#( the symbolism of me replacing capitalism with friendship )

[clochanamarch]

me using my old work notebook to write down all my mutuals so i can start sending the ic gifts early this year:

[transmalewife]

does anyone have any leftist reading on the subject of tourism to recommend? Specifically about how travel for fun, education, sport, friendship or whatever might work in a communist or anarchist or socialist society. Because like yeah, open borders or no borders whatever, cool. But that usually only gets discussed in the context of permanent immigration

Idk I guess I just find it hard to imagine how it could be organized since where I live the most obvious ways capitalism has made things worse over my lifetime have all happened because of and through the lens of tourism. Rents literally doubling over the last five years, while the standard of living falls because apartments are bought, split into tiny pieces and renovated to accomodate a couple days of living at most. The specific kind of gentrification that is NOT being pushed out by richer people moving in permanently, who might cause more expensive shops and services to replace the affordable ones, but do still need the basic necessities everyone does to live. Instead, all hairdressers, repair shops, clothing stores (especially thrift shops), pharmacies, post offices etc etc close and are replaced by luxury boutiques, clubs and stores whre you can only buy snacks, alcohol and microwave meals. Restaurants and bars hiking up prices because most of their clients come from places with stronger currencies etc etc.

At the same time though I believe travel is a crucial part of a fulfilling life for most if not all people. I believe people have the right to see and appreciate the culture and history of other places and also like... maybe go somewhere warmer and lay on the beach sometimes, even if they prefer to live and work somewhere colder. Or go skiing even if they chose to live somewhere warm and without mountains. Or even just like... vacation in a big city if they live in the countryside and vice versa. Or pop over to another continent to visit an online friend maybe. Although obviously intercontinental travel would have to be hugely limited until and unless we find ways to do it that don't destroy our planet.

At the same time some precautions do have to be taken to protect historical and especially sacred sites. Like, I don't think endless crowds should be allowed to trample through historical buildings and also open borders obviously doesn't mean white tourists get to go camping on Uluru. But on some level I do believe everyone who wants to should get to see Venice at least once in their life. But that's probably not feasible so like... who gets to decide? On what merit? Are historians, artists, journalists privileged? Or should it be a lottery?

Also I think there's a significant amount of tourism that would simply die out if going to that place wasn't a status symbol. Like you cannot convince me that if you spend 2 weeks by the pool in an enclosed luxury resort it makes a difference that it's on Hawaii rather than like... in florida. And then theres places like the Hamptons. What the fuck is the point of the Hamptons, other than bragging rights?

Obviously I know none of this is even remotely the main pressing issue to solve about a potential communist society, but then again, that's why I'm asking for reading materials, because it so rarely gets discussed. I mean I bet Marx wrote about it, which, great, point me to the relevant fragments please and I'll have a look but also this is an issue where a modern perspective would be really important. I don't think Marx, for all his wisdom, really has a solution to "what are the ethics of taking an 8 hour flight to visit a tumblr mutual".

Or maybe this whole thing is me being cynical and this is another place where things would sort of just regulate themselves. Anyway. Send me reading recs and let's very unscientifically try to check if it could work. Do try to be honest, like I've been several times as a kid and I would still go again in a heartbeat.

btw the goal of the poll is to get some kind of percentage that can be compared with the world population and how many tourists venice can support per year, though I obviously know tumblr skews mainly american and european

[theoriginalsapphic]

Why I Believe That Byler Is Endgame (based only on what we have seen on the show). part 3

And by that, i mean: no color-coding analysis, no set props analysis, no actor interviews interpretation, no script analysis, no movies parallels analysis; nada. Only what we’ve seen on the show and nothing else.

This will use a lot of comparisons with m/leven because, despite the fact that some of you refuse to admit it, this is a love triangle.

the importance of music

Stranger Things has been praised multiple times for their fantastic use of music, two of the biggest examples being the use of 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go' by The Clash, and most recently, the use of 'Running Up That Hill' by Kate Bush. The point is, music it's extremely important in this show and very thought-out.

You Spin me Round (Like a Record) by Dead Or Alive

This song plays when Mike, El, and Will are dropped off at Rink O Mania by Jonathan and Argyle.

The producers worked for 36 hours straight, and the result was a radio hit that not only climbed the Hi-NRG charts but cracked the british mainstream. Pete Burns, Dead or Alive frontman, said:

“It was the sound of the underground. It was a sound that was fundamentally only accessible at gay clubs, and he’d taken it out of gay clubs and put it onto mainstream radio, which was a triumph”.

The singer, especially in the video, is noted for being ambiguously gay.

Tarzan Boy by Baltimora

The show goes back to Rink O Mania and this song starts playing in the background. Mike, El, and Will are drinking milkshakes,when Angela and her friends appear. They take El away from them and to the skating rink; Will stands up, worried, while Mike remains clueless and drinking his milkshake. Finally, Will tells Mike that El has been lying him this whole time. The song plays until it’s replaced by  ‘Wipeout’ by The Surfaris and El becomes the victim of a vicious and humiliating bullying attack.

In the song, the singer comes off as a person who is relishing a carefree lifestyle therein. And apparently he is trying to relay this sentiment to someone in his hometown who has yet to make the leap. Indeed he assures the addressee that if he or she actually leaves “everything behind” and joins him, they “won’t be sorry”.

Baltimora’s frontman, Jimmy McShane, was a gay man born in Northern Ireland that decided to escape his homophobic small town and unsupportive family by moving to London.

In the closet (at Rink o Mania) by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein

After El is bullied, she runs away from Mike and Will, and hides in the room for employees. Mike and Will are searching for El when they begin discussing their crumbling friendship in a heated argument.

Note: as soon as the track begins playing, Mike is the only one to speak; Will doesn’t have one single piece of dialogue after the tracks begins playing.

The First I love You by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein

This song plays twice during the entirety of season 3.

Before El leaves Hawkins, she asks Mike what he and Max were talking about back at the cabin. After Mike fails to confess his love for her, El reveals that she loves him, and they share a kiss.

...and...

During that scene with Steve and Robin. With the drugs wearing off, robin asks steve if he has ever been in love, and he admits he was in love with Nancy, but states he is no longer in love with her and moved on, and has, in fact, developed feelings for someone else. It doesn’t take long for Robin to realize he is speaking about her, at which she reacts with a distressed look. When Steve asks her what she thinks, Robin comes out to him as a lesbian.

Note: the word ‘love’ is the only word that isn’t capitalized in the title, probably to symbolize that the confessor’s feelings are unrequited because the person they confessed to is queer.

Heroes by David Bowie (Peter Gabriel's version)

Although 'Heroes' is known for its triumphant tone, the series decided to utilize gabriel's more somber and haunting version of the song in the scene in which "Will's body" is found at the quarry.

As the chords of the song begins playing, the scene focuses on the different reactions of the characters. It starts with Hopper, who is devastated that he failed at the task of finding Will alive and safe, and has to now break the news to his mother, carrying the knowledge of what it's like to lose a child. The focus changes to Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and El, who are hiding behind an ambulance as they watch their friend's body being lifted off the water. There is heartbreak, anger, and disbelief expressions on their faces, and the scene cuts with Mike biking off to his house, away from the party. Then it cuts to Joyce, who is running away from the demogorgon and accidentally stumbles on Jonathan driving his car. Then it cuts back to Mike, who arrives at his house in a state of shock, and is comforted by his mom. The scene cuts back once again to Joyce and Jonathan, embracing each other in the middle of the dirt road as sirens approach them from the distance.

The titular “heroes” of this David Bowie song are lovers (the singer and his partner). And both the singer and his woman are hell-bent on enjoying each other’s company despite the odds being against their romance. Indeed it can even be deemed from the lyrics of the song that their relationship is actually forbidden. As such, the idea of them having a normal union is totally out of the question. So instead they opt to spend “just… one day” together despite this decision, as alluded to earlier, putting their very wellbeing at risk. 

And it is this action which has earned them the distinction of being classified as “heroes”. And what action are we talking about? Their willingness to love each other regardless of the fact that they are doing so under dangerous circumstances. And although it is never mentioned forthrightly in the song, this is based on the two of them being from opposing sides of the now-defunct Berlin Wall.

When the scene focuses specifically on Mike, these lyrics in particular play:

"And the guns

Shot above our heads

And we kissed

As though nothing could fall

And the shame"

These specific lyrics, in my opinion, encapsulates what the song is about. Two lovers stand in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, surrounded by an atmosphere of hatred, and yet, despite of the possible consequences, they kiss in an act of defiance.

All i'm saying it's that it's interesting how these specific lyrics plays when the scene is focusing on Mike only.

Peter Gabriel explained it better himself:

"[Heroes] It is heroism in the face of oppression and desperation; it’s something triumphant despite the desperate situation" 

[vasiktomis]

Pomegranate, Chapter 17: Quiet Earth, Part I.

John Seed x Female Deputy

Rating: Explicit.

Read it on Ao3 here!

Notes: Thanks all who have been keeping up with this! I'm so consistently floored by the amount of content creators we have in this fandom corner and the sheer level of workmanship that exists here. This is the first chapter of Pom that I'll be posting to tumblr, and I'm hoping to draw up a little sketch with each update. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Big thank you to @shallow-gravy and @consumedkings as always for dealing with my stupidity and being a pair of top-notch angels, and also just like, everybody who takes time out of their day to engage with this? Y'all really sticking with ultra slow burn and I swear after some wicked angst in the next couple of chapters I'll finally be able to throw some well-deserved smut at you. WARNINGS: Forced conversion, descriptions of dissociation and derealisation, explicit language, sexual content, depictions of violence, guns, blood and gore. Canon-typical debauchery.

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“Don’t touch him!”

Mary May lunged with enough force for John to feel the wake of air sweep through him, even with how quickly she was snatched up and yanked back to her place. The soles of her tennis shoes squeaked against the floor as she was dragged to the far side of the room, unable to be trusted with providing audience to Nick’s Atonement.

A shame, really. It was nicer as a shared experience.

The Baptist rolled his jaw, off-setting some of the tension arising from the shrieks that the blonde flung at the back of his head. He righted himself, taking the tattoo gun from one of his faithful with a gracious nod, and turned his attention down to the pilot currently pinned to the floor. Without a word, he sank to his knees, straddling the man, keeping silent as he could just to listen out for any change in his demeanour. Fear. Grief. Defeat. Acceptance. A sign to prove his readiness.

Nick didn't flinch, breathing hard through his nose and watching with hateful eyes. John hovered an indicating hand over the man’s bare chest, bruised from the fight he’d put up against his capture, mentally mapping out placement. Then, he came in with the needle, beginning with the stem of an ’E’, right in the centre of Nick's sternum.

The pilot snorted, masking discomfort with indifference, turning a wince into a scoff. “Figures you don’t use stencils. I ain’t got a hope in hell of this turning out good, do I.”

That casual old Nick attitude. He missed it.

If only he’d let him do this 5 years ago. He wouldn’t have had to miss it.

John feigned offense. “Oh I’m sorry, Nick. Did you want me to do the rest in cursive? Add a feather? Infinity symbol?”

“For fuck’s sake-”

“Talk about tonal dissonance. It’s not meant to be pretty.” He grumbled. “Might’ve gotten a little more practice if you��d-”

A yell from the rear entryway pulled John’s hand away from his canvas. More squeaking. More interruption. Jerome Jeffries getting hauled into the church, held under each arm by the pair of Chosen that John had sent looking for him.

The Baptist cast a look over his shoulder at them, content with the sight of Jerome adequately beaten and bloodied. “Ahh. Pastor. Try to run and hide? It’s no wonder your flock ran astray with a shepherd so quick to leave them to the wolves.”

Jerome ignored him. No reply. No eye contact. A crime John noted to make worthy of capital punishment in the New Eden. The Pastor was set down beside Mary May, who immediately began seeing to his injuries. Murmuring bubbled between them.

“Did you reach them?” The bartender asked. Must’ve been a negative, because the next thing she did was curse.

“The Deputy was calling when they caught me.”

And if she had half the spine to come and broker an agreement for her friends, she’d be inbound.

“Could you at least gag them? I’m trying to concentrate.” John ordered no one in particular, earning another scoff from Nick. “The faster we work, the less we’ll have to get through once she arrives. The quicker we can be out of this heinous town.”

“Stay away from her, shitbag.” The pilot ground out, this time unable to save face when John retaliated, pressing the gun just a little too hard, digging down through an extra few layers of skin.

“Nick Rye, you’re a married man.” John tutted playfully, resuming his work. “That sin of yours again. Take, take, take. Didn’t think the Deputy to be your type. Wouldn’t say you’re hers, either.”

Nick looked downright disgusted at the prospect. Less concerned for the state of his wife - which meant she'd been a likely getaway. “Always been so fuckin’ jealous.”

“Come again?”

“Think folks are stupid? Think I don’t know you?”

“You don't know me, period.” John bit back, skin on the back of his neck flushing between boiling and freezing.

“Anyone else givin’ you this much trouble’d be long dead by now. That shit on the radio? Reckon you’d be talkin’ like that if your family could hear you across the river?” Nick continued, averting his gaze when John shot him a particularly poisonous look. He didn’t, however, find it necessary to respond to such a veiled accusation.

At least until -

“Everybody knows you wanna stick it to her, John-”

As if he’d been awaiting the chance, John’s free hand shot to Nick’s jaw, aching in protest when he squeezed, not stopping until he could feel the man’s molars beneath his flesh. “That’s about enough from you.” He crooned.

John had his desires, yes. He’d accepted that much. Had he not been sworn to celibacy, he might have jumped at the opportunity to respond to Cora’s advances last night. That said, she was still an outsider, and while her Atonement made the prospect less dicey, he couldn’t consciously consider laying with the woman in real life.

No matter how torturous it had become to gear his thoughts toward anything else.

He could be content with just her company, without making any further advances on her. Last night had simply been a moment of weakness, and he’d prevailed by stepping away.

“If you’ll excuse me.” John switched off the little machine once he’d completed his piece and promptly stood to beckon for replacement parts. Mary May might have gotten away with an allergic reaction last time he’d attempted this, but considering he’d be slicing it out of her within the hour, he couldn’t see any reason for her to be complaining. The bartender had been a thorn in his side from the start. While Nick and his wife had once lent John their...whatever a sinner’s closest equivalent was to friendship, Mary May had always been trouble. Wore her heart on her sleeve and trusted no one she hadn’t grown up around. Bolshie. Almost fucking killed him, once.

John busied himself with needle transfers and a pleasant expression. He could feel the woman’s eyes on him.

Did she think what Nick proclaimed? That complete and utter lie?

How fucking crass. No, he did not want to ’stick it’ to Cora. At least, as far as anyone else was concerned. He was fond of her, and - while yes, he had encountered temptation - if one disregarded the cum-stained, stolen panties in his pocket, and the conjured fantasies, and the purely incidental erection he’d maintained after the Deputy stuck her tongue down his throat last night - there was simply no evidence to suggest to anyone else that he was even remotely tempted to break the rules.

Sex was the furthest thing from his mind. It was mere coincidence that today had just so happened to fall on a morning in which he’d needed to trim.

…

If, however, she were to decide that she wanted to continue what she’d attempted last night, then surely he couldn’t be to blame if he only failed to stop her. It wasn’t technically fornication if he didn’t initiate it. Nor was it considered intercourse if -

“Brother John.”

John jumped, heart stopping, whipping his head around to the Chosen standing at the door of the church.

“What?" He asked thickly.

“The Deputy’s arrived.”

Right on cue, the crackling of gunshots drifted in alongside the Chosen’s announcement.

“Tell everyone to hold their fire.” John ordered. “We have them outnumbered tenfold. The Deputy can’t be stupid enough to create a hostage situation. Direct her here, and peacefully.”

The Chosen’s throat bobbed, swallowing back outrage, and John squinted hard at him, trying to dispel the flicker of green light in the mist outside as it settled against the man’s temple.

“John, I don’t think-”

He never got a chance to act on that incoming insubordination.

Instead, he jerked, cut off by a sickening crack as a section of his skull blew out of his head. Red mist and liquified brain matter followed, splattering against the doorframe, and the Chosen slumped lifeless onto the front step.

John wasn’t so much shaken by the killing as he was irritated by everyone else’s apparent refusal to let today go according to plan. Maybe also the pile of brains and hair now sitting on his once-pristine red carpet. He’d made this easy for the woman: kill everyone he could round up, leave her with no one to claim duty to, and get this all over and done with. Have her home by mid-afternoon. Embark on a new chapter and achieve salvation. It was that simple.

Woe to him for trusting in her common sense.

“Fuck’s sake. Wrath begets more wrath.” He muttered, smoothing a hand over his chin. He didn’t have the patience for this any longer. “Fine. Sister -”

A woman stood from the pews as soon as John made eye contact, equally as unshaken by the scene mere feet away.

“Send out word: the Deputy wants to sacrifice her friends for the sake of a fight.” John punctuated the end of his sentence with a click as he returned his focus to jamming the needles into his tattoo gun. “Give her what she wants. Take her by force.”

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The smokescreen was beginning to clear, but despite the weight it was taking off her lungs, Cora would’ve preferred it remain just a little longer. At least until they’d cleared out the town. Had they been quicker, it might have lasted longer. Covered their approach to Fall’s End. Given them more cover to sneak about unseen.

The streets, while still hazy, were visible now. It wasn’t a difficult task watching Peggie silhouettes run from building to building in search of her team. Resistance members and civilians were either in the process of being rounded up, or littered the road and pavement, dead. The Ryes, Mary May, and Pastor Jerome were yet to be seen amongst either group.

Same went for Boomer.

Aside from the barking of orders from Chosen and faithful, there was little sound. Knowing how much of a fuss her dog had put up the last time he’d been caught by the Project struck Cora’s nerves. He was his own alarm, and he would not go peacefully.

Not hearing him was an indication of the worst.

Some part of her brain argued against the idea. Vouching that John wouldn’t have hurt the creature. That was her dog. He had to be an exception to the massacre, no matter how vicious he behaved.

She had to find him, and creeping through the rear entry of the Spread Eagle was the first point of call.

Luckily enough, the back door had yet to be boarded up. Peggies who rushed past covered windows hardly stopped to peek inside the place for fear of being tainted by the presence of alcohol. Sneaking in was simple enough, too, at least once Jess had picked the lock.

“I’m going to pretend that door was open.” The Deputy murmured her equivalent to praise, passing into the building.

Grace headed straight in after her, taking a left to search for any sign of Mary May while she took a right toward the stairs.

“You pretend the Cook’s head was already gone when we found him?” Jess whispered.

“Freak accident. You all saw it.”

“First floor’s clear.” Grace announced from the serving hatch in the kitchen, clearly unhappy about it.

“Right.” Cora acknowledged, “I’ll check up top.”

The second story was as dead-quiet as the first. Furniture had been knocked over in the hallway and bedrooms had been raided. None of it indicated anything good, but she still had to know.

Cora pushed open the door to her room, and while she held no expectation of what she’d find, her heart sank anyway.

It was empty.

Boomer was gone.

Only his makeshift collar and a tattered bandana remained atop the rug he’d been snoozing on that morning.

Her dog.

John had either taken him or killed him, just like the rest. He’d do the same to the rest of her team. She should’ve taken the Baptist’s offer before the latter had even become a possibility.

“No sign?” Grace affirmed once the Deputy slipped back down to the first floor. “My guess is either they’re in hiding, or John’s giving them special treatment. If they were dead he’d be parading them.”

Sharky and Hurk exchanged a frown when Cora offered only a nod, notably more meek than usual.

“Was he in there, darlin’?” Adelaide asked, a little too gently not to invite a sting to her eyes.

Cora felt her jaw clench. It was a different breed of nausea, trying to keep her composure under the scrutiny of the rest of the team. She managed to shake her head, and Adelaide’s hand found her shoulder.

“Could still be with the others, yet.” The woman offered.

“So how do we find them?” Jess asked.

Find John Seed, of course.

“Finding them’s one thing. Getting to them might be the harder part.” Cora began. “The smokescreen’s only getting thinner and there’s Peggies everywhere. It's grasslands from here to the hills. No way we can herd everyone across a field on-foot, safely. We’ve got to make sure they stay freed, first.”

“And?” Jess huffed. “We’re gonna kill some Peggies, right?”

The blonde considered that.

“We split up. Search the buildings for anyone who hasn’t been caught yet. Round them up and plant explosives as we go. With enough chaos, maybe we can have a shot at turning the tide in the short term.”

Sharky was practically trembling. “Explosives, like, everywhere?”

“Everywhere. The more damage, the better.” Cora replied. “Adelaide, Xander, pair up. Sharky and Hurk, same with you.”

“And us on range?” Jess grinned, trading a look with Grace who maintained absolute stoicism. “I’m so into that.”

“No.”

…

“Say what?”

“No more ranged attacks. I need you and Grace to head back to the van -”

Jess was advancing on her before she’d even finished her sentence.

“You’re pulling me outta the fight? The fuck gives?” The huntress loomed over the Deputy, incredulous. Cora made an effort to stay put, but Jess’s insistence managed to outweigh her stubbornness, forcing the blonde to compromise by leaning as far back as she could without falling.

“We can’t keep running on short-term wins.” Cora insisted. “We have to put our foot down. No more small assaults. No more hoping John gets demoralised enough that he hands himself over.”

Sharky frowned. “What’re you saying?”

She met his gaze, puffing out her chest, retaking her space. “I’m saying the Henbane Bridge is unmanned right now. If we get word to the County Jail, there’s no roadblock to stop them from helping us win this. John Seed’s throwing everything he can at us. I say we try for the same. I say we end it for good. We’re gonna take back Holland Valley. Today.”

“...You really like that dog, huh.”

“That too.”

Jess looked unconvinced. “So the two of us are running errands while the rest of you are holding the fort? Fucking bullshit.”

“I told you. No more range.” Cora bit back, jabbing a thumb toward Hurk and Sharky. “You’d rather send Boshaws and Drubmans to convince Tracey to send us her best people? No offence.”

“None taken, bitch.” Adelaide grumbled.

Grace exhaled, throwing away momentary hesitation. “We’ll be fast.”

Cora traded a nod with the sniper before looking to Jess once more.

Still unconvinced.

“They have cars with guns on them, remember?”

The corner of Jess’s mouth ticked. Temptation.

Mission accomplished.

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The tacky fucking carpet was the first thing she noticed, creeping along Main Street. Bliss petals had been sprinkled all over the road leading up to the church.

The carpet ended at the door. An invitation if she ever saw one. Boastful. Arrogant.

A pang of dread ached through Cora's bones, holding her in place while she drew her revolver. It could be an ambush. It probably was an ambush, but there was nothing she could feasibly do to avoid it. If the others were in there, then she couldn't wait around any longer.

She had to do this. At least hold out until Jess and Grace returned, with or without help.

She'd been running for long enough. All other options had been exhausted. At least John offered the least awful defeat.

Drawing close to the entrance, the Deputy pointedly avoided examining a dead crow that had been impaled upon the wall. She inhaled, holding the breath in her lungs, steadying her heart rate.

It was only freedom.

She opened the door, immediately training the gun out before her, following its guide into the room.

About a dozen Peggies dotted the space, leaning against walls, lining the pews - all angled at the pulpit, observing Nick on the floor. He stifled a cry while John sliced through the final remaining layers of skin binding the tattoo to his chest, peeling the word 'GREED' out of his flesh. Blood pooled on the floor around them, and the moment John had stepped away, the pilot was descended on with antiseptic and bandages.

The Deputy waited for nausea at the sight to take its course. It never did. She was all but numbed to the sight.

"Deputy, run!"

Mary May's voice cut through the silence, and the bartender lurched from her own spot on the ground. Guns raised all around the room, swinging around to aim for Cora.

”Hold!” John barked immediately, unconcerned when the Deputy shifted her aim to him. Instead, he busied himself with washing his sullied hands. “Hold your fire.”

His followers obeyed.

Cora, meanwhile, cocked the revolver in her grip. One foot edged into the room, and she glanced around for the Project’s captives before returning her gaze to John. All on the other side of the room. Pinned. Fuck.

“Hope County Sheriff’s Department.” She announced, staring the Baptist down, ignoring the grin that crept onto his face - like he found it fucking funny. “Weapons on the ground. Step away from the hostages.”

“Hostages?” John snorted. He gestured Pastor Jerome, Mary May, and Nick. “These are guests! This is their Atonement. This is your Atonement.”

“Drop the fucking weapons.”

John’s patience thinned. Quickly. “I’m not doing this with you.” He replied simply. “Not today.”

With his own look around the room, John inclined his head. An unspoken order to which everyone carrying a gun turned them on her allies.

“We both know you don’t have enough bullets for everyone. Nor do you have the time. So why don’t you put down my gun and surrender.”

“Don’t-” Mary May was cut off with the tap of steel against her temple. Warning.

John was right. She was outnumbered. There was no chance of getting any of them out with force alone.

She inhaled. Exhaled. Watched the fondness slip back onto John’s face like it had never left, and set the gun on the floor.

“That’s my girl.” John murmured. Then, he motioned. “Get her ready.”

Cora’s stomach dropped as two sets of arms coiled around hers, each pulling and pushing, prickling at her skin with unfamiliar, sickening touch. Biology told her to resist. Escape the sensation. The downward pulling.

“No, stop it.” Escaped her while she squirmed. “Get off. Stop touching me-”

“Her friends can’t be far. Find them.” The Baptist ordered, turning away toward the pulpit.

Cora’s knees hit the floor. There was no holding the repetition of protests, but even as she consciously elevated the volume of her voice, it grew quieter in her ears. Calculated attempts to jerk away and make an escape became automatic twitches.

One of John’s followers - a female - crept into view, fingers tugging at the top button on her uniform collar. John readied a tattoo gun over the woman’s shoulder, and the Deputy’s mind screamed alarm bells. Get out. Escape. Fight back. Regain control.

“I won’t hurt you, sister.”

This time, she sank, curling forward, angling herself away from the woman. Another attempt, and she wrenched away again, snarling. Then, the Peggies around her must have gotten tired of all the fuss, because the tear of cotton clawed at her ears. Ringing through her brain.

Her back felt cold all of a sudden.

Green material slipped down her arms, and at the sight of her own uniform pooling in shreds in her own lap, Cora ceased her thrashing. The shredded shirt was yanked from her belt and tossed aside, and she watched with growing resignation while John turned back around.

His gaze found hers. Then flickered downward, first to the compression bra, then a margin to the right. “Here I thought you’d be unmarked.” He commented, inspecting what was visible of the old ink on her lower ribs while he approached.

Hands pressed against Cora’s shoulders, and she drifted back until her shoulder blades hit the floor.

John continued to loom until he stood directly over her. He sank to his knees, expression softening with his descent until he was on all fours on top of her. He looked almost adoring, and she hated how it comforted her, just slightly. She hated how the hands had disappeared from her limbs, and yet she still made no further attempt to escape. He had every ounce of power now.

She didn’t know she’d started trembling until his free hand swept over her collarbones, mapping out her chest, calming the gooseflesh beading on her from the chill, or the fright, or perhaps just that this whole thing felt so humiliatingly exposing.

A blush swelled over John’s throat, maybe indicating some straying line of thought. He snapped out of it and settled to sit on her hips. “This looks familiar, doesn’t it?” He teased, hovering the tattoo gun right over the centre of her sternum.

“Dont.” Was all she could manage. Weak. Pleading. “I don’t want you to.”

“You have no idea how good you’re going to feel after this.” John cooed.

One of his fingers drifted along her jaw. An attempt at comforting her, but to no avail. He looked equal parts gentle and feral with excitement.

The machine buzzed, lowering pitch when the needles finally pressed into her flesh.

This was it.

She’d lost. There was no going back, anymore. No more normal, no more ridding herself of this family. They’d taken everything, and now they were claiming ownership over her, too.

The others were being hunted. It was only a matter of time. John was working too quickly. They’d be gone before the Cougars even crossed the river.

Cora’s nerves muted. Sound closed to just the rumble of blood in her ears. She receded into herself. Found a backseat in her mind, away from the sensory overload and the humiliation and her own failure while her body quietly continued: ”Dont, don’t, stop.”

She’d lost, and John wouldn’t stop. Not while he was branding the evidence of his victory into her flesh.

Defeat tasted worse than anticipated.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bullets whizzed overhead while Sharky and Hurk took cover beneath the window, watching helplessly as the aisle of potato chips and bar nuts was torn to shreds by the onslaught. Dorito dust filled the shop like mustard gas.

“Cuz, I think they found us!” Hurk barked, snapping an arm over his head in defence when a stray round ricocheted off the front counter.

“What gives you that impression?” Sharky hit back, hurriedly setting down his shotgun and shrugging his backpack to the floor.

“How many are there?”

“How about you check?”

“How about you check?”

A moment of quiet occurred while the cousins glared at each other, leaving their standoff to a battle of no blinking. Then the Peggies outside must’ve finished re-loading, because the back wall of the shop was suddenly being shot into swiss cheese.

They were okay. Everything was cool. Addie and Xander had taken their share of explosives and gone the quiet route. Grace and Jess were gone. Shorty had disappeared into the church, and while he couldn't count the best, Sharky was pretty confident that John had caught her.

Could they have kept on looking for survivors and breaking out captives? Sure - but why do that when they could kill, like 40 birds with one stone and beeline for the gas station? It was conveniently across the road from the church, empty of any and all life barring the dormant tanks underground. An explosion that big was sure to fuck up like a good portion of Main Street. Not even the Chosen would be able to resist checking it out.

Disconnecting the safety switches had been easy. He’d been arrested for doing it like 5 times already. Cops, Peggies; it didn’t matter - Sharky knew what he was doing, and without the giant swinging dick of the law hanging over him, the man was on a mission. Cultists shooting at him was fine. He was used to that.

Threat of death or no, he wasn’t giving up the chance to see this place blow sky high.

“We’ll be outta here any second, Hurky.” Sharky assured. “Just gotta sprinkle a little C-4 around the place and we’ll be gone before it even goes off.”

Hurk was sweating. A lot. He was accustomed to being shot at, but normally, he had more than just Sharky to get him out of a tight spot. “Alright, bro. Gimme some. Many hands and what have you.”

“Fuck yeah. First step, toss some at the tanker outside. We wanna get the place as fiery as possible up here to wake up the big boys underground, and-”

Sharky stopped in his tracks, eyeing the backpack he’d just been in the process of unzipping.

“-uhh.”

“Uhh?”

“Hurky, can I be real with you?”

“Is now the best time for a deep and meaningful?” Hurk hissed, crawling toward him nonetheless.

The arsonist stuck his hand down the pack, rifling through fluff and mesh. “I, uh, I think I brought the wrong bag. And by think I mean know without a shadow of a doubt.”

Hurk watched as his cousin tugged the green, furry headpiece of a dragon out into the open.

“You brought-...”

“I brought my fursuit.”

“Not the C-4?”

“Not the C-4.”

“Okay, bro. That's fine. I'm not mad. Human error. Not even a little bit?”

Sharky checked again, just for good measure. “Nope...so, uhm...you got a match?”

Hurk ran a hank through his hair. “Not to poo poo your ideas, but that probably ain’t the best move.”

So just like that, they were fucked.

Jess and Grace still hadn’t come back. The others were nowhere to be seen. Shorty was holed up in that church, and he and Hurk were about to be rounded up by born-again virgins.

Shit, if that were the case -

“Well, if this is gonna be the last opportunity.” Sharky grunted, tugging the suit out and unzipping the back. “May as well enjoy our last minutes of freedom, huh?”

Hurk took the cue, creeping across the destroyed shop floor and reaching for a popped bag of pretzels. He sat back against the wall, leaning against the rocket launcher he’d propped up against the corner.

“Man.” The brunette sighed, staring at the floor. “If only we had some other kind of ranged, explosive device.”

“No shit.” Sharky agreed. “Some high velocity shit would fix this.”

They exchanged a sympathetic look once the arsonist had zipped himself up and crept over and sit beside his cousin, both leaning on either side of the RPG.

Hurk held out the bag.

“Pretzel?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Was that so bad?” John asked, placing the tattoo gun aside and framing the Deputy’s marked chest. ’WRATH', in true black, beading with blood. The skin surrounding the text was mottled and inflamed. Excess ink covered the area in patches, gathering in the dip of her cleavage, disappearing beneath her sports bra.

All that sin, already leaking out through the exit he’d made for her.

Gorgeous.

Cora didn’t respond. That was fine. Shock was normal. She’d thank him once this was all over. For now, she just trembled, lock jawed, dissociated gaze searching what John had thought was him until he sat up. No, instead she was watching the ceiling.

John flashed a smile, blocking out a tiny streak of dread at the sight of the woman so vacant. Sweeping a lock of stained hair over her shoulder, he smoothed his fingers past her neck, attempting to gently angle her focus back to him. “Hey. You can come back now. We’re all done.”

You're finally on the other side. React to it. React to me. Look at me-

The boom came first, hollow and deep, and John felt the floor beneath him rumble. Chandeliers and decorations wobbled from the disturbance. Several of his followers shot from their seats, immediately abandoning the Resistance leaders they’d guarded in favour of pacing back and forth, trying to get a look at whatever was happening outside.

“Is this it?”

“Is it the Collapse?”

“It’s time?”

“John, is it the Collapse?”

The panic escalated quickly, forcing the Baptist to break his attention away from the empty woman below him and rein in the flock.

“Calm down.” He exclaimed, “It’s not the Collapse. It’s probably just-”

Another boom. Almost deafeningly loud.

This time, the whole church shook. Windows shattered in their creaking panes and smashed to the floor while pews squealed heavily in protest.

Contrary to his assertion, John dove down, covering the Deputy with his body. Holy shit, was it the Collapse?

The tremor must have been enough to snap Cora out of her trance, because a muffled “Get your tits out of my face.” buzzed against John’s chest.

Tragically, however, the Baptist never got the opportunity to reply to her. Had it not been for the fucking tennis shoe colliding with the side of his skull, he imagined he’d have something very clever to say. Alas, pain shot through his head and he jerked to the side, fighting against the blow to stay put. A snarl from Mary May, his apparent attacker, sounded in retaliation. She dove into him, knee driving into his ribs, throwing him off of the Deputy.

His thoughts left him for the briefest moment, overtaken by ensuing gunshots and shouts and the shrieks of the bartender as she was clawed away from him. Her hand shot forward right as she was yanked up, intended as a punch. It didn’t land, and John couldn’t help but shoot her a smirk for her failure.

“Deputy, gun!”

Nevermind. It wasn’t a punch after all. Mary May had been pointing over his shoulder at the revolver that had been surrendered on the floor. His revolver. The same one Cora was now scrambling toward.

No.

John lurched, heart leaping into his throat.

Not now. Not after he’d won. Not when they were so close.

His hand found the leg of Cora’s pants, wrenching, pulling her away from the weapon, and she kicked against him. Her finger tips slid against the barrel of the revolver, tugging it into her palm.

God wouldn’t fucking undo his victory.

John snarled, catching the Deputy’s wrist when she tried to aim - at him no less. Without her own recovery time achieved, he was able to wrestle the weapon from her easily enough, flattening her struggling body beneath his just long enough to hook an arm around her waist. He twisted around, holding the woman’s back against his belly. Her squirming ceased with the press of the muzzle against her head, and the moment her allies had taken notice of the change, everything went still.

Finally.

A little civility.

Several of John’s followers lay on the floor, either dead or close to it. Only a half-dozen remained, though the pair of Chosen had survived and placed themselves closest to their leader.

Pastor Jerome had procured a handgun from within his own bible - something that pulled a breathless laugh out of John as he surveyed the others. Nick hadn’t been able to arm himself, but he’d still tackled one of the faithful to the ground. His knuckles were bloodied. A familiar sight. Mary May had wrestled a gun of her own away from the woman who’d seized her. She aimed it shakily at John.

Armed but outnumbered, outgunned, and now, they were in check.

They never learned, did they?

“The way you people behave, you’d think salvation was a bad thing.” John tittered. “Right. Now, let’s try this again. Atonement, or damnation.” To punctuate his meaning, he tapped the muzzle against Cora’s head. She grunted in protest, and he ignored her. Of course it was a bluff. No one else knew that but him, though. It was too risky a move for the Resistance to let him do away with the one person that banded their factions.

She was their leader. They couldn’t lose her.

John looked around the room once more, locking eyes with Jerome first - then Mary May. “Are we going to behave?”

The answer was immediate and clear: a gunshot cracking through the Baptist’s ears and the flash of a blast spilling from Mary May’s weapon. Cora’s elbow driving into his stomach and the reaction time of his Chosen snapping to attention, covering him, already hauling John out of the church and onto the street.

Fuck no, he wasn't leaving without his prize.

"GRAB HER!" John howled, struggling against the attempts to get him to safety. "Leave the rest!"

It was a reluctant effort, but the Deputy was yanked along as well, shoved into Johns arms on his repeated orders, with me, with me.

“Mary May, what the fuck!” The Deputy roared over her shoulder.

“Sorry Deputy! I missed!”

Missed?

“You sure about that? Jesus fucking Christ!”

More shots sounded, but only the noise pursued them from the building. It wasn’t until John had shoved Cora into the back of the waiting truck that he realised how warm his hand had gotten. Wet, too.

“Get to the ranch!” One of the Chosen snarled up front, casting a look back at the Baptist while the vehicle took off, watching as he peeled away from the blonde to inspect himself.

Blood.

He was bleeding. But where from? Barring the sting of his scabs and that kick to the head, nothing hurt. There were no wounds hiding under his sleeves or -

A hiss sounded from the Deputy beside him, curling in on herself.

Shit.

She hadn’t elbowed him.

“Cora-” John scrambled for her. "Cora, let me see."

“Told you not to call me that.” The Deputy grit out, kicking at him until she’d well and truly jammed herself into the corner of the seat and the car door. Her left hand gripped her right forearm, just below the elbow and to no avail. Crimson coated the skin on her side, encasing her arm completely and seeping through her fingertips.

She was bleeding. Not heavily, but steadily.

”Deputy.” John bit back, advancing. “You’re hurt. Let me help-”

Just like that, the kicking resumed. “Don’t touch me-DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME-”

“For once in your fucking life, just relax!”

Only incomprehensible snarling came in response.

John rolled his jaw, brimming with as much irritation as he was adrenaline. The Resistance had made their choice. Regretful, but final. He’d gotten what he came for, and he wasn’t intending on losing her just because she was too stubborn to accept help.

He glanced at the revolver still in his grip. Then back at Cora, rotating the grip toward her. A threat. “Are you going to let me help, or am I going to have to calm you down?”

“Don’t you dare.” Her words came hoarse. She gave scowling a red hot go, but without the rationale to deny him, the Deputy lacked conviction. She exhaled. “Fuck it. We've done this enough already. You get ten minutes. Then you’re under arrest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her cheek twitched. A weak chuckle. The slightest flash of acknowledgement as she let him press his weight over her forearm. Thankfully, the wound wasn’t pulsing; nor was there a puncture wound. A gouged strip had been carved into her flesh where the bullet had grazed, but nothing vital seemed to have been struck.

“That - you can keep saying.”

"You're a flirt when you're in shock, Deputy." Had John not been too busy regulating about a dozen other emotions, he might have flushed at her words. For a moment, he just sat there, basking in the borderline friendliness on her face. Then, it occurred to him that they were among watchful company, and he cleared his throat, returning to his task.

Minutes passed. No more words were exchanged. Not until they’d passed the Rye and Son’s sign.

The Chosen in the front passenger’s seat looked over his shoulder, dismissing another over the radio before regarding the Baptist. “The Resistance isn’t making ground. The faithful are still rounding up stragglers, and we’ve taken casualties, but numbers are looking strong. Medic will meet you at the ranch, John. We can deliver our newest sister to the Gate while you recover.”

John inclined his head. “Much obliged. We need this one to stay with us until she’s completed her vows. She can’t be trusted unsupervised, but I won’t put the responsibility of containing her back on our people again.” He looked to Cora, then. Her face had run pale and she’d gone clammy, but she remained upright. Just...woozy. Pacified, for now.

He’d got what he came for. Fuck the rest.

“I have something to say.” The blonde announced, swaying against John’s arm. “I know why Mary May shot me.”

“This another one of your jokes?” John deadpanned.

“This one’s funny, I swear.”

“...go on, then.”

“It’s because I never tip.”

For a moment, Cora looked very satisfied with herself. Then, she retched, slumping forward into the Baptist’s lap when he instinctually jolted out of the potential line of fire. He hurried to steady her, keeping tight hold over her wound, and grimaced while the noise escaped her a second time.

Thank God nothing came out; his shoes would’ve been the first to know about it.

The Deputy didn’t sit back up.

That was fine. So long as she wasn’t dead. So long as she wasn’t fighting back.

“It’s all the sin escaping you.” John explained, off-handed, when a complaining grunt sounded below. “Evil being expelled from your body. You’ll feel better soon.”

“Pretty sure it’s my blood pressure, actually. Soon as I’m good again, you’re history.”

When one disregarded the fact that she’d had a gun trained on him earlier - and the blood drying uncomfortably on his clothes - and the persistent pounding of a headache from Mary May’s heel, this was almost pleasant. The quiet roads. The Deputy, all but atoned with her head on his thigh. Not fighting back. Conceding defeat. Peaceful.

He got what he came for.

He’d won.

He was saved.

Passing his thumb over Cora’s ribs, John’s attention was pulled back to the old ink peeking out from beneath the band of her top. Text, blurred and flattened enough to be years old, and too obscured to decipher.

“Thought I’d be your first.” The brunette murmured.

“Jealous?”

Yes.

“Don’t be ridiculous. What’s it say?”

“‘The Mountains Are Calling’.”

A sickening wave of dread passed over the Baptist. The rock forming in his throat, icy and bitter and seizing him against any reply.

The mountains are calling.

Jacob. Joseph. The Trials. Atonement wasn’t the final step. Handing her over to his brothers was the final step.

He got what he came for, but the woman in his arms wasn’t the trophy intended for him.

He was saved. He’d redeemed himself. He’d completed his task and Joseph would permit him beyond the gates. That was all he was supposed to do. That was enough.

That had to be enough.

“‘And I Must Go’.” John completed quietly.

Cora tilted her head a little, not quite looking at him - almost like she was trying not to. “You know John Muir.”

“Not enough to warrant a photo on the bedside table.”

“Shut up.”

There was nothing convincing about the chuckle he offered. He was too busy observing her, studying the side of her face. Committing her to memory as if he hadn’t spent years acquainting himself with every spot and micro-expression.

“Maybe working for you will be bearable.” She murmured, and John’s heart only sank further. "If I don't manage to arrest you."

The mountains are calling.

She still had no idea that all the promises he’d made her had been fabricated. That she wouldn’t be staying. That he’d lied to her.

The mountains were calling. In a few days time, she’d know it. She’d despise him. She’d be taken off his hands and he’d assume his regular duties once again.

He’d saved both of them.

Cora’s thumb absently grazed back and forth on his knee. Ignorant. “Can I ask something?”

It took everything in him not to mirror the action against her skin.

“Of course.”

“Can I start next Monday?”

"What happened to you being such a workaholic?"

"To be honest with you, I'm really fucking tired."

She’d be incredible. Jacob would love her. Joseph would be proud. John had accomplished something near-impossible for his family, and even if the Deputy hated him - even if she forgot him entirely, he was content with the knowledge that he’d have brought her to salvation.

Even if they never saw each other again, he’d know that she’d passed through the gates. That she’d climb to the surface once the world had been scorched clean. She’d rebuild, and marry, and have children, and he’d do the same.

Hopeful anticipation and the agony of longing had never felt so similar before.

“Fine.” John smiled, giving in, sliding his fingers up her arm and coaxing a stray lock of hair out of her face. There were no promises he’d be able to do it again after this. “But on one condition.”

“What?”

“Spend those days with me.”

Cora stirred, angling to peer up at him out of the corner of her eye. She smiled crookedly.

“Deal.”

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

The Ghostbusters: Afterlife Review that I Don’t Have a Funny Title For.

So then… Ghostbusters: Afterlife is kind of a weird film. That’s not necessarily a criticism, just an observation. The reason it’s weird, by the way, is that the tone and vibe of what appears on screen don’t really gel with the accepted position of the film within our current cultural context. Let me try and explain what I mean… over the course of several interminable fucking paragraphs…

… Starting with this one! You see, Ghostbusters: Afterlife was partially situated (or perceived to be situated) as an apology for the woeful, peacocking, point-missing gender-flipped reboot of 2016, which sucked out the wit and replaced it with the laziest possible slapstick, offered no meaningful additions to the canon and acted like it was special and deserved praise just because it had gifted its main characters with vaginas (incidentally, it’s worth pointing out again that the jokes from the original Ghostbusters only fully land if the main cast are paragons of failed masculinity, so a straight-forward gender-flip is comedically dumb as well as insultingly pandering). Understandably, its flagrant disrespect for the source material caused… some backlash, and all attempts to mischaracterise that backlash as mere sexism in the media just kinda failed. Turns out that when it comes to Ghostbusters, people are really fucking good at digging their heels in and refusing to budge for some reason. When the Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer dropped and included a reference to how there hadn’t been a ghost sighting for thirty years, it was clearly intended to symbolically wipe the slate clean and make it as though 2016 never happened- the closest thing Hollywood ever gets to just saying ‘sorry- we fucked up’. Considering the context, one would therefore expect certain things from Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Things such as a grandiose scale that builds on the more epic elements of the original; a larger cast of important characters; a newer, worse threat; more plot-lines to make the story feel denser with granular particularity. But Ghostbusters: Afterlife eschews the idea of going bigger and building on the mythic status that its predecessor assured for itself in the popular culture. Instead, it goes smaller: its threat is a known quantity and therefore feels more contained and minor; its goals and motivations are more personal and straightforward; even the physical geography of the film is confined to one small town out in the middle of nowhere. The weird thing is… it sorta works.

Don’t get me wrong. I would have loved a grand-scale epic building on the original, but what we get instead is, in many ways, a lot more honest. Most of it’s just a hang-out film with funny dialogue and likeable characters (personal favourite line: “Science is punk rock! Science is the safety pin through the nipple of academia!”). Then Zuul (Zhul? Zule? I just realised I’ve never actually seen it written down) starts making their presence felt and shit goes south just spectacularly enough to necessitate the new cast teaming up with the original Ghostbusters to save the day. A lot of the plot concerns the current cast uncovering their family connection to said original Ghostbusters and getting over their feelings of abandonment and isolation, finding their feet in the world and generally just doing human drama while ghosts happen in the background. There aren’t really a huge number of sterling new ghost designs and we don’t even get a final boss fight in which Zuul (that’s the spelling I’m going for) takes on the form of a capital-D Destroyer, because they get their arse kicked by the combined powers of friendship and science before that point. And that’s kind of it, really. There’s a couple of cool cameos, including one designed to send off a beloved but sadly now-deceased actor from the original. Contrast and compare to the first Ghostbusters which kept adding plot-threads like it had a quota to meet. There was the early days of supernatural research among the team and how it lead to the founding of the Ghostbusters as a business; their expulsion from academia; the fairly one-sided love affair between Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver (and yes, I’m aware they weren’t just playing themselves, but how many other opportunities am I going to have to type those words); the idea that disparate end-of-the-world prophecies might actually be converging on a specific event; the rivalry between the Ghostbusters and a petty bureaucrat intent on shutting them down despite not understanding the science of what they do; the rising and falling fortunes of their business itself; the mini-arc of Sigourney Weaver’s nerdy, love-struck next door neighbour; and about a dozen other things that I’ve forgotten about since I last watched the film. Afterlife is really just the main plot, the character’s finding their feet and a couple of love-interest subplots. So why does it work? Why doesn’t it feel like a cop-out? Well, in order to answer that question, we need to talk- tangentially- about my favourite videogame critic Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw.

You see, Yahtzee once said something very smart about videogames that I feel also applies to films. According this very smart man, there are two types of games: the kind made because someone wanted to make a lot of money and the kind made because someone thought it would be a lovely thing to play. Films can be similarly categorised: ones made to make money and ones made because they would be lovely to watch. Ghostbusters: Afterlife falls into the second category pretty firmly. Don’t get me wrong, the studio and its parent corp wouldn’t have greenlit the project if they didn’t think they were going to make a metric fuck-ton of cash, but the director, writers, cast and crew are clearly another matter. Everyone involved clearly has a deep and abiding love for the source material and they wanted to make a film that paid homage to it while simultaneously introducing the world and concept to a new generation. It was made with respect and palpable joy. It doesn’t try to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle that was the vibe of the original, but is clearly proud to be associated with it while also laying the groundwork for new stories. You can practically feel the torch being passed on with absolute and complete sincerity. Of course, none of this would help if it was just a badly-scripted, badly-directed film, but it isn’t: it’s funny, well-paced, well-characterised and the stakes feel significant enough that you can get invested. Consequently, the sincerity of it serves to elevate it from ‘good’ to ‘really, really, really good’.

Is it a perfect film? No. It makes missteps and not all of the ensemble cast are equally well-characterised (although I did enjoy the fact that our P.O.V character shakes out to be an obviously-but-unacknowledgedly autistic girl. She also gets my second favourite line in the film, in response to discussions about the soul: “I’m pretty sure we’re all just sort of meat-puppets”). But it doesn’t need to be a perfect film, because it’s not trying to symbolically replace the original in the same way that, say, the 2016 shitshow did. It’s just a nice film set in a universe that we can all agree is interesting and compelling.

I’ve talked a lot about loveliness and niceness in this blog, which probably sounds weird coming from me. I am, after all, a self-professed towering bell-end with a spectacular and long-cherished contempt for humankind. However, my cynicism and general bastardry are the result of people proving to me, time and time again, that they aren’t nice, aren’t lovely and aren’t to be trusted… and also, worst of all, that they’re broadly talentless. I want to be proved wrong. I want people to show me they’re capable of better effort; a want media artefacts that are truly, genuinely, sincerely sweet and demonstrate- in a non-saccharine way- that humanity has a heart buried somewhere under all its selfishness, stupidity and bullshit. Ghostbusters: Afterlife isn’t a monument to human kind’s potential, obviously: it’s a very silly movie in which Bull Murray comes out of retirement to shoot an evil ghost-queen with a laser. But it is proof that a lot of people are willing to knuckle down and genuinely try to bring something nice into the world basically just because they really liked its antecedent. And that’s a hopeful thing.

Which brings me onto my final, non-Ghostbuster-y point: Merry Xmas.

[annecoulmanross]

A Review of Lady Franklin’s Revenge (2006) by Ken McGoogan

Well, I definitely jinxed myself when I wrote in my review of Cookman’s Ice Blink (2000) that “being stuck inside has somehow given me the miraculous ability to read books quickly once again.” But I have, at last, finished another volume in my collection of “paper books on the Franklin expedition that I snatched from my library before it closed.”  So, here are some thoughts on Ken McGoogan’s book Lady Franklin’s Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession, and the Remaking of Arctic History, a sweeping 420-page trek through the life of Lady Jane Franklin.

Below the cut, you’ll find:

– What McGoogan cared about re: writing Lady Jane Franklin

– Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For™

– Select quotes (feat. Sir John doesn’t write good; Sophy Cracroft’s horseback-riding misadventures; homemade jam for polar explorers; Eliza Hamilton; and so much more!)

(Thank you @rhavewellyarnbag for some good discourse about this book during my early reading stages! As ever, your thoughts are so helpful and interesting!) 

What McGoogan Cared About:

In short, everything (re: Jane herself, at least). If there was something interesting happening in Lady Jane’s life, McGoogan at least touches on it, which is helpful. You’re not going to find much information that falls outside of Lady Jane’s direct sphere. (There’s very little on the final Franklin Expedition itself, for instance, except where it was relevant to Lady Jane’s titular quest to establish her husband as the “discoverer of the Northwest Passage,” but that’s not truly a fault, and it’s appropriate for the scope of the narrative.)

The “Revenge” in the title is the grand denouement of the text, i.e. Lady Jane’s efforts to memorialize Sir John after the disappearance of his final Arctic expedition. It makes this pop history sound more sensationalist than it actually is, and does some discredit to McGoogan’s careful work of examining Lady Jane’s numerous diaries held at the Scott Polar Research Institute and crafting an intricate timeline of her entire life, from “A Jane Austen Heroine” in her early years to “A Victorian Penelope” opposite her missing husband and eventually “Lady Victorious,” an accomplished traveller and international celebrity.  

McGoogan doesn’t pull punches when necessary (Lady Jane’s conservativism, imperialism, racism, and brutal social aggression against figures like John Rae are, rightfully, on full display here.) For the most part, however, he’s quiet fair to her character, though I tend to see Jane’s complex relationship with her stepdaughter with more sympathy for Jane than McGoogan offers. Regardless, he’s not wrong to write “Jane had proven far more successful as an aunt [to Sophy Cracroft] than as a stepmother [to Eleanor Franklin.]” (pg. 319)

What I enjoyed most were the detailed descriptions of Lady Jane’s numerous travels – some of them to places I’ve been, and felt as strongly about as Jane, in many ways. The Appendices are quite helpful short references – App. A catalogues Jane’s own personal voyages, and App. B lists the search expeditions Lady Jane coordinated and organized, in aid of McGoogan’s assertion that, “of all individual contributions to Arctic discovery, [Jane Franklin’s] was the greatest.” (pg. 414)   

Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For:

(You’ll notice this section replaces my “errata” section on Cookman – in part because I simply don’t know enough to correct McGoogan as often as I could Cookman, but also because I do think McGoogan’s done a more careful and accurate job with his research, even if his lack of specific citations is occasionally troubling – *repeats to self* it’s a popular history not a philological treatise, it’s a popular history not a philological treatise...) 

Anyway, Lady Jane was wildly influential, historically speaking. Here’s some bizarre things she did that shaped world history (or were just hilariously fun to read about):

– Had herself “smuggled” in to see Mohammed Ali Pasha in Alexandria, à la Cleopatra smuggling herself in to see Caesar (pg. 92)

– Made Athens the capital city of modern Greece, by convincing the Greek king of the historical and symbolic importance of Athens via “behind-the-scenes machinations” and using Sir John as her mouthpiece (pg. 108)

– Learned how to use a harpoon and dissected a giant squid (pg. 149)

– Read 295 books in three years (1837-1840) (pg. 172)

– Attempted to eradicate all snakes in Van Diemen’s Land, i.e. Tasmania (pg. 173)

– Managed to get Van Diemen’s Land renamed “Tasmania” with some assistance from Sir James Clark Ross (pg. 203 and pg. 209)

– Doomed her husband via sewing: having finished crafting a Union Jack flag for Sir John for the third Arctic Expedition, laid it over Sir John while he was asleep, leading to Sir John waking up and freaking out, because this was a terrible omen: during a Naval burial, a Union Jack is placed over the corpse. (pg. 274)

– Wrote of having “a deep sense of gratitude to Sir John Ross for murdering [her] husband” in her anger at him for communicating a story about a group of men who had allegedly been killed in Baffin Bay. (pg. 304)

– “Accidentally" circumnavigated the globe because of the American Civil War (pg. 403)

Select Quotes:

“As a precise writer herself, however, Jane could not contain her frustration with her husband’s inability to sketch incisive word portraits.” (pg. 84)

[Lady Jane Franklin] “marvel[ed] at the ruins of the Temple of Isis and also, inevitably, at the story of how that entrancing goddess had used magical powers to restore her dead husband to eternal life. Certainly Jane did not imagine… that this archetypal myth might somehow prefigure the deepest meanings of her own future.” (pg. 123-124)

During an overland exploration of Australia, “Sophy Cracroft [then 22 years old] was thrown from her horse. Jane reported that ‘her nose received the blow – it was much bruised but it saved her head, and she had no other injury except a headache which existed before.’ Dr. Hobson treated her nosebleed with cold water and had her removed into the cart and then carried by stretcher into that night’s encampment. Showing more alarm than Jane, he described the concussion as severe and wrote that Sophy ‘bore the misfortune with more courage and resignation than most men and contrary to my expectation did not appear to be anxious about its effect on her beauty.’” (pg. 193)

“Jane herself established the closest of platonic bonds with [James Clark] Ross, cementing a friendship that would have ironic consequences. She presented him with jars of homemade jam (whose praises he endlessly sang).” (pg. 209)

“Despite several flirtations [with others], and although she could not acknowledge it, the twenty-nine-year-old [Sophy Cracroft] had secretly committed herself to Jane Franklin.” (pg. 273) McGoogan doesn’t ship Sophy/Jane but he comes DAMN close. (He addresses this as a scholarly debate in very vague terms on page pg. 364.)

During the winter of 1845, “Jane travelled through the West Indies to the southern United States. Proceeding north, she inspected schools, hospitals, factories, and other institutions, more than once being mistaken for the widow of the American Alexander Hamilton – an excellent woman, although much older than she.” (pg. 275-276)

“Almost alone among her contemporaries, Jane grasped that monuments create history.” (pg. 414)

[clericbyers]

I have been thinking about the exchange between Will and Mike at the end of ST3 and in particular their word choice. In artistic media, whatever is articulated is there with purpose. It’s not coincidence (an old example is that if a gun is mentioned in text to be on a wall to a reader, then the reader expects the gun to be important in some manner, whether it is for metaphoric narrative or is literally used because it was explicitly pointed out in the narrative). In terms of cinematic media, the published take was used instead of other versions for whatever reason the director(s) decided, so everything has intent. (Finn even said in a Hollywood Reporter interview that the Duffers shot “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls,” with different phrasing, adding “yet” in one take that ended up unused. So, there’s definitely attention payed to what exactly is being said between Will and Mike.)

That being said, I wanna focus a lot on Mike’s, “Yeah, but what if you want to join another party?” and Will’s, “Not possible.” Before this exchange, Will donates his D&D manuals. He’s not taking it with him despite spending a good while three months back trying to regroup the Party through it. He states that he’ll use Mike’s set, if “we still wanna play”. Here he puts the ball in Mike’s court while acknowledging that they both might grow up and grow out of the interest but Mike holds the means to pursue D&D again. Mike says, “Yeah, but,” and it’s simple acknowledgement neither here nor there because he had something more important to say, something that unnerves him enough to let his gaze wander. He seems a little unsure and he pauses before continuing on, gathering his thoughts. He doesn’t make eye contact with Will until he says, “What if you want to join another party?”

[x]

Now party had two meanings in ST: party as in D&D in general and the Party (which I’ll capitalize) which is the best friend circle of Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin. Max and El join later but those four are the Party when it comes to D&D. Mike’s question is loaded. He asks if Will wants to play D&D with other people, he asks if Will wants to find a new friend group to replace the Party. He paints it as a hypothetical, a possibility for Will to pursue if he wants to, not when he plans to. Mike doesn’t say, “Yeah, but you can still find another party while you’re gone.” That is giving explicit permission for Will to move on, it’s what he already expects in a way but doesn’t want. He doesn’t say, “Yeah, but you might want to find a new party.” That paints the Party (and in turn himself) as old and something of the past, which Mike is battling with himself in terms of what it means to grow up.

Mike is asking about this loaded hypothetical situation. “What if,” hypothetically, “you wanna join another party?” ‘Another party’ implies in addition to the Party, an alternate of sorts. It’s not necessarily a replacement, just an addition. He’s offering the possibility because much like what Mike did when El joined the Party, the addition can very well become a replacement. Consider it ironic I suppose, but he doesn’t want Will to replace him.

Will’s response though...his response kills me dead. Will didn’t say, “Impossible.” He said, “Not possible.” There’s a difference between impossible and not possible. Impossible means it can’t occur, it cannot exist. It’s simply not able to be done no matter what. Every single possible event in the world can occur and this one thing simply cannot be done. It’s very finite and, well, pretty extreme and intense. ‘Not possible’ though? It’s technically the same meaning but context and delivery matters. ‘Not possible’ is so much more freeing in terms of interpretation than impossible.

[x]

For example, “It’s impossible to give you a ride,” vs “It’s not possible to give you a ride.” The former phrase implies defeat. It’s literally never going to happen for whatever reason. Maybe the car is full already or you have too much luggage that can’t fit. The bounds of the real world inhibit you from the car ride. It’s frankly just not gonna happen. The latter phrase though infers that there are other circumstances that means this simply isn’t possible. Giving you a ride isn’t in the list of possibilities at the moment. Maybe the car has an extra seat but there’s a dog you’re allergic to in it. It’s not impossible for you to ride in the car—there’s a free seat—but it’s not a possible option for you if you don’t want to have an allergic reaction.

In the context of Will’s reply, impossible would mean that Will can’t ever find another party. That’s frankly false; he could probably find another party, which Mike hypothetically thinks may happen given his question. Will knows this, he could find more people to play D&D with, it’s not impossible to join another party. But he looks down at the box between them—a box full of old toys to donate and move on from, a symbol itself of growing up—and then shakes his head with a soft smile. It’s technically possible to join another party—he has that choice—but in actuality, it’s not possible for him. It’s not possible for Will to replace the Party. It’s not possible for Will to replace Mike. Those cards aren’t in his hand despite them being in the deck.

Will is saying so much just with those two words, reassuring Mike that even though they have growing up in front of and between them (literally in terms of the donation box that’s only there because he’s moving away), the one thing that won’t change is how he feels, and his relation to Mike. That change is not possible. He will always love Mike.

And then Mike smiles.

[x]

Mike smiling with Will isn’t new, but the thing to note here is how he smiles. It’s not just a simple grin. He’s shy, he’s soft, he’s careful, he’s cautious. Mike being cautious about showing affection to Will? That’s new. He’s always been the first to reach out with Will, always caring and checking in, reaching out physically and emotionally. Throughout ST3, he’s shutting Will out and throwing that in his face and when he does that, Mike’s not cautious (as usual), but in ST3 it’s to the negative extreme of brashness.

Now though, Mike is questioning. He even called Will ‘dude’ earlier, trying to get a handle on his relationship with Will. Will is a boy, he’s a dude, he’s Mike’s male friend, right? He could have said “Woah, Will,” or “Whoa, Byers,” or even just, “Whoa,” but saying dude? Why would he ever have to do that, especially if he was still with El? Why is he reinforcing the fact that Will is “dude”? There’s all sorts of interpretations to be had on that but I wanna focus on Mike’s behavior afterwards. As stated before, Mike’s eyes wander when he gets a little unnerved, he worries if Will might forget about him, he’s nervous. Why would Mike be nervous about this? If he’s confident in his friendship with Will, there shouldn’t be any question about it even with the move. Yet, he questions being replaced, questions where he stands, questions what they are.

In response to Mike’s smile, Will smirks.

[x]

It’s a direct contrast to Mike. Will’s not shy, soft, or cautious. He knows what he said, what he implied (at least for himself if Mike doesn’t). He’s blatantly flirty. He’s figured out where he is and what he wants. He showed Mike the level playing field (“I’ll just use yours when I come back. I mean, if we still wanna play.”) and he’s kinda like, “I’ll see you when you get there.” There being acknowledging his feelings. I think it’s also Will noting maybe that Mike likes him, too, compared to three months prior when Mike basically broke his heart and Will proceeded to breakdown over it. Here, Will sees Mike’s shy smile, he sees his nervousness. Will has successfully put his heart out on the line (again) and this time Mike didn’t stomp on it. Mike is pleased to have it, and he’s careful about it. This is something new, them both noting that there’s something different between them. Now, it’s up to Mike to shoot his shot if he wants to.

(And later, when Mike mentions Will in his conversation with El, he gets excited about playing games again when El and Will come back to visit, excited about taking that shot (given games and D&D is Mike and Will’s metaphoric narrative about their friendship while growing up), and then backtracks. He says he sounds like he’s 7. At 7, Mike’s best friends were Will and Lucas. (There’s no explicit age stated when Lucas befriended the two but I assume it to be maybe like a year after Mike and Will became friends.) Mike basically said he sounds like a kid again, naive about many things yet deeply caring toward his friends and well, not dating anyone. In Mike’s character profile in the concept bible, he plays D&D to escape from the fact that he doesn’t have a girlfriend. D&D came out in 1979, which is when Mike is 8 (or 7 depending on his birthday). He wants to restart that D&D obsession, noting that D&D is a metaphor for Will and Mike’s relationship. He wants to return to this closeness from being kids, where it didn’t really matter what the affection meant. But he also knows that he’s 14 and growing up. This isn’t something he should want yet he says it right in front of El, his supposed girlfriend, the one he claims to love yet can’t tell her himself and then can’t return the statement or the kiss after she confesses too. He says it after the exchange with Will, where D&D turned from the game used to maintain the friendship into the game where they can take go further if Mike is ready for it.)

tl;dr Mike likes Will, too and Will gave him a second chance to try again if he’s done being a clown and wants to own up to his feelings.

[ first two gifs by ilu-3000 and last two by cath-avery, as credited above ]

[loopy777]

Okay, so I wanted to expand on that idea of that dream I had further with you. So stop me if I’m getting ahead of myself. Imagine an animated atla movie that takes place after the movie, with Mai and Ty Lee being the main characters (movie being Mai-centric), with Mai and Zuko finally getting back together at the end of the movie! The conflict will be about some kidnappings in the Fire Nation but Zuko is stressed/busy to solve it, so Suki ask Ty Lee & Mai to deal with the kidnappings. (1/3)

As Mai and Ty Lee start their investigation, they realize that the kidnappings were only focused on people who were in the army when the Fire Nation tried to invaded Ba Sing Se. This information was obviously interesting to them, so they tell Zuko about it. Zuko, being now nervous that Ty Lee and Mai are gonna be in actual danger since they were also people who invaded Ba sing Se, decided to end the operation. An argument happened between Mai & Zuko, leading Mai and Ty Lee to do it instead.(2/3)

So they found the base of were kidnapped would be held. And as they sneak around the underground base they found all the people who were kidnapped, but the issue arise when they realize that’ll be difficult to get everybody out without being noticed. So Ty Lee promised the people that they’ll come back with help, but as they about to leave, they saw... Long Feng! And he was behind the whole thing! I haven’t figured out how it’ll end, so what’s your take on it? And how would you end it? (3/3)

That sounds cool! I love detective stories.

Before I get into how I would end it, though, we need to figure out what the story’s about. So far, we’ve established that it’s Mai-centric. We have her getting back with Zuko. We have the main mystery directly relating to her past actions in service of Azula and Fire Nation Imperialism.

Clearly, we’re dealing with Mai’s “redemption.”

Now, I’m not saying the character is in need of redemption. The cartoon used shorthand, but we did see her side with Zuko’s vision and the gAang accepted her by the end. So, for the purposes of accepting AtLA as it is, we get that the intention is for her to be on the side of the angels in full by the end. However, as long as we’re in fanfic land, we never really had Mai refute her accusation to Zuko that he’s betraying the Fire Nation by siding with the Avatar, so we can pay off on that now.

So, given the elements in the sandbox so far, we have an opportunity for Mai to clearly condemn her earlier actions and philosophy.

And since Long Feng is our villain, he has to be her contrast in some way. We know he’s kidnapping people who he thinks wronged Ba Sing Se, and it’s probably for some kind of revenge. By why the kidnapping? Why not outright murder? Well, Long Feng used to have a brainwashing scheme going...

So, back to the story! Mai and Ty Lee see Long Feng! He was behind the whole thing! They try to get away to get word to Zuko, but they get spotted and the bad guys try to capture them. Mai and Ty Lee fight in self-defense. Their attackers are a few old Dai Li agents supplanted by some other Earth-patriot extremists in the style of Jet. Long Feng joins the fight, too.

Mai and Ty Lee fight well, but they’re soon overwhelmed. Ty Lee is taken out of the fight! She tells Mai to run, to save herself! Mai realizes that it would be the tactically smart move, but that’s not how she rolls. She runs back to save Ty Lee. She thinks she’s going to die for the sake of friendship, but she knows she owes Ty Lee her life, and so she’s comfortable with the trade here. She just wishes she could have said goodbye to Zuko, and she really does regret that they couldn’t find a way to make it work. She takes up her last blades and faces down the enemy...

And Aang bursts in with the gAang, followed by Zuko leading in a Fire Army, and they save the day and capture the bad guys and capture Long Feng. The captives are freed! Zuko orders them taken back to the Capital for treatment and eventual return to their homes. The day is saved! Hooray!

But something is bothering Mai. She goes along with the gAang back to the Capital. Zuko explains that he roused the gAang when Mai insisted on continuing the investigation. They followed the same clues as Mai to the general area, and then Toph found them by sensing the big fight.

Zuko expects Mai to be angry, but she’s actually grateful. She appreciates him backing her up. That’s what she wanted in the first place, but their argument got in the way. They have a heart-to-heart about why they broke up. In this case, I might steal borrow @privatefire‘s good idea of Zuko having a mistrust of Mai’s safety after hearing how she almost died in the Boiling Rock. Things aren’t quite resolved, though; Mai realizes she’s done nothing to get Zuko over his worry, so they can’t be together. She does accept his invitation to recuperate in the Capital on his dime, though, as long as Ty Lee can come.

And the night after everyone has been brought into the Capital, while Zuko and the gAang and the elite of the Fire Nation sleep, Long Feng’s real plan starts. The prisoners, all of whom were brainwashed for this exact moment, have their programming triggered and they rise up as an army to take control of the Capital for him. Long Feng doesn’t just want revenge- he wants to replace the home he lost because of the Fire Nation. The ex-army people, with surprise on their side, are able to take care of any security and seal off the Capital. They free Long Feng and let in the remnants of his own extremist army. They’re going to kill Zuko and the gAang and the fire-nobles, or perhaps use them as hostages to get the rest of the world to back off. Then they’ll reach out to the colonies and Earth Kingdom and create a new global federation of Earth-outcasts, led by Long Feng. He will be the Earth Emperor, and he has definite plans to use his new powerbase to conquer the Earth Kingdom. The rest of the Fire Nation islands will be their colonies.

But Mai figured out, just in time, that Long Feng wanted to get him and his prisoners captured, so she and Ty Lee are able to avoid being taken. But now they need to rescue everyone! Lots of action happens here, and perhaps a duel with Long Feng on the outside of the central tower of the Fire Palace. Ty Lee fights the brainwashed ex-soldiers and frees the gAang, her own style uniquely suited to not hurting the brainwashed people. Mai defeats Long Feng, but I’m thinking she does it by somehow destroying the whole Fire Palace.  Perhaps she does something Long Feng on purpose to redirect his Earthbending to undermine the tower, and it crashes down on the rest of the palace. I want the symbolism of her not just protecting the Fire Nation, but rejecting imperialism in all its forms. So, after a harrowing night, the day is saved.

Closing action: having been saved by Mai again, Zuko admits that his worries about Mai are hypocritical. They will both always need to be saved, by each other and their friends, if they keep fighting for the good of the world. He has to bring Mai into his life, stop keeping secrets from her, if they’re both going to be safe. He asks Mai again if they can be together. She says yes...

...if he does some action to make up for previous Fire Nation imperialism she helped perpetrate. Perhaps she wants Zuko to pledge funds and soldiers for the defense of the independent colonies. We can allude to this being the start of the United Republic Army. We’d have to set up in the beginning of the story that the safety of the former colonies is threatened by bandit groups and maybe even each other, and the smaller independent settlements can’t put together the forces to defend themselves and Aang can’t be everywhere.

Anyway, Zuko agrees, he and Mai get together, the palace will be rebuilt to not be so spiky, and all is well.

...

You know, that’s not half bad, especially for building off a dream. That’s why I always write down the dreams I have that actually seem to have some kind of narrative structure. Mostly, though, I just have dreams that make no sense.

[fantroll-purgatory]

Xanatl Cambre, or whatever!

I read homestuck the first time when I was 13 and now that I’m rereading it I realized I processed almost 0 things in it the first time. So this is BASICALLY my first homestuck oc as someone who understands what the hell is happening in homestuck. I’m only about 3000 pages in, so I might have some misunderstandings still, sorry! Please go crazy telling me what I could fix or change, and I also have 0 clue for his appearance soooo. 

Okay! I’ll do my best to tighten this character up a bit!

Name: Xanatl Cambre 

Pronounced “Shan-uh-teal Cam-bray” (for the Aztec god Xolotl, and the coloration of darker axolotl’s- axanthic + the Spanish words for walk and fire/light)

Camnar is a seven-sweep-old violet-blooded troll who failed to fully complete his metamorphosis, for some reason or another- it happens! He possesses an extra set of fully functioning arms, a small flippy-flappy finny-tail-nub, and big bright purple shiny eyes. Everything else seems like it’s grown in okay, probably. Though he was fully capable of surviving his grub trials, his defects are admittedly uncomfortable enough to maybe have earned culling when he was only a few sweeps old, if not for [name here], a jade-blood with a penchant for healthy freaks and everything there is to learn about them (ESPECIALLY messed-up metamorphisizers) assisting in chopping off the extra bits every once in a while when drones come around. And definitely NOT keeping them in a walk in freezer to study. He’s not crippled or weakened by any of them, anyways, they’re just weird to look at- his eyesight might not be great, but he wouldn’t admit it. 

Fire, salamanders in general, the Aztec god Xolotl, and all around childish imbecility are all pretty big parts of and inspiration for his character. 

Hmmm. I feel like this passage comes off as fairly ableist, so watch your language here (i.e. “freaks,” “crippled,” “childish imbecility,” etc.). There is nothing wrong with a jadeblood being interested in mutants who remain healthy or in Xanatl not being weakened by losing body parts or even in him being childishly careless but language matters and I don’t feel comfortable letting it slide.

Interests: Penchant for outdoor land activities, especially camping. Loves using the time on those camp-outs to start fires, make star-maps, and attempt to commune with the dead through rituals found on old forums (with little success).

I like this bit as an emphasis on the fire theme, and I actually really like that you made a seadweller with that fire theme!

 A very keen interest in the occult and black magyks generally, but too lazy to go all the way with it, and too scared to perform it in his underwater home. A notable interest in weather-tracking, especially large storms and how they grow, change, and die. Mild inclinations to cannibalize other trolls- luckily, most don’t fit in his mouth.

WGAT

Finds great joy in training his lusus to do tricks and assist in hunting for dinner. A great cook! Especially loves spicy food (mustard flowers grow around his hive, and he uses their seeds/”eye of newt” for a kick a lot of the time). General propensity to put whatever he can fit into his mouth in his mouth that caused a lot of sickness as a young troll. One of his favorite non-food things to eat that isn’t necessarily dangerous are agave americana plants, which he grows and keeps all over the top floor of hive (he probably could not keep any other plants alive). Spends a lot of time with [insert jadeblood’s name], but mostly out of the obligation of their friendship, because he’s kind of tired of her cutting his fingers off to study their regrowth. He’s also mildly obsessed with siren stories and myths, but he doesn’t really know why. 

He lives in a two-story hive. The lower story sits below the water in a somewhat shallow muddy canal, and the top half hugs the shoreline. He spends most of his time in the bottom half, though.

Ooooh I really like that setup!

Personality: He’s kind of a coward. Very averse to change, but not fully content in his quiet life. He doesn’t particularly like company and when other trolls are around he feels urges to hurt them until they go away/are digested. Those urges don’t make him uncomfortable or guilty. It’s natural! Despite enjoying his outside time, most things he indulges in are sedentary- he’s very lazy and drowsy most hours of the night. He’s very defensive of his interests and his home, a little insecure in general. His high caste boosts his self esteem and his mutations knock it down- though he’s very removed from his society as a whole, self isolating with abandon, he dreams of mingling with the upper class in the deep ocean. Every troll and lusus around would probably kill him if he tried though, haha! He doesn’t like to talk about his emotions, or his future.

Wow unfortunate mood.

Special Abilities: None! Not notably strong, compared to any of his peers. A pretty normal kid/fish. Well, his extra arms and tail have some regenerative properties- he’s not sure if this extends to the rest of his body, and he refuses to test it. 

Strife Specibus: Mandible-kind. Xanatl’s teeth are fairly small and underdeveloped, sharp but tiny. He has a set of big dentures he fits over his own teeth, fixed from a few native canal beasts lost teef. 

Ooooh I really like that! You could also maybe have him fashion Greek-fire like molotov cocktails that he is verrrry reticent to use since it would burn his house down possibly.

Fetch Modus: Not sure! Maybe something to do with those lame circular life-cycle charts. Or a call to lotl’s regenerative abilities, like it breaks a piece off the item and it has to regrow so he can use it.

Hmmmm. What about a MITOSIS MODUS, which accepts an item and begins the process of cell division. For the next 24 hours, the item is inaccessible, but after those 24 hours he has two of the item!

Symbol and Meaning: Oh, no idea.

I’ll explain a little more down under title assignation, but I think Aquamini, Sign of the Idiosyncratic works exceptionally well.

Handle: neotenticSalamancer OR neotenicNecramander ? I wasn’t sure if it HAD to follow the GCAT thing, and if it did, what to use. 

You don’t have to follow GCAT! Those trolltags were specific to Hussie’s narrative and you don’t have to adopt that convention. I actually really like neotenicNecromander it’s cute.

Quirk: So I have two ideas for this:

replaces “sh” sounds with “x”, misspells often, not one to xout or use capital letters in general, and ends sentences with his tail =>

Or

u232 3 to r3plac3 “e” and 2 to r3plac3 “s”, 32 billion b3ing th3 numb3r of ba23 pair2 in th3 axolotl2 g3nom3… 2till u232 th3 cut3 tail too tho =>

Ooooh I like the first one for readability! Like yes leetspeak is a valid quirk but also I like when people break from that.

Lusus: Giant salamander-sized two-faced Xoloitzcuintli-type amphibious woofbeast. Not sure what to call this guy! Maybe “Mudpapi”, like mudpuppy. 

I love that nickname :D

Land: Land of Tilapia and Lightning, LOTaL (haha). Big beasts and big storms both threatening to swallow him. 

I super appreciate the acronym so I wanna keep that, but the first word of the Land usually related to its feel and the second to its quest. I can kiiiinda see how you could build a quest around lightning but the Vibe being tilapia doesn’t quite track for me. What about Land of Torches and Lightning, so it’s a bright planet but with two light sources trying to extinguish one another?

Title: I’m not sure I want him to ever god-tier because of his crippling fear of death and change. Like he would probably just blatantly refuse to, and stay content with being at the top of the echeladder pre-god tiers. I don’t know what his title would be, it’s a tough one! It’d be funny to make him a seer (for axolotl’s terrible eyesight, and the myth of xolotl crying his literal eyes out), but he’s probably a page. Of what? I’unno. 

:) I think he is for SURE a Page of Doom then. He has so much to do with death and rot and a lack of embracing that, and I can see potential for the character to really grow into that.

Lunar Sway: Derse? I’m inclined to want to give him both, because of the minor twin theming, but not sure what the rules are there. 

Ehhhh his personality is a lot more Derse with the desire for control over his circumstances. There are certainly cases where characters can have two moons but I don’t think this is it.

Thank you!!

No problem! I hope this helped!

-TR

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Cells at Work! 13 (FINAL) | Double Decker! 2 | Slime Datta Ken 1 | Run with the Wind 1 | Bakumatsu 1 | Zombieland Saga 1 | DakaIchi 1 | Radiant 1 | SSSS.Gridman 1

Warning for discussion of 18+, potentially triggery things within the DakaIchi discussion...and the nature of that show being a yaoi will tell you whether you want to read that discussion in the first place. (There are full stops and lines around it in case you want to dodge that particular part, since Radiant comes right after it.)

...Otherwise, have at it.

Cells at Work! 13 (FINAL)

Apparently “distal” just means your extremities…

For some reason, I already knew about the fact that you can die from losing one third of your blood…because I read a Tumblr post that was meant to be for action writers and it was about blood loss.

…Huh? Was this a blood transfusion? That would explain why these new RBCs are so clueless about our RBC. Update: Yup, guessed it.

Come to think of it, there’s a WBC Nendoroid and a Platelet one but no RBC. That’s a bit disappointing…

The WBCs using that wobbly stick thing in the background are amusing, eheh.

Anyways, that was fun, even if I did get used to the routine of RBC getting lost and WBC fighting antigens in the end. See you next time!

Double Decker! 2

We’re now properly in the fall season, and of course now that the first drop’s out of the way, we’re starting with the best show this season (at least for the moment).

So does that mean if we’re NEETs we’re not paying for these detectives…? Is this an incentive for people to pay their taxes (LOL)…? (Okay, I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Sheesh.)

DD Partners…? Sounds…uh, partnery, considering what DD stands for.

Why is Travis blinking so much when he’s apologising…?

Snarky narrator is fun. I thought it was Kirill during ep 1 (or at least, it was for a bit), but now this narrator’s talking too much in 3rd person for it to be true. Maybe…it’s future Kirill. *collective facepalms from the peanut gallery* Or maybe it’s Kirill and a narrator, and Kirill will then break the 4th wall somewhere.

Now that’s monkeying around…LOL. *gets pelted by tomatoes* Oh c’mon, can’t I get in a decent joke around here?!

Well, as much as the can thing Doug does to Kirill is tropey for anime, I gotta admit this ain’t monkey busin-eh? You want me to stop with the jokes? Aw. Fine then, I’ll stop…

There’s something utterly relatable about having gone down the path of your dreams, only for it not to work out. In fact, I think I’m going down that path right now and I need to decide where to head next. That’s why I’m watching this episode right now – to make sure I don’t regret my future, by focussing on the present with a good anime.

According to this link to Google Books I got when I googled “ignis” and “desperatio” together, this might have something to do with a Panegyric of the Saints…something to do with hell, worms, fire and despair…? Uh, wuh? Am I just investigating this the wrong way?

Sanctus Bridge? As in “sanctuary”? Wow, that’s…ironic.

The rabbit police mascot…you can see it on Deana’s dashboard, LOL. Plus the bird police mascot that goes with it.

The name shots you get of these criminals aren’t nearly as good as “dick suck” (sic) in Kekkai Sensen, but they’re pretty close. Plus they actually do have correct Japanese translations, unlike “dick suck” (LOL).

Seriously, what’s up with Doug’s head prodding? Is it to stop him from trichotillomania (which is the pulling out of hair)? I can see it getting vaguely annoying when the excitement of a new season wears off…

The CGI is kind of awkward in this. You’d need to stare at it for a bit to realise it’s CGI and it’s not the worst effort I’ve seen (*grumbles* Tsukigakirei *grumble*) but it’s still pretty bad…

Oh! Those doors! Is Doug’s car…a DeLorean? (dramatic piano SFX in background)

Was it just me, or did Kirill’s face go funny for a second as he was moping about how he didn’t get to do anything…?

“Let me be your Double Decker!” – That’s what he says as a double decker bus goes by…clever wordplay, huh?

“One is poverty. The other is class.” – Okay, my studies tell me that’s pretty much impossible. Even in social situations, you have a clear leader and subordinates. Poverty is fine and dandy in regards to giving the boot – heck, that’s why things like the Millenium Development Goals exist (or rather, existed in that case, since those were replaced in 2015) – but class? That’s a bit of a difficult one, unless you want to resort to hardline socialist methods, Marxist methods…or communist ones. Not that any of those are bad, it’s just that I happen to like capitalism,even with its flaws and no matter what imbalances it causes to others. It’s just that not having capitalism would mean everyone’s equal, but then everyone’s worse off as a result…because if everyone has the same stuff, no one is different and no one is diverse enough to make anyone special. Get what I mean?

I think this episode sold me even more on the show, the premise…the everything. Except maybe that “I want to get rid of class” part.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime 1

I just memorise this show as “Slime Datta Ken”, so if you’re wondering what that is…now you know.

What was that opening segment for, man…? This is just a boring isekai intro.

I’m laughing! He values his computer over his life? As much as I know I’m attached to my computer, you should prioritise 1) getting Mikami an ambulance, 2) stopping the blood flow or 3) just getting Mikami to preserve his own life. Not that I’ve ever been in a life or death scenario, but that’s common sense, even if it’s a bit nihilistic or unrealistic.

Seriously, there’s currently no pull but how intriguing these unexplained “acquisition” scenes are. Like seriously. Those effects are cool and somewhat intriguing in the same way as Juuni Taisen was.

The picture of a flower…where did it come from? A child? Hmm, interesting way to express such a though process.

The CGI of the reveal was actually really good. Like, Houseki no Kuni good!

Actually, this is very Houseki no Kuni. Reestablishing what it is that makes humans human and what causes a creature to live and all that.

I never knew a slime could be this expressive…

“I see you have guts.” – That’s probably something you shouldn’t say to a slime, LOL.

Oh! This reminds me of a writing piece I had to do one time where you had to tell a tale from a monster’s perspective and make them sympathetic. I wrote about a dragon, so there’s something nostalgic about this.

There really isn’t a lot of movement in this show. Not that I mind it – Juuni Taisen I used to love a bunch and that was based off a novel, but this is an LN-based show…the level of writing in this show is clearly from the LN camp, for one thing. How it got such great production values, however, is another question entirely…

The slime and dragon friendship that just formed made me wanna go “ET!”, just because the gesture they did to seal said friendship did kind of look like that, haha.

Mechasoft Doors MX…hey, I am getting my fix of anime OSs this season after all! Just…not in Gridman yet. Update: There are zero OSs in Gridman, not in episode 1 at least...

Oh wow! That fight scene was so darned cool! It makes me wanna see more already! And the fact he (I already know from promo material the slime’s name is Rimuru) uses his slime form and human form interchangeably…that’s even cooler!

The font down the bottom and up the top of the next episode box appears to say “Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken” (due to the frequency of one of the symbols that appears to be an S, then you do the same for E and you realise it works…then you realise the text is just stylised romaji). There are zeroes and ones on the left and right sides, which might correlate to Rimuru’s “analysis voice”…whatever that may be. Anyways, I’m pretty confident this’ll be something for my lineup, but it’s too early for judgement calls. It’s a keeper…for now.

Run with the Wind 1

Now here’s a show I didn’t expect to follow going in…I picked it up merely on ANN recs.

I’m laughing like a maniac! As much as it was a compelling opening, after the dude arrives on his bike and asks “Do you like running?” to a thief, I lost it. For some reason, I find it almost so unrealistic it became hilarious, in a stupid sort of way. Or maybe I just have a really bad sense of humour. Who knows?

That one guy running in the back in the OP is basically me every time I’m meant to do something physical. Even going up three floors via stairs gets me out of breath though and I live a fairly sedentary lifestyle, so I ain’t a good comparison.

That nickname “Shindo” puzzles me. I can’t think of a kanji combo that would result in wordplay with the characters for “god” and “child” using the name “Takashi Sugiyama”, but I guess maybe we’ll find out in a later episode…?

Thank…uh, goodness for the censorship on Musa…

Musa speaks unusually politely (because I noticed he used “gozonji desu” at one point, which is a keigo variant for “shitteiru”). Maybe it’s because they barely know each other that there’s keigo being flung about. That seems reasonable, at least.

There’s something authentic about this sense of camaraderie. I can tell because my extended family is huge, so gatherings are often like this but multiplied in scale.

“Tsuru no Yu” – Technically that translates to “Crane’s Bath”…”Public Bath” is the place’s purpose.

I was wondering why we’d somehow reverted to not having 10 dudes, but then they show this is actually Haiji’s perspective of the event from the start of the episode and show the scar on his knee. That’s gotta be important for later.

…and Haiji left his towel, LOL.

I still laugh every time I see Haiji’s stupid face (the one he makes when he asks “Do you like running?”).

I’ve associated the slurring of words like “yakusoku-ssu” to be for smol bishies like Yumoto, so having Haiji use it is a bit of whiplash. Then again, apparently that slurring is only used by men to assert their masculinity as far as I know…so, uh, yeah.

Actually…I’ve been wondering. How long are courses at this uni? Where I am, being a straight literature major is 3 years (assuming you also do other stuff that fulfils a straight Arts degree). Also, Fune wo Amu (by the same creator) is about a dude making a dictionary…hmm, so the creator really likes books.

Wait, as far as my short term memory operates, most of these guys at Chikuseisou do arts majors, aside from the law student and the smoker (who does engineering). They do literature or sociology, mostly. So if that’s correct…the author also likes sociology. I’ve been thinking about doing some sociology myself, it would really complement what I know about international studies.

As explained by Kyra, chiku – sei – sou. The sei means blue/green and the chiku means bamboo. Switching the two and reading them differently gives you “Aotake”.

Rent’s $300? Must be cheap, eh?

Also see Kyra’s post for information about the food-based suicide note.

The Kanto Gogakuren refers to this manga, Sakigake!! Otokojuku. It’s basically Again!!, but with more Fist of the North Star-style dudes.

Hmm…turns out you can refer to this show as KazeTsuyo. That’s going to make me confuse it with SekaTsuyo, though…(SekaTsuyo = Wanna Be the Strongest in the World!) Also, it turns out the character for “Kakeru” in this case means “to run” (normally it means “to dash” with a kanji normally used for flying). Wait…did I ever mention how much this show’s aesthetic visuals always look as if they’re a Powerpoint theme (see images below)? They do look like that, don’t they?

I still have no idea why Kakeru has a bad case of resting b**** face, but…uh yeah, forget I said that. The sound direction in this show’s really nice. It really takes advantage of quiet moment to insert natural sounds.

I think if you go “yes!” when Haiji says “I’m going to win over all the dudes”, then you’re sold on the show. I did go “yes”, just without speaking. You know those feelings you only get in your gut and heart? Yeah, like that.

Huh? I noticed a dude called Bruce Chiou is in the credits and he’s definitely on RErideD this season too…

Out of this one, Slime Datta Ken and Double Decker it’s ranked last, but this show’s still a pretty strong addition to the seasonal lineup. Only time will tell if I kick it out or not…

Bakumatsu 1

The only experience I have with this era in anime is Bakumatsu Rock, I think…and that means I don’t know much about it.

Actually…considering the OP, scratch that. I know a bunch because of Touken Ranbu and other similar historical shows.

A…boob window? On a man? I get the black skintight vest is meant to be sexy, but I can’t see the point of that diamond…it’s just something extra for the animators and the illustrators to deal with.

C’mon. Can we not have Dudes Swishing Their Swords at the 4th Wall as something meant to hype up the audience? It’s a cliché, almost as bad as the running scenes you often get in OPs and EDs…Seriously, I can’t believe I’m getting mad at 10 dudes swinging their swords like this (specifically I’m getting mad because they were all in succession – doesn’t matter if it was in time to the music or not).

Okay, who transplanted WWI into this? I know that’s the point of the show, but the sepia really sold the idea of “this is meant to be Old-Timey Wimey Stuff and whoever’s meant to be watching is meant to be a history buff so they can spot the difference”.

Part of the ep title is “Mou Ichido no Bakumatsu”, so a better translation is “The Bakumatsu (Era) – Again!”

Wait, I thought Kondo was meant to look hotter than this (especially because he had what appears to be a coin – or an old-timey family crest – on his head). The frumpy mouth doesn’t sell the goods, yo.

Somehow…I knew Katsura would have glasses. He has them in Bakumatsu Rock. But is it historically accurate to have glasses in the Bakumatsu era, though?

Come to think of it…something that controls time would be pretty hard to destroy, no?

I think I read on ANN that swords being too big to draw in ship quarters is accurate. Hmm.

If this is such an important treasure…then why not have more padlocks on it? Or more guards closer to it (although those guys probably ran away)? Or some other protection around it? Couldn’t this supposed Yoshinobu-sama fight for himself?...Then again, I think this is just a case of overthinking. (insert MST3K mantra here)

Puh-lease. As much as I want a kunoichi (lady ninja) in my shows, don’t make them Naruto run. That’s one of my pet peeves…

Uh…Hagi? That’s probably it, considering there’s a river in the show.

Kakesoba.

Kamaboko.

Tanuki soba.

Well, there’s something to be said about being able to steal Shinsengumi jackets while the men are eating noodles. At least it didn’t involve knocking them out though (weak LOL).

Okay…why do the Shinsengumi look like waiters now? As much as I like a dude in a waiter suit, if I wanted a waiter, I’d go to a fancy French restaurant…

I feel like I’m being clubbed over the head with themes in this show. C’mon, have more tact than that.

There’s basically no chemistry between these guys (Katsura and Shinsaku). How did they meet?

Wait, so Darker Blue is Sakamoto if Green is Katsura and Red is Shinsaku? Sakamoto (Ryouma) is the redhead in Bakumatsu Rock, isn’t he? Okay then. But who’s White?

Seriously, Shinsaku. Learn from the kunoichi and stay quiet and stealthy. I don’t need another shonen hero…

Oh man, Toshizou is normally one of the Shinsengumi I like best (or at least I recognise his name more) out of these kinds of shows. If he has Perma-Scowl, I can’t possibly like this version.

Oh goodness. Souji’s a friggin’ sadist. Come to think of it though, I think this (Okita) Souji looks like the one from Gintama.

Why does Toshizou sound a frigton like any given Touken Ranbu sword…?

If that katana is symbolic…Toshizou must be hecka masculine, LEL. (Note: A “LEL” is not quite a LOL, it’s mostly done in jest. If anything, it’s probably about half a LOL.)

If that blonde ain’t Abe no Seimei, Yoshinobu-sama or some other important historical figure I know the name of, I’m eating my hat! (Not that I’m wearing one, it’s a figure of speech.)

I like Sakamoto’s face here, but man, I get distracted by the man candy below it…(i.e. his abs and bare chest, LOL. What did you think I was referring to?)

Oh great. (sarcastic) Sanada Yukimura almost always has that silly helmet, ever since Sengoku Musou I’ve pretty much tried to run away from it. I’d recognise it anywhere.

Who had the grand idea of letting Sanada keep his horse, anyway?

Okay, as much as I like making snarky comments, I made one too many here, methinks. Time for the drop pile.

Zombieland Saga 1

I read spoilers just a little bit, so I know the main twist is “zombie idols that sing death metal” already. If you didn’t want to know that at this point…sorry.

Whoa! They killed their protag off the bat? Not that I didn’t know that wouldn’t happen (already knew it would), but that’s gutsy. Truck-kun, go back to your darn isekai shows already.

Okay, I know this is a schoolgirl, but can we not with Sakura’s Schoolgirl Run for Dainty Ladies? This is a zombie show, dangit. Run properly. Can we also not with the boob jiggle?

Well, that’s one way to defeat a police officer (or get yourself arrested): Spade to the Brain.

Otsumami appears to be the name for the squid in Kotaro’s pocket.

You can’t see Kotaro’s eyes, even behind those sunnies…hmm…

Wow. Miyano sounds like he’s having such fun voicing Kotaro, y’know?

From the flyer: “They are coming soon from the underground...” Yup, that’s right, alright. Zombies have already come from the underground.

Tae’s credited under ????. They’re still holding out on us!

It seems like a pretty good keeper, provided you can keep up with who’s who.

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DakaIchi 1

Yep, the BL anime. Thought I’d never try one? Think again.

As much as I do think I’d want to be hugged by Takato, his face…makes him look like he came out of Junjou Romantica…? Uhh…awkward.

Please don’t let this be a work full of sadism and BDSM. I’m not that kinky, y’know…?

Uh, if you ever knew “boundaries”, Azumaya, that would be great. Thanks.

LOL, what a way to win a dude over. $10! That is cheap for a star.

I’m still wondering if this all constitutes “assault” or some other illegal business. I mean, Takato agreed to everything under the influence of a bunch of drinks.

LOL, the director’s shirt says “concentration”. As in, “focus on the stuff you’re doing”.

Hey wait, how does anyone pull off a kabedon on an operation curtain?!

Uh…maybe it’s just my inexperience with the genre, but…what the heck was that scene with the feathers?

Dangit, Yaoi Hands. If I weren’t so aware of you already, you wouldn’t be breaking the immersion of this show!!!

Random Dance Ending? I so did not expect that, I’m laughing as a result.

Uhh…I cannot believe I did that. I watched an episode of a yaoi anime and coveredit without it ruining my pride! To think I watched 18+ shoujo ai before 18+ shonen ai is really something I cannot get my head around, though…not that I will ever tell you which shoujo ai show I watched. So…uh, it was actually pretty decent aside from the “I don’t get what the heck this scene is meant to be” bits which are probably staples of the genre.

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Radiant 1

Uhh…why do I feel like I’m watching Deltora Quest for the 3rd time? Not that Deltora Quest is bad, it’s just too stereotypically high fantasy.

Mahoutsukai. Literally “mage”, but could be “wizard” or “sorcerer” if you went with it loosely. Then again, the French word for sorcerer must be pretty close to the English one which should be enough of a guide for translators, right?

Eh? It’s an…elephant –cow? What is this, Avatar  the Last Airbender? (half-snarking)

I think as the show goes along, its comedic timing is actually getting…better. That’s something, huh?

The show’s just a tiny bit too heavy-handed with its themes of racism or whatever sorcerers stand for. Then again, this is a shonen show. It’s allowed to be this way.

Geez, stylised English really is the order of the day for anime these days, huh? Lessee here…Alma’s…uh, Observatory, I think it says…?

Uh…all this talk about grimoires is giving me bad flashbacks…bad, screamy flashbacks involving a certain Asta…

I just noticed Alma gets referred to that way by Seth. Are these two not related, even though they share the same house (?) and hair colour?

Oh great. (sarcastic) Toilet humour. One of my worst enemies, aside from fanservice…

What’s up with the bat (?)? It knd of seems to be Alma’s…

Hey, I…think I know this kind of story too well. It’s going to eventually end, after a long run, with an adult Seth and that girl from one of the key visuals together…or something. Shonen are weird like that. They always end with a happily ever after and an adult protagonist, or the “the adventure just keeps happening!” sort of thing…y’know?

The plural of Nemesis is “Nemeses”, but it seems the book Seth read said “Nemesis’ Egg”. So the plural is the same as the singular in this case.

Huh? They chose to put both fancily-written French and then Japanese under it, as a homage to the French origins of this work? Huh, interesting.

Tommy’s saying “Gyaaaaah!” not “Yaaaaaaah!” - there’s a difference between those two, y’know?

SSSS.Gridman 1

As a self-professed fan of heroes who never actually got into tokusatsu because I keep missing Power Rangers when it airs on local TV stations, this and Garo are filling in a genre space I never really had until I started wandering tokusatsu wikis...which was before the live-action Power Rangers came out, methinks.

Why do I feel like I’ve seen this font (the one “SSSS.Gridman” is written in)? I thought it was a Calvin Harris music video, since I have a few downloaded legally (due to a CD I found in one particular library), but Harris’s font is slightly different to this one…Well, after some experimentation, it seems to be Arial with extra kerning.

“Amnesiac” is starting to become an anime trope in itself…

Seven-Two-One, LOL.

Ahh, children in puberty. Can’t tell whether relationships are romantic or just platonic. (wistful)

If Utsumi isn’t the goth dude from earlier, I’m eating my hat! (Not that I’m wearing one right-oh, I’ve used this joke before, haven’t I?)

…dangit, now I have to eat my metaphorical hat. By the by, I thought Utsumi was an Ume sort of character (as in, the type who would usually get voiced by Yuichiro Umehara), but no, it was Soma Saito.

The girl with the purple hair reminds me of the Administrator (or whatever her name is, the AI) from Yakusoku no Nanayamatsuri.

Regardless of whether the scene was with volume or not, that awkward pause between Shinjo, Utsumi and Hibiki went just a weeny bit too long…

When Takarada approached Utsumi and Hibiki, the colours of her earphones and eyes really popped!

They seem to treat memory loss as something minor, like a cold. It’s a bit awkward, I think.

Utsumi, kid. If you think computers from the 70s and 80s are huge, you should see server rooms! Those computers are huge! Not to mention, the first computers filled up entire rooms (just like servers do). Even portable server units are about a good 160 cm tall with wheels…oh, you don’t want to hear me prattle on about this? Okay, moving on.

“This really is a pile of junk, huh?” I had to go back and check someone hadn’t skipped a word – they did skip the word, in fact.

T-This is what Trigger have held out on us for? A monster like this looks terrible in CGI, man. Even if it is one of the better efforts. I mean, the eyes don’t even look in the same direction…

Why does Utsumi refer to the computer as “Junk”?

The Ultra series? Y’mean Ultraman?

Let’s just say…Gridman looks much better than the kaiju here.

They didn’t even dispose of the kaiju head properly, LOL.

I feel like the battle didn’t quite get my blood boiling. (Probably because I was grumbling too hard at the kaiju and the parts where the execution got a little too silly.) I’ll put it on hold and see if it gets better in a few episodes, but I’m not holding my breath. Since this is Trigger, it could pull off some great stuff if it tried…it’s just this seemed a little soulless in comparison to everything else I’ve seen them do. Or maybe my increased consumption of anime this year has left me jaded...

[itsunpublic]

2021 Whirlwind

2021 has been an eventful year to say the least. I’m currently sitting here at Toyota of Cedar Park to get my windshield replaced, of my new car I just bought last year. It’s like the drama keeps on going. Or, it’s like the drama is winding down. I’m not sure.

2021, you were dramatic.

From the capital insurrection to the inauguration and my first Covid vaccine in January and the health scare that came with it, to the homelessness due to the Winter Freeze that flooded my apartment and second Covid vaccine in February. To moving into another problem unit and putting in my first offer on a home in March. April came with an upturn to getting my offer letter accepted and the sudden change in energy to closing on my first home in May and moving for the second time in 3 months to my first new home in June. By July I was reeling in from the whirlwind of the past few months, trying to settle into my new home and life when car troubles came July and August.  Somewhere in August and September work relationships improved. To September hitting another wall to which I processed all the pain I’ve experienced in the last months and years and decided I was ready to get back out there. To September when I pushed the pedal forward and bought a car, started leaning into brand new friendships and began dating. To starting to open myself back up, to meeting Patrick. To October, November, December where the holidays and my dating took my life by storm. 

Now, today, January 10 of the new year, I am waiting on getting my windshield replaced of the brand new car I just purchased in September. The car that seemingly marked the turning point of my moving past the old and onto the new. It’s coincidental, no? Symbolic, no?  

I forgot to mention Patrick and I broke up a week ago, right into the new year, and again yesterday.

It’s like buying a new car was the turning point of moving on from my last major heartache with Ryan, and the gateway moment to beginning my new smaller relationship with Patrick. And replacing my windshield now is like the turning point of mending a smaller broken heart in my most recent breakup. The intensity of the heartbreaks are getting less. That’s a good thing right?

It’s weird timing how that works right? Relationships timed with the car? 2021, you kept me on my toes. It was a heart-felt year in every possible way, and I can’t look back on you fondly or unfondly. It is what it is, and now I am ready for the next. Come on 2022, you’re only just beginning.

(1.10.22)

[pokemonruby]

Character Profile: Leo Pendragon

heyo! it’s been awhile since i’ve discussed anything about my novel but, i recently read @punkrockclassic‘s profile of her characters so i decided heck, i wanna try this too! i apologize if this gets... extremely lengthy. 

(Artwork by my wonderful boyfriend @faeriemagics!)

Name: Leonardo (Leo) Pendragon Why did I pick this name?: Well, mostly because of the symbolism! Leo, of course, means “lion”, and considering his courageous nature it suits him a lot! As for his surname, “Pendragon” belongs to King Arthur from Arthurian Legend! We all know him as a valiant hero, after all. It’s quite the suitable designation for a fantasy novel’s protagonist.  Book and role: “Lost Paradise”, and he’s the main protagonist! 

Job: Leo is an explorer who belongs to one of the kingdom’s largest guilds, known as the “Ravenglades”! He’s to report discoveries directly to their chiefwoman, Anastasia, and was even asked by her to research into the whereabouts of the sacred land, “Paradise”. Needless to say, Leo’s goal (at the start of the novel) is to both carry out that particular assignment and keep the promise he made with his presumably deceased friend, Prince Matthew--to make the world a better place.  Age: 20 is Leo’s default age! However, he ages as the storyline progresses; by the climax, he is around 24!  Personality type: ENFP, the Inspirer.  Character history: When I first began production on Lost Paradise around the time I graduated from middle school, needless to say, Leo was nothing like he is today. In fact, the original version of Leo was timid and suffered from self-esteem issues. He’d prefer the company of his homestead rather than a life of adventure, incomparable to the dauntless protagonist we acknowledge nowadays. 

Leo was originally the overrated “chosen one” troupe, as well....Keep in mind I was fourteen and this was supposed to be a way to pass time; however, once I recongized that i could actually transform LP into a real book....I became more serious with how I wanted to present his character. I think I did a good job at improving him, too! It’s difficult for me to write another protagonist as lovable as he is, which is why I haven’t made much progress with my other works. (Except for Monochrome--I absolutely adore Agnes’s character. I’ll have to talk about her in another profile).  Personality description: I don’t want to say Leo is your stereotypical “adventurous” protagonist.... Behind his seemingly “cheerful” outlook on life, he’s a rather complex character with an infinite amount of relatable traits. That’s why I adore his personality so much, because he feels like an actual, breathing person. Let’s go into a bit of detail! 

On the outside, Leo is described as venturesome--someone who would willingly plunge into otherwise dangerous locations for the mere thrill, a suitable personality for an explorer like himself. He is kind-hearted and tremendously loyal to his comrades, especially Alexander. Leo would risk everything to protect the people he loves, even if his own life were on the line--he always, always puts others’ welfare before his own. It may seem like a heroic trait to possess....However, it’s also Leo’s downfall; because of his inability to worry about himself, he pushes himself to the limit constantly. Whether studying, exploring, fighting for his friends--etc, Leo could become a bloodied mess and concern moreso about the mere scratch on someone else’s finger. This introduces the reader to the self-hatred he desperately tries to keep hidden away. Leo Pendragon, while adorned with such a sunny smile.... is merely a mas. In actuality, this is an individual that is overrun with endless stress; forced to prove himself, or else he’s....nothing. Leo’s biggest phobia is of his own uselessness, which comes into play once he acknowledges how gifted everyone else within the cast is except for him. The self-proclaimed “hero” without a strength of his own. 

Leo is also prone to reckless behavior, especially if it involved the people he cares about. Without first thinking about the consequences, he would throw himself onto the battlefield to defend another. He’ll pull miraculous stunts to assure that everyone else is safe and sound.... but wouldn’t bat an eye at his own injuries. He, however, always responds to that with a smile--”At least nobody got hurt, right?” while hiding the festering cut on his abdomen. A short temper isn’t out of question, either. If someone were to insult say....Alexander, for example, it wouldn’t end well--Leo has picked fights with much larger, stronger men more times than he can count. Merely because they insulted someone close to him. All in all, Leo is relatable; like I said, he feels like a real person. He has limitless flaws, but also qualities: Cheerfulness, intelligence, a golden heart, etc. He’s your trademark hero with an actual backstory to fuel his determination. He’s a hardworker, needless to say. Someone who doesn’t understand the meaning behind the phrase “give up”--never surrendering to fate, no matter the odds. 

(Artwork by @killrot! Leo is the one on the right, while Alexander is the other!) FUN RANDOM STUFF Hogwarts house: Gryffindor  Theme song: "Adventure of a Lifetime” by Coldplay. 

Cinnamon roll status: Looks like a cinnamon roll, and IS a cinnamon roll. Alignment: Chaotic Good  Best and worst subjects at school: Well, Leo never went to school.... After all, he was an orphan until his tenth year. After that, he was “tutored” by Alexander and Matthew respectively; however, he quickly became invested in history and studied it himself. History is his overall best subject for obvious reasons, but he excels in all of the core ones. I’d say one that he is lacking in slightly is Chemistry, though.  Dream job?: He’s already accomplished his dream job.... an Explorer! 

Cat or dog person?: Dog!  Clothing style: Leo prefers comfortable wear, such as button-ups (that are lazily tucked into his trousers--which are usually dusty because... well, exploration), an oversized trenchcoat, etc. He loves accessories, though. Hence the bandana he always wears around his forehead; however, it also holds significant value to him....being the first present Alexander had ever given him. In a Modern AU, Leo would be a flannel with a graphic shirt underneath kind of guy--and a lot of piercings.  Coffee or tea?:  Tea! 

Aesthetic?: An outdoorsy / historical type of aesthetic! Ancient ruins, vast grasslands, scattered maps upon a table, aged books, sunflowers--etc! It describes his overall character very well, considering how he’s an explorer and all. 

Something everybody likes that they hate?: Authority, probably. Leo is the type of person to completely ignore the rules & do whatever his heart tells him.

Something everybody hates that they love?: Being outside--which I can say a lot of people detest the idea of. Also, going into abandoned and otherwise dangerous locations for the mere thrill.  Sexuality?: He is the biggest bisexual you’ll ever meet.  Favourite time of year or day?: Summer! And dawn, probably.  Insecurities: Lord, where do I begin. Leo.... profoundly believes that he’s “useless”, unable to truly support other people. That he has to constantly prove himself, otherwise he’ll be considered a “failure”. As I mentioned before, this is his greatest phobia--to seem insignificant in the perspective of those he loves. Behind Leo’s commonplace smile is stress--stress because of everything he’s ever done, merely by existing.  Birthday: June 21st Zodiac: Cancer Spirit animal: Probably a wild dog of some kind! Maybe coyote?  Favourite hobby?: Studying ancient texts, reading, exploring, cooking, sparring with Alexander and et cetera.  How was their childhood?: Leo was abandoned by his parents at a young age, forced to survive on the Capital’s streets with only thievery to keep him alive. Time and time again, he was beaten by the local shopkeepers for taking an ounce of bread--bread easily replacable, but none would turn a blind eye to a malnourished child. Eventually, around his tenth birthday, he met Alexander Frost on a rainy afternoon....he was the first to take Leo’s hand within this miserable existence of his. Alexander, otherwise known as a noble belonging to the “Frost” household of distinguished knights--knights who serve directly beneath the Emperor, no less, would sneak Leo into his mansion and care for him. Their bond developed more and more with each moment they spent with each other....and Leo was introduced to “friendship”, a luxury he’s never indulged in before. Eventually, he met Matthew upon a trip to the palace--unaware to formalities, he became fast friends with the second heir. However.... this seemingly “peaceful” era within Leo’s life would extinguish soon enough, with the Emperor’s assassination and Matthew’s thereafter disappearance--presumed dead. Even so, Leo never regretted anything; he truly believes his childhood was worth it, despite the misfortune. After all, he was able to meet his future lover in unexpected events.  Relationship with his parents?: Leo never knew his birth parents--as mentioned above, he was abandoned by them for unknown reasons. Later, it’s revealed they were merely trying to save him from an otherwise inescapable disaster....However, lost their own lives in the process. There is another character who Leo respects as a fatherly figure, however: Judah, another member of the Ravenglades and their second-in-command. Anastasia has always acted akin to a mother/elder sister for him as well. Needless to say, Leo doesn’t mind the mystery surrounding his origins....After all, he still has family, whether they’re blood related or not..  TV show he would like?: Discovery channel is Leo’s ideal way to spend Saturday night.... that and Animal Planet as well. He’d be every intrigued by nature documentaries. In this hypothetical modern AU, HXH would be his favorite anime....For obvious reasons. Also DBZ. 

Social media?: Leo would probably be popular on instagram! He’d take photography of beautiful landscapes and abandoned locatons. Also, he is the master of selfies. Beware your feed.  Quotes: Will update later! I don’t have any off the top of my head at this moment.

[asromaworld]

Alessandro’s review about Francesco

I was born and grew up in Roma. Like all the kids in the youth sector at the club, on Sunday I would go to the Stadio Olimpico to watch my heroes in the first team. My first memories of Francesco come from this period: Back then I’d see him in the flesh playing a few metres away from me; he was incredible, a player from a different world.

As I grew older and progressed as a player, eventually I started playing for the Primavera. Occasionally I would be asked to come up and train with the first team squad. It was difficult not to get emotional at the prospect of playing with Totti. Superstars are capable of intimidating you with just once glance, but Francesco was always brilliant at putting you at ease. He is amazing at that side of things, even back then he’d throw a joke your way and it would make you feel like he is your best mate.

My debut in Serie A involves Francesco as well. It was on the 22 May 2011, at the end of the season before I went on loan to Crotone for a year. Coach Montella added me to the first-team squad for the last game of the championship, against Sampdoria. At the end of the game the boss called me to come on, and Francesco was the one I replaced. He was the symbol of the team and I was replacing him, for my very first game in Serie A. That moment will stay in my mind forever: as it will for my father, my mother, and all my relatives.

They saw me realise my dream in the best possible way.

I came back to Trigoria after a year at Crotone and the bond with the captain got better and better. Since we’re both from Rome, along with Daniele De Rossi, a really special relationship developed. I hold him in such high regard and this has only grown over time.

I remember our friendship really began on a plane heading to the United States for pre-season. It was my first pre-season tour, my first trip across the Atlantic, and things were dragging. And so, to pass the time, we started playing cards. That was when we started chatting and you could feel a bond developing. He’s a master at making you feel at home - and manages to make you feel comfortable straight away, with a joke or merely one of his looks. When you break into the first team at Roma he really was a great team-mate to have.

My second big moment for Roma also has his imprint on it: My first goal for the club came thanks to his assist. It was on the 2 September 2012, and we were playing at the San Siro against Inter Milan. So, I’m lucky enough to be able to say that Francesco was key to the two biggest things a kid playing football dreams of: playing in the top flight and scoring in a competitive fixture.

Over the years he’s remained the most relaxed person you’ll ever meet. Away from the pitch he’s actually quiet a shy and reserved character, which perhaps you wouldn’t expect. He prefers to spend a lot of time with his family and I guess being who is in Rome has made him be a little more like that: just because it’s really not easy for him to go out in public where he inevitably becomes the main attraction. I think it will be always like this for him.

For me it was so easy to go from being a team-mate to a friend with him - but that’s truly all thanks to him, especially at the start when I felt incredibly embarrassed around him.

There isn't enough time, enough words, to talk about Francesco Totti: because you have to bring up his history, his skills and his goals. I can only say he’s a unique footballer, one of a kind. Perhaps his best attribute is that he’s got eyes in the back of his head, which is very rare to find in the world of football. He sees things before everyone else and his intelligence is unmatched in this sport.

As I’ve said, off the pitch his approachability and openness to me, the team and the city has been so special.

When you talk about Roma, you talk about Francesco. You don’t have to spend two hours in this city to realise that: if you think about the capital, the first name that immediately comes to mind is Totti.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have crossed paths with him, both professionally and in my personal life.

- Alessandro Florenzi

[newstfionline]

Still More Victims in Mexico’s Quakes: Legions of Displaced

By Marina Franco and Kirk Semple, NY Times, Sept. 27, 2017

MEXICO CITY--They are a population adrift, cast loose by a disaster.

They sleep on couches, in makeshift shelters and in their cars; wear borrowed clothes and hand-me-downs from donation piles; and, separated from their kitchens, rely on others’ cooking, each plate a reminder of their restless, unanchored state.

The earthquake on Sept. 19 killed at least 333 people in central Mexico and injured thousands of others. But it also created another class of victims: the displaced.

They number in the many thousands and count among them the very rich and the very poor, from city dwellers who lived in luxury high-rises to farmers in adobe huts. They include those whose buildings collapsed, but also those whose buildings have been declared structurally unsound and, while standing for now, face the likelihood of demolition.

Still others occupy an even less certain place: Their homes are fine save for the fact that they abut a building at risk of collapse.

“I still cry often,” said Elizabeth Flores, 50, a property manager who owns an apartment in a five-story walk-up in Mexico City that was heavily damaged. She has since been staying with a friend.

“This was my home,” Ms. Flores said. “Just that morning I had eaten breakfast there and made my bed. We went from modest comfort to having not just our homes but our lives in ruins.”

It remains unclear exactly how many buildings in Mexico were damaged by the earthquake last week, or how many people have been forced from their homes.

Federal officials say that the quake on Sept. 19, and one on Sept. 7 that struck mainly the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, damaged at least 155,000 homes, with more than 27,000 destroyed and 19,700 damaged so severely as to be uninhabitable.

In Mexico City, at least 38 buildings collapsed in the quake. The city’s mayor has said about 500 have been deemed “high risk” and would have to be demolished or have major reconstruction before people could return. Most of those buildings are residential.

Public and private efforts to help displaced people with housing and reconstruction needs have begun to take shape. On Tuesday, the authorities in Mexico City announced a plan to provide low-interest loans and other financial assistance to homeowners, depending on their needs and the conditions of their homes. The city has also promised financial assistance for renters.

And in a statement posted on YouTube late Thursday, President Enrique Peña Nieto promised that the government would “directly support families with resources and materials” to repair damage and build new homes, though he offered no further details.

A project called Arriba Mexico has started a website that invites people to “book a symbolic stay in a ruined home and help rebuild Mexico,” with the proceeds going toward relief efforts for victims, including temporary housing. The offers are truly symbolic; donors will not set foot on the properties.

“Stay in a gorgeous ruined apartment (parking included) in Atlixco, Puebla,” says one listing, beneath the photo of a building reduced to rubble. The price is $44 a night.

The future for many of the displaced, at least in the near term, is highly uncertain, leaving them in a frustrating, exhausting transitional state that could test friendships and strain relationships.

Last week’s quake drove Ana Paula Velasquez from her apartment in the Roma Sur neighborhood, where she and her husband, daughter and mother lived. Their building was found to be unsafe, and its residents scattered to hotels and to the homes of relatives and friends.

Ms. Velasquez, 39, and her family spent the first night after the earthquake with a friend of her mother’s, and the second at a relative’s home.

She and her husband then decided to send their daughter to live with family friends while they, along with Ms. Velasquez’s mother, moved into a shelter that had opened in a grade school in their neighborhood.

It was the primary school that her daughter, now 13, once attended.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Ms. Velasquez said, sitting on a bench designed for small children. Classrooms had been converted to dormitories, with mattresses on the floor.

Ms. Velasquez, a former receptionist for a parking lot company, had decided to move to the shelter in part because she did not want to impose on friends and family. In addition, she said, the shelter has functioned as an outlet for information about legal assistance and other aid for earthquake victims. Staying there allows her to remain on top of her case.

“If you let this get cold, there’s even less chance the government will do something,” she said.

The shelter is scheduled to close on Friday, and the family will be forced to move to another one, though she is not sure where.

Long-term questions remain unanswered, like whether new apartment buildings will rise to replace those that are demolished, allowing developers and unit owners to recover their investments. Many homeowners in Mexico do not have property insurance.

Nobody believes that the process will be quick, particularly if the aftermath of the devastating 1985 earthquake is any indication. That quake flattened hundreds of buildings in Mexico City and caused structural damage to thousands of others in the capital, many of which were later demolished.

Rebuilding in some areas of Mexico City took more than a decade. Some buildings slated for demolition became ensnarled in litigation for years.

“The one thing we know for sure right now is that our recovery is in for the long haul,” said Oscar Ramírez, 52, an engineer who owns an apartment in a Mexico City building that, though only a year old, collapsed in last week’s quake.

“The good thing is that most of us are alive,” he said. “And we just hope that we are not forgotten.”

[cristinacori]

Communism and consumerism

You cannot think of Russia without taking into account its cumbersome communist past. Seventy-three intense years of Soviet Union cannot be washed away by the fall of a wall. Even today, its Russian capital, in spite of everything, bustles with the legacies linked to the USSR, a soviet saying that a captive eye can see everywhere. Socialism emerges in the small details along the roads; it friezes with the hammer and sickle that decorate the walls, red stars adorn the buildings, gigantic paintings depicting proud workaholics workers cover the façades of houses and the ubiquitous grain bundles remind us that there was plenty of food for everyone, (even if it was actually rationed and you had to make endless queues to get it). The exasperating queues to grab the basic necessities were an institution in the daily life of homo sovieticus. It is true that Russia has always been a great powerful nation, but it is equally true that it was a “poor” power which used to destine the highest investment to the military, heavy industry and aerospace fields. The five-year plans did not include the development of consumption sector and for the population just a few, rationed, poor-quality goods were made available. The state was the only official food and basic goods dispenser and in order to have them, citizens had to get in line, something that everyone remembers today with great dislike indeed.

“We had to spend hours queuing for bread. It was a pain!” says Nadya, a girl I met in St. Petersburg.

“Maybe there was also something good about standing or being in the queue: you could socialize, chat with people” I point out with my non-Russian optimism as we stroll along Nevky Prospekt. She stops and looks at me puzzled and very surprised. “Are you serious? Yes, maybe – she says thoughtfully – but try and stand in the queue every single day of your life to get any kind of goods. No, if you lived it on your own skin, I don’t think you’d find a silver lining” Nadya finally concludes. From that period she only retains few fleeting memories of a child.

At the end of the queues, Russians had to show the kartochki, ration cards printed on a piece of paper, divided into monthly coupons entitling the bearer to food. Beside the world of kartochki however, the black market coexisted stealthy and hidden. It was carried out with a strong sense of the market by meshochniki, traffickers of groceries who served as abusive intermediaries between the countryside and the city or who just worked in food deposits from which they freely helped themselves.

After the collapse of the USSR, there were years of insecurity. Eltsin’s government threw Russia, still unprepared for the great economic event of the opening, into the free market. Between 2000 and 2013 thanks to a newly-found political stability, the middle class exponentially grew: in 2000, it only accounted for 10% of the population, but in 2013 that figure rose to 55%. Today the Russians, despite the 2014 Ukrainian-linked sanctions which weakened the rouble and the purchasing power, are hardcore fans of consumerism. The difficulty in finding some Western products does not scare them. However it annoys Germany, which could count on a good share of the Russian market, and the producers of the ever so beloved Italian foods; finding a true piece of Parmesan cheese in supermarkets is still an impossible task.

Years of Communist rigour have tried to transform the Russian man into the homo sovieticus, a “species” devoted to work and glory, educated to enhance the style of austere life and to despise the desire to accumulate goods. It seems that so much consumer frustration has now resulted in a exacerbate passion for purchases, a mania of consumerism perhaps even more compulsive than the one we are afflicted by in Western countries. “What happens if you replace the heroic Soviet doştat verb (to get) with the trivial kupit (to buy), a term rarely used in the times of the USSR?” asks Anya Von Bremzen in her wonderful book “The Art of Soviet cuisine”.

Despite every single corner of this huge city is full of the Socialist past splendour, Moscow is now a metropolis in constant face-lifting, full of shopping centres, elegant boutiques and trendy clubs. The Muscovite mundane scene has nothing to envy to that of other major Western cities and, in the Russian capital, there are plenty of restaurants for all budgets and interesting cafés sprouting everywhere in the centre. It’s been a while since Lenin, who was on a diet which was close to asceticism borders, condemned as “bourgeois” and therefore unacceptable, the aspiration to eat tasty things. Of that austere culture, in which the idea of pleasure was labelled as a capitalist degeneration and where the food was considered simple fuel, there is nothing left, except for some monumental traces of the glorious Soviet past.

One of these, probably the most impressive example, is located on the northern outskirts of the capital. This is the VDNKh, the All Russia Exhibition Centre, a huge park which, in all its socialist realism, celebrates the Soviet dream of federalism. Among the pavilions with the engraved names of the Soviet republics, stands a majestic fountain with 16 golden maidens dressed in exotic costumes, holding out their own gifts. Each one represents a former republic. The fountain was a symbol of that well-concealed imperialism which at the time was euphemistically called the “Friendship of peoples” and supposed to celebrate the ethnic diversity of the USSR. A short walk from the VDNKh, the triumphant statue of the Worker and Kolchoz Woman stands high in the sky held up by a massive pedestal. Standing at the foot of this monument I have to admit that I felt some indefinable emotions, perhaps because of its grandeur. Or because it glitters to the sweet light of the sunset with all its dynamic lines. Perhaps because it survives as an anachronistic relic in this city, today faithfully devoted to the most narcissistic consumerism. Finally, it may just represent the perfect synthesis of that socialist ideal, ended up shattered on the barriers of the unstoppable human nature.

Russia, Coast-to-Coast From the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean: Russia viewed from the train (part 3) Communism and consumerism You cannot think of Russia without taking into account its cumbersome communist past. Seventy-three intense years of Soviet Union cannot be washed away by the fall of a wall.