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rhetoricandlogic · 1 year ago

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Vital and Urgent: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Alex Brown

Tue Nov 14, 2023 11:30am

Martha Wells returns to the Murderbot Diaries with the seventh book, System Collapse. It begins immediately after the events of the fifth book, Network Effect (book six, Fugitive Telemetry, actually takes place before book five and seven). Murderbot is just beginning to deal with the trauma of the earlier events, which I won’t spoil but involve a deeply unethical megacorporation, reckless human settlers, and invasive ancient alien technology. But before it can deal with its own mental health issues—or even acknowledge that it has any—it has to deal with representatives from said unethical megacorporation. Barish-Estranza has sent rescuers to the planet, and by “rescuers” I mean mercenaries who plan to indenture (forcibly if necessary) the surviving colonists and strip the planet of whatever resources it can extract. If they have to kill Murderbot’s humans to do that, they will.

Complicating matters are the colonists themselves. They don’t trust Murderbot’s crew anymore than they do Barish-Estranza. Furthermore, decades ago another set of colonists vanished on the other side of the planet. Are they alive and hiding, contaminated by killer alien technology, or plain old dead? Murderbot, a pack of humans, and a piece of ART the spaceship’s AI head off to find out, with Barish-Estranza hot on their heels.

The only thing I found frustrating with System Collapse was how it felt less like its own novella and more like 240 pages cut from Network Effect. I spent the first half of the story having no idea what was going on or why until I finally put the book aside and went back and read reviews and plot summaries of Network Effect. Murderbot went through a pretty traumatic experience in book five that directly impacts its life and job in book seven. Because of that trauma, Murderbot doesn’t want to engage with those memories and interrupts its own narration with “[redacted]”. Eventually Murderbot reveals enough that the reader can piece together the parts that they’ve forgotten to get the gist. It’s a stylistic choice that makes total sense with a narrator like Murderbot and feeds into readers’ own forgetfulness in interesting ways.

However, it’s also somewhat annoying for readers who haven’t been in this story since spring 2020. I struggle enough with books coming out a year apart, but three years—especially these past three years—means I basically came into book seven as fresh as newly fallen snow. I think the book needed a more thorough recap and much earlier in the story. Anyone who hasn’t read Network Effect yet should wait on System Collapse until they’ve caught up. This really is a story for current fans rather than new readers. (Newbies, I suggest the first novella, All Systems Red, obviously, or Fugitive Telemetry, a fun standalone hardboiled detective noir set on a space station.)

Really, if that’s the only complaint I could muster, you know it’s a good book. I enjoyed every moment of it, even the frustrating ones. Martha Wells has a way of writing that makes me want to crawl into the pages and live in the world she’s created. The world feels so tangible, its history bigger than the sliver we see and its cultures complex and colorful. So far I’ve only read her Murderbot series and Witch King (which I also adored immensely), but I found both to be rich, vivid worlds populated with realistic characters in riotously diverse cultures and societies.

She also does something with her fantasy and sci-fi work that I don’t see as often as I’d like: ignore the gender binary. There aren’t queer characters in the sense of queerness we have in our world. In Wells’ books, queerness isn’t a marginalization or something that exists outside the “normal” or the binary. There just isn’t a binary. Some people use he/him, some use she/her, and others use any of the countless other pronouns available across the galaxy. Pronouns and gender identities are as vast and personal as there are types of people. No one treats pronouns like anything special, no one speculates about what body parts they have under their suits or what bathrooms they use, no one challenges anyone else’s pronoun usage based on their own personal, social, religious, political, or cultural preferences. Her stories imagine worlds where queer people get to be people, in all the mess that entails, without having to justify, explain, or fight for our existence. In real life I can barely get cis people to remember to use they/them for me, so yeah, I get outsized joy at reading about a world where everyone gets to be who they are without anyone else barging in to try and make you feel bad about it.

Look, there’s not much to say about Martha Wells’ System Collapse that hasn’t already been said before about the rest of the Murderbot Diaries books. It’s wild fun, action-packed, and reflective in unexpected ways. The strong undercurrent of critique on capitalism and colonialism, the themes of trauma and mental health, and the unencumbered diversity take a relatively harmless science fiction series and turn it into something vital and urgent.

#Martha Wells #System Collapse #mahreviews #long post

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eye-of-yelough · 3 years ago

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Things I want to see in DA4 that aren’t stupid (like my previous post)

For the game to remember it’s roots as a DARK fantasy, I wanna play this game and think “babygirl you are strange and off-putting”

Deeper discussions on blood magic, and wether or not it’s inherently evil. I feel like it would be a wasted opportunity if they didn’t, considering it’s in Tevinter

In origins, you got about an hour of gameplay before the main story was even eluded to, an introduction to your character and their backstory, whichever one you chose. In 2, they decided it for you, and, while you didn’t get to see it, you hear about it often enough to paint a picture of their lives. In inquisition we didn’t really get any of that. I wanna spend the first few hours of the game playing as some rando going about their day to day lives, none the wiser about this Solas guy! “Oh Solas, you mean the place, right? You want directions? Oh he’s a person? And he’s gonna destroy the world?? And you want MY help?!? But I’m just a simple [redacted], what could I do?!”

To meet Maeveris!

Please don’t make Varric the only dwarf companion. Please. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if he isn’t even a main character. Just the lovable narrater who we hear is doing very well as Viscount of Kirkwall. Maybe he just shows up at the end of the game to celebrate with no explanation! That would be fun AND on brand for him. Just sayin.

Multi/bi-racial characters that Aren’t just human/elf. I REALLY wanna see what a half Qunari looks like. Or a half dwarf, or heck, why not both? What a spectacle that would be!

To see Sandal again!! I’m dying to know what the deal is with Enchantment! Boy. Why is he like that. Is he the first dwarven mage? An Old God in mortal form? I mean Bodahn literally just found him In the DEEP ROADS of all places! Why is no one talking about this?! I know he’ll be working with Solas somehow, I mean you can find his journal in the Crossroads in Tresspasser and then there’s THIS, which is so clearly about Solas and AAAAA WHAT DOES IT MEAN BIOWARE?!

https://youtu.be/cwa-mKETJW0

youtube

#I’ll probably add more later #I have many thoughts #dragon age #dragon age 4 #da4 speculation #da4 hopes #ok to reblog #Youtube #your daily dose of idiocy

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official-alan-dabiri · 4 years ago

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Jesus Christ Blizzard What The Fuck

Alright, I just want to get my thoughts down on this because acknowledging it is mandatory and the more I think about it the more I have to think about it and holy shit. Jesus Christ Blizzard what the fuck.

Before the cut, the most important thing to say is that down here as physical people on the ground, our individual mental health matters more than making a gesture that might not mean anything. If thinking about the shit that happened hurts you, do yourself a favor and don’t think about it. Don’t worry: plenty of other people are being emotionally consumed by it at every hour of the day!

Additionally, if you want or need to be playing Heroes of the Storm - or whatever other games Blizzard made, if any - for your own mental, social, or emotional well-being, you aren’t morally obligated to stop. Do what you gotta do to make it day to day, okay? Obviously if you can stop giving them money, that would be great - some proportion of that money will indirectly go towards paying the lawyers who will be trying to dodge facing consequences for these actions. But please secure your own orcs-ygen mask before assisting others.

The second most important thing to say is that I wholeheartedly condemn the actions described in the DFEH investigation. The vast majority of those behaviors are monstrous and unforgivable, and the only thing worse is the implication - true or not - that Blizzard’s management and HR department either participated or was complicit in them.

With those matters said, I’ll put the rest under the cut to spare you all the dash space.

In case it needs to be said again: I am not Alan Dabiri. This blog is not affiliated in any capacity with Blizzard. I’m just some guy copying something cool I saw a lesbian do.

For the sake of everyone’s mental health, I’m not going to go into details about the report. If you want details, they’re all over the internet, but be warned that they range from frustrating to enraging to nauseating. Just searching for “Blizzard Scandal” isn’t specific enough, so I will say - for future generations who might be scrolling back and reading this in 2022, after “Blizzard Scandal” brings up a whole new thing - that this is in reference to the California DFEH discrimination lawsuit, wherein a 2-year investigation led to a laundry list of crimes committed by Blizzard and Blizzard employees against the women who worked there. Some of these are labor crimes, some of these are just dick moves, and some of them are seriously dark shit that’s going to haunt me every time a Blizzard game’s story decides that the only thing they can do with a woman is have her go crazy and get killed. What immediately followed was an outpouring of more horrifying stories across social media from others who worked for Blizzard, whose experiences were not included in the report.

Blizzard’s statements in response to the suit are a mixed bag. For one thing, they outright deny all the charges, insisting that many of the claims are distorted, out of context, factually incorrect, or - the most irrelevant kind of accusation - old. They hide behind an updated Code of Conduct and new training standards rather than do anything to acknowledge any of the wrongdoing. (Because no one would ever know that [redacted] was a morally disgusting crime unless an HR video told them!) Their statement instead points fingers at the state and their “unaccountable bureaucrats” driving businesses out of California. It’s the most childish response imaginable, and makes the whole thing look even worse than it already did. When you are accused of ignoring mistreatment of a specific group of employees, perhaps the correct response isn’t to ignore the accusations altogether and whine that you’re being bullied by law enforcement.

That said, the Blizzard response does have a grain of truth to it. The DFEH’s filing is outside of normal protocol. After the investigation, the DFEH’s normal procedure is to work with the company, resolving claims and concerns with them directly before moving to litigation, if necessary. Further speculation online has been that the state of California may be trying to make an example out of Blizzard. The games industry has long been full of this exact kind of discrimination and harassment. Coming down on Blizzard for this shows the industry that even their titans can and will be held accountable, even if it means going to court when it may not have been by the book to do so.

Maybe it’s not fair to Blizzard that they have been denied the opportunity to address these complaints in private with their own evidence and information. Maybe some of these complaints are indeed factually incorrect. Maybe some of these perpetrators faced serious consequences that the victims were not aware of. Maybe they did everything right to cut the problems in their internal culture out over the last few years, but the DFEH had already decided that Blizzard needed to be their scapegoat for the whole industry.

But Blizzard’s response being a tantrum cry of “nah-uh ur a bunch of fudging meaners” makes it look to me like they want to be that scapegoat. And if this is the only way the industry starts holding their supervisors and HR departments accountable for how they treat women and minorities in their employ, it would be a hard sell to convince me that the DFEH is making a bad call to take Blizzard to task for these offenses. Even if Blizzard puts to rest each and every claim with clear evidence of proper behavior on the part of the company in a court of law, I also find it hard to argue against having Blizzard submit to the public record a roadmap on how a large corporation in an especially abusive industry can eliminate a culture of harassment and sexism.

I, uh, don’t expect that to be the result. But boy, wouldn’t that be great? All the victims got their justice, Blizzard is exonerated, and every HR department in the nation is handed a toolkit to fix even the worst work environment? You want to talk about a fantasy setting, there you go.

#Blizzard Scandal 2021 #Seriously so many articles if you search for Blizzard Scandal are the Blitzchung thing #And the salary spreadsheet from last year #And Bobby Kotick doing Bobby Kotick things #I can't imagine what that search looks like a year from now

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charmandhex · 4 years ago

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A TOTALLY UNOFFICIAL AND VERY MUCH NOT SANCTIONED BY NBC OPENING SCENE FOR AN AS OF YET NONEXISTENT PILOT OF THE ADVENTURE ZONE: BALANCE ANIMATED SHOW THAT I AM 100% NOT GETTING PAID FOR

Credit to: the McElboys

No credit to: me, Charm H. Adventurezone, sleep deprived [job title redacted] and overly ambitious fic writer

[Our opening shot is of the world of Abeir-Toril (or whatever the fuck we’re going to call it to avoid copyright issues idk that redacted job title up there sure isn’t lawyer) as it drifts through the Prime Material Plane. From here, we can see little but clouds, water, and land masses. One regular-sized moon orbiting the world drifts into view. If you look closely, but you’re only looking closely because you’re a nerd who knows what to look for, you can see a much, much smaller moon -THAT’S NO MOON got there first Clint what now- drifts over a massive, still lake and a brightly colored spot that we might know to be Neverwinter, wait- Eversummer, hm, that was graphic novel, but can we use that there?- KINDASPRING there we go. The initial shot is quiet, for a moment, before seven notes -yes those ones folks- ring out.]

GRIFFIN [audio only]: I can guess what you’re probably all expecting. Some big, dramatic speech to match the big, dramatic intro we’ve got going on here. [As Griffin talks, we start to zoom in on a continent conveniently labeled NOT-FAERUN. We fly by our much smaller moon, but not close enough to see anything of interest – yet. We see Kindaspring, all busy and fantasy and so on. We catch a glimpse of a city buried in the shadow of a mountain range, with a bunch of dudes who all look the same. A city on a cliff, a shining gold monument in the center and trails of dust on a track around the city. Canyons, and a dash of pearlescent color just for a moment. Blink and you miss it, and a flash of a black and white tent in the woods near Kindaspring. You get the picture.] But, fact of the matter is, folks, we kinda blew all the budget on this one shot! Completely boned it in the first two seconds! So, let’s get right into it and roll some fuckin’ initiative- oh, can I say fuck? Are we allowed to do that, here on NBC Peacock? Shit, I’m going to completely bone our cussing budget too- anyway! Let’s roll some initiative and meet our heroes.

[Zoom in on wagon on road outside Kindaspring. It’s not a very impressive wagon. There are patches on the canvas. The wheels are all creaky and bouncy over the dirt road. The horses look like they could use a nap. There are stink lines, y’all. The road, meanwhile, is pretty well-used. There are ruts, and the sides of the road run clean and even. It’s surrounded by woods, and we’re far enough out of Kindaspring to not get any noise from the city, nor close enough to our destination to even get a hint of whatever the fuck I’m going to have to call Phandalin that isn’t Phandalin.

But back to our characters. Right now, only one is visible, a buff human man, like super buff, no you don’t understand animators, he must be a brick shithouse of a man, he’s very sensitive about this. He has massive muscles and massive sideburns, and he looks way too happy to be driving this wagon. You just know the vehicle proficiency jokes are coming. Cartoon GRIFFIN pops up in the corner of the screen, looking unimpressed.]

GRIFFIN: …Well, maybe not heroes. Three… boys. Three very messy, very murder hobo, very horny boys. [A beat.] Tres horny boys, if you will. So, uh, first up is-

MAGNUS [aware of Griffin and waving at everyone- listen, fourth wall breaks are kinda a thing for me, folks]: I’m Magnus Burnsides, human fighter! [Stat card for Magnus pops up on the side. There’s a not very flattering picture with it.] Also… [with the wagon reigns in hand, he starts counting off on his fingers, concentrating] Uh, master carpenter, man of action, rush into battle- oh, and I’m from Raven’s Roost, and-

[The canvas flaps blow open behind MAGNUS, and MAGNUS’S stat card disappears with a pop and a tiny bit of white smoke. TAAKO steps out, already exasperated and swinging a hand, colliding with MAGNUS’S head and pushing it to the side.]

TAAKO: Yeah, save the backstory for like… 40 more episodes, my dude. We don’t have time for that shit right now.

GRIFFIN: O-kay, guess we’re just gonna assume we can swear whenever we want.

[As GRIFFIN is talking, TAAKO stops pushing on MAGNUS’S head.]

TAAKO [triumphant, shouting]: FUCK!

[Flock of birds flies out of the trees.]

GRIFFIN: So this is Taako, the elf wizard [TAAKO’S stat card pops up. Much more flattering picture.] and-

TAAKO: That’s Taako, you know, from… podcast, elf wizard and baller chef, yes, thank you, very much. AND very, very beautiful. [TAAKO does a hair flip. There are sparkles and magical sounds.] And very, very bored. [TAAKO’S stat card disappears.] How far away is this fuckin’ town? What’s it called again?

MAGNUS [shrugging]: Beats me. [To GRIFFIN] Did we come up with a name that doesn’t violate copyright?

GRIFFIN [evading the question, because I still am]: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand last but not least, Merle Highchurch. [A beat. GRIFFIN sighs.] Merle, that’s your cue.

MERLE [inside the tent]: Wha? Somebody say my name? [Canvas flaps rustle rustle rustle. MERLE’S face pops out, looking around owlishly. He also steps out to the front of the wagon.]

MAGNUS [now very crowded and still trying to drive]: You missed your cue, old man.

MERLE [indignant]: I was busy studying my cantrips!

TAAKO and MAGNUS [in unison]: Gross!

MERLE: No, not like-

GRIFFIN [interrupting]: And Merle is a cleric! [MERLE’S stat card pops up. The picture was taken too high, so we can only see MERLE’S hair and forehead.]

MERLE: I’m a what now?

GRIFFIN [overly enthusiastic, it’s a bit now, folks]: Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar, clerics are kind of a support class magic user. They can cast things like buffs-

MERLE: Huh?

GRIFFIN [still overly enthusiastic]: and heal their party members-

MERLE: I can do that?

GRIFFIN: Clerics also serve gods, and Merle’s god is Mort-

MERLE [indignant again]: Hang on! That doesn’t sound right!

GRIFFIN [pushing out of his little bubble and leaning into the scene]: Then who is your god?

MERLE: Uh… Pan! [MERLE pulls out the Extreme Teen Bible.] See? Pan!

MAGNUS [whispering to TAAKO]: Okay, I guess this is how we’re resolving that whole thing. [TAAKO shrugs. MERLE is smiling. It’s adorable, like those little smiles Carey Pietsch does I love them so much, y’all.]

GRIFFIN: So, Magnus, Taako, Merle. Off on an adventure of epic proportions. [GRIFFIN is getting excited.] Full of action and danger and goofs and found family and-

MAGNUS: Now hold on! Epic proportions? Epic? [MAGNUS waves a hand around at the generally pretty chill woods, the boring road, and the stink lines wagon.]

TAAKO: Yeah, so far this is snoozeville, population, uh, me and these two chucklefucks.

MERLE [peering at GRIFFIN]: you sure you got the right dnd party, bud?

GRIFFIN [looking at audience]: We’re still negotiating contracts, so I’m filling in for, uh… someone. So for now, hey, I’m Griffin McElroy, your Dungeon Master, your best friend, and your announcer for this pilot episode. Ahem. [GRIFFIN clears his throat.] Grab your shields and ready your spell slots. Strap in your asses and… really, just strap in your asses. And, for the very first time, welcome to the animated version of… THE ADVENTURE ZONE!

[Title card and Mort Garson’s “Déjà Vu” plays. All my ideas went into dialogue, folks. Fan artists, this one’s all yours.]

[We pop back into the same scene as before.]

MAGNUS: Yeah, so, uh, like we were saying, before, uh, whatever that was, what we’re doing now is-

TAAKO [interrupting]: Hold on! We are not, I repeat, not doing some dumb recap where we explain this boring job... unless…

MAGNUS, MERLE, and GRIFFIN [all have gone laser eye meme]: UNLESS?

TAAKO [singing]: Flashback sequence!

[There’s a loud POP! as the scene shifts, and we’re now in your standard fantasy tavern. There’s a table with four chairs right in front of us, all of which are empty. The tavern acts as a backdrop behind that, illustrating just how fantasy this world is. We see humans and elves and dwarves yes, because we’ve already seen them, but also Gnomes and tieflings and haflings and orcs and Genasi and aarakocra (try spelling that one, folks ;) I’m sure that won’t come up later) and so on and so forth.

There’s another POP! as GRIFFIN’S window reappears in the upper right corner. He looks slightly ruffled.]

GRIFFIN [straightening his hair and glasses]: Wow, that is going to take some getting used to. Anyway, the boys should be here in a second, and-

[Three more pops as MAGNUS, TAAKO, and MERLE appear in three of the four seats at the table. MERLE lands upside down. He immediately starts struggling to right himself]

MAGNUS [looking at the empty chair and frowning]: Wait, what was the name of the guy we were meeting again? Gumdrop?

TAAKO: Hm… Gurgle? Guava? Gumbo?

MERLE [having finally righted himself]: No! My cousin, uh… um… oh, that’s right, Gundren!

[As MERLE says GUNDREN, another pop as GUNDREN pops into existence in the chair. He looks like if you put MERLE through a grinder, not like we’re gonna run into one of those in an episode or two, right, fellas?

Nasty boy that he is, GUNDREN lets out a grunt and then spits on the floor. People have to clean that, GUNDREN! This is why you- (SPOILERS REDACTED)- anyway.]

GUNDREN: So, like I was saying, boys. You take my wagon from here in Kindaspring down the road to Mandolin-

TAAKO: Oh, that’s what we’re calling it?

MERLE: I thought that was another TV show?

[Up in the corner, GRIFFIN shrugs.]

GUNDREN: Uh… yes? That’s… what it’s called? [GUNDREN looks suspiciously at them. It seems like he’d give the job to someone else in an instant, if literally anyone else would take the job. But magically, he’s stuck with these boys.] But, uh, you get my wagon and my goods to Mandolin, and I’ll let you in on the next job. And that job, boys… [GUNDREN laughs. It sounds like if you threw rocks in a blender.] That’s the kinda job that will be the last job you ever need to take.

MAGNUS [cheerfully]: Well, that sounds murdery!

[There’s a loud POP! and we’re back on the wagon again, all of our boys already in place.]

GRIFFIN [shrugging, smiling]: Guess you’re going to find out! Oh, and boys… let’s roll initiative.

#taz #taz balance #the adventure zone #mcelroy family #mcelboys #charm works #this is basically a glorified overly long shitpost and the level of editing that went into this reflects that #PLEASE HIRE ME MCELROYS

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rosecorcoranwrites · 4 years ago

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September Reading Roundup

It's time for this month's reading roundup, but first, a little announcement that no one but me will care about: I'm staying off the internet until the election. Well, mostly. I'll still post to Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram when the mood strikes me or when I have a writing update. I'll still post Rant Rave Reviews on here and Youtube (the theme this month is spooky stories, of course). But I won't be interacting much (ie, I won't be spending hours reading through Twitter and Tumblr and watching random Youtube videos I've already seen). If you @ me or retweet or reblog a post, I'll probably respond in a day or two, but other than that, I'm becoming a recluse.

The reason for this is twofold. First, I'm offering it up. For those of you who aren't Catholic, "offering it up" is sort of like giving up something for Lent. You discipline yourself by enduring some deprivation (either natural, like pain, or of your own choosing, like not watching hours of Youtube). At the same time, you offer up your (albeit, in this case, slight) suffering as a sacrifice for some good. I'm offering it up for America. Not the election, America. Because, not to get political or anything, but no matter who wins the garbage fire that is the 2020 election, America is doomed unless our culture changes. As I said to a friend recently, if this was the 90s, we could weather whatever storm Trump or Biden brings, but people hate each other so much right now that our country is pretty much over. Unless...

I don't know what I'm praying for, but I'm praying, praying that come what may, God in his Providence will drag something good out of all of it, kicking and screaming if need be. I will also be doing a rosary novena with my diocese October 14th through October 22, and then another one with the USCCB October 26th to November 3rd. Join me if you would like.

On a lighter note, I'm a volunteer writer-in-residence again at my hometown library, so I'm obligated to focus on writing this month, and need write, research, and workshop without distraction. I have two Forensics and Fiction books all tabbed and ready to read, plus a book about army nurses in the Vietnam War. The plot of book one in the alternate-history/fantasy/mystery trilogy is fast congealing, and I want to strike while the iron is hot. I need to focus! My ultimate goal is to be ready to write a little each day in November, returning to my heretical NaNoWriMo ways.

I'll let you know how it all turns out in my first Novemebr post, which will be a reading roundup of October. Until then, let's take a look at what I read this month:

Two Six Shooters Beat Four Aces: Stories of a Young Arizona by Barbara Marriott Ph.D

Genre: History - Anecdotes

Why I read it: Arizona book club pic

What I thought of it: While it's clear that Marriott is an excellent researcher, she is either a bad writer or in serious need of an editor. Individual paragraphs proved internally repetitive, and the overall structure of each chapter was slapdash. It needed smoother transitions from anecdote to anecdote or more section breaks and section headers.

Would I recommend it: No, everyone in my book club, including myself, hated it.

7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Genre: Supernatural Mystery

Why I read it: I'd been wanting to for a while; the premise caught my eye

What I thought of it: The body-hopping time-loop stuff was brilliant, the characters likable, and the story delightfully twisty. The last twist and conclusion were unsatisfying, though.

Would I recommend it: Yes!! Despite it's flaws, it was an exciting, fun, and original book. I will definitely be reading Turton's next book (which involves a closed circle of suspects and, possibly, demons!?).

The Exorcist by William Blatty

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: I'd been meaning to for a while, and writing research gave me an excuse to do so

What I thought of it: I like that it doesn't pull it's punches; I'm kind of shocked that it's only been censored a couple times, actually. It presents demons as they are: hateful, grotesque jerks who get off on picking on humans. I also liked that there was a murder mystery subplot. I'm not sure I approve 100% of the ending, theologically speaking, but that's a pretty minor quibble.

Would I recommend it: Yes, but it is not for the feint of heart. Trigger warnings for child sexual abuse, adult sexual abuse, language, violence, the works.

How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps by Ben Shapiro

Genre: Nonfiction - politics

Why I read it: It's a long story that I shall tell about in my memoir of library life, but not here. Also the cover is 10/10

What I thought of it: It was ok. I already knew most of what he said. I disagreed with some of it, like seeing the constant moving of people from town to town in 1950s as a positive thing; in actuality, "company men" in the 50s were moved around so they wouldn't have community ties but instead ties to the company, which is anti-human to the extreme. I did think it was interesting that he combatted the idea of America's greatness being built off the backs of slaves by pointing out that slavery was actually terrible for the south, as reliance on slavery retarded their economic system well after the Civil War.

Would I recommend it: If you're into political books, sure.

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI by Kate Winkler Dawson

Genre: True Crime - forensic history

Why I read it: I love historical true crime

What I thought of it: It was ok, but kind of didn't make the case for him being "The American Sherlock Holmes" (even though people really did call him that back in the day), in that a lot of his conclusions ended up being a little dubious. Still, from a research perspective, it did establish when various forensic practices started being used in the USA.

Would I recommend it: Maybe? I personally liked Father of Forensics more. I'd say this book is, like, 3/5 stars, just because it could have been tightened up a bit.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: It's spooky season!

What I thought of it: Having already seen the movie, I knew pretty much what was going to happen, but I love Gaiman's turn of phrase.

Would I recommend it: Yes, especially for children who are too young for scarier fair but still want a creepy story.

The Horror at Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: It's still spooky season!

What I thought of it: I honestly liked this a lot more than the Cthulhu mythos stuff. Rather than vague demoniac blasphemies or black cyclopean gulfs, there's a real tangible cult that sacrifices (reanimated?) corpses to a pale, dancing, snickering Thing on a golden pedestal. I dig it.

Would I recommend it: Yes. Just... ignore the racism. That goes for all of Lovecraft's stuff, by the by.

Herbert West: Reanimator by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: Turns out I like HP Lovecraft. Who knew?

What I thought of it: You gotta love mad scientists who try to reanimate the dead, right? I think this one would make an excellent mini-series.

Would I recommend it: Yes.

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

Genre: Essay - illustration/comics

Why I read it: I loved Hyperbole and a Half, and was excited when I saw Brosh was coming out with another book.

What I thought of it: It was okay. Not as good as her first book, but for an understandable reason: medical complications and her sister's suicide (that's not a spoiler, as the book is dedicated to her sister). Thus, the book had a heaviness to it that the first one didn't. Still there were some parts that made me laugh so hard I cried.

Would I recommend it: Maybe? I'd say borrow it from the library, but don't buy it, unless you are also suffering a loss. It might be really relatable and cathartic in that case.

The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: I like HP Lovecraft

What I thought of it: Not as scary as I had been led to believe by my brother, but still a good story. I plan on reading Lovecraft Country at some point, which supposedly flips Lovecraft's racism on it's head, and so help me, if it doesn't make reference to this story and chattel slavery, I'll throw a fit.

Would I recommend it: Yes. I like that the cat didn't die. :)

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: I just... I just really like Lovecraft, okay?

What I thought of it: I find the sea inherently creepy, so when you have a decrepit backwater filled with a fishy stench and secrets, it's gotta be good.

Would I recommend it: Yes, especially if you liked the Fishing Hamlet part of the Bloodborne DLC (which I could not help but think of the whole time reading this novella).

The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: You know why.

What I thought of it: So if you've read enough Lovecraft, especially Dunwich Horror and Shadow Over Innsmouth, you already know what's coming... or do you? Right away, HP establishes that there is a special knock the guy uses with his friend, so I assumed the twist end would involve the Thing appearing in the guy's body but not using the knock, thus revealing itself to be (redacted for slight spoilers). I was wrong. That's not how it played out, and the way it played out was so much creepier!!!

Would I recommend it: Yeah! I really liked this one!

Haunter of the Dark by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: Yup

What I thought of it: Same ol', same ol, but what I thought was cool in this one was that the supposedly superstitious Italian Catholic immigrants totally know what's up and spend their stormy nights keeping the Haunter at bay with nothing but candles and flashlights. What a neat detail!

Would I recommend it: Yup. :)

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mxliv-oftheendless · 4 years ago

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Starstruck Velma, Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE’S HERE! This one was so much fun to write, so I hope you guys enjoy it! Tagging @tanookiroxx once again because it’s her AU and I’m just having fun with it. Happy reading!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Worrying about what she was going to do if Starchild ever made himself known to her again kept Velma up for most of the night. She only got a few hours of sleep, and had to stop at the coffee shop to get a double shot of caffeine in her coffee.

Fred was the first to notice when she walked into their office. “Velma, you look exhausted,”

“Yeah… I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. But I’ll be fine. Any news from Demon?”

Fred brightened. “Yep! We got the files!” He gestured to the stack of massive files on his desk. “They got here a little while before you did. You wanted the ones on the missing agents, right?”

“Yeah, I did. I’ll grab them in a second.”

She went to her own little space to put her coffee cup down on her desk, and went back to get the files. Maybe she hadn’t gotten enough sleep, sure. But there had to be something worthwhile in the files.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In his lair, Starchild frowned at his computer screen.

He’d pulled up everything he knew on Mystery Incorporated, which admittedly wasn’t a lot. So he went digging for more. All he had managed to find was news articles and the agency’s official website, and nothing more.

He zoomed in on a picture so that only Velma was in view, and stared at her for a few seconds. At first glance, he supposed she was pretty enough. She was mousy, with her short brown hair, bangs, and her glasses. It was almost… cute.

Starchild’s lip curled in disgust. Had he actually just considered this woman cute? Disgusting. The woman was only cute at best. At worst she was one of the plainest people he had ever seen. How could he possibly be willing to spend time on a woman who was like her, even if she was smart, and shrewd, able to figure out his plan almost immediately, and gave him sass, and… and really was very adorable-looking…

“Being happy… with myself…” Perhaps that was why he was so fixated on her. That couldn’t possibly be her ultimate fantasy. Maybe she was just good at resisting him.

Starchild gave a sigh of frustration. It seemed his usual methods weren’t getting him anywhere. He’d have to resort to other tactics to get the information he wanted…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Velma sighed. She’d been pouring through the same three files for hours, scanning them for anything she might have missed. They were the three agents that had gone MIA—Fox, Agent Kulick, and Agent Thayer. Their real names were redacted... in fact most of their personal info was redacted. Velma didn’t mind that, because it wasn’t what she needed to know. But she did mind that there wasn’t more information about the night Agents Fox and Kulick went missing. She had the sneaking suspicion Demon was still keeping information from them, and that was frustrating. How were they supposed to help if they didn’t have the information they needed?

Agent Thayer’s file was a little more promising. He had been investigating a warehouse with another agent, codenamed Space, that they suspected was Starchild’s lair, when he was kidnapped. He had gone AWOL for a few hours, then miraculously appeared back at his apartment. According to his own word, he’d managed to escape and run away, but when pressed for details, he found he couldn’t remember any specifics about what had happened to him.

That was rather concerning to Velma, and made her think back to her own encounter with Starchild. She was unable to remember anything that happened to her after she closed her eyes. She remembered everything leading up to it, but then the next thing she knew was Scooby licking her face. And yet, she still was incredibly certain nothing bad had happened to her during the blackout. She was certain Starchild hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t done anything, hadn’t assaulted her in any way—she had even checked for bruises. Nothing. She shook her head and went back to the file.

After Agent Thayer’s encounter, he went back to work, but he was incredibly unhelpful. During briefings and meetings related to Starchild, he constantly had to leave the room because he kept getting hot and flustered. He’d been moved to Archives, but halfway into the day he suddenly began to...

Velma’s cheeks flushed as she read that part. Skip.

He didn’t stop no matter what they tried. Finally Demon had to be called down to help stop him, but it was only after Agent Thayer... finished... that he finally stopped. Over the rest of the day and the next, he began to zone out, his eyes glazing over. They would roll back in his head and he would even start drooling. After that day, Demon sent him on sabbatical, and told him that if he didn’t snap out of whatever was happening, he would have to be let go. And no one had heard from him since.

If she was being honest, Velma’s nerves had tensed with wariness as she read through the events once again. Starchild was powerful, more powerful than she’d realized. If he was able to have such an effect on Agent Thayer from just one encounter... what did that mean for her? She couldn’t remember what had happened in the museum; was she going to start acting like Agent Thayer?

One part did catch her eye. A person down in Archives that day said he had heard the phone ring from Agent Thayer’s cubicle, and then two minutes later chaos erupted. It had to have been Starchild who called him.

Daphne came into the room. “How’s it going?”

Sighing, Velma looked up from the page. “I’ve been pouring through the files for hours now, trying to find something we can use. But so far, all I’m feeling is wariness.”

Daphne sat on the edge of her desk. “Why?”

“Because... You read Agent Thayer’s file, right? And that... incident in the archives?”

“Yeah...” Daphne looked like she was fighting back a smile. “I feel bad, but that was a little funny.”

“Humor aside, that incident and his behavior after that just... it makes me a little nervous about what’s going to happen to me.” Velma looked helplessly at Daphne. “I don’t remember what happened after I closed my eyes. I have this certain feeling that nothing happened, but what if I start exhibiting the same behavior as him?”

“Velma, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Daphne said, in the voice she used when she was absolutely sure about something. “Even if you can’t remember, you know nothing happened. You checked yourself for any injuries or bruises, and you’re fine. Besides, you put up a good fight until you closed your eyes. Whatever happened to Agent Thayer, it’s not going to happen to you.”

“I hope not,” Velma said lowly. She smiled a bit. “Thanks, Daph.”

“No problem, Velm,”

Velma flipped back to the beginning of Agent Thayer’s file. One of the few bits of personal information that wasn’t redacted was an address, no doubt for his apartment. “There’s an address listed here for an apartment. That must be where he lives. Maybe I can go there and ask him what happened.”

“If you’re going to go, go tomorrow,” Daphne suggested. “It’s getting a little late, plus you look tired. Maybe you should go home a little early today.”

“But if I go now, I can get more information sooner,” Velma argued, standing up to grab her coat. “And we can be one step closer to catching Starchild.”

“I get that. But you said you didn’t sleep well last night. And if you don’t get a full night’s sleep, how are you going to be able to figure things out effectively? You’ve said yourself that a lack of sleep has been proven to be directly connected with not being able to function in everyday life and not being able to think straight.”

Using her own logic and words against her; what an unfair move. But she was right—she hadn’t slept well last night, and she could feel the effects of that the entire day. Maybe she would have been able to think better if she had gotten enough sleep.

Velma wanted to argue, but eventually she just sighed heavily. “You’re right. Fine, I can go tomorrow.”

Daphne nodded, smiling victoriously. “There we go. In the meantime, you should go home. I’ll let the guys know you’re leaving.”

“Are you sure? I can stay...”

“I’d rather you go home, eat something, and go to bed and sleep.” Daphne smiled reassuringly at her. “It’ll be fine, Velma.”

After a moment, Velma nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Daphne. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,”

Velma closed the files and stored them in her desk, making sure to lock the filing cabinet. Then she grabbed her coat and purse and left to go home. She luckily lived within walking distance of their office building, all of them did, which gave her a little time to think as she walked down the sidewalk. Despite having wanted to argue with Daphne that she was fine, and that she could still keep working even if she was tired, she was still happy to go home and sleep. Sleep was just what she needed. Then she could be better equipped to figure out what to do next.

When she got to her apartment building, she climbed up the stairs and pulled out her key to unlock the door. It was still locked, which she felt slightly relieved by, and she swung open the door to her darkened apartment. She threw her keys into the bowl by the door, went to her living room, and turned on the lights.

“Hello, pretty thorn,”

Velma froze. Sitting there on her couch with his legs crossed was none other than Starchild. His red lips were curled up in a smirk. “... Were you just waiting for me to walk in?” It was all she could think of to say.

“Maybe,” Starchild said innocently. He went back to staring at her. It was almost as if he was scrutinizing and analyzing her.

Velma didn’t like his gaze. But she also didn’t want to appear as though she was scared. So she simply shrugged and went into her kitchen, setting her purse down on a chair. She covered an oncoming yawn with her hand and went to look through her cabinets for something to make for dinner.

“Aren’t you going to talk to me?” Starchild said from her living room. He sounded like he was pouting.

Velma poked her head out of her kitchen to frown at him. “You knocked me out with sleeping gas, kidnapped me, tied me up, and hypnotized me, and now you expect me to make small talk with you?”

Starchild shrugged unaffectedly. “It doesn’t have to be small talk. A question would be nice.”

“Fine. Why did you break into my apartment?”

“I did say I’d see you soon, didn’t I? I always keep my promises.”

Velma found herself brave enough to scoff. “I find that hard to believe,”

“Haven’t you ever heard of honor among thieves? Besides,” Starchild’s smirk widened, “I really did want to see you again.”

… How stupid did he think she was? “Now that I really find hard to believe,”

“What? I wanted to see your pretty face again.”

This had to be a bluff of some kind, some detail that was part of a devious plan. Velma left her kitchen to go into the living room again and crossed her arms as she frowned at him. “Here’s some advice: when you have trying to get to me as part of your plan, don’t say things I won’t believe.”

Starchild tilted his head at her. “I thought it was good,”

“Perhaps it was, up until you called me ‘pretty’,”

All Starchild did was raise an eyebrow at her. For some reason, his gaze made Velma feel… exposed. Heat rose to her face. “W-Would you just leave? I’m giving you a chance to leave before I decide to call the police.”

A sly smirk slipped across his face and he chuckled at her. “Oh, I don’t think you’re going to do that, pretty thorn.”

“O-Oh yeah? You think so?” Why was she suddenly getting so flustered?

“I know so.” Velma was about to turn around and go to her purse for her phone when he spoke again. “Why aren’t you happy with yourself, Velma?”

Velma froze and stared at him. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, but you do,” Starchild uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, keeping his eyes on her. “Why aren’t you happy with yourself? What makes you so unhappy?”

So many reasons… but she wasn’t going to say any of them. “I-I… I don’t…”

Starchild slowly stood up. “Yes, you do.” His voice had gone low, hushed. “I can see it; you’re so unhappy with yourself. I understand.”

“H-How could you possibly understand?” Velma hated how much her voice was wavering.

She felt rooted to the spot as Starchild took slow steps towards her. “There’s more to me than meets the eye, pretty thorn,” he said softly. His voice was hushed and seductive… oh no. It was going to happen again. He was going to hypnotize her. He was going to put her into a trance. He was… suddenly right in front of her, and Velma realized for the first time how tall he was. His platform boots made him tower over her. Her heart began to pound and she tried to look away, look perhaps at Starchild’s… surprisingly hairy chest. “Oh no, pretty thorn,” he said smoothly, lifting her chin with his finger. “Don’t look away; I want to see those pretty eyes. Don’t you want to see mine again, too?”

Starchild let his hand snake around Velma’s waist, and had to hide a smirk at Velma’s involuntary shudder. “You can’t help but look into my eyes; my lovely eyes that make you feel oh so relaxed.” He let his eyes turn into swirling purple spirals.

Velma tried to think about something else. She tried to play “Monster Mash” in her head, that song Shaggy insisted on playing even when it wasn’t Halloween. But she couldn’t look away from those eyes. She couldn’t fight... If she wasn’t so tired she probably could…

“It must be so exhausting, working on cases without a break.” His voice was making a wave of fatigue wash over her. It was like smooth, rich, dark chocolate. “Trying to catch me must put such a strain on your body.” Starchild’s look was intense. “I bet you wish you could just sleep forever.”

He wasn’t wrong... Velma could feel her eyes begin to droop. “I...”

“Shhh...” Starchild placed a finger on her lips, cutting her off. “Just relax, pretty thorn. Relax to the sound of my voice as you let your body have a break from all your work. You have no other thought but to finally rest for a little while.”

She so wanted to sleep... Just get a good night’s rest for once during this case. Her body felt so heavy… her eyes felt heavier…

“And... sleep,”

Velma sagged into his arms. Starchild smirked; this was almost too easy. “Tell me, Velma... what is something you’ve always wanted to do? Where have you always wanted to go?”

“I... I always wanted to go to a masquerade ball,” Velma said. Her voice was distant, trancelike. “As a date. But I’ve never been to one...”

Starchild raised an intrigued eyebrow. He hadn’t taken her for the type to like those. “Well then… You’re at a masquerade ball, in a huge, ornate ballroom, and you’re in a beautiful dress. You’re there with your date, like you always wanted. Everyone around you is dancing. The room is dark, lit up by thousands of candles. Everyone is wearing a mask. The chamber orchestra is playing a waltz. It’s everything you ever imagined a masquerade ball to be.”

Velma opened her eyes, and found herself not in her apartment, but in the middle of a huge ballroom. Music filled her ears, and around her were crowds of people waltzing along to the violins. She looked down at herself and had to stop and stare at her dress; an orange top with ruffles on the square-shaped neckline and long sleeves that flared out in the middle of her forearms, and a floor-length red skirt. It was a beautiful dress...

She looked up, and found a man standing in front of her. He was dressed all in black with a long black cape and black gloves, with a Phantom of the Opera-style white mask that covered only the right side of his face. Her date offered her a hand. “Shall we dance, Velma?”

Did she know that voice? She had heard it before... but Velma’s hand still stretched out to take his. Her date gently pulled her closer, and took up her hand with his, while his other hand settled on her waist. Velma’s heart quickened slightly at his touch, and she put her other hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know how to dance,” she said aloud.

Her date smiled. “Don’t worry; follow my lead, and you will dance just fine.”

And without another word, he swept her off to join the other dancers. Velma found herself getting the hang of it almost instantly, and she tried to be as graceful as she possibly could. The intense gaze his date was giving her made her heart beat faster. She couldn’t help observing his eyes were the same brown color as hers.

“Why don’t you think you’re pretty, Velma?” her date asked as they waltzed. She could feel his hand on her waist, solid and secure.

“Because I’m not,” she answered truthfully. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the masked face. “I’m not pretty,”

“But you are,”

A blush rose to her face. “You’re just saying that...”

Her date lifted her chin with his finger. “I would never lie to you, pretty thorn. Look in the mirror; see for yourself.”

They stopped near an ornate mirror, and Velma was turned around to dance with her date behind her so she could look into the mirror.

There she was. But she looked... different. Her dress fit her perfectly, her hair and glasses didn’t look out of place, and her face didn’t have any flaws. She looked beautiful. It was more than that—she felt beautiful.

“See?” her date whispered into her ear. “You’re perfect.”

A smile slowly drifted onto Velma’s face as she looked at herself in the mirror. She did look perfect...

Starchild smirked slightly as he watched a smile appear on Velma’s face. It was working... soon Velma would be unable to resist him anymore. “You want to keep dancing, don’t you, Velma?”

Velma turned to him, and the way she blinked at him was almost cute. “Can we?”

“Of course we can,”

And he swept her off into a waltz.

Velma felt like she was in a dream, but it was such an incredible dream. She was in a beautiful dress, at a masquerade ball, dancing with her date—her date, not some man who had asked her to dance out of pity. His eyes stayed on her the entire time, and she stared right back. She was just so captivated by his eyes, and the atmosphere—the dim room, the candles, the opera singer, and the music—made this night seem like a dream. But with every second that passed, she was more certain that if this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up.

Her date smirked slightly at her. “Something on your mind, pretty thorn?”

Velma’s cheeks flushed, and her voice turned shy. “I was just thinking... I wish I could stay here forever.”

Her date’s smirk seemed to widen. “You could. You could stay like this forever.” He spun her around, and pulled her closer against his chest. Velma’s face grew hot, but she just couldn’t tear her eyes away. “Surrender yourself to me, pretty thorn. Be at my side forever. Surrender, and you’ll never be unhappy with yourself again. You will be beautiful, confident, perfect, forever.”

For a moment, Velma hesitated. She wasn’t sure why, because it sounded amazing. But a small part of her mind was shouting at her to scream no, to shove him away, to flee. But why?

“Look in the mirror, Velma.” Her date spun her out, and she caught sight of herself in the mirror once again. “Look how beautiful you are. You could be beautiful for the rest of your life.”

Velma looked almost longingly at her reflection. “How?”

Starchild smirked; he had her. He pulled her back in, and his hand wrapped around her waist. “All you have to do is kiss me,” he slowly dipped her, “and all your worries and insecurity will fall away. You’ll know nothing but utter bliss...”

Velma couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. Her date began to lean in closer. She let her eyes slip closed and leaned in. She wanted to feel beautiful; she wanted to feel happy; all she had to do was kiss him. That didn’t sound so hard. She could feel his hot breath against her lips as he leaned closer, and her heart rate increased. He was so close...

“VELMA!”

Velma’s eyes opened. Daphne?

Starchild’s head snapped up, and he came face to face with Daphne Blake, who was staring at them in utter shock and horror. Goddammit.

“Daphne...?” he heard Velma murmur confusedly. Her eyes started to flutter open. Goddammit.

“Starstruck,” he whispered. Velma’s head fell back and she went limp. Starchild let her slump to the floor, before straightening and pouting at Daphne, who at some point had gone into a fighting stance. “Way to ruin my fun.”

“What did you do to her?” Daphne demanded.

Starchild rolled his eyes. “Calm down. I didn’t do anything to her...” He smirked at her. “I mean, I was about to, but...”

That was the tipping point, and Daphne ran at him and spun into a kick. He dodged out of the way and laughed. “Ooh, well aren’t you a feisty one?” Daphne kicked at him again, but this time he caught her foot, pulled her forward, and twisted her around to throw her back to the floor. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got places to be.” He gave her a smile and reached into his pocket. “Au revoir, Miss Blake.” He blew her a kiss, and as Daphne ran at him again he threw something onto the ground and vanished behind a cloud of purple smoke.

Daphne coughed and waved her hand, and heard the sound of Velma’s window opening. She ran through the fog to the window and saw it hanging open. She ran to the window and looked out, looking for any sign of Starchild. He was nowhere to be seen.

Sighing in frustration, Daphne turned her attention to Velma, who was beginning to show signs of waking up. She ran over and knelt down, tapping her face. “Velma? Velma, wake up.”

Groaning quietly, Velma’s eyes blinked open. “Daphne?” She sat up. “What are you doing here? I just left...”

Daphne’s brow furrowed. “Velma, you left over an hour ago. Shaggy wanted to see if you wanted him to get you takeout when he went, and you weren’t answering your phone. What were you doing? And why was he here?”

“Who?” Velma asked faintly as she sat up. Where was the ballroom? Where was her dress, and her date?

“Starchild, Velma! The person we’re supposed to be tracking down. He looked like he was about to kiss you! What happened?”

“I don’t know...” Velma lowered her head as shame began to gnaw at her stomach. “Daphne?”

“What?”

“We need to stop him,” Velma looked up at her. She had no idea why Starchild seemed to be so fixated on her, but regardless of how she felt about it, she knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere good. It had to stop.

Daphne gave her a sympathetic look and squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry, we will.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Up on the roof of Velma’s apartment building, Starchild cursed out loud. He’d been so close, so close to getting Velma to submit. He’d spent the better part of an hour trying to get through to her, giving her that vision, doing whatever it took to get her to submit to him.

Admittedly, a part of him had liked the dancing. But that had just been so Velma would surrender; that was it. He suddenly remembered that look she’d given her, when he asked if she wanted to keep dancing. It was like she’d never been asked that before, how she shyly blinked at him with those adorably big eyes…

“Adorably big eyes?” he said aloud. He made a noise of frustration and kicked a piece of gravel. He hated this, how he was unable to stop himself from thinking such things.

Normally he didn’t care. He hypnotized people to achieve his goals, and whatever happened to them afterwards, he couldn’t care less. The people he hypnotized meant nothing to him; they were tools, really, and nothing more. He gave them what they wanted, they gave him what he wanted, and he discarded them, and that was the end of it.

What was it about Velma Dinkley that threw him so much?

#starstruck #starchild x velma #starvel #so far this has been my favorite chapter to write #i don't want to spoil it but particularly the masquerade scene #that was fun #kiss au writing #my writing #hope you enjoyed!

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior Is Back!!! Raya and the Last Dragon, Chaos Walking and More

Welcome back to the Weekend Warrior!

This is probably going to be a little different from any of my previous columns, because New York City theaters reopen on Friday, and I swore that once they do, I would be writing about box office again. But this will also essentially be a previous column, so it will include reviews, it will include festivals and repertory series, and basically, whatever the hell I want to write about.

But let’s be realistic here. While there are a lot of movie theaters in New York City, not all of them will open, and they’ll all still have a capacity ceiling at 25% or 50 people in the larger theaters. Many of the larger multiplexes like AMC will be able to show films on two, three or more screenings to be able to make up for the limited capacity, but smaller theaters and those who have been doing well with the virtual cinema may remain closed. I know that the Angelika will be reopening to show some of the indies that haven’t had a theatrical release in NYC yet like Minari, and the IFC Center is reopening but with insanely strict protocols. (Don’t you DARE take off your mask even if you’re watching a three-hour movie! The good news is that they’re showing a lot of great movies on reopening including a comedy series that includes a number of Lynn Shelton movies.)

There’s also the issue of New Yorkers who are still petrified of being out in public, even those who have already been vaccinated and are possibly spending time in congregate settings that are just as likely to cause COVID spread than movie theaters. (I’m not gonna go on a rant about the egotistical and elitist film critics and journalists who have been ranting about movie theaters reopening for the past six months – for some reason, they think they’re as important as essential workers. Guess what, NAME REDACTED, you’re not.)

The big release of the weekend is the Disney animated movie RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, which will hit probably around 2,400 theaters on Friday as well as be available for a premium on Disney+. I honestly don’t know a ton about this premium streaming release, but this is the second one after last year’s Mulan, which came out (better sit down for this) six months ago!

This magical fantasy adventure centers around Raya (a teen girl voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), who is trying to save her world that has been relegated to dust by the destruction of a valuable magical gem that contains destructive spirits imprisoned there by the legendary dragons. When Raya finds the last dragon, Sihsu (voiced by Awkwafina), the two of them must travel across the land collecting the separated pieces of the gem to reassemble them and restore their world. Raya is thwarted along the way by her arch-nemesis Namaari (Gemma Chan) who wants to reunite the gem pieces to help her own city of Fang.

(Raya is preceded by the animated short Us Again, which is a nice wordless short about a cranky old man who reflects back on his younger days dancing with his wife. It’s okay, nothing particularly memorable.)

Raya and the Last Dragon, on the other hand, is pretty wonderful, a mix of action, adventure, magic and humor, directed by Don Hall (Big Hero Six) and Carlos Lopez Estrada (Blindspotting) in a way that blends those disparate elements in fun ways. I’ll freely admit that I was a little worried that Akwafina’s schtick was going to annoy me, but after a while her wise-cracking dragon grows on you. In fact there are actually so many other funny characters to add to the laughs that the more brought in the mix on Raya and Sihsu’s journey, the more enjoyable the film gets.

One of the reasons the film works as well as it does is that unlike last year’s Onward, it wasn’t just the two characters and what they had to offer but how their situation changes as it goes along and they visit different cities. I was pretty surprised by how well the film keeps you entertained and invested in the journey.

I also absolutely loved the score by Thomas Newton Howard, which may be even better than his score for News of the World, which I honestly think he’ll get another Oscar nomination for. This is a film that explores all sorts of emotions as well as its Southeast Asian myths, so I feel that I was always going to be a complete and total patsy for this movie since it combines a lot of things I like such as fantasy and Asian mythology. In that sense, Raya is also a nice companion to the recent Mulan, which made my Top 10 last year, but sadly never even got a nominal theatrical release.

So let’s talk about box office, something I haven’t done in almost a year. Last weekend, Warner Bros’ Tom and Jerry had a fairly spectacular opening of $13.7 million. Raya is the first new wide release Disney movie since Pixar’s Onward literally a year ago. That ended up opening to $39 million in 4,310 theaters but only grossed $61.5 million domestic after its legs were cut short by COVID one week later. Raya will likely open in about 2,500 theaters by comparison and that’s with limited capacity for safety, but it should fare decently against the second weekend of Tom & Jerry, and I could easily see it bringing in $15 million or even as much as $18 million, but again, we’re in the baby steps part of the reopening, and things are going to start slowly and keep building as the vaccine continues rolling out.

Being released theatrically by Lionsgate this Friday is CHAOS WALKING, the adaptation of Patrick Ness’ future-set young adult novel The Knife of Never Letting Go, which stars Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. Holland plays Todd Hewitt, a young man living in a world with no women where men’s thoughts can be perceived by everyone around them. One day, he discovers a mysterious girl named Viola (Ridley), when she crash lands on this planet but her very presence puts Viola’s life in danger, so Todd agrees to accompany her to find her own people.

Yeah, where do I even begin with the latest film from director Doug Liman that was probably filmed two or three years ago and was being delayed even before COVID came along? That’s already a bad sign, but when see how “The Noise,” the way that we hear all of characters’ thinking emerges, it immediately feels like it’s gonna be a problem. Sure enough, it’s such an awkward plot device to watch smoke billowing from the heads of the various characters as we hear their thoughts that it takes most of the movie to get used to it, and yet, it’s still so comically inept a concept that you can’t help but laugh when Holland continually rants, “My Name is Todd Hewitt,” over and over to keep Ridley’s Viola to hear his pubescent teen boy thoughts on experiencing his first girl.

The thing is that the scenes with just Holland and Ridley aren’t bad, but when you have a movie with actors like Mads Mikkelsen, David Oyelowo, Demian Bechir and Cynthia Erivo, it’s disappointing that they can’t elevate the movie above anything other than the most obvious sci-fi (and Western) pastiches. Mikkelsen is the town mayor who is so obviously another bad guy, that he doesn’t bother to put too much into his performance cause we’ve seen him do it so many times before.

Liman is more than a competent filmmaker but he clearly is unaware of how watching clouds pool around the heads of characters as we hear and see their thoughts become material, and even the introduction of the particularly silly-looking aliens – called, get this, the “Spackle” -- makes you forget that this is a sci-fi film from the director of Edge of Tomorrow (or whatever it ended up being called). It’s not even particularly surprising when we find out what really happened to the women in Todd’s community.

I have a feeling that the problems within Chaos Walking come straight from the Patrick Ness source material and the fact that he decided to adapt it himself may have made him tone-deaf to how hard it is to make the film’s central premise work without eliciting guffaws even from the most dedicated or devout fans.

This is also opening in IMAX theaters this weekend, and when it comes to New York, that might be the ideal way to see it (if you so choose) since it’s generally bigger theaters with a maximum of fifty people. Honestly, I don’t think Chaos Walking will make more than $5 million this weekend even in what should be over 2,000 theaters and with the presumed star power of Holland and Ripley from their franchise work. This could be seen as counter-programming from the animated movie, although any teens ready to go back to the movies might stick with Raya as well. Honestly, how this didn’t end up getting dumped to streaming compared to some of this weekend’s better movies is beyond me.

Offering a bit of indie counterprogramming for the two (relatively) big studio movies is Eddie Huang’s BOOGIE, the directorial debut of the Fresh Off the Boat producer, being released by Focus Features into who knows how many theaters? (1,000 or less, I’d Imagine.) It’s a coming-of-age movie starring Taylor Takahashi as Alfred “Boogie” Chin, a Queens high school basketball ace who dreams of one day playing in the NBA but whose temper gets him in trouble with the scouts for college where he’s hoping to get a scholarship.

I was kind of looking forward to this one, because I generally enjoy Fresh Off the Boat, and I’m interested in what stories Huang has to offer as a filmmaker. The film has its merits but it’s not necessarily Takahashi, who isn’t strong enough to really keep the viewer’s interest.

On the other hand, Huang was wise to cast the amazing Taylour Paige (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) as Boogie’s love interest and even better than both is Pamelyn Chee as Boogie’s “Tiger Mom” mother who is sugary sweet when it comes to wooing possible recruiters but also is a complete nightmare to his ex-con father (Perry Yung).

Thinking back on the movie, I definitely didn’t hate it as there were character relations and dynamics I enjoyed, but not all of it clicked with me, and it’s hard to imagine this one connecting with audiences as well as some of the other movies out this week, unless you’re into college hoops, which I am not.

As far as box office, I’m not sure this will be in more than 1,250 theaters (if even that) and even if it plays in New York City (where it would normally find its biggest audience), I just don’t think there’s much awareness for the movie out there. In fact, I see it only playing in one movie theaters in NYC, and that’s way up in Harlem, presumably hoping to get the street ball fans, but I’m not so sure too many up there will be interested in an Asian-American story, so honestly, I don’t think this will make more than $500,000 or $600,000 tops.

Besides the reopening of movie theaters, the other big excitement this week is the launch of Paramount+, the relaunch, spin-off, rebranding of CBS All Access that I had also been considering checking out. It will launch on Thursday, March 4, with the animated family movie THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE ON THE RUN, which was supposed to be released by Paramount Pictures last year and did get a bit of a theatrical release in Canada while theaters were open there last year. This one involves SpongeBob and his buddy Patrick trying to retrieve SpongeBob’s beloved pet snail Gary, who has gone missing.

I generally enjoyed the first to SpongeBob movies, even though I never watched the show, and the regular creators and voice actors always seem to step up their game in terms of the wackiness whenever they’re given a chance to bring the lunacy to the big screen. In this case, it comes in the form of some of the guests including Snoop Dog and Danny Trejo in an odd Western section complete with musical number or Keanu Reeves introduced in the same section as a tumbleweed named Sage. (Oddly, this also features Awkwafina providing the voice of a robot, and I kind of liked her in more of a subdued role like this.) Although SpongeBob and his friends are CG animated, the movie doesn’t try too hard to integrate the live action in as fluid a way as last week’s Tom and Jerry – live actors just kind of show up – but it’s still pretty darn entertaining to watch another movie in which everyone involved, including director Tim Hill (who shockingly directed last year’s awful The War with Grandpa!), just going about making the movie as crazy and wacky as possible, something that should appeal to kids and… THC-laced adults (preferably not those watching with kids) … to get an overall enjoyable experience. Maybe it’s no surprise that I was particularly tickled with SpongeBob and Patrick’s adventures in Las Vegas.

Along with that, the streamer will have a new animated series called KAMP KORAL: SPONGEBOB’S UNDER YEARS, which is a CG-animated series that focuses on SpongeBob and friends when they were younger, which actually is one of the funnier bits in the movie as well.

There’s a lot of great stuff coming to Paramount+ that should make it a real player in the streaming world, and that includes all of the Paramount movies that will be streaming on it, both those that are getting a theatrical release this year and the studio’s absolutely vast library over the past 100 or so years.

And that’s not all! This weekend also sees the release of the sequel thirty years in the making, COMING 2 AMERICA, which will launch on Amazon Prime Video on Friday (after being sold to the streamer by Paramount, oddly), so yeah, there’s plenty of options to keep people home this weekend even with theaters reopening.

Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall are back as Prince (now King) Akeem of Zamunda and his trusty aide Semmi, and in fact, almost every character and actor from the movie has returned, as the duo return to America to find Akeem’s illegitimate son Lavelle (Jermayne Fowler) in queens, hoping to teach him the Zamundan way so he can take over as King after him. Unfortunately, Lavelle is joined in Zamunda with his family which includes mother Leslie Jones and uncle Tracy Jordan.

Unfortunately, reviews are embargoed until Thursday, so I’m not sure I’ll get to review this one, but I did like the movie, more than I thought because my rewatch of the original 1989 movie led me to believe there was a good reason I hadn’t watched it in over thirty years. The sequel offers a lot of originality and humor in the forms of Leslie Jones and Tracy Jordan, but that’s all I’ll say about it for now.

Incidentally, you can check out an interview I did with director Craig Brewer over at Below the Line AND I also talked to the film’s make-up team, and after you see the movie, you’ll understand why I’m holding it until after people have seen the movie.

Another movie that would probably have gotten a theatrical release but now will be seen on Hulu is the Joe Carnahan-directed BOSS LEVEL, reteaming him with long-time collaborator Frank Grillo as a man who cannot die, because he’s living in a single day that’s being repeated over and over as he takes on a series of assassins sent to kill him.

This as a really fun action-comedy that never lets down in terms of either half of that genre, and it’s kinda groovy to see Mel Gibson playing a fairly key role since he became the master of that action genre with the Lethal Weapon movies. But this really is Frank Grillo’s show as a leading man, and while I can understand some thinking him not having enough charisma for that sort of thing, I respectfully disagree.

We get into this high-concept premise pretty quickly as we watch his character, Roy Pulver, take on a string of assassins for his over 100th attempt to do so, and as per the title, it is a lot like a video game where Roy has to defeat all of the assassins on his way to the big boss, Gibson’s The Colonel. Apparently, Roy’s wife Gemma (Naomi Watts) has been killed by the Colonel or his thug (Will Sasso) so Roy is now on a quest for revenge. But first he has to survive the onslaught of killers, all of whom he’s given cute nicknames.

Easily my favorite of the killers is Selina Lo’s Guan Yin, a feisty swordswoman who proves to be the most formidable opponent for Roy. I won’t say how he bests her, but it does involve Michelle Yeoh, who has such a strange nothing appearance in one section of the movie, you wonder what she’s doing there. In fact, the movie does hit a slight lull after the initial concept is introduced, but it

Listen, I’ve long been a fan of Carnahan’s dark sense of humor and to some, it might seem mini-spirited, to me it harks back to one of my favorite movies he directed, Smokin’ Aces, a similar movie with a crazy ensemble cast, though maybe a slightly smaller budget. Still, Carnahan is a terrific action director, which makes this one of the stronger action movies in a while, and he finds a way to take a fairly simple premise and make it bigger in that Roy’s dilemma turns into something where he has to save the world, but also something more emotional and personal as he tries to bond with his son before said world ends. I guess in many ways, it’s hard to put into words what makes Boss Level so special, but I can only hope that Ryan Reynold’s Free Guy is as good as this after being delayed so many times, because this will be a tough act to follow for sure.

Over at the Metrograph, still closed physically unfortunately, they’re doing a series this week called “David Fincher/Kirk Baxter” which looks at the relationship between the director and his frequent editor, showing a series of movies over the course of the week: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network

The Metrograph has a lot of movies as part of its digital membership (just $5 a month) including Chloé Zhao’s very first film, Songs My Brother Taught Me, which was available to members through Wednesday night. (Sorry, I tweeted about it multiple times if you missed it.)

This week also launches the 26th annual “Rendezvous with French Cinema” up at Film at Lincoln Center, which was actually one of the LAST events to happen up there LAST year. This year, they’re keeping things safe by holding it virtually. It runs from March 4 through March 14, kicking off on Thursday with Sébastien Lifshitz’s Little Girl, which will be released by Music Box Films in the Fall. There’s a lot of fairly recent French films with an all-access pass available to rent all 18 films for $165. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything, so can’t really recommend anything but I’ll probably be checking out the free talk “How Music Makes the Film” on Monday, March 8.

Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood) and Sigourney Weaver star in Philippe Falardeau’s MY SALINGER YEAR (IFC Films), based on Joanna Rakoff’s book. Set in New York of the ‘90s, Qualley plays Joanna, a grad school student who dreams of becoming a writer who gets hired as an assistant to literary agent Margaret (Weaver), whose biggest client is J.D. Salinger. Although Joanna’s role is more of a glorified secretary, she gets to go through Salinger’s fan mail from around the world, and she decides to start answering some of the letters to the author, an experience that helps her find her writers’ voice.

I wasn’t sure if this movie would be for me, but I find Qualley to be quite delightful, and this was a light film with a comedic tone from the Canadian filmmaker of the boxing movie, Chuck, and the Oscar-nominated Monsieur Lazhar. I enjoyed its look at the New York literary world of the 1990s, and it kept me quite invested even if I’m not particularly invested in Salinger’s work or an obsessive with The Catcher in the Rye as many are. Weaver is also fantastic as Joanna’s boss – think of a lighter version of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada – and also enjoyed the tentative relationship between Joanna and her writer boyfriend Don, played by Douglas Booth.

Basically, Falardeau has created another generally wonderful and crowd-pleasing movie that sadly missed its opportunity at a festival run to build an audience after debuting at the Berlinale almost exactly a year ago. Presumably, this will open at the reopened IFC Center this weekend. (In fact, IFC Center released its reopening schedule and it’s a pretty cool mix of IFC Films movies from the past as well as some of the Netflix movies that weren’t released in NYC previously.)

Okay, let’s get to some other releases from the week, beginning with Ivan Kavanagh’s SON (RLJEfilms/Shudder), the latest film from the Irish director of The Canal, a fantastic horror film that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival about seven years back. In this one, Andi Matichak from Halloween plays a single mother whose son David (Luke David Blumm) suffers from all sorts of maladies but when she starts getting closer to a local detective (Emile Hirsch), he discovers that there’s a lot more to her past and to her son’s ailments.

Honestly, I do not want to say too much about the plot, because there are so many shocking surprises in the movie once you think you know where it’s going, although I will say that it has connections to films like The Lodge and shows like Servant, but it also does a good job fucking with the viewer’s head, so you never know what’s really happening and what might be in the characters’ heads.

I will say that the movie is very dark and quite disturbing with lots of gruesome gory sequences, but if you’re a fan of smart horror, you’ll want to check out Son. (I’ll have an interview with Kavanagh over at Below the Line next week.)

Sony Classics is finally releasing Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s doc THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS (Sony Classics), which has been playing on the virtual festival circuit all the way back to Sundance last year, so we’ll see how many people are left to see it. It’s set in the forests of Piedmont, Italy where a handful of 70-to-80-year-old men are on the hunt for the rare white Alba truffle, which has resisted all modern science to be cultivated.

For whatever reason, I procrastinated on watching this movie for most of last year, maybe because I’m not that big a fan of cinema verité docs, but this is infinitely entertaining between the various men featured – including a lot of real characters in there – and how the movie shows their close bond with their truffle-sniffing dogs. This is a genuinely enjoyable movie that I feel can appeal to a wide range of viewers, although be aware that is in Italian, so maybe one should consider that even with the cute dogs, this should probably be watched by teen or older rather than small kids. (I don’t remember anything particularly racy, but the movie is Rated PG-13.)

Staying in the dog realm, Magnolia Pictures is releasing Elizabeth Lo’s documentary STRAY on Friday, which documents the life of Zeytin, a stray dog living on the streets of Istanbul, and some of his dog frenemies. Actually, this was a pretty wonderful film that I quite enjoyed, although there were a few dog fight sequences that disturbed me a little bit. But it’s a great look at Turkey through the eyes of some of the canines on the street, how they interact with the humans around them. Essentially, Stray is the dog version of Kedi, but I’ve seen other similar docs like this including Los Reyes – this one is just as strong as either of those movies, the images of all the beautiful dogs accompanied by gorgeous string music by Ali Helnwein that helps you understand the dogs’ complex emotions. Seriously, if you like dogs, you can definitely do worse than the previous two movies mentioned. Stray is available via Virtual Cinema, including that of the Film Forum.

Filmmaker and EDM artist Quentin Dupieux (Rubber) is back with his latest, KEEP AN EYE OUT (Dekanalog), starring Belgian comedian Benoît Poelvoorde as police officer, Commissaire Buran, investigating a guy (Grégoire Ludig) who has discovered a dead body in a puddle of blood outside his apartment building. The prime suspect is then left alone with a one-eyed rookie, and if you’ve seen any of Dupieux’s other films, you’ll probably know to expect the unexpected as things get crazier and crazier. (I seem to remember seeing this last year at some festival, maybe FantasticFest, but I’ll have to watch again before remembering if this was one of Dupieux’s movies that I liked.) This will be available in select theaters and also in virtual cinema this Friday. (Oddly Dupieux’s last movie, Deerskin, debuted at last year’s “Rendezvous with French Cinema” right before theaters shut down for a year, and I don’t want to be superstitious, but yeah, I’m worried.)

Barnaby Thompson’s Ireland-set crime thriller PIXIE (Saban/Paramount) stars Olivia Cooke (Sound of Metal) and Alec Baldwin with Cooke playing Pixie Hardy, a young woman who wants to avenge her mother’s death by pulling off a heist that will allow her to leave her small town. The crime goes wrong, and she’s forced to team up with a group of misfits including Baldwin’s Father McGrath.

Bradley Parker’s action-thriller THE DEVIL BELOW (Vertical) deals with a team of researchers who are investigating a series of underground coal mines in Appalachian country that have been on fire for decades where they discover a mystery. It’s getting a combined theatrical, VOD and digital release Friday.

Phil Sheerin’s directorial debut THE WINTER LAKE stars Emma Mackey (Sex Education) as Holly, a young woman with a secret that’s uncovered by her unstable neighbor Tom (Anson Boon from Blackbird) and the two of them are pulled into a confrontation with her father, who wants to keep the family secret buried. This will be in select theaters on Friday, On Demand on Tuesday, March 9 and then on DVD March 23.

Dylan McCormick’s SOMETIME OTHER THAN NOW (Gravitas Ventures) stars Donal Logue and Kate Walsh, Logue playing Sam who is stranded in a small New England town after his motorcycle crashes into the ocean seeking refuge at a run-down motel run by Walsh’s Kate, a similarly run-down and lost soul. When Sam learns that his estranged daughter Audrey, who he hasn’t seen in 25 years, lives in the town, he starts to learn more about why he ended up there.

Jacob Johnston’s DREAMCATCHER (Samuel Goldwyn) stars Travis Burns as Dylan aka DJ Dreamcatcher who meets up with two estranged sisters at the underground music film festival, Cataclysm, where they become entrenched in 48 hours of violence and mayhem after a drug-fueled event. Sounds delightful.

Some of the other VOD stuff hitting the ‘net this week include: 400 Bullets (Shout! Studios), Sophie Jones(Oscilloscope), Dementer (Dark Star PIctures), Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know (Giant Pictures)

That’s it for this week. Next week, theaters hopefully will remain open, and we’ll have some new movies to write about.

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #RayaAndTheLastDragon #ChaosWalking #SpongeBobMovie #BossLevel

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marsdave · 5 years ago

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Capitalism is the bad guy: a TAZ Graduation prediction/analysis

Still super sleepy but I made a promise so here's my analysis of the economic history of TAZ Graduation I guess. Again, there are only two episodes out so there is a large chance that most of this essay is going to be, in a word, wrong. However, I've got a lot of things to say about what's already been set up in the first two episodes and trailer for TAZ Graduation.

For the purposes of ease, I'm going to be focusing mainly on Balance and Graduation because they take place in similar universes. Amnesty is a little more down to earth because it, you know, takes place on earth. Amnesty's focus on money is minimal and its economic system is, well... ours (Or at least the USA's, I'm not actually sure where you live, but I understand that a lot of economic discussions on tumblr are very USA-centric, and not every TAZ fan is American)

In any case, I'm much more interested in the fictional societies of Faerun and... the world of Wiggenstaff's (Wiggenworld?)

The economic impacts of anything have been largely ignored in Balance. Off the top of my head, I can remember Goldcliff being a prosperous city, Taako's gold-stealing habit, fantasy costco, and Lup's 15 dollar bill (which, by the way I am writing a musical about, check it out if you want), as examples of money playing any role in TAZ Balance.

While hilarious, the moments of bargaining for items in the Fantasy Costco in Balance aren't monetarily accurate by earth standards, you dont haggle at a Costco, they price their items that way for a reason. A magically multiplying 15 dollar bill would cause mass amounts of inflation, especially in the hands of a crime boss like Greg F. Grimaldis and used to create cash reserves in a casino. There is a reason that printing money is illegal.

Balance's relationship with money isn't really a relationship at all, it's an acquaintance-ship. It's friends-with-benefits, except the benefits are goofs. It's the relationship that the class clown has with an easy-to make-fun-of-kid. In TAZ Balance, money is a joke. And that works!

Money doesn't play a huge role in Balance because it doesnt have to! Hell, that works in its favor! The main ideas explored in balance are People, Love, Choosing Joy, and The Unbreakable Bonds Of Chosen Family, if money was inserted into that equation, Balance would be way less impactful.

This ties into what I mean by "ultimate evil". The ultimate evil of Balance was not The Hunger, it was forgetting those you love. The ultimate evil of Amnesty was not the Aliens or The Quell, it was ignorance. The strength of the adventure zone is it's ability to create big, spectacular epics that are still ultimately character driven, and that comes from how it pairs its strong external conflicts (Hey guys, let's fight this sentient storm) with equally strong internal conflicts (Hey guys, let's build a beautiful found family). The Big Evil is the external, the ultimate evil is the internal.

Now let's talk about Graduation.

Graduation takes place in a pseudo-college setting. Maybe it's just me, but college immediately reminds me of money, it's just an instant association. (Again, I'd like to acknowledge that this is coming from a U.S. pov and for me, the link between money and college is tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars on tuition and financially crippling student loans. I know).

Here are some other money-related elements of TAZ Graduation in the FIRST TWO EPISODES:

Argo's financial situation

The commune that [Redacted] comes from

The high reliance on/hero worship of accountants and accounting

The organization that can forcibly retire the heroes and villains of Wiggenworld when their costs outweigh their benefits

Travis McElroy essentially gave us Wiggenworld's economic history on a silver platter. It started out with unfettered, unregulated capitalism, which resulted in wars and a minority of people recklessly wasting the majority of Wiggenworld's resources. Then something really interesting happened.

The economy was regulated, but not by the government, by the people themselves, more specifically, the fantasy accountants. This is what I'm going to call the Rise Of Accounting.

After that, and the Hero/Villain industry rose to fill the void that the entertainment of the wars left.

So in my previous post, I alluded to the fact that capitalism would be the ultimate evil this season. That's not exactly what I meant. The real ultimate evil will be The Commodification of Individuals.

Heroes and villains are not treated as people in this universe, they're companies. Hell, you could even say that they're products. Once they cost more money than they earn, they're forcibly retired, unable to find another job as a hero/villain and at most institutions, barred from teaching.

This is a double edged sword, because besides robbing heroes/villains of their humanity, it forces them to walk the ever-thinning line between "interesting and new enough to keep people coming back and turn a profit" and "safe and careful enough not to cost their patron town too much" and if they falter (which they eventually will, because no hero/villain can stay both safe and interesting forever) then the failure is pinned on them rather than the broken system. There's also the matter of how sidekicks/henchpeople are treated compared to heroes/villains, but that's a whole different post.

The hero/villain occupation is an unsustainable one by design, it's a dangerous and temporary job, but hey, it pays well, and that's what it's all about in a capitalist system.

So yeah, with the way things are set up, this season is inextricable from the concept of money (and honestly kudos to Travis McElroy for setting it up so perfectly and concisely in these two episodes), and I can't wait to see what happens next.

#capitalism #socialism #economics #taz #the adventure zone #the adventure zone balance #the adventure zone amnesty #the adventure zone graduation #taz balance #taz amnesty #taz graduation #long post #taz graduation spoilers #taz argo #taz fitzroy #taz bud #taz [redacted]#taz garfield #petals to the metal

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 6 years ago

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20 first lines

tiggity tagged by @sybilius

i think the only people who regularly write fanfic are @bronanlynch and @loldinson ? feel free to do it if the spirit moves you, people who aren’t bronanlynch and loldinson

i can’t say i’ve written twenty things in the past two years for assignments or NOT for assignments but we’ll see how far I get

1. The day after the Second Battle for Hoover Dam, five exhausted people and a cyborg dog dragged themselves downstairs to the lobby of the dead Mr House’s big dead hotel. (odd diversity of misery and joy, weird fuckin fallout: new vegas and the good the bad and the ugly crossover, briefly Blondie POV and then mostly Angel Eyes)

2. He whirls, and gives Milo a grin that’s...that’s just all fang, and a more honest Milo would have admitted the delicious hopeful excitement that grin gave him. (a simple creature of physical exuberance, a scene from a dnd one-shot I played earlier this year where we were all vampires)

3. I am an astronomer. The moon is my wife. (a brief oral history of the Fair Folk in space, as remembered by Stella Maris , a little urban fantasy thing i wrote three calendar years ago)

4. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about horses- I was only the entertainment. ( GETAWAY-Being an Account of the Diamond of Ra Incident, as Related by Miss Charlotte Queensbury and Set Down by an Unknown Admirer in 188-, something I wrote in TWENTY FUCKING THIRTEEN when steampunk was the new hot shit and was somehow published in my high school’s lit mag.)

okay that’s everything that’s on ao3 here is some unfinished/unpublished stuff

5. “No.” said Arcade, flatly. “That’s barbaric. We’re putting you under for this.” (next blondeyes installment perhaps? in a doc titled ‘what the fuck am i doing with my life’)

6. Six pulls the sword out of the package and looks at it doubtfully. “Now I can see the value of having a machete, but a sword? A real sword?“ (i don’t even know. also in a doc titled i don’t even know. this is the only thing in the doc, which is maybe cheating.)

7. She was close enough to hear the flickering tings as it wobbled back and forth in frequency. Couldn’t be too far gone- the frequency range wasn’t broad, maybe five hertz at most? (a post-apoc YA novel I write three pages of every nanowrimo)

okay now we’re getting into papers not intended for publication that I wrote this year. the PDR i worked on doesn’t....have a real first line? so i shall not include it.

8. “Acceleration due to gravity, namely g, is an important physical constant that many other constants rely upon.” (”Measurement of g, the local acceleration due to gravity” redacted]/Bros/[redacted]

9. This data analysis uses particle tracking methods to observe the behavior of an autonomous robotic vacuum of the Roomba 570 model as it travels around a square room, aiming to extract information on the patterns in its motion. (Determining robotic vacuum trajectory from initial conditions, Bros/[redacted]/[redacted])

10. “ “Keeping the lights on” is a common turn of phrase use to encompass many financial anxieties. Fear of the dark and fears about keeping your family in a safe and functional home are paired in this phrase. “ (policy brief on greening the electric grid)

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Empire of the Vampire Makes Vampires Scary Again

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article is sponsored by As a species, humans have more or less always been obsessed with vampires. (The earliest references to blood-drinking creatures date back to ancient Mesopotamia, believe it or not.) But the way we relate to these creatures has shifted throughout the centuries, as legends, folklore, and popular culture have adapted to the needs and fears specific to respective societies.

Published in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula may have sparked a particular vein of horror story that continues to this day (looking at you, American Horror Story: Double Feature), but Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, published in 1976, changed how audiences relate to bloodsuckers forever and plenty of contemporary vampire tales have continued to cast the creatures as broody, desirous, long-suffering anti-heroes burdened by the weight of immortality.

But don’t expect bestselling Australian author Jay Kristoff’s new book, Empire of the Vampire, to follow this modern trend. In this story, the first in a new epic fantasy trilogy, vampires are 100% terrifying again, vicious monsters who kill violently and indiscriminately, and whose powers mean that few humans are capable of standing against them for long.

“When I was a kid, vampires were the monsters under the bed. They were the scary things that were trying to eat the good people,” Kristoff explains during a wide-ranging conversation with Den of Geek. “I grew up reading books like Salem’s Lot and watching films like The Lost Boys and Near Dark. Those were the vampires that I grew up with.”

Those aren’t generally the sorts of vampires we tend to see in much contemporary fiction nowadays, however. From The Vampire Diaries and True Blood to the Twilight franchise, recent mainstream pop culture has embraced the idea of the vampire as a version of the ultimate bad boy boyfriend, a secretly romantic figure still searching for true love after centuries of loneliness.

“Over the course of the last 20, 30 years they have evolved into something very different,” Kristoff says. “[And] there’s nothing wrong with exploring that kind of vampire,” he adds, describing himself as a “massive fan” of The Vampire Diaries and firmly “Team Delena” when it comes to the love triangle at the show’s center.

“The cool thing about [the ‘vampire’ concept] is they’re a dozen different things to a dozen different people. You can have a dozen different vampire fans in the room, and they’ll all tell you a different reason why they like them, why they’re attracted to them.”

Though Kristoff may enjoy the world of The Vampire Diaries—he’s currently making his way through its spin-off The Originals—Stefan and Damon Salvatore were not the sort of creatures whose story he was interested in exploring in Empire of the Vampire. The novel is set in a kingdom where the sun has barely shone for nearly three decades, the dead walk during the daytime, and vicious vampire factions fight for control over the remaining human territories. Its world is bleak and frightening, and his vampires reflect that fact.

“I did want to make them monsters again,” Kristoff says. “I wanted to explore the way eternity and immortality would just warp you beyond all recognition. [How] it would make you inhuman.”

The author cites Rice’s aforementioned Interview with the Vampire as “the biggest influence” on this story. “I’ve loved that book since I was a kid,” he says. “And one of the strong themes that permeates that text is that nothing is forever. Everything goes away on a long enough timeline.” Including the humanity of those who were once human. Kristoff’s novel includes something of a nod to Rice’s work, as the story is framed by our primary protagonist recounting the highs and lows of his life to a vampire historian named Jean-Francois, who is our first consistent glimpse into the removed, detached attitude with which these creatures view human beings.

“Over the course of hundreds upon hundreds of years, if you’re killing a person every night, you very quickly stop seeing people as people and start seeing them as food,” Kristoff explains. “That can’t help but affect your worldview and the way that you interact with it. I don’t think you could help but become inhuman …That’s really what the older vampires in this world are. They’re truly alien and truly monstrous. They look at us the same way that we look at the hamburger that we’re about to eat for dinner.”

Empire of the Vampire is not for the faint of heart. Clocking in at over 800 pages, this is a book bursting with darkness of both the literal and the figurative variety. From the cataclysmic event known as “daysdeath,” which literally darkens the sun to violent, to bloody battles between the living and the dead that lead to (multiple) heartbreaking deaths, this is not a story that’s here to coddle its readers or pull any punches, narratively or figuratively speaking.

“There’s only [redacted] named characters—as in major characters—left alive at the end of the book,” Kristoff teases. “Everybody else is dead.”

But as a result, Empire of the Vampire is also genuinely compelling, a rich, layered story that embraces real stakes and wrestles with complex questions about faith, belief, and family, both found and otherwise.

“It’s the biggest book that I’ve written. It’s definitely the hardest book that I’ve written,” Kristoff says, whose previous works include the Nevernight trilogy, another massive fantasy shot through with violence, corruption, and complex stakes. “Now that I’m at the tail end of it, [I think] it’s the best book that I’ve ever written. I’m more proud of this novel than anything I’ve ever written in my life, and that’s against some pretty stiff competition.”

Ostensibly, Empire of the Vampire follows the story of Gabriel de Leon, the last Silversaint, a member of an elite order of warriors who have sworn their lives to the Church in order to defend the world from the encroaching vampire plague. The novel is his reflection upon his own life, told from what feels very much as though it could be the end of it, imprisoned by the very creatures he was once charged with hunting.

Told in split narratives that look back at the beginning of his time as a Silversaint and his final desperate journey to save the world, Empire of the Vampire not only shows us a hero in crisis but one who has forgotten why he wanted to be a hero in the first place.

“[Gabe’s story] is two sides of the same coin,” Kristoff explains. “One, when he’s young and passionate and thinks all the world is good and bright and he can be a positive force in it. And the other one where he’s gotten old and realized that things don’t always work out the way they do in the storybooks.”

Though Gabe was once the sort of hero who tends to have songs written about them, by the time he’s recounting his great deeds to his vampire captors, he’s become more of a “fallen hero” whose story is primarily “about redemption, or at least a reclamation of faith.”

“Faith was something that was really important to him as a young guy,” explains Kristoff, “but terrible things happened to him over the course of his life and he lost his faith, as many of us do. Part of his journey, at least in Empire, is about finding something to believe in. He’s on a pretty destructive path at the start of the book when we meet him, and he’s 32. He doesn’t have a heck of a lot to live for. At least in part, his journey is about finding something that’s bigger than himself, that’s something more than the revenge that he’s driven toward…something worth fighting for.”

That something arrives in the form of a quest. Like so many before him in popular literature, Gabe ultimately finds himself on a search for the Holy Grail, a magical object that is rumored to be able to end daysdeath, and with it, the vampire plague. Whether the Grail is real or not is a spoiler that only those who read the book will find out, but Gabe’s search for it will quite literally change his life and expand the events of the second and third books in this trilogy in new and different ways.

In Empire of the Vampire, Gabe’s hunt for the Grail forces him to reckon with the darkest aspects of his own life as “ a lot of his own sins come back to haunt him.” As an example, Kristoff describes a later chapter in the book (it’s called “The Worst Day” for those who want to skip ahead) as “the hardest chapter I’ve ever written in my life.”

“I think some of the darkness that was happening in the world around me permeated my head and permeated the story,” Kristoff says of a scene in which, as you might have already guessed, something awful happens to a major character. “I wrote that scene and at the end of it I slammed the laptop shut and just pushed it away from me. I didn’t touch it for four days. I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. That’s the heaviest thing I’ve ever written. Even reading it back now, I’m like, ‘Damn, that’s really tough, you bastard.’”

Empire of the Vampire is just the first piece of what is shaping up to be a massive fantasy saga, and its second installment—which Kristoff says he’s writing right now—is set to expand the series’ world even further, introducing us to the matriarchal clans of the western Ossway as well as the dangerous vampires of the Blood du Voch, whose strength makes them especially difficult to kill. But, according to Kristoff, readers shouldn’t be shocked if the sequel turns our understanding of the story we’re reading on its head once more.

“One of the cool things [about Book 2] is you get a second POV. There’s another character that’s imprisoned in the tower and we get their version of events,” Kristoff explains. “You start to realize that maybe Gabe hasn’t been entirely truthful, or maybe he’s just viewing the past and certain people through rose-colored glasses.”

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In other words: Buckle up. This adventure has only just begun, and plenty of Kristoff’s dark creatures are still waiting in the wings.

Empire of the Vampire hits bookshelves in the U.S. on September 14th, and in the U.K. a week prior. Find out more here.

The post Empire of the Vampire Makes Vampires Scary Again appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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wreckthelist · 7 years ago

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at first sight: meeting Rach @ Harold Pinter stage-door

Ask me if I believe in fate, for all I’ve railed against its faults and failings, and I’ll still say yes.

I was browsing tumblr (I’ve been on here far too long, but it’s an asymmetrical symbiotic relationship, if you’ll pardon the expression.)—and came across a post on the ongoing run of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Harold Pinter. It’s here, I thought. Just right here. And Luke Treadaway too at that. For how long I’ve loved his twin, Harry, I’ve been meaning to watch him live in action. Not to mention Edward Albee and I go way, way back. Oh sir, way back.

This is only one of the three sources I used comprehensively (or, more accurately, obsessively) for my IB English Higher Level Paper 1. The running themes of fiction vs. reality, illusions vs. real life, which unite Albee’s celebrated work, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman—those I can (sprinkling present tense for extra emphasis and dramatic effect, no less) never get enough of and those which has stayed with me through these formative years, seeping themselves into my thoughts, my fiction framing, and the way I approach stories and character-writing. They’re my forefathers, those that came before, those that have stayed, and those that would always be with me.

Open up Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and you’ll hear me go on long monologues back to those days when I drudged through daily timed (Ready. Get set. Go! And you thought English’s a breeze. It isn’t.) open-ended essay questions in class, scouring my brain for text extracts, juicy quotes, and relevant themes—all the more better if present in the three texts. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was, and still is, my cup of tea. The dysfunctional relationships—the Dean’s daughter and the wimpy History university professor; the pretend gentleman of a Math (sorry, Nick—Biology!) university professor and his blond mousy wife—juxtaposed against each other, the young and the old, made fascinating, animated, and alive, when seen actually acted out in engrossing and hypnotic fashion by Imelda, Conleth, Luke, and Imogen. It’s alcohol numbing senses and humans playing psychological mind games and stimulating the worst in each other. It’s wordplay and emotional manipulation of the cruelest kinds and secrets spilled without second thoughts for consequences. It’s blood and gore and scars without physical, bodily harms and long, twisted monologues on the eternal battle between the young and the old, and history and science. It’s debates and confessions and lies on love and what it means to be by each other’s side as husband and wife in a relationship. It’s self-aware illusions masqueraded as truths, story-telling to its most sordid effects, reality warped as fantasies and words told and retold so often they became real. It’s manifestations of two joined minds of history that never did exist and a person, a glue to the relationship, that they wished (fervently) would exist.

“Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference.

George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.”

Martha: ’tis the refuge we take when the unreality of the world weighs too heavy on our tiny heads.

God, I loved it. I still do. I swallowed all that up. Mix it in with a hint of time in Willy’s fantasy escapades and we’ve got my favourite (and signature) approach to writing—in episodes and through a nonlinear timeline.

What’s true. What’s not. Why must we continually fool ourselves, despite knowing so, to go on living? What’s escapism and believing, investing so heavily in a fantasy?

Then there’s the talk of academics. University professors. Drinking. Oh, god. I know. I know. It’s all in there. It’s all in there.

I’d never been to (or in) Harold Pinter before that Monday, when I got that fateful email about [REDACTED] which, looking back, would be one of the great regrets of my life—but how could I? When you had to choose between flying home and [REDACTED]—out of my homesick heart, what would you have done????

To this day, I still feel like I turned down [REDACTED].

But whatever. This is not about [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

This is about the play, about the actors, about that fateful stagedoor, about the conversations that ensued afterwards, and about one particular UCL girl.

The production design was impressive—that compressed, tight-knit set (which Rach’s already described as inducing that very innate claustrophobic sense the play was supposed to instill in its audience. Oh yea, you’re not there for comfort. No. These aren’t your friendly neighborhood parlor games.) of George and Martha’s house. From the door (I still remember the details. That, or because I snuck in a last-minute photo before I left, out of sheer awe that I finally got a chance to watch that play that became my life—overstatement? Hyperbole? I think not.—live and brilliantly acted.) to the books adorning the walls-as-shelves on the left and right of the stage, the couch in the middle of the way between the door and the rug , the art pieces, the rug (later Nick’s and Martha’s sensual dancefloor, to George’s numbed dismay and Honey’s dizzy drunk mind). There’s even a fireplace, stage left. And a workdesk, stage right.

Lamps worked, as actors turned them on and off throughout. Music flew in and scenes happened before you, with no escapes of the yard outside or the bar as offered by the film (We did watch the film in English class. Bless. I do realise I have to thank Mrs. McCarthy for changing my life.)

After the play, came the stagedoor. My first ever (imagine that. In March. How far I’ve come.) I wasn’t sure. But it was Luke Treadaway, and I had to.

There’s a few (too few) of us crowded around that stagedoor, shivering in the cold. Rachel was the one Asian, another familiar face I saw. Luke came out, beanie and checkerboard/lumberjack jacket, passable as an ordinary Brit wandering the streets. No one would’ve spotted him. He said ‘yes,’ to requests, and tried signing again when my pen didn’t work the first time (I didn’t even bring my Sharpie—what an amateur. And I had them—him and the others—sign the programme. I should’ve asked for the ticket, keeping in mind how much I travel. Then again, amateur hour. A mistake not to be made twice.) I asked for a selfie, and the picture turned out damn adorable (because he was pointing at me and smiling, and I treasure it to this day). Rach asked for a selfie. Afterwards he lingered around and asked, “Anybody else?” We all said, “No,” and “Thank you,” and he left, another figure rounding the street corner.

It’s those little things an actor does that stays with you. Luke is incredibly sweet for having done that, just as Jack O’Connell was for turning my ticket the right side up before signing (ugh. You have to love him.) and taking the time to ask me, “You mind if I use your pen for a bit?” and returning me the pen.

Later Imelda came out, signing everything with a flourish and voicing (loudly) her refusal to understand social media hype.

“Why’d you do this play?” some girl asked her, and, one’d have to give her credit for that frankness (we’re not going for interview quality answers here), because she answered simply, “Someone asked me to,” before disappearing into her car and into the night.

Conlenth came and signed and went. There was nothing much there, except us telling him how great he was.

Imogen was one of the major reasons I came, aside from the play itself. My alternate tag for her is ‘sunshine,’ because her smile to me is exactly that, so you could imagine my disappointed surprise when she did not show.

Rach and I gushed about Luke, about his sweetness. We talked and talked. I’ve no idea—it has indeed been awhile—how I got the conversation started. But I did remember talking first. Maybe it was about asking her if she’d read the play before. If you’d read her side of this story, I too am not one to start conversations, but that moment just felt right.

(Like when I caught eyes with the Korean girl at the Sons gig.)

It’s hard to explain. It’s serendipity. It’s fate. It’s just something that happens. Something that just is. Something that you just know.

And with her, my hunch turned out to be for good.

We exchanged Facebook, I think—or was it Instagram too, on our walk back to the horses at the Haymarket streetlights (oh, how I’ll miss it. Good ol’ Londontown. I’m further away from you every second now.) And somehow I found her on Instagram.

And we hit it off, we did.

We made plans. Got to her place and binged on Sainsbury’s discounted Ben & Jerry’s (was it Phish Food?) and chocolate lava cake (good times.) and watched Branaugh (that 1993 version) and a bit of the Joss Whedon one (me having too many pieces of Rach’s delicious fudge in the process—mhm.)

Chatted about my romantic misfortunes (I give up. It wasn’t even romance.), obsessions, and life. She’s the most receptive, reassuring listener and I turned into my extroverted, fast-talking self so quickly around her. It’s like we’ve known each other longer than we did.

Now we’re in touch via Facebook, and Tumblr. And I can say, with guarantee, that while long-distance relationships may not work, long-distance friendships can last. I’ve carried on the same lines with my other Malaysian friend for 4 years (and met up with her twice in the UK), and this one with Rach, I truly believe and hope it could and would last.

Because we get each other. Because she understands. She’s there for me, and I promise with all my heart I would always be there for her.

And if it’s any proof of fate, I’ve been writing and am publishing this a day after Luke Treadaway’s birthday.

#theatre outing #personal #who's afraid of virginia woolf?#Luke Treadaway #imelda staunton

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lulucarrington · 8 years ago

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The Black Out Job

Chapter 1, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Chapter 2: HERE

There are times, and places, beyond our knowing. One such place, Hybras, was a place of magic and wonder. At least, to those who did not live there. The city lived in two- a world like ours, of 9-5 human bustle and activity, and a world filled with fae and elementals, and humans who had the sight. Humans are distrustful at the best of times, so the two sides have always stood apart, but with the rise of new leaders and politicians, the divide is sharper than ever, and consequences begin to pile up on both sides. Humans driven into stupid animal fear, and the Folk, as the media termed them, were driven into the shadows, living on the fringe, and in resentful silence.

* * *

Taekwoon sat down heavily on his friend Hakyeon’s couch and sighed. It had happened again. He’d lost another job. He’d been so good- he’d minded his own business, been friendly enough, and always done all the work assigned to him. He’d agreed to lunch with some coworkers, and they’d walked past the pet store. Until he passed, the animals had been playful and sweet; but his presence had made them all sit or stand at attention, eyes on him, before the howling and screaming had begun. The news that day had played over the office, letting them know the signs of the Folk, including ones like Taekwoon.

He’d been fired for ‘showing up late too often’ by 5pm.

He wasn’t even going to fight this one. He was done with it all.

“Rough one?” Hakyeon’s voice floated in from his room.

“Worse. I got fired again,” “How’d it happen this time?”

“The pet place on 191st.” Taekwoon rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in a couch cushion. He was sure his landlord would want him out after this, too. He hadn’t even taken anything out of his storage locker this time, so at least he was already packed.

“I hate pet stores.” Hakyeon’s voice let Taekwoon know his friend had returned. “I don’t know why you bother trying to fit in anymore. Things are getting worse everywhere, honestly. I mean, look at the city- east and west are now an absolute divide in species. Stay here on this side with me, stop trying to fit in with the humans.”

“I AM a human.”

“True, but one who is capable of interspecies communication, and mastery of beasts, and that makes the rest of them nervous.” Hakyeon sat down on a sliver of couch and put a soft hand on Taekwoon’s shoulder. “I could get you a job with my people. I’m sure Ravi would love to have you in the crew. And you won’t even have to move!”

“I’m sure my boss already called my landlord about me.” Taekwoon moaned. “I’ll be out by the end of the week!”

“Lee Jaehwan owns the club under your building, not just the apartments, you know.”

“So?”

“So, if he’s got real estate in the middle of Hybras West that caters to the Folk, I doubt your dumb boss is going to bother him, and even if he does, why would a man with a Folk-friendly club not rent to Folk too?” Leo nodded, but privately stuck to his original opinion. Hakyeon squeezed his shoulder gently and got up. “Now, I’m making myself some dinner. Do you want to stay, or is it still time for you to moan all the way home?”

“Can I stay? I don’t think being alone right now is a good idea.” “And you’re scared of Jaehwan talking to you.” Maybe Taekwoon would go home, if Hakyeon was going to insist on acting like this instead of joining Taekwoon’s pity party.

“I don’t even want to talk to you right now.” Taekwoon sniped, still face-down in the cushion.

“If you’re going to be this broody, at least make yourself useful and go sit on some eggs.” Hakyeon’s voice got fainter, and Taekwoon tried to stifle his laugh. Hakyeon really was good at ruining a good sulk. “Now, I’m just heating up leftovers, so don’t expect anything fancy.”

Taekwoon never minded the state of the food, as long as he got to eat it, he would be fine. He sat and listened to Hakyeon chatter on about a new crush of his- name currently redacted- and how Ravi was thinking of expanding the Fae exports (mostly drugs, various potions, elixirs, and charmed items) to include things Extrasensory Humans, like Taekwoon, could use. He let all the information wash over him, concentrating more on the taste of the dumplings. Hakyeon probably knew he did it, but it was a routine of theirs, so he’d let it be.

“Ravi is looking for an Omnilingual, if you’re interested?” The question shook Taekwoon from a fantasy of never-ending dumplings.

“What?” “My boss, Ravi. He needs an Omnilingual. And since your calendar is free… Do you want to join us?”

“You know I don’t want to do that.” Taekwoon sighed. They’d had this fight one hundred times. Hakyeon would suggest working with other… Folk. Other people like himself and Taekwoon. Then Taekwoon would reply he didn’t want to be a criminal. Hakyeon would insist it was legit. Taekwoon would stare him down. Hakyeon would pout. Taekwoon would not get dessert.

“I know. Is it because you think we’re all criminals, or because you don’t want to admit you’re like me?” Taekwoon’s argument was stopped cold.

“What?” “You sound like your parents- all Folk are criminals, I don’t want to associate with the Folk publicly, I refuse to change my views.” Hakyeon mimicked.

“No, it’s not-“ “Look, I’m actually getting sick of this. I know you still want to be accepted by normal humans, but you just aren’t one. And if I keep getting this attitude from you, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Hakyeon’s normally cheerful expression was icy. “It’s like skin colour- we can’t change it, but we can stop being dicks about it.” He held Taekwoon’s gaze for an uncomfortable minute. “Now, I’m saying it one last time: Ravi needs an Omnilingual. The pay will be a lump sum of seven thousand dollars. Paid half on the first day, half on the last. It’s legal- he wants to make a deal with some elves. Metalwork exports, if I remember correctly. The job is yours if you want it. Seven thousand dollars. I’ll give you two days to think about it.”

Leo had agreed to think about it, and eventually Hakyeon had talked him into facing Jaehwan and sent him home with extra dessert. Now he stood in his kitchen, dessert still in his hand, staring at his phone. He knew putting off calling Jaehwan would just make it worse, in the end. That thought didn’t make it any easier for him, though. Eventually he sighed, and put the dessert in the fridge. He was going to go down to the shelter first, and then call Jaehwan in the morning and get it over with. It didn’t take long for him to get ready and begin the short trip to his favourite place. The shelter was friendly to him, the discovery of his skills made him an asset as a volunteer, not an object of fear there. It also meant he could pet as many dogs and as he wanted without getting looks from others. He had never felt more at home anywhere else.

“Taekwoonie!” A familiar chirp interrupted him on the third floor. Jaehwan, wearing what Taekwoon guessed was a shirt that had undergone the world’s most invasive threadectomy. Or some netting-turned-lingerie from Victoria Secret’s “Fishing for Dicks” nautical-themed line. It was hard to tell with Jaehwan sometimes.

“Hello,” Taekwoon smiled, allowing Jaehwan to join him on the stairs.

“You look tense. Is everything okay, Woonie?” Taekwoon didn’t particularly like the nickname, but somehow he’d never gotten around to telling Jaehwan that.

“Um… I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

“Did something happen? Are you okay?” Jaehwan had a way of making Taekwoon feel warm that he couldn’t figure out. Moments ago he’d been terrified of seeing the man, but now, with Jaehwan’s hand on his arm, he felt silly. He knew he couldn’t be scared of Jaehwan- the man was too pleasant to be terrible. He wouldn’t harm Taekwoon.

“I… Lost my job. I might not be able to make rent on time this month.”

“Oh, Taekwoon, that’s fine. You’ve been a good tenant so far, I don’t mind if you-“

“I… Don’t know how long it could take me to get another one.”

“Sweetie-“

“I got… I’m a… I’m of the Folk and I got found out. My boss will probably call you and tell you. And I might not have that job for a long time, if he calls anyone else.” The words tumbled out, leaving Taekwoon feeling exposed and scared, but the warmth of Jaehwan’s hand cut through it like a watery sun through the rain clouds. Jaehwan was a nice man, the warmth reminded him. He wouldn’t- he COULDN’T be like the others.

Jaehwan’s expression rippled with surprise, then suddenly Taekwoon was enveloped in a warm embrace. The warmth of his hand was nothing compared to the calm the brief hug Jaehwan bestowed on him. Taekwoon felt as if he’d been emptied of all his fear and was being filled with champagne. Bubbly warmth and giddiness buzzed right up his spine to his hair, bypassing his brain and spreading through every cell as Jaehwan stepped back and grinned.

“You take all the time you need, don’t worry about it for a second. And, if your boss calls, I’ll just hang up on him.”

“You don’t-“

“Us folk have to stick together.” Jaehwan’s grin grew by several teeth. “And if you need help looking for work, just let me know. I always know a guy who knows a guy.” It must have been the giddiness at work, Taekwoon thought later, as he hugged Jaehwan and gave him cheerful and sincere thanks for his understanding, and the offer. Jaehwan, looking a little confused as well, waved Taekwoon off, saying he would always be in the club if Taekwoon needed to find him.

Taekwoon nearly ran all the way to the shelter, where he smiled at everyone widely, before settling in to bathe some of the dogs. The odd warmth Jaehwan had inspired stuck around, and it had Taekwoon thinking as he scrubbed and brushed a very affectionate puppy’s fur. He knew Hakyeon’s offer was solid- and with seven thousand dollars he could shop around for more work with a bit of a safety net- and whatever he ended up not using could go to the shelter! They always needed donations. As he unsuccessfully tried to wrangle the puppy into a position to wash its back legs, he realised that it hadn’t even entered his mind to turn down the offer. Everything had been such a whirlwind, he hadn’t had time to settle on a feeling, and now that he had to land somewhere, he felt like a snow globe after a massive shake. He wanted to claim he was sad or angry, but both Hakyeon’s offer and Jaehwan’s little confession had sapped that. Hakyeon was nicer to him that he deserved, sometimes. And Jaehwan… The man so boldly admitted he was of the Folk too. With a smile and pride, he’d just accepted Taekwoon’s admission. That was a heady feeling that was hard to put a dent in.

A small, niggling part of him still craved approval from his family- still screamed that if only he tried hard enough he could be like them. It was screaming quieter and quieter now, with Hakyeon’s observations still fresh in his mind. He wasn’t welcome with his family much, but the shelter, and Hakyeon, and now Jaehwan… They all accepted him just fine. Maybe, if he took the work for Ravi, he’d look into what Jaehwan had in mind, and just disappear into this side of the city. He had occasional lunches with his fellow shelter volunteers, and he could always take up his favourite hobby (pretending tonight would be the night he’d finally talk to the tall, exquisite blonde man he often passed in the street and in the corner store some nights. The one who always smiled at him) full-time.

“Stop squirming, little missy,” He paused his thoughts to softly scold his squirming bath buddy. “I just want to clean your feet.” She turned and stared at him, and Taekwoon realised he must have surprised her. A lot of animals were surprised when a human talked to them for the first time. “Yes you,” he tickled her ears a little. “I just need to do your feet and you can go back to the play area.” Obedient instantly at the mention of the play area, the little dog allowed him to finish washing her, then shift her to another volunteer.

“You’re in a good mood today,” he realised the other volunteer was Arzu, one of the elves. Generally, she was only here during the day- elves preferring to be out at night and indoors during the sunny hours.

“I lost my job, but I didn’t get evicted.” He realised too late how strange it sounded.

“I know that feeling.” She nodded. “Any plans yet?”

“My friend has a job I’m considering. I’ll even have enough left over to give to the shelter!”

“What, not going to buy a hundred cakes first?” She teased. Taekwoon’s cheeks burned a little as he turned to accept his next puppy. “And don’t look sour- I remember watching you at lunch last week. I’ve never seen anyone eat like that. I was impressed.” She smiled, revealing her unusually long teeth. Taekwoon liked her smile- elves looked almost cat-like, with their long teeth, slit pupils, and pointed ears- and that set him at ease compared to other humanoids. They were cat-like in other ways too- people thought of them as graceful, serene, and elegant creatures despite the thousands of videos of them doing ridiculous things. He’d seen Arzu get her foot stuck in a bucket, swear a blue streak across the whole compound, then snobbishly insist everyone had hallucinated it once she was freed. Definitely catlike, and very easy to get along with.

“I like cake.” He defended weakly.

“I know.”

* * *

Ravi was seated in his usual back room angrily tapping various words into a translator that, in his opinion, only translated things into bullshit. He was struggling with this- the deal with the elves for metalworks like cauldrons and their charmable jewellery was going to make it so much easier to deal with the other wizards. But this damn contract… He could read elvish well enough to order food or cast a hex, but he was nowhere near the level he needed to figure out if there were any loopholes or sub-clauses snuck in.

“Hey boss!” The yell both startled Ravi, and let him know his Fae friend N was in an unusually chipper state. “Guess what I’ve got?” N threw himself into a chair near Ravi and grinned. Ravi was never sure about that grin, it was more of a predatory teeth-baring than a grin. It usually heralded an adventure, though, so Ravi nodded at N as he tapped away. “I found us a translator.”

“Really, who? I thought your last contact was-“

“Oh, not her. A friend of mine. He’s recently been outed, needs some money and a nice place indoors to sit for a while.”

“He’s a human? What languages did he study?” Ravi paused in his tapping to watch N.

“He’s an Omnilingual, not a translator. I’ve even seen him talk to animals like dogs, so I will personally vouch for him.”

“On your wings?” Fae had wings, though Ravi had rarely seen them, and swearing on them was serious business.

“On my mother’s wings.” N put a hand on his chest. “He’s a nice kid too. He’s had a rough go of it, but I know he’ll take the offer I made for you. I’ll bring him in once I get a formal yes out of him.” Ravi nodded at this. N wasn’t one to fuss around when business was running. Ravi admired that- he found himself staying up late and wanting to hex his more irritating coworkers when business took off. While N seemed to jump right in and swim through everything without a care.

“Good. That cuts out one worry of mine. The other though- I need a crew for the retrieval you suggested. I still need an animal specialist, a siren, and Hongbin if I can wrangle him out of his latest psychic drama.”

“Well, my friend might do that if you mention the animals… After we do this job first, though. He’s skittish about the whole thing. But if he likes us, he’ll be in. And, based on what he tells me, he’s seen Hyuk around town, so I’m sure he’d stay just to moon over Hyuk forever…” N’s laughter was full of fondness for this friend, Ravi noted. That was interesting, as N rarely mentioned having a personal life, let alone any of the persons in it. “The siren though- aren’t we in a club full of them?”

“Would you trust any of them to work with us on something this delicate?” “Well, Xiumin is good for-“

“Without seducing anyone and without taking off his shirt at any point?” Ravi peered over his glasses a N.

“In Xiumin’s defense, he pulls off Baekhyun’s shirt more than his own these days.” N pointed out.

“Not exactly a point in his favour,” Ravi rolled his eyes. “I’ll just ask Ken. Sometimes I feel like he knows everyone in this city, so he’ll be able to find me someone.” Ravi pushed his glasses up his face and rubbed his eyes.

“Look, until my friend agrees, we’re sitting on this, so just pack up and go home. You’ll have a nice day off, maybe you’ll finally call Ken daddy, and then we’ll pull a heist just like in the movies.”

“I do not want to call Ken daddy.”

“Or mommy. I don’t know what you two skeezes are into.” N grinned again, and stood. “Where’s Hyuk? Normally he’s got something rude to add by now.”

“I had to send him after someone. They didn’t want to pay up, so right now he’s probably explaining very nicely to them that they’re paying up in twenty-four hours, or he breaks their other arm too.”

“Well, I do not envy them.” N started towards the door. “Jokes aside, please at least take the night off. You look like you’re about to drop.”

Ravi waved him off, but as he stood to stretch, he realised he felt exhausted. Checking his watch, he’d been working for the last 5 hours without stopping. It was nearly 1am, and he hadn’t realised it. He gathered up his things and crammed them into his bag, and with a last glance around, he started out into the hallway. It didn’t take him long to attract Ken, who always seemed to know when Ravi surfaced from the back Ravi!” Ken appeared from the sea of moving bodies. “You finally up for a drink with me?”

“It’s late, Jaehwan,” Ravi scolded Ken, using his real name as emphasis, but made no move to stop the other man’s approach. “I do have a job, you know. I don’t party all night like you.”

“But you know you want to.” Jaehwan said, and shimmied a little in emphasis.

“You know I’d love to dress like a seaside hooker and shake it with the rest of the girls, but I don’t have your flair. Or Xiumin’s shirt allergy.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Jaehwan pouted solemnly. “The poor boy just can’t handle his shirts.”

“Neither can you by the look of this.” Ravi plucked at the mesh on Ken’s chest, a little thrill of heat racing up his arm when his finger brushed Jaehwan’s collarbone. “It must be contagious.”

“Here’s hoping it’s catching. I’d love to see what that tattoo of yours says.” Jaehwan pressed suggestively against Ravi for a moment, before slipping off into the crowd. Ravi wanted to make a clever comment, or say something back, but the heat burning in him made it come out as an awkward grunt.

His thoughts of Jaehwan were cut short by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He strode out of the club and answered it. “Ravi speaking.”

“It’s me. Hyuk. I got the artifact, what do you want me to do with it?”

“Bring it to my place. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Will do.” He wasn’t much one to chat today, that boy, Ravi thought as he pocketed his phone. That meant Hyuk had probably encountered his family again. As an elemental, Hyuk was sought after by many people- they were used for industrial work of all kinds, magic, even entertainment- but like many of his kind, he was not often paid well for it, and abused without a second thought. He’d followed in the footsteps of his family, and ended up as a fighter in some less respectable parts of the circuits. He was a fire elemental, and therefore prized even above his siblings, so when Ravi first met him, he had actually been chained with water cuffs and locked up when he wasn’t fighting. Ravi had freed him on a whim, and accidentally earned himself a constant companion. This was somehow viewed as a betrayal of Family Tradition, and Hyuk had several encounters with his siblings over the years that had led to bloodshed and possibly death. Ravi hadn’t asked, and he knew Hyuk would likely not elaborate if confronted. Despite his past (of which Ravi admittedly knew little), Hyuk maintained an easygoing demeanour, except when members of his family popped up. Then he was sullen for days, and even seeing the serious dark-haired man from the corner store would not cheer him up.

His thoughts still full of his giant protector, Ravi let himself into his apartment. He could hear his dog’s little paws scrabbling across the floor as he kicked his shoes off and abandoned his bag next to the couch. His dog, Butt, came charging into the room and made a beeline for his shins, yapping the whole way. It cheered Ravi immensely, and the weight of the contract seemed to lift. He scooped Butt up under one arm and kissed the top of his head.

“Daddy missed you.” He cooed. “Yes, I did.” Butt wiggled happily, and Ravi slumped down on the couch, still muttering to Butt. “Daddy’s finally got the gems he needs for his big heist. Aren’t you proud of me?”

Any response Butt might have had was cut short by the sound of a key in the lock.

“Wonsik?” Only Hyuk knew his actual name.

“Over here.” He let Butt down on the floor, and the little dog took off, happily cannoning into Hyuk’s shins.

“Butt!” Hyuk’s child-like glee nearly matched Butt’s enthusiasm. “How are you?”

“He’s probably mad I didn’t get home earlier.” Ravi answered. “But good news, N found us a translator.”

“I thought Hwasa was out of town with her wife?” Hyuk came into Ravi’s line of vision.

“She is. Apparently N has a friend who’s an Omnilingual- says he can even talk to animals.” Ravi didn’t bother sitting up, only shifting his feet as Hyuk sat down at the other end of the couch. “He’s going to find out from his friend in the next day or two what the guy thinks of the job.”

“Good.” Hyuk nodded seriously, even as his fingers twirled over Butt, creating a small wispy tendril of smoke where Butt’s tail should be. Butt took off chasing it in a wide circle while Hyuk smiled. “I got the gems.” He stuck a hand into his pockets, and withdrew a velvet sack. “What do we need them for anyway?” “If we want to get into… Into the compound, I need to do some spell work, and the gems are involved. Mostly so I don’t have to use you as a makeshift amplifier again. I don’t think either of us enjoyed that much.”

“No, we did not.” Hyuk shook his head vigorously.

“Speaking of enjoying things- where’s the static prince Hyuk gone? You haven’t zapped a single person today. Even Ken has noticed.”

“I hadn’t realised it was that obvious.”

“What’s up? Was it your family again?”

“No. I just… You’ll think I’m silly.” Hyuk was keeping his eyes firmly on the dog, resolutely avoiding Ravi’s gaze.

“I once watched you shuffle across a professional setting in your socks so you could zap Hongbin while he was flirting with a girl. And you did that because he didn’t think your singing the food song was a masterpiece. There is not ‘too silly’ with us.”

“Well, you know the guy from the corner store? The really serious and mysterious one? I want to talk to him, but I don’t know what to do! It’s driving me crazy!”

“Dress up like a dessert? I remember his basket had 6 cakes in it when you pointed him out to me.” That got a laugh out of Hyuk.

“What I mean is, he looks human- what if he’s not one of us?” “I look human. In fact, I am one.” Ravi pointed out. “And there’s tons of humans with extra talents. He clearly lives around here, and it’s a high-Folk area. That means he’s probably at least friendly to the Folk.”

“But still…”

“Just march up to him and ask him out. Worst happens, he says no, then you can start getting over him. Best case, I hope I’m the best man at your wedding.” “So… Just march up and ask him out?” “It’s not that hard.”

“Just like you and Ken?”

Ravi jolted upright and stared at Hyuk. “That’s completely different!” Shame flushed his cheeks red.

“How?”

“I work with Ken, for starters.” He defended, though Hyuk’s expression said he wasn’t buying it. “And he’s… Ken! He flirts with the world! How am I supposed to know if he’s flirting with me or flirting with me?”

“Just march up and ask him?” Hyuk’s expression was innocent as he parroted Ravi’s advice back at him.

“I am going to bed.” Ravi ignored Hyuk’s snort. “I will see you in the morning.”

#vixx fanfic #Fantasy AU #Leverage/Heist AU #Organized Crime AU #Pairings:#Ravi - Ken #Leo - Hyuk #Hongbin - N

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armoreddragon · 8 years ago

Text

I just got trash talked and I had to share.

I got someone talking shit about my chainmail in a personal note over on Etsy, and I ended up writing way too involved a response. I probably should’ve just responded with “How about you go order a steaming plate of Go Fuck Yourself to go.” But I was in A Mood, so I wrote like a whole essay about my standards and priorities as a craftsperson. And I kind of like to share those sorts of things publicly from time to time, so here you go. If anyone else would like to send some trash talk at me, feel free to try your luck.

[Redacted]:

www.etsy.com/listing/78305616/european-6-in-1-bracelet-stainless-steel

with all your talk about precision lasers and whatnot, what explains the presence of pinch-cut rings on your pieces, the ugliest and least precise way of producing jump rings (never mind the gaps and bad closure i see)?

Hi [Redacted].

You seem angry about this. I'll try to address the different points you brought up:

• I'm not drawn to laser cutters because of some fetishization of precision. I'm drawn to them because they allow me to make things that would not be possible otherwise. But laser cutters and chainmail have basically nothing to do with each other, so that's a whole different conversation.

• When crafting items to sell, there is a balance one must find between the time put in and the price a customer will pay for it. With chainmail, a customer may notice sloppy work if the rings are not closed in-plane and they scratch a bit. But once you're at an acceptable solid level of quality, there's no reason to put in extra anguish if it doesn't improve the customer's experience of the product. Put simply, it's not about absolute perfection, it's about efficiency and managing your standards.

• I don't consider the shear-cut rings I use to be ugly. People on chainmail forums may deride them and extol on the virtues of saw-cut rings, but honestly I don't mind them. As a matter of principle, I'm totally fine seeing evidence of how an item was made, and that's how I think of the pinching at the shear points of these rings.

• Back when I started chainmail I was hand-wrapping and cutting rings with wire cutters. Sometimes I would slip up and get some variations in ring sizes, but I was pretty accurate at cutting straight along the coil to produce pretty consistently-sized rings. But as soon as I started selling stuff, I switched to buying pre-cut rings from The Ring Lord, and I've never detected any variation in size between rings. Their manufacturing tolerances are good.

• Also, saw-cut rings are more expensive than shear-cut rings, and I don't think they're worth it.

• The vast majority of the chainmail I make is larger costume pieces, usually with scales, where the rings aren't even visible. There's no reason to use saw-cut for those. I sell a decent number of the small scale bracelets, but I sell very few ring-mail jewelry pieces. Even if I did want saw-cut rings for jewelry, for the amount that I'd use them, it's really not worth stocking them.

• A couple times I did get some saw-cut rings. What I found was that they were more prone to being scratchy. The metal at the cut point on the shear-cut rings is bent inwards a bit, so the joint is rounded over. But the edge of the saw cut is sharp, so a minuscule error in closure is immediately evident because it scratches. And even if your closures are perfect, sometimes the rings have little burs poking out parallel with the cut, which will scratch no matter how long you spend exquisitely closing your rings. That sucked, and I didn't order saw-cut rings again after that.

• My closures are fine. I hold myself to a pretty high standard when I close rings. If the ring isn't springing closed, pushing itself to close harder than flush, I worry that a scale will eventually force its way in and open it up. I've never had that happen, but that's why I'm careful.

• When I see other chainmail people at craft fairs, I silently judge their closures. I'm frequently disappointed. The worst disappointment was a guy who sells lots of ring mail at a fantasy convention that's in Boston every year. He uses like 12 gauge 1/2" diameter aluminum rings. Really big. And he will boast about working out a fast method of opening and closing rings with only one pair of pliers. But his closures are shit. None of the rings touch themselves, some of them there's up to like 1/16 inch of a gap. But you know what? He sells big armor pieces. Nobody is looking at them that closely. They're closed well enough that there isn't a danger of rings slipping loose. It's not affecting the function or appearance of his product. It doesn't matter.

I'm assuming you're learning chainmail yourself. A layperson wouldn't have the vocabulary, and someone who had been doing it for a long time would have more tact. My advice to you is to keep looking at other people's work and thinking of how you could do better. That's how you improve. Think of what matters to you, what you want to optimize, what you want to explore. Myself, I care about making an impact with unique designs, especially with larger costume pieces. Some people really love working really small, making micro mail with tweezers. Some people are drawn to ornament, mixing weaves together with lots of draping chains. If you're drawn towards perfection of technique, maybe you'd want to make high price-point pieces in precious metals, maybe even exploring soldering each ring closed. When you have a goal or direction in mind, you can fit your own methods to that goal. And you realize that other people have different priorities, different optimizations.

Oh, and it may please you to know that in the full decade that I've been making chainmail, I truly cannot think of another person before you who has trash talked my work. Congratulations on being the first.

Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!

-Jesse

#trash talk #process #haha business #I'm a dick

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