#“alex and julius” is that all you ever say ;-;

[annt-i]

Heya dawg,., can you by any chance make julius and Alex pfps (matching) for me and a friend :)). I adore julius and Alex with all my heart. I’m so not fixated on their trope + dynamic .. skaddles

order up! seems like alex didn't ride his bike to school today, maybe it was raining. either way there's someone he'd rather not meet on the tube

[wutheringmights]

Nightbane by Alex Aster opens with a quote from Cato, A Tragedy (1713) by Joseph Addison: “My bane and antidote are both before me.” Very important. Very cinematic. 

Quotes can rarely, if ever, be taken out of context without any loss of meaning. So I have a personal policy to research the origins of whatever quote an author opens their book with. After all, a good quote should provide important framing or context for the book you’re about to read.  

To summarize a very fascinating Wikipedia article: Cato, a Tragedy is an Enlightenment era play about Cato the Younger’s last days and his opposition to the reign of Julius Caesar. Cato was an icon of republicanism and, fittingly, the play deals with themes of “individual liberty versus government tyranny, republicanism versus monarchism, logic versus emotion, and Cato's personal struggle to hold to his beliefs in the face of death.” 

Nowadays, the play is obscure. Modern productions of the play are rare, if ever staged. The text is also not included in most academic curriculum. Yet, Addison’s work seems to have been highly inspirational for America’s Founding Fathers. According to Wikipedia, quotes like “give me liberty or give me death” are theorized to be references to Addison’s play that the founding fathers assumed their audience would understand. George Washington even attended a production of it while in Valley Forge in 1778.

With its considerable influence on the founding of this country, it’s mind-boggling to me that this play is not only not taught in school, but is largely forgotten. I even asked my father, who is almost 70 and is a giant history buff, if he knew anything about this play in the vain hope that maybe some previous generation learned about it. But, no; even he had no idea what it was until I told him.

My bane and antidote are both before me comes from a soliloquy from act 5, scene 1. In it, Cato contemplates the merits of committing suicide. The bane and antidote is a sword he places his hand on and a copy of Plato’s Immortality of the Soul. He does not want to kill himself. How could anyone? But if he does not die now, he will have to live in a world made for Caesar. But Plato’s writings provide reason to the universe, which gives him comfort: “the stars shall fade away, the sun himself / Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years; / But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amid the war of elements, / The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds!”

There’s something undeniably fascinating about pieces of art that were highly influential during a period of history that have been lost to the passage of time now. Cato, a Tragedy is a cornerstone in American history, yet that did not save it from being a victim of obscurity. It failed to flourish in immortal youth. 

Joseph Addison is best remembered as an essayist. His simple prose style was credited by John Julius Norwich as the marked end of the conventional, classical images of the 17th century.  You can hardly believe it with the ease of poetry in Cato’s words. 

What does this have to do with Nightbane? 

Absolutely nothing. I am ninety-five percent certain that Aster found this quote on an enemies-to-lovers moodboard and declared it good enough! Sure, the quote has nothing to do with romance, but hey! Who would go through the effort to research the original context? 

I spent so much time waxing poetry about Cato first because it's a funny bit; but mostly because it’s at least interesting. There’s nothing to say about Nightbane except that it’s bad. But you already knew that. That’s why you and everyone else in my life wanted me to read this book. It has to be bad to warrant any real attention. 

Hell, even I wanted to read this book because it’s bad. Aster’s books are my guilty pleasure, largely because she sucks. Aster writes like she has never written anything before and is quickly realizing that it’s not that easy. When I read Lightlark and Nightbane, I feel like I am thirteen years old and writing my first story all over again. It brings me joy and comfort in a way that’s completely unmarred by irony. 

That’s why I can almost forgive Nightbane for all the times the story goes out of its way to respond or correct a criticism from the first book. Aster definitely reads the comments, and it’s comical all the lengths she goes through to retcon bad ideas or retroactively add lore. It reminds me not only of how I wrote when I was a pre-teen, but how I write now with my way too long, just publish the first draft it’s fine, writing project. 

One of the somewhat interesting ideas Aster introduces is a plot line about the ethics of having your peasantry’s lives literally tied to their monarchs and Isla’s budding admiration for democracy. Of course, she only brings either up because these were among her critics’ common talking points. It’s obvious she has no real desire to explore either idea for all it’s worth.

The democracy plotline ends with a big slap to the face to Cato, A Tragedy’s legacy. Isla promises to make the Starling kingdom a democracy in the future. Why? She personally doesn’t want to be a ruler. She has no problem with the idea of the monarchy and has no real passion for self-determinism. She just doesn’t want to have any responsibility. It’s too much work. 

Plus, she only wants to make the Starlings a democracy. Not the Wildings. She may hate having any form of responsibility, but she’s not inclined to unseat herself from power. She can still be the Wildling’s shitty ruler. No democracy for them. Sorry. It’s so blatantly hypocritical that it turns comical, and I fall a little more in love with the absurdity of Aster’s storytelling. 

While there are a lot of flaws I can forgive, I can’t forgive when the plot “goes through the motions.” Aster clearly wanted to include scenes where Isla and Grimshaw (I still refuse to call him Grim) recite bog-standard dialogue and recreate tropey romantic moments. The lead up to these scenes are vaguely, choppy, and inconsequential. The why does not matter; only these scenes do. 

Except when these scenes happen, they are so generic that your eyes skim over them. Isla and Grim already do not feel like real people. I can hardly call them characters, or even concepts. To call them shadows suggests there is some kind of substance they spring from. I can’t even think of a good metaphor to describe them. 

They are nothing. The plot is nothing. The prose is nothing. There is nothing worth chewing on. It’s not even worth composing a long rant about it. 

It’s easy-bordering-pathetic to dissect a book everyone knows is bad, especially when your only purpose is to explain why it’s bad. Where is the critical thought? What effort are you actually putting into your analysis when everyone already agrees with your arguments? I will always prefer a critic who goes after works that are genuinely popular and well-liked. If you want to win an argument then, you have to work for it. 

Yet, I’m still here doing this. You’re still here reading it. Ultimately, we’re all victims to the smug pleasure of believing that we are not capable of producing trash like this. Obviously, we are all secretly the world’s greatest artistes. We are the next Great American Novelist. None of us are capable of writing anything thoughtless, absurd, or shallow. We are infallible, unlike the sinner Alex Aster. 

So, yeah. Bad book. Really wish someone will let me read a good one soon. 

--

Nightbane by Alex Aster

⭐/5 stars

--

Now that I have finished lording my moral superiority over all of you, here is a miscellaneous list of stupid shit that happened in Nightbane. Even I can’t resist kicking the dead horse:

Oro reveals that he is deeply traumatized from  accidentally killing someone by turning them into gold. Isla proceeds to demand a gilded blade of grass as a romantic tribute. He gives it to her. It’s romantic. 

Oro is rich, has a job, and a healthy group of friends, and is somehow still going to lose this love triangle. What bullshit. 

After emphasizing how traumatic if was for the Skylings to lose their ability to fly, the narrative tries to convince you that the Skylings would choose not to fight a war where them refusing to fight will lead to them losing the ability to fly again.

This is so stupid that when there’s a debate about it, Aster provides no examples as to why they shouldn’t fight; she just states she happens.

So much of the story is just told-- isla’s feelings and motivations, the lore, character relationships: it’s all just told to us. 

Isla is confronted with having to fix the social issues of both the Wildlings and Starlings; instead of solving them herself and learning something new, an extremely competent lesbian volunteers to fix everything for her.

One of said problems is that Wildings, who have plant-based magic, do not know how to grow crops.

Wildings have also never cooked the hearts they have been eating. Like, ever? Not once in five hundred years?

Isla shows prejudice towards the Vinderland because they are cannibals.

It’s increasingly unclear how the immortality rule works about the nobility

New lore reveals that the Nightshade have so many extra cool magic abilities because of lore reasons, and not because Aster likes them the best.

There’s a rebel group that got fed up with the rulers not fixing the curse; they also managed to make no progress in solving the very easy mystery in less than 500 years. 

During flashback time, Grimshaw saves Isla no less than 7 times

There is a night market on Nightshade that has to take place during the day time, due to the curse. They still call it a night market.

There are multiple Nightshade events where the dress code is on a scale from”instagram baddie” to actually just naked. Isla’s clothes are described in detail, but not Grimshaw. I can only assume that his dick and balls were out every time.

Grimshaw seems to also be the only unfun prude on an island of hedonistic extroverts. 

There is a sword that had been stolen no less than three times by different thieves.

New starstick lore clarifies it’s a device (not a wand!), and that Isla can’t use it to go anywhere she hasn’t been before; this renders her entire backstory impossible.

Instead of disengaging a bunch of traps, Grimshaw decides to Looney Tunes his ass and trigger each one by one.

There’s so much on and off screen cannibalism and flaying that neither are cool anymore. Sorry! We have to find new imagery for our toxic situationships.

The plot structure being a jump back and forth between the past and present made me question my own ability to write a storyline like that lmao

Isla and Grimshaw have been married the whole time, in a plot twist shoved in at the last second with very little thought put into it. 

Isla should divorce his ass. I hope Lightlark is a no-fault state. If not, she luckily has a fuckton of faults to bring up. 

[flowersforzoe11]

Alex Rider S1E7 Episode notes

Just had the most hideous combo of back2baack travel weekends, midterms, and canvassing for the upcoming election (reminder to any Americans of age to go vote--it's what Jack Starbright would want<3), so i have not had a single second to think about this show for the past like 3 weeks. HOWEVER my life is slightly less chaotic now and i'm ready for ep7. without further ado...

-WHAT DEATH SCENE FAKEOUT ALEX YOU GENIUS (i was gonna say, i didn't think his injuries were *that* serious in the book but goddamnit what a reveal. the past few episodes are such a love letter to this show)

-sorry i'm literally still in shock that was genius

-okay i haven't read this book in probably 5 or 6 years, but i feel like Alex returning to Point Blanc was way less consentual. i will say my major gripe with this show is that they're downplaying the evil that MI6 was, especially in the beginning (esp. the show's "no signal" vs book Blunt actively ignoring the signal)

-okay! fine! i like this Smithers (the tweak the chromosomes lines is such a funny cop-out line but i will ignore the science and accept it)

-alex yelling at Jones/K unit is the definition of AURA. god i love "defending those he loves" Alex

-and tulip can keep Kyra's name out of her mouth

-scream it for those in the back. MICHAEL ROSCOE WOULD NEVER QUOTE HITLER

-the motorbikes line was soooo Ella Cornell coded it's crazy (read I Spy i dare you)

-ahhHHHHHH CUB (this is such a good inclusion of K unit)

-Otto Farrant was so good during the k unit sniper scene. real loss of innocence moment for tv Alex and i could see it in his face. love love love (also that was just such a good scene in general. absolutely clincial. if i ever go to war, i'm taking all of k unit with me)

-the dr Greif x stellenbosch dynamic is so deliciously fucked up

-"we need greif alive" if i don't get my helicopter murder and shitty pun i RIOT

-CLONE KYRA IS CRAZY I AM GAGGED

-also for the record i'd be pissed if i was Wolf. just had to air the place out with very little back up and Alex just disappears despite having exactly one job (to not disappear)

-if there's one thing about Alex, it's that he gets his shit rocked often

-i love Alex's semi-working knowledge of science (especially because it only seems to exist when things are about to explode). also, as someone who graduated with a STEM degree, the lab fight scene was awesome. when will it be my turn to throw flasks at my enemies...

-well the project gemini information certianly was destroyed !

-the kids seeing their clones scene was absolutely bone-chilling

-okay i'm gonna say it. i feel like tv Alex is a silghtly nerfed version of book Alex. i feel like his role was a lot more important than "tag along and almost get himself killed"

-WOLF BEING SO NICE TO ALEX??? I'LL CRY REAL TEARS I LOVE THEM

-NO HELICOPTER SCENE AND BAD PUN???????? GET YOUR PITCHFORKS BC WE RIDE AT DAWN

-alex you poor shell of a boy you deserve the world (HOWEVER tv point blanc was maybe only 1/2 as traumatic as book point blanc. someone def toned AHorz down)

-god scorpia has their greasy little hands in everything

-JULIUS

[nicknacknightmare]

I finished two books in the span of a month, be proud of me.

Here I stand on the other side of Eagle Strike and I have some Thoughts. A little negative to start but we go up from there.

First off, not gonna lie, I think I was less engaged with the book than the others for the first half. Unfortunately I didn’t find Damian Cray an interesting main villain at the start or when it was all over. He’s at the bottom of favorite main bad guys for me at the moment behind Julius Grief, and I like Grief so that’s an oof for him. He does get brownie points for the pennies execution method and his own ‘Syndrome from The Incredibles’ adjacent death.

Don’t get me wrong, there were definitely bits at the start I enjoyed. Like the fact that we hardly get 300 words into the book and Yassen is just There to ruin Alex’s holiday and the matador moment but overall it was a slightly sad “Ok he’s dealing with a madman with nukes that thinks he’s doing the world a favor two books in a row. Sarov did this way better than you months ago and this book is rapidly ending. Where is the third act shoe-drop that makes people like this book?”

And, um, the shoe certainly did drop. Several of them.

Starting with Sabina’s kidnaping at the hospital. Not only was it the first ‘normal’ thing in the book grounding it to reality but it just made me feel sick to my stomach because something like that happens to girls often irl. I really hope she does ok until the next time we see her. Then there’s the whole business with the plane. I’m not American but as somebody who watches videos speculating on hypothetical WWIII start points, the hijacking of air force one did properly freak me out.

And finally, what you’ve probably been waiting for me to get to: Yassen and The Big Reveal.

Yall just watched me get attached to this man knowing full well this is the book he died in, huh.

I was so enjoying him fighting himself on what he was doing with Alex and trying hard not to strangle Damian. Of course there’s the conflict of interest: Money vs not being able to live with himself if he killed the son of the man who saved him. No wonder he spoke so fondly of him. I mean he still put him in the bull ring but w/e. But this isn’t everything. He may be dead now but I’m still in the dark about a part of his story. Why and how did he start? How did he get to be this good, and this hardened to contract work? Where exactly did his code of not killing kids come from? It couldn’t have been from Alex, he already didn’t kill kids. I have so many questions that’ll probably get answered in the next few books.

My last point of note is realizing the Rider brothers were on two sides of the same coin. They both killed. John was a contract killer for money, Ian worked for MI6 and both hid it from people in their lives. Did they know? Did they ever know? We can’t ask dead men questions, can we.

Now with all of that out of my system, I move onto Scorpia. Which is the book I am actively scared of. I heard whispers of it in Never Say Die, Its consistently voted the favorite of the entire series and I’ve heard it’s the start of Alex’s even emo-er arc which he 100% deserves by the way.

I am in for a world of pain for this next book n’ I don’t think I’m ready.

[tyrannuspitch]

oh shit okay. something which you might suspect, but which i didn't really expect to find evidence of - julius has survivor's guilt over the downfall of point blanc!!!

he says to alex that he's going to make him understand what it's like to lose your family, eg, that he's going to make alex feel exactly what he's feeling... and only moments before that, julius was saying to tom that he (alex) would "never forgive himself" if something happened to tom. so. put those together. julius feels incredibly guilty.

you could reasonably ask why, though, and there are a few possibilities.

julius didn't contribute anything to the fight at point blanc - judging from the grime on his face, the timeskip, and where we first see him, it seems like he was hidden somewhere near the lab when it blew up, and was hidden + unconscious in the wreckage while the fight concluded.

but none of the clones put up much of a fight, because they were, you know, unarmed teenagers, and there wasn't much they could reasonably do. and sure, survivor's guilt isn't always rational, so it could just be this. but also - maybe he feels responsible just because alex brought everything down, and alex is his opposite? he was the very last clone to go through the ~process~ - is there any kind of clone hierarchy thing going on there, and/or does he maybe feel superfluous? hmmm.

there's also the fact that julius starts trying to kill people to equate his feelings in alex, when he doesn't actually know that anyone is dead yet. a few possibilities here:

julius thinks the captured clones (plus greif and stellenbosch) are going to be killed by various intelligence services to make them conveniently disappear. not an unreasonable suspicion, and also fits the clone cult us-versus-the-world mindset. i can actually imagine that being used as motivation in training - "if anyone ever finds out who you are, they'll kill you. that's why we have to stick together. we only have each other."

julius thinks the captured clones et al are going to be killed by scorpia to tidy up loose ends. also pretty plausible. scorpia definitely knows he exists, though, which makes him a dead boy walking in this case.

julius thinks the captured clones specifically, dead or alive, might as well be dead because they've outlived their purposes. there's no point to them any more, and there's no possibility of a worthwhile life remaining to them. remember how greif was going to kill them all and start again? i'm not saying julius (necessarily) knows that, but that kind of ambient, unspoken mindset of disposability would probably still have an effect on the clones. and there's also the clone cult sense of superiority / perfectionism - clone!sasha (iirc) disdainfully called original alex and kyra "mundane". they can't be special and perfect any more, so what's left?

don't have a conclusion on these. all pretty interesting options. and tbh julius could easily be thinking all of them at once.

[miggydiaz]

Happy nice ask day! Here's some lone star questions for you!

Suprise, Tim Minear has put you in charge of LS! (In a perfect world where everyone gets paid a fair wage for their work.) What's next for Tarlos besides the Gabriel of it all?

If you could bring one past character back, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

You get to do a crossover with *any* other show, past or present, what show would it be?

Pick a special episode: Valentines day ep, Halloween ep, Christmas ep, musical ep, animated ep, AU ep (like Mateo's sitcom dream)

You get to delete one thing from the show's history without messing anything up, what do you get rid of?

Pick a celebrity guest star. What would their role be?

Firefighter TK or paramedic TK?

For Carlos: Officer Reyes, Ranger Reyes, or something completely different non law enforcement

Flashback episode for TK's life in NYC (pre Alex), or a flashback episode of young Carlos growing up on the ranch (including his friendship with Iris)

A (new) work partner for Carlos or a new recruit at the firehouse?

Buttercup or Lou II?

TK's cousins or Carlos' sisters?

Andrea calling TK mijo or Owen calling Carlos son?

Reyes-Strand or Strand-Reyes?

If/when you've answered all of these, pass them on to others in the fandom, let's see everyone's answers!

Oh my god, I love these! Thanks for sending it to me @sugdenlovesdingle!

1. On one hand, I just want them to be happy and soft because they deserve it. On the other hand, I know that doesn’t make for compelling TV. So in addition to the Gabriel thing, I’d probably have Carlos develop an addiction of his own. Maybe it’s like, stimulants because he’s putting so much time and effort into finding who killed his father. But TK is in denial for the longest time because Carlos would never do that, and once he realizes that he’s wrong, it puts TK’s own recovery to the test getting Carlos the help he needs, but he pulls through and gets Carlos on the path to recovery as well. I know, I’m terrible, I’m sorry.

2. Either Julius to make Tommy’s life with Trevor very complicated, or Billy because I can’t help it, I love Billy. Or Alex trying to win TK back, just so I can watch Carlos could punch him out.

3. If it wasn’t for the identical cousin storyline Mateo had, I thought it would’ve been absolutely hilarious if they did House crossover and Owen’s other ex-wife was Lisa Cuddy, also played by Lisa Edelstein. But since they already did this kind of with Mateo, I’m going to be boring and say another 911 crossover would be cool. More of TK clocking Buck from a mile away and Eddie conveniently entering the scene immediately after, please and thanks, because that was so funny.

4. A Halloween episode for sure. I hate to say anything nice ever about Riverdale, but I loved the “3 different vignettes in one” episodes they’d do, especially the one in season 2. I think it would be REALLY cool to do something like that, where we have one story with Carlos investigating Gabriel’s murder solo and things get creepy, and then another story of the 126 showing up to a call except it’s to an abandoned asylum or something and they find out no one actually called (it’s like a ghost call), and then a third story of maybe Grace and the Wyatt and Charlie having a Halloween night in but it goes very “The Strangers” on them and someone is trying to break into their house but it’s really just like Judd’s daddy or someone totally innocuous.

5. A part of me wants to say the absolute blatant rip off of the Gabby Petito case, but I love Marjan centric episodes and there are not enough of them. So uh… probably the Owen stalker storyline. I don’t need more of Rob Lowe stroking his own ego on my screen.

6. Either Jensen Ackles or Timothy Olyphant as the new like, lead Texas Ranger. Basically taking over Gabriel’s position. And he would either a) be really keen on working with Carlos to help solve the murder because he has history with Gabriel or b) is behind the murder of Gabriel. Or both!

7. Ugh, this is so hard. I love both! I think he’s happier as a paramedic, but I wish he’d have more to do than drop the “BP is whatever over whatever, Cap!” line. Plus, I miss the little rivalry between him and Carlos when TK was AFD. I think I like him better as a firefighter, but I’m good with either.

8. REYES, TEXAS RANGER. I really wanted Detective Reyes, but I totally respect Carlos’s want to save people rather than figure out the case after the damage has been done. That being said, I kind of have a sneaking suspicion that a fellow ranger did Gabriel in, and I feel like Carlos will both NEED to get into the rangers to figure that piece out, and will WANT to next season to honor his father. Also, Team Carlos in a Cowboy Hat.

9. A Carlos flashback if I had to pick. IDK, I feel like TK has a lot of episodes that kind of center his trauma, so we know a LOT about TK, and less about Carlos. So it’d be nice to see more of his story, pre-TK.

10. A new partner for Carlos. You know… because he becomes a ranger… bonus if it causes a little bit of tension between him and TK like Cooper did! (I like the angst, I can’t help it)

11. Lou II! I love reptiles and TK being a lizard boy and Carlos being sketched out by them… all of it is adorable.

12. I’m gonna say Carlos’s sisters, just because I don’t think we’ll see much of TK’s cousins going forward unless Sydney decides to come after Owen for assisted suicide. Which would not surprise me in the least.

13. Andrea calling TK mijo. I just love it so much!

14. Reyes-Strand. I like the flow of Tyler Kennedy Reyes-Strand and Carlos Tomas Reyes-Strand better than Strand-Reyes.

[cutebubbles]

So I just played Growing Up and I am addicted and emotionally attached.

First playthrough (no pics sadly ;-;): I made myself but tbh she diverged from me when I made her develop different interests from me. Childhood she befriended Alex, middle school Wendy and high school Kato. My character was chaotic but a mom friend who made sure Alex didn’t get killed. I was originally was going to have her pursue Wendy but then said she wasn’t interested in any girls or guys and I was just ohhh I guess this isn’t going to work out. Alex I believe is straight so not an option but I fell in love with Kato. I love how cute and dorky they are together. My favorite scene was when they were playing a kissing game with dungeons and dragons dice. My character got all the good endings, married Kato and become a veterinarian.

Second playthrough:

Kato and my character had a son named Julius and his childhood friend is Bobbie (who I love to death), had an enemies to lovers story with Alicia and befriend Flick. Tbh I debated to date Bobbie but I ended up not getting those vibes from their relationship plus idk if I missed but I don’t think I saw an option to date her? With Flick I have this headcanon that she did have a crush on Julius but he never saw her that way since he already liked Alicia since middle school. During that time period in her route when she avoids you he would date Alicia. In her good ending while feeling guilty for what happened to her brother she was able to move on and get married and have kids like she wanted. But when it said she got divorced because she had trust issues I wondered if she thought back to Julius sometimes because he’s still good friends with her and he was the only person she ever trusted. Julius ended up as a football player for the super bowl and married Alicia who became a business women and created non profit organizations to help others.

Third playthrough:

Alicia and Julius had a daughter named Valentina and holy shit her life was the most chaotic. So even though these storylines don’t crossover I like to think she dated these three dudes at different times in high school. So Jake is her childhood friend who I think is her first love and dated him first until I got the bad ending lol when she tried to stop him from getting into a gang she said she loved him but he dropped out of high school and never saw her again and died in a gang fight. Sam I think she would have dated on and off after Jake and at the one point when he makes out with another girl and he said he was now seeing her. I felt chaotic in the moment and had her kiss him and he ended up calling her a skank and she yelled at him and the last time they interact is them awkwardly feeling bad for what happened but never directly confronting each other when they saw each other. Nate she was friends with since middle school and I think it fits he would the last person she dates since his route has romance happen at the end. Omg Nate is amazing and I love their relationship so much. It felt like she had a more genuine connection with him out of the three boys. Valentina ended marrying Nate and she became a famous movie costume designer and he became a veterinarian.

I’m trying to get all the characters and I want to get a playthough with Jake and Sam’s good endings. Highly recommend this game for fun character interaction and character creating with stat building.

Edit:

Fourth playthrough:

After two playthroughs with the only options to be straight, it felt vital to be gay this time. Hmm this story was rather chill. The next kid I would follow is Aria and I would say she’s a chill and artistic sort of girl who wasn’t into school and preferred to draw all the time. I think her route was that slow realization of woah… I’m gay. Cool. Like I can picture many would think her and Richard would end up together since cute childhood friend to romance and Richard develops a small crush on her in high school. I think it was her meeting Patty that made her think about it more. Idk what happens if you try to pursue Charles as a girl and how he rejects you but I like to think because he’s pressured by his father and Aria is his closest female friend he asked her out. They tried to be a couple for like a week and it was the most uncomfortable experience of their lives and have a deep introspection together on how they felt similar about their sexualities. When Richard tries to hold her hand at the theater and explain how he felt uncomfortable doing stuff with romance, Aria was like don’t worry that won’t happy to us… cause I’m gay. Richard was just quiet and then sighed with relief and they stayed besties. This would all build up to Aria’s first kiss with Patty and it was adorable. Aria would end up becoming an artist while traveling around with Patty.

[iwritebadthings]

100 Things Will Smith Could've slapped instead of Chris Rock

Will Smith slapped for love so I’m slapping this ever older topic with my long E.T fingers. Should you slap someone? No, probably not. I wouldn’t recommend it. Often slapping someone tends to make things worse but that being said lets pretend what else he could’ve slapped if it was limitless.

Hitler

The Editorial Board of (any news organization)

Hillary Clintons need to be heard

Whoever said Pelosi should write a poem

Donald Trumps Ass

Superman

Isis

The KKK and the fashion director

Sith

Mosquitoes

people at the gym who sit on their phone not using the machine

Josh Hawley as he put his fist up on January 6th

Milo Yiannopoulos to make him gay again

Dick Cheney

Elden Lord Bosses I can’t beat (all of them)

George RR Martin so he will write faster

The Lich King

Elon Musk’s Bank account so we can all pick up the money off the ground like peasants

The primordial earth 

All the dinosaurs

Ted Bundy 

Anyone who wrote a letter to Ted Bundy

Putin

Racism formed into an evil god

Richard B. Spencer after he was already punched

Jesus but the slap brings him back to life

The concept of war

Journalists who want nuclear war

Glenn Greenwald every time he says the word Russia

Tucker Carlsons home windows so he has to spend hours cleaning

Godzilla

Maxine Waters for shoving and murdering Michael Tracey

Transphobia

The world of Harry Potter

Disneyland Prices

The homophobia out of Dave Bronson of Anchorage Alaska

Winter

The gay need to take a selfie

Kanye West each time he complains about Kim

Remixed music that only adds clapping

Pregnancy pictures 

Kathy Griffin so she has another story to share

The American forefathers 

Chris Rock again

The Rock and Vin Diesel well they fight

The Shark from Jaws

Cheeks

The beat for any song

God

Chris Rocks shadow self

Lactose Intolerance

The Poor

The Rich

Willow Smiths hand because her music career is fantastic

The walls of a house where the Ghost Adventures bros are walking around being scared

Another comedian with a bad joke

The ninth cup of coffee out of someone's hand

Naraku’s decapitated head after he tries to flee in battle

Alex Jones really thick neck

Meat 

Tim Pool’s beanie

Captain America’s Ass

Chris Evans Ass

Thanos

The Marvel Universe to end it all

Gwyneth Paltrow vagina candle

Adam Carolla for every bad joke

Julius Caesar after he was stabbed

Someone in need of cpr 

Independence day alien ship

Abusive League of Legend players

Britney Spears Dad

Medusa 

Zeus 

Cher after she says do you believe in life after love

someone who won’t wake up after their alarm goes off

The Terminator 

Jay Z for thinking even for a second he should cheat on Beyoncé

U2 for putting an album on everyone's phone

Nicki Minaj cousin in Trinidad to help his balls

Lorne Michaels for every bad snl sketch which is most of them

Corporations that advocate for the gays and then donate to people who would alt delete them

Secretly gay republicans who use glory holes

The opponent in the new Olympic slapping sport

Marsha Blackburn’s hair

Devimon in digimon for each pun made

people who steal memes

NFT People

Scammers of NFT

People who ignore the scamming of NFT

NFT celebrities  

Anyone who says they are “just asking questions” as they push conspiracy theories and not actually try to answer the question

The chess game you’re losing

Martha who is being racist to the waiter after church

Lucifer

The governments incredibly slow process of getting anything done

Santa for giving you coal every Christmas 

The Gym crush for not crushing you

E.T

Will Smith

[overwhlcmed]

☁️ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀  ⠀ ⠀ 𝚃𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙸𝚃𝚈 𝙺𝙰𝙽𝙴 & 𝙻𝙴𝚅𝙸 𝙷𝙸𝙼𝙰𝚈𝙰 : at a glance.

THEY LOOK LIKE...

getting beneath warm blankets. notifications for texts and calls always being on. running home to share good news. color coded outfits and matching sweaters. ‘ i miss you ‘ being said after a day a part. impromptu sleepovers turning into impulse vacations. the comfort of home wrapped in a person. oversharing without feeling like you need to apologize for it. lying to your friends about where you’ve been. what’s mine is yours. memorizing their favorite things and keeping them around. laughing so hard no sound comes up but tears do. not feeling embarrassed to cry. the willingness to let someone else help. sleeping better with the other by their side.   ( @cherryflcvoured​​ )

THEY SOUND LIKE...

Begin Again by Taylor Swift

We tell stories and you don't know why I'm coming off a little shy but I do But you throw your head back laughing like a little kid I think it's strange that you think I'm funny, 'cause he never did I've been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn, and end, but on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again

Good For You (International) by Eric Nam

Been a long day on your own, time could never be oh so slow I've been trying to get back home to you A stop at every light, nothing ever goes your way all right but I'll make it up to you For you oh baby you, sending you love through your phone Pick you up when you're alone cause I'm good for you I'm your sun that'll shine through the rain And I'll be your coffee that gets you through your day Let me know if you need me now and I'll be right there Don't you worry, baby I'll be good for you Need a little break go ahead, I'll wake you when you're ready baby Close your eyes and go ahead drift away What ever you need let me know, for you I'm on call twenty four Yeah I'm good for you

Glass In The Park by Alex Turner

When you say that you need me tonight, I can't keep my feelings in disguise The white part of my eyeballs illuminate And I'll wait for you as if I'm waiting for the stone to stop I've heard them talking about how I'm gonna put you off Tell me, "How can I put you off, when you're a matter of urgency?" I've got a million things that I need to do, but they're all secondary Make sure you're not followed, meet me by the Death Balloon Paraselene woman, I'm your man on the moon

Honey from Raveena

Winding down the evening Record on repeat, a little wine, caught in my apartment Not that rain is falling but we need time You're milk and honey A drink I drink before bed Don't you feel lucky, that we can end the day like that? Milk and honey, warm and lovely

Adore You by Harry Styles

Walk in your rainbow paradise Strawberry lipstick state of mind I get so lost inside your eyes, would you believe it? You don't have to say you love me You don't have to say nothing You don't have to say you're mine, honey I'd walk through fire for you, just let me adore you

Something by Millic Ft. Julius

Hold me, wanna feel you baby I said show me, are you real baby I swear that you're different from this space and time Did you fall baby? Descend, from a world baby that's looking for you Now you're down in a space that feels like mine There's only one thing that has been on my mind and It's you I swear you're a different kind Let's fall in love baby, let’s fall in love baby Don't let me hit the ground, wanna stay in the now, Don't let me hit the ground You are something to me, you are something to me Smiling when I see you baby Your presence’s such a blessing baby I swear that you're different from this space and time

[nyarmand]

my ranking of the alex rider original series (stormbreaker through scorpia rising) from ‘book i least enjoy rereading’ to ‘book i most enjoy rereading’ let’s goooo

spoilers for all 9 books under the cut

9. Ark Angel

...He went to space. He went to space. Also the entire plot could have been avoided if Drevin had actually bothered to provide a photograph of his son. I’m sure he had one. I still like this book but it’s literally so insane that I just don’t know what to do with it. 

It is however really funny that Webber just goes and gives a speech insulting this super high-profile ecoterrorist group and acts like it’s no big deal and then they kill him. Shock of shocks.

8. Skeleton Key

Okay, points to this book for terrifying the shit out of me. God damn it does that shark scene scare me. Also, points for making me feel a little bit bad for a man who wants to nuke his own country because he thinks it will fix the place up. I’m still not entirely sure how that’s supposed to work, but that’s probably a good thing. I feel like understanding his thought process would say bad things about me. Still, I actually did feel sorry for him, if only a little. Dude was clearly mentally unstable and I doubt his son’s death helped at all. I also got sad about what happened to Carver and Troy. (Yeah, yeah, I’m a cringe fail American who has the American release. So sue me.) What a nightmare that must’ve been to endure... Otherwise, though, I’m not super into this book. The opening is just kind of meh and the way it leads into the rest of the plot seems a little bit unbelievable. Also, this might be an unpopular opinion, but Sabina annoys me. I would not get along with her at all and I can’t imagine her as a girlfriend. Skeleton Key does, however, absolutely excel at the emotional scenes. 

Also, why are all the spy agencies so comfortable with sending in a 14-year-old? Especially when they outright admit that the other attempts have all died horribly? Bureaucracy’s a bitch.

7. Point Blank

Boo, Dr. Grief! Boo! We hate your white supremacy! I’m so glad you got a snowmobile to the face, you deserved it. (Perks of books written by Jewish people--we aren’t afraid to give the neo-Nazis an unpleasant death.) Anyway, this book definitely isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t really say it stands out in the series. It definitely does hammer home the point of just how trapped Alex is, since MI6 isn’t going to just let him go after one mission, and let’s face it, the plot with the clones is creepy as hell, if highly improbable. But I’m largely just here to see the neo-Nazi get snowmobiled. That’s right, I just completely changed the definition of a pre-established word. I’m a rebel.

Also, I hate Fiona Friend so much and overall think she just didn’t need to be in the book, but the line about ‘I’d rather kiss the horse’ made me laugh so hard. Alex, you sass.

6. Snakehead

Okay, let’s talk about how genius the plan in this book is. I love it! I love how Yu wants to kill the people involved in the peace conference without making them into martyrs, so he comes up with this whole elaborate plan to stage a natural disaster. It’s incredible. This dude was thinking so far ahead. And he would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling kid... But anyway, I don’t see a lot of books where the villain really acknowledges that killing their enemies could just cause more problems for them via turning them into martyrs for a cause. Also, the way he’s so polite and soft-spoken while also being a complete monster... This book genuinely gives me chills. Extra bonus points for the part in the hospital, the absolute nightmare of having all your organs slowly removed and sold off and everyone around you is being so nice about it? ‘Oh, don’t worry, Alex, it won’t be so bad. Here, take your medicine. Do you need anything?’ Literally just. What the fuck. 

Also Ash can fucking fight me. You put your own godson in horrible danger on purpose! You killed your best friend! Bastard. 

...And just in case the book wasn’t disturbing enough, Yu’s fate at the end lives in my mind rent-free and I think about it on a concerningly regular basis considering that the chances of that happening to me are so low they’re practically in the negatives. Damn you, Horowitz.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention just how much I love the tagline ‘once bitten, twice spy’.

5. Crocodile Tears

Ah yes, the book that kickstarted my drift away from the church... I kid, of course. I drifted away from the church for completely separate reasons. But Desmond McCain is always going to scare the shit out of me. The ability to kill countless innocent people while blissfully quoting Bible verses (that he takes wildly out of context and uses for his own self-serving means) is... well, I could actually say a lot about what that reminds me of, but I’m here to rate books, not religion. Moving on. This book has some really stellar antagonists, and the plot is chilling in a way that feels a lot more realistic than most of the other books. Even if some of it is a bit farfetched (sabotaging a nuclear power plant? Really?), the idea of using disasters for your own profit... well. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on why that is so believable. The Poison Dome is also a really cool and chilling scene--even Alex, who has the luck of the devil, can’t get out of that one unscathed. Further scares come in with the fate of Harold Bulman--imagine having your entire existence wiped and your identity changed while you were asleep! The breakdown he has over it is almost enough to make me feel sorry for him, even though he was ready to exploit a teenager and make his life a living hell just to turn a profit. Note the word almost.

Also. The opening makes me cry. Specifically the line talking about how Ravi’s kids would ‘never meet Mickey Mouse’. I lose my goddamn mind every single time I read it. That little personal touch turns the scene from a statistic to a tragedy. Once again: Damn you, Horowitz.

4. Stormbreaker

Yeah, this one gets the special cover shot. And why not? What we are looking at here is the birth of a legend. Move the fuck over, James Bond, Alex Rider is on the scene now. Anyway, yeah, this book is pretty damn spectacular. It has its stumbles, but as the first book in a series, that’s to be expected. Still, it pulls you in from quite literally the first line and keeps you going right up until the end. (If you came here from my post of memes, you know how much the line ‘Killing is for grownups, and you’re still a child’ destroys me.) It has the debut of much-beloved characters such as, of course, Alex--but also Jack Starbright, and of course, the best MI6 agent of them all, which is to say Smithers. Hell, even Yassen Gregorovich, especially once you get through Russian Roulette... Man, that was a rough one. 

Seriously, though. This is a really good book. The scene with the Portuguese man-o’-war still gives me the chills to think about. (Have you ever looked up pictures of those things? They’re beautiful, but holy shit will they make you regret being born. Nature is funny like that.) 

We also get the introduction of, of course, Alex’s patented sass (his response to Sayle saying he relates to the man-o’-war is HILARIOUS) and we get the inherent humor of Alex screwing up an alias one time and then just going by Alex for the rest of the series so he doesn’t do that again. Really, kid, I know you’re not a trained spy or anything but did you never play pretend growing up? Ever? You can’t pretend your name is Felix for a little while? That sounds like a you problem.

3. Scorpia Rising

I distinctly remember when this book came out, actually. I was on vacation at the time, and I remember my brother annoying the hell out of the poor workers at a bookstore we frequented there to see if/when they were going to get it in. They did, finally, and we bought it immediately, and I was of course absolutely desperate to read it. He got to read it first, though. -_-

This is a great book, an absolute emotional rollercoaster all the way through. The way Blunt tricks Alex back into service by staging a shooting was exactly the kind of cold, brutal behavior I’d expect from him. Seeing Julius come back was shocking, but very exciting, too. And Razim makes an incredibly chilling villain, with his absolute disregard for human life and his desire to measure pain. Also, seeing Smithers’s house was so much fun. Smithers in this book was just really fun in general, but he’s really fun in every book, so... nothing unusual there. But also, I want an unwelcome mat. Please?

2. Eagle Strike

‘But Penny,’ you might ask, ‘why is this book so high on your list? It has so much of Sabina in it, and you said she annoys you.’ That is true. What does not annoy me, however, is basically the entire rest of the book. I love the tense opening, and then reading through Alex’s real-life ‘playthrough’ of Feathered Serpent is still one of my favorite scenes. Cray is absolutely incredible as a villain, with the way that he truly believes in his cause--which is undoubtedly a good one! Yet the extremes to which he will go for that cause, and the fact that he very nearly succeeds, are what elevate him to one of the most dangerous villains in the series. That scene with Charlie Roper and the nickels is something I can never seem to stop thinking about. Actually, I think about it basically whenever I think about large amounts of money paid in small increments... 

Also, I really enjoy how he gets into the whole plot in the first place, and I really enjoy Smithers saying ‘ah, fuck it’ and helping him out anyway. Go, Smithers. You once again prove me right in saying that you’re the coolest adult in MI6.

The revelation that Yassen knew Alex’s father is one that absolutely blew my mind first time around. The way his life was threaded into the lives of the Rider family--he worked with John Rider, was saved by him, killed Ian Rider, and then died for refusing to kill Alex Rider--wow. Wow. It gets to me. It really gets to me. This book is a masterpiece. I heard that it’s going to be what the second season of the TV series is based off of, and I’m so hyped for that. We love to see it, we really do.

1. Scorpia

I don’t believe anyone who says this book didn’t get to them at all. I just think they are lying. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to not be affected by this book. God. Just thinking about it reminds me of why I don’t think it’s possible. I mean, come on. We get all this backstory about Alex’s parents, we get tricked along with him into thinking MI6 killed his father, then bam, that was a lie, and Alex may have just fucked himself over big time. Also, that plot is terrifying! (And I bet anti-vaxxers had a field day with it, huh.) Julia Rothman is a really great antagonist, one of the only ones who didn’t go and explain her plan in great detail to Alex--the fact that she didn’t actually being a plot point was something I personally found pretty clever. In general, this book is... I tend to hate when people say they ‘can’t put it down’ because it’s usually an obvious exaggeration, but that really is how I feel reading it.

And again. If that ending didn’t get to you... Well, I just think you are lying.

[arshipweek]

AR Ship Week - Rare Pairs

Banner credit

This is the third weekly post in the lead up to Alex Rider Ship Week. Only 2 weeks to go!

This week we’re going to look at rare pairs in Alex Rider fandom.

Alex Rider as a book series is a little unusual in the lack of major, recurring characters with shipping potential. Most characters around Alex's own age appear in a few books at the most. Even Tom and Sabina, the most consistent ones, can't really be described as regulars in the series. The most consistent characters in the books beyond Alex are Jack, Blunt and Jones, and even then, we know very little about them - and in Jack's case, she was delegated to the background for most of the books as well. 

Maybe as a result of that, the fandom has defaulted to one major pairing (Alex/Yassen) and some minor ones as covered in the previous post. When even the fifth most popular pairing has only 14 fics out of almost 1100 in total on AO3, it's reasonably safe to say that rare pairs are a way of life in this fandom. To shine some light on some lesser-known pairings, we asked what other, mostly unknown pairings people enjoyed and would like to see more of, and here are some of the responses:

[James and Alex slouching and being teenagers together]

Alex/James (submitted by hellacious/TheInverseUniverse)

Alex/James is just such a pure, fun ship. They can be teenagers together and cause trouble together and goof around like they did at Point Blanc. (This is very much TV verse James). James is also someone Alex’s age who he doesn’t have to hide part of himself from. He already knows that Alex is a spy and Alex can be open and honest with him, unlike most kids his age. They also can bond over some good old fashioned shared trauma from Point Blanc and evil clones. And James is just such a lovable goofball who can be the sunshine to Alex’s more serious disposition, and bring out the side of him that blasts music and fills a kitchen with bubbles.

Tulip Jones/Julia Rothman (submitted by Valaks)

Two powerful women on opposite sides trapped in a man’s world have quite a bit to bond about it seems. Clandestine meetings, scorned attempts at wooing, and Rothman’s disdain for Tulip Jones’ rather....conservative style clash in all the best ways. Couple with a scathing view of everyone’s favorite (and least favorite) male characters there’s only fun to be had in this pairing.

[Yassen and Ian in dark and moody lighting]

Ian/Yassen (submitted by autisticharrow who writes Ian/Yassen on AO3)

The appeal of this pairing is in the untapped potential. We all know how their relationship went down in the series, but what if they had more time together?  What could they be if they bonded over their shared interest (Alex) instead of fighting? This is also a fantastic pairing if you enjoy parental!Yassen, since Ian/Yassen allows Yassen to become something of a second parent to Alex.

Crawley/Alex (submitted by Valaks)

One of MI6s best agents who SCORPIA tried to recruit  and then tried to kill when they realized they couldn’t turn him...and Alex Rider. This pairing seems like it shouldn’t work on its face but the deeper you dive into Crawley’s past the closer it mirrors Alex’s own career with MI6. That Crawley, Chief of Staff of MI6, the man who “no knife goes into a back without him having signed off”, already shows so much interest in him makes a compelling foundation to what could be at first a mentorship that blooms into something far more as Alex ages and gets his feet underneath him under Crawley’s guiding hand. Sprinkle in some good BDSM to keep him calm and presto, a rare pair.

Nile/Yassen (submitted by Valaks)

Enemies to lovers, a potential mentorship that blossoms into something more, a fling between two hyper competent assassins with something to prove - this ship takes many different courses and brings with it the intrigue and political drama of being SCORPIAs elites. Nile and Yassen have both been the youngest SCORPIA has ever trained, risen to be her best operatives and both have a backstory of failure that Rothman loves to twist to get the best results and most interesting reactions (even if it is a knife in the back to the other). All highlighted by the added contrast of hot and cold - Nile’s hot temper and bright personality against Yassen’s brutal cold and calculation clash in all the right ways, especially when a deeper look shows the streaks of their past: Yasha’s warm sentimentality and the underlying chill of Nile’s determination to prove himself. The ship can be as simple or complex as you want but at the heart of it all are two men trying to survive against all odds.

[Alex on the left and Julius on the right, both wearing the yellow Point Blanc jackets]

Alex/Julius

This is a fantastic complicated relationship with conflict, pseudo-selfcest and maybe even redemption. There’s lots to explore with Julius’s identity issues from having been raised to shape his personality around Alex’s, and not having the same face that he used to. Julius and Alex have a lot of shared trauma to bond over, as despite Julius’s villainy he’s still a child that was brainwashed and forced to be his Daddy’s soldier.

Alex Rider/Artemis Fowl (crossover pairing)

Part of the appeal of Alexmis is that, here you have these two individuals who’s personalities/stories meld really well together! A snarky spy and collected criminal mastermind working together to save the world, who wouldn’t love it? But it’s also deeper than that--they both have had really stressful, horrible experiences in their lives, and have been constantly forced to survive nightmarish events in order to save the world, often without much thanks. These events have left their mark, but the two could relate to each other, and hopefully grow to find a more peaceful life together. They’d look after each other, and both could learn a lot from the other--they just have the potential to get along wonderfully!

***

That’s it for this week! Do you have a favorite rare pair of your own? Share your love for them in the upcoming AR ship week!

[coldbcyz]

     ( cha eunwoo, cis man ) have you seen AIDEN PARK ? i heard HE is/are a MEDICINE / NEUROLOGY MAJOR at EVERGREEN UNIVERSITY. they’re TWENTY - FOUR years old and they’ve been living in san verto for FOUR YEARS. they tend to be CHARMING & INTELLECTUAL, but rumor has it they can also be TEMPESTUOUS & COLD.

                              hello , my name is alex , they/them pronouns , and i’m a 22 year-old gmt resident . this is one of my children , while AVERY LEE is the other one , stay tunned for that . without further or due , beware of the following triggers : parental neglect , brain injury , car crash , death

𝐈.            𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂     /     𝐀𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍  𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊

          birthname aiden julius park  ;  nicknames denny , den , jul , jp  ;  age twenty - four  ;  dob december 31st 1996  ;  place of birth  busan , south korea  ;  zodiac sign(s) capricorn sun , virgo moon , virgo rising  ;  occupation student  ;  pets none  ;  likes black coffee , books , newly purchased notebooks , nature , insightful people , knowledge , music , peppermint tea�� ;  dislikes stupid people , milk , dark bars , people with no ambition , feet , small apartments  ;  alcohol occasionally  ;  drugs no  ;  smoking no  

     what happens when your father is the mogul of all neurosurgeons ? aiden found it easier to delve into the profession , all in all to have his father’s affections . but that wasn’t always his plan . the park’s weren’t strangers to the south korean elite , his father’s name one running mouth through mouth as a very talented , precise neurosurgeon who helped thousands of people every year . his mother , docile by nature , was one to aid to various causes , even though she didn’t held a precise job . when aiden was born , he became the center of her whole world . 

     not that it mattered to his father , but as long as he had his mother , he got all the love he could ever want . as an incredibly smart child growing into a very intellectual teen , aiden went on to take up violin and become incredibly gifted in the craft , for his mother’s delight . she loved the instrument and even more that her son was so talented . but fate has a way to show itself , and that’s exactly what happened  . ( tw car crash / tw brain injury ) as they were returning from a performance , one would said the young child was restless , happy for the performance , or maybe ms. park was excited for her only son . crossing that red light had disasterous consequences . aiden was thirteen and yet still grasped that his mother’s life was on the line , that her brain needed surgery , and so he turned to the only man everyone thought could fix anything : his father .

     and yet ? he was found with disappointment , as his mother passed away a few days later , even with surgery . that was the moment aiden completely changed his perspective to life . of course his relationship with his father had never existed , but it soured even more . as before it was already usual for them to move , but with this life change , they finally settled in america . it didn’t take him much at the age of eighteen to finally move out and find some sort of freedom in evergreen university .

          per - so - na - li - ty. your typical brainiac , rich boy vibe . he mostly dedicates himself to his studies more than his social life , and possibly it’s for the best . lacks empathy like crazy , uses sarcasm on a daily basis . if he does get out at night , there better be wine there . will judge you for your word choice and whole personality . if he does like you , he won’t admit to it , saying you’re tolerable instead . 

[thanatophobia-thoughts]

Some of my wind has returned to me, so to speak, for working on this blog. Not that I’ve stopped, as all of those following can tell, nor will I soon be returning to 4 original posts each day – 3 is enough, with one reblog to bring up old information. In fact, that is part of the discussion for today, in a way.

Returning to work has allowed me to return to my love of reading, and while today I will be going to get the new Junji Ito manga (Sensor – I write this on 8/17/21), I have been working my way through the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough.  

I’ve suggested reading autobiographies and diaries, and that suggestion doesn’t change.

What I’d now like to suggest are reading stories – fictional or historical, or that strange mix of both – that carry over the lives of multiple people.

The only way I can think to explain that, is to use my current example. The series begins with telling the stories of Gaius Marius and Sulla, two men who set in motion dramatic changes for historical Rome. It goes through to their deaths (along with a host of other side characters), into the life of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Gaius Octavius – the future Augustus. I’m only on the 4th book right now, but I have already observed an entire generation die off.

My beloved Sulla, the ever-graceful Julia wife of Marius, and of course, Marius himself, are all gone. Their impact continues to be mentioned, to be remembered, but with every book it fades. Even that of Servilia (mother of Brutus), who as a child was terribly impacted by her mother’s adultery, seems to recognize that influence less and less. She has more influences, more nuances, to her life.

And these, too, will fade. Octavius is not yet born, but hinted at in Caesar noting he should find a husband for Atia, mother of Octavius. This will circle back. Another generation will fall, and another rise.

I do not believe this is a common occurrence in series; they tend to focus on one set of characters, and do not show the progression to the rise of others. A Song of Ice and Fire may get close to that, one day, but as of yet I cannot say if it will; nor can I suggest it for such reading as the series is not yet complete.

Masters of Rome is the only series I am familiar with that does this, though I have never sought it out as a thing before. I imagine it may be more common in historical fiction than it is in other genres.

The only other I can think of that may do this (I have not read it so I cannot confirm) is Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

So my suggestion is, if you like history, find a period you enjoy that spans around 100 years, and see if there are any historical fiction written about it. Or, if you’re not into history, I’m certain there are sci-fi and fantasy stories that span generations.

Why do I make this suggestion?

Simply because I do not believe we are ever truly exposed to this. We know it occurs, as we know death occurs, but we are rarely involved in stories that go through multiple perspectives of changing generations and times. We certainly see it around us – my grandparents, my parents, and gradually, the children of friends (maybe my brother – who knows!), and perhaps even their children! We experience it, but I believe we are so close to it, that it often blinds us.  

This is a way to remove oneself from the narrative, and look at it through other eyes. Experience it, in a way we live. I feel Masters of Rome captures that. I know the names Nixon and Reagan, the way many in Rome may have known the names Sulla and Marius after a few decades went by – where to the people left who lived with them, they remain huge, notable! To someone like me? Not so much. In my time, I suppose it’ll be figures like Barack and Trump who stand high in my memory, as far as politics go.

Innovations in my mom’s time seem simply normal, or even outdated, like the VHS. Now we have Blu-ray and digital!

I do not think we truly experience multiple generations in the way a novel or even a show, can allow us to – all at once, quickly, and to thus be more keenly aware of the shifts because by our time our reckoning with it – a few hours, a few days, weeks, depending on how fast we read – is far shorter than the time changes occur through generations, which is years. It’s fresh. We wonder at how things are forgotten, so easily cast aside, when it happens all the time.

In a way, it brings us to confront that true horror of thanatophobia that many like to hide behind: that we are not truly dead until we are forgotten. Here we see forgetting even within the same, and next, generations.

Here, we see death. As normal. And here we see moving on, as normal. Here we see lives untouched by the tragedies of these earlier losses. Would my brother’s children, ever be impacted by the loss of great-grandparents they never knew? No. No more than I am, and of those, there is only my father’s grandfather I think I would have liked to know, because he saw something in my dad that my dad should have seen earlier.

Exposure to generational stories and the death inherent in them, the change inherent in them, I think is important. In some ways it is as comforting as it is terrible, because for those with loved ones they’ll leave behind, it shows how families can grow and flourish and be happy after losses. It shows that “moving on”.

I browsed a Reddit thread for ideas (https://www.reddit.com/r/booksuggestions/comments/wdy5f/can_anyone_suggest_fiction_novels_that_span_over/), and so I am including these thoughts as well:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Roots by Alex Haley

House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (a part of a series followed by The Prodigal Daughter)

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley

The Sackett series by Louis L’amour

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Some of these look quite promising, so hopefully some will appeal. If there are other ideas, I certainly welcome reblogs with contributions!

[love-bokumono-fics]

Throwback Thursday - 2016

This week we're going back to that distant year of 2016 to take a look at some of the throwback fics. I, for one, believe that fanfiction has no expiration date. Some of the best fic I've ever read is now decades old, and I go back and read them again and again. Throwbacks are the best!

So let's look back at the distant year of 2016 and see what the fandom was writing!

Do you have a throwback fic you want to share? Send us a link in the Submission Box! (it doesn't have to be from 2016)

Starting Over - by Robotkitty5848; Completed, 8/8, 7k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: A New Beginning

Relationship: Rod/OC; Characters: Rod, OC - Character

Summary: After a breakup with Neil, Alex feels as if her life is over. What she doesn't know is that she has someone else who loves her more than Neil ever could.

Sweet as Pie - by Robotkitty5848; Completed, 1/1, 1.8k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: M/M

Fandom: Story of Seasons (2014)

Relationship: Fritz/OC; Characters: Fritz, Original Character

Additional Tags: Drunk Sex, Yaoi

Summary: Oliver invites his fellow farmer Fritz to try some of his cooking, and ends up getting drunk.

I Care About You - by windyjeans; Completed, 1/1, 2k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandom: Friends of Mineral Town

Relationship: Rick/Claire; Characters: Rick, Claire

Additional Tags: Domestic Fluff, Pregnancy, Hurt/Comfort, Family

Summary: Rick has always been a bit of a worrier.

Left Unsaid - by copernicusjones; Completed, 1/1, 4k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen

Fandoms: Grand Bazaar

Relationship: Antoinette | Enju & Dirk | Dirka; Characters: Antoinette | Enju, Dirk | Dirka, Background & Cameo Characters

Additional Tags: Goodbyes, Male-Female Friendship

Summary: Conversation doesn't come easily for Antoinette. Around Dirk, though, she's found the ability to say everything she needs to, with or without words. On the night it matters most, there isn't anything she can say to truly tell him how much he means to her. But for him—her best friend—she'll try, as she remembers all the times he's tried for her.

Rooty Call - by AccidentallyTheWholeFanfic; Completed, 1/1, 2k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: Other

Fandoms: A New Beginning

Characters: Henry, A Tree - Character

Additional Tags: Parody, Humor, Watch Out for That Tree

Summary: On his way to the Echo Town mines one afternoon, set on getting a glorious gift for the woman of his dreams, Henry Turner is reluctantly sidetracked by an enigmatic voice with a PARTICULARLY indecent proposal. Rated M for "Man, You Seriously Need Help."

The Line - by AccidentallyTheWholeFanfic; Completed, 1/1, 3k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: M/M

Fandoms: Animal Parade

Relationship: Luke/Owen; Characters: Luke, Owen

Additional Tags: Romance, Friendship, Sexual Tension, Starry Night Festival

Summary: Just the little things that added fuel to the fire around which they were constantly dancing, neither having the courage to simply step outside the boundaries and close the distance. He prided himself on being more direct with people than this.

Pie, Spells, Trouble - by Evilicing; Completed, 1/1, 3k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Animal Parade

Characters: Julius, Witch Princess, Vivi

Summary: Julius had never really thought about... "magic." Sure, he felt that some kind of magic must exist in the world, for there were unexplainable, beautiful things that he loved. Jewels, minerals, nature... pie.

A Thousand More - by Budgiechan; Completed, 1/1, 5k

Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen

Fandoms: Story of Seasons (2014)

Characters: Witch Princess, Harvest Goddess, Witchie, Dessie

Summary: They've known each other since they were naught but children... A story written for the Starry Night Exchange on Tumblr, retelling the story of the Witch Princess and the Harvest Goddess over the years.

By the Sea - by treetracer; Completed, 1/1, 3k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: Story of Seasons (2014)

Relationships: Klaus/OC; Characters: Klaus, Main Character

Additional Tags: Love, Romance, Honeymoon, First Time, Sex

Summary: "Above them the night sky began to bloom with the twinkling lights of stars and the brilliance of the full moon bathed the shore in cool lunar rays. The sound of his heart beneath her ear was steady and strong. She held him closer to her." This is their first night together as husband and wife. They spend their honeymoon on an island in Tropical Country.

A Sorta Fairytale - by Miss Kitty DeMarco (ParisWriter); WIP, 5/?, 17k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M

Fandoms: A New Beginning

Relationship: Amir/Rachel (Rio); Characters: Amir, Rio | Rachel, Neil, Allen, Sanjay

Additional Tags: Romance, Royal Drama, Culture Shock, Swearing, Love at First Sight

Summary: A New Beginning: Prince Amir Ranjiit Raj Singh came to Echo Village in search of ways to better his homeland for his people. He never expected to fall in love with the young woman who had been instrumental in the town's revitalization, yet the first time he looked into her eyes he knew he'd met his future bride. Their journey to "happily ever after" would not be an easy one, however...

[bittybattybunny]

Did Kai have any sort of family after losing her foster family and becoming the Demon King? Or did she only have her husband?

Yes actually!!! A lot of Kai’s own story involves her own found family collection (i say collection just. cuz she tends to outlive them)

I’ve briefly mentioned she has a few kids and you see them in one of my sketchbook tours

but she also has a group of friends who she was close to

and the opening chapter of one of her ‘stories’ involves her dealing with the loss of a close friend she considered family (she even tried to go through legal means to see him but when humans turned around and said fuck you she snuck in. I can actually post this writing if people wanna read it?)

She also has some of her adoptive family still alive tho the bloodline is thinner. The Hellsing family she was raised in still exists to a point in her story (before the great catastrophe at least) Her whole ‘became the demon king’ thing happened when her uncle attacked her but she was able to get her sister in law and unborn nephew to escape while she distracted the rest (i have a whole ass animatic planned for this to the song “monster” from frozen’s musical. someday. someday I’ll be able to sit down on it weep)

This nephew was the one who hired Ren to help find “the king of fear” as she was known at that point. Alex is a good boy. His son was the one who went to find his great aunt after Ren’s death and she fully became a fallen god and offered her a place to stay and just. try to relax. She ended up falling into a deep sleep for a while and his family was the ones to build the ‘tomb’ she normally rests in when ever she has these extreme ‘low energy’ periods which can last between 5 years to her longest one was 5000. Typically she’ll rest for between 20-50 years at a time. and there’s a legit reason she does this too. But that’s not about family---

Point is that family is still very fond of their matriarchal demoness and she helped them found “Prometheus” a group to help humans deal with monsters and monsters live in peace. (cuz boy howdy do people have trigger fingers) there are other groups in their world with either similar goals or ones to ‘suppress’ monsters (example: The Order is a group who sees monsters as tools and lesser beings. sometimes Prometheus is forced to work with them and normally they send strong demons or dragons and such so that The Order can’t do anything to their operative. it was on one of these collaborations that Kai kidnapped Booberry from them. she regrets nothing.)

Kai often just refers to the current descendant as just “her nephew” as she’s too lazy to shove the amount of “great” in front of it because she’s old. there’s only one case of a niece and that’s where the bloodline ended (again that’s another story all together)

When Kai woke up after the Great Catastrophe alone she ended up meeting a young man named Leo (who if you look in Kai’s tag on my blog you can see him!) Who she bonded with and she likes hanging out with (and there’s other things but I’m not gonna talk about it)

There’s also her ‘generals’ and a few of them are gonna show in TLC soon (just a brief cameo) A group of 4 who’ve met Kai in a few incarnations and they always tend to get along. Original names were Matt, Trisha, Faith, and Maki is Maki (she’s an elf so she lives longer) Current names are Byron, Tiffny, Jacob and Maki. These four actually form Ren’s party when he’s trying to find his wife at the actual start of “Nightmare’s Dream” and you learn they each have a connection to Kai through the story.

Matt/Branden/Byron; he’s featured in the writing I mentioned up top, he’s kinda similar to Leo in the way he interacts with Kai as an almost human morality pet for Kai. He used to be Kai’s student when she was teaching, and his father was the warden at the jail her friend Sammy was in (this is the friend she lost) Matt can see through her disguise when she’s showcasing nightmares. Kai can cause hallucinations on targets using her ‘fear’ hence her title “king of fear” and normally they are only visible to her and her target. But Matt can see them.

He ends up getting in trouble a few times; once with a tribe of demons who want to turn children into imps, once with the literal Anti christ, once with a haunted house. And each time Kai was there and ends up saving him.

Matt later is in an accident and ends up reincarnating as a winged human named Branden and has all his past memories. So when he starts working at Prometheus as one of their ‘informants’ (aka he goes to gather information in both human and supernatural affairs. he’s referred to often as the angel of trust because of his silver tongue) and he meets her again he shouts something from one of his classes with her causing her to snap back on reflex until she realizes (running joke is Kai loathes Julius Ceaser and if you say his name she always whips around shouting “WAS A SLUT AND A HARLOT” in a very aggressive tone. It makes people laugh when she does and she always gets embarrassed afterwards)

The two of them end up working together for a while and become good friends (and maybe a bit more but they never state really) but then when with his new work partner Trisha (nicknamed angel of death, she works in the sector that deals with cleanup) he ends up betraying Prometheus and Trisha rips his wings off and kills him (this is the context between the ‘redraw’ meme I do every few years of a man with a bleeding back drowning)

Trisha is also someone who grew close to Kai (hence she killed Branden because his folly led to Kai nearly going berserk) but she was killed by a sleeper agent from the order. And this is how Kai lost two of her close friends.

Now backing up to Sammy the inmate one; he was with her when Kai met her first child, the young moon goddess Artemis. Arty is a constant for the demoness ever since she picked her up in the woods (her arc also has one of my favorite kai lines: (which i can’t find the direct line but)

Sam shuddered as he looked around the woods, “Do you ever feel like there’s 100 eyes watching you?”

“Yes but it didn’t work out so we broke up.” The demon responded flatly as she looked around with a deep set scowl.

While she was out with Sammy when he was hunting they ended up finding a little girl who turned out to be a new goddess and her elder sister was kidnapped by the embodiment of Greed in his attempt to become a god. Kai ends up stopping this but also kinda ends up becoming Arty’s mom. While she doesn’t raised Arty fully she does do a lot of teaching and such for her and does refer to her as “her daughter” and Arty calls her mom. when the great catastrophe occurs, Arty is one of the few gods who remained when the rest went to new ‘realms’ or simply vanished and is considered one of the main gods of their world because of this.

And then there’s her son Ganon, an Orc Lord she adopted when his village was ruined. he currently poses as her ‘demon king’ while she pretends to be the chancellor (this is the ruse she uses. normally heroes will fight the ‘king’ and lose but if they actually are a threat or have poor reasoning she kills them from behind. this is also how the story starts as someone found a spell to try and incapacitate her buttt)

There’s also morte and her daughter demeter (I’ve shown them before, a set of necromancers) who she’s very friendly with. Demeter even calls her aunty Kaya and loves to sit on her lap and such during meetings. (i have one snippet when Kai was recruiting someone to their side but hadn’t told her yet she was the REAL demon king and Demeter was sitting on her lap laughing) Morte is thankful to Kai for saving her circus (Morte runs a circus that helps those stuck in limbo pass on but at one point demons of sin over took it in a way to gather souls)

There’s also her friend Ciera, the daughter of the girm reaper. she’s Kai’s best friend for the most part of her life, and is the one who helps Ren when the gods of life and death try to prevent him from reincarnating again (which is like other things a whole other story) (she also briefly shows in Bone Stealer at one point. While visiting bunny’s sick grandmother, Bunny and Steve run into Ciera as she’s leaving. Steve stops Bunny from attacking her) She’s over all chill.

There’s also Nicki. Kai’s ‘twin’ brother. He’s the ‘bad guy’ through the arc that contains Leo and sets up ‘the great Split’ that Kai will cause (this is lore/plot stuff) He originally was raised to hate her by their maternal Uncle who’s a arch mage like Ren however he’s fallen due to his hatred of Kai’s birth. Nicki is not really her brother (in the first life) but a failed clone of the demoness. When Kai is reborn Nicki gets to actually be her brother and the two get along really well and he’s very protective of his sister now that he understands what her actual deal is and not the bs his uncle fed him. Before the rebirth too Nicki helped kai solve some stuff and worked with her until his death (unlike her, he was not immortal)

And then Kai actually has two bio children with Ren! Akito her son takes after her and he’s the one who takes over her role as the true demon king of Tir-Na-Nocht so she’s able to die and try life again, and a daughter, Rei who takes after Ren in looks but... she’s a himbo. pure moron. she got her grandpa’s himbo gene strong. She’s a cat girl who works with her brother and she is the head of the guard.

Aki actually has his own story where he grew up in a ‘mundane’ world but then his entire class got ‘isekaid’ to another. it gets shown that this isn’t truly the case. the great ‘split’ mentioned above was Kai literally broke the world in two realms. She made one primarily humans and high tech and then the other was magic and mostly monsters. there are a mix of both but it cut down heavily on the murder. She raised Aki in the human side for his and Rei’s safety due to them being the children of a fallen god (mama worries) and Aki inherited his mother’s odd ‘status’ “Hero/Demon King”  so he has to not expose his demon nature and also stay below the radar (it turns out the person who summoned them was attempting to break a centuries old treaty) until his mother and father can figure out what happened to him (thankfully he can go to a church and his older sister Arty can act as a messenger but there’s a bit of a time split in the worlds) That world is actually the one “Fae Rules” takes place in o7o.

She also is friends with a dead prince named “Shade” (yes this is who you think it is) as well as her ‘cousin’ Sena (who she loves to give shit to)

And in her second life she obvs has her brother, cousins, her father (her father’s boyfriend/her manny), aunt’s etc!!!

So yes; she had family other than her husband!!!! And she cherishes them all.

[letterboxd]

Beautiful Day: The Don Hertzfeldt Q&A.

In which the singular creator of It’s Such a Beautiful Day and the World of Tomorrow trilogy answers 57 questions put to him by the Letterboxd community, about death, gills, snacks, back flips, the best time of day to watch a movie, and the sick pleasure of emotionally destroying people.

Since his first animated outings in the 1990s, filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt has had a way of staring deeply into humanity’s soul via a humble stick figure, and his skill at blending existential questions with situational humor breeds intense reactions. To browse Letterboxd reviews of Hertzfeldt’s animated works is to meet film lovers at a rare, collective gathering point: heaping great piles of love for films that do “the exact opposite of helping with depression”.

There’s something optimistically anti-feel-good in Hertzfeldt’s works; a bleak view of the future, and a frank appreciation of death’s inevitability, that makes viewers urgently want to fix the way they’re living right now. “I’ve built a lot of my life philosophy on the messages of this film,” writes Misty, of his acclaimed It’s Such a Beautiful Day. “It has kicked my ass completely,” writes Dirk of the first, Oscar-nominated World of Tomorrow instalment, “making me angry at myself for letting trivial stuff take over things I love and making me happy I have so very, very much in my life to enjoy and be grateful for.”

The filmmaker’s magic lies as much in the process as the content: “Hertzfeldt is able to make every moment count,” writes Artpig, of the second WoT instalment, The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts, “every line of dialogue, every moment of silence, every note of music, every line of animation.” The World of Tomorrow films, says animation expert Toussaint Egan in our Letterboxd Show animation episode, are “some of the best science fiction films, period”.

And his timing. Oh, his timing. Just as the northern hemisphere days were turning cold, and the drawn-out misery of the pandemic was really taking hold all over again, Hertzfeldt tweeted:

WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE THREE everywhere october 9 5pm est 🚀

— don hertzfeldt (@donhertzfeldt)

October 8, 2020

And like that, World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime was ours, an overnight gift to the quarantined and bereaved-weary, on Vimeo for all to rent or own. The gifts, they keep coming: a master list of movies that have their fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow universe, and now, in recognition of our community’s love for his films—and in his signature lower-case—the answers to questions asked in an exclusive Letterboxd Q&A.

To make things easier for Don, we grouped similar questions (and have noted which members asked what). Read on for more than you ever thought you might get to know about Hertzfeldt’s process, brain, heart and influences.

Filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt.

From “holograms that yell at you!” to the stunning colors, textures and folds of the blue mountains, to attributes David progressively deletes to make room for memories, would you please give us an insight into World of Tomorrow Three’s world-building process? —Letterboxd in the grand scheme of the series, episodes one and two still felt like baby steps to me. episode three was my first chance to really start blowing things up and exploring this universe. when i’m writing, i don’t want to worry about going over the top or think about structure or meaning or really much of anything yet. writing is playtime, it should be fun and messy. i want to go over the top. there is no top. i don’t want to start thinking too much until i’m rewriting and sorting through it all. thinking too much too soon can get in the way, like being too aware of when you’re trying to fall asleep. when you write a diary entry or a text to a friend, there’s no self-consciousness or creative blocks, you just write. it’s casual and fluid and automatic. but if you’re asked to write a term paper or a screenplay, suddenly all those lights turn off. it can be paralyzing. it’s hard to get to that place of truly not caring what anyone thinks and approach all forms of writing just as freely as writing those immediate thoughts in your diary. but that’s what i try to do.

When you start writing a new piece, do you usually start with a plot idea, a thematic idea, one uniform philosophical notion, or a little bit of each? —Kodiak J. Sanders, Trenz, Mr. Tables i don’t think i ever write in a straight line. i’ll jot down a hundred stray ideas over time, and one day i’ll sit down and see what connections might be made out of them. i really want this scene to be in the movie, so how do i get there? this is a good line, how can i get a character to say it? so the actual story usually only starts to reveal itself when i sit down to logic all these bits and pieces out. hey, in order to connect this strange idea to that strange idea, suddenly there is a very interesting third scene.

I’m astounded by how much the animation and the visuals improve with each instalment of World of Tomorrow. What have you done differently for each one? —Aske Lund, Cringetacular the characters needed to physically perform a lot more in episodes two and three so there were more demands put on the animation. when emily 4 dances or david staggers up a mountain, those sorts of scenes were animated in “ones”, which means doing 24 drawings per second versus my usual twelve. it’s still all 2D hand animation, just more of a classic disney approach that gives the movement a smoother look and a little more room for nuance. and obviously it takes a lot more work. but i hesitate to call such things improvements because i’m not sure i like the idea of different techniques being thought of as good or bad. it’s just another way of doing things. it really depends, sometimes super limited animation can be more effective.

Likewise, Part Three’s sound design is incredible. What conditions did you create it in, and what are all those sounds, and how do you have such an incredible command of the cut-to-silence trick?! —Letterboxd thanks, the sound design is always my favorite thing to do. other than julia’s lines, it’s easy to forget that all the animation starts with dead silence. obviously there’s no sound coming from a live-action set. so adding sound and music to everything, usually pretty late in production, is when all the stuff i’ve been working on suddenly starts to feel like an actual movie. this is not a future that works very well—particularly david’s, which predates everything else we’ve seen so far by a century or two—so you’re hearing a lot of creaky old hard drives booting up, electric distortions, and bent circuits from broken toys.

Emily and Emily Prime in a still from ‘World of Tomorrow’ (2015).

World of Tomorrow used to fill me with existential dread, but now with the current state of the world it’s become more and more comforting in a strange way. Do you feel that at all as you make new episodes? —mariano gg i wish that were possible but when i’m making something i’m usually so close to it i’m unable to see anything but all the things i need to fix.

Can you talk a little bit about sourcing the photo-realistic images for the backgrounds in Part Three? —Jack Moulton most of the environments were 2D images i built in photoshop, usually starting from close-up photos of different textures (like sandstone), all sort of reshaped and puzzle-pieced into something new. an easy to see example was david’s cockpit, which was cobbled together from all sorts of different old aircraft engine and machine parts. the trick in building and lighting these locations was always figuring out where the line was drawn in making these places realistic, but not too realistic for minimal characters to inhabit. i kept landing on a sort of painterly looking middle ground.

If the cloning process in World of Tomorrow existed right now, would you go through that process and create clones of yourself to prolong your life? —tim probably not, that process doesn’t seem to work so well.

If you were put into the world you’ve created, would you buy gills? —Lauren Torres i tend to avoid putting my head under because i almost always get water in my ears so i guess i wouldn’t need them. gills also seem like they’d be a real nuisance to keep clean.

What does love mean, and why do your characters go through so much effort to find it? —Andrew Michalko oh man.

In this year of years, what do you hope people will understand about death and its inevitability (or is it all there on the screen, and if so, that’s okay too)? —Letterboxd understanding death and its inevitability is maybe the most valuable thing a person can do for themselves.

Was the absence of Emily Prime in Part Three a practical decision [Don’s then-four-year-old niece Winona provided Emily’s voice] or an intentional departure from the first two films? —Michael it was both. i couldn’t find a way to fit her in naturally and i also felt like the series needed to start growing in other directions and not rest on the past. episode two had also been really difficult to write, it was so reliant on winona’s recordings, and it felt like the dam was really broken when i was finally able to write without any restrictions this time.

In a series like World of Tomorrow, where you headed in a direction that is a lot more plot-driven than your previous work, how far in advance do you plan? Did you always know this was in David’s past, or are these stories told one at a time? —Ryan Welch, Kodiak J. Sanders, julius, Alex Leon i could tell early on that this wasn’t a story like it’s such a beautiful day with a clear beginning, middle and end, but a much wilder thing that could continue to grow. the openness of it is still what makes it so interesting to me. i have all sorts of notes for the next episodes but if i already knew what would happen in episode nine i think that would take a lot of the air out of the tires and i’d start to feel like i was just connecting the boring dots. while writing, i’ve also had to be aware that there someday might be an episode nine so i can’t go wrecking the timelines before i get there.

What were the rocks and the gas pump that Emily fell in love with meant to represent? —Ekaneff she was learning how to love, and like all of us, in her youth she gravitated to a bunch of individuals that were wrong for her.

Aside from the ability to release more frequently, is there something about the episodic structure that you prefer/appreciate, as opposed to creating one larger feature-length film? —SiddFinch1 there’s just more freedom. the traditional running time of a feature film, 90 to 120 minutes, is a totally arbitrary number.

Have you ever considered writing a World of Tomorrow book or graphic novel? —Jay Smith the earliest ideas for world of tomorrow were sloshing around in a graphic novel called the end of the world that came out in 2013. but i don’t have any talent or much confidence in making another book like that. it’s a different world. when i look at someone like chris ware and then look at something like the end of the world, it’s like, “wow, baby made a mess”.

A page from Don Hertzfeldt’s graphic novel, ‘The End of the World’ (2013).

What attracted you to the unique style [of minimalist stick figures]? Is there a sense of intimacy that you feel you can achieve with this simplicity? —Evan Whitford when i was little, before i wanted to make movies i wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. i think my drawings today might have more in common with newspaper comics than the sort of characters you usually see in animation. comic-strip panels were always composed in a very reserved way because they were generally intended to be skimmed. you needed to be able to read the strip in five seconds so you could be off to read the sports pages and obituaries. the comics pages were also under constant size and space restrictions. so they were minimal by design and the artists reduced their characters to only their most essential parts. there was no room for fussing. charles schulz said “i only draw what’s necessary”. and that’s actually incredibly hard to do. you’re accomplishing so much more with so much less.

i’ve also found that if there’s a scene that’s not playing right and bothering me, most of the time it’s because my composition was too cluttered. i almost always find myself removing things from the frame and trying to pare it down to only what’s necessary. very rarely do i ever think ‘i need to add more stuff in here’. because this shot is only five seconds long and i want you to be looking over here when this moment happens and this character says something, and if you’re distracted by this other flickering junk i put in the corner it’s going to throw everything off.

Animation-aside, which creative medium do you resonate with the most? —Bronkdan music.

How much did you pull from real-life experiences to make It’s Such A Beautiful Day, if any? What research did you conduct into memory? —Gunnar Sizemore, David Sigura, Micah Smith whenever i got a little stuck writing it’s such a beautiful day, i’d go back and reread my journal and pull more things out of it. dreams, conversations, small scenes. reading the journal now, it seems like i stole something from it every few pages. i also heavily researched neurological problems. it’s never said in the movie what exactly’s going on with bill, but i needed there to be a real diagnosis to base the medical writing on. so all the things he’s going through are real treatments or symptoms based on an actual condition. i didn’t want to ever come out and say, “he’s got terminal brain clouds”, or whatever in the movie, because then it becomes a “brain-cloud movie”, and that’s too easy for the audience to compartmentalize and distance themselves from… “brain clouds are so rare, that will never happen to me”. but not being told exactly what’s wrong with bill might help make the story more relatable and universal.

In what ways have you kept your mind fresh creatively? How do you keep yourself from slipping into complacency? —Watchmoviez, Drew’s reviews most creative blocks or stagnation come from anxiety, second-guessing and doubt. over the years i’ve learned to just sort of calm down and trust myself more. it’s like the old aesop fable: when you stop thrashing around in the water, the water becomes clearer and you can see more. if a scene isn’t working right, i can more easily chill out about it these days and trust that i’ll eventually figure it out—because i’ve figured these sorts of things out a hundred times before and i know by now that i’m not the sort of person who’s just going to allow a scene that isn’t working to remain in the movie. there’s a little more panic about that sort of thing when you’re young: “oh no, the movie sucks right now, will it always suck?!” i’ve reached the point where i know that i will not let it suck. and that sort of thinking allows all the movie gears to turn more easily.

Do you have a specific thematic, emotional or other miscellaneous motive in mind when including classical music pieces? —James Y. Lee when i’m listening to music and suddenly the right piece arrives, it’s usually blindingly obvious to me: there’s just no doubt this needs to be in the movie somehow. it’s like the idea has always existed and i’ve just finally uncovered it. it’s the same with writing. when the right thing floats along, it is striking and obvious and into the pile of notes it goes.

How much of your animation style lends itself to experimentation, such as discovering new tricks and pretty shots, that is then discarded if you learn it doesn’t work as intended? —Adam, Jacob i think i’m always experimenting. i figure if it doesn’t work, at least i’ve learned something.

What is the strangest compliment or critique you’ve gotten personally or of your work? —Elliot Taylor i’ve always remembered this one. i am so proud of you came out a couple years after everything will be ok. it was a continuation of that story, so it was basically the first time i had ever made a sequel. and everything will be ok had done really well when it came out. it won sundance and got all these great reviews. so i am so proud of you comes out and i remember reading this review that says, “everything will be ok was probably my favorite animated short of all time. it honestly changed my life. it was funny, sad, beautiful and just so wonderful. everything will be ok, boy did i love it. incredible. two thumbs up. truly, best thing ever. wow. so, unfortunately, its sequel, i am so proud of you, just feels like more of the same.”

A still image from ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ (2012).

Are there any pieces of fiction that have influenced your work that we probably wouldn’t think of? —Gyani Wasp, Mikolaj Perzyna, Aaron McMillan, Harrison, Axel, Cringetacular, The25centman, Hunter Guidry one thing that pops to mind is the phantom tollbooth. my favorite children’s books were the ones with all the fun metaphors and clever wordplay. when i was plotting out episode two i wanted to lean into that, where visiting different sections of emily’s brain would be like milo visiting the land of math, the land of letters, the land of sound, with different looks and logic to it. so we had the bog of realism, glimmers of hope, broken memories, the logic center, and all the stuff in triangle land and square land. i guess that’s a lot but i wish there had been a bit more.

How did your friends and family respond to the “my anus is bleeding” part of Rejected? —Alex Tatterson they were pretty used to me by then.

Do you know of the work of David Firth, the internet animator? His work is also surreal and has dark humor, but more sinister than whimsical. Would you ever consider making an animation in the realm of horror in future? —KEVIИ HДWKIИS i’m afraid i don’t know him. i’d love to make a horror movie. from a certain point of view though maybe it could be argued that most everything i’ve made is a sort of horror movie?

My first tattoo is of Billy from Billy’s Balloon hanging from his ankle and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. How do you feel about people having your work tattooed and do you have any ink from other creatives that have meant something to you? —Elias it really fucking enrages me when people get my stuff tattooed on them. no just kidding. mostly i feel embarrassed but i’m glad you haven’t changed your mind about it yet. sometimes i wonder how many people have.

Have you ever thought about directing live action? —Abeer, Noah Thompson yes.

Is there an update on your feature film Antarctica? —Rylan California it’s one of many things swirling around.

Will you do a remake of Robocop and why not next year? —Simon no, because robocop is already sort of perfect.

Do you ever see yourself directing a large studio film? Or working with a large team to make something with a higher budget, maybe through a crowd-funded project? Or do you just strongly prefer working on your own? —Vteyshev, Monotone Duck sure. i’ve never preferred working on my own at all. it was usually just the only way to ever get anything made. i haven’t had the funding to pay a big crew, or really much of a crew at all. there’s the old saying: you can make something good, you can make it fast, and you can make it cheap, but you can only pick two. if you make it good and fast it won’t be cheap, if you make it cheap and fast it won’t be good, etc. so my only route in hoping to make something good and cheap has been to totally forget about making it fast.

What did you find digital animation added or took away from your work, and what did those changes do for your storytelling? Will you continue using the digital medium when/if you decide to move on from the World of Tomorrow project? —Alec Lai, Slipkornbizkit, Aldo digital just sped everything up. it’s still one person drawing everything, so we need to remember that speed is relative here, but i felt like i went from riding a bicycle to driving a car. there are many pleasant, wonderful things about riding a bicycle but you’re not going to get anywhere very quickly. and i’m not in my 20s anymore, in fact my 20s and 30s were mostly entirely devoured by making movies in what was maybe the slowest way possible. so these days i am appreciating the speed of digital.

If you could have a conversation with any filmmaker, dead or alive, who would it be and why? —ToBeHonest, Cringetacular if i could resurrect one of my heroes from the dead i think i would feel terrible wasting his time forcing him to have a conversation with me. he might also just sit there, covered with graveyard dirt, screaming in horror.

What is the best time of day to watch a movie? —Sammy night. i always feel a little nuts coming out of a movie and the sun is still up.

What’s your all-time favorite science-fiction film, and why? —Letterboxd 2001. because come on.

What is your favorite of Julia Potts’ films, and why? —Letterboxd i like the one with the severed foot.

Are there any animated films that you felt had a profound impact on you as a child? —Sprizzle probably fantasia. and ray harryhausen stuff. whenever there was a sunday-afternoon movie on TV, my brother and i learned that if in the opening titles there was a credit for “special effects” we should keep watching because we might eventually see something cool.

Which one of your movies is your personal favorite? —Jakob Böwer, RodrigoJerez i don’t know. sometimes it’s the newest one because it’s usually the one with the most experience behind it and therefore feels like it has the fewest mistakes. but then over time i realize they’re all riddled with mistakes. of the it’s such a beautiful day pieces, i think my favorite has always been i am so proud of you. and then i’ll see reviews that say “clearly the second chapter is the weakest one”, and i’ll think, man you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.

One of Don’s layout sketches for ‘I Am So Proud of You’ (2008).

What’s your favorite Pixar film? —Jordan inside out.

What film would you want to be the last one you watch before you die? —Gavin honestly if i’m in the process of dying i hope i won’t be watching movies at all.

Do you have faith in humanity? —Connor Kriechbaum not often.

What is something that worries you about where humankind is headed? —Felix_Bouchard social media.

What is the most valuable thing you have ever lost? How often do you think about it? —Siminup well now i’m getting sad.

Can you do a back flip, mister Don? —Doug maybe with the help of a catapult.

What is your take on the after life? What do you think happens to us when we die? —Luisdecoss i guess that it’s probably a lot like our memory of what the year 1823 was like.

Do you want anything from McDonald’s? —Andrew Rhyne only if i’m in an airport and desperate.

What’s your favorite meal or snack? —Pfitzerone, Evan lately in quarantine i’ve been discovering this particular breakfast burrito.

How’s your quarantine life, Don? —Ivan Arcena it’s okay thanks. eating lots of breakfast burritos.

Hi! I can’t believe you’re going to read this. I am currently filled with an unparalleled amount of joy, wow. This is a long shot but here I go. I’m 17 and your (self-proclaimed) biggest fan. I’ve seen It's Such a Beautiful Day eight times now and every single time I pick up on more details. I’ve watched a few of your interviews and in the AFS one about Rejected you said that the louder you play a movie, the funnier it is. On my seventh watch of It’s Such a Beautiful Day I hooked my laptop up to three huge speakers and I must say—you were so, so right. I made a video essay about the movie. Lol, I’m not sure if this will get to you but Michael Jordan once said something about missing shots or not taking shots or maybe about tequila, I am unsure but I know it was important. Thanks MJ. Not you, Mr Jackson. I’m sorry Ms. Jackson…

I actually do have a question, sorry about the rambling. Every single time I watch the guy at the payphone flip his pencil and go “fantastic, fantastic” I cry. And I think what really does it for me is that “we’ll finally have our day”. Earlier in the movie, Bill’s co-worker talks about how all of time is happening at once. So what I constantly ask myself is if the guy at the payphone is simultaneously having his day and waiting for it. And I’m no longer speaking to that one specific example or even to the movie as a whole but I guess I’m wondering if the idea of all events happening at once comforts you?

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes: “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.” When I read this I immediately thought about your movie. I think the idea of all of time happening at once makes all of life feel less important but more special. You know? Anyway, I suppose I’d just like to know what inspired the lines about time in the office scene. This isn’t much of a question, more an incoherent ramble but thank you so, so much for all you’ve done. I feel so incredibly inspired and so deeply moved by your work and I know that so many people in this comment section and around the world would agree. I can’t believe I’ve been given the opportunity to ask something. It really is such a beautiful day. :) —Eli Osei (co-signed by Vooder) that old guy at the payphone was someone i saw at the laundromat once and he borrowed my pencil and the whole thing just played out like in the movie. i just thought it was such a perfect little scene that i’d just witnessed. anyway, the idea of time being a landscape and everything taking place “at once” just came straight out of a science magazine. i don’t know how, but apparently it’s been more or less proven to be true? we perceive time in one direction, but the past and the future are always all around us. think of it as though we’re driving our car through a landscape. even though the mountains we saw ten minutes ago are behind us now, it doesn’t mean those mountains have ceased to exist. they’ve only ceased to exist from our point of view. we’ve only just driven past them. the mountains, like your childhood, are still going on back there. anyway, i had never heard of that before and thought it needed to be in a movie.

A still from ‘World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts’ (2017).

Are you a fan of Kurt Vonnegut by any chance? It may be coincidental, but I love how you both utilize science-fiction settings and concepts like being “unstuck from time/memory” to explore the human condition. I feel his writing and your animation are both capable of making me laugh wholeheartedly one minute and weeping genuine, sorrowful tears the next. —Vooder i’m embarrassed to say i’ve never read him and i’m told on a regular basis that i should. that all started after i am so proud of you came out with those discussions about time being a landscape. but i almost only ever read non-fiction. it’s a long story. but now i’m almost afraid to ever read vonnegut after all these years of build-up.

Hey Don, this is really cool. I don’t have as much of a question, more of a comment. It’s Such A Beautiful Day has gotten me through a lot of hard times, being in middle school sucks, I think everyone knows that: and your movie has made life just a wee bit better for me. It also gave me the inspiration and motivation to finish my first feature! Thanks lots. Love from Indiana —Blood Mountain: Experimental Cinema <3 hey thank you. yeah middle school was pretty much the deepest pit of hell. there’s this old saying, “if you find yourself in hell, keep going”. and i’ve never understood that saying. “keep going”, because, i guess, you can always just go deeper into hell?

Hi! Has the vitreous humour in your eyes started to deteriorate and have you experienced floaters within your eyeballs? If not, that’s okay. Just remember it’s part of life, so don’t get scared when it happens! Just keep moving on! But if you do have them, follow-up question: Do you think it’s funny that the body of vitreous fluid that allows your sight to be clear is called the vitreous humour, and when it detaches it’s anything but humorous? I find that pretty humorous myself, in, like, an ironic way. —Clbert1 i actually blew a blood vessel in my eye a couple weeks ago and the whole thing turned bright blood red. it didn’t hurt or anything, i just walked into the room all disgusting and my girlfriend was like, “what the fuck?!” and then the next day i had further weird eye problems. i just went to the eye doctor yesterday. i think i will be fine but i was thinking, wouldn’t it be like the most heavy metal thing ever for my biography if i just suddenly went BLIND? “and then in 2020, HE WENT BLIND.”

Will Intro ever be released to the general public outside of theater screenings? —Melissa okay yes you’ve talked me into it. on that note, i noticed that the poster of intro used on letterboxd is a weird fake and i’m not sure where it came from. someone just used a picture from rejected. if fake posters are to be made i would prefer it if they used a picture from raiders of the lost ark or something.

Do you have plans to combine the World of Tomorrow shorts into one feature-length film à la It’s Such a Beautiful Day? —David Sigura, Sam Stewart, An_Person no, it’s going to be much longer than a feature-length.

Will we ever get a ‘Hertzfeldt 4K Collection’? Or at least a Blu-ray with It’s Such a Beautiful Day and all episodes of World of Tomorrow? —Teebin, HippityHoppity there is actually already a blu-ray for it’s such a beautiful day. up next we’ll do some sort of world of tomorrow blu-ray of the first three episodes. but 4k is too many k’s. you don’t need that many k’s.

Would you ever consider comprising an OST album of all the songs you used and mixed from your films? —PhiloDemon i don’t think so. i read that for many years cat stevens resisted releasing his original songs from harold and maude on any records because he thought they were more special if you could only ever hear them in the movie. i like that.

Do you get a sick kind of pleasure from emotionally destroying people with your movies? —MaxT26 yep.

What’s been your ongoing experience of the outpouring of joy and love of your work? —Henry gratitude. how sad for me if, after all this work, nobody was watching at all.

Related content

Don’s invaluable Twitter thread about “old-school animation camera stuff”

A Few of the Fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow Universe: a list of influences curated for Letterboxd by Don Hertzfeldt

Modest Heroes: the Letterboxd Showdown for indie animation

The Drawn Cinema: Analena’s list of rough animation, pencil textures, watercolor effects, dynamic brushes and other poetic artistry.

Beloved Indie Animation: a list by Gui

Animated Sci-Fi and Fantasy: an extensive list by Stonefolk

‘World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime’ is available now through Bitter Films on Vimeo.