#:( the second half of 2024 is shaping up to be not great

[rigaudon]

Funeral day

[sweetbillwriting]

The Key To His Heart - I

Description: As a hard-working novelist and single dad, Bill hasn't had much time for dating but gets an unorthodox chance to meet women when his friend persuades him to be a part of a dating TV show. 

Characters: AU Bill Skarsgård, where his life changes in 2013 and later 2019. 

Setting: L.A, 2024, but in an alternative universe with Bill having a completely different life.

Warnings: 18+, NSFW, heavy themes. 

Notes: I changed the title of this story! This is just a fun story; please don't overanalyze too much haha. Here is the teaser.

Bill would never confess how much he missed a woman in his life. He wasn't the type to talk loudly about his feelings with friends or family, so instead he carried the loneliness by himself. He did everything by himself and even for his daughters because he wasn't just a separated dad; he was a widower. He didn't have anyone else to parent with, but he didn't have anyone to be a man with either. He needed a woman in his life that could lift him up, share the good and the bad with, and snuggle up with at night. He was ready now, ready to let a woman into his and his daughters' lives, but he felt it would be hard, he had already had a big love.

He stood in front of a full-length mirror in his walk-in-closet. His bedroom had it when he moved into the mansion, but he didn't have enough clothes to fill it, so more than half of the shelves were full of books and movies instead. He wore a dark blue suit with a light luster in it, paired with a crisp white tee. His hair was combed messily back and to the side.

Bill knew he was handsome. He was tall, had an athletic build, and features that fit a high couture model. He rarely felt self-conscious about his looks; instead, it was his way of being that could make him doubt himself. He was a thinker, and because of it, he was not always fully present within the presence he actually was in. He got nervous in the spotlight and could be so goal-oriented he could sometimes stomp on others feelings, never on purpose; he just liked honesty and open communication, but not everyone could handle his ways. He was not a charming prince. He didn't have American charm and timing, he had Swedish awkwardness and ironic humor. Why he would participate in a dating program on TV confused him more than the people surrounding him, but his friend, Herman, had persuaded him it was a great idea that he could bring something new to the format. Similar programs had been made for years, but it had more or less been men shaped in the same mold.

Herman sat behind Bill on a bench with an emerald green velvet cushion and agreeably nodded towards Bill.

“You look great, man,” he said, and stood up from the bench. He cleared his throat to stress Bill a bit; both of them knew twelve women were waiting on him downstairs along with a film team. Bill swallowed hard; his chest even pained with nerves, and for some seconds he thought about refusing to go down. It all was so silly, and that twelve women would want to date him felt impossible; they would leave the first week when they realized he was a workaholic just thinking about his daughters and new projects. He had never dated, he didn't really know how you did it, and he didn't have female friends; he wasn't such a man twelve women would fight about.

“Time to meet the chicks,” said Herman playfully. He was a producer for the program, and it was important for him that Bill performed. Bill nodded and laughed nervously before going to the stairs. He could see how the cameraman, behind the camera pointed towards the stairs, started to film. He took a deep breath before walking down the broad staircase with a straight back and a hand in his pants pocket.

It started now, the adventure. He looked out over the sea of women standing by the end of the stairs, waiting for him; most of them were dressed in cocktail dresses and heels. They applauded when they saw him, and he smiled, embarrassed, looking away so they could see the deep dimple in his cheek. He could hear some giggles of endearment of seeing him blush lightly. A servant came up to him with a silver tray holding champagne flutes. He gave the glass a displeased look. It wasn't the glass he had said they would use. Champagne shouldn't be served in flutes, but he still gave the server a small smile before taking a glass.

“Ehm, Yeah, welcome to my place. I hope you will feel at home. I look forward to getting to know all of you. Cheers!”

He wondered if he sounded awkward, like a nervous teenage boy, but he could see Herman behind the girls smiling pleased. The girls lifted their glasses and cheered with him. Bill smiled wide at them because they actually looked at him like he was extraordinary, and some of the girls were so fine he could feel his heart beating with attraction. This would be interesting.

×××

It was not as bad, as he had thought it would be being the center of attention of twelve beautiful women. It was a cocktail party with just him, the women, and of course the camera team, but they kept their distance even if he knew they captured everything on tape. Wherever he was, the women looked at him, even if they talked to each other. It was strange, but he also felt himself grow a few inches. He talked lightly with some of the girls, but there were a bit too many impressions to take everything in. He was talking to two women about their hometowns when suddenly someone took his hand and pulled him out on the deck surrounding that part of the house. It was a woman with long raven hair and golden eyeshadow. She was probably some years older than himself.

“Maria,” she said confidently and stretched out her hand to him. Bill smiled, impressed by her self esteem, and shook her hand.

“Bill.” She laughed softly and nodded.

“I know that.”

“You do?” Bill said playfully and took a sip of the old-fashioned drink in his hand.

“Mhm, you know, you might be the reason I'm here.”

“Oh yeah?”

There was a flirty vibe between them at once, and Bill really liked it.

“Yeah…” She gave him a teasing smile before changing the subject. I'm a writer too.”

“Oh? What do you write?”

“I write for teens, like teen noir.”

Bill nodded; he had heard about the genre but couldn't really say what it was, and at that moment he didn't feel he needed an explanation.

“I guess I haven't read anything by you then.”

Maria shrugged her shoulders as a joke, and Bill smiled.

“I think we could be a fantastic team…” Her voice was low and she looked at him with big eyes. She was no longer as flirty; she looked more at him like she already had a crush, and Bill felt the nerves go up at once.

“Yeah, yeah…” He drank up his drink. “Time to find a new drink,” he said, and he showed her his empty glass. Her soft eyes became a bit much for him, but he also knew his assignment for the night was to talk with the women, as many as possible.

×××

“Violet,” she said with a giggle. She looked like that girl he would call an American “girl next door." They stood by the bar the production had put up in the living room while he waited on his Negroni, and she just had gotten her Cosmopolitan. She looked really young, and he was right.

“I'm 22. That's not a problem, right? You felt so open in that interview.”

“No, no… But I should be honest and say I've never dated someone so much younger than me.”

He gave her a quick glance. Her legs were long and golden and looked so smooth.

“I'm mature for my age. I have my own company, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” He said interested but started to imagine it was something silly, like selling unicorn keyrings.

“Yeah, I sell environmentally friendly plastic products to hospitals, like gloves and mugs, and so on.”

Bill looked at her, surprised. It wasn't what he expected from a 22-year-old.

“That's, that's impressive.” He smiled at her and she giggled proudly.

“Yeah, it actually works really well.”

“When did you start it?”

“Two years ago. I studied to be a nurse but saw how many plastic products the hospital used and felt I wanted to make a change.”

Bill couldn't stop smiling because the more she talked, the more impressed he got.

“I think it's my turn now,” said a girl next to them. She was short, so he needed to drop his gaze. He looked at the girl's face for a few seconds, then wiped the corner of his mouth while swallowing hard. Wow. Wow. He had said Ana De Armas was beautiful in his interview, and here was her lookalike. He turned to Violet with a smile, trying to mask his feelings.

“Thank you for the conversation, Violet.” She smiled disappointedly and looked at the girl who had enough guts to lay her hand on his arm and steer him away from her and the other girls. She steered him to the hallway where no one was and stood a few steps up the stairs to be as tall as him but also have her arms around his neck. Bill had his drink in his hand, but he also felt it would be a bit much for him to feel the girl's midnight blue chiffon dress with his fingers.

“I read that you're a leo,” she said sensually, and Bill smirked in attraction. Her name was Camila, and she radiated sexiness in such a natural way.

“Yeah?”

“That's why all of us look at you like you're a god. We want to worship you, and you love it, right?”

Bill laughed and snapped his neck as an answer.

“And you deserve the attention. You're really ambitious, creative, and full of passion.”

He just stood and smirked, especially because she dragged her long nails through the hair on his neck, and he could feel it tickle all the way down to his cock.

“What's your sign?” He said and took a sip from his drink.

“Scorpio.” It didn't say Bill anything, but even that sounded sexy, so he licked his lips and gave her a pleased nod. His full attention was on the sensual brunette in front of him, so he didn't notice that two women walked by the hallway and looked at them. They were on the way to the bathroom, talking about his latest book, when they saw Camila standing with her arms around Bill's neck. The redhead, Sandra, looked at them with big eyes while Maria looked away.

“So typical it's her he stands like that with...” said Sandra, and rolled her eyes. Maria didn't say anything but looked at Bill disappointedly.

×××

Bill saw a pair of eyes behind a camera that stared at him. It was Herman who, with a head movement, told him it was time to go to the next woman. Bill didn't feel the need though; he liked being worshiped under Camila’s gaze.

“Ehm, hm, I must give the other women my attention now…” he said. The sigh was close. He wanted to stay there.

“Do you?” She said it teasingly and dragged her hands over his shoulders. Bill nodded a little with a strained smile. “But thank you for your time.”

Camila released him slowly and turned on her heel. Bill looked her up and down while they both walked up the short stairs to the rest of the big hallway. Maybe he already knew who he would choose in the end.

While walking into the living room, several of the girls smiled at him to allure him to talk to just them, but Herman, behind a camera, nodded Bill towards a bleached bottle blonde by the fireplace. She looked like his own age, but not at all his type. Her dress was strapless and made of burgundy faux leather.

“What's your name?” He asked her kindly while she played with her bleached hair.

“Victoria,” she said with a sweet smile. Her voice was soft as silk and nothing he had expected. “We have actually met before.”

“Have we?” Bill furrowed his brows but also felt stupid that he didn't remember her. Victoria smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

“My dad owns a bookstore close to Central Park, and you were there to sign some books... I understand you don't remember me; it was a long time ago, and I had another hair color.” Bill nodded, trying to remember her or even the bookstore, but he couldn't find anything in his head. He did so many signings, especially in New York, so he couldn't remember.

“What hair color did you have then?”

“Light brown, sort of, the boring kind.”

“Like me?” Bill quipped with a smirk.

“What? No, no. Yours is much more chocolate; I was just… Like a rat.” He smiled amused and took a sip of his drink.

“What do you work with?”

“Ehm, I actually work at the bookstore. It's fun because my dad lets me try all kinds of business.” Bill didn't want to be the person judging her for her work, but standing behind a counter in a store felt really uninspiring. He was himself super ambitious and wanted a woman with similar attributes.

“I'm sorry, Victoria, but it's time for me to give the other women a chance.” Victoria nodded.

“Of course, of course.”

But Bill didn't go speak with another girl; instead, the team led him to an armchair between the plants out in the orangery. He knew why they wanted him there; it was time for him to receive questions about the girls that they would edit so it would seem like it was his own thoughts. It would be cut into the show so the viewer could follow his feelings and thoughts.

“Camila is something else… I can't deny I already like her,” he said with a smirk and dragged his hand over his thighs. “I like Maria too; I think she might be intelligent, and we would have much in common. Violet is impressive for her age…” Bill got lost in his own thoughts, thinking about the girls, but mostly Camila.

“What about Victoria?” Asked Herman. Bill knew the viewer wouldn't hear the question, so he must answer it like it was his own words.

“It doesn't feel like Victoria and I have so much in common.”

Bill nodded to himself but then realized he didn't know a thing about Camila but still had her as a favorite. Was he just shallow?

Bill was questioned on whether he believed his soulmate was there. He wasn't really that sappy, talking about soulmates, but he knew what was expected of him.

“I think my soulmate can be here; I look forward to getting to know them all.”

×××

Two girls with similar looks stood and looked up the big stairway leading up to the second floor, where they didn't have permission to be. By the first look, it looked like the brunettes looked at it dreamily, imagining themselves walking up the stairs with Bill, but it wasn't what they looked at. On the wall by the stairs was a big family portrait. Bill looked skinnier with a young girl in his lap; next to him sat a woman with dark blonde hair, heavily pregnant. The couple looked at each other with small, loving smiles while the child smiled big at the photographer. The girls look at Bill's wedding band, then at the woman's big diamond on her finger.

“Isn't it a little bit strange he let it hang there? I mean, it is his ex,” said Julie.

“It's not his ex; it's his late wife. His daughters’ mom,” said Esmeralda lowly and gave Julie an annoyed look.

"Yeah, but couldn't he have taken it down for now? It feels like he’s picking a mistress when she's up there.”

Esmeralda didn't say anything, just crossed her arms and shook her head. Just then they heard footsteps from the top of the stairs, and they both looked up, seeing Bill walking down with elegant loops. He smiled at them and wondered if they stood there waiting for him. He didn't notice how they were looking at the picture, he was so used to it hanging there he didn't really think about it.

“Hey?” He said and walked down to them. Julie blushed and smiled. She felt stupid for commenting on the portrait now when he stood in front of them and gave them a look a married man wouldn't. Esmeralda smiled a bit nervously but answered his hey with a hello.

“What were your names again? I'm sorry, there are so many names.”

They were the girls he had talked about their hometowns with. Both of them answered with sweet smiles, hoping they gave a better impression than the other.

“But both of you're models?”

He said, and looked at them up and down. It was just a reflex, their most important tool was their bodies, so it just went that way.

“Yeah, but with quite different things, I think? I do mostly lingerie shoots.”

Bill looked at her pretty face, trying not to look at her body. He wanted to imagine what she looked like under the black dress, but he didn't want to be that sort of pig and just smiled and nodded. Esmeralda didn't say anything and let Julie continue to talk.

“Are you interested in fashion? Maybe you have seen something with me then?”

Bill laughed uncomfortably and scratched his jaw.

“No… I'm dressed more or less the same way every day. I'm completely lost when it comes to fashion.”

He turned his gaze towards Esmeralda too, but she looked away. He got the feeling she might have lost interest in him all ready. Julie laughed and took a step closer to him, so she stood a bit in front of Esmeralda.

“I could help you with that.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

Bill smirked, and without thinking, he got that feeling he wanted to tease her.

“I think there’s a fashion designer here, isn't there?”

Julie looked at him a bit irritated and put the tip of her tongue against her top lip. It was unnecessary, and maybe she would take offense for real, but it has just come as an impulse to tease her a bit. It didn't seem like it was appreciated, though.

“Bill?”

He turned towards Herman's voice, who stood at the entrance to the big living room.

“Time to give the keys.”

×××

In a popular TV show, the man gave the girls roses as a symbol they could stay; Bill would give them the keys to his house. They were just symbolic keys because his manor had fingerprint locks on every door, but it looked nice that he gave them each a golden key. He thought it was silly; why couldn't he just say who got to stay?

“It's better TV,” said Herman, but Bill still thought it was silly. Oh well, he would just play along.

This time all the girls would get a key. It was only more than right because he hadn't even had time to talk with them all. It wouldn't be fair, not to himself either. He would call them up in order of his interest. The first being who he was most interested in, then continued down to the one he was least interested in. He looked at the girls standing in front of him expectantly, like he had their lives in his hands. He took a key in his hand, looked at its old style but in shiny gold, then up towards the girls.

Camila.

He smiled big when she walked up to him, feeling a tickling feeling in his lower belly, but when he looked behind her, he could see several girls looking at each other pointedly. He felt his throat dry up. He knew they thought he was predictable. Maybe they had even seen them in the hallway. He turned his gaze towards Camila again and smiled warmly at her. She didn't seem to notice the girls judging stares, and he wouldn't let her know about it. He gave her the key, and then she walked away to the side, being an audience to the rest of the ceremony.

Maria.

Julie.

Violet.

Odette.

Tiffany.

Sienna.

Sandra.

Rose.

Brigitte.

Victoria.

Esmeralda.

×××

The camera team also took some of the girls to the armchair in the orangery, one by one, to see what they were thinking about the man they would move in with. Bill pretended he didn't notice that it happened, but in reality he was completely aware of who they brought with them, and it stressed him a bit.

Rose: He's super handsome! But still cute with his big eyes.

Victoria: I don't know why he didn't think I made a good first impression. I don't know; he's hard to read.

Sienna: He seems sweet; maybe even a bit shy?

Camila: I think we have some sort of chemistry. It feels good.

×××

Bill stood in the closet again, but now dressed down to his boxers. He hung up the suit again and then stretched out his back so it cracked satisfyingly. It had been a long day with many impressions, and more would come. Twelve women lived under his roof, and it made him a bit nervous. Five of them lived in the mansion, while seven of them lived in the guest house on the property. Some of them shared a room, and he wondered if it might have started some drama between them. He wouldn't have liked sharing a room with a stranger either. He laid down on the bedroom floor and stretched out before starting to do his obligated pushups. It was especially important now because he couldn't sag up when they would film him every day. While doing his workout routine, he thought back on the women. Several of them had Hollywood good looks, but he wondered if they were more than that. He needed someone who could challenge him intellectually and who could inspire him. A pretty face would maybe be interesting for a few weeks, but in the long run, other things were more important. He thought about Camila. Sexy, sexy Camila. He hadn't even asked her about her profession or her age. He felt ashamed while thinking about it. 

Bill did his nightly routine but couldn't stop thinking about the girls’ looks behind Camila during the ceremony. They had judged him so hard. Sandra, Maria, and Esmeralda had looked at each other like he was a pig. Was he? He had never seen himself as shallow, but Camila was just too good to be true. While crawling down into bed, he instead thought about how nicely the dress had fallen over her curves and how erotic she looked when she licked her blushed lips. What did she wear under such a tight dress? It didn't look like she wore a bra, and he couldn't see a visible panty line. Did she wear underwear? If he had been so sneaky and let a hand move in under her dress, had his fingertips met a wet pussy? He would have petted it like it was the sweetest little kitten. 

Fuck, he was a pig. He looked down at his erection like it had betrayed him. It wasn’t starting well if he was already getting hung up on one of the girls. He needed to get to know Camila instead of just thinking filth. She would be his first evening date. He nodded to himself and looked up at the ceiling. 

She looked horny. She had wanted him. She was probably that sort of girl who loved sucking cock. She would deep throat him completely and look up at him with tears in her eyes while he hit the back of her throat over and over. 

Bill didn't feel ashamed when he pulled out his cock and dragged his hand over it harshly; he just thought about how he would have thrust his cock hard into her mouth and made her feel distress for a few seconds by the suffocated feeling. When he came over his stomach, he felt ashamed though and took a napkin out from his nightstand table and wiped his stomach, grossed out by himself. It wasn't okay that he sexualized her like this already. He needed to treat these women with respect and not reduce them into sex objects when he was alone. He could do better. He was better. 

×××

The alarm clock rang at 06.30, but Bill shut it off and turned to the other side. He had two more alarms, so he never listened to the first one. He wished he could just sleep until 11.00, but he hadn't been able to do that for five years. When the alarm clock rang again at 06.40, he turned it off, but sat up on the edge of the bed with a loud grunt. If he wanted to go out for a run, his chance was now. At nine, they would all meet for a shared breakfast, and he needed to take a shower before that and make himself presentable for the girls, but also the camera. 

Once again, he stared at himself in the full-length mirror. He flexed his stomach a little but felt so stupid that he looked around to see that no one was looking. It would be impossible, but still he felt watched. He flexed his stomach again. It looked good. Actually, really good. He had worked out hard before the show and would continue; he would not look like some tired old dad. 

After putting on his running gear, he walked down the stairs, but realized then he wasn't the only one up early. A blonde was just on the way out through the entrance door, but she turned around when she heard Bill's heavy steps behind her. Rose looked at him surprised. 

“I thought I was the only one up,” she said with a smile, even if the both of them could see the cameraman in a corner. 

“I thought the same. Are you always up this early?” Bill walked down to her. She was tiny, and he almost laughed when he realized their height difference. Her hair was long and golden, gathered in a high ponytail. She looked up at him, then laughed a little. 

“This height difference…” 

Bill laughed a little too. 

“Yeah…” He looked at her running gear and opened the door. 

“Do you want to run with me?” 

They ran in silence; often Bill ran a bit in front of her because he had such long legs and she couldn't keep up, but he waited for her before running around a corner. 

“Problem keeping up?” he said teasingly.

“Fuck you! It's because you have legs like a damn giraffe!” She laughed when she came up to him. They stood panting together by a little park while Bill smirked at the blonde. 

“Would you just have guessed your way if you were out alone, or do you have a GPS?" He looked at her wrists but couldn't see a watch.

“I just guess. I don't like running with all this technical equipment. I just want to run. Like Phoebe in Friends, you know?” She joked and corrected the high ponytail. Bill made an amused nod. “I always find my way home; that's my talent.” 

“Even to my home?” 

“It's my home too right now.” 

They looked at each other with big smiles for a few seconds before running back to the house together. 

“I can help you stretch if you want?” said Rose when they stood outside of the manor. “I don't mean that in such a suggestive way as it sounded like. I'm a personal trainer,” she said with an embarrassed laugh and looked down at her running shoes. 

“Sure, okay,” said Bill, and he led her to the side of the house where they could be on the deck. He looked at her a little amused because of her size, but when she started to stretch out his muscles, he realized there was more power in her than it looks like. 

“Do you have problems with your left shoulder?” She asked and dragged her hands over his broad shoulders when he sat on the floor in front of her. 

“Yeah, I got it in a mountain bike accident, actually. I wasn't as great as I thought I would be.” He looked up at her with big eyes but was forced to squint because she stood close to the morning sun. She was beautiful like that—rosy cheeked and healthy-looking. She didn't wear any makeup. 

“You must take care of yourself,” she said sweetly. And massaged his shoulders lightly. Bill nodded and looked down at his bare knees, where he could see the scars laying on top of each other. Taking care of himself was not his specialty. 

“I should go and shower... So I don't smell like sweat all day,” giggled Rose and made Bill stand up, towering over her again. 

“I think you smell great.” He smiled kindly; it wasn't even flirty, just his thoughts. Rose looked away a little embarrassed, and it made Bill feel a bit confident, so when she was about to walk away, he took her hand in his and pulled her into a soft hug against his warm chest. Rose giggled and looked up at him, still pressed against his chest. 

“I didn't think about how sweaty I am.” He laughed, embarrassed, and released her. 

“No worries, I like it,” she said with a flirty smile before walking through the house to the entrance door. Bill stood and looked out over the lawn for a while with a small smile. He thought he probably would need just a few minutes of alone time before meeting all of the women again; what he didn't know was that several of them were already awake and planned how to get some time alone with him. One of them even stood by the window watching him when he thought he had some privacy.

×

The girls: 

Maria: Writer, 38. 

Violet: Entrepreneur, 22. 

Camila: Engineer, 31. 

Victoria: Shop assistant, 34. 

Sandra: Fashion designer, 36. 

Julie: Model, 25. 

Esmeralda: Model, 27. 

Rose: Personal trainer, 22.

Odette: Pediatrician, 33. 

Tiffany: Actress, 30. 

Sienna: Painter, 28. 

Brigitte: Chef, 29. 

×

[ice-mage]

ICE MAGE READS 2024

This year, I joined a book club in an effort to read more actual books. I’ve always enjoyed reading, but over the past decade or so, I would only read a handful of books in any given year. Well, even though I didn’t read anything in the month of April, I’ve managed to read 26 books so far this year (and one I did not finish that I didn’t list below). I’m hoping to add a one or two more before the end of the year (while I’m visiting family over the holidays).

Full List (in the order I read them):

New Adult by Timothy Janovsky

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Sun of Blood and Ruin by Mariely Lares

Ocean’s Godori by Elaine U. Cho

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

Ravensong by TJ Klune

Heartsong by TJ Klune

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei

Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass

Brothersong by TJ Klune

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado

Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

The Back Passage by James Lear

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

The Secret Tunnel by James Lear

Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch

Favorites

The Library at Mount Char: I don’t know what to say about this one other than that it’s wonderfully weird. A (sub)urban fantasy that begins with a murder mystery, with characters that would fit right into a horror movie, this book is fucked up in all the best ways. I don’t want to say too much about it because the way things are revealed throughout the book is one of the reasons I enjoyed it. Definitely give it a try.

Sorcery and Small Magics: A mixup with a forbidden spell results in Leovander Lovage being bound to obey his rival, Sebastian Grimm’s commands. Leo and Grimm endeavor to find a counterspell that can undo it and set Leo free again. This book is the beginning of an enemies/rivals to lovers tale. It is so expertly written, you’d be surprised to learn it’s the author’s debut novel. The book does a wonderful job at pacing; you get a great balance of character moments and plot. The magic system is intriguing, requiring two people, scrivers that write spells and casters that cast them. The magical creatures are imaginative. But what really grasped me was the evolution of the relationship between Leo and Grimm. I highly recommend you give this one a read.

Honorable Mentions

Heartsong: This is the story of Robbie Fontaine, my beloved. We learn about Robbie’s tragic backstory, and then get thrust into angst, angst, and more angst. It is my favorite book of the Green Creek series (I don’t care that Jon with his @bigassbowlingballhead has a different opinion). Given that this is third novel in a series, I don’t know what I can say about it without spoiling the first two books, so I’ll leave you with the author’s own words when this was rereleased earlier this year:

Ocean’s Godori: This is a cozy space opera set in a universe where Korea dominates space travel. I really liked all three main characters: Ocean Yoon, a space pilot; Teo Anand, second son to a tech empire; and Haven Sasani a Mortemian and a medic. The dynamic between parent and child is a theme of the book, and each of the three main characters have unique issues with their parents that shape them as characters. The relationship between all the characters, these three and the rest of the crew on the ship Ocean pilots, is a high point of the book. And the actual plot, once we get into it, is really interesting. Unfortunately, the book just ends suddenly. It doesn’t have an Act III, and I’m not sure it finished Act II. It’s like the publisher took Cho’s book and chopped it in half and only published the first part. It feels incomplete. That’s why I can’t recommend this book to anyone yet, at least not until the sequel, Teo’s Durumi, comes out in August 2025.

Most Disliked

Sun of Blood and Ruin: Seeing this book as the March pick was a big factor in me deciding to join my book club. The book promised to weave “Mesoamerican mythology and Mexican history two decades after the Spanish conquest into a swashbuckling, historical debut fantasy with magic, intrigue, treachery, and romance.” As someone of Mexican ancestry from all sides of my family, I was really excited to read this one. Boy, did it disappoint. The protagonist, Leonora de Las Casas Tlazohtzin, is the half-indigenous daughter of the Spanish viceroy in Mexico. She is also La Pantera, a masked, magical vigilante. Although Leonora living a double life is a big part of her character arc, she is by far the worst at it, two other characters are introduced that do it far better than she does. One of those characters also does magic far better than she does. The writing is stodgy at best. And there’s a gay relationship thrown in that feels slapdash and inauthentic, like the author only inserted it because it’s the thing to do these days. This book is by far my least favorite book of the year, 0/10, do not recommend.

Dishonorable Mention

Time’s Agent: I’ll start by saying that this book was nowhere near as bad as the previous one. This book features pocket dimensions, or pocket worlds as they are called here, that people can enter from our own world. Only, these pocket worlds aren’t necessarily co-synchronous with our world. What feels like days in a pocket world could only be minutes in our world. And conversely, only seconds in the wrong pocket world could be decades in our world. Which is what happens to the main character. This book had a really intriguing premise, and seeing the main character work through her grief was interesting. Unfortunately, I think this book suffers from being a novella. The short length means the author doesn’t have room to really explore the pocket worlds or the other characters, meaning you end up not caring about either. If it had been twice as long, I think this could have been a really good book.

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many U.S. adults are on board with the idea of beefing up security at the southern border and undertaking some targeted deportations, according to a poll. But as President Donald Trump begins his second term with a series of sweeping executive orders on immigration, the findings suggest his actions may quickly push the country beyond the limited consensus that exists on the issue.

There is a clear desire for some kind of action on U.S.-Mexico border security, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Half of U.S. adults think increasing security at the border should be a high priority for the federal government, according to the poll, and about 3 in 10 say it should be a moderate priority. Just 2 in 10, roughly, consider it a low priority.

The vast majority of U.S. adults favor deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes, and the Trump administration’s deportation efforts may begin there. But Trump’s initial executive orders have gone far beyond that — including efforts to keep asylum-seekers in Mexico and end automatic citizenship.

And Trump, a Republican, is continuing to signal an aggressive and likely divisive approach, with promises to deport millions of people who entered the country illegally while declaring a “national emergency at our southern border.” About 4 in 10 American adults support deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, and a similar share are opposed.

Most Americans think local police should cooperate with federal immigration authorities on deportations in at least some cases, but implementation could quickly become unpopular. On Tuesday, the Trump administration threw out policies limiting arrests of migrants in sensitive places like schools and churches, even though a shift to such arrests would be largely unpopular.

Some support for more immigration enforcement

Immigration was a key issue in the 2024 election, and the poll indicates that it’s still a high priority for many Americans as Trump takes office.

Illegal border crossings soared under Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, with border arrests from Mexico reaching a record-high of 250,000 in December 2023. Despite Trump’s claims of an immigrant invasion, crossings have plunged since then, amid increased Mexican enforcement and the Democratic Biden administration’s June 2024 order that dramatically limited asylum claims at the border.

But memories of those rising numbers, and the chaos that ensued when migrants were bused by Republican governors to northern cities, may have helped shape American attitudes. The survey found that about half of Americans think the government is spending “too little” on border security, and the vast majority favor deportations of people who have been convicted of violent crimes.

“I want to see more people coming here legally,” said Manuel Morales, a 60-year-old Democrat who lives near Moline, Illinois. He first came to America by crossing the border illegally from Mexico nearly 40 years ago. “But at the same time, I’m against all these caravans coming (to the border), with thousands and thousands of people at one time,” said Morales, a technician for an internet provider.

He’s deeply sympathetic to migrants who come to the U.S. to escape repression or poverty and feels that too many Americans don’t understand the yearslong efforts required to enter the U.S. legally. Yet, he also believes the number of migrants has simply become too great in the past few years.

“We cannot just receive everybody into this county,” he said.

Trump’s most sweeping plans are less popular

Trump rarely gives specifics when he calls for mass deportations, but the survey indicates many Americans are conflicted about mass roundups of people living in the U.S. illegally.

Removing immigrants who are in the country illegally and have not committed a violent crime is highly divisive, with only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults in support and slightly more than 4 in 10 opposed.

And relatively few Americans, about 3 in 10, somewhat or strongly favor changing the Constitution so children born in the U.S. are not automatically granted citizenship if their parents are in the country illegally. About 2 in 10 are neutral, and about half are somewhat or strongly opposed.

Doug DeVore is a 57-year-old Republican living in southern Indiana who believes that immigration “went haywire during the Biden administration.”

But the idea of large-scale operations to check people’s immigration status makes him uncomfortable.

“I probably wouldn’t be 100% against it,” he said. “But there’s that fine line” between gathering information on people living in the U.S. illegally and automatically deporting them, added DeVore, who works in a candy factory.

Local cooperation with immigration authorities is popular — but not arrests in schools or churches

As the Trump administration prepares to attack sanctuary jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, the poll finds that the vast majority of U.S. adults think police in their community should cooperate with federal immigration authorities to deport people who are in the country illegally in at least some cases.

Only about 1 in 10 Americans say the local police should never cooperate with federal law enforcement on these deportations.

There’s a divide, though, on whether cooperation should happen across the board or if it should happen only sometimes. About two-thirds of Republicans say local police should always cooperate, a view that only about one-quarter of Democrats share. But relatively few Democrats say local police should never cooperate and most, about two-thirds, say cooperation should happen in some cases.

And a wave of arrests could quickly spark a backlash, depending on how they happen. U.S. immigration agents have long abided by guidance that deters arresting parents or students at schools and other sensitive places, but some of Trump’s rhetoric has raised questions about whether those policies will persist.

The poll finds that a shift toward arresting people in the country illegally at places like churches and schools would be highly unpopular. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults somewhat or strongly favor arresting children who are in the country illegally while they are at school, and a similar share support arresting people who are in the country illegally while they are at church. Solid majorities, about 6 in 10, oppose these kinds of arrests.

Even Republicans aren’t fully on board — less than half favor arrests of children in schools or people at church.

[dickgraysonwayne]

Eighty Four

Ao3

Summary: Dick has 84 years of memories in his head. Except he doesn’t

@dickgraysonweek 2024, Day 7: A Celebration of 84 Years

It all happens very suddenly.

One moment, Dick is turning in for the night.

He’s just come back from a long patrol, and the worst of Blüdhaven had been particularly brutal today. He loves this city, but it has its moments where it just about grinds him down into dust. Today is one of those days, and all he wants to do is sleep.

Too exhausted to do more than peel off his uniform, he staggers to the bathroom to splash some water down his face to get the smell of the bowels of the city off of him.

The next moment, his head explodes: all colors, shapes, and sounds. The sounds overwhelm him: voices screaming, speaking, chattering , one after another, layering on top into an unstable cacophony with seemingly no end. At first, Dick is certain he’s been shot in the head. His hand desperately roams around his scalp, his forehead, his face, trying to find the source and plug the wound, anything to make it stop.

But he finds nothing, and he searches and searches and searches til his arms are tired but there’s no hole and no blood and the voices in his head won’t stop talking (shut up shut up shut up).

Finally he can’t do it anymore and just gives in, curled up on the tiles and rocking against the pain and waits and waits and waits and waits

-

Hours (Days? Weeks? Months?) later, Dick can move.

The voices in his head don’t stop, not really. Instead, they settle there, filling out all the nooks and crannies, whisper and yell and scream until the noise is just noise and Dick is able to come back to himself, slowly but surely.

He quietly tests movement, twitches his fingers and his toes. When they move normally, he carefully levers himself up into a seating position, leaning against the bathroom wall. His head thunks on the cold drywall, and he breathes out once, twice, three times.

He can’t think (it would just be another voice inside his head, and there’re too many, too many) but he can move, and waits for a bit more function to return. You got it chum, Dick whispers to himself, pulling on the thread of an old, comforting memory. You got it. You got it. He feels something inside him react in confusion in response.

He waits some more, rubbing feeling back into his arms, wrists, fingers, trying to center himself in the physical world, trying to find his voice again.

Eventually, he can weakly maneuver his arms and, with great effort, push himself up to his feet. The voices don’t get better, but they don’t get worse either. That’s all he can hope for at this point.

Okay. Okay okay okay. Move.

He takes a step, and everything explodes again. Everything goes dark before he hits the the floor.

-

He wakes up outside the manor.

The first thing he notices is that his headache is much more muted now. The noise is still there, but muffled, moved to the sidelines in his forehead.

The second thing he notices is that the manor looks…different.

There’s small details here and there that look altered, just similar enough that it’s clearly the manor but different enough that it’s triggering the space of uncanny valley in his brain.

He stumbles towards the manor, mind whirling. How did I get here? He thinks. Why does it look so different?

Paranoid, he makes his way over to a window instead of the front door. Cupping his hands, he leans over and peers directly inside only to see…

Himself?

He blinks, and he’s back in his apartment bathroom, cheek pressed onto the tiles. The headache is back, exploding in his head so suddenly he almost throws up.

He breathes through it, then prays.

-

At some point, he can move again.

He moves slowly, half-crawling out of the bathroom, trying to remember where he left his phone. Help. Is all he can think. I need help.

He moves until he reaches his bed, shakily lifting himself on it and grabbing at the phone on the bedspread. He makes to unlock it, wincing at the light, then pauses.

911 would be a logical choice. However—

His…disappearing act, or whatever had just happened to him? That hadn’t sounded medical. It hadn’t felt medical. This had to have been something else.

And so…

Hoping he doesn’t regret this, he scrolls through his contacts, takes another breath through the pushing headache, then calls Bruce.

-

Yeah. It’s a mistake.

“I’m telling you,” Dick hisses through his teeth as Bruce takes a sharp turn in his car. “I don’t think it’s medical. I’ve been having—”

“We’re going to get you medical assistance,” Bruce interrupts, like Dick hadn’t been speaking at all. “Then, if it doesn’t work…”

“It won’t,” Dick says. His thoughts are so loud. “It’s magic. I feel it.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Bruce says. He takes another sharp turn. “Don’t worry. I have it handled.”

“It’s not medical…” Dick says again. “It’s not—”

He draws in a quick breath. Something flashes in front of his eyes: shattered images, shadowy figures, memories. Childhood memories rush into his mind: moments from his time as Robin, form the teams he was part of during his youth. There’s Wally and Artemis and Kaldur and—

He frowns. That doesn’t sound right. He’s never…he’s never…

“Hey!” Bruce says, voice joining the shouting in his head. “Pay attention! We‘be almost reached the League. Stay awake!”

-

The voices get too loud to ignore very quickly.

He starts losing vision too, he thinks: quick flashes of things, of people, of conversations, start running through his brain at a constant pace. He doesn’t really know if what he’s seeing is what’s in front of him or not.

Eventually, he just starts asking.

“Bruce?” He wheezes out. “Where’s Duke?”

There’s a brief silence.

“Docto…”

“I’m calling Zatanna. This is outside of my capability.”

“Duke?” Dick asks, holding onto the name for dear life. “Where is he?”

He feels a hand grab his forearm. “Who’s that?” He hears.

“I’m giving him something,” He hears, and something pricks at his arm.

Dick says “what-” before the images and sounds come back and he can’t see anything and everything’s so much so much so much—

-

“It’s not magic,” Zatanna says.

Dick steadfastly refuses to look at Bruce. “What is it, then?” He asks. He scratches at his hospital gown. “They said it wasn’t medical—”

“Well,” Zatanna says. “It’s not not magic either. It’s just…it’s just not the magic I’m familiar with. This is…” She pauses, tapping her finger on the solid Justice League medical wing bed. “I don’t know where it’s coming from, or how it got to you. But I know what it’s doing.”

Dick winces. The voices pound at his head relentlessly. “What is it?” He asks. “What’s wrong with me?”

He sees Zatanna make nervous eye contact with Bruce. “It’s the same magical signature. How could you tell?”

“I couldn’t,” Bruce says, sounding defeated. “But from what he was saying…I had to check. I didn’t want to be right.”

“What is it?” Dick repeats, looking between them.

“Crisis,” Zatanna says simply, voice heavy.

Bruce actually freezes. He closes his eyes. “Shit,” He says.

That, make than anything else, scares Dick. “What is that?” He demands. “What does that mean?”

“We have to tell him—” Zatanna begins, but Bruce interrupts her.

“No we don’t,” He says staunchly.

“Then why did you call me if you didn’t want to…” Zatanna argues, and Dick has had enough.

“You put it out there,” He says. “So. Tell me. What’s Crisis and what does that have to do with,” And he gestures at his head. “This?”

Zatanna hesitates. She looks back at Bruce.

Bruce stares back at her, glaring.

“Forget him,” Dick says. “Tell me. Please.”

Zatanna sighs. “Well,” She begins. Bruce makes a gruff noise of disapproval. “It’s…well. It’s a long story. But to summarize: there’s been a few…events, in recent years. Multiverse events.”

Dick’s eyes widen. “Multiverse? Like…like mirror universe multiverses?”

“Yes, and no,” Zatanna says. “The details aren’t important. But. These events sent huge shockwaves over multiple worlds across the multiverse. I got caught up in the stream of events through…some sort of magical feedback. Because of that, Bruce knows too. And the Justice League. But other than that…our Earth was one of the ones that wasn’t caught in the crossfire, so we kept the information secret. Until…until now, I suppose.”

Dick’s head spins. “You’re telling me,” He says. “You guys had access to the multiverse for years? And you didn’t tell anyone?”

The voices in his head shout louder.

“We didn’t want to cause panic,” Zatanna says. Bruce shakes his head. “Since we would likely not be affected…”

Dick turns to Bruce. “Why didn’t you tell us?” He asks. “This seems like a big deal!”

“You didn’t need to know,” Bruce says shortly. “And honestly? Why would you want to. It’s difficult information to deal with.”

Dick can’t help but laugh. “What the fuck,” He says.

“Anyway,” Zatanna says. “I recognize the signature of multiverse connections. And…it’s all over you right now. You’re being suffused by the connection to not just one other earth, but multiple. You’re experiencing memories from multiple multiverses all at the same time.”

Dick places a hand on his forehead. “You’re telling me,” He repeats. “Everything I’m hearing here…it’s real people? Real thoughts, and they’re speaking to me?”

“Not speaking to you,” Zatanna says. “Just…connecting to you. They don’t know you’re there. It’s more like you’ve tuned in to a bunch of radio stations at the same time. And, well. It’s not ‘people’. They’re all…they’re all you.”

“Me?” Dick repeats.

“I didn’t know this part,” Bruce says, eyes narrowing.

Zatanna shrugs. “That’s what’s happening,” She says. “You’ve become…a focal point, I suppose. Of all your multiverse equivalents. They’re projecting onto you, and I don’t know why or how. You’re probably seeing their memories, or thoughts. But yes, they’re all versions of you.”

Dick feels dizzy. “So what I’m seeing…the memories that don’t make sense?”

“Are not yours,” Zatanna says. She looks grim. “Not this Earth’s version of yours, anyway. Earth-84, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“What can we do?” Bruce says. “How do we fix this?”

Zatanna twists her mouth. “I’m not sure,” She says. “Yet, at least. I can call up Doctor Fate. Maybe Constantine? We’ll try to come up with a way to cut the connection without harming anybody.”

“I thought you wanted help?” Bruce says, sounding disgusted.

“You have got to get over the Constantine thing,” Zatanna starts, before Dick interrupts.

“What do I do, then?” Dick asks. He feels…numb. Empty. But also, much too full. “Do I just…do I deal with it?”

“You’ll have to,” Zatanna says, sympathetic. “We can’t risk anything that might make this worse. Try to deal with it for now. I’ll get back to you as soon as we have a solution.”

Dick looks to Bruce, who still looks displeased. “We’ll deal with it,” He says.

Dick just sits there. The voices keep shouting.

-

Dick insists on going back to Blüdhaven. Bruce is very much not happy with the plan.

He hasn’t had this bad a fight with Bruce in years. Dick is catapulted back years, to his adolescence and beyond, when fighting was Bruce was an everyday sport for them.

“Don’t be stupid,” Is Bruce’s argument. “You have a multiverse in your head right now. You’re seeing memories that aren’t yours. That’s dangerous. What if they overwhelm you? What if you lose yourself? Be smart.”

“I don’t see how staying here will help with that,” Dick argues. “I can only fight this battle by myself. Which means I get to choose how to do it. And that means going back home.”

In the end, Bruce can’t actually do anything to stop him (being injured or restrained could cause him to lose his concentration and fall into the voices, so Bruce doesn’t even try) and Dick stomps out, borrowing one of Bruce’s cars and hauling ass back to Blüdhaven.

When he gets home, he quickly scribbles EARTH 84 on a post it note and sticks it on his bedside lamp. Just in case.

-

Dick wakes up in a prison.

Well. Not in, really. It’s more like he’s watching a movie, seeing things move on a flat screen in front of him, two-dimensional.

He blinks at it. Where he is?

He sees a figure in a familiar uniform lying on the ground of a cell in the corner. The suit is black, with blue stripes running across and curling up around the fingers.

The figure groans.

Dick feels the pain and confusion from it like a physical thing. What the hell, he thinks, half hysteria, half curiosity.

Well. If he can help this Dick, why not? He’d have to have been summoned here for a reason, right?

He starts talking, and the man on the floor responds.

-

One morning, Dick walks out of his apartment to go to work.

He’s halfway to the station when he mindlessly looks down and just…stops.

He’s not wearing a uniform: just jeans, a tshirt, and sneakers. And that’s because he’s not a cop. He’s never been a cop. Some Dick somewhere must have been, but he’s never been. He’d gone on autopilot anyway.

Dick runs home, grabs his post it, and stares at EARTH 84 until his eyes tear up.

-

Dick’s phone rings. Startled out of his memories stupor, he leans across the kitchen table to grab at it.

“Hey Dick,” Tim says. “Haven’t seen you in a while. What’s up?”

“Oh, you know,” Dick says. A chorus of voices whisper Timmy. “Not much. Just Blüdhaveing away over here. What’s up with you?”

One thing Bruce and him had agreed on? Stay away from everyone. He knows himself, and knows that he’s not going to be able to act normally around them when he’s got so much happening in his head. And if they find out about this…well. There’s a lot that can do wrong there.

He sees the hypocrisy there, but he can’t bring himself to think about it more.

“Just Red Robining away over here,” Tim echoes. “Anyway, wanted to give you a call and see if you wanted to help with something. I’ve been chasing a lead with the League, and I think that—”

“League of Shadows,” Dick says, trying to covertly confirm that his memory of it is the correct one.

“…yeah?” Tim responds, then jumps right back into it. “They’ve been active again in Gotham, which, as you know, is a problem. I don’t want Damian involved either, so. You in?”

Dick sighs. “I can’t, Timbo,” He says. “I’m working on something super sensitive right now. I’ll give you a call if I wrap it up early?”

He hasn’t left his apartment in days. Hasn’t even read a news article in at least a week. He thinks.

There’s a silence at the other end of the line. “Okay,” Tim says. “I’ll wait for your call.”

“Great,” Dick says. His pounding headache increases. “Then I’ll just—”

“Wait,” Tim says. He sound serious. “Dick. Are you okay?”

“Of course,” Dick says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Tim’s sigh sounds tired. “Okay,” He says. “I’ll believe you. This time.”

Dick doesn’t know what to say. “Bye,” He says, then hangs up.

-

Dick wakes up, heart pounding.

He can still feel it: his stomach flipping as he falls, the momentary pain as his head smashes against something on the floor. And then blackness, darkness and goes on and on and on and on…

He frantically dials Bruce. “What universe are we in, are we 84? Are we 84?”

“I—” He hears the telltale signs of a car pulling over. “Dick—”

“Is this Earth 84?” Dick says frantically. He stares at the post it note like it’s lying to him. “Am I alive?”

There’s a short silence. “Yes,” Bruce says. “On both counts.”

-

“They need help,” Dick tells Zatanna at their daily check in.

Zatanna looks up from her notes. “Hm?” She asks, more sound than word.

“The other mes,” He says. “I can hear so many of them. But the ones I’m seeing? They need help. They need support. They’re suffering.”

Zatanna worries at her lip. “I was worried about that,” She says. “If they’re connecting to you, they might need you for something. Has anything been happening in the visions that you see?”

“Yeah,” Dick says, biting the bullet. “I think they’re hearing me.”

There’s a short pause. Zatanna looks shocked. “Please explain,” She says.

“I’m talking to them,” Dick says. “And they’re hearing me. Sometimes,” And he thinks back to that first memory, the one that started it all. “They’re seeing me too. But only briefly.”

“When did this start?” Zatanna asks, intense.

Dick shrugs. “Always been like this,” He says. “I just haven’t been engaging much. Not until recently.”

“Why?” Zatanna asks, alarmed. “You shouldn’t. The consequences could be…well. This is existential, here. You shouldn’t even be able to do this.”

Dick shrugs. “You know,” He says. “It’s not just people in here. It’s decades. Almost a century. Years and years and years. All inside my head. I don’t know if they’re dead or if they’re alive. All know is that they’re stuck in here and I can’t help them. The only thing I can do is speak with them.”

“I know,” Zatanna says. She sits down next to him. “You can’t, though. This is greater than them. This is greater than us. We all need you to keep the fabric of this universe, and all their universes, together.”

“I think they’re reaching out to me, though,” He says, practically pleading. “They…I keep hearing our number. Eighty four. Eighty four. Over and over again. And then that’s when I can show up, and when they can hear me.”

Zatanna looks even more troubled now. “You cannot keep engaging,” She says. “The fact that they can reach you at all is troubling. When it was just you crossing the multiverse, it was concerning. But if the rest of them can too? What if they start bleeding into each other’s timelines? That would have potentially disastrous consequences. You have to stop doing this.”

Dick nods. He doesn’t speak for the rest of his visit.

-

He can’t fight anymore.

Dick stares up at the ceiling, lost in the worlds in his head. He cycles through them, again and again and again, checking in. He sees how own gaze land on him, eyes widening, before he vanishes. He hears whispers crossing the lines between the many versions of himself, sees them making their way into their own heads.

He hears a knock, and it takes him to second to realize that it’s coming from his own universe.

He sits up so fast he gets dizzy. There, at the window, is Jason. He’s not wearing his helmet. Instead, he’s wearing his regular gear, and a Jasonesque frown.

Dick crosses to the window and pries it open. It sticks a little, so he has to push. “I have a door, you know,” He says, stepping back so Jason can leap inside. “It works perfectly fine.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “What, you’re telling me that?” He says. He glances around the apartment. “Whoa. Did a tornado go through here or something?”

Dick shrugs. He really hasn’t been up to tidying up much these past…however long. “Did you need something?” He asks instead.

“Touchy,” Jason says. He looks vaguely uncomfortable. “You been busy or something? Tim says he asked for support on a couple things and you didn’t come.”

Dick feels that familiar guilt rearing back up. “Well,” He says. “You know how it is here. I’m always working on something.”

“Clearly,” Jason says. He eyes the apartment again.

Dick feels itchy, uncomfortable. He feels the tug of the counterparts in his head. “Can I get you anything?” He asks. He searches through his brain. “I don’t have ginger tea or anything.”

Jason gives him a weird look. “That’s specific,” He says.

Okay. Wrong Jason’s tea. “You know what I mean,” He deflects. “Do you want something?”

“Nah,” Jason gives him a searching look. “Well. I came here to get your input on something but. Yeah. I don’t think that’s happening now.”

“Why?” Dick asks, even though this works out for him, actually. “What’s going on?”

“You’re asking me?” Jason asks, disbelieving. “Tim was fucking right. There is something very wrong with you right now.”

Uh oh. “What?” Dick asks. “Why?”

Jason snorts. “You kidding me? Look at this place. Look at how you’re acting. Have you even left this room today? Nightwing hasn’t been in the news for weeks. Maybe longer.”

Dick shrugs. “I have a lot of underground stuff going on right now.”

“And,” Jason barrels on. “You’re not making eye contact right now. Which is. Unusual for you.”

Is it? Dick lifts up his eyes, locking eyes with Jason. He prays that Jason doesn’t see the other worlds swirling around in his pupils. “There,” He says out loud.

“Dude,” Jason says. He keeps eye contact. “You have to be seeing this. What’s going on with you?”

Dick’s head hurts. “I know,” He tells Jason’s eyes. “I know it’s all weird right now. But…I can’t tell you right now. I need you to trust me.”

Jason just laughs. “Do you know how much like Bruce you sound like now?” He says. “You clearly need help.”

“I do,” Dick admits. “And I know you can tell that. But. I’m managing it right now. And I need to do it alone. And. When I’m done, I’ll tell you. But you need to let me do this.”

“Do what?” Jason says. “I don’t even know what you’re taking about!”

Dick breaks their staring contest. “Yeah,” He says. “God. It’s all fucked up right now. But it’s doable. Can you trust me on that, at least?”

Jason doesn’t say anything, and Dick is worried he’ll keep pushing—

“Don’t make me regret this,” Jason says. “Fine. Call me as soon as you can. I mean it.”

-

He wakes up in a dilapidated mansion this time.

“That’s new,” He says to himself, wandering the space. It’s all dark and cold and misty: something happened in this world. Something bad. “Where are you?” He asks himself vaguely. “Where are you, Dick?”

It doesn’t take long before he finds him: a familiar figure stands a distance away, looking far too put together for his surroundings, at least from the back.

The figure whirls around suddenly, and Dock catches a glimpse of a very familiar face. “What the hell…”

Dick waits for the moment where he’ll vanish from the other him’s sight, where he’ll fade into the background…

It doesn’t happen. The other him keeps starting at him, open-mouthed. “Hey,” Other Dick says. “Who are—”

“You see me?” Dick interrupts, eyes wide.

“Um, yeah,” Other Dick replies. “You’re standing right in front of me, of course I see you! Who..who are you? Why am I here?”

Dick raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t this…this is the manor, right? Wayne Manor?”

“I guess,” Other Dick says. “I was just there, with everyone else…and now I’m in this one, and everyone’s gone. So. Yeah. I’m just…who are you? Why did you bring me here?”

Huh. This is new. “Um,” Dick says. “Well. I didn’t bring you here. You brought me.”

“How do you figure that?” Other Dick demands. “Look, just take me back, okay? I don’t have time to deal with this. Damian needs me.”

Dick’s heart pounds. “Why?” He asks. “Is he in danger?”

“What?” Other Dick asks. “No! There’s a school thing—anyway, I don’t have time to explain myself to you, bizarro-me. Just send me back.”

Dick frowns, examining the other him. He’s…different than the ones he’s seen so far. Brighter, almost. Colors deep and shiny against the backdrop. Almost too shiny.

“Um,” Dick says. This is…bizarre. Even by these standards. “I don’t really know how. Sorry.”

Other Dick’s eyes widen. “Well that’s just great,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “First I’m haunted by ghosts or whatever, now this? This is possibly the worst week anyone has ever experienced in the history of the world.”

Dick stares at him.

Other Dick shrugs. “Okay. So I may be exaggerating. But, hey. I think I’m entitled.”

Dick can’t help but laugh. “You’re kind of weird,” He says.

“That’s kind of a self own,” Other Dick says. “Considering. Either you’re me, or you’re pretending to be.”

“Can’t argue that one,” Dick says, shrugging. “Um I guess we can try to find a way to get you home? If, you know. I can figure it out.”

“Hey,” Other Dick says, tone pointed. “Of course you can! I don’t tolerate any downer self talk in this house. Even if it’s, you know. Post apocalyptic.”

Dick laughs again. “You know,” He says, before his vision shimmers, and he wakes up in his apartment with a gasp.

-

“Another one of them saw me,”

Bruce’s disapproving stare radiates over the phone. “I hope you didn’t engage,” He says

Dick hesitates. “Well…” He hedges.

“I don’t think I have to tell you,” Bruce begins, voice icy. “That you’re playing a very dangerous game here. Not just for you, for all of us.”

“I know,” Dick says. “I do. I would never put us in danger.”

“And yet,” Bruce begins, but Dick interrupts him.

“I’m helping them,” He says, almost desperate. “They need me, they need advice, they need support. And I’m doing that.”

“And you would risk—” Bruce begins, voice icy, and Dick quickly interrupts.

“No,” He says. “Maybe I was. But now. Now…after that last interaction? There’s something…” He cuts himself off. “It was different this time. But different good. I think I can figure this out. Maybe…maybe I’ve been going about this wrong. I’ve tried doing nothing, I’ve tried leaving hints. I think I need to be more involved.”

“Remember what Constantine said,” Bruce warns.

Dick chuckles. “A sentence I’ve never heard you say.” He comments. “Anyway. I know. Be careful in crossing the streams, I know. But he also said that I’m gonna have to break this connection on my own. And you know what? I’m gonna try it my way this time.”

“Just,” And here, unexpectedly, Bruce’s voice softens. “Don’t fall on your sword. That’s not your job.”

“It’s not yours either,” Dick responds. “And don’t worry. I got this, right? Who knows me better than me, anyway?”

There’s an amused silence on the other end of the line. “I think you know the answer to that,” Bruce says.

“I’m not gonna say you,” Dick replies. “Anyway. I’ll keep you updated, okay. You know I wouldn’t risk anyone if I wasn’t sure.”

“I know,” Bruce says, then: “good luck.”

-

“Oh, it’s you again,” Other Dick says.

Dick starts. He glances around the space: he’s in his childhood bedroom. A fire crackles in the fireplace, bathing everything in a warm light. “Huh,” Is all he can think to say. “I don’t have a fireplace in my room.”

“I’m just lucky, I guess,” Other Dick says. He sits cross legged in bed. “So. As fun as it is to see you again, did you want something?”

“Kind of,” Dick says. He crosses, sinks into the chair in front of his desk. “I wanted to ask something, I guess. More like talk things through.”

“Uh huh,” Other Dick steeples his hands. “Sure. I’m doing breakfast with Damian tomorrow so I’m gonna try in turn in early, but go ahead.”

“So,” Dick barrels on. “I’ve been looking for you again, cause, well. In summary, I’ve been seeing different versions of us, at various points in time. None of them have been able to see me, except for you. Why is that?”

Other Dick shrugs. “Are you about to tell me?” He asks.

“The other key difference,” Dick says, staring at the Flying Graysons poster on the wall. “Is I can’t figure out what you want. Everyone else needed help. You…you don’t. At least, I don’t think so. So why? Why did we connect? What did you need?”

Other Dick crosses his arms. “I think you’re missing something here,” He says.

Dick nods at him. “Go ahead,” He says.

“Maybe you called me to help you this time,” Other Dick suggests. “You said all of us needed help, right? You’re one of us too. So maybe…so maybe I was meant to help you?”

Dick thinks about it. “With what?” He asks.

Other Dick shrugs. “Hell if I know,” He says. “You tell me. Give me all your problems and I’ll psychoanalzye you right now.”

Dick laughs. “How are you so game for this?” He says. “You don’t even know me.”

“You’re me, right?” Other Dick says. “Who knows me better than me?”

Dick hides a smile. “Good point.”

“Anyway,” Other Dick says. “Look. You’ve been running around solving everyone’s problems for them. What’s going on with everything else? Life? All of that?”

“Um,” Dick says. “Well. You know how it goes. We have certain priorities we have. Vigilante shit.”

Other Dick sighs. “If I may,” He says. “Don’t. You’re not gonna make anyone else happy nor will you be able to do your job if number one,” And he points to Dick. “Isn’t okay either.”

Dick shrugs. “I hear you,” He says, then: “Your world seems nice, by the way. It’s so…it’s so bright here.”

“Why thank you,” Dick says. “I think we do okay.”

“Not that, though,” And Dick gestures at the Flying Graysons poster. “You know, everything’s almost free of tragedy here.” He smiles sadly. “You know that’s one thing I’ve never been able to help with? I can’t change events, but this seems like it happens again and again and again. They die every time.”

“Yeah,” Other Dick also smiles sadly. “Well. Our version of us kinda depends on that happening. You can’t really change that.”

Dick sighs. “And Bruce,” He says. “He’s there every time.”

“Same reason,” Other Dick comments. “But you know what? We’re not so bad. Stuff happens, you know? But sometimes…we can make that work. And all you can do is be you.”

Dick sighs. “Damn,” He says, leaning back. “Does that work on the family? You’re not a very specific encourager.”

“Oldest brother superpower,” Other Dick winks. “Works every time. You should know.”

“I mean,” Dick shrugs. “I think you do that gig better than me.”

“Your world seems different,” Other Dick says. “So, I don’t know. Maybe your gig means a bit of a different approach. Whatever.” He gives him a significant look. “From where I stand, you seem to be doing okay. You helped the rest of us too, right?”

Dick nods. “Yeah, I guess I did.” At those words, he feels a tug at his head. “Oh,” He says. “I think this is goodbye.”

“See you around,” Other Dick says. He waves. “Or not. Hope you figure it out.”

“Me too,” Dick says, before everything shatters again.

-

It all happens very suddenly.

One moment, Dick is turning in for the night.

He’s toweling his hair dry, contemplating. The last few days have been mostly manageable. He thinks he might have cracked it, he just needs to—

And the voices vanish. Just like that.

Dick drops his towel to the ground. He clutches at his head, looks hard.

Nothing. Not a peep. His head is empty and silence and all him and blessedly quiet. He’d forgotten what quiet sounded like, and it’s the loudest thing he’s ever heard.

Dick breathes out. He can actually feel tears in his eyes. “Oh my god,” He whispers. “Oh my god oh my god,”

He scrambles to his phone. The image of Other Dick comes to mind. Thank you, he thinks as hard as he can. He hopes it gets to him. Thank you.

He dials Bruce before the quiet can get too loud again.

-

“Earth to Grayson,” the Bluetooth speaker in his car crackles. “You there?”

Dick shakes his head. “Babs,” He says. “Sorry. I got a little lost in my head.”

“Can’t be doing that,” Babs says, laughter in her voice. “Especially when you’re driving. So. Just to confirm. 7, my place?”

“Confirmed,” Dick says. He signals left, changing lanes. “How many people did you manage to get?”

“Pretty much everyone,” Babs says. “Jason too. So. That’ll be fun. I’m gonna make him socialize.”

Dick laughs. “Good luck with that,” He says. “Anyway, I’m gonna pass by the manor and say hi to everyone there for a bit, then drop by yours after.”

“Woof,” Babs says. “Well. Good luck. Hope you make it out in one piece.”

“You and me both,” Dick sees the Gotham skyline in the distance. He basks in the familiarity. “To be honest, it’ll be nice to see everyone again. It’s been a little…lonely up in here.”

He remembers the days he had wished his head would stay quiet. He doesn’t regret that, but…

That connection, that ability to help? It had been a lifeline that was difficult to let go.

Bab’s voice softens. “I get it,” She says, then. “You sound better. I’m glad.”

Dick smiles softly. “I am better. I think.”

“I want to hear all about it,” She says. “You promised, right?”

Dick thinks of Jason. “I did,” He says. “You’re not ready, I can tell you that.”

“Ominous,” Babs says. “Anyway. See you soon! Don’t be late.”

“When am I ever?” He asks. The WELCOME TO GOTHAM sign passed by him in a swirl of green and blue. “I’ll be there. Promise.”

[aesfocus]

aes' video game gif making tutorial 2024 Part 2

Welcome back to Part 2!

[Here is Part 1.]

My PSD tag is [here], my gif making action is [here].

8. Set timeline to what you want.

Five seconds of scenery doesn't really need this, but talking or action, does. Make sure timeline is open(window -> timeline) and move the bars in by click and dragging them until you get the start and end of your 'gif'.

Now, I am going to make a fast and dirty blended gif with two scenes. This is to cause my action to fail, and show you how to fix it.

But this will serve as a fast tutorial for blending gifs too.

For me, each timeline needs to be about 2 seconds long because that's how long the shortest scene is and you want them to match up.

Anything more than about 5 seconds will require clever removal of frames, coloring, or cropping to fit in tumblr's size constraints, just be aware.

8.1 Blending gifs together

Blending two gifs together is easy enough. I've opened two files, I've shortened the timelines and now I will drag this smart layer into your other file. (make sure window -> layer is open so you can see this.)

Once dragged over you'll notice that the timeline looks like this now;

Which is great for many effects, but we are going for blended, so back over to the Layers window and we are going to drag Layer 2 up and out of this Video Group.

So it looks like this, but your timeline is messed up now

Grab the layer that's behind a bit, in this case the Timeline Layer 2 and drag it till it starts at the same time as timeline Layer 1.

Like so.

Sometimes you do need to make sure your gifs line up correctly on the screen, when doing this, so go up into the main window and move Layer 2 if needed.

This is it being nice and squared up.

Now make a new layer(at the bottom of the layer window or just ctrl+shift+n) and drag both the timeline and the smart layers until it looks like this ^^^.

Go to Layer 3, and with a large soft brush smear some color on it, do not worry about perfection. Once you have that Right Click on Layer 2(in layers not timeline) and select create create clipping mask.

You'll get something like this.

I will move layer 2 around a bit, and paint/erase on Layer 3 until I get a shape I like.

Like this;

9. Actions to sharpen and make your gif.

Actions are easy, you simply Load an action and then let it do the work for you by pressing play when you've selected the action. Like so.

The first one we are going to use is a Smart Sharpen action, always do this after cropping.

Select the layer you want to sharpen and press play and it will do the rest for you. You can find lots of other sharpening actions for free on various resource blogs across tumblr, but honestly just fiddling and then saving the sharpening you like best is great!

The second Action we are gonna use is my beefy gif action! But hang on.

If your gif is 5 seconds long use it as is(pressing play at the top 'set document...', it will remove half your frames, if it's shorter, like my 2 second gif, you are going to start a single line down to 'flatten frames into clips' and skip the timeline settings so you have more frames in your gif. Like this;

Press play. Wait as it does all the work for you.

Oh no! It failed, press Stop.

And now delete EVERYTHING but 1 single frame in the timeline. Doesn't matter which ones you delete(I just deleted frame 1).

Without selecting anything else, press play on the action again and wait for it to finish.

Now you do need to do some clean up!

Delete these misc. extra frames.

10. Set gif speed.

Make sure you still have all your frames selected and then right click on any of them!

Go to other and type in what you want.

For 5 second gifs that are scenery I do around .12 seconds, and for talking about .08, for a short gif with full frames, like the one I am making, I will set it to .05 to start and then hit ctrl+alt+shift+s to bring up the gif save menu, and play it, but it looked too fast so I set it to .07.

If you want to get into the weeds you can math out how fast the gif needs to be to match your footage.

11. Trim your gif as needed

Now for me, this looks kinda bad, these last few frames, Lae'zel's face is out of frame. So I am gonna delete them off my gif and then make sure I re-select everything in the timeline window. Once I've done this I will then go ahead and select the very top layer over in the layer window. Time for the fun bit.

12. COLORING

This is all up to personal choice of course! But I highly suggest, especially for older games you do some coloring.

You can of course use PSDs, which I will be providing a free one each day all this month(oct 2024).

However the best thing is to learn how to use various adjustment layers for yourself.

I used every single thing in photoshop at least once to learn what it did many years ago, camera raw has been the newest learning curve for me(being able to import lightroom effects with it, neat!).

Fumbling around is a great way to learn, otherwise there are tons of coloring tutorials, again the various resource blogs have a ton to get you to a baseline.

For this I am going to do a slight vibrance/saturation layer, a gradient map layer reduced down to 20% and then a color balance layer.

If for some reason your coloring isn't showing up across the timeline like so;

You can just go and unify the layers, click all three.

Now, I didn't really like how Lae'zel was looking so I fiddled around with just painting on some colors until I liked the look of it. (Here is the PSD so you can see everything I did).

So from beginning to end, the first uncolored gif looks bland and washed out on tumblr, while the second is more vibrant and better for my personal taste. Some folks love muted gifs, go wild.

Now it's time to save.

13. Saving.

How you save, what format, matters.

But it is a preference thing, for me personally I use pattern for Skyrim scenery and diffusion for most everything else. The reason being Pattern can create banding lines across the face, however pattern has a more aggressive saving method so the file size is smaller.

Ctrl+alt+shift+S will bring up the save menu.

Turn Metadata off, if you are using a legit copy, as it'll have your email address and such in it.

So some things to note. Always pick optimized up top, you can save presets if you want.

To the right of that, try to generally use adaptive algorithm if you can, it tends to not wash out your colors as much. Turn Transparency on but no dither there.

Diffusion vs. Pattern. Honestly everyone is different, I feel a bit strange in that I switch it up constantly as most folks have a preferance.

But things to note about pattern! It makes gradients look lovely. So say the aurora in Skyrim or The Long Dark, or a cloudy sky in RDR or BG3. However on faces or more densely compact changes of color, it doesn't do so well.

Diffusion does have some tricks up its sleeves however for dropping a gif in size! My gif (8.065 MB);

My gif with lossy at 3. (7.825 mb)

Keep your gifs under 10mb. That means 9.99 is fine, 10mb is not, tumblr uses a different compression for everything above 10mb and its not great. So if you need to use lossy 5, do it. If you need to cut 7 frames off the top, do it. If you need to add contrast or remove a color, do it.

Make sure it's looping forever and save!

Now then;

There is more to explore, including watermarks, how to properly tag these days or more aggressive lessons in how to color a gif. But tumblr is already screaming at me for too large of a tutorial!

This month I will be doing psds everyday, for free, hopefully as a good start off point for folks. They will be [here], again my gif making action is [here].

[ratherembarrassing]

2025: weeks 1 + 2

starting the year off as we ended the last one: well behind on every measure!

right off the bat: the wee hours of new year's day. henny and fairy floss and chappell roan playing quietly in the background. a perfect start.

first brunch of the year: my kingdom for a horse (whitemore square, adelaide). it's gonna be the year of the waffle.

unicorn slime: the gift for a seven year old.

eight? hours in a steamy car: the fires in the grampians were forecast to kick off again, so my very brief jaunt to adelaide was over. it was hot. my stomach was angry. there was nothing but errands waiting for me. i think the eight hour drive ended up taking nine and a half.

purchases that will change your life: a new kitchen knife. the dulling of a knife is like slow boiling a frog, or whatever the saying is, but there are few things as satisfying in life as a perfectly halved sandwich.

nicole kidman, save me from the sun: i have been in the market for a rashie since about 2014, but the point is that despite being absolutely paranoid about getting sunburnt, last summer i got roasted in a 3" strip across my back and i have conceded defeat by my shoulders' inability to reach that far. anyway, there is a rashie version of nicole kidman's swimmers, and now i own it and it's great.

not that i needed it: first beach of the year was hot and entirely cloudy, which is perfect beach weather as far as i'm concerned. melbourne beaches can barely be called such a thing, but they are great for floating in the water while you have a gasbag with your pals before stuffing your faces with fish and chips.

songs i shazamed (mostly) in the car: this is an annual tradition at this point, but it's literally the reason i bought an apple watch a few years ago and i haven't shared it in a few years.

oh yeah, also tv: squid game (season 1, netflix). the next item will explain why, but i did finally watch the first season a couple of days after the second season dropped. surprised by how uninteresting i found it, which maybe tells on me more than on itself.

the blood is a metaphor: maccas was running an australian-only grown up happy meal to promo squid game season 2, which included a dalgona candy that got you a ticket in the draw for either a tracksuit or $10,000. there were four shapes, and only the golden arches were for the cash. after a couple of other shapes, one of which i got out successfully, i finally got a big M in my tin. and i was prepared. i had watched s1 now. i knew what to do: i was going to lick that sucker free. within five minutes and nowhere near to releasing the shape, my tongue was bleeding. did i stop? no. did i get the shape free? yes, but it broke. i carefully shoved the pieces back together so i could trick the scanned. it worked! "congrats, enter your details below." below: this competition is now over. motherfucker.

get that one in ya: is what i would have named the place, but fluffy torpedo is also a name for a weird flavour ice cream joint. buttermilk pancakes and maple syrup flavour was exactly as described, buttered baguette was... something else, though i couldn't say what.

also, uh: let (2024, dir. alyssa loh) sonoya mizuno in the short film version of that slightly off-putting bdsm fic that exists for every single ship.

cinema!: the brutalist (2024, dir. brady corbet). every year i manage to see the best movie of the past year right out the door of the new year. the length is daunting, but the intermission entirely mitigates it. i reviewed it on letterboxd like a wanker.

sportsball, as always: i hustled my ass out of the 3.5 hour movie to get down to some ill-planned impulse purchased tickets to day one of the ao to see my girl sabalenka have a stressful one. as circumstances have eventuated, i'm now very glad i went when i did.

[thisaintascenereviews]

Top 50 Favorite Albums Of All Time

Earlier in 2024, I spent a few weeks putting together a Top 25 All Time Favorite Albums list, but I’ll be honest: I wasn’t happy with it. I don’t like how it turned out, whether it as including multiple albums from the same artists, or having albums on the list that I didn’t want to be there after all, but those are all albums I do love. My taste has changed so much in the last five years or so, and I wanted the list to reflect that. Instead of 25, I decided to make this one 50, and I wanted to include a lot of different kinds of albums, so there will only be one album per artist. That does make it tough, because there are multiple albums from certain bands and artists I love, but narrowing it down to one is the fun part. And yes, I am including greatest hits, because greatest hits albums are important albums, especially for artists of yesteryear. I also won’t be going into much detail for the first half of the list, but these are all albums I have talked about in some capacity in some way, shape, and form. With that said, let’s on with this list, starting with…

50: Alice In Chains - Dirt (1992)

Out of all the 90s grunge bands, my favorite was always Alice In Chains, because of their heavy riffs, sludgy sound, and the vocal power of Layne Staley. Their second album, 1992’s Dirt, is the perfect culmination of their catchier and more energetic sounds with the sludgy and heavy sounds that they pioneered on their 1990 debut.

49: Rush - Moving Pictures (1981)

When it comes to the progressive rock band Rush, I could have also picked 1976’s 2112, but I wanted to go with 1981’s Moving Pictures, because I love the synth-driven sound that feels accessible yet unique at the same time.

48: Spiritbox - Eternal Blue (2021)

The most recent album on my list, Eternal Blue is the album I credit with getting me back into new music. For a year and a half straight, I wasn’t listening to anything new, but this metalcore album really surprised me with how unique, catchy, and heavy it is.

47: Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill (1986)

Like many white people before me, I discovered rap through the Beastie Boys. Well, sort of, at least when it comes to 80s and 90s hip-hop. Licensed To Ill isn’t the first rap record I’ve ever heard, but it was one of the first classic albums in the genre I heard. While some of the subject matter hasn’t aged incredibly well, the instrumentation and production is still utterly wonderful all these years later.

46: Billy Joel - The Stranger (1977)

Billy Joel’s breakthrough album, The Stranger, is the epitome of what piano-drive rock and pop should be. Joel’s voice is so smooth, especially against his piano riffs and his soft rock musings about everyday things and people. The follow-up, 1978’s 52nd Street, is actually quite good, but The Stranger edges it out just a little bit.

45: Dio - Holy Diver (1983)

I love Ronnie James Dio’s stint in Black Sabbath (no Black Sabbath is going to be on the list, for the record; Ozzy’s voice just does almost nothing for me these days, despite Paranoid being a wonderful album), it’s his debut with his eponymous band Dio that I love most of all. The fantasy-inspired lyrics, his larger than life vocals, and the killer heavy metal sound are a great combination.

44: Panic! At The Disco - A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out (2005)

One of the formative records from when I was around 13, Panic! At The Disco’s debut album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, is a record that is still such a unique and interesting thing to this day. It has elements of pop-punk, baroque-pop, alternative, electronic, and many more things. Vocalist Brendon Urie was also one of the most talented vocalists of his time, and the record still holds up almost 20 years later.

43: Every Time I Die - The Big Dirty (2007)

Every Time I Die broke up a couple of years ago, but their 2007 album, The Big Dirty, will always be my favorite of theirs. I loved their catchy yet heavy brand of southern-fried metalcore, but I also loved vocalist Keith Buckley. This always was also the first one I ever heard, especially having one of the singles on an old Alternative Press compilation album, so I have a nostalgia for this album more than other of theirs.

42: Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV (1971)

The first in a series of “obligatory” picks that you’ll see here, Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, Led Zeppelin IV, is a great album. It’s an overrated one, for sure, but a lot of overrated albums are just as good as they are overrated. There’s a reason why it’s so beloved, and it’s because it’s their best album, as well as their most interesting, well-written, and catchiest. It has some of their biggest tracks, but they came into their own with that record.

41: Queen - The Game (1980)

My favorite Queen album isn’t the one with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” it’s actually the one with “Another One Bites The Dust.” Their first album of the 1980s, The Game is their shortest and tightest album with some of their catchiest and heaviest material. This was also one of the first Queen albums I ever heard, so I’ve grown attached to this one, so to speak.

40: Bayside - The Walking Wounded (2007)

I’ve had mixed feelings on Bayside over the years, but their third album, 2007’s The Walking Wounded, is another nostalgic album for me, as well as being my ultimate favorite of theirs. Only their latest album rivals this one for me, but The Walking Wounded is a cool mix of pop-punk and hard-rock, especially with some harder riffs that pop up here and there.

39: Sly & The Family Stone - Greatest Hits (1970)

I absolutely love funk music, and Sly & The Family Stone is a band that helped to really pioneer 1970s funk, along with James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic, but their 1970 greatest hits is absolutely fantastic. It has a lot of their biggest singles, plus some deep cuts from their first handful of albums that I really love.

38: Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (2013)

Justin Timberlake is one of my favorite pop artists, and while I do love 2006’s FutureSex / LoveSounds, my favorite album of his is 2013’s The 20/20 Experience. The first in a two-part album, the record is the better of the two, but it’s an album that brought JT a second wind in the spotlight. For a solid period of time, he was really popular again, but this record has some of my favorite tracks of his, including “Suit & Tie,” and it also has a very old school and retro-leaning sound with a modern twist that I really love.

37: Boston - S/T (1976)

Boston’s debut self-titled album from 1976 wasn’t even supposed to be a success. The band’s record label said that hard rock albums were on the way out, but unfortunately for them, Boston came through with one of my favorite hard rock albums that has some wonderful vocals and hooks strewn through throughout it.

36: The Rolling Stones - Hot Rocks (1971)

When asked if I prefer the Beatles or the Stones, I’ve always been a Beatles guy, but I actually got into The Rolling Stones within the last couple years while playing Mafia III, as their music is featured heavily in that game. Their 1971 greatest hits album, Hot Rocks, is the quintessential album from these guys, as it has a lot of their big singles from the 1960s, plus a few deep cuts that are awesome.

35: My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (2006)

My Chemical Romance was among my “holy trinity” of bands that I loved as a kid, and their third album, 2006’s The Black Parade, will always be my favorite of theirs. It’s another odd album like Panic’s debut, where it combines a lot of stuff, only this time it takes on classic rock / glam-rock swagger not unlike David Bowie or Queen, but only for a more modern audience. There’s a reason this is considered to be their best album, but it’s certainly my favorite.

34: Yellowcard - Southern Air (2012)

I wrote all about this album during the summer, where I was revisiting some 2010s pop-punk, and this is my favorite album of that time. I love how mature and grownup this record is, especially dealing with some heavier topics, even if it mainly deals with growing up and the uncertainty of where your life might go. It complements that with being catchy, fun, and anthemic, but it’s also my favorite Yellowcard album. They distilled what worked so well from their first few albums and combined that with a wiser sensibility.

33: Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (1993)

Enter The Wu-Tang, the 1993 debut from Wu-Tang Clan, is one of the first rap albums I ever heard, but it’s always remained one of my favorites. I love the posse cuts of the album, and how well the group all works together, especially with the samurai and Japanese aesthetic of the record. This album is a pioneering album for its time, and even over 30 years later, it still holds up real well.

32: Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus (1956)

The first of a handful of jazz albums, 1956’s Saxophone Colossus by Sonny Rollins is a saxophonist (obviously) who has quite the reputation, and this record is considered his best, as well as being my introduction to his work. This album is a wild ride through hard bop, including really fun and inventive solos and improvisation. Rollins is one hell of a saxophone player, too, but this is the album that brought his playing to the masses.

31: Foreigner - 4 (1981)

Foreigner was hardly an unknown band with their fourth album, 1981’s 4, but this is my favorite album of theirs, because of how catchy, fun, and energetic these songs are. A handful of my favorite Foreigner songs are here, such as “Juke Box Hero,” and “Urgent,” but this is where they got their brand of hard-rock just right.

30: Hall & Oates - The Very Best Of (2001)

I used to be very much against greatest hits albums, but I’ve got a handful here, starting with the 2001 Hall & Oates greatest hits. I had one from 2004 as well, which was the first one I heard from the band, but that one included both their material from Atlantic and Sony. The one from 2001 only includes material from Sony, but these guys are what I like to call a “singles band.” They have some solid albums, but their singles are where they shine, and this album has a lot of their best songs, including some great deep cuts.

29: The Academy Is… - Santi (2007)

The Academy Is never got as big as some of their peers, such as Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance, but their sophomore album, 2007’s Santi, is a masterclass in pop-punk, alternative, and rock. The sound of this thing was more than just a generic pop-punk album, but it had a lot of really unique and off the wall ideas, and it still holds up today.

28: Robert Johnson - King Of The Delta Blues Singers (1961)

Released in 1961, this collection of songs originally recorded in the late 1930s by the legendary blues artist Robert Johnson (legend has it he sold his soul to the devil to play guitar), is something that a lot of psychedelic and blues-rock artists of the late 1960s and 1970s would be influenced by, but this is a raw, powerful, and intense collection of blues songs that every music fan needs to hear at least once.

27: Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder (1963)

Trumpeter Lee Morgan released his magnum opus, The Sidewinder, in 1963, and this record is absolutely fantastic. This record actually saved label Blue Note from going bankrupt, because the record was such a big hit at the time. I can see why, because this album has some amazing soloing and improvisation, but it’s just a great jazz record from front to back.

26: Various Artists - The Muppet Movie OST (1979)

The lone movie soundtrack I have on my list is for one of my favorite movies of all time — The Muppet Movie. I’m a big Muppet guy, and I love this soundtrack. All you really need to is that it has “Rainbow Connection,” and that should be enough for anyone to understand why the soundtrack is so good.

25: A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders (1993)

One of my favorite hip-hop albums is A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders from 1993. Released the same day as Enter The Wu-Tang, Tribe’s sound of jazz-rap was something I didn’t feel as overwhelmed or intimidated by. Not that rap is overly intimidating, but if you’re new to the genre, it can be a lot. This album’s easygoing sound was more than enough to make me feel welcomed to its sound, but this record still holds up more than 30 years after its release.

24: Little Richard - Here’s Little Richard (1957)

One of rock and roll’s pioneers, Little Richard’s debut album was (and still is) nothing like its time. Called Here’s Little Richard, this debut album from 1957 collected some of his A-sides and B-sides to make for a fun package. Having songs like “Long Tall Sally,” and “Tutti Frutti,” those are classic rock and roll staples, and despite being so simplistic, they’ll never get old. They’re written so well, I just love listening to this thing over and over.

23: Guns ‘N Roses - Appetite For Destruction (1987)

Over the last handful of years, I’ve developed a love for 80s hard-rock, and one of my favorite albums in that vein is the debut Guns ‘N Roses album, Appetite For Destruction. Between Axl Rose’s killer vocals, and Slash’s wonderful guitar work, this record is a masterclass in hard rock. The hooks are razor sharp, the lyrics are full of debauchery, and the guitar solos are so good, I just can’t get enough of it.

22: Paramore - Riot (2007)

Paramore’s sophomore album, 2007’s Riot, will always be my favorite of theirs; they finally came into their own with this one, especially vocalist Hayley Williams sounding as great as she does. The hooks are a lot of fun, and this album is just a nostalgia trip for me every time I hear it. Even with “Misery Business” not being a super popular song in their repertoire anymore, at least not wanting to play it live as much, I still have a soft spot for it.

21: John Coltrane - Giant Steps (1960)

You can’t be a jazz fan without being a Coltrane fan. He’s one of the top dogs of the 1950s jazz scene, right up there with Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. I’m not familiar with Monk, hence why nothing of his is here, but I’ve wanted to get into his material. Regardless, 1960’s Giant Steps is a fantastic hard bop album that showcases his trumpet playing skills to the max. This is such a tight and fun album that has so many different ideas and atmospheres, but it works so well.

20: Childish Gambino - Camp (2011)

The first rap album I ever heard was Childish Gambino’s 2011 debut album, Camp. This record was divisive when it first came out, although it has seen a bit of a cult following since. While certain aspects of this album haven’t aged as well all these years later, namely some of the lyrics, but the hooks, flows, and the pop culture references are pretty fun. This record is my favorite of the 00s “backpack rap” albums, or they were otherwise known as “punchline rap.” Donald Glover still had a bit of work to do as a rapper and singer, but he was quite proficient already. His next album, Because The Internet, would show more of an improvement, but I still prefer Camp.

19: The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten (2012)

I know it’s a crime to put Handwritten, and not The ‘59 Sound, but I do love that album, though; Handwritten is just a perfect rock album, through and through. I love its classic rock sound that feels very much influenced by Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and the like, especially with vocalist Brian Fallon’s voice sounding like The Boss himself, but this record is what comes to mind when I think of a perfect rock and roll album.

18: Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle (1976)

CCR is one of my favorite classic rock bands, but they’re another band I digest mainly through singles. I love their 1976 greatest hits album, Chronicle, which was released a few years after their breakup in 1972. Chronicle has all of their biggest singles, but it is missing some really good deep cuts. I still love this album, though, despite how long it is (and how the last few songs are from their last couple of albums that no one really likes).

17: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (1977)

Just like how The Gaslight Anthem’s Handwritten is the perfect rock album, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is the perfect pop album. This is one of those lightning in a bottle albums that could never be replicated; everything came together so well, it’s hard to be replicated. Every song on here is a total banger, too, the hooks, harmonies, lyrics, and instrumentation are gorgeous to listen to. This is one of those iconic and obligatory albums that you can’t totally argue with. There’s no one that would argue against this album being bad, or anything even close to it.

16: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

The Beatles used to be my favorite band around a decade ago; I still love them, but they’re one of those bands I could go the rest of my life without listening to, because I listened to them every day for a couple years straight. My favorite album from them is still 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band, but I’ll admit it’s gone down the list over the last handful of years. It’s still a really weird, interesting, and unique ride through 1960s psych-rock, baroque-pop, and folk.

15: Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA (1984)

You know The Boss had to be on this list, but 1984’s Born In The USA will always be my favorite of his. There are a few other contenders, such as 1975’s Born To Run, but Born In The USA takes Springsteen’s middle class lyricism and brings it to the 1980s with synth and pop melodies. It shouldn’t work on paper, or at least sound like it could, but when it comes to the execution, it works so well. For what could have been Springsteen’s “sellout” album, it weirdly ended up being the shot in the arm he needed, and it became his best selling album.

14: AC/DC - Back In Black (1980)

One of the first hard rock albums I heard, if not the first, is AC/DC’s Back In Black. This 1980 album came after the band’s former lead singer, Bon Scott, passed away, so the band made a risk by bringing on Brian Johnson, and it paid off big time, because this record is not only one of their best albums, but it’s also one of the highest selling albums of all time. You know the songs, too, and don’t act like you don’t. This album has some of the most iconic hard rock songs of all time, as well as some iconic cover art, but the songs are still just as catchy as ever.

13: Sonny Clark - Cool Struttin’ (1958)

When I was first getting into jazz a few years back, Sonny Clark’s 1958 album, Cool Struttin’, was one of the first albums I found and that I fell in love with. Sonny Clark was a pianist who performed mainly hard bop jazz, which is what I’ve mainly got on the list (minus some vocal jazz albums), and while he died really young, he left behind a great body of work, including this record. This is a short little album that has a lot of moods and atmospheres, but it’s mainly upbeat and energetic, which is my favorite kind of jazz music. If you, too, want to get into jazz, this is a good album to start off with.

12: Eagles - Greatest Hits (1976) / Volume 2 (1980)

This one is a bit of a cheat, because this pick is actually two albums in one; I love the Eagles, but I love both of their greatest hits albums, one of them being released in 1976 and one released in 1980 during their first breakup. I love both albums, but I almost feel as though I have to listen to both at the same time. I love songs from one, and I also really love songs from the other, but it doesn’t feel right to listen to one or the other. You almost have to listen to both at the same time, but these albums have all of their best songs, and even a few deep cuts. I just really love the Eagles, especially their brand of catchy country-rock with some utterly killer three-part harmonies. These guys pioneered country-rock, although they weren’t the first band to do it, but they made it as big as it is today.

11: Judas Priest - Screaming For Vengeance (1982)

Judas Priest is one of the first heavy metal bands I ever got into, and the first album I heard from them was 1982’s Screaming For Vengeance. On my other list, I had 1990’s Painkiller, which is my other favorite album from them, but Screaming For Vengeance is a catchier and more accessible album, whereas Painkiller is more off the wall, energetic, and frantic. Screaming For Vengeance has a lot of real catchy hooks and some killer twin-guitar riffs, but it’s still really accessible for even the most unseasoned metalhead to get into it.

10: Chet Baker - Chet Baker Sings (1954)

Now we’re into the top ten, we’re into the heavy hitters, starting with one of my all time favorite vocal jazz albums — Chet Baker’s Chet Baker Sings. Chet Baker was a trumpet player that was known for his playing, but he decided to release an album where he sang and played. The album ended up being a huge hit, and it was re-released in 1956, but this record is absolutely gorgeous. His singing, while not absolutely amazing, is so delicate, emotional, and lovely, but so is his playing. I love his trumpet playing, but the session players he’s got are great, too. His cover of “My Funny Valentine” alone is worth the price of admission.

9: Van Halen - 1984 (1984)

I could have picked either this album or their 1978 self-titled debut, but 1984 is their version of Born In The USA (weirdly also released in the same year). This record shouldn’t work, because of its dated synths and pop melodies, but it does. This album has some of their biggest tracks, including “Jump” and “Hot For Teacher,” but it also just rules. I also love short and sweet it is, because it’s only 33 minutes. I never get sick of listening to this, because of how short it is. Both David Lee Roth and the late Eddie Van Halen are hard to beat, especially when this was the last album to feature their classic lineup. The band would never be the same after Sammy Hagar joined, but this is easily their best album.

8: Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast (1982)

Now we’re talking, because we got some Iron Maiden on the list, and you know that we need to have The Number Of The Beast. I also love 1984’s Powerslave, but this one is the quintessential Iron Maiden. The title track, “The Prisoner,” and “Run To The Hills” are some of their best songs, but this also being the debut album that features current vocalist Bruce Dickinson is such an impressive feat. They had two albums with their first vocalist, and they ended up replacing their first vocalist with Dickinson. Despite Dickinson leaving again in the late 90s, he ended up coming back, and the band has been pretty steady since, but The Number Of The Beast is still regarded as their best album.

7: Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue (1959)

The first jazz album I ever heard was Miles Davis’ magnum opus, 1959’s Kind Of Blue, and it’s still one of my favorite albums today. This record is different from his earlier material, because instead of going for a hard bop sound that a lot of his contemporaries were doing (and that I’ve highlighted on this list), he went for a modal jazz sound. The record feels more flowing, organic, and easygoing, versus taking a hard turn into different sounds and ideas. This record is just so free moving, and I love how easygoing it sounds, especially for it being around 45 minutes long. Kind Of Blue is a pioneering jazz record that is the perfect album for people that want to get into jazz music, because it gives you a great mixture of sounds, ideas, and atmospheres.

6: Metallica - The Black Album (1991)

Of course I had to put a Metallica album on my list, because they’re one of my all time favorite bands (the next list that’s coming is a favorite artists list that doesn’t include Metallica or Fall Out Boy), but it took me forever to decide on which album to pick. I could have picked 1984’s Ride The Lightning or 1986’s Master Of Puppets, but I went with a rather contentious pick: 1991’s self-titled album, otherwise known as The Black Album. This record is the epitome of their fame, because they went into a full hard-rock band by this point. This is the album that really blew them up, and depending on who you ask, people love or hate this album. I mentioned that I could have used one of their mid-80s albums, but I decided to put The Black Album on the list because it’s their catchiest album, yet still one of their heaviest. People fail to remember that the album features some nasty riffs, but they’re sugarcoated with a pop-metal gloss.

5: Elvis Presley - Elvis’ Golden Records (1958)

I haven’t expressed it publicly, but I love Elvis Presley. He was one of the first 1950s artists I ever got into, so I have a soft spot for his brand of rockabilly / rock and roll. He’s a pioneering artist, even if he didn’t write any of his material, but that was the case with artists back then (talk to a lot of traditional pop, easy listening, and vocal jazz artists who mainly covered songs from that time), whether it was for his powerful voice, his stage presence, or the rebellious new sound that wasn’t completely new (it was just repurposed for a white audience, which is a can of worms all in itself). This is really one of the first greatest hits albums in rock history, if not the first, although Johnny Mathis beat him by a little bit in the same year. Singles were mainly common in that era, but artists were starting to release important albums that had unique concepts, but this album is a landmark of rock history, because it has some of the most important singles of all time.

4: Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High (2007)

Fall Out Boy is my favorite band, along with Metallica, so I had to put my favorite FOB album on the list, 2007’s Infinity On High, because that was the album that got me into music. I’ve spoken about this album a million times, so I won’t get too deep into this one, but I do love this album, though. This record just influenced a lot of my taste, especially where Patrick Stump is one hell of a singer, and the hooks on this thing are razor sharp, but the instrumentation is just as sharp. I also took my love for creative, poetic, and interesting lyrics here, too, although I’ve softened on that over time. I don’t really care as much about lyrics now, but I still appreciate it when lyrics are really deep and creative. Infinity On High is a record that got me into music, and part of why I love it is ultimately nostalgia; the record holds up well, but this is one of those albums I listen to and I’m immediately taken back to when I was 13. Not a whole lot of albums can do that for me these days, because of how much my taste has changed (although I still like a lot of the classic rock I did from back then), but this is one that can totally take me back there.

3: Sam Cooke - The Best Of Sam Cooke (1962)

When it comes to my top three albums, I thought long and hard about it. What are the three albums that I love most these days? Well, my favorite greatest hits album of all time is Sam Cooke’s 1962 greatest his album, The Best Of Sam Cooke. This collection is a half hour of some of the best covers and original songs I’ve ever heard, especially songs that helped to influence and define soul music of the 1960s. Cooke’s voice is utterly wonderful, and he’s easily one of my favorite artists of all time, but this record is a big reason why. I could listen to him croon all day, but this record is the perfect collection of hits. It’s a short and sweet package of his material, but it’s something I can always listen to. I’m almost always in the mood for Sam Cook, especially where his voice is so smooth, it’s just easy to listen to. Each one of these songs are a perfect 10/10, but this record in general is something special. I had a period about a decade ago, where I got into 1960s soul music, but the one artist that I’ve always gone back to is Sam Cooke.

2: Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours (1955)

I’ve made it no secret that I’ve fallen down a Sinatra rabbit hole over the past couple years, but what can I say? His voice is so smooth, warm, and welcoming, but his knack for crafting a mood, atmosphere, and an ability to perfectly interpret a song to make it all his own is incomparable. When I wanted to look at my favorite album of his, I narrowed down to two albums — 1955’s In The Wee Small Hours, and 1958’s Come Fly With Me. The former is a moody and introspective record that’s considered to be the first “concept” album, whereas the latter is another concept album that’s essentially about traveling; on each album, the songs all follow a different idea, whether it’s a breakup on the former and songs about places and/or traveling on the latter. As much as I love the latter, In The Wee Small Hours is a masterclass in mood and atmosphere. Sinatra sounds so lovelorn, vulnerable, and saddened, but it works so well. It’s a bit of a long player, and it’s an album that isn’t very energetic, but it’s a masterpiece.

1: Michael Jackson - Thriller (1982)

On my last list, Thriller was my number one album, too, and it may have surprised some people, but this is a record that I’ve loved for years. This was the first pop album I ever heard, and it blew my mind, because it showed me that pop music can be really awesome, unique, and influential, especially compared to the garbage that was coming out in the early 2010s (when I first heard this thing). Jackson himself was at the top of his game, as was the late Quincy Jones (may he rest in peace), so this record is a case of everything working well. You know the songs here, though, so do I need to go into detail about why Thriller is great? These are some of the best songs of all time, as well as some of the biggest hits, so it makes sense why these songs are great. I just put this record at one, because Thriller is a record that means a lot to me (for being the first pop record I ever heard), and having songs that I can always and consistently go back to, regardless of my mood.

[deng-yi-deng]

Cdrama: what I watched 2024

This year I got suuuuper picky and also pretty much stopped watching cdramas. Will this be my last wrap-up post ever? Tune in next year! Normally I keep a running draft review going that I can just post at the end of the year, but this year I forgot - which really signals my waning interest in cdramas generally - so my reviews are kinda vague.

No shade to folks who loved the big popular romance dramas but I completely gave them a pass. As a result, I had a great drama year - nothing under a 4/5 for this viewer!

Best drama this year: Heroes 天行健 (2024). Y'all slept on this one. Watch it now!! Even better than JoL2. Yes, you heard me. Shoutout to @lyxurious for reccing it to me. She has the best taste 💜

Mostly spoiler-free reviews of what I watched in the order I saw them under the cut

Follow Your Heart 颜心讥 4/5 (iQiyi)

(score includes extra credit for LYX bias)

Easy-watching, low-stakes, funny, and sweet. If I'm honest, one of the better plotted dramas that Luo Yunxi has been in. You know him as the beautiful crier, but his rom-com is not to be trifled with. Luo Yunxi is great as Jiang Xin Bai, the face-blind detective, but I was so happy to see Song Yi (Yan Nan Xing) in something where she wasn't playing a helpless girl or demure lady. It's the most enjoyable role I've seen her do apart from RuoRuo in JoL. Her comedy chops are also very solid, and she and Xixi were very cute together. The plot does falter a bit in the last 3/4 and slows down as they focus on the other couples, but then picks up and ends happily. Some great comedy characters - Jiang Xin Bai's mom is hilariously over the top - and fabulous performances by guest actors who play "Yan Nan Xing" when she shape-shifts. Also some good fight scenes! This is one I'd re-watch to de-stress.

Judge Dee's Mystery 大唐狄公案- (4)?/5 (Youku, Netflix)

Overall good, with movie-quality visuals, but I was disappointed by the last two mysteries which were simple and lacked oomf - I think the drama was split into two parts due to the new <40 rule, which would explain the fall off in momentum. As such I'm going to reserve a rating until the second half drops. Some of the individual mysteries - especially the one with Zhang Ruoyun - were fabulous. Acting was great from all the leads - don't believe anyone who tells you Ma Rong was annoying, she was not. The gender swap the writers did for that character totally worked for me. And I absolutely bought Zhou Yiwei as Di Renjie (though tbf I've only seen the Detective Dee movies).

Looking foward to s.2 (or part 2 however you want to count it)

Joy of Life 2 庆余年 4.5/5 (iQiyi)

Lots more people have reviewed or commented on this so I will be brief - I enjoyed the focus on politics and the machinations of the emperor, so this season really worked for me. I also thought Wu Xingjian did a great job as Yan Bing Yun, taking over from XZ. I loved the interactions between Fan Xian and Wang Qinian, adorable. There was one scene where the emperor and Fan Jian were talking/ploting/negotiating and the dialog and acting were so aaagh. so clever. I was kicking my feet and squealing. It is nice when a drama does not assume its audience is stupid. And of course we can't forget the 'power point' Fan Xian and Fan Si Zhe give about treasury bonds. Worst part: Uncle Wu doesn't show up until nearly the end ;_; looking forward to LOTS of Uncle Wu in s.3

Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty 2 To the West 唐朝诡事录·西行 4.5/5 (iQiyi)

Better than season 1 in production quality but particularly in terms of the mysteries themselves. Where s.1 gave us Scooby-gang like "the demon is just a guy in a mask" solutions, the mysteries here have a bit more to them, and plenty of cultural interest as they journey farther into the west, ending up in Dunhuang! Lu Lingfeng and Su Wuming still have unbeatable chemistry, but I feel like LLF got the spotlight a bit more this season. I love them both, but hope my man Wuming doesn't get the short end of the stick again. Let's please not forget who the disciple of Di Renjie and all-around genius is?

S.3 they should head back to Chang'An and maybe??? get back to the original mystery of who is the worst royal in the capital!

Heroes 天行健 5/5 (Tencent, YouTube)

Some of the best and most entertaining storytelling in a cdrama that I've watched. The setting at the very end of the Qing, with the turbulence and uncertainty works perfectly to explore the question of who really is a hero, and for whom. And the fights! There are so many!! sometimes more than one per episode!!!! The characters are well written and well-acted. This drama cements Qin Junjie as one of my favorite actors now (having previously only seen him in Fox Volant). Also one of the few guys who can rock the queue and still be handsome. We follow three groups of characters as they try to find the pieces to a puzzle that will lead them to a treasure. One group is the old guard (royalty, the establishment), one the outsiders of the jianghu, and the third are the rebels - the new China. The stories and character relationships are woven together really well, and the pacing of each episode pushes you forward to the next, always wondering what will happen. I seriously did not think they could keep each episode as interesting as the last but they did - with twists that were surprising, but logical in hindsight. Each 'hero' is trying to find their place in the world and do what they think is best for their people - by following the rules, by breaking them, and by making new rules. It's as much a competition between philosophies as it is between individual groups or individual people. This drama is intelligent, but first of all it's entertaining. It understands exactly what it is and what it's trying to do and is very self-aware. Please please pay special attention to the opening credits because they change...(also kudos to the composer who so ably channeled Enrico Morricone when necessary.)

I Am Nobody 异人之下 4.5/5 (Youku, YouTube)

Though this came out in 2023 I didn't manage to watch it until the end of the summer (2024) and I'm glad I did. Pure fun. Hilarious, great concept and characters, well done all around. It gave me major KO One flashbacks - mostly because of the style of humor and the focus on 'teenagers' - but was completely it's own thing. Great characters with sweet and sometimes heartbreaking backstories. Bao Bao you deserve all the hugs forever 😭.

Highly recommended if you enjoy fun comic book style fights, clever storytelling, and slightly sophomoric humor with lots of heart.

Dramas I dropped:

Not as many this year, since I didn't even try any of the big popular idol dramas. Eternal Brotherhood lost me around the 2/3 mark but I can't explain why! It had a great plot, and I love Yang Xuwen, but maybe I just got distracted? When the second half comes out I'll probably try it again.

Kill Me, Love Me had a spectacularly plot-packed first couple episodes and then they put on the brakes. That kind of uneven pacing, and focus on secondary characters led me to drop around ep 9. Which was sad because I like all the actors and the plot seemed good, but I lost interest.

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Toady’s 2024 Book Awards!

I’m obviously not a BookToker, but I do love watching everyone’s reading wrap-up videos and I want to be included, so here are my 2024 reading superlatives!

(Obviously my opinion is my opinion, if you love a book I hated or vice versa then I love that for you)

Total books read: 46

Top genres: Literary, fantasy, classics

Average rating: 3.98

DNFed: 11 (your girl’s a quitter)

Most Surprising: Just Kids by Patti Smith

I’m not a huge fan of Patti Smith’s music, so I didn’t expect to care much about her memoir when it was recommended to me; the thing is though, Patti really doesn’t seem to think of herself as a musician. She’s a deeply flawed individual whose choices I frequently balked at, but who possesses the unique ability to contextualize her own story within a moment in time. 5/5.

Most Disappointing: The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

Dear fucking god, I hated every second of this. The premise had serious potential, but it was offset by half-assed characterization, clunky dialogue, and baffling narrative and stylistic choices. This is maybe the meanest thing I’ve ever said about a book, but I swear it’s out of love because I truly think this could have been great: this is a classic example of typing versus writing. Meg Shaffer typed an entire book without writing a single thing. I beg you: step away from the thesaurus, read your sentences out loud, and learn how to write a whole person without depending on outside factors to define them for you. 2.5/5.

Wildest Ride: Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

This filled the Succession-shaped hole in my heart. I could not have put it down if you’d paid me, which wasn’t surprising considering Brodesser-Akner’s track record. This is an author who knows how to grip you, and while she has you she’ll make sure you’re laughing. It’s genuinely so hard to be funny in writing, but she always manages to make me crack up while simultaneously showing me the most vile, embarrassing, horrifying aspects of humanity. 4.75/5.

Most Controversial: The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Okay hear me out. I hated this, but not because it was bad. It wasn’t bad, the premise and plot were interesting and I was impressed that Khaw was able to pace the novella so efficiently, especially because horror tends to want more context than that format allows. The thing I hated (and I do seem to be the only one, so forgive me) was the prose. Every single sentence reminded me of those “Things That Sound Like They Came From the Bible But Actually Came From Tumblr” posts, and while a lot of people seem to enjoy that style of writing, I found it to be completely bogged down in itself. Untangling the mess of adverbs was so tedious that I almost couldn’t follow the plot, and what sucks is that the over-writing really served no purpose. 2.5/5.

I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills: The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

I have never felt so gaslit by a book in my entire life. The bookish internet would have you believe that this is top-tier worldbuilding, characterization, etc etc etc but I am here to tell you that the entire thing is ass. I couldn’t actually believe how ass it was. And still I see people putting this on their “Best of 2024” lists as if it was anything but shit from a butt. Rated 3/5 stars for the “twist” at the end, but honestly this is a 1-2 star book.

Best Contemporary: The Book of Love by Kelly Link

This did not work for everyone. That’s completely understandable. Parts of it were questionable to me too. However. I was so gripped by Link’s writing style, her depth of character, and the freaky, uncanny charm of the world she’d created that I forgive the more depraved parts of the plot in what I think is a testimony to the fact that, in writing, craft matters. This book pulled me into itself by force; it had been a long, long time since I’d been so engrossed, and I immediately felt like a little kid again, reading late into the night even though I knew I’d be a mess the next day. 5/5.

Best Classic: Stoner by John Williams

This book put words to feelings I didn’t know there was even language to express. I’m stunned that it’s not considered a foundational text in the canon of English literature; having read it, I feel like I can trace the origins of everything from The Holdovers to The Secret History. 5/5.

My Favorite, But: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Okay so the writing is occasionally cringe, yes. Also, it’s weird that the love interest is a real historical figure. Totally. The main character is irredeemable for sure, and the ending is wack. Every single critique of this book is completely valid and I don’t disagree with any of them. And also this is hands-down my favorite book of the year. Nothing I’ve read since has compared, it was like a super-intense dopamine hit that I’ll never be able to attain again. It’s wildly smart, painfully self-aware, genre-defying, and somehow it also manages to be extremely fun and sexy. This may not be your favorite book, but if nothing else it will keep you on your toes. 5/5.

Honorable mentions: Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The Orchard by David Hopen, The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster, Erasure by Percival Everett, and The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Dishonorable mentions: The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman, The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood, Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio, and Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

[alwritey-aphrodite]

for the summer blurbs! 22. Friendship bracelets w/ Santiago Garcia please!

2024 Summer Blurbs

Summertime as an adult takes on a different shape than you remember as a child. The days are just as long and hot, but they seem to have lost the glimmer that colored your summer breaks when you were growing up. Now, instead of lounging around and playing with your friends all day, you have to keep working and you only see your friends once a week if you’re lucky, everyone having their own jobs and their own lives to worry about.

You’re desperate for companionship, something about summertime that makes your everyday loneliness feel more extreme than it does in the colder months. You’re aching for someone to spend time with, anyone so you’re not alone in your house all day, reminiscing on when life seemed so much bigger and brighter and easier.

Which is why when Frankie asked if anyone would be willing to watch his daughter, Arianna, for a few hours every day, you jumped at the opportunity.

She’s a great kid, quiet and well behaved with all that childhood imagination, an expert storyteller even when she can’t speak properly. Frankie and his wife enrolled her in a bunch of camps, hoping that she’d be occupied all day while they work, but they’d ended being all half-day activities, leaving a gap between lunch and dinner when Arianna needed to be supervised.

It’s a pretty sweet deal for you, picking Arianna up from her camps and making her lunch before following her around your house with your work so you’re able to keep an eye on her. Most of the time, Frankie or his wife will pick her up from your house before dinner time, but every so often, when they’re working late or it’s their weekly date night, one of the guys will pick her up instead and you pass they babysitting torch until it’s time to pick her up from camp again.

It’s a little silly how much you enjoy your afternoons with Arianna, just being in the same room and watching her play in all her childhood contentment. The first time she’d asked to play in your backyard, your mind was blown by the realization that you weren’t stuck in your office, that you could work outside and take advantage of the beautiful summer weather whenever you wanted. You’re probably a little too lenient with her, letting her talk you into doing crafts she’d learned in her camps or asking you to go on a walk, but it’s impossible to say no to her big puppy eyes, and you have to secure the title of favorite babysitter.

Today, when there’s a knock on your door letting you know that it’s time to hand Arianna off to one of your friends, there’s a pile of friendship bracelets sitting on your kitchen table, your work abandoned for an afternoon of weaving colorful string together in patterns you’d thought you’d forgotten.

“You should give this to whoever’s at the door,” Arianna says as she pushes a bracelet into your hand before rushing off to grab her backpack and her shoes, her own arms covered from wrist to elbow in your creations. You humor her, taking the bracelet with you as you make your way to the front door, trying to puzzle out how each of your friends would react to the gift.

When you open the door and see Santi standing there, your first instinct is to pocket the bracelet and lie to Arianna, tell her you gave it to him but that he probably lost it because he’s old and forgetful, but unfortunately for you, Santiago is very observant.

“What's that?” He asks as he nods towards the colorful tangle of string gripped in your hand, though he could probably figure it out on his own based on the bracelets piled around your own wrists.

“It’s a friendship bracelet, Arianna was teaching me how to make them again,” you tell him matter-of-factly, as if this is a normal, everyday occurrence for you and he shouldn’t be questioning it. You place it into his outstretched hand, and he only has the chance to examine it for a second before Arianna comes barreling around you and runs straight into his legs, already talking a mile a minute.

They leave and you clean up the rest of your mess, making a pile of the leftover bracelets for Arianna to take home the next time you watch her, with the exception of a few that you really liked. You try your hardest to forget about the bracelet you gave Santi, knowing it’s exceptionally silly and that he definitely didn’t read as much into it as you did. You’d all but managed to convince yourself to forget about it by the next time you see him, so you’re shocked when you recognize the flash of colors wrapped around his wrist.

[summmeister]

2024: Art In Review

2024 has come and gone with a whole new slew of art from yours truly. The first half of this year felt fairly stagnant, but I do believe I really cleaned up in the second half. I’m really proud of a lot of the art I made this year! As always, I’ll be going over everything month by month, making sure to point out anything important along the way.

January

A fairly tame month overall with the prime exception of my plague doctor drawing from near the end of the month. Even now, I’m still quite proud of myself for this piece! The detail and shading are both fantastic, albeit with a little roughness in some areas. Going into 2025, I would like to improve at drawing humans, and this piece is a good starting point for that goal.

February

A fairly cozy month with only a few pieces made. If you asked me at the time, I would say I was the most proud of the Sunspot drawing, but if you asked me now, I would say I’m most proud of the Chao drawing. I’ve looked at it quite a lot since initially drawing it (mainly due to it being, for some reason, one of the first files to show up on Google Drive) and I realise it actually looks quite nice! The rough lines and bright back-shading add a lot. NEVER gonna get over that extra thumb on Chao’s left hand though. No idea how I missed that.

March

A VERY dry month, unfortunately. I dipped back into Pokemon (if only very, VERY slightly) by drawing Impidimp. Satina is here too. Things get more exciting later!

April

It’s got the same amount of drawings as last month, but I actually have things to say this time! The Baxter and Forthington drawing was meant to be a bit of a successor to art I made for a Rhythm Heaven art collaboration I was a part of nearly 3 years ago. It certainly looks a lot better than the art I made back then! Still think it could be a little better though… I’m a bit more experienced with smooth shading now, so maybe I should give it another shot?

The Wortox drawing is also interesting, although not as much. I deliberately went for a rougher style with it, and decided not to draw new lines for the line art, and instead use the lines I had already drawn for the sketch. I could try something like this again for quicker drawings…

May

It’s got a few more drawings than last month, although most of them are doodles and tests, unfortunately. The Sam & Max drawing is easily the standout here. I always love drawing them every once in a while. I also tried my hand at a new art style this month! Judging by the fact the drawing was never finished, I don’t think that was all too successful.

June

Now THIS is a big month. Picture this: It’s the run-up to Art Fight and I’ve got no updated reference images for all of my OCs! I have been experimenting with a new art style earlier in the month but it still needs some tweaking. The drawings as a result of these factors are some of my favorites from the whole year! The gradient into two different layers of shading looks great and you’ll be seeing more from this art style later in the year.

As well as adopting a new style for myself, I also experimented a little bit more with smooth shading with my drawing of Jack O’ Lantern, from Shin Megami Tensei. Considering it was a drawing of the same character that showed me I could improve at my art, I’m happy to say I’m really proud of this one! I don’t think I’ll try a style like this again though: I like my lines smooth.

Lastly, an unfinished Lethal Company drawing. Once again tried a different style with this one, and while I do think some of it looks fantastic, it overall wasn’t shaping up to how I wanted it to look, so I stopped working on it before I got to the shading stage.

July

July was Art Fight month! I only did one piece for myself, and it was for my 21st birthday. I used this month to experiment more with tweaks to my art style during Art Fight. You can find the results of that here. I found a style of smooth shading that works well for me, and I had a whole lotta fun throughout the event!

August

Oops! Nothing

But seriously, I was so burnt out after Art Fight I kinda just… didn’t do anything this month! Apologies.

September

Didn’t do too much this month! Was still burnt out from Art Fight, but I managed to squeeze a few pieces out in the latter half. The Wortox and Krampus drawing was an experiment in doing more elaborate scenes. Truth is, this was actually my second attempt at doing something like this. The first is still a sketch! I might finish that some day.

October

This was a VERY interesting month. See, this month, I did a drawing challenge, of sorts. I challenged myself to come up with a new original character for every day of October, from the 1st to the 31st. Some of these ended up as quick doodles, others as fully completed drawings. A few even got remade! I’m really quite proud of myself for being able to stick it out the whole month, even if some of the drawings were rushed or the ideas were rough. I’ll definitely try something similar next year, although the topic is yet to be decided…

Also! Halloween! As always, I did a halloween drawing this year: Skweeb as a pumpkin… Pumpskwin! But that’s not the end of it! At the end of the month, my friends and I decided to host a very special movie night, with all of us in costume! Unfortunately, I don’t have a webcam and didn’t bother to buy one before the event, so I instead opted to create a Pumpskwin VTuber! It was a real fun process from start to finish and I just love working on odd projects like these. Maybe I can do another in the future?...

November

After the rollercoaster that was October, November saw things settle down quite a bit. I experimented a little more with art styles and made a birthday drawing for a friend. Quite a cozy month.

December

Finally! December! This month! It had a little bit more activity than last month, with more art style experimentation! I believe I’ve landed on a secondary art style, one I can use alongside the style developed in June. It’s a modified version of an art style I had for a bit earlier in the year, but with cleaner lines. I quite like how drawings look with it!

Well! That’s all 12 months covered! While I could very easily just put my best drawing from each month in a template and post that, I like going over all of my thoughts and goals month by month instead of simply showing the results. Anyone trying to get into art could read through something like this and get an idea of how they want to approach their projects. I also just like talking about my interests, too.

Of course! LAST but CERTAINLY not least, my yearly redraw of my first ever art piece! I believe this is a BIG improvement from last year’s, and I’m really quite proud of how it looks!

Thank you for reading.

2025 is right around the corner!

[darkmaga-returns]

Christopher Caldwell

Nov 26, 2024

Conjurers, Cranks, Provincials, and Antediluvians: The Off-Modern in American History, Jackson Lears. Yale University Press, 456 pages

The Rutgers professor T.J. Jackson Lears is one of the most original historians of our time—so original, in fact, that it is hard to say exactly what he is a historian of. American thought and culture are his subject. His period is Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the Great War … that cascade of political battles that make up the two long generations between 1865 and 1932, when the United States was re-founded by moneymen on the broken promises of the Civil War. Lears edits Raritan, a prestigious literary/cultural quarterly. Year-in, year-out, for decades, he was a star reviewer in the book pages of the New Republic and the Wilson Quarterly. There his commanding and highly readable essays often dealt with canonical American writers and thinkers—Henry Adams, William James, Van Wyck Brooks. 

But his life’s work, pursued in half a dozen book-length studies, has been to discover something more elusive—the history of American moods and inclinations, even of American character. “All history,” begins his Rebirth of a Nation (2009), “is the history of longing.” What Americans are longing for at any given minute is shaped by the wisdom of the country’s best thinkers, but also by historical accidents, coercive institutions, and plutocratic bullying, not to mention revivals, superstitions, fashions, and propaganda. In turn, the public mood constitutes an iron outer limit on the mischief of energetic and innovative elites. Lears’s heroes are often commoners who assert that limit—however crudely and ungraciously—against the ruling interests of the day. His newest book collects two dozen of his historical and political essays under the title Conjurers, Cranks, Provincials and Antediluvians. 

It was the Vietnam war that radicalized Lears. He did not spend it at Woodstock. An autobiographical introduction describes a crisis of conscience he suffered in 1969. As a young man of conservative Catholic background who had grown up down the street from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, he found himself serving as a signals officer with a top-secret security clearance on the Navy cruiser Chicago. The ship carried tactical nuclear missiles, official denials to the contrary notwithstanding. He had figured out a couple of things on board—first, that modern wars kill civilians systematically; second, that in the event of a nuclear attack, he himself would be decrypting the launch codes. Lears’s quest for conscientious-objector status and an honorable discharge was complicated. Military secrecy meant he could not reveal that the ship was nuclear-armed. 

[the-habitat-ring]

The (Real) Stardew Valley Farm

So a year and a half ago we bought a house, AKA the real life habitat ring. I swear the yard came with every single non-aquatic invasive plant we’ve got. Slowly but surely we’ve been murdering all the Japanese honeysuckle and poison hemlock, tearing up a truly inhumane amount of weed barrier and pea gravel, and adding truckloads of wood chips and other organic matter to start to repair the soil. Our goal is to replace everything with mostly native plants with an emphasis on food production.

But of course I needed more of a challenge. I love playing Stardew Valley. It’s really the only video game I play. And somewhere I got the idea, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to grow everything in Stardew Valley in our yard?” So here we are. Obviously I don’t live on some magical land with perfect weather, a giant greenhouse, and a second farm on a tropical island, so I have to make plenty of substitutions. I’m also trying to grow native plants whenever possible. Any suggestions are welcome!

2021

Amaranth - Native white amaranth (the birds love it!)

Grape - Native riverbank grapes (so many grapes) and some green cultivated variety from the neighbors

Dandelion - Obviously

Maple Tree - Native silver, red, and sugar maples (also an invasive Norway maple but we chopped it down)

Pine Tree - Not sure what kind of pines they are

Apple Tree - Not in great shape. I’d love an Enterprise apple tree at some point

Coffee Bean - Chicory (maybe that’s cheating, but it’s a naturalized plant commonly used as a coffee substitute)

Salmonberry - Not native to the Midwest, so we’re sticking with native black raspberries. We’ll likely add some pink/yellow raspberries later though

2022

Kale

Rhubarb

Strawberry - Both cultivated and native

Tulip

Radish

Tomato

Beet

Eggplant

Fairy Rose - Not a real thing so I substituted the native prairie rose

Cranberries - Native cranberry viburnum

Orange Tree -Native persimmons, which produce orange fruit

Daffodil

Spring Onion - Native nodding onions and also green onions indoors

Spice Berry - Native spicebushes

Wild Plum - Native

Hazelnut - Native

Crocus

Cherry Tree - Native black cherries and nonnative bush cherries

Tea Leaves - Native New Jersey Tea bush

Banana Tree - Native pawpaws, which are also known as Indiana bananas

Mango Tree - One of the pawpaws is a named variety called mango so I think that counts

Ginger - Attempted native wild ginger, which I don’t think survived, but am also growing ginger indoors

Green Bean

Sweet Gem Berry - Native Juneberry (Downy Serviceberry) which are a redish color

Planned for 2023

Blue Jazz - Not real so I went with the native Ozark Bluestar, which seems similar enough

Garlic

Parsnip

Apricot Tree - Native passionflower vine. Not a tree, but it is known as wild apricot

Blueberry

Sunflower - Both native and non-native sunflowers

Pineapple - Neither my spouse nor I like pineapples, so we’re going with white strawberries known as pineberries that are said to have a tropical taste

Pumpkin

Melon

Wild Horseradish - Except I’ll be growing it in a pot because it tends to get a little too wild for my tastes

Holly - Native winterberry holly

Oak Tree - Native dwarf chinquapin oak

Sweet Pea

Hot Pepper

Palm Tree - Obviosuly not going to work here but there is a native palm sedge that I’ll plant instead

Planned for 2024

Potato

Corn

Hops - Hoping to get a cutting from a native hops vine (if the local beer people don’t kill me)

Winter Root - I’m gonna go with native ground nuts because you can dig up the roots in winter

Poppy - Hopefully native wood poppy

Red Cabbage

Artichoke - Native Jerusalem artichokes

Cactus Fruit - Native prickly pear cactus

Yam

Bok Choy

Leek

Fiddlehead Fern

Blackberry

Crystal Fruit - I’m gonna go with honey berries, which produce fruit earlier than anything else

Ancient Fruit - Native Aronia berries are the only thing I can think of for this one. They’re blue(ish) and have lots of antioxidants so you live to be ancient

Figuring Out Substitutes

Rice

Wheat

Starfruit - Not really sure how to swing this one, so suggestions are welcome

Summer Spangle - Not real, so I’m open to suggestions of native plants. Possibly prairie lily? It has a similar-ish shape, is orange, and blooms in summer

Qi Fruit - Creepy little man

Taro Root - I would have to plant it in pots

Morel - I wish I could grow this

All the other mushrooms - I think I’ll just ignore any varieties and just try plugs or similar

Snow Yam

Cave Carrot - Trying to find a native carrot substitute

Coconut - I shouldn’t count this separately from palm trees, right?

Mahogany Tree

Peach Tree

Pomegranate Tree - There are Russian pomegranates that are hardy to zone 6, which just might work with climate change

[vivispec]

hey, i’m bloo/vivi (she/her, 25). feel free to send me asks/message me/tag me in stuff, i always love interaction! icon and sidebar by my bestie @sweetmage

mostly posting dragon age rn (and for the foreseeable future) but i’m also pretty big on bg3, outer wilds, mass effect, zelda, msa, ghibli, ancient magus bride, and lots of other things i pick up and put down. i do a lot of writing for my da ocs which you can find on my ao3 here.

speaking of, here are links to my big completed projects:

reckless momentum (what would hawke do if carver was the warden contact? my submission for the 2024 dragon age big bang with art by @ladyofc)

kindling and set yourself on fire (my DA2 submissions for the wipbigbang with BEAUTIFUL art by @sweetmage)

derecho (my DAI submission for the 2023 dragon age big bang, with AMAZING art by neoendydy)

my whumptober 2022 collection (100% completed because. i have issues.)

under the cut are my dragon age ocs whomst i love dearly, and write about pretty much exclusively! i am a dirty dirty console player so janky quality be upon ye

just realized all but one of these bitches is elves. look. i told you i got issues ok.

here we have my beloved viera’vun ‘viera’ lavellan, my inquisitor and a solasmancer (i am so sorry to her), as well as the oc i write most by far. she was a dalish hunter trained primarily in daggers, later specializing as a tempest. she is a pathfinder at heart whose greatest strengths are her perceptiveness and resilience, while her greatest weaknesses lie in her impulsivity, lack of assurance in her identity, and her tendency to run from her problems. i have a bunch of fucked up aus centered around her and all the situations i put her into! she likes to run, climb, and sing (she is Bad at it). varric calls her ‘finch’.

iloniyn, my most preciousest boy. him and viera are hunting partners as well as (platonic) soulmates, a phenomenon known to the dalish as tael’inan. they are each one half of a whole. iloniyn is incredibly sarcastic, confident, and prickly, but tends to care deeply about those that he considers his people, and gives of himself freely to them (even if he complains while doing it). he is bonded to @sweetmage​‘s oc athimien, likes to whittle, is a great shot, and can play the lute. varric calls him ‘snipe’.

ishme aeducan, a sharp, hard woman who will not be made a fool again. raised to navigate the subtle and dangerous world of dwarven politics, she is incredibly cunning, and often pulling the strings in any given situation. she is softened by alistair, who teaches her how to be a person as she teaches him how to be a king. wields dual blades as a warrior.

taufei! oooh i love taufei. a leader alongside ishme by the end of origins, she is idealistic, friendly, and generally just a chill person to hang with. though content enough to do her own thing, once she sets her sights on something, she does not relent, often leading her into...hairy situations. those situations include wooing a witch of the wilds and having a sweet lil totally-not-in-any-way-shape-or-form-creepy baby with her! yippee! she was the second of her clan, though her magic was never incredibly powerful and, as such, she made her living on making and infusing potions for her clan. she is a skilled herbalist, knows enough archery to protect herself, and actually has really long luscious curls that Do Not Exist in game you are just going to have to trust me okay.

kita tabris. she is...intense. if you are her friend she is kinda just a dudebro. picked up the big sword her mother used to wield and decided to learn how to use it because, hell yeah, big sword (which, as it so happens, is exactly what her mom did). if you are not her friend, she is. intense. finds battle thrilling, and isn’t afraid to spill blood. while she can come across as flippant or immature, much of her disregard stems from an avoidance of her more serious (and painful) thoughts and emotions. she is zevran’s gorgeous and incredibly powerful girlfriend whomst he adores and cherishes, and the fact that she can, will, and has crushed a man’s skull with her bare hands only strengthens his devotion. 

araia surana, a very sweet young mage who is wholly overwhelmed by this big, new world around her. previously a teacher’s pet who didn’t much mind kinloch hold with little in the way of friends, jowan’s ‘betrayal’ left her reeling with nowhere to turn. while she is curious of the world beyond, she is also incredibly anxious. she picks up a habit of lying to avoid confrontation, and while she is very good at it, her dishonesty puts strain on her and leliana’s relationship early on. her passion is in ancient and forgotten magical techniques and practices. she loves listening to leliana’s stories of adventure and romance, and often plays ‘doll’ when her girlfriend decides she needs something to dress up. after the archdemon is defeated, she spearheads efforts to find the cure for the joining.

[vapeguyy]

Best Dry Herb Vaporizer of 2024

Hello all. 2024 is here, and with it, my list of the best dry herb vaporizers you can buy today. As you probably know, dry herb vapes are not "one-size-fits-all." The best vaporizer for me might not be the best for you, as we may prioritize different features. So, I've broken the list down by categories.

If you use any of these dry herb vapes (or any other ones), I'd be glad to know your opinion and experience with them. 

* Check out this list for coupon codes, let me know if any are not working (these are affiliate links/coupons) 

* I also published this list as video on my YouTube channel

Best Overall Vaporizer- Venty

The Venty by Storz & Bickel was released a couple of months ago by a company with nearly 30 years of experience in dry herb vaporizers. S&B, the maker of the iconic Volcano desktop vaporizer, has developed the Venty as their flagship portable model after years of research and development.

The Venty has several strong pros:

It uses a super-efficient hybrid heating system and achieves maximum extraction. The herb is initially heated with conduction, meaning contact with the chamber's walls, and then convection heat is pulled in with each inhale to boost the extraction. The results it produces are predictable and consistently great.

It's as close to "medical grade" as it gets. The Venty has a UL certification and has been rigorously tested to ensure pure vapor with no contaminants.

It is very simple to use: Open, Load, Close, Ready, Set, Go.

Lastly, it is made to last. Built from premium materials, S&B has a proven track record of sturdy, long-lasting vapes.

The cons are:

First, it's expensive. At $450, it is not for everyone. The price tag is definitely a barrier for many users.

Second, it's big. While not huge and definitely manageable, it won't comfortably fit in a pocket. So, if you're an on-the-go user or value discreetness, the next vape on the list might be more suitable for you. However, for home use, larger vapes have a few benefits: they get less hot during use, typically have larger batteries, and are sturdier and easier to handle. So, the size can be a pro or con, depending on your perspective.

Best small-from vaporizer- Pax Plus

The Pax Plus is the company's fourth iteration since the original was released in 2012. It maintained the same size and shape but with significant internal improvements. At $200, Pax strikes a balance between price and performance and is a good fit for new users and pros alike. 

Here are a few of my favorite features:

Pax Plus easily has the best size/performance ratio in the industry. It's small and discreet and easily fits in a pocket or concealed in my palm. With the flat mouthpiece, it's almost impossible to tell what this thing is without seeing you actually using it. It's my top choice for going out, and since it's so small, sometimes I'll even pack my old Pax 3 and bring it with me as well so I can enjoy two sessions without repacking. 

It has a huge oven, which again can be a pro or a con, depending on the user. I can easily put half a gram into this press, which is a must-have if you buy the Pax, and pack it into this brick, which perfectly fits in the oven. This capacity is double that of most vapes, like the Venty, which fits around a quarter gram. A large oven fits more herb, meaning more THC. A proper session with the Pax can send most users to Mars faster than Elon's rockets. 

It's easy to use and clean, has a wireless charger, and is long-lasting. Look how banged up mine is, and it still works perfectly.

The cons are:

It doesn't have precise temperature control. Unlike the Venty, which can adjust the temperature by +/- 1°, the Pax has four preset levels. I typically start it on the third setting to get a good flavor and then bump it up to the fourth to maximize extraction.

Since it has a small body, it gets hot towards the end of sessions. This is a sacrifice you're making when opting for a smaller vape.

Easiest Vaporizer to Use and Maintain- Arizer Air MAX

The Arizer Air MAX is Arizer's latest release and features their signature usage process, which involves loading herbs into the glass mouthpiece, which is then inserted into the heating chamber. The original version of this vape was one of my first vaporizers and helped me personally switch from combustion to 100% vaping. Here's why I love it:

Pros:

It's unique loading system means only glass touches the herb, keeping the flavor pure and making it the only part that ever gets dirty. A quick dip in ISO once in a while easily removes the residue and leaves you with a clean air path.

It makes the most out of your flower. It has a small chamber perfect for solo use, and if you're looking to conserve flower due to cost or availability issues, the Air Max will stretch it the longest.

It has a replaceable battery, precise temperature control, and it comes with a 14mm rig adapter included in the kit.

Under $100- XMAX Starry 4

In the value category of under $100, I have the Xmax Starry. The latest version, the Starry 4, was released in mid-2023. Using the coupon code on the review page (linked below), you can get this vape for $90, which is excellent value. It has a ceramic oven with a capacity of a quarter gram, precise temperature control, and an adjustable airflow. It's an entry-level vape, so it doesn't have the vapor quality of more premium vapes, but it still punches above its weight class and is an excellent option for beginners. 

Best Convection Vaporizer- Tinymight 2

The Tinymight 2 is the best convection (aka on-demand) vaporizer. Convection vaporizers produce heat in a heating element outside the chamber. The heat is pulled into the chamber with each inhale, extracting vapor into the mouthpiece.

This means that each inhale is a mini-session, and you can hit it, leave it for an hour, and hit it again. But make no mistake, the Tinymight 2 is a super heavy hitter. If you build up to it, you can probably down an entire bowl with an intense 10-second inhale. That will hit you hard.

However, convection vapes like the TM2 have a slight learning curve and may not be the right fit for most people. I don't suggest buying the TM2 as a first-time vape unless you've tried it before and know what to expect.

If you're looking to save flower, you're probably better off with a small-oven hybrid vape such as the Venty or Air Max mentioned earlier.

Other all-rounders that are good choices include:

POTV Lobo: Uses a hybrid heating system, has a 0.25g chamber capacity, precise temp control, is super easy to use, has a few mouthpiece attachment options and a nice ecosystem available.

G-Pen Dash+: Another small and discreet option. It has a titanium heating chamber with 0.25g capacity, precise temp control, and is super simple to use.

Ooze Verge: This is another entry-level vape that performs excellent for its price. With the coupon on the review page, it's $125 and probably has the best vapor quality at that price. The battery life is on the shorter side, but still, this vape is a solid choice. 

And just a reminder - check out the review pages for more info and coupon codes for all these products- https://vapeguy.com/best-dry-herb-vaporizer/

This is the first post in a series of "best lists," where I'll break down my top choices for concentrate vaporizers, dab pens, eRigs, 510 batteries, and even vapor cups. I'd love to hear your thoughts or experience with any of these vapes or an insightful review of any other vape.