#Dean Wesley Smith

[ghost-of-books]

[bracketsoffear]

In the Blood (Jenny T. Colgan) Summary: "All over the world, people are "ghosting" each other on social media. Dropping their friends, giving vent to their hatred, and everywhere behaving with incredible cruelty. Even Donna has found that her friend Hettie, with her seemingly perfect life and fancy house, has unfriended her. And now, all over the world, internet trolls are dying…

As more and more people give in to this wave of bitterness and aggression, it's clear this is no simple case of modern living. This is unkindness as a plague.

From the streets of London to the web cafes of South Korea and the deepest darkest forests of Rio, can the Doctor and Donna find the cause of this unhappiness before it's too late?"

Why it's Slaughter: Yeah, it's anger as a bloodborne disease, basically. You get angrier and more violent, spreading the disease further -- and then your heart can't take any more and it explodes. No one is immune, not even Donna's kindly granddad Wilf. Makes for a change of pace from the myriad war statements to remind us that Slaughter can be extremely local and personal.

Carnage In New York (David Michelinie and Dean Wesley Smith) "Spider-Man rescues Dr. Eric Catrall, a scientist, from government agents. Simultaneously, serial killer Cletus Kasady is brought to New York to undergo an experiment that would purge him of the Carnage symbiote, which is bonded to his bloodstream. Catrall infiltrates the experiment and in the confusion Carnage escapes, taking Catrall with him. When Catrall turns up in jail, Spider-Man learns he had invented a chemical that drives people insane with bloodlust, and the government wants it back in order to weaponize it. Even worse, the serum is now in Carnage's possession. Spider-Man is forced to go toe-to-talon with one of his most dangerous foes to retrieve the serum, which could make all of New York just as bloodthirsty as Carnage himself."

[nevinslibrary]

Make It So Friday

A lot of Star Trek serieses can sorta be read in any order, and at anytime. And, while that’s sort of true of the Double Helix series also. On the other hand, if it’s read all at the ‘same time’ (i.e. over a few days or weeks or months) it’s such an amazingly awesome and epic story that really holds together well.

It starts with a plague on a planet where there’s also quite a lot of civil strife too. The Enterprise-D and Beverly Crusher are on the case though. It seems simple enough, but, it’s not actually simple at all. We then get four more books that are set mostly in ‘present’ time with all sorts of awesome characters like Montgomery Scott, Gul Dukat, Pulaski, Kira, more Beverly, and of course Bones from TOS. Then there’s the final book, which, actually goes all the way to the beginning with Jean-Luc Picard on the Stargazer and why the rest of the books and the through storyline actually happened to begin with.

It was set up so well. A slow burn as for who was doing this behind the scenes, and why it was happening too. Each book stood on its own merits, but, also had this really interesting and awesome through line. And then the final book was just…. Amazing. Although, to be fair, I’m a sucker for a good Stargazer story (that series is on my list to read too).

You may like this book If you Liked: Vulcan's Soul by Josepha Sherman, Prey by John Jackson Miller, or Cold Equations by David Mack

Double Helix Series by Various

[bobmueller]

Life Beyond the Day Job: Job Applications and More Smoking Adventures

Click for bigger. I smoked a sirloin tip roast last Sunday afternoon that turned out pretty darned tasty if I do say so. Just under three hours with Uncle Jammy’s River City Rub. The only thing I would have done differently is to cook it just a little longer or a little hotter. I was aiming for medium but it ended up juuuust medium-rare. That’s not a huge issue for me because I like most beef…

[englishsub]

book rec by me

so you want to get back into reading books but have no idea where to start and disdain booktok (if you get me started on this however i will become an unskippable cutscene so that's for another day). understandable. there is so much out there and it is all so overwhelming and you don't even know what you like now that you've been a decade out of the game. again, understandable. it does not have to be scary. i will help you. below i have created some categories that can get you started.

i want to read Literature

literary fiction, with crossover from historical fiction and magical realism

PEACH BLOSSOM SPRING by melissa fu

THE VASTER WILDS by lauren groff

THE FAMILY CHAO by lan samantha chang

OUTER DARK by cormac mccarthy

SEVERANCE by ling ma

LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS by ryka aoki

IDENTITTI by mithu m. sanyal

PIRANESI by susanna clarke

i want to read sci-fi/fantasy that won't break my brain

sci-fi and fantasy that is gentler on the brain cells. easier to grasp magic systems with multiple but not an overwhelming number of overlapping plotlines

EMILY WILDE'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by heather fawcett

KINGS OF THE WYLD by nicholas eames

THE JASMINE THRONE by tasha suri

THE CITY OF BRASS by s.a. chakraborty

A RIVER ENCHANTED by rebecca ross

JUNIPER AND THORN by ava reid

BLACK SUN by rebecca roanhorse

THE FINAL STRIFE by saara el-arifi

THE BONE SHARD DAUGHTER by andrea stewart

i want to read sci-fi/fantasy that forces me to lock the fuck in

i would not recommend picking these up as your first foray back into books after many years of not reading recreationally, but i'm not your mom.

THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER by simon jimenez

JADE CITY by fonda lee

THE FIFTH SEASON by n.k. jemisin

THE RAGE OF DRAGONS by evan winter

A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE by arkady martine

GIDEON THE NINTH by tamsyn muir

THE ART OF PROPHECY by wesley chu

THE GRACE OF KINGS by ken liu

horrify me!

there is far more to the horror literary canon than stephen king and dean koontz, i promise. consider looking up warnings for these.

TENDER IS THE FLESH by agustina bazterrica

THE RUINS by scott smith

CONFESSIONS by kanae minato

EPISODE THIRTEEN by craig dilouie

REPRIEVE by james han mattson

MARY by nat cassidy

DEAD SILENCE by s.a. barnes

AUDITION by ryu murakami

THE SALT GROWS HEAVY by cassandra khaw

don't care, i want romance

some of these feature crossover genres, like fantasy and horror.

VAMPIRES OF EL NORTE by isabel cañas

DAUGHTER OF THE MOON GODDESS by sue lynn tan

SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE by tia williams

HAPPY PLACE by emily henry

ONE DARK WINDOW by rachel gillig

i want QUEER romance

again, a mix of historical, fantasy, and contemporary crossover genres.

WE COULD BE SO GOOD by cat sebastian

IN MEMORIAM by alice winn

MOST ARDENTLY by gabe cole novoa

A STRANGE AND STUBBORN ENDURANCE by foz meadows

A MARVELLOUS LIGHT by freya marske

THE EMPEROR AND THE ENDLESS PALACE by justinian huang

SPELL BOUND by f.t. lukens

SORRY, BRO by taleen voskuni

ONE LAST STOP by casey mcquiston

DELILAH GREEN DOESN'T CARE by ashley herring blake

i haven't felt anything since i read percy jackson/the hunger games in middle school/high school

adventure is still out there.

SCYTHE by neil shusterman

WE HUNT THE FLAME by hafsah faizal

SIX OF CROWS by leigh bardugo

GEARBREAKERS by zoe hana mikuta

i'll read anything that's not straight or white

many books in the above categories fit this, but here's even more, across a variety of genres.

LAST NIGHT AT THE TELEGRAPH CLUB by malinda lo

BABEL by r.f. kuang

WHEN THE RECKONING COMES by latanya mcqueen

THE UNBROKEN by c.l. clark

IF YOU'LL HAVE ME (graphic novel) by eunnie

LEGEND OF THE WHITE SNAKE by sher lee

THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone

SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN by shelley parker-chan

"all ya books suck"

like any other genre or book age group, there are duds and there are standouts. ya is not special in this regard. try some of these!

DIVINE RIVALS by rebecca ross

STRIKE THE ZITHER by joan he

THE RED PALACE by june hur

A STUDY IN DROWNING by ava reid

EMPIRE OF SAND by tasha suri

LEGENDBORN by tracy deonn

i check out and read a lot of these books for free via my local library by using the libby app (you can even add your friends' library cards to gain access to libraries in places you don't live). when i'm feeling like reading via audiobook, i use libro fm!

look, no one HAS TO read diversely. no one is going to be reverse fahrenheit 451'd and locked in a room with no fanfic and only books and not let out until they work their way through the entire literary canon. but reading, and reading widely, and reading diversely, is what teaches people to form their own opinions and question the things they are told. it's why they hang up stuff like "READ READ READ!!" in grade school classrooms.

we live under systems that increasingly benefit from going unquestioned. no, of course reading ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE by robin hobb is not going to dismantle these systems tomorrow, nor probably even in our lifetimes. but doing it will help set up a world capable of doing it in the future. and until further notice, we are all part of this wretched world. might as well read a good story while we're here.

anyway, i'm reading THE WEST PASSAGE by jared pechaček and the new cmq book this week.

[writerintheworking]

Smut one shot requests (I write them on Wattpad & here but you can only request on here, my Wattpad user is sm_twrit_r) I only do male smut sorry

Baby:

-damiano younes

-niccolo govender

- Brando de sanctis

-fiore fiorenzi

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Harry potter + fancast:

-theodore nott

-mattheo ridde

-tom riddle

-lorenzo berkshire

-regulus black

-blaise zabini

-cedric diggory

-harry potter

-ron weasley

-fred weasley

-george weasley

-draco malfoy

-professor snape

-professor lupin

- James potter (fancast)

-----------------------------------------------

Outer banks:

- JJ maybank

- john b

- poper heyward

- rafe cameron

- topper Thornton

-----------------------------------------------

The vampire diaries:

-damon salvatore

-stefan salvatore

- Enzo st john

-jeremy gilbert

-tyler lockwood

- alaric saltzman

-klaus mikealson

- elijah mikealson

-kol mikealson

- kai parker

-----------------------------------------------

The walking dead:

-daryl dixon

-rick grimes

-carl grimes

-negan smith

-glenn rhee

-ezekiel sutton

-jesus (Paul) monroe

-abraham ford

-alden

-merle dixon

-dwight

-shane welsh

-micheal mercer

-----------------------------------------------

Stranger things:

-steve harrington

-eddie munson

-billy hargrove

-jonathan byers

-dimitri

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Riverdale:

-jughead jones

- archie andrews

- f.p jones

-sweetpea

-fangs fogarty

-reggie mantle

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Shameless:

-ian gallagher

-lip gallagher

-carl gallagher

-mickey milkovich

-kevin ball

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Grey's anatomy:

-derek shepherd

-alex karev

-jackson avery

-mark sloan

-george o malley

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Random:

- Jake webber

- johnnie guilbert

- Colby brock

- Sam golbach

- Vinnie hacker

- ghost (cod)

- ghostface

-dominic fike

-javon walton

-jaden walton

-matt sturniolo

-chris sturniolo

-dean winchester

-samwinchester

-percy jackson(og)

-----------------------------------------------

The rookie:

-tim bradford

-john nolan

-wesley evers

-aaron thorsen

-henry nolan

----------------------------------------------- if there's any kinks, tropes or setting you want in lmk in comments or lmk in messages

MY WATTPAD IS DOWN RIGHT NOW!!

[youre-only-gay-once]

[tamiveldura]

Friday Update!

Ok, let's talk about the Anthology Workshop. This conference is put on by WMG Publishing and is run by Kristine Katherine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith.

Before the conference, all of us writers were given a series of calls for submission we could write for. Each one had some specifics on the genre and we were told the editor for each anthology, which means if you know the editor, you can write to their interest. The call is issued on Monday and you have until Sunday to turn in a story (yes, one week) per the guidelines. 6 calls, 6 weeks in a row. Most of these were 2-8k, a few had up to 12k for worldbuilding.

1: Ghostly Taverns edited by Mark Leslie Lefave

This anthology is a cross genre collection of haunted taverns. Ghost patrons, ghost taverns, haunted beer, etc. I was unable to write for this one due to a conflicting deadline.

2: Cozy Mystery edited by Chris York

This call specified the mystery had to be set at the beach, but try not to write a downing, that's really common. I wrote a mystery from the POV of a pet rat and sold this story!

3: MilScifi edited by Kris Rusch and Loren Colman

The wordcount for this call was a bit longer to give room for world building. I wrote a short story in my Queenships world. No sale.

4: Scifi Mystery edited by Kris Rusch

This deadline also conflicted with another I had and I was unable to write for this call.

5: Fantasy Regency edited by Anthea Sharp

The regency call was tough, I don't consider myself a historical writer. But my Act Of Piracy series is set right in the Regency time period and I've been meaning to get back to writing book 3. I wrote a scene I know belongs in the book. It was on Anthea's maybe list for a while, but ultimately another author's story was selected. No sale.

6: Halloween Hearts (spooky and romance) edited by Ron and Brigid Collins

This story I felt was the weakest of the 4 I wrote. The romance wasn't strong enough. No sale.

But Tami, you say, you announced 3 sales, not just 1.

Indeed I did. because while the editors for these anthologies had first pick from the submissions, Dean was also there selecting stories to publish in Pulphouse magazine. This is a closed market, invite only, and the anthology Workshop is one of the few ways to get a story in front of Dean for consideration if he doesn't already know you and your work.

So while Anthea passed on my Regency story, Dean purchased it for Pulphouse Magazine.

My final sale happened after the end of the workshop. I went to lunch with a bunch of friends, one of whom is an editor for her own series of monster anthologies: DeAnna Knippling. I didn't sell my Halloween story during the conference so over the lunch discussion, she laid claim to it.

So my final results:

Cozy Mystery (under my ST Lynn penname)

Fantasy Regency (very gay, bonus monster) for Pulphouse

Halloween Monster to DeAnna

I'm overjoyed with these results. You can't go into this conference expecting to sell, but it's always a learning experience to see how the decisions were made that got to the final results of sale/no sale.

I received great feedback on my MilScifi story and I took extensive notes throughout the conference. I have an opportunity to re-submit for the MilScifi and I'm going to. That's due at the end of the month.

By far, the most valuable aspect of this conference is the meetup in the evening after dinner, where the editors and the writers mingle and talk shop until midnight.

These anthologies will be released initially through Kickstarter (then later, wide on all stores) over the next several months. Once they've been released I'll be able to sell reprint rights to other markets.

I'm already signed up to attend this workshop again in 2026.

[weknowthend]

Let's catch up on my insane SIX Bingo!

B Column

More & Juliet and Six Interlapping:

Harriet Caplan-Dean (former Super Swing and often emergency cover) in 24-25 UK Tour as Eleanor/1st Cover Anne Hathaway, 2nd Cover Nurse

Giorgia Kennedy (Judith/U/S Juliet in 22-24 Australian Tour of & Juliet) will be playing Catherine Parr in the 2024 Australian Tour of Six! 

Complete Boleyn Tour Cast Change besides Adriana Scalice and Kelly Denice Taylor

I’m gonna give this to myself, as I thought Aryn would leave and Kelly would stay in her position but I was very close so whatever

Kelsee plays Aragon or Parr in Toronto [Never Happened]

Triple Silver Show

Happened twice, both on the UK Tour! 

April 25, 2024 (Evening): Shakira Cleves, Meg Howard, Harriet Parr

April 27, 2024 (Matinee): Meg Seymour, Shakira Cleves, Harriet Parr  

I Column

Red Cleves Braid is the new standard Cleves hair

Seeing as how Krystal, Darcy, Meg, Natalie, Danielle, Sierra all use this hair, it’s being used at almost an even amount as the original cleves hair so I will count it for now <3 

Adriana Scalice & Kelly Denice Taylor new Boleyn Tour photos

It counts!

N Column

Another cruise queen becomes a queen on land

Danielle Mendoza (Former Breakaway Boleyn) became Boleyn Tour Cleves

Alizé Cruz (Former Rehearsal Swing) became Boleyn Tour Howard 

Cassie Cleves in Toronto [Never Happened]

Broadway 2.0 Queen Returns

Bella Coppola temporarily played Jane Seymour in Toronto from March to April! 

Toronto alt adds 4th cover [Never Happened]

International Castle Hopping 

Counting this for Meg & Harriet going to Italy to cover the UK Tour as Meg only covers the West End production and Harriet has not been in a proper contract with Six in over a year. 

G Column

Wesley or Cassie end up in Toronto

Wesley was on standby for the Toronto production in April. 

Maggie Lacasse never returns [Very thankful this was wrong!]

O (1) Column

At least one Australian queen returns

FIVE returned! Loren Hunter, Chelsea Dawson, Chiara Assetta, Cristina D’Agostino and Gabriella Boumford! 

Ayla, Kristina or Aubrey return immediately after leaving

Kristina was announced as Boleyn Tour Principal Aragon very soon after 

Harriet Caplan-Dean e/c and plays a role other than Aragon or Parr

At the April 20, 2024 Matinee performance of Six in Zurich, Switzerland, Harriet played Seymour! 

O (2) Column

Cassie never plays Cleves again

Ayla leaves for Gatsby [Cabaret]

Kelsee new Bway alt [Unfortunately never happened]

West end adds 2nd and 3rd covers

Naomi Aragon, Hannah Boleyn & Gabriella Parr

Someone in another show e/c

Harriet Caplan-Dean e/c while in rehearsals for & Juliet

Leesa Tulley e/c while in rehearsals for Why Am I So Single? 

O (3) Column

More Mean Girls & Six overlapping 

Elèna Gyasi (former UK Tour Parr) as Gretchen Wieners

Grace Mouat (former West End Alternate) as Karen Smith

Baylie Carson (former West End Boleyn) as Ensemble/1st Cover Janis Sarkisian 

The question is if I make a new bingo for the rest of the year?

[bracketsoffear]

Slaughter Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Slaughter Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Abercrombie, Joe: The Heroes Anderson, Poul: The Broken Sword

Bachman, Richard (Stephen King): Rage Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange

Chesterton, G.K.: The Sign Of The Broken Sword Christie, Agatha: Murder is Easy Colgan, Jenny T.: In the Blood Collins, Suzanne: The Hunger Games Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness Coville, Bruce: The Japanese Mirror

Echeverría, Esteban: El matadero (The slaughteryard) Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psycho Evans, Robert: After the Revolution

Felker-Martin, Gretchen: Manhunt

Golding, William: Lord of the Flies

Hemingway, Ernest: For Whom the Bell Tolls Hendrix, Grady: The Final Girl Support Group Herbert, James: The Fog Hitler, Adolf: Mein Kampf Homer: The Iliad Howard, Robert E.: Rogues in the House Hunter, Erin: Warrior Cats

Icelandic Saga: The Saga of the Sworn Brothers

Jackson, Shirley: The Lottery Jarrell, Randall: The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Kuang, Rebecca F.: The Poppy War

Lansdale, Joe R.: Down by the Sea near the Great Big Rock Laumer, Keith, et. al.: Bolo

Martin, George R.R.: A Song of Ice and Fire McCarthy, Cormac: Blood Meridian Michelinie, David and Dean Wesley Smith: Carnage In New York Moody, David: Hater

Owen, Wilfred: Dulce et Decorum Est

Pendleton, Don: The Executioner Pratchett, Terry: Jingo Pratchett, Terry: THUD!

Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front Remender, Rick: Deadly Class

Schmitt, Carl: The Concept of the Political

Takami, Koushun: Battle Royale Thomas, Ryan C.: The Summer I Died Tzu, Sun: The Art of War

Vallejo, Fernando: La virgen de los sicarios (Our lady of the assasins)

Walsh, Rodolfo: Operación: masacre (Operation: Massacre) Weber, David: Honor Harrington

Abercrombie, Joe: The Heroes

The author explains in the foreword that he didn't just want to show that War is Hell, but to explore why it nevertheless has such a hold on human imagination. Thus, we get to see both the stupidity and waste and horror of it and the way it can turn men into monsters, but also examples of how it brings out the best in some people, and how the constant danger and the bonds among soldiers can be so addictive as to make someone who's gotten used to them feel like a peaceful civilian life is hardly worth living.

Anderson, Poul: The Broken Sword

The book tells the story of Skafloc Half Elf (actually a human stolen by the elves), son of Orm the Strong. The story begins with the marriage of Orm the Strong and Aelfrida of the English. Orm kills a witch's family on the land, and later half-converts to Christianity, but quarrels with the local priest and sends him off the land. Meanwhile, an elf, Imric, seeks out the witch to capture the son of Orm, Valgard. In his place he leaves a changeling called Valgard. The real Valgard is taken away to elven lands and named Skafloc by the elves. He grows up among the fairies there. Later, he has a significant part in a war against the trolls.

The eponymous weapon, named Tyrfing in the 1971 revision, was given to Skafloc as his naming-gift by the Aesir. He later travels to the ends of the Earth to have it reforged by Bolverk, the Ice Giant.

Anderson wrote the book during the Cold War, and it does reflect on the story. For example, the Elf-Troll conflict is basically a proxy war between two great powers, the Aesir and the Jotuns; the latter two do not fight directly because that would lead to Ragnarok, the final battle in which most of the world would be destroyed. The parallel to the real-world threat of nuclear war is obvious. Even the titular sword may be an allusion to nuclear weapons; Skafloc contemplates throwing the sword into the sea, but realizes someone - probably much less moral than himself - would eventually find and use it.

Bachman, Richard (Stephen King): Rage

A controversial psychological thriller novel about a disturbed high-school student with authority problems who one day kills one of his teachers and takes the rest of his class hostage. Over the course of one long, tense and unbearable hot afternoon, this student, named Charlie Decker, explains what led him to this drastic sequence of events, while at the same time deconstructing the personalities of his classmates, forcing each one to justify his or her existence.

The novel has been associated with actual high school shooting incidents in the 1980s and 1990s. In response, the author allowed the novel to fall out of print (though it can still be found and read), and has even explicitly requested that no future printings are made.

A rare, disturbing book allegedly linked to actual horrible events in real life, and whose own author wants nothing to do with? What's more Leitner than that?

***

It tells the story of Charlie Decker, an inexplicably volatile high school senior who decides to storm his algebra class, shoot his teacher and take the students hostage. The book became infamous after it was associated with actual high school shooting incidents in the 1980s and 1990s, with the author letting it fall deliberately out of print in 1997 after the book was found in the locker of a teenager who had killed three classmates and injured five others.

***

The story is about a disturbed high schooler who, after being expelled, shoots his teacher and takes the rest of his class hostage.

Stephen King requested the novel to be pulled out of circulation after its connection to several similar school shooting incidents possibly inspired by it. It is a real life Leitner.

Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange

The novel is narrated by Alex, a young man who leads a gang of “droogs” and takes pleasure in “ultra-violence.” After being arrested and convicted of murder, Alex undergoes an experimental procedure that is intended to cure him of his violent tendencies.

Chesterton, G.K.: The Sign Of The Broken Sword

"Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. If there were no forest, he would make a forest. And if he wished to hide a dead leaf, he would make a dead forest. And if a man had to hide a dead body, he would make a field of dead bodies to hide it in."

A Father Brown tale, filled with war, bloody passions, broken blades, and of course, murder.

General Sir Arthur St. Clare provoked a completely unnecessary military battle and defeat purely to cover up the fact that he had killed one of his men in a bout of rage. He was then in turn overpowered and hanged by his own surviving soldiers in revenge.

Christie, Agatha: Murder is Easy

During his travel back home from an overseas job, former policeman Luke Fitzwilliam comes across Miss Lavinia Pinkerton (in some editions her last name is Fullerton), an elderly lady who's on her way to Scotland Yard. A serial killer seems to be loose in her home village of Wychwood under Ashe, and she believes she knows who the next victim will be. Luke secretly thinks she's making this up, but her similiarity to his favorite aunt leads him to humor her.

The next day, Luke reads about Miss Pinkerton's death, then about the death of Dr. John Humbleby a few days later. Dr. Humbleby was the one the affable old lady thought would die next. While the cause of his death seems to be thanks to an infection, Luke decides to look into the matter himself.

Pretending to be a researcher into superstitions and witchcraft, Luke begins his investigation into the multiple deaths. What all the deaths have in common is that the victims were largely seen as pests and none of them seemed to have died by foul play. With the help of Bridget Conway, a secretary of Lord Whitfield (in some editions he's called Easterfield) who's much smarter than she looks, Luke might be able to figure out who the murderer is and stop the killings for good.

The serial killer kills anyone who is in any way disliked by their real target, Lord Whitfield, with the ultimate goal of pinning all the murders on him. If that sounds completely insane, that's because it is.

Colgan, Jenny T.: In the Blood

Summary: "All over the world, people are "ghosting" each other on social media. Dropping their friends, giving vent to their hatred, and everywhere behaving with incredible cruelty. Even Donna has found that her friend Hettie, with her seemingly perfect life and fancy house, has unfriended her. And now, all over the world, internet trolls are dying...

As more and more people give in to this wave of bitterness and aggression, it's clear this is no simple case of modern living. This is unkindness as a plague. From the streets of London to the web cafes of South Korea and the deepest darkest forests of Rio, can the Doctor and Donna find the cause of this unhappiness before it's too late?"

Why it's Slaughter: Yeah, it's anger as a bloodborne disease, basically. You get angrier and more violent, spreading the disease further -- and then your heart can't take any more and it explodes.

Collins, Suzanne: The Hunger Games

Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . . In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness

In Heart of Darkness, various European powers are exploiting Africa for its riches and resources while leaving little or nothing to the Africans who are laboring under them. Through Marlow, Conrad shows the horrors of colonialism and concludes that the Europeans, not the Africans, are the true savages.

Coville, Bruce: The Japanese Mirror

"Jonathan is noted for having had a foul temper that made him yell at anyone who triggered it, until the titular mirror begins absorbing his anger after he gets his blood on it... and the thing inside begins to stir."

Echeverría, Esteban: El matadero (The slaughteryard)

Argentina, 1839. A young man dies for his political beliefs when attacked by a mob in a slaughteryard used to butcher cattle.

The story takes place at the height of Juan Manuel de Rosas’ reign of terror. Though fictional, it is an open indictment of that brutal regime and the first masterwork of Latin-American literature, orginally published twenty years after the author’s death. El matadero, or The Slaughteryard, is reputed to be the most widely studied school text in Spanish-speaking South America.

Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psycho

Patrick Bateman is a yuppie's yuppie. He works on Wall Street, has a pretty girlfriend, and spends most of his free time in trendy restaurants and clubs. However, he is also a psychotic killer who often hallucinates and murders people in increasingly horrific ways, often over the most trivial of provocations or for no reason whatsoever.

***

It follows the life of Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and handsome investment banker living in Manhattan in the 1980s. Beneath his polished exterior lies a psychopathic killer who preys on his victims without remorse. Bateman's exploits quickly grow more and more extreme, and his mask of sanity starts to slip.

Patrick Bateman's murders (or hallucinations of murders) are often over the most trivial of provocations or for no reason whatsoever. It is a book about the Slaughter.

***

Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

Evans, Robert: After the Revolution

Roland the Super-Soldier has cybernetic implants that reward him with a sense of euphoria for killing and battle. As a result, Roland is a highly reluctant fighter because he knows he will lose himself to bloodlust if he ever sees enough fighting and tries to deafen out his implants with lots and lots and lots of drugs. The Battle of Waco sees him fully jump off the wagon and he ends up killing well over a thousand people while on a battle-induced high, even going so far as to hunt down escaping survivors and people trying to surrender to chase the thrill.

Felker-Martin, Gretchen: Manhunt

Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.

Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.

After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.

Golding, William: Lord of the Flies

A group of boys wind up stranded together on a deserted island. While they initially intended to work together, the boys wind up separating into faction and come to grow hostile and distrusting of one another. Eventually, the boys turn to violence, malice, and eventual murder in order to stay alive, with mob mentality and fear gripping them all.

Also important is the fact that the boys are stranded trying to ESCAPE a war, and then get so caught up in fear and desperation to survive that they initiate war among themselves, resulting in a cruel cycle of perpetuating the violence and death they feared and sought to get away from. Essentially it's a commentary on war itself and the things fear can drive people to do, reducing them to base instincts.

***

Stranded on an island, the fragile social constructs between a group of British schoolboys break down, and they revert to mindless violence and murder.

Hemingway, Ernest: For Whom the Bell Tolls

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Hendrix, Grady: The Final Girl Support Group

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl. She witnessed and survived not one, but two mass killings and the events have left her traumatized and constantly looking over her shoulder. And she's not alone. For more than a decade she's been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together.

The support group has to keep their very existence secret. Each of the women were able to turn their events into movie franchises, to varying degrees of success. Fans of both the original killers and the films they inspired are known to stalk and harass them, along with anyone who thinks that getting a good soundbite to sell could be their ticket to fame and fortune.

Then one day, one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette's worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.

Herbert, James: The Fog

an earthquake cracks open a secret bioweapon buried underground for disposal, and which causes people and animals who breathe it to go utterly homicidal. The main plot surrounds Jon Holman, an Environmental Officer for the British government, who is present at the fog's dramatic entrance and spends most of the book trying to stop the fog; meanwhile, Herbert occasionally takes us on little side trips to see what horrible thing the fog is making happen next.

Hitler, Adolf: Mein Kampf

A hateful book made by a hateful man, definetly. I dont know if you gonna put it, just submiting this here just in case.....

Homer: The Iliad

(Unless otherwise noted, translations are by Peter Green.)

"Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath of great Achilles, son of Peleus, which caused the Greeks immeasurable pain and sent so many noble souls of heroes to Hades…"

(translation by Emily Wilson)

The Iliad is the archetypical war story. It traces the destructive path of the demigod Achilles, who sets in motion a devastating series of events when he refuses to fight the Trojans in a pique of pride. The infamous catalogue of ships in Book 2 gives a sense of the mind-numbing scale of a war fought over something as intangible as the pride of men and gods. The lavish descriptions of battle and the accounts of individual deaths and wounds give a sense of the utter devastation of war and the grief it leaves behind:

"Not in vain from [Diomēdēs's] hand did the missile fly, but struck Phēgeus full in mid-breast, threw him clear of his horses. Then from the fine-crafted chariot Idaios sprang down, but dared not make a stand over his slain brother, nor would he himself have escaped the black death spirit without the aid of Hēphaistos, who saved him, hid him in darkness, to ensure that aged Darēs [father of Phēgeus and Idaios] was not wholly undone by grief."

Without the help of Achilles, the Trojans begin to gain ground on the Greeks. Torn between his pride and his concern for his comrades, Achilles agrees to let his beloved Patroclus disguise himself in Achilles' armor to hearten the Greeks and scare the Trojans:

"All at once [the Greeks] came charging out like a swarm of wasps by the roadside that boys have a way of provoking to fury, constantly teasing them in their nests along the highway, as children will, creating a widespread nuisance, so that if some traveler passing by should happen to annoy them by accident, they with aggressive spirit all come buzzing out in defense of their offspring-- like them in heart and spirit the Myrmidons now streamed forth from the ships, and an endless clamor arose…"

Hector, prince of Troy kills Patroclus and unleashes the unbridled wrath of Achilles, who becomes so enraged he slaughters every Trojan in his path so gruesomely he enrages the River itself:

"Achilles, scion of Zeus, now left his spear on the bank, leaning against a tamarisk, and charged in like a demon, armed only with his sword, horrific deeds in mind. He turned and struck at random, and ghastly cries went up from those caught by his sword: the water ran red with blood…"

"My lovely streams are currently all awash with corpses; I can't get to discharge my waters into the bright sea, I'm so choked with the dead, while you ruthlessly keep on killing!"

When the River almost drowns Achilles, he's terrified--not of death, but of being robbed the glory of his promised death at the hands of the Trojans:

"If only Hektōr had killed me, the best-bred warrior here, / then noble had been the slayer, noble the man he slew…"

In The Iliad, war is destruction and grief but simultaneously honor and glory, and Achilles is only one of the many characters who move through its battlefields like the incarnation of Slaughter itself.

***

Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.

***

I mean it's a big ol' war story! The wrath of Achilles alone is the stuff of Slaughter-aligned nightmares.

Howard, Robert E.: Rogues in the House

One of the Conan the Cimmerian short stories http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600781h.html

From TV Tropes: "Conan is sitting in prison after killing a priest (he had it coming) when he is approached by a nobleman named Murillo, who has a proposition for him: kill the Red Priest Nabonidus for him, and he will provide Conan a horse, a sack of gold, and a one way ticket out of town and away from the gallows.

Conan escapes from jail, and, after dealing with the prostitute who turned him in, heads off to Nabonidus's mansion. Conan tries entering through the sewer, only to get stuck down there thanks to one of the mansions traps. While down there, he runs into Murillo, who had arrives there first with the intention of killing Nabonidus himself, thinking Conan had high tailed it out of town. They soon discover Nabonidus trapped down there as well, a prisoner in his own home.

Turns out Nabonidus's servant, a man-ape named Thak, has rebelled against his master, and now uses the assortment of traps set around the mansion to keep out unwanted guests (and keep his prisoners in). The three rogues will have to work together if they ever want to get out of the mansion alive, lest they fall victim to Thak, or perhaps, to each other."

Hunter, Erin: Warrior Cats

Warrior Cats is a series about a society at constant war. It is known for having an excessive amount of gore and violence for a children’s series, and this exact violence is the subject of many pieces of fanart. What’s more, the Warrior Cats community frequently animates the battle sequences and violence to music.

This is a series in which war is a simple fact of life (it’s called Warriors for a reason). There is no real end to this constant conflict, the continuous cycle of bloodshed. The series is still ongoing. It’s been 21 years. These cats are still fighting and fighting and fighting for generation after generation.

***

This one didn't get past round 2 in the Hunt and honestly I think it deserves a Slaughter win more. It takes place in a kitty civilization where the characters are very frequently battling over very important subjects such as who gets to own a pile of rocks or some cat catching a rabbit on the wrong side of the border. There's brief periods of peace and allyship, but most of the time, tensions are present and everybody is probably willing to start beating each other up if they scent another clan on their territory. The violence isn't instinct or the thrill of it beyond the fact that these are still cats who hunt prey, but it's still rather irrational in many cases. The only real path in life you can have in a clan which isn't committing to causing and withstanding senseless violence is the path of healing that senseless violence, seeing cats you can't save die and also not being able to have children or a mate ever, which isn't even something you can choose to do without approval from cat heaven most times, meaning that you'll most likely be locked into a cycle of mindless battles over that one guy from the other clan accidentally marking the wrong side of the border.

This is also how you get brand new artists in the age range the books are for drawing cat violence and death with their limited skills before they somehow become the best artists you've ever seen while still probably drawing lots of cat violence and death. These murder cat books have an unexplained impact on young artists who will be drawing the same scenes of their pick for the saddest cat death years later. It also gets people making their own stories inspired by it, which are often still cat soap operas with plenty of senseless violence (source: 9 year old me had one of these bloody cat soap opera stories inspired by Warriors), and might even lead to Warriors rps with similar amounts of violence.

Icelandic Saga: The Saga of the Sworn Brothers

"About a decade after Iceland has converted to Christianity, best friends Thorgeir Havarson and Thormod Bersason grow up together in the Icelandic Westfjords. Teachings of love and forgiveness are, alas! all wasted on Thorgeir and Thormod, who feel they are not cut out for a pacifist lifestyle, and intend to shape their lives in the ways of the vikings of old. As they believe it is their destiny to die fighting, the two make a pact that whoever of them lives longer will avenge the other, and seal the deal by performing the rites of fóstbrœðralag, sworn brotherhood. Naturally, there comes a time when the fearsome warrior Thorgeir gets himself killed, leaving the scrawny poet Thormod with the duty to avenge his death."

And, oh boy, does he ever.

Jackson, Shirley: The Lottery

“A fictional small American community that observes an annual tradition known as "the lottery", which is intended to ensure a good harvest and purge the town of bad omens. The lottery, its preparations, and its execution are all described in detail, though it is not revealed until the end what actually happens to the person selected by the random lottery: the selected member of the community is stoned to death by the other townspeople.”

Jarrell, Randall: The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Kuang, Rebecca F.: The Poppy War

"When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies(…) That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.(…) Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . ."

Series heavily focused on slaughter and war.

Lansdale, Joe R.: Down by the Sea near the Great Big Rock

A family on vacation camps out near the titular rock. Over time they become increasingly snappish with each other and thinking violent thoughts. It culminates in a bloody massacre off-screen whose aftermath horrifies one of the investigating detectives. The story ends with the great big rock sprouting flippers, the slaughter having sated its hunger, and swimming into the sea. The fish that swim near it start fighting each other.

Laumer, Keith, et. al.: Bolo

"Bolos might fail. They might die and be destroyed. But they did not surrender, and they never — ever — quit."

A series of stories, originally by Keith Laumer, that were later expanded into a Shared Universe by other authors. They detail the exploits of the Bolo, autonomous AI tanks that are supposed to have evolved from the standard main battle tank of the 20th century.

These aren't your normal tanks. For one, their designers decided that bigger was better, and since the only thing that could really take down a Bolo was another Bolo, they just kept building the Bolos bigger and bigger, to the point where even the stealth tanks mass 1,500 tons. Or in some novels the Mark XXXIII weighs 32,000 tons.

There are plenty of examples of why this is Slaughter, but the aptly-named Final War, culminating in a mutual campaign of total extermination between humans and Melconians that turned a whole spiral arm of the Milky Way into a lifeless waste of dead or hopelessly contaminated planets, takes the cake. It is notable that plans of Operation Ragnarok, the human half of the equation of genocide, were based on a scenario initially created to illustrate utter madness of such campaign. Even the eponymous sapient supertanks start cracking under the weight of their orders by the end, succumbing to bloodlust. When one of the very few surviving Bolos, Shiva, reawakens, he is horrified by the atrocities that he himself had not been above committing under the pretense of following orders.

Martin, George R.R.: A Song of Ice and Fire

Torture, war, bloodshed, sadism... it would be easier to list the aspects of Slaughter this *doesn't* include.

McCarthy, Cormac: Blood Meridian

An extremely dark and vicious deconstruction of the Western novel, with the central antagonist of Judge Holden, a violent, well-educated man who believes that "war is god" and appears to be solely motivated by the desire to propagate violence and pain. While the Glanton gang were already despicable and vile people, he corrupts them even further into his depraved frame of mind, succeeding with all but the protagonist... who he later kills violently.

Michelinie, David and Dean Wesley Smith: Carnage In New York

Spider-Man rescues Dr. Eric Catrall, a scientist, from government agents. Simultaneously, serial killer Cletus Kasady is brought to New York to undergo an experiment that would purge him of the Carnage symbiote, which is bonded to his bloodstream. Catrall infiltrates the experiment and in the confusion Carnage escapes, taking Catrall with him. When Catrall turns up in jail, Spider-Man learns he had invented a chemical that drives people insane with bloodlust, and the government wants it back in order to weaponize it. Even worse, the serum is now in Carnage's possession. Spider-Man is forced to go toe-to-talon with one of his most dangerous foes to retrieve the serum, which could make all of New York just as bloodthirsty as Carnage himself.

Moody, David: Hater

Something is wrong with society these days. The news gives reports of people just suddenly deciding to kill other people: enemies, strangers, coworkers, friends, family. Random. Brutal. For seemingly no reason.

Enter the protagonist, The Everyman: He lives a mundane life, married with children, slaves away for a paycheck under a miserable bitch of a boss. He stops going to work and barricades himself with his family inside their home until it's over because he starts seeing people mowing down other people in real life, on the street and at work, not just on television, which has basically gone off the air, and is now displaying the message, "REMAIN CALM DO NOT PANIC TAKE SHELTER WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL".

By the end of the book, the main character realizes he is a Hater and then kills his father-in-law with plans to kill the rest of his family save for his daughter.

Owen, Wilfred: Dulce et Decorum Est

If you can't place why the name Wilfred Owen sounds so familiar, you might recognize him from MAG 7, "The Piper." That's right: the historical Owen's poetry dovetails so perfectly with the themes of the Slaughter, he becomes a character in the Entity's first appearance in the series!

It's really tempting to quote the entirety of "Dulce et Decorum Est" because all of it fits the slaughter so well, but instead I'll just provide a link. (pollrunner’s note: they did not provide a link)

The short of it is that the poem reflects the experiences Owen had in the trenches of World War I. Owen titles the poem after "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori. [How sweet and proper it is / To die for your fatherland.]" He therefore excoriates people in his society who encourage young men to go to war, despite never having "pace[d] / Behind the wagon we flung [a soldier dying from a chemical attack] in, / And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, / His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin…."

Owen's poem is the perfect representation of the visceral, disgusting trauma of witnessing your comrades slaughtered by the early twentieth century's newly industrialized war.

Pendleton, Don: The Executioner

"I am not their judge. These people have judged themselves by their own actions. I am their judgment. I am their executioner."

Mack Bolan (nicknamed "The Executioner" by his fellow soldiers) is an elite sniper/penetration specialist in The Vietnam War when he receives word that his father Sam, a steelworker in Pittsfield, has gone insane and shot dead his wife Elsa and daughter Cynthia ("Cindy"). On talking to the Sole Survivor, younger brother Johnny, Bolan discovers that his father was being squeezed by Mafia Loan Sharks and, on hearing that his daughter was prostituting herself to cover his debt, snapped under the pressure.

Figuring there's no point in fighting a war 8,000 miles away when there's a bigger enemy right here at home, Mack Bolan sets forth on a one-man crusade to destroy The Mafia, using all the military weapons and tactics at his disposal including heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, night-vision scopes, radio-detonated explosives, electronic surveillance, silenced handguns and the garrotte. Bolan is also fond of using wiles to turn his enemies against each other.

Inspired the character of The Punisher. Being in the Mafia (no matter how distant the link) is punishable by death. Doesn't matter if you just are an errand boy, you are guilty and must die.

Pratchett, Terry: Jingo

"‘Neighbours… hah. People’d live for ages side by side, nodding at one another amicably on their way to work, and then some trivial thing would happen and someone would be having a garden fork removed from their ear.’ When the neighbours in question are the proud empires of Klatch and Ankh-Morpork, those are going to be some pretty large garden tools indeed. Of course, no one would dream of starting a war without a perfectly good reason… such as a ‘strategic’ piece of old rock in the middle of nowhere. It is, after all, every citizen’s right to bear arms to defend their own. Even if it isn’t technically their own. And even if they don’t have much in the way of actual weaponry. As two armies march, Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch faces unpleasant foes who are out to get him . . . and that’s just the people on his side. The enemy might be even worse."

Pratchett, Terry: THUD!

It's a Discworld book following Sam Vimes, commander of the city watch, trying to get to the bottom of a murder and quell tensions between the dwarf and troll communities in the city of Ankh Morpork. Thud! Is a book all about violence, in all it's different scales. Starting with War, the War of Koom Valley being a rallying cry that never fades, making every conflict between dwarves and trolls it's own little Koom Valley. From war to mob violence, fear and bile, assassin's sent to Vimes's house to kill his son with a flamethrower. Then down to quiet, horrible murder in the dark, betrayal so bad that the victim's last action calls up a quasi demonic force of pure vengeance.

This force, the summoning dark, possessed Vimes. He's always been an angry character, but also a man with supreme self control, who knows if you do a thing for a good reason, you'll do it for a bad one. through the narration we can see how the summoning dark strengthens his violent impulses and kneejerk reactions, his biases and anger, making him go on rants in his head about how "someone will burn for this! Burn!".

Although it has aspects of Dark to it, it's much more a book about the violence in people, any kind of people. One of its iconic scenes is of a thoroughly civilian clerk named A.E. Pessimal going postal and throwing himself into a riot, even biting a troll, which are made of rock in discworld!

Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front

"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . ."

"This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive."

Remender, Rick: Deadly Class

It's 1987. Marcus Lopez hates school. His grades suck. The jocks are hassling his friends. He can't focus on class. But the jocks are the children of Joseph Stalin's top assassin, the teachers are members of an ancient league of assassins, the class he's failing is "Dismemberment 101," and his crush has a double-digit body count. Welcome to the most brutal high school on earth, where the world's top crime families send the next generation of assassins to be trained. Murder is an art. Killing is a craft. At Kings Dominion School for the Deadly Arts, the dagger in your back isn't always metaphorical.

Schmitt, Carl: The Concept of the Political

In The Concept of the Political, composed in 1927 and fully elaborated in 1932, Schmitt defined “the political” as the eternal propensity of human collectivities to identify each other as “enemies”—that is, as concrete embodiments of “different and alien” ways of life, with whom mortal combat is a constant possibility and frequent reality. Schmitt assumed that the zeal of group members to kill and die on the basis of a nonrational faith in the substance binding their collectivities refuted basic Enlightenment and liberal tenets. According to Schmitt, the willingness to die for a substantive way of life contradicts both the desire for self-preservation assumed by modern theories of natural rights and the liberal ideal of neutralizing deadly conflict, the driving force of modern European history from the 16th to the 20th century.

Takami, Koushun: Battle Royale

The story tells of junior high school students who are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by a fictional, fascist, totalitarian Japanese government known as the Republic of Greater East Asia.

Thomas, Ryan C.: The Summer I Died

So much screaming. When Roger Huntington comes home from college for the summer and is met by his best friend, Tooth, he knows they're going to have a good time. A summer full of beer, comic books, movies, laughs, and maybe even girls. So much pain. The sun is high and the sky is clear as Roger and Tooth set out to shoot beer cans at Bobcat Mountain. Just two friends catching up on lost time, two friends thinking about their futures, two friends-- So much blood. --suddenly thrust in the middle of a nightmare. Forced to fight for their life against a sadistic killer. A killer with an arsenal of razor sharp blades and a hungry dog by his side. So much death. If they are to survive, they must decide: are heroes born, or are they made? Or is something more powerful happening to them? And more importantly, how do you survive when all roads lead to death!

Tzu, Sun: The Art of War

It's an entire manifesto on how to conduct warfare effectively, ranging from hand to hand combat to military tactics. It's expansive and detailed and is still utilized today despite being hundreds of years old. Also I'm convinced my copy of it IS a Leitner because every single time I go and read it to get content, an armed conflict somewhere in the world pops up on my news feed a day or two later. It's spooky.

Vallejo, Fernando: La virgen de los sicarios (Our lady of the assasins)

A novel set in the backstreets of Medellin, Colombia, captures the lives of the beggars, thieves, drug addicts, and other lost souls of a city overwhelmed by the drug trade.

Walsh, Rodolfo: Operación: masacre (Operation: Massacre)

1956. Argentina has just lost its charismatic president Juán Perón in a military coup, and terror reigns across the land. June 1956: eighteen people are reported dead in a failed Peronist uprising. December 1956: sometime journalist, crime fiction writer, studiedly unpoliticized chess aficionado Rodolfo Walsh learns by chance that one of the executed civilians from a separate, secret execution in June, is alive. He hears that there may be more than one survivor and believes this unbelievable story on the spot. And right there, the monumental classic Operation Massacre is born.

Walsh made it his mission to find not only the survivors but widows, orphans, political refugees, fugitives, alleged informers, and anonymous heroes, in order to determine what happened that night, sending him on a journey that took over the rest of his life.

Originally published in 1957, Operation Massacre thoroughly and breathlessly recounts the night of the execution and its fallout.

Weber, David: Honor Harrington

Military Science Fiction series by David Weber. The book series is mainly set around the adventures of the titular heroine, although we see a fair amount of the wider universe. Weber has explicitly described the series as "Horatio Hornblower" IN SPACE! with the series being a great deal more focused on (Space) Naval operations than other science fiction series. Honor Harrington occasionally performs ground-based and political adventures, but the vast majority of the series is focused on her ship-to-ship conflicts, where she serves as commanding officer. A lot of military combat and dueling.

[the-wip-project]

The WIP Project - critical voice

Hello writerly friends!

I don't know how many of you are still reading this and if any of you joined me in 40k in 50 days. I'm currently on my day ten and... it's not going fast, but it's going. 

The workdays are kicking my butt, but I have 2470 words on the novel, and I had a Friday writing spree in fanfic of about 2000 words. My highest daily wordcount for the novel was 839 words, which — should that tell me something? That I can spit out 2k words for a fanfic scene but not even getting 1k for the novel done in a day? 

I was expecting a slow start, but I feel that by now, I should have gotten to a higher wordcount, at least on my non-work days. Is this an attitude problem? Am I still stuck on the "important novel work, not just fanfic, must be perfect or else" thing?

In the current storybundle for writers (https://storybundle.com/writing, good for another week as of today), is a book by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith about productivity for writers. Two parts of their "Bundle on Productivity" book are blog posts where Dean live-blogged his writing sessions. He points you to his blog (https://deanwesleysmith.com/), so it's not exactly a secret, but I wondered if these diary-like entries were worth a book. Still, it was interesting to skim these posts, where he describes how he manages to write about 1000 words per hour of publishable fiction. 

Dean Wesley Smith is an unapologetic pantser, a discovery writer. He calls it Writing Into The Dark. He starts writing with no plan, no idea what will happen in the story. He goes back mid-writing if he thinks of a great bit of foreshadowing, and then returns to where he left off and keeps writing forward. The three sections in that productivity bundle describe how he wrote a novel in ten, in seven, and in five days. 

I'd be happy with a novel in 50 days, writing one in ten days would be awesome! How does he do it? 

One advice from him is: Don't focus on words. Follow the characters, let them live the story, don't worry about how the words sound. As he says, readers forgive simple language, but they don't forgive boring characters and boring stories. His other advice is to work on silencing the critical voice in our heads:

Quote: 

Critical voice in all of us is designed to keep us safe, to stop us from doing things damaging, and to make us pay attention to upcoming problems. [...] In the arts, past a minor part, critical voice is deadly. Its normal job is to stop you, and yet in any art, including writing, the only way you can learn and grow and become a real artist is to practice and make mistakes and fail at times. Artists, writers, learn from their failures. But for some reason in writing, the myths have taught us that every word we type is in stone, is sacred, must be perfect or at least rewritten a thousand times until perfect.

I think this pretty much hits at least my personal nail on its metaphorical head. My critical voice is trying to protect me from the failure of writing and publishing an original novel. Because it won't be a bestseller, it may not even be good (by whatever arbitrary standard we want to apply)! So, better not even start at it, or at least make it as difficult as possible, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Brains are fucking fucked up, let me tell you. I've been living with this thinking goo for so long now, and it still fucks me up like this! Time to smash that critical voice.

Today I'm aiming for 1000 words. I'll let you know how it goes.

How about you?

--

@quilleth, @theoriginalladya, @kmlaney, @coffeewritesfiction, @mareebrittenford, @lilliebellfanfics, @keyboardandquill, @fontainebleau22, @kinetic-elaboration, @wildswrites, @rhikasa, @inkvulture, @heroofshield, @bad-at-names-and-faces, @sabels-small-sphere, @annaofthenorthernlights, @sarahawke

[glampire-rockstar]

JOE ANOA'I - Roman Reigns/Joe Leakee

GALINA BECKER - Zoie Jordan/Sierra Moore

JONATHAN GOOD - Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose

RENEE PAQUETTE - Faye Wayland/Renee Young

COLBY LOPEZ - Seth Rollins/Tyler Black

SARAH ALESANDRELLI - Kourtney Scott/Danielle Morono

FERGAL DEVITT - Finn Balor/Jonah Arsene

VERO RODRIGUEZ - Amy Grayson/Jane Sharp

DANIEL GILLIES - Gavin Powers/Travis Dawson

ASHLEY FLIEHR - Charlotte Flair/Ashley Diamond

IAN SOMERHALDER - Hayden Evans/Brendan Smith

SARAYA BEVIS - Saraya Calaway/Paige Knight

JOSEPH MORGAN - Elijah Gonzales/Hunter Prince

REBECCA QUIN - Becky Lynch/Rebecca Knox

PAUL WESLEY - Isiah Alister/Zakai Danger

APRIL MENDEZ - AJ Lee/Mey Zodiac

═════•.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.•═════•.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.•═════•.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.•═════

I've found the best characters for my AEW/WWE Fan-Fiction stories, I got the main boys from the Vampire Diaries and the Originals, and got the three married wives and a former girlfriend turned friend.

We know that most of the wrestlers here will be faces or heels, but I want them as the baddest bosses while the good guys are gonna be portrayed as sixteen newcomers who's shorter.

I got Jordan "Dan" Sweeto, Kayleigh "Wolfy" Smyth | Wolfychu, Patrick "Patty" Walters, Dorothy "Dottie" Martin, Johnnie Guilbert, Alexandria "Alex" Dorame, James Tyler Hagen, Shannon "Shan" Taylor, Nathan "Nate" Owens, Leda "Monster Bunny" Muir, Damon "Dee" Fizzy, Carson Fanikos, Luke Jeydon Wale, Samantha "Sam" Rochelle, Kyle David Hall, and Meghan Marie Hogan for the OC portrayals cause I like people within the goth/punk/emo/scene style.

I figured that modern day of straight history meets attitude era for their bad influence; my sixteen OCs doesn't care for the rules and are the most rebellious people in WWE.

This takes place from SummerSlam 2012 for the Fallen Angels and their first victory in Night of Champions: Gold Rush; Survivor Series 2012 for the Shield and their first victory in TLC; Royal Rumble 2013 for the Dark Gods and their first victory in Elimination Chamber; WrestleMania 29 for the Resistance and their first victory in Extreme Rules; they're known as the Pack of Lone Wolves.

For each OC stable...their names are the following; the Unholy Circle for the girls, the Genesis for the girls, the Blood Order for the boys, and the Demolition for the boys; they're the Pride of Wild Lions.

Comment down on ring names for my OCs and follow me at Wattpad on GlampireRockstar...sayonara guys!

[moon-meridian]

hello, friends! here is a collection of some of my favorite faces. i'll update this list as i come into contact with faces that i've been introduced to and want to interact with. please keep in mind that this list is just what comes to mind, i love new faces so feel free to suggest new ones to me !#happyroleplaying

ACTORS

a-e

aaron paul, aaron taylor-johnson, aaron tveit, adam dimarco, adan canto, alan ritchson, alberto rosende, alexander calvert, alexander skarsgard, alex fitzalan, alfie allen, alfonso herrera, alfred enoch, alvaro rico, andre lamoglia, andrew garfield, andrew matarazzo, andy samberg, angus cloud, antoni porowski, antony starr, armie hammer, aron piper, austin butler, avan jogia, ben barnes, bill skarsgard, blair redford, blake jenner, bob morley, boyd holbrook, brandon flynn, brant daughtry, brenton thwaites, brian j. smith, bright vachirawit chivaaree, cameron monaghan, casey cott, carter jenkins, chace crawford, chadwick boseman, chance perdomo, charles melton, charlie coxx, charlie heaton, charlie hunnam, charlie weber, chase stokes, cheyenne jackson, chris evans, chris hemsworth, chris messina, chris pine, christian navarro, christopher abbott, chris wood, cody christian, cody fern, cole sprouse, colton haynes, curran walters, dacre montgomery, daniel sharman, darren barnet, darren criss, david castaneda, david castro, david corenswet, dean geyer, dominic cooper, dominic sherwood, drey ray tanner, drew van acker, dylan minnette, dylan o'brien, dylan sprayberry, dylan sprouse, ed westwick, eka darville, eric dane, evan peters.

f-l

felix mallard, finn jones, finn wittrock, froy gutierrez, gavin leatherwood, gong yoo, grant gustin, gregg sulkin, gus kenworthy, hart denton, hasan minhaj, henry cavill, henry zaga, herman tommeras, hero fiennes-tiffin, hugh dancy, ian bohen, ian harding, ian somerhalder, itzan escamilla, iwan rheon, jack falahee, jack quaid, jack mulhern, jack o'connell, jacob artist, jacob elordi, jai courtney, jan luis castellanos, jared padelecki, jason momoa, jedidiah goodacre, jensen ackles, jeremy allen white, jeremy jordan, joe dempsie, joe keery, joel kinnaman, joel mchale, joe manganiello, jonathan groff, jon bernthal, jon krazinski, jordan fisher, jorge lopez, joseph gilgun, josh hartnett, joshua bassett, justin hartley, justin theroux, karamo brown, karl urban, kit harrington, kj apa, kyle allen, liam hemsworth, logan shroyer, louis partridge, lucien laviscount, luke evans, luke pasqualino.

m-s

manny jacinto, manu rios, matt bomer, matthew daddario, mark pellegrino, mason gooding, maxence danet-fauvel, max irons, max riemelt, mena massoud, michael cimino, michael trevino, michael vlamis, michele morrone, michiel huisman, miguel bernardeau, miguel herran, mike colter, miguel angel silvestre, miles heizer, milo ventimiglia, nathan parsons, nicholas galitzine, nick robinson, nico mirallegro, nico tortorella, nikolaj coster-waldua, noah centineo, nolan gerard funk, oliver jackson-cohen, oliver stark, omar ayuso, omar rudberg, oscar isaac, paul wesley, penn badgley, pol granch, rafael silva, rahul kohli, rami malik, richard madden, ricky whittle, riz ahmed, robert sheehan, rome flynn, ronen rubenstein, ross lynch, rudy pankow, rupert grint, ryan guzman, ryan kelley, ryan potter, sam claflin, sam heughan, samuel larson, scott eastwood, sean teale, sebastian de souza, sebastian stan, shiloh fernandez, skeet ulrich, steven strait.

t-z

taron egerton, taylor zakhar perez, theo james, thomas doherty, timothy granaderos, timothy olyphant, toby kebbell, toby wallace, tom ellis, tom hiddleston, tom holland, tom hopper, tom pelphrey, tyler blackburn, tyler hoechlin, tyler lawrence gray, tyler posey, wentworth miller, zac efron.

MUSICIANS

austin porter, benito ocasio (bad bunny), brandon arreaga, charlie puth, dominic fike, edwin honoret, harry styles, jack gilinsky, jack harlow, jaden smith, joe jonas, lil nas z, machine gun kelly, nick jonas, nick mara, omar apollo, shawn mendes, troye sivan, zayn malik, zion kuwonu.

EASTERN

bang chan, choi chanhee, choi minho, christian yu, han seungwoo, jackson wang, jay park, jung ki-suck, kim jennie, kim jisoo, kim jongdae, kwon hyuk lai, kuan-lin, lalisa manoban, lee dae-hwi, lee tae-min, mark yien tuan, ong seong-wu, roseanne park, taehyung, wong kunhang, wu yi fan, xiao dejun, and yan an.

MODELS

adam senn, adil haddaoui, adrien sahores, agustin bruno, arthur gosse, billy vandendooren, bo develius, brad skelly, brooklyn beckham, cameron dallas, casey jackson, christian hogue, daniel abohzira, daniel bederov, david gandy, derek chadwick, desire mia, diego barrueco, francisco lachowski, gage gomez, gui fedrezzi, harvey newton-haydon, isha blaaker, ivan kozak, jacob bixenman, janis danner, jamie dornan, joe collier, jordan torres, juan betancourt, julian schratter, kit butler, lenny izaguire, manu rios, marlon teixeira, marvin cortes, matthew noszka, matty carrington, maverick mcconnell, michael yerger, neels visser, nick bateman, nicolas simoes, nyle dimarco, ollie loudon, owen lindberg, rafael lazzini, rafael miller, reese king, richard diess, robbie satchwell, sean opry, simon loof, simon nessman, tanner reese, tom webb, vinnie hacker, will higginson, xavier serrano, zander fitzpatrick

UNCLASSIFIED

gus kenworthy, noah beck, ryan garcia, vlad hoshin.

[kcthescreamqueen]

Tag Lists

These are the fandoms and people I’ll write for. I will update this every time I get into a fandom!

The Vampire Diaries Universe 

Damon Salvatore

Stefan Salvatore

Elena Gilbert

Jeremy Gilbert

Jenna Sommers

Katherine Pierce

Caroline Forbes

Bonnie Bennett

Alaric Saltzman 

Matt Donavan

Tyler Lockwood

Lizzie Saltzman

Josie Saltzman

Hope Mikaelson

Klaus Mikaelson

Hayley Marshall

Rebekah Mikaelson

Elijah Mikaelson 

Finn Mikaelson

Kol Mikaelson

Kai Parker

Davina Claire

Harry Potter (Golden Trio and Marauders Era) 

James Potter

Sirius Black

Remus Lupin

Lucius Malfoy

Severus Snape

Bill Weasley

Viktor Krum

Harry Potter

Draco Malfoy

Fred Weasley

George Weasley

Ron Weasley

Ginny Weasley

Luna Lovegood

Hermione Granger 

Regulus Black 

Barty Crouch 

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Clint Barton

Thor Odinson 

Tony Stark

Steve Rogers

Natasha Romanoff

Alexei (Nat's dad)

Melina (Nat's Mom)

Yelena Belova

Bruce Banner

Pepper Potts

Peter Parker (All 3)

Stephen Strange

Wanda Maximoff

Peitro Maximoff

Loki Laufeyson

Peter Quill

Matt Murdock

Gomora

T'Challa

Bucky Barnes 

Scott Lang

Hope Pym

Brock Rumlow 

Riverdale

Jughead Jones

FP Jones

Betty Cooper

Veronica Lodge

Archie Andrews

Joaquin DeSantos

Sweet Pea

Cheryl Blossom

Polly Cooper

Toni Topez

Fred Andrews

Criminal Minds

Aaron Hotchner

Spencer Reid

Derek Morgan

Penelope Garcia

JJ

Emily Prentiss

Rossi 

Gilmore Girls

Rory Gilmore

Luke Danes

Lane Kim

Paris Geller

Dean Forester

Jess Mariano

Logan Huntzburger

Shadow Hunters

Jace Herondale

Alec Lightwood

Izzy Lightwood

Raphael Santiago

Magnus Bane

Clary Fray

Simon Lewis

Hodge Starkweather

Luke Garroway

Jocelyn Fray

Sebastian Morganstern 

House Of The Dragon 

Daemon Targaryen

Rhaenyra Targaryen

Viserys Targaryen

Alicent Hightower

Helena Targaryen

Aemond Targaryen

Fifty Shades of Grey

Christian Grey

Ana Steele

Sawyer

Mia Grey

Nate Grey

The Walking Dead

Daryl Dixon

Negan Smith

Rick Grimes

Glenn Rhee

Carl Grimes

Scream

Billy Loomis

Stu Mocher

Sydney Prescot

Tatum Riley

Dewey Riley

Gale Weathers

Randy Meeks

Tags: @mbav3rdseason

Mickey Altri

Mark Kincaid

Roman Bridger

Chad Meeks Martin

Mindy Meeks Martin

Sam Carpenter (Loomis)

Tara Carpenter

Ethan Landrey

The Hunger Games Franchise

Katniss Everdeen

Peeta Mellark

Cinna Vaught

Haymitch Abernathy

Effie Trinket

Finnick Odair

Johanna Mason

(Young) Snow

The Rookie

Tim Bradford

Lucy Chen

John Nolan 

Bailey Nune

Nyla Bishop

Angela Lopez

Wesley Evers

Aaron Thorson 

Supernatural

Dean Winchester 

Sam Winchester

Castiel

Crowley 

Gabriel 

Jack Kline

Ruby

Twilight

Bella Swan

Charlie Swan

Edward Cullen

Jasper Hale

Emmett Cullen

Carlisle Cullen

Alice Cullen

Esme Cullen

Rosalie Cullen

Jacob Black

Grey Anatomy

Mark Sloan

Derek Shepherd

Alex Karev

Merdith Grey

Lexie Grey

Cristina Yang

 

If you wanted tagged let me know what/who you want tagged for and I'll add you to my tag list!