#apparently i’ve been living under a rock because i genuinely had no clue that was him

[heavenfalls]

UM HELLO IVE BEEN USING THIS MEME FOR YEARS AND I JIST NOW FOUND OUT THATS TIMOTHEE CHALAMET LMAO??????,,,???

[pagesoflauren]

The Highest Bidder Ch. 1 (Ransom Drysdale x reader; sugar daddy!AU)

Summary: A graduate-level education is a costly pursuit. When you move out of state to study in Boston, expenses pile up, leading you to auction off what is apparently your most valuable asset: your virginity. It goes to the highest bidder…who happens to be Ransom Drysdale.

There are no major spoilers for Knives Out. Consider this as an alternate timeline. There will be references to the movie/its characters and family dynamics revealed in the movie.

Warnings: loss of virginity, explicit sexual content/smut, angst, sugar daddy/baby arrangement, dark elements, dubcon, cliffhangers, minor spoilers for Knives Out, unprotected sex, irresponsible driving (don’t drink and drive!), swearing, Ransom is an asshole (more to add and if you spot any that I’ve missed, please kindly let me know!)

A/N: Huge disclaimer...I really didn’t want to end this chapter the way I did, but it was getting a little too long...but there’s more coming! Don’t worry, please don’t send an angry mob after me 😱  Big love to @threeminutesoflife and @caffiend-queen for beta-ing this for me! ❤️ One last thing about the text messages: Italics are sent messages and bold italics are received messages :)

This chapter is written under the assumption that the reader drinks alcohol.

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

With his bedroom illuminated by the flashing images of his television, Ransom lounged lazily in his bed. One hand was occupied with his phone as his thumb slowly scrolled over the screen, the other idly wrapped around his cock as he took in the images on the device. 

Various girls, all a few years younger than him, staring with false wide-eyed innocence or sprawled out provocatively across recliners on sandy beaches or by turquoise-watered pools. Their names or aliases were listed under the respective photos, with a number in green text next to it. 

Deciding there were too many options, Ransom scrolled back up, the hand on his cock pausing as he started setting filters through the search. He changed them to specific hair colors, skin tones and a more concentrated age range. The only filter he didn’t change was the prices--there was no limit there. The page refreshed and showed him more favorable faces. 

His mind started to numb and the faces started looking too similar. As he was ready to pack it in for the night and tuck himself back into his boxers, a strange listing catches his attention. 

He sees you, kneeling in the sand at an apparent topical destination in a barely-there bikini. Unlike the other girls, though, your face is candid, caught in a laugh, eyes crinkled and lips spread in joy. There’s no price. Just the letters “HB” in red text. 

He clicks on your photo and the webpage changes to your profile. There’s a few more photos of you: one with a cat, more vacation photos. Your location is convenient: Boston. Not too far from where he is. 

But all of that fails to answer the question at the forefront of Ransom’s mind: Why don’t you have a price next to your name?

He scrolls through a couple more meaningless pieces of information: a little blurb about who you are, your measurements, your race and your conditions.

One time only.

“What?” he wonders aloud, face scrunching in curiosity. Sugar babies don’t just have sex once and then walk away with a fortune. From what he’s heard, they bitch and moan but shut up when there’s a cock in their mouth (or pussy, for that matter). They need to be looked after either because they can’t afford it or can’t be bothered to do things on their own. Then, once he reaches the end of your profile, he understands. 

Virginity Auction. Current Bid: $8,250.

Ransom smirks at the prospect. He wasn’t looking for a virgin, but he likes the idea of taking one now. 

The number changes in real time, going up in five dollar increments before someone brings it up to $8,500. A pop-up window appears, warning him that if he’s interested, the auction ends at midnight. Ransom’s eyes flick to the top of his phone. It’s 11:57.

He thinks for a few ticks. If he pays you enough, he’ll have the convenience of entertaining himself between your legs and taking your virginity with no strings attached. Once that’s done, you’ll be out of his hair. He wouldn’t have to put you up, send you money or deal with your whining or complaining. 

Sounds like a good deal. 

Pressing his thumb into the blue button that says “Bid,” Ransom looks at the clock again. 11:58. 

Initially, he types in $10,000. But with two minutes to go and your price still ticking up, he doesn’t want to chance getting outbid by someone at the last second. He has to blow the other bidders out of the water. 

Sat up in your bed and wringing your hands nervously, you look at your cracked phone screen. Midnight has just passed and you’re waiting for a notification about the final bid in your auction. It started at $5,000 and in the week that the listing was posted, you had gotten notifications whenever it went to the next thousand. 

This isn’t how you wanted to lose your virginity. Ideally, you would have genuinely made love to somebody, someone your parents would have approved of and who truly cared for you. Even more ideally, it would have been the man who eventually became your husband...though you wouldn’t have waited until marriage to lose your V-card. You were about to take the next step in life and--you had to face it--you weren’t getting younger. 

What was the least ideal of it all was the fact that you were doing this out of pure desperation. Your graduate program was starting in a month and your savings were mostly gobbled up by application and testing fees. Living out of state didn’t help either; most of your money went to paying rent and commuting around the city. If someone paid you enough to tide your finances over, you could live off that money until the end of the semester, after adjusting to the program and your schedule, before taking on a job off campus. 

Your phone buzzed with an email from the website and you tapped the banner. Your email app launched and opened directly to the message. 

Your auction has ended. 

Reading further, you can’t believe what you see. 

Winning bid: $50,000 by Ransom Drysdale.

Fifty thousand dollars? Surely there must be a mistake. Why would someone pay ten times the starting bid? 

And Drysdale...where had you seen that name? 

Closing your eyes, you searched your recollection to place the name. It’s so familiar. 

Deciding your memory is unreliable, you resolve to a Google search of your highest bidder’s last name. 

The first result that pops up is a real estate company and a picture of famed author Harlan Thrombey, who apparently is the father of the woman who owns the business.

You feel faint...these names are not insignificant in Massachusetts, let alone the world. Harlan was a best-selling mystery writer--you had some of his books in your library back home. 

Then concern floods your brain: if this Linda Drysdale is Harlan Thrombey’s daughter, that makes Thrombey her maiden name. She must’ve married a Drysdale. 

Are you a pawn in some horrible cheating scandal? You must be, nobody has the name Ransom. It has to be an alias. Her husband must be looking for some young thing to get his rocks off. 

Stress causes your scalp to prickle as your phone buzzes again with a text message from the semi-mysterious Ransom, checking if it’s you, that he has the right number. 

Yes, you reply. 

The three dotted message bubble pops up before turning into another message.

Good. I’ve made a reservation at The Boxer in the city for Saturday. I told them you’ll check in. I told them not to charge you anything, but if you need to pay any fees, I’ll send you the money back. I’ll be there after 9. 

A chill runs down your spine at how direct he is. But, you suppose you can’t expect anything more from him. 

Okay, you acknowledge.

More dots, then another message.

Dress appropriately.

Despite your lack of experience in the bedroom, you know for a fact that he’s not referring to office attire. 

Settling back onto your pillow, you pull the covers over yourself and breathe slowly. You’ve got some preparation to do.

What do you bring with you when you’re planning to lose your virginity to a complete stranger in exchange for tuition money? 

Fuck all if you have a clue. 

You spent the days leading up to Saturday getting yourself ready. You bought a tight dress and pair of strappy heels from the sale racks. You cluelessly browsed for lingerie before an associate took pity on you (or just desperately wanted you out of her store, jury’s still out on that) and helped you select a lacy set complete with a garter and stockings. The associate absolutely gushed at how the color of the material complemented your skin tone, though you could care less. You forked over $120 for the damn thing and scampered out. Learning from your friends’ mistakes, you purchased a set of condoms using the self-checkout kiosk (and prayed you picked the right size). You weren’t instructed to buy condoms, but you figured you wouldn’t risk the chance of not having any. You endured a Brazilian wax, stifling profanities as the woman did her work. You also had trouble getting over your embarrassment; a stranger was going to see you bared all for him in a few days so if you can’t handle the wax lady seeing you, how could you handle “Ransom”?

Ransom.

Thinking about him did nothing for your nerves. You were certain you were going to lose your virginity to a man in his late 50s, who was married to Massachusetts’ biggest real estate mogul and the daughter of a renowned author. 

Dear God, what if she found out? Her father wrote murder mysteries, she had plenty of ways to kill you and get away with it. What if you weren’t even meeting “Ransom” and you were meeting Linda and she was going to kill you at the hotel?

You shake your head and look back down at the contents of your duffel bag: toiletries, a change of clothes for tomorrow, the condoms and your phone charger. You had created a playlist on your phone...if you weren’t going to lose your virginity to someone you loved, then maybe you could fake it with music. 

Who are you kidding? you chide yourself. 

You sigh and resolve to getting ready. After eating dinner, you strip off your old band t-shirt and sweatpants, remove your simple cotton underwear and novelty pineapple-patterned socks before discarding them into your laundry hamper. 

You shimmy into the lacy knickers, the material feeling quite uncomfortable against your skin. You clip the bra on next, followed by the garter around your waist.  Then you finish off with the stockings over your legs, stopping at mid-thigh. After fastening the clips on the suspenders to the lace trim at the top of the hosiery, you sit at your vanity to apply some makeup and fix your hair. 

“‘Dress appropriately’,” you mutter as you pull your dress from your tiny closet, “Hopefully this is appropriate enough.”

You maneuver yourself into your dress, struggling with the zipper for a moment then smoothing the material over yourself. You slide your feet into your heels and teeter a bit as you stand up. 

You’re not planning to really impress too much, so you pull on a downy, puffy jacket to combat the sea breeze the city gets in the evenings. 

Pulling the strap of your bag onto your shoulder, you look in the mirror one last time. You catch the reflection of the clock: it’s almost seven thirty. Taking into account how long it’ll take for your rideshare to arrive at your house and the traffic in the city on a Saturday night, you’ll arrive at the hotel a little after eight. You suppose now’s a good a time as any to leave. 

Requesting a car for pickup, you realize there’s no going back. 

Stepping into the hotel lobby, you know you don’t belong here. 

With modern touches and old architectural charm, the men wearing luxury tailored suits and women wearing unaffordable dresses, you felt you stood out like a sore thumb. The most luxurious hotel you had stayed at was a Holiday Inn Express near Disneyland. And it barely had functioning lighting. 

You timidly approach the front desk. Though the receptionist gives you a warm smile, you’re not comforted. 

“Hi, I’m here to check in for Drysdale?”

The man’s eyebrows raise in what you assume is recognition. 

Maybe this “Ransom” meets other escorts here often, then.

“While we would normally ask you to cover the fees upon checking in, Mr. Drysdale is a very good friend of the hotel so we’ve accommodated his request to make an exception,” the man informs you as he types away. He grabs a keycard and hands it to you. 

“You’ll be in room 6-F. Have a pleasant stay.”

“Thank you,” you say meekly, taking the card before turning to take an elevator up. 

Once on the sixth floor, you locate and unlock the room. The lights turn on automatically and you’re met with a cool gray toned room, which gives the room a darker atmosphere already. 

The entrance is narrow and you assume the bathroom is on the other side of the wall on your right. With wobbly steps, you move forward and see the room open up. 

The first thing you notice is the king-sized bed. Beyond it, the windows show illuminated facades of buildings outside. On the wall opposite the bed is a desk with a speaker and aux cord on top of the marble workspace and a fridge underneath. A TV is mounted on the wall above the desk. Next to it is an open wardrobe with a bathrobe hanging, cubbies and drawers, as well as a tray of refreshments. 

You set your bag on the bottom shelf of the wardrobe and retrieve the remote to turn on the TV to create some white noise and maybe kill some time (and nerves) as you wait for nine o’clock to come around. 

You wander into the bathroom and look yourself over in the mirror. You shake out your hands and pace, deciding to take off your heels for now as you pad around the room. 

Ransom was bored of dinner and his host knew it. Everyone else kept a level of decorum, but all the guests knew this get together was extending much longer than necessary. 

Checking his watch, it was quarter to nine. He threw back the rest of his drink before nodding to his friend and exchanging brief glances as he got up. Haphazard goodbyes were thrown his way as he pulled on his jacket and Ransom gave a nod of acknowledgement. He exits the restaurant, whistling to get the valet’s attention and handing the man his ticket as he pulls out his phone. 

Where are you? he messages you. 

At the hotel, sir. Room 6-F. 

“‘Sir’,” he muses to himself, smirking at the title you’d given him. He didn’t even need to tell you to address him that way. 

Have them bring up my usual from the bar.

Yes, sir.

Wondering how far he can take this, he asks you to send him a picture. 

He’s surprised with how quickly you comply. You’re sat on top of the sheets at the edge of the bed, leaned forward so your elbow can rest on your knee and the camera can get a view of the plunging neckline of your dress. Your hair falls nicely over your face and your palm cradles your chin. 

He can’t lie, he loves the way you look. You may as well be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. 

Taking a few deep breaths, he wills himself to calm down; he can’t get hard yet. 

He puts his phone into one pocket and reaches into the other as the valet returns with his car. When the valet approaches, Ransom hands over a few sad, crumpled bills as a tip before walking around to the driver’s side of his car and climbing in. Sending one last message to you, he pulls away from the curb and heads to the hotel. 

I’m on my way. Make sure my drink is there before me.

You let out a spastic sound of nervousness and shook out your hands again before getting up to pace around the room again. 

The drink was on the way, you placed the order as soon as he told you to. You didn’t want to give him any excuse to not pay or complain you were unsatisfactory. Though, not having any experience in bed might prove that mission to be difficult regardless of whether or not his drink came in time. 

There’s a knock on the door and you jog over, pulling the door open to find a waiter holding a tray with a glass of what you assume is Scotch perched on top, covered with one of those signature little hats hotels always place on top of glasses. 

“Thank you,” you smile, carefully receiving the glass from him. He bows silently and turns to leave. 

You shut the door and place the glass on a coaster you find on the desk. You bother yourself with where the glass should rest (next to the speaker? on the far end, closest to the wardrobe?). Deciding it should be on the bedside table, you move the glass and coaster there then return to the desk to plug your phone in and play some music. You cringe at your choice to include Ed Sheeran in this playlist, but there’s no going back now. 

Suddenly, you hear the clicking sound of the door unlocking and you scramble over to sit on the bed to put your heels on. 

When you look up, you’re shocked to not find a man in his late 50s, nor the severe looking woman you’ve seen plastered on real estate posters. 

You find a man who can’t be that much older than you, dark hair and blue eyes that stand out in the dim light of the entry hallway. His cheeks are pale and rosy, framed by a strong jawline. He’s tall, crown of his head so high towards the ceiling. His broad shoulders nearly touch either side of the walls as he approaches you. 

He’s dressed rather casually, as if he was out to dinner with friends. The color palette of his outfit matches the hotel room: cool gray henley shirt, black blazer and jeans, finished off with a pair of brown boots and belt to match. If you’re honest, he looks like a model. He looks like he could have any woman he wanted. 

Why the hell does he want a virgin?

When he comes to stand in the room, hands tucked into his pockets, he looks you up and down from where you’re seated. His lips pucker thoughtfully and you see how perfectly pink and full they are and you wonder what it would be like to kiss them...

Nope. We’re not doing that. It’s a one time thing and that’s that. You remind yourself.

His eyes catch the glass on the bedside table and he plucks it up, removing the paper covering before bringing it to his lips to drink.

When the glass is halfway to his mouth, he hooks a finger at you. “Stand up.”

As he drinks, you obey, rising from your place on the mattress and smoothing down your dress before folding your hands together. 

He pauses his sipping, “Turn.” 

Hands falling out of each other’s grip, they land at your sides rather limply and you begin turning, giving him a three-sixty view of your body. You feel heat creeping up your neck and settling into your cheeks. 

When you come back to face him, he throws his head back to finish his drink and places the glass back on the bedside table, but he misses the coaster. You cringe inwardly at the ring that will surely form on the surface later. 

Your breath catches in your throat when your eyes meet his. You feel like a deer in headlights, unmoving as his gaze continues to flit over your figure. You wonder if he knows you’re holding your breath. You wonder if he can hear how quickly your heart is pounding. 

When he goes to take off his jacket, things start feeling real. You don’t know how to describe the sound that leaves your throat, maybe something a frightened toad would make. Ransom halts and throws you a perplexed look and you cover your mouth in embarrassment. 

He rolls his eyes. “You nervous?”

The words blend together, but his voice is so honeyed and silken and you can’t help but sigh inwardly at the sound of it. 

Your jaw is slack and can’t make any sounds rise from your larynx. You snap your mouth shut and manage to nod stiffly. 

Rolling his eyes again, he crosses the room to the mini fridge under the desk and pulls the door open. Crouching down, he shuffles through the various little bottles inside before turning and tossing one to you. 

Your balance teeters as you fumble to catch it, the glass slipping out of your grip a few times before you fully grasp it.

The cap makes a cracking sound as it separates from the tamper evident band when you twist it open. You don’t bother to look at the label or pay any mind to the color of the liquid. Once the bottle’s open, you tilt your head back and drink, feeling the burn travel down your throat. When you stop, you notice you’ve had almost all of it. 

Your eyes meet Ransom’s again and he raises his brows as if to ask, Better?

You finish the remaining contents of the bottle and feel the liquid settle in your belly as you twist the cap back on.

“Thank you,” you muster your voice to say. 

His eyebrows raise again, showing his disinterest, and he holds his hand out. You’re certain you resemble a child when you use both hands to carefully place the bottle in his hands. There’s a flicker of confusion that crosses his face and you think you were meant to place your hand in his, but he turns and places the bottle on the desk. 

There’s a sense of dread that settles in your stomach when you realize there really is no going back and no more stalling. You can’t read the expression on his face, but you’re certain he’s not pleased with how slowly this is going. 

Summoning your courage, you reach your hands up behind you and begin to pull the zipper down...

Permatag: @caffiend-queen @fckdeusername @lou-la-lou

Chris tag: @onetwo3000 @patzammit

Ransom tag: @jeremyrennermakesmesmile

Highest Bidder Taglist: @sapphirescrolls @just-another-wretched-egg @ladynightshade30 @angstsfordays @icanfeelastormbrewing @buckysteveloki-me @what-is-your-plan-today @iloganjade @twittytelly @xoxabs88xox @an-awkward-human-1 @fanfiction-trashpile @jtargaryen18 @donutloverxo @meaganottiz02 @princess-evans-addict @kianifan @asiaaisa77 @kelbabyblue @my-emotional-self @saiyanprincessswanie @random-things-i-love @captainchrisstan @daughterofthenight117 @buchanansebba @sweater-daddiesdumbdork @andiebell2023 @avengerraven1023 @dahkness @thatonefangirl111 @sllooney @sheerfreesia007 @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @suzieqsez @farremoved @edge-ofparadise @bellaireland1981​

A note about tags: If your name is crossed out, I couldn’t tag you for some reason. While comments asking for me to tag you are okay, it is much easier for me to keep track of my tag lists if you send an ask. That’s the sure fire way to guarantee I’ll tag you. 

Additionally, if I forgot to tag you, please gently remind me via my ask box.

[realisaonum]

book meme

thank you, jen @det395​ !! i feel like this meme got away from me a bit, but no shame! i love talking about books and writing so onward ~under the cut~

1- how many books are too many books in a series? 

mhmmmmm i guess it depends on the objective of the series, right? is the plan to have x number of books in the series and if so, when we finally get to the end will it be satisfying considering all the books we’ve read leading up to it? OR is the objective of the premise / characters just to exist doing whatever? both can be done well. i would say a lot rides on how much i trust the author.

2- what do you think about cliffhangers?

so this is meant for cliffhangers in a series like between books? i don’t really care if there’s a cliffhanger as long as i have the next book sitting right next to me. otherwise uh, only if the wait between books is tolerable, because at that point you need to know that the author can clear this mess up, right? there’s this other thing, like you know how if the entire series was already written, then they might release the books a month apart or a quarter apart - that could be alright too. but years in between? not especially a fan. is anyone a fan?

3- hardback or paperback?

jen, you and me are complete opposites here. paperbacks stress me out. i will go out of my way to buy a used hardcover if given the choice. of course, there are some publications i don’t mind in paperback —thinking poetry and super indie books that don’t have a hardcover release OR books where the spines are thin enough they won’t break and i won’t be holding them long enough for them to wear. hardcovers are sturdy and i don’t have to worry i’ll accidentally bend the cover in some damaging way. I am invested in keeping my books nice to the point that i create covers for my books out of kraft paper or brown grocery bags while i am reading them. this is something i started when i was in college and didn’t want these books i was hoping to probably resell get thrashed coming in and out of my bag for all these classes. My home library is probs more half and half paperback/hardcover but if given a choice usually it’s hardcover.

4- least favourite book?

i think it’s good to at least attempt to meet a book on its level. there are lots of books i didn’t like, but i wasn’t meeting them on their level and i know that so we’re ignoring those. i do however have a shelf on my goodreads dedicated to books that i have beef with so i’ll just go off on two of them.....

tana french’s the likeness for being plagiaristic shit. it is essentially poorly concealed alternate universe OC insert fic of the secret history. you’ve got french’s dublin murder squad folks and then this group they are investigating who bear a STRIKING resemblance to the greek students in tsh 🤔. this would be one thing. it is pretty well acknowledged that nothing is original and there are enough changes to The Likeness that MAYBE i could let it slide if not for this other thing: french’s book, the likeness, has lines that are just basically reworded quotes from the secret history and french positions these lines so they are said by the counterpart (essentially same!) character that gave them original life in tsh. i cannot stress this enough: you can HEAR how similar the sentences are and their core intent is always the same. it’s thinly veiled theft! it astounds me that French hasn’t been sued frankly. it is one thing to want to capture some of the genius that tartt’s debut novel holds, but it is completely lazy and disgusting theft to go about it in the way French did with this book. and YES the secret history was published before french’s book. if i could stomach how fucking goddamn boring the likeness was to read it a second time and cite every one of these offenses i would, but that’s yet a third strike against it—it’s too boring to be worth it. 

T. Kingfisher’s second book of the Clocktuar War duology : The Wonder Engine. this is a book that i feel violated the contract between writer and reader. the first book feels almost like a YA book. the stakes while described as very high are treated, as actions unfold, as very low. nothing truly irreparable happens until the climax of the second book and the fallout of that action is so off-tone of everything that came before i felt deeply betrayed. no, like, completely betrayed as in it ruined the rest of my afternoon, i am still viscerally angry eight months later, and i will never trust this author again. sure, maybe none of those actions that led to the climax were out-of-character, but there was nothing NOTHING in the proceeding action that even came close to that level of consequence. it’s a pity because right up till that point i was having a really good time. the entire vibe of the rising action to the climax of book one all the way through the rising action of book two was just a quippy fun version of roadtrip/quest - it felt like a comfort read. the abrupt tone shift had all the subtlety of dropping a graphically, brutal murder into Blue’s Clues. you don’t do that - this is a basic tenet of a writer / reader relationship. i’m not touching this bitch’s shit again.

5- Love Triangle, yes or no?

not so much. i like jen before me will scream ‘just be poly.’ love triangles that lead into poly relationships? yes, awesome will be glad i read. but i am at a stage in my life where your standard will-they-won’t-they-love-triangle is just fucking pointlessly frustrating to me. an example: i read a Nic Stone’s book Odd One Out a couple years ago and something about the synopsis or the hype made me think that it would resolve the love triangle that way, so when that did not happen i was incredibly frustrated and immediately wanted to resell the book. it’s the potential of the thing. stone’s book could have been the perfect vehicle for opening up the concept of polyamory to a ya audience but instead just really squandered that potential with weak floundering — in my opinion!

6- the most recent book you just couldn’t finish

uhhhhh i’ve got two and i’m not sure i’ve entirely given up quite yet buuuuuuuut 

fucking dune. i got really pissed off with this book. So just…setting aside the whole vaguing at a pedophilically inclined queer coded villain - it’s done so poorly, that it's almost funny? like it doesn’t (as of half way through) actually have any consequence on…anything at all and is tacked on like an afterthought to the end of his scenes. honestly it all could just be cut out entirely with no recourse to the larger story. So my actual beef with this book is the pacing is ATROCIOUS. like yo, not only do you expect me to give a shit about these Atreides cunts, when we just met them and we spend the same amount of time with them IF NOT MORE with the antagonist? but you also expect me to believe Paul was able to just convince the leader of the Arrakis people —the leader of an entire planet!!— with a single fucking sentence??? yeah, not so much. it was not set up for me to believe that Paul could do that! maybe if Kynes hadn’t died immediately after—or at least not died at that moment? baring the fact I thought he was by far the most interesting character, IF he had been convinced by Paul in that scene, it would have been great to see some actual work done around that - with a transfer or a liaise of power between Kynes and Paul and the Fremen. By not having any substantive scene that does it - it begs the question of what the fuck was the point of the character in the first place? unplumbed potential!!! over all there seem to be some key scenes missing to get the reader to where the narrative expects us to be? but the choices made of the characters we spend time with and the moments we see with them, the benefit to the larger story…is not always there. hey herbert, these words you have written aren’t doing what you want them to?? i feel like i should finish it but i reaaaaallly don’t want to :) the only thing i can say is it looks like from the trailer, villeneueve is giving space to these moments so that the viewer can foster a genuine connection with the characters? radical concept.

our lady of perpetual hunger - i started this one optimistically bc i like chef memoirs, but i am at the point where she has just given birth to her son and honestly DON’T CARE. i still haven’t officially given up on it yet since i actually fucking bought it like a dope. i certainly would not have if i knew how much NOT about working the line this was gonna be

7- book you are currently reading

Aside from the failures mentioned above, I am working on the second book in B. Catling’s Vorrh trilogy, The Erstwhile. Also very close to finally finishing Iain Sinclair’s The Last London - there’s a review of his work from the LA Times that goes “One of Sinclair’s greatest skills has always been his ability to take diverse if not chaotic source material and refashion it in a way that sometimes seems downright alchemical” which captures some of the wonder I experience when reading his work. His style and how he creates atmosphere and setting is just unique and astounding.

8- last book you recommended to someone

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Before that I told my brother to read Eat a Peach, as we both love Anthony Bourdain and David Chang talks about him a bit here, plus it’s just a fucking great book. any book that gives insight into Chang’s methodology and paradigm is worth a shot.

9- oldest book you read

I think it might have to be Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (which apparently according to wiki premiered on the stage a whole four months before Hamlet so that’s what we’re going with) and if plays don’t count, I don’t care. I think they count and that’s what we’re going with.

10- the most recent book you read ?

Given the previous question, the most recently published book, right? It’s gotta be the one I just finished: The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic - Revised and Expanded edt., which like just came out this summer. I watched Jessica Hopper’s promo zoom, curtesy of my local indie bookstore, and went ahead and bought it. This was a great decision! It was just what I needed to read these last couple of weeks. i love there’s lots of short pieces that made the read quick and the fact that it’s non-fiction so there was no pressure of a plot or the emotional weight of character investment when I had a lot of big stressors dragging me down irl -it was such a relief. Hopper’s criticism is fun to read and there’s some real art in her appreciation of music here.

11- favourite author?

These are the top in a kind of order but not really: Donna Tartt, Jeff VanderMeer, Megan Whalen Turner, Flannery O’Conner, Chuck Palahniuk, Anthony Bourdain

Other faves very much worth mentioning: Emily O’Neill, Richard Siken, Brandon Sanderson, Warren Ellis, Nathan Englander, Stephen King, Eddie Huang, Carl Hiaassen, Anne Carson, and Iain Sinclair.

12- buying books or borrowing books?

Depends on if my library has it, of course! I nearly always see if my library has a copy first if i have never read it or the author before. If i’ve read the book before or trust the author, I’ll buy it. Like I’ll straight out buy new stuff from Jeff VanderMeer even though with him it’s either this-hits-exactly-and-is-my-new-fave or i-really-disliked-this-but-admire-the-boundaries-you’re-pushing-my-dude - so it’s always a gamble but a worthy one.

12- a book you dislike that everyone else seems to love

a little life (just bc it's torture porn elevated to art doesn’t negate the fact that it’s torture porn. Yanagihara’s project here is repugnant and the fact that this book is lauded as moving lgbt fiction makes my skin crawl)

sharp objects (good writing, compelling story, BUT typographical scarification doesn't work like that - i am not going to get into it but i know from first hand experience how Flynn described it is not accurate)

nesbø’s the snowman (what kinda dumbass detective would think THAT when a woman finds her missing father’s corpse? absolute idiocy - so obviously reverse engineered with that end in mind)

the raven cycle (fuck ronan lynch to start and then fuck him to end as well - there’s some other stuff but mostly he’s a total CUNT and if i don’t say that once a day i have probably died)

14 - bookmarks or dogears?

Bookmarks and sticky notes. Then I can place it pointing directly to the paragraph I last stopped on.

15- The book you can always reread?

This is my question because I reread all the time. ALL THE TIME. Books I reread often: The Secret History, Medium Raw (especially chapter 17 The Fury), Crooked Kingdom, The Violent Bear It Away, and The Goldfinch. Every year like clockwork (since it came out apparently) I will reread Stephen King’s The Outsider.

Other books I feel the urge to reread: VanderMeer’s Acceptance, Englander’s Dinner at the Center of the Earth, Frazier’s Nightwoods, Fresh Off the Boat, the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, the Peter Grant Series (which is queued up for another go here soon I think), any of the stories from A Good Man is Hard to Find, Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne Mistborn books, simon vs the homosapiens’ agenda, and there are two of Alan Morinis’ books on Mussar that I am technically always revisiting—when i need a reminder, i’ll jump around and read specific sections to get centered again.

16- can you read while listening to music?

Yes, but only ambient or near ambient (only usually one track on repeat) or a soundtrack I am extremely familiar with. No new music. I do usually need some audio stimulation or my mind will wander terribly.

17- one POV or multi POV?

Multi pov can certainly be done well (looking at the soc duaology and VanderMeer’s Acceptance) but working a multi-pov means there are more plates spinning, it’s more of a challenge, and some authors pull it off better than others.

18- do you read book in one sitting or in multiple days?

I don’t really do this anymore. that might have something to do with me picking up thicker books? but also i have a full time job now and let’s be real the book has to be hella good if i don’t want to put it down. the last book i attempted to shotgun was the final installment of my favorite series and it still took me two days so....i can get through a lot of books but none of them are ever in one sitting anymore.

19- who to tag:

@sybilius​ @mouth-rainboy​ @iwonderifthatisart​ @phereinnike​ @magnificentmoose​ @wambsgangs​ @moriarteaparty​ and anyone else if you feel so inclined!

Bonus Question: What’s on your to-read shelf? 

As for me, I am excited about one i just picked up, Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines, which i might start tomorrow and I will be taking Paul Madonna’s Come to Light on my trip to see my brother this coming weekend. 

[popculturebuffet]

Hickman’s X-Men Line: One Year in Part 1: Prelude, House and Powers of X, X-Men and New Mutants (Hickman)

Under the cut is an explination of how hickman’s run happened (the mass decay will be covered another time probably), and dives into his x-books: house of x, powers of x,x-men and his breif run on new mutants and what i thought. Pax Krakoa baby. 

One year ago, I breathed a sigh of relief as I read the utterly masterful house of x #1.  See for the past few months, i’d been waiting on baited breath for this comic with a level of anticipation not matched by any before or since. Even the debut of a spinoff to Chew, one of my faviorite comics of all time that i deftnetly need to do a retrospective on, this week got within the same galaxy and it still wasn’t on the same level. This was big, grandiose and everything I hoped for. And whatever issues I had as House and it’s sister series came out slowly died out as the full story unfolded, my jaw dropped and my faith in Hickman to save the x-men was  fully delivered. At last the x-men were back on top. And it was going to be one hell of a ride.  

As you probably know the x-men had been treated pretty badly at marvel due to fox having the movie rights, a move that still baffles and frustrates me. Instead of making money to rub in fox’s face by promoting the hell out of them in merchandise, animation, video games and of course comics ALONGSIDE the avengers, they basically ignored the x-men and fantastic four to give fox less to work with to spite them while fox.. entirely ignored this as since both franchises have been around since the 60′s and the x-men had had mountains of spinoffs to give them mountains of characters. So in short: a decision to spite and hurt their compeitors only cost marvel money, pissed off fans and fox’s eventual absortion as far as I can tell had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. 

Thankfully marvel DID stop being stupid eventually and relented: The Fantastic Four came back a year before house of x with a decent run by dan slott, which is thankfully more like earlier spider-man work and ff work, and less like what his spider-man run became from superior onward despite the ocasional misfire but i’ll talk about both runs another day. I mostly bring it up because with this revivial, marvel also slowly reintegrated the four back into the marvel universe and made their return feel like a big deal.  The X-Men however took a bit: while they got an earlier shot at returning with ressurxion. Buuut with the idea of having hickman return in their back pocket, marvel apparently refused, at least according to cullen bunn who I fell has no real reason to lie, to let the writers rock the boat too much and the era perdictably was just meh, especially flagship book X-Men Gold which was written bafflingly by Mark Gugenhiem and outside of one or two good ideas basically felt like the comics equivlent of one of those party store albums where every song is a cover done by someone who couldn’t give half a damn. There were bright spots though with Cullen Bunn finishing out his awesome x-men tenure with x-men blue, Sina Grace’s wonderful iceman that took the wonky execution of Bendis’ decision to make bobby drake gay and made it work beautifully, and the decent if somewhat baffling x-men red. But overall it just felt like a missed opportunity and with the fox deal in bloom and a new EiC, marvel NEEDED something bigger, bolder and grander to do with marvel’s strangest heroes of all. After all all eyes would be on them while Marvel’s Movie department took a few years, probably longer now thanks to the pandemic, to let things cool off before bringing the x-men into the mcu.  Enter Jonathan Hickman: Writer of another one of my faviorite runs of all time, his Fantastic Four run, along with an enjoyable but heavily flawed avengers run, a secret warriors run i’ve read half of that was a hell of a ride, tons of ultimate comics, and a bunch of indies I haven’t read but are probably great. A wordy weirdo and i’m convinced the second coming of grant morrison, and I hope one day the two work together on something tha’ts equal parts weird and amazing.

The morrison comparison is also apt as both came into the X-Men at a time when the x-men badly needed them: Just like Hickman morrison had to deal with a largely stagnant x-men and changed them to fit the times. And yes unsuprisngly i’ll also be covering morrisons run, warts and all, and it’s also one of my faviorite comics of all time. However Hickman was given a huge advtange his spirtiual predecessor, and really few comics writers EVER have gotten: full control of the x-men line.  Unlike morrison who wasn’t even allowed to use certain characters despite writing the main fucking x-book, Hickman got full creative control: full say in the direction of the story, full say in who came on board and to let them pitch whatever they wanted to do. And honestly it’s an apporach that’s not only reovlutionarly but makes the books FEEL like their actually occuring around the same time. Sure their all still seperate entities, but it DOES feel like one coheisive universe. Contrastingly with the avengers Black Panther’s solo has had him on a year long sojurn in space, before returning to earth.. while also running the avengers over in jason aaron’s run and having his own spinoff team, without any fucking clue as to when intergalactic empire of wakanda takes place in relation to everything else. Tony Stark is currently just taking back both his own damn name and the iron man name in his own book, but is also a major player in avengers, and empyre with no mention of his seeming drunken spiral (itw as a ploy) or arno taking up the armor and I feel these issues rather than the neglect the x-men once had are why krakoa’s impact isn’t being felt more in other titles. I’m not saying don’t let books do their own thing, but I am saying let them have fucking consequences and weight instead of just acting like one isn’t happening or at the very least have a character be absent for an arc so you can fit the other stories into continuity easier. As X-Men’s shown it dosen’t stifle inovation and hell even immortal hulk easily fit into no road home with a fucking note saying “this takes place before x issue” it’s not that hard.  This advantage was likely part of Hickman’s terms for coming back. See the x-men were the one thing at marvel he never got to do. The Gillieon and Aaron runs and Bendis runs meant the spot simply wasn’t open and by the time he was leaving it was clear marvel wanted to bury the x-men not praise them, so his ideas had no run. But the X-Men were what got Jonathan into comics. A shocking fact I learned at last years comic con, during which most of the dawn of x titles were revealed, was he WASN’T a fantastic four or avengers fan as a kid, not hating them but like me with the avengers for some time, not really caring about them. But with both runs, he did his homework, read as much as possible, and BECAME a fan, and it shows as both runs show a deep love for both marvel and the teams present. With X-Men they were his dream, his golden goose, his windmill, he just never was in the right place at the right time... but with Marvel needing his starpower and creativity and having nothing to loose with the x-men and badly needing a big run to hlep keep intrest in the x-men till the new movies, he finally was. So seeing the company needed him and he could get his dream and the control he needed, while dc had just taken bendis, didn’t need him and until very recently was ran by a moron, his choice to come back to marvel instead of go to dc as he’s admitted, was obvious. And it ended up being the right one. House and Powers of x were massive creative and commerical hits and the following titles have all been mostly praised. The new direction has been a boon for the franchise,k the fans and marvel.  So being a fan of this direction, as you can tell by the massive intro, to give my thoughts on each book so far: what I think their doing right, where some went wrong etc, since I’d rather wait another year or so befor ediving into these and let some more of hickman’s plans and future story hints spread throughout his books pay off first. WIth that all out of the way it’’s time for a deep dive of x.So grab some plant based snacks, your x-shaped helmets, and your krakoan coffee, it’s time to finally get into hickman’s era of x-men. 

HOUSE OF X AND POWERS OF X The opening salvo and just with two mini series that are one, though why he DIDN’T just have them be one big mini series I genuinely do not know, probably to justify having two diffrent artists to carry the load, is an utter masterpiece. Plain and simple. Let’s get the status quo the series set up out of the way so I can dig into it more: Magento and Xavier were revealed to have been working together for years behind the scenes.. with Moira Mactaggert, one of my favoirite x characters who the series changes utterly and forever. See instead of being the one human who consitantly is on mutants side and one of the x-men’s staunchest allies who sadly hadn’t been resusrected in 20 fucking years, she was a mutant herself, her ablility being reincarnation.. and thus had lived through 9 of her 10 lives seeing mutantkind always loose so told xavier and magneto about this in the hopes of breaking the wheel and letting mutantkind live this time.  However hickman , while revealing the alliance does brilliantly still make it work in continuity for me: it’s clear from moira’s notes in one issue, as house and powers and any following titles love having charts or text based sections that I feel give the comics a unique flavor and really help boost most issues, that Charles optimism she was trying to break him of and faith in humanity took years to fully shatter: he plotted and schemed with her to protect his species but it was clear he probably felt it woudln’t be necessary that humanity would prove her wrong.. and by this series it’s clear, no they haven’t changed, the majority of them just want to genocide mutants and have tried again and again and again while the rest who don’t necessarily want it, paticuarlly the superheroes did nothing while Magneto chaffed against her after the whole “alter his infant self after he was deaged by a mutant he made into a baby to be more pacificsitc which naturally pissed him off when that wore off”. Yes that’s a thing that actually happened pre and post retcons it’s why a survivor of the holocaust is , while not a YOUNG man, still healthy and vibrant. It’s a clever way to not undermine those stories while still telling this one and this retcon is a move I like as unlike most retcons it’s both there to tell a good story and excuted in a way that outside of moira dosen’t undermine anything. The Moira retcon I was and to a degree still am mixed on. While the new version of her is brilliant, creative and intresting and I can’t wait to see what happens with her next time she shows up, I do mourn the old as the x-men had few human allies and now their only big one is now a mutant herself, but it IS in service of a really damn good narraitive and the twist that the bad futures presented were in fact other lives of moira was brilliant, and it’s nice to see SOMETHING done with her. I’d rather something that i have a small problem with lead to really great things and be worth the sacrifice of her former character, than just changing things because “fuck it I want to do this and their letting me do this’ as a lot of retcons tend to be. Hickman’s story needs moira and her cycle of defeat to truly soar to the heights it’s reaching, and to make Charles and Xavier’s back alley actions make sense, so i’ll glady sacrifce one version of a character that I really liked for another version of her that’s also really good.  The other big swing though I was completley on board for: Hinted at early on by serveral dead mutants being alived, after a sucidie mission against new big bads and mutant hating extermists orchis, who are far better written than other extermists,   it’s revealed just why death has seemingly taken a holiday: the big plan that has been decades in the making for xavier and co? That will reshape mutant kind and required working with mr sinsiter of all people? Revivie all dead mutants.  See in a brilliant reveal Cerebro isn’t just a mutant tracker; It’s a copier, copying their essecnes reaguarly and storing them for later, updating them every so often and thus meaning any who died can come back. Why it took Chuck so long to do this is also explained as he needed 5 specific mutant power sets to do it and thus had to wait till they had everything they needed: Goldballs, yes goldballs, spits out his giant golden balls, phrasing, which hickman in an insane and awesome turn revealed to be EGGS. Yes EGGS. Proteus, Moira’s son and former villian whose now pacificed since this body cloning process means he has an infnite suply of xavier bodies to burn through and thus isn’t killing people, warps reality to mamke the eggs viable. Elixir, a healer whose been through some shit the poor guy,gives the eggs , once injected with the mutant in questions dna via syringe because of course, life, and Tempus, goldballs former classmate fellow bendis creation and mistress of time, speeds it up a bit so they don’t have to wait a good few decades for some mutants to rerez. The fifth that makes all this possible is hope summers, mutant messiah and adopted daughter of cable returned to promence once more, whose power is revealed to be power maniulation and thus can boost their powers to the degree neded for this. it’s a BRILLIANT turn that not only undoes all the pointless deaths mutants have undergone, but changes the game: Genocide is now near impossible, as humanity has no idea bout any of htis, and instead of mutant lives going down, they can only go once.. as one man once put it...

And as an x-men fan having watched characters I love die again and again for stupid reasons, especially int he placeholder run right before house of x, this was so satsifying. Everyone the x-men had lost, every character I loved who was gone and forgotten.. they were back or would be back.  And thanks to Krakoa they were thriving: By giving mutantkind a homeland instead of a headquarters, a nation given to one of their own because he demanded itbasically, or an island fortress designed to give a dying species refuge, they have a goregous sentient island (I’ve always loved krakoa for the record though I wonder what happened to his clone son), with abundant food, teleporting gates across the world to visit wherever they like or live in the various worldwide habitats if they please, and peace and security they’ve neve rknown. No more being woken up to get to a panic room because a sentienl attacked. No more having religious maniacs blow up busses containing your tine. No more having the vast majority of the superhero community do nothing as a fucking plauge cloud wipes out your species. Anything apporaching krakoa now has hundreds of the most powerful beings alive defending all mutants.. and that includes the worst of the worst, all given amntesty.. but they must tow the line or else be given a fate worse than death. After years of pain and suffering and misery mutantkind is free safe and happy. They still have to fight to get the rest of their kind out of racist hands and to saftey, the fight’s not over.. but now the odds are in mutantkinds favor. It’s paradise.  And yet this mini, and this whole run dosen’t run from tough issues; The mutants are now isolationists and only mutants are allowed on krakoa itself.. on the one hand this is a bad idelogy and potentially dangerous, instead of fighting for harmony fighting for my land alone.. but it’s also see why Mutantkind has taken to it. The X-Men have tried for at the least a decade in universe and at the most and most likely 15 years to live in harmony, fight for mankind and make peace with them.. and only a small chunk has acutally tried to help them with that. The other large fraction? They either build death machines to try and wipe out all mutants, and in the case of Cassandra NOva who while not a human is still a racist genocidal bitch, SUCCEED in wiping out a large chunk, or do nothing while mutantkind suffers.  The series forces you to think about the implications that marvel comics themselves previous ignored: That with all the superheros in this world who arent mutants.. more often than not htey’ve done fuck all when terrible shit happens. When Genosha died, not a one asked the x-men what happened or tried to hunt down those responsible. When Decemation happened, the avengers were more concerned with helping the x-men cover it up than helping them move on and did nothing as the goverment made xavier’s into a reservation, even after regrestration happened and the goverment had more heroes than ever to spare to helping them. When the T-Mist happened years later instead of stopping terrigin or asking the inhumans to stop it for the good of another race, the rest of the heroes just did fuck all. Sure the avengers were on a budget and the ff were asbent, but there were enough heroes in the world still and enough teams to do something about it and only the ones with mutants on them did!. IT’s hard to say “well you shoudln’t exclude them”.. when the rest of superhero kind has been subtly doing it their whole lives.  But it dosen’t shy away from the claims of racial superiority the isoaltion or the fact the x-men basically sued for nationhood by making requiring recognizing their nation hood the price for trading for their life saving and extending, world changing drugs, which you would still need to buy. There’s other issues, one that i’ll get to in a moment as it was only revealed in x-men. Various characters, Corsair in issue one of the ongoing, the fincial summit in issue 4 and the ff both in house of x #1 and ff/x-men, all question this and some of the ethics. Hickman brilliantly decides instead of just painting the x-men as absolute moral rights, to show their new nation warts and all: the genuine good their doing and trying to do but also the price they have to pay for it and the mistakes they may be making. And the compromise necessary to build a nation. It’s all chiling, compelling shit that’s even more releveant in a time when bigotry is piling up like crazy. Both house and x-men, which i’ll get to in a second, ask questions with no easy answers and it makes them a compelling read.  Also compelling is the two mini series use of flashbacks: The two previous moira timelines, which we learn are just that as we go, are compelling with the apoclaypse timeline having loveable heroes were are heartbroken to see die in the struggle, while the last timeline seemingly sees the mutants turn as bad as the humans.. only to peel back a layer at the end and reveal humans are still very much the real monsters, and them evolving via machine is a threat to mutant kind's natural evolution. It was a good story twist and of course there’s FAR more to dig into in both books, and I defintely will at some point in the future as I said. But there’s tons of great ideas here: Sinsiter not only being a mutant but a reluctant ally, the same of apocalyspe, the heavy questions I got into above, the idea of machines being mutants greatest threat which makes a ton of sense, and the various ones I already went into. I can’t gush about this book enough, but since this is already long enough i’m trying. The point is both mini series are great and how you do a self contianed event perfectlY plenty of consequence, plenty of scope but enough character and brilliant ideas and a FUCK TON of quotable and iconic lines, all blend into one of the very best series i’ve ever read. And lead directly into..

X-Men I talked about a lot of what this book represents above as it’s a direct continuation of the above, but the book on it’s own is still something diffrent. while it continues setting things up, playing with the new toybox hickman set up, and asking the tough questions, x-men does it in a diffrent way. House and Powers bounce around through time while all telling one huge story and one huge bundle of setup for this status quo.  X-Men instead is a bunch of single issues. It’s still a ton of setup, though with enough payoff to house and powers that it at least so far hasn’t become tedious, especailly since hickman specifically has plans for all of it and has shown in the past he’s a long game man when it comes to storytelling, but through more action packed stories that, with the exception of mistque’s spotlight issue so far, have one shared element: Cyclops, aka Scott Summers, who as grand captain of krakoa is the nation’s ruling council’s go to guy for missions and who he himself can form any team he once for any mission.  Cyclops, like the x-men hadn’t been treated well for years; Various characters lambasted him after the phoenix force drove him mad and lead to him killing charles xavier, and before that his run as leader of utopia, not helped by x-force painting him as a cold heartless dickweed, had him forced to make questionable decisions that made fans turn agains thim despite the hard position he was in. But now with the burden of absolute leadership of mutantkind in other hands, HIckman writes scott beautifully and has restored him to his proper place.  WIth Xavier taking over as absolute leader of mutantkind and his race no longer hanging by a thread for the first time in years scott can relax and ENJOY himself. As the first issue shows he has everything he ever could have possibly wanted: A healthy marriage with Jean again, and an open one at that with him free to still see emma and Jean openly seeing Logan. Logan himself no longer trying to murder scott for his mistakes or kill his teenage self due to bad writing, but being his best friend again and also living with him and presumibly having threeways because they have connected bedrooms and of course jean would want both at once. Maybe they also just fuck each other sometimes again the details haven’t exactly been clear but it’d explain the tension disappearing. Maybe the schism would’ve ended quicker if Cyclops and Wolverine just fucked each other after children of the atom. Hey not every question is a deep personal one on krakoa sometimesm it’s just “Are these two fucking and could it have solved things faster in the past if they did?”. Also I almost forgot to mention, and added this near the end of writing this, in additoin to everything else scott now lives ON THE FUCKING MOON, on the blue area with a breathable atompshere, on a moon house with his family and fuckbuddy and Vulcan’s buddys. It’s fucking amazing. But moving back to other things scott’s gotten besides logan’s wang up his butt, as seen in issue one thanks to the gates his dad can now visit anytime, his brothers live with him with Vulcan going from genocidal dickweed to weirdo thanks to his experinces between his “death’ and this series, and he’s just. happy. And as a leader he takes the x-men on thrilling missions: the series combines action with character and worldbuilding and it is great.  The worldbuilding part has been tremendous; we’ve seen new foes in the returning children of the vault and horticulture, aka what if the golden girls were tv ma, and also plant based  supervillians plotting a better future for mankind that krakoa’s drugs clash with. We’ve seen nimrod creeping close, charles and magneto not playing ball with mystique start to backfire, the return of krakoa’s lost love, and in my faviorite arc, we’ve seen broo, one of my faviorite x-people and intellegent brood, eat an egg and thus become god emperor of the brood, not only giving the vicious race a chance to reform but giving the x-men a huge advatange in space, doubeldby events we’ll get to in a second.  And biggest of all we saw the crucible: Since those depwoered by the decimation can get power back by dying again, and to prevent overworking the five with mass sucidies krakoa came up with a nasty solution,: earning resurection via ritual combat. And like the above there aren’t easy answers to this: mass sucidie isn’t better or faster, but having mutatns forced to EARN repowering by dying brutally isn’t a great solution either and is kind of sick. And it also opens up questions about ressurectoin that Nightcrawler feels made need reegion to answer htem. It’s again good heavy instreating stuff.  We also got my faviorite issue #4 where the x-men go to a fincial summit, and while security detail cyclops and gorgon fight off hired goons...

Xavier, Magneto and Apocalypse discuss with world leaders about the implications of krakoa’s policys, with Magneto not hiding his love of flexing his superiority. And Charles ends the confrence, after it’s revealed one hired them in an utterly masterful moment: Taking off his helmet to reveal no this is charles, this is him and that even after they tried assintating him he has and always will love humanity he’s just sick of being treated like crap and suffering for doing it and his people suffering for it and he won’t tolerate this sort of shit again. See it for yourself it’s an absolute triumph:

 It’s a great scene. Overall an utterly great title that really keeps the momentum moving and I feel is only setting up for even more things.. the only real issue is that A) the title’s been slower at coming out than the other dawn of x titles, though in the case of the empyre tie in’s it’s not hteir fault but the rest sure as shit are, and B) that it has mostly been just setup but it’s been good enough and enjoyable enough and I feel payoff is coming, so I truly don’t care. At long last we have a main x-men  book that’s not only fantastic but uttterly engaging and I read most issues multiple times. An utter slam dunk

Giant Sized X-Men: This one is incomplete, so I can’t fully say what the full picture is.. but for the three released so far it’s a mixed bag, though the art in all three is gorgeous as Hickman brought on the best artists in the buisness but it’s telling that while New Mutants bellow had issues that bugged me but was still kinda fun, and the above havem y utter priase I nearly forgot to include these issues. None of them are bad and all have gorgeous art as I said, these are some of the best in the buisness, they feel padded. These were supposed to be annuals, but when they decided to change this to one shots.. they shoudl’ve just made them regular length instead, as there simply isn’t enough story here to fill them and so far only Davis’ issue has both had huge setup (both revealing doug’s fusion with warlock is a secret for some reason and that he is indeed still fully alive and revealing what happened to the x-mansion), and due to Davis background as a writer/artist the pacing to fill one issue and even then it could’ve been trimmed. Not bad and I don’t fault the artists for not being used to being writer/artists or having to do so while also conforming to a larger narriative which likely didn’t help or in the third one’s case having to take over for someone else entirely, but it’s , while not bad no ton par with the two above books and I expect better from hickman. 

New Mutants (HIckman’s Issues)  I’ll cover Brisson’s issues next time as they feel like a diffrent run entirely, but New Mutants was.. a disapointment. I was utterly pumped for this title going in being a huge fan of the team thanks to finally reading the claremont and sikenwitz run and before that re-reading abnett and lannings utterly great run and hey jonathan hickman who’d already done gangbusters was writing it! It had a great roster! 

And it starreed one of hickman’s faviorite mutants and one he’d taken a shine to on avengers, and one of my faviorite superheros, Roberto DeCosta, aka Sunspot. On Avengers hickman took Roberto , already a decent character and made him amazing. He was still rich, young and a playboy as ever.. but he used said wealth and his love of fun wisely. When undercover at an AIM casino instead fo throw down, he offers the agents a free day of partying and gambling on his huge dime, then puts them on payroll as his undercover agents. So to recap Roberto DeCosta won the avengers two valuable double agents in what at the time was one of their biggest threats.. by buying them tons of beer and gambling and presumibly hookers. And later got the loyatly of the rest of AIM through these guys, and when Steve found out tony betrayed him and went off hte deep end hunting him instead of stopping the end of the goddamn world, TOOK OVER AIM HIMSELF IN COMBAT WITH THE AIM SUPREME, and then formed his own avengers. 

Literally. He got his own avengers team, most of which left after the apocalypse but he simply found younger and hungrier replacements, and aim.. with blackjack and hookers. The man is a legend. And knowing Roberto if hookers were actually involved he probably treated them with respect and overpayed them because he’s a class act. Then under Al Ewing’s mighty pen, Roberto not only formed another avengers team since most of the avengers he formed to stop the end of the world were busy elsewhere, of young and great avengers, while dying of the aformentioned death cloud, but became an utterly brilliant chessmaster, only failing ONCE becaue of hydra cap getting into his head while AIM was working for the us goverment towards the end as the USAvengers. And yes that’s a real team. It’s as insane and beautiful as it sounds. And his new avengers once fought american kaiju, a godzilla with a flag painted on it chaning usa. Al Ewing is the best and I love him. But he also became a master stratigest and schemer with schemes within schemes within schemes, his crowning one being faking his own death and using his fake funeral to clear out any remaning enimies in AIm, and only quitting AIM to keep it out of goverment hands and in the hands of a trusted friend. He was and still is one of the best avengers there ever was and ever will be.  But here, as the new mutants go on a road trip to get sam? He’s a fucking dumbass who hires the worst space laywer possible, only gets off trial because Sam and his wife save them, glad they weren’t broken up by the way,  and is utterly useless most of the time. It’s like HIckman forgot the last part of his run.. granted time runs out isn’t very good but still, that wasn’t a good thing to forget and like Hickman wants to ignore ewing’s work for no damn reason, even though Ewing did great things with Roberto and kept him relevant when marvel was choking the x-men to death. It’s fucking embrassing and disapointing to see.  The rest of the New Mutants aren’t much better mostly being happy but also not really acting like themselves, with only mondo really standing out since he gets great moments and hasn’t done anything in a while. And Doug, who I negelcted to mention above is one of my faviorite mutants and thanks to being krakoa’s primary method of commuincation, is now one of krakoa’s most important mutants, has a seat at the council with krakoa, and weirdly has his best friend warlock hiding on his arm for reasons that haven’t been explained yet. In Short doug went from beign forgotten to being used awesomely again. Roberto instead of getting the same is set back as a character and ends the arc deciding to stay in space because he misses sam, and will likely become third in his marriage i’m sure, and wants to bone deathbird, x-men villian and frequent shiar usuper. But while rahne actually being happy is a good sight to behold they , except Dani, really dont’ do much. Though Magik gets a fucking amazing scene where she asks the various assasians sent ot kill them if they want to make out , not only revealing she’s bi, but that she’d prefer that to killing them all but does so when they dumbly refuse .. I mean seriously who, whose not in a relationship that’s open or way older than her, not take her up on that?  The plot their thrust into isnt’ great either, mostly just more setup but not present as well as in x-men about Gladiator giving the shiar empire to xavier’s daughter.. yes charles has a daughter that was created from his and his ex wife lilandra, whose still dead’s dna, and letting DEATHBIRD Of all people teach her instead of his damn self. Xandra taking over isn’t a terrible idea it’s just handeld poorly. It just feels disapointing.. like hickman WANTS to do a JLI style book here but the combination of him only doing one arc and not really wanting to write the characters as they should be, an issue that only pops up here and in the new mutants cameo during x-men proper and not for doug ever, that makes it fall falt.. I mean there are utterly great moments like the above, and hte image i used to lead off their just stifled by misusing roberto and everyone else. 

But overall hickman’s works on x-men  are fucking great, intresting and engaging. I’ve read the issues a ton and will again. One small mistep dosen’t take away from all the large good he’s done and he’s made the franchise feel alive again and hopefully the MCU take on it will take after this run, as it’d be a great way to break from the endless xavier vs magneto battles of the fox universe. So yeah overall 2 great books and a thankfully short misfire, HIckman’s on top. And next time we’ll see who he picked to help him carry the x banner home to us all, and who did well with it and whose stumbled a bit as part two delves into the rest of the dawn of x. For now subscribe for more comics stuff as I plan to get back on that, including I hope a restrospective on the fox era x-men sometime soon, animation reviews, and more fun stuff. And until then, courage. 

[chickadee-sun]

IRA Propaganda tactics that worked on me

(Note that many posts used multiple tactics, so I'll link to them multiple times.)

Stealing real content from real activists on social media

Most often this is done by screenshotting tweets, Facebook posts, etc. Or at least, those are the easiest for me to notice. Some of these posts don't directly further the IRA's objectives. They just make the pysop blogger look more like a real person and increase their popularity and influence. Other times they add snide little comments to help alienate and demoralize their readers. Stuff along the lines of "nobody is talking about this," or "nobody cares about this," designed to make people despair and give up on improving their country.

Now, screenshotting instead of linking should be a red flag. A link would make it easier to interact with the actual activist, not the person screenshotting their words. But tumblr's coding suppresses offsite links, making screenshotting seem like a completely normal and reasonable way to reference other platforms. The snide comments often fly under the radar because that attitude is sadly common among genuine users as well.

Of course I already knew that grabbing people's tweets and posts is a lazy and effective way to "write" a clickbait article without effort or creating content. Apparently it's also a lazy and effective way to supress the progressive vote and increase division.

I am pleased to note that I grew more fed up with the nihilist comments and less likely to reblog them over time. In another recent post (which as far as I know doesn't come from the IRA) I pushed back slightly against "why isn't this in the news?" So I think I've been on the right track even before this new information. https://chickadee-sun.tumblr.com/post/171839411085/thatpettyblackgirl-urgent-if-you-are-in

This appears to be what I interacted with the most. Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic: post/146412193105/musingsofaraven-valerie-volatile post/146757386220/verolynne-open-plan-infinity-swagintherain post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152473414650/bellygangstaboo-this-is-happening-in-america post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153147035545/thetrippytrip-i-wish-the-world-would post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/153483724025/dorowot-gogomrbrown-thread-my-moms post/153538772200/bellaxiao-2-years-ago-today-on-november-22 post/153734325290/an-gremlin-the-real-eye-to-see-and-media-is post/153736403455/mousathe14-raptorific-fromchaostocosmos post/154092886970/17mul-nevaehtyler-so-um-let-me-get-it post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155697023025/nevaehtyler-this-is-important post/155719509740/fenrisesque-shepherdmoon-foxnewsfuckfest post/156425339773/snailchimera-ephitania-dukeofellington post/157571042371/gogomrbrown-exactly-what-the-whole-terrorism post/157590672069/go1ds-heartless-tony-blog-lagonegirl post/157983742239/roachpatrol-blackness-by-your-side-my-utopia post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege post/163641274771/blackness-by-your-side-people-need-knowledge-not post/164382771945/lazyscience-nevaehtyler-whats-next-take-away post/168358486495/aokayinspace-witwicky-down-to-venus-when

What I plan to do better: I'm just not going to engage with this sort of stolen content. If someone wants to screenshot *their own* twitter thread, that's fine, but if you just copy and paste someone else's content I'm not interested. Screenshots are inaccessible for people who use screenreaders anyway. This isn't foolproof, as nothing stops a propaganda blog from copypasting and pretending text is their own content, but it's a start. I also plan to push back harder against the "no one is talking about this" "nobody cares" narrative. Even when it's not from psyops on purpose it's still really harmful and counterproductive to activism. (Not foolproof; see "positivity and celebrating accomplishments" below.)

Fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda

A while ago there was a meme going around angry about how often the media allows the right wing to define terms and eumphemises the shit they pull. OK, but it claimed that "white nationalism" was a euphemism for "white supremacy," which is isn't. White nationalism is a specific type of white supremacy and the specificity matters. Likewise it claimed that "fake news" was a euphemism for propaganda. Nope. Fake news is stuff that's made up and factually untrue. Propaganda isn't defined as being untrue; it's defined by being heavily slanted and trying to prompt people into a particular course of action. Advertisements are propaganda even if they never say anything factually untrue about the product.

It's not that I'm completely gullible or without skepticism. But my skepticism and fact-checking were badly, badly miscalibrated to protect me from psyops. I was only looking for false statements from people who were misinformed or lying. I was checking to see if a reliable source backed up their basic fact claims. So when a post appeared to pass this test, I let down my guard. I was completely oblivious to the possibility of people deliberately using a pattern of basically true information presented in a misleading or inflammatory way to sway the public. And like many social media users, I had a tendency to merely skim the referenced article and not pay close attention to how closely it backed up the specific claims in the post.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic (reliability isn't binary; some are more reliable than others): links to Mother Jones links to Democracy Now and Al Jazeera links to CBS links to the Huffington Post, though the linked article appears to be about Standing Rock in general and doesn't mention Maori activists screenshots Boing Boing, links to The Guardian screenshots CNN, The New York Times, and Amnesty USA links to The Daily Beast gifset of Trevor Noah on The Daily Show screenshots The New York Times, gifset from Fusion TV screenshots Democracy Now and a scanned-in print article screenshots Al Jazeera OK, this one I'm very ashamed of reblogging, since it actually does fall into the fake news category. It embeds a video from the Youtube account 1 Soul Global, which describes itself as "an acronym for “One Source Of Universal Love.” We are a Spiritual Nexus for Global Transformation." I don't like watching videos in posts, but if I'd watched this one I would've figured out it's bullshit. It links to a, I don't know, blog? I've never heard of called Women In the World but it does some trick with the url so that when you hover over it it appears to include "nytimes.com". Oh my god, did I just hover over the link without checking it??? I guess I was too impressed the post having slightly more caution than I'm used to seeing in pseudoscientific woo??? Most of these I can see how I fell for them but this one I don't have a fucking clue. Am I really this stupid? screenshots The Atlantic Screenshots The Daily Mail--not that The Daily Mail is a reliable source for anything other that "what The Daily Mail is claiming," but that's what the post is about so good enough. Or was it? I took this post as "The Daily Fail is a trash rag, let's make fun of it," but the troll blog never really said that they were singling out one evil tabloid for ridicule. Were other people in the thread interpreting this as "news media in general is untrustworthy and unreliable"? That's actually a pretty subtle double meaning for a foreigner to pull off. I'm kind of impressed. gifset of Laverne Cox on CBS, links to Media Matters (Oh my god, Media Matters was created specifically to be a watchdog checking on media misinformation. And it was linked to by the IRA. Nothing is real anymore.) screenshots Quartz, links to The Guardian and MIT's Technology Review, as well as to some local sources I don't know the reliability of screenshots Mother Jones, links to the National Organization of Women

What I plan to do better: if someone claims an article backs up their claims, I will make sure to read the entire thing to confirm that it actually does, and does not just make sort-of related statements. If I don't have time or energy to do this, I won't reblog the post. But for the larger issue? True things arranged in misleading or manipulative patterns? I'm not sure what to do about that, though I suppose just being aware of the tactic might help a little. Suggestions?

Value added later in the reblog chain by non-IRA users

Because of how tumblr works, when I interact with a thread I'm not just interacting with the OP, but with everyone who has added to the reblog chain. Sometimes those are what attracted me to the post, rather than the psyop's post. This is one reason getting popular was so important to them! It allowed their posts to become part of the natural ecosystem of tumblr. I'm not sure how much this counts as a "tactic" because it's mostly passive, but it's significant.

This category overlaps a lot with "fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda" because often what the reblog chain added was sources with more information.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

Added a link to a Mother Jones article better explaining the issue.

Added more information and links to news sources.

Added news stories and a more positive slant. Note the IRA posters pushed their nihilist view of "why aren't we talking about this" while other users shifted the conversation a little to how the guy deserves a financial reward and how 70 lives were saved.

Added a link to a Guardian article referenced by the screenshotted boingboing article and a list of cities from said article.

Added a lot of cool true information about the history of the comics industry. Added something readers can do, a gofundme page. This would seem to run counter to the attitude of helplessness the IRA was trying to encourage. And yes, the gofundme did meet its goal. Added several paragraphs of details from the screenshotted article, including Theresa Kachindamoto's name which allowed me to easily look up the article. Added more information about Evan McMullin. Added more information about Asia Ramazan Antar, and shifted the focus a little (not fully) from how trash the Daily Fail is to how awesome Antar was. Added a lot of debunking of the psyop's anti-science attitude and a lot of information about how science works and how important it is. This one I'm proud of reblogging. Added a lot more information about Cameroon and sources. Added more information about voter suppression and link to the National Organization of Women. Added more information about comic history.

What I plan to do better: I'm... not sure I did wrong here. If I refused to reblog anything without thoroughly vetting the OP, that would be pretty bad purity shit. Some people are feeling vindicated because the threads they reblogged contain pushback against the IRA's narratives, or because they themselves added the pushback. Not so for me; only one example pushed back with any force. But several of the chains did shift the tone or focus of the conversation a little. I guess be less timid about pushing back when someone's tone or emphasis is off? Suggestions?

Positivity and celebrating accomplishments

Remember how I said above that rejecting a nihilist hopeless slant wasn't foolproof? I got exhausted with that attitude, though I didn't connect it to deliberate psyops, and instead tried to signal boost stuff that was positive and/or included a way to help. And yet.

I think some of these were just the innocuous posts used to gain popularity and influence. You can see a some "nobody is talking about this" narrative in a few of them, but not the majority.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152657046470/gogomrbrown-maori-activists-in-new-zealand post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/154007254270/broadlybrazen-badscienceshenanigans post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154505677960/himteckerjam-bitterbitchclubpresident post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155547170460/jkl-fff-lagonegirl-green-who-lost-her post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege

What I plan to do better: I don't know? I think boosting positivity is a good habit, even if it's exploitable? Shut down the "no one is talking about this" narrative I guess. Suggestions?

Jokes and memes

There's a reason so many "ironic" bigots hide behind, "calm down, it's just a joke!" People often let their guard down when something has a humorous lighthearted tone. This also serves to disguise English as a second language skills, as people often use deliberately bad grammar to emphasize a joke. 

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic. Gonna explain some of these in more depth:

Non-IRA people are joking about the news media's habit of allowing the right to define terms and bending over backwards to be sympathetic to bigots while scrutinizing progressives. I didn't really notice that the-real-eye-to-see went beyond that and said "And Media is Nazi too". Journalism is an important foundation of a democratic society and there's a difference between critisizing it and dismissing it. Trevor Noah's humor is being used to promote blackness-by-your-side's insinuation about deaf ears. Stealing some viral humor that snarks about bigotry. I think this was one of the posts that's just to grow the troll's popularity, as I can't find anything harmful in it. Combines positivity with sarcastic humor, a twofer. The target of the sarcasm is how rare white people using their privilege to educate is. Not really false, but kind of a demoralizing thing to emphasize in a post that could and should have been just about congratulating the white student. People dragging ICE for being evil. The psyop didn't actually add anything bad, so I guess this was more about looking natural and getting popular.

What I plan to do better: Remember that hiding toxic messages in humor isn't exclusive to the libertarian right. Allow myself to be that humorless killjoy who scrutinizes jokes for harmful implications. Be less afraid to nitpick a joke I broadly agree with. It's less that I lacked this skill and more that using it tends to be socially unacceptable. That's part of what makes these "jokes" such an effective manipulation tool.

Conclusions: wow, these people are really really good at this. I've gotten used to right-wing infiltrators who suck at pretending to be progressive, but those are amateurs. These are professionals. I've seen some bad takes going around. "Oh, of course tumblr users fell for this shit, they're horrible people with purity culture who never factcheck." But no. Some of my vulnerability in fact came specifically from not being a negative stereotype of a tumblr user. I didn't worry about purity enough to vet the OP if other people added information. I did factcheck, to the point that it distracted me from other problems with a post. I didn't micro-analyze joke posts looking for imperfections in them. I made an effort to boost positive stories about good people accomplishing things.

You guys, if I were the stereotypical toxic tumblr essjew, I wouldn't have interacted with a lot of these posts, or my interaction would've been attacking them. People who think they're immune to cons and manipulation are the most vulnerable. Maybe don't just groan in disgust at "tumblr culture" while patting yourself on the back for being better?

Anyway, the psyops didn’t try to create entirely new ideas or change people’s opinions 180 degrees. They played on pre-existing weaknesses among progressives such as infighting, defeatism, disillusion with institutions, and so on. Being careful about those lines of attack is good whether the attacker is an agent of a foreign government, an agent of your own government, or a genuine activist who’s being counterproductive. So when I talk about what I plan to do better, I’m not just talking about the Internet Research Agency.

[oleanderblume]

Okay. Time to talk about it.

For reasons.

So, as anyone who actually pays attention to the posts I make knows, I have DID and right now things aren't going so great so I'm just gonna scream into the void about it. Tw: csa cp sa and other not fun stuff.

So. I'm writing a book series, and at some point while I was writing my books, the main characters of the series ended up being introject alters in my whole ass head.

I didn't want that. Or ask for it. It just happened.

The reason I don't want that is because it makes me not want to write anymore because now those people are literally walking around in my head and its not fun. Also they are kids and my brain is not kid friendly. Or me friendly.

I don't know how they formed but I do have an inkling as to why, my theory is 1 and 2

1. The alters already existed but wanted an easy face so they took the ones I already made and rolled with it

2. The alters hadn't been formed yet but due to exterior stresses they DID form and now I've gotta deal with that.

The first theory is the most likely tho.

Anyways, this happened, I am upset by it. I am in a bunch of groups on fb for DID so I post about it (vaguely because I genuinely thought that this was sort of common but apparently it is NOT) the group i posted in had some assholes 8n the administration as well as.members who took it upon themselves to take my rather vague post about introjects and turned it into a huge mess,.claiming that I was faking having DID and that I was just making up imaginary friends. Despite the fact that the post itself alluded in NO WAY that I genuinely wanted this to happen.

I wasn't given an opportunity to explain myself, and the admin kicked me from the group. So I made another post in the sister group EXPLAINING why I was upset and what was going on and I STILL GOT MADE FUN OF, ridiculed, and my experiences invalidated. Even when I told them that I work for 11 hrs and don't have ample time to dawdle on fb groups. The admin offered to let me back into the other group but I decided to leave both of them because it is simply ridiculous that I should be completely ousted for not fitting into their idealized version of what DID is when it is such a subjective experience for everyone with it. Also one person was just a major fucking asshole to me for no good reason and I wanted to get away from them.

It was a waste of my time and added stress I really didn't need, and on top of that, it gave me LITERALLY NO ADVICE OR VALIDATION for what was ACTUALLY stressing me out.

Also, it made me mad and then Jodie fronted and it was just a big pain in the ass for no real reason.

But the thing is, I still have the same problem. Two fucking kids are running around my head in danger of being caught by a persecutor and being harmed and *I* have to figure out how to wrangle them up. Well, turns out ONE OF THEM IS A MAJOR FUCKING ASSHOLE. Which is my fault because I technically wrote him as an asshole and so his personality reflects that. And also he's 14 and 14 year olds are just a big bag of ducks to everyone. But it gets WORSE. Because he DOESN'T KNOW HES IN A SYSTEM.

So I have a 14 year old jackass running around, with no fucking clue whats going on or where he is, being actively pursued by a persecutor who wants to fucking hurt him >:(

Well, I find him, and he is pissed and won't fucking talk to me because HE doesn't want to be here EITHER. No shit Sherlock. It fucking sucks I know. But he WILL talk to my friends, when he fronts which is WHENEVER APPARENTLY. So he talks to my friends and gradually figures out sort of whats going on but THEN the persecutor (I have named him Bastard for now) gets a hold of him.

Now here is where the trigger warning stuff comes in so don't read this if you don't want to be completely skeezed out.

So..our persecutors have a nasty habit of forcing alters into co-con so they can hurt the body and make *them* feel it. Its really hard to combat and trust me, I'm working on that okay?

They do this to trigger flashbacks and panic attacks and the like because idk, that's probably their fucked up way of saying "hey here is something important you need to know" while also being incredibly fucked up and psychologically damaging to whoever happens to be the target.

Well, Bastard does this to my boy, and here is where things really get into the nitty gritty. So please avert your eyes.

A little backstory. On my trauma (or what I know of it so far cause this shit is like a 3d jigsaw puzzle)

From what I KNOW, and what I've been told by other alters, there is a huge chunk of information missing from when I was about 4-12 (cause my earliest kid memory is from like 12) and that is when I think a lot.of the particularly bad stuff happened. Except we have been trying to figure out what it was for quite a while.

We know it has to do with child pornography. Because Acey, who is 5 has memories of that and Destiny, Siren and Syn all have memories that very specifically depict incidences of cp.

Destiny has memories of being r*ped with coke bottles, and being locked in a bathroom that was converted into a dark room (we think that's how The Other One was formed, from the reflection you saw in the mirror) we know this because she kept a detailed journal of when the first persecutor showed up, Fear, and he did that thing i was talking about earlier.

Another thing about Destiny is that when she first started fronting, she was 100% certain she was not Destiny, and was *deadname*. Fear was the one who named her and only ever referred to her as Destiny.

I'm not sure about Syn because they are a cat and only talk in third person with rudimentary English, but they fucking HATE men. And Siren is a fallen angel that very explicitly talks about being too "impure" for God.

And Acey has memories of being drugged and assaulted. (Her name is literally short for Acetaminophen so...)

At this point (around sophomore year) the picture we have is that there was some csa and cp, but no perps.

However, we gained two alters at some point that could have clued us in on stuff.

Eleanor, a little who is about 4-5 years old has memories of being told to play faries with an older person, and to build her own imaginary world. And then Mockingbird. An alter who purposefully mimics other alters and lives in annual hospital.

Thing about mockingbird though, is that she has a phone in her room that is ALWAYS ringing, but whenever she answers it, the voices on the other side are unintelligible. And so is she, when she talks at least. Most of the time. She only sounds like a regular person when she pretends to be a different alter.

BUT the thing is, there had been a bunch of other stuff that hadn't correlated to this, at first we thought it may have been some sort of ritual abuse? Because in like 2017/18 an feral alter (and I mean completely animalistic, growling biting and clawing at stuff) surfaced that only spoke backwards and was also named Satan. They looked like a typical humanoid goat demon ram person thing (?)

SO to figure shit out, we send Anon (short for Anonymous) to look around the mindspace and figure out what the fuck is going on. They find this WALL. Its a huge ass brick wall, at the edge of the garden, and it circles around the entire northern hemisphere of the planet (our mindspace is a planet)

And it has a bunch of paper plastered over it saying "the rules" of the system. But no one can fucking read them. Yay. Also, Esz did some investigating of the wall himself and that's how he got caught by Controller and made feral.

And since they started fronting AFTER Esz came around, we figured oh, something is up here?? Because Esz is also a demon alter.

Well, uh, turns out there was another persecutor (aptly named Controller) in control of Satan and they were targeting Esz this time around, and the two of them integrated. Esz is still around, Satan is basically no more. Well, not really. Because now Esz is also fucking feral. Which was really stressful because having your primary protector and system manager be a fucking screeching demon beast is uh..not fun. We luckily got that under control tho (thank fucking god) but now Esz has these memories of being r*ped which is great because he is the epitome of masculinity (I jest the boy eats fucking vegan chicken with spicy ketchup wtf) but this time we get some sort of insight into Satan's (and probably Esz's) creation cause the memories involve this random ass fat guy (don't recall them mentioning seeing his face) but he was this tail kink or some shit and had a really long tail but plug and made Esz act like a literal animal to get is nasty ass rocks off.

At this point, we aren't 100% sure what's going on. Because we've got these two very conflicting narratives and one of them has what we think are religious undertones while the other has obvious cp.

And now that Esz is (as far as I'm aware) back to normal, he knows more information because to make him feral, Controller had to bring him BEHIND the wall.

So Esz informs us that the wall has a bunch of layers, and there are a shit ton of other alters back there but none of them have faces. AND there are OTHER PERSECUTORS back there, who all work in tandem with eachother in some sort of hierarchy. All led by someone called The Puppeteer.

Thats all the information we have on anything past the wall :/

BUT THEN somewhere down the line, we get another little, and their name is Penut. Which is IMPORTANT because that was the nickname we had as a little kid by our NEIGHBOR Beverly. And Penut has some unpleasant csa memories FROM BEVERLY.

At the time, we just thought "oh great, so we can add that to the stack of BULLSHIT" and didn't think much further on it.

BUT ALSO, this was around the time our sister (bio sister) came into the picture and learned about some of the stuff and she very VERY specifically says that she thinks Beverly had a major role in us developing DID. Again at the time I'm like "well yeah, if Penuts memories are true then she definitely had a role" but none of us are really even venturing further on the topic. Because we are sort of distracted by having TWO persecutors and A FERAL FUCKING PROTECTOR ALTER.

Obviously though, things cool down a whole lot more. Its good, things are great.

Until Oliver pops up.

SO NOW WE ARE BACK AT THE PRESENT MIND YOU.

There is another persecutor, he is really annoying. He is hurting my newest/possibly older but only recently resurfaced alter. And GUESS WHAT HE MAKES HIM SEE.

☆this is legitimately disturbing so please be warned☆

Bastard does his thing and Ols has a very visceral flashback- i know what happened in it because he literally wrote about it because he was convinced it was important, which it IS.

In this flashback, he is obviously me, being r*ped. But this time for some reason, the person doing the r*ping is making him look at him, so he sees this guys face. Which has never EVER happened in a flashback before. Especially to the point where you actually REMEMBER WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. The guy has green eyes, and a beard, like a scruffy longer one. And while this is happening, at some point, Ols overhears ANOTHER PERSON in the room. A woman. And it's Beverly.

I know it's Beverly because he mentions in his recount that she called him Penut.

And she is working a hand held camera, and there is another one on a stand that is like, hooked up to a television, replaying what is being recorded.

At some point he's made to face the TV, like sitting on beard guys lap or something to watch and Beverly is just casually talking to beard guy, literally telling him to hurry the fuck up because there's gonna be another "session" after this one.

They start talking about what they are going to do next (with me/Ols) and mention the next "client" and then using a tail and making me act like an animal, and then other things like using laxatives, other kinds of drugs and even using other kids. They talk about how the video won't have sound, so none of what they are saying is going to be recorded too. Beverly at one point walks up to him, close to the end I think, and is like really close to his face, and this is when she calls him Penut, and talks about how much money she's going to make (or something like that, Ols is giving me the details as I'm writing)

Then beard guy makes him come and moves him again so he can't see the TV or Beverly and then beard guy finishes his shit and Ols overhears Beverly say that they next person is almost here and he needs to go now.

Then the flashback is over and Bastard says "this is why you are here" or something along those lines, and Ols immediately (well, probably after a little mental breakdown) writes all this shit down and sends it to two of my friends in a message (im so sorry about that guys)

Then I find put about it, have a really bad time, but now I'm in puzzle mode and all the peices are starting to fit together.

So...from what we have of Oliver's flashback, Beverly is a main perp, and was basically pimping us out to folks for cash while taping it and putting it put for other folks to purchase.

Esz and Satan being feral are because the next "session" involved someone with a gross animal kink. And that can ALSO account for Syn, because she is a literal animal. Her mention of drugs can easily coincide with Acey's memories.

And Destiny's coincide with the cp in general as well as probably someone who was sadistic enough to shove fucking glass bottles inside people.

Im not 100% where Eleanor fits in, but it can easily be suggested that she came about when shit first started to get real bad. And Penut, well, I'm pretty certain that she was THE FIRST alter. And probably what gave Beverly the idea in the first place (I'm not sure because most of Penuts memories were when we had sleepovers at Beverlys but it makes a lot of sense if she were the first of us and her compliance gave Beverly the opportunity to take further advantage)

Mockingbird hearing voices through the phone could be conversations that Beverly and other people were having during "sessions"

And the persecutors. Are modeled. After the different clients (and probably Beverly too) that had come and gone.

And the wall probably has a metric fuck ton of other alters back there with other horrific experiences and memories waiting to be slowly leaked out along with this tier list of persecutors modeled after their respective abusers and the puppeteer is probably an introject OF BEVERLY.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Of course, this is all speculation and it can completely change course at the drop of a fucking hat but I have NEVER EVER been so certain in my LIFE that this is what happened. Like..it makes too much sense?!

[gurguliare]

OK SO ... this is, roughly, the jia family + important attendants/in-laws in the first half of the novel. I’ve left out a couple of more remote cousins who ARE plot-relevant but who I couldn’t find an elegant way to cram in, and who also don’t appear until far enough along in the story that readers have (hopefully) had time to assimilate the pre-existing morass.

detailed, mostly non-spoilery comments under cut

OUR HEROES/THE MAIN SBURB SESSION:

Baoyu (WG: Pao-yu) is a reincarnated chunk of jade and the oldest surviving ‘legitimate’ male grandchild of the all-powerful Lady Dowager, meaning, oldest child of a wife rather than a concubine. As such, he’s spoiled rotten by everyone but his father, Jia Zheng, who evens out the mixture by just occasionally terrorizing Baoyu in front of major public figures. Noted for vine trivia and what a fairy calls the “lust of the mind,” which is 1/2 lust for cuddles, 1/2 lust for, uh, well, uh, it might be regular lust, actually.

Baoyu is in love with

Lin Daiyu (WG: Tai-yu), a reincarnated flower whom the chunk of jade watered... with... its dew? I guess large rocks in gardens collect dew, that’s sort of fair? and who thereby incurred a Spiritual Debt, which she seeks to repay in this world by crying A Fuckton. Daiyu is proud, insecure, vindictive, and as PRICKLY as she is SICKLY: jealous attachment to Baoyu aside, her dismal orphaned loneliness/desperation for someone to nag her also makes her roll belly-up at the very first high-minded lecture she gets from

Baochai (WG: Pao-chai), a genuinely considerate person who is probably not ready for the responsibility of becoming Daiyu’s surrogate mom. She alternates between admiring Daiyu’s giant evil brain and worrying about whether she or Daiyu might be fated to marry Baoyu---both possibilities seem to kind of horrify her. She lives in a bare room with no traces of personality in the decorations and has vast unexplained pockets of practical knowledge about, say, paint-making. Once she chased a butterfly across half a chapter, and it was symbolic. I love her.

I can’t find a cool segue to bring in

Wang Xifeng (WG: Hsi-Feng), who btw is Lady Wang’s niece(?) but there was no fucking way I was getting that in on the chart, and who together with Baoyu is supposed to like, lead the next generation to victory! by taking care of byzantine household management while Baoyu goes out there and Wins at the imperial examinations. She’s good at household management! and bitterly angry and impotent in the context of her own awful marriage to Jia Lian. Renowned for her jokes and self-effacing, OTT clowning; at one point the servants rig a drinking game JUST so that she will be picked as the one to recite, because they are so eager to hear her Wit, and she... invents the shaggy dog story.

NOTES ON SECONDARY CHARACTERS I FOUND ESPECIALLY HARD TO TELL APART:

Lady Dowager/Granny Zhia is a niceish old lady who prides herself on having been A Terror in her time but who onscreen mostly compels other people to throw card games to flatter her. Head of the Rongguo branch of the Jia Family.

Jia Zheng (WG: Chia Cheng) is a rigid, brutal old man but doesn’t seem to be actively sexually abusing anyone in the novel’s timeframe, which puts him a notch above every other adult male in the book!

Jia She (WG: Chia Sheh) is Jia Zheng’s older and more lecherous brother. Not too bright, but has a temper.

Lady Xing is Jia She’s official wife, Yingchun’s mother and Jia Lian’s stepmother. Reluctant to go out of her way to ‘manage’ Jia She, to everyone else’s righteous disgust; acts as his procurer instead.

Jia Lian (WG: Chia Lien) is a serial philanderer with a rudimentary sense of humor/sporadic conscience, which must have come from his unnamed concubine mother, under the circumstances. Not even the worst husband in the book, despite everything.

Jia Zhen (WG: Chia Chen) is the head of the Ningguo branch after his father, Jia Jing, abdicates. Involved in a possibly-consensual affair with Qin Keqing (WG: Ch’in Ko-ching), his daughter-in-law. For the record, I was unable to figure out the details of this on my first readthrough, but apparently the clues are in the doctor’s diagnosis of Keqing’s late period and in the servant Chiao Ta’s outburst early on, where he accuses the Jia family as “scratching in the ashes,” which idiomatically refers to... uh... the fact that it was the daughter-in-law’s duty to clean the stove, and so the archetypal father-in-law/daughter-in-law affair would be initiated via messages written in the ashes. Source: my mother, so feel free to correct me/add info if you know anything else about this phrase.

Xichun (WG: Hsi-chun), Yingchun, and Tanchun are (in early chapters) basically notable for filling out the ranks of the poetry club, but if you want tips for differentiating: Xichun is a good painter, Tanchun is a good poet and manager, Yingchun is really, really over her flamboyant nerd cousins. 

Xiangyun (WG: Hsiang-yun) is not on my genealogy but I realized I should actually spend a little time on her, since she has brief bewildering appearances early on: she’s the Lady Dowager’s grandniece, Baoyu’s second cousin, a poetry nerd on par with Daiyu and Baochai, also boyish, cheerful, and a frequent crossdresser. Neglected at Home.

Pinger is Xifeng’s chief maid and aaalso Jia Lian’s concubine, I think, Xifeng’s primary aid in all administrative matters, and the punching bag of Xifeng and Jia Lian’s marriage. I have a lot of Pinger emotions which are probably best saved for another post or buried, but, yeah! Don’t confuse her with Yinger, Yinger is someone else’s maid, haven’t figured out whose yet!

Xiren is Baoyu’s chief maid and unofficial concubine after he hits puberty; probably has the most common sense of his three maids, also the most self-conscious about the prospects and risks of her position.

Qingwen is Baoyu’s feistiest maid. Bears an uncanny resemblance to Daiyu, has a special talent for embroidery.

Of Baoyu’s maids, Sheyue is most talented at argumentation. 

[survivorelara]

Episode #10: “Im not his slave im his partner.” -Andrea

https://youtu.be/StsZDwB6I6E https://youtu.be/_LKpUMGO2jY

I just feel.. really good? I think anyways. I’ve been talking to Ci’ere a lot today and I’m realising that I don’t even try to have a social game, I just just be good at talking to people??? Idk. But yeah it’s mostly good.. I have a lot of people I want to go far with which means I’m gonna have to let everyone else control the vote so I don’t look like I’m betraying people maybe?? Or I can just do what’s best for me , but I don’t need to worry about that yet I’ve still got og auva to get rid of :)

Holy wow. Final 9. I made the halfway mark. That's legit scary and I feel like throwing up because I rarely make it this far. I think that I have been in the good graces of everyone... seeing that I am one of the 2 people who still have 0 votes against me. Like my social game is doing that well and as conceited as this may sound- I think that I have a good shot at winning this whole show! But I still have to vote out 6 or 7 more people. Still not sure how this end game will play out, but it is coming and it is coming like a bullet train.

Well, it's the F9, and I didn't win that challenge like I'd hoped. I'm unsure if there was an idol clue involved or not. I'm hopeful not, but we'll see. Regardless not good for me because I was hoping Drew H would go next.

I think my ideal target this round is Drew T. Just because he threw my name out last time and it was frustrating to heck to hear that.

Beyond that I feel like I'm running out of players I could beat at the end, but maybe I'm underselling myself, and I'm playing a great game. I'm playing in the middle at the moment, which either nobody's aware of that, or everyone is and they either don't care or are planning my demise as we speak...

Let's go find out then shall we! :D

death. okno but like idek whats goin on. I am tight w just about everyone. With my cool new no lying stage theres more confrontation but i like... still dont think im playing a poor game idk i could be fuck I just know that in 6 days Sam and I hit 1 year of GP. He was my closest ally there and hes turning into it here. I adore Loris, don't think I could vote him out, but Sam just is so similar to me strategy wise and we just click its disgusting. However, when I make my cutesy post talking about how amazing GP is and my #1 ally, we'll be in f7. No gucci. I dont wanna get voted out for him again. Im not his slave im his partner.

Well, I'm playing a dangerous game, and tonight I can totally see it being me, nobody's giving me any warning at the moment though, so I'm still hopeful that I'm going unnoticed.

I still haven't found that damn idol which I'm definitely gonna want in the near future so that I can make a couple more bolder moves.

I think my ideal F2 is Emma, and my ideal F3 is with one of Loris, Sam, or Ci'ere, which I can think of some valid points against/with all of them. The one I'm less sure of as a 3rd would be Ci'ere, but we'll see how the game shakes down, or if I even make it that far to think about it.

Ideally it's Drew T that goes this round, and then it's Andrea or Drew H next, and the other one comes after that. But again those ideal circumstances, who knows if it'll genuinely work out that way, or if I'll even be around long enough to see anything past this tribal. But I'm making plans, thinking about who's on the jury, what I have to do to get there, it's just a matter of... GETTING there.

this tribal is sad. that’s all. I don’t feel I have much else to say zzz :(

I hate being busy everyone is being too quit :(

Me at F11: Guys we need to vote out Emma, it's the right move!

Drew T.: I don't trust Ci'ere, we can't do a plan that banks on him being honest with us after last time. (Dylan leaves) Me at F10: Guys it HAS to be Andrea, even if we're forcing rocks, like let's fuckin go and play this game Roxy: I actually already voted for John (John leaves) Roxy at F9: I just don't think Kori is the right move, if it's not our call to make we're playing this game wrong YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT WE'RE PLAYING THIS GAME WRONG, WE'VE BEEN PLAYING IT WRONG ALL SEASON BECAUSE YOU WON'T PLAY BALL AND TAKE A SWING, AND THINK IT'S BETTER TO VOTE OUT PEOPLE WHO ARE WILLING AND PROVEN TO WORK WITH US BUT NOW THIS IS WHERE WE ARE AND THERE IS ONE PATH TO MAJORITY AND IT'S ALREADY ROCKY AS FUCK SO NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR YOUR RIDICULOUS DOUBT. THAT TIME WAS FIVE DAYS AGO. WE'RE HERE NOW. I'm pretty sure it's gonna fail again and I"m pretty sure it's because of the people I'm with. I really should've aligned with Logan and Odd…

bruh this has been such a hectic round. basically im in the complete middle spot as a swing, and it seemed like it was a revati 4 against the auvas and ciere with me smack dab in the middle. but the thing is, I have alliances with everybody now, so I was at a complete loss on what I was going to do. I don't want drew t gone, but I also didnt want kori gone yet either, who the drews were proposing as a vote. The tricky thing is, after results last night kori came to me with a suggestion to vote andrea out, which made me know even more that the "revati 4" aren't this unbreakable tightly knit crew. so it really begs the question for me, what group of people will want to go to the end with me, and what group of people only want me around until like f6 or something

the best part is, I have a f3 alliance right now with loris and andrea, and 2 more secret f2 deals with roxy and kori, who nobody else in the game is aware of. it makes it that much more entertaining when loris and roxy don't trust one another, and it makes me the perfect middle man between these different "sides." then of course there is the obvious wanting to go to the end with drew t, but im not sure yet if I want to do that or not. I love the dude to pieces, but im not sure if its best for my game to stick with him long term or not. but for now, he trusts me wholeheartedly, and I wanted to repay him by working my ass off to save him this vote, since I have no intention of turning on the revatis since I know for a fact they aren't a tight group

so then comes this crazy idea that pops up in my head: why not get rid of ci'ere? he's lied to me once already, and he's in the most "disposable" position for me since I know for a fact right now I don't plan on going very far with him. because I know he'll just lie to me again if he has to. so ive been going to everyone and tryna convince them that drew going now wouldn't be as beneficial, seeing as he's a huge public target right now, and no one really "needs" ci'ere at this point.

so im hoping this works out, ci'ere leaving not only allows this whole auva vs revati thing to continue or whatever and let me stay in the middle, but it also allows me to hide behind people such as kori and the drews who I feel will always be targeted over me as long as they are in the game. ive worked my ass off, and so far I think it's paying off in the sense that im pretty well connected with everyone. but it also means I have to blindside that many more people to get myself to the end

theres also the possibility of the drews tryna use this vote change as a way to eliminate kori, which yeah would suck, and esp since ciere will know I went after him, but can he blame me? he lied to me already lol. and I mean, everyone other than ci'ere will still be aware that I tried to do what was best for them, like saving drew to the auva side, or not voting kori and voting in the minority with the revati side, so either way if this doesn't pan out how I want, I should really only have one person mad at me, and that one person isn't near as connected to people in this game as I am. so come at me bruh

god this has been such a stressful tribal, but whether I vote in the majority this time or not, if everything pans out the way I hope it will, i'll still have the trust of everyone I need in this game to still be able to keep my f2/3 deals I have so far

I will send a confessional AFTER THIS VOTE JESUS CHRISTUSUS LET ME LIVE HALLELUJAH

Yup, Kori pretty much just confirmed that he’s willing to go to the end with me. At the same time, Drew H. said that at least we know we can work together. From being at the bottom to being in a swing position right in the middle. I’m an important vote for both sides so this is stellar! It would seem that Drew T. thinks he can get Sam to flip this round btw. We’ll see if he can work his magic, but Sam specifically said he didn’t want Drew T. at the end because he’d win and he trusts me way more.

Omg, just when I felt like giving up in the codebreaker challenge I decided to keep pushing myself to find the page because I want a W & I ended up finding it! I believe I was the first person to get to the puzzle, but I’m not exactly sure because it says someone already complete it? I took longer than I had hoped on the puzzle portion & as soon as I finished Kori was being Kori. It seemed like he was trying to flex that he was finished so he might’ve beaten me ugh.

Anyway, Kori got exposed for lying to Auva 2.0 about his vote & all the heat is on him which is great! I’m kicking him under that bus just a bit to hopefully keep that target there.

Sam is telling Auva 2.0 that he wants to flip this round. Now let’s see if he goes through with that.

So I've been talking with Roxy, and it seems just about a sure thing that I'll be getting votes tonight. Loris was apparently putting my name UTB, and he decided to call me the mastermind for the John vote. WHEN I DIDN'T EVEN WANT JOHN GONE!

But sure let's see how this mess goes, I'm gonna take advantage where I can and do what I have to to come out unscathed.

Drew T is voted out 5-2-2.