#Dr. Calvino

[makethosenarratorsfight]

UNRELIABLE NARRATOR BRACKETS

CLOWNS AND GHOULS WE ARE STILL CURRENTLY ON A SLIGHTLY SMALLER HATIUS! WE WILL BE BACK WITH A REVIVAL BRACKET SOON :]

Semi Finals

Kim Dokja (ORV) vs. Eugenides (The Queen's Thief)

Lemony Snicket (Series of unfortunate events) vs. Marvin (In Trousers)

Finals

Eugendies (The Queen's Thief) vs. Lemony Snicket (Series of Unfortunate Events)

CONGRATS TO LEMONY SNICKET FOR WINNING THE WINNERS BRACKET!! However, there is one more battle for him to face. The winner of the revival bracket!

RULES

For tie sweeps, im giving each match up a 0.2% margin. Additionally, you have to convince me that these two character have something in common besides being unreliable goofiers

Propaganda is very much encouraged :]

Please be nice to each other :( At the end of the day, this is a silly internet bracket with way too many obscure characters to count. remember to touch grass everyone

Polls from round 1-3 will be one day! From there, all polls will be a week, including the finals

The winner of the loser's bracket will go against the winner of the winner's bracket and that winner will be declared the most unreliable

Main tag (with polls) will be #unreliable narrator battle

NOTE; I do NOT write the propaganda on each poll. It's the propaganda I collect in submissions.

List of all characters below (+their match ups and brackets!)

(im not sure how to make them face each other?? if that makes sense. so uh. have these 4, right facing brackets :') )

SIDE A

SIDE B

SIDE C

SIDE D

I tried to evenly match everyone, however, i also metaphorically live under a rock so my view on everything might be EXTREMELY skewed. sorry.

SIDE A 

Round 1

Lemony Snicket (A series of unfortunate events) vs. Dr. James Sheppard (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) 

Neil Josten (All For the Game) vs. Cersei Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire) 

Simon Snow (Carry On) vs. Alcatraz Smedry (Alcatraz Vs The Evil Librarians) 

The Biologist (Annihilation) vs. Yukio Okumura (Ao no Exorcist) 

Briony Tallis (Atonement) vs. Tobias (Animorphs) 

Montresor (Cask of Amontillado) vs. Margot Garcia (An Unauthorized Fan Treatise) 

Kuruto Ryuki (AI: The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative) vs. Kaede Akamatsu (Danganronpa V3) 

Jason Todd (DC Comics/Batman) vs. Greg Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) 

Varric Tethras (Dragon Age) vs. Marco (Animorphs) 

Mysterious Man (Into the Woods) vs. Narrator of Jane the Virgin (Jane the Virgin) 

Johnny Traunt (House of Leaves) vs. Charlie Gordon (Flowers for Algernon) 

The Narrator of Greater Boston (Greater Boston) vs. Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night, a Travler) 

Rebecca Bunch (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) vs. Rue Bennet (Euphoria) 

Tsurugi Kamishiro (Kamen Rider Kabuto) vs. Nishijou Takumi (Chaos; Head) 

Humbert Humbert (Loltia) vs. Ted(I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) 

Brooke Page (Ever After High) vs. Coriolanus Snow (Hunger Games) 

Round 2

Lemony Snicket (A series of unfortunate events) vs. Cersei Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire) 

Simon Snow (Carry On) vs. The Biologist (Annihilation)

Briony Tallis (Atonement) vs. Margot Garcia (An Unauthorized Fan Treatise) 

Kuruto Ryuki (AI: The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative) vs. Greg Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) 

Varric Tethras (Dragon Age) vs. Mysterious Man (Into the Woods)

Johnny Traunt (House of Leaves) vs. The Narrator of Greater Boston (Greater Boston)

Rebecca Bunch (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) vs. Tsurugi Kamishiro (Kamen Rider Kabuto)

Ted(I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) vs. Brooke Page (Ever After High)

Round 3

Lemony Snicket (A series of unfortunate events) vs. The Biologist (Annihilation)

Margot Garcia (An Unauthorized Fan Treatise) vs. Kuruto Ryuki (AI: The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative)

Varric Tethras (Dragon Age) vs. Johnny Traunt (House of Leaves)

Rebecca Bunch (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) vs. Ted (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) 

Round 4

Lemony Snicket (A series of unfortunate events) vs. Kuruto Ryuki (AI: The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative)

Johnny Traunt (House of Leaves) vs. Ted (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) 

Round 5

Lemony Snicket (A series of unfortunate events) vs. Johnny Traunt (House of Leaves)

SIDE B

The Narrators (Ever After High) vs. Louis De Pointe Du Lac (Interview with the Vampire)

Ulysses (Fallout New Vegas) vs. Phone Guy (FNAF) 

Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit) vs. Hamlet (Hamlet) 

Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) vs. The Narrator of Fight Club (Fight Club) 

Joker (Joker) vs. Ted (How I Met Your Mother) 

Alex Eggleston (YIIK: A Postmodern RPG) vs. Benjamin Brynn (Before Your Eyes) 

Odokawa (Odd Taxi) vs. Nadeko Sengoku (Monogatari Series) 

Mima Kirigoe (Perfect Blue) vs. Drosselmeyer (Princess Tutu) 

The Narrator of Slay the Princess (Slay the Princess) vs. Dr. Money (Presentable Liberty) 

The Batter (OFF) vs. Sunny (Omori) 

Submitter (Real Life) vs. Every Fic Writer (Real Life) 

Shen Qingqiu (SVSSS) vs. Cale Henituse (Trash of the Counts Family) 

Wei Wuxian (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) vs. Beatrice (Umineko) 

Haruaki Fusaishi (Raging Loop) vs. Lee Hakhyun (ORV Side Stories) 

Kim Dokja (ORV) vs. Yoon Jongwoo (Strangers From Hell) 

Prince Huai (The Imperial Uncle) vs. Fukuide Kei (Ultraman Geed) 

Round 2

Louis De Pointe Du Lac (Interview with the Vampire) vs. Phone Guy (FNAF) 

Hamlet (Hamlet) vs. The Narrator of Fight Club (Fight Club) 

Ted (How I Met Your Mother) vs. Benjamin Brynn (Before Your Eyes) 

Nadeko Sengoku (Monogatari Series) vs. Mima Kirigoe (Perfect Blue)

The Narrator of Slay the Princess (Slay the Princess) vs. The Batter (OFF)

Every Fic Writer (Real Life) vs. Shen Qingqiu (SVSSS)

Beatrice (Umineko) vs. Lee Hakhyun (ORV Side Stories) 

Kim Dokja (ORV) vs. Prince Huai (The Imperial Uncle)

Round 3

Phone Guy (FNAF) vs. Hamlet (Hamlet) 

Benjamin Brynn (Before Your Eyes) vs. Mima Kirigoe (Perfect Blue)

The Batter (OFF) vs. Shen Qingqiu (SVSSS)

Lee Hakhyun (ORV Side Stories) vs. Kim Dokja (ORV)

Round 4

Hamlet (Hamlet) vs. Mima Kirigoe (Perfect Blue)

Shen Qingqiu (SVSSS) vs. Kim Dokja (ORV)

Round 5

Hamlet (Hamlet) vs. Kim Dokja (ORV)

SIDE C

Harrowhark (The Locked Tomb) vs. Percy Jackson (PJO) 

Jonathan Sims (Mangus Archives) vs. John Gaius (The Locked Tomb) 

Kuzco (Emperor’s New Groove) vs. Goob (Meet the Robinsons) 

Jeramie Brasirie (Ohsama Sentai King Ohger) vs. Noé Archiviste (Vanitas no Carte) 

Kvothe (The Kingkiller Chronicle) vs. Darkstalker (Wings of Fire) 

Nelly Lockwood (Wuthering Highs) vs. Dr. John Watson (Sherlock Holmes)  

Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb) vs. Apollo/Lester (Trials of Apollo) 

Dean Winchester (Supernatural) vs. The Narrator (The Stanley Parable) 

Guy Montag (Fahrenheit 451) vs. Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye) 

Theo Decker (The Goldfinch) vs. Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby) 

Pi (The Life of Pi) vs. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (How to Train Your Dragon) 

Rosie Amo (The Administration Podcast) vs. Rune Saint John (The Tarot Sequence) 

Charles Kinbote (Pale Fire) vs. Nana Daiba (Revue Starlight) 

Lloyd Allen (Shaperaverse) vs. Josh Newman (SINF) 

Kaz Brekker (Six of Crows) vs. The Maid (The House in Fata Morgana) 

Eugenides (The Queen’s Thief) vs. Grisia Sun (The Legend of Sun Knight) 

Round 2

Harrowhark (The Locked Tomb) vs. John Gaius (The Locked Tomb) 

Kuzco (Emperor’s New Groove) vs. Jeramie Brasirie (Ohsama Sentai King Ohger)

Kvothe (The Kingkiller Chronicle) vs. Dr. John Watson (Sherlock Holmes)  

Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb) vs. The Narrator (The Stanley Parable) 

Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye) vs. Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby) 

Pi (The Life of Pi) vs. Rune Saint John (The Tarot Sequence) 

Charles Kinbote (Pale Fire) vs. Lloyd Allen (Shaperaverse)

Kaz Brekker (Six of Crows) vs. Eugenides (The Queen’s Thief)

Round 3

Harrowhark (The Locked Tomb) vs. Kuzco (Emperor’s New Groove)

Dr. John Watson (Sherlock Holmes) vs. Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb)

Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby) vs. Pi (The Life of Pi)

Lloyd Allen (Shaperaverse) vs. Eugenides (The Queen’s Thief)

Round 4

Harrowhark (The Locked Tomb) vs. Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb)

Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby) vs. Eugenides (The Queen’s Thief)

Round 5

Harrowhark (The Locked Tomb) vs. Eugenides (The Queen’s Thief)

SIDE D

Narrator of Death in the Forest (Death in the Forest) vs. Singer of the Main Character (The Main Character) 

Guy Pearce (Memento) vs. Chief Bromden (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) 

Joe Goldberg (YOU) vs. Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Sixth Sense)

Daniil Dankovsky (Pathologic) vs. Amanda (Amanda The Adventurer) 

Keyser Soze (The Usual Suspects) vs. Jane (The Yellow Wallpaper) 

Narrator of Tell Tale Heart (Tell Tale Heart) vs. Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein) 

Gareth (Philadelphia) vs. Grace Marks (Alias Grace) 

Squealer (Animal Farm) vs. Scout (To Kill A Mockingbird) 

Katrina Kim (Liar Dreamer Thief) vs. Aislyn (The City We Became)

Claudia (Monday’s Not Coming) vs. Marvin (In Trousers) 

Mars (The Honeys) vs. Jane North-Robinson (Horrid) 

Rachel (The Girl on the Train) vs. Amy Dunne (Gone Girl) 

The Mother (Pumpkin Eater)vs. Lacey (Lacey’s Diner) 

Leshy (Inscryption) vs. Taylor Herbert (Worm) 

All the Narrators of Rashomon (Rashomon) vs. Wayne Booth (The Rhetoric of Fiction) 

Christopher (The Curious Incident o the Dog in the Night-Time) vs. Alex (A Clockwork Orange)

Round 2

Singer of the Main Character (The Main Character) vs. Guy Pearce (Memento)

Joe Goldberg (YOU) vs. Amanda (Amanda The Adventurer) 

Jane (The Yellow Wallpaper) vs. Narrator of Tell Tale Heart (Tell Tale Heart)

Gareth (Philadelphia) vs. Scout (To Kill A Mockingbird) 

Aislyn (The City We Became) vs. Marvin (In Trousers) 

Mars (The Honeys) vs. Amy Dunne (Gone Girl) 

The Mother (Pumpkin Eater) vs. Leshy (Inscryption)

All the Narrators of Rashomon (Rashomon) vs. Alex (A Clockwork Orange)

Round 3

Singer of the Main Character (The Main Character) vs. Amanda (Amanda The Adventurer) 

Narrator of Tell Tale Heart (Tell Tale Heart) vs. Scout (To Kill A Mockingbird) 

Marvin (In Trousers) vs. Amy Dunne (Gone Girl) 

Leshy (Inscryption) vs. All the Narrators of Rashomon (Rashomon)

Round 4

Singer of the Main Character (The Main Character) vs. Narrator of Tell Tale Heart (Tell Tale Heart)

Marvin (In Trousers) vs. Leshy (Inscryption)

Round 5

Narrator of Tell Tale Heart (Tell Tale Heart) vs. Marvin (In Trousers)

[titleleaf]

The most incredible example of sadist-surrealist fantasy is to be found among the representations of the various phrases of childbirth and gynaecological operations. A complete model of a patient undergoing a Caesarean section lies with her eyes wide open, her face distorted by pain, her hair impeccable, her calves tied together, dressed in a long, lace nightgown, which is open only at the part of her body which has been cut open by a scalpel, where the baby appears. Four male hands are placed on her body (two operating, two holding her waist): fine wax hands with manicured nails, ghostly hands since they are not supported by arms but adorned only with white cuffs and with the ends of the sleeves of a black jacket, as though the whole ceremony was being held by people in evening dress.

-- Italo Calvino on Dr. Pierre Spitzner’s life-sized wax model of a caesarean section, from his essay ‘The Museum of Wax Monsters’, in Collection of Sand.

[bracketsoffear]

Stranger Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Stranger 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!

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse Blish, James & Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc. Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There? Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Dahl, Roald: The Witches Damico, Gina: Wax Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

French, Tana: The Likeness

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

King, Stephen: Battleground King, Stephen: The Outsider Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

Martin, Ann M. & Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host) Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall Poe, Edgar Allen: William Wilson Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld Robinson, Justin: Everyman Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: Harold Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet Sleator, William: Among the Dolls Sleator, William: The Duplicate Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Shy high school junior Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest tech companies. She joins five student volunteers, a company-approved chaperone, and an impartial scientist to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse… something that looks human.

Riley has anxiety--ostracized by the kids at school because of panic attacks--so when she starts to feel like something’s wrong with their expedition leader, Greta, she writes it off. But when Greta snaps and tries to kill Riley, she can’t chalk it up to an overactive imagination anymore. Worse, after watching Greta disintegrate, only to find another student with the same affliction, she realizes they haven’t been infected, they’ve been infiltrated--by something that can change its shape. And if the group isn’t careful, that something could quickly replace any of them.

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate

Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist, has always had her eye on world domination, and she has to start somewhere...like her class elections! If people vote for her, they’ll be giving her all the control she wants.

But Franny’s platform doesn’t have the same appeal as her competitors who are offering new playground equipment, so she creates The Frandidate. Made of DNA samples from a dog, a chameleon and a parrot, along with a scrap of carpet (so she’ll know where people stand), Franny’s special suit helps her say and do exactly what people want! But when The Frandidate starts making promises she knows she can’t keep, Franny realizes she might have gone too far…

Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse

On her thirteenth birthday, Sarah wishes that she would wake up inside of her dollhouse -- and her wish comes true. The book follows her throughout her day, with pictures that show the increasingly disturbing nature of the world in which she now exists.

Blish, James and Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man

The central premise of this novel concerns a cloning device that requires six different people, one for each duplicate to be created, to be hooked into the machine. Turns out while the memories are copied the personalities and appearances are affected by the subjective views of the various individuals. E.g., one copy is actually a bit shorter and more cowardly than the original because that's how its creator perceived the original while another due to her hero worship was a physically and mentally perfected version of the original.

Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc.

A man acquires a robot to stand in for him at home while he goes away. (A very sophisticated robot that eventually develops sentience, but still one that, if you place your head to the chest, you can hear a clock ticking instead of a heart beating.) However, the robot decides that he likes the original man's life and doesn't want to be stored away in a box in the basement. The solution? He betrays his owner by locking HIM in the box forever while he (the robot) lives the life of the owner, his family completely unaware of the switch. Meanwhile, another man considers doing the same, only to discover that his wife has already replaced herself.

Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

As this post--https://www.tumblr.com/bracketsoffear/718600953914327040/wasnt-here-in-time-for-the-stranger-poll-but--says, "Alpharius is the Primarch of the [...] Alpha Legion, and aside from the ones that have been fully expunged from all Imperial records, he's the primarch we know the least about. We're fairly confident he's actually two twin brothers pretending to be the same guy, Alpharius and Omegon, and that he specializes in infiltration. Beyond that, all bets are off. Literally every event in his life has at least two versions that have been printed in official books and directly contradict each other. The book that compiles his backstory in a neat and sensible manner that doesn't have any internal or external contradictions opens with the blatant admission that all of it is a complete fucking lie. Supposedly, he died at the battle for Pluto, but then he is reported to have been killed several centuries later somewhere else by a completely different guy. Only complicating matters is that pretty much every member of his legion undergoes extensive plastic surgery to look exactly like him. Most of them introduce themselves as Alpharius. It might very well be that both of the times he supposedly died, it was actually just a body double and he's still out there, pretending to be a normal legionary. Every single member of the Alpha Legion is Alpharius, and an alarming number of them actually believe themselves to be him." Anyway, this is the backstory book in question.

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller

The book is a story about reading the first chapters of multiple books that appear to be If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, but are not.

Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There?

A group of American researchers, isolated in their scientific station in Antarctica towards the end of winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They recover an alien creature from the ancient ice. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the appearance, memories, and personality of a living thing it devours, while maintaining its body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over, it tries to become a sled dog.

The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kills it midway through the transformation process. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution, and a "rule-of-four" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others. The crew realizes that they must isolate their base and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, yet they pretend that everything is normal during radio transmissions, to prevent any rescue attempts. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is found to be almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is shapeshifting and telepathic, reading minds and projecting thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections (from Copper and Garry) to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive, as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned.

Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and standing watch. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad, thinking that they are already the last human, or wondering if they could know if they were not human any longer. Ultimately, Kinner, the cook, is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent organisms. He then uses this fact to test which men have been "converted" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire. Fourteen men, including Connant and Garry, are revealed to be Things. The remaining men go to test the isolated Blair, and on the way, see the first albatross of the Antarctic spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from infecting it and flying to civilization.

When they reach Blair's cabin, they discover that he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased, as it is able to squeeze under doors by transforming itself. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady forces it out into the snow and destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards, the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing the construction of a nuclear-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world.

Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly

So, the entire propaganda section for this one will be a spoiler because to explain why this book works as a stranger Leitner is to reveal a major plot twist. So as a start here is the book's description from goodreads:

Whilst organising a mock murder hunt for the village fete hosted by Sir George and Lady Stubbs, a feeling of dread settles on the famous crime novelist Adriane Oliver. Call it instinct, but it's a feeling she just can't explain...or get away from. In desperation she summons her old friend, Hercule Poirot -- and her instincts are soon proved correct when the 'pretend' murder victim is discovered playing the scene for real, a rope wrapped tightly around her neck. But it's the great detective who first discovers that in murder hunts, whether mock or real, everyone is playing a part.

In this novel a young girl Marlene is killed during a village fete at Nasse House, a home owned by Sir George Stubbs and his wife Hattie. After the murder, Lady Stubbs goes missing just in time for a visit from her cousin, whom she hasn't seen in years. At the end of the novel, it transpired that both Sir George and Hattie were not who they seemed. Sir George being a fake identity of James Folliat, son of the family that owned the Nasse House for centuries, who was thought to be dead. His mother, Amy Folliat, introduced him to the original Hattie, a wealthy but naive girl. James stole Hattie's money and had her killed and replaced by his actual wife, who later spent years pretending to be Hattie with only Amy Folliat aware of the replacement. Due to the news that real Hattie's cousin, who could uncover the ruse, was going to visit. Fake Hattie again transformed to blend among the tourists that came to the fete. To me, this works great as a stranger Leitner due to the book antagonist both pretending to be somebody else and the strong element of kill and replace.

Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Fundamentally about alienation from one's own sense of self and how in order to become yourself you have to become someone else; the main character goes through a major identity crisis and it involves flaying people and wearing their skin

Dahl, Roald: The Witches

A dark fantasy, the story is set partly in Norway and partly in England, and features the experiences of a young English boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country.

Damico, Gina: Wax

Wax is a young adult mystery novel by Gina Damico (author of Croak). It was published in 2016.

It takes place in the fictional town of Paraffin, Vermont. Our hero is Poppy Palladino, a teenage girl who wants to be an actor, but is haunted by memories of being humiliated multiple times in the past, especially by a bully named Blake Bursaw. Paraffin is home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory, a popular tourist site. While taking a tour in the factory, Poppy wanders off into a secret workroom where she meets Madame Grosholtz, an eccentric maker of wax sculptures. Soon after, the factory mysteriously burns down, but not before Poppy is given a living wax sculpture, who she names Dud, and a candle engraved with a strange message.

Things just get stranger from there, and Poppy must save the entire town from a sinister conspiracy that stems from hundreds of years ago. She becomes unsure of who she can trust, but with the help of Dud, her best friend Jill, and her school theater club, she must make a plan.

***

Paraffin, Vermont, is known the world over as home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. But behind the sunny retail space bursting with overwhelming scents and homemade fudge, seventeen-year-old Poppy Palladino discovers something dark and unsettling: a back room filled with dozens of startlingly life-like wax sculptures, crafted by one very strange old lady. Poppy hightails it home, only to be shocked when one of the figures—a teenage boy who doesn’t seem to know what he is—jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. She tries to return him to the candle factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop—and the old woman is nowhere to be seen.

With the help of the wax boy, who answers to the name Dud, Poppy resolves to find out who was behind the fire. But in the course of her investigation, she discovers that things in Paraffin aren’t always as they seem, that the Grosholtz Candle Factory isn’t as pure as its reputation—and that some of the townspeople she’s known her entire life may not be as human as they once were. In fact, they’re starting to look a little . . . waxy. Can Poppy and Dud extinguish the evil that’s taking hold of their town before it’s too late?

Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly

"The main character, Bob Arctor, leads a double life as an undercover police agent infiltrating a drug dealing ring. As a part of his cover he starts taking the drug and becomes addicted, and the drug causes the hemispheres of his brain to function separately leading to the emergence of two separate personalities - 'Bob' when he is a drug dealer, and 'Fred' when he is a police agent. both of these personalities do not recognize each other, so for example when he is reviewing footage of him as Bob, he thinks he is spying on some other man. Also, in this world there are 'scramble suits' - special coats that make it impossible to distinguish anything about the wearer's appearance or their voice, and the protagonist is required to wear one of these when he is not undercover. That worsens his split personality, as he has no one who remembers his appearance as 'Fred', and he forgets he was undercover at all and just starts acting as a genuine drug dealer. The distortion of memories, erasure of appearance and the personality swap from Fred to Bob reminds me strongly of not!them. Fred not!themmed himself."

Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth

Short story in which a woman dies, and her boyfriend makes a deal to bring her back. Trouble is, he brings her back... too much. It'd be a funny old world if we were all the same, wouldn't it? Link

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

In Saint Petersburg, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin works as a titular councillor (rank 9 in the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great[3]), a low-level bureaucrat struggling to succeed.

Golyadkin has a formative discussion with his physician, Doctor Rutenspitz, who fears for his sanity and tells him that his behaviour is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the remedy. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for Klara Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters a man who looks exactly like him, his double. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their evolving relationship.

At first, Golyadkin and his double are friends, but Golyadkin Jr. proceeds to attempt to take over Sr.'s life, and they become bitter enemies. Because Golyadkin Jr. has all the charm, unctuousness and social skills that Golyadkin Sr. lacks, he is very well-liked among the office colleagues. At the story's conclusion, Golyadkin Sr. begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz.

***

Constantly rebuffed from the social circles he aspires to frequent, the timid clerk Golyadkin is confronted by the sudden appearance of his double, a more brazen, confident and socially succesful version of himself, who abuses and victimizes the original. As he is increasingly persecuted, Golyadkin finds his social, romantic and professional life unravelling, in a spiral that leads to a catastrophic denouement.

French, Tana: The Likeness

A detective assumes a dead woman’s identity and moves into her shared house, believing one of the housemates to be her killer. She is accepted as the victim (!!!) and becomes obsessed with her doppelgänger, trying to stay in character and live the life that she would have lived. She ends up getting psychologically consumed by the part she’s playing, losing track of her own identity. Once she’s completely confused, only person knows for sure who she is—the killer.

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

The presence of another world that resemble the one you know but different, the Other Mother whole deal and the fact that she spies on people using dolls and sews buttons in place of her victim's eyes.

***

A short novella that focuses on 9-year-old Coraline Jones as she fights to restore her family from the clutches of the evil Other Mother.

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Synopsis: "When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…"

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault

You see the hole which perfectly matched you. It haunts you. You can’t resist the urge to climb inside.

It’s your hole, it was made for you.

Once you enter, you keep going, and your limbs begin to lengthen and contort. At the other side of the mountain, you emerge. Miserable, in pain, and spaghetti’s to the point you barely look human.

It’s your hole, it was made for you. But you have to be changed to fit inside. And you will.

(People have been memeing this story but it’s actually excellent body horror. Highly recommend!)

Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

It’s about a town cursed by spirals that corrupt you and drive you mad, but can’t be ignored forever

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little dolly. Her porcelain like face was so smooth, just like a baby. Her mouth even had a tiny hole so she could eat and breathe. But her one beaded glass eye gleamed with mischief and evil. She had waited a long time in the attic for someone to set her free...

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little girl. The only place she was happy was in the attic with her dolly. If she could have seen her little doll's legs kick, she would have been frightened. If she could have felt her little doll's arms squeeze, she would have been shocked. But if she could have read her little doll's thoughts she would have run from the attic forever--for her sweet little dolly only had killing her on her mind...

King, Stephen: Battleground

A toymaker gets his revenge on his killer with a battalion of toy soldiers that invade his apartment.

King, Stephen: The Outsider

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Katie is an ordinary third-grader-except for one very extraordinary problem! She accidentally wished on a shooting star to be anyone but herself. But what Katie soon learns is that wishes really do come true-and in the strangest ways... When the magic wind blows, watch out! Katie switches bodies with someone or something else and hilarity and havoc ensues.

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

There's nothing I can say here that won't ruin the twist. Link: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/o.aspx

Martin, Ann M. and Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World

Annabelle Doll and Tiffany Funcraft are two dolls who have been best friends since they met in Kate Palmer's house at 26 Wetherby Lane. In this sequel to The Doll Peopl e, they hitch a ride in Kate's backpack and find themselves in the biggest adventure of their lives, a day at school! But when an attempt to return home lands them in the wrong house, they're in far deeper trouble than they imagined. Along with a host of new doll friends, they also encounter Mean Mimi, the wickedest doll of all. Mean Mimi is mean-really mean-and she's determined to rule all of Dollkind or else destroy it. Will the world ever be safe for dolls again?

The main horror aspect of this series is the threat of 'Permanent Doll State' -- a divine punishment that will transform violaters permanently into nonliving dolls, though possibly with their sentience still intact.

Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

This is the source material of Tiffany Korta: ""Pop star. Her image was carefully maintained and groomed by her bosses, the skull-masked Executive/Faction Paradox. She became haunted by the concept of her uber-self, the variety of ways in which her image was used -- officially and otherwise -- and the impassible divide between her identity and the perceptions that other people had of her. She began to see her image on screens moving out of sync with her, or saying things that she could not remember saying, as the image she presented to the world evolved beyond her comprehension and control. Eventually, when she confronted the Executive about their plans for her, they destroyed her and replaced her with a different version of herself that went on to destroy her credibility, Not!Them-style. Meanwhile, other versions of her went on homicidal rampages around the world."

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host)

A story about a girl who feels she has a "sister" that lives within her. She haunts her constantly and devastates her life. We never know whether that sister is real or not, but the mere thought of her drives the girl to paranoia and madness. Her main goal is to destroy her, and to do that, she must become just like her.

Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Ten-year-old Paul and his sister Julia are on vacation at the beach one day when they find a shell midden on the shore. When they climb it, they find a crow's nest with a creepy little ragdoll in it. Paul distrusts it immediately, but Julia is entranced, and brings it home, where their parents don't seem to be able to see it. The next morning, Paul hears someone moving around, and follows the sound out to find his sister, possessed by the doll, building a strange blue fire on top of the midden. She freezes him helplessly in place, then jumps into the fire and disappears. Paul rebuilds it and follows Her through, determined to rescue his sister.

So begins a quest to stop the Ragwitch and save his sister (and maybe the world he finds himself in on the side). Throughout, the narrative switches between Paul's journey and Julia Fighting from the Inside despite the Ragwitch's attempts to control her mind.

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall

Trying to escape the vicious King Kobra gang and troubled life at home, eighth graders Barnie and Teresa flee the city. With only four dollars between them, they hop a bus, hoping to find a new life at the end of the line. Destination: Paradise Park. But Paradise Park turns out to be a cement-covered suburban shopping mall--not quite the paradise they had hoped for.

With no money and no home to retum to, they are forced to stay. And paradise park takes them in--in more ways than one. Barnie and Teresa spend their days and nights in the climate-controlled consumer paradise of a large department store. And just when they think they can live there unnoticed forever, Teresa and Barnie find that even Paradise Park has its secrets. Even in the dead of night, they are far from alone...."

(Spoilers: It's not actually living mannequins, but dispossessed and mildly insane teens who dress as mannequins and stand perfectly still all day to avoid detection! Which... I'm not sure is much better.)

Poe, Edgar Allen: William Williamson or William Wilson

The story of a doppelganger. A man with William Wilson's same name and face. A man who begins to act and sound more like him over the years. A man who becomes hostile. A man who haunts him.

***

William Wilson is about a man named William Wilson (or something similar to it) who meets a man with the exact name as him. Gradually, the double begins to resemble him more and more. The double keeps being a general nuisance to him until eventually he kills his double. Only to look in the mirror to see “ mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood”.

"In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”

To me, William Wilson is a perfect example of a Stranger Leitner because it conceptualizes the fear of the other through fear of the self. There is no stranger more unknowable than the stranger in the mirror, staring back at you.

***

The story follows a man "of noble descent" who goes by William Williamson because, although denouncing his profligate past, he does not accept full blame for his actions. William meets another boy in his school who has the same name and roughly the same appearance, and who was even born on the same date. William's name embarrasses him because it sounds "plebeian" or common, and he is irked that he must hear the name twice as much on account of the other William. The boy also dresses like William, walks like him, but can only speak in a whisper. He begins to give advice to William of an unspecified nature, which he refuses to obey, resenting the boy's "arrogance". One night he steals into the other William's bedroom and recoils in horror at the boy's face—which now resembles his own. William then immediately leaves the academy and, in the same week, the other boy follows suit. William eventually goes to university, gradually becoming more debauched and performing what he terms "mischief". For example, he steals from a man by cheating at cards. The other William appears, his face covered, and whispers a few words sufficient to alert others to William's behavior, and then leaves with no others seeing his face. William is haunted by his double in subsequent years, who thwarts plans described by William as driven by ambition, anger and lust. In his latest caper, he attempts to seduce a married noblewoman at Carnival in Rome, but the other William stops him. The enraged protagonist drags his "unresisting" double—who wears identical clothes— into an antechamber, and, after a brief sword fight in which the double participates only reluctantly, stabs him fatally. After William does this, a large mirror suddenly seems to appear. Reflected at him, he sees "mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood": apparently the dead double, "but he spoke no longer in a whisper". The narrator feels as if he is pronouncing the words: "In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

‘There’s a kind of magic in masks. Masks conceal one face, but they reveal another. The one that only comes out in darkness …’

The Opera House in Ankh-Morpork is home to music, theatrics and a harmless masked Ghost who lurks behind the scenes. But now a set of mysterious backstage murders may just stop the show.

Agnes Nitt has left her rural home of Lancre in the hopes of launching a successful singing career in the big city. The only problem is, she doesn’t quite look the part. And there are two witches who would much rather she return home to join their coven.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have travelled to Ankh-Morpork to convince Agnes that life as a witch is much better than one on the stage. Only now they’re caught up in a murder mystery featuring masks and maniacal laughter.

And the show MUST go on . . .

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld

Synopsis: "Anji Kapoor has just had the worst week of her entire life, and things aren't getting any better. She should be back at her desk, not travelling through time and space in a police box with a couple of strange men.

The Doctor (Strange Man No. 1) is supposed to be returning her to Soho 2001 AD. So quite why there are dinosaurs outside, Anji isn't sure. Sad sixties refugee Fitz (Strange Man No. 2) seems to think they're either in prehistoric times or on a parallel Earth. And the Doctor is probably only pretending to know what's going on — because if he really knew, surely he would have mentioned the homicidal triplet princesses, the teen terrorists, the deadly android doubles (and triples) and the hosts of mad robots?

Anji's never going to complain about Monday mornings in the office again... "

Why it's Stranger: The setting alone is uncannily bizarre -- a theme park on one of Jupiter's moons devoted to Earth history, with research drawn from mistranslations, myths, and popular fiction. Sinister androids populate the place, and everyone is hiding the most terrible secrets. Meanwhile, Fitz Kreiner is having an identity crisis about being a clone, which is only made worse when he has to battle an Elvis impersonator to the death.

Robinson, Justin: Everyman

Ian Covey is a doppelganger. A mimic. A shapeshifter. He can replace anyone he wants by becoming a perfect copy; taking the victim’s face, his home, his family. His life. No longer a man, but a hungry void, Ian Covey is a monster.

David Tirado is a massive, hideous colony organism, a gestalt entity. The sum of Covey’s discarded parts. A roiling, chaotic patchwork of vast and varied personalities, memories, and physical forms that used to be a man − many men − David Tirado is a monster.

Sophie Tirado’s identity has been eroded by the tides of a long relationship, and now the man she gave herself up for has been stolen away and replaced by a mimic. Caught between the Doppelganger and the Gestalt Entity, she will try to save her husband, but there might be nothing left of him.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask, and evil a thousand faces.

Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: "Harold," Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill your Bones

Two cow farmers, Thomas and Alfred, were bored with their monotonous work one day, so they decided to make a scarecrow out of old sacs stuffed with straw. They based its appearance after another farmer they both hated, even giving it the name: Harold. They tied it to a pole and made fun of it, doing impressions of what his crazy voice might sound like or even just taking their cruelty out on him by kicking or punching him, or smearing food over the sac that was its face. One day they heard a grunt that could only have come from Harold. Thomas suggested throwing him in the fire, but Alfred insisted it was nothing to worry about. Then, Alfred noticed that Harold was growing bigger, but again told themselves it was just their imagination from being in the mountains too long.

Then one day, Harold stands up, walks out of the hut in front of Thomas and Alfred, then climbs up onto the roof and starts stomping around on it like a horse on its hind legs. Terrified and wanting to get away from Harold, they leave with their cows that same day, but halfway there they realize they forgot their milking stools and have to go back. The farmers convince each other that there really is nothing to be afraid of and draw straws to see who will go back. It is Thomas who drew the shorter straw, and now has to go back to to the hut, telling Alfred that he will catch up with him later. When Thomas does not return, Alfred returns to look for him, and sees Harold on the roof of the hut laying out Thomas' skinned corpse to dry in the sun.

Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet

It's a series where a boy turns into a Muppet, and things only get wilder from there. It only really hits proper mind and body horror by book 4, as the entire world begins to undergo MUPPETMORPHOSIS!

Sleator, William: Among the Dolls

When her parents give her a gloomy old dollhouse for her birthday instead of the ten speed bike she's expecting, Vicky is disappointed. But she soon becomes fascinated by the small shadowy world and its inhabitants. The hours she spends playing with the dolls is a good way to escape from her parents's arguments. As Vicky's life becomes more troubled, she starts to take out her frustration on the dolls, making their lives as unhappy as hers. Then one day, Vicky wakes up inside the dollhouse, trapped among the monsters she's created. Bewildered, Vicky is sure she's dreaming. Can she find her way out of this nightmare world?

Sleator, William: The Duplicate

When David finds a mysterious machine that can copy living things, he thinks his problems are over. Now he can be in two places at once: at his grandmother's and out on a date. While the other David is in school, the real one can spend the day at the beach. The possibilities are endless. And they turn terrifying. David's duplicate has a mind, ideas, and desires of his own--and one of them is to see the real David dead.

Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem

So, in this novel, the main character, Harvey Gotham's estranged wife, Effie, apparently joins a terrorist organisation, which causes no end of problems for him. One of the problems being that Harvey refuses to believe that the person in the organisation really is Effie. When shown photographic evidence and even when shown her corpse he remains doubtful that it's her. Nobody else, with the sole exception of his semi-crazy aunt, has any doubts that Effie really is terrorizing Europe. This could be explained by Harvey lying to himself for various reasons or maybe... maybe Effie was replaced by the Stranger and only Harvey can tell. I propose that The Only Problem is really a Stranger's Leitner describing the torment Harvey suffered at the hand of the Stranger.

Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual

Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie

Quiet, cautious Jessie had always lived in the shadow of her dynamic younger brother--her mother's clear favorite. His recent death leaves Jessie and her mother numb with grief. That is, until the morning Jessie cuts her hair and dresses in Jason's clothes, swaggering out of the house in an uncanny imitation of her brother. Her mother is visibly cheered, and for once Jessie is the center of attention at school. But each day Jason takes over Jessie more and more. Can she escape his power?

Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster. As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before - and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world. As her employer grows increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads…

Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man's nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious—during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams. More than a hundred years later, this tale of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona—the loathsome, twisted Mr. Hyde—has lost none of its ability to shock. Its realistic police-style narrative chillingly relates Jekyll's desperation as Hyde gains control of his soul—and gives voice to our own fears of the violence and evil within us. Written before Freud's naming of the ego and the id, Stevenson's enduring classic demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the personality's inner conflicts—and remains the irresistibly terrifying stuff of our worst nightmares.

Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight

Evil scarecrows terrorize a small farm.

Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Lindy Powell finds a mysterious ventriloquist's dummy and Lindy decides to call him Slappy. Lindy uses her dummy to gain popularity, and her sister Kris quickly becomes jealous. Lindy and Kris's parents ask the two girls to share the dummy. However, when Kris tries to take Slappy from Lindy, Slappy hits Kris in the face. The next morning, Mr. Powell reveals that he has bought a ventriloquist dummy for Kris from a pawn shop. She decides to call him Mr. Wood. Various strange incidents of Mr. Wood apparently doing horrible things happen, which are eventually revealed as a prank by Lindy. She was tired of Kris being a copycat, so she decided to pull this big prank on Kris. Kris finds a small card in Mr. Wood's pocket that reads, "KARRU MARRI ODONNA LOMA MOLONU KARRANO,". After reading the card out loud, Kris thinks she sees Mr. Wood blink. That night, the Powell's elderly neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, come to visit them. Lindy and Kris's parents ask that their daughters perform a ventriloquist act for their neighbors. Lindy decides to go first, and hers is a success. Before Kris can perform her act, Mr. Wood begins to insult the elderly couple, making fun of their appearances and their breath. Because of this, Kris is grounded but still allowed to attend the school's spring concert the following day. At the concert, while Mrs. Berman is adjusting a microphone for Kris, Mr. Wood begins to insult the teacher for being overweight. Mrs. Berman demands an apology, but Mr. Wood responds by spewing a green substance on the teacher and the audience. Mrs. Bergman tells Kris that she will be suspended from school for this, possibly for life. Mr. Powell announces he will return the dummy to the pawn shop on Monday. Kris locks Mr. Wood in a closet and goes to sleep. Kris is awakened by the sound of footsteps. When Kris decides to investigate, she discovers that Mr. Wood is alive. Mr. Wood tells her that she and Lindy are now his slaves and that the magic words brought him to life. Kris tries to fight the dummy, but Mr. Wood hits her fiercely in the stomach. Kris crawls away from Mr. Wood and screams for help. Lindy hears her sister and goes downstairs to find out what has happened. While Kris tells her sister that the dummy is alive, Mr. Wood surprises the girls. Lindy manages to pin the dummy to the ground and keep him from fleeing. When the girls' parents arrive, Mr. Wood stops moving. Lindy and Kris try to explain what has happened, but their parents refuse to believe the girls. Mr. and Mrs. Powell begin to question Kris's mental well-being, suggesting that they should take her to a doctor. As soon as the parents leave, Mr. Wood comes back to life, insisting that Lindy and Kris are his slaves. The girls try to decapitate the dummy, but they are unable to harm him. Next, the girls trap Mr. Wood in a suitcase and bury him in the backyard. Since they are exhausted, Lindy and Kris go to sleep. When the girls wake up the next morning, they discover that Mr. Wood has freed himself and is waiting for them. Lindy and Kris seek help, but their parents have gone out. To show how serious he is, Mr. Wood begins to choke Barky, the family dog. In an attempt to separate the two, the girls drag Mr. Wood and Barky outside. When Mr. Wood releases Barky, the girls chase the dummy into the path of a nearby steamroller being used for construction at the house next door. Mr. Wood dodges the first steamroller and tells them that both will be his slaves forever. He doesn't notice the second steamroller, however, and it crushes Mr. Wood. A mysterious green mist rises from the smashed dummy's body. The alarmed driver of the steamroller rushes out, thinking it was a kid he ran over, but the kids assure him it was nothing more than a dummy. Lindy, Kris, and Barky return home. When the girls get to their room, they find Slappy waiting for them. Slappy asks if the other dummy is gone.

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Well to start with, doctor who aside, doesn't the title just sound like a stranger leitner? And getting into the plot, it heavily features animate scarecrows made from people. And the main reason I'm submitting this is because it fucked me up real bad. It's thematically way darker and more mature in content than I was expecting from a doctor who novel when I read it at the tender age of 14.

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

The whole plot is about a woman who goes on vacation, loses her documents and decides to roll with it, acquiring new identities through a series of questionable decisions. She gets someone else's passport and credit cards, moves into a different hotel, gets hired as a double of a famous actress, introduces herself with false names, and is very paranoid about being found out. We never learn her actual name, but we do learn that she has always disliked her face and has always tried to choose activities that would draw attention away from her face, so she can pretend it's not even there.

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

The opening of "The Invisible Man" focuses on outside perspectives of the titular character, and the narrative itself refers to him simply as "the stranger". His looks are unusual: he wears large clothes and covers his eyes with tinted glasses, and underneath those, he's covered in bandages, as if he's had some sort of horrible accident. His behavior is strange, too. He's rude and reclusive, holed up in his at an inn and working with bizzare chemical concotions, causing accidents and damage constantly.

Throughout the story, the man, Griffin, becomes increasingly erratic. His attempts to reverse his condition all fail, but the things he can do when he goes unnoticed are increasingly violent and cruel.

When he finally becomes fed up with everything, he reveals himself to the proprietors and patrons of the inn, who are prepared to see anything under the bandages, any manner of injury or disfigurement, but instead, run screaming from the establishment, when he reveals nothing at all.

***

The way other characters interact with Griffin the Invisible Man really reminds me of The Stranger. Throughout the plot he's treated as some sort of impostor/invader/not human anymore. Doubly interesting since we see the uncanny-valley-assigned person's POV, meaning it could work even better as a Leitner that makes a statement giver experience something similar

[andy-paleoart]

Great women in paleontology: Diana Mussa | Grandes mulheres na paleontologia: Diana Mussa

🇬🇧 Diana Mussa, born in Campos dos Goytacazes on January 19, 1932, and passed away in Rio de Janeiro on May 8, 2007, was a renowned Brazilian geologist and paleobotanist, globally recognized for her expertise in Devonian flora. She was a trailblazer in this field in Brazil and also a respected professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

The youngest of five siblings, Diana was the daughter of Lebanese parents. Since childhood, she harbored the dream of becoming a naturalist, driven by her deep interest in nature and natural processes. In 1952, she moved to Rio de Janeiro to study Natural History at the National Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters of the University of Brazil (now UFRJ), where she also pursued Geology. During this time, she had the opportunity to intern under renowned researchers such as Dr. Fernando R. Milanez at the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden and Dr. Calvino Mainieri at the São Paulo Institute of Technological Research.

In the late 1950s, she joined the Convent of the Poor Clares to volunteer with underserved populations, and she was sent to Manaus. Between 1958 and 1961, she lived in Tefé, conducting research on fossilized woods and participating in missionary activities. After returning to Rio de Janeiro for health treatment, she joined the National Commission of Nuclear Energy and commenced her postgraduate studies in 1973 at the Institute of Geosciences of the University of São Paulo, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Antonio Carlos Rocha-Campos. Her thesis, defended in 1982, on the Permian Lignitafofloras of the Paraná Basin, Brazil (States of São Paulo and Santa Catarina), was approved with distinction.

Diana became a researcher at the National Department of Mineral Production and later worked at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, where she became an Adjunct Professor of Paleobotany in 1993. Throughout her career, she described approximately 30 genera of fossilized plants, leaving behind an important legacy in the form of her collection of fossil wood slides. Additionally, she was a founding member of the Brazilian Society of Paleontology and a member of various other international and national organizations in her field. Her name inspired the naming of the genus Mussaeoxylon seclusum Merlotti 1998, for Gondwanan fossil gymnosperm wood from Brazil, and the species Glossopteris mussae Ricardi-Branco et al. 1999, for new Permian fossil leaves from São Paulo.

🇧🇷 Diana Mussa, nascida em Campos dos Goytacazes em 19 de janeiro de 1932 e falecida no Rio de Janeiro em 8 de maio de 2007, foi uma renomada geóloga e paleobotânica brasileira, reconhecida mundialmente por sua expertise na flora do devoniano. Ela foi a pioneira nesse campo no Brasil e também uma respeitada professora na Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.

Filha de pais libaneses, Diana era a caçula de cinco irmãos. Desde a infância, cultivava o sonho de se tornar naturalista, devido ao seu profundo interesse na natureza e nos processos naturais. Em 1952, mudou-se para o Rio de Janeiro para estudar História Natural na Faculdade Nacional de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras da Universidade do Brasil (atual UFRJ), onde também cursou Geologia. Durante esse período, teve a oportunidade de estagiar com renomados pesquisadores, como o Dr. Fernando R. Milanez no Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro e o Dr. Calvino Mainieri no Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas de São Paulo.

No final dos anos 1950, ingressou no Convento das Clarissas para realizar trabalho voluntário com populações carentes, sendo enviada para Manaus. Entre 1958 e 1961, viveu em Tefé, onde conduziu pesquisas sobre madeiras fósseis, além de participar de atividades missionárias. Após retornar ao Rio de Janeiro para tratamento de saúde, ingressou na Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear e iniciou sua pós-graduação em 1973 no Instituto de Geociências da Universidade de São Paulo, sob a orientação do Prof. Dr. Antonio Carlos Rocha-Campos. Sua tese, defendida em 1982, sobre as Lignitafofloras Permianas da Bacia do Paraná, Brasil (Estados de São Paulo e Santa Catarina), foi aprovada com distinção.

Diana tornou-se pesquisadora do Departamento Nacional de Produção Mineral e, mais tarde, passou a trabalhar no Museu Nacional, no Rio de Janeiro, onde se tornou Professora Adjunta de Paleobotânica em 1993. Ao longo de sua carreira, descreveu aproximadamente 30 gêneros de vegetais fósseis, deixando um legado importante na forma de sua coleção de lâminas de lenhos fósseis. Além disso, foi sócia-fundadora da Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia e membro de diversas outras organizações internacionais e nacionais ligadas à sua área de atuação. Seu nome inspirou o batismo do gênero Mussaeoxylon seclusum Merlotti 1998, para madeira fóssil gimnospérmica do Gondwana brasileiro, e da espécie Glossopteris mussae Ricardi-Branco et al. 1999, para novas folhas fósseis do Permiano de São Paulo.

[bookquest2024]

100 Books to Read Before I Die: Quest Order

The Lord Of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Under The Net by Iris Murdoch

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

A Passage to India by EM Forster

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

1984 by George Orwell

White Noise by Don DeLillo

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Oscar And Lucinda by Peter Carey

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Ulysses by James Joyce

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Herzog by Saul Bellow

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

A Dance to The Music of Time by Anthony Powell

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Little Women by Louisa M Alcott

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

Watchmen by Alan Moore

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Money by Martin Amis

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

[traceamountsoftimetravel]

Comfort Movie Tag

Rules: post 10 of your favorite comfort movies & then tag 10 people. Tagged by the excellent @eyes-of-the-fox

Dr. Strangelove

Akira

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

Men in Black

Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Oppenheimer

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Star Wars (4K77 cut)

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Tagging @nitrateglow @vidibit @italo-disco-calvino @spacepetals and anyone else who'd like to

[heybiji]

Asks (Favorite Things)

Nearest thing to me that is also my favorite would be the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. It's the book that got me back into reading after a long dry spell.

OH! Signs from M. Night Shyamalan. I've probably seen it at LEAST 50 times. One of those "everything has its place" kinda movies. After that, maybe Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and Dog Day Afternoon. They're all kinda stationary movies, I guess (other than Truman). I love love love movies! I have way more movies that I'll watch if I get the opportunity but I could go on and on. ok i'm gonna go on and on. couple more. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Jaws. The Truman Show.

Favorite soup is a toughie, uhhhh, ooo, maybe ramen, or tomato if I got a grilled cheese. I'll take just about any soup, I'm a broth bitch.

I haven't gotten to play many classes yet (only Warlock, Bard, and Barbarian), but I'm going to guess it's always going to be Warlock purely due to the flavor. I love a sold soul, I love to explore conditional love and loyalty. I'd like to try a GOO Warlock sometime! I haven't gotten to play Paladin yet, but I think I may dig that too purely for flavor reasons. Generally, I'm gonna like something with magic and a promise involved haha

cactus cat

I work almost exclusively digital, so I guess digital is my favorite (program: Clip Studio Paint). Though I've been getting into acrylic paint, sorta, at least to make fake anime cels. My least favorite is probably oils. I'm just not patient enough.

Snack, oh man, I became full of lust for poptarts recently.

Something cool I saw recently... the sun. I live in the pacific northwest so the sun is a rare sight.

Thank you so so much!

oh god, okay, my music taste is. eclectic.

I'll just list off some artists I've been listening to a lot. I think I like a lot of old stuff, lotta folk.

The Turtles, Stevie Wonder, Townes Van Zandt (i really like outlaw country music and specifically Townes), The Coasters, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Otis Redding, so so many musicals i love musicals, spaghetti western soundtracks, Childish Gambino, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Beatles (my mom is obsessed with The Beatles so I inherited it I guess), The Jones Sisters, Kid Cudi, and again a LOT of musicals.

honestly a lot of it is "does this remind me of one of my characters/stories?" and if the answer is yes i become obsessed with it

Thank you so much for sending me these asks!!!

[rolkstone]

AU pairings:

Tony/Seymour Lionel/Nick Edna/Johnny/Frankie Daws/Zane Mr. Black/Devon Gregorio/Lindsey Roger/Alfonso Joel/Alfonso Dexter/Dwight Wayne/Dan Carina/Rex Flake/Patrick Fausto/Armando Floyd/Harry Bob/Jack Bob/Dennis Bob/Jack/Dennis Lindsey/Cookie Felix/Troy Kostas/Dan Kostas/Ned Flanders I Tattoo Annie/Lyle Legs/Louie Luca/Carmine Calvino/Jack Raphael/Dave Don Vittorio/Dr. Budgie Shotgun Pete/Frank Ormand Mason/Gil Joey the Scar/Ferdinand Fernando/Clyde Russ/Ray Russ/Kyle Kyle/Angelica Ashton/Rowan Robert/Zachary

[addiment]

dr calvino's tumblr

[graziadiocenterilpostino]

A letter on what's new at the Graziadio Center

Dear Friends of Il Postino,

Welcome to the Spring 2024 semester!

It is already March, and things are in full swing here at the Graziadio Center.

On February 7th, the Graziadio Center, in collaboration with the Clorinda Donato Center, RGRLL, and Università Roma3, organized a one-day event on the Telecollaboration program entitled Empowering Language Learners: Multilingualism And Motivation In Telecollaboration Programs. Professors Diego Cortés Velásquez and Elena Nuzzo (Roma3) gave a presentation and a hands-on workshop on telecollaboration. A roundtable with former participants enlightened our audience on the benefits of this pedagogical approach and a second roundtable, led by our instructors, focused on the future of this collaboration that started some six years ago. The event gave us food for thought and a clearer vision for the program’s future iterations. Meanwhile, it has been decided that our students of ITAL 100B, a class taught by Joanna Tatro, will participate in the Spring 2024 Telecollaboration.

On March 7th at 5:00 PM, Dr. Ilaria Tabusso-Marcyan (ASU) gave a talk entitled, “The Feminine Aspect in the Cultural Roots of Slow Food” in LA1-204 and via Zoom.

Dr. Tabusso-Marcyan examined the feminine aspects of Italian farming culture within recent Italian history and their influence in shaping the cultural foundations of the international movement of Slow Food. Ilaria’s presentation covered parts of her recently published book, The Cultural Roots of Slow Food: Peasants, Partisans, and the Landscape of Italian Resistance (Lexington Books, 2024).

Our last event for the semester will be a talk by renowned scholar Serenella Jovino (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) on Italo Calvino’s animals and the Anthropocene, the date and other details will be shared soon.

Last summer, some twenty students took advantage of our summer abroad program in Recanati and spent four full weeks of class in this beautiful, little town in the Marche region. They enjoyed the experience enormously and came back galvanized and ready to continue their studies in Italian at CSULB. The importance of the Recanati program cannot be overstated, as it has historically helped us increase the number of our minors.

Program Assistant Diego Brol Batres is working to ensure that the new cohort will be as numerous and satisfied as the previous ones. He has toured high schools and community colleges to recruit students and has given presentations here at CSULB to prepare students for their time in Italy. It looks like another 20 students will go to Recanati this summer!

This issue of Il Postino features interviews with our Majors, MA students, alumni, and, for our Faculty Spotlight, alumna and instructor Jaclyn Taylor.

All of them have spent time in Recanati or in Italy (Lesly Valtierra is currently studying at the Ca’ Foscari University, in Venice!). They are our best ambassadors in that they can share their experiences and passion for all things Italian. They all have their own personal perspective and a unique background, and it is a pleasure to have them share their thoughts and enthusiasm on the pages of our newsletter.

Thank you all for your contribution to Il Postino–we wish you the best for this semester and your overall academic career!

Next semester, we hope to have up to eight new BA students. Which means, if everything goes as planned, and we are doing our best to achieve that, we will have a total of 14 Italian Studies majors in Fall 2024! This is a sign of a positive trend that started last year and hopefully will continue for the semesters to come. Showing growth is a good sign, especially when many language departments struggle and are under scrutiny all over the country.

Club Italia is another tremendous asset for the Graziadio Center, as it works tirelessly to promote Italian on campus. We thank you for all your work!

With Lesly Valtierra studying in Italy, Club Italia was in need of a new Treasurer; their new lineup of officers is now:

Antonina Campbell, Ailyn Saavedra, Nikki Jerman, Alberto Sanchez Alonso, Maria Gabriela Tapia, and Josue Mendiola

To find out each officer’s role, look for the Club Italia section below! 

In addition to hosting Tavola Italiana (every other Wednesday at 5 in AS-384), they are also preparing an event to showcase how a BA in Italian can help you in your post-CSULB life (and perhaps change it)!

We will provide details on this exciting event soon; please check your inbox and your social media accounts for flyers.

Buon semestre e a presto!

[lamilanomagazine]

Reggio Emilia, raid vandalici no-vax contro le istituzioni: denunciate 5 persone

Reggio Emilia, raid vandalici no-vax contro le istituzioni: denunciate 5 persone. La Polizia di Stato, con personale della D.I.G.O.S. della Questura di Reggio Emilia e del Centro Operativo per la Sicurezza Cibernetica della Polizia Postale e delle Comunicazioni di Bologna e della Sezione Operativa di Reggio Emilia, a conclusione di una complessa ed articolata attività investigativa coordinata dalla Procura della Repubblica presso il Tribunale di Reggio Emilia diretta dal Dr. Calogero Gaetano PACI, ha eseguito 4 perquisizioni personali e domiciliari, denunciando 5 persone. Queste ultime sono ritenute responsabili di danneggiamento aggravato per aver imbrattato, con scritte e simboli del movimento no vax “Vi_Vi”, numerosi beni immobili riconducibili ad istituzioni cittadine, nel periodo da marzo ad ottobre 2022. Identikit dei denunciati Gli indagati, tutti sconosciuti alle Forze di Polizia poiché mai emersi in contesti informativi e/o investigativi, sono come detto 5: 3 donne e 2 uomini, 4 di Reggio Emilia e uno residente nella provincia di Como, aventi età compresa tra 45 e 56 anni, rispettivamente casalinga, dipendente di un’azienda agricola, insegnante, dipendente della pubblica amministrazione. Il quinto indagato per gli episodi criminosi perpetrati in questa provincia è residente a Como e dipendente di una ditta privata. Le azioni vandaliche I predetti, approfittando dell’orario notturno e travisati anche con mascherine e parrucche, hanno vergato numerose scritte con vernice spray di colore rosso sui muri e sulle vetrate delle sottoelencate sedi, a firma del movimento no vax Vi_Vi, così grandi ed invasive, tanto da causare dei veri e propri danneggiamenti degli immobili colpiti. Dalle indagini della Polizia di Stato è emerso che i partecipanti, prima degli eventi criminosi, effettuavano accurati sopralluoghi per verificare la presenza di sistemi di video sorveglianza. 12 episodi criminosi L’attività investigativa svolta dalla D.I.G.O.S. reggiana iniziata da circa un anno e incentrata sulla visione di numerosi filmati estrapolati da sistemi di videosorveglianza, appostamenti e pedinamenti, ha permesso di attribuire ai presunti autori 12 episodi criminosi dei 31 commessi in questa provincia: Marzo 2022 14 marzo 2022 danneggiamento sede CGIL di via Roma; 4 marzo 2022 danneggiamento sede CISL di via Turri; Maggio 2022 16 maggio 2022 danneggiamento sede CGIL di via Bismantova 7; 16 maggio 2022 danneggiamento plesso scolastico “Italo Calvino di via della Canalina; Luglio 2022 18 luglio 2022 danneggiamento sede dell’Ordine degli Infermieri Professionali di via Montefiorino; 18 luglio 2022 danneggiamento sede dell’Ordine dei Medici Chirurgici e degli Odontoiatri di via Dalmazia; 18 luglio 2022 affissione manifesti presso un Ambulatorio dei Medici di Base di viale Olimpia; Settembre 2022 5 settembre 2022 danneggiamento sede Ispettorato Territoriale del Lavoro di via Paolo Borsellino; 5 settembre 2022 danneggiamento sede Agenzia delle Entrate di via Paolo Borsellino; Ottobre 2022 15 ottobre 2022 danneggiamento sede CGIL di Scandiano (RE); 16 ottobre 2022 danneggiamento sede SPI CGIL di via Emilia Ospizio; 18 ottobre 2022 danneggiamento di due pensiline delle fermate degli autobus del trasporto urbano (SETA) di viale Timavo e parcheggio Zucchi. In alcuni dei suddetti danneggiamenti, oltre alle vistose scritte, sono stati affissi manifesti ritraenti le immagini di alcuni politici e sindacalisti tra cui il Presidente della Regione Emilia Romagna Stefano Bonaccini e il Segretario Generale della CGIL, Maurizio Landini, con svastiche sulla fronte seguite da scritte. Una delle svolte determinanti delle indagini si è avuta la notte del 19 ottobre 2022, quando 3 dei perquisiti, 1 uomo e 2 donne, in viale Timavo e nel parcheggio Zucchi a Reggio Emilia, sono stati colti in flagranza, mentre scrivevano con una bomboletta spray di colore rosso, sulle vetrate delle pensiline del trasporto pubblico urbano SETA. Le perquisizioni effettuate nelle abitazioni, nelle autovetture e presso i luoghi di lavoro degli indagati, hanno permesso di acquisire elementi investigativi che completano il quadro indiziario, in particolare sono stati sequestrati radio trasmittenti, parrucche, indumenti scuri, alcuni dei quali macchiati di vernice rossa ed altri con simbolo ViVi, bombolette spray e secchi di vernice di colore rosso, adesivi e altro materiale riportante la simbologia del sodalizio,  cellulari e computer che saranno analizzati da personale del Centro Operativo per la Sicurezza Cibernetica della Polizia Postale e delle Comunicazione di Bologna. Sono stati sequestrati anche due adesivi, uno ritraente Il Presidente della Regione, Stefano Bonaccini con una svastica disegnata sulla fronte e uno raffigurante l’ex Presidente del Consiglio Mario Draghi vestito da ufficiale delle SS. Sempre nell’ambito delle indagini sul movimento no vax Vi_Vi, il 13 gennaio 2022, la D.I.G.O.S. della Questura di Reggio Emilia aveva denunciato altri due giovani reggiani resisi responsabili di danneggiamento aggravato, per aver vergato con bombolette di vernice rossa alcune scritte, sempre a firma del gruppo Vi_Vi, sui muri dell’Università di Reggio Emilia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxVRBLOOGow Read the full article

[makethosenarratorsfight]

SIDE A FINISHED! WINNERS ARE

Lemony Snicket (A series of unfortunate events) vs. Dr. James Sheppard (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) 

Neil Josten (All For the Game) vs. Cersei Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire) 

Simon Snow (Carry On) vs. Alcatraz Smedry (Alcatraz Vs The Evil Librarians) 

The Biologist (Annihilation) vs. Yukio Okumura (Ao no Exorcist) 

Briony Tallis (Atonement) vs. Tobias (Animorphs) 

Montresor (Cask of Amontillado) vs. Margot Garcia (An Unauthorized Fan Treatise) 

Kuruto Ryuki (AI: The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative) vs. Kaede Akamatsu (Danganronpa V3) 

Jason Todd (DC Comics/Batman) vs. Greg Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) 

Varric Tethras (Dragon Age) vs. Marco (Animorphs) 

Mysterious Man (Into the Woods) vs. Narrator of Jane the Virgin (Jane the Virgin) 

Johnny Traunt (House of Leaves) vs. Charlie Gordon (Flowers for Algernon) 

The Narrator of Greater Boston (Greater Boston) vs. Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night, a Travler) 

Rebecca Bunch (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) vs. Rue Bennet (Euphoria) 

Tsurugi Kamishiro (Kamen Rider Kabuto) vs. Nishijou Takumi (Chaos; Head) 

Humbert Humbert (Loltia) vs. Ted(I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) 

Brooke Page (Ever After High) vs. Coriolanus Snow (Hunger Games) 

[virtualmemoriespodcast]

Episode 523 - Dawn Raffel

Author Dawn Raffel rejoins the show to celebrate her wonderful new book, Boundless As The Sky (Sagging Meniscus Press), a gorgeous series of stories & a novella that take us from Invisible Cities to the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. We talk about how Dawn's previous nonfiction book, The Strange Case of Dr. Couney, led into this new book, how she became obsessed with the Century of Progress World's Fair (and how she wishes she could have asked her parents about visiting it in their youth), why Chicago was always her Emerald City, and how NYC has transformed over the decades she's lived here. We also get into the strong influence of Invisible Cities on her book and how she felt about writing a feminine/feminist response to Calvino, how the two parts of Boundless As The Sky — stories, novella — talk to each other, the twin writing-joys of unexpected resonances and sentence-building, and how incorporating Yoga Nidra offers new approaches to writing workshops. We also get into her recent trip to Kenya for International Literary Seminars, her pandemic Zoom writing-accountability partners, how she finally got around to reading Moby-Dick (and what she made of it), and a lot more. Follow Dawn on Twitter and Instagram and go listen to our 2019 conversation • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our Substack

Check out the new episode of The Virtual Memories Show

[gryfon-spanish-werewolf]

Frozen(Elsanna)xPrey AU Snippet

Little piece that came to me while I was writing down notes about the au as a whole. @themountainsays since I tagged that I’d post it I figure I’d @ ya. Oh and @junglekiing too, since you said you were also curious

For context: Anna has severe memory-loss related to removing a device called a neuromod that previously gave her beyond-human abilities. Bellamy is the head scientist responsible for the procedure of injecting and removing neuromods. When Elsa references “’taking that too” she is referring to Anna’s memories. Dr. Calvino works in the Hardware Labs on an advanced video-tech system called Looking Glass, and Danielle is his chief assistant. Jenni is a deceased npc by the time the game really starts. All of these are characters canonically in Prey

This would be a brief moment of quiet amid the chaos of the station. Finding a little corner or lockable room (after checking it for Mimics) to put up their feet and rest before moving on to their next escape attempt. The topic of their relationship (familial, sisterly, more) comes up and Elsa is open about who was courting whom

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

“You kissed me first you know.” Elsa says, tossing a can of green tea to Anna. 

“I.... did?”

Elsa’s smile is bitter-sweet. “If Bellamy took that too, I’m going to have to find his body, revive him, and kill him again.” She looks at her own can before popping it open with a hiss. “But yes, you did. It was back when we still lived with everyone else, before I got promoted. It was late, I’d gotten off a difficult work day with Dr. Calvino on the Looking Glass tech. He and Danielle had been fighting again, and their hostility put the whole lab on edge. I finally got back down to my pod and you were there, the reading light on, sitting with your legs dangling off the side. Every once in a while you’d bump the closed door below with your heel, which you knew Jenni hated but she’s an ass so we didn’t care.” This time Elsa’s smile is genuine, and she takes a sip with that glow on her face, that fondness. Anna leans forward, enthralled hearing about herself, as if it was someone else.

Maybe it was.

“You ducked beneath the low ceiling and hopped down to the ground, gesturing to the bed with a flourish. You joked that you were keeping it warm for me.”

“Don’t the pods have heating and cooling controls?” Anna interrupts, confused.

“Yes,” Elsa grins back.

“Oh.” Anna scratches her head. “So I was corny.”

“Don’t hang up too hard on that past tense,” Elsa returns, amused, though there is a sadness in her eyes that reduces her words’ cheer. “But yes you were. Are.” She lowers her drink, cupping the bottom with her other hand. She seems lost in the memory, the faintest dusting of pink emerging across her cheeks. “We exchanged some pleasantries --you asked how my day was, I asked about yours-- but you could see I was tired. You gave me a hug and said the next day would be better. But you… lingered.”

“I wanted to kiss you.”

Elsa’s head shoots up as the words leap from Anna’s mouth.

She remembers. Anna remembers.

Not perfectly. Anna scrunches up her eyes, trying to keep the memory stable in the darkness behind her eyelids. “I-I wanted to. You looked ready to drop but you also looked so beautiful. Your hair wasn’t perfect and you smelled a little like the burnt, sooty smell from welding and Calvino’s dark roast coffee. He never drinks anything else. But you also felt small - you fit so neatly in my arms that I just didn’t want to let go. I…” Anna thinks hard, stitching the scene together bit by bit as the pieces threatened to float off into the gaps in her memory. The holes in her life. “I wanted you to know that I was there for you. That I supported you like you always supported me, way back before. And I was feeling braver because everyone was asleep. It was just you and me. And when you pulled back from the hug the light from your bunk spilled onto your face and caught in the corner of your eye and I just stopped holding back.”

Anna mimes the motion in front of her, trying to remember the feel of Elsa’s body beneath her hands. “My knuckle under your chin, my fingers at your waist, and I just reeled you in, before I could second guess myself.” Anna feels her cheeks color. “I… think I was hoping I’d guessed correctly… about you…”

Anna opens her eyes to find Elsa hastily wiping hers. “It was very romantic,” her sister says, but upon seeing Anna catch her, Elsa adds, “well, it was, until you added tongue.”

Anna cringes, choking on her tea she’d been in the middle of drinking. “I did?”

Elsa laughs, a little watery chuckle. “No, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist.” She smiles. “It was sweet.”

“Good,” Anna nods, more to herself than Elsa. “I’m glad I… remember that, even if I’m not sure what all that means now.”

Elsa looks like she wants to comment, but decides against it. Too soon. “It also means we don’t have to find Bellamy’s corpse and resurrect him so that I can murder him again,” she says instead, a handful of snowflakes dancing around her fingers before disappearing. “So considering how the rest of the day has been going, I’m going to count that as a win.”

[fenharel-archived]

If Starfield will even just have a Tiny bit of the atmosphere Prey has... I'll cry my lil heart out

[writeforget]

References in Salman Rushdie's "The Golden House"

Lady Chatterley's Lover- D.H. Lawrence

Le Fantôme de l'Opéra

Goodbye to Berlin

Moby-Dick

The Purple Rose of Cairo

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Mémoires d'Hadrien- Marguerite Yourcenar

Woodcarver Steiner- Werner Herzog

Pina- Wim Wenders

The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler

Two Philosophers Deep in Meditation - Rembrandt

The Longest Journey - Forster

Auto-da-Fé - Canetti

Wired

The satyricon - Mennipe

Cyclops - Euripides

The Net Fishers - Aeschylus

The trackers - Sophocles

The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus - Tony Harrison

The Golden Ass- Aesop

Rain Man

Sad- Eyed Lady of the Lowlands- Bob Dylan

La Belle Dame sans Merci

The Man who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton

Monty Pythons Flying Circus

Spamalot

Oklahoma!

West Side Story

Dr Mabuse The Gambler - Lang

One Thousand and One Nights

The Diamond as Big as the Ritz

The Privilege of Owning Yourself- Nietzsche

Tokyo Monogatari

Orfeu Negro

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

Water Lilies - Claude Monet

Adoration of the Magi - Peter Paul Ruben

Wild is The Wind - Bowie

Famous Blue Raincoat-Cohen

Under the Bridge-RHCP

Pierrot le fou

Arthur Schlesinger

Gayatri Spivak

Baba Yaga

Green Eggs and Ham- Dr Seuss

Twilight

The Silence of The Lambs

The Hunt for Red October

Metamorphosis- F Kafka

The Graduate

Mansoon Wedding

The Deer Hunter

Kill Bill: Vol. 2

The Princess Bride

Yellow Earth- Chen Kaige

The Godfather- the trilogy

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives- Apichat Pong

Rosemary's Baby

Fedorovskaya icon of the Mother of God

V for Vendetta -Wachowski

The Great Gatsby- FS Fitzgerald

Jeeves series-PG Woodehouse

Odyssey

Six Feet Under

The Seventh Seal- Ingmar Bergman

Hannah and Her Sisters

Flash Gordon

Invisible Cities- Italo Calvino

Closely Observed Trains- Jiri Menzel

Sanjuro- Kurosawa

Bonnie and Clyde - Arthur Penn

Amarcord- Fellini

L'argent de poche- Truffaut

The Hustles- Rossen

L'année derniere à Marienbad- Resnais

Knife in the Water- Polanski

La belle noiseuse

Breathless

Le mépris

The Jungle Book- R Kypling

Aguirre, the Wrath of God- Herzog

Funes the Memorious. L Borges

The Dignity of Man- Pico della Mirandola

2001: A space Odyssey- S Kubrick

Birdman

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

Marx Brothers comedy

Reservoir Dogs- Q Tarantino

Within You Without You. Tomorrow Never knows. Norwegian Wood. Love to You- The Beatles

The Inheritors- Golding

Alexander Nevesky. The Battleship Potemkin- Sergei Eisenstein

Seinfeld

Le feu follet- Louis Malle

The Best Bits

La La Land

Arrival

Manchester by teh Sea

Oedipus the King

Sheppey- Somerset Maugham

Night Watch- Rembrandt

Madame Bovary- Flaubert

Beetlejuice

Age of Innocence- Edith Warton

Poetry & Aeroplanes

Mars Attacks!- Tim Burton

The Court Jester

The Golden House (the film)

Citizen Kane

Porky's XXII

Dumb FucksXIX

Titanic

Rear Window

I Confess- Montgomery Clift

Bombay Talkie

Kuch Nahin Kahin Nahin Kabhi Nahin Koi Nahin( Nothing Nowhere Never Nobody)- Maratha Mandir

Company- Raj Gopal Varma

Shootout at Lokhandwala- Sanjay Gupta

Once upon a Time in Mumbaai (1&2) - Milan Luthria

Shakspeare in Love

Psycho- Hitchcock

Ran-Akira Kurosawa

Pather Panchali-Satyajit Ray

The Outcasts of Providence Street/the Exterminating Angel- L Bunuel

Some works might have been missed.