer who right out of the starting gate was more willing to stretch hard to get things right, and one who was more effortlessly funny… even when the humor turned dark (as it repeatedly did in this episode). He unquestionably brought things to that script that I wouldn’t have thought to try, or would have been nervous about my ability to pull off, solo.

…So after a couple/few weeks we turned “Webworld” in, the checks cleared, and we both went on to other things... while remaining good friends all the while: and it was @petermorwood's and my great pleasure to have Len as a houseguest here. The two of them got along famously, another case of senses of humor meshing perfectly. ...But that episode keeps coming up as many people’s favorite… and I can’t say that I mind a bit. 😊 (If you want to look at it, the whole episode’s online: just follow the link.)

BTW, because people do ask “Why does Len’s name appear first on the credits screen?”, the answer’s simple: Because I insisted. He was the newbie here, after all. I thought it only right that the junior partner in this medium should be put in pride of place on that credit, his very first time out (and if you scroll right down to the bottom of his IMDb page, you'll find it there, the very first entry). ...Noting here that I've routinely done the same with Peter, for anyone who’s been watching. Collaborator of thirty-plus years he may have been, but he’s still always been newer at this than I am. 😏

In any case, I wear the joint credit with Len with great pride. It’s an honor to be associated with someone who went on to become—entirely separate from his already-stellar career in comics—one of the strongest and most prolific animation writers of the last few decades.

…So that’s how it happened. (And as for the story, which pops up here and there, of how Bob G. and I dragged Len out of that restaurant one night and made him buy his first computer [an early Macintosh]: that’s true too.) 😅

It's so good

For those who haven't watched it...go watch it....Tubi has the whole show for free and you don't even have to sign up if you don't want to, you can just go on their site and watch and enjoy it....

But for those who want a plot synopsis, it's literally a story where the Decepticons are getting more and more frustrated with the fact that Galvatron is whacked out of his gourd and frequently attacks them as often as he does the Autobots....and insist that Cyclonus take him to Space Therapy

But also... "prev", as we say around here:

#what the fuck #diane duane is on tumblr?! #diane duane whom i knew also wrote star trek books #?! #her?!!! #HERE?! #diane duane #diane duane?!

Yeah, here. Been here since 2008.

And have done some things besides Star Trek. Like these...

...and these...

...and assorted other stuff.

...The novels are here. You can also view the shorter fiction, the comics, and the other film and TV media separately.

...I try to stay busy. 😏

When I realized (partly from reader feedback) that I had been working from bad data on this book, I rewrote much of it.

This may be the best of the links that will assist you in assessing what I did: