#Etho but make it superhero

[neoflames]

So I’ve seen a few people (*cough cough* @/oh-snapperss *cough cough*) talking about Etho as Cuteguy and uh yeah this happened

I’m not very experienced with drawing bows or poses like this so I do apologise :D

Click for better quality maybe

Lighter version under the read more:

[verishii]

I love how everyone has these sick ass powers and then there's Etho and Joel who can just. jump really high.

[meteor752]

My ideas for the superhero names for the wild life people

Some are better than others

Ren-Roleplay: Very self explanatory. He’s a theatre kid and borderline a larper, and his powers are that he pretends to be someone else, it works very well, and it’s a fun superhero name

Martyn-Spyglass: There’s the obvious connection to the last life spyglasses, but it’s also a reference to how he’s, you know, a spy. He listens in on peoples conversations. Also, spyglasses are traditionally used to watch people, but he listens to them. I think it’s a bit clever

Gem-Projectile: Obviously it’s a play on astral projection, but also on Gem as a person. A projectile is a thing in motion, and is commonly used to refer to things like bullets and arrows that are being launched. Gem is a killer, I think it sorta works

Joel-Triple Threat: Extremely self explanatory. He can triple jump, and like that’s about it. He’s a threat. Not all of them are bangers. I just like the sound of it lol

Jimmy-No-Show: I just love the idea of a superhero with invisibility powers’ name being No-Show. I think it sounds really cool. Not particularly personal to Jimmy, but I like it

Lizzie-Voidable: Play on the word Avoidable, since she sometimes used her powers to disappear. Also a reference to her death in Secret Life. (Also I just looked it up to double check and apparently it is a word, for when for example a contract is able to be made void. She made the canary curse void, in a way, so I think it still works)

Scar-Giddy Up: Simple, he rides people. Couldn’t work in the knockback/“Scar Smash” aspect of it, but you know make that a surprise.

Etho-Air Borne: He launches himself into the sky, specifically by using wind charges, aka air. He also has an infinite supply of the charges, that I think he can use to attack people? So yeah, possessor of air.

Bdubs-Clock Out: I really like this one. Because yes, it’s clock like how he can slow time (and also his obsession with them) but then there’s also, you know, clocking out like from work, probably to go home and rest, working in his bed ability. Also it sounds like Knock Out, which is a thing you can say about someone who’s fallen asleep when very tired.

Tango-Slip N’ Slide: A very fun superhero name. Slip, of course referring to the ice, and then slide technically referring to it as well but also his speed. Also, rolls straight off the tongue.

Grian-Mastermind: Copycat and Mimic are such obvious names for someone with the mimicry ability, I didn’t wanna go for it. Instead, mastermind referring both to his status as the creator of the games and the one who came up with everyone else’s powers, but also how he’s the master of his own fate, constantly changing up his powers. It’s fun, and it sounds a little villainy which we love

Bigb-Cracking: Of course a play on the word creaking, but also referring to the sound that both the mob and the surrounding trees make when defeated, showing that he has the control to both create and destroy them at will.

Cleo-Necrosis: Didn’t wanna just go with Necromancer, that’s boring. Necrosis is the death of cells in body tissue, essentially creating dead skin. They’re a necromancer that literally summon zombies, and those bad boys have plenty of dead skin.

Impulse-Flicker: He can teleport, just zapping here and there with no problem. You blink and he’s gone, as if he’s flickered out of existence. Also an homage to flickering lightbulbs, and he does have a history of light sources. I think it’s fun

Pearl-Gravity: She can launch herself into the sky, ignoring gravity completely. It’s also a play on her moon motif, a little bit.

Scott-Shifty: Yes, he can shift into animals, but it’s also related to his sly and cunning nature, and how because of his power everyone became insanely paranoid over every mob

I like superhero names a lot 👍

[fei-rest]

3rd Life Designs

Limited Life Designs Here!

Double Life Designs Here!

Outfit designs for the 3rd Life players! These were very fun to think about and make!

The general theme and vibe I tried to stick with was generic high fantasy and Game of Thrones as that was the atmosphere I got from watching 3rd Life and interacting with fanart.

In order we have:

Desert Duo (Grian and Scar)

Flower Husbands/Hobbits (Scott and Jimmy) plus Joel

Crastle Alliance (Cleo, Bdubs, Impulse and Tango)

Dogwarts (Ren, Martyn, Etho, BigB and Skizz)

(Design detail ramble below)

Design Notes:

Starting with a general overview, I tried to keep everyone’s 3rd Life designs closer to their original/default skins because this was the first season of the Life Series. So a lot of the colours used stick closely to everyone’s default skins colour palettes

Now onto specifics

Every Grian design I make will have his red jumper in there somehow, but for 3rd Life I changed it to a red poncho with embroidery because he would absolutely boil in the desert if he wore his jumper

Jokes aside, he has boxer wraps around his hands to just hint at the finale duel in the cactus ring

Scar’s hat has Grian’s feathers on it as decoration, just to tie the two together more

His wheelchair and crutch also feature the colours of Pizza (the llama) and their banner

Scott and Jimmy had the most drastic design change because I had a very specific vision for their designs as I wanted to lean into a cozy and homely design for both of them

So therefore both have a lot of patchwork elements in their designs

Scott’s cloak is meant to look both quilted and patched together

Jimmy doesn’t have any canary features here because in my headcanon, he gains his feathers after his first death in 3rd life and after his second death, his ears fully morph into the canary wings I usually draw him with. He gains his back wings after his final death so he wakes up in Last Life suddenly with wings

Jimmy’s design is the most drastically different because I don’t want to draw him in his superhero skin, but I tried to keep elements of it with the large patchwork S

Joel’s design is meant to be a cross between a generic fairytale huntsman and a witch, I wanted him to feel like a “mysterious man in the woods” because he operated solo in 3rd Life and had a bunch of wolves

Cleo and Bdubs are meant to look like scrap collectors who are also knights, I gave Bdubs plant elements in his design to match him with Cleo

Impulse is meant to be wearing a lot of leather and the capital “I” on his default skin is represented by the sun-ray like patterns on the cloak

I wanted to Tango to look like a blacksmith/engineer because he made “Dare To Flare” in 3rd Life, I also gave him battered dragonfly wings to suggest that he’s some kind of fae creature in this season

Dogwarts time! Ren and Martyn are both in very Tudor era inspired clothes because I think that time period’s clothes fit their theme in 3rd Life

Etho is meant to be an oni here and I wanted him to have a very samurai inspired design, the character on his chest plate translates to “dog” in order to link him to “Dogwarts”

Both BigB and Skizz are meant to be very soldier like with their designs

BigB has some cookie elements and Skizz has a lot of angel elements, they both wear the Dogwarts banner around their waist just to link the Dogwarts group together

[alienssstufff]

YOU COULD'VE APPLIED ONLINE

“Twelve hours? Where do you work that makes you work twelve hours straight?” Bdubs asked incredulously. “Wait no. No we can’t pick this up! We’re talking about murder here!”

“Yeah, and now I'm gonna have to find a new roommate because of this. You owe me. Maybe tomorrow won't work. Let's schedule it out for…next week?”

- [ READ HERE ] Fancover for a very awesome Bdubs & Etho centric fic I like in celebration of its completion :]

To the person that wrote YCAO, TRULY such a fun fic edge of seat each chapter i could go on FOREVERS about it yknow yknow - excited to see how the end turns out, bittersweet that it's ending. Rumour be potentially a prologue and *looks around* a superhero au and decked out fic! Ik the work is anon completely chill if you don't want to publically give the @, even a dm here or smth would be awesome (will not tell anyone) - whwhw really me and oomf want to keep up with ur amazing writing!

[mcytblraufest]

And the discord is OPEN, and artist creation has begun! What has begun, you ask? MCYTBLR Aufest is a Reverse Big Bang, where artists have a month to make an art piece, and then writers have two months to make a fic (5k minimum) inspired by the art. And then we all post all at once, in a big BANG of content.

Open to all of MCYTBLR, whether your smp is still airing or has been done for a while. Dedicated ctommy artist? Come, join us! Really into vitalasubzam? You are welcome! Witchcraft Cleo and Scott is just very important to you? Come on down and tell us! Art is the only way to express your feelings about the etho+gem combination? You're not washed up, you're welcome at the aufest. Need to spread your Ianite agenda? Have you considered doing so through an art plus fic combo? Wake up and go to sleep dreaming of Bagina? We welcome you to come art at us about it.

And the content rule is just that it has to be an au— what kind of au? Sky's the limit. Fantasy AU, Mecha AU, Miraculous Ladybug AU, High School Theatre Production, Lighthouse Horror, Western, Superhero, Vampire, Daemon, Witcher, Warrior Cats, Minimum Wage, Cyberpunk, Eldritch Abomination, Historical, Hunger Games, Murderbot, Survival Narrative— go absolutely crazy. Celebrate the highlights of the AU, subvert it, nod to canon or go off inventing your own new joys whole-cloth. All we ask is that your piece not be canon compliant. Artist's creation periods start now! We encourage all artists to join the discord during the creation period, and you're also welcome to come hang out if you're a writer or a beta reader! Come and join us! Experience the beauty of aus!

DISCORD HERE

[applepixls]

this season is doing wacky things to everyone.

skizz has decided he can't be a nice guy anymore (despite his history and nature to be charitable and give back to the server and be the super heroes of the server so to speak)

impulse has gone absolutely nuts and has been accusing everyone of stealing cows right off the bat and seems to have a hunger for victory

and bdubs etho and tango have formed the "tuff guys" cause "nice guys finish last"

so.... people who ahve all historically been part of skizz's superhero gangs are going bad

meanwhile gem and joel who are historically known to kill and steal and antagonize and live on their own etc are making friends with alliums and treating their friends as family

oh how the turn tables

[fipindustries]

is always fascinating the ethos dictating the rouge galleries of different superheroes.

spiderman: largely just average, salt of the earth assholes and bullies. prepotent jerks. people whit a big chip on their shoulder who go drunk with power, usually resentful with spiderman himself specifically. sometimes moved by an inferiority complex. there is a certain childishness that comes with them. they all have big fucking egos that get way too easily wounded. which is why this scrawny kid who keeps dunking on them with shitty jokes gets them so riled up. a perfect illustration and contrast to spiderman of people who shierked the responsabilities that come with big power.

batman: weirdoes, freaks and people with psychological problems. the key factor about batman rouges is that they are not just selfish or greedy, but that they have something wrong with them. that they are disturbed in some way. they are not just criminals commiting crimes, they are extremely idyosincratic people who need to make their eccentricities everyone else's problem. again, a nice foil to how batman himself is an extremely disturbed guy. the general tone of gotham is this very gothic, very german expressionistic city. there is always a certain poetic tragedy to all of batmans foes. more often than not they can be made sympathetic with just the right spin in a way that most other rouges cant.

superman: alien, robots or otherwise extremely powerful inhuman forces of nature. im personally not as familiar with superman's rouge gallery, but one common theme i tend to notice is how they tend to seem kind of amoral and extremely large and powerful. they are not threats that one can necesarily psychoanalize or whose internal motivations are relatable. ultimatly there is very little difference in the way something like brainiac or zod or darkseid operates and how a blackhole operates. these are the problems you just kind of have to throw raw power against.

flash: the elements they tend to have in common is a) too clever for their own good and b) they are Fucking Proffesionals. which i love because you kind of have to be when you are dealing with the flash. the is no strength competition against that guy, you need to outsmart him, you need to have a plan, you need to have really high standards and above all you need to have a code. these are guys who have imposed limits on themselves (no women or children, generally try not to harm civilians) just so the flash goes easy on them. out of all other rouge galleries these feel like the one that is composed of the most proper, well balanced adults. these are men trying to get a job done. they tend to have the most stable equilibrium with their hero

[anghraine]

One thing about the Jackson films that bothers me deeply is that they are uncritically upheld as being full of "positive masculinity." Excuse me? This is the series that has Faramir ordering his men to beat Gollum, Aragorn cutting off the Mouth's head, & Gandalf beating up Denethor on multiple occasions (& kicking him into the pyre!). Sam's meanness toward Gollum, while understandable, is never questioned as it is in the book. Frodo is delusional to pity Gollum. Killing is fun, & mercy is silly.

Belatedly, I do agree. I get that the Anglophone media landscape can feel so saturated by absurdly reductive representations of masculinity that what the films do inherit from Tolkien in terms of emotional expression, friendship etc can feel revolutionary. But the films make a lot of minor and major adjustments to transform the story's visions of masculinity to something more conventional and particularly more violent in a way that is often endorsed by the narrative, or at least framed as an understandable if unfortunate exigency of war.

I once pointed out that Aragorn killing the Mouth of Sauron, an ambassador—however distasteful—is something that essentially operates on the worst kind of superhero logic, a sort of good vs evil righteousness-justifies-the-means thing. It's really glaring when based on a book where the character closest to the author is like "it's one thing, however regrettable, to fight to the death to defend ourselves and our people, but morally, evil deeds beyond self-defense cannot be justified by a righteous cause, not even lying to an orc."

Tolkien's version of the Mouth is an evil Númenórean sorcerer who, while he cannot really contend with Aragorn in a battle of wills, is nevertheless a person of the same kind and general capabilities who chose to serve Sauron. The way that the films use design to literally dehumanize the Mouth, to wholly distance him from the heroes he's literally akin to, and justify straight-up killing him although he poses no personal threat, because he's ugly and evil and (evilly) taunting them so they're mad and it's cool—yeah. It's not really that far removed from Gandalf clobbering Denethor being framed as a bit comedic and a bit cathartic, and seems part of a pervasive ethos of the films that seems to have completely fallen out of discussion of them.

I think we especially see this with the handling of not just my main faves, but Frodo, who really suffers in this more conventionally masculine framework. I often felt like the films want the real protagonists to be Aragorn and (to an extent) Sam, and Frodo feels a bit like dead weight from fairly early on. Adorable dead weight, but still, Tolkien's Frodo especially feels like a challenge to this kind of narrative ethos that the films are just not really up to handling.

It's not that everything about masculinity in the films is Terrible Actually, but I do think there are some unfortunate patterns like the ones you mention. And I'm constantly being recommended videos and posts about Aragorn (or others, but mostly Aragorn) as this unproblematic ideal of masculinity where I'm just ... yeah, no. He is interesting to me, including in the context of masculinity specifically, but I absolutely cannot buy the ideal positive masculinity thing.

[burins]

I read a LOT of books this year, which is always exciting. I also neglected to do much in the way of write ups during the year proper, so here are little opinions about all 84(!) book-books I read. I love to yap about what I read and I would love to talk about any and all of these. (Graphic novels and comics are gonna be their own post because there are also too many of those.) Bold are my top faves, headphones are things I read as audiobooks.

JAN

Less - Andrew Sean Greer

Shockingly funny book on a writer’s midlife gay crisis. I was a little mid on the end but the prose here was fantastic.

The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future - Ryder Carroll

Beyond Bullets: Creative Journaling Ideas to Customize Your Personal Productivity System - Megan Rutell

Read about a million of these for a program; this was the only one worth recommending if you want to try journaling. (The official guide is Fine but it throws a lot at you at once.)

The 365 Bullet Guide: Organize Your Life Creatively, One Day at a Time - Zennor Compton

Lettering for Planners: A Step- - -Step Guide to Hand Lettering and Modern Calligraphy for Bullet Journals and Beyond - Jordan Truster and Jillian Reece

This should not have been a book.

Afterparties: Stories - Anthony Veasna So

I’ve been meaning to read this for years and years-- So was a friend of a friend-- and it was as excellent as I expected, and also made me tremendously sad that we won’t get more writing from him. 

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space - Amanda Leduc 🎧

This is theory for a general audience but I still wished it was more robust-- Leduc’s arguments had about the academic rigor of a tumblr post, which is a shame.

Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945–1955 - Harald Jähner 🎧

Nation-making and identity formation in the aftermath of fascism. There has been a lot of writing about the German project of the post-Nazi era, but this was a very solid read.

Water and Salt - Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

I came across Tuffaha’s gut-punch of a poem, “Running Orders,” online, and while the rest of the collection doesn’t always hit as hard, it’s still fantastic.

Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel 🎧

Reading this and The Mirror and the Light at the beginning of the year really ruined me for all other prose for the entirety of 2024, tbh. Nobody does it like Mantel.

Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes: Whiteness and Its Borderlands in American Comics and Graphic Novels - Josef Benson and Doug Singsen

After reading Birds of Prey in October-December I really wanted to read some writing on whiteness in comics. This didn’t touch on what I was most interested in exploring and I did come away from the book thinking damn. None of that book was nearly as good as Tony Wei Ling’s fantastic piece on Crumb and alt-comics’ self-hagiography in SOLRAD.

Mending with Boro - Harumi Horiuchi

Make and Mend: Sashiko-Inspired Embroidery Projects to Customize and Repair Textiles and Decorate Your Home - Jessica Marquez

Mend!: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto - Kate Sekules

Mending with Love: Creative Repairs for Your Favorite Things - Noriko Misumi

Mend It, Wear It, Love It!: Stitch Your Way to a Sustainable Wardrobe - Zoe Edwards

Can you tell I taught a visible mending class in February? Honestly any one of these are a good pick if you’re wanting to get into visible mending. This is the best for giving you a whole menu of techniques to choose from and having very accessible instructions.

Modern Mending - Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald

Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch, and Repair Your Favorite Denim & More - Katrina Rodabaugh

Creative Mending: Beautiful Darning, Patching and Stitching Techniques - Hikaru Noguchi

This is the best one for getting into the ethos of visible mending. It’s a deeply kind book.

Joyful Mending: Visible Repairs for the Perfectly Imperfect Things We Love! - Noriko Misumi

Visible Mending: A Modern Guide to Darning, Stitching and Patching the Clothes You Love - Arounna Khounnoraj

The Mirror and the Light - Hilary Mantel 🎧

Once again. Nobody is doing it like Hilary Mantel.

FEB

Finna - Nino Cipri 🎧

Anticapitalist multiverse Ikea relationship drama should have been my entire jam but this book was simply quite bad.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy - Cathy O’Neil 🎧

Are you ready to get depressed about data? This is a great book for your liberal mom. I could wish it were more anticarceral but for what it’s actually covering it does a great job.

Vegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty - Lisa Mason Ziegler

Garden planning :) 

Flux - Jinwoo Chong 🎧

If you liked Severance (the show) or have ever projected some identity feelings onto a not-very-good TV show, this is a book for you. Imperfect pacing but still gripping, and I’m excited to see what Chong does next-- this is his first book.

Ocean’s Echo - Everina Maxwell

The premise of this book is simply so sexy. And overall the book is too!

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles - Malka Older

Yayyyy Mossa and Pleiti return! I love this series and I loved this book.

A Land with a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism edited - Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Esther Farmer, & Sarah Sills

I don't really have a write up for this. It's powerful and well written and I would recommend it.

Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time - Teju Cole

Best book I read all year, frankly. Teju Cole writes about art and culture and being alive when the world is falling apart like nobody else.

MAR

The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi - Richard Grant 🎧

Oh you hate to see a British guy get sucked in by white Southern niceness. (Richard Grant, in this case, is the British guy.) A lot of the stories in this were excellent but Grant gives way too much credit to folks clinging to the tattered remnants of the Old South.

Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine - Michelle U. Campos

Excellent historical antidote to the idea of perpetual struggle in Palestine. Also interesting read just for looking at how citizens of Jerusalem were using national and imperial identities for their political agendas at the time.

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us - Ed Yong 🎧

Lovely book that resists anthropomorphism and rendered me a font of “hey babe can I tell you a cool snake fact?” for about three weeks. 

The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free - Paulina Bren 🎧

You know I should have expected a book like this to be exactly what it was and yet. In addition to the sort of milquetoast stabs at feminism the structure is bad-- it devolves into Sylvia Plath’s life story and doesn’t really recover. I don’t mind reading a book about Sylvia Plath but I would like to plan to do that going in. 

The Hunter - Tana French

Only Tana can manage to write a book that is mostly just pretty normal conversations for 75% of its runtime and yet made me unbelievably stressed the whole time I was reading. Creeping dread! We love it.

Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

I last read this in high school when I was so excited to see that the sequel would be coming out any day now. Over a decade later, any day at last arrived! So it was time for a reread. The sexual politics of this book are insane, which I didn’t pick up on in 10th grade, but it is still an extremely clever and enjoyable book.

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus - Bill Wasik 🎧

I learned a lot of fun facts in this book but it was rambling and also I do wish books like this would stop trying to overstate the importance of their topic. Rabies can’t be the source of vampire legends AND zombie legends AND werewolves. (Zombies in particular. We know where those come from and it ain’t rabies!)

The Transcriptionist - Amy Rowland 🎧

As a former transcriptionist the idea of a mystery that revolves around the intrinsic weirdness of being the fly on the wall was very appealing to me! This wasn’t quite the book I thought it was but I still enjoyed it. 

City Editor - Stanley Walker

If you can ignore the amount of name-dropping of people who were certainly famous in 1934 newsrooms but I have certainly never heard of, there are definitely some amusing anecdotes. Walker writes with a dynamism and bombast I would love to see in any kind of writing nowadays. However it is also a book written - a newspaperman in 1934 so it does hit every single -ism like it’s trying to get a pinball high score.

The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism - Adam Nagourney 🎧

This book is exceedingly kind to the NYT and it was wild to read this the month that the Hamas mass rape story very publicly fell apart. However reading it did give me a very clear picture of how that story, and stories like it, happened in the first place. 

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom - Carl Bernstein 🎧

Of all the “how do newspapers work?” books I read in March-April to prep for a fic I didn’t end up being able to write, this was my favorite. Bernstein is an engaging narrator and this answered my questions about how a story actually happens (particularly pre-internet.)

APR

Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America's Community Newspapers - Dave Hoekstra

This ping-pongs between case studies in a way that would be totally fine in a feature story and is unforgivable in a book. But the case studies are interesting!

Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life - Margaret Sullivan

This is more memoir than NYT hagiography, and thus I enjoyed it much more.

Ocean’s Godori - Elaine Cho

I’ve got to stop reading SFF that came out this year. Unfortunately, it is part of my job to be aware of SFF that comes out this year. The pacing on this was UNBELIEVABLY sick-- the inciting plot incident only occurred halfway through the book, and the first 60 pages were us being fairly clumsily introduced to too many characters. The author’s end notes effusively thanked her editor and I think she should not have done that because a really solid editing job could have made this into something I really enjoyed. (People who work in publishing I’m sorry about publishing.)

Bombshell - Sarah MacLean

If your whole plot is going to hinge on a Deep Dark Secret, it better be deep and dark. 

Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance - Jeremy Eichler 🎧

I got this for my grandma for Christmas and that was a mistake because this book is so depressing. If I had thought for two seconds I would have known this! However. I did like it! 

MAY

JUN

Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics - Qiana Whitted

Really loved this one. 

Super Bodies: Comic Book Illustration, Artistic Styles, and Narrative Impact - Jeffrey A. Brown

This book would have been fantastic if the author had a) had any art historical or visual analysis training and b) done research about manga and the ways its styles have been used in the west. As neither of those were true this book mostly made me wish it was another, better book. Good comics recs though. 

Red Side Story - Jasper Fforde

Long-awaited sequel! This is an entirely solid book, though I wish I could have read it when I was a teen because it would have rocked my shit then. 

JULY

The Ladies Rewrite the Rules - Suzanne Allain

Really the only thing you need to know about this Regency #girlboss book is that at the very end of the book, which made almost no pretenses to historical accuracy wrt attitudes about gender roles, the main narrative tension is the love interest’s plans to go off with the East India Company to make his fortune. The other characters have no moral qualms about this; it’s proposed with the same air that a modern book would talk about someone going to college across the country. It made me feel completely insane. 

Escape Velocity - Victor Manibo

You know when you read a book and you say wow, I can’t wait to watch this as a Netflix special, but boy was it not very good as a book? That. Also I really wish we had spent more than about two scenes with the servants on the space hotel, so that I could care about them as people and not as plot devices!

Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia - Emily Hilliard

Engaging stories of modern West Virginia.

Belonging: A Culture of Place - bell hooks

The writing on exile in this did make me cry while I was eating lunch.

AUG

Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People - Erica Adams Locklear

More historical than I expected but solid writing on how perception of food affects perception of people.

What You Are Looking For is in the Library - Michiko Aoyama

I really didn’t expect this to get me but I am not immune to lovely, small-scale stories of people being kind to one another in community. Teared up on desk. 

SEPT

Watercolor Is for Everyone: Simple Lessons to Make Your Creative Practice a Daily Habit - Kateri Ewing

This was for a class and everyone liked the class! 

Hot Summer - Elle Everhart

I am so hit or miss on contemporary romance. This was a messy, delightful reality show romp. Light on drama, but the robust character relationships are the star of the show.

Loving Mountains, Loving Men - Jeff Mann

The poems here are generally better than the prose, which gets a bit repetitive at times. The poems are also generally very good, and a few of them made me cry. 

Second Night Stand - Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters

I wish I had known going in that the authors were a married couple looking to tell “a story about a healthy queer romance.” All love to them, but I am simply not very interested in reading a story that bills itself that way! And as you might imagine there was a lot of therapy speak and very little narrative tension. Sex scenes were great, though, and if you want a very queer comfort read you might enjoy this. 

You Should Be So Lucky - Cat Sebastian

Very chewy character relationships. Sebastian manages to tell a story that feels of its time (1950s sports/journalism) while not being deeply bleak, which is a balance that many many queer historical romances completely bomb.

Lady Eve's Last Con - Rebecca Fraimow

Delightful lesbian screwball comedy. In space! 

OCT

Slippery Creatures - KJ Charles

The Sugared Game - KJ Charles

Subtle Blood - KJ Charles

Imagine if Lord Peter Wimsey had a passionate love affair with a gruff and tortured soldier recently back from WWI. That’s basically these books and I inhaled them. Shout out to detectorist for the rec!

The No-Show - Beth O’Leary 🎧

About 60% of the way through this book, I said, oh man, I hope that the twist to this book isn’t [redacted]. That would make me so mad. Well, it was, and it did! 

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words - Eddie Robson 🎧

Scratched the itch for sci-fi mystery, and the premise is fantastic. The narrator does a mostly excellent job but her American accents are distractingly bad, so if that will bother you read the book.

Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future edited - Zane McNeill and Rebecca Scott

Most of the essays in this are great! Every so often I get in my head about whether I can claim an Appalachian or Southern identity and whether I should do any writing on the subject. And then I read an essay that makes a lot of claims about “I centralize queer, trans, rural southern voices” and then does not proceed to actually demonstrate how they are doing any of that work, and go oh wait I’m actually fine. 

NOV

Better the Blood - Michael Bennett 🎧

A pretty solid thriller elevated by a very solid conceit: a Maori detective is investigating modern-day killings connected to a 19th century execution of a Maori chief by a group of British soldiers. This suffered a little from being written by a screenwriter who very clearly had certain shots in mind while writing (sometimes that works in prose, sometimes it doesn’t) and also from periodic intercut scenes from the killer’s POV (also a convention that works better in TV) which did undercut whodunit tension. Also the main character is a cop. But I ended up finding her sympathetic, which is a HUGE ask given the subject matter. 

The Stars Too Fondly - Emily Hamilton 🎧

Hated this. I tried to be measured in my initial review but every single part of this book was simply so bad. I wish I had those 11 hours of my life back. If this author is your friend I apologize, and also I hope she didn’t base a character on you, because every character in this book acts like a 15yo.  

Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy edited by Meredith McCarroll & Anthony Harkins

I worked my way through my own booklist this fall and this was one of the best books on it. I kept trying to put it on display at the library but our copy was checked out the entire time. Give this to your uncle who won’t shut up about Ohio. 

The Pairing - Casey McQuiston 🎧

First half of this was way more compelling than I expected it to be, and then McQuiston makes the WILD choice to switch POVs entirely and permanently halfway through the book. And I found the second character pretentious and given to fits of purple prose (he describes the first character as a “superbloom” at one point and also won’t shut up about the most art history 101 pieces of art) so I did not particularly enjoy the book as a whole. I will give it points though for having a pretty non-cringey “hi i’m actually nonbinary” conversation, which is astonishingly rare.

Jonny Appleseed - Joshua Whitehead

This was initially a book club pick for a meeting that didn’t end up happening, which is a bummer because I would like to talk about this book with more people! A lot of lines in this are going to stick with me-- Whitehead shifts through time and place with deftness and grace. If you like K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary I think you will enjoy this-- Whitehead revels in the body in a similar way.  

I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition - Lucy Sante 🎧

If you’re not already a little familiar with the NYC art scene in the 70s and 80s you may not enjoy this, because Sante name-drops a lot. I am, and I loved it-- it’s a lovely meditation on growing old and hitting your breaking point. Sante is also a fantastic writer, and this is an excellent counterbalance to the particular type of trans writing that is very very common online. (Nothing wrong with that writing, but you need a balanced diet.)

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society - CM Waggoner

I loved Waggoner’s previous books and I did end up enjoying this one a lot! It’s an enjoyable send-up of the cozy mystery genre.

Regarding the Pain of Others - Susan Sontag

A reread for my yaoi zine piece! Not only does this still hit but I think it’s a particularly apt piece of writing to be reading right now, when we are daily surrounded - images of suffering. Sontag, as ever, does not have any neat answers for us, but she does make you think more deeply about the world that surrounds you.

DEC

How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom - Johanna Hedva 🎧

I loved parts of this, and I hated other parts, which for me is a good sign about a book of theory. I have more thoughts about disability activism and being online that don’t fit into a quick write-up for a book. 

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia - Stephen Stoll

This took me six months to read, but mostly because I was reading it occasionally on desk and I kept having to return the ebook. It demands a little bit more sustained attention than I was giving it! It’s an excellent overview of the history of land use in Appalachia through the 1930s and it gave me a lot of good context for the mountains I grew up under. 

The Forbidden Book - Sacha Lamb 🎧

Unfortunately, I think I would have liked this a lot more if I hadn’t read When The Angels Left the Old Country first! It’s a perfectly nice YA story-- but it definitely feels YA, and I don’t tend to enjoy reading a lot of YA.

Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am - Julia Cooke 🎧

I still don’t really know how I feel about this book. It does avoid some of the pitfalls of #girlboss nonfiction, but also it falls right into others. Mostly I wish it had engaged really at all with the people these women met on their travels, or like. Literally anyone Vietnamese. 

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation - Eli Clare

Oof ouch my bones!!! This hits on a lot and does it with incredible grace.

To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis🎧

I wish my grandma was still alive so I could recommend this to her, because she would have adored it. Delightful time travel Victoriana. 

The Message - Ta-Nehisi Coates 🎧

I really admire the move of making the entire second half of your highly anticipated book about the injustices you saw in Palestine, and I hope it pays off and every NPR listener who loved Between the World and Me picks this up and reads to the end. 

Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

This book reads like a 200-page panic attack, which is not a diss! Really revels in the situational hilarity of anxiety/OCD/something unspecified.

Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore

Okay I had to add this one in because I finished it after making my post. This book (contemporary queer Jewish romance with a bit of the supernatural) was so lovely and deeply felt and often laugh out loud funny. The family relationships are the real star although the romance is also very sweet.

[artbyblastweave]

Question based on the fascinating Wild Talent's Axes post. Why do you think most adaptations of High Blue settings change them into lower Blue settings?

I think there's basically two reasons for that.

Reason one is that I think that on some level the executive-suite-level aversion to looking too silly or wacky and scaring off unfamiliar audiences was, at the time that it reigned supreme over all of these creative decisions, unfortunately just kind of correct. You're doing Spider-Man, alright, you can kind of bank on the audience's ambient knowledge of Spider-Man to buoy along the question of "How and why Spider-Man" and maybe "How and why Green Goblin." You bring in enemies outside of that paradigm, you bring in wizards, vampires, aliens, now you gotta explain those things too, you gotta spend bandwidth on that. There's a real murky middle ground here between a cynical fear of looking too silly, and a genuine scope and focus problem- how much value added is there in pulling away from the core mutant stuff to start mucking around with the Shi'ar or Cyttorak or Belasco or Dracula? I don't think it's a coincidence that I don't hear people bringing up the fact that there were aliens in Dark Phoenix.

The Suicide Squad(s) are actually a really good example of this issue. Suicide Squad, while very bad, was actually a very high blue movie, to the extent that it actually fucked with the pacing when they kept turning to the camera to introduce new origin stories, to the point of creating a tone-and-theme clash with the previous two movies where this stuff was mostly framed as much rarer and more disruptive. The Suicide Squad was equally high-blue, but also much more deliberate and naturalistic in conveying that this was a superhero setting rife with weirdos. Naturalism is a watchword with this kind of thing.

Which brings us around to issue two, right, which is that, as much as I love the high-blue bullshit of the golden and silver age, you're huffing glue if you think those settings became like that due to some deliberate creative ethos. They needed to meet monthly deadlines and they were writing for small children, it was the corporatized version of making up a bedtime story off the cuff, and over time the nonsense simply accumulated. Later writers take that precedent and run with it to do interesting and valuable things, but if you're creating a classic high-blue superhero setting from scratch these days it's almost always a form of emulation. Approached without clarity of purpose, it can make for weird or bad or messy writing!

Ultimate Spider-Man is an example of a comic adaptation that bleached the blue, and that decision- to tie all of Spidey's villains to a common origin- resulted in a really strong story. Stronger themes, stronger character dynamics, stronger worldbuilding and stronger, cohesive political messaging. Objectively the correct decision for the project they were going for. Tightening the blue can let you do things- it lets you sift through and find the strongest shared points between the disparate elements of the mythology, assemble them into something thoughtful and directed.

[tiniestetho]

I may or may have not drawn another nya fic guys.

^^

Based on the ICONIC Smalletho Superhero AU by the @insomnya777 themselves 🫶

(I highly recommend reading here)

I will probably make an Etho version later and post it tmrw if I finish it (and or actually do it.)

[a-bucket-in-the-void]

hm.. would you like to just... talk about your au idea? even just a base. a starting platform..

also ty for sending asks about my au!

i honestly really don’t have much lol but when i did talk about it i was just kinda trying to get stuff out there so i'm gonna use this as kinda like a place to clean that up a bit

ok so…

superheroes are already a thing to begin with. im not really sure how sense there are lots of world building things you can do with it but i imagine they’re all sort of vigilantes kinda like think classic superhero comics. idk i can clean that up a bit more later

everyone in this au is based off this last session of wild life mostly

the tuff boys are like your classic comedic relief dysfunctional villain team, a nuisance to anyone who wants to get anything done really. etho engineered his own super jump boots and comically large hammer. tango has super speedy roller skates (which were entirely engineered by him and he definitely didn’t get bdubs to enchant them with his time powers definitely not)(oh and also i like to think that he has red goggles for eye protection when he’s in his in his super suit), and bdubs has a magic clock that gives him time powers because uh yeah :]

scott is a respected super hero i think maybe one who’s actively working with the government. uh his powers will be from a magic amulet too why not. as you can see i’m just kinda making this shit up. he’s mostly in reconnaissance because of his powers but i think in his day to day life he’s a big public figure, maybe a pop star like from gem and the scotts or something. he stills does do non undercover superhero work and when he does he’s almost always accompanying pearl

speaking of…

pearl would be like your friendly neighborhood superhero like spiderman, helping people across the street, making an appearance at the local middle school, etc etc as well as ya know actual superhero stuff. her wings are her own design after scott was jokingly making fun of her cause he can shape shift into anything and then she figured out how to make those wings out of shear spite and commitment to the bit

while we’re on the subject of that alliance…

cleo, also known as zombie cleo queen of the underground, is essentially a mob boss villain, aided by her small army of lackeys nicknamed ‘the hoard’. if the tuff guys are the kind of comic book villian to fail robbing a bank cleo is the kind to kidnap a famous scientist. they don’t do it just for fun tho, they’re more of a service for hire, willing to do anything for anyone at a price. she’s gathered her lackeys through a mix of blackmail, debts, fear, loyalty, and other such means

slightly adjacent to them is bigb. bigb is a bit of an enigma, only seen in the shadows and never giving a straight answer. you can always tell it’s him though by his stiff gray skin and too many bright golden eyes. and also his large twiggy body guards

uh this is getting a lot longer than i thought it would be lol so i will get to the rest the guys later if i ever remember to do that

wait i forgot to do impulse-

[haveyoureadthismcytfic]

Summary:

This is a compilation of all the pieces that take place within my Over-City/Under-City AU, which is also a Hot Guy/Cute Guy Superhero AU, though that's not the only thing that'll be going on! I plan to keep this series in chronological order, so I'll put all the pieces where they'd fall along the timeline, which may sometimes not line up with the publishing date. The exception to this is 'Pretty Boy' which, IF someone does want to read the whole series in order, I'd want them to have read that one first and then all the rest, so 'Pretty Boy' will always be the first fic in the line-up, but after that you could read chronologically or just bounce around as you please! I've written all of these to mostly stand-alone, so you shouldn't be too terribly confused no matter where you decide to start up! Current active ships in this AU are Desert Duo, Flower Husbands, Doc/Etho, Treebark, Joel/Lizzie, Zedango, Nature Wives, and Kersuma! I hope you enjoy! Ask me about the series or just come say hi on tumblr! @amethystfairy1 This series is also being adapted into podfics by @boo-the-AHH if you prefer the audio format! https://archiveofourown.org/series/4076716

Author: @amethystfairy1

Note from Submitter: an incredible superhero/vigilante au! if you haven't read it please do, it's 520k of the most delicious angst, hurt/comfort, and whump you'll ever see. you can pick and choose which fics you read if that's an intimidating word count, but i promise all of them are so incredibly good that you should read all of them if you get a chance. so much worldbuilding!!!

Note from another Submitter: TTSBC you will always be special to me...it's so sweet and cute and heartwarming and on occasion absolutely gutwrenching and one of my all-time favorites--especially any of them involving Treebark and Flower Husbands, they make me wanna curl up in a corner and kick my feet and sob

(Reminder to check the spreadsheet to see if someone else has submitted it already)

[aroacepotatoo]

WRITING MASTERPOST

seen some of these so thought i'd do one for myself! (hopefully will start adding when they update here too :3)

CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED:

Soulmate's Street: double life inspired fic where the cast all live on the same street and slowly develop and mend friendships and relationships (i also made a lot of people a-spec lol)

The Strings Of My Heart: a superhero au where grian and scar are newbies who are trying to catch mumbo and martyn (with desert duo and watchers lore to go along with it)

Hating But Loving You With All Of My Heart: a ranchers royal au where their in an arranged marriage and decided to act like they hate each other in the hopes to get the wedding canceled (all while falling for each other and trolling their siblings along the way)

those are the three fics i'm currently updating! and as for some other stuff i've posted:

MISCELLANEOUS ONE OFFS:

convenient store questions: aroace boatboys fic of them unintentionally but intentionally messing with gem

hiding the hurt: 5 + 1 thing hurt/comfort fic of grian dealing with the watchers bullshit after they refuse to accept his no contact stance by himself for awhile until he tells his friends/family

Babe: the badboys and gem being chaotic roommates with her being super confused about the fact that they call eachother babe

Cuddle puddle: the badboys just cuddling in peace when gem comes asking if they have sugar. banter and confusion ensue...

Earmuffs: a hurt comfort clock duo fic where bdubs tries to find a solution to help with the horns bothering impulse (also impulse has misophonia)

I Don't Like Him That Way! (But I Do): a little prequel kind of thing to the strings of my heart with annoying sibling teasing and desert duo

Freckles: a boatboys/ethoslab fic where the gang ask etho why he wears his mask and his response just makes them confused

Nervous Butterflies: an ahasbands date fic where neither of them know what their doing and everythings awkward but it all works out (they're also aroace :3)

The Way I Feel About You: aroace ahasbands coffession fic that's awkward and silly

and those are all the fics! (or atleast the ones i'm proud of anyway...) i have some other one offs and longer series in the drafts too, and i'll update this post if/when i actually post those! if you consider checking any of these out, i'd really appreciate it! you can also ask questions if you want, i'd love to answer those!

Have a lovely day! <3

[txttletale]

omg is this about that post that goes "the superhero myth is about using the gifts you’ve been given to enrich the people around you, never asking for payment, never advancing an ulterior motive" and how that's the fantasy readers want? To help people??? I admit, it made me feel a little tingly inside, but then I remember that most people reblogging that post enjoy the stories because they care about the relationships and dynamics between the named, reoccuring characters, not about nameless victim of the week, if that. idk, i'm still learning leftist things, but that post, it makes me roll my eyes a bit. No hate to any comic fans or reblogs or anyone-- just saying.

yeah i mean it's correct in identifying a core element of the emotional appeal of -- not all superheroes, perhaps not even most superheroes, but superman et al. at least. and obviously "you should help people who need help" on, like, an interpersonal level, is one of the most unobjectionable stances you could have or promote. but attempting to draw the line between that and "leftist" (whatever that means) politics is just total nonsense. like the exact same ethos is present in and central to chivalric knighthood stories, which are literally propaganda for feudalism so effective that people still romanticise feudal aristocracy to this day.

that post also vastly misrepresents / simplifies to inanity the leftwing critiques of the superhero, which are not just the on its face false "superheroes are an authoritarian¹ power fantasy". although in their modern incarnations many depictions of superheroes are in fact blatant right wing power fantasies of unlimited extrajudicial violence against a criminal underclass (e.g. the nolan batman films), there are much more substantive critiques to be made in the naked individualism baked into the premise and into the fact that superheroes serve near universally to forcefully uphold the status quo (and quite often the actual law)

¹ like "leftist", a meaningless word