#I read ya 2013 and i hated most of it

[emsprovisions]

Thinkfast fluff (bc I can’t stop thinking about them)

“God, Shepherd, can’t you do anything slow?” David moaned into Tommy’s mouth.

Tommy pulled back with a wicked grin. “Only when it’s you, apparently.”

He leaned in to steal another kiss from his boyfriend. Tommy’s hands were up the back of David’s shirt, splayed out on the toned back he had pressed firmly against the wall. David’s arms encircled Tommy’s neck, fingers burying in his hair, digging into his scalp.

Tommy liked things fast. Speed was his name after all. Most of the world moved at far too sluggish of a pace for him. And he was often so bored out of his mind by it all. Then he met David, and they became noodles-and-a-coffee friends, and somewhere after that David had brought Tommy back into existence with a kiss. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about those lips, even when he had kissed Kate that night, it was David he couldn’t get out of his head in the following months. They became friends. Good friends, surprisingly. Tommy didn’t have many of those.

And now they were here. Boyfriends.

Tommy liked how the word tasted in his mouth. David Alleyne was his boyfriend. He also liked how David’s tongue tasted in his mouth. Which is exactly where it was right now.

“You sure this is too fast for you? I mean, I didn’t initiate tongue.” Tommy pulled back to raise an eyebrow at David. He only sighed.

“You’re impossible, babe. Now come back here.”

Well that was just an offer Tommy couldn’t refuse.

[p-redux]

Saw your blog about Sam and boobies and comments about Tobias, your Lord and Master! You gave us tasty info about Tobias in bed, do you have about Sam?

Hi Anon, I don't have any direct source info about how Sam is in bed, unfortunately. But, we can glean some things from what his past romances have hinted at, what they've risked to be with him, as well as what he has said himself.

I present you some of the evidence. TMGD (The Magical Golden Dirk) is verra magical and makes grown women do things they may not ordinarily do.

For example...

1. It makes them get into public catfights over Sam (Amy Shiels and Cody Kennedy aka The Barbie Wars).

2. Makes them ditch their families on Thanksgiving (Cody Kennedy).

3. Makes them leave their perfect English boyfriends (Abbie Salt, she later got back with her perfect English boyfriend, and is now married to him).

4. Makes their previous dates look like little kittens compared to big lion Sam (Mackenzie Mauzy's ex, Billy).

5. Makes them risk the plague (Gia Marie quarantining with Sam in Hawaii at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic).

6. Makes them accept friendship from a disgruntled-would-be-Sam-date, yet still take him up on an offer of a weekend in Germany together, despite said disgruntled-would-be-Sam-date continuously bashing Sam (Georgia Ellenwood and Monica Aksamit). Georgia's like "Monica gurrrl, yeah, I hear ya, that sucks what happened with Sam, but look the other way when I spend the weekend with him in Germany, mkay...cause there's no resisting all that golden delicious Scottishness when it comes a-calling," and many, many other examples.

Women don't risk all this shit for small dick or a bad lover. They just don't. Simple as that.

Here's his ex-girlfriend, actress, Cody Kennedy, making it verra clear, back in the day, that one Scottish man in particular was rocking her world. This is right before she didn't spend Thanksgiving with her family for the first time ever. And instead of American turkey, she chose to have something Scottish for Thanksgiving...in Tulum, Mexico. 👇

Sam dated Abbie Salt twice. The first time was when he initially met her in 2011 or thereabouts, while Sam was filming the movie "A Princess For Christmas" with Abbie's sister, actress, Charlotte Salt. Abbie used to have a Twitter account and they would Tweet back and forth to each other. Here's an example of Sam being cheeky and letting us know he does enjoy #cocktails in bed. 👇 As we know, the second time they dated was for most of 2015.

Here's an old Tweet where Sam lets his ex FWB (friends with benefits), Amy Shiels know he has arrived, is ready, and waiting. 👇 Any other man saying this would be creepy, Sam saying it, is SO hot. My nipples literally get hard whenever I read this Tweet.

Here's a previous post of mine showing some old Tweets between Sam an his ex-girlfriend, Katie Rebekah Osborne. Charm galore. 👇

Sam himself let us in on some things he may be into in bed. Below, is the infamous honeypot video. Sam talks abut deciding between using his tongue, licking a honeypot or using his fingers. I HATE his hair here, so I just close my eyes, and listen to him talk about licking and fingering honeypots, and then I start praising the Lord for a man who is into oral. The opposite is a deal breaker for sure. Thank you Jesus and all the angels in Heaven for Sam being into eating honeypots! 👇

Below, is another classic video, showing us that Sam is most definitely cheeky, fun, charming, and all of that translates to "good in bed." Too bad all this SamCait cuteness fueled so much Extreme Shipper bullshit but luckily, the rest of us can enjoy it for what it is---two COSTARS and FRIENDS having fun PROMOTING Outlander. I love how proud of himself Sam is after making "the stiff one" comment. He's like "I made a funny!" And just waited for Cait and the interviewer to catch up. And he is still feeling himself afterward. It's adorable to watch. 👇

Generally, I don't give much credence to men who brag about the size of their dirks, but Sam is famous now, and if he were small, some chick he dated would have already commented about it. Here's Sam confirming being called Sam Hugeone "wouldn't be the first time." 👇

Plus, we have video proof HERE. 👇 A man has to be "hung" for his dirk to be visibly flapping in the wind from the SIDE like that. Facts.

Also, Sam is a Taurus. Taurus men are known to be sensual, romantic, eager to please their lover, and have a lot of sexual stamina.

In conclusion, based on the evidence presented, Sam Roland Heughan seems to unequivocally be a good lover. He's made more than one woman lose her dang mind for him...and that doesn't happen with bad dirk..it just doesn't. I rest my case. 😚

[ladyhindsight]

I want to say it really ticks me off when this fandom (and Cassandra Clare to some extent) acts like TMI isn't for children. I've seen posts comparing Cassandra Clare's work to Colleen Hoover. As far as I know Colleen Hoover is an adult novelist who basically makes abuse fetish smut so like great comparison to a YA author guys in the fandom!

Clare's choosing to include things like normalizing abuse (Maia and Jordan) and incest are really terrible. Clare always hides behind the fact that the reason the incest existed in her story was "symbolic" for like how love can make us do evil things. But children can't understand something that complex and Clare does NOT do a good job at making this theme clear in the story and SHE DOES romanticize their incestuous relationship as so bad it's good (Clare fans go reread the scene in book 2 where clary has to kiss Jace in front of everyone and then go reread book 3 where they're constantly kissing and cuddling and sleeping in the same bed in a romantic way) and it's just really upsets me because I've witnessed first hand (I've been in this Fandom since 2013) child fans normalizing and becoming attracted to incest fetish because of these books. I've seen so many children normalizing incest because of Clare's continual refusal to JUST APOLOGIZE! She literally writes these LGBT books with incest fetish and rape fetish tied into it and eventually a conservative is gonna find these books and it's gonna be all over for Miss Clare and the LGBT community will probably be blamed for her bullshit because we're always blamed for gross books like these.

I also wanted to say (and you don't have to post this ask if it's divulging too much I don't want to offend anyone) but I'm an incest survivor. I read these books when I was thirteen years old (they were in my schools library listed for my age and up) and they really really hurt my recovery because at the time I thought what had happened to me was normal and when I read these books I thought it was totally okay and normal what happened to me. I won't go into any more detail than that but these books made it so hard to seperate the "love" from the "abuse". I've talked to others in this fandom and many other girls have said that these books normalized abuse to them because Jace is so controlling and abusive to Clary and she does nothing to stop him. The abuse is also normalized by the Fandom too I see posts all the time joking about how "Jace isn't a hero who helps people he's a hero who helps his girlfriend!!!" And "haha Jace doesn't let clary have her own tooth brush or space or any friends! Sooo kawaaaaiiii!!!!!" Or "if clary died Jace would be worse than sebastian lol so smexyyy!" Like as if that isn't disturbing and disgusting to normalize to MINORS!

I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the people who suffer the most from Cassandra Clare's continuous deflection of any wrong doing. You wrote these books about incest Clare, and children read these books and cannot understand your "complex" symbolism for how incest is bad but it's oh so good. It makes me want to burst into tears sometimes but instead I'll just send this ask and forget about it.

Oh,

P.S.

Fuck you Cassandra Clare for writing a Trump supporter female character who is against incest to try and say all the people who hate incest are Trump supporters or conservatives. I am a victim of a serious fucking trauma and I am not a fucking conservative because I want you to be held accountable for your fucked up books. You have spit in the face of rape victims time and time again and I genuinely hope some day you get torn to shreds by the public for everything you've perpetuated to CHILDREN.

Every once in a while I think about this interview Clare once gave that I saw on YouTube. She said that her readers often told her (at the time of the interview) that they are older than they consider the target audience of her books to be, and Clare commented something along the lines of, if you read her books, no matter the age, you are the target audience. Which is a nice thought, but the tonality is still very juvenile—even in her later works that are supposedly new adult genre. They differ in no way in style or tone from those works that are categorized in young adult fiction.

Colleen Hoover? Yuck. Perhaps it tells something about the mentality of those readers who liken Clare to Hoover.

Clare’s writing, tone, and capacity to handle serious and complex matters have always sucked. Each topic is handled with surface-level attention or used as a vehicle to ruminate and moan over the main couple and their obstacles in love. The writing has never went into any great length to realistically include themes such as incest (societal or personal level approach and attitudes) or abuse because the characters’ need to be liked and loved and be above the characters that are only used as a fodder for ridicule and betterment of the main characters in comparison. All while Clare tries to create a guise of them being “complex” because of the fact. It’s one of the reasons I have found comparing G.R.R. Martin’s style of implementation of different themes to Clare’s meaningful (as there have been convos about this some time back on the blog) because they are not nearly the same even though it is an easy comparison her readers like to make.

When it comes to idealizing abusive behavior, similar attitude within the readership can be seen in Isabelle’s character when she thinks Valentine is hot for being a villain. Young adult literature is littered with characters exactly like Jace who do not face responsibility for their abusive behavior because that is what the author chooses to prioritize and coddle, simultaneously failing to realize the impact that kind of behavior realistically has on others around them. Jace’s behavior isn’t acknowledged because others are meant to serve him and conform around his needs. Even Clary, who is the protagonist and heroine of the story. It’s never really about her—even her pain—it’s about Jace.

When I read TMI for the first time, I was incredibly conflicted with feeling the way I did (hateful and uncomfortable with many decisions and characters) because authors know better, right? This is how it is supposed to be, right? This isn’t supposed to be about anyone else than Clary and Jace, right? So why anything would be done different or better or given more attention to?

Fuck that. And also fuck Zara Dearborn because we know what Clare’s doing. And it’s embarrassing.

I am incredibly sorry that you had to live through such a horrible thing. I can’t even imagine the pain and confusion you’ve had to endure and work through. There isn’t much I can say but I hope you are faring better today and had good and trustworthy people around you to support you during the recovery (and still do). How could you offend anyone with your thoughts when you’ve survived it and know the destruction it causes? Never apologize for that. I wish you happiness and all the best in life.

[nights-like-this17]

20 Questions for fic writers

Tagged by @thatbluelight cuz we be forcing each other to read each other’s fics even when we don’t know what’s going on…hate to say it but I lowkey miss reading ur peterick shenanigans…anyway

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

31…simultaneously feels like a lot and not enough

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

333,525

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Written for a lot of different fandoms, most recently for the Thai gl Gap, but in the past I’ve written for the Wrestling fandom (specifically Baysha/Charlynch), Power Rangers (2017), 1 for American Horror Story, 1 for Batwoman, and a couple old fall out boy sprinkled in.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Behind Closed Doors, How Could You Possibly Know?, Look Me In The Eyes, Don’t Look Back In Anger, The Fear of Falling Apart

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

YES, I feel like there’s so much community in fic writing and I love being able to connect with otherwise strangers over media we both enjoy.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don’t purposely write angsty “endings” it’s more like I give up on an idea half way through before we can get to the happy ending, like “I Run Back Thoughts of You” is enemies to lovers but only has 1 chapter so we still in the enemies phase…

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Can I Break Down Your Walls? There’s so many ups and downs in that fic but like the ending is so cute and cheesy

8. Do you get hate on any fics?

Not a lot but I’ve definitely got a weird comment or two, I can definitely write some darker themes and people have been weird about it once or twice but it’s praise and support 99% of the time

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Ya, def grew into that, wasn’t something I touched in the beginning of writing fic, but like the last few years she’s become more prominent

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah, it’s def not my cup of tea in my own writing style, but I can appreciate when other writers do it. Putting different characters/people together like that is a lot for my brain sometimes 😂

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of…👀

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone contacted my a while ago asking if they could translate Behind Closed Doors into Spanish to like record audio of them reading for their YouTube channel…I said yeah but never really checked back 😂

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Ya, I co-wrote a like sequel one-shot of a Power Rangers fic years ago (I Hate To Say I Told You So)

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

…probably still Sasha Banks and Bayley even tho we getting crumbs these days…

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Sasha Hates Christmas, I usually update it every year around Christmas time and it follows a close to real life story line but I haven’t updated it since 2021

16. What are your writing strengths?

I feel like there’s a good like general flow, like everything tends to move solidly if that makes sense. I feel like I’m also a poet at heart so I be killing it with the comparisons and like painting the scene with metaphors.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I feel like I could work on like making things more realistic, I feel like I always make endings perfect and don’t allow for like human error/nuance all the time.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue language in fic?

I have before sparingly, it’s not really my fav, I took 5 years of Spanish in high school…but still can’t w correct grammar/phrasing so I don’t really attempt it

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Hate to admit it but the first fic I wrote was like 2013 about Demi/Selena on wattpad and I was down bad

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

This is hard, I love a lot of my one-shots but I feel like the longer chaptered fics were truly like a labor of love especially with how many times I wanted to quit them. Soooo probably Purple Hurts But Blue Stings Worse or Behind Closed Doors

This was fun and introspective…✌️

Tagging @ahunter8056

[blush-and-books]

Top 5 all-time favorite ships?

TEA!!!

Warning - this list is literally just the same m/f couple in different fonts. A lot of these were more formative and influential in my childhood or were from series that are from a couple years ago. I am naming these as my top five because of how insane I went over them/how hard I hyperfixated on them.

When I made this list I was disappointed to realize that there hasn't been a wlw couple from a series or movie that has influenced me this powerfully, but I hope to find it soon and if you have any recs lmk! :) Will also include honorable mentions!

1. Kirsten Clark and Cameron Goodkin, Stitchers (2015-2017)

This is tied with Julie and the Phantoms for one of my biggest hyperfixations ever. Kirsten and Cameron were a slowburn that was done really beautifully and nobody was doing it like them. I watched this show at a very pivotal developmental point in my life, and I think these two taught me a lot about the work that a relationship takes and the fact you have to be willing to put it in - they were a healthy relationship example for me at a time that it was necessary for me to see it. They have a lot of character development over 3 seasons but grow together in healthy ways, and the writers kind of bake it into the plot that they're meant to be lmao. They also are just a great example of loving someone for everything that they are. They definitely made me a little mentally ill but also inspired me to be a writer, so...

2. Julie Molina and Luke Patterson, Julie and the Phantoms (2020)

I don't know how long you have been following me anon, but if I've been on your dash at all in the past couple years, it was most definitely related to Julie and the Phantoms, and probably related to Julie and Luke. In one season, they had insane development and beautiful chemistry. The way their characters were written made them naturally fit together, and made me cry "soulmates!" quite often. I will forever mourn what they could have been, and be grateful for some of the most stellar works of fanfiction I've ever read that were produced in their name.

3. Anne Shirley Cuthbert and Gilbert Blythe, Anne With An E (2018-2020)

Technically they're from the whole Anne of Green Gables Universe but AWAE is one of my Shows Of All Time ™ lol so I'm crediting them to the show!!! Just everything about them..amazing. Definitely gave me unrealistic expectations for love tho bc who tf assaults a man and still bags him in the end!??? Anne. She's that bitch and I haven't reached that yet but I'm working towards it.

4. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, Pride & Prejudice (2005, dir. Joe Wright)

This is another one of those ships where I'm like if you've followed me long enough you could have seen this coming lol. These two are from the general Pride & Prejudice Universe, first created by the lovely Jane Austen, but P&P 2005 is by far my favorite movie of all time, and it is still breathtaking every time I watch it. Keira Knightley and Emmy Award Winner Matthew Macfadyen are really a perfect pair and their adaptations of the characters are so genuine and whole. Everything I do, I do for them.

5. Nina Martin and Fabian Rutter, House of Anubis (2011-2013)

My original Ship of All Time. Was very mentally ill over them. I rewatched this show last year and I expected to be like "oh god this is cringe how did young me like this so much" but instead I was like "oh god this is so well written how could anybody hate this show." Yes it has its silly moments but I could write essays on how well it was written. The foundation of trust between Nina and Fabian was more powerful than any "do you trust me?" YA teen fantasy movie moment of the 2000s. Fabian was the blueprint for every fictional crush I have had since.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Kaz Brekker and Inej Ghafa, Six of Crows Duology and Shadow & Bone TV series

Aziraphale and Crowley, Good Omens

Su-hyeok and Nam-Ra, All Of Us Are Dead

Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper, Stranger Things

Zoya Nazyalensky and Alina Starkov, Shadow & Bone Trilogy and TV series (yes I am a Zoyalina truther sorry)

Dan Humphrey and Blair Waldorf, Gossip Girl (will I receive hate for this one? to be determined)

Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson, Stranger Things

John B and Sarah Cameron, Outer Banks

Ethan and Sarah, My Babysitter's a Vampire

[theendofjeepguy]

I'm going to tell my story from the beginning, "Believe it or not, this is the true events of my life ... My name is not important. what will come to be important is the lessons that I learned, and hopefully, you will after reading my blog . So let's light this candle in and go back to 2013. I went to work for a notorious drug dealer ML in a small town in the kootneys in Beautiful British Columbia. We did it all .Just like in the movies except we were living it .if 1it was a crime. We were balls deep in it. But I digress this isn't about that side of my life this Is blog about love, betrayal heartache, and loss and not necessarily in that order. So in November of 2103, it was my accociates girlfriends birthday, so of to dinner we go, ML picks me up late as usual. I said, "Did you get a card?" He says why the fuck do I need a card?" I should get a card? We should stop and get a card. " "Good idea, that's why you're the boss," I said. We were late, but hey, when you're paying for 20 ppl to have dinner , you're the guy who took a blow torch to someone's face just because they didn't add up . People will wait for you, and as I always said, hey, if you're late, you're late, you can't get any later. So we show up LATE and there is know where for me to sit so I sit at the kids table . And just then the most beautiful and I mean fucking stunning redhead walks over and sits across from me,I didn't know it at the time but my life was never going to be the same. She says, " Hey, I'm Ginger. Well, my real name is Tanya." I said hey, I'm Jeepguy. How are ya ?" And how long does this thing usually last ? She laughed and said, "That's what booze is for and then went to bathroom and at that moment, a little girl came and sat at the table, which made sense I was at the kids' table. Once again, I didn't know, but this little girl was going to change my life as well. I started coloring with the little girl. I hate people, and adult conversations bore the shit out of me, so kids and animals are usually where you find me at a social event. I find something true and honest in their eyes. When the red head returned from the bathroom, she said "oh you met my daughter."Nope, we're just coloring," I said.Well, let me introduce you to Ari .nice to meet you, I said .what did I care? I was never going to see this kid again, right? Well, the night ended, and we headed for home on the way out. Tanya says I'm coming home with you I said it's a pickup, and I git Krenzie with me ."" She responded with, "I'll sit on his lap," so we went back to the place where I was staying under a fake business. we used to hide certain activities. She gave me some coke we had a bump and she left . Just like that, she left me a gram of coke and a case of beer .I was confused but intrigued, but the Redhead they called Tanya..stay tuned as this blog is just getting warmed up I will pull no punches I will tell everything that took place in this fucked up roller coaster of a life I was living there will be NO EDITS and I will use actual screen shots of conversations to prove my point so hang on it's everything you wanted to know but we're afraid to ask or just didn't care

[gently-folded-paper-cranes]

unpopular opinion (i doubt) but books nowadays have too much smut in them. YA books have smut and for what. your audience are usually minors bro. and its so weird for an adult to write smut especially if it involved underage kids. sure smut’s fine to read but there are genuinely shitty, 2013 wattpad level books being published and eaten up by people solely for how dirty they are and i hate it eh. and i say wattpad not to discredit wattpad writings, dont get me wrong ive read brilliant works there, but what im trying to say is its just smut and no plot like if u want that, go watch porn for real. the book industry is becoming so oversaturated with smut books and its so fucking annoying

and like because of this, i genuinely feel people think romance cannot exist without sex being a part of it and its so wtf i think thats what i hate the most. like i asked someone for a book recommendation and bro gave me spanish live deception and said it was peak literature. bro peak what????? nothing about it was peak. in fact, the only thing peak about it was me wanting to throw it off a mountain peak and never see it again like?????? love can of course involve sexual attraction, i wont ever say otherwise BUT to indicate the ideal that love cannot exist without sexual attraction is a pain in the ass

[reservoirreputation]

Physical media haul, part one

Text only, because uploading multiple pics to one post is kind of a pain. I still have a draft of fanart I wanna redo because of exactly this, but anyway:

BOOKS

Read but I wanna reread:

Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi

This is 'the book that inspired Goodfellas' and I read it before watching the movie. I read it in 2012, (god I thought it was 2014) and recall that because it was weeks before Henry Hill died. So, I was 14 when I read it- hey, that's where the 14 comes from! Checked it out from the library, and no my parents weren't bothered by it because my Dad's had documentaries about organized crime playing in the house for as long as I can remember. First time I sought stuff like that on my own, pretty sure I read it before Helter Skelter. Wanna reread because Goodfellas is one of my fave movies, and I wonder how my interpretation of the book will have changed in 11 years/how much has the movie influenced me. If I feel motivated enough, I may document that reread on here, 'cause why not?

New books (to me)

Aliens novelization by Alan Dean Foster based on James Cameron's screenplay

The Big One I wanna find is Foster's novelization of Alien, the first film, and again one of my favorite films, but I will settle for the sequel, because the movie's still pretty good.

Till Death Us Do Part by Vincent Bugliosi with Ken Hurwitz

More from the GOAT Bugliosi. The way he humanizes victims of true crime, his attention to detail, his passion for justice, I love him. Enough said. You wanna read true crime that doesn't feel like a spectacle, comes from one of the people most involved in the case, he's your guy.

Merriam-Webster's Italian-English Dictionary

Yes, this is my fourth course on Duo. Yes, I have a problem.

Chain Letter by Christopher Pike

The same author who wrote The Midnight Club, which was adapted into a show by Mike Flanagan, whose work is kinda hard to find out in the wild, for me at least. First thing I've read from him is Die Softly, a paperback with a gorgeous late 80s/early 90s cover, and has an absolutely haunting ending, highly recommend. So, this edition of Chain Letter is actually two stories in one, the second being The Ancient Evil, and they're from 1986 and 1992 respectively, and this paperback edition is from 2013-

I hate the new cover. If you've ever seen one YA fiction novel cover from the 2010s, you've damn-near seen them all. Utterly boring, you'd think they were written by a different author of the same name (which I did think for a while there). It also?? Does nothing to advertise the second story??

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Same author of The Haunting of Hill House, which I read in 2018. It's very different from the Flanagan series, but the show kept a lot of the spirit, again a case of 'I read the book first'. Really enjoyed both, have seen the movie for 'Castle, will be interesting to see how faithful of an adaptation it was.

DVD/music haul in part 2!

[criticalbennifer]

Building a New Ben

Sick of Affleck? Our Five-Point Plan to Revive The World's Most Over-Exposed Actor

By: GQ.com

April 11, 2013 2003

Dear Ben Affleck,

So it's been a rough year. Girl problems. Work problems. Goatee problems.

Buck up, ya big poufy-haired lug! It may look hopeless now, but your career hasn't yet plunged into Jared Leto-ville. You're not waiting for a callback for Beethoven's 5th. Hardly anyone calls you "Casey Affleck's big brother." Paycheck? Don't worry—nobody saw it! Gigli? In theaters an hour and a half. And you're not the first fiancé to eat a $1.2 million pink-diamond engagement ring and a $350,000 Bentley. Tell it to David Gest, brother!

But the truth hurts: People are starting to not like you, Ben. You're polling lower than Dennis Kucinich. You're too chatty, too tan, too everywhere. The other night, we found you on Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, E!, MTV, Animal Planet and the Jakarta Cricket Channel. You're so overexposed, you could walk into the White House with Iraqi WMD's under one arm and Osama bin Laden under the other and the public reaction would be: Not another friggin' Ben Affleck story. By the way, the Mars rover says they're sick of you up there, too (and they hated Daredevil).

We're frustrated because we know you have more to offer, Ben. You've done some good films—Chasing Amy, Shakespeare in Love, Changing Lanes... Pearl Harbor (just seeing if you're still paying attention, bro!). You've got that Oscar for Good Will Hunting. You can be shrewd and funny; you made the unwatchable _Project Greenlight _semiwatchable, and your quotes practically stole Peter Biskind's best-selling book, Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of the Independent Film. (At least you didn't kiss Harvey's big ass. And comparing yourself and Matt Damon to Saturday Night Live's Ambiguously Gay Duo—v. rich!) You _can _be likeable and real; you're not one of those capital-A actor types like Russell Crowe, who is probably still droning on somewhere about how he learned the violin for Master and Commander.

So it's time to get the Affleck act together. Before Byron Allen starts calling—and you answer. Before you're phoning Alec Baldwin for advice ("Kid, dump the Tom Clancy movies—they're never gonna make any money!"). Take our instructions, cut them out, stick them to the Sub-Zero in the Ben-chelor pad and read them every day before your private step aerobics-karate-Tai Chi class.

1. Go Away

Get out of Hollywood. Go someplace quiet and uninteresting. No, not the new John Sayles movie. Stay out of cinema, period. Go someplace the paparazzi won't dream of going. No, not Chris O'Donnell's house. Find someplace where you can think. And then, when you think of a reason you made Reindeer Games, keep thinking. Hard.

2. Shut the Hell Up

Kind of goes hand in hand with no. 1, but we want to make sure. Ben, you like to talk more than a bathroom full of I-bankers on a Friday night. So no more jibber-jabbering on Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Pat O'Brien, _Celebrity Poker Showdown _or Dinner for Twelve, or whatever it's called. In fact, stop talking to Jon Favreau for, like, ever. Most important: STOP TALKING TO DIANE SAWYER.

3. Do A Movie No one Expects

This one is tough. The big-ticket actor making the smart indie film is a cliché these days. We kind of cringe when we think of you playing a developmentally disabled person to get some James Lipton brownie points. At the very least, you should make a movie with—how's this?—a script! No more blockbusters, superheroes or sci-fi for eighteen months.

4. Fix the Look

No more baseball caps, and lose the goatee—we told you that four issues ago. And enough with the synthetic tans. You showed up at the Gigli premiere, looking like an overcooked Oompa-Loompa.

5. Find A Nice Girl

We can't fault you for Jennifer Lopez. Not even Carson Kressley would have said no. But you need to find yourself a woman who won't make you run out to the corner store for a Lamborghini. We have a couple of very nice editorial assistants here who'd be more than happy with a few cranberry vodkas and a ticket to the Shins.

We have some other suggestions, Ben. You might want to get fat. Not too fat—but maybe a little roly-poly, enough to punch and impress the Sunday-afternoon football crowd. You might want to speak with an accent. You might want to wear a cape. Finally, we have seven words for you if all else fails: Good Will Hunting II: Gooder and Huntinger.

Ben, we didn't vote you Actor of Our Generation, and Lord knows you didn't ask for this. But we're stuck with each other for a couple of decades, and we may as well make it work. You seem like a good enough guy, and besides, we don't see anyone else on the horizon. Unless Chris O'Donnell's making a John Sayles movie.

Go get 'em, kid!

Love,

Your friends at The Verge

[overlordchris]

TMI Diary Time

I don’t know how to do the “read more” on mobile. But who cares. If don’t care, keep scrollin.

So, I just need a place to vent. Thank you Tumblr for alway being there for this purpose I suppose. I am (surprise surprise) unhappy. Some, or most likely 95% of it is related to the depression, which I’ve had for more than half my life at this point. I hate that. But I don’t know, I feel like a unique sort of sadness as of late that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before. What it comes down to as far as my theory goes, it’s related to gender. Now I’ve lived the boy/man gender my whole life. I did so cause, ya know, I didn’t have a choice, as far as society was concerned. But I’ve known for my entire conscious life that something about that just didn’t click as “right” inside my head. I never really talked about it with others cause I had many times as a child been ridiculed for liking and doing things that fell out of the norm of the gender binary. From playing with dolls with my cousin to then be yelled at by my dad about it, to watching sailor moon and then being teased by my older brother for watching a girl show, I had to consciously play the masculine part or face ridicule.

Fast forward to my adult years where I first learned about Trans identity. Like really learned about it. What I mean by this is that I was aware of trans people as existing since childhood, but like, I had never really given it much thought as to what being trans meant, the experience, the community, the struggles, and nor did I really ever think about gender as being a construct instead of just as the status quo, ya know? I wasn’t trans, and still not as I did not desire to be a woman, but I had a deep uncomfortableness with people referring to me as “man”. I did not know why then, and I still don’t even fully know today. Like even just writing the word in reference to me as this is being written just really feels uncomfortable and I truly can’t say why other than it just doesn’t feel right. But by this point in my life, my mid 20s, the years of trying to live up to the “man” standard had made me feel like I had to defend it somehow when anything challenged it.

So here comes a cringe story about how this both manifested, and how it opened my eyes. It all started with Tumbler (coming full circle here) when in I believe in 2013 (or 2014, but I think it’s 2013) first encountered a Tumblr account that was ran by a trans boy (not like a child, but what they referred to themselves as). I followed the account for the usual reasons, memes, shitposts, etc. but one thing I quickly started to notice was the like tons of anon hate specifically targeting the fact that this person with breasts and feminine facial features called himself a boy. At first I thought, this is weird, I don’t understand why either side was so intense in their posts defending their points of view. Being me, this prompted me to dig deeper to learn more about the person behind this account, and I of course discovered the anon hate went back a long way. It had seemed there were times they would turn off anons, but then turn them back on further along in their timeline (which I don’t understand why they would turn it back on when obviously nothing good was coming from it). The moments they turned anons back on were filled with a lot of snarky/humorous replies deliberately poking fun at those trying to discredit the account holder’s gender, however that slowly turned into having more of a negative effect on their mental health, turning anon back off for a bit, and repeat.

So, how does this all relate to me? Well I had originally sided with the anon haters cause I had felt the snarky/humorous replies were in a way making light of something that I had to defend my whole life. I was ridiculed for not being “man” enough for years and this person was just casually throwing it out there like it’s something anyone could just claim. This had made me a bit angry actually because to me, being a “boy” meant MY experience growing up. How dare this person choose to be what I had always thought I had to prove to be?

If you haven’t connected the dots yet, yes, I took something that had nothing to actually do with me personally. Thankfully though I didn’t stay angry for long. I had turned to others to discuss this whole thing to get their ideas, and research articles by those from the trans community. The most important piece of information however came by way of an anon ask I had submitted to a Tumblr (keeps coming full circle!) ran by someone who had a close relationship with the topic, and had a masters in psychology. So what was this eye opening explanation that showed me the pointlessness of my anger? Well they shared with me that not everyone had the same experiences when growing up. On paper, yeah, no duh, right? But all it took was those words to make me take a moment to think about my experience and truly analyze it. I was coming from a very self centered place that had blinded me to seeing the larger picture. People be different. While there may be certain patterns in terms of behavior and responses humans display, I fundamentally believe that we are all genuinely unique, as far as brains go at the very least. Can people be similar? Of course. But there are just way too many variables that shape all of us that no two brains are ever the same. How I was raised, my life experiences, my brain’s development and subsequent interpretations all led to me being the me I am. That is something I truly believe. My experience with gender pressure and conformity was MY issue and it would be foolish to think that my life experience was the same experience as everyone else.

Coming to this realization it would still be like 7 or 8 years before I’d come to the conclusion that is today, but I was starting to understand the core issues and struggles that the Trans community was facing. I also began to understand the notion of gender being a social construct, and starting to question why it matted in the first place.

Now, fast forward to closer to today. Not quite to today today, but we’re almost there, trust me. So, about a year ago, October of 2021 to be more precise, my bestie wanted to get in shape and wanted me to accompany him to a gym for this process. Now that whole thing imploded, but that’s entirely a different story for maybe a different time. But one chilly evening we end up at a 24 hour fitness (which are no longer 24 hours…) because the main thing my friend wanted was to join a gym that is open very early in the AM. Like 3am more or less. The long story short here is we signed up for like a guest pass cause the guy at the gym was very insistent we do so. I gave a fake email and phone number during the sign up, but on the sheet under gender there were 3 bubbles. Man, Woman, and Non-Binary. I figured none of this mattered cause there was no way I was ever going back to this place to begin with, so I filled in Non-Binary since just about everything else I had already filled out was fake. But turns out not all of it was fake.

We continued driving around that night, looking for other potential gyms, but the rest of that evening I could not seem to get that application out of my mind. Non-Binary. Something about filling in that bubble just felt so right. I had never before thought of myself as being anything but a man, even though I hated that label and never really thought of myself as such internally. But I never did think I could be anything else. That concept just never entered my mind. However, that one dumb little moment of filling out that bubble had been the first time I had ever considered a label that wasn’t what people told me I had to be.

Originally I had leaned into one of the sub identities under the non-binary umbrella; agendered. Which is to say, without gender. Which is more or less to say I don’t care what others may think my gender is. That was what I always wanted to be growing up. Not a man or woman, just weird little old me. And truth be told I still wish that. But that brings me to what this whole venting session was originally to be about. Turns out I do care. I have the tendency to say things like, “kind of”, or “sort of” when it comes to me explaining things about myself, but this is a pretty big definitive “I do” moment. You see, I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to be expected to live in a box or be faced with abandonment and ridicule. I’ve had a taste of understanding, a feeling like I figured out a puzzle after years of working on it. I don’t want to go back.

But, let’s face it, I have biological masculine features. I present as male cause my genetic makeup shaped me to look the way I do, and this look pushes me inside the “Man” box. I’ve lived with following this path for over 30 years, and I don’t quite feel like doing anything drastic to change myself. Gender presentation does not determine someone’s gender identity, or least that’s the hope. However, the truth is for the vast majority of people is that it does, because it’s all they’ve ever known. Is there progress being made on this? Of course. I wouldn’t be here calling myself non-binary if we as a society were still stuck in the same way of thinking as say 15 or 20 years ago. But I’m not going to pretend that if I talked with 100 strangers about being non-binary, most would have any idea what I’d be talking about. This also applies to my entire family, which is why I don’t think I’d ever “come out” to them. I don’t think they’d understand at best, and at worst would probably ridicule me.

As of late, being referred to as a man has just been bothering me more and more. I think it’s related to it feeling regressive. Like I’m in a way being told to go back into the confusing box I had lived in my whole life. Where this is showing up and causing the most mental anguish is with a TTRPG group I play with currently. They are nice and enjoy most of their company (though I’m pretty sure 1 of them doesn’t care for me, but again, that’s another story), and for the most part they have pretty modern views about things. So gender issues are known, and respected amongst everyone more or less. Though, not so much with me which is the problem.

The one in this group who doesn’t like me is she/they and a lot of the time she will play non-binary characters. I will say that things between us initially were ok, and I don’t think they’re actively trying to hurt me in anyway currently either. But while they ask people to follow the pronouns of their characters, be they he/him, she/her, or they/them, everyone does so. Now I’ve had 3 separate characters I’ve played this last year that were specifically introduced as being non-binary. But every time I’d play these characters they would be referred to as he/him, or in my most recent case, she/her. This is all despite the fact that I only refer to them as they/them when describing what they do.

I know I know, it seems like a trivial thing to get upset with, but I liken it to a rock in a shoe. It’s a minor annoyance, yes, but the longer it’s in there the greater that annoyance becomes.

I don’t like the sort of invalidation I get out of game either. While I’ve not explicitly come out and said it, I don’t refer to myself in gendered terms. I’ve also included both the agender and non-binary flags as avatars and no one has bothered to ask or clarify things. I guess I can’t just expect everyone to ask or pick up on context clues. Again, everyone’s different. But I would hope that people I call friends would, you know, at least pick up on when I’m not feeling comfortable. Unfortunately I can’t bring myself to just say something, cause it’s honestly something I’m still pretty embarrassed and scared to admit. As to why that is, see all thee above.

And here we are today. I don’t really know what to do because it’s not as easy as just speaking up. If it was, then things like stage fright or public speaking anxiety wouldn’t exist in my life. So yeah, I’m not quite sure what next steps I can take. I hope something changes but I don’t know how or when they will. I mean I haven’t even touched the imposter syndrome aspect I feel about of all this, but that is also a massive road block for me. All I know is that I’ve noticed my depression taking a turn for the worse again and I know this is a definite contributor.

[bicodeofhonour]

why did young avengers (2013) make billy kaplan so ugly.

like, in character and in style....

why did they do that to him when in everything else before that he’d been so attractive. 

[aueua]

just wanted to say that I love your drawings and I hope I get as good as you some day

thank you very much!! we all start from somewhere

aand my apologies in advance; you probably weren't expecting some incoherent mumbling, but it's been a long day and I'll just say things nobody has to pay this much mind.

I did this one late october in 2013! beautiful, ain't it? I don't even remember this OC at all aside from being a bunny/wolf hybrid, giving her features I liked at the time (yet they're somehow not black and red, I know, it's shocking). I wasn't really well-versed in digital art yet, not that my traditional was much different. used GIMP—which might explain the pixelated grass—and an airbrush at 100% for everything. lines. coloring. absolutely no layer modes/filters.

but, I thought it was very cool back then. it's still pretty cool to me now. my lines were shaky, not necessarily clean, and the year or so with a trackpad was hell and I had actively used a mouse for nearly a decade right after that.

waves hand.

point is, I'm really flattered! that I'm part of your aspirations. I don't really process the extent of my impression on others.

you really don't have to be as good as me. actually, you can be. most likely you will be, probably even better—if it's really somewhere you want to be. just might take time albeit, but I hope that art's fun for you. I wish you the best of luck in your journey at every step—that you develop your style in the way that makes you most comfortable and happiest doing things that also end up in exciting results no matter the medium.

these honestly might seem like empty words since... gestures vaguely. but I really do mean all of them. I had a depressing streak of self-inferiority and deprecation when I was younger. frequently compared myself to other artists in all forms, just in all the bad ways. got bothered tons by numbers and feedback. got even more self-conscious after some light teasing from peers and getting onto a cringe blog. (sometimes I still feel that way when I get really bad.)

that one was a tangent. o|-<

if you ever need someone to cheer you on, I'm here!! I enjoy looking at images. I love looking at art. I love getting to see what others are interested in enough to make something out of nothing with all of their heart and soul. does this make sense? I would have never had such a vehement streak for drawing if it were not for the support back then even among all the Childhood "Angst", so like.

strikes a pose. I'm bad at doing it nowadays, but I don't mind spending the time to give a more sincere compliment (or feedback otherwise, to the best of my ability) if someone has a specific piece—or anything really—that they're real proud about. I have Been there in the pit of zero response leading to zero motivation before even if art is supposed to be for fun and not shared with the purpose of attention but like. it's fun getting microdoses of serotonin for stuff ya know... it's sharing a piece of you...

erm. maybe this has gone on for too long, so I hope this makes somewhat sense. it's just. I would hate someone to be discouraged because of the lack of attention they receive for something they bled their heart over? this is redundant.

whatever the case and however you do it, I really do wish you well. I will Hit and Hurt anyone that would deter you otherwise (even if that is yourself, in which case I would just gently rattle you). we don't know each other I imagine, but still. come to think of it maybe you already ARE happy with your stuff and HELL YEAH that is THE WAY TO GO!!

but I do not know, so I wanted to be safe in the case that it was not.

anywho! to anyone reading this spiel, we do not have to speak about this ever again!! I will probably forget about this tomorrow honestly because that has been the pattern nowadays for rambling at dead o'clock hours.

eat, drink, stretch, and rest; do what you must. I hope that today is yours, and if not, tomorrow. the days after. may they be manageable enough, and I wish you all things good and kind. maybe even a pleasant surprise to shake things up a little...

(´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) please take care.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

2013!Phan Masterlist

Links Last Checked: August 10th, 2024

7,500 Kilometers - demonphannie

Summary: 7,500 kilometers is a pretty large distance to bridge but Dan and Phil are trying. Or rather their cell phone connection is. It’s 2013 and Dan’s in India.

all sorts of not sleeping (ao3) - kay_okay

Summary: Insomnia can be caused by an infinite number of reasons. Here are five of theirs.

At The Bottom Of The Glass - icomefromthenight

Summary : 2013, Louise birthday party; Louise and Tyler have a plan to make Dan and Phil finally fall into each other’s arms.

Autumn Leaves - oqua12

Summary: Once upon a time, Dan liked to draw.(Or, the one where Dan and Phil go through a certain box in the Lesters’ attic and Dan has a lot of feelings about it.)

better off (not being around ya) (ao3) - i_am_my_opheliac

Summary: His presence next to you hasn’t felt like an armour in a long time, slowly turned into the monster that you’ve been running away from.

Better Than A Pillow - mermaidstailonmyface

Summary: Playlist Live 2013 - Hotel Room.

Blanket Cocoon (ao3) - furryphil

Summary: Dan is grumpy. But Phil always knows how to cheer him up.

Close to Bad Decisions (ao3) - phangelica

Summary: Dan leaves Phil alone at a party and Phil accidentally gets too drunk when Chris Hemsworth hits on him.

Conjuncture (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: During a 2013 liveshow Phil calls Dan, only to find that Dan’s not in the apartment and has left his phone behind. He’s worried; he’s worried any time Dan does this.

“Did you ever doubt that your dream will ever come true?” - secretlywritingstories

Summary: As Phil reads out the question, Dan’s involuntary reaction is to smile and glance towards him. He hides it pretty well during the live show but as soon as it’s over, he begins to fully appreciate that his dream did come true.

"Don't argue. Just do it." (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: He’d told Dan the whole thing was a stupid idea when he first tweeted it out. He’d told Dan the whole thing was a stupid idea when Louise showed up at the flat. A ficlet about symmetry and painful favours.

dreams you never thought you’d lose (ao3) - waveydnp

Summary: what if the radio show hadn’t worked out?

Flag as Inappropriate (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: Getting emails or comments or mentions like this are not uncommon. Phil’s been getting them for years. Dan’s been getting them since the nakedbooth days. They’re not always so explicit, and sometimes they’re much, much worse. A fic about emails and tickling.

From all the way across the Atlantic (ao3) - Archive (Curlylinguist)

Summary: Phil's away on a family holiday in Florida leaving Dan to man the radio show alone (almost).

24 hours of texting, 2013 style.

Home Is Where The Wifi Connects Automatically - oqua12

Summary: (tw) The wifi at Dan’s parents’ house is utter crap, which is definitely why he’s always so miserable when he visits his family for Christmas. Because of the wifi. (Or at least, that’s what he chooses to tell himself.)

Hottest Lad 2013 - doomedhowell

Summary: Dan started voting for Phil for hottest lad but forgot that when he voted all his twitter followers can see it or something and start asking questions.

Jealous Kiss (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: Phil is usually not the possessive one between the two of them. He’s starting to understand why Dan hates it so much. Jealousy isn’t easy on the tummy. A ficlet about rumours and photoshop.

Mollifying (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: Most days aren’t bad like this. Most days just include Phil not wanting to make a phone call or agonizing over how stupid he looks when he trips over his own feet. A fic about physical anxiety and piano playing.

not a social monster (ao3) - templeofshame

Summary: Logically, and when he’s not in a sticky, dimly lit Brick Lane club, Phil is grateful for DJ Mooken Tooken.

the cities we live in (ao3) - danisnopeonfire

Summary: @AmazingPhil: Fun fact - we almost MOVED to New York in 2013 to host a TV show. Maybe we'd still live there now!

the more i sit and think, more that time runs slow (ao3) - sunflowerwitches (orphan_account)

Summary: rain on the roof in the middle of the night. you took all the covers but everything was right

you're a little much for me (and i love you) (ao3) - obsessivelymoody

Summary: It isn't an easy time in Dan and Phil's lives, but that doesn't stop them from loving each other.

[lawisnotmocked]

I Read The Court of Miracles And Now I Am Going To Scream!

The Court of Miracles is a young adult historical fantasy Les Mis and Jungle Book retelling that was published in June 2020. It’s set in the criminal underworld of an alternate revolutionary France and follows Eponine ‘Nina’ Thénardier of the Thieves Guild as she works with the other criminal guilds of the Court of Miracles to take down their common enemy - Lord Kaplan of the Guild of Flesh. A longer summary of the book can be found on Goodreads!

I started reading this book at the beginning of the year, stopped in the middle to finish my dissertation, then finally finished it the other day to present you with a very long and slightly incoherent review! My review does contain spoilers and a lot of rambling you have been warned 😌💞

Just to get this out of the way first, I did genuinely enjoy reading COM. I thought it was a really fun book and I think if I’d read it when I was 14 it would’ve probably been one of my absolute favourite books! There’s animal symbolism and imagery everywhere, political drama, an awesome criminal underworld and a cast of really fun main characters! Sure it’s kinda dumb sometimes in a ya fantasy kind of way but that’s part of the fun!

I am however reviewing this book on my Les Mis blog because it’s also a les mis and jungle book retelling, so the les mis aspect is going to be the main focus of this review. I think court of miracles is a good book (or well bad in a good way ;3), but a bad les Mis retelling.

The way Kester Grant veiws Les Mis has the same energy as a 2013 Enjonine shipper? She thinks Cosette is a boring bland character, she identifies with Eponine in a not-like-other-girls kind of way, Enjolras is reduced exclusively to his revolutionary enthusiasm and she hates Marius because he loves his girlfriend, he’s a little bit pathetic and he doesn’t care about the revolution as much as Enjolras does. (I’m getting all of this information from an interview she did with scifinow btw) She’s clearly read the brick but the way she views the characters feels like she’s looked at mainstream musical interpretations of them, shook them through a sieve then taken the remaining one character trait and built her les mis-based characters around said single character trait.

The COM characters themselves are more than just one single character trait they all have their own personalities and character arcs! But because of this they also end up being nothing like their les mis counterparts. To make things even more complicated, the main characters Nina (Eponine) and Ettie (Cosette) are also Bagheera and Mowgli respectively. Even Thenardier is also Tabaqui! I think the only characters who are solely based on les mis characters are St. Juste (Enjolras - yeah I know I’ll get to it ^^’), Grantaire, Montparnasse, Javert and Valjean.

Despite my criticisms I actually think COM is a really good ya jungle book retelling! In my opinion the strongest parts of the book were the parts that were inspired by the jungle book! The worldbuilding itself was super fun and engaging and the idea of the guilds was something that was inspired by the jungle book too. The main storyline of the book, and the strongest and most engaging one, was also part of the jungle book retelling! And Lord Kaplan (Shere Khan) was one of my favourite characters and one of the most interesting to read about! At some points it even felt like the Les Mis inspired plotlines took away from the story. The Les Mis inspiration mostly just appeared in the names of a few characters and the setting being Some Point In Fictional Revolutionary France, but even the French nobility were part of the jungle book side of the retelling as the bandar-log.

I think the last kind of general thing I could put here is that the story is broken up into sections with pretty big time skips in between, and I think this was meant to be similar to the way the jungle book is written but it did make the story a little bit hard to follow at the beginning ^^’

COM is clearly Kester writing something very self indulgent for herself - and this isn’t a criticism you go girl write that borderline self insert enjonine jungle book au! It’s just a comment about how it reads to me ^^’

Okay I’m gonna get more into the les mis side of COM now bc that’s obviously what people following me want to read about most and what I want to talk about most too 😌

Aside from perhaps Montparnasse and Thenardier, all of the Les Mis characters were so out of character that some of them didn’t even bare surface resemblance to the characters they were based on. I am. Having some Especially Strong Feelings about Javert in this book But I’m gonna start by sharing some thoughts about the amis!

Okay first I have to just. His name is Enjolras St. Juste. He gets referred to as St. Juste the entire book. St. Juste. The man’s a dumbass your honour I rest my case 😌 He’s clearly supposed to be Enjolras, but he feels more like Enjolras from a 2010s canon era enjonine fanfic that someone wasn’t really taking too seriously and present day modern au fanon Enjolras got smushed together then got handed some cue cards with some facts about canon Enjolras on them. He’s an obnoxious revolutionary student who wears a red coat and lives eats and breathes The CauseTM ��� St. Juste is actually a pretty fun character and I did genuinely enjoy all the scenes with him in! But as the story progresses he ultimately starts to feel more and more out of place and his RevolutionaryTM side story begins to feel like it’s more for The Les Mis Aesthetic than being properly integrated into the story. There’s a plot to overthrow the government but it gets called off at the last minute because it turns out it was a trap laid by the royal family. There are barricades but all the barricade fighting happens off screen and St. Juste and his friends are never really involved in it. He has a will they won’t they kind of thing with Nina so I really wasn’t kidding about the enjonine thing either :’3 He survives to the end of the book though and apparently this is supposed to be a trilogy so I really hope he gets to be his own character a little bit more instead of just providing the Les Mis Revolutionary Aesthetic because as much as he’s kind of sheltered and obnoxious and dumb as a brick I liked him! He’s a terrible Enjolras but a really enjoyable character!

This one’s going in my St. Juste cringe compilation though lads

Okay moving onto Grantaire! Literally the only similarity between Les Mis Grantaire and COM Grantaire is that he’s an alcoholic. But he’s a fun alcoholic y’know! Liver failure but make it charming! It’s romantic and he’s less of a bummer now! See what I said about it reading like bad fanfic sometimes :’3 COM Grantaire is St. Juste’s Vice President and is also Fully On Board With The Cause 😤 even though he sometimes gets on St. Juste’s nerves by being drunk or teasing him 🤪 Can you tell I’m not a fan? :’3

The only other named ami is Feuilly, but the character is more like Combeferre and Jolly combined. A background character is also referred to by the name Jolly in one scene.

I don’t think I really have much to say about Nina and Ettie. I really like Nina!! She’s a lil bit edgy and a lil bit not like other girls in a transgender kind of way and she really loves her sisters and I’d like to giver her a hug 😌 I love Ettie too and I really enjoyed reading about both of them! They’re not Eponine and Cosette but they also weren’t supposed to be just Eponine and Cosette in the first place and I can see where the different les mis and jungle book inspirations are in their characters so I’m more forgiving of the fact that they’re pretty different to their les mis counterparts. They also get to be their own people more than St. Juste does and I think that was good for their characters too! As always Montparnasse is my sweet baby murder boy and I love him and I’m team ninaparnasse out of Nina’s three very handsome and talented love interests who drink respect women juice hashtag young adult fantasy 😌 I also really liked Thenardier!! He’s just the same asshole but he gets quite a few scenes and some awesome animal imagery so I was totally on board with that!

Okay. Now it’s time to talk about Valjean and Javert :’3

Jean Valjean, also known as Monsieur Madeleine and le Maire, is a member of the Guild of Letters. For the most part I really love his character!! The guild of letters specialises in record keeping, extortion, forgery, etc. and Valjean is infamous among the criminal underworld for how good he is at disappearing into different roles whenever necessary. We first meet him when Nina helps him escape from prison and he shows up at different points in the story to help Nina and Ettie out in order to repay the debt he owes her. I love him and I would maybe give him a little kiss 👉👈 One thing that bothered me a lot though was the absolute lack of positive relationship Ettie and Valjean had. They’re not even just indifferent to each other - at one point in the story, Ettie spends two literal years living with Valjean in order to hide from Lord Kaplan and they both actively dislike each other. Ettie even thinks she’s been kidnapped and spends a full two years trying to escape because no one ever bothered to explain anything to her and it’s just?? The coldest possible take on a Valjean Cosette relationship?? He’s not some random man who kidnapped her he’s her dad and they love each other how could you do them both so dirty like this!! Two years and they just hated living with each other and didn’t talk to each other at all!!

This take also bothers me a lot?? Like I know Valjean isn’t Actually a predator in COM but I don’t like the implication that their relationship Could be like that being in any kind of Les Mis adaptation or retelling! It annoyed me a lot when the same implication was put in beebmis and it annoys me a lot here. Valjean and Cosette’s story is one about radical love and healing and I don’t think we need any grimdark predatory Valjean content anywhere at all! Don’t slander my Valjean like that >:// If I just pretend that scene didn’t happen though Valjean’s a really great character and I did enjoy most of the scenes with him in 😌

Mm Javert though...... Kester Grant where are you I just want to talk 🙂 Javert is a white woman with red hair and blue eyes. Okay, fine, you can genderbend Javert if you want I don’t really care, but what I absolutely Do care about is that Javert’s one (1) character trait is that she’s Valjean’s bitter heterosexual ex who’s obsessed with capturing him because he broke her heart. Genderbending Javert just to make her boring and heterosexual is a hatecrime specifically against my gay ass you could’ve at least let them be gay!! I don’t care if you genderbend both of them or leave them both as men gay people can have boring petty character arcs too!! Why is Javert the one who always gets genderbent so they can be het too?? If you have to make them het at least give me a buff lady Valjean I can simp for sometimes :/

I still can’t get over this Kester Grant girlbossed Javert :’3 Miss Javert isn’t like other girls she’s an obsessive misogynist uwu

This is just genuinely embarrassing for me to read how could you do this to me :’3

Anyway Miss Javert would call me the f and t slurs gaslight gatekeep girlboss 💞 /j

Hsvsnsvsv bullying aside, I really did enjoy reading COM. Sure it works by ya logic and Nina has three love interests and awesome thief powers and people just kind of shake off gunshot wounds sometimes but it’s fun! This dumb book managed to pull me out of months long reading slumps twice and it’s one of the most enjoyable things I’ve read in ages! Don’t read COM if you want a good Les Mis retelling because that’s not what it is, but as long as you know what you’re getting into and you don’t take it too seriously then it’s a super fun read that you can both laugh and scream frustratedly at 😌

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1981

The X-Men, those back-to-the-future mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(Uncanny X-Men 141 - 152) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Brent Anderson, Dave Cockrum, Jim Sherman, Bob McLeod and Josef Rubinstein

While I also committed various fashion atrocities at the age of 14 (tye-die and fauxhawks, oh my), even Liberace would find Kitty’s outfits too much. (Uncanny X-Men 149; Uncanny X-Men Annual ‘81)

We dial back from the v. epic scope of the last few arcs. Instead, 1981 is just a lot of fun! We get:

Storm and Emma doing a Freaky Friday!

the X-Men vs. Magneto (again!)

A surprisingly effective Alien rip-off

An dystopian future! (OoOoOoOo)

Last year was the year of the Dark Phoenix, this is the year of Kitty Pryde. That’s not to say Jean’s death is swept under the rug: all throughout, we see her friends mourning her loss or remembering her fondly. (Scott even gets to have a demonic adventure about it.) But in general, Claremont puts Kitty in the forefront, fleshing out his YA-addition to the team. And what would a YA heroine be without a grim dystopia? Roll out the iconic Days of Future Past!

To be fair, 2013 was a dark time for all of us: What Does the Fox Say somehow got to the top of the charts and I was still watching Glee. (Uncanny X-Men 141)

How cool would it have been to see a name like Jonothon Starsmore or Eva Bell on those tombstones?

Anyway, that’s Kate. Kate’s had it rough. Mutants are at the bottom of the foodchain, most X-Men are dead and only a small cadre of resistance fighters remain, Sentinels dominate, and while she is married to Piotr, her children have been murdered. Bleak. Luckily, the rebellion has concocted the plan to shunt Kate’s spirit back in time to prevent this awful future from happening. (You’ve seen Days of Future Past, the last passably good X-Men film, you know what’s up.)

Let’s do the time warp again! 1981!Kitty’s mind gets taken over by 2013!Kitty, who promptly tries to convince the X-Men that a new Brotherhood of v. Evil Mutants will try to kill Senator Kelly, a presidential candidate who tries to put the mutant menace on the agenda. (Mutants tend to blow stuff up when he’s around.) Since the X-Men recently took a literal trip to Dante’s Infero and also befriended a cosmic world-ending entity, they basically shrug and go: “Yeah, this checks out.”

Off to Washington they go (zoommm) and there, they happen upon the Baddest Bitches in Herstory:

“How dare you hate mutants, senator Kelly! We’ll fix that by killing you!” (Uncanny X-Men 141)

This All-New, All-Different Brotherhood consists out of:

Destiny, a blind woman who can see the future. Definitely the eeriest member of this group. Badass lesbian, though that won´t be canon for years.

Avalanche. Greek who makes things shake. Is a long-standing member of the X-Men Rogue’s gallery, but rarely features in the spotlight. I think he got more characterization in four years of X-Men Evolution than he ever did in the comics.

Mystique. Shapeshifter. Ruthless and unhinged, the Cersei Lannister of the X-Men universe. Absolute legend, secretly the wife of Destiny, currently not as unhinged as she’ll be later. Immediately implied to be related to Nightcrawler: it’s the yellow-eyes-blue-skin-combo.

Pyro. Can manipulate fire, not create it. Absolute pillock, in all the best ways of the word. Originally intended as gay, but they decided to make him Australian instead. (?!)

Blob. Big, strong, immovable. We’ve seen him before.

One of the details in this fight I enjoy is that Storm is still struggling with her leadership, although she has a better grip on things than Cyclops:

Wolverine then proceeds to use those iconic but deadly claws about twice per issue for the next, oh, forty years. (Uncanny X-Men 142)

While the X-Men fight the Brotherhood in the present, we cut back and forth to the future. There, the X-Men consist out of some familiar faces - Storm, Colossus, Wolverine - and some surprises: Magneto (in a wheelchair), Franklin Richards (son of) and an unfamiliar ginger girl called Rachel. (She’ll be important later.) We even learn (one of) Magneto’s names: this is the first time he’s canonically called Magnus.

One of the strengths of Days of Future Past lies in its brevity, the way it tantalizingly taunts us with a brutal but familiar future without giving away too much. It’s single-handedly responsible for all those dark future timelines the X-lines are so fond of which will eventually culminate in time-displaced grandsons from alternative dimensions and the impossibility of a succinct answer to the question: “Who’s Cable?” Too much of a good thing and all that.

Still, what Days of Future Past does so successfully is:

Put the idea of the mutant menace back at the forefront, hammering home the metaphor of mutants being a minority. Mutants being put in camps and being forbidden to breed should - regretfully - make us think of all too many real life equivalents. (Specifically, all of the imagery harkens back to the Holocaust.)

It starkly shows what happens should the X-Men lose, reminding everyone of the stakes. The X-Men are here for a reason: bridging the gap between mutants and humankind. If they fuck up, we end up with mutant concentration camps.

It helps that the X-Men in the future almost all die horribly: Franklin is incinerated, Storm is impaled… It's brutal stuff. The only one to survive is Rachel, who wonders if their plan actually changed the future or if they created an alternative timeline. (It did the latter, sorry ‘bout it, Rachel.)

In the present, Kate chases after Destiny, who trains a gun on senator Kelly. I always wondered how this works: if Destiny saw the future, she knew that killing Kelly would trigger a terrifying future. What in the current Marvel timeline made her decide that the Days of Future Past was better? Did she see her own death? Did she see the Onslaught-crossover coming? The Chuck Austen run? What was it?

In any case, time-anomalous Kate stops Destiny from killing Kelly and the future is safe! For now. Kate disappears, Kitty returns to her body and some of the Brotherhood are apprehended. All is well, for now.

After being a key figure in DoFP, Kitty is also the main character in the Christmas special, which is basically a straight up horror and a pastiche of the Alien-movie.

Seriously, John Byrne still isn’t sure why he wasn’t sued by Ridley Scott for this. (Uncanny X-Men 143)

If you love Kitty Pryde? Read this issue. If you’re not convinced you like 80’s Kitty? Read this issue. It’s not continuity relevant and it’s basically Kitty playing the part of a Final Girl in a horror where she’s being chased by a demon, but it’s so good. It showcases all her strengths and her foibles. Kitty’s intelligent, cute (sometimes preciously so) and brave, but she’s also young, self-conscious and hot-headed. And it's not as if the other X-Men automatically adore her: Storm berates her all the time, she’s afraid of Kurt because of the way he looks (though she grows out of that) and she fights with Professor Xavier a lot. Moreover, she has a clever power-set for a young superhero who faces menaces on a daily basis: a thirteen year old who can go intangible is far less likely to have reality ensue on her and be dramatically offed because she's better at protecting herself.

I’m sure there are people who thought Sprite was hogging the spotlight, but I, for one, say she brings more to the table than, say, Angel. She’s not the Dawn Summers of this franchise.

Scott also gets a side quest. Poor guy can’t catch a break: first the love of his life dies, so he quits the X-Men, then he realizes he can’t do much else than be a superhero. He becomes a sailor on the ship of spunky captain Lee Forrester, is drawn into the sadistic plans of a demon unironically named D’Spayre and then shipwrecks in Bermuda with Lee.

The X-Men, meanwhile, are tormented by a team-up of Doom (who’s currently Latverialess and working on a comeback) and Arcade, that annoying crony. Locke, Arcade’s dom, has kidnapped the loved ones of the X-Men (Moira MacTaggart, Jean Grey’s parents, Illyana Rasputin and Amanda Sefton) in order to blackmail them into getting Doom to free Arcade. Apparently, Arcade accidentally insulted Doom and DOOM DOES NOT FORGIVE THAT FOLLY.

While the B-Squad (Polaris, Havok, Banshee and Iceman) goes to save Arcade’s hostages, the X-Men sneak into Doom’s castle. Well, except for Storm, who doesn’t give a single fuck and simply flies up to Doom, demanding an audience. Doom likes the cut of her jib and invites her to have dinner. (This is pre-Tinder, so this is a legit way of scoring a date.)

If Storm has a flaw (I said if!), it’s got to be her atrocious taste in men. (Uncanny X-Men 145)

The X-Men find Arcade’s cell empty, while Arcade casually saunters up to Storm and says hi. Storm realizes too late that this is a trap: while the X-Men are all trapped in Saw-like traps, Storm is encased in ‘living chrome’.

If you remember she’s claustrophobic, you know why this is a bad move.

While the X-Men free themselves from their traps - Polaris hilariously has to deal with a murderous merry-go-round - Storm is slowly driven mad in her prison, triggering a worldwide tempest. (She causes Lee and Scott to shipwreck.) Under the threat of Wolverine’s claws, Doom releases Storm - or rather, unleashes her.

“Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!” (Uncanny X-Men 147)

The memory of Jean brings Ororo back to herself and she starts undoing the superstorm she created. (If only climate change were reversed that easily.) Their confrontation ends by Storm easily forgiving Doom, because she apparently trespassed on his grounds without adequate cause.

Mkay.

All of Arcade’s hostages return to their homesteads, except for Illyana Rasputin, Piotr’s sister: she’s staying at the mansion for a while. Angel, who’s sort of been a part of the team since the Phoenix thing, has had it with Wolverine and his ‘tude, and decides to quit the X-Men : he doesn’t want to be a part of an outfit that has a killer like Wolverine on it. (Or maybe he’s just mad Claremont didn’t give him any storylines: his presence has been mostly pointless.) It’s too bad he left before Kitty started experimenting with her outfits: I bet he would have loved her ugly-ass costumes.

Equally inconsequential is the introduction of a brand new character, who then proceeds to disappear from the narrative for the rest of the year:

Black Tom has tried to kill you at least twice, but him sending you a long-lost daughter doesn’t give you pause? Ugh, Sean, you deserve Moira. (Uncanny X-Men 148)

Intrigued by Theresa? TOO BAD, WON’T SEE HER AGAIN ANYTIME SOON.

Another new character is the lonely, decidedly mutant looking Caliban, who can sense “people like him” and is on the lookout for companions. Like many lonely people who try and grasp at friendship, he decides to overshoot his shot and ruin the night of Storm, Kitty and Jessica Drew at a Dazzler concert. Because he tries to kidnap Kitty, the girls react a trifle aggressively. When they realize their mistake - the eerily pale Caliban is a simpleton rather than a menace - he’s already fled. No mention is made of the Morlocks yet!

There’s also another dull annual where the X-Men team up with the Fantastic Four to save Arkon’s dimension from the Badoon and yaaaaawn. Far more interesting is the landmark issue #150. Slowly, through the adventures of Scott and Lee Forrester, Claremont has been setting things up for the return of a favorite villain. While the X-Men investigate Magneto’s old base in Antarctica on a hunch of Professor X and tangle with Garruk, Scott and Lee survive Storm’s tempest, only to wake up next to a strange island that seems to have been raised from the ocean.

It’s apparently some ancient citadel from a long forgotten civilization with a fondness for squid statues. (I don’t know man, I’ve never been to the Bermuda Triangle, maybe this is just super-accurate.)The tentacles make Lee Forrester feel very amorous, but before Scott can tell her he is way too repressed to just have sex with an attractive someone he’s known intimately for a month or two, Magneto saves his ass by revealing he, in fact, raised this island from the seafloor.

Oh, Magneto. So extra.

My ambitious little mutant demagogue then proceeds to take the entire world hostage, showing how much he’s grown from the pompous, raving madman from the sixties. (Sure, Magneto is still a bit of a madman, but increasingly, he starts being on the right side of history.)

“I’m trying to make Magneto more sympathetic.”

“Just put him on a page with some bigger villains who are less noble, like the Vanisher, Count Nefaria, or…”

“Reagan, Thatcher and Brezhnov?”

“Er.” (Uncanny X-Men 150)

It’s obvious Magneto is being pivoted as a more noble villain, codified into the well-intentioned extremist we know and love today. Not only do we get the first hints at his past, fleshing out his motivations, he’s also not wrong. Humans are historically not great at taking care of the planet or each other.

When the Russians call his bluff and launch nukes at Magneto’s new island, he quickly disarms them. His retribution is swift and ferocious: the entire citadel is a machine that massively amplifies his powers. He sinks the submarine that launched the missiles, condemning the entire crew to death, and he casually erects a vulcano in a Russian city in Siberia.

Damn. Not messing around this time.

Despite his good intentions, Magneto is still definitely in the wrong: not only because of his methods, but as Scott points out: if Magneto unifies the world under his kind of benevolent dictatorship, all of that will simply fall apart as soon as Magnus dies.

In a way, Magneto is just as big a dreamer as Charles is: Charles believes in peace and integration, whereas Magneto believes his iron fist will be enough to make a perfect world happen. Both of them ignore the reality that acceptance is difficult and messy, because you’re trying to change essential human nature: the fear of the other. Magneto believes in big, sweeping gestures that will fix the world in move, while changing the world is also boring, hard work. One step forward, two steps back. Magneto just wants to leapfrog to his ultimate goal.

The X-Men fly over the citadel, returning from Antarctica, and their plane crashes into the ocean. (Magneto does not brook planes over his territory, humans!) The Professor is also nearby, looking for Scott with Moira, Peter Corbeau and Carol Danvers. The X-Men sneak onto the island, but to their horror, their powers are nullified by some machine of Magneto. They reunite with Scott, who formulates a plan to thwart the would-be ruler of the world.

While the rest of the X-Men go to trash the machine, Storm, Kitty and Lee infiltrate the control chamber where Storm finds a sleeping, shirtless Magneto. Once again showing her terrible taste in men, she is not weak in the knees at the sight of a sleeping Magnus: instead, she contemplates killing him.

Storm knows how dangerous he is, but she also knows that he’s a great man who’s fighting for ideals, no matter how misguided. She hesitates too long: Magneto stirs, suspects an attack and tosses her out of the window, to her death.

Magneto quickly undoes the sabotage the other X-Men have wrought to his machine. A fight erupts. Storm, meanwhile, has managed to grab hold of a ledge. She crawls back up and smashes an important-looking computer, restoring everyone’s powers.

The battle turns grim, but Scott sends Kitty away to wreck Magneto’s machinery. She sneaks off, following Scott’s orders and destroying both Magneto's power-up device and all of his plans by phasing though the computer circuitry. Magneto senses this and furiously gives chase. Overcome by rage, he attacks Kitty and disrupts her phasing power with a magnetic bolt, seemingly killing her?

Everything about this story beat is great: mama bear!Ororo, mournful Magnus and even the fact that Kitty’s godawful outfit serves a narrative function: highlighting to us (and Magneto) just how young she is. The fact that Kitty’s Jewish is just icing on the cake. (Uncanny X-Men 150)

And thus, the softening of Magneto commences. 1981 might be a year with wildly varying narratives, but it has given us at least three enduring legacies to the X-Mythos: a new kind of Magneto, a fondness for dystopian futures and the character of Kitty Pryde, who's really come into her own this year.

Ugliest Costume: Kitty! Purposefully, but still. Best costume, by the way, goes to Destiny, with her creepy, creepy golden mask. Just imagine this lady casually strolling across a battlefield, eerily calm and collected, dodging everything you throw at her. Awesome design.

Best new character: I usually pick one character - what good is having a shared award when declaring the best of anything? - but this year, it’s going to one of my favorite couples: Mystique and Destiny. Can’t wait to see more of them.

Most audacious retcon: Blob somehow retroactively becomes a member of the original Brotherhood, which is not what happened. Ever weirder is Xavier pondering that he never met Magneto before his attack in X-Men #1, while their cordially adversarial relationship rooted in a youthful friendship would soon become a cornerstone of the X-Men.

What to read: Uncanny X-Men 141 - 143 and 150 - 152

[books-and-cookies]

If it's ok to watch pirated movies then it should be ok to read pirated books too... Right? If I'm reading and reviewing it for a good cause, I mean I don't have that much money and I don't have a library system nearby either and my only happiness is books

Man, I’m going to get hate for this.

My answer would be no, it shouldn’t be okay to pirate books. Yes, I know it sounds hypocritical. But, imo, you can’t really compare the revenue that comes from Hollywood movies to the revenue that an author makes off their books. The market is different too - look at how many people go to the cinemas, rent movies, purchase them - it’s much, much bigger than the audience for books. They’re different branches of entertainment, one of which caters to a MUCH bigger audience. I mean, there are very few people who have never seen a movie, but there are a lot who have never been interested in reading.

Let’s take Game of Thrones, for example (yes, I know it’s a TV show) - at one point, it was the most pirated tv show in history (i’ve actually done a quick search now and google says it was the most pirated show for like, 6 years running, and season 7 had been pirated more than a billion times, like wtf), millions of people watching it illegally. However, in terms of revenue, the TV show has STILL made 4.5 billion dollars, adding another 250 million from DVD and BluRay sales. 

To compare, Maggie’s Stiefvater - arguably one of the most known and successful YA author - almost had the 4th Raven Cycle book cancelled because of piracy. The first 3 books had been pirated so much, to the point where, although the series was very popular, the sales did not reflect this at all, so the publisher was very close to cancelling the 4th book due to insufficient sales. Victoria Schwab - again, one of the most successful authors of her generation - waited 5 years to be able to release the sequel to Vicious, because the book didn’t perform well enough back when it was released in 2013 (as far as I know, her publisher asked for the ending to be sort of an open/close, to be able to be read as a stand alone, yet leave a little door open in case of a sequel).

Book piracy affects authors A LOT MORE than movie/tv show piracy affects Hollywood. 

I do understand not being able to afford books or have access to them - I’ve been in that position and I have pirated books as well, years ago, when I didn’t really understand how much the world of publishing in its entirety is affected by this. My point is - try to always exhaust all options before turning to pirating books. Otherwise, we might find ourselves in the position of having no closure to a beloved series, because there just wasn’t enough revenue coming in to justify a continuation in publishing it.