#I wonder if the secret of my success novel is crazy too

[cinnamongeek]

Covers for the Back to the future, Back to the future part ii, Back to the future part iii, and The Secret of my success novelizations.

I didn’t even know there was a novelization for TSOMS, but I really like the cover picture for it.

[pochiperpe90]

Here comes “The Old Guard”. Marinelli goes to Hollywood, alongside Charlize Theron.

“Alone, fragile and immortal.”

A story of love, friendship and compassion with an ancient warrior and a young African American, who has just discovered she is immortal, as protagonists. Because the world needs women and courage knows no gender differences. 20 years after “Love & Basketball” and after “The Secret Life of Bees” and “Beyond the Lights - Find Your Voice”, Gina Prince-Bythewood comes to the action movie with very clear ideas on how to reinvent the rules. We talked to her over the phone while she was in Los Angeles during the lockdown. 

A superhero movie that doesn't look like a superhero movie. Is that why you decided to make it? 

Absolutely yes, when I read the script I realized that despite the fantastic genre there was a very realistic background. These characters are real and it's easy for the audience to relate to them despite being immortal. They fight for goals and reasons that people understand. The more realistic the film, the more viewers can reflect themselves in the protagonists. 

In fact, the most fascinating aspect of the characters is their vulnerability: they are immortal, but up to a certain point, which is a paradox. They too have to deal with the sense of the end. 

There is a possibility that they may die, that their immortality is interrupted, that they still suffer from their wounds, and this brings them closer to us. The public still feels sorry for them when they see them in danger.

Immortals suffer, and not just physically.

Many think that being able to live forever would be extraordinary, but no one asks what this really means. Immortality has consequences: it can be a gift, but it can also be a curse.

And we don’t know why immortality fell to them. 

The thing I loved about the graphic novel and the script is the fact that there is no explanation. Not only do we not know it, but neither do the protagonists. But it is a trilogy and therefore there is still a lot to tell.

Could you offer your contribution to the script? 

It was a great script, with great roles based on the graphic novel so I stayed very true to the text. With the author, Greg Rucka, we wanted to reflect on the fear of taking someone's life, the one that sometimes overwhelms soldiers in war, whose psychology is often neglected. Hollywood films have never been very concerned with this aspect, as if killing had no consequences. The protagonists are forced to kill, but if someone has been doing it for centuries, for others it’s the first time. 

What struck you about Luca Marinelli? 

I could talk about him for days, I love him, he's the actor that all directors dream of having on set. He loved the character and gave him life in a very credible way. Between him and Marwan Kenzari is born a great complicity, necessary between two people who have been together for centuries. Luca's eyes are full of soul, his Nicky is the heart of the group, he’s the most sensitive character of all of them. 

Charlize Theron, who is also one of the producers, has an increasingly and more torn body.

Charlize has already played roles like this one, she is very credible in the genre of action and has been helpful to who had never faced it before. From her, who really worked hard, others learned to do the same. She is very credible in the role of a woman who lived for thousands of years.

Matthias Schoenaerts, on the other hand, has an insidious role. 

He embodies the tragedy of immortality, loneliness, betrayal. He is the actor who most resembles his character in the graphic novel. He wanted to make the film at all costs because he had never measured himself with the action genre and felt he had things to express. 

The film underlines how today it’s no longer possible to hide, images can capture you at any time. 

In a scene near the end, when the immortals look at photos and articles about them, they truly become aware for the first time of everything they have done to protect humanity. They understand the power of images from which they continually try to escape in order to hide their identity. 

And then we talk about science and profit. 

In the film, people from different places join forces to protect the world, a need even more relevant today. Yet it is increasingly evident that profit matters more than human lives. 

Do you think the film industry is becoming more inclusive with women? 

Things are finally changing and I am grateful that, despite having no other action films on my resume, I have been entrusted with The Old Guard. I am grateful for the trust they have placed in me. It should be taken for granted by now that women are capable of coping with any film genre and I think how much pressure from the industry Patty Jenkins, who directed Wonder Woman to success and opening the door for many of us, went through. But the door must be wide open because there are still few who have such opportunities. 

In your opinion, have opportunities grown with the arrival of platforms like Netflix? 

Netflix wasn't afraid to trust a series of directors. Which studio would have produced Roma or Irishman? He has the courage to make films that Hollywood deems too risky.

The Golden boy

“Luca Marinelli, as we have never seen him before: in his Hollywood debut, he becomes an immortal and fights with Charlize Theron to save the world.”

Just before the lockdown he was one of the jury members of the 70th Berlinale in the city where he has lived for years - and he swears he had so much fun watching three films a day. The audience awaits him in theatre in the role of Diabolik, in the film directed by Manetti Bros., but on July 10th he arrives on Netflix with The Old Guard, the action movie that sees him alongside Charlize Theron. And where he plays the Italian Nicolo, Nicky for the group of immortals he belongs to. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, the film offers Luca Marinelli an insidious superpower, an endless love and a new opportunity to demonstrate his talent as a true champion. We reached him on the phone and he, less shy than usual, told us how he became a secular "superhero".

How did you get to the project? 

I auditioned in London, where I later returned and met the director. Lastly, there was a final meeting between me and Marwan Kenzari. We made a scene together and then they announced to me, "We'd love for you to be Nicky." 

What struck you about this character? 

The story fascinated me because it tells of immortals as if they were the damned. Nicky and Joe live this condition as a gift because they are linked by a wonderful love story and they are not alone. They met in an absurd and paradoxical situation, during the Crusades, ready to kill themselves. They did it a hundred times and then they looked at each other and fell in love. But others suffer from it, like Andy and Booker. In a beautiful scene, Booker, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, explains what happens to them: they see the people they love die and blame them because they cannot prevent it. And they are tired of watching the world repeat itself following the same dynamics. They fight to save people, but everything seems to go on the same way. Only in the end will they discover what they have done and what they are doing. 

How did it go with Charlize Theron? 

Well, it was wonderful! As I read the script I said to myself: am I really going to make a film with Charlize Theron? And hug as well! I was very excited and intimidated already while reading. She is an extraordinary actress. In the scene where we are at the table and everyone tells Nile something about us, Andy tells her what we are and it was nice to see her running and venturing into the midst of emotions and thoughts. Sometimes I got distracted and didn't say my line. But Charlyze is also a crazy athlete. You have to be really athletes, otherwise you don't survive at the end of the day. And Charlize is an athlete of the body and the heart. 

What about her athletic training? 

We got together a month before shooting to start working with the stunts. I had to get some athleticism back: when I arrived and they looked at me I think they were a little worried. We had to become familiar with martial arts and then we switched from the sword to other weapons and to hand-to-hand combat. We prepared scene by scene, including the choreographies, different for each fight, and each of us had his own rubber reproduction of the sword. It was an unforgettable training.

The immortals come from different places in the world. How much of Italy is there in Nicky? 

Apart from the pronunciation? They still laugh at some of the things I said. Marwan and Matthias, but also Charlize, speak Italian at different levels and every now and then I enjoyed shooting a few sentences to which they could answer me. 

Did you offer your character something that wasn't in the script? 

Well, being in such a group, shy as I am ... I tried. I have always focused on the bond between Nicky, Joe and the other members of the group, because I am interested in discovering what is inside a character, his feelings, how he looks at the world, what excites him. Nicky has lived for centuries, but still greets the people he meets in the desert with a smile, inside him there is the flame of an infinite good. Each character has a different sensitivity and their own armor. Nicky is perhaps the least armored one.

The challenge was also to make people believe in a love story that has lasted for centuries. 

Marwan recites a beautiful monologue in which he talks about their love story. I hope that each of us, in their short life, can say the same thing about the person they love. 

You’ve already had superpowers in “They Call Me Jeeg”. What is your relationship with this genre? 

I like it very much and I think that both films, very different from each other, have a very interesting soul. In Jeeg Robot, Enzo Ceccotti uses his superpowers to help others, taking on a social responsibility. In The Old Guard the protagonists put themselves at the service of others, even if no one has asked them to. “This is what we do,” they repeat over and over to each other. What they do is save people, participate in what they think is right. 

How do you think they would react to protests on American streets and around the world?

I don't feel like playing games, mixing reality and fiction on a terribly real subject like this. I think that in reality, outside of any cinematic fiction, it’s fundamental to fight for equality, within society, but also within ourselves. To go back to our film, if in a microscopic way we manage to carry a message in that direction, I would be very happy. 

What director was Gina Prince-Bythewood? 

She is always ready to listen, and I am someone who asks a lot of questions even at inappropriate times. She always had great patience and was very attentive to the emotional side of the film, to the interiority and beauty of the characters.

CIAK Magazine - Luglio 2020

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)

[gureishi]

I love reading your opinions on Saeyoung! I know I’ve thought about this in regards to Zen so I’m curious what your headcanons are in regards to Saeyoung’s future relationships post game with each member of the RFA and Vanderwood??

Ohhhh, thank you for this wonderful question, dear Lea! The characters’ relationships with one another vary so much depending on the route and the timeline. Even though it makes me sad (because of the glaring absence of one beloved character), I’ll write these for the SE timeline.

Headcanon: Saeyoung’s relationships with RFA+Vanderwood post-game

Yoosung

Saeyoung and Yoosung’s relationship is endlessly fascinating to me. They’re close—they’d both tell you that, if you asked—but their friendship in the game is actually very surface-level. Saeyoung keeps Yoosung at arm’s-length, and Yoosung honestly has too much going on in his own head to devote much energy to trying to break down those walls.

The fight they have toward the end of Saeyoung’s route is a huge turning point for both of them. Yoosung is genuinely hurt to learn that his friend had never planned on sticking around, and Saeyoung is surprised to find that anybody actually cares enough to be mad about it. He never really thought too hard about what would happen if (when) he inevitably had to disappear from his friends’ lives—but when he did think about it, he honestly didn’t think he’d be missed.

It is a huge deal that Yoosung gets mad, because it shows Saeyoung that his existence has had an impact on people. It’s after this conversation with Yoosung that Saeyoung tells you he’s willing to try and open up to you, too; Yoosung is the one who shows him that there is value in letting another person become close to you.

Later, I am absolutely certain that they are able to develop a real friendship: one that’s grounded in trust and mutual understanding. When you’re living in the bunker with Saeyoung and Saeran, if there is one member of the RFA who’s showing up unannounced with a backpack full of sweets and a big grin on his face—it’s Yoosung.

Jaehee

Jaehee needs to feel secure in her understanding of the things and people around her. She likes to be able to think to herself, “oh, here is why this person behaves this way.” And it’s for this reason that Saeyoung drives her absolutely crazy.

She respects him, of course—but begrudgingly, because he is an anomaly, a little piece of chaos in her perfectly-ordered world.

It is your love for him that allows her to wrap her mind around his peculiar existence—because Jaehee cares deeply for you (almost immediately), and she recognizes the look you get in your eyes when you talk about him. She may not understand him (or even want to)—but she understands about love.

Jaehee and Saeyoung are never going to be best friends. But in this timeline, Jaehee is one of your dearest friends—and for you, they will both try. Jaehee will make honey butter cookies for his birthday, and she’ll smile softly when she sees the look of utter delight on his face. He’ll ask her to bring him her laptop, and she’ll complain as he sweeps it from her hands—but when he returns it to her working ten times better than it ever did before, she’ll clasp his hands in hers, her eyes shining.

If she ever gets around to opening her cafe in this timeline—and I’d like to believe that she does—you and Saeyoung will go in often. He’ll annoy her by doodling cat faces on all the napkins—but he’ll always tip her 200% of the bill.

Zen

In this timeline, Zen immediately takes you in as a sort of younger sibling (yes, even if you’re older than him), and he's ready to go to battle for you, if he needs to. Like Jaehee, he feels almost instantly that you are someone special. He doesn’t quite understand why—but he knows that he wants to keep you safe.

A consequence of this protectiveness, of course, is that he becomes very suspicious of Saeyoung. He’s never trusted him (and for good reason: Saeyoung may be trustworthy, but 707 is anything but). Zen is worried that you won’t be safe with Saeyoung—and he’s not entirely wrong.

But: when Saeyoung reveals his real name, Zen is one of the first to use it—and he uses it repeatedly. Every time I play the Secret Ends, and the Vday DLC, I am hyper-aware that Zen is making a massive effort to call Saeyoung by the right name. And this speaks volumes to me.

If you let Zen in—even just a little—he will accept all of you (and he’ll do it with his whole heart). Zen understands what it means to feel like you don’t belong anywhere—to hide your true self behind a mask of pretense and positivity—to become someone else so you don’t have to look too closely at who you really are.

No matter which timeline we’re in, Zen’s success is going to skyrocket—so he’s not going to be around all the time. But when he is, it’s a party: these are the times that the whole RFA gets together again (and if you listen closely, you’ll hear the way he speaks to Saeyoung now—like he actually admires him. The feeling is mutual).

Jumin

This timeline is one of the roughest for Jumin, without a doubt.

The game doesn’t show us how deeply he is grieving—but he is. He has lost the two people who have ever made him feel comfortable in his own skin, and he no longer has anyone he can turn to. I’m not gonna sugar-coat it and say that everybody’s happy in this ending: they’re not, and even months (years) later, Jumin is suffering.

But here’s the thing: Jumin’s not the only one who loved Jihyun.

It takes Saeyoung time to sort through the complicated feelings he has for Jihyun, after everything that’s happened. He doesn’t forgive him right away—and even as he mourns him, he’s angry, too. But time passes.

I imagine that there comes a day—weeks or months or even years later—that Saeyoung and Jumin find themselves talking to each other about the person they both loved. Perhaps they are in Jihyun’s apartment, sorting through his things—or they find themselves alone together at a group event and—at last—one of them acknowledges the grief that permeates the negative space between them.

Jihyun leaves a gaping hole in both of their lives that nothing can fill. But I’d like to think that an understanding develops between them: they may never completely get one another, and it’s okay that they don’t. There is a deep and unwavering affection there—the kind of mysterious and unbreakable bond you only feel for someone who has become your family.

Vanderwood

In my personal post-SE timeline, Vanderwood sticks around for a while to help the twins deal with their father. I’ve written about it a bit (in my Human Again series): if they are able to find the records Jihyun was keeping about Saejoong, it would not be too difficult for them to take him down in this timeline. He has no leverage, here. With the brothers working together, they can expose him—and then, of course, they can really be free.

But Vanderwood doesn’t stick around forever—they wouldn’t want to. They have a whole life outside of taking care of Saeyoung; they have a hometown, and possibly even people there who are waiting for them.

But at least once a year—and never with any notice—Vanderwood shows up at your home. "Just wanted to see with my own eyes that the kid actually managed to keep himself alive,” they’ll say—and they’ll grunt and roll their eyes and maybe blush a little when you throw your arms around them and thank them for being the reason he stayed alive as long as he did.

Vanderwood really respects you, because when you tell Saeyoung to be quiet or sit down or clean up after himself, he does it. They respect you, too, for your bravery and your strength and your resilience.

Neither one of them will ever admit it, but for a long time, Saeyoung and Vanderwood really did only have each other.

You’ll invite them to your wedding, of course. They won’t RSVP—but they’ll be there.

Saeran

I could write a literal novel about their relationship in this timeline and how it develops (and ummm maybe eventually I will), but I’ll try and keep this brief.

SE Saeran is so very tired. It takes time—so much time, exponentially more than the game shows us—for him to even begin to feel comfortable living in his brother’s home. He is physically sick, for a long time, as a result of the drugs he was being fed and the torture he was enduring. There isn’t enough space for forgiveness: there is barely enough space for living at all.

There’s no one moment when the two of them start to feel like brothers again: love and hate are so much more complicated than that. And Saeran has had no agency in his life; every choice has been made for him—his newfound “freedom” doesn’t feel like freedom at all. He feels he has been shuffled from one cage to another: his brother’s horrible, windowless home is no different.

But it is the small things: walking in the grass outside the bunker and feeling the sun on his skin; the way you speak to him, like you trust him; the annoying way Saeyoung follows him around, wide-eyed, trying far too hard to win him over—gradually, he begins to feel that he has a home, after all.

In this timeline, I do believe that all three of you keep on living together for the rest of your lives. You certainly don’t stay in the bunker forever—but when you move, you do it together.

And what’s most important here, of course, is that Saeran chooses this. It is perhaps one of the first choices that he makes for himself—and it sneaks up on him, taking him by surprise one day: he wants to keep on living together.

And this—living with his brother in a home that’s warm and full of love—is the only thing Saeyoung has ever wished for.

[dinosaurtsukki]

the language of flowers | an akaashi x gn!reader fic

hey dino!! could i request a short fluffy fic about someone having a crush on akaashi and works part time in a flower shop? they start leaving him flowers with meanings behind them and a letter anonymously on his desk in school. eventually, they get caught and confesses to him?? im a sucker for flower shop aus and i'd love to see what kind of flowers you would use!!  ٩(●˙▿˙●)۶…⋆ฺ -🍙 

-- ahhh this request was so fun to write !! i planned it a while ago and just wrote it all down in one sitting hehe. i hope you like this !!

pairing: akaashi keiji x gn!reader

word count: 2k words

contains: fluff !!, lots of flowers and their meanings, hints at a mystery novel night, high school au 

summary: akaashi keiji has been receiving flowers from a ‘mystery florist’ (aka, you) for quite a whole. except, he might be crushing on someone else.

a/n: requested by the amazing onigiri-anon !! i really wanted this to be more of a full-length fic because of how cute it is so i hope you guys enjoy it !!

the first flowers akaashi had received from you were twin alstroemerias: one in orange and one in white. he actually had no idea what the flowers’ names were because he had never seen any quite like it. both of the flowers had three main petals and three smaller petals closer to the center that had dark little stripes on them. the white one had a slight touches of pink and yellow in the very center.

akaashi saw the two flowers, wrapped in a pink satin ribbon, on his desk one day after class had ended. it was a few days after finals had ended and he was still feeling bitter loss that hit the volleyball team. but, the sight of the flowers: bright and fresh and sunny, put a little smile on his face. 

when he was at home, he decided to look up what the flowers were. it took a great deal of searching through ‘flower pictures’ on google images for him to actually find the name: alstroemeria, also known as peruvian lily. and, because he was curious as to why there would be flowers on his desk, he looked up whether there was a meaning behind the flower.

white alstroemerias meant ‘concern for a loved one who isn’t feeling well’ and orange ones were ‘working towards ones goals.’ akaashi smiled and placed the flowers in a jar full of water on his desk. he didn’t know who it was, but there was someone out there looking out for him.

...

“afternoon, akaashi.” 

“afternoon, y/n,” akaashi greeted, sitting down on the table next to you. as usual, you were the first two people in the clubroom. that was mostly because your other members of the literature club were freshmen who volunteered for a ton of other clubs but akaashi didn’t exactly mind. he liked your company.

“another gerbera?” you asked, pointing at the flower in his hand. 

“yeah,” akaashi smiled. “it was on my desk this morning.” he had already looked up what the meaning behind that flower after he got it for the first time and saw that it meant ‘cheer up.’ “it came at pretty nice timing too,” he added. it was a pretty stressful week for akaashi with cram school every day and having to study for entrance exams. the flowers were always tied with a pink, satin ribbon. 

“are you still on the lookout for who your mystery florist is?” you teased, looking up over the book you were reading.

“i still haven’t stopped my search,” akaashi said, lightly running his hands through the silky flower petals. “well, i do kind of like that they’re this mystery person. i never thought that receiving flowers would be this, well, nice.”

“good for you,” you smiled and returned to your book, sneaking glances once in a while at akaashi as he admired the flower. unbeknownst to him, you were the mystery florist who had been crushing on akaashi ever since freshman year. it had started out as a way to cheer him up a bit after fukurodani wasn’t able to enter nationals. the day after you left the alstroemerias on his desk, akaashi had entered the clubroom with a smile on his face, talking about how someone was nice and enough to give him flowers.

and from then on, you decided to leave him flowers whenever you knew he was feeling down. most of them were gerberas, since there were always one or two left over at the flowershop you worked part-time at. but sometimes, you carefully sneaked out one of the fresh white poppies from the new flower deliveries. akaashi wasn’t really the type to celebrate things like perfect test scores or successful practice matches so you liked sending him a white poppy once in a while to remind him to be happy for himself.

the sight of akaashi walking into the clubroom with a slight sparkle in his eye, a spring in his step, and a fresh flower in his hand became one of your favorite things. and even though you could never convince yourself to actually confess to him, just seeing that was more than enough.

...

‘oh, another flower,’ akaashi smiled as he saw one on his desk as soon as he entered the classroom. it had been a good few weeks since he last received another flower and even though he knew his mystery florist shouldn’t really be obligated to give him flowers in the first place, akaashi still missed seeing fresh blooms on the makeshift jar on his desk.

as he neared his desk though, he found that the flower wasn’t the usual gerbera or white poppy, or even the alstroemerias that he first received. its petals were white and it looked a bit like a rose, except that its petals were a bit bigger and the scent was a bit sweeter. 

‘i wonder what this is,’ akaashi thought, pulling up his phone and once again looking through flower pictures. this one was a bit easier to find. the flower was a gardenia: secret love.

...

you were practically holding your breath ever since you left the flower on akaashi’s desk. for the past few months, you’ve been playing it safe with the flowers you were giving akaashi. but earlier that day, while you were opening up the shop, a fresh batch of gardenias was delivered which gave you a crazy idea. akaashi would surely find out what it meant and your heart was hammering in your chest.

“a-akaashi!” you practically squeaked in surprise as soon as he entered the clubroom. the gardenia was in his hand and you felt your face heat up. “another flower, huh? this one looks different from the rest.” 

“yeah, it’s a gardenia,” akaashi said, sitting down next to you. unlike before, you couldn’t quite read the expression on his face and that made you even more nervous. 

“did you look up what it means?” you asked.

“’secret love’, apparently,” akaashi glanced up at you. “i guess, these have been coming from a secret admirer all this time.” 

“aww, that’s so sweet! i wish i had one who’d send me flowers,” you laughed nervously. 

“yeah, well the thing is, i wouldn’t know how to tell them,” akaashi sighed.

“tell them what?”

“that i like someone else.” 

and with that, you felt your hopes deflate. akaashi already liked someone else. ‘probably one of the pretty ones in class,’ you thought sadly. 

“well, i’m sure they’ll understand,” you said in a small voice before returning to the book you were reading. unbeknownst to you, akaashi there was a hint of longing in the way akaashi glanced at you from the corner of his eye.

...

akaashi had a crush on you ever since freshman year, when the two of you met in the literature club. he had already signed up for the volleyball club but since he knew he’d be able to balance things well, he decided to sign up for another club of interest. on your first day as club members, akaashi recalled you intensively defending fanfiction as subversive literature and making very impressive points for that matter. he knew you weren’t very outspoken and you tended to be quite shy around your seniors, but you always spoke up when you felt you needed to. 

being in the literature club was even more fun with you around. you were the one who gave the idea of a ‘mystery novel dinner’ event for the cultural festival where you invited other students and pretended to be guests in a house solving a murder. akaashi had pretended to be the well-meaning, intelligent detective while you were lady of the house who mourned the death of her husband while actually being the real killer. the event was a success and akaashi fondly remembered how you were consistently in-character, even when akaashi was apprehending you after he solved the mystery.

when he entered the clubroom the next day, wondering just how he was going to tell his mystery florist that he couldn’t reciprocate their feelings, he walked in to find that you weren’t there.

“oh, akaashi-san,” one of your juniors who was there instead, greeted him.

“y/n isn’t here yet?” he asked. 

“oh, well they came here and just left their bag. i think they were trying to buy snacks before the cafeteria closed,” they answered, pointing at your bag that was in your usual seating place.

“thanks,” akaashi nodded his thanks at them and sat down at his usual spot. your bag was zipped completely open, one of your usual habits, and its contents were fully visible. akaashi spotted more than a few books, one of them in particular catching his eye.

“’the language of flowers,’“ he read aloud. 

“oh, i think that’s the one from our collection,” his junior said. “y/n has been reading it for a while. i think it’s because of the new job they got.”

“new job?” akaashi asked.

“yeah, at the flower shop,” his junior nodded.

akaashi blinked at the book for a few seconds before standing up. “i’ll be back in a bit,” he said, leaving the clubroom. as quickly as he could, he walked back to his classroom and peeked into the small glass window. 

and just as he suspected. there you were, standing by his desk, placing a pink rose on top of it.

...

“thank you for coming,” you bowed as the customers left the shop. as soon as they were gone, you let out a sigh as you surveyed the mess of leaves, stems, and leftover wrapping paper on your workstation. a man had just come by asking for one of the more extravagant bouquets to give to his wife and your fingers hurt a bit from the thorns on the rose stems. you had been dealing with roses all day, especially now that you they were your most recent deliveries since they were in season.

you had also given akaashi a rose. you knew they had very different meanings depending on the color, but the pink one that you gave him meant ‘trust, happiness, or confidence.’ you figured it was about time for you to stop sending him flowers, especially now knowing that he liked someone else, so you decided to go all out and leave him a pink rose. 

you tried to focus on cleaning your workstation and leave all thoughts of akaashi out of your head when the shop bell suddenly rang as a customer came in.

“welcome to-- akaashi?” the sight of him made you stop in your tracks. in his hand, he was holding the pink rose you gave him earlier. you watched as his eyes glanced from the bin of fresh roses on your worktable, to the pink satin ribbon your ribbons case, and you knew he had just put two and two together.

“you’re the mystery florist,” akaashi said, stepping closer to where you were.

“i am,” you sighed, knowing there was nowhere for you to run. “but if you want, i’ll stop sending the flowers. that’s the last one.” 

“why would i want that?” akaashi asked.

“because... because you like someone else,” you said softly. 

“ah, but when i said i liked someone else back then, that could have meant anyone,” akaashi said, a smile playing on the corner of his lip. “it could even be... you.” 

your eyes widened as you understood the meaning of what he had just said. “m-me...?”

“yeah.” now it was akaashi’s turn to feel shy. “i’ve... i’ve liked you for quite a while, y/n.” 

“you have?” you could scarcely believe your ears. akaashi, the boy who you had crushed on for so long, liked you back. 

“now, i guess it’s about time i be the one to give you flowers,” akaashi smiled, surveying the shop. “what do you suggest?”

you let out a giggle, feeling that rush of giddy joy at the knowledge that akaashi liked you back. you looked around all the flowers in the shop, so many meanings, so many ways to say ‘i love you.’ 

your eyes fell on the bin of roses at your workstation and remembered how the thorns hurt your hand. “well, at this point, anything except roses.” 

taglist (still open to anyone who wants in!): @montys-chaos​ @miyumtwins​ @strawberriimilkshake​ @pocubo​ @sugawara-sweetheart @akaashisbabydoll @laure-chan @therainroguefanfiction @atetiffdoesart @stephdaninja @oikaw-ugh @charliefredb @dramaqueenweeb1469 @tremblinghearts @applepienation @doodleniella @haikyuu-my-love

[meichenxi]

*rant commencing*

ok guys let’s sit down and have a think about the way we talk to kids, particularly neurodivergent ones, and the weight it carries

the other day, I opened up to a friend about something really hurtful my best (and only) friend said to me when I was fifteen. It was a moment of emotional intimacy and the first time I had brought it up seven years later and, once again, I got laughed at and told I was too fucking sensitive

and ok maybe yeah I was a ridiculous child. I’m a ridiculous adult, that shouldn’t be surprising. But this hurt and hurt and hurt and I was trying to think about why this in particular and not anything else was so painful

so here’s the situation. at fifteen, like many smart kids, everyone thought the world was open to me. Ok I had no social skills to speak of and was ostracised by teachers and students and family, but I was an optimistic kid, and in a disaster of a home situation (involving kidnappings and court cases and running away and being out of school for a year and a brother starting drugs at 12 and living in a shelter and basically just a LOT) I was always the smiley helpful one. and apart from being defeated by very simple mechanisms like idk drawers or biscuit packets, I picked things up quickly. I took GCSEs early and extra and tutored others; I was a regional competitive swimmer in breaststroke and open water; I taught myself the flute and got into an international touring youth orchestra without lessons; I won a poetry competition for adults in primary school; I played competitive netball and was a long distance runner; I drew and sold my art; I wrote shitty novels and started making conlangs and was interviewed on bbc world about it; I loved performing and was invited to join a theatre company when I left school; and my biggest passion in the entire world apart from Tolkien was martial arts. And the best thing was for my parents - one of whom was disabled and didn’t work and the other who was a cleaner - is that I worked two paper rounds and tutored younger children and earned all of the money for it myself. blah blah blah. I was your mum’s friend’s kid. 

well, I’m a disaster adult, so you can probably guess that none of that lasted for very long. and there are gazillions of people here with exactly the same story. 

the point in question, though, was when I was fifteen and thinking about sixth form (the last two years of school in the UK) it was becoming clear alarmingly fast that you weren’t allowed to just keep doing everything you loved. at some point you had to make a choice. 

but how could I give up swimming for music? Or music for languages? Or languages for athletics? Or athletics for theatre? or, actually, all of them but one???? how did people just know what they had to do with their lives? how did they choose? 

the problem was, I said to my friend, I know I could do well at any of them, so how was I supposed to choose? (tactless and a stupid thing to say and also just not true but I was fifteen and simultaneously disgustingly cocky and cripplingly insecure) And he laughed and said, well, fuck you then. 

oh noooo. poor meeeeeee. I’m so fucking good at things what do I dooooo

I haven’t stopped thinking about that comment for seven years. Every single time I think about wasting my potential, every time I can’t sleep because I’m terrified that I’m not being productive or useful and hating myself because I’m upset that I can’t do something right away and I know it’s a stupid thing to be upset about - I think about that comment. I’m lucky. It’s alright for some. 

because, actually, being expected to know what to do with your life aged 15 is a fucking terrifying thing. we were kids at fifteen being told to make decisions as if we had all the facts, as if we weren’t also being blindfolded and spun around in circles until we couldn’t stand. Do you do what your parents say? what you think you want to do? what your teachers say? do you just stay in education even though it’s not for you because your dream is stupid, or because you don’t have a dream like everyone else seems to? are you supposed to have a dream?

*it’s NOT a stupid thing to worry about*

particularly when? well, when your entire self worth equates to the things that you output, the things that you do. so just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of all of these wonderful, dazzling, damaged, crazy kids with big dreams and big hearts, kids that are struggling right now and kids that are our future, and imagine that you’ve been told since you were old enough to read or speak or walk that you���re just so very clever

isn’t it just wonderful how clever you are? isn’t it just great how we never need to worry about you? you’re such an easy child, it’s a blessing. always so considerate, so thoughtful, never making a fuss! isn’t it just fantastic how well you do in school? I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a child who went to all of those nasty parties. you’re so dedicated

raise your hand if you were only ever told you were good. raise your hand if you were never told you were kind. 

so, what happens? you take a child, and you tell them for its entire childhood that they’re clever. You don’t tell them that they’re creative, or hard-working, or dedicated, or driven, or helpful. You let them know that it’s ok that they’re weird, because they’re going to be successful. what do you think parents say to their kid who’s crying because she has no friends and she doesn’t understand what the other children are thinking and why they would hurt each other like that? even good parents, the very best of them, say things like: you’re just more mature than they are. it doesn’t matter. keep your head down - you’ll show them. 

your child, in the best case scenario, has access to her hyperfixation that makes the world big and bright and beautiful. she’s a bit weird, but it’s kind of cute. anyway, she’s good at it. and as long as she succeeds, conventionally, and you get to brag, then it’s ok that she’s a little bit unconventional.

and then things to break, just a little. and then, aged eleven, your child is having an asthma attack in the classroom because she got so anxious she couldn’t answer a maths question she couldn’t breathe. it’s ok, her parents tell her the next day. you’re just not good at maths - that’s alright. you don’t have to be good at everything

your child, because she’s perceptive, begins to realise that things don’t get better as you get older. people are just as cruel at 12 as they are at 7, and they’ll be just as cruel at 15. and then one day, as a bad joke because she doesn’t really understand humour, she writes a fake text to her dad from someone’s phone in legalese that actually has a secret code hidden it in that she knows her dad will crack right away because he’s brilliant. she thinks it’s hilarious. her father thinks he is being threatened, and spends the next week in meltdown, bedridden and burnt-out. and when she owns up, he turns and snaps at her, and says as if you could write something like that. an ADULT wrote this, not a fucking child

and suddenly, that cleverness they kept talking about? they don’t even understand that. 

suddenly, no one sees her at all. 

she needs to learn to be like the other kids. to be like a fucking child. and while she’s learning, she doesn’t speak for a year

that happened to me, but take your pick - I’m sure you don’t have to look far to find examples of your own. 

My point is this: if you tell a child for their entire life that the only thing that is worthy of being loved is what they achieve, if every time they do something they love you tell them oh, you could be a famous writer! you’re so talented! rather than saying that you loved listening to their story, if you only praise them when they’re good and quiet and convenient and tell them that as long as they succeed, it doesn’t matter if they don’t have friends or if they’re miserable, and THEN you tell them to choose ONE THING and drop 90% of everything that makes them who they are - 

what the hell did you THINK was going to happen??

because here’s the first thing. for many kids, whether that’s because of neurodivergence or age maturity or whatever, hyper fixations and hobbies aren’t just things they like to do. THEY ARE LIFELINES. they’re the things these kids go to when they’re hurt, angry, upset, because they make sense. for many kids, especially but not always girls, they are able to camouflage themselves and mask tendencies of neurodivergence because they’re ‘good students’. at a family gathering once, my mum, so frustrated at my inability and lack of desire to talk to any members of my extended family, snatched my German grammar book and locked it in the boot of the car. knowing that I escape and read it in the toilet was the only thing keeping me going, exhausted and stressed and overwhelmed. I vomited on the grass.

and here’s the second thing. you tell us from an early age that they only way we’ll ever be acceptable to the rest of society is if we succeed. autistic kids are fine, as long as they’re international maths olympiad champions. adhd kids are fine, as long as they’re famous athletes. if you’re obsessed with musicals that’s ok, as long as that obsession leads to a well-paying job as a successful writer on Broadway. 

and then you tell us that we only have one chance at that success? and this decision determines the rest of our lives? and that we had so much potential when we were kids, and we better not waste it now? that not everyone is so lucky to be able to choose between so many things?? 

because being asked to choose between these things isn’t being asked to choose a hobby. when the only way anyone else defines you positively is by your success in one area, that becomes your entire identity. 

so no, we’re not being too sensitive when you ask us to pick and choose what career, or what hobby to take forward. you’re not asking about hobbies. you’re asking us to choose what kind of person we want to be. you’re asking us to choose the most impactful way we can give back to the world, because we can’t waste those god-given talents. you’re asking us to figure out, still a child and hopelessly lost, what our purpose on this planet is. and you’re looking at us as if the ways that we survived all of these years, the things we clung to for comfort, are things we can just cast aside without further thought

ask me now, and I’ll tell you that’s not the way things work. we have second chances and third ones and tenth ones, we can be different things to different people and we can do different things at different parts in our lives, and be successful in different areas. life isn’t a fucking flowchart. and I’m still trying to come to terms with all the things I could have been, and my freak-outs about ‘wasted potential’ are so clockwork I could plan my calendar around them, but I’m beginning to understand that life doesn’t end when you’re twenty, or when you haven’t written a best-seller by eighteen. you have time.   

but at fifteen? at fifteen, that question broke me. 

do you know what you can do instead? you can show a little thoughtfulness. you can be kinder, and lead by example, and praise your kids when they’re kind too. when your son runs to you and shows you what you think is a better picture than you - a stick figure artisan, if you say so yourself - could ever create, you can actually just say you really like it. you can ask him if that’s him and daddy and the dog on a cloud. describe the picture back to him, and engage with this thing he’s made from his imagination - tell him the clouds he’s drawn are so big and fluffy and white, and ask if there are giant spiders living there. you know how to shut a child up? tell them yes dear, it’s wonderful. don’t be that person. promote your kid’s creativity - ask questions, have fun, play with this thing they’ve made - and not destroy it

when your daughter comes to you and shows you a song she’s written, don’t tell her she’s so talented or that she could be a musician one day. just sing along. ask her why she wrote it, and what she was thinking of when she did. ask her if she could make it different for two people singing it at the same time. 

and if your child just really, really loves maths? let them do maths. it’s ok if their interests are stereotypical - as long as they love it and it’s fun, supporting them is wonderful. the best present my father ever got me was five hours of tutoring - an introduction to linguistics!! - when I turned twelve, starting on my birthday at 8am. I had never felt so understood and so loved. 

as much as these simple things can destroy someone’s life, can stop them talking for a year, you have the chance to be that one voice of kindness that is a friend where a young person needs it most. 

for me, this was the Bus Lady. I never knew her first name because I forgot immediately and was too embarrassed to ask again, but we got the bus together for two years right before I applied to university - she was a trainee teacher at my school. she saw that I missed tutor group and sat in the corridor every morning writing, and that I ran laps for an hour every lunchtime instead of sitting alone. but she came and sat with me one morning and asked what I was doing; I was developing a new shorthand and told her so warily. 

she didn’t raise her eyebrows or say wow, that’s...that’s amazing. instead she frowned and looked at me skeptically and said ‘But why would you do that? There are plenty of functional shorthands out there - what does your shorthand have that they don’t? Tell me about it.’

I had no idea what to say

this was the first time anyone had actually ENGAGED in any capacity with what I was doing. and just like that, just by treating me seriously and asking valid questions and pointing out inconsistencies, I was a person who happened to have an idea that was in some serious need of questioning, and not a freak

there’s no way she remembers that interaction; she’s been a teacher now for year and probably doesn’t even remember who I am. But I had been this close to not going to university, to not bothering, and she made me stop, and wait a moment

she will never know the difference that that conversation and two months of kindness on the bus from a stranger made in my life. 

so let’s be kind to each other, please. let’s be forgiving. let’s challenge each other and let’s engage with kids with special interests and listen to them talk. and so to any educators or teachers or parents or even other kids, I want to say - let’s treat our words seriously and with respect, like we treat our children, because they have immense capacity to hurt, because they can be used for good. 

to any other fifteen year olds in a similar position, I just want to say: none of us here on tumblr have properly sorted our lives out, but I promise you it does get so much better.

you’re not too sensitive. you’re not a freak. you’re not only acceptable because you succeed. I know if you’re masking you feel you have to and it’s for survival, and I’m sorry, because you shouldn’t have to. and you should never, never have to think that you ‘have it good’ or that you’re lucky and are not allowed to hurt. there’s always some one who has it worse, and you can’t stop beat yourself up about that. fuck anyone who tells you otherwise. if you have gone through trauma, if you have unhealthy coping mechanisms, if you are depressed or anxious or otherwise mentally ill and some of it stems from this, I am so very very sorry. but you will be ok, even if you can’t write for a couple of years, or even if things change. you’ll get there. speaking as someone who is now writing for the first time in six years, drawing for the first time in longer, it’s scary and new and weird, but you will come out the other side. 

and you do work hard. and you are creative. and you are loved. and you are so very, very kind.

*rant over*

[notbecauseofvictories]

Hi Sarah! My friend and I are starting a bookclub (as much as you can with two people who aren't pressed for deadlines) and I was wondering if you have any recommendations? (That is if you have time to rec anything!) We're starting off with Deathless and have Fitzgerald next in line somewhere but I def want to try to expand the genres we read and tbh from years of following you, I trust your judgement

I don’t...like giving recommendations? At least not directly, it seems like too much opportunity for getting it wrong. Everybody has their own tastes, after all, and even the best of friends don’t necessarily vibe with what you vibe with. (I’ve experienced this with multiple friends, so I know what I’m talking about.) Truly, one of the reasons that my whole “I’m going to get back into reading for pleasure!” push has been so successful is that I only bother with books that interest me, and stop reading when they fail to catch my attention.

But I’ve now read at least 60 books in 2020, which is approximately 60 more than I’ve read in the years prior, so I’m happy to share that. Below is my list of recent reads, beginning to end, along with a very short review---I keep this list in the notes app on my phone, so they have to be. Where I’ve talked about a book in a post, I’ve tried to link to it. 

Peruse, and if something catches your interest I hope you enjoy!

2020 Reading List

Crazy Rich Asians series, Kevin Kwan (here)

Blackwater, Michael McDowell (here; pulpy horror and southern gothic in one novel; come for the monster but stay for the family drama.)

Fire and Hemlock, Diane Wynne Jones (here; weird and thoughtful, in ways I’m still thinking about)

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (here; loved it! I can see why people glommed onto it)

Swamplandia!, Karen Russell (unfinished, I could not get past the first paragraph; just....no.)

Rules of Scoundrels series, Sarah MacLean (an enjoyable romp through classic romancelandia, though if you read through 4 back to back you realize that MacLean really only writes 1 type of relationship and 1 type of sexual encounter, though I do appreciate insisting that the hero go down first.)

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden (here)

Dread Nation, Justine Ireland (great, put it with Stealing Thunder in terms of fun YA fantasy that makes everything less white and Eurocentric)

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (VERY good. haunting good.)

Tell My Horse, Zora Neale Hurston (I read an interesting critique of Hurston that said she stripped a lot of the radicalism out of black stories - these might be an example, or counterexample. I haven't decided yet.)

The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society, T. Kingfisher (fun!)

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell (some of these short stories are wonderful; however, Swamplandia's inspiration is still unreadable, which is wild.)

17776, Jon Bois (made me cry. deeply human. A triumph of internet storytelling)

The Girl with All the Gifts, M. R. Carey (deeply enjoyable. the ending is a bittersweet kick in the teeth, and I really enjoyed the adults' relationships)

The Door in the Hedge and Other Stories, Robin McKinley (enjoyable, but never really resolved into anything.)

The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley (fun, but feels very early fantasy - or maybe I've just read too many of the subsequent knock-offs.)

Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls (weird little pulp novel.)

All Systems Red, Martha Wells (enjoyable, but I don't get the hype. won't be looking into the series unless opportunity arises.)

A People's History of Chicago, Kevin Coval (made me cry. bought a copy. am still thinking about it.)

The Sol Majestic, Ferrett Steinmetz (charming, a sf novel mostly about fine dining)

House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune (immensely enjoyable read, for all it feels like fic with the serial numbers filed off)

The Au Pair, Emma Rous (not bad, but felt like it wanted to be more than it is)

The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo (preferred this to Ghost Bride; I enjoy a well-crafted mystery novel and this delivered)

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin (unfinished, I cannot fucking get into Le Guin and should really stop trying)

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (enjoyable, but not nearly as fun as Ghost Bride - the romance felt very disjointed, and could have used another round of editing)

Temptation's Darling, Johanna Lindsey (pure, unadulterated id in a romance novel, complete with a girl dressing as a boy to avoid detection)

Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton (a strange, dark psychological portrait; really made a mark even though I can't quite put my finger on why)

The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (slow at first, but picks up halfway through and builds nicely; a whiff of Gone Girl with the staggered perspectives building together)

Stealing Thunder, Alina Boyden (fun Tortall vibes, but set in Mughal India)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant; The Monster Baru Commorant, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson (LOVE this, so much misery, terrible, ecstatic; more here)

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone (epistolary love poetry, vicious and lovely; more here)

The Elementals, Michael McDowell

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (didn't like this one as much as I thought I would; narrator's contemporary voice was so jarring against the stylized world and action sequences read like the novelization for a video game; more here)

Finna, Nino Cipri (a fun little romp through interdimensional Ikea, if on the lighter side)

Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (engrossing, even if I could see every plot twist coming from a mile away)

Desdemona and the Deep, C. S. E. Cooney (enjoyed the weirdness & the fae bits, but very light fare)

A Blink of the Screen, Terry Pratchett (admittedly just read this for the Discworld bits)

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (not as good about politics and colonialism as Baru, but still a powerful book about The Empire, and EXTREMELY cool worldbuilding that manages to be wholly alien and yet never heavily expositional)

Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (see my post)

Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan (didn't finish, got to to first explicit sex scene and couldn't get any further)

Prosper's Demon, KJ Parker (didn't work for me...felt like a short story that wanted to be fleshed out into a novel)

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik (extremely fun, even for a reader who doesn't much like Napoleonic stories)

Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone (fun romp - hard to believe that this is the same author as Time War though you can see glimmers of it in the imagery here)

A Scot in the Dark, Sarah MacLean (palette cleanser, she does write a good romance novel even it's basically the same romance novel over and over)

The Resurrectionist, E. B. Hudspeth (borrowed it on a whim one night, kept feeling like there was something I was supposed to /get/ about it, but never did - though I liked the Mutter Museum parallels)

Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (he's a better ideas guy than a writer, though Hell Is The Absence of God made my skin prickle all over)

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (fun, very much a throwback to my YA days of fairytale retellings, though obviously less European)

Four Roads Cross, Max Gladstone (it turns out I was a LOT more fond of Tara than I initially realized - plus this book had a good Pratchett-esque pacing and reliance on characterization)

Get in Trouble, Kelly Link (reading this after the Chiang was instructive - Link is such a better storyteller, better at prioritizing the human over the concept)

Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips

Soulless; Changeless; Blameless, all by Gail Carriger (this series is basically a romance novel with some fantasy plot thrown in for fun; extremely charming and funny)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James (got about 1/3 of the way through and had to wave the white flag; will try again because I like the plot and the worldbuilding; the tone is just so hard to get through)

Pew, Catherine Lacey (a strange book, I'm still thinking about it; a good Southern book, though)

Nuremberg Diary, GM Gilbert (it took me two months to finish, and was worth it)

River of Teeth, Sarah Gailey (I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did; would have made a terrific movie but ultimately was not a great novel. Preferred Magic for Liars.)

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (extremely fun, though more trippy than Gods and the plot didn't work as well for me - though it was very original)

The New Voices of Fantasy, Peter S. Beagle (collected anthology, with some favorites I've read before Ursula Vernon's "Jackalope Wives", "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" "The Husband Stitch"; others that were great new finds "Selkie Stories are for Losers" from Sofia Satamar and "A Kiss With Teeth" from Max Gladstone and "The Philosophers" from Adam Ehrlich Sachs)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Email sabbaticals

It's been a decade since danah boy introduced me to the idea of "email sabbaticals." That's when you go away and turn off your email.

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/12/08/i-am-offline-on-email-sabbatical-from-december-9-january-12.html

Not just setting an out-of-office message, but rather deleting all inbound mail and asking correspondents to try again after the break. In her message, boyd explains to those correspondents who know how to reach her mother that this is the only way to reach her.

Here's the rationale: if you allow email to pile up while you're trying to unwind, it'll take months to catch up on when you get back, and you'll immediately burn out, incinerating all the value you got out of your break.

What's more, you'll still fail to clear the backlog - you'll have to declare "email bankruptcy" and fail everyone who'd contacted you anyway. It's a bad deal for you AND for the people who email you during your break.

Here's how boyd's email sabbaticals work: six months prior, she informs her collaborators that she'll be taking some protracted downtime; a month before she confirms her commitments to collaborators and composes a checklist to ensure that she meets them prior to departure.

A week in advance, she warns everyone again that she's going offline and shuttering her inboxes. Close family members and her network administrator are given instructions for reaching her while on break, but no one else is.

She leaves, and shuts down her email. She knows she's going to miss new, time-sensitive stuff, but makes peace with it. In return, she gets the peace of mind that comes from knowing that she's going to come home to an empty in-box.

At the close of business today, I'm going on email (and work) sabbatical until Jan 4, 2021. Apart from one live event (the remote Chaos Communications Congress on Dec 27) I won't be accepting emails and I won't be replying to DMs or other messages.

https://rc3.world/

I really, really need it.

Over the years, many people have expressed their admiration at my "productivity" - but the dirty secret of that productivity is that work is how I cope with stress.

It's not the worst problem to have: I wrote a whole novel since the crisis, while also launching four books and keeping up with my day-job at EFF.

But working to cope with stress has its limits. It's a good temporary fix, but it's no long-term solution.

For one thing, I've got a serious, untreatable, degenerating chronic pain condition, and working is how I hope with the pain, too - distraction works far better than any prescription meds for me.

But ignoring your body's pain signals is a dangerous tactic. It's why I'm now experiencing the worst continuous pain of my adult life (it's been a stressful year). Last week it was so bad I was walking with a cane.

I say all of this not to humblebrag about my commitment to my work, but rather in the interests of transparency. I'm keenly aware that we live our own blooper reels and everyone else's highlight reels.

I'm grateful for my work habits, truly - but they come at a really high cost, and balancing work-as-distraction and work-as-pathology is really, really hard. If you're wondering how to do what I do, have a little peek into the blooper reel, first.

It's been a high-stress, crazy year. We nearly went broke, then had a spectacular recovery (thank you, Kickstarter backers!), have tried our best to be good parents (with varying degrees of success). We've gone through blazing rows and many sleepless nights.

I've spent most of the year with sores at the corners of my mouth, which I only get under in the most extreme times of stress.

And we've had it GOOD. We're solvent, safe, and healthy. Thinking about what this would be like if any of those changed is terrifying.

Hanging out with my digital community is a huge net benefit to me, but unplugging from that community is something I increasingly value as I head towards my 50th birthday next July.

My first digital community experience was sending IMs to other users of the timeshare mainframe we plugged into when I was six years old, in 1977, when my dad brought home an acoustic coupler and my mom found 1,000' of brown paper towel to feed into the teletype.

Some (most) of my life's most important relationships, friendships, and discussions have taken place over this medium, and an enormous amount of that good stuff started with a conversation with a stranger.

I never felt the outrage that attended the introduction of the telephone into Edwardian England: "Anyone -- any wild fool off the street -- could simply barge bellowing into one's office or home, preceded only by the ringing of a telephone bell."

https://www.mit.edu/hacker/part1.html

For me, finding my people (and being found by them) has been the highlight of my half-century. Touring and speaking turned these digital relationships into personal ones.

But: moderation in all things. I'm writing four of these threads this morning, doing a couple interviews and meetings, and then putting my lid down until 2021 (save for a brief dial-in to CCC on the 27th).

I'm going to swim in our lovely outdoor public pool, which, thankfully, has figured out how to remain open during the pandemic. I'm going read in the backyard hammock and hike in Griffith Park.

I'm not going to answer - or accept - email while I'm gone.

And I say all of this because it's taken a decade for me to really understand what danah was getting at (she's a very smart person and I often benefit from reflecting on our conversations).

And also, to show you a bit of the blooper reel. Coping strategies are great and necessary, but they're no substitute for addressing the underlying problems. I'm proud of the work I do, but I'm also still learning how to do it right.

Image: Alex Watson: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sifter/440685338/

CC BY-NC 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

[bananaofswifts]

Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

By

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

[kylorenskitten]

Strange Magic - Adam Sackler x Reader - Chapter One

[[A/N: Yes the title is stolen from the ELO song expect many of my fics to be named after 70′s era songs because I’m not good at naming things. Anyway I finally watched all of girls and I really adore his character in the show. More fics to come and more chapters for this one too! 

3k Words Rated: +18 only

Features lots of dirty talk and explicit scenes. Hope you all enjoy!

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It was a Thursday night, you’re walking down the streets of New York City. The destination in your mind is a little Italian restaurant that you’ve never been to before. Your friend Alicia set you up on a blind date with some guy she met in the theater and that’s where you’re headed. You don’t know anything about this guy other than his name is Adam Sackler, he’s super tall and he’s an actor who’s been in multiple Broadway productions. You’re a writer of romantic novels, erotic romantic novels. You have a couple titles under your belt that have done so well in sales, you’ve made a name for yourself here in this city. 

You’re almost there now, the clicking of your heels on the pavement following you and your hair blowing in the wind. You open the door to the restaurant, going inside. Looking around, you walk through the restaurant and try to find someone sitting alone, someone tall. You turn the corner and see who you think may be the person you’re here to meet. He sees you and stands up, confirming that he’s the one. Now you’re face to face. He’s got to be one of the most handsome guys you’ve ever seen, unique facial features with freckles that dot it all over. 

“You must be Y/N.” He says with a smile, pulling out your chair for you.

“Yes, I am. You must be Adam then.” You respond, sitting down at the table. He sits across from you, eyes locked onto you. 

“Have you ever been here before?” He asks, trying to make casual conversation. 

“No, actually. Have you? I do love Italian food though.” You say, picking up a menu and browsing through it. 

“I haven’t, but I heard it’s good.” He picks up his own menu and starts looking at it. It’s quiet now for a moment, before he speaks up again. “So you’re a writer?” He says. 

“Yes. I have a few novels published.” You respond, hoping he won’t ask what your books are about. 

“I used to know a writer.” He mentioned, picking up his glass of water and taking a sip quickly before continuing to speak. “She was crazy.”

“Well I’m not crazy.” You laugh and sip the wine that he must have ordered for you before you arrived. 

“I know, I was just saying.” He says and the waitress comes by to your table, ready to take your orders. You and Adam tell her what you want and she leaves again. “What do you write about? What kind of novels? Anything I’ve read before?" 

I sure hope not. You think to yourself, trying to figure out what to tell him. "I write romance novels. I doubt you’ve read any of them.” You said. 

“Alright. Then I’ll have to read one of them soon.” He says and the waitress brings over a salad for you two to enjoy before your dinner. You hope he doesn’t ever read your novels, although you know your secret will have to come out soon. You’re just afraid of being judged if he finds out that you write erotic fiction romance books, ones with intense sexual scenes that you’ve never let anyone you were dating read. You know he’s going to get a hold of one and read it, you’re just afraid of what he will think of you after. 

You both eat your salad, engaging in more casual conversation about any old random thing that comes to mind. You can’t deny you’re unbelievably attracted to Adam. He’s so handsome, you love looking at him from across the table. “How’s the theater been treating you? I’d love to come to your show when it opens.” You offer him a smile. 

“You should definitely come see it. It’s wonderful, I’ve finally found my calling. I love acting and becoming different characters.” He smiles back just as wide, it brings butterflies to your stomach. 

“I will! I’m happy for you. It’s a big achievement, being a Broadway actor.” You sip your wine some more, finishing off your first glass. He picks up the bottle from the bucket of ice on the table and pours you some more. Next your waitress brings out your entrees and they look delicious. The two of you eat dinner, you drink more wine and continue your date together, getting to know each other. He doesn’t drink and he tells you it’s because he’s in AA, to which you congratulate him on his sobriety. This night has been absolutely wonderful, not what you expected this blind date to be like. He’s so sweet to you, he listens so well and you can’t help but be ridiculously attracted to him. After you’re done having dinner, he pays the bill and the two of you leave the restaurant, walking outside onto the sidewalk. “Would you like to go back to my place?” You suggest to him, surprised in yourself that you made such a bold move. To be honest, you don’t want to say goodbye to him just yet. The night is still young and it’s only just getting started. 

“Of course!” He says, taking your hand and holding it. You hail down a taxi and the both of you get inside. You tell the driver your address and he starts taking you there, your body relaxing in the back seat against Adam’s. It feels amazing to be so close to him. He smells wonderful, his strong arm around your shoulders, your head resting against his pec. The cab trip doesn’t take too long and soon you arrive at your apartment, getting out of the taxi. You live in a very nice apartment building near Central Park. He follows you inside as you say hello to the doorman and walk to the elevator. It takes you up to the tenth floor where your apartment is. You unlock the door and open it, shutting it and locking it behind you once you’re both inside. 

“Well here it is. My humble abode.” You say, taking off your heels and putting them by the door for you to actually put away later. Your apartment is decorated in expensive decor, there’s a shelf of awards by the fake fireplace and the walls are lined with bookshelves full of novels of all different kinds. He kicks off his shoes too and takes off his jacket, hanging it on the hook on the wall. 

“Very nice.” He says, looking around. “How long have you lived in New York?” He asks you. 

“I moved here to go to University when I was 18. I’m 24 now.” You tell him. He goes over to a bookshelf, the one with the novels you wrote on it. He sees that those books have your name on them.

“Are these the ones you wrote?” He asks you and picks up a book, looking at the cover. You rush over and try to take the book away from him. 

“Yes I wrote those but I’d rather you not read them right now.” You say but he won’t hand the book back over. 

“Why not? What’s in them that I can’t see right now?” He opens the book to the first page and starts skimming over it. The anxiety in your chest is rising, you’re so nervous right now. 

“Nothing, I was just hoping we’d get to spend some time together right now, you know.” You say but he turns the pages further and continues to read. His eyes widen, now glued to the words on the page. You can tell he’s reading an erotic scene, it’s probably the first one of that novel where the main character gives her love interest a blow job. 

“Is this why you didn’t want me to read them?” He asks you, not taking his eyes off the page. 

“Yes.” You frown a little and cover your face with your hands. He flips the pages and skims them, seeing more and more vulgar words strawn together to make the many sex scenes in that novel. 

“I’ve never read something like this before.” He says softly, looking over at you as he shuts the book and puts it back. “I’d love to read it more for real and the other ones too.” You stare at him, unsure of what to say. “What? Are you embarrassed? Obviously you’re extremely successful.” He said, waving his hand around momentarily at your apartment that surrounded you. 

“I’m not embarrassed. I just didn’t want to show you those quite yet.” You said and went to the kitchen, pouring yourself a glass of red wine. He follows you, watching you. 

“I get that. Sorry I read them when you didn’t want me to. I was just very curious.”

“It’s okay.” You take a sip of your wine. 

“I’m still very curious.” He walks over to you, placing his hands on your hips and you love the way his touch feels. “How do you get the inspiration to write those?” His question makes you chuckle lightly. 

“How does any writer get inspiration? Experiences, fantasies, ideas. Then I put them all together to make a story.” Your eyes are locked on his face and his on yours. 

“That’s true… Let’s go sit down? I’d love to hear more about your creative process.” He takes your free hand and leads you back into the living room, causing you to chuckle again. You two have a seat on the couch, real close to each other like how you were sitting in the back of the taxi. “I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t turn me on that you write smutty stories.” He says ever so boldly. 

“Well thank you for being honest.” You grin, setting your glass on the coffee table in front of the sofa. 

“I bet you’re really kinky, aren’t you?” He strokes your cheek with his thumb, your faces so close to each other. His voice is soft and sensual as you’re surrounded by the warmth of his body. 

“You could say that. I guess one has to be when they write erotic novels.” You confess, a little smirk on your lips. He presses his lips to yours in the first kiss you’ll ever share and it’s absolutely perfect. His lips are so soft, plump and they feel amazing against yours. Your hands rest on his big arms, tasting his tongue when he slips it into your mouth. He kisses you with passion and desire, one of his hands rested on your cheek and the other one on your hip. He breaks the kiss for a moment to whisper on your lips.

“I like you. You’re gorgeous, you’re talented and I like the way it feels to be around you." 

"I like you too. Very much. Would you like to see my bedroom? I just feel bad not showing you the entire apartment yet.” You say and it’s really just an excuse to get him inside your bedroom. 

“Yes, of course.” He smiles and you two stand up, you take his hand and lead him around your apartment. You show him your study, your library, the bathroom and laundry room and then you lead him into your bedroom where your king size bed is. He immediately puts his arms around your waist and your lips lock again, your arms going around his neck. Your tongues begin a battle against each other, tasting each other and it makes you moan a little into his mouth. He moves his hands to grope your ass and then breaks the kiss to attach his lips to the skin of your neck, collarbones and shoulders, leaving kisses and little bites all over you. Your fingers tug his shirt up and he raises his arms to help you remove it. You have to stop yourself from drooling when you see his chiseled, hard chest and his bare, muscular arms. He reaches behind you and unzips your dress, pushing it off your shoulders, watching it fall to the ground. Adam sees you in your bra and panties, reaching his hand to squeeze your breast for a moment. As he’s taking off your bra, you go for his belt buckle and open it up, unzipping his jeans zipper and pushing his pants down his waist. He kicks them off, now the two of you are just in your underwear. 

“You are so beautiful, I don’t know how I’m gonna thank Alicia for introducing us.” He says and tucks your hair behind your ear. 

“I’ll have to find some way to thank her as well. You’re pretty stunning yourself, Adam.” You say and sit on the edge of the bed. He stands in front of you, eyes locked on your face as he stares down at you. You hook your fingers to the waistband of his underwear and slowly pull them down. His rock hard cock pops out and it’s way bigger than you expected. You figured with how tall he is, he’d be big but you had no idea that this is what he was hiding in his pants this whole time. “Fuck.” You mumble, wrapping your hand around his erection and pumping it slowly. He steps out of his underwear and tugs at your panties. 

“Take these off. I want to touch you.” He tells you and it makes you feel like there are volts of electricity rushing through your veins. 

“Yes, sir.” You say softly and wiggle out of your panties, letting them fall to the ground then stepping out of them. 

“Good girl. Lie down right here on the edge of the bed in front of me.” He orders you and you obey. You lie on the edge and open your legs enough for him to have access. Adam sticks his fingers between your thighs and starts to rub your slickness up and down. You take his length in your hand and start stroking it again, watching as he makes a face of pleasure. His touch feels so good in your most sensitive area, you’re moaning as you lift your legs up a little to give him better access. He slides a finger inside you and pumps it in and out, over and over. 

“Oooh, yes please.” You moan and he bites his lip, moving his finger faster. He’s making you very wet and your hand moving on his cock is just making you want him more. He sticks another finger inside of you and continues to work his digits in and out of you, harder now. “Oh shit! Yes! Yes!” You moan, encouraging him, staring up at him with lustful, needy eyes. 

“You want my cock inside of you? Deep, deep inside of you?” He asks you, your cunt soaking wet from the touch of his fingers. 

“Yes! Yes I do! I want your cock deep inside of me, Adam!” You moan loudly and honestly then he retracts his hand from between your thighs, moving it to his cock to transfer the wetness from your pussy to it. 

“Adam, will you sit up against the headboard on the bed? I want to ride you.” You ask him, knowing it would be best to start this way because of how big he is, you can have control at first to get yourself adjusted to his size. 

“Sure, of course.” He says and nods eagerly getting on the bed to sit in the middle with his back against the headboard like you asked. He was typically very dominant in bed, but he just couldn’t say no to you asking to ride him. You climb on top of him and straddle his hips then he guides his cock inside you slowly, filling you all the way up as you slide down on him. 

You can feel every inch of him stretching you out, not moving for a moment to relax yourself around him. His hands are on your hips and his gaze is locked on yours. He tilts his face forward and kisses you longingly to which you return the kiss with passion. Your fingers are woven into his long dark hair while you start to move your hips slowly, it helps that he got you so wet earlier with his fingers. His cock slides in and out of you again and again with ease as you ride him, both of you moaning into each other’s mouths. 

He breaks the kiss with a deep breath, moving his hands down your body behind you to your ass, squeezing your cheeks as they bounce on his dick. Next he does something a bit bold but it’s certainly not unwelcome. He raises his hand and brings it down with a hard smack to your ass cheek, making you moan. 

“You like being spanked? You’re a dirty girl who likes when I spank her ass?” He says while keeping eye contact. You nod quickly and begin to move your hips even faster. 

“Yes I am!” 

"Shit, fuck! You are so fucking tight, Y/N!” He says, feeling like he’s in pure heaven. You grip his shoulders and stop moving for a moment to get on your feet in a squatting position, his cock still buried inside you. You’re so wet as you bounce again harder than before and he reaches his hand to your chest, squeezing your tits. His thumbs rub your nipples adding another sensation of pleasure. He can feel your cunt tightening around his cock, you’re going to cum soon. 

“Yes, yes, yes! Right there! I’m going to cum!” You moan out to him, riding him as quickly as you can.

“Be a good little slut and cum all over my cock!” He orders you and the way he talks to you in such a filthy way turns you on so much. The way you moan when you orgasm and the sounds your cunt makes from how wet it is let’s him know you’ve reached your climax. In a state of pure bliss you nearly lose your balance and Adam helps you get back on your knees. He wraps his arms around you and moves your bodies, lying you down on the bed with him on top of you, still inside you. He supports himself on his knees and grips your thighs, snapping his hips in a quick pace. “You’re such a good little slut for me.”

“Adam, Adam, Adam…” You moan, clawing into the sheets beneath you. This makes him pound you faster and harder, getting himself closer to his own release. You’re moaning so much now that it’s become incoherent, a mixture of jumped words and sounds of pleasure. 

“I’m going to cum.” He says, looking at your eyes. 

“Where do you want to cum?” 

"All over your perfect tits.” He growls. 

“Please cum all over my tits.” You moan, licking your lips and seeing him stare at your tongue while you do it. He stops moving his hips, pulls out of you and kneels next to you, aiming at your chest as he pumps his cock with his hand. He spills out and covers your breasts with his hot sticky cum and you watch his face the entire time he does it. You love knowing that you’re the one who makes him make those kinds of expressions when he cums, that you’re the one who makes him moan like that. He collapses next to you, both of your chests heaving. 

“You’re incredible.” He says to you, making you get that fuzzy and cozy feeling in your chest. 

“So are you.” You reach for his hand and hold it, turning your head to look at his eyes. 

After both of you had a shower, Adam stayed the night and spent the rest of the evening with you. He had to go home sort of early in the morning to prepare for a theater event he had to attend later that day but told you he would call you soon. It wasn’t fun to say goodbye to him, although you knew you simply must. You look forward to seeing him again and perhaps pursuing a relationship with him. Will he be interested in that? You don’t know yet. You can only patiently wait for the next time you’ll get a chance to talk to or see him. 

Hopefully it won’t be too long. 

[philipsgaiamemories]

Soulmates

Fandom: Kamen Rider Zero-One

Relationship: Fuwa Isamu/ Hiden Aruto

Summary: Fuwa never thought he would find his soulmate

Rating: Teen-ish

Notes: Not the happiest with this fic, but I want to write something shorter before I finish the other fic Ive been working on~ Hope you all like!  

He couldn’t believe it…it wasn’t possible… Was it?

After all these years, Fuwa Isamu thought that he would be alone all his life.  By his age, it was expected that he would have found his other half, his soulmate, fated to be with him from birth.  

But, day by day, Fuwa went through life, his whole world gray and dull like dirty film over a lens. While all around him it seemed like everyone was finding their perfect match, color being breathed back into their lives.  At first Fuwa felt almost envious of those couples, randomly finding one another in the street, meeting for the first time like those trashy romance novels teens read. Well…almost.  Now, he just let the gray numbness take over, better to not feel than to get his hopes up.

That is of course until that faithful day.    

-*-*

The dark haired cop found himself at Hiden Intelligence, with an easy job of babysitting their CEO. Running his fingers through his dark hair, Fuwa sighed, the noise of the lobby like a grating static in his mind. The young CEO was supposed to meet him first thing in the morning before going to some important meeting, and since Fuwa was early, he just decided to linger in the open area.   Sliding into an empty seat, the dark haired boy crossed his long legs, his eyes glancing over the crowd.  He felt totally out of place here, surrounded by all these educated, expensive suit wearing business people.  And for all Fuwa knew, the CEO was just like that, surrounding himself by only other suits and important people.  

“Oh, is that President Hiden?”

“Mm?” Fuwa’s ears perked up, hearing the hushed whispers of a pair of women standing close by. Sitting up slowly in the chair, the boy’s dark eyes danced across the room looking for his newest ward.  

“Tsk, I hope he doesn’t tell one of those bad jokes!” The ladies continued to whisper, “He always tells those bad jokes!”

‘Bad jokes?’

A small commotion coming caught Fuwa’s attention, his gaze finally landing on a small group of businessmen walking towards the center of the lobby. Tilting his head, the dark haired bodyguard wondered which one of the suits was the president of the company. As they got closer, he could hear the small crowd groaning together, their faces completely unamused at whatever was being said.

“Eh?...”

Suddenly the sounds of the lobby faded away, replaced by what Fuwa could only compare to the jingling of silver bells.  The dull suits parted just slightly, allowing the bodyguard to see a grinning young man between them, dressed in a suit jacket with a bright hoodie underneath it. The lean brunette eyes sparkled, as his lips parted, and there it was again, that wonderful, beautiful sound. But it wasn’t really bells of course, but the sound of the boy laughing that caused a stir within him.  Fuwa suddenly found himself staring at the boy, at that beaming smile, and those flushed full cheeks.

Wait…it couldn’t be…?!

Fuwa felt the breath being knocked out of his throat, unable to deny that everything suddenly felt different.  His brain was short circuiting, suddenly the noises were now louder, the bright sweatshirt that the CEO was wearing even brighter than before.  It was as if the whole world turned up its intensity by 10!

“Ah!” Sitting up straight, the bodyguard felt his heart thundering his chest, realizing that businessman suddenly turned towards him.  Fuwa’s whole body tingled like it was struck by lightning, their eyes meeting across the space.  Their gaze never broke while the CEO’s full lips parted, speaking to the men next to him before parting ways.  

‘Shit…’ This was going too fast, the lean brunette was making a bee line towards him, ‘He’s coming this way…!’

Fuwa fight or flight instincts suddenly kicked in. He wanted to run off, knowing full well what all of this meant; but at the same time, his body felt heavy underneath that bright curious gaze. He was stuck to the chair, easy prey for the young CEO as he walked up.  

“H-H-hey…”

That voice immediately made Fuwa’s chest feel warm and tight, nervousness filling him.  Normally the man had no problem speaking to people, (they may not like what he had to say of course), but the moment the brunette spoke, the boy felt his mouth go dry.  The words died in his throat, as he took in the boy standing in front of him, staring shamelessly as his mouth gaped.  The young CEO’s bright eyes danced underneath his brunette hair, his plump boyish cheeks flushed from his earlier laughing.  

‘…Cute…’

The boy’s lower lip stuck out, his eyebrows furrowing in distress with Fuwa’s silence, “Hey…you ok?”

No. No, Fuwa wasn’t ok, not in the very least.  How could he be when even pouting, the CEO was just…irresistible?  

Taking a deep breath, the boy finally managed to murmur, “I-I’m ok…Hello Mr. President.”

That frown immediately turned right side up, his whole face beaming with the soft words.  Shaking his head, the brunette chuckled softly, the sound of silver bells dancing in Fuwa’s ears.

“…Aw come on…don’t be like that!”  

Sparks shot down Fuwa’s spine as the lean boy reached down wrapping his petite warm hands around his own. Giving it a gentle tug, the bodyguard was coaxed to his feet, letting his grip linger a little longer before letting go.

“…You can see it too right?! Everything is…brighter? You’re it huh? My soulmate!” The boy eagerly said, “I’m Hiden Aruto! What’s your name?!-“

“Sir?”

The two looked up, realizing that a dark haired girl with one of those humangear headpieces appeared next to them.  Their moment suddenly ruined, Fuwa broke his gaze, taking a small step away from the lean boy. Biting his lower lip, the boy felt overwhelmed with emotion, a mix of annoyance and relief filling him.  He hated that this stranger broke into their private conversation, but at the same time it gave him a moment to really take in what was happening.  

Hiden Aruto…was his soulmate?…

“The meeting.”

“Ah yes! Um, Fuwa-san…”

His name on the boys lips, sent a shudder down the bodyguard’s spine, as if a fingertip dragged gently down his back.  He turned his gaze back to Aruto, who looked at him with these impossibly wide and curious eyes.  The CEO looked like he wanted to say so much, but with the girl there next to him he dropped their conversation entirely.

“Of course Sir, please let me lead you to the car.”  And Fuwa decided it was easier to just let it go too.  

Escorting the young CEO to his car was easy, but the moment they got into the enclosed space of the vehicle Fuwa knew he was in trouble.  The brunette sat in the center of the backseat, the bodyguard forced to sit next to him. It was still too soon for the dark haired bodyguard, so he turned his gaze out of the window and the passing cars.

Gods, was why was it so warm in the car?! And what was that delicious scent?!

“Ah! Sorry!”

Turning his head, Fuwa felt something bump up against his shoulder as the car turned a corner. Looking over, he watched as Aruto sat up straight, his head lifting to slyly meet Fuwa’s gaze.  Locking their gaze, the boy blushed hotly, wondering if was the only one who was feeling this way.  It should have been obvious, that the light scent of lavender filling his nose, and the warmth was coming from the lean boy next to him.  The gaze was so overwhelming Aruto’s dark eyes sparkling with unspoken words, that Fuwa had to turn away, pretending that something interesting was happening outside the window.  

Fuwa could almost feel the anxiety, mixed with just a rush of jumbled emotions that made his chest tight. Was this what being soulmates felt like?!

The car ride took forever, and the business meeting much longer.  Fuwa was no stranger to boring meetings that seemed to last forever, but this one was especially unbearable.  As the stuffy businessmen talked and attempted to negotiate, the bodyguard stood in the side watching everyone with practiced disinterest.  But disinterested was far from what the dark haired boy was, his eyes lingering on the lean brunette at the head of the table.  He noticed sunbeams pouring into the room from the window bouncing off the boys hair, giving it a warm caramel look.  And every second that passed the bodyguard could feel the young businessman’s emotions radiating from him like the sun. Fuwa could tell he was getting impatient, the boy’s voice carrying an edge to it, even though he continued with his energetic and polite conversation.  Could no one else hear it?  Could no one tell he was growing impatient with the meeting?

And how did no one notice those stolen glances he was sending Fuwa out of the corner of his eye? Secret looks that just screamed, ‘get me out of here’.  Not to mention that impossibly endearing blush that crossed his face when Aruto noticed Fuwa watching him.  

Finally after what felt like hours, the young CEO completed his contract with those stuffy businessmen, providing them with humangear for their company.  It was a successful trip for the boys company, so he chatted with his secretary in the car, giving her instructing her on their next steps. Fuwa was relieved though, because that meant Aruto’s attention wasn’t on him.  

It was already bad enough that he could feel the boys knees brushing up against him, reminding Fuwa how achingly close Aruto’s warm body was.  And how the brunette’s voice caressing his ears, as if the boy was right against them

Ugh, how much longer?!

Fuwa was beginning to get anxious by the end of the car ride, being in such close proximity to the other driving him crazy.  Aruto’s inviting warmth and scent taunted him, filled all of the dark haired bodyguard senses.  He had to resist, all of this had to be a mistake, the brunette was a CEO, and all he was…was a bodyguard.

Yes, if he just ignored it…it might just go away…

“Sir, we’re here!”

Sliding out of the expensive car, Fuwa turned to bow at the businessman before excusing himself, hoping to quickly leave.  If he was able to get away, maybe he could get away from the irresistible calling of the soul bond.

“Fuwa-san…“

Damn, Fuwa felt his heart tighten, Aruto’s voice causing him to stop right in his tracks.  Running his fingers through his dark curly hair, the boy tried to sound calm and composed.  “Yeah Pres?”

“Escort me up to the office?”

“Eh?” A soft surprised noise fell from Fuwa’s lips, his eyebrow lifting at the sudden request. “Oh…yeah… sure.”

With a few soft words, Aruto dismissed his secretary before motioning the other to follow him. Unable to resist the two walked through the lobby in silence, an air of anxiety between them as they entered into a special elevator after the CEO swiped a card next to the entrance. Motioning the other to follow him into the small space, the two entered Aruto’s private elevator.  

‘Shit…shit…’ The whole day, Fuwa was able to avoid having this conversation but Aruto was not giving him much choice. “Pres. I-“

“Let’s talk in my office…” Aruto cut him off, a bright smile crossing his face. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day, and no one will disturb us there!”

Biting his bottom lip, the bodyguard shifted anxiously in place, the soft humming of the elevator filling his ears.  Fuwa didn’t want to be left alone with the CEO though, the whole day he had been trying to deal with these new emotions and now the has to face them head on. Finally, a soft ding alerted the two that they reached their destination.  As the door slid open, Aruto exited first, leaving Fuwa to follow in his footsteps right into the spacious office. The whole place was bright and sun filled, giving it the same warm feeling that Aruto emitted.  Simple yet elegant couches filled the space, and in the middle was an expensive looking desk covered in a mix of paperwork and…toys?

“Fuwa-san?”

Suddenly, small hands took hold of his jacket sleeve, forcing the bodyguard to turn his attention back to the lean brunette.  Their eyes locked, and suddenly Fuwa forgot how to breathe, those brownie eyes searching his. Aruto’s body was once again too close, making Fuwa’s heart rush in his chest.

“You’ve been avoiding me all day…can’t you…feel this?”

Fuwa’s lips parted, a soft noise escaping his throat; of course he could, how could he not?!

Aruto gave the fabric an insistent tug his eyes widening, “I never thought I would just meet my other half just like that! I mean…isn’t it just fate?!”

The boy kept babbling, going on and on about how everything felt different now, and how he finally understood what it meant to find your ‘soul mate’.  It was all too much, all too fast!  

“Pres!”  Fuwa’s voice came out a lot like a bark, cutting Aruto off. “Pres, just…stop.  This can’t be right!”

Reaching down, the dark haired boy took the CEO’s soft hand gently pulling it away from his suit jacket. Taking a deep breath, Fuwa tried to ignore the electricity that ran through him with the simple touch before letting go. Gods, his hands were so soft, reflecting his gentle work, nothing like Fuwa’s, dotted with rough callouses from his job.  

“Pres…this can’t be right…I…” Running his fingers through his messy hair in irritation, the boy grunted, “I am just a bodyguard, and you’re-“

“I’m Aruto!” The boy stuck out his bottom lip in a pout, emphasizing his name. “Hi-den A-ru-to. It doesn’t matter that I am some CEO, what matters is…what matters is that…I…”

Aruto’s face flushed the most wonderful shade of pink, before murmuring, “…want to…kiss you…”

“K-Kiss?”

Fuwa almost felt his legs give out underneath him with that admittance, the breath knocked out of his lungs.  He…wanted to kiss him?  His face immediately felt hot with the thought, a shameless noise escaping him. Unable to control himself, Fuwa’s dark eyes lowered down, once again glancing at Aruto’s full lips.  Just watching the young CEO shyly shifted in place, his eyes wide waiting for Fuwa’s response, made him weak.  It was unfair how charming it was, and how easy it was for Aruto to cause such an intense reaction in the bodyguard.  

Fuwa had never wanted to kiss someone so badly as he did at that second.  

“I…” Fuwa’s mouth was dry as he struggled to form the words, “I…want to kiss you too…”

The bodyguard barely got to enjoy Aruto’s bright smile, before he felt petite hands cupping his face. Suddenly electricity shot down his spine, soft lips now pressed up against Fuwa’s in a clumsy kiss.  The bodyguard’s mind short circuited, gods, Aruto’s lips were just as soft as he imagined!

“Mm…” Unable to control himself, Fuwa’s hands found themselves clutching onto the boys colorful sweatshirt pulling their bodies closer.  A soft hiss escaped the bodyguard, feeling Aruto shudder against him, the CEO’s small arms wrapping around his neck.  It was all fuel for Fuwa, urging him on as he greedily savored the taste of the boys lips.  Had kissing always been this…good?!

No…It wasn’t as if the dark haired boy kissed a lot of people, but this…this was different. Even though they had just met, the two kissed like their lives depended on it.

The moment Aruto’s lips parted, Fuwa took advantage, aggressively sliding his tongue against the other.  And with every pass of his tongue, the bodyguard was reward with soft gasps and whimpers from the brunette.  He couldn’t get enough of the boys taste, the noises, and the sweet way his fingers curled into Fuwa’s curls.  It was all so electrifying, that the dark haired boy subconsciously pulled at the boys hoodie even more, trying to urge Aruto closer.  In the distance, Fuwa could hear things being knocked around, but he couldn’t seem to be bothered with it. Especially since the young CEO didn’t resist the slightly rough treatment, melting against the other kissing the other with just as much fervor.  

“Ah…”  The sound of panting rose between the two as Fuwa was forced to pull away from Aruto’s lips.  But he didn’t fully want to let go of the kiss, so unable to help himself from gently sinking his teeth into the boys soft lips. Softly gasping for breath, the dark haired bodyguard forced air back into his burning lungs before slowly opening his eyes.  “Ah…”

Shit…

When his eyes finally focused, he was met with the warm brownie gaze of Aruto, now glazed over from their intense kiss.  The CEO’s face was flushed a beautiful pink, lips parted, wet and swollen, giving Aruto a wonderfully ravished look.  The long eye flashes of the brunette fluttered closed as the boy silently inviting the other to continue.  Fuwa’s immediately wanted to take Aruto up on the offer for the kiss, and draw out more of those cute noises he was making, but something was off…

Fuwa’s mind struggled to pull itself out of the fog, focusing enough to figure out what was wrong. Instantly the boy knew what was wrong; the young brunette was now not at eyelevel with the bodyguard.  How did-…

Oh…

It finally dawned on him, what exactly happened while they were kissing.  The two had moved blindly around the office until they were at Aruto’s modern desk…with Aruto somehow now perched on its edge.  Fuwa’s cheeks burned, finding himself nestled in between the lean legs of the brunette, hands pressing into his sides, pinning him to the table.  It was becoming painfully obvious that those sounds that he had heard, was from Fuwa lifted Aruto and unceremoniously placed the CEO on top of his desk; shoving everything else out of the way.

“Pres-…I…” The dark haired bodyguard’s mouth dropped slightly, embarrassment washing over him.   “I-I’m sorry I don’t know what came over me!”

Fuwa tried to move away from the CEO, but the boy kept his grip around the bodyguard’s neck keeping him still.  

Aruto tilted his head, brunette hair falling into his darkened eyes.  “…Why are you apologizing…”

Swallowing hard, the hot-headed bodyguard felt heat pooling within him, the CEO’s voice now breathy and soft.

“…Fuwa…please…you’re my soul mate…”

The words sent a shiver down the bodyguards spine, his heart skipping in his chest feeling the need radiating from the lean CEO.  

“…Don’t reject me…” Aruto whispered, “Please…”

He should know better, Fuwa’s mind screamed at him that the brunette was a CEO, and that he was just a bodyguard for hire with nothing to offer…that it couldn’t be possible that they were meant to be… but…

Fuwa leaned in, his fingers tightening around the boys clothes before roughly capturing Aruto’s lips, wrapping himself in the warmth of the boys arms.  A sudden swell of defiance rose within in, so what if he had nothing to offer and they wouldn’t make sense? He couldn’t deny his body’s immediate reaction to the cute CEO, every kiss sending sparks of lightening down his spine.  The bodyguard had never felt such a need to be so close, to touch and explore another person like this before.  

In between kisses, Fuwa softly whispered, “…If…you want me Pres…”  

‘I’m yours…’ His heart ached with the thought, unable to form the words with his lips.  

A sudden thrum of warm emotion emanating from Aruto pulsed through the bodyguard, the CEO smiling against Fuwa’s mouth.  It was almost sweet how easy it was to read the cute brunette, every kiss screamed his need for the other.  

He couldn’t believe it, they had just met this morning, and already the dark haired boy could feel the other’s emotions as clear as his own.  

Aruto…Aruto the CEO…was HIS soulmate.  Was his, and he was never going to let him go.  

[kpoptimeout]

My Top 10 K-Dramas of 2020 - What’s Yours?

2020 has ended after feeling like it was never ending and K-Dramaland has once again brought us so many goodies this year. As per our blog’s tradition [For 2019 faves click here], below are my Top 10 favs of the year (my faves in alphabetical order so it might not be yours so please don’t judge). (For our blog’s 2020 music ratings, click here!)

My only specific criteria is that the show must have had started in 2020 to be considered a 2020 series but like last year, I have allowed one drama starting very late in 2019 to make the list.

Without further ado, check the list below!

Crash Landing On You (tvN/Netflix)

While it started in December 2019, “Crash Landing On You” is certainly the Rom-Com of the year that swept the world by storm. It was possibly the K-Drama most people knew about and everyone rejoiced when the leads Hyun Bin and Son Yejin admitted to being a couple on 1 January 2021. 

One might say “Crash Landing On You” has generic plot - two people from vastly different worlds meeting through a crazy accident and developing feelings as a result, the choice of using North and South Korea as the two worlds provided unique social commentary and the opportunity for lots of interesting shenanigans. This is not the first series to feature a romance between a North and South Korean lead (see 2012’s “The King 2 Hearts”, which was also stellar), but it is definitely a more light-hearted take which is fun to watch. Additionally, the series is filled with fleshed out and lovable side characters.

While North Korean refugees interviewed by media outlets point out that the typical North Korean captain would not have the looks of Hyun Bin, most of them agree that the production team did their research as the everyday life of typical North Koreans were recreated quite accurately - from the types of furniture and household appliances they use, to the type of K-Dramas they watch in secret.

If you enjoy a good Rom-Com and an interesting premise, this is the K-Drama for you!

Extracurricular (Netflix)

Being a Netflix only series with no counterpart on Korean television, “Extracurricular” was able to explore the dark side of South Korean youth life which is not discussed on traditional South Korean media platforms. We are thrown into the life of a nerdy high school student played by Kim Dong Hee, who is actually effectively abandoned by his family and making ends meet secretly as an illegal prostitution ring mastermind.

The story unravels as the star student played by So Minhee discovers the schemes of Kim Dong Hee’s character and begins to blackmail him. Not to give too many spoilers, but it will prove difficult to balance his double life and the whole journey is captured superbly by the main cast’s stellar acting.

If you are a fan of dark and realistic teen dramas, this is the series for you!

Hospital Playlist (tvN/Netflix)

The team behind the “Reply” series and “Prison Playbook” returns with a few familiar faces so we all knew when the trailers dropped that we were in for a treat. As expected, the fabulous acting of the main cast, the wonderful storylines and also medically accurate procedures (according to my doctor friends), combined to make “Hospital Playlist” one of the most endearing dramas of the year.

Set in the fictional Yulje Medical Centre, we follow the lives of 5 doctors who met in college and their respective medical teams. Jo Jung-suk acts as a prankster and fun dad who is also a genius doctor. Yoo Yeon-seok plays a pediatric surgeon who is dead set on becoming a priest. Jung Kyung-ho acts as a cardiologist who seems cold-hearted (pun intended), but of course isn’t really. Kim Dae-myung plays a gynaecologist who is a mummy’s boy and has family drama galore. And finally Jeon Mi-do completes the set as a neurosurgeon who is lowkey the only adult in the friend group and who everyone wants to be when they grow up.

The drama throws us into the day to day runnings in the hospital without too much introductions and it actually made the characters all the more real because it was like we were just casually witnessing their everyday lives. The realisms of the show is furthered by the fact that even side characters like nurses and medical students have meaningful storylines of their own. We honestly cannot wait for Season 2 to air in May 2021!

Itaewon Class (JTBC/Netflix)

A remake of a popular Webtoon, “Itaewon Class” is a feel-good David and Goliath story where the male lead played by Park Seojun goes on a journey to avenge his father and chooses to do so without bending his morals at any point in time and making many friends along the way.

This series stood out by providing very diverse lead characters including a sociopath, a former convict, a trans woman, an illegitimate son and a Blasian trying to find acceptance in South Korea. All their stories highlight the different social issues and the stigmas many face navigating through life and is touching and relatable in many ways.

If you love a show with a positive social message, this is the show for you!

Sweet Home (Netflix)

Another webtoon remake by Netflix, “Sweet Home” follows a group of survivors in an apartment complex after all hell breaks loose in South Korea, as people begin to transform into monsters based on their greatest fears and regrets. 

Every character has interesting backstories that are slowly revealed as they try to survive together, while battling monsters that are generated by the team behind many Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters. The main cast led by Song Kang, Lee Jin Wook, Lee Siyoung and Lee Dohyun also acted extremely well, with Lee Siyoung grabbing a lot of attention with her ripped superhero physique. Kim Namhee also had a breakout performance as the survivor who favours a Korean sword and hopefully would continue to get more roles following years playing minor characters.

If you enjoy apocalypse thrillers that explore human nature, you would love “Sweet Home”!

The Uncanny Counter (OCN/Netflix)

Okay, Netflix is really funding all the webtoon adaptions because “The Uncanny Counter” is yet another one. Currently the highest rated OCN drama in the cable channel’s history, this webtoon adaption follows a disabled orphaned teenage boy who gains superpowers and joins a demon-banishing team of other super-powered beings (who own a noodle shop on the side) called the Counters, while the mystery of his parents’ death plays a key role in the story.

This somewhat cliché set-up is done in a fun and enjoyable way and it is great to see the talented Jo Byung Gyu finally cast as a male lead! Kim Sejeong has also further improved in her acting and is a loveable badass in this series. 

If you love a ghost/spirit busting mystery and just the superhero genre in general, you would enjoy “The Uncanny Counter”!

VIP (SBS)

“VIP” is a drama following a luxury brand’s VIP service team. While it has office drama, intrigue and power plays in almost every episode, it is arguably more of a drama about womanhood than anything else. With 4 female leads, 3 of whom are in their late 30s, the series accurately depicts the concerns women face reaching that age, whether they are married or unmarried, with children or not. 

Jang Nara plays a successful business woman and a co-worker to her husband played by Lee Sang Yoon. Born in a privileged background with a seemingly loving husband, all seems well until she has suspicions of her husband having an affair. This drives her to investigate and through her findings, she instead uncovers more stories of her other female co-workers, like the rumour-tainted but very cool section chief played by Lee Chungah and the stressed and depressed mother of two played by Kwak Sunyoung.

If you want a spicy office drama that also has meaningful discussions about working women in South Korea, VIP is the best drama for that!

The World of the Married (JTBC)

Overtaking JTBC’s “Sky Castle” to be highest rated cable TV K-Drama of all time, this 2020 production also by JTBC is a remake of BBC series “Doctor Foster” but highly localised to fit the Korean narrative.

Kim Hee-ae plays a successful doctor with a film director husband and a teenage son. Her life seems picture perfect until she discovers her husband’s infidelity. But unlike in “VIP”, where the female lead actually bonds with other women along the way, Kim Hee-ae’s character would quickly learn that she was in fact betrayed by everyone around her - they all knew her husband was cheating and have been pretty supportive of this whole affair.

While highly dramatised, the suspicions of the husband’s infidelity, the discovery, the subsequent divorce and schemes for revenge are all done tastefully and is a reason why it struck a chord with the general public, especially married women watching the show.

If you love mess and chaos and seeing douchebags destroyed, “World of the Married” is the perfect drama for you!

18 Again (JTBC)

JTBC really has a knack for remakes. This remake of the movie “17 Again” starring Zac Efron is also adapted seamlessly to fit Korean culture and social issues e.g. teen pregnancy, divorce, women’s careers after being a parent and parent-child relations. 

Kim Haneul and Yoon Sanghyun truly acted out the energy of a long-married couple and Lee Dohyun did extremely well in encapsulating Yoon Sanghyun’s mannerism as his de-aged counterpart. This boy is truly on a roll this year (he is also in “Sweet Home”). Also, the younger cast of this show were also very likeable and well flesh-outed and by the end of the series you are rooting for all of them to do well.

If you love a slice of life drama with a little fantastical element, you would love “18 Again”!

365: Repeat the Year (MBC)

Based on the Japanese novel “Repeat” by Kurumi Inui, “365 Days: Repeat the Year” follows this social experiment where 10 individuals are given the opportunity to travel 1 year back in time. As all 10 individuals try to remedy their mistakes and become better people, the experiment takes a sinister turn as the time-travellers begin to die one after another.

The veteran detective played by Lee Joohyuk and the mystery webtoon artist played by Nam Jihyun team up together with other time travellers to uncover the secrets behind travelling back in time and learn about the past lives of everyone chosen for the project.

If you enjoy a well-thought out time-travelling series that involves some alternate reality battle royale shenanigans, this is the series for you!

Honourable Mentions:

Kingdom (Season 2) (Netflix): The ancient zombie drama is back and still as strong as ever - one of the best zombie series on air right now.

Start-Up (tvN/Netflix): Loveable rom-com set in the start-up world in South Korea with one of the most hotly debated love triangles in this year’s K-Drama world.

Hi Bye, Mama! (tvN/Netflix): When a woman reincarnates to meet her husband and child again 5 years after her tragic death, only to find he has since remarried.

What’s your Top 10 K-Dramas of the Year? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below and may the drama sharing begin (and the road to more excuse for holiday procrastination!)

Also, if you want to check out underrated K-Pop songs of 2020, here are the lists for idol songs and artist songs. 

[demifiendrsa]

The Walking Dead comic book series ends with issue #193.

Robert Kirkman’s letter to fans with spoilers for the final issue omitted:

"This is the end of The Walking Dead.

"That's it... it's over... we're done.

"I'm sure you have a million questions... and I'm sure you feel as emotional about this as we do... if not more so. I'm completely willing to bet some of you are angry over this. I get it... I do. I mean... WHY didn't we announce this so that fans would have some time to prepare?

"Well... personally... I hate knowing what's coming. As a fan, I hate it when I realize I'm in the third act of a movie and the story is winding down. I hate that I can count commercial breaks and know I’m nearing the end of a TV show. I hate that you can FEEL when you’re getting to the end of a book, or a graphic novel.

"Some of the BEST episodes of Game of Thrones are when they’re structured in such a way and paced to perfection so your brain can’t tell if it’s been watching for 15 minutes or 50 minutes... and when the end comes... you’re STUNNED.

"I love LONG movies for that very reason. You lose track of time because you went in convinced that you’re going to be there for a long time, but the story moves at such an entertaining and engaging pace that by the time the movie’s wrapping up... you can’t believe it’s already over. SURPRISE, it’s over!

"All I’ve ever done, all a creator can really do... is tailor-make stories to entertain themselves, and hope the audience feels the same way. That’s all I’ve ever been doing... and it seems to work most of the time.

"THE WALKING DEAD has always been built on surprise. Not knowing what’s going to happen when you turn the page, who’s going to die, how they’re going to die... it’s been ESSENTIAL to the success of this series. It’s been the lifeblood that’s been keeping it going all these years, keeping people engaged.

"It just felt WRONG and against the very nature of this series not to make the actual end as surprising as all the big deaths... from Shane all the way to Rick.

"To be honest... it seemed like a really good idea at the time, but now that we’re here and the series is over, I’m having second thoughts. Not so much so that I’m changing course... that would be kind of impossible to do anyway. But... it’s possible, as much as I hate to admit it, that I’m genuinely feeling a sense of regret over this whole crazy plan.

"I want you to see what went into this though, I want you to understand why, if that’s possible. I feel like you all deserve at least that. So let’s pull the curtain back in a way... well, I usually try not to do. When it comes to the end of this series... here’s how the sausage got made.

"Way back in early 2015, Charlie Adlard turned in the cover for issue #142. He had taken my direction, of showing happy people at the Alexandria fair, the booths, the commerce... a very civilized scene, and he’d worked wonders with the concept. It was a cover unlike anything that had come before. To me, it was a real turning point for this series.

"The thing is... this was over four years ago at this point... but I knew pretty much every big story point that was going to happen all the way up to this final issue. A couple years prior, around 2013 or so, I’d even told Charlie at San Diego Comic-Con what the gist of this final issue was. [...] I just didn’t know exactly what issue that story would fall in. I knew the end... but I didn’t know where it would fall. I figured... somewhere past issue #300. As I’ve said publicly... I’ve always wanted to reach that number, that big, round Cerebus number that all the insane indy comics creators try to chase.

"But when I saw the cover to #142... it dawned on me. 'Oh, s***... we’re already at the fair! The Commonwealth is just around the corner... and... oh, man... there’s no WAY I’m going to make it to issue #300.' It was the first time I realized that I just didn’t have enough story worked out to get there. I didn’t know exactly how long we’d fight the Whisperers or how long we’d be spending in the Commonwealth before Rick would bring about his own demise... but I knew the whole run wouldn’t be another 150 issues.

"I started working things out... trying to figure out how long things would run... and it dawned on me... I had about 50 issues until I got to my planned end. I always have to keep collections in mind. Now that we do 48-issue compendiums (that are very popular, our most popular format), it would be really irresponsible to wrap this series up in a way that resulted in compendium readers having to buy a different format to finish the series. So I was happy that it appeared things would work out where this series would wrap up nicely in the fourth compendium.

"But I wasn’t quite sure it was time to wrap things up.

"I love writing this series. It’s been my life’s dream. So when I first came to this realization... my first instinct was, 'Well, I just need to come up with more story'. I even spent a few weeks trying to come up with new plot, new story detours to push the ending I had in mind back and keep things going... for a while, possibly even a long while... an extra compendium, maybe two.

"And... again, pulling the curtain back... this has happened before. I’d already abandoned one planned ending to keep the series going. Yep... that’s an exclusive I’ve never revealed anywhere.

"Let’s go off on a tangent for a moment. When the story got to Alexandria in issue #72, things were going to go pretty much as they did; Rick and his crew were going to have trouble fitting in because of everything they’d been through. That would lead to conflict within Alexandria, and it would eventually lead to Rick taking over. The big storyline NO WAY OUT ended with Rick proclaiming that Alexandria was a place worth fighting for, that they could no longer keep moving from place to place... they had to take a stand, lay down roots and start building from there. Their nomad days were behind them.

"Well, for years... that had been planned to be... the end. Rick would make his proclamation, and the speech would end with a big close-up on Rick’s face, you’d turn the page, and Rick’s face would be the same, only it was a statue... and you’d zoom out and see the full statue with some vines growing on the bottom of it... cracks forming... and you’d realize that it was quite OLD.

"We’d keep zooming out until we saw that the statue was in Alexandria, the same place where he gave the speech, but it was different. It was old and rundown, broken windows and missing doors. We would keep zooming out until a zombie walked by, then another... and we’d see that Rick had brought them to Alexandria, given this grand speech about rebuilding civilization and SUCCEEDED to the point that they built a statue to honor him... but in the end, the dead won, society crumbled again, this time seemingly for good... and that was it.

"It was a TERRIBLE ending. Bleak, sad... made the whole story pointless. What can I say... I was young and most of the endings I wrote or came up with way back then... were pretty bleak. So that ending... in hindsight was embarrassingly bad, but more than that, I wasn’t ready to end this series. Not by a long shot.

"You have to understand, when I started writing this series, I had no clue I’d make it to issue #12. So the thought of having a book that ran 100 issues was insane. So when this book really took off in its second year, I was able to make far reaching plans for the future, but even at that point, a 100-issue run still seemed impossible.

"So when I found myself staring down the barrel of a completed 100-issue series, I just wasn’t ready to let go. I was having too much fun. Think about how things would have gone if I’d wrapped things up then... no Negan, no Ezekiel, no All Out War, no time jump, no Magna, no Whisperers, no Commonwealth, no Princess... and a really crummy ending to boot.

"To top it off... shortly after I scrapped that planned ending and decided to keep going, I came up with pretty much the exact ending of this issue, which I felt was much more fitting and rewarding.

"I’m glad I made the decision I did back then. I have no regrets.

"This time though, things were very different. As I worked to come up with ways to expand the story, none of it felt right. Everything felt like an unnecessary detour... it was, for lack of a better word, filler. The harder I tried to come up with new places to go, the clearer it was to me that this is what this story needed... it needed to end.

"So like I said... it seemed like a good idea at the time. FOUR YEARS ago this plan seemed rock solid. Never tell anyone, keep it secret, and even go as far as soliciting fake issues that will never exist so that we can really surprise people. Oh, man... I thought this was going to be great.

"I worked it out with Charlie right away. He’d always been pushing to end on a high note. He was with me, all the way, as long as I didn’t run this series into the ground. Charlie just wanted to make this book special. If I had a solid plan for 300 issues, he’d have made it happen, but if I started turning in stories Charlie thought were lame... I would have heard about it and he’d have convinced me to end the series. So when we talked about the plan, Charlie was excited, his fear of us overstaying our welcome and keeping this book going well past its popularity were quelled.

"I’ll say it again, I love (loved... oh, god, I’m not ready for past tense) writing this series. I really don’t want it to end. In fact, I’ve been... kind of unsettled since I wrote the script for this issue. The whole thing just feels... weird.

"In a way, killing this series has been a lot like killing a major character. Much, much harder... but the same feeling. I don’t WANT to do it. I’d rather keep going... but the story is telling me what it wants and what it needs. This needs to happen. Whether I want it or not.

"It just feels right... while also feeling... terrible.

"The main point of all this is... well, I’m scared. Most of my professional life has been spent on this series. Countless hours are dedicated to this, month in and month out. More than anything in the last 16 years... this is going to fundamentally change my life. So I’m terrified.

"When my fingers typed out “THE END” on the keyboard as I finished this script... I thought I’d feel relief, or some sliver of pride in a job well done, but it was really just... dread. I wasn’t ready for it to be over... but it was.

"It is.

"Oddly, as unsure as I feel about ending the story, I feel confident in how I ended it. [...]

"I hope it makes you happy, too. Even if you’re upset at not getting to spend time in this world anymore.

"I’m upset, too. I’m going to miss it as much as you will, if not more so. It breaks my heart that I had to end it, and we have to move on... but I just love this world too much to stretch things out until it doesn’t live up to what I want it to be.

"I hope you understand.

"I hope you, dear reader, know how much I appreciate the gift you have given me. I got to tell my story exactly how I wanted to, for 193 issues, and end it on my terms, with no interference at all along the way... at any point. That’s such a rare thing, and it doesn’t exist without the unyielding support this series got from readers like you. Thank you so much.

"Thank you, Tony Moore, for drawing the first six issues. Thank you, Cliff Rathburn, for countless hours spent shaping black and white art with gray tones. Thank you, Rus Wooton, for turning my words into art month after month. Thank you, Stefano Gaudiano, for shaping Charlie’s pencils for nearly 100 issues. Thank you, Aubrey Sitterson and Sina Grace, for your time keeping this insanity in check. Thank you, Sean Mackiewicz, for seeing this project all the way to the end, despite thinking each compendium would be your last... and, y’know, doing a great job along the way. Thank you, Arielle Basich, for keeping Sean sane and doing the heavy lifting. Thank you, Andres Juarez, for keeping this book looking fresh after being on the shelf for over a decade. Thank you, Carina Taylor, for doing your part to do the same. Thank you, Dave Stewart, for making Charlie’s art pop on comic shelves the world over. Thank you, Dave McCaig, for you know what. Thank you, Ryan Ottley, for that amazing art in issue #75 that may never get collected. Thank you, Cory Walker, for your wise council before I even started this series. Thank you, Jim Valentino, for so many things, including saying, “Change the title so you can own it.” Thank you, Shawn Kirkham, for always having an ear to the ground for what this world needs. Thank you to the team at Skybound, who work tirelessly to bring you everything THE WALKING DEAD you could ever want and more. Thank you, Erik Larsen, for the undying support, even to this day. Thank you, Eric Stephenson, for the years of strategy sessions that made this series a continued success. Thank you to the evolving staff at Image Comics that was invaluable over the last decade and a half... especially the accounting department. Thank you, David Alpert, for your part in turning this into a truly worldwide, multimedia phenomenon, and all that came with it and somehow so much more than that. Thank you, Shep Rosenman and Lee Rosenbaum, for crossing the Ts and dotting the Is so I can keep all my Ts and not lose my Is. Thank you, Chris Simonian, for going to war and winning. Thank you, Allen Grodsky, for going to war and winning. Thank you, John Campisi and the team at CAA, for continuing the fight. Thank you, Frank Darabont, for going into House of Secrets in Burbank and saying, 'This one.' Thank you, Gale Anne Hurd, for helping turn “this one” into something real. Thank you, Charles H. Eglee, for being the original showrunner and setting us up for success. Thank you, Jack LoGiudice, for making me feel welcome in the writer’s room on day one... by being mean to me in the most entertaining ways. Thank you, Glen Mazzara, for keeping the fire warm. Thank you, Scott Gimple, for taking the show to new heights and for caring enough to say, 'No spoilers, dear God, no more spoilers.' Thank you, Angela Kang, for the future and beyond. Thank you, Greg Nicotero, for making the zombies (er, walkers) REAL. Thank you, Chris Hardwick, for telling the world every week that there’s a comic book worth checking out. Thank you to the ten thousand people who work on the now FOUR TV shows based on THE WALKING DEAD for pouring their hearts into this and loving this world as much if not more than I do.

"But most of all, thank you, Charlie Adlard, for sitting at the table, day in and day out, and devoting more hours to THE WALKING DEAD than anyone. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner. It’s been a dream come true to get to shape this world together, with you. This never would have happened without you. I can’t believe we made it all the way to the end, my friend.

"Oh my god... I can’t believe it’s really over."

-Robert Kirkman"

[alydiarackham]

(cover by me)

How to Be a Hero Like a Villain by Alydia Rackham

Introduction

I’m Basically a Geek

                 Hi. Yeah, so, it’s true. I’m a geek. Have been forever. I really had no shot at being otherwise. My mom raised my brother and I on musicals and Star Wars and Star Trek and Disney. Growing up, I read loads of YA sci-fi novels—again, lots of Star Wars—and then when Marvel started making movies, I got into X-Men and then Iron Man, Thor (my major crush on Loki still remains alive), Captain America, then Batman; all that jazz. I’m also a Disney fanatic and a theatre nerd.

I was an English major in college, am in love with Tolkien and Austen and Dickens and Doyle, and adore all things Victorian. My friend Jaicee introduced me to Vampire Diaries and Originals (which are both compelling studies in heroics and villainy, let me tell you). I’ve written tons of fanfiction, in addition to loads of original novels. I write in all genres, mostly because I get hooked on a good story, good characters, no matter the setting—though I do have a weakness for an epic story arc, flawed heroes and of course, powerful villains. Right now, I’m on the 5th book in my fairy tale retellings series. So far, I’ve retold “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Snow Queen,” “The Little Mermaid,”—and then I did a totally-original one about a Curse-Maker, from the POV of…yep, the villain! At the moment, I’m working on a retelling of the legend of King Arthur, called “Excalibor.” It’s a blast.

               As you might imagine, I am intrigued most of all by character. I enjoy reading about the great ones, and inhabiting the interesting ones in my own writing. Flat romantic interests and motivation-less villains drive me nuts. I’m fascinated by a character’s inner workings, his history, his motivation, his mannerisms, his relationships, his skills, his style, the way he presents himself to the world. My brother and I love analyzing plot holes and devices and flaws and symbolism and insights. (Our after-movie discussions can get very animated, and last for hours.)

               Often, we find ourselves yelling things at the Hero on the screen like “For crying out loud, don’t do that! Don’t go in there! Stop wasting your time! Watch out—don’t you know what’s in there?” We easily see the choices that the Hero makes that are flawed, impulsive, or just plain stupid.

               But very rarely do we notice such things about the Villain. A good one, anyway.

               The Villain takes us by surprise. He startles us. He’s two steps ahead. He already has the device, he’s laid the trap, he’s captured the girlfriend, he’s destroyed the evidence. (Cancer Man in X-Files makes me absolutely want to scream because of this stuff.)

               Why is that? How did he know? How is he doing this?? It drives us crazy—and yet, we reluctantly have to admire the greats for being such awesome masterminds.

               So…how are the Villains so successful? Sure, we could shrug it off and say, “Well, he’s a super-genius, what do you expect?” But that’s too easy, and frankly, it’s doing a great disservice to our Evil Neighborhood Menace. In fact, with everything we see, and with the Hero making such rash and stupid decisions, oftentimes it’s a wonder that the Hero even lives, let alone triumphs in the end.

               And actually, in real life, that’s often true. The Hero does die or fail, and the Villain lives and prospers. Why?

               What is it that the Villain is doing that the Hero is not doing, which makes him successful? Again, the easy and lazy answer is “He kills people to get what he wants, he lies, he steals.” Okay, sure. What you’re describing is a garden-variety thug. Somebody who gets caught in Spiderman’s webs every weekend.

You are not describing a Super-Villain.

There’s something about a Super-Villain—a really great one—that keeps him in the game, that makes him a serious threat to the Hero, even after being beaten over and over again. What is it about Lex Luthor—who has no powers—that keeps him alive, and makes him a continuous, serious threat against Superman, the most powerful being on the planet?

How is it that a Villain keeps coming back, when similar failures and losses would crush a Hero and send him home forever, never again to don the super suit?

Could it be that a Villain’s methods, his mindset, his approach, are vastly different from a Hero’s?

And, if a Hero could learn to take these qualities and mesh them with his own already-existing awesomeness, could he perhaps avoid a devastating loss, a crushing defeat?

Is that…in fact…what does make the Hero succeed in the end??

That’s what this book is about. Examining what truly is awesome about a great Villain, and showing YOU how you can put those qualities to use in your own life to do a great deal of good, instead of great evil.

Be a great Hero. Take a few tips from the Villains.

-Alydia Rackham

         P.S. I’m going to refer to both the Hero and Villain in this book as “he.” I’m doing that because it’s waaay easier than saying “he or she” all the time. Not because I don’t believe that women can be awesome Heroes, or terribly wicked Villains.

Because I totally do.

 Chapter One

What Makes A Hero or a Villain?

                 So, what is it that makes a person a Hero, instead of a Villain? We’re talking the foundation, here. What are the qualities he or she possesses deep down inside that distinguish, that draw the line, that clearly state to the world: “Nope, this is a good guy, this is a bad guy”? This can be confusing. Especially when we look at two characters, say Loki and Bucky Barnes. Both of them have been all over the map with both good and evil deeds. Both have been called Villains, and both could be Heroes.

               What is it that makes us decide where someone stands?

               I would say that it all comes down to one thing: CHOICES.

               It can’t be anything else. You can’t say it’s kindness, or love, gentleness, trust, honesty, bravery, self-sacrifice, or self-respect. Many Heroes and Villains alike struggle with self-respect. Many Villains sacrifice themselves for a person, or a cause. Villains are almost always exceptionally brave. Villains probably are honest with at least one person, or have been in the past. They also have trusted someone, been gentle with someone or something. Most certainly, the best Villains have loved very, very deeply, and tried their best to be kind to that person or animal.

               However, something went wrong. Very wrong. And with every Villain, it can be traced back to Choice.

               Sometimes, it’s a single choice. Many times, it’s several choices in a row. And eventually, they all decide that “the ends justify the means.” They opt for self-preservation, for the removal of liberty for other people, for the arrogant assertion of their own will. Over and over again, until it poisons them.

               A Hero is someone who does not do this. Who chooses, even if it is wrenchingly difficult, to stand by what is right, no matter the consequences. No matter if he loses everything. He will not betray his honor. Even if no one else would see or know—he would know. And he will not do it.

               In the end, this is what makes the Hero stronger than a Villain. The climax, and the defeat of the Villain, comes when the Villain’s weaknesses are exposed, and the Hero takes all his own strengths, combines them with the strengths of the Villain, and declares victory.

               A Hero guards his or her good conscience fiercely. It’s pretty well summed up in this quote from Captain America:

               “Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are: not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”  

 Chapter Two

Good Guys Can Be Stupid

                 We all know it’s true. When we’re in the movie theatre, we mutter under our breath, shake our heads.

When we’re at home, we scream at the TV.

               “Nooooo! What are you thinking? Don’t go that way, go the other way!”

               “You moron, don’t go off by yourself! Never leave the group! Especially in the dark!”

               “What, you jumped in there but you had no way of getting out?”

               “Don’t ignore her calls, she’s trying to save your life!”

               Yep, we’ve all been there. So what are some bad traits that Heroes tend to display that we ought to try to avoid ourselves?

  Stupid Impulsiveness

               Sure, impulsiveness can be good on a date, or at a restaurant trying some new dish.

It’s not good when you’re, I dunno, jumping off a ten story building. Following a noise into a dark forest. Or deciding to stop a bank robbery two days after you discovered your powers. Bad planning, or none at all. Not even thinking about what could happen in the next five minutes, let alone preparing for it.

For us regular folks, this can be translated into deciding to go for a drive in the snow with no 4-wheel drive, jumping off something that’s too high, going on a trip without enough money, walking down a dark alley in New York City…

               Yeah, you get the idea.

Not Keeping Family and Friends in the Loop

               We’ve seen it a lot: Heroes thinking they need to conquer alone—deal with all their problems, and protect their family members. However, all that ends up causing is major trouble. Sometimes life-threatening, sometimes not, but it’s never good. One that comes to mind is Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. If she had told her sisters about what was going on with Darcy, and especially the drama with Mr. Wickham, she might have saved her sister Lydia from being entrapped by the Villain. Pretty much every single story about a superhero contains this type of lament: “If I had only just told them the truth!”  

               Heroes fall into the trap of thinking that they’re protecting their loved ones by keeping secrets. By not trusting their friends or their family with what’s going on in their lives. When in fact, this only puts their loved ones in danger, and puts serious stress and pressure on the Hero, which can lead to exhaustion, panic, stretched resources, missed opportunities, and giving the loved ones the feeling that they’re being neglected and forgotten.

  Discouragement

           So many times, the Hero just doesn’t have the tools to do what he needs to do. He’s isolated himself, he’s gone without sleep, he’s fighting an uphill battle every day. And then, one major thing goes the wrong way, and he’s broken. He collapses, he throws things, he cries, he’s in despair. He thinks there’s no possible way for him to do this, to keep going.

               He dwells on the failure. It almost swallows him. He loses all confidence, all belief in himself. He might even lose faith in the cause itself, in the people and things he’s been fighting so hard for. And if someone doesn’t come along and convince him otherwise, he’ll never put on that Hero cape again, or pick up that shield, or that sword.

Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Hero-Like-Villain-Villainous-ebook/dp/B07NMVGCHP/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=how+to+be+a+hero+like+a+villain+alydia+rackham&qid=1572901986&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

ASM vol 5 #25/826 Story 1 Thoughts

Wow!

Now THIS is how you do a milestone issue...even though the milestone was last issue but whatever!

In some ways this issue reminded me of a lot of DC’s recent milestone issues for the Trinity. Wonder Woman’s 75th Anniversary special, Action Comics #1000, Detective Comics #1000.

By this I mean you have multiple artists contributing and the story feels like vignettes.

The difference though is that most of these vignettes are in fact part of the same story.

The downside of that is that it does make the main story ‘Opening Night’ feel somewhat disjointed because there are 3 or 4 endings. It could’ve been easily fixed by simply presenting the Syndicate pages and the Gleason pencilled pages as their own stories (which functionally they are) or at least as clearly labelled epilogues.

That’s a nitpick though because the main story over all was fantastic, no pu....actually pun very much intended. Why not Spencer likes his puns and meta jokes and there was plenty of the latter in this issue. Case in point Kindred’s jabs about continuity.

Let me get some minor negatives out of the way.

The changing artists really, really didn’t complement one another exempting Kev Walker and Ottley’s work. Ramos’ artwork wasn’t well integrated with the rest of the art at all, as was the case with his work in the Heist arc back in the earlier issues. Gleason’s work I will give a little more of a pass too because as presented it feels so much like it’s own separate story and has consistent art within those pages it’s not really a problem. But with Ramos and Ottley it’s very jarring.

Now it is the lesser evil because I’d rather have Ramos draw some pages and panels rather than the whole issue. Reserving him for, let’s face it, the less important B-plot of the main story whilst Ottley does the heavy lifting on the main story is a great compromise.

Other small complaints I have involve Mary Jane herself and her storyline.

For starters...Carlie Cooper is back. Now she isn’t used badly, it’s just...I hate that character. I don’t think many people have many positives to say about her and there is baggage associated with her. So if she is destined to become MJ’s go to buddy then that’s going to grind my gears (especially when we consider she let MJ risk her life by dating Otto in Superior, what a jerk!) and I’d infinitely prefer a wholesale new character or an old established character (Liz, Glory, Jill Stacy even?).

Buuuuuuuut on the flipside Carlie was better suited to being MJ’s sidekick in this story given she got involved in some of the action. Possibly even seeing her get zapped was Spencer putting in a piece of catharsis for the many fans he knows honestly hate this character.

Secondly we got MJ’s acting career. Now there are three little problems I have with it that might not even be problems. Let me explain.

a)      MJ claims she lost her Secret Hospital job because of the nature of her life. I took that very much as an implication associated with her connection to Spider-Man. Problem is...she didn’t lose her job because of Spider-Man. Her role just happened to be cut back and eventually if I remember correctly she either quit following a deranged fan assaulting her or she was outright fired. Now in defence of her comment and of Spencer, the line doesn’t explicitly mention Peter or anything like that so it could easily be taken as her life being in general crazy regardless. Bear this in mind for something else I’m going to bring up

b)      MJ claims she never liked being famous. That really struck me because of course MJ wanted to be famous from day 1. Now you could easily argue that when we first met MJ she was younger and had yet to experience fame, so now she feels differently. Buuuuuuut she was a model in her adulthood. She pursued acting as a soap star, and as a movie star and as a stage star and took a job at Stark industries and at various points was modelling during those jobs. Soooooooooo what gives? I mean....maybe you could say she hated aspects of being famous but the speech seems weird and inconsistent in and of itself even. I’m hoping I’m just missing something

c)       MJ says she had trouble fitting in and then over did it in social situations. I dunno if that’s really true. It could be bad phrasing on Spencer’s part but really MJ always did fit in, her facade helped her to fit in, it was partially engineered to help her to do that. Is that what he means though?

d)      MJ becoming a famous actress again gives me mixed feelings. Spider-Man is the everyman and whilst temporary fame that comes crashing down is one thing, if she is long term famous it kind of meddles with the everyman aspect of Spider-Man. An aspiring actress, even a low key soap star is different a more if you will ‘domestic’ form of fame. But that’s more a criticism of where this might lead so it could wind up being fine.

One final, final little problem I had was another example of worried where this MIGHT lead. In Kindred’s lair we see a wall depicting different Spider-Heroes and so now I’m facepalming that the climax to his storyline will be a huge crossover event affair that demands I read Miles and Gwen’s and Jessica Drew’s titles.

Again a nitpick at best, at worst something to worry about in the future not the present.

Everything else in the main story was beautiful.

MJ’s connection to acting is restored. Wonderful. It’s my preferred profession for her because it taps into Peter’s double life and her own history with her party girl facade.

The speech was well written and delivered and I liked the meta aspect of her giving it whilst disguised as a famous super hero wife!

Spencer continued to find a way to handle the old criticism lobbied against MJ/the marriage that it Mary Jane simply waited by a window (even though I think that’s fine sometimes) or just got stood up on dates all the time by having MJ have friends she can hang out with. This is one aspect where Carlie, because she is in on the secret, helps a lot I must admit.

Spencer also renders Mary Jane very well rounded.

Look I LOVE seeing instances where Mary Jane shines as cool, as bad ass and the like, but sometimes if handled poorly it can come off as idolizing her.

Spencer avoids this by giving MJ flaws.

She’s jealous of Melanie’s success which she sees as something that could have been her’s.* She has tiny doubts about Peter’s sincerity. She admits she struggles to fit in and feels uncomfortably exposed in the limelight.

But she’s also, brave, self-sacrificing, resourceful and, most importantly in this story, a good actress (apparently being able to impersonate Melanie’s voice...or maybe that’s something no one thought about because this is a non-audio medium).

The effect is to make Mary Jane truly the hero of the story, not just because she is ‘taking point’ in the main story but because she feels complex and nuanced, just as Peter is.

My quibbles above aside, Spencer really is a good Mary Jane writer and for Spider-Man that’s an important consideration for a writer (just as being a good Lois Lane writer or good Alfred writer is for Superman and Batman). He’s done her justice 99% of the time he’s written her and it says an awful lot about him and his priorities for this title that he’d give the lion’s share of a milestone issue over to her.

It also says a lot of his abilities to make good stories out of well...clean up duty.

Let’s be brutally honest here the majority of Spencer’s issues have revolved around stories really designed to fix things after BND and Slott’s run.

Back to Basics fixed Peter and MJ’s relationship and mostly reconstructed Peter’s character by having him own up to the diploma debacle and zero in on who the man was and who the spider was by literally separating the two.

The Heist reconstructed Peter and Felicia’s relationship and fleshed out why MJ and Peter were getting back together as quickly as they did.

Those poorly drawn Bachalo issues fixed Ned Leeds not being dead.

Hunted fixed Kraven not being dead and Shed and more stuff with Felicia

Now this issue has fixed MJ and Peter’s future’s to some extent. Peter is back at ESU and MJ is back to acting. Not only does she now have a Stark free job situation but it’s a job that’s her home away from home as I discussed a bit above.

The issue also does some clean up with Curt Connors, restoring the pre-Hunted status quo and by extension facilitating something else comfortingly familiar by having Connors teach Peter.**

Speaking of Connors, I can’t recall off the top of my head (having not eaten breakfast yet) if Connors had safehouses before now to keep him safe from his family. I know that has been the case in other stories, such as the Forever Young novel from a couple of years ago, but in the comics I can’t recall. If not then it’s a great thing for Spencer to integrate. If so it’s a great thing for Spencer to have remembered and gives Spider-Man a meaningful subplot to work with whilst Mary Jane takes the limelight in the main plot.

Now let’s move onto Mysterio. As I predicted last issue the doctor was Rinehart but I was mistaken in believing it was the real Rinehart. Spencer, and Mysterio, were so good at their jobs that I was successfully fooled into thinking Mysterio really had died last issue. The idea that Rinehart was really Mysterio and Mysterio was really someone else never occurred to me and was an ingenious twist.

But like all good mysteries it had clues right there for us to see as last issue signposted the disappearance of Mysterio’s former doctor,  who we now know was tricked into becoming Mysterio so beck could escape. What sold it was the inner monologue of Rinehart talking about Beck as a separate person. This would’ve been a cheap trick under a lesser writer but Spencer justifies it by claiming Mysterio was method. Just brilliant. As was tying in MJ’s agent and new found fame to Mysterio and his film script.

We also get some more tantalizing tidbits about Kindred. He doesn’t like killing innocent people if he doesn’t have to. The idea of him being an established villain now looks much less likely. And did you notice that when we first see him in the issue...he’s sticking to the wall...surrounded by spiders...and later has them crawling out of his bandages...and is targeting other Spider people...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm????????????????

That about does it for what I call the ‘main main story’, we move now onto what should’ve been epilogues.

There isn’t much to say about the Syndicate pages beyond they were good for what they were, they eloquently tie into the main story and set up the next arc.

Much more interesting are the Gleason pages, and not just because the art looks so nice and so much better than Ramos.

On the one hand I am wary of Spider-Man comics bringing in too much of the shared universe because it messes up a lot of the drama and stakes. But as a little side story meant to set up something else that’s fine and what a set up.

Spider-Man 2099 is back!

Now I feel like I should really catch up on his solo book. I kept buying it but stopped reading it around Civil War II!

I honestly have NO IDEA where this is going beyond thinking it might have something to do with Kindred’s interest in all the other spider people??????

Beyond all that...not much to say.

I’m not going to tell you that I recommend you pick this issue up because....c’mon...you know you already did...and loved it!

   *Importantly, if Spencer intended it this way, MJ missed out on Melanie’s success because of something not  connected to Spider-Man. I was worried the story was going in for this idea that being with Peter has cost Mary Jane a successful career, but in this issue, through Melaine we see that wasn’t the case.

MJ’s life led her to quit a role that was already being reduced but it wasn’t because of Spider-Man stuff at all.

This is not just refreshing and healthy for their relationship, it’s also realistic. Take that every bullshit AU about MJ being famous by not dating Spidey!

**By the way I was going to criticise Connors having both arms in human form but then I double checked issue #2 and that was the case there too. I keep forgetting that he has both arms now it’s just so weird to see.

[radioleary-blog]

Hef Tragedy Jam

Hugh Hefner died yesterday. When the news was announced, over fifty women said they were dismayed. No, wait...over fifty women said they were “Miss May”. Fifty more were Miss June, and, well, you get the picture. If you were lucky you got their pictures.

Few of you reading this are old enough to remember that Playboy magazine was about the only place you could see a naked woman, and I say that because there are probably few of you reading this, period. But hey, my column gets more readers than the average suicide note, statistically speaking. Although I’m trying to increase my readership, and the average suicide note is more of a stand-alone project. I bet if George Lucas ever wrote a suicide note, he’d follow it up with three prequel notes. Each successively worse than the last. People would be like, “Why did he have to ruin that original suicide note, which I loved, with those awful prequel-suicide notes? I don’t care why he got depressed, but clearly only a manic depressive could make such a desperate cry for help as introducing Jar-Jar Binks. If I ruined a billion dollar franchise by coming up with an offensive racist caricature like Jar-Jar Binks, I’d probably consider putting a lightsaber in my mouth too.”

I grew up with Playboy magazine, and my early knowledge of female physiology was less from a volume of Grey’s anatomy or sketches by DaVinci, and more from volumes of Playboy magazine. It was like a reference guide, one that you would hold up with one hand. In fact, the first time I had a girlfriend who got naked, I wondered where her staples were. Of course, today, I’m the one who should have his stomach stapled, but that’s another story. Ah, sweet irony!

I’m sure Hugh Hefner went to Heaven, but whatever gleaming Mansion in the sky awaits us, no matter how glorious, for Hugh Hefner it’s going to be a pretty big step down from the Playboy Mansion. It may actually be Seventh Heaven, but Hef has been living on Cloud Nine since 1956. But, hey, he’s already wearing a robe. You know when you see depictions of Heaven, everybody is always wearing white robes? That’s because they were wearing those white robes in the hospital when they died. And they make you wear those awful robes that don’t close in the back because that’s where your wings will come out when you get to Heaven. It’s all part of God’s plan. I bet you’ll still have that plastic wristband on too, St. Peter just scans it at the gate to let you in. <beep> “Cardiac arrest. You’re good. Check in at the registration desk. Have a valid photo ID ready.”

Hugh Hefner was such a consummate pussyhound, I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a deathbed conversion to radical Islam, just to get the 72 virgins in Heaven. God would be like - I mean “Allah” would be like, “Pretty tricky Hef, pretty tricky. But...technically it counts. You old horndog!” Of course, you know what Hugh Hefner calls 72 virgins? A slow Tuesday.

The Playboy Mansion was famous for its out-of-control parties, and the mansion had a natural cave-like grotto on the grounds where everyone would go to snort coke and have sex. I guess Hef was a lot like Bruce Wayne, a millionaire with a mansion and a cave. And didn’t they call Bruce Wayne a millionaire playboy? Hef was a Playboy millionaire. But the difference is, Hef would rather do coke and fuck super-models whereas Batman would rather do-good and fight super-villains. Plus, Batman slides down the Bat-pole, and crazy hot chicks slide down the Hef-pole. In other words, Hef was sane, and Batman was, well, not so much. Batman is basically a billionaire who just wants to hurt people and not get sued for it and pretend he’s a hero. Kind of like Trump.

The grotto cave on the grounds of the Playboy Mansion had a huge, heated Jacuzzi pool, where movie stars, rock and roll gods, and celebrity athletes were eagerly humped by groupies, star-fuckers, and aspiring playmates. Unprotected 1970’s sex was messier than Michael J. Fox eating an ice cream cone, so the pool was probably 60% water, 2% spilled cocaine, and 38% James Caan’s jizz. The lifeguard got syphilis just from giving mouth to mouth resuscitation. At least that was her story. But that was about the same time Grand Funk Railroad was in town, so who can say? I do think ‘grotto’ must be the Italian word for ‘gross’.

I hear some of the more politically correct crowd, or as they’re more commonly known, nitwits, complaining that Playboy exploited women. And I guess it was exploitation, in the same sense that Vogue magazine is exploiting the mostly-naked teenage anorexic girls slash super-models in their magazine. And I say slash because that’s what these girls often try to do to their wrists. Unlike Vogue magazine models, at least the Playboy women didn’t have eating disorders. They’re a lot less likely to stick their fingers down their throats. I’m not saying they’re any less likely to have something down their throats, but not their fingers.

Exploiting women. As if Hugh Hefner was hanging around the Newark bus station looking for a girl down on her luck and fresh off the turnip truck from Topeka. That sounds more like the plot of a 1930’s movie than the way his business empire was run. I think what Hef did was have his photography editors, both men and women, spend endless hours going through duffel bags of mail sent in by thousands of women from all around the country who wanted to pose for Playboy. The staff would narrow it down to probably a few dozen, and then get Hef’s opinion on who was not only the most beautiful, but who had the look that would be right to feature in the magazine. That’s exactly what the editors and publishers do at Elle, and Vogue, and every other magazine that holds up a particular brand of beauty as an ideal.

And I don’t know any women who haven’t worn out the related links on their favorite porn sites jilling off to whatever their particular porn flavor might be, so who exactly are these people that still have a problem with Playboy? Because without Hefner’s decades of battles against governmental and religious censorship, there would be no porn sites. Hef made it possible to look at porn sites without pretending you go there for the articles. Without Playboy, people would still be saying, “Did you read that insightful article on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur? And that recently-found short story by J.D, Salinger?” “Why, yes. I particularly liked the profile of Jazz trumpeters from the post-bop era. And I did notice some delightful porn as well, between the articles, of course.”

The reason Hef could get away with putting in naked chicks is his magazine is because Playboy was a serious, respected literary magazine. The greatest writers of the day were in Playboy:

Ray Bradbury wrote original content for Playboy, and serialized Fahrenheit 451, which was coincidentally the exact temperature of how hot the playmates were.

The Beat writer Jack Kerouac wrote for Playboy, and that cat was cool as hell. Beat, Jack, that is exactly what Playboy readers do.

Ian Fleming published short stories in Playboy, and the James Bond novel “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was published first in Playboy. We all know James Bond got enormous amounts of pussy. But compared to what Hef was getting, James Bond looks like a bible salesman with erectile disfunction. Or a guy who works in a comic book store. Think about that for a minute; the world’s sexiest pussyhound spy still gets less women than the guy who published the magazine his story is in. And Bond is fictional!

Roald Dahl wrote for them, too. The author of “Willie Wonka” writing for people who wonka their willies, sounds apropo.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote for them all the time, and that dude was cooler than Ice Nine. There’s a reference for ya!

Joseph Heller published a lost chapter of “Catch-22” in Playboy. I think the title Catch-22 might be the number of social diseases you’d get if you had sex in the grotto.

Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” started writing for Playboy in 1991. I would imagine one of her stories was called “The Handmaid’s Tail”.

Hunter S. Thompson. Gabriel García Márquez, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, they all wrote for Playboy. This magazine was the real deal, kids, it was smarter and cooler than absolutely anything you know today. You see, all of these stories were longer than 140 characters. Or even 280.

I actually learned quite a bit about culture from Playboy, between rounds, if you know what I mean. By middle school I could discuss the literary feud between Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer in English class and sound like a friggin’ genius, I just couldn’t tell the teacher where I learned it. “Where did I learn that? Oh, you know. Around. Literary journals, and the like. At that building that has all the books. Yes, exactly, the library! That’s the one! I frequent that establishment, I‘ll have you know.” What was I gonna say? My father’s sock drawer?

The Playboy Interview was legendary, they were deep, involved discussions, frank and uncensored. Here are some of the people they interviewed: Salvador Dali, Patty Hearst, Groucho Marx, Ansel Adams, Stanley Kubrick, The Beatles, Albert Schweitzer, Buckminster Fuller, Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Abbie Hoffman, Tennessee Williams, Erica Jong, Allen Ginsberg, and Bertrand Russell. Then there are the so famous they’re known by just one name:  Fellini, Castro, Brando, Nehru, Sartre, Bowie, Nabokov, Hoffa, Carson, Antonioni, Mastroianni, Gleason, and Sinatra. And Playboy was woke, they interviewed Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alex Haley, Miles Davis, Muhammad Ali,  Eldridge Cleaver, Dick Gregory, and Huey Newton. Holy shit, right?  Who do you see interviewed today? Kardashians? Ryan Gosling? Taylor Swift, but interrupted by Kanye West? This time we live in today has less culture than a petri dish.

Hef lived so long that most people today have no real idea how influential he was, what an important cultural icon he was, and that he somehow talked Marilyn Monroe into posing naked on the cover of the very first issue of his magazine way the hell back in 1956. That’s a dude with the Kavorka, big-time. And nobody was naked back in 1956. Not in this country. In 1956, people showered wearing a suit and tie, and apart from time shampooing, a smart fedora. They say people were more cultured back then because they went to art museums, bullshit, I think they only went to art museums to see the nudes in the oil paintings. You would too, and you know it, don’t even try to deny it. You’d say you were admiring the Titian, but you were really just admiring the Tit.

Nearly every issue, Playboy featured a very prominent celebrity with a well-established career and respected in her field who actually wanted people to see how beautiful she was without any clothes. Starting with Marilyn Monroe. And she was smoking hot, too, an icon in her absolute prime. Future historians will be more grateful for that photo shoot than they are for the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts. Where do you go from there, Playboy? Well, how about Farrah Fawcett, the biggest sex-symbol of the entire 1970’s! The list of gorgeous, talented, famous, successful women that wanted to pose for Playboy might be hard for you to imagine, as you live in an age where women pose in magazines like Maxim with their clothes on! And men today pay to see that? Wtf? Man, I can see women with their clothes on just about anywhere I go. I can see that in line at the deli counter, I don’t need to pay for it.

Here are just a few, a very few, of the already-famous women who chose to pose with no clothes:

Daryl Hannah. Olivia Munn. Kim Basinger. Charlize Theron. Drew Barrymore. Denise Richards (she had kids with Charlie Sheen, so posing for Playboy was comparatively a relatively sound decision). Shannen Doherty. Belinda Carlisle. Jayne Mansfield. Mariel Hemingway. Margaux Hemingway. Nastassja Kinski. Sharon Stone. Rosanna Arquette. Vanna White. Elle MacPherson. Brigitte Bardot. Uma Thurman. Kate Moss. The list is almost endless. I almost said bottomless, but being Playboy, “bottomless”  goes without saying.

Sure, the last decade and a half weren’t great for Hef, but who stays cool past the age of 75? Only Bob Dylan and Picasso. Hef couldn’t let it all go, and at the end it was pretty sad. It was like Sunset Boulevard with viagra. But I’ll miss the Hef of fifty years ago, that man was at the forefront of political movements, cultural progress, gay rights, equal rights, reproductive rights, and the right to take your goddamn clothes off if you feel like it.

This may be the first funeral where you should bring condoms. In lieu of flowers, please give blowjobs. So long, Hef. Thanks for the mammaries.

[comicsbeat]

And so we wrap up this edition of our yearly wide-ranging survey of creators from every end of the business on what happened and what’s coming. It’s been a fascinating journey through the thoughts of the comics industry on all levels. Once again, huge thanks to everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to respond and comment. We wind things up with a lot more previews including a new book from Emma Rios and a peek at the Birdcage Bottom Books lineup for the year- and lots in-between. You can check out the other parts of the survey here.

Emma Ríos,  Cartoonist

2019 Projects: I’m very glad to say that Hwei and I finally finished Mirror. It was quite a tough year for us and I’m extremely proud of how we managed to come over all that and of how we drove this little big story to its well deserved ending. Issue 10 will appear in the solicitations next month and the book will reach stores in April. For all of you who kept waiting to read the conclusion, thank you, really. I can tell you we gave everything we had and we really hope you like it. (Some preview pages below)

On the other hand, Kelly Sue and I have been working on the third arc of Pretty Deadly. It’s set in Early Hollywood and we are bringing some noir and horror to our pages this time. We are also using shadow puppetry as a narrative element which is very interesting and crazy fun for me. The arc is half done and we will bombard you with lots of updates soon.

And now, my secret. If everything goes as planned I’ll spend most of this year working on a new project called Anzuelo, meaning ‘hook’ or ‘lure’. A book about death and preservation, and more than anything about the sea. I’ve been keeping this story in the back of my head for a couple of years already, waiting for a chance to finally focus on it alone. I’m writing and drawing again for this, but unlike I.D., this time it will be all in watercolors and wayyy longer. The whole project is pretty ambitious and, ahem, rather pretentious. I’m scared but also very excited about it.

Fortunately, the mighty David Brothers, whose thinking and writing I truly adore, will help me as editor/therapist and will bear with me through all of this terrifying journey.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? I’m going to say the recent English subscription to Shonen Jump. I believe it’s a pretty generous and smart move, and to me it feels like the biggest change in comics since we started preordering.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Emily Carroll’s new book, When I Arrived at the Castle. The book is published by Koyama Press and will debut at TCAF. Emily is one of my favorite creators, obviously. Her work has been inspiring and frightening me for years. She always takes storytelling to a whole new crazy level almost effortlessly. I’m so jealous!

Also! The latest work by my friend Borja González is going to be released in English this year. The title may change but in Spanish (Reservoir Books) and French (Dargaud) its called The Black Holes and it is a truly fascinating story that I hope to see in every BEST OF THE YEAR list. You’re going to be mindblown.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Maybe reading all Naruto, I guess? Bleach? Having a rather easy access to all those crazy popular and crazy long series from the last decades now drives me crazy. But, to be honest, it doesn’t feel guilty at all.

Who inspired you in 2018? I’ve been very inspired by rewatching Yoshiyuki Tomino’s dystopian anime of the 80s and 90s, recently. Specially anti-war stuff like Gundam, Fang of the Sun Dougram, and so on…

Steve Foxe, Writer & Paste Magazine Editor

2019 Projects: In addition to plenty of Paste goodness, I’ve got two OGNs I can’t talk about just yet, several promising pitches in the works, and my short in BOOM!’s Steven Universe: Fusion Frenzy one- shot will be out in March!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Honestly? 2018 didn’t feel like it had a defining comic story. Maybe I’d just give the nod to DC announcing umpteen new imprints targeting different markets. We won’t actually see how Zoom, Ink, Black Label, and Wonder Comics work out for a bit, but I applaud the publisher trying to meet readers in different niches. And while it’s not a POSITIVE story, the swift response to Eric Esquivel accusations gave me hope that we are getting better, as an industry, at responding to these sorts of issues.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Similarly, I think the response to Zoom and Ink will be a huge story in 2019–either because it works as well as I hope/suspect it might, or because it does so-so and DC gets cold feet right away. I also expect some BIG BIG things for Marvel’s Merry Mutants, but I’ve already said too much… And while I’m not a movie guy, seeing how Captain Marvel lands and how the MCU pivots out of Endgame will mean a lot for the MCU’s continued success, especially with GotG3 in such a precarious position.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Reading more old comics! It can feel like a never-ending marathon keeping up with weekly releases, but in 2019, I plan to carve out more time to read (and re-read) older books. I did that a bit this year with some old Vertigo runs and loved it, and I plan to do it again next year, as well as start a FULL re-read of Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants, starting with Giant-Size X-Men and going through to the Morrison era.

Who inspired you in 2018? Tini Howard has been a close friend since 2014, and seeing her amazing successes this year (and knowing about some of the ones coming up in 2019!) has definitely inspired me to kick my own butt harder.

Tom Kaczynski, Cartoonist/Uncivilized Books Publisher

2019 Projects: Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson; Now, for the first time in his career, Thompson is working in serial form, in a bimonthly comic book series. Part memoir, part travelogue, part essay—all comic book—Ginseng Roots explores class divide, agriculture, holistic healing, the 300 year long trade relationship between China and North America, childhood labor, and the bond between two brothers.

Cannonball by Kelsey Wroten; Follow the messy life of Caroline Bertram: aspiring writer, queer, art school graduate, near alcoholic, and self proclaimed tortured genius. Wrotens’s debut graphic novel will turn many heads!

Stonebreaker by Peter Wartman; The sequel to Over The Wall by the artist of Avatar the Last Airbender: Imbalance; Four years after saving her brother, Anya continues to explore the endless, twisting streets of the mystical city, Noridun.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? The biggest story is the ongoing seismic shift in the comics industry. The slow but sure transition from periodical business to graphic novel business. Comics retailers complain about the continued slides periodical sales from Marvel & DC, but don’t really do the homework on graphic novels, or alternatives that could bring in new audiences. This job is being done admirably by indie book stores and online retailers who are not afraid to experiment and try out new titles.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? The biggest story of 2019 will still be the biggest story of 2018 with the added caveat that we will start seeing more diverse and interesting periodical titles that will move into the space that will be opened up by the continued slide of Marvel & DC.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? The new Criminal series by Brubaker & Phillips, but I don’t feel guilty about it.

Who inspired you in 2018? I’m continually inspired by every independent cartoonist out there who manages to keep creating new and interesting work, year after year. The seas are rough out there, and seeing new and amazing work continue to emerge, is flabbergasting and humbling.

  Joan Hilty, Editorial directo

2019 Projects: Showtime at the Apollo (Abrams, Jan), Good Talk (One World, Mar). Pageturner’s thrilled to have helped bring these to life.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? The passing of Stan Lee. However one feels about his life and legacy, it’s a milestone for both the past and future of comics.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? For me it’s which companies survive, and thrive in, the remarkable ongoing staffing and distribution shakeups across our whole landscape — and how that affects workplace equality. We’re living in transformational times.

Ayo, cartoonist

2019 Projects: I’m working on more and more Little Garden comics and associated projects. Chiefly, the continuation of my four-panel, one-page strips.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? The dissolution of Tumblr for a great many users is undoubtedly the most significant and impactful comics story of 2018. Tumblr performed a crucial function in the visual arts industries, particularly in the comics industries. It was a way for work to spread around as casually and easily as radio works for music. A lot of important careers began in the trenches of tumblr blogs and reblogs. The scaling back of the platform will do considerable damage to industries rooted in visual culture.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? I’d like the biggest comics story in 2019 to be an increased interest in short works; strips, short stories and graphic essays. Long form comics are wonderful but we need to give more space for a multitude of ways to approach sequential art.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? I’ve finally gotten to be old enough that I laugh out loud at the cartoons in The New Yorker. And I accidentally subscribed to the magazine, so bring ’em on!

Who inspired you in 2018? I’ve recently begun reconnecting with the work of Aubrey Beardsley when I was experiencing a bit of an overload of inspirations. Being able to zero in on his illustrations has helped me to focus my ambitions and cut out a lot of the noise in my head.

Josh Bayer, cartoonist

2019 Projects: Working on something called Unfinished (seriously, thats the title.) Heres an advance page

And on seasons 2 and 3 of AllTimeComics with Josh Simmons, Trevor Van Eeden, with guest chapters by Gabrielle Bell, Julia Gfrorer and inks by Simmons, Me and Josh Simmons, Tom Toye, Ben Marra Ken Landgraf and others. I also have a new book due in April from Tinto Press, theres some images here:

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? I really don’t know, theres a lot of destruction everywhere on every level of Society and also a lot of community building in our own little microcosm. I am just trying to stay lost in a haze of work and art and teaching. Sorry, thats not much of an answer.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Someone going down in the worst flameout of Indie Comics history and someone else rising to the highest peaks of industry adulation. While I have been known to see the future through mystic means, I can’t be more specific than that Ive already said too much.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Two way tie: Silently judging people for their desperate need for approval and vocally judging peopler their desperate need for approval.

Who inspired you in 2018? I tend to work in 20 year blocks of inspiration, not yearly. Janelle Hessig and Bobby Madness and Elizabeth Bethea all inspired me to engage with comics hard at the start of the millenium when I discovered them. They are true DIY, as are many other punk publishers and artists; but their work crossed my path at a crucial point that gave me a strong push towards what I wanted to do. And I am still going with them as key influences.

Alex Lu, Managing/New Media Editor of The Beat

2019 Projects: On the journalism side of things, I’m launching some exciting new media ventures for The Beat. And on the comics side of things, I have credits on INFINITE DARK, several upcoming First Second books, and a whole bunch of ~secret projects~ you’ll see on the shelves next year.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Can I cheat and say there’s a three way tie? The death of Stan Lee, clearly, but also the fascinating narrative surrounding Olivia Jaimes’ run of NANCY and the continuing (and currently more rapid) investment of Hollywood money into new comics ventures.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? If there’s a recession, that will likely become the central narrative for anything that happens in comics in 2019. Even if there isn’t, however, I’d still be interested to see what the flow of outside money into comics looks like by the end of the year.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? TEEN ROMANCE COMICS (I FEEL NO GUILT)

Who inspired you in 2018? This is a total cop out, but this year has been crazy for me and I owe a great deal to an enormous network of friends, colleagues, and mentors who have both supported me and given me opportunities that have made 2018 the best year of my professional life. From my Editor-in- Chief Heidi MacDonald to everyone at First Second to my lunch pal/business adviser Brandon Montclare to my frequent creative collaborator and awesome pal Ryan Cady– I owe all of you (and many more whom I didn’t name here) a great deal.

MariNaomi, cartoonist, database administrator

2019 Projects: In addition to maintaining the Cartoonists of Color and Queer Cartoonists databases, I’m gearing up to get the Disabled Cartoonists (TK) database up and running.

On the creative front, I’m coming out with Book Two of my Life on Earth young adult graphic novel trilogy, and finishing up Book Three (for release in 2020).

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Cody Pickrodt suing Whit Taylor and her supporters.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Cody losing his suit, I can only hope.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Finishing up my trilogy and finally getting time off to read some freaking books!

Who inspired you in 2018? Whit Taylor and her supporters. They’re going through a lot right now, stuff that nobody should have to go through, and keeping strong, fighting back. That’s really inspiring to me.

Hibbs, l., with Breanna Thumler

Brian Hibbs, Retailer

2019 Projects: We love and joy these days is hosting the Graphic Novel Clubs  — I adore talking to smart and talented folks about exciting new work and the nuts and bolts of craft!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? The increasing weariness (and wariness) that the average Direct Market retailer is feeling about the market leaders: Marvel, DC, and Image. We’re ending 2018 with the lowest confidence in the future of comics that I can ever remember among my peers. And I lived through two crashes! The odd thing is that the numbers aren’t really that bad — but we’re being asked to work harder and harder (and more speculatively) for the same reward. Virtually every comic published now has 2+ covers, and the worst publishers out there are offering five or more for most every title they publish. The system is getting too stressed, sucking almost all of the “joy” out of running a store.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? I keep expecting Barnes & Noble to collapse at any moment. I also expect an increasing number of “I’ve had enough of the industry nonsense” closures in the DM. At what point do these changes coupled with the utter lack of faith most retailers (in both markets) have in the most of the product make it so that AT&T and Disney decide it isn’t worth still publishing the comics? Everyone “in” comics can be working at 150%, and we’re now at the whims of souless multi-national corporations to keep the engines humming.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Despite me putting “breaking news” first in the survey, I actually look forward to Heidi rants a whole lot….. man I miss that period when you, Spurgeon and Dirk Deppey all had daily rants….

Who inspired you in 2018? Honestly, just talking to creators about craft keeps me going: we’re well past a hundred hours of interviews now. Go dig through the video archives at https://www.comixexperience.com/archives

Henry Barajas, Writer, Director of Ops at Top Cow Productions

2019 projects: I’m working on La Voz De M.A.Y.O. and La Loca: Via Con Diablo! Brush up on your spanish, gringos!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Batman Damned #1 no doubt. It swept every news outlet. Every comic book shop whether they liked it or not, had to talk about the pink, fleshy elephant in the room.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Someone has to create an app that will make ordering comics from your local comic shop easier. It’s the year of Bladerunner for crying out loud!

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Burnouts by Culver, Geoffo, and Dwonch. Stoners killing aliens. It’s mindless fun.

Who inspired you in 2018? Joe Illidge. Joe stuck to his guns, helped make some amazing comics, and raised profiles for some marginalized voices. I don’t know anyone that can lose two editorial gigs in one year, brush his shoulders off, and say “I can’t wait for you to see what’s next.”

Randy Reynaldo, Cartoonist

2019 Project: Rob Hanes Adventures #20 — I’ll be at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con for my 21st appearance, following my receiving the Inkpot Award at the 2018 show!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Passing of Stan Lee

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Avengers: Endgame — gotta see how it concludes!

Kat Kan, Librarian/Comics Reviewer

2019 Projects: I write the Graphically Speaking column for Voice of Youth Advocates, and the February 2019 issue will mark my 25th anniversary of writing about comics for the library world.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? For libraries: the new Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards created by the Pop Culture Classroom. And the creation of the Graphic Novels & Comics in Libraries Round Table as an official part of the American Library Association.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Continuing growth in the use of comics in schools and academia.

Bonus questions:

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Getting back to “normal” after Hurricane Michael devastated most of my city (Panama City, FL) in October.

Who inspired you in 2018? I admire my friends and colleagues in libraries and schools who have worked so hard to gain recognition of comics as a valid form of literature for study and research. I’ve pushed so hard for this since 1983, when I first started working in libraries, and I love seeing so many more people take up the banner over the past several decades.

J.T. Yost, cartoonist/publisher, Birdcage Bottom Books

2019 Projects: We’ll be publishing two new books and at least one minicomic this year. “Blood & Drugs” – a story of fall & redemption by Lance Ward, “Rooftop Stew” collecting lots of uncollected autobiographical and fictional weirdness by Max Clotfelter, and “Future Corpse”, a collection of new short work by Eva Müller (we published her death obsessed “In The Future, We Are Dead” last year). See previews below.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Annie Koyama moving away from comics publishing.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? President Trump implementing a new Comics Code Authority that only censors work critical of the president and his administration.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Probably some dumb tv show or something

Who inspired you in 2018? Avi of Silver Sprocket

  The Beat's Annual Creator Survey Part 5: From Emma Rios' new book to "Blood & Drugs" - and an update on Mirror And so we wrap up this edition of our yearly wide-ranging survey of creators from every end of the business on what happened and what's coming.