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frosted-night · 3 years

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Do you have any headcanons for cast as humans? I mean as a human au. (If this is too big of an ask thats fine)

BOY DO I

Let me just get my tome out n read y'all the lore I've made for no reason.

Jack

Left home after graduating to join a caravan and traveled across the country. He came back home after his parent's sudden deaths. He didn't want to leave his brother to deal with the estate by himself.

He still has his van from his adventures and he wants to paint it again to symbolize his new phase in life. It still has living accomdations inside it and Jack has little desire to change it.

He has a few tattoos, such as a hurricane symbol on his neck and a snowflake above one of his ankles. Jack also has a few ear piercings he did himself and he's surprisingly good at it.

If Jack isn't driving he travels by longboard. He had a skater boy phase but it payed off since he can still do a few tricks here and there.

(Sometimes I see human Jack either as cis or trans. It depends on how im feeling. A trans Human Jack post will be seperate from this one)

He's a skilled forager and grower since he had to do that as his years as a nomad. Jack wouldn't claim he's as skilled as Aster but he can be a runner up behind him.

Jack never had a solid relationship on the road. It was very fleeting feelings but he didn't seem to mind. Settling back down at his hometown had reawakened some buried feelings though.

He's fairly well known in his hometown for being a mischievous bastard in his teen years and his past with playing on the local hockey team.

Jack would describe his aesthetic as a love child of punk and free spirited hippie lifestyle.

He has unmedicated adhd

He's 6 or 7 years older than his younger brother Manny and it can make their relationship a bit strained. These days they are trying to mend it while taking care of their parent's old home.

His hair was originally brown but he bleaches it and dyes it white these days.

Manny (Mim)

He's one of the youngest in his friend group, beating Tooth by a few months.

Manny is the 2nd shortest, Sandy being the shortest.

Jack leaving home wasn't easy for him and after a while Manny fell out of contact. He regrets it to this very day but never stopped thinking about his big brother.

He has Thalassophobia, a fear shared with Jack, and Pitch teases him endlessly about it.

He's a natural blonde and his mom used to tell him that he got it from his dad's side of the family. Manny has yet to meet any of his extended family for some reason.

Cleaning out his parents house of their things was one of the hardest parts for him and would have been impossible if his friends didn't help him. (Jack coming home really changed the game too.)

He was a fairly average kid but had a streak of being kind of mean in school. It lasted until high school but he still carries that silver tongue between his teeth.

Tooth jokes about how often Manny visits the local aquarium and he deflects any guesses she makes. North knows Manny is crushing hard on a employee there and has a code word for the guy, "Ocean Man". Aster hums the song whenever he feels like he can poke fun of Manny.

His occupation is working at a pre-school/daycare. He's shockingly amazing with children and has considered a teaching position there but he has yet to decide on it.

Manny has been called a "night owl" by all his friends since his productivity increases when the sun goes down. Thats usually the time he gets to work on all the cleaning he's missed.

He currently lives in his childhood home with his brother. Thankfully their home was paid off by their parents so they just split the bills, but they have considered getting a roomie to help with the expenses.

His dream is to have any kind of a pool in his backyard but he has to wait til the finances balance themselves out.

Pitch

Was the newest person in the group before Jack joined. He's also one of the oldest.

His occupation is a horror novel writer and lives off of coffee even when hes not crunching to meet deadlines.

Pitch fights with insomnia but Sandy convinced him to start taking medication to help him sleep. He got kind of sick hearing Pitch make quick meals at 3am and tripping over his cat.

He has a cat named Onyx and he has that backpack with a window on it that he can put Onyx in. Onyx likes it very much and if she knows hes leaving somewhere she sits by the backpack and stares at him.

Halloween is when he's at his strongest. If he feels like it, he competes with North on who has the best decorations. Jack gave Pitch the idea of using dry ice and its a feature he brings back every other year or so.

He's one of the tallest people in the group, only coming a few inches shorter than North. Contrary to people asking him, he was never into basket ball and was was in the military for a period of time.

Pitch was living a hermit life until he was adopted into the group. With his wife long deceased and freshly dumped, he softly considers it a saving grace that everyone accepted him.

Katherine

An aspiring writer, she currently works at the neighborhood library. She finds it really relaxing since its sat right by a river bed.

She tries not to bug Pitch too much but on occassion she asks him to beta read her works. His criticism and tips energize her to get her works out there ten fold. Kat really wants to write fantasy, a little romance and a lot of kid's books.

Her favorite task at work is reading to kids. Shes an animated storyteller and the kids eat her antics up.

She was great friends with Jack when they were growing up but she followed his antics on a few of his accounts online.

She listens to a lot of rock music and punk pop due to North's influence when she was growing up. He's taken to her to her first concert and she treasures the merch and memories.

She gets around by bike because she hasn't gotten her lisence yet but North gives her lessons on the weekends. Kat's become a local cryptid because everyone has seen her whiz past on her bike at least once though.

A child(Jamie) she read to got her into cryptids and now she eats up any lore she can. They like to infodump on each other when they have the time.

This is post is long enough golly gosh. If y'all are interested i can post the others but for now take these samples. (The Hockey player Jack hc n ex military Pitch hc were influenced by a lovely fic written by my friends over at @bunnimew. Their fic is Surviving On Twinkies And Hope and i highly reccomend it)

#rise of the guardians #guardians of childhood #rotgoc #jackson overland frost #jack frost #jack frost rotg #man in the moon #man in the moon rotg #mim #mim rotg #pitch black rotg #pitch black #katherine shalazar #katherine rotg #headcanons #human au #heehee the ocean man thing is an inside joke

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foxghost · 3 years

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Hi. Tangstory has only two novels? do you know of a third party? and where can I read if it exists?

Tangstory has written 3 original novels:

Living to Suffer, Til Death Do Us Part, 滿天風雨下西樓 (untranslated)

and also an absolutely unbelievable amount of fanfic, she's working on a new original novel 長安印 that used to be on JJ, but signed an exclusive with Baixiongread which I'm waiting for her to put back on jj since Baixiong is GONE.

She also goes by 魚香肉絲 and 衣冠禽獸 if Tangstory doesn't turn up where you're looking.

#fox reads #just google book name + author name and cross fingers #tangstory吧 baidu 貼吧 last time I checked is where the fans hang #i haven't read too many of her fanfic bc i'm not really in those fandoms #but she did write sherlock fic in chinese #and i read that

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shiftytracts · 4 years

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Stop Wanting More, part 1 of 2 (T/M/A fic)

In which season-four Jon tries to quiet his hunger for live statements by gorging himself on paper ones, and Daisy tells him what she used to do when she got shaky between hunts. Part two here.

…For almost ten thousand words (~5.1k in this half, ~4.3 in the other), beeeecause of course I did.

Content warnings:

Disordered eating (mainly of the statement variety, but mentions also the literal kind)

Nausea, and brief descriptions of prior vomiting

Brief but not-ungraphic description of Jon’s (canon) Boneturning incident—so, injury, very mild body horror

Vague discussion of Daisy’s passive suicidality (in part two)

Animal cruelty and death: Daisy talks about hunting rats for sport (in part two)

—

Jon paused the tape recorder, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe. A statement’s second-to-last page was the hardest to get down. The dull ache that had begun under his ribs twenty minutes before now stretched down far enough to converge with the one in his stiff hips. His pulse throbbed in his stomach; he could feel it swell and recede beneath his hand with every beat. Nausea boomeranged up from somewhere under his navel. He reminded himself he could stop for now, finish this later—and, as always, that thought made him feel even colder than the sludge of other people’s fear pooling in his stomach. With his free hand Jon pressed Record again, and turned to 0101702’s final page. Oh, god, there was barely anything on it. Just the rest of this paragraph and then one more. He kept his eyes on the page, didn’t stop speaking its words, but fumbled blindly for another statement with his fingers.

“Knock knock,” Daisy said as she entered. “Christ—you’re still recording?”

In a flash Jon folded his hands on the table, sat up a little straighter, tried to suck in his gut. “Er—”

“Thought you said you were gonna do one more.”

“I’m almost done.”

“You’ve got another one right there.”

“I…” he considered I’m sorry, but then she’d say For what. “I don’t know what to tell you. It is my office.”

“Yeah, and your home,” Daisy scoffed—“and mine. Sort of.”

“D—did you want…? You’re welcome, to. Sit down, or….”

She did, on the arm of his couch. “I know, Jon. That’s not what I meant.”

“Okay.” To show he’d meant his welcome, Jon pushed his chair back from his desk and turned in it to face Daisy. Hopefully she’d remember he couldn’t ask What did you mean.

“I mean, don’t pretend this is work. How many statements have you had today? You don’t think that one can wait til tomorrow?”

Seven? Or would this one be eight. Jon forced himself to exhale out the portion of gut he’d been holding back since she arrived; it hurt too much to keep sucking in anyway. “A lot. I’m just.”

“Hungry, yeah.”

“Even when I’m stuffed I’m hungry.” He snarled a laugh, and set a rueful hand over his stomach like a fig leaf.

At first he’d tried sating the hunger with garden-variety food. That didn’t help much. Way back when he’d first transferred to the Archives Jon had fallen back into the old habit of forgetting to eat—which, yeah, not great, but, it did mean he remembered well how amazing it used to feel to cram down even a stale biscuit after too many hours’ inanition. All the hidden notes he’d found in yogurt and dry toast. He even remembered tearing up once at the taste of a banana, early in 2016. Before that he’d been sure he didn’t like bananas; afterward, for a short while he’d eaten one nearly every day, hoping vainly to recapture the ecstasy of banana after 14-hour fast. No luck, of course. After a few weeks he’d concluded he still didn’t much like banana as final course of healthy lunch. He’d especially disliked peeling them: how sometimes the stems bent without breaking, and the more times you tried the warmer, softer, more flexible they got. How little strings of peel still clung to the banana after you peeled off its main body, like static when you pull off a jumper. Or like the lint it leaves behind on your shirt. And the way bananas bruise, like people do. All these vestiges of its previous life—reminders it had lived to feed itself rather than him.

Since the coma, all people food—er. That was, all food intended for human consumption—tasted like that chase after a faded spark. Cloying and mushy and… organic, reminding him too much of the garden it came from. And the way it landed in his stomach was far worse. The original banana, the one Martin had pressed on him in the Archives in April 2016, had gone down like nectar, ambrosia, manna from heaven, &c.; the ones afterward, like an unwanted dessert always does. (Cloying. Mushy. A biology lesson mildly tapping its watch.) These days, though, eating regular dinner on a stomach empty of other people’s trauma felt like trying to fill up on cake. Not like cake after fourteen hours of nothing; Jon was pretty sure his 2016 stomach would have welcomed that. But like cake at dinner time. When you’re expecting, you know. Dinner. It gave him the brief, fake-seeming energy of a sugar high, and made him sick before it made him full.

Especially when he was otherwise ailing, for some reason? After Hopworth he’d treated himself to a lie down and a sandwich. The rest had helped, but he’d squandered most of the energy it gave him on the effort to keep the sandwich down. At that moment nothing, not even the coffin, had scared him so much as the thought of what it would feel like to throw up when you had only ten ribs on one side. He hadn’t expected losing them to hurt, at least not for long—had expected the rib to flow out of his skin into Jared Hopworth’s hand like an ice cube through water, which in retrospect was stupid given the testimony of Mr. Pryor in statement 0081103, but he hadn’t had time to reread that one beforehand and at the time Jon remembered only that Hopworth didn’t break his victims’ skin when he pulled out their bones. Turned out that wasn’t much comfort: he’d still had to break the ligaments attaching Jon’s ribs to his spine and chest. It had felt like a bad dislocation (four of them, technically), only instead of the feeling of bone pressing on things it shouldn’t there was an equally violating sense of tissue wallowing in holes that shouldn’t be there. He’d had this horror that if he were sick the flesh would crumple and pop where his ribs used to be, like when you try to suck the remaining water out of a near-empty bottle.

A few months after that he’d caught cold. (A point in the still-human column, Daisy had called it.) You know the first day or two of a cold, before the encroaching mucus takes out your ability to smell or taste properly, how innocuous olfactory phenomena like cheddar and laundry soap suddenly become Bad Smells, on par with the olive bar at a posh supermarket? Well, in a similar way, this one seemed to sharpen the dichotomy in his body’s opinions of people food and monster food. His lack-of-ribs had mostly healed by then though, so either vomiting with only ten ribs on one side did not cause the anomaly he’d feared, or, if it did, it hadn’t hurt enough for him to notice it in the cacophony (pucophony?) of other sensations.

(Daisy liked to play on words, so he’d been doing it more lately. This project the Eye seemed happy to help with, though in this case the suggestion arrived in his mind at the exact same moment as a reminder that, technically, the word cacophony can apply to sensations other than sound only by synecdoche.)

And then, a few weeks ago, when the whole Archives went down with norovirus… well, it wasn’t a fun time. He’d at first mistook the lethargy, weakness, trouble concentrating for signs of hunger—the new kind of hunger. Ms. Mullen-Jones’ statement about the Divine Chains cult hadn’t seemed all that bad, when he’d first recorded it. Scarier than if he’d read its events in a novel, of course; that was just how statements worked. He experienced them more vividly than stories, though less so than the events of his own life. (Because the people they happened to thought they were real! he’d told himself when he first took this job. It’s empathy, that’s all. Nope, sorry—evil magic.) When he read a paper statement these days, though, the knowledge it wouldn’t give him nightmares never quite left him. And he’d thought he was growing desensitized to the kinds of horror most people came to the Institute to report. Coming back up, though—maybe it was the fever, but god, the visions he got on that statement’s way out, of Agape and the soft, sticky hivecorpse of Claude Vilakazi’s followers—the way it made the donut he’d shoved down that morning (in a show of team spirit, god help him) come back up tasting like rotten rice wine—it was worse than the dreams. Worse, he could have sworn, than even the first time he ever dreamt Naomi Herne’s empty graveyard.

While hanging over the bowl of the Archives’ toilet waiting to see if he’d got it all up or if there was still more to come, Jon remembered thinking again of the banana Martin had given him. A few days earlier Daisy had made him watch the video of the I don’t understand this meme and at this point I’m too afraid to ask man vore-ing a banana; Jon had confessed to her, in a conspiratorial whisper-laugh, that for him vore itself had been one such meme until that very second, when the Eye had seen fit to inform him. But when applied to a banana, the term apparently just meant eating it peel and all. In 2016 Martin had broken the banana’s stem and pulled back a section of peel before handing it to Jon, so as to brook no argument. Was it really the banana itself he’d cried over? Not the gesture of friendship, when Jon deserved it so little? The thought of someone caring for him enough that when he got hangry at them they handed him a snack. Martin had been living in the Archives then, like Jon did now. Sleeping in Document Storage—a guest in a room owned by pieces of paper. Those bananas may have been the only thing that felt like his.

A Guest for Mr. Spider was about vore, technically. Not an uncommon topic in children’s literature. Some surmised that was where the fetish came from, though others maintained kinks like that were inborn, and the stories merely alerted their hosts to them for the first time. Red riding hood, three little pigs, little old lady who swallowed a fly. The Leitner touch was only the part where he drew you to his real-life lair and real-life ate you.

Looking back, that was probably the first thing he’d ever admired about Martin—how easy he’d made it look to skin a fruit. Not at the time admired, of course, but in those weeks afterward, when every banana Jon ate made him claw at the peel til his finger joints throbbed.

That stomach bug had struck the Archives with serendipitous timing, though. If he’d not found out how thin abstinence from the Hunt had made Daisy on the same day he’d barfed up a statement, Jon might not have pieced together what their combined evidence meant. Until then he’d put down his own post-coma weight loss to the fact he rarely ate more people food than a donut in twenty-four hours. Lots of avatars were scrawny, after all. Jane Prentiss, Mike Crew, Justin Gough, Annabelle Cane, John Amherst, Simon Fairchild. Jude Perry and Jared Hopworth could mold their respective fleshes however they wanted, so he didn’t count them as exceptions. True, Trevor Herbert’s bulk had struck him as odd; surely a homeless man wouldn’t waste cash on food his body no longer wanted. And what about Breekon and Hope? Did butterflies and a quartermaster’s pen and tongue sustain them? But maybe, Jon had told himself, it was like with alcohol. Maybe the avatars with more flesh on their bones had worked to develop a tolerance for (air quotes, heavy sarcasm) people food, for the sake of their physiques, or. So they could, he didn't know, eat socially? Without feeling sick, like Jon did whenever one of the others brought donuts.

Preposterously stupid, this theory seemed in retrospect. The truth was much simpler. It was like Jude Perry’d told him. She was strong and he was weak, because she fed her god with her actions, while Jon’s had had to resort to eating his flesh.

He wasn’t going back to live statements! That wasn’t an option; he knew that. He couldn’t feed his god with his actions. But he could have more paper ones. Maybe they were like the candles poor Eugene Vanderstock used to bring Agnes—the ones she’d sat over for hours. Hours and hours, inhaling the suffering that made them. They’d kept her strong enough, right? At least in body. All those people in charge of her care, all so much in her thrall—if she’d looked hungry one of them would’ve mentioned it in a statement.

During Jon’s school days, back when he was still trying to learn how to be a girl, this brief window had opened up right around age thirteen where the girls around him had enough self-consciousness to start developing eating disorders? But not enough to keep them secret. Thirteen had been this phase of, like, I’m a teenager now, see? I’ve got the teen angst now—SEE?! Where after they’d finished the day’s maths assignment, or while setting up microscope slides, one could overhear girls swapping self-harm anecdotes and tips for how best not to eat. Anne, whom he’d been almost friends with, went through two packs of chewing gum a day for a while. She would shove three or four sticks at a time in her mouth, then spit them back out into their wrappers as soon as they lost their flavor. Eventually they made her sick, and she switched to chain-sucking butterscotch discs. (Most artificial sweeteners, as the Eye now informed him, had mild laxative properties—including those used in gum.) Other acquaintances had brought comically large thermoses of coffee to school every day, and scurried to the toilet between classes. But it was another polyurious crowd that Jon kept thinking of, these days—the kids who would chug water every time they felt hungry. Trying to fill up on paper statements felt just like that.

He’d never understood that urge until now. Hunger was already a bad sensation; why would it help to add the further bad sensations of nausea and stomachache and cold? But now it made sense: feeling better was not the point. The point was to stop wanting more. He couldn’t get rid of the hunger, exactly—not in a way that mattered. Not the shards of glass in his belly, not the itch in his esophagus like a finger tapping behind his gag reflex, not the way simple motions like soaping his hands made his whole body ache. Not the sharpening of his senses to such a fine point that he jumped whenever Thérèse in the office above him shut her desk’s sticky drawer. (He hadn’t known that was what made the squeaky noise until a few weeks ago when the Eye decided he might like some office gossip. Even now he didn’t know which of the faces he sometimes passed up there belonged to Thérèse. She had no statements to make.) Nor the fog in his mind, though he tried sometimes to blame that on the Lonely. He couldn’t sate his hunger with paper statements—couldn’t make himself full, in the rosy way we usually connote that word. All warm and carefree and pleasantly sleepy. But he could cram the hole inside him with enough stale horrors that the temptation to chase down a fresh one momentarily left him.

And that was the new plan—to stuff himself with paper statements.

Tomorrow would mark two weeks since the day he’d first tried it. Brian from Artefact Storage had a statement to give him, Jon could feel—either Stranger or Spiral, it was hard to tell quite which. Something that caused paranoia. Not a great fit for that department. Good fit for a temple of the Eye, Jon supposed, remembering Tim and Michael Shelley. But Artefact Storage? God help him. He wondered if Elias had done it on purpose, hiring a paranoid man to work in a room full of objects that wanted him hurt. If so it must’ve been this one—this purpose. And on Wednesday mornings Brian manned the place all alone. Poor soul was already clinging to this job by a thread, though (so, Web…? That could cause paranoia too, as Jon well knew). Surely if Jon made him relive his trauma that would break it. Though perhaps that’d be a mercy. And but besides, two weeks ago Melanie had still lived here, and sat all morning between Jon’s office and Artefact Storage. Until she went to lunch. But by that time the woman whose laugh Jon could sometimes hear through the walls (Pooja, the Eye had since told him her name was) would have joined Brian. And it’d just be too weird, too risky, to go in and ask him about it with a third person in the room. Even if it wasn’t also evil.

So he’d read 0132210—the statement of Sierra Talbot, regarding a swimming pool whose depth changed every time she entered it—in hopes that’d make him quit thinking about the paranoid man down the hall. It didn’t, not really; paper statements didn’t take up as much of his attention as they used to. But he couldn’t get up and walk to Artefact Storage in the middle of one. When he finished and still couldn’t think of anything but Brian, he dug out another statement (this one from 1938, regarding a bad penny). Just to keep himself chained to his desk til lunch. And then a third (Liza Ho, attack of the killer seagulls). And by the end of that one he felt too heavy and cold inside to want to go anywhere but the couch. It made his stomach swell until it hurt to sit up straight, and the thought of shoving anything more inside made him feel sick—exactly like chugging water every time he felt hungry.

Basira had said maybe the Web just wanted to keep them so afraid of their own impulses they sat and did nothing so they couldn’t be puppeted. Maybe she was right. He’d never felt more like a spider, with his weak, skinny limbs and bloated stomach. Lying on the couch massaging other people’s horrors into more comfortable shapes inside him. Thank god he’d already given up tucking in his shirts, when he came back after the coma. Jon had worn the same trousers for three days in a row, now—shucked them off at the end of the day, hoping if he left them on the floor that’d convince him they were too dirty to wear again, and then slipped them back on over clean boxers in the morning. They were the only trousers he had that stayed up with the button left unfastened.

(Technically, the noun bloat refers to the feeling of weight or tightness in the abdomen. To describe a belly which has expanded beyond its typical size, one should use the word distended. Though these phenomena can occur separately, most people conflate them under the single word bloated. This trivia had seemed worthless when Beholding told him of it. But now he knew better. Every morning he woke up feeling like he’d had his whole torso replaced with the aching void of space, empty but for silver glints of pain that were the stars. And then he’d look down and find his belly still distended.)

Melanie and Basira didn’t know—at least not officially. They both seemed to have noticed how much more often lately they’d walked in on him recording, but Jon was pretty sure they suspected him less of bingeing on statements, more of pretending to record so as to avoid talking to them. He welcomed this misapprehension.

It was also possible they knew but declined to comment, since. Well, it was kind of a pathetic habit? Physically, a bit pathetic. Morally, though, such a big improvement over compelling statements by force that maybe they figured they ought to let him have it. If so he should be grateful, he reminded himself. Their pity, after all, was humiliating only in principle; Daisy’s teasing and concerned questions embarrassed him in practice.

“Enough navelgazing,” Daisy scoffed, but when Jon looked over at her he could see a smile creeping its way onto her face. “Look—finish the one you’re on, then come over here and I’ll. Tell you a story.”

“I—what?”

“Don’t know if it’ll count as a ‘statement,’” she said, with air quotes; “not much fear in it, more just.” She looked at the floor, then shrugged. “But it seems worth a try, yeah? Might make you feel better.”

“I-I, er. I really shouldn’t?” He meant in case it had a taste of human blood effect, but set his hand on his stomach again in hopes she’d think he meant he was too full.

“Yeah, you should. I want you to hear it.” Daisy shrugged again. “Think it might do you good to know.”

Jon turned back to his desk, unpaused the recording and wrapped up the statement. He’d quit bothering to record end notes on most of these—told himself he could add them in later, like he used to when he’d first taken this job. How proud 2016 Jon would have been to see how many statements the 2018 Archivist got through in a week.

He paused for a moment before standing up, to take as deep a breath as he could manage when stuffed full of paper. The end of that statement had gone down easier, since he’d had that few minutes’ break talking to Daisy, but he still didn’t love the idea of standing and walking. Especially since he knew once he got to the couch he’d be glued there by fatigue. If he didn’t pee now, he’d spend most of the night far enough into sleep to be paralyzed, but not far enough to numb his bladder. He excused himself to Daisy, promising to come right back. Then hauled himself up, with help from his cane and one arm of his chair.

Six limbs it took to maneuver this body now. Two more and he’d’ve gone full spider.

Three quarters of the way to the bathroom—that’s how long it took before the ache in his legs outpaced that in his stomach. He arrived on the toilet seat shaky and out of breath, as always. Months ago he’d given up standing to pee. When you sat you could rock back and forth, and cross your arms tight over waves of quease.

Not much came out, as was also usual lately. As far as Jon could tell, his body now required only enough water to keep his mouth from drying out while recording. Dehydration no longer made his head hurt, so, why bother. Good thing, too, he supposed—the last two weeks he hadn’t needed much non-metaphorical water inside for his body to parse that as needing to pee.

He let his trousers stay pooled around his ankles until after he’d washed and dried his hands. Then pulled up his shirt, to judge from his reflection whether they’d stay up with the fly undone. If he kept his hands in his pockets, yeah. Could you tell the difference, visually, once he put his shirt tails back down? Not for such a short distance. They wouldn’t have time to get disarranged.

It didn’t matter; Basira didn’t even glance at him on his way back, and all Institute staff who didn’t live here had gone home.

Jon opened the door to his office, said hello to Daisy but didn’t manage to look at her, and sat himself down on the other side of the couch. From the corner of his eye (or someone’s anyway) he saw her rise to her feet. “I’m gonna pee too,” she told him, picking her way toward the door; “get yourself comfortable, like you’re going to bed.”

“Where will you sit.”

“I’ll squeeze in.”

“I don’t mind leaving room for—?” Finally he made himself look up at her, in time to see her shake her head. Daisy hadn’t been strong on her feet either, since the Buried; she held herself up now with a hand on the doorjamb, elbow bent so her shoulder leant against that wrist. He regretted quibbling. “Never mind; I’ll just.”

“Really? You’re comfortable like that? You look like a sheep in clover.”

The knowledge came to him before he could ask her what that meant—complete with a nasty visual of what happens in cases acute enough to require rumenotomy. Jon swore he could feel himself swelling to accommodate this tidbit. His eye twitched in discomfort.

“Think I prefer ‘windbag,’ if it’s all the same to you.”

She made a face like that was grosser than what she had said. “You ruined my joke. I was gonna say I won’t let you have any more leaves til you look less like you might explode.”

“Sheep in clover suffocate,” Jon frowned; “they don’t explode. You must be thinking of how they cure them when—”

“Leaves. In. A. Book, Jon. That joke.”

“Oh. Yes, I see.” He made himself chuckle.

Daisy sighed and shifted on her feet. “I’ll be right back. Just lie down, alright? Like you’re going to bed.”

Jon agreed to lie down, but couldn’t decide whether to face the wall (as he would to sleep), leaving her to slide in between him and the back of the couch the way she had a few times before when she’d walked in on him catnapping, or whether he should lie on his back, where he could see her as soon as she opened the door. It was important to make sure she knew he appreciated her offer to give him a statement. Or, no—to tell him her story, he meant.

Ultimately he picked the latter course.

“You sleep like that?”

“Sometimes."

“I’ve never seen you sleep like that. You always face the wall.” Daisy crossed her arms, blew hair out of her face. “That for the tummy ache, or for me?”

“Uh….”

“Would it hurt you to face the wall.”

“No, I just.”

“Turn around, then. I’ll squeeze in,” she said again.

“I-if you’re sure.”

He rolled onto his side, gritting his teeth as the cramps in his stomach swirled in new directions. What made it slosh like that, he wondered. While he fought to regain his breath Jon watched Daisy climb up onto the back of the couch on shaking elbows and knees, then avalanche down hands- and feet-first so she fit between him and its cushions. He’d never watched her do this before—always either startled out of a doze at the sound of her thumping down next to him, or simply woken up to find her there.

“You’re just like the Admiral,” he informed her.

“True words spoken in jest,” muttered Daisy. Too quietly for him to hear what she said over the couch’s tortured creaks, but half a second after she finished speaking the words appeared before his mind, in white, all-capital letters with a black background like closed captions on the news. “That’s Georgie’s cat, right?” she said aloud.

“Yes.”

Her knee jostled the cap of his; when it made him gasp she snarled under her breath. “Sorry. Can you move your leg?”

“Yes, it’s fine, just—”

“I mean would you move your leg.”

“Oh.” He did so.

“Thanks. Ugh—you’re cold,” Daisy accused him; “where’s that blanket.” He pointed behind her to the arm of the couch where it lay folded. She shook it out, and draped it over both of them. Reached around behind him to make sure it covered his whole back. Jon tried to ignore the way his stomach lurched every time Daisy’s weight shifted against the cushions. Finally she settled next to him to catch her breath. Their foreheads touched; her stomach pressed into his, though not as tightly as the last time they’d lain like this. “Can you breathe or am I crushing you?”

“Not at all, you’re fine—in fact, if the couch cushions are chafing you too much you can—”

Daisy huffed, and scooted herself in closer to him. “That better?” She set her warm hand down right where his belly diverged from pelvis. Jon tried to keep both voice and tremor out of his exhale. Since the coffin, Daisy’s hands and feet suffered at night and after any exertion from the same excess of heat his sometimes did. So the cold inside him probably felt nice on her hand, if not to the rest of her.

(Like snuggling up to a hotel mattress, she’d described it, after the first time she joined him for a nap when he’d just had a statement. Cold, hard, covered in lumps and dents, and creaks when you roll over on it. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” he’d replied, while praying her elbow wouldn’t come any closer to the crevasse where his ribs used to be.)

“Christ you’re stuffed,” commented Daisy. For emphasis she lifted her fingers, then set them back down on his gut.

“I don’t know what you expected.”

“You won’t pop if I tell you a story?”

“Not literally,” Jon said, blinking.

“Of course not literally,” she scoffed; “you know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Will it make you sick. Don’t want you throwing up on me; this is Melanie’s shirt. If you ruin it she’ll hit us with her cane, and I don’t trust you to hit as hard back with yours.”

“Mine’s shorter and thicker,” he mused. “I don’t have to hit as hard.”

“Stop. Avoiding. The question.”

Jon sighed to show her he capitulated. Then thought about it. He felt cold and sick, but the idea of saying no to a statement made those feelings worse, not better. And the sharp clusters of pain in his belly were harder to sleep through than quease.

“I’ll be fine,” he decided. “It’ll help.”

“Alright. When you’re ready, ask me what I used to do when I got shaky between hunts.”

Read part two here.

#stuffing #nausea #stomachache #hunger kink #a shifty tract #nonsearchable tma tag #other titles i. jocoseriously considered include 'divine chains' (like the cult from 153 get it?);#'too much information' and 'a movable-type feast'.#also for a long time the file on my computer was called 'statement eating: the moive' because alas i was a teenage h/omes/tuck

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terramythos · 4 years

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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 6 of 26

Title: The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1) (2012)

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, First-Person, Third-Person, Female Protagonist, LGBT Protagonist, Asexual Protagonist.

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 2/07/2021

Date Finished: 2/13/2021

Peace is sacred in the walled city-state of Gujaareh, and must be maintained at any cost. The Gatherers are a priesthood tasked with maintaining this goal. In the name of Hananja, Goddess of the moon, they walk the city at night and harvest Dreamblood-- the magic of dreams-- from Gujaareh's denizens. They bring the peace of death to those who need it... and to those judged criminal or corrupt.

But something else haunts Gujaareh's streets. A Reaper, a rogue Gatherer driven to endless madness and hunger from Dreamblood, is preying on the innocent, casting their souls into an eternal nightmare. Ehiru, one of the elder Gatherers, finds himself caught in the middle of a political conspiracy between his priesthood, the holy Prince, and the monstrous Reaper. An insidious corruption runs deeper than Ehiru knows-- and it may be too late to stop.

The Gatherer’s eyes glittered in her memory, so dark, so cold--but compassionate, too. That had been the truly terrifying thing. A killer with no malice in his heart: it was unnatural. With nothing in his heart, really, except the absolute conviction that murder could be right and true and holy.

Full review, major spoilers, and content warnings under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Graphic depictions of violence, gore, death, warfare, and murder-- including death of children and mass murder. Discussions of p*dophilia/grooming (nothing graphic). Brief reference to r*pe. One character is a minor infatuated with a much older character-- not reciprocated. Rigid gender and social roles, including slavery. Magic-induced addiction and withdrawal. Loss of sanity/altered mental states/mind control/gaslighting.

Last year I read N. K. Jemisin's short story collection How Long 'Til Black Future Month? One of my favorite stories was The Narcomancer, which explored a vibrant, ancient Egypt-inspired world with themes of faith, dreams, violence, and duty. I wanted to read more from the universe, and finally got to do so with The Killing Moon, the first book in the Dreamblood duology.

Jemisin's creativity in worldbuilding is, in my opinion, unmatched in the fantasy genre. I thought Gujaareh was super interesting and fleshed out. While the ancient Egypt inspiration is obvious, it's also clearly an original fantasy culture in its own right. Everything from religious practices to social castes to gender roles to the fucking architecture felt methodical and thought out. The base premise of assassin priests compassionately harvesting magic from people is a fascinating idea and totally gripping. The pacing is a little slow, but I didn't mind so much because learning about the world was so fun.

While there's a hefty amount of worldbuilding exposition in the story, Jemisin doles out information gradually. Bits and pieces of Gujaareen law, etc are introduced at the beginning of each chapter, and usually have a thematic connection to the events of the story. Information is sparing at times, meaning that one doesn't have a full picture of how everything ties together until pretty far into the story. Even something as crucial as the dream-based magic system isn't fully realized until near the end. I like the mystery of this approach, and I can appreciate how difficult it must be to keep the reader invested vs frustrating them with a lack of info. Jemisin consistently does a great job with this in everything I've read by her.

I did want a little bit more from the narcomancy aspect of the story, since dream worlds are such a huge part of Gujaareen religion and culture. In The Killing Moon we see just a few dreamscapes, and then only briefly. There's so much potential with narcomancy as a magic system, yet most of what we see is an outside, "real-world" perspective, which isn't terribly unique compared to other kinds of magic. Dreamblood being a narcotic (heh) with some Extra Fantasy Stuff is interesting, but I wanted more. Perhaps The Shadowed Sun expands on this.

Characterization is the other Big Thing with this book, as it's very much a character-driven story. Overall I'm torn. There's some things I really liked, and others that felt underdeveloped. I'll go over my favorite things first.

Ehiru is probably the strongest of the main cast, and I really enjoyed his character arc. Here's a guy who is completely devoted to his faith, regardless of what others may think of it. Yet he's not a self-righteous dick. He sees Gathering as a loving and holy thing, so when he errs in the line of duty, it totally consumes him. And things just get worse and worse for him as the story progresses. Say what you will about the Gatherers and the belief system of Gujaareh; Ehiru comes off as intensely caring, devoted, and compassionate, and I genuinely felt bad for him throughout the novel. I'm not religious but these kinds of faith narratives are super interesting to me.

Looking at characterization as a whole, I appreciate The Killing Moon's gray morality. No one in the story is wholly good or evil. The Gatherers are an obvious example, considering they murder people in the dead of night in the name of their Goddess-- but do so to help those in need. Despite being a megalomaniacal mass-murderer, the Prince has believable reasons for his horrific actions, and they’re not wholly selfish. Even the Reaper is a clear victim of Dreamblood's addictive and mind-altering nature; it sometimes regresses into the person it used to be, which is sad and disturbing. There's a lot of moral complexity in the characters and the laws and belief systems they follow. This kind of nuanced writing is much more interesting to read than a black and white approach.

Beyond this, though, I struggled to connect with the other leads. Nijiri's utter devotion to Ehiru is basically his whole character, and while the tragedy of that is interesting for its own reasons, I kept wanting more from him. Sunandi is a good "outsider perspective" character but I had a hard time understanding her at times. For example, the two most important people in her life, Kinja and Lin, die in quick succession. Yet besides a brief outburst when Lin dies, this barely seems to affect her. I get people mourn in all kinds of ways but it seems odd. Her sexual tension with Ehiru is also weird and underdeveloped. Perhaps this is meant to be a callback to The Narcomancer, but it doesn't accomplish much in this narrative.

Another issue I had was emotional connection to minor-yet-important characters. Kinja dies offscreen before the story, yet is supposed to be a big part of Sunandi's past (and thus emotional arc). But he's never even in a flashback, so I never felt WHY he mattered to her. Una-une is the big one, though. It's pretty easy to figure out he's the Reaper by process of elimination, but he's barely in the story outside of a few early mentions. There's this part near the end that's clearly meant to be an emotional moment; Ehiru realizes his (apparently beloved) mentor Una-une is the horrific monster, and thus a foil to the situation between himself and Nijiri. But we never saw the relationship between Ehiru and Una-une, and nothing really established this prior... so there's no emotional payoff. It felt at times like this book was part of a much longer story that for whatever reason we never got to see. In some ways that can be useful to make the world and history seem vast, but here it made me feel emotionally distant from several characters. Perhaps flashbacks with these important characters would have helped bridge the gap.

Credit where it's due, though; it's clear a lot of the dark, often brutal tone and stylistic flair in The Killing Moon was adapted into Jemisin's fantastic Broken Earth trilogy. Probably the most notable are the cryptic interlude chapters told from the perspective of a mysterious character whose identity is unknown until the end. We learn bits and pieces of the beliefs and lore of the world through excerpts of common laws and wisdom. I also liked the occasional stream-of-consciousness writing during tense or surreal moments. The Broken Earth is an improvement overall, but I can appreciate The Killing Moon for establishing some of these techniques early.

I enjoyed this book overall and am planning to read The Shadowed Sun. While I have some criticisms about The Killing Moon, I think it just suffers in comparison to other works I've read by Jemisin. It was still an entertaining and intense read, with a captivating and original world. It's not a story for the faint of heart, though, so please mind the content warnings.

#taylor reads #8/10 #2021 reading challenge

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laiqart · 5 years

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The Untamed vs MDZS Anime: Which is better?

Going to japan now. Currently in the plane. The in flight tv is broken. So... ive been watching mdzs on youtube!

Hot damn the animation is beautiful. Every frame is a work of art. How the hell. Its so beautiful. I mean they use 3D a lot for the backgrounds and boats but its still gorgeous and not too jarring. The lighting is so realistic, scenery too. All the fighting choreography is beautiful. The way the swords swing in the air looks so fluid, and when swords clash its in flashes of light the color of their sword. Such a tasteful yet stylistic choice. Everyone's, esp wwx, hair is so flowy, so detailed every strand sways in the wind. The waves reflect light and move smoothly. How the hell did they do that. How. I was thinking of doing those screencap redraw thingy with the scene when wwx whacks lwj's boat. (they also emphasised how far lwj's boat was sinking into the water, which makes it more convincing how wwx can deduce that theres something underneath vs the live action where lwj's boat looked normal..) it was damn beautiful. The thing is, the point of these redraws is that the animation looks simple, so the redraw would enhance the scene. But for mdzs, everything is already in peak quality, redrawing it will only look worse. Its like writing fanfiction of books. The original writing is so damn beautiful, fan fiction ends up being such a stark difference that the reader cant help but compare the 2.

Drama, as everyone says, shows better facial expressions due to the live actors, so emotions hit harder. But anime def LOOKs way better in all action scenes. Angles that follow the characters are used to emphasise scale between enemy and chracters, and all the movements feel so dynamic, and i love how when they use talisman spell thingies they got a circle of light in an intricate pattern thats super beautiful. In the drama, its just a piece of paper.

However, i prefer drama's lwj. Maybe cos wyb looks so young, its more believable when he freaks out over the adult book that wwx gives him in the library scene. In the anime, he looks 20+-30+. Its a bit hard to believe that he'd be worried over that. Idk theres a kind of innocence and naivety that leads to the stubborn refusal to express emotion that young lwj is plagued with that we have in the untamed (was this intentional on wyb's part or is it because the teenage lwj wig made his eyes look floaty, so he seems more like a teenager and naive, less experienced as a cultivator vs lwj 13 years later? Dk but it works!). In the anime, he looks like an adult thats calm and level headed already from the get-go. Idk maybe i just havent watched enough (only seen up til the water demons in caiyi town). In both anime and drama, everyone and i mean EVERYONE besides the fricking babies looks the same 13/16 years later. It doesn't feel like time has passed at all. I wish they would have maybe a change in costume, or hairstyle in the anime. The drama at least changes their costumes a little and neatens the hairstyle of jiang cheng and lwj to indicate maturity.

Btw i love that in the anime for the water demons section they had wwx and jc casually chatting (though its a blatant cornetto ad which is fricking weird. How can there be frozen treats back in those days), then wwx beautifully catapulting himself onto a boat and rowing away showing the unique and romantic af mode of transport in caiyi town, then smoothly transitioning to the lan bros on the bridge right above them with lwj asking why lxc decided to bring them along. Its just tying together so many scenes, quickening the plot along and yet doing it so naturally and seamlessly compared with the novel and drama.

Though i like that the drama involved wn and wq and have wwx save wn, and makes way more sense why wn would want to risk his life to help wwx recover his parents fricking corpse illegally right under the nose of wen chao and wen zhuliu.

The anime removed the entire mystery plot of a yan and the fairy goddess statue and thats honestly the best best best choice to make. In the drama, it was one of the worse sections ever cos i didnt understand who all these random ass characters were (it was one of the first mysteries in the drama) and yet it didnt go into detail like they did in the novel, so not only did i not know what was going on, i also didnt give a single shit about the characters. When i saw that they completely did away with the random passer bys who screwed around with the fairy statue, i was thoroughly impressed.

I liked that the drama let nhs have his own trouble making moments tho, like having him sneak a live bird into class. It makes it more convincing that wwx would be friends with him because they both have a mischievous side that they can both appreciate in each other. In the anime, nhs just looks like a loser nerd thats weak in swordplay and does wwx's homework for him, without a will of his own. It doesnt make sense why wwx would keep him around. Then again, maybe itll make the reveal that nhs is a conniving mastermind more impactful for the anime, oh well only time will tell.

I liked that lxc and lwj look similar in the anime. Its more convincing when people call them the twin jades of the lan clan. In the drama, they hardly looked like brothers. Lxc looks more like lwj's mentor or teacher rather than an older brother. In the anime, they look more siblingy.

I miss drama wen ning. I rmb when he looked so fierce and terrifying in his first appearance. I was legit intimidated. Oh how hes changed! Hes so fluffy now. In the anime hes equally menacing. His fight scene with the statue goddess was so beautiful. Doesnt it take a long time to animate the chains moving so fluidly yet dynamically yet somehow looks like it can disintegrate rock in an instant? The lighting on it too, how it reflected the fire of the forest around them. Have i mentioned how beautiful having that fight scene at night was? It was dark and ominous looking, yet the fire cast an epic looking light over the scene with warm orange glows. And the animators had that fiery light reflected in anything they could find: eyes, chains, swords.

Ooh but jiang cheng's whip looked prettier in the drama than in the anime, which is kind of weird given they were both cgi-ed. Somehow the lighting of the whip in the drama was brighter, looked more like real lightning vs the whip in the anime looking a little dull, like they colored it then added a gray filter. This is kinda bizarre given the laughably bad effects of the effects for everything else in the drama. Visuals for non human things is not the drama's strong suit, so it makes u wonder what happened for the anime whip. Maybe in the dark, the lightning would have to look hella bright and reflect on the surroundings (tedious to color) more so than in the day, hence why it looked worse in anime vs drama. Oh well.

As for lan sizhui, its weird that his voice is so deep in the anime (and audio drama!). Ive always seen him as a kiddo thanks to the live action, so hearing him sound mature is kinda off-putting. He sounds like a leader, and gives off lwj vibes vs in the live action where he gives a goody two shoes studious nerd vibe, whos just trying his best. Maybe this is better, he feels way more like a lwj-raised child(serious and business-like) which makes more sense. Live action lsz feels like a wwx(optimistic and intelligent) AND lwj(well-behaved and sensible)-raised child. Anime lsz looks like hes got his shit together. Jinling is fairly similar in both, maybe less prideful in the anime (in live action theres the scene where im pretty sure he indirectly kills one of his men by wishing for the fairy goddess statue to come to life. That was a hella asshole move. This was omitted in the anime.) Jingyi in the anime somehow looks snarkier. Maybe cos he straight up duels with jinling and kicks him down a dark cave. Ive been wondering why all the tumblr posts depict ljy as this sassy ass short tempered kid when he was quite tame (though sassy by lan standards) in the live action. Now i know.

The costumes for the drama is better, more detailed though thats expected i guess. I just love that they have little white gusu lan clan uniforms that wwx jc and friendos are required to wear. Its so cute and such a cool detail. In anime, theyre all in their usual garb, and they just look like random people who decided to turn up at lan qirens class. In the drama, it looks more like a school that they have to attend for half a year and it feels characteristic that gusu lan clan would require their students to have a uniform, given their incredibly strict regime type. It also serves to separate the happy carefree school days from all the other tragic af events in wwx's life. His costume starts out white showing innocence and purity of his naiive teenage years who had yet to experience hardship and still feels invincible as a youth. After school, he wears dark blue, as he goes on an adventure with lanzhan and experience how important the yin iron is (gives up the joking light hearted nature as a teenager by realizing the gravity of situation if the wen clan gets their hands on it) and maybe that hes not truly part of the jiang clan who wears purple. Then his costume eventually becomes black as he experiences his first life and death situation that he isnt sure he can handle. That child like assurance that "oh the seniors will let me off" or "im sure jiang fengmian will come to my rescue" gets demolished when he undergoes cruel indoctrination at the wen clans. This visual development may be a bit on the nose, but personally i love subtle representations.

Overall, the anime does do a better of job of explaining the world's mechanics, which is quite important. The drama is quite faithful to the book, at times even more so than the anime, so it irks me that this is the one thing they decide to skim on. The god damn premise, the first thing the audience needs: why the hell is wwx alive again and what is mo xuanyu doing?? I guess the drama thought that it explains itself but it doesnt really. It was really confusing. The anime, though somehow faster than the drama, still has the time to properly explain mxy. A technique ive noticed is that they do exposition during the fight scenes, which is so ingenius. Its visually appealing, as always, so its not boring, the viewers gets to understand whats going on AND it gives the sense that the characters are so skilled that they carry causal conversations while fighting supposedly weak enemies like zombies and water ghosts, which is accurate seeing how wwx and lwj and friends are supposed to be one of the most powerful cultivators.

TL;DR both are good lol

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #lan zhan #lan jingyi #lan xichen #lan wangji #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #lan sizhui #wei ying #jin ling #analysis #rant #thoughts #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mo xuanyu

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duplicitywrites · 4 years

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are you planning to eventually write professionally/go into a writing-based job? or do you just write for fun? (either is perfectly fine, I just love your fic and am curious if I'll ever get a chance to read original work by you ^_^)

let me start off by saying, very honestly, that writing tomarrymort has been so rewarding and helpful for me as a writer. my current plan has been to return to original work once i have my fun with tomarry. what i hope is that writing all this fic will help me improve as a writer and allow me to get a feel for what people like reading.

all that said, i do have an original novel concept that’s quite dear to me. i’ve reworked it a bunch of times over the years, but i haven’t found the right thread of it. if you’ve read the ‘not a good man, but a great one’ series, the greengrasses sisters are actually based off of my original characters for this novel.

i’d say the feel of the plot is very similar to ‘til death do us part’. the focus is on character development, on the progression of (all types of) relationships. i’ve tried asking the hard questions: what does it means to be human? what does it means to love yourself -- every part of yourself?

writing has always been a labour of love for me, a hobby more than anything, and i would love to publish something properly some day, even if it’s just to a small audience of friends. i’d like to say with confidence you could expect to see something original by me; it’s probably just a matter of long it will be before that happens :)

anyways, i’ve talked long enough! i hope this was an interesting answer to your question. thank you so much for reading my works and supporting my writing <3

#anonymous #asks

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rpgsandbox · 4 years

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Welcome to the Weird West of Deadlands, the original horror western roleplaying game!

In this award-winning, best-selling setting, gunfighters, braves, hucksters, martial artists, shamans, mad scientists, the blessed, and more square off against far more than desperate bandits. An event called "The Reckoning" awakened an ancient evil, and you'd best hope the howls you hear on the High Plains are just a pack of ravenous wolves...

"The Year is 1876, but the history is not our own..."

These words introduced Deadlands to the world back in 1996, spawning decades of amazing tales and memorable monsters. Now the granddaddy of Horror Western games is back with a brand new edition.

The cover that started it all, the original Deadlands, by Brom!

It's now 1884 in the official timeline. The Civil War ended in 1871 at the Battle of Washington, an epic conflagration of steam and steel. The Great Rail Wars are over as well, finishing not with a whimper but the bang of Dr. Darius Hellstromme's ghostfire bombs at the gates of Lost Angels.

Even the Servitors, the Reckoners' chosen champions on Earth, have been defeated—at least for a while. Reverend Grimme vanished in a massive flood that destroyed his city, Raven's Last Sons were defeated by the Great Summoning, Stone was foiled in the barren expanse of Death Valley, and Dr. Hellstromme's latest scheme to open the gates of Hell proved fruitless.

We told the tale of the Servitors in four Plot Point Campaigns, still available and ready to play with just a little tinkering for this edition on our website!

In response, the Reckoners have turned their blasphemous gaze back to the grassroots of evil. They've given life to dark desires and horrible abominations that live in the shadows of the isolated frontier, far away from the attention garnered by the overt plans of their Servitors.

The heroes of the Weird West join with the secretive Twilight Legion in the distant outposts, chaotic boomtowns, and lonely settlements of the West to fight evil and quell the fear that gives the Reckoners their power.

So gather your posse of heroes and hit the trail, from the frozen north to the arid deserts of the Southwest, from the industrial East to the fractured canyons of California's "Great Maze."

The Weird West awaits with adventure, mystery, and more monsters than you can shake a Peacemaker at.

Think these Mojave rattlers look nasty? You should see the rest of it!

Deadlands is the long-awaited return to Pinnacle's oldest and most popular setting. First published in 1996, the original "Deadlands Classic" system won countless awards and its bold, bright orange books are still a striking and valuable addition to gaming shelves the world over.

For those who want the whole experience, Deadlands has a rich and varied history to explore!

Deadlands has told some epic tales since it first burst onto the scene in 1996, but you don't need to be steeped in its storied past to join in the hootin' and hollerin'. If you're an old hand, we think you'll find it both familiar and refreshing. If you're new to the world or setting, this is the perfect time to join the wagon train (and if you've lapsed, we forgive you for that, partner). We've recapped and summarized the monumental events of the last 24 years so you can catch up.

This new edition is the biggest revamp of the game's background and rules since the Reloaded edition from 2005. It's been revised, rewritten, and refocused by both Deadlands Line Editor Matthew Cutter and original creator Shane Hensley.

All the rules have been updated and adapted to the latest version of the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

Arcane Backgrounds are tightened up. Those nasty Harrowed had the same overhaul we gave them in Lost Colony (including letting the Devil out!). There are new and streamlined rules for dueling. And of course a passel of new Edges, gear, infernal devices, and powers to blast the tarnation out of the creepy crawlies coming to do your party in.

For you Marshals (that's what we call our Game Masters), there's a comprehensive overview of the Weird West after the events of the Servitor Plot Point Campaigns, including new plots, perils, and intrigue for cowtowns, boomtowns, and old favorites like Lost Angels, Tombstone, Deadwood, Dodge, the City o’ Gloom, and a few new locales we might surprise you with! And of course this handsome tome also includes enough rascals, varmints, and critters to keep a posse busy 'til doomsday.

This is more than just a rules update--it's a world update! And check out that gorgeous new graphic design by Karl Keesler, with art by some of the best in the business!

Now that the tales of the Servitors have been told in their individual Plot Point Campaigns, Deadlands is returning to its roots with more local yarns of dread, terror, and violent action. The new edition and supplements to follow turn their baleful eyes from the world-shaking events of the Reckoning to isolated frontier towns or sinister machinations in the few larger settlements. The Twilight Legion must root out the evil that lurks in all-too-human souls, the lonesome hills nearby, or the dark woods at the edge of town.

To showcase the return to more personal tales of horror and adventure, we've created the Horror at Headstone Hill campaign set!

The campaign features a single county in Wyoming and the terrors that lurk in a booming mining town and environs. Your heroes roam about the map, interacting with the locals, solving mysteries, fighting abominations, and—with luck and a steady shootin' iron—eventually lower the "Fear Level." That's how you defeat the Reckoners' terrorforming, amigos, and Horror at Headstone Hill showcases it front and center.

The Horror at Headstone Hill Campaign Boxed Set!

The Deadlands: Horror at Headstone Hill Boxed Set contains an introductory booklet on the region for the players with notes from Tombstone Epitaph reporter Lacy O'Malley and the Twilight Legion, a Marshal's guide detailing all the locations on the map and a full sandbox-oriented Plot Point Campaign, a poster-sized map of the county, and a selection of player handouts to drive this incredible tale of six-guns and sorcery to its bloodstained conclusion!

Something happened at Devil's Tower recently. Something terrible. A being called the Cackler raised a powerful sorceress of legend, Morgan Le Fay, sending ripples through the many worlds of Deadlands. From the Dark Ages to the far future planet of Banshee in Lost Colony, the "Morgana Effect" has caused subtle changes from the world we knew before.

The Cackler and his unholy posse ride the range in this world-changing graphic novel by Shane Lacy Hensley!

The Morgana Effect is a big story that ripples (quietly for now) through all the settings of Deadlands—including the upcoming Deadlands: Dark Ages, the Weird West, Noir, Hell on Earth, and already released Lost Colony. It's also a story-based reason to change the rules and some parts of the setting we've been hankerin' to adjust for a while. You can read more about the latter here, but we think even those of you who have been with us since '96 will welcome the changes once you take 'er for a test ride.

Over the years we've seen some amazing gaming setups, but collecting and painting a comprehensive collection of cowpokes and critters can be both time consuming and expensive. That's where the Deadlands Pawns come in.

The Deadlands Pawns Boxed Set contains over 100 Deadlands characters and critters printed on thick punchboard!

We've created a selection of heroes, villains, and monsters in thick punchboard (the sturdy stuff board game tokens are made from) to represent some of the most common and iconic encounters in the Weird West. These figures are even die-cut to the contour of the character image to make each pose as dynamic and striking as possible.

The Deadlands Pawns Boxed Set contains 8 sheets of thick punchboard, containing over 100 pawns to bring the Weird West alive on your tabletop. If the set does well, we will expand the line to include additional Deadlands sets and pawn sets for our other lines.

The core book for Deadlands: The Weird West is a 192-page hardcover book, in our usual "graphic novel" size, and glorious, bloody, full-color throughout. That amazing cover is by Aaron Riley, a fan favorite of the entire Savage Worlds line!

The Deadlands the Weird West Core Boxed Set includes a copy of the hardcover rules as well as a brand new poster map of the Weird West by the phenomenal Cheyenne Wright, a set of 25 Bennies, a set of custom-colored dice and Wild Die, and a Game Master's screen and introductory adventure, Double Down at Sundown, by Rob Wieland!

Want to see the new screen? Here it is, partner! The tri-fold screen is our usual landscape format with gorgeous art on one side and all the charts and tables the Marshal needs on the other!

The new GM Screen for Deadlands: the Weird West! Click here to view Federico Musetti's gorgeous art as a larger image.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Wed, May 13 2020 6:00 AM BST

Website: [Pinnacle Entertainment] [facebook] [twitter] [instagram]

#RPG #kickstarter #Deadlands #Savage Worlds #Pinnacle Entertainment

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athingthatwantsvirginia · 4 years

Text

Can I Look, Miss O’Keefe?

PART SIXTEEN OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: mentions of parent death and family issues, we’re back to being super emo folks, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 3.7K

Summary: Distance grows between Ella and Jess as they dance around forbidden topics and discuss their fears.

Crunchy snow and ice coated the streets of Stars Hollow, and large flakes fell from the dark, cloudy sky as Ella sat up, awake in the Gilmore living room. The monkey lamp on the side table offered a yellow glow. It was the early hours of the morning, New Year’s Eve. Christmas had come and gone, and the days before the return to school were filled with good books and movie marathons. Though Lane had gone home earlier, before they finished their last John Hughes flick, Lorelai insisted Ella stay on the couch for the night. It was past midnight and the roads were in no condition to be walked on. And though she was comfortable, probably more relaxed than she was in her own home, she’d tossed and turned for about an hour before deciding the effort was hopeless.

Instead, she took the copy of Slaughterhouse Five from her bag and read quietly, adding her own notes to the margins alongside Jess’s. Before, the room would have been drafty. But Luke had recently fixed the windows (again). Ella was cozy beneath a bunch of spare blankets, dressed in only a tank top and a borrowed pair of Rory’s sweatpants. The Gilmore women were tall though, and Ella had to cuff the pants at the bottom so they wouldn’t drag on the floor when she walked. Her eyes were starting to get heavy, but she was too engrossed in the story to consider putting it down. She had no idea what time it was, though it was still pitch black outside, when soft footfalls sounded on the stairs.

Clearing her throat, Ella marked a place in the book with her finger, and looked up to see a sleepy Lorelai. “Hi, sorry. Did I wake you?”

Lorelai shook her head slightly. “No, sweetie. I got up to use the bathroom and I saw the light was on. Wanted to make sure you and Rory didn’t start a midnight cult behind my back or something.”

“That does sound like us,” Ella said, cracking a small smile.

Lorelai sat down on the coffee table next to the couch, elbows on her knees. “What’s going on?”

Shrugging, Ella averted her eyes and gestured to her book. “Oh, just reading. Jess gave me his copy and I wanted to be done by our shift tomorrow. There’s just so much to argue about.”

“Well, it’s good to know I need to steer clear of you two tomorrow, but is that really why you’re up with Vonnegut at almost three in the morning?” Lorelai asked, tilting her head.

Ella hesitated a moment, but then sighed and clutched at her necklace. “I just...people are starting to get college decisions in the mail. And...I don’t know.”

“You’re gonna get in, Ella. You’ve got perfect grades, and a job, and-”

Scoffing, Ella nodded. “Yeah, I just...I’m gonna have to live at home. And I’m worried I’ll never get outta here.”

“Stars Hollow?” Lorelai asked, sympathetic.

She nodded again. “I mean...I wanna live in a city. Where every day I walk out the door to new people, and there’s new places to go and...I know and like this town. I do. But it stopped being home the day my mom died.”

Though she had passion in her voice and a smile still on her lips, Lorelai could see the sadness in Ella’s far-off gaze. It was something so striking and mature, something she never saw in Rory or Lane. Though Rory was an old soul in her own right, Lorelai could see Ella out on her own and doing just fine by the very next day. Lorelai leaned in a little closer, and the mothering tone came to her voice, which she had used on Ella more times than one in the past two and a half years.

“Ella, I want you to listen to me. You are smart, and talented, and you’re one of the strongest people I know,” Lorelai said, and raised a hand as Ella scoffed at her words. “I know it feels like it’ll take forever. But you have to be patient, okay? I know that one day you’ll get to have everything you want.”

Shaking her head, Ella swallowed back the shine in her eyes. “You can’t know that.”

“But I can. I have the sight,” Lorelai said mystically. “It’s a certified Gilmore talent.”

It made Ella chuckle a little, and Lorelai smiled in response. “Okay, Lorelai.”

“Sweetie, I spent years living in a shed, just me and Rory. I was a maid who worked eighty hours a week. But now, I have a house and I’m a manager and I…” she paused to sigh, gesturing to the room around them while she tried to articulate her thoughts. “Anything worth having is gonna take time. You’ll get there. I know it.”

Blowing out a soft breath, Ella leaned back against the pillows. “Okay. Thank you. Sorry for being such a freak.”

“Hardly,” Lorelai said, shaking her head. “Freaks are the only people worth being around. I think you already know that.”

“That I do.”

Lorelai rose from the table and draped the blankets up over Ella more. “Now go to sleep. You’ve gotta be in fighting shape if you’re going up against John Bender tomorrow.”

Ella scoffed. “I could take him on no sleep at all.”

Laughing, Lorelai made for the stairs. “I’d bet on you.”

“Hey, Lorelai?” Ella called, snuggling down into the couch and turning onto her side.

Lorelai turned. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. For everything. I mean, I’ll never be able to-”

“Sweetie,” Lorelai interrupted, a kind expression softening her face. “You’re welcome. Now, dream of those Eggos we’ll feast on in the morning.”

. . .

Tuckered out from a long day of waitressing and literary sparring, Ella leaned her head on her crossed arms against the counter. She sat at a stool, already dozing by ten o’clock. Having finished up closing the front of house early, with Luke’s help, she waited for Jess to complete his dishwashing duties. He was back over the steaming vat as soon as his stitches were yanked out. Upstairs, she could hear Luke trying to set up his small, black-and-white TV. Her thoughts were becoming hazy when Jess finally emerged from the back, smirking.

“You told me not to let you fall asleep yet, Stevens,” he said.

She lifted her head, brows furrowed. “I can do what I please, Mariano.”

“Oooo, angry face,” he teased.

“Fuck off,” she grumbled, clearing her throat as she hopped down off the stool.

“Oh, this is bound to be an amazing night.”

Ella tugged on her coat and grabbed her bag. “Sorry, sorry. Just give me five minutes and I’ll be back to Little Miss Sunshine.”

Jess snorted a laugh. “I think that’s too ambitious.”

“You underestimate me, Mariano,” she quipped, smirking. Going back over to the checkered curtain, she shouted up the stairs. “Hey Luke, we’re leaving!”

“Okay!” he yelled back.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay and celebrate with you?” she asked, ignoring Jess when he shook his head at her. She’d been asking it over and over all day. No matter how much Luke insisted, she couldn’t believe he actually wanted to spend New Year’s alone.

Finally, Luke opened the apartment door and she could see him at the top of the creaky stairs. “For God’s sake, go. No drinking, drugs-”

“Or animal sacrifices, I got it!” she finished for him, smirking.

“And Jess will be back by-”

“Two!” Jess chimed in, tone flat and his mouth set in a thin line.

“Happy New Year!” Ella said, grabbing Jess’s hand and leading him towards the front door.

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke grunted, shutting the apartment door behind him.

. . .

Ella could feel the rumble of Jess’s voice, her head on his chest, as they laid together in her bed. The lavender candles were lit, and her old alarm clock was set for ten til midnight. A bottle of red wine sat in the fridge, the only alcohol left in the house by her father and Fiona before they went out of town to celebrate with Fiona’s sister in Nevada. They were going to toast when the clock on the stove struck midnight, then go back to her room to continue with Jess’s reading of Frankenstein. Originally, the plan had been to watch the Twilight Zone marathon all night. But, Adam and his friends had gotten to the living room first, playing video games on the modest TV. Being confined to her bedroom wasn’t so bad, but the challenge for Ella was staying awake. Jess chose the Mary Shelley novel simply because he knew how much she loved the story, hoping she wouldn’t fall asleep to it. Especially because he knew he wouldn’t have the heart to wake her if she truly fell asleep.

Shifting in her space, Ella caught a glance at the clock and saw it was a half hour to midnight. Jess was halfway through a passage, and she sat up with crossed legs and looked down at him, yawning.

“Jess?” she asked when there was a pause in the text.

“Hm?”

“Are you happy?”

His brows furrowed and he sat up against the mural. “Excuse me?”

Scoffing, she averted her gaze. “I just mean...working at Walmart and Luke’s and being...here? In Stars Hollow?”

Jess shrugged, setting the book aside and crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s not too terrible a place to be. And I plan to get out of Stars Hollow.”

“And go where?” she asked, eyes rimmed red with fatigue.

“Wherever.”

She smirked at his nonchalance. “And write?”

Again, he shrugged, sitting up straighter. “Maybe. I’ll live where I live and work where I work.”

Ella snorted a laugh. “Alright, Kerouac. So you’re not going back to New York?”

He shook his head, expression guarded.

“You don’t miss it?”

Though he seemed to hesitate a moment, his tone was firm when he spoke again. His eyes were somewhere else, staring over at the stack of records near her dresser. Led Zeppelin played low from the turntable, another effort to stay awake. “Miss my mom drinking herself into accepting random wedding proposals and barely scrounging up enough cash to keep the heat on?”

Her heart sank into her stomach, and, instinctively, she began to run her fingers through his hair. On break from school, she noticed he used gel and other products less and less. It was more relaxed and fell down a little over his forehead.

“No, I can’t say I’m bending over backwards to get back there again,” he said.

Ella nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry over,” he replied immediately, though not angry. He wanted to squirm under her touch, still uncomfortable talking about his past, but tried to relax.

“Hey,” she said softly, after a momentary silence. Jess finally met her eyes again. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

As she kissed him sweetly, slow and simple, he interlaced their fingers, finally losing the tension in his body. Skin against skin, she could feel the thin, pinkish scar on his hand. When she pulled away, he put his arm around her shoulders and she moved to lean back against him. His free hand was still in hers, and she touched the scar gingerly.

“And you wanted me to wait for Luke to superglue this up,” she said, with a teasing shake of her head.

He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have died.”

Ella sighed. “Anything’s possible.”

Jess bit his lip, feeling his heart twist slightly. Though he’d heard a fair bit about her mother, he still didn’t know how she died. From the way the townspeople sometimes looked at her, with so much pity and sympathy, Jess could gather it wasn't a ‘going gently into that good night’ kind of situation. Whatever had happened, it had been sudden, and it had been shocking. He pressed a kiss to her head and tried to keep his voice light.

“Well, it definitely wasn’t as Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the other time I got stitches.”

“The other time?” she asked, looking up at him.

Swallowing dryly, he held out his left arm for her to see, sleeve rolled up. On the inside of his forearm, near his elbow, there was a large, semicircular scar, pale and raised, but old. For a moment Ella wondered why she’d never noticed it before, but she knew if she wasn’t looking for it, she wouldn’t ever have spotted it.

“Jesus. What happened?” she asked, a crease between her brows.

“Cujo,” he said, smirking slightly. “This dog across the hall from us when I was five. I tried to pet him and he wasn’t on quite the same wavelength.”

“Fuck, Jess,” she said, shaking her head slightly. Ella squeezed his hand.

“It’s alright,” he said. “World bites you, dog bites boy. It’s chaos out there.”

She chuckled a little, nodding. “Sad but true.”

“Did you ever get stitches?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But, your dogs and needles are my oceans.”

“Oceans?” Jess asked.

“When I was seven, we went to Ogunquit to visit my grandparents. It was the only time I ever went to a beach, and I got caught in a riptide. I didn’t pass out or anything, but I drifted out pretty far before my dad got me. Waves kept crashing over me and I kept going under.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to cancel those tickets to Bora Bora, huh?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’d recommend it.”

He smiled back, then they settled back down into the bed, Jess grabbing the book again. Before he started, however, he looked over at her in askance.

“Are you happy, Eleanor?”

“At this moment? Very.”

. . .

Storming into the diner, Ella shook the snow from her peacoat and unwound her scarf, huffing in frustration. January was frigid, but Ella’s blood boiled and her heart pounded in her ears. Schoolwork weighed down her bag, heavy with post-break assignments and reading. Once inside, the heat hit her pleasantly, but her nose began to run and her face flushed. She wasn’t surprised to find Jess not inside the diner; he’d been at school only twice in the past week and he was taking more shifts at Walmart than he once had. New Year’s had been a good night, a kiss at midnight and heads buzzing on red wine as Ella walked Jess back to the diner in fresh snow and the twinkling light of the town square.

But she could see something was bothering him. He didn’t leave quite as many notes in the margins, looked tired most of the time. And each time she asked him about it, he brushed it off, told her he was fine, and pressed a heated kiss to her lips. He didn’t call her as often. The recent disconnect between them, which she thought now might have begun even back in early December, did nothing to help her current mood. She went to the back to grab her apron, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ears. If he didn’t want to talk, she didn’t need to talk to him. Whatever he needed to work out, apparently he wanted to do it on his own. It was what she said whenever Luke asked after him. She wasn’t his mother, and Luke was his guardian. It wasn’t her job to fix Jess. And, in her mind, Jess didn’t need fixing.

Luke stood behind the counter filling coffee mugs, and he nodded at her as she passed. “Hey, Ella. How are ya? You have a good week?”

“I’m just peachy,” she said back, no emotion in her voice.

Perking up, Luke furrowed his brows at her. She wasn’t known for being cheery, exactly, but usually she strung together more than three words. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said quietly, her voice a sigh.

“C’mon, kid, we’re well past white lies,” Luke said, hands on his hips.

Ella rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, an ache behind her eyes. It wasn’t migraine level, but the throbbing pain made her feel a little sick to her stomach.

“They got married,” she said shortly.

“What?” Luke asked.

Sighing, she watched Babette and Maury walk in, waving at them with a tiny smile.

“Hey, sugar! We’ll need a minute to order!” Babette called in her breathy, gravelly voice. It made Ella feel marginally better.

Her serious demeanor returned when she turned back to Luke. “My dad and Fiona got married. In Vegas. They took a whole week off—who knows how they could afford it on an electrician’s and a hairdresser’s salary—and apparently they thought: ‘Hey, let’s get married, not tell anyone, and not call for the whole week. In fact, let’s not go visit Fiona’s sister,’ which is what they said they were doing in the first place.”

There was a beat of silence, and finally Luke nodded, mouth slightly agape. “Wow.”

“Yeah, so, that’s what’s wrong. There ya go,” she said, taking a rag and wiping down some water on the counter. She didn’t meet Luke’s eyes.

“Ella, I’m-”

She raised a dismissive hand to stop him. “Luke, don’t worry, it’s alright. They seem happy, so, who am I to care? And besides, now I don’t have to give some phony speech at the wedding.”

. . .

The Clash blasted through the boombox, and though it did nothing to help her headache, it, oddly, made her heart slow. It took her mind off the storm of emotions brewing in the pit of her stomach. What if they ended up having another kid? Would her father mend the mistakes of his past? Would he see the error of his ways? She doubted it. People didn’t change. They acted differently, but they didn’t change. Sometimes, she knew, all people wore disguises. It made fear rise up in her throat, and her hands shake. But, instead, she sang along to “Bank Robber” and drew a garden full of roses and wasps. On the other side of the page, there was a sketch of Fiona with a veil over her head. It almost made her want to cry.

Luke was closing up downstairs, and offered the apartment to her to hang out in for a few hours after her shift. He knew what her home could be like. And the practice felt bittersweet and familiar to her; she’d spent many an afternoon at Luke’s kitchen table, sketching in the days after she lost her mother. The words she’d spoken to Lorelai a few nights earlier spun around in her brain. She would never be able to accept her mother’s death until Stars Hollow was in her rearview mirror. Everything seemed to be a reminder. Though maybe it wasn’t location-specific. Maybe it’s just what happened when you lost someone close to you.

It was long past dark outside when Jess stepped through the door, blue vest in his hand. His dark hair was gelled and crazy. He kicked off his boots and a smirk covered his face when he saw her there. And no matter how conflicted she felt about him at the moment, a sense of relief filled her at the sight of him, and she couldn’t help but smirk back from her spot sitting up in his bed. She took her sketchbook from her knee, closed it, and dropped it on his nightstand.

“Hi,” he said, putting his vest in the top drawer of his dresser. As he walked by the boombox, he turned it down slightly so he could hear her.

“Hey, sorry. I didn’t think you’d get off until later. I stole your bed,” she replied, scooting up to the head of the bed as Jess sat down on the end.

He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Well, I can assure you, there was no tequila involved today,” Ella said, crossing her arms over her Sonic Youth t-shirt. “Just didn’t wanna go home yet.”

“What’s up?”

She shrugged and clutched at her necklace with one nail-bitten hand. “Long story short: That rendezvous to Nevada Fiona and my dad took? They got married by some Elvis impersonator in Vegas and just...didn’t tell anyone until yesterday.”

She thought of the night before when she had, in a rage, called the diner to tell him. Jess had been the only one she wanted to talk to, the only one her heart was aching for. Instead, Luke picked up and told her Jess was out.

Jess sighed, and put a hand on her jean-clad knee. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Ella ran her fingers through her messy hair and then took his hand in hers. She sat closer to him, until their knees were touching, but still she didn’t lock eyes with him. Jess could practically see the gloom radiating off her. Dark makeup painted her eyes. Black Doc Martens were discarded at the side of the bed. Her nails, polished in chipped black, were still bitten down. But, she managed a small smile.

“It’s fine. I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“Okay,” he said shortly, nodding. Finally, she looked at him and bit her lip. His face was drawn in fatigue.

Bringing her hand to his cheek, Ella’s gaze softened. He leaned into her touch. “Are you okay, Jess?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Seems like you’ve been working a lot. You haven’t been at school. I just...are you sleeping alright?” she asked, hesitant.

Jess did his best to straighten up, nodding. “Stevens, don’t worry. Luke just won’t let me keep the music on to sleep anymore. I’m still getting used to it.”

She nodded and kissed him, hearing the song switch in the background. “Okay, James Dean. Just checking.”

Clearing his throat to hide the flush in his cheeks, Jess cracked a smirk. Ella thought she saw something flash across his eyes, but she couldn’t identify it. For the first time since they started dating, there seemed to be a charged energy lingering in the silence between them. Without the music playing, Ella knew she wouldn’t have been able to handle it. She would’ve blurted out everything going through her head, but she refrained. Instead, she watched Jess’s eyes move to her sketchbook on his table, his grin widening.

“Can I look, Miss O’Keefe?” he asked.

Pursing her lips, she let her worry fade and took on a teasing air. “Only if you don’t laugh.”

“Never.”

#jess mariano au #jess mariano fanfiction #jess mariano imagines #jess #mariano #gilmore girls #gilmore girls fanfiction #gilmore girls au #gilmore girls imagines #luke danes #lorelai gilmore #jess mariano x oc #original character #original character stories

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whereismywizardhat · 5 years

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I know I’m not the first one to say it, but the thing that has really been driving me mad every time I devote brain space to The Rise of Skywalker is that it is a thematically dead movie, that not only cheapens its own trilogy, but the original trilogy too. Like, every negative stereotype of the sequel trilogy is represented in force.

I hated this movie. I truly loathed it. I put spoilers under the cut but the basics are that I’ve been ruminating on it since I saw it opening night and it’s made me more mad the more I turn my brain back on. Any good reviews of this movie you see are probably because this movie moves faster then the Millennium Falcon, shooting stupid, pointless sequence after stupid pointless sequence into your brain so quickly that it makes you forget that what it’s showing to you is utterly banal and gross.

I think that the Sequel Trilogy is, ultimately, a failure. A lot of people believe Return of the Jedi is the weakest of the original trilogy, that cast fatigue and the beginnings of Lucas’s drawbacks showing as a writer hurt that film overall. If that’s the case, then The Rise of Skywalker shatters it’s predecessors because the film’s contempt for the Last Jedi in turn tells you that none of it was worthwhile. The Last Jedi was a flawed film, but it was trying to drag Star Wars into a place that was healthy for the franchise. Rise of Skywalker says “No”, and tells you that the sequel trilogy was afterall nothing but digging up the corpse of the Original Trilogy and parading it in front of you one last time.

Rey being born of nobody was important both as a way of getting away from the weird eugenics thing that Star Wars courted as Anakin Skywalker went from “Powerful Jedi” to “Virgin Birth Chosen One”, and as a way of differentiating herself from her nemesis. Kylo Ren is the heir to some great dynasty, Rey comes from nothing, it’s part of their yin/yang thing. Making her a dynasty too destroys that, brings back the eugenics in full force, AND adds a bunch of plotholes to boot. “They sold you to save you” is probably the worst dialogue I’ve ever heard, including Anakin’s attempts at flirting under Lucas’s pen.

Palpatine being alive is... nonsensical. A desperate plea for forgiveness to twitter after not explaining Snoke. Going in, I assumed it was an evil force ghost, the sequel’s equivalent of that period from Legends where Palp’s rapidly decaying clones were being burnt through and he tried to possess Leia’s baby in the womb. Not so much. It seems Palp just... kind of appeared through a plot hole. Exxegol is fine as a base, I thought it was Korriban/Morriband and was disappointed that they didn’t go with the Sith planet (except they did, I guess Sith all use the same firm for designing their ).

Which goes into Kylo Ren. Adam Driver was really just... not given anything to do (a recurring problem). To his credit, the character is on the ball for the first half of the story. It’s just... all chemistry with Rey is gone, a problem Finn has too. The movie doesn’t have time to take a breath to allow the actors to emote at each other, and Kylo takes the worst of it because he’s already a terse character and the mask is back so you don’t even get his face. The film gives one moment that works with Kylo: his vision of Han. I’ve seen some comments on this that didn’t like it, but to me it’s quite obviously the light side equivalent of Rey’s evil Rey scene. Rey looks forward and sees evil, Kylo looks backwards and sees a version of the first films climax with what he was supposed to do. It’s... the one moment in the entire film where I felt like there was some actual craft in what was going on. That’s without getting into how robbed Kylo Ren was as a villain. The Last Jedi basically set up Kylo Ren as the ultimate big bad, having achieved everything Vader wanted. Here, he’s back to being a lackey of a weirdo in a bathrobe, who doesn’t even have the benefit of being a force ghost who he can’t stab.

I mentioned Finn before. Finn has... no presence in this film. He screams after Rey, he gets a one film love interest while the previous movie’s love interest kinda just sits there scowling in the background while a hobbit whose name I didn’t catch gets more lines, he has some force sensitivity but the kind from the original movie where you squint at the screen and learn what the audience just saw while Rey has taken levels in D&D paladin. He has about the same amount of significance in this film as Obi-wan did in Phantom Menace, that is to say none except we know he’s an important character in a movie that came out before this one and he gets one action sequence near the end.

Poe makes out slightly better, taking up a lot of screen time. Poe has never been a consistent character in this trilogy. One movie he’s a compassionate cool dude, the next he’s a fuckup cowboy who doesn’t play by the rules, this one is he’s a weird stand in for Han Solo, being handed Han’s smuggler backstory and acting like Han did in ESB’s first half (without the UST with Rey). He is just as unimportant as Finn, but ALSO has to be given a lot of screen time to actually establish some rapport with his castmates because he wasn’t previously given any time with Rey and only a small amount of time with Finn.

The supporting cast from previous movies... may as well not exist. Other then Leia, all the original trilogy characters are just around. Chewie gets a fake out death. Lando shows up, gives a speech, and disappears til the end. Wedge makes a cameo ten second after his stepson dies and has no reaction to that, and the only reason I know that is because I’m so invested in Wedge that I bought the tie-in novel because it had him in it. In fact, most of the supporting cast from Force Awakens dies. Snap, Hux... that’s about it. I’m sure they would have killed off Rose if JJ thought that letting her languish in the background with no lines wasn’t a worse fate for the character. As previously noted, one of the Hobbits from LoTR has a bigger role then she does. The movie also introduces an entire legion of runaway Stormtroopers... for no reason other then to introduce Finn’s third love interest in three movies, Tika. She’s fine. I’ve heard there’s a deleted scene that says she’s Lando’s daughter kidnapped by the FO. Glad we got the weird “Who’s Your Daddy?” thing out of the way with this side character before the fans bullied the director into retconning it to being Mace Windu’s secret love child.

Consistently, this movie feels like a fever dream fan fiction with a budget. I consider A New Hope’s original cut to be the platonic ideal for an adventure film in terms of pacing. Prologue, Three Acts on Three Planets, with the tension ratcheting up with each planet. It’s follow up is a slower, more cerebral film after a bombastic opening. Rise of Skywalker takes neither option, instead going for a hypnotic, Fincher-esque pacing with no brakes. It doesn’t want you to realize what you’re watching is shlock. What isn’t a calculated spit in the face of it’s predecessor, The Last Jedi, is a stab at the hypothetical second JJ Abrams Star Wars film which didn’t exist to reference back to. Rise of Skywalker exists, and it exists to appeal to the most toxic elements of the Star Wars fanbase. I don’t think it’s salvageable.

Somewhere, out there, there is a version of Rise of Skywalker that is thematically coherent. Maybe there’s one that actually follows up on it’s predecessor like... every other Star Wars saga film instead of an imagined film that didn’t happen. I dunno. Regardless, it really makes me question whether Disney actually understands what they’re doing, or if it’s all just luck and nonsense that let them become a monopoly.

I guess it wouldn’t seem so awful if the Mandalorian wasn’t just sitting there.pursuing a part of the Star Wars universe that feels fresh and original rather then ruining better films.

#star wars #ros #rise of skywalker #rant warning

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its-monster-mash · 2 years

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Randall Kaine [OC Moodboard]

Name: Randall Kaine (Most current, too many fake names over his lifetime. He dies with this one for what it's worth)

Book: 'Til Death Do Us Part (Deuteragonist)

Birthday: October 30, 1918 (Story is set in 1970)

Sexuality: Bisexual

Hair Color: Dark Brown

Eye Color: Green

Height: 6'2

Weight: 138lbs

Occupation: Priest (a Liar)

Likes: Literature, Death, Being in Control, Sweets

Dislikes: Being Vulnerable, Earnest Belief, Social Conformity

Intro to the Story: Hunting down a band who he had drugged and released in an old junkyard and brutally massacring them.

Basics: After losing track of one of his victims, Randall is forced to go into hiding. He decides that serial killing is a young man's game, and it's time to find somewhere to settle down, create a new identity and lay low. Following in his father's footsteps, he uses his religious knowledge from growing up the son of a pastor to land a role as the priest of a small town where no one will care to come looking for him. Things get interesting when another recent arrival goes missing; things get more interesting when his escaped victim shows up in town, looking for a place to stay.

Background under the cut

Background: The Junkyard Killer terrorized America for almost three decades; drugging and capturing unsuspecting groups of people, and releasing them in locked up junkyards so he could hunt them for sport. Why? An insatiable need to feel in control. He left home at a very young age to get out from under his Pastor Father's thumb, not wanting to be like the man. As he got older though, Randall realized that he and his old man weren't so different; his dad had just found a legitimate channel to exercise control over the little town he grew up in.

#oc moodboard #Randall Kaine oc #original character #'til death do us part (original novel)#ttdup #this is a horror-romance novel btw and he is the love interest #because it is very self indulgent #The goal is NOT a healthy romance lmao #Which should be apparent given that they met when he slaughtered her friends #The wedding wasn't his choice tho #GOD I can't wait to actually write this

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coppermarigolds · 5 years

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2019 Writing Year in Review

I didn’t write a whole lot this year in terms of word count (story of my life), but I branched out and tried a couple of new things that I think are worth recounting! I’m going to steal the format used by @theherocomplex.

What I Wrote

Fanfic

Not...much. Heh. Basically all I did this year in terms of fanfic were a handful of prompt fics here on Tumblr, and my Yuletide fic:

Yuletide 2019: The Hour of the Wolf, The Ritual

Tumblr prompt ficlets: five Legend of Korra, and one each for Mass Effect, The Umbrella Academy, and SWTOR.

Original Fiction

Status Red - my ongoing original speculative novel. I completed the first draft of it in late 2018, after having worked on it off and on for...about four years? So this year was about trying to revise/rewrite it into something, well, coherent. Success on that front was mixed. As of right now, I’ve decided to put it on the back burner and let it marinate while I work on other projects. I definitely do not plan to abandon it, but the rumblings I’ve heard about the market for Young Adult sci-fi are not encouraging, to say the least. My main options are to change the characters’ ages and revise it into an adult novel, or to keep it YA, but strip out a lot of the more sci-fi elements (e.g., space travel) and try to pass it off as a contemporary near-future novel with speculative elements.

Untitled mystery/ghost story novel - this is the book I started in October 2019, complete with a trip to Wyoming over Halloween weekend to research the setting. I didn’t get quite as much written on this story as I would have liked, but I’m pretty pleased both with what I have so far, and with my plan for the rest of it.

“Seeds” - a short (about 7,000 words) gender-swapped Hades and Persephone reimagining set in post-apocalyptic Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I wrote it for a contest, which it did not win, then submitted it to a handful of journals and received a handful of rejections. I may revise it and try sending it out again in 2020, but I’m equally content to just let it stand as is.

In July, I entered a four-round flash fiction challenge run by NYC Midnight. In each round, writers were divided into groups, assigned a genre, location, and object, then given 48 hours to write a story under 1000 words incorporating all the assigned elements. It was hard, but a lot of fun! I actually earned the top score in my group in rounds one and two, but then crashed and burned in round three and didn’t advance to the final round. That was a bummer, but I was still super proud of myself for earning first place in the previous two rounds. The three stories I wrote were:

“Turn Your Eyes Away” - my assignment was drama, set in a foreclosed house, incorporating a prosthetic.

“Misconception” - this was the tricky one. My assignment was political satire--my worst nightmare--set in a safehouse, incorporating a potato. Getting the top score for this story might have been my proudest writing moment of the year, given how much I hated the genre.

“Til Death Do Us Start” - this assignment was horror, set at a dress rehearsal, incorporating a microphone. Yes, for some reason I scored well on poli sat, but struck out on horror, one of my favorite genres. That’s the way the cookie crumbles I guess!

Year-End Questions

Number of Words Written? I didn’t keep track. I could go back and add it all up, but one way I’ve been growing as a writer is to accept that my pace and my process are my own, and that there’s nothing to be gained in stressing over word count or comparing my productivity to other people’s.

Number of Smut Scenes? Don’t think there were any! Not surprising, since I’m not much of a smut writer in the first place.

New Things I Tried This Year? The big one was entering the NYC Midnight challenge. I’d never done anything like that before, and I’m proud of my effort. Signing up to not only write stories in under 48 hours, but also have them read and judged by total strangers, was nervewracking, but a good exercise!

The other big one was beginning a brand-new novel in a genre (ghost story) I’ve consumed plenty of, but never actually written before. I have high hopes for this one, and I’m hoping it’ll be easier on me than Status Red, especially since there are fewer moving parts to keep in the air.

And finally, this isn’t really a new thing, but my other big writing accomplishment of the year was finally finishing my creative writing certificate via UCLA’s continuing-education program.

Favorite Thing I Wrote This Year? The ghost story novel-in-progress. Now if I could just think of a good working title.

Favorite Fics I Read This Year? I didn’t read as much fanfic as I would have liked this year (though on the plus side, I did read 40 novels), but here are a few that stood out:

What Once was Given by StopTalkingAtMe - my Yuletide gift this year! It’s also from The Ritual, and takes a deep dive into the lore and history of the monster and its worshipers. It’s gorgeously written and I loved it.

Fresh by halfeatenmoon - this is a post-canon fic for Night in the Woods, a new fandom for me this year, and is basically just what I wanted for the long-suffering, unfortunate yet persistent character of Bea.

Mundane Fears by ConvenientAlias - fic for The Luminous Dead, one of the best novels I read this year. It’s post-canon so I don’t really want to say much for fear of spoilers if anyone wants to read the book (and you should!), but suffice it to say I found it a very satisfying coda.

Shapes (and Other Unidentified Flying Objects) by jibberjabber13 - another Night in the Woods fic that sees the game’s protagonist, Mae, finally getting the mental health help she deserves. This fic was downright therapeutic for me as well!

Goals for 2020

Basically just one big one: finish the ghost story novel, polish it up, and send it out to agents. Getting something to query-able status has been my goal ever since I first began trying my hand at original writing, but for so long I concentrated all my efforts on Status Red, and that story refuses to be wrangled for the moment. But they always say that it’s highly unlikely you’ll get anywhere with your first novel, anyway. I have a good feeling about the second, so far. We’ll see if it pays off.

A secondary goal: to finally finish my Rogue One multi-chapter fic. Yes, the one I’ve had languishing for at least...a year and a half now? I’m afraid to even look at it to see how long it’s been. I still get the occasional comment on it asking “is this ever going to be finished?” and I really really want to. It’s just gotten to the place where it’s been so long since I looked at it that I’m almost afraid to pick it up again. But I’ll always adore Jyn and Cassian, and they deserve better than to be left hanging. So hopefully 2020 will be the year for that as well!

#2019 writing year in review #long post #on writing #2020 writing goals

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jenroseyokel · 6 years

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Awesome of the Year 2018: The Books

Happy New Year! ‘Tis the season for year end lists left and right as we attempt to figure out the best of everything from 2018. And of course, as a fan of books, music, and movies, it’s only right to get in on the list-making. Over the next week or so, I’ll be sharing my 2018 favorite lists. First up: books! This year, I set my Goodreads reading challenge at 40 books, and actually passed it. I’ve been setting arbitrary book goals for years, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve succeeded since 2007. Probably because of all the graphic novels and comic trades I read this year WHICH TOTALLY COUNT BTW. Ahem. Anyway. This isn’t really a best of 2018 list so much as a Here’s a Bunch of Books I Really Liked in 2018 list, split up into categories. I hope you’ll find something interesting here, especially if you’re looking for ways to spend bookstore or Amazon gift cards you got for Christmas… ;)

Newish Books by Rad Christian Women:

Every Arbitrary Book Goal should have a small correlated goal attached. This year mine was to make sure I read at least 50% women authors… and there have been a lot of GREAT new books from women writers in the past few years. If the “Christian women” section of your local bookstore makes you cringe a little inside too, check out these three wonderful books, all released in the past couple years:

Courage, Dear Heart by Rebecca K. Reynolds (NavPress, 2018)

Anyone who has read Rebecca’s writing knows she needed to write a book. She has a sharp mind, a poet's soul, a scientist's eye, and the most beautiful, tender heart. Also, she's an incredible writer who loves her readers with a love that radiates off every page. Buy a copy for everyone you know.

Wearing God by Lauren F. Winner (HarperOne, 2017) Girl Meets God was a formative book in my early 20s, and I’ve always meant to read more from this author, but somehow haven't. I finally picked up this one and oh man, for a solid month afterward I couldn’t stop thinking about it. With the eye of a scholar and the heart of a poet, Winner draws on personal stories, deep Biblical study, and a love of language to explore lesser known metaphors for God. Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren (InterVarsity Press, 2016)

Several years ago, James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom helped me see liturgy in a new way, as not just religious practice, but the embedded routines that shape us. In this book, Tish Warren brings that idea to life as she walks through an ordinary day explores the holiness in our most mundane moments of living. You may not look at brushing your teeth or losing your keys the same way again.

Good Stories

This year, fiction reading was… all over the place? I don’t know if I read much that was OMG amazing, but here are a few that were fun…

The Fairyland Series 2-5 by Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel & Friends, 2012-2015)

I am notoriously awful at finishing book series. I read the first Fairyland book maybe… two years ago? Yikes. Just finished the last one and wow, so fun. Colorful characters, a whimsical narrator, crazy locations, and a whole lot of heart make this Victorian fairytale meets contemporary fantasy a delight to read.

Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (Harcourt, 1956)

Lewis’ contemporary retelling of the Cupid and Pschye myth through the eyes of Psyche’s jealous sister Orual. Second read for me, and even better this time around. Pretty sure this is Lewis’ storytelling at his best.

Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw (Orbit, 2017)

This was a year to embrace fun, nerdy reads. So there was the Star Trek spoof Redshirts (with a plot twist I totally saw coming... and I am not good at guessing plot twists) and my first trip into the Star Wars extended book universe (or whatever the heck they call it these days) and… this. A story about a doctor for the undead in London, trying to solve the mysteries surrounding a murderous cult and keep her monster friends safe. Not the greatest, but a fun Halloween read. I’ll get to the sequel eventually. (See also: bad at finishing book series.)

Poetry for Everyone

Another new reading practice this year: always keeping a poetry book on the bedside table. Poetry books are best for leisurely dipping in and out rather than reading cover to cover. If you think poetry is only for the ivory towers, give these writers a try and think again.

A Child's Year by Christopher Yokel (Independent, 2018)

Okay, I’m biased here, but hey! Chris quietly released a new poetry book into the world this fall, and I’m a big fan of Chris AND his poems. A Child’s Year is a season cycle, sort of like his last book A Year in Weetamoo Woods, but this time it’s anchored by a four part poem recalling the journey of seasons through childhood eyes. And according to our friend Kirsten’s 7-year-old son, he gets the experience right. ;)

The Jubilee by John Blase (Bright Coppers Press, 2017) For his 50th birthday, John Blase released his first poetry book, with a poem for every year of life. It’s rare for me to make it through an entire collection start to finish but these were just so good. There are poems about aging — the author’s and his parents’ — and poems that evoke wide spaces and natural wonder. There are psalms and parables, and meditations on dying and, yes, living. All of them finely tuned with wisdom, gentle grace, and a touch of humor in all the right places. How I Discovered Poetry by Marilyn Nelson (Dial Books, 2014)

When I heard Marilyn Nelson read her poem “Thirteen-Year-Old American Negro Girl” on the On Being podcast, I was captivated. And when I found this lovely hardcover in a used bookstore back home in Florida, I knew I needed to read more. This is a memoir in poetry about growing up in a black military family during the American Civil Rights era, told with gentle lyricism, warmth, and humor. Plus, the book itself is lovely with whimsical illustrations and family photos.

Comics!

I’m always on a quest to get more comics in my life. Plus knocking out a whole series in a couple weeks is a solid way to pad out your Arbitrary Book Goal.

Amulet 1-7 by Kazu Kibuishi (Graphix, 2008-2016)

After their father’s tragic death, Emily and Navin move with their mom to a strange old house that belonged to their great-grandfather… and so the adventure begins. In this fantasy series, the two kids find themselves in an underground world of demons, robots, talking animals, and a dangerous and powerful Amulet. A captivating and beautifully illustrated fantasy tale. Ms. Marvel 1-5 by G. Willow Wilson (Marvel, 2014-2016)

Y’all, I super want to be a Marvel nerd. But alas, I can't keep up, so I get my sister to loan books to me. Ms. Marvel is my new fave. A Pakistani-American girl from Jersey City has the power to grow, shrink, and stretch her body at will. So she’s trying to fight crime, keep up at school, and well, stay out of trouble with her parents. So fun. (Dear Disney: I really want this kid to show up in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before it gets canceled kthxbye.)

The Legend of Wonder Woman by Ranae De Liz and Ray Dillon (DC Comics, 2016)

Weren’t we all mildly obsessed with Wonder Woman after the 2017 film? Another one I borrowed from my sister. A solid take on Diana’s origin story that’s accessible for comic n00bs (ahem, like me) who can’t figure out where to begin with beautiful art and a lot of heart.

The Classic I Finally Read

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen I always try to tackle either a thick intimidating novel or an unread classic in the wintertime. This year, I worked on my Austen deficiency and discovered I relate a little too much to Elinor Dashwood.

What’s Next?

In the new year, I think my goal is less about numbers and more about reading widely. I liked the 50% women authors goal because it helped me actively choose to support women writers. This year, hoping to read more books by authors of color, explore some new ideas and genres, and hopefully do a better job reading deeply and taking notes. I’ve got my eye on Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge too, perhaps as a way to dig into new things I wouldn’t normally notice. And yeah... perhaps a monthly reading life update is a thing I can do here on the blog. :)

If you’re curious to see the full list of What I Read This Year and follow along with me in 2019, feel free to follow me on Goodreads!

What were some of your favorite reads in 2018? And what are your goals for the new year? I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!

#art #books #reading #awesome of the year #readers of tumblr #reading list #favorite books #best of 2018 #readers are leaders yo

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mongoosefangs · 6 years

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Redwall Revisited, Part 2: Pearls of Lutra

In light of all the Redwall fanart I’ve been putting out recently I’m going to be revisiting each of the books and posting my personal thoughts on them. It’s been a lowkey goal of mine for a while to write a sizeable story set in this world- a full novel, more or less, and I’d like it to read as authentically as possible. More specifically I want this story to feel like one of the early Redwall novels. I think most folks will agree that there is a certain quality shift in the series after a point (although this isn’t universal, there have been some underwhelming early books and some good later books IMO) and by taking a close look at every one I hope to pinpoint just what it is that makes a Redwall story feel ‘oldschool’ or not.

I’m not necessarily going to be reading these in any particular order besides 'what I feel like’, although I will probably post the reviews in the original publishing order.

Each book will be judged on its primary protagonist and antagonist, its notable supporting characters, my personal favorite minor character, the overall conflict and resolution, and any other noteworthy features or gimmicks. At the end I’ll give the novel a 1-5 overall rating with 5 being the best. I may also throw in a few fanfiction prompts based on questions left unanswered or characters who could stand to be better explored.

Second on my reading list is Pearls of Lutra (1996):

Two books in one year? Woah there Brian, take it easy, it's not a race. That said it's impressive that both Lutra and Outcast came out in '96 because they're both very solid books and don't feel rushed or half-assed at all! Where Outcast may have fallen a little flat with its titular character this next installment more than makes up for it, giving us one of the most memorable and well-received vermin characters in the entire series... we'll get to her eventually. Y'all know who I'm talking about.

This is one of those novels where most of the action takes place away from Redwall Abbey, and the main villain never even leaves his territory at all. While I do tend to prefer stories where the bad guy has more motivation beyond obtaining some macguffin, there's still plenty at stake here, and the social commentary is unfortunately very relatable in this day and age as so many characters suffer just so this one wealthy asshole can decorate a crown for his stupid vain head. Eat the rich, is what I'm saying. Maybe they do taste like pine after all.

The Primary Protagonist- Grath Longfletch You might argue that Martin takes the lead as the book goes on but Grath should be the main character and she's on the book cover, so there. She's definitely got more reason than anyone to be pissed, as her entire family and clan was slaughtered for their treasure, with Grath herself driven to the brink of death. After she recovers she does what any reasonable person would do. She builds herself a bow, gets herself a boat, and heads out to kick some pirate ass. Along the way she meets up with the Redwallers and it's here where she sadly starts fading into the background. In the end I feel that Grath Longfletch gets shafted (ha ha. arrow pun. get it). Her story doesn't even get a satisfying conclusion as she exits the novel off-camera and the Redwallers handwave her away. It would have been nice to get her thoughts on finally avenging her people, or at the very least a mention in the epilogue about how she's moving forward with her life. As it is Grath Longfletch is like a wave on the ocean, building up huge momentum before dissolving completely, and that's a real shame. She could have easily carried the book on her own without the Abbey Warrior coming along to steal her thunder.

The Primary Antagonist- Emperor Ublaz Mad Eyes Holy crap, it's a pine marten! Why were these guys so insanely rare throughout the series, anyway? Ublaz isn't the most interesting out of them if you ask me, but that's not really a knock against him- he manages to be a pretty decent villain even if he never threatens Redwall personally. I think a rich pompous dick who does nothing but hoard resources on his own private island is someone we can all agree to hate these days. The Emperor's entire motivation, besides clinging on to what he's already got, is acquiring more. This whole drama starts because he wants a set of six pink pearls for his crown! That's literally it! Ublaz couldn't care less about Redwall Abbey or Mossflower Woods. The only reason they're on his radar at all is because the pearls are there. He's shallow, vain, greedy, conniving and arrogant. If he's not the most threatening villain ever then I'll argue that he's at least one of the most loathsome just for being the 1%. Ublaz is notable for having some sort of weird hypnotic power with his eyes, hence the nickname. It's never explained how this works but simply making direct eye contact with him is apparently enough to drive his own minions to suicide. If this sounds cheap it's because it is, but Ublaz isn't much of a fighter otherwise. He's explicitly gotten weak and soft from living like royalty for so long and I appreciate that detail. Mad Eyes's greatest asset is his mind, whether he's literally puppeteering others or attempting to outsmart them as even his followers are sick of his shit. The moment he does get in a swordfight he goes down like a sack of candied chestnuts.

Other Notable Major Characters: Martin- No, no, not THAT Martin, the OTHER Martin, Mattimeo's son who was named after the legendary Abbey Warrior. That is a lot to live up to and probably makes for some awkward introductions. No. Sorry. You’re thinking of someone else. Can we just call him, like, Marty instead? Morton? Bort? I'm getting off track. Anyway, Martwo here fails to live up to his predecessors. He didn't rise from adversity like the original Martin, he didn't come of age like Matthias, he didn't have to learn a hard lesson like Mattimeo, he's just there because you gotta have a token mouse warrior in the abbey, I guess. Bort is as generic a hero as you can possibly get. This makes it all the more disappointing that he comes along to push Grath Longfletch out of the spotlight and steal her kill. Mar2n is just... extraneous. You could take him out of the story entirely and still accomplish the same thing. Rollo and Auma are still around so it's not like you need this guy to establish that Pearls of Lutra is the direct sequel to Mattimeo. Without this Martin, more interesting characters would have the chance to shine.

Tansy- When Redwall is threatened by the Emperor's agents it's up to this young hedgehog to find the coveted pearls in order to pay the ransom. With help along the way from her friends, she displays enough courage and wisdom that she ends up being nominated as Redwall's next Abbess by the end. There isn't a whole lot to say about her beyond that, but she does fulfill an important role and has the good sense to slam dunk those pearls to the bottom of the sea where they belong. She knows what's up.

Rasconza- The biggest thorn in Emperor Ublaz's side throughout the story is one of his own corsairs. This fox isn't even the one who first orchestrates the rebellion, he just swoops in later to run the show and ends up being a persistent threat up til the end. When mutiny happens in the Redwall series it's usually quashed pretty quickly so this is kind of a cool thing to see. It's nice that Rasconza is there so Ublaz can do something other than twiddle his thumbs while he waits for those pearls.

Romsca- Okay, okay, you can all sit down now. Romsca is probably one of the most memorable Redwall characters ever and even if her role in the plot is actually pretty small I would be remiss if I didn't include her here. She's a corsair ferret who is tasked with guiding Ublaz's creepy lizard army to Mossflower and obtaining the pearls. Why is that so notable, you ask? Because out of the precious few 'vermin' throughout the series who have any suggestion of morality to them, Romsca has a complete little character arc and ends up doing something unquestionably good and selfless. Unfortunately because we can't have nice things it comes at the cost of her life. In a perfect world we could see her go on to thrive and have nautical adventures forever, but it does go to show just how determined she was to stick to her guns, and shows us that vermin don't have to be innately bad. Except for when they are. (Lookin' at you, Veil.) I think we can all agree that Romsca is a breath of fresh air and the series would be better with more characters like her in it. They're few and far between to begin with, and those that do exist need to get on this ferret's level.

My Favorite Minor Character: Oh, we already did Romsca? Okay, then, I like Viola for sort of going in the opposite direction, starting out as the abbey's resident crybaby and going on to find a taste for adventure. She's a shallow, fun character and that's all right. They did a similar thing with Cynthia in Mattimeo which makes me wonder if bankvoles are just Like This? Is this a stereotype bankvoles have? What even is a bankvole, really?

Pearls of Lutra is probably one of the better books, I feel like it suffers from too many characters more than anything. Marty could be cut in favor of Grath Longfletch. You could ignore all the rebelling corsairs who came before Rasconza. Even Tansy isn't really as interesting as her buddies Piknim and Craklyn (who are totally a couple if you ask me). The narrative is solid but it starts to get bogged down by the sheer number of players competing for the reader's attention. This is a story about fighting for what's really important: life is more precious than any trinket, and it's worth defending to the bitter end. It's also about eating the rich. Wealth and influence will only get you so far: if you act like a jerk, nobody is going to put up with your crap forever. I feel that this might be, like, the most political of the novels in that regard. You can have your whimsical talking animal story but there's some serious subtext here too. Beyond that, the ninth Redwall installment is also memorable for being the one where they burn down a church (wow) and the one with an absurdly large percentage of reptiles and pinnipeds in it. There's also something I noticed while reading: the naming convention in this book gets really redundant. Like weirdly so. Grath. Grall. Graylunk. Grimjaw. Groojaw. Guja. Kuja. Two of these dudes who don't matter are even named on the same page! It's a minor nitpick but I just find it bizarre. It can't be that hard to think of various names for filler characters, can it? I hear Sampetra is completely sold out of Gort license plates.

Overall Score: 4/5

#mongoosewrites #redwall

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11likeswritingfanfiction · 4 years

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Haunt, chapter one: Stay out of my town!

Fandom: IT by Stephen King but like more based on the movies that came out in the recent years and not the novel or miniseries.

Summary: Shanice Hanlon and Her Brother Mike Hanlon move to Derry after the death of their parents and encounter something that will change their lives forever.IT.

Warnings: Murder, mentions of crimes and display of trauma

Word Count: 2,346

A/N: So, this basically turned into like an alternate, novelized version of the first movie's original script and partly aspects from the novel. Anyways I mainly wrote this for fun and to relieve stress so I hope you enjoy reading this!

Read one AO3

William Hanlon was a murderer.

Shanice wanted to not believe it. She hoped it was a nightmare of some kind, a really messed up one. The day he was arrested, it’d been a particularly nice day; she remembered watching fondly at her parents as they danced to Prince. Mike had out in the park playing with neighborhood boys.

She sat to herself, laid in a recliner, reading the newest issue of JET Magazine when she heard a knock--one that only she seemed to hear. Tossing her reading material to the floor, she walked from the living room to the front door, leaning up to look through the peephole.

Two officers, both white, looking very cold. Tilting her head curiously, she opened the door as the warm summer air hit her body.

Shanice’s gaze diverts from their path with a small voice she replies, “What’s up, Officer?”

“Hey, Sweetheart. Do you know William Hanlon?”

“Yeah, that’s my Daddy. What’s going on?”

Something wasn’t right.

She could feel it.

She didn’t answer but her eyes darted to her parents who were laughing and smiling. When she doesn’t say anything, the officers glance over her shoulder at the cheery couple.

“If you stand there and stall you for his protection, you’ll be obstructing justice, young lady.”

“What, you can’t--”

She feels her body shoved out of view as the men rushed into their small two-room apartment. She could feel her mother yelling and her father suddenly burst into a rage. Blood rushed to her ears, her wide, dark eyes glued on her father’s figure.

Chaos, pure chaos.

The memory she had of her father was nothing but a mask, a cover-up to who he was outside of their safe apartment.

Everything is a lie, nothing but lies!

“I ain’t goin’ to jail-that thing told me to do it. I ain't no murderer!” Tears started to stream down her cheek as--she wanted to holler, but she couldn’t utter a word or a sound.

“William stop it, put down that gun!” Her mother runs over trying to wrestle the gun out of her father’s hands, which eventually goes off and causes a stillness to go over the room.

Her mother’s body fell first, her eyes wide and petrified. Her breaths were shallow-- her body twitched as she bled out on the floor. She seemed to mumble something, something Shanice couldn’t make out.

Then, she was gone just like that.

It was surreal, intangible to her eyes.

“Sir put down the weapon.” As the officers urged him to stop, her father just stood there with a smile on his face.

“Ain’t no way I’m goin’ down without my Baby Girl." His arms stretched out, he calls out to her.

"Shanice, Baby girl. Come on to Daddy, everything’s gonna be okay. We're gonna be--” With her body trembling, the teenage girl rushes out the door in a sprint, screaming. As she dashes through her neighborhood, she flags down her brother on his way back down the street.

“Hey, Shay, what’s up? Why are there a bunch of cop cars out here? Why--Shay? Shay, what’s wrong?”

“Daddy he...he shot mom, h-he’s coming for us--we gotta run--”

A resonating gunshot fills their ears before Shanice could finish her sentence. She dropped to her knees, not caring about the harsh sting on the sidewalk.

When she saw the officers rush out, she knew one thing--her father was dead. Unknown if by himself or by an officer

He was dead.

When it was discovered that her father murdered twelve children between during his twenties--and more that investigators speculate.

Shanice and her brother Mike were condemned for his actions before their move because they were a ‘unit’ and the actions of one cemented them as a whole But where they were themselves, another league of victims that suffered due to his crimes.

A man died the day her father was arrested, not William Hanlon, the murderer, but the man she thought was her father along with her mother.

Moving to Derry was a lot for a fourteen-year-old who experienced the tragedy of seeing both of her parents and a thirteen-year-old who feels he should’ve been there.

It was a place they'd spent their early years at, it is held with some sort of nostalgia.

After climbing herself into the bed of her grandfather's truck, Shanice peered over at her brother with a small smile.

“It’s gonna be okay Mike--alright?” The young boy nods--Shanice wonders if she said the words only to comfort Mike or herself. After a month of being in state custody, being petrified and scarred was the least of her worries.

She was afraid. She hated that part of her, the part that made her human.

Being afraid is time-consuming; being afraid gives way for cowardice. Being afraid stopped her from being by her mother’s side, being afraid stopped her from confronting her father.

Moreover, she’d be the one to look after Mike when her grandfather eventually dies too.

Shanice was wearing jean shorts and a white, polo shirt, indicative of the summer heat. She hangs her head between her legs, the heaviness of her braids connected with her heart. Feeling emotional exhaustion, she curls up and forces herself to sleep on the bed of an unforgiving truck bed.

For the first time in a long time, she didn’t have a dream or a nightmare. What wakes her up is the sharp jerk of her grandfather’s truck and she finds him grinning a toothy grin at her.

“Alright Baby Girl, we’re here!”

A farmhouse, one she remembered playing in as a kid. Chasing around pigs and playing in the creek--she’d be happier to be there if it wasn’t for the circumstances. She quietly descends from the back of the truck, taking the bulk of their things. Her brother was as her grandfather described as ‘soft’ and the aforementioned man was already in his sixties, worn down from working diligently for years--she felt it was more than necessary.

“You shouldn’t be carrying all those things, let Granddad take it.” Shanice waves off her grandfather’s helping hand.

“It’s cool, Texas built me well. I’ve got it.”

....

“Go on now. Pull it.”

“I don’t want to do this.”

“People need to eat.”

“But how would you feel? Raised for food...” Shanice, who was drinking a glass of Kool-Aid watched as her grandfather attempted to teach her brother how--slaughter a sheep. She frowned. Her brother was such a sweet boy, couldn’t harm a fly even if he was forced to--and this was the exact opposite of the Patriarch.

“Like I’d want you to get it over with is how I’d feel... Remember what I told you? You gotta do this quick. If the animal senses what you’re about to do, if it starts to fear you, adrenaline courses through its body and changes the taste and the meat winds up tough.” Drinking the rest of the red liquid, Shanice sets her glass down and makes her way over to the barn.

“Granddaddy, forcing him ain’t gonna do you no good.”

“Babying the boy ain’t gonna do you no good.” He then turns to the machine and without an inkling of hesitation pulling the trigger, killing the sheep it was aiming for.

“You need to start taking more responsibility around here, Mike. Your Dad was younger than you when he took this over--”

“But what if I can’t? What if I don’t want to do this, be here.” His words made Shanice frown--Watching silently as their grandfather spoke on.

“Look at me--you too Baby Girl.” The old man points to the sheep lined up to be slaughtered--quietly, patiently.

Waiting to be consumed.

“Let me y’all about being here. ‘Cuz you two need to understand something. There are two places you can be in this world. You can be out here, like us. Or you can be in there, like those eager bastards right there”

He continues with, “And if you waste too much time hemming and hawing, that choice is gonna be made for you. ‘Cept you won’t know it 'til you feel the bolt blast right between your eyes.” Shanice blankly stares at him, unaffected by the words while her brother trembles in fear.

“Ok, ok. Here." She hands then both sandwiches wrapped in saran wrap.

"A cheese sandwich for Mike and a BLT for you granddaddy.”

While the two men in her life sit at the living room watching the news, Shanice looks outside, at the forest outlining their house.

She didn’t hate Derry but something about Derry left her feeling like there was something outlining--maybe she thought too much.

A few weeks passed, today was Shanice’s last day of class. Mike remained home, homeschooled by their Granddaddy who said, "The boy needs to learn about the land."

Finishing off her bowl of cereal, as her brother appears from his room.

“Remember to do that test so we wrap stuff off it mail it off, ok? I'll see you when I get home.” Shanice mutters to her little brother, giving him a tight hug.

“Ride safe--don’t speak to strangers.” Shanice blinks at her grandfather who has her blocked from leaving the driveway. Its been a minute since they moved to Derry, but he still went over the same Spiel to her every morning.

“Granddaddy I’m already fourteen, you know?" Shanice groan, feeling as if she was practically ancient at that age, "You’ve been saying that since we got here.”

“And? You’re prey to anything out there.” Shanice rolls her eyes, beginning to ride away.

“I’ll keep that in mind!”

Shanice arrived at the school--preteens, teenagers fill the entrance like crowded in herds like those doomed sheep at the farm. She gripped her backpack, it being empty--her knowing it was the last day and that she wouldn't bother trying to stay in class.

Watching students dispersing in to clear out their lockers, walking, she overhears a group of boys talking.

“How’s it work?”

“They slice part of his penis off.”

“That can’t be true. He’d have nothing left...”

She grimaces.

Boys discussing circumcision.

Nice.

Shaking her head, she gets to the girl’s bathroom, where she planned to attempt to wait until the bell rung.

She pauses when she hears a commotion coming from the lockers around the corner.

“...I think I can handle this.”

There’s a bang as if something or someone slammed against it followed by mocking laughter.

“Sure know how to spread ‘em, slut!”

Her face tenses up. She quickly debates whether or not to get herself involved-- resigning to help the girl. She slams open the door she's cooped up, letting her presence known. At her reveal, the girls stiffen--one, in particular, stood with a hockey stick in her hand. Her eyes glance at another girl, a redhead who seemed to be shaking. Her pale knees were bruised pretty badly. She glares at the girls, who quickly leave, like a gaggle of hens.

“Hey, you okay?”

When the girl nods, Shanice lets out a sigh of relief.

The last thing she could make out on the girl was her fiery hair as she ran off in the opposite direction, making her way to her destination.

It’s around four by the time the Shanice leaves school. After picking up Mike and dropping off his test materials at the post office, Shanice decides to stop for tv tray meals as a substitute for a dinner that didn't feel like cooking--she calls her grandfather at a payphone in advance that they’d be a little late.

Stopping and parking the car on the side of the street, there’s a woman frantically stapling a poster to a light post. It was a missing child flyer for a kid named Dorsey Corcoran. Right beside it is a sign that says, ‘REMEMBER THE CURFEW, 7 P.M.’

She spots the two siblings running over to hand the older of the two.

"Please tell me if you've seen my son. Please."

Both of the siblings stare at her retreating figure in silent sympathy, heading in the grocery store after a beat.

It was such a sign of fleeting hope.

“What’s up?” He asks her brother as they make their way through the small grocery store. He seemed to be off in his thoughts, so she felt like something was wrong. Ever since the accident, he’d gotten quieter, and quieter.

It was concerning.

The boy looks the other way and mutters, “Nothing.” and she drops it, for now.

Riding home, she glances over at her brother.

“Try to put up with Granddaddy this summer, ok?” ‘We’re the only people he has left.’ She wanted to add but decided against it.

He nods and she adds, “I’ll do the farm work too.”

His face brightens up and it cheers her up as well.

The next day, Shanice decides to look for work and to drop off meat at the Butcher’s with Mike after he insisted on going--probably because he didn’t feel comfortable alone with their grandfather.

After finishing those duties they head out on her bike, Shanice has a feeling she can’t shake.

The feel of being followed.

“I think someone’s following us.” She could feel her brother’s confused expression through his voice.

“Who?” He turns around. She sees some sort of sports car--it starts honking at them, not letting off. It starts to increase in speed, edging on them as if to swallow them whole. Her brother frantically goes faster and faster until they manage to crash into a tree.

Laughter and mischievous hollering emerge from the car, as well as a taunt.

“Stay the fuck out of my town!”

“Hey! What the fuck is wrong with y'all?” Shanice yells at the car as it flies away, helping her brother to his feet. She looks at themselves--he wasn't hurt too bad, neither was she.

The real damage was her bike--it mangled beyond recognition.

“Let’s just carry this thing to the house, Mike.” She says, turning to her brother, who seems to be locked in a trance by something.

“Mike?”

“Huh?”

She frowns.

“Let’s go home.”

#it stephen king #it 2016

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