#compton organ

[cy-fi-theansweris42]

I've been thinking about the story of the Psychic 7 more and the world of Psychonauts, and I think part of the reason why it just stuck so intensely in my brain is because of the little glimpses we get of their past, and how towards the end of the game, after everything that's happened, the group is reunited. Yes, there's things to work out, things they have to talk about (primarily looking at you, Ford), but despite everything, they're all together again.

Let me explain. (Also, please keep in mind I haven't played the game in almost 2 years and I only recently started rereading things for the games, I could miss some details).

In the world of Psychonauts, the world is not kind to psychics.

We're told this right away in the beginning of the first game. When Raz is reciting the text from the pamphlet for the summer camp, he has these lines:

Raz: You were born with a special gift but the people around you treat it like a curse. Your mother is afraid of you and your father looks at you with shame in his eyes. Come to Whispering Rock psychic summer camp and you can show them all! Back home your powers make you a loner, an outcast, a circus freak, but in this dojo in this psychic dojo they make you a hero. 

As they show different campers in this scene, we know that these words hit home for them. They can all relate to the words Raz is reciting. Even by Raz's time, even after there's been a Psychic organization helping people for years, psychics aren't fully accepted.

To anyone that's ever felt othered, felt like they didn't belong somewhere, these words are relatable. We instantly relate to our main character, and potentially to the other psychic characters we meet. We know what their struggle is like.

Now like I said, this was in Raz's time. But back in the Psychic 7's time? There wasn't an organization like the Psychonauts. Back then there would have been even less reason for them to be accepted, so I think things were potentially even worse back then. There was far less known about how psychic powers worked since Otto and the others were the ones to do the research, and no doubt people were probably more afraid of psychics then.

However, despite living in a world that was even less accepting of psychics, the Psychic 7 still found each other. They still found each other, found others just like them, and they basically formed this little family.

Personally, what makes this hit even harder is the fact that none of them were exactly young when they all found each other, they were all adults and well into adulthood. They all had different backgrounds, different experiences. Lucy had already married and lost a husband, Bob had already lost both parents, Helmut was a struggling performer, Cassie escaped a dangerous environment, and more. They were all adults with different lives and came from different places, but they still found each other. Making friends as an adult is hard, but they still found each other and not only became friends, but became a little family.

And then, after Maligula, after losing Helmut, after being separated for so long, once they all see Lucy, they hug. They're back together again. They're not missing any members of their family again.

So that's what really makes it Hit Different for me. The fact that, despite the world they all lived in at the time, the Psychic 7 found and made their little family, and even after so much time and tragedy and separation, they came back together.

[aquato-family-circus]

Another unfinished sketch, which I think was another drawing inspired by @thefandomcassandra's Broken Bridge, but it was a bit too ambitious for my workload and I ended up not getting around to finishing it

ID: A rough sketch of Otto, Ford, Helmut, Bob, Compton, and Cassie morosely standing hand in hand on a stage with the large sharp hand of Maligula hanging in the scenery behind them. Out in the theatre the seats are all empty except for one, where Raz is starting to get up from his chair. End ID.

[omegaremix]

Omega Radio for August 3, 2020; #236.

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince “Summertime”

M Doc & Stevio f. Chantay Savage “It’s A Summer Thang”

M.O.P. “How About Some Hardcore”

D&D All Stars “1,2 Pass It”

MC Eiht “All For The Money”

Cypress Hill “Insane In The Brain”

Funkdoobiest “Rock On” (Buckwild RMX)

DFC “Things In Tha’ Hood”

DJ Quik “Jus’ Lyke Compton”

Scarface “Seen A Man Die”

Redman “Time 4 Sum Aktion”

B.U.M.S. “Elevation (Free My Mind)”

Too $hort “I Want To Be Free (That’s The Truth)”

Prince Markie Dee “Typical Reasons (Still Swingin’)”

Channel Live “Six Cents”

Digital Underground “Humpty Dance”

Black Moon “I Got Cha Open” RMX

A Tribe Called Quest “Award Tour”

Brand Nubian “One For All”

Gang Starr “The ? Remains”

Onyx “Shiftee”

Grand Puba “Over Like A Fat Rat”

King Just “Warrior’s Drum”

Mic Geronimo “Masta I.C.”

Compton’s Most Wanted “Growin’ Up In The Hood”

Mary J. Blige & Grand Puba “What’s The 411?”

Ten Thieves “It Don’t Matter”

Biz Markie “The Dragon”

Black Sheep “Strobelight Honey”

Knucklehedz “Hed Rush”

Big Daddy Kane ‘Nuff Respect”

ED O.G. & Da’ Bulldogs “Be A Father To Your Child”

Spice 1 “In My Neighborhood”

Chubb Rock “Treat 'Em Right”

Ice-T “Lethal Weapon”

Pete Rock & CL Smooth “I Got A Love”

Eric B & Rakim “Pump Up The Volume” (Coldcut RMX)

MC Breed “Ain’t To Be Flexed With”

Da Lench Mob f. Ice Cube “Guerillas In The Mist”

Fat Joe “Flow Joe”

Nine “Whutcha Want”

Shyheim “One’s 4 Da’ Money (Mad Dollaz)”

Organized Konfusion “Bring It On” (Buckwild RMX)

Grand Daddy I.U. “Slingin’ Bass”

Bonus Omega; golden-era hip-hop / rap.

[bobpolls]

Hogwarts House Sorting Results

The BoB characters have been sorted into their Hogwarts houses by the community!

For each house, I’ve organized the list in order of how many votes each character got. For example, the character with the largest percentage of Gryffindor votes is at the top of the Gryffindor list, while characters who narrowly made it into Gryffindor are closer to the bottom. The characters at the top of each list are the best representations of their house on the show.

Gryffindor

Bill Guarnere

Buck Compton

Bull Randleman

Dick Winters

Floyd Talbert

Joe Toye

Charles Grant

Frank Perconte

Smokey Gordon

Ravenclaw

David Webster

Lewis Nixon

Hufflepuff

Shifty Powers

Babe Heffron

Alex Penkala

Harry Welsh

George Luz

Donald Malarkey

Popeye Wynn

Skip Muck

Carwood Lipton

Eugene Roe

Donald Hoobler

Moe Alley

John Janovec

Slytherin

Ronald Speirs

Joseph Liebgott

Johnny Martin

Earl McClung

Thank you all for voting in the polls and following the blog!

[technovillain]

*Imagine there's an anon ask from roughly a year ago here asking me to share "what campers I thought become Psychonauts/what each of them end up getting up to when they're older" here. Imagine it cuz it got deleted randomly. T_T

BACK ON MY PSYCHONAUTS KICK THAT MEANS ITS TIME TO ANSWER YEARS OLD ANON ASKS LET'S GO!!! I have better story ideas for some more than others here...but if you're curious abt what I've written abt any of them, I encourage you to pry, that way I can think abt it harder and develop them further :]

Putting them under the cut, cuz breaking them down will be Long.

Let me preempt this section with this thought: every former camper of Whispering Rock ( save for maybe a few bad eggs ) is offered a job to work for the Psychonauts agency once they're of employment age. That's what you get for going to Secret Government Agency Summer Camp as a kid. You get weird letters in the mail for life. But hey, nice job, maybe?? In addition to this, particularly talented campers with high psychic aptitude and teamwork skills are offered a shot at the Intern Program at the Motherlobe.

Razputin becomes the superstar agent he always dreamed of becoming. He would pick it anyways, but at this point it's almost like he wouldn't have a say, with the way that the organization has sort of relied on him since he was 10 years old. I think he learns the hard way how much doing field work, like actual danger situations not just inside someone's mind, can take a toll on you quickly. Eventually he ends up taking a break, a "sort of running away from it all" type hiatus from agent work to go back and work with his family's circus again. No matter what happens, he always ends up going back and forth between these two things. Completed the intern program and specializes in Clairvoyance (much to his dismay) and favors Blastokinesis in the field.

Lili ends up in a situation similar to Raz, what with being very tied up with the organization from a really young age (even younger for her). But she gets the bonus points of stress of "being a Zanotto working for the Psychonauts means you'll probably end up in some big important role someday...doesn't it?" I'd argue that Lili would fall into the realm of trying to keep her image spotless and becoming a real precision agent, getting really good in high-stakes crisis situations. Was an intern for longer than anybody else, and specializes in both Herbaphony and Pyrokinesis.

Dogen is a training field agent for a while but has a bad accident and basically goes into hiding... He goes through a really similar thing to Compton, but he isolates himself so much that he really starts to scare other people. He starts to search for a way to make himself "un-psychic" and this gets him accidentally involved with some dangerous forces who are looking for an 'in' to mess with the Psychonauts. He struggled his way through the intern program as a teen and maybe sort of didn't really graduate it. Obviously Blastokinesis is his speciality, but in the field he did his best to repress that entirely and was a Mental Shield assisting agent.

Bobby goes through a whole arc of recovery and finding out his family lore. It's worth mentioning that I hc Loboto to be his father, and he lived with his grandparents growing up, and eventually got kicked out of that house. With nowhere to go, the Psychonauts as an organization pretty much ended up raising him. It takes a whole psychic village to raise a horrible little child. He still can be a jerk but he's a good guy now... Did the intern program, begrudgingly, because he "had nothing better to do". Specializes in Blastokinesis and Pyrokinesis.

Crystal gets her life turned around with the help of psychic outreach programs in her young teen years. She was taken on as an agent for a while, but finds her passions lie with helping others. She ends up working at Psychoisolation, helping active agents to recover from the things they've seen. Does most of her work inside the minds of other psychics. Specializes in Mental Connection.

Kitty becomes the big breakout "spotlight" agent that everyone has heard about, even being well known in nonpsychic circles. She has a full blown Hollywood celebrity vibe, despite the fact that none of her coworkers act that way and (most) at the agency don't view her that way. She's still a messy person. She's very hot and cold, wishy-washy, does whatever she wants. Has a complex relationship with Razputin, and consequently, Lili too. Maintains a mostly unrequited facade of an "Agent Rivalry" between her and Elka Doom. Completed the intern program with flying colors. Specializes in Hypnosis/Confusion and Electrokinesis.

Elka becomes an agent. She's always on the verge of about six different breakdowns. She keeps her image mostly clean and mysterious to the outside observer. Despite living her life waiting for impending disaster she still tries to stay on the side of good. She becomes an iconic "write about her in the comics" agent with a difficult relationship to her psychic powers... Completed the intern program at a young age. Specializes in Precognition.

Vernon works under Adam Joseph Gette as Psychic historians for the agency for a while as part of his internship. Eventually he decides to branch out, getting really into photography and field research. He becomes fascinated with the Rhombus of Ruin and its tales of disappearance and mystery. He gets approved for a reconnaissance mission there with Elton Fir (and Benny Fideleo too...kinda.) Completed the intern program. Isn’t a regular field agent but works at the Motherlobe. Specializes in Astral Projection.

Elton never lets go of his sailor aesthetic, but he kind of has no choice, because Hydrokinesis and Zoolingualism (namely with fish) are his specialty. He still harbors feelings for Milka, despite things becoming...really complicated. Recently he's been working with his buddy Vernon in the depths of the Rhombus of Ruin, trying to uncover the mystery of the Psilirium there. He was never in the intern program, he worked in a shipyard until being offered a job from the Psychonauts. Being their marine mission specialist has really boosted his confidence.

Benny really thought his job working for the Psychonauts would be cooler. But he isn’t allowed to work in the field because he can’t get over his *ahem* panic reactions to danger. He failed every test he was given. He’s just a chicken. So much to his dismay, he has to stay back at base. Behind a desk. Watching blips on a screen in the Nerve Center. Blahhh. There aren’t a lot of transmissions to come back from the dead radio zone of the Rhombus, but when they come through?? He’ll be ready. Flunked out of the intern program. Doesn’t get to use his psychic powers much, except using TK to mess with people when he’s bored.

Mikhail ditched Maloof. And he was probably the only one to ever do that and live to tell the tale. Went back home for a while, but came back and did the intern program when he was a little older. Specializes in Telekinesis but now has a special Zoolingualism tie to bears. He's a good guy agent, sure. But he absolutely will Sic The Bears On You.

Franke never grew out of her “yes-man” tendencies. In fact, it could be said that she leaned into them tenfold. She has taken it upon herself to work as an “assistant” to the superstar agents, doing physical, emotional, and my god janitorial duties for them. She focuses mainly on Kitty and Elka, but she’ll suck up to anyone. Lili wishes she would hit the bricks. Franke doesn’t use her powers often on account of having something Ford dubbed “psitanium sickness” flareups on the regular. Basically, her brain accumulates a lot of psitanium, but for whatever reason, she doesn’t have the firepower to dish it back out as psychic energy. So it builds up in her head. Gives her freaky purple eyes. So routinely, agents will go into her brain to farm psitanium. And she loves it.

Clem, after drifting apart from Crystal, kind of just fell to pieces. Home life was not good, so the job offer from the Psychonauts was refreshing. But what is Clem’s job exactly?? Does anybody know? Does moping ominously in the Quarry and making everyone really anxious count as a job? Does talking to a very very old woman in the Gulch about having an identity crisis count as a career? Who’s to say! “Specializes” in Mental Projection.

J.T. becomes the new groundskeeper at Whispering Rock. Never was in the intern program, was offered an office job. Worked it for all of 2 months before he felt crazy. You can’t put this cowboy indoors. He’s a much better groundskeeper than Ford was. He actually prioritizes keeping the kids safe, and they all love him. Hangs out with Mikhail every now and then when he comes to help tame psychic forest animals, and the two get very nostalgic about their summer camp days. Specializes in Levitation.

Maloof becomes a psychic crime boss. Obviously. His mother has a lot of sway over what he does. He has a serious man-child thing going on, so he doesn’t act a whole lot differently than he did as a little kid. Which only makes him more freaky. He holds a lot of grudges against the people who feared and doubted him as a child. Specializes in Mental Projection.

Milka’s bouts of invisibility got worse as her home life soured even more. As a teenager, she tried to join the intern program and better herself, but she developed a real problem with running away from things that were good for her. She dated Elton again as a teen, but ran away from him. She ran away from the Psychonauts as a whole. Simply disappearing into the wind, extremely hard to track. Everyone worries about her. Nobody knows exactly where she is. Some are convinced she actually disappeared somewhere and didn’t just go invisible, as nobody can even track her mental footprint anymore... Specializes in Invisibility.

Chloe is doing her own thing. There are a number of agents who were given the task of “keeping an eye on Chloe Barge” to make sure she doesn’t become some sort of large scale threat or something. But nobody ever really knows what she’s up to. It’s probably got something to do with aliens. And psychic activity. But what the heck is it?? Never joined the intern program, but visited the Motherlobe a couple of times as a teen to use the psychoisolation facilities. Specializes in Photokinesis.

Chops drifted away from the whole psychic scene and got into homeopathic medicine. Keeps his powers on the down-low, and uses them behind people’s backs. Maybe a little shady for blending his light psychic knowledge with plant knowledge and branding it as ‘medicine’, but he means well. There just isn’t a lot of interest in psychics from the Canadian government, so he’s leaving it alone for now.

Phoebe is still working on her music career, and has become a relatively successful indie rock star. Quentin never was taking it seriously enough for her, so they moved on. She was offered a lot of gigs from Morris, but is trying to make it “in the regular world” and declined most of them. She struggles to keep her Pyrokinesis in check still, and it heightens her anxiety on the road, only making it more likely for flareups to happen. Her band members know that she’s psychic, but she doesn’t want to tell anyone else. She calls Lili a lot and she helps Phoebe learn to control her Pyro.

Quentin is running a little farm in Green Needle Gulch. His produce and *ahem* herbs are loved by all sorts of Psychic clientele. He really isn’t interested in any of the agent stuff, or paperwork stuff, he’s just kinda...zooted, idk. Just chilling, and a lot of the more uptight government types in the organization cannot stand that he’s allowed to hang around the gulch.

Nils went to prison on multiple accounts of stalking. He’s still in there. I don’t think anyone misses him, but I’m sure there’s a few people who worry about him getting out. Sort of a looming “it’s only a matter of time before he breaks out and becomes a huge threat” villain. Specializes in Cryokinesis.

[burins]

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

JAN

Less - Andrew Sean Greer

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

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

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

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

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

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

This should not have been a book.

Afterparties: Stories - Anthony Veasna So

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

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

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

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

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

Water and Salt - Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

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

Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel 🎧

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

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

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

Mending with Boro - Harumi Horiuchi

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

Mend!: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto - Kate Sekules

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

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

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

Modern Mending - Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald

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

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

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

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

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

The Mirror and the Light - Hilary Mantel 🎧

Once again. Nobody is doing it like Hilary Mantel.

FEB

Finna - Nino Cipri 🎧

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

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

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

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

Garden planning :) 

Flux - Jinwoo Chong 🎧

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

Ocean’s Echo - Everina Maxwell

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

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles - Malka Older

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

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

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

Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time - Teju Cole

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

MAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Hunter - Tana French

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

Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

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

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

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

The Transcriptionist - Amy Rowland 🎧

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

City Editor - Stanley Walker

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

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

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

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

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

APR

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

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

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

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

Ocean’s Godori - Elaine Cho

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

Bombshell - Sarah MacLean

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

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

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

MAY

JUN

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

Really loved this one. 

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

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

Red Side Story - Jasper Fforde

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

JULY

The Ladies Rewrite the Rules - Suzanne Allain

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

Escape Velocity - Victor Manibo

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

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

Engaging stories of modern West Virginia.

Belonging: A Culture of Place - bell hooks

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

AUG

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

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

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

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

SEPT

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

This was for a class and everyone liked the class! 

Hot Summer - Elle Everhart

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

Loving Mountains, Loving Men - Jeff Mann

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

Second Night Stand - Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters

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

You Should Be So Lucky - Cat Sebastian

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

Lady Eve's Last Con - Rebecca Fraimow

Delightful lesbian screwball comedy. In space! 

OCT

Slippery Creatures - KJ Charles

The Sugared Game - KJ Charles

Subtle Blood - KJ Charles

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

The No-Show - Beth O’Leary 🎧

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

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words - Eddie Robson 🎧

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

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

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

NOV

Better the Blood - Michael Bennett 🎧

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

The Stars Too Fondly - Emily Hamilton 🎧

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

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

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

The Pairing - Casey McQuiston 🎧

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

Jonny Appleseed - Joshua Whitehead

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

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

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

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society - CM Waggoner

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

Regarding the Pain of Others - Susan Sontag

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

DEC

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

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

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia - Stephen Stoll

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

The Forbidden Book - Sacha Lamb 🎧

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

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

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

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

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

To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis🎧

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

The Message - Ta-Nehisi Coates 🎧

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

Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

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

Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore

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

[peppermint-cardboard]

hey. hello my friend. i am grabbing you by the shoulders oh so gently. do not become hopeless. that is exactly what they want. blue state governments will give them hell over the next presidential term, and you can rest assured there will absolutely be people in our government fighting for democracy.

the thing we can all do that will have the most direct immediate impact and will lay the groundwork for cultures of help, creativity, and love is to get involved at the local community level.

i’m talking especially to my fellow teens here!!! may not be able to vote but that doesn’t mean we’re not able to help.

for my fellow Angelenos!

Hollywood Food Coalition - free food! you can sign up to volunteer and do meal prep (cooking), meal service (serving food), or help at their food bank. locations are on their website. thanksgiving is coming up and HFC will need volunteers!

My Friend’s Place - free aid for youth homelessness, especially queer youth homelessness. volunteering is for 18 years and older

Los Angeles LGBT Center - exactly what it sounds like. offers a wide range of wonderful services and opportunities for volunteering. also works with school GSAs!

Moonwater Farm - a community farm in Compton with great opportunities for education and sometimes paid fellowships

for people everywhere else! just some general recommendations:

The Trevor Project - queer youth services that have saved my ass a number of times. i don’t know if they call the police as part of their responses or not (offers a single-click-to-leave button in case of emergency)

TrevorSpace - a great queer youth-centered website and a very safe place for queer community and discussion

Debate Me, Bro - a great anarchist newsletter/advice column run by a friend of mine!

The Child And Its Enemies - anarchist child rights-focused podcast also run by that same friend of mine :)

Neocities - make a website! learn some HTML! it’s fun, it’s pretty simple, and it’s a way to get a message out if that’s what you want but it’s also just a great de-stresser

Queer Liberation Library - need i even elaborate on the importance of libraries and access to queer media over the coming few years? (offers a single-click-to-leave button in case of emergency)

American Civil Liberties Union - an activism and aid organization that gave the Republicans absolute hell last time and will continue to do so this time

Blackline (800-604-5841) - a crisis and help hotline prioritizing BI&POC and black queer people. will not call the police!

Trans Lifeline (US: 877-565-8860, Canada: 877-330-6366) - a helpline run by and for trans folks. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line (888-407-4515) - a warmline to chat with trained therapists and professionals. will not call the police!

StrongHearts Native Helpline (844-762-8483) - a domestic and sexual violence helpline prioritizing Native Americans and Alaska Natives. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Thrive Lifeline (313-662-8209) - a live crisis warmline prioritizing marginalized people. also offers text messaging! will not call the police!

LGBT National Health Center (888-843-4564) - exactly what it sounds like! warmlines for queer people if you need help. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Transfeminine Science - a fantastic resource for... transfeminine science. exactly what it says on the tin.

Planned Parenthood - an incredibly prolific and important organization that offers a very wide array of vastly important services. if you live in an at least semi-urban city in the U.S., Planned Parenthood probably has a clinic near you. you should find out if they do!!!

please feel free to add more resources if you know any!!

other recommendations: say hi to a neighbor. bake someone a pie. start a garden. treat homeless people like your neighbors (because they are). propose a community movie night. have a party in your apartment building. call a friend. text a friend. draw something. cook something good. go to a restaurant you like. buy some DVDs. get a new stuffed animal. compliment a stranger’s shirt. ask for a hug. offer someone a hug. listen to music. KEEP LIVING!!!!!!!!!

don't just survive, keep living <3

[theiconicmeghanmarkle]

In November 2020, Prince Harry quietly volunteered for a veterans' charity in Compton, California, called the Walker Family Events Foundation. The organization, helps veterans and their families facing homelessness.

[pikweensandymonster]

Anyway. These are some of the bits and pieces I highlighted while reading Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite for a variety of reasons.

The only constant thread running through my prison notebooks was a pervasive loneliness with no discernible beginning and no conceivable end. —Andrew Compton

I never doubted that ego was the last part of the organism to die. I had seen the last helpless fury in some of my boys’ eyes as they realized they were really going: how could it happen to them? —Andrew Compton

His dying body crumpled into a corner of the stall, wedged in between the wall and the toilet. His face was a red slick, featureless, blind. He was nothing but particles now, if he had ever been anything more. I had only altered the speed at which his particles were vibrating. Nothing in the universe had been disturbed. —Andrew Compton

Lush Rimbaud was a name he gave his heroin-induced self, a brain of utter clarity tethered to a body like an exquisite vessel brimming with pleasure, spiked with fury, a personality composed of liquids that could not mix. —Exquisite Corpse about Luke Ransom.

Luke began to see himself as if from a distance, a writerly part of his brain observing his own madness, storing even this for later. —Exquisite Corpse about Luke Ransom.

There was a certain diffidence I always looked for in my companions, nothing so obvious as a death wish, but a sort of passivity toward life. There have been offered in recent years a plethora of “murderer profiles,” a series of lists and charts meant to delineate the character of an habitual killer. What about the profile of an ideal victim? They exist as surely as we do, and they move as inexorably toward their given destinies. —Andrew Compton

This was how I actually did feel when they came [to arrest] me: a blind, shrivelling, sorrowful pain, the sort of pain a garden snail must feel when stepped on and cracked open, its spiralling home crushed to shards, now nothing more than a snotty smear of meat left to dry in harsh sunlight. —Andrew Compton

They’re always afraid at first. The ones who have never experienced terrible pain start out calmer, because they have no concept of how bad it can be. When they discover how much their bodies are capable of hurting, they’re astounded. When they realize it isn’t going to end quickly, they crumble under the weight of their own fear. The ones who have known pain are terrified from the start. —Andrew Compton

I always have to laugh at writers who employ the phrase Something snapped inside him as a prelude to violence. The only time I ever felt anything snap inside me was the day I decided to leave prison, a sharp immediate relief like the snapping of an elastic that had constricted my heart for years. But when I saw that first drop of blood—always, when I saw the first drop of blood—something melted inside me. Like a wall of earth crumbling and dissolving in a hard rain, like a sheet of ice breaking apart and letting a river run free. —Andrew Compton

[magnoliasforyourmedic]

You could totally write a Band of Brothers-Masters of the Air AU where Easy Company is in the USAAF flying B-17s over Europe. Our Toccoa boys would be our “Original” crews of the 100th who flew over from the states in 1943 like we see in the Masters of the Air show.

Another thing to know is that if you weren't a pilot, you were a gunner. You might be a radio operator or a navigator or bombardier, but you were also a gunner during dog fights. I chose mostly based off of what I think fits them best with their personality but also somewhat with their roles in the company.

Here’s what I think some of the boys roles would be on a bomber crew (it’s kind long so see under the cut):

Eugene Roe would be a Flight Surgeon, without a doubt. Despite their title, Flight Surgeons don't typically fly becuase they can do a lot more good taking care of the wounded in the base hospital than they would be able to for a single crew of 10 men on an insanely dangerous mission (who could just as easily bleed out on the long flight home despite any medical attention they receive). The flight surgeons were never required to fly missions, and very few every did given the risk, but there were a handful that would so that they could get a better understanding of what the flyboys were going through in the air. Doc Roe would definitely be a Flight Surgeon who flies far more than he needs to.

Dick Winters would obviously be a pilot and I think he'd be a Squadron Commander who's promoted to Group Executive Officer. As the Air Exec he'd technically be third in command and he's in charge of organizing the bombing missions, briefing each mission, oversee group air training, navigation, bombing and to serve as command pilot leading bombing missions. He doesn't fly as often after he's promoted but will fly whenever the 100th leads which I think fits perfect with how we see Winters wanting to be in the battle with his men but can't always because of his new rank.

Lewis Nixon would probably be Group Intelligence Officer. As Group Intelligence Officer he was in charge of briefing flight crews before missions along with some of the other officers as well as in charge of interrogating the crews when they came back. I'm thinking he'd be a Marvin "Red" Bowman type if you know him from Masters of the Air, who was a much-loved member of the 100th BG known for “his sense of the dramatic” in that he would turn the morning debriefs into “real productions.”

Carwood Lipton would be a pilot. I think he’d be promoted to be the leader of one of the four squadrons of the 100th. He'd be telling Gene to stay back on a mission because they're flying in Coffin's Corner and don't want to lose their best Doc.

Buck Compton would be a pilot

Harry Welsh would also be a pilot or copilot

Frank Perconte would be a Ball Turret Gunner. Thank you, Perconte

Guarnere would probably be a Waist Gunner, but I can totally see him as a Bombardier. Also fits as a Top Turret Gunner/Flight Engineer but I really think he’d be a solid Bombardier. He reminds a lot of Bombardier James Douglass from MOTA in terms of personality

My first thought was that Bull Randleman would be a waist gunner because he definitely wouldn't fit in the spot for the tail gunner or ball turret gunner, but I actually think he might make a real good copilot with his leadership skills. Another thing that makes this a good fit is that when a Group Air Exec (think Major Kidd) flies on mission, they go in the place of the copilot in the lead crew when their BG is leading formation. The copilot then typically becomes a gunner for the mission or may assume the role of formation officer overseeing all of the aircraft behind them when they’re leading formation.

George Luz would be Radio Operator, duh

I'm honestly not quite sure where I think Liebgott would be. I can see him as a navigator or bombardier, or even a copilot. I’m leaning navigator, but I’d love to hear your thoughts

I feel like Skip and Muck could be a waist gunner duo on the same crew with Malarkey as the tail gunner on that same crew.

When replacements are brought in on masters of the air, we see brand new entire crews aircraft and all being brought in. I imagine this being the case for the replacements in this AU but I think Babe Heffron would fill in a spot on one of the “original” crews to mirror how close he becomes with the Toccoa men, or the “original” crews.

Ron Spiers would be a pilot who got transferred in from a different bomb group to replace Dike as a squadron leader maybe? There would definitely be rumors around him, if you’ve read Harry Crosby’s book, A Wing and a Prayer, you may recall the story of Leafy Hill. Leafy Hill was a navigator everyone despised and no one wanted to fly with due to his incompetence and insanity, but was set to be promoted up to Group Navigator. A crew decided to take things into their own hands and came up with a plan to ring the bailout bell when they got hit with the smallest amount of flak but make sure only Leafy would bail out over enemy territory. Im also think of Buck’s “we’re going to sit here and take it” line from Part 3, total Spiers vibes.

[trashedork]

Ikemen Villains OC: Margery Compton

Template Picrew More information about Margery

A young woman with a strong desire to learn about everything in the world.

Margery is a member of Crown, an organization under the direct command of the Queen. 

“The journey to expand one's mind is the greatest treasure hunt.”

Her Curse

Margery's curse allows her to have glimpses of the future, providing insight into future events and possible outcomes. However, there is a drawback which is that these future sights are not always accurate, leaving room for uncertainty.

She is fated to be ensnared in a never-ending labyrinth of inquiries, her mind unable to break free. This relentless pursuit of knowledge will ultimately drive her to insanity and eventual demise.

『 My sin is — the thirst for knowledge. 』

[gowns]

Donate and pass it on ❤️

UPDATE: they made it to the $400k mark!

[aquato-family-circus]

honestly expanding on that compton hc i really like the idea that even tho hes isolating, which should be a time for quiet and decompression, he still asks to be delivered news and updates from the organization (read: terry probably brings it to him) from time to time so that he can catastrophize make sure he's ready for a dire emergency

truman or hollis probably check in on him once in a while too, being his bosses and also one of them is basically his newphew in law

lili or sam possibly bother him as well, more rarely

lizzie is his most recent guest before raz ofc and i dont even think she was antagonizing him shes just bored and rude and compton doesnt know her lol... i do hope they can get along a bit better now that hes recovering

[jolly-ob-saint-nixilis]

What are the Pinkertons?

Pinkerton is a group that sells itself as private security and a detective agency. What they're known for are being union busters. Businesses hire them to infiltrate unions, keep an eye on anyone who might be pushing unionization, and intimidate strikers and unions.

During the Homestead Strike back in 1892 their involved lead to the deaths of 9 Steelworkers when they fired into a crowd. They were also involved with the 1877 Railroad Strike and the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Their involvement led to the downfall of the Molly Maguires, a group of activist with the Irish American and Irish immigrant coal miners. The Pinkertons gave information on people suspected of being in the organization to people with grudges against them so the miners would be ambushed and murdered.

The Compton Cafeteria riot is one of the first LGBT riots, predating Stonewall by 3 years. It hired Pinkertons in 1966 toharass gay and trans customers.

They've long been suspected of having been deeply involved with the Haymarket massacre which resulted in seven anarchist arrested despite no evidence ever presented linking them to the crime. It resulted in a trial where the judge was openly against the defendants, any potential jury member that was a union member or had socialist sympathy were dismissed, and most of the jury were open about not being truly willing to give them a fair trial. The prosecution's argument is that because they had not actively discouraging the person who had thrown the bomb, they were equally as guilty. Despite the bomber not being known. in fact, there is a widespread belief is was the Pinkertons who committed it. Four were hung after that trial. Witness reports say the ropes were all tied incorrectly and they were slowly strangled to death.

They're such shitbags that the U.S. actually has a law because of them. The Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893 which limits the federal government's ability o hire private investigators and mercenaries.

And despite this all going back in the 1800s, they still exist and are still very action in union breaking. They were hired in 2020 to spy on Amazon Warehouse workers. Starbucks have also worked with ex-Pinkerton members to interfere with unionization.

In 2020 Michael Dollof, who was an unlicensed security guard, that was hired by the Pinkertons to be a security guard, shot and killed a protester.

The point of hiring them is to intimate and threaten people. They've been responsible for a lot of people dying.

This is what WOTC hired to get back a fucking box of magic cards. For them to show up at his door, they, obviously, knew where he lived. They could have contacted him themselves, but instead they sent the Pinkertons. There are countless agencies they could have contacted to require the cards back. They chose the Pinkertons.

I hope everyone involved in that decision gets hit by a bus.

[jenniferstolzer]

Psychonauts - The Hornblower Incident - Chapter 54

All-Projects Meeting Day 2

Compton gets to present his new theory. Raz and Lili get some bad news.

I have stated many times how much I like meeting scenes. Its where I can banter forever and actually reveal stuff that's hard to show.